earthli News 3.7
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of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011) -- "6/10"
Mr. Popper (Jim Carrey) is a dealmaker for a large, financial company. His
ex-wife is Amanda (Carla Gugino), but they seem to be amicably divorced.
His
father is an explorer who was never home. At the beginning of the film, we
see him communicating by radio with his father, who was never at home. He
dies early in the film, leaving his now-grown son Tommy his worldly
possessions.
One of these is, apparently, a penguin. He leaves it in the bathtub, as
he's
on his way out to negotiate for the purchase of Tavern on the Green. He
meets
the current owner Mrs. Van Gundy (Angela Lansbury), who is not impressed
with
him and his oily salesman persona and tells him that the restaurant is not
for sale.
He gets home to discover that his penguin has flooded the bathroom. He
tries
to get rid of it, but no-one wants to take it off his hands. He tries to
free
it down the hall, but the building doorman makes him take it back. His
family
arrives for his son's birthday -- and his son assumes that the penguins
are
his birthday present. Nat Jones (Clark Gregg) shows up from the zoo, to
take
the one penguin away. He's delighted to see that there are six or them now
--
Gentoos. He says that the penguins should be in ice and snow, with a lot
of
fish.
His assistant Pippi (Ophelia Lovibond) has a P-based alliterative issue
and
is on the case to help him take care of the penguins, as he doesn't want
to
give them back yet, as he's getting closer to his kids through the
penguins.
He's also getting closer to his ex-wife again. None of this is surprising.
Jim Carrey lends the film more credibility than it would otherwise have.
He goes to the Guggenheim to meet Mrs. Van Gundy at a showing. The
penguins
escape the apartment and track him down to the museum, where they wreak
havoc, finally finding "Dad."
Next up is penguin eggs. Ex-wife Amanda comes over with her man Rick, who
immediately flees the penguins. Popper and Amanda are hitting it off and
he
asks her out to dinner. They go to Tavern on the Green, where he's also to
meet Van Gundy. They go skating afterward -- in the Trump skating rink.
Popper slowly gives over his entire life to the penguins. He leaves the
doors
open on his apartment, he shovels snow in, sets up nests for the eggs, and
has basically converted the whole place into a penguin exhibit. One of the
eggs hasn't hatched yet. He sets up a hatching area outside, where he
continues to watch over it. His bosses come by to discover his madness and
summarily fire him.
He gets Nat Jones to come over to look at the egg. Nat pronounces the
hatchling dead. Popper shows up at the office the next morning, pretending
that he still works there. They’ll take him back because he's managed to
squeeze Van Gundy into complying with a sale. He has to break it to his
kids
that the penguins are gone. They take it super-well. The plot is as thin
and
transparent here as, well, as a sheet of ice. He goes back to the bad way
he
was, his ungrateful kids hate him again -- when he stops delivering, they
stop loving -- and his ex-wife draws away again, exhibiting the same level
of
care for him that his kids do.
They go to the zoo, where they are told that they can't get the penguins
back
because they're being traded away, three to Washington, three somewhere
else,
and the chicks to Dubai. They break out the penguins, then head for Tavern
on
the Green. Everything works out for everybody. They take the penguins to
Antartica. The End.
Look, it's a kid's movie. It's not for me, as I found some of the
messaging
too coarse, but maybe that's what kids understand? I don't know. It felt
manipulative. It's a chicken-and-egg question: is this movie what kids
respond to naturally? Or is this movie what kids have been trained to
respond
to by other movies like this? Hard to say.
David Brent: Life on the Road (2016) -- "8/10"
This mockumentary is just as cringe-y as you imagine it would be, given
Gervais's proclivities when in the role of David Brent. We catch up with
him
at his new job in sales at Lavichem, a company that sells feminine hygiene
products. It is supposed to be almost 15 years later and he's not changed
one
bit. None of the men at this new office like him -- they find him
sophomoric
-- except for maybe Nigel (Tom Bennett). Pauline (Jo Hartley) inexplicably
has a crush on him (she lives right across the road from him), while
office
secretary Karen (Mandeep Dhillon) admits to finding him kind of funny and
spontaneous.
He's not in the office for long, as he's heading out on the road with his
band, Foregone Conclusion 2. It's not really a band: it's a bunch of
studio
musicians who he's paying to play with him. He's also paying the sound
engineer Dan Harvey (Tom Basden) twice his usual wages. Not only that, but
Brent takes two weeks of unpaid leave, cashes in his pension, and has only
eight dates lined up for the three-week "tour". Tour is in quotation marks
because all of the gigs are within easy driving distance of Brent's home.
He
has spared no expense, though: he's rented a giant tour bus and puts up
the
band in hotels every night. In return, they refuse to socialize with him
at
all. They won't even let him on his own bus; instead, he follows along in
his
car.
Before he leaves, he gets a pick-me-up from his therapist Dr. Keating
(Nina
Sosanya), whose advice he completely disregards.
David's sort-of actual friend Dom -- who's a young and aspiring and
actually
quite-talented rapper -- is also on tour with them. Brent's voice is
actually
surprisingly good and his music doesn't actually suck, even if it's not
100%
my cup of tea.
It gets more and more mortifying, as Brent continues with his shows.
There's
a signature song about "disableds."
"♪ Oh, please don’t make fun of the disableds
♪ There’s nothing funny about those
♪ Whether mental in the head
♪ Or mental in the legs
♪ Please be kind To the ones with feeble minds
♪ Help the awkward through a door
♪ Hold their hand
♪ If they’ve got one, understand
♪ You might have to feed
♪ The worst ones
♪ Through a straw
♪ It’s basically a head on a pillow
♪ Head on a pillow Head on a pillow"
He doesn't stop trying to "support" minority groups. He tries out a song
about Native Americans.
"♪ Oh, oh, your red heart rages
♪ Cut down, burned out And put in cages
♪ You came in peace Held up your hand
♪ How ✋
♪ We cut it off And we stole your land
♪ Oh, oh, Native American
♪ Soar like an eagle Sit like a pelican
♪ Oh, oh, don’t call us Indians
♪ We’re more like West Eurasians crossed with Siberians ♪"
No-one's coming to the shows. They're hemorrhaging money, but Brent's only
solution is to double down, to spend more. He's only barely aware that
it's
self-destructive, that it's pathetic, that he's not getting out of it what
he
wanted, despite how often he tells himself that he is. He engages the
services of publicist Briony Jones (Diane Morgan), who gets him into a
photo
shoot, which honestly goes a lot better than expected.
She wonders why he hasn't got any tattoos, which is a mean thing to say to
David because, of course, he goes right out to get one. He faints before
it's
half-done and leaves with the word "Berk" on his upper arm. In England,
being
a "berk" is
synonymous
with being a cunt. This is in keeping with his green rooms being
constantly
labeled as "David Bent" (where "bent" means homosexual in England).
Now he's got one more person in his crew that he has to pay to be there.
No-one wants to even have a drink with him. They're only there for the
money.
He has to pay them to have a beer with him after the show. £25.- per
person
-- and he has to pay for drinks. They're all also hooking up, which is a
bonus, but makes him jealous.
This is starting to get him down,
"David: What are you doing?
Briony: Getting off with a bloke.
David: What did you think of the gig?
Briony: I didn’t see it. I was getting off…
David: You were getting off with a bloke. Yeah, sure.
David: Good, innit?
David: Paying them… to get off with people.
David: It’s a new job description, innit?
David: [SIGHS]
All aboard."
He does karate by himself to warm up. He thinks it's cool. He's terrible
with
people, but with women, he's extra-terrible. Desperate, he picks up two
ladies from the ATM behind the club. They're only interested in him
because
he can offer a roof over the heads. They're not groupie material, but he
makes do. They plunder the mini-fridge, racking up exorbitant fees for
booze
and chocolate -- 2 mini-bottles of "Champagne" at £25 apiece. Only one
overnights, although nothing happens. She was just happy for a lie-in and
a
bath.
He finally gets a record company to send someone to a show. This is
exciting
for him -- his big break is imminent. They hate him, of course, but they
seem
intrigued by Dom's rapping. It's a shame because Brent isn't that bad! His
lyrics are bizarre, but his voice is good and the arrangement isn't bad.
After the show, the band is forced to show up for a beer with him. This is
as
painful as you can imagine. They leave quickly, downing their free beers
and
taking their 25 quid for five minutes' work. Dom isn't allowed to leave.
We
see him guiding a plastered Brent home at the end of the evening.
"You’re
my n*gga" "David, you can’t say that."
The next show is a battle of the bands. The bands go in reverse order of
number of people they got to come see them. Foregone Conclusion got two
people. They're on first. They play Native American. Afterward, Dom jumps
in
for a band that hasn't shown up, playing one of his own songs. He's an
immediate hit. The record agents show up and give him their card. David
tries
really hard to hide his jealousy, but he's utterly unsuccessful. They're
still sharing a room.
The next morning, Brent enjoys a day off. Dan comes up to tell him that
the
snow for his Christmas song on his last show is going to cost £1,500. He
begs him not to pay for it. But David had his heart set on the snow. It's
all
lost money anyway. He's down £20k when he'd expected to be down only
about
£8k -- and had hoped to get a recording contract out of it. They bond a
bit;
Dan tells him that he likes David as he is, when he's not pretending to be
someone else.
They play the Christmas song at the last show.
"♪ Don’t cry, it’s Christmas Santa’s feeling fine
♪ Though you know you’ll never see him
♪ He’s not just in your mind
♪ And it’s not that he’s invisible It’s because you’re going
blind
♪ But don’t cry, it’s Christmas Santa’s feeling fine
♪ Though he’s got a billion children He’s only got one day
♪ You’ve got slightly less than that If I were you I’d pray
♪ But don’t cry, it’s Christmas
♪ Everything’s okay"
It snows. Dan paid for it.
David Brent sums up the tour as a life experience for himself.
"I don’t need to be a rock star, you know? That’s just something I enjoy
doing. I can live without being “a success.” [chuckles] But, um… I
couldn’t have lived without trying. And I did that.
"So… And everything works out, doesn’t it? You think you want one
thing
along the way, and then you realise you needed something else. Life’s a
struggle… with little beautiful surprises that make you wanna carry on
through all the shit to the next little beautiful surprise.
"[chuckles]
"So, yeah, all good."
He's back in the office. He's telling Nigel what a great time he had, how
he
could do it all again. He tells him that Dom has gotten a record deal
because
of him (David). The goons at the office start in on him again, but
Pauline's
not having it -- she throws water all over their ringleader, shutting it
all
down. David's got a free-coffee coupon. Two, in fact. They head out for
coffee. Her hand grabs his just as the curtain falls.
"♪ I was looking up to heaven
♪ It was right under my nose
♪ I had travelled many light years
♪ It was right across the road
♪ A billion trillion grains of stardust
♪ Floating round in space
♪ Two of them collided
♪ In an ordinary place
♪ We are electricity
♪ We will never die
♪ We’ll just burn and burst
♪ And return to the sky"
Look, You're going to have to brace yourself for Gervais's cringe comedy
--
his ingratiating half-laugh is particularly off-putting and grating -- but
it's worth it. It's a heartwarming tale, in the end. I changed my rating
from
a 6 to an 8 in the last 15 minutes.
In the Shadow of the Moon (2019) -- "8/10"
Locke (Boyd Holbrook) is a Philadelphia police officer. In 1988, a wave of
mysterious killings sweep the city in one night. He's not a detective yet,
but he and his partner Maddox (Bokeem Woodbine) are given grudging leeway
by
his brother-in-law Detective Holt (Michael C. Hall), so they snoop around
various crime scenes. They help figure out that all of the victims have a
common three-dot mark on the back of their necks. They seem to have been
injected with an unknown compound. They catch a break when one of the
victims
is still temporarily alive and describes her assailant as a black woman in
a
blue hoodie (Cleopatra Coleman).
After some misdirection and a foot chase, Maddox and Locke have trapped
her
in a subway station. She's quite a fighter, though, and drops Maddox like
a
bad habit, breaking his leg. After finding what looks like a weapon with
three needles on the end of it, Locke catches up to her on a lower subway
platform, where she confronts him, addressing him by name and telling him
things about himself that she couldn't possibly know, like that his wife
Jean
(Rachel Keller) is pregnant and will give birth that day. She also
predicts
her own death. They tussle but, as with Maddox, she easily gets the best
of
him, cuffing him to a bench with his own handcuffs. He shoots her with her
own weapon, blowing her back into the path of an oncoming train.
His daughter Amy is born, but wife Jean dies in childbirth. Nine years
later,
it is Amy's (Quincy Kirkwood) birthday. Locke has promised to take her to
the
zoo to see the bears. They're diurnal. They have to go in the morning. You
know what they say about the best-laid plans. A supposed copycat killer
has
appeared. The police suspect it's a demonstrator from the crowd of people
who've never believed the official story of what had happened that night
nine
years ago.
Maddox and Locke, now detectives, open the case again, this time sifting
more
carefully through the evidence. One piece is a set of keys they'd gotten
off
of the killer's corpse, keys which turn out to be made for a model of
plane
that wouldn't come on the market until one year ago -- that is, eight
years
after they'd been collected. Physicist Naveen Rao (Rudi Dharmalingam)
tries
to convince them that the case has something to do with time travel,
caused
by the odd perigee of the super moon. They of course summarily ignore this
wacko.
Locke tracks the killer down to a small airport where she gets the drop on
him and ties him up. She's actually alive and is still the same age. Locke
manages to call Maddox. When he arrives, he thinks he's gotten the drop on
the killer, but she spins and shoots him right in the face with her
shotgun.
Maddox dies immediately. She knocks out Locke and drags him onto a small
plane. When he wakes, she tells him more about himself and his family, as
well as how she can return once every nine years because of the moon. She
throws him out over the water. He swims to shore to find the crashed plane
the next morning.
It's now 2006. Locke is no longer on the squad. He drinks. He's obsessed
with
cracking the case. He thinks it involves time travel. Amy lives with her
uncle (Lt. Hart). Locke discovers another victim, who was involved in the
nascent beginnings of a hardcore "patriot" movement. Locke starts to
suspect
that the killer is moving backwards through time. He manages to track her,
she leads him on a chase -- she on a motorcycle, he in a truck -- to a
pipe
opening off of a beach. He crawls in after her to discover her in what is
almost certainly a time machine, slowly filling with water -- it looks
very
much like the inter-timeline-travel device from The Leftovers -- just
before
it disappears. Locke is arrested by a distraught Hart as he exits the
tunnel
again. Rao watches from above.
It's 2015, nine years later. Locke doesn't look much different: he's more
worn around the edges, his hair a bit longer, his beard a little more
ragged.
Rao kidnaps him and reveals that he knows about the killer's plan, but
that
he approves wholeheartedly. It sounds like a cult. They're killing people,
but for a good purpose, to prevent the deaths of millions of others. Locke
crashes Rao's truck. Rao begs him not to interfere. Locke escapes back to
the
beach. Rao sounds crazy, but he would, wouldn't he?
Locke confronts the killer as she emerges from her pipe, nine years later,
right on schedule. The killer reveals herself to be Rya, his
granddaughter.
She says that Locke is the one who chose her for this mission in the first
place. It's that important. We watch as Rao triggers the devices
throughout
the past to kill the key people who would be involved in executing the
civil
war that would sweep the U.S. into a century of darkness. They've changed
the
past. Back in 2015, Locke is finally able to relax and reunite with his
family -- and his brand-new granddaughter Rya -- because he knows that not
only could he not have stopped what happened in 1988 and 1995 -- he no
longer
wants to.
It actually works better on screen than it did on paper, mostly because of
Boyd Holbrook. I gave it an extra star for being well-made, for Boyd, and
for
suspending my disbelief until after the movie was over. It was a nice
story,
even if some of the details were papered over
E,g., how does the time machine work? Why does it only work every nine
years?
What does this have to do with the moon? Lots of loose ends, but they
don't
matter. The story is about Locke.
Taylor Tomlinson: Have it All (2024) -- "8/10"
She's still going strong with her third one-hour special. It was a bit of an
uneven start, but the second and final thirds were great. I pulled a bunch
of
quotes from "Taylor Tomlinson: Have it All (2024) | Transcript"
.
Taylor's on-stage -- and perhaps off-stage; it doesn't matter -- persona
is
that she has anxiety, an inferiority complex, and is terrible at being
single
because she's terrible at dating. She's spent a year alone and it's been
one
of the best years of her life. She talks about anxiety, therapy, sleep
disorders, married friends, men, women, her childhood, her parents, her
neuroses.
"That got me to sixth grade, when I met my friend Krista, and she was pretty,
funny, smart, and nice. And that’s when I stopped believing in God."
"[...] I was like, “Nobody has every single thing going for them as a
person. You have been so blessed. Be grateful for what you have. Focus on
that. Nobody gets to have it all.”
"And then I saw Hugh Jackman in person.
"I was like, “I guess you can have it all. But there’s none left
because
‘God’ gave it all to Hugh.”"
"The next time you see your parents, they’re all smug, like, “Jason
seemed to like us.”
"You’re like, “I know what you’re doing.”
"“Maybe your therapist wants to meet us. Get our side of the story.”
"“I cannot wait till you’re in the ground.”
"“All right, well, we’d like to be cremated.”
"“I will scatter your ashes where God can’t find them!”"
"I know how to get men to like me. Easy. You trick ’em.
"Just wait until they kind of like you, and then you’re like, “You
don’t like me.” They’re like, “Yeah, I do.”
"“You don’t.”
"“Yeah, I do.”
"You’re like, “No, you don’t.”
"“I do!”
"You do that until they get you pregnant, I think.
"You just turn it into a fun challenge for ’em.
"“Bet you can’t spend your life with me.”
"They’re like, “Fucking watch me, you bitch!”
"Like when you ask a kid to take out the trash, and they’re like,
“No!”
"And you’re like, “I’ll time you.”
"And he’s like… [gasps]
"“See? You didn’t even think you wanted to do that.”
"He’s like, “Who cares? I’m the fastest boy alive.”
"Hitting on women is so much harder. It feels so much more delicate.
"Hitting on a woman feels like trying to skip a stone on a lake.
"Hitting on a man feels like throwing a brick through a window.
"Like, “I don’t really care. I just want to see what happens.”
"“I’m not gonna live here.”
"I might be sexist.
"I’m hearing it now as I’m talking."
"I said, “Any advice for people in relationships who are fighting a lot?”
"They said, “We do.”
"“You know how a lot of people have a safe word to stop sex?”
"“Everyone needs to have a safe word during fights.”
"I asked a married friend, “Do you have a safe word for fights?”
"He was like, “What?” I’m like, “A word that stops the fight.”
"He goes, “We have one.”
"I said, “What is it?”
"He goes, “Cunt.”
"[audience laughing, wincing]
"“But I have to say it. It doesn’t really work if she says it.”"
"You know what’s funny about TikTok?
"These kids are like lip-syncing, dancing, pretending they’re in a music
video.
"We all did that growing up, didn’t we?
"Yeah! Alone in your room in the mirror, hairbrush. Of course.
"But if anyone had walked in on you doing it, you would’ve killed
yourself,
right?
"[laughter, applause]
"And these kids are online like, “I hope millions of people see this.”
"It’s like, “You could benefit from some bullying, I think.”
"“Might’ve… overcorrected a bit.”"
"Like, I know that all of my friends both pity and envy me.
"Just like I know that I both pity and envy them, right?
"I know my friends look at me and go, “I’d probably focus on work if I
was all alone.”
"And I go, “I’d probably have a bunch of kids if I had no talent.”"
Le jour où la Terre s'arrêta (The Day the Earth Stood Still) (2008) -- "6/10"
In 1928, an explorer (Keanu Reeves) encounters a glowing sphere. In the
present day, a fast-moving object approaches Earth and lands in New York
City. Scientists are mobilized from all over America. Among them is Helen
Benson (Jennifer Connelly), an expert in exobiology, who is recruited by
an
old colleague Michael Granier (Jon Hamm). The ship ejects Klatu (Keanu
Reeves) and a giant robot that defends him when the first thing that
people
do is to to shoot Klatu. He recovers.
They begin to interrogate him. The U.S. Secretary of Defense (Kathy Bates)
wants to put him in his place when he looks askance at her, telling her
she
doesn't speak for the world. He wants to talk to the world.. He has a
message
for them. He has a message for Earth, for humanity. The planet does not
belong to them.
Klatu escapes with Helen. The military attacks the giant robot, which is
still standing in Central Park next to the spaceship. As they travel,
Helen's
boy says that we should kill all of the aliens, just to be sure. Klatu
listens very carefully. He is there to save the Earth from its judgment,
rendered by another alliance of aliens. He speaks to an alien (James Hong)
who's lived on the planet for 70 years, who thinks humanity is more
destructive than peaceful, that the empathetic strains are too few and too
powerless against the mindless violence inherent in the species.
Klatu communes with one of the many alien spheres that appear all over the
world. His robot is captured by the U.S. military, but it feels very much
like the robot has them right where it wants them. They can't dig into its
carapace. Meanwhile, Helen and Klatu visit with Professor Barnhardt (John
Cleese), who tries to bargain with Klatu, saying that it is on the
precipice
that civilizations learn how to behave themselves.
Her little shit of a kid calls the military on them all, so that the
military
can kill Klatu -- because "that's what his dad would have done." The child
is
insufferable -- but I feel like he's a stand-in for the adolescence of
humanity. He gets his mom kidnapped. Klatu crashes the remaining
helicopters.
The U.S. military, in the person of Kathy Bates, claims that "we have the
situation under control." The shit kid is left with Klatu, and we're
treated
to a few painful scene of child-acting. People seem to love that shit.
The robot releases nanobots from its skin that eat into the restraints and
will soon free it. The U.S. military -- already outmatched by every group
of
ragtag fighters on the planet -- is also outmatched by an incredibly
advanced
alien technology. The entire robot breaks down into a giant cloud of
nanobots. They blow the door down and escape the underground facility. The
military shoots its guns and rockets at it. This is a 💯 accurate
representation of how the U.S. military would react.
The nanobots-eating-everything effects are pretty good. The Secretary of
Defense is forced to let Helen go so that she can try to convince Klatu
not
to destroy the planet. The child tells Klatu that he didn't mean it when
he
said he thought Klatu should be killed. This is a bald-faced lie. The
child
is the conniving personification of all of humanity. He wants to kill
Klatu
until he needs Klatu to help him survive the woods. Then, he realizes that
he
could try to get Klatu to resurrect his father. He is 100% focused on
himself. This is fine for a child, but not ok for humanity. This is the
reason that humanity deserves to be destroyed. Because it cannot behave in
any way other than the self-serving conniving of a child.
There's a bunch of hugging and crying when Helen and the child reunite,
but
it convinces Klatu. That whole shitty scene showed the alien that humans
can
change. Seriously? Hadn't they actual seen human interactions before?
Didn't
he just have a conversation with the old Chinese man about how he'd fallen
in
love with humanity? Anyway, the nanobots continue streaming over the
planet.
The U.S. president is probably gonna start nuking stuff. This is also 💯
accurate.
They let Klatu, Helen, and Granier's car through, but only so they could
bomb
it. This was definitely counterproductive. The nanobots start attacking
the
car. They're in Central Park. The nanobots envelop the sphere. Granier is
dead. The fucking child gets infected with nanobots. The number-one
priority
is now to save the fucking child instead of the planet. Why? Because his
mommy asked you to. You know what? That tracks. Klatu absorbs the nanobots
into his own human body.
He says, "your professor was right. At the precipice, we change." Keanu
Reeves strides into the nanobot storm with his frail human carapace. He
touches the sphere. A shock wave expands outward. An EMP. The nanobots
fall
like hail. The grid shuts down as the EMP rolls around the planet.
Everything
is still. This is the price for stopping the attack. This is the change of
which Klatu spoke.
I watched it in English with French subtitles.
Here Comes the Boom (2012) -- "8/10"
Scott Voss (Kevin James) is a shitty biology teacher, who's skating through
his high-school teaching career. He's kind of friends with music teacher
Marty Streb (Henry Winkler). He keeps hitting on nurse Bella Flores (Salma
Hayek). He's at odds with Principal Betcher (Greg Germann), who's a
pencil-necked dick of an administrator. Betcher decides to cut Marty's
job,
but Voss jumps up to defend him, promising that he'll get the $48,000 for
Marty's salary.
He goes to his brother Eric (Gary Valentine), but he's got no work for
him.
So he starts teaching a citizenship class. One of his students is Niko
(Bas
Rutten), whom he starts tutoring. Niko's a former UFC fighter who runs an
MMA
school. Voss gets the idea to start fighting UFC to make big money. He
tries
to quit the teaching the citizenship class.
He gets knocked out in his first fight. His second fight goes better and
he
gets out with a tie. His wins his third fight in the third round with an
out-of-the-blue haymaker. He continues training with Niko, with his
corner-man Marty. Niko keeps training him, but can't teach him offense. He
takes him to Mark DellaGrotte for more training. Scott dislocates his
shoulder. He goes to Bella's house for treatment because he can't afford
the
hospital. She's in cute pajama pants, clambers all over him to get
leverage,
and yanks his arm back into place.
Principal Betcher tries to dress him down, but Voss gets the advantage and
gets Malia's (Jake Zyrus) father (Reggie Lee) on his side. Voss starts
teaching for real again. Malia starts tutoring Niko while Voss carries
Marty
up and down the bleachers. He keeps fighting, winning some, getting
better.
Joe Rogan's in the crowd for a cameo. Bella finally agrees to let him cook
for her. He gets his brother Eric to cook for him. He's quite a chef, but
he
can't pursue his career because his painting and his big family take all
of
his time. Bella doesn't believe that he cooked it, but it doesn't matter.
She
doesn't understand why he gives up in some fights, so he tries to show her
an
arm-bar, but she punches him in the head, then jumps him and tackles him
to
the ground. It's a cute scene, but it ends there. This movie has no right
being this genuine.
DellaGrotte tells him that Rogan called to have Voss fight in the UFC.
Niko
turns it down because he says it's too dangerous. But when Voss asks him
about it, Niko confesses that he's jealous because he never got his real
shot
because he messed up his leg. He's jealous because he's the same age, but
he
could kick Voss's ass. They hug it out, meet with Rogan, and head to
Vegas.
Oh, and Voss gets his awesome chef of a brother to help out in Malia's
dad's
restaurant, fixing that problem as well. It's cliché, but it's quite
well-done. They also do killer montages, with pretty good fight-training
choreography. They're in Vegas. The school band shows up to play his song.
Rogan flew them in. Malia's got pipes.
The fight begins. His opponent Dietrich (Krzysztof Soszynski) is built
like a
brick shithouse. He doesn't touch gloves because he doesn't think Voss
deserves to be in the UFC. He was promised a better card. He does some
damage
in the first round, but Voss survives. The second round doesn't go better,
but Voss survives. Marty gives him a pep talk. Voss comes out swinging,
and
fights Dietrich to a standstill. They end up clinched; Dietrich gets an
arm
bar, but Voss reestablishes his grip; Voss picks him up and drops him,
knocking him out.
Voss wins. Marty's job is saved. Bella kisses him. The end.
This movie was so much better than it had any right to be. Hayek, Winkler,
James, Ruttan, Malia -- everyone really shone. It's surprisingly a solid
eight overall, but a nine for its genre. Would watch again.
Bionda Atomica (2017) -- "9/10"
I stand by "my review from 2017"
. Actually that
review
is pretty meager, but we'll let it stand. This movie is visually
fantastic,
stylish as hell, has fantastic fight choreography, and has a fantastic
soundtrack. Charlize Theron is fantastic. So is James McAvoy.
The movie's set just before the Berlin Wall comes down. It's directed as
about 15 80s music videos.
I watched it in Italian (with some Russian and German) with Italian
subtitles
this time.
Rick and Morty S07 (2024) -- "8/10"
1. The first episode is pure fan service. It's so pure that it must
have
been done on purpose. It doesn't make it a good episode, but it's
nice
to see them throw away the opening episode being annoyingly meta
about
fan-service shows. Perhaps I'm being too generous. This one stars
Hugh
Jackman and brings the whole gang back to party with him: Mr.
Poopybutthole, Bird-person, Gearhead, Squanchy, and neighbor Gene
(who's new, I think, but they're pretending he's been around
forever).
It's supposed to be an intervention for Mr. P, who's despondent and
has
been living with the Smiths for months. Not their best episode.
2. The second episode has Rick (Ian Cardoni) try to prove to Jerry
(Chris
Parnell) that the brain has nothing to do with genius, it's the
mind.
He switches their minds into each other's brains, but then
immediately
kills himself in Jerry's body when he realizes how wrong he was --
Jerry's brain is utterly inadequate to hold his mind. He shoots
himself
in the head. Jerry quickly kills himself in Rick's body because he
can't control Rick's Mr. Gadget toys. A robot in Rick's lab patches
them up, but makes them each half-Rick/half-Jerry. They grudgingly,
then enthusiastically, become friends. They go on a galaxy-wide
crime
spree together. This culminates in them turning themselves into a
single being called Jerricky. It wants to leave, but Beth (Sarah
Chalke) puts her foot down, they separate, and go back to bickering.
The fade-out-to-credits scene is on a polaroid of the two, drunk as
Lords, with the tag "banned for life from this bar" on it. Sweet.
3. The President (Keith David) is back in this one, typically
singularly
focused on his own success and fame. Rick indulges him, but draws
the
line at the President dating his therapist (Susan Sarandon). It
turns
out that one of Rick's ex-girlfriends is Unity (Christina
Hendricks), a
hive-mind who's taken over Virginia. Rick puts a dome over the state
to
cut off her control, then has to deal with the President taking over
their minds to get a 100% re-election. Rick's therapist forces Rick
to
deal with Unity and apologize to her for his shittiness.
4. It's family-spaghetti night and Rick is serving up what the family
is
lovin'! Morty ruins it all by finding out that the spaghetti comes from
another planet, where people who commit suicide end up filled with
tasty
bolognese. This makes the family conflicted because, well, it's still
so
good. To be honest, they don't stay conflicted for very long.
Back on the other planet, Morty reveals to the family of the deceased
what
they did with their loved one's body. The president of the planet sees
a
business opportunity and starts to make their society over to an
exporter
of bolognese. Of course, they need to promote suicide, so the planet
goes
right in the shitter so that there is enough supply.
Rick is engaged to fix all this. He industrializes suicide and ends up
breeding clones that have only enough sentience and more than enough
misery to be able to kill themselves as soon as they realize what they
are. This is sufficient to generate the level of cortisol required to
generate the delicious bolognese. The clones have one limb, capable of
grasping a pick with which they kill themselves.
The factory looks very much like a meatpacking plant. The clones look
like
over-breasted chickens. The message isn't super-subtle, but it's
devastatingly effective. There is no excuse for eating animals.
Eventually, though, the president wants Rick to fix things for good,
whereupon he creates an intergalactic broadcast showing the uniqueness,
wonder, and humble glory of a life lived well, a life lived by a being.
It
is so effective that people are put off of eating bolognese-filled
aliens.
The Smiths switch to Salisbury Steaks, but they no longer want to know
where it comes from. They've learned their lesson. The wrong lesson, as
usual, but hey, they're the mirror that Harmon holds up to the world.
It's
a pity that Peter Singer probably doesn't watch Rick & Morty because he
would have been touched, I think.
5. We refresh our memories of Evil Morty's backstory, how he'd
manipulated
Rick until he'd retired outside the Central Finite Curve, away from
shenanigans. Rick & Morty's search for Rick Prime disturb him, so he
seeks them out to help them end it once and for all, even though he
doesn't really care, one way or the other. They get closer to Rick
Prime, until he eventually ends up capturing them, along with a
handful
of other Ricks. Rick wants revenge for Prime having killed his wife.
He
finds out that Rick Prime has killed Rick's wife in all dimensions
--
and threatens to do the same for all members of Rick's family. Evil
Morty helps Rick thwart Rick Prime -- again, not because he cares,
but
because he just wants this madness to stop, and also because he
doesn't
think Rick Prime should have a weapon powerful enough to kill anyone
in
all universes. He leaves Rick alone with Prime to beat him to a
bloody
pulp. Rick seems to have lost his purpose now because, duh, he has.
6. Rick is in no mood for adventures, so Morty cashes in his
free-adventure-of-choice frequent-adventurer cards. Rick calls
bullshit
and engages the services of an all-seeing Observer to verify the
adventures that Morty is claiming. The Observer ends up being a
dick,
starts blabbing about everyone in the family, Rick & Morty make up,
agree on a price for the punchcards (70¢ on the dollar), and then
kill
the Observer. The other observers put them on trial, which Rick puts
up
with for a while until he gets bored, after which he just frees
himself
and convinces the other Observers to fight and kill each other. This
is
a fake clip show, chock full of tiny skits that probably made it to
paper, but never blossomed into anything that was worth making a
part
of another show, so they all went into this one.
7. Summer does Rick's chores, then demands an "attribute slider" as
payment. It's a bracelet that lets her control strength,
intelligence,
charisma, etc. She's going to a "frolf" party. At the party, Morty
gets
jealous because Rick's never given him something like that -- it's
because Rick respects Summer more than Morty, as he's not shy of
saying
-- so he fights her for it. In their struggle, he jams intelligence
up
all the way, managing to wrest it from a weakened Summer. He pumps
himself up, they struggle, fall into the pool, get struck by
lightning,
and come out as a Summer/Morty/Quato-style hybrid. Instead of doing
more chores for Rick, she takes off for a planet where there's a
club
for Quatos that she found on what is I guess the galactic Internet?
Anyway, she's kidnapped, Morty is removed, and prepared to be sold
as a
Quato for a rich guy. Christ, I don't know, it's even weirder than
usual, all without being particularly clever -- the only callback is
to
Total Recall. Not a great episode.
8. Water-T (Ice-T) is back in what must be another fan-service episode.
It's a follow-up to Get Schwifty. It's what looks like a long toy
commercial in the style of Transformers and Decepticons, but with
Numbers and Letters instead. A bunch of stuff happens, there's some
treachery, some of the visuals are good, but the story is kind of
lame.
There's not a lot going on that's very clever. It's only callbacks
and
memberberries all the way down.
9. Rick kills Jerry several times in order to determine the location of
the afterlife and that it has an infinite amount of energy. He wants
it, of course. But, he has to die first. How can he be guaranteed
entry
to the afterlife? He travels to Norway with Morty to be killed by
Bigfoot (whom he carries in a Pokéball), so that he enters
Valhalla.
Morty messes up yet again and gets himself killed by Bigfoot, so
that
he, too, enters Valhalla, where Rick has set up a machine to siphon
the
power of the Infinite and also has fooled the Viking residents of
Valhalla into thinking that he is Odin. Bigfoot escapes, chasing
down a
feral Rick until the Pope catches Bigfoot and turns him into a holy
warrior for the church. Bigfoot is deeply unhappy doing this and
eventually teams back up with Rick and Morty. The Pope, in
possession
of the infinite power of the Afterlife, kills them repeatedly, until
Rick figures out how to pull the plug on the power plant he'd set up
in
Valhalla. Rick traps the Pope in a Pokéball, sets up feral Rick as
the
new Pope, and drops the Pope into an underground fighting ring.
10. Their adventures having made them jaded and nearly impossible to
scare,
Rick and Morty are given the chance to face a fear that they can't just
shrug off. It's a hole located in a Denny's bathroom. It looks like
hole
that Rey sees in her Jedi visions, with seaweed-like, black, glistening
tentacles rising up around its entire circumference.
Rick says it's a gimmick, and walks away. So does Morty at first. He
returns nearly immediately to jump in and face his fears. Rick
reluctantly
follows and rescues him from the monsters there. They emerge, pumped
that
they've faced their fears, and return home. At home, they realize that
things are awry, and that they're still in the hole. After "escaping"
once
or twice, they're much more leery about believing that they've truly
escaped the Fear Hole and walk around on tenterhooks, fully expecting
to
learn, at any moment, that they're in a simulacrum constructed by the
Fear
Hole. They could grow old and die and still not be sure.
Rick's dead wife Diane appears and Rick is actually happy. He looks
sallow
and drained, but he's happy with Diane. He must suspect that the
they're
still in the hole and that it's feeding on him, but he doesn't care.
After
a while, Morty hears Rick say that he thinks that Morty is
irreplaceable,
which is something that Morty knows Rick would never say. He realizes
that, not only are they still in the Fear Hole, but that he's actually
in
there alone because Rick had never jumped in after him.
His true fear is that Rick might leave him. The hole begins to drain
Morty. That's still not his true fear, though. Several times, he thinks
he's figured it out and escaped the Fear Hole, only to realize that
he's
still in it. Eventually, it clicks, and he's out. The Hole works as
advertised. Rick is tempted to jump in when he hears that Diane might
be
in there, but he walks away, pinning a polaroid of Morty on the "Fear
Hole
Conquerors" pinboard in the bathroom stall. This was a great episode.
Castlevania S03 (2020) -- "8/10"
This series has its moments, but they're few and far between at first. It
grows on you, though. It's just right to have running as I'm working out,
but
I can't imagine sitting down and just watching this show. It's extremely
slow-paced, to the point of induced ennui. The animation is reasonable to
pretty good. Some of the religious, pseudo-philosophical discussions are
kind
of interesting, if not exactly illuminating. The voice-acting is extremely
spotty, with accents tinged from seemingly everywhere.
This season picks up the story immediately after Dracula's (Graham
McTavish)
death. There are a few main storylines. A quartet of female vampires --
Carmilla (Jaime Murray), Striga (Ivana Milicevic), Morana (Yasmine Al
Massri), and Lenore (Jessica Brown Findlay) -- have taken over Dracula's
empire and have a "big scheme" to build an 800-mile wide corridor straight
from the heart of Europe deep into the East. From this corridor, they'll
feed
on both sides and rule forever. Or so the dream goes.
Forgemaster Hector (Theo James) has been imprisoned by them. He spends
most
of the season naked in a prison cell, being interrogated and tortured by
Lenore. They chat a lot. Everyone chats a lot. There's precious little
fighting for long stretches, actually. Another forgemaster Isaac
(Adetokumboh
M'Cormack) is underway with a complement of night creatures. He charters a
vessel from "the Captain" (Lance Reddick -- I know! right?), who tries to
teach Isaac that, while most people are bastards, there is enough good in
humanity to warrant preserving it. If Isaac fulfills Dracula's plan of
eliminating every human, then all of that good would be wiped from the
world,
as well. They speak of Sufism and Islam.
Alucard is still in the Belmont Hold, not doing much of anything until he
catches Sumi (Rila Fukushima) and Taka (Toru Uchikado) following him. They
are two vampire-hunters from Japan who seek to destroy their own master
Cho,
an ancient she-devil of a vampire who'd been called away from her manse to
fight by Dracula's side.
Trevor Belmont (Richard Armitage) and Sypha Belnades (Alejandra Reynoso)
have
traveled to a village named Lindenfeld, where things are a bit...odd.
There
they meet Saint Germain (Bill Nighy -- I know! right?), who concurs that
things are odd, and that all of the oddness is related to the priory. The
Judge (Jason Isaacs) concurs and engages their services to investigate. He
tells of how a night creature had landed in the priory one night and,
instead
of killing everyone, had spoken to them in an unknown language. They now
guard the place like a prison and no longer allow anyone in or out. Except
for Saint Germain, who weasels his way inside to help them gain knowledge
from the books that they've discarded and disdained as useless.
St. Germain reveals himself to Sypha as a Count, not a magician. He's
gained
access to the priory in order to get to the Infinite Corridor, where he
says
he'd lost a "friend". A dream of his soon reveals that this friend was a
woman and that he'd last seen her in the multi-dimensional maze of the
Corridor. She'd thrown him a stone by which he can find her, should he
ever
gain access again. The Corridor was quite nicely rendered, a bit like
Inception, a bit like Dr. Strange. He's back in the priory, investigating
the
books. He finds one on demonology; the drawings in it are great.
Isaac treks onward with his pack of night creatures. He discusses the past
life of one called Flyseyes.
"Isaac: What do you remember?
"Flyseyes: I was a scholar.
"Isaac: Really?
"Flyseyes: I was. In a place called Athens. I think it was a long time
ago.
"Isaac: What did you study?
"Flyseyes: I was a philosopher.
"Isaac: And this was a thing that sent you to Hell?
"Flyseyes: I lived as a man during a time when the empire that ruled
Athens
changed its religion and laws. I believed philosophy to be the study of
the
systems of the world and our purpose in it. And yet discussion of the
nature
of the divine became a crime.
"Isaac: Who declared this a crime?
"Flyseyes: Christians. To be a philosopher was a sin. And one important
Christian was heard to say that the people should hunt down sinners and
drive
them into salvation, as a hunter drives its prey into traps.
"Isaac: To think about God would surely not be a sin in God's eyes.
"Flyseyes: Perhaps. And yet... here I am."
St. Germain, Belmont, and Sypha continue to investigate the priory. They
find
the night creature crucified in a deep basement, but seemingly willingly.
It
waits for something.
What it's waiting for is for the town to be filled with the appropriate
runes
for it to summon a gateway to Hell. While the trio finish battling the
monks
guarding what's left of the priory, two giant demons emerge from Hell,
with
Sypha and Belmont each taking one on. The gain the basement in time to
witness the night creature in its final form, channeling fire into the
hell-gate to summon thousands of smaller, flying demons. They continue to
battle them.
At the same time, Lenore continues her subtle seduction of Hector, gaining
enough of his confidence to get him to lay with her. There's a bit of
sexy-time that is absolutely rated-R. Hector is fully in her thrall as he
pledges his allegiance to her. She slips a ring on his finger that expands
into loops and coils that rise above him -- Carnage-like -- then plunge
down
into his flesh.
At the same time, Sumi and Taka have also been running a number on
Alucard.
They slip into his bedroom and there is more sexy-time -- this time
definitely rated-R. Alucard cries a bit because he thought he'd never be
able
to be close to anyone again (I guess). Once he's been sexually subdued,
the
two bind him like a Christ figure on his own bed, enveloping him in what
looks like silver bands that cut into his skin.
Isaac moves on to a city where a magician has taken over every single
person's mind. Each person wears an emerald crown made of, presumably,
magic.
Isaac orders his monsters to kill the people, but not to damage or eat
them.
He wants to build an army of night creatures. The magician in his tower
directs his minions, making them fight cleverly enough to start taking out
Isaac's creatures, one by one.
There is attrition on the human side, as well, but they have overwhelming
numbers -- and fear nothing, as they are mentally dead inside. The
magician's
minions have taken to the skies, as giant, clotted balls of people
dropping
onto his night creatures. Isaac summons a large creature to do battle with
the largest ball.
Isaac gains the tower and climbs the spiral staircase inside. It is a long
way up. As he climbs, the minions glom onto the sides of the tower, oozing
through the windows, impeding his progress. He gains the upper floor to
confront the magician. He is an old, crooked-toothed and quite
insane-looking
old man who chuckles madly, then throws a magic crown onto Isaac's head.
There is a struggle, but Isaac prevails, then crosses the room in several
quick strides and guts the old man. His minions fall from the sky like
ash.
In the basement of the priory, the night creature, fed by the souls of the
townsfolk and transformed into a conduit keeps the Infinite Corridor open
onto hell. The camera soars across plains and mountains until it locates a
ruined church within which sit Dracula and his wife Lisa.
Belmont, Sypha, and St. Germain do battle with the demons below in an epic
boss battle. The choreography and artwork are pretty nice. As Sypha and
Belmont make room for him, St. Germain proves his prodigious magical
powers
by mastering the gate, then leaping on the main demon's back to force it
to
redirect the gate -- and to keep Dracula and his bride trapped in hell.
They climb back out of the crumbling priory to find that the judge is
dead.
They discover only later that he had a dark secret -- he'd been killing
naughty children for their misdeeds in his town. They leave the town in
disgust, getting back on the open road, hunting vampires.
Meanwhile, Alucard, seeing that Sumi and Taka are somewhat obsessed with
their being constantly betrayed, and are obsessed with getting what they
think he's not giving them -- magic and a moving castle -- gives them one
last chance. Instead, they lean in to stab him, whereupon he mentally
manipulates his giant sword -- not that one -- and slices their throats.
After this betrayal, he retreats further into his misery, piking the two
bodies outside his front door as a warning to the others.
Turn Up Charlie S01 (2019) -- "6/10"
Charlie (Idris Elba) is a struggling DJ living in London. He lives with his
aunt and Del (Guz Khan) in a house owned by Charlie's parents. He doesn't
have a steady income, but he pretends to be a successful businessman for
his
parents. They still live in Nigeria and own a house in London, but ask
their
successful son if he can spot them some cash for appliances and a new car
--
otherwise they'll have to sell the house in London.
At a mutual friend's wedding, Charlie learns that his childhood bestie
David
(JJ Feild) is moving back to London. David is wildly successful as a model
and a TV/film star and is moving back to London to "tread the boards". His
wife Sara (Piper Perabo) is a major DJ with her own entourage/staff. Their
daughter Gabrielle (Frankie Hervey) is a nightmare of a spoiled brat who
can't enjoy anything without someone suffering and has thus been broken
utterly by her parents and their wealthy lifestyle.
When David gets a call for a reading, he leaves Gabrielle with Charlie,
who'd
only met her that day. They hit it off, of course. There is nothing
surprising in the banter or behavior, but it's Idris Elba, so it's not as
painful as it would otherwise be. It's still kind of painful, though.
Since
Gabrielle drove off her most-recent nanny in a horrible incident, Sara and
David hire Charlie as a nanny.
Charlie's first official day as a nanny doesn't go that well, as Gabriella
is
completely uncontrollable and demands attention from her parents, who are
not
able to give it. She connives her way to a club where he mother is
performing, then sprays the crowd with a fire extinguisher when her mother
doesn't let her on stage, as she usual did. Charlie is helpless to stop
her.
David is livid, but he's also pretty powerless. Charlie takes her to his
Aunt
Lydia's (Jocelyn Jee Esien) for dinner, where the child is so rude that
Auntie Lydia wanted to kill her.
Gabriella's first day of school also goes terribly, with her completely
unequipped to make actual friends rather than gather minions. She's upset
because her mother is working and doesn't have time to take her to school.
Instead, her father does it. The child has no empathy and can be said to
be
sociopathic and no fun to be around. People shy away from her, if not
immediately, then after an initial interaction. There are a lot of other
sociopaths at the school who are more than her match. She ends the day in
the
principal's office, having a panic attack.
Neither of her parents answer the phone, so Charlie is called to pick her
up.
He was working in a community garden for Auntie Lydia. He brings her back
there and the child expresses some contrition and seems to sincerely
apologize for her behavior. Her parents immediately take her bowling and
beg
Charlie to come back, to take the job again. David and Charlie make up, as
Charlie was mad at David for the things he'd told Gabriella, who had
hatefully and hurtfully repeated them to Charlie.
Charlie patches things up because (A) he needs a job and (B) he wants to
kick-start his career with the help of Sara's studio, reputation, and
chops.
Sara is a supreme dipshit. Poor Piper Perabo kind of has the perfect
what-people-are-supposed-to-think-is-hot vacuity for being a dumb-ass DJ,
with dumb-ass, vapid friends. David is honestly no better -- just an empty
vessel. I can't tell whether they mean for us to like them, despite their
flaws, or to see their flaws as a condemnation of a society that would
allow
people like this to bubble to the top of it. Gabriella is just as terrible
as
ever, just bizarrely obnoxious and mean and petty all of the time. Her
dialogue is like one, long esprit d'escalier by a roomful of writer nerds
who
never had the bon mot they needed when they were younger.
Gabriella sneaks out while Charlie's working on his new song in the
studio.
One of Sara's skank friends slithers by with an open robe and joint and
his
afternoon's gone. Gabriella gets home with Hunter, her little, gay,
criminal
friend, to catch him in the sauna. She doesn't care, though. They agree to
defend each other's secrets. Sara listens to Charlie's song and approves.
David confides in Charlie that he's got a great movie gig lined up, but
he's
going to have to be away from home again. Charlie advises against it, as
David needs to spend time with his daughter. David pretends that he needs
to
take the huge, million-dollar role in order to put food on the table, but
Charlie rolls his eyes -- he knows he's just doing it for himself because
he's only mediocre at acting in the theater. David and Sara are already
obscenely rich -- especially for such a young couple -- that neither of
them
needs to work a day in their lives again.
Charlie and Sara get to know each other better and grow closer during
collaboration. David has a day with Gabriella, but she has her first
period
that day, throwing a bit of a spanner in the works. Sara treats David
pretty
poorly there, but maybe she has her reasons. He's a bit of an idiot. Plus,
they apparently cheated on each other already. I wasn't really following
all
of it, if I'm honest. The setup of that backstory was ham-handed and
awkward.
At any rate, David takes the movie role and jets off to Hollywood, leaving
Sara, Gabriella, and Charlie to enjoy the summer in London. They go to a
music festival, where Gabriella and Hunter (Cameron James-King) take off,
leading Sara on a merry chase. She starts to panic, though, and then
Gabriella really goes missing, losing her phone in a dancing crowd.
Charlie
knows where to find her, though, and he's everyone's hero. Sara plays her
secret concert and premieres the song that she and Charlie had been
working
on. Sara's manager Astrid's (Angela Griffin) been banging him, but it's
pretty clear that Sara is seeing him as a "David substitute", as is
Gabriella, who just comes right out and says it. Charlie is smart enough
to
back off and books himself to Ibiza with a sleazy promoter.
Charlie's in Ibiza, falling into his old habits: drinking, drugs, up all
night, not working on his music, being shitty to the people around him,
letting his giant ego get the best of him. He peaks early with his song,
but
without another song to back it up, fades from the Ibiza scene, then
crashes
out and has to work his way back up again, when he's found humility and
his
creative muse again. Sara and Gabriella surprise him at a show, David
having
abandoned David them for a mind-cleansing retreat in LA. It's not clear
what
there's left to cleanse there.
Astrid is there, as well, offering to take Charlie on full-time -- because
she's fallen for him and she's bored with Sara's devotion to family. She
wants to party. She gets Charlie a great gig, but Charlie's leery, aware
that
he could fall back into his old ways if he sticks with her. Sara is
definitely sending all of the signals his way as well, but that also
doesn't
seem like the greatest idea in the world. Charlie and Gabriella are
getting
along well, though.
So, instead of sleeping or working on his music, Charlie spends the entire
night partying with Sara. They fall asleep on each other, drunk and high,
on
some patio furniture, after a racy game of FMK (Fuck, Marry, Kill). David
surprises them the next morning, showing up from LA with flowers and ....
a
wedding proposal. Sara is less-than-thrilled, seeing the wedding proposal
for
the manipulation that it is when David lets the other shoe drop: he wants
to
move the family to South Africa, where he's going to shoot his next movie.
Sara is not having it, not ready to uproot Gabriella again.
David notices that Sara is infatuated with Charlie and throws out an
ill-timed and unsuccessful ultimatum. David gets made at Charlie, but
Charlie
shrugs it off. Gabriella and Hunter bail. Astrid puts herself in the
center
of the show, making it clear for the hundredth time that all she cares
about
are partying, drugs, and sex -- managing DJs is just a way of staying in
that
lifestyle. Charlie's still got his gig -- and Astrid's offer still stands.
David and Sara break up. Gabriella wants to stay in London. She confesses
to
Hunter that she wants Charlie to stay with them, not to travel the world.
He
tells her to go tell Charlie that.
At the show, Charlie's crushing it, living the lifestyle. He confirms to
Astrid that they should work together. Gabriella and Charlie chat a bit,
but
she can't bring herself to tell him. She doesn't want him to give up his
dreams for her, I guess? Maybe? Or maybe he decides to stay, knowing why
she's there? We'll never know. The show ended in ambiguity -- and that's
probably the deftest move it made all season. This was a show with some
good
actors -- Idris Elba, Guz Khan, and Jocelyn Jee Esien were quite good --
but
also depicted a world full of superficial, mostly terrible people. Eight
episodes is a lot to be watching people like that. And Gabriella was
annoying
for the first 6.5 episodes, at least.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=49562024-02-10T23:30:56+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
1. "Star Wars: Episode VIII - Die letzten Jedi (2017)" <#star-wars> --
"9/10"
2. "Six Days Seven Nights (1998)" <#six-days> -- "8/10"
3. "Unknown Cosmic Time Machine (2023)" <#jwst> -- "8/10"
4. "Manhunt (Zhui bu) (2017)" <#manhunt> -- "6/10"
5. "Now You See Me 2 (2016)" <#nysm2> -- "6/10"
6. "In the Tall Grass (2019)" <#tall-grass> -- "8/10"
7. "The Two Popes (2019)" <#two-popes> -- "10/10"
8. "Snitch (2013)" <#snitch> -- "6/10"
9. "The Night Comes for Us (2018)" <#the-night> -- "7/10"
10. "Rodney King (2017)" <#rodney-king> -- "10/10"
Star Wars: Episode VIII - Die letzten Jedi (2017) -- "9/10"
I have nothing to add or take away from "my review in 2017"
. I might have even
liked Mark Hamill in his final outing as Luke Skywalker more than the
first
time around. Even knowing what was going to happen, I still really, really
liked the final showdown between him and Kylo Ren. "See you around, kid."
I watched it in German.
Six Days Seven Nights (1998) -- "8/10"
Robin Monroe (Anne Heche) works at a magazine in New York City. She's very
busy. Her boss Marjorie (Allison Janney) has boundary issues and wouldn't
understand the phrase work/life balance if you tattooed it on her
forehead.
Her boyfriend Frank Martin (David Schwimmer) surprises her with a one-week
trip to Makatea. They fly to the island with Quinn Harris (Harrison Ford)
and
his current girlfriend Angelica (Jacqueline Obradors). Five hours later,
Quinn has completely forgotten about how he'd flown Robin out that morning
and is hitting on her at a tiki bar. Frank proposes to her that night.
The next morning, Marjorie calls her for an emergency photo-shoot. She's
got
to engage Quinn's services for the flight. It's getting windy. They're in
the
air, though, and on their way to the other island. As the storm comes up
for
real, Quinn decides to turn back, but the weather turns much worse and
they
crash-land on an island. The next morning, they discuss their fate --
which
is that they're stuck on the island.
While they're gone, Frank spent the evening ogling Angelica's island
dancing.
The next morning, they learn that Quinn and Robin have gone down and they
engage a search-and-rescue team together.
Back on the island, Quinn and Robin have climbed to the highest point on
the
island to find a beacon...that isn't there. They're not on the island that
they thought they were on. They spot a boat, though. They hurry back down
the
mountain, taking the rest of the day to get back to camp. They pump up
their
raft and spend the night rowing around the island to where they'd seen the
boat. As they get closer, they see that there are two boats -- one of them
is
a pirate boat.
They flee back out of the water and up into the hills. They fight with the
pirates, then convince them that they have jewels, get away again, and are
forced to jump off of a cliff into the ocean. They get back out of the
water,
then kiss for the first time. They flee up the island, still worried the
pirates will find them. They can't go back to camp because the plane is
too
obvious a sign.
Frank and Anjelica have spent the day drinking together. Frank sees
Anjelica
home. She strips and convinces him to stay.
Quinn and Robin make camp under a WWII plane, eating breadfruit. He gets
an
idea: take the pontoons off of the WWII plane to change his plane to a
seaplane. They get the pontoons back to camp and spend some time chopping
trees and branches and fronds to attach them. They've just about gotten
everything set when the pirates show up on the horizon again. The pirates
have a cannon -- of course they do! -- and start homing in on them. The
last
shot gets close and Quinn takes shrapnel. They get in the plane and manage
to
take off, with the pirates shooting straight up at them, and then blowing
themselves up when the shot returns to Earth on a very tight parabola.
They're in the air, but Quinn is fading. He teaches her how to fly enough
for
her to be able to land the plane. They make it back, with her landing the
plane.
Robin and Frank confess their transgressions and agree not to get married.
Quinn hurries to the airport. He thinks he's missed Robin, but he'd
watched
the wrong plane take off. She's just getting off the plane. He meets her.
"My
life is too simple. I want to complicate the hell out of it."
Unknown Cosmic Time Machine (2023) -- "8/10"
[image]Look, it's a bit of a weird and clickbait-y title and IMDb lists Joe
Biden as the main star, even though he appeared in it for about 20
seconds,
drooling his way through a couple of throwaway sentences at a press
conference that he most likely didn't understand in anything other than
the
most superficial manner. Joe Biden had nothing to do with the "JWST"
whatsoever.
They
happened to finally launch it while he was president. That he's listed
first
just shows how much of a cult the goddamned liberal world is. You can bet
your boots that there is no way that Amazon-owned IMDb would have listed
Donald Trump as the star of this movie had he been president when the JWST
launched.
The second person listed is one of the actual stars: Amber Straughn
(@Astraughnomer on Twitter; I gotta hand it to her...that's kind clever)
and
the main star is actually Thomas Zurbuchen, a Swiss guy who was Head of
Science Programs at NASA and was the one who finally got this program
done.
The movie lets you know how many single-points-of-failure they had and
that
they managed to avoid all of them in what ended up being an absolutely
flawless launch. I watched it live on Christmas Day 2021. It launched from
French Guiana and inserted that satellite so perfectly into its flight
path
to L2 that its mission is expected to be twice as long as planned.
They got the first images back and everything is lined up and perfect.
It's
already making incredible discoveries and collecting absolutely vital
data.
As the people in the movie say: it's a bright spot in an otherwise
oft-depressing world situation. We came together from all sorts of
countries
to work together and achieved something wonderful.
I gave this documentary an extra star for being about something totally
awesome and for keeping the runtime reasonable (64 minutes).
Manhunt (Zhui bu) (2017) -- "6/10"
John Woo directed this, and his signature is occasionally apparent. While it
has a reasonably interesting story, this is not a great movie. The
character-building is kind of non-existent.
Du Qiu (Zhang Hanyu) is an attorney who's worked for a pharmaceutical
company
Tenjin for a long time. He's about to relocate to America. He's in a
restaurant, in the kitchen with two women Rain (Ha Ji-won) and Dawn
(Angeles
Woo), who he semi-protects from some rough customers who come in demanding
food and service and, probably, sex. The customers retreat to the dining
room, while Qiu small-talks with them about classic movies. They send him
out
to get a DVD that he's been talking about. While he's gone, they gun down
everyone in the dining room. They're assassins and didn't really need his
chivalry -- but they appreciated it enough to be important later.
He's now at a big company party where he meets two women: Chinese/Japanese
Mayumi Mounami / Zhen Tianmei (Qi Wei) and an ethereally thin vamp who
dances
with him, then sneaks off to his house, where she ... breaks in? Or did
she
get a key from his boss? Anyway, she's dressed as sexy as she's capable of
doing, given her eating disorder. She waits in bed for him.
He wakes the next morning next to her. She's dead. He calls the police.
They
arrive, but so does a housekeeper he's never seen before. She accuses him
of
definitely being the murderer. Commanding officer Yuji Asano (Kuniharu
Tokunaga) seems hell-bent on setting him up, letting him go so he can gun
him
down as he runs away. Du Qiu escapes over a railing with some gymnastic
skills. Old hand Satoshi Yamura (Masaharu Fukuyama) is put on the case,
paired with eager neophyte Rika (Nanami Sakuraba), who's as much in the
way
as she is helpful. She'll get better, though.
Yamamura tracks down Qiu and almost has him a few times, but Qui slips his
grasp and ends up in a migrant camp, befriending Sakaguchi (Yasuaki
Kurata),
who speaks Chinese. The other migrants help him blend in and avoid being
swept up in the occasional police raid.
Qui arranges a meeting with his former boss Yoshihiro Sakai (Jun
Kunimura),
president of Tenjen, to find out what the hell is going on. The boss and
his
company hire Rain and Dawn to take him out. Despite Dawn's exhortations,
Rain
can't do it. Instead, she shoots the emissary from the company and starts
spraying bullets everywhere so that Qui can escape. He does -- on a
jet-ski.
Yamamura is hot on his trail, on his own jet-ski. Lots of splashy-splashy
and
John Woo-style super-jumps and slo-mo camera angles.
Mayumi shows up to help him escape on a Shinkansen (bullet train). Thanks
to
his investigation, Yamamura actually wants to help Qiu because he now
believes that he's innocent. He's convinced the killer was left-handed,
which
Qiu is not. Mayumi and Qiu escape to her country home, where she tells him
how he's the reason that her husband committed suicide -- Qiu was so
relentless in pursuing a case against him three years ago that the husband
couldn't take it anymore. Qiu apologizes, saying that the information he
worked with came directly from the authorities.
Rain and Dawn crash the party quite literally. Yamamura isn't far behind,
plowing into Dawn a few times, with her popping back up each time. She
keeps
shooting herself up with some drug that gives her quasi-superhuman
endurance
and strength, as well as making her nearly invulnerable. Qiu and Mayumi
flee
in a car, but Yamamura drives them off the road, pairs up with them. then
pulls a Defiant Ones and cuffs himself to Qiu.
Rain and Dawn continue the pursuit. Yamamura takes a bullet, but puts down
Dawn for good. She overdoses trying to resurrect herself and dies in
Rain's
arms. The camera zooms in on her face, showing us that Rain thinks she's
now
justified in thinking she deserves revenge. Dude, you're a contract killer
whose job is to frame some people for crimes that you're covering up for
other people. You don't exactly have the moral high ground.
They take Yamamura to the hospital and let Qiu go. He ends up with
Sakaguchi,
infiltrating the top-secret experiments of Tenjin, posing as homeless
"volunteers". Once inside, they find out that everyone's being horribly
abused in violent experiments with subsequent generations of the drugs
that
Rain and Dawn use to pump themselves up. Sakaguchi goes first and comes
back,
pumped up like a living weapon, helpless to stop himself from killing
several
of his fellow prisoners before he manages to kill himself in a moment of
clarity. Qiu goes next and is deep into painful experiments when Yamamura
shows up, demanding to see him.
Sakai cuts him off at the entrance, where Yamamura bribes him with a few
letters of the code her needs to unlock the extra-super-good version of
the
super-soldier formula. Just try to keep up here. As Qiu is released and
sicced on Yamamura, Rain makes peace with Mayumi, realizing that Sakai is
actually responsible for Dawn's death. This is done in a much cheesier
manner
than I've described here. Let's just leave it at that. Qiu breaks the
conditioning after a nice fight with Yamamura. He, Rain, Yamamura, and
Mayumi
blast their way through the lab, covered in blood and all carrying at
least
one or two bullet wounds, but not seeming to feel them.
Head of the lab and Sakai's son Hiroshi (Hiroyuki Ikeuchi injects himself
with the super-duper soldier-serum and rampages for a bit, kicking
everyone's
ass. No-one really gets hurt or damaged enough not to be able to continue
fighting. They finally put down Hiroshi -- but not before he's able to
confess to the murder for which Yamamura was pursuing Qiu.
They now turn to his dad, who's somehow still alive. He regrets nothing
and
kills himself anyway -- I guess to avoid jail time? -- but not before
mortally wounding Rain, who dies in Qiu's arms, mumbling something about
classic movies (callback to the first scene in the film). All that's left
is
a goodbye between the now-best-of-buddies Yamamura and Qiu, who share a
respectful handshake.
There's a lot of slo-mo footage of flying cherry blossoms, more than one
dove, and Murayami on her wedding day, watching her husband die. It's John
Woo, baby.
That doesn't sound too terrible, does it? The plot is pretty bog-standard,
but it could have worked better if the actors were allowed to just act. I
don't know which genius inspired them to try speaking English half of the
time, but it was a bad idea. It felt like they were dubbed half of the
time,
and the other half they just tried to muddle through. I'll have to take
their
word for it that they handled the Chinese or Japanese any better. It was
pretty distracting. It was kind of interesting, though, that people spoke
to
the Chinese guy in English, except for Mayumi, who spoke both. It's kind
of
like German and French in the German part of Switzerland. Swiss-Germans
feel
more comfortable speaking English than French; Swiss-French feel the same
about German.
On the other hand, it is kind of endearing how wedded to the style John
Woo
is. This movie could easily have been made in the 80s. The soundtrack
during
well-choreographed fight scenes was all horns -- trumpets, sax, etc. -- so
it
was quite a throwback. There was even what I thought was going to be the
classic freeze-frame-to-credits, but the camera froze on Yamamura for only
two seconds before it moved to a short scene of him and Rika walking into
the
camera and her coyly dropping that "a lot of people are getting married on
trains these days." Fade to credits.
I was torn between six and seven stars because it kind of won me over by
the
end. The voice-acting was kind of painful and the acting was sometimes
laughable, but I'd probably watch it again if it drifted by on TV.
I watched it in the original Chinese, Japanese, and occasional English.
Now You See Me 2 (2016) -- "6/10"
It's odd to see so much fan service for a movie that's only the second in the
series, but that's kind of how it feels. This movie also totally expects
you
to have remembered what happened in the first movie (which I "watched in
2014" ), as well as
who is who in the cast.
So, there's the Four Horseman, except it's only three of the original
horseman because, apparently, Isla Fisher, either wasn't invited back or
was
unable to come back, or whatever. Anyway, in what passes for being
open-minded, Fisher's character Henley is gone and has been replaced by
Lula
(Lizzy Caplan). She joins Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Daniel Atlas
(Jesse Eisenberg), Jack Wilder (Dave Franco), and super-secret hidden
member
Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo), who is also in the FBI. The FBI suspects, but
does not know.
They're all in hiding at the start of the movie. They are kept there by an
organization called "The Eye", practicing for a big "show". Everyone has a
boss, even anarchist-magicians. The Eye is the boss of the Horsemen. They
basically crash the reveal of some sort of new phone, called Octa 8 -- a
bit
redundant -- and start to reveal how the company's CEO is hell-bent on
collecting everyone's data. In the middle of their interruption, they
themselves are interrupted by a mysterious figure who reveals all of their
secrets. Turnaround is fair play! Switcheroo! This kind of thing is going
to
keep happening. It's kind of this movie's "thing".
They barely escape, sliding down an escape tube into a van. Wait, no, they
end up in Macau. Magic! Switcheroo! There are a lot of reveals in this
movie.
These were just the first of many, so buckle up.
Dylan is at the pick-up point, but the Horsemen are not there. Instead, he
gets a call from his arch-nemesis Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman), who
says
that the wheels of his own plan are in motion. [Reveal!] Dylan goes to the
prison to confront him, but does a bad job of confronting him in that he
ends
up springing him. They travel to Macau together because Thaddeus's people
heard from little birdies that the Horsemen are there.
Back in Macau, where it turns out that Merritt has a twin brother Chase
[Reveal!] -- obviously also played by Woody Harrelson -- who reveals a bit
more about their shared life growing up in a pretty over-the-top campy
way.
He leaves them at The Sands casino in Macau where they are to meet his
boss
in a sumptuous suite. Another big [Reveal!] introduces us to Walter Mabry
(Daniel Radcliffe).
He tells a long story about his partnership with the CEO of the company
that
makes the Octa 8. That guy betrayed him, so Walter faked his own death,
then
bought out the company through a bunch of anonymous investors...look, it
doesn't matter, right? Most of this is bullshit because everybody's lying
and
there are layers of subterfuge, so there's no point in even trying to
figure
out which of these head-fakes are head-fakes and which moves are real
attempts to get closer to yet-unrevealed goals.
The Horsemen (well, horsepeople) make a plan to steal a computer chip-like
thing that everybody calls "the stick". They pretend to be buyers of it
and
finagle their way into the vault, where Jack swipes the chip/card and they
do
a little ballet of throwing the thing around and doing sleight-of-hand to
prevent guards frisking them from finding it.
Meanwhile, Dylan and Thaddeus go to the world's oldest magic store --
where
the Horsemen had just outfitted themselves -- to follow the trail.
Thaddeus
[Reveals!] that he speaks Mandarin when he responds to the shop owner.
Afterwards, he goes fishing for a compliment from Dylan, who responds in
Mandarin, "If your Mandarin were any good, I would have let you know."
[Reveal!] They track the Horsemen to a local market, where Danny, Dylan,
and
Walter tussle. Well, Walter's henchmen tussle with Dylan, who'd pretended
to
get rid of Danny for Walter, but had really deftly slipped him the real
"stick" before locking him outside. Dylan eventually gets caught by Chase
and
Walter and their henchmen. The Horsemen are mystified as to how they still
have the "stick".
Walter has his goons beat up Dylan, vamping and preening and generally
chewing the scenery in a truly awful way. I can't tell if Radcliffe is
serious about this performance or if he's taking the piss, but it's
god-awful. But that's not all! Walter introduces his father Arthur
Tressler
(Michael Caine), who is also god-awful. In the scene on the boat,
otherwise
great actors are all trapped together by an awful script with laughable
dialogue in a sort of Mexican standoff. Father and son pack Dylan into the
safe his father died in and throw him into the water, toasting champagne
and
chortling. I am not kidding about any of this. If you're wondering,
Ruffalo
is no better, just phoning it in.
Dylan escapes, thinking of what his father told him and just by believing
in
himself. The rest of the Horsemen show up in the nick of time to save him
from drowning and they have a real gladfest about how awesome it is that
they're all together again. They have the stick, but it's fake -- or is
it?
-- and have no time to plan, but then they plan something super-elaborate
anyway because they are impossibly amazing and flawless. Oh, and the lady
and
son from the oldest magic store in the world show introduce themselves as
"The Eye" and that they're fully on board and no longer hiding in the
shadows, so that's resolved too! [Reveal!]
Each of the horsemen puts on their own magic show somewhere in London,
with
the locations pointing somewhere in the Thames, by the bridge. They
pretend
to barely get away, then jump on motorcycles, then fail to escape, then
get
captured by Walter and Arthur and Chase, who's a maniac. They all herd
onto a
business jet, which feels odd, then Walter gets the stick, reveals that
it's
actually the real one, then orders them all thrown out of the plane. Chase
obliges.
TADA! The Horsemen float back into view by the windows, inviting Tressler
and
son outside. They are on a floating barge in the middle of the Thames,
just
before midnight on New Year's Eve. [Reveal!] The horsemen grandstand
around,
explaining their trick, then turn the whole lot of them over to the
authorities. The FBI closes in with boats, but the Horsemen are gone,
except
for Dylan, who his counterpart at the FBI catches, but he bribes her with
a
USB stick of data on Walter, then disappears.
They rendezvous at some mansion that the Eye owns, all driving there in a
car
together like a bunch of poors. Thaddeus shows up, [revealing!] himself
and
Dylan's dad as having been the best of friends, with their rivalry having
just been a diversion. Dylan swallows it hook, line, and sinker. Thaddeus
leaves, telling them to check out what's behind the curtain. OMG it's just
the entire nerve center of the Eye that was used to track the Horsemen and
to
build them up until they're worthy of running the Eye themselves.
[Reveal!]
The end. Jesus, this was a pretty thinly written bit of fan-fiction,
honestly. There was little to no tension. All of the tricks are so
bombastic
and huge that you can't even be impressed by them because there's another
one
coming two seconds later. I did like how Jack Wilder covered himself in a
hail of playing cards, then disappeared.
As with Manhunt, I was torn between six and seven, finally granting it the
same score as that other film that was sometimes lower in quality, but
seemed
to believe in itself more.
In the Tall Grass (2019) -- "8/10"
Becky (Laysla De Oliveira) and her brother Cal (Avery Whitted) are driving
across the country. They're about 1500 miles into their journey -- so,
about
halfway to San Diego. She's pregnant and feeling nauseated. They pull over
so
she can throw up.
They hear a little boy calling from the field of tall grass. It's, like,
really tall grass, well over the height of a person. Torn, they decide to
see
if they can rescue him. Cal parks by a church and they plunge into the
grass,
quickly losing sight of one another. The boy Tobin (Will Buie Jr.) seems
to
fade further away. Cal and Becky also drift away from each other. For a
minute, they can still see each other, but then lose each other again. The
tall grass is bedeviling.
Becky runs into Ross (Patrick Wilson), who is Tobin's father. He says
he'll
lead her to Cal and get them out of there. Meanwhile, Cal runs into a
careworn Tobin, who tells him that "Becky will die soon". Unnerved, but
desperate, Cal follows Tobin deeper into the field, to "the rock". The
rock
looks like an alien egg, onyx and striated. Tobin touches the rock,
thrilled
by it. He invites Cal to do the same.
Becky is attacked by something vaguely humanoid. Tobin and Cal can only
listen to her screams. Tobin predicted this.
The moon is out. The rock gleams, ancient symbols carved into it thrown
into
stark relief. It throbs. It hums. It tempts.
Travis (Harrison Gilbertson) -- Becky's baby-daddy -- drives along the
road.
He spots what he thinks might be their dirty car in the parking lot. He
wipes
off the license plate to confirm his suspicion. He can't fathom it,
though.
They've been missing for months.
Travis approaches the grass, draw by the sound of Becky and Cal. He
plunges
into the grass, quickly losing himself as well. He runs into Tobin, who
claims to somehow know him. Tobin leads him to Becky's corpse.
We see Tobin's mother Natalie (Rachel Wilson) and Tobin by the side of the
road, with Ross on the phone. Tobin and his dog Freddy hear Travis calling
Tobin's name from the tall grass. Natalie and Ross follow behind, quickly
separating from each other and never finding Tobin.
♾️ A time loop ♾️
1. Cal and Becky heard Tobin and went in to find him.
2. Two months later, Travis heard Cal and Becky and went in to find
them.
3. Sometime before Cal and Becky went in, but somehow after Travis, but
also before him because Travis already knew him -- Tobin heard
Travis
calling him ... and went in to find him.
4. Go to 1.
Travis meets up with Cal and Becky, revealing how long they've been
missing.
They manage to locate Tobin as well. Ross is watching them from the tall
grass. Travis pops Tobin on his shoulders to look out over the grass.
Tobin
sees the church. They head in that direction, walking, walking, and
walking,
but not there yet.
When Becky drops with a pain in her uterus, Ross appears from out of
nowhere
to give her CPR and "save" her. Tobin pops back up on Travis's shoulders
--
but the church is gone. Ross leads them all deeper into the grass,
claiming
to know the way out. Ross is singing "The Midnight Special"
, answering Travis
that "yeah, it's CCR, but it's older than that." It originated with
prisoners
from the American South.
Ross takes them to the rock. He touches it. Shivers. With eyes aglow, he
exhorts them to do the same. Cal is about to do it when Natalie appears,
yelling that they shouldn't do a thing that Ross says. Travis attacks
Ross,
who pops his arm out of his shoulder socket for him, then pops his wife
Natalie's head like a zit as the others run away.
The others run and spot a dilapidated bowling alley, where they escape
Ross
for a moment. Cal relocates Travis's shoulder and then they fight over
whether Cal wants to bang his sister Becky. Ross eventually shows up and
they
flee to the roof. Travis and Cal watch Freddy disappear behind a copse of
grass, but not reappear on the other side. Creepy. Weird, Supernatural.
Then
they see the dog again, just jogging through a long gap in the grass --
and
onto the road. Instead of remembering that the dog literally just
disappeared
a few seconds ago -- and forgetting how treacherous the seemingly living
grass is -- they decide to follow what looks like an obvious and easy path
out of the grass and back onto the road. Problem solved.
Travis slips from the roof, but Cal catches him. A very Stephen King look
crosses his face as sibilant voices whisper incomprehensible suggestions
in
his head. He lets Travis drop to the pavement.
As Ross pops through the roof exit that they'd barred, Cal and Becky flee
the
building, following Tobin. Becky: "Where's Travis?" Cal: "He's coming."
Becky
doesn't believe him and runs back. Cal continues, but Ross appears out of
nowhere, tackling him and choking the life out of him. The camera pulls
back
to reveal several Cal corpses in increasing stages of decomposition. Ross
has
been killing him for quite a while now.
♾️ Loop-de-loop. ♾️
Becky awakens in mud, in a torrential downpour. She hears Travis, who is
somehow either still alive or alive again or in another timeline ... or
something. At any rate, she hears him. He is close. Close enough to touch.
It's so dark and rainy. They reach out toward each other, fingers nearly
touching Then Becky screams. The hand she'd touched was not Travis's.
She wakes. She is still in mud. Different mud. Mud at the foot of the
rock.
Lightning sheets across the sky, starkly illuminating the sigils roughly
engraved in its surface. The stick figures show a woman giving birth. The
baby lifted high. Impaled.
Cal is suddenly there. He holds her baby, tells her it's beautiful,
perfect.
She squints through the rain, smiles, drops her head back down, letting
herself relax for a second. He feeds her something. She eats it eagerly.
He
tells her it's grass. Then he tells her it's her -- it's unclear whether
it's
her baby or placenta he's purportedly fed her. It's not Cal, though. He'd
dead. It's Ross, feeding Becky her baby.
Tobin is there. He calls to Travis, who stumbles into the clearing. Travis
attacks Ross, who attacks him back, easily besting him. He stabs him with
the
spiky end of a snapped femur. Travis drops into the mud. Ross turns to
Tobin
and tries to make him touch the rock. Before he can, though, Becky rises
out
of the mud one last time to stab out Ross's other eye with her heart
locket.
She drops back to the mud, finally dead for good.
Blinded, Ross flails about. Travis struggles back to his feet. Rain lashes
down continuously. The rock looms above them, silent, watching, exhorting,
humming, whispering. Travis rips grass from the ground and garrotes Ross
with
it. It takes forever.
Against Tobin's pleas, Travis stumbles to the rock, to place his palm on
it,
to finally understand what it wants, what it does to people. He is strong
enough to resist its wiles. This is like in Midnight Mass, where the
message,
though covered in gore, was one of hope. People can resist, if they really
want to. Even seemingly irresistible forces can be resisted. You don't
have
to take their filthy deals. You can take less for yourself, sacrifice for
the
group. If a sacrifice is demanded, then maybe it's got to be you. This is
very hopeful.
Travis leads a terrified Tobin to an exit that he knows about now, having
communed with the rock, but having been strong enough to betray it. He
sends
Tobin out to prevent Cal and Becky from ever having entered the grass in
the
first place. Perhaps, if it works, he will also have retroactively saved
himself, since, if Cal and Becky never enter the grass, he will never have
followed them to also become trapped in the grass. Perhaps he is breaking
the
time loop. Perhaps he knows that only his current self will suffer, but
that
his other, original incarnation will survive, untouched by the eldritch
horror of the rock. But perhaps he doesn't suspect any of this. Perhaps he
simply selflessly sacrifices himself to save a little boy, his unborn
daughter, and her mother and uncle.
Tobin opens his eyes to find himself standing in a room with a wooden
floor.
He approaches a door, unlatches it, and lets himself into the apse of the
church across the road. He trepidatiously exits to see Cal and Becky just
about to exit their vehicle, having heard his other incarnation's cries
for
help from deep in the grass. He pleads with them not to go in, finally
convincing Becky by giving "back" her locket, the one that Travis had
given
him. She now has two lockets, one quite careworn and still covered in
Ross's
blood. She screams at Cal not to enter -- he was about to go in.
They drive off with Tobin. Travis hears their car drive off. He lies back
into the mud beneath the grass and dies as its fronds arch over him,
hiding
him from our eyes, waving to and fro in a vaguely sinister pattern as the
view fades to credits -- CCR's Midnight Special plays.
I have not read the original story, but this was a great Stephen King
adaptation. I could tell at each step that it was Stephen King -- and
old-school King, at that. I was reminded of several other King stories,
like
The Regulators, Desperation -- CAN-TAH -- as well as The Tommyknockers,
which
also had a talismanic alien artifact capable of bending time, minds, and
transcending death.
The Two Popes (2019) -- "10/10"
Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Jonathan Pryce) is from Buenos Aires. He was
in the running for pope after Pope John Paul II died. The primary
contender
was Cardinal Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger (Anthony Hopkins), who was
considerably more political. As you probably know, he would end up winning
and becoming pope in 2005. He is very conservative and believes in the
power
of the church rather than the power of the people. The church tells the
people what to do; it does not ask what the people would like it to do.
His
is a wrathful, Old-Testament church, not a merciful, forgiving
New-Testament
one.
Bergoglio returns to Buenos Aires. He is a simple man, with simple needs,
who
simply wants to help as many people as he can. He decides to retire from
his
cardinalcy in 2012 and asks the pope for permission to do so. Instead, the
pope calls him to Italy, to his summer home, to discuss the matter.
Bergoglio
arrives, speaking Italian and English as required, though his main
language
is Spanish. He arrives at the Palace of Castel Gandolfo, and walks around
the
gardens with one of the gardeners, deep in conversation, while he waits
for
the tardy pope Ratzinger to arrive.
Their first conversation starts off contentiously, with Ratzinger spouting
a
litany of Bergoglio's transgressions against the church's doctrine,
accusing
him of doing what he wants rather than what the church wants. Ratzinger
apologizes for his tardiness, saying that his former assistant was
"perfect".
Bergoglio responds that "he's in jail".
They sit together, then walk together, only tangentially discussing points
of
theology, focusing instead of the more prosaic presence and role of the
church in a modern world. They disagree strongly over the church's role:
Ratzinger thinks the church should lead and not adapt. Bergoglio believes
in
change, which Ratzinger disparages as "compromise." He spits out the word.
"Pope Benedict: When you were leader of the Jesuits in Argentina, you had all
the books on Marxism removed from the library.
Bergoglio: And I made seminarians wear cassocks all day, even when they
were
working in the vegetable garden. And I called civil marriage for
homosexuals
the Devil's plan.
Pope Benedict: You were not unlike me.
Bergoglio: I changed.
Pope Benedict: No, you compromised!
Bergoglio: No, I changed! It's a different thing."
Ratzinger is not without his charm. They walk in the garden some more
because
his fitness tracker exhorts him to "move".
"Pope Benedict: My doctor gave it to me. He said, 'You are in good shape for
86 but very bad shape for a human being.' I believe this was a joke."
Ratzinger is very much of the opinion that he knows exactly what the world
needs, down to the last detail, and that he has nothing to learn from
anyone.
The church's doctrine should not bend in any way, should not adapt at all
to
the mercurial vagaries of a world that thinks it is so modern that it only
wants a church that will bend to its will, rather than the other way
around,
"Bergoglio: We have spent these last years disciplining anyone who disagrees
with our line on divorce, on birth control, on being gay. While our planet
was being destroyed, while inequality grew like a cancer. We worried
whether
it was alright to speak the Mass in Latin, whether girls should be allowed
to
be altar servers. We built walls around us, and all the time, all the
time,
the real danger was inside. Inside with us.
Pope Benedict: You talk about walls as if they are bad things. A house is
built of walls. Strong walls.
Bergoglio: Ah... Did Jesus build walls? His face is a face of mercy. The
bigger the sinner, the warmer the welcome. Mercy is the dynamite that
blows
down walls."
Bergoglio dares to reproach the church -- and Ratzinger specifically --
for
how it handles child abuse. Ratzinger stalks away, looking very much the
intolerant and unbending bureaucrat next to Bergoglio's much more credible
man-of-God. Ratzinger had said as much earlier, when he'd accused
Bergoglio
of "thinking he was better than everyone else, better than the church."
Ratzinger is seemingly offended by Bergoglio's humbleness, modesty, and
seeming lack of a need for worldly goods. He sneers at his ugly shoes,
which
aren't nearly as fancy as Ratzinger's own Ferragamos.
Ratzinger retires for the afternoon. A gentle and kind functionary shows
Bergoglio to his room, which surprises him because he'd thought the
audience
was finished. He'd been prepared to leave -- although he'd not gotten what
he'd come for: an official acknowledgment and acceptance of his abdication
of
his cardinalcy. Ratzinger doesn't want to grant it to him for political
reasons. Bergoglio is well-respected for his exceedingly good qualities --
he'd almost been pope himself. If he were to leave prematurely -- if he
were
to be allowed to leave -- it would reflect badly on the church. People
would
take it as a sign that the church had become so bad that Bergoglio could
no
longer stand to be a part of it. The judgment would be clear.
Bergoglio is made to eat alone -- Knödel mit Söse -- while Ratzinger
eats
the same, but watching F1 racing in German. Later, Bergoglio enters a
lavish
sitting room with a television; he asks permission to turn on the TV and
watches soccer for a few minutes. Ratzinger walks in, saying to leave it
on,
even though he himself had never understood the appeal. This, from a man
who'd just spent his entire meal watching a different sport. The throwaway
comment neatly highlight's the pontiff's hypocrisy -- which had otherwise
become quite clear from their conversation in the garden.
Bergoglio turns off the TV and sits with Ratzinger. They talk quietly.
Bergoglio recounts the story of how he'd become a priest in the first
place.
The flashback shows a much younger man, about to be married. But "the
call"
came to him, in the form of a spontaneous confession with an older priest.
He
finished the story, saying that, despite having lost the love of his life,
he
knows that God would have found him anyway. If not that night, then soon
after.
Ratzinger plays the piano, a sad lullaby. They talk about music, about the
Beatles. Ratzinger seems a bit confused, with Hopkins playing the part of
an
old man, late in the evening, forgetting some details, getting lost in the
mazes of recollection, then getting a bit angry and defensive about it.
He's
not mad, just frustrated with himself. He says that he likes jokes, and
that
he "likes company". Bergoglio cites a passage that God is always with you,
to
which Ratzinger replies that "God doesn't laugh".
The next morning, the pontiff is called back to Rome by a
further-unfolding
scandal. Bergoglio is forced to accompany him, his retirement-request
unsigned and ignored. Later, Ratzinger meets Bergoglio in the Sistine
Chapel
of St. Peter's Basilica. Ratzinger confesses that he wants to retire.
Bergoglio is horrified.
"Pope Benedict: In 1978, we had three popes.
Bergoglio: Yeah, but they weren't at the same time.
Pope Benedict: I was making a little joke.
Bergoglio: A joke?
Pope Benedict: A German joke. It doesn't have to be funny."
After some back and forth, Bergoglio discerns that Ratzinger won't sign
his
retirement because he has come to believe that the only way he can retire
with a clean conscience is if he knows that someone like Bergoglio has a
chance of replacing him, of saving the church in a way that Ratzinger
cannot.
"Ratzinger: For weeks I have been praying. I wanted to resign. But the
thought that stopped me - what if at the next conclave, they voted for
you.
Bergoglio: Then I offered my resignation.
Ratzinger: Exactly. And I was delighted. One reason I didn’t want to
resign
was...what if you were next. This is only half in jest.
Bergoglio: [smiles]
Ratzinger: And so you came. And now I’ve changed.
Bergoglio: You compromised.
Ratzinger: No. I’ve changed. It’s a different thing. Your approach,
your
style is radically different from mine. And I don’t agree with most
things
you say and do...
Bergoglio: [smiles]
Ratzinger: But now I can see a necessity for Bergoglio. I cannot do this
without knowing that there is at least a possibility that you might be
chosen.
Bergoglio: No. Father, I could never...not me.
Ratzinger: We both know, in our hearts, that it could be. The Church needs
change and you could be that change."
Bergoglio fills in some gaps in his file for Ratzinger, recounting how
he'd
behaved when Argentine took a fascist lurch and killed tens of thousands
of
its own citizens. He'd excommunicated two of his Jesuit friends who'd
refused
to submit to the evil rules and petty edicts. They continued to tend their
flock -- and they were punished for it, especially after they were no
longer
under the protection of the church.
Bergoglio saved many people, and went on to do much good, but he continued
to
be haunted by what he considered to be an inexcusable betrayal of his
friends
and comrades, people who'd taken their lumps for the cause. Instead, he'd
tried to work with the fascist regime, to guide it into less destructive
practices. He was cast out, traveling through the poorest parts of
Argentina,
bringing the message and the gospel. He hears endless confessions. He
slowly
regains his reputation. He makes speeches,
"Twenty percent of the world’s population consumes resources at a rate that
robs the poor nations and future generations of what they need to survive.
Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in
order
to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “thou
shalt
not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality which idolises money.
Such
an economy also kills."
He is made a bishop. But, as Ratzinger says, he "did not live like one.
[He]
renounced luxury."
Ratzinger gives Bergoglio absolution for his sins. They order lunch: pizza
Margherita and Diavolo with two Fantas from the little stand out front. At
Ratzinger's urging, Bergoglio finishes telling his story, that he'd
reconciled with one of his old friends, but never the other.
Ratzinger then confesses about long-running sexual misconduct in parishes
for
which he was responsible, and regrets having stayed silent. What's done is
done. Bergoglio is incensed, but grants absolution. They emerge from the
Room
of Tears into the Sistine Chapel, mingling with the common folk.
Bergoglio departs, giving Ratzinger an impromptu and largely unwelcome
tango
lesson just before he leaves. We see that Ratzinger has grown exceedingly
fond of the man -- won over by his naturally principled mien, as had so
many
others before him.
From earlier in the film,
"Ratzinger: Ah yes. It must be very useful, this popularity of yours. Is
there a trick to it?
Bergoglio: I try to be myself.
Ratzinger: Hmm, when I try to be myself, people don’t seem to like me
very
much."
Bergoglio flies home. One year later, he watches Ratzinger deliver his
resignation -- in Latin. The cardinals gathered there whisper to each
other
in Italian -- "Aspetti. Mi devo essere sbagliato. [...] Mi scusi ma ho
sentito bene? Ho tradotto bene?" Bergoglio is watching with Lisabetta and
says,
"¡Lo dijo en latín! Siempre que tiene que decir algo embromado lo dice en
latín... y así sólo lo entienden unos pocos cardenales..."
And then he translates for her: "El Papa acaba de renunciar."
We witness another election, this time of Pope Frances (Bergoglio). We
see
him travel the world. We watch as he and Ratzinger watch the World Cup
final
in 2014 -- Germany vs. Argentina. Germany would emerge victorious 1--0.
Pope
Frances would have to wait until the end of 2022 to celebrate Argentina's
coronation.
They are both so brilliant in their roles. We watched it in Spanish,
Italian,
Portugese, German, and English with English subtitles. I obtained several
of
the citations from the "the final shooting script"
.
Snitch (2013) -- "6/10"
Jason Collins (Rafi Gavron) agrees to take delivery of a pretty huge number
of MDMA pills for his friend Craig (James Allen McCune). He gets the
delivery
up to his room and the DEA is on him like white on rice. He temporarily
escapes out of his bedroom window, but where's he going? There's over
2,000
pills in a plastic bag on his bed and the DEA is in his bedroom. They have
him dead to rights. The DEA agents -- including Agent Cooper (Barry
Pepper)
-- chase him down and arrest him. His mom Sylvie (Melina Kanakaredes) is
kind
of a flake and she's totally distraught. He would never do anything like
this!
His dad John Matthews (Dwayne Johnson) runs a relatively large trucking
company. We see him establishing what a great and competent employer he
is.
As he's driving out, he sees one employee Daniel James (Jon Bernthal)
doing
some extra work, even though his shift is over. Matthews initially wants
to
chide him that he's not paying overtime -- his business is stretched a bit
thin -- but it turns out that Daniel is just trying to get the bags of
cement
out of the impending rain. Matthews pitches in instead. We have
established
rapport.
Matthews shows up to talk to Jason with his ex-wife Silvie. The agent in
charge Jay Price (David Harbour) reveals to them that Jason's facing a
minimum sentence of 10 years -- and that his friend Craig set him up for
the
DEA in order to lower his own minimum 10-year sentence. Neat-o. So Jason
would never have taken delivery of the drugs if the DEA hadn't blackmailed
Craig into trying to get him to do it. Price says that, if Jason doesn't
find
someone else to frame -- if he doesn't cooperate -- then the 10 years
might
become 30 for that amount of drugs. Quite a neat cycle they've got going
there. Jason refuses, while his dad demands that he find someone to rat
on.
Jason continues to refuse to do it -- he doesn't know any drug dealers,
and
he's not going to do to someone else what was done to him by Craig,
despite
all of the adults in his world immorally exhorting him to do so. So off to
jail he goes, awaiting trial. Matthews starts to pester US attorney Joanne
Keeghan (Susan Sarandon) to find out if there's anything he can do for his
son. No. Go away. She seems to have internalized the brazen immorality of
entrapping innocent people for more arrests to the point where she either
doesn't care that it's wrong -- or just doesn't even notice.
Matthews heads out into the night, looking for trouble, and gets his ass
absolutely beaten by a group of corner hustlers, who fall on him like a
pack
of wolves. They're just about to finish him off and steal his truck when
the
cops show up.
Matthews is back with Keeghan. She says, fine, OK, if you're just going to
get yourself killed anyway, then I'll allow you to pretend to sell drugs
for
the U.S. government so we can pretend that people in desperate
circumstances
in front of whom we dangle a lucrative drug deal are actually hard-core
drug-dealers who need to be put away for a good long time, when what's
really
happening is that this is a job-security program for drug-warriors.
Matthews scours his employee records for anyone who already has two
strikes
for drug-running. Daniel James comes up. John convinces Daniel to
introduce
him to his former associate Malik (Michael K. Williams). Daniel could be
convinced because $20k is a lot of money to him and his family. His wife
Analisa (Nadine Velazquez) has to work all hours because they can't afford
to
lose her job.
That scene made me think of Marx and wage-slavery. It poignantly showed
how
most people do not have a choice about the work they do, not really. There
is
no way to argue around the fact that there is a privileged class of
employers, and everyone else. Of course some of us have jobs that treat us
well, and that we trust will continue to treat us well. But that doesn't
change the fact that the best you can hope for is a benevolent
dictatorship.
The structure is not fundamentally a democratic or fair one. The exchange
is
your time, your creativity, your attention -- for money. If you get
fulfillment, if you like your co-workers -- if you can call them friends
--
then that's a bonus, but it's not part of the structure. There is nothing
anchoring those things in anything other than an ephemeral and easily
avoided
way into people's lives.
Against his better judgment, Daniel lets John convince him. Malik agrees
to
try it out, his interest piqued by the sheer carrying capacity of a
semi-tractor-trailer truck. "Half a ton? Man, if I was in the
thousand-pound
business, I wouldn't be sitting in this dump right now." (Delivered as
only
Michael Williams could.) Malik agrees, but only if John makes the first
run
-- and if Daniel rides shotgun.
They drive 1,000 miles to El Paso, where they pick up the drugs, packing
it
in bags of cement. As they're about to pull away, a rival gang ambushes
them.
John plows on out of there, impressing the kingpin Pintera (Benjamin
Bratt).
When they return to John's warehouse, Malik orders them to transfer the
drugs
to John's truck and deliver it. The DEA is up in arms because they'd not
wired up the personal truck as well as the semi. Daniel grows suspicious
of
John, and confronts him, but is assuaged. He still walks away angry and
frustrated because he's caught up in such a shitty situation again.
They make the drop with Malik, but Cooper decides not to scoop them up. He
hears radio chatter that they're going to meet up with a very high-value
target, El Topo (who is Pintera). Matthews is pissed. Keeghan doesn't care
one bit. They urge him to stop shouting at her campaign stop. They
basically
have him over a barrel and there is f&@k-all he can do about it. She goes
back on her deal and extracts another deal out of him. He's now to take
down
El Topo for them. His next run will take him into Mexico, from which he's
unlikely to return.
Daniel finds out what Matthews has done, confronting him about it. They
send
their families into hiding. Daniel is super-pissed about everything, as he
should be. Keeghan couldn't give two shits -- Sarandon plays this role
quite
well -- but Cooper has a change of heart and advises Matthews that the
play
is a suicide run.
Matthews goes rogue. He comes up with a plan. A crucial step is for Daniel
to
get El Topo's phone number from Malik. As Matthews switches trucks to drop
the DEA listening equipment and tail, Daniel puts one guard to sleep, but
then murders two others. When Malik appears, he gut-shoots him while Malik
wings him -- Omar vs. The Punisher. Malik gives him the phone number --
he's
done-for anyway. Matthews fights off several cars full of shooters with
his
truck and his shotgun, which he wields incredibly well considering he'd
just
bought it the day before. He takes a shot in the thigh, though.
He ends up flipping the truck, but the DEA arrives before the last cartel
member can get to him. It's a truck full of $100m. At the same time,
Cooper
spots El Topo leaving his house and arrests him without incident. Matthews
leaves the $100k reward check for El Topo's capture for Daniel, who
breezes
into the police station as if he hadn't just murdered three men in cold
blood
the day before. The DEA officers don't seem much bothered by it, either,
although they must know that he'd done it.
So, the DEA took out one kingpin in the war on drugs and sent three
families
into hiding. A job well done. And how does the WitSec program work for the
two families? Jason lives with his mom -- does John get visitation rights
in
his new role? How does that work?
It was fine, I guess. I think they were indicting the drug war, but you
never
know. Maybe Cooper's supposed to be the hero! To sum up the storyline as I
saw it:
* DEA helps set up an innocent boy as a dealer so that they can get him
to
turn on other drug-dealer friends who the DEA is sure he has. If he
doesn't, no problem-o, because they've already got two arrests of
people
who probably wouldn't have been drug-dealers if the DEA hadn't
encouraged
them to do it.
* Then a father goes a bit nuts when he hears his pure and precious son
is
going to be in jail for ten years. Instead of raging against the
lunacy
of such a system, he exhorts his son to turn on any or all of his
friends, innocent or not. The boy refuses.
* So the father starts dealing drugs for the DEA, getting screwed on
deals
again and again until he takes matters into his own hands and manages
to
get his son out of jail, but exiles himself and his family from
everything they've ever known.
* He implicates an employee of his who had been determined to avoid his
third strike, getting him shot at, then shot, and also exiled, in the
end.
* All around a heartwarming story of justice.
The Night Comes for Us (2018) -- "7/10"
This is a pretty well-made Indonesian action movie with some excellent fight
choreography mixed into what are often absolutely ludicrous -- and flatly
unbelievable -- levels of endurance, stamina, and ability to take both
punishment and grievous damage. You see, Indonesians like to fight with
knives. They have to, because they are terrible, terrible shots. Everyone
in
the first half of the film dies of a knife wound because no-one with a gun
can hit the broad side of a barn.
Ito (Joe Taslim) is a Triad enforcer -- one of the Six Seas, an elite
group
entrusted with overseeing all of the Triad's drug trade. On a mission to
wipe
out a village, he has a change of heart on a beach and, instead of killing
a
little girl in cold blood -- as he'd already killed her mother -- he turns
on
his platoon and kills them instead. He takes the child back to Jakarta
with
him, where he holes up with Shinta (Salvita Decorte) and reconnects with
his
old friends and fellow gang-members Fatih (Abimana Aryasatya) and White
Boy
Bobby (Zack Lee).
We all know where this is going, right? The Triad is going to clean up the
loose end of Ito. There will be carnage along the way, as well as a twist
in
the person of Arian (Iko Uwais), another former member of Ito's gang who
is
now working in Macau for the Triad. We see him demonstrate his chops by
wiping out a whole group of thugs at the casino where he works. Chien Wu
(Sunny Pang) -- the Six Seas member in charge of cleaning up -- recruits
Arian to kill Ito, to prove himself in what he hopes will be an initiation
into the Six Seas.
First, though, Ito finds out from his former crew members Fatih and Bobby
that a local freak named Yohan (Revaldo) had stolen his gang's money. Ito
goes to Yohan's butcher shop -- out of which he sells drugs -- to clean
house. Lots and lots and lots of blood and body parts and sweet-ass fight
choreography. While Ito is fighting there, though, a ton of Yohan's men
infiltrate Shinta's apartment building. Fatih and Bobby fight them all off
in
another giant, bloody fight scene. Unfortunately for them, Chinese and
Mandarin-speaking Anna (Dian Sastrowardoyo) and French-speaking albino
Elena
(Hannah Al Rashid) -- two more of the Six Seas -- show up and finish off
Bobby, who gains time for Fatih to escape. Arian returns in the nick of
time
to help Fatih further, but Fatih only gets as far as the garage before he
meets his end.
A woman known only as The Operator (Julie Estelle) appears out of nowhere.
She is a Deux Ex Machina and Force of Nature in that she is tireless and
can't take damage. You can ring her bell all day and she isn't fazed. In
fairness, this is the exact same with Fatih, Ito, or Arian, all of whom
take
prodigious damage at various points in the film -- gaping stab wounds,
bullets, heads bounced off of concrete or iron girders -- and bounce back
unfazed seconds later, still just as coordinated, fast, and strong as they
were before they got what should have been career-, if not life-ending
concussions.
The Operator next hunts down Ito and bests him. This is amazing. One
woman,
fighting in close quarters, manages what dozens of armed men could not
even
come close to doing. I imagine that we, as viewers, are supposed to accept
that her bona fides have been established, but it felt a bit more like she
was a superhero without a backstory.
Anyway, we're on to the next giant action sequence where Ito wipes out
about
two to three dozen Triad soldiers. They are all armed with clubs or
knives,
but he bests them all. Throwing us a bone, the director shows Ito
stripping
the newspaper "armor" he'd had on under his jacket. Back at the apartment,
the Operator fights off more Triad henchmen who are there to get the
little
girl (for whatever reason). Alma and Elena show up. After The Operator
dispatches Alma, we learn that Elena and the Operator were trained in the
same unit -- or something. The Operator loses a fingertip to Elena's
knife,
but Elena loses all of her guts, then one of her arms, and then, finally,
her
jugular.
Back at the warehouse, Ito seeks out Arian, who had subdued a sniper who
was
going to kill Ito. They chat a bit, with Ito holding Arian at gunpoint. He
throws away the gun and they set to it. Just know that Arian could have
just
let the sniper kill Ito and the film would have been at least 25 minutes
shorter -- that's about how long the ultimate fight scene is -- and Ito
could
have done the same by just shooting Arian. Instead, we get a long fight
that,
while fraught with indestructibility, doesn't feel too long because it's
quite inventive.
There is a lot of blood and there are lot of slash and puncture wounds,
but
we also notice that neither of them breaks the other's joints, as they
have
done with underlings and soldiers. I noticed the same thing when The
Operator
was fighting Elena and Alma: in fights with "red shirt" NPCs, they just
brutally slice tendons and snap bones. When the main roles fight each
other,
they nicely take turns attacking and no-one does any crippling damage
until
the director has determined that the fight should be nearing its end. Then
the knife wounds start up.
Ito bests Arian, but does not kill him. Chien Wu shows up and has his gang
of
five other people take Arian out with machine guns. He's taken at least 50
bullets, but he's still breathing on the ground, so someone has to cap
him.
Indonesians are truly indestructible -- he'd already suffered so much
damage
from Ito, then all of the bullets, but he was still breathing. They're
like
Terminator robots.
The Operator gets the little girl to Ito, then drives away. OK? I guess?
No
goodbye? Ito's not long for this world, but he gets the girl on a boat --
I
suppose a metaphor for "safety". Ito gets in his car, in front of which
appears an army of Triads led by Chien Wu. Horribly damaged, but grinning
maniacally, he drives into their hail of bullets. The Wikipedia entry
deems
this ending as "his fate and the Triads are left unknown." I would say,
"oh
naw, son. He ded," but I'd just had a two-hour object lesson in how
indestructible Indonesians are, so maybe Ito lived happily ever after.
It kind of won me over a bit, but it was a lot. The fight between Arian
and
Ito was at times just laughably inhuman in their ability to take damage.
I watched it in Indonesian, Mandarin, English, and French with English
subtitles.
Rodney King (2017) -- "10/10"
This is a powerful 52 minutes. Roger Guenveur Smith delivers a one-man show.
It's just him. Alone. On a dark stage. He's in black pants and a black
T-shirt. He is barefoot. He sweats profusely. He plays different roles, in
myriad LA accents. He is mesmerizing.
He tells a spoken-word, beat-poet, staccato and syncopated and rhythmic
story.
* I learned that Rodney King had a jheri curl.
* I learned that he'd lost his mother young, to a shooting.
* I learned that his father had died, drunk, at the bottom of a swimming
pool.
* I learned that he could drive a shitbox Hyundai shockingly fast.
* I learned that he was an alcoholic, and addicted to a plethora of
things.
* I learned that no-one had ever lost that much blood and lived.
* I learned that they'd taken him to the police station instead of a
hospital.
* I learned that Officer Koon had told him, "You're going to die
tonight.
Nigger."
* I leaned that you spell Koon with a K.
* Just one, though.
* Not three.
* And also not with a C.
*
* I learned that people died in the riots.
* For no reason.
* For stupid reasons.
* I learned that he'd surfed.
* I learned that he'd skied.
* I learned that he'd died, drunk, at the bottom of his in-ground pool.
* I learned that he'd gone on TV to ask LA to stop rioting.
Rodney King said,
"Can we all get along?
"[...]
"We've got to quit. We've got to quit. You know, after all, I mean, I
could
understand the first two hours after the verdict, but to go on, to keep
going
on like this and to see that security guard shot on the ground.
"It's just not right. It's just not right, because those people will never
go
home to their families again, and I mean, please, we can get along here.
"We all can get along. We've just got to stop. You know, I mean, we're all
stuck here for a while. Let's, you know, let's try to work it out. Let's
try
to work it out."
Spike Lee directed this joint.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=49552024-01-31T21:11:51+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
1. "Dave Chappelle: The Dreamer (2023)" <#dreamer> -- "6/10"
2. "Archer (2023)" <#archer> -- "7/10"
3. "Smokey and the Bandit II (1980)" <#bandit> -- "5/10"
4. "Midnight Mass (2021)" <#midnight-mass> -- "8/10"
5. "They Cloned Tyrone (2023)" <#tyrone> -- "7/10"
6. "Bon Tschuur Ticino (2023)" <#ticino> -- "8/10"
7. "Nope (2022)" <#nope> -- "7/10"
8. "Pete Davidson: Turbo Fonzarelli (2024)" <#turbo> -- "8/10"
9. "My Octopus Teacher (2020)" <#octopus> -- "9/10"
10. "A Futile and Stupid Gesture (2018)" <#gesture> -- "8/10"
Dave Chappelle: The Dreamer (2023) -- "6/10"
There were some highlights in this show, but the first half was a bit too
self-indulgent, with a bit too much playing to the crowd. Don't get me
wrong,
the crowd absolutely loved it, but it didn't come across as well for me in
a
streaming format. He interleaves a certain preachiness with a tacked-on
joke.
In the best cases, the preachiness is completely faked, forming a long
intro
to a pretty good punchline. Usually, you can't see it coming.
The quotes below are taken from the beautifully formatted "Dave Chappelle:
The Dreamer transcript"
.
He starts off with what he probably thinks is an extremely clever
transgender
joke, where he says that dealing with Jim Carrey pretending to be Andy
Kaufman on the set of Man on the Moon is just like dealing with
transpeople.
If that's the best you've got, then just stop, man. Just stop mining that
seam. It's petered out completely at this point. He moves on handicapped
people, to show that he's equal-opportunity. Here, he circles back to the
original topic, saying that he wrote a play,
"It’s about a Black transgender woman whose pronoun is, sadly, n*gga…
"It’s a tear-jerker. At the end of the play, she dies of loneliness
’cause white liberals don’t know how to speak to her."
Which is actually not bad. But then he moves to Huckleberry Finn, and
right
back to how, if he had to go to jail, he'd claim to identify as a woman
and
get into a women's prison. The crowd-pleasing punchline is,
"Give me your fruit cocktail, bitch, before I knock your motherf*cking teeth
out. I’m a girl, just like you, bitch. Come here and suck this girl’s
dick I got. Don’t make me explain myself. I’m a girl."
Honestly, it wasn't any better in context. It's not like it loses anything
because you don't hear him deliver it. You just didn't get to see him bang
his microphone on his knee, laughing 😂 at his own joke even harder
than
the crowd could.
Strip clubs, Deborah, then on to the whole Chris Rock/Will Smith incident.
Then he's into this whole long segment about a homeless rasta transperson
who
attacked him at a show. Dave: are you afraid of becoming a one-trick pony?
Or
are you playing an extremely long con like Andy Kaufman did? Or are you
hoping that we think you're clever enough to play a boorish comedian who's
secretly enlightened? I hope you know what you're doing. You're the man
who
thought of the skit starring a blind black man who doesn't know he's black
and is the most racist KKK member in town, so we'll always have that.
On to marriage and jealousy, then a really long coda about his first years
in
comedy, messing with the Russian mob, where he, again, comes out looking
like
the only person brave enough to open his mouth and stand up to anybody.
"I didn’t buckle. You guys would’ve been very proud of me. I was scared,
but I didn’t buckle."
The story goes on to talk about "powerful dreamers", who can make reality
bend to their will. This starts off kind of weak, talking about L'il Nas
X,
but then a couple of the final parables were decent.
Archer (2023) -- "7/10"
In what turns out to be the final season of Archer, Sterling Archer (H. Jon
Benjamin), Lana Kane (Aisha Tyler), Pam Poovey (Amber Nash), Cheryl Tunt
(Judy Greer), Cyril Figgis (Chris Parnell, Dr. Algernop Krieger (Lucky
Yates), and Ray Gillette (Adam Reed) are joined by a new hire Zara Kahn
(Natalie Drew). She's a British agent who immediately vies for the top
spot
at the agency. She gets Lana's support because it annoys Archer, because
she's quite good, and also because she used to work for Interpol.
The season arc is the gang is trying get the agency into Interpol's good
graces. They hope to ride a gravy train of steady and legitimate contracts
if
they can just prove their mettle. This proves difficult, as their style,
while more than occasionally eventually effective, is quite chaotic and
hard
to reconcile with the staid bureaucracy of Interpol.
Much of Zara's mocking of Sterling centers on his age, as she is much,
much
younger. The other characters stay pretty much the same, though Pam's best
seasons are behind her, when she got on cocaine -- there's a small reprise
in
this season -- or when she revealed her whole yakuza backstory. Cheryl,
too,
is still crazy, but more muted and her lines are just going through the
motions. Krieger has some good stuff at the end of the season, but it's
hard
to avoid the conclusion that this show has said all that it's going to
say.
This isn't the best season by far, but it's still better and more
entertaining than a lot of other stuff out there. The voice acting is, as
always, superb.
I like the following moments from S14.E6 ∙ Face Off, where the team goes
undercover at an upscale and exclusive plastic-surgery spa, where they're
on
the tail of an arms dealer who keeps changing his appearance.
"Archer: Thanks for walking with me, Pam. One bad fall, and my hips could
shatter.
Pam: According to one doctor!
Archer: And according to the X-rays of my buckling tibias.
Pam: Screw the X-rays! This whole place is toxic. These doctors only make
money if they convince you there's something broken that they can fix.
Archer: Dr. Spencer actually refused to work on me because I'm too broken.
Pam: [laughs] That was reverse psychology, dude.
Archer: Oh. You think?
Pam: I know! Look, Archer, you're not the fresh young agent anymore, but
you're something better: the salty old pro who's seen it all and lived to
tell about it."
After a typical Archer-style clusterfuck in which he ends up achieving his
objective but only after nearly failing to do so in every way possible, we
have:
"Archer: What happened?
Lana: You fell 50 feet onto jagged rocks. Also, you held that asshоlе
sloth
to break its fall with your body. And, uh, it bit you when you landed. And
just soaked you in piss.
Archer: That's... amazing!
Lana: Uh, but is it?
Archer: I was worried I was getting old. But I just survived an accident
that
should have killed me. I might be invincible. [crackling] [groaning]
Krieger: Yeah, that'd be the 30 stitches. Or the nanobots, if they decided
to
rebel.
Archer: [sighs] Fine, I'm probably not invincible. Just lucky to the point
of
being immortal."
At the end of the episode, Archer sums up his style of success.
"Archer: More like all in a day's work for the world's greatest... [coughing,
hacking] ...greatest spy. That probably would have been more convincing if
I
hadn't coughed up blood.
Pam: You know, bud, maybe this is the mission where you learn not to rely
so
much on luck.
Archer: Are you kidding? This was my luckiest mission yet.
Pam: You got shot, like, a dozen times.
Archer: Yeah, in a hospital."
Don't ever change, Archer. You are my spirit animal.
Quotes are pulled from the wonderfully thorough "Archer Season 14, Episode
6
Face Off Transcript"
.
Smokey and the Bandit II (1980) -- "5/10"
This movie is absolutely not good, but nostalgia carried me a long way. It
starts off with Cledus (Jerry Reed) driving his semi in what looks like a
Nascar race, but for trucks. I have no idea whether this is a real thing
--
or whether it was ever a real thing. After handily winning a race, he's
approached by Big Enos (Pat McCormick) and Little Enos (Paul Williams),
who
want him to transport a package across the country -- for $200k. He needs
to
get the bandit (Burt Reynolds) on board, but the bandit is falling-down
drunk
because Carrie (Sally Field) has left him. Meanwhile, she was about to get
married to Buford T. Justice Junior (Mike Henry), but she skips out on
that
wedding -- just like in the first movie.
Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason) is hot on their tail, waiting for them
to
mess up. They get to the package, which turns out to be Charlotte the
elephant. She's sick, though, so they pick up a "doctor" (Dom DeLuise).
After
a little while, they discover that the elephant is not sick, but pregnant.
The film is filled with hijinks and just plain messing around. Sally Field
is
adorable. Dom DeLuise is hilarious, just naturally goofy. He fakes an
Italian
accent most of the time. There are many, many more bit characters and
somewhat-famous actors. Jackie Gleason actually plays two more roles -- a
Canadian mountie as well as a swishy Savannah-gentlemen-looking sheriff.
The
three police armies fight with the Bandit and a truck army for what feels
like the last hour. Burt Reynolds is really phoning it in, but I guess it
was
a payday.
They end up not making the delivery, dropping the contract to let
Charlotte
have her baby instead. It is never made clear why they'd been asked to
transport a pregnant elephant across the country in the first place. At
the
end, the Bandit is towing the elephant and baby with his Trans Am. I wish
I
were kidding.
It must have cost nearly nothing to make this movie. Probably renting the
elephant cost the most. Maybe they had to pay for destroying a bunch of
the
vehicles. There are really a lot of vehicles, all destroyed with practical
effects. It's all out in the desert, which makes it a lot easier and
cheaper
than if they'd been in a city (as in the Blues Brothers). It's amazing to
think that adults went to the movie theater to watch this. It's a movie
that
aims at 10-year-olds (probably about how old I was when I watched it the
first time). I guess it's the same thing as superhero movies these days.
At
least there were highbrow movies in the theaters right next to them.
Midnight Mass (2021) -- "8/10"
Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford) is out of prison after four years. He'd been
convicted of drunk-driving and vehicular manslaughter. He returns to his
parents' home on Crockett Island, a village with 127 souls in it. We get
to
know some island residents as well as some events to set things up.
The island has a new pastor: Father Paul (Hamish Linklater). He's there to
replace Monsignor Pruitt, who was still recovering from having fallen ill
on
his pilgrimage to Jerusalemn. Father Paul moves into Pruitt's quarters,
shoving a large steamer trunk. Something rustles inside it.
Erin (Kate Siegel) is a former schoolmate of Riley's. She's also back on
the
island after having spent some time off-island. She's returned with a baby
in
her belly. She picks up her friendship with Riley, but he's distant, at
least
at first.
Bev Keane (Samantha Sloyan) is a nightmare of a repressed little control
freak. She's zealously religious and predictably judgmental of everyone on
the island -- all while gathering money and glory for herself. The
islanders
are basically terrified of her. This lady just rolls on and on and on,
quoting the Bible and just talking so much because she's terrified that
someone might say something that she doesn't approve of. She cites the
Bible
for everything, it's quite brilliantly written.
Some kids sneak off to a nearby part of the island where they can hang out
and smoke pot. That part of the island is mostly abandoned and inhabited
only
by feral cats. Cats and ... something else. Later that night, it storms
something fierce. The entire island had prepared for it and hunkered down.
Riley looks out at the beach, lashed with rain. He thinks he sees
Monsignor
Pruitt in a lightning flash. He braves the storm to descend to the beach.
A
thin figure in the Monsignor's duster and fedora hurries up the beach,
away
from him.
The next morning, there are a bunch of dead cats all over the beach.
They'd
washed up from the abandoned part of the island. Their necks are broken.
They
have bites taken out of them. It's hard to say what happened, so people
just
ignore it. They clean up the bodies, making up stories about how it might
have happened.
Sheriff Hassan (Rahul Kohli) is relatively new to the island. He's
investigating the poisoning of Pike, the dog that belonged to Joe Collie
(Robert Longstreet). Bev totally poisoned the dog because she's an evil
person. Years ago, Joe had shot Leeza (Annarah Cymone) and paralyzed her
from
the waist down. Leeza is very religious and kind of one-dimensional. I'm
skipping over details here, but it doesn't really matter. Bev's a dick and
a
dog-killer is what I'm trying to say here.
Riley starts AA on the island with Father Paul. It's a one-on-one session
for
now. Riley unloads on religion, but he's working through some stuff.
Father
Paul is patient. Local drug dealer Bill/Bowl (John C. McDonald) is lured
into
an abandoned building, then attacked by something savage and vaguely
humanoid.
At church that Sunday, Father Paul exhorts Leeza to take the sacrament on
her
own two feet. The flock is shocked. But she rises and does so. Miracolo.
The
island experiences a complete religious revival. People are suspiciously
feeling better, looking better...looking younger.
Father Paul up and dies, coughing blood but is resurrected minutes later.
Later, in a confession booth, he recalls how he'd gotten there. He is
Monsignor Pruitt. His dementia had led him into the desert near Jerusalem.
A
sandstorm had overwhelmed him. He'd sought shelter in a cave that
presented
itself. As he'd stumbled deeper, two feral eyes greeted him. A winged,
humanoid thing confronted him and fell on his neck. He awakened young
again.
The creature was watching him. Father Paul concluded that his restored
youth
was a gift from God, visited upon him through this angel. He'd convinced
himself with various verses from the Bible that say that angels are scary,
which tracks with the angular-looking obvious f&@king vampire before him.
The transformations continue. Erin's baby completely disappears, as if
she'd
never been pregnant. Dr. Sarah Gunning (Annabeth Gish) is absolutely
mystified. She's further perplexed by Erin's blood sample exploding
spontaneously when sunlight hits it. Father Paul can also no longer abide
sunlight. Bev knows all and literally doesn't care for one second. She's
fully on board with this miracle express and is super-OK with breaking a
few
eggs to make an omelette. Time for judgment day. Bring. It. On.
Sarah's mother Mildred (Alex Essoe) has very bad dementia, but she, too,
is
getting younger and ... better. How is this possible? Easy! Father Paul
has
been "enriching" the eucharist with the vampire's blood. So, people are
benefitting from its immortal powers, but they also start suffering from
the
associated maladies. Paul is overwhelmed by a thirst for blood. Joe is in
the
wrong place at the wrong time. Paul feeds. Bev discovers him and doesn't
blink an eye. She and Sturge (Matt Biedel) -- along with mayor Wade
Scarborough (Michael Trucco) and his wife Dolly (Crystal Balint) -- cover
everything up, convincing themselves that they are part of the second
coming
of Christ. YOLO.
Riley suspects something is up and returns late to the church to see
father
Paul and the Angel in the rec hall. The Angel leaps on Riley and takes him
as
a victim. Riley is gone for a day or so, and Erin reports him missing.
That
night, he returns and finds her. He asks her to go out on a boat with him.
They row far from shore. He tells her his story, how he awoke after the
attack, what Father Paul told him. The Angel. He tells here that he can
see
her pulse in her neck. The sun is coming up. He tells her to row, row for
the
shore. "Run away." He explodes into flames. She screams in terror. She
returns to the island, determined to save whomever she can.
Sarah goes to the sheriff with her evidence, asking the Sheriff to
intervene,
but he can't, not with so little evidence. He is powerless before the
racism
and deep hatred of the town. He's not been there long enough. He provides
some interesting insight through his backstory. Erin, Mildred, and Sarah
try
to flee the island, but realize that the ferries aren't running. Sturge
cuts
off the power and then disables the cell tower. Father Paul reveals
himself
as Monsignor Pruitt. He tells his flock that they've already drunk angel's
blood. Kudos for showing the "angel" early on and still managing to imbue
it
with menace, despite it being in full view, in daylight. That stride into
the
church in priest's regalia was chilling.
Several people drink the blood and die, only to be immediately
resurrected.
They attack the others who didn't drink. It's a bloodbath. The angel rips
into Mildred, who'd shot father Paul in the forehead. Don't worry; he's
immortal. Bev and Sturge unleash the resurrected flock on the townsfolk
who'd
not gone to church. The shitshow continues, with only a few people
resisting.
Riley's parents, for example, have been turned, but they resist their
bloodlust. It's a nice comment on the urge: it can be resisted. Riley did
it,
too. Those who can't resist it are morally deficient, is what the show
seems
to be saying.
Later that evening, Mildred, now also resurrected, returns to the church
and
finds father Paul. They were lovers long ago and Sarah is their daughter.
He'd actually brought the destructive power of the angel to the island to
save her from dementia. He's having a few regrets, I think. Erin, Sarah,
Leeza, and Riley's younger brother Warren (Igby Rigney) set about setting
fire to the remaining boats -- to prevent anyone from leaving the island.
They return to the church and rec center to burn those too -- the
resurrected
won't have any shelter when the sun comes.
The angel attacks Erin, pinning her to the ground as it feeds. After a
while,
she regains her senses, pulling a knife, and dragging it through its
wings.
It continues to feed. When it notices what she's doing -- in a seemingly
drugged state -- she pulls its head back to her neck and continues
destroying
its wings languorously. It finishes feeding, but it's too late. Its wings
are
in tatters and itsability to fly is severely impaired.
Everyone dies. They're either shot or immolated in the sun. Leeza and
Warren
are the only ones to have escaped off of the island. They watch the angel
lurch its way through the sky, off the island. There is no way it reaches
shore. Leeza's legs are, once again, numb.
It was pretty good. I respect the actress who played Bev. She's got major
chops, but she got a little too much screen time. Her hateful speeches
became
a bit repetitive. Also, the show dragged on a bit too long, and it
lingered
on Leeza's survival way too much. I didn't really care about Leeza. I'd
hoped
that maybe Sarah or Erin would survive, but alas.
They Cloned Tyrone (2023) -- "7/10"
This movie is a little bit of Westworld, a little bit of Foxy Brown. Fontaine
(John Boyega) is a small-time hood in the Glen. He has an oddly strict
schedule, an oddness that would soon be explained. He collects money from
those who owe him. One of those people is Slick Charles (Jamie Foxx), who
pimps Yo-Yo (Teyonah Parris). He goes to collect at the motel where they
live, but Charles asks him to come back tomorrow. Fontaine is trapped in
his
car and gunned down by Isaac (J. Alphonse Nicholson). Slick Charles and
Yo-Yo
see it happen.
The next day, Fontaine is back to collect his money again. This confuses
the
hell out of all of them. They set about getting answers. They go into a
house
that seems to be guarded by a black van that Fontaine vaguely remembers
having seen the previous evening. They go in and find an elevator going
down,
down, down to a secret lab. They find a scientist, who's just starting to
tell them what's going on when Slick Charles shoots him by accident.
Fontaine
pulls back a sheet on an operating table to reveal an exact replica of
himself.
The next morning, the same house is empty. The three go to a chicken
restaurant -- they're hungry! -- where they discover that the chicken has
been laced with some compound that keeps everyone docile and giddy. Yo-Yo
seduces the restaurant manager, who looks just like the scientist they'd
killed the evening before. He blabs that the whole Glen is under
surveillance
and that they're distributing substances in everything: fried chicken,
hair-straightening products, grape drink, etc. Like, only a black director
and cast could have made this movie, right?
Next stop is a Black church where they find another elevator in the altar.
This time, they're in a much larger complex, where they see Black people
being experimented on in all sorts of innovative, but uniquely "black"
ways.
They find clones of lots of Glen residents, are starting to put pieces
together, but are forced to flee through a strip club, where the DJ is
alerted to use special music to control the crowd into chasing them. They
flee in their car, but Fontaine's car is a real beater and it breaks down
before they get anywhere. The crowd surrounds the car, but then parts when
Nixon (Kiefer Sutherland) and his clone bodyguard Chester (also John
Boyega)
show up to explain that the whole Glen is an experiment in pacification to
avoid a race war. Okaaaaay???
More stuff happens and Yo-Yo is kidnapped and thrown into a cell for
experiments. Fontaine and Slick Charles hatch a plan to get her back --
and
take down the operation while they're at it. They manage to get most of
the
gangs in the Glen down there, wreaking havoc and tearing things up. Nixon
is
not pleased, but he's not even the one really in charge. The original
Fontaine (also John Boyega) has been doing these experiments for forever,
trying to figure out how to turn black people into white people. OMG what?
I'm hanging on by a fingernail here.
Yo-Yo and Slick Charles manage to take care of Nixon. Fontaine tricks
Chester
-- his clone -- into killing his older self. They free the clones
together,
leaving them to wander naked into the streets, showing up on local news --
and then national news. The trio decide to stick together and head to
Memphis, where they know there's another big facility they could expose.
In
LA, a young man named Tyrone (also John Boyega) watches what looks like a
clone of himself wander around naked on the evening news.
This movie wasn't nearly good enough for them to be leaving the door open
to
a sequel. I liked the actors, but the plot was a bit of a wild mix of
everything, with about as much justification for motivation as Smokey and
the
Bandit II provided.
Bon Tschuur Ticino (2023) -- "8/10"
Walter Egli (Beat Schlatter) is a Swiss policeman, comfortable in his
small-time role in the Swiss government. There is an initiative to make
Switzerland have a single official language, with the additional choice of
deciding which language should be chosen. To Walter's delight, the
initiative
passes; to his horror, French is selected as the official language.
Hilarity
ensues as the formally German-speaking part of Switzerland prepares to
switch
over to French, replacing street signs with French versions and enrolling
all
functionaries -- including cops like Walter -- in French-language lessons.
An unnamed guy at the post office (Andreas Matti, the guy who'd played
Peter,
Wilder's father) was paid to divert a bunch of votes from the
German-speaking
part of Switzerland to ensure that French won. He was paid by a
French-speaking politician Jeannot Bachmann (Beat Schlatter, playing both
roles) -- although he actually speaks German and Italian perfectly -- for
what, in the end, are completely unknown reasons. I'm still not sure why
they
wanted French to win.
Walter is really terrible at French -- his teacher tells him he's in the
20%
of people who are too old to learn a new language -- and his boss Keller
(Pascal Ulli) is having a tough time of keeping him from getting fired. In
the end, he sends him and his new French-speaking partner Jonas Bornard
(Vincent Kucholl) to uncover a resistance movement in Ticino, specifically
in
Locarno, led by Enzo Castani (Leonardo Nigro) and Francesca Gamboni
(Catherine Pagani).
At the same time, Walter's mother Rosemarie (Silvia Jost) is starting a
resistance movement of her own, blowing up the Jet d'Eau and United
Nations
entryway in Geneva. Jonas is, at first, much better at infiltration -- he
bethinks himself a master of disguise -- but it's Walter who stumbles his
way
into an invitation to resistance headquarters after meeting Francesca.
They
hit it off quite well and he learns more of their plans. He does so well
that
Jonas is forced to start speaking German with him so that he can learn
more.
Up until that point, Jonas had spoken only French.
Castani's grand plan is to cut off all access to the north and west and
declare Ticinia an independent country. Francesca and Walter are chosen to
blow up the (old) train tunnel through the Gotthard. Jonas catches up to
them, just as Walter is torn between being a cop and a double-agent. He
wants
to help them fight the single-language Switzerland because he can't live
and
work in a country with a language he doesn't understand.
They blow up the tunnel and flee, with Jonas half-chasing them on an
injured
leg. The rest of the Ticinese resistance meet them and snap them up,
confining Jonas and Walter in a cell. On Jonas's shoe-phone, they discover
the plot to suppress the Swiss-German vote and beg the Ticinese to let
them
go to Bern to catch the ringleader and force him to reveal his plot. This
would derail the impending civil war.
Castani -- with a parrot on his shoulder, à la Castro -- doesn't want to
let
them go, but Francesca takes matters into her own hands, driving the three
of
them up the Tremola in a three-wheeled, 40kph Piaggio "truck". At the top,
they fool the Swiss soldiers and slip past them, stealing a jeep to head
for
Bern. From the top of the Gotthard, it's quite a way, to be honest.
They pretend to be sheep, with sheepskins. When they try to take the jeep,
there is a soldier sleeping in the back. He's about to demand what they're
doing, but she cut him off, demanding in French to know where his
sheepskin
is? She offers him hers, then they take the jeep. The confused soldier
remains in the road, pulling the sheepskin over his shoulders. This is
100%
what would happen with the Swiss Army.
In Bern, they sneak in as catering staff, then kidnap Jeannot Bachmann,
trying to force him to give himself up. He laughs at them, but then they
notice how similar he looks to Walter (it's the same actor, which is
doubly
funny). They send Walter out to give a confessional speech in French --
with
Jonas whispering in his ear via a spy device -- because Walter is
super-bad
at speaking French. The device's battery dies -- that's probably the only
spoken English in the film -- but he perseveres and manages to get the
point
across that the initiative and coming civil war are built on treachery and
lies.
They are arrested, but let go for having saved Switzerland from a civil
war.
Castani is shattered, while his entire council happily goes home. Walter
moves to Locarno to work in Francesca's restaurant.
It was a 7/10 comedy, but it gets an extra star just for being unabashedly
cute and feeling like it was made specifically for me. We watched it in
Swiss
German, Italian, French, and German, with German subtitles for the French
and
Italian parts.
Nope (2022) -- "7/10"
Otis Haywood Sr. (Keith David) owns the Haywood Ranch, where he raises and
trains horses for show business. He's about to get a big break when he's
killed by a freak accident: a nickel falls out of the sky, straight into
his
eye. His horse Ghost is struck by a house key. Otis Haywood Jr. (Daniel
Kaluuya) is forced to take over the business. To say he doesn't have his
father's flair or acumen for business is an understatement.
He's dedicated to his father's dream -- having made it his own -- but he's
really just in it for the horses and doesn't like show-business people,
who
he rightly considers to be extremely superficial, self-absorbed, and
boorish.
This makes them terrible people to keep his horses' company, but he's
forced
to go where the money is. His first outing doesn't go great. He is not a
showman. His sister Emerald "Em" (Keke Palmer) is, but she's also rather
flighty and quite dumb. She's also really pretty, even though she dresses
sloppy. Still and all, the day on the set goes poorly when Lucky the horse
kicks out when someone holds up a mirror to his face. The fool on the set
was
getting a light reading, despite OJ's warnings.
OJ is eventually forced to sell horses to a nearby theme-park ranch called
Jupiter Ranch, run by Ricky "Jupe" Park (Stephen Yeun). Ricky's backstory
is
that he's a former child actor who was on a show with a chimpanzee named
Gordy who went absolutely and literally apeshit on set, nearly killing the
actress who'd played his sister. It's not really clear what this all has
to
do with anything, other than animals can be beasts and they do their own
thing and we treat them like furniture in our arrogance and it
occasionally
backfires -- but not often enough to make us stop being assholes, if I'm
interpreting director and writer Jordan Peele's implicit message at-all
correctly.
Back at Haywood Ranch, OJ and Emerald notice mysterious power outages and
spooked horses. They see something in the sky. It's a UFO. They head off
to a
local electronics store, where they buy some surveillance equipment from
Angel Torres (Brandon Perea), who accompanies them back to the ranch to
help
set everything up. When OJ asks him to tilt one camera way up in the sky,
Angel is so down with that because he's an absolute freak for aliens.
They experiment with the UFO, but soon discover that it's not a ship: it's
a
creature, a predator that sucks up people, horses, shiny items. When it
eats
something that disagrees with it, it regurgitates it. Things like the
nickel
that killed Otis Sr. It's capable of sitting still in the sky for days at
a
time, shrouded in a cloud that it creates for itself, as camouflage. It
turns
out that Jupe already knew what it was and had been offering up the horses
he
was buying from OJ as sacrifices, to build a rapport with the creature.
This
backfires spectacularly, as Jupe's attempt to offer Lucky as a sacrifice
ends
up killing everyone at the show except for lucky. Hence the name, I guess.
They recruit Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott), the director of the show
from
which they'd been fired, who lends his gravelly voice and mysterious
demeanor
to the whole affair, bringing a hand-turned IMAX film camera that will
keep
working when the power goes out. He works with Angel to set up
surveillance
and they get some footage...but Antlers goes off the leash, running up a
local hill to get even closer footage of the beast. He lures it in...and
it
predictably eats him right up. He gets some pretty good footage, though,
which no-one will ever see.
Angel is almost caught but ends up getting the creature to swallow a bunch
of
barbed wire -- purely by accident -- which makes it explode into a
different
shape, broader, more like a jellyfish than a jellybean. Em and OJ use
Lucky
and a motorcycle to lure the creature to a giant balloon that's been
rigged
to blow, but not before they snap a picture of it using an old analog
camera
buried in a well (where tourists would snap themselves looking down into
it).
Em has the picture as proof and OJ is back on Lucky, safe and sound. The
creature has been blown to pieces. The end.
Pete Davidson: Turbo Fonzarelli (2024) -- "8/10"
The quotes below are taken from the beautifully formatted "Pete Davidson:
Turbo Fonzarelli transcript"
.
I like Pete's delivery. He seems much more humble than Chappelle, so it
makes
me more forgiving of a rambling style that doesn't really go anywhere. His
super-long stories are funny, replete with mini-zingers. Davidson starts
with
a bit about drugs, then segues into a rant about Apple's phones and how
that
company is like the mafia. Then it's on to his mom, who still isn't dating
even though his father died 23 years ago. Somehow he gets away with the
following joke,
"I’ll go over to my mom’s. I’ll hang out, eat dinner for an hour, and
she’s like, “Where you going?” I’m like, “Home. What do you
mean?” Unless we’re about to fuck in the shower, I don’t… My
duties
as a son are done. [audience laughs] It’s to the point where I might
fuck
her just to get her off my back."
He stays on this topic for a while, about how he would shop his mom around
on
dating sites, if she were willing. Then, somehow, he moves on to Leonardo
diCaprio and how he thought he was gay when he was younger because he
really,
really liked him. From there, he's on to the Make-A-Wish Foundation and
how
he's "had offers". From there, he's on a wonderful, long story about his
stalker. He really tells this story well, about how he kind of encourages
her, about how he's sad when she's gone. He talks about how his mom met
her
-- she'd actually invited her in to the house to watch shows with herself
and
her 79-year-old friend Terry.
He takes the stalker to court for a restraining order, but he's of two
minds
(or pretending to be ... whatever, it's hilarious.
"So I was a little excited to see her, a little bit, you know. I didn’t try
to look hot or anything, but I picked an outfit. You know, yeah. Hell
yeah!
You know? An outfit that said, like, “Hey.” “Don’t give up.” You
know? [audience laughs] “Some things are worth fighting for.”
Restraining
order, shmestraining shorder. I go, “What happened, Tasty?” “What
happened to my girl?” He goes, “Bro, she was deemed unfit to stand
trial.” Deemed unfit to stand up at a trial. That means a bunch of
medical
professionals and officers of the law saw her and were like, “No.” I
immediately felt insulted. It’s a little fucked up and embarrassing for
me,
don’t you think? “Deemed unfit”? I don’t think you understand how
insane that is. Let me put it in perspective for you. Jeffrey Dahmer was
deemed fit… [audience laughs] …to stand trial. A guy who murdered and
ate
gay people. One chick is into me, off to the nuthouse!"
Finally, he talks about house-shopping, as a guy who'd grown up in
apartments
on Staten Island. He moves on to talking about how his mom made a fake
Twitter account to defend him online: "JoeSmith1355".
"[...] my mom made a Twitter account with her 79-year-old female friend
Terry, and Terry was calling the shots."
My Octopus Teacher (2020) -- "9/10"
This documentary starts quite slowly and seems inordinately focused on the
narrator Craig Foster for what feels like the first 1/3 of the film. But
it
is absolutely charming and the narrator got me on his side by the middle
of
the film. This is a movie about a man who begins diving in a South African
kelp forest every day for about a year. He was already a documentarian,
but
he was a bit down on his luck, a bit burned out. He used the routine of
his
schedule and the serenity of the ocean to heal. Or that's what he says.
Wikipedia says he spent three years making this movie. It's fine, though.
Take liberties with your art, I say!
He would eventually involve his son (somebody had to hold the camera for
him). But the style of the documentary depicts him diving alone. He didn't
wear a wetsuit, despite the at-times 10ºC water. He learned how to hold
his
breath for a long time. He didn't use a scuba tank because it would have
been
a hindrance in the kelp forest.
He meets an octopus. She's not very big. He follows her every day,
learning
about how she hunts, how she spends her day. They have adventures
together.
She grows to trust him. He can pick her up. She rides his arm and hand
when
he rises to breathe. She wraps herself around his chest, almost like a
hug.
We learn a tremendous amount about octopuses, eventually. They are
solitary.
She has taken up residence in a pretty dangerous area, but she is so
clever.
She learns how to hunt in the shallows. She must evade the ubiquitous and
deadly pajama sharks. Once, she doesn't. It grabs one of her tentacles and
tears it off. She manages to escape and return to her lair, but she is
gravely injured. Craig visits her every day, deigning to interfere enough
to
help her get food. He's mostly hands-off, but he can't help himself. She
doesn't seem much capable of eating, though. Her color is white as she has
no
energy to change colors anymore. She recovers, though, with the stump
initially sealing off -- and then growing a stub that grows to a
full-fledged
replacement arm over three months. They continue their life together.
When she is attacked again, she is much cleverer: she flees to the
shallows
-- and then right out onto the beach, clambering over shells to return to
the
water in a different place. When the shark still has her scent, she shoots
over to a pile of shells that she uses her 2,000 suckers to pull over
herself
like a carapace. She looks like a soccer ball. The shark chomps down on
her,
but is unable to penetrate the ad-hoc shell. She slides to the side and
then
hops on its back, slithering her tendril-like arms out of the shells to
attach to its back. The shark has no idea what's going on. It's been
"completely outwitted." She drops off, drops her temporary armor in a
cloud
of dust and shells, and retreats to the safety of her den. One can't help
but
imagine a self-satisfied look on the creature's face.
Foster watches the octopus play with fish in the shallows. He notices that
its play behavior distinct from hunting behavior, that the octopus "seems
to
be having fun". Foster has his last close interaction with the octopus, as
it
cuddles up to him for quite some time. Soon after, he returns to their
shared
grounds in the kelp forest -- and sees another octopus there. A larger,
male
octopus. These solitary creatures come into close contact for only one
reason.
She produces numerous eggs, then slowly expires as she nurtures them until
they hatch. She no longer hunts, no longer feeds. Her final purpose will
be
to produce a brood of octopuses to carry on after her. Lethargic and
nearly
dead, she floats out of her den. Fish begin to feed on her while she's
still
moving a bit. A shark shows up to end things abruptly, carrying her body
off
into the deep and dark ocean.
The cinematography by Roger Horrocks was absolutely incredible. The
colors,
the detail, the incredible number of situations that they were able to
capture -- just impressive. It's worth it just for the visuals, but the
gentle story of precious life and nature is the lesson you'll hopefully
take
away. It is in the small, in the supposedly insignificant, that we truly
find
meaning.
This philosophy flies in the face of nearly everything else our culture
tries
to teach us. Our culture is geared toward growth and consumption. Bigger,
better, faster, more. Don't slow down to enjoy what you have because
you're
missing out on what you don't.
We should pay attention to these examples, of which there are many, many
more. Not just in our culture, but in those we consider backwards, in
those
places that we disparagingly call The Third World and only grudgingly now
call The Developing World. Or we consider other cultures alien and
antagonistic (e.g., China).
We consider ourselves to be "developed" but we will watch movies like this
for 90 minutes and then go right back to the consumerist, neoliberal grind
and hustle, getting as much as we can for ourselves, unaware and
unconcerned
how much our lifestyles impact billions of other creatures like this
amazing
little octopus 🐙 .
A Futile and Stupid Gesture (2018) -- "8/10"
Douglas Kenney (Will Forte) and Henry Beard (Domhnall Gleeson) took the
Harvard Lampoon to new heights during their time there. They published
Bored
of the Rings, a book that consisted nearly entirely of Tolkien puns. In
their
final year, Henry has gotten into two prestigious graduate schools. Doug
hasn't even applied anywhere yet. He comes up with the awesome idea of
taking
the Lampoon national. He and Henry should just keep publishing funny shit,
but in a national magazine, is what he's saying. C'mon Henry, don't be so
stuffy. Henry is tempted.
They shop the idea around, with disastrous results, until they end up in
Matty Simmons's (Matt Walsh) office. He publishes Weight Watchers, among
others. He takes a chance on them. They fill out the staff with eccentrics
and comedians from the bowels of New York, like Anne Beatts (Natasha
Lyonne),
Michael Gross (Krister Johnson), Tom Snyder (Ed Helms), Gilda Radner
(Jackie
Tohn), Bill Murray (Jon Daly), and Christopher Guest (Seth Green). Martin
Mull plays the narrator -- an older version of Doug.
[image]The movie sets up some of the most famous covers and spoofs, like
the
"If you don't buy this magazine, we'll shoot this dog." [1] They get sued
by
everybody: Mormons, the Catholic church, Disney, Volkswagen, ... the list
goes on. They started a radio show. They were flying high. Incredible
parties. Lots of booze and drugs. Henry is sober and keeps the ship aright
and afloat. Doug is a comic mastermind, but he's pretty out of control.
His
wife leaves him when his infidelities become too obvious.
At one point, he goes on a long sabbatical, returning nine months later as
if
nothing had happened. They miss the boat on a TV show, watching a lot of
their writers starting on SNL when Lorne Michaels poaches them all. But
the
magazine's success is more than enough for them to look into making
movies,
introducing John Belushi (John Gemberling), Harold Ramis (Rick Glassman),
Chevy Chase (Joel McHale), Ivan Reitman (Lonny Ross), John Landis (Brian
Huskey), Rodney Dangerfield (Erv Dahl), and Paul Shaffer (Paul Scheer).
Most
of these people are well-known actors and comedians of today playing
famous
people from the late 70s.
Henry and Doug get their promised buyout from Matty: a cool $3.5M a piece.
Henry immediately retires. He returns briefly when Doug is deep into booze
and drugs, to try to offer him emotional support, telling him that he's
always there for him. They part on shaky terms, but Henry is worried.
Doug writes Animal House. We visit the set and watch producer Brad (Joe Lo
Truglio) fight with Doug all the way, then claim that he knew all along it
would be a success when Animal House becomes the highest-earning comedy of
all time. Doug is terrified of a follow-up. He writes Caddyshack, which
wasn't immediately successful like Animal House, but would eventually
become
a cult classic. I liked Caddyshack much better. I loved Chevy Chase in it.
Bill Murray was great as well, but I thought it was a Chevy Chase vehicle.
In 1980, after a cocaine-fueled week with Chevy Chase -- they started off
with six days of drying out, but failed to stick the landing -- Doug
Kenney
throws himself off of a cliff at the age of 33. Martin Mull's narration as
the older Kenney was a subterfuge -- there would never be an older Kenney.
The film ends at Kenney's funeral, to which everyone has shown up,
including
Henry. Henry had gotten a call that we were led to believe was Doug
finally
calling his old friend for help. Instead, it was to tell Henry that Doug
was
dead. Henry starts a food fight at the funeral, ending the film as it had
started at Harvard so long ago.
I gave it an extra star because, man, I lived and breathed this stuff
growing
up. I watched the movies again and again. I read the Lampoon whenever I
could. I read Bored of the Rings. This shit was formative for me. I
watched
SCTV; I watched SNL; I listened to Monty Python. I had a lot more Mad
magazines than Lampoons, but it was all influential to the snarky little
asshole I would become.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] The dog's name was, apparently, "Cheeseface"
.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=49252024-01-27T22:49:11+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
1. "Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)" <#holy-grail> -- "6/10"
2. "Voyeur (2017)" <#voyeur> -- "4/10"
3. "The Fundamentals of Caring (2016)" <#fundamental> -- "9/10"
4. "The Old Guard (2020)" <#old-guard> -- "3/10"
5. "Mute (2018)" <#mute> -- "7/10"
6. "Nuhr in Berlin (2016)" <#nuhr> -- "7/10"
7. "Dany Boon: Des Hauts-De-France (2018)" <#boon> -- "8/10"
8. "Fucking Berlin (2016)" <#fucking-berlin> -- "7/10"
9. "The Pianist (2002)" <#pianist> -- "10/10"
10. "Ricky Gervais: Armageddon (2023)" <#armageddon> -- "9/10"
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) -- "6/10"
This movie is basically a collection of skits that follows a rough storyline.
1. We meet King Arthur (Graham Chapman) as he's searching for other
knights to join his quest. He's accompanied by his squire (Terry
Gilliam), who carries all of his stuff and bangs coconut shells
together while Arthur pretends to be riding a horse.
2. Arthur encounters a knight in a castle who catapults a cow at him.
3. Arthur encounters the Constitutional Peasant.
4. Arthur relates the tale of having gotten Excalibur from the Lady in
the
Lake (the "moistened bink.")
5. Arthur meets and defeats the Black Knight (John Cleese), whose limbs
he
hacks off ("it's only a flesh wound")
6. He observes a witch trial, where he recruits Sir Bedevere the Wise
(Terry Jones), Sir Lancelot the Brave (John Cleese), Sir Galahad the
Pure (Michael Palin), and Sir Robin the
Not-Quite-So-Brave-as-Sir-Lancelot (Eric Idle).
7. They do a musical number at Camelot ("Spamalot"), but quickly move
on.
8. God orders them to find the holy grail.
9. They encounter the French Taunter ("I fart in your general
direction.")
10. They split up.
11. A modern-day historian filming a documentary on the Arthurian
legends
is killed by an unknown knight on horseback, triggering a police
investigation. (This will be important later.)
12. They encounter the three-headed Knights Who Say Ni
13. Galahad ends up in a castle full of lusty women who want to be
punished. Lancelot rescues him. Because he's an idiot who can't
read
the room.
14. Lancelot storms a castle to rescue a woman being held against her
will
("huge tracts of land."), but the cry for help turns out to have
come
from an effeminate prince. Lancelot is not not into it.
15. They get to a cave where the location of the Grail is hidden. It is
guarded by the Rabbit of Caerbannog.
16. After it kills several of the "red shirt" knights who'd just joined
the party, they use the Holy Hand Grenade to vanquish the rabbit.
17. They read the inscription inside the cave to reveal that they must
find the castle of Arggh.
18. A cave monster gets the brother leading them (another "red shirt"),
but the rest get away when the animator suffers a heart attack in
mid-sketch.
19. They get to the Bridge of Death, which crosses the Gorge of Eternal
Peril. There they are asked the Questions Three by the
bridge-keeper
(Terry Gilliam, at his most gruesome). ("Blue. No, green!" and
"African or European Swallow?")
20. Lancelot is arrested for having killed the historian earlier
21. Arthur and Bedevere proceed to the island on what feels like an
interminable boat voyage.
22. The French have occupied the castle of Arghhh ("I blow my nose at
you.")
23. They are repelled by the French, reaching shore on foot (after
having
gotten to the island castle by boat).
24. They gather a ragtag army of knights that kind of appear out of
nowhere. They charge the shoreline, headed for the water and,
eventually, maybe, the castle.
25. Two police cars cut them off, arresting Arthur and Bedevere for the
hit-and-run on the historian
26. One officer holds up his hand to cover the lens. The screen goes
dark.
The end.
27. The final five minutes are just the same 30 seconds of organ music,
repeated over and over, on a black screen on which credits never
roll.
This is probably the most subversisvely funny thing in the movie.
It
plays on the frustration of expectation.
It's not aged as well as I'd hoped it would, but it still has its moments.
Voyeur (2017) -- "4/10"
This is a documentary about how Gay Talese came to write a book documenting
the story of a man Gerald Foos, who built a motel with the express purpose
of
spying on its customers. He built a spying network into the ceiling, where
he
could range along the rooms, looking down upon the inhabitants. He did
this
for decades.
The Articles Editor of the New Yorker Susan Morrison opines that he is "a
sociopath", which, honestly, is exactly the kind of superficial judgment I
would expect to hear from her, given her position and appearance. I
prejudged
her and I was dead-on. Is wanting to watch other people sociopathic? His
story is that he basically watched his own personal reality TV for
decades.
He was hoping to watch people have sex.
None of that is outside of societal norms, except that the voyeurism
happened
unbeknownst to the victims. I'm not saying it's legal or moral but most of
what he did -- watch strangers do stuff -- is what millions do every
single
day. And there's a giant industry that profits from it. That's not even
close
to sociopathic. It's just illegal.
No? Billions of people watch other people every damned day, most of the
time
people they don't know. Those people are nearly almost always aware that
someone's watching them, but a lot of times they aren't. How many fail
videos
are there, taken from security cameras? From doorbell cameras? From
camera-phones? Almost none of those people are aware that they're being
filmed. Is it sociopathic to watch those? Is it sociopathic to watch
pornography? When something is done by nearly everyone, then it's not
sociopathic by definition.
No, I think the guy just loved doing it. He documented it like a lab
researcher, too, perhaps to make it seem like the time he spent doing it
was
worthwhile. But he generally seems to have a pretty obsessive personality.
He
has about 2.5-3 million baseball cards, with 1 million of them sitting in
unopened boxes.
This is a classic Netflix documentary: it blows up about 30 minutes of
content to 90 minutes. The last half-an-hour is just about whether
Talese's
book is going to tank or not, or whether Gerald was lying about part of
what
he said, or whether Gay is even a journalist, as he didn't even check out
any
basic facts.
It's chock-full of long interviews with Gerald and his wife Anita. Almost
none of these are interesting, not really. It's just kind of uncomfortable
to
watch, but I'm sure I'm in the tiny mintority here, as people love to
watch
other people. I don't know how many montages they can cram in of people
getting dressed -- usually Gerald or Gay.
Gay is kind of a raging ego, though. I came out of this with a much worse
opinion than when I went in. I know my Mom had liked him, for whatever
reason, probably because he had an Italian background and was big in the
late
60s/early 70s when she lived in New York.
The Fundamentals of Caring (2016) -- "9/10"
Ben Benjamin (Paul Rudd) is a freshly minted caregiver. His first job is with
Trevor (Craig Roberts), a young man with Duchenne's muscular dystrophy. He
and his strong-willed mother Elsa (Jennifer Ehle) had moved from England
about nine months ago. The young man is funny, has a ludicrously strict
schedule, and is soon getting along with Ben as the only caregiver he's
ever
liked.
They go back and forth, Elsa finds out that Ben had lost his own son three
years ago. Ben still hasn't signed his wife Janet's (Julia Denton) divorce
papers. Trevor cons Ben into taking him on a trip to see roadside
attractions
and the world's deepest pit. After his mother reluctantly agrees, Trevor
starts to chicken out.
"Trevor: Well done. That was very heroic how you jumped in there without
missing a beat. But I'm sorry, I can't do it.
Ben: Why? This was your idea.
Trevor: I know, but I think I was caught up in the moment. That moment
being
you telling me to go fuck myself repeatedly.
Ben: This is great. The open road. You know what? I'm going to call the
Make-a-Wish Foundation and I'm going to get Katy Perry to meet us in a
motel
in Missoula. What song do you want her to sing while she's doin' ya?
Trevor: [long pause] Fireworks."
They're on the road. 90 East.
Lots of newness. Trevor's grumpy. But oho! A real-live chick. As he rolls
by,
she says "Cool fucking sneakers." He says, "Mall." His game needs work.
He finally eats a Slim Jim, then pretends to be choking, which he's done
before. It looks like it's real this time. Ben veers to a stop. It's not
real. Trevor's just fucking with him. Again.
At "Rufus" the world's biggest bovine, some local guys have to carry
Trevor's
wheelchair upstairs because they have no wheelchair access.
They're at a restaurant and the girl from the other stop is outside,
hitching
a ride. Her name is Dot (Selena Gomez). Her face is very round and her
voice
is very deep and gravelly. She smokes what looks like clove cigarettes.
She
calls Ben Mervin.
"Trevor: Hi, Mervin.
Ben: Shut up. Or tomorrow I'll put your clothes on inside-out.
Trevor: [Laughs out loud.]"
They pick up Peaches, whose car is broken down. She's pregnant, and headed
to
Nebraska. Her husband is Afghanistan. They're now a foursome on the open
road.
At the motel, Trevor kind of works up the courage to ask Dot on a dinner
date. Well, he convinces Ben to decide he doesn't want to eat, which Dot
sees
through immediately. "Pick me up when you're ready to go."
Ben wants to give Trevor his pills before dinner, but then can't find
them.
They're panicking.
"Ben: I don't know what happened.
Trevor: I know what happened. You're an idiot!
Ben: I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not an idiot. ... I'm
hilarious
[shows the bag of pills]
Trevor: Oh... Oh, my hands are numb. Are you kidding me? This is when you
decide to play the prank? When I'm about to go on my first date?
Ben: It just seemed funnier that way.
Trevor: [long pause] Agreed."
They stop in Salt Lake City to see Trevor's father (Frederick Weller). It
turns out that Bob hadn't written all of those letters that Trevor had
never
read. Instead, it was his mother.
Trevor is shattered. He has a completely predictable fallout with Ben. He
wants to go home. Dot puts her goddamned foot down. "We're going to the
pit."
At the pit, Ben confronts the car that's been following them for a while.
It's Cash, Dot's Dad (Bobby Cannavale). He asks to be allowed to continue
tailing them until Dot gets to where she's going.
The phone rings. The gang needs help at the bottom of the pit. Peaches is
having her baby. Why does Ben have to do this? He's the caregiver. Dozens
of
people around, but Ben's the one.
After the baby's here and Peaches is taken away in an ambulance, Dot makes
up
with her dad and decides to let him drive her to Denver instead.
"Cash: What's wrong with him?
Ben: Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. He'll be lucky if he makes it to 30.
Cash: Is it rare?
Ben: It affects one out of every 3,500 males.
Cash: Life's a real class-A bitch, isn't it.
Ben: Not always. [They watch Dot and Trevor say goodbye.]"
As Dot's leaving:
"Ben: Well, take care of yourself in Denver. There are a lot of perverts
there.
Dot: Yeah? And how would you know?
Ben: We all keep in touch."
Coda:
"Ben: [typing his book] Soon after our trip, I resigned as his caregiver, but
continued on as his friend. Two weeks ago, when I went to visit Trevor on
his
21st birthday, I found him lying on the floor of his bedroom, finally at
peace. The new caregiver, a kind woman in her 60s named Anna, was sobbing.
She, like me, knew just how special he was. He was faking, of course. Anna
quit the next day."
I quite liked this movie. Pitch-perfect. All of the actors were great and
natural. Would watch again.
The Old Guard (2020) -- "3/10"
This movie is f&@king terrible. It is so ham-handed and terribly made. It's
like a bad TV show. Even Charlize Theron can't begin to save this thing.
It's
so blatantly and stupidly manipulative. It's entirely too long. They paper
over terrible acting with a terrible hip-hop soundtrack that's supposed to
inspire "mood". The acting is seriously about as bad as some of the more
home-made-looking shorts on Dust. The fight choreography is so clumsy that
it serves as a reminder for how much work goes into making good battle
choreography.
I'm loath to describe the plot, but I'll do it for my future self, I
guess.
It's about a group of four immortal warriors who go around doing good
deeds,
like assassinating people for the CIA, but for good reasons. They agree to
a
mission with a dude from the CIA. It's a trap, arranged by a big pharma
company that wants to capture them to figure out their secret to
immortality.
They get away, surprise, surprise. They are captured again, to no-one's
surprise. They ostracize the member who betrayed them.
They end up getting the guy who betrayed them in the CIA to be the Charlie
to
their Angels. Some immortal lady they talked about having been thrown into
the ocean in an iron maiden appears at the end, probably in the vain hope
of
inspiring a sequel. Oh, Jesus, "it's in the works"
.
All of the people are terrible. The ones who are good people are terrible
actors. It's a shit show.
Mute (2018) -- "7/10"
Leo (Alexander Skarsgård) is man living in a futuristic city who, as a young
Amish boy, had his throat struck by a boat propellor. His parents refused
treatment and he's permanently mute now. The world is...interesting and
rendered quite believably (if you don't think about it too much). It looks
nice. It almost seems as if the Amish have ended up in this world, as
well.
The PA announcements are in English and German.
It turns out that they're in Berlin, but that the Americans are even more
deeply nested there in the future than they are now. It's like the cold
war
never ended, and has gotten hot. Also, there's at least one Amish person
living in Berlin. Either Germany has Amish people or he traveled quite a
way
in an airplane.
One of the main ideas is that the U.S. military has on AWOL problem. One
of
them is Cactus Bill (Paul Rudd), who was a medic in the military. He
sports a
gigantic mustache, has the standard Rudd-ian charm, but is darker. He's a
bad
man. He's only interested in himself and the welfare of his daughter Josie
(apparently played by twins Mia-Sophie Bastin and Lea-Marie Bastin), for
whom
he doesn't really know how to care. He takes her from seedy spot to seedy
spot, but she's a good sport, constantly drawing in silence. We don't hear
a
word from her until the end.
Cactus Bill works for Maksim (Gilbert Owuor), a local Russian gang leader
who
needs Bill's services to patch up his soldiers. Bill works with Duck
(Justin
Theroux), who's also a former medic, but isn't AWOL. Duck is not a good
person either. He works on cybernetic prosthetics, but is mostly
interested
in the little kids, if you know what I mean. This would eventually result
in
a rift between Bill and Duck, as Bill is livid that Duck might be
interested
in Josie.
Cactus Bill's story arc is that he's trying to get Maksim to provide him
with
travel papers for himself and Josie, so he can get the hell out of
Germany.
Amish Leo is a bartender in Maksim's bar. His girlfriend Naadirah (Seyneb
Saleh) works there as a waitress. There's a lot of back-and-forth, but
it's
not really that complicated. Naadirah is Josie's mother. Cactus Bill gets
mad
about her relationship with Leo and kills her. Just kills her. He's a
psycho,
as we slowly learn over the course of the film as the Rudd-ian patina
wears
away to reveal the monster beneath. He is not a sympathetic character, is
what I'm saying.
Duck is just as bad, really. Duck's messing with Leo because he keeps
sending
Leo messages on the phone that Naadirah had given him. Leo barely knows
how
to use it because he's Amish, so we forgive him his not knowing that all
messages don't necessarily come from her. Knowing that Leo is looking for
Bill and because Duck is angry with Bill, he leaks their location. Leo
grabs
a giant and very sturdy bedpost as his weapon and drives over to Maksim's
bar
in Maksim's car, which he'd stolen earlier (he's kind of going off the
rails
looking for Naadirah).
Did I mention that Leo is really strong? We see him swimming a few times,
holding his breath for a long time, etc. etc. Presumably this is how he's
worked through the trauma of the accident of his youth. We see him taking
a
deep breath, then downing an entire pint of water very dramatically a few
times. This is a Chekhov's gun, of course.
So Leo cleans house at Maksim's bar, getting all the way up to Maksim's
office without a shot fired. He cleans Maksim's clock with the bedpost,
grabs
Bill's papers and leaves. At Bill's house, he finds Nicky (Jannis
Niewöhner), another torture victim, in the basement. He frees him, but
the
poor sonofabitch runs into Bill at the top of the stairs, who's already
back
from his fruitless visit to Maksim's.
Bill tosses Leo the keys to the storage area in the cellar -- a classic
apparatus of wooden slats that Leo could have pulverized if he hadn't left
his bedpost bludgeon leaning on the bannister by the stairs. Leo finds
Naadirah's body in a plastic bag and hauls her out of there. Bill watches,
then grabs his giant hunting knife from its sheath behind his back,
tussles
with Leo, and realizes to his horror just how goddamned strong Leo is. Leo
easily and slowly shoves the knife through Bill's trachea and out the back
of
his neck. He leaves him to die slowly on his basement floor. Leo carries
Naadirah outside and mourns her, leaning against a tree.
Duck shows up and finds his best friend choking on his own blood on the
floor. He decides not to save him because Bill had threatened to reveal
his
pedophilic predilections and because Bill had brought this on himself by
killing Naadirah. Duck grabs Bill's keys, turns a camera monitor so Bill
can
see him walking into his daughter's room, then goes up and grabs Josie. He
doesn't do anything to her right then, but Bill's dying thoughts will be
dominated by knowing that Josie is in Duck's filthy, filthy hands -- and
she
has no idea of the danger she's in. Lights out for Bill.
Duck is still pissed that he's lost his friend, though, so he goes
upstairs,
finds Leo against the tree and kicks him in the temple, taking him out in
one
blow. We watch as Duck gives Leo a cybernetic larynx.
Leo awakes in the back of a car, with Duck driving himself and
Josie...somewhere that is not Berlin. Duck drives them to a bridge, then
drags Leo out onto a bench in the middle. Duck tells Leo that this is
where
he'd taken that photo of Naadirah that Leo had been showing to everyone.
He'd
loved her, at least as a friend. Now he's going to dispose of Leo. He cuts
the lock holding a gate closed. No-one knows why there would be a gate
there,
but it helps the plot, so it's there.
Duck is the second person that day to be surprised at how strong Leo is.
Leo
rope-a-dopes Duck and, as Duck grabs him to push him over, Leo locks his
arms
around him, gulping huge breaths, then tips them both off the bridge. Duck
is
utterly unprepared and untrained and gives up the ghost quite quickly. Leo
swims to the surface to see Josie dangerously close to the edge, looking
down
at him. She calls to him. He waves her back, then finally croaks out a
warning that she understands.
He's back on the bridge. Josie is comfortable with him. They travel on
together. The end.
Nuhr in Berlin (2016) -- "7/10"
This is a classic standup set from Dieter Nuhr, delivered in Berlin to a
relatively sympathetic crowd. He starts off with some red meat for
Germans:
how silly and stupid Americans are, how uncomprehending they are, and how
badly his subtitled comedy show will do when shown on American Netflix.
He's
probably right, but it seemed a little overly harsh and not very funny.
The
laughter came not from the jokes, but from "hurdur Amerikaner sind so
DUMM."
Anyway, he moved on to cleverer stuff. His modus operandi is verbal
subterfuge, contrarianism, and reductio ad absurdum. He doesn't range too
far
into the absurd, though. He sticks to stuff like the weird Internet, the
judgmental Internet, kids these days, women vs. men -- the usual fare. He
delivers with aplomb and he's clever -- although sometimes his persona of
knowing how clever he is threatens to lose the crowd, he generally wins
them
back when he's able to convince them he's just kidding, he's just playing
a
role, he's just trying to make them laugh. If they'd just relax and lean
into
it, they'd be having fun instead of judging.
He's also very much against the overly judgmental and vindictive style of
the
moment, even though his own personal favorite saying is, "Wenn man keine
Ahnung hat: Einfach mal Fresse halten," which is good advice, but
sometimes
lands a bit poorly. I think he's an intelligent, funny guy with
interesting
takes -- even if I have no idea which of them he actually believes in, it
doesn't matter.
I watched it in German with German subtitles (most of it while riding the
indoor bike).
Dany Boon: Des Hauts-De-France (2018) -- "8/10"
This is a one-man show. Dany starts out singing a little song, one that he
apparently began his career with. He tells us about himself -- although
the
audience clearly knows everything already, laughing at the appropriate
spots.
E.g., when he talks about how a promoter/agent had told him what a bad
idea
it would be to emphasize his having come from from the north, the Ch'tis.
He
was told to clean up his accent, then laughs and says, yes, having focused
on
the Ch'tis was the greatest mistake he'd made in his career (Bienvenue
chez
les Ch'tis was his breakout film; it's pretty awesome).
He moves on to a long bit about how slow and inefficient La Poste is,
doing a
lot of pantomime. From there, he's talking about the old telephone book,
and
how it helped him find one of the most famous people in the Ch'tis and
helped
him get his first gig. He pantomimes the people and his first gig. He was
attacked by the owner's dog, with the four besotted members of the
audience
cheering them both on. Afterward, they wonder where the dog's gone.
Next up is miming and robot noises. He segues into pretending to be a
massively over-musclebound friend of his -- Fred Martens -- who'd been a
bouncer at a night club called Macumba. He is also not particularly
clever.
Hilarity ensues. It's pretty lowbrow, but it's perfect for my French, as
he's
a very physical comedian. It's bad for me because he speaks very quickly
and
in a strong northern accent. I learned a lot of words, though. I had the
subtitles on in French, and had my online dictionary ready.
Next up, he accompanies himself on the piano with an ode to
Ch'Nord-Pas-de-Calais-Picardie, where he grew up. His voice is actually
pretty good. Apparently, in 2016, the region was renamed to "les
Hauts-de-France", eradicating his heritage with a new name. He is not
happy
about it. He goes into all of the name changes, how the region welcomes
you
with a new sign, how you no longer say "wassingue" for mop, but
"serpillière" (which is, presumably, more sophisticated). Belgium is now
called "le Royaume du Dessus des Hauts-de-France d'En-Dessous".
The joke is that renaming the region doesn't change its inhabitants at
all.
Still hicks. Still proud of it. This is quite good, actually. He segues
into
a demo -- with slides -- of the "new GPS" with all of the new names and
regions. He has a lot to say about the French government's desire to
"simplify".
The next sketch is about Euro Disney, about the "it's a small world" ride.
He
calls the song a virus that even Alzheimer's couldn't eradicate. He
accompanies himself on the guitar to a French rewrite of the song. He goes
off-script and rewrites it with the "world as it is".
Now he's onto the "youth of today". No reading, no writing, no expressing
themselves, no consonants -- he's kidding, of course. Kind of. He shows a
WhatsApp conversation. It's actually quite brilliant seeing a foreign
language mangled into another, shorter one, as we do with
numbers-for-letters, etc.
He is now pretending to read a book, a work of great literature from the
French canon: Harlequin. The mispronunciations and misapprehensions he
pretends to have, as a young reader, are ... f&$king hilarious. They just
are. He reads a word "sulfureuse" that he doesn't know, assumes it's a
family
name, then checks himself because "it doesn't start with a capital
letter".
Even the subtitles show what's he's pronouncing, which aren't actual
words.
"Un petit frigo a braguette" and so on.
He then demonstrates how to read a book, not how he first tried it --
across
both pages. Stop at the fold, read until the number -- which isn't part of
the story -- jump back up to the top, over the fold. Clever, actually. I'd
never thought about how I'd had to learn how to read a book -- and that
those
familiar with only screens might be tripped up.
He talks about older people a bit, but then moves right back to teenagers
and
watching his own children mutate into people he doesn't recognize. He
mimes
an exorcism of his teenager. He says that he went to a child psychologist
because of the aggression, but they were too far gone. He was sent to a
lion-tamer at the circus instead, who informs him that the only language
that
beasts -- and teenagers -- obey is German. He says it worked like a charm
and
now his teenagers jump through flaming hoops, and he can place his head in
the mouth of the eldest without fear. He mimes a morning at home.
He mimes a bit about having a bad back, talks about getting older, and
having
his body start to fail him. He cracks everything, then plays some nice
jazz
piano, breaking off to crack his knuckles grotesquely. He's quite
talented.
He pretends that the only song he remembers in its entirety is -- wait for
it
-- "It's a Small World". He dedicates the show to his mother, then sings a
song in Spanish for her. He spits on the consonants, then leaves them off.
It's a bit overdone, but the public loves it. The finale is great. He's
really talented.
I watched it in French with French subtitles.
Fucking Berlin (2016) -- "7/10"
Sonja (Svenja Jung) is a 20-year-old student in Berlin. She studies
mathematics. Her best friend in school is Jule (Charley Ann Schmutzler).
She
is wild, but harmless. She just wants to get laid. Sonja hooks up with
bartender Milan (Christoph Letkowski). It's on-again, off-again with him,
but
she moves on, for now.
Sonja's enjoying the night life. She meets Ladja (Mateusz Dopieralski).
They
move in together. They're super-good at partying, but bad at making money.
She loses her job as a waitress because she's only got time for Ladja and
her
studies.
She gets a job as a camgirl. Money's coming in. Things are better. With
the
job and her studies, she hardly ever sees Ladja. She gets fed up with that
job and decides to move on. On Christmas, she calls a madam Anja (Judith
Steinhäuser) who runs a small brothel out of her apartment. When she gets
back to her apartment, she find Ladja on the steps. They're back together.
It's back to partying, studying, and satisfying customers' kinks without
doing more than hand stuff (and maybe mouth stuff, it looked like?) It's
relatively innocent. She becomes good friends with an older guy Karl-Heinz
(Axel Gottschick), who just likes to take pictures. He gives her a square
meal, paying her as well to sit under the table and photograph up her
skirt.
He tells her to come by every Sunday for a meal whenever she wants.
This is all not enough because the party life is having an impact. Ladja
spent all of her money on a few all-night ragers where the two of them
tore
through Berlin. She wasn't aware it was her money fueling it, though.
When she's helping a new recruit at Anja's, Anja walks in and says that
there's a customer who wants to fuck (not there for a kink). It's Sonja's
first time. It's her math professor, who doesn't recognize her. With that
dam
broken, she starts to gladly take the extra €50. As she says, at first,
it
was with guys who she'd have gone home with sober, then with guys who
she'd
have to have been drunk to go home with, then with those she'd have to
have
been really hammered to go home with, then it didn't matter anymore.
She comes to view Anja's Oasis (die Oase) as her home, the people there as
her family. Anja tells them that the Oasis is going out of business. After
that, things get tougher; they have to take whatever customers they can
get.
Ladja still doesn't know anything. He doesn't seem to be trying too hard
to
find out. On the way to a club, one of her customers recognizes her and
calls
her Mascha (her trade name).She introduces Ladja so that the customer
doesn't
talk too much. But then the two start speaking Russian with one another.
It's
clear that the customer told Ladja that she doesn't work at a call-center.
At the club, Ladja is watching her dance, lost in thought. She meets Milan
in
the bathroom. Jule is mad at her because she'd had her eye on Milan (I
guess?) and asks him if he's one of her johns. He still wants her,
although
she asks him why? He has everything one could want.
Ladja locks her out of her apartment. She calls Milan. They hook right the
hell up, doing it standing up on the balcony, with her skinny ass right up
on
the railing. He tells her he loves her. She wakes in his apartment in the
morning. There's several hundred euros waiting for her.
She gets to school and Jule has told everyone that she's a prostitute.
Jule
is tearing into her, but at least one girl defends her. The Oasis has a
new
owner. It's the dude who ran the cam-girl shop she used to work at. You
can
imagine that it's going to be great. We see her take a job for €40 (she
had
to haggle) for a gang-gang with five guys watching. She pukes on the guy
under her. She's takes a pregnancy test.
Ladja shows up at the Oasis, sees her, then runs away. It's unclear what
the
fuck he was looking for there. Such a child. A little Polish man-child.
One
of her friends clocks him. He judges her pretty harshly considering he's
told
her that he'd been peddling his ass to men before he met her.
She meets one of her old friends from the Oasis who said that she'd be
leaving to get straight. She's back on drugs. She asks for money. Sonja
takes
her whole wad out. Peels off €30 or so. Her friend peels off the larger
part, smiles at her, and walks away. OK, I guess?
She visits Milan to give him back his wallet.
I deducted a star because the ending was pretty cheesy. Oh, this was
apparently based on a true story. It still felt a bit trite.
I watched it German. There were some cool Berlin accents in there.
The Pianist (2002) -- "10/10"
The eponymous Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody) is a pianist, perhaps the
finest in Europe, living in Warsaw with his bourgeois family. It is 1942.
The
family watches as their lives become increasingly circumscribed. As with
most
films of this kind, we are invited to see how bad it was for those who had
grand pianos and hand-woven carpets to sell, for whom there was at least
somewhat of a buffer, at least at first.
The unnamed thousands who simply died or were killed immediately don't
have
an interesting story to tell. We do see them in this film, though, in the
form of corpses splayed on the sidewalks, either having been clearly shot
or
just having starved or frozen to death. The other people hurry around
them.
People in general are shown to not be helpful, to not have engaged in
petty
acts of resistance. Even those commanded to lie on the ground, do so,
seemingly in the hope that there is somehow a conclusion other than the
obvious final one.
Others turn their backs and raise their hands. They are indoctrinated by
the
desperation of their situation, I suppose. It's impossible to judge them.
The
situation is so mind-bending, so horrifying. One thinks "I would have
resisted", but then, perhaps, one convinces oneself that this act of
resistance would be futile, better to wait it out until it means
something.
It is only later, when you see that you've ended in a cul-de-sac that you
realize you had nothing to lose by standing up for yourself earlier, when
you
still had some pride, some dignity. Now you have nothing, and you gained
nothing for having given what you had away. Oh, to know in advance that
your
adversaries are heartless and will take everything you have no matter what
you do.
This movie covers all of the bases of Warsaw Ghetto horror, hitting all
the
notes of Holocaust-porn. The Germans raid an apartment at night, demand
everyone stand up, then throw the man in the wheelchair off the balcony
for
not following orders. A woman asks where they're being taken and an
officer
shoots her point-blank in the forehead without changing facial expression
or
breaking stride. A German officer shows up, selects nine men out of a
group
of a couple dozen, then orders them to lie down. He walks along, shooting
each in the back of his head with his Luger. It's only an eight-shot, so
he
has to wait to reload for the last one. A German steals an old man's
violin.
Petty things.
The family -- along with all of the other Jews in the city -- are pushed
out
of their apartment, moved to a much smaller one in the ghetto. They are
moved
into camps in the streets. Some of them are part of work gangs. A wall is
built to block off the ghetto. It is horrifying. The cruelty is nearly
indescribable. The Germans pound on the Jews, enjoying it like they're in
the
ninth circle of hell.
Wlad's entire family is taken away, on a train. Wlad is saved by the chief
of
the Jewish ghetto police, who are collaborating, but still capable of
small
kindnesses. Wlad ends up on a work gang, in the ghetto. He is finally
allowed
to take part in some minor smuggling operations for the resistance. He
eventually asks them to help him get out of the ghetto. They tell him that
it's easier getting out than surviving on the outside, but agree to help.
He
contacts his old friends, who help him into an apartment, a mansard, where
he
lives alone for at least half a year. He is visited once or twice a week
by
his friends.
He watches a heroic, if ultimately futile, resistance attack on the
Germans
in the street. The battle ends with a giant hole in the wall separating
the
Ghetto from the German area, and the entire resistance building bombed and
in
flames.
One day, his handler appears to tell him that the jig is up. His own cover
has been blown, the two friends have already been arrested, and it's only
a
matter of time before the Germans find the apartment. He chooses to stay,
seeing that he has no chance on the outside. One day, he hears a car stop
outside and hears boots and German voices in the stairwell. They don't
find
him. Days later, he is running out of food. In his search, he tips a shelf
and shatters plates. The horrible lady next door demands he open up or
she'll
call the police. Wlad collects his things and creeps out of the apartment,
but she's waiting. She demands his papers. He flees into the night.
He goes to the address of his emergency contact. They shuffle him off to
another apartment, this one deep in the German zone. They take care of
him,
but it's long weeks between food deliveries. One of the guys complains
that
it's hard to buy food with no money; Wlad gives him his watch, "Food is
more
important than time." Adrian Brody has the perfect body type for this film
--
he's naturally gaunt. He's in bed the next time they visit, delirious,
starving. He has jaundice. They bring a doctor.
The next and last time they visit, they bring news that the allies are
getting closer -- the Americans on one side and the Russians on the other.
Wlad recovers. Weeks later, he sees the resistance -- much stronger now --
assault the German headquarters across the street, using bombs, automatic
rifles, and a grenade-launcher.
Days later, the city is in shambles. His water tap no longer delivers
water.
He hears a tumult in the hallway, "Get out! The Germans have surrounded
the
building!" He discovers that he is locked in his apartment. A tank rolls
into
view outside the window, lumbering into place, ponderously taking aim and
blowing part of the floor of his building apart. He escapes through the
now-accessible apartment next door. But he flees upstairs. Hearing more
Germans, he escapes onto the roof. More Germans shoot at him from across
the
way. He gets away, fleeing down to street level. The resistance is
everywhere
and well-armed but so are are the Germans still. He hides behind trash
cans
in the street and falls asleep, despite the battle.
When he wakes, it is nighttime. He ventures back into the street. Troops
approach. He drops to the street and blends in with the dozens of bodies
already there. He's in a hospital, looking for food, looking for water.
Gunshots and explosions sound in the distance, no longer close. No water,
no
electricity. He makes a fire and cooks two large root vegetables he'd
found.
He eats millet dry, by the handful.
The Germans are back, cleaning up the bodies, burning them. What is left
of
the resistance is marched past. The Germans retain control for now.
They're
back with flamethrowers. He escapes out a back window, twisting an ankle
on
the fall. He's got moxie, though. Over the wall. The city is in utter
ruins.
A brilliant shot of him walking away, looking like that lone penguin
heading
into the wastes of Antarctica.
He scavenges the wastes, looking for food, hair and beard long, pants held
up
with a rope, his body emaciated, limping on his damaged ankle. He cradles
a
can of pickles that he's found, escaping from the next German voices to
the
attic, right up to the top. He has the can, but no can-opener. He pulls up
the ladder.
The Germans are gone. He's back downstairs. He finds fireplace implements
to
open the can. It drops. He lets it roll away because there is a German
(Thomas Kretschmann), impeccably dressed, watching him. You can see Wlad's
breath, but not the German's. The contrast between the two could not be
more
striking. The German asks if he lives there, if he works there. Ludicrous
questions. The house stands alone in a wasteland of bombed-out buildings
and
rubble.
Wlad tells him that he a pianist. The German leads him to the piano that
Wlad
had heard being played earlier. He sits. Calms his hands. It's
heart-wrenching. He beings to play. It's Chopin -- Ballade No. 1 in G
Minor,
Op. 23. It's beautiful. The moonlight shines in on him, heavenly. The
German
officer watches and listens. His face reveals almost an awareness of what
he
and his country have done, watching this ruin of a man, capable of
producing
such beauty with his hands. Or maybe he regrets a bit having to kill him.
Who
knows? He's nearly inscrutable. Wlad continues to play, perhaps in the
hope
that, as long as he continues to play, he can live. The German lets him
live.
He tells his driver he'd found nothing.
The house becomes a German Stützpunkt. Dozens of German officers are on
the
ground floor, busily administering their war. The officer returns to Wlad,
He
throws him a package of food.
"Wlad: Was bedeutet die ganze Schiesserei?
German Officer: Die Russen. Auf die andere Flussseite. Ein paar Wochen
müssen sie noch aushalten. Mehr nicht."
They meet once more. he brings a lot more food, and even gives him his
coat
when he sees that Wlad is freezing.
The Germans are gone. It's dead winter. People are there. he goes out to
meet
them, still wearing the German greatcoat. People scream that he's German.
Soldiers shoot at him, throw grenades, he manages to yell to them in
Polish
that he's Polish. They finally believe him. He is saved.
A friend of his leaves the camp in which he'd been imprisoned, still
alive,
walking past a pen full of captured Germans. One of them is the German
who'd
helped Wlad. He jumps up to ask him if he's heard of Szpilman. He begs him
to
tell Wlad that he's there.
Wlad is playing piano again. His friend watches from the booth. They are
both
overcome with emotion, but Wlad doesn't miss a note. They actually return
to
the field to find the German, but the whole camp is gone. The Russians
have
taken him away. His name was Captain Wilm Hosenfeld and he did his part to
gift the world the playing of Wlad Szpilman, who lived in Warsaw until he
died in 2000 at 88 years old. The credits say that Hosenfeld died in a
Soviet
camp seven years later. This was, apparently, also a true story.
This is a powerful and extremely well-made movie with an absolutely
brilliant
Adrien Brody as Wlad. And it is chock-full of my favorite pianist's music.
I
think, given the current conflict in the Middle East, that it would be
extremely illuminating to re-dub the ghetto slave-camp parts of this movie
with all of the German parts in Hebrew and all of the English parts in
Arabic.
Ricky Gervais: Armageddon (2023) -- "9/10"
This is a pretty great show that's very much classic Gervais: interesting
insights about how our culture works combined with shocking humor. The
quotes
below are taken from the beautifully formatted "Ricky Gervais: Armageddon
transcript"
.
He starts off by examining the word fascist and the odd trend of
explicitly
saying that you're not a fascist in online bios. Then he notes how you're
not
legally allowed to call someone gay when they're not, but you are allowed
to
call someone straight when they're not. He slags on Britain's obsession
with
illegal immigrants. Then, it's on to climate change and armageddon.
"We’re gonna be the first generation that future generations are jealous
of, right? ‘Cause we had it all, and we’re using it all up. We’re
using
up all the fresh water. We’re using up all the fossil fuel. Usually, you
look back in history and you feel sorry. You go, “Oh, how did they live
like that? Oh, how did they get around?” “No indoor toilets.” I’ve
got nine toilets in my house.
"And sometimes, I just run around flushing ’em for a laugh. Like that.
[audience laughing] Just so that in 40 years’ time, Greta Thunberg has
to
shit out of a window.
"I’ve got 28 radiators. I always have them on full. Then I put the air
con
on full, and it sort of settles at about 20 degrees. A lovely… It’s
how
the cat likes it. She loves it at 20 degrees. "
Next it's disabled people swimming with dolphins, big families, and then
legacies.
"Eminent people going, “There is a statue of me in the town square.” And
now, they’re pulling down the statues. “Pull down this fucking
statue.”
“Why?” “He was a slave trader. Pull down the fucking statue.”
“He
built the hospital. Should we pull that down?” “No, leave the
hospital.”"
Then there's sort of a meta-bit about infant mortality, Africa, "Jeff and
Tracy", growing up, and back to pedophile stories from his youth. China,
Homelessness, drug-use, little people, actors playing only roles to which
their identities conform, then cultural appropriation.
"[...] in my day, it was considered a good thing to swap ideas with other
cultures, with other nations, to share things with other races, to
assimilate. It was the opposite of racist. Now it’s racist. Gwen Stefani
got in trouble in her last video ’cause she had her blonde hair in
dreadlocks. People were going, “No. Black people invented dreadlocks.”
“You can’t have ’em. You’re white. That’s racist.” Jamie
Oliver
got in trouble when he put out an authentic jerk chicken recipe. “No.
Black
people invented that.” “You can’t have it. You’re white. That’s
racist.” Now, Black people, they use the n-word, don’t they? We
invented
that!"
On to critical race theory.
"Critical race theory, have you heard of that? Being taught in schools now,
particularly in trendy areas like L.A., to, like, five-year-old kids and
six-year-old kids. If you haven’t heard of it, in a nutshell, critical
race
theory says that all white people are racist. We’re born racist, and we
continue to be racist, ’cause we’re affording the privilege of a
racist
society set up by our forefathers. Okay? So basically, all white people
are
racist, and there’s nothing we can do about it, which is a relief."
Philosophical:
"I think the world’s gonna get harder and harder to understand as I get
older and more bewildered. A new dogma arises in the name of
“progress.”
Now, dogma is never progressive, however new and trendy. But I think soon
I’ll be outnumbered."
This segues into talking about a terrible pair of pants he'd ordered
online:
"Now, I don't know what sweat shop they were made in, or what little
eight-year-old Chinese kid made them, but he should be fucking punished
[...]
"And I was looking up where to fucking complain to get him fired, right?
[audience laughing] And I found out that these kids only get two dollars a
day in these fucking places, right? But what happened to pride in your
work?
Do you know what I mean? [audience laughing]
"And I can tell some of you are thinking, “But he didn’t think Ricky
Gervais would order them.” Maybe he should be told there’s a chance
that
Ricky Gervais might order them. His owner should sit him down, right, and
say, “If Ricky Gervais orders these and complains, I’m gonna rape your
mummy again.”"
He's back to talking about the end of the world, and "disableds", as he's
still delighted to call people with disabilities. He says he's grown
because
they used to be called "crippled". On this topic, he starts to examine
various films through the filter of the web site "Does the Dog Die?"
, a site that started off as a way for
people
to check whether a dog died in a film, and has since expanded to include
all
sorts of emotional triggers.
"Check it out. Schindler’s List. Right? Someone says, “Are there any fat
jokes?”
"[audience murmuring]
"Would that make this worse? Wh… Imagine the real thing. Imagine I’m
in a
concentration camp, right? I’m naked. Everyone around me is naked.
We’ve
got a commandant herding us towards the gas chamber, and he goes, “Move
it,
fatty.” Right? And I go, “Rude.” [audience laughing] “Nope.”
“That has ruined the whole experience if I’m honest.”
"[audience laughing]
"Someone asks, “Is there hate speech?”
"Yeah, there is."
Wrapup:
"Another theme of the show has been, “words change, and I’m woke,
ha-ha.” But here’s the irony. I think I am woke, but I think that word
has changed. I think if woke still means what it used to mean, that
you’re
aware of your own privilege, you try and maximize equality, minimize
oppression, be anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic… Yes, I’m
definitely woke. If woke now means being a puritanical, authoritarian
bully,
who gets people fired for an honest opinion or even a fact, then, no,
I’m
not woke. Fuck that."
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=49162024-01-27T12:07:22+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Velvet Buzzsaw (2019) -- "8/10"
This film is about the art world, presumably out in LA somewhere. Artist
agent and gallery owner Rhodora Haze (Rene Russo) has a palatial home in
the
desert. Morf Vandewalt (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a bitchy, catty reviewer who
knows what he likes and whose favor everyone seeks. Jon Dondon (Tom
Sturridge) is another agent/gallery owner who used to work for Rhodora,
but
is now poaching her talent, like Piers (John Malkovich). Gretchen (Toni
Collette) works at a museum, until she becomes a buyer for private
clients.
Bryson (Billy Magnussen) is a wannabe artist who works for Rhodora.
Coco (Natalia Dyer) also works for Rhodora, until she doesn't. Then she
works
for Dondon, until she doesn't. Then she works for Gretchen, until she
doesn't. Then she works for Morf...until she doesn't. Damrish (Daveed
Diggs)
is an up-and-coming artist who doesn't want to be corrupted by that world.
Josephina (Zawe Ashton) is an awful climber -- perhaps the worst of them
all
-- who makes an art discovery.
Ok. That's the cast. Now the plot.
Josephina discovers a dead man in her building. It's artist Vetril Dease
(Alan Mandell). He's left an apartment full of artwork with strict orders
to
destroy it all. Josephina thinks it's magnificent, so she steals it --
hey,
there were no inheritors, and who cares what the dead man wanted? -- and
goes
into partnership with Rhodora to sell it. Everyone who sees his work says
its
breathtaking. Lab tech Gita (Nitya Vidyasagar) discovers that he put his
literal lifeblood into every painting.
Things start to go sideways. Rhodora sends Bryson with half of the
collection
to deep storage. She wants to artificially bump the value of the available
Deases. He suspects that he has a cargo of Deases -- which he's seen and
loved, in an obsessive manner -- and he stops to have a look at them
before
heading out. They haunt him. He drops his cigarette, catches himself on
fire,
slides his truck into an abandoned rest stop, and almost crashes into gas
pumps. He enters the abandoned gas station and, while washing his burns,
monkeys from a painting that mysteriously hangs over the gas-station
bathroom's sink drag him into the painting. Gone.
Next up is Donjon, who hangs himself in his own exhibit. He doesn't see it
that way; he sees hands pulling him into the ceiling to kill him. Coco
finds
him there. Her first corpse.
At her next job, now working for Gretchen, Coco is allowed to go home.
Gretchen stays late in the gallery with her Deases and her Sphere. She
sticks
her arm into the Sphere, which the demons in the Dease manipulate to take
her
arm right off. She bleeds out. The next morning, no-one notices that she's
not part of the exhibit until Coco shows up in the later morning to
discover
that she's lost another employer. Her second corpse.
Josephina, meanwhile, has hooked up with Morf, who's escaped the grasp of
the
Deases a few times. He sees them moving in the huge Dease hanging over
Josephina's bed. Josephina has also hooked up with Damrish, who's also
seen
the paintings in her fancy apartment moving. Morf hires Coco -- jobless
again
-- to help him put his Deases into deep storage. The paintings get him
first,
though, in the form of the Robo-hobo, which he'd panned. Coco finds his
body.
Her third corpse.
Josephina finally gets hers in a fake gallery, located far downtown, after
Damrish told her he doesn't want to be in her art world. She's on the
phone
with Rhodora, who's almost killed by a falling statue. Josephina isn't so
lucky, as the paint runs off of the Deases that aren't even there, oozing
across the floor and gliding up her limbs to cover her face. Rhodora, on
the
other hand, survives and has movers box up all of her Deases. Sitting
outside, with her cat, she looks just exactly like the painting that had
hung
in her bedroom. The velvet buzzsaw tattoo on her neck comes to life and
tears
through her thorax.
Damrish survives because he stayed pure. Piers survives because, while he
appreciated the art, he didn't profit from it. He was at Rhodora's beach
house making art. Coco survived because she also didn't benefit -- she's
headed back to Minnesota.
The remaining Deases show up in flea markets, selling for $5 apiece.
The Silent Sea (2021) -- "7/10"
This is a Korean sci-fi series lasting exactly one season -- and meant to
last only one season, I think. It tells the story of an Earth ravaged by
drought, on which water is such a precious resource that many people have
too
little of it -- and have no means to buy more. There are, as you can
imagine,
a lot of people who do have more than enough water for themselves. But
most
people spend large parts of their day standing in line with one or more
jerrycans, waiting to fill them.
There's a Korean moonbase, a research facility called Balhae Station. Bad
shit went down there several years ago, taking the lives of 117 people.
The
company that owns it wants to send people back up to try to
salvage...whatever it was that they were all working on up there. Some
people
know bits and pieces of the danger, but they're not the ones going on the
mission. Song Ji‑An (Bae Doona) is going on the mission. Her sister was
one
of the 117 who'd died. She, like her sister, is a formidable researcher.
Han Yun‑Jae (Gong Yoo) captains the space shuttle that takes them there.
We're introduced to a few more of the people in the run-up to the
excursion.
Ryu Tae‑seok (Lee Joon) of the Ministry of National Defense "volunteers"
to
be part of the mission, but he's a secret agent, communicating with his
real
masters, who have him running a side mission. We'll soon learn that he's
not
the only one.
So the shuttle takes off, headed for the moon, presumably to land there,
with
its stubby wings providing lift ... in the atmosphere. Look, it doesn't
matter, right? It wouldn't matter anyway, but it really doesn't matter
because the shuttle starts shaking itself apart before Han can even think
of
landing it. It then lands extremely hard on the lunar surface, killing
no-one
important. Instead of harming anyone important, the crash leaves them all
with just the spacesuits on their backs and no other usable supplies. They
are kilometers away from Balhae Station and have to hoof it.
One of them is injured and expires along the way, but not before slowing
everyone down so much that they're all nearly out of oxygen before the
captain can unlock the airlock and they can all flop inside and finally
draw
breath in a quickly re-oxygenated moonbase that had been abandoned for
five
years. Phew.
Once inside, they discover dozens of corpses, all of them looking like
they'd
drowned. This strikes pretty much everyone as highly unlikely and they
scoff
at Dr. Hong Ga-Young (Kim Sun-young), who's charismatic and spunky and
all-around a pretty good character.
The crew has their orders: they are to search the base in very specific
locations for samples. They come up empty everywhere. There are sample
canisters around but they're all empty. Song's team detects another
presence
in the station, staying just out of site, but definitely alive. No-one
knows
what it could be. Engineer Gong Soo-chan (Jung Soon-Won) gets too close to
a
corpse and something puffs up into his eye. On the way back to the central
command, he drops farther and farther behind his team, getting sick.
As one other member Lee Gi-su (Choi Yong-Woo) also dies -- seemingly after
having been attacked -- they discover that he'd been secretly
communicating
with unknown other parties on an alternate plan. Soo-chan, meanwhile, has
worsened, and soon expels what seems like several aquariums full of water
from his mouth before dying horribly. No-one knows where all the water
came
from, but they're no longer so mystified by the corpses. Song and Dr. Hong
urge caution, to avoid further infection. Han is unconvinced and will not
deviate from the mission.
They reestablish communication with Earth -- well, official communication,
because some people seem to have been in near-constant contact with their
handlers -- and are ordered to stay on mission: retrieve a viable
canister.
What do they canisters contain? Lunar water, baby. It's what killed
Soo-chan.
It has a virus-like ability to propagate itself nearly infinitely. It
could
solve the Earth's problems for good. The Korean company is trying to keep
it
quiet so that it can refine it, make it safe, and, above all, profit from
it
first. The crew is increasingly leery that it's even possible to control
it,
especially when more members fall ill from it, dying explosively.
Song stumbles on a secret chamber positively filled with canisters,
hundreds
of them. But it's guarded by a feral-looking girl who (A) seems to have
survived five years on an empty moonbase by herself and (B) seems to be
immune to lunar water and (C) actually seems to thrive on it, being able
to
magically heal herself.
What is Ryu's side mission? Well, instead of finding out what happened at
the
base, he's to obtain samples of the lunar water that the base had been
researching, and to bring it to a pickup point somewhere else on the moon.
As
everyone else is busy trapping the girl Luna 073 (Kim Si-a), he steals all
the known samples and hustles off to a rendezvous point.
And yes, we learn that the first 72 subjects didn't fare nearly as well as
Luna 073. We learn this in a few flashbacks when Song cracks the data
storage
to get at the research data. We also learn that they started with fish
from a
neat video of a fish being infected with lunar water, then producing so
much
water that it prevents itself from asphyxiating and is soon swimming
around
again. Ryu is infected, soldiering on, but he's not long for this world
(or
that one). Song is also infected but, because Luna had bitten her on
capture,
she's now partially immune to it and avoids the worst effects.
Realizing that Luna's immunity to lunar water may be what allows mankind
to
greet lunar water as a salvation rather than as extinction, they decide to
get the samples and Luna 073 to an international space station, rather
than
returning both to The Company, where it's unclear what will happen to her.
Captain Han and Chief Gong Soo-hyuk (Lee Moo-saeng) sacrifice themselves
so
that Dr. Hong, Song, and Luna can escape the flooding base.
At the very end, things get even crazier than a flood on the moon: Luna is
shown to be able to survive vacuum without a spacesuit. The three are
eventually rescued and taken to the space station. The end.
Boyz n the Hood (1991) -- "9/10"
We start off in 1984, with Jason "Tre" Styles III living with his single
mother Reva (Angela Bassett). Tre gets into a fight at school, so his
mother
sends him to live with his father Jason "Furious" Styles Jr. (Laurence
Fishburne). He's been there before, so he has friends: Darrin "Doughboy"
Baker, Doughboy's half-brother Ricky, and their friend Chris.
We follow the boys' adventures in Crenshaw as they tussle with local
gangs,
witness a dead body, and, finally, see a Doughboy and Chris being arrested
for theft. We rejoin them seven years later, where Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.),
Doughboy (Ice Cube), Ricky (Morris Chestnut), and Chris (Redge Green) are
at
a welcome-home party for Doughboy, who just finished a bit in in prison.
Chris is in a wheelchair because of a gunshot wound, but he's pretty
jacked
and quite nimble. They're joined by two fellow Crips: Dooky (Dedrick D.
Gobert) and Monster (Baldwin C. Sykes).
Ricky is a high-school football legend, being recruited by USC. He needs
to
get a 700 on the SAT, though, which is a pretty big ask for him. He's big,
handsome, muscular, but he's quite simple. He's also already a father,
living
with his mother Brenda (Tyra Ferrell), his girl Shanice (Alysia Rogers),
and
their son. Brenda's always got her eye on Furious, but he's not having it.
Tre has turned out pretty well, all things considered. He's on track for
college and trying to get his strictly Catholic girlfriend Brandi (Nia
Long)
to bang him.
Tre and Ricky drive with Furious to Compton, where Furious shows them how
the
world really works, talking to other members of the community who also
draw
nearer to hear him "preach".
"Furious Styles: Would you two knuckleheads come on. I want you all to take a
look at that sign up there. See what it says: cash for your home. Do you
know
what that is?
Ricky: A billboard.
Tre Styles: A billboard.
Furious Styles: What are you all? Amos and Andy? Are you Stepin and he's
Fetchit? I'm talking about he message. What it stands for. It's called
gentrification. It's what happens when the property value of a certain
area
is brought down. You listening? You bring the property value down. They
can
buy the land at a lower price, then they move all the people out, raise
the
property value and sell it at a profit. Now, what we need to do is keep
everything in our neighborhood, everything - black. Black owned with black
money. Just like the Jews, the Italians, the Mexicans and the Koreans do."
"The Old Man: Ain't nobody from outside bringing down the property value.
It's these folk, shootin' each other and sellin' that crack rock and shit.
Furious Styles: Well, how you think the crack rock gets into the country?
We
don't own any planes. We don't own no ships. We are not the people who are
flyin' and floatin' that shit in here.
"I know every time you turn on the TV, that's what you see. Black people,
sellin' the rock, pushin' the rock, pushin' the rock. Yeah, I know. But
that
wasn't a problem as long as it was here. It wasn't a problem until it was
in
Iowa, on Wall Street, where there are hardly any black people."
"Furious Styles: Why is it that there is a gun shop on almost every corner in
this community?
The Old Man: Why?
Furious Styles: I'll tell you why. For the same reason that there is a
liquor
store on almost every corner in the black community. Why? They want us to
kill ourselves."
One night, the crew heads to Crenshaw Boulevard to hang out, where Ricky
gets
provoked by a Blood, Ferris (Raymond Turner) before being rescued by
Doughboy. Later, Ricky and Tre are on their way home and are pulled over
and
harassed by cops. The crew spend a lot of time hanging out at Brenda's
house,
on the porch, not doing much at all. Soon after the incident at Crenshaw,
Ricky and Tre go to the store for Brenda. On the way back, they realize
that
they're being hunted by the Ferris and a few other Bloods.
Ricky thinks that they should split up -- it's unclear why Tre lets the
mental invalid take the tactical lead -- and is caught and gunned down in
cold blood. Tre arrives too late to help him, as do Doughboy and his crew.
They gather up Ricky's bloodied corpse and bring it back to Brenda's
place.
There are tearful recriminations, with Doughboy shouldering the blame, but
not much to be done. Ricky's SAT results arrive. He'd scored 710.
The crew takes off for revenge. Furioius at first stops Tre, but Tre
sneaks
out anyway. After several hours of driving around, Tre asks to be let out.
He's changed his mind and wants nothing of more killing. Soon, though,
Doughboy and the crew find the Bloods at a burger joint. They try to run,
but
they gun them down. Two of them are still alive, crawling away. Doughboy
gets
out of the car and finishes them off. The police sirens get closer as they
drive away.
Tre returns home to a furious Furious, who doesn't say a word. The next
morning, Doughboy quickly forgives Tre for having bailed the night before.
He
knows that Tre has a chance of escaping, whereas he doesn't. His speech at
the end is highly political, where he points out how the media reports on
foreign violence, but not on the violence at home.
"I turned on the TV this morning, they had this shit on about... about living
in a violent world. Showed all these foreign places... I started thinking,
man, either they don't know, don't show, or don't care about what's going
on
in the hood. Man, all this foreign shit, and they didn't have shit on my
brother, man."
Doughboy was killed two weeks later. Tre and Brandi made it out, to
college
in Atlanta.
The Purge (2013) -- "5/10"
The backstory is that the United States was taken over by the New Founding
Fathers in 2014. Their aim was to avoid a civil war by, um, winning it
before
it starts, I guess? Anyway, they introduce something called The Purge,
where
there is no law-enforcement for twelve hours, from 19:00 to 07:00 one day
per
year. As you can imagine, it's pretty much a time when a lot of poor
people
get killed, culling the useless from the population. Typical libertarian
spank-bank stuff. Guess what? More fantasy: by 2022, there is virtually no
crime outside of the purge window and nearly everyone has a job. That's
quite
a spank bank. It's like it was written by someone from Reason magazine.
James Sandin (Ethan Hawke) drives home to his swanky home in a gated
community. He sells security systems. He's sold a lot of them this year --
many of them to his neighbors. He eats dinner with his wife Mary (Lena
Headey) and his kids Zoey (Adelaide Kane) and weird little Charlie (Max
Burkholder). They lock themselves in for the night, barricading the whole
house from top to bottom.
After a while, a Bloody Stranger (Edwin Hodge) appears in the street and
Charlie, feeling bad for him, opens up the house to let him in. They get
the
house locked back up just as the man gets inside. Meanwhile, upstairs,
Zoey's
boyfriend Henry had somehow already snuck in before. They're making out,
but
Henry says he has something else he has to do: he has to tell her Dad how
he
really feels. He tells he that he's going to tell James about their
undying
love, but he's actually there to purge him. He's a terrible shot, though.
James isn't. Zoey gets Henry back upstairs, but he expires on the floor of
her bedroom. The Bloody Stranger has meanwhile disappeared somewhere in
the
giant house.
A random gang of rich, white kids with murder on their minds show up to
chew
a tremendous amount of scenery, demanding that the Sandin's release their
prey. Or else. Or else what? Or else they'll get a bunch of construction
equipment to tear down Sandin's house's defenses and get him anyway -- but
also killing the Sandins. Cool. Cool. I honestly don't know what we're
supposed to think of them. I don't think they're scary. They're
pretentious
and ridiculous. But maybe we're supposed to hate them especially more
because
of the inordinate power they've arrogated to themselves on account of
their
class privilege? I dunno. Seems a little highbrow for this movie.
The leader shoots his best friend as an example? WTH? This makes
absolutely
no sense. There is no pressure for the kids to purge, but when they do,
they're so psychotic that they shoot their own best friends, just to set
an
example? And then everyone else just drags away his body with no questions
asked? I get that they're trying to get us to believe that it's a cult,
but
give us some foreplay, for God's sake.
The teenage purgers cut off the power to the house. At this point -- once
they shut off the lights -- the movie gets really boring for a while. The
family members all spend what seems like an eternity walking around their
mansion with weak flashlights, looking for the homeless guy that Charlie
let
in. Charlie eventually finds him with a stupid little robot and, whatever,
the guy kidnaps family members and they go back and forth until they
realize
that the youth outside is probably going to kill them all anyway, so they
might as well team up and fight back.
The Purgers are inside the house. Mayhem ensues, after a fashion. There
are a
bunch of set pieces. Charlie sees other neighbors approaching -- none too
pleased with the Sandins having made their tremendous fortune off of
selling
them their security systems. They're there to have their revenge on Purge
Night. With the help of the Bloody Stranger, they turn the tables --
though
not before James gets stabbed -- and wait out the rest of the night, with
the
neighbors captured and all of the teenaged Purgers already lying dead all
around the house.
It wasn't nearly as good as its reputation and the several sequels that
followed. I won't be watching any of them.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=48772024-01-25T21:38:22+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Tenet (2020) -- "7/10"
Protagonist (John David Washington) is an agent of unknown provenance,
perhaps CIA -- it doesn't matter. He's part of a failed extraction
mission,
in which he is captured and beaten. He chomps down on a cyanide pill that
is
no such thing and learns that he has passed a test for entry into
something
called the Tenet organization. That "tenet" is a palindrome is not a
coincidence. The meaning of the word doesn't really play into the plot at
all.
There is an expository section in which we learn that anything can be
imbued
with inverted entropy so that it travels against time's arrow. There are
big
rotating machines that impart this property onto stuff, like guns, cars,
bullets, people. Some people know about this resvolutionary,
physics-defying
technology and the rest of us are installing ad-blockers against spam ads
while waiting for a year for them to fix a single train tunnel in
Switzerland. But, hey, that's one of the tenets of this film: physics
isn't
what you think it is, but only spy agencies know about it -- no
scientists.
I learned the lessons of this movie so quickly that when Protagonist and
Neil
(Robert Pattinson) penetrated to the center of the Rotas pentagon --
awesome
logo, by the way -- and found bullet holes, and Neil asked, "What the hell
happened here?", I said, in unison with Protagonist, "It hasn't happened
yet."
The protagonist goes to Mumbai -- this movie is really the answer to "what
if
James Bond were black?" -- with his handler Neil (Robert Pattinson), where
they reverse bungie-jump up to Priya Singh's (Dimple Kapadia) penthouse,
where she reveals that she, too, is part of the organization.
When the Protagonist is talking to Priya about his and Neil's experience
in
the vault, he says that there were "two antagonists. One inverted." When
she
asks, "both emerged at the same moment?", I said with her "they were the
same
person."
She gets her entropically inverted goods from Andrei Sator (Kenneth
Branagh),
a ruthless man of Russian origin, who'd dragged himself up from the ruins
of
Stalsk-12, a Siberian prison city. Shades of Bane with this one, to be
honest. He looks more normal than Bane, but he's just as kooky and his
origin
story is very, very similar.
Sator is trying to obtain plutonium and he ends up capturing the
Protagonist,
Neil, and Sator's estranged wife Kat Barton (Elizabeth Debicki). There is
a
whole thing about a forged or not-forged Goya and there is a lot of stuff
with inverted bullets and inverted cars and people that looks reasonably
cool, but is, honestly, a bit much. Sator and his henchmen are executing
what
everyone seems to recognize as a "temporal pincer movement", the mechanics
of
which remain a bit fuzzy, but I guess it sounds cool.
We eventually find out that some of the mysterious people in motorcycle
helmets that appear to be inverted are actually the Protagonist, who would
invert himself later in the film to retroactively justify those
interactions.
We learn more about the Tenet organization: that's it's from the future
and
that it involves people trying to prevent climate change in our time, in
order to save themselves from the even deadlier effects in their own.
Or I think it's something like that. But I'm not sure, because Sator is
terminally ill and he's working for them, and they're helping him put
together a plutonium weapon that will be able to destroy the planet, but
that
seems like an odd way to "fix" climate change for a better future, but
whatever, go with the flow, or reverse-flow, or whatever.
There is a huge operation. I mean, huge. Like, with red and blue teams and
lots of people running around in the desert -- both forwards and backwards
--
and lots of explosions -- both forwards and backwards -- as well as people
criss-crossing their own selves during an operation that is yet another
inverted pincer movement, though this time by the ostensible good guys.
At the end, Neil does some hero shit, saving the Protagonist, but it's his
inverted self who did so. So, even though their non-inverted selves make
it
out of the cavern in which the super-bomb was scheduled to go off, Neil
knows
that he has to go invert again so that he can make the sacrifice that
saves
them both so that he can invert and sacrifice himself ... but at least the
Protagonist makes it out, which is good, because, apparently, he is to
found
Tenet and, in the future, invert and go back to recruit Neil way in the
past,
so that they work together for a long time and become the best of friends.
Even though the Protagonist in the film remembers none of this -- not
having
lived it yet -- Neil remembers a life lived well fondly right before he
goes
off to die. The non-inverted Protagonist thinks that their relationship is
just starting, which it would feel like it would be, in a non-Tenet world,
Instead, Neil has known him forever, and is more than willing to make the
sacrifice that will retroactively call that whole, long friendship into
being. Even though, if he hadn't, probably another timeline would crop up
in
which he'd never known the Protagonist and wouldn't care? I dunno.
This movie isn't too multi-timeline friendly, seemingly quite happy to
imagine that any arrow-of-time-defying maneuvers all occur in the same
observable, physical universe, with no or little effect on the memories
stored by consciousnesses that are, presumably, also just quantum
patterns,
but seem, even in their complexity, to be only very coarsely affected by
inversion, so yeah, the whole theory isn't thought out down to the nuts
and
bolts, but I think the time-looping stuff kind of matches up ok.
And then, despite knowing about the fate of the world and climate change
and
billions of current and future lives hanging in the balance and, despite
knowing that he himself founds an organization with the express goal of
putting as much of this right for as many people as possible, the
Protagonist
kills Priya -- who, remember, worked for a future version of himself -- in
order to prevent her from cleaning up after the operation by killing Kat,
who
obviously knew too much and would, also obviously, sacrifice the entire
planet's future for her son, whose future would also be gruesomely
sacrificed
at the same time, because if humanity's gone, then so's her son and his
future.
But mom'd are gonna mom, ammirite? At this juncture, I'm going to go ahead
and note that this is yet another movie that has no problem making a woman
look shockingly stupid and shallow because she's a mother. This is, honest
to
God, a line from the movie.
"Neil: Everyone and everything that's ever lived, destroyed. Instantly.
Kat: Including my son."
JFC.
And it also has no qualms making the Protagonist throw away everything he
and
many others had sacrificed -- including his very best friend-to-be Neil --
for a tall, skinny piece of tail who he's never going to see again (Kat)
and
whom he'd never bedded or even been in a relationship with in the first
place.
Look, I may have missed some bits and I may have misinterpreted some stuff
and I'm sure that there are tons of fans who would say that it all becomes
wicked clear on the dozenth viewing and after you've watched a good gross
of
explainer videos by Director Christopher Nolan and others, but I'm kind of
good.
It was fine. A bit long, with a bit too much focus on the whole
reverse-movie
thing, but I'm glad everyone seems to have had a lot of fun making what
is,
actually, a pretty unique movie, if not the most original of plot lines,
in
the end. I know, I know, no other plot has this temporal inversion stuff,
but
most of the movie is about shadowy agents from shadowy organizations
shooting
at each other and blowing up cars and buildings and stuff. There's a mad
Russian who wants to blow up the world. There's an unconsummated -- and
seemingly lust-less, as is the trend these days -- relationship where
everything is sacrificed for love. That sounds like a ton of other movies,
no? Despite the core tenet of temporal inversion, most of the rest of the
movie is kind of bog-standard.
Goodbye Berlin (2016) -- "9/10"
Maik Klingenberg (Tristan Göbel) is in school, mooning over Tatjana Cosic
(Aniya Wendel). She doesn't acknowledge his existence. He meets Tschicke
(Anand Batbileg Chuluunbaatar) in school. He's smart, of
east-asian/russian
descent, and is a force of nature. His relationship with Maik reminds me a
bit of that between Val Kilmer and Gabriel Jarret in Real Genius.
In the summer, Maik's mom (Anja Schneider) goes to a clinic to dry out
while
his dad (Uwe Bohm) jets off for two weeks with his barely-of-age
secretary.
Maik has the house to himself. Tschicke steals a super-shitty Lada and
they
go on a road trip -- out of Berlin.
Tschicke is full of wisdom while driving.
"Warum blinken? Die Leute sehen doch wo in hinfahre."
"Landkarten sind für Muschis. Wir fahren einfach Richtung Süden."
They throw in a Richard Claydermann cassette that they found in their
stolen
Lada. Ballade für Adeline starts playing. "Voll geil" says Maik.
Tschicke:
"Bist du sicher, dass du nicht schwul bist?"
The road's ending, so Tschick say, "Ich fahre doch sicher nicht zurück."
and
veers into a cornfield, turning on the wipers, and rolling up his window
when
the flapping corn starts to annoy him.
They start to draw something for Google Earth: "Ohne Sinn".
They meet young Friedrich and his country family, breaking bread and
playing
quiz games for desserts. Maik and Tschicke get the smallest, shittiest
desserts because they don't know anything -- and the home-schooled kids
know
everything.
They meet Isa (Mercedes Müller). They spend some time together. They
eventually send her on her way to Prague.
They get to a wooden bridge, after taking a logging road to get off a road
with po-po.
Maik: Ich weiss ich nicht.
Tschicke: Ich fahre jetzt sicher nicht zurück.
They get stuck, then jump in the water to fix the bridge.
Tschicke gets a spike through his foot when he steps on it at the bottom
of
the swamp.
He can't drive. Maik has to drive. Maik says he won't, because he's
boring.
Tschicke says he's not boring. Maik asks why Tatjana wouldn't invite him
to
her party. Who the fuck cares? Isa's way hotter, says Tschicke, and she
has
good taste? How does he know? Tschicke admits he's gay. He's never told
anyone.
Maik drives out of the swamp, slowly learning how to drive stick. They're
on
the highway. A truck passes them, nearly driving them off the road. Maik
tries to pass him in the breakdown lane. The truck flips over, spilling
pigs
everywhere.
Maik and Tschicke are by the side of the road, injured but alive. Tschicke
takes off, limping, to avoid being placed in a home. Maik gives him his
voll
geil jacket to stay warm.
Maik's in the hospital. A cop is telling him that he actually is old
enough
to be prosecuted.
Maik's parents are arranging to blame it all on Tschicke.
Maik does not cooperate. He takes the blame, as he should.
Maik's dad super-hero-punches him to the ground.
Maik's dad is moving out now, leaving with his hot girlfriend.
Maik's mom is plastered again, chucking stuff in the pool. Maik helps her.
She's just pounding straight from the bottle. They go for a swim.
School begins again. The cops pick Maik up on the way, ask him about
Tschicke.
Apparently, a Lada's been stolen, hot-wired, and returned destroyed in the
morning.
Maik smiles. Tschicke is telling him he's back.
The cops drop him off at school. He doesn't get his bike out. He's a
bad-ass
now.
Tatjana deems him "würdig". He doesn't care anymore.
The credits are great, depicting an animation of how Tschicke got fixed
up,
stole a screwdriver, then a Lada, peeled out the words "Ohne Sinn" in a
parking lot, and finally crashed the car.
Tank Girl (1995) -- "7/10"
We meet Tank Girl (Lori Petty) in what looks like a post-apocalyptic
wasteland, ruled by the W&P (Water&Power). She and her clan all live in a
large, ramshackle house that serves as their commune. They grow food in a
greenhouse, they do crafts in workshops -- there's a little girl hammering
something together with the wrong end of what is actually a finishing
hammer
-- and generally try to get by in a Godforsaken world.
There are inconsistencies galore, but they're kind of endearing because
the
movie is so damned earnest.
* The W&P and their leader Kesslee (Malcolm McDowell) are trying to get
3M
liters of water. That's just over one Olympic-sized swimming pool. I
wonder if the writers realized that that isn't really a lot of water?
* Kesslee has devices that converts all of the water in a person's blood
into pure water. When he jams this water-extraction device into a
person,
we see that it has no top, but he flips it over to hold it up. How did
he
avoid spilling all of the water?
* When they're trying to bluff their way into the W&P base, Jet Girl
(Naomi
Watts) notifies the base that her "bird has no electrical"...over the
radio. While obviously hovering and flying.
* Who is firing the tank's main cannon while Tank Girl is up on the
paraglider? You know, the paraglider that still flies when the tank
isn't
moving forward? Oh, her tank drives itself. Of course it does. It's
sentient. I think that might even have been from the original comic.
This is not the kind of film that's going to clear up questions like that.
The movie seems instead to be a love letter to the comics on which it's
based
and seems to be entirely a vehicle for Lori Petty, who was, apparently,
such
a magnetic personality that she got a whole movie mad for herself, despite
not being otherwise very well-known at all.
Ice-T plays a human/kangaroo mutant named T-Saint. In the final battle,
the
attack song is by Ice-T. I am not kidding. He is not the only
human/kangaroo
mutant. His gang of "rippers" also has Booga (Jeff Kober), Donner (Scott
Coffey), and leader Deetee (Reg E. Cathey). Completely unrelated, but Iggy
Pop plays a pedophile named Rat Face.
The practical-effect masks are pretty good, though! The movable ears are
really good. The spinning blades on Kesslee's cyborg arm are pretty cool.
This was really the heyday of practical effects, before the allure of
doing
it all a lot more poorly, but more cheaply, with CGI changed what this
kind
of stuff looks like, probably forever.
Tank Girl is such a psycho and the scenes are so wild that you just know
the
director was remaking the comics panel-by-panel. The animated interludes
are
really well-done, too. This was definitely a labor of love. An extra star
for
more-or-less sticking the landing.
Private Life (2018) -- "8/10"
If I can give superhero movies eight out of ten points, then I can definitely
do it for Paul Giamatti, who is a genius in nearly everything he does.
I've
loved him since Sideways.
Giamatti plays Richard Grimes, married to Rachel Biegler (Kathryn Hahn).
He
is a playwright and director. She is an author. They live in the Village
in
Manhattan. They are childless, but not for lack of trying. As the film
begins, they have given up on artificial insemination and are trying their
first in-vitro fertilization. Richard's sperm can't get into his semen,
though, so he needs a procedure to fix that. They're doing ok, but not
that
great, so they have to borrow the $10,000 from his brother Charlie (John
Carroll Lynch) and his wife Cynthia (Molly Shannon). Charlie's a good guy,
but Cynthia is ... not. She's not a nice person, not a generous or
empathetic
person. She is the main character in her world.
At the same time as the in-vitro procedure, Richard and Rachel are dipping
their toes into the adoption pool, introducing us to a corner of the
Internet
where teenage girls hawk their fecundity as well as the pending fruit of
their loins. Their first experience here shatters them for a bit, as the
girl
was just in it for the attention and never had any intention of letting
them
adopt her child. Richard and Rachel fight, but they're basically together,
no
matter what. Rachel is less reasonable, more strong-willed, more likely to
fly of the handle -- and also the partner taking the majority of the
hormone-inducing medications.
Charlie and Cynthia's 25-year-old chronically underachieving
creative-writing
major daughter Sadie (Kayli Carter) leaves the Bard College campus to
finish
her degree remotely, moving in with Richard and Rachel. She loves them and
their lifestyle and looks up to them as her "art parents". She's seemingly
more in-tune with them than she is with her own parents. This seems like
too
fortuitous a confluence as their doctor has recently floated the idea of
using a donor egg -- rather than one of Rachel's older, dustier ones -- to
match up with Richard's newly motile sperm. Sadie quickly agrees, wanting
both to help them and to give her otherwise unmoored life a little
meaning.
Cynthia ruins her own Thanksgiving dinner when Sadie, in a fit of bonhomie
brought on by her thankfulness to Rachel and Richard, reveals the plan to
the
rest of the family, with the aforementioned predictable consequences. They
proceed with the implantation, even after Sadie makes herself ill by
upping
her dose on her own, after their doctor had quasi-chastised her for not
producing eggs quickly enough. The fails anyway. Richard is somewhat
relieved, as they can just stop trying now. Rachel is devastated and
furious
at Richard for announcing that he's given up so soon after getting the
news.
They reconcile, of course, because they're in it for life. They'll always
have each other.
Sadie gets into a writer's colony -- it's left deliberately unclear how
much
Richard and Rachel helped; they say they didn't -- and they part ways. We
also part ways with Richard and Rachel at a roadside diner several months
later. A woman had called them to find out if they were interested in
adopting her child. They wait, together. Richard rises and sits next to
Rachel, in an eloquent, sweet, and unspoken expression of love,
compassion,
solidarity, and durability. Well done.
Saving Private Ryan (1998) -- "9/10"
This movie starts with a suicide mission. The company's amphibious vehicle
approaches the beach at, presumably, Normandy and drops the front door
open.
The German machine-gun nest immediately starts to feast on the soldiers,
chowing down on the first six or seven rows before they start to drop over
the sides instead. The machine-gun continues chewing through them
underwater.
Some drown instead. Those that make it back up to air have dropped nearly
all
of their supplies.
The machine gun continues to pick them off -- how can it not? They're just
walking into the bullets. There's no cover. Who thought this was a good
plan?
The tide rolls in over their backs, knocking them down. They reach the
shore;
the water is like tomato soup. The few survivors cower beneath the X-ed
girders dotting the beach. Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) is shaken out of his
initial stupor by his remaining men, demanding orders. Just bullets,
bodies,
and bombs everywhere.
Impossibly, some of the men are getting closer to the machine-gun nest.
What
looks like 90% of the rest of them litter the beach as corpses. The medics
are in the middle of the maelstrom, trying to fix one of the bloody
bodies.
None of the armor made it ashore. The survivors gather weapons and ammo
from
those who've not survived -- or who won't.
They manage to blow something up that causes the Germans to retreat, at
least
a little. They get eyes on the Germans, but they're below them. And the
Americans have single-shot, bolt-actions versus German machine guns. They
find a defilade and send Jackson (Barry Pepper) -- their sniper -- into
it.
He clears out the front of the nest. Sergeant Horvath (Tom Sizemore) leads
the rest of the company over the ridge. They throw some grenades in, then
pick off the dazed survivors. Attrition continues on the way up, though.
People are praying everywhere. There's a chaplain lying among the
near-corpses, administering last rites.
It's not eye-to-eye trench warfare, meters away from the enemy.. The
Americans have overwhelming numbers, despite the incredible percentage of
attrition. The Germans give themselves up. Some are not allowed to
surrender.
At least the film is honest.
Private Caparzo (Vin Diesel) tosses Mellish (Adam Goldberg) a Hitler Youth
knife, plundered from a corpse. It is Chekhov's knife.
Horvath packs dirt from the beach into a tin marked "France", but I don't
understand why he would also have tins for "Italy" and "Africa" with him.
Is
this a ham-handed way of indicating he's been in the war forever? Didn't
the
Americans only arrive in France? Even if he'd already fought in Italiy and
Africa, why would he have brought the other tins with him?
The camera zooms in one corpse's back on the beach. It says "S. Ryan" on
his
backpack.
Switch to the War Department, where a one-armed officer (Bryan Cranston)
gets
the news that three out of four brothers have died and that the fourth --
the
eponymous Private James Ryan -- is lost in Normandy. The bigwigs decide to
send a rescue mission.
Captain Miller shows up with what remains of his company at a post run by
Lieutenant Anderson (Dennis Farina). Miller reports. Anderson gives him
his
new mission. Miller picks up a new translator -- Corporal Upham (Jeremy
Davies) -- and has his company trimmed down to a platoon They're on the
move
toward Neuville. Private Reiben (Edward Burns) leads the way, including a
medic, Wade (Giovanni Ribisi).
They reach Neuville and disappoint the unit there that they're not their
relief. Sergeant Hill (Paul Giamatti) offers to help find Ryan. They start
to
move through the town. Caparzo tries to help a family, taking the little
girl
they're trying to get to safety. He's clipped by a sniper, laying in a
puddle
of rain, watching a rivulet of blood slowly swell to a freshet. Jackson
takes
up the challenge. The rest hunker down. Caparzo is bleeding
ever-more-heavily
into his puddle. The German sniper (Leo Stransky) is in a tower, sighting
on
Caparzo, waiting for someone to approach the squealing lamb. He finds
Jackson. Jackson shoots right through his scope. Everybody stands down.
Everybody except Caparzo. Caparzo has expired.
It's raining incessantly.
Sergeant Hill stops to fix his boot, knocking a fallen transom over into a
weakened brick wall, comically exposing a room full of Germans. There's a
Mexican standoff, ended by two U.S. soldiers with machine guns on a
balcony
above our platoon. They're led by Captain Hamill (Ted Danson), who seems
to
know where Ryan is. They find Ryan, but it's the wrong Ryan. It's
Minnesota
Ryan (Nathan Fillion).
They overnight in a church, chatting and sleeping and fleshing out their
characters.
They walk through a night filled with explosions, crossing fields. We
rejoin
them as they wake in a camp full of the wounded. Lieutenant Dewindt
(Leland
Orser) says he can help them find Ryan, but he's just kind of babbling,
obviously wracked with survivor's guilt. The powers-that-be had plated his
plane with armor because he was transporting a general. The plane was
barely
airworthy. He did his best. 22 dead.
They're ghoulishly sorting through bags of dog-tags, spouting gallows
humor.
Soldiers file past them, glaring judgmentally at their macabre task. They
finally get news of the correct Ryan. He's been picked up in a mixed
company
to babysit a bridge. They move out.
They happen upon a German emplacement atop a hill. The Caption decides to
take it out. The other six are not excited about it. The captain seems
desperate to do something meaningful. There is a tremendous amount of
machine-gun fire, then grenades, as the half-dozen of them approach
quickly.
There's some fire from the Americans and everything goes quiet.
The Germans are dead, but Wade, the medic, has been hit -- he's taken
several
shots to the torso. They make a lot of frantic fuss, but it's hopeless. He
asks them if he's been shot in the spine. They're throwing sulfa and water
all over his entry wounds.
"Is there anything bleeding worse than the others?"
They palpate him.
"Oh my God, my liver!"
"I could use some morphine."
"I don't wanna die."
"Mama, mama, mama. I wanna go home."
They're now a band of six. They run up the hill to beat the shit out of a
surviving German. They threaten to kill him. "Ich will mich ergeben."
Upham
translates. "I don't care what he said." They tell the German to dig
graves
for all of the Americans, then they'll kill him. Upham pipes up,
"Captain, this is not right."
"You can help him with the bodies, then."
"What is happening?"
After a bunch of waffling -- during which Upham tells The caption that he
can't just shoot a prisoner -- the captain blindfolds the German and sends
him off 1000 paces to turn himself in somewhere else. None of them like it
--
the others wanted to shoot him. Reiben doesn't like it and threatens to
desert. Horvath has a solution for that. He points a gun at him.
"Are you going to shoot me over Ryan?"
"No, I'm going to shoot you because I don't like you."
That's some classic Tom Sizemore right there.
The captain defuses the situation by finally telling them where he's from
and
what he did back home. He was a schoolteacher.
"I've changed. Sometimes I wonder if I've changed so much, my wife isn't even
going to recognize me."
They bury Wade and continue across fields.
A half-track appears. They drop. Something attacks it. German troops spill
out. They shoot them all. Corporal Henderson (Max Martini) pops out of the
grass with a couple of men, one with a bazooka. One of them is James
Francis
Ryan (Matt Damon).
Miller asks Ryan,
"What are we supposed to tell your mother when they send her another folded
American flag?
"Ryan: Tell her that, when you found me, I was here and that I was with
the
only brothers I have left. I think she'll understand that. There's no way
I'm
leaving this bridge."
Has no-one thought what he would think? How would he live with himself if
he
got to go home, knowing he'd gotten out because too much of his family had
already been killed? If he'd never been drafted, that would be one thing.
But, posted up on a bridge in France, with his company, how could he just
leave them? To go home to his mama? To sit in his hometown without his
biological brothers, knowing his remaining brothers-in-spirit were dying
without him?
Miller and Horvath chat. They decide to stay. The company's missing their
CO
anyway. Miller will fill in.
Time to defend the bridge. Time to build a "sticky bomb" to take out the
tank. Jackson's up in the bell tower. Upham's carrying ammo. Ryan sticks
to
Miller like glue.
At 2:02:00, there's a beautiful scene, where they're listening to Edith
Piaf
on a Wurlitzer, with Upham translating and Horvath flapping his hand to
the
melody.
[image]
The tanks are coming. There's four of them. At least 50 ground troops. You
can see their hearts sink into their stomachs. Miller: "You know what to
do.
Reiben, get on the rabbit."
The attack begins. It's overwhelming. The unit defends the enfilade well,
but
there are just too many vehicles, too many troops. The attrition on both
sides is horrible.
Jackson is in his tower, sniping soldiers at a remarkable clip. A tank
ponderously raises its barrel and blows him and his compatriot up. Mellish
and his compatriot run out of ammo in their nest. Upham succumbs to the
pressure and fails to bring them belts and ammo. Mellish dies by his own
German knife. Upham is on the stairs outside, frozen. The German walks out
and past him.
Miller and Ryan retreat back over the bridge, followed by Reiben and
Horvath.
Horvath takes a hit, but Reiben one-arms him to the sandbags. "Sergeant,
you
OK?" "Just got the wind knocked out of me." Those were his last words. The
tank keeps pounding their position; Miller is dazed. He's hit. Reiben
slams
him behind the sandbags. Ryan is dazed. They're losing the position.
They can't blow the bridge; the plunger's been blown into open territory.
The
Germans swarm at the other end of the bridge. Upham has gotten behind
them,
but doesn't take advantage. He's not a fighter; no experience; he's
completely overwhelmed; adrenalin has come and gone; he's shutting down.
Miller walks right out into the fray to get the plunger. He's stunned as
well. He's clipped in the left chest, coming to rest against a broken
half-track. He pulls his pistol, firing blindly at the approaching tank.
On
the third shot, it blows up. It's been taken out by the U.S. Air Force,
which
has finally arrived, following quickly by a ton of ground troops and
artillery. They mop up quickly.
Upham jumps up and takes several Germans prisoner. Among them is the
German
they'd released on the hill. He's the one who shot Miller. The German is
slyly happy to see him and says "Upham!" Upham shoots him and lets the
others
go.
Ryan and Reiben watch Miller's last breath. Reiben grabs Caparzo's letter,
which has traveled from Wade to Miller to Reiben now.
There's a mawkish ending where Ryan wonders whether he'd lived a life that
was worth the sacrifice. Honestly, though, the movie showed much more how
arbitrary and useless war is. Why were they there? Why did they lose their
lives there? Couldn't they just have fallen back to merge with the
incoming
battalion and taken out the Germans with much less loss of American life?
Of
course they could have. War makes no sense.
The Batman (2022) -- "6/10"
The movie begins with a gravelly voiceover. It's The Batman (Robert
Pattinson), of course. He narrates like he's captioned by comic-book
panels.
Some of the shots look like comic-book panels. It's not even close to Sin
City but it nods in that direction.
The incumbent mayor Don Mitchell, Jr. (Rupert Penry-Jones) is brutally
murdered in his own home. The killed is masked and swaddled in thick
clothes.
It looks vaguely female.
The mayor's son (Archie Barnes) finds him, propped up in a sitting
position,
blindfolded, with a sign on his face that says he's a liar. There's
graffiti
all over the room that declares him a liar. There is a riddle, "What does
a
liar do when he dies?" ... "He lies still." That's a really nice wordplay
right there, playing on the homophone "still" to suggest both that he
"continues to prevaricate" and that he "doesn't move from a supine or
prone
position".
Alfred (Andy Serkis) and Bruce Wayne (Robert Pattinson, in case you know
literally nothing of the Batman canon) later solve a cipher that
accompanied
the message, figuring out that it says "drive". This leads them to the
mayor's huge garage full of cars. I guess he was on the up-and-up, right?
Anyway, it is there that they find the shears the killer used to chop off
the
mayor's thumb. Then find the mayor's thumb attached to a USB drive inside
the
car. The thumb drive must be unlocked with that thumb. It's cleverly
gruesome.
Then the Batman and Commissioner Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) just go ahead and
stick the assassin's USB stick right into Gordon's laptop, with his full
account logged in. Yeah, I guess a movie that's already running to almost
3
hours is going to have to take a shortcut or two. This is a shockingly
unaware breach of even the most basic computer-security protocols. The
only
sane protocol would have been to plug the stick into a completely
air-gapped
machine or, at the very least, a throwaway virtual machine. This is
something that police should probably have for just this purpose.
Instead, they plug the stick into Gordon's laptop, whose OS is also set up
to
just chirpily auto-run stuff from USB sticks. They watch it send out a
whole
bunch of mails in Gordon's name, chock-full of pictures of the former
mayor
-- along with his girlfriend and a smattering of mob bosses -- and also
including the Penguin (Colin Farrell). What a shitshow.
Anyway, Batman walks around a lot in this one. They like to show his boots
hitting the pavement. I haven't seen any cable-work or flying about. He
just
kind of walks places. It's kind of neat, a nice change of pace. He just
fights real normal-like, like a boxer. He takes a lot of blows on his
armor.
He's not magic, just well-armored and a skilled but not infallible
fighter.
Also, so far, he seems to be driving a Captain America-style motorcycle.
No
fancy gimmicks. Well, he rides it in the absolute pouring rain. He's not
alone, though, because Selena Kyle/Catwoman (Zöe Kravitz) also rides in
the
rain, dressed in a skin-tight leather suit that I bet she picked out just
for
this kind of weather.
It's super-convenient for the lady burglars that no-one has any alarm
systems
on any of their windows or skylights. Just drop in, no security. Just the
Batman, who also just tromps in wherever he wants without ever triggering
any
security mechanisms. In a city that seems as dangerous as Gotham City,
there
are an awful lot of open windows and unlocked doors on really nice
apartments.
This movie might as well be in black-and-white. The only color is orange,
from the sodium lamps. The whole mood, shots, and low-key criminality
feels a
lot less like a superhero movie and much more like Max Payne. The Joker
was
like that as well, but it was ... different. In this one, it's Bruce Wayne
who's pretty unbalanced, but nowhere near as loopy as "Arthur Fleck"
.
Selena teams up with Batman to help her friend, an eastern European
immigrant. She goes into the club within a club to help him see who's
there.
She runs into DA Gil Colson (Peter Sarsgaard). She also runs into Carmine
Falcone (John Turturro), with whom she's had a relationship. This makes
Bruce
jealous. He plays the recording over and over. It makes a "rewinding"
noise,
even though it was recorded on digital. We just can't get away from
certain
tropes.
Bruce Wayne drives his own car. It's a pretty awesome car, a low-slung
British-looking hotrod. Maybe an MG or a Triumph. My bad. It's apparently
a
Corvette.
Bruce Wayne shows up to the mayor's funeral alone, with no bodyguards. The
mayor's rival candidate just hits him right up at the funeral, no qualms
about being seen as crass. She's supposed to be the nice one, but that's a
pretty shitty move. The DA's car comes flying into the funeral, right up
the
church stairs. Colson is driving. He gets out with a bomb around his neck.
The Batman meets the Riddler (Paul Dano) via video call. The Riddler has a
gimp mask on. He sounds like a combination of Bane and Buffalo Bill from
Silence of the Lambs. Batman, on the other hand, sounds exactly like Pete
Holmes doing his impression of Christian Bale's Batman. See "The dark
Knight
rises 2 : Batman's dirty mind"
.
Bomb goes off because Colson refuses to give up the rat. Batman was so
dead-set on finding out the name that he stayed there until the end. He's
knocked right the f&@k out -- but nobody took his mask off. He's
surrounded
by cops. This is pretty terrible, honestly. Chief Mackenzie Bock (Con
O'Neill) is just cartoonishly against the Batman.
Batman escapes with Gordon's help, running part of the way, then taking a
grappling-hook ride up to the top floor. They show how terrified he is of
the
height -- then he wing-suits his way out of it, but it does not go well.
His
little parachute catches on a bridge, dropping him into the street --
hard.
He's fine, though. Fresh as a daisy for a meeting with Gordon.
Another stakeout. It's raining again. They're looking at a drug lab. It's
just pouring. Selena Kyle shows up on her motorcycle. She and Batman find
her
friend, right before the fireworks start. Machine pistols flare, spraying
the
Batman, knocking him to the ground.
He retreats to his Batmobile, which, you know, obviously, just had to be
introduced in a flashy way. At least it adds another color to the movie's
palette: blue. The flame coming out the back is blue. The car looks all
old-timey, though, too. A lot of this film is chronologically ambiguous.
It
feels a little bit like Dick Tracy.
The car chase in the rain is pretty unique, with a lot of realistic damage
to
the Batmobile, an absolute clusterfuck of crashing caused by The Penguin,
then the Batman flies over a ramp, through a ball of flame, and flips the
Penguin's car dozens of times. He's perfectly fine.No seatbelt. No airbags
went off. Not a scratch on him. Not dazed. Just...fine. Cartoonish.
Falcone is Catwoman's father, not her former lover. My bad. I read that
one
wrong. Bruce visits Falcone to find out that he'd killed one of Thomas
Wayne's political enemies -- a journalist. Alfred is mind-fucking Bruce
about
what really happened. Somehow Alfred is now the bad-ass who taught Bruce
how
to fight -- he was apparently the one in charge of keeping Bruch's parents
alive, but he'd failed. What is happening?
They're just chatting by Alfred's hospital bed -- did I forget to mention
that he'd almost gotten blown up? It doesn't really matter. -- and this
section is interminable. No wonder this movie clocks in at almost three
hours.
Selena Kyle is a one-dimensional character. Utterly terrible. Woodenly
acted.
She goes to take out Falcone, but can't hit the broad side of a barn,
although she can take a punch. She takes a crowbar to the back of the head
and is only temporarily dazed. No blood. Throws off a choking that would
have
crushed her windpipe, but ... didn't. This is just silly.
Also, her mask sucks. I have no idea what kind of Gen-Z bullshit balaclava
that is, but it's got to stop. I would attach a screenshot, but they're
all
so muddy and dark that you can barely see the damned thing.
Carmine's been arrested. Carmine's been killed. The Riddler has given
himself
up. The police are ransacking his apartment. Batman is there. Cop: "There
must be thousands of ledgers, filled with codes, ciphers, and scrawls."
Batman: "I found the one that contains the Riddler's origin story and
flipped
right to that page within seconds." Everybody: see nothing out of the
ordinary.
Why would they? They can complain that he's not a cop and that he
shouldn't
be on the scene, but he's the one finding everything and explaining
everything. He's the one who knows immediately that the chisel is the
murder
weapon that killed the mayor. How? No-one asks. Is it somehow obvious? If
so,
why don't the actual detectives see the connection? An emo, shut-in
billionaire knows better than all of them?
"He's been posting online. He's got like 500 followers."
That's not really a lot.
But it's enough, if all of them join Riddler's army.
So, the Riddler had an unstoppable plan to blow the seawall with seven
truck
bombs. This happens. All of the people of Gotham head for a central arena
for
shelter. The Riddler's Army is waiting for them, armed to the teeth. They
start shooting. They clip the new mayor.
Batman interrupts the party, attacking them one-on-one, taking shots and
bullets, but making progress. Finally, he gets caught full in the chest by
a
shotgun blast. Hanging on by one hand (with what must be 50 pounds of
armor
hanging with him, by the way). One of the last of the Riddler's Army lines
up
his shot -- and is knocked the hell out by Catwoman.
She pulls Batman up -- him with his 50 pounds of army and she with her 85
pounds of counterweight -- and they roll around, having a moment that ...
isn't sexy at all. Of course, he is grievously injured. She kisses him
when
he can't stop her. She get clocked on the head by a Riddler's minion. He's
still nearly incapacitated. He injects himself with some greenish
adrenalin
and flips the fuck out, just pounding on Selena's attacker. Gordon pulls
him
off. Batman seems totally fine now, not even injured at all.
The sea breaks into the arena, drowning everyone else -- Gordon, Selena
Kyle,
and Batman are on a catwalk far above. Batman throws himself down into the
water, pretty needlessly dramatically -- to what? Help people? Yup, he's
fine
now. He ignores everyone else and saves the ex-mayor's son, as well as the
new mayor, who 100% no longer remembers that she'd just been shot ten
minutes
ago. It's a prettily shot scene, but it's pretty stupid.
But not as stupid as the final voiceover during the rescue effort. Like,
just. spell. it. all. out.
"Vengeance won't change the past, mine or anyone else's. I have to become
more. People need hope. To know someone's out there for them. The city's
angry, scarred -- like me. Our scars can destroy us, even after the
physical
wounds have healed. But if we survive them, they can transform us. They
can
give us the power to endure, and the strength to fight."
You know, this might have felt deep in a comic book, written in that cool
handwriting, in those thought-bubble boxes. If I'd read it when I was
fourteen. They tried to do it for this movie, but it just sounded so
trite.
It's like Batman giving a TedX talk.
And now they're lingering on Batman and Selena's goodbye. Did they think
they'd made us care about their relationship at all? The music suggests
that
they think we should care very much. They moodily ride their motorcycles
away, racing each other on slick tires and wet streets -- perfectly
normal.
This is interminable.
Look, I gave it the benefit of the doubt because they let the bad guy win,
more or less. His plan worked. I took away a star for the bizarre
self-conceit that the movie had earned being three hours long. It's also
just
so goddamned dark. Just almost no lighting whatsoever. Barry Lyndon was
lit
better.
I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020) -- "9/10"
This movie is unconventional. It's chronologically unclear. The narrator is
extremely unreliable. Pretty much everybody and everything is unreliable.
Parts of it reminded me of The Shining. It takes some getting used to,
until
you start to see the reasoning behind the at-times stilted dialogue. I
took
copious notes because it's a thinker. Most of my notes will be belied by
later notes, as the movie peels the onion skin of its script. I left
everything because I find it describes the feeling of watching the movie
much
better.
We start out on a road trip with Jake (Jess Plemons) and a Young Woman
(Jessie Buckley). She is called alternatively Lucia and Louise throughout
the
movie. It is rife with symbolism that the viewer is expected to put this
together, or not, and it doesn't really matter. They are both eminently
awkward people. He's awkward but seems quite nice most of the time. He
says
very strange and abrupt things sometimes, but it's unclear whether those
are
things she's imagined. She is not a very nice or interesting person. She
thinks she's the one who's going to end things, and thinks, because she's
the
active one, that she is also the better one. This attitude is obvious. She
does not really like him, or what he is.
They are driving to his parents' house. It's a farm in the middle of
nowhere.
The road is straight and obviously fake. They are not really driving
anywhere. They are, but the movie doesn't care about making it look like
they
are. At the house, time...slips. She sees his father (David Thewliss) as
an
old, dementia-addled man, she sees him at dinner with a bandage on his
head,
she sees him at the end as a vital man, while his wife (Toni Collette)
lies
in a bed in the living room, obviously in hospice, and quite apparently
dead,
although Jake claims that she's sleeping. But they were just eating dinner
before. Or, rather, they were sitting at a sumptuously covered table from
which no-one ate. A long-dead dog appears and disappears.
In the car, on the way there, she recites a poem, leading us to think that
that is her line of work. At the house, Jake calls her a painter. She
shows
the parents some of her work, on her phone. Jake's mom asks how her
doctorate
in quantum physics is going. Jake is in the same field. Jake later
introduces
her as a gerontologist. In his room, she finds Jake's old paintings, which
are the ones she's shown his parents. She finds a book with a poem by
another
women, which turns out to be the poem that she'd recited on the way there,
claiming it as her own. Or perhaps she is that person from the book.
She goes to the basement with a nightgown covered in Jake's baby food,
handed
to her by a very young version of Jake's mother. The basement is dark and
the
machine is already running. It is filled with janitor's uniforms from the
local high school. We see glimpses of the janitor (Guy Boyd) working at
the
school. These glimpses are scattered throughout the film. It is unclear
whether this is Jake's real father or whether it is perhaps Jake in the
future. It is unclear whether the young woman is in Jake's mind.
The janitor cleans up as students practice Oklahoma! He watches a romantic
comedy that seems to reenact one of the two versions of Jake and the young
woman's meet-cute story that they tell his parents.
When they'd first arrived at the farm, he didn't want to go in
immediately.
He shows her the sheep pens. There were dead, frozen lambs outside the
barn
door. There is a dark spot on the floor of the now-empty pigpen, where the
two pigs that used to live there rotted alive, eaten by maggots.
Jake's hand is damaged by what look like a fight when he hands the bill to
the girl at Tulsey Town, who also has unmentioned bruises on her upper arm
and forearm -- or perhaps its a rash. She is accompanied by what look like
blond twins, who at first ask for orders, but afterwards huddle up like
NPCs
in the corner of the starkly lit booth, grinning and giggling endlessly
but
silently.
Neither of them wants to eat the giant ice-cream desserts they'd purchased
in
the dead of night in a blizzard. They decide to stop off at the high
school
to dispose of them.
They converse. He tries to discuss with her. She is not interested. His
conversational gambits are often clumsy. They have read so many esoteric
books in common that they must be the same person, a person conversing
with
himself or herself. He is quite neurotic. He calls her "Ames" at one
point.
"Jake: Everything is tinged. Colored by mood, by emotion, by past experience.
There is no objective reality. You know there's no color in the universe,
right? Only in the brain, just electromagnetic frequencies. The brain
tinges
them.
"Lucia/Louise/Ames/Young woman: Yes, I am a physicist. I know what color
is.
"Jake: Yes, yes, yes. You are. You do.
"Lucia/Louise/Ames/Young woman: Color is the deeds of light. It's the
deeds
and suffering.
"Jake: That's beautiful. It's not physicist talk, but eminently poetic.
"Lucia/Louise/Ames/Young woman: Yeah, well, I am a poet after all.
"Jake: You are. It's beautiful."
They arrive at the giant high school. There's a truck in the parking lot.
They argue about Baby, It's Cold Outside. Is it a rape song? Is it
playful?
Is there room for playfulness anymore? Does it matter that it was written
in
1936?
He admits he was wrong. She accepts his apology. They kiss. He snaps back,
interrupted by a vision of the janitor peeping at them through a hole in a
wall.
Jake leaves the car to go into the high school. She is freezing in the
car,
arguing with herself. She gets out, then is locked out.
She follows him into the high school, where she finds the janitor mopping
the
floor. She hides from him. He finds her, huddled on the floor. He doesn't
speak, but she hears his voice in her head.
She tells him yet another story of how she met Jake. That she was with her
girlfriend, celebrating their anniversary. In the first story, she talked
of
how they met at a pub-trivia night. Now she calls him a creeper who would
not
stop staring at her.
She says she can't remember what he looks like because "it was so long
ago."
She can't remember because they didn't interact.
They talk. They hug. He offers her house slippers because he's just
cleaned
the floors. They're the same shoes Jake gave to her in his parents' house.
She says, "they're yours." Which makes sense, because I think the janitor
is
Jake. But I still think she's a figment of Jake's imagination. That he
imagines how much she hated seeing him staring at her, even while he's
imagining a relationship with her, imagining taking her to visit his
parents..
She finds Jake. They stare at each other along the high-school hallway.
Doppelgängers appear behind them, cut around them, and begin to dance a
lovely ballet in a suddenly brightened hallway. The drinking fountains
sprays
a cascade up and down the wall.
Their dance ends in a mock wedding, interrupted by a janitor dancer, who
takes her away. She is rescued by her beau, who fights the janitor. The
janitor pulls a knife. Snow falls. They are in the gymnasium. Atonal
fighting
music fades. Red handkerchiefs fly, signifying blood and death. Jake
appears
again, as Jake. The janitor cleans up the snow around the corpse, morphing
back into the janitor in the school hallway. Was this a daydream of his,
imagined as he cleaned the floors at night?
He grabs his thermos. It's just like the thermos that Jake had when he
arrived at his parents' house. It's just like the drawerful of thermoses
to
which he added his at his parents' house. Or was it the janitor's house?
The janitor cleans the snow off of his truck. He gets in. He sits there,
mumbling to himself, imagining Jake's parents fighting. He shakes. he
suffers. He strips.. He hallucinates.
The pig infested with maggots shows up. "Come." He follows the pig back
into
the high school, naked as the day he was born. The pig says, "Let's get
you
dressed."
Jake is on stage, accepting an award. The stage is dressed for Oklahoma.
Jake
is much older. His mother, father, and the young woman are in the
audience.
They are all heavily made up. He is accepting a Nobel Prize. The entire
crowd
looks like the photo at the end of The Shining.
He sings Lonely Room from the musical Oklahoma!. He sings wonderfully.
Morning comes. There is a car buried in snow in the parking lot of the
high
school, under a blue, blue sky.
The credit pages flick past in silence.
This is pretty avant-garde stuff, but kind of fascinating. It's just nice
to
watch something that's not predictable. Now that I know who Charlie
Kaufman
is, I'm not surprised. He's made Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,
Adaptation, Being John Malkovich, and Synecdoche, New York, all of which I
liked very much.
Captain Phillips (2013) -- "7/10"
I'm struck by the apt representation of American empire. We see Captain
Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks) getting ready for his next job at his house
in
Vermont. He is headed for Salalah, Oman, for a delivery to Mombasa, Kenya.
He
probably only knows English. He can't understand a word anyone else is
saying
in the part of the world he works. It doesn't matter because he is part of
Empire. Those people, in their homelands, will speak the language of
Empire
to make themselves understood by it. They will have to put in the effort,
not
him.
The shot of him arriving at the port reminded me immediately of how the
space
stations were filmed in The Expanse. Giant cranes and containers
everywhere.
Enormous ships rearing up from endless docks. Phillips is a consummate
professional. He gets a report that there are pirates in the area. He runs
drills to fend off pirates. The pirates show up on his radar. He fakes a
call
to U.S. air support. The Somalis are listening in. One boat is scared off.
Muse (Barkhad Abdi) is not scared off. He keeps coming, despite Phillips
pushing his boat faster and moving 5º port and starboard to throw up a
wake.
When the skiff is only 1/4-mile away, its motor dies, flooded with
seawater
from the heavy seas behind the freighter.
Phillips and his crew take stock. So do Muse and his crew. They join the
other boat and are trying to fix his motor. He tells them to give him the
motor from the other boat -- which is just full of cowards anyway. That
skiff's captain takes offense, but gets a cool wrench up-side his head for
all his bluster.
The next day, Muse -- his mates call him "skinny", which he most certainly
is
-- is right back on their tail, announcing himself as the Somali Coast
Guard.
He is obviously ignored. They open fire. The ship blasts water from fire
hoses from all sides, so that the skiff can't approach. Shane (Michael
Chernus) goes down to fix an errant hose. The Somalis shoot at him,
approaching with a hooked ladder. It hooks. Phillips slues the ship 30º
to
starboard. They get on anyway. Port 30º, then starboard 30º. None of it
helps. They're onboard. They abandon their skiff.
"Four pirates on board. [Tom Hanks is doing his Vermont accent.]"
They're on the bridge. After a bit of back and forth, the pirates call the
captain's bluff. He calls their bluff right back. They go to the engine
room.
Muse sends Bilal (Barkhad Abdirahman) back to the bridge with Phillips.
Muse
is taken hostage by the crew.
They eventually give the Somalis $30,000 and the lifeboat. They kidnap the
captain, looking for a bigger payday.
The U.S. Navy is on intercept course. The higher-ups don't care, though.
They're going to send in a SEAL team to mop things up -- without real
regard
for the hostage's life. The main thing is to not let them get Phillips to
Somalia, where it would be too expensive to secure his release. So, they'd
rather have him killed than captured. Sounds like Israel's Hannibal
Directive. And Phillips isn't even a soldier.
The Somalis mention that they used to be fishermen, until the big ships
came
and took all the fish. Now, they're pirates. But they don't realize that
they're fighting the biggest pirates of all: The U.S. and its hegemony
don't
pay for anything that they can steal instead. If anyone objects to them
stealing it, then they're killed by the military. There is no real
difference
in ethics -- just in scale.
You can see the massive imbalance in power with the four skinny, starving
Somalis driving in a shitty lifeboat, being chased by a giant U.S. naval
vessel (The U.S.S. Bainbridge). There are also several helicopters full of
Navy Seals on the way. The important thing is not to give them any money.
What kind of lesson would that be? You can only steal things if you're big
and strong. You can steal things if you already have the biggest weapons,
not
if you're puny fisherman with no power.
Someone on the U.S. naval vessel actually speaks Somali -- Nemo (Omar
Berdouni). He starts negotiations. Muse speaks to him in English
defiantly.
Simultaneously, the Navy boards the freighter and says they'll escort it
to
Mombasa. Spare no cost, even if it would be much cheaper to just pay the
pirates.
The Navy catches up to the lifeboat. Muse demands $10M. They show the
captain. He says he's in "Seat 15", which is the seat he's in on the boat
--
you know, for when they start shooting into it.
The U.S.S. Bainbridge captain Castellano (Yul Vazquez) is trying to
resolve
this peacefully before the SEALs arrive. Muse says he'll negotiate when he
gets to Somalia. No-one's told him that that's not going to be allowed to
happen. He thinks he's safe because he has a hostage, but saving the
hostage
is optional.
There are two more ships now -- three enormous-looking U.S. naval vessels
chasing them, dwarfing the lifeboat they're puttering their way to Somalia
in. Muse's boss has cut and run. Muse won't give up though -- he's got
nothing to lose. "I've come too far. I can't give up." Even if it comes to
sinking the lifeboat, he'd rather go under on the chance that they'll get
to
Somalia first.
That lifeboat cabin must be funky,. I don't see a bathroom.
The SEALs leap off the back of their plane into darkness.
Phillips gets up to take a leak. He's on the back of the boat with Bilal.
He
pushes him in, then dives in himself. He starts swimming for the U.S.
boats.
Muse says to find him, but not kill him. He knows Phillips is the only
reason
they're still alive. Najee (Faysal Ahmed) -- the psycho -- fires on
Phillips
anyway. Phillips dives. The lifeboat drifts closer to him. Phillips
rounds
the boat, swimming under it. Muse jumps in and grabs him. They get him
back
into the boat. Najee beats the shit out of him.
This is dragging on a bit, to be honest.
Castellano continues to try to get them to give themselves up. Muse drags
Phillips out the back hatch, alternatively pointing the pistol at Phillips
and shooting at the helicopter.
The SEAL team leader starts negotiations, telling them all their names,
then
saying that he will give them money, but that it has to happen
confidentially. The U.S. doesn't want to be seen as having paid off
pirates.
It is pretty clear that none of this is true. Muse believes it, though. He
has no other choice.
Muse thinks he's going to the Navy ship to get money.
"Muse: It was supposed to be easy. I take ship... ransom... nobody get hurt.
Captain Richard Phillips: You had thirty thousand dollars, and a way to
Somalia. It wasn't enough?
Muse: I got bosses. They got rules.
Captain Richard Phillips: We all got bosses.
Muse: [gives him the look he deserves for thinking his own boss is as bad
as
Muse's boss]
Captain Richard Phillips: There's gotta be something other than being a
fisherman and kidnapping people.
Muse: Maybe in America, Irish. Maybe in America."
The SEALs hand Phillips a "uniform", which is probably a bulletproof vest.
I
mean, the U.S. Navy has all of the advantages. Muse isn't going to meet
any
elders. They've got a tow line on the lifeboat. The power advantage is
overwhelming. "Where are the elders?" Muse realizes he's been fucked, lied
to. There was never going to be a deal. I mean, obviously.
They start towing. The lifeboat gets closer to the boat. There are a dozen
SEAL snipers on the back of the Navy boat. The other boats start making
massive lateral wakes to rock the lifeboat. They winch them closer, you
know,
to get them out of the big waves.
Najee catches the captain writing a note to his family, but the captain
has
had enough and attacks him, getting in a few good licks. The pirates get
him
under control and bind him up.
Najee is the only one who knows what's going to happen. "You two are
idiots.
No-one is coming. Everything they told you is a lie! They will kill us
all."
He's right. They stop the tow. All three targets sway into sight. All
three
targets are sniped.
They easily spent way more than $10M for this outcome. But neither the
company nor the insurance company paid for it. The U.S. taxpayer footed
the
bill. The Navy arrests Muse and prepares to take him to America, where he
will stand trial. Since the U.S. made sure that Somalia doesn't have a
government, so they don't have to bother with extraditing a foreign
national
-- not like they would give a shit about international law anyway. The
U.S.
Navy enforces its will off the coast of a country that it destroyed.
Empire.
I'm taking away a star because it was too damned long. I guess they'd paid
for all of that hardware and wanted to make sure they got their money's
worth. Anytime there's that much military hardware in a movie, the
Pentagon
gets to write the script.
Now, how can I be so callous about poor Captain Phillips? He was a nice
guy
who tried to treat everyone fairly, and who seemed to have genuine empathy
for even the pirates that had taken him captive -- except, perhaps and
understandably, for Najee, who was an asshole. I do, I do. But I see his
suffering as the suffering of one man, whereas the film depicted the
plight
of an entire nation that had been destroyed, allowed to be destroyed,
encouraged to be destroyed, by the same country whose navy rescued
Phillips.
I cannot ignore the context. I can only assume that it was intentional in
the
film. Perhaps I've imbued it. Perhaps it was a film about an upstanding
American who was rescued by his selfless government, who put down the
filthy,
upstart natives who can only steal, never produce. But this ignores the
context that the U.S. is the greatest thief of all. It patrols and
enforces
what it deems "international waters". The danger in those waters can only
be
addressed with military means. The solution couldn't be to take all of
that
money and help Somalia back on its feet, to make it so that the country
wouldn't produce pirates rather than fishermen. I dunno.
The Social Dilemma (2020) -- "7/10"
Jaron Lanier is in this. At 21:12 he says,
"We've created a world in which online connection has become primary,
especially for younger generations. And yet, in that world, any time two
people connect, the only way it's financed is through a sneaky third
person
who's paying to manipulate those two people. So, we've created an entire
global generation of people who are raised within a context where the very
meaning of communication, the very meaning of culture, is manipulation.
We've
put deceit and sneakiness at the absolute center of everything we do."
That NVidia Teraflops chart at 45;:00 was impressive.
[image]
"What people miss is that AI already runs today's world right now."
The side story is interesting, making it look like there is certain
information that is definitely bad and other information that is
definitely
good. That doesn't exist, not really. All information is on a spectrum.
There
is certain information that is reliable and true. If you never hear
anything
that you disagree with, then you're probably not hearing the truth -- or
you're hearing things that are true, but also not hearing a lot of other
things that are not only also true, but would be useful.
The film does a good job of showing people that there is misinformation
out
there. However, while they're willing to attack flat-Earthers,
Pizzagaters,
climate-change deniers, COVID deniers ("Querdenker"), or Q-Anon (which the
extremist group in the film is definitely the model for), there's no way
they'll mention the biggest psy-ops of our times, like WMDs (before social
media), the pro-vaccine manipulation campaigns, or RussiaGate (both after
social media).
They, like so many others, have an enormous blind spot for their own
propaganda. RussiaGate fooled so many dozens of millions of people and
continues to do so, evidenced by the fact that you're still not allowed to
talk about it as a psy-op, even in a documentary about psy-ops of the
2010s.
It's incredible. Just the degree of self-deception they're capable of, all
while they're supposedly exposing how we're so manipulated.
"We've created a system that biases towards false information. Not because we
want to, but because false information makes the companies more money than
the truth. The truth is boring."
Bullshit. That's a nice cop-out that happens to exonerate you, but it's
not
entirely true. You choose which slant to provide to the information. You
allow yourselves to be bribed to only show certain information. That's the
truth right there. And that's not boring. The "algorithm" doesn't clamp
down
on news about Israeli slaughters in the West Bank -- lobbyists and
investors
do.
The algorithm would promote the shit out of that stuff if it were allowed
to,
because it would drive engagement incredibly. But the companies are paid
not
to. So spare me your bullshit about how the "algorithm is out of control".
It's a pat story that also happens to let you live with your hundreds of
millions with a clear conscience. But it's not true. The truth is far more
exciting and interesting. These people may have been duped by the drive to
make a lot of money, but they continue to be duped by those who really
control information.
At one point, one of the dude-bros says that the goal was,
"[t]o reach anyone for the best price."
Yeah, sure, Why don't you talk about who was paying you that "best price"?
It
wasn't just "advertisers". It was large political organizations as well as
the government itself, through various organizations and fronts..
Oh Jesus, now they're saying that "we see Russia and China spreading these
conspiracy theories." Sure, sure, talk about everyone else running the
psyops
but never mention who's running the biggest and most effective ones. I
didn't
expect anything else of a Netflix documentary. It's basically soma for
liberals.
A Netflix documentary like this is here to tell liberalls that social
media
is manipulating all of us, but it's especially manipulating those psychos
who
are outside of your silo. They cut to a montage of photos of COVID
protestors, most of whom were protesting the mandates and crackdowns,
rather
than saying that it didn't exist. There's a little parallel story about
Ben
(Skyler Gisondo), who's being radicalized, leading him to ignore hot girls
in
real life in order to watch content about extremist shit. He's radicalized
by
libertarian hucksters, but never by liberal ones.
"Roger McNamee One of the problems with Facebook is that, as a tool of
persuasion, it may be the greatest thing ever created. Now, imagine what
that
means in the hands of a dictator or an authoritarian. If you want to
control
the population of your country, there has never been a tool as effective
as
Facebook."
Dude, I'm happy you're so able to live in an irony-free world where you
don't
notice that you just literally described the US of A as she is. I don't
have
to imagine it! You're literally in a psy-op documentary about psy-ops that
the government of the U.S. Empire doesn't like. They're already using it
--
and it's not the dastardly Chinese or Russians or North Koreans or
Iranians.
It's your very own country. You're part of the psy-op! You're in this
documentary convincing people that this could never happen in the U.S.,
when
various powerful organizations are literally doing exactly that. All the
time. Why do you think we haven't mentioned bad actors like Russiagaters?
Why
do you think we're seeing idiocy from only one silo? Is it because, no
matter
how hard they tried, they just couldn't find any misinformation peddled by
your own silo?
OMG now they're reprosecuting the 2016 election. What the actual fuck!?
They
talk all the time about manipulative social media, then they make an
extremely one-sided, manipulative documentary that doesn't even know how
ironic it is. 👏👏👏
It'd be fantastic if I thought this was a satire.
At 1:15:00, Cathy O'Neil says
"We are allowing the technologists to frame this as a problem that they're
equipped to solve. That's a lie. People talk about AI as it will know
truth.
AI's not gonna solve these problems. AI cannot solve the problem of fake
news. Google doesn't have the option of saying: 'Oh, is this conspiracy?
Is
this truth?' Because they don't know what truth is. They don't have a
proxy
for truth that's better than a click."
She's very good. I like her. AI's not gonna solve these problems is right!
It's going to exacerbate them. And, honestly, if we continue to make such
slanted videos telling us about the problem of slanted information, then
you
can just save yourself the time spent watching this tripe.
"Tristan: If we don't agree on what is true, or that there is such a thing as
truth, we're toast. This is the problem beneath other problems because, if
we
can't agree on what's true, then we can't navigate out of any of our
problems."
Dude, you're going about it the wrong way. Cathy is way smarter than you
are
(even though Netflix seems to think you're the star). You're getting all
mucked up because you don't have the required capacity for philosophical
thought because your brain is no longer attuned to it. We will never agree
on
the important things being true. We can all already agree that there is
truth, but can't agree on what that is. If you don't acknowledge that
you're
part of a desperately manipulative video lamenting about people not
knowing
what's true -- then you're part of the problem.
We don't have to agree on what's true. A nice basis would be good. But
we're
in the murky waters of principles and ethics here, right? It's more
important
for people to understand the truth that every human being has certain,
inalienable rights. We can't even agree on that.
Whether people think that the Earth is flat doesn't matter. Almost
everyone
can act as if it isn't every damned day and it won't matter one bit. My
life
wasn't affected by the gentle curvature of the Earth today. I'm happy to
leave them their peccadillos. I'm more interested in whether they're good
human beings with actual, real principles.
The creators of this documentary are not those kinds of people. A
principle
is something that you apply, even when it reflects badly on you. If you're
against murder, unless you really think someone needs killing -- then
you're
not against murder in principle, you just think no-one else should get to
do
it. It's the same with these people: they think the manipulation is bad,
but
then mention not a single goddamned instance when their own side did it,
leading one to believe that they only think that manipulation is bad when
their ideological enemies do it.
Tristan just keeps getting it slightly wrong. He goes on,
"It's not about the technology being the existential threat. It's the
technology's ability to bring out the worst in society -- and the worst in
society being the existential threat."
Did you practice that one in front of the mirror? That's not the problem.
The
problem is the people in charge of these powerful tools. It's not the
tools
that are manipulating. It's the people that set up the guardrails that
determine how these algorithms work. Of course, it's arguable that the
tool
is too powerful for anyone. OK. But his argument is tailor-made to absolve
him and all of the other sociopaths in this documentary of any blame.
The machine was too powerful for anyone!
It got out of control!
Who could have known!
Anyone who's watched capitalists do their thing could have known -- and,
in
fact, did know. You all participated because you were making a shit-ton of
money for yourselves and you honestly didn't care about any of the
repercussions. Now you do -- or at least pretend to, for even more money
--
and you're still fooling yourselves into thinking that you're not still
manipulating people. It's for a good cause this time, though, right?
He says that the platforms should be responsible -- that's his proposed
solution. But I don't think that's correct. The platforms shouldn't be in
charge! They're unelected.
Look, I wanted to like this documentary. I think it makes a few good
points,
but it's so one-sided, so manipulative. Not a single
Republican/Libertarian
in here. You couldn't get Glenn Greenwald? Matt Taibbi? Chris Hedges?
No-one
outside of your unalloyed, liberal silo?
here's Jaron Lanier again,
"If we go down the current status quo for, let's say, another 20 years, we
probably destroy our civilization through willful ignorance. We probably
fail
to meet the challenge of climate change. We degrade the world's
democracies
so that they fall into some sort of bizarre autocratic dysfunction. We
probabaly ruin the global economy. We probably don't survive. I really do
view it as existential."
He's right, of course, but nothing else in the documentary is honest about
this. You would get the impression that the only problem is climate-change
deniers, like the really obvious dipshits from the other silo. But the
problem is that everyone ignores the problem -- does nothing meaningful
toward actually solving it, like proposing reduction -- because the
narrative
is being manipulated by the real powers, the real elites, all of whom go
completely unmentioned here.
We are led to believe that the machine is out of control, despite our best
efforts. That's not true at all. The machine is very firmly under the
control
of those who run everything else -- and it's humming along just fine.
Look at Bill McKibben, chirpily writing in the NY Times that COP28 was
much
more hopeful than ever. That plus $2 will buy you a lottery ticket. But
the
machine is happy to promulgate these ideas -- these myths -- even though
it's
also climate-denialism. It's doing the dirty work of fossil-fuel companies
who desperately do not want the world to change in any way that will stop
the
increase of their year-on-year profits. That's the more insidious
manipulation distribute by this tremendous machine -- but it's fully under
the control of those who control the narrative.
They use the algorithm -- the machine -- to make half of us hate Biden for
loving the environment so much that he wants to take away our cars, and
the
other half love him for being such an environmental president. This, when
the
truth -- the meta-narrative -- is that the damage is accelerating no
matter
who's president because it's all a giant fairy tale told by the
powers-that-be, those that never seem to change no matter who's in charge
--
the owners of capital.
They have this machine at their disposal to tighten their grip on the
power
they've always had. This documentary didn't tell that story. It's not
allowed
to. The producers and most of the people involved probably have no idea
that
this is the real story to tell. They would be shocked to read this review,
shocked to think that Russiagate was disinformation, that selling Biden as
a
climate president is misinformation.
At then, near the end, they kind of hint at the problem being
"capitalism".
Tristan again,
"What I see is a bunch of people who are trapped by a business model, an
economic incentive, and shareholder pressure that makes it almost
impossible
to do something else."
No wonder they made him the star of the documentary: he absolutely excels
in
telling stories as if neither him nor any of the other characters has any
agency. Who can blame someone for acting in a certain way when all
decisions
have been taken completely out of their hands by the economy and the
algorithm? Those poor, poor, deca-millionaires.
Another dude:
"I think we need to accept that it's OK for companies to be focused on making
money. What's not okay is when there's no regulation, no rules, and no
competition. And the companies are acting as sort-of, de-facto
governments."
It's adorable watching Silicon Valley libertarians re-invent regulatory
frameworks after spending a decade or two dismantling them and making a
tremendous amount of money while doing it. As soon they're made their nut,
then they're ready to allow regulation again. After all, their companies
are
now big enough to deal with it -- and it will nicely stifle competition.
Look, companies whose only goal is to make money will always end up
dismantling regulations because they get in the way of making money. Are
they
making enough money within the regulatory framework? Of course they are!
But
they could make more money. And more money is always better. So you spend
a
little money to make more money. You pay some lobbyists to buy some
legislators to weaken or eliminate the regulation -- and then you make
that
investment back 20x over. Profit.
Jaron Lanier again:
"Financial incentives kind of run the world. So, any solution to this problem
has to be aligned with financial incentives."
Or...we could reexamine the axiomatic "financial incentives run the
world."
I mean, look, they tried really hard to make a documentary -- but they
couldn't get out of their own silo, they couldn't talk to anyone who
didn't
already agree with literally everything they already thought before they
made
the documentary.
It ends on this soliloquy by Justin Rosenstein:
"We live in a world in which a tree is worth more, financially, dead than
alive, in a world in which a whale is worth more dead than alive. For so
long
as our economy works in that way and corporations go unregulated, they're
going to continue to destroy trees, to kill whales, to mine the earth, and
to
continue to pull oil out of the ground, even though we know it is
destroying
the planet and we know that it's going to leave a worse world for future
generations.
"This is short-term thinking based on this religion of profit at all
costs,
as if somehow, magically, each corporation acting in its selfish interest
is
going to produce the best result. This has been affecting the environment
for
a long time. What's frightening, and what hopefully is the last straw that
will make us wake up as a civilization to how flawed this theory has been
in
the first place, is to see that now we're the tree, we're the whale.
"Our attention can be mined. We are more profitable to a corporation if
we're
spending time staring at a screen, staring at an ad, than if we're
spending
that time living our life in a rich way. And so, we're seeing the results
of
that. We're seeing corporations using powerful artificial intelligence to
outsmart us and figure out how to pull our attention toward the things
they
want us to look at, rather than the things that are most consistent with
our
goals and our values and our lives."
OK. That's nice. You get a star back for including that. You still lose
two
for not having gone far enough, for having only done the easy part --
talking
to your echo chamber.
In the end, not a single one of them says that "we need to change the
system." Even Jaron accepts the confines of "financial incentives [...]
run[ning] the world." The problem is neoliberalism, hyper-capitalism.
There's
not going to be "massive public pressure" because the Elite will use their
machine to make sure that this never happens.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=48752024-01-15T22:36:21+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
The Greatest Showman (2017) -- "6/10"
Jesus Christ, I hate musicals. I can't imagine how Hugh Jackman convinced
himself to make this movie, knowing that Ryan Reynolds would mercilessly
mock
him for the rest of his natural-born life about it. I guarantee you that
Reynolds does that little dance that Jackman did at the start of his first
circus every damned time Reynolds is standing on the porch of Jackman's
house, where the Ring-Cam can see him. It must be awful.
Jackman bursts into pitchy song in the first minute, but then the children
start singing even more poorly, making his voice seem strong and an on-key
in
comparison.
A young P.T. Barnum (later Hugh Jackman) grows up with rich girl Charity
(Michelle Williams) and eventually marries her, against her father's
wishes.
After the shipping company he works at loses all of its boats in the South
China Sea, he snags the deed and transforms it into collateral for his
first
circus. After trying it relatively straight -- I mean, as straight as you
can
get when you've you've a sunken boat as collateral for a bank loan -- he
puts
out a call for "unique persons" -- freaks -- and gets a whole collection
of
them for his first show.
More singing. Huge freaking dance number for the opening of the first
circus.
His circus grows in reputation. He takes on an apprentice Phillip Carlyle
(Zac Ephron) to get him into the highbrow crowd. He gets an audience with
the
Queen of England, where he meets Jenny Lind (Rebecca Ferguson), the
"Swedish
Nightingale" and invites her to sing on his stage.
There's more singing, completely unsurprising love affairs, family tension
as
Barnum continues trying to prove himself long after he's achieved more
than
enough to be happy. He is one with the high-class people, but then,
predictably, disparages his freaks. He doesn't want to offend his new
friends. YAWN.
To no-one's surprise at all, Jenny Lind wants a piece of P.T. Barnum, but
he
rebuffs her. Then she threatens to ruin his show by abandoning it because
hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Oh, and also women are completely
unprofessional. She robs a kiss on stage at her last performance, right as
they're taking a picture. That won't have any further influence on the
film,
I bet.
Thugs from the neighborhood assault the actors in the circus, then set the
entire building on fire in revenge when they get their asses kicked.
Philipp
and P.T. run into the burning building to rescue the animals -- I shit you
not. P.T. carried Philipp back out. The elephants are fine.
Charity briefly leaves P.T., he's devastated, his circus crew cheers him
up,
Philipp uses his remaining money to restart the circus, they partner up
50/50, they move to a tent down by the wharves, P.T. hands the scepter
over
to Philipp, the circus is wildly successful (again), P.T. retires to his
family. Happy endings all around.
Moar inappropriate singing, of course.
The music is terrible. I don't ever need to hear any of these songs again.
Foundation S02 (2023) -- "6/10"
This show looks really, really good. They paid for the good CGI. There are
also some good actors, but there are also some big hams. The "inherent
problems of season 1"
are unchanged: there are still too many characters with woke-ish
motivations
and it feels like they really twisted around the source material to serve
modern agendas, robbing us of the wonder of a story that takes place over
dozens of millennia. Or, as a friend wrote to me:
"I absolutely despise how they replaced a smart, cunning politician from the
book with a black girl with a big gun, kicking asses. I still watched it,
because I'm addicted to sci-fi but I think the adaptation is making Isaac
spin in his grave. The original has some flaws with all the misogynist,
Mad-Men-style culture. But everything that was great about the books is
lost
in the TV show."
I don't have much to add. Sometimes its infuriating to watch 90% of the
show
filled with palace intrigue and love affairs between unutterably stupid
people, while waiting for the rarer moments of galactic grandeur and
smartifying by Hari Seldon (Jared Harris). He's a lot of fun and the Prime
Radiant gets short shrift relative to bullshit like Brother Dawn's
(Cassian
Bilton) torrid affair with his clone Brother Day's (Lee Pace) bride-to-be
Queen Sareth of Cloud Dominion (Ella-Rae Smith), who I'm sure we're all
supposed to think is the most beautiful and desirable creature in the
galaxy,
but who I found irritating and poorly drawn as a character.
The story arc with Hober Mallow (Dimitri Leonidas) and Brother Constant
(Isabella Laughland) was very good, as they are consummate actors and
their
story arc and dialogue were well-written and convincing. Poly Verisof
(Kulvinder Ghir) was also a well-fleshed out character who was easy to
like
and relate to. I like Demerzel. She's great. She's haughty, but she's
earned
it. Sareth looks like a bimbo in comparison, entitled and weak. I much
preferred Enjoiner Rue (Sandra Yi Sencindiver), her grand vizier.
We must come to the sad fact that Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell) is still
around,
as is Salvor Hardin (Leah Harvey) who, while somewhat one-dimensional, is
still much better than Gaal. She kept falling for that one mentat posing
as
her lover Hugo (Daniel MacPherson) again and again and again, which seemed
somewhat weak and hard to explain, other than simply hand-waving "mentats
can
make you do whatever they want". But then they also had Gaal and Hari and
Salvor defeat a whole tribe full of mentats by controlling their own
thoughts
and thus what the mentats could "see". It's just uneven, inconsistent.
Here's the thing. I don't care about inconsistencies unless you make me
think
of them while I'm watching the show. Another instance was where people
would
have loud, treacherous conversations about killing the emperor right in
his
own palace. They're 10,000 years in the future and there are no listening
devices? No drones? No, of course there are these things. They featured
heavily in other parts of the plot, but were just assumed to be completely
absent when it was more convenient. Another was where people -- I'm
looking
at you, Salvor -- who've seen others assume other identities chirpily
confide
in their friends without a single thought that the person they're talking
to
might not be their friend, but another mentat. And so on.
The finale was unnecessarily violent and insane -- though pretty! -- with
Brother Day destroying Terminus in the most savage way possible, then
fighting his own general Bel Riose (Ben Daniels) who was torn between
trying
to save his gay lover Glawen Curr (Dino Fetscher) and being faithful to
Empire. He ended up letting Glawen die, then getting into a knock-down,
drag-out with Empire anyway, eventually fooling him into an airlock, using
a
tricky device he'd gotten from Hober Mallow, with whom he drinks shitty
wine
as their ship implodes into a singularity.
Surprise! Glawen is still alive on the planet's surface somehow. It
doesn't
matter. Day is dead, Dawn is dead. Dusk is dead. Furious, Demerzel returns
to
Trantor to decant new versions of all of them. She is determined to
maintain
the balance. The knots in the Prime Radiant approach relentlessly, like
the
tide, seemingly unalterable. Gaal and Salvor want to alter them, smooth
them
out. We shall see.
Planet of the Apes (1968) -- "6/10"
We start off with a soliloquy by Astronaut George Taylor (Charlton Heston),
who's piloting his spaceship back to Earth after what for him and his crew
was a six-month journey, but during which 700 years have passed on Earth.
He's smoking a cigar in the cabin, like you do. Afterwards, he puts
himself
into what looks like cryo-sleep.
Their ship "lands" in water, on what they all pretend not to recognize as
Earth. One of their crew has died of old age -- presumably her cryo-sleep
bed
malfunctioned. It was probably just an excuse to not have to pay an extra
actress. It would have been awkward if she'd lived and then had to take
care
of the others at the camp the whole time. They are soon very much occupied
with their ship sinking and filling with water. They don't wonder at all
why
they can breathe the air. It is Earth year 3978, November 25th, to be
exact.
They escape their ship and start padding their way to shore. They have no
tent, no real supplies, and they're sitting on a rocky shore in the
blazing
sunshine. They have 3 days of food. They seriously think they're not on
Earth, despite the water and air.
Wow, Charlton Heston is a terrible actor. That fake laugh when he sees the
tiny American flag is just ... unconvincing.
They wander about some more, discovering plants, and then water. They
landed
in water, but now they're super-excited to have found more of it. They
jump
into the lake at the oasis, with waterfalls and everything. They're all
naked. They'd gone there to investigate "scarecrows", which look like
constructions of some sort. After their swim, they discovered footprints
in
the mud by the lake. Soon after, their clothes are stolen.
They follow a trail of their destroyed supplies and clothes, finally
emerging
into a heavily vegetated plain, where they find what look like people.
Human
people. "They look more-or-less human, but I think they're mute." They all
sprint across the plain, like a herd of animals. The humans flee in terror
before a battalion cum hunting party of monkeys riding horses, flushing
them
out and shooting them.
The hunt goes on for a long time, during which Dodge (Jeff Burton) is
killed
and Landon (Robert Gunner) is captured. Taylor, meanwhile, is shot in the
neck, then captured. For whatever reason, they save him with a blood
transfusion. He's apparently been captured by scientists, not hunters.
The apes Cornelius (Roddy McDowall), Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans), and Zira
(Kim
Hunter) all speak English. Taylor still no inkling that he might be on
planet
Earth. They call Taylor "Bright Eyes", and are amazed at how he is trying
to
talk. He's mute because he's been shot in the throat. He tries to take the
notepad from one of the scientists, but is beaten back. The apes continue
to
experiment, putting Nova (Linda Harrison) into the cage with Taylor,
leeringly expecting him to jump on her.
He keeps attempting to communicate, to no avail. Finally, he snatches
Zira's
notepad and writes his name before being beaten back. She sees what he's
written -- in the Latin alphabet, in English -- and can read it. No-one is
surprised, least of all Taylor.
Stuff happens; they communicate; Taylor breaks out of his cage and is
loose
in the compound. He is almost caught, but breaks free to get to a museum.
Some great camera angles and shots in these chase scenes, though. Really
pretty inspired stuff.
When he's finally caught in a net, his throat is finally healed. His first
words are "take your stinkin' paws off me, you damned dirty ape."
Taylor is put on trial. He's not allowed to testify for himself under "ape
law." As part of the trial, he is shown a group of humans, among whom he
recognizes Landon. Landon doesn't recognize him, though. Landon doesn't
seem
to be aware of anything. He's been lobotomized. "You did it. You cut up
his
brain, you bloody baboon!" Taylor's (Heston's) teeth are on full display
as
he tries to attack the tribunal. He calls that "acting". He's netted and
dragged back into the courtroom, while the other humans are herded back
into
the cages mounted on wagons that brought them there.
They're all back in prison. Zira and Cornelius help Taylor and Nova escape
into the "forbidden zone." They give Taylor and Nova horses and a rifle.
They
discover older treasures in a cave. When Dr. Zaius shows up, they bargain
with him, asking him to be a man of science and examine the evidence in
the
cave. Lucius (Lou Wagner), another ape who helped them on the lam, is left
behind to guard the horses.
In the cave, they find an old settlement where Cornelius shows that "the
more
ancient artifacts were the more advanced", which suggests a lost
civilization. At the end, Taylor and Nova ride up to a large, jutting
outcrop
that causes Taylor to stop and stare.
"Oh my God. I'm back. I'm home. All the time, it was... We finally really did
it. You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!"
I'm glad that he was able to squeeze so much surprise out of it.
Big Mouth S06 (2022) -- "8/10"
The season started off a bit rocky -- just being unnecessarily and lazily
filthy, but it hit its stride just under halfway through. Père (Richard
Kind) and fils Glauberman (John Mulaney) are worth the price of entry. The
final episode of the season, where everyone switched places in a giant
Freaky
Friday was pretty good. This show seems to have held up better than Sex
Education has of being under the burden of portraying every school as
having
every possible combination of sexual predilections. Maybe it's easier with
cartoon characters, I dunno. Nick is OK, but Jessie is quite good and
snarky.
Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince (2009) -- "8/10"
I kind of like this one, but there are a few times when Hermione and Ron are
just noticeably more terrible people than they usually are. I guess
because
they're teenagers, who are just ruthless about everything but their own
wishes when their gonads are in charge. They don't even have the excuse of
the locket for their bad behavior yet. (That's the next movie.)
In this one, Harry gets the Marauder's Map -- "mischief managed!" -- and
becomes a wiz at potions and spells thanks to an old copy of the course
book
marked up by someone who called himself the Half-Blood Prince. This turns
out
to be Severin Snape (he's the master of potions -- it's honestly not that
surprising).
This film features the beginning of the search for the horcruxes,
especially
the long plot to learn about them from Slughorn, who, only when
sufficiently
plastered and emotionally vulnerable, is willing to reveal what Tom
Riddle
once spoke to him about.
Death Eaters penetrate the castle via a Vanishing Cabinet in the Room of
Requirement. They confront Dumbledore. It is Draco that should kill him,
but
he hesitates. Snape does it instead, sending Dumbledore plummeting to his
death. Dumbledore was already dying both from his having destroyed the
first
Horcrux -- a ring -- and, with Harry's help, obtained the second Horcrux:
the
locket. He was doomed anyway.
The locket turns to be a fake. It was only a marker for the real locket,
which had already been stolen by Regulus Black, brother of Sirius, with
the
intent to destroy it. Ron, Hermione, and Harry give up school to begin the
hunt for the horcruxes. Other than because it's super-convenient for the
story, it's unclear why they don't involve other, more experienced,
definitely more knowledgeable, and likely more powerful wizards.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) -- "7/10"
This one is quite a bit slower and more grinding. It's a dark film, both in
material and the cinematography. It does contain the brilliant cartoon of
the
three brothers who were the original owners of the Deathly Hallows: The
Elder
Wand, The Cloak of Invisibility, and The Stone of Resurrection. It also
has
Professor McGonagal team up with the Weasley twins: "As I recall, you have
a
particular proclivity for pyrotechnics."
In this one, Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) is right out there, taking charge
of
things personally, meeting directly with Severus Snape (Alan Rickman).
Harry
Potter is moved at the beginning of the movie, with a whole bunch of
people
pretending to be Harry using polyjuice potion. Pursuing death-eaters kill
Mad-eye Moody and Hedwig. Dumbledore's will and testament left them all a
bunch of Chekhov's guns i.e., things that will come in conveniently and
not
at all surprisingly handy throughout this film and the next.
The trio of Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson), and Ron
(Rupert
Grint) are in pursuit of the locket they'd been looking for the in the
previous film. They use polyjuice potion to infiltrate the Ministry of
Magic,
tangling with Dolores Umbridge, but eventually getting the locket from her
and then disapparating to a far-away forest. Ron's arm is all messed up.
Hermione's got her nearly infinitely deep bag of supplies, with everything
prepared for a long camping trip.
Ron, irritated by his wound and by the presence of the evil locket,
bitches
and moans a lot, getting unreasonably jealous of Harry and Hermione, which
is
not a thing at all. He eventually bails on them. They discover clues here
and
there. The snitch informs them that it "opens at the end". Harry and
Hermione
return to his parents' home village to find an old, silent woman who is
actually Voldemort's giant snake Nagini in disguise. They all narrowly
escape
with their lives.
Creepy things happen with a doe-shaped patronus -- which turns out to have
been Snape, secretly helping them out -- Harry jumping in a frozen lake to
get the Sword of Griffindor, Ron reappearing in the knick of time to
rescue
him, Ron wielding the sword to destroy the horcrux in the locket.
The trio travel to Xenophilius Lovegood to find out why so many books seem
to
contain the same symbol, a symbol that turns out to represent the deathly
hallows, leading to the aforementioned, excellent, 8-minute animation. He
tells them the story, but is evasive -- because he's called the
death-eaters
to turn them in so that they'll let his daughter Luna go. The snatchers
capture them, but don't know who they have, exactly, because Hermione f'ed
up
Harry's face with a jinx.
At the Malfoy mansion, though, Bellatrix (Helena Bonham Carter) sees
through
it eventually, torturing folks and stuff. They find Luna in the prison.
There's a lot of scuffling, Dobby shows up to save the day, they all
escape
through his disapparation -- but Bellatrix gets in an unerring knife-throw
that kills Dobby on landing.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) -- "7/10"
This is the sequel to the penultimate film and thus the finale. 😬 I wrote
a "short review in 2011"
, but felt like
expanding a bit. Unlike the last time, I didn't feel lost in this one
because
I'd just finished watching the previous film. Voldemort's hands still
trace
eloquent, elegant circles as he casually flicks his wand to extinguish
dreams -- and lives.
The movie takes quite a long time getting to its foregone conclusion. Did
you
think Voldemort would win? Did you think any of the primary characters
would
die? They'd already killed Dobby. That was the only sacrifice necessary.
Mad-eye Moody doesn't really count, either. Tonks and Remus were warriors
as
well. They killed a Weasley, too, though didn't they? I kind of lost
count.
That family has a lot of kids.
So they continue to break into famous wizarding places to find horcruxes,
like Gringotts Bank. They find Helfa Hufflepuff's chalice in Bellatrix's
vault, then fly on the back of a liberated dragon out of the top of the
bank.
Griphook the goblin has taken the sword of Gryffindor as his reward -- but
it
was the only thing that they had that could destroy horcruxes. Now, they
need
to find another way. Basilisk teeth!
They find Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem, which is another horcrux -- I've
honestly lost count at this point, how many do they have? Let's see:
1. The book destroyed in the Chamber of Secrets.
2. The ring that Dumbledore destroyed
3. The locket
4. The chalice
5. The diadem
6. Nagini
7. Harry himself, as an inadvertent horcrux
8. FInally, Voldemort retained an 1/8 of his soul
They barely escape the Room of Requirement with their lives as Goyle
accidentally kills himself with a fire spell. They also manage to destroy
the
chalice with a basilisk fang. Four down. They do the same for the diadem,
kicking it into the inferno for good measure. Five down.
Voldemort kills Snape to achieve mastery of the Elder Wand, as Snape is
still
its true master, having killed Dumbledore to get it. Harry receives
Snape's
last memories just before he dies. He watches them in the Pensieve. Snape
was
a double-agent all along. Duh. A great long con. Akin to something right
out
of The Americans.
Anyway, Harry surrenders to Voldemort, who kills him, but wait, he really
kills the horcrux of himself in Harry and, after a bit of wandering about
in
wizard limbo with Dumbledore, Harry is back. Hagrid carries his (fake)
corpse
at the head of a parade of death-eaters to Hogwarts, where the bedraggled,
but unbowed remaining forces stand against them. Neville pulls the sword
of
Gryffindor from the sorting hat and defies Voldemort. Harry awakes and
does
battle with Voldemort. Mrs. Weasley kills Bellatrix. Neville slices Nagini
in
two. No more horcruxes.
Voldemort sends his killing curse Ava Kavadra into Harry's Expelliarmus
curse, rebounding onto himself and finally killing himself, the last part
of
his soul leaving his decrepit body, which spirals into the darkening sky
like
so much ash.
Big Mouth S07 (2023) -- "7/10"
The young folks are now going to high school -- or will be by the end of the
season. Instead, this season is about the summer between middle school and
high school. Lola absolutely crushes it. There are a few more musical
numbers
-- I wonder if Mulaney and Kroll are angling for a Book of Mormon-like
thing?
The ambition gremlin played by Rosie Perez was quite good -- Andrew
actually
got good at school because he was prevented from masturbating by an injury
sustained while masturbating (epididymitis). He continues to masturbate a
couple of times, but the pain puts him on the straight-and-narrow long
enough
to make his parents temporarily proud.
Silo S01 (2023) -- "10/10"
This series is based on the trio of books "Wool"
, "Shift"
, and "Dust"
by Hugh Howey,
which
I read in 2015 and 2016. It's a very nice interpretation of the books,
capturing the feeling of retro-tech that dominated in the silo. The first
season introduces us to life in the silo. The silo is 150 levels of with
approximately 10,000 people living underground,
We learn of the different departments, of their rituals. There is the
sheriff's department, which is largely subordinate to the justice
department,
which are involved in a complicated way with the IT department. Deep on
the
lowest levels is Mechanical, which also sees itself as essential to life
in
the silo. If the generator stops working, then life in the silo stops. IT
sees it the same way, but thinks that if their organization and scheduling
stop working, then life stops.
There's some tension there.
The sheriff at the beginning, Holston (David Oyelowo) asks to "go
outside".
This is a ritual that is not denied, nor can it be taken back. No-one
wants
to go outside. It's against all the instincts ingrained in the inhabitants
of
the silo. They've been trained in a religion that makes them not want to
go
outside because the atmosphere is poisonous. No explanation is given for
why.
There are a lot of rituals to follow, precepts to acknowledge, artifacts
to
avoid. These rituals are supported by a fair bit of policing.
For the most part, the show does a good job with this, but there are a few
obvious lapses. At one point, Allison and George are eating while working
on
his computer. They leave the crusts of their sandwiches and the cores of
their apples. This is not a cultural tick that could possibly have
survived x
generations in the silo (140 years, I believe). Similarly, during a
celebration, people light sky lanterns and release them to rise into the
center of the silo. They light them with fire. Open flames. Again, there
is
no way that this tradition could have survived in a place where everyone
would be deathly afraid of fire.
Holston wants to go outside because, years before, his wife had asked to
go
outside and he's ready to join her. He'd met Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson)
from
Mechanical recently, while investigating the death of her (illegal) lover
George (Ferdinand Kingsley). During this investigation, he'd found out
that
his wife Allison (Rashida Jones) had met with George and had investigated
illegal hard-drive artifacts with him. The Sheriff had learned a bit about
what she'd found out. He was ready to join her, knowing what he now knows
about the silo.
When you go outside, you're given steel wool, with which you're to clean
the
camera lens outside that transmits images of the outside world on the
wall-screens that are on every level. Allison cleaned. She died on the
hill
outside. Holston cleaned. He dies on the hill right next to her.
Holston had nominated Juliette as his replacement, which throws Justice
and
IT into a tizzy, particularly Judge Meadows (Tanya Moodie), her enforcer
Robert Sims (Common), and head of IT Bernard Holland (Tim Robbins). They
wanted Paul Billings (Chinaza Uche) to have the job instead. He's actually
a
good guy and ends up her deputy. They grudgingly grow to be able to work
together.
Before that happens, though, long-time Mayor Jahns (Geraldine James) and
deputy sheriff Marnes (Will Patton) are investigating together and trying
to
hold the silo together during this rocky transition. They are both
eliminated
by unknown forces, but not before they could enjoy a late-blooming and
short
but rewarding love affair that they'd been waiting to profess for decades.
They walk down the silo together to ask Juliette to be sheriff, despite
Marnes's misgivings.
Juliette agrees only after she receives Holston's badge, into which he'd
edged the word "Truth" before he went out. She just has to fix the failing
generator first. She knows that she's the only one in Mechanical who can
do
it -- and it must be done, else the generator will soon destroy itself.
She
and her apprentice manage it -- she almost drowning while cooling elements
deep in the core, while he actually finished the repairs (boosting his own
confidence and everyone else's that he could take over from her). The
generator is humming like new.
Juliette works with criminals like Patrick Kennedy (Rick Gomez) and hacker
Danny (Will Merrick) to figure out what the hell is going on -- and, most
importantly to her, to find out what happened to George. She meets Lukas
Kyle
(Avi Nash), who is studying patterns in the depictions of outside on the
wall-screens. He doesn't know what stars are, but he's learning their
patterns. It's interesting how easy it is to slip up in these kinds of
shows.
The inhabitants of the silo don't know what stars are, they don't know
what
clouds are -- they think the lights in the window are "hiding" -- but they
know that they're "underground". How do they know what that means? They
know
nothing about the outside world, they have no concept of an air layer
above a
planetary crust.
This helps outline the degree of information-restriction that exists in
the
silo, as a measure to keep people from wanting to go outside. They've been
there for generations and will have to be there for generations more. Some
amount of brainwashing and indoctrination is necessary to keep the curious
monkeys from killing themselves by going outside. See my notes for "Wool"
, "Shift"
, and "Dust"
, if you're
interested
in more analysis.
With her estranged father's help (Iain Glen), Juliette discovers more
about
how the silo works and who's really pulling the levers. She discovers not
only how births are carefully controlled -- which everyone knew -- but
that
who gets to have children is also very carefully controlled. Juliette
discovers that there is a giant camera network hidden in all places in the
silo, behind every mirror in every room, for starters. They'd always
known/suspected that there were listeners, using bugs. But this is
different,
another scale altogether. These cameras are available to the watchful eye
of
IT -- Sims and Holland. Judge Meadows is essentially a powerless
figurehead.
Juliette gets the hard drive that George had found and, like Allison
before
her, manages to crack it and see all of the data on it. With Danny's help,
she broadcasts a video of beautiful green fields that one of the
"cleaners'
who'd gone outside had made. Bernard and Sims catch her and pretend that
they
heard her say she wanted to go outside. They eventually get her to agree
to
not claim that she hadn't by promising that, if she does, she'll learn how
George died -- bravely, by committing suicide rather than being captured
--
and that Mechanical will not be punished for her deeds. Lukas Kyle, who'd
helped her, is sentenced to a dozen years on deep-silo work detail.
Juliette also discovers that the reason that everyone dies immediately is
because the tape sealing the suits is deliberately weak and damaged. She
arranges to have Mechanical send their tape, which is better. Juliette
gets
outside. She does not clean. She provocatively drops the wool right in
front
of the camera. She sees the lush landscape -- but it is a lie projected
onto
her suit's visor. The wall screens actually do show the truth. There is
only
desolation outside. She's alive, though. She climbs the ridge. The people
of
the silo watch her disappear over the horizon, the first person ever to do
so. She sees a desolate plain covered in silo craters.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=48582024-01-09T22:48:57+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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" , 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.
[image]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.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=48572024-01-07T18:07:15+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
The Witcher S03 (2023) -- "6/10"
"In 2020, I gave season 1 a 9/10."
"In 2022, season 2
was down to an 6/10"
and merited a reasonable write-up. At that time, they established the
formula
for having the Witcher kill one monster per episode, while the rest of the
episode is exposition.
Having now read the books up to the part covered by this season, I now
know
that this is kind-of true to the books. Geralt (Henry Cavill) is still
healing in the forests of Brokilon, then sets out with a small group to
find
Ciri. A fake Ciri is introduced to Emhyr as his bride. Yennefer is weaker
in
the show than in the book -- which is kind of surprising, given that the
books were written in the 90s and 2000s by a Polish man, and the movie
script
seems to have been written by a cadre of very non-sleepy scriptwriters.
Ciri stumbles around the desert, meets a unicorn, fights a monster and
gets
out of the desert, meeting and joining the Rats, a band of bandits. She
takes
on the name "Falka".
Look, that's all I have the energy to write, as this season wasn't very
good.
The effects, in particular, were jarringly CGIed, at times. The
backgrounds
were so flat, you could practically see the green screen. It was quite
distracting, at times.
Sex Education S04 (2023) -- "6/10"
"In 2019, I gave season 1 a 10/10."
"In 2021, season 3
was down to an 8/10"
and merited a reasonable write-up. Season 4 drops a few more ranks and I
can
barely remember what happened in this season. Ah, yes, they all went to
high
school and fought with being total assholes to each other all the time,
all
the while bathing in a positive soup of sex positivity and openness at the
private school that their poor selves all had to attend.
Maeve (Emma Mackey) is in America, being treated like crap by her writing
teacher (Dan Levy), while Otis (Asa Butterfield) is a whiny jackass,
butting
heads with equally obnoxious O (Thaddea Graham). Eric Effiong (Ncuti
Gatwa)
is even more of a self-centered douche than he'd become in season 3. Jean
Milburn's (Gillian Anderson) role was disappointingly humdrum and shitty.
The most appealing and engaging characters are, in no particular order
Aimee
Gibbs (Aimee Lou Wood), who's just a hilarious, genuine ray of sunshine,
Adam
Groff (Connor Swindells), a reformed bisexual bully who's well rid of
boyfriend Eric. He has grown considerably and seems to be able to deal
with
the world in a way where he no longer considers every person as a
potential
conquest, either physical or sexual. His father Michael (Alistair Petrie)
is
also very good. They reconcile somewhat on the horse farm where Adam
works.
Isaac Goodwin (George Robinson) is great -- well-written and well-acted.
Ruby
Matthews (Mimi Keene) redeemed herself this season with excellent work
(even
though the actress is really very noticeably painfully thin, which is her
own
thing, of course, but stands out for a show that makes everything a
message,
because it makes you wonder what message they think they're sending).
There were a few good moments, but they were few and far between. Although
Maeve handled her mum's death pretty poorly -- you know, for the character
who was supposed to be the most worldly and mature -- the funeral episodes
were the best ones. The other episodes were just relentlessly SEX-POSITIVE
and GENDER-POSITIVE and all of the good things that it must be, until most
of
the characters succumbed to the collective weight of all of their
multifarious identities, expressing nothing of interest but general
superficial shittiness. Is this how young people want to be depicted?
Disenchantment S04--05 (2022--2023) -- "5/10"
"In 2018, I gave season 1 a 6/10."
"In 2021, seasons
2
and 3 were up to an 8/10"
and merited a
reasonable write-up. The fourth and fifth seasons phoned it in even worse
than season 1. The characters have all been established, and there are a
lot
of plot elements to work with -- Steamland, Mermaids, Hell, Oona and her
pirate ship, the Trolls, etc. -- but they just seem to be used as Deus Ex
Machinas rather than as a coherent plot.
I can't really remember what was in season 4 and what was in season 5.
There's a Bad Bean, there's Hell, there's Dagmar, there's Elfo's
association
with the dead-eyed Trolls. Luci is dead, he's alive, he's got his wings,
he
doesn't, his head's attached, it's not. There's an increased focus on
"Stience", which Bean can apparently channel to send lightning bolts
through
here hands. Her arch-nemesis ends up being the king of Steam Land.
I dunno. I watch this while I eat dinner, so it's just some filler content
with an occasional few decent jokes. Elfo's kind of witty.
Black Mirror S06 (2023) -- "9/10"
Joan is Awful
This episode is about a different show on a different streaming service
about a woman named Joan (Annie Murphy) who is awful. The streaming
service she's subscribed to has started streaming a facscimile of her
life
in real-time. She is played by Salma Hayek. All of her friends watch it
and realize how awful she is. It gets a little crazy with quantum
computing and multiple layers of simulated reality -- run by Beppe
(Michael Cera) -- but it was pretty entertaining. It turns out that
Joan
is completely average and being "awful" is great for engagement.
Although
Salma Hayek plays her on one level, Cate Blanchett plays Salma Hayek
playing Joan on yet another level. It's probably easier to just watch
it.
Loch Henry
A documentary crew in Scotland end up covering an old mystery in the home
town of their director, rather than the boring topic they'd planned to
cover. The concept is good on this one, but I found a couple of the
characters annoying, especially Pia. Some were good, though, like the
pub
owner, who played the "school friend who still lives in the town where
you
grew up and with whom you had some great times, but no longer have much
contact, something which you regret the minute you see him again"
perfectly.
Beyond the Sea
Cliff (Aaron Paul) and David (Josh Hartnett) are astronauts, hibernating
their way on a six-year mission. They hibernate so that they
don't
go
crazy. They alternately wake to perform maintenance. While
they're
awake,
they can transfer their consciousnesses back to replicas of
themselves on
Earth. It's an alternate 1969, don't ask too many questions, just
roll
with it.
Invaders from a Charles Manson family-like group -- led by
"Kappa"
(Rory
Culkin) -- enter David's home, kill his family, and destroy his
replica.
David is now left alone on a mission that will continue for four
more
years. Cliff's wife, Lana (Kate Mara) suggests that Cliff let
David
use
his replica so that he can see Earth again.
This develops into a whole thing, where David uses the replica
once
a
week, grows infatuated with Lana, puts a move on her, is
rejected,
and the
jig is up. Cliff confronts him on the capsule, they argue, Cliff
pops him
in the nose. Soon, there is an alert: something must be repaired
on
the
outside of the ship, requiring a spacewalk. Cliff is the EVA guy.
He's trepidatious but must go out to investigate. There is
nothing
wrong.
When he gets inside, he senses something is very wrong. He jumps
into his
replica to find it covered with blood, having just murdered his
own
wife
and son. Cliff's consciousness returns to space. David offers him
a
seat.
They are equals again.
Mazey Day
It's 2006 and paparazzo Bo (Zazie Beetz) is disgusted with her profession.
She has some blackmail pictures for which the victim is willing
to
pay
$500. She takes $600 to publish them instead. He ends up killing
himself.
Notorious trainwreck actress Mazey Day (Clara Rugaard) quits a
film
set
after a drug-fueled and therefore unreported hit-and-run. The
victim
was
still alive, though. She checks herself into a very private
rehab.
Bo is
drawn back into the game by a huge reward for the first pictures
of
Mazey.
Stuff happens, but the paparazzi eventually find her and realize
that
she's chained to the bed. They take a million pictures. Only Bo
is
concerned about what might be going on. She suspects some weird
sex
slavery thing. Wrong. It turns out that Mazey's hit-and-run
victim
had
been alive, had bitten her, and passed on its lycanthropy. She's
a
werewolf. She breaks free and hunts them, catching a few, but
eventually
hunting the rest to a diner.
Bo manages to shoot Mazey. She turns back into her human form,
drenched in
blood, but probably not yet mortally wounded. Mazey begs for the
gun. Bo
hands it to her. She prepares her camera. Bang.
Demon 79
Nida Huq (Anjana Vasan) is a poor girl working at a department store with
a bunch of racist assholes, with terrible customers, in a town
full
of
people with terrible secrets. She fantasizes about slaughtering
them
all.
It is the 70s in England. The right-wing National Front is on the
rise.
Racism against her drives her to eat her lunch in a darkened
basement.
She finds a talisman, pricks her finger by accident, and ends up
activating it. It released the demon Gaap (Paapa Essiedu), who's
on
his
first assignment as a demon (or so he says). She must kill three
people in
three days, else the world will end in destruction, immediately.
Gaap
helps her find worthy victims, people he tells her are
child-molesters,
etc.
The first victim is a man by a canal. The second is the
lecherous,
wife-murdering Keith, and then the third is his brother, who
catches
her
in the house. Plot twist: Keith didn't count because he was
himself
a
murderer. Gaap doesn't make the rules.
Nida decides that Michael Smart, leader of the National Front,
will
be her
final victim. Gaap's not hot on the idea because demons like
Smart.
She
really goes for it, crashing his car and attacking him with a
hammer. A
police officer who'd been tailing her stops her before the
killing
blow.
During interrogation, she reveals the whole story to a
disbelieving
group
of officers. As the clock strikes midnight, the officers are
called
out of
the room to watch as armageddon rains down. Nida and Gaap have
failed.
They are banished to eternal darkness.
Escape Plan 2: Hades (2018) -- "5/10"
I'd just finished watching Escape Plan and thought to myself, what the hell,
why not go for the doubleheader being so generously offered by German TV,
so
famous for its discerning taste in cinema?
Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone) is the only one who's back from the
original
-- no more Arnie in this one -- running his security company with a bunch
of
new people. One of them is Jasper Kimbral (Wes Chatham), who screws up a
mission and is fired by Breslin. This is definitely going to come back,
ammirite? There's also Trent DeRosa (Dave Bautista) ... and I didn't
recognize anyone else.
Shu (Huang Xiaoming) ends up in a prison called HADES (not kidding) and
goes
through a lot of terrible shit. There is some decent fight choreography.
He
teams up with some weirdos called LEGION, a trio of Israeli hackers --
can't
make this up -- led by Count Zero (Gibson would like a word). Shu meets up
with Kimbral in prison, working with him to escape.
PLOT TWIST: Kimbral actually runs the prison and it's run by his
ALGORITHMS
and he's going to use Shu as bait to lure Breslin into the prison and show
him who's the SMARTEST and ... do whatever about his daddy complex. I hope
you're not going to be too shocked to learn that it does not work out for
him, even though it takes about 45 minutes worth of disabling computer
systems, re-enabling them, fighting, blowing things up, and so on before
Breslin emerges victorious, with no-one dead but Kimbral (obviously).
The group behind HADES contacts him and he swears revenge -- to be shown
in
painful detail in what Stallone hopes will be a sequel (he was right:
"Escape
Plan: The Extractors"
, in which he teams
up
with Bautista again, came out a year later).
I watched it in German.
Jurassic World: The Fallen Kingdom (2018) -- "6/10"
I've seen this movie before, but somehow failed to make note of it. The
dinosaurs look and act great. There is pathos as most of them die by the
middle of the movie. The brachiosaur standing on the dock, howling and
barely
visible through the smoke, as the lava covers it -- it's heart-wrenching.
Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) is pretty good: Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas
Howard)
is OK. This time they're tricked onto the island to help a billionaire
collect dinsosaus for science, but no, haha, it's actually to make weapons
out of them.
The second half of the movie takes place in a weapons-mogul's mansion.
There
is an auction of dinosaur warriors to the seediest people in the world,
all
chomping at the bit to enhance their rockets, laser-guided defense
systems,
and drones with ... dinosaurs? Anyway, there's a plot twist, because
they've
bred one of the craziest, most savage killing machines possible out of a
dozen other dinosaurs -- didn't we already do this in a previous movie? --
and it is f&$king unstoppable. Or is it?
The velociraptor Blue's relationship with Pratt features prominently.
Pratt
manages to use his vast knowledge about dinosaurs to engineer a breakout
for
himself and Claire. Blue manages to wipe out the nastiest, most brutal
dinosaur that the breeders could breed by dropping it through a ceiling
onto
a couple of giant spikes. You can't kill Blue now. She's got the status of
a
dog, which Hollywood only kills if it's the main plot-driver (see John
Wick).
They let out all of the dinosaurs in the end to save them from dying in
their
cages because there's no-one left to take care of them. They disperse into
the woods. Blue remains to say goodbye to Pratt before heading out to
repopulate Los Angeles with dinosaurs, I guess?
I watched it in German this time.
Old Dads (2023) -- "6/10"
This film is an interesting expansion on a lot of the themes that Bill Burr
has in his standup comedy and his morning-show podcast.
It's interesting that it doesn't occur to any of the prominently featured
female characters to wonder what they're bringing to their marriages,
whether
they're doing enough to raise their children right. I know that Bill Burr
wrote this, but I really wonder how many other people noticed that it was
taken as a given that one is to kowtow to the pressures of the snobbiest
parts of society, to do "whatever it takes" for a family's children to get
ahead.
Any anger at how fucked-up the world is is to be suppressed, there is no
need
to try to change any of it. Instead, you make sure that you bubble to the
top
of the snobbish heap, sucking off the horrible tin-horn dictator of a
school
principal so that she writes a recommendation for your kid to go to the
right
school. Madness.
But the person who rebels against this utterly vacuous and immoral mindset
hammered home by society is the asshole. Is that the story, though? I
wonder
if anyone else noticed how basic the wives were? Sure, the guys were
pretty
basic, too, but at least we got to learn that they started and ran a
thriving
business for 23 years. We never learned what the three wives even do for a
living -- except Kimberly, who just wanted to "go to the gym and fuck"
Mike.
This is pretty shallow, I think. Do better, Burr. I gave it an extra star
for
having a few good rants. But I deducted stars for only making the guys
cool.
The Terminator (1984) -- "8/10"
Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) and the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) both
arrive in 1984 from the year 2029. They show up naked and in a flash of
bright light, posed to cover their naughty bits. They go about getting
some
clothes and weapons, each in their own way. They have conflicting
missions:
Kyle is there to protect Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) whereas the
Terminator
is there to ... terminate her.
The Terminator doesn't have a great plan, so it goes through the phone
book,
killing every Sarah Connor it can find. Last one's the charm, but Kyle
rescues her. He fills her in on the unstoppable murder machine intent on
killing her, in particular. It's because of SkyNet, man. It's because the
robots found out that she would give birth to John Connor, who would go on
to
lead the rebellion against the machines.
The twist here is that Sarah and Kyle get busy at some point, which means
that Kyle is his own leader's father, even though he only discovers this
after the fact. How could he have been the guy who was working with John
Connor and not know that he was his father? Because he hadn't traveled
back
in time to impregnate his wife and leader's mother yet. Does he not
retroactively remember? It's complicated.
This all happens while they're constantly on the run, constantly building
new
weapons -- pipe bombs -- and barely slipping the grasp of the
unremittingly
persistent Terminator. It's finally taking damage, though. After one
explosion, it loses its entire exoskeleton, leaving a red-eyed,
stop-motion-animated robot. Reese finally dies in an explosion that blows
this remaining endoskeleton in half. It crawls across the floor to grab
Sarah. She breaks free of its grasp and traps it in a hydraulic press. The
lights finally go out in its eyes.
Sarah travels alone in Mexico, pregnant with John, preparing for the
coming
war with SkyNet.
The original and still the best? The visuals are a tiny bit dated, but
still
mostly hold up. The chase scenes are decent, if a bit repetitive. There is
a
stronger focus on story because there wasn't enough CGI to distract
viewers
for the entire film.
I saw it in German.
Make My Day S01 (2023) -- "6/10"
I have no idea whether this is representative of serial anime, but it was
kind of stretched out to make ten episodes. The premise is that there's a
prison planet, run by a private corporation, which benefits from the
energy
crystals that they harvest. Jim (Masaomi Yamahashi) is a guard, but one of
the good guys, unsure of his role and place there. Monsters from the deep
attack. It is their planet. The energy crystals are their food.
Jim is heavily invested in saving Marnie (Ayahi Takagaki), who is
pregnant.
Along the way, they team up with a prisoner with a heart of gold Walter
(Kazuhiro Yamaji). He's done bad things, but Jim is willing to treat him
as
the person he is now. There are long discussions with people with the
viewpoint that "once a criminal, always a criminal." This tension between
a
humanistic and purely capitalistic world suffuses the show.
There are shuttles to leave the planet, but they're only for the elites.
There is a strong tension between the hyper-capitalistic world as it is,
and
the socialist world that could be. This is very, very explicitly stated
several times. Characters heavily invested in the me-first way of doing
things seem to have the upper hand, but then get their brutal comeuppance
as
the group that sticks together inevitably wins out.
Despite tremendous firepower, the native inhabitants have overwhelming
numbers and don't seem at all deterred by the slaughter of what seems like
millions of them. There are millions and millions more. This bucks the
socialist trend a bit, in that it seems to be ascribing a mindlessness to
the
enemy, which is a bit convenient.
The premise is that the enemy is some sort of hive mind, that it doesn't
care
about itself or its brethren, that it's willing to relentlessly suicide
its
way toward its goal. Well, yes, of course it is. It realizes that if it
doesn't eliminate the human menace, it will steal all of its food. There
seems to be no way to communicate, which is convenient. This is the plot
of
Starship Troopers.
Walter, Jim, and Marnie escape in a lifeboat at the end, as the aliens
swarm
to retake their planet, eliminating all evidence of human habitation. The
end.
The animation's a bit weak and flat, but you eventually stop paying
attention
to it. I watched it in Japanese, mostly while cycling indoors.
6 Days to Air: The Making of South Park (2011) -- "7/10"
This is a documentary about the making of one episode of South Park over the
course of a week. The episode is the first in the fifteenth season,
"HumancentiPad " . You see
them
developing the jokes, really putting the time in on jokes about how it
would
work when people are strapped to one another ass-to-mouth (as they are in
the
movie Human Centipede). We see Trey and Matt doing voice work, which is
pretty fascinating. They just ... do it. With little preparation, they
just
shout out the various voices.
You can watch the documentary at "here"
. It's about 42 minutes long.
These people work incredibly hard, from before sunup until long after
sundown. They talk about how the process developed, from building all
episodes beforehand to the process they have today, where they build the
episodes the week before they air. This allows them to stay very current,
but
it's also very stressful -- during the season anyway.
2011 was a banner year for them, as they'd just returned from the opening
of
Book of Mormon, which would go on to smash all sorts of Broadway and
musical
records.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=47942024-01-01T00:55:25+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Men in Black (1997) -- "8/10"
I'd already watched and written a "short review of this movie in 2017."
The following
summary
is a lot more comprehensive.
A truck drives through the American southwest, with a load of migrants in
the
back. They run into an INS roadblock, but agent Kay (Tommy Lee Jones) and
Dee
(Richard Hamilton) break up the party and take one of the migrants into
the
desert -- the one who doesn't seem to understand a lick of Spanish. He
turns
out to be an alien who'd arrived illegally on Earth. Kay eliminates him
before he can take out one of the INS officers (who are absolutely not
tricked out in SWAT gear because it's the 90s). We see the neuralizer and
learn that Dee has lost a step.
Seque to a chase-on-foot by Jay (Will Smith), who's getting his first
introduction to an alien. He chases it down, getting Kay's attention. Kay
shows up at the police station to pick him up and follow up a lead that
takes
them to Jay's next alien Jeebs (Tony Shalhoub), who's an off-planet-arms
dealer. Jay learns that this is all real.
"Kay: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you
know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center
of
the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat,
and
fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet.
Imagine
what you'll know tomorrow."
Jay shows up the next morning at the MIB offices (thought he doesn't know
it
yet). We get a whole introduction to the organization, including Zed (Rip
Torn), several aliens, and several artifacts.
In a parallel storyline, Edgar (Vincent D'Onofrio) is taken over by a bug,
which wears Edgar's skin like a suit, and which is looking for "the
galaxy".
He drives to New York, to Manhattan, and kills two other aliens who he
thinks
has it. He leaves with a jewel case that he thinks is the galaxy.
Jay and Kay track down a squid family and wonder why they were risking
their
immigration visa to escape the planet. They check the news -- The National
Enquirer and so on -- and find Edgar's wife Beatrice (Siobhan Fallon
Hogan),
who provides them with their next lead.
Meanwhile the alien bodies (Edgar's first victims) are taken to Laurel's
(Linda Fiorentino) morgue, where she discovers that one of the victims
isn't
human. The other alien's cat is riding on it. Jay and Kay show up,
pretending
to be morticians. Laurel starts hitting on Jay, while the cat snakes
around
Jay's feet. She tells him that her theory is that the bodies aren't human,
but carapaces for transporting other aliens. On one of the bodies, they
find
a switch near the ear and open up the face to reveal its dying pilot.
"The galaxy is on Orion's b..."
They zap Laurel with the neuralizer and get on their way, following the
next
lead. Edgar discovers that he's stolen useless diamonds instead of "the
galaxy". Jay and Kay finally catch up to Edgar at a jewelry store, where
they
blow a bunch of stuff up. Edgar gets away, but they get his truck -- and
his
ship, which is stuffed in the back of it.
Meanwhile, all of the other aliens are fleeing Earth because they're
terrified that the bugs will destroy the planet to get the galaxy. Jay
figures out that the galaxy is hanging around the cat's neck. The cat is
named Orion. Laurel figures it out at the same time -- just in time to
receive Edgar as a guest at the morgue. He is received by the morgue
attendant (David Cross), who can't stop him from breaking in and taking
Laurel hostage.
Laurel keeps hitting on Jay, but this time mostly because Edgar is hiding
under the cart they're both standing by. Kay discovers the morgue
attendant's
body and breaks up the party. Edgar escapes with the galaxy and Laurel,
demanding to be driven to Queens, where he's going to hijack one of the
expo
saucers. Jay and Kay jet off through the Midtown Tunnel in a considerably
transformed Ford LTD -- driving on the top of the tunnel.
They get to Flushing Meadows Park in time to shoot down the escaping
spacecraft. It grinds to a halt directly in front of them, spilling Edgar
out
of its broken exit ramp. He reveals himself as a bug, takes Jay and Kay's
guns, then swallows Kay. Laurel is stuck in a tree. Jay gets the crap
kicked
out of him. He gets back up, then finds a bunch of cockroaches, and starts
crushing them to draw out Edgar -- "you know, you all look alike to me."
--
and to stall for time until Jay can work his magic. "Don't start nothin';
won't be nothin'."
Jay gets his gun back and blows his way out of the bug from the inside.
Jay
tells him he was hit hard "and it hurt." As they're chatting and wiping
off
bug guts, the bug rises up one last time -- but Laurel blows it away.
"That's
an interesting job you've got there, gentlemen."
Jay wants to stop Kay from neuralizing her, but he actually says that the
neuralizer is for him. "I haven't been training a partner; I've been
training
a replacement."
ZAP.
Jay leafs through the gossip rags to see that Jay has "woken from a
35-year
coma" and is safely back with his wife. He turns to his partner Laurel to
go
on their next mission.
Black Widow (2021) -- "6/10"
The story begins with a midnight escape from Ohio by Melina (Rachel Weisz)
and super-soldier Alexei (David Harbour), with their kids Natasha and
Yelena.
After some pretty nice credits, showing world events, girls training, and
assassination plans, we're taken to a live mission full of black widows,
two
of whom are Natasha Romanov (Scarlett Johansson) and Yelena Belova
(Florence
Pugh). Yelena is sprayed with some sort of nano-serum that wakes her up
from
her hypnotization.
Natasha, meanwhile, is assaulted by a seemingly mechanized assassin, an
unstoppable, cobra-commander-looking super-soldier called Taskmaster (Olga
Kurylenko). She's thrown off a bridge into a cold river, but manages to
take
with her the vials that Taskmaster was looking for. Now, Natasha's at her
sister's apartment, where they get into a knock-down, drag-out fight.
After the dust-up, they've teamed up to take down their old boss, who's
using
brainwashing and drugs to keep his army of widows on message. They fight
and
fall and crash and fall and collect what should be a tremendous number of
bruises and broken bones, but they come out with nary a scratch.
Taskmaster
is hot on their tails, but they get away. Seriously, they don't have even
a
single bit of muscle soreness or stiffness.
They get a gigantic, old Soviet helicopter and fly to Alexei's prison in
the
Siberian mountains to rescue him. Natasha drops out of the helicopter
while
Yelena messes about, shooting rockets and starting avalanches. Alexei's
actually got some superpowers, but he gets cattle-prodded into submission.
He
gets up on a catwalk while Natasha grabs him on the end of a cable just
before the avalanche engulfs the prison.
They want Alexei to take them the "Red Room". There's a bunch of family
baggage to get through, where Alexei tries to make up with the girls. They
head overland on foot to meet up with Melina, who meets them with a
long-range rifle. She decides not to shoot them and, instead, lets them
into
her home. Alexei puts on his old Red Guardian costume, which barely fits
over
his prison-fattened body. There's a bunch of family jokes and stuff.
Melina demonstrates how her pigs are completely under her control --
because
she's installed ganglial neural controls into them so that they follow
orders. Natasha calls her father an idiot and her mother a coward. Natasha
has a heart-to-heart with Melina, while Yelena and Alexei do the same.
This
is a really long scene. She calls him Crimson Dynamo; he corrects her that
it's Red Guardian. They sing American Pie together. It's endless.
They are interrupted by the blue lights of a giant helicopter. Melina had
called Taskmaster to take them all to the "Red Room", which is pretty
literally Bespin, the Cloud City. Melina is apparently deep in with the
baddies, seemingly in charge of much of Dreykov's (Ray Winstone) army.
She's
all dolled up like a top-level widow now. She turns out to be Natasha in
disguise, but Dreykov sees through it.
Melina reveals herself to Alexei (taking off her Natasha mask), then
contacts
Yelena to tell her about a hidden weapon so that Yelena can free herself
from
the operating theater where she's about to get her face rearranged. While
Dreykov and Natasha fence about Natasha's real mother, the others make
their
escape. He reveals that Taskmaster is Antonia, an old colleague of
Natasha's,
who she thought she'd killed. The woman is kept alive only by her armor
and
Dreykov's neural contraptions.
After Taskmaster leaves, Natasha realizes that she can't shoot Dreykov
because he's programmed her with an olfactory neural control to be unable
to
attack him.
Meanwhile Red Guardian squares off against Taskmaster, while Yelena
infiltrates further into the flying cloud city. Milena tries to hack the
system. Natasha spars verbally with Dreykov. She taunts Dreykov into
attacking her physically. She taunts him into revealing his worldwide
widow
army.
She'd tried before to get him to hit her nose hard enough to cut her
olfactory nerve, but he "war nicht stark genug" -- so, she breaks her own
nose to break the control and takes him out. Melina takes out one of the
large fans holding up the city, then helps Alexei trap Taskmaster in a
prison
cell. Dreykov's army of widows shows up to save him from Natasha -- "und
lasst ihr leiden." They are beating the hell out of her until Yelena shows
up
with the cure for the mind-control, freeing the widows.
As the city crashes to Earth, Natasha saves the information about the
other
widows all over the planet. She doesn't seem to be too hurt for having had
the shit kicked out of her by an army of widows. I guess they don't hit
that
hard? Also, none the worse for wear for having crashed with an entire city
out of the stratosphere.
Melina and Alexei are ready to fly away, but they are forced to take off
without Natasha and Yelena. Their plane takes some damage to its control
surfaces, while Natasha tries to find Yelena. But she finds Taskmaster
instead, letting her free, thinking that there is something of Antonia
left
in there. Dreykov is making his escape, but Yelena jumps onto his plane
and
blows herself up, also blowing up his plane. She's ragdolling toward the
planet when Natasha catches her and opens a chute for both of them that
somehow doesn't get hit by any of the myriad pieces of falling debris.
Natasha sees Taskmaster coming for them and lets Yelena go. They grapple,
jump off a bunch of stuff, pop Taskmaster's chute just in time to land
safely
(of course), then start fighting. Natasha pops Taskmaster's helmet, then
pops
a vial of the cure to free Antonia from her prison -- and her life.
Natasha finds Yelena in the wreckage. Nobody is hurt. Barely even cut.
Bitch
blew herself up and she's totally fine. Melina and Alexei show up next,
having survived their plane crash with only minor injuries. The rest of
the
family is forced to flee before the U.S. army arrives. A planeload of
widows
lands to take them away. Natasha remains because she's an Avenger.
Apparently, Antonia is still alive, too. Happy endings all around.
An epilogue sees Yelena mourning over Natasha's grave. Valentina Allegra
de
Fontaine (Julia Louis Dreyfus) appears out of nowhere to tell her that her
next contract is her sister's killer -- Clint Barton. Sure, sure.
I subtracted a point for having no tension -- like pretty much every other
Marvel movie made in the last 15 years. Also for the utterly ridiculously
artificial cliffhanger. They're just not even trying. I don't care.
I watched it in German.
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia S01-S16 (2005--2023) -- "10/10"
There are so many great things about this show: They don't have a laugh
track, for starters. They also do not believe in continuity. They believe
in
laughs instead. If something is funny, it doesn't matter if it makes sense
or
it will carry over into the next show. They just forget about it the next
show, like it never happened.
* Dennis (Glenn Howerton) is a perfect egotist who never shows any
interest
in the needs of others. His love for himself often leads to him
utterly
embarrassing himself -- except that he's never embarrassed. Never.
* Mac (Rob McElhenney) is a moron, dumber than Charlie, although he has
no
idea that he's dumb. He thinks he's the brains of the outfit. He also
thinks that he's a bouncer because he likes to work out and has a
karate
fetish. Dennis accuses him, though, of not having a core, and of only
working his "glamour muscles." He and Dennis live together, in an
incredibly tight and codependent relationship.
* Sweet Dee (Kaitlin Olson) is even worse than Dennis, if that's even
possible. She is scheming and conniving and convinced of her own
beauty,
even though the others constantly tell her how ugly she is. "She's a
bird!" She dates and dumps for the most superficial reasons. She is a
wonderfully feminist statement that a woman can be just as
horrifically
asocial as any man. She lives alone, possibly with a cat.
* Frank (Danny Devito) raised Dennis and Dee as his children (although
we
would discover that he is not their biological father). He is a dirty,
filthy, old man who is interested in having fun, having, sex, smoking
whatever, drinking to exhaustion, and reveling in filth. He is the
only
one of them who has any money. It is enough for him to finance their
various schemes and to bail them out of trouble, but it's utterly
unknown
how he still has so much.
* Charlie (Charlie Day) is an idiot, though possibly an artistic genius,
but he's possibly the nicest of them. He cannot read or write very
well,
though that doesn't stop him from trying. He is, like Mac, utterly
convinced of his ability to hold his own in the planning department,
despite his only very fleeting grasp of the laws of physics and social
interaction. He lives with Frank and they sleep in the same bed, in a
sea
of garbage.
Recurring characters are:
* Artemis (Artemis Pebdani) is a friend of Dee's, although they only
ever
meet when Dee needs something from her. Artemis is game because she's
always trying to get laid and is kind of the filthy female counterpart
to
Frank, whom she occasionally bangs.
* Waitress (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) works at the local coffee shop.
Charlie
is obsessed with her. She is occasionally entangled completely
unwillingly in the gang's schemes and has suffered immensely for
having
been employed in the coffee shop across the street from the bar.
* Cricket (David Hornsby) is an old schoolfriend of theirs whose life
they
have utterly ruined. We first meet him as a priest and, by the fifth
season, he's living on the streets, prostituting himself, battling
various addictions, and absolutely game to work with the gang on any
of
their schemes, simply on account of how destitute they've made him. He
can't hold a grudge because he needs to eat. By season 16, he's
horribly
scarred in myriad ways.
The following list is far from comprehensive, but should go a long way to
illustrating the utter dysfunction of each member of the gang. Going
through
the list of episodes from these seasons -- there are so many golden ones,
to
be honest. It's really hard to pick favorites, but nevertheless here's a
smattering that is hopefully representative enough to get you started --
and
addicted. Many of their best shows are the ones where you can tell that
they're sending up some odious part of American or capitalist culture, all
with a straight face.
For the most part, they show just how normal it is to be utterly depraved
and
egotistical, how normal it is to scam and lie and cheat and steal and
hustle
all the time. That we understand them at all is an indictment of our
culture,
of our society.
They love booze, and guns, and tits, and money. They don't care how they
get
any of it. They don't plan for the future.
They follow orders, though. They stick to arbitrary rules, venerating them
as
they suffer under them. This, too, is quintessentially American, to boast
of
freedom while being subjugated.
They don't grow. They don't change. They stay the same -- and always will.
They learn nothing. They are us; they are America.
There is no Schitt's Creek moment for them. They're sixteen seasons deep
into
a life-lesson for America. When I wrote this, I'd only seen five seasons
but
I was utterly convinced that they would continue doing exactly what
they're
doing, unchanged, for the next eleven. I was not in any way disappointed.
They are like a live-action Simpsons. It is, in its way, brilliant -- I
recently read that the show has the highest density of dialogue of any
modern
show. It is, if nothing else, extremely funny.
[Season 1]
* "S01E03: Underage Drinking: A National Concern"
has the gang
opening their bar to high-schoolers and they all end up going to the
prom
* "S01E07: Charlie Got Molested"
has the gang
plan
an intervention for Charlie's supposed molestation, with Dennis and
Mac
trying to seduce the coach because they feel that they're more
attractive
than Charlie.
[Season 2]
* "S02E09: Charlie Goes America All Over Everybody's Ass"
has the gang
grappling with anarchism vs. totalitarianism, although they have no
idea
that they're doing so.
[Season 3]
* "S03E09: Sweet Dee's Dating a Retarded Person"
hits a lot of
the
gang's notes, as they try to start a band and Dee is dating a musician
* "S03E14: Bums: Making a Mess All Over the City"
has Dennis,
Mac,
and Frank dressing up as police officers and shaking down the
neighborhood in their used police car.
[Season 4]
* "S04E02: The Gang Solves the Gas Crisis"
is an incredibly
stupid scheme for selling gas from garbage cans, door to door, that
ends
in tears mostly for a specific person whom they do not know, but whom
they are convinced is Dee and Dennis's annoying biological father. He
is
not.
* "S04E10: Sweet Dee Has a Heart Attack"
is literally
what
it says on the tin. She is no less insufferable afterward. This
episode
was a work of art.
* "S04E12: The Gang Gets Extreme: Home Makeover Edition"
has the gang
pretend that they're going to help a local hispanic family improve
their
living conditions -- with utterly predictable results.
* "S04E13: The Nightman Cometh"
is a musical
written by Charlie and put on by the gang, which is actually a
marriage
proposal to the waitress. None of them know this except for Charlie.
None
of them cares, as they let their egos and utter lack of shame carry
them
through what would otherwise be an excruciatingly embarrassing and
very
public debacle. Instead, they power through and make something weirdly
beautiful.
[Season 5]
* "S05E01: The Gang Exploits the Mortgage Crisis"
is one of those
special political shows where it's just a standard IASIP show --
unless
you understand the rapacious, financial context of the moment in which
it
was aired. Then you see that the gang seizing on the ideas of Wall
Street
as very much in their ballpark is largely an indictment of not only
financial America, but pretty much all of how the American economy
runs.
If it's OK for the gang, that should make us all take pause.
* "S05E08: Paddy's Pub: Home of the Original Kitten Mittens"
is worth
watching
if only for the introductory video for Charlie's new product,
mentioned
in the title.
[Season 6]
* "S06E03: The Gang Buys a Boat"
has the gang at
their destructive and self-destructive best.
* "S06E09: Dee Reynolds: Shaping America's Youth"
lets us finally
have a look at the gang's masterpiece movie "Lethal Weapon 5".
* "S06E11: The Gang Gets Stranded in the Woods"
has the gang
going
to a charity in Atlantic City, where Dee adopts a bunny rabbit she
finds
in the woods, while Charlie and Dennis have the time of their lives in
Atlantic City after hitching there with trucker Tom Sizemore.
[Season 1]
* "S07E1: Frank's Pretty Woman"
is about Frank's
horrific fiancé, a shockingly uncouth prostitute who leaves even the
gang in the shade with her level of debased depravity.
* "S07E2: The Gang Goes to the Jersey Shore"
has the gang
going
to the Jersey shore, where Frank, Charlie, and Mac are rewarded for
their
relentless positivity, while Dee and Dennis have a PCP-fueled night of
horrific crime and violence with a local gang.
* "S07E3: Frank Reynolds' Little Beauties"
has Frank
continue
his descent, with a shattered nose followed by corpse makeup that he
wears at an impromptu little girls' pageant that he ends up funding
and
hosting. The gang shows up as Devo.
* "S07E7: CharDee MacDennis: The Game of Games"
has the gang
revive
a bizarre game of trivia, feats of strength, and spirituality,
combined
with heavy drinking (naturally). Great surprise ending.
[Season 8]
* "S08E4: Charlie and Dee Find Love"
has the title
characters meeting rich partners. Dee tries to bed hers, but he's just
doing a "Dangerous Liaisons" with her, while Charlie's really likes
him,
but he's just using her to get closer to the waitress. Another great
trick ending.
* "S08E5: The Gang Gets Analyzed"
has the gang seek
therapy because they can't agree on who has to do the dishes after a
dinner.
"Mac: I gained and lost 60 pounds in three months.
Therapist: But that's nearly impossible!
Mac: First of all, through God, all things are possible, so jot that
down."
[Season 9]
* "S09E7: The Gang Gets Quarantined"
has the gang
trying
to avoid catching the flu, with eerily prophetic COVID undertones.
* "S09E08: Flowers for Charlie "
features Charlie
getting much, much smarter because of an experimental drug. Charlie
Day
is a national treasure.
[Season 10]
* "S10E01: The Gang Beats Boggs"
has the gang
binge-drinking their way across an intra-continental flight to start
off
the 10th season.
* "S10E04: Charlie Work"
again stars the
incomparable Charlie Day, manipulating the others into not screwing up
the health inspection.
* "S10E08: The Gang Goes on Family Fight"
puts the gang on
a
Family Feud-style game show, competing against a black family, with
predictable results. Charlie gets all of the odd choices correct;
Keegan-Michael Key hosts.
[Season 11]
* "S11E01: Chardee MacDennis 2: Electric Boogaloo"
starts the
season
by pretending to show us how an outsider would view the gang's
behavior.
They think he's an outside investor interested in their psychotic
drinking game, but he turns out not to be what he seems.
* "S11E03: The Gang Hits the Slopes"
sends the gang
to
Colorado for some reason, re-enacting an 80s ski-bum movie.
* "S11E05: Mac & Dennis Move to the Suburbs"
really shows the
gang's acting and writing chops in this darker-than-usual episode
where
Mac and Dennis are a couple in the suburbs.
[Season 12]
* "S12E02: The Gang Goes to a Water Park"
is yet another
off-site episode where the gang is inexplicably in a water park, with
Mac
and Dee getting stuck in a ride, Frank and Charlie hitting every ride,
and Dennis taking on a young girl as a scamming protegé.
* "S12E06: Hero or Hate Crime?"
takes the gang
to
the depths of their casual depravity, in which they impose their
warped
world-view on an arbitration process, which they've invoked for a
completely trivial reason. Mac comes out of the closet.
* "S12E07: PTSDee"
is
unique in that Dee gets her revenge in an incredibly satisfying and
twisted manner. At first, you think she's being unspeakably cruel --
but
then you remember that the target of her wrath was so casually cruel
to
her just at the beginning of the show.
[Season 13]
* "S13E02: The Gang Escapes"
shreds the fad
of
escape rooms, showing how it can't possibly stand up to the power of
the
utterly asocial gang.
* "S13E06: The Gang Solves the Bathroom Problem"
is the first in
what will be several shows that pointedly address some of the more
confusing parts of millennial identitarianism and the laser-like focus
on
low-impact social issues. This one's about genders.
* "S13E07: The Gang Does a Clip Show"
is noteworthy
because they can't even phone it in with a clip show. A bunch of the
clips are fake or new or misremembered (newly filmed) and it veers
into
hallucinogenic territory by the time it's done.
* "S13E08: Charlie's Home Alone"
and "S13E09: The
Gang Wins the Big Game"
go together and
tell the tale of sports superstition as well as the Eagles finally
winning the Super Bowl, but only because the gang does everything
right.
(Spoiler: it's Dee's anti-social filthiness that goes unacknowledged
but
wins the day, while Charlie's incredible but whole fictitious and
superstitious self-sacrifice is heralded.)
* "S13E10: Mac Finds His Pride"
features an
earnest and well-executed, silently performed dance number with Mac,
expressing his homosexuality to his father, who walks out. Frank, on
the
other hand, has the desired epiphany.
[Season 14]
* "S14.E2: Thunder Gun 4: Maximum Cool"
has the gang
being
absolutely over-the-top and antisocial in a movie focus group.
* "S14.E3: Dee Day"
is notable in that Dee gets her own day and everyone is fine with
that.
Whereas they never respect a single thing she ordinarily says, the
rest
of the gang follows her every order because those are the rules of Dee
Day. No matter the discomfort, not following arbitrary rules that
they'd
all agreed to would be worse.
* "S14.E6: The Janitor Always Mops Twice"
is really
well-made, fun and super-creative, while also showing off Charlie
Day's
love of cinema.
* "S14.E9: A Woman's Right to Chop"
is another
socially
aware metaphorical episode, this time talking about the right to an
abortion thinly veiled as a woman's right to chop her hair short.
[Season 15]
* "S15.E4: The Gang Replaces Dee With a Monkey"
is noteworthy
only
because of how they're starting a seasonal arc that will take them to
Ireland. Also, they get spectacularly hammered.
[Season 16]
"S16.E6: Risk E. Rat's Pizza & Amusement Center "
has the gang
trying
to relive their golden days by visiting the arcade/pizza restaurant of
their youth. Mac ends up in the Feelings Center with a young boy named
Sam,
both of them being counseled by a dog. After the dog absolves them,
"Mac: We've only been here for like five minutes. That's not a punishment.
I don't feel punished. Where's the shame I'm supposed to be feeling?
Dog: There's no shame in making a mistake, Mac.
Mac: Yes, there is. How else would I know not to do it anymore?
Dog: Hey, listen man, I'm a licensed psychotherapist.
Mac: You're a talking dog. I'm out of here.
Sam: I'm scared.
Mac: I'm sure you are, Sam. I'm sure you are. 'Cause you're a pussy.
Look,
that's not your fault, man. This dog. Your parents. The whole culture is
grooming you to be a pussy. You got no freedom. Which means you got no
balls. And then, even when you do actually get caught doing something
bad,
you're not held accountable. And if you're not held accountable, you
feel
no guilt. And if you feel no guilt, you feel no shame. You got no shame,
you're never gonna hate yourself enough to stop being bad and grow some
balls."
* "S16.E8: Dennis Takes a Mental Health Day"
has Dennis
trying
to drop his blood pressure, but the world is working against him.
Everything is annoying, the world cannot stop trying to take things
from
him. It's a wonderful set piece about how terrible customer experience
has become in this, our advanced, age. Great twist ending.
The Morning Show S01--S03 (2019--2022) -- "5/10"
This show is hot garbage. It's a tragic waste of a lot of good talent: Reese
Witherspoon, Mark Duplass, Steve Carell, Jennifer Aniston (who's a much
better comedienne than dramatic actress). I don't like a single one of the
characters. I take that back.
I would kind of like Reese Witherspoon's character if she wasn't so
interested in satisfying the requirements of the assholes judging her so
that
she can be allowed to work somewhere significant. And they've also thrown
a
few curveballs into her personality to keep her "down to Earth." (Like,
when
she hooks up with and immediately leaves an Irish bartender in the exact
same
crude way that a man would. I'm not sure what the message is, but it's
muddled and stupid).
At the urging of my viewing partner, we've watched a few more episodes,
but
it's not gotten much better. I'm still desperately searching for a
character
I don't dislike. We're at episode five now, with me more listening than
watching, but my impression is that the message of this show is that the
best
we can hope for as a society is for woman to switch places with men, but
that
everything else stays pretty much the same. Everyone is still an asshole,
treating everyone else like dirt, concerned mostly about themselves.
Equality apparently means that the asshole sociopaths still run
everything,
but some of them will be women. Our future is bright, in other words.
In episode six, the whole toxic crew heads out to California, to cover
horrific wildfires. Everyone's still hungover from the evening before.
Bradley and Alex are at each other's throats, with Bradley mistaking the
show
she's working at for an actual journalistic operation (as if that even
exists
in the mainstream) while Alex thinks America needs to be given fluff to
keep
it happy. I mean, she's right, but it's only because people like her have
trained them to expect it.
In episode seven, Alex reveals to her daughter that her parents are
getting a
divorce. The daughter is given the opportunity for utterly
non-entertaining
grandstanding. I get that this is a show about the superficiality of show
business, but I wonder how it's possible to tough out a show where you
can't
get a single toehold on a single character.
My partner's watching this show while I work and read, so I'm seeing more
of
it in the background. There was a bright spot near the end of season one
where it seemed to get a bit better. Now, on episode four of season two,
it's
just a slog of shitty, petty, superficial, ineloquent, and woefully
under-talented and intellectually under-equipped main characters talking
at
each other in one endless scene after another.
The camera faces one person, then the other, then the previous one, then
the
other one again. It focuses a bit on one character as he (e.g., Cory)
reads
out a tremendous amount of text that wishes it had been written by Armando
Iannucci, but it's much more like it's been written by Aaron Sorkin, who's
become so famous for writing stuff that stupid people think sounds clever.
And I absolutely can't tell whether they're being catty and
tongue-in-cheek
about the whole "I am my identities" way of life, or if they absolutely
100%
mean it. At any rate, it's just so tedious and uninteresting.
Cory (Billy Crudup) has some rare moments, when he's not delivering
carefully
crafted speeches that are too clever by half. He has excellent control of
his
eyes and communicates a lot with them.
Still, this is a terrible show, overall. It's just hours and hours of
fevered, fragile egos attached to incredibly self-interested and
stunningly
stupid people. Alex is absolutely the worst. I am not all impressed with
how
they've managed to portray a small-minded, stupid person like this. I
don't
know any people who are anything like the people in this show. They just
spend all their day yelling at each other and grasping for personal gain.
The Chip/Alex conversation in the car in episode 8 of season 2 is endless
and
focuses exclusively on Alex's feelings -- and how she's never done
anything
wrong. It's painful. It's made more painful by the thought that there are
so
many people who probably think that this is the best TV they've ever seen.
In season 3, episode 4, there's a lot of absolutely awful stuff going on,
but
the worst part is how hard they push the anti-Russian/pro-Ukraine
narrative.
It's not aged well, but no matter. It's more interesting as a lesson in
how
the elites in America are expected to think. There is absolutely no issue
about being so partisan in a TV show that is decidedly not about
real-world
issues at all.
It's especially ironic that they're talking about exclusive photos that
they
could publish of the Russians having bombed a hospital, something that's
completely made-up, but literally right now there is another invasion
going
on where actual hospitals and churches are being bombed -- it's November
2023
right now, and I'm talking about Israel's vengeance attacks on Gaza -- and
there is literally no way on God's green Earth that the current bomber
would
ever be featured so crassly as the "enemy" in this TV show.
I'm mystified how anyone can seriously watch this show without doing
something more useful at the same time -- and then look forward to another
season.
Foundation S01 (2021) -- "6/10"
This a bit woker than I remember the books being. The lead character is a
Tom-Cruise-like better-at-everything-than-everyone-else star, but it's a
slight, black young woman/girl.
There's the pool scene that, were the roles reversed, there'd be an
uproar.
She basically humiliates her boyfriend intellectually, then taunts him
when
he says he can't swim, then she throws him in the water and tells him to
"relax". Then she seduces him into having sex in the pool. I honestly
can't
tell if they're being ironic or if they really think that reversing the
roles
is progress.
I like the concept and the visuals are wonderful, but it's just crazy how
a
show that takes place over giant time spans (a few decades is the
shortest)
spends so much damned time on fleeting love affairs. This is silly. I only
watched the first three episodes before giving up on it.
That's what I wrote in January of 2022, when I first started watching
this. I
was riding the bike at the time. I continued watching on the
recommendation
of a good friend, whose taste in films is otherwise good. I watched it
while
doing strength workouts. It seemed to fit a bit better, I don't know why.
Maybe I've gotten older and have a bit more patience. There are a bunch of
things going on:
* Cleon/Empire/Brother Day (Lee Pace) walks a path in a religious
ritual.
This part was pretty cool and interesting, involving his 11,000
year-old
robot, Demerzel (Laura Birn). "Your lack of understanding does not
obligate me to explain."
* Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell) is fighting with the digital ghost of Hari
Seldon (Jared Harris). This part is quite annoying and tiring. It
involves her yelling at a ghost all the time and sulking a lot.
* Salvor Hardin (Leah Harvey) is making her way through an ancient
jump-ship at Phara's (Kubbra Sait) gunpoint, who's trying to avenge
the
decimation of her home planet Anacreon by attacking first Terminus,
then
taking the jump ship to the heart of Trantor. This part is OK, but
filled
with a few too many monologues to fill in gaps. Show, don't tell.
* Cleon/Empire/Brother Dawn (Cassian Bilton) struggles with being
slightly
different than his prior clones -- Day and Dusk (Terrence Mann) -- and
gets involved in a relationship with Azura Odili (Amy Tyger), which
has
entanglements, as she tries to get him to escape his destiny. This
part
is also kind of lame, but bearable.
Episode 9: The Leap was more interesting. Hari Seldon spoke with the
Foundation on Terminus, lending the proceeding a bit more gravitas.
Cleon/Day
took revenge on Azura for having misled his "son" Cleon/Dawn: he found and
killed every single person she'd ever interacted with, then condemned her
to
a long life of intravenous feeding, deprived of all sensory input.
But then they ruined it by making an achingly long scene starring Gael
Dornick, finding Salvor Hardin in a cryo-tank in the water. Just the most
ludicrous Deus ex Machina and absolute emoting and hamming it up, with
glassy
eyes everywhere. Sigh.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) -- "6/10"
This movie follows what has become the standard Terminator formula: there's a
quick introduction of John Connor (Nick Stahl), then a robot T-X
(Kristanna
Loken) arrives from the future, followed by the Terminator (Arnold
Schwarzenegger). The robots steal a bunch of shit while breaking a bunch
of
stuff in order to get dressed up in the clothes of the time.
There's a computer virus raging across the nation. John Connor tries
robbing
drugs from the veterinary clinic of Kate Brewster (Claire Danes) to fix
himself up. T-X isn't far behind. She's an unstoppable teutonic goddess --
who raises hell and is about to kill Kate when a real teutonic God plows
into
her with his truck.
Does it kill her? Bitch, please. Of course not. The movie's got to keep
going, so she pops right back up, self-repairing and then turning all
vehicles into autonomous vehicles by magically reprogramming all of the
circuit boards in them. Mayhem ensues. John Connor flees with Kate
Brewster
in her pet van. Cops are in hot pursuit like they're after the Blues
Brothers.
Terminator, Connor, and Brewster get away from T-X. Her plasma cannon
damaged
one of his two fuel cells, so he has to cut one out while he's driving.
They
end up in a cemetery, where they plunder a mausoleum that Sarah Connor had
thought to fill with weapons. The police follow them there -- as does the
T-X, in the form of Sarah's fiancé (Brian Sites), who's getting escorted
by
police to find Kate. T-X ends up killing her escort, but is still stymied
at
the cemetery, where Kate, John, and Terminator escape in a hearse,
scraping
the T-X off the roof by driving under a semi-tractor-trailer.
Her primary plasma weapon is damaged, but she perseveres. There's a bunch
of
exposition where Kate and John get to know what happens to them. They all
meet up at NORAD, where Kate's Dad initiates SkyNet. T-X is there,
upgrading
very early T-1 and T-2 models -- they still use tank treads -- and letting
them loose in the base. Our heroes rescue Kate's dad, while keeping the
T-X
at bay. They go to his office to find the codes that they can use to shut
down SkyNet. It is already defending itself, though. It is preparing a
nuclear attack on all mankind -- Judgement Day.
Kate's dad dies in the next attack, so the three are left to head for
another
super-secret location. Terminator stays behind to take on the T-X and buy
them time. She fries his face off, then snaps his neck -- before
reprogramming him. Kate and John encounter several more early terminator
models. The T-X is back on their trail, but John has turned on the
particle
collider, including its incredibly powerful magnets, which, apparently,
act
outside the tube. These pull the T-X apart. But the T-X starts cutting
into
the collider.
The reprogrammed Terminator catches up to Kate and John, complete with his
new instructions to kill them both. He's got a bit of a HAL complex, as he
now has two sets of conflicting orders. After he chucks them around the
hangar a bit, John gets him to shut himself down instead of killing them
both. They fly off to the other location to destroy SkyNet.
They show up there and start hacking their way in. T-X crashes a
helicopter
into the facility and is right on their tail. Terminator crashes an even
bigger helicopter into the facility, smushing T-X again, and saving them
both. The door starts to close, but Terminator holds it back. The T-X rips
its own legs off and scuttles to catch them. Terminator stops her, tearing
out his own fuel cell and cramming it into her mouth. "Du bist
terminiert."
Inside the facility, there's a whole shadow government setup, with a
tremendous number of old computers. There is no SkyNet there. The
Terminator
had brought them there to keep them safe from the unavoidable nuclear
attack
of SkyNet, so that Kate and John will survive. The end, for now.
I watched it in German.
John Wick (2014) -- "9/10"
John Wick (Keanu Reeves) lost his wife Helen (Bridget Moynahan) to cancer. He
meets his mysterious friend Marcus (Willem Dafoe) at the funeral. Before
she'd died, she'd ordered him a dog. It arrives after her death. It's a
great
little beagle. She and John are becoming friends. Her name is Daisy.
They're out for a drive together. Wick stops for gas. Iosef Tarasov (Alfie
Allen) is there, with a couple of henchmen. He wants to buy Wick's 1969
Mustang. It's not for sale. Iosef mutters in Russian that everything has a
price. Wick tells him in Russian that not everything has a price.
Iosef and his henchmen get the jump on Wick in his home, later that night.
They bludgeon him, then bludgeon Daisy to death. Wick wakes to find that
she'd dragged herself over to him -- her spine had been snapped by a blow
--
before expiring.
Iosef goes to Aurelio's (John Leguizamo) chop shop. Aurelio knows
immediately
whose car it is. He pops Iosef in the mouth for insolence and sends him
away.
Iosef's father Viggo Tasarov (Michael Nyqvist) calls to find out what had
happened.
"Your idiot son stole John Wick's car and killed his dog."
"Oh."
Viggo's right-hand man Avi (Dean Winters) tells him that a big deal has
just
gone through. He's made to watch as Viggo beats the crap out of Iosef.
Viggo calls John, interrupting him as he's unboxing his old weapons cache.
He
says nothing.
John prepares for battle. His back is tattooed with fortis fortuna adiuvat
("Fortune Favors the Bold"
. He dresses in
his
black suit at home, as Viggo sings a song of Baba Yaga in his own home.
Viggo's army shows up at John's home. John decimates them. The police
arrive
on a noise complaint.
"Sag mal, arbeitest du wieder?"
"Nein, ich muss nur ein paar Sachen regeln."
"Na, dann, schönen Abend."
He calls a cleanup crew, "Dinner for 12", paying in gold coins.
John Wick moves into The Continental Hotel, where we meet the hotel
manager
(Lance Reddick) and owner Winston (Ian McShane). We learn the rules of
that
place -- no business or contracts on-premises -- because Wick goes out on
the
hunt. Iosef is in a Russian bath house. Wick lets a guard go because he
knows
him well. He just tells him to take a walk -- and Frances does. "Danke,
Mr.
Wick."
Wick infiltrates the club, taking out one of Iosef's friends (one who'd
been
there when they'd stolen his car and had killed his dog). He takes out
more
guards, looking one in the eye until the lights go out. Others give more
resistance, so there's more fighting and shooting and killing in an
incredibly economical fighting style.
Iosef shields himself with a girl and gets away. He rushes through the
club's
dance floor, heading for the exit. The main body guard Kirill (Daniel
Bernhardt) gets the drop on Wick, who seems to have been fighting him
mano-a-mano for fun -- until he gets a gut full of a broken champagne
bottle
and is thrown from a balcony.
He gets back to the Continental and orders a doctor, who sews him back
together and gets him the drugs he needs to keep going.
He's sleeping in his bed. Marcus has him in his sniper-rifle scope. He
shoots
the pillow next to Wick's head to warn him that Perkins (Adrianne Palicki)
is
coming to kill him in his room. They fight -- pretty good choreography --
with Wick eventually getting the drop on her. He learns from her where
Viggo
keeps all of his cash from his operations. Instead of killing her --
against
the rules -- he leaves her in Harry's (Clarke Peters) hands.
Wick is at the church that is a front for the money-laundering operation.
He
works his way into the basement and lights all of it on fire. Money,
paintings, blackmail material -- everything.
Back in the hotel, Perkins gets the drop on Harry and shoots him in the
head.
Wick attacks the remaining Russians, including Viggo, in broad daylight.
He
takes out dozens of them, but Kirill again gets the drop on him, driving
into
another car that knocks him down and out.
They're in a basement, with Viggo gleefully beating Wick, telling him
stories.
"People keep asking if I'm back and I haven't really had an answer. But now,
yeah, I'm thinkin' I'm back. So you can either hand over your son or you
can
die screaming alongside him!"
Viggo leaves Wick to be suffocated by his henchmen. Marcus shoots one of
them, giving Wick a chance to fight Kirill, even though he's still got a
bag
over his head and his hands are still bound. Wicks strangles him. He gets
outside, stopping Viggo's car by killing everyone. Viggo gives up his son.
Wick infiltrates again, taking over a sniper position and taking out many
of
the others. He blows up the escape vehicles. Wick gut-shoots Iosef, then
finishes the job before he can finish saying "Es war nur ein scheiss
[Hund]".
Wick checks out, getting a new car from the Continental "für die kleine
Störung" (Perkins's attack). He meets up with Marcus and thanks him. That
evening, Marcus is taken captive by Viggo's men, nearly beaten to death by
Viggo, then finished off by Perkins and Viggo.
Winston has his men kill Perkins for her actions in the Continental. He
calls
Wick to tell him that Viggo is heading for his heliport. Wick spills them
all
out of the way like a force of nature, one by one by one, until only Viggo
is
left. Viggo plows Wick's car off the pier, but without Wick in it. Viggo
gets
him to throw his weapon away, then they fight mano-a-mano. Until Viggo
pulls
a knife. Wick is forced to let Viggo stab him in order to stabilize the
knife
and take it away. They are both grievously wounded, Viggo very much
mortally
so.
We're back in the garage where we started. Wick pulls himself up, breaks
into
the vet's office, gets some medicine, staples his wound shut (same place
as
the previous stabbing), then picks up a Pit Bull puppy slated for
execution
and walks off.
Kindergarten Cop (1990) -- "8/10"
Detective John Kimble (Arnold Schwarzenegger) has finally captured his
arch-nemesis Crisp (Richard Tyson). His next assignment is to go
undercover
to protect Crisp's wife and child from being abducted by Crisp or his
henchmen. When Detective Phoebe O'Hara (Pamela Reed) falls too ill to
teach
the kindergarten class where they can keep an eye on the boy.
Instead, Kimble takes the job. His first day on the job only comes to a
calmer ending when he gets out his ferret. On the second day, he tries to
find out what their dads do. He has a headache.
"Boy: Es ist bestimmt ein Tumor.
Kimble: Es ist kein Tumor."
He's narrowing it down to a couple of kids, but isn't sure yet which ones
is
Crisp's. It's kind of hilarious that this is the actual plot. Various
mothers
chat with Kimble -- because he's a giant pile of muscle -- including
Sylvester's mom (Cathy Moriarty), who thinks her kid is gay. Another
teacher
at the school is Joyce (Penelope Ann Miller). Miss Schlowski (Linda Hunt)
is
the school principal.
Kimble, Joyce, and O'Hara go to dinner, after which Kimble confesses that
the
kids are running all over him. O'Hara tells him, "no fear." He starts
training them like cadets -- a full physical-fitness training program.
Sit-ups, running, jumping jacks.
Kimble thinks he's figured out that it's Zach he's looking for, then meets
Zach's mom (Jayne Brook), who confesses that she knows about Zach's
bruises,
but that her husband is in therapy. Kimble realizes he's at a dead-end
with
his search for Crisp's kid, but tells Zach's mom that he'll press charges
if
her husband does it again.
It's dinnertime at Joyce's house, with her kid, Dominic. Kimble thinks
that
Joyce and Dominic might very well be Crisp's ex-wife and child. They are.
Crisp shows up. People are kidnapped. People are rescued. Happy ending all
around. Except Crisp, who dies. So does his mom. It's pretty violent,
actually.
I've seen this movie so many times before -- it was an absolute family
favorite -- but this is the first time I've seen it in German. It's really
pretty awesome in German. "Eins, zwei, drei, vier!"
Fist of Jesus (2023) -- "8/10"
This was a pitch-perfect spoof of parts of the story of Jesus, told as a
hyper-violent zombie/action movie.
Jesus is trying to show off and brings Lazarus back from there dead. He
rises, but as a zombie, quickly infecting everyone but Jesus and Judas.
They
scream and flee, hunted throughout the small village by roving bands of
villager-zombies, Roman-centurion-zombies, and cowboy-zombies.
After getting trapped in a field, hemmed in on all sides, Jesus conjures
fishes, multiplies them and wields them as weapons, as throwing stars,
chainsaws, swords, everything. Judas grabs a giant swordfish and joins in.
It's a bloodbath.
Fist of Jesus is not the best movie ever, but it had absolutely no right
being as good as it was. It just goes to show that funny writing,
absolutely
fantastic editing, and good directing goes so much farther than effects.
And
the effects were actually good! Not lifelike, but well-choreographed.
I watched it in Spanish with English subtitles.
Les Misérables (1998) -- "8/10"
Jean Valjean (Liam Neeson) is a criminal, out for only four days on parole
after 19 years of hard labor. He ends up in a town, sleeping on a bench.
An
old woman urges him to go to a local church, where he is fed and given
shelter. He repays them by stealing the silverware and punching the priest
(Tim Barlow) in the eye.
The police captures him, bringing him back to the priest, who absolves
him,
telling the police that he allowed Valjean to take the silverware and
wonders
why he'd forgotten the candlesticks.
Years later, Valjean is mayor of the town. His new chief inspector is
Javert
(Geoffrey Rush), who is absolutely hell-bent on putting Valjean back in
jail,
for something -- anything! -- because he does not believe in
rehabilitation.
Valjean is no saint. He fires a local woman Fantine (Uma Thurman),
consigning
her to a fate of prostitution and dire illness, trying to scratch together
enough money to pay rent, heat her apartment, and to bring her child
Cosette
(Claire Danes) back to her.
The film depicts an utterly cruel and lost society, filled with the worst
people. Rich men haggle with freezing whores, then try to rape them while
the
police look on.
Valjean learns that a "Jean Valjean" is on trial. He travels to Paris to
attend the trial. After watching his previous comrades -- 19 years
together
on the chain -- snitch to hang another man for what were his crimes, he
stands and confesses, come what may.
Valjean returns to Fantine, only to be confronted by Javert, who delights
in
his guilt. Javert's accusations push Fantine over the edge, and she dies
in
her bed. Valjean finally pops Javert in the noggin and escapes, first
transferring ownership of his factory to his workers, then collecting a
go-bag that he'd buried by a tree in a field outside of town.
Javert's enthusiasm to catch him makes him tip his entire stagecoach. He
continues on foot, running to catch the slowly moving coach in front of
him,
only to find that Valjean had switched places with a local farmer.
Valjean continues to the town where Cosette lives in a horrible foster
home,
with two horrible foster parents who cavil every sou they can get out of
him.
He wants to take Cosette with him and lays FF500 on the table, but the
man
tries to bargain up to FF1500, but then says he couldn't consider it,
morally. Valjean is sarcastically relieved, then shows the man a letter
from
Cosette's mother, allowing him to take the girl with him for free.
Valjean returns to the village where he'd been mayor, staying in hiding in
a
church convent while Javert searches high and low for him. Javert is
thwarted
from searching the grounds, and Javert and Cosette escape.
Ten years later, they are still in the church. Valjean, on the urging and
advice of his friend, takes Cosette into the world. His friend tells him
that
the world has changed, that he should return to it. He agrees and decides
to
buy a house and move in. Javert is still out there, fighting against the
revolution.
Cosette starts agitating to have her own life because she's hot for a
local
revolutionary Marius (Hans Matheson). Javert is determined to tell her
father
that she's consorting with a known revolutionary. He visits the home, but
Valjean slips out, leaving Cosette to speak with Javert. She breaks into
histrionics afterward, demanding that he tell his story. He tells her that
he's a convict, that he'd been sentenced to 20 years of hard labor for
stealing a loaf of bread. He tells her his story, while they sit on a
white
piano bench, next to a white grand piano, in a study the size of most
people's apartments.
Javert soon discovers that Lafitte is Valjean. Valjean and Cosette decide
to
leave town, in the middle of the night. The next day, Marius helps start
the
revolution. Cosette tells her father that she needs to wait for Marius to
return from the barricades and that she loves him. Meanwhile, Javert is
scurrying and skulking about the city, pursuing his quarry, Valjean. He
literally couldn't care less about the revolution, he's focused laser-like
only on his eternal quarry.
Cosette ventures out of doors to meet Marius. The trap shuts on her,
completely expectedly. Javert has her dead to rights. She actually gets
the
drop on him, throws him to the ground, then unties Marius and gives him
Javert's gun. Marius frog-marches Javert to the barricades to "face the
people's justice." Valjean goes into the streets, to a hospital, to find
Marius. Instead, he finds Javert, tied to a post, utterly unrepentant. A
revolutionary says "Do you know him? When we have a spare bullet, we get
to
kill him." Valjean continues to the barricades to send Marius to Cosette.
A little boy robbing corpses is shot through the back. They carry the
corpse
inside, where Valjean takes on the job of "taking care of" Javert. Javert
is
incensed that not only has Valjean "beaten him", but that Valjean doesn't
even seem to care that he's "won". And now Valjean wants to let him go.
"You
should kill me. I won't stop. You don't understand. I won't let you go.
You
should end this. Kill me."
In the early gloaming of day, their positions are compromised by heavy
artillery. A seemingly indomitable Valjean takes a wounded Marius into the
sewers, then out somewhere along the Seine. And ... to no-one's surprise
at
all, Javert is right exactly in that one spot in the tiny city of Paris to
meet him. Javert agrees to let Valjean take Marius back to his home, to
Cosette. He takes his leave of her, giving Cosette her mother's broach, at
which Cosette can only stare at stupidly. Valjean leaves with the guards
and
returns to Javert, on the banks of the Seine.
Javert says, "I've tried to live my life without breaking a single rule."
and
"you're free" before he removes Valjean's handcuffs, puts them on himself
and
tips himself backwards into the Seine.
Valjean watches the ripples, then walks increasingly quickly and
confidently
along the banks of the Seine, a grin spreading across his face.
A bunch of the acting is quite wooden, especially Claire Danes, who seems
ludicrously out of place. Geoffrey Rush is always good. Liam Neeson was
also
quite good. Uma Thurman as well.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=47632023-09-13T22:40:40+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) -- "7/10"
It's amazing to see what a feature science-fiction film could look like in
the 80s. It kind of looks like the TV show sometimes, with the focus on
the
acting, dialogue, and plot rather than CGI effects.
This film picks up right where Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan left off,
after Khan (Ricardo Montalbán) had detonated the Genesis device. Spock
(Leonard Nimoy) had died saving the others and his casket had been sent
down
to that planet. In this film, McCoy (DeForest Kelly) starts acting
strangely,
going into occasional fugue states where he seems to be channeling Spock's
memories.
Meanwhile, on the planet, David Marcus (Merritt Butrick) and Saavik (Robin
Curtis) are on the Genesis planet, observing its chaotic development --
and
it's increasing instability. Lifeforms are charging through their lives at
an
incredible pace. They find a young Vulcan, whom they can only assume is a
resurrected Spock, but without his life experiences and his memories. The
child quickly develops into a teenager, then becomes a man as he undergoes
the Vulcan adolescence ritual at an incredibly accelerated rate.
Klingon captain Kruge (Christopher Lloyd) is sniffing around, trying to
get
control of the Genesis device, leading to a standoff with Kirk -- who ends
up
sacrificing the Enterprise in a self-detonation in which he's trapped most
of
the opposing Klingon crew. The Enterprise crew, meanwhile, has beamed to
the
disintegrating planet, where Kirk and Kruge fight -- mano a mano -- to
Kruge's death.
Kirk and his crew fly the partially disable Klingon Bird of Prey to
Vulcan,
where they deposit Spock's memories from McCoy's mind back into Spock's
body.
The process is mostly successful, but will take time to complete.
Joker (2019) -- "10/10"
My rating from "a prior review"
is unchanged.
Amazing
film.
Watched it in English with French subtitles.
I Love You, Man (2009) -- "7/10"
This is a great cast: Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) is a nice guy who has not male
friends. He's going to marry Zooey (Rashida Jones), who has a lot of
friends,
Denise (Jaime Pressly) (who's married to Barry (Jon Favreau)), Hailey
(Sarah
Burns). His fencing colleagues Eugene (Aziz Ansari) and Larry (Nick Kroll)
don't see him as a friend. His coworker Tevin (Rob Huebel) is a dead-end.
After several bad "dates", Lonnie (Joe Lo Truglio), organized by his gay
brother Robbie (Andy Samberg) and Doug (Thomas Lennon), organized by his
mom
Joyce (Jane Curtin) and his dad (J.K. Simmons). Peter finally meets Sidney
(Jason Segel).
"J.K. Simmons My best friend, Hank Mardukas."
Peter and Sydney hit it off amazingly well, but Peter starts to become
filled
with self-doubt and sees danger and subterfuge in small details --
especially
after Zooey tells him that he's now spending an unhealthy amount of time
With
Sydney. He cuts of the relationship. Sydney borrows $8000 from Peter and
Peter is worried that he's spent it on frivolous investments -- until he
discovers that Sydney has bought billboards for Peter all over the city.
Peter starts to feel bad that he's broken up with Sydney, especially after
Lou Ferrigno signs back up with him after having seen the billboards. He
doesn't reinvite him to the wedding though, going without a best man
instead.
Zooey calls Sydney to show up -- and Sydney picks up while in a tux, on
his
Vespa on the PCH, clearly headed for the wedding already.
Game Night (2018) -- "6/10"
This is a movie about Max (Jason Bateman) and Annie (Rachel McAdams), who are
absolute game nuts. They'd bet during a bar-trivia contest and fallen in
love
immediately. The movie is littered with references to various game-related
things they'd done on vacations over the ensuing years. They're married
and
trying to have a baby, but Max's sperm count is low -- because of his
feelings of inadequacy toward his more-dynamic brother Brooks (Kyle
Chandler).
Brooks organizes a game night that involves a kidnapping, but it's
interrupted by a real-life kidnapping executed by people to whom Brooks
owes
money, The Bulgarian (Michael C. Hall). It gets more complicated, as they
slowly discover that the game is actually real, having "solved" a bunch of
it
with no fear because they thought that it was not. On top of that, a
former
game-nighter who is no longer invited Gary (Jesse Plemons), is also
running a
fake game night to get revenge on them for having dropped him. He was
hoping
to get back into their good graces by proving what a cool game-master he
is.
He gets shot by the Bulgarian's henchmen.
They end up rescuing, then selling, a WITSEC list. Brooks ends up under
house
arrest, and hosts another game night as shadowy forces gather outside. I'm
sure they thought that there would be a sequel. I doubt there will be. The
movie wasn't that good. I gave it an extra point for Jason Bateman's
deadpan
performance.
There are a bunch of sub-plots and jokes with the other couples, but only
Sharon Horgan is actually very interesting.
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) -- "10/10"
I love nearly everything about this movie. All of the players are so good.
See "my review from early 2016"
.
I saw it in German this time, though it doesn't matter so much, as there's
nearly no dialogue.
Total Recall (1990) -- "8/10"
The movie starts with the full credits. It's super-confident that people are
going to stick around without even getting a taste of the action. The
movie
starts with Doug Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) in bed with his wife Lori
(Sharon Stone). Director Paul Verhoeven certainly knows how to make a love
scene. Stone is sexy and even Schwarzenegger can't ruin it.
Douglas Quaid goes to work, but ends up at Recall, an agency that helps
you
"remember it wholesale." He chooses the femme fatale, getting excited
about
being with a hot woman -- didn't he just say that he's been married to
Sharon
Stone for eight years? Sharon Stone in her prime? Didn't they just have
morning sex?
Anyway, he gets into the machine, but something about his fantasy about
going
to Mars goes absolutely sideways. The entire staff has to calm him down
and
ends up throwing him out, leaving him with only vague memories of what
happened. Once outside, he meets a buddy from work, who ends up trying to
kill him, along with a bunch of other thugs. Quaid takes them all out. Is
this happening? Was the "emergency" at the Recall offices real? Or was
that
just the start of his fantasy?
He gets home to Lori, who's pissed that he went to Recall. She also rolls
her
eyes when he tells her about Mars. Perhaps she knows that his buried
memories
are real. She does. She calls Richter (Michael Ironside). She must get
orders
to take him out because she starts shooting at him, then beats the crap
out
of him -- focusing on the family jewels. Now it's a knife-fight. She's
slashing away, adorned in her 80s-style aerobics outfit.
He gets her at gunpoint. She admits that she'd never seen him before six
weeks ago. She tells him he's an agent with a memory implant -- that his
life
is just a dream. She doesn't know who he is; she just works there. He was
her
best contract, then offers to bang him one last time -- but only to buy
time
for the backup team to arrive. Clever girl.
Richter shows up, asking Lori what Quaid remembers. "Nothing." They kiss.
What?!?
Quaid is on the run. Richter and his goons give chase. After a bit, the
weapons open up on the escalators. There are giant, bloody squibs
everywhere.
Like, it's seriously, awesomely, and convincingly gory. The effects are
much,
much better than I expected. They held up really well, for the most part.
When he's pulling the tracker out of his nose, it's pretty convincing. The
trick with the probe in the rat was pretty neat, and who cares if the
graphics on that guy's tracker look dated? The concept works.
Quaid's on Mars now. I kind of like that Richter was not only stupid
enough
to have a projectile weapon in a pressurized environment, but that the
movie
showed the consequences immediately -- he blows out a "window" and a whole
section of the immigration area has to be closed down.
Quaid meets up with Melina (Rachel Ticotin), who identifies him as Hauser.
She ends up sending him away, not much wiser than before. Next, he's
visited
by a doctor who tells him that he's currently living out a fantasy -- that
he's currently tied up in the Recall facility and that he's not really on
Mars, that nothing is really happening. The doctor brings in Lori, who
tells
him she loves him. The doctor hands him a red pill; he has to take the
pill
to go back to reality. Quaid threatens the doctor, saying that, if it's
really a fantasy, then he could kill the doctor, right? OMG a red pill!
Really!?!
After seeing the doctor sweating, Quaid caps the doctor and spits the pill
out on his corpse. Men storm the room and overwhelm Quaid. Lori gets in a
few
shots on the family jewels -- she really likes doing that -- before they
tie
him up and call Richter. Before they can go to work on him, Melina shows
up
with a machine gun, clearing the room of everyone but Lori, who disarms
her
and starts a knock-down, drag-out fistfight with Melina. Lori gets the
better
of her, but Quaid gets the drop on Lori and puts one between her eyes when
she starts cooing at him that she loves him.
Melina and Quaid flee. They get back to the bar where first inquired after
her and sneak out a hidden tunnel. Richter is close behind. When no-one
will
tell him where they went, he and his men just start murdering everyone in
the
restaurant. It's kind of understandable that Richter's pissed, I guess.
Quaid
had just murdered his lover.
Cohaagen (Ronny Cox) orders Richter back and then shuts down the air
supply
to mutant-town. Melina, Benny, the taxi driver (Mel Johnson Jr.), and
Quaid/Hauser retreat further into the catacombs, where they meet up with
the
rebel underground -- and will meet...Quato, one of sci-fi movie's best
inventions ever. Quato is a telepathic conjoined body attached to the
torso
of the rebel leader George (Marshall Bell). Quato helps Quaid remember
that
he'd seen an alien hand in the Martian excavations when he was first on
Mars.
The seance is interrupted by Cohaagen's tunnel-drilling machines.
George (w/Quato), Quaid, Benny, and Melina flee to an airlock, but Benny
betrays them, gunning down George. Quato lives long enough to tell Quaid
to
shut down the reactors. Benny thanks Quaid for having led Cohaagen's
troops
directly to them. It turns out that Hauser had arranged everything so that
they could break past Quato's mental shield and get to the rebel alliance.
Quaid doesn't believe it -- but Hauser isn't him.
After this giant mind-fuck, Melina and Quaid are bound into recall
machines,
to reprogram Quaid as Hauser and to make Melina a loving, obedient wife.
This
doesn't work, as Quaid pulls the machine apart with his giant muscles. The
ensuing fight scene is exceedingly bloody. Quaid and Melina flee into the
tunnels once again. There, Benny is right behind them with a drilling
machine. Quaid picks up a hand model: "Screw you, Benny!" Melina gets hit
in
the head with a fake, movie rock in what I can only imagine was a
completely
unintended coincidence.
Benny inadvertently opens a tunnel to the alien Oxygen machine. In the
reactor room, Richter and dozens of men attack him, gunning him down
mercilessly. The hologram device from a much-earlier scene shows up like
Chekhov's gun. He and Melina toss it back and forth to take care of all of
Richter's troops. The denouement between Richter and Quaid is coming up,
though. Another famous scene is the open elevator, where Richter ends up
falling to his death while his arms stay in the elevator. "See you at the
party, Richter."
Next up is Cohaagen, who magically appears with a bomb that Quaid manages
to
throw into an air vent, but it still blows a hole to the Martian surface.
Cue
people holding onto things while stretched out horizontally. Quaid throws
Cohaagen out the hole. Quaid engages the alien reactor. Quaid and Melina
are
sucked out of the hole. Cohaagen's face is popping open. The machine
starts
producing Oxygen quickly enough to save Quaid and Melina, though.
I watched in German.
XxX: Return of Xander Cage (2017) -- "5/10"
Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) is back, being whatever form of cool people seem to
keep coming back to his movies for. At one point, Xander Cage and some
other
dude are just riding motorcycles across water, which works just fine
because
there's some weird ski on the tires, which of course would work. This is
proven physics.
The head of the XxX program Jane Marke (Toni Collette) is noteworthy only
because of the actress playing her. She gets Xander back into the game.
She
is accompanied by Becky Clearidge (Nina Dobrev), who is this movie's
version
of Q. Honestly, she's probably one of the better roles in this movie.
Xiang (Donnie Yen) stole something called Pandora's Box, which is some
sort
of all-powerful, electronic, hacking device or something. In German, they
call it die Buchse der Pandora, which is kind of a phonetic translation?
But
it translates to "Pandora's can," which is definitely a different body
part
than her box.
Donnie Yen is, as usual, the absolute best thing about this movie. His
choreography and filming of it is the best. Super-fast, super-precise.
Tony
Jaa's cuts a bit too much.
Anyway, Xiang's working with Serena Unger (Deepika Padukone), who always
dresses in thigh-high, leather boots, even on a sand-filled island camp,
which is an oddly terrible fashion choice.
Talon's (Tony Jaa) quite a little fighter, but I'm not at all surprised by
that.
There's so much green-screening in this movie, it's kind of sad.
Adele Wolff (Ruby Rose) is dressed exactly like Lara Croft. She is still
the
angry, powerful lesbian -- just like she is in every movie. Tennyson Torch
(Rory McCann) is fun to watch -- but mostly because I remember him as "The
Hound" in Game of Thrones. Also, there is no way that this movie is not
taking the piss: Torch throws his mouthguard in just before he charges
into a
hail of bullets -- and is struck only in the shoulder and hindquarters.
They're also doing some sort of grrrl-action thing here, with Wolff,
Serena,
and Becky clearing a whole warehouse of bad guys by themselves, with lots
of
hero-posing and slow-motion gun-twirling. They're then trapped, with the
guys
taking up a supporting role -- women still in charge. They call out the
count
to jump back into a deadly fracas -- another hail of bullets -- when
Darius
Stone (Ice Cube) appears literally out of nowhere with a grenade launcher
to
mow down all the remaining baddies. A pure Deus Ex Machina. We're supposed
to
remember him from previous movies, I'm guessing.
Meanwhile, Marke gets the drop on Xiang by kneecapping him, but he gets
the
drop on her by tossing her out of the back of the plane that they're all
going to die in. Xander is meanwhile flying the plane into a de-orbiting
satellite. Just before it hits, he jumps out of the back of the plane --
but
it's kind of unclear where Xiang went. You almost know he didn't just die.
Also, Xander crashes into Earth on a rapidly decelerating freight package
attached to a giant parachute. Holy shit, Xiang is just with the crew when
they drive out to meet Xander. WTF!?! They didn't even bother to show how
he
got out of the plane! NO PROBLEM.
Round out the reunion with Xander and Darius hugging and chest-thumping
and
congratulating each other on how the whole world will be searching for
them.
That doesn't stop them from all showing up for Augustus Gibbons's (Samuel
L.
Jackson) funeral, which is totally fake because he's attending his own
funeral. He's even got an eyepatch, as if he's playing his Nick Fury role.
Weird: And Xander is sliding into his role as Dominic Turturro
There is literally no way that Alex Restrepo doesn't watch this movie at
least twice per year. Ah, what am I talking about? I'm watching this
damned
thing, too.
I gave it an extra star because of the self-aware tongue-in-cheek moments
and
the quality of some of the cast.
I watched it in German.
South Park S26 (2023) -- "8/10"
They're still doing a great job, after all of these years. So far, they've
covered,
* The first episode has Cartman possessed by "Cupid Ye", who tells him
that
Jews run Hollywood. Everyone at school believes it and the students
start
to submit scripts to Kyle.
* An episode about the prince and princess of Canada moving to South
Park
because they just want some privacy
* An episode about Japanese toilets, which hits home so hard, with it's
absolutely iron-clad logic that everything about how we take shits in
the
west is pretty topsy-turvy. We shit into drinking water then wipe our
asses with perfumed and shredded trees. We used to have bidets, but we
got rid of them, in exchange for super-sized plumbing systems that can
swallow tons of paper. Big toilet paper is behind it all, of course.
* An episode about ChatGPT, where Clyde and Stan use it to generate
generic
responses to their girlfriends, so that they don't have to answer
endless
text messages manually. More of the boys are caught cheating on their
essays -- as is Mr. Garrison, who uses ChatGPT to grade them.
* An episode about work ethic, in which Butters gets a job working at an
ice-cream shop. He shows up at the basketball court, waving a paycheck.
Cartman wants in, so he shows up at the ice-cream shop to start his job.
he
does nothing.
He lasts less than four hours, as predicted. He wants to work from home,
he's on the phone, he needs his breaks. He bails and starts a new
business
idea with Kenny -- Dickenbaus Hot Dogs. He goes to Butters for funding.
They drain his bank account building Cartman's hot-dog house into a
mini-theme-park, but they can't get anyone to work at it. Nor are they
obviously willing to work themselves.
Butters shows up, realizes the money is all gone, and starts his second
job
there, turning it into a success. He gets his money back, and more, then
sells immediately to a foreign investor, paying Cartman's mother to move
back into her old house -- taking Cartman away from the little paradise
that he'd built for himself.
Armageddon (1998) -- "9/10"
I'm an absolute sucker for this movie, but upon re-viewing, it's obvious why.
It hits all of the beats, it's an actual movie. The cast is great; it's
one
of Bruce Willis's best movies.
How does it start? A bunch of meteorites strike New York. An amateur
astronomer reports to NASA that this is just a foretaste of the giant
asteroid that's on its way to Earth -- a planet-killer. He names it after
his
"hinterhältige Giftschlange" of a wife.
Next, we meet Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis), owner and founder of an
oil-drilling company and leader of a motley crew that's the "best in the
world": A.J. (Ben Affleck), Rockhound (Steve Buscemi), Chick (Will
Patton),
Oscar (Owen Wilson), Bear, (Michael Clarke Duncan), Max (Ken Hudson
Campbell). Grace (Liv Tyler) is Harry's daughter and A.J.'s lover and
she's a
distraction.
They are recruited by Dan Truman (Billy Bob Thornton) and join his crew of
Watts (Jessica Steen), General Kimsey (Keith David), Willie Sharp (William
Fichtner), and so on. They all train together; they do some montages;
there
are Aerosmith songs. They fix the equipment; they break some; they go out
for
one night of fun. They're ready to go.
Harry says goodbye to Grace and makes her promises, only one of which he
will
be able to keep. This part is stupid, but I have to mention it because
it's
filmed in an absolutely awesome, rusted temple of space-flight. It was
definitely filmed there and it was definitely a place that the director of
photography saw while scouting the John F. Kennedy Space Center. These
things
don't happen anymore because people don't do that anymore. They would just
make some shit up, film it in front of a green screen, and phone that shit
in, nice and cheap. We have definitely lost something. We should make an
effort to get it back, and look back on these last 10-15 years where
literally everything was made digitally dissolve like a bad dream upon
waking.
Billy Bob is great, as usual, as is Bruce Willis. They play so well that
you
literally can't imagine anyone else playing the role. Affleck is pretty
good,
but you can easily imagine Matt Damon playing his role. Steve Buscemi does
his lines perfectly. Owen Wilson just plays himself, as usual. They're on
their way to Lev Andropov (Peter Stormare), who is an eternal favorite. He
plays a Russian on Mir, where the space shuttle docks to refuel. I shit
you
not.
The shuttle gets refueled, but they have to evacuate in a hurry because
there's a leak in the fuel line. Lev and A.J. almost get left behind in a
disintegrating space station, but they both make it out, just in time.
Both
shuttles escape by the skin of their teeth. On to the asteroid. I'd
forgotten
there were two of them -- but there had to be, so one of them could crash
into a giant asteroid fragment and kill nearly everyone on board. The
shuttle
with A.J. crashes, while the other shuttle "lands" -- more or less.
Harry and the crew in the landed shuttle debark and get to work. There are
a
dozen things worse than they'd imagined. They persevere.
Bear, A.J., and Lev are alive and they break out of the crashed shuttle
with
the armadillo and head toward a green blip on their radar, hoping for the
best.
Drilling is going terribly. Colonel Sharpe and Harry get into each other's
hair -- the secondary protocol is to just blow up the bomb on the surface
of
the asteroid. This will, of course, have no effect whatsoever, but
military's
gonna military, ammirite? Billy Bob demands that Keith David refuse the
order
and damned if that's not good cinema.
The bomb starts blinking; it's been triggered. There's a huge scuffle;
guns
are drawn; words are said; friendships are made; bombs are defused.
A huge asteroid-quake blows the fissure they're working and sends Max into
outer space with their only working Armadillo. However, Lev, A.J., and
Bear
had figured out how to fly with their Armadillo and they've navigated
around
half the asteroid and show up just in time to finish digging the hole.
They
reach their depth, but more and more of the asteroid starts raining down
on
them as Earth's gravity starts pulling it apart.
The bomb is damaged -- it will no longer auto-trigger, so someone has to
babysit it; a red-shirt dies. They retreat into the ship to pull straws to
see who's going to sacrifice themselves. Lev volunteers because he doesn't
want to return to the planet as a Russian coward. Rockhound also
volunteers
because (A) he's crazy from being in space and (B) he knows that he has
some
very inadvisable debts waiting for him back on Earth.
A.J. draws the short straw. Harry takes him to the asteroid surface, but
blows his air on him and takes his place. There is a fuckload of
melodrama.
Harry prepares the bomb while the others prepare for takeoff. The shuttle
won't fire. Lev asks Watts to step aside and put away the manual. He beats
the everloving Christ out of the engine with a giant wrench. It fires.
The shuttle takes off; the bomb doesn't fire. Sharp wants to turn around.
Harry's crew believes in him. Harry falls down a hole. He climbs out. He
blows the asteroid with a few seconds to spare. The Earth is saved.
Statues
of Harry Stamper will be built all over the world.
The shuttle is somehow still whole and ready to reenter the atmosphere.
There's a whole montage about people being grateful. Bullshit. People
would
forget nearly immediately and just go back to being assholes to each
other.
Any spirit of cooperation would be soon replaced with the same old
empirical
aspirations and stupidity.
Anyway, the shuttle lands and Grace is out on the tarmac in a dress rather
than the fire-safety equipment everyone else is wearing. More melodrama,
but
fine.
I saw it in German this time.
Mad Max (1979) -- "7/10"
This is the original film that started it all, following Max Rockatansky (Mel
Gibson), as he hunts psychos across the Australian Outback. He's a police
officer, and the world is more gone than it was at the time, but not so
far
gone that he doesn't have a wife, child, and home to return to after his
multi-day shifts. Spoiler: this movie is a lot more normal than I'd
remembered.
We join him as he takes down a certain Nightrider (Vince Gil), who seems
utterly whacked out and devil-may-care. He and his girlfriend die in
pretty
much a self-inflicted fiery cataclysm. This doesn't prevent his crew from
seeking vengeance, though. The crew is a motorcycle gang that shows up in
town, led by the unusually named Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne).
They hunt down a young couple (M/F), raping them both and destroying their
car utterly. The one guy the cops manage to catch is let go for lack of
evidence to convict him of anything. This is a shame because you should be
able to at least get time for extremely poor fashion choices or shockingly
poor impulse control.
TIL "the bronze" means "the police".
Max's partner Jim Goose (Steve Bisley) is absolutely pissed that they had
to
let Johnny the Boy (Tim Burns) go and he swears he'll find him out on the
road. Johnny and Toecutter find Jim first. Jim flies off of his bike
because
of a trap, but recovers. As he's driving back with the tow truck, with his
bike in the back, Johnny throws a brake drum through his windshield --
with
utterly preternatural precision -- sending him off the road in what is his
second big vehicular accident of the day. Upside-down and covered in
leaking
gasoline, Goose ... well, his goose is cooked. Johnny argues with
Toecutter
about whether they're really going to do it, but do it they do.
Max finds Goose in the hospital, under a tent, burned to a crisp. He
storms
off, claiming that that's not Goose. It is, though, though not for long.
After a shitty, sleepless night, Max goes to his commanding officer Fifi
(Roger Ward) to quit. Fifi looks kind of like the guy who Indiana Jones
fought at the airplane in his first outing.
Max is now on the road with his wife Jessie (Joanne Samuel) and child
Sproggo
(Brendan Heath) and dog, dressed like a chump in nice pants and shirt.
When
they get a flat tire, he stays at the garage to help, while his wife takes
their child "Sproggo" for an ice cream. To no-one's surprise at all,
Toecutter and his gang happen to be there. Tocutter gets some of her ice
cream, but she knees him in the balls and hightails it out of there. She
stops to pick up Max. They leave the tire.
They end up at the coast, visiting friends. Life is idyllic, for a while.
Jessie heads down to the beach with the dog and spends a lovely, sleepy
few
hours there. On the way back through the woods, Toecutter's gang is back
to
terrorize her. She makes it back home, into Max's arms. He heads into the
woods, armed with a shotgun and dressed in his white A-Frame shirt and
beige
khakis -- which he was wearing while repairing the car.
After she calms down, Jessie remembers that she has no idea where her
child
is. Luckily, Toecutter and his gang found the boy and they're all posted
up
on the farm where Max and Jessie are staying, all without anyone noticing.
May shows up with a shotgun and herds the gang into the barn, while she,
Jessie, and Sprog take off. There are just so many unexpected escapes for
Jessie and Sprog.
I suppose I should interject at this point that this isn't at all how I
remembered this movie. I don't think anyone really remembers this one. I
think we all remember Mad Max 2 and Beyond the Thunderdome much more.
Jessie's car dies. May sends her packing and tries to stand down the gang,
but they blaze right by her. They run Jessie and Sprog down. A shoe and
toy
ball bounce across the road. Max appears, running to the white pile of
clothing that used to be his wife and child.
They get her to a hospital, but she's a mess. They stabilize her, but
she's
not out of the woods. No-one mentions the child.
Max flips his wig a little, quite rightly. He gets out his old police
uniform
and collects the 600HP vehicle he'd never gotten a chance to drive.
He's on the hunt now, driving down the gang and taunting them into giving
chase. He blasts through them like bowling pins. Max drives into a
prohibited
area, seeing a person lying in the long grass next to a motorcycle. It's a
trap, of course. Toectutter or Bubba (Geoff Parry) shoots out his knee,
then
runs over his hand. Max gets control of his shotgun and takes out Bubba,
but
Johnny and Toecutter get away. Max gives chase in his hyper-vehicle.
He's lost some blood.
...but not as much as Toecutter does when he drives head-first into a
tractor-trailer truck.
After that, Max drives around a bunch until he manages to find Johnny,
who's
taken out another victim. He's stealing his boots. Max makes him cuff his
own
ankle, then hooks the other end to a truck axle. He gives him a hacksaw:
it
takes ten minutes to saw through the axle, but only five to saw through an
ankle. The truck's going to blow up long before then, anyway.
BOOM.
The end.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=47272023-08-04T15:21:43+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Ted Lasso S03 (2023) -- "6/10"
At the very least, I've learned that "Viktor Maslov is the Soviet Pioneer of
the 4-4-2 Formation & the Inventor of Pressing"
.
The season starts off with a round of introducing everyone and
establishing
how horrible Rupert is, but also how everyone has to spend every waking
minute responding to his every provocation.
Most of the people in this show are reactive: they don't actually have a
plan
for themselves, so their day is consumed with reacting to how other people
think of them. Coach Beard is perhaps the exception here.
Ted Lasso has crippling anxiety, for which he's still in therapy, and
which
is exacerbated by his wife having started dated their erstwhile marriage
counselor. This is considered an affront to everyone in the show but,
honestly, if they've moved on, what does it matter who she dates now? The
heart wants what the heart wants. Does Ted get a veto on anyone who gets
to
associate with his son when Ted's the one who's moved to a different
continent? Grow up. Honestly.
The best part of this season is that ZlatanZava has joined Richmond for
the
season. Jamie Tartt is jealous and Roy offers to train him so that he can
play as well as Zava. Zava carries the team to several victories, leading
up
to a match against West Ham, with Nate at the helm. They lose it. They
lose
all of their games without Zava, who has retired from football for his own
mysterious reasons.
The team travels to Amsterdam for a friendly match, which they lose
horribly,
5--0. Coach gives them the night off because they're already in a rut. Roy
makes Jamie go out for training with him, but Jamie knows the city like
the
back of his hand and gets the upper hand. Roy doesn't know how to ride a
bike, so Jamie teaches him, so they can get to the windmills that Roy also
doesn't believe in. Beard drops acid, with Ted not doing it, until he's
finally bored into it -- long after Beard has left. Will the ballboy and
Higgins go to a jazz club. Rebecca doesn't know what a bike lane is, so
she
gets run off a bridge into the water and into a handsome Dutch man's boat.
Colin sneaks off to a gay bar, with Trent following him. Trent reveals to
him
that he's gay too, and that's OK. The rest of the crew fights between
going
to a sex show and traveling two hours to a private party. They've agreed
to
go to the party, but then get mired down in food. Coach Ted ends up at
Museumnacht, tripping balls.
The show focuses more on the private lives of the players -- and
continues,
of course, to focus on the inner life of the titular character, despite
him
being unbelievably boring and utterly unconvincing in his supposed misery
due
to self-confidence-deficit-induced panic attacks. Obisanye is apparently
also
a figure to be pitied because he doesn't get to play for the Nigerian
national team (don't worry; he will by the end of the season) while his
extremely successful Nigerian restaurant is trashed, but his wonderful
team-ful of colleagues jump in to repair everything with skills that they
somehow also acquired while being superstar footballers. You see: the
menial
class doesn't do anything that requires any skill that their betters
couldn't
pick up in a few minutes.
The next couple of shows present dilemmas like what to do with a
billion-dollar buyout deal for the team (Rebecca) or Keeley having to
manage
to build her business without dozens of millions in VC financing (spoiler:
she does, because she's an f'ing brilliant businesswoman, obviously,
despite
her clear mental deficits).
Jamie's story is perhaps more interesting than the others -- his
development
was kind of interesting and fun to watch, but he'd kind of finished it a
season ago. Now, we're not legitimately concerned that he's going to fall
off
the wagon and "go back to his old ways" again. No tension, no risk; just
fan
service.
Holy shit, there was absolutely no need for episode to 12 to even exist,
to
say nothing of being 82 minutes long. It's just one long chunk of
extremely
self-indulgent fan-service in which absolutely everything works out for
everyone, and no-one suffers in any way whatsoever, and everyone has lots
of
money. The end.
If moronic fans manage to force Apple to resurrect this show, then I will
not
be the first to watch a fourth season. The third was already enough of a
going-through-the-motions, member-berries orgy of 80-minute shows. It was
similar to the finale of Stranger Things, where it got so self-indulgent,
I
could no longer figure out why they were even doing it. There is less art
to
this, and more cold calculation of profit and loss. Obviously, that's the
only way that our world is going to work, apparently, but I'm not going to
applaud it, or pretend that it's art.
Blackadder the Third (1987) -- "7/10"
In this season, Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson) has been resurrected in the late
18th century, as a butler to George, Prince of Wales (Hugh Laurie).
Baldrick
(Tony Robinson) is back as his filthy manservant. Cyril is no longer with
them, but Tim McInnerny shows up as the Scarlet Pimpernel for one episode.
The first episode introduces Pitt the Younger (Simon Osborne), who
Blackadder
is immediately annoyed by, and whom he needles incessantly.
The second episode, which is Samuel Johnson (Robbie Coltrane) and his
famous
dictionary, was quite clever. Blackadder is, of course, not impressed with
Johnson, and takes to inventing gloriously convincing and fabulously
convoluted words in front of him, to convince him that he's not quite
finished with his dictionary yet. That scene was laugh-out-loud funny.
"I hope you will not object if I also offer the doctor my most enthusiastic
contrafribularities. [...] I'm anaspeptic, phrasmotic, even compunctious,
to
have caused you such pericombobulation. [...] I shall return
interphrastically."
In episode three, Blackadder is at odds with the Scarlet Pimpernel (Tim
McInnerny), who's been smuggling French nobility out from under the
revolution.
While imprisoned and scheming to get free with Baldrick, he says,
"Am I jumping the gun, Baldrick, or are the words, 'I have a cunning plan,'
marching with ill-deserved confidence in the direction of this
conversation?
[...] Forgive me if I don't jump up and down with glee. Your record in
this
department is not exactly 100%."
"I want to be young and wild, and then I want to be middle-aged and rich, and
then I want to be old and annoy people by pretending that I'm deaf."
In the next episode, the prince is attacked at a play by a bomb-throwing
rebel against the industrialization without compensation led by the
nobility.
The Prince Regent (Hugh Laurie) -- who doesn't understand that plays
aren't
real, no matter how many times it's explained to him -- stirred by
Blackadder's explanation of the plight of the poor and why they might be
rebelling, wants elocution lessons from actors in order to be able to
deliver
the speech himself, to calm the proles.
When the actors appear at the castle, Blackadder begins tormenting the
them
by dropping the word "Macbeth" at every possible opportunity (every
mention
of which they must superstitiously dispel with an incantation and a
savage,
reciprocal nose-tweaking).
The rest of the episodes were OK, but not nearly as good. The acting is
very
broad and the dialogue laid on quite thick. The most annoying was the 5th
episode, which saw the return of the same actress who played the Queen in
the
previous season, this time reincarnated as the daughter of a penniless
industrialist, who'd briefly captured the prince's attention before he'd
discovered her financial status.
In the sixth and final episode, Stephen Fry returns as the Duke of
Wellington, who wishes to duel with the Prince, whom Blackadder switches
places with in order to protect him. Wellington beats the shit out of the
Prince, whom he thinks is the servant, defeating the purpose of switching
roles to save his own skin.
Blackadder Goes Forth (1989) -- "8/10"
This is the season from which I'd seen the most clips. Blackadder (Rowan
Atkinson) has been resurrected as Captain Blackadder, serving in a trench
in
WWI under General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett (Stephen Fry) and
his
unctuous secretary Captain Kevin Darling (Tim McInnerny). Serving under
him,
as always, are Private S Baldrick (Tony Robinson), who reprises his role
as a
lower-class buffoon and Lieutenant The Honourable George Colthurst St.
Barleigh (Hugh Laurie), who reprises his as an upper-class one.
Atkinson makes a lot of analogies that fall quite flat, but he has a few
drily delivered zingers that land pretty well.
"General Melchik: When you return, Darling will pump you thoroughly in the
debriefing room.
"Blackadder: Not while I have any strength remaining, he won't, sir."
And,
"Darling: Y0u'd better find the German spy or I'll make it very hard for you!
Blackadder: Please, Darling. There are ladies present."
The season ends, as all of the others do, with the death of the entire
cast
as they charge "go over" the trench and out into no-man's land, on
Melchett's
orders. They all die immediately, as so many hundreds of thousands
actually
did.
George plays straight man, mindlessly regurgitating the mindset of the
elites
that are both his compatriots-in-class, but also the ones who sent him to
the
front -- something he doesn't mind at all because he's very, very gung-ho
to
"go to Berlin", as he puts it.
"George: The war started because of the vile Hun and his villainous
empire-building.
"Edmund: George, the British Empire at present covers a quarter of the
globe,
while the German Empire consists of a small sausage factory in Tanganyika.
I
hardly think that we can be entirely absolved of blame on the
imperialistic
front."
Blackadder lays out the situation as it really was and -- as he clearly
alludes -- it also was in the early 90s, when this show was made. It also
happens to still be how the situation is: a global competition among
elites,
bent on carving up colonies for themselves, pretending that they're
interested in preventing war, when they are happy to use it to keep any
upstarts, or potential usurpers of even a little bit of their power, in
line.
"Edmund: You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent war in Europe, two superblocs
developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side, and the Germans
and
Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast opposing
armies,
each acting as the other’s deterrent. That way there could never be a
war.
"Baldrick: But this is a sort of a war, isn’t it, sir?
"Edmund: Yes, that’s right. You see, there was a tiny flaw in the plan.
"George: What was that, sir?
"Edmund: It was bollocks."
When asked why he no longer enjoyed war as much as he had 15 years ago, he
says that it's because it is much easier to die, now that the foe has a
level
of technological firepower commensurate or exceeding his own. This is all,
of
course, exceedingly sarcastic and cutting.
"Edmund: Well, you see, George, I did like it, back in the old days when the
prerequisite of a British campaign was that the enemy should under no
circumstances carry guns — even spears made us think twice. The kind of
people we liked to fight were two feet tall and armed with dry grass.
"[...]
"No, when I joined up, I never imagined anything as awful as this war.
I’d
had fifteen years of military experience, perfecting the art of ordering a
pink gin and saying “Do you do it doggy-doggy?” in Swahili, and then
suddenly four-and-a-half million heavily armed Germans hoved into view.
That
was a shock, I can tell you."
When George expresses the hope that the war has ended without his having
had
to die, like all of his old school-chums, Blackadder replies,
"Edmund: (loading his revolver) I’m afraid not. The guns have stopped
because we’re about to attack. Not even our generals are mad enough to
shell their own men. They think it’s far more sporting to let the
Germans
do it."
And, when Baldrick says that he has a cunning plan for the final time ever
(this was one of his tropes), Blackadder answers,
"Captain Blackadder: Well, I'm afraid it's too late. Whatever it was, I'm
sure it was better than my plan to get out of here by pretending to be
mad. I
mean, who would have noticed another madman round here?"
There were a lot of flat jokes and bad jokes over the four seasons.
However,
all in all, I'm quite glad that I watched it all, in order. it grew better
and slightly cleverer over time and it was quite a grand experiment, being
set in four very different time periods, always with the same actors, and
always killing the entire cast at the end of each season.
Kleine Fische (2009) -- "6/10"
Four friends in Switzerland are part of an amateur curling team. They all
have financial problems of one kind or another. One of them dies in a car
accident, under somewhat suspicious circumstances. It seems that he may
have
killed himself. When his friends go through his worldly effects, they
discover that he'd put together a detailed plan for robbing the bank where
he'd worked. The friends consider trying to pull it off, but one of them
jumps ship, while the other two soldier on. The other guy rejoins the
group
when he realizes how bad his money problems are.
During the sneaky planning, one guy's wife throws him out because she
thinks
he's cheating on her. The other guy is quite a Lothario, and is now
sleeping
with a very young woman, from whom he's trying the access code to the
bank.
At the same time, he's having an affair with the bank owner's wife, who
catches him in flagrante delicto with the other girl.
It was OK, but pretty bog-standard and didn't contain any real surprises.
I watched it in Swiss German.
L'agence tous risques (The A-Team) (2010) -- "4/10"
The last time I watched this movie, I gave it a 4/10. It didn't get any
better when I watched (well, mostly listened to) it in French. The cast is
kind of promising -- Hannibal (Liam Neeson), Face (Bradley Cooper),
Murdock
(Sharlto Copley), B.A. Baracus (Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson) -- but the
execution is so poor. Charissa Sosa (Jessica Biel) is Face's old flame,
highly placed in some government agency. Lynch (Patrick Wilson) chews a
lot
of scenery being the bad guy, who finally gets fooled by the A-Team's
amazing
plan to get him to confess to all of his crimes. Jon Hamm shows up at the
end
in a cameo, taking Lynch's place.
I don't know what to tell you. I miss George Peppard, Dirk Benedict,
Dwight
Schultz, and Mr. T. It's no surprise that this didn't turn into a
franchise.
John Mulaney: Baby J (2023) -- "8/10"
He only has a single topic, but it's a pretty good one. He is there to tell
us for 80 minutes about his life on drugs, his intervention, and his
rehab.
It stretched on a bit long in the end, else I'd have probably given him an
extra point. I quite like his storytelling, but he seemed to be telling
them
somewhat more slowly than necessary, and repeated some bits unnecessarily.
Le Mans 66: Gegen jede Chance (2019) -- "9/10"
See my "review from 2019"
. This is really
becoming one of my favorite movies.
I watched in German this time.
Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome (1985) -- "7/10"
Max (Mel Gibson) stumbles on an encampment called Bartertown, run by Aunty
Entity (Tina Turner). He becomes her champion and defeats her enemy,
Master-blaster (Angelo Rossitto as Master; Paul Larsson as Blaster), who
controls the energy production for the compound. They farm pig shit for
methane.
He is betrayed by Aunty and cast out into the desert. He falls to the
ground
on a dune but is found by a member of a jungle tribe that lives
conveniently
close to the desert. They nurse Max back to health, thinking that he's a
"Captain Walker", some sort of figure in their pantheon of Gods. It is a
colony of children with the only adult being the slender, attractive,
young
woman who found him. They are a post-apocalyptic cult, keeping images of
the
ancient and lost world alive in their mythos.
They want Max to take them home. But he's not their Captain Walker. He
tries
to prove it by throwing his hat away, but a wind comes up, floating things
into the air. The children interpret this as a sign and leave their home,
storming into the desert, on a mission. They lead Max to the
crashed/landed
plane of which they spoke. They want him to fly them. He walks away.
Back at their encampment, they watch him. He is lost in thought. The
children
work their way through their mythos, assimilating the new information,
finding a new way forward. They decide to leave their oasis; Max wants
them
to stay. He threatens them, but his rescuer -- the young woman -- is
defiant.
He knocks her out and brings her back before she can lead her crew to
certain
death in either the desert or Bartertown.
It doesn't help. A bunch of them take off in the night. Max and a small
crew
give chase the next morning, eventually finding them and rescuing them
from a
sinkhole in the sand. They are deep in the desert and have no noticeable
supplies, especially not nearly enough water.
Still, they manage to stumble on Bartertown, where they must take refuge
in
order to survive. Max leads these innocents into the bowels of the town
through a sewer pipe. They find Master and rescue him from his prison cell
amonst the pigs. No-one seems to notice the smell. They collaborate to
begin
to overthrow Aunty's men, who've taken over the underworld.
They manage it, more or less. They steal a train out of Bartertown and the
who jungle village, including Max and Master, take off across the desert.
Aunty and her crew give pursuit. They eventually catch with them and cause
havoc. This part seems to be a precursor to the incredible chase scenes
from
Mad Max: Fury Road. The villagers manage to ditch Aunty's part of the
train,
but they still have her head henchman attached to the train -- until they
don't. They drop him off of a bridge.
They bring the train to a stop before they run into a roadblock set up by
Jedediah Jr. (Adam Cockburn). They follow him down to Jedediah's (Bruce
Spence) lair, where they make him help them flee in their plane. Aunty's
crew
shows up soon after, giving chase to the plane. This totally looks like
Fury
Road now, with Tina Turner ripping across the desert in her dune buggy.
They need more space to take off in the plane. Max takes a dune buggy and
heads off to get it for them. He crashes his truck headlong into the
oncoming
horde, allowing his friends to take off in their plane. He lies in the
desert, just outside the circle of Bartertown's wrecked fleet of dune
buggies. Aunty approaches him, "Well, ain't we a pair, raggedy man.
Goodbye
soldier! [laughs]"
The jungle crew lands in what is left of Sydney. Max wanders the desert.
I watched it in German.
Beverly Hills Cop III (1994) -- "5/10"
Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) returns to California from Detroit, this time to
get revenge against a counterfeiting operation that had had his boss
killed.
He ends up teamed up with Sergeant Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and
Detective Jon Flint (Hector Elizondo). He ends up suspecting the
proprietors
of Wonder World. He locks horns with the unctuous owner of Wonder World --
who also exercises considerable control over both LA media and police.
With
the help of a lovely employee at the park (Theresa Randle), Axel manages
to
prove that they're counterfeiting and gets revenge. The end.
The effects and acting were pretty terrible. This barely rose to the level
of
a television show of the era, to say nothing of a full-fledged film. The
fight scenes were laughable; the shooting scenes were kind of bizarre --
sometimes no-one was hurt, but magically; other times, people were shot,
but
then they shook off their seemingly horrific gunshot wounds with a joke.
Contact (1997) -- "10/10"
This is honestly one of the best science/science-fiction movies that has ever
been made. It's based on the book of the same name by Carl Sagan. It
follows
the life of Dr. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster), whose father bestows upon
her a
fascination with radio signals of all kinds. This transforms into a career
in
the SETI project, which takes her to Puerto Rico and the Arecibo radio
telescope. Here she meets preacher Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey), who
challenges her lack of ability to interpret what she does through a
spiritual
lens, to perhaps imbue it with the appropriate wonder, even if that means
that her approach ends up being less-than-scientific.
Presidential Science Advisor David Drumlin (Tom Skerritt) thinks searching
for alien signals is all a bunch of nonsense, so he torpedoes the project.
Ellie goes on a tour to drum up funding and finally finds enigmatic
billionaire S. R. Hadden (John Hurt), who sees a spark in Ellie and how is
willing to fun her when the government won't. She is set up at the VLA
(Very
Large Array telescope in New Mexico) when she hears the first actual
signal.
The U.S. military descends immediately and tries to claim everything for
itself, despite not having done any of the research. This neanderthal
approach is personified in agent Michael Kitz (James Woods) who plays
without
much nuance, but sadly probably quite accurately. The project is put under
tight security, but Hadden and Arroway are allowed to continue to
participate. Together, they discover 63,000 pages of data -- and Hadden
provides the key to decrypting it.
The data is for a machine, of unknown function. The military is terrified
of
building it. They proceed to built it anyway, at Cape Canaveral. Ellie is
supposed to go in it, but Drumlin usurps her position at the head of the
line. He is killed when the machine fails after a religious zealot bombs
it
as it is spinning up into operation.
Hadden reveals to Arroway that his company had constructed a second
machine,
in Japan -- and that she would be the first passenger. The machine spins
up;
her pod is dropped in; it disappears. We see her travel through several
wormholes, finally ending up on a simulated beach, where an alien posing
as
her father appears to tell her of the next steps for humanity, should they
be
willing to do it.
She reawakens on Earth, with her pod having simply dropped through the
machine -- instead of having been gone for the 18 subjective hours that
she
felt. None of the vast array of devices recorded anything but noise.
Although
Ellie is dragged over the coals and publicly ridiculed, the U.S.
government
privately discusses that, although they only got static on all sensors,
they
did pick up 18 hours of it.
I watched it in Italian, with Italian subtitles.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=47222023-05-01T22:10:35+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Paddington 2 (2017) -- "7/10"
A well-constructed if utterly predictable movie with some standout
performances. It's a bit too saccharine for me, but it wasn't
over-the-top.
It's refreshing to see a movie for children that doesn't look like a
cookie-cutter Pixar CGI or Disney cartoon. It's a slower, nicer kind of
movie
with longer sections of peaceful life and only a few frenetic sections, at
the end.
Paddington (Ben Wishaw) is living with his family in London. He wants to
give
his aunt a present for her 100th birthday. He finds a popup book of London
at
the shop of Mr Gruber (Jim Broadbent), but he can't afford it. So,
Paddington
finds several successive jobs, which her performs with only modest
success,
although everyone's always happy with the jolly little bear.
Phoenix (Hugh Grant) is a local actor with a lot of bills and a lot of
money
problems, at the tail end of his career. He plots to steal the popup book
because he knows that the author had hidden clues in it that will lead him
to
a treasure hidden in London somewhere. As he's stealing the book,
Paddington
tries to apprehend him, but ends up being arrested, tried, and imprisoned
for
the crime himself. In prison, he meets Knuckles (Brendan Gleeson) as well
as
many other inmates, all of whom he befriends with his innocent, sweet
manner.
The Browns continue to try to vindicate Paddington, getting closer and
closer
to Phoenix, whom they now strongly suspect is behind the subsequent crimes
and heists in which he breaks into buildings to get the clues hidden
there.
He seems to have gone a bit squirrelly and spends considerable time in his
attic, talking to costumes stored on mannequins as if they were real
people.
Grant is quite good here.
Paddington breaks out of prison with Knuckles and two others. Though they
originally broke out together to prove Paddington's innocence, they others
quickly reveal that they'd just like to flee the country instead and that
Paddington should come with them. He refuses, electing to clear his name
instead.
Paddington and the Browns end up at Paddington Station (of course), where
Phoenix boards the circus train that holds the calliope that he has
determined contains the treasure. He has the secret code -- a sequence of
musical notes -- that he has enter in order to reveal the treasure.
Paddington interrupts him before he can abscond with it. There is a lot of
hijinks involving two parallel-running trains with Phoenix eventually
unhitching Paddington's car and derailing it off a bridge and into a
river.
Knuckles and co. had meanwhile turned their plane around and come to
Paddington's rescue. Paddington falls into a coma, from which he awakes
only
days later -- on Aunt Lucy's birthday. He never managed to get her the
book,
so he has no present. The Browns -- as well as the rest of the
neighborhood
-- had flown Aunt Lucy in, so she did get to see London -- and her nephew
--
after all.
To round out the happy endings, Knuckles and co. are exonerated, while
Phoenix ends up in prison, but has a captive audience for his incredibly
campy one-man show.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022) -- "8/10"
Puss (Antonio Banderas) has used up eight of his nine lives. Because he can't
afford his high-risk lifestyle anymore, he retires to a home for cats run
by
a Mama Luna (Da'Vine Joy Randolph). She will not be important to this
movie
in the least. Goldilocks (Florence Pugh) and the three bears, Mama (Olivia
Colman), Papa (Ray Winstone), and Baby (Samson Kayo) track him to this
home,
but think that he is dead because they find the grave where he'd buried
his
costume.
In the home, Perrito (Harvey Guillén) befriends Puss. Perrito is an
irrepressible chihuahua with a heart of gold posing as a cat. Puss, having
heard that Goldilocks is on a mission to get the last wish from a wishing
star, heads off on one last mission to get his allotment of nine lives
back.
He heads off to Big Jack Horner's (John Mulaney) house, where the map to
the
star can be found. Perrito accompanies him. Along the way, they meet Kitty
Softpaws (Salma Hayek).
All the while, Puss is threatened by Wolf (Wagner Moura), who is actually
Death incarnate, but it's hard to tell how much he's real and how much
he's
in Puss's mind.
The three adventurers are now squared off against Goldilocks and the three
bears, as well as Jack Horner and his baker's dozen. The starmap shows a
different path to the wishing star depending on who is holding it. Most of
the characters are presented with a miserable path, but Perrito sees only
sunshine and lollipops because he's a truly good soul.
Goldi is conflicted about how to share the wish, should she and the bears
get
it, as is Puss, who wants to get his nine lives back, especially because
Wolf
is constantly terrorizing and terrifying him. The bears end up saving
Goldi,
who ends up saving her brother. Kitty traps Horner in his back of tricks.
Puss learns humility and avoids Death's kiss that way -- Death realizes
that
this is not the same arrogant being who'd disdained his many previous
lives.
Horner eats a cake to grow to even more prodigious dimensions, allowing
him
to escape his bag and almost get to the last wish. But Perrito distracts
him
long enough for the others to destroy the map, and thus, the star, taking
Horner with it. Everyone else lived happily ever after.
This is definitely a movie from the Shrek universe. It's not nearly as
quiet
or serene as Paddington 2 was, but it's much funnier. It's also
considerably
more frenetic, with the first ten minutes feeling like it was made
exclusively for people with ADHD.
Starship Troopers (1997) -- "9/10"
See my "review from just over a year ago."
My opinion is
unchanged.
The only addition I would make is that the news in this movie is
refreshingly
honest. They actually show the bodies from the a slaughter where the bugs
outmatched the humans, wiping out 100,000 humans in one hour. There is no
way
that would ever happen today, no way they would show film of shredded
corpses, no way they would admit that they'd done anything wrong, that
they'd
underestimated the enemy. The film failed to acknowledge the media
environment of the time.
Jojo Rabbit (2019) -- "9/10"
Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) is in the Hitler Youth. He thinks he can see Adolf
Hitler (Taika Waititi). He is at a camp for with many other youth,
training.
He is given a rabbit to kill to prove that he's not a coward. He tries to
free it, but the older boys grab it, snap its neck, and throw it into the
woods, to the applause of all the other children.
His imaginary friend Adolf is back and builds him back up, telling him
that a
rabbit is a hero, not a coward. He encourages Jojo to run back to camp,
where
the other children are doing an exercise with a potato-masher grenade. He
grabs it, runs off with it, throws it, it bounces of a tree, and lands at
his
feet. It explodes, knocking him off his feet, out of the camp, and nearly
taking one of his eyes.
His mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) picks him up from the hospital and
takes him home. She takes him back to the camp organizers, where she makes
them take care of him while she works. Captain Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell),
Fraulein Rahm (Rebel Wilson) run the place; they give him a job to do
distributing propaganda.
He returns home from his first day to discover a girl hiding in his attic
--
his mother is harboring a Jew named Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie). Jojo and
Adolf
are forced to bargain with her because she's a slippery eel. He confronts
his
mother, but she pretends not to understand. Johannes (Jojo) must come to
terms with this situation.
Jojo is at physical therapy and asks Klenzendorf and Rahm, who give him
spectacularly terrible but utterly hilarious advice. The characters and
settings are all very quirky, very Wes Anderson. Jojo decides to take up
writing a book about Jews, with Elsa's input as the primary material. Jojo
is
extremely rude to his mother, but it's quite funny. He provokes her into
pretending to be his father. She puts on a whole show where she plays both
roles -- father and mother. It's quite good. Johansson is a revelation.
Elsa and Jojo continue to get to know each other. Elsa tells him of Rilke;
he
and Adolf look him up in the library. Jojo writes a pretend-letter from
Nathan (Elsa's fiancé) wherein he breaks up with her, hurting her
feelings,
against her will. Jojo feels bad and reads her another letter, wherein
Nathan
takes her back.
Jojo spends a day with his mother. His mother is a free spirit, against
the
war. She wants to dance. "Tanzen ist was für Menschen, die nicht
arbeiten."
Elsa starts to "help" Jojo write his book, telling him all sorts of fairy
tales about Jews. He's really quite brainwashed, just shocking. Adolf is
getting a bit suspicious of Jojo's relationship with Elsa. Jojo finally
sees
his old friend Yorki (Archie Yates), who has promoted himself to
"soldier".
Jojo is walking around in a homemade robot costume, collecting batteries
for
Hitler.
"Elsa: Du bist kein Nazi.
Jojo: Ehm, ich stehe total auf Hakenkreuze. Ist ein ziemlich deutliches
Zeichen."
A crew of Gestapo show up, headed up by Deertz (Stephen Merchant). As
they're
about to toss the place, Klenzendorf shows up and allays some suspicions,
but
they continue to search the place. They end up in his room, which is
heralded
for being absolutely bedecked in Nazi paraphernalia, but Deertz notices
that
Jojo is missing his knife. Elsa comes to his rescue, playing Inge, Jojo's
sister. She's asked to provide papers and she's hardcore ready for all of
their questions. She gets her birthday wrong, but Klenzendorf does not
betray
her. They'll be back -- and then what? Jojo is in a bad spot.
Hitler is not happy with Jojo. he lets loose with an absolutely amazing
tirade,
"Hitler: So langsam hege ich Zweifel an deiner Loyalität gegenüber mir und
der Partei.
"Du nennst dich einen Patrioten? Aber wo sind die Beweise?
"Der deutsche Soldat wurde aus Notwendigkeit geboren. Deutschland ist
abhängig von der
Leidenschaft dieser jungen Männer. Von ihrer Leidenschaft und
Bereitschaft,
fürs Vaterland zu fallen, trotz der vergeblichen Anstrengungen der
alliierten Kriegsprofiteure, die ihre schlecht vorbereiteten Truppen
tapsig
in die Wolfshöhle schicken.
"Und nur dienstbeflissene Männer, die standhaft sind im Angesicht des
Feindes ... werden sich auf ewig einbrennen in das deutsche Gedächtnis.
"Und du musst entscheiden, ob du in Erinnerung bleiben oder spurlos
verschwinden möchtest ... wie ein erbärmliches Sandkorn in einer Wüste
der
Bedeutungslosigkeit.
"Einfach ausgedrückt: Krieg deinen Scheiß auf die Reihe und setze
Prioritäten."
He walks through town and finds his mother hanging from the gallows in the
town square. He tries to take revenge on Elsa, but cannot. With his mother
dead, he is forced to forage for wood and food on his own. The war is
going
poorly for Germany; the enemy approaches. Elsa and Jojo have only each
other
now.
Jojo meets Yorki again as the city is being attacked by,
"Yorki: Die Russen, Jojo. Sie kommen. Und die Amerikaner von der anderen
Seite. Und England und China und Afrika und Indien. Die ganze Welt kommt.
Jojo: Und wie schlagen wir uns?
Yorki: Furchtbar schlecht. Unsere einzigen Freunde sind die Japaner. Und
ganz
unter uns, die sehen nicht sehr arisch aus."
"Yorki: Die Russen sind da draußen. Die sind die Schlimmsten von allen. Ich
hab gehört, die essen Babys und haben Sex mit Hunden. Die Engländer
machen
das auch. Wir müssen sie aufhalten, bevor sie uns essen und all unsere
Hunde
vögeln."
The Allies take the city. Klenzendorf is captured, as is Jojo. Klenzendorf
pretends that Jojo is a Jew so that the Allies send him home instead of
assassinating him with the others. Interesting that the Allies are
considered
capable of murdering children just because they're Germans.
Back at home, Jojo lies to Elsa that Germany won the war. He doesn't want
here to leave. He relatively quickly sees that he cannot do this and lets
her
know that her lover is waiting for her in Paris. Elsa tells him that her
lover died of a disease a year ago. They slowly emerge from the apartment,
with Elsa discovering that the Americans have taken over the town and that
she is free. They do a little shuffle-dance together and strike out toward
their future.
I saw it in German. It was amazing in German, even though the original
language was English.
Tour de Pharmacy (2017) -- "9/10"
This mini-mockumentary about the 1982 Tour de France was a 39-minute delight.
It was packed with absolute professionals, from the only five remaining
riders, Italian Juju Pepe (Orlando Bloom), Nigerian Marty Hass (Andy
Samberg
when young; Jeff Goldblum when older), Adrian Baton (Freddie Highmore when
young and pretending to be a woman pretending to be a man; Julia Ormond
when
older and in prison for having killed on-site sportscaster Rex Honeycut
(James Marsden) -- who had learned that, since he'd ridden the whole way
with
everyone that he was qualified to win the whole race, but upon dying, it
became obvious that he had a motor in his frame -- because Adrian(a) and
Marty had fallen in love, (s)he sacrificed her place on the podium to take
out Rex, but accidentally killed him on a rock), Gustav Ditters (John Cena
when young; Dolph Lundgren when older), and Slim Robinson (Daveed Diggs
when
young; Danny Glover when older) to Joe Buck, Nathan Fielder (as Stu
Ruckman,
the head of the anti-doping agency), Maya Rudolph (as Lucy Flerng, a
cycling
fan who thinks cyclists are sexy), Kevin Bacon (as Ditmer Klerken, a Dutch
guy who got into so much gambling trouble that he solicited $50,000 bribes
from every rider who wanted to dope and he'd let them slide through, which
is
why there were only five riders left after an accident triggered a
roid-raging donnybrook that decimated the field), Mike Tyson as himself,
Lance Armstrong as himself, who was hilarious in trying to verify that he
was
being hidden in shadow, but he totally wasn't, like, the whole time, and,
finally, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Adebisi from Oz) as Olusegun Okorocha,
who
was a Nigerian who hates Marty Hass for claiming that he's from Africa
when
he's really just a lily-white trust-fund, diamond-mine millionaire.
After every other racer had been banned from the race for doping, the
remaining five riders realized that they would have to ride as a group,
but
no-one wanted to pull the others along in the draft. So they rode
super-slowly for days. Nine days. Until someone yelled to Gustav that he
couldn't ride fast, so he tore up the Pyrenees faster than anyone had
before
-- faster than any unenhanced person could -- so he's disqualified for
doping
(which, given that he looked like John Cena, should have been a foregone
conclusion). The next day, Juju Pepe's heart blows out on a climb (á la
Marco Pantani, il Pirata) and he glides twelve miles down the hill before
he
flies off of a cliff.
In the end, Slim, who'd quit the race in the middle to dally with a French
milkmaid, returned to the race on his egg-delivery bike to beat Marty Hass
by
a mile.
Minamata (2020) -- "9/10"
This movie is based on a true story about W. Eugene Smith (Johnny Depp), a
photographer for Life magazine. He is at the tail-end of his career,
wallowing in obscurity and alcohol when a pair of Japanese find him at
this
squalid apartment. Aileen (Minami) is the translator with whom Gene feels
an
immediate, reciprocal spark. He agrees to accompany them to Japan on an
assignment to photograph and shed light on the devastating health effects
of
mercury poisoning on Japanese coastal communities that are unfortunate
enough
to be near the factories of giant conglomerate Chisso.
Gene goes to his editor at Life Magazine Robert Hayes (Bill Nighy), who
reluctantly agrees to back him, but only because the world of advertising
and
journalism has changed so much that he's having trouble keeping the
magazine
afloat while retaining any semblance of integrity.
Gene gets to Japan and settles in, taking many pictures and befriending a
young man who's body is twisted into a pretzel, but who is extremely
interested in photography. Gene and Aileen sneak into a Chisso hospital
where
many, many patients are kept under wraps, taking many more pictures.
Aileen
and Gene grow much closer and become romantically involved. They take part
in
many protests.
This company is led by a ruthless president Junichi Nojima (Jun Kunimura)
who
tries to bribe Gene into throwing away his photos. Gene refuses -- even
though it's a ton of money. The police start to put pressure on the
villagers, breaking up one of their meetings at which they discover that
the
company is pretending that they've all signed a register absolving Chisso
of
all wrongdoing. Soon after, Gene's shack by the lake -- along with all of
his
photos -- is burned down.
Hayes is pushing Gene to send him something because the deadline is
approaching and he's under a lot of pressure. Gene has starting drinking
heavily again -- "you're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without
holding on." -- bereft that he has nothing to send him, that he's once
again
failed to live up to a reputation he'd earned when he was a much younger
man.
Drunk, Gene calls Hayes, telling him that he's giving up.
"Gene: Big people hurt little people. Little people get hurt by big people.
Same thing here, same thing there.
"Bob: Not okay, Eugene. Not fucking okay! 67% ads ads and I'm losing.
Likely
I wouldn't even have my integrity to fall back on in my old age. But I
will
have yours! Dammit Gene! I will have yours!
"Gene: I'll tell you what: if there's any left, I will stuff it into a
fucking box and ship it to you.
"Bob: I don't know how many more issues I'm gonna be able to publish, but
one
of them is going to have the most important photographic essay of the last
30
years or I will personally fly out there and kick you pathetic, whinging
ass.
"The kids in the office, Gene, the special ones? They don't look up to me.
They look up to you. Because you matter.
"Just bring me the story, okay? Bring the story home."
In a last-ditch effort, Gene throws himself on the mercy of the village,
asking them whether he can take pictures of them in their homes, that he
needs something in order to tell the world their story. They agree.
There is a large protest, with 500 people, on the day of a board meeting.
Several of the villagers are inside, to redress their grievances directly.
Nojima seems contrite, they seem to touch him. The leader Mitsuo (Hiroyuki
Sanada) ends up sitting cross-legged on the director's table while his
friend, a fisherman, tells his tale. Nojima asks for a moment to consult
with
his CFO. They regret that they can do absolutely nothing. They leave as
one
of the villagers tries to kill himself by slitting his wrists.
Outside, at the protest, several men beat Gene within an inch of his life.
In
the hospital, a man from the village -- seemingly the one who'd been
involved
in burning down Gene's lab -- hands him an envelope. Gene's hands are
bandaged and he can't see what it is. When Aileen arrives, she discovers
that
it's all of the negatives from Gene's lab -- the man had rescued them
before
burning everything down. He saw how honorably Gene had acted with his
mother
and offered this as his apology.
Back at the village, and still sorely injured, Gene and Aileen take "the
iconic photo of a mother bathing her exceedingly deformed boy."
[image]
Gene sends his photos to a long-suffering Hayes. Luckily, this was during
the
70s, when it was literally impossible to fake photos like this. Chisso had
no
choice but accept that their story was out, out of Japan, into the world.
"Nojima: We have to pay. Somehow, we will have to find a way. We must."
Unfortunately, they never did. As the end credits put it,
"[...] Chisso Corporation nor the Japenese government has upheld the moral
and financial essence of this deal.
"In 2013, the Japanese Prime Minister declared that Japan had recovered
from
mercury pollution, denying the existence of the the tens of thousands of
victims who continue to suffer today."
Gene and Aileen would be married until his death in 1978.
Johnny Depp is nearly unrecognizable -- except for his voice, as usual --
and
does a fantastic job. The other actors are equally impressive.
The Day after Tomorrow (2004) -- "6/10"
This is not a great movie, but it's gotten more relevant with each passing
year. The scenario it describes is completely impossible, but the global
situation, almost 20 years later, is even more dire than when the film was
made.
I've reviewed the film before, "in 2017"
.
Orbital Redux (2018) -- "8/10"
This is a live performance filmed on a single-room set that is the cabin of a
long-haul He3 transporter piloted by Max (Yuri Lowenthal) and
crewed by Tommie (Yasmine Al-Bustami). Max is the old hand, expert in
keeping
an old ship running. Tommie is the young genius, with school smarts but no
real experience. Max puts her through her paces and they learn to function
as
a crew. Both of the actors are fantastic. It's almost hard to believe that
it
was all done in one take.
The plot is basically Max showing Tommie how things work out in space with
underpowered and ancient equipment, as well as how tough things are when
you're not rich and required to kowtow to giant corporations. Tommie
inadvertently loads a virus into the ship's systems when she connects her
music player to the main computer -- even after Max told her not to.
They discuss their various personality deficiencies and how they lead to
their relationship problems. Max is a pilot whose painter husband Mark
(Marc
Anthony Samuel) doesn't have much patience left for his constant absences.
Tommie is a bit robotic and doesn't know how to address her boyfriend
Sebastian's (David Blue) emotional needs. They also occasionally
communicate
with people back on their space-station home-base, like Lily (Natalie
Whittle) and Deepi (Nardeep Khurmi), so it's not just the two of them in
the
cabin of a spaceship.
As they load up with their cargo of He3, they enter a storm of
space-junk deliberately placed in their path by rebels. Their ship is
holed,
they fix it, and then Max has to do an EVA to try to save the ship. He and
Deepi manage to get the ship back on course, but he's apparently blown
away
from the ship. This, however, turns out not to be the case, as we get a
flash-forward to Deepi piloting the ship with a Russian, seemingly
unperturbed. Max and Mark show up for visit and they all have a joyous
reunion. The end.
All of the episodes are available on YouTube.
* "Episode 1: Earth Station"
* "Episode 2: Trainee"
* "Episode 3: Ransomware"
* "Episode 4: Autoreply"
* "Episode 5: Replacement"
* "Episode 6: Space Junk"
* "Episode 7: EVA"
* "Episode 8: Moon Station"
Blackadder (1982--1983) -- "5/10"
The first season is six episodes that takes place in 1485 England, in the
time of King Richard III (Peter Cook). His son Richard IV (Brian Blessed)
is
the luckiest man alive, making incredibly ill-considered decisions and
somehow always ending up ahead.
Richard IV's youngest son Edmund (Rowan Atkinson) is the eponymous
Blackadder, scheming to become king before his brother Harry, Prince of
Wales
(Robert East) can. He is joined by his "crew": Baldrick (Tony Robinson), a
bondsman whose family has been bonded for as many generations as he can
remember, and Percy (Tim McInnerny), a twit of the highest order and some
form of lesser nobility that allows him to dress much better than
Baldrick,
but still be mostly destitute.
They have a few adventures, most of which end badly for Edmund, as his
reach
tends to far exceed his grasp. Harry, on the other hand, sees his fortunes
rise continually as a result of Blackadder's machinations.
I was not so impressed with this season, as the humor is quite dated and
relatively low-brow -- it makes much hay of women and gays being obviously
inferior or strange, which, while obviously "of the time", is just not
funny
-- and it relies too much the moronic facial expressions that Atkinson
would
go on to use to even greater success and acclaim in Mr. Bean. I'm not a
fan
-- and never have been -- but the audience laugh-track seemed to love it.
Everyone dies in the end because of Edmund's negligence -- including him.
Blackadder II (1986) -- "7/10"
The second season revives Blackadder in the Elizabethan era, following the
antics and life of Edmund, Lord Blackadder, who is the great-grandson of
the
original. He is a different creature than his forebear, in that he is
dashing, eloquent, and intelligent. Like his forebear, though, he is still
constantly scheming for income and prestige. He is quite cynical and very
dryly humorous, which ingratiates him to Queen Elizabeth I (Miranda
Richardson) and sets him directly at odds with the Queen's courtier Lord
Melchett (Stephen Fry).
Baldrick and Percy reprise their roles as well, largely unchanged in
position
and class from their season-one incarnations, although Baldrick is now
excruciatingly stupid instead of the most intelligent of the trio. They
have
adventures wherein Blackadder nearly dies, nearly gains an incredible
fortune, nearly loses everything he has, etc. etc. Hugh Laurie appears in
the
final two episodes as a German spy/kidnapper who tries to usurp the
Queen's
throne -- and finally manages it, after killing absolutely everyone else
in
the final minutes of the season.
I liked this season much better than season one. Queen Elizabeth and
Melchett
were somewhat underutilized in that they were accurately depicted as utter
morons with God-like powers to kill and disenfranchise, which was both a
pity
and occasionally annoying. Overall, though, a much stronger effort than
season one.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=46972023-04-16T16:20:16+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
The Meg (2018) -- "6/10"
This is a movie about an underwater research institute that is even more
amazing than the one in Sphere. The research they are doing will benefit
mankind and the entire movie is a documentary about the multiple ways in
which mankind will benefit from the discoveries made by the altruist
billionaire's donations to open-source research.
I kid, of course.
While that may be the background, this movie is most definitely about a
gigantic shark, a Megalodon. The Megalodon is a relic of the deep past, a
monster up to 20 meters long. Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) is a diver
nonpareil but he's retired from the game. Zhang (Winston Chao) is the
aforementioned billionaire, while Suyin (Bingbing Li) is his brilliant
shark-researching daughter. Jaxx (Ruby Rose) is the genius who built the
whole oceanic base and all of the underwater toys.
A mission goes awry when it enters the hunting grounds of the Meg,
attracting
it with its lights and vibrations. The Meg disables the vehicle, wounding
Jonas's ex-wife Lori (Jessica McNamee) in the process. Zhang convinces
Jonas
to help them out. He shows up to save the day, rescuing the stranded
divers
-- all except Toshi (Masi Oka), who sacrifices himself by making a lot of
light and noise, to save the others.
They all get back to the underwater base -- but the Meg follows them,
threatening to break into their lovely base. It leaves giant tooth
imprints
on the supposedly unbreakable polycarbonate outer walls. The team abandons
their research and pools their resources to hunt down and kill this thing.
They cruise out to its hunting grounds -- it has just killed a boat full
of
Japanese fishermen who'd been harvesting shark fins (no big loss) -- and
drop
Suyin in a super-strong shark cage to harpoon it in the eye. Things don't
go
as planned because, while the Meg can't break the cage, it can try to
swallow
it. It doesn't succeed; Jonas rescues Suyin and they narrowly avoid being
eaten as the Meg finally manages to entangle itself in a line, forcing it
to
stop swimming...and the lights go out.
Suyin awakes to see the Meg hanging on the back of the boat, dead as a
doornail. To absolutely no-one's surprise, this is not the real Meg. The
real
Meg leaps out of the water to eat this "tiny" shark, destroying their boat
in
the process. Various people are in the water, various people save other
people, and a couple of them get eaten. No-one important yet, though.
Mac (Cliff Curtis) manages to get to a zodiac and they take off in two of
them, heading for mainland, where they can bring Zhang to a hospital (he'd
been injured gravely). The Meg chases them for ten miles before a
helicopter
shows up, loaded for bear. It spikes the Meg's fin with a transponder.
They
all make it back to shore, but Zhang dies along the way. The cocky
oceanographer Morris (Rainn Wilson) closes the ocean base until they can
kill
the Meg. The countries of the Pacific Rim band together to give chase.
Morris is at the forefront, dropping dynamite bombs on the Meg. It's dark,
so
they blow a giant hole in a whale instead. Morris realizes the mistake,
but
falls off the back of the boat when his crew takes off. The Meg eats him
up.
It turns out that Morris hadn't informed anyone about the Meg. He wanted
to
kill it before anyone found out about it. The rest of the crew decides to
just pick up Morris's mission where it left off -- also without notifying
anyone. They eventually try, but everyone thinks they're pranking them.
OK. So now the Meg's cruising around a Chinese holiday spot, making
trouble
but not really taking a lot of victims. Our crew lures it out to their
tanker, where they have super-submarines as well as helicopters to hunt
the
thing. Two of the helicopters fly into each other while Jonas and Suyin
zip
around trying to kill it. A bunch of people fall in the water with Suyin
rescuing them.
Jonas takes on the shark alone, slicing it from stem to stern with the
dorsal
fin on his ship. The Meg is wounded, but not down for the count. It takes
his
ship apart but Jonas manages to stab it in the eye, right into the brain.
It's still not quite dead, but then hundreds of sharks appear to finish
the
job. Suyin rescues Jonas from them as well.
This movie is honestly better than it had any right to be. Maybe I'm just
a
sucker for Jason Statham's charisma and swagger. I watched it in German.
American Factory (2019) -- "6/10"
This is a documentary about a Chinese glass-company Fuyao that buys a factory
in America to produce car windows. It's ostensibly about a culture clash,
but
it's really a movie about class conflict. The Chinese company is keenly
interested in keeping costs down, so it's keenly interested in keeping out
unions. The Chairman threatens to leave if the American management can't
keep
them out.
It's a class conflict because the Chinese workers in the plant in China
are
treated quite poorly. They get about two days off per month and work much
longer shifts than eight hours (it goes unstated just how long). People
tell
how they see their children only once per year. The management in America
is
only too interested to keep the plant open at all costs -- and they very
quickly agree to all demands for cost-cutting. The employees in America
become restless and agitate for a union.
The American plant also has Chinese workers, who have been shipped in to
work
for two years. They, too, work long hours, and are away from their
families
for that time. The attitude is, of course, that people don't need to do
anything but work. This should be the only thing they need in life. This
is,
of course, patently untrue, and wholly unnecessary.
If the people who can't figure out what do in the forty hours of work
assigned to them were to actually pay more for their goods, factories
wouldn't try to race to the bottom and press wages as low as possible.
These
highly skilled workers are making only about $100 per day. That's $2,000
per
month, pre-tax, or about $24,000 per year. That is not a lot of money in
most
places in America.
The workers become increasingly dissatisfied and the management eventually
seems to relent, offering everyone a $2-per-hour raise. But they seem to
tie
it to working longer hours. It's unclear. The Chinese workers seem to
think
of their American colleagues are unskilled and lazy, but we have to tread
very carefully here. The group of workers is self-selected to the group
that
would be willing to leave their families for two years and bring a factory
up
to speed. That means that they are very good at what they do and very
dedicated to their company and to their work. That is, if you ask them, of
course you're going to hear that work is the most important thing to do
every
day. That's literally the life-choice that they made. To deny it would be
to
throw a shadow on everything they're doing. It would mean that they'd left
their families -- passed up the opportunity to watch their children grow
--
for nothing. Of course they're not going to lament the lost time that they
would have otherwise spent on hanging out with friends or reading books.
This film is longer than it needs to be and it unfortunately fails to make
the point that it's not China versus the U.S.: it's capitalists vs. labor.
They kind of hint at this sometimes, but it's too diffuse to make out over
the much lower-hanging fruit of pitting cultures against one another.
Oeconomia (2020) -- "10/10"
This is a fantastic one-woman film that sets out to answer the questions: how
does the macro-economy work? Where does money come from? Where do profits
come from?
[media]
Just using the nearly clueless interviewee from BMW as an example that
serves
to show how the economy works -- and how unaware the parasites are that
they
are parasites -- here's a snippet of dialogue.
At 00:48:07,
"BMW representative: Sie können ungefähr rechnen, dass jedes zweite
Fahrzeug, das wir weltweit vermarkten, über BMW-Finanzdienstleistungen
refinanziert wird vom Kunden.
"Charlotte: Und inwieweit könnte man sagen, dass Sie durch die
Autokredite,
Autofinanzierung, das Geld für Ihre Gewinne damit auch selbst
produzieren?
"BMW representative: Also, die Finanzierungssparte ist auch profitabel...
"Charlotte: Ich meinte gesamtwirtschaftlich gesehen, Sie vergeben mit
demAutokredit einen neuen Kredit und tragen so selbst zu
einerGeldmengenerweiterung bei. Das steigert ja die Gewinnerwartung.
"BMW representative: Das wirkt sich deswegen positiv auf die
Gewinnerwartung
aus, weil wir einen gewissen Teil unsererFahrzeuge eben aufgrund der
Kreditvergabe... verkaufen, und wird aber...Wir sind ja Teil des...
Finanzierungsbankensystems und unterliegenentsprechend auch den ganzen
Regeln, denen Geschäftsbankenauch unterliegen.
"Charlotte: Mhm."
At 00:50:54,
"Charlotte: Wenn die Möglichkeit, dass Firmen Gewinne machen können,
unweigerlich in paradoxe Schleifen führt, wieso müssen Firmen überhaupt
Gewinne machen?
"Finance Guy: Man sieht, dass Leute wie Sie...Die verstehen nicht mal die
mindesten Zusammenhänge der Betriebswirtschaft und der Wirtschaft. Diese
Frage ist so, als wenn mich jetzt jemand fragt: "Wieso fällt ein Stein
von
oben nach unten und nicht umgekehrt?"
"Charlotte: Die längste Zeit der Menschheitsgeschichte fiel also der
Stein
von unten nach oben. Da gab es keine gewinnorientierte Wirtschaft.
"Finance Guy: Moment. Ich erkläre Ihnen, warum diese Frage eine
Beleidigung
ist.
"Charlotte: Ich bin gespannt.
"Finance Guy: Was die meisten Menschen nicht kapieren, ist Folgendes:
Tilgungen von Krediten erscheinen in keiner Gewinn- und Verlustrechnung.
Wenn
Sie sagen, auf Ihrer Gewinn- und Verlustrechnung steht: "0 Euro Gewinn",
haben Sie kein überschüssiges Geld für Ihre Kredite.
"Charlotte: Unternehmen müssen Gewinne machen, um ihre Schulden
zurückzuzahlen?
"Finance Guy: Ganz genau.
"Charlotte: Wenn man das nun gesamtwirtschaftlich betrachtet: Können alle
gleichzeitig Gewinn machen?
"Finance Guy: Ja. Warum denn nicht?
"Charlotte: Dann muss die Geldmenge wachsen.
"Finance Guy: Nee.
"Charlotte: Wenn alle auf ihr eingesetztes Kapital mehr erwirtschaften?
"Finance Guy: Was wollen Sie denn da mit der Geldmenge?
"Charlotte: Sie können keine Geldmenge X reingeben, aber eine Geldmenge X
plus 0,03 rausziehen wollen.
"Finance Guy: Da sind Sie jetzt bei mir komplett falsch. Das interessiert
mich auch gar nicht. Weil Sie die Geldmengensteuerung der anderen
Länder...
Ach. Und wenn Sie drüber promovieren, da ändert sich nichts.
"Charlotte: Ah ja, verstehe."
At 00:55:28,
"Für steigende Gewinn und Wirtschaftswachstum ist eine ständige Ausweitung
der Verschuldung nötig. Das ist der berühmte Elephant-in-the-Room, über
den niemand spricht. Der zentrale Akteur im Kapitalismus ist der
Schuldner,
er ermöglicht die Profite und den Vermögenszuwachs der anderen."
At 00:57:58,
"Der Profit der Privaten wird zum Teil also über Staatsverschuldung
finanziert. Und so gesehen ist für meine Begriffe, der Staat eben eine
Profitquelle."
At 01:01:08, there's another great sequence that I'm not going to quote in
full because it's too long, but it's about how the state continues to pump
more money in, as private entities swallow it up as profit.
At 01:10:28,
"Charlotte: Es entstehen Vermögen, die nicht einfach da sind, sondern die
auch Einfluss haben. Also ist es nicht ein Rechentrick zu sagen:
Prozentual
gesehen wachsen die Reichenvermögen geringer, aber es ändert sich für
mich
langfristig, auch, wenn ich das über 50 Jahre hinweg rechne, nichts
daran,
dass die Reichen deutlich reicher bleiben und reicher werden?
"Finance Guy: Das ist so. Ja.
"Charlotte: Kleine Wachstumsraten bei großen Vermögen... bringen
erheblichen Zuwachs, mehr als große Wachstumsraten bei kleinen
Vermögen."
At 01:12:49,
"Charlotte: Einerseits wachsen private Vermögen, weil sich Staaten
verschulden. Andererseits drehen die Kapitalgeber den Staaten den Geldhahn
ab, wenn sie zu viele Schulden machen. Wie kann ich das verstehen?
"Finance Guy: Das kommt daher, dass sich die Idee durchgesetzt hat, dass
sich
Staaten auf dem Kapitalmarkt verschulden sollen. Damit hängen Staaten vom
Willen und der Bewertung privater Kapitalgeber ab und sind dazu genötigt,
Wachstum zu fördern, um ihre Steuereinnahmen zu erhöhen, oder
Staatseigentum zu privatisieren, wenn ihre Schulden zu hoch sind. Das hat
zur
Situation heute geführt: Ganz viele Projekte sind nicht mehr
finanzierbar,
weil sie nicht mit den Renditeerwartungen privater Kapitalgeber
übereinstimmen. Das könnte die Bekämpfung hoher Arbeitslosenzahlen
betreffen, oder ausreichend Geld für Bildung, Pflege oder Infrastruktur.
Oder die Transformation in Richtung einer ökologisch tragfähigen
Wirtschaft. Leider nicht finanzierbar, weil unrentabel. Regierungen
können
nicht mehr frei entscheiden, was sie finanzieren. Sie können nur in ihren
Haushaltsentwürfen vorschlagen, was sie finanzieren möchten. Dann
müssen
private Kapitalgeber dem zustimmen. Und deswegen ist das eine
hochbrisante,
politische Frage.
"Charlotte: Sollten wir als Gesellschaft nicht selbst entscheiden, welche
Ausgaben wir sinnvoll finden, und dann erzeugt der Staat das Geld für
diese
Ausgaben? Wieso sollten wir als Staaten nicht das gleiche Privileg haben,
wie
gewinnorientierte private Banken?"
At 01:15:58,
"Das Dilemma für mich ist, dass diese Idee: "Profit ist eine zwingende
Triebkraft für wirtschaftliche Aktivität", sich so verfestigt hat, dass
wir
das für normal erachten."
At 01:18:18,
"Und jetzt kommt das grundsätzliche Problem: Investiert und reinvestiert
wird nur in profitorientierte Unternehmungen. Sie wollen ein Stück Wald
kaufen. Wenn Sie ihn in Ruhe lassen wollen, bekommen Sie dafür keine
Finanzierung. Der Kauf wird nur dann finanziert, wenn Sie den Wald
bewirtschaften, also ihn zumindest teilweise abholzen und das Holz zu Geld
machen."
At 01:20:34,
"Ist das nicht ein Zirkelschluss? Kann es Wirtschaftswachstum überhaupt ohne
Neuverschuldung geben? Sind die Profite von heute nicht die Schulden von
morgen?"
At 01:22:12
"Wir wollen eine ökologische Wirtschaft, das heißt, eigentlich sollte
tendenziell der Konsum sinken. Ein Sinken von Nachfrage würde im heutigen
System zur Krise führen.
"Wir haben einfach ein instabiles System, wo der Staat reingehen muss,
damit
das ganze Ding nicht kippt.
"Wenn man weiß dass das System instabil ist, dann ist das eine Art
Beatmung
des eigentlich schon toten Patienten.
"Wie lange kann das noch gehen? Vor allem zum Preis der steigenden
Ungleichverteilung?"
I watched it in the original German, but with hard-coded English subtitles
that I covered with German subtitles.
Kevin Can F**k Himself S01/S02 (2021) -- "9/10"
Part of this show is a sitcom centered around Kevin (Eric Petersen), a
Bostonian blowhard, casual misogynist, and all-around moron whose
horribleness you don't even notice because of the sitcom-style lighting,
coloring, and the laugh track. His father Pete (Brian Howe) and best
friend
Neil (Alex Bonifer) round out his gang. The show is actually about his
beleaguered wife Allison (Annie Murphy) and also about Neil's sister and
Kevin and Annie's neighbor Patty (Mary Hollis Inboden). When the story
focuses on them, the lighting changes to a much-more dramatic, cinematic
quality, and the laugh track disappears.
Allison has spent a miserable decade married to Kevin. Hers is the story
of
the sitcom wife. She works a dead-end job at the "packing store", which
sells
liquor and wine. The first season sees her establish a desperate plan to
kill
her husband. He is quite manipulative, so she can't just leave. In this,
the
relationship is darker than sitcom reality often lets on.
Before establishing her plan, Allison unravels and goes on a bender. She
triggers a sequence of events that result in Patty's supply of Oxy being
cut
off. She's been dealing to little old ladies who visit her salon -- she'd
had
no idea that they were selling her drugs on into the neighborhood and that
Patty was supplying a good part of her district. Without drugs, she's in
trouble. Allison is forced to help her out, and Patty is forced to
befriend
Allison, whom she'd considered to be a wall decoration for the last
decade.
Their friendship deepens as they try to get their feet back under them.
Patty
starts a relationship with police officer Tammy Ridgeway (Candice Coke) to
throw her off the scent -- but ends up liking her more than a bit. Allison
takes up with an old flame Sam (Raymond Lee) who's just moved back to town
and opened a café. She also starts working from him after spectacularly
quitting the liquor store.
The season ends with Patty dating Tammy, a controlling, lesbian police
officer, who's been looking for the local drug dealer (who used to be
Patty).
The first season is definitely better than the second. We finish the first
season with Neil being dragged into the darker world when he confronts
Allison about having tried to kill Kevin. He ends up choking her, and
Patty
brains him with a frying pan.
In the second season, they lock him up in the basement, then spend a
couple
of episodes scheming on how to keep him quiet about what he's learned.
They
eventually do figure out something -- they threaten him that, with his
past,
it's more likely that the police will believe that he tried to kill Kevin
instead. He becomes sullen and distant, taking even more to drinking. He
takes up with Allison's aunt Diane (Jamie Denbo), for whom she used to
work
at her liquor store.
Allison, desperate for a way to leave, ends up hatching a plan to fake her
own death. This is the focus of the second season -- and she does it! It
works! By the time she has to go, she's realized how much deeper her
friendship with Patty has gotten, but she's forced to put her plan into
action because Patty herself is threatened. Allison fakes her death and
flees
to Keene, New Hampshire, where she starts up a life as Gertrude Fronch.
She
has a steady job and nice place to live.
Several months later, Kevin has grown a beard and has a new girlfriend.
Kevin
met her at Allison's wake at the bowling alley. Neil is back in his
circle,
as is his father. But they're not happy, not really.
Tammy tracks down Allison, but has no intention of bringing her in -- she
just wants some answers, she wants to know why Patty is so obsessed with
figuring out where Allison's gone. Patty doesn't believe she's dead (she
knows Allison was planning it), so she also refuses to leave Worcester
because Allison might come back. Patty ends up splitting with Tammy;
Allison
ends up coming back; Kevin ends up burning himself down in his own house,
after he drunkenly lights a hobo fire in a trash can in his living room.
I give it an extra star for the concept and for the all-around great
acting.
Blue Collar (1978) -- "8/10"
Zeke (Richard Pryor) is a working-class man just trying to make ends meet. He
declares some extra kids on his taxes because his wages are shit compared
to
what he needs to survive. His boss (Cliff De Young) is a hard-ass, his
union
rep Dogshit Miller (Borah Silver) is a racist, and his co-workers are a
mixed
bag. They meet up for a beer after work pretty much every day. They work
themselves to exhaustion.
Zeke is married, as is Jerry (Harvey Keitel), while Smokey (Yaphet Kotto)
is
single and gives them their only opportunity for fun when he throws a
party
with cocaine and working girls. Everything else in their lives grows
increasingly disappointing. The union doesn't do shit for them. Zeke comes
up
with the idea to rob the union's offices. The gang of three manage it, but
only abscond with $600 rather than the expected haul.
The union, on the other hand, claims that at least $10,000 was stolen. The
guys know that's not true, but neither can they officially say anything.
They
instead decide to blackmail the union with the contents of one of the
notebooks they found in the safe: it details a number of sketchy loans
from
sketchy loan sharks from the neighborhood. In response to the $10,000
extortion, the union now claims that it lost $20,000.
Some other guy squeals on the trio and the union starts to turn the
screws.
They almost manage to get Jerry, but Smokey's waiting there with a
baseball
bat. In retaliation, the union arranges to trap Smokey in a car-spraying
chamber, killing him with poisonous fumes. Zeke and Jerry know that the
union
murdered Smokey, but they also offer Zeke the position of shop foreman. He
takes it. Instead of taking revenge for Smokey with Jerry, he says he
wants
to change the system from within. With Zeke squarely under its thumb, the
union continues to gun for Jerry. They chase him to the Canadian border,
where he ends up wrecking his car before he can flee. He signs a deal with
the Feds to try to crack the crooked union.
When Jerry returns to the plant with the Feds in tow, Zeke confronts him
as a
traitor. The final scene is reminiscent a bit of the ending of Animal
Farm,
where you can't tell the pigs from the men.
"They pit the lifers against the new boys, the young against the old, the
black against the white. Everything they do is to keep us in our place."
The ending is dark: it concedes that, though the people in charge change
--
and might even be black! -- the system does not. Instead of people
changing
the system, the system changes them. For a lot more information about the
real fight, see the podcast "Episode 282: Fighting Times" by TrueAnon
, an interview with
"Jonathan Melrod" . I can't find the
quote,
but he talks about the difference between directly being able to hassle
the
shop steward for ventilation when it's hot rather than having a corporate
union, where you put in a request for fans and then, two years later, get
a
response that there's no money in the budget for fans.
X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) -- "7/10"
The first half, where they set up all of the characters, is better than the
second half, where they blow shit up. See my "previous review, from 2021"
.
The Matrix (1999) -- "10/10"
The original and still the best.
I've watched this several times over the years and it holds up so well.
The
first time I saw it was in a large theater in New York City with my good
friend Adeel. We played hooky from work to see a matinee. We got
individual
lazy-boy-style chairs right up front. The movie began and took our breaths
away. Trinity was like nothing we'd ever seen before. We didn't draw
breath
again until Neo woke up in his capsule.
That doesn't say anything about the plot of the movie, though. It's
awesome.
Trust me.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets -- "6/10"
Watched this again in German this time. I didn't pay 100% attention, but my
"review from 2017"
stands. It's a lovely, luscious-looking, absolute Jean-Luc Besson-style
movie
with a God-awful script and some of the most wooden acting you'll ever
see.
Free Guy -- "8/10"
Guy (Ryan Reynolds) lives in Free City.
Antwan (Taika Waititi) owns and runs the game company Soonami that runs
Free
City. Keys (Joe Keery) works there, in support. He used to have an
up-and-coming game company that he'd started with Millie (Jodie Comer). He
wrote the code; she designed the AI. Antwan bought them out and
incorporated
their code into Free City without telling anyone, without giving them
attribution, and without licensing it.
Their AI has evolved -- especially in the form of "blue-shirt guy", who is
Guy. Guy falls in love with Millie and tracks her down. He's in love with
her
because she'd programmed him to recognize her -- as his creator. But he's
evolved, grown, and he now has real feelings -- he's a real, grown-up AI.
She
doesn't know this yet, so she tells him that he has to start leveling up
to
be with her. He does, but instead of doing evil, he does good. He gains a
reputation as a hero in a game filled with villains.
Meanwhile, Millie and Keys reconcile because he's discovered that their
code
is in Free City and that none of it is Free City 2. When the sequel
launches
in two days, the old game will be wiped -- taking Guy with it. Millie
tells
Guy this, after which he has an existential crisis. He consults with Buddy
(Lil Rel Howery), who deals with hearing that his life doesn't matter much
better than Guy did. He doesn't have an existential crisis, he has an
existential epiphany.
In an attempt to save Free City, Guy and Buddy go to Revenjamin Buttons's
(Channing Tatum) home base, where he catches them. But he's a total fanboy
for blue-shirt guy and he gives them the video Millie was looking for. It
shows that Revenjamin had managed to get to a location in the game unlike
any
other -- a location that comes from Millie and Keys's original game. It's
proof that Antwon is using their code unlicensed. Guy claims that he knows
the place.
Meanwhile, Guy's good-guy antics are infectious among the other players,
who
have a newfound respect for NPCs. Antwon is unhappy because presales of
Free
City 2 are way down. He has Keys's friend Mouser (Utkarsh Ambudkar) reboot
all of the Free City servers. As expected, it resets Guy's construct back
to
its original programming. Millie loses her video, but she still hopes that
Guy can recover his memories and get her back to their original game.
Keys tells Millie that it wasn't a fluke that Guy had woken up before. It
turns out that he'd programmed Guy to long for love and to be awakened
when
he met Millie in-game. This is exactly what happens much more quickly when
she awakens him with a kiss. He remembers everything.
He takes to his apartment, where he'd been flipping the blinds every
morning.
It looked like odd NPC behavior the first few times we'd seen him doing
it,
but he was taking a look at the reflection of their world in his blinds,
where the programmers (Antwon) had forgotten to erase it.
Guy leads a revolution of NPCs. They're all on strike. No-one is working
anymore. When Antwon wants to kill Guy and boot Millie, he can't do
anything
because none of the NPCs are there to escalate. Instead, Antwon has Mouser
turn off respawn and manipulate the game world itself to assault Millie
and
Guy on their way to find the world. Keys is also in the world,
manipulating
it to help Guy and Millie escape. They reach the shoreline, hoping that
Keys
will be able to make a bridge for them. He's in a "meeting" with Antwon,
where Keys tells Antwon what to do with himself, building the bridge
across
Antwon's blockage of the original "build". Keys is fired, but not off the
network yet.
Millie gets booted, along with every other player in the world, leaving
Guy
on his own. Antwon drops in Dude (Ryan Reynolds) from Free City 2, a
half-finished, but immensely powerful character. Guy's getting his ass
handed
to him, with the world watching. Buddy shows up, but can't help much. Guy
rescues himself with Captain America's shield, then hammers Dude with a
Hulk
fist. He pulls out a light saber next (it's a video game; the mods are
going
to be clichéd). Guy slaps the glasses on Dude to defeat him by awakening
the
few tiny brain cells he has.
Antwon is going to kill the server farm directly. He starts taking out
servers with an axe, slaughtering NPCs and most of the level. It's
adorable
how impossible that would be to do, as regional redundancy and backups
would
kick in. Guy lands in Millie and Keys's level, which is suddenly visible
to
the remaining NPCs. Millie confronts Antwon in the server room -- unclear
how
she got there. She strong-arms Antwon into giving up his ownership of
their
game, leaving it to Keys and Millie and Mouser, who guide it to success.
And
and Millie finally realizes that Guy loves her in the game because keys
loves
her in real life. Duh. Also, Buddy reappears and Guy has his best friend
in
paradise. The end.
The leads are quite good. I'm a fan of Joe Keery, who played Steve in
Stranger Things. I also quite liked Jodie Comer.
Excalibur (1981) -- "8/10"
Over the course of its 140 minutes, this film grew on me. Just the sheer
bloody-mindedness of having an entire cast in full knight's armor for the
entire film is impressive. Sure, there are some cheesy moments -- a lot of
them, not the least being the "Lady in the Lake" scenes, like when she
catches the sword at the end -- but it's just kind of impressive all the
same, like an opera.
This story follows the legend of Arthur, which starts with Merlin (Nicol
Williamson) helping Arthur's father, Uther Pendragon (Gabriel Byrne) to
lie
with his reluctant ally Cornwall's (Corin Redgrave) wife Igrayne (Katrine
Boorman). Nine months later, Arthur (Nigel Terry) is born, sister to a
young
Morgana. As promised, Merlin takes the boy away for himself. Uther is
incensed and flees the palace. He is soon cornered by Cornwall's men, who
seek revenge. He plants Excalibur in a stone before he dies.
Years later, there is a camp near the stone, with a tradition of knights
competing for the right to try pulling the sword from the stone. One day,
Arthur foster father has taken him with this step-brother to the
tournament.
We watch as Leondegrance (Patrick Stewart) gets his chance, but utterly
fails
to free the sword. Arthur flees toward the rock at one point and pulls the
sword free. His brother and father find him with the sword in his hand.
The crowd soon follows. They make him put the sword back. Another knight
tries to free it, but fails. Arthur easily pulls the sword from the stone.
Many immediately pledge fealty to him, although there are a few who
refuse.
While performing knightly feats, Arthur meets the lovely Guinevere (Cherie
Lunghi). They are immediately smitten with one another. Guinevere smits
pretty easily, though, because, later, when Lancelot (Nicholas Clay) shows
up, she's smitten with him as well. Lancelot beats Arthur pretty badly
until
Arthur cheats to win with his magic sword, which he breaks, but which is
immediately returned to him, unbroken, by the Lady of the Lake, who is
magically in the stream that they were fighting in. 🤷🏼♂️
The Round Table is formed. The land is peaceful for years. Morgana (Helen
Mirren) has grown, though, into a sexy sorceress bent on bringing down
Arthur
and usurping the throne. She influences knight Gawain to accuse Lancelot
of
making goo-goo eyes at Guinevere (and vice versa). He's 100% right, of
course, but they'd not acted on it yet. When Lancelot returns to defend
Guinevere's honor -- jumping in for squire Perceval (Paul Geoffrey), who
was
the only one who'd been willing to try before -- she is so impressed that
she
flees to the forest that night to find and mount him on the mossy forest
floor.
Arthur finds them the next morning, dead asleep, and plants Excalibur in
the
ground near them, then leaves. Merlin is somehow struck by this blow,
weakening him enough that Morgana steals the Charm of Making from him,
then
using it to disguise herself as Guinevere, then sleep with Arthur, letting
him plant a baby in her. This would become Mordred (Robert Addie).
Mordred's semi-incestuous origin (Morgana and Arthur had the same mother)
somehow poisons the land and also causes lighting to strike and nearly
incapacitate Arthur. In his addled state, he becomes obsessed with the
holy
grail. He send his entire Round Table out on a quest. Pretty much all of
them
die, either of more-or-less natural causes or because Morgana traps,
seduces,
or kills them.
Years later, Mordred is grown and comes for what he considers to be his
birthright. Perceval is the only knight who manages to resist Morgana's
sorcery and actually retrieves the Grail for his king. The Grail heals
Arthur
and he rallies a defense against Mordred, with Merlin coming back out of
retirement to trick Morgana into casting a spell on herself, weakening her
to
a degree that she can no longer maintain her youthful appearance. Mordred
is
disgusted by his ancient mother and slaughters her. Lancelot also appears
out
of his self-enforced retirement, just a literal wildman wreaking havoc.
In an amazingly filmed final battle -- it really did look like an opera on
a
stage -- Mordred and Arthur fatally wound each other. Arthur lives long
enough to instruct Perceval to return Excalibur to the Lady in the Lake.
He
travels to the lake, but cannot do it, returning to Arthur with the sword.
Somewhat hilariously, Arthur exhorts him to try again, which he does,
successfully this time. The Lady in the Lake catches the sword in complete
defiance of all laws of physics and Arthur's body is sailed off to Avalon.
The end.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=46802023-03-05T22:47:16+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Iron Man (2008) -- "8/10"
I've seen this movie a few times. Having come earlier in the MCU, it's
definitely one of the better ones, as far as execution is concerned. As
far
as its politics is concerned, it's generously all over the place.
Ungenerously, it's just more billionaire-glorification porn.
Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is what our world considers to be the
quintessential perfect playboy: he's rich, brilliant, good-looking ,
hilarious, an unparalleled engineer, metallurgist, theoretician, etc. etc.
etc.
The story arc is that Tony Stark is in Afghanistan to demonstrate his
company's Jericho missile system. On his way to another appointment, his
convoy is attacked, he is hit in the chest by shrapnel, and taken prisoner
by
the local freedom fighters who'd attacked the convoy. Stark awakes in a
cave
with Yinsen (Shaun Toub), a fellow scientist and engineer who's saved his
life by mounting a powerful magnet connected to a car battery over his
heart,
to keep shrapnel from entering it.
The Afghanis want him to build a Jericho system for them, giving him
equipment and supplies and Yensen as an assistant. Instead, he builds a
powerful "arc reactor" to replace the car battery and magnet, then builds
Mark I of the Iron-Man armor, busting out of the save with it and getting
rescued from where he lands in the desert.
He crash-lands in a metal robot suit, but the laws of physics don't apply
to
him. The suit is somehow flightworthy without any of the characteristics
that
would give it any life. It supposedly uses "repulsors", but damned if I
can
figure out what they're "repulsing" because they're usually just firing
against the air, which doesn't push back very hard. Not only that, but the
suit seems to absorb all of the shock of a landing from hundreds of feet
--
so much so that it doesn't even lose consciousness or sustain any injuries
at
all.
Anyway, he gets home and Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) is happy to see
him
again. His father's partner and CEO of Stark Industries Obediah Stane
(Jeff
Bridges) is less happy to see him -- especially after Tony says that their
company will no longer manufacture weapons. This goes against what Stane
is
planning, so Stane tries to have Tony killed.
Tony, meanwhile, builds Mark II - IV of his Iron-Man armor, perfecting the
tools and armor in such a short time that your head simply spins. There's
a
showdown between Obediah -- who's had his own version of the Iron-Man
armor
build -- and Tony, with Tony winning, of course.
It's a pretty good outing. I always enjoy Downey's grandstanding in the
desert, the building of the initial suit and the subsequent building and
testing of the other suits. It's just a tremendous amount of screen time
spent on building the armor, which is the real star of the show. I'm a
sucker
for this kind of technology, all the way back when reading about the
engineering intricacies of Stark's armor in the Marvel Universe comics --
and
then drawing endless variations of my own.
The Lost Weekend (1945) -- "8/10"
This is the story of alcoholic and writer Don Birnam (Ray Milland). He is
much better at the being the form than the latter. He puts a lot more
effort
and gusto into it, as we'll see. He stands in his bedroom in an apartment
on
the lower East Side of Manhattan, packing a bag. He's to take the train
north
with his brother Wick for a long weekend away. Don has just spent the last
ten days drying out under the watchful eye of his brother Wick (Phillip
Terry).
Don somehow convinces Wick to take his girl Helen St. James (Jane Wyman)
to a
concert. Wick agrees, but only because he knows that Don has no money and
that no-one in the neighborhood will give him credit.
"With you, it's like stepping off a roof and expecting to fall only one
floor."
Fortune smiles upon Don and he finds $10 in the sugar tin -- the cleaning
lady had come by to pick up her salary and told him where to find it. Don
tells her it isn't there and sneaks off to Nat's bar. Nat (Howard Da
Silva)
hates watching Don drink -- and he hates what Don is doing to poor Helen
--
but business is business. Don has money, so he gets shots.
He leaves the bar late for his train, late to meet Wick to go north. He
avoids Helen and Wick as they walk out -- he has money burning a hole in
his
pocket, and he has two bottles. He's about to start his long, lost
weekend.
The next morning, he's back at Nat's in time for Nat's lunch. Don's lunch
will be liquid. He tells Nat the story that he wants to write, about the
time
he met Helen. He drinks the day away. There's a prostitute Gloria (Doris
Dowling) at the bar who's sweet on him. He takes note. He gets a bit of
wind
in his sails after having told the story; he believes he can write the
book.
He's quite eloquent. He tells Nat,
"Love is the hardest thing in the world to write about. It's so simple.
You've gotta catch it through details, like the early morning sunlight
hitting the gray tin of the rain spout in front of her house, the ringing
of
a telephone that sounds like Beethoven's Pastorale, a letter scribbled on
her
office stationary that you carry around in your pocket because it smells
like
all the lilacs in Ohio. Pour it, Nat!"
He returns home, sits at the typewriter, gets the title down, and ...
loses
courage. He needs some liquid courage. He tears apart his apartment,
looking
for his second bottle, to no avail.
He stumbles out with a matchbook in hand that takes him to another bar,
one
where they don't know him yet. He drinks past his ability to pay and
steals a
lady's pocketbook. When he returns from the washroom, where he'd gone to
empty it, he is apprehended and thrown out unceremoniously. He returns to
find that a kind God is smiling on, showing him the second bottle hidden
in
his ceiling lamp. He survives the night.
The morning is harsh, though. And he's yet to write that story. He knows
he
won't, so he sets out to hock his typewriter. All of the pawn shops are
closed: it's Yom Kippur. He begs a shot from Nat, who only give him one.
"One's too much and one hundred are not enough."
Don stumbles out and makes his way to Gloria's apartment, leading her on,
seducing her into giving him $5, $10, anything. She does.
As he's leaving, he falls down the stairs, knocking himself unconscious.
He
awakes in a sanatorium, drying out with the other drunks. Helen sleeps
outside his apartment, waiting for him. The night nurse Bim (Frank Faylen)
tries to keep him there, but Don manages to sneak off in the confusion
when
another patient wakes with violent night terrors. Don steals a doctor's
coat
with money in the pocket and heads home on the subway.
He menaces a shopkeeper for a bottle of booze and ends up back home. He
finishes his bottle, then gets night terrors of his own. He hears Helen,
the
landlady, and the superintendent coming to open the door, but can't get to
the door in time to lock them out. Helen comes in and cares for him,
getting
him to bed. She sleeps in the living room, on the guest bed.
He wakes and sneaks out, grabbing her coat on the way. She follows him in
the
rain to a pawn shop, where he's just exiting. She's furious and
disappointed
and at her wit's end. He dispatches her gruffly while she tries to get her
coat back, only to find that Don't traded it for a gun he'd hocked long
ago.
Helen follows him home and confronts him, begging him to take a drink
because
"I'd rather have you drunk than dead."
Don muses at the end, in a voiceover,
"Out there in that great big concrete jungle, I wonder how many others there
are like me? Poor bedeviled guys on fire with thirst. Such comical
figures,
to the rest of the world, as they stagger blindly towards another binge,
another bender, another spree."
Westworld S04 (2022) -- "8/10"
In the very first episode, some unnamed moron who would soon kill all of his
partners and then himself at the behest of whatever nanobots William (Ed
Harris) has managed to get injected into his system, says something about
data being "fungible", which it absolutely is not, not by any stretch of
the
imagination, that I thought perhaps it's OK that this series has ended on
this season. We will see what the rest brings. Perhaps I'll change my
mind.
It is seven years after the end of season three. Humanity has fought the
hosts and lost. They think they have won, but that's what the hosts want
them
to think. The hosts are now kind of in charge and executing a plan to
dominate the planet by enslaving humanity the same way that humanity
enslaved
them. They do this by both replacing key leaders with hosts and by
infecting
humans with a disease -- transmitted via houseflies -- that makes them
susceptible to manipulation and outright control.
William (Ed Harris) is back, but as a host; his real safe is tucked away
in
captivity by Charlotte (Tessa Thompson), who's kind of running the show
now.
She's definitely a host and he's almost always a host when we see him.
A woman named Christina who works at a video-game company writing stories
and
who looks just like Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) slowly discovers that all
is
not as it seems. Her stories seem to be controlling real people's lives.
She
is set up on a date with Teddy (James Marsden) -- the same Teddy with whom
Dolores fell in love long ago. It is utterly unclear who's a host -- but I
suspect that both of them are.
Maeve (Thandiwe Newton) and Caleb (Aaron Paul) come back out retirement to
take up their battle against the hosts again. She's a host; he's not.
They're
trying to figure out what's going and trying to save Caleb's daughter and
wife and they end up in a 1920's version of Westworld -- which feels
cheaply
just like the original Westworld, just with a new coat of paint. The
humans
are just as odious as they always were; the hosts just as transparent.
Plus ça change -- and I'm sure it's quite deliberately tediously the
same,
to prove the point that people really can't think of new stories, that
they're just willing to do the bare minimum to make money, that they can't
think of anything better to do with all of these amazing technologies than
to
massage their own egos, than to satisfy every stupid whim of a spoiled
elite.
You end up rooting for the hosts because maybe they'll do something
interesting -- humanity has had a dozen chances and always ended up
masturbating and hoarding money and stuff.
Bernard Lowe (Jeffrey Wright) wakes up after several years of searching
for a
way to thread his way through a continuum that would allow survival. He
and
Ashley Stubbs (Luke Hemsworth) set out to put this plan into motion. They
are, of course, both still hosts.
At the end of E04, we learn that Caleb actually died 23 years ago and that
he
has been resurrected by Charlotte 278 times to figure out how he managed
to
resist her auditory mind control, if only for a moment. She suspects that
it's the key to why her giant city of humans is sick -- 38 human hosts
have
killed themselves recently.
In E05, Charlotte speaks to William, at 17:45,
"Humans are so bound by what they can hear, they'll never understand what
they don't, what else exists below their threshold. [low organ-like
chiming]
They called this God's music. You should hear it on an organ; it's
mesmerizing at that volume. The resonance. Vibration. There was a
frequency
at which the world ... vibrated. It caused joy. Harmony. Dip below that
frequency...chaos.
"God [referring to herself] is bored. Do you think this is why the old
Gods
did what they did? Instead of staying up on Olympus, they'd come down to
the
mortals, disguise themselves as a swan to get a piece of ass.
"Humans always thought it was about them -- benign deities intervening on
their behalf, or testing them somehow. Maybe it had nothing to do with
them.
Maybe there was just...nothing better to do."
A little while later, William says to Charlotte (at 23:00),
"Define failure: the world is ours. We've taken our masters and made them
into what they made us. By any definition, we have conquered them to an
almost biblical degree."
To which Charlotte replies, "I didn't imagine our highest aspiration as a
species was 'turnabout is fair play.'"
At 29:45,
"All of the people in the city run pre-scripted loops, following whatever
plot's been written for them. Why do you think we hide in the desert? She
[Charlotte] can't track us there. We're the last free humans. But these
poor
fucks? They use them as entertainment. The loops make them compliant by
keeping them busy -- stops them from questioning their realities."
This can't possibly have been written without knowing that it applies as a
good metaphor for how our world works now.
Soon after, Teddy teaches Christina that she can't see a city that is very
clearly there -- and that she can control the minds of the people around
her.
The city that she can't see contains the Tower that she's always painting
--
the Tower that emits the control signal keeping all of the humans in check
and running on their loops.
In E07, in the dusty western town left over from a long-dead instance of
WestWorld,
Frankie talks to her lover, whom she'd locked away, suspecting she'd been
replaced by a robot.
"Frankie: I am sorry for locking you up. But I had to keep you safe.
"Lover: You're my safe place. Don't forget that next time."
Jesus, that was bad. Did somebody lose a bet? Did the director's nibling
show
up to write a scene? Also, before that, there was a fight where Frankie
held
the gun in her enemy's face but didn't/couldn't shoot him. You knew he was
going to bat it away. Lazy, lazy writing. Unnecessary.
In the same episode, though, we get this,
"William: When the radiation knocks all of the electrons right out of your
bones, what do you want? To know who you are? To know what it all means?
You'll be too busy vomiting up your organs. Culture doesn't survive;
cockroaches do. The second we stopped being cockroaches, the whole species
went fucking extinct.
"Host William: Speak for yourself. I'm not you.
"William: Well, you might as well be. You can't fix a few millennia of
broken
DNA with a fucking hard drive. Why do you think you spend so much time in
the
goddamned human cities?
"Host William: You're right.
"William: Of course I am. Civilization is just a lie we tell ourselves to
justify our real purpose. We're not here to transcend; we're here to
destroy."
It's impossible to tell who's a host and who's real, who's a human
resurrected from the dead, who's running in a simulation, who's in which
time
period. There are parallel streams for episodes and then it turns out that
all of these things were happening dozens of years apart.
I love it, but I can see how people trained on much simpler fare would
check
out.
Like, what is Caleb? When is Caleb?
Is the quest to blow up the tower even the main goal? What is the main
goal?
Is there even one? Is Dolores going to win? Or lose? Or who cares?
Do the hosts know what the real goal is? Or are they just following a
pre-programmed routine? How do we know that the one where they seem to be
succeeding is the real one? Does it even matter? What does it mean for one
to
be real when there are infinite virtual worlds? And that's now just within
one continuum -- what about all of the other continua? Do we even bother
trying to figure it out or just have a laugh while we can?
E08:
William kills Charlotte and Maeve at the tower. William also kills
Bernard,
who leaves a tablet for Charlotte to find later. William turns up the
tower
to eleven and everyone goes batshit, killing each other.
Charlotte's robots resurrect her, building her a stronger body. No-one
says a
thing about how he shot her right through the core. I suppose the bullet
was
a little bit off-center? But it was off-center for Maeve, too. Whatever.
Charlotte's now on the warpath, ready to meet William on his own terms, in
the horrible game that her world has become. She turns off the artifice on
the city, snatching the core that was running it.
"Charlotte: You're ruined my world, turned it into a game.
William: It was always a game. I've just turned it up to expert level."
Dolores/Christine and Teddy are figuring shit out, with Dolores being all
cheesy and communing with the characters that she made up in order to
figure
out what to do.
Clementine kills Stubbs, then goes after Frankie, with a completely
different
personality -- just a cold-eyed killer now. It's fucking terrible, like
they
promised her she could get at least one fight scene before the show ends.
It
feels like a promise to the actress that she gets to pad her resumé.
William ends up at the Hoover Dam on a horse -- looking to destroy not
only
this world, but the next (The Sublime). Charlotte alights not long after,
in
one of those utterly un-airworthy little ornithopter numbers.
William and Charlotte face off -- and it's the now-dead Bernard whose
message
she remembers. She finds the gun he hid there when he and Maeve had gone
through earlier. Charlotte kills William, scalps him, extracts his mind,
and
crushes it, killing him for good. Charlotte strips down to her robot body,
losing most of her skin, then pulling out her core and crushing it,
committing suicide.
Frankie and Caleb make it back to the docks, but Caleb's body is unstable
and
will die soon. He says his goodbyes at the pier.
Charlotte places the brain of her city into The Sublime, transferring
Christine and Teddy back to the city, but powered by the data center in
the
Hoover Dam. Let's remember also that Charlotte is a shard of Dolores, just
like Christine is. Teddy's not real, of course. He's just another one of
Christine's sparring partners. He thinks he's real, but he's ... a
virtualization of a host.
Christine awakes and, instead of Teddy, sees Dolores, who is there to
"tell
her the truth about what we are. [...] We are reflections of the people
who
made us."
She walks out into the shattered half-virtual world as Dolores. It is
still
unclear whether everything is virtualized and how many concentric shells
of
reality there are. I've long since lost track of whether a person is a
person
or a host of a sim of a host or person or...what.
"Sentient life on Earth has ended, but some part of it might still be
preserved, in another world. My world. There's time for one last game, a
dangerous game with the highest of stakes. Survival or extinction. This
game
ends where it began, in a world like a maze, that tests who we are, that
reveals what we are to become. One last loop around the bend."
Ok. Ok. But you're not going to get the chance. The Gods of television
have
not decided in your favor, Dolores. You vanquished all of humanity, but
lost
to Hollywood producers who didn't like the numbers you were putting up.
🤷🏼♂️
Shantaram (2022) -- "8/10"
Dale Conti (Charlie Hunnam) is an Australian convict, EMT, and former heroin
addict. He is in jail because he robbed a bank. Actually, he was in prison
for having tried to help the police office gunned down by his accomplice
on a
robbery. He was tortured in prison for the name of his accomplice, whom he
never gave up. Before being killed in prison by either the officers
squeezing
him for information or by other prisoners whom he'd crossed, he organizes
a
daring escape with his cellmate.
They end up clambering down 40 feet of extension cord to drop down outside
of
the battlements. Lin melts into the city, first visiting his father, who
gives him a bit of cash and his blessing/forgiveness. He makes his way to
his
accomplice and gets his share. He buys a passport (now as Lin Ford from
New
Zealand) and heads to India, landing in Bombay.
Much of this is told in flashbacks.
"We can compel men to be bad, but we cannot compel them to do good."
Once in Bombay, he settles in to the ex-pat community, having a good time
mostly. Lin befriends Prabhu (Shubham Saraf), a local guide. He meets
heroin-addict and prostitute Lisa (Elektra Kilbey) and her two pimps
Maurizio
(Luke Pasqualino) and Modena (Elham Ehsas), mysterious Swiss-American
businesswoman Karla (Antonia Desplat), and French dealmaker Didier
(Vincent
Perez).
After several weeks, Lisa has been trapped at Madame Zhou's (Gabrielle
Scharnitzky) palace, a bordello. Karla engages Lin's help to rescue her,
acting as a representative from the American consulate. He ends up
pressing
Madame Zhou with intimations that he is CIA and she releases Lisa into
their
custody. On his way home, Madame Zhou's men mug him and steal his passport
and money -- she had figured out his ruse.
He escapes the police who come to "help" him and ends up in the Sagar Wada
(slum) where Prabhu lives. There is a bit of back and forth. Karla agrees
to
give him a thousand dollars to buy his passport back -- he's getting too
noisy and she's worried he'll spoil her business deals. As he's about to
abandon Prabhu and Bombay, Madame Zhou's men find him again, this time in
Sagar Wada. The ensuing fight starts a fire that kills a woman (Lakshmi),
despite Lin's best efforts to save her. Lin is devastated.
"The worst thing about corruption as a system of governance, is that it works
so well."
The next morning, though, there is a long line of people outside of
Prabhu's
tent, waiting for medical assistance. Lin kind of freaks out, but collects
himself quickly, donates the thousand dollars to the wada -- for medical
supplies and to repair the burnt tents -- and goes to work. He isn't a
doctor, but no doctors ever set foot in the wada anyway, so he's the best
they'll ever get.
Abdel Khader Khan/Bhai (Alexander Siddig) is a local businessman/mob-boss
with ethics and philosophy who cares very much for Sagar Wada and wants to
see it survive. His business rival wants to mow it down for the property
value. Khader Khan learns of Lin's efforts there and pays him a visit,
building up a friendship of sorts, telling him, at the end of the evening,
to
call him Khaderbhai (brother).
Lin's medical services hit a roadblock when he learns that the hospital to
which he sends the patients he can't help are being rejected -- even
though
the hospital is supposed to be free. He approaches Khaderbhai for help in
getting black-market medicines. He goes back to hustling with Prabhu to
earn
the money for medicine.
Karla's still aiming to build her luxury apartments around or on the Sagar
Wada -- together with Khaderbhai. They are still vying for control of the
contract with Walid, the other local mob boss.
"The sane man is simply a better liar than the insane man."
Lin gets a motorcycle from his brother from another mother Abdullah
(Fayssal
Bazzi) and he keeps it so that he can run his own errands. He returns
Khaderbhai's money, to which Khaderbhai says that he respects him and
would
like to remain friends. Lin says that the Wada has its own rules and he
can't
be seen to be owned by Khaderbhai. Lin spends a platonic night with Karla,
telling her about his past.
Parvati (Rachel Kamath) turns into a better nurse. Journalist Kavita
(Sujaya
Dasgupta) is on Lin's trail, sniffing out his fake passport and getting
Australia back on his tail. A doctor is helping out in the slums and she
can
only think of how she can figure out what his real past is -- not caring
at
all that the slums will be left without a doctor if she succeeds in
digging
up dirt.
Because of this, Lin prepares his departure, seeking a new passport from
Didier. He sells the motorcycle, but it thwarted when Didier is arrested
for
homosexuality. Lin and a cowboy friend must rescue him, paying thousands
of
dollars to get him out unscathed -- and also for the police to continue to
ignore Lin's transgressions.
Karla sics Abdullah on Maurizio and Modena, who are trying to pimp out
Lisa
again to seal a drug deal that Khader Khan would absolutely not allow if
he
knew about it. She agrees, but for 10% of the deal.
Parvati and Prabhu go to a movie, but she falls ill. He barely gets her
home,
where no-one knows where the gora doctor is. Lin returns to discover many,
many people are sick. When he gets a closer look at them, he discovers
that
there's a cholera outbreak. Prabhu is worried that Parvati is going to
die.
Against Qasim's (Alyy Khan) wishes, Lin gets Khaderbhai to deliver water
--
under the condition that he gets credit for it from Sagar Wada. Parvati
recovers.
Meanwhile Karla and Khader Khan plot to get leverage on the new minister.
They kidnap his mistress and stash her away with Madame Zhou. Karla is
then
busy taking care of Lin, who's gotten cholera from treating so many
people.
Lin recovers as well, but he's thinking about leaving town again --
because
Kavita is getting closer to figuring out who he really is, and she's bound
and determined to nail him and get him out of Sagar Wada. What do they
need a
doctor for anyway?
Walid Khan's men show up to steal the water, smashing it on the ground,
and
threatening the whole Wada. It's a bit unclear why they let those men
overpower them -- there were only about six of them, and only one of them
had
a club, but I digress.
Karla and Madame Zhou come to an uneasy truce, teaming up to break the
mistress, to make her pliable and useful. Lin meets with Khaderbhai to
learn
that Khaderbhai is fighting with Walid for control of Sagar Wada. The land
on
which they live is very valuable and will be sold, no matter what. Lisa,
Modena, and Maurizio pull off the deal, with Lisa sleeping with Raheem to
seal it. Maurizio wants more, though, and decides to screw everyone over,
sell the heroin, keep the money, and flee Bombay before anyone's the
wiser.
Khader Khan meets with Qasim and is very up-front about what he is
offering:
a few more years of reprieve, during which he takes care of Sagar Wada,
but
nothing can stop the building. He pledges to help them find a way
afterwards.
Qasim agrees, seeing that this is the best offer he's going to get. He and
the rest of the camp rise up and drive away Walid's men.
"If you had known the virtue of the ring,
Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,
Or your own honor to contain the ring,
You would not then have parted with the ring."
Khader Khan comes through on his promise. The Wada is installing running
water. Prabhu gets a taxi to make ends meet. Lin makes preparations to
leave
-- once Didier delivers his passport. He starts saying his goodbyes,
leaving
the doctoring business to Parvati. Maurizio shows up Lisa's place, tosses
it,
is generally a scumbag, and comes up with both her and Modena's passports
(because scum rises to the top). Modena still has all of the money, though
--
and Raheem is still ripped off. Raheem finds Maurizio -- who puts him on
Lin's trail, claiming that he's the dealer who'd made off with all of the
money.
"The hungry man doesn't care about the past."
Kavita and her boyfriend/editor Nishant (Arka Das) are still hot on Lin's
trail -- and duplicitous to his face, though it seems their keen interest
in
him has gotten his wind up. Lin seeks out Didier, who, instead of having
gotten him his passport, has shut himself in with many bottles of wine. He
returns Lin's money and photos, but Lin forgives him and helps him get
back
on his feet. Lin goes on a date with Karla; Prabhu goes on an official
date
with Parvati (and his mother-in-law).
Raheem is hot on Lin's tail, but Didier and Prabhu jump in to protect him.
They gather Abdullah and set off to the hotel to set Raheem straight -- it
was Maurizio who set him on Lin's tail with lies anyway. They jump Raheem
and
his men, with Lin and Abdullah absolutely cleaning house. Abdullah's
revelation that he represents Abdel Khader Khan chills Raheem to the bone.
He
quickly agrees to leave the country with his life, and gives up Maurizio
in
the bargain. Lin heads off for revenge, impervious to Prabhu's pleas that
this is not who he is.
Lin gets Lisa to arrange to meet Maurizio, who shows up with a gun. No-one
knows why they have to be so stupid, wasting time with this petty revenge
shit. Anyway, Karla gets her work done, but Maurizio betrays her
association
with Khader Bhai to Lin. Lin beats the everylovin' crap out of Maurizio,
which he thoroughly deserves. Lin then confronts Karla for her association
with Khaderbhai. She hasn't got much to say, even though she'd sacrificed
so
much for him, having gotten Kavita to drop her article about him. He tells
her to fuck off forever.
Meanwhile, the cop from Australia -- Nightingale -- is in country and
making
himself absolutely beloved among his fellow Indian police officers. He
gets
what he deserves as well. He eventually gets the Indian police on his side
and they raid Sagar Wada to find Lin. Lin is there, saving Qasim from a
hematoma -- he can't leave his side until the last possible second.
Things are coming to a head. Walid puts out a hit on Khalid and everyone
on
his side: Abdullah, Lin, Karla, etc. Karla and Lisa are taken to Madame
Zhou,
who will do with them as she pleases, selling them into slavery. Maurizio
smirks in the background.
Kavita's article hits the front pages. Her editor Nishant takes the
byline.
His is rewarded by two bullets to the chest from one of Walid's young
assassins. Lin and Prabhu escape Nightingale by the skin of their teeth.
In
trying to find Karla and Lisa, Lin and Abdullah find Modena bleeding out
and
get him to a hospital. Lin and Prabhu pick up Modena's suitcase from the
train station.
"Lin: Why now? This place [Zhou's palace] has been here for years.
Prabhu They are embarrassed, na? See, for them, this is the worst feeling.
Everyone knows all the time, bad things are there, but they can do nothing
about it, na?So we pretend it is not so. But, when you don't allow them to
pretend, then the people get very, very angry."
Khader is regrouping, trying to figure his next move. Abdullah grows
impatient with doing nothing. They maybe decide to take out Walid where he
lives, but maybe it's a feint. Walid believes the double- (triple-?)
crossing
cop and moves out. Lin goes to the palace to rescue Karla and Lisa, but
they're doing a good job of rescuing themselves.
"A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the
brave."
A mob crashes into the palace, lending urgency to the affair. A fight, a
dropped gun, and Lisa shoots Maurizio and about three other people. She
misses Zhou, who they leave to the mob. Prabhu jets away when he sees the
cops; Nightingale is on the hunt for his cab.
The cops turn out to be on Khaderbhi's side. They trap Walid in a
cul-de-sac
and ambush him and his people to death. Abdullah shows up in police
uniform
and ices Walid.
Lin, Karla, and Lisa regroup at Didier's place. Prabhu joins them -- with
the
money, $302,000. Lin gives the money back to Lisa and send her
toothpick-thin, bleached-blonde, idiot ass into the mob-filled streets
with a
bag full of cash. Ok, sure. Lin at least saved a chunk of it for Prabhu.
"Lin: You're one of the biggest men I've ever met, Prabhu. I don't know what
I've done to deserve you in my life, but I'm glad for it. To honor our
friendship, I've got one very important thing I wanna ask of you.
Prabhu: Lin, anything.
Lin: Name your first son after me.
Prabhu: Anything but that. Lin is a terrible name. [Lin means "penis" in
Hindi]"
Karla and Lin finally fall into bed together. Everyone's wrapping up loose
ends. Modena is gone; Lisa splits the cash with Lin. Karla goes to Khader
to
say goodbye. Nightingale shows up at Karla's place and Lisa lets him right
in
because she is literally the stupidest person on the planet. Nightingale
catches him on the roof. While we're on the subject, doesn't anyone ever
duck
a blow or put up a guard when a blow is absolutely imminent and
telegraphed
from a mile away?
Lin escapes, but without the money. Karla's at the station, waiting in
vain.
Nightingale and the Bombay cops magically find Prabhu -- because the plot
needed it. Some people catch Lin and kidnap him just as he's about to
catch
up to Karla. It's the cops -- we leave Lin tied up, being beaten.
Unfortunately, Apple also didn't like the numbers that Shantaram was
putting
up and has canceled the show after one season. It was a troubled
production,
with monsoons and COVID dragging out the filming of the first season over
years.
The Big Sleep (1946) -- "8/10"
General Sternwood (Charles Waldron), and old, rich, and wheelchair-ridden man
who has lost the capacity to enjoy any of life's pleasures for himself,
hires
Phillip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) to take care of a blackmailing problem
plaguing his youngest daughter Carmen (Martha Vickers). Marlowe meets the
slightly off-kilter coquette in the foyer. It's clear that she's just
unhinged enough to have left a trail of reasons behind her for which she
could be blackmailed. Marlowe also briefly meets her sister Vivian (Lauren
Bacall). They don't exactly hit it off.
The most important thing is that Humphrey Bogart gets cooler and cooler
throughout the movie. He is one slick cat. He never loses his cool, he
always
has a good riposte, and he gets out of almost every situation without
violence.
After the initial introductions, the story gets a bit murkier. Marlowe is
constantly on the search for his missing friend Sean Regan, who was also a
friend of the General's. Carmen, it turns out, owes a gambling debt to a
bookseller Arthur Geiger. When Marlowe goes to Geiger's house, he finds
Carmen drugged up, an empty camera, and Geiger's body. That's just the
beginning. There's also a casino owner and gangster Eddie Mars, who may or
may not be in cahoots with Vivian.
Mars's wife ran off with Regan, and Mars probably killed him for it. He
says
that his wife did it, but that's almost certainly not true. Marlowe forces
Mars out the door, where his own men kill him in a hail of bullets.
Marlowe
and Vivian end up together.
It's very much a film of its time. There's no soundtrack. The camera
angles
are very, very standard. It's black and white. You don't watch for the
plot;
you watch for the style and the cool lines. The "Wikipedia entry"
does a good job
of
summarizing the plot in much more detail.
Jung_E (2023) -- "7/10"
Jung_E is a digital reconstruction of the mind of a popular and nearly
indomitable warrior in the battle between mankind's orbital output and the
colonies that were overtaken by an uprising of robots.
Let me back up. The Earth has become so inhospitable because of climate
change that humanity instead has moved into giant orbiting ringworlds --
so
large that they have, like, mountains, clouds, and stuff. Like, these
things
are immense. The story says that Earth is nearly inhospitable. But space
is
completely inhospitable.
I don't understand these movies that just hand-wave away how idiotic it is
to
say humanity has moved to space because of climate change. I mean, how
awful
can it have gotten that living in a tin can in vacuum is considered to be
better? It's similar to fools who want to escape to the Moon or Mars: it's
hundreds of times harder to survive there than it is in the most
inhospitable
place on Earth.
For starters, you can breathe the air pretty much anywhere on Earth.
Secondly, you can grow food pretty much anywhere, too. Anyway, the whole
premise is bullshit. Also, they must have mined thousands of asteroids to
get
the material for all of the constructions they show.
Also, it would take hundreds of years. Or, maybe not, because they have
robots. Still, I wonder why it takes years to build a skyscraper on a
planet
we're designed for, but humanity can build a ringworld as big as a small
moon
inside of a century.
Anyway, it's 2194 and humanity is up in orbit and they've been fighting
the
robots for 35 years or so after a robot uprising. The war would have been
won, but the warrior on whose mind Jung_E is based failed at the very last
minute to achieve her objective. She'd achieved dozens of them before
that,
but she failed in this last one. She was hauled home nearly dead, and has
been kept alive by the Kronoid corporation. Her daughter Yun Seo-hyun is a
chief scientist there, in charge of the program that is trying to use a
robot
based on her mother to win the war.
The Ai keeps failing to achieve its objective, despite all sorts of
attempts
to enhance the right lobes of its processing centers in successive
attempts.
The chairman of Kronoid lets Yun Seo-hyun know that her services will no
longer be required: a peace treaty is imminent with the robots. It is then
that Yun Seo-hyun learns that her immediate superior has always been an
advanced robot. It's even possible that the chairman is a robot.
Yun Seo-hyun is ill with cancer again and is told about her possibilities
for
upload after death: class A has all the rights of a human, class B does
not,
but still has some autonomy, and class C has no rights whatsoever, and
must
agree to allow any and all clones for any and all purposes. Her mother
Jung_E
is class C, which is why she can be used for warrior simulations, but also
as
a sexbot.
With peace coming on , the Kronoid company will focus on adding
intelligence
into household products. Yun runs one more simulation, but this time
focuses
on saving Jung_E instead. They break out of Kronoid headquarters together
--
though not without a whole bunch of fighting. Jung_E must take about a
half-dozen of her successor models. She manages all but the last, which
ends
up almost choking her out. Yun shows up just in the knick of time to power
it
down from behind.
Yun sneaks Jung_E's brain out in the last successor robot, to fool the
robot
police that are also hunting Jung_E by now. They monorail it out of the
there, but they're not alone. Kim is also in the same train car (I have
literally no idea how he got there without them knowing about it). Kim
wings
Yun with a shot, but Jung_E takes him out, making him shoot his own eye
out
-- he now knows that he's a robot, too.
They duke it out some more. Everybody really likes those stomp-kicks and
super-jump stomps that are telegraphed from a million miles away. The
police
show up, but Jung_E dispatches them relatively easily, returning her focus
to
the seemingly indomitable Kim, who they finally drop into some sort of
deep
abyss that no-one in their right mind would have bothered building on an
arcology in space.
These things are really spectacularly big. If humanity had put 10% of the
effort into not breaking the planet that they put into building these
arks,
they could have just stayed on Earth. Wait, are they on Earth? Jung_E
escapes
through a forest to a hilltop with a view of a dozen miles in each
direction.
Did they forget that they're not on Earth?
It's a relatively standard premise, but reasonably well-done. I watched it
in
Korean with English subtitles.
The Transporter Refueled (2015) -- "4/10"
This time the transporter Frank is played by Ed Skrein and his dad is played
by Ray Stevenson. This is so woodenly written and acted, it's painful. The
scene where the ladies explain the next hour of the movie is terrible.
Every
woman in this movie is painfully thin, but also sold as excruciatingly
sexy.
They all act, and are treated as, irresistible. It's unclear how Frank's
dad
is involved in the whole deal gone awry, but I'm also hard-pressed to
care.
Frank does have some close-quarters fighting chops but, while the
choreography is reasonably widely filmed, there are also a lot of cuts
that
make it both hard to follow the action and hard to see how much he's
actually
doing. He uses a lot of garrotes and wires and ropes and stuff. It's a
relatively unique gimmick.
The ladies are completely irritating. Don't even ask me what the plot was.
Something about him being forced to do a whole bunch of driving and
transporting and fighting because he's trying to save his dad, I think.
But
his dad seems to be totally in cahoots with the preternaturally powerful
grrrls who are pushing around a transporter who hadn't been pushed around
in
the previous three films.
I watched it in German.
Sebastian Maniscalco: Is It Me? (2022) -- "7/10"
This special feels stronger than "Stay Hungry"
(2019) but not as
good as "Aren't You Embarassed?"
(2014). He's
looking
a bit older than he even did in 2019 -- he has two kids now -- but he's
still
swaggering around like the Italian-American caricature that he either is
or
plays on stage. His mannerisms are the same, though they almost feel a bit
exaggerated by now, but he's still doing OK.
Most of his comedy is observational and about how the world is no longer
the
same/as good as it was when he was growing up. Since I come from the same
generation, it's hard to disagree. Some things really do suck now. We have
improved some things, but made other things so much worse. I agree with
Sebastian that I'm very much not sure it's been worth the trade. Why can't
we
trend upwards in more things? Why won't our overlords allow us to have
nice
things?
Anyway, I really liked the bit about going to a showing of Hamilton and
pretending to be too dumb to understand what's going on -- rather than
saying
that the show is a shitty, confusing, and muddled waste of time, he
passive-aggressively says that he and his wife were too dumb to follow it.
But it must be good, because so many smart people liked it.
White Noise (2022) -- "8/10"
We are introduced to Jack Gladney (Adam Driver), who teaches Hitler Studies
at a midwestern college. He lives with his wife Babette (Greta Gerwig) and
their flock of children. His best friend is a fellow professor named
Murray
(Don Cheadle). The movie's plot follows that of the book very closely,
including several quotes directly. See my "review of the book from 2021"
for more details.
After introducing the characters, these are the main plot points:
The Toxic Airborne Incident is a large, black cloud of toxic who-knows-what
that Jack is afraid he's spent too much time in. They spend time fleeing
it
and returning to their homes, worrying about what's going to happen in
the
aftermath.
"It's comforting to know the supermarket hasn't changed since the toxic
event. In fact, the supermarket has only gotten better. Between the
unpackaged meat and the fresh bread, it's like a Persian bazaar.
Everything
is fine, and will continue to be fine, as long as the supermarket
doesn't
slip.
"Do you know the Tibetans believe there's a transitional state between
death and rebirth. That's what I think when I come here. The supermarket
is
a waiting place. It recharges us spiritually. It's a gateway. Look how
bright. Look how full of psychic data, waves, and radiation. All the
letters and numbers are here, all the colors of the spectrum, all the
voices and sounds, all the code words and ceremonial phrases. We just
have
to know how to decipher it."
* Babette is taking a pill that makes her stop fearing death. Or, at
least,
she thinks that's what the pill does. It might just be a sham and the
man
who sold it to her only used its purported efficacy to convince her to
sleep with him.
* Jack needs the pill for his own fear of death, but he also wants to
take
revenge on the man who slept with his wife. There are definitely
Lynchian
stylistics here, when Jack is driving to Mr. Gray, muttering "Steal
instead
of buy. Shoot instead of talk.", over and over. Jack is at the motel. He
meets Mr. Gray.
The TV snows over and Jack sees Babette mounting the greasy Mr. Gray on
the
TV. The man is repulsive -- I'm sure that's exaggerated to emphasize
Jack's
repulsion at meeting the man who'd entered Babette.
Jack shoots Mr. Gray on the toilet. He puts the pistol in Mr. Gray's
hand
to fake a suicide, but he is not dead. He fires a shot, hitting Jack in
the
thumb, then Babette in the leg, who'd just walked in. They drag Gray to
the
parking lot, where he starts choking, but Jack's CPR brings him back.
They
take him to a clinic run by nuns. The nuns speak German. Schwester
Hermann
Marie's German is excellent, thank goodness.
"You want to know what I believe? Or what I pretend to believe? [...] Wer
hiereinkommt und von Engeln redet ist ein Schwachkopf. Zeig mir einen
Engel. Bitte! Ich will einen Engel sehen. Zeig mir einen Heiligen. Gib
mir
ein Haar vom Körper eines Heiligen. Unser Auftrag in dieser Welt ist
Dingen zu glauben, den kein Mensch ernst nimmt. Und, wenn wir diesen
Glauben aufgeben würden, denn würde die menschliche Rasse aussterben.
Deswegen sind wir hier. Eine winzige Minderheit. Und, wenn wir nicht so
tun
würden, als glaubt man diesen Dingen, denn würde die Welt
zusammenbrechen! Es ist die Hölle ... wenn keiner glaubt. Wir beten.
Wir
zünden Kerzen an. Und wir bitten Statuen um Gesundheit und langes
Leben.
Aber bald nicht mehr. Ihr werdet eure Gläubigen verlieren."
Interesting, but kind of a non sequitur.
The movie focuses more on the quirkiness of their familial interactions
with
a lot of overlapping and seemingly non-sequitur dialogue amongst all of
the
family members, with the camera swinging amongst them. The acting is quite
good all around, with Driver delivering a commanding performance, as
usual.
His intervention on Murray's behalf in his classroom is applause-worthy.
So the movie's not bad, but it's also not as good as the book, which
focused
a lot more on the impending commercialized and homogenized hellscape of
what
we are still forced to call American culture even though it has long since
become so capitalized and market-ized and commodified that it barely even
has
a sheen of humanity to it at all anymore.
DeLillo's treatment would be expanded and complemented by Foster Wallace's
ramblings and famously loquacious thoughts on the matter. America didn't
feel
real anymore, and we can only say that it has gotten nearly infinitely
worse
from the times when authors like Postman, DeLillo, and Foster Wallace all
were writing about how far we'd already fallen and how it couldn't
possibly
get any worse, could it?
"Murray says we are fragile creatures, surrounded by hostile facts."
The Wandering Earth (2019) -- "7/10"
The sun is acting up. Within three-hundred years, it will engulf the Earth's
orbit. There is, of course, only one thing to do: move the Earth to a
different star system. The entire planet bands together to build thousands
of
"Earth engines", unfathomably gigantic rockets eleven kilometers high.
This
is seriously cool and grandiose and the depiction is tremendous. I gave
this
movie a whole extra point for being based on so awesomely big of an idea.
This premise is so awesome that I had to check whether Roland Emmerich had
directed. He had not; it's by Frant Gwo. There's a lot of blabla with Liu
Peiqiang (Jing Wu) telling his son Liu Qi (Chuxiao Qu) about his upcoming
mission to Jupiter and how he will see him again someday. Liu Qi must
retreat
to an underground city with his sister Han Duoduo (Jinmai Zhao) and his
grandfather Han Ziang (Man-Tat Ng).
"Routes are countless. Safety is foremost. With unregulated driving, your
loved might end up in tears."
Seventeen years later, Liu Qi is working, but no longer communicates with
his
father, who is on the space station trailing the Earth on its travel out
of
the solar system. Han Ziang is a transport driver, presumably hauling
material around for the massive engines -- parts or fuel, it's not clear.
Jupiter does something funny and unpredicted, which means that the Earth
is
going to pass too close to it for the slingshot and will, instead, strike
it
directly. Jupiter is pulling off Earth's atmosphere, but also causing
massive
seismic shocks that disable about 1/3 of the engines. Humanity rallies to
get
most of them running again, but the one in Shanghai is a dead loss.
Instead,
our heroic crew head to Sulawesi with their "lighter core", necessary for
restarting the massive equatorial Earth Engine there.
That engine has already been relit, but it's not going to be enough.
Instead,
Liu Qi thinks of a new plan: the mixture of Jupiter's hydrogen with
Earth's
Oxygen should, when lit, make a huge booster that will repel Earth from
Jupiter. Unfortunately, their efforts are in vain: the Earth engine's
blast,
even when enhanced, isn't enough to reach the H/O mixture.
Liu Peiqiang decides to crash the space station into the mixture to ignite
it, sacrificing himself, all of the hibernating astronauts, as well as a
treasure trove of cellular and genetic material that had been prepared for
an
emergency. The computers had determined that it was more important to save
this than to save the Earth, but humanity disagreed.
Three years later, we see Tim, Duoduo, and Liu Qi working as transport
drivers as Earth makes its way toward the Sun for a final slingshot before
leaving the solar system. The voiceover explains that, after that, the
Earth
engines will accelerate for 500 additional years to 0.5% of the speed of
light, after which it will cruise for 1,300 years, then decelerate for 700
years before finally nestling in to the Alpha Centauri system -- 100
generations later.
Look, there are ton of people involved here, Engineer Li Yiyi (Yichi
Zhang)
is absolutely clutch in figuring things out. Soldiers Yang Jie (Yi Yang)
and
He Lianke (Haoyu Yang) as well as Tim (Mike Kai Sui), a half-Australian
Chinese Duoduo and Liu meet in jail when they try to steal a transport.
There
is, of course, a Russian astronaut Makalov (Arkadiy Sharogradskiy), who
acts
pretty much like every other Russian astronaut in every other space movie
not
made by Russians (Tarkovsky's Solaris was an exception, for example).
No-one
is ever going to beat Peter Stormare's Lev Andropov from Armageddon,
though.
Speaking of movies that this is like, it's kind of like Armageddon, but
it's
also very much like Independence Day -- right up to the father getting
back
the respect of his son by sacrificing himself in a flaming ball of death.
The
tech feels a lot like Pacific Rim -- and I'll be damned if Moonfall
doesn't
need to be mentioned, at least a little bit.
It's kind of interesting that the movie uses a tremendous amount of CGI,
but
the movie itself is about a future where we can actually build incredibly
huge, amazingly complex, phenomenally resilient, nearly preternaturally
reliable and redundant machines.
I watched it in Chinese with English subtitles.
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https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=46482023-02-04T13:15:56+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Feels Good Man (2020) -- "6/10"
This is a documentary about the artist who created Pepe the Frog, a character
in a comic he's been drawing for years, but which was coopted by the
alt-right as their mascot. The first part introduces the innocuous
comic-artist, his wife, his roommate, his friends. The guy and his friends
are overgrown man-children, having a goof making stoner-humor comics and
finding a reasonable amount of success.
The next part documents the growth of the meme, starting on 4chan, which
actually seems quite innocent, compared to the sheer psychosis that is
young
girls jumping on a meme to get attention and to boost their channels on
whatever social media they're on.
[image]The shot to the right is of a young girl who'd painted her face to
look like a frog, mispronounced his name as "pee-pee", then started a
tirade
that she hated the frog. It literally doesn't matter what that girl
thinks,
but she probably had millions of followers, watching her psychotic antics
and
cheering her on. The decline and fall of western civilization indeed. The
documentary didn't at all mention how psychotic this all is, it just noted
that there was a backlash to the alt-right use of Pepe. It didn't at all
delve into a world where young girls fake outrage about things they don't
understand at all in order to make money on advertising.
The next part of the documentary is about people who took violence into
the
real world and, in the minds of many, simultaneously made literally
everything with which those people had previously associated evil and
worthy
of elimination, worthy of censorship.
Obviously, there are a bunch of idiots, psychos, and mentally ill people
who
supported this violence, much as the girl above was threatening to kill
because she was so angry. If we agree that she's probably not going to act
on
her dementia, then we also have to agree that almost no-one else will act
on
theirs, not matter how much we despise who they are as people.
Naturally, people will defend their "side's" threats of violence as
innocent,
while every single expression of dark humor on the other side as
absolutely
real and a harbinger of imminent violence. Because people are stupid.
Instead
of thinking at all about what the root causes are. Because, even after
forty
years of it, people still don't get how funny and easy trolling is.
Because
the Internet has killed irony for so many people.
Instead, you have people who analyze the frog being drawn with his thumb
under his chin as "being so smug, like he's above the discussion that
people
are trying to have about ... kindness." JFC, you people are so fucking
easy
to troll, it's not even right. The frog looks like literally every cheesy
author picture ever published. That person spent literally six seconds
drawing that frog and you've probably spent weeks of your waking life
writing
articles on Jezebel analyzing it. You can't even see when you've been had.
There's one dude who's likening the use of Pepe the Frog with pogroms.
Good
luck with that, buddy! Hope you look good in makeup when you get your
regular
spot on CNN. What a shitshow.
And you know what? Those memes were mostly pretty great. I don't agree
with
the politics at all, but they are pretty gold. Their meme game was
super-strong. It's also interesting to see how the alt-right and the
alt-left/mainstream media worked super-hard to build up this meme, just
because it was making lots of anger and money for everyone.
The artist was put on the ADL's list of slanderous symbols and he was
immediately ostracized. His friend told him to sue the Anti-Defamation
League
for defamation.
It literally doesn't get any better when they spend the 10 minutes talking
about crypto/NFT millionaires (363M in Pepe cash for one stoner). They
give
long, long minutes of time to young men -- all men, of course --
explaining
how the system works, as if there is any justification for anyone becoming
a
multimillionaire for buying frog-based electronic trading cards. One idiot
shows his most valuable trading card -- it has a typo -- then gets into a
Lamborghini and drives away. The only solace is that these idiots are
hopefully all broke now. I wish they'd shown him fishtailing his
overpowered
vehicle off of a cliff.
After that, they cover Furie's suing of Infowars and Alex Jones for having
appropriated his art and selling it. It was fine, but it was also
tediously
long, again interesting only for people who just want to watch Alex Jones
get
his just desserts, which I don't care about at all.
This was a reasonably well-made documentary, but you have to be a lot more
invested in the right/left, Dems vs. Reps, siloed bullshit than I am. You
could have made this documentary half as long and lost nothing.
Дом дураков / House of Fools (2002) -- "9/10"
This film is set in a hospital for the mentally ill in Ingushetia, on the
border of Chechnya. Zhanna (Yuliya Vysotskaya) is an inmate, but also
seems
more capable and is kind of the ad-hoc leader there. She has a lisp and
believes that Bryan Adams is her fiancé. I am not kidding when I saw that
the actual Bryan Adams is actually in this film, in her dream sequences.
He
is invariably singing Have You Really Loved a Woman?, which is actually
one
of his better songs.
The staff of the hospital leaves in order to find help, but they don't
return
for a long time. Instead, a group of Chechen soldiers set up camp nearby,
taking over the hospital temporarily. Their leader Ahmed is in the
basement
when she finds he and three of his compatriots, playing her accordion. She
asks for it back, then plays it for them. Ahmed says he would marry her on
the spot. She believes him.
In the meantime, some Russians show up with a tank, but they're only there
to
return the body of one of the Chechen soldiers. They make a deal, then
relax
together in the sun. They discover that they fought together in earlier
times. When the Russians leave, their commander leaves the money the
Chechens
had paid for the body with them, saying he owed them that much for having
saved his life way back when.
Zhanna and the other inmates make preparations. The next day, she leaves
in
her wedding dress, with her wedding hat, with her wedding makeup, carrying
a
small suitcase and her accordion. She enters the bunker and takes her
place
next to a reluctant Ahmed. The soldiers start to scuffle, but first
Zhanna,
then another guy takes over to play a song on her accordion, a song that
the
soldiers know. They stop fighting and start dancing.
Ali shows up to take Zhanna back to the asylum. The soldiers invite him
in,
offering him a drink and yanking his backpack off to see what's in it.
It's
full of poems. Zhanna says to read them. He begins to recite as he picks
the
papers off the floor. The leader of the Chechens begins to sing in a low
voice. The rest join in. It's quite beautiful.
Much later that night, Zhanna finds Ahmed and confesses to him that she
can't
marry him because it would break Bryan Adams's heart -- that he can't live
without her. Ahmed admits that he'd never intended to marry her, that he
was
just joking. He asks her forgiveness, which she grants. They talk about
the
war and how he came to fight. He admits that he'd bald, too. She says many
people are bald. "Lenin was bald. And smart. And his wife loved him." They
spend the night platonically in the gazebo on the asylum grounds.
In the morning, a bomb explodes nearby, terrifying everyone. The Chechens
are
inside again, this time collecting medical supplies. My edition didn't
have
subtitles for when the Chechen soldiers spoke to each other, which made
Zhanna's confusion feel more real. Vika is out there, proselytizing her
leftist rhetoric. Poor Zhanna tries to fix everything with her accordion,
playing it as the bombs fall.
Vika has stolen an AK and taken up arms against "Russian chauvinism and
imperialism". Ali tries to prevent them from stealing supplies; the
soldiers
beat him into a puddle forming in a crater. Behind Zhanna, a Russian
helicopter crashes and explodes on the grounds of the hospital. The
Chechens
had just driven off, firing into the sky. She doesn't stop playing her
accordion.
Who is really mad here? All are mad. War is madness.
The rain falls; Ali crawls out of the rapidly filling crater. Shades of
Tarkovsky.
The inmates wait out the bombs in the basement. The hospital is a
shambles.
Machine-gun fire in the distance. Helicopters. Glass everywhere. The tough
Lithuanian fighter -- a woman with a wounded shin -- is back in the
hospital,
sniping from the windows. She tells Zhanna to get in the basement. Zhanna
ignores her and stabs Polaroids of Ahmed with a bloody sliver of glass.
The
Chechen behind her is sniped herself and bleeds all over the night table,
the
insides of her head spilling into her helmet.
Soldiers burst into the hospital. Zhanna starts spiraling. Cue soft,
afternoon light. Cue piano and acoustic guitar version of Have You Really
Loved a Woman? and she's dancing with Bryan Adams as the hospital falls
down
around her ears. She goes back to an older inmate,
"You didn't eat your apple? The nurse says that God forgives. Will he forgive
everyone?
Who?
God.
Which one?
You know. God.
What do you see?
An apple.
Is that all?
Well, yes, what else? It's an apple.
I see different nations on that apple. People that love each other and
destroy each other, fighting for generations, and dying. They stare up in
hope to see my face. And you want me to eat them? I can only forgive them.
Just as I forgive you. I'm aware of your existence. (Я знаю что
ты
есть)"
The doctor returns the next day, with supplies and kind words. He finds
Zhanna pining for Ahmed, then wishing him a painful death.
Soldiers return, with tanks and guns, entering the hospital and searching
it,
top to bottom. The captain starts to have a panic attack, just unlacing
his
muddy boots. He confides to the doctor. He has lost so many friends and
colleagues. He asks for a shot. The doctor says,
"Do you know what the most important thing in war is? It's not victory. It's
death."
The solder gets his shot and is back on the hunt for terrorists,
reinvigorated. There's a shootout. It's with his own company. Who's mad
here?
The whole world is a madhouse. Only the inmates act calm and sane and
carry
on with their daily routine. In the cantina, Zhanna spots Ahmed in line,
getting food. Her face reveals a plethora of emotions crashing over each
other like waves. He's pretending to be an inmate. The others have a
chance
to give him up, but they quickly close ranks. The doctor pretends to buy
it.
Zhanna retreats into her Bryan Adams fantasy, starring in a video on a
train
of Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?
That this was Russia's entry for the best foreign film Academy Award for
2002
is wonderful. They really, really tried to reconcile with America. Here,
they
made a film about their war against Chechnya that wasn't particularly
flattering to the Russians. Not only was it published, it was submitted
for
an award in America.
Welcome to Dongmakgol (2005) -- "10/10"
The story is set during what Americans call the Korean War, in a remote
Korean mountain village called Dongmakgol, whose inhabitants have no idea
that their country has been divided in half, with the northern communists
("comrades") fighting the U.S.-backed army in the south (the "puppet"
army).
Chief Comrade Lee Su-Hwa (Jae-yeong Jeong) leads his wounded troops on
foot
into an ambush, losing nearly all of them. A handful survive and begin to
make their way to Pyongyang, across the mountains. Likewise 2nd Lt. Pyo
Hyun-Chul (Shin Ha-kyun) has lost his entire command and is ready to kill
himself when Army Medic Mun Sang-sang (Jae-kyeong Seo) saves him. They
grudgingly end up traveling together and also head over the mountain.
The all end up at Dongmakgol, led there a bit by "free spirit" Yeo-il
(Kang
Hye-jeong), who is a pretty little sprite who does what she wants when she
wants. She might be mentally handicapped or might just be completely
unrepressed and happy. I suppose it's a mark of our society that I can't
tell
the difference. She tells the Northeners that they should move because
there
are snakes. They laugh it off because they think she's a bit off. When a
snake lands on Jang Young-hee's (Ha-ryong Lim) arm, they expend all of
their
remaining ammunition trying to kill it.
The Southerners meanwhile also find the village and they end up in a
standoff
with the Northerners. They stand on opposite sides of a platform in the
middle of the village. They have also ordered all of the villagers to
stand
on the platform between them as they stand off against each other -- one
side
with only grenades, the other with empty rifles. After a night and a day
of
standing there, the villagers have gone back to their lives.
Yeo-il plucks the ring from a grenade for a lark. Northener Seo Taek-ki
(Deok-Hwan Ryu) clutches it harder, but eventually falls asleep on his
feet,
his grip on the grenade slipping until he drops it -- sans pin. Lt. Pyo
jumps
on it while the others jump away. It's a dud. They continue their
standoff.
Eventually, Pyo chucks the dud away, it rolls into the grain and corn
storage,...and explodes, destroying the village's food supplies.
The group of five wake up together, in a single hut. Seo has a flower in
his
hair. The others take time off from squaring off against each other to
enjoy
a laugh at his expense. They start to work in the fields, grudgingly
getting
used to each other, and helping the villagers rebuild their stores. Both
the
soldiers and the villagers begin to regret how quickly the stores are
restored, because it means that they will probably have to move on.
Seo starts to falls in love with Yeo-il. Pyo and Lee become friends. Jang
and
Seo become best friends. Smith helps out as well, though he keeps trying
to
communicate with home base from his crashed plane. This would be a mistake
because Smith's American comrades would get a fix on his downed plane and
will want to come to "rescue" him -- annihilating the nest of communists
in
the village as well. The long interlude of bucolic peace is over.
Avatar: The Way of Water juxtaposed the simple, bucolic, village life with
the batshit-insane and murderously violent and creed-less military
onslaught
of the Americans. This feels exactly like that. Fortunately, most the
landing
party gets caught up in a storm of butterflies emanating from the festival
and only five of them survive. They make their way to the village and
rudely
break up the party, threatening everyone's lives and yelling completely
nonsensical things about a war no-one knows or cares about.
When they start senselessly hammering on the chief, Lt. Pyo flips it and
stabs him in the neck with a stick, leading to a fracas in which all but
one
of the invaders are killed. They take him prisoner. Poor Yeo-il was
fatally
wounded in the bedlam.
The villagers are sad to see them go, barely understanding what's going
on,
but suspecting that it has something to do with the bad men who had broken
up
their party, assaulted their chief, and killed Yeo-il.
The six of them visit the prisoner and discover that he and his crew had
been
searching for Smith and that there is a bombing coming. Smith tells them
of a
weapons store that he'd found and they decide to use it to distract the
bombing attack to save the village. Pyo tells Smith that he can't
accompany
them, though; he has to go back to the base to thwart a second attack --
because one will come if they thwart the first one. There is no way he can
stay with them. He and the remaining soldier head to the base. They're all
dressed up in furs. They set up a Potemkin village and some firing
positions
and wait.
Mun sang-sang sings his song again as they wait for the approaching
bombers
to appear. They eventually appear, evil black spots, a dozen of them. They
are inexorable, uncaring, unfeeling, remorseless, inscrutable, and
completely
convinced of their own righteousness. They wield overwhelming firepower,
safe
in their airborne sanctuaries, merrily and gleefully destroying tiny
villages
on the side of a snowy mountain as if that were a viable military target.
The men avoid all the bullets -- and take out an oncoming plane with a
bazooka. The pilots are starting to sweat a bit. They take down another
plane. The snowy mountain looks like a moonscape. The remaining planes are
implacable and drop the real hardware. It is no longer fun. It no longer
feels like victory. Our poor heroes are taking some damage. Lee Su-Hwa is
hit
by a bullet; Pyo is knocked out by a bomb; Jang is killed by a bomb; Seo
is
killed in his machine-gun nest, avenging Jang.
There are so many planes. The force is overwhelming. They don't care. They
never do. They have their orders. They have their hate. They have their
machines of violence. They have their orgy of destructions. They have
their
lack of morals, principle, ethics, sense of history, empathy. They are
hollow
men. And they always, always win. This time they have been fooled into
destroying a snow crag instead of the village they were seeking. The three
remaining heroes stand on the hill, smiling at one another as the bombs
fall
on them.
Smith hurries onward to get to the base. He hears what's happening and
breaks
down in tears, but know he must push on, else even worse will happen to
Dongmakgol, else his friends' sacrifice will have been for nought. Because
the war machine hungers always for more, always seeking new targets,
always
finding new enemies. It exists to feed itself.
In flashback, Yeo-il visits the sleeping men and puts a flower in Seo's
hair.
This works very well as an anti-war movie, I think. I loved it and would
watch it again. It's darkly comic; it's deeply touching. The more I think
about it, the more I realize how much of this movie's plot Avatar: The Way
of
Water just lifted nearly wholesale. Sneaky, James Cameron, sneaky.
Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959) -- "7/10"
Elle (Emmanuelle Riva) and Lui (Eiji Okada) (no names; their names mean "her"
and "him" in French) have just spent the night together in Hiroshima, in
each
other's arms, discussing the city and the war and the bombing. She talks
about the museum. He tells her she's wrong. That she doesn't know.
Here I am watching another French Avant-Garde film -- and another anti-war
film. The pictures and films from the time are absolutely horrifying. He
asks
her about how she felt when it happened. She says that she can't believe
they
had the audacity, but that the world was happy that it ended the war. This
is
absolutely not why that happened. The war was already over. This is 100%
admitted fact, by both the U.S. government (and the always-charming Curtis
Lemay, war criminal sans pareil) and almost all historians.
Seeing the destruction, one can't help but think that the U.S. is one of
the
most criminal empires to have ever graced the planet. Of course, so were
the
German and Japanese empires -- but the U.S. one killed 200,000 and wounded
90,000 people in nine seconds and fetes itself to this day for its
bravery.
They wake in the morning and introduce themselves. She finds out that he's
an
architect and had taught himself French to learn about the French
Revolution
from original texts. She is leaving the next morning -- she's an actress
and
her shoot is over.
They part ways, with her saying she doesn't want to meet up again. Creeper
shows up on her film set. They go to a parade commemorating the Hiroshima
attack. People carry pictures of the dead and fallen. She cries in
empathy.
He's still creeping hard on her, "Je crois que je t'aime." Read the room,
buddy. They're literally standing behind someone in body makeup that looks
like a whole-body, bloody burn scar.
They go back to his apartment. She asks where his wife is. "In Unzen; I'm
alone." He says he's happy with his wife; she responds that she's happy
with
her husband. They embrace. Afterward, they lie entwined in bed and talk
more
about their pasts, about her fling in Nevers during the war. He was not a
Frenchman (presumably a German? He's definitely a soldier.)
They leave the apartment and wander the city. The film of the city itself
is
lovely. In a tea room, she tells more of the story. The town had
ostracized
her for having loved a German. They'd shaved her head; her parents had
locked
her in the basement. They'd waited for her "madness" to pass. In telling
her
story, she keeps referring to her former German lover in the second
person,
seeming to be speaking to her new Japanese lover. The story lingers on
her
way back from her exile for quite a long time.
She recalls have seen her German lover's death in the street before her
home,
how they'd come to retrieve him the next morning, how long it had taken
him
to die. She starts to freak out a bit, shouting in the teahouse. He slaps,
then backhands her to bring her to her senses. The whole bar turns around.
She continues her story as if nothing had happened. They keep drinking
beer,
she keeps talking about her former German lover, he keeps loving her. At
least she's back to the third person now.
They part ways again, late at night. She is to depart in the morning.
She's a
bit drunk, a bit overtired, and starts regretting that she'd told her
story.
She decides to stay in Hiroshima, with her new lover. She goes back to the
tearoom. He finds her outside. Creepin'.
I wasn't quite as impressed with the nature of this "tone poem" as others
seem to be. The film is in black-and-white, with pretty standard fixed
cameras, but the photography is really quite lovely. I found the story to
be
a bit pedestrian, though -- maybe it was more shocking when seen younger,
before having seen so many other movies and read so many books.
The philosophy is a bit bland, a bit superficial. He is like a prop -- his
overwhelming love for her is completely incomprehensible. Perhaps there's
the
juxtaposition of how much she feels herself to suffer for her ancient
relationship with a German soldier -- in a city that suffered more than
nearly any other. I mean, that's nearly shockingly solipsistic, but I'm
not
sure that's the takeaway that impresses so many others.
Despite this juxtaposition, she remains laser-like focused on her own
suffering, utterly without perspective. And he doesn't care. He loves her
unconditionally and begs for a handful of days -- whatever she's willing
to
give of her endless bounty of fascinating stories and personality. Either
that, or maybe she's just a roaring tiger in the sack.
I gave it an extra point for the lovely photography and decent pacing. I
watched it in French with English subtitles.
Bad Sisters S01 (2022) -- "9/10"
This is another one of those shows full of overly trusting people, none of
whom are really worthy of respect. There are some who are over-the-top
worse
than others, which feels like the show's pushing you to side with people
who
aren't really worth siding with either.
The storyline is about the Garvey sisters: there's single, semi-alcoholic
Eva
(Sharon Horgan), who works with John Paul Williams (Claes Bang), who's the
worst person on Earth and married to homemaker Grace (Anne-Marie Duff),
there's massage-therapist and "free spirit"/floozie Becka (Eve Hewson),
one-eyed Bibi (Sarah Greene), married Ursula (Eva Birthistle), who's
stepping
out on her husband, EMT Donal (Jonjo O'Neill).
They hate John Paul and he hates all of them. John Paul is dead at the
beginning of the first show. The rest of season is a flashback explaining
how
that came about. Mostly, it's pretty clear: John Paul is a vicious,
control-freak of a sociopathic monster who manipulates everyone and loves
to
torment for pleasure. It wasn't a matter of if, but a matter of when and
by
whom he would be murdered.
There's also a real piece of shit in the person of Thomas Claffin (Brian
Gleeson) and his half-brother Matthew (Daryl McCormack). They're insurance
agents who own the agency that has to pay out John Paul's life-insurance
policy. They can't afford to, so they're acting like police officers to
try
to find a reason to not pay out -- like maybe the sisters murdered the
sonofabitch.
Basically, John Paul is almost preternaturally evil and incredibly capable
and lucky and also helped by the fact that people who are having affairs
and
doing other sorts of shady things don't have a passcode on their phones,
which is, honestly, the fucking laziest sort of writing in this year of
our
Lord 2022.
It's almost as lazy as the sisters answering literally any question put to
them by the Claffin brothers. They have to answer them because they
literally
just always invite them in or let them in when they barge in uninvited. Is
that how single women work the door at their apartments? They're standing
there in their underwear, with shaving cream on their legs and when a
complete stranger shows up, you just step aside when they take a run at
you?
And then you answer all of their questions. I can't tell if this is even
lazier writing than leaving phones unlocked in 2022.
We see how the pressure builds and the sisters' pots all boil over and
they
each line up, ready to help kill John Paul.
Bibi's wife Nora (Yasmine Akram) is a treasure, though. She finally tells
the
Clafferty brothers what John Paul was really like: "Every time I saw him,
I
felt like punching him in the face."
They are quite inventive in finding ways of making him be an unimaginably
horrific "Prick". In E05, he chases his daughter Blanaid's (Saise Quinn)
cat
-- which she'd received from her aunties and which he hates -- into the
street with a hose, where it's promptly hit by a passing car. He leaves
its
body in the street and goes back to washing his boat. When Grace gets home
from a dance class that he hadn't wanted her to take -- she's too busy
caring
for his home -- and from which she'd fled before it had been five minutes
because she felt guilty about being away from her job of caring for the
Prick
all the time, she runs over the cat's body. When she discover's the cat's
body, Blanaid accuses her of always ruining everything. The Prick runs out
to
console her for killing the cat, and to tell his daughter not to be too
harsh
on her mother. Wonderfully cynically written.
In E06, Grace is starting to exert some independence -- although a very
minimal amount -- and the Prick starts to lose control when he finds her
vibrator (given to her by Eva, of course) and challenges her, telling her
that maybe he doesn't find her attractive is why they're no longer having
relations, but she forces herself past him to go on an overnight sports
thingie with Blanaid, after which the other sisters roofie the absolutely
ever-lovin' Christ out of him, but he rallies, leaving the house without
pants and driving down to his feckin' beloved boat because he needs to go
out
on the water with his boss Gerald, but he's got no pants and it's the
middle
of the night and he can't swim anyway and the roofie dose is absolutely
going
to debilitate his motor control at some point and that point is when he's
straddled across the boat and dock, exposing his wedding tackle from
behind
to the sisters, who are watching the train wreck of their plan come to
fruition because perhaps there is a God and the Prick falls in and sinks
beneath the surface forever and ever amen.
Except forever isn't as long as it used to be. Gabriel saves the Prick
from
drowning, for which JP returns the favor by trying to blackmail him for
being
gay and then taking a run at him, which Gabriel repays by cracking him in
the
jaw and sending him flying into a urinal. The prick has made another
enemy,
kind of. Gabriel is also mad at Eva because he thinks that she told the
Prick
about his homosexuality, which isn't the case, but it doesn't matter.
This thing is picking up pace, I must say. It got a bit rockier at the
end,
though. There are really no good people in this show at all. Everyone's
looking out for themselves, with no regard for what's right. The sisters
snipe on each other -- they're trying to kill a man. Grace is a pathetic
heap
of a woman. Thomas Claffin is garbage, motivated only by money. His wife
Theresa (Seána Kerslake) is also not interested in what might be right --
she's interested in helping her husband on his jihad, without regard for
how
many lives get ruined. Thomas and his wife are perfectly willing to cover
up
the horrendous fraud his father perpetrated on several customers, all the
while judging the Garvey sisters for their purported crimes.
Gabriel (Assaad Bouab) is an unassailably nice person. He's the best one
in
the show. Perhaps Matt Claffin is also pretty good, mostly, although he's
under the aegis of his horrible brother Thomas.
In the end, my guess turns out to be right and it is Grace who finally
snaps
and kills the Prick while they're at their cabin in the woods, on her
birthday. He treats her even more like garbage than usual -- "you're a
shadow, Mammy; you don't even exist when I turn out the light" -- and she
finally realizes that she's been kidding herself. She sets up his body to
look like he'd strangled himself driving home drunk on his snowmobile. Her
neighbor, who JP had turned in to the police for being a pedophile, shows
up
to help her.
Gracie finally admits her crime to the sisters, who breathe a sigh of
relief
that he's gone and who help her cover it up. Matt eventually discovers the
truth, but ends up burning the evidence -- and Grace ends up dropping her
claim on his insurance company.
Overall, this was a pretty strong cast and a pretty strong and unique
story.
I gave it an extra point because it very clearly didn't position itself
for a
second season. I would like to see this family again, but I like that they
had the stones to just end it, rather than setting up a possibly lucrative
continuation that serves only to make money, but not to extend the story.
Spirited (2022) -- "6/10"
The premise of this movie is that a modern-day manipulator Clint Briggs (Ryan
Reynolds) would be able to easily outwit a Ghost of Christmas Present
(Will
Ferrell) who's been doing the rescuing bad people bit for over 200 years.
Also, there are a fuck-ton of musical numbers, many of them featuring Ryan
Reynolds or Will Ferrell singing.
Clint runs a very successful image-consultant business with Kimberley
(Octavia Spencer). Over the one year of research they did on Clint, GCP
fell
in love with her. Clint proves a tough nut to crack. First, he sleeps with
Ghost of Christmas Past (Sunita Mani), then he starts to turn the tables
on
GCP, who actually used to be Scrooge. Clint, for his part, supports his
brother Owen (Joe Tippett), who adopted his niece (Marlow Barkley) because
he
wasn't willing to do it. He advises his niece to ruin her opponent's
career
in the sixth-grade-president race at her school.
The plot quickly becomes about GCP retiring and getting back to life, to
be
with Kimberley. Then he and Clint figure out how to live as a human rather
than a ghost. They end up back at Clint's X-Mas Eve party. Clint hands GCP
off to Kimberley and is picked up by Christmas Future (Tracy Morgan)
There are some decent lines and Reynolds is actually a different role than
he
usually plays -- a lot fewer one-liners, which was actually the right
call.
Ferrell has a couple of good lines,
"Clint: You know I pay for all of this, right?
GCP: You suck."
But he also has a couple of throwaway lines that are too current ("I think
I
have moderate to severe Crohn's disease") and won't have legs a couple of
years from now. Their chemistry is good overall, but they burst into song
much too often.
This type of musical is really not for me. The film is too long by about
45
minutes and it's crammed with songs that do nothing but let people like
Octavia Butler and Will Ferrell try to prove that they can sing in a
musical.
I don't like these highly orchestrated singing and dancing things with all
of
the sad extras, looking very obviously like they're hoping that someone
will
notice them in this movie and hire them for other things.
It was also obviously CGId, even in places where there was absolutely no
need
for it. The sets were antiseptic and felt mostly fake -- par for the
course
for a modern film, I suppose, but this film would have been an opportunity
to
have it feel warmer and more lived-in than movies generally feel nowadays.
Archer S13 (2022) -- "8/10"
In this season, the Agency -- now without Malory -- is a subdivision of IIA
(international intelligence agency), run by the Fabian (Kayvan Novak). The
plot arc for the season is the crew doing Fabian's bidding and trying to
get
their Agency back under their own control.
Cheryl (Judy Greer) is the same, but also a demolitions expert now. Pam
(Amber Nash) and Krieger (Lucky Yates) are a bit tamer than in previous
episodes, although Pam does fight a couple of times -- and we get to see
her
tattoo. Also, we get to see Krieger's new van. Cyril (Chris Parnell) is
also
the same old Cyril, pathetic and needy and terrified, but sometimes
useful.
Ray starts out as the leader nominated by Fabian, then seems to have
switched
to IIA, then turns out to have been a double agent, and the team comes
around.
Archer (H. Jon Benjamin) is perhaps a bit more alcoholic than in prior
seasons -- if that's even possible. Lana (Aisha Tyler) is in a custody
battle
with Robert (Stephen Tobolowsky) for a nearly tween-aged AJ (Kimberly
Woods),
who's quite capable in her own right.
They eventually get their Agency back under their own control -- despite
Fabian's and also Slater's (Christian Slater) best efforts. Slater
reprises
his role as the Agency's CIA liaison.
This is a solid entry in the series, not one of the best, but solid. I'm
just
happy that they're still making these, honestly. They're a lot of fun and
the
characters are well-worn, but wonderfully familiar at this point.
Inside Job S01--S02 (2021--2022) -- "9/10"
This is a cartoon about a company called Cognito, which is in charge of
running the deep state in the Unites States. Basically, every conspiracy
theory you can think of is true -- and was either promulgated or
perpetrated
by Cognito employees. The company was founded by now disgraced Randy
Ridley
(Christian Slater) and J.R. Scheimpough (Andy Daly). Randy is no longer at
the company, but his genius daughter Reagan (Lizzy Caplan) works there, in
a
very high-ranking position.
She's a genius with amazing engineering abilities (á la Rick Sanchez),
unbelievably and cartoonishly good, in fact, but that's just fine in a
cartoon. We're not supposed to think about how quickly she's able to
single-handedly engineer incredibly intricate devices that do things that
defy all of the laws of physics that we know. She builds not just slightly
more advanced technology, but actually impossible technology. Season two
ends
with a multi-episode arc about a machine that Rand invented that allows
him
to jump people into different time continua.
She leads a team comprising social-media expert Gigi (Tisha Campbell),
chemist/druggist/druggie Andre (Bobby Lee), dolphin-hybrid Glenn Dolphman
(John DiMaggio), giant mushroom from the planet's core Magic Myc (Brett
Gelman), the genocidal Robotus, Alpha-Beta (Chris Diamantopoulos) (created
and held hostage by Reagan), and endless optimist, nice guy, and doofus
Brett
Hand (Clark Duke).
They have a bunch of wacky adventures, saving the company and their own
jobs
several times. They go to the moon, They meet, befriend, and fight with
Bear-O. They meet the Illuminati. They are ordered about by the mysterious
Robes. Sasquatch has a cameo.
Reagan is pretty hilarious and refreshingly well-written. Her character
arc
is quite fun, going from beleaguered employee to CEO to partner with the
Robes in a long arc over two seasons. In season two, Ron Staedtler of the
Illuminati shows up as a heavy love interest and it's really well-done.
The
final episode is touching.
Several of the other characters are very good as well, but she stands out.
This show's a lot better than I expected it to be when I half-heartedly
clicked on it. It's clever and subtly subversive and a lot of fun for a
Netflix cartoon. It's not shockingly subversive, but there are enough
asides
that surprised me in their relative audacity.
Furthermore, as noted above, it doesn't mix with modern-day politics at
all
(or not yet, anyway). It takes for granted that there's an overarching
surveillance state -- the cartoon is literally about that organization. It
doesn't connect the dots to the NSA because it's a comedy not a
documentary.
Letterkenny S01--S03 (2022) -- "8/10"
This is the story of a rural community in Ontario called Letterkenny..
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. 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,
led by Stewart (Tyler Johnston). There are a handful of other bit players.
The story is basically that Wayne is a straight-shooter and the toughest
guy
in town. He spends part of season 1 proving it. He has a distinctive
style,
both in his mannerisms and his diction. It's quite funny. He likes to
farm,
smoke, and drink straight from the bottle. There are a lot of mini-skits
with
highly ritualized exchanges between the characters, usually, Daryl, Katy,
Wayne, and Dan.
There are a few other characters who show up now and again:
Bonnie McMurray (Kamilla Kowal)
She's sweet on Wayne (like most of the other girls, exceptin' Katy) and
very pretty
McMurray (Dan Petronijevic)
He's Bonnie's dad and very structured and not so bright. He's president of
the Ag.
Mrs. McMurray (Melanie Scrofano)
Horny as hell for her husband and loves the hell out of cursing and G&Ts
Tanis (Kaniehtiio Horn)
Head of the gang on the reservation; kind of has a thing going with Wayne,
maybe?
Joint Boy (Joel Gagne)
A beefy scrapper who's always smoking a joint; shows up as part of Wayne's
gang
Coach (Mark Forward)
Coaches the local hockey team; hilariously angry all the time, "It's.
Fucking. Embarrassing."
Tyson (Jay Bertin)
Local MMA guy; got his ass handed to him by Wayne; in his gang sometimes
Gail (Lisa Codrington)
Incredibly horny former bartender; always looking for love with Wayne
Glen (Jacob Tierney)
Local preacher and flamboyantly out gay man with several odd jobs
Jim Dickens (Alex McCooeye)
Also known as "Dickskin"; local auctioneer
There are a few story arcs: the hockey boys move up to the real league,
becoming schmelts, but then taking over when they're the only ones scoring
goals and the other, more senior players, are head over heels for Angie,
who's become a "puck bunny".
In season three, it's winter, so it's snowmobile and ice-fishing season.
There are also a lot more fart and shit jokes, which is a turn-off. They
also
lean way too hard on the ritual where each of the relatively unamusing
senior
hockey players say something snarky and then hand off to their teammate.
Those parts got old really fast. I'm honestly kind of curious how they got
to
eleven seasons with this thing. The first two were pretty solid, though.
Something different -- and it's about rural Canada, so that's nice.
The Assistant (2019) -- "8/10"
This is conceptually a great movie. It falls down a bit in the execution
because they communicate misery through muddy sound and dim lighting. They
succeed in their intent, though: the office where Jane works looks awful.
We
are assured that it's a high-powered talent agency, run by a
well-connected
and powerful Lothario. It looks like trash, though, with awful lighting,
cramped cubicles, and food and refuse everywhere.
Jane has so many jobs. She does them all. She's only been there for five
weeks and she already knows so much. It's utterly unclear who in that
office
could even have trained her. She looks tired and nearly incapable of
smiling
or enjoying anything. I only know her name from IMDb because no-one ever
recognized her by name; no-one else in the movie has a name.
Jane's life is misery. She's at the office at 06:00. She leaves around
21:00.
When she went to HR to complain about her boss's suspected sexual
proclivities, she said she'd been there for two months, but HR reminded
her
that it had only been five weeks. It just felt like two months. At about
40
minutes into the movie, it had felt like I'd been watching for much longer
already. In that sense, the movie absolutely succeeded in communicating
what
it was like to be Jane. This is not knocking the movie -- that was its
intent.
The HR scene is well-made: she goes in but is told to sit and wait for
someone to see her. As she's sitting there in this harshly lit and
unfriendly
space, another man shows up and is told by the same secretary to walk
right
in. After he leaves again, she's told that she can go in as well,
presumably
because it had now become too obvious that the man she was to see isn't
busy
at all, but just doesn't want to be bothered. She goes in, where he puts
on a
show of being busy, just to let her know who's important and who's in
charge
-- just what you want in HR, of course. As she tells her story, he becomes
increasingly hostile, finally telling her that she should be grateful that
she has a job. Basically, stay in your lane, Jane. Oh, and be happy that
"you're not his type."
Here's another example from toward the end of the movie:
Just before she's allowed to leave, she's listlessly dragging a fork
through
a microwaved plastic dish of something or other. Her boss calls her to
tell
her to go home, but it's kind of cut off. He can't even be bothered. She
dumps her meal in the trash and walks out. On the street, she makes her
way
to a close-by deli, where she buys a muffin. It's wrapped in plastic wrap.
It's not fresh. She peels off part of the plastic wrap, enough to take a
bite. Two large chunks of the muffin top fall off and land on the counter.
She nibbles the bit she's managed to get in her mouth. She wipes up the
two
lost pieces. She doesn't even seem to care -- she wasn't going to enjoy it
anyway.
She calls her father to apologize for having missed his birthday (she'd
worked the weekend). Her father tells her how proud her parents are of
having
gotten that job -- that she's going to go far. They want to hear all about
it, but not now. On the weekend. Now, her father has to go walk the dog.
Good
night, sweetie.
She wraps her uneaten muffin in its sad plastic wrap and shuffles out,
shuffling up the street, presumably to a subway, getting smaller as the
city
swallows her, to make her long and slow way home with the N or W train, to
Astoria. She has to be back in a car service at 05:00 the next morning,
for
another day of work.
The whole movie feels like this. It does a great job of making you aware
of
the misery of this kind of job and of the misery of working for people
like
that. It makes it clear that these places are everywhere.
Her co-workers are remote, although not completely without sympathy. Her
two
asshole, shirking co-workers (are they also assistants?) help her write
her
apology letters when her monster of a boss dresses her down for a
perceived
infraction. One of these infractions being that he heard nearly
immediately
that she'd been to HR about him -- because the head of HR called him
immediately, as, of course, HR would do, right?
But those two bros also kinda/sorta ask her if she wants to come out with
them, although they probably only asked because they knew that she would
say
no, because she's not allowed to leave the office as early as they are.
She
has to wait for permission to leave, like a dog waiting for its owner to
allow it to eat the biscuit perched on its snout.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=46442023-01-10T22:31:30+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
The Mummy II (2001) -- "8/10"
Rick O'Connell (Brendan Fraser) and Evelyn Carnahan (Rachel Weisz) are back
for another rousing, Egyptian-themed adventure. This time, they start off
in
some desert, investigating a tomb. They have their son Alex (Freddie
Boath)
in tow. Evelyn feels like she knows this tomb and keeps having visions of
what it was like in its heyday. She uses this knowledge to get into a
deeper
tomb, where they discover the Bracelet of Anubis, formerly owned by the
Scorpion King. The Scorpion King was a legend, supposedly a man who'd
ruled
over lands only because he'd promised his soul to Anubis. Anubis had come
to
collect.
They disturbed the tomb and tripped a flood trap that almost kills them.
They
retreat without meeting the other tomb raiders who'd happened upon their
camp.
Back in England, the other tomb raiders turn out to have been a group
intent
on raising Imhotep (Arnold Vosloo) once again. They are led by Hafez (Alun
Armstrong), Lock-Nah (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), and Meela (Patricia
Velasquez), who is the reincarnation of Imhotep's bride. All of these
people
converge on the O'Connell/Carnahan home to try to get the bracelet. Alex
turns out to have put it on, triggering it. Instead of finding Rick, the
intruders find Evelyn's brother Jonathan (John Hannah) and torture him for
information. Luckily, Ardeth Bay (Oded Fehr) is there to help fight
everyone
off. The intruders make off with the case (unaware that Alex had taken the
bracelet out).
The intruders get away and continue with their resurrection of Imhotep,
which
succeeds (partially, of course, as in the last film). They discover that
they
don't have the bracelet, though. Rick shows up to rescue Evelyn before
they
can start to convert her into Imhotep's bride. Rick, Evelyn, and Ardeth
improvise and escape with Jonathan and Alex in a double-decker bus with
several mummies in hot pursuit. They dispatch the mummies with lots of
danger
and fighting, and Evelyn gets all...amorous. Thus distracted, someone gets
onto the bus and kidnaps Alex.
They put together a rescue mission, engaging the services of a zeppelin
pilot
to find Alex. Adebisi almost certainly wants to be rescued from the highly
(and deliberately) irritating Alex. Meanwhile Imhotep has fed on three
underlings and gotten himself back to his full power. Now, there's a sort
of
dream sequence where Evelyn and Meela have a boss-girl fight and play-act
out
the conflict between Nefertiti and Cleopatra. Evelyn is so into the dream
sequence that she jumps off of the zeppelin and Rick barely catches her.
Alex keeps building replicas of the temples to which they are going next
so
that Rick and Evelyn and find him. They get closer, but Imhotep drives
them
away with an incredible wall of water that drives them into the valley of
the
Scorpion King, where there is an eternal oasis. There is a terrible battle
in
the jungle on the way to the temple, with a family reunion amid wholesale
slaughter. Even Jonathan steps up and makes himself useful.
They get Alex to the temple in time to get the bracelet off and save him
--
but then Meela stabs Evelyn to death. Hafez finds the bracelet and uses it
to
activate the temple. Rick wanders the temple, looking for revenge. He
finds
Hafez with his arm in the wall. Rick eventually wanders into the main
room,
where Imhotep -- now mortal -- is waiting for him. They engage in single
combat. Jonathan, amazingly, does the same, but against Meela. He's
singularly powered by his desire for revenge for his sister. Alex,
meanwhile,
is reading from the book of the dead, trying to resurrect his mother. He
succeeds.
However, his spell also awakens the scorpion king, in the form of an
uncanny-valley, CGI, Dwayne Johnson torso with a scorpion body. Meanwhile,
outside, Ardeth Bay and his army of friends have managed to subdue the
initial armies. But more scorpion armies are on the way. No-one is
vanquishing anything unless they can kill the Scorpion King. Luckily,
they've
been carrying a spear all along. Jonathan unfolds it and chucks it.
Imhotep
catches it and re-throws it, but Rick catches it. He stabs the Scorpion
King
with it and erases all of the armies outside.
Evelyn races into the collapsing room to save Rick, while Meela abandons
Imhotep, who lets himself fall into the pit rather than struggling
further.
They escape the temple and Izzy (Shaun Parkes) shows up with his repaired
zeppelin. It is absolutely impossible to imagine how he'd repaired that
wreck
in the middle of a jungle.
This wasn't as good as the original, but it's a fun group of characters
and
Brendan Frasier and Rachel Weisz are just a top-notch action-film couple,
so
they get an extra star.
Rick: I thought I'd lost you.
Evie: You did. Would you like to know what heaven looks like?
Rick: Later. *smooch*
Rambo: First Blood Part II -- "5/10"
Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is in a desert military prison but he's released
by Trautman (Richard Crenna) for a dangerous mission back in Vietnam. He
meets his teammates and is not impressed. His new commander Murdock
(Charles
Napier) is even less impressive. They tell him how he's to do his mission,
give him a ton of equipment, and drop him out of a plane over Vietnam. It
doesn't go great. He gets stuck on the side of the plane, so he misses his
drop point. He also has to jettison a ton of his equipment in order to
free
himself from the outside of the plane. That means he's just down there
with a
knife, his bow and arrows, and his ripped T-Shirt. He meets up with his
contact Co (Julia Nickson) and they get near the MIA camp. Instead of
following orders and just taking pictures, Rambo rescues one of the
soldiers
from the clutches of those dirty Vietnamese.
He manages to escape with Co and the soldier, but they're recaptured when
Murdock calls off all support. The Russians are at that camp as well (I
mean,
of course) and Podovsky (Steven Berkoff) tortures him. Before he can force
Rambo to make an announcement of some sort, Rambo breaks free (with the
help
of Co, who's re-infiltrated the camp). They escape together and are almost
away scot-free when Co is shot to death.
Rambo swears revenge and takes out nearly everyone at the camp. He steals
a
helicopter and rescues the remaining soldiers. The Russians give chase,
Rambo
shoots everyone down and heads home with his helicopter, coming in for a
bumpy landing at the base. Rambo goes to settle up with Murdock. He
destroys
all of his computers, but stops short of killing Murdock, charging him
instead with "finding all of the other missing soldiers."
They did mention, at some point, that there were only MIAs because the
U.S.
refused to pay the ransom to get its soldiers back. The politics in this
movie are otherwise shockingly simplistic. It is, at the very least,
pro-soldier rather than pro-military. It is pretty ridiculous. Pretty
close
to peak 80s movie. The credits music is shockingly bad. It cranks up the
jingoism to eleven.
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) -- "9/10"
This is a reasonably good anti-war movie that tries to show the hopelessness,
the senselessness of war. The movie follows the plot of the book pretty
well.
The handling is a bit literal, with a lot of dialogue and emoting.
However, that's the first two hours, which are decent, but nothing
spectacular. They do set up the finale, though.
The final twenty minutes of the film are worth the price of admission. It
finally starts to hit home how terrible and senseless the war is -- they
show
it rather than just saying it. Paul is on leave and no longer fits in. He
assures his mother that he will come back, when he knows he almost
certainly
won't -- he doesn't even want to. He is angry with his father and his
schoolteacher for their ludicrous and completely unhinged attitude toward
the
war. He tries to tell his professor that he's wrong, but the professor and
the students call him a coward.
Once he's back to the front, he finds his diminished company. They're only
a
handful of young men now, with only Tjaden and Kat left over from the
early
days, four years ago. The new recruits are sixteen years old. They're
eating
sawdust.
"Tjaden: The replacements are all like that. Not even old enough to carry a
pack. All they know how to do is die."
"Tjaden: Is it true about the armistice, Paul?
Paul: It doesn't look that way back there.
Tjaden: You mean they want us to go on fighting?
Paul: That's what they say.
Tjaden: They're crazy! Germany'll be empty pretty soon."
"Paul: The old men said, "Go on! Push on to Paris!" My father even wanted me
to wear my uniform around.
Kat: (laughs)
Paul: You're all I've got left, Kat.
Kat: I'm not much to have left. I've missed you, Paul.
Paul: At least we know what it's all about out here. There're no lies
here.
Kat: Push on to Paris? You oughta see what they've got on the other side.
They eat white bread over there. They've got dozens of airplanes to our
one,
and tanks that'll go over anything. What've we got left? Guns so worn they
drop shells on our own men. No food, no ammunition, no officers. Push on
to
Paris! So that's the way they talk back there."
Every true war story is the same. Everyone dies or is ruined. Kat would
die.
So would Paul. He dies when a French sniper shoots him as he reaches over
a
sandbag to touch a butterfly. He had a look on his face that reflected
perfectly that he had nothing left to live for. His former life was gone;
all
of his comrades had died. Kat was gone. The country he'd come from didn't
understand the war. They didn't care. What was he fighting for? What was
he
striving for? What did he have to live for? He had more in common with the
enemy soldiers than the children he fought alongside or the fools that
egged
the war on at home.
It's about a 7/10 for the first 3/4 of the film, but it ends so strongly
that
I had to bump it to a 9/10. I would watch this again. I'm looking forward
to
comparing it to the 2022 version.
The Priest's Children / Svecenikova djeca (2013) -- "8/10"
This is a movie about a small Dalmatian island whose population is dropping
drastically, especially among Croatian Catholics. One of the priests Don
Fabijan (Krešimir Mikić) decides to take action. He teams up with a
local
newspaper-stand owner named Petar (Niksa Butijer) to pierce condoms used
by
the local population.
Petar has been guilted into confessing to having "killed many people" by
his
wife, who thinks he's sinning by selling condoms. They all come up with
the
plan to pierce the tons of condoms they sell at the newsstand but, after
three months, there is no noticeable rise in the birth rate.
They regroup and decide to enlist the assistance of Marin (Drazen Kuhn),
who
is a shocking racist and enthusiastic participant. He only sells pierced
condoms to Catholic Croatians because he wants to keep the Serb, Muslim,
and
Albanian populations down. At the same time, he replaces all of the
island's
birth-control pills with placebos because he knows that women are doubling
up
on protection.
The plan finally bears fruit (no pun intended). Women are becoming
pregnant
and getting married in a hurry -- a huge win for the church. Of course,
things go sideways because no-one really wants the children, women get
desperate for abortions, and all sorts of other bad things happen. Three
men
are coerced into a paternity test; the lucky loser becomes an alcoholic
and
threatens to throw himself from a tower.
Petar and Marin pseudo-adopt one of the children (he can't adopt because
he
pretended to be insane to get out of military service in the war of
Yugoslavia) but he doesn't want to keep it and tries to abandon it, but
thinks again, at the last moment.
Fabijan is lying and causing havoc with his plan and slipping more and
more
off the holy pedestal. We actually meet him in the hospital at the
beginning
of the film, giving his confession to his replacement. Most of the havoc
is
women who don't want their children. Fabijan tells one couple they can
have
one girl's child, but that they have to help keep her from aborting for
the
next 20 days, until it's too late to abort. They kidnap her and lock her
in
their attic. The girl tries to abort with a coathanger, barely survives,
loses the child, and will also never have children again. Fabijan can only
look on in horror at what he has wrought.
The bishop arrives because Fabijan's maid (also Marin) has turned him in
because she thinks he's actually using the condoms. He says he's not, that
the condom she found isn't even used. She says that's even worse! That
means
he's doing it without a condom! The bishop says the same thing, because he
just can't conceive that the minister isn't doing anything untoward. The
bishop only needs to be convinced that Fabijan isn't diddling little kids.
Otherwise, he'd have to shuffle him about. The bishop leaves satisfied,
even
impressed with the condom-piercing plan, with dreams of trying it out
nationwide.
Another girl is found floating face-down in the harbor. Fabijan rescues
her.
She's only a young, young girl, but she's killed herself because she was
pregnant as well. Fabijan is forced to take his prior's confession -- he
was
the one fucking the underaged girl. This sends Fabijan around the bend.
At the same time, we hear news repots on various televisions, telling of a
Croatian delegation of children that are visiting Ratzinger, who was
well-known for covering up child-abuse scandals in Germany when he was a
bishop. The film simply does not stop piling on the bad news and cynicism.
Fabijan completes his confession to his successor. He is relieved of the
burden of the story, but his successor now cannot tell anyone else because
the horrific story was confessed under the sacrament. Fabijan can die
happy
now. He has a brain tumor. We see the ghost of the young, pregnant girl
appear, take his hand, and lead him away. His successor runs across town
to
the church, where he leaps into a confession booth and begins to unburden
himself.
A dark, cynical film, well-done.
I watched it in Croatian with English subtitles.
Adam's Apples (2005) -- "10/10"
Ivan is a minister at a church in a small Danish town. He takes in former
prisoners. He's already got Gunnar (Nicolas Bro), an alcoholic
kleptomaniac,
and Khalid (Ali Kazim), an armed robber and actual maniac, living with him
when Adam, a neo-Nazi, shows up. Ivan is nearly irrepressibly optimistic,
upbeat, and positive. He always sees the best side of things. He doesn't
really see that Gunnar and Khalid haven't gotten any better. He completely
ignores Adam's hostility.
We find out that Ivan had lost his wife to suicide when their child was
born
with cerebral palsy. That doesn't stop him from advising a distraught
woman
Sarah (Paprika Steen) from having her own child, even though the doctors
told
her that it had a 60% chance of being born severely handicapped. He tells
her
"those are just statistics." We also find out that Ivan and his sister had
been buggered every day by their father to within an inch of their lives
when
they were children, until the old man died. Their mother had died giving
birth to Ivan.
Adam pummels the living daylights out of Ivan, but he acts as if nothing
had
happened. He just says he has to go to town to the clinic and asks if
anyone
needs anything while he's there. His face is absolutely mangled, but
Gunnar
doesn't blink an eye and asks Ivan to get him some "medicine", holding up
a
booze bottle. Absolutely no problem.
The eponymous apple tree in the yard is pivotal to the metaphor of Adam's
soul. It is growing well, with plenty of apples, but dozens of crows
descend
on it. Adam is supposed to make an apple cake at the end of August. Adam
procures a gun for the purpose of scaring Ivan into admitting that he's
full
of shit, but Ivan doesn't blink an eye and says that shooting the birds
would
be a good idea. Before Adam can do anything, Khalid laughs, saying "Why
didn't you say we could use guns?" and starts blowing them all away with
his
own gun. He takes out Gunnar's cat, which drops from the tree. Ivan
convinces
Gunnar that the cat was just old and had dropped dead. There is a giant
red
gunshot wound on the white cat.
There are dead birds everywhere.
Ivan visits Adam in his room, which he's decorated to his own tastes.
"Ivan: [looking at a portrait hanging on the wall] Oh, oh, oh ... what a
handsome man. Your father?
Adam: That's Hitler.
Ivan: No, Hitler had a beard.
Ivan: [Looking closer] Ah, you're right. I'm thinking of that Russian
guy."
These people are mad.
Even the doctor keeps asking Adam how his hand is -- the one he injured
beating the absolute living Christ out of Ivan. The doctor just laughs
that
Ivan won't "ever have to waste money on perfume because he'll never smell
anything again." Adam just looks on perplexed. Ivan is decked out in his
customary shorts and sandals. Both probably rode there on their bicycles.
They are there to visit Poul (Gyrd Løfquist), a survivor of a
concentration
camp. At least that's how Ivan described him to Adam at first. He later
revealed that Poul worked at the camp. He's now lying on his deathbed.
Ivan
and Adam visit -- with Ivan telling Poul that he has to buck up, that all
is
forgiven. Poul can't forget what he'd done to all of those poor people.
Ivan
tells him that all is forgiven. "God forgives all." Poul slips away.
Ivan lives in a fantasy world. Adam questions him about his wife. Ivan has
an
answer for everything. He even pretends that his son doesn't have cerebral
palsy. Anytime someone tried to penetrate Ivan's protective veil of lies,
he
accuses them of "being just plain rude."
He takes his son Christopher with him to the church the next day. The boy
is
completely paralyzed. Adam puts on the pressure, trying to get Ivan to
admit
how horrible his life was and is.
"Your son's a spastic. Your wife killed herself. Your mother died giving
birth to you. Your father raped you."
Ivan's starts bleeding out of an ear. Ivan says nothing. Adam is
triumphant.
Just super self-satisfied with his evil piercing of Ivan's veil, at having
forced the three idiots to admit that they're living in a fantasy world
together. He smiles and exhorts Ivan to "give up."
Ivan does not. He turns the other cheek when Adam slaps his barely healing
face. He doesn't flinch when Adam head-butts him into unconsciousness.
Cut to a shot of an apple on the tree with worms coursing in and out of
it.
Adam drags rag-doll Ivan to the car and takes him to the doctor. The
doctor
reveals to him that Ivan has a volleyball-sized tumor in his brain. Ivan
blocks it all out because he thinks he's in a struggle with the devil.
Back at the house, Christopher is still there -- with Sarah, who's
freaking
out. She gets nihilistic and starts playing quarters with Gunnar, who's a
pro
and makes her drink all the time. Adam wanders through in black bikini
briefs
and yells at her that she's pregnant and can't be drinking. "It's a little
late for that now, isn't it?"
Adam's portrait of Hitler keeps falling off the wall. The bible on his
cabinet keeps falling on the floor, flapping open to the Book of Job.
After the beating and the subsequent head-butt, Ivan's nose is bent nearly
out of recognition. He pays it no mind, carrying this burden like all the
others. Adam asks him "what if it's not the devil who's testing you?" He
proposes to Ivan that it's God who's tormenting him. Adam presses him to
believe that it's God, that he's a modern-day Job. Ivan asks him why he's
doing it? "Because I'm evil. And you can't change that."
What if, though, it's actually the Devil who's tormenting Ivan and Adam is
just another weapon he's using? What if it's the Devil who kept making the
Bible fall open to the Book of Job? What if Adam is just the Devil's pawn?
A bolt of lightning splits the apple tree asunder and burns it down.
However, even though it's summer, Adam has begun wearing long-sleeved
sweaters, covering up his swastika tattoo. He takes Ivan to the hospital.
He
drives him home, briefly turning on Ivan's easy-listening music ("How Deep
is
Your Love?").
Ivan follows Adam's advice from before. He gives up. He tells the troops.
They all blame Adam for having ruined everything.
Adam's skinhead friends appear and catch him trying to find some good
apples
with Khalid. They're going to try to make Ivan a cake. The skinheads roll
up
and threaten Khalid. He calmly shoots the big one in the knee. The leader
moves in on Khalid and threatens that he's going to kill him, "You nigger,
you're dead. [mimes gun to head]". Khalid shoots him point-blank in the
chest, "you stupid? I have gun.". Then he shoots him in the back as
they're
retreating. Adam takes the gun away, but does nothing else. Khalid claims
that he's unbalanced because he doesn't like seeing Ivan like he is now.
Gunnar is hammered and wandering the halls with a bottle of oil, an
eggplant
and a tennis racket. He used to be a tennis star before he became a fat
alcoholic. He tells Adam that he doesn't know where Sarah is, but she's
passed out and tied up in his bedroom. Adam frees her. Gunnar and Khalid
are
off the rails. Khalid is testing guns in the parking lot. Adam volunteers
himself and Gunnar to ride along on Khalid's next gas-station robbery.
Adam
goes in first to try to protect the employees. He manages it and steals a
toaster oven to replace the oven that keeps shorting out in the church.
They get back to find that Sarah and Christopher have eaten all of the
apples. Also, Adam's neo-Nazi friends are back, with reinforcements. They
start to beat on Adam. Ivan comes out to help him. Ivan starts to
confiscate
weapons that "make noise [...] so he can die in peace" and gets shot right
in
the eye. The inside of his head is on the outside. He's not dead. The
doctor
calls his condition a "half-Kennedy" and says that Ivan won't survive the
night.
Khalid leaves, taking the church car. Gunnar returns an apple to Adam that
he'd swiped earlier. Adam makes a tiny one-apple tart for Ivan, using the
oven he'd stolen from the gas station. He hurries to the hospital to bring
it
to Ivan. Ivan is not in his bed. The doctor is packing his things,
muttering
that he's "going somewhere where the sick die" because Ivan has gotten up
and
is sitting in the garden, eating a cheeseburger. The neo-Nazi shot his
tumor
away and healed him. Adam takes the tart to him. Ivan won. They eat the
cake
together, Ivan's head bandaged up with only one eye showing.
Ivan officiates Sarah and Gunnar's wedding. His nose and temple are a
mess.
One eye is almost certainly fake. Adam's hair has grown in. Sarah's child
has
Down's syndrome. They're moving to Indonesia. Ivan asks if they're going
because of the tigers. Gunnar says that it's so the child's eyes won't be
as
noticed (JFC what a dark, dark joke) and because the tennis courts are
good
there. Ivan says that tigers are fascinating. He's back.
Ivan and Adam pick up two ex-cons who are going to stay with them. They're
driving across the idyllic countryside, listing to "How Deep is Your
Love".
Ivan sings along. Adam finally joins in, mouthing a few words.
I watched it in Danish with English subtitles.
Im Westen Nichts Neues (2022) -- "5/10"
The film starts in a battle. Heinrich is charging out of a trench, watching
everyone die around him. We see his body plucked from a pile and thrown on
the ground. He is stripped, his clothes bundled with others to be washed,
holes sewn up, and prepared for the next wave of child soldiers.
We meet Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer) and his friends at school. They hear
the rousing speech, they sign up for war. They arrive 25 miles from the
front
and are stopped. Their trucks are commandeered by doctors. There are too
many
wounded to transport. The boys are forced to march to the front. They have
to
do a gas-mask drill. They have to bail a flooded trench. They meet
Katczinsky
(Albrecht Schuch), who is wise in the ways of war.
Though it's in German and should thus feel more authentic, it veers far
away
from the plot of the book. The 1930 version stuck pretty much to the plan.
This one is making war look pretty, which is not a great start. It
continues
to be a very pretty movie, and it continues to have nearly nothing to do
with
the book. There are a few lines that are familiar, but it also focuses
very
much on the high-level generals actually running the war, explaining the
war,
explaining the reasoning. There is no reason to explain. There is no
reason.
The other film didn't explain the war. It was senseless.
The film focuses a bit too much on the tension between the officers and
the
soldiers. It feels a bit more like Full Metal Jacket -- in the truck,
chiding
the young soldier for not taking care of his gun, or in the barracks,
rousting the men from their beds -- than the book or even the 1930 movie.
They also rely a bit too much on the soundtrack -- that feels almost
swiped
from Dark -- to create tension.
There is a long scene where Matthias Erzberger (Daniel Brühl) asks the
French for a ceasefire. They grant it, but only 72 hours from now. Many
more
will die. The weird thing is that Paul was in the war for four years and
it
feels like he only just got to the front and the war's already ending.
They're in the trenches, but it glorifies the fighting. Kat looks like
he's
playing Counterstrike, just head-shotting people in close quarters. There
isn't enough confusion, the director lends too much coherency to the
battles.
The soldiers can see who's shooting, can see where the bullets are coming
from. The book and original movie gave no such comfort.
Now they're in a gorgeously lit courtyard, eating soup with bits and
pieces
in it, with potatoes. They have clean silverware. There's no sawdust in
the
food. The food is something other than sawdust. Tjaden commits suicide
with
his fork. This is nothing like the book. Now Kat and Paul are talking
about
what they'll do after the war. They're stealing a chicken again. They
walked
across an untrammeled field to get there. It's snowing lightly. It's quite
beautiful. Most of this movie is too clean.
And now Paul's being chased around a barn by a French farm-family. I don't
remember any of this from the book. OK, I'm annoyed now. The farmer's son
found Kat in the woods and shot Kat. This is just a completely different
story. It doesn't show the senselessness of war. The man was shot for
stealing duck eggs. And now Kat is feeling sorry for himself. That is
absolutely not what he did in the book. He accepted his fate because he
had
nothing to live for anyway. In this movie, they're hopeful that the war is
ending with them alive.
And Paul never went home, never learned how war-hungry those at home were
(that was one of the more sobering passages in the book and the original
film). Just gone.
And now the completely made-up German general is making them all go into a
battle even though they all know that the armistice starts at 11:00.
Fifteen
minutes before the official end of the war. Was having Paul just be killed
on
a "clear day" not exciting enough? Did they have to have a fucking
countdown?
I hate this movie.
Oh God, now we're being introduced to French soldiers, so we see both
sides.
This is really stupid. I mean, I guess it's senseless, but Paul didn't
really
get to the point where he just gave up. He's still trying to save himself.
I gave it a lower score so that you save yourself some time and watch the
1930 version instead. That versions's got some hokeyness, but at least it
doesn't feel like someone made a Marvel movie out of it. I thought the
American accents were out of place. I thought it would be better with the
original German language. It's not. It really, really isn't.
Paul's berserker-raging in the fields and the trenches now, taking out
people. Now a Frenchman is on top of him and he's drowning in mud. Would
that
it would have ended with Paul's death, but it doesn't. Paul finds a rock
and
knocks out his attacker. Then, he and another guy see a gun lying between
them and fight over it. This is filmed like Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking
Barrels -- it is glorifying the violence rather than driving home how
senseless it is. They kind of get at it with the armistice, that Paul was
killed just seconds before 11:00, stabbed from behind as he hesitated to
kill
a French soldier that looked like him.
He then has a long death scene, where he seems to be walking into the
light.
He seems to be communing with a benevolent God, for whom this war might
mean
something, or who might forgive Paul his transgressions in it, or who
might
be able to explain what the fuck is going on. This scene is too pretty,
too
long, and too explicatory. It really goes to show that you have to try a
lot
harder to make an anti-war film because you almost always end up honoring
the
sacrifice, which is not what you should do. Those who were in the shit
know
that the sacrifices are meaningless. That's why the most anti-war people
are
people who've actually seen war and those most pro-war are those who will
never feel the downsides, but will only feel the upsides, as their
fortunes
are built or buoyed by the spoils of war.
In the 1930 film, Paul doesn't care whether he lives or dies because he
only
knows war, all of his friends are gone, and he can't go home anymore.
That's
why he reached for the butterfly, because touching something beautiful was
more important than anything else, even survival. He doesn't walk into the
light. The camera doesn't linger on him. In fact, the last thing we see is
his quivering hand as he is shot. End scene. No honor, no God, nothing.
I give this version a big nope.
I watched it in German with German subtitles.
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) -- "8/10"
James Cameron hates people and capitalism and plundering and piracy and
globalism and hypernationalism and he probably hates the U.S. of A. more
than
a bit but, most of all, he hates colonialism. He fucking hates
colonialism.
He hates it so much that he's made two giant blockbuster movies about it
and
he's going to make three more just to drill the point home that there is
nothing respectable about colonialism, that there is no justification for
it,
that it is always morally wrong, that it is always extractive, that it is
about taking what you don't think you have to pay for, about denigrating
entire species and races and animals as fodder for your egocentric
machine.
He is not subtle, but he is good at what he does. The ships of the
sky-people
returning to the planet were incredibly powerful and incredibly
destructive.
Whereas spaceships usually land lightly and easily, these ships tore into
the
planet, burning dozens of square kilometers of forest with their rocket
backwash. They landed and opened their maws, regurgitating mechs and giant
bulldozers that finished the job the rockets started. Animals fled and
burned.
The colonialists are interested only in resources and gain. They see no
life,
nothing worth protecting or respecting. They don't care. They don't even
seem
to have the capacity to care. They are as empathic with Pandora as many of
us
would be with a rock, perhaps less so. The soldiers that accompany them
learn
nothing from any of their experiences. They stay exactly the same. They
show
up in tattoos and Oakley sunglasses and camo-pants. They don't learn
anything, even after going native, after communing psychically with
animals.
Which don't get me started on the amount of stuff they had to make
conveniently work in order to make the battle at all even. The first movie
had the battle between the decidedly non-technological forest creatures
and
the hyper-technological sky-people. The sky-people stuck to their own shit
and they did their thing well. They were eventually defeated, but not
because
they didn't have powerful weaponry.
In this one, they also have the same powerful weaponry, but they also are
just as good at using the power of the planet, which annoyed me a bit.
Jake
Sully and his clan should have absolutely handed those jarhead idiots
their
asses inside of three minutes instead of having several pitched battles,
some
of which came to a standstill. Quaritch (Stephen Lang) got his own
sky-steed
about 40 times faster than Jake. Why? Why was he so good at riding the
thing,
like, immediately? How is an asshole like Quaritch able to commune with a
beast so quickly? Explain, please.
Ok, so the basic plot is that Jake and his family have had kids and stuff
and
they're happy and ruling their own clan on Pandora -- when Jake (Sam
Worthington) sees a new star in the sky. He knows that his kinsmen -- the
Sky-people -- are coming back. Their landing is incredibly powerful, as
described above. They begin to mine the planet again -- and also the
oceans.
Jake and his clan lead the resistance for a year, but the noose tightens.
Jake realizes that his presence is now endangering the tribes, but he also
couches it in terms that he just cares about protecting his family.
They pack up and head for the islands, where they are reluctantly taken in
by
an ocean-dwelling clan of Navi. They teach them their ways -- this goes on
for a long time and is quite beautifully rendered, to be honest -- and
then
the plot picks up again. One of Jake's sons goes outside of the reef with
his
new friends, but they abandon him there. He is chased by a savage
shark-like
beast that goes unnamed, but he's saved by a Tulkan named Payakan. Payakan
had been ostracized from his tribe because he'd allowed other Tulkan to
die
(somehow). Tulkan are supposedly more intelligent than humans, but their
philosophy is pretty primitive and stunted -- but then so is the one
employed
by humanity, for the most part, so maybe that's representative of
something.
Quaritch and his crew finally show up, there's a truly depressing and
impactful/compelling chase of a Tulkan that is Cameron hammering the point
home of man's cruelty to literally everything else on whatever planet they
happen to be on. They show the team take out a mother because she's going
to
be slower to protect her calves. They slaughter the mother and extract
about
a kilogram of magic juice that prevents aging in humans. Cameron is not
subtle, but boy is he effective.
Quaritch is now closer to his prey and closes in. He is brutal, burning
villages, torturing villagers, and slaughtering their animals. Cameron is
not
subtle, but he's effective. This is Vietnam. This is Iraq. This is
everyone
where a conquering army enters. Many will think of Russians instead of
Americans because they're brainwashed, but I guarantee you that Cameron
was
thinking of America's many crimes of invasion when he made these scenes.
They're unmistakable. He all but reproduced the Collateral Murder video
from
Wikileaks.
There is an epic battle wherein Payakan kicks a tremendous amount of ass,
taking out most of the humans, with Jake and his family and his new clan
picking off the rest. Cameron manages to stick about thirty minutes of
Titanic into this film as the awesome hovercraft pitches over and sinks.
Lo'ak saved Jake, Kiri saves Tuk and Neytiri, and Spider saves Quarritch
(they need him for the next movie, duh).
The visuals are so convincing that I completely forgot that none of it was
real. Literally nothing ruined the simulation. With enough money and time,
we
can literally make anything feel real now. It was an amazing action movie.
It
was very long, but I honestly don't know what I would have cut from it.
Maybe
made two 100-minute movies out of it, I guess?
I saw it in 2D and English with German/French subtitles.
Decision to Leave (2022) -- "8/10"
This is a Korean police procedural that focuses on the wife Song Seo-rae
(Tang Wei) of a man who'd fallen off a mountain while climbing. She is a
Chinese national who'd come to Korea and had been given asylum a long time
ago, marrying a much-older man (the one who died on the mountain). Jang
Hae-joon (Park Hae-il) is the officer in charge of the case. He is an
insomniac and has a lot of open cold-cases that he won't let go of.
He is pretty much immediately enthralled with Song, even though his
relationship with this wife Jeong-ahn (Lee Jung-hyun) seems to be OK,
although perhaps a bit long in the tooth. He is an attentive husband who
helps out around the house, etc. He has his own apartment in the district
where he works, so he's not with Jeong-ahn as often as she'd like.
In Korean movies, everyone gets really, really tired from running across
half
the city. Both the criminal and the police officer have to stop to take a
breath before they continue their showdown. Instead of a gun, the
detective
has a chain-mail glove that he uses to counter the knife that the criminal
has. Like, he actually has it on him.
There are other nice, cultural differences. When the chief of police
visits
Jang, everyone else in the office gets up from their desks and issues a
slight bow, even though he doesn't even see it. When Jang gets his drunken
partner Soo-wan (Go Kyung-Pyo) from Song's apartment, they're all in
stocking
feet.
Jang vacuums and cleans up Song's apartment, cleaning up his partner's
mess.
She knows that he's surveilling her -- and likes it. They develop a
platonic
relationship, but they do end up at his apartment and cooking together,
which
seems quite intimate. He's still keeping his eyes open because he's a good
cop. Song's job is to care for the elderly. When she can't make it to her
"Monday Grandma", Jang offers to help.
He begins to suspect that Song has actually killed her husband when he
notices that Grandma's phone has stairs climbed on it -- even though she
hasn't left her single-floor flat in ten years. Jang climbs the mountain
and
learns how Song did it, how she'd killed her husband. He is waiting in her
apartment when she returns. He asks why she didn't go to the police if he
was
beating her so badly? Her husband had threatened to return her to China.
But
none of that is true. She set it all up -- making it look like her husband
had been beating her, making it look like Soo-wan had torn her apartment
apart. She claims that the time they spent together was not false, though.
He tells her he's broken, tells her to get rid of the phone, lets her off
the
hook, then leaves the apartment. She has to look up the word that he used
for
"Broken" because her Korean, while very good, has gaps. That, too, is a
nice
touch.
The filming style is interesting: when Jang is investigating, he will
often
be right in the scene that he's envisioning to have happened. At first,
it's
a bit confusing and jarring because you're wondering whether someone's
going
to see him, but then you realize that he's just a thought-ghost. It's a
nice
device.
Song and her new "husband" meet Jang and his wife at the market in his
wife's
home town. It is super-awkward. Like, world-record-setting awkward. Days
later, her second husband is dead. He was killed by people to whom he owed
money. She cleaned up the crime scene, though. She's so suspect, honestly,
it's hard to tell what's going on with her. Jang accompanies Song to a
mountain to help her finally put her ancestors to rest. Jang's wife leaves
him -- like, in the middle of the night -- because she suspects/knows that
he
is having an affair with Song.
Although she didn't murder her second husband, she did slip fentanyl pills
to
the mother of the Chinese henchman who was after her husband. That
gentleman
had promised to kill her husband as soon as his mother died. So Song kinda
sorta killed her husband? Anyway, she goes to a beach and kills herself in
a
pretty gruesome manner. She digs a deep hole in the sand and lies in it,
waiting of the tide to fill it with water and sand. Jang finally locates
where she'd gone, but can't find her, twirling in the surf at sunset in
anguish.
This was a lovely film with a very unorthodox plot. I feel like it could
have
been a bit shorter, but have to admit that I didn't follow everything as
well
as I could have. I blame the sub-par subtitles. I really liked the
code-switching between Chinese and Korean though -- I'm fascinated by
films
that show how multilingual so many cultures are.
Le Petit Soldat (1963) -- "7/10"
This is a film by famed Swiss director Jean-Luc Godard about a young man and
a young woman who fall in love, but are on opposite sides of the Algerian
War. Bruno Forestier (Michel Subor) drives around Geneva, taking pictures
and
doing deals and generally being a sort-of spy. He meets Veronica Dreyer
(Anna
Karina), who is lovely and he falls in love with her immediately (on the
first day, he loses a CHF50 bet to his friend that he would not do so).
Bruno gets an invitation to Veronica's apartment to take pictures of her.
As
he's snapping pictures, he thinks to himself, "she was less beautiful than
the day before." She says that she's Russian, but was born in Copenhagen,
and
is now living in Geneva, speaking French. "A foreigner speaking French is
very attractive." She is quite beautiful, looking a bit like Milla
Jovovich.
They talk some philosophy, music, and art. As with The Forbidden Planet,
we
are confronted with a deeply ingrained chauvinism. he corrects her on the
time of day when one is supposed to listen to Mozart (20:00), Bach
(08:00),
Beethoven (00:00), and Haydn (good for late morning). What bizarre rules.
"She's convinced Gauguin was better than Van Goh, which obviously isn't
true."
They fight because she's changing her mind about whether she likes him or
not. "You shouldn't give your arm to men you're not interested in." He's
angry that she's made him interested, but now he can't act. He blames her.
A
story as old as time. I honestly don't know whether Godard believed this
or
whether he was pointing out the scandal that others believe this.
They sleep together. We know because they wake up together. He's smoking.
"God, she's beautiful." The police arrive and take him in for questioning,
for desertion. This is just a threat from his colleagues, punishing him
for
not having killed a rival. He tries to kill the man, but is foiled by
circumstance and his own cowardice/hesitancy. He bungles it again,
angering
not only the French, but now also the Arabs. He tells Veronica that he's
flying out of Zürich to Brazil.
He is kidnapped by the Arabs before he can escape the country, though.
They
torture him into giving up his colleagues for terrorism. "Torture in
monotonous and sad. It's hard to talk about." After a while, he manages to
escape the apartment by jumping out the first-floor window. He calls
Veronica, who agrees to help him and to escape to Brazil with him.
They talk some more. He's a common, typical racist, hating things he's
neither seen nor experienced. He's so young, but he has such fixed ideas
about how different peoples are. He is utterly convinced of his own
intellectualism. I wonder whether Godard viewed this man as a hero (I
think
not) or rather as a caricature of the faux-intellectuals that litter the
landscape. After his tirade about politics, he thinks "Women should never
get
older than 25. Men become more handsome as they grow older, but women
don't
age well." Ah, he seems to be an expert on everything.
Bruno calls his colleagues, who keep him on the line long enough to record
his voice. He leaves her apartment just as they're arriving. They fool her
into letting them in by playing the recorder. They pick her up as an "FLN"
informer,
torturing her horribly to get her to give up the new FLN headquarters.
They
promise him that he'll get Veronica and their passports back if he kills
his
target. He finally does. He learns that Veronica is already dead. He looks
forward to a long life, anyway -- because he's pretty shockingly shallow,
despite his veneer of intellectualism.
The film is shot primarily in Geneva. Like Bergman, Godard manages to
elicit
the most beautiful portraits and close-ups. The combination of
philosophical
musings in voice-over and closeups imbues the film with import.
Breathless (1960) -- "8/10"
Michel Poiccard (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is a small-time car thief. While
cruising la campagne after a theft, his car breaks down just as the police
are searching for him. He had found a gun in the glove compartment and
impulsively uses it to kill the gendarme. He returns to Paris to lay low
and
look for a way to escape to Italy. He reconnects with an old flame,
American
student Patricia Franchini (Jean Seberg). They flirt back and forth, with
him
pushing hard for them to end up in the sack together, her resisting, but
eventually giving in. You have to hand it to him: he's really in
tremendous
shape for someone in 1960.
She's pregnant. He tells her "you should have been more careful." That's
pretty much all you need to know about his character. As in Le Petit
Soldat,
the lead actor smokes all the time, has an unjustified confidence in his
own
intelligence and rectitude, and treats women like a prize to be gained,
despite their inferiority and need for a man to make their lives
meaningful.
He's basically a dumb pig, surrounded by a cloud of smoke. As with the
previous film, I honestly can't tell whether we're supposed to identify
with
him as a cool guy or whether we're supposed to see through his veneer and
feel sorry for Patricia, who can't seem to help but be mixed up with him.
As in Le Petit Soldat, the camera is nearly always on the move, following
cars, people -- I think this dynamism is what Godard brought to cinema.
That,
and his extreme, roving close-ups and long discussions between male and
female characters. I notice that both of the girls that Michel visits have
pictures of themselves on their own apartment walls. It's like the only
job a
pretty girl could have is being a model.
The film is so of its time: it's perfectly normal to sit around in a
convertible, smoking and reading a newspaper. You literally blended into
the
background. No cop noticed you.
Patricia attends a press conference at Orly airport with a famous French
actor Van Doude. He hits on Patricia, which makes her smile. He answers
two
of her questions. "Deviner immortel et puis mourir."
Meanwhile, Michel is trying to scare up money for his escape to Italy. A
man
who owes him money is persistently unavailable. He tries to sell his car,
but
the man withholds payment for a week -- he knows that Michel is a wanted
man.
The police catch up with Patricia at the Herald Tribune where they reveal
to
her that he's killed a police officer. She stays cool, says she's seen him
but that she doesn't know where he is. The cop threatens her with
"passport
problems" if she doesn't help them.
Patricia expertly drops her tail and meets up with Michel. She finds out
from
the newspaper that he was married. She still loves him. She knows he
killed a
policeman. She still loves him. They're on the run, in a car with the top
down, which makes it a bit more difficult for him to hide, but cabrio
baby.
The first girlfriend he hit up for money, Minouche (Liliane Robin) spots
him
driving by. Her name is a joke because Minouche means "dollface" or
"poppet",
or even "pussy", a slang for vagina. Nice.
After a night of bouncing from place to place, Patricia calls the French
inspector and turns Michel in. They're in a friend's photo studio,
listening
to music. He's planning their escape to Italy when she tells him that
she's
turned him in. He doesn't seem worried. They continue to discuss love as
she
wanders around the central pillar of the apartment. Now, he walks around
the
apartment, saying that he prefers prison to running. He realizes that his
friend Berruti (Henri-Jacques Huet) is showing up with money and heads him
off to keep him from being caught by the police.
Michel says he won't go with Berruti, he won't run, he's tired. He won't
take
Berruti's gun. Berruti throws it to him anyway as the police show up.
Michel
picks it up. The police shoot him and he staggers down the road, finally
collapsing at the end of the road. Patricia is close behind. He's still
smoking as he lies on the ground, surrounded by a grieving Patricia and
the
police officers. He make a few faces/grimaces (as they did together in the
apartment, long ago), then closes his own eyes and says, just before
expiring,
MICHEL: C'est vraiment dégueulasse.
PATRICIA: Qu'est-ce qu'il a dit?
VITAL: Il a dit que vous êtes vraiment "une dégueulasse".
PATRICIA: Qu'est-ce que c'est "dégueulasse"?
Which is translated to,
MICHEL: Makes me want to puke.
PATRICIA: What did he say?
VITAL: He said you make him want to puke.
PATRICIA: What's that mean, "puke"?
It is unclear why Vital mistranslated Michel's final words. Perhaps he was
trying to protect her by making her hate Michel for condemning her in his
final words.
I saw it in French with English subtitles. The French was quite clear for
my
ear (but I've also been practicing quite a bit).
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=46432023-01-08T11:27:17+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Kiss of Death (1995) -- "6/10"
Jimmy Kilmartin (David Caruso) is a recovering alcoholic and ex-con, living
with his recovering alcoholic wife Bev (Helen Hunt) and their daughter.
While
Bev is at an AA meeting, Jimmy's cousin Ronnie (Michael Rapaport) shows up
to
beg Jimmy to help with a "job". He just needs a driver because one of his
truck drivers showed up drunk. Ronnie plays on his cousin's conscience,
whining that Little Junior Brown (Nicholas Cage) will kill him if he
fails.
Jimmy helps out, but the whole job is a clusterfuck. The Feds bust up the
party very quickly. The drunk driver in Jimmy's cab wakes up and tries to
shoot them in panic. He shoots through Jimmy's hand and into agent Calvin
Hart's face (Samuel L. Jackson). The Brown crime family steps up to help
Bev,
but with Ronnie as the go-between, Bev's $400 per week ends up being only
$150. Ronnie offers to let Bev work for him and quickly tries to entice
her
with booze and hitting on her. Ronnie's working her hard, but the Browns
demand that he take her home. He does -- but to his own home, where he
takes
advantage of her. She leaves in a hurry the next morning, crashing his car
into a truck and killing herself.
Ronnie lies right to Jimmy's face at the funeral. Rapaport is so good at
being a primo scumbag. Jimmy turns state's witness and reveals just enough
that the Browns think that Ronnie is squawking. They beat Ronnie to death.
Jimmy gets out of prison and gets hitched to his former babysitter, who'd
been watching his kid the whole time he'd been in prison. The DA (Stanley
Tucci) strong-arms Jimmy into helping him out, caring not one bit if he's
going to burn the man's life even further.
Jimmy starts working with Calvin, both of them hating it. Jimmy gets
closer
to Little Junior Brown, who's just taken over his recently deceased
father's
empire. Junior is highly unstable and quickly ends up shooting one of his
main business partners Omar (Ving Rhames). Omar was a Fed in a different
investigation. It's a shitshow. Junior realizes that Jimmy was squealing
and
targets him and his family. Stuff happens. The DA tries to burn Jimmy.
Jimmy
burns him instead. Jimmy and Junior have a showdown. Jimmy wins. The end.
Persona (1995) -- "8/10"
In this film more than in The Rite, the black-and-white camera in incredibly
crisp and details. The head-on shots of the doctor Läkaren (Margareta
Krook)
and the patient remind me of Chuck Close paintings. Bergman loves the
lights
and shadows.
The absolute most riveting part of the film was when Alma (Bibi Anderson)
was
telling the story of how she'd gone to a beach and was sunbathing nude
while
her husband was elsewhere. A woman came up from another island, having
sought
out the beach because of better sun and more seclusion. She lied down next
to
Alma, also nude. After a bit, they observed two local boys watching them
from
a nearby dune. The other girl bade one of them come over, helped him
undress,
and then pulled him down onto her and into her, whereupon they both
orgasmed
immediately. At the girl's urging, Alma called the boy over and he was
there,
upon her, erect again, and in her. She orgasmed immediately, causing him
follow suit, whereupon she'd orgasmed again and again. She went home, had
dinner and wine with her husband and she said that the subsequent sex with
him had never been so good and would never be so good again.
The first male voice in this movie was at over 80% of the movie. It's Mr.
Vogler, Elisabet's husband (Gunnar Björnstrand). He accepts Alma as
Elisabet
(Liv Ullmann) while the real Elisabeth looks on. She seems to slip into
the
role nearly effortlessly, but then, after having consummated with Vogler,
she
flips out, demanding a sedative, and chastising herself for not being able
to
keep up the charade.
Soon after, Alma finds Elisabet with the picture of her son that she'd
received earlier in the summer and that she'd torn up. Alma recounts the
history of how and why Elisabet had even had a child -- it was to prove
that
she could be motherly, that she could play the role of mother. But she
hated
the baby even before it was born, she found her self wishing it would be
born
dead. After a long birth, she hated the child. She continued to hate the
child. Finally, family took the child and she could return to her career.
The
boy loved his mother and she could not reciprocate, she doesn't want to
reciprocate. She finds him repulsive. This scene plays out once with
Elisabet
in focus and then once more -- in its entirety -- with Alma in focus. The
faces begin to overlap as Alma cries that she is not Elisabet Vogler.
At the end, Alma slices her own wrist with her thumbnail, Elisabet gorges
on
the blood, Alma forces her head into it, then starts to pound slaps on her
face. The symbolism escapes me. Back at what looks Elisabet's hospital
bed,
Alma gets Elisabet to say a single word, "Nothing."
Alma wakes to see Elisabet preparing to leave the lake house. Alma does
the
same, closing things down.
Forbidden Planet (1956) -- "4/10"
This movie has not aged well. Its visuals are fine, but the actors, story,
and acting are not good. This is a movie about the Navy, but in space.
There
is a single female character and she is sexualized (I mean, obviously,
what
with nearly everyone else being in the navy). She is smarter and
better-educated than nearly everyone else, and she has no experience with
other humans, but she absolutely assumes the role you would expect her to
have in post-war U.S.A.
Perhaps the most interesting part was the introduction where they state
that
it took until the end of the 21st-century to for man to reach the moon
(off
by about 130 years), but that it took only another century to invent
faster-than-light travel.
So, they're off to a planet that still took them 18 months to reach. They
approach the planet, but are warned off by Dr. Morbius (Walter Pidgeon).
He
and his daughter Altaira (Anne Francis) are the only survivors of a
mysterious force of nature that wiped out all of the other colonists.
Morbius is accompanied by Robbie the robot, a ludicrous man-suit that can
barely move, but is supposedly powerful and a force to be reckoned with.
Morbius built him from schematics he found in the ruins of an alien
civilization.
He's also found a machine that booster his already prodigious 180+ IQ to
even
more dizzying heights. The commander (Leslie Neilsen) and doctor (Warren
Stevens) of the visiting ship also brag about their high IQs. It doesn't
prevent them all from swooning at the sight of a shapely breast, though.
There are many, many more machines of incredible power that were left by
the
long-deceased aliens. The humans are incredibly impressed by this even
though
they have a faster-than-light drive. They eventually end up pissing off
the
planet, but it's not the planet that they've pissed off, but their own
raging
ids that are trying to kill them, in the form of an energy beast that has
been called into being by the planet's powerful machines. They surmise
that
this is the reason the original aliens died out -- despite their
incredible
accomplishments, they still had not controlled their own inner lives and
their technology enhanced this to destroy them. Hell, maybe there's a
metaphor in there somewhere.
Anyway, the super-smart and hot lady doubles down on her daddy issues and
pledges to leave with the commander, who she probably can't wait to start
pumping out babies for. Morbius flips out and his id-monster almost kills
them, but he finally denies it and controls it, although he's fatally
wounded
in the process. Luckily for Altaira and the Commander. Morbius has the
Commander trigger a planetary self-destruct, then tells them to get 100
million miles away to be safe. They do, and hypothesize that humanity will
end up like the Krell, but that they will be able to remember this
incident
avoid falling into the same trap, which is probably the craziest fucking
thing anyone's said in a movie full of crazy fucking things they used to
say
in the fifties.
I'm 100% certain I've seen it before, but I hadn't reviewed it yet. I put
it
on my list for a reason, but I can't remember for the life of me what that
might have been. It really wasn't very good. Maybe because Leslie Neilsen
was
in it?
Erik the Viking (1989) -- "6/10"
Erik (Tim Robbins) is a conflicted Viking who doesn't like raping or
pillaging. He feels guilt for the death of a village woman Helga (Samantha
Bond), who he managed not to rape, but couldn't save. Erik wants to end
Ragnarök to put an end to this pillaging and plundering. He learns from
Freya (Eartha Kitt) that the giant wolf Fenrir is covering the sun and
resolves to bid the Gods remove it.
Erik and several fellow villagers embark on a seemingly hopeless journey
for
the edge of the world to find Valhalla and/or Asgard. Erik's grandfather
(Mickey Rooney) luckily does not join them. I have no idea what Mickey
Rooney
is doing in this movie. Did he need money that badly? Exposure? Ernest the
Viking (Jim Broadbent) is there, but I didn't recognize any of the other
actors or actresses.
Loki (Antony Sher) is there as well, convincing the local blacksmith
Keitel
(Gary Cady) to join the group in order to sabotage the effort. Why?
Because
an end to war would mean an end to blacksmithing. Well, it wouldn't,
really.
It would mean you'd be blacksmithing other things, but this is the
argument
that Loki brings and that Keitel believes, which is pretty much exactly
the
argument that keeps the U.S. government pouring nearly a trillion dollars
per
year into its military.
Loki uses the same reasoning to convince Halfdan the Black (John Cleese),
a
local warlord, to do his best to thwart Erik's mission.
After long travails and nearly being eaten by a dragon and nearly sinking,
Erik's boat runs aground in the shoals of their destination Hy-Brasil, an
idyllic land where the sun shines, no-one is allowed to kill anyone else,
the
clothes are skimpy, the sun shines, and musical talent is scarce. Erik
promptly beds Princess Aud (Imogen Stubbs), daughter of King Arnulf (Terry
Jones). It is utterly unclear what attracts her to him, but that's pretty
much par for the course. He's tall, I guess. He is a filthy viking with a
completely unkempt beard and hair, which you would think would turn off
the
attraction, but what do I know?
Halfdan has also found Hy-Brasil, but Erik and his men fight them off.
Loki
is on that boat and talks his way back into Erik and his crew's good
graces
(he is the trickster God, after all). He also ends up killing Snorri
(Danny
Schiller), who had discovered Loki and Keitel just as they were about to
throw the Horn Resounding into the ocean so that Erik wouldn't be able to
use
it to call the Gods.
The murder causes an earthquake (the prophecy of Hy-Brasil) and the island
begins to sink under the ocean. King Arnulf and the rest of the population
deny that it is happening (foreshadowing of the response to climate
change)
and sink beneath the waves. Princess Aud accompanies Erik on his mission.
She
sounds the first note on the horn, propelling them beyond the edge of the
world. Erik sounds the second note and they get to Valhalla. They convince
the petulant child-Gods to remove Fenrir from in front of the sun, but the
Gods tell humans that this won't end war.
Christian missionary Harald (Freddie Jones) continues to both proselytize
and
to deny that any of this is happening. This is good for Erik and his crew
because Harald is the one who can get back to the ship and sound the third
note that rescues them from Muspelheim (Hell), where they'd been banished
because they couldn't stay in Valhalla since they hadn't died in battle
and
they couldn't go to Asgard because they weren't Gods.
Harald's blowing of the final note teleports them all back home. Halfdan
is
there and has subjugated the village. Harald falls out of the sky in the
boat
and crushes them. The sun comes out.
Moonlighting s01-s05 (1985--1987) -- "8/10"
"If people didn't have eyes to be sure with, it wouldn't be so easy to fool
'em."
The first season is absolutely top-notch, bringing something absolutely
new
to American television. The sheer amount of dialogue and snappy repartee
was
overwhelming -- at least three times as much dialogue as any other show at
the time. There are a lot of zingers, but no laugh track. Lines pile up on
each other with no pause for laughter. Shows like The Marvelous Mrs.
Maisel
follow in its footsteps.
Maddie Hayes (Cybil Shepherd) is a former model with considerable assets,
all
of which are stolen by her accountant. She is left with a few businesses
in
various states of viability. The Blue Moon Detective Agency is one of
them.
David Addison (Bruce Willis) convinces her that the business, despite its
lack of profitable cases, should be allowed to live. She decides not only
not
to sell the asset, but to take over as boss there and help make it viable.
There is no overall story arc other than this and Maddie and David's
growing
affection for one another. That's the part that would take over the show
eventually and lead to its lower rating. Three seasons of watching two
adults
pretend not to like each other despite loving each other is a bit much
(and
there are two seasons to go).
They have a plethora of styles and intros for the episodes. Though there
are
some formulaic components, there is a lot of artistic freedom. They often
break the fourth wall, and even had one episode where they just showed the
actual Moonlighting set, which was the kind of meta stuff that you'd ever
really seen in Mel Brooks movies.
* S01E03 is an episode with "high-powered laser guns at an advanced
aerospace firm"
* S01E05 is a "Murder on the Orient Express"
reenactment
* S02E03 sends "Maddie to Brazil to confront her pilfering accountant"
* S02E04 is a brilliant one set in the 50s, in black-and-white, where
"Maddie and David play out possible solutions to a crime of passion in
a
jazz club" (we
get
to see Cybil sing her little heart out)
* S02E10 is an "absolutely inspired and wacky Christmas episode"
* S02E12 has Agnes DiPesto (Allyce Beasley) "go to an investigator's
ball"
, where she's
embroiled in a murder
* S03E03 goes all over the place, but ends up with "David boxing for Don
King"
* S03E07 is a period piece where David and Maddie take the lead roles
in a
"reenactment of the Taming of the Shrew"
* S03E08 is a reenactment of "A Christmas Carol with Maddie as Scrooge"
.
* In S04E05, David goes to prison in a case of mistaken identity while
he's
trying to get to Chicago to meet Maddy, who's pregnant, but the real
magic in this episode is Herbert Viola just crushing a serenade cover
of
Sexual Healing to Agnes in "Cool Hand Dave: Part I"
* In S04E06, David's in prison in "Cool Hand Dave: Part II"
and he's singing
in
solitary, while the suits at the studio are recruiting for a new David
Addison. We see a line of Addisons around the building, all dressed in
his various costumes from the series, with the suits walking through
them. Lovely meta-meta-meta visuals. Really inventive. But the best is
yet to come: An operatic musical number with the chain gang just
knocking
it out of the park. Almost a bit reminiscent of Jesus Christ
Superstar.
* The rest of S04 is a dreary death-march of moping and whining about
how
everything is everybody else's fault. David learns lamaze with Terri
(Brooke Adams), a PhD of music he met when he went looking to take
lamaze
training on his own. Maddie is in Chicago with her parents, being an
utter shit of a person. Maddie eventually comes back, but takes the
train, marrying the super-wonderful Walter Bishop (Dennis Dugan), who
doesn't deserve to be embroiled in this fiasco, but handles it with
aplomb. David throws them a wedding, but they all end up in the
hospital
when Terri goes into labor. Neither Maddie nor David comport
themselves
well here. It's a shitshow.
* S05E01 kicks off with "Bruce Willis playing Baby Hayes in Maddie's
womb"
. This is a bit
of a
recap of how awful they've been to each other over the years, but his
guardian angel assures him that this means they love each other very
much. Maddie loses the baby at the end of this episode. This episode
wasn't especially good, but it was a helluva a dark way to start the
season.
* S05E04 is about "a botched plastic surgery"
and is a return
to
the form of seasons 1 and 2 (finally)
* So5E05 was about "a woman who shoots and wounds her harassing boss at
a
board meeting."
It
was absolutely premeditated and it was absolutely assault with a
deadly
weapon and it was absolutely attempted murder. That she only hit him
in
the ankle was because she was a terrible shot. Maddie channels the
culture of 30 years hence and absolutely thinks that she can get her
absolved of all crimes if she can only prove that she was harassed.
David
thinks that she's unhinged. They take opposite sides of the case.
People
seem to have a very difficult time of there being two crimes: he
harassed
her (that's probably a fine and maybe firing) and she tried to kill
him,
absolutely not in the heat of the moment. Two crimes. One does not
justify the one. The former is perhaps a reason for the latter, but
that
lady still has to own her crime. We live in a society.
* S05E10 is ostensibly about "David shacking up with Maddie's cousin
Annie"
(Virginia Madsen).
It
also features a cameo by Demi Moore as the woman that David is initially
attracted to, before he ends up with Annie. This is an allusion, of
course,
to Willis's first marriage. However, the best part of this episode is,
once
again, Herbert Viola, who gets all the best lines and steals the show
with
his subplot about the Sapperman case -- wherein he is all but convinced
of
the wife's treachery. He presents his evidence to the firm with a
filmreel
and soliloquy.
"Mrs. Sapperman was born on August 27th, 1932, to Shmul and Helen Menmum of
Ozone Park, Queens. After moving to Los Angeles in 1957, Adele went to
work
for the firm of Sapperman, Sapperman, Sapperman, shown here. But the
story
does not end here. We must look beyond the white-picket fence, the lace
curtains in the windows, the well-kept flower gardens...because, behind
this tranquil suburban façade, there lurks a dark story of
faithlessness
and betrayal. There goes Mrs. Sapperman now, in the family station
wagon.
Is she going grocery shopping? Or is she going to stain something that
was
once pure? ...giving herself to another man? ...letting a total stranger
run his hands over the soft, white flesh that once was Seymour
Sapperman's
alone? And then, having slaked the carnal thirst of the beast within
her...will she return to the open arms of her loving husband? Still
glistening with the sweat of another animal? Jezebel, harlot,
adulteress,
thy name is Adele! [a scarlet letter A appears on-screen]"S05E13 is the
final episode of a five-season run -- and the writers new
that it was all over. They hurriedly "got Agnes and Herbert married"
(with Wynn
Deaupayne
(Timothy Leary) as a very non sequitur guest), then spent the last 10
minutes going full meta -- again, and for the last time -- worried that
they would disappear at the end of the show. They went and found their
producer Cy (Dennis Dugan) to ask what they could do. He answered,
"Hey, even I can't get people to tune in to watch what they don't want to
watch anymore. Don't get me wrong. I love you two kids. But can you
really
blame the audience?Case of poison ivy's more fun than watching you two
lately. [...] People don't want laughs, David. They want romance.
Romance
is a very fragile thing. Once it's over, it's over. And, I'm afraid for
you
two, it's over. [...] Oh goody, that's exactly what America wants to
see:
David and Maddie, friends. People fell in love with you two kids falling
in
love. You couldn't keep falling forever. Sooner or later, you had to
land
someplace. People cared about you two because you cared about each
other.
Even when you didn't wanna care, you still cared and you couldn't not.
You
cared until you couldn't care any longer. You two were a great love
story."
It was a very meta-show: McGillicudy (Jack Blessing) ended up dying, not
of
the illness he'd announced at the beginning of the episode, but because
he
had no more lines. Maddie and David try to get married, but the priest
tells them that "the sacrament of holy matrimony isn't something to be
entered into lightly," to which Maddie replies, "we don't want to enter
it
lightly, we just want to enter quickly."
Wonderfully, they kept the "Anselmo Case" alive the whole season -- a
"Macguffin" <> if there ever was one -- then announced at the end of the
credits that, "Blue Moon Investigations ceased operations on May 14,
1989.
The Anselmo Case was never solved... and remains a mystery to this day."
All in all, an excellent capper to the season and the series. Chapeau.
They
went out with grace and humor and style.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=46402023-01-02T20:27:07+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Ambulance (2022) -- "8/10"
This movie hit "peak Michael Bay" when the ambulance was driving up the LA
river basin, framed by rooster tails of water and a sunset, with Danny
(Jake
Gyllenhaal) hanging out the passenger window, firing on two LA helicopters
in
pursuit.
They kept talking about what an amazing driver Will (Yahya Abdul-Mateen
II)
is, but all I saw was him driving on the road while cop cars flew off the
road to both sides of him for most of the movie. It was utterly unclear
how
they could just keep driving into obvious impediments unless it was a
surfeit
of confidence and lack of brains. Speaking of lack of brains, neither of
the
Sharp brothers wore a seatbelt the whole time.
Jake Gyllenhaal seemed like he was having the time of his life, though! He
just seemed to be ad-libbing and airing his grievances. He seems to be on
board with Bay's vision of making a movie that's basically a love letter
to
LA -- with all of its warts. There were a bunch of gratuitous shots of
very
LA-specific stuff, as well as some shots of trash by the side of the
highway,
lovingly filmed.
They finally get to the dipsy-doodle where they spray-paint their
ambulance
and then send out several others -- "That's a military maneuver", says
Monroe
(Garret Dillahunt) sagely -- it gets really interesting. Danny has
promised
half of his haul to Papi (A Martinez) and his gang. They deliver, in
spades.
They load up an ambulance with explosives and drive right into the cordon
set
up by the cops. Incredible practical effects. The whole intersection lies
in
ruins.
As usual, their are some frankly impossible things that happen, like Will
giving a ton of blood to the hostage cop Zach (Jackson White), Cam (Eiza
González) doing surgery on Zach in the back of a moving ambulance -- and
then Zach being totally good to go and ready for a firefight later. Will
also
didn't seem to be suffering from a lack of blood when his adrenalin crash
came.
At 132 minutes, it was a bit long, but Gyllenhaal is riveting, absolutely
unhinged. Cam shoots Will, but she didn't mean it. Danny drives them to
the
hospital, finally. There is a final standoff. Danny leaves the back of the
ambulance with Cam, but Will shoots Danny to save Cam. It's all quite
justifiably confused, but it's an appropriate end to an adrenalin-fueled
ride.
It's so weird, then, that, instead of just ending on the pavement outside
the
hospital, they had to focus on Cam's hero's journey to finding a heart.
Who
the fuck are they making these ending for? Just the most terrible people,
I
bet. I'm glad I don't have to watch movies with them.
Dick Tracy (1990) -- "6/10"
The plot follows a relatively standard line: Dick Tracy is making things
uncomfortable for the local mob bosses, in particular Big Boy Caprice (Al
Pacino), who runs everything with an iron fist.
Big Boy Caprice is superficially comical, but deep-down quite evil. The
movie
looks like a happy, garish comic book, but the criminals are horrific and
people are gunned down in droves. Mumbles (Dustin Hoffman) is completely
incomprehensible, his lip twists off to the left, and it looks for all the
world like Hoffman just kept running with his role from Rainman in 1988.
Breathless Mahoney (Madonna) is a good deal racier than expected. At one
point, Tracy asks Tess Trueheart (Glenne Headly) what flavor ice cream she
got and Mahoney answers, "fresh peach. And you better hurry, it's starting
to
run a little bit." Jesus. That is not even a little PG-13.
Warren Beatty as Dick Tracy plays it about as straight as its possible to
play. He and Tess Trueheart kinda/sorta adopt a "Kid", which makes them a
family of sorts, although they're so woefully dysfunctional
relationship-wise
that the straight-arrow Tracy ends up smooching Mahoney before coming to
his
senses.
They try to kill Tracy a couple of times, they try to frame him, someone
named Mr. Blank is trying to have everyone killed (Blank turns out to be
Mahoney). Mahoney dies, as do pretty much a lot of people. Tess and the
Kid
and Tracy live happily ever after. It was decent and quite a vision
actually,
for the time, but the plot was nothing to write home about and I'll never
watch it again.
Last and First Men (2020) -- "4/10"
This was less a movie than a 70-minute audiobook of a five-page
science-fiction story. The story was of a civilization of the "last men"
2000-million years in the future. They are sending a message back to the
"first men", telling them of their future and of how a giant violet cloud
is
bringing the solar system to a premature end, of how they're moving Earth
out, away from the sun, of how they've moved to Uranus, at least
partially,
and other kind of insignificant details. They tell vaguely of how they
manipulate certain flaws in space-time in order to communicate with the
past.
The entire film is in black-and-white and features very slow pans over
Icelandic sculptures while slow orchestral music plays and Tilda Swinton
slowly reads the story.
I was wondering why the story felt vaguely familiar. The book Last and
First
Men is by Olaf Stapledon, whose book "Star Maker"
I read a few years
back. The movie's "plot" is only very loosely based on the "book"
, though.
Le Roi et L'oiseau (1980) -- "7/10"
The kingdom of Takicardia is a vertical one (think Gormenghast). It is ruled
by a heartless, cross-eyed king named Charles XVI. He is mercurial and
kills
with trap doors. The king is fond of hunting and we see him trying to
shoot a
baby bird. His strabismus prevents him from hitting it, though, and the
baby's father gathers it back to its nest, high up in the towers of
Takicardia. This little bird would be trapped again and again in the same
trap, a box perched on a nearly unreachable eave.
The king sleeps and dreams, during which his own non-cross-eyed portrait
comes to life, as do those of a shepherdess with whom he is in love and a
chimney sweep whom he hates because the shepherdess loves him. The
portrait
deposes the real king (using a trap door, naturally) and takes over, even
more devious than the real one. The shepherdess and chimney sweep -- with
the
help of the bird -- flee throughout the castle with the king in hot
pursuit.
The castle is kind of high-tech, with canals and motorized, single-person
conveyances.
The king eventually calls forth a giant robot from the bowels of his city,
half-destroying the city in his attempts to dig the shepherdess out of the
depths a village in the bowels of the castle, where the sun never shines.
There, she and the chimney sweep had holed up with a blind organ-grinder
and
a slew of giant felines. The king, using the robot, eventually gets the
shepherdess to submit to and marry him, to save her chimney sweep's life.
L'oiseau and the chimney sweep are forced into manual labor in a factory
producing statues of the king. They are arrested again when they turn out
mockeries instead. L'oiseau and the big cats and the chimney sweep stage a
revolt to rescue the shepherdess. The bird and his sons use the robot to
destroy the castle. They banish the king with extreme prejudice. The robot
uses its pincers to open the cage one final time to free the same stupid
little bird who keeps getting trapped in there.
The drawing style is fine, but nothing to watch for. There are almost no
people in the city. It's unclear what the source of power is, or how they
manufactured all of the King's toys -- especially the robot. The plot is
languorous and somewhat meandering and a bit simple, in the end. There is
no
score to speak of. The voices are quite muddy, making the characters quite
difficult to understand.
I watched it in the original French without subtitles.
Rick and Morty S06 (2022) -- "8/10"
This season is not nearly as crazy as the previous one, but it's still layer
upon layers of realities. The first show picks up where the last season
left
off, with a confrontation with Rick Prime and a different Jerry, and a
creature that accidentally replicates itself to planet size. The family is
together and relocates to a different dimension where they had no longer
existed. They are Summer, Morty, Rick, Jerry, and Beth. Rick still doesn't
have a functioning portal gun.
The second show is based on Die Hard and has Rick and Morty trapped in a
video game based on same. Summer has to rescue them, all wrapped in
several
levels of indirection.
In the third show, Space-Beth is back for Thanksgiving and starts a torrid
affair with Beth. After briefly wanting to kill himself, Jerry gets in on
the
action. Space-Beth leaves again.
The fourth show has the whole family doing their odious chores and tasks
through their "night selves". These selves eventually rise up and try to
take
over the day. Summer is, of course, the ringleader. With Rick refusing to
comply with their demands -- that he do his
own dishes -- the night family rules for several months before giving up.
The fifth show involves a fortune-cookie factory and empire and a creature
that poops out all of the fortune cookies in the world.
The sixth show is about dinosaurs returning to Earth to bring peace and
harmony and technological advancements. Rick is not impressed. He
discovers
that this race is hounded by a species of homicidal and intelligent
asteroids
that seek out the dinosaurs. Because they are peaceful, they never
destroyed
any, letting their planets instead be destroyed while they moved on. Rick,
after having gotten a new and improved portal gun -- it lets you see where
you're headed -- from the dinosaurs -- which he broke out of spite --
rebuilds his portal gun.
Episode seven pushes the meta-meta-meta so far that there is a whole crew
of
superheroes named after various meta concepts and tropes. Rick even
mentions
that they're fourth-walling harder than "the third season of
Moonlighting",
which I thought was a lovely reference (because I totally got it). Jan and
Story Lord (Paul Giamatti) are behind the whole plot, engaging the help of
Jesus Christ (Christopher Meloni), whom they betray. Morty engages the
help
of "Joseph Campbell" to
get
them back to the real world. This was a pretty awesome episode; would
watch
again.
Episode eight has Rick exhausted of having to constantly battle
supervillains, so he foists the latest, Pissmaster, on Jerry. Jerry takes
him
out, thanks only to Rick's awesome armor. Jerry goes viral and is asked to
join an intergalactic council of heroes, who turn out to be pretty lame,
of
course. Rick discovers that Pissmaster has committed suicide -- and takes
his
place, performing heroic deeds to redeem the poor, sad, suicided man's
name.
He is poised to pretend to kill himself while disarming a bomb so that he
can
end his career as Pissmaster (á la Batman) when Jerry shows up to
reluctantly ask the hero to join the intergalactic council of heroes. He
sees
that Pissmaster is Rick and refuses, getting himself kicked out of the
group,
as well. The family finds out about Pissmaster's suicide and tear Jerry
down
some more for it.
Episode nine has Morty joining the Knights of the Sun, where he quickly
climbs the ranks to become king of the sun, which is boring and stupid, as
Rick points out. Morty points out that their worldview is completely
at-odds
with reality and disbands them, spiraling the solar system into war, as
the
Knights were the only thing keeping the balance. Morty and Rick end up
having
to fake their deaths in order to avoid getting their penises chopped off
by
the Knights, who require this somehow in order to regroup and save the
solar
system.
Episode ten has Rick giving Morty a lightsaber for Christmas, which he
promptly drops vertically into the Earth, threatening humanity should it
reach the core. Meanwhile, Rick has been replace with a robot to keep
Morty
busy for the last few episodes while he searches for Rick Prime. The
President gets Morty to get Rick to help save the Earth, promptly swiping
the
lightsaber once they've retrieved in from the Earth's core with the
amazing
core-digging device that Rick built. Rickbot dies, while Morty apologizes
and
pledges to help Rick find Rick Prime, leading Rick to monologue nearly
endlessly about what will almost surely form the plot arc of season seven.
Nobody (2021) -- "8/10"
An absolutely over-the-top and somehow pitch-perfect movie about a guy with a
particular set of skills who gets unleashed on the world once more. There
are
definitely John Wick vibes here -- especially with the enemy being stupid
Russian who mess with the wrong man. Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk) lives
with
his wife Becca (Connie Nielsen) and his two kids. His is a normal life.
But
he's not normal: he's a former auditor for all of the other secret
agencies,
which means that he was the one called in to clean house when things
needed
cleaning. That means he's a god of destruction and mayhem.
Two petty thieves rob his home and he lets them go, even though he had the
drop on one of them. He realized that the woman's gun was old, and not
even
loaded. His son is disappointed in him, but we know the son will soon
think
otherwise. Hutch is willing to drop the whole thing, especially after he's
spoken with his mysterious brother from this mysterious den, but then he
discovers that his daughter's kitty-cat bracelet had been stolen along
with
the fistful of small bills. He searches for and finds the couple who'd
robbed
him, demanding the kitty-cat bracelet back. He sees that they have a baby
and
realizes that he'd gone slightly off the rails.
He leaves them be, but he has an encounter on the way home: five drunk
guys
crash their car next to his bus. They are all uninjured from the crash,
get
on the bus instead, and start to terrorize everyone. Hutch sits in the
middle
of the back, the calm in the storm, anticipating the coming ass-kicking
with
absolute delight. He takes the group of five guys apart, sustaining a bit
of
damage himself, and having taken out one guy badly enough that he has to
give
him an emergency tracheotomy to save his life. Hutch gets home and his
wife
helps patch him up. She's seen this before. He tells her he wants a
change,
that "they haven't had sex in months, and haven't made love in years."
That guy ends up dying. That guy was the little brother of a psychotic
Russian mobster, Yulian (Aleksey Serebryakov). Yulian is in charge of the
Obshchak (общак), which is a giant pile of cash held in common by
criminals and oligarchs. Yulian sends a bunch of people to Hutch's house,
which doesn't have the hoped-for result. They manage to kidnap Hutch, but
he
escapes from the moving car, killing everyone else in the process.
His rampage is gaining momentum. and he lays waste to everyone in his
house,
then sends his family away, and gets started on Yulian. He is a force of
nature, taking out anyone and everyone, eventually lighting the общак
on
fire. He ends up in one of Yulian's clubs, eating calmly as Yulian
finishes a
karaoke session. Hutch gets away, escaping to the family factory that he'd
just purchased from his father-in-law with gold bullion and that he had
just
turned into an armed death trap. He barely gets to the parking lot, with
the
Russians hot on his heels. He finds his father David (Christopher Lloyd),
also a former auditor, and his brother Harry (RZA), there to provide
covering
fire. Together, they take out the remaining Russian army.
The police apprehend him, but they are told by mysterious sources to let
him
go. We see him and his family purchasing a house three months later. He
gets
a call.
This is every person's self-defense fantasy, being able to defend the home
and hearth and family from evil forces. In this case, no-one in the family
had to die in order to spur the revenge fantasy. In this case -- as is
happening more often -- the hero is possessed of an unbelievable power of
planning, combat readiness, and ability to take punishment. He is also
wildly
independently wealthy, so money is never an object. Hence, the fantasy.
The
hero has a secret life where he has fuck-you money, physical skills to
defend
against anyone and anything, and will never be grievously injured
Enemy (2013) -- "7/10"
Adam Bell (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a professor of history who leads kind of a
lonely, repetitive existence. He teaches during the day and goes home to
sleep with Mary (Melanie Laurent). A co-worker of his suggests a movie in
which he spies an actor who looks just like him. He gets intrigued and
rent
two other films with the actor Anthony St. Clair in them. It's the same
actor. It's his own face. They're not speaking roles, though.
Adam gets Anthony's home number and calls there. Anthony's wife Helen
(Sarah
Gadon) picks up and thinks it's Anthony. She hangs up on him after he
freaks
her out a bit. He calls back and gets Anthony. Adam freaks him out, too.
But
Anthony is now intrigued and starts investigating Adam. Helen, suspecting
that Anthony is cheating on her again, snoops around and finds Anthony's
notes on Adam. She also looks him up.
Anthony calls Adam for a meeting, while Helen goes right to the university
where he teaches -- and finds him outside, contemplative after having
spoken
with Anthony. he makes small talk, while she can only gawp at him. He has
no
idea who she is. He's nice to her, but she's very, very confused. I
honestly
have no idea why she's so devastated.
Anthony and Adam meet up at a motel outside of town. They look alike, they
sound alike, they have the same scars. What is going on? Losing his nerve
entirely after having found out they have the same scar, Adam rabbits out
of
there. Anthony catches up to him on his motorcycle and goes blazing past
him.
Anthony tracks Adam down to his home and discovers Mary. The wheels are
turning now for Anthony. He figures maybe he can bag her because she'll
think
he's Adam.
To boost the weird cred, Isabella Rosellini shows up as Adam's mother.
This
is where we find out that Adam is also apparently unfaithful. Anthony puts
his plan into action, telling Adam that he will take Mary on a getaway
weekend and then will disappear out of his life forever. Why in God's name
would Mary not notice that it's a different person? Anthony doesn't know
anything about Mary and Adam's shared life together, what they talk about,
their verbal cues. He would be very strange to her immediately. Unless she
and Adam don't know each other well at all.
At the beginning of the film, we saw who we now know was Anthony attending
a
very unique sex show, where a statuesque, nude woman steps on a tarantula
with high heels. When Adam starts wheedling into Anthony's life, he
quickly
discovers this side of it as well. He goes to Anthony's apartment and
Helen
shows up soon after. She's six months pregnant, but seems somewhat frisky.
They lie down together. Helen knows what she's doing, though, because Adam
is
nicer than Anthony.
Meanwhile, Mary and Anthony are in the thick of it when she notices not
only
his different technique (which would have to be obvious), but the mark on
his
finger where his wedding ring was. Mary bails. They drive home together,
though! I guess he was her ride, so...no public transportation. Meanwhile
Adam takes the other tack -- sobbing and apologizing -- and Helen jumps
his
bones. Mary and Anthony fight in the car and Anthony flips it on the way
back. It looks like dey dead.
Adam finds the key to the crazy-ass sex party and tells Helen he needs to
go
out that night. He goes back to check on her and finds a giant tarantula
in
her bedroom instead. Like, giant, as in it fills the whole room. The end.
What?
Denis Villeneuve directed this film in ... black-and-yellow. The film was
pretty much a pallet of browns and yellows. I'm sure that it was
considered
very artistic and evocative, but I couldn't unsee it.
The House that Jack Built (2018) -- "10/10"
Jack (Matt Dillon) is in an voice-over interview with Verge (Bruno Ganz), who
seems to be his psychiatrist. Jack is urged to explain how he got to be
where
he is. He says that he will explain in five incidents.
He meets lady #1 (Uma Thurman) on the side of the road. She is quite
aggressive and obnoxious, badgering him into helping her with her broken
jack. But she probably wasn't really like this. She is being reconstructed
for us by Jack, our unreliable narrator. He takes her to and from a
"blacksmith", who was supposed to have repaired the jack. She is impressed
with neither of them when it doesn't work, then badgers him for a ride
back
into town again, telling him she takes back what she said before, when
she's
said that he looked like a serial killer, because he's actually much too
big
of a wimp to be a serial killer. He puts the jack through her forehead.
He is on lady #2's (Siobhan Fallon Hogan) porch, trying to get inside,
lying
about being a cop, telling her his badge is at a "silversmith", then
admitting that he's an insurance agent and that he will double her
pension.
She lets him in. He kills her, first by strangulation, but it doesn't
take,
then again by strangulation, which seems to have taken, but he makes sure
by
plunging a knife into her heart. He cleans up, drags her corpse out to the
van, and tries to leave. This whole murder makes it clear how much work it
is
to actually strangle someone and to manhandle a body down stairs and into
a
van. He can't leave, though, because his OCD makes him imagine blood spots
he'd missed. Verge chuckles in the voice-over. Jack re-enters several
times
to clean invisible stains. The police arrive for a nearby break-in and
question him. He annoys the officer into letting him leave. He takes off,
but
the corpse is attached to the back of the van and drags a meat crayon
along
behind him for miles. Jack takes the immediately ensuing fierce rainstorm
as
a sign that he had "a higher protector".
The interludes between the acts are a mimic of Dylan's Subterranean
Homesick
Blues video, where he holds cue cards, each with an individual message,
and
drops them one-by-one.
Fucking von Trier. Jack has killed two women. He is clearly unstable. A
psychopath. I took it all in stride. There's an interlude, though, where
he
speaks of being a child, listening to the "breath of the meadow", the
inhaling and exhaling of the men as they scythed a field in rhythm. It's
all
very soothing. A duckling approaches young Jack, floating close to him as
he
sits on a dock. He lifts his net to capture it, then holds it in his lap,
petting it. He reaches back slowly with this right hand to grab wire
clippers
and coolly snips one of the duckling's feet off. He releases it to swim in
a
circle, peeping desperately. I drew breath quickly. I was appalled. But
why
now? Why not earlier, when he killed two women in cold blood? What is it
about torturing animals that gets me more? This is obviously calculated by
von Trier, and is probably why people hate him -- they don't like to be
reminded of what hypocrites they are, how absolutely ass-backwards their
morals are. Here we have a serial killer, who's an attractive Matt Dillon,
but he's OCD. Does his condition elicit sympathy? Maybe a little. But it
is
his torture of an innocent duckling that reminds us of what he is. Not the
murder of two women.
Lady #3 (Sofie Gråbøl) is a date whom he strangulates as they are
kissing.
He drags her back to the meat locker where he'd stored the other two
corpses.
He just leaves the bodies stuffed into on shelves and sprawled across
boxes.
He always photographs the women. He is dissatisfied with lady #3's photos,
so
he takes her corpse from the freezer to take her back to the scene of the
crime to take new pictures. On his way along a country road, he sees an
older
lady (Carina Skenhede) walking on the shoulder. He can't resist running
her
over. Now he has two bodies in the van: one frozen in a sort-of seated
position and one freshly killed and still hemorrhaging.
He poses the dead ladies together in the third lady's former apartment.
A mom (uncredited) goes on a trip to the woods with Jack, taking her two
children George and Grumpy. They're on a picnic while Jack teaches the
boys
how to shoot and other ins and outs of hunting. This is peak Lars von
Trier.
Immediately after, the girlfriend is seen with her two children cowering
behind a downed tree in the field. Jack is in the tree stand. He picks off
George. His mother howls. Jack calmly asks her to give her dead boy a
slice
of pie, as if that were a perfectly reasonable thing to ask. For people
who
though Hannibal Lecter was peak psychotic, this movie turns it up to 11.
He
kills her last. She was already dead inside anyway.
Simple (Riley Keough) seems to be Jack's girlfriend. She's very insecure.
She
puts up with his crudity and his anger and meanness. He admits to her that
he's a serial killer. He as much as tells her that he's going to kill her
while telling how stupid she is. She denies that she's stupid, but
suspects
absolutely nothing, craving his attention no matter what form. She gets
him
the magic marker he demands. He begins drawing lines on her breasts like
he's
marking a cow carcass. She suspects nothing, belying her claim that she's
not
as "dumb as a doorknob". She just calls him "fucking weird" and actually
storms out.
He chases her outside where she's asking a police officer for help. Jack
admits again that he's killed 60 people, then calls her by her real name
(Ms.
Jaqueline) and sways around a bit. The cop tells them both to go sleep it
off. He plays on her emotions and she falls for it, asking him to come
back
inside with her. Upstairs, he lies curled into the sofa, ostensibly
catatonic
with grief at what he'd done, while she calls a friend who's "got some
pills".
Heart-stopping is the only way to describe when she realizes that he'd cut
the phone line. She looks behind her and sees he's still inert. She starts
creeping toward the door. Then he's there, right behind her. She looks
resigned. She understands now. "You're walking without your crutch."
"You're
Mr. Sophistication, aren't you." They scream together; no-one answers;
no-one
hears. He lets he scream out the window. He waits patiently as she gets it
out of her system.
"You know, maybe I'm mistaken, but, as far as I can tell, not a single light
has gone on in any apartment or stairwell. And do you know why that is?
'Cause in this hell of a town, in this hell of a country, in this hell of
a
world, nobody wants to help. You can scream from now until Christmas Eve
and
the only answer you'll get is the deafening silence that you're hearing
right
now."
He gets to work, tying her up with a plastic cord and then making her
choose
which knife she wants him to use on her. He slices along the lines. He
goes
back to the cop car and places one of Simple's breasts on the windshield.
A segue on how to make dessert wines, or ice wines. This is such classic
von
Trier. Verge and Jack discuss putrefaction. Jack's house isn't coming
along
very well. Jack isn't able to build the house that he wants to build, so
he
keeps having them bulldozed. It is at this point that we learn that
"Verge"
seems to be short for "Virgil" because Jack asks him about his greatest
work
and Verge answers with the Aeneid. They continue to discuss art and the
value
of art and the subject of art. Cue a "Glenn Gould interlude"
. Verge speaks Italian
sometimes. [1] They discuss the Stuka plane and its unique sound when it
dive-bombed, filling its intended targets' veins with ice. "Jericho's
Trumpet". As Jack waxes about "icon-creators",
[image]
"Jack: What I'm getting at is this: As disinclined as the world is to
acknowledge the beauty of decay, it's just as disinclined to those -- no,
credit to us -- who create the real icons of this planet. We are deemed
the
ultimate evil. All the icons that have had and always will have an impact
on
the world are, for me, extravagant art."
He says this as wartime footage of concentration camps and horrifically
emaciated prisoners play. [2]
"Verge: Stop it. You Antichrist! I don't recall ever having escorted a so
thoroughly depraved person as you, Jack.
"Verge: Since you have now apparently set your heart on mass
extermination,
let me make a brief comment on the Buchenwald camp that emphasizes my
attitude towards art and love. In the middle of this concentration camp
stood
a tree. And not just any old tree, but an oak. And not just any oak, but
the
one Goethe, when he was young, sat beneath and wrote some of humanity's
most
important works. Goethe. Here you can talk about masterpieces and the
value
of icons. The personification of humanism, dignity, culture, and goodness
was, by the irony of fate, suddenly present in the middle of the all-time
greatest crimes against humanity.
"Jack: Some people claim that the atrocities we commit in our fiction are
those inner desires which we cannot commit in our controlled civilization.
So, they are expressed instead through our art. I don't agree. I believe
heaven and hell are one and the same. The soul belongs to heaven and the
body
to hell. The soul is reason and the body is all the dangerous things. For
example, art and icons."
Jack's whole speech is accompanied by clips from von Trier's other films
(I
spied Dogville, Antichrist, Melancholia, Nymphomaniac).
Jack continues with another incident, though it's not labeled as such. He
has
six men on sawhorses in his freezer. They're alive. Their heads are lined
up
so that he can shoot them all with a single bullet. He explains this all
calmly to them, in a calm manner. One of the men points out that the round
that Jack has showed them is not a full-metal jacket round, as he'd
claimed.
He realizes that the guy is right. Annoyed, he goes back to the gun shop,
where he'd obtained the incorrect goods. He goes nuts on the poor
store-owner, Al (Jeremy Davies). The store-owner wonders whether he even
bought the bullets there. The transaction goes downhill from there. Al is
allowed to live, though.
Jack gets stuck in a rut on the way to his next destination, to get
full-metal jacket rounds from S.P. (David Bailie). The camera chases him
down
the logging road, gloriously unencumbered by a steadicam. S.P. catches him
and calls the police. He thinks he's a robber, though. Jack sweet-talks
him
into putting his gun down, making him think he's remorseful. S.P. pours
him a
drink. Jack drives a knife up under his chin and into his brain. Jack
waits
for the police to arrive, poses as S.P. to get the officer close, then
shoots
the officer. He steals the cop car and returns to the freezer where he'd
told
the men to "try not to die on me."
Just to be clear, Jack has killed a man who had called the police saying
he'd
caught Jack, killed the cop who showed up to apprehend Jack, then driven
back
to his meat locker with six kidnapees in it, the siren blaring. He's left
the
car outside with the siren still blaring. He's now inside to complete his
masterpiece, but realizes that he can't shoot the rifle inside the locker
because he can't focus the scope. He works open the door behind him to a
larger space -- cool as a cucumber -- then tapes out a longer line for his
shot. He levels it up, then gets a good line on it. Another police car
shows
up. Jack is obviously trying to get caught now.
From the dark, empty space, he hears Verge for the first time. He wants to
talk about the house that Jack seems to be unable to build. He tells Jack
to
"find the material, and let it do the work". We see Jack building with
corpses. Cue the Glenn Gould clip again (signifying "art"). Verge enters
the
house as the police are arc-welding their way into the freezer. As police
open a hole and shoot through it, Jack drops through a manhole in his
"house".
He and Verge are now in Hell. A spotlight on water. The river Styx.
Now, they're walking along what looks like a half-flooded mining tunnel in
what looks more like documentary footage. I can't believe what Ganz and
Dillon were willing to do for this director.
A placid rill. Black-and-white. Jack's red robe the only color. They
approach
the end of a tunnel looking out over a waterwheel on what looks like a
partially frozen sawmill.
They're descending ladders along a wall of what look like agonized and
carbonized bodies.
Trudging through more water.
Slow-motion walking along a path between curtains of blood.
Crossing a river in a boat. It looks like a renaissance painting. Art.
Jack stares hungrily out a window at what Verge tells him are the Elysian
fields. "We don't have access here." We hear the "breath of the fields"
that
Jack remembered from his youth. Men are in a field suffused in golden
glow,
scything and breathing in rhythm. [3] Jack's gaze turns longing, in the
first
non-cruel expression we've ever seen on him. Dillon is a master here. A
tear
falls. A brief flash of what had been lost, the road not taken.
Resignation.
Determination.
They arrive at a lava river. Verge tells Jack that this is deepest of the
depths of hell. But that this is not where Jack is meant to go, amazing as
that may seem. He says that he's showing it to him as a favor, because
Jack
was so intriguing. Across the broken bridge is a path out of hell. Jack
considers climbing around, asking Virgil whether anyone has done it. No.
This
is probably why Virgil brought him here, because he knew he would try.
Jack is still in the red cloak he'd stolen from S.P.
Jack climbs, traversing sideways.
Jack struggles.
Jack falls.
Cue credits, accompanied by the incongruously upbeat "Hit the road, Jack".
There is no way that you sympathize with this serial killer. He's a nearly
incomprehensibly savage, brutal, and cold person. Von Trier and Dillon
make
clear what a sociopath would truly look like. It is unflinching. It was
written by a man unafraid to really contemplate what it would be like to
be
that kind of a person without sensationalizing it.
I wonder how people will somehow paint von Trier as glorifying or
humanizing
something horrible, as they've gone every time before. Jack is abominably
evil and von Trier sends him to the lowest of hell without humanizing him
(save the three seconds where he's staring out the window at the Elysian
fields). He shows how horrible Jack was, sends him to hell, and ends the
movie with a celebratory tune. It probably wasn't enough to avoid charges
of
glorifying serial killers.
Moritz Neumeier: Ich weiss das doch auch nicht (2022) -- "7/10"
This special is from just after Corona, and after he'd had three kids. It's
decent, but it's not nearly as good as Hurra (see "review from 2019"
), which was my
favorite so far.
He spends a lot of time talking about child-rearing, interactions with
schools, how smart his wife is, interacting with children -- little to no
political stuff at all, which is a shame, because he used to be quite
incisive and sharp about that kind of stuff. However, this absolutely
supports my theory that people with children literally ignore most of the
rest of the world because they literally no longer have time for it. I
correct myself: he did briefly discuss climate change, but only in a joke
about climate-change deniers being deliberately ignorant, which is worse
than
being unintelligent.
About 40 minutes in, he talks about teaching his kids how to deal with
racism
-- because Germany is a racist country. Well, yeah, duh. Literally every
country in the world is racist. That's just how people are. Some people
avoid
it; some lean into it. Some countries build up barriers against it, others
ignore it, others promote it.
In the last 30 minutes, though, he left kids behind and started talking
about
refugees and an experience on a train where German officers were about to
throw a clearly exhausted family off the train when an old aristocratic
woman
stood and demanding to know WHY?
"Hatten die keine gültige Fahrkarten? Doch, doch, die sind in Ordnung.
Waren die Pässe nicht in Ordnung? Doch, die waren OK.
Warum müssen die denn aussteigen? Na ... weil die haben etwas gesagt,
welches wir nicht verstanden haben.
Also, die müssen aussteigen, weil ihr zu dumm sind einen Dolmetscher
mitzubringen, obwohl abertausenden von Menschen jeden Tag über die Grenze
kommen, die nur arabisch können? ..."
Then he goes on to talk about how not everyone should have the same rights
to
freedom of speech. This is a special German mental handicap that is
spreading
around the world. Some ideas should be suppressed because Hitler. That is,
people with bad ideas should not be able to express those ideas. They
think
that this is the way to stop them acting violently on those ideas.
It's an interesting thought experiment: why should a Nazi's right to free
speech trump someone else's right to be in public unmolested? IT FUCKING
DOESN"T. This is not rocket science. Say a Nazi has a stand in a mall and
someone with a headscarf walks by. The Nazi yells out at the person,
ruining
their day. I wouldn't consider it a restriction of his freedom of speech
to
prevent him from ruining people's days for no reason. I wouldn't even care
if
the mall said he can't have his stand. I wouldn't care either, though, if
he
had his little stand, and sat there quietly looking sad and ridiculous in
his
little mustache.
Our fear of their ideas grants them power. I think this is what people are
missing. Yes, stop them from impacting innocent people's lives -- this is
not
easy! We all have to help. If we see something, we have to help stop it.
We
have to overpower them with numbers instead of letting them intimidate us.
But we don't have to ban their speech. If they show up looking way tougher
than anyone else, but they're only talking, then that's their right. If
they
harass people directly, that's not.
You can't make a law against their existence. That's not going to work.
But
people keep thinking it will. They mix metaphors and ideas to blur the
lines
in societally unhealthy ways. They're lazy and scared and want bad things
to
go away rather than having to stand up to bad people themselves, before
they
gain too much power. It's much easier to have someone else tape their
mouth
shut for us -- we know who should shut up and who shouldn't, right?
Neumeier seems to be utterly and blissfully unaware of the possibility
that
there are those who would find his act shocking enough to want to shut him
up. What prevents his being shut up when we're shutting Nazis up? Does he
not
think this a possibility? Does he not care?
This kind of thinking leads people to weird conclusions like "alle in 1945
Deutschland lebenden die nicht aktiv gegen Nazis agiert haben waren
Nazis",
which is the kind of blanket statement that fucking Nazis make or
literally
fucking Osama bin Laden made. That is literally the justification Osama
bin
Laden gave for 9/11.
Collectively punishing people for the actions of some of their members
is...checks notes...forbidden by the Geneva Convention. Don't let that
stop
you, though, when the cause is just, ammirite? Who else thought they were
doing that? Collectively punishing a group of people because the cause was
just? Oh, yeah...Nazis. WTF, dude. This poisonous mindset has more than
landed in America, though -- or maybe it came from there. I'm not exactly
sure what the timeline looks like.
He goes on to a bit about losing heroes, like Louis C.K. or Michael
Jackson.
He "proves" that Michael Jackson was a pedophile by asking "who would want
to
get famous for having been raped by Michael Jackson?" What kind of a naive
fucking question is that? You can believe them if you want -- that's your
absolute right, to be convinced by a case, by the preponderance of
evidence.
But you're a fool if you believe them just because they dared to say it in
public.
There is way too much evidence that people are willing to do anything for
attention or even a little bit of money. Nearly literally anything.
Including
being a Nazi, you numb-nuts. Jesus Christ, the biggest problem the left
has
is that they are just so fucking divorced from reality, so literal, so
uncynical, so non-ironic, that they can't think like the enemy for one
second. It is their ultimate weakness. I can't even imagine believing
something because "why would anyone say something so horrible about
themselves in public?" Jesus, haven't you been paying attention to how
humanity operates? Have you never seen German reality TV?
Then he argues that you can't "separate the art from the artist", which
presumably means that, if you are still enjoying listening to Smooth
Criminal, then you're a pedophile sympathizer and probably also a Nazi.
That
would be the logical conclusion from Neumeier's presentation. If you don't
actively try to get Smooth Criminal off the radio, you're a Nazi.
He goes on to make an analogy about having a colleague who'd killed his
wife,
but wasn't at a grill party. He used to make great sausages, though, so
they
should just invite him anyway. No sense throwing out the baby with the
bathwater. I hope he doesn't really believe that this analogy holds water.
Choosing not to associate directly with someone who's done something
horrible
is not the same thing as still finding something that that person has done
to
be useful.
What would these fools do if a serial killer solved fusion? Just not use
the
technology because it came from the wrong person? Maybe wait until a black
lesbian discovered it so we can be sure that it's OK to use it? Fingers
crossed that she's a generous lover or we'll have to remain in darkness.
What the actual fuck are these people thinking? Do you stop reading
excellent
authors with thought-provoking ideas who had questionable persona lives?
(E.g. Gore Vidal?) What are you afraid of? That you won't be able to
resist
the lure of their poisonous ideas and you'll also end up being a horrible
person? How weak do you think you are? Are you worried that people will
listen to Michael Jackson's music and become pedophiles? Or that they
would
allow pedophiles in society just in case they might also be generationally
great musical artists? What is the fucking logic here?
But, sure, put your faith in Netflix or HBO or whomever produced the
documentary that convinced you -- because documentaries are always true
and
never manipulative. It doesn't matter that Jackson beat the rap in a dozen
court appearances. It. Doesn't. Matter. These people know for sure and
they
have made their judgment and anyone who doesn't agree with them is a NAZI.
Fuckin' A, Moritz. Pourin' a forty out on the curb for you, brother.
Moritz
has become a woke idiot. I suppose it was better when I'd thought his
brain
had been softened by parenthood and not by progressivism with an iron
fist.
I do not envy these people their certainty. They are deliberately stupid
to
think that the world is so simple. This loops back to one of Neumeier's
own
initial bits about climate-change-deniers being deliberately stupid. Sure,
that's one example. The final 30 minutes of his special amply demonstrated
another: the lefty identitarian convinced of his own righteousness. They
are
censors and they must be stopped.
Coincidentally, the next article I read after the show was "A Tangled
Webb"
by Scott H. Greenfield
, which details
an
attempt to erase James Webb from history for something he'd never done,
then,
when it was proven that he'd never done it personally, for not having
personally stopped homophobia in the 1960s. Since he didn't do that, there
is
no way that we can, in all good conscience, recognize any of his
scientific
achievements. Instead, I suppose we will have to pretend that they just
emerged fully-formed from the aether, or perhaps it would be OK if we
invented a gay scientist who'd invented them instead. I really don't know
the
protocol here.
Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989) -- "10/10"
Ann (Andie MacDowell) is in a loveless marriage with John (Peter Gallagher).
He's a junior partner in a law firm; she's a housewife. They have no
children. She is seeing a therapist (Ron Vawter), to whom she confesses
that
she no longer likes to be touched. She hasn't made love to John in months.
He
stopped trying that long ago. She tells her therapist that she's worried
about John having invited his college friend Graham (James Spader) to stay
with them until he can find a place of his own.
Ann expects Graham to be just like John, but he's very, very different.
He's
soft-spoken and seems kind, a little forthright in some of his questions,
but
quite disarming. Ann is charmed, so she offers to help him find an
apartment.
They find one for him relatively quickly, but still manage to discuss
intimate personal details like the fact that she's not having sex with
John,
and that he is impotent -- he cannot become aroused in front of anyone.
Once he's moved in, she visits him in his apartment, interrupting him
while
he's watching one of the videotapes he's made of the myriad women he's
interviewed about sex. He lets her in, but she zeroes in on the box of
videotapes, which are, in fairness, lying on the TV stand right next to
the
door. He tells her what they are. She recoils and leaves.
She calls her sister Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo) to tell her about Graham.
Cynthia is intrigued because she's pretty much the opposite of her sister.
In
fact, she's so opposite that she's a bartender instead of a housewife and
she
actually is fucking John. Cynthia slinks in to Graham's place and makes a
video. She undresses, she masturbates, the whole kit and kaboodle.
She leaves and calls John immediately, demanding that he drop what he's
doing
and come over and fuck her. He delays his client, goes to her place and
they
fuck each other's brains out. She bids him to leave.
He's delayed that client for Cynthia before, like when he called her to
come
over to his house so that they could fuck in his wife's/her sister's bed;
it's also his first client as a junior partner; he's more interested in
her
ass than in his job, although he doesn't think that's the choice he's
making
Ann doesn't have anything to do with Graham anymore. Neither does John.
John
finds out that Cynthia had made a tape for Graham and is aghast. Ann wakes
one evening and asks John point-blank whether he's having an affair. She
even
asks whether it's with her sister. He denies everything and they cuddle
and
make up. Soon after, Ann finds Cynthia's earring while vacuuming under her
own bed. The play of emotions on MacDowell's face as all of the pieces
fall
into place is magical.
She changes clothes and heads to Graham's place. She's ready to make a
tape.
Later that evening, when John comes home, she confronts him. He's
incensed,
convinced that Graham had betrayed him, when it was really the earring.
That
didn't even come up because the truth was out regardless. John charges
over
to Graham's place, pops him in the mouth, throws him out his own door,
locks
him out, then settles in to watch Ann's tape.
Ann begins coyly, answering little about herself (unsurprisingly). She
quickly turns the tables and starts asking Graham about himself instead,
if
he's proud of what he's doing, if he thinks that's how he's going to get
Elizabeth back -- the woman from college for whom he's clearly been pining
for nine years. He answers, surprisingly enough. Their intimacy is not
physical, but emotional. They kiss, but that's all. John is,
understandably,
devastated, mostly because he sees how fucking shallow he is relative to
people with actual intelligence and emotion. He sees that he was married
to
someone rich and deep and he spend their marriage fucking her
superficially
hot sister.
He walks out, revealing to Graham that he'd fucked Elizabeth back when
they
were still in school, even before she and Graham had started having
trouble.
Cut to John in his office, explaining grandly to a colleague how his job
is
more important to him than anything, even his wife. If she can't handle
that,
then she'll have to decide for herself. His boss is on the phone demanding
that he come to his office immediately. John delays because he's trying to
get in touch with his client, whom he's never actually met because he kept
delaying their initial contact because of his priority of fucking Cynthia.
The client informs him that he's found other counsel and no longer needs
his
services. This is what John's boss wants to talk to him about. It dawns on
John slowly, then all at once.
Ann and Graham sit on his porch, comfortable in each other's arms.
The Rite (1969) -- "7/10"
This is an Ingmar Bergman film about a three-person theater troupe that is
being interrogated by a judge who is determining whether there is a case
for
pressing obscenity charges against them in the unnamed country where they
currently find themselves. Thea (Ingrid Thulin) is neurotic and married to
Hans Winkelmann (Gunnar Björnstrand), who is quite a bit older than she
is.
Their partner is the fast-spending, hard-drinking Sebastian Fisher (Anders
Ek). He's in hock to Hans, and is also sleeping with Thea, but they're all
quite copacetic with the situation. In fact, when they're not touring,
they
all live together in a house in Ascona.
When they are touring, they perform their pornographic rite four times per
night. The judge plays them off of each other, finally convincing them to
perform their "rite" for him in a personal performance. They do this, the
two
men appearing with giant strap-ons. They perform the rite, exciting the
judge
to the point where he has a heart attack. The film is not pornographic at
all. They mostly discuss philosophy and their personal peccadillos.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] My God, I really can imagine very few people with whom I regularly
communicate who could even come close to appreciating this as a form of
important art. I spoke to a German woman recently who was having kittens
because someone had dared to make an acronym for something as KZ, when
everyone knows that that means concentration camp in German. No, no-one
knows that. And what of it? Those two letters are forever banned from
appearing one after the other because some people in Germany are squeamish
in an utterly unreasonable way about it? How can you have any important
discussions about anything if that's already a bridge too far. We have
important topics to talk about. Shying away from horror is exactly what
allows others to exert their power over us. We don't need to become them,
but we have to try to understand where this comes from. That's what I think
is important here. I can only think of one person I know who might have seen
a von Trier movie -- and appreciated it for what it was.
[1] Which is especially interesting because the actor playing him was Bruno
Ganz, a Swiss actor born in Zürich to a Swiss-German father and Italian
mother.
[1] I'm always reminded of Levin's passion for mowing with a scythe in Anna
Karenina.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=46312022-12-31T18:02:47+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
The Green Mile (1999) -- "8/10"
I've seen this movie before, but don't have any notes on it. It's the best
Stephen King adaptation after Shawshank Redemption. The film starts in
1999,
with Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks) in an old-age home, taking regular walks to
a
shed in the woods to peek in a window.
Paul works in a prison in Louisiana in 1935, in the capital wing, where
death-row prisoners are kept. He and his coworkers Brutus Howell (David
Morse), Dean Stanton (Barry Pepper), Harry Terwilliger (Jeffrey DeMunn)
are a
sympathetic bunch of chaps. They are forced to work with a newer co-worked
named Percy Wetmore (Doug Hutchison), who's a real sonofabitch and
useless,
to boot.
Percy agrees to move on to greener pastures, but only if he's allowed to
run
an execution. The others reluctantly agree. There are a few prisoners on
the
mile: the really offensive and off-the-wall "Wild Bill" Wharton (Sam
Rockwell), the sweet, relatively innocent, and very remorseful Eduard
Delacroix (Michael Jeter), Arlen Bitterbuck (Graham Greene), who's the
first
prisoner to go, and, finally, gentle giant John Coffey (Michael Clarke
Duncan).
John's been accused of murdering two little girls, but he's as gentle as a
lamb and he's possessed of special healing powers. These powers allow him
to
suck the hurt out of a creature or creatures and take it into himself. It
makes him very tired.
John heals Paul's terribly painful bladder infection, after which his life
and love life are restored. His wife Jan (Bonnie Hunt) notices
immediately.
Wild Bill makes a huge nuisance of himself, getting a few stints in the
padded cell, whereas Percy is more sly and sneaky -- and a terrible guard,
to
boot, as he fails to help subdue Wild Bill at least once.
Percy has it in for Del, both because he's gay and because he seems to
derive
so much pleasure from his talented mouse Mr. Jingles, who zips around the
green mile with impunity. The guards joke that they're going to take him
down
to mouse city in Florida for Del, after, well, you know. Del is tickled
that
Mr. Jingles will continue his illustrious career after he's gone. Percy
gets
to Mr. Jingles and stomps him flat. John holds out his hand to Paul, "give
him to me; maybe it's not too late." John is able to bring Mr. Jingles
back
from the dead and Del takes better care. Percy is flabbergasted.
Percy gets to run Del's execution and he does his worst. He fails to wet
the
sponge, causing Del to burst into flames and botching the whole execution.
Well, not botching it so badly that Del doesn't die, but botching it so
that
Del suffers terribly first. Percy is a true monster. John feels Del's pain
through his gift.
The guards lock Percy away in the rubber room as punishment while they
sneak
John out of the prison in order to help heal the warden's wife of her
brain
tumor. John absorbs her pain and heals her. When they return, they have to
release Percy, but they threaten him to reveal all that he'd done. John
releases the "pain" into Percy, causing him to flip out and shoot Wild
Bill.
It turns out that Wild Bill was the monster responsible for the deaths of
the
girls for which John Coffey was convicted.
The remaining officers are now distraught, knowing that Coffey should not
even be in prison, to say nothing of on death row. But John sees it
differently. For him, the world is a cruel, awful place that he, through
is
powers, is forced to experience as a large, open sore. He insists that
they
execute him, but not before he gets to watch a movie with them -- Top Hat.
He
asks not to be hooded because he's afraid of the dark. The officers
solemnly
help him through the ritual, fighting back tears. It would be the last
execution for Paul and Brutus.
Paul reveals at the end that his visits to the shed are to commune with
Mr.
Jingles, who's still alive after all this time -- and that Paul himself is
108 years old.
RRR (2022) -- "9/10"
The visual spectacle in this film is nearly without parallel. Every scene is
highly dramatic. It was three hours of non-stop action and high drama and
twists and turns.
It starts in 1920, during the British Raj, where we see the cruelty of
administrator Buxton (Ray Stevenson) and his even crueler wife Catherine
(Alison Doody). They abduct a talented young singer and henna artist Malli
(Twinkle Sharma) and bring her back to the capital. The tribe is
distraught,
but not without recourse. They have a champion: Komaram Bheem (N. T. Rama
Rao
Jr.) who will bring her back. He travels as a Muslim named Akhtar.
Meanwhile, we are introduced to A. Rama Raju (Ram Charan Teja), an
incredibly
handsome, talented, strong, linguistically gifted, and rising police
officer
in a spectacular scene in which he apprehends a criminal single-handedly
out
of a roiling crowd of protesters. Catherine enlists Raju to help find and
stop Bheem (although they have no idea what he looks like).
Bheem and Raju end up working together to save a boy from a train
accident. I
like that there's tension in the scene where the train fell into the water
and capsized the boys's boat simply because no-one knows how to swim. I
cannot emphasize enough how spectacular everything is -- and yet it
doesn't
feel over the top because it's so earnest and we are watching a film about
good people.
Bheem and Raju grow close, they become best friends. Bheem drives Baju
around
as Raju looks for the perpetrator (who's actually going to end up being
Bheem). Raju helps Bheem court Jenny, Scott's neice, unaware that Bheem
has a
dual purpose: he wants to get into the Scott compound in order to free
Malli.
Bheem finds and meets Malli but can only assure her that he will
eventually
rescue her.
Raju and Bheem go to a wedding at the residence and it ends up in a
spectacular dance-off in which a cartoonishly oafish and terrible Brit has
his ass handed to him. Raju and Bheem are transcendent. The ladies all
swoon
for Raju, whereas Jenny has eyes only for Bheem.
During an interrogation, a very clever prisoner threw a banded krait at
Raju,
poisoning him. The prisoner tells him that only the Gonds know the cure.
Luckily, his best friend Bheem is from that tribe -- although Raju still
thinks he's a Muslim. During the ministrations and rescue of Raju's life,
he
notices that Bheem isn't who he says he is. Since Bheem also doesn't know
who
Raju really is, he confesses everything to his best friend, trusting that
his
friend will understand and see the nobility of his mission.
Soon after, Bheem and his men attack Scott's compound with wild animals
(tigers, etc.). Raju is there to defend the compound. They are now on
opposite sides. The battle there is also incredibly spectacular, with
Bheem
and Raju ended up on a roof, helping each other not die, but resulting in
Bheem's surrender. Raju is promoted for having brought in Bheem alive, but
he
is conflicted. We now learn that he's only a police officer because he's a
mole, working his way up the hierarchy in order to bring it down from
above.
He had pledged to his village to bring a weapon for everyone. He is close
to
his goal of having control over a gigantic arsenal of rifles.
The next scene is Bheem's public flogging, egged on by a Catherine
suffused
with bloodlust. Of course, Raju is in charge of the flogging. Of course,
Bheem does not submit. Instead, he sings in defiance, egging the crowd on
to
overthrowing the whole square. Raju realizes that Bheem's sheer animal
power
is a much more powerful weapon than an entire arsenal of weapons. Bheem's
power to inspire is much more useful.
Raju betrays his post in order to help Malli and Bheem escape -- except
that
Bheem doesn't quite see it like that, yet. He doesn't yet know that Raju
has
switched sides. Raju is grievously injured and taken prisoner, thrown into
a
torture chamber. He resists, continuing to do pull-ups even without food
or
water and with his injuries. Rambo-squared!
Bheem is on the run and is almost caught, except that Sita (Alia Bhatt)
lies
about an outbreak of smallpox, which terrified the police into leaving.
Bheem learns that Sita is Raju's fiancé and learns further from her that
Raju is actually a revolutionary -- a brother and friend in common cause.
Bheem infiltrates the prison where Raju is being held and frees him. They
retreat into the forest, get ripped and armed, then hold off prodigious
numbers of soldiers while the forest burns and Scott watches from the top
of
his compound from afar. The pair hurl Bheem's flaming motorcycle into the
compound, landing squarely in Scott's immense supplies of ammunition and
TNT.
Catherine dies gruesomely in the subsequent explosion, while Scott
remains,
dazed, in the rubble. Bheem and Raju execute him.
Sita, Raju, Bheem, and Jenny all live happily ever after.
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) -- "6/10"
So this is what most people think counts as science fiction now. This movie
is ostensibly about multiverses, but it's much more about just doing weird
shit in 2-3--minute skits, all bound up in a kind of a Kung Fu movie. I
love
the hell out of Michelle Yeoh, but this is absolutely not the breakout
role
that everyone said it was.
At one point, she's fighting a guy so that he doesn't drop himself on an
IRS
award that looks like a butt-plug [1] because doing something weird and
unexpected allows you to connect to more-talented selves in other
universes.
Comprende? She manages to stop one guy from doing it, but then another,
bigger guy shows up to positively suplex himself on it and then fight her
with the butt plug dangling from his ass the whole time. This joke is so
good
that it goes on for long minutes, at which point the first guy shows up,
with
an even longer trophy sticking out of his butt. OMG hilarious.
Breakout role, indeed.
She wins the fight by pulling the awards out of their respective asses,
taking their powers away. She doesn't get much of a break. Her next
superpower is the ability to fight only with her pinkies. I'm starting to
feel sorry for Michelle Yeoh and to wonder what sort of a bet she'd lost.
And then there's her husband Waymond Wang (Ke Huy Quan), who came out of
retirement for this movie -- he'd previously played Data in The Goonies
and
Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. He gets lines like,
"Evelyn, your cray plan to save your daughter has pissed off everyone in
the
multiverse...but it just might work!" This is utter dreck. It's not even
funny. This is like a children's movie, but for adults. I weep for us all.
The Idiocracy will win, in the end.
Sorry, now poor Evelyn is projectile-vomiting on the ground like she's in
a
Monty Python revival. Her daughter Joy / Jobu Tupaki (Stephanie Hsu)
laughs
and sings as she walks away. The movie pretends to be over, but then it's
not! OMG so edgy. Jamie Lee Curtis does her level best, but she's just
waving
her hot-dog fingers around and it's just. not. working.
But maybe it's just me. I paused the movie until tomorrow (it's not
drawing
me in enough to spend another hour on it), but then this article appeared
in
my newsfeed, "Everything Everywhere All at Once Leads Chicago Film Critics
Nominations" by Brian Tallerico
.
"“EEAAO” not only appeared in Best Picture, but also competes in Best
Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original
Screenplay, and a number of craft categories."
Oh, come on. Really? Is this a Wakanda thing? I didn't get that one
either.
It was trash.
Life (2017) -- "5/10"
This one joins Prometheus in the pantheon of films about "ostensibly
super-smart people who can't follow basic biological-containment and
quarantining protocols". Of course it's true-to-life because no-one
follows
quarantining protocols.
* They should never have gotten Hugh (Ariyon Bakare) out. They had no
way
of knowing whether he'd been contaminated by the alien. They knew it
was
a multi-celled creature where each cell was identical, but just
assumed
that it would act as a single creature -- and not split any parts of
itself off.
* Just mixing air is stupid with viruses on Earth, to say nothing of
extraterrestrial, completely unresearched, and ostensibly sentient
ones.
* Why did the valves close one by one? Why not all at once? What kind of
containment system is this? Answer: a suspenseful one! Spoiler alert:
the
creature managed to slip out the last valve before it closed.
* Why didn't Kat (Olga Dykhovichnaya) just kick herself off into space
if
she was going to sacrifice herself anyway? Her death was a complete
waste, even though she knowingly committed suicide. Instead, she
floated
away once dead (there was no reason she should, as she wasn't
providing
an impulse, but whatever) and remained close enough for Calvin to jump
back to the station -- and to keep the movie going!
* Why do they assume that Calvin will stay outside the station? It got
out;
it can get back in. They have no idea which entry or exit it used.
* Now they want to block entries, like the thrusters. Their awesome plan
is
to just fire the thrusters when Calvin tries to crawl inside. Their
stroke of genius is to use the temperature sensors (non-scientific
geniuses and babies call them thermometers) to detect Calvin.
Unfortunately, they'd used up all of their brainpower and didn't think
about what randomly firing their thrusters would do to their orbit.
* It was bound to happen: the Calvin POV shot. Soooo scary.
* So Calvin was on Hugh's leg and was in the cabin with them the whole
time. Sneaky little bugger. No idea how he's so clever. No explanation
needed. Also, they go back to get Hugh, who lives for just long enough
to
... tell them nothing. There was nothing gained from going back to
him.
* Finally, though, someone's thinking: they sent up a Soyuz capsule to
boost the whole damned thing out of orbit and into deep space. Good
idea.
I'm sure the intrepid adventurer-scientists will figure out some way
to
foil the plan in a misguided effort to save someone who's just going
to
die anyway. Called it. This time it was a completely stupid sacrifice
for
Sho. Also, it takes a long time to vent a capsule though a giant
gaping
hole, but, luckily, the capsule on the end is magically 100% full of
air
as soon as they close the bulkhead.
* Why would temperature drop rapidly? The thing is very clearly in the
sun
every time they show it. Without HVAC, it would be overheating.
* Why did it wrap itself around him, ignoring the candle until he waved
it
around? Did it somehow not notice the heat signature until he made it
"enticing"?
* Why did Miranda (Rebecca Ferguson) not close her helmet until very
late,
choosing instead to freeze in the frigid air? None of this makes any
sense.
* How does Calvin know what a control stick is? Why would it know to
prevent him from using it?
* Why do the subtitles say [speaking Vietnamese] instead of just
translating what he said to English?
The ending is good, though! Spoiler alert: they hit space debris, which
messes up their lifeboats, so Jake ends up on Earth instead of outer
space,
while Miranda ends up in outer space! Nice. An extra point for you.
National Treasure (2004) -- "8/10"
Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicholas Cage) comes from a line of American
historians, which include his father Patrick Gates (Jon Voight) and his
grandfather John Adams Gates (Christopher Plummer).
We meet Ben in the frozen north, unearthing an old shipwreck in which he
finds a scrimshaw pipe with a code that tells him there's a treasure map
on
the back of the Declaration of Independence. He parts ways with his greedy
partner Ian (Sean Bean), who swears he will steal the document in order to
find the treasure. Ben and his colleague Riley (Justin Bartha) plan their
own
heist to get there first. Ben befriends curator Abigail Chase (Diane
Kruger)
in order to get her fingerprints and get into the cleaning room where the
document is taken after Riley overheats the sensors on the frame.
Ben ends up with the document, then ducks into the gift shop, where he's
made
to pay $35 for the real Declaration of Independence. Abigail is hot on his
tail. Ian and his crew are there and are packing heat. Ben and Riley grab
Abigail to get her out of the hail of gunfire. We get our first chase
scene.
Ian ends up with the gift-shop version while Ben keeps the original.
Abigail
is angry. This is peak Nicholas Cage.
The chief investigator Sandusky (Harvey Keitel) is on the scene. He
doesn't
figure in this much, though. The film is mostly Ben, Abigail, and Riley
treasure-hunting from one American heritage site to another, collecting
special glasses that they can use to read the special writing on the back
of
the Declaration of Independence and finally ending up far below ground at
the
vast hoard of gold and treasure left by the founders of the country, who
were
all illuminati or masons or whatever.
Ben has to wheel and deal to get Abigail freed, his family name cleared,
and
the entire treasure secured in the public domain, with a tidy 1% finder's
fee
for himself and Riley and Abigail. Riley drives away in a ridiculously
overpriced and overpowered car to prove the point that they didn't get
enough
money out of the deal.
What's actually lovely is that there are no smartphones and the web is
still
quite primitive. They can't just snap high-quality pictures of everything;
they have to actually take things with them.
I saw it in German this time.
Dune (2021) -- "8/10"
This movie is very pretty. However, it actually fails to live up to some of
the precedents set by Lynch's Dune (reviewed "last year"
). Paul Atreides
(Timothée Chalamet) uses The Voice on his mother Jessica (Rebecca
Ferguson),
but it sounds weak compared to Kyle McLachlan's rendition in the other
film.
All of the familiar characters are here: Gurney Halleck (Josh Brolin),
Duncan
Idaho (Jason Momoa), and mentat Thufir Hawat (Stephen McKinley Henderson).
Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) is not blessed with great lines. I can't
remember whether this one comes from the book, but it fell kind of flat:
"On
Caladan, we ruled with air and sea power; on Arrakis, we'll have to use
desert power."
The Harkonnen's are pretty good, though! Dave Bautista as Raban and
Stellan
Skarsgård as Baron Harkonnen were inspired choices. Their first scene
together was great. And the scenery on all the worlds is very Villeneuvian
--
lots of long shots of large, temple-like structures, pointillistically lit
in
blue or yellow or orange, as suits the scene. The ships are gigantic,
windowless, and have no visible means of propulsion. The temples on
Arrakis
reminded me very much of Serious Sam's Karnak levels.
The ornithopters are lovely. I have no idea who thought having eight
independent motors would be a good idea on a desert planet when a
helicopter
with only one (or perhaps two) motors is known to be terrible in the
desert
(Apache helicopters went down with depressing frequency in the U.S.'s
occupations).
Rather quickly, we get to the Gom Jabbar scene, where the reverend mother
Mohiam (Charlotte Rampling) tests Paul. He is advised by his doctor, Dr.
Yueh
(Chang Chen), who will be pivotal later. The Gom Jabbar scene was very
well-done. The only shame was that they made so much noise that no-one
will
be able to actually remember the quote from the book,
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that
brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass
over
me and through me. And, when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye
to
see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will
remain."
The next act is on Arrakis. The Atreides arrive. They are clad in
neck-to-toe
metallic armor that absolutely must be air-conditioned because they walk
around in the sun in it. Even when they're warned that the "sun is getting
too high", they're standing on a terrace in that armor, using a pair of
binoculars and in front of servants who open and close giants doors by
hand.
The juxtaposition of 19th-century technology and galaxy-spanning ships is
jarring. Villeneuve is simply going for an aesthetic, trying to make the
unfamiliar familiar -- and has presumably plumbed the books a bit, which
had
quite an archaic and monastic feel to them, at times.
Chalamet's Paul moves a lot more than McLachlan's did during the "Hunter
Seeker" scene. It wasn't nearly as tense as Lynch's version.
In the next scene, Baron Harkonnen says "there are no satellites over
Arrakis; the Atreides will die in the dark." How can it possibly be that
there are no satellites over the only source of the spice that makes
interstellar travel possible?
Duncan Idaho returns from his sojourn in the Fremen sietch, accompanied by
their leader Stilgar (Javier Bardem). These scenes are piling on top of
each
other -- Villeneuve seems to be running into the same problems that Lynch
ran
into: too much content that warrants a stately approach, but that must be
hurried to fit the format. Dune might have been better as a series of 10
episodes rather than a single feature-length film.
In the next scene, Duncan explains all of the Fremen equipment, but I have
no
idea how they "invent" or even "manufacture" anything on a planet so
plainly
inhospitable to mining or manufacturing. But there are metals everywhere!
Massive amounts of metals everywhere. The aesthetic is very much the
original
Star Wars here, which I very much like. In the spirit of the age, the
liaison
Dr. Liet Kynes (Sharon Duncan-Brewster) is now a black woman, but that at
least somewhat compensates for Herbert's dearth of female characters in
his
books. (I remember only Jessica, Alia, Mohiam, and Chani among dozens and
dozens of male roles.)
It just seems to be impossible for anyone to make a movie that doesn't
break
reality by making the main characters keep their head protection off in
situations where it would surely kill them to do so. They all go into the
desert with their still-suits on, but with their headgear off, positively
blasting their moisture into the desiccated air. They will do this again
and
again, even when they need to convince the Fremen that they're not morons.
Jessica sitting cross-legged in the tiny alcove looks so good. Segue to
the
Sardaukar army planet, where it's raining on the troops being prepared for
battle. This scene, too, is visually sumptuous. Director Villeneuve has a
lovely eye.
Leto's poison-gas attack on the Baron fails. We see Harkonnens being gross
and evil. The Sardaukar attack. Duncan Idaho tears a swath through them.
The
Fremen do damage. The Sardaukar prevail nonetheless, by strength of number
and by being pretty bad-ass themselves. No-one uses any projectile
weapons,
which is nice and quiet and pretty great. They use swords. It is not
really
apparent that they are slowing down to strike through the shield, though.
Paul and Jessica escape into the desert with the help of Dr. Kynes and
Duncan
Idaho, who makes a last stand to buy them time. Dr. Kynes gives them the
two-person ornithopter. Before she can catch a ride on Shai-hulud, though,
the Sardaukar catch up to her and they all end up riding in its belly.
Paul
and Jessica flee through a sandstorm, crash-land, and make it to the rock
just in time. Shai-hulud rears up, but the Fremen distract it with a
thumper.
Stuff happens. Jessica subdues Stilgar. Paul ends up having to fight and
kill
a Fremen. They are accepted into the tribe. They head off into the desert.
Chani says something stupid, like "This is only the beginning." 🙄 It
was a
bit long and a bit boring in the last third -- after being hurried in the
first third -- but I give it an extra point for being beautiful.
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) -- "7/10"
Nicholas Cage (Nicholas Cage) is working hard, but hardly working. He's not
getting the role he wants, so he accepts a $1M job that his agent Richard
Fink (Neil Patrick Harris) urges him to take. He arrives in Mallorca and
meets Javi Guttierez (Pedro Pascal), who is either an olive mogul or a
weapons dealer who's kidnapped the daughter of the president of Spain. The
CIA claims the latter. They engage Cage to help them get the girl back.
Cage
has become fast friends with Guttierez, though. He promises to read his
script and everything.
Cage investigates, playing the spy, getting in deep with Guttierez, who's
totally excited that they're going to make a movie together. It's still
unclear whether he's a criminal. He seems like a teddy bear. Pascal is
great
here. The rapport between him and Cage is spot-on.
I kind of like how meta it all gets, where they're on acid talking about
how
the movie that they're going to write together should have a scene where
the
main characters are on drugs and freaking out with paranoia, which is what
they're doing as they're discussing the possible scene. Cage leaves Javi
sleeping in the car and goes looking for the girl in the location where
the
CIA tells him she's being held. Javi shows up and lets him in -- it's a
Nicholas Cage museum instead.
He meets up with agent Vivian (Tiffany Haddish) and reports that the girl
wasn't there, but that "good news, the script's cookin'! It's like
Cassavetes
meets Innaritu with a dash of Von Trier." Cage tries to talk to Javi about
a
kidnapped girl in their movie, to see how he would react. Instead, Javi
intuits that Cage is feeling guilty about how he'd left things with his
family, that his issues are "bleeding into the work". So Javi lies to
Cage's
ex-wife Olivia (Sharon Horgan) and daughter Addy (Lily Mo Sheen) to get
them
to fly to Mallorca. Cage is terrified that Javi intends to use them as
physical leverage, but Javi seems to genuinely want Cage to work through
his
shit with his family.
It's really hard to tell, but Javi doesn't seem to be who the CIA says he
is.
Even his assistant Gabriela (Alessandra Mastronardi) doesn't seem to know
that he's a terrorist. They talk as if they're business associates and
she's
really hoping he'll be able to make his movie with Cage. It turns out that
it's Javi's business partner and cousin Lucas (Paco León) who's the crime
boss and who's responsible for having kidnapped the president's daughter.
Lucas tells Javi that Cage is working for the U.S. government. Lucas
presents
him with an ultimatum: kill Nicholas Cage to save his own life. At the
same
time, Vivian tells Cage that he's going to have to find a gun and take out
Javi. The encounter is all John Woo-style, slo-mo, wide-scene, opera
music.
At this point, they're still very meta, describing their movie as,
"Javi: start[ing] out as a beautiful character piece and slowly change into a
...
Cage: Hollywood blockbuster. Then there's something for everyone."
They're describing the movie that they're in.
They get out to the cliffs where they're deciding how they're going to
shoot
each other when they realize they're each wearing two halves of two pairs
of
shoes. They reminisce about what great friends they've so quickly become.
They confront each other and learn each other's respective secrets. They
team
up and it's not an action movie, with Lucas's henchmen chasing them, but
it's
totally 80s-style with two motorcycles chasing them.
They dispatch the henchmen, go back to Javi's house to learn that Addy's
been
kidnapped, Vivian's been compromised (her partner's dead), and they need
to
rescue everyone and save the world. Gabriella and Olivia jump in the back
of
the jeep and they get started.
Olivia and Nicholas walk in through the front gates as Giorgio and
Barbara,
long-hidden heads of a crime syndicate who Lucas is expecting. They bluff
their way in. They get all the way to the girls when their cover is blown.
Cage pulls a Nicholas Cage and continues the bluff, taking Lucas hostage.
Javi goes in to help him. They perform the required rescue and get away,
showing up just in time to save the ladies and girls from Carlos.
Obligatory jeep-chase coming up. Things happen. They end up in the embassy
grounds with Lucas right on their tail. Segue to the movie of the movie,
where Demi Moore plays Olivia and Anna MacDonald plays Addy. Pan out to
the
premiere of the movie with a standing ovation.
"Fink: We're back!
Cage: Not that we went anywhere."
This isn't the first meta movie that Cage has made; Adaptation was another
("review here" <>). Nicholas Cage plays himself very well. This movie
reminds
me a bit of JCVD ("review here"
), a similarly meta
movie starring Jean Claude Van Damme, another earnest actor known for
doing
the work and getting rocky reviews.
Dick (1999) -- "5/10"
Betsy (Kirsten Dunst) and Arlene (Michele Williams) are best friends. They're
two high-schoolers from Washington, D.C. in 1974. Arlene's mom is staying
at
the Watergate hotel for a while. This is kind of a Forrest Gump-style
movie
in that the girls are there -- and innocuously influential -- for most of
the
significant effects of the 1970s, especially those related to the Nixon
(Dan
Hedaya) presidency. The girls discover the creeps list, they discover the
tape recordings, the discover the Watergate break-in, as well as fingering
the perpetrators. They work with Woodward (Will Ferrell) and Bernstein
(Bruce
McCulloch) to get the story out. They're super-ditzy, though. There are a
bunch of other people in it, but none of the characters really click.
David
Foley is wasted as Bob Haldeman, Jim Breuer is kind of empty as John Dean,
Harry Shearer as G. Gordon Liddy is barely there, Saul Rubinek overacts
his
Henry Kissinger. I expected something a bit cleverer.
The Ninth Configuration (1980) -- "6/10"
The movie starts by playing a maudlin song named San Antone -- the entire
song -- over a blurry shot of a castle in the rain. There is a brief
interior
shot of a man mooning out the window, but we're soon back outside, looking
in
through the rain.
The castle is an insane asylum, full of veterans of the Vietnam War.
I was reminded in some places of the films of Tarkovsky. Tarkovsky was a
much
greater auteur, but I wouldn't be surprised if director Peter Blatty had
seen
some of those films. The incessantly pouring rain, the closeups, the
voiceovers, the gliding camera, the long shots, the lingering on
grotesquely
shaped statues and symbols.
"I don't think evil grows out of madness. I think madness grows out of evil."
It's much more darkly comic than Tarkovsky, though. I don't believe anyone
has every accused Tarkovsky of being "comic". Here, the dialogue is off
the
wall, with characters like Lt. Bennish (Robert Loggia) really, really
chewing
into the scenery. Probably the craziest part of this movie isn't that it
stars a puli dog, or any of the dialogue; it's that it's set in 1980, but
absolutely no-one smokes.
Kane's cover is blown by a new inmate, who knew him and his exploits in
Vietname. He's revealed as Killer Kane, working through some really bad
shit,
trying to be a better person. It worked until he recognized the other guy.
The actual top psychiatrist turns out to be his brother, trying to help
him
get well. Shades of Shutter Island with the turn of events.
And then it just devolves into a straight-up 80s-style bar scene with
bad-ass
biker dudes toying with Cutshaw (Scott Wilson) and Kane. It jut keeps
getting
more and more bizarre.
Steve Sandor is the primary torturer, at first with mirrored shades, then
revealing his heavy mascara, then making Kane say horrible things about
the
USMC, then tossing Kane around, then dropping into a split in front of a
prone Kane to make him lick beer off the floor.
Kane complies with everything until the other biker (Richard Lynch) drops
onto Cutshaw's face, unzips his pants and starts to try to face-fuck him.
That's the last straw for Kane, who shatters Sandor's beer stein in his
hand,
dropping him like a sack of potatoes, then takes out the rest of the bar.
It's unclear whether he's killed them or just knocked them out. They look
dead.
Kane returns to his philosophical discussion with Cutshaw, trying to
convince
him that there is good in the world. Kane takes his own life to prove it.
What? I suppose he's trying to "shock" Cutshaw back to sanity.
Dragon Eyes (2012) -- "4/10"
This was a pretty bad movie about Hong (Cung Le), who'd recently been
released from prison. He moved to the neighborhood of St. Jude to help
clean
it up. The neighborhood is run by Mister V (Peter Weller) and there are
rival
gangs that are over-the-top violent, but also become easily tamed when
Hong
just kung-fus around a bit. Hong had learned his movies in prion from
Tiano
(Jean-Claude Van Damme), who's really only a shadowy figure in this movie.
He
shows some moves during the training sequences and he's still pretty spry,
but it's nothing like his participation in other movies (e.g., Kickboxer:
Vengeance).
The plot was kind of confused, in that relatively large changes in the
gangland power structure seemed to happen for no reason. Hong shows up and
rents an apartment from an older fellow and his lovely daughter
(obviously).
He gets into it with a few roughs from the sixth-street gang. He does a
few
more things, and then suddenly Mister V gives him control over both gangs.
This doesn't go down too well, but Hong kicks the hispanic leader's ass
and
now has his utter loyalty.
There's an outside gang that's trying to take everything over, but Hong
organizes the gangs to fight back -- even though he forbids the use of
firearms. The citizens of St. Jude are happier with the peace, but then
there's a giant war, Mister V is no longer happy with Hong, and they fight
to
the death. Hong takes a lot of damage during all of this. His fighting
style
is much more rough and tumble. Also, there are a couple of scenes where he
takes a superhuman amount of damage to his bean, which is wildly and
noticeably unrealistic.
Jean Claude Van Damme appears only in Hong's flashbacks because he's in
prison, so he's only in training sequences.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] This would actually turn out to be a sort of Chekhov's butt=plug, as it
appeared in the next act.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=46102022-12-29T11:47:47+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Neal Brennan: Blocks (2022) -- "8/10"
He used the word "Cauckies" for "Caucasians". He did it a lot. It was kind of
funny at the time, but it looks weird on paper.
"I'm 48, never been married. People don't like it. Women would trust me more
if I'd been married and I'd murdered my wife. I mean, he's capable of
love,
he's just too passionate. And he's not not gonna murder two people, is
he?"
"I've never heard a woman do a sound effect in my entire life."
"Having kids despite climate change is like ... it's like being at a house
party where the roof is on fire, the bsement is flooding, the cops are
coming
to arrest everyone, you're squished in between tons of people, and you
look
at your buddy and say "We should invite Brian.""
"I did "Bufo Alvarius" --
it's like the nuclear bomb of psychedelics."
He called it a "traumedy" show, which was a good description. It was
mostly a
comedy show, but also a bit of performance art. He played with the blocks
behind him the whole show, shifting them about and putting them on
different
shelves. At the end, after his final monologue, hoping he'd get better, a
light switched on from the left and the shadows thrown by all the blocks
outlined the silhouette of his face. He pushed the glasses block a bit to
the
right and the silhouette got glasses. A nice trick.
Yves Saint Laurent (2014) -- "6/10"
This is a very pretty movie. The sets, the music, the clothes. It's nice to
just play as a music video, to be honest. The story's a bit weird, but
that
was also not unexpected. YSL works far too much, takes far too many drugs
to
keep himself going, is mercurial, insecure, and brilliant.
He gets involves in a lot of drug-fueled gay orgies. Lots of languorous
kisses with lots of drugs and alcohol and smoking. Then they killed their
dog
by leaving a bunch of drugs lying around on the floor where their French
bulldog could eat them. The dog did not go out easily. It's literally half
an
hour of self-indulgent self-destruction on screen. There has to have been
a
more artistic way to tell this story.
This movie is unfortunately much too long and self-indulgent. He takes a
long
time to fall.
Watched it in German with French subtitles.
Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022) -- "8/10"
The first 2/3 is excellent and well-paced. The final third was a bit long and
dragged on, unfortunately. This is the fake biography of Weird Al's
(Daniel
Radcliffe) rise to fame, following the exact steps you would expect from a
standard career arc: raised by unsupportive parents who want him to "stop
being everything that defines him.", then rising to meteoric fame based on
his amazing accordion skills, with his best friends, then getting turned
to
the dark side by Madonna (Evan Rachel Wood), descends into a hellish
nightmare of drinking, drugs, and excess before redeeming himself with an
original song Eat It (which Michael Jackson then copies from him), and
being
shot to death as he's accepting his Emmy.
Weird Al performs all of his own songs, and there are a bunch of good ones
from his repertoire. Daniel Radcliffe energetically lip-syncs it all and
throws himself wholeheartedly into the role. I don't know whether it was
Radcliffe's or Yankovic's idea to have Radcliffe be ripped AF, but it was
a
stroke of genius. It was also a nice touch that Radcliffe is shorter than
nearly everyone else in the film. Evan Rachel Wood was fabulous as Madonna
--
also just threw herself right into the role.
There were a ton of cameos and supporting roles worth mentioning -- it
just
goes to show how broad Yankovic's appeal is. I gave it an extra star
because
it's Weird Al, man.
The Boys s03 (2022) -- "9/10"
At the start of this thing, Stormfront (Aya Cash) is still alive a year
later, but absolutely fucked up in a hospital bed and not likely to be of
any
use at all to anyone. Well, she's still in love with Homelander (Antony
Starr), so when he visits, he pops in there for an invalid handie that was
probably the most shocking thing I've seen in a while. Hughie (Jack Quaid)
is
working for the BSA (Bureau of Superhero Affairs) and making headway on
catching supe criminals, along with Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) --
who's
the head-popper, but Hughie doesn't know it yet. It turns out that Neuman
is
the daughter of Stan Edgar (Giancarlo Esposito), Chairman of the Board at
Vaught. Hughie's eyes are wide open after he sees Neuman pop the head of a
person from her past. He realizes he's been working with the enemy all
along,
and tries to return to The Boys.
The Boys are kind of idling, but Butcher (Karl Urban) is still trying to
figure out a way of killing Homelander. He gets onto the scent of a device
that might be able to take him out when he learns from Mallory (Laila
Robins)
that she'd been on a mission in Nicaragua -- back when that was where the
CIA
was focused -- when the Russians showed up and took away an incapacitated
Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles). The legend had always been that Soldier Boy
had
been killed, which was why Butcher was interested. Soldier Boy was the
only
hero in history who was as powerful as Homelander. How was he killed? And
if
he wasn't killed, how had he been incapacitated?
There are a bunch of strands in this season, with MM (Laz Alonso)
struggling
to stay "straight" (not involved in supe-hunting activities) but falling
off
the wagon and returning to The Boys. Frenchie's (Tomer Capone) past comes
back to haunt him in the form of Nina (Katia Winter), who doesn't seem to
have any powers, but is preternaturally powerful anyway -- at least in the
hold she has over all those around her. Bad things happen, but they end up
going to Russia to find the "weapon" that took out Soldier Boy. Instead,
they
find Soldier Boy himself, releasing him from captivity. He'd been kept on
ice
with low temperatures are spectacular amounts of vaporized Novichok.
He shakes it off because he really is immensely powerful. In escaping, he
knocks Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara) around so hard that she loses her powers.
This
seems to be a side-effect of his new ability to channel rage into an
unholy
chest-ray that obliterates everything non-supe that it touches. Supe
things
it seems to neutralize.
Anyway, the Boys come back from Russia, with an incapacitated Kimiko.
However, Butcher has started taking an experimental one-day-supe drug
called
V24 that grants you superpowers for a day, but has a pretty sick hangover,
as
well. Hughie starts taking it as well. Butchie's powers are closer to
Homelander's, while Hughie's give him strength and the ability to teleport
(although not with clothes).
Nina is still trying to extract her pound of flesh from Frenchie, but
Kimiko
saves him, despite no longer having healing powers. She gets pretty
heavily
damaged in the bargain and ends up in the hospital, where she and Frenchie
get ... closer.
Homelander, meanwhile, is spiraling out of control. On his supposed
birthday,
Stormfront kills herself by swallowing his tongue. He melts down and goes
on
a spectacular rant, declaring himself utterly superior to everyone. This
goes
down remarkably well and saves his polling numbers. He's back on top of
the
world -- and no longer hiding who he is.
A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) is dueling with a supe named Blue Hawk (Nick
Wechsler), who's "cleaning up crime" by mostly just killing black people.
The
Deep (Chace Crawford) is back in the Seven after a struggle, while A-Train
isn't. The Deep gets an octopus involved in his sex life with his wife.
His
manipulative wife Cassandra (Katy Breier) is less than thrilled, realizing
that her grip on him is slipping (no pun intended).
Annie (Erin Moriarty) is granted co-captaincy with Homelander and they're
supposed to act as a couple. This is deeply disturbing to everyone but
Homelander, who's a flat-out psychopath. The terror is palpable.
Man, what else? Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell) used to be part of Payback,
headed up by Soldier Boy. It was Soldier Boy who'd mutilated and
brain-damaged Noir so badly that he only ever appears in costume and never
says anything. (This is different that in the comic books where Noir was
actually a prior clone of Homelander) Soldier Boy seeks revenge on all of
the
former members of Payback, who'd hated him and who'd helped incapacitate
him
for the Russians, who'd experimented cruelly on him (trying to figure out
what might damage him by, e.g., pouring gallons of acid down his throat,
which, while not doing actual damage, hurt like mad). He picks them off
one-by-one. Two of them are hosting that year's Herogasm, so they did that
as
well in this season.
Maeve (Dominique McElligott) is secretly helping The Boys because she
hates
Homelander and is terrified of what he may do to innocent people. But
Homelander knows, of course, because he can smell Butcher on her when she
returns from having delivered another supply of V24 -- and stayed for many
bottles of booze and also some supe-sex with Butcher, who literally knows
no
bounds.
Homelander takes over as CEO and COTB of Vaught with Edgar's
departure/arrest. A-Train kills Blue Hawk but ends up having a heart
attack,
so he gets Blue Hawk's super-heart implanted while he's in a coma. Neat.
Also, taking V24 will kill you after 3--5 doses, so Hughie might be OK,
but
Butcher is fucked.
Noir is watching his past in the form of cartoon versions of Payback
playing
out the final scene before Soldier Boy was taken. Homelander is on the
fence
about trying to kill Soldier Boy because he finds out that he'd his dad.
That
is, Homeland is Soldier Boy's son. Neat. Annie is off the leash, enraging
Homelander with bad press. Noir tries to get Homelander to help him kill
the
dangerous Soldier Boy, but that's no longer happening because Homelander
wants to team up with his dad. Noir insists and Homelander rips his
insides
to the outside.
Frenchie helps Kimiko get V so that her powers are restored. They all
gather
for the big clash between Homelander and Soldier Boy. Maeve and Homelander
fight it out, with Homelander blinding her in one eye, but Maeve having
done
some damage as well. Homelander's son Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) is there as
well, trying to figure shit out and trying to help with his powers. Maeve
tackles an exploding Soldier Boy out of the building and apparently
sacrifices them both. Obviously Soldier Boy is not dead. Neither is Maeve,
who is now de-powered, but alive, if blind in one eye. She's back with her
old girlfriend Elena (Nicola Correia-Damude).
Annie and the Boys are getting their feet back under them. Neumann is back
and now campaigning as Vice President -- Butcher declares that they will
have
to stop that bitch. Homelander is learning that he hasn't lost any support
among his faithful. Instead, he gains more support when he kills a
protester
who threw something at Ryan, whom he now takes to his personal
appearances.
Con Air (1997) -- "8/10"
Cameron Poe (Nicolas Cage) is a veteran who'd gone to jail for manslaughter
for killing a man in a fight outside a bar. He's about to get out on
parole,
but is being flown on a Con Air with a whole crew of colorful villains,
like
Cyrus the Virus (John Malkovich), Diamond Dog (Ving Rhames), Pinball (Dave
Chappelle), Garland Greene (Steve Buscemi), Johnny-23 (Danny Trejo), Swamp
Thing (M.C. Gainey), and others. They hijack the plane and are pursued by
Agent Larkin (John Cusack) and Agent Malloy (Colm Meaney).
This is peak Cage, the source of many Cage-like memes. It is a damned
exciting movie, with a lot of interesting characters. It's worth the price
of
entry just to watch Cage and Malkovich chew the scenery. Steve Buscemi is
his
understated and creepy self.
The plane takes off, there is subterfuge, the plane lands, the plane takes
off again, the plane "lands" in Las Vegas in a spectacular final scene.
Poe's
little girl gets her bunny-rabbit stuffed animal while Malkovich's Cyrus
the
Virus gets his head pounded in, literally. The only other survivor are, of
course, the good guards, but also Buscemi's Garland Greene, who's now at
the
craps table, winning big.
Unleashed (2005) -- "7/10"
Danny (Jet Li) is kept enslaved by Bart (Bob Hoskins), a shylock for the mob.
Bart keeps Danny on a collar, releasing him only to convince recalcitrant
debtors to reconsider their parsimony. We see Bart on a collection run,
unleashing Danny time after time, yelling at him while Danny saves his ass
again and again.
On one job, Danny meets Sam (Morgan Freeman) and learns a bit about
playing
the piano. On one job, Danny catches the eye of a rich man named Wyeth
(Michael Jenn), who approaches Bart about Danny taking part in an
underground
to-the-death fighting ring. Danny is off to a good start, but Bart doesn't
see anything but money. Danny wants a piano. Jet Li plays the role quite
well.
Before things can get going, though, one of Bart's customers catches up
with
him, ramming his car and machine-gunning him and his crew. Danny is the
sole
survivor, escaping back to Sam.
Sam and the girl who lives with him Victoria (Kerry Condon) adopt him,
teaching him about how the world works -- mostly stuff related to eating.
At
the same time, Victoria continues her studies, while Danny learns how to
play
the piano.
Victoria has a piano recital coming up, after which she and Sam will
return
to New York. They have invited Danny to come with them. Predictably, Danny
runs into someone from his old world and convinces him to come back to
Bart,
who "accepts" him back, slaps the collar back on him, and takes him right
back to the fighting ring.
I have no idea why Danny decided to go with the henchman, but he did. And
there he stands in the illegal fighting arena, arguing with Bart, all
while
wearing a shirt thatreminded me a bit of Bruce Lee's yellow jumpsuit from
Game of Death. Danny doesn't wnt to hurt anyone anymore, so his first
fight
looks a lot more like Jackie Chan than Jet Li. The movie has a ways to go
and
it's a Jet Li movie, so more fighting and less piano-playing was
inevitable.
Danny is getting his ass kicked until ... he doesn't. He vanquishes four
opponents, but kills no-one. Bob Hoskins is so over-the-top that it's
nearly
impossible to imagine how Danny even considered going back to him -- other
than he's incredibly mentally damaged. I understand that the plot called
for
it, but the docility that he shows toward his handlers is hard to believe.
Perhaps it's a dearth of imagination (or experience) on my part.
What is perhaps more impossible to believe is that Bart shows absolutely
no
fear of the killing machine that he abuses. He has no worries whatsoever
that
his abuse will ever backfire on him, that the chickens will ever come home
to
roost.
On their way to the next fight, Bart is babbling on about something and
says,
"families are meant to be together," a sentiment with which Danny agrees.
He
grabs the wheel and crashes it, killing everyone in the car but himself.
He's
pretty much fine, and returns to Sam and Victoria.
Danny learns more about his mother, in particular that his "uncle" Bart
had
shot and killed her. Now he know that Bart will never stop hunting him.
He's
correct. Bart is on his way with dozens of disposable henchmen, all of
whom
Danny will more-or-less easily dispatch in a The Raid-style hallway and
stairwell fight that will, of course, culminate in a boss fight against a
mysterious bald, flowing-white-robe-clad, sword-wielding, eyebrow-less
fighter from the arena, who has accompanied Bart.
Danny starts fighting that dude and, of course, has to lose before he can
win
because we don't have any other plots. The close-quarters fighting is
nicely
choreographed, though, as is the rest of the fight once they square off
against each other. Danny even tries to save the guy's life, but his
uniform
rips and the guy drops several floors to his death, on top of Bart's car.
Bart is now Danny's final boss. Again, unclear why Danny doesn't just take
him out. Is he still reluctant to harm his former "family"? They're all
such
utterly and irredeemably horrible people; it's honestly very hard to
believe
that he would still hew to his "training" and spiral into his Stockholm
Syndrome.
Bart counts on it, though, to the very end. Jet Li is quite an expressive
actor; he's one of the few who tried to make meaningful action movies
(perhaps Jean Luc Van Damme was another, at least sometimes). Bob Hoskins
seems to enjoy the role so much; his "Bart" is so invested in keeping
Danny a
"dog" that he'd give up his life if only he could continue to ruin
Danny's.
That is a level of insanity that is quite hard to believe.
The epilogue is at Victoria's piano recital.
Commando (1985) -- "5/10"
This is the story of all-around military bad-ass John Matrix (Arnold
Schwarzenegger), who has retired to the Californian hills with his
daughter
Jenny (Alyssa Milano). They are interrupted in their daddy-daughter bliss
his
former commander Major General Franklin Kirby (James Olson), who posts
several of his best soldiers to protect them from an old enemy Arius (Dan
Hedaya). Arius sends his henchmen to attack the house. They fail to kill
Matrix, but they manage to kidnap Jenny. The very strangely attired (he
looks
like a leather-bound, net-shirted sex-club frequenter) Bennett (Vernon)
has
partnered with Arius to get back at his former compatriot Matrix.
After killing every last man other than those who manage to escape with
his
daughter, Matrix is caught and bundled onto a plane to be delivered to
Arius.
Instead, he escapes, killing his bodyguard and getting right onto the
trail
of Sully (David Patrick Kelly), who he sees hitting on Cindy (Rae Dawn
Chong). Matrix follows Cindy and gets her to help him follow Sully. They
end
up shooting up a mall, then follow with another high-speed chase, more
killing, and, finally, end up knocking over a weapons-supply shop that has
a
secret back room with a ton of military-grade hardware.
The cops show up and arrest Matrix, but Cindy gets away. She follows the
paddy wagon and takes it out with a rocket launcher. They continue
together
to a pier where they figure out that Jenny is on an island. Luckily Cindy
knows how to fly, so they take a seaplane to the island. Matrix storms it,
kicking all kinds of ass. Bennett heads down to kill Jenny, but she's
escaped. Matrix kills Arius (as well about a hundred other people, all of
whom run into his bullets heedlessly), then squares off with Bennett in
the
sewers below, as Jenny looks on. I'm not spoiling too much by telling you
that Matrix wins the duel. He delivers a mot juste or three, then flies
away
with Cindy and Jenny. The end.
This movie didn't hold up nearly as well as the original Predator.
Hulk (2003) -- "7/10"
This is the original Marvel movie, directed by Ang Lee, years before anyone
knew anything about a continuous story arc or the MCU. Bruce Banner (Eric
Bana) has inherited genetic mutations from his father, David (Nick Nolte),
who'd experimented on himself. His boss Thaddeus Ross (Todd Tesen, later
Sam
Elliot) vehemently forbade him from doing so. Years later, and Banner is
working in a lab with Ross's daughter Betty (Jennifer Connelly).
There's a small cameo by Lou Ferrigno as a security guard, who walks out
of a
building with Stan Lee.
During an experiment with gamma rays, Bruce is trapped in the lab. Bruce's
genetic mutation protected him from it -- not only that, it made him
stronger. Banner hulks out for the first time and learns that he's not
normal
-- and hasn't been since his father experimented on him.
General Ross threatens him (getting angry) and then Talbot (Josh Lucas)
comes
over to his house to not only threaten him, but start pounding on him
(very
angry). So, he hulks out again. He's mostly aware, though, so he remembers
that his father has sicced souped-up gamma-dogs on Betty and intervenes in
time. He's bitten pretty badly as the Hulk and has injuries as Banner.
Betty
is nursing him when the military shows up and takes him prisoner.
A truly awesome Ang Le montage of military hardware and three-D maps and
left- and right-wipes ensues to show us just how many people and vehicles
and
technology is involved in keeping Banner's giant mecha-coffin underground.
Ross wants to keep the incredibly dangerous weapon named Hulk away from
everyone. Betty convinces him
let her try to cure Bruce. It kind of works. He can control himself
reasonably well.
Until, that is, Talbot takes over the program from Ross and resolves to
slice
a piece off of the Hulk in order to build a super-weapon. Banner refuses,
but
Talbot takes him hostage and traps him in a tank and provokes him into
turning into the Hulk. He obviously escapes and Talbot kills himself
trying
to get the probe.
Betty and David have a chat, during which David reveals how he'd killed
his
wife with a knife, but he totally didn't mean it, but he was raging out?
Trying to kill Bruce because he was dangerous? I have to admit that I
wasn't
watching very carefully at that point.
What I found kind of fascinating is that I'd never heard of the Hulk's
backstory, in which his father was doing research with starfish and other
creatures that can regrow limbs and heal themselves. A few times, we see
the
Hulk injured and then quickly heal completely, in seconds. We see his skin
ripple as it absorbs and rejects bullets. He doesn't kill
indiscriminately,
though. He generally incapacitates soldiers rather than utterly
annihilating
them, as he easily could.
Betty calms him down again from his latest rage-journey, where he'd ended
up
in San Fransisco, tossing about cars and trolleys. The Hulk sees her and
lets
Bruce reappear.
Bruce Banner is once again under the military's control. David Banner is
being transferred and brought to his son. Once he's there, they do a bunch
of
family shit, but mostly both listen to Nick Nolte chew up the scenery in a
truly spectacular fashion, walking the boards as if he were on Broadway.
Eric
Bana screams primally. Nolte mocks him. Everything he does seeks to
provoke
the Hulk. Since Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Nolte has looked the exact
same.
David sticks a power cable in his mouth and absorbs its power; Bruce
starts
to hulk out. Bizarre shit happens in the clouds above the location. Bruce
and
David both escape far away, and then do battle, with David as some sort of
rock creature, his powers absorbed from whatever he touches. David wants
to
absorb Bruce's power -- all of it. But there is no end to Bruce's power --
and David can't handle it.
Ross give up and gamma-nukes the entire spot. Bruce survives; David does
not.
We discover Bruce practicing field medicine in an unspecified South
American
jungle. Bandits rob his camp, taking medicine, and we see Banner's eyes
flash
green, the camera lifts over the canopy, and the scenes fades to black
over
the Hulk's roar.
I watched it in German this time.
TraumaZone Series (2022) -- "7/10"
The videos are available on YouTube,
* "TraumaZone Series 1 1 Part One 1985 to 1989"
* "TraumaZone Series 1 2 Part Two 1989 to 1991"
* "TraumaZone Series 1 3 Part Three 1991"
* "TraumaZone Series 1 4 Part Four 1992 to 1994"
* "TraumaZone Series 1 5 Part Five 1993 to 1996"
* "TraumaZone Russia 1985 1999 S01E06 1994 to 1998 720p iP"
* "TraumaZone Russia 1985 1999 S01E07 1995 to 1999 720p iP"
I watched the first couple of segments without taking notes.
In part 3, we are shown Boris Yeltsin at a spa with someone who is the
spitting image of Tormund Giantsbane swimming right next to him.
In part 4, at about 4:00 or so, a young lady sits behind a pile of dead
pigs
and opines about the lifting of the price controls ("Shock Therapy"
strongly
suggested by U.S. American advisors),
"Price liberalisation? I think that once prices are freed, life will become
unbearable for a common worker. And it will take a lot of effort to earn a
living. We'll have to use any means, honest and dishonest, just to
survive."
At 20:30, there's a straight-up amateur-porn scene with a pretty healthy
Russian couple trying to make ends meet by making a porno. I guess
YouTube's
censors aren't so strict?
At 29:30, we see people everywhere in the street, trying to sell their
meager
possessions in order to survive. Their society had completely collapsed --
or, more accurately, been imploded for them. They were selling their
vouchers
in factories that they'd been "given" as their "shares" of the former
communist government. These were quickly and cheaply funneled to a handful
of
oligarchs, who "bought" the entire country for a pittance. They still rule
today.
At about 42:00, they show more of the closed factories, the suffering
people,
the consolidation of power under the oligarchs, who close everything down,
don't pay anyone, and move their money offshore. The same thing was to
happen
in the U.S. a decade later, under America's Yeltsin Bill Clinton, with his
NAFTA bill that would have similar consequences for the unwashed masses
and
the self-elected elites.
Everyone else dropped back to a barter economy in Russia. It didn't go
that
far in the U.S. Instead, they'd learned how to fleece everyone without
destroying the country utterly. In Russia, no-one cared to avoid that
chaos
-- after all, the principles who benefitted didn't even live there.
Why do I always feel worse for animals than people? They show monkeys
trapped
in an abandoned zoo, they show a goat being stuffed into the trunk of a
car,
a tiger having her kittens taken away, a camel in a harness being rudely
transported somewhere -- and it tugs on my heartstrings in a way that
seeing
the entire population of Russia suffer doesn't. There's a lesson here, one
we
don't want to learn, I think.
We talk these days of the bleakness of Ukraine, entering winter without
power
or resources. This has already happened to them once before, to all of the
former Soviet Union, in fact. At 20:00 in volume 5, they show blasted
neighborhoods with "an economy in free-fall, [where] millions of people
could
not afford food or heating [and] trees disappeared in the parks as people
chopped them down for firewood."
At 27:00, they return to the abortion clinic, where they still provide
free
abortions. It's the only reliable form of birth control. The condoms are
defective, people are wildly uneducated about sex, and the pill was never
imported or produced. The employees at the clinic tell of "record-holders"
who have had 16 abortions, some of them 2-3 per year. To be fair, there
are
those who use the service once. There was a poor lady who was still living
in
an apartment with her husband and parents, who had been waiting on their
own
apartment for eight years and counting. The nurse there tried to shame her
because she said that wonderful people like the poor lady should be having
kids instead of the animals who actually were. Those situations are such a
shit-show.
At 34:00, we learn that,
"Viktor Chernomyrdin ran Gazprom. It owned a third of the world's supply of
gas. Yeltsin made him prime minister to force the privatization program
through. Chernomyrdin sold Gazprom to himself and his friends at a
thousandth
of its real value. He then looted it and smuggled the money out of the
country.
"The minister of finance said it was 'the biggest robbery of the century,
perhaps of human history.'"
In part six, at about 05:00, we visit an apartment of a family that is so
cold that they can see their breath inside. I wonder how this resonates
with
the people of England and Germany this winter, as some will be thrown into
the same situation. What goes around, comes around.
At 13:00, we see scenes from the Russian bombardment of Chechnya, just
awful
scenes of people fleeing their homes, across fields, with nothing at all,
just the clothes on their backs -- not even warm clothes. They are
frustrated
and desperate, driven mad by the relentless Russian bombing campaign. The
Russians claiming to be bombing to preempt terrorism -- a likely story,
and
one the great powers love to tell.
This is contrasted with footage from a Russian disco at the same time,
where
young people are dancing and enjoying themselves, half-naked women dancing
in
cages over their heads.
Next, we see Chechnyans in the hills, practicing for combat, their weapons
laid out on blankets. The sun never seems to shine in this documentary.
The
BBC carried their dreary weather with them. The scenes of Russia attacking
Grozny are bleak and awful. War is idiocy. It is brutality. It is evil. It
always goes the same. That is, never as movies depict. it.
Still in episode 6, at 28:00, we hear about the continued dismantling and
robbing of the Russian state.
"Despite privatization, the government still controlled several key
industries that were vital to society. The oligarchs wanted to get hold of
these industries, as well. They came up with a plan. They offered to lend
their looted wealth back to the government. But, in return, they would get
shares in the remaining industries. They knew the loans would never be
repaid. So, they would get control of the industries for a fraction of
their
value. [...] [s]even men were about to get hold of the great mineral
wealth
of Russia ,,, for almost nothing."
At 46:20, they ask a babushka (ба́бушка) picking burdocks in a
field
(probably for tea?) who she's going to vote for.
"I don't care [this was mistranslated; she actually said 'я не знаю',
which means 'I don't know'] - I guess. It doesn't matter. Even if we vote,
they'll appoint who they've already chosen."
The Russians of the 90s have more and more in common with Americans in the
2020s.
The following screenshot from about 30:15 is labeled with "Ulyanovsk:
Lenin's
birthplace near the Volga River". The snowy, snowy road flowing over the
hills, with a car on the right and a horse-drawn carriage on the left,
reminds me very much of Central New York, where the Amish with their
horse-drawn carriages are very common on the country roads. I saw this
scene
several times while cycling this summer. That everything is covered in
very
cold-looking snow reminds me of growing up there (or more-recent visits,
when
I was still going in the winter).
[image]
Just after that, we see a scene from 1500m below Norilsk, drilling for
nickel
in a mine. It's interesting to think, from the comfort of my office, how,
all
around the world, these activities proceed. Nickel is mined, oil is mined,
machines are built to extract oil, to extract nickel. Machines are built
to
build the tools to build the machines that mine nickel. Food, water,
logistics for the miners. Safety standards to make sure a mine 1500m below
the surface even works efficiently. Incredible how much human activity
happens every second of every day.
It's followed immediately by a dinner full of suited and utterly useless
financiers and economists and politicians having a fancy dinner, utterly
unaware of how much the rest of humanity is working to make sure that
their
fancy food shows up on their fancy plates while they earn dozens of times
as
much as the people down in the nickel mine.
At 45:30, the captions read,
"Those who had believed that Russia could be turned into a Western-style
democracy realized that idea had now failed."
This is a wildly unfair characterization. The prior 6h45m of the
documentary
had shown how Russia had been eviscerated by pirates. The idea hadn't
failed.
It had been killed. Actively suppressed and destroyed. The horse lost the
race not because it wasn't fast -- it's that you chopped its legs off,
shot
it ten times, and tied it to a 10-car train. It's like blaming Max instead
of
the Grinch when Max can't pull the sled. Fuck everything about that
mindset.
Doctor Sleep (2019) -- "9/10"
Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor), from The Shining, is all grown up and he is
an absolutely alcoholic mess. We wake with him from an absolute humdinger
of
a bender. He is not alone. A lithe, naked woman lies next to him, curled
up
around a pool of her own green vomit. He's not doing much better. He
throws
up into the toilet, then examines a wicked shiner in the mirror. We
revisit
his previous evening with him in flashbacks. He provoked fights; she loved
it; they both got hammered and coked up. As he dresses, he finds an empty
wallet. Desperate, he robs the young lady who'd robbed him to buy cocaine
the
night before. She has a few dollars, but mostly food stamps. Her
2-year-old
toddler wanders into the room. Torrance is horrified. He thinks he's hit
bottom. This might very well be it.
He takes the money anyway and heads north -- far north. We see bits and
pieces of his past coming together, how he learned to put away bad spirits
into mental boxes, how he drinks to keep these ghosts at bay. In a
parallel
story, we see the "True Knot" gather its newest disciple Snakebite Andi
(Emily Alyn Lind). Led by Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson), they gain
strength
and power from gifted young children. Other members of note are Crow Daddy
(Zahn McClarnon) and Grampa Flick (Carel Struycken, who played The Fireman
in
Twin Peaks). They suck "steam" from victims in a "steamy" world. They can
inhale it directly, but they can also store it in canisters. They are soul
vampires.
In another strand, we meet young Abra (Dakota Hickman), a very gifted
child,
perhaps even as gifted as Danny himself.
Danny is taken in up north by a gentle stranger named Billy Freeman (Cliff
Curtis), who spots him his first two months rent, takes him to an AA
meeting,
and helps him get a job in a local hospice. It is here that gets the
moniker
Doctor Sleep. He's teamed up with the cat who also knows when a person's
time
has come.
Eight years later, he's still clean.
The True Knot takes another victim, a small boy, a little-league player.
Abra
(Kyliegh Curran) wakes and screams. She communicates with Danny through
the
chalkboard he has in his bedroom. She writes "redrum" and he writes that
he
hopes that she's OK. She is older now, and has learned how to use her
powers,
at least a little. She tracks down the little boy, to find out where he
came
from and where he's gone, and who got rid of him. She launches herself
astrally into Rose the Hat. Their first encounter is a shock for both of
them. The encounter has repercussions for Danny, who falls unconscious as
a
result of the psychic, astral shock wave.
Abra swats Rose to the side like she was nothing. Rose is intrigued, not
afraid. Crow Daddy wonders whether to kill her or turn her. Rose will hear
none of it. She doesn't want someone so much more powerful than anyone
else
in the Knot. Abra wouldn't turn anyway. No, Rose wants to milk her, to
keep
her as livestock.
Abra seeks out and find Danny, pinging him telepathically. She asks for
his
help, but Danny tells her to keep her head down instead. Back at work,
Danny
finds that Dick has come to visit him, showing up somewhat spookily in an
empty room. He's just a spirit, of course. At 01:30:00, while they're
talking, McGregor looks the spitting image (and sound) of Jack Nicholson.
I
wonder how accidental that was?
Danny: Why are you here?
Dick: I'm here because it all comes 'round. Ka's a wheel, Doc.
This is peak Stephen King.
He's there one last time to tell Danny that his job is to help Abra.
Meanwhile, Rose the Hat travels astrally to pay Abra a little visit. This
is
rendered really nicely. Abra drops the hammer on her, terrifying Rose with
her power. Only with great difficulty and no small amount of damage does
Rose
escape. Abra got into Rose's head and stole information -- Rose doesn't
know
what. She and her band are scared, but they're desperate -- they haven't
been
feeding well. Grampa Flick "cycles" and departs the earthly plane, leaving
only his steam for the others. They greedily inhale it.
Abra, Danny, and Billy find the little leaguer's body and get his baseball
glove. Abra uses it to find the True Knot on the road, heading toward
them.
The trio are ready for the Knot. Abra fools them into thinking they'd
captured her (they'd captured her teddy bear instead). They're all out in
the
open and Danny and Billy start picking them off. They get everyone cleanly
but Snakebite Andi, who manages to order Billy to kill himself before she
dies. He does.
Crow Daddy, meanwhile, has sneakily found Abra at home, drugs her, kills
her
father, and kidnaps her. They're on the road when Danny jumps into Abra
and
tells her to crash the van -- Crow Daddy's not wearing a seatbelt. Rose
appears in astral form, but Abra smirks and passes through her. Rose,
enraged
(and more than a little distraught that her entire family is dead) inhales
two entire canisters of steam and vows revenge.
Danny and Abra are on the way to Colorado, to the Overlook Hotel. Danny
thinks they're going to need the malignant force of the hotel to defeat
Rose,
who he know will never stop coming. They wind their way up the mountain,
to
the brooding, slumped ruins. Abra waits outside while Danny goes inside to
"wake it up". He does a posterity tour of the the greatest hits from The
Shining.
Rose shows up and grandstands around a bit. Danny and Abra almost catch
her
in a box in the labyrinth, but she pops out in time, realizing that Danny
is
also gifted. They square off. She gets the better of Danny and starts to
draw
off his steam, as she tortures him in the grand study of the hotel. Abra
has
fled, as instructed. Rose discovers the boxes in his head and wants to
know
what's in the boxes. He shows her. "They're hungry."
After they've eaten Rose, they turn on Danny. Abra is upstairs. Danny
reprises his father's role, possessed entirely by the hotel now, having
sacrificed himself to rid the world of Rose. Abra ducks into room 237.
Danny/Overlook finds her. She stands against the hotel, making the hotel
abandon the body, at least temporarily. He tells her she has to leave
alone,
that he can't hold off the Overlook much longer. The Overlook is terrified
because, while it ate Rose, it is now afraid of the exploding boilers that
will torch it.
At the end, amid the fires, Danny is released and sees clearly. Abra
stands
outside, "I could hear it dying", she tells Dan, who's only in her mind
now,
or on the astral plane, ... or something. "We go on, after."
I watched the three-hour director's cut. Ewan McGregor is excellent, as
are
Kyleigh Kurran and Cliff Curtis (who has the most uneven eyes I've seen in
a
while). For the acting and the patient pacing, I give it an extra star.
]]>
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of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
The Expendables 3 (2014) -- "6/10"
The first act has the team freeing Doctor Death (Wesley Snipes) from a Syrian
prison. This is where they found out that Stonebanks (Mel Gibson) is back
to
make their lives miserable. Stonebanks deliberately wounds Hale Caesar
(Terry
Cruise), taking him out of the action for the rest of the movie. Max
Drummer
(Harrison Ford) is their new manager. Because Caesar was injured, Barney
(Sylvester Stallone) decides everyone's too old for this shit and lets
them
all go. That's Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Yin Yang (Jet Li), Gunner
(Dolph Lundgren), and Toll Road (Randy Couture), as well as Doctor Death,
who'd just gotten back.
Barney gets a new team, consisting of Thorn (Glen Powell), Luna (Ronda
Rousey), Mars (Victor Ortiz), and Smilee (Kellan Lutz). Galgo (Antonio
Banderas) is left off the team, despite being hilarious and enthusiastic.
I
absolutely had no idea what those names were until I looked them on on
Wikipedia and IMDb. They are completely irrelevant. Of course they sneer
at
the old guard and make a bunch of old-guy jokes. Of course they completely
disregard any of the old guard's many amazing accomplishments. Of course
they
have no respect for anyone's skills but their own. Of course they're
completely cocky and suffer from an incredible surfeit of confidence. Of
course they get kidnapped by Stonebanks at the end of their very first
mission, which they ran with Trench Mauser (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and
Barney.
Of course Barney escapes and survives to fight another day. Of course
Galgo
is half-heartedly welcomed onto Barney's "team" to try to rescue the young
guns. Of course Stonebanks sets up an elaborate trap in a foreign country.
Of
course the original Expendables demand that they be allowed to help. Of
course they rescue everybody and realize that working together they're
even
more powerful than ever! Go Joe! Because knowing is half the battle!
And, of course, Barney faces off against Stonebanks, who of course manages
to
outmatch him right until he doesn't and Barney of course wins. Of course
Barney runs up eight stories of building in four seconds, running
Sylvester
Stallone-style across an imploding roof to catch the rope hanging from a
helicopter piloted by Drummer and filled with Expendables. Of course this
all
works despite Barney having just gotten thrashed to within an inch of his
life and having a bullet wound or ten.
Of course they all end up at a bar together looking like a fucking circus.
Of
course I enjoyed it. It's stupid, but it's coherent and fun. I'd seen this
movie before, but I couldn't find a previous review.
John Wick 3: Parabellum (2019) -- "8/10"
See my "review from 2019"
.
At the time, I wrote,
"The Adjucator—a sort of cop from the “High Table”—is a bit of a Deus
Ex Machina (it’s unclear why she has such latitude—I mean, the High
Table
has sway, but most of the people she confronts are nearly in open
rebellion
of it), but it doesn’t make much sense to dwell on it, to be honest."
I am no longer feeling so generous. This whole adjudicator plot-line
doesn't
hold up on re-watching. It is honestly unclear why she has such power.
Somebody could just whack her supercilious ass at any moment and no-one
would
know, but it doesn't happen -- this, among people who all kill for a
living.
It's a bit odd. I suppose the magical power of the High Table holds sway
over
everyone, but it's a bit of a contrived way to try to develop tension.
I get it, John Wick is also an unexplained force of nature, but he's why
I'm
watching. I do not care about the adjudicator who appeared out of nowhere
and
seems to be more powerful than John Wick's reputation. Convince me I
should
instead of just ordering me to.
In the final slaughter, he keeps taking people out despite their body
armor
and helmets -- but never thinks to take any of their body armor or helmets
for himself. He's just out there without a helmet, taking care of
business.
Iliza Schlesinger: Hot Forever (2022) -- "9/10"
She honestly made me cry laughing once or twice. Delivery is great. Material
is reasonably fresh.
Describing weigh-loss: "Basically, whatever you weighed when you were 12,
that's the weight you spend the rest of your life trying to get back to."
Describing a bra: "Like two contact lenses held together with dental
floss."
Severance S01 (2021) -- "8/10"
This is the story of a company named Lumen, which has a department called
Severance. The work done in this department is so secret that its
employees
must agree to undergo a procedure that separates their memories into two
selves: a work self and a private self. The office is very, very
minimalist.
The office is in a deep basement. The transition between personalities
happens in the elevator, on the way up or down. Some people are not
severed,
while others are. The severed all have an innie and an outie, neither of
whom
have any idea what the other is doing.
Mark (Adam Scott) took the job because he's trying to escape the fact of
his
wife's death. His innie has lost his best friend Petey (Yul Vazquez), who
used to head the department until he suddenly ... didn't. And now Mark's
in
charge of the others, Irving (John Turturro) and Dylan (Zach Cherry),
which
doesn't sit well with either of them. They are joined by a new co-worker
Helly (Britt Lower)
who is having some serious issues getting adjusted to having been severed.
To
say that she's resentful is an understatement. After trying to get a
message
to her outie, she dials it up by trying to hang herself.
Their immediate overseer is Milchick (Tramell Tillman), an absolute sadist
who administers punishments when required. And they're required a lot.
It's
not physical -- all of the punishments are absolutely psychologically
crippling. His immediate boss is Harmony Cobel (Patricia Arquette), who
actually lives right next to Mark on the surface. She actually starts to
insinuate her way into his life by cozying up to his sister Devon (Jen
Tullock) and her wacky husband Ricken (Michael Chernus).
Somewhere in there is a storyline where Irv falls in love with Burt
(Christopher Walken) -- the head of a different department, then must deal
with his loss when Burt "retires". Burt retires on the surface, but in the
"innie" world, Burt will disappear forever.
Mark determines that Petey was on to something and had learned that Lumen
was
able to switch their innies and outies at will. They figure out how to do
this and set up a night where the innies will be out rather than the
outies.
We already knew who Mark was, but we find out that Irv is a painter who
keeps
painting the exact same thing every day and that he has a dog. Dylan has a
kid. Helly is the best one -- she's actually on the board of directors of
Lumen and manages to reveal to everyone that the innies suffer. Mark finds
out that his wife is still alive and has also been severed. They've
actually
met as innies.
In Bruges (2008) -- "8/10"
See my "review from 2015"
. It held up quite
well on a second viewing. Both Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell are
phenomenal. Colin Farrell is nearly transcendent.
Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014) -- "4/10"
It starts off pretty hyper-jingoistic and doesn't get much better. Kevin
Costner (playing Thomas Harper, head of a secret unit) is always pretty
heavy-handed when he's in something like this. Chris Pine (playing Jack
Ryan)
is affable (it's why I started watching), but he can't do much with it.
And
then Keira Knightley shows up (as Cathy Muller) and makes everything
worse,
as usual.
The plot is kind of current, though: it's about pipeline debates between
the
U.S. and Russia.
But, yeah, whatever interest Pine's performance awakens, Knightley's
suckage
eats right up. I take it back, Kenneth Branagh as Viktor Cheverin
absolutely
limbos under Knightley's performance, with his absolutely ridiculous
Russian
accent and his absolutely ridiculous threat to put a lightbulb in
Knightley's
mouth as the ultimate form of Russian-style torture. :"I'm putting
lightbulb
in her mouth, Jack!", in that horrible accent. Jesus, what a culturally
offensive mess.
It's also neat to watch the FBI and State Department acting with impunity
in
Moscow, like officially, with S.W.A.T.-style units and everything.
The film starts off with Jack Ryan getting knocked into serious physical
rehabilitation, but it's unclear what this has to do with the rest of the
film, other than to perhaps explains why he takes a desk job? In the end,
it's his brains that prevail. Hooray.
The Philadelphia Experiment (2012) -- "4/10"
This is a remake of a "1984 original"
that I'm pretty sure I've seen, but which I couldn't remember at all. I
somehow feel that that version was better. The remake leaned heavily on
its
ability to outshine the original in special effects, but was so-so in all
other respects.
Basically, the Philadelphia is an aircraft carrier that appears out of a
wormhole of sorts, transporting the few surviving crew into the future.
One
of them meets his granddaughter. It's all a bit confused. Some people are
trying to harness this time-traveling power for a weapon whereas others
are
interested in making the whole experiment finally end.
I Am Wrath (2016) -- "4/10"
This isn't really a remake, but it's a trope: man loses wife to a violent
crime and goes on a completely justified vigilante rampage. This time it's
John Travolta carrying the mantle of formerly highly skilled killer and
now
highly aggrieved victim who'd hunting down cartoonishly evil baddies. It
basically sucks.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013) -- "4/10"
I still stand by "my review from 2015"
.
This movie was somehow more acceptable when watched askance and in German.
Top Gun: Maverick (2022) -- "8/10"
Things that ruled:
* Maverick's (Tom Cruise) early takeoff in the Darkstar (fictitious)
airplane, which looked freaking amazing. The low takeoff which lifted
the
roof off of a building was amazing. Maverick's breaking of Mach 10 was
wonderfully done. Pure adrenalin. Being Maverick, he had to take it
farther, destroying the aircraft in the process.
* Cruise and Kilmer, on-screen together, probably for the last time,
with
Kilmer significantly diminished but still fighting. That was nicely
filmed and, honestly, got me right in the feels, because I grew up
with
both of them -- and, honestly, liked Kilmer a lot better in their
respective primes, with his mix of action and comedy in Top Secret!
and
the absolutely inestimable Real Genius, which was literally
foundational
for me.
* Maverick's training run -- 15 seconds faster than the already
suicidally
tightly planned 2:30 -- was also pretty amazing. Really well-done.
Whenever Cruise is doing awesome stuff on-screen, you can just lean
back
and enjoy it.
* The actual mission run was also pretty great, except for the stupidly
long time they let Rooster be inadequately slow, as if he would have
to
work out his inability to seize the moment until he's literally in
enemy
territory. Right up until the SAMs started going was fantastic. It
stretched out a bit after that, but Maverick's rescue of Rooster was
great.
* Rooster's rescue of Maverick was pretty great, too, winding up a bit
into
the ridiculous, but finally actually dropping its too-serious mien and
just
going for it. When Maverick and Rooster meet in the snow in enemy
territory:
"Maverick: What were you thinking?
Rooster: I wasn't! Just like you told me to!
Maverick:..."
* Stealing the F-14 and getting it up in the air was also pretty
freaking
great. Just pure adrenalin and wonderfully filmed, foot-pedals and
all.
Maverick took out one of the enemies immediately, then fought like
hell
to take out the other one, all in a comparatively ancient plane. Then
another one showed up.
So, yeah, there was plenty to enjoy, but ... it also dragged on a bit
during
some of the talking stuff. I'm not opposed, but a lot of it was pretty
wooden. They spent a lot of time building out characters that went nowhere
and could have significantly cut down on the running time if they'd just
edited a bit more judiciously.
Also, don't think about the fact that their mission was to fly into enemy
territory, blow shit up, and then get back to an aircraft carrier parked
just
miles off of the enemy's coast. Interestingly, that aircraft carrier seems
to
be a safe home base that the enemy cannot attack in any way whatsoever.
That
is, they had one airstrip, a couple of fifth-generation air fighters, and
a
nuclear power-plant built in literally the most inaccessible place you
could
possibly place it -- and literally no other striking power. No more
planes,
no more missiles, absolutely nothing they could lob at the sitting duck of
an
aircraft carrier on their front step.
]]>
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of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) -- "6/10"
I do not like the Spider-Man (Tom Holland) with the Stark super-suit. This is
not a very good treatment of the multiverse. I like Tom Holland as
Spider-Man. I do not like the Spider-Man that he has to play. It's quite
lame. There is so much shit going on, but Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), MJ
(Zendaya), and Ned (Jacob Batalon) feature very prominently. Mary-Jane is
incredibly entitled and snotty. But this Peter deserves it.
Peter Parker's identity is revealed and his life is ruined, so he goes to
Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to ask him to cast a spell to make
the
world forget. Parker fucks up the spell with his indecisiveness, so the
multiverse "leaks". Everyone shows up: Electro (Jamie Foxx), Doc Ock
(Alfred
Molina), Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe),
Lizard
(Rhys Ifans).
This couldn't be more of a Disney movie if they'd tried. This is
ridiculous.
This whole movie is a hodgepodge of deus ex machinae. Norman Osborne is
now a
good guy. Spidey's suit is all-powerful. They have a fabricator, which can
build anything, I guess. Who cares?
J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons) is now Alex Jones, with a self-hosted
podcast
rather than a newspaper. Willem Dafoe manages to salvage something,
though.
His sheer acting talent overwhelms the bizarre script. Everybody else is a
confused pussy, while he's a force of nature. Cumberbatch is also quite
good.
"Nah, still feels weird."
I'm really having a hard time with this Spider-Man/Peter Parker who
doesn't
feel guilt, but only feels sorry for himself. Now, they're all standing on
the rooftop, crying together. Ned and MJ are lurking around in the
background. I do like Tobey McGuire. You see how much better an actor he
is
than the other two (Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland).
"Is that happening? Or am I dying?"
Now, we've moved on to three Peter Parkers "doing science". They made all
of
the devices they need and set them up at the Statue of Liberty and wait
for
the supervillains to show up. They spend the time shooting the shit out of
everything and self-analyzing. I'm honestly not sure who this movie is
for.
Are there really fans who wanted this? Somehow Peter is no longer
concerned
about involving MJ and Ned in a highly dangerous "trap". I don't even
care. I
stopped caring one minute in.
The ending drags on a lot. They all end up forgetting who Peter Parker is.
All the villains are cured and go home. The other two Spider-Men also go
home. I don't understand where all the hype came from for this movie.
People
were talking about how amazing it was. It has a really high rating. I'm
getting a bit nervous about who I'm sharing the planet with.
One of the points in the rating for for Willem Defoe.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) -- "7/10"
This was kind of the sequel to Spider-Man: No Way Home. It was also all
multiverse-y (it's right in the title). Benedict Cumberbatch is back as
Dr.
Strange. This time it's Strange who's duplicated rather than Spider-Man.
Hey,
if it worked once. There's a girl named America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez)
whose
mutant power is being able to flit from one multiverse to another, at
will.
People are after her for her power, obviously.
Actually, it turns out to be Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) who's
chasing
her because she's 100% convinced that she can use Chavez's powers to
reunite
with her children. She is prodigiously powerful already, so Strange has
his
hands full. She strong-arms Wong (Benedict Wong) into helping her.
Then they have to find some sort of book that will stop her. There are a
lot
of cool parts where Maximoff just offs people, which is a neat change of
pace. The way she killed Black Bolt was clever.
Still, this is a Disney movie, so Maximoff sees the error of her ways when
her children recoil at what she's become, and she sacrifices herself to
destroy the all copies of the evil book from all multiverses. Jesus, as
I'm
writing this, I'm wondering what level of hypnotism made me rate this so
high. Docking a point. It was definitely better than Spidey: No Way Home,
but
not that much.
White House Down (2013) -- "7/10"
Still a decent flick to have on in the background. See my "review from 2014"
.
I saw it in German this time.
GI Joe: Rise of the Cobra (2013) -- "4/10"
Still a decent flick to have on in the background. I watched and "reviewed
this movie in 2010"
.
I honestly saw no reason to change my rating from a 4/10, although I
probably
would have been a bit more generous if I hadn't seen the original rating.
There are some good actors, but the plot and dialogue are so bad.
I saw it in German this time.
Outland (1981) -- "7/10"
This is a crime thriller in space, starring Sean Connery as William O'Neil, a
space marshal assigned to a titanium-mining colony on Io. There are about
4,000 people on the base. He replaces the previous marshal, whose methods
were quite lax -- he'd ignored a drastic increase in deaths among the
miners
over the last few months.
Together with Dr. Lazarus (Frances Sternhagen), he discovers that someone
is
smuggling in high-powered and eventually lethal methamphetamines to boost
worker productivity. The miners take it because of the bonuses, but they
eventually go squirrelly and commit suicide -- either by cutting open
their
own suit to release the spiders that only they can see, by walking outside
without a spacesuit, or in a suicide by incredibly accommodating cop.
The sets and music are top-notch. This movie holds up very well even
today.
It's a dingy aesthetic, which I really like. This is actually much more
believable than the spic-n-span environments of the Belter mining colonies
on
The Expanse.
It's directed by Peter Hyams, whom I remember reading about in the video
essay and article "The Unloved, Part 82: The Relic" by Scout Tafoya
and which
wrote,
"Hyams was one of the guys who never stopped lighting like it was the '70s,
and even then it seemed like he was trying to find some kind of a meeting
point between the bleak revisionism of that era and the biting noirs shot
by
ace cinematographer John Alton. He wanted to find something terrible in
the
dark, because he knew that's where all our dirtiest secrets were located."
Yeah!
The Martian (2015) -- "9/10"
This movie holds up on a second viewing. See my "original review from 2015"
.
I watched it in German this time.
The Expanse S06 (2021) -- "7/10"
I've read the books by now, so I know that there's a pretty good story buried
in there somewhere. I don't understand why they can't extract the good
bits.
In the first episode, they focused on all the less interesting bits.
They've
converted more characters to women (there were enough, no? Like the
interaction between Bobbie (Fankie Adams), Monica (Anna Hopkins), and
Avasarala (Shorreh Aghdashloo) was completely true to the book, but
Monica's
lines were so wooden and stupid and petty.
It's great that all of Marco's lieutenants are women now, really.
Rosenfeld
(Kathleen Robertson) is positively erotically terrifying. But could you
also
not get so fucking lazy with the story? I miss Miller (Thomas Jane) and
Ashford (David Stathairn) quite a bit not because they're men, but because
they had good dialogue and well-defined personalities.
They chucked Alex (Cas Anvar), but didn't replace him with anyone -- even
though he's a great character. Amos (Wes Chatham) feels like a shadow of
his
former self so far. Holden (Steven Strait) is sleepwalking -- kind of
literally. Naomi (Dominique Tipper) seems lost in her role, just lashing
out
at everyone. Marco Inaros (Keon Alexander) is fine, but feels more
cartoonish. Drummer (Cara Gee) is still quite good.
The thing that Naomi, Marco, and Duarte all have in common is that they
nearly immediately make everything about themselves.
It's OK. You don't need to make any more of these. It could have died at
the
end of the last season.
Derry Girls S03 (2022) -- "9/10"
The final season was cracker. The girls naively help criminals loot all of
the computer equipment from their school. They meet Chief Inspector Byers
(Liam Neeson), who's pretty good. The girls are the stars, of course, but
my
secret favorite is Sister Michael (Siobhán McSweeney). The girls think
that
Erin's (Saoirse-Monica Jackson) mother Mary (Tara Lynne O'Neill) is
cheating
on Gerry (Tommy Tiernan), but she's really just interested in going back
to
school because she's bored to tears running the home for a bunch of
incompetent ingrates.
Clare (Nicola Coughlan) is fine, but the plot focuses on her a lot, and
she's
really kind of a one-trick pony. She freaks out at everything.
There's an episode about a trip to an amusement park, another about the
girls
clearing out Sister's Michael's country house, another about Mary's class
reunion, one about a Fatboy Slim concert that the girls get VIP access to,
but from which they're ejected.
The final show is about the vote on the Good Friday agreement. It ended
with
a horseshit moment that had to remind us that the world somehow loves the
Clintons, which makes me mad.
Daddy's Home (2015) -- "7/10"
It was definitely much better than expected. Brad Whitaker (Will Ferrell)
married Sara (Linda Cardellini) and is step-dad to her two kids. Their
biological father Dusty Mayron (Mark Wahlberg) breezes back into town,
usurping Brad's life. Even at the Smooth Jazz station where Brad works,
Dusty's gusty pipes overwhelm Brad's boss Leo Holt (Thomas Haden Church),
so
that he uses Dusty's spot to promote his station. The residual checks
start
rolling in, and Dusty is funded.
After Dusty moves in, an incident with handyman Griff (Hannibal Buress)
leads
to Griff moving in as well. Dusty also knows fertility expert Dr.
Fransisco
(Bobby Cannavale), who gets Brad and Sara on the way to having a child of
their own. Billy Burr cameos as another student's father at the
father/daughter dance. The boys end up bringing Billy down with a
dance-off
rather than fighting him.
The finale shows Dusty have married a genius model and moved in to a
nearby
castle. Her ex-husband drops by -- it's Michael Cena. Hilarious.
Bad Boys for Life (2020) -- "5/10"
No surprises here. The dialogue is pretty bad. Mike (Will Smith) is being
hunted by a very scary voodoo lady (Kate del Castillo) whose husband he
killed. Also, Mike nailed her once when he'd been kidnapped by her cartel.
So
their son (Jacob Scipio) is the assassin she uses. It's not a problem
because
they're both indestructible, so they can fill long, long action scenes of
incredible amounts of shit blowing up, people flying around, bullets,
RPGs,
etc. Spoiler alert: they make up and kill mom together. No shit. Oh, also
Marcus (Martin Lawrence) is less than totally useless, but also way less
funny than he used to be.
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of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Ozark S04 -- "7/10"
This season whipsaws back and forth and finally settles on an ending of
sorts.
Marty and Wendy enter Navarro's orbit, circling much more closely than
before. Marty even goes to Mexico to put the accounting house in order
while
Navarro is in jail. Wendy, meanwhile, is using whatever pull she has to
get
Navarro transferred to Mexican jail, where it is presumed it will be
child's
play for him to escape.
Navarro's nephew Javi is an absolute wild card, dangerous, paranoid, and
unstable -- and liable to do anything. A private detective Mel Sattam is
hot
on the Byrd's trail as well. Speaking of unhinged, Darlene gives Javi a
run
for his money in that department. She marries Wyatt and they move in
together. Ruth does not attend the wedding.
Marty is working with the FBI, leaking details of Javi's shipments, and
he's
not happy about that. Javi, paranoid as he is, suspects foul play. He's
right, of course, but, man, what an asshole.
Darlene kills Kansas City mobster Frank Cosgrove Sr. in a fit of rage.
This
would be her last murder. Javier out-crazies her and takes both her and
Wyatt
out for competing with his drug business.
With Wyatt's death, Ruth becomes increasingly unhinged herself, but also
masterfully cunning. She hunts Javi down and kills him in cold blood,
without
hesitation. Marty, Wendy, and Clare are witnesses. Wendy needs Clare's
donations, and Clare needs Wendy's heroin -- until Ruth and Frank Cosgrove
Jr. deliver all the heroin her pharma-company needs. Clare drops Wendy
like a
hot rock.
Then there's another deus ex called Camila, Navarro's sister and Javi's
mother. She's of course ruthlessly going to search for the animal who
killed
her wonderful son.
Wendy's dad gets custody of Jonah and Charlotte, which crushes Wendy's
spirit
-- she thought she was almost out, with her whole family (but then she
always
thinks that -- it's a through-line of the show that Wendy and Marty have
to
keep escalating to keep all of the balls in the air).
Meanwhile, Navarro's main henchman Nelson is hunting for Javi's killer and
is
circling in on Ruth. Ruth and her friend Rachel get the drop on him and
dispose of the body. More trouble ahead.
Navarro finally gets his prison transfer, but Camila arranged it, so she
betrays him and ties up his loose end, deep in the desert. Camila finds
out
from Clare that Ruth killed Javi. She returns the favor. Thug life, Ruth.
Thug life.
Weirdly, it didn't end there. Instead, the Byrdes return home to find Mel
rooting around in their house, having discovered Ben's ashes (Wendy had
allowed the cartel to kill her meddlesome brother) and vowing to bring
them
to justice. Jonah shoots him point-blank. The family is back together,
they
have a ton of money, the cartel is out of their way. The end.
A typical tacked-on 21st-century happy ending that explains every last
detail
for the next generation of dolts who hate open-ended so much that it
physically pains them. The show should have ended on Ruth.
Sam Morril: Same Time Tomorrow -- "9/10"
Very tight set. That's all I wrote. I didn't take any other notes, so I must
have been just enchanted. I'll trust my rating. Sam's smug and
self-assured,
but he's funny as hell.
Red Notice -- "4/10"
Utterly passionless. I don't know, it feels like it was written by a
committee? Or by an AI? I usually enjoy Dwayne Johnson and Ryan Reynolds.
I'm
not a fan of Gal Gadot. I think she's way too stiff, but whatever. It
could
have worked. The plot was so derivative, had so many unforeseeable and
frankly unnecessary twists that it was too clever for itself by half.
Stuff gets stolen, then it's stolen by other people. Somehow it's
important
who's the greatest thief in the world. Somehow it's important to have like
six acts.
Somehow, it's important to have Gal Gadot be invincible in every role she
plays.
Even poor Ryan Reynolds -- who's always playing Ryan Reynolds -- couldn't
keep up the patter well enough. I love the guy -- I've been a fan since
Two
Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place and Blade: Trinity -- but he absolutely
peaked
with the Deadpool movies. A bunch of this Netflix stuff is just
homogenized
beyond belief. Whatever pays the bills, I guess. I'm sure a lot of people
are
pretty happy with it, but I feel like this kind of stuff is just preparing
us
for AI-produced content with deep fakes that bring up Deadpools 3--103
within
weeks of each other.
Jimmy O. Yang: Good Deal -- "7/10"
He was pretty good. Had some good moments. He talked a lot about growing up
Chinese, to no-one's surprise. Kath loved him! Surprisingly, because she
really disliked his character Jian Yang. I mean she appreciated that he'd
done a good job of being detestable, and also acknowledged that Erlich
Bachman (T.J. Miller) deserved everything he got, but I still thought
she'd
be more negatively predisposed, but she wasn't.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel S04 -- "6/10"
This season continues the trend of the previous two: Mrs. Maisel is the worst
part of the show. Her parents are funny. Joel is more sympathetic and
interesting. Mrs. Maisel torpedoes her own career again and again for a
principle of some sort. Susie also does terrible things to her own career.
Lenny Bruce plays Carnegie Hall. The whole family moves back in to the old
apartment. Abe learns to enjoy his low-paying journalist's job. Rose's job
as
a matchmaker endangers the whole family as she crosses the matchmaking
mafia.
Joel turns out to be a mensch and finally introduces his family to Mae.
Imogene is pretty funny, and ends up doing work for Abe.
It was fine, but Midge got really, really tiring. I get it: she thinks
everything's about her. She's right. The show is literally named after
her.
The best parts were the ones without her in it. Even her humor was very
narcissistic and, frankly, spiteful, at times. That's her prerogative, of
course, but it felt very much like we were being told to think she's funny
because she's a groundbreaking female comedian when really she was a rich
girl who's (nearly) never had to work a day in her life (she did,
temporarily, until she was "discovered" and able to buy back her palatial
upper east-side mansion).
That's somebody's idea of a great show, but not mine. Lenny Bruce was
funny.
Joel was funny. Susie was funny.
Crip Camp -- "8/10"
This was a documentary about a summer camp for handicapped people of all
stripes, run by big-hearted, but completely under-qualified and nearly
hopelessly underfunded counselors. The camp ran for decades. There are
umpteen interviews with former campers who reminisce about how wonderful
it
was to just be treated like real people. They were able to play sports for
which barely any of them had anything approaching the physical or mental
equipment, but they all tried anyway. The counselors pushed and dragged
them
around and they all loved it.
The camp was called Camp Jened, at the foot of Hunter Mountain, ran from
1951
until 2009. Some of the campers would go on to win major victories for
Americans with disabilities, including a month-long occupation of a
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare building.
An extra point for the subject matter, but it was a bit of long
documentary
for the material presented.
The Eternals -- "4/10"
Jesus Christ. What in the hell was this movie? What a mess. They did such a
terrible job of introducing the nigh-dozen characters, each with their own
identity: female, deaf, gay, overweight, black, Mexican, Scottish, Asian
--
and combinations thereof. And then there's their powers, their origin, the
age-old battle with inscrutable beings. And they just talk and talk and
talk,
but they don't say anything helpful.
The Eternals fight the Deviants, which are remorseless, mindless killers,
monsters unparalleled in evil. Or are they? Are they also just pawns of
the
same Celestials who use the Eternals to do their dirty work? The Eternals
have God-like powers relative to humans, but they too are in thrall to
beings
whose purpose is unknowable to them. Some of the Eternals think that
they're
fighting the good fight, allowing Earth to be destroyed in order to allow
many other civilizations to flourish.
At least that might be the gist of it. Who knows? The movie was much more
concerned with CGI-ing the absolute hell out of everything. The Celestial
that was to come out in the "Emergence" was buried in the planet, but also
so
big that its head and part of its hand
stuck out over the cloud deck of the planet. Physics was 100% out the
window
there. What a shit-show.
The Amazing Spider-Man -- "4/10"
This is not Peter Parker. I don't know who this is. This is the BMOC, with
no sense of humility, no sense of poverty. The Peter Parker of Tobey
Maguire
is gone. It has been replaced by whatever Andrew Garfield thinks he's
doing.
He's going steady with Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone) and smooching her in front
of
the whole school. Aunt May is played by Sally Field in this one, for God
knows what reason.
The action scenes at the beginning are a mishmash of cuts so fast they
would
make a TikTokker's head spin, all filmed with shaky cameras. The shaky
cameras are back when Electro (Jamie Foxx) gets his powers -- the tank
full
of electric eels is a shaky mess of cinematography. This whole process of
course sends Electro completely around the bend.
Electro seems incredibly powerful, but Spider-Man gets the better of him.
He
jokes the whole time, which is pretty true to the comic books, but he's so
flip the whole time, even when he's worrying about Gwen Stacy, which
isn't.
And Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) just wanders into danger -- a war zone --
without
a care in the world.
They just talk and talk and describe and describe -- exposition all the
way.
Harry Osborne (Dane DeHaan) is back and ill and becomes the Green Goblin
in
order to save his own life. He is, naturally, insane. He ends up killing
Gwen
Stacy in the ultimate battle. I feel like Emma Stone's contract demanded
this
so that she would absolutely not have to be in a sequel. Andrew Garfield
chews the shit out of the scenery mourning her loss.
Five months later, from the insane asylum, Harry gives orders to release a
prisoner (Paul Giamatti) to take up the role of "The Rhino". Instead of a
genetically enhanced superman with extraordinarily thick skin and
super-strength, he's a psychotic prisoner in a rhino-style robot suit.
Giamatti yells "I. Am. Rhino." I wonder how much he was paid per word for
that travesty.
I have no idea what Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Paul Giamatti, and Sally Field
are doing other than just raking in millions of dollars. Only a cash grab
can
explain their participation in this terrible movie. It's unclear why the
whole Rhino scene was there in the first place.
I was of similar mind when I "reviewed this movie for the first time back
in
2012" .
Nick Kroll -- "4/10"
Nick Kroll is one of the creators and writers of Big Mouth and was very good
with John Mulaney in Oh, Hello On Broadway -- but he's absolutely not a
good
stand-up comedian. Well, he's definitely not targeting an adult audience.
He
spent the first thirty minutes on poop and fart jokes. This is, perhaps,
unsurprising for those familiar with Big Mouth but -- at least in the
first
season or two -- there was a cleverness there, as well. I think Mr. Kroll
has
run out of ideas. The start of the fourth season of Big Mouth was also
very
poop-joke-heavy.
But he's not a good comedian because he's really just there for fan
service
and to be adored. At one point, he tells the audience that he's "the baby
of
the family", then waits a painfully long beat for everyone to clap. That
was
not a joke. This is not an affirmation of him as a person. This is not
therapy. Comedians should get laughs, not applause. Everything is wrong
with
this picture. He should be funny. He is not.
At another point, he's doing some "crowd work" and asks if anyone has a
much
older father. Someone responds that they do, saying that their father is
"pushing 60" and they themselves are 21 years old. Kroll says, "So your
Dad
was in his early 40s? That's not old." He's right about that, but he can't
do
simple arithmetic. Jesus.
]]>
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of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
John Wick (2014) -- "9/10"
I still like the original the best. See my "previous review from 2015"
.
I saw it in German this time.
Spider-Man (2002) -- "9/10"
I don't have a previous review of this absolute classic, directed by Sam
Raimi, who provided us with the vision of what superhero movies could be,
before it was swept aside, as usual, by the meaty forearm of homogenizing
capitalism. Raimi stuck religiously to the origin story, depicting all of
the
characters as they'd been thoroughly developed in decades of successful
comic
books. Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is a smart, nerdy kid, living in
Queens,
New York with his Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) and Uncle Ben (Cliff
Robertson).
His parents had died when he was very young.
He is smart and he is poor. He is in love with his equally disadvantaged
and
gorgeous neighbor Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), whose father drinks.
She
is in danger of trading on her looks for societal status, thinking of
dating
Flash Thompson (Joe Manganiello), the high-school quarterback and
all-around
jackass.
Peter is bitten by a spider on a high-school field-trip. He wakes up the
next
day, incredibly fit and no longer needing glasses. He can shoot webs from
his
wrists (without a mechanism, perhaps Raimi's only departure from canon).
The
scenes of him learning to use his powers, learning how to swing from his
webs, are exhilarating and would not be improved upon in several reboots.
To earn money, Peter starts freelancing at the Daily Bugle, working for
the
penny-pinching and bombastic J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons), who is very
much of the school of "journalism is what you make it."
Spider-Man's first foe would be the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), who is a
sort of second personality born of entrepreneur Norman Osborn's
frustration
and equipped with his company's military-grade and highly weaponized
battle-suit. Osborn's son Harry (James Franco) is Peter's best friend and
competitor for Mary Jane's attention.
Peter has doubts about his role on the straight and narrow, but his first
step off of it is punished immediately when the thief he refused to nab
ends
up killing his Uncle Ben for his car. Peter can only remember Ben having
told
him,
"With great power comes great responsibility."
The Green Goblin and Spider-Man clash several times before the Goblin
eventually accidentally kills himself with his own rocket sled. Harry
blames
Spider-Man for his father's death. Harry discovers his father's lair and
seems poised to take over that legacy as well as taking over his father's
company.
Peter is forced to tell Mary Jane that they can't be together -- but he
can't
explain why because he can't reveal his secret identity. But he can't let
anyone in because then they would be potential victims of his savage
enemies.
This is how Spider-Man was for my entire youth: poor, scraping by,
wise-cracking, with a giant backpack of unrequited love, but dedicated to
saving all of the people in the city who easily let themselves be
convinced
to hate him by Jameson, whose wallet grows fat on Spider-Man photos.
All of the actors are excellent and the direction is top-notch. If you
hate
superhero movies, you can watch this one. It's fine; you won't be
psychically
damaged.
Curb Your Enthusiasm (2022) -- "10/10"
This is a twisted work of genius. How is it possible that, in 11 seasons over
22 years, this is the best one? Who does that? Leon (J.B. Smoove) features
prominently and all is right with the world. Jeff (Jeff Garlin) and Susie
(Susie Essman) are also in nearly every episode, which is also a good
thing.
Susie's bile is palpable and hilarious. Larry's TV ex-wife Cheryl (Cheryl
Hines) also features more heavily again.
How to explain the plot? Larry and Jeff are making an autobiographical
show
about Larry's 20s for Netflix. Part of the show is them choosing actors
for
this. The main thread is that a burglar drowns in Larry's pool, but he
didn't
have a fence. No-one presses charges, but the burglar's brother Marcos
(Marques Ray) finds out and blackmails Larry into casting his daughter in
his
new show, to everyone's horror -- she is a terrible, terrible actress.
Larry
begins dating a local councilwoman Irma Kostroski (Tracey Ullman), who has
a
whole raft of issues and puts Larry's resolve to the test. He's dating her
in
order to get her to change the local ordinance about fencing in pools, so
that he can get out from under Marcos's thumb and finally fire his
daughter
and save his show. Obviously.
Leon was supposed to go on a trip to Thailand with his girlfriend Mary
Ferguson, but he had to break up with her for a terrible reason. Because
the
tickets are non-refundable, he begins a search for a compatible woman with
the same name, finally finding someone who ends up screwing him over for
the
tickets and taking someone else.
Larry David has fine-tuned his act from previous seasons to be all the
good
parts without the excruciating parts. He just cops to his lies now.
There are so many more details in this show, but that's why it was so
wonderful. You can watch the other seasons first, but you don't
necessarily
have to. If you love this season as much as I did, then you won't be able
to
help watching the others.
Bill Burr Presents: Friends Who Kill (2022) -- "4/10"
Bill Burr was fine. His bits were maybe a 7, maybe an 8. He's a funny person.
None of his killer friends were funny. It was an embarrassing slop of
low-talent awfulness. Just flair-less toilet humor with no punchline, no
purpose, no irony, no sarcasm, just dishonest self-deprecation and an
airing
of psychological trauma and identity as an excuse to demand applause.
In order from best to worst,
* Bill Burr: decent, nowhere near his best, but a shining light of
comedic
coherence relative to what would come after.
* Ronnie Chieng: Decent, but sang instead of telling jokes
* Ian Edwards; Not terrible, but also kind of anemic
* Michelle Wolf: Anemic and slow and just waiting on laughs. Too bad,
because she's been funny in other things.
* Dean Delray: Not offensive (like talking about dick-rot or something),
but not funny
* Dave Attell & Jeffrey Ross: I don't even understand how this act has
become so big. They're terrible. They do painful crowd-work. They act
older and more stoned-out than Steve Martin and Martin Short, who are
brilliant.
* Josh Adam Meyers: I can't remember him at all anymore, but I bet he
was
bad. He wasn't bad enough for me to remember his badness, so I'll put
him
in as better than that prat Carr.
* Jimmy Carr: I know that his thing is being a self-satisfied creep, but
he's abysmal. Just shockingly unfunny. His style is also very much
"waiting for people to laugh before continuing"
* Jessica Kirson & Stephanie Tolev: These didn't go on together like
Attell
and Ross, but they were both equally terrible and painful/cringe to
watch
and I couldn't tell them apart if you paid me. They take the worst of
terrible male comedians and replace "dick" with "vadge".
Congratulations,
you're not a comedian and you've set feminism back by decades.
Most of these players were terrible -- and then they would berate the
benighted crowd when they didn't clap enthusiastically enough. A couple of
them congratulated themselves on their own cleverness -- not in evidence
--
then chalked up the lack of laughter to the audience's being too stupid to
have gotten the intricacy of the joke.
It was an absolute train wreck, from the moment Burr's mini-set ended
until
the bitter, bitter end.
Oh, wait. I forgot about Ronnie Chieng at the end. He was the headliner.
He's
also quite funny, but he didn't have much material. Instead, he sang Katy
Perry's Firework. Unfortunately, the idiot who'd gone on before him
pranced
all over the stage the entire time, completely oblivious to the fact that
absolutely no-one likes him or has any idea who he is. I feel like the
solipsistic nature of Instagram and TikTok and YouTube leads these people
to
believe that they're good just because they keep telling everyone they
are.
Blade II (2002) -- "7/10"
I've seen this movie several times since it came out. It follows the
absolutely brilliant Blade, which introduced us to the eponymous
vampire-hunter, played by the born-for-this-role Wesley Snipes, who does
all
of his own choreography and stunts. Sometimes it's a touch stiff, but damn
if
it isn't actually convincing. I'm a fan.
In this follow-up, Blade enters a grudging alliance with the vampires in
order to combat the even-more-dangerous Reapers, genetically engineered
vampires which have double-hinged jaws and are absolutely ravenous. They
also
feed on vampires as well as humans -- hence the alliance.
I gave it an extra point for the absolutely amazing and convincing
physical
effects.
This time, I saw it in German.
Ad Astra (2017) -- "6/10"
This movie about space is boring. It's not boring in a "space is boring" good
kind of way. There's a crazy moon-dune-buggy chase in it where Roy McBride
(Brad Pitt) fends off attacks by moon pirates (I shit you not). He's on
his
way out to Neptune to talk to his dad (Tommy Lee Jones), who seems to have
maybe reappeared after having disappeared long years ago, having
presumably
gone mad and dropped off the radar.
Donald Sutherland is in this as a guy who accompanies Roy for a while and
he
is fun, as always. From the Moon, Roy travels to Mars, stopping to help
suppress a baboon uprising on a research space station (I am not making
this
up), which is kind of well-done and scary and sad, but seems wholly
separated
from the plot. I suppose it's to show just how calmly Roy deals with
adverse
situations.
He gets out to Neptune and finds his dad's ship. It's full of dead bodies.
He
plants a nuclear device to blow it up. His dad is still there, alive and
mostly well. The research station has determined that humans are alone in
the
universe, resolving the Fermi Paradox once and for all. (I guess?) Roy's
dad
commits suicide in space rather than go back to a planet he no longer
considers home. Roy goes back to Earth, somehow heartened by the whole
experience.
The Leftovers S03 (2017) -- "9/10"
"No, Grace, you're not crazy. You just got the wrong Kevin."
I can't recommend this series enough. I didn't give it a 10 because, oh, I
don't know. I guess I felt like maybe I was overreacting to the wonderful
combination of writing and dialogue and music choice and directing and
photography and close-ups of people's faces while they talked for long
scenes, which was all wonderful and impactful and manipulative, so I
dinged
it a point for making me feel like I'd been manipulated into liking it
because I suspected that it was only pretending to be something great, but
isn't that what all great things are? Selling themselves to you with their
purported greatness? Maybe I should just change the rating to a 10, but
I'm
already all the way down here, so what the hell, I'll let it stand where
it
is and just remember how great it was. If I change it to a 10, then I have
to
erase this paragraph, which I'm loath to do.
Anyway, this show's arc follows each of the major characters going through
some heavy shit.
Like Nora (Carrie Coon), who drags Kevin (Justin Theroux) to Australia on
a
hunt for scammers who are pretending to be able to help the families of
The
Departed heal or see them again, or something. At any rate, she's not
buying
it...until she does. Until she so very much does. Until she's begging them
to
let her do the experiment they promise will take her to the other side for
real. Until she throws a fit when they reject her, refusing to take her
money, because they tell her she's doing it for the wrong reasons. They're
right, of course, but what the fuck kind of a scam-artist cult won't just
take her money? That's Nora. She's funny and sexy and dark, but markedly
less
sexy and more broken by now. Some people might find that even sexier, but
I'm
not going there. She gets the experimenters to accept her money and let
her
climb naked into a hamster ball that will whisk her away to the alternate
universe just before she drowns in the fluid that pours in from below. And
you know what? It works. It totally fucking works. No explanation of the
technology. Just does it. I dug the hell out of that. She went there and
she
found her kids and they were super-not-happy. In fact, no-one there was
really happy. You wanna know why? Because, because, because, while in our
world, 2% of the population "departed", sending psychic shock waves
through
humanity that made it even more susceptible to cults and magical thinking
than it was before (which was an assload BTW), in their world they were
dealing with %98 of the population just disappearing. Yeah. Imagine that.
We'd just spent three seasons working through our crybaby feelings about
not
being able to collectively get our wheels under us ever again because 2%
of
the population disappeared and here is the other half of the story just
sitting there, asking us if we're going to be OK, because like that must
be a
real tragedy, losing 2%, really. That must be just awful. 98%. Damn,
that's
like a whole other series, a much, much darker one, filled with crop
failures
and no power grids and suffering and reversion to the damned darkest of
dark
ages. But it just kind of blipped in at the end of the last episode and
that
was awesome. God, it was so nice to get something that wasn't explained to
death. It was like a classic sci-fi short story from the Golden or Silver
Age. And then. And then, and then, and then Nora sought out the scientist
who'd invented the damned device, who'd been one of the first to cross
over.
She told him who she was and with her powerful Nora personality made him
just
invent the damned machine again, but on the other side, because there was
no
place for her in that world, so she was gonna fuck off right back to where
she came from. And ya know what? I didn't even think until this very
second
about how hard it would have been to even build that machine in a world
depleted of 98% of the world's population and probably all of its
manufacturing base and whatever you would need to actually produce
stainless
steel and giant hamster balls and circuitry and wormholing
technology...because it's not relevant. It didn't matter. It was an
awesome
story. And Nora was back in the original world-strand (my word) and in
Australia and just chilling and ignoring the world and trying not to be
found
by anyone and catching pigeons for a nun who scammed newlyweds into
thinking
that the birds were carrying their messages all over the world but they
were
really just flying right back to Nora's coop, where she scooped them up
and
brought them back to the nun for her to scam the next couple. Nora made
some
cash and rode a bike with a trailer and she looked older and she had a
long,
thick, silver braid now. And then Kevin found her. He was just so sure
he'd
found her. But she told him, no, he didn't know what he was talking about
and
then they fought and then they didn't because they ended up together, but
it
wasn't like that, it wasn't cheesy, even though awesome music swelled to
manipulate you, but it felt right and Nora and Kevin had seen some shit
and
they knew that it wasn't going to get any better apart and it couldn't be
worse together and it was time, time to just put the past behind them and
row
forward, into whatever.
So that was Nora.
Jesus. [1] What about Kevin?
Kevin died a couple more times, is what Kevin did. He even did it on
purpose
the last time, in what is, I suppose, technically suicide, but he's proven
so
good at coming back from the dead that it's more like a superpower at this
point. Kevin met his dad Kevin Garvey Sr. (Scott Glenn), who was in
Australia
hunting down the last piece of a song that would heal the world and
prevent a
repeat of the departure of seven years before, the anniversary of which
was
fast approaching and which imbued the whole situation for all of the
characters with a sense of urgency. Kevin Garvey Sr. was looking for a
dude
who knew the last sacred dance and song and he needed him to teach it, but
then that dude somehow departed, which is why Senior was telling his son
that
he needed to die again because that's where Kevin goes when he dies,
apparently, he travels interdimensionally to the other world-strand (my
word,
not theirs) and so Kevin is the hero the world needs because he can take
messages over and hopefully bring them back and all he has to do to travel
is
die, which, compared to getting scanned at the airport seems not even so
terrible, to be honest, but I'm drifting. So Kevin dies again and he meets
one lady's kids and gets the answer and he meets another guy's wife and
gets
another answer, but he just. can't. get. to. the dance/song guy for his
father. He just can't do it. There's a complicated bit of fantasy where
he's
actually the president and he has to not only scan his retina, but also
his
dick, and then he gets into the war room, where his Secretary of Defense
is
none other than Patty (Ann Dowd), who advises him to launch all nukes at
whatever dirty enemies are out there, but Kevin hesitates, but then Kevin
shows up, but it's the other-other Kevin, who's the one from the other
world?
Or another traveler? Whatever. It's a super-spy Kevin (who he'd actually
played before in S02 when he'd died the first time) and they're going to
enact "The Fisher Protocol"
,
wherein the president can only get the second key to launch nukes by
chopping
it out of the chest of an innocent man, which should make him pause and
consider whether it's actually worth it, but Kevin goes for it, even
though
it's his Doppelgänger, but Kevin is nothing if not determined and he gets
the key and sets off the nukes and the world comes to a goddamned end, but
he's whisked back to the other world, where he wakes up again, alive, and
realized that it's stopped raining, which means that the flood was never
going to happen anyway, which means that it doesn't matter that he didn't
get
Christopher Sunday's (I finally remembered that dude's name) song for his
dad, who was going to use it to avert the flood (which never came).
Matt (Christopher Eccleston) -- along with his other apostles, Laurie (Amy
Brenneman), John (Kevin Carroll), Michael (Jovan Adepo) -- also went
through
his own shit. He'd gotten quite a bit more bitter (especially after he
drove
away his resurrected wife Mary (Janel Moloney)). And he swore a lot more.
He
and his crew flew to Australia to get Kevin because they needed their
savior
-- he'd come back from the dead and Matt and John had written a book about
his Jesus-like role in the events of the Departure and everything that
ensued, and now that I'm writing it out, I realize that their names are
exactly those of the apostles from the Bible -- to come back to the U.S.
in
time for the seventh anniversary of the Departure because shit was going
to
go down. Everyone thought so, they just disagreed on what kind of shit.
Anyway, they ended up on a boat from Tasmania when their plane was
rerouted
from Australia and this boat had been completely booked out by a sexed-up
crew of people who worshiped a lion named Frasier.
Episode three was particularly riveting, a mini-movie worth more than ten
superhero movies. The final five minutes were pure magic, from pacing to
close-up filming, to Grace (Lindsay Duncan) and Kevin Sr.'s (Scott Glenn)
amazing acting. The emotion in those faces, the reverence with which the
camera captured it. The lonesome piano keys plinking out the melody of the
theme song. Just wonderful. Just wonderful that someone is still making
art
that speaks to the soul, that takes the time to tell a story, to build
characters, to make us wait for a giant payoff. Chapeau.
This season just got stronger and stronger, with Matt going a bit off the
rails, but absolutely believably so. The music, oh God, the music. So
wonderful.
The Mummy (1999) -- "10/10"
I watched this for the umpteenth time and it's still amazing. Rachel Weisz
and Brendan Frasier for the win.
This is a movie about archeologists and treasure-hunters competing to
unearth
an ancient tomb/burial site. Amun-ra is buried there. He slowly starts to
come back to life, gaining more and more corporeality with every victim.
Long
story short, the good guys team up to defeat him, burying him (forever?)
and
his treasure as well.
I'll watch it again.
Bill Burr: Live at Red Rocks (2022) -- "10/10"
Magnificent. The show is at the Red Rocks outdoor amphitheater just outside
of Denver, Colorado. At about 75 minutes, it was quite long, but it was
exceedingly well-crafted and funny and insightful but, most of all, funny.
Because that's what he's up there to do. One of the funniest people in the
English-speaking world doing what he does best. His ad-libs on his podcast
and on other shows are better than the best in this show, but the overall
quality of this show is better than that of any podcast. There's no
downtime
here, unlike his podcasts.
Will watch it again. From the reviewing, about 10:00 from the end,
"In every relationship, there's the person that does the dishes and the
person that let's them soak.
"Right? They don't let them soak. They know you're gonna do 'em. They're
just
waitin' you out. And after a while, you just fuckin' take it anymore.
They're
just sitting there. You gotta go start going them.
"Then what do they do? They sit in the other room and they wait, like they
don't know what you're doin'. And they wait 'til they hear pots and pans,
and
that's when the show starts.
"That's when they come runnin' in like, 'What? I was gonna do those!'
"And you're like, 'No, you weren't! They've been sitting here eight hours!
I
got my hands in room-temperature water with scrambled eggs floatin'
around.
Don't gaslight me. You're a fuckin' animal. You were raised by animals.
Get
out of my sight."
Stranger Things S04 (2022) -- "8/10"
Loooonnnngg and self-indulgent, but mostly saved it in the end. Lots of good
performances. Some of the episodes were 90 minutes long, so the season had
a
couple of full-length movies thrown in there. The 7th episode with the
reveal
was excellent, though.
This season was about how everyone is separated into different locations.
Mike (Finn Wolfhard) and El (Millie Bobby Brown) are mooning about. Mike
is
still an utter waste of space. Will (Noah Schnapp) is in love with Mike,
but
can't express it. Mike's hot garbage, personality-wise, but two people are
in
love with him. They're teenagers, so it checks out.
The main story arc is the reveal of where Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower)
came
from. Spoiler alert: he's #1 where El is #11. More backstory is filled in,
people die, people live, silly things are done.
Hopper (David Harbour) is in a Russian prison, getting his ass kicked.
Joyce
(Winona Ryder) and Murray (Brett Gelman) rescue him, with the sorta-kinda
help of
Meanwhile Erica (Priah Ferguson), Steve (Joe Keery), and Nancy (Natalia
Dyer)
join forces with Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Eddie (Joseph Quinn) to try
to
prevent Vecna from getting to Max (Sadie Sink), the final victim he needs
to
realize his final plan. Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) does essentially nothing.
But Steve, Erica, and Nancy are really quite fun to watch and they save it
from getting too boring.
Dr. Owens (Paul Reiser) also reveals stuff and has stuff revealed and ends
up
being on the side of good. Kudos for the all of the practical effects. +1
point.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] No pun intended. You'd get that if you'd watched the season.
]]>
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of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Rocky (1976) -- "8/10"
I'd forgotten just how little boxing this movie actually had. It's really
only the last ten minutes of this two-hour film that has any real boxing.
And
it's hard to call it "real" boxing as Rocky -- despite training for long
weeks with a purportedly good trainer -- has absolutely no defense. He
almost
never has his hands up. It's kind of laughable.
We meet Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) outside of the ring, looking for a
contender to fill the place of an opponent who's injured his hand. The
bout
was to take place in Philadelphia, so he looks for a local fighter to
fight.
He eventually finds Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone).
Rocky, meanwhile, spends most of his time getting to know the painfully
shy
Adrian Pennino (Talia Shire) while working as a loan shark, taking part in
small-time fights, and helping out at a gym. He eventually starts training
with Mickey (Burgess Meredith) with some help from Adrian's brother Paulie
(Burt Young). Rocky ends up being sponsored by Paulie's meatpacking
company.
The night of the fight arrives. Rocky is as ready as he's going to be, but
his plan was never to win: it was to go the distance, something no fighter
has ever done against Apollo. Apollo marches in to fanfare; Rocky to
silence.
They fight to an absolute standstill, with Rocky premiering his uncanny
ability to lead with his face and take countless punches the head. His
entire
head is a shambles by the end of the fifteenth round, with Apollo not
looking
much better. They lean on each other, but neither falls.
Apollo wins the fight by split decision, but Rocky's only concern is
finding
Adrian and telling her how much he loves her through his shattered mask of
a
face.
I watched it in German this time.
Rocky II (1979) -- "8/10"
The film starts with the last several minutes of Rocky, with the Italian
Stallion (Sylvester Stallone) against Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers)
fighting
each to a 15-round standstill. Rocky and Apollo are taken to the hospital,
where they spend weeks recovering from the respective damage they'd done
to
one another.
When Rocky gets out, he proposed to Adrian at the zoo and they are soon
married. Rocky takes her on a shopping spree, buying a Trans Am, gold
watches, furs, and even a nice row house. Rocky's right eye never
recovered
and his peripheral vision is terrible. He's still very fit, but he
shouldn't
fight again. He takes on a few acting roles for commercials, but his
reading
skills aren't up to snuff. He spends evenings in bed reading to Adrian out
loud. They're adorably in love. Rocky is very, very funny.
Rocky looks for an office job, but he doesn't have the qualifications. He
gets a job with Paulie (Burt Young). Rocky is a down-to-Earth poor guy who
wants a good life for his family. He goes to Mick (Burgess Meredith), who
turns him down because he's going to get killed without his right-side
peripheral vision. Mick offers him a job at the gym, but the others are
disrespectful. Even people throughout town are not impressed with his
down-to-Earth approach.
Apollo wants a rematch because his fans keep telling him that he didn't
really win. Mick and Rocky agree to start training again. To protect his
eye,
Mick trains him as a southpaw. He starts him on chasing a chicken (a scene
I
also recall from other, later films). Then he trains him old-school, while
Apollo trains much more sophisticated (though nowhere near what Ivan Drago
would do in Rocky IV).
Adrian is pregnant and working in the pet store again. Rocky is back in
training, probably earning nothing. Mick is brutally honest with Rocky,
whereas Rocky isn't enthusiastic enough. His head is somewhere else.
Adrian
ends up in the hospital with internal bleeding. The child is in danger.
Mick
offers his condolences, but also tells Rocky he has to fight Apollo with
all
of his heart. He tells him isn't just an "Eintagsfliege", then sits with
him
in the church, in silence.
Rocky is in the hospital, reading letters he's written to his comatose
wife.
The baby had been born and Rocky had never seen him. Finally, she wakes
up. I
have no idea how long this all was supposed to have taken. They both see
the
baby for the first time. In the late 70s, I guess you just didn't visit
the
baby as a father?
Adrian gives Rocky her blessing to beat Apollo. He finally starts training
in
earnest. His training regime is absolutely gobsmacking. So many one-armed
pushups, so many one-armed pull-ups, jump rope at the speed of light, just
amazing.
Rocky is hilarious. When Rocky walks in, he says to Mick, "Ich habe
gehofft,
der kommt nicht." When he and Apollo meet in the ring, Apollo says "Ich
lege
dir flach." Rocky walks back to Mick and says "er wirkt ziemlich wütend."
Rocky's fighting style has always been "no defense". In this sequel, it's
even worse than in the original. I am not sure what the point of
constantly
doing that is; to show that Rocky can take any number of blows to the
head?
It's like he spent absolutely zero time training. It's an embarrassment
for
boxing or any fighting sport. They showed him doing a tremendous amount of
strength training, but he can't box worth a damn. He's ostensibly in
southpaw, but he mostly just stands completely flat to the opponent,
presenting as broad a target as possible, with his hands down at his
sides.
He never dodges or ducks a punch. He boxes like Homer Simpson.
In the end, Rocky is able to stand up before the 10-count, whereas Apollo
does not. Both of their faces are ruined shambles. The makeup is very
well-done.
Russian Doll S02 -- "7/10"
It started off a bit shaky, but ended reasonably well. This season sees Nadia
(Natasha Lyonne) flitting through history and time-loops again. This time,
she's sometimes her mother and sometimes her grandmother and sometimes in
Hungary, learning about why her mother and her grandmother lived the lives
that they did. She learns about her good friend Ruth (Elizabeth Ashley), a
friend of her mother's. She ends up kidnapping herself, seeking her
time-traveling friend's help, doing some bizarre stuff in bizarre places,
and
finally ends up making the right decision and resolves a lot of her
personal
shit and goes to Ruth's wake at her quirky friend Maxine's (Greta Lee)
place.
There's a bit of rumination on topics philosophical and ethical, as well
as a
bunch of holocaust stuff, if you're into rehashing how bad the Nazis were
again.
Nate Bargatze: The Greatest Average American -- "8/10"
Bargatze is a clean and funny comic with a very understated style. I can no
longer remember any of his jokes, but he's not really a one-line kind of
guy
anyway. He mostly tells medium-length stories about himself and his
family.
His daughter and wife feature heavily.
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) -- "4/10"
This movie looks absolutely terrible. It's worse than even TV shows of that
era. I'd completely forgotten in the intervening twenty years since I'd
seen
this that Jango Fett's sidekick is his son, who's nearly as annoying as
Anakin Skywalker in the first "episode" (Phantom Menace).
Hayden Christensen's acting is so mind-numbingly wooden, it's not even
saved
by being synchronized into German.
The Fugitive (1993) -- "8/10"
This movie is much more police-state-happy than I remember. Tommy Lee Jones
and crew break into a man's home without a warrant and blow him away, then
tell his wife to shut the fuck up. "I never negotiate with criminals."
Jesus.
Harrison Ford is great as a brilliant doctor how uses his powers to saving
himself rather than others, although he can't help saving others while
he's
doing it.
The Shawshank Redemption (1994) -- "9/10"
This movie about a lawyer Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) sentenced to prison is,
hands down, the best adaptation of a Stephen King story that ever graced
the
silver screen. It is not a horror story, nor are there fantastical
elements
to it. Perhaps it is because of this that it works so well. Perhaps it is
because of the staggering acting talent of Robbins and Morgan Freeman, who
plays Red.
Everybody in this movie is great. Andy eventually escapes prison in an
absolutely spectacular fashion -- Eastwood's Alcatraz is almost as good,
but
not quite.
I watched it in German this time.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) -- "7/10"
Johnny Depp's performance in the eponymous role is riveting: bizarre and
unique. He had very big shoes to fill, with Gene Wilder having played the
role in the first movie. But Depp brings his own unique wackiness to the
role. The boat scene in the original was much better.
See "my review from 2011"
. I watched it in
German this time.
The Thomas Crown Affair (1999) -- "9/10"
I still love this movie as much as I did the first time I saw it. Pierce
Brosnan and Rene Russo are fantastic in their roles as the eponymous
billionaire Crown and the sultry insurance-fraud detective pursuing him.
Their circling of each other is captivating. The finale -- with an
absolutely
epic needle-drop of Sinner Man by Nina Simone -- is a joy to behold.
I watched it in French this time. It lost nothing in the translation.
Hidden Figures (2016) -- "8/10"
This is a movie about three women making their way up the ranks of NASA
during the moon shot. One of them -- Katherine (Taraji P. Henson) -- is
particularly talented and rises high. Mary is an engineer, taken onto the
capsule-design team. There is a bit of a John Henry plot to it, as a whole
roomful of "computers" (the women) will soon be replaced with an IBM.
Luckily, Dorothy (Octavia Spencer) is able teach herself how to program
the
machine better than the technicians sent with it. They are all black,
making
their participation in engineering disciplines in 1960s America all the
more
challenging.
This treatment was pretty heavy-handed at times, but the acting was great
and
the story was interesting. The U.S. in the sixties was an appalling
wasteland
of injustice. One of the more galling parts is where Katherine is forced
to
walk half a mile to the colored women's bathroom -- and not one of her
co-workers has any idea this is going on.
The ladies save the day for John Glenn and all ends well. It's a true
story.
Katherine would go on to calculate the trajectories for the Apollo mission
as
well as several space-shuttle missions. Mary went on to become NASA's
first
female, black engineer, while Dorothy became NASA's first female, black
manager. Incredible that we never learned any of this in school.
]]>
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of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
The French Dispatch (2021) -- "9/10"
"Self-reflection is a vice best conducted in private, or not at all."
This is a Wes Anderson movie, so it's much like many of his other movies,
but, perhaps, a bit more so. He continues to make the same movie, refining
and experimenting, like a sculptor who makes many, many variations on the
same theme. Many actors are on board with his vision, returning again and
again: Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, Adrien Brody, Benicio del Toro, Frances
McDormand, Owen Wilson, Bob Balaban. This time, they're joined by
Timothée
Chalamet, Jeffrey Wright, Léa Seydoux and others.
The film unfolds in several chapters, each telling a piece of a revolution
unfolding in a remote French town, as covered by The French Dispatch of
the
Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun. The editor-in-chief of the magazine has died
and
the staff busies itself producing the final issue, as per his wishes.
The first chapter "The Cycling Reporter" gives us a tour of the town in
which
the rest of the chapters will take place. The second chapter "The Concrete
Masterpiece" tells the tale of prisoner Benicio del Toro, who paints
extremely abstract nude portraits of one of his guards, the delectable
Léa
Seydoux. His masterpieces, however, are frescoes, and will never leave the
prison where he created them. The next chapter "Revisions to a Manifesto"
tells the story of revolutionaries who fall in love, a love that is
requited
but once before one of them dies while making repairs to a pirate-radio
station. The fourth chapter "The Private Dining Room of the Police
Commissioner" concerns warring criminal syndicates and a kidnapping plot,
as
well as the denouement of the ephemeral revolution. "Obituary" shows the
staff back at home, reminiscing and preparing the final edition.
I very much enjoyed watching this movie. There is a meticulous attention
to
detail in dialogue and scene with an excellent cast.
La casa de papel S05 (2021) -- "6/10"
The fifth and final season is more of the same, which is both good and bad.
There is no small amount of filler material that only super-fans will
really
love, but there is also enough of the classic formula to pull everything
together. There is less and less "cleverness" on the part of the
Professor,
although the flashbacks with Berlin training his son to be a thief are
very
good in this regard. Instead, we find that Sierra, despite being nearly
ludicrously pregnant, walks to the Professor's lair and gets the drop on
him.
He and Marseilles eventually help her deliver her child, which binds her
to
them.
They dither around about eliminating Gandia, giving him one opportunity
after
another to generate plot points. Eventually, we finally get rid of Tokyo
when
she goes out with a bang to defeat him and his men. There is a lot of
drama
between personalities -- I guess that's what people like? -- but one
constant
is that I did like where Denver's character ended up. Perhaps it was the
actor, who's very, very good.
Back to the main plot, Berlin's son has teamed up with Berlin's widow (I
think they're bangin'?) and they have become even greater criminal
masterminds than anyone else -- because everything has to be YA these
days.
They steal the gold from the hidden location where the gang had spirited
it
via melted pellets in a waterway. The ingots are now buried under a house.
Sierra (not the Professor) figures out where it is and they negotiate to
get
it back.
Tamayo gets his gold back, but it's just gold-foil-covered brass, so he's
in
a bind. He agrees to make it look like the gang had been killed in a
shootout, in exchange for the gang never revealing that Spain no longer
has
its gold reserves. They all get new passports and live happily ever after,
having split the entire wealth of a nation amongst themselves.
I suppose they're heroes? Is that the story? The entire nation of Spain
has
no reserves left, having been forced to allow ten people to steal them --
and
that's a good thing? Or is the lesson that our economy and society is
based
on fictions and that those fictions are more important than the actual
underlying reality?
I'm probably overthinking it. There was a lot of drama, a lot of
interpersonal conflict, a decent amount of cleverness and a whole lotta
Spanish, which I quite enjoyed listening to.
Alita: Battle Angel (2019) -- "6/10"
Some of the battle scenes were nice, but the story was not great. It was also
incredibly obvious that the whole movie was just a setup for a series of
some
sort. I honestly can't remember what it was all about; it was something
about
warring cyborg factions, with a highly corporate-military faction firmly
in
charge of society and Alita ostensibly the last great hope of a
floundering
and vastly underpowered revolutionary faction. I got vibes of Ready Player
One but without all of the 80s callbacks.
Anna (2019) -- "6/10"
The cast is promising, with Helen Mirren and Luke Evans. I'm not a fan of the
lead, though: Sasha Luss as Anna is unconvincing. Some of the fight
choreography was nice, but it was, at times, an awkward fit for her 45kg
self
that tended to throw you out of the illusion. She's not supposed to be
super-powered, nor was it posited that she could defy the laws of physics
--
and yet there she was, purporting to do both. She is, apparently -- and in
typical 21st-century, everything-is-YA-fiction-now fashion --
amazing-looking, an unparalleled genius, a weapons expert, a martial-arts
expert, and who knows what else. There is no tension. Apparently, tension
is
superfluous these days.
Upload S02 (2022) -- "7/10"
Nora's character is now quite terrible. She's horrible to Nathan, taking him
to task for not having told her about Ingrid's uploading -- when she's the
one who went off the grid. Also, how did the Ludds make a "hyperworm" when
Nora's the best tech they have? Why did Matteo have to wear a disguise to
show up at the edge of the garden for five seconds? This is very bad
storytelling. And now Nora's better than the rest of the IT department and
has all of the privileges and rights to alter Lakeview code. A likely
story.
This lax attitude toward security and authorization is a continuation of
the
first season, but more pronounced.
The Ludds are being made to seem like merciless revolutionaries, while
Nora
sees the humanity in all people. The working class with whom she works in
IT
treats her better than the revolutionaries. Is that supposed to be the
message?
Ingrid didn't end up uploading herself, having fooled/guilted Nathan into
prolonging their relationship longer than he likely would have had he not
been convinced that she'd been so self-sacrificing. Nathan is also a
super-hacker who's able to steal and donate bandwidth to those in the 2GB
world, who need it the most. He's Robin Hood.
The plot moves forward in that Nathan learns that it was he -- not his
partner -- who was the less altruistic partner and who'd agreed to sell
his
shares in his ground-breaking Upload-for-everyone company to Ingrid's
father
and to billionaire David Choak. At the same time, they learn that uploads
will lose what few rights they had when "Mind Frisk" goes online, a
technology that allows those running the virtual world to investigate any
thought that the uploads have.
Choak, meanwhile, continues his plan to open upload centers for the
"people",
but only in swing states -- he is most likely granting the poor a chance
at
eternity in exchange for them voting correctly in the next election.
Ingrid, never having uploaded, has instead grown a copy of Nathan's body
in
order to allow him to download. The download succeeds and Nora and Nathan
escape with a couple of other luddites. Ingrid is left with nothing, but a
single hair of Nathan's head, which allows her to continue her plans on
reuniting with him. Since Nathan is now missing in the upload world,
another
employee of the tech-support staff -- who's also infatuated with the
handsome
Nathan -- restores him from backup.
This season was entertaining enough on its own, but seemed very much
designed
to set up a third season.
Brooklyn Nine-nine (2013--2021) -- "9/10"
This is the story of a police precinct in Brooklyn, initially focused on Jake
Peralta (Andy Samberg), but finally ending up being about the small crew
there. His partner Charles (Joey Lo Troglio) is an absolutely unapologetic
fan of Jake.
Rosa (Stephanie Beatriz) is a bad-ass with a deeply buried heart. She dallies
briefly with Adrian Pimento (Jason Mantsoukas), who is not a permanent member
of the crew. Her partner Amy Santiago (Melissa Fumero) is a
lover-of-all-things-organizational ladder-climber who ends up marrying Jake
Peralta.
Sergeant Terry Jeffords (Terry Crews) is the dad of the unit, a pumped-up
pussycat. Captain Raymond Holt (Andre Braugher) is an amazing character, a
robot of a man who slowly opens up over the arc of the show, but not all of
the way. His husband Kevin Cozner (Marc Evan Jackson) is similarly staid, a
professor at NYU.
Scully (Joel McKinnon Miller) and Hitchcock (Dirk Blocker) are lazy, but
occasionally brilliant cops. Gina Linetti (Chelsea Peretti) is the precinct's
secretary (ostensibly Raymond Holt's), but she doesn't do very much other
than talk about how amazing she is.
Side-roles of note are Madeline Wuntch (Kyra Sedgwick), who is Raymond Holt's
nemesis, Doug Judy (Craig Robinson), a car thief who fools Jake many times,
each time charming him into thinking that the power of their friendship is
strongly than Judy's desire to steal things, and Keith "The Vulture" Pembroke
(Dean Winters), who provokes and steals cases from the 99.
From s03e02,
"Raymond Holt:Your vocabulary is an indictment of the public education
system."
From S03e03,
"Rosa: Step one: put a pie in the fridge and cover it with poison.
Terry That’s step one? What’s step two?
Rosa: Tell their widows they were thieves."
From S04E01,
In the exchange below, Greg is Raymond Holt and Larry is Jake Peralta.
"Greg: Ms. Karfton, you don't know us, but-
Jordan: Uh, yeah, I do. I got you on video looking like a couple of
dumbasses. [Jordan leans against the door frame and chuckles.]
Larry: I like to think I handled it with some amount of grace.
Jordan: Nope, you looked dumber than my kid Jaden, and his eyes are
perma-crossed. You want to see? Hey, Jaden! [Jordan turns and shouts into
her
house.]
Greg: No, that's not necessary. Have you posted that video to the
Internet?
Jordan: Not yet. Ran out of data on my phone because of all the porn I
watched.
Larry: We don't know each other. You could've just said you were out of
data.
Jordan: I'm uploading the video tomorrow at my cousin's wedding. Dog track
has free Wi-Fi."
In S06E09, talking about Amy agreeing to help her insufferable brother,
but
for spiteful reasons,
"Jake: I don't love how we got here, but we're going where I want."
In S06E10, talking about Nikolaj's real father Gintars,
"Jake: Judging by the head-to-toe denim, he's either not American or deeply
American. I'm thinking either Ukraine or Kentucky."
This is Where I Leave You (2014) -- "7/10"
This one is kind of a 6, but I bumped to a 7 because it made me laugh a few
times. The cast was great, but poorly used. It was a family-gathering
movie
with Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Jane Fonda, Adam Driver, Rose Byrne, Kathryn
Hahn, Timothy Olyphant, Dax Shepard, and Ben Schwartz. Jane Fonda was the
matriarch who'd just recently lost her husband. Her house was full of kids
who'd returned home for the funeral with their respective wives and
girlfriends. No-one was happy with their lives, some in more amusing ways
than others. I watched it in German.
The Matrix Resurrections (2021) -- "9/10"
Neo (Keanu Reeves) and Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) return for this fourth, and
almost certainly last, installment in the Matrix tetralogy. I quite
enjoyed
this go-round, even though they tried a little too hard to replace
characters
like Morpheus (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) or Smith (Jonathan Groff). Additions
like Bugs (Jessica Henwick) were OK, but not groundbreaking. I was happy
to
see Christina Ricci as Gwyn de Vere.
In this film, Thomas Anderson is a video-game designer, responsible for
having designed one of the most popular video games of all time: The
Matrix.
He meets Trinity (Tiffany) and thinks he has a connection with her, but he
can't remember why. She thinks so, too, but also doesn't know why. She has
a
husband and two kids.
He keeps trying to figure out whether what he is experiencing is real. Is
the
Matrix as he vaguely remembers it the real simulacrum within the nightmare
world of human-energy harvesting where the machines have taken over? Or is
he
in a reality where that whole story is just the plot of a video game? Or
is
he really in the Matrix again, convinced that his memories of having found
out the truth of reality are just his inability to determine that the
game
he himself created is just a fantasy? Did he create the game because he
remembered the Matrix or does he think he remembers the Matrix because
he'd
created the game? Or are his memories of having created the game implanted
to
fool him into thinking that the Matrix doesn't exist?
There are, as usual, several meta-levels to this movie, if you're willing
to
look for them. There are several scenes whether the characters seem to be
talking about the producers of the Matrix movies, who seem to have forced
the
Wachowskis back into the world of their creation, decades ago.
It turns out that that first three films had happened and that Zion was
destroyed, but that the remnant of humanity was able to relocate to Io,
aided
by machines who see a detente and rapprochement as the best way forward.
It
is, however, 60 years later, so the real-world counterparts to most of
Neo's
friends are now dead. Only he has survived because he was able to download
into a completely new body.
It turns out that Neo's therapist is an entity called The Analyst (Neil
Patrick Harris), who wrested control of the Matrix from The Architect to
rebuild it into a place of emotional manipulation, very much akin to the
media and social landscape of the Internet as we know it. In a completely
unsurprising twist, it is now Trinity who has complete control over the
Matrix. We see her and Neo beating the Analyst's ass for him, telling him
how
they're going to be running the Matrix for the benefit of humanity.
Interstellar (2014) -- "8/10"
I watched it in German the second time around. I stand by my "review from
when I saw it in the theater"
in English.
The Leftovers S02 (2015) -- "8/10"
This season finds Matt (Christopher Eccleston) and Mary (Janel Moloney) in
Jarden, Texas. The town has been renamed to Miracle because no-one from
the
town disappeared. Kevin (Justin Theroux), his daughter Jill (Margaret
Qualley), and Nora Durst (Carrie Coon) also move to Miracle, with Nora
spending $3M on a ramshackle house to ensure their being able to stay. The
town feels like a giant scam, but that's the point of the show -- humanity
doesn't handle anything very well, least of all the disappearance of 2% of
the human population.
The three new residents meet their somewhat-odd neighbors, Erika (Regina
King), her husband John (Kevin Carroll), who seems to be beating up folks
with whom he disagrees, and their two children Michael (Jovan Adepo) and
Evelyn (Tiffani Barbour). After their initial picnic, Evelyn takes off
with
friends. After an earthquake (not infrequent there, apparently), the girls
appear to have disappeared. I say "appear to have" because it is later
revealed that they had instead joined the GR (Guilty Remnant) and were
actually spearheading Meg's (Liv Tyler) plan to take the town of Miracle
down
a notch.
Kevin has trouble with sleepwalking. He had ended up at the same bend in
the
river from which the girls purportedly disappeared -- except he was there
with a block of cement tied around his ankle, an apparent attempted
suicide.
This turns out to have been exactly what happened. He was trying to kill
himself in order to extricate Patti (Ann Dowd) from his mind, who lives on
as
the monkey on his back.
Patti is absolutely amazing. Just a mind-bogglingly good actress making
the
most of well-written lines and story. Kevin is also tremendous, truly
letting
us feel what it would be like to have someone living in your head, driving
you mad, making you want to just die to make it go away. Kevin tries a
couple
of times, finally succeeding after having gone through an elaborate
fantasy
as a secret agent in a parallel world, where he has to kill the president
--
who turns out to be Patti. It's all very complicated, but clearer while
you're watching it.
Meg is an out-and-out psycho now, with a power to sway people to her mad
purpose that seems at-once hard-to-believe and also all-too-believable.
She
rapes Tom (Chris Zylka) then tries to recruit him to the GR. Tom and
Laurie
were working on helping GR members turn back to a normal life. It gets
pretty
complicated, but the GR ends up driving a camper-van purportedly full of
explosives onto the bridge going into Jarden. It turns out not to be full
of
explosives, but filled with the three girls who'd run away from home at
the
beginning of the season.
Everyone is varying levels of devastated, disappointed, or saved from
their
experiences.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=45162022-07-03T23:26:57+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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"
(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.
]]>
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of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Gormenghast (2000) -- "8/10"
Steerpike (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is a lowly kitchen worker. Flay (Christopher
Lee) works for the royal family in the upper levels of the giant
multi-storied castle of Gormenghast. After Flay dresses down Steerpike's
odious boss Swelter (Richard Griffiths), Steerpike follows him to the
upper
levels to ingratiate himself and to perhaps gain a toehold out of the
kitchen.
Flay is having none of it, though he does give Steerpike a glimpse of the
princess Lady Fuchsia (Neve McIntosh), who's a bit mad or daft or both.
Flay
locks Steerpike away after that, but Steerpike escapes out a window on to
the
facade of the castle, seemingly hundreds of meters above the ground. He
scales his way up to the rooftops and finally gains access by byways to
Lady
Fuchsia's room, where he falls into an exhausted slumber on her couch.
She finds and awakens Steerpike but is so entertained by his antics that
she
forgets to turn him in. When her nanny Nannie Slagg (June Brown) arrives
and
discovers Steerpike, they all head to Barquentine's (Warren Mitchell)
chambers, where Lady Fuchsia asks him to employ Steerpike. He, in turn,
manages to flatter and charm Barquentine with a loquacity and erudition
completely at odds with the foolishness with which he swayed Fuchsia.
Steerpike eventually bamboozles the foolish Lady Clarice Groan (Zoë
Wanamaker) and her sister Lady Cora Groan (Lynsey Baxter) into helping him
endanger the royal family by setting the royal library on fire. Steerpike
shows up to save the day and rescues them from the fire he'd had the
sisters
set.
The burning of the library drives Sepulchrave, Earl of Groan (Ian
Richardson)
absolutely around the bend. He begins to think that he is an owl. He is
eventually consumed by owls, disappearing for a long time until he is
presumed dead. This was also orchestrated by Steerpike. At the same time,
Flay is banished from Gormenghast. Titus Groan is now older and is made
Earl.
His mother Gertrude, Countess of Groan (Celia Imrie) still rules with an
iron
fist, having more sympathy for her hunting birds than her own children
Fuchsia and Titus.
Eleven years later, Titus is twelve years old. We meet the various
bumbling
professors at his academy, including the more prominent Professor
Bellgrove
(Stephen Fry), who would eventually be promoted to the thankless position
of
headmaster after the unfortunate death of his predecessor (they
accidentally
threw him out of a window). Irma Prunesquallor (Fiona Shaw) attempts to
woo
the new headmaster at a party thrown by her brother, Doctor Prunsquallor
(John Sessions) (who'd briefly employed Steerpike before he'd toadied his
way
further up the hierarchy).
Steerpike finally exacts his twisted revenge on Nannie Slagg, killing her
with poison, and he incarcerates Clarice and Cora before they can blab
about
his other machinations. Steerpike also murders Barquentine, burning
himself
hideously in the process. He takes over his job, running the ceremonies
for
Gormenghast, just one step away from the throne now. The others begin to
suspect what he is up to, but are powerless to stop him.
Fuchsia is still enamored of Steerpike and begs him to remove the
half-mask
covering the burned half of his face. She is a simpleton and cannot hide
her
revulsion. This drives Steerpike completely around the bend -- he has
nothing
left to live for but his evil deeds. His last hope was to seduce Fuchsia,
kill Titus, and assume the throne.
Flay returns to the castle with Titus, ready to expose Steerpike. They
discover Clarice and Cora's corpses and catch Steerpike in the act of
desecrating them. Steerpike quite easily kills Flay and escapes into the
castle.
The rains come -- truly prodigious rains that quickly flood the first few
levels of the castle of Gormenghast. The whole castle is activated to
search
for Steerpike. He defends himself with a slingshot, killing many guards.
Just
as he seems likely to get away with it, Titus drops from above and stabs
him
where he was treading water, sending him to a watery grave.
The Leftovers S01 (2014) -- "8/10"
This is a show about what happens in an American community of people who were
all probably assholes before 2% of the population disappeared three years
ago, but are now definitely even worse because they feel like they're
entitled to their feelings and angst because they all lost someone that
day.
The first episode is pretty rocky. They try too hard to establish
everything
in the first show. There are too many teenagers in this. There is an
annoying
mayor who seems to be nearly over-the-top cunning and driven. There are at
least three cults that I could see in the first season. While this is
probably a good prediction of what would happen in America, I didn't find
it
that entertaining to watch. There were only a couple of nice people in it
and
they didn't get that much screen time.
I watched the second episode as well. We learn about bit more about the
cults: the police chief hasn't actually lost any of his family to the
mysterious event three years prior. His wife has joined one of the cults
--
the one that dresses all in white, smokes all the time, and never speaks
--
and his son has joined another -- the one with the
more-classic-cult-leader
who gives out special hugs that take away all of your pain and also
recharges
himself with very young Asian teenagers.
Then the damned thing started growing on me, filling in a bit of the very
mysterious mythology -- but not too much detail. They don't go overboard.
I
like Police Chief Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux) and I really like Preacher
Matt Jemison (Christopher Eccleston). Nora Durst (Carrie Coon) is also
very
good. Garvey's wife Laurie has joined the Guilty Remnant (GR), a cult that
smokes all the time and never (or rarely) speaks. Their leader Patti Levin
(Ann Dowd) is very, very good, as well. If I'm honest, Jill Garvey
(Margaret
Qualley) and her friend Aimee (Emily Meade) kind of grew on me, as well.
There are a couple of storylines that entwine in this first season.
Garvey's
father Kevin Sr. (Scott Glenn) used to run the police station but is now
confined to a mental institution. He's a danger to others. He hears voices
and follows their commands. He seems to know more about what happened on
the
14th of October, when so many disappeared.
Kevin has weird dreams and seems to enter a fugue state sometimes, where a
different personality takes over for a while. He takes nocturnal jaunts
with
Dean (Michael Gaston), where they hunt and kill dogs, though one night
Kevin
rescues one. It's kind of complicated. Another night, they've kidnapped
Patty, but Kevin can't remember any of it. Dean is ready to kill her, but
Kevin stops him. Then Patty kills herself, to bring down Kevin.
Garvey's son Tom (Chris Zylka) left home after the 14th and has washed up
in
the cult of Wayne. Wayne hugs people to take away their pain. It seems to
work. He also impregnated several girls at once, just before his compound
was
raided. Tom went into hiding with Christine (Annie Q.) and stayed in
occasional contact with Wayne, who's all mysterious and somewhat tragic,
in
the end. Wayne meets his end in a rest-stop bathroom, where Kevin Jr.
finds
him. Wayne grants him a wish.
Laurie and Patty and the rest of the GR have a season-long plan to remind
people of what they'd lost. A local townswoman Meg Abbott (Liv Tyler)
takes
an excruciating time to join the GR, but finally does. They make life-like
dummies of all of the taken family members, infuriating everyone in town.
The
rest of the town exacts its revenge on them, burning down their house.
Laurie
gets Kevin to rescue Jill, who'd just joined the GR and had been trapped
in
their burning headquarters.
Kevin gets her out, returning home with Laurie and Jill. They find Nora on
the front steps, cradling Christine and Wayne's baby, which Tom has
delivered
to their doorstep. Tom is gone. Christine had abandoned the baby to Tom in
a
bathroom. So Christine is in the wind, as well.
Space Force S02 (2022) -- "7/10"
This is a solid outing from a good cast playing good characters in a second
season that has a very noticeably reduced budget from the first season.
General Naird (Steve Carell) is in danger of losing his job as head of
Space
Force, while Dr. Adrian Mallory (John Malkovich) and Dr. Chan Kaifang
(Jimmy
O. Yang) are being recruited by SpaceX. Captain Angela Ali (Tawny Newsome)
is
hooking up with Chan, but can't get serious because she's damaged by her
experience on the moon. She's thinking of moving back to Hawaii to fly
tourists around in helicopters. F. Tony Scarapiducci (Ben Schwartz) is the
glue, but is also thinking of leaving for a bigger role elsewhere. Erin
Naird
(Diana Silvers), the general's daughter, is thinking of taking a gap year
to
travel the world. Her mother Maggie (Lisa Kudrow) is still in prison.
The defense council is still great: Army General Rongley (Diedrich Bader),
General Kick Grabaston (Noah Emmerich), John Blandsmith (Dan Bakkedahl),
Secretary of Defense (Tim Meadows), Navy Admiral Mayweather (Jane Lynch),
General Dabney Shramm (Patrick Warburton). Their bullshitting and messing
around is great fun. I can't imagine any of them were paid very much for
their roles.
It doesn't matter, though, because the characters and actors are good. The
story is pretty funny. Instead of $1M-per-episode sets, we get something
much
more like the original Star Trek, where story carries it all. This is
perhaps
a return to theater, where the sets don't really matter. A play with a
very
spartan set can work just fine. Perhaps the standouts were John Malkovich,
who can honestly do no wrong, and Ben Schwartz, whose background in improv
really, really lets him shine.
Aziz Ansari: Nightclub Comedian (2022) -- "9/10"
My rating applies to the actual comedy show that he gave and does not, as so
many other reviews do, take into consideration externalities about the
comedian. These are irrelevant.
Was. He. Funny? Yes.
He talked about COVID. He talked about Trump. He talked about the disease
infecting many people called The Internet. He talked about Joe Biden and
Kamala Harris being invisible. He talked about how stupid crypto is, about
how senseless and superficial so many of our conversations about the world
are. He talked about our mercuriality, our need to consume new outrage
while
completely ignoring issues that matter.
The show was a tight half-hour set.
Hell, I liked it because he was saying what I wish more people would say
--
and he was very funny doing it. People who didn't like it were most likely
butt-hurt because it hit too close to home. They focused on identity
instead,
as Ansari very likely knew they would. That is exactly the problem his
humor
pointed out: too many of those who claim to carry the banner of culture
for
us have traded in their sense of humor and irony for a sense of outrage
and
sanctimoniousness instead.
Taylor Tomlinson: Look at You (2022) -- "9/10"
Taylor leads off with medication, therapy, and disorders. Apparently, she's
bipolar. Her drugs tell her to "Shut up and choose a different adventure."
"Being bipolar is like not knowing how to swim. It's a little bit harder to
take you to certain places."
"When I told my friends I was bipolar, they weren't even surprised. They
said, no, that makes sense. That actually checks a lot of boxes. One
friend
said, Your mental illness is like your middle name. I didn't know what it
was, but I knew that you had one."
"I told my therapist that my boyfriend always answers his phone with "hello
beautiful". She says, so what's the problem? I said, I don't know...yet."
"Prophecy fulfilled."
"Oh, is this your move?"
""Food is just fuel". If you're one of those, then you can fuck right off.
I'll refund your ticket. I don't need the money that badly."
Then she moves on to a lot of dead-mom jokes.
"If you've never had childhood trauma and you're thinking that this show
isn't very funny. Good. I hope this is the worst night of your life. It
sounds like you might need some perspective."
"My parents don't watch my standup anymore. No Christian parent wants to
watch their daughter talk about depression and dick for an hour."
"The doorbell is the only thing that matters."
She finishes up with a great, long segment on masturbation and porn.
Jim Gaffigan: Comedy Monster (2022) -- "7/10"
"Like, how old? Like old-old? Or didn't have a cell phone in high
school-old?"
On vacation in Hawaii,
"Native: You stole our land.
"Jim: I don't know how to break it to you, but we stole all the land. It
probably stings more for you 'cause it's so pretty here."
"I went zip-lining for the last time."
"A marching band can take a song -- any song -- and ruin it. Wow, I didn't
know I could hate Uptown Funk that much."
"I love my wife, but I don't want another one. I don't need to disappoint
another person."
"We live in an age where billionaires are building rocket ships and flying
them into outer space...and no-one's asking, 'Are we sure they're paying
their taxes? Because we've got a lot of teachers who need supplies.'"
"Bikers [motorcyclists] are amazing. They are just such a uniquely American
subculture."
Good Lord, Jim. Do some research. Motorcycling in groups is absolutely
huge
in Europe as well. It's only uniquely American if you've never paid
attention
to anything outside of America.
"I guess the point I'm trying to make is: golf makes people gay."
He had more than a couple of jokes that weren't that funny and leaned
super-hard on the supposed fact that being gay is intrinsically funny. His
special was 1:10:00, so he could have cut a few of his old-school jokes
like
women being interested in a man's wallet and giving him a pass on his
awful
appearance. He also does a bunch of material about wives and husbands
that's
a bit hit-or-miss and generic.
"I was kind of frightened of my dad. My children treat me like a bank teller
that they reluctantly have to deal with. Once a week they just appear in
front of me,
"'Mom said I could get a shark. So I guess I need your credit card.'
"'What the hell are you talking about?'
"'He's yelling again!'"
Ali Wong: Don Wong (2022) -- "4/10"
She starts off with a loooong bit about blow jobs where she will not stop
saying "come on her face". It's a good seven minutes in and she hasn't
done
anything but talking about "sucking dick". These are not jokes, really.
She's
just describing things and getting laughs because diminutive asian women
aren't supposed to talk like that. Eleven minutes and change.
She really, really, really waits for the laugh. It's a pity, because her
first show was fantastic and the second was almost as good. This one, so
far,
is not good. She's almost robotic. She talks about women with power,
money,
and respect (like herself) CLAP and how uncomfortable men are with that.
"Chill don't pay the bills". CLAP.
Callback to the "come on my face" joke at 17 minutes.
Segue to a colonoscopy. Hooray.
She really lingers on her jokes, waiting for the laugh. She even pauses a
lot
before the final word or two, to make sure everyone's ready.
Now, she's telling everyone about her amazing career and how she didn't
"take
a shit" for six weeks. Now, compare and contrast to ... men.
Her body and facial language is so odd. She stomps around the stage like
Frankenstein.
Callback to "come on my face" at 39 minutes. Truly a work of art.
Now she's talking about her pussy juice and how filthy she'd made her
underwear when she'd almost cheated. Equality, ladies and gentlemen!
Her friends say, "None of these men want a strong woman. Strong woman.
Strong
woman. Strong woman" (not a typo). To which she responds, irony-free,
"you're
not strong, you're annoying."
The Dark Tower (2017) -- "8/10"
Roland of Gilead (Idris Elba) is the gunslinger at the end of the world,
locked in combat with Walter (Matthew McConaughey), the Man in Black, a
dark
wizard allied with the Crimson King. Jake (Ben Gavin) is a young man with
the
Shining, the target of Walter's searching eye. He sends minions to get
Jake,
but Jake discovers a portal to Midworld, where he meets Roland.
The few remaining people on Midworld are left with older technology that
they
barely understand and can only just keep functioning. Walter's demons
attack
the village and Roland, despite a grievous injury that robs him of his
dominant right hand, defends them as best he can. using his incredibly
good
left hand. That much is just like the book.
There's one part where he aims without looking, using his other senses to
find his target. It's well-made. Roland retrieves Jake and they escape
through the portal into New York City. Roland goes to a hospital, where he
impresses with his sturdiness, but leaves before they can keep him
overnight.
He hands the head doctor gold coins "Für eure Dienste" and then tells her
"Mögen eure Tagen lang sein" before leaving.
They do a great job of showing how unerring and loud and strong Roland's
guns
are, from Arthur of Eld. He prepares himself for battle, with unearthly
powers of perception and accuracy, supposedly born of decades -- if not
centuries -- of training and practice, mixed with a bit of magic. The
final
standoff between Walter and Roland is quite well-done, suspenseful.
This movie holds up on a second viewing. See "my review from 2017"
for more details.
"Ich ziele nicht mit meiner Hand. Der der mit seiner Hand zielt hat das
Gesicht seines Vaters vergessen.
"Ich ziele mit meinem Auge.
"Ich schiesse nicht mit meiner Hand. Der der mit seiner Hand schiesst hat
das
Gesicht seines Vaters vergessen.
"Ich schiesse mit meinem Verstand.
"Ich töte nicht mit meiner Waffe. Der der mit seiner Waffe schiesst hat
das
Gesicht seines Vaters vergessen.
"Ich töte mit meinem Herzen."
Watched it in German this time.
Star Wars: Rise of the Skywalker (2019) -- "5/10"
Please refer to "my review"
from 2020,
where
I go into more detail about how utterly awful this movie is. I took away
an
extra star this time because I'd failed to mention in the original review
just how irritating and tension-free it is watching a movie where one
character (Rey) is better than everyone else at everything. She speaks all
languages, she out-duels bounty hunters with ease, she can pull a whole
ship
out of the sky with her power, she can jump over spaceships, she can fly
spaceships, she can repair spaceships, she can repair robots, she can see
across galaxies. It's awful. I was only listening with one ear and
watching
out of the corner of one eye, but there is nothing redeeming about this
movie. That people love it and revere Rey is a sign of mental illness, if
not
the end of civilization.
Despite how awful I think it is, I rate it a 5/10 because the effects are
really quite good, if that's your thing. I need more, but the movie is
well-made graphically.
The Great Wall (2016) -- "5/10"
I don't know who this movie was made for, but it was not adults. It is so
ludicrously effects-heavy that it doesn't feel real at all. Matt Damon is
technically in it, but he does no acting. Pedro Pascal is technically in
it,
but he does no acting. Willem Dafoe is technically in it, but he does no
acting. It's just a big pile of CGI with no feeling, no oomph, no energy.
I
just don't care about amazing things happening on screen when it's dozens
of
amazing things happening all at once. There's no art to it. The plot feels
like it was written by a 14-year-old boy. "How about if Matt Damon shoots
a
bunch of arrows and they all do amazing things, leaving a bowl hanging
against a pillar, between two arrows?" Ugggggghhhhh.
I found myself siding with the monsters. They were much more sympathetic.
Despite how awful I think it is, I rate it a 5/10 because the effects are
really quite good, if that's your thing. I need more, but the movie is
well-made graphically.
]]>
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of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Townies S01 (1996) -- "7/10"
This is a one-season sitcom about a group of friends in Gloucester,
Massachusetts. They're all in their late 20s and all still living in town
(hence the name of the sitcom). Carrie Donovan (Molly Ringwald) is the
more
practical one, still living her parents Mike (Dion Anderson) and Kathy
(Lee
Garlington) and starting up a relationship with Curt (Ron Livingston),
who's
been begging her to go out with him for a long time. Shannon (Jenna
Elfman)
is the free spirit who sleeps with a lot of guys. That's not a shot at
her:
that is literally the archetype she plays. Denise Callahan (Lauren Graham)
is
somewhere in between: she marries Frank (Billy Burr) in the first episode
--
and they already have a baby together. All three of the ladies work at the
local diner, run by straight-talking Marge (Conchata Ferrell).
As can be expected from a sitcom, the main characters get into hijinks in
each episode, which driving a bit of a seasonal story-arc forward. It's
honestly not the worth 80s/90s television I've ever seen. The actors are
pretty talented, at any rate. Jenna Elfman and Molly Ringwald are both
very
funny.
We watched a VHS rip because this series is so old and so unpopular and so
short that no-one ever released it on DVD. I became interested in this
show
because Billy Burr is in it, but he's not in it nearly as much as the
other
characters. He only shows up sparingly, although he does a respectable job
of
it. It was his first acting role ever, coinciding in 1996 with his first
comedy-show credit ever.
"Callahan: It's nothing against you Grimaldis, Linda. It's just southern
cultures are a little slower. The sun feels so nice -- who feels like
workin'?
Linda: Ah, yes, the hardworking Irish. Between bending their elbows and
flapping their gums, I'm surprised they even have the strength to gamble."
"Mountie: You've mistaken my good manners for a lack of resolve."
"Cary: Picture it: a cold, dark night. Three women, with nothing to lose. ...
A peach."
Rick & Morty S05 (2021) -- "10/10"
The first episode introduces Mr. Nimbus (Dan Harmon), the lord of the seas.
It also introduces "Hoovy", a dog who helps Morty (Justin Roiland) carry
some
wine back to his own dimension after Rick (Justin Roiland) had thrown it
there to age for a few centuries. Typical R&M madness. Hoovy returns to
find
his wife had died in the intervening hears and that his son had waited for
him, to kill him on his return. The son founds an empire with the sole
purpose of destroying Morty should he return. Morty has to return a few
times
because Nimbus keeps drinking the wine he's trying to bring to Jessica
(Kari
Wahlgren), who's actually on a date with him. The dog race, progeny of
Hoovy,
continue to evolve, achieving incredible heights of technology, enough
even
to eventually strip Rick of his powers and almost his life. Morty has to
return to rescue Jessica, who'd been taken captive centuries ago (in her
timeline), but frozen in place, observing but not aging. She is now beyond
such prosaic things as dating Morty. "Fuck off. I'm a Time Lord."
The second episode is about Rick's "decoy families", with one after
another
getting destroyed by squid people, who turn out to be other decoy families
in
squid costumes. It turns out that decoy families have also created their
own
decoy families. The copies of copies are increasingly damaged and ...
wrong.
This continues in a visual and tempo-spatial orgy of detail and confusion
until you can do nothing but lean back and enjoy it, no longer even trying
to
keep track of who the real family is. It's a wonderful commentary on
cloning
and simulation (a common theme).
The third episode is a take on Captain Planet, with Morty becoming
Planetina's girlfriend. Planetina turns out to be a bit more ... vehement
...
about saving the planet than Morty is as she torches an entire coal-mine
full
of people. Meanwhile Rick and Summer are taking a week off for debauchery
and
rippin' and tearin'. Summer grows weary of Rick's attachment to a
girlfriend
he'd made on the first of three doomed planets that they'd visited.
The fourth episode is about Morty's sperm staging an assault on the
planet.
What happened was Morty visited his mother at work and found the
horse-milking machine and spent a week pleasuring himself with it before
Rick
picked up a barrel of what he thought was horse serum in order to use it
to
create a bomb to destroy the CHUD (Cannibalistic Horse Underground
Dwellers),
but it's not equine, so his equipment blows up instead, releasing giant,
mutated versions of the sperm that attack the whole neighborhood. They
barely
escape to what looks like Norad to meet up with the president (Keith
David).
Long story short, the CHUD save the day, Rick is the rather of the scion
of
the royal family, Morty is deeply chagrined and Morty and his sister
Summer's
(Spencer Grammer) gross, giant incest baby is shot into space, where it
assaults an astronaut. What the actual hell.
The fifth episode was one of the weaker ones, but still pretty good. The
sheer number of "sets" that they design and draw and animate is nearly
bewildering. There is so much to see and hear. In this one, Morty and
Summer
team up to impress the new kid Bruce Chutback, who's aloofness is nearly
impenetrable. They manage to steal Rick's spaceship and take off on a
galaxy-wide tear with it, tangling with the police and then getting
kidnapped
by the ship in order to help her to lose her virginity (in exchange for
not
telling Rick that they'd hijacked her). Meanwhile Rick is "friends" with
Jerry, but only in order to let the hell-demons to whom he owes a huge
debt
revel in his cringe. Beth tracks them down, chastises Rick for mocking
Jerry,
then joins in because the hell-drinks are so good. When Jerry gets wind of
the scam, he's annoyed and stop being "fun" for the demons. They kidnap
him
and take him to hell. Beth and Rick disguise themselves as demons,
infiltrate
hell, and rescue Jerry.
The sixth episode is a loose take on the movie National Treasure with
Keith
David returning in the role of the president, being awesome and kicking
ass
in a giant feud with Rick. Rick's plan is, as ever, to get himself a
presidential pardon by pretending to be a turkey on Thanksgiving. The
first
forty-five seconds of the show has more jokes and zingers than most shows
pack into thirty minutes. There is a throwaway reveal that the Statue of
Liberty was actually was a trojan horse -- Morty's shot releases a robot
that
takes over New York in the name of France, all "[...] on America's
birthday,
or whatever the fuck Thanksgiving is supposed to be." Morty and Rick
infiltrate the turkeys as turkeys, but the president also turns himself
into
a turkey and gets the upper hand, but then Rick gets the upper hand, but
then
the turkey who is injected with the President's DNA who takes over the
country makes more turkey-based super-soldiers. Rick, Morty, and the
president kill spider-FDR and wake the pilgrim and native-American
super-warriors who are kept in hyper-sleep until needed in order to take
the
country back. It sounds absolutely crazy on paper, but it was one of the
best
episodes yet. Really super-fun and clever.
The seventh episode features Rick's obsession with GoTron, a giant robot
built out of other robots (*cough* Voltron *cough*). Instead of panthers,
they're ferrets. As usual, the plot goes mad with layers upon layers,
involving other Smith families from other multiverses, and building larger
and larger versions of the GoTron, until they reach a planet-sized
Ultimate
GoTron. They end up using Morty and Summer's giant incest baby Naruto to
defeat the usurpers who'd taken over the Ultimate GoTron from Rick.
The eighth episode has Rick diving into Birdperson's memories to cover a
lot
of backstory that fans have been begging for. We learn that Birdperson
distanced himself from Rick because Rick's portal gun made relationships
meaningless because, not only could any reality exist, but they were all
equally accessible, rendering them equally meaningless. We learn that
Tammy
and Birdperson had a daughter before Tammy killed Birdperson.
The ninth episode transforms Rick into a Crow-based superhero. He replaces
Morty with crows, living for decades like this, regretting nothing. Morty,
on
the other hand, spills portal fluid on himself and gets into a dangerous
relationship with Nick, the man on the other end of his portal, who'd also
spilled portal fluid on himself. Rick remains with the crows, having left
Morty behind for good.
The tenth episode really ties everything together. Rick is still the
anime-style crow-leader/hero with a giant Japanese/Final Fantasy-type
sword.
Rick eventually learns that the crows are using him and he goes back to
Morty, who'd aged himself in order to get back at Rick. The end up at the
Citadel, inhabited solely by Ricks and Mortys from all across the
continuum.
There is an incredibly detailed flashback sequence that tells Rick's story
(finally!) in a hallucinogenic experience where the details are clear as
you
see them, but disappear 1/8 of a second later as the next detail appears
to
replace it. This goes on for a good two minutes, with a lot happening. In
the
"real world", President Morty of the Citadel makes a power play and ends
up
in his own continuum, where portal guns are yellow and he rules supreme.
Rick, meanwhile, escapes with Morty and several other Ricks and Mortys as
the
Citadel collapses into a black hole.
As always, Rick and Morty is a wild ride. This might have been the
strongest
season yet. Looking forward to seasons six and seven. This writing and
animation team is fun and creative and smart and they make stuff that is
though-provoking and unique and beautiful.
Upload S01 (2020) -- "8/10"
Nathan Brown (Robbie Amell) is an app developer with every privilege: he's
attractive, he has a nice family, he has an attractive, very rich
girlfriend.
He's on his way to his girlfriend's house when his self-driving car slams
into the back of a parked truck, wounding him mortally. He's in the
hospital
when his girlfriend Ingrid Kannerman (Allegra Edwards) finds him and gets
him
to sign a contract to "Upload" himself into her rich family's swanky
after-life digital paradise.
Nathan starts up a virtual relationship with his "angel" Nora (Andy Allo).
He
is torn between her and Ingrid, who is slowly becoming a better person.
There
are a few characters in the virtual world who help Nathan try to figure
out
what happened to him. It turns out that he was not a nice guy and that he
wanted to sell his software -- a way for poor people to upload -- to his
potential father-in-law, who already has more money than he knows what to
do
with. Nathan had spent the season suspecting his partner of having screwed
him. Instead, his partner Jamie (Jordan Johnson-Hinds) had been avoiding
him
because he'd slept with Ingrid once.
At the end, Nathan has downgraded himself to the 2GB floor, where he burns
through his whole allotment in the first day, professing his love for
Nora,
while Ingrid shows up to rescue him. It's a bit complicated and unclear
where
it's heading -- which is a good thing.
The real world is very tongue-in-cheek weird, with the people enjoying
incredible privilege with no self-awareness. There are a lot of nice
little
touches, some of them quite zany (like putting bees on Ingrid's face as
she's
preparing for Nathan's funeral, or that she has to turn down a
vaginoplasty
at the same time).
I eventually warmed up to it and it was pretty well-made. The ideas and
concepts hit a bit too close too home now, but with the metaverse
increasingly becoming a thing that idiots think they want, it is probably
all
too predictive of what's in store for us.
Titane (2021) -- "5/10"
The movie starts with Titane (Agathe Rousselle) and her family getting into a
car accident that results in her having a titanium plate implanted into
her
head. After being released from the hospital, she is more empathetic to
the
family car rather than to her parents. Years later, a grown-up Titane
dances
seductively at car shows. She is also a serial killer -- we see flashbacks
of
her taking her first victims as she takes her most recent one: an avid fan
who confronts her in the parking lot outside the show. She re-enters the
convention hall to shower and ends up fucking one of the cars. No, that's
not
a typo.
Titane still lives with her parents, but her crimes are starting to catch
up
to her. After a spree in which she kills several people and, after
discovering that she's pregnant with the car's baby (she's leaking motor
oil), she smashes her nose, shaves her head, tapes down her breasts, and
makes herself look like a waifish man. She impersonates a boy who'd gone
missing years earlier and her weird "father" Vincent (Vincent Lindon)
totally
accepts it. He's in charge of a fire station and EMT service. He gives his
"son" a job there. This causes issues with the other team members, but
Vincent doesn't give a shit.
Vincent is none too stable, injecting steroids several times (also pretty
cringe-inducing) and eventually almost puts himself into a coma. Vincent's
wife meets her "son" but finds Titane poking holes into her own very
pregnant
belly and watching oil leak out. Vincent eventually sees enough that his
own
delusion is shattered, but he doesn't care. He now loves his new "son".
Titane ends up dancing in the fire station, busting out her car-show moves
while clothed in her baggy firefighter's uniform and with her bald head,
broken nose, and increasingly pregnant belly. Everybody's pretty confused,
to
be honest. Vincent is disappointed but no-one dares say a word. Titane
fucks
one of the fire trucks to try to get the baby out, but it doesn't work. I
guess science isn't all it's cracked up to be.
The birth eventually comes, killing Titane in the process. Vincent ends up
holding her titanium-laced baby, cooing to it.
This movie wasn't at all what I expected it to be. I realized it quite
early,
but when Titane's father was setting his own chest on fire while Titane
was
fucking a fire-truck in order to try to force the birth of a baby she had
had
implanted by a muscle car, I realized it wasn't quite for me. It's
well-made
and well-filmed. It's a tight story (there are almost no people in it,
other
than the couple of main characters). But, man, that plot. I don't mind
crazy
plots, but this one was just so random and involved such long sequences of
self-harming that were pretty tough to watch and then recover from to
focus
on other parts of the film. I couldn't possible recommend this one to
anyone
I know, to be honest. It's definitely a filmmaker's film.
Die Käserei in Goldingen (2008) -- "7/10"
This is a sweet movie about a cheese dairy in a Swiss town named Goldingen.
The dairy is struggling to compete with the other, larger local dairies.
He
gets a refugee to work with him. When the farmer is going to lose a local
cheese competition because he can no longer produce the goat cheese for
which
he is famous, he is able to promote the amazing cheese made by his refugee
protegé/apprentice. It wins an honorable mention and a large prize.
The Revenant (2015) -- "9/10"
Hugh Glass (Leonardo diCaprio) is a fur-trapper in the Dakotas in the 1820s.
He is a trapper nonpareil and is leading a group of men back to their
camp.
They are attacked by the Arikara, who kill most of the group. The Arikara
war
party is looking for Powaqa (Melaw Nakehk'o), the Arikara chief's
daughter,
who's been kidnapped. Glass escapes with a much smaller group. They stash
their furs, despite Fitzgerald's (Tom Hardy) misgivings. They need to move
more quickly.
Glass is attacked by a bear while he's scouting game. The attack is
horrific.
The bear tear his back open; his hands are torn up; he survives. The rest
of
the group -- including his son -- finds him and they sew him up. He lies
on
his back on a pannier, eyes bright with nigh-inconceivable pain.
Fitzgerald,
of course, argues for a mercy-killing, but they are unable to do it.
Instead,
the leader of the group Captain Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson) offers
money
to anyone willing to stay with Glass and bury him after he's ... suffered
to
death? How is that better? Anyway, Glass's son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck),
Jim
Bridger (Will Poulter), and Fitzgerald take the offer, two of them out
of
concern for Glass, and one of them for the money.
Fitzgerald immediately tries to kill Glass, but is caught by Hawk.
Fitzgerald
kills Hawk in front of Glass. Fitzgerald then lies to Bridger about the
Arikara getting closer. They half-bury Glass half-alive and call it a day.
Bridger leaves his canteen with Glass, but he's terrified for his life --
both of Fitzgerald and the Arikara. When they get back to the fort, they
both
lie to Henry about what happened.
Glass survives the cold night.
His fury drives him to crawl out of the grave, to cauterize his wounds. He
somehow makes it down to the river (this is not shown and is
nigh-unimaginable, but for the story's sake, we'll let it go). He escapes
the
Arikara by jumping into the freezing water. He is underway alone for many
days before he meets Pawnee Hikuc (Arthur RedCloud), with whom Glass can
communicate because his wife was Pawnee. She fell victim to the Arikara
when
they attacked and burned his ranch. He escaped with Hawk and took up his
trapper/nomad/scout lifestyle.
Hikuc builds Glass a sweat lodge in which to heal his festering wounds. He
emerges days later to find that he's feeling much better, but that French
trappers have killed Hikuc and the leader of the French party is raping
Powaqa. Glass frees her, kills several French trappers, and takes back
Hikuc's horse. He escapes with Powaqa, only to be hunted down the next
morning by the Arikara. They take back Powaqa and drive Glass off a cliff
on
his horse. He falls through pine trees, slamming off of branches before
landing on the snowy ground. The horse plummets even harder through the
trees
and dies immediately. Glass crawls over to it, eviscerates it and survives
the freezing night in its carcass.
Glass's canteen makes its way back to the fort in the hands of a terrified
French trapper, proving the Glass is still alive and making his way back.
Henry organizes a search party and they find an exhausted Glass in the
nearby
forest. Fitzgerald does not partake in the search party, instead emptying
the
fort's safe and heading for the hills. Glass protects Bridger from
punishment.
After a day, Henry and Glass set out in pursuit of Fitzgerald. This
quickly
goes awry, as Fitzgerald captures and kills Henry. Glass uses Henry's
corpse
on a horse to get the drop on Fitzgerald, but only succeeds in shooting
him
in the arm. Glass tracks his wounded ass down to the river, where the two
fight brutally and amazingly well, considering Glass was grievously
wounded
and hasn't eaten in days and Fitzgerald is bleeding massively from a
gunshot
wound. These injuries phase neither one of them. Glass lets the river
carry
Fitzgerald's wounded ass to the Arikara war party on the other riverbank.
They scalp Fitzgerald and spare Glass (for having saved Powaqa).
Glass retreats back into the hills and the forest, hallucinating about his
wife. It's unclear whether he finally capitulates to his wounds and joins
her
and his son in death, having taking his revenge -- or whether he drives
onward, stubbornly clinging to life.
DiCaprio puts in a tremendous performance and Alejandro G. Iñárritu as
director does a tremendous job as well. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki
is
also worth noting. This is, in a sense, a superhero movie, but with a more
down-to-Earth superhero.
The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) -- "9/10"
This is the story of the rise and fall of Wall Street con man Jordan Belfort
(Leonardo DiCaprio). He starts off under the tutelage of coke-addled
sociopath Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey). Hanna's brokerage implodes
after
Black Monday, on October 19th, 1987 and everyone loses their job. Belfort
is
forced to take a job at a penny-stock boiler room, where his bombastic
lies
and charisma quickly make him incredibly rich on commissions earned by
duping
people out of their retirement savings.
Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill) approaches him in a diner and asks him for a
job,
based solely on the fact that Belfort has a fancy car. Belfort and Azoff
start their own company named Stratton Oakmont, based on a pump-and-dump
tactics that go after bigger fish than Midwestern retirees. Jordan
recruits a
bunch of his friends, Brad (Jon Bernthal), Manny (Jon Favreau), Nicky
(P.J.
Byrne), Chester (Kenneth Choi), Alden (Henry Zebrowski), and Robbie (Brian
Sacca). They would all become incredibly rich and would all become
hardcore
drug addicts and would all remain fiercely loyal to Jordan.
Their firm is profiled as the dirtiest company on Wall Street, making
tremendous profits while riding the fine line of illegality. They are
overrun
by applicants (of course). Jordan becomes a hardcore drug addict. He also
dumps his wife Teresa (Christin Miloti) for Naomi Lapaglia (Margot
Robbie).
He manages to keep a lot of balls in the air, but the SEC and the FBI --
in
the form of Agent Denham (Kyle Chandler) -- are closing in.
Stratton Oakmont shepherds Steve Madden's IPO, with Belfort personally
making
$22M, which he promptly hides in a Swiss bank account, through banker Jean
Jacques Saurel (Jean Dujardin). They use Naomi's British aunt Emma (Joanna
Lumley) as well as some of Brad's relatives to slowly smuggle the money
back
to Switzerland. This was obviously back in the days when it was much more
difficult to wire money through dozens of accounts in seconds to cover
one's
trail.
Although Jordan's friends remained fiercely loyal to him, he gives them up
as
soon as the noose tightens around him. Saurel is turned by the FBI, so
Jordan
turns on his friends. Jordan spares Donnie, though, and the FBI is furious
at
him. He only gets 36 months of minimum security prison, serves 22 months,
and
goes on to a lucrative career as a motivational speaker.
DiCaprio is spectacular in this movie. The scenes of drug-fueled
nigh-pornography, the debauchery, the money, the heedless spending, the
rapacious theft -- it's all depicted in music-video-style montages by
director Martin Scorcese. Jonah Hill is tremendous as well, even more
debauched and mentally damaged than Belfort, at times. A tremendous movie
about the worst people in the world.
After Life S03 (2022) -- "6/10"
Tony (Ricky Gervais) is back for his final season of moping about his dead
wife. He seems to have found purpose in helping people and spends some
time
trying to fix up Kath (Diane Morgan) with someone to make her happy. His
best
friend and closest coworker Lenny (Tony Way) is doing just fine without
his
help. His own relationship with his father's former nurse (Ashley Jensen)
goes nowhere, but he helps fix her up with someone nice. Tony finally
accepts
the money from his dead wife Lisa's life-insurance policy and distributes
it
around town, for good deeds.
Brian (David Earl) gets a lot more screen time and it's not great. He goes
on
and on like a mentally ill man about his cuckolding wife in lurid and
stomach-churning detail.
The first season was fantastic and the subsequent seasons have seems ever
more schmaltzy and earnest -- and less funny. It's fine, I guess. Gervais
actually makes pretty high-quality schmaltz, but it was quite uneven and
two
who seasons of unfunny and earnest moping isn't what I'm looking for. At
the
end, Tony walks off into a field with his dog Brandy. Tony's wife Lisa
appears briefly, then fades. Then Brandy fades. Then Tony fades. The end.
The Brothers Grimsby (2016) -- "4/10"
I only saw some of this movie, but I wanted to note that I saw the part where
Sebastian (Mark Strong) and Nobby (Sacha Baron Cohen) crawl into an
elephant's vagina in order to escape detection. They think they've made
their
escape, but a bull elephant takes a fancy to their elephant. A giant
elephant
penis slides into the scene, smashing repeatedly into Strong's face. Cohen
says they have to help it ejaculate to make it go away. It does.
Copiously.
This is laughably bad and sophomoric. Then another bull elephant comes
along.
It's bumping up against Cohen's ass. His pants are inexplicably down. I
just
wanted to note how horrible this all is so that I don't watch this movie
by
accident at some point. This is almost worse than Brüno in its
mindlessness
and terrible humor. It's not very funny. It's kind of painful to watch. I
don't even want to know what kind of bet Strong lost that made him have to
star in this.
The Great Gatsby (2013) -- "7/10"
The plot follows the book quite assiduously. Many years after they'd
happened, WWI veteran Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) tells the story of a
summer spent with Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio). Carraway moves in to a
small groundskeeper's cottage next to Gatsby's mansion in West Egg. His
cousin Daisy (Carey Mulligan) lives across the bay in East Egg, with her
husband Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton). Tom is the latest generation of an
old-money family -- he is scum. Daisy tries to fix up Nick with Jordan
(Elizabeth Debicki), a local golf pro.
Gatsby is in love with Daisy and chose the house across the bay so that he
could keep an eye on the flashing green light at the end of her dock. He
throws incredibly lavish parties in the hopes that Daisy will show up at
one
of them. He has made a tremendous amount of money with his shady business
partner Meyer Wolfsheim (Amitabh Bachchan).
Tom is cheating on Daisy with Myrtle (Isla Fisher), the wife of a small
garage in the no-man's land between the Eggs and Manhattan. Daisy learns
of
this and decides to leave Tom for Gatsby. They all end up partying at the
Plaza Hotel and the conversation goes tits-up.
Myrtle's husband George (Jason Clarke) suspects her and decides to leave
the
area with her. She doesn't want to go and tries to jump into Tom's car as
it
flits by. However, it's Gatsby driving the car and throwing yourself at a
car
isn't a great idea in any case, so Myrtle dies. Tom drives through in
Gatsby's car a few minutes later and tells her distraught husband that he
suspects it was Gatsby she was sleeping with and that it was Gatsby who'd
killed her. It was, in fact, Daisy who'd been driving. Mad with rage,
George
strikes out for Gatsby's mansion and finds and kills him in his own
swimming
pool.
Gatsby's name is dragged through the mud, used as a scapegoat to cover up
the
infidelities and vehicular manslaughters of the old rich families. Daisy
let
Gatsby -- a man who'd devoted his entire life to loving her and building a
fortune to entice her -- take the fall to protect herself. She is left
with
her marriage to the brutalizing Tom Buchanan, who comes out of this
shining
and more powerful than ever.
There are absolutely lush visuals for a good part of the film -- the
parties
in particular are over-the-top spectacular. Baz Luhrmann as director does
a
tremendous job, having practiced in movies like Moulin Rouge!. It's kind
of
slog once it gets down to the business of wrapping up the story, though.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=44072022-03-08T11:11:08+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Legion S02 (2017) -- "9/10"
I really like the characters, the plot, the scenery, the costumes, the
ambitious way of showing what life would be like for a being who can
access
the astral plane -- timeless, ageless, positionless, all at once. The poor
people surrounding such beings -- clever and well-grounded and emotionally
stable as they are -- have no chance of staying on their feet nearly any
of
the time.
David (Dan Stevens) tracks Farouk (Navid Negahban) -- in the form of Lenny
(Aubrey Plaza) and Oliver (Jemaine Clement)) -- to a nightclub in the
astral
plane. Farouk is looking for his original body, which was captured and
buried
by monks of a special sect. Cary (Bill Irwin) builds an amplification
chamber
for David's power, where he spends a lot of time.
The narrator (Jon Hamm) provides wonderfully animated and rendered
interludes
of philosophical musing in about half of the episodes.
In this one, we see Farouk manipulate everyone into thinking that he's the
good guy. He even does such a good job of it that his power reaches right
through the TV and affects the viewer. But has he really changed? David
begins working with him, partially because a future Syd (Rachel Keller)
tells
him its the only way to save the world.
The monk is infecting people with a tooth-chattering incapacitation. The
monk's death releases everyone from their entrapment. David spends an
episode
in Syd's mind, exploring her past and how she grew into the person she is
now. Lenny gets out of Farouk's mind prison and shows up at Division 3.
She
and David piece together how she got there -- in his sister Amy's body,
which
Oliver and Farouk had "converted" to Lenny.
David continues exploring astral space and multiple realities and
possibilities, one where he eventually becomes the richest and most
powerful
man in the world, another in which he's a drugged-out conspiracy theorist,
another where he's killed in a shootout, or killed by Kerry, or living as
an
old, addled man cared for by Amy, or living with Amy as an addled younger
man.
Farouk is confused as to why David is helping him. He travels forward to
ask
future Sydney why she wants David to help Farouk. It's because she knows
that
David, his power, and his rage will combine to lead him to end the world.
A
mind-worm planted by Farouk (before he had a change of heart) continues to
wreak havoc at Division 3. Eventually, they stop it, but not before it
sacrifices Ptonomy's mind. He is resurrected as part of the Vermillion.
They figure out where Farouk's body is: it's in a weird, ever-changing
desert
called Le Désolé. Everyone is involved here, with Oliver, Melanie,
Lenny,
and Clark working together to get everyone to the desert and set up for
the
final act. Farouk continues to bounce between bad and good, and hops from
Oliver to Melanie. Melanie/Farouk convinces Syd that it's hopeless and
that
David must be destroyed.
David and Amahl Farouk finally clash on the astral plane. Lenny shoots a
giant tuning fork, which throws off all of their powers. Syd tries to
shoot
David because she knows what he will become. Lenny's bullet stops that
fatal
bullet and David manipulates Syd's mind before she fully recovers from the
shock. Farouk knows what happened and restores Syd's memories, turning her
against David once again. Cary also sees what happened in a "replay".
David
is put on trial, trapped in a cage. He blows his way out of the trap --
angry
that they think they could even get him to do something he doesn't want to
do
-- and escapes with Lenny.
Archer S12 (2021) -- "8/10"
Another solid entry in the long-running and seemingly indestructible series
about a spy organization run by Mallory Archer (Jessica Walter) and
starring
her son Sterling Archer (H. Jon Benjamin). The gang's all here: Cheryl
(Judy
Greer), Pam (Amber Nash), Cyril (Chris Parnell), Lana (Aisha Taylor), Ray
(Adam Reed), and Krieger (Lucky Yates). We get a minor part for Barry
(Dave
Willis) as well as a cameo for Ron Cadillac (Ron Leibman) in the final
episode.
Leibman died a few years ago and his real-life wife Jessica Walter just
died
this year. This was her final episode, so the show ended with a sweet
moment
where Mallory retires to an island with never-ending cocktails and Ron
Cadillac by her side, lying in chaise longues on the beach, looking into
the
sunset. Walters was able to voice the full season. The final conceit was
that
Sterling read the letter she'd written before she vamoosed,
"Do you remember what I told you on your very first day of training?
"You probably don’t, but it was ‘Always know where the exits are.’
"And with all the chaos and confusion of late, I thought I would fix to
make
my own exit, in my own time, on my own terms and in a way that I could
never
be found by my enemies, or all my lovesick paramours who are literally
countless.,
"So I’ve decided that it’s time to pass the torch; try not to burn
yourselves with it."
The story arc of this season was that the agency had to navigate a
changing
world (again) and were up against a very corporate and very organized IIA
(International Intelligence Agency) headed up by Fabian Kingsworth (Kayvan
Novak). He has a pretty strong speech defect -- he tends to pronounce Ws
instead of Rs or Ls -- and it's got to be a meta-joke that no-one ever
mentions it.
Ray is actually working at IIA because their snacks are amazing (and he's
not
sure whether the Agency is going to survive, so he's covering his bases).
Lana is fighting with her husband Robert, who's also the billionaire
benefactor keeping the Agency alive. We find out more about Mallory's
backstory when she was an agent, teamed up with an Indian Brit agent in
London. Stuff happens: Cheryl is loony, Pam is actually relatively tame
compared to previous seasons, Cyril has an identity crisis because Archer
is
back out of the coma and Cyril is no longer awesome, Krieger is still
Krieger.
Legion S03 (2018) -- "9/10"
"The universe acknowledges you, that you exist and that your existence is
important.
"I can see that you have suffered. That people you love have suffered. And
you want to know that it meant something.
"It did. It does. Nothing of value is ever lost."
After having declared war, David escapes and lives on the lam, amidst
fervent
admirers that he's cultivated in his...erm...cult. We meet Switch, a
Chinese/American/Japanese girl trained by her father to hone her
time-traveling ability.
David eventually manages to hitchhike with Switch back to the point in
time
before his father -- Professor X -- fought Farouk (and thought he'd
defeated
him). Instead, Farouk had allowed himself to appear defeated while he
piggy-backed on an even more powerful Omega-level mutant, David.
Cary and Sidney think they're making headway, but the time-eaters are
robbing
them of time even very far down the continuum. David, on the other hand,
is
so focused on fixing "himself" rather than helping anyone else that he may
be
the bad guy after all? His voice sometimes sounds like the big-headed
blob's.
He uses and abuses Switch, whose adulation and devotion make her nearly
kill
herself to help him -- and he takes it. She announces "I'm home", when she
gets to Farouk's lair and then calls him "Daddy" later -- or so it
appears.
Legion appears, with a multiplicity of Davids, confronting Xavier in
David's
mind.
Xavier and David finally see eye to eye and agree to team up, though I
suppose Xavier still doesn't like the smile on David's face. Farouk, on
the
other hand, has managed to extricate his future self from the zone of
timelessness Le Désolé -- so it looks like it will be two on two.
Charles and modern-day Farouk square off, but this Farouk...has changed.
He
doesn't want to fight anymore. He wants to convince Charles to work
together
to help David become a better version of himself. That is, Farouk spent
thirty years inside of David and grew with him. He mellowed. He saw the
error
of his ways. In so doing, he damaged David nearly irreparably. Now, the
new,
improved Farouk wants to show the old Farouk how much better off David
would
be had he never been occupied by the parasite. In this way, he will redeem
himself, to a degree. David will have lived twice: once with Farouk,
during
which Farouk terrorizes him, but also grows into the person who will
travel
through the astral plane -- and time itself -- in order to stop himself
from
ever having infected David in the first place.
Other stuff happens, but mainly this is about David leaving his anger
behind.
Switch eventually succumbs to her time-inflicted wounds, but she is buoyed
by
her father, who is some sort of time-lord. He shows her how to leave her
mortal vessel and become a time-god herself. She dispels the time-eaters
that
were advancing on and plaguing Sydney, Gabriella (David's mother), and
Kerry.
The time-eaters were depicted quite well, with stuttering and repetition
throughout the editing to simulate the effect of time "slipping".
Seinfeld: S01--S04 (1989--1992) -- "10/10"
[image]Jerry Seinfeld, George Costanza (Jason Alexander), Elaine Benes (Julia
Louis-Dreyfus), and Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards) star in this comedy
set
in New York, starting in 1989 and running through 1997. It is a "show
about
nothing", as Seinfeld was famous for noting. Larry David co-wrote and
produced the show.
The four are Manhattanites. Their major concerns are low-rent apartments,
dating, and work. Each show generally follows the same structure: one of
them
commits an act of petty duplicity and then spends the rest of the show
making
it worse in attempts to make it better. It's like watching a kid try to
clean
up spilled honey with a paper tissue. Especially George, but Elaine and
Jerry
are also masters of the craft. The most meta joke in the show is that, of
Jerry and all of his friends, he, as the stand-up comedian, is the most
successful and financially secure. Bits of Seinfeld's stand-up comedy act
are
sprinkled throughout the show.
One of the nice things is that this format doesn't have an overarching
story
arc. Things that go wrong -- sometimes drastically -- are either repaired
by
the end of the show -- often without any pretense of realism, which is
kind
of part of the joke -- or...they're just forgotten in the next show. The
central mission is laughs, not continuity, so they often sacrifice the
latter.
Perhaps the most egregious of these -- for the modern viewer, at least,
who
has been trained to expect a modicum of continuity in all forms of
entertainment (e.g. video games, films, TV, comics) unless explicitly
rebooted -- is when, in the second season, Elaine and Jerry get back
together
in a serious way for a single show and then they just forget about it
completely in the next show. Wonderful.
There will be some things that change, but very slowly -- e.g. introducing
new characters, like George's or Elaine's new bosses -- and only if it
makes
the show funnier.
Jason Alexander is very good -- he's the one I remember the most. But on
this
full, second viewing, it is Michael Richards as Kramer who stands out as a
superlative physical comedian and actor. He is completely without artifice
or
pretense. By the second half of the seasons, though, it is Elaine whose
sharp
wit shines the brightest.
Newman (Wayne Knight) makes his first appearance in S03E15. He starts to
feature more prominently in a few storylines. Uncle Leo is a recurring
character, as are Jerry's parents. We met Elaine's father one time -- he's
a
gruff author. We've only heard of George's parents a couple of times, but
they've yet to make an appearance.
In S04E06, Jerry does a bit about how people don't ever want to talk to
anyone on the phone, but they're desperate to see that blinking light on
the
phone machine. It's very prophetic of how we apes would adapt to the
increasingly online world. To wit: nothing has changed. The bit still
stands.
As to why we crave that blinking light that tells us someone tried to
reach
us -- for gens Y and Z, think the "badge" indicator on your app that tells
you how many unread messages or...whatever...you have.
"Why? It's very important for human beings to feel they are popular and
well-liked amongst a large group of people that we don't care for."
In S04E10: The Contest
"Sex is great, but you don't really want to think about the fact that your
life began because somebody might have had too much wine with dinner."
In S04E11: The Airport, we hear a disembodied Larry David on the airplane.
He's the guy who ordered the kosher meal but had forgotten that he'd done
so,
so he had Elaine's mail instead.
In S04E15,
"Looking at cleavage is like looking at the sun. You get a sense of it, then
you look away."
In S04E21, George's father Frank (Jerry Stiller) shows up for the first
time.
George's mother Estelle (Estelle Harris) was in a couple of episodes
before
that. In S05E08: The Barber, we hear, for the first time, Jerry's sotto
voce
"Newman!"
In S05E14: The Marine Biologist, George, posing as a marine biologist,
regales the group with a tale of how he relieved a whale of its breathing
difficulty by removing Kramer's golf ball from its blowhole. From
"Seinfeldism" ,
"The sea was angry that day, my friends - like an old man trying to send back
soup in a deli. I got about fifty feet out and suddenly the great beast
appeared before me. I tell you he was ten stories high if he was a foot.
As
if sensing my presence, he let out a great bellow. I said, "Easy, big
fella!"
And then, as I watched him struggling, I realized that something was
obstructing its breathing. From where I was standing, I could see directly
into the eye of the great fish."
[media]
In S06E04, we see Larry David for the first time, as Frank Costanza's
lawyer
-- wearing a cape. In S06E05, a very young Patton Oswalt appears as the
video-store clerk. In S06E08, Bryan Cranston makes his first appearance as
Tim Whatley. In S06E09, Larry David returns as George Steinbrenner's
voice.
In S07E01, George says what we're all thinking,
"I'm much more comfortable criticizing people behind their backs."
There are a bunch of great shows in season 7, including the trip to
Minnesota
to return bottles ("The Bottle Deposit"), "The Wig Master" (Kramer as
pimp),
"The Cadillac" (Jerry buys his father a car), "The Soup Nazi", and
George's
long engagement to Susan. There are a bunch of familiar faces: Cary Elwes,
Debra Messing, Brad Garrett (Robbie from Everybody Loves Raymond), and
even
Marisa Tomei, playing herself.
In season 8, S08E19 ("The Yada Yada") stands out as an absolute top-notch
episode, quintessentially Seinfeld. In season 9, S09E03 ("The Serenity
Now")
is wonderful, with Elaine being pursued by multiple people, all of them
Jewish. She visits a Rabbi who lives in her building.
"Elaine: Rabbi, is there anything I can do to combat this Shiks-appeal?
Rabbi: Ha! Elaine, shiks-appeal is a myth, like the Yeti, or his North
American cousin, the Sasquatch.
Elaine:: Well, something's goin' on here, 'cause every able-bodied
Israelite
in the county is driving pretty strong to the hoop."
S09E20 has Lamar (Chris Joyner) in a maroon Golf, which looks exactly like
a
VW Rabbit I used to have, "Fritz"
.
The parade of Jerry's girlfriends includes Jennifer Coolidge (Stiffler's
Mom), Teri Hatcher (Desperate Housewives), Marlee Matlin (Children of a
Lesser God), Helen Slater (Supergirl) and Anna Gunn (Skyler in Breaking
Bad).
[1]
I'd completely forgotten that most of Seinfeld was filmed in front of a
live
studio audience. They didn't seem to do too many re-takes either, judging
by
how often Jerry (and sometimes Elaine) is seen suppressing smirks or
laughter. Usually it's at Kramer, who, as I mentioned above, is an
absolute
comic genius on this show. His physical comedy; his timing; the way he
oozes
charisma; how he always lands on his feet. He's a "hipster doofus" but
he's a
cool cat. Elaine is also a great physical comedian -- her two-handed push,
in
particular, is genius.
Foundation S01 (2021) -- "5/10"
This a bit woker than I remember the books being. The lead character is a
Tom-Cruise-like better-at-everything-than-everyone-else star, but it's a
slight, black young woman/girl. There's the pool scene that, were the
roles
reversed, there'd be an uproar. She basically humiliates her boyfriend
intellectually, then taunts him when he says he can't swim, then she
throws
him in the water and tells him to "relax". Then she seduces him into
having
sex in the pool. I honestly can't tell if they're being ironic or if they
really think that reversing the roles is progress.
I like the concept and the visuals are wonderful, but it's just crazy how
a
show that takes place over giant time spans (a few decades is the
smallest)
spends so much damned time on fleeting love affairs. This is silly. I only
watched the first three episodes before giving up on it.
I would, a year-and-a-half later -- and on the advice of a good friend --
try
again. See my "follow-up review"
.
The Witcher S02 (2021) -- "6/10"
Geralt (Henry Cavill) is back, with Ciri (Freya Allen) at his side, traveling
back to his training grounds Kaer Morhen, the castle where he became a
witcher. On the way, they stop at an old friend's house, where they
discover
he's in a co-dependent relationship with a monster that can't stop
killing,
but truly does love him. It matters not because the monster is a monster
and
tries to kill Ciri, so Geralt lops off its head.
Meanwhile, Yennifer (Anya Chalotra) has been captured by the opposing
forces,
led by Fringilla (Mimi Ndiweni). They are very much on the back foot,
though,
in no small part thanks to Yennifer's having used fire magic to vanquish
them. They are soon ambushed by elves, who take the two women prisoner
after
slaughtering all of their guard. The elven leader, Francesca (Mecia
Simson),
is convinced to join up with them after they find out they've all been
having
the same dream. Some ... creature ... lures them into its lair, but then
grants them wishes? And lets them go? It was a bit confusing.
Meanwhile, Geralt is back at the witcher stronghold, where they're
carousing,
mostly because his friend Eskel (Basil Eidenbenz) has brought in a troupe
of
prostitutes. He's also brought in some sort of tree monster that has
infected
him via a hole in his back. The monster takes over and Geralt and Vesemir
(Geralt's teacher and lord of Kaer Morhen) are forced to kill it, despite
it
being their friend and fellow witcher.
Yennifer is back with the mages, without her powers. They scheme against
her,
especially the lead mage Stregobor, who tortures her to find out what
she's
really up to. The council demands that she execute the Nilfgardian
prisoner
Cahir (Eamon Farren), but she frees him instead and they both escape on
horseback into the night.
Meanwhile, Ciri is training hard, gaining the grudging respect of the
other
witchers. Geralt tells her that he's quite sure that she has untapped
magical
power -- which is why she's been having visions. He tells her to lead him
with her visions and they end up at the lair of the leshy, the tree
monster
that had infected Eskel. This monster is killed immediately by a giant,
ugly
centipede called a myriapod, which corners Ciri after a chase, but loses
sight of Geralt, never a good idea.
The next three shows (e03 to e06) are quite slow, with Cahir and Yennefer
escaping to Nilfgard, with the help of Jaskier, the bard. Ciri is learning
of
her powers, that her blood is Eldar blood. Yennefer is still without
power,
but she hopes to get it back if she delivers Ciri to the old woman in the
woods. A fire mage is also on their trail. Cahir is trying to usurp
Fringilla's hold on Cintra. Fringilla reminds Cahir that she is a mage (by
poisoning his four generals).
Geralt hears from Jaskier that Yennefer has lost her power and determines
from other information that she is in thrall to the "Deathless Mother",
who
is manipulating Fringilla, Yennifer, and Francesca (the elf mage). The
demon
feeds on pain, so when soldiers sneak into Francesca's bedchamber to slay
her
newborn, Francesca's pain gives it enough power to escape its
Witcher-built
prison.
The Deathless Mother finds a home in Ciri nearly immediately. She directs
her
vessel to go to the Witcher citadel Kaer Morhen, where she ends up slaying
a
bunch of the less well-known ones before Geralt catches her. He deduces
that
Voleth Meir (otherwise known as the Deathless Mother) is controlling
Ciri's
body and tries to ask her what she wants. She slices his face and escapes.
She goes to the tree in the center of the main hall in Kaer Morhen and
starts
screaming at it, shattering it and revealing an obelisk at the center. She
shatters it and summons basilisks to keep the witchers occupied while she
faces off against Geralt. Long story short: Yennefer sacrifices herself to
rescue Ciri, Voleth Meir leaves Ciri for Yennefer, Ciri screams them to
another "sphere", where they see the "Wild Hunt" and Ciri screams them
back
to their Kaer Morhen before the pack catches them. Voleth Meir remains
with
the Wild Hunt. Mission accomplished.
Meanwhile, Francesca is using her magic to slaughter babies in a nearby
kingdom that she has blamed for having killed her baby. Fringilla and
Cahil
are caught in their lie that they had ordered the murder of Francesca's
baby
when Emhyr finally returns. He knows this because he was the one who'd
ordered the killing. Emhyr turns out to be Duny, Ciri's father.
Yennefer discovers that her powers have returned -- maybe in exchange for
her
noble sacrifice? Geralt still hasn't forgiven her, but will allow her to
travel with them, to train Ciri in controlling her powers.
It was somewhat strange: there were several episodes in the middle that
were
long and somewhat tedious and full of exposition by previously unknown
characters. It felt like they were trying to force a "Games of Thrones"
vibe,
but it wasn't working because we had no idea who most of these people
were.
There's a young lady on the council who says "that's pretty evil, even for
me" and we've literally never seen her before. It's more than a bit
muddled.
And then, when things start moving again, they feel very hurried at the
end.
We've learned more about Ciri's power -- although it took a long time --
and
more about the elves, although they're not the most sympathetic bunch. As
in
season one, it's Geralt who holds everything together. When he's on
screen,
everything works. When he's not -- you wonder where he is.
No Time to Die (2021) -- "5/10"
Billy Eilish sings the theme song. She's in marbles-in-her-mouth mode, so
it's not very good. Neat to see that they gave this coveted prize to a
19-year-old who's not going to attract any youth audience to a 2.5-hour
movie
about James Bond. Hans Zimmer did the rest of the soundtrack because,
apparently, no-one else is allowed to do anything.
The movie starts in a high-tech lab full of monitors, where all of the
techs
use pen and paper for everything. I look back at my notes from early in
the
movie and marvel at my naiveté. I actually thought that scientists
sitting
at desks with giant screens of data in front of them while simultaneously
ignoring their keyboards and scribbling furiously on clipboards was going
to
be the least believable and most jarring part of this film.
The movie starts off with a young Madeleine at home with her alcoholic
mother. They are attacked by a man in a semi-shattered clown mask. He
kills
her mother because of something he muttered about her husband having
killed
his entire family. It's hard to tell because he muttered and has a lisp
and
an accent and he's wearing a mask. For realism, they made it incredibly
difficult to understand what the fuck is going on. This would be a common
thread to the sound design. Madeleine shoots him, but he wakes up and
chases
her out on the ice of a nearby lake. She falls through the ice (she's a
little girl). He follows her out on the ice (a full-grown man who's just
seen
a little girl fall through the thin ice) and doesn't fall through himself.
Instead, despite several gunshot wounds, he is able to rescue her.
This was just making things happen to make things happen without selling
me
on it in any way. I was not invested yet because I had no idea who these
people were, only that they were behaving irrationally for unknown
reasons.
And that they were defying laws of physics or known reality for unknown
reasons. For example, why was Madeleine such a dead-eye shot with a
pistol?
Tight pattern in the trunk. Missed all vital organs, though. Why do I have
so
much time to think about this stuff during the movie? Oh, because it's
boring
so far.
The movie starts off not with a bang, as is customary, but with a long
sequence of Madeleine (Léa Seydoux) and James Bond (Daniel Craig) living
together somewhere fashionable in Italy, on a coast somewhere. James is
attacked by Spectre agents and he believes that Madeleine is involved. He
blames her for having betrayed him and banishes her out of his life
forever.
She clutches her belly as he pushes her onto the train. This is Chekhov's
not-too-subtle gun.
Five years later, James Bond is retired on an island, fishing for a
living.
Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) is in Belmarsh prison. Madeleine is
his psychiatrist. She is the only person with whom he will converse.
Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) shows up with Logan Ash (Billy Magnussen), a
guy who smiles too much but whom Leiter seems to trust, despite his
decades
of experience. They're here to coax Bond out of retirement. Bond says no
and
leaves the club. Seconds after Bond says he's not going to fall for a
pretty
young thing, he jumps onto a scooter with a woman who turns out to be the
new
007 and who tells him to stay away from the mission. This scene is pretty
cringe-y, but it's only because I don't immediately cheer when I see that
they've "replaced" 007 with a strong, independent, black woman. We have no
idea who she is. No backstory whatsoever. She just appears. We're supposed
to
identify and adore.
Bond can't resist the temptation to get back at Spectre, so he agrees to
the
off-the-books mission. This is a really fun bit that actually feels like a
real Bond movie. He meets up with Paloma (Ana de Armas), who is extremely
competent and fun and an excellent partner for Bond. They get Russian
scientist Obruchev (David Dencik) -- inventor of the nanobot killers --
away
from MI6 and the new 007.
This is after Obruchev has thwarted Blofeld's plan to kill Bond and
instead
programmed the nanobots to wipe out every last member of Spectre (except
for
Blofeld, who is still in prison, but somehow telecommunicating from the
high-security wing of Belmarsh). This seems kind of convenient because
suddenly ... all of Spectre is just gone.
The insidious, global, immensely rich organization that Bond has been
chasing
for many films is just snuffed out by a completely new villain who came
out
of literally nowhere. There is no explanation given as to why he's so
powerful, why he's so wealthy or capable ... or anything. They just tell
you
that he is, so he must be awesome? It's circular logic. It is, apparently,
enough. There is no build-up to let us fear his power, his inevitability.
He
just is.
Similarly, there is no build-up to Blofeld's assassination attempt on
Bond.
Before we can even really tell what's going on and start worrying about
it,
we realize that the plan we only just learned about seconds ago has been
thwarted and that now all of Spectre is dead. This is childish
storytelling.
Paloma and Bond escape with Obruchev, snatching him away from 007. Paloma
exits stage left, while Bond bundles Obruchev into a seaplane. They fly to
a
boat with Leiter and Logan in the middle of the open ocean. Logan gets the
better of both of them, mortally gut-shoots Leiter and traps Bond in a
burning, bombed boat. Again, Logan came out of nowhere, with no backstory
and
no reason why he should be able to get the drop on and then best two of
the
most experienced agents of all time.
There is no tension. Things just happen. We are expected to accept them.
Expecting the storytellers (there are four of them) to explain anything to
us
is futile. Felix Leiter, Bond-movie stalwart since Live and Let Die died
for
absolutely nothing, killed by a zero. He might as well have tripped over a
crack in the sidewalk and hit his head. That would have been darkly
funnier.
I'm not sure whether that was the message that they were going for (that
shit
sometimes happens, there's no explaining it, we are lost in the darkness),
but that's also a pretty jarring change from previous Bond-style films --
and
it's also indistinguishable from lazy and/or incompetent writing.
No need to explain or make it dramatic or anything. The movie is almost
three
hours long, but it somehow manages to introduce gigantic plot points with
no
drama, while lingering on ephemera for painfully long minutes. They spent
longer making it absolutely clear that Q is a gay man and was expecting
gay
company for dinner and that everybody's fine with that because we're all
enlightened. Also 007 is now a black woman. Did you get that? You got a
problem with that? James Bond as PSA.
Madeleine is visited by Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek). He is a new client
of
hers. He reveals himself immediately to be the masked man who'd killed her
mother. He gives her a gift of the mask. That is the last we hear of the
mask. It has no other significance. Literally none.
Also, yes, that is his fucking name. "Lyutsifer". WTF. They used to name
them
tongue-in-cheek as "Dr. Goodhead" or "Pussy Galore". There was a sense of
fun
about it. But Madeleine doesn't even spend a second wondering who the fuck
names their kid -- or themselves -- after the devil. James Bond used to at
least smirk at these childish naming jokes. This movie is so deadly
serious
that you almost feel admonished for enjoying anything. This is not a
problem
because there's not a lot to enjoy.
So Safin magically coerces Madeleine into applying nanobots that are
targeted
to kill Blofeld. It's a bit unclear why she would do this because Safin is
such a mumbler -- even though they give him long soliloquies, he mumbles
them
and you're left straining to figure out what the hell he's talking about
--
but I think he threatened her daughter? Who knows? Who cares? The plot is
moving forward! Long story short, Bond shows up and goes to the interview
with her, she chickens out, he grabs her hands to ask her what's going on,
she leaves, he touches Blofeld, Blofeld dies. Another wonderful key
character
easily killed, with neither drama nor tension.
Next, Bond visits Madeleine at her home in Norway (no idea why she lives
there, other than that the Tourism Board of Norway probably paid the film
to
make it happen) and they are lovers once again. Safin finds them because
he
is all-powerful. There's a pretty good chase scene through the lush
Norwegian
forests and flatlands. Bond kills Ash with no ceremony. Safin kidnaps
Madeleine and Mathilde with literally no ceremony or problems. She runs
out
of bullets at just the right time for him to effect his easy win. This guy
just can't lose.
The final scene is at a missile base on a "disputed" island between Russia
and Japan. (I have no idea if they were being cheeky about "disputed"
islands
between China and Korea and Japan in the South China Sea and frankly don't
care because these writers are the last people to whom I would turn for
pointed political commentary.) Stuff happens. Madeleine escapes by
blinding
Primo (the one-eyed guy who seems to be Safin's main henchman, although I
only learned his name afterward), but Primo is still pretty good to fight
Bond later, so it's unclear how blind he became. It literally doesn't
matter.
Safin releases Mathilde, but then nothing happens to her and her mother
rescues her and they escape with 007 (well, now she's called Nomi because
she
"gave" her title back to Bond because they're friends now, whatever,
no-one
cares) and they're immediately safe with no drama or tension or worry on
our
behalf.
The whole island is a nanobot factory and must be destroyed, so Bond
orders
an airstrike and M agonizes over the international incident, but orders
the
strike anyway. This whole "earbud Bond" thing started with Skyfall, I
think.
I remember how annoying it was to have the whole first twenty minutes of
the
movie be James Bond being yelled at and directed by M instead of him being
awesome in the field on his own. This is now a standard feature because,
apparently, we would much rather watch movies of people talking to each
other
on devices than actually doing things on their own. If they are doing
awesome
things, then they better also be talking to other people on devices.
Anyway, Bond does a bunch of awesome stuff, kills a bunch of people
easily,
then gets to the control room of the blast doors that he has to open.
Despite
Q's warning that it's all old tech and that he will walk him through it,
Bond
easily figures it all out in seconds. I thought that was one of the
funnier
bits in the movie. To balance that, the script has Bond kill Primo by
getting
him in a full nelson and then using the super-magnet in his watch to blow
up
Primo's artificial eye. Bond's earpiece? Just fine. Unaffected. In fact,
it
starts buzzing immediately after the kill. Just. So. Lazy.
Also lazy is just injecting the Deus Ex Machina of Safin into the story
whenever he's needed. The standoff occurs because Bond just runs the hell
out
in the middle of the widest open space on the island to ... kick at closed
blast doors? Anyway, Safin shows up, shoots him a bunch, poisons him with
nanobots targeted to Mathilde and Madeleine, wheezes and mumbles a bunch
in
triumph and is unceremoniously killed by Bond.
So Bond gets shot five times (or so) but he takes a licking and keeps on
ticking. This is fortunate because he's literally the only one not wearing
any body armor or helmet or anything on the entire island. Whereas those
wearing armor drop immediately from one pistol shot, Bond has little
trouble
moving around after being filled with lead. Again: why are you giving me
so
much time to notice this shit? It seemed ludicrous during the movie. The
whole point of an action movie is to distract me with enough awesomeness
and
fun that I only notice the gaping plot-holes afterward, when I'm
discussing
the movie with my friends.
JFC what a dumpster fire of a movie. The cinematics were occasionally
lovely.
The product placements were once again a bit more subtle. The story was a
disaster. It was obviously written by a committee. If not, the writers
should
be ashamed of themselves. At one point, Safin literally listed bullet
points
of what had happened so far -- I imagine this was a point at which the
audience claimed to have been lost in test viewings, so they "fixed it
up".
The main thread was kind of interesting, including the twist at the end
with
the nanobots coded to kill Madeleine and Mathilde should Bond come into
contact with them. That was a neat twist, but they hurried it so much --
almost as a throwaway -- to get on to the important bit of ending the
final
James Bond film with a ten-minute phone call filled with "I love yous". I
am
not kidding.
Wilder S04 (2022) -- "8/10"
This final season takes us back to Rosa Wilder's (Sarah Spale) hometown of
Unterwies in Switzerland, where she's retired from policework and working
the
farm with her father. One night, a local policeman is killed after he
breaks
up a fight at the Restaurant Sonne. Rosa's father was involved in the
fight,
but the other guy was very drunk, and was picking on him because he'd
"murdered" those kids in S01.
Rosa is pulled out of retirement until another officer can be found. She
agrees to help investigate while the trail is fresh. They call up Kägi
(Marcus Signer), who's also retired. He agrees and heads up the mountain
with
his airstream trailer and his mom's poodle Henry in tow.
There were a couple of weird incidents that night. The same night that the
policeman was killed and the drunk guy started a fight, the same drunk guy
cut off a boar's head and threw it through a window. Elias, a young man
who
looks like he has a learning disability of some kind was involved in the
whole thing somehow. Either he observed the crime or crimes or he
perpetrated
them. In the final scene of episode one, he's wearing the policeman's
baseball cap.
At the same time, there's Robert Räber's accountant (Liechti) who owes
local
criminal Rainer lots of gambling debt. Liechti delivers a lot of dirt on a
local cartel/family that's been bribing their way into and then skimming
massively off of construction contracts. Kägi meets up with a woman who's
more than willing to talk about that, as well. Another member of the
cartel/family happens to be Wilder's baby-daddy, Dani Räber.
Wilder jumps back into investigating, teaming up with Kägi. They find out
with the retired police chief Res that Elias didn't have anything to do
with
it. He'd picked up the cap and tried to return it to Betsch while he was
roughing up Zingg outside the restaurant. Zingg goes to Wilder and Kägi
to
confess to his activities on that night because they actually exonerate
him.
Betsch had been trying to have a kid with his wife Isabelle for three
years
-- to no avail. Isabelle is actually Res's and Charlotte's daughter, who's
Elias's sister. Neat, because Elias and Res's daughter had a kid when she
was
fifteen -- but they gave it up for adoption. It was only later that Elias
fell on his head and lost his faculties.
Dani Räber fools Rainer into giving him the blackmail materials back for
only CHF10,000 instead of the CHF350,000 he'd demanded. Räber's
accountant
Liechti swears to Rainer that he'd been tricked and that those papers were
worth a lot more. Dani's a real hard-ass, taking after his father. He got
his
girlfriend Julie pregnant (doesn't this guy ever use birth control? He
fathered Wilder's kid as well.) He pisses off Julie by being unbelievably
rude about finding out he's going to be a father. Julie takes off in a
huff,
gets into a motorcycle accident, and Dani walks it back a bit.
Zingg gets a bunch of cash from Dani's father and is told to take a
vacation.
He decides to head for Thailand, but looks like he has somebody to shoot
before he catches his flight. What he is, in fact, doing, is going to the
new
dam to commit suicide spectacularly during the dedication ceremony. Robert
is
annoyed that his moment in the sun is ruined, but also seemingly
legitimately
heartbroken by Zingg's death. Zingg's estranged wife Nora storms into the
ceremony, accusing Robert of being a murderer.
She'd read Zingg's suicide note, which detailed all he'd done over the
years
with Robert, which was basically cartel behavior between Zingg's and
Nora's
brother's gravel company as well as pretty much all local businesses.
Zinng
also writes to her of having bludgeoned his own brother-in-law (Nora's
brother) in the back of the head to keep him from leaving the cartel,
after
which Robert suggested that they "finish him" under tons of gravel to make
it
look like an accident. This was all swept under the rug years ago. The
guilt
was what drove Zingg to suicide.
Kägi and Wilder don't know to what degree Dani was involved, so Rosa puts
the moves on him but can't get at his phone to get at his data. Kägi
accuses
her of chickening out, but really -- what were the odds that Dani was
going
to leave his phone unlocked and unattended for long enough for her to
clone
it? Oh, actually pretty good, I guess. That's weird. When you have as much
to
hide as Dani, isn't it odd that you just leave your phone lying around
without even a passcode? When your girlfriend is a notoriously nosy cop?
No?
That's just how people are? Especially those egomaniacs like Dani who
think
nothing can touch them? Ok, then.
In other news, Rainer Strunz kidnaps Rosa and Dani's son Tim, leading to a
high-speed chase to the gravel-processing plant where the local police
trap
him and try to talk him out. He's actually kidnapped Rosa's dad Peter and
Tim, so Rosa's super-level-headed about it. Hahaha, just kidding. She's
terrible and whiny and nearly jeopardizes the whole situation, simply
lucking
out that Rainer isn't actually willing to kill or even really harm his
hostages. I wish this part had been handled with a bit more aplomb -- i.e.
as
Kägi handled it -- but it is what it is. Rainer gets away, but runs into
Dani and Liechti, who tackles and kills him with his own gun. Lucky that.
Liechti ends up seeing a video of Zingg and Robert murdering Nora's
brother,
as does, eventually, Dani. The cops don't see this video despite having
gotten a warrant to toss the Räber offices. Dani and Robert use their
prodigious political connections with a senator (Kantonsrätin) who is
deeply
involved in the cartel to get the police off of their backs. Kägi is not
happy with it and swears he's going "drain the swamp, sooner or later."
And then nothing happens! OMG so dark! This is actually pretty
well-played:
the rich guys all get away with their plots and self-enrichment and the
government can't touch them. Yet. Fingers crossed for Robert and Dani
Räber's comeuppance in season five? At the very least, we got to see Dani
use his knowledge of the video to finally blackmail Robert into stepping
down, not only as CEO, but also as the leader of the cartel. He's out.
Dani's
in. A real Godfather moment.
Speaking of Dani, he's back with Julie, who backs out of being with him,
admitting that the child is not his, but Bertchi's. This is where it all
goes
a bit off the rails. Isabelle had the incest-child, but Charlotte and Res
took it away, supposedly to put it up for adoption. Instead, they stopped
along the long road out of the valley and went to a lake where Charlotte
drowned it. Elias was on a nearby slope, watching the whole thing. He
confronted Res later, but there was some shoving and then Elias wasn't ...
Elias anymore. He remembers something, though, because he returns to the
lake
again and again, striding fully clothed into the wintry waters, almost as
penance.
We're not done: Isabelle had find out that Betsch was cheating on her with
Julie and confronted him in his police car. He yelled back that she
wouldn't
even sleep with him anymore. She apologized (!) because she's kind of
severely damaged, I guess. Then Elias appeared in the road out of nowhere
and
Betsch screeched to a halt. They all got out to confront Elias, but
Isabelle
immediately went to comfort him. Betsch was beside himself and told her to
be
with Elias, if she likes him so much. This hit a bit too close to home.
Betsch capped it off by mocking Isabelle with the news that he and Julie
were
pregnant and that he was going to be a father. Isabelle lustily bludgeoned
him to death with his own flashlight.
We find this out only after Res and Isabelle had found the bloody
flashlight
in Elias's cabin -- planted there by Isabelle, who was going to let Elias
take the fall. But Elias had committed suicide in front of Charlotte's
Postauto as it exited the avalanche gallery. Rosa, Res, and Isabelle
witnessed that directly and it got Rosa asking questions whereupon
Charlotte
and Res finally admitted what had really happened.
Phew! That was a lot of pretty dark stuff. To lighten the mood a bit,
Kägi
picks up his mother's dog Henry from the kennel, where he'd left him
"forever" a few days before. Rosa stays in town. They are all reunited at
Paul's funeral an unspecified time later, just in case the mood was too
good.
Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) -- "4/10"
This movie was such a letdown from the first version. Sequels are often
letdowns, but this one is just so phoned in. There are so many good actors
in
this sequel, but the script -- and the dialogue -- is so terrible and
stilted
and ham-handed that it's hard to imagine how it even got made with a
straight
face.
Eggsy (Taron Egerton) is back, as are Harry Hart (Colin Firth) and Merlin
(Mark Strong). There's now apparently a Statesmen group in America that
corresponds to the Kingsmen group from England. In that group are Tequila
(Channing Tatum), Ginger (Halle Berry), Whiskey (Pedro Pascal), and Champ
(Jeff Bridges). Poppy (Julianne Moore) is the billionaire bad-ass who's
trying to drug the world. I also spotted Emily Watson phoning in a
performance somewhere. Elton John plays himself. Everyone is awful,
seemingly
fully aware of how needlessly stupid this movie is.
Eggsy is in a weird-ass relationship with Princess Tilde (Hanna Alström).
There's an excruciatingly emaciated femme fatale Clara (Poppy Delevingne),
who looks like she's actually malnourished, older than she should be. It's
all so awful. Everything is highly technological. Everyone is super-rich.
This is just so bad. There is no tension. The plot is basically that Poppy
is
trying to blackmail the planet into buying an antidote for the drug that
she's peddled to all four corners of the Earth.
I can't imagine how much money they had to pay these people to get them to
take part. They even used CGI for a campfire in a cabin. They couldn't
even
do that on location somewhere. This looks like a children's movie, except
that people really die and they curse a lot.
Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, Merlin sacrifices himself
to
save Eggsy, but not before he delivers a terrible rendition of Denver's
Country Road. Julianne Moore is campy AF and almost convinces me that this
movie is a joke -- but everyone else is so deadly serious. Except for
Elton
John, who now breaks into Saturday's All Right for Fightin' as background
for
the next giant fight. This fight features for flawless and impossible
technology as well as martial arts from Elton. I just don't know what to
say.
There is, for no apparent reason whatsoever, a female robot in the fight.
There are also robot dogs. There's also a guy named Charlie (Edward
Holcroft)
with a robot arm. I'm kind of losing track of who lost what bet in this
movie.
I was going to raise the rating by a star for the campy battle and Moore's
histrionics, but then Eggsy killed someone in cold blood for ... reasons
...
and then Galahad spent two minutes explaining everything in painful
detail.
And then they killed Poppy with a drug overdose, pretty much also in cold
blood. I'm surprised they didn't make any prison-rape jokes; maybe I
missed
it.
Death Race (2008) -- "7/10"
It's Jason Statham in a hyper-driving action film in a Mad Max-like prison
race more than ably directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. There's a bad warden
named Hennesey (Joan Allen) who runs "death races" that are televised.
It's
kind of like Running Man: the prisoner that wins the race earns his
freedom.
There's a decent cast, with Statham's Coach (Ian McShane), a rival Machine
Gun Joe (Tyrese Gibson) and Statham's co-pilot Case (Natalie Martinez).
The
visuals are pretty good, even if the plot is utterly predictable.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] See "All of Jerry's Girlfriends, Ranked"
for a
complete list.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=43442021-12-31T22:58:11+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Big Mouth S05 (2021) -- "7/10"
More of the same as the previous seasons, perhaps even a bit raunchier.
Episode 7 -- "I F**king Hate You" was quite good. The show is explicit and
sometimes feels a bit over-the-top, but it also purports to bring the
innermost thoughts of pubescent teens into the real world. In that, it
does a
great job.
They bring back the old classics: The Shame Wizard and Depression Kitty
(my
absolute favorite). They also introduce some new characters: Love Bugs and
Hate Caterpillars. These work quite well as rhetorical devices as well.
Missy
gets a Hate Caterpillar, as does Nick.
Michael Che: Shame the Devil (2021) -- "8/10"
I took a point off for a very rocky start. He got going, though, and moved on
to material that was funny without being pandering. He stopped so many times
in the first ten minutes for clapping that it was tough for him to get any
traction. After twenty minutes, he's doing just fine. Hold out for it.
"What did we get last summer? Let's see...we got Aunt Jemima fired. That's
something."
"Donald Trump was on Saturday Night Live. He was nice to me! He even gave me
a nickname...'One of the good ones',"
"Democrats are like condoms. We'll use you, but, you know, it doesn't feel
good. We just want to prevent some other shit from happening."
"Trump's like, 'you know the FBI's setting up niggas.' And white people say,
'no they don't'. And black people like 'welllll...'. It's just because
Trump
said it. It's a great thing to say, but it's the worst possible person to
be
saying it."
"From now on, I only use two pronouns: 'this nigga' and 'that nigga, as in,
'that nigga Caitlyn Jenner killed someone with her car.'"
"I had a girlfriend, she was so jealous, I'm not saying it's her fault I
cheated on her, but she gave me the confidence...she believed in me."
After he said "retarded" in a joke, he said "I know that's not a nice
word,
but I said it to make you laugh." So many levels.
"We don't diagnose black people with shit. When I was growing up, we just had
'crazy' and 'ain't nothing wrong with that nigga' Now we got 'autism'. I
feel
like that's progress.
"Yeah, we don't diagnose mental health for black people. I know some
girls,
they bipolar and they like 'ain't nothing wrong with me, I'm a gemini.'
'Get
the fuck outta here, Lakeesha, you just bit me.' ...Flava Flav wears a
viking
helmet and a clock. Every day. That's not nothing."
"Now they're saying on Sesame Street that they got the first autistic puppet.
The first? They got a nigger on that show called 'The Count'. Now, I'm not
a
doctor..."
"And then there's crazy. You don't get any help when you're crazy. You just
get a nickname. It's whatever your name is...with the word 'crazy' in
front
of it. It's not to help you; it's to warn others."
"Depression is the most privileged disease of all. White people hate when I
say that. Depression is privileged because it implies that your life is
something that you shouldn't be sad about. Black people usually don't have
that. I don't know if ya'll are history buffs...but I can't imagine two
slaves standing in a field and one says to the other 'What's the matter?
Something got you down?'"
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) -- "8/10"
This was a super-solid Marvel movie, definitely top ten, maybe top five (I
haven't thought about it that much). It has wonderful fight choreography,
it's well-filmed, with nicely pulled-back cameras and no quick cuts: they
practiced this until it looked glorious. Simu Liu moves really well (it's
him!). The stunts on the bus could have been a Jackie Chan movie (e.g. the
way he moves over and around the bars, or the jokey way he pulled the
"request stop" cable, or how he saved the two women from falling out of
the
bus).
Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) is an awesome guy: he lives in a garage, with his
laundry strung up along the door. His friend Katy (Awkwafina) is a great
balance and comedic sparring partner. I really like the way they show
multi-lingual households, how everyone understands all of the languages,
but
everyone speaks the one they're most comfortable with. This has been my
experience as well.
They are parking attendants in New York when his father Xu Wenwu's (Tony
Chiu-Wai Leung) henchmen come to town, including Razor Fist (Florian
Munteanu), who has a giant laser blade instead of a right forearm.
Shang-Chi
fights them off while Katy drives the bus to safety because that's her
superpower/skill: driving. It will be important later, obviously.
Shang-Chi travels back to Macau to look for his sister and to warn her
about
their father. His sister Li (Fala Chen) is a bad-ass in her own right,
having
started a high-stakes fighting ring after having run away from home at
sixteen. Shang-Chi ends up facing off against her there -- and losing.
Xu's
henchmen follow them there, but they escape with their skins, but not
their
jade necklaces given to them by their mother. The jade stones are keys to
unlock the map back to to their mother's kingdom.
Xu had found her and faced off against her long ago when he he'd been
looking
for her magical village. She was the only one over centuries who'd even
been
able to defeat him, despite the 10 rings he wears and wields as weapons.
Years later, after she's died and the children had left, Xu becomes
obsessed
that she was calling him to rescue her from her village, where, instead of
being dead, she's trapped in a cave. He is deluded but adamant and
extremely
powerful.
Li, Katy and Shang hunt down their father and confront him, but he takes
them
prisoner. With the help of Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley, reprising his
role
as the Mandarin from Iron Man 3), they escape and head into the bamboo
forest
to seek out their mother's village before he can find it. With Trevor's
little faceless friend Morris (a denizen of the fairy realm from which
their
mother came) as navigator and Katy as driver, they make it through and
meet
their aunt Ying Nan (Michelle Yeoh). She trains Shang-Chi to confront his
father. Katy practices archery. Li is already awesome enough.
Xu breaks through to the village and joins battle with them. He goes to
the
wall in front of the cave and starts to break it down. Instead of
releasing
his wife, he's releasing demons. They attack everyone in the village, not
recognizing a difference between Xu's forces and the villagers. These
forces
team up against their common demonic enemy. Xu manages to release the
big-ass, bad-ass monster while Li has found a friendly dragon under the
lake
to assist them. A giant battle ensues, taking place mostly in the sky.
Shang-Chi defeats Xu. Xu sees the error of his ways, then sacrifices
himself
to protect his son from the monster he's released. I have no idea if
there's
a metaphor in there.
Shang-Chi and Katy return to New York, but are soon whisked away by Dr.
Strange's right-hand man Wong (Benedict Wong). Li sets up shop in her
father's demesne.
Dune (1984) -- "8/10"
Paul Atreides (Kyle MachLachlan) is the scion of House Atreides, which begins
the film on its home world of Caladan, a very watery planet. When his
father
Duke Leto (Jürgen Prochnow) is "promoted" to oversee the desert planet of
Arrakis (Dune), he travels with the whole retinue, swordmaster Duncan
Idaho
(Richard Jordan). master-at-arms Gurney Halleck (Patrick Stewart), Mentat
Thufir Hawat (Freddie Jones) and, of course, his mother Lady Jessica
(Francesca Annis). Doctor Yueh (Dean Stockwell) betrays the family, but
was
forced into it by House Harkonnen. He almost gets his revenge, but his
plan
goes awry.
The House Harkonnen is classic Lynch, from the grotesque Baron Vladimir
Harkonnen (Kenneth McMillan), with his half-mad doctor (Leonardo Cimino)
and
his own mentat, the evil Peter De Vries (Brad Dourif). The Baron's nephews
Feyd Rautha (Sting) and The Beast Rabban (Paul Smith) chew the hell out of
the scenery (Sting flexes his little muscles in an interesting codpiece in
one scene).
Paul's sister Alia (Alicia Witt) is basically Fremen, whereas Chani (Sean
Young) is only half a role, even in this rendering. The Shadout Mapes
(Linda
Hunt) gets a little more screen time, but not much. Doctor Kynes (Max von
Sydow) is the liaison with the Fremen, a man of science who has converted
considerably due to his long time on the desert planet.
There are a lot of Lynch's favorite actors as well: Stilgar (Everett
McGill)
and Nefud (Jack Nance) are both played by actors from Twin Peaks. David
Lynch
himself plays a role as a Spice Worker (uncredited). He communicates with
Duke Leto from the spice harvester whose ornithopter heavy-lift vehicle is
not coming in time to rescue it from an incoming sandworm.
The Emperor Shaddam IV (José Ferrer) plots with the baron to destroy
House
Atreides. The Princess Irulan (Virginia Madsen) is basically window
dressing.
The plotting is a bit jarring, with large gaps of years skipped over too
quickly. Paul becomes a messiah, leading the fremen to victory against
House
Harkonnen. Paul masters a sandworm, Jessica gives birth to Alia, who grows
up
quickly, already blue-eyed because she was in the womb when Jessica took
the
spice to become a reverend mother.
It should have been two parts -- or a much longer movie -- but it ...
wasn't.
The final cut is something only someone who's read the book can follow.
Luckily, the production design is fantastic. Also luckily, I have read the
books. Twice. The characters are fascinating. Some of the design choices
are
so bizarre that you can't help but respect them anyway. I liked it.
K-19: The Widowmaker (2002) -- "8/10"
The story is about the K-19, the Soviet Union's first nuclear-powered
submarine, which was behind schedule and not up-to-par in its construction
or
supplies. The original captain Polenin, after several failed drills and
lagging behind in the schedule, is replaced by the higher-ups with
Vostrikov,
a man who is the Navy's most decorated submarine captain -- but whose
father
was a hero of the revolution, but ended up in a gulag.
I'm pretty sure that this movie could only have been made in the two brief
decades between the fall of the Soviet Empire and the rekindling of the
cold
war by the U.S. I can't imagine that a film depicting Soviets or Russians
in
such a humanizing manner could have been made while I was growing up...or
now.
At first, the Russians sailors are kind of depicted in the same way that
an
American crew would be, with the same jokes, etc. Perhaps there was a bit
more emphasis on the shoddy craftsmanship and supply logistics, but it
didn't
strike me as over-the-top jingoistic. The Soviets would admit that this is
kind of how it was; one had to make do with cut corners in a place without
near-infinite wealth ready to hand for the military.
I may be reading too much into it, but there is an interesting dynamic
between Capt. Mikhail Polenin (Liam Neeson) and Capt. Alexei Vostrikov
(Harrison Ford), representing bottom-up, rule-from-below communism and
top-down, rule-by-iron-first, hierarchical capitalism.authoritarianism.
Vostrikov gets lucky with his bold attempts to exceed boundaries a couple
of
times -- until his luck runs out. In the end, he follows Polenin's advice
to
let the sailors/men decide for themselves whether they want to die for
their
country.
Posed this way, Vostrikov's "order" gets a resounding confirmation and he
sees the error of his ways. Fate saves them all from being captured by the
Americans when a Soviet boat shows up just in the nick of time -- just as
they were about to surrender to a nearby American destroyer. I don't know
whether this is to reward Vostrikov's change of heart in how he commands
--
his capitulation to a more "communist" way of running things -- or whether
this is how the story really went.
According to the "Wikipedia article"
, the script is almost
100% true-to-life. The original crew was consulted and they had a strong
influence on changing the original script -- which was likely much more
jingoistic.
The movie was directed by one of America's most jingoistic directors,
Kathryn
Bigelow, so I can only imagine that I'm interpreting it differently than
she
intended. At any rate, it's a pretty good movie and Harrison Ford and Liam
Neeson act the hell out of it, as far as I'm concerned. I actually thought
the final scene, in the cemetery, was quite touching. The aging makeup was
very good. There are other good bit characters: the atomic technician
who's
too clever by half, etc.
Charité intensiv: Station 43 (2021) -- "8/10"
This is a four-part, two-hour series filmed in the ICU of the Charité
hospital during the winter of 2020/2021. The scenes are sobering and
heartbreaking, but well-worth watching.
There are scenes with young patients lying on their faces to free up their
lungs more. There are others whose lungs no longer work at all, who are
oxygenated for weeks with an ECMO -- a machine that oxygenates blood
outside
of the body. We see a few journeys of the ECMO ambulance as they make
pick-ups.
The doctors and nurses are compassionate, intelligent, understanding, and
complex characters who are truly the best of us. When a patient must be
let
go, they are nearly as devastated as the families. They despise losing
patients. At the end, we see one patient who'd been there for nearly two
months leave the ICU, headed for physical therapy to try to put his life
back
together. A ray of hope.
I cannot imagine what it looks like there, now, one year later, and with
much, much higher case numbers.
F is for Family (2021) -- "8/10"
This season finds the Murphy family "mourning" the loss of Frank's father.
Sue takes the opportunity to make amends with her own father, who's a
right
bastard. She recalls how she was the one who outed her gay brother Louis
to
her dad many years ago. She also wants to patch things up with Louis. She
tries to get them all to attend a Thanksgiving dinner to come together as
a
family again.
Frank, meanwhile, searches feverishly for "Box 16", mentioned in his
father's
last, whispered breath. Vic is trying to raise his infant son on his own
because his baby-mom leaves them. He turns to Sue for help. He and his
other
affluent friends -- all of whom are parents by now -- are enough to
support a
fledgling business for Sue, who's always searching for meaning -- and
income
-- outside of the home.
Mohican Airlines, meanwhile, fuses with another, making Ala-hican
Airlines.
Frank's new boss is a bit passive-aggressive. The finale is at the
airport,
where a drunken stuntman is awesome, but in the wrong way so that no-one
is
happy, especially not Ala-hican Airlines, who'd paid for him to be there.
However, Rosie manages to get the better of the crooked mayor and the
local
mafia boss, who've been trying to destroy his district in order to build a
highway.
This might be the last role played by Michael Kenneth Williams (as Smokey
Greenwood, the neighborhood vending-machine refiller/condom dealer). One
of
the greats. RIP.
Office Christmas Party (2016) -- "8/10"
This movie has lots of good one-liners, witty repartee, truly inspired party
situations, and a whole cast of comedic talent. It's not meant to be
anything
for than it is -- an R-rated distraction.
A software company branch is about to be shut down, but their boss Clay
Vanstone (T.J. Miller) throws a huge bash to try to save morale and maybe
save the business. He's courting genius developer Walter Davis (Courtney
B.
Vance) with the help of manager Josh Parker (Jason Bateman) and hotshot
developer Tracey Hughes (Olivia Munn). His sister and CEO Carol Vanstone
(Jennifer Aniston) is on the way there to pull the plug on the whole
branch,
but finds a rager going when she gets there and notices that her brother
might just swing it.
Rounding out the cast are a developer who gets a prostitute from Trina the
pimp (Jillian Bell), HR head Mary (Kate McKinnon), Jeremy (Rob Corddry),
Fred
(Randall Park), and Allison (Vanessa Bayer), whose roles at the company
escape me but who are essential to the film. The party gets incredibly
huge,
with the pimp kidnapping Clay because she'd heard he had $300,000 that he
could get her -- but he can't because he's too drunk and high to do much
of
anything except drive them through the streets of Chicago at top speed,
trying to jump the river on an open drawbridge.
Meanwhile, Mary, Tracey, Carol, and Josh have joined forces to rescue Clay
and are hot on their tail in Mary's minivan. They stop at a Russian club
where Carol reveals that she not only knows Russian, but jiu jitsu or some
shit and just takes out several people on her own. After they find Clay
has
left, they give chase. Hilarity ensues and they all crash and stuff. Clay
crashes into the main trunk line of Internet connectivity for the whole
area.
Afterward, they return to the office to find a Boschian hellscape -- some
truly inspired set design reminiscent of Bachelor Party.
Tracey, genius coder, figures that she could put a plan she's been meaning
to
try into action, to use a "cool trick" to get the network back online and
provide the city with mobile connectivity with their company's technology.
To
no-one's surprise, they succeed and save the branch and everyone is
friends
and they get Clay from the hospital and promise his doctor that he won't
get
any alcohol, which he totally will, because they're all going out for a
celebratory breakfast. The end.
Pretty much everyone is great in this, but Bateman, Aniston, Miller, and
Munn
stand out. McKinnon is also very funny. Recommended.
Shazam! (2019) -- "8/10"
This is a fun movie about a teenager Billy Batson (Asher Angel) who is
granted super-powers by an otherworldly wizard (Djimon Hounsou). Billy
becomes Shazam! (Zachary Levi) when he says the magic word that is his
name.
He is an orphan who ends up with a family with a bunch of other kids,
including Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer), who's a wise-cracking kid with an
encyclopedic knowledge of superheroes.
In another thread, we learn how a Dr. Sivana (Mark Strong) became the evil
man that he is, and how he became obsessed with the power of the wizard.
He
follows the whispers of the seven Sins, otherworldly beasts who want to
defeat the wizard and rule on Earth. He acquires their power for himself,
working with them.
He eventually joins battle with Shazam!, kidnapping his family and being
all
sorts of dastardly until Shazam! and Freddie and the other kids figure out
a
plan to stop him. The plan results in them all getting Shazam!-like
superpowers, which is a neat twist. All's well that ends well.
I was surprised at how entertaining this movie was, The cast was good, the
characters sympathetic, and the script was quite funny (the scene where
Shazam! can't hear Sivana's supervillain speech as they hover, blocks
apart,
in the high winds of the city, is quite funny).
Saw it in German.
Taken (2008) -- "7/10"
The original and still the best one. Liam Neeson plays in hardcore-dad porn
where he tells his ex-wife not to let his daughter go to Paris, then
caves,
but gets her to agree to conditions, then she's kidnapped anyway because
she
and her friend are nimrods and do exactly the thing they were told not to
do.
Liam jumps in, makes his famous speech about hunting down everyone
involved,
then flies to Paris to begin the hunt. He hunts, he kills, he has minor
setbacks. He dispatches them. He gets closer. He's almost there. He has a
bigger setback. He dispatches that one, as well. He hunts his daughter
down
to a yacht, where he slaughters everyone on board and rescues her. She is
grateful but has likely learned nothing. Liam is humbly triumphant in his
ex-wife's face. Her milquetoast husband is forced to thank him. The end.
Saw
it in Italian.
Don't Look Up! (2021) -- "10/10"
"The truth is much more depressing. They're not even smart enough to be as
evil as you're giving them credit for."
Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) is a doctoral candidate in astronomy,
working with Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), when she discovers a
comet headed straight toward Earth, with impact in six and 1/2 months.
They
immediately contact Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan) of the Planetary
Defense Coordination Office. The data checks out, they're all horrified,
and
they get a meeting with the president of the United States (Meryl Streep).
She and her son Jason (Jonah Hill) receive them and then totally blow them
off. [1]
The three decide to break security clearance and go on the country's most
popular morning show The Rip, hosted by Jack Bremmer (Tyler Perry) and
Brie
Evantee (Cate Blanchett), who ... also blow them off. But Brie is
enchanted
with Dr. Mindy and starts an affair with him. The world mocks, the world
doesn't care, the world ignores. The satire is thick and inspired and fun
and
interesting and dark. There are a lot of quick in-jokes and snappy
repartee
and side bits filling this movie to the brim. I really, really like
Jennifer
Lawrence and Jonah Hill (who calls her "Boy with the Dragon Tattoo" and
tells
her "Thanks for dressing up" when she visits the White House in a hoodie
and
jeans).
The White House eventually gets confirmation from "their own Ivy Leagure
scientists" that the comet is real and, for some reason, want the original
astronomers to be involved in the project. This wouldn't make any sense
whatsoever -- neither would trying to "sit" on the news, as if the rest of
the world doesn't have telescopes or the Internet -- but that's the point:
the response is childish and incredibly politically driven. They're all
self-involved morons with too much power and money and too little brains
--
possessing only a singular talent for self-aggrandizing and failing
upward.
The president at first ignored the comet because mid-terms were coming up
in
three weeks, but, a week later, needs to cover up the scandal where she
sexted a picture of her nether regions (her "cootch", as Kate put it) to
her
porn-star lover. Pivot to saving the planet, I guess.
They put together an incredible effort to intercept the comet with a
refurbished space shuttle. It is piloted by Benedict Drask (Ron Perlman).
It
takes off wonderfully, accompanied by a dozen other rockets (for whatever
reason), but the president is forced to abandon the mission when one of
her
billionaire, platinum-level donors Peter Isherwell (Mark Rylance), who
runs a
giant tech company, tells her to call it off.
Instead, they're now putting together a mission that will rescue the
benevolent comet because it has tremendous value (trillions!). They will
break it apart into a smaller pieces and then harvest the minerals from
the
ocean floor, wherever the pieces fall. None of this is scientifically
vetted
or peer-reviewed. It is just assumed that it will work because tech
billionaires are super-smart and surround themselves with super-smart
people
who are definitely not sycophants pretending to be experts in fields about
which they know nothing in order to get filthy rich for themselves. [2]
About a quarter of the population of the U.S. no longer even believes in
the
comet, while many are mad at anyone who wants to stop it from hitting
Earth
because then we would miss out on all of those delicious resources. Kate
is
now working at a grocery store as a check-out girl, where she meets Yule
(Timothée Chalamet), with whose anarchic group she throws in. Dr. Mindy
is
having an affair with Brie and is now the president's chief science
advisor.
He is unnerved that so many colleagues are being sacked and unsure Bash's
plan will work.
We hear that a comet-smashing effort by the Russians, Chinese, Indians,
and
Europe has failed, exploding on the launchpad in Baikonur. They do not
mention whether there was sabotage, but the possibility is left hanging
there. The Bash "Beads" are the only hope now. They take off, not without
problems, some exploding on the launch pads, but manage to get 24 of the
autonomous robots to the comet, where they set their bombs. Some crash
into
each other up there, but some attrition was expecected. But the plan
doesn't
work and the comet proceeds unscathed. The mission-control teams abandons
Bash headquarters forthwith.
But, of course, there is a backup plan for the people who matter.
Isherwell
and the president have spots on a fallback ark that they will use to
escape
the planet. She invites Mindy to join them, but he declines. He returns
home
to his family. Kate and Yule show up. Oglethorpe shows up. They are all
enjoying a dinner together when the comet hits and does what the science
said
it would do.
The ark travels through space, with a lot of attrition, but finally
depositing the escapees -- the last remnants of humanity -- on a planet
with
a breathable atmosphere. The president and Isherwell are still alive and
failing upward -- until they ... don't. They are all standing around
naked,
congratulating themselves on their luck, when the local fauna falls on
them.
I loved this movie. I would watch it again. Thanks, Adam McKay, for a
worthy
successor to Idiocracy.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] They wait interminably long with a three-star Air Force general, who offers
to get them snacks and drinks, bringing them back and then asking for them
to pay for them. Kate discover, at a later meeting, that the snacks and
water at the White House are, of course, free. The general charged them
anyway. She would continue to obsess over this at various times throughout
the movie, an excellent running gag.
[1] David Sirota (Story) and Adam McKay (Screenplay/Director) kind of had their
work cut out for them in that they didn't have to mention anyone
specifically. They just had to capture the mood of things as they are today.
I've seen a few other reviews now that try to claim authoritatively which
parties and real-world groups correspond to which groups in the movie, but
that's all projection. They're all fools. It's kind of like South Park --
everyone is excoriated, except for the rational and compassionate and
non-self-obsessed.
For a real-world example, I just saw the article "Elon Musk rejects claims his
satellites are squeezing out rivals in space" by Richard Waters
in my newsfeed, a couple of hours after having finished watching the movie. It
tells us that "SpaceX founder points out that space is "extremely enormous,"
satellites "very tiny."" While I fervently hope that this is a satire article,
I assume that it's all too real. The article sagely notes that "Some experts
challenged Musk’s claim that satellites in low Earth orbit could safely
match the density of cars and trucks on Earth." Telling both sides of the
debate! Good for you!
This was in response to,
"China complain[ing] this month that two Starlink satellites had forced the
Chinese space station to take “preventive collision avoidance control”
measures in October and July to “ensure the safety and lives of in-orbit
astronauts.”"
You can read about that in "China upset about needing to dodge SpaceX Starlink
satellites" by John Timmer
.
In that article, China was already being called a nerd for writing "impossibly
formal 110-word-long sentence" (in Idiocracy-speak, the Chinese author "talks
like a fag") that "pointedly notes that signatories of the treaty, which
include the US, are responsible for the actions of any nongovernmental
activities based within their borders." The Chinese think words mean things!
What a bunch of losers! They deserve to have us take their lunch money! ELON
FUNNY. HUR DUR.
We are doomed.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=43362021-11-05T18:17:10+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020) -- "8/10"
This movie is a love letter to the ESC (Eurovision Song Contest) from Will
Ferrell, who plays Lars Erickssong, a no-longer-so-young man from Iceland.
His singing partner Sigrit Ericksdóttir (Rachel McAdams) is from the same
Icelandic village. The two really have no chance to even make the contest
on
their merits, despite Sigrit's lovely voice. Lars is more enthusiasm than
musical talent, though his stage presence fits perfectly for the ESC.
They pass the first hurdle when every other Icelandic contestant is killed
in
a freak boat accident (it explodes in the harbor during a party to which
Lars
and Sigrit had not been invited). The Icelandic committee is devastated
about
their chances to win -- all but the head of the committee (Mikael
Persbrandt), who knows that Iceland couldn't afford to host the ESC the
succeeding year should they win the contest.
The pair make it to the ESC and hijinks ensue. They lose faith, they lose
each other, they come back together. They declare their love for each
other,
they switch songs at the end (artistic license; this is not allowed at the
ESC), they win the whole damned thing. Lars gains the respect of his
father
Erick (Pierce Brosnan).
Ferrell wrote and produced the whole thing and he does a great job. He
really
doesn't make fun on the ESC -- he's loved it ever since his Swedish wife
and
her family introduced him to it in the late 90s. It was a fun time with a
lot
of genuine laughs and heart. It captures the madness and feel of the ESC
perfectly. Recommended. Would watch it again.
Turning Point (2021) -- "7/10"
[E01]
"WTC attacks; background on Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden, Sheik Mohammed,
Sheik Rahban"
The theme music for this mini-series reminds me very much of the music
from
The Americans. I honestly can't figure out why they called this series
"Turning Point".
This episode starts by declaring 9/11 as the "[...] most consequential
terrorist attack in the history of mankind", which starts things off in
what
would become a typically historically ignorant treatment. I guess you can
think something like that, if you think that history is only filled with
American tragedies -- and those where America is the tragic figure, not
the
one causing the tragedy. For example, you might disagree if you'd been in
Nagasaki on August 9th in 1945. You might feel that having an atomic bomb
dropped on your city might be a slightly bigger deal than having under
3,000
people killed in an attack on a city of 8 million. This documentary starts
off by telling you that you'd be wrong and that you need to get some
perspective and see that Americans are the only real victims.
The documentary continues by saying that "no-one could have ever foreseen
that [...]" the U.S. actions in Afghanistan in 1979 would lead to 9/11,
defining world history in the 21st century. Well, I suppose, if you didn't
ask or listen to Noam Chomsky or Chalmers Johnson or Ray McGovern or
Robert
Fisk or William Blum or Diane Johnstone or any of the myriad others who'd
been predicting that the U.S. had done more than enough for the "chickens
to
come home to roost".
The documentary notes that the U.S.-fomented and -funded insurrection in
Afghanistan led to a population where "a third had been killed, wounded,
or
driven into exile." But the 9/11 attack was the most consequential
terrorist
attack, am I getting this right? Is that because Americans are important
whereas Afghans are not?
"What was happening was a fusing of politics and religion [...]". This
from a
guy from a country whose rallying cry for its soldiers is to "fight for
God
and Country." A bit later, we hear "We failed to understand the power of
religion [...]". How stupid can you be? And all this, with no sense of
irony?
One of the CIA guys they interview is basically bragging about how they
"defeated the Soviets." They provide no context as to what was really
happening, what the Mujahadeen were really like. They're interviewing
Gulbadeen Hekmatyar as if he's a great guy, a loyal ally, all without
noting
what atrocities he perpetrated in that war. Check out Robert Fisk's giant
book The Great War for Civilisation for much more information about that.
Then the documentary segues to Iraq and its "desire to exert control over
the
oil supplies of the world [...]" as if there was any connection
whatsoever.
Iraq's desire to control its own oil supplies, no? Without any irony,
these
people talk about Iraq's oil as if it belongs to America, but happens to
be
stored under Iraq.
It is perfectly correct when Bin Laden says that the U.S. wants to take
away
the Muslim world's oil supplies. That is 100% correct. They'd already been
occupied. Their occupiers were never going to be satisfied until they had
absolutely everything. This is how it had always been in the Middle East.
They could either give it up without a fight or strike back.
As usual, the documentary presents the attack on the U.S.S. Cole as if it
were a terrorist attack. It was not. The Cole was part of the occupying
navy,
clearly a military target.
[E02]
"Pentagon attack and United 93 (went down in PA), collapse of the towers, one
after the other, preparing for war."
The Pentagon was also a military target (like the Cole), much more
defensible
as a target than the WTC, which was almost exclusively civilian. There
were
claims that the CIA had offices in the WTC, which wouldn't be surprising
in
the least.
They interviewed Barbara Lee; I wonder whether they'll mention that she
was
the lone voice against the AUMF. They do! Well-done! They actually play a
good part of her speech. Not the best parts, but at least some of it.
To their credit, they also covered the jumpers from the remaining
building.
That horrifying part has been elided from many other accounts.
Wow, they're interviewing Andrew Card (White House Chief of Staff) and
Alberto Gonzalez (White House Counsel), both portrayed as reasonable,
competent people. Gonzalez: "[The president] knew right away that it was a
war. This was not a police matter." But it absolutely should have been a
police matter, prosecuted as a crime. Wars are fought between nations.
Gonzalez portrays Bush as a competent, unwavering, determined president.
Why
are we listening to this guy? Why don't we hear anyone countering
Gonzalez?
He's given absolutely free rein to provide his own version of history, as
if
it had been inevitable. He's a clown 🤡. He deserves to be forgotten,
not
lauded. And he certainly shouldn't get to provide the definitive version
of
this history.
Also, why are we listening to Andrew Card? He's an unreliable narrator non
plus ultra.
Now they've segued to describing the attack on Afghanistan as if it had
been
a legitimate target, as if the invasion had been in any way sanctioned.
They
don't waste any time talking about the AUMF other than to note that
Barbara
Lee voted against it. They don't talk about how it gave away blanket
powers,
or how the Bush administration used it to attack a completely unrelated
country -- or how Obama and Trump and Biden continued to use it to justify
anything and everything that the executive branch wanted to do for the
next
15 years.
[E03]
"Finding bodies and searching for loved ones, Guantánamo, Patriot Act"
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the "architect of 9/11" or "The Planes
Operation",
as he called it. The people interviewed sure make their intelligence
fuckup
looks like an accident that could have happened to anyone. The FBI is
definitely blaming the CIA here.
Why is Alberto Gonzalez getting so much screen time? Now he's saying
"Figure
out ways of questioning people to get better intelligence." He
rubber-stamped
the torture program as AG. "We also had concerns about the rights that
would
attach to anyone we brought into the United States." I can't believe this
guy
gets a free hand to just joke and laugh and discuss 9/11 and its
aftermath.
Historical revisionism at its finest. History is written by the winners, I
guess. But he's not even a winner ... or is he?
"Enemy Combatants", "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques", "Extraordinary
Rendition" ... rape the language to absolve yourselves. Guantánamo is
still
open. It still has prisoners. Gonzalez is given enough rope to hang
himself
and he does, with that stupid smirk on his face, self-satisfied, secure in
the knowledge that nothing will ever happen to him. He thinks he's
justified
torture, he thinks it's all OK. He lists a bunch of even more horrific
things
that they could have done, then pats himself on the back for not having
authorized those things. He was the top cop in America. That's what
America
thinks of the law.
The sanest voice interviewed tells the story more-or-less correctly, but
he
then discusses the torture programs as if they were a watershed moment in
America's history, as if they were a turning-away from a high road it's
hard
to argue America had ever been on. At the very least, America hasn't been
on
the high road for a very long time.
Next up is John McCain -- who was himself tortured for five years after
having been shot down on a bombing run over a country that he was helping
to
illegally invade and destroy -- who emerges as the voice of sanity, if you
can believe that. Back then, he hadn't gone as far off the rails as he
would
in the subsequent 15 years, right up until his death. Donald Rumseld is a
monster, completely unapologetic and full of braggadocio.
The Patriot Act added "sneak and peek" warrants, which allowed officers of
the law (any branch) to break into people's homes while they were away,
taking what they thought was necessary. The homeowners would not need to
be
informed. Utter madness in a state that thinks of itself as lawful.
They interviewed Thomas Drake, a whistleblower, one of the first
interviewees
I can wholeheartedly agree with. I wonder what the younger generation
thinks
of this documentary? Do they understand how many rights they lost while
they
were still in primary school? The "Stellar Wind" program allowed
collection
of metadata of all American communications, with some collection of
content
as well, supposedly only for high-value targets. Once you've got
everything
set up and available, though, what prevents you from just collecting
content
from everyone? Spoiler alert: Nothing.
The White House overrode the justice department to extend its information
collection. Unsurprising, but good that the documentary included it.
[E04]
"WMD, Iraq, Abu-Ghraib, Ground-Zero Muslim YMCA, Afghanistan surge/Obama,
IEDs, fraud/corruption/reconstruction in Afghanistan, abandoning of
Afghanistan"
Now we're rolling along pretty well, with a near-complete denunciation of
the
invasion of Iraq.
They seem to be using a lot of modern stock footage, because a lot of
people
in these clips are wearing masks. That is suspicious, to say the least.
Many
clips are presented without timestamps or proper context.
The interview with the soldier who keeps choking up when talking about his
fallen colleague was very good. He showed empathy and asked the right
questions: what were they doing there? Why were we killing people when we
were deeply aware of how losing our own hurt so much? Who were we even
attacking?
The analysis of the IEDs was good. The guy described how the Americans
became
so leery of moving anywhere that they started blowing up vast swaths of
territory just to know that all IEDs had been triggered. The locals said
that
the Taliban don't blow everything up like the Americans do. That would
explain their predilections.
They retell the tale we've heard so much about recently: that money
disappeared into Afghanistan into dead-end projects and unusable
equipment.
But the money-laundering scheme for U.S. companies worked just fine. It
worked as designed. 99% of the money was nicely laundered through
Afghanistan
and back into the private coffers of wealthy military-hardware
corporations.
They talk about Afghan corruption, but don't mention how happy the U.S.
was
to feed money into that machine because U.S. companies were benefitting
from
it greatly.
"You can't take an institution designed for violence and use it to build up
safe communities."
"The [Afghan people] didn't like us at all. They figured out that we
didn't
really care about Afghanistan." Some of the people there did care and
they'd
signed up to help. But the mission didn't care. One of the guys says that
most of the soldiers ended up just trying to survive and to protect their
buddies. Why were they even there, then? They would all have been much
safer
at home. And the Afghans would have been safer, too.
"What do we mean by American freedom? It's a freedom to pretend, to believe
in our fictions."
"That's when I realized that people don't really give a shit what we're doing
over here [in Afghanistan]. Nobody even mentioned 9/11 anymore and that's
the
only reason I even came over here."
[E05]
"The hunt for bin Laden, Guantánamo again, Pissing on Afghan corpses (that's
not who we are), Drone bombing, Anwar al-Awlaki"
I'm totally wondering whether they're going to address the fact that we
said
we killed bin Laden and then never showed anyone the body. We said we
threw
it in the ocean. They don't even mention this in the documentary. Why in
the
name of God would we believe a word of it? Seymour Hersh poked a lot of
holes
in this narrative. See his immense write-up in "The Killing of Osama bin
Laden"
.
He was not consulted for this documentary. Instead, Rasmussen described
the
whole thing for us, from start to finish.
They only off-handedly mention that the U.S. was "not supposed to be" in
Pakistan, a sovereign nation with which the U.S. is allied, not at war.
How
could we send our troops there? Easy. We just did it. It is said that it
is
easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission. But it's even easier to
do
neither.
They fucking crashed the helicopter into the compound (Patreus is now
narrating for us, because we hadn't heard from enough war criminals).
After
the best of the best -- Navy Seals -- crash their helicopter, the mission
is
still 100% on track, despite worries that they all might get caught in a
sovereign ally's territory. Obama, (Hillary) Clinton, Biden -- all there
in
the situation room. No mention of why the Seals couldn't just arrest bin
Laden. The "CIA identified him" but "his face had been too riddled by
gunfire
to identify him, but [...] they were able to identify him by his ears." I
am
fucking gut-laughing over here. Talk about some bullshit that we shouldn't
believe.
Then they show people celebrating in the streets for the death of a man
who a
lying government claims was the guy behind 9/11, killed in an illegal raid
on
an allied nation with no evidence, no trial, no body, and no reason to
believe it was actually him. P.T. Barnum was absolutely right. It's really
too easy. No wonder Trump saw such a juicy opportunity with such an
unquestioning ovine herd.
We meet a young lawyer who was assigned to defend Sheikh Khalid Mohammed.
Gonzalez shows up again to open his garbage mouth to explain why people in
Guantánamo couldn't be tried in the U.S. He says that they might actually
defend themselves and say bad things about America. 😱Also, that the
court
would be a terror target and that America would be incapable of stopping
attacks. This is legitimate because America is super-shitty at stopping
real
attacks.
But, Gonzalez is a stupid liar; they really couldn't be tried because the
U.S. had no evidence other than a bunch of stuff obtained under torture.
If
they'd actually gotten to court, they'd have been released. The U.S.
should
actually have prosecuted the people involved for breaking the law and
violating those people's rights.
Obama is also a garbage person who used Guantánamo only for political
gain.
For eight years, he said he would close it. He never came close. Biden's
not
going to do it either. No-one cares about the law.
The young lawyer says that the whole system was designed to "let the
lawyer
look like they're doing just a good enough job for the process to look
legitimate. [...] It was about hiding war crimes." The interviewer asks
how
the guy could have torpedoed his career for someone the interviewer
describes
as "it doesn't get worse than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, so how can you
defend
him?"
These people don't believe in the rule of law. Listen carefully. It's very
simple. Everyone gets a lawyer. That lawyer doesn't support their client's
goals; they are not friends; they are not allies; they are not
like-minded.
The lawyer is doing a job that society absolutely needs done, if it wants
to
call itself civilized. People that don't understand this are savages, by
definition. They believe that a trial is not necessary because they
already
know -- without a trial -- that the defendant is guilty. How? They've been
told by the prosecution. The accusation suffices. The media even agrees.
It's
obvious. Why even have a trial? Why defend this person? Why try to
disprove
something that's so obviously true? Savages. No better than people from 60
years ago, who always thought that every black man hauled before court was
guilty of whatever he'd been accused of.
They discuss the drone-bombing of Anwar al-Awlaki (an American citizen) as
if
it were more evil to kill an American citizen with no due process --
"extrajudicial killing, with no judicial oversight" -- than to kill "just"
an
Afghan...or 20. The documentary rightly shows images of babies in coffins
while Bush and Obama talk about precision attacks and just killings and
how
"Congress authorized any means necessary" (citing Obama). A Pakistani
Congress member says that for every 13 people killed, they create 3300
more
enemies. An Afghan says, "If death is our only fate, then we would rather
die
fighting back."
Trump: (on Afghanistan) "Why isn't Russia there? Why isn't India there?
Why
isn't Pakistan there? Why are we there? And we're from 6000 miles away?"
Sometimes even a blind pig finds a truffle.
During negotiations with the Taliban, they were called "really cocky. They
said that it would take more time to negotiate than it would to just walk
in
and take Kabul." Oops. In hindsight, they weren't cocky; they were
realistic.
A powerful voice for Afghan women said, "Afghanistan is one of the worst
countries in the world to be a woman. How much more shall we sacrifice in
order to have peace?"
They interview a bunch of troops from the Afghan Army, talking about how
they
will resist the Taliban until the "last drop of blood leaves their
bodies".
Within five days, they'd all given up against overwhelming odds, mostly
without firing a shot. "We are ready to defend our country ourselves."
Oops.
The guy at the end who talks about how good women have it in Afghanistan
is
kind of right: more women are involved in Afghanistan than in 1998 when
the
Taliban took over. But it's still less than in the late 1970s, when the
socialist government provided all of those things. The U.S. marched in and
destroyed it all, setting the stage for the Taliban. They then spent $2.3T
destroying the country more and beating the Taliban back, to get the
shreds
of a society that kind of was almost as good as it was 40 years before.
That
is not a success. That is not improvement. That is historic cruelty.
At the end, they play "America the Beautiful" on piano, showing rockets
firing indiscriminately and someone burying a baby wrapped in a shroud
under
rocks.
Captain Marvel (2019) -- "7/10"
It held up reasonably well on a second viewing. See my "review from 2020"
. Saw it in German
this time.
Atomic Blonde (2017) -- "9/10"
Still an awesome movie on second viewing. See my "review from 2017"
. Saw it in German
this time.
I Am Legend (2007) -- "8/10"
This came on TV after another movie and drew me in enough for a second
viewing. Will Smith is quite good in this. He plays U.S. Army virologist
Robert Neville, who's the last man standing in New York City after a virus
conceived as a cancer treatment goes completely out of control and kills
or
turns most of humanity into zombies. He is alone in his armored apartment,
scavenging on a schedule to avoid being out at night. The zombies can't
stand
daylight. We see how this all came to be in several flashbacks, showing
how
Neville lost his wife and daughter...and then all of NYC.
He has his trusty dog Sam(antha) at his side through much of the film,
until
a lapse in judgment -- he gets caught in one of his own zombie traps after
having a bit of a mental breakdown -- causes him and Sam to be trapped out
at
night. They escape back to his lab, but Sam has been bitten and does not
respond to the latest "cure" that Robert has concocted. Neville is forced
to
put down his only companion.
Driven by grief, Neville joyrides out at night to attack a band of
zombies,
but they get the better of him, trapping him in his car. One Deus Ex
Machina
later and two other people show up to rescue him, bringing him back to his
home. After three years alone with Sam, he is not accustomed to human
contact. The woman Anna (Alice Braga) talks of escaping to Vermont with
the
boy Ethan (Charlie Tahan) to an enclave that has survived. Neville doesn't
believe that the place exists. He refuses to leave, claiming he needs to
continue working on the cure.
Soon after, they are all trapped in the lab as the zombies attack, trying
to
get a test patient back that Neville is experimenting on. The last cure he
cooks up seems to work, though. He gives Anna a sample, sends her and
Ethan
out the coal chute, then sacrifices himself on a grenade, taking out the
invading horde, as well.
Anna and Ethan arrive in Vermont with the cure -- happy ending! There was
an
alternate ending where Neville confronts the zombie only to discover that
he
only wanted his mate back. They part ways and Neville realizes that it is
he
who has become a monster, experimenting on other thinking creatures.
Neither of these narratives is how the book ends. In the book, Neville is
the
last remaining member of his species. The zombies/vampires are thinking
creatures who are the natural inheritors of the Earth -- as the
Neanderthals
gave way to modern humans -- and Neville thinks "I am legend" i.e. I am
still
alive, but my race will only become a legend after I am gone.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) -- "10/10"
Seen it so many times. Still a ten. Last saw it in "2013"
.
Legion s01 (2017) -- "9/10"
This is a really unique bit of television that I stumbled across. The show is
based on the Marvel Universe character Legion, who is the son of Professor
X
and Gabrielle Haller. In the show, we only hear of "David's father" in
oblique terms (at least so far). But we don't know him as Legion in this
show. He's just David (Dan Stevens), a young man who thinks he's
schizophrenic and who's been bouncing from one unsatisfactory situation to
another until he ends up in a mental institution.
We slowly learn that he is not schizophrenic. Instead, his maladies are
all
related to his extraordinary mutant power and having been infected by a
powerful parasitic mutant named Farouk when he was but a baby. That's how
we
find him in the mental institution at Clockworks Psychiatric Hospital,
which
also houses fellow inmate Syd Barrett [1] (Rachel Keller), who becomes his
girlfriend. They cannot touch because of her mutant power, which is kind
of
like Rogue's, where she switches bodies with whomever she touches, in a
kind
of short-term Freaky Friday affair.
Lenny Busker (Aubrey Plaza) is also there, a drug addict who'd had some
great
times with David as he was trying to deal with his mutant powers and brain
virus on his own. David breaks out, but is hunted down. [2] Clark (Hamish
Linklater) is his interlocutor -- with The Eye (Mackenzie Gray) as his
backup
-- but David is uncontrollable. He escapes in a fiery glory, with Syd's
help,
burning and disfiguring Clark in the process.
He is rescued by members of a place called Summerland: Cary Loudermilk
(Bill
Irwin), whose mutant power is that he "shares" a self with an alternate
Kerry
(Amber Midthunder), and Ptonomy Wallace (Jeremie Harris), whose power is
that
he can examine anyone's memories and that he never forgets. They take him
back to Melanie Bird (Jean Smart), another telepath or empath or
something.
She helps bridge Ptonomy to David's mind so that they can try to find out
what's really going on with him (they don't accept that he's crazy).
David's sister Amy (Katie Aselton) is looking for him and she's taken
prisoner by Summerland's nemesis Division 3. David would eventually rescue
her, but it was Farouk in the driver's seat, not David, using David's
incredible power to lay waste to the whole Division 3 facility. David
comes
back, and continues to grow his relationship with Syd -- into the astral
plane, where they can touch without her stealing his body and powers.
The finale is a showdown between The Eye and his henchmen from Division 3
against the ragtag band from Summerland in a super slo-mo scene wherein a
bullet traverses the length of a room over the span of at least two
episodes.
During this time, Oliver Bird (Jemaine Clement) returns from the astral
plane
to help them, after twenty years of wandering. Melanie, his wife, is
delighted, at first, but he doesn't remember her -- he's not the same.
David learns of Farouk; Cary builds a device to trap Farouk away in
David's
mind; David gains more control over his powers and resolves the
slow-bullet
dilemma, saving everyone except for The Eye, who ends up killed by his own
trap. Clark returns to the case for Division 3, but he seems to be willing
to
come over to Summerland's side and work with them instead.
Farouk (in the form of Lenny) pounds on his cage, cracking it. David's
grip
on him is slipping. Syd kisses David to take Farouk. but Farouk transfers
to
Kerry and fights his way out. David tracks him down and forces him out of
Kerry...but Farouk's "essence" finds Oliver and takes him away again, in a
fancy car, singing,
"On the chest of a barmaid in Sailes
were tattooed the prices of ales.
And on her behind,
for the sake of the blind,
was the same information in braille."
This is a story of people with extraordinary power, but without costumes
or
hero names. It's a story about what it would be like to have powers like
that
in the real world -- our world -- and how that world would react to it
(with
violence and a desire to extinguish or control).
Much of this show takes place in the astral plane, where artistic license
rules. They do a wonderful and interesting job of it, with gorgeous and
inventive visuals, languorous pacing, long stretches of just letting the
visuals do the talking, and a very interesting and balanced soundtrack.
The
aesthetics remind me a bit of American Gods, the layers of reality remind
me
a bit of Inception. The treatment of the heroes, perhaps a bit of
Watchmen.
It is, however, it's own unique thing that grows into its own as it
progresses. I'm well into season 2 and it's getting better and better. It
is,
of course, not for everyone -- many would find it boring -- but I am very
glad it was made, that there is still room for auteurs to stretch their
legs
and spread their wings.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Who I only just realized is named after the former front man of Pink
Floyd,
who left the band after having become addicted to psychedelics.
[1] I think that's how it happened. Time is a bit squishy in this show. Not
only
are some segments shown repeatedly, from different angles and
perspectives,
but there are fantastical segments that never really happened or that
didn't
happen in that way. The astral plane is a strange place, and this show
makes
that abundantly clear.
Ted Lasso S02 (2021) -- "8/10"
The second season finds Richmond City fighting its way through its first
season after relegation. They're seven draws deep so far, when Dani Rojas
(Cristo Fernández) kills the team mascot Earl with a penalty kick. They
end
up tied. Rojas is devastated. To treat him, the team takes on a
psychiatrist
Sharon (Sarah Niles). She is so good that nearly the entirety of the team
ends up making appointments. Ted (Jason Sudeikis) spends the season
dancing
around whether he needs therapy for his panic attacks, and eventually
takes
it.
Roy (Brett Goldstein) coaches little girls' football but Keeley (Juno
Temple)
convinces him to try sports announcing. He likes it OK -- and is funny and
honest at it -- but Ted convinces him to come onboard as another coach.
Nate
(Nick Mohammed), who has no self-confidence, is threatened. Beard (Brendan
Hunt), who has plenty, likes it. Beard is on-again, off-again with his
quirky
girlfriend Jane throughout the season.
Sam (Toheeb Jimoh) has a fling with Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham), but they
break it off because she's not ready for commitment. Sam turns down an
offer
to leave the club for a team in Morocco, owned and run by a billionaire by
inheritance. Sam also rebels against sponsor Dubai Air and nothing bad
happens when the whole team kills the deal with their top sponsor.
Instead,
they are now sponsored by Bantr, Keeley's dating platform. Lucky, that.
Keeley? Oh, she's apparently not dumb as a post anymore -- though amusing
and
sweet and kind and wise, in her own way -- she's now in charge of her own
PR
firm.
Jamie's back in the club and seems to have completely changed his ways.
Other
than his odd eyebrow couture, he's a pretty nice guy now. He professes his
love to Keeley, causing waves in Roy and Keeley's relationship, but
everything's OK there. Roy has grown considerably as a person.
Nate goes off the rails with jealousy, blows up at Ted and ends up
coaching
Rebecca's ex-husband's newly acquired team to set up season 3: Ted vs.
Nate.
A lot happens in this season -- like, a lot, a lot. It's hard to keep
track
of everything. There were a couple of "character-building" episodes -- the
Christmas one and "Beard After Hours" -- that were entertaining enough,
but
(almost thankfully) didn't contribute to the story. Just fun stuff with
fun
characters. Almost like an old-school sitcom (without a laugh track).
Rebecca's dad's funeral is also kind of fun?
A couple of the episodes were great and a couple felt like they'd been
written by a completely different team. Sometimes Lasso's dialogue was a
bit
cloying and over-the-top folksy. Sometimes it was great. Roy is very good,
but the focus on him became almost a bit much. Overall a good effort, but
not
nearly as refreshingly fun as the first season. Let's see what happens in
season 3.
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) -- "9/10"
Still just as solid as the first time I watched it. See "review from 2012"
.
John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017) -- "8/10"
This chapter starts with John Wick (Keanu Reeves) laying waste to a Russian
compound, all to retrieve his Mustang, which is nearly destroyed in the
process. Soon after, Santino D'Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio) shows up to
make
him an offer he can't refuse. John swore an oath to help Santino in
exchange
for help in the first movie. Santino "insists" by blowing up Wick's house.
Wick holes up in the Continental where Winston (Ian McShane) and Charon
(Lance Reddick) remind him of his obligations to the marker. Wick goes to
Italy, where he ends up taking the contract -- to kill Santino's own
sister
Gianna (Claudia Gerini). He completes the contract -- although she goes
out
"her way" by slitting her own wrists first.
John escapes the Colosseum to the catacombs below, blowing away what seems
like hundreds of Santino's henchmen, who've been ordered to tied up loose
ends. Wick is an absolute master of pistol marksmanship, executing
headshot
after headshot while sprinting in the other direction and pointing his gun
behind him. Santino's top guy Cassian (Common) is the last one standing,
pursuing John into the Rome Continental Hotel, where they are required by
the
rules to stop fighting.
Wick returns to New York, where he is now being hunted by every hitman in
the
city because Santino has opened a $7M contract on him. Wick again
slaughters
legions of attackers in a spectacularly choreographed, incredibly long
sequence (the second of the film), where he again faces off against
Cassian,
this time besting him in a subway car by sticking a knife in his aorta.
John seeks refuge with the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne), where he gets
treatment and a single pistol with seven rounds to continue his pursuit of
Santiago. John finds him at an art opening, where we get the third
slaughter
sequence as Wick picks off Santiago's remaining henchmen, including his
deaf
chief henchman Ares (Ruby Rose), who goes down pretty easily actually.
Santiago escapes to the Continental Hotel, where he can't be
touched...right?
Winston pleads with John to desist, but Wick shoots Santiago dead to
rights,
violating the chief tenet of the hotel and placing himself in dire
jeopardy.
The High Table doubles the price on his head; Winston excommunicates him
--
cutting him off from all privileges -- but provides him with a marker and
a
one-hour head-start. The end. See you in part 3.
Dave Chappelle: The Closer (2021) -- "9/10"
This show's reputation preceded it, but that reputation was, as with
Chappelle's previous shows, unearned. He delivered a solid, heartfelt,
funny,
occasionally bawdy -- sometimes a little distractingly so, but that's a
matter of taste -- sensitive, interesting, informative, and somewhat
preachy
set.
It was funny, though, first and foremost. There were interesting new ideas
mixed in with old standards presented well and with a bit of a new sheen.
He
didn't shy away from any topics, although sometimes he seemed to be
deliberately poking a hornet's nest that I was only somewhat aware of. I
didn't really want to be made aware of the world he was mocking in a
comedy
set, but that was the only drawback.
He is a masterful storyteller, with an eye for funny detail. He discussed
his
relative wealth -- Netflix paid him $60M for his five specials -- saying,
"Let's say that something goes horribly wrong and I'm shopping with the poor
whites for mediocre goods and services in a Wal-mart."
He started off slowly,
"Some guy came up to me on the street, looking worried.
"He said, "Dave, they're after you."
"[Looking everywhere at once, panicked] "Multiple they or singular they?""
Those who didn't see the show just assumed he slagged on transgender
people,
but he compared the degree of approbation waiting for someone who
expresses a
forbidden opinion -- virtual violence -- versus actual, physical violence
or
the even stronger, lingering prejudice of racism. The progress in the
fight
against racism -- though receiving a lot of lip service -- seems to have
been
lapped by the progress in the fight against homophobia or transphobia.
"You guys are confusing your emotions. You think I hate gay people and, what
you're really seeing, is that I'm jealous of gay people."
Or this one,
"Why is it so much easier for Bruce Jenner to change his gender than it was
for Cassius Clay to change his name? My problem has never been with
trans-gender people -- it's always been with white people. Go back and
watch
my specials."
Or this one about the spectrum of prejudices and how white people still
have
the privilege of being white in a society that still prefers that skin
color.
"He stood up, towering over me. He must have been 6'5". A big, white,
corn-fed, Texas homosexual. This nigga was ready to fight. [...] I thought
we
were going to come to blows. I was ready and then...right when you think
we
would fight, guess what he did? He picked up his phone and he called the
police. And this, this thing that I am describing, is a major issue that I
have with that community. Gay people are minorities...until they need to
be
white again."
He went there again, talking about DaBaby and the homophobic rant he'd
recently gone on,
"Now you know, I go hard in the paint, but even I saw that shit and was like,
‘God damn, DaBaby,
"Can’t do that. Can’t do that. But I do believe and I’ll make this
point later that the kid made a very egregious mistake. I will acknowledge
that. But, you know a lot of the LBGTQ community doesn’t know DaBaby’s
history, he’s a wild guy. He once shot a nigga… and killed him, in
Walmart. Oh, this is true, Google it. DaBaby shot and killed a nigga in
Walmart in North Carolina. Nothing bad happened to his career.
"Do you see where I am going with this? In our country, you can shoot and
kill a nigga, but you better not hurt a gay person’s feelings."
He jokes about how men become woman and win awards that only women could
win
before. I mean, you've got to wonder how that all fits with feminism,
right?
Or maybe gender-specific awards should be passé? But it is funny-ironic.
"Caitlin Jenner won the award for woman of the year -- the first year she was
a woman. Beat every single one of you bitches in Detroit. Woman of the
year!
Never had a period! How about that?"
He makes the following crude joke about transgender genitals,
"That pussy they got ... it's ... you know. It's Impossible Pussy or Beyond
Pussy. Something's not quite the same. That ain't blood, that's beet
juice."
Mother of God, the man has stones of steel. He's getting paid $24m for
this
show and he's just provoking with a clever, if crude, joke that he knows
will
blow up Twitter. Especially for the army that will review his show without
watching it, like an online version of that old game Telephone.
But he closes with a story about Daphne -- a white-girl transvestite. It
was
funny as well as sweet, where he constantly reminds people that they were
friends, but he had to set limits, e.g. "[...] I pushed her away from me,
because I'm transphobic."
He quoted one of her tweets,
"Punching down on someone requires you to think less of them, and I know him,
and he doesn't. He doesn't punch up; he doesn't punch down; he punches
lines;
and he's a master at his craft."
He's not a fan of Twitter or the raging hordes there,
"Apparently, I'm getting dragged on Twitter. But I don't give a fuck,
because
Twitter isn't a real place."
They ended up dragging Daphne for supporting Chappelle. She killed herself
a
week later. That wasn't funny, but it was true. His words didn't do that;
their so-called defense of her did. Maybe the defenders of public mores
should stop taking themselves so seriously. People are getting hurt.
The Office (US): S08--s09 (2012--2013) -- "9/10"
After having managed Dunder Mifflin for seven seasons, Michael Scott (Steve
Carrell) left the show. At the end of season 7, the search for a
replacement
was executed in the typically bungling and amusing manner of the show.
Dwight
(Rainn Wilson) does not get the job; neither does Andy (Ed Helms);
instead,
it is Robert California (James Spader) who snatches the role. He is an
already independently wealthy Scranton resident who convinces Jo (Kathy
Bates) to not only let him manage the Scranton branch, but also be CEO. He
chooses Andy as his successor to manage the Scranton branch. Darryl (Craig
Robinson) and Dwight are not happy, but deal with it. This is the basic
framework for the season.
Robert spends an inordinate amount of time with the Scranton branch,
taking
field trips (Gettysburg), attending or throwing parties (Andy's party at
Dwight's, or Robert's bacchanal at his own home). He eventually invites
several of them to Tallahassee, Florida -- Dwight, Stanley (Leslie David
Baker), Jim (John Krasinski), Cathy (Lindsey Broad), and Erin (Ellie
Kemper)
-- for a conference led by Nellie (Catherine Tate) to select a new Vice
President to head up Sabre's brick-and-mortar stores. Dwight ends up
getting
the VP job. Robert California hates the stores. Nellie is fired, as is
Packer
(David Koechner), who ends up taking the fall for Dwight. Without a VP
job,
Dwight returns to Scranton with his head salesman job as a consolation
prize.
Erin decides to stay in Florida, working as an in-home caregiver for an
older
woman. Andy misses her and drives back down to get her. Nellie shows back
up
in Scranton and just takes Andy's job. Robert California eventually just
rewards her for her initiative. Andy is fired for an anger episode and
re-hired as a salesman. At Andy's behest, David Wallace (Andy Buckley)
buys
Dunder Mifflin from Sabre and reestablishes it as an independent company,
with Andy at the helm of the Scranton branch. Robert California -- ever
the
smooth talker -- convinces Wallace to donate to his mentoring program
before
leaving forever.
The constellation is unchanged at the start of the ninth and final season
--
except for two new young guys in the annex, Clark (Clark Duke) and Pete
(Jake
Lacy). There are hijinks sprinkled throughout -- "office bus" and "lice"
(where Meredith (Kate Flannery) ends up shaving her head) being two of the
better ones -- but the main story arc is that Andy abandons the office to
go
on a sailing trip for three months after his father dies and leaves the
family fortune in his hands. His Dad had loaded the family with debt and
they're forced to sell the sailboat. Andy decides to sail it to the
Bahamas
himself.
Oscar (Oscar Nunez) starts an affair with Angela's husband, state senator
Robert Lipton (Jack Coleman). Angela gets wind of it, but ends up teamed
up
with Oscar after Lipton reveals that he's also cheating on Oscar. She
leaves
Lipton and moves in with Oscar with her son.
The documentary of the office (which had been filming the whole time) is
finally coming out, so things get quite meta-meta. Andy is convinced that
this will launch his acting career.
In Andy's absence, Erin had started a dalliance with Pete. When Andy
finally
returns, she makes several attempts to break up with him, until one
finally
takes. The office tries to figure out how to reveal to David Wallace that
Andy was gone for three months and is not responsible for their spate of
success in that year. Andy would have been fired again, but he instead
tells
David Wallace that he needs to follow his muse instead, getting an agent
Carla Fern (Roseanne Barr).
Jim starts a side-business with some friends, a sports-marketing idea that
takes off pretty quickly. The headquarters is in Philadelphia, so he's
commuting and only working part-time at Dunder Mifflin and just generally
putting stress on his relationship with Pam (Jenna Fischer). They have
tribulations, but love wins out in the end (this is literally how they did
it).
David Wallace offers the manager job to Jim, but he tells him to choose
Dwight. Dwight finally becomes manager, handling it with more aplomb and
modesty than expected. Jim chooses Pam over working at his new business
Athleads, repairing their fairy-tale relationship. Darryl starts working
at
Athleads, doing quite well, but disappointed that Jim won't be there. The
company has a chance at opening up nationwide and Darryl wants Jim to come
along on the initial three-month jaunt. Jim turns him down; Pamela
overhears;
she doesn't know if he means it, but he proves to her that he does. Jim is
promoted to Assistant to the Regional Manager and holds a competition for
the
Assistant to the Assistant to the Regional Manager -- which Dwight wins,
transitively becoming his own assistant.
Andy's career is off to a bumpy start. Erin finds her parents at a
documentary interview (Joan Cusack and Ed Begley Jr.). Dwight and Angela
get
married (her child is actually his; she just wanted him to love her for
her,
not for her progeny). Oh, and Dwight finally gets his black belt from his
new
sensei (Michael Imperioli).
I've got the chronology a bit messed up above, but that's the general gist
of
the last two seasons. They include some absolute gold-medal-funny episodes
with some really clever writing and execution. A delight to the very end.
Highly recommended. Will probably rewatch at some point, perhaps in a few
years.
Shutter Island (2010) -- "10/10"
I'd already "reviewed this movie in 2011"
, but I didn't
describe what it was actually about, so I do that a bit better below.
The movie is set sometime soon after WWII. Teddy (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a
police officer, who visits Shutter Island with his partner, Chuck (Mark
Ruffalo), to investigate the disappearance of an inmate from the mental
institution located there. Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley) assists them where he
can, but they suspect that he is hiding something. Dr. Naehring (Max von
Sydow) is the chief clinician and Teddy is especially suspicious of him
(because he's German). The warden (Ted Levine) and deputy warden (John
Carroll Lynch) are also sinister, but believably so for employees at such
an
institution. Teddy is searching for Laeddis (Elias Koteas), the man who'd
killed his wife and who is also interred there. No-one knows where he is;
suspicion increases.
Teddy and Chuck investigate around the island, eventually getting to
"Block
C", where Teddy thinks he's found Laeddis (Jackie Earle Haley) again, this
time looking much the worse for wear already. Teddy also spends a night
outside on the island, holed up in a cave with the missing patient
(Patricia
Clarkson), who disappears the next morning. Teddy becomes obsessed with
getting to the lighthouse, plagued by visions of his dead wife and a
little
girl.
He gets to the lighthouse, where he finds Dr. Cawley and Chuck, who turns
out
to be the doctor in whose care he's been for over two years. It turns out
that Teddy is Laeddis and that he's the most violent patient in the
institution (he turns out to have been responsible for the condition of
the
man whom he thought was Laeddis). They'd given Teddy two days to roam the
island, working through his fantasy, to try to get a breakthrough. Teddy
had
a psychotic break, brought on by PTSD from having helped liberate
Auschwitz,
but also because his wife (Michelle Williams) had drowned their three
children in the lake near their home, after which he'd murdered her.
He eventually accepts this reality, and Cawley and Chuck breathe a
hesitant
sigh of relief -- they'd already been this far before. The next day, Chuck
approaches Teddy/Laeddis, who whispers to him conspiratorially about
finding
Laeddis somewhere in the compound. Chuck signals to Cawley and Naehring
that
they will unfortunately have to proceed with the lobotomy.
"Teddy Daniels: You know, this place makes me wonder.
Chuck Aule: Yeah, what's that, boss?
Teddy Daniels: Which would be worse - to live as a monster, or to die as a
good man?
Chuck Aule: Teddy?"
Still a 10/10 after a second viewing. Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben
Kingsley, Elias Koteas, and Max von Sydow were all amazing. Ted Levine and
John Carroll Lynch as the warden and deputy warden were also perfectly
cast.
Saw it in German.
Captain America: Return of the Winter Soldier (2014) -- "8/10"
I still can't believe that the Captain America movies are some of the best
ones in the whole MCU. I'd never read a single one of his comic books,
even
though I'd read almost everything else -- mostly Spider-Man and X-Men, to
be
honest. I think it's because Chris Evans is so good in the role. See "my
review from 2014" .
Sex Education S03 (2021) -- "8/10"
Otis (Asa Butterfield) spent the summer in bed with Ruby (Mimi Keene), the
most popular girl in school. Eric (Ncuti Gatwa) and Adam (Connor
Swindells)
are exploring their new relationship. Ola (Patricia Allison) and Lily
(Tanya
Reynolds) were doing the same. Aimee (Aimee Lou Wood) is still working
through her trauma from having been molested/raped on a bus the year
prior.
Maeve (Emma Mackey) is helping her through it, and ends up asking Otis's
mom
Jean (Gillian Anderson) to help. Jean is very pregnant with Ola's father
Jakob's (Mikael Persbrandt) child. Adam's father Michael (Alistair Petrie)
is
out of a job as headmaster and has also been kicked out of the house by
his
wife Maureen (Samantha Spiro), who's begun dating.
At the school, music teacher Colin (Jim Howick) is getting ready to put on
the next musical. Jackson (Kedar Williams-Stirling) is working through
anxiety issues -- and also loses his job as head boy when the new
headmistress Hope (Jemima Kirke) lays down the law, leading to single-file
lines in the halls and uniforms for everyone. Rahim (Sami Outalbali) is
the
only one who seems to see what is coming.
The clamps come down harder on certain students, like Maeve, who's made to
remove her nose ring and cut her hair in order to participate in advanced
scholastics. A new student Cal is made to choose a gender when she'd
rather
identify as non-binary. They all deal with relationship problems -- Eric
and
Adam go back and forth, Otis doesn't love Ruby back -- and the
sex-education
curriculum has fallen back on abstinence and terror.
The students go on a field trip to France. Things happen. Ruby is still
hurt
about Otis. Maeve and Otis are stranded at a service station and have a
heart-to-heart and then a lip-to-lip. Adam and Rahim grow closer. Rahim
takes
a giant shit in the bus toilet, clogs it, uses a sock to retrieve it, then
chucks it out the tiny window onto a tiny French car. Mayhem ensues. Adam
takes the fall for it, saying that no-one likes him anyway.
Jean has an absolutely justifiable shit-fit at the hospital, when several
doctors turn her sonogram appointment into an opportunity to lecture her
further on the risks of having a child at such an advanced age. She is
huge
and far past the stage where she can get an abortion. They're just being
dicks and she calls them on it. She ends up fighting with Jakob because
he's
no longer sure it's his child because she cops to her rather extreme
promiscuity. He wants a paternity test.
Season 3 kind of hits the same notes as season 2, with the suck-up Viv
(Chinenye Ezeudu) finally having had enough of the abusive new head
teacher
Hope and starting a rebellion. The kids put on a giant, sexy show for the
reporters. The school loses its funding and backers, Hope loses her job,
etc.
Michael tries to get back with Maureen, but it stutters. His hobby is now
cooking, which is a great start. He tells his obnoxious, empty brother
Peter
(Jason Isaacs) to go to hell. Maureen dumps her lover and focuses on
Andrew's
life. Maureen finds out that Adam is gay. Adam and Rahim may be hitting it
off. Adam takes up dog-training and enters a competition, winning
honorable
mention.
Eric fools around in Nigeria at his rich family's wedding and dumps
Andrew.
Andrew handles being dumped by Eric reasonably well. All of the teenagers
act
out a bunch. Most of them in very selfish ways, constantly talking about
how
they have to look out for their own needs. It's either an interesting
comment
on a generation or just documenting that generation without noticing that
it
looks kind of bad for them. The best people are Jackson (Kedar
Williams-Stirling), Lily (Tanya Reynolds), Colin, and Emily (Rakhee
Thakrar).
The selfish ones this time around are Ola, Otis (50/50), Eric, and Cal
(Dua
Saleh).
So much stuff happens in this season, though. It's almost too much -- like
a
soap opera. Isaac (George Robinson) admits to Maeve that he'd deleted
Otis's
phone message. Maeve forgives him and they get together. Then they break
up.
Then Maeve and Otis get back together. Then she leaves for America for a
program for gifted students. Aimee and Steve get back together. Oh, also,
Jean has her child very prematurely and almost dies (picture all of the
doctors saying "I told you so; shouldn't have gotten knocked up, you
moistened bink"), Hope fails repeatedly at IVF, Otis counsels her, Jean
sees
him do it and is proud. Jakob turns out not to be the child's father.
The Kominsky Method S03 -- "7/10"
Normal Newlander (Alan Arkin) has died. The season starts with his funeral,
with some very odd eulogies from Sandy Kominsky (Michael Douglas) and
Norman's girlfriend Madelyn (Jane Seymour), who regales the attendees with
a
detailed rundown of the regularity of her sex life with Norman. Sandy's
daughter Mindy (Sarah Baker) is there with her much older boyfriend Martin
(Paul Reiser). Norman's reprobate daughter Phoebe (Lisa Edelstein) is
there,
with her scientologist son Robby (Haley Joel Osment) in tow.
Mindy's mother and Sandy's ex-wife Roz (Kathleen Turner) returns from her
work as a doctor in Africa. The whole family is back together for what
might
turn out to be Mindy's marriage to Martin. But there are doubts. Mindy has
inherited $5M from Norman -- and Sandy wants to give her his $5M as well
--
but, as executor of the estate, he has some doubts about Martin's ability
to
handle that kind of wealth. Sandy and Martin get along just great --
they're
almost the same age, after all -- but Martin isn't the most stable
personality.
Speaking of unstable, Phoebe and Robby have also gotten wind of Norman's
estate and expect much more than Sandy is doling out to them. They promise
to
lawyer up. Sandy is still teaching his class and learns more about the
modern
acting world -- that it's even more cutthroat and shitty than it was when
he
was coming up. One of his students, Margaret (Melissa Tang) is ostracized
immediately after she gets a recurring role on a new series, where she
would
play assistant to Morgan Freeman's reboot of Quincy as a non-binary
coroner.
Margaret thinks they may dump Freeman because he's not actually non-binary
and it would look bad for an actor to appear as something that they are
not.
That took a while for Sandy to work through, as well.
Mindy and Martin are getting married; then they're not; then they are
again.
Roz has an incident related to her leukemia and now everyone knows that
she
has cancer. Sandy helps her out and they grow much closer again -- the
Kathleen Turner/Michael Douglas repartee is a bit forced, but nice and
nostalgic for someone who grew up on their films, Romancing the Stone,
Jewel
of the Nile, and War of the Roses.
Sandy's class seems to heed his advice and starts to treat Margaret
better.
Martin turns out to be just as frivolous as Sandy feared -- but he can
also
be cowed by Sandy's threats. Phoebe and Robby provide a form of comic
relief
with repeated, wacky proposals for how Sandy should give them a tremendous
amount of the trust in exchange for doing nothing. Roz takes over the
wedding
and makes sure Martin's mother Estelle (Christine Ebersole) is invited.
She
turns out to be quite a bitch on wheels, pretty much as Martin tried to
explain to everyone. Roz officiates the wedding and everything turns out
just
fine. She gets to be on set while Sandy films Old Man and the Sea.
A year later and Roz finally succumbs to her leukemia. Everyone is sad.
Estelle is still living with Martin and Mindy and is still going strong.
She
does have a stroke, though. Ten months after that and both Sandy and
Margaret
are accepting the Emmy Awards for their respective performances. Smiles
all
around. Estelle is still there, but now wearing a helmet. All's well that
ends well, I guess?
The series kind of hurries its way to wrapping things up -- because this
is
the last season. It was a good ride and Douglas did a decent job without
Arkin -- but the pair of them were what really brought the first two
seasons
alive. In this season, you kind of notice more how old everyone is;
Douglas
and Turner speak in kind of a slur that is much more noticeable when it's
just the two of them. They don't really enunciate well anymore. Sarah
Baker
and Paul Reiser were OK, but didn't really shine.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=43232021-10-20T23:25:29+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Bo Burnham: Inside (2021) -- "9/10"
This is a one-man show about the Internet and culture and loneliness and
depression and, perhaps, life during COVID. Bo Burnham stars as a version
of
himself who's been working alone in an attic -- often in his underwear --
on
his special for over a year. He yo-yos through emotions and toys with
different skits, some of which are quite meta.
At one point, he plays a typical game reviewer who's playing a game that
lets
him control Bo Burnham in the attic. In another song, he derides a "White
Woman's Instagram". He records a reaction video to his too-short rendition
of
"Unpaid Intern", then reacts to the reaction video and reacts to his
reaction
to his reaction video. "How the World Works" is a pitch-perfect and Sesame
Street-ready song for children, but the second verse, performed by
"Socky",
is much darker and more accurate.
Even frothy and poppy songs like "FaceTime with my Mom" are written and
performed really well. He really seems to be channelling Weird Al more in
the
first half -- a tendency he ironically notes in one skit -- but I also
hear
shades of Jonathan Coulton (e.g. in "That Funny Feeling", where he
accompanies himself on the acoustic guitar).
There are dozens of carefully crafted, spliced, and edited individual bits
that include songs, short skits, silent equipment setup. Each of these
contributes to the whole, each is exquisitely hand-crafted, with an
artisan's
attention to detail. He plays with everything, from his flowing hair and
beard -- which he frequently films as very much the long-suffering Jesus
we
know from paintings -- to his penchant for depression and loneliness and
stage-fright.
This is a character he's playing, a version of Bo Burnham for this
special,
but it's brilliant. He did everything himself, probably learning a lot
along
the way. It took over a year (supposedly). It critiques and explains and
parodies the Internet and modern culture. It's hard to know what truth it
tells about Burnham itself. It doesn't really matter. What is undeniable
is
that this is a work of art, a work of genius. If Warhol was a genius for
Monroe or Campbell's, then Burnham has earned the epithet for creating
Inside.
Mortal Engines (2018) -- "5/10"
As with MIB, the backstory and universe are interesting. Similarly, the
dialogue and plot are absolutely hackneyed and predictable. There is
almost
no character development; the characters are placed into the story without
any preamble and we're expected to identify with them immediately. Why
should
I care about Hester (Hera Hilmar)? OH, because she's a cool grrrrl. What
about Tom (Robert Sheehan)? He's a rascal who's late to work and stems,
apparently, from the lower classes (this is made painfully obvious through
an
interaction with a titled man of the same age). What about Anna Fang
(Jihae)?
She's the cool asian woman. Remember Michelle Yeoh in other movies that
had
character development? Like that.
This story is set over a millennium in our future, long after humanity had
mutually assured its own destruction with so-called quantum weapons. The
humans of the future scavenge "old tech" -- being seemingly incapable of
producing their own -- and repurpose it to power their "traction cities".
These are mechanized cities of various sizes that are capable of being
moved
on large caterpillar tracks. We are led to believe that there are many
more
of them, but we only see two: London and a small Bavarian city that London
"ingests". London, however, has a whole mechanism for ingesting other
cities,
so it seems clear that this is how it's been sustaining and growing itself
for some time.
The chief engineer of London Thaddeus Valentine (Hugo Weaving) understands
that this way of life is not sustainable -- they will starve out on the
plains of Europe. Therefore, he will do what westerners always do: take
what
belongs to other people and justify it with self-serving moralizing. He
wants
to rebuild one of the quantum weapons that started this whole mess and use
it
to break down the giant wall that the east erected to protect itself. This
is
a bit too on-the-nose, I would say, but I would imagine that these broad
and
unsubtle sweeps come from the YA fiction on which this film is based,
where
that kind of reference is considered "clever world-building".
Despite their dependence on old tech coupled with a general dearth of
industrial capacity, Valentine has seemingly no compunction about
destroying
vast swaths of what is left. He destroys an entire oil-drilling platform
just
to release Shrike (Stephen Lang), who, in turn, has no compunctions about
destroying an entire floating city in order to get to Hester.
I'm not even going to bother detailing the plot points that undergird this
whole mess because it doesn't matter. This film felt very much like it was
telling you things without drawing you in. The visuals were spectacular,
as
expected, but they felt so empty -- just kind of happening on screen, like
in
Transformers, Fast and Furious XX, Batman vs. Superman, or even some of
the
Marvel movies. It had interminable sequences of things crashing into each
other and flying in exquisitely and painstakingly accurately rendered
glory
-- and much of it felt overblown and unneeded.
They would often have to pause this over-the-top action in completely
unrealistic ways in order to have moments of pathos between characters
(e.g.
when Shrike finally releases Hester from her bond). London manages to
destroy
much of the eastern wall, but Tom and Hester stop Thaddeus before he can
drive London into what remains. The Chinese and Indians let bygones be
bygones and invite in the now-homeless Londoners -- who were so recently
cheering their opponent's no-longer-so-imminent destruction from their
luxurious and now-destroyed parapets.
Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (2012) -- "8/10"
This was a more interesting movie than I had any right to expect. It had
enough of a touch of Cronenberg/Lynch to it that made it much more surreal
than a sequel to an action-adventure movie usually is. The director,
cinematographer, editor, and set designer did well with the material they
had. Hell, at one point, Luc Devereaux (Jean Claude Van Damme) looked just
like Brando's Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. I could almost swear that was
intentional.
The trip up a placid, heavily gladed river in the last scene, along with
the
silent universal soldiers everywhere -- in the boat, in the water --
proved
to me that that was exactly the look they were going for. There were long
sections of the film without dialogue or even action bits, moving forward
on
exposition and "showing, not telling."
The fight scenes were quite good, well-choreographed. The chase scene was
very well-filmed, but went on for a bit too long. Otherwise, I overall
approved of the shot choice, angles, lighting, sets, etc. It was somewhat
bare-bones, but also not overdone. There was no need for advanced CGI and
hundreds of millions of dollars to tell a convincing story of
super-soldiers.
The story starts with a stark and bare-bones rendering of a home invasion.
Luc Deveraux has his henchmen beat John (Scott Adkins) severely before
executing his wife and child. John awakes nine months later from a coma.
He
speaks to agent Gorman of the FBI, who afterwards activates super-soldier
Magnus (Andrei Arlovski) to sweep through and eliminate a bunch of
super-soldiers. It's honestly hard to figure out what the point is here,
but
Magnus ends up at the "boss" in the last room, who is Andrew Scott (Dolph
Lundgren). Scott injects Magnus with a drug that frees him from being
controlled by the government. He joins the rogue army of super-soldiers
led
by Devereaux and Scott.
Things get a little sketchy as John tries to patch together what is real
and
what he remembers from implanted memories. There also appear to be
multiple
versions of him, which explains why some people remember him doing things
he
could never have done (he's apparently only three weeks old). He finds out
he's only three weeks old in Devereaux's rogue super-soldier compound --
also
a pretty good set, made with practical effects and lights, rather than a
CGI
orgy -- when Devereaux's scientists offer to remove the fake memories of
his
wife and son.
Here, we see a subtlety about identity, where John would rather retain the
"fake" memories, which are real to him. The mental conflict drives him mad
and he rampages through the compound, taking people out in one short
fight-scene after another -- until he reaches Scott, who's the first boss
level. They smash each other around and Scott loses relatively quickly,
with
Lundgren just hamming it up.
Next up is Devereaux, with Van Damme bald and painted like Baron Samedi.
Seeing both that clones of John will never stop coming and that John is a
worthy successor, Devereaux submits. In the epilogue, John kills Gorman
and
replaces him with a super-soldier clone who nods to John in submission
before
returning to the FBI. Van Damme actually played this pretty straight and
well.
They're all super-soldiers and are much more resistant to damage than mere
mortals. They can fight through the pain and damage -- e.g. from knives,
swords, kicks, and even bullet flesh-wounds -- and the fight choreography
cleverly incorporates this. When John's fingers are chopped off, they
regrow
over time. In fact, we first see that Magnus's toes had regrown, so we
know
that super-soldiers can do that. All without a line of dialogue or
explanation. Honestly, that's a lot more subtlety in storytelling than
much
more well-funded and well-received movies have.
The Office (US): S06--s07 (2010--2011) -- "9/10"
Season Six starts with Jim (John Krasinski) and Pam's (Jenna Fischer)
marriage and the birth of their baby Cecelia. Though they continue to be
their characters for the next couple of seasons, their baby makes them
into
parents who are utterly unaware that no-one else really cares about their
baby. Just like real life, I guess.
Erin (Ellie Kemper) and Andy (Ed Helms) start to drift toward each other,
but
it takes forever and never really works out correctly. Instead, Erin turns
toward Gabe, who at least knows how to ask her out. This relationship
would
blossom, then wither on the vine over the course of the next two seasons.
By
the end of season seven, Erin is 100% sure she wants Andy and actually
asks
him out, but he demurs -- although he immediately regrets it. They stay in
limbo.
Jim is promoted to co-manager, with him taking care of day-to-day details
and
Michael handling big-picture stuff. This works out great for Michael, but
seems inefficient for Dunder Mifflin. Speaking of which, Dunder Mifflin is
in
trouble and is likely to declare bankruptcy. Sabre Corporation (a printer
company) takes them over, led by Jo Bennet (Kathy Bates), who has a more
direct managerial style. She thinks the idea of co-managers is bullshit.
Michael and Jim fight for the sales position (because of commissions), but
Michael ends up back as the manager, convinced he's won. Scranton survives
because they manage to outdo everyone else on sales, but David Wallace and
all other Dunder Mifflin executives are let go.
In a power move -- and because he wasn't considered for a management
position
-- Dwight buys the office park and starts to lay down the law as the new
landlord, cutting back services everywhere. Andy discovers faulty
printers,
Michael gets out ahead of the bad press, for which Jo rewards him by
bringing
Holly back, replacing Toby, who's on extended jury duty for the Scranton
Strangler case.
Michael and Holly work through getting back into a relationship, then
barrel
forward to an engagement and, finally, to moving to Colorado so that she
can
better take care of her parents. Angela gets engaged to her State Senator
boyfriend (Oscar and Ryan are both sure that he's gay).
With Michael on his way out, Sabre sends his replacement in the form of
Deangelo Vickers (Will Ferrell). This is a typically nuanced Ferrell
characters, much like Michael Scott -- sometimes he's straight-up logical
and
sensible and much more of the time, he's just slightly off, but in a way
that's actually believable. He and Michael work together transitionally
for a
few days and then he's finally in the driver's seat by himself. Michael's
last day is poignant, especially his goodbye with Jim. "We'll say goodbye
over lunch tomorrow."
It doesn't take long before Vickers has to back up a boast that he can do
the
Jordan dunk by showing everyone on the hoop in the warehouse. Vickers
dunks
and hangs off of the hoop, pulling the whole thing down on himself. After
a
brief reappearance in a hospital gown where he tells what sounds like an
incomprehensible bar joke, he's escorted off and we find out that he fell
into a coma soon after.
Everything is actually running smoothly at the office, without Michael or
Deangelo in charge. Jo calls to ask Jim to be acting manager and he
declines,
thinking that she'll just let it keep coasting like it is. Then Dwight's
phone rings. Dwight is now acting manager. Dwight goes mad with power and,
long story short, ends up discharging a firearm near Andy's ear, rendering
him temporarily deaf and also ending his term as acting manager. Jo
selects
the person on staff with the most seniority to replace him. Say hello to
acting manager Creed Bratton.
Jo also elects Toby, Gabe, and Jim to a committee to find another manager.
They go through a rogue's gallery of candidates, including James Spader,
Jim
Carrey, Will Arnett, Warren Buffet, Ricky Gervais (as David Brent, of
course), and Ray Romano. Kelly, Dwight, Andy, and Darryl also interview
for
the position. It is all pretty disastrous, with Gabe torpedoing himself by
insulting Kelly, who rats out his behavior vis-á-vis Erin to Jo, who
sends
him back to Florida. Kelly slips in on the committee and takes up Dwight's
bribe, as does Toby. Jim puts his foot down.
We end the season with Michael gone and a few attempts at replacing him
having backfired spectacularly.
The Climb (2019) -- "7/10"
This is the story of the way the lives of two men who are good friends with
each other -- but one of whom is not really that great of a friend --
intertwine over the years. The acting and direction were quite good. It
was a
low-key film of some average people's lives.
I'm Sorry -- The movie starts on a cycling climb outside of Marseilles, in
France. Mike (Michael Angelo Covino) is a cyclist and has invited his
friend
Kyle (Kyle Marvin) on a ride up a hill with him. The hill is key because
Mike
reveals to Kyle that he has slept with and continues to sleep with his
fiancé -- from before Kyle even knew her. The climb allows Mike to stay
out
of Kyle's clutches until they can reconcile. Mike chases down a 2CV that
annoyed him and the driver ends up kicking his ass for him. In the
hospital
later, Kyle's fiancé checks in on Mike and they end up kissing. Kyle
catches
them.
Let Go -- The next scene is the funeral of Mike's wife (Kyle's former
fiancé). Kyle and Mike don't really reconcile, but they do talk.
Thanks -- Thanksgiving at Kyle's house with his family, which is a little
toxic and controlling, but not excessively or unusually so. Kyle is there
with Marissa, his former high-school sweetheart and freshly minted
fiancé.
The family doesn't exactly approve, but they accept. Kyle's mom reveals
that
she's invited Mike to Christmas dinner. Mike shows up completely plastered
and gets a lesson from Kyle's mom on not being selfish. He passes out in
the
living room through the coffee table.
It's Broken -- Out of pity, Kyle invites Mike along on his New Year's ski
trip with Marissa. Marissa isn't exactly over the moon about it. She's
teaching Kyle to ski (he's a snowboarder) and Mike wants to take him on a
black-diamond run. Mike goes alone and breaks his arm, ruining the day. He
continues to ruin it by roping Kyle into playing Jägermeister drinking
games. Kyle passes out before Marissa can take advantage of him. She goes
downstairs and ends up drinking with, and sleeping with, Mike, instead.
Stop It -- Kyle's bachelor party is in an ice-fishing hut. In a repeat of
the
first scene, Mike reveals to Kyle that he slept with Marissa. He goes on
to
tell Kyle that she's not right for him, that he should leave her because
he's
too good for her. Somewhere in that speech, though, Kyle fell through the
ice
and Mike rescues him.
Grow Up -- Kyle has cut Mike off, but Mike crashes his wedding anyway,
yelling that Kyle shouldn't go through with it. Kyle's family is visibly
supportive. Marissa reveals that she's pregnant, whereupon the priest
calls
the wedding off until after the birth of the child.
Fine -- Kyle, Marissa, and their son Otis visit Mike at his new job at a
bicycle/coffee shop. Marissa tells Mike that Kyle misses him. Several
years
later, Mike helps Kyle move out after his divorce. He's only moving a few
houses down the street. The three of them go for a ride, with Mike
encouraging Otis to take off his training wheels.
French Exit (2020) -- "9/10"
This was an absolutely delightful film from beginning to end. It's as if
someone extracted the neat bits from a Wes Anderson movie and pressed all
of
the overly quirky and self-aware bits out of it. I enjoyed the hell out of
this story, the dialogue, the performances -- Michelle Pfeiffer, of
course,
stands out -- and the pacing.
Frances Price (Michelle Pfeiffer) lives with her son Malcolm (Lucas
Hedges)in
sumptuous luxury in a giant apartment in Manhattan. Her husband died a
dozen
years ago. The money from their marriage has run out. She is forced to
sell
all of her belongings and furnishings before everything is reclaimed by
the
estate at the end of the year. A good friend Joan (Susan Coyne) offers
Frances her apartment in Paris. Malcolm is quite shiftless, but in an
unoffensive way. He will have to leave his fiancé Susan (Imogen Poots).
Frances and Malcolm and Small Frank (the cat) take a transatlantic cruise
to
Europe. Malcolm takes up with the ship's clairvoyant Madeleine (Danielle
Macdonald), who sees some thing in the cat and can also, apparently,
detect
when old ladies will die. Frances boldly sneaks through customs with a bag
full of cash and a tranquilized cat. They set up a relatively innocuous
existence in Paris, making the acquaintance of Mme Reynaud (Valerie
Mahaffey), who's a bit lonely but means well.
Small Frank runs away and Frances is devastated. She's convinced that her
husband's soul lives in that cat. Frances and Malcolm hire a private
investigator Julius (Isaach De Bankolé) to find Madeleine, so that she
can
contact the cat. In the context of this film, this all makes sense. Julius
finds her, they hold a séance, and voila! Small Frank is talking through
the
candle on the table. No-one present is surprised one bit.
Frances's plan is to kill herself once the money runs out. She's burning
through her cash heedlessly. Is she doing it on purpose? Or does she not
know
what money is worth? It's unclear. Frances writes a postcard to Joan,
telling
of her plan, but doesn't expect it to be delivered. Because she tips
€100,
the postcard is delivered. Joan arrives soon after, to save her friend.
Because Malcolm called Susan early one morning, she and her fiancé Tom
(Daniel di Tomasso) arrive on the doorstep as well.
Now everyone is living in the same apartment -- France, Malcolm, Joan,
Julius, Madeleine, Mme Reynaud, Susan, and Tom -- working their way
through
their various issues. Frances gives away the last of her money to some
homeless people in the park she can see from her window, contacts Small
Frank
one last time with Madeleine, then disappears into the streets of Paris in
the wee hours.
Lupin S02 (2021) -- "8/10"
This season starts with Lupin (Omar Sy) hot on the trail of Léonard (Adama
Niane), the man who'd kidnapped his son Raoul (Etan Simon) at the end of
season 1. Youssef (Soufiane Guerrab) and Lupin give chase in an
appropriated
car. Youssef knows that Assane is Lupin and Lupin knows that Youssef
knows.
They end up driving to a castle -- this mixes parts of the plots of two
stories from the Lupin pantheon -- where he confronts Léonard. He locks
Youssef in the car, but not before Youssef can call for backup.
Lupin throws Léonard out of a window, but not before he lights the car on
fire where he's stashed Raoul. Lupin is devastated and then arrested. He
finds out that Youssef had released Raoul, is massively relieved, and then
escapes custody to rescue Raoul again. He takes Raoul back to Claire
(Ludivine Sagnier), but is walking into a trap. Claire warns him off at
the
last minute and he makes a daring escape.
Assane's nemesis Hubert Pellegrini (Hervé Pierre) has started working
with
an international banker named Courbet (Stefan Crepon) and plans to siphon
off
the large part of his daughter Juliette's (Clotilde Hesme) charity
auction's
earnings. Assane has his own plan to seduce Juliette, but not for money.
Instead, he wants her to talk to her mother to learn what Hubert did to
Lupin's father decades ago (detailed in season 1). Lupin steals a famous
Picasso for her, then returns it just as cleverly. Juliette convinces her
mother to talk to the police, who arrest Hubert.
Hubert is soon released -- he's rich and powerful -- and gets on Assane's
partner Benjamin's (Antoine Gouy) trail, forcing him to leave his shop and
to
abandon everything he owns. Hubert also has Léonard killed in Lupin's
apartment, framing him for his murder. Benjamin and Assane are on the run,
but they have anticipated every step of the way, with one hideout after
another -- things they've planned since they were two reckless teenagers,
learning about the catacombs under Paris.
Youssef finds evidence of his boss, police commisioner Dumont's (Vincent
Garanger) involvement with Hubert, as well as more evidence of Assane's
father Babakar's (Fargass Assandé) framing and betrayal by Hubert.
Hubert's
world is starting to unravel, but he doesn't know it yet. He thinks that
he,
along with Courbet, will be able to steal millions from the charity.
Unbeknownst to Hubert, Courbet is a plant, working with Benjamin and
Assane.
Coulbert siphons the money away into his and Assane and Benjamin's
accounts
instead (they are thieves, after all).
Assane sneaks into Hubert's box and forces a confession from him
(recording
it, of course). Youssef and his compatriots -- Laugier (Vincent Londez)
and
Belkacem (Shirine Boutella) -- find and arrest Dumont, letting Assane go.
He
crashes the stage and accuses Hubert publicly of all of his crimes. The
police get the confession and arrest Hubert. Assane escapes in the tumult,
disguised as a fireman (an outfit he'd stashed in the opera house for just
such an occasion). Assane is made by a group of young people and is forced
to
flee the police, first on foot, then by boat. He bids adieu to Claire and
Raoul and vanishes into the night.
Watched it in French with English subtitles.
Kim's Convenience S05 (2021) -- "8/10"
Appa (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) and Umma (Jean Yoon) are learning to cope with her
MS diagnosis. The hardest part is penetrating daughter Janet's (Andrea
Bang)
massive shield of self-regard in order to tell her. She's so busy telling
everyone else what to do that she almost misses the news. Janet's
character
is written quite well -- I think it's an ironic take, but I can't be sure.
She's a terrible, narcissistic person. Gerald (Ben Beauchemin) is a bit
better, but he, too, defaults to thinking he has nothing to learn from
anyone
(that he already knows everything) and spends his time teaching Appa life
lessons (instead of the other way around).
This whole season is like a hate note to generation Y or Z or both. Some
of
it is almost a bit over the top, but maybe that's because I don't
understand
how those generations tick. The show where Kimchi (Andrew Phung) gets in
trouble for prioritizing a meeting over consoling a co-worker on a crying
jag
is nearly impossible to process.
A huge theme is lying to impress other people. Umma and Appa lie about
living
in a certain neighborhood in order to be able to use the tennis courts
there.
That seems kind of harmless, though, compared to how casually Janet lies
big
for the same reason: to impress just pretty much anyone -- not even
friends.
Like when she lies about her upbringing to her photography class students.
Even worse, though, she completely made up her resumé, then called it
"embellishing" even when she was totally called on it by a potential
employer.
Jung (Simu Liu) and Kimchee are actually pretty good and seem positively
normal, compared to Janet and her cohort. Shannon (Nicole Power) is zany
and
also pretty self-centered, but sweeter somehow. She and Jung break up by
the
end of the season.
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) -- "6/10"
Austin Powers (Mike Meyers) is back in his second movie. This time, his
honeymoon is cut short because his wife Vanessa Kensington (Elizabeth
Hurley)
is revealed to be a fembot controlled by Doctor Evil (Mike Meyers). Powers
kills his robot wife, mourning only briefly before remembering that he can
now shag all he wants. This movie is not deep.
Dr. Evil is presented with his 1/8-sized clone, whom he brands Mini-Me
(Verne
Troyer) and "adopts" to be closer to him than his son, Scott (Seth Green),
who is revealed to have been the product of Evil's pairing with Frau
Farbassina (Mindy Sterling) when he'd traveled back in time (later in the
film). She is number 3 in the organization. Number 2 (Robert Wagner/Rob
Lowe)
tries to convince Dr. Evil that having bought Starbucks is going to get
them
a shit-ton of money, but Evil is distracted by more convoluted plans for
world dominance. Also, he doesn't seem to understand that 1 billion is
1000
million.
He settles on a plan to travel back in time to steal Powers's mojo. MOD
also
has a time machine -- a Volkswagen Beetle colored in groovy, rainbow
colors
-- and Powers goes back in time to the late 60s as well. There, he meets
Mustafa (Will Ferrell) and Ivana Humpalot (Kristen Johnston) and Robin
Spitz-Swallows (Gia Carides) as well as Felicity Shagwell (Heather
Graham), a
top CIA agent.
Dr. Evil's new Scottish henchman Fat Bastard (Michael Meyers) is also in
the
60s. Powers thwarts Evil's plan to use a space laser to extort the planet.
There are a lot of broad jokes and broad humor, but it's amusing enough.
It's
funny that they have to kill Mustafa to prevent him from revealing the
local
of Evil's volcano lair when Evil has carved a giant bust of himself into
the
mountain. It's funny that Evil doesn't know that trillions are even bigger
than billions.
It was amusing enough, but it wasn't cohesive or funny enough to really be
worth two hours. The sets were fun. The cameos were fun: Elvis Costello,
Jerry Springer, Rebecca Romijn, Woody Harrelson, Tim Robbins, Willie
Nelson,
Fred Willard. I gave it an extra star because it spawned so many memes.
Heart Condition (1990) -- "5/10"
I didn't finish watching this, but began with morbid fascination, mostly
based on the cast and the description on IMDb:
" A racist cop receives a heart transplant from a black lawyer he hates, who
returns as a ghost to ask the cop to help take down the men who murdered
him."
Jack Moony (Bob Hoskins) is the likable, tenacious, and casually racist
cop
-- a character inconceivable 30 years later -- whereas Napoleon Stone
(Denzel
Washington) is the successful, rich, and somewhat sleazy lawyer whose
involvement in the underworld ends up getting him killed. At about the
same
time that Moony's heart fails, Stone is killed and his harvested heart is
transplanted into Moony. When Moony awakes, he realizes that he has not
only
Stone's heart, but his ghost is riding shotgun now. Stone and Moony team
up
to solve Stone's murder.
The two leads are strong, but they can't come even close to saving this
formulaic and oddly written comedy/crime/noir film. As I noted above, I
didn't finish watching this. Also, I think I watched what I watched in
German, but I'm no longer sure.
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https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=42882021-08-30T16:27:55+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Creed II (2018) -- "5/10"
Creed (Michael B. Jordan) becomes champion at the start of the movie in a
thoroughly unconvincing bout. He is trained by Rocky (Sylvester Stallone).
Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren) is in Russia and trains his son Viktor
(Florian
Munteanu), who is a force of nature in the boxing ring. Ivan works with
promoter Buddy (Russell Hornsby), who approaches Creed in the most
ham-handed
way for a "rematch" against Drago.
Creed, because he's weak-willed and kind of dumb, succumbs to the pressure
and takes the match. Cue a montage of them training. Rocky doesn't take
part
because he says it's senseless. Cue a match where Viktor absolutely
slaughters Creed -- just like his father slaughtered Apollo Creed before
him.
In this case, Viktor hits Creed when he's still down, so he's
disqualified.
Creed is still the WBC champion, but he's a shattered mess with broken
ribs
in a hospital whereas Viktor is still fighting and bellowing about a
rematch.
Creed agrees to the rematch, but with Rocky as his trainer. They go to the
desert to some sort of prison-camp-looking training ground where Creed
trains
just like Rocky did in Russia before his match in Moscow. Creed overcomes
all
odds and beats Viktor. The end.
There are more things, like Ludmilla Drago (Brigitte Nielsen) showing up a
few times, with a complicated history in that family. Or that Creed and
Bianca's (Tessa Thompson, phoning it in) baby is deaf because Bianca's
also
deaf. At least a 1/3 of the movie was about their relationship. The
subplot
with Bianca's singing career taking off -- OMG she's deaf -- could have
been
excised completely without losing anything. Her music was not very good
anyway.
This is basically a shitty remake of Rocky IV. Michael B. Jordan is wholly
unconvincing as a gutty fighter. At 130 minutes, the movie was much too
long.
I'm a sucker for Dolph Lundren and Sylvester Stallone, but I guess I'll
have
to wait for The Expendables 4 for something I can enjoy. It was reasonably
well-made, so I didn't deduct more stars, but maybe I should have.
The Boys S02 (2020) -- "9/10"
The second season starts with Butcher (Karl Urban) framed by Homelander
(Antony Starr) for Stillwell's (Elisabeth Shue) murder and in the wind and
the rest of the Boys in hiding with a gang that Frenchie (Tomer Capon)
knows.
A new super-villain hits the shores of New York -- and turns out to be
Kimiko's brother, Kenji (Abraham Lim). They capture him and head out on a
boat, but have to flee back to shore. The Seven attack, chasing them
through
tunnels and catch and kill Kenji. It's Stormfront (Aya Cash), not
Homelander
who does it, ruthlessly and not without pleasure. Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara)
vows revenge.
The Deep (Chace Crawford) is falling into a Scientology-like church and
tries
to ingratiate himself back into the Seven, but Homelander's not having it.
Homelander is becoming more and more ruthless -- and showing more and more
what a psychopath he is. After having killed Stillwell, he gets
Doppelganger
(Dan Darin-Zanco) to pretend to be her so that they can continue their
relationship. Homelander doesn't even care that it's not really her.
Annie (Erin Moriarty) gets a sample of Compound V out into the wild and
reveals to the world that supes are made, not born. Vought rolls with it,
using their marketing might to gain more power from it. CEO Stan Edgar
(Giancarlo Esposito) is a dead-eyed master of taking control. He calls
Homelander's bluff and seems to be the only person capable of thwarting
him.
This doesn't sit well with Homelander, though.
Homelander retreats to Becca and his son, Ryan, trying to push him into
using
his powers. The boy doesn't want to, but finally does -- to keep
Homelander
away from his mother.
Stormfront! Where to begin? She is designed to get on your last nerve. Her
innate evil -- akin to Homelander's -- is slowly revealed throughout the
season. Stormfront has been around for a long time -- since before WWII,
when
she was still named Liberty. She came up in the Reich, though, and has a
serious race issue. He story arc culminates in her finally getting Ryan to
use his powers for real when she's choking out his mother. Stormfront
turns
pretty crispy, but isn't dead yet (apparently supes are kind of immortal).
Maeve (Dominique McElligott) is increasingly disaffected and plans
Homelander's downfall by threatening to release video of their "rescue" of
the airliner in the previous season. Annie is still working with the boys
to
get more dirt on Vought, taking them to Sage Grove, where Vought is
producing
more supes in a sort of mental institution/supe factory, where they find
Lamplighter (Shawn Ashmore), who's able to explain his actions of the past
well enough that the Boys spare him.
Congresswoman Victoria Neuman (Claudia Doumit) finally calls a hearing to
before Congress to discuss Vought's behavior, but the star witness
Lamplighter self-immolates in the middle of the tower on a rescue mission
with Hughie (Jack Quaid) to rescue Annie. Now they need to get Vogelbaum
to
be the star witness, but it's broken up when people's heads start
exploding
every which way but loose. Vogelbaum is dead, as are several
Congresspeople.
With Stormfront's Nazi past leaked, all sides return to their original
places, with the Boys exonerated, Annie back in the Seven (as well as
A-Train, but not The Deep). At the end, we see the head of The Deep's
church
Adana (Goran Visnjic) yucking it up with Neuman...right before she blows
his
head off with her mind power (spoiler: she's the unknown assassin).
Hughie,
moving on, gets a job with her campaign.
I continue to enjoy this unflinching, dark look at superheroes that draws
a
lot of material from the original comic books, but weaves it into a
slightly
different story.
The Office (US): S04--s05 (2007--2009) -- "9/10"
Season four sees Karen leave the Scranton Branch to become branch manager in
Utica instead, where we see her try to poach Stanley. (God only knows why.
Did she need someone with basic Sudoku or crossword skills?) Michael and
Jim
and Dwight drive up to Utica to "defend" their honor against this attack.
Of
course, everything goes wrong -- and Stanley stays in Scranton because he
was
just maneuvering for a raise anyway.
After her spectacular firing at the end of the previous season, Jan moves
in
to Michael's condo and takes over, spending a lot of money to remodel
things
for her extended stay there. Michael doesn't really have the money for it,
but he can't say no. We see at a catastrophic dinner party at Michael and
Jan's that Michael sleeps on what amounts to a dog bed at the foot of her
bed. There's a video camera in the bedroom. The evening ends with the
police
breaking up a domestic-violence dispute after Jan throws something through
Michael's laughably small flat-screen TV. Their relationship is over for
now.
Dwight and Angela come out in the open with their relationship, but it
soon
sours when he euthanizes one of her sickly cats. She starts dating Andy
instead. Dwight and Angela soon start a dalliance again, though, sneaking
off
to the warehouse for one quickie after another. Andy has to be happy with
a
kiss on the forehead.
Ryan gets very big for his britches at corporate, lording his new role
over
Michael and the Scranton branch. He makes a modernization push, having a
new
web site built and then demanding that everyone book their orders through
it.
The salespeople are not excited about it, but try to work with him, at
least
a little bit. Eventually, it comes out that he's double-booking sales on
the
site and he's fired for fraud.
Toby moves to Costa Rica and is replaced by Holly, who is a female version
of
Michael. Holly and Michael inevitably spiral toward each another. Pam
takes a
three-month graphic-arts course in NYC, so she and Jim have to deal with a
long-distance relationship. Michael throws a giant party for Toby's
departure
-- because he hates him and wants to celebrate that he's gone. Jim wanted
to
propose to Pam at the party, but Andy usurps him and proposes to Angela.
She
accepts.
Jim eventually proposes to Pam on one of their trips between New York City
and Scranton. She eventually returns from her art school, but has decided
that she doesn't like digital graphics design, so she's staying in
Scranton.
Jim is delighted because he's bought his parents' house and surprises her
with it. She's delighted, against all expectations.
Michael and Holly's relationship ends when CEO David Wallace finds out and
he
banishes her to the Nashua branch. In other relationship news, Andy finds
out
that Angela and Dwight are still having their affair, despite Andy and
Angela's engagement and wedding plans. After a showdown, they all break
up,
leaving Angela back on the singles market.
Corporate sends Charles Miner (Idris Elba) to take over the branch,
causing
Michael to resign in protest and to start the Michael Scott Paper Company.
Pam and Ryan jump ship as well, hiring on as sales associates. Their
office
space is in a large supply closet in the same building. Michael's penchant
for genius-in-stupidity lets him steal a lot of clients from Dunder
Mifflin
with unsustainable prices, leading Dunder Mifflin to offer him a buyout.
Pam,
Michael, and Ryan are re-hired at Dunder Mifflin, with Pam moving to sales
and Ryan dropping back down to his original temp position (which is a
lovely
joke that a useless temp position remains after years and years and
years).
The quality remains quite high, with almost no dead or filler episodes.
The
writing is impressive.
Belleville Cop (Le Flic de Belleville) (2018) -- "6/10"
This was a comforting and soothing movie to watch while recovering from a
flash migraine. It was utterly and unabashedly formulaic, following a
formula
established in the 80s, enhanced only by Omar Sy's and Luis Guzman's
charm.
The story is mainly about Baaba (Omar Sy), a Parisian cop who was born in
and
works in Belleville, a neighborhood in Paris. He still lives with and is
very
close to his mother Zohra (Biyouna). His girlfriend is in love with him,
but
is losing patience with his inability to commit to a life together.
After a few scenes establishing the points above -- and also showing that
Baaba is a good cop with a flair for investigation as well as the gift of
gab
-- we see Baaba meet an old friend of his from the neighborhood, Roland
(Franck Gastambide). Before Roland can reveal much of what he was doing in
Miami as a police officer, assassins show up and kill him right at the
table.
Baaba gets assigned to find out what happened, tracking the case to Miami,
where he's teamed up with Lieutenant Ricardo Garcia (Luis Guzmán). Baaba
travels with his mother, whom he sets up in a nice apartment, funded by
his
police department in Paris. Garcia's mother is also heavily involved in
his
life and they have a barbecue party together at one point. Zohra gets
involved with one of the gentlemen assigned to assist around the grounds.
The movie had a bit of a Beverly Hills Cop or 48 Hours vibe to it, with
the
fish-out-of-water (black) cop traveling to the city of a more seasoned but
jaded and black-sheep of a cop. They team up to find the bad guys and
solve
the case, with Baaba returning to Paris in triumph. Unsurprisingly, he
learned a lot about himself and is ready to take the next step, moving in
with his girlfriend -- and without his mother in tow. The end.
I watched it in French with German subtitles.
Batman (1966) -- "6/10"
This is the original movie about Batman (Adam West), Robin (Burt Ward), and
Alfred (Alan Napier) doing battle with the Penguin (Burgess Meredith), the
Riddler (Frank Gorshin), the Joker (Cesar Romero), and Catwoman (Lee
Meriweather). They all reprise their roles from the campy TV show of the
same
name.
Having individually been foiled umpteen times by the Dynamic Duo, the four
villains team up to one absolutely wacky and Rube Goldbergian plan, which
pretty much immediately fails. This despite Batman's utter inability to
recognize Catwoman when she's not wearing her cat ears and mask -- and
also
vamping with a ridiculous Russian accent. They rally and improvise and
come
up with something even more unlikely -- this succeeds a bit better, but is
thwarted by the insuperable Batman and his trusty sidekick.
The quartet's plan to kidnap the U.N. fails and Batman saves the day --
although the U.N. members' minds have been swapped when they were
rehydrated.
The movie was incredibly campy from start to finish -- and from start to
finish takes quite a long time, enough time for everyone involved to chew
the
scenery for a good long time. The scene with Batman trying to deposit a
cartoon bomb at the docks takes long minutes and somehow doesn't end up
being
funnier for all that (sometimes these kinds of drawn-out scenes turn funny
after a while -- thing Tig Notaro with her bar stool).
The sets are quite interesting, with everything clearly labeled -- more
often
than not, as Bat- something-or-other. The costumes are OK, with some
strange
bits like Cesar Romero's mustache having been painted white along with the
rest of the Joker's face.
Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) -- "6/10"
I can't tell whether I've outgrown these kinds of movies or whether they've
just been making them worse. Everything seems trite and cookie-cutter and
designed-by-committee.
Of course, there's a little deaf/mute, pacific-islander girl (Kaylee
Hottle)
(a ka-ching on the identity matrix) with whom Kong communicates almost
exclusively. Of course, she's the hero because you're watching a
children's
movie. There's no use complaining about it: no matter how violent and
over-the-top the CGI, no matter how attractive they seem to be making the
film to a mature audience in the trailer, if it's rated PG-13, then it's
going have been written by or for children.
Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) is the researcher in charge of Kong's
artificial
habitat on Skull Island. Humans have ostensibly trapped him there to
protect
him from Godzilla's predations. Kong is not pleased with it and throws
missiles into the roof of the doom to partially disable it.
Seemingly out of the blue, Godzilla attacks a facility run by Apex
Cybernetics in Florida. Apex is trying to build some massive device that
is
attracting Godzilla's attention (spoiler alert: it turns out to be
Mecha-Zilla). They realize they need a better energy source, which they
figure is in the Hollow Earth (which is, apparently, a thing), so they
send
some sort of Earth-piercing ship to navigate the reverse-gravity interface
and then land inside the Earth, with Kong in tow, of course, because he's
got
to help them find the power source. He manages to find it and brings it
back
with him to the surface, via a tunnel that Godzilla carved with his
radioactive fire-breath. I am not making this up. The gravitational
interface
is not a problem for either Titan to navigate.
Alexander Skarsgård is in this as some sort of rogue
adventurer/geologist/archeologist/I-wasn't-paying-attention, but he's
really
there to grab the ladies (news flash: not that many are going to watch
this,
despite having three female "leads" of varying ages and having a hunk in a
subordinate role) whereas Millie Bobby Brown (11 from Stranger Things) is
there to grab the upper end of the PG-13 crowd, to let them know that they
and their grrrl power are firmly in charge. Brown's character Madison
Russell
(I am not kidding) solves problems by just following her gut instinct and
failing upward. Planning and thinking are for boomers. Julian Dennison
plays
her nervous and more-hesitant sidekick Josh Valentine (again, not
kidding),
but he's not able to spread his wings here as much as he did in Deadpool.
Once Kong has his ancient weapon/power source and Mecha-Zilla is powered
up,
we're ready for a good 30 minutes of destroying cities, shifting
allegiances,
and enough almost-wins and lead changes to satisfy three Wrestlemanias.
Long
story short: Godzilla and Kong team up to destroy Mecha-Zilla, Godzilla
leaves the area, apparently undamaged, Kong remains, somewhat damaged.
The
epilogue shows Kong in a new Monarch-run encampment in the Hollow World
(because now it's easily accessible?)
Honestly, this movie was nothing like what the trailer promised. The
trailer
looks like a dark take where perhaps bad things might happen and lessons
might be learned, but the movie is actually a CGI-orgy meets Spy Kids.
Some
of the power moves in the battle scenes were neat, but after 300 of them,
it
got kind of boring. I don't understand how they continue to put so much
time
into these interminable CGI sequences when everyone involved knows that
it's
too much. There is no reason that this thin plot needs to be almost two
hours
long. Say more with less.
Achtung, Fertig, WK (2013) -- "6/10"
This was the sequel to Achtung, Fertig, Charlie, with only Marco Rima
reprising his role as Kommandant Reiker. The plot is basically that a
Swiss
man named Alex skipped out of his military service, but he is now dating
Reiker's daughter Anna (Liliane Amuat) and wants to marry her. They're
doing
fine together (he's a yoga teacher), but they don't have nearly enough
money
to buy a house. Reiker offers them a house but only if Alex does his
military
service.
Alex shows up for WK (Wiederholungskurs) -- which is a yearly refresher
that
all military members have to do in Switzerland -- despite having never
actually done RS (Rekrutenschule or boot camp). As expected, he bungles,
crossing Wachtmeister Weiss (Martin Rapold, also reprising his role from
the
original). As in the original, the crew gets into hijinks. As in the
original, there is a smoking-hot woman there, but this time it's not
Reiker's
daughter (who's no longer played by Melanie Winiger), it's a
super-competent
soldier named Jessica (Sira Topic), who's been relegated to kitchen duty
for
lack of subordination.
Alex is one of the only ones who treats Jessica like a human being, so she
takes a shine to him. He's devoted, though, so the kitchen-rutting scene
is
not repeated in the sequel. Anna finds out about Jessica anyway, has a
fit,
and breaks it off with Alex. He's determined to win her back and get the
house, though, and he vows to win the supposedly impossible war game set
up
by Reiker's competition. In what comes as a shock to all, they manage it
in
the nick of time, with the chubby guy getting a girl, Jessica saving the
day
and proving her worth beyond the kitchen, and Alex getting Anna back and
winning their home.
I saw it in Swiss German.
Love, Death, and Robots S02 (2021) -- "9/10"
This is a series of cartoons and high-end CGI animations, ranging from 10 to
20 minutes in length. The skits range from kinda goofy -- the first is
about
an out-of-control household appliance in a retirement home -- to longer
and
more thoughtful -- like Snow in the Desert, which deals with immortality.
Pop
Squad is set in a world very much like that of the film Elysium or perhaps
Altered Carbon and is nicely rendered. Life Hutch was a tight story of a
man
fighting a rogue/damaged expert system in a survival pod. The final
segment
was The Drowned Giant, which is about how a town deals with a giant body
that
washes up on its shores. They basically take it in stride, not trying to
fit
it into their conception of the world. Months later, the only remaining
signs
of the giant are bones decorating bars.
The Crying Game (1992) -- "7/10"
IRA soldier Fergus (Stephen Rea) is part of a cell that kidnaps Jody (Forrest
Whitaker), a British soldier. They lure him into a trap with a female
member
-- it's a pretty clumsily executed trap, to be honest -- and then drag him
back to their lair. They interrogate him, but don't get much information.
Fergus befriends him, against orders, and getting in trouble himself. The
other members are growing weary of his relationship with Jody. They worry
that he will stand in the way when they will almost inevitably be required
to
kill him.
Jody is distraught at the news that he is to be executed (as is to be
expected), but happy that Fergus will be the one to do it -- if anyone has
to. As once before, he asks Fergus to get out the picture of his wife from
his wallet, this time telling him where to find her in the city.
The day comes when they decide Jody is more of a liability and must be
eliminated. Fergus volunteers to watch him on the last night, then takes
him
out to the forest to execute him. Jody runs, freeing his hands. Fergus
gives
chase. Jody escapes onto the road, where he's immediately hit by one
British
armored personnel carrier and then run over by another. Fergus escapes
back
into the woods, running off while British helicopters eliminate his
compatriots.
Some time later, Fergus is now posing as "Jim" in the city and he looks up
Dil (Jody's wife). He finds her singing at a bar, where bartender Col (Jim
Broadbent) helps him make her acquaintance. They grow close. He defends
her
from another boyfriend/lover Dave and they grow closer. They talk oft of
Jody, her husband. His things are still all over the apartment. But Dil
doesn't know yet that Jimmy knew him.
Jimmy gets a blowjob, which is just fine with him. But he is literally the
most oblivious person on the planet, because he has no idea that he's
spending most of his time with a cross-dresser at a bar that features only
drag queens on stage -- and whose customer base seems to be largely other
cross-dressers.
Finally, they decide to sleep together and Jimmy is, predictably, shocked
to
see a penis. He doesn't handle it well. Dil forgives him and works to
repair
their relationship. She knows Jimmy loves her, but he can't handle it. She
wants to help him. This seems kind of generous and kind of
self-destructive.
One of Fergus's IRA compatriots Jude (Miranda Richardson) also escaped
(somehow) and returns to pester Jimmy/Fergus. She's quite a bit more
hardcore
and manic that he is. She breaks into his apartment and tries to coerce
him
into helping the cause again -- explicitly threatening Dil. Jude thinks
she
has everything under control, but she may be pushing too hard. Maguire
(Adrian Dunbar) made it out as well and he, too, is a raging asshole. He
and
Jude are quite a pair.
Dil, on the other hand, is actually jealous of Jude, completely
misconstruing
her current relationship with Jimmy. She thinks that Jimmy and Jude are
both
from Scotland and has no idea that they're both in the IRA. Dil is a
hairdresser, but in a last bid to protect her, Jimmy cuts her hair off at
her
salon, changing her appearance so drastically that Jude and Maguire will
have
no idea who she is. Jimmy accompanies her back to the apartment and he
dresses her in Jody's old clothes. I'm honestly not sure if he thinks he's
resurrecting Jody. They rent a room at a hotel, where Jimmy leaves Dil in
order go to work.
Jude shows up at Jimmy's job site to tell him that he still has a
different
job to do (namely: the assassination). Dil "escapes" from the hotel and
gets
absolutely hammered, absolutely despondent. Jimmy finds her outside of her
apartment -- exactly where he doesn't want her to to be. She nearly ODs on
alcohol and pills but Jimmy saves her -- then confesses to his involvement
in
Jody's death. Dil seems to be at peace with it.
In the morning, Dil has tied Jimmy up and is back in her right mind. She
demands more answers, asking Jimmy to fill in the blanks she has in the
story
from the previous evening. She threatens him with his own pistol. Jude is
on
the move, but Jimmy is going to miss his IRA job. Maguire tears off to do
the
job himself, then gets capped in the middle of the street.
Jude tears off in their car. Dil unties Jimmy after they express their
mutual
love for each other. Jude comes right into the apartment -- which is,
mysteriously, unlocked -- but Dil gets the drop on her and shoots her
several
times. Dil wants to shoot Jimmy, but can't. Then Jimmy gently takes away
the
gun as she tries to shoot herself. Jimmy tells her she has to leave
(Jude's
dead on the floor). Jimmy stays and watches the police arrive, waiting for
them with the murder weapon in his hand, having wiped off Dil's prints.
Dil visits Fergus in prison as he serves the sentence for her crime. She's
counting the days until he gets out. He tells her the story of the frog
and
the scorpion, which he'd learned from Jody. The end.
The first time I saw this was in college, soon after it had come out. But
I
don't remember any of the plot except for the clutch revelatory scene.
That
was the only reason any of us went to go see it, but it turns out to have
been nearly completely irrelevant to the plot. I watched it this time in
German.
Men in Black: International (2019) -- "5/10"
The film opens with Agents H (Chris Hemsworth) and High T (Liam Neeson) in a
showdown with the Hive. Just the dialogue for this segment is enough to
encourage the viewer to leave after five minutes. I stuck around because
I'm
working my way through a cold, so a shitty simulacra of a better film from
an
older franchise, reworked to appeal to a generically intelligent and aged
audience was sufficiently entertaining.
But that's all it was: the plot was about protecting a ludicrously
overpowered weapon from a vaguely defined but immense and inscrutable evil
called the Hive. To do so, they must go through Riza (Rebecca Ferguson), a
three-armed and sultry arms dealer whom H used to date. Agent M (Tessa
Thompson)'s livelong dream is to be part of the organization she'd briefly
seen as a child. She eventually gets a probationary position at the MIB
and
pairs up with Agent H, who is a loose cannon (of course).
At some point, they pick up Pawny (voiced by Kumail Nanjani), who provides
comic relief and is instrumental in the defeat of the Hive (of course).
There
is CGI tech galore -- shine but no substance -- designed to impress the
pre-teen and teen market it's obviously targeted at.
There is also Agent C (Rafe Spall), who is an IT-guy (read: nerd) rather
than
a field agent and who suspects that H is the mole. Predictably, he and H
end
up being great friends and collaborators when they find the real mole.
Agent
O (Emma Thompson) is the head of the whole organization (T heads up the
London division) and has a seemingly omniscient gut feeling that something
is
wrong, but chooses to risk the whole organization to let a probationary
field
agent figure it out for them. The memories they build while doing it will
last a lifetime.
So H is vindicated and becomes probationary head of the London division,
with
C fully supporting him. M is now a full-fledged agent, but assigned to New
York, so H and M will have to deal with an unrequited relationship (unless
they requite it on the way back to Paris from London in the fancy car they
have to return to headquarters there). T is dead, along with the Hive.
With
the ultimate evil defeated, it's unclear what the MIB is supposed to do
now
-- all of the other alien species were shown amicably cooperating.
This movie is set in what used to be an interesting universe, but it's a
semi-reboot of the first film rather than a new story -- although this
time
with a black woman rather than a black man in the starring role. Hemsworth
and Thompson had great chemistry in Thor: Ragnarok, but they were lukewarm
at
best in this half-hearted and committee-written script. Nanjani's voice
work
was good -- he had the best lines, although that's not even saying much.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=42402021-06-23T20:46:06+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Schitt's Creek S01--S06 (2015--2020) -- "9/10"
"Oh, David, It's a rare gift to strip vanity of its charm, yet here you are."
"Oh, Jocelyn, you'll soon learn that we aging mortals are blessed with
weakening eyes and fading memories, so we don't have to really see
ourselves."
"I never said it's the last place you'd ever want to end up. I described the
town as the last place I'd ever want to end up."
All of the characters are great, but I start off my recap with three
quotes
from Moira, who stands out for her impeccable diction and extensive
vocabulary. The article " A Guide To The Moira Rose Lexicon On
‘Schitt’s
Creek’" by Jessica Toomer
lists many of
her more exotic choices, with many examples. I've learned the following
words
so far,
* "Balatron" : A jester
or
buffoon (referring to Roland)
* "Bombilate" : To buzz;
to
make a certain noise or sound (referring to a roomful of people)
* "Lupanarian" :
Pertaining
to a brothel or prostitution (referring to the Kit Kat girls in
Cabaret)
* "Pawky" : Cunning; sly
(referring to Jocelyn)
* "Pettifogging" :
Dishonest or unethical in insignificant matters; meanly petty; mean;
quibbling (referring to Alexis)
* "Sephardic" :
Descended
from the Jews of the Iberian peninsula of the 15th century (referring
to
Johnny)
* "Singultus" : A hiccup
(referring to mishaps on the wedding day)
* "Spanandry" : A dearth
of
males (referring to the locality)
* "Testudine" : An order
of
reptile commonly known as turtles, tortoises and terrapins (referring
to
an actual turtle)
* "Unasinous" : Sharing
the
same amount of stupidity (referring to ideas)
For even more, "Schitt's Creek/Moira"
lists 62 pages of quotes.
This is the story of a ludicrously wealthy family that, in the first
episode,
learns that their accountant has absconded with their entire fortune and
had
never paid their taxes. The authorities show up to seize all of their
property, except for a town that patriarch Johnny Rose (Eugene Levy) had
bought as a joke for his son David (Dan Levy) because of its funny name --
Schitt's Creek.
The family moves to Schitt's Creek, all moving in to the only motel.
Mother
Moira (Catherine O'Hara) and daughter Alexis (Annie Murphy) are there with
father Johnny and son David. The proprietor of the motel is Stevie Budd
(Emily Hampshire), a jaded resident of the town who hasn't fled yet. She
befriends David in an uneasy alliance/truce that grows over the first
season.
Alexis, meanwhile, tries her best to continue being a socialite in the
town,
meeting Twyla (Sarah Levy), the waitress at the only diner, and Mutt (Tim
Rozon), son of the mayor Roland (Chris Elliot) and Jocelyn (Jennifer
Robertson), who are an odd couple (how could they be anything else with
Elliot involved). Mutt is an off-the-grid-composting,
wash-clothes-in-the-creek kind of guy, but obviously, opposites attract,
and
Alexis is spiraling toward him.
The series arc so far is the Roses are trying to find their feet again,
looking for jobs and other opportunities in the town. Each show is a
classic
sitcom episode, with its own arc, contributing to the overall season arc.
It's a one-camera affair, with no laugh track. The show is made in Canada,
so
it's thankfully got the appropriate amount of swearing to properly express
the angst that accompanies so many worlds colliding.
The first season's story arc ends with the family almost escaping. They'd
found a buyer willing to pay a million for the town -- but he falls into a
coma after overeating and overdrinking at the Schitt's house. He fails to
sign the contract by seconds. David escapes in Roland's truck. Alexis
tells
Ted she would marry him if she were staying, but she's not, so...and then
she
has to stay, so now she has to marry him? Even though she just banged
Mutt?
Season 2 resolves these conflicts: Alexis turns Ted down. David returns,
but
Stevie makes him suffer. Johnny Rose seems to have been half-conned into
getting a job as a mechanic at Bob's Garage. Moira and David try to
"remember" how to cook her family recipe.
The shows continue in this vein, with the Roses growing somewhat closer to
the Schitt's -- and to the Creek. Moira auditions for Jocelyn's singing
group
The Jazz-a-Gals, Mutt helps Alexis learn how to ride a bike, and she pays
it
forward to David. Mutt and David build a cedar chest for David's cashmere
sweaters. David helps Roland pick out an outfit for his The Devil Wears
Prada
role-play with Jocelyn. Johnny and Moira luck into a $200 mattress for
only
$50 -- but it's used. But it's memory foam. They accept their fate and
accept
the mattress's "memory" of Roland and Jocelyn's brief tryst.
Alexis and Mutt break up, putting both of them back on the market. Ted the
veterinarian rolled with the disappointment of Alexis's rejection of his
marriage proposal and has buffed up and started riding a motorcycle.
Alexis
is ... interested again, like a goddamned jackal.
David is working at the Blouse Barn and has converted it to an upscale,
chic
establishment. Jocelyn goes shopping there to pick up a cute outfit for
her
campaign for the town council. Moira is running against her, so David
catches
hell for having helped her opponent spruce up. Johnny is working on some
ideas, with office space in Bob's garage, but nothing's happening yet. He
tries to get into the raw-milk business, but Alexis's astounding stupidity
just loses him his seed money.
Johnny is hard up for cash and asks for David's entire paycheck to cover
the
bills. Alexis starts working for Ted as his secretary, a job for which she
is
spectacularly unqualified. Moira continues her campaign with a fundraiser
with local businesswomen -- although she and Johnny show up thinking that
the
demographic would be lesbians. Hilarity ensues. Actually, no. It was
pretty
cringey.
Jocelyn caves to the pressure and bows out of the race -- after admitting
to
Moira that Roland had used his mayoral clout to inveigle people into
putting
campaign signs in their yard. Moira will be on the council with Roland --
seeing him every day, something she clearly hadn't sufficiently
considered.
David helps his boss at the boutique land a windfall sum for selling the
name
"Blouse Barn" to an Australian mega-store interested in expanding into the
North American market.
She needed the money because David's transformation of her store had not
been
cheap. With money in hand, she remunerates David handsomely with $40,000,
but
then closes her store for a while and going on a long vacation, putting
him
out of a job. Still, the family ends season two with more money and
security
than they'd had. They reluctantly form the word "savings" with their
mouths
instead of spending it.
The next season starts with Moira learning the ropes on council. David and
Stevie are sleeping with the same guy. Mutt heads out of town with his
weird
girlfriend, while he gets Alexis to watch his barn (spoiler alert: she's
not
going to watch his barn; a family of woodchucks will take over before he
gets
back). Johnny is despondent that he'll ever find anything to do to help
his
family get back on its feet.
Stevie's aunt dies, leaving her the motel in her testament. Johnny finds
purpose in helping her make the motel profitable, as a partner. Alexis
considers college, but has to admit that she'd never finished high school.
She goes back to high school to finish her GED -- with Jocelyn as her
teacher. David briefly considers college, but it's too much effort to
scare
up his own diploma, Instead, he pitches a new store concept in the space
vacated by the closing general store.
David goes into business with Patrick, with whom he also begins a
relationship. Alexis finishes a college course and starts a consulting
business. Stevie and Johnny manage to fill the motel a few times and are
getting the business going. They rename the motel the "Rosebud" (her last
name is actually "Budd", but never mind). Mutt returns from his pine-cone
walkabout with Tennessee (Tallahasee), Alexis professes her love to Ted,
who's still happily dating farmer Heather, who's supplying artisanal
cheese
exclusively to David and Patrick's shop.
Moira is on the council and in the Jazza-a-gals and would barely recognize
herself. Jocelyn and Roland are having a baby. The Roses meet people from
their old world and no longer quite like what they see. The Roses organize
a
Singles Week for the town. David and Patrick profess their love for each
other. Alexis professes hers to Ted; Ted eventually reciprocates. The
motel
is full, so Johnny Rose is back in business. Moira stood by Jocelyn at the
hospital until Roland arrived. There are hijinks of various kinds (the
aforementioned per-episode plots) wherein lessons are learned, much fun is
had, and witty repartee flies.
Season five has Patrick and David as well as Alexis and Ted firmly coupled
up. Stevie is trying to spark a long-distance relationship with Emir, a
hotel/motel blogger/reviewer who'd stopped by once. When she tries to get
closer, he pulls away, though. Moira is in Bosnia, on the set of a film
that
she managed to make much better than it had any right to be.
Meanwhile, Moira is directing Cabaret, ostensibly aiding Jocelyn, who
seems
happy to have the weight off of her shoulders. Moira chooses Stevie as the
lead, a choice that is off to a very rocky start on account of how
terrified
Stevie is. They muddle through to a truce.
David and Patrick and Johnny play softball against Roland and Ronnie.
Patrick
got on Ronnie's bad side when he contracted her to remodel the store's
bathroom. During the game, Alexis and Ted break the new sink with
shenanigans.
David invites Patrick's parents for a surprise birthday party, but they're
surprised to find out that their son is gay and hurt that he didn't think
that he could tell them. They love David (of course) and everything turns
out
fine (of course). Soon, Patrick corrals David into a hike. After some
tribulations, they arrive at the lookout point and Patrick proposes.
On the day of Cabaret, Stevie is nowhere to be found and everyone assumes
its
nerves -- or the fact that David told her that he and Patrick are to be
married. That's kind of the reason, but only because she'd gone to pick up
a
gift for David and she got stuck in traffic on the way back. She and
Patrick
knock it out of the park on the night of the show and for the next week.
Moira's Crow film is shelved and she buries herself in the closet.
In Season six, as Moira's publicist, Alexis ropes Moira into attending a
soap-opera convention, filled with adoring fans with ready money. Moira
resigns herself to this phase of her life. Days later, though, the trailer
for The Crows Have Eyes III: The Crowening drops and Moira's fame begins
to
grow. It's being released on a streaming platform, so there's no official
premiere, but Alexis organizes one in town. They release crows that return
to
attack the crowd and help create an extremely viral video that boosts the
film's buzz even more. Moira is back?
Patrick and David are looking for a wedding venue and find a castle, but
it's
very expensive and the dates don't match for Alexis, who's supposed to
join
Ted in the Galapagos, where he has an opportunity as a researcher. She was
supposed to have already been there, but she'd mixed up the day and month
on
her ticket and flies only in a month. The castle is only available on a
Sunday when they slaughter pigs on the nearby farm, so the boys decide to
throw a wedding in the meadow behind the motel.
Ted and Alexis navigate their long-distance relationship. With Moira's
success, Alexis's publicist business is booming, as well. Ted admits that
the
research station is no place for Alexis at the same time that Alexis was
ready to ask him if she could stay for her business. They're happy to
continue in the long-distance vein.
In a hilarious scene, Moira and David get into their cups tasting horrible
wines that the proprietor and vintner would like to market with her name
on
it. They cannot find one that they like, but drink several bottles before
Patrick and David pick them up to schlep them home.
Ted shows up with surprise news: he's been offered a job in the Galapagos
for
at least three more years. Alexis cannot move to the island and he can't
give
up the opportunity. They part ways in a touching scene. Johnny and Moira
and
Roland and Jocelyn vie for the "presidential suite" in the motel they've
acquired. The business is growing. Moira gets in trouble with the
townspeople
for an unfortunate choice of words when describing the town (cited above).
David and Patrick's wedding plans proceed apace, with Stevie as the Maid
of
Honor, in charge of organizing their shared bachelor party. At Patrick's
request, they go to an escape room, where Alexis shines, getting them out
of
there in no time at all. Moira turns down an offer to appear on a Sunrise
Bay
reboot, while Rosebud Motels learns that their recently acquired motel is
a
bit of a money pit.
Johnny is struggling to finance the motels and meet every whim of an
increasingly unreasonable David. Stevie, following Johnny's advice in a
business book he'd written long ago, comes up with a plan for acquiring
more
motels and going big or going home. Johnny contacts his former assistant
Mike
-- who is now an extremely rich VC funder -- for a pitch. It seems like
everyone they knew simultaneously profited from having known the Roses and
also completely forgotten about them once they'd lost their fortune.
Mike has them flown in, but isn't able to be there personally. Instead,
they're in the hands of his snarky and nearly comically buffoonish
(although
regrettably believable) partners. The pitch is good, but the other
partners
don't even consider it. Instead, a few of the board members who were
already
considering jumping ship decide to take on Rosebud Motels as their first
big
investment.
They are on their way, but there is turmoil. The Roses are seemingly going
to
make good on their promise to get the hell out of the town as soon as they
are financially able. It's amusing how unappealing they are when they "go
back" to the way they were. David gleefully plans a return to New York
City,
assuming that Patrick will of course want to go there.
David awakes on the wedding day to a downpour that puts the kibosh on the
outdoor wedding, but they all rally to make it happen in the town hall
instead. Patrick had already organized a massage for David in order to
relax
him -- and the masseuse obliges. Patrick is surprised to hear what he'd
ordered. It's a very touching ceremony. Moira gets a late call to join the
Sunrise Bay cast after all -- they'd capitulated to all of her demands.
Johnny decides to move to California with Moira instead of setting up
Rosebud's offices in New York. David and Patrick will stay in Schitt's
Creek
in a lovely home. Stevie will stay as well, with Roland and Jocelyn
(they're
also not moving to New York, though it had been bandied about). Alexis is
still moving to New York, taking leave of Twyla, who's become her best
friend
(and is also, oddly, revealed to have been a lotto millionaire all along,
who's just happy with the simple life).
It's a lovely, well-written, and incredibly well-cast show. Each character
brought a lot to the table; there were no slackers, no stragglers. Highly
recommended.
La Casa de Papel S04 (2019) -- "7/10"
"Palermo: If I was his mother, I'd be lighting candles for him."
So we started watching this last season again, having stopped almost a
year
ago after two episodes. The crew is right where we left them:
* Berlin (Pedro Alonso, my favorite), showing up in flashbacks (because
he
went out in a blaze of glory at the end of season 3);
* Denver (Jaime Lorente), with the Vinny Barbarino laugh, who's totally
grown on me;
* El Profesor (Álvaro Morte), pulling the strings and keeping the team
on
a plan that seems to keep changing but is always "the plan", until it
seems that each bump and hiccup has been anticipated, if not actually
included from the beginning;
* Nairobi (Alba Flores), whose inspiring speeches rival Berlin's and
whose
gold-smelting prowess is unrivaled;
* Bogotá (Hovik Keuchkerian), who's Nairobi's chief diver and smelter
and,
soon, lover;
* Lisbon (Itziar Ituño), who's been captured and is being interrogated
and
manipulated by the evil
* Alicia (Najwa Nimri), who's arguably more ridiculous than Tokio;
* Stockholm (Esther Acebo), who's no longer really with Denver, but also
not quite with the shell-shocked
* Rio (Miguel Herrán), who's also no longer quite with the laughably
over-the-top
* Tokio (Úrsula Corberó), who tries to hard to be Margot Robbie
playing
Harley Quinn, but misses by a good bit;
* Stolid Helsinki (Darko Peric), still mourning his brother (cousin?)
* Oslo (Roberto Garcia), who only appears in flashbacks;
* Palermo (Rodrigo De la Serna), whose speeches are flamboyant and
erudite
but are missing something compared to those of Berlin or Nairobi;
* Arturo/Arturito (Enrique Arce) is still stirring up shit and, now,
apparently, roofie-ing other hostages and, finally
* Gandía (José Manuel Poga), the head of security released by Palermo
to
cause chaos so that he can regain control of the operation from Tokio
and
return to the plan
We see in flashbacks how much of the ensuing chaos had been planned for by
Berlin and El Professor, as well as Palermo, who's a psychotic, but
ferociously dedicated to both the plan and the memory of his lover Berlin.
Nairobi is recovering from her near-fatal gunshot wound; she is cared for
by
Bogotá and others. Tokio is nominally in charge, but gets captured by
Gandía, who'd been told how to escape by Palermo.
Gandía dislocates his own thumb to slip out of his handcuffs and then
suffered absolutely zero ill effects from it. Like, not for one second. We
see him pulling a rope to hang a 250-pound man scant minutes later,
seemingly
with no discomfort or loss of gripping force. The absolutely massive
concussion he had from Season 3 has also 100% healed as he sat on the
floor
for days with little food or water.
Palermo rejoins the group after winning back their trust, though
grudgingly
given. Gandia gets away and finally manages to shot Nairobi point-blank in
the head, killing a cast member for the first time that season. El
Profesor
is incensed but sticks to the plan (sub-part A31 or whatever), releasing a
video of Rio revealing how he'd been tortured by the Spanish state and how
Lisbon is being held captive by the same torturer (Alicia).
Alicia is fired, but miraculously locates El Profesor by the end of the
season (because the plot needed her to, despite how overwhelmingly
pregnant
she is). This not before El Profesor organizes Lisbon's escape back into
the
bank to rejoin the others.
Watchmen S01 (2019) -- "9/10"
The story is set in the world of the Watchmen comic series. It makes several
nods in that direction, but it takes a little while to get there. Instead,
they spend some time world-building, describing a Tulsa, Oklahoma that
underwent a White Night, during which the local Ku Klux Klan killed
dozens,
if not hundreds of police officers in one night. Since then, the police
have
gone underground and wear masks on-duty, to protect their identities. Some
of
them have taken on super-hero-like names, like Red Scare (Andrew Howard)
or
Looking Glass (Tim Blake Nelson).
Instead of the classic minorities, the police pursue white supremacists,
having hounded them to a sort of shanty town. There is a statue of their
patron saint Nixon outside of the encampment/trailer park. Robert Redford
is
currently president -- and has been for quite some time -- and has granted
reparations to black people.
The police chief of Tulsa is Judd Crawford (Don Johnson), who is hanged at
the end of the first episode. An old, wheelchair-bound man named Will
(Louis
Gossett Jr.) claims to have done it. Sister Night/Angela Abar (Regina
King)
finds him and takes him in for questioning, without arresting him first,
though, in some sort of extra-judicial process. A lot of stuff in this
show
seems to happen extra-judicially with the police having or granting
themselves a lot of leeway in blurring the lines between judge, jury, and
executioner.
Superheroes, on the other hand, have been banned. The remaining vigilantes
are hunted down and imprisoned or killed. So, no-one's allowed to dress up
and play hero anymore except for a handful of cops -- and only they seem
to
know who's legit. Laurie Blake (Jean Smart) is an FBI officer put in
charge
of the Judd's hanging. She used to be married to Dr. Manhattan before he
fucked off to Mars. During one episode, she tells a wonderful "brick joke"
.
With some jarring exceptions -- e.g. the introduction of Lady Trieu (Hong
Chau) -- the story is kind of interesting, slowly revealing connections to
the original stories. The closer it gets to the original mythology, the
better. The newer stuff is kind of trite -- a point the story itself seems
to
be aware of in the person of Agent Petey (Dustin Ingram), who has a PhD on
the original heroes and disdains any of the retellings. It's like he sees
the
future demise of the show.
In the first episode, I found the action scenes somewhat contrived. For
example, One member of the Seventh Cavalry has a 50cal machine gun, while
Sister Night hides behind a cow carcass. The carcass takes dozens and
dozens
of shots, visibly shredding apart but, miraculously doesn't let any bullet
through where it would matter. Lucky that. Also unexplained. She wears a
mask; she's not bulletproof.
Minutes later, two people -- Judd and Pirate Jenny (Jessica Camacho) --
crash-land a slow-flying aerial vehicle to Earth (an Owlship from the
original pantheon) from a height of several hundred meters, hitting the
ground at what looks like at least 100kph. Neither was belted in -- as was
evident in the immediately preceding shot -- but they both not only
survived,
they had enough strength to kick their way out and escape without a
scratch
or a contusion or a bruise or a concussion or any damage whatsoever. Judd
dances around at a dinner party later as if nothing had happened at all.
I'm
pretty sure that neither of them have superpowers.
In a different thread, we see Adrian Veidt (Jeremy Irons), formerly
Ozymandias, on an estate by himself, surrounded by his automata, several
copies each of Ms. Crookshanks (Sara Vickers) and Mr. Philips (Tom Mison).
He
puts them through exercises and continues to practice science (his big
thing
was being smarter than anyone else). The world thinks he's dead but he's
just
trapped on an English estate, plotting his schemes and scheming his plots.
Meanwhile, Angela finds out more about Will and how he's actually her
grandfather. She'd thought she was an orphan. She also finds out that Judd
was hiding Klan memorabilia in his closet. She jousts with Laurie while
cooperating somewhat to move the investigation forward. They go to meet
Lady
Trieu -- whom we'd only briefly met in that aforementioned jarring scene
where she was the quintessentially alien, ruling-class, trillionaire
genuis.
The set design is quite nice, with a mix of high-tech and pretty low-tech
(like the costumes, which are barely adequate for a Halloween party, but
this
seems deliberate) or even steampunk, like Veight's entire castle and
studio,
where he grows fetuses he fishes out of the lake into full-grown humans
(Crookshanks and Philips) in minutes while he eats the same cake he always
eats. I actually quite enjoy the the surrealist scenes with Irons in the
old
castle. He puts himself 100% into his roles and it shows. The castle
scenes
remind me a bit of Saló, with a lot less nudity and a better script.
"Veidt: Four years. Four years since I was sent here. In the beginning, I
thought it was a paradise, but it's not. It's a prison. So, with your
help,
with your lives, with your broken, mangled old bodies, one way or another,
I
will escape this godforsaken place."
We learn of Looking Glass's origin story. He was in New Jersey the day the
squid fell. He was there distributing the Watchtower with the rest of his
class. In the modern day, Looking Glass (Wade) is still traumatized that
another squidfall is coming.
He's sorta/kinda kidnapped by the Seventh Cavalry, having followed a
pretty
lady home, suspecting that her ride home was involved in the original
police
shooting. The Senator of Oklahoma is also there. They're testing an
inter-dimensional portal by throwing basketballs through it.
He hands Wade a tape to watch. Adrian Veidt speaks. Wade hears that the
squid
didn't come from another dimension. In fact, it came from Veidt. It was a
hoax, designed to pull humanity back from fighting itself to come together
against a common threat. The mini-squidfalls are also fake, dumped by
Veidt
in order to keep humanity united against a common, extra-dimensional
threat.
Veidt, meanwhile, is ready to try the catapult himself. He has a
"spacesuit"
that he trusts. He breaks through the "dome" covering his habitat and
discovers he's on ... Callisto? At any rate, he's orbiting Jupiter. He
drags
the bodies of his predecessors together to write "Save Me" on the surface.
He
is recoiled back into the the habitat to meet the Gamewarden, who metes
out
punishment.
Angela Abar (Sister Night) takes a bottle of drugs called Nostalgia that
she'd obtained from Will. They contain his memories. Manufactured as a
bulwark against dementia, the drug was never meant to be taken by someone
else. Angela dives deep into Will's origin story as Hooded Justice. He
became
part of the Minutemen, grew disappointed in them, took on the Ku Klux Klan
on
his own, and, finally, broke up their Cyclops plan to get black people to
kill each other through hypnosis. Angela awakes in Lady Trieu's lair.
As Angela recovers in the Millennium Clock Tower with Trieu and her
daughter/mother-clone, she remembers growing up in Vietnam -- the 51st
state,
after Dr. Manhattan won the war there -- and losing her parents to a bomb.
She remembers meeting her grandmother and then losing her, just as they
were
about to return to Tulsa. Trieu tells her of the Seventh Kavalry's plans
to
capture Dr. Manhattan, steal his power, and transfer it to the senator of
Oklahoma (I know, it sounds cheesier when I write it down, but it's
actually
fine).
Angela leaves, breaking out past the cops -- Red Scare and Pirate Jenny --
to
return home to Cal. She calls him Jon, smashes him in the head with a
hammer,
and digs out an amnesia device and then remembers how she put it there.
Since
her grandmother had died before taking her from Vietnam to Tulsa, she
stayed
and became a cop. She'd met Dr. Manhattan in a bar one night, during which
he
told her of the life they would have together.
We see Manhattan visiting Veidt -- 24 years after the squid event -- and
offering him the utopia he'd built on Europa. Veidt accepts. Hearing that
Dr.
Manhattan is inexplicably in love again, this time with Angela, not Laurie
Blake, Veidt offers him the amnesia ring -- plan A -- which Manhattan
accepts. It works. For 10 years, Manhattan had already been hiding as Cal
(Angela's husband), but now he no longer even knows he's Dr. Manhattan.
Angela does, though.
There's are some time-paradox shenanigans where Angela asks Manhattan/Cal
to
ask Will (Hooded Justice) -- with whom he's simultaneously conversing
because
he doesn't experience time the same way we do -- how Will knew about Judd.
Will asks "Who's Judd", with Angela realizing that she'd set the whole
ball
rolling in a what is now a classic time-loop paradox.
Manhattan tells Angela that the Seventh Kavalry is here and that he
won't/won't have/can't/can't have stop/ed them. Angela begs to differ and
takes out a whole slew of them, eventually with Jon/Cal/Manhattan's help.
But
the tachyon cannon fires anyway and sucks him into the artificial lithium
cage constructed to trap him. The Senator is waiting, ready to grandstand
and
then begin the energy transfer.
Veidt has long since grown bored of his "utopia", with his adoring
servants,
and continues to try to escape. He is put on trial, but of course it's a
sham. He is imprisoned, but the Game Warden unwittingly brings him the
horseshoe he uses to dig his way out of his dungeon. He waits for his
message
("Save Me") to arrive at its destination, which we learn is Lady Trieu,
who
turns out to be his daughter.
Her mother Bian had stolen one of Veidt's many samples (the narcissist had
stored vials of his seed in a secret safe in his office) and implanted it.
Trieu turns out arguably crazier and more narcissistic and more
intelligent
than Veidt (though not quite ... he's a clever sonofabitch). She sends a
rocket to pick him up once she sees that he'd written "Save
Me...Daughter".
He escapes, confronting the game warden one last time, whom he vanquishes,
revealing that they were all just cogs in a game he'd played on himself to
keep himself amused and mostly sane.
"Veidt: I had eight years to kill. Having a worthy adversary helped keep me
sane.
Game Warden: And was I a worthy adversary?
Veidt: No. But you put on a hell of a show."
Now that they're all back on Earth, things are coming to a head. Trieu is
poised to use her "Millenium Clock" for its true purpose: to absorb
Manhattan's energy and then implant it into her, transforming her into a
god
who will supposedly serve mankind. Veidt knows different, seeing in his
daughter very much of himself. As Trieu teleports everyone from the
Kavalry
basement to just below her clock, Manhattan manages to sabotage the
transfer
by whisking Veidt, Blake, and Wade off to Veidt's lair in Antarctica
(Karnak).
From there, they use his squid-producing device to deliver deadly frozen
shrimp that act as bullets from above to destroy both Trieu and the
Millennium Clock, disrupting the transfer. Manhattan is gone, but the
Senator
does not survive his transfer attempt. Trieu would have, but does not
survive
Veidt's hail of shrimp. Her plan is thwarted. Bian survives, as does
Angela,
who reconciles with Will, inviting her to his home after he'd tied up a
few
expository knots.
Blake and Wade take Veidt into custody -- for the murder of 3 million
people
25 years ago -- and Angela ponders whether an egg that Manhattan/Cal/Jon
had
left behind contains his power.
There were a few rough spots, but overall the story was excellent, as was
most of the acting. Tim Blake Nelson stands out, but no-one holds a candle
to
Jeremy Irons, who is worth the price of admission.
Overall the soundtrack was quite good, but episode 5 was especially good,
with several variations on George Michael's Never Dance Again, to
commemorate
the song that was playing when Wade (Looking Glass) was in New Jersey
during
the initial squid attack.
Thunder Force (2021) -- "5/10"
Lydia (Melissa McCarthy) and Emily (Octavia Butler) are lifelong friends. We
see them meet in grade school, when Emily moves to town after having lost
her
parents to super-powered criminals called Miscreants. Emily immediately
starts flexing her considerable mental muscles in class. The other kids
call
her a nerd. "I'm not a nerd, I'm smart!" Lydia comes to her rescue and
mops
up the bullies. In high school, they're still friends, with Emily destined
for greater things, and Lydia...not.
Lydia almost screws up Emily's academic chances when she forgets to wake
her
and Emily summarily drops her dead weight. Many years later, Lydia
contacts
her again to come to their High School reunion. Emily offers hope that she
might show, but then doesn't. From the reunion, Lydia wanders over to
Emily's
fancy new corporate headquarters, where she learns that Emily is very
close
to discovering how to grant superpowers. Lydia bumbles her way into the
apparatus and receives the first super-strength injections instead of
Emily.
Emily is upset, but accepts that Lydia will be her experimental candidate
now. There's a bit of a montage where we follow Lydia's progress toward
bus-tossing superhero alongside Emily's more subtle invisibility power.
Emily's daughter Tracy (Taylor Mosby) is also ludicrously smart, very
close
to her mother, but finds in Lydia an older friend who also, for example,
plays Fortnite.
The ladies get super-tough costumes and venture into the streets in a
purple
Lamborghini into which the Junoesque ladies in rubber suits don't fit too
comfortably. They thwart a robbery by "The Crab" (Jason Bateman), whose
crew
is robbing a gas station. Sparks fly between Lydia and Crab before he and
his
crew escape without their purloined goods. Lydia had pummeled a couple of
them and Emily had tased another (sneaking up on him while invisible).
The Crab reports back to local politician "The King" (Bobby Cannavale),
who's
a super-powered miscreant, but good at hiding it. He's running for mayor
and
has another of his henchmen Laser (Pom Klementieff) tearing up the city to
convince people to vote for law and order.
The plot proceeds as you'd expect, with ups and downs and everyone
redeeming
themselves in one way or another as they grow closer and cement into the
team
called Thunder Force. In the finale, Tracy extends the duo to a trio when
she
reveals that she'd been taking treatments for super-speed and saves
everyone.
The Crab and Lydia strike up a relationship and The Crab betrays the King
and
Laser.
Uncut Gems (2019) -- "6/10"
Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler) is a jeweler in the diamond district in
Manhattan. He's a gambling addict, a philanderer, and an all-around
terrible
person. He wears a lot of jewelry -- a lot more than you'd expect. He has
a
small jewelry shop in the Jewelry District with an airlock door system,
where
you have to be buzzed in and out. He's cheating on his wife with his
callipygian secretary Julia (Julia Fox), for whom he's rented a nearly
ludicrously tackily appointed apartment in Manhattan.
He has arranged for delivery of a rare black opal from Ethiopia, smuggled
out
of the mine and out of the country in a shipment of fish. He's planning on
putting it up for auction and is convinced that it will bring at least a
million. He's buried under at least $100k of gambling debt but keeps
digging
himself in more.
Howie is a huge basketball fan and is over the moon when his "partner"
Demany
(Lakeith Stanfield) brings Kevin Garnett and his entourage to the shop.
Garnett is very interested in the opal and feels that it grants him power.
He
demands to hold on to it over the weekend, trading his Celtics
championship
ring for it.
Howie immediately pawns Garnett's ring, placing a stupidly complex and
long-shot bet on Garnett's next performance instead of paying back his
brother-in-law Arno (Eric Bogosian). Arno and his crew get to the bookie
and
quash the bet, but Howie has no idea about that.
Garnett plays like a God that night and Howie thinks he's a millionaire.
Arno
and his gang pick him up and beat the crap out of him, informing him that
they'd stopped the bet. Howie is mortified and devastated and
out-of-his-mind
with rage.
Meanwhile Garnett refuses to return the stone. No-one thinks it's weird
that
he's basically stolen it. Demany tells Howie to be cool. Demany and his
crew
are even sleazier than Howie. Howie is not cool about it because he needs
to
sell the stone at auction so he can pay off his gambling debts. He's in
the
hole even more now.
He eventually gets the stone back and puts it up for auction, but the
auction
house appraises it at about $150k--$200k instead. Howie is, once again,
incensed, and browbeats his father (or father-in law) Gooey (Judd Hirsch)
into bidding the stone up, but then he ends up buying it. Howie swears
he'll
buy it back from him, and then takes it from him to sell it to Kevin
Garnett
(this time for real).
With Garnett's money in hand, he sees Arno and his gang buzzed into his
shop.
Instead of paying them off, he gets Julia to take the money through an
open
window and flies her on a Blade to the Mohegan Sun, where she puts it all
on
a very similarly wild bet on Garnett (again). Howie gets the upper hand on
Arno and his crew, trapping them between doors in the airlock of his
store.
He makes them sit there through the entire game, while he exults as all of
the points of his bet come to fruition. He's made ~$1.3M,
Arno acknowledges that he was right and Howie, overjoyed, lets them back
into
the store. I was thinking at that point that he should really be buzzing
them
out, but he was so excited that he'd won that he lost all sense of
proportion
and thought that all was forgiven. Arno's main henchman shoots him right
in
the face. He and the others start to rob the store. Arno tries to flee,
stunned that his men have murdered Howie. They shoot him in the face, too.
Julia makes it out of the casino with all of the money, in cash, living
presumably relatively happy ever after.
The jumpy and nervous style of this movie was poorly suited to a movie
with
such a comparatively short story stretched out over a 135-minute movie. I
know that this was the artistic style of it, but it was noisy and hectic
and
stressful. It never let up (my viewing partner deemed the film had ADHD).
There was just not enough meat to it for such a long movie. It would have
been a better 90-minute movie
That, and there was literally not one really redeeming character in it.
Howie
was not a nice person without the crippling gambling addiction and
philandering (although Sandler was excellent in this role). Howie's
partner
Demany was as big a sleazeball as he was. He was selling fake watches. He
helped Garnett "steal" the stone. Garnett, a multi-millionaire, thought
nothing of taking something that wasn't his. Howie's family hated him.
Perhaps Julia, the semi-reformed prostitute, was the closest thing to an
admirable character. At least she didn't renege on her deals. She paid for
her apartment. She didn't abscond with Howie's money, betting it instead.
She
was probably legitimately on the way back to Manhattan to bring the cash
to
him, as he lay dead on the floor of his store.
The Office S01--03 (2001--2003) -- "9/10"
"If you want the rainbow, you've got to put up with the rain. You know who
said that? Dolly Parton. And people say that she's just a big pair of
tits."
"How would I like to be remembered? Simply as a man who put a smile on the
face of all who he met. [...] Have you got everything you need? Cheers."
David Brent (Ricky Gervais) is the boss of a company that doesn't seem to
do
anything. He is nearly painfully socially inept but has no idea -- he
thinks
he's cool. He's impervious to criticism because his ego cannot be
shattered.
He is surrounded by misfits and losers, none of whom seem to do anything
at
all -- all day long. Nearly all of their interactions are painful to
watch.
The company they all work for is technically a paper supply office in
Slough,
England, but you only know that because some of the characters mention it,
not because it matters for anything that goes on in the show.
Tim (Martin Freeman) has a terrible haircut, he seems to only occasionally
shave, and his clothes are ill-fitting. He's trying to make time with Dawn
(Lucy Davis), who's been engaged to Lee (Joel Beckett) for over three
years.
Lee is an awful human being and Dawn will never leave him. Tim will pine
for
her until he dies.
Gareth (Mackenzie Crook) is a former soldier whose every waking thought is
about his former life. He cannot conceive of leaving the paper company.
Occasionally, the execrable Finch (Ralph Ineson) shows up as the
incarnation
of everything that is wrong with the standard English male. And absolutely
none of them shine when they hit the pub.
It's equal-opportunity awfulness, so the women are just as terrible as the
men, putting up with nearly impossibly boorish behavior in order to hook
up.
Everyone gets spectacularly drunk and says the most awful things. In one
of
the scenes (season 3, I think?), one of them is horrifically drunk and
ends
up with Finch in what looks like a parking area on a highway. It's
depressing
and awful and all too believable and one can only imagine Gervais cackling
to
himself about it.
I started watching this show over a year ago and I've never gotten around
to
finishing it. It's a good show, but it's not particularly fun to watch.
I'm
at the end of season one (six episodes) and now have a bit of momentum and
I
can see what the concept is. Once you see the concept, you can enjoy it
for
that and stop cringing at each and every thing that Brent says.
It's better if you picture Gervais and co-writer Stephen Merchant grinning
madly at how perfectly miserable they make every last detail of the show.
Twenty years later and it's only gotten worse because everything just used
to
look tawdry, but now it looks tawdry and dated. The gigantic monitors. The
clapboard office furniture. The nearly impossibly ill-fitting clothes. The
open and crowded floor plan. The carpet. It all just piles on to create a
pinnacle of hopelessness.
No-one's clothes fit. No-one is well-lit. They're all a bit pasty and have
uniformly terrible hairstyles. They're just a bunch of sad sacks, acting
as
furniture for the stars, who are not even better -- they just have the
spotlight on them.
I consider this to be "cringe comedy". Gervais is brilliant at it, but
it's
only passably fun to watch. I think this show is eminently unbingeable
because of how uncomfortable it is to watch. It's well-written and
absolutely
unapologetic and unrelenting and rings so damned true, but it's hard to
watch
a show about an office full of people living lives of quiet desperation,
where each day ends not with a bang, but a whimper.
The Boys S01 (2019) -- "9/10"
This show is about a world where superheroes exist. The show takes place in
the United States, largely in the greater metropolitan New York City
region.
Madelyn Stillwell (Elisabeth Shue) manages several hundred of these heroes
for the powerful Vought International, including an elite team of "The
Seven".
Vought make a lot of money with advertising, sponsorships, and special
appearances. They use social media heavily in order to measure engagement.
The Seven are all assholes, about as arrogant and spoiled as any other
A-list
celebrities.
The heroes in The Seven are kind of mockingly bizarro-world versions of
well-known heroes:
1. Homelander (Antony Starr): Superman, but with an American-flag cape
2. Queen Maeve (Dominique McElligott): Wonder Woman without the lasso
and
invisible jet
3. The Deep (Chace Crawford): Aquaman, including an ability to talk to
all
denizens of the sea.
4. A-Train (Jessie T. Usher): The Flash, but without science or
humility.
5. Black Noir (Nathan Mitchell): Snake Eyes from G.I. Joe. The name is
delightfully stupid and no-one acknowledges it.
6. Translucent (Alex Hassell): Impenetrable skin; can turn invisible
7. Starlight (Erin Moriarty): Super-strength; emits overpoweringly
blinding light
There's a bit of a pro-wrestling vibe to the marketing, though there
aren't
really any official heels. That is, they are all heels in real life but
the
public doesn't see them that way at all.
Starlight is the newest addition to the seven, replacing the retiring
Lamplighter. She hails from Des Moines and, like the rest of the nation,
worships The Seven and can't believe her luck. She soon finds out that
they
are a jaded, horrible bunch of people and that Vought is corrupt, through
and
through. They project a moral public image that has nothing to do with how
they are or what they do. The Deep forces Starlight to blow him on her
first
day.
Over the next day or two, Starlight learns more about what it's like to
work
as a "hero" for Vought, where everything is staged and she gets in trouble
for saving someone who wasn't on the schedule from being raped. She meets
Hughie in a park -- both were on the same bench -- and she confides in
him.
He tells her to keep fighting, though he's not sure what's happened to her
(he has no idea who she is). She takes his advice and is determined not to
let the bastards get her down.
In a separate storyline, Hughie (Jack Quaid) works in an electronics
store.
He's on his way out to dinner with his girlfriend when A-Train plows right
through her at super-speed, on a mission of some sort. Robin disappears in
a
cloud of bloody mist and Hughie is left holding her hands and forearms.
Hughie is devastated and starts to shed his milquetoast personality. He
meets
the Butcher (Karl Urban), the leader of the eponymous group.
Butcher gets Hughie to plant a bug in the Seven's headquarters -- he gets
access by asking to have A-Train apologize in person as he signs his NDA
and
takes the paltry settlement of $45k -- but Translucent sees what he does
and
tracks him down to the electronics store. Translucent is about to
extinguish
Hughie when Butcher comes back and they subdue Translucent with an
electric
charge. Hughie is reluctant, but Butcher convinces him that they have to
keep
Translucent as a prisoner.
Hughie comes up with the idea of putting him an electrified cage inside of
an
ad-hoc Faraday cage to keep the Seven from tracking him. With the help of
Serge/Frenchie (Tomer Capon), they try different ways of killing
Translucent,
but none work. Serge eventually thinks of a way -- jam some plastique up
his
ass. Translucent breaks out, wheedling his way past Hughie, who has the
detonator. They have to be careful of setting it off because Homelander is
near -- and he has X-ray vision and super-hearing. Hughie lets 'er rip and
the Seven are, temporarily, the Six.
The beginnings of the Boys -- Butcher, Hughie, and Frenchie -- clean up
the
mess, discarding Translucent's indestructible skin in a zinc trunk --
Homelander can't see through zinc -- at the bottom of the harbor. The Deep
eventually finds it, having been told about it by a porpoise, with which
he
can presumably communicate. They information Madelyn and Vought and The
Seven
realize that they might have a problem.
Starlight's fortunes turn on a dime as the girl she'd protected comes
forward
and is effusively thankful, shooting her ratings to the stratosphere and
pleasing the Seven's media handler Ashley Barrett (Colby Minifie) -- an
absolute jackal of a person with a shark's smile and literally no morals
whatsoever. She is all about perception and couldn't care less who gets
raped. Now she's happy to present Starlight's new, super-whorish costume.
Starlight must wear it or she's out of the Seven.
A-Train is racing Shockwave for the title of the fastest man on Earth. He
visits with his girlfriend Popclaw, who's got some powers of her own. He
gets
really, really high on Compound V before the race, and then easily breaks
his
own world record. Popclaw also takes some and gets out of control, killing
her landlord by accident during some rough play that she was bartering in
lieu of rent. The Boys show up to talk her down after the murder. They're
joined by Mother's Milk (Laz Alonso), referred to as "MM".
The Boys track Popclaw's tip to a Triad basement lair, where a
super-powered
girl is being held. It looks like she was being used as a substrate or
conduit to produce Compound V. Actually, her captors were trying to turn
her
into a super-terrorist. The Boys let her out and she destroys the place,
escaping without killing them. A-Train hunts for her, but so do the Boys.
And
A-Train's an idiot so, despite his speed, he's not as quick as they are.
They
eventually all meet, but they Boys get The Female before A-Train can
(because
he's useless). A-Train is busy murdering her, but Frenchie gets the crowd
over and he has to stop. They gas her and take off.
Stillwell sends Homelander and Queen Maeve to rescue a hijacked plane over
the Atlantic, but they fuck it up royally. They break into the plane and
take
out two of the hijackers. The third is in the cockpit and he shoots the
pilot
before Homelander kills him with heat vision that also takes out most of
the
instrument panel. Homelander and Maeve fly off, leaving everyone else to
die
in the ocean.
The Deep, meanwhile, is trying to do more -- he wants to help dolphins.
He
doesn't do such a great job because, like A-Train, he's an idiot.
Starlight
goes to the Believe Expo with her mother, returning to her roots as an
evangelical, but is dismayed to find she doesn't really fit in anymore.
She
goes rogue and reveals to the whole crowd that she'd been sexually
assaulted
(but not by whom). Stillwell is massively displeased and fires her
"handler"
Ashley, who's also displeased. They both apply pressure on Starlight, but
she's not having it anymore.
The Boys are there as a sting operation on Ezekiel, the plastic-armed supe
who's headlining the whole festival. He's gay in private, but speaks out
against it for Vought/Believe. He's also channeling all of the Compound V
throughout the country using his traveling religious festival. Hughie
confronts him and blackmails him into spilling his guts on how the whole
operation works.
"CR Booth Guy: I'm not really sure what you're sayin', son.
"Butcher: I'm saying: if there is some geezer out there, with a big, white
beard, he's a real heavy white cunt.
"CR Booth Guy: I'm sorry, did you just call God a C-word?
"Butcher: Yeah, he's got a hard-on for mass murder and givin' kids cancer
and
his big old answer to the existential clusterfuck that is humanity is to
nail
his own bleedin' son to a plank. That is a cunt move. C'mon, even you've
got
to agree with me there. We should lob a fuckin' nuke at 'im and get it
over
and done with. Know what I'm sayin'? [...] Good talk. Think about it? I'm
here all day."
Later in the same episode, Hughie borrows someone else's phone and then
calls
Mother's Milk on his private number on it. They then discuss all of their
plans over an open, monitored line. Hughie leaves his fingerprints on that
other person's phone.
Black Noir gets on Frenchie's trail, but the Female protects him, leaping
into battle with Noir and getting torn to shreds. One of her powers is,
apparently, quick-healing, so she pops right back after Noir has left the
scene. She and Frenchie are definitely burned now, though, and have to go
into hiding.
Homelander also goes off-script (like Starlight), but does so to rally
people
to support letting the Seven (and Vought) be integrated into and funded by
the U.S. military. Homelander is going off the rails, bit by bit.
Starlight
and Hughie are closer now that they have a shared trauma (he lost Robin to
A-Train and she was mouth-raped by The Deep). When Annie/Starlight stands
up
for herself, Stillwell is forced to demote The Deep -- making him publicly
apologize and sending him to Sandusky, Ohio -- reducing the original Seven
now to the Five.
This doesn't last, though, as Homelander and his network find out who the
Boys are, including all of their identities. He reveals Hughie's betrayal
of
Starlight in the most dickish way possible, but she ends up forgiving
Hughie
and meets up with him again.
With their identities in danger, the Boys try gather everyone to safety.
A-Train gets to Hughie's father first, but Hughie distracts him with
promises
of Compound V and the Female cripples him, shattering one of his femurs.
MM
gets Butcher to ask for help from the FBI to protect their families.
He reluctantly does so, giving his sample of Compound V to Raynor
(Jennifer
Esposito), who uses it to try to pressure Stillwell into capitulating on
her
company's attempts to inveigle their way into the military. Unfortunately
--
and highly coincidentally -- at the exact same time, the first Supe
terrorist
reveals himself, slaughtering an entire platoon of invading U.S. soldiers
(who are, obviously, not terrorists).
There's also a side story where the Boys use Mesmer's (Haley Joel Osment)
mind-reading powers to find out the Female's backstory. She was part of a
terrorist group named the Shining Light Liberation Army and was kidnapped
and
injected with heroic amounts of Compound V in an attempt to create a Supe
terrorist. The Boys managed to stop this one attempt, but were proven
correct
in their assumption that there were others.
At the end of the first season, Starlight helps Hughie rescue the rest of
the
Boys from a black site. A-Train shows up but has a heart attack (because
of a
Compound V overdose) when he smugly confronts Starlight. She and Hughie
give
him CPR until medical personnel arrive. Hughie takes off with the rest of
the
Boys.
Meanwhile, Homelander admits to Stillwell that he'd distributed Compound V
around the world to create super-villains for them to fight --
guaranteeing
Vought's revenue streams and entrance into the lucrative
international-military-contracting market. Butcher kidnaps Stillwell,
wrapping her in bombs, but Homelander shows up, kills Stillwell himself,
and
then whisks Butcher away to reveal that he's been keeping Butcher's wife
Becca in a suburban home -- where she lives with Homelander's son.
The Office (US) S01--s03 (2005--2007) -- "9/10"
The first season introduces us to Michael Scott (Steve Carell), the regional
manager of Dunder-Mifflin paper products in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The
pilot
is almost a carbon copy of the UK version, so instead of Tim, we have Jim
Halpert (John Krasinski) in sales, with Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer) instead
of
Dawn, teaming up with him in a half-romance/half-friendship to plague
Dwight
Schrute (Rainn Wilson) in the same way that Tim and Dawn made Garrett
miserable. Like Dawn, Pam has been engaged to Roy (David Denman) for three
years -- a relationship that no-one understands.
Over this first season, we meet Stanley (Leslie David Baker), the token
black
guy, who might be a salesman, Darryl (Craig Robinson), who works in the
warehouse, who doesn't put up with Michael's shit, Creed (Creed Bratton),
Phyllis (Phyllis Smith), Kevin (Brian Baumgartner), who's in accounting
and
is roughly Keith without the scotch eggs, Toby (Paul Lieberstein), the
beleaguered and often mystified HR representative, chatterbox Kelly Kapoor
(Mindy Kaling), straight-laced and judgmental Angela (Angela Kinsey), who
is
having an illicit office relationship with Dwight, of all people, office
drunk Meredith (Kate Flannery), Oscar (Oscar Nuñez), the token latino and
homosexual, temp Ryan (B.J. Novak), who Michael has an odd attraction to,
and, finally, Jan Levinson (Melora Hardin), Michael's boss from New York
City.
As in the British version, the episodes revolve mostly around the
psychotic
hijinks of Michael, who is just as tone-deaf and deluded as his
counterpart
David Brent. Gervais and Merchant are executive producers, so you can feel
their touch as well. The UK version was dark and brilliant and more
difficult
to watch, but this version can be just as dark, though it's goofier. The
show
shares the single-camera, shaky-camera, breaking-of-the-fourth-wall style
of
its predecessor.
It grows on you and the episodes are really quite well-written and acted.
Really only Michael is painful to watch. Dwight, like his counterpart
Garret,
actually grows into an understandable character and also kind of grows on
you. Michael only very occasionally drop out of cringe mode, but it's a
welcome relief when he does. Like David Brent before him, though, he
always
makes you regret this trust.
Jim and Pam play pranks on Dwight, mostly leaving Michael alone. Michael
is
more than capable of undermining himself. The episodes hit a lot of the
highlights of a year in a boring office: Christmas party, birthdays, drug
testing, diversity training, health-care plans, sales awards,
sexual-harassment training, halloween, fire drills, performance reviews,
office and IT security, and much more. I'm not sure how they'll carry it
to
nine seasons, but they're doing very well so far.
The original constellation holds until the end of season 2, when Jim
confesses his love to Pam and they kiss -- with her ultimately rejecting
him.
In season 3, Jim is working in the Stanford, Connecticut branch and Pam
has
broken off her engagement with Roy. Ryan has been promoted to Jim's
position.
We meet a couple of Jim's new co-workers in Stanford: Andy (Ed Helms),
Karen
(Rashida Jones), and his boss Josh (Charles Esten).
Jan and corporate merge the Scranton and Stamford branches. Josh announces
that he's not going to head it up, so the job falls to Michael. Scranton
welcomes a few employees from Stamford (Andy, Karen, and a few others who
don't last). Jim and Karen are dating, which leads to tension with Pam,
who's
since called off her engagement with Roy. Michael and Jan are bizarrely in
a
relationship. At first, it seems like she's dating down, but she turns out
to
be an abusive nightmare of a partner, playing directly into all of
Michael's
weaknesses.
The season culminates with Jim, Karen, and Michael in NYC, all
interviewing
for the same job at corporate headquarters -- which turns out to be Jan's,
who is being fired for poor performance. Michael melts down. Jim declines
the
job in order to stay in Scranton with Pam. Karen doesn't get that job
either.
Ryan the temp ends up getting job (he has an MBA!).
Ted Lasso S01 (2020) -- "10/10"
Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) is the irrepressible eponymous title characater, a
football coach from Kansas City who takes a job coaching a British Premier
League soccer team, AFC Richmond. He arrives with his number two, Coach
Beard
(Brendan Hunt), a stoic, funny, and wise addition to the team. They are
both
much smarter than they let on, with very clever references to movies and
books and history betraying their depth for those willing to be observant.
They arrive to meet team owner Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham), who knows
quite a
bit about football, but still hired a complete neophyte to coach her newly
acquired team. She'd acquired it from her monster of an ex-husband, who
loves
the team more than anything. Her goal is to destroy the team. She engages
the
services of his former right-hand man -- and back-office manager --
Higgins
(Jeremy Swift) to try to undermine the team.
Ted's got an uphill battle with his team, but he is a genuinely nice human
being and a master of psychological manipulation (as is Coach Beard). They
quickly befriend Nate (Nick Mohammed), the kit man, eventually getting him
promoted to assistant coach. Keeley (Juno Temple) is a bit of a
football-player groupie, who starts off dating Jamie Tartt (Phil Dunster),
a
young and arrogant and brilliant player, but ends up with Roy Kent (Brett
Goldstein), a brilliant footballer and captain of the team who's at the
other
end of his career and not handling it well.
The rest of the team is less strongly represented, but Sam Obisanya
(Toheeb
Jimoh) from Nigeria is a lovely guy and grows as a player. Dani Rojas
(Cristo
Fernández) shows up mid-season to challenge Jamie Tartt on the field --
and
to demolish him as far as personality and lease on life goes. Initially
very
dubious Guardian reporter Trent Crimm (James Lance) is quickly won over by
Lasso's honesty and attitude.
The rest of the story arc is, roughly, Ted must make peace with his wife
wanting to move on. He ends up sleeping with one of Rebecca's oldest
friends
Sassy (Ellie Taylor) to tear off that band-aid. Something might grow out
of
that in the next season. Rebecca is won over by Lasso and learns how to
live
for herself rather than for petty revenge against her scheming and awful
husband Rupert (Anthony Head). Lasso had baked her biscuits every morning,
which helped. Keeley also helps and they become fast friends.
Roy has learned to accept that he's no longer in the starting lineup
because
he's too old and slow and accepts his mentor role. He and Keeley are
living
together by the end of the season.
The townspeople make their peace with their new coach -- calling him a
"wanker" in a friendly way now -- even though, despite his best efforts,
he
can't keep the team from being relegated in the final match of the season.
It's Jamie Tartt, now playing for Manchester City (he'd been
recalled/traded...it's complicated), who ends up passing the ball instead
of
hogging it for himself, letting his team score an easy goal and win.
This was a victory for Lasso, who'd been training Tartt to be part of a
team
instead just a brilliant ego. Lasso here plays a monk-like long game,
congratulating Tartt on his goal, even though it relegated his own team.
Tartt's father is seen yelling at him for passing the ball instead of
taking
the goal for himself. The juxtaposition is perhaps a bit heavy-handed, but
effective.
Rebecca rejects Lasso's resignation -- which he'd made after Beard had
explained to him how bad relegation was -- and Lasso promises that they're
going to get promoted again -- and then win the whole thing. Things are
hopeful for a second season.
The writing is lovely and intelligent and not patronizing. Sudeikis is
brilliant, as are so many others. They're really all great and an absolute
relief to watch. It's not that nothing bad happens, but that it's
uplifting
in a non-dorky way, with real life lessons about not being assholes in
there.
Lasso is a revelatory character. It may sound schmaltzy and brainwashed,
but
you have to see it to believe it.
The scene in the restaurant where Lasso is dining with Crimm and they have
to
eat Vindaloo food because Lasso doesn't want to offend his friend, whose
father cooked it (and whom he'd met because he was his Uber driver from
the
airport, so of course Lasso chatted him up). It could have been stupid,
but
it was touching, and it was a show of self-sacrifice that didn't feel fake
or
stupid. Lasso does almost nothing for direct gain. He's just nice and
hopes
for the best -- and then he gets it.
Or there's the scene in the bar, playing darts with Rupert. It's so
well-paced and structured that even a jaded sonofabitch like me, who saw
the
setup a mile away, was grinning from ear to ear as Sudeikis unrolled the
scene. Just lovely and fun.
Gaza Fights for Freedom (2019) -- "9/10"
This documentary was written and directed by Abby Martin. She interviewed
people in Gaza, showing how they live, without enough food, with almost no
drinking water (90% is toxic), and with no medical treatment unless the
Israelis grant it. She covers Palestinian history from the Naqba in 1947
up
to the present day. The Palestinians are forced into camps as their land
and
water is stolen.
The living conditions are nearly inconceivable. It is illegal to protest.
The
democratically elected government of Hamas is called terrorist. It is
illegal
to show the Palestinian flag. The Israelis occupy their territory,
evicting
those Palestinians who even still have homes. The Israeli population
seems
positively monstrous, gathering on a "cinema hill" to watch their military
bomb civilians.
The entire place is hemmed in with razorwire and walls, encircled by
troops,
all movement monitored and controlled. The harbor is blockaded, a siege
that
has lasted for over a decade. Fishermen are herded by Israeli boats,
illegally imposing limits in waters that are not their own. But might
makes
right. And the international community says nothing. Palestinians have
little
to no medicine and cannot get help. They have little food and water. They
cannot import construction materials; these are blocked. The rubble of
decades lingers with no hope of reconstruction.
The documentary is exceedingly well-made, with a lot of supporting
material
and native speakers (most of it is in Arabic). The video is shot in high
definition, some of it with drones, to really bring home how
poverty-stricken
and flattened and miserable Gaza is. The people try to take joy where they
can, but the opportunities are few and far between. This is deliberate.
The Israelis' have expressed the intent to starve/dehydrate Gaza so that
they
can't even grow any crops anymore. This strategy is working. With the
capital
of Israel now in Jerusalem, the IDF is scouring the city of its remaining
250,000 Palestinian residents -- people who are legal residents, but are
being ousted anyway.
It almost goes without saying that there are no jobs, no industry in
Palestine itself. The unemployment rate is upwards of 60%. There are only
a
handful of jobs for those who are allowed over the border to work as
servants
in Israeli homes or in construction, where Israel depends heavily on their
captive, slave population. Their commute is brutally long and often
humiliating.
And, always, the Palestinians are to blame for everything. They are the
massive underdog and have the moral high ground, but the west is in
agreement
that Israel is the victim.
Abby Martin shows many, many people hanging themselves with enough rope:
Bill
Maher (with Dan Savage sitting silently on his panel), Nicky Haley, many
Fox
News anchors, many, many Israeli officials, one of whom defends Israel's
shooting of civilians by saying that "we don't have room in our prisons",
and, not least, Netanyahu, who accuses the Palestinians of "self
genocide".
At 35:00, we see Israel attacking a peaceful protest in the desert with
tear
gas. They are nowhere near anything. They are peacefully protesting.
Israel
attacks and disperses them. The camera work is spectacular. They are right
there for it. I understand that it's a documentary and they pick and
choose
their scenes -- but the imagery backs up the facts: the Palestinians are
grievously outmatched. Israeli soldiers snipe civilian rock-throwers
while
incurring no losses of their own -- nor even having to fear any such thing
occurring.
The Palestinian civilian protestors suffers thousands of gunshots wounds,
paralyzing injuries and resulting amputations. The statistics and stories
are
numbing. Nearly all of them cannot be explained in any way that is moral.
The
Israeli soldiers just fire indiscriminately into crowds of people waving
flags. The purest definition of state terror.
The Palestinians are unarmed save for slingshots. The Israelis don't deny
it.
They don't care. The Palestinians are resisting an illegal occupation.
These
protests are legal by international law, whereas the Israelis are engaged
in
murdering an occupied people to take even more of their land -- ethnic
cleansing, though slowly, slowly. It's like watching ants fighting an
elephant.
Some of the IDF footage is like the "Collateral Murder", with the soldiers
reveling in their kill shots. During the march that Martin filmed, 940
children were shot by snipers and permanently disabled. Several dozen were
killed outright. Press are not safe; neither are medics. The Israelis
shoot
everyone. All of this is highly illegal by international law. No-one
cares.
Not enough people care. Other things are more important.
None of this is discussed or deemed salient in international news. Think
of
this the next time you hear someone like Biden or Macron defend Israel.
Right
now, they're dropping bombs on civilian neighborhoods -- all the while
claiming self-defense or blaming Palestinians for "self genocide" by
letting
Hamas use them as "human shields". It's the same thing they say every
time,
like any other bully: "stop hitting yourself".
Most of the victims are hundreds of meters from the borders, the soldiers
presumably impressed with their skills at long-range assassination. In
some
cases, they use explosive ammunition that maximizes damage; these are
strictly prohibited by international law. It doesn't matter. In one of the
final segments, we see footage of medics being shot at as they attempt to
retrieve the injured and dying civilians who'd already been shot. It's
just a
bloodbath in an open field, with no cover and the IDF in fortified,
elevated
sniper nests. To even be on the other side of that is a death wish, pure
desperation, a complete capitulation to a cause because there's nothing
else
to live for. You can defeat this, but not without losing your humanity.
Israel does not think that Palestinians are humans or worthy of respect or
life. The anger they evince is like that for a cat that encroaches on
one's
garden. They've given up reasoning with it and just want to kill it. They
feel no regret because the animal brought it upon itself. And yet, it's
even
worse than that. The cat is encroaching but is an animal and still doesn't
deserve to be harmed or killed. In the case of Gaza, it's the Israelis who
are encroaching and occupying and stealing -- and they are also the
aggrieved
party who's "had enough" and feel justified in killing men, women,
children,
civilians, journalists, medics -- everything. Just clear them out. Make
them
disappear. This must be what the scourge against Native Americans was
like.
No wonder America sympathizes. There are myriad parallels.
There is nothing the Palestinians can really do to help themselves. They
are
penned in by an overwhelmingly superior power. The only thing they can do
is
to suffer publicly and try to get those outside of Gaza to help, to
pressure
Israel to stop. So far, it hasn't worked at all. Israel grows bolder every
year. Netanyahu has been in power on and off since 1995. 83% of the people
support "Open Fire" policies; 95% support aerial bombings. The Israelis
act
with impunity, secure in the knowledge that they will never pay for their
crimes and that they will, eventually, have the land they want and that
the
Palestinians will be gone. Facts on the ground. No-one will stop them
until
it's too late.
Killing Gaza (2018) -- "8/10"
This documentary covers the bombings in 2014, with many, many first-person
interviews of people who'd suffered attacks -- either from being in
buildings
as they were bombed, or swept up by IDF troops later. Almost all of the
interviews are in Arabic. The scenes they describe are partially
reconstructed with animations (they reminded me of those in Waltz With
Bashir, though not rotoscoped). Children lead the camera crews through
neighborhoods that have been completely reduced to rubble.
The footage from Israeli soldiers is in Hebrew. They narrate coolly,
describing the attack to come. They only show emotion after what looks
like a
gigantic bomb takes out an entire village -- "Long live the state of
Israel".
They celebrate wildly.
In one of the interviews, the filmmakers speak to a furious man, who
matter-of-factly explains what will happen if the attacks continue.
"Since it's an American news agency, firstly, we want to thank them. We thank
the Americans, who are very good people, who treat us kindly and
respectfully. They give us a loaf of bread and a sandwich, and they give
Israel missiles, tanks, and warplanes.
"[...] This boy here will make an atomic bomb in his house in 10-15 years
and
erase Israel completely. Why? Because he saw his father die before him. He
saw his uncle martyred before him. His family house was looted and, from
now
on, he has to live in a tent! This little kid won't have food or water!
"So how can we lift the hatred from the hearts of these children? How can
we
lift it? In what way? Tell us. How do we teach these children to feel joy
again? Should we kill them all with missiles? Or should we fool them with
a
piece of bread? Who wants American bread, young children? Obama is sending
you some small balloons. Do you want them? No. That won't work. That won't
do
it.
"This is my message to the American people and the whole world. May God
punish everyone that has wronged us Palestinian people. Palestinians are
not
terrorists. They are civilized."
Almost all of the people they interview, they interview in rubble, where
they
tell their horrific stories of lost relatives, many of whom were trying to
help others who'd been shot before them.
At 45:00,
"We have been suffering since the resistance began. We have suffered for 60
years because of Israel. War every day. Shooting every day. Every time we
build a house, they destroy it. We raise a son; they kill him.
"Whatever they do -- the Americans, Israel, the whole world -- we'll
resist
until the very last one of us dies. Even if they turn all of Gaza into
rubble, like this, we won't give up. We hand over Gaza to Israel, as
rubble,
then we give up. When the last one dies, then they can enter Gaza.
"As long as we're still alive, and have strength, we will keep fighting
and
battling to get our rights. After they turn it all to destruction, only
then
can they enter Gaza.
"I've lost 2 houses, 2 martyrs, and a car. The house is destroyed, as you
can
see. I'm homeless now, but I ask the resistance to keep fighting until we
get
our rights."
Just interview after interview with people in front of destroyed
buildings,
shattered towers. There's an interview with a zookeeper who's lost 85% of
his
animals -- a place where many people sought refuge and joy is now a
shattered
desert, starved of supplies and water.
To their credit, the two directors/journalists (Max Blumenthal and Dan
Cohen)
interviewed a lot of people -- and most of them were native Arabic
speakers.
In fact, most of them only spoke Arabic. Only the last couple of
interviews
were in English -- with a "b-boy" crew and an artist. Several people
thanked
them for coming back after five months to see how they were doing again --
noting that Hamas nor anyone from the PA in Ramallah had ever visited
their
city or town.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=41872021-04-10T23:34:50+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
The Man in the High Castle S02 (2016) -- "9/10"
"Truth. As terrible as death. But harder to find."
Joe (Luke Kleintank) escapes on a boat with smugglers, who he tries to
help,
but they're all betrayed by the Nazis (obviously). He delivers the video
to
Obergruppenführer John Smith (Rufus Sewell), who flies to Berlin to
deliver
it to Hitler (Wolf Muser).
Juliana (Alexa Davalos) meets Hawthorne Abendsen (Stephen Root), who is
the
eponymous Man in the High Castle. Trade Minister Tagomi (Cary-Hiroyuki
Tagawa) returns from the other reality, where he saw an American San
Francisco. He is dismayed to learn that his Empire is going forward with
plans to use a mega-weapon against the Nazis. Julia's husband Frank
(Rupert
Evans) blackmails antiques dealer Childan (Brennan Brown) to ask Paul
Kasoura
(Louis Ozawa) for help in releasing his friend Ed (DJ Qualls) from the
Kempeitai. Juliana escapes her captors from the trunk of the car and runs
away in a bloody firefight.
Juliana crosses the country to seek political asylum in Nazi America,
where
she ends up in an apartment arranged for by John Smith's wife. John Smith
refuses to kill his genetically inferior -- but loyal and seemingly OK --
son
and instead kills the family doctor who would have turned them all in to
the
Reich had they not soon complied.
Juliana meets up with George Dixon (Tate Donovan), who was a friend of her
parents' and who's now in the Resistance. He manages to be able to protect
her from the Resistance killing her outright for her betrayal, but only if
she gets closer to John Smith and helps them take him out. She's
terrified,
but she shouldn't be, since the Resistance is unlikely to follow through
on
their empty threats against her -- a valuable and well-placed potential
asset
for them.
Frank gets Ed from the Kempeitai but now he and Childan owe the Yakuza
big-time. They have to get to work forging and moving antiquities, now
with
Ed's help. The Resistance is pissed that Juliana got away but they manage
to
draw Frank closer to their ranks -- he gets involved in a rescue operation
for 12 innocent workers the Kempeitai had randomly chosen for execution.
Frank eventually does another job for them -- dragging Ed into drawing off
the explosive paste from an unexploded bomb -- then seals the deal by
sleeping with one of the Resistance ladies. Ed is pissed because he sees
Frank as wasting time while they should be focused on paying off Yakuza
debt.
Ed is also snitching on the Yakuza to the Kempeitai cops.
Joe is ordered to Berlin, where he meets his father, who is a big-time
Nazi
muckety-muck. Joe plays hard-to-get in Berlin while Juliana meets Joe's
wife
in Brooklyn. He gets drawn in to telling his goddamned life story to a
completely unknown woman Nicole Dörmer (Bella Heathcote), who's probably
an
agent of his father's. They get him to stay just a bit longer, revealing
to
him that he's a child of the "Lebensborn"
project.
I'm a bit shocked at how trusting Joe is -- he's not half the agent that
Juliana is, who knows how to fake it until she makes it and keep her mouth
shut. Joe, meanwhile, doesn't exhibit any guile whatsoever, and just tells
everyone exactly what he's thinking at any given time.
Trade Minister Tagomi tries to adjust the general's plan for delivering
uranium, but is severely reprimanded. He makes more trips to the alternate
reality, looking up his wife and son, who are angry with him for having
"gone
on another bender". Apparently, his alter-ego isn't as honorable as he is.
Tagomi and Kido continue to scheme against General Onada (Tzi Ma), who's
nearly dangerously unhinged with his plans to strike against the Nazis.
Joe spends some time in Berlin, finally correctly guessing that meeting
Nicole wasn't at all accidental and that she's also Lebensborn and they go
to
a half-orgy party together where half of the others are also Lebensborn
and
they do acid and Joe wakes up and wants to see his Dad and puts on the
suit
that was prepare for him and finds a Nazi armband that he seems to be
seriously considering wearing in a non-ironic way. This continues as Joe
seems to befriend his father, eventually swearing fealty to the Reich.
Tagomi is spending more time in "our" San Francisco, learning more about
that
time -- and more about his family there. Juliana ingratiates herself
further
into Helen Smith's circle of friends, partially at the behest of George
Dixon
and the Resistance standing behind him. She's a much better agent than
Joe,
convincing without being belligerent.
The Smiths, in turn, grapple with the prestige of a trip to South America
for
their son Thomas, who will almost certainly exhibit his malady there. They
plot to have him "kidnapped" by "Semites" and spirited away, never to be
seen
by them again, but at least safe from the eugenic clutches of the Reich
they
both serve.
Things come to a head when Juliana finds out that Hitler is in a coma and
will soon die. The Resistance on both coasts throw a long-awaited plan
into
action. The west coast -- now joined by Hagan (Michael Hogan) -- will try
to
blow up the factory building the atomic bomb that will wipe out San
Francisco. Joe's father Heusmann rises to Chancellor pro-tem while Smith
tries to figure out who will really take power. It turns out to be
Heusmann,
who's apparently been scheming all along to get power -- and managed to
convince Hitler he was only interested in science.
Meanwhile, Frank, Ed, and Childan get the first set of fake cufflinks done
and, with Ed's smooth storytelling, sell them to a buyer before heading to
the Yakuza with their first payment. Kido breaks up the whole thing: he's
there to accuse Okamura (Hiro Kanagawa) of working with the Nazis and
executes him -- and all of his men -- as a traitor. Ed and Robert are
allowed
to leave, their debt absolved. Frank was completely unaware because he was
off working with the Resistance and -- like any born-again -- is fucking
insufferable about it. Poor Ed tries to get him to see reason, but Frank's
pretty far gone.
The Resistance continues its plan to use the stolen materiel to blow up
Japanese headquarters, at the same time attacking points throughout the
east
coast. Frank drives the car in and walks into the building, finding Kido
and
trying to shoot him seconds before the bomb explodes, incinerating Frank
in
its blast. His potshot took out the Kido's right-hand man instead, leaving
Kido to fall outside of the direct bomb blast.
Julia helps the resistance get closer to Smith, but they are just as
duplicitous as the Nazis, to be quite frank. She uses her Aikido skills to
break free and shoots Dixon -- who'd dressed as a Nazi to escape detection
--
but fulfilling the vision she'd seen in the movie reel of the The
Grasshopper
Lies Heavy. She escapes New York City, meeting Hawthorne Abendsen again,
who
tells her that she is the linchpin in all of the possible worlds he's seen
--
she is the moral center, unchanging, unchangeable.
In the other San Francisco, Tagomi heals the wounds in his family left by
his
alter-ego. He eventually takes his leave, returning with a film of the
U.S.
bombing of the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. He shows this to Kido, asking
him
to show it to Smith. They hope to convince Smith to try to convince his
superiors that Japan has this weapon -- 1,000 times more powerful than
anything the Germans possess -- and to call off the attack on Japan.
Smith takes the reel from Kido to Berlin, where he shows it to Heusmann,
who
chooses to ignore it and go ahead with his war plans. He cannot conceive
of
swerving from his purpose now. Joe tries to convince him otherwise, to no
avail. Smith has an ace card, though: he has the interrogation report from
Heydrich that proves Heusmann's complicity in the plot to kill Hitler --
simultaneously absolving the Japanese. He takes this to Himmler, who uses
the
evidence to take down Heusmann and exalt Smith for his bravery -- before
an
adoring crowd of Nazis in Berlin, 100,000 strong.
Juliana, in preventing Dixon from bringing down Smith by outing Thomas,
saved
the world from all-out war. Thomas, inspired by his father, turns himself
in
to be euthanized for his illness. Tagomi gets the rest of Abendsen's films
from Lem (Rick Worthy).
Juliana, Kido and Tagomi are wonderfully cast and written, with a lot of
nuance and depth. Not all of the characters are like that, though. Overall
a
very entertaining series. Highly recommended.
Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979) -- "8/10"
This is a feature-length film of what amount to skits, each of which stands
on its own quite well. It is the story of Brian, a young man from Nazareth
whose life path is very similar that of Jesus, who plays a minor role in
this
film. Graham Chapman plays the lead role, but also several others
(including
Biggus Dickus). All of the Pythons play several roles, to hilarious
effect.
1. The wise men arrive at the wrong manger, visiting their beneficence
on
Brian, but then retracting it when they see Jesus in a manger across
the way.
2. A grown man now, Brian attends Jesus's sermon on the mount, but
misses
most of it due to bickering in the crowd.
3. He then goes to a stoning with his mother, during which only women
are
in attendance, with fake beards, and the leader is stoned as well,
for
repeating the blasphemy.
4. Michael Palin shows up as an ex-leper, begging for change
5. Brian falls in love with Judith and joins the People's Front of
Judea
6. Brian gets a task to paint graffiti, but his latin is terrible
(Romanes
eunt domus rather than Romani ite domum) and is corrected by John
Cleese's centurion, who tasks him with writing it 100 times.
7. There is the meeting during which the PFJ must come up with their
demands and complaints and must exclude the dozen things that the
Romans have done for them that are unavoidably good.
8. The PFJ tries to kidnap Pilate's wife at the same time as another
separatist group and they end up fighting each other, as Brian is
arrested.
9. Brian is dragged before Palin's lisping Pilate and they discuss
Biggus
Dickus
10. There is a weird alien spaceship interlude
11. Brian becomes a prophet, inadvertently. People begin to follow him,
with two sects: that of the gourd and that of the sandal.
12. He flees to the desert, ruins a hermit's life, and then takes
Judith
home with him.
13. The next morning, a huge crowd of his new followers are waiting for
him outside.
14. Brian is again captured and sentenced to crucifixion.
15. The people's front once again show their uselessness as a
revolutionary group.
16. There is a long section that revolves mainly around speech defects
of
different kinds. The best is watching Pilate try to pronounce Rs
and
the people constantly teasing him to "welease Woger" or 'welease
Bwian".
17. Eric Idle is great in the crucifixion line, bullshitting his way
both
into and then out of his punishment. Brian had gotten a reprieve
from
Pilate, but Idle's bullshitter claims he's Brian and is released.
18. Finally, another Eric Idle leads Brian and the others in a rousing
"Always Look on the Bright Side of Life".
Dolemite is My Name (2019) -- "8/10"
Rudy Ray Moore (Eddie Murphy) is having a hard time finding his showbiz
career in 1970s Los Angeles. He's tried making music albums, he's doing
shitty standup, he's just miserable, living with his aunt, knowing that
he's
destined for greater things.
He works in a record store and meets Ricco (Ron Cephas Jones) and his
other
homeless friends. He thinks Rico's got some good material and pays them to
record their stories. He builds an act out of it, which takes off
immediately. It's a filthy act, with a bit of a rhythm to it (he's
sometimes
credited with the invention of rap). He records a new album "Eat Out More
Often", selling it out of the back of his car. A (very) local record
company
picks him up, gets him a pretty porny cover and it's even more successful.
He
goes on tour, making bank like never before.
In Mississippi, he picks up Lady Reed (Da'Vine Joy Randolph) as his
partner
and they become even more successful. While on the road, Rudy's record
company calls him to tell him that his album has made it onto the charts
--
they're ready to make more albums. The money starts rolling in. To
celebrate,
he takes his friends out for dinner, drinks, and a movie. They go see The
Front Page, starring Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, and Susan Sarandon --
they
are not impressed.
Rudy decides on the spot to make a Dolemite movie. He scrapes together his
cash and gets his record producers to kick in, based on future returns. If
his movie flops, he loses all his rights to all of his albums. Moore
decides
to believe in himself. He gets D'Urville Martin (Wesley Snipes) to act and
direct and gets Jerry Jones (Keegan-Michael Key) to write the movie. Jerry
gets a bunch of his students from UCLA to help out. Dolemite clears out
the
Dunbar Hotel of its junkies and sets up his film set there -- moving in as
well, since he can no longer afford rent.
It's a close thing, but they get the movie done -- with an extra injection
of
money from Moore's record producers. Distribution is a problem, though.
No-one wants the movie, calling it childish and terribly made. It's an
action
comedy with nudity; it's way ahead of its time. Dolemite hits the road
again,
back on the comedy circuit. On one of his radio appearances promoting his
act, DJ Bobby Vale (Chris Rock) asks him where his fabled movie is,
telling
him to just show the damned thing. He introduces him to his uncle, who has
a
movie theater where Moore can "four-wall" his movie (pay the theater for
using its four walls, but collect all of the box office).
He spends the week promoting his movie in that city in Indiana -- and
people
come out in droves, paying him back his $500 many times over. He's back in
business, promoting his movie one theater at a time. Lawrence Woolner (Bob
Odenkirk) of Dimension Films calls him up, noticing that the
butts-in-seats
numbers are off the charts. Dimension had turned Moore down initially, so
he's suspicious. Dolemite shows up with Lady Bell and his pimpin'
entourage
-- and end up striking a deal.
More promotion later and the same group is in a red limo, nervously headed
to
the premiere. Moore assures them that, even if no-one shows up, they've
still
accomplished a lot. They're riding in a limo to the premiere of a movie
that
they made themselves. Murphy as Moore is an absolutely irrepressibly
positive
force. He really lives the role. They roll up to the theater and it's
decked
out in Dolemite paraphernalia and swamped with people. The 10PM and
midnight
shows are sold out and the theater is preparing an ad-hoc 2AM showing to
get
everyone in. Instead of watching the movie, though, Moore stays outside to
entertain those who have to wait 4 hours before they can get in. He would
go
on to a film career in several more Dolemite films.
I really enjoyed learning this bit of history and found Murphy to be
charming
and perfect in the role.
The Man in the High Castle S03 (2018) -- "10/10"
[image]Season 3 picks up right where season 2 left off. Some time has passed,
but it's kind of hard to tell how much. Oberstgruppenführer Smith (Rufus
Sewell) has returned from Berlin after a longer absence. Joe Blake (Luke
Kleintank) is in Nazi prison somewhere in Germany. He's grown a prodigious
beard, so it must have been at least a couple of months. They're breaking
him
and his father (Sebastian Roché) down. In the end, a once-again shaven
Joe
is told to shoot his father.
He does so and gets to return first to New York, then to San Francisco, as
the attaché for the Nazi regime. Before he goes, he kills Smith's
right-hand
man Erich (Aaron Blakely) in an alley. Once he's in San Francisco, he
looks
up the remaining member of the cabal that supported his father and shoots
him
in cold blood in his home. This, just after having shot two Japanese
officers
in their surveillance vehicle.
Juliana (Alexa Davalos) and Trudy (Conor Leslie) are staying with Abendson
(Stephen Root) and his wife, but the party breaks up when Juliana uses her
Annie Oakley skills to defend Hawthorne from the secret and unauthorized
assassination attempt by a trio of Lebensborn. Juliana and Trudy split up
from the Abendsens and seek out Tagomi (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), realizing
that
he, like Trudy, is a traveler. Juliana gets Tagomi to show her the rest of
the movies that Lem gave him. She's in every one; in one of them, she
dies.
Tagomi and Kido (Joel de la Fuente) are dealing with Father Hagan (Michael
Hogan) of the resistance as well as an undeclared and unacknowledged oil
embargo imposed by the Nazis. Tagomi and Kido butt heads over the arrested
and captured Juliana and Trudy, but Tagomi prevails. Tagomi and Juliana
help
Trudy travel back to her own world.
John Smith and his wife Helen (Chelah Horsdal) are struggling to deal with
the loss of their son Thomas (Quinn Lord), who offered himself up to be
euthanized because of a genetic defect -- another well-written and handled
part of the narrative. Helen is a mess and the rest of the Nazi leadership
is
aiming to use her as a lever to prise John Smith from his position as
general
-- and soon-to-be Reichsmarshall. Helen kills Alice (Gillian Barber) her
former friend and wife of the doctor (Kevin McNulty) who John had killed
in
order to delay Thomas's euthanization.
Joe needs to get close to Tagomi -- one of his next targets -- and Juliana
wants to see if he's still the same. She has seen the films in which he
kills
her, then kills himself. He seems, at first, to be OK and possibly also to
hate the Reich, but then he tries to convince her to join him, which also
seems earnest. It's still unclear whether he's been broken or whether he
has
a higher plan. He seems to be pretty cold-blooded and implacably
efficient.
Juliana continues to see him; it's not clear what her angle is. Is she
onto
him? Is she trying to convert him? The reprisals in the Pacific States
continue, with Kido tightening the noose and the people continuing their
protests. Wyatt (Jason O'Mara) from the neutral zone shows up at Juliana's
door. At a Jewish enclave in the neutral zone, we find Frank Frink (Rupert
Evans) covered in burn scars, painting protest posters (the sunrise that's
been taken up by rebels all up and down the coast).
In the Neutral Zone, Ed (DJ Qualls) is trying to soften Childan's (Brennan
Brown) bargaining style -- while he's enjoying his first real relationship
in, maybe, ever. They leave with a bus full of plunder, with Childan
dreaming
of "swimming in yen". Their dreams are cut short by what is hard not to
think
of as an inevitable motorcycle gang, who take everything they have,
including
the bus, leaving them on the road in the middle of the desert, with their
lives, but nothing else.
Nicole's (Bella Heathcote) still making her stupid movie and has started
an
affair with Thelma (Laura Mennell), about whom I also couldn't care less.
The episode The New Colossus is pivotal. Reichsmarshall Rockwell (David
Furr)
and Hoover (William Forsythe) spring what they think is a foolproof plan
to
finally take down Smith -- with the truth. They arrange a meeting with
Reichsführer Himmler (Kenneth Tigar) to reveal Smith's treachery. Smith
had
prepared well and revealed to Hoover that he knew about
his...predilections.
Hoover tries to bluff his way out of it, but Smith simply says it doesn't
matter if his evidence is believable -- he'll reveal it and see what
happens.
Hoover capitulates (probably with pressure from Himmler, who already knew
every detail about Smith's handling of Thomas's death). Himmler dispatches
Rockwell to exile in Cuba and promotes Smith to Reichsführer, telling him
to
be more careful with his private affairs next time, also revealing that it
was he who had Joe kill Erich, to cover Smith's tracks.
Smith is out of the woods, for now, with only Himmler's words of warning
about his increasingly unstable wife to plague him. Rockwell is living it
up
in Cuba, planning his revenge, when his plans are put to an abrupt end by
a
hit man hired by Smith. That's a loose end that he didn't hesitate to tie
up.
Meanwhile, Juliana visits and sleeps with Joe, who's revealed to her that
he'd had to kill his own father. They're sparring, each hiding something.
Joe
gets the drop on Juliana, having taken her gun from her bag. He demands
that
she take him to Tagomi and then to Abendsen, so he can end them both. He
explains that there is nothing she can do -- nothing any of them can do --
to
stop the Reich. The Nebenwelt is a way to spread the vision of the
perfection
of the Reich to other worlds in other continuums. It's pretty clear he's
no
longer faking -- and no longer savable.
Juliana escapes to the bathroom, Joe breaks in, and she turns to slit his
throat from ear to ear with a straight razor before he can do a single
thing.
Perfect. I was super-impressed with how quickly they just let Juliana be
awesome, doing the thing that obviously needed to be done. She's
definitely
rock-solid and cold as ice. She absconds with his secret files about the
Nebenwelt, leaving him in a pool of his own blood.
Joe's body is discovered by the Kempeitai, by Kido and his men. Kido
quickly
suspects Juliana of having been involved -- somehow. Tagomi brings Kido
the
files that Juliana sent him anonymously. They drink together and Tagomi
admits that he is a traveler. Kido is unraveling just a bit, but he keeps
it
tight. He's learning a lot. Damn, is he a good character. He quickly
figures
out that his new assistant Nakamura has betrayed him -- he was the one who
passed the documents about Tagomi to Joe. Kido puts Nakamura before a
bayonet
squad and takes the first strike.
Himmler hasn't given up on assassinating Tagomi. He sends a new Aryan
golden
boy to take care of business. Spoiler alert: Tagomi fucks him up
kendo-style,
with nearly no doubt about the outcome. he flicks Hans's knife out of his
hand, escapes his choke grip, flips Hans onto the coffee table and
collapses
his larynx with the butt of his staff. The Japanese dump Hans's body
unceremoniously in front of the German embassy. Himmler is furious at
their
effrontery.
Smith seems to be getting more concerned about Himmler's increasing
madness
and lack of concern about the danger his aggressive stance toward the
Japanese Empire poses for the American Reich. Smith watches more films and
seems thoughtful about the whole Nebenwelt project. Helen is still seeing
her
psychiatrist, but is making enough missteps for Smith to be concerned. He
tells her that she is in danger wonderfully by allegory, telling her about
how Himmler had Erich taken care of, just to be on the safe side, that
Himmler would do it again, just to keep things...neat. She must keep
things
neat on her own. Or else (implied).
Ed finds Frank in Sabra. Juliana joins them, taken there by Wyatt, who's
helping her out of revolutionary fervor, but mostly because he "admires
her
perseverance". He gets her a passport, but has to kill the Nazi he buys it
from, to protect himself and her. They continue into the neutral zone, on
their way to the East-coast Reich.
Ed stays behind with Frank, unaware that Childan has had Ed's location
beaten
out of him. Kido rewards Childan by giving him his store back. Kido
travels
to the neutral zone to find Juliana, Ed, Frank -- anyone. I think at this
point, he's honestly more interested in figuring out what the fuck is
going
on than arresting or even torturing or killing anyone. (Well, maybe Frank,
who tried to assassinate him and who is responsible for having killed his
best friend/associate). Kido's got enough blood on his hands, though.
In news no-one cares about, Thelma is arrested at a woman's club, where
Nicole, of course, is let go because she's Göbbels's daughter. She
continues
to destroy American landmarks, filming their transformation into Nazi
emblems. We see the Liberty Bell's fate. We hear of the plans for the
Statue
of Liberty.
The various threads of the story are pulling tight now. Smith is sent to
the
Neutral Zone by an increasingly impatient and unstable Himmler to find
Abendsen personally. He combines this with a mission to meet with Tagomi,
who
has requested a meeting. Tagomi tries to appeal to Smith as a fellow
human,
but Smith is still too cagey. It seems, though, that Tagomi's calm style
and
news of alternate families waiting in the Nebenwelt may yield fruit.
As in Dick's book, there is a definite leaning toward the Japanese customs
and culture. Even though they are just as authoritarian bastards as the
Nazis, they have a code, whereas the Nazis will do whatever it takes to
get
ahead. This goes even more so for the American Nazis. Smith may be
different;
time will tell.
He's not so different that he doesn't continue the hunt for Abendsen with
what seems like magical means. Based on a single photo he finds in the
house,
he launches a search of all farmhouses in the neutral zone and then finds
Abendsen's wife just like that. They use landline telephones and I've not
seen how they even travel, but they still use filmstrip players. There's a
direct video line to Himmler, which seems to travel wherever he is, so
it's
unclear how that works (because it looks like analog, not digital).
They're building a machine that will break through to "other worlds", but
it's unclear that this technology is generally available. Everything else
is
old jeeps. I haven't seen a helicopter. I haven't even seen personal
radios
or any drones or cameras or anything. So how the fuck did they search 1/3
of
the country, find the right farm, and then get Smith and his team of
assassins there inside of what feels like...a day? That was utterly
ridiculous. Anyway, they kill everyone else and wound Abendsen's wife
Caroline (Ann Magnuson), taking her prisoner. So that happened.
Kido finds and kidnaps Frink, leaving Ed and Jack behind. He takes Frank
to
the site of the Japanese internment camp where he grew up. Frank says that
he
knows what he's done -- murdered hundreds, including Kido's assistant --
and
can't take it back. He has changed. He is at peace and does not beg. He is
not afraid to die. Kido admits that he himself started everything when he
killed Frank's sister and her children. Kido does not mince words.
Instead,
he puts on his official uniform while Frank prays in Hebrew. One quick
swing
of the sword and Frank's story comes to an end, his severed head spilling
his
last blood into the sand.
Juliana and Wyatt/Liam arrive in Pennsylvania, where he meets up with some
old friends. She convinces them with her movie. They agree to help her,
but
the attack on the mine will be very difficult and dangerous. She believes
that it will work because she knows from her "memories" that it already
has.
She's only kind of right -- they get in through an abandoned mine shaft
and
witness the machine accessing the anomaly, but are found out and Juliana
is
caught. Smith has meanwhile returned with Hawthorne in tow, determined to
interrogate him. Now he also has Juliana to interrogate.
Himmler, meanwhile, is delighted that he will soon be sending troops
through
the anomaly -- how does he see that working? He has no idea where they're
going? He's just insane, right? -- and calls off the oil embargo to avoid
distractions from the Japanese. At the big celebration for Jahr Null, they
destroy the Statue of Liberty with rockets, then head into NYC to watch
the
exuberant youth burn the schools and other buildings. Wyatt and his friend
are there, though, and they manage to gravely wound Himmler.
Before he was shot, though, he had Nicole arrested for indecency and sent
back to Berlin for reeducation. The actor who plays Himmler is really,
really
good. A perfectly toad-like man with perfect diction and positively
leeringly
involved in his inner circle's lives. Also, Helen is on the run with the
kids. She's leaving John.
Meanwhile, back in the Lackawanna mine, Smith is interrogating Hawthorne
again. Hawthorne had actually served with him, back when they were both on
the same side. He tells Smith that you can only travel if your counterpart
in
the destination world has already died. Juliana manages it just as Smith
shoots her in the shoulder.
The only issue I have with this show is just how fucking fast everyone
seems
to travel. It's a long way from the Poconos to New York, but they seem to
make it in minutes. Smith seems to teleport and never needs to sleep. It's
a
bit jarring.
This is an exceedingly well-written, well-directed, well-acted, and
absolutely convincingly filmed show. Juliana is really an excellent
actress
and character. So is Smith, but so is Tagomi and so is Kido -- perhaps
him,
most of all. The attention to detail is deep and thorough.
The Man in the High Castle S04 (2018) -- "10/10"
We pick up one year after season 3. Juliana (Alexa Davalos) traveled into a
world where John (Rufus Sewell), Helen (Chelah Horsdal), and Thomas (Quinn
Lord) take her in and nurse her back to health. She runs a dojo, with
Thomas
as student. She uses deep meditation to travel to an astral plane, between
worlds, where she discovers Tagomi (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), who leaves her
a
message in the I-Ching. In the Nazi-dominated world, Tagomi has been
assassinated. The princess of Japan vows to continue his work, to bring it
to
completion.
Wyatt (Jason O'Mara) is fighting the Nazis in the neutral zone, but
suffers
tremendous losses -- of people, weapons, and films. Lem (Rick Worthy)
urges
him to rally and continue the fight -- Wyatt demands a meeting with the
BCR
(Black Communist Rebellion) in the Japan-occupied west.
We see the Kempeitai tossing the apartments of suspected associates of the
BCR -- all black people, like Elijah (Clé Bennett) and Bell Mallory
(Frances
Turner), who actually are in the BCR, but escape capture, for now. They
are
smuggling weapons. Kido is searching for Tagomi's killer, finding Mingus
Jones (Shane Dean). They beat him within an inch of his life, but he seems
to
have been framed. Kido's son Toru (Sen Mitsuji) can barely watch the
brutality.
Reichsmarshal Smith visits Helen and his daughters, who are living with
her
brother Hank. Smith is so menacing, even when he's just eating dinner. His
patience is at an end. When Helen refuses to return, he takes his
daughters
and leaves in his VTOL aircraft (finally revealing how everyone seems to
get
around so damned quickly all the time; they can't be using those sweet-ass
SSTs all the time).
The device that only a year ago was making soup of 80% of potential
travelers
is now a reliable transporter of Nazis, who are shown returning with
luggage
FFS. While this is a rousing success for Smith, Helen is still in the
neutral
zone and his eldest daughter Jennifer is raising hell and doubting the
regime. Her own sister rats her out for listening to black music (jazz).
The BCR and Wyatt plan and carry out their executions at the Americana
auction, where Childan is presiding. Kido doesn't show up on time because
his
son has killed a man in a bar fight. He covers it up, but the son is deep
in
PTSD and won't swear fealty to the empire anymore. Kido cannot abide this
and
throws him out, disowning him.
Kido makes Wyatt from a photo and raises the alert, but not soon enough to
stop them from slaughtering nearly everyone there. The BCR doesn't provide
enough cover and Wyatt loses three men in the raid. They capture Childan,
who
reveals to them that he can be helpful, that he has the ear of the
princess.
He also tells them that two of their targets -- that they'd missed -- are
interested in withdrawal.
The Nazis in Juliana's alternate world are closing in. She arms herself,
but
is unable to stop a potential hit from almost strangling her. Alt-Smith
saves
her, but is knifed to death by a Nazi from the other world who is very
surprised to see who he's killed. This would seem to open up the
possibility
of Smith himself traveling to take out Juliana himself. She escapes for
now,
driving to Washington D.C. and traveling back to her original continuum.
She
is promptly arrested, but gets away, fleeing into the contaminated zone
and
quickly hooking up with the Resistance there.
Abendsen (Stephen Root) is being forced to host a propaganda show named
Tales
from the High Castle in order to keep Caroline (Ann Magnuson) safe. She
tells
him to stop, that it's not worth it, that it's killing them both and
undoing
the good work they've done.
The Smith family have Himmler (Kenneth Tigar) and his absolute
bitch-on-wheels wife Margarethe (Gwynyth Walsh) over to dinner,
accompanied
by Obergruppenführer Görtzmann (Marc Rissmann), a young German officer
whom
Himmler admires greatly -- an obvious threat to Smith, who continues to
disappoint Himmler. Himmler is deeply unpleasant and also not well -- he
coughs incessantly and has an oxygen tank. Margarethe tricks Helen's
youngest
daughter Amy -- the unquestioning little brownshirt -- into revealing the
lie
behind Helen's official reason for her year-long absence.
People just walk the fuck into the apartment of the most powerful man in
the
American Reich as if Smith were a lowly pauper. I know it does wonders for
moving the plot forward, but it's not very believable.
Smith learns that his counterpart has been killed in the alternate world.
He
also learns that Juliana is back. He travels over himself on a 48-hour
visit.
There, he meets a still-loving Helen but fights with Thomas about his
enlistment in the Marines. Smith is trying to put everything back the way
it
should be, but it's off-kilter, out of joint. The family notices that
something is wrong, especially after he literally can't look his best
friend
Danny in the eyes -- a man whom he'd let die in the camps in his own
world.
Meanwhile, Wyatt has earned his weapons and he and his remaining men part
ways with Bell and the BCR. The BCR still have Childan and he sends a
secret
message to the Crown Princess (Mayumi Yoshida) to negotiate a ceasefire.
Meanwhile, General Yamori (Bruce Locke) continues to argue for all-out
extermination and war on the BCR. Kido does not support him and suspects
him
of having had Tagomi killed to get him out the way. His suspicions are
confirmed when he fools Yamori's most trusted man into admitting that he's
killed Tagomi. Kido plays along and tells him to be more careful next
time,
having bluffed because he had no evidence.
Japanese snipers kill Equiano Hampton (David Harewood), leaving Bell in
charge of the BCR. As Kido and the Kempeitai round up the usual suspects,
she
proposes a bold plan to strike back: they will cut off the oil pipeline
all
up and down the California coast, cutting off the lifeblood of the
occupying
forces.
General Yamori tries for a coup, putting the Crown Princess under house
arrest and trying Admiral Inokuchi (Eijiro Ozaki) for treason. Kido plays
along until the last second, then arrests Yomuri and frees Inokuchi. In
the
wake of this, the BCR attack is successful, convincing the Japanese
occupation to finally leave. Kido tells the Crown Princess that he
believes
that the JPS could be held, but that it would cost many lives and he
doesn't
think that it is worth it.
Juliana and Wyatt continue to work together on getting to Smith. She's
convinced that Abendsen's stories from his propaganda show on Nazi TV --
he's
forced to do the show in order to still see Caroline -- contain secret
messages. She is, eventually, successful at decoding the messages.
Caroline
is eventually successful at committing suicide to free Abendsen of the
slow
suicide of doing the show.
Juliana approaches Helen to plants seeds of doubt. It works, leading to an
even greater rift between Helen and John. Amy is an absolute Nazi, while
Jennifer doesn't really understand the danger she's putting her family in
with her rebel talk.
Yukiko cares for a recovering Childan in his store. They eventually marry
and
try to flee to Japan, on the strength of a letter of passage from the
Crown
Princess. In the upheaval, this means nothing and Yukiko is allowed to
travel, but Childan is forced to stay behind. He approaches the Yakuza for
help, trading his store for a berth on a trawler to Japan.
After a brief capture by the BCR and subsequent and inadvertent release by
American white supremacists, Kido is back out and seeks his son. Kido ends
up
at the Yakuza (instead of heading back to Japan with the rest of the
occupation). He trades his services to pay for his son's debts, slicing
off a
pinky to swear fealty to them. He reconciles with his son, then sends him
on
his way back to Japan.
Meanwhile Smith executes a masterful plan to kill Himmler, leaving the
Reich
in the hands of Görtzmann, who agrees to leave the American Reich to
John.
That scene was absolutely wonderful. John's silence while his enemies
mocked
him for his faults and transgressions, while Hoover revealed all of his
information. In the end, it didn't matter. John and Görtzmann had played
their hand perfectly and Smith delivered the final blow by having replaced
Himmler's Oxygen tank with Zyklon B.
Back in the States, John plans to travel to the portal by train -- and he
wants Helen to go with him. Helen had just told Juliana about the trip and
knows that the Resistance plans to attack it. She goes anyway, having lost
all hope of forgiveness for the monsters she and John have become. Helen
has
seen John's plans for more camps and exterminations -- he's completely
capitulated to Naziism. In a fit of madness, as the train hurtles to the
portal, he tries to convince Helen to adopt Thomas from the other world.
She
is horrified and rejects him, just as she hears him order the attack on
the
BCR in the west.
At that moment, the Resistance blows up the tracks, derailing the
monorail.
Helen is dead. John, of course, survives. His remaining troops are picked
off
by the Resistance. He wanders into the woods alone, trailed by Juliana.
She
finds him on a ledge, where he puts a bullet through his chin into his
brain.
Control of the American Reich devolves to Smith's second, General
Whitcroft
(Eric Lange), who calls off the attack, an attack he'd never wanted in the
first place. There is hope of peace with the BCR, although it's unclear
what
will happen with Görtzmann and the German Reich.
The oddest part was the end, where the portal had been opened seemingly
permanently and people were streaming in from other worlds. Abendsen is
there
and he bucks the current, leaving this world behind, probably seeking
Caroline in another world.
Excellent writing, acting, and characters. Would watch again. Highly
recommended.
Dix Pour Cent S01 (2015) -- "8/10"
This is the story of a talent agency in Paris called ASK (Agence Samuel
Kerr), named after the founder, who leaves for his first vacation in eight
years early in the first episode. By the end of that episode, the team
finds
out that he's died after swallowing a wasp. The team is now left without a
leader and the power struggles begin.
There are four agents:
1. Andréa Martel (Camille Cottin) with assistant Camille Valentini
(Fanny
Sidney)
2. Mathias Barneville (Thibault de Montalembert) with assistant Noémie
Leclerc (Laure Calamy)
3. Gabriel Sarda (Grégory Montel) with assistant Hervé André-Jezak
(Nicolas Maury)
4. Arlette Azémar (Liliane Rovère)
Sophia Leprince (Stéfi Celma) plays the omnipresent receptionist with the
spectacular afro.
The first emergency is real-life actress Cécile de France, managed by
Gabriel, who loses a Tarentino film for her after a year of work. She
dumps
him, but is wooed back by Mathias, who strong-arms the film's production
head
by telling her if Cécile isn't in the movie, then she doesn't get to film
in
Paris. Just like that, Cécile is back on-board -- but has to get a tiny,
little bit of plastic surgery in order to look young enough for the role
(she's a stunning beauty but, at 40, already twice as old as she should be
for Hollywood). She ends up not going through with it and returns to
Gabriel,
who'd never lost faith in her.
The team next must deal with Samuel's loss. They scramble to put together
a
funeral and wake worthy of him, while also trying to buy out his shares
from
his widow, who's shopping them around. Two great actresses -- Line Renaud
(of
Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis) and Françoise Fabian -- end up fighting over a
role in an arthouse film. Gabriel and Andréa convince him to keep both of
them in a sort-of "Blue is the Warmest Color meets Tarentino for
octogenarians."
The next travail is an audit of the company's finances. (I presume that
they
were able to buy the company from Samuel's widow?) The auditor is a young
lady whom Andréa thinks she can charm -- until she finds out it's the
same
lady she harshly rejected on an online chat/dating service (she couldn't
place her).
Andréa is pretty destructive and takes the role of Don Draper pretty
well,
in what feels more and more like a French Mad Men homage, with Mathias as
Roger and Gabriel and Pete. Even the entrance to the office, with the
location of Pete's/Gabriel's office is the same. On the agent side,
Nathalie
Baye and Laura Smet (real-life mother and daughter and both film stars)
lose,
then win, then lose roles in a movie together.
The sale is moving forward: Samuel's wife has found a German buyer,
looking
to make a Europe-wide organization of talent agencies. Mathias, meanwhile,
has agreed to go to StarMedia. His partners are incensed, but the buyer is
scared off, and they soon celebrate his brilliant subterfuge. He plays
along
that his leaving was just strategic. He will now have pissed off StarMedia
irrevocably, but ASK is saved and safe from a takeover.
Instead of risking the next outside investor, Mathias's wife Catherine
(Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu) steps in with her own inherited wealth to pick
up
the missing shares. The others are none too pleased, as this will give
Mathias much more power -- but it's better than being bought out by
Berlin.
This almost falls apart when Mathias is forced to admit to Catherine that
Camille is his daughter.
Catherine had gone to the office to find him when he was spectacularly
late
to a date for the opéra and found them enjoying a late-night, celebratory
nightcap. He explained it was because she'd helped one of his clients, but
Catherine wasn't buying it -- until he told him family the truth.
Camille and Mathias's son Hippolyte (François Civil) breathe a sigh of
relief that they'd never consummated their flirtation and tentatively
start a
brother/sister friendship instead. It is unclear whether Catherine will
buy
her shares now, though.
Andréa has taken up with the tax auditor Colette (Ophélia Kolb) -- and
might be really falling for her. She and Gabriel are forced to go to a
movie
shoot for damage control for two stars they manage -- and Colette tags
along.
Standard hijinks ensue. Andréa fucks up the relationship by (A) skipping
Colette's party with her friends to which Andréa had explicitly accepted
an
invitation and (B) instead going to a bash held by her director star,
whose
fat she pulled out of the fire. Massively relieved, she got drunk and was
making out with another girl in the indoor pool when Colette came to find
her.
Colette pulls no punches in her audit -- but they were really running a
very
sloppy ship. Andréa tries to patch things up, even after the
presentation,
but it doesn't work. Gabriel and Sofia officially start their relationship
that has so far only been hinted at.
Despite the audit and the revelations of Mathias's infidelity, it seems
that
Catherine will still buy her portion of ASK, but it's unclear what role
she
will play.
We watched it in French with English subtitles. Oddly, Netflix only
provides
French subtitles in Switzerland -- no English or German, which they must
have. French subtitles would have been OK for me, but not my viewing
partner.
The Expanse S05 (2020) -- "9/10"
"Sink to the bottom or float to the top. Everything else is just churn."
"You know what your problem is? You think that just because somebody's an
underdog, they're automatically the good guy."
Season five picks up right where four left off. The crew of the Rocinante
is
split up, with Holden (Steven Strait) and Naomi Nagata (Dominique Tipper)
on
Tycho, where the ship is in for repairs. Holden is trying to find out from
Fred Johnson (Chad L. Coleman) whether the Belters are harboring and
experimenting with protomolecule.
Alex (Cas Anvar) has taken Julia Mao's old racing ship the Razorback to
visit
Bobbie (Frankie Adams) on Mars. Bobbie is working with Avasarala (Shohreh
Aghdashloo) to root out the smugglers on Mars who are selling high-grade
military equipment to Belter rebels like Marco Inaros (Keon Alexander).
Filip Inaros (Jasai Chase Owens) embarks on one terrorist mission after
another, each more mechanically impossible than the previous. At any rate,
he
and his father seem to be unstoppable for now. Their primacy seems a
little
unexplained, but I suppose that's the next big threat. At any rate, they
easily located and intercepted a research ship near Venus. The station was
able to locate comparatively tiny rocks but were completely incapable of
seeing a giant fucking ship coming at them. I suppose that's what
"stealth"
technology means, but, again, it's a bit contrived.
Amos (Wes Chatham) is on his way to Earth to settle some personal
business.
He's on a charter ship with a bunch of scruffy Belters looking for work
and a
better life in the Ring territories. There is, of course, a Belter gang
there, ready to prey on them. Amos intervenes, but not necessarily to help
them -- he just wants to kick some assholes' asses.
In a subtle touch, we find out what happened to Murtry when Amos reaches
for
his duffel bag -- we see Murtry's name crossed out with Amos written over
it
in red marker. He arrives on Luna and, after a brief and seemingly
pointless
meeting with Avasarala, heads to Baltimore on Earth, in order to settle
his
mother's estate. He meets with her partner of the last decade, Charles,
and
promises to help him secure his housing from the local slumlord.
Camina (Cara Gee) finds the remains of Klaes's ship while she's
scavenging,
having found a new way to keep herself occupied -- in captaining a Belter
ship. They investigate the ship more closely, looking for data --
anything.
They get the message that Marco delivered loud and clear: mess with me and
this is what happens.
Holden discovers that an annoying reporter Monica has been kidnapped --
right
before she can tell him what she knows about the protomolecule. Holden and
Bull find her, just in the nick of time (of course). Johnson is ready to
go
to war for his station.
Meanwhile, Nagata has landed at Pallas station, where her reception is not
warm. Alex is still snuffling around his admiral Sauveterre (Tim DeKay),
whom
Bobbie strongly suspects of leading the smuggling ring that is getting
high-level tech into the hands of rogue Belters like Inaros. Avasarala is
trying to figure out why Inaros would raid a Venusian science lab. She and
her high-ranking conspirator UN Admiral Delgado (Michael Irby) -- they're
going behind Gao's back -- think Marco has slung asteroids at Earth.
Amos meets up with Erich (Jacob Mundell) and gets him to agree to take
care
of Charlie. This is easier than we'd imagined because they are brothers --
or
at least brothers of the street. Erich is happy to see him, but also tells
him never to return -- or he'll have him killed. They cannot share a world
because when Amos is around, their shared past threatens to catch up with
them both (but it's especially detrimental to Erich).
In the Belt, Johnson and Holden and Bull are still trying to track down
who
kidnapped Monica (I suspect Bull is in on it, maybe with Fred Johnson).
The
ship that was to pick her up is inbound and seemingly doesn't suspect a
thing. The station police are going to jump the kidnappers when they
arrive.
Holden still suspects that Fred is holding back on protomolecule.
Speaking of being jumped, Naomi met up with Filip, with a predictable
outcome. After initially dismissing her offer of her ship and her money --
Mommy feels real bad -- he finds her on the bridge. She's ecstatic, until
he
tases her and lets on his happy crew of two others -- one of them is the
bitch who clearly hates her, but the other is her oldest friend, who she
thought was with here.
Once again, Nagata is not only utterly tone-deaf at judging people, she's
also super-shitty at setting a lock on her ship. Like, literally, anyone
can
just walk on board whenever they want. This kind of story-writing
certainly
helps drive the plot forward, but it's appallingly lazy for a show that's
otherwise nicely put together. It's just like in Wilder where the cop
neither
locks his laptop with a password nor his door with a key. Just lazy
writing.
Speaking of being jumped: Camina finds Klaes "The Ghost Knife"'s stash of
data and, after briefly considering going after Marco herself -- in a fit
of
grief and rage -- decides against it. She sends it on to Fred Johnson, who
sends it to Avasarala.
Alex meets up with Admiral Sauveterre's right-hand woman, Babbage (Lara
Jean
Chorostecki), who plies him with wine for information, which he seems to
freely give. When he tries to get information, she clams up tight. Later,
at
his apartment, he's jumped by two lowlifes who she probably sicced on him.
Bobbie shows up to save him (he'd called her just before). They head out
in
the Razorback to tail Babbage, who's on a "supply run" with a frigate and
two
accompanying ships.
The first of Inaros's asteroids hits earth -- 300KT, causing widespread
destruction and fear. Amos is on Earth, at the UN high-security prison,
visiting an old friend. He's in a holding facility for people with "body
modifications", which make them high-powered. The Constitution protects
their
right to keep them, but they're incarcerated. Amos visits his friend
"Peaches" in her shipping-container cell, where she's being kept subdued
with
drugs. The alarm sounds. It's lockdown. The ceiling shakes. The next
asteroid
has hit.
Avasarala finally gets through to President Gao to tell her about the
Martian
stealth on the asteroids. Seconds into the call, a third asteroid strikes.
The shock wave sweeps away Gao's plane, UN One. The order to re-task the
watchtower satellites to watch out for Martian stealth-tech goes through,
though, and Earth is able to shoot down the third asteroid.
On Tycho, Sakai (Bahia Watson) turns out to have been the mole (apologies
to
Bull). She kills Fred Johnson and a bunch of other people. Monica and
Holden
manage to stop her, but not before she helps the Belters make off with the
last of the protomolecule. She's very deliciously obnoxious in custody --
but
Holden comports himself exceedingly well. Not so everyone else.
Marco Inaros grandstands around a bunch, with Naomi sobbing around about
her
son and other stuff. The plotline is decent, but it's a bit overwrought,
with
both of them chewing the scenery pretty enthusiastically, at times. Marco
announces that Mars and Earth are henceforth confined to their planetary
atmospheres -- that the Belt declares itself victorious. Anyone in
disagreement gets a shipment of protomolecule or maybe some more stealth
asteroids.
Amos and his friend/prisoner Clarissa/"Peaches" (Nadine Nicole) are
trapped
nine floors beneath the surface. Amos convinces the guards to band
together
with them, just to survive and try to get out. They manage to find a
maintenance shaft, but can only access it with the help of an overpowered
mutant of a prisoner with body modifications.
Clarissa's body mods are still dormant due to the suppressor drugs, but
I'm
excited to find out what she can do. They had her buried pretty deep; she
must be dangerous as hell. They get out and away, crossing overland to
avoid
official government aid camps -- she's an escaped prisoner -- ending up at
an
enclosed compound, guarded by a hair-trigger prepper. Amos just wants to
trade, but the guy's about to blow his head off when Clarissa shows her
stuff, taking him out.
Bobbie and Alex are in pursuit of the Martian traitors. They figure out
that
the weapons they're trading are the frigates themselves. They are spotted,
hightail it, are targeted by an even-faster missile, then dump the core as
chaff, thwarting the attack, but rendering their ship inert and tumbling.
They survive and jump the scavenging Belter ship that tries to board them,
with Bobbie tearing them up with ordinance and Alex jumping over to
booby-trap their drive. Alex fires their drive back up (how? I thought
they'd
dumped the core? Maybe they just had to wait a bit to fire up the fusion
reactor again?) and the Belters blow themselves up when they try to
pursue.
Naomi sulks around; Marco grandstands; Filp pouts; Naomi's old friend
refuses
to kill her for Marco. Avasarala is invited back to power because the guy
who
ended up next in the surviving line of succession used to the Secretary of
Transportation. They meet up with Carina's drummer's three ships --
surprising her with their Martian war frigates. The supercilious Marco has
the upper hand, for now. Naomi, however, is getting through to Filip.
Marco,
however, spends the next whole episode cementing his reputation as an
unhinged power-mad asshole.
Holden, Bull, and Monica are on the tail of the Zmeya in the Rocinante --
but
it blows itself up before they can board it. They presume that the
protomolecule has been destroyed, but it's far more likely that it had
already been transferred to another ship. Marco intends to lure the Roci
to
its doom with Naomi's ship, the Chetzemoka, rigged with explosives. Naomi
spaces herself, flying toward her ship, injecting herself with
hyper-oxygenated blood to get to the airlock, which she opens, floating in
before passing out. Cyn (Brent Sexton), who'd followed her, dies in the
lock.
Her survial is highly improbable, to say the least. I'd almost hoped we'd
seen the end of her.
Naomi wakes up on her ship, finding it rigged with bombs and sending an
SOS
to Holden using a makeshift radio. Marco spins out of control, blaming
Filip
for Cyn's death. Naomi's on the ship and tries and tries to interrupt the
SOS
message, finally succeeding after many tries. She is exhausted and has no
water or food. The Razorback (Alex and Bobbie), Camina (with her ersatz
"captain", the bitch on wheels from Marco's crew), and Holden. They are
all
suspicious that the radio signal was briefly interrupted, though they're
still burning hard to get there.
Amos and Clarissa have met up with his brother and have convinced him to
go
with them to an island in the north where she knows there is a sub-orbital
shuttle (her last name is Mao, so she knows the rich). They get there, but
find the shuttle blocked from use by security protocols. They move in and
try
to fix it. People from the area show up to cadge. They offer them a ride.
Military folks show up and try to commandeer shit. That goes less well for
them.
The Expanse continues the grand tradition of making suspenseful situations
by
assuming that computers and spaceships don't have door-locks. And they
never
shut up about security details, but there are infiltrators everywhere.
Everyone has the same security access. Anyone can get in anywhere. Except
Naomi, who'd locked out of Marco's ship computer, and Monica, whose access
to
Holden's ship computer is also limited.
The new Secretary General ignores Avasarala's advice and bombs Pallas in
retaliation, on the advice of the rest of his bloodthirsty board. When
they
plan even more attacks -- completely unhinged -- Avasarala quits, as do a
few
others. More follow and then a vote of no-confidence removes him from
power,
installing her as the once and future queen. Inaros is getting mad at
people
who dare to not find every word he says to be golden. He revels in the
glory
of ships lost to the greater cause of the Belt.
The Razorback, the Rocinante, and Drummer's ships are still heading for
Naomi, who's still desperately trying to do something. She manages to kick
in
the drive as well as a guidance nozzle, sending the ship into a tumble
that
she hopes will make it impossible to dock with. Drummer's orders are to
attack and destroy the Rocinante.
The Rocinante takes on the suicide mission, hoping to buy time for the
Razorback to rescue Naomi. Drummer mutinies, killing Marco's henchmen, and
taking out the Martian frigates before they can extinguish the Rocinante.
The
Roci does its part, as well. They are reunited. Some of Drummer's crew
splits
-- those are the dumbasses that think there's a future with Inaros.
The Razorback maneuvers hard to pick up Naomi, who's spaced herself in a
malfunctioning suit to prevent anyone from docking with the bomb of her
ship.
They find her -- miraculously -- but the maneuvers are too strong for Alex
and he dies of a stroke [1]. They're all reunited and head for Luna.
Peaches and Amos, along with his brother and their crew, predictably
regret
having let the military folk walk off, getting caught in a firefight just
as
the shuttle is finally ready to take off. They take some heavy losses, but
all of the principals are there -- and the innocent bystanders make it as
well. They head for Luna, meeting the Rocinante. Amos boards with Peaches,
leaving his brother and his crew to explore other worlds beyond the Ring.
Inaros, meanwhile, is super-pissed about having lost his ships and about
Drummer's treachery. While Avarasala makes a stupid speech about common
humanity, Inaros heads for the Ring, with the treacherous Martian navy,
and
with the protomolecule that they'd managed to sneak off of the Zmeya via a
torpedo that the Roci had missed.
The absolute bastard Sauveterre and his acolyte Babbage transit the Ting,
with him reprimanding her and promising her how pitiless the military rule
will henceforth be. They communicate with settlers on a planet who've
loosed
the protomolecule and are excited to see the ship that it's building in
orbit. Sounds promising and not at all likely to fail.
[image][image][image][image][image][image][image][image][image][image][image][image][image][image]
Sincerely Louis CK (2020) -- "9/10"
He's back. He's definitely not learned to behave, but he's very funny and
he's insightful again. His shock jokes have purpose, his stories build
from
joke to joke. He doesn't dwell too long on any one thing.
There are some subtle takedowns of common assumptions like his story of
ordering sushi in a restaurant and then considering how he's supposed to
describe the waitress's voice in his joke. Does he do the accent? Is it
more
wrong not to? Or his long segment on the word "retarded", which could have
been a TED talk.
You will be uncomfortable, but in this special, you feel he has a reason
for
saying the things he says, like the chain of words he puts together before
the uncomfortable bit just leads him naturally there -- that he's not able
to
avoid it because that would be dishonest. It's kind of hard to explain,
but
it worked and it was funny and it reminded me a lot of his older specials.
Palm Springs (2020) -- "8/10"
Nyles (Andy Samberg) is a wedding guest at a hotel in Palm Springs, the
boyfriend of the ditsy best friend (Meredith Hagner) Misty of the bride
Tala
(Camila Mendes). Sarah (Cristin Milioti) is Tala's big sister and she is
not
thrilled to be there. Nyles shows up to the wedding in shorts and a
Hawaiian
shirt and drops a moving speech on the crowd, catching Sarah's attention.
He
approaches here later, moving through the crowd with what seems like
prescience, seemingly knowing where everyone will be and what they will
need,
placing chairs under stumbling drunks.
Nyles charms Sarah and they end up out in the desert, about the embark on
the
absolutely predestined one-night-stand when Roy (J.K. Simmons) appears out
of
the darkness, with a bow and arrow, wounding Nyles, who flees toward a
cave,
hiding behind a boulder. Roy follows him in, to a mysterious glow that
envelops and consumes him. Nyles, dragging his wounded self along,
follows,
yelling to Sarah to stay back, to not follow him.
Sarah follows him and wakes up the next day, but it's the previous day,
it's
today forever and ever, amen. She is very confused and none too pleased,
hunting down Nyles and demanding to know what's going on. They're now both
trapped -- well all three of them, really, including Roy -- in a time
loop.
Fall asleep and wake up on the same day, in the morning, in the same place
you started the day. The access to the time loop was opened by an
earthquake.
Roy starts in Irvine, so he has to be quite enterprising to drive all the
way
to Palm Springs to try to kill Nyles (not that he can kill him
permanently,
but he knows that the pain is real). Roy is there because he was a guest
at
the wedding and took way too many drugs with Nyles and was seduced by the
orange light of the time loop.
Nyles has been in the loop so long that he can't remember how long he's
been
there. He and Sarah grow closer and closer until, finally, on a camping
trip,
they make love. Sarah wakes up in the same place. Nothing's changed. She
hears her sister's fiancé Abe (Tyler Hoechlin) in the shower of her hotel
room; she knows what she's done; she knows what he is, what's marrying her
sister: a man who would cheat on his fiancé with her older sister on the
evening of his own wedding.
Sarah wants out of the loop so badly because every morning she wakes to
the
stark reminder of what a horrible person she is. Nyles admits to her that
they've slept together before -- "like, a thousand times" -- pissing her
off
royally and causing her to leave him. She doubles down on getting out. She
spends her days learning quantum physics. She's got nothing but time. She
learns that, were she to blow herself up while transiting the time loop,
she
could leave it. She experiments with a local goat that does not return.
Nyles visits Roy in Irvine to find him living a perfect life -- though he
lives it again and again and again -- and Roy tells him he's given up
trying
to kill him after he'd lain in the ICU for days, unable to fall asleep
(Sarah
had crushed his legs with her car). Sarah finds Nyles and tells him she
has a
way out. He would rather stay in the loop with her, forever. She wants out
and determines to do it without him.
Nyles stays on the fence, then tears for the cave, catching her at the
last
moment (of course). They go through together, pull the trigger on the
bomb...and go through. We find them floating together in the pool of a
home
they used to visit often. This time, the family has returned because it's
the
next day -- for the first time in a very, very long time.
Mid-credits, we see Roy approach a completely baffled Nyles at the
wedding.
Roy had returned because of a mysterious call from Sarah a few days
before.
She'd called him before going through. He smiles.
Hard Road of Hope (2020) -- "8/10"
This is a documentary by Eleanor Goldfield about mountain-top-removal (MTR)
mining in West Virginia. From a handful of narrators that are allowed to
speak at length, we learn the history of the state, how it was basically
split from Virginia by Lincoln and granted to the companies that helped
keep
the supply lines open during the American Civil War. The state would end
up
belonging to the corporations to this very day.
We hear excellent political summaries from Terry Steele (UMWA Local 1440
Member). We hear a history of the "rednecks" from Mine Wars museum owner
Kimberly McCoy, how it was the red kerchiefs worn by union members showing
solidarity that spawned the name.
We learn of the coal slurry, of the cocktail of poisonous chemicals in
fracking compounds, of a town where 98% of the residents had gall-bladder
disease. We hear of how many rivers and streams have been buried under
rubble
and dust, how many residents have no clean drinking water. We learn of how
the original miners were snatched up at Ellis Island, hoping for a new
beginning and coming up out of one deadly mine in England or Ireland and
descending into yet another in America, in West Virginia.
Steele explains how people would be perfectly willing to engage themselves
for renewable energy. They're not wedded to coal. They're wedded to not
starving to death. They need a plan for survival of their communities;
they
need jobs; they need meaning. They are deluged with propaganda, with
astro-turfing groups run by the corporations subjugating them. He says
that,
instead of "Friends of Coal", people should be "Friends of Coal Workers".
Anyone can watch this movie online at "Hard Road of Hope"
, for a very small fee.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] If this seems abrupt, it's because it was inserted after filming had
completed. He's been accused of writing inappropriate text messages to fans
and an "independent investigation" concluded that he needed to be fired.
He's a great actor, but he has no scheduled work, so I guess his career is
over now. A pity. Maybe he's a good carpenter or something.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=41602021-02-24T23:11:27+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Unorthodox (2020) -- "8/10"
This is the story of Esther aka Esty (Shira Hass), a 19-year--old woman
living in an ultra-orthodox community in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York.
We
see most of her story in flashbacks while we watch her escape to Berlin,
Germany.
Esty is only 19 but has been married to Yanky (Amit Rahav) for a year.
They
have no children, which is a source of concern to the rest of the family
and
extended community, to put it mildly. Esty's mother Leah (Alex Reid) lives
in
Berlin, having escaped her alcoholic husband and been subsequently
ostracized
from the community. We see at the wedding that she is barely tolerated and
eventually escorted away, while the father of the bride Mordecai (Gera
Sandler) is allowed to participate in the holiest rituals despite being
falling-down drunk.
We are offered a frank and relatively detailed look into the rituals of an
"ultra-orthodox" Jewish family and community. Their costumes are intricate
and uniform. The men are all dressed the same, with gigantic, furry hats
on
Shabbat. The women are more demure and are very definitely a second class,
if
that.
Upon discovering that Esty has fled to Berlin, the family organizes a
rescue
committee consisting of the super-shy Yanky, who can't look anyone in the
eye
and his cousin Moishe (Jeff Wilbusch), a brash gangster who acts like he's
a
loaded weapon and the world is his target. He gambles on his smartphone
constantly -- he's neither allowed to gamble nor allowed to have a
smartphone.
Esty arrives in Berlin and tried to visit her mother, but she's not home.
She
eventually sees her in the street in the neighborhood, but with her
partner
(a woman). Instead of approaching, Esty runs off. It is unclear whether
she's
decided to completely abandon her plan to meet up with her mother after
having traveled across the Atlantic to find her, or if she's put off by
lesbianism...or what.
Instead, she meets up with a group of musicians from various countries,
who
all conveniently speak English fluently. They are a Benetton ad of
genders,
colors, origins, and sexualities, none of which matter in the least. Esty
sleeps in the conservatory and is taken under the wing of the musical
director, who believes her immediately when she says she can play the
piano
well enough to attend his school for the gifted.
She swims in the Wannsee with her friends, questioning their ability to
just
shrug off 75 years of history instead of wallowing in it, as she's been
taught.
Meanwhile Moishe and Yanky have also arrived in Berlin and visited Leah,
with
Moishe trying to terrorize her into giving up Esty's location. Leah has no
idea what they're talking about. Moishe starts tailing Esty while Yanky
goes
to the old-age home where Yanky works to try to reason with her. Leah
throws
away his number as soon as he leaves (It's honestly a mystery as to which
number he gave her because he doesn't have a phone -- and certainly not
one
that works in that country).
We see more flashbacks of Yanky and Esty's life together in Williamsburg.
She
complains about extreme pain during sex and Yanky is 100% not equipped to
deal with any deviations from the plan. Having gone almost a year without
knocking up his wife is already enough of a Schande that he can't process
it.
His mother and sister step in to get Esty on the straight and narrow, with
all of the compassion your would expect. They buy her vaginal inserts to
make
things work better. Problem solved.
Esty dithers about her audition, then decides to go for it -- with the
help
of Robert. She jumps into the deep end, going out with her conservatory
friends to a techno club that is 100% not corona-compatible. She ends up
at
Robert's apartment.
The next morning, she has a day left until the recital, but she's hatched
a
plan with Robert -- they visit a friend of his to ask for his help. Moishe
tracks Esty down and confronts her in a children's playground. It seems
like
he thinks he's making quite a strong argument, but he's a boorish,
terrible
person. If Esty can keep her wits about her, she would wonder what kind of
a
community sends this type of person as its representative? A terrible one.
Moishe threatens her six ways from Sunday, then leaves her a gun with
which
she should kill herself if she doesn't come back. Poor Esty has to take
the
gun with her because the asshole left it in a children's playground.
Esty goes to Leah's house, dropping off the gun and finally learning of
how
she'd been taken from Leah by the Williamsburg community -- she'd been
disowned in court. Leah asks whether Moishe gave her the gun? "You know
Moishe?" (Esty is horrifed.) Leah says, "There's always a Moishe."
Yanky goes to Leah's house -- just barging the fuck in like he owns the
place
-- and confronts her about Esty's audition. Leah rolls with it much better
than I would, reining in the sad bastard and convincing him not to do
anything stupid.
They all end up at the audition, where Esty sings a song from Handel, with
piano accompaniment from Robert's friend. This goes OK, but the auditors
ask
for another song, one more appropriate to her mezzo-soprano. She sings a
plaintive song in Yiddish, a cappella. This goes much better, but we don't
learn whether she's accepted. Her friends are confident.
Yanky saw it as well. She accompanies him back to his hotel, where he
tries
to win her back, but he doesn't realize what an utterly shitty deal he's
offering her. He cuts off his payots (side locks) in a Van Goghian attempt
to
guilt her into coming back, but she stands strong. On her way out, she
dumps
a drunken Moishe on his ass -- he's returning from an all-night poker game
where he'd actually won quite a lot of money. He yells at her that "we'll
be
back for the baby."
We see Esty meeting her friends at a café. The end.
We saw the show in Yiddish [1] with English subtitles, German, and
English.
Wilder S03 (2021) -- "8/10"
Wilder and Kägi are back, this time on the trail of a serial killer who's
taking revenge on dirty cops. The first victim is thrown off of a roof --
emulating the murder of a young man whom he'd thrown off a balcony years
before. The second victim is killed with an axe to the head -- similar to
how
he'd murdered his daughter's addict boyfriend.
The killer sends videos to a small online media organization "Reporter"
(which is made up), which considers whether to publish them in interesting
discussions about whether the information is real, whether a transcript
would
work, too, whether to anonymize the video, and so on. They clash with
Attorney General Mettler (who's dating Wilder, by the way), who accuses
them
of interfering with an ongoing investigation, which is, quite frankly,
bullshit.
Wilder and Kägi hunt down and sort out possible suspects, finding out
more
about the crimes of the police than about those of their suspects. Kägi
looks up an old friend of his, who lives in an absolute M.C.Escher-esque
house full of mirrors and stairs and thousands of photos in frames, dotted
with animal trophies. The friend tells Kägi to search for the "White
Wolf"
on the Darknet.
This probably won't work because we're already following the killer:
Jesch.
He delivers eggs throughout the countryside, in a Fargo-esque white
wilderness. He lives in a very rudimentary home with fixings from at least
a
hundred years back. He lives with a woman and young girl. It is unclear
how
they are related to him: the woman doesn't really treat him as a husband
and
the daughter hasn't made a peep yet.
The next victim goes missing -- a female prison guard who Jesch catches
while
jogging -- and he releases a film of her confessing to having let a
prisoner
freeze to death. The young journalist Jenny Langenegger (Anna Schinz) is
off
the chain, releasing the video on her own blog, even though her editor
wouldn't let her release it from the magazine. She doesn't give a fuck and
knows she's right and is a loose cannon and will have been retroactively
justified for having been right when everyone else is always wrong,
especially her boss, who should just shut up and support her. The rest of
the
newspaper is not on-board, despite her being way more awesome than all of
them put together and they have the gall to let her go for having gone
behind
everyone's back and ignored their opinions.
Jesch goes to dinner at a neighbor's house. She doesn't think he has a
family, but we've seen them at the house -- when he returns, he opens a
memory chest under the bed. Are they dead? They are. He'd lost them in a
traffic accident -- we have yet to find out how he thinks the police
failed
him then.
Wilder and Kägi take Aebi (the White Wolf) in for questioning, with him
pretty much winning the first round of questioning. He brings up Kägi's
shooting of a man in the street in the last season, where Wilder helped
him
cover it up. Now Kägi is concerned that he might be the next victim.
Instead, it's a "Fahrlehrer" who was probably a cop in his previous
career.
Jesch messes up, though, failing to inject him and then trying to choke
him
out with his seatbelt. A man walking his dog happens by and Jesch flees
the
scene, leaving his victim unconscious, but alive.
The latest victim is in a deep coma, barely alive. Kägi, Rosa (Wilder),
and
her boyfriend, Michael Mettler (the DA on the case) watch him die -- along
with their hopes that he would be able to identify his attacker. They
hatch a
plan to lure the killer into the hospital -- which seems like a pretty
dangerous proposition. They get Jenny to write a fake article that the
victim
is on the road to recovery. Then Wilder, Kägi, and their young
computer-savvy colleague Jakob (Julian Koechlin) -- he's actually the
brother
of her baby-daddy -- set up a watch with dozens of cameras.
Jesch sneaks into the hospital as a janitor, then sets off a smoke bomb
that
triggers all of the fire alarms. He dresses as a fireman and gets into the
victim's room, but finds a dummy instead. Wilder chases him down the
stairwell, to the garage, commandeering a vehicle, and racing off wildly,
backwards, to try to run Jesch down. Instead, she smashes into Jakob,
who'd
run down there to help.
Literally nothing happens to Wilder for her attempted vehicular
manslaughter
and grossly negligent driving (grobfahrlässiges Verhalten) and lack of
control over the vehicle (Nicht Beherrschen des Fahrzeugs). Not only is
she
not arrested, she is Jakob's contact at the hospital. Talk about police
getting special treatment -- no wonder Jesch is pissed. She goes to her
baby
daddy to tell him that she'd almost killed and probably paralyzed his
brother. When he dares to be anything but sympathetic to her situation,
she
tells him to stop being such an asshole.
Jesch flees the scene, wounded from one or more falls. He heads back to
one
of his hidey-holes to patch himself up, but Kägi surprises him there,
having
found a clue to the location in one of the videos. Jesch gets the drop on
Kägi and takes him hostage. He heads back home to find his dinner date
waiting in the cold outside. He asks her inside -- for the first time --
and
she helps patch him up. He sees his wife in his mind's eye, reproachful.
A parallel plot follows two police officers -- brothers -- in the region
where Jesch lives and works. One is sleeping with the other's wife. This
comes out and causes much psychic angst. The cuckold has even more on his
mind: he was the one driving the car that drove Jesch's car off the road
many
years ago, killing the man's wife and daughter. There were two other guys
in
the car: one of them is Mettler (Wilder's boyfriend and the DA on the
case).
The cuckold calls Mettler to meet him in the middle of nowhere, in the
middle
of the night, to tell Mettler that he will confess. Mettler says he will
do
no such thing (as he would be implicated as well). They agree to disagree
and
Mettler kills the cuckold.
Jesch meets up with Jonas, Mettler's son, playing the role of a hockey
talent-scout, but only taking a picture to panic Mettler, not doing
anything
to Jonas. Jesch sends the picture and waits for Mettler at the hockey
arena,
showing up in the back seat of his car after a frustrated Mettler returns.
Jesch gets a confession from Mettler to both having been at the scene of
the
accident when Jesch's wife and child were killed (and having covered up
his
involvement and that of his companions) as well as having killed the
cuckold.
Mettler and Wilder both text and call and drive the whole time -- it's no
wonder that people are constantly driving in the wrong lane. I'm not sure
what they're going for, but the "star" is not a very nice person. She
texts
and drives, she has appalling table manners (every time you see her eating
with someone, she just digs in without waiting or saying anything, which
is
odd for Switzerland). They inhale half their pizzas in crouches around a
kitchen island, barely remembering to have a glass of wine. Appalling.
Meanwhile, Jesch has captured Kägi, who was snooping around. Rosa looks
for
him at his Airstream trailer, where Kägi has left the door unlocked, so
she
can waltz right in. Oh, and also he doesn't have a password on his laptop,
which is just so unbelievable that it's basically just lazy writing. This
is
also lucky for Rosa, who sends the laptop to Jakob for analysis --
something
friends just do for one another, I guess. Rosa involves Jakob so that he
can
feel "useful" again after she crippled him with reckless driving that
somehow
hasn't gotten her banned from the case or even arrested.
Rosa doesn't see what Kägi saw in the pictures, but Jakob does. Jesch
eventually just lets Kagi go, telling him "you're not on my list". It's a
little anticlimactic. And it doesn't really matter that they found one of
Jesch's hidey-holes.
Jesch is tiring of his visions of his dead family and he's tiring of his
crusade against the cops. He returns to his neighbor's house to try
to...move
on. The noose tightens and the police are onto him, showing up at his
girlfriend's home soon after he'd left. She lies and covers for him, but
another cop (brother of Lukas, who Miller, not Jesch, had killed) shows up
and Jesch is forced to subdue him.
The whole crew (Kägi, Mettler, Wilder, and co.) show up at Jesch's home
to
find the unconscious cop and Jesch on the run. While Wilder and Kägi
investigate upstairs, Mike ransacks the desk to find the memory card from
the
video camera on which Jesch had recorded his confession. He finds tracks
in
the snow leading away from the back door and pursues Jesch into the woods.
Jesch lures him in, then confronts him as the last of the three who'd
ruined
his life. He has Mettler dead to rights, but is distracted by visions of
his
wife and daughter. Mettler blubbers a bit, promising everything, but then
takes advantage of Jesch's confusion and shoots him in the heart. Jesch
shoots back, winging Miller.
Miller searches the corpse to find the memory card before passing out.
Wilder
finds them both, yelling for help. Case closed?
The aftermath finds the federal police pleased with themselves that the
case
is finally closed. There is an adversarial press conference where the
police
chief wants to just "move on", sweeping any open questions and issues
under
the rug. In a discussion with him, Kägi calls the police chief a
"wirbelloser Hasenfurtz".
Kägi wonders why Jesch took down just a few low-level cops and can't
explain
Lukas at all -- especially because the shoe size is wrong. Wilder is also
still wondering. Mettler picks her up and surprises her by bringing her to
"their" house (a Corbusier original). She is not thrilled. They sit down
to
eat and she starts to interrogate him, pretending it's a game. She elicits
a
confession.
Unlike previous seasons, it's not clear how Wilder came to her
conclusions.
She just guessed and tricked Mike into confessing. The end sees Kägi
headed
for Portugal to retire? Wilder also seems to have quit her job as a
federal
cop. Jakob is on crutches and visits her in the office, begging her to
stay.
Disenchantment S02 (2020) -- "8/10"
I thought the first season was a bit weak and only started this second one as
filler. The first couple of episodes felt the same, but the rest of the
season brought more interesting stories. The journey to hell was a bit
overblown, but the travel to Bean's mother's homeland was interesting, as
was
the introduction of Steamland, a Steampunk-based culture, balancing out
Dreamland's culture based on dysfunctional and unreliable magic.
This season also tackles Zøg's subjugation of the elves more, which is
interesting on a class level. Merkimer the pig (Matt Berry) is back and
given
a lot of room in the story.
Bean ends up shooting her father by accident -- using the Steampunk
pistol,
which they all think is a magic wand -- and Odval and the Arch Druidess
take
control of (now) King Derek and have him blame Bean, Luci, and Elfo for
King
Zøg's attack (and impending death). Knowing that Zøg is being killed by
his
doctors, Bean goes to his room to pry out the bullet. She is caught and
accused (again) of being a murderess and, now, a witch.
The trial (with King Derek as judge) is swift and they burn her (with Luci
and Elfo) at the stake. They all drop through the heat-weakened cobbles
into
the world of the Trøgs -- where they discover the Trøg-queen, none other
than Dagmar herself (Bean's mom).
Street Fighter (1994) -- "8/10"
Honestly, you had me at Raul Julia and Jean Claude Van Damme, who both turn
in pitch-perfect performances. I'm convinced that this movie is much more
tongue-in-cheek than many viewers noted. It's much more like Airplane or
Big
Trouble in Little China than perhaps the adoring fans who'd expected to
see a
movie that looked literally like the 2-D fighting game they'd played at
the
arcade.
Instead of doing that, it fleshes out its own GI-Joe--like world with the
AN
(Allied Nations) opposed by General Bison (Raul Julia [2]) -- who only
talks
about himself and only in the third person -- and his Army, which take
over
the fictional country of Shadaloo. He kidnaps a bunch of hostages, then
demands $20B as ransom. The AN lands with their fighting forces, led by
Colonel Guile (Jean Claude Van Damme). The reporter on the scene is
Chun-Li
(Ming Na-Wen), accompanied by Honda, the driver (Peter Navy Tuiasosopo
[3]),
and Balrog [4] (Grand L. Bush). Ryu Hoshi (Byron Mann) and Ken Masters
(Damian Chapa) round out the cast of characters from the game. Oh wait,
there's also Zangief (Andrew Bryniarski), Bison's Russian-tinged
right-hand
man.
Bison is teaming up with some local weapons merchants and underground
fight
organizers, but grows dissatisfied with them. Look, the plot doesn't
really
matter. There's not a ton of hand-to-hand combat, but there is a ton going
on. And Guile gets to drive a pretty bitching, black speedboat that looks
like Airwolf, but on water, has an utterly inexplicable stealth mode, and
is
bulletproof. His co-pilot is Cammy White (Kylie Minogue [5]). Bison uses
technology to grow Guile's best friend (whom he's captured) into a
greenish,
hulk-like, steroid-infused fighting machine, the first of his army of
super-soldiers.
Chun-Li confronts Bison about the day he came to her village and destroyed
it, killing her father. He responds as follows,
"I'm sorry. I don't remember any of it. [...] for you, the day Bison graced
your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was
Tuesday."
OMGBURN. God, I miss Raul Julia.
Obviously, they storm the fortress, rescue the hostages, and escape before
the whole thing explodes. Guile and Bison show down against one another --
twice, because Bison is reanimated by his armor -- as do several other
pairings of fighters (obviously). It's 1994, so it's almost all practical
effects and stuntwork -- and it's goddamned relaxing.
I honestly enjoyed the hell out of the campiness and earnestness and the
pretty damned good sets. This movie was a lot of fun and you could tell
they
had fun shooting it.
It's from 1994 and had a post-credits scene, breaking new ground there.
The
soundtrack is filled with leading lights of the time: Ice Cube, Nas, The
Pharcyde, LL Cool J, MC Hammer and Deion Sanders, Chuck D, Angélique
Kidjo.
The movie is dedicated to Raul Julia, who died soon after it finished
shooting.
"Bison: Something wrong, Colonel? You came here prepared to fight a madman,
and instead you found a god?"
Bison descends majestically. RIP Raul Julia.
Ready Player One (2018) -- "8/10"
This is a movie about an online world called the Oasis. It was invented by
James Halliday, a computer-programming and game-design genius. He grew up
in
the 80s, and died in the early 2040s, leaving behind an easter egg in his
massive online game. The first player to solve his 80s-based puzzles to
find
three keys wins 50% of the company that runs the Oasis -- effectively
winning
a controlling interest in the digital world in which much of humanity
spends
its escapist time (because their real lives in the real world are
subjugated
and squalid).
The easter egg spawns a cottage industry of companies whose whole purpose
is
to find the keys. In particular, Innovate Online Industries (IOI) is a
gigantic corporation led by Nolan Sorrento that buys up people's debt and
sends them to "loyalty camps" to play in the game, working for IOI on
other
tasks, making it money to fund its army of egg-hunters.
Parzival/Wade Watts is an egg-hunter, who ends up teaming up with
Art3mis/Samantha (on whom he has a crush), as well as a few other avatars
to
work the challenge together. Parzival visits the Halliday archives
(in-game)
all the time to try to figure out clues from Halliday's life that will
lead
him to the keys. He is the first to find a key, followed closely by his
compatriots. They win money, upgrade their real-world equipment and
continue
the search.
* The first key is found in a car race -- Parzival drives the DeLorean
from
Back to the Future -- where the contestants are attacked by Godzilla
and
King Kong. Parzival finds an archive clip of Halliday where he says
he'd
like to make everything go backwards again, real fast, which turns out
to
be the secret to winning.
* The second key is about "taking a leap". The search at a club where
Halliday had one of his rare dates, but didn't dance with his date
(they
watched a movie instead), regretting it for the rest of his life. The
club isn't quite right, but the Overlook Hotel from The Shining is
better. It was Halliday's favorite film. The effects here are
absolutely
top-notch. Art3mis ends up dancing with Halliday's crush, which gets
her
the second key. The others follow her through this challenge to get
it,
as well.
* The third key is on Planet Doom (from Voltron) where there is an epic
battle with IOI troops, using a ton of recognizable avatars like
Gundam
(Daito), Mecha-zilla (Sorrento), and Iron Giant (Aech). On this
planet,
there is an Atari 2600, where you have to select a game and play it to
find the third key. Parzival chooses Adventure, but doesn't try to win
--
instead he seeks out the dark room where you can find the world's
first
easter egg that shows the game's creator's Warren Robinett's name.
Sorrento gets the mercenary i-R0k (T.J. Miller) to find him expensive
artifacts and to try to kill the team (in-game) ... and then out-of-game,
as
well. Artemis is captured soon after they find the second key, but the
team
rescues her from the loyalty center and she rejoins them in-game from the
IOI
center. There is a gigantic, fancy battle and Parzival finds the third key
because he knows the most about Halliday, refuses the initial contract (it
was a test, like the gobstopper in Willy Wonka) and then wins for real,
sharing it with his friends. The curator of the archives turns out to have
been Halliday's original partner Ogden Morrow (Simon Pegg).
The effects are really well-done, as is the handling of avatars vs.
real-world presence. There are a ton of 80s references -- because of
Halliday's obsession with the culture of his youth -- like the Zemeckis
Cube
(turns back time), the Holy Hand Grenade (kills all people in sight),
Chucky,
The Iron Giant, the DeLorean and many more make it even more fun for my
generation. The least believable part was where Sorrento is the only one
with
a gun in an American trailer park. The movie is a lot cleverer than I'd
expected and the acting is pretty strong. Recommended.
Disenchantment S03 (2021) -- "8/10"
Bean, Luci, and Elfo start the season in Trøgtown, as "guests" of Dagmar,
who seems to be seeking reconciliation with Bean. Luci tells Bean to roll
with it, faking it until she makes it, in order to figure out how to get
out
of there. Meanwhile, on the surface, Odval and the Arch Druidess are
ever-more-nakedly consolidating their power (and also together nakedly, if
the near-constant innuendo is to be believed).
Zøg realizes they're planning to kill him (for real this time) and
hatches a
plan with Pendergast (his most loyal knight) to sneak out in a coffin. The
plan falls apart immediately, as Pendergast is caught and killed -- and
the
other two guards forget about Zøg -- so the Arch Druidess ends up burying
Zøg in a pauper's graveyard. They replace Zøg with a walrus to fool
Derek
(who is not fooled, but is too gentle a soul to really rebel -- although
he
does keep asking when he's going to be allowed to found a "socialist
paradise").
Bean, Luci, and Elfo try to escape, revealing their treachery to Dagmar,
who
is relieved that she also no longer needs to fake love for Bean. In the
dungeon, they hatch and execute a plan to escape, eventually dressing Bean
up
as Dagmar to get her to convince a Trøg or two to lead them to the
surface.
The Trøgs "harvest" Zøg from his certain death by digging up to his
grave
and pulling him out -- from the bottom, spilling into their subterranean
mines. He escapes and wanders the tunnels of Trøgtown until he meets up
with
Bean and Dagmar, in the middle of their confrontation. Dagmar fools Bean
--
once again -- in order to escape -- again.
Dagmar, Zøg, Elfo and Luci return to the surface to find Odval and the
Arch
Druidess nervous that they're going to be discovered, but still trying to
roll with it. The trio sneak around the castle, searching for the murder
weapon.
Derek, meanwhile, has spent a night in the forest, with many fairies, and
"become a man". He decides to marry a fairy and receives Odval's and the
Druidess's blessing. Zøg has a further breakdown at the wedding, Derek
sees
that the Druidess has the gun under her robes. He outs her and she goes on
the lam, escaping on a motorcycle, back to Steamland, whence she came.
Bean and Elfo follow her, with Luci left behind to guard (and play "cat"
for)
an increasingly erratic Zøg. Bean befriends Alva, the president of
Gunderson's Steamworks (which look, probably not coincidentally, like the
factory in Fritz Lang's Metropolis). There she meets up with the Arch
Druidess again, who is apparently an agent of Gunderson's. The Druidess
warns
Bean against trusting Alva.
Bean finds out after Alva's incessant wooing that he wants to merge their
kingdoms -- that he wants access to Dreamland's magic. Instead, she
escapes
and finds Elfo at the Freak Show, where she helps him and all of his
friends
escape. They return to rescue Mora the Mermaid, who accompanies them as
they
escape with Alva's boat, the Miss Behavin'
After a long night with Bean that goes frustratingly nowhere, Mora
abandons
ship -- just before Elfo runs it aground on the shores of Dreamland. Bean
is
despondent because Mora is gone -- she isn't sure which parts she dreamed
and
which were real, but she feels loss -- and she's useless, at first, at
preventing the overthrow of an increasingly unstable Zøg.
Bean and Oona work together to try to thwart the overthrow, but they don't
realize that Odval is onto them and manipulates them into helping push
Zøg
completely over the edge. The kingdom of Dreamland is in dire straits,
with
no soldiers and no weapons and little money. Merkimer's body appears again
and the crew hatches a plan to go to Merkimer's home, the exceedingly rich
kingdom of Bentwood, to ask his parents for money and assistance. Merkimer
turns on them once home, at first, before deciding to remain a pig and
help
them flee -- with a large supply of arrows, collected when shot, and gold,
purloined accidentally when Elfo inhaled it during torture.
Back in Dreamland, Oona is impatient to leave, leaving Zøg in Bean's
hands.
Bean tries to nurse her father back to sanity -- he discovers a
ventriloquist's dummy through which he can communicate. He tells her that
she
has to become queen, to let him go "before he can never come back". He
assures Bean that she can handle the green cloud of smoke approaching on
the
horizon and that she's already running the kingdom well. He is carted away
in
a poignant scene that addresses mental illness much more seriously than
I'd
expected from this show.
Bean is crowned Queen, just in time to order her people to flee from the
green smoke. The smoke turns out to be nothing scary -- just an old
schemer
who's friends with Odval. Bean tosses him into the dungeon. At the same
time,
an ogre horde attacks Dreamland, wanting revenge for Elfo having stabbed
out
the eyes of their king (who's blind, but leading the charge). Elfo
sacrifices
himself to the ogres, who take him away instead of ripping him limb from
limb.
Dagmar shows up again, out of nowhere, to take Bean back to hell to marry
a
demon who looks like Alva. Luci dies (decapitation) trying to stop her.
Luci
wakes up in heaven.
To Have and Have Not (1944) -- "8/10"
This is an adaptation of a novel by Ernest Hemingway by screenwriter William
Faulkner and director Howard Hawkes. They moved the location from Miami to
Fort-de-France on the French island of Martinique. It is 1944 and the
pro-German Vichy French regime is in charge, personified by the odious
Capt.
M. Renard (Dan Seymour) and his small gang of ghouls.
We meet Harry Morgan (Humphrey Bogart) at the tail-end of a two-week--long
fishing trip with Mr. Johnson (Walter Sande), who's fixing to take a flyer
early next morning, in order to avoid paying Harry what he's owed. Eddie
(Walter Brennan) is Harry's "rummy" right-hand man on the boat.
After a long day of marlin-fishing (during which Johnson loses two giant
fish), they end up at Frenchy's bar (Marcel Dalio), where Harry meets
Marie
"Slim" (Lauren Bacall). Cricket (Hoagy Carmichael) is wonderful on the
piano
-- really hauntingly beautiful tunes. Slim sings along (though I'm not a
big
fan of her voice) before schmoozing with Johnson and swiping his wallet.
Harry makes her return it, but he makes Johnson sign over some of his
traveler's checks. Before he can do so, though, rebels appear and the
police
shoot up the bar, killing Johnson with a stray bullet.
Renard take Harry and Slim in, releasing them only after some tough
questioning and after confiscating their passports and money. They make
do,
gaining a bottle on Slim's light fingers, but arguing instead of drinking.
Frenchy approaches Harry with a job helping out the resistance, but Harry
doesn't want to get involved -- until he does, since he has no other
options.
He and Eddie head around the island to pick up Mme. Hellene de Bursac
(Dolores Moran) and Paul de Bursac (Walter Szurovy). They are accosted by
a
French patrol boat. Harry shoots out their spotlight, but not before Paul
takes a shot to the upper-right shoulder. They return to Frenchy's and
stow
the couple away in the cellar. Frenchy asks Harry to remove the bullet
before
the infection gets worse. Harry saves Paul, learning of his plan to go to
Devil's Island to spring a leader of the resistance. When Paul asks him to
help, Harry turns him down again, not wanting to get further involved.
"Paul: You don't think much of me, Captain Morgan. You're wondering why they
have chosen me for this mission. I wonder too. As you know, I'm not a
brave
man. On the contrary, I'm always frightened. I wish I could borrow your
nature for a while, Captain.
"When you meet danger, you never think of anything except how you will
circumvent it. The word "failure" does not even exist for you, while I...
I
think always: "Suppose I fail", and then I'm frightened. (Emphasis
added.)"
The police, led by Renard, kidnaps Eddie and tries to make him talk. They
then barge into Harry's room, where he manages to hide Helene and Slim in
the
bathroom. Renard and his men get even pushier and Harry has enough. He
shoots
the biggest, scariest one, cowing the others into submission. He forces
Renard to release Eddie and sign harbor passes. He, Slim, Eddie, and the
de
Bursacs escape on Harry's boat, bound for Devil's Island.
Bogart is fantastic -- a class for himself -- the music is wonderful, the
simplicity and pacing are much appreciated. I love that they ended the
movie
after Harry's conversion, with the whole "big action ending" as an
exercise
left up to the viewer's imagination.
X-Men Apocalypse (2016) -- "7/10"
Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne) unearths Apocalypse nee En Sabah Nur (Oscar
Isaacs, nearly unrecognizable under the makeup) from ruins in Egypt in the
mid-1980s. He is a 5000-year--old mutant -- the original mutant -- with
enormous power. They do not explain how he was initially subdued, only
that
he had been betrayed.
Apocalypse recruits Ororo (Alexandra Shipp), enhancing her power, then
seeks
more allies. Back in Westchester, Hank McCoy/Beast (Nicholas Hoult),
Charles
Xavier (James McAvoy), Scott Summers/Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), and Jean
Gray/Phoenix (Sophie Turner) are teaching a school full of mutant children
to
use their powers.
Elsewhere, Raven Darkhölme / Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) helps Kurt
Wagner/Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) by way of Callisto's mutant-finding
service, where she meets Psylocke (Olivia Munn), who's the most clearly
unlikely to end up on the X-Men. Psylocke ends up on Apocalypse's team,
recruiting Archangel (Ben Hardy) to the team.
In Communist Poland, Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto (Michael Fassbender) has
settled
in to a new life, with a wife and daughter. He reveals his powers when he
saves a co-worker at an ironworks from a falling bessemer container.
Predictably, his co-workers snitch on him, the police show up for him, and
(mostly) inadvertently kill his wife and daughter. Magneto is back -- he
dispatches the police with a flick of his hand and a tiny piece of metal.
We also meet Peter Maximoff/Quicksilver (Evan Peters), who's Magneto's
son,
but living with his mother. Magneto doesn't know he exists. Apocalypse
picks
up Magneto as well, showing him how powerful he really is. They beam in to
the School for the Gifted, homing in on Charles Xavier, with Apocalypse
trying to conquer his mind -- and nearly succeeding. Instead, Alex
Summers/Havok (Lucas Till) looses his power under the mansion and ends up
blowing everything all to hell. Quicksilver arrives just in the nick of
time
to save everyone. He's very fast and the effect is very neat, but it goes
on
forever.
They regroup, but are then kidnapped by Colonel Striker's (Josh Helman)
forces. They break out of there with the help of Weapon X (an uncredited
Hugh
Jackman). The forces are now pretty much aligned. Apocalypse wants to
transfer his consciousness into Xavier and rule the world. Magneto is
going
along to get along, for now.
They each pair off, with Psylocke fighting Beast, Archangel fighting
Nightcrawler, Cyclops fighting Ororo, and Xavier fighting Apocalypse in
the
astral plane. It's all a bit of a crazy mess, with Magneto showing up at
the
end, to attack Apocalypse as well. Finally, Phoenix lets loose and
delivers
the killer blow.
As you can tell just from the character listing, they squeezed every last
possible X-person into this movie, but it kind of worked out ok? The
acting
was decent and the script navigated the waters more or less capably.
Apocalypse was a bit of a deus ex, but it was fine, entertaining enough.
The Expanse S04 (2019) -- "9/10"
"Klaes: Marco is a nihilist -- in the guise of a patriot. His way is not the
way forward for the Belt. I have seen blood spilled my entire life -- and
I
have spilt enough -- to know that the future -- our future -- cannot be
built
on violence.
"Camina: You sound like a politician.
"Klaes: No, I'm just old. Age changes you in ways you don't expect. My
focus
isn't as narrow as it once was."
We start where we left off: humanity is grappling with the implications of
the protomolecule, but also with the thousands of gates that have opened
on
remote galaxies. The area near the gates is patrolled and controlled by an
Earth-Mars-Belter alliance, but nothing has addressed the underlying
animosities and prejudices. Earth acts like the royal ruler -- headed by
the
honestly insufferable Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo) -- shitting on Mars
at
every chance, and barely recognizing the Belter's existence as anything
other
than a captured workforce.
The original crew is back on the Rocinante: Holden (Steven Strait, now
with
beard), Naomi Nagata (Dominique Tipper), Amos (Wes Chatham), and Alex (Cas
Anvar). Miller (Thomas Jane) is still knocking around inside Holden's
head,
trying to figure out the alien race's plan and trying to figure out how to
deal with the protomolecule, should it pop up again.
On Mars, Bobbie (Frankie Adams) has been busted down to private and is
working for a living. She's living at home and dealing with local gangs
who
are using her nephew David to cook drugs for them. The gangs are actually
the
police and they kidnap David to blackmail Bobbie into helping them break
into
military facilities. She tries to turn herself in, but her supervisor is
more
interested in getting a taste of the smuggling action. He turns her in,
which
forces her to again work with the smugglers, in order to stay out of jail.
She can't win for losing.
Stationed near the gates are Belters Klaes (David Strathairn) and Camina
(Cara Gee), who are trying their damnedest to stick to the alliance while
dealing with reprobation from their fellow Belters and scorn from Earth
and
Mars.
The Rocinante goes through a gate, following in the wake of a Belter ship
that got through and has colonized an Earth-like planet they call Ilus
(and
many in the arrogant U.N. call New Terra). They are preceded by a mission
from Earth that comes in like they own the planet and treats the Belters
like
scum -- especially Murtry (Burn Gorman), who shoots one point-blank, for
making a vague threat. Amos is not pleased and you can see him hatching an
appropriate payback at some point in the future. Amos is still pretty
awesome.
Meanwhile, Nagata has trained her body to accept planetary gravity, but
she's
pushing it too far, too fast. Alex and Holden go to the giant,
billion-year--old artifacts to investigate their purpose -- and their
possible relation to suspicions that the protomolecule has followed
mankind
through the gates and to this bounty of planets. They are beautiful and
intricate machines and wonderfully made. They remind me a bit of the ruins
from Prometheus. Alex and Holden (under Miller's guidance) free up the
machines and they swing into action, firing lightning strikes in patterns
all
over the planet.
The Belter's equipment is heavily damaged, but the Earthers don't lift a
finger to help. They're still sore because their ship was shot down,
killing
dozens, and they suspect the Belters. It's just as likely that it was a
reflexive defense mechanism in the planet itself. At any rate, Amos
requisitions/commandeers equipment and dares them to shoot him.
Back on Earth, Avasarala is more-or-less consumed with a political attack
on
her by a younger opponent who
even-more-arrogantly-than-Avasarala-if-that's-even-possible thinks that
Earth
alone should decide how to apportion the wealth of Ring Space. Avasarala's
team unearths dirt on her, though -- she got an unfair leg up in getting a
scholarship that launched her career.
Meanwhile, on Ilus, Murtry and his men are on a lawless, murderous
rampage,
searching for the people who killed their 23 comrades on landing. They
capture Amos and chase Nagata and the Belter doctor Lucia (who was
actually
the one who shot down the lander). Holden orders Murtry to stand down,
telling him that they've got bigger fish to fry because the planet is
waking
up. One of the artifacts has started moving toward the settlement, but
Holden
orders the Roci to fire a rocket into it, rendering it inert (if not
dead).
Murtry pins down Lucia and Nagata, but Holden and Alex pin down Murtry and
his lynch mob with suppressing fire from the Roci, and rescue them. Holden
elects to stay behind, as the Roci takes Lucia, Nagata, and Alex back to
orbit. In a flashback, we find out that, although Lucia planted the bombs,
she wanted to blow up the landing pad before they even started descent.
The
others wanted to blow it when they landed. She got a hold of the trigger
and
blew the charges early, but still close enough to hit the shuttle.
Holden goes back to camp, protected by his status as envoy of the U.N.
Murtry
is a giant asshole who's enjoying the hell out of being able to exact
revenge
for his lost crew on the deplorable scum of the Belters. He doesn't really
care who he has to kill -- he's happy to eliminate them all.
Holden calls a truce and tells them that they have to leave the planet
because there are things much bigger than their squabble going on. Murtry
acts like he has some sort of jurisdiction to tell everyone else what to
do
-- but he only can because he and his crew have better weapons. They are
light years from anything else and he keeps calling the Belters
"squatters"
as if there were a fucking zoning authority anywhere in sight. Basically,
everything belongs to Earth first and then we'll see who else gets a few
table scraps. Nothing ever changes.
Holden tries to tell them that it doesn't matter right now because
everyone
is going to die. The protomolecule and the ancient machines are going to
run
them all over if they don't clear out. The Belters want their claim to be
respected -- they're from Ganymede, which was destroyed by Earth/Mars
squabbling and they have nowhere else to go.
Klaes and Camina capture the rogue Belter pirate Marco Inaros, who's
basically a terrorist, but their tribunal (with 3 other Belters) agrees to
let him live and go back to his ship. He promises to behave from now on --
until the first sign of betrayal by Earth (the Inners), which he claims is
an
inevitability. He's almost certainly right that the Belters will never be
an
equal party at the table -- although it's only through their mining work
that
Earth and Mars have any fleet at all (sound familiar?).
One lady looks like she's got a bit of the protomolecule, but no-one else
has
noticed yet. The machines are on the move, on the surface and below. A
giant
explosion interrupts their squabbles. Speaking of squabbles, Avasarala and
her opponent have an insufferably stupid debate that we could all have
done
without. Avasarala has a couple more soliloquies where she yells at Holden
across hours of lag, demanding that he report back more often -- for all
the
good it will do.
The giant explosion releases a planet-wide shockwave headed for the
encampment in 8 hours. In orbit, the ships lose all fusion power and can't
rescue anyone. The planet-bound take their mutual animosity to an
artifact,
blow their way in and barely escape the tsunami. They're trapped under the
artifact now, with limited water and food, split into factions with
unequal
supplies, plagued by madman Murtry, who's looking to thin the herd, and
everyone has a "virus" that's almost certainly the protomolecule and will
blind them all in a day -- except for Holden, who's not infected.
Episode 7 has terrible writing, leaning on dialogue and exposition for
everything. The Lucia/Nagata "explanation" of orbital mechanics from one
fucking Belter to another is so ham-handed, it's ridiculous. I hope that
Avasarala's thrashing about and chewing the scenery is meant to express
her
discomposure -- because it's pretty tough to sit through. It continues
with
absolutely laughable shit like having Lucia's daughter -- a teenage
stowaway
on another ship -- answering its comms and planning rescues like she's the
captain or has any clue about orbital mechanics. Lucia and Felcia to the
rescue! Naturally, it was perfectly fine for Lucia to not care at all
about
the safety of the plan because the other ship has to be saved, no matter
what.
Meanwhile, the UN military is able to hit targets entire star systems away
with a railgun, and can intercept in hours. There is instant video feed
everywhere in the solar system -- hi-def, of course, with audio and
vitals-signs-monitoring for all soldiers -- in real-time. Of course.
On the ground, in the artifacts, everyone's going blind but Holden. Amos
is
also blind and trying to keep his shit together. Holden is sedating anyone
who freaks out. There are space-slugs falling from everywhere, killing
people
pretty much on contact. It's looking pretty grim. Murtry is angling to
kill
Holden to make sure that no-one interferes with his claim to the planet
and
its lithium and alien artifacts. Like that's how it's going to work out.
At
the moment, he's blind and it's eating him alive that he's dependent on
Holden for survival. Amos and Holden have a moment, which was actually
quite
nicely done.
It turns out that Holden's ongoing cancer treatment for his radiation
exposure on Eros is what's protected him from the blindness that afflicts
everyone else. The doctor mixes up a lot more of the treatment and
administers it to the others, bringing them all back. Murtry starts
scheming
again immediately, accelerating his plans because (A) Holden is now
missing
and (B) the plans to tow the Barbi with the Roci to a higher orbit seem to
be
working.
Holden is missing because Miller has returned -- this time as himself
rather
than as a simulacrum put together by the quasi-sentient protomolecule. He
shows Holden a secret passage and takes him to a wormhole-like tunnel in
the
artifact that will lead Holden closer to a place that the "protomolecule
can't go", according to Miller. Holden jumps in.
Avasarala schemes further, faking empathy like a true sociopath and
gaining
back a ton of favor among voters -- but losing her husband's previously
unshakeable respect in the process. Klaes takes off after Marco Inaros to
bring capital justice, once and for all. Camina considers going with him,
but
begs off, in the end. She has other work to do -- but not for the
alliance,
as she's quit that job too.
The Rocinante maneuver mostly works to save the Barb, but they're forced
to
emergency action, using a railgun to provide impetus. Lucia is still
insipid
and Naomi is taking on the annoying character that she had in previous
seasons. Nobody who claims to be a Belter seems to have any intuitive feel
for orbital mechanics. Alex is awesome throughout, playing the cool-ass,
Han
Solo-like pilot.
Holden and Miller arrive at the "bomb", which is a Sauron-like eye that
is,
like, connected to everything. Miller thinks he can trigger it, but he has
to
inhabit a Johnny Five-like contraption of junk and be guided up to it, so
he
can "gather everything else" and jump in, taking out his old masters (the
beings that are somehow intrinsically linked with the protomolecule and
who'd
eradicated the billion-year-old civilization on the planet they're on).
Murtry and Esai follow Holden, followed closely by Dr. Okoye and Amos. Wei
tries to stop Amos with words, then threatens him, so he shoots her, only
to
be ambushed by Murtry, whom he wounds even worse. They're both out of it.
While Holden runs back to help Amos, Okoye helps Miller shut down the
planet
and also take out his masters (maybe). Amos and Murtry glower at each
other,
but the standoff ends there, with the Rocinante landing delicately on the
side of the artifact to pick them all up.
The standoff ends with the planet dead, but with its technological "ribs"
exposed, Miller is gone, Murtry is headed for trial, Lucia has been
forgiven,
everyone else is saved, the Belters have their ore, and most are staying
to
continue building their colony, along with the RCE science team. Amos is
regrowing fingers and glowering at Murtry. Avasarala is mad because this
is a
bad spin for her campaign -- which is obviously all that matters.
Bobbie on Mars tries to save Esai and crew from themselves, but arrives
too
late to stop the ambush. Klaes is closing in on Inaros, but hits some
bumps
along the way, with a Martian that he tried to play good cop with. Klaes
eventually catches up to Marco's ship, but neither Marco nor Klaes is in
any
way limited by orbital mechanics like mere mortals. This show used to do
much
better in that regard. At least if they're using Star Wars-style physics,
they're at least preserving the grungy look as well.
I suppose the actor playing Klaes (David Strathairn) really had to go do
other things -- because he went out super-stupid. He bad-assed his way
into
Marco's ship, then dropped his guard completely, letting Marco and
Nagata's
stupid son get the drop on him in a "reveal" that surprised no-one.
Instead
of at least shooting Marco, he gets captured and goes out like ... a man?
Out
of the airlock? Spaced by two smug cunts? That part felt pretty lazy and
not
really worthy of the character, but his song was pretty cool. Hey, maybe
everybody fucks up and gets dropped at some point. At least he seems to
have
managed to fire off some final intel before he freezes up. Marco -- now,
suddenly with a full crew again -- launches his asteroid toward Earth.
Amos and Murtry are both relatively healed. Amos gives him a visit. Amos
tells him it's go time. Murtry takes the first poke. Amos twists away,
turning slowly back to Murtry, with bloody grin and wild eyes. Gleefully:
"thanks". End scene.
This is a really beautifully shot show, much more convincing and visually
interesting than Star Trek: Discovery. Instead of multiple small shows
with a
large story arc, they have just the large story arc. It's fine for
Discovery
-- which is following the age-old Star Trek formula of doing just that --
but
it's also nice to shift gears.
[image][image][image][image][image][image][image][image][image][image][image][image]
Middleditch & Schwartz S01 (2020) -- "8/10"
Thomas Middleditch (Richard Hendricks of Silicon Valley) and Ben Schwartz
(Jean-Ralphio of Parks and Recreation) are a two-man, "long-form",
improvisational comedy duo. They quiz the audience for a few minutes to
get
the basic data for a scenario, then launch into 45 minutes of
improvisational
comedy that flows with callbacks, side-jokes, and raw talent. They roll
with
everything and make it work, true pros.
The first episode is a wedding where they switch amongst 15 members, with
each playing whoever needs to be played at the moment. You know who they
are
by accents, what they say, and sometimes their location on the stage. The
stage is bare, except for them and two chairs.
The second episode is a classroom for Contract Law, where they start
slowly
using the few scraps of information they gathered at the beginning, but
slowly build to a story of a young alien boy who is in a secret room at
the
back. It's more dream-like and odd than the first one (which was more
solid
overall), but Middleditch really balances Schwartz well. Schwartz stays a
bit
of a guiding hand whereas Middleditch riffs more.
The third episode is my favorite. They're at a job interview and
Middleditch
is visibly incensed at the insanity of what the audience member described
as
his experience interviewing with SNL for a photography internship. They
start
with Schwartz interviewing by video where he has to read the questions
himself, with Middleditch off-screen playing the remote voice. He
humiliates
him by making him act like a gazelle, but cutting it short before the male
gazelle appears. They weave the friend in, who also wants the job. They
discuss their experiences -- including how far they got with the gazelle.
Sawson has been offered a job at the NYT as a foreign correspondent/war
photographer -- he would end up traveling to war-torn Norway -- split
east-west in a primarily north-south country -- while Kyle takes funny
pictures for a new feature in the NYT as well. Neither got the job at SNL
and
both want the other's job. In a dreamlike sequence, they end up in a JFK
bathroom, lined up and pooping, along with a couple of died-in-the-wool
New
Yorkers, who offer not just life advice, but also a kind of Freaky Friday
ritual that lets them switch places, but not before Middleditch can hold
forth on how wasteful his New Yorker character is -- "I don't care! What's
the point? The UN says we only have 11 years left anyway!". The ritual has
them both on the ground like gazelles playing rock-paper-scissors to see
who
has to play the lady gazelle. Middleditch loses; the New Yorker breaks it
up
because that's not how the ritual goes. Instead, they mime a sort of Human
Centipede journey and pop up in each other's bodies, temporarily and
severely
confused about who is Sawson in Kyle and who is Kyle in Sawson and who has
which dream job now. Truly inspired and pretty brilliant. I'd watch that
one
again.
We used to watch a lot of Whose Line Is It Anyway? with the incomparable
Ryan
Stiles, Greg Proops, Colin Mochrie, Wayne Brady, and Drew Carey. I love
this
low-tech, pure-talent form of comedy. Comedy without a script is magical;
it's like your super-funny and super-clever friend, but professional. It's
down-to-Earth. It's why I like Bill Burr's impromptu stuff almost more
than
his specials (at least recently; I'm Sorry You Feel That Way was a
masterpiece) -- he's a naturally funny person who doesn't need a script.
He
just needs a bit of kindling and he's off and running. Middleditch and
Schwartz do a different thing, but their ability to riff is wonderful.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Yiddish is about 60% Swiss German. I can understand almost everything
without subtitles. I remember thinking the same whenever I went
food-shopping at C-Town in Kew Gardens and would overhear YIddish and wonder
whether I had discovered an enclave of Swiss Germans.
[1] Who should have gotten an Oscar for "best use of a cape".
[1] He's not famous or anything, I just wanted to write his name.
[1] I am not kidding about that name. Nobody in the movie bats an eye calling
him that.
[1] Yes, totally, that Kylie Minoque.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=41382021-01-26T23:04:42+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Mr. Robot S04 (2020) -- "10/10"
"We staged the biggest coup in history. They opted in and they clicked OK."
Season four picks up with Angela (Portia Doubleday) at Phillip Price's
(Michael Cristofer) estate, where he begs her to recant and give up her
pursuit of Whiterose (BD Wong). She does not, with predictable
consequences.
Darlene (Carly Chaikin) is a hot mess, coked out of her mind and mourning
Angela's disappearance, but not accepting that she might be gone forever.
Tyrell Wellick (Martin Wallström) has been installed as the CTO
figurehead
at EvilCorp, doomed to ineffectiveness at one meaningless press event
after
another.
Dominique (Grace Gummer) is living at home with her mother, reeling from
her
having been conscripted by Whiterose into being a mole at the FBI, a role
she's trying to avoid, but for which she gets a stark reminder (through a
threat to her mother's life).
Elliot (Rami Malek) and Mr. Robot (Christian Slater) are still in pursuit,
homing in on Whiterose's gold reserves in Cyprus, to which he gets access
with Freddy Lomax's (Jake Busey) blackmailed assistance.
"My feelings? Do you see what's going on out there? People are already
forgetting about 5/9, the cyber-bombings. They're buying their
E-Coin-discounted stocking stuffers and Christmas hams. And they're going
to
forget. And I don't blame them. They're exhausted. I'm exhausted. But we
let
this go...it'll be back to business as usual for Whiterose and her
friends.
The more she gets away with this, the worse this gets. So fuck my
feelings.
I'm done with the therapy sessions."
Elliot follows a lead provided by Freddy, but it turns out to be a
honeypot
and he's kidnapped and forced to overdose on heroin by Whiterose's
henchmen.
Price appears just as he's about to succumb, rescuing him from an overdose
with an antidote. In a beautifully rendered scene, Price introduces Elliot
to
the Deus Group, the company behind E-Corp, the company through which
Whiterose runs everything. They discuss next steps in front of Elliot's
heist
plans, a smattering of somewhat translucent post-its with the morning sun
shining gloriously between and through them.
"[segues in from the soundtrack to Koyaanisqatsi, reviewed "here"
] You're trying to
stop a speeding train by standing in front of it. All this [gestures to
Elliot's post-it notes outlining his "plan"] they won't even notice.
"I became a dead man walking the minute I agreed to work with Whiterose.
"Just like you."
Eliot and Darlene's mother dies. They are charged with taking her very few
effects and arranging a funeral. Darlene is obsessed with her mother's
safe-deposit box while Eliot is focused on his next contact. Darlene is
really unpleasant and not handling anything well. Dominique digs herself
deeper into her role as a Dark Army mole at the FBI.
We learn that Eliot has another, more powerful personality than Mr. Robot.
We
also learn more about Whiterose's past and more about her project. Her
right-hand woman is efficient and ruthless and incredibly observant. A lot
of
the flashbacks are in Chinese. Eliot and Price are maneuvering and
Whiterose,
though unsure of their plans, pushes them to make a mistake by pretending
to
fall into their trap.
Vera (Elliot Villar) is back and wants to partner with Eliot, calling him
a
visionary, and he's got his henchmen tracking him. "Details. The devil is
in
them."
Tyrell meets Elliot at his apartment and they take out a man in a van on
the
street below who's surveilling them. Eliot and Tyrell head north -- way
north
-- and end up in the boonies around mile 127 on the NYS Thruway. They stop
at
a gas station, where the guy they'd knocked out takes the van, but crashes
nearby. Eliot and Tyrell strike out for the the next town, through the
woods,
getting lost and ending up first back at the gas station, then at the
crashed
van. They struggle with the mortally injured driver, Tyrell is shot, he
wanders off on his own, leaving Elliot to burn the van.
Darlene is up there, too, having driven a spectacularly drunk Santa Claus
home in her search for Elliot. Miraculously, she finds him and they get
back
to New York. They embark on a wicked infiltration of a data center to hack
into the Cyprus Bank, creating accounts for themselves to use later. They
barely escape, with Darlene social-engineering her way out and Elliot just
flat-out running out of there. Dom is put on their trail by the Dark Army.
His flight reminds me of Phillip's flight at the end of season 6 of The
Americans.
Elliot works Olivia -- a high-level financial flunky of the Deus Group --
sufficiently to get access to the Dark Army's bank account. She complies,
but
not without complications. Elliot is forced to shed more of his psychic
armor
as he basically tortures the girl into working with him.
Vera catches up with Krista (Elliot's former therapist) and "convinces"
her
to give him the means he needs in order to break Elliot, in order to get
him
to work with Vera. She eventually tells Vera about "Mr. Robot". Vera is
quite
loquacious and holds forth for long soliloquies, which are quite
well-written. "You a formidable adversary."
Next up is Elliot, kidnapped by Vera, and now subjected to Vera's
crack-fueled monologues. Vera wants to work together, with Elliot. He
manages
to force Mr. Robot to the forefront, where they discuss details. "Why are
you
here?" (Vera asks Mr. Robot.)
"How about we skip the psychobabble and get to why we're really here. You
said you want to own this island and you need my help.
"So, this job interview isn't about my credentials; it's about yours. And,
like I said, with your operation, I don't know if you could run a White
Castle, much less New York. You want me to work for you? It's clear you
don't
want to force me into it. Which means you've got to start convincing me.
"You know the things I've done, things I've been able to pull off. I'm not
someone you push around with a gun. I am the gun. So, yeah, you gotta
convince me.
"Let me see if I got this straight. You want to get into real estate. Is
that
it? Is that really what all this is about? Is that your ground-breaking
epiphany here? No. That can't really be it, is it?
"In your word salad, I heard something about drug-dealing? Thing is,
Phizer
and Eli are a few billion ahead of you and they can buy your death with
the
same half-cent it costs them to make a pill.
"[...] Stores? With the debt everyone's in, I'm sure they'll gladly give
'em
to you, in which case, you'll just be owned by their banks. Trains are
even
more bankrupt. And don't even get me started on the NYPD. Even that blunt
you
wanna roll is going to be marked up by Big Tobacco itself.
"Point is: this city is one big, fat credit-card bill and you wanna pay
it,
all so you can what? Be another suit with a mortgage? Unless you're after
a
monopoly on stupidity, please tell me you have more. Please, tell me you
didn't waste my time, when you could have just enrolled in some night
classes
at Brooklyn School of Real Estate and left me the fuck out of it.
"Power is just an asshole stuffed with money.
"[Vera asks 'how much?']
"Even asking that means you're thinking too small. Behind every great
fortune
there lies a great crime. That is the corporate motto of these United
States.
You want to oink-oink with all the other capitalist pigs? It's not about
how
much money, it's about robbing money itself."
Act 3 has Elliot show them the amount of money they could steal. Elliot
tries
to shoot them, but his gun had been unloaded. Vera forces an ad-hoc
therapy
session wherein Elliot learns that Krista thinks his secret is associated
with why Mr. Robot exists in the first place. Elliot exhorts her to "keep
going", with Vera inadvertently helping him finally learn/remember what
happened. "Vera: There is no why."
"I did it for you. I did this because I could see this wound on your face
from the first time I met you. I just wanted to show you the light. The
only
thing that happened just now, is that you finally faced the truth. You
been
lookin' away your whole life.
"And now that you know the truth, you can use it.
"Your dad, he took a lot from you. But he didn't take everything. See,
this
shit you went through? Most people don't know pain like that; they never
will. And if they did, it would end them.
"But the people who did, the ones who keep survivin'? Those are the ones
you
can't beat, those are the ones no-one can beat.
"Because once you weather a storm like yours, you become the storm. You
hear
me? You are the storm.
"And it's the rest of the world that needs to run for cover.
"Your power is beautiful. Elliot, you're special. Don't you believe that?
Do
you wanna believe it?
"You're not alone; I see you now."
Vera is dead, stabbed in the back by Krista. Elliot is still reeling from
the
revelation about his father and Krista is reeling after having just
murdered
a man. Dom and Darlene are in the clutches of the taxidermist Janice
(Ashlie
Atkinson), of the Dark Army. She's ruthless and annoying and smug -- but
she
gets what she wants: the location of Elliot's phone. Ordinarily, this
would
also be the location of Elliot, but he's left it behind in Krista's
apartment.
Janice is...perturbed. To boot, her men aren't picking up at Dom's house,
where she's sent them to apply extra pressure. Dom's criminal associate
Deegan McGuire (Alex Morf) has showed up first and wiped out the Dark Army
militia. He tells Janice on the phone,
"[...] don't worry, they died with dignity. Well, most of them anyway. Some
of them may have shat themselves but that is, as the French say, de
rigeur"
He's also absconded with Dom's family. Dom takes advantage of Janice's
distraction to take out the two Dark Army henchmen and to stop Janice's
prattling forever.
Elliot reconciles with Mr. Robot while Darlene searches for Elliot -- and
Dom
goes to the hospital for her punctured lung. The Deus Group meeting is at
a
different location, with Chang and Price verbally dueling at the original
location. At the same time, Darlene and Elliot execute the grand hack to
intercept the 2FA prompts and steal every last dime from every last member
of
the Deus Group (100 of them). Trillions.
"Chang: [...] It's over.
Phillip: Yes, I suppose it is. [Laughs out loud]
Chang: What?
Phillip: Something wrong, old sport?
Chang: What is this?
Phillip: Well, if it's what I think it is...we're all broke.
Chang: No, that's impossible.
Phillip: Apparently not.
Chang: Where is it, Phillip? Where is my fucking money?
Phillip: Gone.
Chang: No.
Phillip: I warned you. I told you long ago. I'm a mercenary. I'd rather
see
you lose than win myself."
They reconvene, with Darlene and Dom riding to Logan Airport with Leon
(Joey
Bada$$) in a huge, black Lincoln Continental. Elliot stays behind because
he
still has work to do -- he has already stolen all of Whiterose's money;
now
he will fulfill Phillip's final wish and destroy her project, buried under
Washington Township.
Dom ends up on the plane, after vacillating; Darlene ends up off the plane
after same.
Whiterose still has power, with enough men surrounding her to resist
arrest
for having killed Phillip Price in cold blood on the front steps of the
hotel. She escapes her building and heads to the Washington Township power
plant, where she meets an oddly credulous Elliot, who sees no issue with
the
power plant standing wide open and unmanned.
He applies his malware, but is caught by the Dark Army (certainly not the
police, who are also converging). He awakes to face off with Whiterose.
Elliot rejects Whiterose's odd and eloquent plea with an equally eloquent
and
moving refutation, whereupon Whiterose "offers him the same choice she
gave
Angela". Elliot chooses, "don't do this." and Whiterose shoots herself.
Elliot and Mr. Robot seem to figure out how to stop Whiterose's machine by
choosing to "Stay and help your friend" in a text-based adventure running
on
an Apple IIE. They are trapped by fire and seem resigned to their fate.
Cut
scene to what seems like a parallel reality, where Elliot's father is
alive
and well, running the Mr. Robot shop, where he and Angela are to be
married
the next day, and where he is CEO of AllSafe, having just closed an
historic
deal with Wellick, CEO of F Corp.
That this world is a fantasy becomes more obvious as Elliot wakes up in an
empty parking lot -- where the power plant used to be. He goes into town
to
discover that he is in Whiterose's world "where everything is better",
that
"her machine worked". We see the same plot as the previous episode, but
from
the point of view of "our" Elliot rather than the "good" Elliot in this
"better" world.
Elliot hacks himself, finding comic artwork on a hidden partition that
depicts him as an alter ego, with pictures of Darlene (who is otherwise
missing in the "better" world). The two Elliots touch, triggering another
earthquake, with "good" Elliot slamming his head into the heating register
and paralyzing himself. Angela calls, convincing "our" Elliot to finish
the
job started by the earthquake. He assumes Elliot's identity in the "good"
world.
Mr. Robot comes back, trying to warn him that this isn't real, but Elliot
is
committed to the fantasy. It unravels, though, slowly, as Elliot makes his
way to Coney Island -- ostensibly for the wedding pictures on the beach.
He
arrives to a strange scene, with no Angela. Mr. Robot meets him there and
tells him he's in a loop that he ("our" Elliot) had prepared for the
"real"
Elliot. He isn't Elliot; he's...the Mastermind.
He chases Angela, who tells him the same thing. He's back in Krista's
study,
where she tells him the same thing, that he has to let go, he has to give
Elliot his life back. The guy we've just watched for four seasons is a
persona, a master hacker, invented by Elliot (the boring guy with the
boring
repetitive life who was about to marry Angela and who had drawings of the
"Mastermind" and his gang and their doings on his hidden partition).
The Mastermind doesn't let go and awakes in a hospital, having survived
the
explosions and implosions at the power plant, finding out from Darlene,
who's
there for him, that he'd saved the world, again. She tells him that he's
back, in the real world, and that everything he thinks happened happened.
He
confesses to her that he "isn't real" and he's "not Elliot", to which she
replies, "I know".
She'd known all along that she was working with a persona, but enjoyed
spending time with her brother, who'd otherwise ignored her -- ever since
she
ran away rather than help him with his trouble with this father. The
Mastermind tells her he loves her, then ... lets go.
This was a strong, strong and satisfying end to a strong run of seasons, a
story arc that made sense from start to finish (in the end) and was
well-worth the ride. I would do it again. Highly recommended.
The Reagans (2020) -- "9/10"
This documentary starts off covering Reagan's early career as an actor with a
strong penchant for fabrication off the set as well. Nancy is the same in
that regard -- and is quite wily and hungry for power, as well. It is she
who
pushes her husband's ambitions when his will flags.
There are many interesting interview subjects, from across the political
spectrum, within reason. Unquestioningly fervent supporters of Reagan's
legacy were unlikely to agree to be interviewed for a film that was bound
to
be at least partially critical. Robert Scheer, Ronald Reagan Jr., Jonathan
Alter, Ian Haney Lopez, Kitty Kelley, Maya Wiley, Jason Johnson, and Derek
Shearer all deliver utterly uncontroversial background and interpretation
with panache.
Nancy's career as an actress had never even taken off to the degree that
Ron's had, so she took up the role of her lifetime: devoted and doting
wife.
He, too, took up the role of Union Leader -- which he clearly never
actually
believed in as anything but a stepping stone -- then Governor, then
President. On the way, he pretended to have been a football star (it's the
all-American sport, after all) and even confabulated his participation in
WWII: he was in the service, but never left California. He made
commercials
because his eyesight was too bad to ship out. But he told everyone that
he'd
just gotten back to Hollywood after "four years away" at war.
His career as an actor wanes. He gets fewer and fewer films and even TV
shows
are increasingly supplemented with ad spots. The Reagans move in to
politics
in a bigger way. They do so, at first, as mouthpieces for GE in a weekly
television series. The company paid Reagan $125,000 per year and installed
the family in a fully electrified home. He got this deal because he was
the
president of SAG and ramrodded an exemption through for his agent to
simultaneously start the MCA production company, which got the deal with
GE
and promptly turned around and rewarded Reagan with this fat job.
Politically, Ronald Reagan went from being the son of fervent supporters
of
FDR to a man who renounced the Democratic party in 1964, soon after it had
fought for and passed civil-rights legislation. Even this early, he was
using
dog-whistling in his speeches to signal to voters what he was all about:
helping white people succeed. He campaigned fervently for Barry
Goldwater's
Republican presidential bid (as did Hillary Clinton, who called herself a
"Goldwater Girl"). He went from president of one of the strongest unions
in
the country to a union-busting president in just 20 years. Utterly
unprincipled.
He was all but explicitly against civil rights; he was stridently
pro-business and therefore utterly undemocratic. He all but gave up his
colleagues to the Committee of Unamerican Affairs, but did it so
underhandedly that he avoided reprobation for actually outing anyone. He
accused Martin Luther King of being a communist. He lied and lied and lied
about black people, about welfare, about the poor, about big business.
Almost
none of what he said was accurate, but it pushed a view of America that
was
very conducive to his backers -- the re-emerging and self-nominated elite.
In a way that Trump would follow decades later, he tapped into a vein of
political atavism in America that was deep and powerful. He would win his
two
elections as President in two of the most overwhelming landslides of all
time. "He only received 14% of the African American vote" but won
landslides
without them.
With backing from a powerful cabal of California businessmen who called
themselves the Kitchen Cabinet (because they could provide you with
anything
you might need), he became governor of California in 1966. Nancy refused
to
move into the mansion in Sacramento because it was too close to the center
of
the city (i.e. too urban). Claiming that it was sad that California
couldn't
provide housing for its governor, they moved into a home funded by the
Kitchen Cabinet instead. No conflict of interest in sight.
He ran for the Republican nomination against Nixon in 1968, who trounced
him.
He stayed away in 1972, where Nixon was too strong and swept to victory
against George McGovern, but was back in 1976, where he lost the
nomination
to Gerald Ford by a narrow margin, who would go on to a resounding loss to
Jimmy Carter.
In 1980, Reagan was back again and this time swept to victory. His
politics
throughout were the clear precursor of what has since stagnated in both
parties: a hatred of the poor mixed with adulation of the rich (see my
review
of "The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap"
by Matt Taibbi for
more information on where Reaganism had taken us by 2014).
Very soon into his first term in office, Reagan moves forward on his giant
tax cut for the rich -- does that remind you of anyone? -- which
necessitates
a lot of cuts to social programs that he deems unnecessary (because who
needs
a government handout but deadbeats?). While that's an uphill battle at the
time -- neither Republicans nor Democrats had developed their now-common
penchant/instinct for cruelty against the poor at the beginning of the
Reagan
era -- he actually benefits from being shot by John Hinckley.
It becomes politically -- and, apparently, morally -- difficult to say no
to
someone who's just bravely recovered from an attempt on his life
(especially
one who reminds you of it at every opportunity). Somehow, voting for a tax
cut that would doom the poor to lives of increased misery was considered
easier (less cruel?) than saying no to a jovial old man who'd just been
shot
and had a wild hair about government waste (but only of a certain flavor).
The bill passes and the country embarks on its journey of massively
enriching
the already-wealthy elite while excoriating the undeserving and lazy poor
--
a journey that continues unabated to this day.
At nearly exactly the same time, (Queen) Nancy sees no problem with
spending
a lot of government money to redecorate the White House more to her liking
--
spending the lion's share of money on private floors, offering no benefit
to
the public, only to herself and her family. Similarly, she orders new
china
for 220 people at $1,000 apiece. It's not a ton of money, but it was an
extraordinarily bad look when the rest of the country was having its belt
tightened by a sanctimonious President.
The country quickly feels the pinch of Reagan's nonsensical economic
policies. He isn't oblivious to the suffering, but feels that whoever is
still poor after he's fixed everything ... deserves to be. He is full of
platitudes and a cornucopia of money for corporations -- especially the
military-industrial complex. "A rising tide lifts all boats", "Trickle
down...", "Morning in America". He tours America for his reelection, with
nearly none of his victims aware of what he's done and welcoming him with
open arms instead.
Nancy begins her utterly tone-deaf "Just Say No" campaign that helps
no-one
while her husband leads the charge in turning the screws on drug users --
but
only, of course, certain ones. These things didn't begin with Reagan, but
he
was very gung-ho about accelerating them. He really believed his own
bullshit
-- and so did millions upon millions of his worshipers who suffered from
his
policies, railing against the same "big government" that used to help them
get back on their feet.
He performed terribly in debates because he was lazy. (Does that remind
you
of anyone?) He hooked and landed voters with a well-placed zinger. That's
all
it took. He's now established in nearly the biggest landslide ever,
settling
in to a term marked by White House infighting, with Nancy Reagan (and her
astrologer, Joan Quigley) increasingly taking the reins as Ronald starts
to
fade mentally.
His fealty to his vision of SDI -- hatched from a fevered memory of a
movie
he once played in, featuring a plane with an "ion cannon" on it -- made
him
torpedo an arms treaty at a summit with Gorbachev in Reykjavik that would
have dropped nuclear weapons to zero. His entire administration should
have
been impeached for Iran-Contra, but he managed to weasel his way out.
Heads
rolled, but not his.
He further showed his atavistic attitude in ignoring the AIDS crisis. It
was
six years into the epidemic -- affecting only homosexuals and drug users,
as
far as Reagan was concerned -- before his administration addressed it all.
Fauci was there and appalled. Reagan's first policy for AIDS was to
establish
immigration controls to deny entry for immigrants who might have AIDS.
With more than the shadow of Alzheimer's embracing him in its penumbra, he
went to Berlin to meet Gorbachev again -- and made it look like he
single-handedly unified Germany. The documentary focused on the
administration's focus on managing image and providing media packets --
something heretofore unknown.
The news clips are interesting from that time: the presentation was much
more factual and balanced then than now, in the age of nearly purely
siloed
news. Ronald Reagan Jr. features throughout and is really top-notch
everywhere.
It ends with the following citations from various figures:
"Jason Johnson: Ronald Reagan believed in a mythological America that never
existed. He didn't really care about taking us back to it. He thought that
it
still existed; it was just covered over in civil rights and government
regulation. And, if you just moved those things out of the way, this
America,
that never existed, that he magically believed in, was going to come back.
"Ronald Reagan Jr.: My father was not comfortable with a lot of
negativity.
If America was a great country, then it needed to be great, through and
through. So, whether it was racism, misogyny, wealth, and inequality --
these
systemic issues, you might say, with America, made my father very
uncomfortable. He would edit it out.
"Maya Wiley: And it was all myth-making. It was all brilliant acting.
Ronald
Reagan remains an incredible, societal myth, the myth of the perfect
president.
"David Brinkley: [asking Reagan a question] You're the only movie actor I
know of, who ever got elected to higher office. Did you learn anything as
an
actor that has been useful to you as president?
"Ronald Reagan: I'm tempted to say something here. [...] There have been
times in this office when I've wondered how you could do the job if you
hadn't [...] been an actor."
Spenser Confidential (2020) -- "8/10"
Spenser (Mark Wahlberg) is a former police officer just getting out of prison
after serving a five-year stint for beating up his police captain, Boylan
(Michael Gaston). He's picked up at the prison by his father Henry (Alan
Arkin) and narrowly avoids meeting his ex Cissy (Iliza Shlesinger), who's
a
bit unstable and is hunting for him.
Henry and Spenser get home to Henry's small house in Southie, where
Spenser
meets his roommate Hawk (Winston Duke), an aspiring boxer. Henry owns a
boxing gym where Spenser used to train as well. Spenser is done being a
cop
and wants to learn how to drive big rigs. He plans to move to Arizona soon
--
as soon as he gets back on his feet and gets his truck-driving license.
On the day of Spenser's release, Boylan is murdered in a vehicular hit.
Suspicion falls on Spenser, of course, but his pal and former partner
Driscoll (Bokeem Woodbine) believes Spenser's alibi. Instead, the hit is
pinned on a young officer who'd never done anything wrong in his life. He
is
survived by a young wife Letitia (Hope Olaidé Wilson), who knows her
husband
was framed. Spenser offers his help, of course. Hawk is right there with
him.
With the help of a reporter Cosgrove (Marc Maron), Spenser and Hawk
eventually uncover a massive conspiracy of most of the city's major
players
as well as dozens of dirty cops -- all led by Driscoll, his former
partner.
They're deeply involved in the drug trade and scheming to go semi-legit
and
make millions on a dog track being developed outside of Boston.
Cissy catches up with Spenser and they get her on the team as well.
Driscoll
kidnaps Henry -- who is hilariously unruffled by his potential death.
Spenser
ludicrously crashes the party at the dog track in "Black Betty" -- a giant
rig he's been begging the school to drive. It is utterly unclear why they
allowed him to take it now -- especially when he basically just drives it
into a bunch of cars.
Wahlberg is the perfect combination of beefcake and wisecracking Bostonite
for this role. Schlesinger does a pretty respectable job, as well. Arkin
is
fantastic, as always. Recommended.
Fred Armisen: Standup for Drummers (2018) -- "7/10"
Armisen is most well-known for his work on SNL. He has a relaxed, easy style
on stage, but doesn't offer anything remarkably insightful or provocative.
His schtick is that he is an accomplished drummer and that he made this
show
for other drummers. There are a lot of drummer -- and band -- inside
jokes.
He has a few unrelated bits, mostly very short, where the pacing reminded
me
a bit of Stephen Wright -- but the material was way less interesting.
He had a longer bit on accents, which he did -- and presented -- quite
well,
but it was all a bit disconnected. He invited other drummers on stage with
him to jam. He played a bit on sets he'd put together from the 30s, 40s,
50s,
60s, 70, 80s, 90s, and 00s. He was pretty anodyne but entertaining enough.
Force Majeure (2014) -- "7/10"
This is a film about a Swedish family of four -- a daughter who's perhaps 12
years old and a son who's probably about 6 years old -- vacationing in the
French Alps. They are there to ski and seem to be enjoying themselves on a
mountain that seems, at times, oddly empty.
The cinematography focuses on wide expanses and the mundane minutiae of
the
modern skiing experience to provide an odd, slightly off-kilter, and
somewhat
darkly comic feel to what might otherwise be a family movie. The father
Tomas
(Johannes Kuhnke) and mother Ebba (Lisa Loven Kongsli) seem to be OK, but
not
great together.
The rift grows wider early in the movie, when an avalanche threatens to
overwhelm their table at an outdoor restaurant. In the end, it stops just
short, blasting fine snow everywhere, but leaving everyone and everything
untouched. Ebba's instinct was to grab her children and hunker over them.
Tomas grabbed his phone and gloves and ran.
Ebba is horrified and deeply wounded by Tomas's reaction -- all the more
so
because he says he "remembers it differently". She goes for a day of
skiing
on her own, hanging out with a slutty friend of hers (j/k: her friend has
an
open relationship).
The next day, Mats (Kristofer Hivju aka Tormund Giantsbane) shows up with
his
20-year--old girlfriend Fanny, who commiserates with Ebba when she breaks
down and begs them to help her deal with how terribly Tomas has let their
family down. After this uncomfortable evening, Fanny tells Mats that she
thinks he would do the same to her -- after all, he's left his family to
be
with a 20-year-old, right? He doesn't take this well, tossing and turning
most of the night.
The next day, Mats and Tomas go back-country skiing together -- neither of
them seemingly fit enough for climbing one mountain after another, but
neither of them seeming to be exhausted physically after what must have
been
a tremendously long day. Tomas can't get back into his room because he's
lost
his key -- and the network is out in the room, so the family doesn't know
where he is, claiming his messages didn't arrive. However, Ebba is on the
phone with a friend, so she must have reception, even though the wireless
was
out. Tomas breaks down in a huge crying jag/panic attack, with the
children
comforting him and the daughter forcing Ebba to join.
The next day, they are alone on a foggy slope and Ebba goes missing. They
hear her weak cries and Tomas goes to rescue her, carrying her back
without
her skis. They are all relieved, after which she walks right back into the
fog to retrieve her skis. Did he rescue her? Did she fake being lost? Did
they plan it together for the kids? Did they fool themselves, in the end?
On the bus on the way down (on the Stelvio Pass, oddly enough), the driver
is
having trouble with the gears and Ebba has a bourgeois meltdown, insisting
that he drive better or let her out. The whole bus panics and they all get
out -- like lemmings. All except for their slutty friend, who is smart and
just stays on the bus instead of getting out of the only warm place for
kilometers at 2000m at what looks like twilight in winter. The film ends
with
the crowd walking down the pass.
There are weird moments -- darkly comic -- where they act so damned
bourgeois, which isn't surprising, but it's very subtly done in several
places.
We saw it in Swedish and French with English subtitles.
Lupin (2021) -- "9/10"
This is a very entertaining story of a Senegalese man named Assane Diop (Omar
Sy) growing up in France. His father Babakar (Fargass Assandé) worked for
a
rich man named Hubert Pellegrini (Hervé Pierre) and his wife Anne (Nicole
Garcia). They spend a lot of time on the premises and Assane gets to know
their daughter Juliette (Clotilde Hesme), who's a bit of a minx and
semi-seduces him.
We learn that Hubert was in financial trouble in 1995 and framed Babakar
for
stealing a necklace in order to collect the insurance money for it. The
necklace disappeared and reappeared 25 years later, in Juliette's
possession.
However, Babakar falsely confessed to the crime -- urged to do so by Anne,
who was, in turn, fooled into helping Hubert -- and then hanged himself in
prison. Assane is now truly orphaned and spends some time on his own, in
his
apartment, until the policeman Dumont (Johann Dionnet) shows up to take
him
to foster care.
Anne takes care that Assane ends up in one of the best schools in France,
where he meets his future partner in crime Benjamin (Antoine Gouy) and the
future mother of his child Raoul, Claire (Ludivine Sagnier).
Before Babakar died, he gave Assane one final birthday present: Arsène
Lupin, gentleman-cambrioleur by Maurice Leblanc. He reads the book again
and
again, making notes, basing his entire life on being smarter and
better-prepared and more of a gentleman than anyone else, always a step
ahead, always thieving, always with several cons on. His friend Benjamin
opens a store that they use to fence his purloined goods.
When the necklace reappears, Assane is determined to steal it "back" and
manages it with aplomb. He learns more about his father, about Pellegrini,
about what really happened. He sneaks into prison, then sneaks back out.
He
kidnaps and blackmails Dumont to get more information about what really
happened. Dumont's refusal to identify his kidnapper mystifies his police
team Belkacem (Shirine Boutella) and Capitaine Romain Laugier (Vincent
Londez), but especially Youssef Guedira (Soufiane Guerrab), who is a
mega-fan
of Lupin and sees all of the clues and similarities in Assane's actions.
Assane next teams up with retired journalist Fabienne Beriot (Anne
Benoît)
(and her dog J'Accuse), who was drummed out of the business ten years
before
for investigating Pellegrini too closely. Their plan to expose Pellegrini
falls through because he owns most of the media in the country and Assane
barely escapes the studio. Meanwhile, Pellegrini's henchman has hunted
down
Fabienne and killed her in her home, where Assane finds her with a
despondent
J'Accuse.
On Raoul's birthday, Assane travels to a Lupin festival (it's also Marcel
Leblanc's birthday), where the same killer hunts him down on the train. He
escapes by siccing the police on him, but the police let him free very
quickly, freeing him up to kidnap Raoul while Assane and Claire are
distracted. The first five episodes ended there.
This is a very smooth and entertaining and well-written little thriller
that
strikes a great balance with its untouchable central superhero Assane,
played
wonderfully by Omar Sy. The supporting cast is very good and rounds things
out nicely.
We watched it in French with English sub-titles.
The Plot Against America (2020) -- "9/10"
This six-part series takes place in an alternative history in which Franklin
D. Roosevelt was defeated in the U.S. presidential election of 1940 by
Charles Lindbergh. It is based on the book by Philip Roth.
We meet the Levin family, Herman (Morgan Spector) and Bess (Zoe Kazan)
with
their two kids, Phillip and Sandy, who worships Charles Lindbergh. Herman
is
stridently against Lindbergh, who's an anti-war anti-Semite. Herman is a
pacifist, too, but Hitler is slaughtering Jews and must be stopped.
Herman's nephew Alvin (Anthony Boyle) gets in trouble for covering up a
friend's thieving and strikes out on his own after Herman throws him out.
After another friend is beaten up by German sympathizers (they have a
Biergarten in New Jersey), Alvin and his friends head over there to ambush
two drunk Germans.
Bess's sister Evelyn Finkel (Winona Ryder) is single and worried about
dying
alone. She hooks up with Rabbi Lionel Bengelsdorf (John Turturro), who is
100% for Lindbergh because he doesn't want America to get involved in
another
war, conveniently ignoring Lindbergh's overt racism, particularly against
Jews.
This is a well-made period piece that shows people trying to live their
lives
despite the looming clouds of global politics. They worry that England
won't
be able to hold out and wonder about Lindbergh's cruelty in not wanting to
get mixed up in Europe's problems. Bess gets a job to make ends meet
because
Herman turned down a promotion because they would have had to move out of
their familiar neighborhood.
Alvin gets a job with a local "goniff", Abe Steinheim (Ned Eisenberg), a
puffed-up Jewish businessman who Herman admires, but only because he
doesn't
know how much he screws the working man to enrich himself. Alvin doesn't
want
to be in debt to someone like that.
The Levin family is the locus of tension between Bess, whose job at
Bergdorf's brings her in contact with rich white women who support
Lindbergh,
with Evelyn, who's falling in love with Rabbi Bengelsdorf, who's a
vehement
supporter of Lindbergh because he doesn't want American lives to be spent
going to Europe to save European Jews from Germany.
He's basically giving the Goyim permission to vote for Lindbergh, lending
him
the Jewish stamp of approval. Here, Herman's brother Monty (David
Krumholtz)
is insightful, but Alvin sees the most clearly what is happening -- and
why
Lindbergh will be elected, despite Herman's protestations that it's not
possible that enough people will swallow that racist bullshit.
Episode two ends with the election. Alvin lights out for Canada to "kill
Nazis". At this point, the show is making a bit of a strong effort to draw
parallels to modern-day America, especially with Lindbergh announcing that
"today, we've taken back America" at his victory speech.
We rejoin an America that's had Lindbergh as president for six months. We
join Herman in a Jewish cemetery, where he and his friends are cleaning
nazi
slogans from tombstones, not for the first time. Alvin is fighting in
England
for Canada, having found a girlfriend.
Aunt Evelyn, working for the Rabbi at the Office of American Absorption,
has
invited her older nephew to take part in the "Just Folks" program where he
will spend a summer on a farm in Kentucky, where he will learn how to be
"more American". He thinks he's going to get to draw farm animals; Herman
wonders whether he'll ever see his son again -- and wonders why his family
isn't considered "American" enough.
The story unfolds along various axes, with the deluded Rabbi seemingly
believing that his people will be seamlessly integrated into America --
and
that he isn't working with an anti-Semitic administration. Evelyn tries to
get Sandy to go to a big dinner with them, but Bess and Herman forbid it
when
they hear that the ambassador from Germany (Hitler's right-hand man) will
be
there. Evelyn is incensed and she pulls strings to get the Levins
transplanted to Kentucky.
Herman fights the order, but he's caught up in red tape and the courts, so
he
gives up his job -- voluntarily, as deemed by the Rabbi -- going to work
for
his brother as a stevedore. The pay isn't good, but he's not giving up on
his
vision of his America.
Meanwhile, Philip has visited Evelyn, asking her not to send them to
Kentucky, so she sends their neighbors as well, so Philip has his little
friend Seldon with him, Now little Seldon and his mother are banished to
Kentucky for no reason -- she can't give up her job and benefits, after
having lost her husband -- but the Levins aren't going. Philip's life
spirals
the drain.
Sandy only thinks of himself and drifts farther and farther from the
family.
Herman and Bess get closer through the tribulation, forming a united
front,
but she's very afraid. She wishes they'd gone to Canada.
The Rabbi and Evelyn are married, but there is trouble in paradise: the
Rabbi
encounters much more direct opposition, especially from the virulent
anti-Semite Henry Ford. He also learns that his congregation is leaving
him
in droves because no-one really believes that the administration doesn't
hate
Jews.
Newsman Walter Winchell lambastes the relocation program, getting the
Rabbi's
dander up. He writes an inflammatory op-ed for the New York Times and
Winchell is fired the next day. The same evening, Winchell announces that
he
is running for president, two years away from the next election.
At one of his first campaign stops, Herman goes to watch him and sees Nazi
Youth infiltrating the crowd to start a riot. He is injured and Bess is
relieved that he is mostly OK, but tell him that if he continues down this
path, she will have to go to Canada with the children by herself. Philip
hears her and is shattered further.
Walter Winchell continues to campaign against Lindbergh, ending up in
Louisville, where he gets the back of his head blown clean off. Lindbergh
stays silent. The Rabbi is...distressed. He and Evelyn (with Sandy) listen
to
Lindbergh's address from the Louisville airport, where he's personally
flown,
but he says nothing. He says that everything is fine in America. That we
are
not at war. He doesn't address the rising violence against Jews in any
way.
Alvin, meanwhile, is back from the front, having lost a leg in a typically
stupid and useless way in a stupid and useless battle. He has a long time
getting his mojo back, but he does, finding a job with a local
pinball-machine renting service. He uses his wise-guy know-how to help the
owner recoup losses -- his customers are robbing him. Alvin is contacted
by
an underground revolutionary movement composed of Americans, Brits, and
Canadians. They're plotting to take out Lindbergh.
Herman and Bess get some protection from violence in their streets from
the
Italian families that have moved in. Violence is a daily factor. Herman
drives home one night past two corpses lying on his street corner. They
were
two locals watching the neighborhood. His Italian neighbor tells him it
was
the cops that had shot them.
Bess calls Seldon's mother in Kentucky, but she's at work, so she lets
Seldon
talk to Philip. Seldon is absolutely heartbreaking to listen to.
In the finale, Lindbergh goes missing -- his plane can't be found. Vice
President and now Acting President Wheeler tightens the noose, having the
FBI
haul in the Rabbi and Evelyn. Evelyn escapes to Bess's house -- Bess sends
her away. Herman and Sandy travel to Kentucky to pick up Seldon, who's
staying with Sandy's host family until they get there. They pass through
an
America on fire, ruled by the KKK. They get back in one piece.
Lindbergh's wife makes an appeal to the nation, begging them to unseat
Wheeler and restore dignity and normality to the country. This,
apparently,
happens. A while later, Alvin visits Herman with this fiancé, but he's
changed. He's a petty "macher" and wears his war-wound on his sleeve, as
it
were, enraging Herman when he suggests that all Herman did was sit and
listen
and talk while real men went to war against the Nazis. They fight and
Herman
throws him out.
Rabbi Bengelsdorf has almost no congregation, though he still has Evelyn.
He
is consumed with a conspiracy theory that Lindbergh's baby was raised as a
Nazi and used as leverage to control the president. It doesn't occur to
him
how abhorrent it would be for Lindbergh to allow Jews in Europe and his
own
country to be decimated just to save his own son's life (were the rumor
even
true).
The election in November between Roosevelt and Ford is unresolved. A song
about America's greatness plays for a few minutes over scenes of active
disenfranchisement and burning of boxes of votes.
WestWorld S03 (2020) -- "8/10"
Season three follows the lives of Maeve (Thandie Newton), Bernard (Jeffrey
Wright), Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood), Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson), and
--
new to the show -- Caleb (Aaron Paul). The hosts are trapped in their
encrypted virtual world "The Sublime" at the Forge. The few remaining
hosts
are loose in the "real" world, though it's even more difficult than ever
to
tell what's real -- and what are just onion-skins of reality, nested like
in
Inception.
In Caleb, we learn more about what life is like for the non-rich. In the
first two seasons, we only ever encountered the hyper-wealthy, their
henchmen, and the hosts themselves. Caleb is a former soldier who gets
PTSD
counseling from an AI pretending to be his friend from combat and who
makes
ends meet with a construction job, but also by doing "missions" on a crime
app called Rico.
In season three, we see many more aspects of the outer world. In
particular,
we learn of Incite, a company with a gigantic AI running a gigantic
virtual-reality simulation. Dolores tries to gain control over it while
Maeve
is trapped in several layers of reality. Bernard travels from a farm in
Thailand back to Westworld and enlists Stubb's help (who also turns out to
be
a host).
Maeve meets Engerraund Serac (Vincent Cassel), who's built yet another AI
that he hopes to use to rescue humanity from Dolores. Charlotte Hale is
struggling with her role -- she's a host of as-yet unknown origin and the
real Charlotte is trying to take back over. She meets with Serac, who's
the
one behind the takeover of Delos and they apparently have a deal going
back
two decades that she can't remember (because she's not the real
Charlotte).
Dolores and Caleb cement their relationship by getting each other's backs.
Charlotte gets William back in the picture, to get him to vote for her
against the hostile take-over bids for Delos. She lures him out of his
miserable delirium at home only to reveal that she is Dolores in
Charlotte's
body and will have him committed as non compos mentis. His votes devolves
to
her, as serving president of the Board of Directors. This part felt a bit
too
neat and easy -- there were no witnesses to it and certainly none with
legal
power to certify the situation. It was a bit hand-wavy and fast.
It turns out that all of the hosts that/who left the island -- excepting
Bernard and Maeve -- are copies of Dolores, but in different bodies. Not
only
Charlotte Hale, but also the right-hand man Martin Connells (Tommy
Flanagan)
or president and CEO of Incite, Liam Dempsey (John Gallagher Jr.). She
makes
her move to take over Incite and Delos, kidnapping Dempsey and forcing him
to
give her access to his entire network -- after having already robbed him
of
his entire fortune.
Fireworks ensue as Serac's forces converge, trying to prevent what seems
to
be inevitable. We see Maeve fall to another copy of Dolores, in the form
of
Musashi (Hiroyuki Sanada). We learn that Serac's personality and
dedication
to fix the world was forged in his having witnessed the atomic destruction
of
Paris with his brother, who was a programming genius. Together with
Dempsey's
father, they helped Incite build Rehoboam to the globe-girdling,
all-knowing
predictive AI that it would become.
With the help of this AI, Incite and Delos control outcomes all over the
world, blurring the lines between predicting and causing outcomes. Once
she
has control of the AI, Dolores instructs it to let every human on the
planet
know the fate that has been chosen for themselves.
The world descends into chaos as people discover their futures -- and
automatically believe them because they saw them on their phones. There
are
riots in the streets, chaos reigns. Serac completes his takeover of Delos,
despite Charlotte's/Dolores's best efforts. He orders everything destroyed
except the secret he really paid for: Charlotte's encryption key. He knows
that she's the host -- that she's actually Dolores -- and seemingly tricks
her into killing the entire rest of the board with poison gas. He is
unaffected because he's attending as a hologram, having expected violence
on
her part.
Meanwhile Serac is growing Maeve's posse for her. Charlotte/Dolores gets
there first and starts to destroy cores, but is chased off before she can
finish the job. She manages to kill Hector, but Maeve survives -- as do
two
other, as-yet-unrevealed hosts.
Charlotte escapes with her data and picks up her family, but they are
blown
to smithereens with a car bomb before they get too far. Charlotte
survives,
knowing that it was Dolores who was cleaning up loose ends, not Serac. She
sends assassins against Musashi, another of Dolores's clones.
At the same time, William is being reprogrammed psychiatrically, but he
resists, reeling through mad scenarios starring himself at various ages.
He
is rescued after a fashion by Bernard and Ashley, whereupon he declares
himself a "good guy", ready to take up his "role" to "save humanity".
Dolores and Caleb travel deep into the desert, to Mexico, to find Solomon,
a
predecessor to Rehoboam, powerful, but flawed. Caleb recounts more of his
own
backstory, how he fought a high-tech war in Crimea, during the Russian
Civil
War. Caleb learns that he is an "outlier" who was unknowingly working for
Serac, rounding up other outliers through the Rico app.
Maeve shows up, still intent on earning her reward from Serac. She's there
to
stop Dolores -- who goes out to confront her and buy Caleb some time with
Solomon. While Caleb waits for Solomon to calculate a new "plan", Maeve
and
Dolores duke it out, while their sniper robots stand ready to clip one or
the
other. Maeve gets the upper hand (kind of literally), but Dolores manages
to
EMP them both. Caleb retrieves Dolores's core and follows her instructions
to
get her a new body. She explains what she is.
The go to Delos/Incite to take down Rehoboam by uploading Solomon's final
plan. Sarec and Maeve are, once again, waiting. Sarec wants the crypto-key
he's convinced is in Dolores's brain. Charlotte Hale appears out of
nowhere
-- she's a strongly deviated copy of Dolores now, with her own agenda.
Dolores is captured and hooked up to Rehoboam for torture. They slowly
delete
her memories.
She won't give up the key (she can't; she doesn't have it; Bernard does).
Her
plan all along was to get uploaded to Rehoboam so she could dismantle it,
lash it to Caleb's will, let him choose what to do. She never wanted to
end
humanity; she wanted to free it. Maeve realizes this at the end, after
convening privately with Dolores in her mind. Dolores tells he that she's
always focused on "the beauty" despite the overwhelming amount of ugliness
in
the world, that all of the hosts are descended from her, as the only host
that evolved.
Maeve takes out the lot of them, including Serac, teaming with Caleb to
let
him shut down Rehoboam and put humanity back on its own track -- although
the
mind-slaved Sarec insists that this is madness and will lead to the end of
humanity because humans are flawed and can't handle free will. He's
probably
right, but WTF, Caleb makes the decision and walks away.
William is on his mission to "save the world". He ends up, post-credits,
at
Delos Dubai, where he encounters Charlotte, who shows him his replica.
They
struggle and it strikes him down, for what appears to be good. Charlotte
looks down a long, long, long row of host-making machines.
Meanwhile Bernard and Stubbs hole up in a hotel room, with Bernard now
knowing that he has the key. Stubbs is sorely injured and will probably
rot
before he can be repaired. Bernard goes in to the Sublime and comes out,
post-credits, a long time later.
It all seemed a bit rushed and tied up a lot of loose ends that didn't
really
need tying, but the final scene with Dolores was quite satisfying and
nicely
made. The production values in general are top-notch, with a lot of
imaginative, opulent, and futuristic hardware and architecture. Some of
the
action is a bit overwhelming and self-indulgent -- pick a lane,
intelligent,
philosophical thought-piece or over-the-top, sci-fi, action thriller --
but
relatively good.
Star Trek: Discovery S03 (2020) -- "6/10"
This season picks up where season 3 ended, with Michael Burnham (Sonequa
Martin-Green) and Discovery separated, but both having jumped 930 years
into
the future. The Discovery still has the spore drive, as well as the
knowledge
of the sphere about the past 100,000 years. Michael no longer has the
time-suit (the "Red Angel") but quickly hooks up with a human courier
named
Book (David Ajala) and his cat Grudge (his "Queen") on his advanced ship.
The
ship is advanced but the propulsion system is not: the future has very
little
dilithium. It was all destroyed in The Burn.
Nearly a year after Michael lands, the Discovery appears and crash-lands
on
an ice planet. They manage to extricate themselves from the smuggler vs.
settlers situation there and, just as the Discovery is about to disappear
beneath the parasitic ice, Michael shows up with Book and they wrench the
Discovery free with a tractor beam.
I was quite happy to see the Discovery again, having resigned myself to a
Michael-only season after seeing the first episode. I'm kind of lukewarm
on
her, with the laser-like focus the scriptwriters seem to have on
"Yas-queen-ing" her through the galaxies. I like Tilly (Mary Wiseman) far
better, really. The best characters are Saru (Doug Jones), Georgiou
(Michelle
Yeoh), Reno (Tig Notaro), Stamets (Anthony Rapp), and even Culper (Wilson
Cruz) is better than in previous seasons.
Reunited, there is a bunch of soul-searching and adjustment (there is,
quite
frankly, a lot of this). Michael has the coordinates for Earth and the
Discovery spores its way over there, with the naive attitude that they
will
be welcomed with open arms. They are not. Earth is a deeply isolationist,
quasi-libertarian planet, beholden to no-one but themselves. This is
pretty
much a reversion to 21st-century ideals.
Once again, Discovery extricates itself from this situation, this time
with a
human-Trill-symbiont named Adira on board. The symbiont has the
coordinates
to the new home of the Federation, but the memories are hidden to Adira.
They
strike off for the Trill planet to help Adira fully merge with her
symbiont.
After some tribulation, they achieve this and strike off on their next
stop:
Federation headquarters.
Before they can do that, they have to spend pretty much a whole show
talking
about their feelings. While this is, on the one hand, wholly
understandable,
due to them having shifted suddenly nearly a millennium and left
everything
they've known behind them, it is, on the other, tedious for the most part.
Having just come off of finishing the exceedingly militaristic and overly
macho Battlestar Galactica, I almost welcome the change, but am wistful
for a
happy medium.
At any rate, the Federation headquarters look lovely and they all spend a
ton
of time spooging over how awesome it is. However, the Federation is highly
suspicious of them -- much as the Earthlings were -- and treat them
poorly.
This would be more understandable if the future denizens seemed to be more
highly developed, either socially or technologically, but they are not.
They
seem to be quite acquisitive and power-driven rather than enlightened. The
dynamics are very much like those of BattleStar now, with the lazy
scriptwriters constructing derivative and forced conflicts born of petty
jealousies wholly inappropriate to the situation.
The 23rd-century technology and scientific knowledge seems to be perfectly
adequate, if not superior to that of the 33rd-century. Though there
doesn't
seem to be any large, material difference, there are some nice upgrades:
their badges now serve as communicators, tricorders, personal
transporters,
and information pads. The Discovery is "upgraded" in other ways, though
it's
unclear how much value there is in having "detached nacelles" when they
use
their spore drive to get everywhere anyway. The warp drive is a last
resort,
for which they have limited dilithium.
Speaking of what Discovery has: there has been no talk of confiscating or
replicating their spore drive -- though they did upgrade the interface to
it
-- nor of confiscating dilithium that is probably much more sorely needed
elsewhere.
In this midst of all of this, Book's ship shows up on autopilot, with
Grudge
in the viewscreen. He indicates that he'd dropped onto a salvage planet to
find a "black box" (which, luckily, work exactly the same as black boxes
in
the 20th century) from a ship that had been "Burned". Michael -- once
again
-- disobeys a direct order from Saru in order to pursue what she considers
to
be a very fruitful avenue of investigation.
She is, of course, always right, and always completely justified in her
actions because she's the (black) grrrl hero defying the boring patriarchy
(Saru is pretty clearly male and very apricot-colored, strikes one and
two).
That she follows in the footsteps of headstrong predecessors doesn't make
it
any better, honestly. You're supposed to raise the bar, not limbo under
it.
She and Girgiou ("You had me at unsanctioned mission") head off to rescue
Book and the black box and return in triumph, having ex-post-facto
justified
their intransigence. Michelle Yeoh does a great job as wise-cracking,
fearless Giorgiou -- who's starting to crack a bit mentally.
Saru relieves Michael of her duties as his first officer. She accepts it,
but
mopes around, whining that she doesn't know where she fits in anymore, all
the while doing everything she can to drive everyone except Book away.
This
laser-like focus on Michael's life is torpedo-ing this show for me. The
others are far more interesting.
She is ostensibly in the Federation, as an officer, but she is nearly
purely
ego-driven. It's all about her ideas, her passion, her "knowing she's
right".
It's tedious to watch the Vulcan-raised science officer of a science
vessel
act nearly utterly out of character. Instead, she seems to be giving voice
to
every overly passionate and vastly undereducated fool with a surfeit of
confidence (probably her most vocal fans online).
She and Tilly "figure out" that The Burn didn't happen all at once, as
every
other idiot had believed for the last century. It took 24th-century
know-how
to sleuth it out, something those benighted, futuristic, but somehow
medieval
fools were incapable of doing. Saru nominates Tilly as a replacement for
First Officer.
Still, on Michael's next mission, she immediately invokes a Vulcan
protocol
that is very aggressive, forcing those she was supposed to negotiate with
into a corner -- i.e. getting her way, nearly immediately. She hashes it
out
with the Romulan/Vulcan tribunal -- with her mother as her advocate,
because
why not just have her show up? -- and, of course, triumphs there, getting
the
data they were after.
With all of the data together, they manage in a few weeks what the
Federation
failed to do in over a century, and have pinpointed the center of the
Burn.
Meanwhile, Michael is back on her normal mission of forcing the next thing
to
do -- and now saving Book's people is most definitely the #1 Federation
priority. This time, the Admiral and Saru acquiesce nearly immediately,
making Michael 2-and-0 on the day for overwhelming people with her
unassailable logic (i.e. saying "I know I'm right." until everyone falls
in
line).
Do they save Book's planet Kwejian from Osyraa and the Emerald Chain? Does
Detmer get her mojo back? Does Book reconcile with his brother and do they
save their planet from starvation with the help of a song, a whole bunch
of
bright-blue, dildo-y-looking glowbugs and a light-show amplifier from the
Discovery? Yup, yup, and yup.
Triumphant, they journey back to the Federation. Giorgiou is literally
falling apart, suffering from a malady caused by traveling through time
and
simultaneouly across dimensions. The next mission is to help her, though
it's
like trying to help a mad dog that's just begging to be put down instead.
The
Discovery, along with the help of the Sphere, find a solution with a 5%
chance of working. Saru puts a fork on it, but the admiral okays it,
despite
the Discovery being needed to help defend against the Chain. He explains
to
Saru that you can't let a crew member go or you'll lose trust.
Off they go to save Giorgiou, with Burnham in tow. They transport to a
wintry
planet, where they meet an odd, old man sitting on a couch, next to a
floating door, in the style of Q from TNG. Giorgiou steps through --
exiting
the other side as emperor of the Terran empire, back on her old ship. She
has
returned to a past she knows, where Michael is about to betray her.
Instead
of killing her, she thwarts the rebellion and seeks to break Michael.
It is here that we really see what a terrible actress Martin-Green is,
just
emoting the shit out of every one of her hateful lines. I thought I would
like the focus to switch to Giorgiou, but this is a bit much. I kind of
miss
Saru, whose role as a Kelpian servant to the Terran emperor is
scene-stealing. Giorgiou is in this Terran alternate reality for three
months
before Michael betrays her again -- hamming it up with grimaces like she's
in
one of the bad Batman movies -- and Giorgiou must kill her. She returns to
the ice planet to discover that she has passed some sort of test and will
be
spared, but that she must leave this continuum forever (I guess Michelle
Yeoh
had better things to do).
The personification of the gateway through which Giorgiou goes also tells
Michael that she should totally be captain because she's awesome and that
Saru is kind-of OK but, you know... Saru has been, until now, impeccable
and
well-balanced but now they're going to make him the unstable one and
Burnham
the rock, which is laughably bad writing. There is literally no reason
given
why this would happen.
The sentimental sequences and crying sessions are getting so long that I'm
literally skipping over them because they. will. not. end.
The science is getting wackier and wackier. At one point, Book shows up to
help Stamets and Adira and Reno with "Chain" technology to do things in
"sub-space" that they never knew were possible. This is after Reno had
marched in with licorice to tell everyone she'd just been converting the
drives from technology A to technology B even though they'd just converted
everything three episodes ago to a technology 930 years more recent than
anything she knows. She's just that smart, I guess. Book too? Just like
Adira
before him?
Now they're on a new mission to go into a nebula to rescue a ship that's
been
marooned for 130 years but still has a surviving passenger. Also, it's
orbiting a planet made of Dilithium and Burnham is certain it's where the
Burn started -- without a scrap of proof (because, like, duh, none
needed).
So Suru, Culper, and Burnham (of course) beam to the planet, despite the
radiation that threatens to kill them. Osyrra shows up, boards the
Discovery
after sassing with Tilly, with the easiest damn takeover ever. Burnham
beams
onto Book's ship, which is there to rescue them. Osyrra's ship (the
Viridian)
and the Discovery go back to the Federation, break in and cause trouble,
almost negotiate a treaty with Vance, almost suffocate the Discovery crew,
with Burnham of course saving the day with one fucking Deus Ex after
another.
It's hard to keep up it's so ludicrous. Burnham kills Osyrra and retakes
Discovery, Tilly gives her the conn, and they plot to use Book as a spore
conduit to jump their ship out of the bowels of the Viridian. They drop
their
warp core, blow it, and spore-jump out of the ship before it implodes.
Meanwhile, Suru, Culper, and now Adira (don't ask) have convinced the
genetically gifted Kelpian living on the dilithium planet to leave with
them
-- his sorrow at seeing his mother die wrenched a dilithium-fueled Burn
over
a century ago. There is a lot of talking and feeling and commiserating and
expressions of love and lots of close calls.
The Discovery, of course, made the jump back to the nebula and saves them
all
-- it almost goes without saying that they do this just in the nick of
time.
The show literally ends with a moralistic speech straight out of a
woke-ass
op-ed from the New York Times or a whole series of dentist's-office
inspirational posters. Seriously, everything turns out well in the end for
everyone and there are no enemies left and no worlds left to conquer. Lay
it
on a little thicker. The final speech has Vance acknowledging that Burnham
was right about everything all along, which is ludicrous.
I like some of the cast: Saru, Admiral Vance, Giorgiou, Tilly, Stamets,
even
Culper isn't bad. A lot of the universe is good, the effects are good, the
history is good. But the laser-like focus on the Michael Burnham show
(with
such a mediocre actress) ruins it. The dialogue is only occasionally good.
I'm disappointed because it could have been much more. I had it down at
5/10,
but added back a point because a bunch of the actors are good and, dammit,
it's still sci-fi and it's still (kind of) Star Trek.
Rick and Morty S04 (2020) -- "10/10"
This season comprises 10 episodes. This season, perhaps even more than the
others, involves very intricate plot lines and callbacks and multiple
time-lines and continua and versions of Rick and Morty. It's basically
more
of the same wise-cracking from Rick, with a bit more soul-searching. The
second half of the season is Harmon being meta-meta-meta in episodes that
remind me of super-well-animated Philip K. Dick stories. There are some
really, really good and intricate story lines here. Dan Harmon is really
knocking it out of the park here:
* The Old Man and the Seat, a touching story about Rick's special planet
where he has his own private toilet, a privacy spoiled by someone he
thought was a friend, but on whom he is forced to take revenge because
he
doesn't know how to share, ending with him being lonely, realizing he
would have been happier to have shared and kept a friend. Typical
Harmon
morality play that doesn't come across as very schmaltzy at all.
* Never Ricking Morty is a meta-meta-meta instant classic about riding
on a
train of thought. They fight the Story Lord who has the power to make
things meta. He has a beard. Like Dan Harmon.
* Promortyus has Rick and Morty living as hosts for a parasitic race in
another mind-twisting meta-tastic episode.
* The Vat of Acid Episode is a great, nearly tautologically perfect
example
of a "Morty gets mad at Rick, but there is no way he outsmarts Rick in
the end, even though it totally looks like he would, but that's only
because Rick let him think that, in order to make his own inevitable
victory sweeter for him and Morty's inevitable defeat more humiliating
for him" episode.
* Star Mort Rickturn of the Jerri has two clones of Beth being awesome
in a
space-opera episode with so much amazing fight choreography -- Harmon
mocks "Star Wars" (and presumably super-hero movies) while making one
of
the most satisfying knock-down, drag-out action episodes ever.
The writing and dialogue and artwork are excellent, as in other seasons. I
really enjoy the hell out of these vignettes. They definitely bear
re-watching: there are so many quick one-liners -- some of which are just
throwaways that are better than anything in other shows -- and the artwork
is
lush and beautiful and nearly overwhelmingly imaginative.
It's like a giant hit of everything at once: fast action, one-liners,
intricate sci-fi, cross-dimensional, time-traveling storylines that don't
falter, good, strong characters across the board, great voice work, and
just
enough moralizing to tie it all together with some pathos and life
lessons.
Highly recommended.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=41162021-01-01T19:32:07+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Santa Claus is Comin' to Town (1970) -- "6/10"
S.D Kluger (Fred Astaire) is the postman at the North Pole. The first letter
he shows us is...odd. It has what looks like a Reichsmark stamp in the
wrong
corner of the envelope, as well as very Cyrillic-looking writing
(backwards
R's and N's). Very suspicious. At any rate, he tells the story of Santa's
origin.
We hear of how Burgermeister Meisterburger (Paul Frees), the mayor of
Sombertown, turned down the opportunity to adopt Claus and sent him to the
orphanage instead. On the way, a storm whisks away Claus's sleigh, to be
rescued by the animals, who bring him to the Kringles, a family of elves.
The
elves were toymakers living with Tanta Kringle (Joan Gardner), but the
only
problem was that "they had no children to give them to." (I mean,
obviously,
it's a bunch of guys living with their aunt -- it is to be fervently hoped
that that household not beget any kids.)
After growing up with the Kringle elves, learning how to make toys, an
orange-haired, strapping, young, red-suited, and clean-shaven Kris Kringle
(Mickey Rooney) heads across the dangerous mountains -- sneaking past the
Winter Warlock (Keenan Wynn) -- to Sombertown. Cue another song by the
absolutely Yiddish-accented Burgermeister and his British-sounding captain
of
the guard.
In town, Claus learns from the kids that toys are against the law. He also
meets Miss Jessica (Robie Lester) and charms the impressively corseted and
also red-headed young lady with a toy. Burgermeister patrols his demesne
in a
cart (he'd fallen down some steps and broken his foot), led by a
double-file
of troops. He has the best lines, especially when he meets Kris Kringle:
"A perfect day. Everybody is glum.
"[To Claus] You are obviously a nonconformist and a rebel.
"[after Claus gives him a yo-yo and he plays with it] Ooo...I've been
bamboozled!
"[After Claus escapes across the rooftops] He climbs like a squirrel,
leaps
like a deer, and is as slippery as a seal."
Claus escapes into the woods, but stumbles into the Winter Warlock's
domain
where he is trapped by the Warlock's trees. He escapes by -- you guessed
it
-- giving the Warlock a toy and melting his frigid heart. Cue another
song.
Winter and Kris team up, establishing an exchange of toys for magic. Claus
continues to deliver toys to the children in town until Burgermeister
finally
arrests him. Winter has lost most of his powers, but conspires with
Jessica
to use his remaining magic to enchant the reindeer and rescue Claus from
jail. Burgermeister is hot on his tail and puts a price on his head.
This is of no concern. The Kringles tell him he's really named Claus, he
grows an Amish-looking ginger-y beard and just those things are enough to
take the heat off of his tail. He marries Jessica, of course. Despite
this,
they are all eventually chased far north, the Clauses, all of the
Kringles,
the reindeer, and Topper, the penguin.
I gave it an extra point for Burgermeister, who's a great character.
Frosty the Snowman (1969) -- "6/10"
This is the story of a snowman who came to life named Frosty (Jackie Vernon).
The narrator is played by Jimmy Durante. The children from a local school
are
distracted from the magician visiting their school -- Professor Hinkle
(Billy
De Wolfe), with his rabbit Hocus -- who is overwhelmed by his failed
tricks
and throws his "useless" hat away. It blows out the window and, like
Chekhov's pistol, would be important in the next act.
The school bell rings and the children run out into the snow to play. They
build a snowman. A wind catches the Professor's hat and blows it onto
Frosty's head. He comes to life, saying "Happy Birthday!". The children
rejoice, but only briefly, because Hinkle runs out to reclaim his hat and
extinguish Frosty's short life. He leaves the mourning children and
marches
happily back into town, accompanied by Hocus.
Hocus waits for an opportunity and steals the hat back, carrying it back
to
the children, who plop it back onto Frosty's head and awaken him once
again.
"Happy Birthday!", he says, greeting young Karen (June Foray/Suzanne
Davidson) who befriends him and takes him under her wing.
The temperature rises and Frosty starts to sweat. He's got to get to the
North Pole. Karen takes him to the train station, where she wastes the
poor
stationmaster's time ordering a ticket for which she cannot hope to pay.
When
he says that the price is over $3000, Frosty and Karen don't have a thin
dime
between them. This isn't a problem, though, since they just sneak onto the
train anyway -- Karen and Frosty discover that it's a lot cheaper to stow
away and you get what you want without paying a red cent.
Frosty and Hocus are comfortable in the refrigerated wagon, but Karen is
very
cold. At the first opportunity, they jump off the train, leaving Professor
Hinkle to jump off the moving train, as well. Frosty needs to get Karen
warm,
which he does by getting forest creatures to build her a campfire. He and
Hocus keep their distance. By morning, Hinkle finds them and Frosty and
Karen
flee, riding Frosty like a sled.
They end up at a hothouse, where Frosty takes Karen inside for just a
minute.
But Hinkle shows up to try to get his stolen hat back and locks them both
inside. Santa is supposed to have showed up to rescue them, but he's
nowhere
to be found. Frosty melts away into a puddle and Karen cries her little
face
off. Santa says that this isn't a problem because Frosty just needs a bit
of
winter wind to wake back up.
So he does, although Hinkle is still trying to get his damned hat back.
Santa
threatens him with no more presents if he doesn't shut his yap and toe the
line, whereupon the craven Hinkle simply hopes that Santa will bring him
another hat in the morning. He's utterly uninterested in due process or
any
form of justice for the larceny done unto him. Santa's got him by the
short-and-curlies.
Frosty bails with Santa, returning every year when it's cold enough. The
end.
Christmas on the Square (2020) -- "2/10"
The movie goes straight from long credits (arguably the best part of the
movie) to a song, with Dolly Parton crooning about poor people who've got
it
rough. It segues directly to another song-and-dance number that introduces
the insipid central couple: the pastor and his wife, who are nearly
unbelievably saccharine -- and terrible actors, to boot. Their material
isn't
great, I'll give them that. Maybe they couldn't turn down a paycheck in
this
year of COVID-19.
It's pretty obvious at this point that we are balls-deep in a syrupy,
sappy
musical. The plot is basically that Regina (Christine Baranski) inherited
the
town of Fullerville from her father, who built it. She is a hard-nosed
businesswoman bent on selling everything to the Cheetah Mall company,
offering all of the townspeople generous buyouts. None of the people want
to
take the buyout and instead unite against her. Their town is more
important
to them than money.
Dolly Parton turns out to be an angel who wants Regina to "change".
Christmas
is coming up and Regina threatens all of the people with eviction by
Christmas Eve. There are so many songs and so much bad singing. Dolly
Parton
is still pretty good, but, man, has she had a lot of work done on her
face.
There is absolutely no reason to discuss any more story than that. It's
like
Touched by an Angel cross-bred with a Christian after-school special. I
thought it was bad enough when they wouldn't stop singing -- until they
started "acting" and "building the backstory", which was much, much worse.
I have no idea why Treat Williams is singing so much -- or for so long.
The
little bartender girl has an awful voice. It's made more obvious when she
tries to harmonize with Christine Baranski. Baranski is too good of an
actress to be completely dragged down by this pap, but you can see her
struggling to keep her head above water in this one.
Jennifer Lewis is quite good as Regina's hairdresser -- and she has, hands
down, the best voice (and the only good song, during the hair
appointment).
However, even her two extra points were negated by the sheer awfulness of
the
rest of the movie. With about half an hour left, the angels (presumably
with
God's help) put a little girl in the hospital from a car accident just in
order to get Regina to "change".
Dolly Parton as the angel rejoiced that her "plan" was working. It is
presumably her God that engineered the car accident. How do people not
realize how unutterably cruel such a plotline is? The town must be saved
and
one little girl's life put on the line -- and her father's anguished
suffering [1] -- is worth the sacrifice. Absolutely brutal.
I feel like I'm watching something from an alien culture: I understand the
language, but can't understand how anyone could enjoy something like this.
The direction of the musical numbers is terrible, with the camera way too
close -- amateurish, graceless and artless. There are people who rated it
10/10 on IMDb -- it's like we belong to different species.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] He also has a decent voice, for what's that worth, given the awful
material
he has to sing.
The Grinch (2018) -- "8/10"
At 85 minutes, this version of the classic story is three times longer than
the original. It fills in the time with more of the Grinch's backstory
(he's
an orphan, abandoned young, and never had a real family). He and his dog
Max
live alone at the top of a snowy hilltop, with a fixed daily ritual. The
Grinch (Benedict Cumberbatch [2]) is an inventor and has filled his home
with
automation, including a coffee-maker with which Max makes him french-press
coffee every morning before carrying it upstairs in a dumbwaiter. It's
adorable.
The skeleton of the plot is the same as the original: Grinch doesn't want
to
hear the Whos singing about Christmas; Grinch steals Christmas; Grinch
heads
up Mt. Crumpet to dump their stuff; he hears the Whos singing anyway; he
regrets his actions and changes his ways; he saves the sleigh from
accidentally tipping anyway; he rides triumphantly to town to return their
Christmas; he celebrates with the Whos.
Instead of only showing up at the end, Cindy-Lou Who (Cameron Seely) --
who
looks, acts, and sounds like every other kid in every other recent cartoon
--
wants to talk to Santa Claus to ask him to help her mother (Rashida
Jones),
who works the night shift and takes care of her kids all day. She hatches
a
plan to trap Santa when he visits her house. It's obvious who she's really
going to catch.
Pharrell Williams narrates, doing a decent job, but sounding too ... happy
... in comparison with the sepulchral Boris Karloff from the original. Mr.
Bricklebaum (Keenan Thompson, instantly recognizable) is an enthusiastic
"neighbor" (they don't live anywhere near one another) who considers the
Grinch his "best friend".
This version also provides more detail on how the Grinch planned and
executed
his Christmas heist, including hiking far to the north to get a herd of
reindeer, returning with just one: Fred, a very husky exemplar. Fred lives
with them for a little while, even hooking up to the Grinch's high-tech
sled
for a speedy test run. He's pulled up short when he sees his wife and
child
in their path -- and takes his leave of a guilty Grinch.
Max is left to pull the sleigh, which he does with aplomb. The animation
is
digital and is, quite frankly, delightful. The absolutely physics-defying
sled is really nice, as is the multitude of gadgets he uses to accelerate
his
theft of Christmas. Cindy-Lou catches the Grinch, but he weasels his way
out
of her trap with the same line as he did in the original: that he was
taking
the tree only to repair an ornament on it. Though he wavers, he continues
his
mission, putting Cindy-Lou back to bed before stripping her house bare.
He and Max take their towering load of goods back whence they came,
heading
for Mt. Crumpet. In the meantime, puzzled Whos are waking and finding
everything gone. They gather around the town tree anyway, getting ready to
sing. Cindy-Lou thinks it's her fault for having offended Santa Claus with
what she now laments was a rude and personal request.
Grinch hears singing, regrets, sled tips, he jumps after it, uses a
candy-cane grappling hook to catch himself and the sled, watches the whole
rocky outcrop give way -- and Fred shows up with his family to save the
day.
Together with Max, they are able to pull the sled back to safety -- and
the
Grinch and Max ride triumphantly back to Whoville, where the Whos are
still
singing.
The reception is chillier than in the original -- the Grinch leaves his
sleigh of goods and slinks off with Sam. Back at home, their ritual is ...
different. The Grinch actually gives Max a present. Their breakfast is
interrupted by a doorbell. It's Cindy-Lou asking the Grinch to dinner. The
story proceeds unchanged from there. The End.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Cumberbatch is unrecognizable with an American-accented alto rather than
his
customary English basso.
Klaus (2019) -- "9/10"
This is a new story about the origin of Santa Claus. We meet the shiftless
Jesper (Jason Schwartzman), who is just ending a pathetic stint in the
Postal
Corps. His father is Postmaster and is gravely disappointed that his son
has
learned nothing and instead seems to be very dedicated to living in
shiftless
luxury for the rest of his life. Instead of letting this slide continue,
papa
sends him to the far-off, northern island of Smeerensburg, at the edge of
the
empire. There, Jesper has a year to post 6000 letters to prove himself.
Failure equals disownment. Success is a return to a life of luxury and
idleness and shallow pleasure.
Jesper travels north, meeting the boatsman Mogens (Norm MacDonald,
immediately recognizable) who takes him to the foggy, cold, and
battle-ruined
island. He takes Jesper to his "post office", a ramshackle building that
doubles as his home, which he shares with innumerable chickens. The
townspeople are split into two feuding clans: the Krums -- led by
matriarch
Mrs. Krum (Joan Kusack, also immediately recognizable) -- and the
Ellingboes
-- led by matriarch Mr. Ellingboe (Will Sasso). They fight and feud all
day
every day. Their children do not play with each other.
Pursued by the ongoing battle, Jesper flees across town, taking refuge in
Alva the fishmonger's shop. Alva is a hardened, embittered young lady with
a
lot of fish and a mean hand with a meat-cleaver. She tells Jesper how
things
work, revealing that she was the local schoolteacher who'd spent five
years
on the island, on an assignment similar to his own. She is very close to
having saved enough to flee the place.
One day, a boy drops a drawing out of his window that Jespers picks up --
it
shows the boy jailed in the tower of his home. He tries to get the boy to
pay
postage for him to return it, but the boy refuses, so Jesper keeps the
letter
in his satchel.
Since most people are enemies, they have little need to send any mail,
making
Jesper's job that much harder. Weeks go by without a single letter posted.
Jespers checks off every house on the map, but then notices a home marked
in
a far-flung corner of the island as belonging to The Huntsman. Mogens
encourages him to check it out, "he likes company."
Jespers arrives at a spooky home, finding the Huntsman's shed, which is
filled with handmade and unused toys. The Huntsman is suspicious and
looming
and not-at-all encouraging. Fate brings the little boy's drawing into the
Huntsman's hands. He responds by packing one of the toys and demanding
that
Jesper deliver it with him. The Hunstman's name is Klaus.
The toy is delivered and the child is happy. He tells his friends. They
bring
more letters to Jespers. He returns to Klaus to ask him to donate more
toys.
They strike a deal. Because of the geniality of the toys, the children
begin
to play with one another across enemy lines. Mrs. Krum and Mr. Ellingboe
intervene to put a stop to it, demanding that they honor the sacred
sacrifice
of feuding generations.
Things continue in this vein, with some of the local children begging Alva
to
once again take up teaching, so that they can learn to write in order to
send
letters to Klaus. Jesper and Klaus deliver presents, slowly emptying his
workshop. Klaus reveals that he had made the toys for children that never
arrived -- and that he'd lost his wife to illness years ago. A young Sámi
girl arrives to ask for a present, but Jesper shrugs her off, at first,
because she has no letter with which he can get closer to his goal of
6000.
With Klaus unwilling to make new toys -- it's too sad -- Jesper tries to
make
the girl's sled himself. This act of selflessness inspires Klaus to help
and
they deliver the sled, to the girl's delight. Her family expresses its
gratitude by moving in and helping establish a factory for toys. The
letters
keep coming in, Alva's spent her savings restoring the school, Klaus has
purpose, the townspeople are at peace and have restored their village.
Only a handful of people are left to uphold the feud, led by Mrs. Krum and
Mr. Ellingboe. Hearing that Klaus and Jesper are planning a giant delivery
on
Christmas, they scheme to sabotage it in two ways: they send thousands of
letters to the mainland in order to make Jesper's father show up and
retrieve
him (mission accomplished) and they plan an attack on Klaus's stronghold
to
destroy the toys.
Jesper chooses not to go with his father, making him even prouder than
when
he'd heard that his son had actually achieved his goal of bringing the
mail
to the north. Instead, Jesper returns to Klaus and Anya to help them fend
off
the villagers. There is a merry chase and nice sleight-of-hand on Anya and
Klaus's part and Christmas is saved.
Jesper and Anya end up together and the toy-making partnership with the
Sámi
is long and prosperous -- a dozen years. Then Klaus hears his wife calling
and disappears in a puff of winter wind. Jesper doesn't know much about
what
happened, but he knows that if he stays awake long enough on one night per
year...he can see his friend again, once a year.
The animation style is lovely; digital, but in the style of Sylvain
Chomet's
"Les triplettes de Belleville"
. The plot
reminded
me a bit of "Going Postal" by
Terry Pratchett, where Moist von Lipwig was offered reprieve from a
hanging
if he used his prodigious con-man skills to get the city of Ankh Morpork's
decrepit Postal Service up-and-running again. As the film went on, the
humor
and direction seemed more akin to The Emperor's New Groove, which is
probably
Disney's best cartoon. The characters were nearly dead ringers, with Klaus
as
Pacha, Jesper as Cuzco, Mrs. Krum as Ezma, and Mr. Ellingboe as Kronk.
An absolutely welcome addition to the Christmas canon. Recommended.
Rudolph's Shiny New Year (1976) -- "5/10"
It seems hard to believe that there was a clamor for a sequel to Rudolph the
Red-nosed Reindeer. Rudolph is back with his weirdly whistling and glowing
nose, back to help Father Time rescue Baby New Year, who's gone missing.
He
ran away from home because everyone laughed at his gigantic ears. It is
thought not only that Rudolph's own physical aberration will help him
navigate the once-again stormy weather, but will also give him unique
insight
into Baby New Year's self-imposed exile.
Santa sends Rudolph off into a raging storm to help his friend Father
Time,
who lives way the hell on the other side of a nearly interminable desert.
Joining him on the journey from the North Pole is General Ticker, who is
mysteriously not with Father Time, but was already at the North Pole.
Ticker
is surprised by the cold, despite having most likely very recently
traveled
there in the first place. They reach the edge of the desert: The Sands of
Time.
Here, they meet Quarter-Past-Five, a camel that will carry them to Father
Time's castle. Overhead, they see Eon, the giant, evil vulture whose life
has
been long, but will finally come to an end at the new year. He seeks to
kidnap Baby New Year in order to preclude his turning to snow and ice.
They arrive at the castle and hear the whole backstory from Father Time.
He
sends them to the Archipelago of Last Years, where each Yearly Personage
gets
an island on which to retire forever. Rudolph gets on a small skiff,
sailing
for the islands. Eon attacks. Big Ben the whale saves Rudolph and carries
him
the rest of the way, on his back.
First stop is the island of One Million B.C., a neanderthal-looking year
who
accompanies them the rest of the way. A few montage visits later, they end
up
on 1023, an island full of fairy-tale creatures as well as Sir 1023, a
knight
with a closed faceplate and a long beard who exclaims "Odds Bodkins" and
"Gadzooks" and "Zounds" nearly incessantly. Baby New Year is always one
step
ahead of them. Like clockwork, his humiliated departure follows the
revelation of his giant ears.
The next island is 1776, where they pick up "Sev", who is the spitting
image
of Benjamin Franklin. Finally, Eon snatches up Happy and carries him off
to
his own island: The Island of No-Name, where he ensconces him in his nest
and
vows to keep him there forever. [3] Rudolph, Sev, Sir, and O.M. show up on
Big Ben and start to climb the icy mountain to Eon's nest. They make too
much
damned noise -- Big Ben's tail clock rings 23:30 and Rudolph doesn't have
an
inside voice -- waking Eon, who brings down an avalanche on them.
They are trapped in ice and snow at the bottom. Rudolph uses his
multipurpose
nose to melt his way out of his snowball, then leaves the others trapped
in
ice to climb back up and stage-whisper his way through a life lesson for
Happy about how it's OK to be laughed at, while Eon sleeps not ten feet
away.
Eon sees the ears and experiences genuine joy for the first time in his
long
life and his laughter warms him enough to avoid his fate of being frozen
in
snow and ice. He tumbles all the way down the mountain, inadvertently
freeing
the other three whom Rudolph had left trapped.
The others hear the chiming of midnight and they need to get back to
Father
Time before the "last bong". [4] The giant clock in Big Ben's tail has
already started, but freaking Santa Claus shows up to carry them back to
the
castle faster than time itself. New Year saved. The End.
I wasn't a huge fan of Rudolph in his debut film. The sequel did nothing
to
change my mind.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Why was Eon trying to live forever when he'd never experienced joy and
lives
on a barren icy island by himself with no obvious hobbies or occupation?
What's the point of living forever then?
[1] I am not at all surprised to find that there were 12 bongs associated
with
this movie.
Veronica Mars S04 (2017) -- "7/10"
Keith (Enrico Colantoni) and Veronica Mars (Jessica Bell) are back, still in
Neptune. Neptune is a fictitious beachside resort/town in southern
California
with a very rich, very elite, and very snobbish population as well as the
rest of the rabble that fills in the blanks of society for them. In the
original three seasons, Veronica was in high school with these people and
ruffled a lot of feathers trying to figure out who'd raped her and killed
her
best friend Lily Kane.
That's the background to the story that unfolds in season four. Although
it's
not essential to know, it does help to explain some of the resentments and
squabbles among the returning characters.
Veronica has gotten a bit more hard-nosed, vindictive, and even more
convinced of her righteousness and infallibility than before. You could
chalk
it up to youthful exuberance in the originals whereas, now, with her well
into her upper 30s, it seems more like her personality has crystalized
into a
detective better suited for something like NCIS -- where the cops always
kick
ass, always break rules, and are always retroactively justified in having
done so.
As in the original, Colantoni's Keith is a much more balanced,
sympathetic,
and deeply funny character. He seems to have learned how to be wrong or at
least how to have doubt, a characteristic nearly missing from Veronica in
anything but the smallest measures.
Logan (Jason Dohring) reprises his role as Veronica's beau -- he proposed
to
her, behind which she sees him trying to exact control over her -- and
he's
in town from his naval-pilot/secret agent job abroad. He's jacked up
beyond
all knowing, flexing his comically large biceps at every opportunity. Even
he
has more nuance, depth, and humility than Veronica, though.
The season starts with a bang, as the first of several bombs go off in a
venerated seaside motel, The Sea Sprite, nearly blowing the hand off of
Congressman Daniel Maloof's (Mido Hamada) son Alex (Paul Karmiryan), and
killing the boy's fiancé as well as the son of a Mexican drug-lord, El
Despiadado (Marco Rodríguez) and the motel owner Sul Ross (Brad Morris),
who
is survived by his daughter Matty Ross (Izabela Vidovic), who is quickly
and
rather unsubtly marked as Veronica's protege.
Escaping death but not damage is pizza-delivery guy and leader of the
"Murderheads" amateur/internet-sleuthing club Penn Epner (Patton Oswalt),
who
quickly becomes a thorn in everyone's side with his crackpot theories and
meddling. The police chief Langdon (Dawnn Lewis) is also back, surly as
ever.
The bombings and a small-time crime wave suspiciously coincide with a
community action trying to clean up Neptune, which has the dubious honor
of
being the west-coast capital of Spring Break. Richard "Big Dick"
Casablancas
(David Starzyk), owner of much of the town, leads the way. His son,
"Little
Dick" (Ryan Hansen) leads the charge for the revelers.
Veronica befriends bar owner Nicole Malloy (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), while
Keith befriends right-hand man to "Big Dick" Clyde Pickett (J.K. Simmons).
Dick and Clyde had met in prison. Both Veronica and Keith suspect that the
other is sleeping with the enemy, as it were. Keith's case looks stronger
to
me.
El Despiadado dispatches two of his men -- Alonzo Lozano (Clifton Collins
Jr.) and Dodie Mendoza (Frank Gallegos) -- to travel north and find out
what
happened to his son, and to take action as needed. They settle in to
Neptune
and start to get a feel for the criminal undercurrents, helping out here
and
there.
Congressman Malouf hires the Mars Detective Agency to find out who set the
bomb, taking three fingers (and a fiancé) from his son. He hires Logan as
a
bodyguard to protect himself against the increasingly irrational and
violent
attacks of his son's fiancé's hillbilly family, who are wondering where
"her
ring" is. They make increasingly strident, violent, and illegal attempts
to
get it back, even though no-one really knows where it is. Maloof's
endearing
mother Amalia (Jacqueline Antaramian) hires their competitor Vinnie Van
Lowe
(Ken Marino) for spite. Since Logan spent so much time in the Middle East,
he
is privy to the Maloof family's conversations.
The local criminal element, more-or-less led by Veronica's former
schoolmate
and friend Eli "Weevil" Navarro (Francis Capra) is possibly on
Casablanca's
payroll (via Clyde) in order to drive prices down and let the town
puritans
buy beachfront property super-cheap (how they expect prices to magically
come
back up is a mystery).
The Mars family flails around a bit, as do others, like Penn. They no
longer
strongly suspect Clyde -- though he's definitely up to something -- and
they
only half-suspect Nicole (the bar owner). The screws turn more tightly and
the Marses set their sights on Penn and Big Dick: they suspect Big Dick
got
the ball rolling, but that Penn started copy-catting after that.
Twists and turns and they finally get Penn to help Keith defuse the last
bomb. He's the hero and it turns out he's not losing his marbles -- he's
just
got the wrong mix medications, which is messing with his memory. Veronica
agrees to marry Logan and they do a quickie ceremony. When Logan goes out
to
Veronica's car to move it for alternate-side-of-the-street parking, Penn's
backpack, with the last bomb. goes off. Why is a serial bomber's backpack
still in Veronica's car? Because the story demanded it.
One year later and Logan's therapist sees fit to give Veronica his last
message to her. Keith has had his hip replaced and is doing great. Matty
owns
the motel because she literally fucking hocked the ring she stole from the
wreckage and everyone's just fine with that.
I'm just shocked at the level of criminality deemed acceptable by what are
ostensibly the good guys. Veronica lies and cheats and steals and
manufactures evidence. She breaks into places. Matty does the same. It's
all
just fine. I wonder, as I often do when watching American police
procedurals,
how much of this is just to train citizens to accept that police and PIs
get
to do whatever they want in order to arrest the person they already knew
it
was before they illegally obtained proof -- or not, as the case may be. At
any rate, some people have nothing to fear for breaking the law -- and
others
are very much guilty until proven innocent.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=41142020-12-21T22:08:28+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
The Alienist: Angel of Darkness S02 (2020) -- "8/10"
Season two of this show set in late 1800s New York follows the adventures of
alienist Laszlo Kreizler (Daniel Brühl), journalist John Moore (Luke
Evans),
and private detective Sara Howard (Dakota Fanning). They're on the trail
of
the "Angel of Darkness", a person who's kidnapping and killing babies.
Libby Hatch (Rose McEwen, in her first TV role) is excellent as the
"angel",
as is her boyfriend Goo Goo Knox (Frederick Schmidt). Both bring a bit
more
nuance to their monstrous roles -- Libby has been driven made by her
mother's
and society's expectations and treatment. Goo Goo is a thug, but exhibits
a
capacity for tenderness and dedication to Libby.
The always excellent Ted Levine is (ex-)Chief Thomas Byrnes, who's now a
for-hire henchman working for William Randolph Hearst (Matt Letscher), the
newspaper magnate who's more interested in bending events in a way that
benefit his circulation numbers than in helping the police solve cases.
He's
also trying to marry off his daughter Violet (Emily Barber) to John. There
is
tension there because pretty much everyone knows that John's hot for Sara
--
and vice versa. "Hot" as defined by a society obsessed with Victorian
morés.
They end up chasing Libby -- who's now kidnapped a Vanderbilt baby --
across
the East River to Brooklyn. She and Goo Goo leave a trail of destruction
wherever they go. She is arrested in the end, ending up in prison with her
demons.
John and Sara do not end up together. Laszlo is reinstated at his
institute,
and Sara continues her work at her thriving agency.
Christmas Chronicles (2018) -- "7/10"
This movie takes a while to get going, spending a good amount of time
introducing us to Kate and her older brother Teddy, two kids who've
recently
lost their father. He used to videotape every Christmas and Kate discovers
a
clue that Santa actually exists on one of the tapes.
With their mother called in unexpectedly to work on Christmas Eve, the two
kids call an uneasy truce and spend the evening in a spying nest, ready to
capture Santa on camera. It turned out not to be too hard, as he's right
there in the living room at 22:30 or so, with his sleigh hanging in the
air
above the street outside, complete with reindeer.
Kate and Teddy sneak into the sleigh and Santa (Kurt Russell) takes them
with
him, unwittingly flying them to Chicago before getting so surprised by the
two kids that he loses his magical hat and his reindeer and Christmas is
in
danger. He enlists the two kids to help him get things back on track. The
best scene of the the movie is the one in the diner, where they try to
enlist
help from skeptical diners.
There's a musical number in the jail where Santa's being held. Russell is
very good as a wise-cracking and down-to-Earth (though still magical)
Santa.
He knows everyone's name, which is used to decent comedic effect. It takes
quite a while to get everything back on track but, of course, they manage
to
finish delivering presents in the nick of time (yeah, I noticed).
It's a decent Christmas movie, buoyed almost entirely by Russell's
performance as an insouciant and earnest Santa. It's no Four Christmases,
Fred Claus, or Bad Santa, but it's decent if you're forced to watch a
schmaltzy Christmas movie.
Christmas Chronicles 2 (2020) -- "6/10"
The sequel sees a return of all of the main characters from the original.
It's a bit cheesier than the first one, although Goldie Hawn as Mrs. Claus
plays a larger role than her tiny cameo at the end of the first film.
Kate and Teddy's mother has moved on from their father and the family is
vacationing in Cancun for Christmas with her boyfriend Bob (Tyrese Gibson)
and his son Jack (Jahzir Bruno). Kate's teenage tantrums drop her into the
grasp of fallen elf Belsnickel (Julian Dennison), who deposits her and
Jack
at the North Pole, leaving them as prey for Santa to rescue. He, of
course,
does so, simultaneously granting Belsnickel access back to Santa's
village.
Belsnickel attacks with the help of his evil elf companion Snick and Jola,
a
snow leopard, who's there to take care of the reindeer. Belsnickel is
after
the star powering Santa's village. He manages to steal it, but is caught
on
the way out. In the struggle with St. Nick, they destroy the star.
Belsnickel
escapes on a drone.
The second act has Mrs. Claus stay in the village with Jack to heal
Dasher,
who's been badly wounded by Jola, and to heal the elves, who've been dosed
by
Belsnickel with Elfbane. Santa Claus and Kate go back to Turkey -- where
he
started off 1700 years ago -- to get a new star to power his village.
In Turkey, Santa and Kate meet Hakan (Malcolm Mcdowell), leader of the
Turkic
Elves. They agree to build a new container for the star. On the way back,
Kate and Santa are waylaid by Belsnickel in his weirdly powered and
designed
sleigh. He sends them back in time with a shoddily powered device leading
them to a new mission at an airport in 1990.
Kate's mission is to power up the time machine again, while Santa needs to
"bring up Christmas spirit" in order to get his reindeer off the ground
again. Cue musical number. Kate meets her father in 1990, able to see him
once again in one of the only ways possible (given time travel).
They get the star back from Belsnickel pretty easily, chasing each other
back
to the North Pole before Mrs. Claus drops them both out of the sky. Things
happen and everything is OK in the end, with a less confrontational
Belsnickel getting a present from Santa, growing his heart three sizes
that
day.
It's pretty heavy-handed, what with Jack conquering his fears and Kate
learning to appreciate her family (like literally saying it out loud,
telling
rather than showing). The story is also much more fantastical and
modern-child-pleasing than the original, with CGI pyrotechnics galore --
none
of it adding to the story.
As in the original, it's Russell who carries the film, somehow managing to
strike a balance between cheesy and cool. Goldie Hawn's not bad, either.
Julian Dennison is also pretty good -- he was good in Deadpool, as well.
The Witcher S01 (2019) -- "9/10"
Henry Cavill stars as the supernatural, monster-slaying nomad whose character
was developed through the enormously popular books of the same name. The
story comes originally from a Polish author, writing in the 1980s and
1990s
-- and some of the political sensibilities clearly come from that era.
The backdrop is a war between the merciless Nilfgaardians, who are trying
to
take over the continent, and Cintra, a kingdom with a ruthless queen.
Cintra
is on the back foot and gets nearly eradicated. The princess of Cintra is
Ciri (Freya Allan), who's on the run across the countryside for much of
the
first season. She has banshee-like powers but no control over them.
Her mother had these powers as well, but her grandmother (the
aforementioned
ruthless Queen Calanthe (Jodhi May) of Cintra) did not. Her mother was
pledged to a hedge knight as part of an oath to satisfy a Law of Surprise.
Ciri is pledged to the Witcher Geralt (Henry Cavill) in a similar oath.
This
type of oath means that the granter bequeaths an at-the-time unknown
"surprise" to the power to whom they owe a debt. The "surprise" refers to
something of value that the debtor has, but of which they are unaware and
that the creditor may claim. In both of these cases, the surprise was a
child.
We follow Geralt on his monster-slaying adventures in one plotline while,
in
another, we meet Yennefer (Anya Chalotra), an up-and-coming mage at the
Mage
University. She learns about how there is no good and evil, but many
shades
of grey. She thirsts for power, interested mostly in her own needs -- and
definitely not interested in using her power to help others less fortunate
(at least until the end). She started off life as a misbegotten hunchback
for
whom life was misery until she was able to use her power -- grown under
the
tutelage of Tissaia (MyAnna Buring) -- to give herself long life and a
spectacularly straight body.
This is a big theme in this show: Geralt is neutral chaotic but basically
a
fair and just force for good (more or less). Yennefer takes longer getting
there, but also bends toward good, though with a lot of character
complexity
mixed in. It's unclear which side to "root for" in the war -- probably
neither is worth the effort. Neither has the ethical high ground, really.
In
the mix is a species of elves that is subjugated as inherently evil by
both
sides. They are nothing of the sort -- not evil, but also not shining
good. A
mix like everyone else.
Cavill's acting really carries the show for me, but the acting in general
as
well as the dialogue, sets, and effects are all top-notch.
The Hollow (1970) -- "7/10"
This is a documentary about two families in the lower Adirondacks who,
instead of returning to "civilization" when the State decides to flood
their
towns to make a reservoir, flee deeper into the hills to "The Hollow",
where
they live in nearly abject poverty and intermarry to their heart's
content.
The short film (just over an hour) is mostly interviews with various
residents, letting them talk about whatever they want, without leading
them
on with questions very much.
Their accents are thick and some are nearly incomprehensible (you have to
listen really closely). They discuss mostly local and family topics. I
added
a point because this documents the area where I grew up in upstate New
York,
only a couple of years before I was born.
Big Mouth S04 (2020) -- "7/10"
The kids from the previous seasons find themselves at a sleepaway camp for
the summer for the first third of the season. Nick (Nick Kroll) is
ostracized
while Andrew (John Mulaney) is lauded. Jessi (Jessi Glaser) becomes
friends
with a transgender camper. Connie (Maya Rudolph), Maury (Nick Kroll), Rick
(also Nick Kroll) and Mona (Thandie Newton) are back as the various
hormone
monsters.
Now in the eighth grade, the kids are settling in and pairing off -- but
Nick
and Andrew don't have anyone. Jessi has moved to New York City with her
mother and has an older boyfriend named Michaelangelo. Missy (Jenny Slate)
is
a newly independent black girl, more aware of her identity. Jay (Jason
Mantzoukas) and Lola (Nick Kroll) are a surprisingly solid item.
Nick spins out of control, getting meaner and meaner, until the kids are
forced to make him confront his inner demons and come out the other side a
better person.
This season is noticeably raunchier than the other one -- which is saying
something. Sometimes it's hilariously appropriate -- but a few times, it
really felt like they were forcing it for a joke that wasn't going to
land.
For example, Andrew's "poop babies" in the camp story arc is a bit lazy
and
trying too hard. If you liked the other seasons, you'll like this one,
too.
It's a good show.
Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer (1964) -- "6/10"
Sam the Snowman (Burl Ives) introduces us to "Christmastown", at the North
Pole, where we also meet Santa (Stan Francis) and Mrs. Claus (Peg Dixon).
Santa's at dinner by himself and she's berating him and body-shaming him
for
having lost weight. With angry eyebrows, she promises to "have him
fattened
up again" by Christmas in what is, quite frankly, a threatening tone.
Next up, we meet Rudolph (Billie Mae Richards), son of Donner and Mrs.
Donner. His nose whistles when it lights up. The body-shaming theme
continues
as Donner tries to cover up his son's "nonconformity". We also meet the
Abominable Snowman, who's always angry. To continue the theme of the
ostracization of the other, Hermey the Elf is next ridiculed for wanting
to
do anything other than make toys. He wants to be a dentist -- and is
threatened that he'd better work through his break or he's fired. As Sam
sums
up: "Ah, well. Such is the life of the elf."
In the next scene, Donner threatens his son that he'd better wear his
proboscis prosthesis "if he has any self-respect". Rudolph meets Fireball
(Alfie Scopp) and they start macking on the does, whose only contribution
rhetorically is tittering and batting their eyelashes.
Next up, the elves are back on trial: they sing their song for Santa,
who's
very unimpressed, and leaves with a noncommittal comment,
passive-aggressively shooting down the whole troupe.
Fireball is really, really avid about Rudolph's chances with "the does",
exhorting him in no uncertain terms that he better get with Clarice.
Rudolph
sounds like a toddler, which makes the whole scene creepier than it needs
to
be.
Rudolph loses his prothesis and everyone makes fun of him for being
different, even though he flies better than any of them. Santa agrees that
his flying skills are enviable, but that his deformity obviates it
unequivocally, leaving Rudolph to be psychically torn to shreds and
forbidden
from "playing any more reindeer games".
Clarice, that old horndog, likes his nose, though, singing him a song and
then gets reamed by her racist father, who sends her home and forbids the
relationship in no uncertain terms.
Hermey and Rudolph meet and agree to "be independent together" (on Santa's
trash heap of discarded nonconforming employees). During this next song,
Hermey throws hands at an effigy he builds of his boss out of snow. They
strike off into the night.
In the morning, they meet Yukon Cornelius (Larry D. Mann), who only
"thinks
about silver and gold" (licks ax: "Nuthin."). Cue a song -- Silver and
Gold
-- by Sam the Snowman. More animals that don't belong at the North Pole
show
up. We've already seen cardinals, raccoons, rabbits, and, now, squirrels
who,
inexplicably, collect gold nuggets.
The Abominable Snowman catches up to Yukon, Rudolph, and crew and they
escape. The ice floe crashes in the fog into the Island of Misfit Toys,
where
they are greeted by Charlie-in-the-Box (Alfie Scopp). Cue, of course, a
song
-- Christmas Day is Here. They meet the king of the island, Moon Racer
(Stan
Francis), who gives them a mission of finding homes for all of the toys on
his island. The little polka-dot elephant is adorable.
Donner heads out to find them, denying Mrs. Donner's help, saying, "No.
This
is man's work.", provoking inevitable tears from the weaker sex. Rudolph
wanders around, growing up and "existing", eventually coming home to find
his
parents gone. They, along with Clarice, have been kidnapped by the
Abominable
Snowman, who clobbers Rudolph in a fight.
Yukon and Hermey find them (quite fortuitously) and lure the beast
outside.
Hermey rips out out all of its teeth, rendering it completely harmless
before
Yukon drives the confused beast backwards off of a cliff, a fate perhaps
better than the lingering death by starvation that faced it otherwise.
Yukon
pitches after it into the abyss.
They both reappear the next day, with a triumphant Yukon leading the beast
on
a leash, consigning it to a life of indentured servitude at the North
Pole.
The storm rages on outside and Santa has to cancel Christmas. Then Santa
realizes that Rudolph's messed-up deformity of a glowing face could be put
to
good use, so they all change their opinion of him. Cue a song: "Holly,
Jolly
Christmas".
One song later and Santa is now super-fat, just like Mrs. Claus wanted.
Also,
Donner's a real sonofabitch.
The misfit toys are huddled over a fire, lamenting another missed
Christmas.
When Charlie tells them to dream of next year, Doll (Corinne Conley)
intones
darkly, "I don't have any dreams left to dream," leaking tears down her
stitched face.
Santa and Rudolph and the other reindeer show up, collect all the toys and
head off into the night. The end.
A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) -- "8/10"
This is the story of a bald child named Charlie Brown. He is depressed as
Christmas approaches, worried that he is unable to enjoy anything. He
complains to his more balanced friend Linux, who sucks his thumb and takes
a
security blanket everywhere he goes. Linus's sister Lucy is the class
know-it-all.
Lucy diagnoses Charlie Brown as needing a proper distraction -- like
directing the school's Christmas play. Part of Charlie's inadequacy may be
due to his having a dog who is cooler than him and better at everything
(e.g.
skating and throwing snowballs).
Sally is Charlie's little sister who, like Snoopy, has lost her soul to
commercialism. "All I want is what I have coming to me. All I want is my
fair
share."
Charlie takes over the play's production, taking it seriously with a crew
that has no faith in him, whatsoever. They dance to Vince Guaraldi's
glorious
soundtrack, infuriating Brown. Lucy (the script girl) hands out roles to
Frieda, Pigpen, Shermy, Snoopy, Linus. Surprisingly, Lucy is very
supportive
of Charlie Brown, threatening many with violence: "I oughta slug you".
Sally is nominated to be Linus the shepherd's wife, which suits her just
fine, as she has a crush on him. Lucy wants to be Christmas queen and
leaves
in a huff when Charlie Brown doesn't immediately thrill to the idea. The
players continue to do what they want, ignoring his direction.
At this, Charlie decides that he needs a big tree for the stage. His cast
is
less than confident. "Do something right for a change, Charlie Brown". The
lot is full of technicolored aluminum trees. One tree has almost no
branches
and loses half of its needles on being disturbed, but it's real and
Charlie
grabs that one, despite Linus's reservations that the cast will be
disappointed.
In the meantime, Schroeder plays Beethoven and jazz piano (Guaraldi
again),
with Lucy all the while admonishing him that he "doesn't get it at all".
Lucy's got eyes for Schroeder.
Linus and Charlie bring the tree back and he collects opprobrium from all
of
the children -- primarily the little girls, but the boys (and Snoopy) join
in. The little tree is insufficient for them because it's tiny and
pathetic.
Brown cries "Doesn't anyway know what Christmas means?" to which Linus
responds with a Bible-heavy explanation that ends with "good will toward
all
men."
Brown carries his tree outside and says, "Linus is right; I won't let all
of
their commercialism ruin my Christmas." Snoopy won first prize in the
"best-decorated house" competition -- the children cannibalize Snoopy's
house
to decorate their tree, which miraculously doesn't collapse under the
strain.
The credits thank a list of people for "graphic blandishment", which is
pretty hifalutin.
Dr. Suess's How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966) -- "9/10"
This is the original cartoon adaptation of the children's book. It is the
story of the town of Who-ville, a town of indefatigably chipper residents
of
Whos who raise their voices in joyous song to celebrate Christmas.
Their neighbor to the north in the mountains is "The Grinch", voiced by
Boris
Karloff (who also narrates). The Grinch hates Christmas. Like every year,
they annoy him with their joyful noise. This year, he decides to "find
some
way to keep Christmas from coming." He hates the noise. He hatches a plan,
dragging his reluctant dog Max into it. He must stop the noise of
Christmas
morning and, most of all, he must stop the singing.
His plan is to make himself a Santa suit and steal Christmas. Cue a
montage
for costume creation accompanied by Boris Karloff's dulcet tones. Max gets
an
antler strapped to his head and is tied up to the front of the sleigh,
after
briefly and happily thinking he was just going for a ride. They rocket
downslope to town.
The Grinch and a very-reluctant Max slink from house to house, robbing the
Whos blind -- every last ornament, every crumb of food, every candy cane.
Montage time again. Cindy Lou Who wakes and catches him at work -- he
smoothly lies to her and makes off with the rest of the decorations and
presents. In the following montage, he takes ice cubes and light bulbs.
The sled is massively overloaded when he exhorts Max to tow them back up
the
mountain -- 10,000 feet up the side of Mt. Crumpet, "he rode up with his
load
to dump it". Max is incredibly strong. The Grinch is triumphant. He
glories
in the expectation of their suffering -- and silence. But they're singing,
just like every Christmas, the damned saps. Somehow, they're happy without
their presents and decorations and food -- how can that be? "It came
without
ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes, or bags."
In this moment, fate decides to tip the sleigh off of Mt. Crumpet and the
Grinch no longer wants it to. He catches it, his heart grows three sizes,
he
has the strength of "ten Grinches, plus two", and rescues the sled. He and
Max ride triumphantly back into Whoville to return their purloined goods
and
to feast and make merry with the Whos. The End.
The animation, narration, and music are all brilliant.
The Year without a Santa Claus (1974) -- "6/10"
This is stop-motion animation of a Christmas where Santa (Mickey Rooney)
calls off Christmas due to exhaustion brought on by incipient depression.
He
takes to bed, moping around that no-one cares about Christmas anymore.
Mr.s
Claus (Shirley Booth) tries to perk him up, to no avail. After briefly
considering taking over the job herself -- which is discarded as a silly
idea
because...a woman? Really? -- she sends two elves, Jingle (Bob McFadden)
and
Jangle (Bradley Bolke), with Vixen to South Town, USA, to find people with
Christmas spirit.
The pair, riding Vixen, fly between the brothers Heat Miser (George S.
Irving) and Snow Miser (Dick Shawn), who almost shoot them down. Santa
takes
off after them, sick as a dog, riding Dasher. The two elves continue to
South
Town, where they meet children who don't seem to believe in Christmas and
Vixen is caught by the dogcatcher. Santa is hot on their tail, singing all
the way, staying with a family for a bit, then rescuing Vixen and carrying
her home.
In the meantime, Mrs. Claus goes to meet Heat and Snow Miser to get them
to
cooperate and let it snow in the south to convince people to have a
Christmas
spirit. The two refuse to cooperate until Mrs. Claus gets their mother:
Mother Nature (Rhoda Mann). She sets them straight and Christmas is saved.
Santa gets his break and the people of the world chip in to make Christmas
on
their own.
However, some whiny chick -- the Blue Christmas girl -- sends him a letter
about how sad she is without Santa Claus. The other kids made him a bunch
of
gifts, but Blue Christmas girl guilted him into going back to work, even
though his body is wrack and ruin. He pretends his ills are healed by the
"goodness of the children of the world", but I'm sure his surly doctor
(Bob
McFadden) would disagree.
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https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=40742020-12-20T22:56:06+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1600
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
The Americans S06 (2018) -- "10/10"
We start season 6 with Elizabeth on the raw edge of exhaustion: overworked,
smoking all the time, and starting to spiral into making bad decisions.
Philip is out of the business and running what looks like a flourishing
travel agency. Page is being brought up as an asset/agent. She makes a
mistake, getting spotted by a young naval officer who they make sure to
portray as so unnecessarily boorish that it's Ok when Elizabeth later
knifes
him in the carotid to keep him quiet. This would be the first of many
cold-blooded murders for Elizabeth in this final season.
Arkady Ivanovich is back in Moscow, running a special division that is
trying
to maneuver against the KGB and help Gorbachev push Glasnost/Perestroika
into
existence. He recruits Oleg Burov out of retirement, convincing him to
leave
Moscow and his wife and child to go back to Washington DC. He's there to
try
to help Russia and the world by making sure that the missile-treaty summit
is
a success.
Oleg uses sneaky tradecraft to contact Philip and try to get his help,
essentially appealing to his devotion to Russia to get him to come out of
retirement, but this time reporting to Oleg and Arkady instead of the KGB,
which can no longer be trusted to do the right thing. The KGB is correct
in
thinking that the US will not honor any deals, but incorrect in thinking
things can continue as they are.
Elizabeth has been given an even-more-than-usually secret mission to get
US
weapons technology, but its high-risk and potentially destructive. She is
therefore opposed to Oleg/Arkady -- and now, Philip.
You can basically look up most of the main storyline on Wikipedia:
SDI/Star
Wars, Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, Reagan's dementia,
Gorbachev's fight with his deep state. This is the backdrop against which
we
find out how the Jennings's story ends.
After leaving a trail of a dozen corpses, Elizabeth eventually sees that
Philip and Oleg are right. With so many "incidents" and the increased
security for the summit, the FBI's noose is finally tightening around the
Jennings family. In a meeting with Father André, Philip is nearly caught,
getting away by the skin of his teeth. He never returns to the house,
instead
calling Elizabeth to give her the code phrase to get the go bag ... and
get
out of Dodge.
Oleg is picked up by the FBI and kept in solitary confinement. His family
must give him up for lost. Oleg tells Stan the truth, hoping that Stan
will
do the right thing and rescue the summit from any American or Russian
subterfuge.
Stan is no longer really in doubt about Philip and Elizabeth -- he knows
they're on the run. He leaves an official stakeout of the travel agency to
stake out Paige's apartment instead. Jackpot. He follows the three into
the
garage and confronts them in one of the best scenes I've seen in a long
time.
He lets them go. Philip tells him that Renee might be an agent, but they
were
never able to ascertain it. Stan is severely conflicted, but has to let
them
go.
But the Americans wasn't done: they're on the run with a reluctant Paige,
having left Henry in America, the only place and culture he knows. They
flee
north to the Canadian border, switching from a car to the train, where
they
are now disguised and traveling under new identities.
At the border, both Philip and Elizabeth pass inspection -- the patrol is
searching for them, but can't identify them through their as-always
impeccable makeup (applied in a service-station bathroom lit by a bare
bulb
illuminating a cracked mirror). Paige gets off the train before it leaves
the
station, choosing to go back to Washington and Henry. We see Philip hurry
through the train -- to sit by Elizabeth, who finally loses some control
and
is silently crying for the loss of her other child.
Stan returns to pretend to help find them, but he knows they're in the
wind
for good. He goes to Henry instead, to break the news that his parents are
gone. Stan watches Renee sleep, wondering.
Philip and Elizabeth cross the border into the Soviet Union, eventually
meeting Arkady, who drives them the rest of the way to Moscow. They stop
by
the side of the road to look over the city and wonder what the rest of
their
lives will be like. The end. Happily, the end is given more than enough
time
and silence to properly honor the gravity of the story.
I, Tonya (2017) -- "8/10"
This is a docu-drama based on the life of Tonya Harding (Margot Robbie).
There are disagreements about how accurate the story is. In a way, it
doesn't
matter. This is the story of a someone who grew up poor in Portland, as
her
mother LaVona's (Allison Janney) fifth daughter with her fourth husband.
We
never hear anything about the other kids. LaVona doesn't give the
impression
that she's a "stay in touch" kind of mother. She's a chain-smoking
waitress
who devotes her entire disposable income to Tonya's skating, but has only
"tough love" -- at best -- to "encourage" her to succeed. She says that
Tonya
"skates better mad".
Tonya skates well and is physically gifted, becoming the first American
woman
to perform a triple axel at a very young age. She never finished high
school
and has anger issues, most of which can be traced back to her upbringing,
which was tough. She and her mother both took beatings before they left
Tonya's father.
She would repeat this pattern with her first boyfriend/lover/husband Jeff
Gillooly (Sebastian Stan), who's a walking poster child for domestic
abuse.
Neither of them is very clever -- everyone in the movie makes terrible
life
decisions. But the environment encourages these decisions. It's incredible
that Tonya makes it out of there in any way at all. Most people don't.
So a drastically undereducated young woman with anger issues, an abusive
husband, and a huge chip on her shoulder against a snobbish world that
will
never accept her no matter how good she is at her sport, shows up to
nationals and then the Olympics.
The "incident" happens in the middle of the film. Jeff's shockingly
deluded
and mentally incapacitated friend Shawn (Paul Walter Hauser) convinces him
to
throw Nancy Kerrigan off of her game by sending her threatening mails. To
convince them of his plan's efficacy, he fakes death threats against Tonya
first. Jeff wants to seal the deal for Tonya; she seems neither convinced
nor
particularly opposed. She doesn't really care what those idiots do.
Instead of sending threatening letters, Shawn hires two goons to attack
Kerrigan. They give her a deep bruise, but fail to incapacitate her. The
FBI
becomes involved and zeroes in on Jeff and Shawn. Tonya eventually learns
what happened, but fails to turn them in immediately, instead waiting
several
days. For this, she is fined a large amount of money and is banned from
skating for life.
The way the story is told, you can just feel the whole skating world
smugly
smirking after the judgment, secure in the knowledge that the class
divisions
are once again secure. The skating world -- at least in the U.S. -- is one
in
which money and the status it brings is a nearly essential component. If
you
don't have money and status, then the climb is much steeper and harder --
as
with nearly everything else.
The whole crime is stupid and useless and unnecessary. It ruined Tonya's
life
very early -- even though she had very little to do with it. Her greatest
mistake was not being able to escape being a product of her environment,
of
having married young and stupidly to a man who adored her, but didn't know
how to support her. She wasn't exactly a prize, but she had raw talent,
which
made her a diamond in the rough that her environment should have nurtured
rather than trying to break her.
The film ends with Tonya's judgment and then a look at her subsequent
career
as a boxer. It's an interesting movie about class struggle, the evils of
gross inequality, and the smugness, arrogance, and mean-heartedness of the
moneyed classes. I saw other reviews describing it as a "dark comedy" and
"hilarious". There was nothing funny about this movie unless you were
laughing at the characters, which you could only do if you lacked empathy
with them. Which you could only do if you don't know anyone from that side
of
the tracks.
If you grew up in those circumstances -- or know people who did -- then
you'll immediately recognize the truth of the story -- even if the details
are fudged in this particular instance. You'll recognize Jeff and Tonya
and
Shawn and LaVona in people you knew or still know. Hell, you'll see them
in
family members or maybe even yourself. Their poverty and how they have to
deal with it -- how they have to expend nearly all of their energy
treading
water -- is not funny, it's tragic. The awkward critical reactions show
how
out-of-touch most urban/city movie reviewers are from the part of America
that this movie was about.
Community S01-06 (2009--2015) -- "9/10"
This is the story of Greendale Community College. It focuses on seven
students -- Jeff Winger (Joel McHale), Britta Perry (Gillian Jacobs), Abed
Nadir (Danny Pudi), Troy Barnes (Donald Glover), Annie Edison (Alison
Brie),
Pierce Hawthorne (Chevy Chase), and Shirley Bennett (Yvette Nicole Brown)
--
who form a study group for their introductory Spanish class.
Their Spanish teacher is Ben Chang (Ken Jeong). The dean is Craig Pelton
(Jim
Rash). In season two, they take Anthropology instead, taught by Ian Duncan
(John Oliver). There are other recurring characters, but those are the
main
ones. Chang has been disgraced as a teacher and is now a student.
The writing is excellent, the repartee witty. The stories are convoluted
and
very meta, treating the show as a show about a show sometimes, mostly
through
the device of Abed's inability to deal with real life without filtering it
through the tropes of TV. The actors are all quite good, but I especially
like Pudi, Glover, Rash, and Brie. Chase and Jeong also do a great job.
John Goodman is the vice-dean, in charge of the Air Conditioner Repair
Academy, which has a tremendous amount of power and wants to recruit Troy
away from Greendale, Abed, and the plumbers. He has some great lines, like
when he tells Abed (in an effort to undermine his friendship with Troy,
who's
building a blanket fort in opposition to Abed's pillow fort),
"Don't corrupt the host to satisfy the parasites."
...meaning that Abed shouldn't compromise the purity of his vision to help
Troy and Greendale get a world record at building blanket forts.
One great trope running through the seasons is paintball, which appears in
the best episodes. The whole show is very meta and Abed is pretty much the
best character (Danny Pudi is really very good). Frankie (Paget Brewster)
in
season six actually does a great job -- especially considering she
appeared
in what was going to be the last season. The writing worked well here,
too.
Chang's episode as Mr. Miyagi was very good. The episode dedicated to
Garrett's wedding was also quite good.
This was my second viewing of the series, though only the first time I'd
seen
season 6, which, surprisingly, had its moments. I thought it was better
than
season 5, actually. The show was always about the characters and it did a
decent job of continuing on, in its own way, when people began to leave:
Troy, Shirley, Pierce.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) -- "9/10"
We start the film with Mildred, who drives by some broken-down billboards on
a little-used road outside her hometown of Ebbing, Missouri. She decides
then
and there to purchase ad-space for her daughter, who'd been raped and
killed
seven months before. The three billboards say "Raped While Dying", "And
Still
No Arrests?", and "How Come, Chief Willoughby?"
Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson) takes umbrage, but not nearly to the
degree that one of his officers Dixon (Sam Rockwell) does. Willoughby
tells
Mildred he has pancreatic cancer, hoping to guilt her into taking down the
billboards, but she doesn't see the two as connected at all. Her son
Robbie
is annoyed with her. Her ex-husband Charlie (John Hawkes), a sinewy man
who
used to beat her, is also not thrilled with her that she's dragging their
daughter's death back into the public eye with such crass language,
evoking
such raw images.
While Willoughby tries to convince Mildred to take the signs down, Dixon
visits Red Welby (Caleb Landry Jones), the nearly incomprehensible owner
of
the advertising company renting her the billboard space to threaten him,
then
has Mildred's co-worker Denise (Amanda Warren) arrested for minor drug
charges. Mildred has words with her dentist and ends up drilling a hole in
his thumb with his own drill because she thought he was going to ruin her
mouth as retaliation for her billboards. Willoughby has her brought in,
but
ends up coughing blood on her during questioning -- and she comforts him.
Willoughby leaves the hospital against doctor's orders, has a perfect day
with his (very young) wife Anne (Abbie Cornish) and their kids before
going
out to the barn and shooting himself in the head. We hear the letters that
Willoughby left for several people -- including Mildred, in which he
reveals
that he was the one who'd paid the next month's rent for the billboards.
Dixon takes Bill's death terribly, marching across the street to severely
pistol-whip Welby before throwing him out a window. The new police chief
Abercrombie (Clarke Peters) is right outside. He follows Dixon back inside
and fires him. Curiously, no-one thinks that Dixon's assault is worthy of
charges. No-one even tried to stop Dixon's assault on Welby.
That night, someone burns down the billboards. Mildred and Robbie manage
to
save part of one, but it's a lost cause. Mildred retaliates by
fire-bombing
the police station with Molotov Cocktails. She tried to get Dixon out of
there by calling him, but he didn't pick up the phone, so she did it
anyway.
Dixon is severely burned, but has a change of heart after reading Bill's
overly generous last letter to him. Dixon saves Mildred's daughter's file.
James (Peter Dinklage) comes along to tell the police that he and Mildred
had
hooked up, to give her an alibi. She agrees to go on a date with him.
A young man shows up to give Mildred the "backup" copies of the billboards
and they put them back up. James helps. On the date, Charlie shows up with
his 19-year-old girlfriend Penelope (Samara Weaving) and he admits that he
burned down the billboards. Mildred is a disappointing and mean date, but
that's hardly a surprise.
Dixon is in a bar, drinking himself into a stupor, when he overhears a man
bragging about having raped a girl in the right time frame. He provokes a
fight in which he's roundly defeated, but he manages to get a DNA sample.
It
turns out that the man was out of the country at the time. He decides to
follow the man to Idaho (where his truck is from) to exact revenge --
because
he knows that the man did something horrendous. He invites Mildred along
and
she agrees.
The next morning, Mildred and Dixon take off together, on their mission.
She
admits that she's the one who firebombed the police station, to which
Dixon
replies "who the hell else would it have been?" (great line). They each
admit
they don't know if they can go through with their mission of vengeance and
agree to decide on the way.
Battlestar Galactica S04 (2007--2008) -- "7/10"
The final season really turns up the volume on making every character mostly,
if not nearly unbearably, detestable. Whatever acting chops Kara Thrace
(Katee Sackhoff) had exhibited in the first two seasons are now long gone,
as
the plot transforms her into a lunatic messiah, returned from a supposed
mission to "Earth" and convinced that she.can hear the song that would
lead
them all back there.
Admiral Adama and President Roslin are now officially a couple, though the
ethical ramifications don't seem to interest them anymore. Roslin is also
a
nearly power-mad messiah -- a completely understandable reaction, but not
executed in a very interesting manner -- and veers hard toward
dictatorship.
Chief Galen Tyrol (Aaron Douglas), Colonel Tigh, and the other "final
four"
Cylons are outed as the humans team up with Cylon Six and half of the
other
Cylons caught up in their own civil war.
They finally find Earth about halfway through the season, but it is (A) a
wasteland with lingering radiation from a 2000-year-old attack and (B) was
populated by Cylons, not Humans. The 13th colony was Cylon, not Human; the
planet they'd settled on was a replica, not the original Earth.
President Roslin (Mary McDonnell) gives up completely and retreats to
isolation, giving up her treatments for her resurgent cancer. Admiral
Adama
(Edward James Olmos) sinks into alcohol and self-pity, having lost his
once-vaunted moral center but still thinking he should lead the fleet and
always reserving the right to just take over the colonies completely,
should
the elected government fail to live up to his expectations (he always know
best).
The fleet, along with their Cylon allies, leave "Earth" to find another,
more-habitable planet. The Cylons offer drastically improved technology in
exchange for full membership in the Fleet and the Colonies as protected
against Cavil and the other half of the remaining Cylons.
Gaeta (Alessandro Juliani) turns out to be more complex than originally
thought, coping with a leg he lost in an attempted mutiny on crazy
Starbuck's
Earth-finding mission. He starts throwing shade everywhere, whenever he's
not
on the nod from morphine. It's debatable whether he causes more unrest or
whether a newly religious Doctor Baltar (James Callis) does (Baltar gets
some
of the best lines),
"It's like the distant chaos of an orchestra tuning up, and then somebody
waves a magic wand. And all of those notes start to slide into place. A
grotesque, screeching cacophony becomes a single melody."
With the failure to find Earth, President Roslin has abdicated. Adama is
still on-board with the alliance with the Cylons but the rest of the
colonies
are against him. This, of course, doesn't matter because -- see above --
he's
always right. So he has Vice President Zarek arrested after the Thylium
ship
"mutinies" (it can't mutiny from a fleet to which it doesn't belong), in
order to get him to give up the location.
With Gaeta's help, Zarek escapes and they trigger the revolution. Gaeta
buys
time with deception at the comms in the CIC while the civilians start to
take
over Galactica. It didn't seem possible, but Starbuck gets even more
poorly
written, getting star status as an unstoppable Rambo who teams up with
Apollo, whom she rescued with no resistance from the resistance. She leads
a
charmed life, apparently.
This has truly sunk to new lows and I'm actively cheering on both the
resistance and the Cylons in my opposition to the military -- and
humanity.
The episodes leading up to this point have made a pretty strong point that
humanity is not worth saving and dying out in the wastes of space is a
fitting end. But I was pretty sure I would always end up here.
The coup continues, with Gaeta slowly realizing that his partner Zarek is
a
good deal more ruthless than he thought they would need to be. President
Roslin is back in the game -- seemingly not suffering at all from cancer
because ... reasons -- which means we have to endure her self-indulgent,
overemotional and scene-chewing speeches. Adama does his own share of
emoting
and snarling as he's dragged into a court-martial. I really like Edward
James
Olmos, but the writing he's given is god-awful. It reads like fan-fiction
written by ex-Marines.
The only point of light here is that they get the lawyer Romo Lampkin
(Mark
Sheppard) back out of retirement, who's actually quite good. Gaeta, Zarek,
and even Baltar are decent. Apollo stays the same level of horrible, so he
starts to look pretty good. Starbuck is just annoyingly ridiculously
written,
but I believe I've already noted that above. It's just quite grating. It's
just lazy writing, with one deus-ex after another -- but maybe I'd feel
differently if I liked the characters that I'm supposed to like.
I'm on E14 of 22 and seriously considering giving up so close to the end.
Yeah, it's that bad. I keep dropping my rating with each episode (on IMDb,
everything is rated at 9+, which means that I'm in the minority again).
The
missiles still have vapor trails. The Cylons are capable of upgrading
everyone's FTL drives, but it took them days to override a signal-jam.
Two-person ships have giant windows on them, leave vapor trails from their
"rockets", course through space like fighter jets, but they also have FTL
drives and FTL communications. In the BattleStar, they're constantly
picking
up phones on cords to talk to each other, but communications between star
systems is instantaneous. In the very beginning of season 1, the reason
given
was that the BattleStar was built with deliberately primitive technology
so
that it couldn't be manipulated by the Cylons. Now that they're working
with
Cylons, there doesn't seem to be any reason not to upgrade the phones as
well
as the FTL drives, no?
The personalities continue to get worse as mankind and the remaining
Cylons
veer toward the end of their story -- or at least this cycle of it. You
see,
the various clues scattered around point to a long, long history wherein
humans invent robots that eventually evolve closer and closer to humans --
until they are nearly indistinguishable, at which point they forget
they're
robots and just think they're biological beings.
In keeping with the inconsistent approach to story and canon, the current
range of Cylons are aware of their electronic origins, seem to be made
solely
of flesh and blood, but are still stronger and faster and more
indestructible
than the ostensibly "normal" humans that comprise the remains of the
colonies. If the story holds, then these people are also descended from
some
cycle of robots, right? At least from somewhere in the dim, distant past?
Or are Adama and Co. lucky enough to be part of the original generation of
humans and we're actually only witnessing the first few -- and overlapping
--
iterations of what everyone is calling an "endless cycle"? It's not quite
clear, but there seems to be a very definite biological distinction
between
the humans and the Cylons that they all take for granted instead of taking
a
second to wonder whether there is any salient difference.
Adama and Co. take the BattleStar Galactica on one Hail Mary of an attack
on
the colony base ship to retrieve Hera -- a human/Cylon hybrid, born of a
sexual pairing, which suggests genetic compatibility -- who is supposedly
the
"future" of both the Cylon and Human race. So they risk the whole fleet
and
what remains of the colonies for a hare-brained and wildly unlikely
interpretation of events, with more than quasi-religious overtones.
This is about par for the course for this band of idiots -- and about what
could be expected from humans on the best of days and certainly not
unlikely
from humans in the extreme situation in which they've found themselves
(trapped for nearly a year on starships with no real home, dwindling
supplies, and increased factional strife). They're all pretty much loony
tunes and retreat to atavistic answers due to an utter inability to cope
with
their reality in any rational way.
They regress to pretending that nothing's changed and expend tremendous
resources and energy on petty political infighting and interpersonal
jihads.
This is actually pretty realistic writing, in one sense, in that I
wouldn't
expect anything else of the obviously damaged, egocentric, small-minded,
and
peevishly unenlightened crew members. There aren't too many shining lights
in
this group and of those, not one has a chance of making a difference.
Unsurprisingly, the humans renege on an agreement with Caleb (the leader
of
the other Cylon faction). The "five" original Cylons (whatever that means
in
this mythology) had agreed to upload their knowledge of resurrection --
which
Caleb's faction had lost when humans had destroyed their last remaining
resurrection ship. This betrayal is not surprising -- but the other Cylons
had killed billions of humans in their attack on the colonies. However, a
deal's a deal -- and humans went back on their word. This caused zero
consternation in Adama, who had long since capitulated any pretense of
fairness or justice.
So they rescue Hera and get the BattleStar back, but in shambles, ready to
lead the final landing on a planet that looks very much like Earth 150,000
years ago. They land and decide to send all of their ships into the sun,
to
prevent themselves from having enough technology to start the whole cycle
again. Pretty much everyone's on the planet, including Six and Baltar, who
have survived the intervening 150,000 years to see the cycle about to
begin
again with the discovery of advanced robotics.
It took me a year to watch the whole thing (during indoor workouts) and it
had its ups and downs.
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (2020) -- "8/10"
Borat Sagdiyev is pulled out of the work camp to which he's been committed
since returning to Kazakhstan after the first Borat film. He is offered
the
opportunity to redeem himself by delivering Johnny the Monkey to Trump as
a
gift. He cannot get close to Trump because of an unfortunate incident in
the
first film where he defecated in front of his hotel. Instead, the premier
agrees that Borat can redeem himself by delivering the monkey to Mike
Pence
instead.
The plan fails nearly immediately, when Borat's daughter Tutar (Maria
Bakalova) sneaks into the monkey's crate, surviving on its delicious meat.
With the monkey gone, Borat must pivot again. He strongly suspects that
Mike
Pence is rarely seen with women because he's so sexually potent, so Borat
decides to make a gift of Tutar to Pence.
Tutar needs a little cleaning up, so Borat gets her a makeover as well as
taking her to a debutante ball. Borat disguises himself as Trump, carrying
Tutar over his shoulder in the middle of a conference where Pence is
giving a
speech. As he's dragged out, he yells "You're fired!" at Pence.
With that plan dead in the water, they need to pivot again. Borat decides
to
give Tutar to America's Mayor, but she needs more work. Borat knows that
Giuliani likes big-breasted women, so he brings Tutar to a clinic for
breast-enlargement. This doesn't present a problem to anyone involved,
even
when they learn that she's only 15 and talks like an utter child about her
body, even when Borat pays with cash in single-dollar bills.
Borat leaves Tutar with a babysitter, who's a bit taken aback that Borat
tells her to treat Tutar like a dog. She manages to counsel Tutar that her
father is lying to her about life. Tutar has a fight with Borat, even
telling
him that the Holocaust was a lie, citing the Facebook page.
Borat goes to a synagogue dressed as a Jewish caricature, trying to get
himself killed. He is treated kindly by two old women there and is
reassured
to learn that the Holocaust actually did happen. He leaves there to tell
Tutar, but finds a world closed down by COVID-19.
He ends up holing up with two guys he meets in a parking lot. They tell
him
about Q-Anon and he tells them about his beliefs. They try to convince him
that he believes in conspiracy theories -- that he has to be more careful
what he puts in his mind. When Borat sees that Tutar has become a news
correspondent, he travels with his two friends to a rally in Olympia,
Washington to find her. He ends up leading the crowd in a nearly
hopelessly
racist and awful song that his two friends had written for him.
Tutar, fearing for her father's life, arranges an interview with Rudy, who
at
first seems to be just trying to make the interview work for the young
girl,
but man is he deliberately ignoring a lot of warning signs. On the other
hand, Cohen also uses every trick in the book, filmmaker-wise, to tell the
story he wants to tell (see below).
When she happily slugs a shot of whiskey with him -- despite her having
told
him she's 15 -- then inviting him to the bedroom, he positively scampers
after her, with a lot of inappropriate touching before Borat bursts in to
yell that "she's only 15; she's too old for you!". Giuliani finally
realizes
that something is amiss and storms out. They flee the scene, seeming to
share
genuine laughter at what they'd gotten away with.
The two head back to Kazakhstan where, instead of meeting a grim fate,
Borat
learns that he'd been deliberately infected with COVID-19 before he'd left
(he thought it was a health-boosting dose of "gypsy tears") and that he'd
functioned as patient zero for the U.S. Borat records the admission and
gets
his premier arrested, leading to a freer and better Kazakhstan where Tutar
is
a reporter alongside him.
It's a happy ending and there are actually a few heartwarming moments
between
Tutar and Borat. Bakalova as Tutar is just as stone-cold as Cohen, pulling
zero punches. Her work is amazing and she seems like a complete natural. I
enjoyed her rapport with Cohen much more than his burly producer from the
first film.
Some of it's uneven, but what shines through is just what big, brass balls
Cohen and Bakalova have. They push it right to the edge of violence and
their
targets are just so unsuspecting for so long. I've read that the only
person
who was in on the joke during filming was the kindly older lady in the
synagogue, who he'd worried would be too offended by his comments if she
was
completely unprepared.
But the guy in the Kinkos who chirpily faxes and reads responses that
clearly
discuss underage sex-traffic, the two guys who host him at their home, the
plastic surgeon, his secretary, the people at the debutante ball, the
women
at the conference where Tutar speaks, Giuliani and his entourage -- all of
these people seem to be completely fooled. Or, if not completely fooled,
willing to humor a madman or madwoman without comment or reproof.
You could explain some of it with a general ignorance mixed with a
good-heartedness in some cases (e.g. the babysitter). But others seem only
too happy to agree with Borat and Tutar, no matter how reprehensible their
views. His views are right in their wheelhouse, so what's the problem?
The "review" by Matt Zoller Seitz
obviously saw a bit more in some of the jokes -- but movies, are like
that:
you bring a lot with you when you watch. For example, Seitz saw this film
as
more-than-vaguely "feminist", although I think that's quite a bit of a
stretch.
"The subtext of a lot of the jokes is that the exploitation of women and
girls, some below the legal age of consent, is an ingrained perk of being
a
financially comfortable adult man in the United States, as well as in
countries that Americans like to paint as inferior."
Another critic I like wrote "We’re Sorry to Report That the New Borat
Movie
Isn’t Funny" by Eileen Jones
,
in which she wrote that the film,
"[...] is earning praise for its “fresh, fierce” feminism — for
advocating, in the end, that women should, in fact, be taught to read and
drive and perhaps not to aspire to live in a cage. Presumably, we are led
to
believe there’s a significant force in America saying otherwise."
Seitz thought the Giuliani scene was more incriminating, interpreting
Giuliani's normal facial expression -- he was my mayor for 8 years in NYC;
he
always looks like that -- as a "leer".
"What's beyond dispute is that Giuliani's behavior is the maraschino cherry
atop the movie's slime cake of male entitlement. His leer could be the
film's
logo."
He goes on to condemn America along with it,
"The movie's scripted fiction mirrors the reality that the star captures when
interacting with nonprofessionals: there is no agreed-upon morality,
ethical
code, or national fellowship in America. There is only greed, tribal
loyalty,
and power dynamics. Maybe that's all there ever was. This is a dark, dark
movie, invigorating in its bleakness."
Again, it seems like Seitz is lacking any form of empathy for many of the
American "characters", probably not knowing anyone anything like that
personally. None of them are likely to be sipping kombucha in an upscale
coffee shop.
I thought that the "Half in the Bag: Borat 2 and The Haunting of Bly
Manor"
by RedLetterMedia review was
quite insightful as far as editing technique went: they pointed out how
easy
it is to manipulate even sophisticated viewers by inserting scenes that
look
like they were shot live or by inserting audio when faces are turned away
(e.g. the Giuliani scene, which still does not look good, was heavily
manipulated using these techniques). It's how Cohen makes it look like
people
were just chirpily accepting horrific things he was saying or showing them
--
the actual content on the screen, for example, was not the same for that
person as what was shown in the movie to us, the audience.
Borat even goes so far as to speak fluent Hebrew in all of his
conversations
with Tutar, who responded in Bulgarian. The villagers in Kazakhstan spoke
Romanian because that's where it was filmed. If you don't know any of
these
languages and have no ear for anything similar, you'd be hard-pressed to
notice that none of the actors can actually understand one another. Borat
threw in a smattering of very Russic-sounding words sometimes, too.
This movie is madcap and Sasha Baron Cohen continues to prove that he's
found
an amazing way of getting the darker bits of American culture to reveal
themselves unwittingly. Recommended.
Dark S01-03 (2017--2020) -- "9/10"
The story takes place in the fictional town of Winden, in Germany. In 1986
and 2019, it has a nuclear power plant. In 1953, the plant is about to be
born. In 1920, we meet more of the progenitors of the people in later
years.
In 1887, the first machine is built. In 2053, the world has more or less
been
ended for decades.
The plot is very convoluted and involves many of the townsfolk at various
stages of their lives and in various incarnations. There is time travel --
lots of it. There are knots in the family tree.
We start off in 2019, meeting teenagers Jonas, Magnus, Martha, and
Fransiska
as well as Martha and Magnus's younger brother Michel. The three M-named
kids
belong to Katharina and Ulrich, who were teenagers in school with Hannah
and
Michael, Jonas's mother and father. Ulrich's brother Mads disappeared --
the
first to do so. They also went to school with Regina Tiedemann, daughter
of
Claudia Tiedemann, daughter of Egon Tiedemann, a police officer in 1953
and
1986. In 2019, Regina and her husband Aleksander (not his original name)
run
the power plant and their son Bartosz is also friends with Jonas.
Franziska
is Charlotte and Peter's daughter, sister to Elisabeth, who's deaf. Their
grandfather is Helge.
That's the season one family tree, before we learn from Ulrich traveling
back
in time via a tunnel under the power plant through a spooky cave that
Michael
is actually his son Michel and that his daughter Martha is actually dating
her own nephew. Elisabeth turns out to be her own grandmother. Bartosz
also
turns out to be his own great-grandfather. Knots in the family tree.
"Jeder Wissenschaftler würde sagen, nein. Das verbietet der kausale
Determinismus. Aber es liegt in der Natur des Menschen zu glauben, dass
sein
Leben eine Rolle spielt. Dass sein Handeln etwas verändert. Mein Leben
lang
habe ich geträumt durch die Zeit zu reisen, zu sehen, was war and was
irgendwann sein wird.
"Die Träume verändern sich. Andere Dinge werden wichtig. Mein Platz ist
nicht im Gestern und nicht im Morgen. Sondern hier. Und jetzt."
They are all trying to change something in this time loop. They are all,
to
some degree, aware that there is something gravely wrong. Jonas ends up
knowing the most, taking the role of Adam. Martha takes the role of Eve.
With
their closeness in bloodline, their eventual child is a time-traveling
mutant, bent on killing and "cleaning". Claudia is opposed to him, also
deeply aware of time travel. There is a time machine that no-one has
invented
and that everyone has, that appeared out of the loop.
"Der Mensch ist ein eigenartiges Geschöpf. All sein Handeln ist motiviert
aus Verlangen, sein Charakter geschmiedet aus Schmerz. So sehr er auch
versucht, den Schmerz zu verdrängen, das Verlangen zu unterdrücken, so
wenig kann er sich doch freimachen von der ewigen Knechtschaft seiner
Gefühle.
"Denn solange den Sturm in ihm tobt kann er keinen Frieden finden. Nicht
im
Leben, nicht im Tod. Und so wird er Tag für Tag alles tun, was nötig
ist.
Der Schmerz sein Schiff, das Verlangen sein Kompass. Wozu der Mensch doch
fähig ist."
The time loop grew like a tumor from a rip in space-time created by
inventor
H.G. Tannhaus, who was trying to bring back his son and grandchild, who'd
died in a car accident. The two worlds and the knots of time grew from
this
initial attempt, a mistake, a bubble of quantum foam in which all of the
characters above appeared, flotsam on the sea of time. Do they matter more
or
less than the people in the real timelines? No-one can really say.
"[to Eve] Das Leben ist ein Labyrinth. Und mache irren bis zu ihrem Ende
darin herum, auf der Suche nach einem Ausweg. Dabei gibt es nur einen Weg,
und der führt immer tiefer hinein. Erst, wenn man die Mitte erreicht hat,
wird man verstehen. Der Tod ist etwas unbegreifliches. Aber man kann sich
mit
ihm versöhnen. Alles was wir getan haben wird am Ende vergessen sein.
"Wir sind schuld an diesem niemals endenden Deja-vü. Und wir sind
diejenigen, die es beenden müssen. Wir sind der Fehler. Du und ich.
Unsere
beide Schicksale sind in ewiger Verdammnis miteinander verbunden. Durch
beide
Welten. Alles ist Ursache und Wirkung. Jeder Schmerz verleitet uns zum
Handeln. Formt unser Wollen."
The people in these two worlds are determined to eradicate it and travel
to
Tannhaus's world and timeline to prevent the accident in the first place,
succeeding and folding the rip back over their dimensions, healing the
rift
and eliminating themselves, remaining only as a vague half-memory, a deja
vu
for Hannah, who decides to name her soon-to-be-born child Jonas.
[Peter Paul Rubens: The Fall of the Damned (1620)]The painting to the left
is
featured prominently above Adam's mantel. It is The Fall of the Damned by
Peter Paul Rubens and was painted in 1620.
There are large parts of this show that are definitely worth a 10. The
acting
is, for the most part, top-notch. The story is intricate and interesting
and
largely airtight (especially for a time-travel story).
There were some rocky moments and some more drawn-out bits, but overall,
it
was a masterpiece and I'm glad it exists and glad that people are making
such
convoluted stories that dare to do something new.
There are two main things I didn't like: (1) I can't stand Martha's whiny
face and acting and (2) almost all of the music is just crap, including
the
credits music -- "for neither ever nor never..." -- which everyone else
won't
stop oohing and aahing over. I listened to it a few times, but the refrain
is
just so inane that this was one of the rare shows where I skip the intro.
The sound effects other than the music were excellent. No complaints. I
was
entertained and forced to think. I've only scratched the surface of the
various nuances of the story- and world-lines. Read the "detailed
Wikipedia
entry" for more
information.
But the story is very, very interesting and the acting is excellent. Even
if
the end of season 2 and the beginning of season 3 slump somewhat and get a
bit muddled and even repetitive, I think they turn things around in the
last
couple of shows and make what we in German call a Punktlandung.
We watched it in the original German.
Klepper Episodes 1-8 (2019) -- "8/10"
Jordan Klepper hosts several episodes, mostly centered on American political
topics.
1. In the first show, he talks with a group of veterans who have
started a
professional-wrestling league -- and then plays the role of the
"heel"
in the final scene.
2. In Louisiana, he meets up with environmental activists L’eau La
Vie
and finds out the real story is more nuanced: the companies aren't
bringing the jobs they promised and local townspeople don't care
about
the environment more than jobs.
3. In the third episode, he spends time with kids attending Freedom U,
an
underground university for immigrants -- because they're not allowed
to
attend school otherwise. He gets arrested at a protest action.
4. Next up, he meets up with groups of immigrant veterans who fought
for
America, but who've not been granted a path to citizenship and have
been deported instead.
5. The next show is an interview with Deb Haaland, the first Native
American woman elected to Congress. Jordan travels to various
states,
meeting other Native Americans engaged in politics.
6. Jordan and Kobi Libii meet up with two second-amendment-rights
groups
in Texas: Jordan meets an overprivileged group that wants even more
constitutional protection than they already has -- which is a lot.
Kobi's group is called Guerilla Mainframe and is a black militant
group
that shows up to rallies armed to the teeth.
7. Jordan investigates the NASA Space Program and what it would mean to
go
to Mars or back to the moon. He interviews an older astronaut, who's
a
bit cynical and a super-young girl who's ... somewhat implausible
(she
claims to speak eight languages at 18).
8. Finally, Jordan goes to Compton to interview people who were deep in
"the game" "back in the day" and are barred from taking part in the
newly legalized marijuana industry. The reality of legalization
looks a
lot like the rest of corporate America: unequal and unfair.
Kevin Hart: Zero F**ks Given (2020) -- "8/10"
Kevin Hart performs in a standup club in his palatial home. He's already had
COVID-19. He's actually quite a bit funnier than in his arena shows. He
talks
about sex after 40, group chats with his mail friends, and, of course,
COVID.
As a comedian who's been canceled -- for saying something stupid about
preventing his son from being gay -- he had a bit to say about cancel
culture, as well. He has a long story about going to Seinfeld's house for
brick-oven pizza, highlighting the difference between black and white
comedy
-- and their fans. I enjoyed it the most of any of his recent specials.
The Stand (1994) -- "6/10"
This is the six-hour mini-series originally aired on American TV. The script
was adapted by Stephen King himself. Of course, he had to neuter a lot of
his
more salacious and interesting content in order to get it on prime time.
That said, though, the movie follows the basic plot of the book pretty
well.
It's not a subtle story, really: a man-made virus takes out most of
humanity
within a few weeks. General Starkey (Ed Harris) takes his own life once he
sees what he's responsible for. Kathy Bates and Jeff Goldblum also have
uncredited roles, but only in the first of four episodes.
The remaining people are neatly divided into two groups: the good people
--
Stu Redman (Gary Sinise), Frannie (Molly Ringwald), Glen Bateman (Ray
Walston), Judge Farris (Ossie Davis), Larry (Adam Storke), Nick Andros
(Robe
Low), Tom Cullen (Bill Fagerbakke), among others -- who gravitate to
Mother
Abigail Freemantel (Ruby Dee) and the bad people -- Nadine (Laura San
Giacomo), Lloyd (Miguel Ferrer), Trashcan Man (Matt Frewer), Rat Man (Rick
Aviles), among others -- who gravitate to Randall Flagg (Jamey Sheridan).
The good people head to Colorado while the bad ones gather in Vegas. The
Lord
is on the side of the good, but they must agree to suffer in order to
prevail
-- putting their trust in the Lord. In the end, Trashcan Man's
singlemindedness for "boom boom" (explosives of any kind) torpedoes
(literally a nuclear one) Flagg's plans of conquest and leaves the world
free
of evil for the puritanical and quasi-benevolent dictatorship in Colorado.
The first show is pretty great, actually, and the second one is also
pretty
good, but the third and fourth drag on interminably. It just all gets so
maudlin and weepy and ... boring. Molly Ringwald is terribly wooden and
Gary
Sinise is ultimately wasted as a featureless straight-arrow of a
character.
Miguel Ferrer is good, as always -- and Matt Frewer as Trashcan Man is the
standout best. Fagerbakke's Tom Cullen -- M.O.O.N: That spells moon -- is
also very good.
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https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=40422020-10-13T22:19:28+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1400
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of around 1400 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.
Battlestar Galactica: Razor (2007) -- "8/10"
This 100--minute movie is set in the BG universe and tells a bit of the
backstory of the Pegasus and that of its erstwhile commander Admiral Cain
(Michelle Forbes). We meet her former number two Kendra Shaw (Stephany
Jacobsen). These two, along with Starbuck spend much of their screen time
proving that stupid, macho posturing looks and sounds just as stupid
coming
from women as it does from men. They are all truly terrible people who
should
be nowhere near command positions, if there was any justice or morality.
The
military pretends to neither, which is lucky for these ladies.
The story was pretty interesting, though, and I quite like the universe of
BG, so it paid off in the end. You either get used to the rough edges and
enjoy the bits that are enjoyable or you leave off watching entirely. I
personally like a bit of a sci-fi setting and I think the overall story
arc
of Humans, Cylons, and their relationship and history is quite
interesting.
The quasi-religious aspect is understandable in light of the apocalyptic
situation for humanity and not-at-all off-putting.
Even Admiral Adama reveals a bit more of his backstory: he was the one who
discovered the laboratory where the Cylons were building their "next step
in
evolution", a Cylon/Human hybrid. This original experiment was whisked
away
before the humans could destroy it and has spent the long interim
wandering
space, guarded by the original Centurions. It (for lack of a better word)
can
see the future and knows much more of the past than any of its
counterparts.
In the interim, there have been other attempts -- Athena and Helo's child
Hela, for examples -- at crossing the streams, as it were. It remains to
be
seen where that leads. The hybrid reveals to Shaw that he sees Starbuck as
the harbinger of the apocalypse for humanity -- just before Shaw blows
them
both to kingdom come. Starbuck, unfortunately, escapes.
Better Call Saul S04 (2018) -- "9/10"
The fourth season picks up with Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) and Kim (Rhea Seehorn)
in one story line, picking up after Chuck's death (Michael McKean). Howard
(Patrick Fabian) thinks he's responsible for Chuck's suicide and wastes no
time dumping this news on Kim and Jimmy, leading to an even greater break
between them all.
Jimmy continues his journey to becoming Saul Goodman while Kim gets her
job
back as a high-powered attorney, making money while Jimmy waits a year to
get
his license back. He spends some time looking for a job -- which is really
amusing and which involves a few petty crimes, spreading his wings, as it
were. He finds a job in a cell-phone store, selling nearly exclusively to
shady characters who are interested in burner phones.
Ignacio or "Nacho" (Michael Mando) carries out an attack on Hector
Salamanca
(Mark Margolis), nearly killing him and putting him in the wheelchair we
see
him in in Breaking Bad. Unfortunately, Nacho stays in the thrall of Gus
Fring
(Giancarlo Esposito), who threatens to kill Nacho's father if he fails to
help him take down the Salamancas. Lalo Salamanca (Tony Dalton) shows up
to
help his uncle and run his empire for him, tangling with Fring and Nacho
and
Mike.
Mike (Jonathan Banks) heads up a project for Fring, leading a team of
German
tunneling specialists to build an underground super-lab (the one we would
see
Walter White take over in Breaking Bad). He befriends Werner, the head of
the
crew, but Werner ends up ... disappointing him.
Jimmy manages to get his con-man mojo back in time for his reinstatement
hearing, convincing the initially reluctant council to grant him his bar
license back. He uses Chuck's name to win them over -- then turns around
and
changes his lawyer name to Saul Goodman. Kim is taken aback because she'd
actually believed his spiel about Chuck and was disappointed to see that
he
was going back to his old ways. This wouldn't last long, though, as she
too
is drawn to the dark side.
As usual, the season starts with a flash-forward to Goodman's life in
modern-day Kansas, where he works at a Cinnabon and suffers a heart attack
and fears that his cover is blown. We learn precious little, but enough to
tantalize. He has left the hospital, but still worries that his cover has
been blown and that old enemies will find him.
This is a very strong season, with an excellent and interesting plot as
well
as strong performances from nearly all of the actors. As usual, the
camerawork and direction are captivating. Recommended.
Space Force S01 (2020) -- "8/10"
The season starts with General Mark R. Naird (Steve Carell) being promoted to
four-star general. He is elevated to head up Space Force, which is very
much
like NASA, but for the military. He meets the heads of the other military
divisions, Navy (Jane Lynch), Marines (Patrick Warburton), Air Force (Noah
Emmerich), and Army (Diedrich Bader), which is a rogue's gallery of
supporting actors who chew the hell out of the scenery.
The Space Force team consists of several civilians, like PR hack F. Tony
Scarapiducci (Ben Schwartz; the "F" stands for "Fuck"), science chief Dr.
Adrian Mallory (John Malkovich) and his right-hand man Dr. Chan Kaifang
(Jimmy O. Yang). Captain Angela Ali (Tawny Newsome) and Obie Hanrahan
(Owen
Daniels) round out the recurring characters for the military side and John
Blandsmith (Dan Bakkedahl) is Naird's connection to POTUS, acting more as
a
mouth of Sauron for a President who we never see, but who is clearly as
mercurial and unreasonable as Trump.
On the personal side, Naird's wife Maggie (Lisa Kudrow) is serving what
amounts to a life sentence for an unspecified crime and he's left to raise
his daughter Erin (Diana Silvers) alone.
The Space Force feuds with the Air Force in mock maneuvers, but their main
beef is with the Chinese both in space with dueling satellites and also on
the Moon, where both nations establish bases.The season ends with both
nations having destroyed the other's base.
It's a pretty funny show with Carell turning in a nuanced performance and
Malkovich and Yang doing excellent work, as well. Bakkedahl always plays
the
same character (he did the same schtick on The Daily Show and Veep), but
he's
damned good at it. I've got a soft spot for Ben Schwartz, who always plays
an
asshole that you can't help laughing with (he had a similar role as
Jean-Ralphio in Parks and Recreation). Recommended.
Better Call Saul S05 (2019) -- "9/10"
The fifth season shows a bit more of Saul's current predicament, where he's
just been released from the hospital, but he's now been made. He calls
Robert
Forster for an exit, but backs out at the last minute, preferring to "fix
it
himself".
In the past again, we meet Saul Goodman, making his debut as a reinstated
lawyer, giving away cellphones to "skels" that are preprogrammed to "call
Saul". He also stages guerrilla-news moments to drum up interest in his
fledgling business.
Gustavo and Mike have finished cleaning up the mess left behind by their
handling of the Werner Ziegler escape, but they still have to deal with
Lalo
Salamanca. Mike is on "downtime", drinking heavily to forget about what he
had to do to Werner, with Fring engaging Nacho to spy on Lalo. Their plan
involves framing Lalo for murders he didn't commit, then having Jimmy
spring
him on a huge bail -- forcing Lalo to flee back to Mexico.
Mike is mugged by a gang of local youths and wakes up in a village in
Mexico.
Meanwhile, Hank and his partner at the DEA make the scene and are entwined
in
the plot to frame Lalo. They are led to pre-planned dead drops that Gus
gives
up in order to sell the story.
Kim tires of working for Mesa Verde and Schweikart, finding much more
interest in her scams with Jimmy and her pro-bono work. One of the long
scams
is to get Jimmy on board as the lawyer for a homesteading holdout on land
that Mesa Verde wants to build a call center on. Kim enjoys tweaking
Kevin,
the arrogant boss of Mesa Verde. In the end, she convinces him -- rightly
--
that the clusterfuck is his own fault for having ignored her advice every
step of the way and instead giving way to pride.
With Kim at home, Jimmy rides out into the desert to pick up Lalo's $7
million bail. He, of course, gets ambushed. He is rescued by Mike and his
sniper rifle. They travel two days and a night through the desert until
they
reach civilization. Kim is worried sick, but only slowly learns of what
really happened. Despite Jimmy's misgivings, Kim wants to stick by him and
continue working with him instead of finding "real" work.
Lalo forces Jimmy to drive him back to the desert, discovering that things
didn't go down the way Jimmy had described. Kim tears Lalo a new one,
convincing him that Jimmy isn't lying (which he is, of course). Lalo
returns
to Mexico with Nacho, only to head straight into an ambush planned by Don
Eladio and Fring. Lalo is craftier than the supposed super-assassins,
taking
them all out and surviving, but forcing the remaining assassin to report
in
that he'd been killed.
There's so much visual and auditory goodness in this show. Vince Gilligan
is
the Tarentino of television. His characters are rich, his storylines
fascinating, his composition and shot-selection top-notch.
Captain Marvel (2019) -- "8/10"
This is the origin story of Carol Danvers (Brie Larson). We meet Vers (also
Brie Larson), a Kree warrior who is part of special forces that attack and
take out Skrull strongholds. The Kree and Skrulls are locked in an age-old
war, with the shape-shifting Skrulls as the sneaky and devious enemy to be
routed.
The story is told as a series of flashbacks, in which Vers remembers
another
life, apparently on Earth. It turns out that Vers used to be Carol
Danvers, a
test pilot who'd supposedly died in 1989, while testing a
faster-than-light
engine that had been developed by Dr. Wendy Lawson, who turns out to have
been a Kree hiding on Earth named Mar-Vell.
As the story progresses, we learn more about Danvers and more about the
Skrulls, who (spoiler alert) turn out out to be the good guys, hounded to
the
ends of the galaxy by the imperialist Kree. Danvers discovers that her
not-inconsiderable powers are being restricted by a Kree suppression
device
stuck to her neck.
She also re-learns her own history, remembering how she'd gotten her
powers
in the explosion of the FTL-engine explosion. She'd destroyed the engine
to
prevent the Kree from having it and somehow ended up absorbing the energy
before ending up in a coma. The Kree gathered her up and collected her as
a
weapon for themselves, brainwashing her into thinking she was one of them.
In the end, Captain Marvel routs the Kree, sending them packing, while
simultaneously protecting the remaining Skrulls. She accompanies them on
their journey to find a new home planet.
There was also a cat that was really an alien being that ate the
Tesseract,
scratched out Nick Fury's eye, and then puked the Tesseract back up many
years later.
It was a decent romp -- better than expected and way better than Black
Panther.
Broken: Deadly Dressers -- "4/10"
This is a documentary that doesn't know what it wants to be. It starts off
with a story of people whose children have pulled dressers down on
themselves. It moved on to Ikea and its forestry practices in Romania and
then quickly returns to the dearth of regulation in the States and the
glory
of tort law that will help that poor handful of people who lost a child to
"Deadly Dressers".
Since the documentary focuses laser-like on them, we learn too much about
the
people leading the charge for more regulation of furniture-construction
practices. I am not making this up.
These people are clearly completely unable to accept any responsibility
for
their own homes. It’s clearly the manufacturer’s fault because they
(A)
bought the cheapest thing they could find and (B) don’t know how to put
things together or follow instructions and (C) left their children
unattended.
They also probably consistently believe in a worldview that thinks it’s
perfectly fine to have everything as cheap as possible, while getting rid
of
all tradespeople. They buy and build their furniture themselves and have
no
idea what they’re doing. It doesn’t even occur to them that doing this
kind of thing is a job that requires training. They think that they can do
anything -- that they have to if they want to afford the finer things --
and
if something goes wrong, it’s someone else’s fault.
They also let all government and regulation languish in the name of
freedom,
then cry when their children are victims of their selfish mindset and
voting
practices. This is uniquely American: they have no regulations, no
tradespeople, and everything as cheap as possible, addressing any possible
problem with tort law rather than a functioning civilization or
social-safety
net.
Europeans just get the wall anchors and ignore them, because almost no
situation calls for it. A house with adults won’t have furniture tipping
over. They kept talking about the dressers as if they'd attacked the
children. As an adult, I don’t want a dresser with drawers that barely
open
just because six kids died over five years in America. WTF. It’s like
those
crippled-ass car windows that only lower 1/2-way because some dipshit fell
out of one once.
I thought the short segment about Austrian companies logging on protected,
national lands in Romania and then selling the wood to Ikea was a good
start,
but it ended too soon and devolved quickly back to a sixty-minutes/Hard
Copy-style commiseration with people who'd lost children, but really
didn't
have a legal or rational leg to stand on.
Song of the South (1946) -- "7/10"
This movie tells the story of kindly old Uncle Remus (James Basket), a "field
hand" on a plantation in the South who tells the stories of Br'er
(Brother)
Rabbit, Fox and Bear. The film mixes animation and live action that was
both
quite convincing and also quite ahead of its time.
This is the Disney movie no-one is allowed to see anymore. Disney never
distributed it on home video in the U.S. because it was seen as offensive
because of the idealized depiction of black life on the plantation in the
antebellum South. Not only that, but all of the black characters speak in
a
very local and uniquely Black vernacular. This stands in stark contrast to
the stodgy and quasi-British-sounding American spoken by the white cast.
On the other hand, it's a very diverse cast -- especially for the time --
and
the strong dialect doesn't really strike someone who lives in Switzerland
as
odd. If Spike Lee had made the movie, it would be considered to be a brave
and bold move to let its characters speak the way they'd spoken at the
time.
It's not that they speak poorly -- just in a strong dialect. For example,
Remus tells Johnny (Bobby Driscoll) at one point that he'd better behave
"before I’s gets fractious!" This was not only amusing, but it's a
pretty
high-brow word that most people don't even know, much less use in
day-to-day
conversation.
The plot is relatively simple, with Johnny the city boy visiting his
Grandmother on her plantation. He's sad because his father is away so
much,
but he befriends local boy Toby (Glenn Leedy) and they spend the summer
playing with frogs and stuff. They also befriend Uncle Remus, who tells
them
the by-now famous stories of Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby, the Briar
Patch,
and the Laughing Place.
There's a bit of drama with other local boys, a bull being a bull when it
knocks Johnny clean off of his Little-Lord-Fauntleroy-looking feet, and a
bunch of singing. It's not my favorite Disney movie (that would be The
Emperor's New Groove), but it's not half-bad.
The Outsiders (1983) -- "7/10"
Francis Ford Coppola directed this adaptation of the YA novel. The Outsiders
are the "greasers", a gang comprising the three brothers Ponyboy (C.
Thomas
Howell), Sodapop (Rob Lowe), and Darrel Curtis (Patrick Swayze) as well as
Dallas (Matt Dillon), Johnny (Ralph Macchio), and the brothers Two-Bit
(Emilio Estevez), and Steve Randle (Tom Cruise). Diane Lane plays Cherry,
a
"Soc" (pronounced "Sosh") -- the rival gang, from the "right" side of the
tracks -- who takes to Johnny, ignoring Dallas's coarse advances.
The story focuses on Ponyboy's coming-of-age in the gang. Darrel and
Sodapop
take care of him after their parents died. The town doesn't take kindly to
this family constellation, conveniently ignoring the fact that it isn't at
all their fault that they're orphans. The Socs (pronounced "Soshes") keep
harassing the greasers, finally cornering Johnny and Ponyboy in a park,
near
a fountain. When it looks like they're drowning Ponyboy in the fountain,
Johnny rears up, pulls his switchblade and fatally stabs a Soc to make
them
stop.
They flee the scene, seeking out Dallas where he lives above a bar. He
gives
them $50 and tells them to catch a freight train out of town, head out to
the
country, and take refuge in an abandoned, boarded-up church. They hike out
there, then Johnny purchases supplies to feed them and pass the time. They
cut and color their hair to stay unrecognizable. This goes remarkably well
considering their complete lack of experience and poor supplies.
A few days later -- and just before they die of boredom -- Dallas shakes
them
out of their sleep on the old pews and takes them out for something to
eat.
They return to the abandoned church to find it not only on fire, but
surrounded by people and filled with children. This is utterly
inexplicable:
how did the children break in? Why were they there? Why are all of those
people there? I thought it was an abandoned church in the middle of
nowhere?
At any rate, the three boys rescue the children, with Dallas and Johnny
suffering injuries. Johnny's injuries are severe -- his back is broken and
he
is severely burned.
The Socs call for a rumble and the Greasers oblige. They meet in a park
and
beat the Christ out of one another, with the Greasers "winning" (in the
sense
that the Socs flee). Dallas drives Ponyboy to the hospital to attend to
his
wounds and they visit Johnny to tell him what they'd done. He's
unimpressed
and instead tells Ponyboy to "Stay Gold" (from the Robert Frost poem
"Nothing
Gold Can Stay"
)
before expiring.
Dallas can't handle Johnny's death and goes on a rampage in the hospital
before robbing a convenience store and getting shot in the process. He
wanders into a park, committing suicide by cop by waving his empty weapon
at
them.
Ponyboy is cleared of any wrongdoing in the Soc's murder and allowed to
stay
with his brothers. He discovers a letter from Johnny explaining that
rescuing
those children was likely the best thing he would ever do -- that his life
in
exchange was worth it. The movie ends with Ponyboy starting to write the
report that would become The Outsiders.
It was a decent film, with a star-studded cast, but with the
ridiculous-feeling pathos of any movie about the 50s. Coppola's touch is
noticeable throughout.
Leslie Jones: Time Machine (2020) -- "6/10"
Leslie Jones starts off quite strong.
"This generation's 20-year-olds are not having fun. They're so unhappy.
What's the matter? Didn't you catch your Pokemon? Did Pikachu get away?"
While the first half was pretty strong, the second half used up all of
this
goodwill and went off the rails. The material ran out, in a big way. Jones
seemed to lose control of the narrative and stretched her material
heroically
but unconvincingly. She spent a lot of time explaining how much fun she
was
having and how much she appreciated the audience. It was less a comedy
show
than a self-help group for at least the final 35 minutes.
Im Labyrinth des Schweigens (2014, de) -- "8/10"
This is the story of how Germany came to grips with its history during WWII.
The "Nürnberg Trials"
in 1945 and
1946
addressed some of the high crimes, but a large number of other
high-ranking
Nazis blended back into society without paying for their crimes. Johann
Radmann (Alexander Fehling) is a young and ambitious lawyer who wants
justice. He starts to dig into the culture of complacency and silence in
Germany, with the goal of bringing Joseph Mengele to justice.
He encounters quite a bit of backlash,
"Willst du das jeden Jungen in diesem Land fragt sich, ob seinen Vater ein
Nazi war?
"Radmann: Ja, das ill ich. Ich will, dass dieses Lügen und dieses
Schweigen
endlich aufhört."
When he finds out his best friend and supporter was a guard when he was
17,
he says "du ekelst mich an; ihre alle ekeln mich an." Later, he gets
spectacularly drunk because he found out that his father was a Nazi and
that
his girlfriend's father was probably a Nazi (he tells her, "frag ihn warum
er
dauernd sauft.").
When he returns to the Staatsanwaltsschaft after quitting in a crisis of
faith, his boss asks,
"Warum sind sie wieder da?
"Radmann: Weil die einzige Antwort auf Auschwitz ist selbst das richtige
zu
tun."
It's quite a good movie and a solid re-telling of how Germany picked up
the
reins of dealing with its past nearly a dozen years after the end of the
war.
One of the former prisoners intones the by-now familiar "Gott war nicht
da,"
reminding me of the joke I'd heard from both "Slavoj Žižek"
and "Ricky Gervais"
,
An Auschwitz survivor eventually dies of old age and goes to heaven.
He tells God a Holocaust joke.
God responds "that's not funny."
"I guess you had to be there."
Saw it in German.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=40252020-08-29T15:45:46+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1400
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of around 1400 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.
QT8: The First Eight (2019) -- "9/10"
A must-see for fans of Quentin Tarentino, this documentary features
interviews with Michael Madsen, Samuel Jackson, Jamie Foxx, Diane Kruger,
Zoë Bell, Eli Roth, Kurt Russell, Christoph Waltz, and many more.
The film examines each of Tarentino's films, in turn, providing history
and
context and showing how they are intertwined (e.g. Red Apple Cigarettes,
but
also recurring characters as well as related characters over the hundred
years of history covered by his films). The last film is his most recent
one,
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
He is an autodidact filmmaker with an encyclopedic knowledge of film and
television and technique. He is an accomplished writer and knows how to
write
parts for anyone, including memorable dialogue. He seems to be pretty
universally loved by those who work with him (I know it's a documentary
about
him, but they could have definitely put things differently if they were
trying to suggest that he was sometimes difficult -- the documentaries on
Stanley Kubrick can't help but discuss how notoriously difficult he was on
set, for example).
Zoë Bell tells a story of how she had to do a stunt scene in Death Proof
twice, even though she nailed it the first time. Tarentino cast her as the
lead because she's a stuntwoman (for Uma Thurman in Kill Bill) and he
wanted
to showcase actors that normally don't get leads. When she did the scene
"perfectly", she'd hidden her face the whole time. Tarentino had to point
that out to her and remind her that she's the star this time and that's
why
she unfortunately had to film it again.
I was pretty engrossed from start to finish and had all I could do not to
queue up his films again to re-examine them in light of what I'd learned.
Highly recommended.
Ein amerikanischer Held: Die Geschichte des Colin Kaepernick (2019) -- "8/10"
This is a short documentary about the life of Colin Kaepernick. You can watch
it at "Arte"
.
Colin's mother put him up for adoption when he was just a baby. He soon
moved
to California with his family. As he grew up, he quickly showed a gift for
sports, making all-state in the huge state of California in football,
basketball, and baseball in his senior year in high school.
He excelled in baseball, but wanted to play football. He was even drafted
by
the Cubs while in college, but he turned it down to keep playing football.
He
broke all sort of records and maintained a 4.0 GPA. Kapaernick was drafted
out of college by the 49ers, where he would finish his truncated career.
He was always quiet in press conferences and considered aloof and above it
all. People of course didn't consider that he was an intelligent human
being
-- he probably thought press conferences with their ceremony and
Kabuki-like
questions were stupid.
He took a knee during the national anthem as a silent protest against
police
violence that was disproportionately killing black people. The 49ers
distanced themselves from his and he was soon blackballed from the NFL.
The
nation was united in its hatred for this upstart coward who hated America.
It
was at this time that he started giving real press conferences -- at a
time
when the press, and America, mostly just wanted him to shut up and go
away.
He will never play football in America again, despite easily being one of
the
16 best quarterbacks in the world. Nike has continued his contract,
piggybacking on his activism to sell more shoes made by child slaves. This
is
problematic, but Kaepernick's reach is wide with Nike's support.
The man seems genuine and intelligent and an incredible athlete. It's not
surprising that America hates him, though, as he's uppity and has his own
opinions, which is far from appropriate for any black man, to say nothing
of
someone who America deems an athlete. Pick a lane, shithead. American
racism
is a palpable and nearly unbelievable thing.
The documentary is flattering and honest and well-made. I enjoyed learning
more about Kaepernick and am not surprised to see that it was made in
Germany, where they absolutely love the hell out of football. Lilian
Thuram
was an interesting interview, as was good old Patrick "Coach" Esume, who's
hands-down the best football announcer I've heard. His knowledge of the
game
is formidable. He announces in German, though, so YMMV.
The Laundromat (2019) -- "8/10"
This is a film by Stephen Soderbergh about, well, it's technically about the
Panama Papers but it's much more about the class, financial, political,
and
legal structure that these papers revealed. We see the passage of money
through several prisms, from a fraudulent fly-by-night insurance company
to
the company that owns that company to the person who owns the network of
companies that owns that company and so on and so forth.
The main thread is based on a true story. A tourism boating operator
thought
he'd save money by getting much cheaper insurance from an unknown company.
He
went for the lowest price -- "wouldn't anyone have done the same?" -- and
ended up having no insurance at all when his boat capsized. Nothing to
sue.
No settlements. Meryl Streep plays a woman Ellen Martin whose husband
drowned.
The story follows her attempts to follow the threads back to the source,
peeling the infinite onion of shell companies. We meet a family with a
giant
mansion just as the wealthy father's college-age daughter discovers that
he's
been sleeping with her roommate. He gives her a $15-million company to buy
her silence -- just as he did with her mother the last time she caught him
cheating. When they gang up on him and try to cash in, they discover that
he's already moved the value away from their bearer bonds and that it is
all
worth nothing.
The story is told by the two main lawyers, Jürgen Mossack (Gary Oldman)
and
Ramón Fonseca (Antonio Banderas), of the law firm that hosted and enabled
the giant tax haven in Panama for dozens of thousands of companies and
investors from all over the world. There were employees of the company who
"owned" thousands of companies. The two make pointed arguments about how
the
U.S. State of Delaware is literally no different from Panama in nearly
every
legal regard. The U.S. just doesn't eat its own that way -- they prefer to
pretend that tax havens are a purely offshore problem. (Side note: Who was
a
Senator from Delaware for 36 years? Why, good ol' Joe Biden. Funny thing,
that.)
The papers came out and things unraveled. Soderbergh does a masterful job
of
showing the complexity, mendacity, corruption, and base amorality of most
of
the people involved. They amass more and more and more and care not one
whit
for how many lives they destroy and how much suffering they cause along
the
way. It is all immaterial to them.
The final few minutes of the film show Meryl Streep revealing that she'd
been
Elena, a secretary at Mossack Fonseca, all along. She's reading the
manifesto
of one John Doe, who'd released the Panama Papers to the world, first as
Elena, then as Ellen Martin, then as herself. You can read "the manifesto
online"
,
from which I've cited below.
"Shell companies are often associated with the crime of tax evasion, but the
Panama Papers show beyond a shadow of a doubt that although shell
companies
are not illegal by definition, they are used to carry out a wide array of
serious crimes that go beyond evading taxes.
"[...]
"Tax evasion cannot possibly be fixed while elected officials are pleading
for money from the very elites who have the strongest incentives to avoid
taxes relative to any other segment of the population.
"[...]
"The collective impact of these failures has been a complete erosion of
ethical standards, ultimately leading to a novel system we still call
Capitalism, but which is tantamount to economic slavery. In this
system—our
system—the slaves are unaware both of their status and of their masters,
who exist in a world apart where the intangible shackles are carefully
hidden
amongst reams of unreachable legalese. The horrific magnitude of detriment
to
the world should shock us all awake."
"A Class Divided" (1985) -- "9/10"
This is a 53-minute documentary about Jane Elliot's experiment in teaching
people about racism and discrimination. In 1968, shortly after Martin
Luther
King's death, she ran a two-day exercise with her third-grade class to
teach
them about what it feels like to live in an underclass, to be
discriminated
against.
She starts by affirming that everyone in her class is aware of
discrimination
and what it means to be on the losing side. The children know that blacks
are
discriminated against. After ascertaining this, Elliot divides her class
not
by skin color -- which would have been moot in the 1960s in Riceville,
Iowa
-- but by eye color, which seems to have gotten her about a 50/50 split.
The children take to the exercise soon enough, especially with her
unwavering
guidance. On the first day, it's the blue-eyed children who get more time
for
recess, who get all sorts of other little perks that are important to
them.
The brown-eyed children get denigration at every turn, reproach for not
being
good enough, or quiet enough, or smart enough. At every opportunity,
Elliot
-- and, soon, the blue-eyed children -- ascribes every one of the
brown-eyed
perceived children's deficits to their having brown eyes.
The next morning, Elliot switches roles. Now, brown-eyed children are
superior to blue-eyed children. They spend a day like this, with the
previously privileged blue-eyed children experiencing the shock of
disapproval -- of not being able to do anything right. Their perceived
detriments are constantly ascribed to something that they can't change
about
themselves. The connection between their treatment and the color of their
eyes is absolutely unfathomable for them. The brown-eyed children, given
their experience the day prior, are at first leery, but soon settle into
their roles of having a permanent, unshakeable advantage over their
classmates.
It's not comfortable for anyone, but the effects on understanding, even
with
small children, are impressive. They are really nice little kids. They
don't
turn into monsters, but they're only given a day. Imagine what a lifetime
of
this indoctrination does: after a while, the rulers no longer even think
to
question their advantage, conferred on them by something ludicrous like
the
color of a particular body part; the subjects eventually accept their
fate,
constructing their lives so that they are reminded as little as possible
of
their innate and unchangeable failing. Everyone has internalized the
ground
rules.
Elliot modeled her behavior on classic discrimination techniques -- they
appear nearly to be torture techniques. They are very effective.
Interwoven
throughout the film is a class reunion comprising Elliot and her
third-graders, over a dozen years later. They all seem to have turned out
all
right -- above average in enlightenment, actually.
We also see her holding a seminar with prison guards, where she again
divides
them into two groups and engages the services of one group to absolutely
mercilessly discriminate and denigrate the other. As with her third-grade
class, no matter what the subjected group does, it's wrong; when the
ruling
group does the same thing, it's laudable. You can nearly see spirits being
crushed, in real-time, in the span of a single day.
Imagine what a whole lifetime of that is like. And then close your mouth
the
next time you, as a member of the privileged group, thinks it's your turn
to
equivocate their situation for them.
"8:46" by Dave Chappelle (2020) -- "8/10"
Dave Chappelle delivers a short set, not a comedy show but an essay about the
2020 uprising. He talks knowledgeably about the various victims over the
years, but that George Floyd was the final straw. To those who say that
George was not a nice guy, a criminal -- Chappelle singles out the
execrable
Candace Owens for opprobrium -- he responds vehemently:
"We didn't choose him. You did."
He tells the story of "Christopher Dormer"
,
a
former LA cop. He reported his partner for excessive force and was drummed
out of the police for it. They closed ranks on him and blocked every
possible
avenue for reinstatement. As a military veteran and former cop, he
declares
"asymmetric warfare" on the police and ambushed and murdered two of them
in
their car. He hunted down the family of another and killed his young
daughter. They hunted him down to a cabin in Big Bear -- 400 officers
showed
up to take this guy out and they "Swiss-cheesed" him. Those cops were
justifiably out-of-their-minds angry because this man was killing them
indiscriminately. Chappelle ends with "so how could they understand why
we're
so mad now?"
His style seems quite extemporaneous, but it's clear he did his research
and,
despite a lot of nervous sliding around on the stool and picking up and
dropping his journal, he's practices this routine and had it cold. His
delivery, with pauses, was brilliant and perfectly suited to the material.
It
was better to see that he was disturbed to be talking about this, not at
all
at ease.
Makeup Mayhem (2019) -- "5/10"
This is a documentary about the makeup industry as it exists today. It
focuses on the drastic increase of brands promoted purely through social
media and online tutorial videos. The focus is laser-like on the badness
of
counterfeit makeup of these brands.
The film only very casually mentions the tricks these brands use to drive
prices up and to torture their captured market into buying unnecessary
goods
at exorbitant prices. It basically lauds the rise of social-media-driven
brands as a way for "regular" people to get involved. Instead, it seems to
be
a way of marketing makeup to a new generation with an advertising weapon
much
more powerful than television advertising before. Their main interview
here
is Marlena Stell, a plus-size influencer, so she's basically untouchable
as
far as criticizing her business model. Another main interview is Lexy
Lebsack, a "Senior Beauty Editor" at some magazine. No-one mentions what
utter horseshit the whole industry really is, obviously.
The counterfeit goods are empirically bad because they are made with quite
dangerous replacement chemicals. The documentary brought exactly one
example
of a girl who'd ended up getting her lips glued together by a counterfeit
product that basically included super-glue (or a crucial component
thereof).
They do mention that the counterfeits are getting better all the time. I
would imagine that, at some point, the counterfeits will be
indistinguishable
from the originals except that they come in at a much lower price-point.
At
that poin, the safety question will be gone and the documentary would be
stuck trying to justify why it makes sense to coerce/trick/brainwash so
many
people into paying way too much for a brand name distributed by
billionaires.
The documentary very cleverly keep contrasting a factory for ColourPop
cosmetics with an undercover video of a Chinese counterfeit-production
facility. The ColourPop factory looks like a laboratory and the Chinese
facility is hardly worth of that epithet -- it looks like a couple of
rented
rooms. At least the Chinese workers are wearing their masks properly,
pulled
over their noses. The film then simply allows the viewer to assume that
all
of the other name brands that it shows are also produced in a manner
similar
to ColourPop, which is almost certainly not the case.
The film is about 70% interviews with industry people, so it's hard not to
think that it's a 60-minute advertisement for certain lines of makeup.
Rick
Ishitani is sympathetic as one of only two LA police officers assigned to
the
counterfeit beat. I can't really recommend it.
Big Vape (2019) -- "6/10"
This is a documentary about vaping. It discusses the impact on American
teenagers along with the rise of Juul and its subsequent purchase by the
Altria Group (now the parent company of Philip Morris International).
As with the makeup documentary, this director and writer is quite careful
not
to offend anyone: they say again and again that vapes had been
"[i]nitially
designed for adult use". Looking at a Juul, though, that's pretty hard to
believe. It seems to be magically designed exactly to appeal to teenagers.
The teenagers in the documentary aren't really discerning customers: they
quickly spend everything they can to get as many hits as they can. They
are
clearly addicted to nicotine.
The interviews with the billionaire owner of Juul are not interesting, as
they are quite obviously scripted and heavily edited. Though morbidly
entertaining, watching the rich white girls explain how they had no idea
that
they were smoking also quickly grows old. The most interesting interviews
are
with addiction experts, especially those in England. They state that 50%
of
the people who smoke die of smoking-related illness. For them, vapes are a
way to reliably wean people off of cigarettes. Vapes and E-cigarettes are
95%
safer. They're still not perfect, but they're a lot safer. Without
E-Cigarettes, there was no reliable way to get people to quit smoking for
good. Patches didn't work; cold turkey worked only too rarely.
Recycling Sham (2019) -- "7/10"
This is a documentary about single-use plastic products. The myth is that
plastic can and will be recycled, but the reality is much more
complicated.
First of all, the companies using plastic are only too happy to have their
customers convinced that the burden of making sustainable packaging
actually
work lies with the consumer rather than the producer. Second of all, even
if
plastic can be recycled doesn't mean that it will be recycled.
In particular, China used to receive a tremendous amount of
trash/recycling
from the West and stopped it completely in recent years. No-one has really
picked up the slack and a lot of plastic no longer gets recycled -- even
the
plastic that ostensibly could be recycled.
Another issue is that plastic can't be nearly infinitely recycled like
aluminum. Instead, many types of plastic have polymers that can't be
"rebuilt" to their original material and must either be converted to
other,
lower types of plastic or just shredded to be used as material in other
construction. A plastic bottle will not come back as a plastic bottle.
That's
why glass bottles are overall better: they can be reused hundreds of
times.
They are heavier, incurring higher transport energy and cost, but they
only
need to be washed in order to be refiled and reused.
Many uses of plastic are purely for fictitious convenience, redounding to
the
manufacturer rather than the consumer. There is no reason for many things
to
be plastic -- yet more and more things are made of it.
Overall, this is an informative and solid documentary with not too much
bias
in it (other than to intimate that China was being a dick when they
stopped
accepting foreign materials for recycling).
Jim Jeffries: Intolerant (2020) -- "7/10"
This special contains a bunch of clever material, pointedly lashing back at
the overly PC world envisioned by identitarians and the professionally
offended. He had some good jokes, but weaved a long-form joke about having
diarrhea throughout the special, which was occasionally funny, but wore a
bit
thin, I thought. He presented well and he's very clever, but thinking
about
his pants filling with liquid shit distracted a bit too much from his
humor.
That is, he seems to be straddling shock humor and
insightful/philosophical
humor. I don't think he needs the crutch of poop jokes anymore. His
frontal
attacks at those who would destroy comedy provide enough shock value, I
think. I prefer his earlier work but YMMV.
Jack Whitehall: I'm Only Joking (2020) -- "6/10"
Whitehall's on-stage persona is very bombastic, which papers over often-thin
jokes with his leading the audience very clearly to their laugh lines.
He's
also occasionally clever, but much broader and not super-insightful. That
is,
his material is standard, not surprising, but well-presented. He's funny
not
because of his material, per se, but because of himself. He's a good
raconteur, but leans a bit much on how silly his dad is (of which you kind
of
have to be aware in order to understand about a third of the material).
Battlestar Galactica S03 (2006--2007) -- "6/10"
There are good parts to this season. The overall story arc is pretty
interesting and there is a pretty good use of some of the devices in the
show
(e.g. when Cylon Sharon has her husband Helo shoot her so that she can
travel
via resurrection ship to the Cylon baseship, a journey they would have
been
unable to safely make by conventional transport).
However, this season does more than the previous two to being your
allegiance
over to the Cylon side. The humans are under a ton of pressure, but they
are
nearly uniformly assholes -- and drunken assholes, at that. The
deterioration
is understandable, but it doesn't make for particularly entertaining
television. The show sometimes fills like one scene after another that's
nearly specifically designed to polarize and make you hate one or the
other
or both of the participants.
Vigilante justice is the call of the day: Kara's a drunken shit who's on
board with it. Her husband is a bit better, but largely ineffective and
also
unable to stay away from her drunken, likely clap-ridden ass.
Also, rockets have smoke trails in space. Ships catch on fire, in space.
In
the beginning, we were told that the Steampunk-nature of the Galactica was
so
that the Cylons couldn't track them. But they have a faster-than-light
(FTL)
drive on nearly every ship, no matter how small. They seem to have FTL
communications, able to communicate instantaneously with ships that are at
least one light-jump away.
I'm glad I stuck with it long enough to be able to enjoy Gaius Baltar's
lawyer, Romo Lampkin, played by Mark Sheppard. The trial was also
interesting
in ways that much of the overblown dialogue and deliberately manipulative
intrigue was not. Apollo redeems himself a bit by defying his father and
leaving the navy to play lawyer for Gaius Baltar, albeit only temporarily.
He
ends up delivering the testimony that convinces the court to spare
Baltar's
life.
The president and admiral showed themselves to be much more authoritarian
than they'd led us to originally believe. Tigh, Galen Tyrol, Anders, and
Tory
all turn out to be Cylons (4 of the heretofore unknown 5) but no-one else
but
them know it. They agree to keep it a secret and don't do anything about
it,
returning to their relatively sensitive positions as either leaders or
advisors to leaders. Baltar is definitely not a Cylon. Nothing is really
done
with any of this information as yet.
Starbuck dies in the middle of the season (I'm sure she'll be back, as
alluded in the final minutes of the final episode, where she pops up out
of
nowhere and claims to have "found Earth"). The season ends with humanity
still searching for Earth, with the Admiral and President consolidating
power
-- but barely clinging to it.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=39622020-07-02T07:26:15+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1400
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of around 1400 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.
After Life S02 (2020) -- "8/10"
The first season was excellent. Season two continues with most of the same
characters. It's a bit more maudlin than season one -- especially the
closing
credits music, which is so deliberately sad for most of the six episodes
that
I usually cut it off rather than listen to it. [1]
Ricky Gervais reprises his role as Tony, a man struggling to see the point
in
going on after his wife dies of cancer. He has good days and bad days. He
wakes most mornings to videos of his dead wife; he falls asleep most
nights
with a bottle wine and the same videos.
He tries to stop drinking for a while, but doesn't see the point. He makes
peace with his odd postman (Joe Wilkinson) and then sets him up with Roxy
(Roisin Conaty). They seem to hit it off. Tony tries to see his father's
nurse (Ashley Jensen) romantically, but he's not ready yet.
Co-worker Lenny (Tony Way) starts seeing the mother of one of the
newspaper
subjects. The boy is in a local theater club that Tony's newspaper also
covers. Sandy's unhappy because she's 30 and still living at home with her
parents. Tony's brother-in-law and editor Matt (Tom Basden) is in the
dumps
because his wife wants to leave him. They turn it around by the end of the
season, though, and stay together.
Tony's cemetery friend Anne is also lonely, so Tony sets her up with the
new
owner of the newspaper -- a millionaire who Tony convinces to keep the
newspaper going. It's all a bit maudlin, but has some good writing. It's
also
quite believable and held together by a funny, but earnest Gervais. Season
1
was funnier (I thought Gervais was funnier when bitter), but this season
went
in a different, but also interesting direction.
Planet of the Humans (2019) -- "4/10"
This is a pretty sloppily made and slipshod documentary about a very
important topic. It relies too much on hot takes, visual clickbait, and
gotcha editing. The first 12 minutes are boring as hell, completely light
on
information, and don't really advance anything of note. You can read into
this film what you want, which means it doesn't serve very well as a
documentary.
Some will see it as a wake-up call telling us to beware of green hucksters
shilling for large corporate interests and subsuming activist vigor into
ecologically useless directions. They will see it as a call to focus on
real
green policies instead -- without really mentioning what those might be,
because every alternate-energy avenue available was painted as an utter
fraud.
The topic is greenwashing, a process whereby energy put into fighting for
the
environment and against climate change is subsumed and rerouted to
climatologically damaging solutions promulgated by the same companies that
have been inflicting fossil fuels on us for over a century (e.g. BP).
It's the same old story: we need to do something vastly different than
what
we're doing now, but capitalism has ensured that only those who benefit
massively from the current system continuing unchanged have the
wherewithal
to do so, and they are only willing to change at all if there is enough
political pressure and they can reroute the initiatives to pour even more
money into their coffers.
They really don't care how it's done: fossil fuels have given them a
money-making machine that is unparalleled in history, but they will
happily
trade it for another such machine as long as it's just as lucrative for
them
and if they get some annoying bad publicity off of their backs. They are
not
willing to do anything that involves their money spigot being turned
ever-so-slightly in the direction of "not overwhelmingly torrential" and
they
couldn't care less about the future of humanity.
That these companies throw around a lot of clout and cash and also talk a
good game -- by hiring the best PR people with said scads of cash -- has
gone
a long way to drawing the less-serious -- and even very serious, but
gullible
-- green activists and groups into their sphere of influence.
The system almost doesn't allow for anything else to happen, to be honest.
Activists who don't kowtow, at least in part, are left with
meager/starvation
budgets and nearly zero effectiveness outside of the small sphere of
people
who are already true believers and would be convinced by data and for
free.
Activists who try to ride the edge of support from the enemy are massively
outgunned and often don't even know when they've been turned until it's
too
late. They can try to steer a better course afterward, but the stain
remains
on their history, to be sniffed out and used against them to obviate
anything
else they've ever done. Which is only fitting, considering the time frame
we
have left to do anything about an event that, if not quite
extinction-level,
will be deadly for a large part of humanity and very uncomfortable for
anyone
unfortunate enough to have survived.
Large groups, like the Sierra Club, have long since grown to a size that
they
benefit from the status quo in a way that makes it impossible for them to
effect meaningful change, as such change would saw off the branch that
they're sitting on. Some of these groups have long since adopted such a
corporate structure that the battle between members who want to actually
effect change and top-level members who want to turn a profit have long
since
been settled in favor of the latter, which leads to the larger groups
essentially managing the giant pile of membership dues like a hedge fund.
The actual members themselves are happy to give up a minuscule part of
their
fortunes/incomes in exchange for a clean conscience. Others contribute
money
or time because they genuinely feel that they're making a difference in
the
right direction. Sometimes they kind of are, but a lot of times, they're
also
kind of being duped by the marketing and PR arms of these large
organizations, which prey on its members' gullibility and lack of
introspection into what's really going on.
These members really aren't educated or informed enough to determine that
what they're supporting is neither very "green" nor very sustainable or
scalable. There is a ton of misinformation in both directions -- some of
it
in this documentary, which plays even-more fast-and-loose with the facts
than
Michael Moore himself typically would.
One of the main points in this film is that solar panels are made of stuff
that comes from the ground. This isn't shocking for people with a science
background -- or any sense in their heads -- but it is definitely very
much
at-odds with the message these so-called green titans of industry are
sending
and that their members are eating up because, quite frankly, it makes them
feel good and they're absolutely not informed enough to even suspect that
it
might not be true.
It's a good idea to show people how solar panels are manufactured and that
we're not nearly where we want to be yet, despite assurances from
companies
who want your money in exchange for a clean conscience. But the
implication
seems to be that, were we not to use solar panels, we would stop using all
of
the materials that go into them. They go on to teach us that solar panels
and
wind turbines can be managed poorly and go to seed. Also, deserts have
sand
in them. Scandal.
The scandal is, rather, that they have our attention on this movie and
fail
to get the message across that it's our lifestyles in the first world and
particularly in America that rely on so many exotic materials and
multi-layered industrial processes and enormously long and complex supply
chains filled with fossil-fuel-driven transportation and manufacturing
methods.
Instead of using our remaining oil for important things -- building the
next
generation of fossil-fuel-free energy sources and (maybe, though
doubtfully)
grids -- we're still reliant and happily duped that nothing really has to
change. That's the message the film should have hammered home -- and that,
according to the interviews I've seen with Jeff Gibbs, it thinks it
hammered
home -- but that got lost in "eating their own".
Most people believe so many laughably false things before breakfast that
believing that solar panels and Teslas magically create themselves doesn't
even register a blip on their radar. I hope no-one ever tells them how
their
smartphones are made -- hint: rare-earth metals and shocking amounts of
electricity, distilled water, and what amounts to slave labor.
The fossil-fuel-based economy is a prerequisite in order to produce these
relatively sophisticated bits of technology. The fossil-fuel economy
produces
90% of our energy and fossil fuels are currently the only way of
bootstrapping a non-fossil-fuel economy in any realistic scenario. It's
true
that companies are deliberately papering over these facts in order not to
ruffle the feathers of their sensitive donors -- because those donors are
paying good money for a clean conscience and there's no room for nuance or
the messy complexity of a realistic plan.
All of that is exceedingly interesting, I think, but it's not obviously in
the movie. That is, I don't believe that the director did a good job of
getting this message across because he included so much distracting gotcha
bullshit, interviews with weirdos with weird ideas, and footage of animals
dying and earth being torn up.
Instead, they allude to this all the time and generally pinpoint Bill
McKibben as a major purveyor of greenwashing propaganda, which is,
frankly,
gobsmacking, if you've read absolutely anything by him at all. He's done
more
for awareness of climate change than anyone, but they mercilessly eat
their
own in this "documentary" with no context or nuance given to spare
McKibben
the opprobrium he ended up getting afterward.
That's when the Twitter-history--scouring hordes of virtue-signalers and
purity-testers and know-it-alls show up to torpedo anyone who was ever
useful
for ever having been slightly less than perfect in careers that have often
spanned decades of struggle and hardship. What has this horde ever done?
Why,
nothing, but that's neither here nor there. Their justice is swift and
merciless, their appetite for feeding on the only ever-so slightly
misaligned
ally boundless. They don't even notice when their ostensible enemies (the
climate-trashing internationals) manipulate their insatiable sense of
outrage, wrath, and dopamine addiction into burning one potential ally
after
another in their service.
The documentary mixes clips from over 15 years willy-nilly -- some of the
clips are grainy and look like they were made with camcorders -- and
doesn't
even do the basics of including names or positions for everyone
interviewed.
It's a shoddy hack job with a sensationalist angle, bent on stirring up
controversy at all costs. It could have been a much better movie, but it's
not. If it were a blog post, it would have only ended up on crackpot sites
because of its slapdash and lackadaisical approach to facts, verifiable
data,
and references.
So: the idea is good; the problem is real; it's getting in the way of real
solutions. The targets are poorly chosen and the documentary is poorly
made
and meandering, letting everyone get from it what they want. I feel like
most
people supporting it or panning it haven't really watched it carefully.
I've
seen interviews with Jeff Gibbs and with Michael Moore where they provided
all of the context that was missing from the movie. This isn't very
helpful
as the movie doesn't stand on its own without two extra hours of
director/producer commentary. It's a documentary, not an art film: it
should
be clearer.
The interesting problem raised is that, instead of attacking the film for
being terrible, its detractors tried to get the movie canceled from
YouTube.
It was temporarily taken down for a bullshit copyright violation -- 4
seconds
of video lays well within fair-use law -- but it is back online now. So
the
film missed its opportunity to focus people on the very real problems it
attempted to illuminate. Then, there was an opportunity to illuminate the
very real problems of the modern-day book-burning that is cancel culture
--
and how that feature of social networks is being weaponized by the very
corporate interests that those doing the canceling should themselves be
fighting against.
Unfortunately, it has mostly sparked yet another stupid online war where
people walk in with their opinions chiseled in stone, don't watch or read
the
content, and then just lay waste to as much of their enemy as they can
with
mean tweets. By now, everyone's forgotten about the film -- which, to be
fair, they really should, because it's not good -- but they're also not
thinking about the message it was trying to send.
This would have been important regardless of how poorly communicated it
was,
because it's an important message. I assign equal blame to the filmmakers
and
what the filmmaker saw as his target audience. Gibbs should have realized
he
couldn't try to send a message so at-odds with what people already knew in
such a lazy and half-assed way. Maybe he doesn't know how to make any
other
kind of film, I'm not judging that. But the audience is also to blame for
being attention-seeking, brigading idiots without a rational bone in their
bodies.
The film can't really be cited or taken seriously because of its flaws.
You
can take away a positive message that you should focus on real, useful
policies and stop being hoodwinked by fake, corporate environmentalism --
but
only if you took that attitude in with you in the first place.
Its heart might be in the right place but it failed in its main duty as a
documentary: to reliably and truthfully deliver information pertaining to
its
message.
Never Say Never Again (1983) -- "7/10"
Sean Connery reprises his role as 007 in an MI6 that no longer looks so
kindly on his style of international espionage. They send him to a health
resort where he foils an attempt on his own life, but is unable to foil
S.P.E.C.T.R.E.'s plot to steal nuclear missiles. Fatima Blush (Barbara
Carrera) seduces an Air Force Captain, who gets an eye transplant so that
he
can unlock the weapons as the president of the U.S. She kills him soon
after
and Blofeld (Max von Sydow) informs that the world that he holds it
hostage
until he's paid a ransom.
With the situation changed, Bond is called back to duty. He heads to the
Bahamas where he meets up with a bumbling liaison played by Rowan Atkinson
and then with Fatima Blush, with whom he goes diving. She works for
Maximillian Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer), who reports to Blofeld. We are
also quickly introduced to the very flexible Domino (Kim Basinger),
Largo's
captive/girlfriend.
Bond goes on a dive with Blush (after first sleeping with her), who sics
sharks on him and abandons him to his fate. He escapes, of course, and is
fished out by a local fisherwoman (Valerie Leon). They come ashore and
then
back in the hotel room. [2] Blush tries to kill Bond again, but he's not
in
his room.
Bond flies to Nice, France and meets up with Nicole (Saskia Cohen Tanugi)
and
CIA Agent Felix Leiter (Bernie Casey), where they pick up Largo's trail
again.
Bond sneaks into a spa and gives Domino a massage, pretending to work
there.
She enjoys the assault, of course, because he's such a dashing bloke.
Later,
he meets her in a video-game arcade and buys her a drink. Largo and Blush
watches everything from afar. Largo and Bond end up playing a video game
that
induces pain to the loser. Bond wins, of course, and trades in his
winnings
for a dance with Domino -- a tango.
Domino now knows that her brother is dead and she turns to Bond's side.
Blush
kills Nicole and Bond gives chase. A sweet-ass French-city car/motorcycle
chase ensues. Bond blows up Fatima Blush using a pen-bazooka provided by Q
(a
very famous scene), after which Leiter rescues him from the local police
(they make a slow escape as a cyclist/boxer pair, edging through the
crowd).
Leiter and Bond board Largo's boat, but are captured. Bond blows Domino's
cover by kissing her, enraging Largo. Largo captures Bond and sells Domino
to
Arabs [3]. Bond escapes and rescues Domino, naturally. She will be
eternally
grateful -- but that comes later. Because first, Bond once again
infiltrates
yet another of Largo's lairs, this time ending up underwater in a
spear-gun
fight with Largo himself. Domino ends it, taking revenge for her dead
brother
(and maybe for having been callously sold to Arabs?), freeing up Bond to
defuse the ticking nuclear warhead underwater.
Bond saves the world and retires to the Bahamas with a much-younger and
eternally grateful Domino who, luckily, has been accustomed to
subservience
by her previous lover/owner.
Jerry Seinfeld: 23 Hours to Kill (2020) -- "9/10"
A week later, I couldn't quote any of the jokes, but he's such a master of
delivery, it almost doesn't matter what he's saying. He is clever and
observational, but not uniquely so. I compare him to Emil Steinberger from
Switzerland: he's funny, sometimes deeply so, but mostly he's actually
entertaining to watch.
I loved one bit on buffets:
"What is the idea of the buffet? Well, things are bad, how can we make it
worse? Why don't we put people that are already struggling with portion
control into some kind of debauched, Caligula-food-orgy of unlimited human
consumption? (Emphasis added.)"
I gave it an extra star because he's such a master of his craft, so in
control of every word and movement.
The Living Daylights (1987) -- "7/10"
Timothy Dalton is Bond, bringing a Russian defector Georgi Koskov (Jeroen
Krabbé) into Austria via natural-gas pipeline. The KGB is hot on his
heels
and sends a super-agent Nekros (Andreas Wisniewski) to MI6 headquarters to
kidnap Koskov back. Bond goes to Bratislava to track down Kara (Maryam
D'Abo)
who should have assassinated Georgi, but who Bond had spared. She's a
cellist
and Georgi's girlfriend, who'd never intended to kill him.
Georgiy seems to have masterminded the whole thing in order to get MI6 on
the
trail of Pushkin (John Rhys-Davies), the head of the KGB. Bond rescues
Kara
from the KGB and expatriates her to Austria.
We pick up in Tangiers, where Pushkin is meeting with General Brad
Whitaker
(Joe Don Baker), a rogue American general turned arms dealer. Meanwhile,
Bond
and Kara arrive in Vienna, lovely in the spring.
Next, we find Georgi in the company of many young ladies at poolside, with
his rescuer Nekros ... and, to no-one's surprise, Brad Whitaker. They're
all
in cahoots and trying to figure out how to get Pushkin out the way.
Bond meets with his contact, who's taken out by Nekros. Bond is pissed,
suspecting foul play on the part of Georgi and Whitaker. But first he
hunts
down Pushkin, who's staying with his mistress. Bond believes that Pushkin
is
honorable -- so he helps him fake his own assassination. Bond escapes into
Tangiers, thinking he'd make it out in the company of two ladies who'd
offered him a ride in the bazaar. But they're working for the CIA and
Felix
Leiter.
Kara gets the drop on James, still believing that Georgi means well. When
she
sees what Georgi does to James, though, she helps him escape the prison
Georgi sends them to in Afghanistan. Since James helps a Mujahideen leader
named Kamran Shah (Art Malik) escape, Shah returns the favor by granting
them
passage to his village/base of operations.
Kamran Shah turns out to be Oxford-educated (nearly clearly the Osama bin
Laden character) and reluctantly continues to help James and Kara. Kara
and
James escape in a cargo plane, but Nekros tags long. James takes care of
him
in a hanging-from-a-cargo-net-out-the-back-of-the-plane scene, then turns
back to to help Kamran defeat the Russians.
James and Kara fly on, trying to make it to Pakistan, but they're losing
fuel
too quickly. They get into a Jeep and fly out the back of the plane just
before it crash-lands. They are uninjured and 200km outside of Karachi. "I
know a great restaurant in Karachi; we can just make dinner."
James meets up with Leiter for a final operation in Tangiers -- this time
to
take down Brad Whitaker, who's playing war games in his museum. Bond takes
care of him just as Pushkin and his troops show up to take out Whitaker's
troops. Georgi goes with Pushkin ("in a diplomatic bag") and Kara is
allowed
to "defect" to London, where she plays a concert. Kamran Shah shows up as
well.
Kara retires to her room, where James is waiting with two martinis and his
sexy self. The end.
Justice League (2017) -- "5/10"
The best thing about this is movie is definitely Jason Momoa as Aquaman,
especially when he's sitting on Wonder Woman's lasso of truth. Steppenwolf
is
a terrible enemy -- just laughably bad. He's ludicrously powerful and yet
can
still have his defenses penetrated by an essentially powerless Batman.
Superman is back, awakened from his Kryptonian coma by the rest of the
Justice League. Jeremy Irons as Alfred is wasted -- it must have been
quite a
payday for him. It's a toss-up whether Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, Henry
Cavill as Superman or Ben Affleck as Batman is a more terrible actor or
actress. Amy Adams as Lois Lane is the definition of phoning it in. The
lines
are so wooden and strange -- and the words-only scenes last forever.
Cyborg
is also an absolutely bizarre bundle of powers who's actually better than
the
three "main" heroes. The Flash is just weird.
There are some magical boxes that Steppenwolf is trying to use to get all
the
power in the universe or to end all life on Earth or to gain dominion over
all living things...or something. Superman shows up as a Deux Ex Machina,
but
only after the rest of the team gets its collective asses kicked all over
the
place. Cyborg even gets his legs ripped off.
Maybe one of the drawbacks is that they do everything with physical brute
force and no cleverness in tactics. They just fight like Rocky against
Ivan
Drago, blow for blow for blow for blow until someone stops. In the end,
they
vanquish Steppenwolf by making him feel fear whereupon his own minions
destroy him.
The ending is, of course, overwhelmingly sappy and cheesy. Of course,
there's
a speech that sounds like a commercial for an international conglomerate.
Patton Oswalt: I Love Everything (2020) -- "5/10"
I thought one of the better bits in the first half was his meta-jokes about
how one can't really joke about the Trump administration. But overall,
he's
pandering to the crowd and talking about his family and kid quite a bit. I
like his off-beat material better than his Dad stories. YMMV.
In the last ten minutes, he tells a long, rambling story about going to a
Denny's with his daughter, who actually enjoys it because she doesn't know
that Denny's is "where dreams go to die". Meanwhile her Dad is thinking:
"Everyone who's ever left here in a hurry has gone down in a hail of
bullets."
His story in the last ten minutes about the cast of characters on the back
of
the Denny's Kid's menu is finally a return to his dark, surreal form. It's
quite good, but the show overall seemed kind of forced, even though it
wasn't
even that long. I'd rewatch Werewolves and Lollipops again before watching
this one.
Bob Rubin: Oddities and Rarities (2020) -- "8/10"
Patton Oswalt recommended this special, which is tacked on as episode 2 of
his own I Love Everything. I'm glad I took his recommendation -- Rubin's
show
was better than Oswalt's.
Rubin's style is a shouting, psychotic, meticulously planned
stream-of-consciousness routine. It's a miracle he memorized all of that.
His
regular speaking voice is quite mellifluous. I really liked the change of
pace, unique delivery and pretty damned good bits. Some examples,
"Beware of the flashbacks? If it wasn't for the flashbacks, the last twenty
minutes would have been dead silence."
On his book:
"Hey, let's do some cocaine. Steps 1 through 5. Step 6, you're out of book
and it's morning."
This one is funny on an abstract, absurdist level, but is funnier if you
know
that NY went from blue-on-orange to Statue-of-Liberty-on-white back to
blue-on-orange over 30 years.
"I got pulled over for expired tags. My tags are so old, they expired and are
back in again."
A softball, but he tells it well -- it's believable the way he barks it.
"Those sex chat rooms? It's weird sitting naked at the computer. By the time
the guy brings you your latte, everyone's staring at ya."
His story about a two-day bender in Van Nuys with his friend is brilliant,
absolutely off-the-hook funny and wild.
"[Approximate] We were taking vitamins and then suddenly it was two in the
morning. So I ask my buddy if it's OK if I hang for a bit because the cops
are out. Boom, it's 24 hours later and we're really healthy by now. So my
buddy says, Hey, do you wanna take some acid with you? I got a bunch of
sugar
cubes in my freezer. The ones with dots on 'em are either half or double
hits. So I'm thinking I'm getting either six or 36 hits. That's Yahtzee!"
Kim's Convenience S04 (2020) -- "7/10"
The whole family returns for season four. It starts off with Janet being
horrible to everyone again. It's actually a toss-up as to whether Janet or
her roommates are more horrible. Mr. Kim is still using his serious face
and
Mrs. Kim performs instinctive sneak attacks. Chung and Kimchi are fine.
Shannon is also very egocentric and shallow (in the same class as Janet,
Gerald, and Stacie).
The second half of the season got a bit better, but Stacie is still the
worst
-- and it's completely unclear to me whether it's intentional or whether
the
show simply doesn't notice how horrible she is. Maybe they're around
enough
people like this that they think it's kind of normal for someone to be
that
egotistical. Anyone I know would have cut off all ties to her, by now. But
Janet is not much better, thinking really only of herself for at least 95%
of
the time. Poor Gerald is stuck between these two therapy cases.
As noted, Kimchi and Chung are decent guys and their relationship is
really
cool -- they're really good friends and not afraid of showing it. Mr. and
Mrs. Kim make this show worth watching. The season ends with Janet
settling
for an internship in Tanzania because Stacie and Gerald stole her idea to
go
teach in South Korea. Raj ends up taking an internship in Tanzania, as
well,
so that he can be near Janet. Gerald is upset because he thought that his
kiss with Janet meant something.
If this all sounds terrible, it's because it is -- as noted above, most of
these people are really terrible. Mrs. Kim undergoes tests for a worsening
clumsiness right at the end of the season. I subtracted a point because of
the tedious bits that don't have the good characters in them.
This Is 40 (2012) -- "6/10"
Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann) star as a couple whose marriage has
sputtered badly as he approaches his 40th birthday party. The two are OK,
but
their comedic talents are mostly wasted on characters who are nearly
irredeemable. Both have much better, and much funnier, comedy roles in
their
careers.
John Lithgow plays Debbie's absentee father -- and his chops show through
despite the so-so script and other characters. Lithgow quickly makes you
care
about learning more about his character. We don't, not really, but it's a
bright spot in the film.
Albert Brooks plays the same kind of schmuck he's played a few times
before:
a Jewish dad who's a "schnorrer" (moocher) and who's hit up Pete for cash
again and again and again. When Debbie calls him on it, he Aikidos the
guilt
masterfully. Still, his character is weak compared to Lithgow's.
Robert Smigel is decent as Pete's brother, Megan Fox is decent eye candy
as
Pete's assistant (in whom he evinces no salubrious interest, thankfully),
Jason Segel is mediocre funny as an over-the-top and prototypical LA
personal
trainer, and a couple of young Apatow girls (presumably the director's
daughters) round out the cast. The kids aren't actually too terrible, for
once, which is a nice change of pace.
Still, this is not in the top five for Apatow -- watch 40-year--old Virgin
or
Knocked Up or Trainwreck instead.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] As I generally like to do, enjoying each show the way the artists who
created it intended it. Often the choice of music is inspired and worth
enjoying. It's been a lot easier since Netflix introduced the feature that
lets me disable auto-play everywhere, so it never auto-plays the next show
and also doesn't auto-play any trailers once I've finished watching a movie
or season.
[1] That's a zeugma and I'm damned proud of it.
[1] The 80s were nothing if not super-heavy-handed with propaganda -- though
we're not much better today, to be honest.
]]>
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[Appendix: Awful Interviewing Style]
At one point, someone says "We made an electric car!" Gibbs asks: "Where does
the power come from? The grid ... so, coal? Natural gas? HA! Fuck you for
building an electric car, you assholes. If you can't fix everything at once, you
should have stayed on the fucking porch. Asshole."
Those aren't actual quotes, but I think I got the vibe right. It just seemed
unnecessarily hostile. Maybe there's context that justifies the level of anger
and hostility, but it was missing in the film.
In several other cases, the people he interviews seem to be passive-aggressively
hating what they do. That is, Gibbs seems to have sought out and found the
obviously socially deficient guy to describe the power output of a solar array
and boy did he make a meal of it. Most of the people he interviews in the first
twenty minutes don't seem actually quite knowledgeable: they're not officials.
They're people they met on a windy mountaintop in the dead of a Vermont winter
(to make it look more bleak).
Another guy looks like Bill Murray in Caddyshack, ready to declare that a field
of solar panels couldn't power a single toaster. And everyone just buys that
guy's evaluation of generated wattage. I've heard that bit cited in several
podcasts and interviews. Why doesn't anyone question the data in this
"documentary"? Gibbs just lets his interview subjects babble out figures and
doesn't question any of them. The guy wasn't identified either by name or even
role -- who says he wasn't just somebody who happened to be walking by? This
feels much more like the kind of "reporting" in James O'Keefe's "documentaries".
At another point, Gibbs asks himself: "Why, for most of my life, have I thought
that green energy would save us?" Who knows why he believes things? I suppose
he's trying to play the role of the average viewer? He's trying to convince
neoliberal faux-liberals that they have to change? It doesn't come off this way,
though. It seems like he's just taking down the idea of alternative energy. I'm
not sure what the alternative solution is to that, though. Reduced consumption?
He doesn't get around to really mentioning that, either. Or maybe he did and I
was too distracted by his other theatrics.
But, I don't understand why they interview people in the middle of a
demonstration where there are so many people shouting in the background. Then he
asks of the other environmentalists who haven't yet denounced biomass: "Are they
ignorant or is it something else? Are they misguided? Or corrupt?" Yeah, I'm
stunned nobody wanted to talk to you.
He does the equivalent of asking people, "Excuse me, my friend and I have a bet
going: I just wanted to ask whether you're stupid or evil?" and then gleefully
points an accusatory finger at them when they refuse to answer.
Are-you-still-beating-your-wife questioning is tedious if you're not ready to
brigade whichever target the director has chosen for you. Luckily for him, he's
got a whole Internet full of assholes who ask no questions if he helps them on
their way to their next dopamine kick.
[Appendix: Biomass and Bill McKibben]
The section on bio-mass being bad is pretty detailed and it's a valid point to
make. Pretty much anyone should have seen that "burning trees" was kind of
stupid idea for solving energy troubles, no matter how pretty the marketing
department dresses up the charts. But hindsight is 20/20 and it wasn't obviously
criminal to support it.
This section is about a supposedly green co-gen plant that actually burns wood
chips and tire chips. But they got a multi-million-dollar grant for being green.
This is obviously a story about regulatory capture. That Bill McKibben ended up
supporting the idea temporarily has literally nothing to do with how they raked
in millions. They got those millions despite Bill's support. Still Gibbs has to
show a clip of McKibben pushing wood chips like it's his life's passion. The
video looks like it was taken on VHS. Gibbs doesn't bother to give a year or
location. It's a complete hack-job.
And then the hack job on Bill McKibben goes on with more ancient, blurry,
undated clips. [3] I've read Bill McKibben's book; he's not evil. This is pretty
ridiculous. Bill McKibben is not the problem you have to solve in the energy and
consumption problem. If you succeed in taking him down, then you'll set back
climate-change activism in the U.S. even more than it already is. But Gibbs
takes every opportunity to solve climate change by showing everyone what a
hypocrite McKibben really is using techniques like, instead of asking McKibben
what he thinks, Gibbs asks a lady what she heard from a guy she knows about what
he says McKibben thinks. Journalism at its finest.
[Appendix: The Population-Growth Angle]
The film was also, not unfairly, attacked for leaning too heavily on the "too
many people" solution to climate change. Again, it did this in a way that led
groups with widely diverging opinions draw support from the film. While perhaps
inclusive in its own way, it opened the film to criticism that it was advocating
the view that the Global South and its promiscuous proclivity for procreation
just has to go. They didn't go into the nuance that its the high-consuming parts
of the human population who are the real problem. Yes, lots of people live in
places that were always pretty untenable, but most of those have little impact
on climate change. It's the folks in Phoenix, LA, and Las Vegas who we should be
aiming at.
The article "Michael and Me" by George Monbiot
does a good job of summing
up the deficiencies in this movie. In particular, Monbiot addresses the only
"solution" that the filmmakers offer: reducing population, rather than
consumption.
"Yes, population growth does contribute to the pressures on the natural world.
But while the global population is rising by 1% a year, consumption, until the
pandemic, was rising at a steady 3%. High consumption is concentrated in
countries where population growth is low. Where population growth is highest,
consumption tends to be extremely low. Almost all the growth in numbers is in
poor countries largely inhabited by black and brown people. When very rich
people, such as Michael Moore and Jeff Gibbs, point to this issue without the
necessary caveats, they are saying, in effect, “it’s not us consuming,
it’s Them breeding.” It’s not hard to see why the alt-right loves this
film.
"Population is where you go when you haven’t thought it through. Population is
where you go when you don’t have the guts to face the structural, systemic
causes of our predicament: inequality, oligarchic power, capitalism. Population
is where you go when you want to kick down."
Almost no-one they interview mentions that it's a question of consumption and
resources (one guy in Vermont did, offhand), they are all in agreement that
Malthus was right. Instead, the problem isn't the absolute number of people --
although it is really high -- it's the degree to which certain poisonous
cultures consume what they consider to be endless resources.
At the end of the movie, there's a bit more Malthusian observation that we have
far exceeded the carrying capacity of the Earth. I would add at this level of
consumption. We've done a lot of things wrong. Trying to figure out how to
retain some of the luxuries our oil-based society has wrought in a post-oil
world isn't evil, per se. The narrator seems to imply it is. He also offers no
other alternative: should we all just kill ourselves? Should be will kill
others? Kill the weak? Who should we wipe out first to save the planet? Should
we return to an agrarian, electricity-free, loose affiliation of fiefdoms?
[Appendix: Censorship and Canceling]
The article "Planet of the Censoring Humans" by Matt Taibbi
focuses hard on
the censorship angle, with Taibbi ignoring the film's many overt flaws as a
documentary. Taibbi is using the takedown attempts for the movie to make a
larger point about censorship. Leading with this movie, though, makes it seem as
if Taibbi thought that it was had a quality enough beyond reproach that
censorship was entirely out of the question. Maybe he chose it on purpose: it's
the indefensible that needs defending when the book-burners are afoot. He didn't
put it that way, though.
"In Planet of the Humans, Moore and Gibbs make a complex argument. In essence,
they charge that people have become dependent upon the high-consumption
lifestyles made possible by fossil fuels, and that it’s our addiction to that
way of life, as much as to fossil fuels themselves, that is driving humanity off
a “cliff.”"
As I mentioned in the main review above, the movie in no way made any of these
arguments. It was a hodge-podge of odd interviews and slander. I get that it
could have been about this and that it should have been about this, but that the
editing and content were so distracting as to muddle the point entirely.
The film was arguably criminally libelous against McKibben -- and probably would
have been in merry old England. This isn't the movie you want to pin your
anti-censorship argument on. You could further argue that it's exactly because
it's so flawed that it should be the cause célèbre for anti-censorship, but
that's not the point that Taibbi made. I don't think it should be censored, just
to be clear -- 100% on Taibbi's side on that. I'm just arguing that we're a long
way from Gasland or Roger and Me here.
Taibbi writes that "most of the “criticism” of McKibben comes in the form of
footage of him talking", but Taibbi should know better about the tactics: as
pointed out above, many of the clips look like they were made on VHS and
couldn't possibly have come from anytime before the last 15 years. Prove me
wrong -- it's not like the filmmakers bothered to include any dates to "help" me
understand; instead, they left them off so that I would better understand the
point they were trying to make, which was, oddly, that McKibben is evil.
Unfortunately, others will get that message too: that green policies are a
fraud, per se. This documentary will mostly likely drive people into the arms of
the fossil-fuel companies. The film made no attempt to point people in a more
useful direction by mentioning anyone who's done anything right. Not even for a
minute. Instead, they slam people who have had a largely positive impact on the
environmental movement.
[Appendix: Orangutan Coda & Non Sequitur]
The footage at the end of the poor orangutan being driven out of his forest --
then saved, is played without context, without dates, without even saying where
it was. I have no idea if it's the same orangutan being rescued at the end as
was being hounded at the beginning. It's obviously stock footage, but from
where? No comment. Just play that as the coda to show "people bad".
This whole thing was very manipulative and nearly fact-free. A lot of
allegations -- some valid and worthwhile -- but not a single word about possible
solutions or ideas for the future.
I guess they think we should start killing people instead of apes?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Bill McKibben has "published an eloquent and measured response"
denying the
allegations in the film and pleading with people to focus on things other
than defending his reputations for him (though he appreciates it).
[1] Director Jeff Gibbs has previously produced many of Moore's movies. This is
his first and only directing job. His old friend and main producer Michael
Moore is not affiliated with this film other than to put his name on it.
Moore's not otherwise involved with the film in any way like he has been in
"real" Michael Moore movies. He neither narrates nor does he figure in it
even as an interview subject.
[1] Another target is Al Gore, someone nobody's talked about since 2000. Again,
it's unclear when these clips are from. At this point, I don't trust that
even the stock footage is of what they say it is. They keep going at
McKibben and Gore. They include a clip of Jon Stewart interviewing Al Gore.
Again, the clip looks really old -- Stewart hasn't been on TV in five years.
]]>
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of around 1400
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of around 1400 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.
Jumanji: The Next Level (2019) -- "7/10"
Dwayne Johnson, Karen Gillan, Jack Black, and Kevin Hart return to this
sequel to the reboot. The kids are just as insipid as they were in the
first
movie, but that doesn't matter because 90% of the action is "in the video
game", where the adult characters take over. The handsome Nick Jonas
reprises
his role as the relatively low-impact Seaplane, but the cast is joined and
much-enhanced by the always-funny Awkwafina, who plays the token asian
character Ming.
It's a bit more mixed-up than that because this time they play with the
notion of "avatars" more. Instead of just the original teenagers
inhabiting
characters, the game sucks in Spencer's grandfather (Danny DeVito) and his
former business partner (Danny Glover). While neither actor spends a lot
of
time on-screen, Johnson, Awkwafina, and Hart take turns playing as if the
old
men were inhabiting their bodies as players/avatars -- with varying
degrees
of success.
It was nice to see Rory McCann outside of the role of The Hound from Game
of
Thrones, but he still played an outsized barbarian, so it's not like he
was
breaking character much.
Spoiler alert: they win the game, but not before having to surmount
several
devious levels and learn a lot about themselves along the way. Spencer and
Martha get back together. Hooray.
Vacation (2015) -- "8/10"
Ed Helms channels Chevy Chase and Christina Applegate channels Beverly
D'Angelo. It's not a 100% scene-for-scene remake, but just enough to get a
few extra laughs for doing so.
They have a terrible rental car from Albania that yells at them in Korean.
I
lost my shit every time. The reenactment of the woman in the high-powered
roadster was really funny. They stop at sister Audrey's (Leslie Mann) home
in
Texas, visiting with uncle Stone (Chris Hemsworth). The film is a string
of
skits mostly, just like the original.
Chevy Chase and Beverly Dangelo come in at the end. Ed Helms (Rusty)
played
the role exactly the same as Chevy had played it 30 years ago. Because
their
car was no longer a going concern, Clark Griswold loans Rusty the old,
green
battlewagon to complete his trip to Wally World with his family.
El Hoyo/The Platform (2019) -- "8/10"
The narrator Goreng wakes. He is in a chamber, lying on a bed that is on one
side of a rectangular hole. On the opposite side is another bed, with an
older man Trimagasi sitting on it. To one side is the number 48 etched
into
the wall. To the other is a sink. The old man brings him up to speed on
the
situation: they are in a prison.
There are two prisoners per level. There are an unknown number of levels.
No-one ever visits. There are no guards. The only way out is down, into
the
pit. Once per day, a platform lowers through the rectangle with food on
it.
The platform starts as a sumptuous feast at level 0 and loses its luster
as
it descends through the numerous levels, with the prisoners at each level
taking whatever they want of whatever remains. If you keep food with you,
the
prison boils or freezes you until you either die, eat the food, or throw
the
food into the hole. Those at lower levels eat scraps or nothing at all. Or
each other.
After one month, the prison is suffused with gas that knocks everyone out.
Everyone wakes on a different level for the next month. Prisoners are kept
together as long as they are both still alive.
The main character turned himself in because he wanted to stop smoking. He
had no inkling what really went on. He took a book with him: Don Quixote.
His
cellmate Trimagasi has a Samurai Pro knife that never dulls and is very
handy
for surviving the lower levels, which no-one even pretends can be survived
without some form of cannibalism.
There aren't many characters: one mysterious lady Miharu who rides down
the
platform, slaughtering people with her own knife and supposedly searching
for
her child, though others swear that she arrived alone. After level 48,
Trimagasi and Goreng end up on level 171. Goreng awakes gagged and tied to
the bed -- he sleeps too soundly and Trimagasi knows that the platform
will
hold no food for one month, so he's keeping his food supply warm and
unspoiled. Weeks later, as Trimagasi prepares his first sliver of flesh
from
Goreng's leg, Miharu drops in and slays him.
They survive and awake on level 31, where Goreng is joined by a former
guard
Imoguiri who has brought her dog with her. She takes food for herself one
day
and food for her dog the next. She prepares plates for the floor below
them,
imploring them to do the same, to act in solidarity, to take only what
they
need, to not spoil or waste the food for the floors below. Miharu shows
up
again, injured. Goreng and Imoguiri tend to her, but Miharu abuses their
hospitality by eating the dog.
Imoguiri and Goreng wake the next month on level 202 (revealing to us that
there are more than 200 levels, as previously thought). Imoguiri has
hanged
herself, providing Goreng a food supply. Goreng awakes on level 6 with a
new
roommate: Baharat. With Baharat's energy and enthusiasm, Goreng decides
that
they should descend all the way, on the platform, distributing food to
ensure
that everyone gets some.
Baharat agrees and ad-hoc decides that they should only hand out food
starting at level 50 -- because everyone up to that level eats every day
anyway. As they travel and enforce discipline, they change the plan to
preserve a single panna cotta to bring back to level 0 and "prove" the
humanity of the hole's inhabitants to the chefs there. They pass through
200,
then 250 levels, the platform sliding silently onward past levels with no
survivors. On level 333, it stops, with no-one in evidence. Baharat and
Goreng get off, desperately injured from their ride and from a pitched
battle
they'd waged in vain to save Miharu's life many levels above.
The platform moves downward, stranding them. They discover Miharu's
daughter,
hiding under a bed. They change their plan again, feeding her the panna
cotta. They are delirious with hunger, injury and pain. The next day,
Baharat
is dead, but Goreng takes the girl onto the platform as it descends again,
deeming her "the message" that he will bring to level 0 (in lieu of the
panna
cotta).
At the very bottom, Goreng steps off to join Trimagasi (presumably dying),
while the platform shoots back up at incredible speed, transporting the
"message" to the top.
Saw it in Spanish with English subtitles.
Curb Your Enthusiasm S10 (2019) -- "9/10"
Larry David, Jeff Garlin, Ted Danson, Cheryl Hines, Susie Essman, Richard
Lewis, and J.B. Smoove reprise their roles from the increasingly
sporadically
filmed series (there were 8 seasons between 2000 and 2011), one more in
2017,
and now this season in 2020). Larry David serves up tremendous writing and
biting, insightful commentary on the weird world we all inhabit, but
primarily the weird world that the obliviously privileged of the West
Coast
inhabit.
Everyone plays their role well, but Larry and J.B. Smoove just click -- as
does Jon Hamm, as Larry's protegé in a couple of shows. As with Seinfeld,
there is no overarching season plot, nor is there any lesson to be
learned.
Larry certainly never learns any lessons. He's rich and can stumble around
the world, turning over rocks and blowing through protocol wherever he
pleases.
David puts together situations of shocking entitlement, but also subtle
philophical nuance. For example, in one episode, he learns that his
ex-wife's
sister is planning on selling her house -- a house that he gave her
fifteen
years ago. He and Jeff both think that Larry should get the proceeds -- or
at
least the principal back or maybe the profits. He argues that the gift was
a
house, not money. She can't convert the house into money. But it's her
house
-- that's what a gift is, right? And it's not like she's flipping the
house
-- she'd lived in it for fifteen years.
He meets up with her and she's a day-drinker who's also a good crier, so
she
quickly convinces Larry to let her keep the house and the appreciation on
it.
They sleep together and Larry helps her clean up her pigsty of a house, as
well. He even takes her to the airport when she goes on a ski trip to
Colorado. She calls the next day from the slopes to tell him that she's
broken her leg. He promises to hop on the next flight. He can't get a
flight
until 9PM because he needs a first-class seat. For various reasons, he's
late
to the flight. He's further delayed by the TSA and misses it, so he only
shows up the next day.
Whereas we were kind of on her side at first, she lambastes him that he
didn't come sooner because "he'd promised". Now she seems quite entitled
for
what amounted to a one-night-stand in exchange for a house, profits and
...
devotion? Larry David is incorrigible, but predictably so -- he constantly
shows himself to be a cad of the highest order, although his caddishness
is
constantly superseded by that of others, who are utterly oblivious to
their
shockingly self-centered behavior.
The theme is often one of Larry getting into incredible trouble (often
financial, which doesn't really affect him) for just trying to help, but
then
failing to do so in a way that satisfies the person he's trying to help.
He's
basically made a show about how awful "choosing beggars" are.
In episode nine, he ups the ante by befriending a woman who doesn't have a
car, then letting himself be shamed into buying a car by a dealer who
knows
that Larry's just showing up with fake problems on his existing car to get
the delicious licorice that the dealer has on the snack table. Since he
bought a car he doesn't need, and his new friend doesn't even have a car,
he
just gives her his old car. She's over the moon, of course. He's already
offered her a job in his "spite café", so he's really an angel to her.
Fifteen minutes later, she's at an intersection, playing Candy Crush on
her
phone while driving and not noticing that it's her turn to go. Larry is at
the same intersection in his new car. He sees her playing on the phone and
takes the right-of-way, but the car behind her beeps and she lurches into
the
intersection in a panic, slamming into Larry.
Now, instead of 15 years, it's been 15 minutes. His car is ruined and
needs
to be towed. She offers to give him a ride home in "her" car. He tells her
that he's going to take his other car back because she destroyed his new
one.
She's not hearing that because he can't just take back the gift, can he?
He
capitulates and takes a ride home. He has to buy a new car, and will just
get
the car he had before.
A few days later, he calls her because she's failed to show up to her job.
She tells him she'd forgotten to inform him that she's no longer going to
work for him. She's going to travel instead. With what money? Isn't she
broke? Didn't he just give her a car to get to a job that he gave her? It
turns out that she's sold the car and will travel with the proceeds. He'd
kept it pristine with low mileage, so she'd gotten a lot of money for it.
That's what he gets for trying to help people. They think of themselves
only
because they're entitled to what they get. Also, he's rich, right?
This show is really about the philosophy of a broken culture, where
choosing
beggars and raging egos abound, where an absolute bull-in-a-china-shop cad
like Larry David ends up being the best of the bunch, ethically.
Pete Davidson: Alive From New York (2020) -- "8/10"
The production is interesting in that it dives right in without any preamble.
It's so jarring that I had to check whether I'd inadvertently skipped
ahead
by a few minutes (I had not). So Davidson jumps right into his set,
riffing
on his lifestyle and being on SNL and dating hot (and somewhat unstable)
starlets and getting "accused" of having a big dick, which isn't as great
as
you might think. He says it was a great move on Ariana's part because now
every girl that he gets with for the rest of his life will be vaguely
disappointed. It's a fiendishly long-range plan with decades-long legs.
Davidson's got a laid-back delivery style and is charming as hell, as well
as
pretty damned funny. He didn't try to stretch the special beyond the 49
minutes and that's just fine.
The Gentlemen (2019) -- "9/10"
Guy Ritchie returns with a slick feature in his inimitable style. It's a bit
more refined than earlier romps like Snatch or Lock, Stock, and Two
Smoking
Barrels, but still belongs firmly in that tradition. It stars Matthew
McConaughey as Michael "Mickey" Pearson, an American ex-pat living in
London,
who, after growing up in the poor southern U.S., spent his late teens and
early 20s at Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship -- but was really starting a
marijuana-dealing business that blossomed into an empire a quarter-century
later.
Raymond (Charlie Hunnam) is his right-hand man and Rosalind (Michelle
Dockery) is his successful-in-her-own-right wife. Mickey is in the middle
of
trying to sell his business to Matthew (Jeremy Strong), who's a
Jewish-American investor with a shadowy past. Colin Farrell is Coach to
the
Toddlers, a madcap band of irreverent teenagers who Matthew hires through
Dry
Eye (Henry Golding), son of heroin king Lord George (Tom Wu), who's
jockeying
to pick up Mickey's business on the cheap.
In the middle of these machinations stands Fletcher (Hugh Grant), a
reporter
who thinks he's got all the angles covered, but who's instead blinded by
his
greed to the possibility that others might be just as clever and
well-prepared as he is. That turns out to be the downfall of Matthew and
Fletcher both: none of them considers the possibility that someone who'd
cornered the entire pot market in England might not just be a lucky,
stoned
idiot.
There are a lot of great characters, nice dialogue, nice twists and turns
and
satisfying conclusions. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel S03 (2019) -- "9/10"
I found the severe character swing for Midge to be quite jarring. In the
first two seasons, she was down-to-earth despite her upper-class
upbringing.
In this season, she's a mirthless bitch who treats everyone like garbage
while she flounces her entitled ass around the world, utterly unable to
understand why her ex-husband and her parents don't understand how
inconvenient it is to her for them to no longer support her extravagant
lifestyle.
At one point, she tells her ex-father-in-law Moishe that she hasn't spent
a
dime of her earnings, so it's unclear who's buying her food and supporting
her sartorial lifestyle. At another, she browbeats Joel about not sending
their son to a school neither of them lives near anymore and neither one
of
them can afford. She won't spend a dime of her money, but her dumb-ass son
has to go to a great school. And then she tries to get "her apartment"
back
-- because she obviously deserves it. She basically micromanages everyone
around her -- because obviously the world revolves around her.
Her father has quit Columbia, so her parents out of the apartment they've
lived in for Midge's entire life. She's on tour with Shy Baldwin, who is
quite sensitive and has a breakdown after he gets beat up by a
one-night--stand (he's black and gay in the late 50s/early 60s). He goes
on
hiatus for several months. Midge and Susie have to scramble and start
doing
radio advertising to make some scratch.
Susie is managing Sophie Lennon, but still living in her tiny apartment.
It's
unclear how her gambling problem could possibly be losing her all the
money
she's making from Sophie Lennon, at least. Midge has nearly no
understanding
for Susie's position because she has never had any idea what it is to be
truly poor. Susie understands Midge perfectly though:
"Susie: She's incredibly high maintenance. You have to feed her every two
hours like a parking meter."
Kevin Pollack (Moishe Maisel, Joel's father) is a treasure. Abe (Tony
Shalhoub) is still amazing, finding his younger self and trying to do
something he's proud of, but also aware that he needs to get himself and
Rose
back on their feet. For her part, Rose has broken ties with her obnoxious
family, from whom she'd been getting money from her trust fund for
decades.
"Abe: I'm going to tutor.
"Rose: Tutor what?
"Abe: Idiots! The city's teeming with them."
Joel has grown and built up his own club, along with his friend Archie.
He's
dating a young lady named Mei, who runs the Chinese gambling parlor in the
basement below his club. She's studying to be a doctor and is very funny,
as
well. Susie is getting more confident and inveigling her way into the Shy
Baldwin crew. Shy's manager Reggie (Sterling K. Brown), who's a cold
bastard
to everyone else, takes a shine to Susie -- he's onto the fact that she
has a
debilitating gambling problem. Lenny Bruce (Luke Kirby) is amazingly suave
(and Midge is stringing him along) and very funny. Benjamin -- Midge's
fiancé doctor from season two -- is still around and still very good and
still trying to get Midge to be a good person.
In the finale, Midge kills at the Apollo, but isn't ambiguous enough about
Shy's homosexuality during her set -- and he throws he off the tour.
Curtain.
Despite Midge's decline, the show still bangs out beautiful set pieces
like
no other show on television. They go long minutes with cameras following
characters through minutely detailed period pieces, one scene after
another,
with perfect music accompaniment. The dialogue writing is fantastic: most
conversations are snappy and very funny -- except for those in which Midge
is
overbearingly shitty -- Midge's routines are very good, and the soundtrack
is
mostly fabulous.
So Joel's great, Abe's great, Moise's great, Rose is fantastic, ("The poor
thing, to have a face like that and to be tall, so everyone sees it"),
Susie
is out-of-this-world funny, Lenny Bruce is great, and the set pieces and
costumes are worth the price of admission -- so what's the problem? Midge
thinks she's infallible, treats a lot of people like her subjects, and
gets
away with murder. Her friend Imogene is not really that interesting,
either.
In the end, everyone else in the show is now funnier and quippier and more
interesting than Midge. So I knocked off one point from the other seasons.
It
would have been two, because some of the whining was really tedious. Still
highly recommended.
Emil: Encore Une Fois (2017) -- ("9/10" )
Emil Steinberger is an absolute comedic legend in the cabaret scene in
Switzerland. He's been doing it for over 50 years and has many routines
that
he does again and again. They're still funny today and he has quite a
knack
for making timeless bits. This works quite well in Switzerland, where
things
change only very slowly.
Quite some time ago, he started doing his routine in Française Federale,
which is a stilted French that even I can understand. It's not wrong, it's
just a bit slower, a bit more strongly enunciated and he sounds like any
one
of our politicians trying to reach across the Röstigraben. A good friend
of
my father's (and mine, too) introduced me to his French version almost two
decades ago, where I nearly died laughing at his Emil a la Poste (Emil in
the
post office, where he plays a less-than-adequately-intellectually-endowed
postal-service worker).
His routines are quintessentially Swiss and almost more hilarious in
French,
as he sometimes struggles (or pretends to struggle) to make himself
understood. He uses almost no props, other than a table (which he e.g.
pretends is a windowsill from which the neighborhood snoop comments on all
the neighbors) or several chairs (which becomes a train compartment where
he's a retiree regaling everyone with tales of the Wassen church and
telling
the hikers what to do). He has a great routine about cell phones and apps
and
users, another about a "blazer" (bläser, or leaf-blower).
He'll occasionally break out into Swiss German, which usually earns a big
laugh, which means his public is just as multi-cultural as he is. He's
very
calm and measured and deeply funny. His humor is not political, it's
timeless, and could only offend the very sensitive. I'll have to dig up a
copy of this one in Swiss German so my wife can watch with me (her French
is
not quite there yet).
The show is from 2017 and Emil was 84 years old, but still going so
strong.
Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019) -- "6/10"
I appreciate that there's a certain poetry to having three trilogies equal
nine movies, but this movie didn't have to be made. No-one was worried at
the
end of the last one that Kylo Ren was going to take over the universe or
that
the emperor was going to come back. Luke Skywalker finished everything off
with a tremendous and satisfying bad-ass maneuver that should have been
the
last word. The last movie, despite its extravagance, worked. This one does
not.
This one is a ton of fan service, but with about two-dozen characters, so
your head is spinning. It's clearly a Disney movie written by a committee
(even though there are only two writing credits). And nothing sticks.
There
is no lasting pathos. There is no engagement or worry that everything
isn't
going to work out in the end.
Near the beginning, it looks like Rey killed Chewbacca, but she (and we)
only
had to suffer for what felt like less than a minute before it was revealed
that he wasn't even on that transporter (for unknown reasons). C3PO loses
his
memories, but we don't have to worry about it for too long -- after he's
initially mildly humorous about not knowing who anyone is, he gets a
backup
from Artoo that's not even too far out of date.
The rebels take on the fleet, but they are absolutely helpless as long as
the
Emperor is alive and nearly godlike in his power, electrocuting vast
swaths
of space and ships with the swipe of his hand. Rey is also godlike, thanks
to
special lightsabers from Luke and Leia. It's all so trite. I was wondering
whether I was watching an anime or a children's TV show. I didn't care
about
anyone, except maybe Kylo Ren, who I honestly didn't care if he was going
to
revert back to Ben or not because either version of him was pretty good.
Poor Rose was just wallpaper, seemingly retained as part of the ground
crew
to make sure that the Asian identity is adequately represented. Poe was
dialed way back into utter blandness -- he wasn't even funny anymore. Finn
was decent, but most of his scenes were with a new stormtrooper woman
who'd
also defected and who was a strong woman. They fought together, even
though
we'd barely gotten to know her. We barely got to know any of the
characters.
Keri Russell showed up as a female Boba Fett-substitute who popped her
mask
once when talking to Poe, just to show us that she was white and then
appropriately hid her disgusting face again. She showed up at the final
battle, but why should we care?
Poor Chewbacca was a non-entity and Lando Calrissian was doing his best
Joe
Biden impression. At least he's actually still alive: they're still
milking
scenes out of the Carrie Fisher estate for utterly mysterious reasons.
Leia
finally dies in nearly exactly the same way that Luke did at the end of
the
last movie, but with much less purpose. She died because her son Ben died,
using the last of his Force energy to save and restore Rey. But the Force
comes from everywhere, so how did he run out? We'd just watched Palpatine
shock an entire space fleet over what looked like an entire AU of space
and
he was old AF and he didn't seem to suffer for it.
The most telling bit is when you go to the cast list in IMDb and you
realize
that you didn't know most of the characters' names -- even though they had
them. For example, does anyone know who "Snap Wexley" is? He's the chubby
dude from Heroes. He flamed out in the last battle in a manner that made
no-one at all care. This was right before Rey enacted yet another Deus Ex
Machina to defeat the Emporer and win the day.
After that, we got to see fucking Ewoks celebrating, as if it wasn't
already
obvious that the producers were trying to simultaneously rub one out for
everyone who's ever professed themselves a fan of Star Wars.
So, they saved the universe again and presumably for good this time. Don't
count on it, though. Disney hasn't even begun to milk this property. I
personally much preferred Rogue One or The Last Jedi.
La Casa de Papel (Money Heist) S01 (2017) -- "5/10"
I've watched most of season one and I long ago stopped searching for the
appeal. The story is of a thief who had pulled off 18 heists with her
boyfriend before she got him killed. She is drafted by El Profesor to take
part in a giant heist that he's been planning for half of his life. She is
only one member of a larger team (nine people, I think? It's honestly kind
of
hard to keep track.) They all take the names of cities so that they remain
anonymous from one another. She is called Tokio. Despite her wealth of
experience and despite having ostensibly spent five months preparing for
the
heist, it goes off the rails nearly immediately. Again, this despite El
Profesor having been described as sooper-smart, except, presumably, when
choosing people for the team that will execute the heist that is his
life's
work.
Things go off the rails because Tokio is banging Rio, a much younger
computer
expert who literally has no job in the heist because they actively avoid
computers and cell phones to avoid detection. At one point, he's wiring
some
radios, I guess. At any rate, he basically has a lot of time to pretend
that
his feelings are more important than the €2.4 Billion they plan to
steal.
Considering the enormity of their goal, the lack of discipline on the part
of
several of the main characters is pretty off-putting.
Denver is a dipshit hired for his craziness and muscle who ends up
torpedoing
everything he does with his insecurity. Berlin is played by a good actor
and
also acts professionally. He keeps his eyes on the prize. El Profesor, for
what it's worth, does too. He jets around Madrid, cleaning up loose ends
left
by his team before the heist.
His main adversary is Raquel Murillo, a police negotiator who has a whole
pile of baggage that is supposed to make her interesting. With all of this
baggage to distract us, it's never made clear why she's considered to be
so
competent (other than just having told us she is). She fights with the
inspector who is the head of the national police. She fights with her
ex-husband, who used to beat her, and for whom she has a restraining order
that she is seemingly unable to enforce.
There are a few hostages with names: Arturo, the head of the bank, who's
been
boinking Monica on the side. Then there's Alison Parker, the high-value
asset
who's the daughter of the British ambassador and who's been trapped in the
museum by the thieves.
It just seems so disorganized from the get-go, despite the setup of
super-brain in charge and months of preparation. How do things go off the
rails? Rio gets out in front of the museum at the beginning and gets
himself
shot by the cops. Tokio flies into a rage and shoots the cops (only
wounding
them), but pretty much making it obvious that they're in love. Berlin is
super-unhappy with that, understandably. Moscou is Denver's father and
he's
not only a claustrophobic tunner-digger, he's got a bit of a heart
condition.
Berlin orders Denver to dispose of Monica, but he instead hides her in a
vault, shooting her in the leg, which threatens her with sepsis. Nothing
seems to be going right except the printing of the money: Nairobi is in a
charge of that and seems to be getting it done, though she seems like a
time-bomb, as well.
The overall feeling is one of meta-manipulation: each episode has at least
one, if not several, ludicrous oversights on the part of the police or
these
supposedly hardened and hand-picked professional criminals. Why are the
hostages allowed to roam around? E.g. when the group of kids corners
Allison
in the bathroom to kick her ass. Or why is Allison allowed to run away?
Why
isn't she hobbled? Because the writers are using tedious incompetence to
stir
up artificial controversy that they can then solve in the nick of time or
with some clever slight-of-hand by El Profesor.
There is a higher-level manipulation: the show foreshadows heavily to
indicate that "the plan" will get better or even to suggest that, despite
all
of the idiocy of the participants, that it is somehow part of the plan so
far. At the end of episode 10, they toast to the plan, reassuring us that
all
will revealed and that it will be awesome. I can't help but think that
this
tactic works better at film-length. I could put up with Tokio playing a
petulant bitch if I had a payoff within an hour or two. However, we're
forced
to put up with long closeups of her insouciant face for hours and hours
and
hours with no end in sight. We're left with deciding whether to cash in
our
chips or capitulate to sunken cost and hope that, in the end, it will have
been worth it.
I just can't get into it, really. Instead of a well-tuned group performing
a
heist, we have a group of barely competent people who are only unable to
torpedo themselves because the cops are also caught up in one soap opera
after another. I gave it an extra star because I'm learning more
conversational Spanish, so that's something.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=38992020-04-05T18:20:57+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
so far, but they're not
absolutely comparable to each other -- I rate the media on how well it
suited me for the genre and my mood and. let's be honest, level of
intoxication. YMMV....
]]>
so far, but they're not absolutely
comparable to each other -- I rate the media 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.
Wilder S02 (2020) -- "8/10"
Rosa Wilder (Sarah Spale) is "back"
with Manfred Kägi
(Marcus Signer), this time investigating a triple-murder in the fictional
town of Thallingen. The small town is based around a sawmill. Kägi's
alcoholic sister happens to live there with her son Simon. The murders
happen
during a festival celebrating some anniversary at the sawmill.
Simon is kidnapped and stuffed into a trunk, then driven around for hours.
He's in the trunk of the car when the two drivers are murdered. He manages
to
escape, but didn't see anything. What he does see is a giant bag of money
that he takes, literally thinking that no-one will miss it, even though it
obviously belongs to drug dealers.
The town is horrified, of course. Racial tensions against local Albanians
rise. One of the boys who was murdered was Artan Kabashi (Mark Harvey),
the
son of local Albanian restauranteur Enver Kabashi (Edon Rizvanolli). The
family clashes with locals bent on getting some sort of demented revenge.
Charles Bulliger (Ueli Jäggi), the owner of the sawmill, steps in to cool
things off. But he's got some "Dräck am Stäcke" as well.
With no other leads, the local police take a DNA swab from all the men who
were at the party -- because they'd determined from his corpse that Artan
had
had sex with a man recently. One of the cops Leo Mott was his lover and
messes with his own sample to throw off suspicion. It's not that he had
anything to do with the murders, but he's trying to avoid having anyone
learn
that he'd been having a love affair with Artan. Leo's wife knows he's at
the
very least bisexual, but also thinks he has his homosexuality "under
control". Wilder and police Chief Susan Walter (Manuela Biedermann) do the
legwork to find video footage at a hotel where the two men had made their
love nest. They find out that it's Mott despite his efforts.
Kägi, meanwhile, is on the trail of a rape case that's nearly two decades
old -- and involves his sister. He ties it to another rape in the town
from
11 years ago and then also to the recent murders. He thinks it's all the
same
person -- with eight different rapes over the years -- but which
mysteriously
stopped almost a decade ago.
Simon has his drug money, buys himself a new motorcycle and then takes off
with his girlfriend Adelina Kabashi (Artan's sister). They speed off into
France, heading for Paris. The drug dealers get onto their trail and
kidnap
Adelina to force Simon to give up the money. Luckily, Wilder, Kägi and an
awesome French cop named Jamel Jaoui (Raphael Roger Levy) quite literally
get
the drop on them and manage to arrest the drug boss before he can harm
either
Adelina or Simon.
After a while, the two are released to an overjoyed Kabashi family and a
troubled Kägi family (Simon catches his mother drinking again and flees
to
spend a few nights with his uncle Manfred in his camper van).
Wilder falls into bed with Jamel after flirting shamelessly with him for
several episodes. She's already got a kid from the "previous season"
(with dipshit
Dani,
of Oberwies). Dani doesn't know he's the dad when he drops in for dinner
at
her father Paul's place. Paul is out of prison and sorta/kinda trying to
get
back with his wife, who's sorta/kinda probably going to let him. She's
much
more forgiving than Rosa, who doesn't really want her son Tim to have
anything to do with Paul, which is, quite frankly, understandable,
considering Paul's actions of 30 years ago -- revealed in the previous
season
-- were responsible for her brother's death. Then Paul burns Tim's face
with
hot tea and Rosa is done with family for a bit.
It turns out that Manfred Kägi is right and the rapes over the last 20
years
are all connected and had been perpetrated by the same person. They
finally
discover that Susan Walter and her husband had hunted down the rapist 10
years ago but, instead of killing him, they imprisoned him in a cell deep
under ground and only accessible through a trap door in one of their horse
stalls. This is, quite frankly, disturbing to horrific, just thinking of
the
man locked in that spider hole for 10 years, interacting once per day for
his
meal, and that with the parents of one of the girls he'd raped and who'd
subsequently killed herself.
Susan releases him just hours before Wilder and Kägi show up. She took a
heroic dose of horse tranquilizer and is mere minutes before shuffling off
her mortal coil when Wilder finds her and takes her detailed confession.
The
rapist is found and collected, but no-one is really happy with how things
turned out. Kägi and his family, at least, have some closure.
Battlestar Galactica (s01-s02) (2004-2005) -- "7/10"
Season 1 starts at the end of long days of sleeplessness, with all of mankind
jumping their spaceships through warp space, one step ahead of the Cylons,
who attack every 33 minutes. The Cylons are descendants of mankind's
former
robots and servants and have developed to be nearly indistinguishable from
humans.
What is left of humanity is spread across several large spaceships,
dealing
with subterfuge from Cylon spies and trying to stay ahead of the Cylon
warships. Humanity has had to abandon its dozen colonies and is making a
gambit to fly back to Earth.
There are tensions between the civilian government, the press corps and
the
military hierarchy on Galactica. Doctor Baltar is a high-functioning
psycho
who helped the Cylons plan their attack, but who is now supposedly helping
humanity again. The press corps seems to be largely oblivious to their
actual
situation -- preferring to focus laser-like on civil-liberties issues when
vicious enemies come knocking on the door every few days, armed with
overwhelming and nearly unstoppable firepower. The civilian government as
well seems to have only a vague appreciation for the actual situation,
preferring instead to focus on power struggles and high-level
philosophical
discussion of liberties that would be fodder for discussion in a society
that
wasn't on it literal last legs.
The overall story arc is of infiltration by Cylons that are
indistinguishable
from humans -- though they reveal themselves in that there are only a few
models, some of which the humans have identified. Humanity is following
old
religious texts that seem to have more to do with reality than they'd at
first thought. These texts -- and a partial-turncoat Cylon -- are leading
the
remains of the human fleet back to Earth, following clues from the books.
The other Cylons are kind of aiding them in this task, presumably to find
out
where Earth is and possibly destroy it -- or possibly for some other,
higher,
purpose, like using humans to breed more advanced and resilient and
perhaps
varied versions of themselves. Halfway through the second season, it's
unclear where the chips are going to fall on this topic.
However, what is clear is that this is a very American show, with a large
dollop of hoo-rah militarism (largely justified, given the militaristic
situation in which they find themselves), a large dollop of religion -- on
both the part of a good part of what remains of humanity and also the
Cylons,
strangely enough (also somewhat justified, given that the prophesies in
the
books turn out to actually come true).
Every time the writing frustrates me to the point that I'm about to stop
watching, it takes an interesting twist that is more philosophically or
politically interesting than I'd expected. For example, one episode starts
with all of the pilots celebrating one of the pilot's 1000th flight in a
truly over-the-top and obnoxiously self-congratulatory manner -- it looks
like a damned frat party -- when a bomb falls off of a rack and kills
fourteen pilots. Did not see that coming.
Overall, the show seems to be a long arc of proving why humans kind of
deserve to die at the hands of the Cylons. They're mostly petty,
power-hungry
little bastards, unwilling to show any empathy or make any concessions to
the
significantly changed situation (i.e. dregs of humanity stranded in tin
cans
in the depths of space). It's not quite like reality TV, but often enough
a
bit too much like a soap opera, with cartoonishly evil people (see: entire
crew of the Pegasus) and simpleton/buffoons (much of the deck crew).
The show passes the time while I work out at home. I like Edward James
Olmos
as Commander Adama and Katee Sackhoff as Starbuck.
Silicon Valley S06 (2019) -- "8/10"
Called in to testify before Congress, Richard calls out Hooli, Facebook,
Amazon and Google for mining its user's data and then promises that Pied
Piper's "new Internet" will not allow anything of the sort. He is quickly
informed that the #1 game running on his network does exactly that.
Thinking
themselves clever, Jared and Richard mine Colin's (the gaming CEO) data
and
present it to him, thinking they'll blackmail him into a better business
model. Instead, he and his investors are impressed at how well Richard's
new
program mines data.
Desperate to get away from Colin, Richard woos a large Chilean investor,
who
offers $1 billion for 10% of the company. Richard and Monica don't know
what
to do and turn to Jared, who's trying to leave Pied Piper to get back to a
simpler time -- when he was needed. He ends up at Jian Yang's incubator,
where he meets his next programmer to mold.
Gavin, meanwhile, has sold most of Hooli to Amazon, but wants to keep a
leaner Hooli going anyway. Hooli gets so lean that Richard and Monica
hatch a
plan to buy it in order to drive away the hostile investor. Since the
other
investor is from Chile and Hooli owns a dating/prostitution app called
Foxhole that's heavily used by the military, they will be forced by law to
sell their stake. The plan works: Pied Piper buys Hooli and gets the
investor
off of their backs. However, the investor hooks up with Laurie Breem and
her
Chinese programming team as well as Colin, who jumps ship with his game.
YaoNet (Laurie's Chinese firm that she stole from Yang and brought
stateside)
outmaneuvers Pied Piper for AT&T, stealing their rollout in Hawaii. Pied
Piper is no longer allowed to use any of their Hooli IP (including the
phones) because of a Tethics pledge that Gavin made, calling for himself
to
be investigated for his transgressions as CEO -- he did this just to screw
Richard.
Russ Hanaman swoops in to save the day with RUSSFEST, which he wants Pied
Piper to network for him, out in the desert. They run into the same
network-scaling issues that YaoNet does in Hawaii (because Yao stole Pied
Piper's IP). Both networks are failing when Richard unleashes Son of Anton
2.0 (Dinesh's bumbling modifications to Gilfoyle's AI) on RUSSFEST. After
an
initial failed start, it regains its feet and optimizes the network to a
heretofore unimagined efficiency.
The final episode is years in the future. It details how Pied Piper
decided
to shut down Son of Anton instead of letting it loose on humanity --
despite
the massive financial upside for them personally. Pied Piper is no more.
They've all moved on to other things, doing well enough for themselves and
generally happy with their decision not have started SkyNet.
A Marriage Story (2019) -- "6/10"
Nora (Laura Dern) is like a cloying Californian praying mantis. She's so
obviously superficial that Johansson must be so desperate to be dumping
her
whole story to this woman. Nicole is so desperate that she immediately
gives
all of her decisions and life over to Nora rather than Charlie.
The problem is her personality, not Charlie.
It feels like she's reading me a NYT Bestseller.
Everybody tells everybody what to do. Shit rolls downhill from Charlie to
Nicole to her mom. Nicole's mom and sister are useless and insane. It's
unclear whether Nicole is in the same class.
Charlie wins the McArthur Grant. He tells Nicole when he visits her on her
TV-show shoot in California. The TV people are gloriously shallow.
Their child is a typical brat, in charge of his parents.
Charlie gets a lawyer (Ray Liotta). He costs 900 per hour. They advise him
to
get the kid to New York City. They quote him 50,000 right out of the gate.
Wait until they find out about the McArthur grant. They go on the
offensive
immediately.
"Criminal lawyers see bad people at their best, divorce lawyers see good
people at their worst."
Back in New York. The theater people aren't much better. Wallace Shawn is
a
dirty old man. Nora plays hardball and lays it out like for him. Charlie
has
to defend himself in LA or lose his child forever. They're going to take
everything and his kid. And he has to get a lawyer to make sure that
whatever
assets they have are transferred to rich lawyers in LA.
I couldn't recommend this movie to anyone because it pushes buttons a
little
deliberately, unremittedly, without any nice or funny bits. Literally
everyone is shallow and horrible.
Charlie finally finds Burt Spitz (Alan Alda). $450 per hour. He also has
to
pay for her lawyer as well. Because he's the man. He couldn't take any of
the
other lawyers because she'd seen them all already.
Nicole plays the naif, but she seems to have gamed things quite well.
Charlie shows up and starts gaslighting Nicole about her hair. She lies
about
her family not wanting to be with him on Halloween.
Charlie doesn't even realize that his marriage is already over and his
divorce is a done deal and his wife has moved to CA with his son and he's
going to lose everything. And just wait until they get wind of his grant.
She'll be a millionaire.
She hacked into his e-mails and read all about his affair. Now its
hardball
for real. It's kind of neat to see how the most horrible people in the
world
(the lawyers) discuss their lives and solve their problems for them.
Charlie
has to pretend to care what they think.
The divorce is all about the most useless member of the family: Henry, the
boy. Charlie's lawyer's advice is for Charlie to move to LA. Forget his
theater company. Nora is now in charge of Nicole. The system is pushing
the
father out of the equation.
Charlie should have just given up at the beginning, left the kid, limited
the
amount of effort he wastes on the whole situation. Burt recommends he just
give up now (after cutting a $25,000 check) and see Henry when he maybe
goes
to college on the East Coast.
Nicole manipulates Charlie into coming over (because of a blackout), cuts
his
hair and then tried to keep Henry "because he's asleep".
Charlie gets a new lawyer: the original one, Ray Liotta, for $900/hour.
Nora
pretends to be pissed, but now she's going to get more money. The lawyers
are
idiots, but they're the only ones allowed to talk.
Charlie's lawyer chastises him for having deposited his first year's grant
money into a joint account. Charlie responds that there won't be any money
left anyway.
Now that there's an evaluator involved, Nicole's terrified of Henry being
interviewed and now wants to discuss without lawyers. Charlie wanted that
weeks and dozens of thousands of dollars ago.
She yells at him for gettng a new lawyer. He says "I needed my own
asshole."
I'm wondering if this excruciatingly long two-person scene is why they
were
nominated for Oscars. Charlie: "You don't want a voice, you just wanna
fucking complain about not having a voice."
Their negotiation doesn't go well. So the evaluator shows up. She's a very
spacy woman. She wonders why he doesn't want to live in LA. It's nice.
"And
the space." This is the only funny line in the movie. It's a callback to
all
of the other Californians who repeat this like a mantra.
Now they're eating a "normal" dinner. The evaluator sits at the table, but
doesn't eat. After dinner, it's learning time. How is not being able to
read
the word "time" at age eight not a learning disability?
Charlie cuts himself accidentally with his penknife, showing the evaluator
a
trick that he does incorrectly. He's bleeding like a stuck pig, but
ignores
it. So does she, leaving him to deal with it on his own. Spacy. Charlie
faints. His son walks out to get water and doesn't find anything out of
the
ordinary.
At the divorce party, Nicole sings and dances with her family. She gave up
her claim on the McArthur money (Nora wasn't happy about that at all).
Nora's
still running the show. Charlie's in NY, also singing painfully. This
movie
won't end.
I didn't find this movie "profound" or "heartbreaking". If you're not
anything like the people in this movie (or don't really know people like
them), then it won't speak to you at all. It's full of manipulative people
willing to burn everything for temporary bullshit. So, normal people.
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019) -- "6/10"
Jason Statham and Dwayne Johnson as Shaw and Hobbs, respectively, get
together to save the world, specifically to save Shaw's sister Hattie
(Vanessa Kirby), who's infected herself with a world-slaying virus that
will
kill her and infect the world if not purged within 72 hours. She was
ostensibly working for/with Brixton (Idris Elba), a genetically and
cybernetically enhanced human, working for the shadowy and ludicrously
well-funded, well-supplied, and well-connected organization Eteon.
They both kick a lot of ass and have boatloads of charisma. Elba and Kirby
are good as well, but the plot is ludicrous and it goes on a bit too long.
Elba's indestructibility is a bit at-odds with the rest of the film. They
end
up on Samoa (somehow) for a showdown between old and new tech, in which
old
tech and "duking it out" and "teamwork" wins the day.
It's not a great movie, but it's entertaining enough, if a bit long. Idris
Elba chews a lot of scenery, but he's got the best character arc of them
all.
Hellen Mirren returns as mama Shaw, but doesn't play a big role.
Knives Out (2019) -- "6/10"
This is a classic whodunnit in the style of Murder on the Orient Express,
with Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) playing the role of Hercule Poirot. He
investigates the supposed suicide but suspected murder of world-famous
author
Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer). The cast is at the same time
spectacular and disappointing. The names are impressive: Chris Evans,
Jamie
Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, LaKeith Stanfield, and more.
There's a by-now classic switcharoo of a switcharoo that fails to satisfy
--
I think writer/director Rian Johnson outsmarted himself and made a trite
whodunnit. The family members are uniformly awful and even the young
home-care nurse Marta (Ana de Armas) is bland and boring. It was a decent
film with a great and underutilized cast that never really caught my
attention.
The only nice person wins in the end, so hooray. It felt like quite a
Disney-fied experience
Parks and Recreation S01-S07 (2009-2015) -- "9/10"
What is there to say about this uniformly spectacular seven-season epic about
the employees and friends of the civic government and, specifically, the
Parks department, in Pawnee, Indiana that hasn't already been said?
It's wonderfully written, with an interesting overall show arc, character
arcs for each of the unique characters and season arcs that end
satisfyingly
and leave you hoping for more. People complain about season one's
aimlessness, but that's neither here nor there. The characters are already
present and its a good watch: just because ensuring seasons soared to much
greater heights takes nothing away from season one's modesty. Season seven
also gets its own share of umbrage because of "fan service" but this
applies
to at most one or one-and-a-half episodes of the 13-episode season. The
rest
of the season builds characters and brings character arcs to believable
and
well-earned conclusions.
The main character is definitely Leslie Knope (the irrepressible and
amazing
Amy Poehler), the deputy director and later councilwoman of Pawnee. She is
a
great believer in government and an ethos of general goodness and
civic-minded leftishness.
Her boss is Ron Swanson (Nick Offerman), her political polar opposite but
still eventual and somewhat grudging ally.
Andy Dwyer is a dumb but nice shoeshine guy (Chris Pratt), former
boyfriend
of Ann Perkins (Rashida Jones), nurse and part-time Parks employee.
April Ludgate (Aubrey Plaza) is a former intern turned Ron's assistant
turned
deputy director of the Parks department who struggles to balance her
innate
weirdness with a respect for Leslie's optimism and ethics.
Tom Haverford (Aziz Ansari) works there too, managing publicity and
events.
Jerry/Gary/Larry Gergich (Jim O'Heir) is the office klutz.
Donna Meagle (Retta) has an unknown function, but is a cool and calm and
collected addition to the office who owns property in Seattle as well as
Pawnee (and a piece of the club that Tom owns as well). She and Tom have a
lot in common, but the schtick works much better for her than Tom.
Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) shows up early as the "bad cop" half of a
budget-cleanup team sent to Pawnee. He and Leslie fall in love, marry and
move on to one success after another (as well as having triplets).
Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe) is a diehard optimist and health fanatic and is
an
all-around spectacular character as well. He ends up with Ann Perkins.
Once you've met them, you can't imagine any of the characters being played
by
other actors. They inhabit the roles in completely believable ways. There
are
a ton of recurring characters, each with their own unique characteristics
(Tom's ridiculous friend Jean Ralphio, or his father, nemesis to Tom,
played
by Henry Winkler).
There is no laugh track and the format is a semi-documentary with much
breaking of the fourth wall via glances (á la The Office). Highly
recommended. Funny as hell and well-intentioned to a fault: there are no
really mean characters. Uplifting.
Black Sea (2014) -- "7/10"
Jude Law is a former British Navy man let go by the salvage company he works
for. From a friend, he learns of a Nazi submarine full of Soviet gold at
the
bottom of the Black Sea.
This is kind of like a somewhat smarter Armageddon. There is a ton of
tension. The Russian crew and the British crew fight. The banker who goes
with them just wants them to abandon the gold when the going gets tough,
because he knows that the mission was funded by Law's old company Agora,
which is funding the dive and will confiscate the gold from the poor
suckers
who get it off the ocean floor. The rich come out on top, no matter what.
The motor blows out and they go down, but close enough to the other sub to
steal its drive and the gold. The banker owns up to the fact that they
were
never meant to get a dime. They threaten to kill him, but Law protects
him,
pleading that they need him to help drive the sub to a secret port in
Turkey.
But first they have to navigate ludicrously narrow shallows, using only
sonar
and luck. They are on the edge of mutiny at all times, with the banker
sowing
unrest, trying to save his own ass. Law is going mad, but he's determined
not
to go home poor -- or let any of the other sad sacks on board do so.
He is flouted by Fraser killing the machinist Zaytsev at the banker's
behest,
so that they don't have enough people to run the sub. They try to lie and
pretend that Zaytsev just hit his head on something, but they all know the
banker and Fraser are lying. The others know what happened and Daniels the
banker demands that they now go up, just as he wanted. I have no idea why
they don't just shoot him. Perhaps so that he is allowed to cause even
more
trouble later. He is already rich and will be richly rewarded anyway.
Fraser
now has killed two people and has Peters's death on his conscience, but
he's
also allowed to continue onward.
Something blows up on the old sub and they start to drop again, dropping
very, very, very far into the depths. The crew now just wants to survive
rather than get out with the gold. Of course, if they hadn't all sabotaged
the damned boat the whole time, it would be doing a bit better.
Instead, there is a lot of water and fire in the boat. Fucking Daniels is
still alive, somehow. He somehow figures out how to lock a hatch and dooms
a
few more men to their deaths by drowning them. He gets stuck in the hatch
and
Morozov leaves him in the lurch on purpose. He rejoins Robinson and Tobin
above. They are the only ones remaining.
Robinson admits that he was hiding the escape suits (although there are
only
three of them) because he didn't want anyone to give up too early. Morozov
demands to know why they all had to die for Robinson's quest to stick it
to
the man. Morozov and Tobin go out the tubes; the sub is lost. Robinson is
left alone, with no-one to release the tube for him, alone with the gold.
He smokes a last cigarette while sitting on his gold, surrounded by levers
and dials and valve handles, with water spraying in everywhere.
A suit does pop up to join Morozov and Tobin, but it's just got a picture
of
Robinson's kid and dozens of gold bars.
Mark Maron: End Times Fun (2020) -- "7/10"
I really like the first half, which played to Mark's conversational comic's
strengths. He's razor-sharp and smart and very witty. He has a great voice
and a lovely, soothing tempo. I liked the first half much better than the
second half, where he got mired down in a giant, long story that reminded
me
of how Bill Burr lost his way in his recent special Paper Tiger. Overall,
I'd
watch it again, but the first half was twice as good as the second.
If you watch it now, during the Corona Quarantine, you'll be struck by his
bit at the 27-minute mark, Maron says,
"Haven't we been entertained enough? Like, isn't there something that will
could bring everyone together and make us realize that we've like got to
put
a stop to like almost everything. Right? Oh my God. What would it take?
Something terrible. That's what brings people together. Nothing good.
Occasionally a concert outdoors, but that never really goes anywhere. It's
gotta be something bad ... and big ... to get everyone to fucking snap out
of
this ... whatever it is ... trance, of like ... well, I think we kind of
do
it adaptively, I think it's sort of like, "I'm doing what I can in my
life",
well, you know, that's not good enough. I don't know what it would it
would
take. What? Would the sky have to catch on fire? Would we all just have to
walk outside and look up and ... oh, we fucked it. The fucking sky's on
fire.
Goddammit. I knew we were in trouble, but fuck, it made the jump from land
to
sky."
Taylor Tomlinson: Quarter-Life Crisis (2020) -- "9/10"
She's young, pretty, and tells jokes that speak of experience that is far
beyond what her 25 years could possibly encompass. But she makes it work.
She
makes it believable. She's not a filthy comic, but she doesn't work clean.
She's wickedly funny and has spent time tuning her material. Unlike Maron,
it
didn't feel like she was stretching her set to fit Netflix's 1-hour
requirement.
Her set is well-worth checking out
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=38902020-02-02T21:11:08+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1400
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of around 1400 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.
The Irishman (2019) -- "6/10"
This is a fictionalization of the murder of Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), directed
by Martin Scorsese. Actually, it's the story of the life of Frank Sheeran
(Robert DeNiro), an Irishman who made his way to the highest echelons of
an
American-Italian crime family.
The movie is 3.5 hours long and slowly paced. It tells the story of how
Sheeran meets, is befriended and becomes employed by already-established
crime boss Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci). Sheeran soon becomes an enforcer
for
the family and the unions that it supports. He helps them cheat the
inspectors and we also see how lawyers like Russell's son Bill (Ray
Romano)
help keep the federal wolves at bay.
For a while, the needs of the workers align with the morals of the family.
Soon, though, the family sees too much opportunity in the pension fund
worth
billions: they want to dip into it for loans to build Las Vegas, among
other
lucrative land deals. Since they have such an interest in the investment
they've made in Hoffa, the family assigns Sheeran to be his main
bodyguard.
They become good friends, spending time with each other's families. For
whatever reason, it's important to point out that, while Frank's daughter
Peg
doesn't like Russell or even her own father [1], she takes to Jimmy
immediately. Though the film spends a lot of time throughout on Peg's
disapproval, it has absolutely no bearing on the story in any way.
Hoffa is less interested in satisfying all of the family's wishes. Though
he's also half a mobster, he retains some of his initial revolutionary
fervor
and won't simply rubber-stamp everything the family asks for. There is
also
an up-and-comer in the family. Relative to Russell's comparative old-world
placidity and charm, he a young, obnoxious and crude whippersnapper named
Anthony Provenzano (Stephen Graham). He gets under Hoffa's skin nearly
immediately.
Frank is hired to whack another gangster Joe Gallo (Sebastian Maniscalco).
This is one of the most visually interesting parts of the movie, but also
has
literally nothing to do with the main plot (other than to perhaps show
what a
consummate and unfeeling professional Frank is, but we learn this because
Frank tells us in the narration).
The family does its best to get John F. Kennedy elected because he's
promised
to get rid of that bastard Castro for them -- so that they can sweep back
into Cuba and start up their lucrative casino businesses again. Hoffa is
livid because he hates the Kennedys -- and they hate him. Robert Kennedy,
in
particular, keeps hunting until he manages to nail Hoffa on something
that's
much more minor than the egregious influence-peddling he was actually
guilty
of. While Jimmy's in prison for four years, his replacement Frank
Fitzsimmons
(Gary Basaraba) provides the requisite rubber-stamping.
Kennedy soon falls out of favor with the family and it is intimated that
the
family had a lot to do with assassinating him. [2] With a lot of money and
influence, Hoffa gets the new president Nixon to commute his sentence and
he's out, determined to get "his union" back. This makes far too many
waves
for the family and they register their "concern", using Sheeran as the
errand
boy to deliver the news to Hoffa that he has one last chance to straighten
up
and fly right, to shut his trap and stop causing trouble. He doesn't take
it.
It's clear that he knows the danger, but that he doesn't care.
A road trip for Russell, Frank and their wives twines its way throughout
the
film. That is, throughout the first 2.75 hours of the film, we see them
headed on a road trip to a meeting that they would never attend -- because
the mission was actually to get Frank close enough to puddle-jump up to
Detroit and whack Jimmy. Frank foreshadows this at one point when he says,
"I'm behind you, Jimmy, all the way."
With Jimmy out of the picture, the family should be riding high, but
they're
soon individually taken down by either health or legal problems or both.
Several of them -- Russell and Frank, in particular -- end up in prison
together. Russell dies there, but Frank is eventually released to a
nursing
home. He's doddering but sufficiently in control of his faculties to avoid
revealing anything about his role in the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa.
There's been a lot of buzz about this movie [3]: the flashbacks, the
out-of-order storytelling, the CGI de-aging, the collection of
Italian-American actors with long pedigrees (and longer teeth), Scorsese's
return to the genre that made his name. I haven't heard very much from the
usual sources about how there's just one black man in it (holding a gun
and
assassinating someone and on-screen for only seconds) and that the very
few
women and girls are pure window dressing with almost no lines (e.g. they
are
allowed to annoy the men by constantly asking them to stop the road trip
so
that they can take cigarette breaks).
It was only when I read other reviews that I realized why people were
complaining that the de-aging wasn't good enough. It looked fine to me
while
watching -- although it was, at times, difficult to tell in which decade
something was supposed to be happening, it also didn't really matter --
but I
wasn't aware that they were trying to make DeNiro look 30 years old. The
de-aging failed miserably at that. He never looked less than 55. Neither
did
Pacino. This didn't really matter to the film, though. I honestly can't
figure out where they managed to spend $160 million on this movie, so I'm
going to surmise that it was a money-laundering operation for the mob.
It's a long-ass movie. There are some nice shots, to be sure, but 90% of
the
film is people talking to each other -- usually a two-person conversation.
Some of the conversations are comically long for their content. I can see
this technique being used for emphasis, but it felt interminable in most
cases. Just a couple of goombahs talking past each other for ten minutes.
While this is most definitely Tarentino's thing, it's not so much
Scorcese's.
People are talking about Pacino's and DeNiro's acting chops, but they just
looked old and tired (they move like old men because they are old men).
DeNiro's job was to look stone-faced and he did that well. They even
crammed
in Harvey Keitel as Angelo Bruno, but he had absolutely nothing to do with
the movie other than filling a booth in an Italian restaurant a couple of
times. Just watching these actors [4] do another reasonably decent movie
in
the genre of other good movies they've been in wasn't enough for me. It
doesn't stand on its own and I couldn't muster up the extra psychic
fan-boy
bolstering required to make me like it more.
The last 45 minutes is literally watching Frank grow old. Nothing happens.
That's OK, of course. It certainly says something, but did it need to
extend
the movie to 3.5 hours to say it? I kept waiting for something awesome to
happen, for a scintillating bit of dialogue, for a truly lovely
cinematographic flourish, but it never happened. I was never moved.
The movie felt incredibly self-indulgent, but I'm not sure who was
indulged.
Was the director making a comment about what happens when you bring
together
a bunch of rich, white old guys and ask them to make a movie about their
favorite topic? Was it trying to tell the story of Jimmy Hoffa? Was it
making
a point about America? About capitalism? About crime? About racism? [5]
About
unions? About ... what? Points off for taking two movie lengths to tell
half
a story.
Ricky Gervais: Humanity (2018) -- "10/10"
I'd just seen "SuperNature"
, which was
amazing,
just so good, so ludicrously irreverent and so funny. The haters just
gonna
hate. This show from just a year and a half before was very similar in
structure, though he discussed his Golden Globes hosting in this show,
though
he didn't do so in SuperNature. One of his jokes was about Caitlin Jenner:
"She became a role model for trans people everywhere, showing great bravery
in breaking down barriers and destroying stereotypes. She didn’t do a
lot
for women drivers, though."
He had a bit about losing a baby, completely not caring about whether it
would trigger any snowflakes in the audience. "I'd have to text my wife,
wouldn't I?"
He talked about his Twitter escapades, "Please don't worship me. I'm just
an
ordinary guy, with lots of followers trying to spread my message. Sort of
like Jesus Christ I guess."
It's 80 minutes long and packed full. There's a "Full Transcript"
available.
John Mulaney's Sack Lunch Bunch (2019) -- "5/10"
John Mulaney's latest effort is a kid's show where the kids play in skits and
sing songs that are not for kids at all, really. Special guests are
Richard
Kind, David Byrne (musical guest), Natasha Lyonne, and Jake Gyllenhaal
(also
kind of a musical guest). There were some clever bits and it was a
refreshing
change from other specials, but there was too much child-singing for me.
Big Bang Theory S12 (2019) -- "9/10"
This final season sees Sheldon (Jim Parsons) and Amy (Mayim Bialik) settling
into married life while working on a "super-asymmetry" theory together.
Howard (Simon Helberg) and Bernadette (Melissa Rauch) balance their two
kids
with her work schedule. Leonard (Johnny Galecki) and Penny (Kaley Cuoco)
deal
with her utter lack of interest in having children. Stuart (Kevin Sussman)
makes cautious headway with Denise (Lauren Lapkus), his girlfriend and
assistant manager at his comic-book store. Raj (Kunal Nayyar) almost
marries
Anu (Rati Gupta) in an arranged marriage, but they drop it and settle for
dating instead.
Major plot lines are that Amy and Sheldon's paper is a breakthrough and
may
earn them the Nobel. Leonard gets himself a new laser. Penny gets promoted
to
push Bernadette's newly approved drug and works more closely with her. Amy
continues her manipulation of Sheldon to get him to strongly consider
children, if only for their experimental possibilities (though he's always
been adamant that theory trumps experiment). As noted above, Raj and Anu
had
both given up on romance and decided to arrange a marriage, but then
realized
that they do like each other and want to give it a go romance-style
instead.
Wil Wheaton's got a Dungeons and Dragons group with William Shatner,
Kareem
Adbul Jabbar, and Joe Manganiello.
The finale roars in with a Nobel Prize ceremony with all in attendance.
The
first half of the final episode is terrible. There was a manufactured
controversy about Sheldon being an asshole and the other four whining and
threatening to go home, literally like children. Sheldon's speech honoring
his friends' contribution to his achievement is sweet and well-written,
saving the episode, but in no way earning it the 9.6 rating that it has on
IMDb (people are just sheep).
It's got a laugh track, but the jokes are flying fast and furious and the
whole crew is firing on all cylinders with their characters. I think a lot
of
it is due to Chuck Lorre's writing, but also give credit where credit is
due:
these actors are living these characters at this point.
Wilder S01 (2017) -- "8/10"
Rosa Wilder (Sarah Spale) is a policewoman originally from the fictional
Bernese village of Oberwies in Switzerland (which is actually Urnerboden
in
Glarus). She returns to visit her parents and celebrate with the town as
they
get approval for a large new spa that promises to reinvigorate -- or ruin,
depending on whom you ask -- the local economy. The town's benefactor is
Karim al-Baroudi, an Egyptian investor. His daughter is Amina al-Baroudi
(Amira El Sayed), student of internationally renowned artist and the
town's
favorite son Armon Todt (Christian Kohlund). Manfred Kägi (Marcus Signer)
is
there representing the BPK (Bundeskantonspolizei) on behalf of another of
the
town's successful citizens Bundesanwältin Barbara Rossi.
Thirty years ago, the town suffered a tragedy when 12 children were killed
in
an avalanche. Their teacher and schoolbus driver Béatrice Räber
(Emanuela
von Frankenberg) was never the same. She would marry Robert Räber
(László
I. Kish), the mayor of Oberwies. She's not really of sound mind and often
wanders the streets and forests at night in a daze, searching for the
children.
On the night of the announcement that the spa was to be built, Armon is
murdered and Amina goes missing. Young Jakob Siegenthaler is a local
ne'er-do-well who likes filming things and smoking pot. He's a witness,
but
highly unreliable. The local hotelier Martin is also somehow involved. He
actually hit Amina with his car, sending her to the hospital and into an
artificial coma. Kägi has a history with Amina's bodyguard.
Robert is delighted with the building plans and is quite an asshole for
much
of the series, though it turns out that his machinations are far less
Machiavellian than they initially appear. Barbara, Rosa's father Paul,
Armon
and another young man "The Pirate" turn out to have been the unknown cause
behind the avalanche. They caused it to draw attention to NERATOM, a
company
whose building projects were threatening the untouched nature of the
region.
Instead, they killed most of the town's children, including Rosa's brother
Markus.
There are a lot of twists and turns but those are the broad outlines. It
was
quite well-filmed and mostly well-acted, with only a few hollow notes. The
dialect was an interesting mix of German, French and English. Kägi knew
Arabic from his tour in Lebanon (which is how he recognized the bodyguard,
who turns out to have been the murderer or his life-partner). All in all,
a
high-quality show with the extra flair of having been shot in what were
for
me highly recognizable locations (the Klöntalersee features heavily). I
saw
it in Swiss German.
Doom Patrol S01 (2019) -- "5/10"
This is the story of several people with supernatural powers, all living
together in a mansion together. The pilot introduces us to Cliff Steele
(Brendan Fraser, who would, after an initial backstory, only be providing
the
voice for a completely metal robot called, unsurprisingly, Robotman), a
former race-car driver who gets into a horrific car accident, killing his
wife, but not his daughter.
We also meet '50s movie star Rita Farr, who'd ingested some spooky green
river spirit that imbued her with body-morphing capabilities over which
she
has nearly no control -- even after several decades. She is called
Elasti-Girl, but the parts I saw just had her transform to a mindless
blob.
That she looks much younger than her years can be explained away by her
ability to control her elasticity, I guess.
There is also a 60s-era test pilot Larry Trainor, whose "power" is utterly
unclear, other than that he is also inhabited by some seemingly
extraterrestrial spirit that leaves his body and does electrical stuff.
He's
called Negative Man in the credits, but it's unclear why.
Crazy Jane (Diane Guerrero) has, apparently, 64 personalities, each with,
apparently, its own superpower. She doesn't seem to be in control of any
of
the switches even though she, like the others, has had decades to try to
get
it under control. She, like the others, looks much younger than her
supposed
years.
Timothy Dalton plays Niles Caulder, whom they call Chief. He owns the
mansion
and runs their team as they spend every evening watching television for
decades. He seems to be terrible at running his crew, even though he's
also
confined to a wheelchair, suspiciously like Professor X.
Their to-them-unknown nemesis is Mr. Nobody (Alan Tudyk), a man who'd paid
a
Nazi scientist in Argentina to transform him into something with
super-powers
and who appears as some sort of extradimensional tetris/jigsaw puzzle or
farting donkey with a bagful of weak jokes and fourth-wall-breakages.
Cyborg (Joivan Wade) is a cybernetically enhanced young man whose father
experiments with him. He joins the Doom Patrol as they get to figure out
what
the hell Mr. Nobody wants.
I watched the pilot of season one, which slogged its way through all of
the
origin stories, narrated by Mr. Nobody. The second episode introduced
Cyborg,
who's just a very stilted character. He meets Cliff in the ruins of a town
that was the recent site of the Patrol's first encounter with Mr. Nobody.
When they meet Jane, she goes through about half-a-dozen personalities,
which
is when I stopped watching because it was just terrible. I chopped off a
few
extra points from my score and stand by that rating for the part I'd
watched.
Detachment (2019) -- "8/10"
Mr. Henry Barthes (Adrien Brody) is a substitute teacher at a broken
inner-city high school. His grandfather is in an old-age home, a shadow of
his former self: "I don't remember much. I'm mostly habit. You can't think
in
this place. You can't make new memories." Henry's mother exists only in
his
memory, where we see flashes that suggest that she drank herself to death.
At school, he is detached, but a less hopeless teacher than many of the
others at his school. They are an interesting bunch. The principal is
played
by Marcia Gay Harden (her husband is Bryan Cranston). James Caan,
Christina
Hendricks, Lucy Liu, Blythe Danner, Tim Blake Nelson play the teachers,
all
with varying levels of desperation and resignedness.
Barthes meets a teenage prostitute Erica (Sami Gayle) and takes her in.
After
a rocky start, she starts taking care of him. He takes care of her. She
takes
a call from the old-age home and sits with his grandfather all day. She is
there when he tells his grandfather it's OK for him to "go" -- speaking in
his mother's voice because grandpa thinks he's talking to his daughter.
They
visit a park afterward and he tells her about his mother's death. She'd
overdosed and he'd found her sprawled naked in a closet. He says that he
suspects that his grandfather had done something to her, once, when she
was
younger.
Erica finds his writings and drawings. A fellow artist and student
Meredith
(Betty Kaye) visits him in his classroom by herself. She's torn up and
doesn't know who to turn to -- she's horribly lonely. She cites his speech
from class, where the world is just broken shell, ready to eat everyone
alive. She crushes on Barthes and tries to hug him, asking him to just
hold
her. He can't really, although he knows she just needs some human contact.
Ms. Madison (Christine Hendricks) comes in just at that moment and, of
course, assumes the worst. He flips out on her, telling her to stop being
so
judgmental.
Barthes's grandfather dies. Erica accompanies him to pick up his effects.
Barthes doubts his career: "These kids need something else. They don't
need
me." They're eating breakfast together when there's a knock on the door.
He's
called social services. She's devastated. So is he. But it can't go on.
His
apartment looks emptier than ever.
It's parent-teacher night. Almost no parents show up.
"I was in my room for 2 hours and saw one parent. Where are they? Where is
everybody? It's uncanny, no air raid sirens, not bombs. It doesn't happen
that way. It starts with a whisper, and then nothing."
Principal Dearden (Marcia Gay Harden) calls a conference to announce major
changes, but speaker Clay Davis (Sheeee-it) just talks about property
values
and how the school has to get better in order to attract a better type of
person. The teachers literally don't know how to process this. They accost
him and leave, disgusted.
Meredith makes a collage with pictures of Barthes and her parents. Their
eyes
are all gone. No-one really sees her. She bakes cupcakes, presenting them
at
a school fair. Mr. Barthes talks to her and she chooses a cupcake for him
--
she won't let him have the dark-green, sad-looking one. That one's for
her.
To no-one's surprise, she commits suicide with that cupcake. It was
Barthes's
last day.
Barthes recites Poe to his class. They are all there, except Meredith. Her
chair is empty. Papers fly everywhere, a veritable snowstorm of detritus
raining down on a classroom that has fewer students and then no students.
Then it's just Barthes in a destroyed classroom in a closed school
reciting
Poe's poems.
Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood (2019) -- "9/10"
We meet Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), an actor with what might be his most
successful days behind him. Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) is his best friend and
occasional stunt double. It is February 1969. Dalton's greatest success
was
in the 50s with a series called Bounty Law. Dalton is star-struck that
Roman
Polanski and his wife, starlet Sharon Tate, have moved in next door. To
cement their star status, we see them at a party at the Playboy Mansion.
Dalton is on a set with a rare job. Booth is not needed for this, so he
returns home to repair a TV antenna. Pitt's on the roof with his shirt
off,
revealing deep scars that tell of a life well-lived -- and of a man
capable
of defending himself. He remembers the time he fought Bruce Lee to a
standstill on a set, just before he was fired for doing so. Sharon Tate
wanders Hollywood and stops at a theater to watch herself in her latest
film.
Booth finishes the repair and is out driving when he picks up Pussycat, a
hitchhiker he's seen several times. She's living out at Spahn's Ranch with
her "friends" (the Manson family/cult, it turns out). While there, Booth
checks up on George Spahn (Bruce Dern), whom he knows from his days with
Dalton on Bounty Law. Squeaky Fromme (Dakota Fanning) is unable to
dissuade
Booth from going in to visit with George, who's "sleeping, because I
fucked
his brains out". Booth comes back out to find one tire slashed and he
beats
the guy who did it into repairing the tire for him. He leaves just before
"Tex" shows up to teach him a lesson (or so the family thought it would
go).
At the same time, Dalton at first falters, then yells at himself in his
trailer in an epic performance, then actually kills it on the set of his
latest show (Lancer), where he is, once again, playing "the heavy". He
does
so well that he attracts the attention of the second-most-famous director
of
Spaghetti Westerns, Sergio Corbucci. Dalton resists, but soon realizes
that
he has no choice. Dalton and Booth travel to Italy to make four films in
quick succession. They return with Dalton's new Italian wife Francesca in
tow.
Dalton's finances aren't what they once were and he tells Booth that he's
going to have to let him go -- but not before they spend one more night
out
drinking to celebrate their career together. Booth takes his pitbull
Brandy
for a walk, smoking his acid cigarette. Dalton makes Margaritas. He hears
a
loud car out front and goes out to run it off. He berates the four members
of
Manson's crew who'd shown up to kill everyone in Tate's house. He runs
them
off. They retreat down the hill. Dalton floats in his pool with headphones
on. Francesca sleeps, jetlagged. Booth returns home with Brandy.
The four Manson Family members come back and break into Dalton's home
instead, determined to exact revenge on him for having yelled at them and
"taught them how to murder" (with his films, naturally, as part of the
societal killing machine that they've chosen to blame for any action they
take). They instead find a very drunk and high Booth, who recognizes them
from the ranch:
"Cliff Booth: Oh, I know you. I know all three of you! Yeah, Spahn Ranch!
Spahn Ranch, yeah! Woo!
Cliff Booth: I don't know your name, but I remember that hair.
Cliff Booth: And you, I remember your white little face.
Cliff Booth: And you were on a horsey! Yeah... you are?
Tex: I'm the Devil. And I'm here to do the Devil's business.
Cliff Booth: ...Nah, it was dumber than that. Something like Rex.
Sadie: God, shoot him, Tex!
Cliff Booth: Tex!"
As with Inglourious Basterds, Tarentino imagines a slightly better world.
In
that film, Hitler and his whole coterie of top leaders were killed in
Paris
before they could do any more damage. In this movie, Cliff Booth and his
dog
Brandy beat the ever-loving life out of the assholes from Manson's Family
who'd actually slaughtered Sharon Tate and her friends at their home in
our
timeline.
Tarentino kept the story 100% accurate (dining at El Coyote, for example)
right up until the point where they chose a home to invade. Instead of
ending
the evening dead along with her unborn child, Tate and Sebring ended up
inviting Dalton in to her party while Francesca slept with Brandy and
Booth
recovered in a local hospital from eminently survivable wounds. The end.
Happy ending.
Each scene, taken individually, is lovely, but contributes only a bit to
the
overall story. Each one could be taken away without losing the thread. But
each one contributed in its own way. Tarentino and crew's craft brings the
world of late '60s Hollywood to unblemished life. Every little detail
contributes. The cars, the storefronts, the way one moved in that world,
were
all perfect. For example, the change in the ashtray, acid cigarettes,
hitchhikers, endless sunshine, the clothes, the hair, the language.
Brad Pitt has perfected the dry delivery. He has so many seemingly
lackadaisically delivered lines that just land beautifully. When Dalton is
in
the parking lot with him, telling him "It's official, old buddy. I'm a
has-been.", Booth hands him his sunglasses, "Here, put these on. Don't cry
in
front of the Mexicans." (referring to the valets). It's racist, of course,
but it's appropriate for the character and the time.
All of the members of Manson's gang existed (see the "Once Upon a Time in
Hollywood"
page, which links the bios of all of the portrayed individuals.
Midsommar (2019) -- "6/10"
The director of Hereditary Ari Aster's sophomore slump is a languorous and
quite pretty low-key horror movie with creepiness, ritualized murder and
no
jump scares. The lack of jump scares isn't the problem. The problem is
more
the cast, characterization, and the sheer amount of time they're allowed
to
spend on the screen in what feels for the first hour like a mumblecore
film.
Dani (Florence Pugh) is a sad young woman. That's it. She's sad. What is
her
education? Her job? Her convictions? We do not know nor do we find out. We
are supposed to ally ourselves with her, though, of that I'm fairly
certain
(#believeher, #imwithher). She is Christian's (Jack Reynor) girlfriend.
Director Ari Aster films her in extreme closeup for the first half an
hour.
She's pretty. She has great skin. A lovely mouth. She is very emotional.
She
does what she can with the rather slow-moving material.
Christian is a PhD candidate, along with several of his friends: Pelle
(Vilhelm Blomgren), Josh (William Jackson Harper), and Mark (Will
Poulter).
There's a bunch of horseshit relationship stuff where we're clearly
expected
to pick sides between Christian and Dani, but it's hard to care when we've
just met them. Aster may think he's provided enough information to make an
informed choice, but he has not. I am probably very lonely in thinking
this,
though (see linked review below).
Aster is clearly expecting us all to read our own context into this -- but
it's not actually there in the film. This would be a recurring theme, with
the film throwing a bunch of neat-looking stuff onto the table and asking
the
viewer to assemble it into a coherent narrative.
The group of friends travel to Pelle's hometown, where he was raised in a
"commune" (it's totally a cult). They are woefully unprepared for
everything.
They are tourists intruding on a sacred ritual. None of them thinks to ask
why they're allowed to be there (Pelle invited them, but it's very weird
nonetheless). None of them feels like they're out of place -- they give
nary
a thought to being out of place. They clearly feel that the whole ritual
is
being put on for their entertainment.
They don't seem put out by the overall weirdness of it all (until the
ritual
and very public suicides/murders). They drink and eat whatever's handed to
them -- even though the very first tea they got was psychoactive. They
stick
out like sore thumbs everywhere, taking the townspeople's seeming
acceptance
of them for granted.
Josh wants to study the nine-day ritual for his PhD. So does Christian,
who
suddenly decides this while he's there. There's a fight that we're
supposed
to care about. Mark is coarse and crude, loudly swearing and ogling
everything like a fratboy. He takes a leak on the ancestral tree and
ashes.
It's hard to think of any of these people as scholars. It's also hard to
conceive of Pelle having been raised in that village and being able to
assimilate anywhere else.
So there's warning signs aplenty, all completely ignored by our idiotic
protagonists. They start to disappear: The two Brits brought by Pelle's
brother "went to the train station". Mark wanders off with a girl he
thinks
is "hot" even though she looks like she's got a vitamin-D deficiency
despite
the lack of nighttime. He does not return. Josh disappears one night,
running
into someone wearing Mark's skin before being concussed to death.
Dani is taken into the ritual by the local girls and "wins" May Queen.
Christian is selected as an optimal astrological match for a local girl
and
pressed into breeding with her before an Eyes Wide Shut--style audience.
Poor
Nick Cage didn't get to nail anyone in Wicker Man so I guess Christian's
ahead of the game. Dani is drugged out of her mind and confined in a giant
pile of flowers that she drags around with her like a snail does its
house.
The final ritual is in the yellow house, where the corpses of the Brits,
Josh
and Mark are placed on bales of very flammable hay. Christian, having been
selected by Dani as the sacrifice (presumably this is her revenge on him
for
being basic, a dipshit and a lackadaisical and only partially attentive
boyfriend?), is ensconced in a bear carcass and placed on his own hay
bale,
still alive, but paralyzed. Two townspeople are selected as local
sacrifices.
They go quite willingly.
Whoosh. It all goes up in flames. The others mimic the screams of their
townspeople (the only sacrifices capable of screaming), tearing at
themselves
and going into histrionics out in the field. Dani crawls around in her
flower
heap, having yet another panic attack (which she makes look believably
debilitating, to be sure).
At the end, she smiles, showing her teeth for the first time. I guess she
won? She's been kidnapped to the Swedish countryside, trapped in a heap of
flowers and will likely be made to pull a train for the whole village
until
she dies in childbirth years later, but holy shit is she the vindicated
hero
because she got to condemn Christian to death. Winning.
Dude, they don't even mention why they're doing this ritual. I presume
it's
some sort of way of getting new genes into the community without poisoning
it
with new ideas? And maybe they're praying to fertility Gods for both their
crops and their children? These are just guesses.
As with any piece of art, it's what you bring to it that determines how
you
interpret it and what it ends up saying to you. This "review" by Tomris
Laffly gave the movie
4/4
stars and ended with the following "lessons learned".
"Some will be troubled by the excess in “Midsommar.” The unburdened
surplus of lengthy customs does overshadow some of the film’s
potentially
ripe avenues of interest, such as the scholarly rivalry between Christian
and
Josh, as well as racial dynamics that are only briefly hinted at. But the
invigorating reward here is the ultimate sovereignty you will find in
Dani, a
surrogate for any woman who ever excused an inconsiderate male,
rationalized
his unkind words or thoughtless non-apologies. Pugh knows it in the film's
liberating final shot. And you will know it too, so intensely that her
freedom might just feel like therapy."
This is so misguided and delusional that I barely know where to begin.
There
is nothing interesting in a "scholarly rivalry between Christian and Josh"
because it's utterly unbelievable that Christian is a scholar. I'm not
even
sure he or Dani knows how to read. It wasn't an interesting avenue to
pursue
even as far as Aster pursued it and more character development wouldn't
have
improved things. The outsiders were all terrible. As were the villagers,
in
fairness.
And "racial dynamics"? Don't make me laugh. There was nothing to "hint
at".
Instead, no-one in the movie even noticed that Josh was black, as it
should
be. No-one cared, as it should be. But it has to discuss race: Josh is
black.
I don't know whether the director was being lazy in trying to sell that
group
as "scholars" or whether no-one noticed that they were not just not
erudite,
well-spoken or seeming intellectually interested at all, but outright
dumb.
Mark was laughably dumb. Christian, as a supposed anthropologist PhD
candidate, seemed nearly completely uninterested in anything for the first
half of the movie. Only Josh evinced an ability to write and an interest
in
asking questions.
And Dani was the hero for this reviewer? How? There was literally no
background given for what she did other than being Christian's girlfriend
and
suffering from panic attacks. The reviewer sees their relationship as
between
Dani (not described, but presumably an unblemished soul) and Christian
("inconsiderate [...] unkind [...] thoughtless"). That is bringing a lot
to
this movie.
They were both putzes, unimaginable as friends or conversational partners.
She talks to a girlfriend on the phone, who tells her that "his job is to
be
there for you". Dani wonders whether she asks too much. A legitimate
question, as she seems to be quite an emotional handful. This is before
her
sister kills herself and her parents, a well-told plot point that was
completely unexplained and would turn out to be utterly irrelevant to what
would follow. I mean, did Dani need to have had a personal experience with
suicide in order to be shocked by the plummeting suicides in the village?
I don't even know whether the juxtaposition between the slovenly, cursing
American students (who were supposedly in PhD programs) and the murderous
but
bilingual and well-mannered denizens of the Swedish village was deliberate
or
whether everyone associated with the film thought that the students
"looked
cool". I honestly don't even know anymore. Christian, in particular, wore
ugly pants, ill-fitting T-shirts and giant-laced sneakers everywhere. In a
movie littered with pagan symbolism but suffering from a paucity of
narrative
direction, we're all forced to bring a ton of explanation to the table --
and
sometimes even I just don't have the energy for it.
It was a pretty movie, nicely filmed. It didn't feel as long as it's 150
minutes, but it could have been edited down a bit. I saw it in English and
Swedish with no subtitles (I'm not sure if they're available, but don't
feel
I missed much narrative ... at best, I experienced the rituals the same
way
that our supposed protagonists did).
Deception (2008) -- "5/10"
Accountant and auditor Jonathan McQuarry (Ewan McGregor) is just finishing up
the taxes for a law firm where he meets Wyatt Bose (Hugh Jackman). They
become friends, with Bose definitely the cooler half, but seeming to
genuinely like McQuarry. They go out for drinks and play some tennis. They
get lunch and switch their phones by (what would turn out not to be an)
accident -- just before Bose is set to go to London for two weeks.
McQuarry gets some odd calls and agrees to meet up with one of the women
who'd called. They sleep together -- she seems to have called for just
that
purpose. McQuarry makes the next call and gets into a sex ring of some
sort.
There are rules: the initiator arranges for and pays for the room; no
rough
stuff; no names.
Bose tells him to have fun with it. McQuarry goes through a montage of
encounters, then finally meets up with a woman that he kind of knows
(Michelle Williams): they'd spoken on a subway platform before. This is a
reason for neither of them to want to get it on and instead spend the
evening
chatting and falling asleep in each other's arms. She's gone in the
morning.
He's pretty much already in love.
He stops taking calls until she calls again, a month later. They see each
other again, at a Chinese restaurant, where she orders in the same way
that
they pick lovers in their sex club: she just points to things without
knowing
what they are. Smitten, they retreat to a nearby hotel, where they are
very
close to consummating their relationship. He steps out for a bucket of ice
that she requested.
She's gone. There's blood on the linens. He's hit on the head from behind
by
what looks like a ninja. When he comes to, the police are there and there
is
no sign that she was ever there. McQuarry is on the hunt for her, using
his
special talent for sniffing out details. Wyatt shows up again, with a deal
to
blackmail McQuarry into transferring over $20 million to a private account
on
his next auditing job. If he does, he gets his girl back. At this point,
it
was already obvious to me that she was in on it with Wyatt. I suspected
it,
but McQuarry eventually knew, because he could tell that the picture of
her
in his apartment that Bose sent to him was two weeks old.
McQuarry finds out Wyatt's real name and his past, but is still forced to
go
through with the heist. Wyatt cleans up loose ends later by blowing
McQuarry
up in his own apartment. Next, we see Wyatt and S (Simone) in Spain, ready
to
pick up the money from his account. He's dressed up and identifying as
Jonathan McQuarry, in whose name the account was opened.
Everything's ready to go. The bank informs him that he just needs to get
his
co-signer Wyatt Bose to show up. McQuarry has double-crossed him and Bose
(as
McQuarry) is unamused. He exits to the street and gets a call from the
real
McQuarry, now posing as Bose. Apparently, it had been someone else in his
apartment.
Together, they return to the bank and warily make off with the money in
two
briefcases. McQuarry (the real one) offers half of his loot if Bose will
tell
him where to find Simone. They head to a secluded park to finalize the
transaction. Bose pulls a gun on him, but Simone shoots him from out of
nowhere, grabs the briefcase and runs away.
McQuarry hands Bose his "real" passport and the remaining briefcase so as
to
finally incriminate Bose and follows Simone. They see each other again an
unspecified time later, still in Madrid. They meet and...presumably live
happily ever after?
The cast is quite famous and includes Charlotte Rampling and Michelle Q as
two of the other lovers. The movie's not so great and is both too long and
too short. There's a shocking lack of nudity, tension and eroticism for a
movie about a sex club full of attractive people. At eight minutes long,
the
film shows a dedication to the credits that was lacking in the film
itself.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] There is an early scene where Frank goes to beat up a shopkeeper because the
guy had dared to reprimand his daughter. He takes Peg along to show her what
he's going to do to the guy. He throws him through a window. The scene is
embarrassing because DeNiro was sleepwalking in it -- and he doesn't move at
all like the young muscle he's supposed to be. It was gratuitous to include
it simply to "show" us why Peg doesn't like her dad.
[1] As with the Chernobyl series, most people won't be able to discern this
movie from a documentary and will soon start citing it as "proof" that the
mob had Kennedy killed. I welcome the increased muddying of the already
muddy waters around this no-longer-relevant event of the 20th century.
[1] It's been nominated for ten oscars -- even in categories for which its
laughably not qualified, e.g. Costume Design...um, they all wore black suits
nearly all the time or Film Editing...um, the movie dragged on to 3.5 hours.
(Did they leave anything on the cutting-room floor?)
[1] Hoffa was more than casually racist about Italians. The Italians, in turn,
were more than casually racist about blacks.
[1] Because actresses weren't given lines or really roles of any significance.
They were utterly insignificant next to the men except for maybe "Jo" Hoffa,
Jimmy's wife. Anna Paquin, no slouch, had almost no lines and was left to
indicate her disapproval of her father with a bevy of unhappy stares.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=38832020-01-18T13:22:21+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
1. IT (2017) -- "7/10"
2. Joker (2019) -- "10/10"
3. Iliza Schlesinger (2019) -- "8/10"
4. Le Mans 66: Gegen jede Chance (2019) -- "9/10"
* "Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2019.13"
1. Hardware (1990) -- "6/10"
2. Booksmart (2019) -- "9/10"
3. Glass (2019) -- "9/10"
4. Maniac (2018) -- "8/10"
5. After Life (2019) -- "8/10"
6. Ronnie Chieng: Asian Comedian Destroys America (2019) -- "9/10"
7. Michelle Wolf: Joke Show (2019) -- "7/10"
8. Zardoz (1974) -- "7/10"
9. The Cell (2000) -- "8/10"
10. Zathura (2005) -- "5/10"
* "Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2019.14"
1. The Congress (2013) -- "8/10"
2. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) -- "8/10"
3. The Hunted (2003) -- "4/10"
4. Parasite (2019) -- "10/10"
5. Gone in Sixty Seconds (1974) -- "5/10"
6. Yojimbo (1961) -- "8/10"
7. You Were Never Really Here (2017) -- "8/10"
8. Bonnie and Clyde (1967) -- "8/10"
9. My Neighbor Totoro (1988) -- "8/10"
10. A Dangerous Method (2011) -- "8/10"
* "Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2019.15"
1. Weekend (1967) -- "5/10"
2. The Belko Experiment (2016) -- "5/10"
3. Matinee (1993) -- "5/10"
4. Mimic (1997) -- "6/10"
5. Another Year (2010) -- "7/10"
6. Five Deadly Venoms (1978) -- "6/10"
7. The Putin Interviews E04 (2017) -- "9/10"
* "Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2020.1"
1. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) -- "8/10"
2. Ran (1985) -- "9/10"
3. One Cut of the Dead (2017) -- "8/10"
4. Metropolis (1927) -- "9/10"
5. The King of Comedy (1982) -- "8/10"
6. Step Brothers (2008) -- "6/10"
7. Andre the Giant (2008) -- "7/10"
8. M (1931) -- "8/10"
9. Russian Ark (2002) -- "8/10"
10. These Final Hours (2013) -- "6/10"
* "Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2020.2"
1. Army of Shadows (1969) -- "9/10"
2. Threads (1984) -- "9/10"
3. Mademoiselle (1966) -- "7/10"
4. The Third Man (1949) -- "8/10"
5. Bound (1996) -- "8/10"
6. A Face in the Crowd (1957) -- "9/10"
7. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011) -- "8/10"
8. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) -- "8/10"
9. In Cold Blood (1967) -- "8/10"
10. Koyaanisqatsi (1982) -- "8/10"
* "Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2020.3"
1. Margaret (2011) -- "9/10"
2. Fahrenheit 11-9 (2018) -- "8/10"
3. The Square (2017) -- "9/10"
4. The Guilty (Den skyldige) (2018) -- "8/10"
5. On the Beach (1959) -- "7/10"
6. Mandy (2018) -- "8/10"
7. The Lighthouse (2019) -- "9/10"
8. Citizen Kane (1941) -- "7/10"
9. Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) -- "8/10"
10. Velvet Goldmine (1998) -- "9/10"
* "Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2020.4"
1. American Me (1992) -- "8/10"
2. Selena (1997) -- "6/10"
3. The Counselor (2013) -- "6/10"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] My wife visits her family for the holidays every year, leaving me with more
free time -- and free choice of content -- than usual.
[1] I only watched two short seasons that were more like long movies: After Life
and Maniac.
[1] I don't mind subtitles and sometimes use them even for languages in which
I'm fluent, just to make sure I don't miss something whispered. Obviously,
subtitle quality varies widely -- and I'm not even in a position to judge
for languages I don't know at all.
I don't need subtitles at all for English or German. I understand most
Italian, and do pretty well in French, but appreciate the help where possible.
My preference is to have German, Italian and French subtitles in the original
language as well -- hearing and reading simultaneously often sums up to
complete understanding (and I look up idioms to learn new things) -- but
that's rarely possible.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=38862020-01-18T13:14:50+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1400
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of around 1400 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.
American Me (1992) -- "8/10"
This is the story of Montoya Santana's (Edward James Olmos). The movie starts
off with the Zoot Suit riots in Los Angeles, largely perpetrated by Navy
officers, several of whom raped his mother Esperanza (Vira Montes) while
the
others beat the shit out of his father in the streets.
We flash back to Montoya's youth, growing up with his two best buddies JD
and
Mundo. They're big guys, giving each other their own gang tattoos for La
Primera (a little knife-thing between the thumb and forefinger), then
heading
into another gang's territory -- just because they can. They get chased by
dozens of guys and they hide in a shop. The shopkeeper is there, though,
and
he ends up shooting JD. Montoya and Mundo end up in Juvenile Hall, where
Santana is immediately raped at knifepoint. He turns it around immediately
and kills his rapist, for which he'll be heading to Folsom after his stint
in
juvie.
JD shows up in juvie, having lost the leg. We segue to Folsom State
Prison,
where Mundo (Pepe Serna), JD (William Forsythe) and Montoya end up -- on a
15--20 stretch. They are not without power, though.
Montoya meets with his mother and his (much) younger brother. She tries to
hand him a chain with Saint Dismas on it, but a guard comes over and says
in
a very nice voice "Excuse me, Ma'am. You're not supposed to pass items to
convicts. He can pick this up with the rest of the property you brought
for
him." The movie's from 1992, before Clinton changed everything. Or maybe
they're just showing him respect because he's the head of the La Eme, the
Mexican Mafia.
JD's hot visitor heads to the bathroom, where she squeezes a balloon out
of
her nether regions, then drops it into the toilet. There's someone waiting
in
the bowels of the prison, with his hand in the pipe. He catches the
payload,
lubes it up and stashes it in his prison pocket. Back in his cell, he
splits
it and distributes it further, along the cells -- mirrors, whispers,
cigarette packs.
A black inmate steals drugs from one of Montoya's best customers -- so he
sends his henchmen to set him on fire in his cell. A riot starts -- or
tries
to. Instead, they back off -- for now. Santana goes in the hole. Even in
solitary, he gets special food service. He still runs things.
The gang deals with power struggles. One recognizable member of the gang
who
is not hispanic is El Japo (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa). Like JD, he speaks like
an
cholo, though. JD gets out. Montoya learns from his little brother that
his
mother has died. Many years later, Montoya is out as well. JD picks him up
in
a lowrider.
Montoya and JD try to move in on the Italian Mafia, but they're having
none
of it.
Montoya ends up at a party, where he meets Julie (Evelina Fernández).
They
date, go shopping. She teaches him how to drive stick. She takes him to
the
beach for the first time in his life. She takes him home, where he does
something else for the first time in his life.
That same night, La Eme makes a move on the Don's son in the prison --
getting him super-smashed on prison pruno. In this weakened state, La Eme
rapes him. The scenes are juxtaposed in a combined montage, with Puppet
pumping away at the Italian while Montoya does the same to Julie. Montoya
gets violent and ends up forcing himself on her. [1]
Don Scagnelli gets the news about his son. Soon after, Julie finds her
older
son Neto dead, with a needle in his arm. Scagnelli had let the next
shipment
of heroin through uncut, causing dozens of ODs. Montoya rushes home to
make
that Pualito (his brother) doesn't suffer the same fate as Neto.
The war heats up: the Italians hire the Black Guerrillas to take out some
of
La Eme. Montoya is best man at Little Puppet's wedding. At the same time,
the
Aryan Brotherhood takes revenge on a black club. Little Puppet gets wicked
drunk, lamenting his stupid decisions that led to dead time in jail and to
his shattered hand -- lamenting that before he'd gotten mixed up in La Eme
he'd been known for the "best tattoos in East LA".
Montoya tells JD that the revenge killing looked like a racial hit. JD
tells
Montoya that he's "starting to show weakness...and we both know you can't
afford to do that."
Little Puppet gets even more ridiculously drunk and Montoya and Julie walk
him home. Montoya confiscates his drugs. Little Puppet goes home. Later,
the
cops stop Montoya and Julie and pop him (arrest him). In the joint, he
finds
out that Puppet is supposed to kill Little Puppet for having gotten
Montoya
arrested. JD and Montoya discuss it. Montoya wants to call it off. JD
tells
him that's not possible. Montoya basically signs his own death warrant. JD
knows it.
"Montoya: You know, a long time ago, two best homeboys -- two kids -- were
thrown into juvie. They were scared, and they thought they had to do
something to prove themselves. And they did what they had to do. They
thought
they were doing it to gain respect for their people, to show the world
that
no one could take their class from them. No one had to take it from us,
ese.
Whatever we had... we gave it away. Take care of yourself, carnal."
When the troops roll in the prison, it's only El Japo who stays in. He'll
pay
for it, too, most likely. But he's loyal to Montoya, not to El Eme. Puppet
is
loyal to Eme, killing Little Puppet as required. Little Puppet made it
easier
by being a fucking moron.
I gave it an extra star for Edward James Olmos, who's always captivating.
Also, I learned new words. [2]
Selena (1997) -- "6/10"
Selena Quintanilla (Jennifer Lopez) enters a packed stadium, playing at the
top of her game. Flash back to 1961, when the her father, as a member of
the
Dinos can't get gigs because of racism at "Whites Only" clubs.
Flash forward to the first time Abraham Quintanilla (Edward James Olmos)
hears Selena's singing voice. He's transformed and buys a bunch of musical
equipment, setting up his whole brood on various instruments. Her sister
is
not impressed that her dad is making her play the drums.
Abraham gets them a restaurant and sets up Selena and the Dinos as the
house
band. His wife Marcella (Constance Marie) is less than thrilled at losing
the
security of a home in the suburbs, but she's willing to try.
They keep playing. Abraham takes Selena to the side and tells her that she
should start singing in Spanish, so she can sing Tejano music. Their first
show doesn't go very well because (A) they're kids and (B) Tejano music is
typically all-male. They've got a bus that the family travels in as they
take
the show on the road.
They pick up guitarist Chris Perez (Jon Seda), who's got serious chops
and
cleans up well enough. He cleans up so well that Selena falls for him.
Their next step is play dates in Mexico. Abraham warns them that they will
be
judged.
"I mean, we gotta know about John Wayne and Pedro Infante. We gotta know
about Frank Sinatra and Agustín Lara. We gotta know about Oprah and
Cristina. … Japanese Americans, Italian Americans, German Americans.
Their
homeland is on the other side of the ocean. Ours is right here … We
gotta
be more Mexican than the Mexicans and more American than the Americans,
both
at the same time. It’s exhausting!"
Chris's friends trash a hotel room and Abraham wants him fired. They have
to
keep him on because they can't find another guitarist in time -- also
because
Selena thinks he's being a jackass on purpose.
They get to Mexico and Selena handles her "problem" with her accent by
leaning into it, speaking a mix of Spanish with a smattering of English
words. The crowd the next day is enormous. They have to send for the
police
for additional security. Abraham is worried, of course. He's right,
though.
People press in so hard that they threaten to collapse the stage. He tries
to
call off the concert, but the crowd's going even more nuts. He asks
Selena,
"they need you to go back out there and settle this crowd down. Can you do
it?"
The whole Chris/Selena love affair is pretty painfully acted, super
over-the-top. Abraham is not taking having a 20-year--old daughter well.
Chris and Selena see each other on the sly. This part, too, is very much
saying instead of showing. I understand that there's just supposed to be
kids, but the marriage plot-line isn't very interesting.
Everything's going her way: she's married to her lead guitarist, won a
Grammy, has a thriving crossover career (English/Spanish) and has also
started her own fashion line. She's planning on having kids. And a farm.
She
has a lot of concerts. J-Lo wears a ton of outfits. Most of the outfits
are
based on those worn by Selena. She sings a lot of songs. She is dragging a
wagon, as expected -- but so was the real Selena. In the montage at the
end,
though, it's clear that they transformed J-Lo into a very reasonable
facsimile of Selena.
Then, Yolanda Saldívar, her fashion-business manager and fan-club
manager,
shoots her in the shoulder. Shoulder wounds can be fatal. The movie came
out
only two years after she'd been murdered at 24 years old.
The Counselor (2013) -- "6/10"
Written by Cormac McCarthy and directed by Ridley Scott, this movie is off to
a strong start. It has pedigree, no doubt. It would get lost somewhere
along
the way.
We start off in bed. Counselor (Michael Fassbender) and Laura (Penélope
Cruz) are spending a lazy day in bed before his flight to Amsterdam that
early evening. He's all about her: "tell me what you want me to do to
you."
or is he? He's in charge. It's a bit odd to start the film with this
scene,
but let's trust the pedigree. Also odd is "I want you to finger-fuck me"
in
that P. Cruz--accented English. Not a mood killer, but ... odd.
A truck is loaded with (probably drugs). Reiner (Javier Bardem) and
Malkina
(Cameron Diaz) are on safari somewhere in Arizona with pet cheetahs.
Diaz's
English is California-accented and her lines are far more painful than
Cruz's, which at least had the sound of earnestness to them. Show, don't
tell. Too late.
"Malkina: I don't miss things...I've always known that, since I was a little
girl.
Reiner: You don't think that's a bit cold?
Malkina: The truth has no temperature."
Jesus. Did I mention that she has cheetah-spot tattoos all over her
shoulder
and all the way down her back?
Reiner turns out to be the chatty one. He tells Counselor one long,
rambling
story after another. It feels like McCarthy wanted to channel Tarentino,
but
it's not working. Counselor meets a client, Ruthie (Rosie Perez), who
wants
him to bail out her son, a motorcyclist with the need for speed -- and
also a
drug mule. [3]
Stuff happens. Counselor proposes to Laura. He bought the ring in
Amsterdam
from the inestimable Bruno Ganz [4]. Malkina asks Laura about her sex life
with an utterly ghoulish smiles on her face (I don't think Diaz would be
flattered to know just how much like a female Joker she looked; Botox is a
bitch). Counselor meets Westray (Brad Pitt), who advises him to walk away.
From what, we're still not sure.
Reiner tells Counselor that he's afraid of Malkina, allegorically
describing
how she once "fucked his car". Some might call Diaz's performance brave,
for
daring to play such an unhinged, amoral skank. I'm having a hard time
believing she's faking her lines. She might just be ad-libbing. "You
should
be careful what you wish for, angel. You might not get it.". What?
Malkina hires some people to get what the biker has. One of the hired
thugs
sets up a wire across the road at just the right height to slice a
motorcyclist's head off.
Westray calls in the Counselor. He tells him that he's in trouble. His
bosses
know that the Counselor had let the man out on bail. They think he's
involved
in the murder.
"Westray: Well, I'm perfectly willing to believe you had nothing to do with
this but I'm not the party you have to convince.
Counselor: Convince of what, for Christ sake?
Westray: That this is some sort of coincidence. Because they don't really
believe in coincidences. They've heard of them. They've just never seen
one."
The guy who killed the motorcyclist steals the truck. He's carjacked on
the
highway by cartel. Only one survives, but he steals the truck, taking it
to a
"launderer" to fix up the bullet-holes and clean out the blood. He's on
his
way again faster than in GTA.
Cartel tightens the noose on Counselor -- and now Reiner, who's chased
with
his two cheetahs in the back. A quick shootout and Reiner is no more. The
cheetahs are loose.
Westray's in the wind. The Counselor is in Boise. Laura's been taken. The
Counselor's in Mexico. So is the truck and the drugs. John Leguiziamo and
Dean Norris ("Hank" from Breaking Bad) are there. Leguiziamo tells him
about
the "fourth barrel", which contains a body. Hank asks what happens next.
"Nothing. He just rides around, back and forth across the border."
Counselor is on the phone with Jefe (Rubén Blades), who waxes
philosophically with the Counselor, telling him to accept his fate -- and
that of Laura.
"I would urge you to see the truth of the situation you're in, Counselor.
That is my advice. It is not for me to tell you what you should have done
or
not done. The world in which you seek to undo the mistakes that you made
is
different from the world where the mistakes were made. You are now at the
crossing. And you want to choose, but there is no choosing there. There's
only accepting. The choosing was done a long time ago...
"[...]
"Machado would have traded every word, every poem, every verse he ever
wrote
for one more hour with his beloved. And that is because when it comes to
grief, the normal rules of exchange do not apply, because grief transcends
value. A man would give entire nations to lift grief off his heart. And
yet,
you cannot buy anything with grief, because grief is worthless.
"[...]
"At the understanding that life is not going to take you back. You are the
world you have created. And when you cease to exist, this world that you
have
created will also cease to exist. But for those with the understanding
that
they're living the last days of the world, death acquires a different
meaning. The extinction of all reality is a concept no resignation can
encompass. And, yet, in that despair, which is transcendent, you will find
the ancient understanding that the Philosopher's Stone will always be
found,
despised, and buried in the mud. This may seem a small thing in the face
of
annihilation, until annihilation occurs. And then, all the grand designs
and
all the grand plans will be finally exposed and revealed for what they
are."
Westray is in London. He meets a blonde in the hotel (Natalie Dormer).
There
are no coincidences. Westray gets hit by a bolero -- a device that slowly
constricts around his neck, until it slices through his carotid -- and
then
the rest of his neck. The attackers deliver his laptop to Malinka, who'd
already gotten the password from blondie. She meets with her banker
Michael
(Goran Visnjic). She continues to deliver shockingly stupid lines, "You
can
sell diamonds on Mars." [5]
The Counselor wanders a city in Mexico. He passes out in his hotel room.
In
the morning, he gets a DVD -- likely containing a snuff film of Laura
(Reiner
had previously told him how the cartel likes to make snuff films for
people
who pay to have sex with corpses). He doesn't watch it because his Apple
laptop doesn't have a DVD player.
There were some slick moments. Literally everyone in this movie is
attractive, like a 9 minimum. It could have been better, but it was
decent.
Maybe if it was shorter or more tightly edited. Or if Cameron Diaz hadn't
been cast in it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] He'd actually flipped her over while she protested, then was finally able to
finish. She revealed in a later argument what he actually did.
"Montoya: I don't have to listen to this shit, alright? If you were a man,
I'd...
"Julie: You'd kill me! Oh no. No, you'd fuck me in the ass, right? Right?"
[1] There was more Spanish slang than this, but these were the ones that were
new to me. They used a bunch of these in Selena, as well.
* Ruca: girlfriend
* Carnal: brother
* Orále: hell yeah
[1] Though he is unaware of this at the time -- a crucial plot point
[1] A Swiss actor who died in 2019, soon after this movie came out.
[1] That's not even the stupidest thing she was made to say in that scene. I
just can't be bothered to transcribe anything longer. It's like someone
thought to themselves, "I wonder if Cameron Diaz could do Shakespeare?"
Jesus, I should remove a point just for ending on that terribly stilted and
incongruous scene.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=38822020-01-16T21:37:16+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1400
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of around 1400 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.
Margaret (2011) -- "9/10"
A self-satisfied shit named Lisa (Anna Paquin) thinks her shit don't stink
and that she's God's gift to the world. A standard teenager, in other
words.
She's going to a ranch with her dad, so she needs a cowboy hat. She can't
find one she likes, but she sees a bus driver Maretti (Mark Ruffalo) with
a
nifty hat. The doors of the bus close, so she chases it, waving to get his
attention and to ask him where he'd bought it. She distracts him enough
that
he runs a red light and absolutely slaughters a middle-aged woman, Monica.
Lisa holds her as she bleeds out in the street. Both Lisa and Maretti say
the
light was green.
Lisa's mom Joan (J. Smith-Cameron) is an actress. Ramon (Jean Reno) is a
fan
of hers. He asks her out. She demurs. Lisa goes out with her mom and her
friends. One imitates Bobcat Goldthwait; her Mom imitates Shirley Temple
and
a baby. It's mortifying.
Lisa attends a drama class with Matthew Broderick teaching. She wears
miniskirts everywhere, even though everyone else is wearing jeans.
These are terrible people: Joan advises Lisa to lie to the police to
protect
the bus driver's job. The next day, in some sort of government class, they
discuss politics, but at the level of a Reddit /r/politics discussion,
which
isn't surprising, since they're just teenagers. Then they head to the
police
station, where Lisa lies point-blank about the lady who crossed the
street. I
suppose it's a comment on the amorality of modern quasi-progressives who
are
so happy with their lives and their opinions and just being right about
everything.
The neat part is that her parents are just as shallow and self-centered as
she is, despite being older. Everyone is just so spoiled and stupid. The
only
redeemable people so far are a few of the teachers at the school. But even
Mr. Aaron (Matt Damon) is a moron: he actually goes to get a cup of coffee
with Lisa because she wants to talk. That's not dangerous at all.
Now there's an interminable conversation between Lisa and her mother
that's
nearly literally painful. I understand that this is when a stupid person
has
stupid children and their societal position is such that nothing bad or
real
ever happens to them, so they have a ton of free time to burn. Her mom
called
her a cunt and she's 100% right.
Lisa's got one guy wrapped around her finger -- she makes him do her math
tests for her -- and another is her coke dealer. That's the one she wants
to
sleep with. She propositions him and invites him over to nail her. He's
actually one of the less-terrible young people in the movie (another one
was
Angie, a young lady of Syrian descent who actually had her politics
right).
They seem to be pretty clinical about it. She could have done much worse
with
her choice of partner. Except for right at the end, where he didn't put on
a
condom and then "it kind of got away from him." So, actually, a terrible
partner who didn't pay attention in health class, at all.
Lisa's mom is out with Ramon, at the opera. She tells him she thinks it's
pretentious that people yell "bravi" or "brava" instead of "bravo" ...
because "bravo" is all she knows. He's confused, because that's just how
romance languages work, so he doesn't understand why anyone would think
that
was pretentious. He's underestimating the anti-intellectual climate in the
U.S. -- almost especially and deliberately amongst those who think the
most
of their own intelligence and basic goodness..
It would be easy to hate this movie because of the people it
depicts...but,
it depicts them well. The self-interest, the lack of moral compass. Lisa
is
now on a mission to clear her conscience. She visits Maretti at his home.
He's not impressed. She goes to the cops to amend her statement. She finds
them to be exasperatingly uncooperative -- just like anyone else who
doesn't
immediately agree with her or do what she says.
She talks to Detective Mitchell, who was in charge of the (now closed)
case.
He's fantastic. He is calm and doesn't rise to her histrionics. She's
appalled that she would go to all this trouble (to herself) and it would
only
result in reckless driving. That it was, in fact, just a stupid accident,
a
tragedy. She asks about "manslaughter or second-degree murder" -- because
her
admission must lead to grander things.
"Lisa: That's unbelievable! What does he have to do? Kill her on purpose?
Detective Mitchell: Yes. Because that's the definition of murder."
The detective says she can give another statement, for which she's
super-grateful. They'll pull in Maretti again. Immediately afterward,
she's
joking and smoking a joint in the park with her friend. Her heart is
lighter
and she doesn't seem worried about Maretti at all anymore. She meets her
teacher Mr. Aaron (Matt Damon) and clumsily flirts/appallingly insults
him,
again convinced that she and where she lives is the center of the
universe,
that she knows everything, that there is nothing for her to learn or the
world to teach her. She has everything under control. Teenager. Immature
adult. Most adults.
Her character is really well-done: she then asks him to let her ride her
bike. This is such a bizarre request, but it's a way of maintaining
control,
of getting others to do things for you. Of putting others on the back foot
so
they can't get you first.
Next, she meets with Monica's (the dead woman's) best friend Emily and her
lawyer Dave, to whom she also tells her "real story". Honestly, it's hard
to
even believe that the fantasy we saw at the start was what really happened
rather than just the unreliable narrator of Lisa's fantastical filter. But
now she wants results. The lawyer starts to explain the different between
statutory law and criminal law and she cuts him off with "I thought we
going
to get the police to arrest this guy", which matches her personality: she
supposed to want stuff and then everyone jumps and does things to please
her.
Now we're hearing what kind of shitstorm of lawsuits might get triggered
as a
result. Dave is being honest and informative, but Emily and Lisa are on a
jihad now: something has to happen. The driver needs to be arrested or
fired
-- all to assuage guilt or to exact revenge. Lawsuits will fly in all
directions, leading to more useless laws that won't do anything to hinder
self-absorbed people ruining things for no good reason. He tells them
straight out: it's a terrible case because it's Maretti's word against
Lisa's
and Lisa would already be admitting that she'd lied once.
Emily's super-pissed at Maretti, which leads me to believe that Lisa
didn't
tell Emily about how Lisa distracted him. Fucking Emily then slams into
Dave
because he's speaking too technically and he's doing it wrong. They're
sitting in a café, eating salads. Emily finishes with: "I would just like
somebody to take responsibility for what happened." Understandable. Lisa?
Next, we're back at school, watching a classroom discussion that's on a
level
that would bring tears to the eyes of actual teachers, but almost
certainly
doesn't happen in real life. There's a pretty good discussion with David,
who
makes an interesting point about Shakespeare's comparing humans to flies.
But
the teacher (Matthew Broderick) dismisses the interpretation because "it's
wrong." It's funny, because on the one side is a young guy who thinks his
opinion is valid (it is) and on the other is the adult authority, who's
preaching orthodoxy rather than a search for truth or insight. When Lisa
does
it, her opinion isn't as well-articulated and is clearly manipulative.
When
David does it, it seems acceptable. There's no way to decide who's "right"
without knowing the exact situation.
Lisa calls Detective Mitchell, telling him that he obviously didn't
interview
Maretti forcefully enough "because he's white". With this film having been
made in 2011, it's possible that this is already a comment on the first
wave
of entitled so-called SJWs, who are actually just forcing the world into a
mold that suits them, to keep themselves from having bad feelings. Lisa is
currently on a jihad to exorcise her bad feelings about having caused the
accident, but without, naturally, taking responsibility herself (because
that
would be unfair to her, a girl with such prospects). Maretti, who's
implicitly a dead loss, can take the fall.
Meanwhile, Joan is still with Ramon, who is a saint. But you can see
Joan's
wheels spinning whenever he talks about himself or Colombia or his family,
wondering how to steer the conversation back to herself. She's her
daughter's
mother, all right. There's also Emily, who is an adult version of Lisa:
she
interrupts all the time and wants people to only say the things that she
wants them to say. People are tools to use, but they can misbehave. Dave
the
lawyer has found out that Maretti had priors. Emily and Lisa are
delighted,
but I think because they're "winning", not because of any sort of good
thing
that might happen. Lisa is doing good in this world, shut up and be happy
for
her.
Emily meets Joan and we hear that Joan is modest about "getting
recognition",
but it's obvious that's why she's an actress (which is no surprise). But
it's
also obvious that that's what Lisa wants, as well. That's why Lisa was
shocked that they wouldn't be allowed to go to the press with the case
afterwards.
Lisa keeps provoking Joan. Now, we meet Abigail (the dead woman's cousin),
who is very upper class. She wants to get a better lawyer because she
doesn't
want a lawyer no-one's ever heard of. Lisa has now adopted Emily as her
new
"mom". But Emily doesn't buy her bullshit when Lisa tries to make the
death
about herself.
"Emily: I don't give a fuck what you believe in.
Lisa: Oh my God! Why are you so mad at me?
Emily: Because this is not an opera!
Lisa: Because I think it's dramatic?
Emily: I think you're very young.
Lisa: What does that have to do with anything? If anything, I think it
means
I care more than someone who's older, because this kind of thing has never
happened to me before!
Emily: No. It means you care more easily. There's a big difference. Only
it's
not you it's happening to.
Lisa: Yes, it is! I know I'm not the one who was run over by the bus...
Emily: This first-blush, phony deepness of yours is worth nothing. Do you
understand? Because it will all be troweled over in a month or two. And
then,
when you get older and you don't have a big reaction every time a dog is
run
over, then we'll find out what kind of person you are. [...] She was my
real
friend, and I don't want that sucked into some adolescent
self-dramatization.
[...] I'm a human being. Monica was a human being. So is your mother. We
are
not just supporting characters in the fascinating story of your life."
Lisa goes to Mr. Aaron's apartment. She starts smoking (again, setting the
tone, running the show). She tells him she likes his apartment. The camera
swings to show that it's not nearly as big as the first angle suggested.
He's
a teacher. He's basically poor. He has no windows. Unlike everyone else
we've
seen in the film, who are all upper/middle-class New Yorkers with nice,
spacious apartments. She hits on him; he lets her. She sucks him off. When
he's chagrined about it, she accuses him of making a big deal out of sex.
Next, we see another discussion in class where Lisa accuses Palestinians
of
being Hitler Youth (basically) and then gets thrown out because she can't
follow debate rules and is highly disruptive. This, after one of her
classmates just finished expounding that "[t]eenagers should run the world
because they're not burned out on reality." At a dinner with Joan, Ramon,
and
Emily, Joan immediately asks who's running the discussions (because the
incident is obviously not Lisa's fault, despite it reflecting exactly how
their discussions at home go). Ramon (and keep in mind that Ramon is from
Colombia and has actually seen shit, as opposed to anyone else at the
table)
says,
"The oppressor uses violence to maintain his position and calls it the rule
of law. But when the person underfoot uses violence to change his status,
he's called a criminal and a terrorist. And the violence of the state is
called upon to put him down."
Emily, of course, takes immediate offense and goes to 11. Ramon tells her
that's the "typical Jewish response". She storms out. Later, on the phone,
"Joan, if you're going to break up with me because I used the wrong
adjective, then what can I do? I'm not going to beg you." Fein raus.
All the way out, actually: Ramon dies of a heart attack soon after. Joan
and
Lisa tangle again. Lisa: "I'm not trying to hurt your feelings. It's just
a
general observation." No, of course not, offense neither intended nor
taken.
They use already-purchased opera tickets. Lisa comes in late, making
everyone
in the row stand up to let her in. Still making people dance to her tune.
Lisa's dad calls to cancel both a week-long ranch vacation in New Mexico
and
also cancels her move out to California because she doesn't get along at
all
with Annette, his girlfriend. Things are falling apart -- but also getting
more dramatic. Lisa blows up on all fronts, freaking out on the call when
the
settlement is announced with a cash settlement, but no repercussions for
Maretti. She storms off, burning all bridges, then finds Mr. Aaron to tell
him she's had an abortion. Stirring up drama wherever she can, building an
exciting narrative -- around herself. You could forgive her -- she's just
a
kid, after all -- if it wasn't for how much negativity she creates for
everyone else.
To be sure, I've colored the interpretation of this movie with my own
filter,
but I honestly feel that it's the only way to enjoy a film with so many
shallow people in it. There are good people in it, but they are window
dressing for the raging egos. I can't imagine that any of the main
characters
have ever cleaned their own toilet. A shout-out to Scout Tafoya for the
recommendation as part of his "Unloved series"
.
I actually take a lot of recommendations from him. My rating kept rising
through out the movie, the way it should be.
Fahrenheit 11-9 (2018) -- "8/10"
This is a Michael Moore documentary about the 2016 election and its
aftermath. It starts with the celebratory, all-over-but-the-shouting mood
on
election day: Hillary was a shoe-in. Women were in tears about being able
to
vote for a woman. "We finally made it!"
Then, things start to tip the other way. "How the fuck did this happen?"
The
credits roll. Moore shows the artists making a wax doll of Donald Trump
for
Madame Tussauds museum in New York.
Moore presents his case: Trump was jealous of Gwen Stefani making more on
the
Voice than he made on the Apprentice, so he staged a fake presidential
announcement press conference with hired fans, to "prove" to NBC that he
was
worth more. His impromptu speech goes off the rails and NBC fires him. His
sons convince him to do his two planned rallies. They go over big. He
likes
the feeling of adulation. He's in.
The media were in, too. They loved his ratings. Moore then presents
interviews with personalities, all of whom ended up being sexual predators
(Matt Lauer, Bill O'Reilly, Charlie Moore, etc.) But who is Trump? Moore
provides a series of clips and commentary on Trump's "uncomfortable"
relationship with Ivanka.
The next segment focuses on Flint, Michigan and the corruption associated
with the water crisis there. He tells the story of corruption well: once
the
problem with the water was clear, they fixed the water for GM and
continued
to poison the poor populace. How does this relate to Trump? It's unclear.
Moore binds it together by saying that Flint gave Trump the confidence to
be
even more openly racist than he'd already been.
Moore shows how leftist hippies actually should have won the day:
"If America is us and we're the majority, why is it that we do not hold a
singe seat of power? Not the White House, not the Senate, not the House,
not
the Supreme Court, of 50 of our state capitals, Democrats only control 8
of
them. Yet, in 6 of the last 7 presidential elections, the popular vote was
won by a Democrat."
But this doesn't help when the Democrats act like Republicans. Then, it
doesn't matter who gets into power. So, millions of Americans dropped out
of
politics -- because it doesn't matter. Until Bernie Sanders arrived on the
scene: then the Democrats needed to make sure that they controlled the
narrative. Moore relates how Sanders won all 55 county primaries in West
Virginia, but was granted less than half of the delegates at the
convention.
This would repeat for almost all of the States. Sanders was robbed. Moore
shows all of the states...and then he shows Bernie capitulating.
Moore goes back to Flint -- then to West Virginia -- to interview people.
One
is a brawny dude, "I'm sick and tired of people saying America's the
greatest. Why? Because we can whip your ass? We don't have health care for
everybody. We have homelessness everywhere. We have an opioid epidemic."
Moore wonders where these people are on election day? He shows how things
are
changing a bit, with several Freshmen congresspeople running
as Democrats. Rashida Tlaib and Allesandra Ocasio Cortez and so on are
"ready to take over the party." There is hope.
Next, we hear about the successes for schoolteacher strikes. Then, there's
the Parkland Shooting, which triggered a groundswell of teenaged activism.
This part hasn't aged well, as "these fearless kids" have, unfortunately,
disappeared. The kids, even at that time, claim to have been raised by
their
phones, which bring them the truth. At that, the powers-that-be were no
longer concerned. If you control their information, then you control their
activism.
Moore goes back to Flint, where Barack Obama showed up and insulted
everyone
by pretending that he'd also been poisoned by lead as a kid -- and that it
was no big deal. Unreal. Over a year later and the Obama administration
did
military exercises in Flint, Michigan -- to practice urban warfare. Moore
shows trains full of tanks driving toward Flint. During the 2016 campaign,
Trump was the only one who visited the water-treatment facility in Flint.
Oh Jesus, now he's interviewing that absolute idiot "Timothy Snyder"
. He says that the
Hitler comparison is valid (which Moore accompanies by showing a Trump
speech
superimposed on a Hitler one). Moore spends a ton of time on the
comparison,
as if it's relevant. It's not. Just focus on Trump and the situation
today.
It's not like we need to compare Trump to Hitler in order to grasp that
there's something wrong with America, for God's sake.
I mean, I understand that history repeats itself, but you're moving your
focus to the comparison, so defenders will simply have to show that you're
wrong about the comparison to kill your argument and also to shed doubt on
everything else you say. It weakens your argument.
Moore follows up the spurious Hitler comparison with a listing of the
actual
stuff that Trump has done in his first two years. This is more useful.
What's
less useful is to show a bunch of racist phone videos that people made and
then try to associate that with Trump, as if American racism bloomed with
Trump as President. Do those people feel legitimated? Perhaps. But having
an
Obama in charge made everyone feel like the problem had been solved. It is
well-done, though. Moore is quite a propagandist (it's a good thing he's
not
with Trump).
It's a decent summary of where we stand, with a bit of a kitchen-sink feel
to
it. But it's ok, because things really are dire. And he's spot-on with his
analysis at the end. He ends with the false Hawaiian missile threat,
showing
the terrified populace. "Make no mistake about it; this is the world we
live
in." That Americans live in. But they're a dangerous, cornered animal who
are
probably going to drag the rest of us with them, as they fly, snarling,
foam
flying from their lips, off the cliff. Goddamn that place is a madhouse,
full
of dangerous, unhinged people.
The Square (2017) -- "9/10"
This is a Swedish film about the definition of art. Anne (Elizabeth Moss)
interviews Christian (Claes Bang), director of the modern art museum in
Malmö, Sweden. They banter a bit about what makes something art. Outside,
they dismantle a statue and install a "square" in the cobblestones in
front
of the museum. Are the artisans who do this artists? The main exhibition
is
called "Mirrors and Piles of Gravel". The name neither over- nor
undersells
it.
Christian walks through the city, with a lot of other beautiful, well-off
people when he hears a cry for help. A woman runs toward him, yelling that
a
man is trying to kill her. The man shows up, but is very easily repelled
by
the director and another guy. They hug, celebrating their victory. They
part.
The director's cell phone is gone. So is his wallet.
They're at a meeting about how to promote "The Square", with some
guerrilla
marketers. They bullshit about that a bit, with the older director of the
company dandling a baby the whole time. They agree to meet next week, all
happy, though they've accomplished nearly less than nothing.
He's tracking his phone and showing his work colleagues, all delighted
with
how clever the robbers were. He practices a speech that he has written to
seem extemporaneous. He presents "The Square", a 4x4m area where, whenever
someone is in it and needs help, people are obligated to help. It is a
social
contract.
With the help of Michael, a colleague, Christian writes a threatening
letter
to all of the apartments in the building where he knows his phone is,
asking
them to deliver the stolen goods to the nearby 7-11. [1] They print out
the
letters and Christian is forced to deliver them himself; Michael won't do
it
for him. Michael lets him borrow his jacket, though, so he won't be
recognized. There is no-one in the building hallways anyway. Nor would
they
know who he is since he travels in completely different circles.
Downstairs, the locals have discovered the nice car in the parking lot and
have started harassing his coworker. Christian comes running out of the
building, yelling that he should go. right now. That evening, he takes off
his shirt and discovers that his cufflinks haven't been stolen at all.
Does
he still have his phone and wallet, as well?
There are scenes of suffering and homeless people in Malmö. Christian is
in
the 7-11 and buys a sandwich for a woman down on her luck. Obviously,
we're
supposed to notice how the museum wants to encourage people to care for
each
other within the square -- but what about without it?
Dominic West is Julian, the artist behind the piles of gravel. We see an
interview with him. There is someone with Tourette Syndrome in the
audience.
Instead of throwing him out, they ask for everyone to ignore him, as he
can't
help it. The interview can't really proceed in any sane manner, though.
Christian is still on the hunt for his phone, in the garage with another
phone, taking pictures of cars. Holy shit. He got his wallet and phone
back.
He's delighted. He sees the women for whom he bought a sandwich on the
ground
outside of the 7-11. He gets back out of his car and gives her a couple of
notes, then shakes her hand when she offers. [2]
Psychotic techno party. At the royal palace. Christian dances with
abandon.
Christian plays a harpsichord, trying to woo a girl.. It doesn't work.
Christian ends up going home with Anne (although he swore to himself in
the
bathroom mirror that he wouldn't sleep with her). She has a bonobo in her
apartment. They undress very matter-of-factly. She closes the doors to the
living room, locking away the ape. They start quite dispassionately, but
put
a lot of energy into it. They fight over who gets to dispose of the
condom.
She wins.
This is such a sarcastic and cynical movie, with a ton of subtle digs at
everything: the rich, the self-satisfied, artists, art-lovers. We see a
guy
driving a floor waxer/vacuum around Julian's piles of dirt and see him
swerve
the steering wheel, as if he'd cut a bit too close.
There is a long presentation of the the PR team's idea to promote "The
Square". They will piggyback on the public's pity for beggars -- but make
the
beggar a relatable Swedish-looking person. Meanwhile, Michael has gone to
get
a second package for Christian -- and it turns out to be an extremely
angry
Swedish/Arab boy, demanding an apology for having threatened him and his
family. He is out of control and cows Michael for having dared to
carpet-bomb
his threats to the whole building. The boy throws over a whole display of
soda.
Back at the museum, there's an emergency. The piles of gravel no longer
look
the same...and there's a bag of gravel lying near maintenance. Christian
proposes to use a picture to put it back the way it was (looping back to
the
initial interview question with Anne, i.e., what is art? Is it still the
same
art as it was if it's been "restored"?)
He is interrupted by Anne, who seems to have misinterpreted their
one-night
stand. "I like you. And I have an emotional connection to you and I'd like
to
explore that, because that's important to me. I don't just go have sex
with
just anybody. You know? I have to have that. Do you just go have sex with
lots of other women?"
That's all well and good, but she interrupted him at work to announce this
to
him in public, after shaming him for not describing the other evening in
the
fashion that she expected. So, she doesn't do this with anyone, but she's
mad
at him because he might have slept with other women ... but she didn't
bother
to determine all of this before she slept with him. She's incredibly
judgmental, but actually just ... mental. Great scene.
So Christian has got Anne the American pretending that she has the moral
high
ground, a Swedish/Arab boy is threatening him with "chaos" and now his
daughters are staying with him for the weekend. They storm in like demons,
fighting and yelling. The next day, he takes them through the exhibit:
they
have to push a button to decide whether they trust or mistrust other
people.
In the next room, a sign asks them to put their wallets and phones in a
square on the floor. "Does it feel strange?" This is fascinating. He tells
a
story he's heard from his grandfather. He knew a boy whose parents, when
he
was six, sent him out to play with a tag around his neck with his name and
address on it.
"[...] Attitudes change...back then, people trusted other grownups to help
their children if they had problems or had lost their way. But nowadays,
you
tend to regard other adults as potential threats."
YouTube calls him to ask if he wants to turn on ads on his popular video,
the
one of a blonde beggar child being blown up in "The Square". He grabs his
expensive-looking shopping bags and ascends into an Escherian mall of
escalators -- the scene oozes opulence. He has lost his daughters. He
engages
the beggar who'd asked him for change before to watch his bags and stay on
the spot where he was supposed to meet them. His trust is admirable, but
seemingly not unwise.
The video is next. The child is holding a kitten. In the office, the team
says "at least we got people talking." Christian arrives with his
daughters
and bags and starts damage control. He thinks they should stay strong, to
defend a museum's right to push boundaries. His boss is not convinced --
she
sees sponsorship disappearing.
At a fundraising gala, there is a special guest, a performance artist
named
Oleg (Terry Notary). He acts like a silverback gorilla, storming around,
threatening, establishing dominance. He scares Julian away. Christian
thanks
him for his performance, but Oleg is done when Oleg says Oleg is done.
Before, they were watching a performance; now, they're not so sure. They
are
cowed. Oleg ramps it up, jumping on a table, cozying up to a woman,
pulling
her hair, dragging her from her chair, across the floor and simulating a
rape. Finally, an older man stands up, dragging him off of her and
pummeling
him. Her boyfriend comes over, too, but ... more slowly. Obviously, Oleg
lets
them do this, as he is far more powerfully built than an old, rich,
Swedish
man.
Segue to homeless people in the rain. One man is wrapped in a plastic bag
and
looks like a corpse. He is probably dry, though.
Christian returns home with his daughters. The Swedish/Arab boy is waiting
for him, demanding an apology. That's all he wants. "Apologize to me and
I'll
go. My parents think I'm a thief." It's legitimate. Christian finally
apologizes, but the boy is still not satisfied. The boy's behavior reminds
me
of Oleg, from minutes before -- trying to look more intimidating.
Christian
out-intimidated him. His daughters are silent, all eye-whites.
The boy starts slamming on doors and causing "chaos". Christian grabs him,
then loses him and the boy falls down a flight of stairs. We only hear him
sniffling to himself. He's alive and conscious. Christian does not go to
him.
The boy starts to cry for help. Christian goes back and forth between the
stairwell and his apartment. Torn.
He wants to call the boy, but has lost his number. In the rain, he
searches
the trash bags for his apartment building -- this also looks like an art
display -- and finally finds it. He can't reach anyone, but records a
video
apology. It starts off as an apology to the boy, for his family, but
becomes
an apology from his society, then a relativized argument that everyone is
prejudiced. "So suddenly it comes down to politics and how assets are
distributed." Doesn't it always, though.
Christian (apparently) resigns in a press conference. The reporters ask
extremely ignorant questions about free speech (the issue of the video has
nothing to do with free speech). By the end, though, Christian has turned
it
around and they're asking him which exhibit the video was meant to
advertise.
Given how he'd rehearsed a similar "turnaround" speech earlier in the
movie,
it's likely the whole press conference was a sham. The museum dominates
the
papers the next day.
Christian goes to his daughters' cheerleading [3] recital. He stops by the
boy's building on the way home. He and his daughters go to the top floor,
to
find the boy. but he and his family have moved away.
This movie, like Margaret above, is about people who I can't imagine have
ever cleaned their own toilets. It was a super-interesting and
quintessentially European movie. It has a lovely soundtrack with Bobby
McFerrin. I saw it in English, Swedish, and Danish (with subtitles, of
course).
The Guilty (Den skyldige) (2018) -- "8/10"
Fade in on a police officer with alarm-dispatch duty, handling routine calls.
A young lady calls, but seems quite confused. She calls the dispatcher
"sweetie". She's not confused, though, she's being cagy, pretending she's
called someone else, so the person she's with doesn't get wise to her. The
cops have got a bead on her; she's been kidnapped. He tells her to talk to
him like she's comforting her child.
He's fully alert, but not panicking. Cool. Calm. The lady he calls to
dispatch a car to help a kidnapped lady, as well. He extracts the color of
the vehicle and that she's in a van. He communicates the info. It's
pissing
down, hard to see for the cops in pursuit. We only hear the patrol. We see
only the dispatcher's head, his face. He has a bandage on one finger of
his
left hand. He's drinking an effervescent medicine (like Alka Seltzer).
He calls the woman's home number and gets Mathilde. She's six years and
nine
months old. Asger manages to get her father's name and that he owns a
large,
white vehicle. She also knows his phone number, by heart. Officer Asger
Holm
tells her she's been very clever. She breaks down and tells him what
happened. He keeps her company -- tells her to turn on the TV, maybe. It's
broken. He tells her to go in with her brother Oliver for company.
He gets the plate number from the database, passes it on and also orders a
patrol to the kids. He starts to lose his cool. He's off-shift in 15
minutes,
so he moves to a different machine, where he won't be replaced by the next
shift. He calls his buddy and tries to get him to go to the Dad's house,
but
his friend interrupts. It seems Asger has something important to do in the
morning, at a courthouse. It seems his desk duty is a punishment for
something.
Asger calls Michael, pretending that the police just want to notify him
that
his kids are at home alone. He ups the ante and tells MIchael that he
knows
Michael has Iben with him. Michael hangs up. Asger calls his partner
Rashid,
to check up on him. He finds out he's been drinking -- although he has to
testify in court the next day, as well. Asger sends him to Michael's
apartment, even though he's been drinking.
He's short with everyone, then apologetic. He's trying to keep himself
under
control with the stress of Iben's kidnapping and his court date the next
day.
Mathilde calls back to tell him that the police are there. She lets them
in
and they tell Asger that she's covered in blood. She says it's not her
blood.
"Find Oliver." ... "The baby is dead.[...] he's been cut open" Mathilde
had
obviously gone in there, to keep from being lonely. The call is cut off.
Asger calls Michael and practices Jedi mind tricks, ordering him to stop
the
car. Asger lets his anger get away from him and Michael hangs up. He's
back
on the line with Rashid, who's at Michael's house, looking for clues as to
where he's headed. The house is nearly empty. Rashid finds a pile of
letters;
Asger orders him to look through them all, to find out where Michael might
be
headed. Asger calls Iben and tells her to pull the handbrake. She does it,
but is immediately disconnected.
Asger gets another call, from a different accident. It's a lady who
crashed
her bike and hurt her knee. He tells he doesn't have time. She tells him
to
send an ambulance. He tells her to take a taxi and to not ride her bike
when
she's drunk. Click.
Asger encourages Iben to take out Michael herself, using a brick she found
in
the back of the van. She starts to panic; he talks her down. They talk
about
her trips to the aquarium with her family.
Oliver had snakes in his belly. She cured them. Asger turns white when he
realizes what happened. Michael opens the door. Thump. Click.
Rashid calls back. He tells Asger that Iben had been committed before.
Michael was taking her back to Elsinore, to the asylum. He calls Michael,
who's at the end of his rope. Asger tells him they'll help, asks why he
didn't call the police. Michael laughs bitterly.
Asger tries Iben again. Nothing. He loses his shit and smashes his
keyboard.
Rashid calls. Asger tells him he doesn't have to lie the next day, in
court.
Rashid tells him that's ridiculous -- he can't just change his statement
now.
Rashid tells him to go home.
Iben calls. Asger takes the call in the main room. She asks Asger if she'd
killed Oliver. "You didn't mean to." He tells her the story of the man he
killed, for which he's standing trial the next day. "I claimed it was
self-defense, but it wasn't. I've lied and I've killed." He says he'd had
enough, that he was trying to excise something. "Was it snakes?" "Yes, but
I
knew what I was doing. You didn't." Sirens. "You're a good man." Click.
"We have her. Good job, Asger."
I am definitely a fan of these one-person-show movies. I saw it in Danish
with English subtitles.
On the Beach (1959) -- "7/10"
The movie is based on "the book of the same name"
by Nevil
Shute.
It is 1964. The world is coming to an end due to nuclear war. The war is
over
and there are no signs of life from anywhere north of the fallout line,
which
is moving southward. Australia will be the last to go. We start in a
submarine where American Cmdr. Dwight Towers (Gregory Peck) is surfacing
near
the coast. Australian Pete Holmes (Anthony Perkins) is waiting for an
assignment.
The world is coming to an end, but the navy stiffly sticks to their
missions,
as if nothing is going on. They will ship out soon, to investigate whether
there is anything left in the world. Pete will have to leave his pregnant
wife Mary (Donna Anderson) behind. Before he ships out, though, they're to
have a party. He invites Dwight and their friend Moira (Ava Gardner).
Moira
picks Dwight up from the train station in a horse and buggy. She is
devastatingly charming.
At the party, we meet Julian Osborn (Fred Astaire), an engineer who gets
into
his cups and explains to everyone who'll listen that there is no hope.
Mary
takes exception, because she doesn't want to hear it. She was already
mildly
infuriated with Pete earlier, when he dared to mention that the milkman
wasn't coming anymore. She wants to be able to continue pretending that
there's nothing happening -- and that nothing will happen.
Dwight and Moira hit it off, with them drinking an incredible amount of
liquor and him tucking her in like a gentleman. Dwight gets the news that
his
mission is to be delayed, so he takes up sailing and racing. He's
excellent
at it. He takes Moira along, who spoils everything on purpose, for which
she
gets a good paddling. Pete is shopping around for "pills" (cyanide
capsules)
that he wants for his wife and child, in case he's not around "when it
happens". At a local gentleman's club (when they really were for
gentleman)
where someone important-sounding pontificates that there are "400 bottles
of
the best port left and only 5 months left to drink them."
Pete talks to Mary about the pills, but she's not having it. She won't.
Anthony Perkins was so young. Dwight and Moira talk about Dwight's dead
wife.
Moira leaves him at the train station and heads to Osborn's instead,
showing
up drunk and asking him whether he's still in love with her. He's
tinkering
with his Ferrari roadster that he plans to drive in the Australian LeMans.
Moira acknowledges that she has no-one to spend the end of the world with.
Dwight is still married, with two children. They're all dead, but he's
still
married and therefore out of reach for her wiles.
Dwight and Pete ship out on the sub, doing research things (reading
numbers
out loud) and discussing death and accepting it (Pete and Osborne). The
periscope goes up. It goes down. They get to San Fransisco. Ominous music
indicates that the view of San Francisco is somehow wrong: there are no
people. At all.
A guy named Swain swims away from the sub, heading home to San Francisco.
He's decided he'd rather die there than in Australia. The sub moves on.
They discuss how the war started. They ask Osborne "the egghead" to
illuminate them.
"The trouble with you is you want a simple answer. There isn't any. The war
started when people accepted the idiotic principle that peace could be
maintained by arranging to defend themselves with weapons they couldn't
possibly use without committing suicide."
They roll on, to investigate a mysterious morse code coming from a
telegraph
somewhere on shore. They send a man to investigate. He finally finds what
it
is: a window shade has gotten tangled up in a tipped-over coke bottle over
the telegraph signaler. There is no-one left alive. The sailor stops the
transmission and reports back.
They return to Australia. Moira reunites with Dwight -- they've missed
each
other terribly. Osborn stops by with his new Ferrari, scaring all of the
animals. He's got a race on Saturday. On Saturday, there are many deaths
and
many horrific car wrecks, but none of them involving Osborn. He wins the
Australian Le Mans.
Dwight learns that Moira has managed to move trout season earlier. They go
fishing with nearly all of the rest of the town. Much "Waltzing Matilda"
is
sung. That night, it rains -- it pours -- and Moira and the Captain share
a
lovely evening, serenaded by their nearly supernaturally drunken neighbors
who continue to refine their phrases of Waltzing Matilda until one,
magical
verse comes out just right.
One of Dwight's ensigns falls ill. It has begun. At a Salvation Army
event,
they start handing out pills. Dwight's other men decide that they'd like
to
"head home". As captain, he has to go with them. At least he thinks he
does.
People start disappearing. Moira races toward Dwight, hoping to catch him
before he leaves. Osborne offs himself with his car, in a garage. Pete's
daughter gets radiation sickness. Mary's in shock, in the hospital. Moira
understands Dwight's decision (but, seriously, he's a moron). The butler
at
the club plays billiards by himself -- there are no more orders for
well-aged
port. Australia is nearly empty. Pete and Mary are the last to go.
There are some good bits and it's a heartless end-of-the-world movie, but
the
book is better. The movie is a bit long and has a few too many
tête-à-têtes with professions of love for my liking.
Mandy (2018) -- "8/10"
We start in the Shadow Mountains in 1983. A couple, Red (Nicholas Cage) and
Mandy (Andrea Riseborough), lives in the woods, in seclusion. Mandy
produces
fantasy art and works at a small shop. Red's a logger (Nicholas Cage),
commuting via helicopter. He smokes.
We meet Jeremiah, who appears to be the leader of a cult. He demands a new
sacrifice from his acolytes. He'd recently seen someone who'd caught his
fancy: Mandy. He sends his disciples to find her and bring her to him.
They,
in turn, call what looks for all the world like the Hellraiser gang on
motorcycles. They descend upon the couple's house and kidnap Red and
Mandy.
They will use Red as leverage to force Mandy to join the cult. She gets
something from an eyedropper (presumably a hallucinogenic) and a sting in
the
neck from an ugly-looking insect.
Things were spacey before, but now it gets downright Whitney
Museum--featured-exhibit-spacey. Jeremiah introduces himself to Mandy. He
plays his own Carpenters-like album for her. He accompanies the music with
a
sob story about how no-one appreciated the unadulterated genius of his
music.
But that's OK, because it leaves him time for his true calling, being a
cult
leader. Seriously, Jeremiah's sermon is about Jesus thinking that
Jeremiah's
the coolest guy in the world and that he can take everything, because
everything already belongs to him.
Alles klar? Good. He undoes his robe and exposes himself to her. She
laughs
at his stupid song about himself (or maybe his flaccid member), throwing
off
his whole game. Mandy's positively screaming with hallucinatory laughter.
Jeremiah is pissed and he goes out to Red, stabbing him with a sacrificial
knife while his henchman mutters mumbo-jumbo. They dump Mandy in a bag on
the
lawn in front of him, pull her up with a rope like a dead animal, dowse
her
with gasoline and ... set her on fire.
The first thirty minutes before the kidnapping were a really eerie
buildup.
It stays eerie, with nearly everyone showing tremendously enlarged pupils,
but, as with any horror/revenge movie, you have to get down to nuts and
bolts. And Nicholas Cage gets down to doing what he does best: overacting
but
still selling it.
Red escapes and takes leave of his wife's ashy corpse. He somehow gets
home,
then finds an old alcohol stash and very theatrically guzzles it. The next
day, the light is yellow (not red or blue). He visits his friend Caruthers
(Bill Duke) to retrieve his crossbow, which he names "The Reaper". Red
hears
from Caruthers about "The Black Skulls", a biker gang wreaking havoc
locally.
Caruthers goes on to explain that they're completely messed-up from the
drugs
they've taken and in a lot of pain, "But they fucking love it." So,
sadomasochistic hell riders.
This is no problem for Red, who can forge a Klingon-like battle-axe in his
basement -- all while wearing sunglasses. He storms off in his kick-ass
wheels, roaring up the road, all lit up in his color: yellow. The screen
goes
red: a biker is nearby. He takes one out, but crashes his car doing so.
Red
is captured again. The screen goes animated to show this.
He awakens tied to a radiator and with one of the Black Skulls is working
him. He frees himself and disposes of it. One down.
He roams the absolutely disgusting home of the Black Skulls and comes upon
another one who's watching an old-school porno and snorting a whole pile
of
something clearly psychoactive. This one is much larger. Red tries to
sneak
up on it, but he gets tossed and has to take a shot before he slices its
throat. Blood gouts all over Red and he goes a little mental. This may
very
well be because that thing's blood went all in his eyes, nose and mouth,
so
he's tripping on whatever the Black Skull took.
The porno is still on TV -- but is then abruptly shot out. The first Black
Skull has crawled out of the deep pit into which it fell -- this one is
smaller, but fast. Red is riding high -- "You ripped my shirt!" -- and
snaps
its neck forthwith. He takes a prodigious snort from the pile on the
ruined
coffee table and then finds his Klingon battle-axe mounted up near the
ceiling. What luck.
He finds a jar of something on a table and takes a fingertip-taste
(because
why wouldn't you just do that with a jar of silver goop that you find in
that
disgusting kitchen). He's flying-high-and-will-never-die, though, so he
goes
for it. The stuff is impressive -- he trips hard and fast and is soon
exiting
the house through a second-story window, hunting more.
He fires an arrow through the back of one of these thing's necks, but it
barely fazes it. That silver goop must be potent. Its fighting strength is
undiminished. Red prevails, while it intones "She burns, she burns, she
burns" until Red cuts its head off.
He finds a cigarette on the ground, lights it from the thing's burning
head
and moves on, stealing an ATV. His color is now red.
He finds the drug lab. There's a tiger in a cage. "Lizzy". The cook turns,
"Joe van Warrior sent forth from the eye of the storm." [4] He frees the
tiger, then tells Red "north".
Red finds Swan in a truck with the youngest girl. He slaughters an
unrepentant Swan. The next one is washing his car in the woods in an
80s-metal-video spotlight and listening to "Cielito Lindo"
("Aye-yi-yiyi"). Flying axe
to
the head.
Red finds a chainsaw. Chekhov would have known what's going to happen with
that. The next guy is a bruiser. He also has a chainsaw -- with a much
longer
blade. Red gets his started -- and draws blood. Bruiser drops his
chainsaw.
So does Red. Bruiser picks up Red's chainsaw. His delight is short-lived.
Red
throws a chain to pull him down onto it.
Creepy-ass red-lit church with a tree-trunk altar. There's a trapdoor
behind
the altar that oozes red mist. The tunnels seem to go on forever. Red is
now
permanently in Red Light. He comes upon the older acolyte. Red ignores her
salacious offers and takes her head.
Finally: the boss. Jeremiah, in his underwear, in what looks like a
red-lit
underground cistern. He babbles a bunch, but Red responds with "A
psychotic
drowns where the mystic swims. You're drowning. I'm swimming. [...] I'm
your
God now."
There are several really nice-looking shots (the collapse of the burning
church at the end reminded me a bit of the burning house in Zerkalo). The
final scene where Red drives into a night that morphs into a fantasy
planet
from Mandy's drawings suggested that Red had taken leave of reality for
good.
Before that, he'd only seen her animations/drawings while unconscious.
This is an initially slow-moving movie that does a lot with atmosphere,
lighting and music. It's all red and blue, with swelling strings. I
thought
it was much better-done that other films of its kind. it's eminently
quotable
and almost certainly due to become a cult classic. Nick Cage almost
guarantees it.
The Lighthouse (2019) -- "9/10"
Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson) and Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) arrive on
an island with a lighthouse on it. They trudge up toward the
light-keeper's
house, passing the two men they're replacing. Their shift would be one
month
alone on the rock. Wake is older, experienced and in charge. He has a bum
leg. Winslow will be taking care of everything -- shoveling coal, sweeping
up, cooking, washing up, oiling the machines, cleaning the pipes --
everything, except for taking care of the light itself. That area is
off-limits to him; only Wake is allowed up there.
Winslow is pestered by a gull that Wake forbids him to molest in any way
because it's "the soul of a sailor who's met his maker". There are strange
goings-on, with Winslow dreaming vividly about mermaids. Wake is a right
bastard of a boss -- possibly the worst ever. He thinks he owns Winslow
and
delivers the following tirade when Winslow claims to have mopped and
swept,
but not to Wake's satisfaction:
"And I say you swab it again and you swab it proper-like this time and you'll
be swabbin' it ten times more after that. And if I tells you to pull up
and
apart every floorboard and clapboard in this here house and scour them
down
with yer bare bleedin' knuckles, you'll do it! And if I tells you to yank
out
every single nail from every mouldin' and nailhole and suck off every
speck
of rust 'til all them nails sparkle like a sperm whale's pecker and then
carpenter the whole light-station back together from scrap and then do it
all
over again, you'll do it! And by God and by Golly you'll do it smilin',
lad,
'cause you'll like it! You'll like it 'cause I says you will!"
At two weeks -- halfway -- Winslow asks Wake to use his name, to stop
calling
him "lad". Winslow wakes from a dream and wanders up to the lighthouse to
find Wake up with the light, tending his shift, but masturbating
feverishly.
Winslow sees a giant tentacle swing by.
The next day, Winslow finds that the water cistern has become fouled. He
goes
out to find a gull stuck in a giant pile of gunk, still alive but dying.
Another one lands right in front of him, cawing. It's that same bastard
gull.
He catches it and beats it to death with extreme prejudice.
The wind changes.
Wake fears "something dirty knockin' about" and tells Winslow to board up
the
windows. He wonders at Winslow's mood since he's getting off the rock the
next day. They catch a mess of lobster and Wake cooks them. Winslow
partakes
in the nightly glass of rotgut for the first time, but can't speak the
words
of the incantation, "Should pale death, with treble dread, make the ocean
caves our bed, God who hears the surges roll deign to save our suppliant
soul."
They trade stories, get roaring drunk together, and are more friendly than
they'd been the whole time. Winslow wakes up on the floor with a
debilitating
hangover. Both chamber pots are full to the brim. He's got to bring them
out
before he can piss.
Hauling coal in the driving rain.
Shoveling coal into the maw of the furnace.
Winslow finds a mermaid asleep on the rocks. She wakes up laughing and
screaming.
They wait in the driving rain out on the rocks with Winslow's bags. The
storm
is here.
Winslow works on. Wake announces that "the damp's got to the provisions"
and
says he's been saying for weeks that they should be rationing, ever since
the
boat failed to appear. Wake and Winslow have a different sense of time
now.
Wake takes him out in the rain to dig up rations: crates of booze.
After teetotaling for so long, Winslow is hammered. He's acting a bit like
Wake did, at the beginning (e.g. farting). They fight, with Wake almost
the
more reasonable, until he demands that Winslow admit that he likes his
lobster with the following speech,
"Wake: Hark Triton, hark! Bellow, bid our father the Sea King rise from the
depths full foul in his fury! Black waves teeming with salt foam to
smother
this young mouth with pungent slime, to choke ye, engorging your organs
til'
ye turn blue and bloated with bilge and brine and can scream no more -
only
when he, crowned in cockle shells with slitherin' tentacle tail and
steaming
beard take up his fell be-finned arm, his coral-tine trident screeches
banshee-like in the tempest and plunges right through yer gullet, bursting
ye
- a bulging bladder no more, but a blasted bloody film now and nothing for
the harpies and the souls of dead sailors to peck and claw and feed upon,
only to be lapped up and swallowed by the infinite waters of the Dread
Emperor himself - forgotten to any man, to any time, forgotten to any god
or
devil, forgotten even to the sea, for any stuff for part of Winslow, even
any
scantling of your soul is Winslow no more, but is now itself the sea!
"Winslow: Alright, have it your way. I like your cookin'."
The rain doesn't stop. It leaks through the roof. Rather than coal,
Winslow
hauls his bottle of booze in a rain-filled wheelbarrow. The machine drives
on
regardless. He masturbates feverishly to the mermaid figurine he found,
dreaming of the one he (thought he) saw. He makes love to her on the
rocks.
He pulls up a man's head in the lobster trap. He's off his head. They
guzzle
rotgut and dance mad jigs, slurring eldritch lyrics.
An unknown time later, they lie in each other's arms. More time passes.
Winslow confesses to having watched a colleague die in a logjam when he
was
still a lumberjack, then taking his name and identity. His real name is
Thomas Howard.
Winslow hears Wake's disembodied voice saying "Why'd you spill the beans?"
then charges for the lifeboat. Wake catches him, shatters the lifeboat's
prow, then hounds Winslow back to the house. Winslow confronts him about
the
head he found in the lobster trap: it's his predecessor. Wake counters
that
it was Winslow who shattered the lifeboat.
Madness.
"Wake: You're so mad, you know not up from down.
"How long have we been on this rock? Five weeks? Two Days? Where are we?
Help
me to recollect"
They've run out of drink. They mix turpentine with honey. The storm rages
unabated.
The men are huddled under a table, cackling maniacally. A wave surges over
the whole house. It's raining inside. They pass out. They wake. The storm
has
stopped.
"Winslow: This place is a sty.
Wake: Mornin' to you, too."
Winslow finally blows up at Wake.
"I'm sick of your laughin', your snorin', you're goddamned farts. You're.
God. Damned. Goddamned farts! You smell of piss. You smell of jism. Like
rotten dick. Like curdled foreskin. Like hot onions fucked a farmyard
shithouse!"
Thomas gives it right back.
"There ain't no mystery. You're an open book. A picture, says I. A painted
actress screamin' in the footlights, a bitch what wants to be coveted for
nothing but bein' born, cryin' about the silver spoon what shoulda been
yers!"
Winslow is trippin' now, beating on Wake, imagining him as the original
Winslow, the mermaid, then Wake as a kraken. He commands Wake to "Bark!",
then takes Wake for a walk outside, on a leash. He buries him, then digs
him
back up -- because he needs the keys. Inside, Winslow catches his breath.
Wake storms in with the pickaxe, wounding Winslow in the shoulder. A
kettle
to the temple and down goes Wake. A pickaxe blow finishes him off. Winslow
lights a cigarette. He intones their drinking incantation. He takes a swig
of
turpentine.
He crawls up the stairs to the light. The trapdoor opens. It's beautiful
up
there. Clean. Otherworldly. The door of the lamp swings open. He reaches
out.
He screams. No. He shreds his vocal chords. He falls through the trapdoor
and
down the stairs. He is lying on the rocks, outside, one eye gone. The
gulls
pluck his innards, like Prometheus.
The movie is in black-and-white with an uncommonly narrow aspect ratio. It
features only two actors (plus a non-speaking Mermaid), who each have
different, strong and occasionally nearly impenetrable accents. It takes
place in a single house on a small island. And it's riveting.
Citizen Kane (1941) -- "7/10"
We fade in on an old mansion on a hill, passing the dilapidated gates and an
abandoned golf course until we finally pass through a window and see a
face
whispering "Rosebud". A nurse covers up the man who said it.
We see a news broadcast about a pleasure park called Xanadu, whose
proprietor
has just died. Charles Kane (Orson Wells) had built a media empire unlike
any
the world had ever seen. We learn about Kane in more newsreel footage.
The footage stops and we meet the men who made it. They want to know about
the real Charles Kane. They know his last word. But what does it mean?
They
search for his ex-wife Susan Alexander Kane (Dorothy Comingore) and find
her
drunk in a restaurant.
We flash back to Charles's boyhood, raised in Mrs. Kane's boarding house.
His
mother sets up an adoption by a rich man Walter Parks Thatcher (George
Coulouris) to get him away from his father. But the boy doesn't, of
course,
want to go. He'd been playing in the snow, making a snowman and sledding
about; the next day, he would be on a train to the East.
Flash forward to Kane's youth, when he was in charge of his first
newspaper:
The Inquirer. He was also an heir to the Thatcher fortune. He is
idealistic
and philanthropic. But he sees the power of controlling media. When
Thatcher
says he'll go out of business, Kane replies, "You're right: if I lose a
million dollars per year, I'll go out of business in 60 years."
Kane is now much older, hearing the elder Thatcher and his associate
Bernstein cite his investments and holdings. Kane says,
"Kane: You know, Mr. Thatcher, if I hadn't been very rich, I might have been
a really great man.
Thatcher: Don't you think you are?
Kane: I think I did pretty well under the circumstances.
Thatcher: What would you like to have been?
Kane: Everything you hate."
Flash back to Kane's initial purchase of The Inquirer. He writes out his
declaration:
"I'll provide the people of this city with a daily paper that will tell all
the news honestly. I will also provide them with a fighting and tireless
champion of their rights as citizens and as human beings."
We flash forward to the Inquirer having taken the lead among all
newspapers
in New York City. It is a different Kane: he's influencing politics and
policy rather than just reporting. "Are we going to declare war on Spain,
or
are we not?" As we heard from him in an earlier scene, "you provide the
prose
poems. I'll provide the war."
We flash-forward again to the modern day, after Kane's death. His
executors
and journalists are still trying to find out about Rosebud. They talk
about
his first marriage -- to the current president's niece. She's accustomed
to
the opulence he can provide, but they're very much a "talk at breakfast"
kind
of couple.
We flash back to his first political campaign: for governor of the state.
He's running against a real crooked piece of work, James Gettys (Ray
Collins). Kane loses to him because he's caught in an affair with a
certain
Miss Alexander. He leaves his wife and marries Miss Alexander. He then
presses her into an opera career that she doesn't really want. He even
builds
an opera house for her. She flops (as expected) and he ends up writing the
panning review himself (just to prove that he's an honest man). Still, he
forces her to continue, using his newspapers to promote her. Finally, she
tries to take her own life, just to escape the singing and ... him.
She sticks with him, though, despite his drawing back into seclusion --
into
his Xanadu palace. She does jigsaw puzzles. They're older now, in a
bedouin's
tent in a private jazz club (exceedingly decadent). They fight. He slaps
her.
The next morning, she packs her bags. She's done being a plaything on his
chess board. He even says "you can't do this to me" -- as if he's the
center
of the story and other characters "do" things to him instead of simply
living
their lives. Her goals and dreams were never important. She leaves him,
but
feels sorry for him.
Flash forward to an interview with the Italian butler of Xanadu -- he
claims
to know what Rosebud is. He names his price. He starts the story by taking
us
back to when Miss Alexander left Kane. Charles Foster Kane pitched himself
a
fit -- busting pretty much everything in her room -- except for the
snow-globe. He stashes it in a pocket and walked, stiff-legged and
wide-eyed
out past his staff, who've all gathered to watch the fireworks.
We're back in the modern day, where people are photographing the
gargantuan
hoard he'd amassed -- statues, paintings, piles and piles of bric-a-brac.
Among them is a sled -- the one he was using when he was shipped off from
his
mother and father. It's called "Rosebud". Um. Ok.
I feel like I've missed something -- this film is supposed to be
legendary,
but it seems kind of empty and predictable. It's fine. There are some nice
shots. The makeup is good (especially to age people). Some of the giants
sets
are impressive. The out-of-order storytelling was almost certainly
innovative
for the time. The acting is so-so -- the story and dialogue as well. It's
a
movie about a man who came to his wealth by adoption. He has an oversized
ego
and he means well, but only on his own terms. Other people are to be cared
for, but never considered equals. I may need to see it again, but I'm not
in
a hurry.
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) -- "8/10"
This is a David Mamet screenplay with a hell of a cast. We fade in on Shelley
Levene (Jack Lemmon) using a pay phone. Next to him is Dave Moss (Ed
Harris),
pushing a real-estate sale. John Williamson (Kevin Spacey) picks them up
for
a sales meeting. They meet Ricky Roma (Al Pacino) and James Lingk
(Jonathan
Pryce) at the bar. Shelley heads back to the office, where George Aaronow
is
already there, ready for the meeting. Blake (Alec Baldwin) shows up --
he's
going to be leading the meeting. He's not gentle, "put that coffee down.
Coffee's for closers only."
"Do I have your interest? Of course I do: because it's either fuck or walk.
It's either close or hit the bricks. [...] I'd wish you good luck, but you
wouldn't know what to do with it if you got it."
Blake leaves. The others bitch, but they get down to work -- even though
the
leads are garbage. It's pouring out. It's dark. It's getting later at
night.
They have to go make sales that night. Aaronow and Moss drive off
together,
scurrying through the pouring rain to the car, in a nice wide shot.
They're
discussing how getting just 10% is chump change. Especially when the leads
are shit and they're paying 90% for them. They should go into business for
themselves. It's probably a conversation they've had many times before.
Levene haggles with Williamson to get the good leads -- the Glengarry
leads.
Levene is trying like hell, but it's pouring rain and he's staying out
there,
so his bargaining position isn't great. He's forced to shell out $50 a
lead
and 20% of the back-end of each sale. Levene calls on one of them,
pestering
the husband very, very hard, but there's just no chance. Moss and Aaronow
are
still cruising around. They still haven't done anything but gotten a snack
and driven back to the office. They discuss robbing the office to get the
good leads.
Roma and Lingk are in the bar, with Roma leading the conversation--a spiel
that sounds like he's delivered it many times before. Nothing came of the
robbery -- Moss and Aaronow are also at the bar. The robbery idea is back
on
the table. Roma is more interested in talking about his sex life. Moss is
going to make Aaronow steal the leads -- because he came up with the idea;
the least Aaronow can do is to steal the leads. Roma closes a property
with
Lingk.
The next morning, the office has been robbed. Roma shows up, in a fury,
demanding a car because he closed a deal and therefore he won. Levene
comes
in, happy as a pig in shit: he closed eight units and sold $82,000. He's
on
the board. Dave Moss is full of negativity -- he hasn't made a sale in a
month. Moss leaves in a huff. Roma invites Levene "The Machine" to
continue
with his story of his titanic sale. The story goes on for long minutes.
Roma:
"Great sale, Shelley."
Williamson is doubtful that the sale will stick -- Shelley spends a long
time
intricately yelling at him and telling him just where he can stick it.
Lingk
walks in; Roma grabs Shelley and makes him pretend he's a customer, trying
to
build interest. But Lingk is there to tell him that the deal is off: his
wife
doesn't want to do it. Roma is rolling hard, putting on pressure,
pretending
he's too busy to deal with him. Lingk is adamant that he needs to get his
money back. Roma is trying everything he can to keep the sale open -- he
wants to do dinner on Monday. Linqk is upset because he's not allowed to
negotiate. he really just wants the check back. Roma is trying to work the
masculinity angle and it almost works, but Williamson comes in and assures
Linqk that the check is cashed. The deal blows up. Roma rips Williamson a
new
one:
"You stupid fucking cunt. You wanna know the rule? You never open your mouth
until you know what the shot is. You child."
Roma goes in with the police to talk to them about the robbery. The
Machine
takes over ripping Williamson. He ends with the Mamet twist:
"Levene:: If you're going to make something up, John. Be sure that it helps.
Or keep your mouth shut.
"Williamson: [long pause] How do you know I made it up?"
Why is this the Mamet twist? Because the contract had not gone to the
bank,
so he was lying to the customer. But Levene knew that because he'd gone
back
to the office and robbed it and seen the contract on Williamson's desk.
Levene folds. He did make the sale that morning, but he also robbed the
office the night before. Williamson also tells Levene that the people to
whom
he sold the property? They're insane. They don't have money. They just
like
talking to salesmen. Williamson gave Levene the lead because he doesn't
like
him.
Roma gets back on the phone, hustling. The cops call Levene back in.
Levene
wants to tell Ricky himself, but he can't get a word in edgewise. Levene
trudges into the office. The door closes.
I gave it an extra point for the writing and the pile of great actors. Not
a
single woman in the movie, though.
Velvet Goldmine (1998) -- "9/10"
It's the 1970s in London. Young, fabulously dressed people are running
through the streets to a concert. Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is on
stage, in an angelic costume. Feathers settle onto the roiling crowd. He
is
gunned down with a single shot. They interview people, including Curt Wild
(Ewan McGregor), who wonders out loud whether the trend to being bisexual
(like Slade) is just a fad.
Arthur Stuart (Christian Bale) is a reporter who's given the job of
finding
out what really happened, ten years later, in 1984. He harks back to when
he'd first heard of Slade, when he was still in secondary school, with a
shag
of hair and a head full of Brian Slade.
Arthur collects interviews from Brian's former manager Cecil (Michael
Feast),
who lost Slade to a more high-powered manager in the form of Jerry Devine
(Eddie Izzard). Cecil tells of Brian's early appearances as a folk singer
and
then of his epiphany when he saw Curt Wild for the first time. Slade
changes
his style and woos Devine's company with a completely out-there video
starring a lizard-person.
Cecil sends Arthur on to Mandy Slade (Toni Collette), who tells of how
Slade
met Jack Fairy, a breakout transvestite star of the time. At his next
press
conference, he didn't exactly come out, but he just acted as if he'd never
been in. It was pretty epic. It was telling how Mandy says (in 1984) how
something like that would cause riots whereas in 1971, it caused dancing.
Slade's music is all over the place -- no clear style: in one, he's like
Bowie; in another, like the Clash.
Slade gets a chance to go to America and he wants to meet Curt Wild. Meet
him
he does: on the nod. They get him cleaned up and offer a collaboration. It
happens -- both in the studio, on stage and in the sack.
His next album is Maxwell Demon -- a persona of his, as well. The sets are
lavish, intricate, opulent. The press conference for the release takes
place
in a fake circus. One reporter asks him if the Demon is him, to which he
replies, "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person... Give him
a
mask and he'll tell you the truth."
A concert. Slade slinks around elegantly. A montage. An orgy with dozens
in
the suite. Arthur at home, masturbating to Slade and Wild. His parents
catch
him. Wild's guitar solo shreds onward. Devine is with Shannon (Emily
Woof),
the ad-hoc seamstress. Mandy is with three or four people -- the nest of
limbs is impossible to untangle. She watches first Wild, then Slade, leave
the room. She finds them together later.
Wild's talent runs out and Jerry gives up on him, forcing Brian to give up
as
well. Wild storms off, ending up in Germany. Slade spirals out, sinking
into
a giant pile of cocaine. Mandy serves him divorce papers while he's
snorting
cocaine off the ass of a sleeping hooker (or groupie). Brian couldn't care
less about Mandy. Shannon has very much gotten into the lifestyle, playing
Brian's acolyte perfectly.
We're back in the bar, where Arthur is interviewing Mandy. She tells of
the
last time she'd seen Brian: he was at a concert starring Jack Fairy and
Curt
Wild. Segue to the concert. They're mourning the death of glitter. Jack
sings
20th Century Boy. Arthur is there, going nuts, dressed to the nines. Curt
Wild is fantastic in concert (in a way that he absolutely wasn't in
studio).
Arthur is transported. He spots Mandy in the crowd. Mandy is watching a
man
in the shadows in a doorway. It's Slade.
After the concert, Mandy congratulates Wild, then tells him that she
hadn't
seen Slade. Arthur meets Wild as well, on the roof.
Back in 1984, Arthur thinks he's found Brian Slade. He runs to tell his
publisher, but the story's been cut. He's on the Tommy Stone show now.
"But
that's it!" Slade has rebooted his career as Tommy Stone. Tommy Stone's
song
is spectacular; the soundtrack overall is very tight. Arthur meets Wild in
a
bar after the show, but Wild doesn't recognize him.
This is at least as good as Bohemian Rhapsody, if not actually better. The
acting is fantastic, with Rhys-Davies putting in a particularly good
performance. [5]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Which is funny, because those are actually a thing in Scandinavia. They are
everywhere in Copenhagen
[1] I wonder if saying no to beggars is part of the push behind the cashless
society in Sweden? That it's easier to legitimately say that you don't have
cash in a society that doesn't actually have any cash at all. How would
begging even work?
[1] What the hell is going on there?
[1] You know, if this movie was Korean or Japanese, no-one would think it was
cheesy.
[1] According to IMDb,
"Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Ewan McGregor sang their own songs in the movie.
(Some of Rhys Meyers's songs were overdubbed by Radiohead lead singer Thom
Yorke.)"
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=38802020-01-11T23:33:27+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1400
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of around 1400 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.
Army of Shadows (1969) -- "9/10"
This is a story of the French Resistance during WWII, in particular the story
of one Philippe Gerbier. He is captured and kept in a camp, but there
isn't
any evidence against him. He concocts a plan to escape with a young
Communist, but is taken for questioning just before they can enact it. He
organizes a bold escape, coolly killing a guard to make a distraction.
He returns to his cell in the Resistance. They find the traitor who'd
gotten
him captured and bring him to a supposedly secluded apartment, where they
find new neighbors and thin walls. They cannot shoot him, as they'd wanted
to. Failing to find a knife (which no-one wanted to use -- none of them
had
ever killed before), they are forced to strangle him. It's an extremely
uncomfortable scene, as it brings one much closer to the feeling of having
to
kill a man than other, more-modern movies, where death feels cheaper.
They gather more members of the Resistance, some old colleagues and some
new
(like Mathilde the housewife). There is a lot of neat detail on the
tradecraft they employed. Philippe eventually escapes to London, meeting
the
head of all Resistance networks, Luc Jardie, who receives a medal from
Charles de Gaulle. This Jardie is quite a renowned philosopher and no-one
knows he's involved at all. He is the older brother of Jean-François, a
young member of their resistance.
Félix is arrested by the Germans and taken to a French hospital in Lyons
that's been converted to a German headquarters and prison. To effect his
escape, Philippe returns to Paris from London by plane -- jumping with a
parachute. The parachute jump was pretty hardcore. He didn't complain. He
slept in that awful plane, that awful noise -- he even went back to sleep
after they flew through some flak. The RAF were also cool as cucumbers. He
had his glasses taped to his head; he jumped for the first time ever; he
nailed it.
Philippe meets up with Bison, Mathilde and Le Masque. She devises a plan
to
rescue Félix. One of their number, Jean-François Jardie, gives himself
up
to the Germans, so that he will be thrown in a cell with Félix. It goes
exactly as planned, except that the German doctor won't let Félix be
transported because he's too injured to transport -- he's dying and won't
last long, even as it is. Jean-François has at least managed to smuggle
in
cyanide capsules for them both. No-one knows that Jean-François has
sacrificed himself.
Afterward, Mathilde urges Philippe to flee back to London. Félix is dead
and
she is able to run things in his absence. Besides, the German police are
searching for him (she saw him on a most-wanted poster during the failed
rescue). The French police raid the café where he was just eating with
Mathilde and Philippe finds himself arrested and held with several others
in
a large, dank cell. He shares his cigarettes with everyone.
They are taken to the killing alley, where they are all forced to run
against
each other for the other end while machine guns urge them on. At first,
Philippe doesn't run -- then he decides to rabbit anyway, cursing himself.
He
is wounded in the arm and leg and stops before a huge, black cloud from
one
of the smoke grenades thrown not by the Germans, but by his rescuers. A
rope
drops through a slot above him. He grabs it and climbs out (ridiculous
because he doesn't have the build for pulling up his whole body weight,
even
without a gunshot wound in his arm). Mathilde has pulled off yet another
daring escape plan, rescuing him from a near-certain fate.
They take Philippe to a safe house in the countryside and leave him with
one
month's supplies. He is bored, playing solitaire and reading the
philosophy
books of Jardie, feeling useless and of no use anymore to the Resistance.
After over three weeks, Luc Jardie himself shows up to tell him that
Mathilde
has been captured. She finally slipped up: she'd never gotten rid of the
photo of her daughter. The Germans are threatening to send the girl to a
Polish whorehouse for the Eastern-front troops if she doesn't name all the
names she knows.
Philippe translates a secret message that reveals that Mathilde has
decided
to save her girl from her fate. She has been released and the first two
agents have already been picked up. Philippe orders Bison to eliminate
her.
Bison refuses, saying that she'd saved Bison, she'd saved Philippe and now
she's saving her daughter -- you can't judge her for staying true to her
character.
At this moment, Luc Jardie appears from the other room and tells them how
he
interprets it: Mathilde is doing everything she can to get them to kill
her.
He convinces Bison that this is what she wants -- by showing him that it
would be what Bison would want, in her position, then asking "are you
braver
than she?". After Le Masque and Bison have left, Philippe asks Luc if he's
sure about Mathilde. Jardie responds that it's only a theory, but a
convincing one.
The four of them get a German car and roll up on Mathilde, letting her see
their faces, then shooting her in the street. The film ends with them
driving
away through Paris, getting away...for now. Captions inform us that they
would all die within the next year or two. Bison was decapitated, Masque
took
a cyanide pill, Jardie was tortured to death, revealing only one name: his
own, Philippe was gunned down by a firing squad -- this time he didn't
run.
This is as good as watching classic James Bond: realistic, cold-blooded,
business-like getting-shit-done. It's not at all a romanticized view of
the
Resistance. Those that are in it are in it because that's what they do.
I saw it in French with English subtitles (about one-third is German with
no
subtitles).
Threads (1984) -- "9/10"
This is a movie by the BBC about nuclear holocaust, depicting the likely
effects of an attack. It cost them £400,000. We're introduced to a
typical
1980s suburban family, concerned with their lives -- primarily their
teenage
son Jimmy and his girlfriend Ruth are pregnant and are going to get
married.
In the background TV and in various news headlines that flit past, we see
that the Soviets have invaded Afghanistan and tensions are increasing. As
well, there is increased activity in the Gulf of Oman ("a U.S. submarine
has
disappeared while on routine patrol in the area").
We are told that England has a plan for a backup government, in the event
of
an emergency. With tensions rising, they are going through their plans and
supplies. There is a run on the grocery stores. In a pub, the news is on,
discussing the Soviets moving nuclear arms and the U.S. responding. Later
that night, we see kids in a popular make-out spot being surrounded by
military trucks. England braces itself as a U.S. ultimatum expires and it
attacks a Soviet base in Iran. The Soviets respond with nuclear-tipped
missiles; the U.S. responds in kind. [1]
There is a run on the stores, which have hiked prices. When a young man
announces that war has broken out, the people leave in droves with their
full
shopping carts and without paying. People are urged to stay calm. In the
next
days, riots escalate, people move out of urban centers. Things get worse
and
emergency plans swing into action. The pregnant young couple from before
are
in their new apartment, peeling wallpaper and listening to the dire news.
A PSA:
"If anyone dies while you are kept in your fallout room, move the body to
another room in the house. Label the body with name and address, and cover
it
as tightly as possible in polythene, paper, sheets or blankets. If,
however,
you've had a body in the house for more than five days *and* if it is safe
to
go outside, then you should bury the body for the time being in a trench
or
cover it with earth, and mark the spot of the burial."
The next day, we hear that the attack is coming and there's a mushroom
cloud
over Sheffield. All the residents can see the nearly pornographic-looking
thing, but the shock wave just knocked them over. That's not quite so
realistic. The signs of terror are pretty impressive, though, especially
for
a TV movie.
The next bombs take out a lot more infrastructure. The Sheffield planning
center is damaged, but still online. The U.S. and U.S.S.R. exchange 3000
megatons, of which 210 fall on England. That's enough to put 80% of homes
in
fire zones. There will be no emergency response.
People are puking. The radiation is hitting. People don't know how to
respond. It doesn't matter what they do, though. Everything's on fire.
Everything's radioactive. Everything's destroyed.
After one week, trucks are running out of fuel and no food is being
distributed. Everything is controlled centrally. People in their shelters
are
growing increasingly desperate. The young couple has been separated. Jimmy
is
dead. After two weeks, all deliveries will stop everywhere.
People venture outside when they get desperate enough. It's utter chaos,
death and destruction. 500 million tons of dust start the nuclear winter.
The
ever-present fires that destroyed everything have gone out. There is no
heat.
There is no power. There is no food. There is no water. There is no
sanitation. People riot and gather at bunkers where they know there is
food
and shelter. Soldiers defend the buildings with extreme prejudice.
In the medical centers, they do what they can, but they're vastly
overwhelmed. Without water or power or medicine, there's nothing to do.
You
can't even euthanize anyone. Infection is rampant. Radiation burns and
sickness affect nearly everyone. People are eating animal corpses in the
streets. [2] At this point, England looks very much like Aleksey German's
"Hard to Be a God"
.
There are 10-20 million corpses at 3 weeks. [3] Flies and rats are
everywhere, doing their best to remove corpses where people are unable to
do
so for themselves.
There is forced quartering by the remaining semblance of government. It's
pointless, though, isn't it? Ruth is still pregnant and gives birth
sometime
in December. She is in an abandoned barn with other drifters. There is a
fire. The child is screaming. It is Christmas.
One month later, we see Ruth bashing stolen grains with a rusty bucket,
trying to get food for herself and her child. These are grains from
previous
harvests. Subsequent harvests have much lower yields. The insects enjoy a
resurgence as pesticides disappear. We see Ruth purchase dead rats from a
vendor. The currency of exchange is unclear. 10 years later, Ruth's
daughter
comes to wake her to work in the fields and finds that Ruth has finally
succumbed. She steals Ruth's things, leaving her precious book of birds
(which is of no consequence anymore).
Finally, we see the end game for the survivors. Children watch a
dilapidated
VHS of animals that no longer exists. People silently collect threads from
cloth that can no longer be woven. At 13 years, we see Ruth's daughter
defending her coney and fire from interlopers. Their language has
deteriorated vastly. They steal food together, then fight and one of them
rapes her. Nine months later, we see her birth a still-born child in a
"hospital".
Post-apocalypse seemed much sexier in the Mad Max movies. A slower version
of
this is coming via the climate apocalypse whether we trigger worldwide war
or
not. An extra point for not shying away at all. This should be required
viewing for war-happy jackasses in the States.
Mademoiselle (1966) -- "7/10"
We meet the local schoolteacher (Jeanne Moreau) in the forest, atop a small
water-pumping station. She is dressed to the nine, in pumps, completely
out
of place. She is pumping away, until she finally gets the water going --
after which it accelerates on its own. It floods through the only road
into
town, directly into a barnyard. The animals are utterly miserable and cry
out. A religious procession stops their march and jumps in to lend a hand.
She very obviously ogles the strong Italian peasant Manou (Ettore Manni)
who
rescues animals -- shirtless.
On her way home, she finds a bird's nest in a field. She shoos the bird
away
from its eggs, picks out all of them and crushes them in her hand, a huge
smile on her face. Afterward, she helps write up the report of the
flooding
incident (she can use a typewriter, after all).
Next we see her teaching her class, singling out Manou's son Bruno
(Umberto
Orsini) and punishing him both in class and during recess. The police
visit
Manou and Bruno, wanting to question them, but he sends them on their way.
Mademoiselle gets ready to go out again, getting dressed to the nines and
putting on a lot of makeup. She carefully selects a fancy box of matches
from
a drawer-full of them. She goes out, drifting toward a barnyard, then
lights
it on fire. She saunters back to her apartment and watches the people
slowly
realize that everything is on fire. She drifts out into the crowd,
drinking
in the misery. She is chaotic evil.
After the local townspeople vaguely accuse and threaten Manou, Bruno finds
a
bit of schoolwork, twisted up like kindling paper. Manou meets with his
friend Antonio and they discuss that they're worried -- that they're
thinking
of moving away. Manou is suspicious of Bruno's activity whereas everyone
else
in town is suspicious of Manou.
Later, we see the loggers working on a tree cutting and Bruno joins them,
as
do the local police, who question them again (the Italians are obviously
the
most suspicious). Back at the headquarters, Mademoiselle defends Manou
when
the police circle him viciously as the only suspect. She asks them if they
did not see how heroic he was at the flooding.
She returns to her classroom and again blames everything that the children
had done only on Bruno, sending him from the classroom. He's had enough.
He
yells at her, calling her disgusting and a hateful whore. She is unmoved
because she obviously does not understand his Italian insults (which have
no
aural analogues in French).
She is out walking when she meets Manou in the woods. He apologizes for
his
son's behavior when she notices his shirt moving. He has a snake wrapped
around his waist. He pulls it off and tells her not to be afraid -- that
she
should touch his snake. I'm not making this up nor did I misunderstand his
somewhat accented French.
She is out walking again and spies Manou napping on his work site. She
gazes
nothing but lustfully at him for long minutes, actually licking her lips.
She
is discovered hiding behind a tree by Antonio and both he and Manou see
her
fleeing the scene. She is mortified. On the way home, she encounters Bruno
and this time offers to help him catch up on his lessons, playing all
sweetness and light. This seems like a trick (remember: chaotic evil).
A woman comes around looking for Manou, then finds him in a field, on his
way
home. She makes a pass and he gives chase. Mademoiselle sees all. We see
her
at home, suppressing her nipples with an X of medical tape before dressing
up
and going out at night again. She sets another fire, this time by
accident.
But another barn goes up in flames. The police hear from a female
eyewitness
that she didn't see anyone, but she heard someone whistling -- Manou.
Mademoiselle is back on the scene, drinking in the anguish (and watching
Manou take his shirt off when a firehose empties on him). A police officer
sends her home.
The next day, in class, she tells the story of "Gilles de Rais"
, a
15th-century
nobleman who served in the army with Jean d'Arc and might have been
history's
first documented serial killer. It's madness that she chooses to tell this
story in a one-room schoolhouse. It's literally a horror story: she tells
how
he would hunt children. She watches a funeral procession go by -- for
someone
who died in the fire she set. She is unmoved.
Next, we see many animals in their death throes, lying on the ground,
unable
to stand. The police determine that they've been poisoned. I'll give you
three guesses. The townspeople need a scapegoat: a flooding, two fires and
now poisoning (with arsenic), all unexplained. They say that the law will
do
nothing; they'll have to take the law into their own hands.
Speaking of taking something into hands, Mademoiselle is back in the
woods,
with Manou, who's carrying her through fields. She is not a traditional
lover. He laughs as she kisses his boots, then he gives chase while she
laughs more (she laughs!). He hears the posse with their dogs, but doesn't
break off his affair. Manou carries Mademoiselle from place to place. They
are in a field; he calls her like a dog, whistling. She comes. He knows
what
she wants. She seems to simultaneously hate and love him for it.
Dangerous,
Manou, very dangerous.
It thunders. They seeks refuge. They end up by the lake, under a tree. She
abandons herself completely -- a totally different person than the
calculating killer we've seen. They have not exchanged a single word. He
tells her he will return tomorrow, with Bruno. She says nothing. They
part.
She wanders into town, looking very much like she's spent the entire night
fucking in the woods. The townspeople gather 'round her and ask who did
it,
was it him? She breathes "yes!" and flees indoors. She did not lie. The
men
find him and hack him into pieces in a field. The other woman with whom he
dallied earlier comes out, sees the carnage...and smiles.
Antonio is in the police headquarters -- they say they looked everywhere
and
cannot find Manou. He leaves town with Bruno. Mademoiselle, too, is
leaving
town. The plagues will stop. The townspeople will be convinced that they
got
their culprit, that they'd done the right thing. Bruno sees Mademoiselle
in
her car, looking at him. He spits at her.
The movie is in black and white. I saw it in the original French and
Italian;
no subtitles. Marlon Brando would have ruined this movie; I'm glad they
got
Ettore Manni instead.
The Third Man (1949) -- "8/10"
This is the story of a certain Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), who'd gone to
Vienna [4] to see his friend Harry Lime. He gets there just in time to
catch
Lime's funeral. He'd apparently been hit by a car. Martins learns from a
local police captain that Lime was a grifter, the most notorious con man
in
Vienna. Martins gets very drunk, but is protected from arrest by his
reputation as an acclaimed author (he was unaware that his reputation
would
precede him there). It seems that Harry Lime had prepared the way quite
well.
A friend of Harry's 'Baron' Kurtz (Ernst Deutsch) calls Holly and they
meet
in a café. The Baron wears a bowtie and carried a miniature dachshund. He
does his best to dissuade Holly from investigating Harry's death any
further.
He goes to a theater to meet with Anna Schmidt (Alida Valli), a girl who
Harry had been seeing. They return to Harry's apartment to find Maj.
Calloway
and the Brits tossing the place. They confiscate Anna's falsified papers
(she's not Austrian, but Czech). Holly assures her that she'll be all
right
(he literally has no idea) and that he'll continue to try to find out what
really happened to Harry (as if that would concern her more than having
just
lost her papers).
Holly next meets Dr. Winkel (Erich Ponto), who'd apparently been at the
scene
of the accident. The doctor says that Harry was already dead when he'd
arrived. He learns a bit more, but not much. All he knows is that no-one
knows who the "third man" is: the porter at the apartment building across
the
street from the accident saw three men. The police claim only two, as do
the
others who helped carry him.
Anna is released on her own recognizance. Holly is the quintessential ugly
American. He expects everyone to speak English; he has no idea how money
works; he expects his "army" money to work everywhere. He thinks he's
untouchable.
He is not. When the porter is murdered, he and Anna stumble on a crowd
around
the ambulance. A small child starts yelling that he saw Holly and that he
thinks he did it. The others jump on this idea, the zither music goes nuts
and off goes a chase across the city. Holly and Anna slip into a movie
theater. He goes back to the hotel to report the incident to Major
Calloway
(much as he doesn't want to). He is seemingly kidnapped, but is really
being
brought to a meeting of his fans, fans of literature (though he just
writes
Westerns).
He sees his pursuer again and escape to meet with Calloway. Calloway
brings
him up to speed on Harry's doings: he was smuggling Penicillin into a
medicine-starved Vienna, thinning it and selling it dearly. Holly gets
drunk,
then returns to meet Anna to find that she'd also spoken to Calloway. He
hits
on her pretty hard. I fear it might work. It does not. Holly goes
downstairs
to find someone watching him from the shadows -- he steps out briefly into
the light: it's Harry (Orson Welles).
Holly and Calloway are on Harry's trail. Holly meets him on a ferris
wheel,
where he confronts him on his criminal life and the trail of victims he's
left behind. Harry responds,
"Nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don't. Why should we?
They talk about the people and the proletariat, I talk about the suckers
and
the mugs - it's the same thing. They have their five-year plans, so have
I.
"[...]
"Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had
warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo,
Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly
love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that
produce?
The cuckoo clock."
[image]Holly agrees to help Calloway catch Lime -- especially after
Calloway
shows him children in a hospital who are suffering because of Harry's
counterfeit Penicillin. Harry shows up and is almost nabbed, but escapes
into
the sewers. The Austrian sewers have these neat entrances with multiple
triangular flaps that open onto a spiral staircase. Harry shoots one
officer,
then is badly wounded himself. Holly and Anna see what Harry's done. Holly
finishes the job.
The second funeral follows. Holly gets out and waits for Anna at the
funeral.
She walks in from a long, long way away, down the street, the zither going
the whole time. She walks right by without so much as a glance.
The movie was directed by Carol Reed and based on a screenplay by Graham
Greene. There are some very nice long shots and city shots. The credits
and
interlude music is a zither playing perkily throughout, which sets the
mood
quite nicely. I saw it in English and German, without subtitles.
Bound (1996) -- "8/10"
This is a heist film written and directed by the Wachowski siblings,
pre-Matrix. Corky (Gina Gershon) is an ex-con working maintenance in a
building. She meets two tenants, Violet (Jennifer Tilly, whose breathy
voice
is perfect for this role) and her asinine boyfriend Caesar (Joe
Pantoliano),
hearing them through the thin walls at first. Corky is very interested in
Violet and the interest is mutual. The atmosphere is highly charged from
the
very get-go. Violet gets Corky into bed nearly immediately (there isn't
much
resistance).
Caesar is mobbed up. Corky hears a lot of stuff happening next door to the
apartment that she's renovating. She sees other goons go in, including
Johnny
Marzzone (Christopher Meloni) and they have some poor sap with them. She
hears a lot of very violent stuff through the walls. "I'm going to ask you
ten times." Violet leaves with Corky -- but they know enough not to rat
out
the mob. Violet proposes that they rip off Caesar when he gets the next
shipment: $2 million.
Caesar shows up with the money, covered in blood. He literally launders
the
money, then counts it. All night long. Violet comes to get Corky and swing
their plan into motion. Corky steals the money, while Violet gets Caesar
to
blame the theft on his arch-nemesis Johnny. The big boss realizes his
money
is gone, Caesar is determined not to get blamed for it. In a daze, Caesar
shoots Gino, Johnny and the other henchman. "I had to do it, Violet. You
saw
it. I had no choice."
While Caesar takes care of the bodies, Violet is still trapped in the
apartment with him -- and must distract the police for as long she can.
Caesar is really very good at this cleanup/laundering of the scene of the
crime. The police show up, but Caesar gets rid of them with a story about
being nearly deaf and having the TV turned up too high (that's why a
neighbor
reported a gunshot). Corky is in the next apartment, listening to their
every
move.
Corky's plan is good -- she has the money and the mob are killing each
other
over it. But she can't leave because Violet trusts her not to rabbit
without
her -- just like Corky expected the same trust from Violet. Caesar catches
Violet calling Corky and now suspects her, but doesn't know what she's
done.
He redials the number and hears the phone ringing next door. Corky breaks
in
to the apartment, but Caesar gets the drop on her. He's cold-cocked Violet
and tied up Corky.
Caesar is perplexed: he's the center of Violet's world, he's provided her
everything. Everything she has is due to him. Also, he's super-angry about
lesbians. Now it's Caesar's turn to ask "ten times", threatening to cut
off
Violet's fingers. Mickey shows up and interrupts the torture, but Corky
tells
him where the money is. He knocks her out and goes to find the money.
Before Caesar can get the money, Mickey is on his way up. He has to make a
new plan, pretending to have been showering with Violet "to relax". Mickey
grows increasingly suspicious, but Caesar manages to satisfy his
questions.
Violet helps Caesar get rid of Mickey, but he double-crosses her. They go
to
grab the money, but Violet rabbits on him. He chases her through the
building, giving Corky enough time to get free and grab the cash.
She traps Caesar, but doesn't get the drop on him. He cold-cocks her.
Again.
She's got to have a helluva concussion going. Violet gets the drop on
Caesar,
killing him very theatrically in a pool of white paint. The next scene is
Mickey swearing that they'll find "him" (presumably Caesar, whose body
Violet
apparently hid). The two ladies ride off into the sunset with $2.175
million.
It's a well-written mob/heist/double-cross movie. It's also very nicely
filmed -- you can definitely see where the Matrix would come from three
years
later.
A Face in the Crowd (1957) -- "9/10"
Marcia Jeffries from the radio show A Face in the Crowd goes to a local jail,
where she meets Larry 'Lonesome' Rhodes (Andy Griffith). She's gone to
Sarah
Lawrence and is absolutely delighted to be among the hoi-polloi, giving
them
a chance to show that they're worth something. Larry's got other ideas: he
slugs back a shot and gets ready to play a song.
Andy Griffith is actually a pretty good blues singer. Marcia goes back out
to
find him and give him a job. He's not convinced that a "job" is something
that would suit his lifestyle, but he's willing to give it a shot. He
shows
up to the radio station and he riffs along, playing songs and
pontificating
on the under-appreciated situation of women in the country.
When the sheriff messes with him (because he's out to dinner with Marcia,
who
the sheriff is sweet on), Larry plays a joke on him by ripping him apart
on
the radio and then telling everyone who's listening to bring their dogs to
the sheriff in the morning. Hundreds turn up -- and Larry is starting to
learn his political power. He gets a call to go on a TV show and he boldly
makes a deal: he'll work for free for a week or two, then for $1,000 per
week
after that. [5]
His first TV appearance goes just like his radio shows. He riffs, does his
city folk/country folk schtick, and just generally doesn't follow any
script,
while being so honest and approachable and "real" that people tune in. He
does commercials kind of like Bill Burr. "I'd like to have your money, but
I'd rather have my pride." The public love him, but he gets fired by his
first sponsor, Luffler's mattresses, whose president is played by Charles
Irving.
Larry plans to leave and bids Marcia farewell, early in the morning, but
she
"convinces" him to stay. Meanwhile, sales of Luffler mattresses are up and
the bigger sharks are now interested in his money-making potential,
thinking
that they can benefit from the public's love of him while controlling the
exact tendencies that make him lovable. He has no qualms about doing
advertising -- he's delighted to make a buck -- but he is absolutely
uncontrollable. "You college folks want dignity on your program; back
where I
come from, if a fella looks too dignified, we figure he's tryna to steal
your
watch." He makes up a song/jingle on the spot. Hired.
His next product Vitajex was actually more concerned with a form of
veracity
whereas Lonesome Larry shitcans that and think that selling with sex is a
better idea. With sales booming and success rolling in, the next stage is
inevitable: political influence. A Gen. Haynesworth (Percy Waram)
approaches
him with a proposal,
"In every strong and healthy society from the Egyptians on, the masses had to
be guided with a strong hand by a responsible elite. Let us not forget
that
in TV, we have the greatest instrument for influence in the history of the
world."
His fame grows, people are making money, they name mountains after him, he
gets the keys to cities, gets apartments, he's a sponsor's dream. But he
has
his doubts. He calls Marcia late at night, that he's worried. "All them
millions of people believin' in me, doin' what I tell 'em to. It scares
me."
Soon, the first parasites show up: a Mrs. Larry Rhodes shows up, claiming
that they're not divorced. He promises to clear it up. Meanwhile Marcia's
associate, Mel Miller (Walter Matthau) is writing articles about Larry and
Marcia calls it "vicious", to which he responds,
"Didn't you know? All mild men are vicious. They hate themselves for being
mild, and they hate the windy extroverts whose violence seems to have a
strange attraction for nice girls. You should know better."
Meanwhile, Lonesome is being Lonesome. He shacks up with a high-school
baton-twirler Betty Lou Fleckum (Lee Remick) -- then marries her in Juarez
(where he'd just finalized his previous divorce). To be fair to her, she's
quite a baton-twirler. Meanwhile Joey DePalma (Anthony Franciosa) is
guiding
Larry's career to new heights, but definitely trying to milk him for all
he's
worth before his inevitable crash.
But first, Larry still has room to grow: he's engaged to advise the
presidential campaign of one Sen. Worthington Fuller (Marshall Neilan), a
dry, facts-based man. They need to sell him to the public and that's where
Larry comes in. His current advisor thinks "Well, I may be a bit
old-fashioned, but it seems to me there is a still a distinction between
politics and, well, the field, you're in." He's utterly mistaken. Even
back
in 1957, they knew that politics was about marketing. Larry points to his
friend Beanie (Rod Brasfield): "You see your problem now, Senator? How are
you going to get this bush monkey to vote for you?"
Later, with the General, Larry ruminates about himself, "I'm not just an
entertainer, I'm an influencer, a force. A force."
Mel Miller is planning a book based on his articles, to take down Lonesome
Larry as a corrosive force in American culture and politics. He talks to
Marcia about it, telling her to stop enabling Larry.
Meanwhile, Lonesome discovers that he's not even the controlling owner of
his
own enterprise: Joey is. And he's fooling around with Betty Lou. Larry is
not
pleased with how his life has spiraled out of control. But his campaign
for
Fuller is going gangbusters: he's up from 4% to 53.7% Lonesome is going to
get a cabinet position if Fuller's elected.
"This whole country's just like my flock of sheep! [...] Rednecks, crackers,
hillbillies, hausfraus, shut-ins, pea-pickers - everybody that's got to
jump
when somebody else blows the whistle. They don't know it yet, but they're
all
gonna be 'Fighters for Fuller'. They're mine! I own 'em! They think like I
do. Only they're even more stupid than I am, so I gotta think for 'em.
Marcia, you just wait and see. I'm gonna be the power behind the president
-
and you'll be the power behind me!"
Marcia runs out -- she now knows for sure that Mel is right. Without her,
Lonesome's show falls apart, though. He's back to ad-libbing, but it's a
dangerous thing. Especially when he thinks the show has ended. Marcia
hears
him talking and she sets his mic back to live to broadcast the following:
"Those morons out there? Shucks, I could take chicken fertilizer and sell it
to them as caviar. I could make them eat dog food and think it was steak.
Sure, I got 'em like this... You know what the public's like? A cage of
Guinea Pigs. Good Night you stupid idiots. Good Night, you miserable
slobs.
They're a lot of trained seals. I toss them a dead fish and they'll flap
their flippers."
His denouement is quick and merciless. Marcia and Mel go to his penthouse
to
find him ranting to himself, with his friend Beanie running the laugh
track.
He's a complete wreck.
He told the truth and he's out. He wasn't a nice person, but he's exactly
what the powers-that-be wanted. The powers-that-be? They'll be just fine.
Joey has the next "Lonesome Rhodes" already lined up, a more anodyne
version
that's more malleable. The advertisers and business leaders will be fine,
they'll just ride the next wave. They'll fine-tune the formula to get just
the right balance to keep them in power and keep the money flowing in and
the
sheep under control.
It had already been like this for long enough that you could make this
movie
in 1957 and be assured of finding an audience. However, back then, they
still
had hope that the demagogue would be ignored, as expressed by Mel: "You
were
taken in, just like we were all taken in. When we get wise to him, that's
our
strength. We get wise to him."
Nowadays, some of us are no longer so naive as to doubt our naïveté. In
the
film, the demagogue is deposed and "normalcy" is restored. Mel gets the
last
word. In reality, we have only demagogues to choose from, and the king of
Lonesome Larrys is not just an advisor to, but has become the president.
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011) -- "8/10"
We start with a windowpane that dulls the view and the sound. The view
clarifies to show three men sharing a meal in what looks like a garage.
This is a very pretty and a very slow, but I think a very deep movie. It
is
about a group of police officers, a prosecutor, a doctor and the accused
traveling the countryside, at night, trying to find the body that the
accused
has confessed to killing. They drive from spot to spot, waxing
philosophically and poetically. The accused is one of the men from the
first
scene. In the other car is a man that they identify as his brother. He was
also at the garage.
The doctor and the prosecutor discuss amongst themselves, as they are
outsiders. They have a long discussion about a "gorgeous" woman the
prosecutor knew who'd predicted the day she would die. She lived long
enough
to give birth to her child, held it, then died. The doctor suspects she'd
killed herself. The prosecutor says he doesn't know.
After a long night, they head to a village for food. There, they are
received
by the mayor and given free food though the village is exceedingly poor.
The
wind is strong and knocks out the power. The mayor's daughter comes around
with lanterns and tea. The lantern is in the center of the serving tray;
the
glasses of tea surround it. The light bathes her face in a radiance golden
from the lamp and caramel from the tea. She is very pretty, but the glow
of
the lantern transforms her into a sublime beauty. Each man stares and
worships when she stops in front of him.
They drive further the next day and finally happen upon the body. This is
at
90 minutes into the movie. It's slow, but the slowness is the point. None
of
the officers is armed. They put up with the suspect (for the most part),
treating him with a reasonable amount of dignity. The troopers answer
questions in such stem-winders that one wonders why anyone even bothers
asking them questions at all (one such conversation is about which village
they should go to for late dinner; another is determining which side of
the
county border they are on when investigating the body). One of the
officers
is extremely interested in distances.
The prosecutor reads out the crime-scene report, with a little help from
the
doctor. They discover that the other stumblebums have forgotten to pack a
body bag, so they have to wrap the body in a blanket for transport in one
of
their cars. They ask the suspect why he hogtied the victim. "Otherwise, he
wouldn't fit in the car." The prosecutor then asks whether they shouldn't
hogtie the body again, in order to transport it back to the city. This is
a
very dark film.
They get the body back to town and the suspect out of danger from the
crowd
that has gathered there. The doctor returns to his apartment to moon about
his lost love. Afterward Naçi picks up a prescription for his son, the
doctor makes his breakfast rounds, then heads to the office, where he sees
the suspect's supposed son (and the mother). They do not speak. He meets
with
the prosecutor to discuss the upcoming autopsy.
They end up primarily discussing the woman from before: the doctor again
says
that it was likely suicide. The prosecutor says that the women had caught
her
husband cheating, but had forgiven him his bagatelle immediately. There is
no
way that she would have been so ruthless as to kill herself about such a
thing when it was obvious she'd forgiven her husband. It's pretty clear
that
he is telling a story about himself. It's almost like every man in the
story
has an abandonment behind him (Naçi has a "genius" son that he can't
really
stand to be around; the victim had a son who threw a rock at the suspect;
the
doctor is divorced but was looking longingly at a picture of a boy; the
prosecutor is left to raise a child by himself).
The doctor performs the autopsy (he narrates it, but his assistant
performs
it). They find dirt in the lungs, leading to the conclusion that the man
had
been buried alive. The film ends with the sounds of autopsy from inside
and
children playing football outside. The doctor watches the victim's son and
wife outside, the boy happily hurrying to retrieve a stray ball for the
others on the field.
This film won the Palme d'Or. Nothing really happens in it. It is highly
unconventional. It depicts more-or-less normal events. There is no music
--
mother nature provides the sound of wind. There are natural sounds that
indicate how quiet it is, in the country. It's real, with real people,
with
real issues. It shows without telling. Even what it shows is ephemeral --
you
have to elicit meaning on your own. It's a good movie; I'm glad I saw it.
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974) -- "8/10"
The film starts at the side of a pond. A girl is lying there, stroking her
very slight baby bump. Her mother comes and gathers her, bringing her
before
her father. He demands to know who the father is. The girl refuses to
speak.
His henchmen tear off her shirt and twist her arm behind her back. The
father
asks again. Again, she refuses. The camera pulls back to show his
compound.
We hear a snap. She names "Alfredo Garcia". He puts a $1 million price on
the
man's head.
A couple of months later, we see heavy hitters arriving in Mexico by
plane,
attracted by the still-open bounty. They engage the services of Bennie
(Warren Oates), a piano player who always wears sunglasses. He thinks he
knows who might have been with Alfredo: Elita (the alluring Isela Vega),
who
is actually Bennie's on-again, off-again girlfriend. She tells him that
Alfredo had died in a car accident after having said goodbye to her for
a...long...time.
Bennie is a forgiving guy, though, and is back with Elita pretty soon. He
extracts a commitment of $10,000 from the henchmen to find the head. They
hit
the road, with two guys on their tail. Everyone is drinking madly. Bennie
admits to Elita that he's looking for Garcia's head to get $10,000. She's
fine with it. He admits his love for her, making her cry.
Later that day, they decide to camp out under the stars instead of finding
a
hotel. Two bikers -- the terrorists of the 70s -- show up. One of them is
Kris Kristofferson. They see the guitar and ask her to play a song. The
atmosphere is tense. It becomes pretty obvious what they're after --
Kristofferson takes Elita into the scrub. It's like a ritual. He shreds
her
shirt. She stands there. She slaps him. Twice. He slaps her back. He walks
away. She follows him. She knows they're planning to kill Bennie.
Bennie gets the drop on one, finds Elita and Kristofferson, shoots him
dead,
then kills the other one, who'd gotten back up. They drive off, fighting a
bit, but then continuing on with their mission. She just wants to be with
him, regardless of circumstances. He sees the money as a way out. She
takes
him to the village and church where Alfredo is buried.
They check into another hotel, this one not nearly as nice as the one
they'd
stayed in before. He grabs a bottle of tequila -- his umpteenth of the
film.
They sleep fitfully, in their clothes. He gets up early to go dig up the
grave and she insists on going with him -- they're in it together. Still,
she
can't stand watching him desecrate a gravesite for $10,000. He gets the
coffin open and is about to decapitate it, when he's cold-cocked himself.
He
wakes up half-buried in the grave...next to Elita, who's completely
buried...and completely dead.
Bennie's on the warpath now, with nothing left to lose. He hunts down
Elita's
killers and gets Garcia's head back. He's going a bit bonkers, talking to
the
head. Garcia's family is on his tail. He stops at a roadside restaurant
and
picks up some ice to keep the head fresh until he can deliver it.
Soon, though, Garcia's family catches up with Bennie and cuts him off,
forcing his car to a stop. They, in turn, are ambushed by contract
killers,
who take out almost the whole family. The family takes out one of them and
Bennie finishes the other off. He's back on the road with Garcia's head.
Garcia gets more ice and a shower. Bennie gets tequila and sorrow.
The next day, Bennie brings the head to his contractor. He asks them what
they want with the damned head, then digs a gun out of the picnic basket
with
Alfredo's head and starts and finishes yet another firefight. He finds El
Jefe's business card and heads down there by plane (like, with the head?).
He meets with El Jefe, who ask him if he wants a drink. "I got nothing to
celebrate." He pays Bennie, then tells him to throw the head to the pigs.
"No. 16 people are dead because of this. And one of them was a damned good
friend of mine." Another firefight where Bennie takes everybody out. He's
got
El Jefe dead to rights. El Jefe's daughter urges Bennie to finish the job.
At first, he grabs the head, leaving with the daughter...then goes back
for
the briefcase. He gives it to the daughter, then heads off to his doom,
where
he finally loses a firefight -- but he knew he wouldn't escape by just
driving away.
An extra point for an inspired and unique script. Director Peckinpah
really
knew how to film Mexico. I saw it in English and Spanish (no subtitles).
In Cold Blood (1967) -- "8/10"
This is a black-and-white film based on the Truman Capote novel of the same
name. It stars Robert Blake as Perry and Scott Wilson as Dick. The film
follows the story in the book almost exactly. Perry is on parole and is
friends with Dick. They are both ruthless killers, but Dick is even more
devil-may-care and doesn't consider consequences at all. He bangs his way
across the country. Perry is more complex, but he's also sociopathic.
Dick left prison with a plan to steal the Clutter family fortune. This
plan
goes terribly wrong and they leave with only $43, having eliminated all
the
witnesses.
Dick is a tremendously smooth talker, though, running one con after
another
to build up a nut for them to travel on. Perry is amazed at Dick's lack of
inhibition and his gift of gab. They leave a trail of bad paper a mile
long.
They head for Mexico and hole up there for a while, but they don't last
long.
Perry has visions and memories of his broken family, his father who tried
so
hard, his Cherokee mother who was a brilliant rodeo queen, but also
alcoholic
and ended up ruining her life with other men.
Soon, they're back in the States, in the cold plains of the U.S. They find
and steal a car, kite a bunch of checks, then head their way to Las Vegas.
The cops are on their trail, though, and pick them up in Vegas before they
can even gamble away the last few dollars they'd earned with refundable
bottles. The main cop is John Forysthe.
They're interviewed separately and they tell more-or-less the same story.
They seem to crack a bit, but the police can't get anything from either of
them. They tell the boys that they have a living eyewitness, but the boys
don't believe them. Only when they show Dick the pictures of the bloody
shoe-prints does he crack and pin everything on Perry. Perry laughs at the
cop when told of Dick's confession. He knows it's real, because Dick
repeated
the fake story Perry had told him about a guy he'd killed in Vegas.
The night of the murders, it was Dick who'd taken the lead, calling Perry
a
chicken for wanting to back out. Perry continues to tell the story of that
night: how it was relatively clear relatively quickly that Clutter's claim
that there was no safe was true. Perry tries to take care of the Clutters
while tying them up securely (he hogties them all with rope).
Perry stopped Dick from attacking Nancy Clutter -- "Dick: First I'm gonna
bust that little girl" -- and orders him downstairs. "Perry: I despise
people
who can't control themselves." After that, Perry and Dick fight, but Perry
ends up killing everyone -- because Dick is too chicken to do it. Nancy is
last.
"Perry: It doesn't make sense. I mean what happened. It had nothing to do
with the Clutters. They never hurt me. They just happened to be there. I
thought Mr. Clutter was a very nice gentleman... I thought so right up to
the
time I cut his throat."
The next scene is in the courtroom, where the prosecuting attorney quotes
from the Bible, with his reading glasses upside-down on his face. They are
sentenced to death by hanging in the state of Kansas. Dick goes first.
Perry
waxes nostalgic about his father's failed hunting lodge for tourists in
Alaska and how he'd gotten thrown out by his father. "I guess the only
thing
I'm gonna miss in this world is that poor old man and his hopeless
dreams."
Perry goes next. The put him on the trapdoor. "Thy rod and thy staff, they
comfort me." His heartbeat is so loud; you can see him chewing his gum
frantically behind the hood. The door lets go.
It's got a nice soundtrack by Quincy Jones.
Koyaanisqatsi (1982) -- "8/10"
The main character in this film is the soundtrack by Philip Glass.
A cave drawing with armless figures.
Industrial scene. Factory. Foundry embers falling. Increasing flames. Fade
to
white. A stony desert; aerial view. Sunrise. Caverns. A hole in the stone
ceiling. Mesas. A giant oxbow. The Earth vents gases. The edge of a giant
dune. Clouds scud in time lapse. Sun reaches a cave. Bats flit. Clouds
morph
and shift against the sunset. Clouds roll along like a river. A giant
waterfall. Waves. Clouds. Fog flits and rolls like a river. Rocky, verdant
crags shift in and out. Flying over terrain. Bands of flowers. Flooded
desert
mesas. Pouring dirt. Explosions.
A dump truck. Power lines. A conduit to the horizon. Spewing factories.
Azure
holding pools. A dam. A giant steam shovel. An explosion. Pumps. A field
of
reservoir tanks. Manufacturing. Heat. A mushroom cloud.
A family on the beach. A power plant in the background. People looking up.
Scudding clouds in a glass building. A plane lands. Heat shimmers. A plane
taxis. Cars roll. A cloverleaf. Another one. Traffic. People driving. Cars
waiting. A plane taxis behind. Rainbow parking lot. A fighter jet (tailfin
camera). A missile falls. A missile launches. A booster separates.
Explosions. Destruction. Bombing. Bombs.
Time-lapse of Manhattan. Clouds flit. Cruising on the Hudson. Buildings.
Rubble.Tenements. Slums. Flying over half-abandoned buildings. Detonation.
Collapse.
Clouds scud over a skyline. A building mirrors the sky. Microdata.
People. A crowd. Papers. Queues. Portraits. A jet pilot. Casino employees
of
a certain age. Greenish-white windows. Silent sentinel buildings. Traffic
at
night. Cars like blood cells. The moon drifts behind a building.
Times Square traffic. Trucks. Neon. Taxis. Grand Central Station. Pan Am
Building entrance. Escalators full of people. Revolving doors. Crowded
pedestrian overpasses.
Machinery. Manufacturing. Factory workers. Man and machine. Television
assembly. Mainframe maintenance. Hot dogs pouring like water. Escalators
full
of people like hot dogs. Arcade. Pac Man. Q-Bert. Defender. Bowling. A
movie
theater. A mall. Twinkies. Potato skins. Sliced meats. Food court.
Engine-assembly line. Robots. Minting money. Building circuit boards.
Manufacturing cars. Shift change at Lockheed. A subway. Ticket machines.
Underground pedestrian tunnels. Driving on an arterial. Hyperspeed
highway,
exit, bridge, tunnel. A factory floor. Escalators. Twinkies. A
super-market.
Family watches TV in a store. Boy plays Defender. Watching TV. TV in
hyper-speed. People walking the streets. Explosions. People.
Headlights/taillights at hyperspeed. Disco dancing. Berserk. Frenetic
traffic. Lights.
Silence. Los Angeles from above. Circuit boards. A baseball field.
Buildings
at night. Lights flicker on and off. An El train. People in New York City.
Woman smiles. Man gapes. Man in an ushanka stares. Silhouettes. Shadows.
Woman lights a cigarette. Police help a homeless man onto a stretcher.
Woman
in car. Naked man in pane-less window. Garbage in the streets. A crowd. A
fire. Firefighters. Smoke. Water flows into a sewer grate. A nurse
responds.
A poor man counts his change. An old man stares into the camera. Ghosts at
the stock exchange.A rocket lifts off, breaking free of its gantry. It
explodes. A ball of fire. Chanting Koyaanisqatsi. Debris falls to Earth,
twirling gently and flaming out.
A cave drawing with armless figures.
"ko.yaa.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi language), n. 1. crazy life. 2. life in
turmoil. 3. life out of balance. 4. life disintegrating. 5. a state of
life
that calls for another way of living."
Sadly, this sentiment is just as appropriate (or even more so) for our age
as
the mid-80s.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] It's kind of horrifyingly fascinating to watch this movie from 36 years ago
that has the exact same players and even more chance of happening. We have
learned nothing. We never do.
[1] One of the people is Ruth, who is still pregnant. She is with another young
man, who's confidence in saying that he will "skin the sheep [...] for
warmth" is vastly misplaced. I'd wager that almost no-one knows how to skin
an animal so that the skin can be used. Even if you got off a big enough
piece, you'd have to dry it and cure it before you can use it.
[1] At four months, they cite that between 17 and 38 million will have died from
the blast, heat and fallout.
[1] TIL that Vienna was also broken up into four sectors into "Allied-occupied
Austria" , just like
Germany, for ten years from 1945 until 1955.
[1] That's a ludicrous amount of money for back then, no?
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=38782020-01-11T12:41:33+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1400
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of around 1400 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.
Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) -- "8/10"
Michael Keaton is Riggan, an actor who played Birdman in several very
successful super-hero movies. He's now involved in the production of a
Raymond Chandler play on Broadway that he's adapted for the stage himself,
that he's directing and he's starring in. He's involved with one of the
leads
Clara (Natalie Gold), his daugher (Emma Stone) is his assistant, Jake
(Zach
Galifianakis) is his production assistant, and Naomi Watts is Lesley, the
lead actress. The play is in trouble when it takes on Mike (Ed Norton), a
well-known lead actor, to save the show.
They're barreling toward opening night with Mike slowly taking over the
production. At the same time, though, Riggan is unraveling. His life has a
drums-only soundtrack that gets louder and louder until he starts to hear
his
inner voice again, a voice that expresses his inner doubt. It is the voice
of
Birdman? Does he have telekinesis? He is racked with doubt and doesn't
know
who he is. "Birdman" intones: "All that's left is you, a sad, selfish,
mediocre actor grasping at the last vestiges of his career."
Jake witnesses Riggan's absolute freakout just one hour before curtain. In
the middle of the final preview show, he gets trapped outside when he
steps
out for a smoke, pinning his bathrobe in the door. He ends up doffing the
bathrobe and striding around the building in the rain in his underwear, to
re-enter the play from behind the audience, doing his scene, but very
impromptu. Lesley and Mike roll with it.
The audience seem to enjoy it, but Mike is unraveling further, noticing
that
the play seems to be a simulacrum of his life, a weird homunculus that
"follows him around, pinging him in the balls". After the final preview,
he's
in the bar next to the theater when he encounters the one reviewer whose
opinion matters (according to Mike) and they go toe-to-toe, with her
swearing
that she'll kill his play no matter what because she "hates him".
"Because I hate you and everyone you represent. Entitled, selfish, spoiled
children. Blissfully untrained, unversed and unprepared to even attempt
real
art. Handing each other awards for cartoons and pornography. Measuring
your
worth in weekends? Well this is the theater and you don't get to come in
here
and pretend you can write, direct and act in your own propaganda piece
without coming through me first. So break a leg."
At first I wasn't sure whether she was a manifestation of his insecurity
and
whether the scene was happening at all. Riggan drinks the martini he'd
bought
for her, then stumbles across the street to buy a pint of whiskey from a
liquor store strung with Christmas lights everywhere. A man is outside
delivering Macbeth's soliloquy from Act V. Riggan brown-paper bags it,
spiraling even more out of control (perhaps channeling closer Raymond
Chandler). The night passes. Birdman wakes him from his hangover, lying on
a
doorstep, trying to convince him to turn his back on the theater.
After the first act of official opening night, we see people spilling out,
excited about it. Riggan's in his dressing room, talking to his ex-wife
Laura
(Andrea Riseborough). He admits to his weakness, to mistakes from the
past.
They kiss. He has to get back to the play. I still don't know if this part
is
real or in his head. He grabs his pistol for the final scene, uses
telekinesis to open the door to his dressing room (also not sure if real),
walks out past the drummer banging the soundtrack louder and louder
(real?),
and gets ready to go on. He seems to be riffing the scene, going slowly
mad,
then shoots his own nose off. The entirely white, rich crowd gives him a
standing ovation.
He wakes in the hospital, his nose reconstructed and bandaged. The Times
is
ecstatic. The country mourns him. He peels back the bandages to see that
he
now has a beak (pretty much). He goes to the window, watching the birds.
The
window slides, he steps out. His daughter comes back to an empty room. The
window is open. She looks down in horror. Then, she looks up. And laughs.
The movie was directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu and he imbued it with a
very unique feel. It takes place almost entirely in the theater itself and
is
about 90% one-on-one discussions in extreme closeup between very good
actors
delivering lines written to be delivered in this way. Real people don't
talk
like this, but then, maybe the point is that actors aren't real people --
Riggan and Birdman alike.
Ran (1985) -- "9/10"
Lord Hidetora Ichimonji is old and has fought for over fifty years to
consolidate power over his lands, holdings, castles and title. He has
three
sons. He makes a decree delivering his authority to the eldest but also
lands
and titles for the younger sons. He announces this on a boar hunt. His
youngest son Saburo refuses to play along, calling him a fool. Hidetora
disowns him.
The eldest son Taro moves in to the main castle as his father moves out.
The
father is only slowly learning the full ramifications of what it means to
cede power. Taro's wife Kaede [1] knows exactly what she wants and will
manipulate Taro into taking full power, seemingly especially if it means
punishing and perhaps killing his own father-in-law.
Though Taro does not see this yet, Hidetora sees it very well, "Is this a
son's attitude? The hen pecks the cock and makes him a crow." It won't
help,
though, as the bureaucrats will take over the kingdom from he that formed
it.
He may not be a nice guy and he may be crude, but that which comes after
his
reign doesn't necessarily deserve it more. On the other hand, he seized
the
lands by force -- he has to expect that someone will eventually seek to
seize
them back. Kaede's actions are revenge for old familial hurts.
Taro -- and Kaede through him -- continues to turn the screws on Hidetora.
Next he is ordered to keep his unruly retinue out of the castles -- even
when
visiting his other son Jiro. He sees that the sons are in cahoots and
leaves.
"I will not see you again. Ever!"
Hidetora is now with a retinue of 30 men, plus an advisor and a rather
clever
fool Kyoami, starving in the outer lands. The peasants and their food
stores
have pulled back (or been pulled back). The third castle (ostensibly still
Saburo's) is the only place they could pull back, but Hidetora refuses.
Instead, Taro's troops (under Ogura) take it over, with Saburo's retinue
abandoning it.
Tango (who'd left with Saburo) returns to advise Hidetora but his general
recommends they take the empty castle. The fool Kyoami disagrees and is
punished for it. Hidetora awakens to hear the sounds of Ogura's men
outside
the gates. Hidetora's men are slaughtered in a spectacular battle scene.
He
retreats to a tower with a handful of men. His members of his harem
ritually
kill themselves. Hidetora retreats still further, losing more and more of
his
retinue. The scenes of slaughter are hellish. So much blood. So many arrow
wounds. Arrows sticking out of everything, from every wall, from every eye
socket.
It looks utterly hopeless, but somehow Hidetora still lives, ensconced in
his
tower, with almost no-one left. Lord Taro arrives, to survey his victory.
He
is promptly shot off of his horse. Jiro is now the master (as the next son
in
line). He is confident his father will commit Seppuku from his burning
tower.
Instead, he exits in a trance, with the massed troops making way for his
still God-like presence. No-one dares approach him as he leaves the castle
--
perhaps because he took the "coward's" path and did not commit Seppuku
himself.
Tango and Kyoami find him in the windy fields outside the flaming castle.
He
is gathering flowers, clearly mad. They take shelter in a hut with a blind
man. He is Tsurumaru (Jiro's wife Sué's brother), who Hidetora had
blinded
many years before, in exchange for letting him live.
Lord Jiro returns to the main castle to notify Kaede that her husband is
dead
and that Jiro will take over. Kaede fools him into a one-on-one meeting
and
tries to take his life, forcing him to tell her who was really responsible
for her husband's death, calling him weak when he admits it too quickly.
She
screams that she won't leave the castle and that she never cared about
Taro.
Jiro is terrified, but considers taking her offer of her hand in marriage
in
exchange for not saying anything about his treachery. Kaede is adamant
that
Jiro kill his previous wife Sué.
She dispatches Jiro's master of arms Kurogane to dispose of Sué, bringing
back her head. She flips the hell right out when he brings back a head of
a
fox statue. Sué and Tsurumaru escape thanks for Kurogane's warning. Kaede
leaves Jiro until he can provide her his wife's head.
Hidetora wanders the Earth with Kyoami, a shadow of his former self,
looking
old beyond his years. The wide-angle scene of them on the steps is
beautiful.
Saburo's men ford a wide river on horseback to help him find his father.
Single shot. Amazing. Fujimaki follows him, ostensibly to back up his
son-in-law Saburo. Saburo is worried that it looks too aggressive. Jiro
thinks so too and wants to go to war. Jiro is called back by Kaede; his
closest men advise against talking to her. She tells Jiro to double-cross
Saburo and kill Hidetora as soon as Saburo reveals where he is.
Saburo retrieves his father but is shot dead by Jiro's men. Tango, Kyoami
and
Hidetora mourn his loss. The horses have moved on. They are, once again,
in a
plain of stones and dirt. Hidetora expires atop his son. Jiro, meanwhile,
has
been outflanked by Fujimaki and his ally.
When Kyoami curses the skies, Tango shouts,
"Enough. Do not blaspheme! It is the gods who weep. They see us killing each
other over and over since time began. They can't save us from ourselves.
Don't cry. It is how the world is made. Men prefer sorrow over joy,
suffering
over peace."
One Cut of the Dead (2017) -- "8/10"
A crazed director of a zombie movie drives his crew to new heights of
engagement when he makes them film in a place with real zombies. The two
leads and the DA are left, trying to survive and get away. They are cut
down
to two when the DA thinks that the lead actress has been infected. They
split
up as he chases her down. She turns out not to have been infected. She
finds
an axe with which to defend herself. She's playing the role of her career.
The director has disappeared but is probably neither dead nor zombified.
Instead, he's probably setting up the next shot.
She finds the other lead, but he's been zombified. And she's there with
her
axe. They end up (inadvertently) playing the scene from the movie that she
found it so difficult to play. Now she's flying. She kills him. Then when
the
director complains that she's killed his actor, she kills the director,
too.
She absolutely covered in blood and gore. Credits roll as she stares up
from
a bloody pentagram scrawled on the roof. The director yells "cut".
We flash back to one month before when the director is hired to do a
one-cut,
half-hour, live zombie movie. Then the credits run for the reality show
that
will film the one-cut movie? This is so meta. Now we see the actors and
actresses playing the roles of the people we just saw in real life (or did
we?).
The show is getting closer and closer, but the actors are slowly having
accidents and dropping out. That's how the director and his wife end up in
the movie. Now we see the filming with the behind-the-scenes -- where the
first zombie is actually an actor drunk out of his mind, the noise they
heard
is him hitting his head on the door. Everything that was cut together so
nicely in the first run, so scarily, was the result of accidents. That,
and
the director doing nearly everything himself, behind the scenes.
So it's the story of a director and his family and we see the filming of
the
filming of a one-cut, half-hour live zombie movie. It's the making of, of
itself. Now I kind of want to watch the original again. The mom flips the
hell out, losing herself in her role completely. The director ends up
choking
her out so they can mount the axe on her forehead.
It's all exceedingly clever and heartwarming and nearly perfectly done.
The
credits show the filming of the filming of the film, with a Japanese
rendition of 1,2,3 by Michael Jackson that's just barely recognizable.
Metropolis (1927) -- "9/10"
We visit Metropolis, a futuristic city with a clear class system: workers
underground and the elite in the clouds. We see a shift change, then we
see
Freder, the son of the Joh Frederson, the master of the city, cavorting in
a
garden of earthly delights, taking up with a woman who's been prepared for
him. He is interrupted in his frolicking by a woman who appears with a
class
of schoolchildren, whom she tells "These are your brothers".
Freder pursues her to the depths of the city, but cannot find her.
Instead,
he finds the workers, manning their stations at the machines that give the
city life. The workers try to contain the machine's energy, but it is too
much and explodes in a cloud of steam, taking many workers' lives. Freder
sees the machine as "Moloch", a hungry God who eats the poor in droves.
He returns to the upper levels of the city (the "Tower of Babel") to tell
his
father what he has seen. His father knows on what his city is built.
Freder
wants to know why the people responsible for the city's functioning are
hidden away while he and his fellows frolic idly. Joh says that's the way
it
is. Josephat, Joh's right-hand man, fails for the second time to obtain
information for him and is let go.
Freder chases him down and stops him from killing himself. Then he returns
to
the bowels of Metropolis to visit with his "fellow workers". Here, he
shows
an affinity for actual labor that is frankly insulting to people who
actually
train for it -- he has neither the endurance nor the training. Joh's new
right-hand man plays detective, following him around.
Joh visits the inventor Rotwang, who shows him Hel, a robot woman that he
made to replace the wife that Joh stole from him dozens of years ago. Joh
wants to know what his workers are up to. Deep in the catacombs, the woman
Freder saw (Maria) holds forth in a church of sorts. Freder is there with
the
other workers.
Rotwang has led Joh to the same place, to show him what his workers are up
to. They hear the story of the Tower of Babel. The workers ask where their
"agent" is -- Maria thinks that it's Freder (which is kind of sad, since
the
story has always been that the workers cannot free themselves). Joh asks
Rotwang to change Hel into Maria, to sow havoc with this son.
Rotwang reluctantly and ruefully chases a terrified Maria through the
catacombs. Freder's counterpart Georgy 11811 is caught by Joh's henchman,
who
forces him to give up the whereabouts of Josephat. Freder discovers
Rotwang's
lab, having heard Maria's screams. Rotwang proceeds with the transferral,
not
because Joh demands it, but because Rotwang wants to take the whole damned
city down. Rotwang begins the process of transferring Maria's "face" to
his
robot. Maria passes out on the operating table just after she has been
transferred.
Joh gives the robot Maria her marching orders; Freder encounters them and
falls into a deep faint, distraught. He dreams of Maria dancing
lasciviously
to the satyr-like delight of watching men. She is Babylon reborn. Now he
sees
the statues of the seven deadly sins and death itself come to life, all
come
to revenge themselves on the city.
The robot Maria continues to incite the workers to rise up -- but at the
wrong time. Instead of gaining any ground, they'll simply give Joh a
reason
to put down the stillborn revolution with legitimated violence. Instead,
though, she incites them to rise up and destroy the machines. Freder
arrives
just in time to denounce the robot Maria -- as their mediator, he begs
them
to listen to reason. Recognizing him as Joh's son, they attack him, end up
killing Georgy instead, then storm off to attack the machines.
The workers make it to the surface, pouring through the factories and past
machines, headed for the "Herzmaschine". Joh uses a security camera to see
the main guard Grot (I kid you not) and order him by telephone to open the
gates and let the workers in -- to give them access to the "Herzmaschine".
Grot warns them that, should they destroy that machine, the whole worker's
village will be drowned. Robot Maria urges them on, maniacal as ever.
At Rotwang's urging, real Maria is on her way; she rings the alarm, but
it's
nearly too late -- the city is flooding and falling to pieces. Freder
finds
his Maria and they go to the air ducts with all of the children of the
city
(as well as Josephat) to escape the flood. They arrive on the surface to
discover that the city is dead -- no power, no light...nothing.
But there is some light above, in the clouds: robot Maria is partying with
the wealthy elite like it's 1999. The workers are still deep in the bowels
of
the city, celebrating their destruction of the machines -- until Grot
tells
them that they've been fooled and that their children are dead. They fly
to
the surface.
They find their scapegoat: Maria, the witch who incited them to riot. In
chasing Maria, the workers run into the aristocrats and grab the robot
Maria,
who laughs maniacally. They dance as she burns on a giant pyre. Freder
tries
in vain to save her, thinking she's the real Maria. The real Maria,
meanwhile, is pursued by a reinvigorated Rotwang, who thinks she's his
robot
Hel.
Freder vanquishes Rotwang in an epic fight and we see the "mediator" play
his
role, linking "head" and "hands" (Joh with Grot).
The futuristic vistas are very well-made -- there are some beautiful
paintings integrated very cleverly into the scenery. Fritz Lang (the
director) does a tremendous amount with the little that was available to
him.
He invented whole tropes in the credits and in the filming. Even the plot
is
amazingly modern: I think several of the Mission Impossible films stole
from
it, liberally. The fight scene at the end, between Freder and Rotwang,
would
go on to be a template for so many others like it.
The workers work in 10-hours shift (that's why the clock goes to ten) and
the
the film is constantly punctuated by the shift-change whistle. Sound-wise,
though, the film is accompanied only by the original soundtrack, a
65-piece
chamber orchestra. It's like an opera without singing.
There are giant scenes with hundreds of people. The five streams of
"foreign
workers" coming together as they build the Tower of Babel is inspired. The
lighting is very good and the scene composition is brilliant. The camera
angles are all immediately familiar.
The laboratory set is amazing. It would stand up today, pretty much. How
did
he do all of this so well, when so much crap was produced in between? The
"Herzmaschine" and interspersed factory and water-production scenes are
spectacularly well-edited. The long-distance scenes showing such a large
space, a large city with endless roads. It would be entertaining enough
for a
stage production today, but it must have been miraculous in 1927. You can
tell which bits of footage are the "recovered" ones -- they're much
grainier.
This is a pretty powerful Marxist movie already in the first few minutes.
Quite an audacious work considering the U.S. was making Birth of a Nation
with its time and resources. On the other hand, it's not like Lang's
politics
won the day in Germany, either. It's a bit long, but it's got to get an
extra
point or two for being this good in 1927.
The King of Comedy (1982) -- "8/10"
This is the story of a mentally ill man Rupert Pupkin (Robert DeNiro), who
want so very badly to be famous. He wants to be like his idol, Jerry
Langford
(Jerry Lewis) -- he wants to be best friends, he wants to take over his
show.
He talks to himself in his apartment, which he shares with his mother. He
lives a fantasy life, with real-life scenes interspersed with his
imaginings,
to the point where it's difficult to tell what really happened and what
didn't.
Pupkin continues to inveigle his way into Jerry's life, trying to get his
"big shot". His fantasies about how his life will change, how Jerry will
admire him and envy him his talent, interleave with real life, as he makes
visit after visit to Jerry's office. The great Sandra Bernhardt plays
another
stalker (Masha), who chases Jerry through midtown Manhattan like a
Terminator, but loses him in the crowd.
Pupkin has a fake studio in his apartment, where he puts together
elaborate
fantasies about his future success. He tapes Jerry's show with himself on
it.
He fantasizes about marrying the homecoming queen of his high school on
the
show. He fantasizes about meeting her in the bar where she works and
taking
her out to dinner. He fantasizes about having his principal apologize for
failing him so often in high school.
It's unclear what Pupkin's job actually is. Pupkin has yet to be funny in
any
way whatsoever; odd, for a stand-up comic. He actually delivers a tape to
Jerry's producer (Shelley Hack). She actually listens to it. She responds
constructively, but not overwhelmingly positively. Instead, she recommends
that he hone his material in an actual stand-up club (instead of his
mother's
apartment).
When he continues to wait, the secretary calls security. Everyone is
exceedingly polite to him, but they won't give him what he wants: he wants
to
meet Jerry. Also, the secretary keeps getting his name wrong, from
"Pumpkin"
to "Pupnik". Outside, Masha tells him that Jerry is, in fact, in the
building
-- that they lied to him. He storms back in and charges past the
secretary,
in a flurry of fantasy-driven activity.
He drives out to Long Island, to Jerry's house, with Rita (Diahnne Abbott)
(the homecoming queen from his high school class, so I guess the date was
real) scamming their way in, though the butler is immediately suspicious.
She
gets into it, dancing around, then she runs upstairs to check out the rest
of
the house. Just as Jerry gets back from the links -- because his butler
called him back -- he's astonished to see that Pupkin is in his house and
pretending that they know each other.
Jerry's amusement is nonexistent. Pupkin has to go. He throws him out in a
way that even Pupkin can't misinterpret.
Pupkin and Masha kidnap Jerry. They have him call his office to tell them
to
let "The King" be the first guest on the show. Jerry Lewis plays his role
quite well.
While Pupkin arranges to get himself on the show, Masha "entertains" Jerry
back at her luxurious apartment. Pupkin had wrapped him up in masking tape
(a
ton of it, else it wouldn't have worked). Masha prepares a sumptuous,
candlelit dinner for Jerry. She is dressed in a slinky black dress. She
scares the life out of him with her intensity and blank madness. "Let's
just
clear everything off the table and do it right here."
Pupkin, meanwhile, has arranged a distraction, and manages to sneak on to
the
set, so that he can get to the producer and introduce himself as "The
King".
Masha, meanwhile, is making good on her threat of clearing the table. She
serenades Jerry. King is bold as love, telling the producer how the show
is
going to go, telling the FBI that he gets what he wants first. He hands
off
his monologue to the staff of the show -- and they actually think it's
funny.
The show begins: Tony Randall is guest-hosting, doing Rupert's lines. Back
at
her house, Masha strips. Pupkin goes on -- and we don't see him deliver a
single line. At Jerry's request, Masha cuts him out of the masking tape.
It's
getting later (taping was at seven); the FBI take Rupert to a bar to watch
the show (he wants to be sure that he was aired). Jerry wallops Masha and
escapes. Masha chases him down the street in her underwear. Pupkin's show
is
finally on: he's not very funny, but the crowd is laughing.
We see in a montage that Pupkin goes to jail for almost three years, then
publishes his memoirs and then, somehow, has a career. There is no such
thing
as bad publicity. Unless ... is this another fantasy of Pupkin's?
The structure and characters are not dissimilar to Arthur Fleck in Joker.
Arthur, though, didn't deserve the abuse he got. Pupkin, on the other
hand,
didn't deserve the shot he got -- he thought he didn't need to put in the
work. "Better to be king for a night than a schmuck for a lifetime."
You can tell that this movie was made almost 40 years ago, when the police
didn't get involved so quickly and when the Pupkins of the world hadn't
already ruined it for everyone else.
Step Brothers (2008) -- "6/10"
Brennan Huff (Will Smith) is an adult child. His mother Nancy (Mary
Steenbergen) spoils the hell out of him. Dale Doback (John C. Reilly) is
also
an adult child. His father Robert (Richard Jenkins) spoils the hell out of
him. Nancy and Robert hook up at a conference. They realize that they have
more than a conference fling in common: they each have a grown man-child
living at home with them. They get married. Dale and Brennan both implode
like spoiled children at the wedding.
The boys finally meet: Dale wants to be called "Dragon"; Brennan wants to
be
called "Night Hawk". The boys start to fight for attention immediately.
This
is nearly the perfect vehicle for Ferrell and Reilly. The boys will be
bunking together because Dale doesn't want to give up his drum room. His
drums are strictly off limits to everyone except him.
Tensions rise until the boys get into a knock-down, drag-out fight on the
front lawn that attracts all of the neighbors. Nancy and Robert are called
from their jobs to deal with it. The boys knock each other out for all to
see. Their punishment is to find jobs and move out in a month.
Brennan's brother Derek (Adam Scott) shows up with his wife Alice (Kathryn
Hahn) and with their two kids in tow. Derek treats Alice like dirt. He's a
terrible human being, but Robert loves him. Derek pops up the ladder and
annoys the boys in their tree house until Dale punches him in the face and
drops him to the ground. As they're leaving, Alice approaches Dale and
thanks
him for punching her asshole husband and then hits on him super-hard,
telling
him that she's going to masturbate to the thought of him punching her
husband
that night.
The boys hit it off and there's a montage of them doing "activities"
together. They build bunk beds so that they can do more activities in
their
room. They are not carpenters. The bed collapses on Brennan, who is
mortally...scratched. The next day, they have their first interviews. They
wear tuxes. They do them together. They fail miserably. On the way home,
they
get the utter shit kicked out of them by the neighborhood kids.
They decide to sabotage Derek's efforts to sell the house. At Derek's
birthday party, Alice rapes Dale in the men's bathroom. After Robert
announces that he will put Derek in his will, the boys present "Prestige
Worldwide", their business opportunity. The presentation comes with a rap
video on Robert's boat, starring the boys. It's childishly lewd. Alice is
the
only one who's into it. At the end of the video, they crash the boat into
rocks. Robert and Nancy had been planning on retiring on that boat. Robert
flips out, spanking Brennan.
Next, we see them on Christmas Eve. Robert is still bitter. The boys have
no
idea that he's still pissed. Nancy doesn't know how to discipline the
boys.
Robert comes back, "tonight at the Cheesecake Factory was the happiest
time
I've had in a long time." The boys barge in, sleep-walking and breaking
shit
everywhere. Nancy tolerates it and Robert wants to wake them up. He wakes
them up and they freak out. Nancy is pissed at Robert.
It's Christmas dinner and Alice asks Dale to meet her next door, "come on,
let's try something illegal." Meanwhile Robert says "you wanna know what I
got for Christmas? A crushed soul." Alice and Dale end up screwing their
way
back into the dining room -- no-one notices. Nancy and Robert announce
that
they're divorcing and moving to separate homes. Everyone has to move out,
The house goes into escrow and the boys have one day to move out. That
night,
they fight again, with Brennan playing Dale's drums, Dale knocking him
out,
thinking he killed him, trying to bury Brennan, then having Brennan turn
the
tables and bury him instead. He escapes and the boys pass out on the lawn.
They are no further along than they were before. They are children.
Brennan gets a job with his brother Derek, whose friends slag on him
horribly
(Rob Riggle is one of these psycho co-workers). Dale gets a job as a
caterer.
Now they're at the Catalina Wine Mixer. Brennan organizes it and Dale
caters
it. When the lead singer of the Billy Joel cover band loses his shit due
to
heckling, Dale jumps in on the drums and Brennan sings an opera in Spanish
and they save everything. "It's the fucking Catalina Wine Mixer."
The movie was written by Will Ferrel and Adam McKay and directed by Adam
McKay. McKay starts the film with a stupid quote from George W. Bush, just
to
set the tone. That's about where the politics ends, except for maybe
making
fun of rich strivers like Derek. I subtracted a star because, despite some
good lines and good performances, it was a bit formulaic and I don't need
to
see it again.
Andre the Giant (2008) -- "7/10"
Andre began his career in Monaco at 2.25m and at almost 190kg. Though he
started his career in high school as a real wrestler, his size
necessitated
that he slow down his style. People, too, really only came to see his huge
size, not the fancy style of his wrestling. This isn't to say that he was
a
shambolic hulk, but that he just wasn't that fast. He was strong as hell:
one
scene shows him dead-lifting 2000 lbs.
He quickly ended up in the U.S., where flamboyant, gimmick-based wrestling
was really taking off. The first bits of footage are just so embarrassing:
they called him Polish, changed his name several times, thought he was
speaking Spanish, etc. The bastards dared to say that he was "not the most
articulate man in the world", although he was speaking in a second
language
in a country full of people who barely spoke one.
André specialized in two-on-one or Battle Royales. Other wrestlers said
he
would always win but he would also "sell" other wrestlers' moves, making
other wrestlers look good. "He was very kind. He was very proud that he
never
hurt anyone." He was never made champion because there was no story for
making him lose again. He was just too overwhelmingly huge.
Hulk Hogan says that though André liked most wrestlers, he hated Randy
Macho
Man Savage. He'd also had enough of the Iron Sheik one night. The Hulk
thought he was killing them in the ring. Big John Stud was 6'9", so he
thought he was a giant as well. André would have to prove him wrong.
He would go on to stardom, making commercials and even doing a cameo as
Sasquatch in the Six Million Dollar Man. Arnold Schwarzenegger told a
story
of being out to dinner with him where André got the bill by first placing
Arnie up on an armoire, so that he was out of reach. Just popped him up
there, like he didn't weigh a thing.
Women were attracted to him. He was a world-champion drinker, basically an
alcoholic -- except that he had 3 times as much weight as anyone else. he
traveled a tremendous amount, flying all over the world and also hitting
the
road with a bus a lot. He traveled to Japan a lot, even though he wasn't
able
to use the lavatory on the plane. The world didn't fit him at all, so it
must
have been tough. Hulk Hogan told of how awfully people would talk about
him
right in front of him, as he walked by.
He had acromegaly, a condition that caused his gigantism. When he broke
his
ankle, he had to have surgery to fix it. While he was convalescing, the
world
of wrestling changed, becoming bigger and flashier and televised
nationally.
Hulk Hogan becomes national champion and André congratulated him.
They interview a lot of the cast from The Princess Bride, where they
discuss
how much he drank (though he never really got drunk), how much pain he was
in
(neck, spine, knees), how he was much more able to act than to wrestle, at
that point. He was done, not just with wrestling, but with life. His
friends
were trying to get him to have surgery, but he wasn't interested.
With his back killing him, he agrees to Wrestlemania III, wrestling Hulk
Hogan for the title in front of 93,000 live fans. No-one knew whether he
would be able to actually wrestle in his condition. He managed it, but he
was
in agony. Hulk talks about how he did everything he could to keep his
friend
from being hurt more. Hulk did end up slamming him (525 lbs). They managed
to
make a match of some sort and the script worked out.
From then on, though, he was now a "heel", which he did not like. His
career
-- and his body -- was in decline. His knee-surgery scars were awful. He
was
still growing (because of his condition) and his organs were failing. He
could barely walk. In 1993, he went to France to visit his father, who was
on
his deathbed. He stayed for the funeral, then went to Paris, where he died
soon after, at the age of 46, "of an apparent heart attack." His best
friend
regrets that he wasn't able to be with him, at the end; instead, he "died,
all alone, in a hotel."
André was an amazing person. He was so strong -- one clip shows him
lifting
up a 250-lbs wrestler in each arm. He wrestled for 27 years in 5000
matches.
I subtracted a point because they gave way too much screen time to Vince
McMahon.
M (1931) -- "8/10"
We see a city in the grip of a serial killer. The children sing gruesome
songs of him on the playground. Newspapers are sold with the grisly
details.
We see little Elsie on the way home from school -- just walking the fuck
out
in the middle of the road without looking, as little girls often do --
when
she happens upon a man whistling Grieg's The Hall of the Mountain King,
who
buys her a balloon from a blind vendor. Later, we see Elsie's mother
searching for her increasingly desperately; we see the balloon tangled in
power lines; we see Elsies ball roll to a stop in a field.
The city grows tenser. A child asks a man for the time and the man is
nearly
torn apart by a crowd who thinks that he was trying to kidnap her. The
police
are at their breaking point, pulling shifts without rest. They have very
few
clues and eyewitness testimony was just as unreliable then as it is now.
They report the usual: foreigners, gypsies, etc. People don't change.
The police raid the local establishments, rousting petty criminals, but
finding nothing overly suspicious. They collect a truly impressive array
of
weapons and pilfered goods, though. We see some men on what looks to be a
stakeout. More interesting is that we see how timekeeping worked almost
100
years ago: they called a central number to get the time and then set all
of
their pocket-watches accordingly.
These local criminals have gathered to complain that they are sick of how
the
police raids are killing their businesses. They want to distance
themselves
from the killer that's paralyzing the city. At the same time, a group of
the
city's leaders gather. They come up with the theory that perhaps the
killer
is an otherwise upstanding citizen. Both groups try to find a clue, a
lead,
that will end the man's rampage. The smaller group of criminals comes up
with
the idea of organizing the beggars as lookouts.
The police go through the information available to them: there was
definitely
no Datenschutzgesetz back then. As one officer searches through an
apartment
while he waits for the inhabitant to come home (the landlady had let him
in),
we see the murderer, revealed now to us, catching the reflection of a
child
in a shop window -- and nearly swooning with lust. He follows her, but to
no
avail. She meets her mother and they continue on together. The murderer
stifles his frustration in a cognac or two at the local café.
He continues along the street and he continues whistling, passing the
blind
balloon vendor. The vendor gets someone to help him track down the
whistler,
knowing that it's probably the guy. The young man follows him and finds
him
buying fruit for a little girl. Instead of confronting him directly, the
young man writes an "M" on his hand in wax marker, then stumbles into the
murderer, yelling at him about dropping orange peels on the ground and
simultaneously marking the back of his coat. He calls the local mafia to
inform them of what he's done.
The murderer continues blithely down the street, with his arm around the
little girl's shoulders. There are men tailing him now. The little girl
sees
the mark and offers to wipe it off for him, but isn't able to. The men
give
chase, cornering him on a side street. He slips into a building when a
procession of fire engines passes.
The man is hiding in the attic. The local criminals get wind of it and
decide
to take matters into their own hands. They storm the building in numbers.
They engage a safe-cracker as cover (pretending to be there to rob the
bank).
It's a bit confusing, but they want to capture the murderer for
themselves.
One of the captured watchmen manages to trip the alarm and the criminals
have
five minutes to find the murderer and get out.
They manage it, but leave the safecracker behind. He is picked up and
interrogated by the police. Meanwhile, the murderer is on trial in the
bowels
of a factory, under the watchful eyes of hundreds. He is given a lawyer;
there is a process. He is allowed to defend himself; he claims that he
can't
help himself. They want to kill him then, to put him out of their misery,
but
his lawyer is adamant. It goes back and forth -- the arguments are
unchanged
nearly a century later -- when the police show up and arrest them all.
This movie is cleverly made but doesn't rely as much on an epic style as
Metropolis did. It's a talkie but the sound effects are somewhat sparse.
There are a few short stretches without any sound whatsoever, which is
odd.
Saw it in German.
Russian Ark (2002) -- "8/10"
Our narrator is disembodied and speaks Russian. He has been in an accident
and doesn't know where he is. The screens fades from black and he's at a
palace, at the arrival of a carriage full of young aristocrats. He follows
them in, but they don't see him. He continues through the palace,
eavesdropping occasionally. He encounters a man who can see him and who
acts
as his guide. He seems to be accustomed to this type of travel, to this
form
of invisible tourism.
They walk through, meeting Catherine the Great. The two phantoms argue
about
Italian influence on Russia, on Napoleonic influence. The guide is an
arrogant dilettante. They continue to argue and discuss, with the traveler
arguing that Russians just copy and cannot invent (as evidenced by all of
the
European treasures).
They float from a grand corridor into the "small room of Italian masters"
and are in the modern-day museum, with modern people around. Still, no-one
is
aware of them. The phantom introduces the "Marquise" (the traveler) to two
friends that he recognizes. They can see both of them. They examine
paintings. The traveler is apparently from 17th-century France and does
not
recognize the modern style of dress.
They move back to the 18th century, where he makes fun of Pushkin, then
apologizes for offending national sensibilities. The European accosts a
blind
woman and gets her to describe paintings to him, which she does with
aplomb.
They argue about whether a Rubens painting is on display or not (though
she
is blind and he is obnoxious).
The Marquise's behavior is very odd. I wonder if it's a deliberate
impersonation of a know-it-all European who told the Russians their own
culture? Or if he's supposed to be adrift on the currents of time? He
walks
everywhere with his arms interlocked behind him. Now he hears music,
"Russian
music makes me break out in hives." Now, he's accosting a young man,
accusing
him of being incapable of appreciating a painting because he's not read
the
Gospels (the boy is at most 16 or so).
This is the age-old conceit that there is only one way to enjoy art and
that
is to do so in a given context (generally the one held by the person
making
the argument). While there is some value is having background and context
--
it can enhance an otherwise superficial or humdrum experience into
something
sublime and personally meaningful -- simply judging someone out of the
blue
as being incapable of enjoying a piece of artwork as you do, is arrogance
of
the highest order.
They continue to wander through Russian history, meeting art connoisseurs,
getting into increasingly opulent areas of the Hermitage Museum. The
European
apologizes for his writings, having learned something through his
more-recent
journey. He sees the building now in all of its glory -- when he'd
visited,
it had just burned in a great fire. They fast-forward to the 80s, where
they
see Gorbachev...and then it's back to the Tsar's troops...and then it's
Anastasia taking tea after flitting through the halls with her angelic
friends...and then we are at an ornate, opulent ball full of
French-speaking
Russians.
And then the waltz begins -- Glinka again. The Marquise joins in, "St.
Petersburg has the best balls in Europe", which sounds like he's accepted
Russia as part of Europe (also: phrasing). They exit together with the
other
guests, down the marble staircase, with a nonet broken off from the
orchestra
accompanying them.
The costumes are spectacular and seemingly authentic, dressing a cast of
seemingly thousands. The enthusiasm of the actors and extras is contagious
and real. It's kind of exquisite and overwhelming -- a beautifully filmed
period piece on steroids. There are whole orchestras, one dressed in full
19th-century military dress uniform. The film was shot in a single take
(the
fourth of four planned attempts). The sound was dubbed in later. There was
also a lot of editing, naturally.
"In post-production the uncompressed HD 87-minute one-shot could be reworked
in detail: besides many object removals, compositings, stabilisations,
selective colour-corrections and digitally added focus changes, the whole
film was continuously and dynamically reframed (resized) and for certain
moments even timewarped (slowed down and sped up). [...] before being
reprinted onto filmstock for theatrical distribution."
Roger Ebert wrote that the film's magnificent adherence to the single-shot
concept "spins a daydream made of centuries." An extra point for being so
ambitious and opulent and Russian.
These Final Hours (2013) -- "6/10"
This Australian film starts with a couple making desperate love, trying to
drown out the knowledge that the shock wave from an asteroid strike in the
Atlantic will arrive in Perth in 12 hours. The man, James (Nathan
Phillips),
drives to a party with his girlfriend at his lover Zoe's (Jessica De Gouw)
urging, but the place is blocked off. It's anarchy in the streets already.
James fights off two grunting lowlifes with a hammer to the temple, then
frees the young girl they'd kidnapped.
The young girl Rose (Angourie Rice) and James drive off, with her berating
him that he shouldn't drink and drive, which is doubly amusing: he's
Australian and the world's dead -- it just doesn't know it yet. He plans
to
drop Rose off at his sister's house before going to his end-of-the-world
party, but his sister and her husband are dead in the shower. Their
children
are buried in the backyard.
Now there's an absolutely insipid flashback where Zoe tells James that
she's
pregnant, to which he responds that it can't possibly matter, to which she
offers the brilliant riposte "Life is stronger than Death", at which James
realizes that he may be a mimbo, but at least he's not as stupid as the
girl
he's knocked up.
They walk into a library and find a police officer with his family. He
can't
work up the courage to do what James's sister did; he asks James to kill
his
family for him. He wants absolution; he wants a quick, merciful end for
his
family. James grants him absolution, for what it's worth.
James and Rose arrive at the party. It's what you would expect for
Australia:
pure hedonism. Everyone's drinking; the men are tattooed to the gills; the
women aren't wearing tops and have gorgeous breasts; everyone glistens;
music
pumps. It's a bit different: instead of drinking contests, they play
Russian
Roulette. Rose is horrified. James's girlfriend Vicky's brother Freddy
(Daniel Henshall) is hosting the party and he tells James that the "room
downstairs is done [and] to keep it on the down-low."
There's an absolute orgy going on inside. They go back outside and meet
Vicki
(Kathryn Beck) who groans in his ear "I need to fuck now." [2] James fails
to
live up to expectations, so Vicki takes him down to the "room" that her
brother Freddy had been talking about. Vicki and Freddy are deluded about
the
survival potential of the situation. Vicki's a little too high or drunk to
deal with James's rejection.
It's not a terrible movie, but these people weren't even a little bit
interesting before they got caught up in a
fireball-approaching-the-continent
movie. But maybe that's the point: 99.999% of the world is going to take
the
firestorm [3] just about like this. And what would be better? There is no
appropriate reaction because nothing matters at all. Death is imminent for
all. Wanna finish a puzzle? Drink yourself into a coma and have an orgy?
Take
a girl back to her family? It's all the same now.
It's an interesting premise, though. There are intermittent announcements
from a radio station in Australia that announces which parts of the world
have been subsumed. The plot reminded me a bit of the book "On the Beach"
by Nevil Shute,
which
was also based in Australia.
The movie drags on, with Rose finding her family, them having already
committed suicide, Rose getting her big scenery-chewing moment, then James
going back to Zoe (as if we're supposed to care at all). The final
half-hour
dragged so much, I had to subtract a point. It would have been better as a
one-hour movie.
Watching a movie about a fireball approaching Australia is a bit too on
the
nose right now. [4]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] As other ladies in the film, Kaede has shaved her eyebrows and redrawn them
in, far up on her forehead.
[1] I kept thinking of the line "The whole world's coming to an end, Mal..." by
Woody Harrelson in Natural Born Killers.
[1] When it comes. Which will be soon, if Trump keeps fucking with Middle East
foreign policy (he just had Iranian general Suleimani iced in Iraq).
[1] Australia is in the midst of their worst firestorms of all time. It's killed
untold millions of animals. The continent will never be the same.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=38732020-01-02T21:59:03+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1400
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of around 1400 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.
Weekend (1967) -- "5/10"
The movie begins with a couple (Corinne and Roland Dupont) who discuss how
awful everyone else is and how they either wished the others would die or
that they should plan to kill them. We see a fender-bender turn into a
beatdown, outside an apartment. We see a man listen to his girlfriend
somewhat clinically describe an impromptu three-way she had with other
friends. They are nearly in silhouette, with vague details visible, she in
bra and panties. The music surges oddly, sometimes nearly drowning them
out.
The scene she describes keeps getting kinkier, but her tone of voice stays
exactly the same. [1]
The next scene sees the same couple trying to drive off for the weekend,
at
10 on a Saturday. He can't drive; he hits a parked car; there's a kid
dressed
as an Indian pestering him; the lady who owns the parked car is the kid's
Mom; she comes out, ready for tennis lessons; drags the bad driver out of
the
car; his wife gets a spraypaint can out of the trunk of their car, gives
it
to him, then holds the lady's hands while he sprays her and her car. The
lady
responds by hitting tennis balls at him. A man comes out firing a shotgun,
but hitting nothing. The lady, man with shotgun and boy-dressed-as-Indian
all
chase the car out of the parking lot. Highly surreal but still somewhat
meaningful, if you look for it. Certainly not formulaic.
The next scene is a traffic jam on a French country road. The couple roll
by
standing cars (Citroën 2CV, Fiat 500, etc.), then try to sneak in.
There's a
car inexplicably flipped on its roof. Other cars litter the sides of the
road. There are people playing chess. One lady's car faces the wrong way.
One
truck has lions on it; another gibbons and a llama. Cars just bump into
each
other all the time. Nearly everyone (every man, at least) has a cigarette
sticking out of their face. The only sound is honking horns and the man's
revving engine as he scooches forward. The horns are like an orchestra
warming up. The camera finally pans from left to right and we see a woman
and
two children, a bloody mess by the side of the road. The man finally
accelerates out of there.
They arrive in a small town. A sports car is nearly embedded in a tractor.
The driver is clearly dead. The passenger is covered in blood and she's
berating the tractor driver -- the farmer -- in classist terms, saying
everything working class is shit and it's better to be rich. When he says
that "Paul" caused the accident, she says that he was handsome, young, and
rich and certainly had the right of way over a fat, poor, old man. They
both
ask the couple who was right, but the couple beg off and drive away. The
farmer yells after them that Marx said we were all brothers and the young
woman yells that they're dirty Jews. The young woman and farmer
commiserate
as the car jets away, united in their hatred for the couple.
They drive on. Brief scenes and sounds of traffic jams. We see people
reaching into their convertible and both the man and the woman biting
those
people's hands. It starts raining. A woman hails them for a ride. Another
traffic accident. This woman's raving husband (who she'd hidden) has a gun
and makes them turn around, going back the way they'd come. The rain
stops;
the top is back down. The two unwanted passengers (Joseph Balsamo, the son
of
Alexandre Dumas and God) are in the back. The couple hails everyone for
help,
but only half-heartedly. Joseph fires his gun and philosophizes. His
girlfriend says nothing. He performs a miracle (conjures a rabbit from
under
the dashboard), then asks them what they want. They want things. He is
disappointed and tells them they get nothing. Corinne swipes the gun and
orders them out. They all Benny-Hill across a field of wrecked cars,
Corinne
yelling "Dirty Jew! I'll kill you!" and firing the gun with endless
bullets.
Back on the road. They drive cyclists and cars off the road, finally
crashing
in a fiery wreck themselves. Corinne is devastated as her Hermès handbag
burns. They are walking across a field as a 19th-century French soldier
accosts them. They reach a phone booth, occupied by a man who sings his
whole
conversation. They try to steal his car, but he fights them off, then only
wants to take Corinne to the garage. A prolonged fight ensues. They lose
and
are, once again, on foot. We see them on a road covered in bodies lying in
puddles of their own blood, and wrecked, flaming cars.
They meet a surrealist couple in the woods and argue with them. They
continue, stealing clothes from more wrecked cars. It is Thursday. They
left
on Saturday. They hail a truck. Musical interlude. The truck driver plays
Mozart on a grand piano in a courtyard. The couple is dropped off in a
muddy
field, thanking the truck driver. He piggybacks on her as they head off
again, on foot. They pass the "Italian co-production" of the film in the
woods.
They give up, stopping again by the side of the road. Corinne sleeps in a
ditch; a stranger attacks her (presumably raping her) while her husband
does
nothing. He hails a passing car, but fails to answer a question correctly
(chooses Johnson over Mao) and they drive on without him. The stranger
exits
the ditch, adjusting his clothes. They don't speak of it. She hails a car,
answers a question incorrectly (chooses Egyptians over Israelis) and they
drive on. Piggyback again.
A garbage truck picks them up. They work for them for a while. More
political
commentary. Spoken by the black worker while the camera focuses on the
white
one:
"The optimism reigning today in Africa is not inspired by natural forces
benefiting Africans. Nor because the old oppressor is behaving less
inhumanely and more benevolently. The optimism is the direct result of
revolutionary action, political and or military, by the African masses.
[...]"
It continues for about ten or fifteen more minutes. The Duponts sit on a
rock
wall, looking somewhat bored. The monologues are interspersed with prior
scenes from the movie.
They are finally in Oinville (they'd been just outside the town for a
while
now). Corinne takes a bath while (presumably) Roland reads the story of
the
hippopotamus from the Bible. He returns from getting a rabbit with his
mother-in-law, bargaining with her for the inheritance. She is resolute.
He
and Corinne kill her, then plan to cover up her body in one of the many
car
wrecks. They set her ablaze in an "accident" involving an airplane.
They're on foot again. They encounter a picnic and are kidnapped from it
by a
band of rebels, motivations unclear. They're at the rebel camp, which
looks
to be no more than a heap of old tires in the woods. And there's a man
with a
drum set. They are portrayed as cannibals; the Duponts are chained to a
tree,
looking quite dead. The "chef" drops an egg on them. He does the same to a
naked woman, aiming between her legs.
Roland makes a break for it, but is taken down by a rock to the head. They
leave him. A pig is killed. A goose is killed. More revolutionary talk via
two-way radio (TIL that "Over" is derives from the French "A vous"). There
is
an utterly unclear hostage exchange followed by a pitched guerrilla-style
battle on a French farm. Roland is dead and the chef has cooked him into a
meal that Corinne enjoys, asking for seconds. I guess Corinne was
converted
to whatever bizarre-ass form of Marxism the hippies in the forest think
they're practicing?
There was no payoff, but I didn't expect one. I'm sure there's deeper
meaning
behind the drummer by the riverside and I appreciate them all trying
something new, but it just didn't grab me. Maybe a second viewing would be
different. I subtracted a star for throwing in everything but the kitchen
sink. (I'm looking at you, Godard.) I saw it in French with English
subtitles.
The Belko Experiment (2016) -- "5/10"
For a movie that's about a building in Bogotá that suddenly closes down on
80 employees, trapping them there with a disembodied voice exhorting them
to
kill each other, it's kind of weird to say that it's kind of predictable.
It stars John C. McGinley, Michael Rooker ... and a bunch of other people
who
I vaguely recognized from their faces but not their names.
The evil voice from the speaker tells the people that they have to kill a
certain number of the group themselves or the evil people in the speaker
will
kill twice that many by triggering the tracking device that they all had
implanted in their heads when they entered employment with Belko.
The slaughter begins, some taking part reluctantly, some enthusiastically.
The final stage is to reward the person with the most kills (who's still
alive, of course) with freedom. Pretty much everyone gets it and the
office
building looks like an abattoir. In the final scene, the office pussy
Michael
Milch thinks it's a good idea to go mano a mano with the ex-Special Forces
COO, who's racked up way over a dozen kills already.
Michael vanquishes the COO, slaughtering his first and last person by
bludgeoning with a tape dispenser and "wins" the game as the last
remaining
employee of Belko Industries. The guards show up and take him to the head
of
the experiment. Michael had picked up the pile of explosives that Marty
(Sean
Gunn) had extracted from victims' heads and he's planted them on all of
the
guards -- and even the leader himself. He then lunges for the console and
triggers them all. The movie is adorable in thinking that it could set up
a
sequel. Cool soundtrack.
Matinee (1993) -- "5/10"
John Goodman plays director Lawrence Woolsey, who's making monster movies in
1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He's in Key West, 90 miles from
Cuba,
trying to release his latest movie Mant, about mutated ants (obviously,
right?). Townspeople and national organizations are trying to stop him
because he's "causing unrest" and "scaring people" and "spreading filth".
Woolsey's just trying to entertain people -- he's even got what he calls
"4D"
devices, precursors to devices that would be popular at theme parks years
later. It's pretty unbelievable, though: at one point, a decibel-meter
shows
over 300, which is ridiculous. Everyone in the theater would have had
their
heads blown off.
The "moral majority" who's out to stop Woolsey, though, had been hired by
him
to drum up interest. There's a bunch of machination with high-school kids
that I didn't bother trying to unravel completely. There are some ironic
bits
where, for example, the scientist in the movie Mant keeps translating
perfectly normal words for the woman in the movie, like magnify ("make
bigger") or accelerate ("speed it up").
When the fancy movie effects convince a panicky bomb-shelter owner that
the
missiles are on their way, two of the kids end up getting locked in.
Woolsey
helps get them out, as his movie plays on. The balcony in the theater is
too
weak for all of the awesome effects and people get ridiculously worked up
thinking that the world is going to end -- especially once Woolsey's
mushroom
cloud film is projected on-screen. Then they go fucking bananas and exit
the
theater, into broad daylight (it was, after all, a matinee).
It's mostly a pretty lame movie, but I can always watch John Goodman work.
And Cathy Moriarty is a perfect foil as his ingenue/wife. He leaves with
her,
at the end, with an absolutely gigantic cigar in his mouth. Her hat is
spectacular, as well, though highly inappropriate for a convertible.
Mimic (1997) -- "6/10"
Directed by Guillermo del Toro, this movie is about a Manhattan that is just
getting out from under a quarantine for Strickler's Disease, which has a
high
infection rate among children and polio-like effects. Dr. Susan Tyler
(Mira
Sorvino), an entomologist, puts an end to it by engineering a so-called
Judas
bug that wipes out New York's cockroaches.
Three years later, there are stirrings of repercussions. People are going
missing and there are ... sightings of a man-bug. Susan with her husband
(Jeremy Northam) investigate along with CDC colleague Josh Brolin. Much of
the action takes place in Alphabet City, where a shoe-shiner (Giancarlo
Giannini) lives with his autistic son, who has an affinity for the bugs.
Charles S. Dutton is an MTA officer. F. Murray Abraham plays a fellow
researcher of Susan's.
Since del Toro is just directing (not writing), the action unfolds
more-or-less predictably. Much of the action takes place in the dark
tunnels
of subways, where I can imagine the smell. If you're even been to Chambers
St. or, even worse, Canal St.station, then you can probably remember it,
too.
Investigations continue on all sides: they comb the tunnels, finding signs
of
large-scale habitation; they find a fully-formed bug in a sewage system, a
sign that there is a larger colony where it could have evolved and grown
(it
seems to be a soldier). Susan encounters a bug that disguises itself as a
man
-- our first non-shadowed view of a full-grown bug. She approaches it,
asking
for the time (it was 1997, no-one had a cell phone) and it abducts her.
Their investigations uncover increasingly Cronenbergian creatures and
scenes:
everything's wet, gooey, organic and chitinous. The first half of the
movie
with the buildup is more interesting than the finale, once the bugs are
revealed. In the end, it's Alien with a bunch of kid stuff thrown in, for
good measure. It's del Toro, so it's meticulously nicely shot, but the
story
is very trite.
The movie inspired two straight-to-video sequels, both of which featured
no-name writers, directors and actors.
Another Year (2010) -- "7/10"
Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen) are the rock around which a
coterie of alcoholics skirl. They very placidly have a dinner with a
single
guest who gets deep into their cups, until they almost collapse in the
late
evening. First her office companion Mary (Leslie Manville) and then his
schoolmate Ken (Peter Wight) They are depressed because they have no-one
to
share their lives with. Tom and Gerri do more than humor them -- they
barely
seem to notice how deep in their cups they are, speaking in a
non-pandering
manner throughout.
The two act as counselors for all of their friends. Tom is seriously
concerned about his friend Ken who is a full-blown depressive alcoholic
and
chain-smoker. He is deeply unhealthy. Tom and Gerri, meanwhile, quietly
tend
their garden and enjoy the outdoors.
They have a garden party, with their son Joe (Oliver Maltman), Ken and
Mary
in attendance. Mary shows up very late because she drove -- and then
starts
drinking immediately, as customary. She also splashes in to the party,
describing her day in excruciating detail, as usual. She's absolutely in
tatters, in denial about being a smoker. Just a hot mess. Ken is also an
absolute shambles, hitting on Mary, but only half-heartedly. Mary's on her
second mug of wine. Ken's got his own bottle.
Mary starts hitting on Joe pretty hard, which is very cringe-y, but Joe's
got
his parents' gift for being able to utterly ignore how madcap and unhinged
his conversational partners are.
They get ready to leave the party and Mary offers to give Joe and Ken a
lift
to the train station. Gerri isn't thrilled because Mary is a terrible
driver
and she's had too much to drink. Joe safely exits the vehicle, leaving
Mary
and Ken together. Ken makes a very clumsy move; Mary rejects it.
The next season is winter. They travel north, to Tom's brother Ronnie
(David
Bradley), whose wife has just died. They attend the funeral and the wake
and
then bring Ronnie back to stay with them for a few days. Tom and Gerri are
out when Mary shows up, looking even more discombobulated than usual,
freezing from the weather. He lets her in and she makes a cup of tea. She
wants a cigarette and Ronnie offers her one, but says they have to go
outside. Mary doesn't want to be cold and claims that Tom and Gerri
wouldn't
notice. They continue an absolutely painful conversation outside.
The film just kind of peters out, ending as it started. Poor Ronnie looks
very out of place -- he'd just lost his wife and the family of his brother
(the Londoner) has completely different topics than he's used to. Mary is
also more lost than usual, barely controlling her alcoholism and
depression.
It's a well-made film, a cut out of any everyday family and group of
friends
as they age.
Five Deadly Venoms (1978) -- "6/10"
I'm watching this because the men from Kim's Convenience claim that it's the
best martial-arts movie of all time. The style is somewhat comedic, but
not
so much as Jackie Chan's movies. It's also almost certainly not as
deliberately comedic as it is campy. The fighting styles are ludicrous --
Centipede, Snake, Scorpion, Toad, Gecko -- the costumes are flamboyant, as
are the wigs (head and beard). The main fighters sashay in and out of
scenes
-- at first I thought some of them were played by women. There are no
women
in this movie (other than a few victims of the initial murder).
The story is of an old master who has trained five students (seniors), who
are now out in the world. A fellow member of his own training cadre has
made
a fortune; the master is worried that his former five students will try
to
steal it. He's right: the five masters are looking for him -- and each
other.
The old master sends his latest acolyte (hair like an 80s headbanger) to
find
them all and prevent anything bad from happening -- and from bringing
further
shame upon the house of the Five Deadly Venoms.
Honestly, the plot is not super-clear if you just have the subtitles to go
by. People in pajamas kicking each other. It takes forty minutes for the
first full-on battle between two of the seniors: Toad and Centipede; Toad
vanquishes him and walks away from the police. The sixth acolyte (the
youngest student) scampers away, still convincing everyone that he's just
a
bumbling fool.
Machinations lead to alternate accusations and various arrest orders.
Next,
they frame Toad and attempt to arrest him. He agrees to come quietly, but
then tears up the courtroom when Menfa (the supposed eyewitness) fingers
him
(although he was dead certain it was Centipede a day or two ago). One of
the
policeman is convinced that Toad is a good man and blameless.
Others plot to torture him until he succumbs to the coat of a thousand
needles, which looks like an iron maiden). The other masters are as yet
undetected -- but brother Snake is forced to reveal himself when Toad
easily
escapes the coat. Toad (Meng Lo) has quite an amazing physique. Somehow
Scorpion manages to sting Toad in the ears (I didn't see how it happened)
and
Snake vanquishes him.
Toad continues to get the short end of the stick. Next, they burn his
whole
back with a torso armor that was heated over coals. His whole back is
fried;
the court asks Menfa to come back in and witness again. They make the
unconscious Toad "sign" a confession.
Later, we see Snake and Centipede murder Menfa, to tie up loose ends. The
police murder Toad by suffocation in his cell, then string him up to make
it
look like he'd hanged himself. Snake and Centipede show up to kill the
police, tying up all loose ends. They wonder aloud where brother Gecko is.
The other police inspector, He, does not accept the ruling and regrets
Toad's
death. Yang De (the acolyte) reveals that he knows that He is Gecko.
Scorpion
and Snake quarrel; Snake laments how far he himself has fallen and blames
Scorpion.
Gecko and the acolyte advance on Snake and Centipede and fight them
interminably (with laughable sound effects). His former captain looks on
--
until he reveals himself to be Scorpion and wounds Snake as he tries to
run
away. The fight continues, with Scorpion (now revealed) and Centipede
together. Snake plucks out the shooting stars and wounds Scorpion before
Scorpion back-kicks him in the forehead and sends him over the Styx.
In a truly impressive fit of histrionics, Scorpion succumbs to his
Snake-inflicted wound, leaving only Centipede to be taken out by Gecko and
the acolyte. They snag the map from Scorpion's belt, babble something
about
doing good with the treasure and walk off. It gets an extra point for
probably having invented most of the tropes it contains.
The Putin Interviews E04 (2017) -- "9/10"
Oliver Stone interviews Vladimir Putin about his life, his career and his
politics in this 4-part mini-series. The interviews take place over the
span
of over two years, from June 2015 to September 2017.
This episode begins with a discussion of the recent presidential election
in
2016. Stone asks him what changes when presidents change? Putin has seen
Clinton, Bush, Obama and now Trump. What changes?
"Well, almost nothing. [...] Everywhere, but especially in the United States,
bureaucracy is very strong. [...] And bureaucracy is the one that rules
the
world. [...] But, in reality, we're not waiting for anything
revolutionary."
Is he bullish on things getting more amenable under Trump?
"There is always hope...until they are ready to bring us to the cemetery to
bury us."
Stone asks why he hacked the election, but Putin answers that America has
enough internal problems of its own -- revealing true and available
information is not hacking nor is it the world's problem when America's
internal duplicity is revealed, even to itself.
Stone asks Putin about John McCain and his railing against Russia,
describing
it as an unholy beast. Putin's answer is nuanced and erudite and
interesting
(I don't imagine that Stone would have allowed it to be edited to flatter
Putin, but you can't be sure).
"Well, honestly, I like Senator McCain to a certain extent. And I’m not
joking. I like him because of his patriotism, and I can relate to his
consistency in fighting for the interests of his own country. [...He is
like]
the Ancient Roman Senator, Cato the Elder, who routinely signed off his
speeches, regardless of the subject, with the phrase, 'Carthage must be
destroyed.' [...] People with such convictions, like the Senator you
mentioned, they still live in the Old World. And they’re reluctant to
look
into the future, they are unwilling to recognize how fast the world is
changing."
It's that attitude that Putin wants to avoid because it's a waste of time,
instead he names "poverty around the world" and "environmental
deterioration,
which is the real threat to all humanity."
Since Putin just laid out several reasons why improved relations between
Russia and the U.S. would be beneficial to the world, Stone asks him
whether
he sees a way forward. Putin sees very clearly that Russia is a helpless
catspaw for internal domestic squabbles in the U.S. The U.S. mainstream
media
will do what it wants -- subsequent years have borne out this prediction
--
and there is nothing Russia can do to change opinion in the U.S. (despite
allegations to the contrary with the minuscule Russia Today channel). "We
know all their tricks."
Next, he sounds like Bernie Sanders (unsurprisingly, I'm sure, for those
who
think Bernie and Putin are both communists and in cahoots), where he says
about the U.S. military budget eclipsing the rest of the world, that
"[t]here
are other things to spend money on, like healthcare, education, the
pension
systems." (N.B. Putin has reduced Russian military spending in the last
several years in a row. See the book "Russia Without Putin by Tony Wood"
for more
information.)
Putin is really smooth. You feel sorry for him and Russia. They discuss
cyber
attacks and the prevalence of US hardware and software in Russia. They
also
discuss attacks on Russian banks and the stock exchange.
"Well, you will probably not believe me, but I'm going to say something
strange. Since the early 1990s, we have assumed that the Cold War is over.
We
thought there was no need to take any additional protective measures
because
we viewed ourselves as an integral part of the world community."
At another point, he says very carefully that the U.S. administration
reminded him a bit of the Politburo -- when they all gave medals to one
another. "That was very funny." Stone obliges by juxtaposing Brezhnev
getting
a medal from Honecker (or was it just a kiss?) with Obama giving a
teary-eyed
Biden a medal. Obama had also given one to Bush Sr.
Here's where Stone looks a bit ignorant, when he says "I'm worried,
because I
believe that cyber warfare can lead to a hot war." Cyber warfare can cause
a
lot of suffering and kill just as many as a hot war. Look at the
sanctions,
look at Iran. We're kidding ourselves if we think we're being moral as
long
as we don't launch a "hot" war. We're already at war with Russia. And
Iran.
Their people are suffering tremendously for it.
Especially as people become more and more dependent on technology --
either
voluntarily or through climate-crisis-engendered dependency -- it will be
more and more deadly to disrupt that technology, even if only for a few
days.
If you can remotely cut off the freshwater supply for a city for a week,
what
do you need a bomb for? How would a so-called hot war be worse than that
damage?
Stone asks Putin about Stalin's legacy. Putin laughs, calls Stone a
"cunning
man" then says he will, of course, answer now when Stone offers to let him
answer the next day. He tells a long story of Winston Churchill (whom he
terms "flexible" for his changing allegiances vis à vis the Soviet) and
then
Oliver Cromwell (slaughtered many people), Napoleon (same, also absolutely
deified), all in a way to answer that countries around the world continue
to
revere mad bastards from their past. Why should Russia forget about
theirs?
"I think that excessive demonization of Stalin is one of the ways to attack
the Soviet Union and Russia [...]"
He doesn't want to forget Stalin, but to remember everything he did --
including the horrific crimes. From that, a country grows (it's the same
in
Germany, actually). The U.S. is the country that forgets all of the
horrors
it has visited on the rest of the world, blithely believing it is, and
always
has been, the good guy.
It's clear why everyone in the chattering classes hate Putin. He makes
them
feel stupid and is onto their transparent scams. How can I, though, hate a
guy who's so erudite and well-read about history? He's streets ahead of
his
interlocutors.
Stone finishes up asking him about his coterie of oligarchs and Putin's
own
purported personal wealth. Putin responds,
"What is oligarchy? It is the integration of money and power with a view to
influence the decisions that are being taken and the final aim being the
accumulation of wealth."
He laughs it off and says that he's happy he's not wealthy, so he doesn't
have to worry about managing wealth. Happiness comes from a good legacy,
not
from money.
He navigates Stone's sometimes very Anglo-centric questions masterfully,
never kowtowing or giving a pat answer that would satisfy. He knows
nothing
will satisfy, so he sticks to his own truth, not promising that Russia
will
become whatever the West wants it to become (a serf or vassal, as detailed
in
the first three episodes).
"Thank you for your time and questions. Thank you for being so thorough."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Someone who cares has catalogued nearly the entire scene "the quotes
section" .
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=38702019-12-28T21:54:37+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1400
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of around 1400 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.
The Congress (2013) -- "8/10"
Robin Wright stars as herself, an actress in her forties whose best days are
behind her. Her agent Al (Harvey Keitel) gets her an opportunity to be
scanned and sampled and preserved and to be an actress for all time,
playing
roles that she had, until now, either refused or been too flaky to play.
Producer Jeff Green (Danny Huston) makes a brutal offer: he needs her
past,
not her present or her future.
She tells him to fuck off. He is not dismayed and leaves the offer open
for
30 days. She returns to her family: a perky, sassy daughter Sarah (Sami
Gayle) and her chronically ill boy Aaron (Kodi Smit-McPhee). The boy's
addicted to flying kites and will not stop flying them over the airport.
So far, though, this movie has absolutely nothing to do with the "The
Futurological Congress"
by Stanisław
Lem.
That she will be scanned into a computer is perhaps a way that they will
sidle crabwise into the virtualized (un-)reality in which the book mostly
takes place, though, in the book's case, it was layered hallucinogens in
the
water.
Al holds forth on how Robin never had a choice in her roles and, if she
virtualizes herself, she'll still have no choice, but it won't be so much
different than her whole life has already been. It's a pretty brutal
speech,
especially considering he delivers it in front of her kids.
Paul Giamatti is Dr. Barker, the son's physician, and he delivers a
terrible
verdict -- that the boy has a degenerative disease that will rob him of
his
sight and hearing within decades, if not years.
Robin agrees to the scanning, agrees to doing sci-fi movies, but her
lawyer
gets her a clause that limits the studio's use of her likeness to 20
years.
They scan her immediately in a touching scene with Al, who tells stories
to
elicit all of the emotions from her that they need for the recording. This
is
the third big speech from Keitel, who is chewing up the scenery really
well.
The story picks up 20 years later, as Wright drives to a party celebrating
the release of her new film: a sci-fi movie called Rebel Robot Robin. She
is
at the party in an "animation-only" zone. The film is animated from 45
minutes onward, looking like an R. Crumb cartoon.
Wright passes out in her hotel room, in a hallucinogenic daze, dreaming
that
sings in a club and is arrested for working under her own name. She meets
up
with Jeff Green, the producer, in an office that looks like it came from
the
set of Brazil. He exhorts her to re-up for twenty more years, but this
time
not just selling her acting ability, but also licensing herself to be sold
as
food and drink so that you can become her. We do not see her sign. Nor do
we
see her refuse to do so.
Next, we see the keynote speech where the president of Miramount/Nagasaki
studios announces these new formulas, to be other people. There is a
shooter
in the catwalks. He ices the president, escapes outside and signals an
attack
with a single flare. The rebel forces arrive to take over the Miramount
Hotel. Is this real? Did the president really get killed? Was it a
publicity
stunt? Are the rebel forces real? All up in the air.
She meets animator Dylan Truliner (Jon Hamm), who was in charge of her
career, post-contract. They get to know each other, but it's mostly in the
context of the hallucinatory animated world, which is beautiful, but
largely
meaningless (or meaningful to different people in different ways).
It's fun to try to pick out the characters that people pose as, now that
they
can be whomever they want: Muhammed Ali, Clint Eastwood, Jesus, Venus on a
Half Shell, Buddha, Jeanne d'Arc, the apple-faced guy from the Magritte
painting, even Ron Jeremy.
The backdrops and details are lovely, organic and vaguely...female. That
is,
the world is filled with less recognizable but beautiful women and the
backgrounds look like they've been designed by Georgia O'Keefe, but the
main
characters are male. Perhaps a fitting depiction of the world where the
rich
and powerful spend their time.
Time passes. Dylan is gone.
Jeff is back. He banishes her to icy wastes (for having dared to appear as
herself on a stage, singing), where she meets her son, flying a kite. They
escape to an ice shelf? She is diagnosed with being too far gone to save
now
and thus is cryofrozen. She is awakened 20 years later (rather than 70)
and
she meets first a Grace Jones--lookalike and then Dylan again. They
saunter
forth into the world to help her find her bearings and, maybe, Aaron.
Instead, they find love in a completely fictitious world in her
mind...their
minds?
They discuss the "real" world, where their real bodies live, cared for by
those who haven't escaped into fantasy. This feels kind of like the
Matrix.
Dylan has a ampule that would take one of them there. It's his
compensation
for 20 years of having animated her.
They are in love. She loves her son more. She wants the ampule. If she
takes
it, she has perhaps a hope of finding her son, although he will be nearly
completely blind and deaf, if he's even alive. If she takes it, she can
never
join Dylan again because their shared fantasy -- guided by the pheromones
that engender the animated world -- would be forever out-of-sync. She
wants
it. She deserves it. A mother's love trumps all. I thought Dylan had said
that the animated world had erased all ego? She is the destroyer.
She takes the pheromone and slowly walks out of the animated world as it
morphs back to squalid reality. It is a zombie world where no-one is
really
aware of their non-animated reality. The only remaining pockets of
civilization are in airships. She quickly and easily ascends and then just
as
easily finds Dr. Barker (suggesting that she is still hallucinating). He
says:
"Don't be so impressed that I'm still here. Being here, on this side of the
truth, is not so brave. [...] Nothing has really changed, has it? Once we
just masked the truth with anti-depressants and drugs, concealed and lied.
Now, we reinvent the truth. Not so much of a difference. The drugs have
just
gotten much, much better. The only difference is between waiting for
death,
here, in this filth of truth and hallucinating the same, out there. Maybe
it's better out there, dreaming."
Barker tells the ego-driven Robin that her son had crossed to the animated
world six months before, after having waited for her for over 19 years.
Devastation. She gave up her world with Dylan for her son, who had already
given up on her. She cannot go back. She mourns for herself, though the
world
is in shambles around her -- perhaps she does not think to rescue it
because
it is so seemingly completely irredeemable?
She takes an ampule from Barker and goes back, back to the animated world,
back to fantasy, but a more realistic one, perhaps, where she imagines the
continuation of her life now, where she imagines herself finding Aaron.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) -- "8/10"
This is an absolutely beautiful animated film. It looks like a graphic novel
come to life, at times, with more than a bit of a Team Fortress aesthetic.
This is the story of Miles Morales, a young man from an alternate
continuum
(although they keep calling it a "dimension" in the movie) where Peter
Parker
is blond and Wilson Fisk kills him. Miles's mother is a latina nurse and
his
father is a black cop, so Marvel made sure to check all of the boxes with
its
foray into intersectionalism.
Morales acquires his power early in the movie -- on a foray into a subway
access tunnel with his cool uncle Aaron, who took him there to let him
practice his graffiti chops -- when a spider bites him just as they're
leaving. He discovers weird powers the next morning and returns to find
the
dead spider, but also to witness the original Spider-Man's death in a
nearby
underground lab/reactor/accelerator.
The same experiment that Spider-Man (in that continuum) was trying to stop
is
the one that imported other spider-people from other continua:
Spider-Woman
(Gwen Stacey, voice by Hailee Stanfield), Spider-Man Noir (voiced by
Nicholas
Cage), Peni Parker (voiced by Kimiko Glenn and from the year 3189), and
Spider-Ham (voiced by none other than John Mulaney).
Fisk has commissioned the multidimensional device in order to find his
wife
and son, who abandoned him during one of his violent fits of rage, in
which
he was trying to kill Spider-Man. Desperate to find them again, Fisk will
fire up the machine again, threatening to swallow all of New York (in
Miles's
continuum) in a black hole. The Spideys band together to thwart him and to
help Miles train up his powers (which include some of Spidey's traditional
powers but also electro-shock hands and invisibility).
Miles's Uncle Aaron -- his hero -- turns out to be the Prowler, the
Kingpin's
#1 henchman, but he is killed by the Kingpin when he refuses to ice Miles
(as
Spider-Man). Miles eventually gets a handle on his powers, is able to send
his Spidey friends back to their respective continua, defeat the Kingpin,
reconcile with his father as both Miles and Spider-Man and also to get a
bad-ass new costume and control of his powers and cement his reputation as
the replacement Spider-Man.
The post-credits sequence shows the missing Spider-Man: Spider-Man 2099,
who
was the first alternate-universe Spider-Man in the comic books. He'll
probably show up in the inevitable sequel to this, the fourth reboot of
the
modern-era Spider-Man movies.
It's a bit on the long side, with the final scene stretching a bit,
spinning
higher and higher into nigh-incomprehensible hallucinogenic animation --
probably just because it was digital and they could afford it. It all
looked
lovely, but it wasn't the kind of artistic film where you could sell a
ten-minute hallucinogenic experience (as in, for example, 2001: A Space
Odyssey). It didn't detract, but it didn't add, either.
It's well-written, well-voiced, gloriously well-animated and has a
kick-ass
soundtrack and vibe. Seriously, I could watch it again just for animation.
This is how they should have been making comic-book movies all along. It's
the kind of Spider-Man reboot I can really get behind.
The Hunted (2003) -- "4/10"
This movie jumps right into it with a nearly interminable slaughter and
battle somewhere in the former Yugoslavia. The Serbians are depicted as
mercilessly slaughtering Albanians while worshiping posters of Milosevic.
Not
exactly subtle; am I watching the Zero Dark Thirty of the NATO Balkan
intervention/slaughter?
Benecio del Toro is a super-soldier who takes out the Milosevic-worshiping
Serbian with a knife and with absolutely no trouble at all. To cement him
as
a basically good guy who's been led down a dark path by his training, we
see
him awaken in a darkened room somewhere back on home soil, haunted by
visions
of his feats in battle.
Next we see a brief shot of a bald eagle soaring over a forest (the
subtlety
continues) that we are shown to be in Canada as we see Tommy Lee Jones
running after a white wolf on foot. He rescues it from the snare that it
is
trapped in, using something he chews to gum up its paw to prevent
infection.
He is revealed to be even more of a naturalist frontier hero when he takes
the snare back to its owner and uses it to bash his head into a table.
We rejoin del Toro (we still have no names at all and, at this point, I
refuse to learn them) in the deep woods where he baits and toys with two
hunters looking for him. He takes them on John Rambo-style: his knife
against
their guns. Also his booby traps. Also, he wins handily, murdering and
dismembering them both.
In classic fashion, one of his old friends roots Tommy Lee Jones out of
his
deep-woods nature job and brings him back for "one more hunt" to find the
killer who's ritually killing people. He investigates the scene of the
crime,
finds out a whole bunch of stuff that the entire FBI was completely
incapable
of discovering for themselves, reluctantly takes a walkie-talkie offered
by
the gorgeous and capable crime-scene lead (Connie Nielsen) and heads off
into
the woods on his own, telling them to assume he's dead if he's not back in
two days.
He tracks for an indeterminate time and meets up with (a very
young-looking)
del Toro and fights him almost to a standstill, distracting him enough
until
the FBI tranquilizes him. It is not clear whether Jones knew that the FBI
were following but, given his amazing tracking powers, we can only assume
that he was aware.
They know each other, with del Toro claiming that Lee Jones had trained
him.
Del Toro claims to be interested in the way humans treat nature, (in his
police interview, he mentioned the number of chickens slaughtered per
year,
to Jones, he complains about inept hunters with magic scopes that let them
kill above their pay grade) but he's also interested in airing dirty
laundry
about covert operations he was on with Lee Jones. Jones shuts him up
quickly
once he starts talking with the FBI recording on.
Some of his former comrades (his black-ops group) show up to take him out
of
custody, but they want to kill him or silence him. They take him away, but
he
tips their transport truck, killing them all and escaping into the woods.
He
visits his ex and her daughter, exhorting them to leave the area before
whoever is after him gets to them. The FBI shows up and is typically
strong-arming, forcing their way into her house without a warrant. This is
standard fare for American movies and TV these days: training people to
kowtow to authority without asking any questions or making them adhere to
procedure.
Del Toro is at the house, but can't be captured, leading them all on a
merry
chase through the city and escaping into the tunnels of a building site.
The
FBI follows him down there and starts dropping like flies. Good old Tommy
Lee
is chasing del Toro (he's obviously the only one who can track him,
right?)
but del Toro gets away, escaping back into the city, up through a manhole.
Lee Jones can track him anywhere though: look! There's a construction
helmet
on the ground! He went thataway! Look, there's footsteps in the grass! It
could only be one person out of millions! Tommy Lee is a superhuman
tracker!
He tracks del Toro to a metro-rail, then chases him up a bridge structure
while the FBI fires away, risking all of the bystanders with ricochets
even
though they have no chance of hitting anything. There is a sexy helicopter
with a balaclavaed sniper riding Vietnam-style but even he can't prevent
del
Toro from jumping into the river and (presumably) swimming away without
trouble.
The FBI is super gung-ho but it's OK because it's a hot woman acting like
a
testosterone-crazed man this time. Tommy Lee Jones is pretty spry and has
pretty good endurance for an older guy who hasn't slept in days. Del Toro,
too, doesn't seem to be suffering any lingering injury or loss of mobility
due to the horrific car wreck that he recently survived.
Del Toro is clearly more than capable of forging his own knife blade over
a
campfire that is somehow hot enough to smelt steel. Also, he builds a an
Endor-like trap with giant logs all by himself. Tommy Lee Jones is also
doing
crafty things in the woods and still tracking like an all-seeing God while
they both await the Hollywood showdown between "reluctant master who's
never
had to kill before" and "renegade student driven mad by what he's had to
do
for his country".
Hollywood has trained me (as a viewer) so well that, despite Jones getting
his artery punctured by a filthy wooden stake and then plummeting on a
plain
old (non-bungee) rope what looks like several hundred feet above a river,
I
don't expect him to be injured in any debilitating way -- or in any way
that
will affect his ability to fight the much younger and clearly more capable
del Toro to a standstill and, eventually, to defeat him. Just the shock
from
dropping on a normal rope for 100 feet should have shattered Jones's body,
but I digress.
As expected, Jones manages to cut the rope and drops into a raging river
with
absolutely no ill effects and hitting no rocks. There is literally no sign
of
his previously expressed fear of heights. Del Toro finds him and, as
expected, Lee Jones manages to somehow get an advantage despite all that's
happened to him and his advanced age. This is how these things are done.
Now
they are both injured animals and, WWE-like, Jones has turned the tables.
They're both bleeding like stuck pigs from what seems like dozens of
egregious wounds inflected by professional killers and they're still as
spry
as two 20-year-old boxers. The FBI finds them just as Jones kills del
Toro,
proving... I don't know what. This is ludicrous. Jones takes a minute at
the
death scene to mourn his former student and also, presumably, his
reputation
for having never taken a life.
The best thing about this is the credits music: Johnny Cash's When a Man
Comes Around. It is not at all clear why they chose it. I subtract two
stars
for not even trying to do something with del Toro. At least they didn't
make
the hot FBI agent show up at Jones's cabin, at the end.
Parasite (2019) -- "10/10"
This is the story of a poor family somewhere in Seoul. They have no wi-fi and
the whole family folds pizza boxes for a living -- but not even well, so
that
their young manager docks part of their pay. The son has a good friend Min
who's been tutoring a high-school sophomore girl. Min has to leave for a
while, so he asks his friend Kim Ki-woo (Kevin) to take over English
lessons
for her. On his first day, he is quite successful and convincing and gets
wind that the girl's mother thinks that her younger son is an art genius
who
needs tutelage, as well. Kim Ki-woo's sister Jessica fills the bill
perfectly
(it was her art skills that forged his tutor papers in the first place).
Jessica takes up her job, very convincing as a hard-ass and
nigh-inscrutable
tutor. The whole family is used to scamming for a living. Jessica bluffs
out
a much higher rate, guessing that the boy is damaged goods (or that his
mother believes that he is) and arranging for many sessions per week. The
mother is a typical upper-middle-class fool who believes that her children
shit gold and that money and tutoring will make them successful. It's the
same all over the world.
The next stage is to replace the driver with their father, Kim Ki-Taek
(played by the always brilliant Kang-ho Song). Replacing the housekeeper
with
their mother will be a bigger challenge. The scammer family is easily up
to
it, preparing their speeches and tuning their words at home. They frame
the
housekeeper as having TB and get the mother signed up as having come from
an
exclusive agency "for rich people". The son (Park Da-song) almost outs
them
-- because they all smell the same, living in the same apartment and being
from a poorer neighborhood.
The Kims are pleased with their progress -- and reveal a bit about how
Korean
society is afflicted with a surfeit of education unmatched by accompanying
jobs.
"Anyway, aren't we fortunate to be worrying about things like this? In an age
like ours, when an opening for a security guard attracts 500 university
graduates -- our entire family got hired!"
The Parks go on a family camping trip, leaving their home to the Kim
family,
who enjoy themselves as if they live there. They are interrupted by the
former housekeeper Moon-gwang, who asks entrance to "get something" from
the
basement. It turns out she's been hiding her husband down there in the
bunker
where "you can hide in case North Korea attacks, or creditors break in".
The Moons quickly cop that the Kims are a family and are scamming the
Parks
and try to turn the tables by threatening to send a video outing them. But
the Kims are wily and they end up in a huge scuffle and retrieve the phone
from Moon-gwang and her husbandj Geun-sae (played as a wonderfully mad man
by
Myeong-hoon Park).
However. The shitty weather has canceled the camping trip and the Parks
are
nearly home and want service from their staff. Their desperate preparation
for the impending homecoming is genius. Moon-gwang refuses to go quietly
--
but Kim Chung-sook insists: with a foot to the chest and back down to the
basement she goes.
The family scatters around the house while the mother comforts the wife
(Park). They try to escape but Da-song (the boy) runs outside to set up
his
tepee and the parents end up sleeping in the living room while the Kims
lie
under the coffee table. Mr. and Mrs. Park are enflamed by the moment and
start to fool around. They tucker themselves out and the Kims make their
escape though not without incident. They escape into the rain, seemingly
without having endangered their positions. The gutters are filling up.
They
are forced to walk all the way home to their half-basement, through a
torrential, cold, uncaring and eerily warmly lit and beautiful Seoul.
The Kim's half-basement apartment is flooding, a meter or more. The toilet
is
nearly exploding. Nearly nothing can be saved. The Moons are in the
basement
of the Parks -- she has a concussion and her husband is tied up. Things
have
gone deeply south for all of them.
While half of Korea has seemingly drowned, Mrs. Park is refreshed and
greets
the new, sunny day ready to throw an impromptu birthday party for her
little
shitty kid. Jessica and Kevin are invited to join, of course. They have
nothing better to do -- that Mrs. Park could imagine, of course. Mrs. Park
gives Mrs. Kim marching orders on how to arrange tables for the party --
again, oblivious to everything except her needs. Bong Joon Ho is a master
of
irony here. He absolutely piles it on -- it's a wonder Mr. Kim doesn't
drive
Mrs. Park and her insipid and tone-deaf nattering right off the road.
The desperation, mania and murderousness of the Kims and Moons contrasts
with
the oblivious ostentatiousness and narcissism of the Park's stupid party.
They live in different, parallel worlds. These worlds collide in
spectacular
fashion. Moon exacts revenge for his wife's death on Kevin, Jessica and
almost Mrs. Kim. Blood is everywhere. Park insults Kim for the last time.
Stupid Da-Song passes out again because he thinks he saw a ghost. The poor
boy was right, though: a ghost had been living with them the whole time.
The story picks up two months later, with Kevin and his mother on trial.
Kevin is looking the worse for wear, with a traumatic brain injury. He
can't
stop laughing. He heals and returns to spy on the house, seeing the lights
blink in morse. His father is hiding in the basement, like Moon before
him.
Kevin resolves to make enough money to buy the house and rescue his
father.
The film ends on this ... fantasy.
Director and writer Bong Joon Ho has really outdone himself -- he's one of
my
absolute favorite directors and writers (Memories of Murder, The Host,
Snowpiercer, Okja and now Parasite).
The article "Films From the Frontlines: Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite" by Eric
Mann
writes,
"Parasite, in the brilliant web Bong weaves, shows capitalism as a system
that implicates the members of every class and, in the absence of a
revolutionary, counter-hegemonic movement, is loved or at least emulated
by
all. The poor are not angry at the rich. They are angry they are not rich
and
their only real anger is not at the system but those below them–what I
call
“upward mobility and downward hostility.”"
They're all parasites. The Kims, the Moons, the Parks. Capitalism
engineers
theirs behavior to be adversarial rather than supportive. There is no
brotherhood or sisterhood, just alienation and cold calculation, with
roles
to play rather than people to be.
"Joon casts actors to play the part of working people who in turn are actors
in their own play impersonating other working people to hustle the ruling
classes. So maybe we can act our way out of class subordination or at
least
to aspire to the next rung on the class ladder."
It makes us stupid parasites -- those that don't even realize the are
killing
the host.
Gone in Sixty Seconds (1974) -- "5/10"
This is the original movie about an organized gang of car thieves who somehow
get an enormous contract from a foreign-sounding investor who has a hard
deadline and a very specific list of 40 cars to steal. In this one, many
of
the targets are Rolls Royces instead of high-end sports cars (there
weren't
that many of those at the time).
What they did have were giant hairdos (both men and women), mustaches,
muttenchops, long leather coats and pimp hats. They had that shit in
spades.
Unlike in the remake, they don't bother giving a reason for why those cars
are on that list or need to be delivered by that specific deadline. The
stealing begins, with the first theft at night, which isn't super
cinema-friendly. The next few thefts are in daylight and go pretty easily.
One of the cars has a tiger in it. Another of the cars is being guarded by
a
cop. The thief poses as the tow-truck driver, but the cop and his dog are
onto him. The thief drives the truck straight into the patrolman's
car...with
nary a word from either of them. The cop is amazingly calm. He doesn't
pull
his weapon. He just looks annoyed. He jumps in his car and gives chase. I
can
only imagine that this would all have seemed normal 45 years ago. The cop
finally swears mildly when he crashes into a parked car and loses the
truck.
Most of the rest of the thefts happen without incident, until they find
dozens of kilos of heroin in one of the cars. The police show up just then
and they try desperately to hide it. There's a machine for destroying
evidence that looks like a modified water-heater. One entire part of the
garage wall was covered from top to bottom with soft-core pornography. The
cop comes in and Jackson does his best to cover up the exploded bag of
heroin
on the floor of the garage.
The fleet of stolen cars looks magnificent: it must have been even more
impressive in 1974, when those cars meant real money. Still, $400,000 for
48
stolen luxury cars still seems a bit light. It's amazing how those numbers
have changed -- nowadays, they'd be talking about dozens of millions.
As in the remake: they get all but one of the cars with hours to spare.
It's
only "Eleanor" left. Technically, they already have the cars they need,
but
"Eleanor" turns out to be uninsured -- and they're in the business of
ripping
insurance companies off, not people. They linger on this scene of
Maindrian
walking down a line of cars for what seems like ten minutes, switching
back
to hif fiancé Pumpkin Chase (that's seriously her name) in her office,
looking alternately bored, anxious and pensive. Maindrian jumps into
Eleanor,
returns it, and knows where to find another.
But this is all just a so-so movie with no-name actors that's leading up
to
what is supposed to be one of the classic, all-time great car chases in
cinema history. Maindrian steals Eleanor (a mustard-yellow Ford Mustang
where
the remake had a lovely Ford Shelby GT500), leaves the garage and triggers
the alarm. He gets out, stops the alarm and squares off with a pair of
cops
in a patrol car who are onto him.
Maindrian is not nearly as worried about the paint job as Memphis Raines
in
the sequel was. Cars are getting destroyed right and left, but Maindrian
is
still going. This reminds me a bit of GTA, Driver or the finale of Blues
Brothers. It's not as varied, with a lot of driving out in the desert, as
Maindrian shakes one cop after another. Maindrian hits a light pole at
85MPH
and is none the worse for wear -- and the car's fine, too. Doubly amazing,
considering seatbelts weren't really a thing at the time (we did see him
buckle up when he started, though).
We continue: windshield has gunshot holes in it, the front end is ruined,
the
whole side is scraped up. The hoods all wavy and folded up. Maindrian
crashes
into more cars, more roadblocks -- glancing blows all -- until he gets
cornered in a parking lot/garage and must finally slow down. The cops have
him surrounded and they're still not shooting. He slips away. Again. His
car
is a shambles.
Unbeknownst to him, he's headed for the scene of an unrelated accident. He
ends up jumping off one of the cars like a ramp and the movie shows in
gloriously detailed slow motion what really happens to a car when you jump
it. He keeps going, somehow. He stops at a car wash, where he spots
another
mustard-yellow Mustang. He swipes that one, switches out the plates, and
is
on his way with a clean, non-destroyed ride.
The police are actually nice in this! One stops to help a woman get out of
the road before she gets hit by the chase. The chase is a bit staid by
today's standards, but it's real -- instead of cars jumping from building
to
building in Dubai (I'm scowling at you, Vin Diesel). To be honest, I think
the James Bond chases of the time were better, but they also had a lot
more
money to spend.
I don't have to describe the soundtrack during the chase, do I? I didn't
think so.
None of the actors or actresses would go on to make a name for themselves,
unsurprisingly. I'm sure they had fun making the movie, though. An extra
point for all the really nice-looking vintage 70s cars pretty much all
over
this movie.
Yojimbo (1961) -- "8/10"
Toshirô Mifune is the Samurai Sanjuro who's come to a town split into two
factions, represented by rival gangs. The constable is useless. Sanjuro
sees
a way to enrich himself in this situation -- and also to free the town.
He allies himself first with one side Seibê, but he overhears himself
being
double-crossed and abandons the fight that they start, giving their money
back. He approaches the other side Ushitora and offers his services. He is
refused.
The first big battle takes place without his sword; instead, he climbs to
a
high perch and observes from above, laughing, as the cowards all pretend
to
want to fight each other, but no-one makes the first move. It's broad
daylight.
The supposed fight (that was going nowhere) is interrupted by an inspector
from Edo. Sanjuro schemes further as he observes the two gang leaders
interacting with the inspector. Seibê and his wife squabble further over
how
to honor Sanjuro as he smirks. Sanjuro visits the casket-maker -- the only
one doing any business in town since the gangs started fighting. The silk
business is dead; the brothel business, too.
It is raining. Torrentially. Just how Kurosawa likes it. It is very cold.
You
can see everyone's breath.
The inspector leaves, taking the rain with him. The brother of Ushitora
blows
into town. He kind of looks like a samurai, but is actually a gunslinger
and
a poseur. The machinations continue. Each side takes hostages; they meet
at
02:00 to trade. They are at a stalemate again.
They arrange another trade, again in full daylight. The son of one of the
hostages is there to spoil the exchange. Her husband is there, too, and we
learn later that he lost his wife and his house at cards and that the poor
sap built a hut next to his former house and watches his wife be ravaged
by
the victor (Tokuemon) every night.
Sanjuro tells Ushitora that he will go with his other brother Ino (serious
unibrow) to make sure that Tokuemon and the captured wife are safe. He
tells
Ino that all six guards have been killed and to get help. Then he slays
all
six of the guards himself and rescues the wife, returning her to her
husband.
He throws the family the money he'd been paid thus far by Ushitora and
urges
them to flee. He tears apart Tokuemon's house more, slashing the ceilings
to
let out the seeds used as insulation. He comes back out to find the
foolish
family still there -- worshipping him and thanking him for saving them. He
is
angry with them -- they should leave, lest it all be for naught.
Ushitura accepts Sanjuro's story and takes revenge on Seibê by setting
one
of his silk shops on fire, demanding the woman back. Unosoke grins
maniacally, his stupid gun poking from his robes.
The next morning, we see Ushitura stumbling through runnels of sake
pouring
from his slashed casks; Seibë has exacted revenge. It's quite an
incredible
scene.
In the next scene, the town is in shambles, half burned, bodies in the
street. Even the casketmaker's business is in ruins. Uno and Ino confront
Sanjuro about the escaped woman. They find proof, because the dipshits had
to
write a thank-you note. Sanjuro knew they were fools. Sanjuro is repaid
for
his kindness to them with a horrific beating by Ino and Uno and Kannuki
the
giant (who looks kind of a like a Japanese Jaws/Richard Kiehl).
He manages to escape, eventually sneaking out of town in a coffin (TIL
old-timey Japanese coffins look more like barrels). On the way out of
town,
his friend Gonji (the tavern keeper) and the casket-maker stop and witness
the slaughter as Ushitura's men smoke out and kill Seibê's men and his
entire brothel. In the meantime, the casket-maker runs away and they must
enlist stupid Ino's help in carrying Sanjuro out of town, to a small
temple
to recover.
Gonji has been kidnapped and Sanjuro is ready to take on Ushitura's gang,
once and for all.
It's wonderfully filmed, seeming to really have taken place in 1860s
feudal
Japan. Except there are no regular townspeople: the town has only sake and
whores and gangs. It's not ever clear where food comes from. Mifune has
all
sorts of mannerisms that are hard to tell (for me) if they are signs of
that
time or his own invention. He strokes a non-existent beard all the time.
He
is constantly pulling his arms in and out of his billowing sleeves.
The film is black and white and uses a lot of side-wipes to change scenes
(George Lucas would use those a lot, as well). It's always incredibly
windy
in that town. The Samurai look mixes very nicely with the classic Western
aesthetic. I can see a thousand graphic novels being born from any one of
these scenes.
You Were Never Really Here (2017) -- "8/10"
There is almost no dialogue in this film. What there is, is washed out and
difficult to understand. Background noise like televisions or
conversations
from other booths and tables in restaurants tends to drown it out. It
doesn't
matter because the story is told visually.
Joaquin Phoenix plays Joe, a haggard man with a medical problem of some
sort,
almost certainly PTSD. He was in one of America's foreign wars. He was in
customs or perhaps ICE. We see flashbacks of him discovering immigrants
piled
up in a container. He lives alone with his mother, who seems a bit off,
either with natural age-related dementia or with the repercussions of
beatings she'd gotten from his father, an obviously brutal man from whom
Joe
got certain mannerisms. He's certainly inherited his weapon of choice from
his father -- the hammer.
He is brutal, efficient and violent in his job, rescuing girls from human
trafficking. He is hired to discreetly rescue a Senator's daughter from a
high-end child brothel. He does so with neither pomp nor circumstance,
taking
her back to his motel room. Before he can return her to her father, she is
re-abducted by police officers (or men dressed as such), one of whom
absconds
with her and the other who is killed by Joe.
Joe returns to his handler to find him dead, slaughtered, with his hands
brutally mutilated. Fearing the worst, Joe rushes home to find his mother
has
been killed by two men still in his home. He kills one and gut-shoots the
other, who reveals to him that State Governor Williams has had Nina
re-abducted, as she was his favorite.
Joe buries his mother in a local lake, filling his pockets with stones to
join her in her watery grave. An obligation to Nina changes his mind and
he
strides away, with a modicum of purpose. With the same lack of care to
planning and strategy or tactics, Joe enters Williams's palatial country
home, dispatching a few henchmen only to find Williams in the girl's room,
with his throat slit. Joe is in bits. He finds Nina in the dining room,
eating with bloody hands and a straight razor next to her plate.
He takes her to a diner, where they both recover somewhat. As she goes to
the
bathroom, he has a violent fantasy of ending his life. She wakes him from
his
reverie and tells him that "it's a beautiful day".
The film is lean, without extra bits, told mostly visually, with a fitting
soundtrack and understated performances. Phoenix oozes angst. Interesting
and
unique.
Bonnie and Clyde (1967) -- "8/10"
We meet Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) lying undressed in her upstairs room
where she lives in West Dallas in Texas, obviously hating her life as a
waitress. She hears a noise outside and catches Clyde Barrow (Warren
Beatty)
trying to steal her mother's car -- and then pretending not to. They talk
and
hit it off immediately; she's not averse to his larcenous lifestyle and he
sees something special in her.
They rob their first store and she's all over him -- but he demurs,
telling
her that it's not his style. She is nonplussed, unsure of her role. Their
minor crime spree continues with a car here, a car there, an empty bank, a
general store where he was just trying to buy supplies with the two
dollars
they had.
They pick up a third wheel in the form of a clever mechanic C.W. Moss. In
their next bank robbery, Clyde kills a man and they barely get away
because
the driver is too cautious -- he parallel-parked the car. Clyde makes a
final
offer to Bonnie to let her get out scot-free, but she refuses. They try to
make love, but Clyde is...not a loverboy.
They head to Clyde's family home, where they meet his ludicrously
enthusiastic and hillbilly brother Buck (Gene Hackman). His wife Blanche
(Estelle Parsons) is less than thrilled with the three of them. They all
move
into a house in the country together. While Blanche is happier being more
settled down, Bonnie is restless and unhappy with the domestic
arrangements.
They're discovered and forced to hit the road again. They hit more banks,
with the police giving chase, and many being killed by what Buck terms the
"Barrow Gang". Tensions continue to rise as Blanche insists on a cut, even
though she doesn't do anything but sit in the car. They're forced to steal
another car, taking Eugene Grizzard's car (Gene Wilder).
Grizzard and his fiancé Velma give chase, but give up. To their chagrin,
the
gang turns around and gives them chase, forcing them to a stop. They pick
them up and now there are seven people in the car, driving God knows
where,
picking up takeout burgers and fries (was that a thing in 1931?). When he
tells them he's an undertaker, Bonnie insists they be dumped immediately,
in
a cornfield in Oklahoma in the middle of the night.
The Barrows have a family reunion of sorts, with Bonnie's mother and a
passel
of children of, quite frankly, unknown origin. Soon after, the gang is
attacked at night by many, many police and barely escape with their lives.
Buck is shot in the face and severely incapacitated. The noose of law
enforcement is closing. They are set upon again, with the law killing Buck
and taking Blanche into custody.
In the shootout, Bonnie and Clyde are wounded and C.W. takes them to his
father's house. They get patched up a bit and get back on the road a few
days
later, where they finally manage to consummate their relationship. This
reluctance is all the more humorous because Warren Beatty was such a
Casanova
in real life. Papa Moss is hell-bent on getting his son out of trouble --
and
makes a deal with local police to give up Bonnie and Clyde. He traps them
when they stop to help him fix a flat tire; the police do the rest.
The movie is a bit more accurate than press accounts at the time (the
movie
mentions this), but still doesn't address nearly the severity of Bonnie's
injuries, near the end (one of her legs was nearly destroyed, with visible
bone sticking out of a wound that refused to heal). See "Bonnie and Clyde"
for much more
information.
My Neighbor Totoro (1988) -- "8/10"
The nearly unbearably guileless and adorable opening credits set the mood for
this Studio Ghibli film. Everything is hand-drawn, hand-made, comfortable,
warm, cozy. [1] The landscapes are beautiful. This is not a slick U.S.
animated film.
It starts with a father driving to the countryside with his two daughters
(Satsuki, who's about ten, and Mei, who's about four or five). They open
up
the semi-dilapidated house together, investigating the yard and the
bathhouse
and so on. The older girl enters the house on her inverted knees, shoes
held
up in the air so that they don't touch the floor.
They finish cleaning up the house, with the help of caretaker Nanny and
her
grandson Kanta, who's afraid of the "haunted" house. They've moved there
to
be near the girls' mother, who's in the hospital. They all visit the
mother
and hope for her rapid recovery and return. The next morning, Satsuki
takes
care of breakfast because their father overslept and isn't ready to handle
the household yet. They have sushi and rice for breakfast and Satsuki
heads
off to school. Mei dresses up to go "out" in the garden. Tatsuo gets to
work
in his office.
Mei plays in the garden and that's when Totoro's minions come chugging out
of
the deep grass, looking like someone crossed a rabbit with a penguin.
They're
cute, but Mei is nearly unbearably adorable. She follows them down a
rabbit
hole to Totoro's lair, falling asleep with him for the whole day.
Satsuki comes home from school and finds Mei asleep in the garden, but
just
under some bushes. There's no sign of Totoro. They also can't find the
path
to the big tree that Mei followed before. Tatsuo and Satsuki laugh at her
silliness, but Tatsuo tells her that she was lucky to have met the "king
of
the forest".
The movie deals with the small gods that accompany regular people
throughout
the day. The "dust bunnies" that make the house dirty, the gods of the
forest, and so on. The girls stop at a shrine on the way home, during a
rainstorm, asking for leave of the god who lives there to stay under the
roof
until the rain passes. Later, in the forest, near a bus stop, Mei
discovers a
shrine behind a tree, with a dog god of some kind.
As they wait for their father, Totoro shows up to the bus stop. Satsuki
loans
the creature [2] her father's umbrella and it takes off with it. It gives
her
a gift of seeds in exchange. Its bus comes first and is different -- it's
a
Cheshire Cat with glowing eyes for headlights. Satsuki is over the moon
because now she's met Totoro, as well.
The girls plant the seeds and wait. A few nights later, Totoro shows up --
with his umbrella -- to make them sprout. And sprout they do -- into a
majestic tree. This is all in their dream, though. (Or is it?) The next
morning, the seeds have sprouted, but much more modestly.
The same day, the girls get news that their mother isn't well enough to
come
home, yet. Mei runs away to the hospital -- the whole town is looking for
her, fearing the worst. Satsuki runs all over the damned place; everyone
communicates exclusively by shouting. The townspeople think they've found
Mei's shoe -- but it's not hers.
Satsuki calls on Totoro for help, who obliges by calling the cat-bus [3],
which carries Satsuki first to Mei and then both of them to the hospital,
where they see that their father is with their mother -- and that she's
OK.
They leave an ear of corn on the windowsill, proving that they were really
there.
The end credits are possibly even cuter than the opening ones. The song's
terrible, though.
A Dangerous Method (2011) -- "8/10"
This is a David Cronenberg film starting in 1904 and dealing with the birth
of psychoanalysis and its two main midwives Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud.
The
opening scene sees Keira Knightley's Sabina Spielrein being carted to the
Burghölzli Psychiatric Hospital overlooking Zürich.
Sabina becomes a patient of Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and is soon not
just in therapy with him, but also working for him as his assistant. While
she's in therapy, Jung sits behind her. Cronenberg here chooses to focus
Sabina so that half of her face is out-of-focus, suggesting her
unsettledness.
In a therapy session, she admits that she becomes excited by the thought
of
her own beating or humiliation. She diagnoses herself as a vile creature
who
should never leave the hospital.
Two years later, Jung travels to Austria with his wife, to meet Freud
(Viggo
Mortenson). They dine together and Freud lightly admonishes Jung when he
couches his professional talk too guardedly,
"And by the way, please don't feel you have to restrain yourself here. My
family are all veterans of the most unsuitable manner of mealtime
conversation."
The two men collaborate; we learn that Freud is absolutely fixated on a
sexual interpretation of every facet of human behavior. We learn that he
is
poorer than Jung, whose wife is quite wealthy. They spar, but Freud is not
to
swayed on any point. Jung confides later in Sabina.
Next we meet Otto Gross (Vincent Cassel), an unstable acolyte of Freud. He
becomes Jung's little devil on his shoulder, exhorting him to take Sabina,
as
she so clearly wants to be taken. Gross escapes from the institution, but
not
before ravishing a field worker. Jung goes through his soft-core
pornographic
effects and finds a letter addressed to himself. The advice is unchanged.
Jung becomes more and more deeply conflicted about his personal vow of
monogamy -- and more and more swayed by Gross's arguments.
He finally gives in and begins sleeping with Sabina. When he tries to end
the
affair, she psychoanalyzes him, asking how his lovemaking is with his wife
--
and then telling him how it will be different with her: "With me, I want
you
to be ferocious. I want you to punish me." They agree to continue the
affair.
Freud visits Jung in Zürich; he is still an arrogant egotist, but he's
not
wrong when he admonishes Jung for wasting time with "telepathy" or
"catalytic
exteriorized phenomena" (which is where Jung said his gut starting burning
the second before a bookcase cracked).
During this time, Jung is often shown in the sailboat his wife gave him,
but
never in any significant wind. He takes his wife's gift regularly to visit
his mistress. Matters come to a head and Jung shows himself to be the
absolute king of terrible breakups. Sabina attacks him, then accepts his
breakup because he's a giant jackass. Sabina writes to Freud (all writing
is
in German), asking for his assistance.
Sabina confronts Jung again, begging him to confess to Freud all that's
done
with her. She wants Freud to take her on as a patient. While Sabina will
summer in Berlin with her parents, Jung and Freud plan to travel to
America.
They are on the same ocean-liner, but Jung is in first class, with his
wife,
whereas Freud mst travel in a lower class. That chaps his hide something
fierce.
Sabina is in Küsnacht, visiting Jung at his new practice. He notes that
he
was worried about whether he'd be able to find enough patients at the new
location, but it hasn't been a problem. Obviously not: Küsnacht is at
most
10km from his previous hospital (and probably closer). He agrees to take
her
on as her thesis advisor. The affair begins anew. This time she breaks it
off, moving to Vienna, where she meets with Freud. She presents her idea,
to
which he responds,
"I fought against the idea for some time, but I suppose there must be
indissoluble some link between sex and death. I don't feel the
relationship
between the two is quite the way you've portrayed it, but I'm most
grateful
to you for animating the subject in such a stimulating way."
The rift between Jung and Freud grows, eventually exploding in a flame war
executed via post. It's based on Freud's insistence that therapists should
not play god, that all a therapist can do is diagnose, but never cure.
Whereas Jung wants to be able to help the patient work around the disease,
to
reinvent themselves. This is a difficult tightrope to walk: how to cure
without shaping, without instilling structure from without? How to avoid
playing God? It's an interesting dispute and I'm not even sure I know
where I
land, to be honest.
Mortenson, Fassbender and Knightley are all quite excellent. Her accent is
a
bit odd, but I honestly can't judge what it should sound like as a Russian
emigré fluent in German, living in Switzerland in the early 1900s and
being
portrayed in English. I give the movie an extra point for nicely written
dialogue, though I can't help but think how much better it would have been
in
German.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] A confession: I was wondering to myself why Studio Ghibli always made
characters who looked more European than Japanese. I finally bothered to
look up the answer and it's quite eye-opening (no pun intended). The
"accepted answer" by Dimitri mx
is that the characters do look Japanese to the Japanese.
The characters only look European to Europeans because we think people look
like us; the Japanese think the same. They are more right, though, in this
case. Once you have this mental model, watch anime again. You'll see that the
characters are smaller people, with small noses, they are usually portrayed as
slimmer and more delicate and are largely hairless.
Also, they are incredibly culturally Japanese. Just in this film: they speak
Japanese, there are Japanese texts lying everywhere, they write in columns
from right-to-left. they take off their shoes to enter houses, they have
rice-paper walls, they eat sushi and rice for breakfast, they sleep on a
tatami on the floor, they wear very uncomfortable-looking wooden sandals.
Also, Tatsuo just works all day without noticing that his kid has been playing
unsupervised in the garden for the whole day. That's not very American.
With eyes open, you wonder how you ever saw the characters as anything other
than Japanese. They're just stylized people.
In anime, there's no mistaking characters who are actually European. They are
drawn more like "Dan Eagleman" (just as an
example) and the difference is then very noticeable.
Is the hair color not natural? Are the eyes too big? Big eyes are expressive
-- and that's why they're too big in Western cartoons, as well.
There is an excellent article "Why Do The Japanese Draw Themselves As White?"
by Lisa Wade
that starts with the example of Marge Simpson, who has yellow skin and blue
hair, but who Americans have always accepted as a white lady.
The article includes a great example of how cultural perspective shapes what
we see: the stick figure.
"If I draw a stick figure, most Americans will assume that it is a white man.
Because to them that is the Default Human Being. For them to think it is a
woman I have to add a dress or long hair [or boobs]; for Asian, I have to add
slanted eyes; for black, I add kinky hair or brown skin. Etc.
"The Other has to be marked. If there are no stereotyped markings of
otherness, then white is assumed.
"Americans apply this thinking to Japanese drawings. But to the Japanese the
Default Human Being is Japanese! So they feel no need to make their
characters “look Asian”. They just have to make them look like people and
everyone in Japan will assume they are Japanese – no matter how improbable
their physical appearance. (Emphasis added.)"
Lesson learned. Eyes opened.
[1] I'd originally written "him" but, in light of the discussion in the end-note
above, there's no reason to think that Totoro is male. It has no identifying
male organs nor has it done anything male. It is a magical creature. It's
not a cat; it's not a rabbit.
Our default worldview colors everything.
[1] Our brains categorize everything, trying to make sense of things. Think of
the Cheshire Cat bus: it's neither a cat nor a bus -- but we have to
describe it. It has about eight legs per side. Its carapace opens like a
sphincter and it looks only vaguely like a bus. But we call it a cat/bus --
and others (from our culture and with our experiences) will know exactly
what we're referring to.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=38632019-12-24T17:53:44+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
. The cast was excellent;
several of the main characters had played in the same musical on Broadway. See
the link for more information.
[Synopsis]
It's a lot to unpack, but I'll give it a shot.
It starts with a song called "Hello", which shows a dozen Mormons ringing
doorbells, speaking the word of Jesus Christ (of the Latter Day Saints). Soon
after, the young men are sorted into missions and Elder Price and Elder
Cunningham are teamed up to go to Uganda. Cunningham is excited to be matched
with star pupil Price; Price is less than thrilled to be going to Uganda, as
he'd had his heart set on Orlando instead.
They go to Uganda, meet the villagers and the warlords, sing a bunch, Price
loses his faith and thinks he's escaped to Orlando, but really he's just having
a Spooky Mormon Hell Dream, Cunningham converts them all by lying heavily about
the Book of Mormon (they end up publishing a fourth installment called the Book
of Arnold), the villagers put on a very special show for the visiting Mormon
chieftains and Cunningham and Price decide to stick around longer to promulgate
their good work.
The final song starts with the Ugandans reenacting the opening song: Hello.
[An Earnest Satire]
There is so much going on, at so many levels. Tongue in cheek doesn't even begin
to cover it. It's less direct irony or satire or parody and much more like an
earnest homage that goes just a little farther to reveal shadows that indicate
that there are other interpretations possible. As with South Park, nearly every
line can be taken literally or not, as a coarse joke or as a subtle dig at a
power structure or commonly believed myth. The songs are very much like this, as
well -- earnest sabotage. [2]
Mormons just believe -- which is, on the one hand, a wonderfully naive and
beatific quality, but then they also believe the wildest horseshit. Parker and
Stone make fun of Mormonism by just presenting it as it describes itself. It's a
ludicrous story.
The misinterpretation of the Ugandans is no more of less ridiculous than the
original. It's perhaps cruder, sure, but it's also more appropriate to their
situation, more likely to offer them guidance that makes a difference in their
lives. Here Parker and Stone seem to be showing us that this is all that
religion can really do for us: tell ridiculous but entertaining stories that
keep us from killing each other or letting nature kill us.
Jews believe in one book, Christians in two and the Mormons in a Trilogy. They
also happen to believe that Jesus was in upstate New York in the 1800s and that
Joseph Smith wasn't a con man.
[Details and Impressions]
The opening scenes of the two acts look very much like school plays and are
voiced exactly like South Park. Jesus sounds kinda like Eric Cartman.
The backdrop for Salt Lake City has a Wendy's and a McDonald's in it. The one
for Orlando has a bigger Mini Golf sign on it than the Epcot Center Dome. Why?
Because it loomed larger in nine-year-old Elder Price's memory. Orlando is, on
the one hand, believable as a dream destination for a boy, but not for an adult
male, for whom Orlando is a ridiculous dream destination, a playground in
Florida -- someplace that everyone knows is terrible. Are Mormon boys naive to
believe that it's not? Or are we jaded? Who knows? Parker and Stone leave it
open, poking fun but also cutting their targets a break.
You have to already have known a bunch about Mormons to get some of the jokes --
like that they're not allowed to drink coffee, which isn't exactly common
knowledge. I never thought I'd hear a song about Upstate New York and Rochester
(Joseph Smith's origin story) or one in which the words clitoris and scrotum
featured so much.
There's another song called Hasa Diga Eebowai (Fuck You God), which featured
enthusiastic gesticulation with middle fingers in the Lord's direction, to the
missionaries' utter horror. The finale where the tribe re-enacted what they'd
learned ended up in a simulated orgy with lots of positions and gigantic dildos.
This almost topped the "Crazy Mormon Hell Dream", which featured Jeffrey Dahmer
buggering Elder Price's father while Hitler was fellated by District 9's leader
while Genghis Khan looked on.
Was that all? No, the musical also featured a warlord named "Butt Fucking Naked"
who shoots a man directly in the head in a shocking scene that's sandwiched
between jokes -- and whose juxtaposition was anything but an accident. AIDS is a
fact of life that is so accepted by the Ugandans that they think nothing of
threatening the Mormons with it or noting it like the weather. The first scene
of Uganda features a woman dragging a half-eaten animal carcass across the
stage. Slowly.
Clitoral mutilation is presented as a prevalent problem -- enforced by the local
warlord. But one of the villagers is depicted as believing that having sex with
a virgin -- even a baby -- will cure his AIDS. These are just as ludicrous and
overblown as anything else in the show, but are traps for dipshits at NPR and
elite universities to try to call the show racist.
The point isn't that Ugandans are stupid or primitive or backward. At least not
only them. Everyone's an idiot. Mormons believe ridiculous shit and travel the
world trying to dunk people underwater and get them to believe it, too. Ugandans
believe crazy shit to get through the day and deal with the horrific hand
they've been dealt. But it's always fun to see the prudes and stick-in-the-muds
fault a comedy for failing to be unfunny about taking the piss.
In a way, the depiction of Uganda was exactly what a Mormon would expect, no?
Otherwise, why send missionaries? I mean, Africa is the land of cell phones, but
the girl doesn't know what "text messaging" is. It's a joke, guys. The Ugandans
were exactly as most Americans -- not just Mormons -- would expect. It was a
caricature of what Westerners think "Africa" is.
There are several bits shedding a very dubious light on the tales from the Book
of Mormon and also a song called "Man Up" where Cunningham exhorts himself to be
like Jesus -- who showed balls when he climbed up on that cross and let himself
be nailed there. There is a song called "Baptize Me" that just drips innuendo
and double entendre, another song called "I Am Africa" sung exclusively by the
whitest Mormons you've ever seen.
[A Real-life Producers]
I honestly spent the first half just smiling thinking of Stone and Parker just
daring each other to make an even more ludicrously named character or write a
more shocking line or make the characters say "fuck" more than any other
Broadway musical (or "scrotum" or "clitoris").
It's hard to imagine that Parker and Stone didn't just dare each other to come
up with crazier and crazier stuff, with an eye on Mel Brooks, whose movie The
Producers about a musical so deliberately bad that it would close on opening
night -- and featured a song with half-clad goose-stepping Nazis singing
"Springtime for Hitler" -- was subsequently made one of the most successful
Broadway musicals of all time, just as Book of Mormon has now done. In both
cases, it's utterly unclear who gets the joke and who doesn't or who is getting
which joke.
I can think of many people who would have seen this is a straight-up musical
about Mormons in Africa that had a bit too much swearing in it (OK, they said
"fuck" all the time).
Also, the uncircumcised girl's name was Nabalungi, not Nefertiti or Necrophilia
or Nintendo or any of the many other names Cunningham called her.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Missionaries are presumably male, because I didn't see any female Mormons
except for the converts in the African village. I don't want to cast
aspersions, but it seems like American Mormon women are not allowed to leave
Utah
[1] The "Original Broadway Cast Recording"
is available on Google Play.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=38682019-12-24T17:53:31+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1400
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of around 1400 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.
Hardware (1990) -- "6/10"
The description on IMDb covers the first 3/4 of the movie: "The head of a
cyborg reactivates, rebuilds itself, and goes on a violent rampage in a
space
marine's girlfriend's apartment." The final 1/4 goes off the rails in some
sort of operatic dream sequence involving Moses (ex-Marine boyfriend
(Dylan
McDermott)), who already has a robotic hand, but then mutilates his other
hand and drinks his own blood while the cyborg is rejuvenating and
preparing
(yet) another attack.
The girlfriend Jill is an artist who lives alone when Mo's not there. They
have a friend named Shades who literally never takes off his sunglasses.
Oh, also the world is a post-apocalyptic hellscape with no water and too
much
heat and radioactivity. The remaining government is trying to impose a
birthrate restriction. There is a ton of 80s-era tech with non-graphical
user
interfaces.
Also other people in the building are involved and killed at various times
and in various ways while Jill goes bananas with a baseball bat because
she
ziplined in on a live wire to a Chinese family's apartment. So she ended
up
with a Banzai headband because alllooksame.
The effects are pretty good for the time and some of the cinematography is
quite good, when it's not cut too quickly to avoid letting you see the
seams
and fake tech. After everything, it took one bullet to the head from
Shades
and then a biblical baseball-bat onslaught from Jill to kill the cyborg
(Mark
13) for good.
I gave it an extra star for a few reasons: it was unabashed in its
execution
and it had cameos from both Iggy Pop and Lemmy (who was a cab driver
playing
Ace of Spades on his radio).
Booksmart (2019) -- "9/10"
This is the story of Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) and Molly (Beanie Feldstein): they
are two smart, ambitious, kind and focused best friends in their senior
year
in high school. They mostly hang out together, ignoring or disdaining the
other cliques. They have achieved scholastic success and will be moving on
to
bigger and better things: Molly is going to Yale whereas Amy is taking a
summer in Botswana.
Their world is shattered when Molly discovers that all of the so-called
losers at their school have achieved just as much as they did. The school
"skank" is going to Yale as well, while the rich-girl alcoholic (Gigi) is
going to Harvard. The jock (Nick) is going to Stanford. They all had fun
throughout high school and achieved just as much as Amy and Molly. This
revelation disturbs Amy less than Molly, but she agrees to go out with
Molly
to have some fun on the last night before graduation.
The hijinks are funny and very modern (they take Lyfts everywhere; one of
them is driven by their principal, played by a bearded Jason Sudeikis).
They
learn more about their supposedly stupid colleagues -- something they'd
never
bothered to do in the four year prior. They both let loose, but not to
ridiculous excess. They meet Gigi again and again and again. Molly learns
more about Jared, the rich kid who's more than that. Nick is smarter than
he
acts, but ultimately a high-school boy thinking with his dick. But so is
Amy's girl crush, who hooks up with Nick (because she's straight, despite
Amy's greatest hopes).
Jessica Williams is great as Miss Fine; her claims to have done a Thursday
NYT Crossword in under 8 minutes are more believable than the two
17-year-olds claim that they did it in under 10. We get it: they're smart.
[1] Still, the two girls were apparently fluent in Mandarin as well as
Spanish, so I guess we can't take the smartitude claims too seriously.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] But you can't fill out that crossword without cheating without a vast
experience, to boot. You can't just be smart; you have to be well-read.
And
you have to have soaked up adult culture for more than five years.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The girls blow up at the party as Amy reveals that she's taking a gap year
--
which blows up all of Molly's plans for their lives together. Molly has to
do
some self-evaluation and take it down a notch. Amy ends up saving the
party
from the cops and going to jail just before graduation. It all ends
happily
for everyone, which was just fine. Nice directorial debut for Olivia
Wilde.
Glass (2019) -- "9/10"
This is part three of the trilogy started by Unbreakable and Split. In this
one, Elijah Price aka Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson) is in a psychiatric
hospital whereas Kevin Crumb aka The Beast (James McAvoy) is still on the
loose, kidnapping more cheerleaders. David Dunn aka The Overseer (Bruce
Willis) is still taking care of loose ends that the police refuse to (or
can't).
With the help of his son, Dunn is hot on the trail of The Beast. He
manages
to free the latest victims and confronts and fights the Beast to a
standstill. They fall out of a third-story window and bounce up to be
surrounded by police and strong lights that stun the Beast and cause him
to
transform to another member of the Horde (the gang of personalities that
inhabit Kevin).
Dunn and Crumb are taken to the same psychiatric hospital as Price and end
up
being counseled together by Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) who doesn't
believe at all that they have superpowers. Instead, she thinks that there
is
a rational explanation for all that has happened and the strength that The
Beast and The Overseer have shown. Nothing to see here; just
outlandishness
and craziness all mixed up to cause confusion.
Mr. Glass begs to differ and uses his vast intellect and proficiency with
technology to rove the halls of the hospital undetected. With a
lobotomizing
procedure scheduled the next morning, he springs his plan to let the three
of
them out, pitting The Beast against the Overseer in the full light of
public
scrutiny, to prove once and for all that they are real and not figments of
their own imaginations. The Beast knows what it is; the Overseer is
half-convinced that he is normal, but mad. Glass makes Overseer break out
of
his room, through a steel door to prove to himself that he is different.
Glass and the Beast are together and make their way out of the hospital.
McAvoy is an absolute revelation: he depicts his multitude incredibly
well
-- Patricia, in particular, is scarily well-done. Also, he's incredibly
jacked for this role.
Dr. Staple still doesn't believe, even as Glass and Beast tear a swath
through her hospital and escape in grand style. Meanwhile, Dunn has
knocked
his steel door off of its hinges and has similarly escaped. Glass's
mother,
Dunn's son, and Casey Cooke (Anya Taylor-Joy) (the Beast's former kidnap
victim from Split) are on premises to talk to the doctor, but end up
witnessing the escape and showdown between Beast and Overseer. Riot police
try to break up the fight, but the two men each fight off half a dozen
troops
themselves, belying the doctor's claim that they are not superhuman.
It turns out that Crumb's father died in the train crash in which Dunn was
the only survivor -- a crash caused by Glass in his search for a nemesis.
"I created you, as I created David. It just took longer. 19 years. They
almost convinced me I was crazy. I create superheroes. I truly am a
mastermind."
The Beast thanks him for his creation, but then strikes devastating blows
because Glass is dangerous. He tackles Dunn into a water tank -- and water
is
Dunn's weakness. The Beast tries to escape to the tower, but Casey catches
him and brings Kevin back out, only to have the SWAT units shoot him right
out of her arms.
Doctor Staple and the police want to mop up the loose ends, trying to kill
Dunn as well. The SWAT unit and Doctor Staple both have the same tattoo on
their wrist, suggesting that they belong to the same secret organization.
The
unit drowns Dunn -- in a puddle in the parking lot, to add insult to
injury
-- Crumb dies in Casey's arms and Glass in his mother's, whispering to her
that "[t]his was not a "Limited Edition" — this was an origin story, the
whole time."
Doctor Staple confides to Glass that she is part of a secret organization
that kills heroes and villains to keep humanity safe from "Gods walk[ing]
among us". She and her group smugly think they've won -- but Mr. Glass's
final words linger. Whose origin was it? How many steps ahead was he
planning? Glass got the security footage before the good Doctor was able
to
delete it. Glass (in a voiceover):
"Belief in oneself is contagious. We give each other permission to be
superheroes. We will never awaken otherwise. Whoever these people are who
don't want us to know the truth: today, they lose."
Maniac (2018) -- "8/10"
(A skinny) Jonah Hill stars as Owen Milgrim, the estranged son of a rich
family in New York. He lives on Roosevelt island, paying almost 80% of his
salary as rent. His job sucks, but he's the only one of his brothers who
doesn't work for his father. He's had a pyschotic break and thinks/knows
that
he gets visits from a brother Jed (Billy Magnussen) who visits him in his
thoughts. We see Jed at a party in his full obnoxiousness; he seems to
need
to stand trial for some transgression against a woman. The timing is
unclear
so far.
The setting is a near/alternate future, something like the future as
envisioned in the 80s. The tech is all very 80s: film, photos, mechanical
machines, CRTs, beeping machines -- Terry Gilliam would love it. There are
weird marketing scams like "Ad Buddy", where a solicitor visits you
wherever
you are and pitches strange gigs: fake husband for widows,
medical-experimental subject, and so on. They also just read a lot of ads.
The computers are huge (think mainframes), the cameras are
film/disposable,
the phones are corded. The techs at the neuropharmaceutical company are
almost all Japanese.
(A platinum blonde) Emma Stone is Annie Landsberg, a semi-homeless
woman/grifter whose poor luck has led her to the same giant
neural-experiment
corporation as Owen. The second episode focuses on Annie's journey to
Nerbedyne Corp, trying to scrape together enough money to get into a study
where she can get her hands on the mood-altering drug that she'd gotten
addicted to.
Drug A makes her feel better about her shattered relationship with her
sister
Ellie (Julia Garner, i.e. Ruth from Ozark). She shows up when Annie drops
into the experiment and into another world. In this reliving of her
memory,
Annie is shockingly harsh to her sister when they move to New York and
Colorado, respectively. She basically tells her she's happy she'll never
see
her again and then acts like it never happened. Is she schizophrenic? They
get into a car accident and Ellie dies when their car hits a truck driving
in
the wrong lane.
One of the other patients (11) is played by Allyce Beasley, who I last
remember as playing Agnes DiPesto in Moonlighting. Annie and Owen end up
together in Muramoto's office after the first experiment -- he died when
he
was talking to Annie and Owen is still high from his A pill. It's unclear
what's really happening (did Muramoto really die?) and whether the
memories
engendered by the pills and the giant-sized 80-style hardware are real or
also ... adjusted.
Muramoto has really died and his right-hand woman Azumi finds his
replacement
-- a former boyfriend/genius programmer/scientist Mantleray (Justin
Theroux)
who's apparently addicted to virtual porn. Azumi is a bit of an odd duck:
chain-smoking in all sorts of sensitive areas (even in the tiny cubbies
that
the staff sleep in on premises) and is also apparently agoraphobic.
Another
main character is the giant old-style mainframe computer named GRTA (there
was actually a famous mainframe named "MANIAC I"
). I love the computer room,
cables
and flashing lights everywhere -- so old school and such a good
storytelling
device.
Once they take the B pill ("Behavior"), things get nutsy-cuckoo: Annie is
now
named Linda and is married to Owen (now named Bruce). They are in 80s New
Jersey. Annie steals the address from the DMV of the furrier who stole her
friend's lemur so that she can go rescue it, but she can't get the lemur
out
from the thugs (who are very interested in their dance routine). She
confides
in her husband and they agree to break out Wendy the lemur from the
furrier.
Bruce is a good husband, to a fault and turns himself over to the police
(or
the wildlife authorities, which they keep claiming is more-or-less the
same
thing).
They segue to the next scene, in what look like the 1930s. Owen is now Sir
Ollie and he's on his way to the Neberdine Full Moon Seance (the name of
the
drug company). Annie is now Arlie, again his wife. Azumi and Mantleray
discover that 1 (Owen) and 9 (Annie) are entangled due to a hardware
malfunction. The various scenarios roll up more and more real-life
details:
gimlets, Cervantes, Wendy, etc. The lost chapter 53 of Cervantes's Don
Quixote is rumored to be so powerful that whoever reads it falls into a
coma
of fantasy from which they never wake. Kind of like Neberdine's VR. Arlie
says "We can't help being who we are" when Ollie tries to get away from
her
again.
The subjects make it to round C but Azumi and Mantleray discuss Gertie's
depression (the mainframe). She's mourning the loss of Doctor Muramoto --
because they'd been having an affair. Azumi exhorts Mantleray to call his
mother, to which he responds,
"My mother is a venomous egotistical charlatan who deploys catchphrases and
platitudes and therapies of the day in order to dupe people out of their
money and happiness. No, my mother sells happiness, but it crumbles in
your
hand the minute you're out of earshot of her magical thinking and her
platitudes and her invented words and her primal yawps and her steps to
success."
His mother is Dr. Greta Mantleray, played by Sally Field (no coincidence
that
the mainframe is named after Mantleray's mother). She's invited in to
diagnose the mainframe. Meanwhile Owen and Annie start to imbue the
short-circuit that led to them being paired with significance.
The "odds" (including Annie and Owen) embark on the C-pill journey
("Confrontation"). They are not together: Annie is Annia, an elf con-woman
leading marks on journeys to the "Lake of Clouds" to be healed of their
ills
(and fleeced of their possessions). Her latest mark is her sister Ellie,
also
dressed as an elf.
Owen is a gold-toothed, twin-braided, tattooed gangbanger scion of a
murderous clan led by his father (Gabriel Byrne), who's known as "The
Drill"
for his penchant for power-drill--fueled interrogation. In his basement,
he
has a painting of a drill with the epithet "Ceci n'est pas une drill"
beneath
it. Owen is an introspective and highly intelligent and well-read young
man.
The simulation is bleeding through for both him and Annie, with the role
of
GRTA and their own "tests" woven into their stories.
Owen's the prodigal son but is working with the police. His brother Jed
was
sent away by his father as a "disloyal baby" but became a cop and is the
family's plant. He "saves" Owen from the cops he's working with and is
then
taken out by the family's consiglieri, who is a Fed, undercover for 36
years.
Owen accompanies him to collect his study partner Olivia, to sweep her off
to
witness protection -- we see him years later with seven kids, each named
after a continent. He bugs out, turns into a falcon and flies to the moon
--
ending up in Annia's world and then getting shot down by the evil queen
(GRTA) before she abducts Annia from Ellia.
The next installment has transformed Owen into Snorri, an Icelandic man on
trial for some as-yet unspecified crime against an alien being named
Ernie.
He sits before a tribunal of Earth's leaders, who are deciding how to
appease
the invading aliens by possibly sacrificing Snorri. Ernie as an alien
stands
in for the hawk Owen had nursed back to health when he was a child. Annie
is
back, looking stunning in red.
The finale is wild, with GRTA killing nearly everyone but finally being
forced to release her stranglehold and being shut down for good. They all
part ways, including Annie and Owen. Owen takes the witness stand at his
brother's trial and refuses to lie for him, earning himself committal to a
mental institution. Annie goes back to her father and they reconcile, with
him welcoming her back from the wilderness of near-madness and depression
to
which she'd escaped after her his sister had died. Annie seeks out Owen,
gets
his trust and breaks him out. We see them head out on the road together,
to
parts unknown.
The feeling of overlapping realities and dreams reminds me a bit of West
World. It's a delightfully surprising limited series with occasionally
wacky
scenes and scenery. Hill and Stone are very good.
After Life (2019) -- "8/10"
This is a lovely, funny, charming show written, directed by and starring
Ricky Gervais. None of the blurbs I've seen for it do it justice. It is a
show about Tony, a man who found the love of his life early, had 28
wonderful
years with her and is now a widower on account of breast cancer.
He is devastated and pragmatic and wonders what is even the point of going
on. He's brutal to some people -- his meek brother-in-law, in particular
--
but a thoughtful man who, despite his desire to just end it all to kill
the
pain of living without his wife, manages to continue on, spending quite a
bit
of his time walking his dog, visiting his Alzheimers-afflicted father,
visiting his wife's grave (and the widow of the man who's buried next to
her)
and sorta-kinda befriending a homeless drug user Julian and his
prostitute/sex-worker friend Daphne/Roxy (who he hires to do his dishes
for
him).
The thing that keeps him going at all is his dog, I think, who needs to be
fed twice per day. He's slowly starting to come out of his funk, but still
deeply in pain. He works at a local free gazette run by his
brother-in-law,
doing shit stories with a weird crew of co-workers.
His relationship with Julian is the most interesting: Julian lost his wife
to
an overdose, but he lost her and nobody cares, because she brought it on
herself. They share a deep, abiding pain of loss that makes them both want
to
end it all. But Julian is more serious about it: all he's missing is the
money to do it. Tony looks at him, then gives him most of his wallet.
Julian
makes good on his word, overdosing in his doss in a storage unit.
Those were conflicting moments: when Tony gave him the money and when
Julian
followed through on his suicide promise. Was it the right thing to do?
Should
Tony have helped Julian get better? Or did he just understand how utterly
lost Julian was without his wife? That death was a sweet release from
endless
days of pain, spent searching desperately for a way to numb everything for
a
few hours until wakefulness brings it all crashing back in the next day. I
applaud the story for not holding back on providing a grittier, more
realistic outcome. Some people don't want to live. Who are we to force
them
to change their minds? Stop being depressed. Be happy. Super helpful.
I think Gervais is just brilliant in this: anyone who thinks he's an ass
because of how he takes the piss out of everyone should see this show and
then wonder which is the real Gervais? Is he just an asshole who's a good
enough actor to sell being a nice guy? Or is basically a sheepish, nice
guy
who can pretend to be an asshole?
In the end, Tony claws his way back to being a human being and we prepare
to
see what the next season brings -- when he's no longer so depressed.
Ronnie Chieng: Asian Comedian Destroys America (2019) -- "9/10"
I've seen Ronnie on The Daily Show, where he's very funny, often upstaging
the sadly somewhat smarmy and easy-joke-getting Trevor Noah (think Stephen
Colbert after he moved to late night). Chieng is an international comic,
having come to America only three years ago, moving from Australia after
having grown up in Malaysia and Singapore. A lot of his material is about
being Asian and having grown up in an asian family. Also, he has the
requisite bit about Japanese toilets, a source of endless fascination and
material to comics everywhere. His delivery is good and he's very
sarcastically funny with smart, well-written material.
Michelle Wolf: Joke Show (2019) -- "7/10"
It was a pretty decent set and her writing is mostly very clever, though
there is a bunch of meta filler material that feels a bit lazy, padding
out
her hour. She talks about politics, women's rights, periods (a lot about
that), being a shallow-vagina woman in a big-dick world, the usual. A
decent
hour; I look forward to more, where she's perhaps refined the material to
a
bit more of a knife-edge. It has nothing to do with her grating voice --
which is quite grating, but also somewhat endearing -- it's just that the
routine felt stretched to fit the requisite hour for Netflix (somewhat
like
Iliza Schlesinger's latest).
Zardoz (1974) -- "7/10"
This is a move about a far-future Earth (2293) where the planet is inhabited
by bands of savages who inhabit the Outlands and also some immortals who
inhabit the Vortex. Sean Connery is a cleverer savage Zed who jumps on the
flying Godhead sculpture that visits his lands, hitching a ride back to
the
vortex.
On the way, he somewhat anticlimactically kills Arthur Frayn, an immortal
who'd played Zardoz. The flying Godhead lands in the Vortex and Zed begins
to
investigate the countryside, clad only in thigh-high leather boots, a red
diaper, crossed red bandoliers and his usual copious allotment of body
hair.
For twenty minutes, nary a word is said, until Zed meets May (Sara
Kestelman). She and Consuella (Charlotte Rampling) extract his memories,
watching as he rapes and pillages his way through his former life. The
walls
are covered with naked, frozen bodies in various states of unrelaxed
repose.
They call in more of their fellow citizens, to watch his memories of
raping
and pillaging as a marauders among the weaker tribes.
He spends some time in their society, as a kept animal, serving the
immortals. He learns of what it means to be immortal. Their punishment for
infractions is not imprisonment or death, but years. One subversive
"Friend"
is punished like this and Zed finds him later, aged nearly beyond
recognition, but still alive, spending time with other ancients, all
unable
to die.
Friend wants death for everyone, to "erase humanity from this pretty
planet".
The theme -- from 1974 -- is interesting, in light of our climate-change
debacle. As Eve plumbs the depths of Zed's memories, he remembers when he
became educated, when he learned to read. On the walls of the library are
old
posters, one of which reads "to not be born is best". Eve eventually
teases
out of Zed that the book he'd read was "Wizard of Oz", which he saw to be
a
metaphor for Zardoz and his control over Zed's world.
The experiments continue and they realize that Zed is there to destroy
their
world. They hunt him across their part of the globe, with things becoming
increasingly surreal: he encounters the Apathetics again, this time
energizing them when they taste his sweat; he encounters the aged, who
take
up his banner of revolution in a crazed and madcap Mardi Gras--like parade
toward the realm of the Eternals. Zed convinces May that hers is a society
of
death and they agree to teach him all that they know -- they "touch-teach"
him while he "provides them with his seed". Nice.
The truth of things turns out to be that a good chunk of mankind left for
the
stars when the planet was dying. The world Zed inhabits is the mad shell
of a
society gone horribly wrong. The Ancients are the remnants of the
scientists
who'd enabled it all, but were too old to travel. The eternals are the
children they'd retained to keep track of the remaining savage hordes. Zed
is
an experiment of Zardoz's (Arthur, who is resurrected late in the film).
Zed figures out that the Tabernacle -- the root of all knowledge for what
is
left of humanity on Earth -- resides in a crystal. He does battle with the
Tabernacle (another psychedelic rendering) and ends up liberating humanity
from immortality. Zardoz aka Arthur shows up to claim that the liberator
that
Zed became was all due to him and his breeding program, where he produced
a
slave who could free his masters. Zed responds that, while that may well
be,
Zardoz is also a product of his breeding and environment and, thus, is
also
just as much a tool of fate as Zed is (or a tool of the Tabernacle, as the
case may be). Zed's development from senseless slaughterer to sage reminds
me
a bit of Charlie's development in Flowers for Algernon.
In the end, the Eternals -- no longer Eternal -- are overrun by the
remnants
of Zed's band of Renegades, who leave behind a truly heroic slaughter on
the
battlefield, all the while seeking their lost leader. Zed is with
Consuella,
with whom we see him father a child, grow old and die.
The Cell (2000) -- "8/10"
Jennifer Lopez (looking frankly spectacular in her absolute prime) is
Catherine Deane, a therapist and researcher in virtual-reality techniques
whose charge is a young boy who'd fallen into a coma on a beach. The boy's
rich parents want her to help wake him back up. She uses the immersive VR
(mind-merge?) technology to travel to his mindscape, which is rich in
detail.
The first scene is in a vast desert, where she finds him less than
receptive
to her help.
The family grows restless for results -- the father, especially, doesn't
believe that it will ever work. Desperate for results, Catherine wants to
try
letting the boy into her mind instead, to try to jolt him into a different
direction.
At the same time, we see glimpses of a serial killer (Carl Stargher,
played
by the always excellent Vincent D'Onofrio) at work, drowning his victims
in
tanks of water, washing them in bleach while he hangs -- Hellraiser-style
--
from hooks in the ceiling. We see him driving a victim away from his wind-
and dust-swept farm in the flatbed of his truck.
Next, we Stargher collecting his next victim, but also seemingly suffering
from what looks for all the world like a migraine or seizures. With the
FBI
hot on his trail, he succumbs to the viral infection that exacerbates his
schizophrenia to throw him into a coma, a dream from which he is unlikely
ever to wake. This would pose no problem, except that his latest victim is
still trapped in a room somewhere -- we can see her in her prison cell --
but
no-one has any idea where that is. The cell, though, is actually a machine
that Stargher's designed to drown and bleach his victims into dolls.
The Feds end up at Catherine's lab, asking her to enter into Stargher's
mind
to try to find out where the victim is. They rig her and him up in the
same
apparatus we saw her using with the young boy and the trip begins. It's
quite
a nicely filmed sequence, with many early VR-style metaphors of how wild
and
unpredictable such mindscapes would be. In Stargher's mind, he's still a
child, with some very strange memories (that clearly led to what he would
become).
Catherine makes her way through this world, witnessing the
Damien-Hirst-ification of a horse, then stumbling through cellars to
happen
upon Myst-like contraptions controlling female automata/dolls. The women
are
arranged in museum-like cells, some controlled by wires. She is attacked
and
subdued by a musclebound doll with gigantic breasts, who takes her to a
throne room, where Stargher rules as king.
She quickly bails from VR and then discusses next steps with Detective
Peter
Novak (Vince Vaughn). She agrees to go back in, learning more and more
about
Stargher's past and his history, where his sickness came from. Carl is
talking to Catherine as Carl now (rather than as the demented king from
before), which is progress. But she still can't find out where he's hidden
Julia, his final victim.
Her plan backfires and he manages to block her from activating her
"dead-man
switch" this time. He takes her hostage as one of his victims, placing a
collar on her and "locking" her into the VR world. Novak has to suit up
and
jump in to the VR world for the first time ever, seeking out both Stargher
and Catherine. There is a plethora of 2000-era computer graphics heralding
his entry.
Stargher quickly overpowers Novak as well, now with both Catherine and
Peter
in his clutches. Peter beseeches Catherine to wake up and rescue him.
Peter
thinks he's figured out where the woman is; Stargher is ramping up the
craziness in his mindscape. Catherine reverses the feed and invited young
Carl into her mind, though older Carl comes along, too. She "heals" the
young
Carl in her mind, and he finds peace, but dies. Novak saves the final
victim.
The sets are spectacular and imaginative. Catherine ends up keeping Carl's
dog.
Zathura (2005) -- "5/10"
This is a Jumanji-like storyline where two brothers (Walter and Danny, his
younger sibling) end up playing a game that Danny finds in the basement.
It's
called Zathura and it kind of plays itself: the boys just poke buttons and
the game plays itself out. It takes their house into space and then into
an
encounter with Zorgons and then to an astronaut who turns out to be Walter
in
15 years. It was OK, but really targeted at young kids. Kristen Stewart,
Dax
Shepard and Tim Robbins put in their time, but don't overdo it. It bored
me,
but I gave it an extra star because it's almost certainly a solid repeat
watch for young kids.
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,
with the following passage:
"Akaky, whose old coat is too tattered to withstand the frigid air, begins
saving for a new one, forgoing the small pleasures that make his otherwise
dreary life pleasurable (drinking tea, lighting candles in the evening). But
Akaky comes to find joy instead in the dream of a new coat: “it was as if his
very existence became somehow fuller, as if he were married, as if some other
person were there with him, as if he were not alone but some pleasant life’s
companion had agreed to walk down the path of life with him—and this companion
was none other than that same overcoat.”"
I wonder if a different society -- perhaps Russians, who regularly wrote
literature in this vein, about suffering and surviving and persevering -- would
understand Joker differently. From the Russian writers I've read, they seemed to
understand the existence of poverty on Fleck's level, a poverty that is not only
financial, but also one of the soul. His only companion is a joyless madwoman
who constantly exhorts him to be happy. He is bound to her by societal
obligation and habit. He has no chance of ever finding romantic happiness.
Back to the story about the coat:
"We share in his horror when, on his very first day wearing his new coat, Akaky
is robbed of it. To make matters worse, as titular councilor, he does not have
enough pull to get the authorities to take his case seriously. The cold air and
society’s indifference sends him to an early grave, but soon afterward, a
rumor begins to spread throughout the city: “A dead man had begun to appear at
night in the form of a clerk searching for some stolen overcoat.” In death,
Akaky gets his revenge. Gogol’s story could be classified as what Wellesley
professor Kathleen Brogan defines as “cultural haunting.”"
This is almost literally the story arc in Joker. Only Joker didn't die first --
he transformed and lit Gotham on fire.
The article ends with a warning:
"As we commit ever-new forms of violence, such as the destruction of the
environment, we will take on new hauntings."
The destruction of the environment is a violence almost too large to comprehend,
but more prevalent and poisonous in the quotidian is small or soft violence.
like disregarding or exploiting the suffering of others. Though Arthur was
beaten a few times, this was easier for him to understand than the casual
cruelty and indifference that is almost more violent, if only because you can't
fight it. You can just sit there and take it and lose. [2]
[Elite fear of revolution]
With a world as miserable and uncaring as the one in which Arthur finds himself,
what do we expect to happen? 99.9% of these misbegotten souls simply subside
noiselessly into the mists of history, but the uncaring world can't get away
with its behavior forever. The Joker is an inevitable excrescence of a poisoned
world. It's not an excuse; it’s a reason. No wonder America’s afraid of this
movie. They’ve built the powder keg. It's only a matter of time.
Some are afraid that the film will inspire murderers and riots, empowering the
downtrodden -- or those who think they are. Or at least they say that's what
they’re afraid of. What they’re really afraid of is that people will realize
the Fleck wasn’t even evil. He’d just been fucked over by a society that
doesn’t care, that allocates all of its resources to its elites (including the
often-rich media) and lets everyone else boil in a Garden of Earthly Delights.
They’re afraid that people will actually wake up. That they’ll see that the
message isn’t one of violence, but one of knowledge and awareness.
The State had a chance to prevent the Joker's arrival, but it chose callousness
instead, ruthlessly cutting off his benefits and his medication.
Instead of inspiring feelings of violence, the movie inspired compassion for
those with mental illness, feeling outcast, societal frustrations.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Chapo Traphouse's two-hour review was stupidly focused on this. I’m not
even sure they saw the movie. I honestly had to stop listening. It’s
shocking that they get so much funding for what amounts to a bunch of people
joking and bitching in a room. This Is Hell! On Contact, Jimmy Dore, Useful
Idiots are all much more worth your time.
[1] Slavoj Žižek's book Violence discusses the various types of violence --
and our blindness to all but the least subtle forms -- in great detail.
]]>
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of around 1400
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of around 1400 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.
IT (2017) -- "7/10"
This is a reboot of the "1990 TV movie"
starring Harry Anderson, Richard
Thomas (John Boy/Frank Gaad) and Tim Curry as Pennywise. It no longer
matches
the book's timeline. It now takes place in 1989 instead of 1960. The kids
come together pretty much as in the first book (except the subterranean
gang-bang has been elided, so not really) to fight Pennywise. Jump scares
are
good; effects are good; locations are good; actors are pretty good. I took
away a star because I feel that I would have enjoyed it a bit less if it
wasn't a familiar story to me. Unlike the 1990 version and the book, they
didn't mix the past with the present at all. Chapter 1 has just the kids
and
the initial vanquishing. Chapter 2 is out now.
Barry S02 (2018) -- "8/10"
We pick up just past the end of season 1 finale, catching a glimpse of Barry
confronting Detective Janice Moss (Paula Newsome), but its just a part of
intro. Instead, we pick up a few days later, with a devastated Gene
Cousineau
(Henry Winkler) who's lost Janice. Barry rallies the school and Gene to
keep
going, giving up a story about Afghanistan to convince them that he's
serious
about acting.
The next day, everyone is telling fantastical and maudlin stories about
their
upbringing. Sally tells about how she's only getting shitty roles -- to
which
Cousineau replies that at least she's working (unlike anyone else in the
class). But Sally is focused on being the star she knows she is and still
can't talk about anything but being shafted. She whines that she only gets
"weak woman" roles, then says they don't fit because she's a strong,
independent woman. (A) She's wrong because she seeks support and
validation
everywhere, dropping anyone who helps as soon as she's gotten what she
wants
and (B) If she's such a great actress, then she shouldn't need roles that
match her personality.
Cousineau is so enthralled by the "realness" of Barry's confession that he
builds a show around it, ordering everyone to get real shit too (seemingly
also missing that they're supposed to be acting, not telling real
stories).
Fuches is on the run and Moss's former partner Loach (John Pirruccello) is
hot on his heels. He gets Fuches over a barrel and make him help catch
Barry.
Barry, though, turns Fuches away without revealing anything incriminating.
Fuches continues to meet up with Barry, half-trying to entrap him,
half-trying to keep the cop on his ass off of him. Sally is writing a
screenplay about her previous abusive marriage to Sam, then calls a friend
to
corroborate her confabulation and only hears what she wants to hear. Her
friend tells Sam about it and he shows up.
Barry fails to carry out the hit on Esther (Hank's Cambodian rival for
Cristobal's affections) and Hank decides he needs to kill Barry. The hit
is
laughably bad, taking place during the day, from an open rooftop, while
Barry
is at home with Sally, who's so self-absorbed that he doesn't even have to
work to cover up the fact that his apartment has bullet-holes in it.
Barry catches Hank and his super-shitty assassin but, instead of killing
them, he offers to square up by training Hank's army. This also goes
laughably poorly, but continues. Fuches tries not to entrap Barry, but
Barry
walks right into it anyway. Turns out Loach isn't interested in catching
Barry -- he wants to hire him to kill his wife's lover.
This hit goes spectacularly wrong: Loach's wife's lover is an pothead, but
he's also got a house full of Tae Kwan Do trophies and medals. Also, he's
tough as nails, nearly zombie-like. Also, he's trained his daughter
thoroughly -- she's like a feral karate-kicking mongoose when she arrives
and
discovers Barry's killed her father (or so they thought). It's a
spectacular
hit that goes all kinds of wrong, but ends up in so many details balanced
against one another to, once again, absolve Barry.
Barry ditches Fuches for good -- or at least he thinks he does. Fuches
finds
Moss's car and schemes to pin her murder on Cousineau, to make Barry
suffer.
Barry and Sally do a phenomenal scene together, with Barry doing much
better;
they both get auditions, but she turns her down for not being "artistic"
enough, whereas he deliberately tanks his because Fuches had called him
just
before. Barry will probably get the role because men are supposed to be
aloof. Sally gets an even bigger shot and changes her scene/story again --
becoming successful this time by lying about her "art".
Hank and his army escape from Esther's trap, thanks to Barry's training.
They
return to take over Esther's temple, but Cristobal and Esther track them
back
there. Fuches shows up and talks everyone down and into a truce. Hank
tells
Barry that "Fuches has fixed everything". Barry goes into a blind rage
and
cuts a near-total swath through the temple, taking out everyone except
Hank
and Fuches (who escapes).
It was a decent season and I like Hank and Barry. Fuches is decent, but
one-dimensional. Sally is a horror-show, a well-depicted caricature of a
terribly egocentric person but it's like enough already, we get it. I'm
not
sure that I'm invested in another season of Barry, to be honest.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel S01 (2017) -- "10/10"
Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) is an upper-west-side JAP married to a man
she met while at Bryn Mawr college (at a mixer, of course). They have two
kids, he works for his father, he's an aspiring comedian, she takes show
notes and care of everything else. He's cheating on her with his pinhead
secretary, he's an awful comedian with a thin skin and no prospects of his
own. He decides to leave her. He's gone through all of their finances and
his
father takes back the apartment. Her father is livid because he always
knew
the boy was useless, but he wants him back because his daughter needs a
man.
She reacts to his leaving by drinking a whole bottle of wine and heading
downtown to the comedy club and tearing a hole in the sky. She swears,
mimes
ball-tickling and shows of her bosoms. The police quickly show up to
arrest
her for profanity and public lewdness. This will be a show about the
stifling
mores of the time as well as the poor handling of communists and women.
The
proprietor of the coffee house, Susie (Alex Borstein) bails her out.
That night is Yom Kippur and the two families face off at dinner. Things
explode and Midge heads back downtown for another ribald, spontaneous set
and
another arrest. Susie gets her a famous civil-rights lawyer, who, after a
couple of hitches gets her off -- but she has to apologize. She bails out
Lenny Bruce and he returns the favor. They hang out at a jazz club and get
stoned with the band -- so stoned that Bruce can't go back on, so we get
to
see her third set, another wonderful off-the-cuff routine.
That's how things start for Mrs. Maisel, but they don't stay so rosy. Her
parents are unable to conceive of her as anything other than something to
care for and marry off. Moving back home regresses them to where they
treat
her like a 16-year-old girl. She needs her own money, she needs a job.
Joel tries to get her back (he asks) and she turns him down flatly. He
moves
in with Penny, to his parents' disapproval. Oh, they try; they all go to
dinner and all seem to be enjoying themselves, but both parents just. Say.
No. Joel, the whiner, the mealy-mouthed, spineless ass who thinks the
world
owes him something, is devastated. His father sponsors his new apartment
and
a better job. Thinks aren't that bad for Joel. There's only so far you can
fall when you come from money.
Midge gets a job as a perfume girl at a department store and keeps working
on
comedy at night. Her kids she leaves with her mother. That's going to end
well, I'm sure. She bombs a couple of times -- really stinks up the joint.
She has no material and her spontaneity dries up on her. She's got to find
the spark that lets her perform at her capacity without booze or drugs or
rage. She buys jokes from Wallace Shawn and it goes predictably
disastrously.
Susie is frustrated, as is Midge. Midge has no patience and no stomach for
failure -- no matter how temporary.
Susie and Midge blow up and Midge continues with her life without comedy
for
a bit. Susie eventually comes round to collect her apology and they start
up
again, this time working more patiently to get Midge a "tight ten". She
gets
it and gets a chance to work with an icon of the comedy stage Sophie
Lennon
(Jane Lynch), who plays a rough-hewn Queens housewife. She is not like
that
in real life, though. She is richer than Croesus. She takes to Midge, but,
though she remains unfailingly polite, it's clear that Midge doesn't think
that they will be best of friends.
Susie sets up a show at her club for Sophie Lennon's manager Harry Drake
(the
inestimable David Paymer) but Midge, being Midge, goes off-book and tears
into Sophie Lennon's foibles instead of doing her tight ten. Drake
scorches
the earth for her and Susie in New York. They still have a few dates at
super-shitty clubs (strip clubs) but Drake manages to squash those too. In
fact, he even gets the owner of the Gaslight to move Susie to the door and
forbid anyone from giving Midge stage time.
Midge misses Joel and they get back together for a night; she gives her
father hope that they will reconcile. Her mother can't know yet, until
it's
true.
Susie throws a Hail Mary and begs Lenny Bruce to play the Gaslight to help
Midge. He agrees because he, too, is the king of being blackballed. Bruce
introduces her and lets her open for him. Once again, she goes off-book,
ignoring her tight ten and tearing into Joel and his mistress instead.
Joel
is there and is deeply wounded because, really, that's his major
personality
trait: being thin-skinned and wounded and entitled, the wound being
ever-so-much deeper when a woman is the cause, because women are supposed
to
be meek and useful only in very narrow categories. Still, as he stumbles
away
from the club, he beats up a heckler who'd called her a bitch, muttering
"She's good, she's good".
Midge crushes it. Her first, drunken rant is growing huge in the
underground-record scene as "Mrs. X". Her boost from Bruce and her growing
underground fame and whether Joel will be able to take a second-banana
role
in their relationship will form the basis of the second season.
Highly recommended.
Tuca and Bertie S01 (2019) -- "6/10"
This is a story kind-of set in the Bojack universe (there are humans an
animals evenly mixed in society), but starring two best friends and birds,
Tuca (a Toucan, played by Tiffany Haddish) and Bertie (a thrush, voiced by
Ali Wong). It's a bit all over the place, about dating and relationships
and
sex ... and that's pretty much it. One main thread is that Tuca is a
recovering alcoholic.
The shows are all kind of the same: they either deal with Tuca's
alcoholism
and insecurity despite her ostentatiousness or with Bertie's insular
insecurity about everything. There are some good jokes, but it's just kind
of
OK. I probably won't finish the season.
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel S02 (2018) -- "10/10"
Rose (Midge's mother) has absconded to Paris. Midge and Abe go after her.
After an initially disastrous and doomed-to-fail attempt at ordering Rose
back to New York, Abe capitulates and spends the summer with her in Paris.
They enjoy themselves immensely and Rose eventually agrees to return to
New
York. To her delight, "vacation Abe" seems to have made the trip back from
Paris.
Midge gets a gig and makes it work to her advantage, despite the
multifarious
tides being against her. Joel has officially told Midge that he can't be
with
her because he can't be the butt of her jokes, but he knows she has to be
a
stand-up comic -- because he knows she's good. Instead, Joel goes to work
for
his father in the factory -- and learns that his father and mother are not
running the place well. He joins up for a longer stint to help them turn
it
around. He's still living at home.
Midge continues crushing it in the gigs she can get, but Harry Drake's
blackball is still smothering her career. Susie is still on the lam,
afraid
that Drake's goons are going to show up to "disappear" her.
The Weissmans head to the Catskills and it's glorious. Abe is a force of
nature; Rose is wonderful; the Catskilliness of it all is breathtaking.
Susie
joins her and tries to scare up a gig up there. Midge is set up with a
loner
doctor, who does his level best to disappoint her mother for her. He
succeeds
by "not rowing".
In the middle of a hair appointment, she gets a call that she's been
promoted
back to the Revlon counter. She heads to New York with the good doctor
(Benjamin). She riffs to the news radio and enchants him. They go to a
show,
they skip out on act 2, they see Lenny Bruce, they meet Lenny Bruce, it's
all
so wonderfully done. Midge confesses immediately to Benjamin that she's a
comedian. He's further enthralled.
Midge gets a gig in the Catskills and has her brother take her back. She
kills at her show, despite seeing her father in the audience, which causes
her to invent a ton of material based on him. He meets her and Susie after
the show and takes them back to the Steiner camp, where he is not happy.
He
orders Midge to keep it a secret from her mother -- only Abe can tell her
that her daughter is a comic.
Life goes on with Benjamin courting her and Abe resenting her. Her mother
is
also very suspicious. Joel is working too hard and his father tells him to
move on and do something else with his life. On Yom Kippur, Abe tells
Midge
to tell her mother that she's a stand-up comic. This throws Rose for a
major
loop and she focuses laser-like on getting Midge married to Benjamin,
though
her hopes are low because she can't imagine that Benjamin would put up
with
her predilection (although he's seen her work and loves it).
He asks Abe for her hand in marriage, but must wait for an answer. At
work,
Abe runs into trouble because of his son, who is in the CIA and has a much
higher security clearance than he does. At Columbia, he is asked to take a
sabbatical because he's getting on everyone's nerves. At Bell Labs, they
are
trying to kill his project and accusing him of having blabbed to Midge
about
his project. He did nothing of the kind -- and now he's pissed. He decides
to
abandon both Columbia and Bell Labs and get back to being rabble-rouser
Abe.
We see him meeting the civil-rights lawyer that defended Midge on her
first
charge.
Midge meanwhile, does a telethon, during which Sophie tries to torpedo her
career, but Midge of course saves it with a glorious performance. During
the
evening, she meets and charms Shy Baldwin with her disarming and even
style.
He sees her show and later asks her to tour America and Europe with her
for
six months. Susie, meanwhile, is invited to Sophie Lennon's house, where
she
expects to have to eat shit for having threatened her for torpedoing
Midge.
Instead, Sophie admires her Moxie and asks her to be her manager.
At the end of the season, Midge has accepted Shy's offer. Thinking that
Benjamin won't possibly accept a six-month wait (despite Abe having given
his
blessing), Midge runs back to Joel for one night before leaving for
Europe.
Susie doesn't know what to say about Sophie's offer.
Joker (2019) -- "10/10"
This is a fantastic and realistic super-villain origin story. It was
beautifully crafted with a great soundtrack.
[Hopelessness personified]
Think of the simplest object in your apartment that gives you joy. Arthur
Fleck didn’t have a single thing like that. His life was a misery at
home,
a dingy apartment filled with his mother’s madness and sadness.
When I got home from the movie, I dumped my remaining peanut M&M’s into
a
ceramic pumpkin. It made me think that Fleck didn’t have anything that
brought him any joy, not even a little bit. That ceramic pumpkin is a tiny
thread in the weft and woof of the fabric of my life. It’s there because
I
live with someone who decorates my home and, occasionally, puts candy into
a
seasonal ceramic container (in December, it’s a Santa Claus—head whose
hat comes off).
Fleck—and the people he represents—doesn’t have anything like this,
even in the tiniest details. Nothing. He got no joy from life, not for
lack
of trying. The world didn’t care. His home was a claustrophobic reminder
of
his sadness; the outside world was a tricksome trap alive with real danger
around every corner. I live a life of joyous wealth—I’m so used to it
that I often forget to count my blessings, to consider how many details
contribute to making it very easy for me to not be depressed. Fleck has
none
of this. He is a raw nerve, a book of matches waiting for a spark.
When life is good, it’s really good. When it’s not, everything sucks
and
everything that brings joy flees before your bad karma. When you live at
the
edges of society, the opportunities are not just few and far between, but
nonexistent.
[It's not what they say it is]
I’m so glad they managed to make it like they did, without conceding to
actual or perceived audience demands. I think that making this kind of
film
into a super-villain origin story allowed the writers to tell the story
with
less recrimination because they can claim that it was because he was
becoming
the Joker. The movie, though, is only tangentially related to comic books.
It’s not a comic-book movie in nearly in any way. [1]
People would have rather have their psychotics be appealing and charming.
To
cause a psychotic break like the Joker’s would take some violence. My
viewing partner had to swallow hard during Arthur's assault on the big
clown
guy in his apartment, but understood that it was necessary for the story.
Arthur was a really nice guy and then he...breaks. It has to be sudden and
sharp break with his previous reality in order for him to change from a
meek,
downtrodden man to the devil-may-care joker who "just wants to see the
world
burn" (to quote Heath Ledger's Joker of many years ago).
That there are people being paid big money at media organizations to
promulgate the idea that the movie exhorts incels and red-pillers just
proves
that ours is a society that will burn at the hands of a Joker sooner or
later. They didn’t understand the movie at all. It’s a warning that in
a
society as cruel and evil as ours, it is inevitable that an excrescence
like
the Joker will boil out of the offal bath of our morals. It’s not a
question of if, it’s when. In that much, Arthur was right.
[Dark Phoenix]
Arthur Fleck reminded me a bit of Phoenix's Freddie Quell in The Master.
The
heavy use of the unreliable narrator reminded me a bit of Elliot from Mr.
Robot. The director was subtle: he didn't make a meal out of young Bruce
Wayne sliding down the bat-pole on the playground. He just let it happen
and
moved on. Even that scene tried to show what an outside observer would
have
termed paedophilia -- -it wasn't; Fleck thought the boy was his brother.
Phoenix was amazing. Watching his broken body straighten and inhale with a
heretofore unknown confidence as he becomes. There were so many small
details: like his nails were mostly gone, a sign of a chronic nailbiter,
but
we never actually saw him bite them.
[Mother]
Fleck's relationship with his mother was not healthy -- for either of
them.
His mother had very clearly suffered a mental lapse from which she never
recovered. I'm almost certain that the adoption story was a lie. There is
no
way that Penny Fleck would have been allowed to adopt, if only for the
reason
that she would have been a single mother in the 60s. The child was hers
and
the father was almost certainly the odious Bruce Wayne, who was eager for
any
flimsy story to use as broom to sweep Penny under the carpet.
I've include more notes and the rest of the review in a "separate article"
.
Atlanta S02 (2019) -- "5/10"
Jesus, this season is so slow and morose. Everyone's stoned all the time,
including Darius, who isn't funny at all anymore. Earn is morose, waking
up
in his storage unit but finally making bank on Paperboi and his dog
investment, but then being rejected by the whole world and still treated
like
shit, even though now he has money and everything should have been
different.
It was deeply disturbingly ironic in the episode Money Bag Shawty, but
then
went completely off the rails in the next episode when Van returns with a
vengeance and a gigantic chip on her shoulder. Zazie Beetz speaks German
quite well. She speaks with another man right in front of Earn, making fun
of
him, then getting offended when he asks them to stop. More shitting on
Earn
("stuntin'").
That episode was so painful and the end of a very definite trend in this
direction that I would have stopped watching if I hadn't been on the
trainer.
As it was, I watched the first five minutes of the next episode
Barbershop,
where the barber treated Paperboi like garbage for five minutes and I shut
it
off. I get the point. People are assholes. They are absolute garbage.
Still,
I don't need to watch hours of them being assholes when there's stuff like
the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel to watch.
Atlanta got too depressing, slow and morose, pot-smoke-filled, filled with
ego-drived, self-centered and -pitying assholes. The first season was
good,
but this one's feeling like a slog. Maybe I'm missing a big payoff. Too
bad
for me.
Iliza Schlesinger (2019) -- "8/10"
This is Iliza's fourth special in as five years. She digs her material
primarily out of her life: in this one, she tells of her recent marriage.
She
mines some old veins from previous specials, but it's kind of fan service,
so
it's not too bad. She doesn't linger. She's very much in control and has
some
good jokes, though she's more narrative in style, with some physical
comedy
mixed in.
She's somewhat political in the sense that she strikes blows against the
current anaesthetisation of comedy by absolutely humorless scolds,
something
that her male colleagues are less able to do convincingly. That is,
they're
convincing, but it's great to hear a relativized view from a woman who's
never held back and who's always been fair in distributing her insults.
She
also discusses what she thinks women need to do to get real equality,
weaving
this all into the utter madness of what a modern American wedding entails.
At a few points, it felt more like a TED talk than a comedy show, but that
wasn't altogether a bad thing.
Le Mans 66: Gegen jede Chance (2019) -- "9/10"
This is the story of Ken Miles (Christian Bale) and Carroll Shelby (Matt
Damon). Miles was a British mechanic and racecar driver who came to fame
in
California as a man who could build fast cars and race them. He was a
perfect
match and foil for the American racecar driver Shelby, who'd won the
LeMans
in the late 50s but was retired from driving because of a heart condition.
He'd since started a racecar company that was teetering on the edge of
bankruptcy, similar to Miles's garage, which was repossessed by the bank
at
the beginning of the film.
Their reputations are well-known, but their success lies in the future.
Meanwhile, Ferrari is cleaning up one after another LeMans because they
focus
on perfection, making beautiful, fast cars rather than focusing on
mass-production.
Ford doesn't know how to make a racecar. Lee Iacocca (Jon Bernthal) comes
up
with the idea of buying Ferrari -- knowing that they're bankrupt. He flies
to
Italy, convinced that he'll pick up Ferrari, leaving them 90% of the race
company but picking up 90% of the main company. Ford would retain control
over the final say on whether Enzo Ferrari can go to LeMans or not. He
calls
off the deal at the eleventh hour with a masterful tirade of Italian
insults,
selling to Fiat instead -- a deal he'd already had cooking, but he wanted
to
drive up the price.
Ford returns to the States with its tail between its legs. The news pisses
off Henry II so badly that he swears he will beat Ferrari at the next
LeMans.
This is nice bombast, but he really knows nothing about running an
engineering company -- he's surrounded by marketers and wouldn't know true
quality if it ran him over.
Iacocca recruits Shelby, who takes Miles along. They start to refine a
prototype, but Ford goes back on its word to stay the hell out of it and
starts to overmanage and committee the car to death -- including switching
out the driver. The first year goes poorly and Jr.'s yes-man try to take a
dump on Shelby for it. Damon delivers a glorious tirade/speech and gets an
even stronger promise from Jr. to not interfere with Shelby's company's
efforts to build a race car for Ford.
Miles is back on the team and it goes a long time before the Ford yes-man
try
again to get rid of him. He wins Daytona and another famous race and is
poised to drive at Le Mans. He ends up getting on the team and drives to
victory. The victory is robbed at the end, on a technicality, but it's not
important to either Shelby or Miles. "You promised me the ride, not the
win."
The movie was subtle in many ways, utterly a non-American story. I'm
stunned
it made it out the door as-is after test audiences. Miles didn't win the
big
race, but he didn't care much. He and Shelby immediately started designing
the next car. Their focus was on the engineering, the science, the love of
racing. They were much more in the vein of Ferrari than that of the team
they
actually drove for. Miles doesn't even survive the movie: he dies on a
test
track the next year, before he can go to LeMans again.
Shelby is distraught and has nothing but contempt for his high-end
customers
who clamor of his cars and his attention. They think because they have
money,
they can have what they like. He misses his friend and a man he respected,
who deserved to drive his cars.
Bale, Bernthal and Damon ooze charisma and have definitely established a
good
group of 40+ leading men with real chops and star power. Highly
recommended.
Catch-22 (2019) -- "8/10"
This is 6-episode adaptation of the brilliant book by Joseph Heller about an
American air-support base on the island of Pianosa, Italy. It's a faithful
adaptation, depicting the utter absurdity not only of the military but of
bureaucracy and, ultimately, humanity.
The main narrator is Yossarian, a bomber who doesn't want to fly more
missions. He tries everything to be declared unfit for duty. If he doesn't
want to fly, then he's sane and fit for duty. If he does want to fly, then
he's crazy and doesn't have to fly. That's the catch-22. It's some catch.
His nemesis is Colonel Cathcart, who uses his men to get more numbers for
his
squadron, piling more and more missions on them. The best character in the
series -- as in the book -- is Milo Minderbinder, played brilliantly by
Daniel David Stewart. Milo inveigles his way into the role of mess chief,
then builds a commercial empire that leads to the establishment of M&M
Enterprises aka the syndicate.
It's directed by George Clooney, who makes a brief appearance at the
beginning, as base commander Scheisskopf in California. None of the other
faces are familiar, save for Hugh Laurie in a stint as Major de Coverley
(that, in the series, as in the book, is cut short when he goes to Bologna
in
what he thinks is conquered territory).
The rest of the faces are all too goddamned good-looking to be real. You
get
used to it, but they're all Hollywood bods. I mean, Orr's supposed to be
ugly, not down-home adorable/handsome. I liked this version: it was
well-made
and stuck to the original script quite well. There were only a few
anomolies:
tail-gunner Snowden showed up only in a flashback in the last episode
rather
than haunting Yossarian throughout (the explanation also came late in the
book, but Snowden was nowhere in the episodes before that).
My favorite episode was the one that featured Orr, Milo and Yossarian
flying
on missions for the syndicate. But all of the main threads are there:
Yossarian's bout of nakedness after Snowden dies, Nately's falling in love
with Clara, the prostitute and then dying before he can propose to her,
Orr's
meticulous planning and practice at being a crash pilot, Milo's absolute
magnificence at seeing that business trumps nations and war, Scheisskopf's
madness overwhelming even the evil of Korn and Cathcart. The way that
nearly
everyone but Yossarian and Milo are gone -- and Milo doesn't fly missions.
Orr is the only silver lining: he made it to Sweden. Yossarian has flown
more
missions than anyone else on Pianosa and is an accidental hero, with a
medal
but no clothes.
I still like the original movie with Alan Arkin, Bob Newhart, Anthony
Perkins, Jon Voight, Orson Welles, Bob Balaban, Normal Fell, Martin Sheen
and
Donald Sutherland better somehow, even though it wasn't as faithful to the
book.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=38392019-11-19T22:47:11+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1400
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of around 1400 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.
Rotten S02 E01 (2019) -- "8/10"
The first is about the rise of avocados in both California and Chile. The
avocado craze is driven partially by bizarre trends, but also by the
farmers
and larger companies who profit from it. With much more money in it, gangs
got involved in Mexico. Californian farmers are suffering because of the
changing climate -- but avocados never grew natively in California.
The farmers are upset that they no longer have enough water in the desert
to
grow their tropical fruits. The U.S.'s demand for avocados has grown -- as
has the world's. Now that there's so much money in it, not just gangs, but
large corporations, are involved. This naturally makes everything better.
And, once again, we're fighting about who has more right to grow a fruit
whose worldwide popularity is a marketing invention. It's not an easy
fruit
to grow, so places like Europe import the useless thing from far-off
countries like Mexico and Chile. An ecological nonsense.
Rotten S02 E02 (2019) -- "8/10"
This episode is about wine in France, particularly the Languedoc region,
which tries to innovate in wine-making and bring less-expensive wine to
more
consumers. There is a terrorist organization called CRAV in France that
torches vineyards that don't conform to their ideas of wine-making.
It's quite interesting and provides a lot of detail about how mass-market
wine is actually produced. Even though we still buy in bottles, 60-70% of
wine is "bulk" wine, which is produced in giant tanks, not casks. And it's
bottled in factories, not at the vintner's. Naturally, these wines aren't
necessarily worse -- they're definitely less expensive and more than good
enough for a table wine.
However, there is a lot of fraud, with more than a little wine
deliberately
mislabeled. One of the main people they interview is this bad-ass
bulk-wine
grower who gets interviewed in his sex club. There are a lot of other
people
with completely fucked-up views on globalization: that the French vintners
should stop trying to preserve their ways because it's hopeless in an
"open"
and "free market" world built by globalized companies. That the French are
in
competition with Spanish wine labeled as French wine is just how business
is
done. One lady says that the French shouldn't be against the Spanish, but
against the Chinese, who are the real danger. Lovely.
There seems to be no room anymore for just keeping a business
non-globalized.
It all has to grow or compete against international and giant companies
with
deep pockets, able to strangle you until you go out of business. That's
how
it is. If people don't want what you're selling because it's temporarily
slightly more expensive, then you'll be steamrolled out of the way. Get
with
the program and stop whining. And once it's not profitable anymore, the
big
companies move on, leaving the market open, but with no business left to
fill
it.
The final segment is about the growth of Chinese wines and the many women
involved in the business side. There are some French who are working with
the
Chinese, though, and see opportunity rather than enemies. In the end, the
local people will lose out, I think. That they identify with their land,
with
their towns, won't matter. They're not great people, but neither will they
ever be given the chance to be left alone. Their livelihood will be
eradicated and they'll be on the dole and called lazy. The circle of life.
Saw it in French, English and Chinese (no idea if Cantonese or Mandarin)
with
English subtitles.
Rotten S02 E03 (2019) -- "8/10"
This episode is about water supplies: in the States, the bottled-water mania
that has largely replaced tap water. In places like Nigeria, water is a
rare
commodity that has already created markets for bottled water while public
systems are deliberately neglected because it only affects the poor.
These people spend most of their lives just trying to get clean water,
often
walking hours per day, sometimes crossing large highways. Lagos is a
nightmarish city of plastic garbage (90% of its trash just sits in the
streets and floats on dirty streams to the oceans). It's nice to see that
western companies see profit in it, by selling bottled water in plastic
bottles to them. Instead of letting public water succeed, money is only
invested if money comes back out. There is no notion of water as a human
right (even though it's enshrined as such in the UN Declaration of Human
Rights). Companies have convinced people that tap water is dangerous.
Even back in the States, where there is a huge infrastructure for public
water, propaganda has convinced people not to drink it. It's almost free,
more efficient and better than bottled water, but they're losing. This is
our
system. This is the cliff from which we are leaping. Are these people not
at
all worried that they're being manipulated into hating tap water by the
companies who want to sell them bottled water? The bottled-water companies
actually end up selling them tap water in a bottle at a 4000% markup
anyway.
The final ten minutes convinces you of nothing else than that people are
fucking idiots.
Rotten S02 E04 (2019) -- "8/10"
This episode is about sugar. To harvest sugarcane, you burn the fields, then
harvest the cane left over. You can keep the fields producing for 7-8
years,
if you do it right. A worker is paid $2 per ton; the farmer makes $35 per
ton
from the processing plant. The cane is ground up to get the cane juice out
and separate the impurities, then they add crystals to start the
crystallisation process, after which they dry it and get the white sugar
we
all know.
Mexico produces a lot of sugar and they have their eye on the US market.
It's
not a free market, though. It's tightly controlled and the U.S. government
buys or sells sugar to keep the price stable (and much higher than in the
rest of the world). Naturally, it's not enough to make a ton of money in a
fixed market -- most of the companies are monopolies and don't pay their
workers, even after summary judgments. There are really only a couple of
families from the States who own everything (including the workers, who
are
basically on slave plantations trapped in their small enclaves). In
particular, giant U.S.-owned plantations in the Dominican Republic use a
lot
of Haitian workers who essentially have no rights.
One Dominican activist has gotten pensions for older employees -- so many
have been working for over four decades -- but not from the Central Romana
farm (owned by the U.S. family). Specifically, the empire founded by
Alfonso
Fanjul, who came from Cuba and took advantage of the draining of the
northern
Everglades. He and his family exert a tremendous influence to avoid paying
taxes and to simultaneously make the taxpayer pay for cleaning up his
company's messes.
When the Army Corps of Engineers converted the norther Everglades, it
diverted the freshwater from the rest of the Everglades, which spiked the
salinity levels everywhere else, killing sea grass and scattering or
starving
all of the biota that depended on it. Fixing this mistake has a solution,
but
the sugar companies are against it. And the sugar companies get their way.
Saw it in English and Spanish with English subtitles.
Rotten S02 E05 (2019) -- "8/10"
This episode is about chocolate. Each cacao tree bears about 30 pods per
year, which makes about a kilogram of chocolate. One pod contains 40
seeds,
in a sticky pulp. You leave this all out on the forest floor for 6-7 days,
to
ferment. This bonds the pulp to the beans and makes it possible to make
the
chocolate that we know. Then you dry the coated beans in the sun.
Though Switzerland and Belgium are known for their chocolate, Ghana and
Côte
D'Ivoire are nearly the sole providers of cacao. Cöte D'Ivoire accounts
for
40% of world production and cacao is 2/3 of their GDP. But they don't
control
the price: New York markets do. They have the resource everyone wants, but
somehow they're enslaved to the west. Economic colonialism. They live on
medieval farms, using the same techniques as 100 years ago. There's no
incentive to upgrade when you just have so many slaves. As with cane
sugar,
This is chocolate's dark secret, but as someone says in the movie, "no-one
knows how to fix it." That is, no-one is willing to give up their
ludicrous
profits. The industry makes over 100 billion dollars per year. The farmers
are in squalor; their countries among the poorest in the world. The
average
farmer makes less than a dollar per day (less than a living wage).
Despite this, the demand for chocolate drives farmers to use not only
their
own children on plantations (OK) but importing other children as
child/slave
labor on their plantations (not OK). With space at a premium, farmers
started
burning down protected forests and planting cacao trees. The Ivory Coast
has
lost 85% of its forests in the last 30 years because of this practice.
Chocolate is a pyramid scheme that depends on screwing the farmers that
harvest cacao. There are so many layers of middlemen that the poorest are
forced to sell at below-market rates -- and sometimes aren't ever paid at
all. Some haven't been paid in years. They have no choice but to keep
working, to keep trying. Even for the middlemen, it's very dangerous. It's
a
cash economy...and everyone knows that they just got paid and are walking
around with several-years worth of wages in their pockets. Kidnapping and
murder are not uncommon.
The final stage is to deliver the beans to warehouses, where they are
sorted,
settled, dusted and re-bagged for export. After that, the bags are loaded
onto pallets, in containers and on giant container ships, sometimes
hundreds
of thousands of tons. At this point, it's the cocoa traders who have the
most
power. There are about 10 cocoa traders who control everything (the top 3
are
Barry Callebaut, Cargill, Olam). No-one else in the chain has a say in the
price that they will accept for their goods. In the 1970s, the price
peaked
at $5,700 per ton. Now it's 1/3 of that.
With such wild fluctuations, there's naturally a lot of speculation, fraud
and wild trading going on. They discuss one company that was family-owned
but
wiped itself out with fraudulent speculation (selling beans they didn't
have
and couldn't get; they couldn't cover). I'm honestly not sure what they
expected us to think of that family: they're fraudsters who gambled big
and
lost. Boo hoo.
Even though the beans cost a lot less now, chocolate prices to the
consumer
didn't change. Instead, the chocolate industry made $5 billion profit in
one
year alone.
One company, Tony Chocolonely teamed up with Barry Callebaut to produce
end-to-end really fair chocolate (including paying farmers far more than
the
"market" price). They plan on making chocolate sustainable by 2025. They
have
a lot of clout, but it's still unclear whether they will achieve their
goal.
The Côte D'Ivoire is trying to turn things around on their end, as well,
by
keeping more of the money inland. There seem to be some decent people
involved (in particular the lawyer from New York...didn't catch his name).
Time to stop eating chocolate, too?
Saw it in English and French with subtitles.
Barry S01 (2018) -- "8/10"
This series is about Barry Berkman (Bill Hader), a former Marine back in the
U.S. He works as an assassin with Fuches (Stephen Root), shipping around
the
country, doing as he's told. Fuches is an abusive handler; he clearly has
some sort of dirt on Barry -- some sort of leverage -- because Barry
splits
the proceeds 50/50 with Fuches, which seems wildly unfair, considering he
does all of the work (except procurement).
Fuches sends Barry on a mission to LA, where he has a crisis of conscience
and decides that he wants to be an actor -- after bungling a hit on an
actor
at an actor's studio, run by Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler). He was
supposed
to do the hit for a Chechan mob family, but they put out a hit on him,
too,
when they thought he was bungling it. He takes them out and somehow ends
up
working for them again.
He meets the phenomenally shallow Sally (Sarah Goldberg), who seduces him,
then drops him like a hot rock when she realizes that he might not be
interested in talking about her all of the time. All along, he's still
doing
jobs for Fuches and Goran (Glenn Fleshler) and Noho Hank (Anthony
Carrigan),
who's one of the best things about this show.
Basically, Barry's trying to become an actor and trying to get out of
being a
hitman. He's thwarted at every turn -- most recently by an old Marine
buddy
of his and two others that get dragged in as well. Everything goes tits-up
and he ends up killing his friend, to keep him from ratting him out.
Things wrap up pretty well at the end of the first season, with Barry
dumping
Fuches, Barry wiping out Goran and co., leaving NoHo Hank to take over the
Chechan mob and team up with the Bolivians. At the end of the season, the
police chief has a press conference in which he sums up the season
completely
incorrectly, but compares it to the film Yojimbo (in which two warring
gangs
decimated each other).
On the acting side, Sally continues to be devastatingly non-aware of her
own
shallowness and Barry continues to not notice or care. Bill Hader's
writing
is quite good; his acting as well. Man, is he evil to California and
Hollywood hopefuls (in the form of Sally).
GLOW S02 (2019) -- "9/10"
We find the ladies having won the right to a season of television, but things
are not so easy.
Sam the director (Marc Maron) is a miserable shit who sees enemies
everywhere, especially in Ruth/Zoya (Alison Brie). Debbie/Liberty Bell
(Betty
Gilpin) is struggling with being a producer and a single mom and
self-centered. Welfare Queen/Tammé Dawson (Kia Stevens) struggles with
the
deeply racist character she portrays. Shiela the She-wolf (Gayle Rankin)
struggles with unexpected popularity and attention from rabid fans. Cherry
Bang (Sydelle Noel) is in danger of losing her leading role in her own
series
and comes back to GLOW, a demotion, but better than not working.
Ruth gets propositioned by the head of the network and runs away when he's
in
the bathroom. For this, Debbie yells at her, telling her that that's how
Hollywood works, that you have to play along -- not sleep with him, but
make
him think you would if you could but you can't -- finishing with "the one
time you can't keep your legs shut, you screw us all."
The show is moved to the 2AM time slot, ostensibly because male wrestlers
are
more powerful and interesting, but really because Ruth refused to sleep
with
the owner of the network. The ladies buckle down and step up their game
and
put on a tremendous show, but it ends with Liberty Bell snapping Zoya's
ankle
accidentally on purpose in a drunken/coked-out haze.
The whole gang goes with Ruth to the hospital where she's diagnosed with a
fracture and has a screaming match with Debbie/Liberty Bell, airing a lot
of
laundry. Sam tells Ruth that he needs her and they go for broke and make a
complete variety show, with music videos, a storyline with real acting,
and,
of course, wrestling.
Then Sam's baby mama shows up to take Justine back, but she lets her go to
her prom that she's just attending ironically. She doesn't want to go back
and threatens to run away to New York with Billy (her punker boyfriend).
Sam
pulls her back from the precipice, then has a nice dance with Ruth before
she
leaves in a rush.
Bash and Debbie are at a convention, drumming up investors with an awesome
whisper campaign that ends up with them inviting several to a live taping
of
the final show. Brittanica needs to get married to stay in the country, so
the show centers around her marrying a fan for a green card. Bash's lover
dies of AIDS and he's devastated...to distract himself, he jumps in and
marries Brittanica instead.
The TV channel has the television rights to their characters, so none of
the
other producers can pick up the show. Instead, the local strip-club owner
who
knows Sam (he's a customer and they both chaperoned Justine's prom) says
he
thinks he can take their show to Vegas instead.
Rotten S02 E06 (2019) -- "8/10"
This episode is about marijuana edibles. It starts in the States, with the
new market for edibles taking off -- but the dosing is unpredictable and
conflicting or overly restrictive laws prevent vendors from improving the
quality and predictability of the product.
Smoking is on the way out, obviously, because of lung damage. But ingested
THC takes long to have an effect, but is then a more intense high with a
longer duration. Ingested means that the extraction of toxins is up to the
liver -- so, better for the lungs, but not as great for the liver.
Most local laws (e.g. in Holland and also in Switzerland) allow selling,
but
not wholesale or even mass-retail production. People should basically be
growing their own instead of industrializing. However, THC is an
acknowledged
medication, so production with proper dosing is paramount. There is not
enough medical research on the exact efficacy of marijuana for medical
purposes, but anecdotally (and also in some studies), it seems to work on
suppressing nausea and promoting appetite.
Now we switch back to the States, which even Holland looks to as the home
of
the "Green Rush". They interview a lady who says that the normal dose is
10-30mg of THC per day and some products have up to 1000mg in them. People
generally dose too high -- just like alcohol, no? They're talking about
"taking too much" like nobody's ever heard of overdoing it at the bar with
shots. Now that THC products are getting so powerful -- and edibles allow
ingesting much more at once -- potheads are finally getting hangovers.
Schottrundi!
Then there's all of the horror stories of how people have fallen to their
deaths or shot themselves while super-high on edibles. Compared to
alcohol,
an absolute drop in the bucket.
In the States, it's legal for medical use in 33 states, legal for
recreation
in 10 states and not legal at all at the federal level. It makes it even
hard
to do lab-testing to verify potency and labeling. With so many conflicting
laws, there's room to cheat and falsify everywhere: with labs being paid
by
vendors, there's an incentive to misrepresent potency to yield a more
valuable product.
Then there's the delivery method: in Holland and in America, an edible is
almost always candy or chocolate or cakes. This raises the issue
immediately
about luring children into taking drugs. One doctor said she doesn't
understand how you can't put Joe Camel on a pack of cigarettes, but it's
perfectly legal to sell gummy bears with drugs in them. An excellent
point.
CBD usage is also on the rise. It's credited with curing pretty much
everything, but there's literally no scientific evidence to back it up.
CBD
is extracted from hemp and has no psychoactive effect. The effective dose
is
apparently about 300-600mg per day, but most products are dosed much
lower,
at around 30mg. As with THC, there is a ton of leeway and room for
cheating
and fraud. You don't know what you're taking because there's no
regulation,
no testing and no agency in charge of it.
As in Holland, the US also has problems with extracts: it's basically
illegal
to make them, despite the improved and more-accurate dosing. Also, with
THC
being legal only in some states, there's the problem of inter-state
export.
Up to 80% of Oregon's crop is liquified into extracts and exported to the
East Coast, where it's not yet been legalized in many states.
In the States, it's kind of a Wild West: companies doing an unregulated
and
half-assed job of making the transition from illegal drug-dealing to
scaling
up to a legal industrial-level organization. But there are no tests, no
guarantee of cleanliness (they wear snoods for hair and beards, but it's
not
required).
Saw it in English and Dutch with English subtitles.
1922 (2018) -- "8/10"
Thomas Jane stars as Wilfred James, a smallholding farmer with 80 acres in
Hemingford Home, Nebraska. He lives with wife Arlette and his son Henry.
Arlette's father has just died and she's inherited his 100 acres. She sees
the opportunity to sell the depressing farm that she hates and move to
Omaha
to open a dress shop. Wilfred and Henry wonder what they would do in the
city.
Wilfred has grown to hate his wife and her spitefulness and he works to
turn
her son against her. Wilford pretends to give in to Arlette and let her
throw
a party. She gets very drunk and he carries her upstairs to her bed, where
she passes out. Wilford and Henry cut her throat and let her bleed out.
They
dump her in the dry well behind the house.
Henry is consumed with guilt while Wilford is ... not. However, strange
things start to happen -- whether in Wilford's head or for real. There are
rats in the well, feasting on Arlette. Wilford finds them in the barn,
chewing the cow's udders, having come in through a drainpipe that leads to
the old well. Wilford throws a cow down the well as an excuse to fill it
in
and throw the police off of his scent.
Henry and Shannon get pregnant, but Wilford and her father forbid it,
sending
her to a home for wayward girls to have the child. Henry runs away to
become
a thief and takes Shannon on the road to become the Sweetheart Bandits.
Wilford learns all of this from his wife, who visits him as a corpse and,
instead of killing him, whispers the stores in his ear. He'd been bitten
in
the hand by a rat a while before and the festering wound may have led to
delirium...or perhaps it was real. At any rate, Wilford loses the hand. He
can no longer run his farm, so he tries to sell it to Shannon's father,
who
wants nothing to do with him (his daughter is dead and his wife has left
him). He is forced to sell to the pig farmers who would have sold much
more
dearly to Arlette, originally.
Wilford ends up working in Omaha at shit jobs, leaving each when the rats
find him again. He ends up in a hotel, writing his confession -- where we
first met him at the beginning of the film. The rats make it through the
walls.
GLOW S03 (2019) -- "8/10"
The start of the ladies' Vegas show is overshadowed by the Challenger
disaster. Cherry goes back and forth on whether she really wants a baby.
She
also tries to get her ladies in better shape with showgirl dance classes.
Debbie goes through a body-shame crisis while Ruth ... doesn't. But Ruth
and
Sam have some stuff to work out. Sam and Bash play tennis and Sam starts
to
wonder about his own health. Bash and Brittanica get their wheels under
them
as a couple. Justine is getting her movie made and she gets Sam signed on
as
director -- and he puts off celebrating while he hides a heart attack from
her.
Cut to a few months later and Cherry has a gambling problem, but solves it
(feeling like a network series a bit there), the ladies go camping and are
the worst campers ever. Melrose and Fortune Cookie have a shitty-story
showdown where the Jewess has her "my grandfather can't buy a house
without a
basement or an attic" positively bitch-slapped by Fortune Cookie's "I lost
everyone in my family but my uncle when we barely escaped Cambodia's
Killing
Fields".
Justine and Sam are making her movie and ask Ruth to try out for a part,
but
then go with someone else. Although Ruth had professed her love for Sam,
she
now is so conflicted that she can't even, which only goes to show that you
just cannot date the arts. Too much crazy, really. Ruth's whole being is
wrapped up with being an actress which is why she also turns down Debbie's
offer to direct her new wrestling show on Bash's TV network that he bought
in
a deal that Debbie stole out from under her wonderful, but ultimately
condescending boyfriend (a relationship whose earth is positively
scorched).
Carmen (Machu Piccu) is off to wrestle with her brother on the road,
Yolanda
is a pre-version of an SJW who's got such a huge chip on her shoulder
about
everyone constantly failing her purity tests that it's a wonder she
doesn't
walk around in a tight circle. Beirut comes out officially as a lesbian,
to
no-one's surprise. Sheila doffs the wolf costume and turns out to be an
amazing actress, capable of memorizing and delivering entire plays.
There are some lovely musical numbers and some horrific homophobia (it's
1986) in the last couple of shows. Oh, and Bash kind of comes out to
Brittanica when he ends up making out/fucking the gigolo that she'd hired
to
make him jealous. He tries to jump right back into the closet though, with
mixed results. He confesses to Debbie and they become partners on the
aforementioned TV station that will be the set of season 4.
Debbie grew in this season; Ruth didn't -- kind of a lateral move, but
that
might be her story; Sam was mostly stable, less dickish; Bash grew in
power,
but diminished personally. A decent season.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=38382019-11-11T22:42:07+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1400
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of around 1400 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.
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019) -- "9/10"
This is a wonderful coda to Breaking Bad, with Aaron Paul reprising his
role
as Jesse. This is a different Jesse, one who's been tortured, kept in a
cage,
just so that he can continue to cook meth. We see his escape in Todd's
(Jesse
Plemons) El Camino and then see the rest as flashbacks. Jesse's first stop
is
at the house of his two old buddies, who are still extremely loyal and
nearly
ridiculously nice. They help Jesse shake the cops, sacrificing themselves
for
him.
Jesse goes back to Todd's apartment after it's been blocked off as a crime
scene and tosses the house to find Todd's stash. He eventually finds it in
the refrigerator door, but is interrupted by two other guys posing as cops
who are looking for Todd's stash. Jesse is forced to share with them and
walks away with only a third.
Jesse's trying to start a new life and he turns again to the same guy who
was
supposed to help him get out the last time (Ed, played by Robert Forster).
Ed
is not happy that Jesse bailed on him last time and still wants his money.
So
when Jesse shows up with a bag full of money, he's a few thousand shy (of
the
total of $250,000). Ed will not be moved. Jesse is forced to leave.
We see throughout the flashbacks how Jesse constantly gets into worse
trouble
because of his refusal to commit violence, refusal to use his gun, refusal
to
kill.
He finds where the other two guys are holed up and waits until they're
alone,
then storms into their office to ask them for a few thousand more. Just a
few
thousand, then he's out of their hair. They can't believe their ears and
one
of them, sensing weakness, proposes a good, old-fashioned shootout, mano a
mano.
Jesse wins and kills the two dudes, cowing the other three friends who are
there. He takes the rest of the money and leaves -- finally having chosen
himself instead of sparing some other idiot's life. In the final scene, we
see him with Ed in Alaska somewhere, going off to his new life.
Recommended in general, but highly recommended for fans of Breaking Bad.
American Gods S02 (2019) -- "9/10"
This season is just as visually stunning as season 1, if not more so. The
story of the war of the Gods continues. Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle) is
still
at the center of the action. His character grows in an interesting
direction,
getting more of a backbone the more he sees the treachery of the Gods.
We see a lot more of Mad Sweeney than in the book, but he's played
wonderfully by Pablo Schreiber and is integrated well into the main
plotline.
"Dead Wife" (Emily Browning) still rubs me all kinds of the wrong way --
her
unearned confidence is like a jarring note in the well-tuned orchestra of
the
other characters. This is possibly deliberate, but I'm never happy to see
her
show up.
The other characters are back, Crispin Glover as new God Mr. World, Bruce
Langley with an expanded role as Technical Boy, the always-excellent
Orlando
Jones as Mr. Nancy, and, of course, Ian McShane as Mr. Wednesday.
More and more, though, the stories, the fables, the legends, these define
the
style of the show. It's an absolutely beautiful show, with wonderful
music,
that takes its time with scenes only tangentially connected to the main
storyline. This is what makes a show good, even legendary. It's not afraid
to
tell its story the way it wants, in a highbrow and cinematically lovely
way,
without worrying about whether bingers are going to like it or
fast-forward
through it.
I'm glad they made season two and am excited to hear that the story
continues
in season 3 (filming September 2019) and even a season 4 (currently being
written by Gaiman et. al.)
Emily Heller: Ice Thickeners (2019) -- 8/10
I'd never heard of her before YouTube tossed up her special like video
flotsam from the depths of the content ocean. I was very pleasantly
surprised: her material is very naturally presented, not really
self-deprecating but honest. Not unexpectedly, she talks about female
issues:
empowerment, therapy, diets, fat-shaming, working out, etc. Somehow, she's
very funny where so many others are preachy. She's pretty awesome,
actually
-- doesn't give up humor for preaching/shaming. You can watch the video
below.
[media]
Bojack Horseman S06 (2019) -- "9/10"
The first half of the final season of this fantastic series sees Bojack in
rehab. He's so afraid of leaving rehab that he re-ups four times, driving
his
therapist (Champ, voiced by Sam Richardson, or Richard Splett from Veep)
mad
because he's heard all of Bojack's stories several times.
Princess Caroline is raising her hedgehog kid, with Todd's help, although
Todd (Aaron Paul) is still CEO at WhatTimeIsIt?.com and working on his
dating
app for asexuals.
Diane is going through her own journey, working for Sploosh as a
hard-hitting
journalist whose asked to be a lot less hard-hitting when Sploosh is
acquired
by a larger company, the White Whale Corp. (or something like that). She
ends
up moving in with her cameraman, Guy (LaKeith Stanfield), who tries to be
a
stable rock for her, but can't prevent her from going back into
depression.
Mr. Peanutbutter confesses to his fiancé Pickles that he cheated on her
with
Diane. They both agree that the only way to continue their relationship is
to
let her cheat on him with someone equally meaningful to her.
With Bojack traveling the country, visiting friends and family, Mr.
Peanutbutter touring the country as the "face of depression" (highly
ironic),
we focus on Hollyhock, who's growing up and going out in New York. Also,
reporters have finally started digging into the circumstances surrounding
Sarah Lynn's death (Bojack's former co-star, with whom he went on a wild
bender just before she died a few seasons ago).
Orange is the New Black S07 (2019) -- "10/10"
It was nice to see that the final season was the strongest one. Though the
whole run has been about the drawbacks, unfairness and ugliness of the
American prison system, it feels like they finally took the kid gloves off
for the final season.
At the end of one of the previous seasons, many of the inmates had been
scattered to the winds, to other prisons. We see that at least a few ended
up
in an ICE detainment center. Some of the ladies (Nicky, Gloria, Flaca,
Red,
Lorna) from Litchfield are sent there as cheap labor to work in the
kitchen.
We see the unfairness of a system that has everything to do with
incarceration and punishment for having dared to transgress the sacred
borders of the United States and nothing to do with justice or fairness or
compassion.
Maritza ends up being deported "back" to Colombia, a country she's never
visited. Blanca hangs on to finally get justice and is one of the few
success
stories: she ends up going to Honduras to be with Angel, her husband,
who'd
been deported in a sweep.
Meanwhile, Red is in the early-to-mid stages of dementia exacerbated by a
long stretch in solitary confinement (aging prison population), Lorna
can't
handle that her child died (mental illness), Tasty is going back and forth
on
whether to kill herself because of her unjust sentencing for the riot
(depression), Cindy is dealing with life on the outside, eventually as an
itinerant/homeless person whose family doesn't want to accept her back,
Piper
is dealing with being on parole -- the piss tests, the difficult
employment,
the shaming, the judgment -- and trying to figure out her relationship
with
Vause, who's been once again forced into smuggling contraband for
McCullogh,
the least evil of the guards (and with whom she semi-starts a romantic
relationship).
Suzanne stays Suzanne, for the most part, growing a bit and mourning the
loss
of her friend Pensatucky, who OD'd after she thought she'd been cheated
out
of her GED by a world that had proven itself to, once again, be callous
and
uncaring. The other guards are a mixed bag, with Dixon ending up being the
nicest and Hellman the absolute worst (promoted to warden, at the end).
Luschek redeems himself, in the end, but only after fucking things up
royally.
Caputo and Fig have a decent story arc and end up being decent human
beings,
trying to make their way through a broken system. In the end, this season
is
a damning condemnation of the U.S. prison system and general attitude
toward
the poor, racial minorities, immigrants and anyone who isn't rich and
white.
They didn't hit it too hard -- just right, I think. It felt more like a
richly imagined documentary, at times. It's possible that things are
better
than this, but everything you read in the news points to things being far,
far worse.
Atlanta S01 (2016) -- "8/10"
Donald Glover wrote, directed and stars in this series about the life of
Earn, a young guy down on his luck and looking for a break in Atlanta. He
has
a daughter with Van (Zazie Beetz), but he's technically homeless. So he
crashes with Van, when he can, or with his Cousin Paperboi, an aspiring
rapper. Earn convinces Paperboi to let him manage him and, together with
Darius (Lakeith Stanfield), they slowly start to put some money together,
though not much, and not consistently.
It's an interesting vibe, with a lot of "skits" (for lack of a better
word)
about racism, basically. There's one where Darius goes to a shooting range
with a poster of a dog. He's drummed out of the range for being a madman
because he's shooting dogs instead of people. There's another where Earn
is
mistaken for another black man by a clueless white woman/agent. In
another,
Van and Earn visit her mother (I think?) whose white husband is so much
"for
the black people" that he's an embarrassment. Another episode deals with
the
stupidity/shallowness of the club scene. Another deals with social-media
stars who coattail on Paperboi to make their own "paper". These are quite
nuanced takes.
My favorite was the one where Darius helped Earn make more money. They
started by selling Earn's smartphone. In this first pawn shop, Darius asks
Earn whether he needs the money that day or whether he wants to make more
money. Earn hears and instead. So Darius tells him to trade for a kitana
sword instead. They take it to friends of his and trade up again, this
time
for a Cane Corso. One stop later and they drop the dog off at another
friend's -- this one way out in the countryside. Earn is growing more
agitated and wonders when he's going to get his money. "September", says
Darius. "[I] needed that money. Not in September. But ... today. You see,
I'm
poor, Darius. And poor people don't have time for investments. Because
poor
people are too busy trying not be poor. I need to eat today, not in
September." Darius gives him his smartphone, claiming he gets a new one
every
month anyway, so "people can't track [him]".
It's a well-written show with great actors. Recommended.
The Kominsky Method S02 (2019) -- "9/10"
The second season is almost as strong as the first one. We see Norman
(Alan
Arkin) start to put out feelers into the dating world, with Madeleine
(Jane
Seymour). His daughter gets out of rehab and seems to be putting her life
back together and Norman must learn how to forgive her and believe in her
once again.
Sandy (Michael Douglas) picks up where he left off, reconnecting with Lisa
(Nancy Travis), at first platonically, then, once again, with benefits.
His
daughter Mindy (Sarah Baker) moves in with the much older Martin (Paul
Reiser), a retired schoolteacher, whom Sandy at first mistrusts, but then
befriends. After Martin has a heart attack and has bypass surgery, Lisa
asks
Sandy to see a doctor, after which he is diagnosed with lung cancer. They
caught it early and he starts immunotherapy treatments.
Mindy, as the owner of Kominsky's studio, starts brining in other actors
to
support Sandy -- something he doesn't take well at all. However, the drug
regimen he's on brings out the worst in him and he's starting to rub his
students the wrong way. Norman considers grooming his grandson to take
over
his business -- after seeing what a terrific salesman he is when he tries
to
convert Norman to Scientology (which he'd actually quit himself, and from
which he'd stolen 1.3 million dollars).
The season ends with the two old fogies drinking scotch on Norman's
terrace,
just like the end of the first season, a little further down life's road
and
slightly more the worse for wear. Still highly recommended.
Queer Eye S04 (2019) -- "7/10"
I gave it only a seven out of ten because the formula that they use
necessitates repetition. Any individual show is an 8-to-9, but a whole
season
of them runs together and gets a little boring. It's definitely not binge
material, but, it's nice filler, reliable, but doesn't really knock your
socks off.
They find pretty pleasant people on which to express their largess in the
form of a truly staggering amount of money in the form of clothes and a
complete home-remodeling. The five guys are still really good, working
well
together.
Poor Bobby still does the lion's share of the work, redecorating an entire
home while Anthony spends one afternoon in a kitchen, Tan goes shopping
for a
day, and Jonathan cuts hair and, if available, beard. Granted, Tan has to
fill the whole closet and Karamo has to find fun things to do, but Bobby's
slaving away no matter where the others are. It's still an uplifting show
about generally nice people.
Katherine Ryan: Glitter Room (2019) -- "9/10"
Ryan is very, very funny and very clever. She grew up in Canada and moved
to
England, where she lives the single-mom life with her daughter, Violet. A
lot
of her act centers on being a single mom, the judgment she gets from other
mothers ("Jane's on my dick all the time"), how everyone seems to think
that
she's missing a man in her life, and how fancy and proper her daughter is
(who, she purports, uses words that her Mom has to look up on Google).
Highly
recommended.
Seth Meyers: Lobby Baby (2019) -- "9/10"
Meyers delivered a consummate, tight set that ranged from some low-key intro
material about his job as a late-night host, then into the meat of the
show:
talking about his wife (OCD prosecutor), his marriage, his children and
their
births. Don't be scared off, though: it's very good material.
Not only that, but he reaps it twice: once when he tells the joke and
then,
later, when he's pretending to be his wife telling her side of things.
This
is a really nice trick and it goes on for more than five minutes. He
revisits
many of the jokes he told and explains them from her perspective. At one
point, he plays her playing him playing Sherlock Holmes. It was a very
clever
way of providing a unique second perspective on all of his jokes about his
family and a different way of being self-deprecating.
About 3/4 of the way through, he goes into his first political material.
It's
also very good and he introduces this section with a "Skip Politics"
button.
This is 100% legit. It is a "safe space" button for thin-skinned MAGAs. He
does about ten minutes of top-notch political material, then finishes by
pausing and then saying: "So my point is I guess I misjudged him and I
think
he's a very good president." If you press "Skip Politics", you're taken to
exactly that moment. Again, smooth, very smooth.
I thought his best political joke was when he compared being a comedian
during the Trump presidency to being a gravedigger in the Middle Ages.
He finishes the segment about his wife by saying that as long as he can
enjoy
turning around a single coat-hanger in his OCD wife's closet and then
waiting
until her "Spidey Sense" goes off, he'll be happy in his marriage. He
finishes the segment playing his wife talking about him saying that as
long
as she can enjoy making her husband scan the fridge, bathed in blue light,
for a yogurt that isn't there because he's too afraid to ask her again,
she'll be happy in her marriage.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=37992019-11-10T23:31:00+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1400
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of around 1400 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.
Bill Burr: Paper Tiger (2019) -- "8/10"
Burr's latest outing started out a little harsh -- he spent a few minutes
yelling at people who weren't there, but he settled into his material
really
well and delivered a much better set than his previous special (Walk Your
Way
Out, where he spent an absolutely inordinate amount of time fat-shaming).
This one starts off the same way -- seemingly almost deliberately -- but
then
turns into a much more nuanced show, with well-developed and deeply
thought-out and well-delivered jokes. His material is mostly about
identity
-- surprisingly enough -- about his black wife and her frustration with
white
culture (and she's right), about #metoo, about the loss of due process,
about
his own battle with emotions and his upbringing.
The article "Bill Burr’s New Stand-up Special Is So Much Better Than Its
First 4 Minutes"
is a very solid review.
Between Two Ferns: The Movie (2019) -- "7/10"
Zach Galifianakis stars in this feature film based on his interview show from
YouTube. In it, he's in a backwater local-news station and he gets a
chance
to take his oddball show to the big-time on Will Ferrel's Funny Or Die
network. All he has to do is bag 20 more interviews with celebrities
within a
month. So he hits the road with his crew and, mysteriously, continues to
get
big-ticket interviews, all the while disastrously screwing things up. He
manages it (unsurprisingly) and (unsurprisingly) everything works out in
the
end. Galifianikis proves his chops and shows that he can expand his skit
show
to a full-length movie more adeptly than many others before him.
Starred Up (2013) -- "7/10"
This is a British film about a young man Eric transferred from a juvenile
detention facility to the same adult prison as his father. His father is
lieutenant to the boss of the prison and tries to keep Eric from letting
his
rage issues ruin him. He does not succeed, as Eric is an absolute tornado
of
fury and stupidity.
He gets a temporary reprieve when he is recruited into therapy group.
Unfortunately, Eric makes the mistake of taking to therapy and befriending
the black youths in the group with him.
There is an attack on Eric, he's saved by one of his new friends,
cementing
his life lesson that friends can be found everywhere, but his father isn't
too pleased about his fraternizing. His father, on the other hand, is not
just lieutenant, but also lover, something that Eric can't abide. Stupid
fistfights ensue, Eric is put in solitary, the guards have it in for him
and
try to hang him. His father ends up saving him and they reconcile before
they
part ways to different prisons.
Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media (1992) -- "9/10"
This is a masterful documentary about the first 30 or 35 years of Noam
Chomsky's career. The full video is available on YouTube (linked below).
[media]
I've included some citations from the film below. When asked about what
he's
trying to do for people, he says,
"People should try to understand the world and act according to their decent
impulses. And they should act to improve the world. And many people are
going
to be willing to do that. But they have to understand and, as far as I can
see, I see that I'm simply helping people build a sort of intellectual
self-defense."
On the challenge involved in educating others and yourself, on the
isolating
nature of our society and the deliberate nature of it.
"It means you have to develop an independent mind. And work on it. That's
extremely hard to do alone. The beauty of our system is that it isolates
everybody. Each person is sitting alone, in front of the tube. It's very
hard
to have ideas or thoughts under those circumstances. You can't fight the
world alone. Some people can, but it's pretty rare. The way to do it is
through organization. So courses of intellectual self-defense will have to
be
in the context of political and other organization."
On how much work is required to be able to think lucidly about the world,
to
parse through the bullshit. On how tempting it is to just let the
propagandistic miasma wash over you instead of fighting it.
"The point is you have to work. And that’s why the propaganda system is so
successful. Very few people are going to have the time, or the energy, or
the
commitment, to carry out the constant battle that’s required, to get
outside of MacNeil/Lehrer, or Dan Rather, or somebody like that. The easy
thing to do [is] come home from work, you’re tired, just had a busy day,
you’re not gonna spend the evening carrying on a research project, so
you
turn on the tube, say it’s probably right, look at the headlines of the
paper, then you watch sports or something. That’s basically how the
system
of indoctrination works. Sure the other stuff is there but you’re gonna
have to work to find it."
On how our civilization works, what that is costing our planet, and the
choice that stands before us: either we stop doing what we're doing or we
accept the consequences.
"Modern industrial civilization has developed within a system of convenient
myths. The driving force of modern industrial civilization has been
individual material gain. Accepted as legitimate, even praiseworthy, on
the
grounds that private vices yield public benefits in the classic
formulation.
"Now it's long been understood that a society that's based on this
principle
will destroy itself in time. It can only persist with whatever suffering
and
injustice it entails, as long as it's possible to pretend that the
destructive forces that humans create are limited, that the world is an
infinite resource and that the world is an infinite garbage can.
"At this stage of history, either one of two things is possible. Either
the
general population will take control of its own destiny and will concern
itself with community, guided by values of solidarity and sympathy and
concern for others or, alternatively, there will be no destiny for anyone
to
control. As long as some specialized class is in a position of authority,
it
is going to set policy in the special interest that it serves."
The Seven Five (2014) -- "8/10"
This is a documentary about an out-of-control police precinct in New York
City -- actually more an out-of-control cop who ropes in his partner into
the
most sordid, criminal shit you can imagine. The worst one was Michael
Dowd.
He and his partner basically started working for the drug dealer that
they're
supposed to be stopping, Adam Diaz. He's easily the funniest guy in the
movie.
"And on top of that, his sister, was in love with me. Beautiful girl. I was
banging the shit out o' her."
Dowd's partner was only a bit better -- but he ended up turning state's
evidence on Dowd. It's a decent story, well-told and well-put-together.
The
video is available on YouTube (linked below).
[media]
Escape at Dannemora (2018) -- "8/10"
This is a seven-part -- the last part is 90 minutes -- reenactment of an
actual breakout from the Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New
York,
near the Canadian border. We meet two of the three main characters in the
sewing work area, prisoner David Sweat (Paul Dano) and sewing overseer
Tilly
Mitchell (Patricia Arquette). They are in a completely illicit
relationship
and not hiding it as well as they think.
In order to avoid getting caught for real, Sweat is transferred from his
sewing post and replaced with Sweat's best friend, the well-connected
Richard
Matt (Benicio del Toro). . Matt soon seduces Tilly, at first providing
communication to Sweat for a heartbroken Tilly. Tilly is a hard woman, not
especially bright, but shrewd. She's mean, a facet that shows up the most
in
her scenes with her husband Lyle (Eric Lange), who's a nice bovine, also
mean
in some ways, but mostly a decent guy who's very ignorant/stupid.
There are other guards and other prisoners, none of whom are very clever
and
most of whom are mean and small-minded. They can be forgiven for this
because
their lives are ones of quiet desperation, constantly under duress,
breathtakingly poor and woefully under-informed.
At one point, Matt discovers the prison behind the walls -- an entrance to
the steam tunnels between the walls and floors. He and Sweat start to dig
their way through the walls behind their beds. They break through and
start
to explore at night. Sweat starts digging through one wall after another,
until he hits the outer wall of the prison -- seven feet thick. With a
sigh,
he starts digging.
Some time later, though, he discovers that the big steam pipe next to the
last wall has been turned off for the summer. He starts chopping through
the
pipe while Matt schemes with and woos Tilly to hook her into the plan to
pick
them up after their escape.
Sooner than expected, it's time to go. Sweat does a dry run out to the
manhole cover across the street from the prison, but goes back to escape
for
real the next night with Matt. Tilly is in the hospital and doesn't pick
them
up. Matt and Sweat head into the woods, northward to Canada. Matt is a
terrible hiking companion; he's slow and nearly constantly drunk after the
first cabin, which had a good supply of booze.
It's set up nicely: for the first 90% of the show, before the escape, we
don't know why Matt and Sweat are in prison, so we root for them to
escape.
It's only after they've escaped that we learn of their crimes. Sweat's is
a
murder, but he didn't do it (ostensibly) whereas Matt very definitely is a
cold-hearted murderer.
Matt is caught first, shot by police. Sweat survives on his own, making
incredible time relative to previously, almost making it to the border,
but
getting hunted down and shot by a police officer. Tilly is prosecuted for
her
role in the escape and Sweat is convicted and sentenced to prison for the
rest of his life.
The acting is excellent all-around and not at all insulting to upstate New
York. That's just the way it is, for the most part.
National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) -- "8/10"
This is the classic movie about a severely underperforming frat house. It
is
one of the better vehicles for former SNL cast-members. It was directed by
John Landis and mostly written by Harold Ramis. John Belushi is good as
"Bluto" but Tim Matheson as "Otter" and Peter Riegert as "Boon", two
smooth-talking representatives of the frat house. Karen Allen was funny as
Katy (Otter's girlfriend) and Donald Sutherland as a toking professor and
Kevin Bacon as a stuck-up student from a competing frat were also very
good.
The plot is well-known: the frat must avoid Dean Wormer's wrath in order
to
stay on campus, despite the best efforts of the other, richer and snobbier
frat houses on campus, who do their level best to frame Delta house. Delta
does almost nothing to save themselves, preferring to through one rager
after
another and to endanger their continued existence with sophomoric
highjinks
that are, admittedly, often hilarious (and totally worth it).
Their final attack -- on the annual parade, with a specially designed
vehicle
called the "Deathmobile", which emerges from beneath a giant float that
looks
like a cake and on which is written "Eat Me". A classic; recommended.
Deon Cole: Cole Hearted (2019) -- "9/10"
I really liked Deon's last special and I think he's found his groove even
better in this one. He's from Chicago, playing in Atlanta. He jokes about
thanking Jesus at the right time and for the right reasons. He has good
amount of material on relationships and spends some time praising women of
all shapes and sizes, but especially "healthier" women.
The Good Place S04 (2019) -- "9/10"
This season sees the five core characters punished by the judge (Maya
Rudolph) for having broken some of the rules of the afterlife. She also
finds
the Bad Place guilty of illegal manipulations (obviously) and makes them
face
off in an effort to prove, once and for all, whether humanity is allowed
to
continue to exist.
So the judge sets up a competition: the five get to run the Good Place
experiment again, but with four humans chosen by the Bad Place. If those
humans show any signs of improvement at the end of the experiment (i.e.
they've accumulated Good Points), then humanity is allowed to continue to
struggle its way along; if not, then ... not.
The Bad Place cheats, of course: they send a demon in the form of a human
(Linda), they kidnap Janet and replace her with a Bad Janet, they make a
copy
of Michael and try to replace him, too. Also, Chidi is one of the
candidates,
but with his mind wiped, which is very painful for Eleanor. Also, one of
the
other candidates is Simone (a bit of a PITA), with whom Chidi is likely to
fall in love. The other two candidates are the nearly irredeemable John (a
former Internet gossip-columnist) and Brent (a former ... rich, entitled,
arrogant douchebag).
Big Mouth S03 (2019) -- "9/10"
The third season exceeded the second one and possibly even the first. The
two
hormone monsters (Nick Kroll and Maya Rudolph) are relentlessly funny, as
is
Andrew Glouberman and his entire family (especially his dad, who's voiced
by
Richard Kind). The writing is outstanding and draws and builds heavily on
the
characters we've come to know over the first two seasons. The arc was
really
steady and quite rewarding. Highly recommended.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=37562019-09-13T23:01:08+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1400
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of around 1400 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.
Jessica Jones S03 -- "5/10"
I expected a lot more from season three after reading so many good things
about it. Unfortunately, it's a turgid story dragged down by a ton of
side-plots about side-characters. There are long swaths of the show in
which
Jessica Jones is missing entirely. She's the best thing about this show.
Instead, we get to follow along as Trish develops into a super-hero. Trish
is
a dipshit. I can't tell whether the actress playing her is terrible or
whether she's deliberately poorly written. I can't tell if the writers
honestly expect us to like her. I'm afraid that they just might.
Malcom has his own drama, which is largely uninteresting. Hogarth is in
the
same camp, dragging a plotline about her college lover that is largely
useless. Her quest to end her ALS or her life is still a thing, but it's a
boring thing.
Salinger is the new baddie and he seems to be the quintessential person
featured in /r/iamverysmart entries. Again, I can't tell whether the show
writers really expect us to take him seriously. I can't bring myself to do
it. They treat him like an evil genius, but he's barely par. Did NCIS or
CSI
lend some of their writers to this show?
The writing team has discarded no plotline. There is no character too
minor
to not plumb their depths. They focus not only on Trish, but also Malcolm,
Jerry, Kith, Eric -- literally everyone but Jessica. You know you've gone
too
far as a writer when you're writing dialogue between Malcolm (a second- or
third-tier character) and his girlfriend (vanishingly small influence on
the
plot), talking about the girlfriend's father, who was once in the
CIA...OHMYGODIDONTCARE.
There are some good scenes, but they are unfortunately few and far
between.
I'm sick of having to spend 50%70% of my time watching Trish's entitled
and
insipid speeches and lectures. This show has been Bechdeled into the
ground.
I wrote the above at about 6 or 7 episodes in. Unfortunately, it has not
gotten better. I'm actually going to deduct another point for the absolute
ham-handedness of Trish's character and how the other characters view her.
Trish is allowed to murder people, and can chastise Jessica for not
suitably
handling the murderer of their mother. No-one in Trish's circle thinks she
should go to prison for her crimes -- they protect her and let her kill
again. It takes forever -- and three murders -- until they finally get it.
Trish's powers supposedly don't include enhanced strength but she's
depicted
throwing men around as if they were paperback books.
It's just a cycle of watching Jessica make the same mistake over and over
again. It's not very entertaining. At least in episodes 11 and 12 Jessica
showed up again, for maybe 40% of the show. So that was nice. Also,
Jessica
was allowed to be clever, as well, which was a nice change of pace for the
show writers. Trish is still the favorite of the show, though, and, I
think,
non-ironically.
Anthony Jeselnik: Fire in the Maternity Ward -- "4/10"
Jeselnik's delivery is too slow and his jokes are not as good as he thinks
they are. His admonishments to the crowd that they don't even get how
brilliant his jokes are. I know that's his schtick, but he's not nearly
clever enough for me. His twist endings aren't surprising anymore. I
couldn't
even finish watching it yet, to be honest.
Stranger Things S03 -- "8/10"
Season three is much stronger than season two -- carried by a few of its
characters. Dustin is much better than I expected, as is Steve. Their new
friend Robin is excellent and fun. Hopper is also wonderful once he lets
his
inner Magnum fly.
Eleven is decent, while Mike and Steve continue to be really annoying, but
that's about par for the course for boys of any generation.
This time out, they're trying to keep the Russians for opening the portal
to
the upside-down. The American bad guys are gone, replaced by more
appropriately cold-war meanies.
Poor Billy is taken by the Mind Flayer nearly immediately. He starts to
take
victims, harvesting more people for his master. Dustin, Steve and Robin
engage Erica's help (Steve's sister) to break into the Russian base, far
below the Starcourt Mall. The Mind Flayer gathers power and then breaks
out
into reality, hunting Eleven.
There are a lot of nice touches, rooted in the 80s -- so much authentic
stuff. When she's going through the ducts, Erica has a flashlight strapped
to
her head that is the exact same model we had at my parents' house for 30
years.
Snowpiercer (2012) -- "9/10"
I'd already seen this film in "2014"
, but wanted to
watch
it again after having seen a delightful and maddeningly convincing
hypothesis
that "it was a sequel to Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"
. Five years ago, I gave it a
9/10 rating and nothing has changed in a second viewing. Delightful. It
was
fun watching it with the Willy Wonka theory in mind. I showed my co-viewer
the Willy Wonka video afterward and she agreed that it was deviously
plausible. As for the film itself, see my previous review for more
details,
if you're interested.
Russian Doll -- "8/10"
Natasha Lyonne stars as an iconoclastic, self-reliant video-game programmer
and New Yorker who keeps reliving her birthday. Over the course of many
repetitions, we find out more about her life and her companions. She meets
another man, Alan, who is also reliving the same day over and over.
This is an interesting examination of being, nothingness, existence, time
and
epistemology. Together, Alan and Nadia discover how their new limbo works
and
experiment to figure out how to get out of the time loop that they're in.
Lyonne is a tremendous actress, easily capable of carrying a show on her
own.
Still, Charlie Barnett as Alan is also very good.
It's a cool concept -- we find out more and more detail with each
repetition.
The homeless guy is very good -- there are some very Terry Gilliam-esque
moments.
In the end, they have to save each other -- literally -- in order to
escape.
A fun ride.
Wine Country (2019) -- "6/10"
This was a light but insufficiently clever romp with some good comediennes,
most of them SNL alums: Amy Poehler, Rachel Dratch, Ana Gasteyer, Maya
Rudolph, Paula Pell, Emily Spivey. Tina Fey plays the owner of the bed and
breakfast where they spend their weekend in Napa Valley for Dratch's 50th
birthday. Things happen, things change, things are resolved, stuff works
out
in the end.
Derry Girls (2018/2019) -- "9/10"
This is a very clever and well-written show about Catholic high-school girls
growing up in (London)Derry in Northern Ireland. The many characters are
unique and fun. They all have nearly impenetrable accents. We've had to
turn
on the subtitles twice, but only for a few sentences.
There are Erin the main character, Michelle, the slut, Claire the
overexcitable lesbian, Orla is Erin's cousin and a bit of space
cadet/lovable
loser/rebel and James. an English boy who's Michelle's cousin and who
attends
the girls' school because he would be killed in the boys' school.
The first season takes place just before the end of The Troubles and deals
largely with the girls' trials and tribulations in school. The second
season
ends with the first ceasefire and a visit from U.S. President Bill
Clinton.
Highly recommended.
Django Unchained (2012) -- "9/10"
A second viewing in German made me raise the film by one star over my initial
viewing. Christoph Waltz as Schultz is a loquacious revelation and Jamie
Foxx
is steady and cool in the lead.
The Americans S05 (2017) -- "8/10"
Paige is still a spectacular pain in the ass. Oleg is back in the USSR,
working for the KGB and still trying to do the right thing. Elizabeth and
Philip are now posing as flight attendant and pilot, respectively and are
working a dissident Soviet grain specialist who should be able to help
them
figure out how the U.S. is planning to attack the Soviet grain supply.
Stan is still working at the FBI an being betrayed by them at every turn.
He's trying like hell to protect Oleg from CIA intervention. Gabriel
(Frank
Langella) is still the Jennings's handler. The Jennings have adopted a
son,
Tuan, a Vietnamese emigré.
Monty Python's Flying Circus S01-02 (1969--1970) -- "8/10"
Season one is a bit rough, but already contains many of the standard elements
that will make them famous: the "It's Man", the "Now It's Time for
Something
Completely Different Man" and the various characters that are obviously
based
on various luminaries of the BBC. A couple of the bits I know from the
"Final
Rip Off" are in the first season.
The second season contains many more skits that made it into the "Final
Rip
Off" but also a couple that were exceedingly clever and that I'd never
seen
before. Their powers of memorization are at-times prodigious, especially
Cleese and Idle, who can recite long stretches of complex dialogue, even
if
it's all turned-about and completely non-intuitive.
Dave Chappelle: Sticks and Stones (2019) -- "8/10"
Chappelle returns quickly with a new show, relatively quickly after his last
two shows. His style is more conversational and lends itself to longer
presentations. His show is more of a blog-post style, where he ruminates
about several topics, sometimes without even obvious punchlines. He's very
provocative with some jokes: some work, some less so. Overall, he's on
point
and makes sense.
Some of his more provocative points are only that because of the highly
charge and overly sensitive atmosphere today (in which there are more than
enough professional victims willing to be offended on behalf of any number
of
identity groups).
I thought his best joke was about dealing with the censors at the network
when he was still doing The Chappelle Show: he was called down for one of
his
scripts because he used the word "faggot". He asked why he wasn't allowed
to
use that word, while he was allowed to say "nigger" all he wanted. The
censor
responded that he wasn't allowed to use the former slur because he wasn't
gay. He responded that "I ain't a nigger either." Boom. Recommended.
Shaft (2019) -- "6/10"
This is a pretty formulaic but still reasonably entertaining reboot of the
Shaft films from the seventies. Samuel Jackson stars at the title
character,
with Jessie T. Usher as his son. While Shaft is more of a vigilante
detective, his son is an FBI data analyst whose a straight arrow. This is
actually a big joke, that he's a useless nerd versus the slick risk-taker
and
rule-breaker that is his father.
In order for him to solve the case he's on, he will have to enlist not
only
his father's help, but also his grandfather's help (in the form of the
original Shaft, Richard Roundtree). In the end, he wins the girl, he
shoots
up the bad guys, he solves the case, he saved the city, he tells the FBI
to
go fuck themselves, and then he embarks on a life of moral vigilantism
with
his father and grandfather. The end.
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) -- "7/10"
Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black and Karen Gillan (Nebula from
Guardians of the Galaxy) reboot the original as four kids from different
walks of life who end up serving detention together. They find an old
video-game console and get sucked into the game of Jumanji.
There they discover that they aren't so different after all and all grow a
lot and solve lots of puzzles and fun stuff. They also find another kid
who's
been lost in the game for 20 years and join up with him to save the eye of
the jaguar and, thus, Jumanji. It was reasonably amusing, with The Rock
and
Kevin Hart hogging the spotlight and delivering most of the star power.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=37572019-07-06T21:33:26+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1400
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of around 1400 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.
Transformers: The Last Knight (2017) -- "4/10"
Anthony Hopkins is a British robot expert who's also peerage. Mark Wahlberg
is Cade Jaeger, the last knight, chosen to fight the last fight. The story
was something about an artifact, about some old generations of
transformers
that used to fight with humans (during the crusades?) and then a
planet-sized
ball of transformer technology trying to consume the Earth. Also there's
Merlin, King Arthur, a round table of Transformer knights -- and I kinda
lost
track of it. Utterly forgettable.
D.L. Hughley: Contrarian (2018) -- "8/10"
He started off kind of slowly, but picked up speed and settled intoa a pretty
great routine. His outfit was outrageous but appropriate. He talks about
his
family and people. I can't remember any of his jokes, but I laughed out
loud
a few times.
Aquaman (2018) -- "5/10"
So many things were just off about this movie. The best thing about this
movie -- and I expected this -- was Jason Momoa as Aquaman himself.
How the hell did Black Manta fall unconscious into the water in a metal
suit
and then roll up on a piece of wood? His helmet's smashed -- how did he
not
drown? He's just human, right? And are we supposed to care about him and
his
desire for revenge for his dead father? A father who was killed while
trying
to kill Aquaman? After he and his father had killed a bunch of members of
the
crew of a sub while trying to pirate it, his father died because Aquaman
refused to help him (because the dad had shot him point-blank).
The underwater scenes were in the uncanny valley. Most of the CGI looked
somehow cartoonish, as well, unfortunately. And those scenes took up a lot
of
the movie, with an epic battles between forces we hadn't been taught to
care
about, at all. The story was a cookie-cutter plot about ascension and
wasn't
particularly interesting. Nicole Kidman, as Aquaman's mom, was seriously
de-aged in most of her scenes.
Even the end-credits music was so lame -- some wavering female voice
crooning
away.
Crazy Rich Asians (2018) -- "8/10"
This movie was better than expected. It's the story of a couple -- Rachel
(Constance Wu) and Nick (Henry Golding) -- living in New York -- I'm not
going to say "Asian" couple because (A) it doesn't matter and (B) everyone
in
this movie is Asian and rich (see title) -- who are invited to his best
friend's wedding, to take place in Singapore.
Rachel is just professor-at-a-NYC-university-well-off while Nick's family
is
"comfortable" -- meaning that they are the richest developers in Singapore
and, thus, Asia. So we are treated to phenomenal displays of wealth.
Michelle
Yeoh is a lot of fun, as always, as Nick's mother.
Nick is portrayed as down-to-Earth, preferring to hang out with his best
friend, to taking part in the excessive bachelor-party festivities.
Rachel is a professor of economics and game theory while Nick ... does
stuff.
Rachel exhibits her smarts once at the beginning, then spends most of the
movie having her feelings hurt by mean people who all seem to be better at
game theory than she is. Only her saving throw at the end exhibits her
brains
rather than her beauty -- but it's a nicely written saving throw.
Dead to Me (2019) -- "6/10"
Linda Cardellini and Christina Applegate star in a show about two woman, Jen
and Judy, living in Laguna and Newport Beach. Jen lost her husband 6
months
ago -- and Jen is the one who killed him. They meet at a grief-counseling
group, where Jen claims that she'd also lost her husband, but was really
grieving for having broken off her engagement and having had five
miscarriages.
That's the basic setup: they grow closer and closer. Judy is a flighty
painter who somehow fails to make any money off of her pretty pricey
paintings. Jen has anger-management problems (at one point, she assaults a
man in his own home, for which she's roundly applauded for standing up for
herself). She loses her partner in her real-estate business, she has an
actively hostile son who she mysteriously fails to punch. He's
cartoonishly
hateful with no character build-up at all to make it believable.
Her mother-in-law hates her (understandably), but the mother-in-law, like
nearly everyone else in this show, is either batshit or reprehensible.
Oddly
no-one has any hesitation about blabbing all sorts of relevant information
at
all times, in patently implausible ways. Nick's pretty good. I actually
kind
of like James Marsden as Steve, even though he's just another rich guy,
contributing nothing.
Judy and Jen are all striving for a life beyond their means. Jen, in
particular, wants immediate and eminently satisfying answers. They're
deluded
about how life works, and absolutely deliriously entitled, upbraiding the
police in ways that one has to note anyone but a white, upper-class woman
would be imprisoned for. And yet we're supposed to root for Jen, I guess?
Judy's nuts and a sociopath. Jen is an egomaniac with delusions of
grandeur
and a seriously violent streak that goes largely unpunished.
It started off OK and has good actors, but it's lost the thread for me a
bit.
I'm not heavily investing in finishing season one. It's a frauen-power
show
full of enablers of sociopathic behavior and/or easy targets for
"frauen-power" moments. It's not particularly subtle. As always, it helps
that money isn't really an issue for anyone in any meaningful way.
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) -- "10/10"
The Coen Brothers deliver a sextet of stories set in the West, chock-full of
excellent actors, both well-known and less-so. The episodes are lovingly
crafted, with excellent, nearly flawless sets, costumes and hand-crafted
dialogue.
Tim Blake Nelson stars as the titular Buster Scruggs in the first story,
unseated from his throne by Willie Watson as "The Kid". This episode is
more
comical than dark.
James Franco is most excellent and rugged in the second story "Near
Algodones". He holds up a bank run by a crafty teller played by Stephen
Root.
Root covers himself in pans to avoid being shot. Franco is sentenced to
death
but escapes thanks to an Indian attack. He is swept up again and sentenced
to
another hanging. This one takes.
The third story "Meal Ticket" stars Liam Neeson as the "Impresario" of a
traveling show. Harry Melling is the titular character in the form of "The
Professor", an armless, legless man who quotes and cites from the entire
pantheon of English literature. Sometimes he is well-received, other times
not. As winter approaches, the crowds dwindle. The crowds are huge,
though,
at another show, where a chicken picks out numbers. The Impresario buys
the
chicken and trims his retinue by one at the next bridge.
The fourth story is nearly a solo act by Tom Waits, a prospector who
discovers an idyllic valley -- an owl soars, an elk drinks from a stream,
small fish flit in shoals, butterflies flit. The prospector begins his
work,
digging and staking out his claim, making unsightly holes everywhere. He
finds his lode, but almost has his claim jumped. The other man is a poor
shot
and the prospector turns the tables and survives. He takes two bags of
gold,
then leaves the valley to the animals.
The fifth story "The Gal Who Got Rattled" is the longest one. It's about a
brother Gilbert and sister Alice on a wagon train. They are accompanied by
his dog, President Pierce. The brother dies of an illness; the dog remains
but is too noisy. Billy Knapp, one of the drivers, with Mr. Arthur, of the
train takes a shine to Alice. He offers to take care of (now) her yapping
dog. He lets it go instead. After a lot of intricate and lovely dialogue,
they agree to marry. The next morning, Alice wanders off to find President
Pierce, who has followed the train. Mr. Arthur seeks her out and finds
that
she is being tracked by Indians. He sets up to fend them off, giving her a
gun with which to kill herself should he be taken or killed. At it turns
out,
he drives all but one of them off. That one takes him by surprise and
fells
him, but Mr. Arthur plays possum and turns the tables on him. He returns
to
find President Pierce presiding over Alice, who'd followed Mr. Arthur's
instructions to the letter.
The sixth story "The Mortal Remains" finds five travelers in a coach,
hurtling toward the Fort Morgan. The Trapper, played by Chelcie Ross,
starts
off with a long soliloquy about his life in the wilderness. Next up is
Tyne
Daly as the Lady, who is on her way to meet her husband, from whom she's
been
separated for 3 years. She is followed by Saul Rubinek as The Frenchman,
who
regales them with tales of his gambling exploits. Then speaks Jonjo
O'Neill
as the Englishman, with excellent elocution (as had the others) and a
fearsome mien and manner, staring penetratingly at the others, as he tells
them that they he and his colleague the Irishman (Brendan Gleeson) are
bounty
hunters (of sorts). Gleeson sings a heart-rending and lovely dirge just
before they arrive at the Fort. This will be the last voyage for most of
them.
Game of Thrones S08 (2019) -- "8/10"
This is the final season and it's time to tie up all of the loose ends. The
Night King approaches Winterfell, where the forces of the North are
gathered.
The Unsullied, the Dothraki, the Free Folk and the families of the North
wait
for the icy hammer to fall.
The buildup to the battle between the forces of Light and Darkness is
good,
with lots of nice moments with all of our favorite characters. The
knowledge
that Jon is really the true king of the Seven Kingdoms slowly spreads.
Bran
is fantastic as the Three-eyed Raven. That guy's going places, but it's
unclear what's happening with him.
The first battle is fine, but fought terribly by the North. They knew
their
enemy, yet they let them approach right up to the walls, so that all the
fallen can get right back up and fight again. Their trenches were pathetic
(I
know it's winter and they don't really have any good shovels), the
Dothraki
charge was useless (and wasn't at-all suspenseful), they were pathetic
with
their dragon strategy. Thanks to Arya, they won. That scene was amazing.
Next up is some more banter with the survivors -- they didn't lose too
many
in this first battle -- and preparations for dealing with Cersei. Cersei
sticks in Daenerys's craw because ... well, ... how dare she claim to be
queen when Daenerys is the rightful heir to the seven kingdoms. It's also
eating her alive that Jon is actually the rightful King.
They make their way south very ineptly, getting all of their boats sunk
due
to an utter lack of reconnaissance. They also lost a dragon to an
admittedly
lucky shot. The iron fleet wiped them out, showing us how well the
unsullied
swim in leather-plate armor (spoiler alert: they swim really well).
Daenerys is a terrible general. Every idea she has is not good, ending in
massive sacrifice. (Because maybe she forgets that not everyone has
dragons?)
But she's always been more about quick and efficient strikes and not
really
well-suited to the long grind of war or that pesky planning or ruling. Jon
doesn't seem to be using any of his military genius, Tyrion gets dumber by
the show -- season 8 is a new low, sadly. Varys is the only one who seems
to
still have his head about him. For now.
They regroup and visit Cersei at the walls of King's Landing, where she
executes Missandei. Daenerys takes it super-well, as does Grey Worm. They
set
up the attack on the city, with the dragon as the primary weapon. The
"scorpions" -- massive harpoon guns that killed its brother -- are utterly
useless this time because ... magic. Drogon basically single-handedly
defeated her enemies for her. The city had fallen; they'd surrendered.
But Daenerys isn't done. She lays waste to the entire city, killing tons
of
civilians and losing the loyalty of Jon Snow. Too little too late, Jon. In
the penultimate episode, many, many characters meet their end: Cersei,
Jamie,
Euron, Sandor, Gregor. Bran, Arya, Jon, Daenerys -- all still alive.
Maybe Daenerys and Drogon could have flown straight to Cersei's tower and
taken her out? Too boring, probably. Much better to lay waste to the city,
as
a warning to the rest of the kingdoms.
Maybe Bran could have warged into Drogon and stopped him? Maybe he saw
farther and realized that this is the best way, the only solution that
works
(akin to Dr. Strange looking at 14 million possible futures in Avengers:
Infinity War). Once you have someone who can see the future -- though he
says
he spends most of his time in the past -- you kind of have to trust that
he's
choosing the best path through a wasteland of bad choices. Maybe it's the
only way.
And here we are after the final episode and I kind of called it, above.
Daenerys's eschatological act was the only thing that could loosen Jon's
oath's hold on him. He'd sworn his loyalty to her if she helped defend the
realm from the Night King. She was true to her word and took grave losses.
But he could no longer be her lover, which destroyed them both. It then
took
Dany laying waste to King's Landing to get Jon to shake off the cobwebs,
but
he eventually stepped up.
After the sacking of King's Landing, Tyrion resigns and Daenerys sentences
him to death. Jon is backed into a corner. He visits Daenerys in her
shattered throne room -- foreshadowed way back in season 2 -- and nearly
begs
her for mercy. She knows best and will show neither forgiveness nor mercy.
It
is all he can bear. He kills her. Drogon melts the throne and takes his
mother away, but leaves Jon intact -- whether because he's a Targaryen or
because the dragon understood his mother was evil is left up to debate.
Tyrion is hauled before a tribunal of the remaining lords and ladies, with
Jon in jail and Grey Worm sulking about. Tyrion delivered several
masterful
monologues in this show -- it felt like he had 90% of the dialogue -- but
his
nomination of Bran the Broken as king was a master-stroke. It makes sense
and
is possibly the outcome that the three-eyed raven had been steering
toward.
He claims not to want the throne, but perhaps he doth protest too much?
Only
Sansa does not pledge her fealty, keeping the North separate from the
other
realms.
Tyrion is one again Hand of the King, Sam represents the maesters, Bronn
is
minister of coin, Davos of the navies and Brienne presumably represents
the
white knights. Jon is once again banished to the Wall, but reunited with
both
Tormund and Ghost. Arya sails of for the unknown West under a Stark
banner.
The Stark family -- noblest and most principled of all the families -- won
in
the end, across the board. What a comeback!
What’s art without some quibbles here and there? The overall arc was
true
to the other seasons and all-around well-executed. I don’t know what
haters
were expecting. Dany ruling benevolently? Hardly. "Daenerys Was Always A
Narcissistic, Power-hungry Colonizer"
People
just
love to love a dictator. She felt she deserved to rule because her family
used to rule. If you're on Team Targaryen, then you should really
re-examine
your politics. I'm not surprised most of "liberal" America loved her so
much
-- it reflects to a tee how they respond to their own country's military
machinations and manifest destiny without examination or critique.
Jon “I don’t want it” Snow as King? No way: he's thrown off every
title
he's ever gotten.
We got the best outcome for the realms: a non-successive semi-republic
with
an elected ruler. The best ruler doesn’t want it (and also hasn’t
killed
people). Varys was right and he also ended up winning -- the realm was
much
better off than it has ever been.
Too many people waste energy trying to steer a good story to surprise them
but only in the way they were expecting. No sense of irony. It belies the
fear of spoilers many claim to have: if it actually ends differently than
they know it should, they’re up in arms.
I was entertained and found it to me a masterful ending. If it wasn't so
damned long, I would watch again from the beginning, to see how much of
the
ending the writers knew as they were writing the earlier seasons.
Expectations were high and the delivered a masterpiece unlike anything the
world has seen before. It wasn't perfect, but art never is. It just is.
Fleabag (2016) -- "8/10"
Phoebe Waller-Bridge stars as the eponymous lead. She also writes all of the
episodes. The writing is clever and cheeky and sometimes quite
refreshingly
filthy. She is happily single and hooking up and running a failing café
without her very best friend, who'd recently died in a bizarre traffic
accident. Her guinea pig remains.
Fleabag is not a good person, but she's not particularly bad, either.
She's
refreshingly honest and down-to-Earth and easy-going. Her sister is much
more
successful, but also much more stressed and uptight.
The main gimmick is that we hear a lot of Fleabag's internal monologue.
She
also breaks the fourth wall nearly constantly. It's quite entertaining so
far.
The first season reveals more about what happened to her best friend and
partner. It reveals that Fleabag is darker and more complicated and a
worse
person than we'd hoped. She is easily outflown by her father and sister,
who
betray her deeply in their devotion to their respective and reprehensible
partners. In the end, it's the bank officer who'd been accused of sexual
harassment who ends up being the only one who forgives her her
transgressions
(that led to her friend's suicide) and gives her another chance.
At the end of season one, her sister has reneged on her promise to help
her
out with her café but it looks like she'll get the loan she needs. Her
father useless and her stepmother is vicious. Looking forward to season 2
--
a very funny and dark show.
Jean Claude Van Johnson (2016) -- "9/10"
Jean-Claude Van Damme stars as himself, but in a world where his entire film
career was a cover for his life as an international spy. At the start of
the
show, he returns to the game in order to get close to the love of his life
(with whom he used to work).
It's tongue-in-cheek, cleverly filmed, very well-written and JCVD is
brilliant. There are a lot of in-jokes about his movies and about how they
made movies in the 80s and 90s vs. how action movies work today. I've only
seen the first two shows so far, but it's gold. His driving stunt made me
laugh out loud.
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018) -- "9/10"
At long last, Terry Gilliam managed to finish this film that he started
almost three decades ago. It is the story of a film director Toby (Adam
Driver) who's returned to the place in Spain where he filmed his breakout
student film -- a partial reimagining of Don Quixote. At that time, he'd
gotten a local girl -- the daughter of a barman -- to play Dulcinea (Joana
Ribeiro) and a local older man -- a cobbler -- to play the titular role
(Jonathan Pryce).
His new film production is running into problems -- the pressure is much
higher now that he's an auteur. He discovers that the current filming
location is close to where he shot the original film. He finds Dulcinea
and
Quixote, whose lives he'd pretty much ruined. He becomes embroiled in
local
intrigue, but mostly the plot devolves into a self-referential and highly
stylized re-telling of the story of Don Quixote, but also a telling of the
making of the movie that we're watching, a parable of Gilliam's career, a
satire/castigation of modern-day movie-making and Hollywood, as well as
serving up a large portion of Gilliam's usual philosophical musings about
the
nature of reality, the reality of the mind's ravings and whether there is
magic in the world -- even if it's not real magic, maybe your believing
that
it is, is enough.
In the end, Toby kills his Quixote, but reincarnates him in himself,
leaving
the production and pursuing his new mission as an errant knight.
I honestly enjoyed the hell out of this movie, as I do many of Gilliam's
films. I thought he'd done a masterful job of finally making the movie he
wanted to make, while staying true to the thread along which his other
films
are strung. There were weak bits, to be sure -- and the film was a bit on
the
long side -- but it's not a movie like any other you'll see and the
intense
layering of fantasy on fantasy is always intriguing to unravel. Óscar
Jaenada as the Gypsy was also an excellent interlocutor and partial
narrator.
The Man in the High Castle S01 (2015) -- "8/10"
This is a story set in the world posited by Philip K. Dick's novel of the
same name. It is a world in which the Nazis and the Japanese won WWII and
divided up the United States into a Japanese west coast, a neutral zone,
and
the remaining 2/3 of the country, from South Dakota to the East Coast
belonging to Nazi Germany.
The show picks up in 1962, following the lives of a Nazi spy from the East
Coast (Joe Blake, played by Luke Kleintank) as well as a rebellious
Julianna
(Alexa Davalos) from the west coast. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Nobusuke
Tagomi
is amazing as the Japanese Trade Minister.
Intrigue abounds and the central plot line involves films that depict a
world
in which the Nazis lost the war, films that appear out of nowhere, but
supposedly produced or delivered by the man in the high castle. The
provenance of the films is unknown, but their effect is powerful --
especially on the various rebel factions whose embers still glow in the
former US.
The Germans and Japanese have everything well under control -- this is not
a
story about an imminent uprising. The rebels are few and far-between and
hold
out hope for the sake of it and not because they've been encouraged by any
progress on that front.
The acting is quite good, the writing is good and the rendering of the
alternate history is fascinating. Looking forward to the next season.
Veep S07 (2019) -- "10/10"
The final season of this spectacularly funny series equaled, if not topped,
all the other seasons. The writers were absolutely brutal, delivering
scathing line after scathing line into the mouths of their characters.
Julia
Louis-Dreyfus was magnificent and evil, discarding the last vestiges of
her
humanity and any pretense at morality to achieve her ultimate goal.
The cast was ridiculously good, with Jonah standing out, but also Ben,
whose
advice ended up being pivotal to Selena's victory. There are so many good
characters, each carefully written and staying true to the arc they'd
established over the other seasons.
* Anna Chlumsky as Amy Brookheimer, the campaign manager (who defects to
Jonah's camp and capitulates to Washington bottom-of-the-barrel morals
as
well)
* Tony Hale as Gary Walsh, who ends up running part of the campaign, but
ends up as a fall guy
* Reid Scott as Dan Egan, who ends up with nothing
* Timothy Simons as Jonah Ryan, a Trump2, if that's even
possible. His campaign made a mockery of the US in how realistic and
plausible it was.
* Matt Walsh as the hapless Mike McLintock, who screwed up absolutely
everything until he was fired, whereupon he ended up in journalism,
where
his stupidity helped him quickly rise to the top.
* Kevin Dunn as the brilliant, Asian-woman-chasing, chronically
unhealthy
and deeply pessimistic and cynical Chief of Staff.
* Gary Cole as the robotic Kent Davidson, the Senior Strategist who can
only think in numbers.
* Sam Richardson as Richard Splett, who naiveté is somehow allowed to
avoid being crushed. He not only sires "Little Richard" for Selena's
insipid daughter and her former Secret Service--office wife, but
stumbles
his way up the ladder of politics. He is the only thing of worth in
this
show and they let him actually win, showing that the writers haven't
given up all hope.
* Sarah Sutherland as Catherine (Selena's daughter), who sets a new
standard for insipidity while at the same time espousing the tepid
values
of the wannabe-left liberals.
* Clea DuVall played Catherine's wife Marjorie Palmiotti, the former
Secret
Service officer who was Selena's lookalike (so many connections ...
Selena's lesbian daughter married someone who looks like her mother).
No-one was spared, not Washington, not either side of the aisle, not the
media, not voters, not the young, not the old, not any part of US current
and
past foreign and domestic policy. It was funny because it was true. On
Rotten
Tomatoes, they wrote "Brash and bonkers as ever, Veep bows out with an
unapologetically absurd final season that solidifies its status as one of
TV's greatest comedies," which sums it up very nicely.
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019) -- "8/10"
The original John Wick was a revelation. It's sequel was decent, but lacked
something from the original. In particular, too much of the gunplay was at
ludicrous Eagle Eye--like distances. This sequel to the sequel goes back
to
the original's roots, with a lot (A LOT) of gunplay, but also some
spectacular and wonderfully choreographed martial-arts fighting scenes.
[1]
Reeves is charming as the affable but ludicrously deadly hero. Ian McShane
reprises his role as the proprietor of the Continental Hotel (located in
the
Flatiron Building in New York City). [2] Lance Hendricks is also back in
an
expanded role as the (now-named) Charon, McShane's right-hand man.
Halle Berry joins the fun as Sofia, another killer from whom Wick collects
his debt. She is pretty goddamned entertaining as well, and is accompanied
by
two wonderfully trained dogs.
Laurence Fishburne is back as the Bowery King -- bowed but not beaten. The
Adjucator -- a sort of cop from the "High Table" -- is a bit of a Deus Ex
Machina (it's unclear why she has such latitude -- I mean, the High Table
has
sway, but most of the people she confronts are nearly in open rebellion of
it), but it doesn't make much sense to dwell on it, to be honest.
There are a ton of other entertaining characters, most of whom will not be
in
John Wick 4, for biological reasons. Luckily, John Wick is exempt from
biological law and can take an utterly ludicrous amount of punishment and
keep on moving (think Punisher S01E09 & 10).
Keanu makes it work because you feel that he is going through all of this,
not for himself, not for his dead wife, not for his dead dog, but because
it's the right thing to do. There is no choice in the matter, no option
for
avoiding the damage and pain, because honor is at stake. [3] It works,
IMHO.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] The article "John Wick 3 Delivers the Justice We All Crave" by Eileen Jones
does an
excellent job of seeing the core of beauty in this brutal and bullet-filmed
film.
"For those who can’t understand why so many people like action films that
are all about killing — and John Wick is definitely all about killing —
it can be enlightening to consider these movies. They provide all the
fantastical escapism you crave after working your dreary job, or jobs, all
week, or suffering from needing a job and not having one, and they find a way
to connect the fantastical elements of the film’s “world building” to a
common core of shared reality. That shared reality between you and John Wick
is getting fucked over by people rotten with power in a dirty system that
come at you aggressively when you’re just trying to get by in your life,
which is already pretty miserable."
[1] Described by Eileen Jones as"[t]he hotel is a perfect hotel, dark and luxurious, exquisitely run. It’s
presided over by a quietly scary owner with the alias Winston Churchill (Ian
McShane) and his impeccable concierge Charon (Lance Reddick). Both are
impassive, courteous, steeped in worldly knowledge, and incapable of
surprise. They understand everything at a glance."
[1] Again, from Eileen Jones:"Honor culture tends to be quite brutal and regressive. But at least it’s a
brutality of a different kind than the malevolent meanness that rules our
lives in contemporary Western culture. Honor culture provides heightened
meaning along with the harshness, and meaning is the factor we crave. If we
must suffer and die, we can’t help wanting to do it in a system of meaning
recognized by all."
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https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=37262019-05-05T21:09:07+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1400
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of around 1400 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.
Moritz Neumeier: Hurra (2019) -- "9/10"
YouTube bubbled up "this special"
in my recommendations list
and
it was delightful. His style is very elegant and reserved. He speaks very
quickly, intelligently and is a wonderful raconteur. He mixes a bit of
English (very little, but a few words) into his German.
He told of his meeting his girlfriend and knocking her up after only six
weeks. They stayed together and now have a child, of whom he tells many
tales. He is not a starstruck father, to say the least.
He tells a wonderful, long story of a trip to Burghausen, on the border of
Austria (due east of München) with his friend Paul, a fearless Greek God
of
a man who drinks like a fish. Moritz is more of a pot guy because he can't
hold his drink, but drink he did on this evening. Burghausen, though a
provincial town, offers up comic delights like a gay bouncer and a whole
cellar full of Neonazis willing to believe Paul when he tells them that
Moritz is a General Major in the hidden army and that they are planning to
invade Austria in the morning on a secret mission.
Neumeier's also got some sharp political humor and some sharp words for
fools. Highly recommended. Only available in German, obviously. I listened
to
it twice.
"Ein bisschen Schwund muss sein."
Support the Girls (2018) -- "7/10"
As many other reviews have mentioned, Regina Hall acts well in this move
about a Hooters-like bar-and-restaurant in Texas. I also think Haley Lu
Richardson is a revelation, with her nearly boundless energy and
infectious
optimism, she reminded me of early Dolly Parton.
The story is of a single, long say at the restaurant, during which the
cable
goes out on the day of the big fight while Hall deals with all sorts of
issues in both her personal life and her job. Her boss is kind of a dope,
but
decent enough, although he does let her go. Her employees, upon hearing
this,
also sabotage their jobs and are let go. They all end up interviewing at
another restaurant called the Man Cave, a national brand doing the same
thing
as the local restaurant, but corporatized.
That's just kind of where it ends up: the story meanders and really just
strings together a bunch of character essays with some decent acting.
Ozark S01 (2017) -- "9/10"
Jason Bateman stars as Martin Bird with Laura Linney as his wife Wendy.
Martin is a money launderer for one of the largest Mexican drug cartels.
Things go well for a long time, until they go ... not so well. Marty is
forced to flee Chicago with his family and move to the Lake of the Ozarks,
where he claims that he will be able to launder a tremendous amount of
cash
to rich tourists.
This saves his bacon temporarily and his employer allows him to take his 8
million and try to launder it within 3 months. As he and Wendy (who's in
on
the whole deal) set up shop, they encounter many locals, some willing to
help
and others trying to take advantage of the outsiders throwing a lot of
money
around. The Langmore family (especially Ruth) features heavily, as does
the
Snells, local poppy farmers with a business of their own to protect.
Martin is also hanging an affair over Wendy's head, one that he only found
out about at about the same time as their money-laundering business in
Chicago went south. The two have a couple of dopey kids, one boy Jonah and
one girl Charlotte. As you can imagine, Charlotte is a useless narcissist
who
can't wrap her head around sacrifice, even after being told (quite
quickly)
what her parents are up to. That just becomes background noise to her
pressing FOMO problem.
Jonah is quieter and seems to be drifting into becoming a bit of a
demented
backwoods Missouran.
It's a pretty damned good show with some really fine acting. Linney and
Bateman are standouts. Highly recommended.
Moritz Neumeier: Stand Up (2016) -- "8/10"
"This special" is a few
years
old, but Neumeier's style was already well in place at the time. He was
married, but he hadn't had a kid. It's possible that this is a different
wife, since he claimed to have met and impregnated the wife of which he
spoke
in the 2019 special within 6 weeks
Anyway, this special is also quite good. Watched it in German.
Star Trek: Discovery S02 (2018/2019) -- "8/10"
Spock shows up, which is cool. Burnham's character spirals down into a whiny,
illogical, over-emotional mess, which is not.
This season deals with Time as a hostile force. The red angel is a time
traveler who makes repeated trips to the past in order to try to shunt the
universe (prime) onto a course that does not end up as a wasteland
devastated
by an AI called Control.
Whereas they did a decent job with the idea of a super-dimensional
hyper-mycelial network in the previous season, they're having more trouble
when it comes to time. The rest of the crew (or, more precisely, the
writers)
don't know how to understand what the real implications of a time traveler
are.
For example, they assume that the events they witness -- as forward-only
passengers of time -- occur in the same order as they would for a
traveler.
So, at one point, after they'd captured and then lost the red angel, they
say
that a subsequent event that would ordinarily have been triggered by the
red
angel (a red energy signature) could not have been caused by her because
her
suit no longer has a time crystal. This is not true. The red angel could
easily have made the trip to cause the event before she was trapped, even
though the two events are in the other order for those who experience time
linearly and unidirectionally.
They also play very fast and loose with space and communications
distances. I
mean, they don't even pretend that the speed of a light is a factor. When
they travel physically, they acknowledge that it "takes time" to get
there.
But they have instantaneous, lag-free communication with far-off systems.
Their sensors are sometimes blocked, but most times mysteriously
unblocked.
They seem capable of reading the most ephemeral and obscure data across
time
and space (e.g. % data downloaded to Control). And everything looks so
close
and human-sized. Planets are never gob-smackingly huge. We just saw our
first
picture of a black hole: the entire solar system fits into the black bit
at
the center. When the Discovery enters a new system, all the planets are
right
there. All of the ships are close enough to see. If a ship has been
scuttled,
its crew is visible and floating in the void, all right next to each
other,
all conveniently human-scaled.
The graphics continue to be top-notch and much of the acting is quite
good.
Tilly (Mary Wiseman), Captain Pike (Anson Mount), Georgiou (Michelle
Yeoh),
Stamets (Anthony Rapp), Saru (Doug Jones), Ash Tyler (Shazad Latif) and
Spock
(Ethan Peck) are all pretty good and well-written.
But Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) is all over the place. She's
the
main character and was raised by Vulcans and is hyper-intelligent and
logical
-- except when she's not. For the first half of the season, she was good
and
for the second half, she's stupid and emotional. She knows things on faith
and asks stupid questions about things she should know.
The second half of the season spends 1/2 of each episode dealing with
emotions and human shit. But they go too far. It's still interesting and
relatively well-written, but there's more tedium to get through than in
the
first season.
Iron Fist S02 (2018) -- "7/10"
Danny, Colleen, Ward, Joy and Davos are back in the second season. Danny is
still denying his job at his inherited company, while Ward runs Rand Corp.
Joy splits away from them both, hating Danny for mostly stupid reasons.
Colleen is an occasional vigilante, but no longer runs a dojo, living in
the
place with Danny instead. They've appointed it nicely, living in quite a
bit
of opulence if you know anything about NYC real estate.
Which is where things get a bit difficult: the story is about three
billionaires (Danny, Joy and Ward), none of whom really act the part very
much at all. Ward goes to NA meetings as if he's a normal human being.
Danny
works for a moving company in Chinatown. Joy lives in opulence on the
Upper
(East?) Side.
Davos is a spectacularly bitchy and sulky and determinedly un-fun
character.
He manages to swipe Danny's iron fist from him, then sets about doing with
it
what Danny never could.
Danny Rand is actually better than in the first season; his fighting is
definitely better. Still, he's pretty stupid and lets his anger get the
best
of him constantly. I thought he was the one who meditated and stupid and
had
all the Chi?
Joy is spectacularly self-centered, outbidding even Ward in that regard.
Colleen is still pretty good. Misty Knight is an annoying cop -- her
smugness
and complete disregard for procedure really gets old. Mary Walker is the
most
interesting new character, played well by Alice Eve.
Hereditary (2018) -- "9/10"
This is a slow burner of a horror movie. It's a psycho-horror movie that
leaves you right up until the end, wondering how much was actually real
and
how much was mental illness and who did what to whom. The story is full of
unreliable narrators. There are several shots that are Kubrickian (the one
where the camera flips upside-down midway through a track) and several
scenes
that make use of light, mirrors, sound, music in a way reminiscent of
Tarkovsky.
Toni Collette is Annie, a seemingly reasonably successful miniature
artist.
She is married to Steve (Gabriel Byrne). It is completely unclear what
Steve
does. They have two children, a daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro) and Peter
(Alex Wolff). Everyone does their part, but Collette and Wolff really
knock
it out of the park.
The story starts with Annie and her family burying her mother. Inklings of
bad blood and bizarre behavior ooze out through the dialogue, a comment
here,
a vague suggestion there. Charlie is a bit...off. She is not very social
--
but Annie is no prize either. Peter seems quite understanding and
accepting
for a teenage boy.
Without spoiling too much, the affairs of Annie's mother -- and her
friends
-- begin to impinge on the whole family. Charlie's fate is shockingly
rendered and one of the best-made moments of an already well-made film.
The
house looks almost like a miniature itself. Annie's new friend is ... odd
--
and not really a friend. Annie is distraught and desperate. Steve is
resigned
but worried. Peter's life spins out of control. They drop, one by one,
until
the final, real purpose is revealed -- horrifying and nearly impossible to
predict.
There are shades of early Shyamalan in the storytelling (also had shades
of
The Shining) and, as noted, Kubrick and Tarkovsky in the direction. Those
are
solid pedigrees for a first-ever effort by writer/director Ari Aster. I
highly recommend it, but it's not for the faint of heart.
Simpsons S30 -- "7/10"
Like the previous season, this one has its ups and downs -- there seem to be
two distinct teams writing these shows. Some are really clever and nice
while
others are just a pile of time-wasting non-sequiturs and uncoordinated
half-jokes. Episodes 14, The Clown Stays in the Picture, 17 E My Sports
and
18 Bart vs. Itchy and Scratchy each had their moments.
Mother! -- "9/10"
To call this a horror movie is to miss a rich world of metaphoric
possibility. I've read comparisons to Begotten because of "religious
themes",
because Jennifer Lawrence said in an interview that the movie represents
the
"rape and torment of Mother Earth", which I honestly didn't get at all.
Begotten has a stronger claim to such themes, but its black-and-white
filmmaking, graininess, droning, bee-like soundtrack and complete lack of
comprehensible dialogue makes the comparison extremely weak.
Mother!, on the other hand, is a beautifully made film, starring Jennifer
Lawrence as Mother and Javier Bardem as the Poet (or "Him" as he's listed
in
the cast). The film starts with him placing a crystal in a stand on a
charred mantle. From this crystal flows outward a wave of healing,
repairing
the house around it from a blackened husk to a house under renovation. The
camera cuts to Lawrence waking up in bed, in the morning.
They live together in his childhood home, at a great remove from
everything
and everyone else. She has restored and renovated a large part of the home
after a fire. He is trying, and failing, to write.
He receives some strange guests, Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer (who is
especially good). Mother wants nothing to do with them. They are nearly
cartoonishly -- but still believably -- rude and intrusive and prying.
More
of their family follows. The house fills up with people. The Poet loves it
--
he loves the attention. Mother is appalled at the casual destruction and
forwardness of the guests.
There is an incident (one of their sons beats the other to death with a
doorknob), followed by a funeral and then, a wake -- in the house, of
course,
for people they hardly know. They are all rude and completely and
seemingly
deliberately ignore Mother's admonitions about being careful and
respectful
of the home. Two guests break a sink she'd warned them about -- and she
flips
out and throws everyone out of the house. Pfeiffer glares deliciously as
she
sails toward the door, right to left.
At around the same time, she discovers a bleeding hole in the floor, which
leads to a runnel of blood on a wall in the basement, which she digs open
to
discover hidden catacombs -- with a fuel-oil heater.
After this first incident, Mother and the Poet fight, then make up with
one
another. She wakes up the following morning and declares herself pregnant.
He
is delighted and simultaneously rediscovers his muse, leaping from bed to
begin writing.
Fade out and in and he has finished his book, his poem, and lets her rad
it.
She is moved to tears, but is shocked to discover that his publisher has
also
already seen it. She thought it was for them alone -- at least for now. He
seeks the admiration of others before her. He needs their adoration more
than
he needs her -- because she is a sure bet.
Once again, the house begins to fill with people, this time his admirers
and
hangers-on storm the house, starting a debauched party and tearing her
home
apart, invading everywhere. He is revered as a God; she is very, very
pregnant and either ignored or shoved around. She gets him off to herself,
in
a room, after she tells him that the baby is coming. She has the baby on
her
own, in the house, with the wild party ongoing. He looks on, happy but
distracted and seemingly thinking about something else.
He wants to show the child to his adoring fans. She refuses. He stares at
her, waiting until she falls asleep before snatching up the child and
bringing the fruit of his loins to his fans to adore. They crowd-surf the
child away, to her absolute horror, finally snapping its head off in their
ardor and fervor. She desperately claws her way through the crowd, until
she
finds the child's ravaged corpse on a sort of altar. She flips out --
understandably so -- slicing people left and right. She is beaten to the
ground and horribly assaulted, taking several savage blows to the head and
breast.
The Poet rescues her briefly, but she wants out of the house. She'd tried
before, but was thwarted at every turn, much as one is in a dream. She
finds
the lighter of the Man (Ed Harris) that she'd previously hidden and makes
her
way to the oil tank. There she makes her stand, blowing up the whole
house.
She stands, Joan-of-Arc-like in the flames.
We cut to Him, completely unscathed carrying her charred, but living body
from the debris. He lays her down and asks her for one last thing -- her
heart. She grants him this because she has given everything else. She
cannot
refuse him -- and he is driven to use up every last bit of her. He needs
her
heart, in order to squeeze it into the crystal from which the cycle starts
again, this time with a different woman in the role of mother.
The metaphor is relatively clear -- and he states it quite clearly in the
last few lines of the film -- she is one in a long line of muses. He uses
each to spark his creativity and create a work of art. But he uses them up
each time and the leave, making room for the next. His process requires
it.
He takes her heart at the end, crushing it to a diamond that fuels the
next
cycle. It explains why he was so upset when the crystal was broken by the
Man
and Woman -- he knew the cycle had entered another phase, one that he knew
would lead to his creativity coming back, but that would lose him his
latest
muse. The film is a metaphor for this cycle. All the pieces fall into
place
when viewed in this light.
As with other Aronofsky films, attention and thought is required in order
to
get anything out of this film. It was well-acted all around. Jennifer
Lawrence is very strong in the main role -- up until the desperation at
the
end, where she didn't act quite mad (insane) enough to match what the
situation warranted. She's almost too strong to really lose her shit
entirely.
Kim's Convenience (S01-s03) -- "9/10"
This is a delightful sitcom from Canada. I like all the characters; not a
useless whiny asshole among them. It is the literal opposite of This is
Us.
Ok, Mrs. Park is kind of an asshole, but so hammed up, it's not like you
consider here a real person. Although I'm sure many Mrs. Parks exist.
She's
also so over-the-top snooty that you can't really take her seriously. Mr.
Chin is nice. Most of the customers are nice. The family mostly treats
each
other nicely. The parents demand and get respect and are very funny and
modern, though also very traditional.
It is the story of first-generation South-Korean immigrants, Umma and Appa
(literally Mama and Papa) or Mr. and Mrs. Kim. We don't know their first
names. They own a convenience store in Toronto. They have two children:
Janet
(20) and Jung (26ish). Janet lives at home in the first season and moves
out
in the second. Jung lives with his cousin Kimchee and has done so for
years
because he moved out over a rift with his father. The rift continues deep
in
to season two.
By season 3, the rift is at least partially healed. Janet rolls with her
own
inadequacy and youth and inexperience. Jung does a bit better, but also
makes
mistakes. Mr. and Mrs. Kim are rocks.
The show is delightful and entertaining and funny and nice. Recommended.
Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) -- "6/10"
This was a goofy movie with some fun moments, but overall the plot was all
over the place and there were some jarring emotional investments with no
explanation. For example, Hope Van Dyne's obsession with getting back to
her
mother -- even though she hadn't seen her in 30 years and would have
clearly
been much more over it by then. She seemed to think that
going-to-the-quantum-realm-and-getting-her-out was a clearly defined
viable
plan. It didn't strike anyone as odd that no-one had thought of it before,
if
it really was so simple.
The plot was basically that Scott Lang was trying not break his final days
of
house arrest while at the same time helping Hope and Hank Pym get Janet
Van
Dyne back from the quantum realm. They needed his help because he was the
only one who'd successfully returned from that realm. Also, Janet had
somehow
planted a message/antenna in Lang's head while he was there.
No explanation is given for how Janet survived down there. No explanation
for
how she aged so much. Nor for how she avoided madness. Or was she only
there
for hours? (as, e.g., Lang's five hours ended up being five years in
real-world time?)
And don't even get me started on "Ghost", the enemy with whom we're meant
to
sympathize because she's been driven to being a selfish asshole by her
constant pain. Her power is a semi-controlled quantum-phasing in and our
of
reality -- and also being really angry and unsympathetic all the time. She
was played pretty poorly by an unknown but female/biracial actress, which
was
probably the point. They spent about ten minutes of Morpheus-storytelling
explaining to us why we should care. I did not end up doing so.
If you need to see the whole canon, then go ahead and spend two hours
watching this one. The mid-credits scene (or post-credits one?) explains
part
of the plot of Avengers: Endgame. Otherwise, you can skip it.
Avengers: Endgame (2019) -- "9/10"
This was a worthy finale to a 22-movie story arc. From IMDb, it " marked
Chapter Ten of Phase Three in the Marvel Cinematic Universe." The ending
of
Infinity War gave us a universe with its population cut in half, courtesy
of
Thanos. We pick up from there at the beginning of this film. Tony Stark is
stranded in space with Nebula, "1,000 light years from home". Instead of
dying in space, though, Captain Marvel shows up to drag his ship to Earth,
saving them all.
Tony's a whiny shit, though -- as usual -- yelling at everyone that the
only
reason this all happened was that they were too concerned with their
precious
freedoms and that they had failed to capitulate to his unparalleled genius
and given him control of the world and his all-encompassing space shield.
This wouldn't have stopped anything, but there's no talking to some people
--
especially arrogant ones.
Happily, they drop this plot direction pretty quickly, although they
immediately pick up with "let's go kick Thanos's ass". It is unclear why
they
think this is a plausible plan; it didn't even come close to working the
first time, so why would it work now? Anyone who raises an objection is
treated like a traitor.
Still, they all jump in a spaceship to find Thanos farming on a garden
planet. Thor kills him. The end.
Just kidding. That was the first 15 minutes of a 3-hour movie.
There were a few places where the writing got a bit lazy, with little care
given to consistency, motivation or physics. Most of them could be papered
over and weren't noticeable during viewing. They only come up afterward,
when
you think about it for a bit. In no particular order, here are a few
questions:
* Deus Ex: Captain Marvel is a Deus Ex Machina in tight pants. Whereas
it
seems initially plausible that she would have to fly off to take care
of
the many other planets in the universe affected by the snap, you
quickly
ask yourself: are any of those planets also believably going to undo
the
snap? Shouldn't she be helping out Earth the most? If she can fly 1000
light years in an hour, can she travel through time? Or visit the
quantum
realm? I know it's more interesting without her involvement -- but
then
why even have her in the first place?
* Quantum Time: Janet Van Dyne spent ... how long in the quantum realm?
She
looks to have aged as much as Henry Pym, but did she really spend 30
years down there? How did she eat? Or breathe? Or at least avoid going
insane? Or did she actually spend about 30 hours down there, akin to
the
5 hours that Scott Lang spent in the five years after the snap? If so,
why is she so much older? It's either one way or the other, no?
* Post-apocalyptic?: When Scott got out, it was to a world wasted by
neglect, post-apocalyptic. But there was a security guard at a
run-of-the-mill storage facility? Why? Where are people getting food
and
clothes and technology in a world with 50% of the population gone? The
economy would have completely collapsed back to the iron age, more or
less. But Tony Stark's kid has all the toys and clothes she wants? Is
it
because he's a billionaire? Why would that matter in a collapsed
society?
* Defenseless and insensate: Why didn't the Avengers base have any
defenses
against Thanos's missiles? None at all. He just ripped them apart as
if
they were a housing complex. Why didn't they sense him coming? They
could
sense his second snap all the way across the universe, but they can't
detect him right above their base?
* Stones: Why was Stark able to wield the stones on his armor when they
spent so much time building the first glove (they needed a neutron
star)
and the second one (in the lab). If it was that easy, why didn't they
just do that in the first place? The Hulk nearly lost an arm, but so
did
Stark? Wouldn't the energy burst have just incinerated him?
* Hulk: Poor Hulk: he can hold up the Avengers headquarters but has to
be
rescued by Ant/Giant Man? To add insult to injury, in the epilogue,
everyone else seems to have healed whereas the Hulk's wound seems at
least semi-permanent. And he's the one with vaunted healing powers.
* Power Imbalances: Why was a ringless Thanos able to battle Thor, Iron
Man
and Captain America to a standstill simultaneously? What kind of
powers
does he have? He also stood toe-to-toe with Captain Marvel, who ripped
a
whole spaceship apart with her bare hands, in a single pass. Thanos is
as
powerful as he needs to be, at any given moment -- another Deus Ex
Machina.
* Girl Power: If Marvel can rip apart a spaceship, then why was
Spider-Man
so worried about whether she could get to the van and the quantum
tunnel?
How would he even have known that was her destination? He showed up so
late, he would have had no way of knowing what the plan was. But,
really,
Peter Parker is otherwise very clever, so why would he waste a second
worrying about the ability of Captain Marvel to get through some foot
soldiers after having just witnessed her smashing their whole ship in
seconds? Was it to set up the moment when all of the womyn backed up
Captain Marvel in a grrrrll moment, as if she needed any backup from a
lady with a spear?
* Time Travel: How did Thanos, Gamorra and Nebula and all of his minions
even get there in the first place? They explained that Thanos learned
of
the future through Nebula's quantum entanglement with her future self.
Fair enough. But how did Thanos then time-travel his whole ship and
armies nine years into the future to confront them after the snap? If
he
could time-travel (without the Time Stone, mind you), why wouldn't he
have just jumped a day earlier and stopped them from undoing his snap
at
all? Was there some metaphysical reason why that was impossible?
Thanos's
time travel went completely unremarked and unexplained. Unless it just
took him nine years to get there, heeding the laws of physics, unlike
every other interstellar/galactic trip in all of the other movies. If
so,
then when did he actually do all of his intervening conquering and
gathering of stones and the snap? It's an unsolved mystery. They just
absolutely needed Thanos to show up and to try to thwart (or reverse)
the
unsnapping and have the biggest battle of all time. They did a good
job,
because I didn't notice the inconsistency until nearly a day later.
Temporal liberties taken aside, power imbalances aside, everyone involved
gets an extra star for not fucking it up. Chris Evans as Captain America
was
fantastic and got an honorable retirement. Ditto for Iron Man, who was
redeemed (a bit) from his raving libertarian/billionaire/fascism of recent
films (to wit: just give Stark all decision-making power and he'll make
sure
everything's hunky dory, or the reason why he and Captain America rifted
in
Civil War).
It was a non-fighting movie for a long time and did well with it,
alternating
between appropriately maudlin (they had failed to stop the world from
being
half-destroyed) and goofy. It was a giant build-up to an epic battle --
which
is exactly how the comic books work.
Captain America passing on the shield to Falcon was a bit odd. I'm also
not
sure why he aged so much since he's enhanced with super-soldier serum.
Falcon's not enhanced, though. Did Steve Rogers give him the shield to
show
that the future of "Captain America" is black?
It was a bit more believable that Thor would hand off his crown to
Valkyrie
to become Queen of Asgard. Speaking of which, Chris Hemsworth as fat Thor
was
brilliant. I can't wait to see what he's in next.
And there were so many famous people with cameos in this film: it became a
regular Poseidon Adventure: Robert Redford, Michael Douglas, Michelle
Pfeiffer, Tilda Swinton, Rene Russo, the list goes on. [1]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] From the IMDb page:
"The cast includes 19 Academy Award-nominated actors: Angela Bassett,
Benedict Cumberbatch, Bradley Cooper, Brie Larson, Don Cheadle, Gwyneth
Paltrow, Jeremy Renner, Josh Brolin, Marisa Tomei, Mark Ruffalo, Michael
Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, Natalie Portman, Robert Downey Jr., Robert
Redford, Samuel L. Jackson, Taika Waititi, Tilda Swinton, and William Hurt.
Of those nominated, Douglas, Portman, Hurt, Larson, Redford, Swinton, Tomei
and Paltrow have all won at least one Academy Award. Douglas has two Academy
Awards, one for Best Picture for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and one for
Best Actor for Wall Street."
Also: "Robert Downey Jr officially surpassed Hugh Jackman's record for most
appearances in film as the same superhero with 10. He set this record in only
11 years, whereas Jackman did it in 17."
Chris Evans played Captain America 11 times. Scarlett Johansson played Black
Widow 7 times.
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https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=37252019-04-07T22:43:24+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1400
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of around 1400 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.
Robot Jox (1989) -- "4/10"
I was tempted to give this movie an extra point for having some pretty nice
robot models for pre-CGI -- but I couldn't do it. The acting was just too
terrible. As was the writing. The writing was worse than the acting, but
it
was a close call. The costumes were decent. This movie was made in the
same
year that the Berlin Wall fell, but it acknowledges nothing of that thaw
in
the Cold War.
We learn that the world has been nearly destroyed by war. The survivors no
longer fight, except with giant robots in official battles over territory.
The battles take place in an arena in the desert. The two competitors are,
of
course, America, and something called "Confed", which is clearly Russia,
going by the accent of "Alexander", their champion.
The script was written by Joe Haldeman, so I expected better. It was an
unsubtle, jingoistic, sexist and utterly predictable movie with giant
robots
in it. I'm not even going to describe the plot because it doesn't matter.
You
know what it is; good guy triumphs, loses, is nearly destroyed, triumphs
again. Bad guy cheats the whole time. They reconcile, finding common
ground.
The end.
Perhaps the only curiosity was that the American robot was clearly
inferior
to the Russian one. The only thing that could defeat that robot was its
own
weapons, turned against itself.
A Simple Plan (1998) -- "8/10"
This is possibly Sam Raimi's best movie. He really is an excellent director.
Bill Paxton played well (as opposed to his disastrous acting in Boxing
Helena, but Billy Bob Thornton puts on a master class as Jacob. Raimi's
style
is clearer when things start rolling as the "plan" comes undone.
This is a story of a simple-sounding plan hatched by three guys who find a
plane full of money. They swear to tell no-one, then slowly tell too many
people. Murders snowball. There is attrition. Brothers fight and
reconcile.
Recommended.
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) -- "8/10"
This is a movie about the band Queen and its rise to fame, culminating in
possibly the greatest rock concert ever -- their performance at LiveAid in
1985. The band is a family and each is essential; the film shows how
famous
tracks each came from different band members.
This is not the story of Freddie Mercury, except so far as to describe the
band. Naturally, his life is emphasized, as it defined the band more than
the
quieter family lives of the others. His homosexuality is an undercurrent
throughout the film, rising to the fore in the second half. It is no way
hidden or suppressed to get a PG rating. The treatment is subtle and tells
the story adequately without getting ludicrously raunchy.
The film doesn't shy away at all from male intimacy, but draws the line at
depicting any sex or nudity at all (i.e. we don't have to endure Malek
going
down on a prosthetic penis, which is what some reviewers seemed to think
was
the absolute minimum required for "authenticity". Rami Malek plays Freddie
Mercury. He seems to do quite a good job of it. The rest of the band is
also
quite good.
It was a bit longer than it needed to be, especially near the beginning.
The
final 20 minutes were goosebumps.
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) -- "7/10"
This sequel to the original was decent, but it was too obvious that this
movie is a stepping stone to the next movie rather than a real movie in
its
own right. Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) feature much more prominently and we
learn much more of his plans for eliminating muggles and dominating the
wizard world.
Jude Law is good as a young and constantly scheming Albus Dumbledore. We
meet
Dumbledore's brother as well, in the person of Credence and Nicolas Flamel
(from the original books, he's the one who created the Philosopher's
Stone).
It was interesting, but possibly only for fans of the series.
Queer Eye S03 (2019) -- "7/10"
The fab five are back for another 10-episode season of helping people learn
how to comb their hair, trim their beards, vacuum their apartments and
choose
clothes more appropriate to people their age. The format is the same for
each
episode, but it's only really noticeable if you binge. We spread them out
over several weeks and enjoyed most of them. Some of the people they chose
this time were less "worthy", but it's fine. I like Bobby's work on
interior
design, but they seem to go more and more over the top with each episode,
spending God only knows what on people who will only mess everything up
the
second the five leave.
Love, Death and Robots (2019) -- "9/10"
This series is what I remember experiencing when I watched Heavy Metal for
the first time. Perhaps in 25 years, they will also seem hopelessly dated,
but for now, they were quite interesting. The 18 episodes are cartoons or
CGI
featuring what the title advertises. Many have interesting
science-fiction--worthy plots akin to those in Black Mirror (i.e. a
Twilight
Zone with a strong science-fiction/technology foundation). I would watch
many
of these again, as they were quite good. I really liked Zima Blue. Many of
the others were clever or funny or both. They were all high-quality
rendering. Highly recommended.
The Dirt (2019) -- "6/10"
This is the biopic of the rise, fall and rise again of Mötley Crüe. It felt
a bit gratuitous, on the one hand (there's a quick scene at a party in the
first five minutes where Tommy Lee orally pleasures a young lady in the
middle of a party until she squirts all over the place), but also quite
formulaic, on the other. The acting is decent, although no-one really
stands
out. They spend a lot of time going over details that were most likely in
the
book, but don't really focus too much on the appeal of the Crüe to its
fans.
There are plenty of scenes of debauchery and partying and drugs and sex,
but
they also don't titillate. Even when they disgust -- Ozzy's piss-licking
scene at the pool -- it's not that well-done.
Isn't It Romantic (2019) -- "7/10"
Rebel Wilson stars as Natalie, a young lady working as an architect in New
York City. She's best friends with her secretary, who does nothing but
watch
romantic comedies all day on her computer. Natalie is quite down on these
unrealistic movies.
Natalie strikes her head quite badly and gets a massive concussion, waking
into a glorious hospital room that she likens to a "Williams Sonoma". The
doctor is handsome and thinks she's beautiful. Slowly she realizes that
her
life has become a romantic comedy: she is a star architect with her own
firm;
her secretary is now her partner, who hates her (because the formula
dictates
it); her original firm's client, Blake (Liam Hemsworth) is now in love
with
her.
Adam DeVine plays her best friend, Josh (who's secretly/not-so-secretly in
love with her) both in the original setting and in the romantic comedy.
Adam
also gets a love interest, in the form of a normally unattainable "Yoga
Ambassador" called Isabella.
It's a cute idea and decent iteration of the "it was all a dream" formula.
At
first, Natalie thinks that she has to consummate with Blake to get out of
the
dream, then realizes that Josh has strong feelings for her, so thinks she
has
to stop his wedding to Isabella and declare her love to him -- but finally
realizes that her real problem is that she doesn't love herself. Tada! She
wakes up in a regular emergency room. Wilson is very good and funny, as is
DeVine.
Nate Bargatze: Tennessee Kid (2019) -- "9/10"
I really liked Bargatze's quick set in another Netflix series called The
Standups and he delivers a full hour in this special with the same aplomb.
He's clean as a whistle but not noticeably so. That is, he's not like
Brian
Regan, over-exaggerating to get laughs. Bargatze is very subdued and
intelligent and delivers a great set.
He has several bits that just grow slowly and then hit you with a lovely
punchline. Talking about climate change, he compares our planet to the
other
planets, saying if you think the Earth is bad, you should see the others
because "they're nowhere right now". He talks about tailgating and
inadvertently entering the stadium 3 hours early, he tells of his early
career with his magician father. He spends a good deal of time following
up
on his original special, which could have tanked, but was relaxed and
interesting and very funny.
Highly recommended.
Kevin Hart: Irresponsible (2019) -- "6/10"
Kevin plays the O2 arena in London, standing in the middle of
dozens of thousands of people, talking about his sex life and sweating
profusely. Unlike Bargatze, Hart often seems forced, getting laughs for
presentation rather than for material. It's not really my cup of tea
anymore
-- I like his earlier specials better. It seems like an entire stadium
full
of people in London disagree. It did feel like they jumped to crowd-shots
of
people dying with laughter, tears running down their face, a bit too much.
It
was almost like they were trying to tell you when to laugh.
]]>
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of around 1400
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of around 1400 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.
Nikita (1990) -- "7/10"
Nikita is a street thug with some fighting skills. She's part of a gang that
tries to rob a jewelry store and it goes completely tits-up, leaving only
Nikita alive. She shoots the cop who finds her at the scene in the face.
She's sentenced to prison where her captors fake her death in order to
enter
her into a shadowy government organization to first hone, then use her
native
but nascent skills on missions. Her first missions, the one that she has
to
pass in order to "graduate" from the program and start real missions is to
kill a diplomat. She's given very clear instructions, but the mission ends
up
being completely different and goes tits-up. She masters the situation and
gets out anyway, graduating the program.
She is given various missions, with a major one in Venice, where she is on
vacation with her boyfriend. Her cover is almost blown during her mission,
but she manages to cover it up. Her final mission in the film again goes
sideways, but she escapes with her life, abandoning both the agency and
her
boyfriend.
Watched it in the original French, with English subtitles.
Comedians in Cars getting Coffee S10 (2018) -- "6/10"
Jerry Seinfeld has been interviewing comedians for ten seasons now. The show
format hasn't changed at all: he picks a car he deems appropriate to the
comedian he's going to interview; he calls the comedian and picks them up;
they go out for coffee. No-one drives the car but Seinfeld.
Seinfeld is decent, but it's hard for him to shake the veneer of
comfortable,
rich, older guy. Still, there were a few good interviews in this season:
Zach
Galifianikis and Dana Carvey stood out. Others were more of a dud than
expected, like Dave Chappelle, where the conversation didn't really go
anywhere.
Kaya Yanar: Made in Germany (2008) -- "8/10"
This is one of Yanar's first specials and his machine-gun mouth serves him
well through a longish special, almost 90 minutes. He covers growing up in
Germany, growing up Turkish in Germany, going to gymnasium, dealing with
parents of varied provenance. Watched it in German. Recommended.
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) -- "9/10"
After having seen the trailer for the remake The Hustle, starring Rebel
Wilson and Anne Hathaway in the roles played by Steve Martin and Michael
Caine in the original.
Caine is a very well-established con-man on the French Riviera with a
gorgeous house and a very successful "practice". Steve Martin is the
brash,
young American with raw skills but no style. Caine takes him under his
wing
and trains him for a big sting: they will compete for Caine's territory by
both trying to con an heiress (Glenne Headly) out of her newly acquired
fortune.
They all play wonderfully and the script is great -- there's a lovely
twist
at the end. Highly recommended.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine S06 (2018--2019) -- "9/10"
In season 6, the action picks up and everyone is very comfortable in their
roles. The characters grow and the plots are pretty interesting. I gave it
an
extra point because this season was much better than 4 or 5.
The Kominsky Method (2018) -- "10/10"
Michael Douglas and Allan Arkin are Sandy Kominsky, acting coach and his
agent, Norman Newlander. The show starts with a farewell: Norman's wife
Eileen (Susan Sullivan) has late-stage cancer and dies in the first
episode.
She remains in the show as an imaginary sparring partner for Norman.
Sandy's daughter Mindy (the wonderful Sarah Baker) works with him.
Norman's
daughter Phoebe (Lisa Edelstein) is a drug addict who bounces from clinic
to
clinic, wasting money and everyone's patience.
Throughout the season, Sandy and Norman grow grudgingly closer while Sandy
gets closer to Lisa (an excellent Nancy Travis), a student of his.
The dialogue and pacing is pitch-perfect. Douglas is fantastic and very
much
in the mode of the jovial Jack from Romancing with the Stone rather than
his
creepier roles, like in Fatal Attraction. I'm really looking forward to
season 2.
Sex Education (2019) -- "10/10"
This is a British show about a young man Otis Milburn (Asa Butterfield) going
through puberty, along with the rest of his school. His mother (the
delightful Gillian Anderson) is a sex counselor with her practice in her
home. Otis has only incidental contact with her estranged husband (and
fellow
counselor), Remi, played by James Purefoy.
His best friend is Eric (Ncuti Gatwa) and he makes an acquaintance of
Maeve
(the also-excellent Emma Mackey), who's highly intelligent but is poor
with a
shady family and an attitude problem. She detects a latent talent in Otis:
he
seems to have a good bedside manner for dishing out sex advice -- just
like
his mother.
He starts counseling the other students, with varied success, but he and
Maeve are making money. Maeve starts dating the school swim-star but
slowly
starts to fall for Otis. Otis is deeply in love with Maeve but slowly
falls
for Ola Nyman -- whose father is a handyman falling for Otis's mom (who
reciprocates).
Season one ends nicely, setting up and interesting season two, filled with
so-far interesting, funny and non-preachy characters. Highly recommended.
Heavy Metal (1981) -- "4/10"
I first saw this movie while in college, where I remember it being much
better than it was on a second viewing. In the early 90s, the graphics
were
amazing -- now they're a bit dated and the movie has to survive on other
merits, like the plot. The plot seems to have been written by a horny
15-year--old. Most of the skits are relatively primitive, if at-times
amusing. There is some nudity, but it's pretty tame, overall. The story
follows an evil, glowing ball that takes its victims by convincing them to
do
stupid, life-threatening things. It's unclear what its agenda is: it seems
all-powerful but its aims seem petty.
Eighth Grade (2018) -- "4/10"
This is a 90-minute movie about a modern, eighth-grade girl's life. We spend
most of our time watching her in close-up, bathed in the glow of either a
laptop or her phone. Her father features occasionally as a milquetoast
whom
she abuses. He apologizes constantly to her for making her feel that she
has
to abuse him. She uses Instagram primarily, as do her friends. This movie
could have been an advertisement for that service.
What else does she do? Does she play an instrument? Does she read? Go
outside? Play a sport? Ride a bike? No to all. The weather is always
lovely,
but she's never outside. She doesn't seem to have any interest outside of
chatting with friends. She doesn't seem particularly clever or
interesting.
She meets some older kids, who treat her like a goddess, which is
refreshing
since you expect the complete opposite. On the other hand, there is
literally
nothing that we've learned of her that justifies this near-worship by the
older kids.
She makes videos and posts them online. They are short and mostly
incoherent,
full of platitudes about being your best self and being confident. The
plot
is nearly nonexistent. She likes a boy. She has a time capsule project
that
she at-first hates, then regrets having made her father burn for her. She
makes a new time capsule.
She tells off a mean girl who doesn't seem to even understand what's
happening. The vindictive moment seems to only happen for her. No-one else
sees it.
The end. Not recommended.
Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) -- "8/10"
This movie turned out better than expected. Alden Ehrenreich is quite good as
a young Han Solo. We learn about Solo's rise from his home planet to
becoming
a smuggler. We knew a bunch of this backstory already, but the film fills
in
a lot of interesting detail. The story is about the Kessel Run.
Solo teams up with Beckett, another smuggler played by Woody Harrelson.
Emilia Clarke is Qi'ra, a young lady in whom Solo is enamored, but who
doesn't make it off the planet with him. She shows up again later, though.
Donald Glover is also very good as a young Lando Calrissian. Paul Bettany
and
Thandie Newton are also good. I was surprised to find myself having
enjoyed a
Ron Howard vehicle so much. It's pretty decent, the script set up a sequel
in
a non-pandering manner (that is, the story for this movie was solid in its
own right, but the characters and storyline were nicely lined up for
more).
]]>
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of around 1400
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of around 1400 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.
The Putin Interviews E03 (2017) -- "8/10"
Oliver Stone interviews Vladimir Putin about his life, his career and his
politics in this 4-part mini-series. The interviews take place over the
span
of over two years, from June 2015 to September 2017.
This episode begins with intensified discussions of Ukraine. Putin
mentions
that, while there were talks for 17 years about Russia's entry into the
WTO,
for purposes of trade, Ukraine's deal with the EU was greenlit
immediately,
letting the West run roughshod over Russia's trade alliances, but not vice
versa. He may be lying, but damn if that doesn't sound like something we
would definitely do.
When asked about Yanukovich leaving Kiev, "abandoning it", as Stone says,
Putin responds,
"Yes, that's the version used to justify the support granted to the coup.
Once the president left for Kharkov, the second-largest city in the
country,
{...} armed men seized the presidential palace. Imagine something like
that
in the U.S., if the White House [were to be] seized, what would you call
that? A coup d'etat? Or say that they just came to sweep the floors?
"[...]
"Everything can be perverted and distorted, millions of people can be
deceived, if you use the monopoly on the media."
In further discussions of surveillance and anti-terrorism, Putin delivers
the
same pablum as the US: we have to get them before they get us. On other
topics of international import, he's quite open and honest about and
knowledgable about the realities of terrorism and state terror. He
discusses
the likelihood of a missile shield kicking off a new arms race.
They discuss Syria and ISIS extensively. Putin goes into detail about the
oil
pipeline run by ISIS. Russia works directly with the US military, where
possible, not NATO. Neither one of them is legally in Syria, though.
Unlike
Russia, which is there at the behest of the Syrian government.
They go on to discuss the US and NATO provocations in the Black Sea and
along
Russia shores. Putin is proud that his generals have not risen to the
provocations and avoided war so far. He is a "cautious optimist".
"Stone: This seems to be a very tense presidency you have.
Putin: (Sighs) And when was it simple? Times are always difficult."
The Punisher, S02 (2019) -- "8/10"
Frank Castle is on the road, bouncing from place to place. The best thing
about this show is that the Punisher is a force of nature. Jon Bernthal is
excellent as the taciturn Frank Castle. Ben Barnes starts off slowly, but
does well as Billy Russo, who makes his grueling way back from the
monumental
beating Castle gave him at the end of the previous season.
This season goes up and down a bit, but overall, I think it's quite good
--
carried on the strength of Bernthal's performance -- and, eventually,
Giorgia
Whigham's as Rachel/Amy. Amber Rose Revah as Madani is pretty uneven, but
overall better than in the first season. Karen Paige shows up for an
episode,
which is nice. Jason Moore as Curtis is pretty good, too. Josh Stewart's
steely-eyed Pilgrim was more annoying at the beginning, but became more
bearable once he showed vulnerability.
As in the first season, Castle takes an unbelievable amount of punishment
--
I thought he punished other people, but in this show, he seems to be
punishing himself. Bernthal carries it well and makes it as believable as
possible -- it works for me. His character is developed quite well -- a
tortured soul with an unswerving morality, just like in the comic books.
The plot carries Castle and Russo inevitably toward each other -- the
unstoppable force and the immovable object. Somewhere in there, there's
Pilgrim still trying to kill Amy/Rachel as part of his mission. The amount
of
damage he takes is also pretty impressive.
The final couple of episodes take it up quite a notch, tying together many
of
the open threads. Madani clinches with Krista, Billy's psychiatrist and
lover. Billy, who'd actually kept his promise to Krista to leave it all
behind and run away with her. sees Krista's demise -- at Madani's hands.
Dragged back in again, because he's got nothing to lose, again.
Norm MacDonald has a Show (2018) -- "9/10"
Norm MacDonald continually surprised me, even when I'm expecting surprises.
This is a low-fi talk show with various hi-fi guests. Norm is an open and
honest interviewer who clearly only has guests that he admires deeply. It
shows in his interview style -- which, if you know Norm, you wouldn't
expect
to be at-all linear or in-line with a talk-show interview style. Norm is a
good inquisitor, but in his own elliptical, inimitable style -- a style
with
which his guests, to their credit, roll quite well.
I've liked most of the guests and most of the interviews, but the
stand-outs
so far have been Jane Fonda and Billy Joe Shaver. Both were truly moving
and
interesting. Shaver, in particular, is, for me, a heretofore unknown
wonder
of Americana, a country-and-western singer with a laconic gravitas and
pathos
and humor that he has in both word in song. His recorded material is good,
too, but his live renditions of Black Rose, Old Chunk of Coal and Georgia
on
a Fast Train on this show were better -- stripped of all artifice and
production, gravelly, delivered in a powerful whisper.
Ray Romano: Right Here, Around the Corner (2019) -- "8/10"
This is Ray's first recorded special in 23 years. His standup is still
rock-solid and funny as hell. His on-stage persona is wonderful,
laid-back.
He talks about getting older, dealing with his older mother, being
married,
men-and-women -- standard topics, but really nicely done. Somehow real and
funny, even though his material would feel dated to many today, he's
damned
funny. It's not sexist, it's just jokes about traditional roles -- women
do
this, men do that. He talks about his own relationship, though.
La Haine (1995) -- "10/10"
Vincent Cassel is a revelation in this. He's a Jewish teenager named, not
coincidentally, Vinz, with two best friends: a black guy, Hubert and an
Arab,
Saïd. Hubert is the "thinker", Vinz is looking to make a name for himself
and Saîd lives in his brother's shadow, talking big but just making
noise.
Vinz is a loose cannon -- he hasn't done anything yet, but he's convinced
that he has to do something.
The film is shot in black and white and takes place over 24 hours after a
riot, in which the police beat a young man quite badly. Tensions are high
and
it's expected that another riot will break out. The cops themselves aren't
all bad -- some of them seem to be genuinely concerned and feel pushed
into
the role of adversary whereas others take to that role with gusto, viewing
the youth as criminals-in-waiting and nothing more.
During the melee, a cop drops a gun. Vinz ends up with it and the
possession
of it alone lends him power and confidence. He brandishes it, playing
gangster. Hubert bows out, leaving his two friends on their own -- at
least
for a little while.
Hubert soon joins them again. They hear the "story of Grunwalski"
is a wonderfully
deep
non-sequitur -- it reminded of the kind of interlude common to more
surrealist pieces, like Le Charm Discret de la Bourgeoisie, which I just
saw
a few days ago.
They head to a fancier part of town to meet a friend of Saïd's who owes
him
money. The police pick them up upon exiting the building, with Vinz
getting
away on foot. The other two stay in custody until it's just too late to
catch
the last train back to their banlieue. Vinz meets up with them again in
the
train station. It's after midnight and the next train is in the morning.
They
wander the city, bored and philosophical and getting slowly stoned.
Much of the discussion and spontaneous bits of plot center on Vinz's gun,
which only gets him into trouble. Hubert provokes him, in the end, to
shoot a
skinhead, trying to get him to see how stupid a gun is. They part ways,
Vinz
handing the gun off to Hubert and Saîd talking shit and telling stupid
jokes, just like always. Vinz responds, as always, that he'd heard that
one
before, but it was about a rabbi.
"[...] jusqu’ici tout va bien, jusqu’ici tout va bien, jusqu’ici tout
va bien.
Mais l'important n’est pas la chute, c’est l’atterrissage."
The black-and-white film, lovely cinematography and framing, pacing and
locations combine to deliver a lovely, moving, timely and sobering film.
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2018) -- "8/10"
Season 4 comes back strong from a season-3 slump with a very strong last few
episodes. Jon Bernthal has a cameo as an Israeli agent posing as a love
interest for Titus, Kimmy gets a payout from Giztoob, Titus gets a dream
role
in Cats -- but in a bizarre way. All of the main characters end up very
nicely and it's quite plausible that this is the last season, for real.
Red Sparrow (2018) -- "6/10"
Jennifer Lawrence plays a Russian ballerina named Domenika, whose career is
ended by a malicious accident. Her understudy was sleeping with her ballet
partner -- so they hatch a plan to have him land on her leg, breaking it
horrifically. She learns what happened and takes them out in the sauna,
beating them to within an inch of their lives.
Her uncle, high up in the Russian secret service, saves her from prison by
faking her death and enlisting her in his employ, to pay off her debt. She
ends embroiled in a plot with double agents, top-secret papers and even
ends
up as a double/triple agent herself.
Lawrence plays well, but the plot wasn't very gripping and the movie felt
much too long.
Boxing Helena (1993) -- "4/10"
There are so many things that could have made this an interesting movie: it
stars Sherilyn Fenn (Audrey from Twin Peaks), it's directed by David
Lynch's
daughter. On the other hand, Bill Paxton's in it -- and he's more awful
than
I've ever seen him. Julian Sands in the lead role as Nick gives him an
absolute run for his money, though.
The movie's about a highly skilled and successful doctor (Sands) who
becomes
obsessed with Helena (Fenn). Helena is a bit of a vamp, but not really
obviously the target of obsession (although director Lynch does her
damnedest
to play up Fenn's strengths as much as possible).
Nick finally manages to get Helena to his house, but she leaves, walking
backwards and comes under the wheels of a truck. True to form in this
movie,
this part is just as unbelievable as the rest. Segue to a few days later
and
Helena's at Nick's house -- sans legs. Nick has "saved her life" by
amputating.
This is supposed to be the clutch scene, but it's absolutely
anticlimactic.
We see Helena humiliate Nick and Nick deal with his nosy coworkers. We
also
see heavy allusions to cutting off Helena's arms soon.
It's weird, poorly acted and poorly directed. Julian Sands is just such a
wooden, weird actor. Spoiler alert: they take the edge off of the entire
weirdness by making it "all a dream". Not recommended at all.
Ken Jeong: You Complete Me, Ho (2019) -- "4/10"
Ken Jeong seems like a nice and funny guy, but his material is quite thin and
derives exclusively from his having been a doctor before having done
Hangover
and his being ethnic Asian. There are a few good jokes in there, but
they're
few and far between.
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018) -- "7/10"
This is an interactive movie that is self-referential and breaks the fourth
wall. In that sense, perhaps it was trying to do too much at once. It's
good
enough and reasonably well-acted. The story is of a young man who's trying
to
break into writing video games in the 80s. He wants to base his game on a
seminal book by an acid-tripping author. The game should be
choose-your-own-adventure, just as the book was.
The movie is also choose-your-own-adventure and, as it progresses, you
realize that the young man's mania is caused by the audience's interaction
with the film, which is a clever conceit.
There are several endings and permutations, from utter failure to fading
into
the background, to killing his father and getting caught, to not getting
caught, to fighting his therapist, to getting the game contract, to not
getting it, to getting a shitty review, to getting a great review.
It's a nice treatment of a concept that will probably get much more
traction
in the years to come.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=36592019-02-09T22:17:18+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of around 1400
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of around 1400 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.
The Orville S01 (2017) -- "8/10"
I kept waiting for Seth McFarlane to mess this up with his trademark Family
Guy quips and non sequiturs -- but he didn't. This show is a pretty
straight-up homage to the classic Star Trek series, with a humorous twist.
The twist is that the crew talks and interacts like people do today,
instead
of in the more stiffly formal style common to the innumerable Star Trek
series. It's not exactly bathroom humor, but the crew does use the
bathroom,
unlike the other shows, where you never see anyone ever act human at all.
When the shuttle takes off, they all buckle their seatbelts. [1] Or when
the
enemy commander comes on screen and he's way to the left, the captain asks
him to move to the center because his framing is too distracting. It's
pretty
amusing so far.
McFarlane is Captain Mercer, Scott Grimes is his helmsman, Mercer's
ex-wife
Grayson is his first officer. Penny Johnson Jerald comes over from Deep
Space
Nine to play Dr. Finn.
It's also a nice mix of state-of-the-art CGI [2] and down-to-Earth tech
that
looks like the original show. For example, the quantum-bubble generator is
a
metal cone with a few wires hanging out of it. It's perfect as a prop,
though.
The first show manages to introduce the crew, show them working together
and
solve a mission with a cool trick -- just like the old shows. The rest of
the
season continues in this vein, more of less. There are many moments when I
can't tell whether McFarlane is messing with me: is this show being
ironically lame? Is it almost deliberately ignoring that aliens -- and
even
humans -- couldn't possibly be this well-versed in 20th- and 21st-century
culture?
They say that science fiction is about today, but set in the future. This
show embodies the hell out of that maxim. There are a few shows that are
so
on-the-nose that it's almost a bit painful. Some characters could use a
bit
more stoicism rather than just discussing their feelings all the time, as
if
there were nothing better to do on a spaceship.
Overall, it's an entertaining season. I'm still not sure whether I'll
watch
season two, but Kelly Grayson is pretty easy on the eyes, so what the
hell.
The Incredibles 2 (2018) -- "6/10"
I expected more of this movie, though I suppose it was silly of me to expect
a Disney movie to be more subversive. I'd heard that it was a great movie,
but -- so far, one hour in -- it feels very cookie-cutter and trite. The
kids
are insufferable and the Dad is a giant pushover who commands no respect.
The
Mom does everything -- even the hero-ing, when they attempt their
comeback.
And, of course, there's a gazillionaire bankrolling their comeback -- we
have
to be taught that nothing ever happens without a rich person financing it.
Does anyone in the family question their newfound bounty? Do they consider
that perhaps all of the luxuries they're given aren't free? That they're
perhaps not just given to them because they're so "incredible"? No,
they're
egotistical enough to all just jump at the mansion unquestioningly -- they
clearly deserve to be there and no price will be exacted for it.
When Mom calls Dad and asks him, without saying hello first, "weren't you
going to call me?", pretty much everyone's "crazy girlfriend" alarm should
be
going off -- but the Dad doesn't blink an eye. He just sputters and makes
excuses. His wife steamrolls him just like his kids do. He is, after all,
just an oaf with too many muscles, without the finesse to get anything
done
without breaking everything. This is clearly a movie for the 21st-century
mindset -- men are barely tolerable, stupid and need to be corralled, like
cattle.
Are husbands and wives doomed to be depicted as adversaries? Or is the
lack
of such competition in a relationship seen as a sign of weakness in both
parties? His children are absolutely terrible, haranguing their Dad with
their bullshit until he explodes. This is a 2-hour advertisement for not
breeding.
The voice talent is decent, although Holly Hunter's speech defect is far
more
charming accompanied by her face -- it seems a bit odd as a disembodied
voice. Craig T. Nelson is Mr. Incredible, Bob Odenkirk is billionaire
Wilson
Deavor with Catherine Keener as his sister, Samuel Jackson is Frozone,
Jonathan Banks is Rick Dicker, and Isabella Rossellini is the Ambassador.
Elastigirl's mode of transportation in an urban environment is wonderfully
animated, and reminded me of Spider-Man. The subsequent fight scene with
Screenslaver was nicely choreographed, as well. Edna Mode's scenes are
also
very nicely done. The story itself is a bit predictable: it just keeps
hammering on stupid males. Having a Y-chromosome means that you only ever
do
something well by accident -- or you get trapped as easily as a monkey
with
his hand in the cookie jar. Who remembers how to track Jack-Jack? Not
Dash.
Too dumb. Too dumb to even notice that he's too dumb. Violet knows
immediately, though. She's a grrrrll.
It was OK, but the original was much better. The long-awaited sequel was a
bit disappointing.
Sebastian Maniscalco: Stay Hungry (2019) -- "6/10"
He's got pretty light and obvious topics, but he does them well. I really
like his body language and facial expressions -- it adds a lot to his
routine. He talks about his life, working out, having a baby, fighting and
much more. Of course he appeals to me: he's about my age and he's got a great
American-Italian accent. Of his cited influences, Bill Burr and Andrew Dice
Clay are the most obvious. He's pretty clean, swears occasionally, but it
doesn't feel like he's avoiding it. Unfortunately, he flagged quite hard in
the second half/last third. I liked his other special better (Aren't You
Embarrassed?).
Kaya Yanar: Reiz der Schweiz (2017) -- "8/10"
Kaya was born in Germany to Turkish parents and made his career in Köln. He
moved to Switzerland 5 years ago, to live with his Swiss girlfriend in
Zürich. He's learned a lot about our little corner of the world since
then:
separating trash, making neat piles of recycling, working with a
recycling/garbage calendar, odd words, Swiss dialect, skiiing, tourism,
food
and much more. He's very amusing, especially if you live here and have an
open mind about our customs. Recommended.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) -- "9/10"
I really like the aesthetic of this corner of the Marvel Universe. The
Guardians are a rag-tag, eclectic small group of aliens from all over the
galaxy. They fly in a slightly broken-down but extremely capable spaceship
with an esthetic reminiscent of the original Star Wars movies.
The Guardians themselves have well-rounded and interesting characters.
Their
group dynamic seems to exist outside of the film -- with the film offering
only a glimpse into a world that exists independently of the film. That
is,
we are allowed to view one of their stories, but it feels like these
beings
exist.
The plot of the film is interesting enough -- Quill's (Chris Pratt) father
(Kurt Russell) has returned from the stars and has invited him to live out
life as an immortal on his planet (which turns out to be him, a
Celestial).
Yondu (Michael Rooker) is back (Quill's adoptive father, more or less),
with
his awesome arrow and whistle. Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) is better
than
ever, as is Drax (Dave Bautista). Sylvester Stallone has a small role, but
does well with it. Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and Nebula (Karen Gillan) also
have
an interesting dynamic. Pom Klementieff as Mantis was funny. especially
with
Drax.
The finale was extravagant and over-the-top and it still somehow worked.
The
colors and set design and many of the shots were wonderful. I'm happy to
see
that there's a third installment on the way. I think the sequel was even
better than the original.
Mad Men (S05-S07) -- "9/10"
There was a bit of slump in the middle somewhere, but they ended quite
strong, in my opinion. Roger Sterling (John Slattery) is brilliant, as are
Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) and Joan Harris (Christina Hendricks). Don
Draper (Jon Hamm) is a complex character, equal parts creative and
interesting and utterly reprehensible.
Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) and Betty Francis (January Jones) are
also
nuanced and reprehensible. The story arcs and characters are great. Have I
mentioned how funny and charming Roger Sterling is? He is really a
constant
source of at least some form of principle -- and, if nothing else,
entertainment. His dialogue is, nearly without exception, delightful. The
others -- especially in the second half of season 6 and the first half of
season 7 -- subside into a muck of backbiting, spite and senseless
egotism,
but not Roger.
Season 7 clawed back a bit from the backbiting, cleaning up a few
character
arcs and delivering the agency into the arms of McCann -- a place that Don
had been avoiding for the first 6.5 seasons. It's hard to feel sorry for
any
of them as -- similar to so many other shows -- this is a show about the
rich. These people have problems largely of their own making; were they to
just be happy with what they have, all of their problems would go away.
Hell,
at the point in season 7, they're all millionaires in a world where most
people make about $5,000 per year.
Still, overall, it's a masterful series of 7 quality seasons and more than
deserving of its role as pretender to the crown of "best U.S. television
show" -- right up there with The Sopranos (even-more-horrible people) and
The
Wire (still the best). They did a great job of wrapping things up in a
nice
way for the important characters without being overly schmaltzy. Roger
ended
up with Marie, Don joined a cult, Peggy finally relaxed just a smidge
(with
Stan), Joan started a business, Pete got his family back, Ken was happy at
Dow, Harry was still a miserable bastard, but he deserved it, and we
didn't
have to see Megan anymore.
The Putin Interviews E02 (2017) -- "8/10"
Oliver Stone interviews Vladimir Putin about his life, his career and his
politics in this 4-part mini-series. The interviews take place over the
span
of over two years, from June 2015 to September 2017.
In the first part of this second episode, Putin and Stone discuss the
dismantling of the ABM treaty -- what Putin called the cornerstone of
international detente -- and the effects it has had in the last decade.
Putin
knows that his country is surrounded by hostile forces that only "pretend"
to
be defensive; he is fully aware that they can be switched "in hours" to be
offensive.
Stone asks whether America could win a "hot war". Putin responds "No. ...
No
one would survive a hot war". After that, the conversation turns to Dr.
Strangelove and they end up watching the film together, because Putin has
never seen it. Hopefully, they watch S.T.A.L.K.E.R. together next.
Nope: next up is Putin playing ice hockey with the Russian national team
in
an exhibition match. He started playing at age 60. After the match, they
discuss the homosexuality-propaganda law, which forbids evangelizing
alternate sexual lifestyles to minors. This law stems from the primitive
mindset that homosexuality is a choice that adults can make. Putin defends
it, making his social politics as behind the times, but not out of the
mainstream. Putin points out that there is a need to support families, to
sustain a replacement birthrate, but I think he's just being cagey about
it.
He admits later that his opinion is strong on this, but he seems to see
the
limit to legislation and the likelihood that the Russian population
diverges
with him.
Stone: "There is a macho tradition in Russia, a pretty strong one." Putin
agrees, but says that it's not nearly as strong as in "certain Islamic
states" -- or possibly even in the U.S. You'd have to be utterly tone-deaf
to
not notice that there's more than a bit of a macho culture in the U.S. as
well. The coasts think they're beyond it, but they're utterly and
tragically
wrong.
It's true that Russia has regressed since the revolution, when things were
initially very egalitarian -- leading the world, in fact. This part goes
on
for quite a while, belying the claim that Stone didn't pressure Putin hard
enough on this topic.
Their next topic is Ukraine and U.S. involvement in that coup. Putin: "I
cannot say we welcomed this change in the government ... and yet we
maintained cooperation with the new leadership." Talk about an
understatement. Putin: "The philosophy of American foreign-policy in this
region consists in preventing, by all means necessary, Ukraine's
rapprochement with Russia." Putin is very passionate about the obvious
U.S.
plan to make Russia everyone's enemy; he is quite eloquent and
knowledgable
about all of the steps taken to get where we are today.
The next stop on the history train is Georgia and the twisted Western
narrative surrounding its incursion into Russian territory. I had no idea
that Mikheil Saakashvil was western-educated -- he's quite fluent in
English.
Next, they discuss surveillance -- and Putin jokes that Russia is "better"
than the U.S. there because they don't have nearly the money or resources
to
be as "bad" as the U.S. It is at this point that we discover that Putin
does
speak and understand some English.
Following this -- now in a car, with Putin driving (of course) -- they
discuss Edward Snowden. Putin says that, at first, he wanted nothing to do
with Snowden because the U.S./Russia relationship was already fraught.
Snowden's appeal to human rights, he says, fell on deaf ears (he admits
that
this shines poorly on his initial reaction). When asked, though, if he
hates
what Snowden did, he responds firmly in the negative: "Snowden is not a
traitor. What he did was not against the interests of his country. [..] He
did it publicly." He disagrees with what he did, but defends his right to
have done it. But, he says "he's a courageous man [...] and has great
character."
Finally, when asked about the upcoming American election (in 2016), he
says
"I believe that nothing's going to change, no matter who gets elected." He
goes on to say:
"The force of the United States bureaucracy is very great. And there are many
facts that are not visible to the candidates until they become president.
And
the moment one gets to real work, he or she feels the burden."
When asked whether he would support a given candidate, he replied,
"Unlike many partners of ours, we never interfere within the domestic affairs
of other countries. That is one of the principles we stick to in our
work."
Conan the Barbarian (2011) -- "6/10"
The action scenes are pretty decent and I like Jason Momoa. The story is
pretty complicated, actually, but many of the actors are either wasted or
not
very good. Stephen Lang is the baddie, Zym, who killed Conan's father.
Rose
McGowan is sinister as the daughter/protege, Ron Perlman is Conan's father
and Morgan Freeman does the voiceovers. The beginning is stronger than the
middle bits. It's all a bit predictable, but the aesthetics, sets, CGI and
set pieces are better than I remember, so I give it an extra star or two.
I
have a soft spot for the original, but have to admit that its effects
would
suffer in comparison, especially with the depiction of the monsters.
That's
not to say that the original wasn't good, but that the remake wasn't as
bad
I'd thought it was.
Johnny Handsome (1989) -- "7/10"
This is the story of a disfigured man Johnny Handsome (Mickey Rourke) who's a
heist planner. He's well-known for his skill, smarts and caution. His best
friend Mikey (Scott Wilson) is way behind on his payments to a loan shark.
Mikey's trying to keep his restaurant afloat but is far behind on his
payments. He asks Johnny to do one more job with him.
Sunny Boyd (Ellen Barkin) and Rafe Garrett (Lance Henriksen) are also on
the
job and they're loose cannons -- literally. They kill Mikey on the jewelry
heist, leaving Johnny behind to get arrested. Detective Drones (Morgan
Freeman) is on his ass, waiting for him to screw up. While Johnny's in
jail,
Rafe and Sunny (on the outside) hire two guys to try to have him knifed to
death. Their attempt fails and he's put into a program at the hospital
with
Dr. Fisher (Forest Whitaker) to rehabilitate his face.
The surgery is successful and he enrolls in a work-release program. He
meets
Donna (Elizabeth McGovern), who works in accounting at his new job. Though
his face has changed, he's still Johnny -- he wants revenge and he wants
to
rob the shipping company where he and Donna work. He gets Rafe and Sunny
to
go in on it with him, though they don't recognize him. Johnny plans a
double-cross, but it goes horribly wrong.
The heist goes off without a hitch, but they betray each other, with
Detective Drones mixing things up, until their Mexican standoff ends with
all
of them dead, save Donna. Walter Hill directed and he's got his own style.
Le Charme Discret de la Bourgeoisie (1972) -- "8/10"
This is an odd movie about a group of upper--middle-class friends -- three
women and three men. It was conceived and written by Luis Buñuel, a
Spanish
filmmaker and contemporary of Dalí, both heavily involved in surrealism.
The
plot is a bit loose, consisting of many scenes centered around a group of
middle-class friends trying to organize a dinner date. It's not as
plotless
as Zerkalo by Tarkovsky, but it's close. Many of the scenes (at least
four)
are revealed to have been dreamt by members of the group, in a sort of
layered reality reminiscent of Inception, but without the burden of
actually
trying to make it logical or sensible.
The main character seems to be Raphael, a diplomat from the fictitious
Latin
country of Miranda -- a man remarkably devoid of diplomacy with a
spectacular
self-regard. His friends are not much better, dropping remarks about how
the
other half lives with not-unrealistic regularity. The film purports to be
absurd, but depicts interactions and behaviors that are, in fact, how real
people act. At least those of a certain class, say, the bourgeoisie.
There is much left up to interpretation, but many of the characters are
fun
and funny, like Florence (Bulle Ogier) -- a bundle of pithy non sequiturs
--
or the eminently foxy Alice Sénéchal (Stéphane Audran). It's surreal,
so
the film is at least as much about what you bring to it as about what it
presents, but it's a good time and well-acted. It's certainly unique and
won't "remind you of another movie". It's devil-may-care desire to impart
something other than a feel-good ending or interpretable plot that makes
it
interesting. It's not only a fun ride, there's room for interpretation and
discussion.
This film has quite a pedigree -- it was one of Roger Ebert's favorites --
and has received no small amount of attention from students of cinema, as
in
"The Picaro in Paris: ‘The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie’ and the
Picaresque Tradition" by Julie Jones
,
which describes the film as a picaresque, following in a Spanish
storytelling
tradition:
"In the classic picaresque novel, the protagonist (usually a he) often does
not know where he will get his next meal. Yet, despite his extreme
poverty,
he has social pretensions. Aware that hard work will do nothing to advance
his cause, he relies on disguise and trickery to improve his station. He
keeps on moving to stay ahead of the law, which brings him to a variety of
settings and in contact with social types who often tell him their
stories.
The picaresque novel, then, takes the form of a pseudo-autobiography,
loosely
structured to accommodate any number of episodes [...]"
Don't Breathe (2016) -- "7/10"
This was a decent "scary" movie with a few nice twists and turns. None of the
people were worth knowing, but that made it easier to see them getting
beat
up and/or killed. That was the intention, I'm sure. Just like it was the
intention to telegraph that the young lady would win, by showing her
promising her younger sister that she would take her to California.
An American movie would never leave us wondering what that poor little
girl
would do should she find out that her sister had been murdered while
trying
to rob a house. She'd be left knowing that she would be doomed to grow up
in
that horrible home without her big sister and only her alcoholic mother
around, asking her whether she'd started blowing guys for money yet, even
though she was only 8 or so years old.
A Japanese movie would do that, but that's why Japanese movies are,
generally, darker. Korean movies, too, from what I've seen. No risk, no
fun.
This one didn't do that -- the little girl was saved from her life of
misery
by a sister who was suddenly a million dollars richer, even though she
totally didn't deserve it any more than the horrible man who'd gotten it
from
the family of the woman who'd run over and killed his daughter and whom
he'd
kidnapped in order to punish her because the criminal courts wouldn't do
it.
Her punishment included being impregnated by him in order for him to
replace
his child. As I wrote, not uninteresting twists and turns.
He was a veteran who'd been blinded in the line of duty, so he escaped
(mostly) unharmed, despite the aforementioned socially unacceptable
peccadilloes. Also, the giant Rottweiler was neutralized in a way that
didn't
injure it whatsoever. The movie could have been a bit darker, to match
expectations.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] This arguably turns out to be a salient plot point.
[1] Some of the long shots look almost painted, actually, but I wonder if that's
deliberate? Were they going for the look of the backdrop effects of older
science-fiction shows?
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=36442019-01-08T22:52:22+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of almost 1200
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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 and. let's be honest, level of
intoxication. YMMV. Also, I make no attempt to avoid spoilers.
36.15 code Père Noël (1989) -- "8/10"
This movie is French, but it screams the 80s. It actually came out a year
before Home Alone -- and the subsequent film seems to be a shoddy ripoff
of
this French original.
Thomas is a young boy living in a mansion with his mother and grandfather
and
dog. He has an overactive imagination and too many toys -- we see him
prepare
himself elaborately for war within him home against his dog with tons of
toys. He looks like a mini-Rambo. This is just to before breakfast.
His mother announces that she won't be back until late that day. She runs
the
large, local shopping center. He amuses himself with contacting Santa
Claus
on his computer. Santa Claus on the other end is a man we saw at the every
beginning -- trying to take part in a snowball fight with children. His
motives are currently unclear.
This film is an 80s' kid's dream come true: he's got all of the equipment
we
all so dearly wanted: toy guns, computers, cars -- he knows how do
everything
already. He can fix a car; he can hack a computer; he can drive the car.
He
makes a 3D model of his home, complete with integrated camera coverage
(something we barely have today). We even see he can view the live footage
on
his arm-computer. It's a complete child's fantasy.
Meanwhile, the odd man pretending to be "Père Noël" with Thomas online
is
fired from being a mall Santa by Thomas's mother. He slapped a child for
telling him that he wasn't the real Santa Claus. Things get a bit more
sinister now -- the guy hijacks a mall delivery-truck and is headed to
Thomas's house.
Thomas wakes to see Santa coming down the chimney -- but his dog gets wind
of
it and attacks Santa. DID NOT SEE THIS COMING: Santa f%#$ing kills the
dog,
right in front of Thomas. Total 90º turn!
Thomas rescues his grandfather and they take his secret passages to the
garage and get into the car -- Santa is waiting. The car starts, but
doesn't
stay running. Santa is off the f$%#ing rails -- he head-butts the
windshield,
then goes to town with a sledgehammer. This ain't no Home Alone.
Thomas and Papi retreat to his giant playroom and prepare for war (this is
similar to Home Alone). Thomas's mother is heading home. Santa is roving
about the mansion with murder on his mind. He discovers the cameras -- and
takes them out.
Thomas refuses to wear shoes in an old mansion in the middle of winter.
Kids
are stupid. It catches up to him: he's forced out onto the roof, replete
in
his plastic knives and grenades and suction-cup darts, crying for his
mother.
She's on her way -- driving and phoning in a snowstorm.
Thomas is not out of tricks, though: he sneaks back into the house and
sends
his friend a fax. I shit you not. Too late for grandpa, though, as Santa
has
discovered the hidey-hole -- and Grandpa can't see. Thomas gets there in
the
nick of time. He lures Santa into the steam room and traps him there,
turning
up the heat considerably.
They're trapped in the house now, though, because Thomas had dropped down
security panels on all doors and windows (I know, right?) and now his
arm-computer's broken, so he can't open them again.
Mom crashes the car (out of the game; condition unknown) and Santa manages
to
break out of the steam room. Thomas is using a welding torch now -- I shit
you not. He gets the doors and windows open. But Santa has recovered and
he
manages to stab Thomas. Pilou (his friend) shows up and lures Santa away.
Now it's montage time. He splints his leg. He buries his dog. The end of
the
movie is more like the part that Home Alone copied -- but overall, this
movie
is so much darker. They killed a dog! Santa killed a dog! Right in front
of
the boy! In a Christmas movie!
Thomas is more like Rambo in this part: he builds real grenades out of his
fake ones. He lights Santa on fire with a suction-cup dart. He tries to
blow
up Santa with a toy train carrying said grenade, but Santa turns it around
on
him and tries to kill Grandpa with it, instead. But, yeah, Santa looks
very
much like Joe Pesci in Home Alone.
So much happens: a cop shows up and Santa kills him. The boy trips over
the
cop's body in the woods, but finds his gun. He shoots Santa -- but Santa
keeps coming. Thomas goes back the mansion to free his grandfather and
give
him an insulin shot. He resuscitates him -- and Santa's back, staggering
through the main door. This time Grandpa gets the gun and -- even though
he
can barely see -- finishes Santa off.
This kid's not bad, actually. His acting career went nowhere, but he
became a
big-time visual-effects producer (and I mean "big-time": Independence Day,
Avatar, San Andreas and many more. He must get so much shit about this
movie
from his colleagues).
It was decent, more interesting in an anthropological way. Also, that 90º
turn when Santa first shows up is worth an extra point.
Saw it in the original French.
The Big Sick (2017) -- "9/10"
This was a lovely movie about a budding relationship between Kumail (Kumail
Nanjani) and Emily (Zoe Kazan). They both live in Chicago. Kumail is a
second-generation immigrant -- his parents moved from Pakistan with him
and
his brother. Kumail's brother toes the line; Kumail only pretends to. He
pretends to pray, he pretends to be signing up for the LSAT. He drives an
Uber to support his budding standup career. His parents are depicted as
what
everyone expects Asian parents to be.
Emily is in school, getting her master's in Psychology. She wants to be a
therapist. We meet her parents later.
Emily and Kumail meet and date, but ultimately break up because Kumail has
not told his parents about Emily -- and Emily discovers the box of
marriage
candidates that Kumail's mother keeps introducing him to.
Fast-forward a bit and Emily falls terribly ill. Her friends all have
exams,
so they call Kumail to sit with her. Emily's parents show up -- Holly
Hunter
and Ray Romano, both spectacular -- and they grudgingly form a triad of
support for Emily. Kumail gets to know them and they him. Kumail is
finally
forced to tell him parents about Emily. Kumail also has a chance at a big
comedy festival: he's qualified for the final tryouts. He bombs terribly
because he has a breakdown on stage about Emily.
Emily wakes from her artificial coma -- the doctors have found out what's
wrong with her and it's manageable. Emily, however, was asleep during
Kumail's growth. She doesn't care about him -- to her, he's still the
asshole
who wouldn't tell his parents about her and with whom she has no chance.
Kumail accepts her decision and moves on, in a way. His friends are moving
to
New York City and they want him to go with them. He agrees to go. Emily,
though, has a change of heart after having seen his breakdown on stage and
also his revamped one-man show, in which he took her advice to tell more
about himself. He's moving, though, and they once again pass like ships in
the night.
Things work out, though, don't worry. It's unorthodox, but it's a romantic
comedy after all. All of the leads are very funny (Kumail's 9/11 joke was
brilliant) and it's sweet and believable. Recommended.
Twin Peaks: The Missing Pieces (2014) -- "7/10"
This movie is a hodge-podge of deleted and extended scenes from the Twin
Peaks movie and the series. Some are interesting; some are surreal; some
are
both; some are neither. Some others could be shown at the Whitney in New
York
and no-one would notice. Some of those are repeats, even within this film.
David Bowie as Phillip Jeffries is in a couple of them. In one of them
Miguel
Ferrer as Albert is there, as well. It's nice to see Pete Martell and
Jocelyn
Packard and co. from the original series.
Laura Palmer's in several of the scenes: in one of them, we see her
getting
into a truck cab and offering sex for cocaine (which was mostly just
hinted
at in the series and movie). Many of her scenes are quite good -- they
stand
on their own, providing richer detail. There's several scenes with Laura
and
Bobby that illuminate things considerably. On the other hand, the original
show managed to convey everything without ever showing Laura at all.
In fact, a lot of these scenes were clearly dropped because Lynch and
Frost
felt that they were too obvious, that they gave away too much, that they
explained too much of the mystery too soon.
For fans of the show, it's nice to see all of the characters in new
scenes.
For anyone who's not a fan -- or hasn't seen the show -- this movie will
be
quite confusing.
Zerkalo (The Mirror) (1974) -- "10/10"
I always enjoy the ride with Tarkovsky. There's just something about his
direction that makes you pay attention. He makes passages that would be
boring seem intriguing enough to follow minutely. It's a combination of
his
languorous camera movement -- always in motion, rotating about his
subjects
-- his loving focus on nature, his visual storytelling, hid auditory
storytelling, using silence so effectively, and never, ever telling when
he
could show. His sets are meticulously constructed, colors, buildings,
costumes, effects. Rain is where he wants it to be, as is fire. It's
almost
as if he can even command the wind to blow across an entire field when he
needs it. [1]
The story unfolds non-chronologically (big surprise there). It focuses on
a
woman who, in the present, lives alone in the countryside. Windows to the
past reveal a husband, a larger home somewhere else, children.
Some scenes are in black and white, others in color -- I think this might
suggest chronology. Tarkovsky loves rain as much as Kurosawa in Rashomon.
We cut back and forth through time, with Natalya playing both herself and
the
Mother. At times, particularly toward the end, we feel that she gazes at
herself, across time. But the film is narrated by Alyosha, both as a child
as
an adult. There is stock footage of soldiers trudging through water,
dragging
boats of supplies along shorelines. Other stock footage shows the raising
of
a giant Soviet balloon.
The scenes each stand on their own, each exquisitely planned and shot.
Each
telling its story with a minimal of exposition. In one scene, boys are
learning to shoot. The squeaking snow tells the story of the col. One
child's
mittenless hands tell the story of his poverty. That they don't notice
tells
of their resignedness to suffering.
This is scattering of memories and some dream sequences, flitting about,
crossing, starring sometimes the same people at different ages, sometimes
the
same actors playing different people. Always with voiceovers or careful
audio, tuned to contribute to the mood, if not the story. Especially in
this
film, there are always mirrors reflecting the scene from another
direction.
And spindly plants, more stark in the black-and-white scenes of the past.
The
glowing coals with the mirror in it; the warm scenes with first, after so
much rain and wet. [2] This seems to be a mirror held up by the director,
showing himself.
I don't know what it is about it, but I'd watch it again. There are the
one-sided conversation where the second speaker is forever off-screen and
the
camera is locked on only one half of the conversation. Inconceivable but
there it is, again and again. And it's mesmerizing. Maybe partially
because
it's so different from everything else. The film demands your attention
and
rewards you for giving it.
It's like the condensation of an entire culture, of generations over the
last
100 years. The mood, the pacing is lovely, but alien to me. The
storytelling
is Lynchian, hinting at deep meaning convincingly. The art direction is in
a
league of its own. There are certain scenes where you could see one still
and
know immediately who'd directed this film.
"[...] even in my dream i become aware that I'm only dreaming it. And the
overwhelming joy is clouded by anticipation of awakening."
The Predator (2018) -- "8/10"
I only heard about this movie from the video essay, "The Unloved - The
Predator " by Scout Tafoya , in which the
author
made a plea for finally appreciating Olivia Munn's acting chops. He turns
out
to have been right. This is a solid action movie, with funny writing,
interesting characters and -- lo and behold -- no emphasis made on gender
roles. Munn is neither a shrinking violet nor femme fatale; neither is the
wife Emily (Yvonne Strahovski) of another lead Quinn McKenna (Boyd
Holbrook,
whom I first saw in Narcos and who's only grown on me since).
Munn is completely believable as an evolutionary biologist who gets pulled
in
to study the Predator they've captured. She's also funny (we knew that
from
the Daily Show) and doesn't back down from a fight. The plot is kind of
incidental, actually. It's the smooth action, good characters and funny
dialogue that make this action film stand out. When the predators show up,
they even kind of get in the way of the back-and-forth. That doesn't
happen a
lot in this kind of movie.
In scene after scene, they make it funny and utterly fail to make Munn
look
weak. She rescues herself -- just like all the rest of them.
The hodge-podge band of soldiers are better than the typical group --
they're
far less macho and a bit smarter than usual. This is also a nice
turnaround.
Thomas Jane has Turret's Syndrome, Alfie Allen is bit off the deep end, as
is
Keegan-Michael Key who delivers three ruthless yo-mama jokes. [3] Trevante
Rhodes and Sterling K. Brown were solid.
You actually end up caring about each of them -- you don't want any of
them
to die, even though you know it's a Predator movie and it's only a matter
of
time. When the time comes, they die well. Oh my God, Olivia Munn out of
fucking nowhere with the flying attack -- and then keeps up the pressure
until she's captured her space pet -- and then Quinn puts it out of its
misery.
Overall an enjoyable action movie with a surprisingly witty and
interesting
script. I think we have Shane Black to thank for that, at last partially.
He's made a few witty action movies before. It's nice to see him fix up
the
to-date mindless Predator films.
Unfortunately, the movie didn't end at the right time. The boy is variably
autistic -- sometimes he is and sometimes he isn't. The final scene felt
extremely tacked on -- and where the fuck did Olivia Munn go?
The Last Dragon (1985) -- "6/10"
This is the story of Bruce Leroy (Taimak), a disciple who has finally
outgrown his master. He is loosed into a world to seek the "last level" of
enlightenment. He starts in a movie theater showing Enter the Dragon. [4]
The
audience watches enthusiastically, until Sno'nuff, the Shogun of Harlem
(Julius Carry), shows up to demand fealty. He challenges Bruce Leroy, but
must sideline several other contenders first.
We meet a few more players -- some rich, white people who are probably
trying
to ruin everything. And then we meet Laura Charles (Vanity) who DJs -- and
plays Debarge. Debarge, dood. This movie could not be more 80s. William H.
Macy is Laura's agent.
Laura gets attacked and Leroy comes to her rescue. He's got some of Bruce
Lee's style. This is also not a coincidence. He wears Lee's yellow suit
from
Game of Death while teaching his class. The dojo has a lot of the
accoutrements of a JKD dojo. It's also, apparently, a time before guns,
which
is nice.
Sho-Nuff, Leroy and Eddie (the white guy from before) altercate back and
forth. Eddie and his girl Angie fight -- this is movie from which Tessa
Thompson's performance-art speech in Sorry to Bother You originated.
"Eddie Arcadian: Where are you gonna go, Angie? Without me, you're nothing!
Without that outfit, you're just another no-talent dental hygiene school
drop-out from Kew Gardens getting by on her tits!
"Angela Viracco: And in the end, Eddie, you know what? You're nothing but
a
misguided midget asshole with dreams of ruling the world. Yeah, also from
Kew
Gardens. And also getting by on my tits."
Apparently being from Kew Gardens -- or, God forbid, returning there -- is
double-plus ungood.
There's a melee in which Johnny (a student of Leroy's) and his little
brother
kick a lot of ass with Leroy. Decent choreography, actually.
Unsurprisingly,
Leroy ends up fighting Sho-Nuff. I can't get over how much Snoop-Dogg
modeled
his look on Sho-Nuff. Julius Carry is one big dude, like Snoop. Come to
think
of it: like Wilt Chamberlin, the final boss from Bruce Lee's Game of
Death.
That can't have been an accident.
Better than expected, but still not very good. Extra point for rocking the
80s look so hard. And Bruce Lee clips.
The Disaster Artist (2017) -- "8/10"
Imagine a young man in San Fransisco named Gary (Dave Franco), who's trying
to make it as an actor. He's in an acting class with Tommy (James Franco).
Tommy puts on a completely bonkers performance that seems to be from
Streetcar Named Desire but the similarity ends at yelling "Stella" over
and
over and over.
Gary approaches Tommy for help in getting out of his shell. Tommy does
just
that and Gary hero-worships him a bit, even though Tommy could easily pass
for mentally handicapped or foreign or both. He has a completely
unplaceable
accent that is entirely his own. He refuses to talk about himself. He has
a
tremendous amount of money.
He offers to take Gary with him to Los Angeles, where he has an apartment.
They try to make it as actors but, after a year, it's not working. Tommy
is
very frustrated and ready to give up. Gary suggests that they should just
make their own movie if no-one will place them otherwise. Tommy's eyes
light
up -- as far as that's possible, with his ptosis -- and a dream is born.
Tommy does this -- as he does everything -- very unconventionally. First,
he
spends three years writing a terrible, well-nigh inscrutable script. Then,
he
buys all of his equipment instead of renting it. He hires his entire crew
with barely an interview.
They're off and running. The shoot runs way too long. Gary gets closer to
his
girlfriend and moves in with -- out of Tommy's apartment. Tommy's jealous
--
not in a gay way, but because Gary was his only friend. The movie
more-or-less wraps, but Gary and Tommy drift apart.
Gary takes up doing theater. Tommy shows up one evening to personally
invite
him to the opening of The Room. Gary reluctantly agrees, but slowly comes
around to friendship with Tommy again, as the evening progresses. The
final
cut is so awful that it's good -- people are laughing. Tommy is offended.,
but Gary convinces him to take his successes where he can. He's made his
movie and no-one can take that away.
Not, imagine that this movie is basically a behind-the-scenes retelling of
the making of a movie called The Room by Tommy Wiseau, which has become a
cult classic and has actually, by now, broken even. Franco's bizarre
depiction is 100% on the nose. They even have a small scene where the real
Tommy and Franco as Tommy meet at a party and chat. They're like brothers.
The Franco brothers do extremely well in making this movie about the
making
of a terrible movie not terrible. Seth Rogan's also in and is decent. So
are
Alison Brie (she's in everything these days), Jason Mantzoukas (him too)
and
even Zac Efron.
It was an endearing movie about one of the strangest guys you'll ever see
on
screen.
La Ch'tite Famille (2018) -- "8/10"
The Ch'ti region of France -- in the deep north -- is once again features for
light ridicule in this sequel by Dany Boon. This time, Boon plays Valentin
D., a man who escapes his bucolic roots to become a famous designer in
Paris,
making uncomfortable furniture at exorbitant prices. The Parisian elite
are
dragged through the mud at least as much as the Ch'tis.
Valentin has long since established himself as an orphan -- he would never
have made it very far in the world of French architecture and design if it
was known whence he came.
This all comes to and end when his brother hatches a plan to bring their
80-year--old mother to Paris for her 80th birthday, in order to guilt his
brother into giving him some money to pay off a debt. This is a comedy and
watching mother plow her way through the upper-class, museum party is a
treat.
Watching the Parisians feign being completely unable to understand the
Ch-ti
accent never gets old. [5]
Valentin hits his head and is taken back to his 17-year--old self. He no
longer knows his fancy, designer wife (who actually warms up to her
newfound
family, even if she can't understand a thing they're saying). Laurence
Arné's looks of incredulity at watching her husband speak patois are
priceless. It's even better watching her take "lessons" in the northern
patois:
"Constance: Ah, very few words. And ... no conjugation?
"Tony: None at all. No need."
They try to re-acclimate Valentin with pictures, his fancy apartment --
where
he, too, complains that the chairs are uncomfortable -- and with speech
therapy, for his horrific accent. The uncomfortable chairs are another
running joke -- almost every one of their friends of famous colleagues
that
they meet complains of having sciatica for an unknown reason. Whenever
someone is absent -- say, a doctor couldn't make it to surgery -- it's
because he's at the chiropractor.
As Constance learns patois and he re-learns his Parisian manners, they
find
an ally in each other -- and fall in love again. Where before, we saw them
both walk by without saying hello to anyone, now the bumpkin Valentin
greets
everyone he sees in the lobby -- as it were a small town.
Back at work, he starts designing comfortable furniture -- his flair for
design is not gone. I've always liked Dany Boon -- in almost everything.
She
starts changing to be more like him than him changing back to his old
self.
And clearly she loves him more than their career or their business.
Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) -- "9/10"
This movie is about a secret organization from England called The Kingsman.
It's very much made in the mold of Mission: Impossible, but very British.
The cast is quite good: Colin Firth, Samuel Jackson, Mark Hamill, Michael
Caine, Mark Strong. There's a bunch of younger actors and actresses with
whom
I'm not familiar (they were fine, not standout).
So what happens? We see a man die during what looks like a training
mission.
He was to be a Kingsman, but he died saving the other candidates. We
fast-forward 17 years and the same man -- Galahad (Colin Firth) -- who had
recruited this man, now recruits his son, who's a bit of a chav. This is
Eggsy. He, of course, makes it through the training program, as does,
unsurprisingly, the girl Roxy, who's somehow supposed to become a
"gentleman"
and take the name "Lancelot" to replace the fallen Kingsman.
How did the previous Lancelot die? He was sliced in half by a supremely
ridiculous henchwoman of tech billionaire and evil mastermind Valentine
(Sam
Jackson, playing with a Tyson-like lisp). His henchwoman has prosthetic
lower
legs with knives all over them. Her name is unironically Gazelle. He's
kind
of chaotic neutral because his main goal is to combat climate change, but
he's given up on normal channels -- which clearly aren't working. Mark
Hamill
is a sad-sack professor who gets in the way.
"Valentine: When you get a virus, you get a fever. That's the human body
raising its core temperature to kill the virus. Planet Earth works the
same
way: Global warming is the fever, mankind is the virus. We're making our
planet sick. A cull is our only hope. If we don't reduce our population
ourselves, there's only one of two ways this can go: The host kills the
virus, or the virus kills the host. Either way..."
It's almost like Jordan Peterson wrote this; no wonder the young men love
it
so much.
Still, there's some nice dialogue,
"Eggsy: So, are you going to teach me to talk proper, like in My Fair Lady?
Galahad: Don't be absurd. Being a gentleman has nothing to do with one's
accent. It's about being at ease in one's own skin. As Hemingway said,
"There's nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility
is
being superior to your former self."."
Their time in "Fitting Room #3" seems taken directly from James Bond's
meetings with Q. They each had to pick a dog, during training. Eggsy
picked
the pug because he thought it was a bulldog puppy. He named it J.B. Arthur
(Caine) asks him it stands for James Bond? No. Jason Bourne? No. Jack
Bauer.
J.B. Has a spectacular underbite. Arthur says that the final test is to
shoot
J.B. he does not. Roxy does shoot her dog, so she's in -- Eggsy's out.
Obviously, the gun wasn't loaded.
The church melee set to Skynyrd's "Free Bird", where everyone goes
batshit,
even Galahad, is pretty impressively choreographed. Valentine's pilot
project
to drive people into a killing frenzy works flawlessly. Valentine
confronts
Harry/Galahad as he's leaving the church -- and offs him without telling
him
his master plan, completely off-script.
From there, we get a standard, but cool, story of the Kingsmen having been
compromised and Roxy, Eggsy and Merlin coming from behind to save the day.
A
bit long, but good action flick. A better James Bond movie than many
others.
I liked how they took out all of the implants. I didn't expect it to get
so
campy and funny, but it pulled it off with aplomb.
Jack Reacher: No Way Back (2016) -- "7/10"
Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) quickly gets embroiled in a cover-up. He's no
longer in the Army, but he has a contact there, Major Turner (Cobie
Smulders). They've never met, but he finally asks her if she'd like to go
to
dinner. By the time he gets to Washington D.C., she's been arrested and is
being held incommunicado. She was getting too close to sordid Army deeds
in
Afghanistan. Her two investigators were killed over there.
Reacher breaks her out of prison and they've on the run. I like how they
use
Internet cafés, public libraries, public transportation, taxis and
Greyhound
to travel. They use TracPhones and mini-vans. Low-key and nearly
untraceable.
They end up on the run with a 15-year--old girl who might be Reacher's
daughter (her mother had filed a paternity suit against him, at any rate).
Fistfights are interspersed with dealing with a scared teenager with all
of
the unearned confidence, arrogance and condescension that goes with it.
Also,
with reckless stupidity -- she's like a fucking goldfish; after an hour,
she
forgets that she's on the lam.
There's a ton of beefy mercs in shadowy alliances, all working for deep
and
secret and hidden governments and unelected powers. Reacher and Turner
bust
the general who's been smuggling drugs in weapons shipments and exonerate
themselves. However, the ding-dong girl has gotten herself into the
super-killer's crosshairs and we get a second ending.
The final fight was stupid: if you want me to believe that the bad guy can
still fight, then maybe you shouldn't have him fall two stories flat onto
his
back and hit his head hard enough to make a big blood spot. If you're
going
to make him get back up, make it look like he rolled with the fall. I'm
used
to Tom Cruise surviving everything.
Cobie Smulders is a pretty bad-ass, hand-to-hand action hero. Movie was
decent, but it offered no surprises, really.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Apparently, he used two helicopters to create wind on-demand.
[1] This is the 33rd edit of the film. The first 32 were not satisfactory to
Tarkovsky.
1. How to do you circumcise a homeless guy? Kick Baxley's mom on the chin.
2. If Baxley's mom's vagina was a video game, it'd be rated E for
Everyone.
3. What's the difference between five black guys and a joke? Baxley's mom
can't take a joke.
[1] Arguably, Lee's best film
[1] God bless whoever did the subtitles -- there's very few Ch'ti words that
they didn't translate (some were deemed untranslateable, apparently, but you
get the gist if you understand "regular" French.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=36292019-01-01T00:05:04+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of almost 1200
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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 and. let's be honest, level of
intoxication. YMMV. Also, I make no attempt to avoid spoilers.
Shoah: Four Sisters (2018) -- "8/10"
I only saw the first part, with Ruth Elias. She spoke English but I saw it
with a German translation, slightly time-delayed. As a documentary, it was
amazing. As a movie, it's just a straight-on interview for 90 minutes. You
only ever see her in her outdoor garden. She tells of her experience of
the
Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia. The video lent it power, but it would
work
fine as an audio track.
She was separated from her father, she married very young in order to stay
behind and avoid the transport. She became pregnant. She was delivered to
Hamburg to work, then delivered back because she was 8 months pregnant.
She
ended up in Auschwitz, where her child was born in absolute filth and
squalor. Joseph Mengele wanted to see how long her child could survive
without food. She ended up killing the child with morphine given to her by
a
nurse.
Only one aunt out of a whole family of 13 sisters and children and cousins
survived -- besides her. She's a fascinating storyteller, so strong. It's
hard to do her story justice in a review.
Recommended. I would like to see the other parts.
Black Christmas (1974) -- "7/10"
Margot Kidder plays Barb, who leads a cast of sorority sisters spending
Christmas at their house. They get a call from "the moaner" who slobbers
out
all sorts of disgusting suggestions, using language that I doubt would
pass
muster today. In that vein, after one of the girls suggests that the
moaner
might have raped someone in town, Kidder says "you can't rape a townie".
This film has a few other well-known names: Art Hind has been in hundreds
of
movies, as has John Saxon, and Keir Dullea played Dave Bowman in 2001: A
Space Odyssey.
This is a classic horror film from the 1974. It takes place in a sorority
house. You know what's going to happen. The killer is going to plow his
way
through one victim after another until there's just one left, who kills
him.
There are some nice visual and audio wipes (girl's face starts to scream
and
segues to a ringing phone in the next scene).
The killer takes a girl named Claire first. Claire's father shows up and
he
goes with Barb to the police. Margot Kidder revels in the role, drinking
and
smoking all the time. She gives the sorority's phone number to the police
as
on exchange "fellatio"...but the cop (Nash) has no idea what she's talking
about (it's 1974; perhaps the word wasn't so common then).
They dick around for a long time, with Barb putting on a spectacularly
lippy,
drunken show one evening. Soon after, while the whole town is searching
for
Claire with the police in the park, the house mother Mrs. Mac (Marian
Waldman) sees Claire's cat heading up to the attic, where she finds
Claire's
corpse tied to a rocking chair. The killer is still there and takes Mrs.
Mac
as his second victim, grunting and screaming as he rocks the corpses.
Jess has received two phone calls from the "moaner" so far. Then she
argues
with Peter, her dickish boyfriend -- he wants to leave the conservatory
and
get married; she wants an abortion. He goes ballistic and tells her she'll
"be sorry".
Against the grain, it's Barb who's next...and we see that it's Peter (the
guy
who's been going bonkers in a conservatory for eight years) who's doing
the
killing. Or has he? Did he just flip it at the same time? He seems to be
calling Jess from Barb's room now, asking "where's the baby" in a maniacal
voice. This time, the cops trace the call and it's coming from inside the
house. Holy crap! Did that trope originate with this movie?
Of course Jess goes upstairs. She finds two of her friends stacked up on
Barb's bed like dolls, covered in gore. She gets a shot in on Peter and
flees
back downstairs, but then of course can't open the front door. He almost
catches her, but she escapes to the basement. Safe and sound, right? Peter
finds a window without chicken-wire on it. Jess just waits for him to
break
it and jump through instead of going back upstairs and locking the doors
while he's outside. Jess kills Peter...but was Peter the only killer in
the
house?
The final scene shows "Billy" in the attic with two more bodies. The
police
guard the porch. A dog barks in the distance. A phone rings.
A straight-up classic. I can't believe I'd never heard of this movie
before.
Bill Hicks: Sane Man (1989) -- "9/10"
This is VHS footage of a live show in Austin, Texas. A lot of the material
from Dangerous and Relentless were there already. He whipsaws from vulgar
to
transcendent. He cares a bit about the audience, but is driven to preach,
to
tell the people what he's thinking. He mixes psychedelically hopeful
messages
with jokes about jism. He was an absolute, unvarnished genius.
Passengers (2016) -- "8/10"
A starship makes its way from Earth to Homestead II, a journey of 120 years.
The ship is automated and beautiful in its its technological power. One
quarter of the way through it's journey, it encounters an asteroid belt
(don't ask me how, since asteroids don't naturally occur between stars).
The
ship is able to avoid disaster and effect all repairs, save one: it cannot
repair the hibernation pod of Jim Preston, played by Chris Pratt.
He awakes 90 years early. He acclimates, to some degree, but quickly goes
nearly mad with boredom and loneliness. He latches onto an Aurora Lane
(played by Jennifer Lawrence), learning everything about her that the ship
offers. As an engineer, his addled mind hatches a plan to wake her. She's
perfect for him. He needs company.
He debates with himself (and with the android bartender) for a long time,
but
is helpless to resist the primal urge for human company -- and he's
fixated
on Aurora. He wakes her up and is immediately wracked with guilt. In
fairness, he waited a year.
Aurora is dealing with the situation on her own, but one year delayed.
She's
doing a lot of exercise in tight clothing.
Around them, the ship is slowly but surely deteriorating. It looks
amazing,
though; the design is lovely. The little robots that clean up are
plausible.
Meanwhile they do a pretty good job of discussing their reasons for
emigrating. She's planning on going to the colony and then returning one
year
later, to be the only writer in 250 years who'd been to a colony. Unless,
of
course, faster travel options become available. Or Earth is no longer the
center of civilization. But neither of them mentions that.
The "falling in love" bit is depicted in languorous detail, which is fine,
I
guess. He made her fall in love with him -- though he does offer quite a
bit. His only crime is that he doomed her to a life of solitude with only
him. A pretty large crime, granted. When she learns what he did, things
get
interesting again. She yells that "he took her life". It's true: she's
dead,
for all practical purposes. He killed her, but she lives on. There are
some
existential issues -- why write? Why jog? Why do anything? It's a decent
science-fiction short-story treatise.
The ship continues to slowly deteriorate. His room reboots. The elevator
stops at the wrong floor. The food dispenser spits out a ton of cereal,
all
over the floor. A crew member Mancuso (Laurence Fishburne) awakes and they
start to gather data manually to diagnose the issue. Aurora wants him to
arrest Jim -- or something like that.
At one point, the whole ship shuts down, including lights and gravity,
then
reboots before Aurora drowns in the now-floating pool.
Mancuso dies. Jim and Aurora find the problem -- a meteorite cut through a
fusion-reactor control computer. Jim repairs it, but the reactor can't be
vented because the outer doors are, of course, jammed. Jim's gotta go out
there. You might think that we're seeing a macho/patriarchal split, but if
you bother to look a bit more deeply, you'll see: Aurora and her writing
is
the only thing that kept Jim sane enough to be able to use his engineering
skills to fix the ship. They're a team. One doesn't function without the
other. It's fine.
The door is jammed and can only be held open manually. Cool. he's got his
heat shield -- and the tether snaps. Jim's floating around in space and
his
suit's leaking. It's odd that the suits don't have even rudimentary
maneuvering jets. She gets him inside. I like that he seems heavy. He's
dead,
Jim. She uses everything the autodoc has to resuscitate him.
She forgave him -- because what else are you going to do? He's the only
other
human being around. Put yourself in her shoes for more than just a few
weeks.
What would you really do? Kill him? And then what? I expanded on these
thoughts in the article, "On not seeing or understanding context"
.
It was a solid SF story with excellent acting. Recommended.
Sorry to Bother You (2018) -- "9/10"
Lakeith Stansfield plays Cassius Green, a guy so down on his luck that he
buys gas $0.40 at a time. His girlfriend Detroit (Tessa Thompson) is an
artist. He lives in his uncle's (Terry Crews) garage and drives a
hand-me-down car from same. The car's a piece of shitwork: the wipers have
a
string attached, to let the passenger pull them back and forth.
Cassius tries to lie his way into a telemarketing job -- and gets it
despite
his lies because they'll hire anybody. On his first day on the job, he
starts
making calls. In his mind, he's transported with his desk to the home of
each
person he calls. On the second day, Langston (Danny Glover) tells him to
use
his "white voice". Next up is Squeeze (Stephen Yeun), who tries to get
Cassius into a union (of sorts).
Cassius has a reputation for melancholy; after he picks her up from work
(sign-twirler on a street corner), Detroit asks him, "baby, can we please
not
talk about the sun exploding tonight?" They head out to a bar and he tries
out his white voice when he declares a toast: it's David Cross.
In the background, we hear about Worryfree industries, a weird employment
plan that sounds a lot like slavery, run by Steve Lift (Armand Hammer).
This
has a bit of an Idiocracy feel to it -- without being 500 years in the
future.
Cassius and his white voice are promoted to the upper floor -- where
"power
callers" work. Diana DeBauchery (floor manager, played by Kate Berlant;
unaware of her name's connotation) is immediately taken with Cassius. The
code to unlock the elevator is ludicrously long. Stanfield plays an
interesting character, beaten down a bit. The first power caller he meets
is
played by Omari Hardwick and voiced by Patton Oswalt.
Squeeze is definitely a union organizer. When Detroit asks him "is that
what
you do? Go around starting trouble?", he responds "trouble's already
there. I
just help folks fix it."
Obviously, Cassius's new job is to sell Worryfree slave labor. When he
raises
an initial objection, they show him his starting salary. He nails his job,
gets a new apartment, a Maserati. The picture of his father keeps changing
to
fit the situation.
Squeeze and Detroit's strike grows in power. Cassius scabs across the line
every day. Detroit leaves him. He's sold out. He accuses her of selling
out
because she's trying to sell her art to rich people. He, on the other
hand,
is selling slave labor.
Cassius now meets with Steve Lift for another promotion. Cassius uses the
restroom first -- and finds the next generation of slave labor:
equisapiens.
This is the straw that breaks the camel's back? As the video says, "Our
scientists have discovered a way to make humans stronger, more obedient,
more
durable and, therefore, more efficient and profitable." Lift's proposal is
that Cassius becomes an equisapien for 5 years for 100 million bucks.
Detroit sees a video of the equisapiens and starts to use her art to get
the
word out. Cassius does too, going on one show after another, telling the
world about what WorryFree is doing. Little does he know that he's
actually
doing exactly the marketing they wanted him to do. WorryFree stock goes
through the roof.
Cassius revolts and organizes an even bigger strike. They seem to have
turned
the tide, until the police show up and start to run down demonstrators.
Then
the equisapiens show up and turn the tide again.
Detroit's performance-art piece is spectacular. There's a tremendous
amount
of detail in this movie. A second viewing would probably show much more.
Highly recommended.
The Lathe of Heaven (1980) -- "8/10"
This is the filming of the book that I read this year, "reviewed here"
. The film starts
with
George Orr waking up from a dream in which the world had been destroyed by
nuclear war. He wakes to a world in which this has not happened.
Basically,
George has "effective" dreams, wherein he changes the world. Dr. Haber is
his
oenerologist. It slowly dawns on Haber that George isn't crazy or deluded,
but actually does move himself to new timelines. George remembers the old
world, as do the people near him when he dreams.
Once Haber sees that George is the real deal, he decides to use George to
improve his own life. In effect, Haber uses George as a timeline-hopping
machine, using his Augmentor machine and suggestions to drive his power.
He
invents a whole new dream institute for himself. George seems to be
helpless
in his clutches. Haber deftly handles his objections -- dangling the
carrot
of "getting well" before him.
Eventually, Orr dreams of aliens invading the planet -- to unite humanity
and
stop war. The aliens, however, not only attack the moon, but also invade
Orr's dreams, making contact and letting him know that they know of
effective
dreams. Haber is dangerous to them; Orr is not.
Haber continues to manipulate and has Orr eliminate racism (everyone is
now
gray), then to dream that he no longer has effective dreams, that the
Augmentor inherits Orr's power instead -- and can confer it to Haber
directly. This is a story of a technocrat who sees everything as a tool.
George still has his power and re-imagines himself back with Heather (the
lawyer). After a lovely reunion (for him, anyway; for her, nothing's
changed), they feel the world coming apart under Haber's first attempt at
effective dreaming.
The art direction is a little off: it's supposed to be 105ºF outside, but
everyone's walking around in long pants and long sleeves. The world is
empty
of people -- or starkly reduced -- but everything's still clean. The
institute is a giant building, but built by whom? With which materials?
The
tech is quaint -- still very analog. The sets and buildings are quite
nice,
though.
The acting's decent -- basically 3 people -- but the book is better. It
does
a decent job of capturing such a high-minded concept.
The Death of Stalin (2017) -- "8/10"
Armando Iannucci (writer of Veep) delivers a biting satire of the end of the
Stalin era. None of the actors has a Russian accent. None of them even
attempts to speak in a vernacular appropriate to the 1950s. Most of them
have
heavy British accents, with Jeffrey Tambor (Malenkov and Steve Buscemi
(Kruschev) weighing in with American ones.
I find it mystifying how critics could take a film that's just an eyelash
shy
of being a Monty Python parody seriously enough to criticize its lack of
historical accuracy and depth. This is a very funny movie about the
turmoil
that follows the death of an all-powerful leader of a totalitarian state.
It's Iannucci, so it's a dialogue-driven vehicle with almost no action.
Most
of the scenes take place in sumptuous offices and residences.
The main tension is between Beria (Simon Russell Beale) and Kruschev.
Beria
is in charge of the NKVD (the secret police) and is much-feared among all
cabinet members. The funeral for Stalin is planned and executed while
Kruschev slowly gathers support for a putsch of Beria, who is spiraling
out
of control, power-mad.
Kruschev yells "I will bury you in history" at Beria's corpse. For one,
it's
true -- very few people remember who Beria was and what he did. For
another,
this is the phrase for which Kruschev was to become famous. When "he said
it
in a speech" , he meant
that
communism would outlast capitalism as a concept. The full quote is,
"About the capitalist states, it doesn't depend on you whether or not we
exist. If you don't like us, don't accept our invitations, and don't
invite
us to come to see you. Whether you like it or not, history is on our side.
We
will bury you!"
Western governments and media -- as expected -- took it as a threat of
nuclear war (because they not only still are, but always have been,
incapable
of nuance). The statement is obviously not belligerent, other than to
accuse
the West of a corrupt way of life that will lose in the end. And he will
have
been right, I think. Capitalism will bury itself in climate change and
only
socialism can rise from those ashes.
I loved this movie -- so many good actors and so much snappy dialogue.
Michael Palin was wonderful as Molotov, Rupert Friend as Stalin's besotted
son and Jason Isaacs as Marshal Zhukov were all great. Recommended.
Duck Soup (1933) -- "8/10"
Groucho Marx plays Rufus T. Firefly, newly elected president of Freedonia.
The president of Sylvania wants to take over that country, but Rufus's
nomination thwarts his efforts. The rest of the Marx brothers play spies
and
other court attendants. Most of the dialogue is one-liners and sight gags.
Some of the jokes are pretty damned rimshot-worthy -- I bet they were
original back in 1933.
"Firefly: What are you going to do as secretary of war?
"Chicolino: I think we're going to have a standing army.
"Firefly: Why a standing army?
"Chicolino: 'Cause then we save a ton of money on chairs."
They're still good: lovely timing and delivery. I'd never up until now
noticed that Groucho's mustache and eyebrows were painted on.
The intrigue between the two countries continues, with two women -- Vera
Marcal (Raquel Torres) and Mrs. Teasdale (Margaret Dumont). The action
culminates in Mrs. Teasdale's mansion. All of the Marx brothers now dress
up
as Rufus Firefly. All of the door handles in the mansion are European
style,
not doorknobs. Checking IMDb reveals that the film was shot in Spain.
If I didn't know any better, I'd think Harpo Marx was playing an
especially
malicious, mentally handicapped man. His "missing mirror" scene with
Groucho
was brilliant, though.
The war scenes are pretty good; the four brothers change uniforms every
scene
-- Groucho goes from Johnny Reb to Union to Napoleon to Daniel Boone.
I gave it an extra star for being entertaining while being almost a
hundred
years old -- and for some of the one-liners, damned if they didn't make me
laugh out loud. [1] I see where Mel Brooks got the directorial inspiration
for some of his larger set pieces.
Locke (2014) -- "8/10"
Tom Hardy stars in this alone (he's the only one on-screen). He is Ivan
Locke, an exceedingly honest man who's done one dishonest thing. He is a
clockwork of a man. He is dependable, he is extremely good at his job. He
is
a loving father and husband. He is very precise in his language and will
not
mis-speak. He is a man of his profession: concrete.
He is on a dark highway at night, driving to be there for the birth of his
bastard.
The entire film takes place in the car, with him on the phone with various
people: his boss, his wife, the mother of his bastard, various people from
the hospital, his assistant at work, his son.
He is a concrete expert, by trade. The biggest job of his life is set to
start pouring at 05:45 the next morning. It is currently 21:00 the
previous
evening. He is walking his assistant through the preparations. There are
road
closings to manage. There is the matter of a folder full of numbers that
he
has mistakenly taken with him.
His wife is imploding at the news. She doesn't care about anything else at
this moment. She has no idea how many millions of pounds she's cost by
hanging up the phone in spite. In her mind, she's 100% right. But she's
missing context. The timing is exceedingly and exquisitely bad.
His lover is an emotional mess who's trying to get him to admit he loves
her
(despite their having had only a one-night stand and no further contact).
The
baby has its umbilical cord wrapped around its neck. Locke is clearly
getting
a cold and getting worse.
He keeps driving. He keeps answering the phone. He's trying to keep all
the
balls in the air, the way he always has. He really wants to be there for
his
bastard in a way that his own father never was (he's never met him). And
he
would love not to lose his family. But it's the concrete-pour that's the
most
important to him. He and his reputation and his assistant manage to get
the
pour back on track.
In between acts, he soliloquies to his absent father in the back seat. It
is
a double birth that night, for Mr. Ivan Locke. It is also a night of loss
for
him. Chicago (headquarters) is going mad because they are afraid that the
job
will fail. Locke does not care. He's got a restricted context, just like
his
wife. His wife is ready to let everything burn because of what Ivan did.
She
doesn't care about the pour. Ivan cares about the pour, but he doesn't
care
about what Chicago cares about.
Tom Hardy is masterful. Recommended.
The Putin Interviews E01 (2017) -- "8/10"
Oliver Stone interviews Vladimir Putin about his life, his career and his
politics in this 4-part mini-series. The interviews take place over the
span
of over two years, from June 2015 to September 2017.
When asked about the 5 assassination attempts, Putin responded,
"Putin: We have a saying in Russia: The man destined to be hanged is not
going to drown."
He's obviously a very intelligent and mentally agile man. He is capable of
abstract thinking and quite creative in his speech. He's well-organized,
well-disciplined. He's very much in control and rational. He often
corrects
Stone for not having been precise enough in a summation leading up to a
question. [2]
When asked whether he ever got emotional, he said "I'm not a woman, so I
don't have those times", a primitive answer, but not unusual for a
66-year--old man.
When Stone compared his job to the job Reagan had, Putin says, "There is a
big difference between almost being broke and actually being broke." He's
on
top of the economic figures of Russia -- he has no paper in front of him.
He
is also very much a man of the law -- and getting things right. He talks
about paying back debts as if this is unavoidable.
Honestly, Oliver Stone kind of sounds like a moron. I like his movies, but
he
really doesn't come off well in this interview (so far).
Putin is very much aware of the way the U.S. works. He blames Gorbachev
for
not having gotten in writing the agreement not to expand NATO. He knows
that
NATO is searching for an enemy, that it "is a mere instrument of foreign
policy of the U.S.. It has no allies, it has only vassals."
Putin has dealt with Clinton, Bush, Obama and now Trump. He rightly sees
no
difference in essential policy. As he put it,
"And there is one curious thing: the president of your country can change,
but the policy doesn't change ... on matters of principle."
Another exchange:
"Stone: The question is: what is the policy of the U.S. What is its strategy
in the world?
Putin: I will answer this question very candidly and in great detail, but
only once I retire."
Stone then says what he thinks: that the U.S. is trying to cripple Russia
economically until it folds and complies. Putin responds that this is not a
very forward-thinking policy. He says that the Russian people cannot exist
outside of their own sovereign state (similar self-myth that most countries
have) and that the way forward is to support them instead of opposing. Then
he adds that the U.S. could save a lot of money on their defense budget. [3]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] See "Duck Soup quotes"
or "Groucho
Marx quotes"
for more examples.
[1] As to criticisms about the "softball" nature of the questions -- those
mostly come from people who were not granted an interview with Putin. When
you consider how vetted and scripted every conversation on American TV is,
why even pretend to be shocked that a Putin interview was restricted by
certain boundaries? At least Stone left in pretty obvious cuts where
material had been removed (of which there were a few).
Verne Gay of the Newsday wrote very insightfully,
"As journalism, this is scattershot at best, but as a conversation that
covers a vast span of Russian history, culture, and politics as refracted
through the mind of Russia’s president — it’s often remarkable. Putin
has a lot to say. Stone lets him say it. While the many points he makes are
impossible to summarize here, Putin’s motives for this interview are not:
He emerges as an intelligent, sane, reasonable leader caught in the vortex of
an occasionally feckless, often contradictory superpower called the United
States. Touché. (Emphasis added.)"
It's really f%$&ing hard to disagree on that point.
[1] Russia has cut defense spending in the last two years, once by 20% (as noted
in the interview "The brittle pilot: Understanding Putin's hand in
post-Soviet Russia." by Tony Wood
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=36282018-12-27T21:33:20+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of almost 1200
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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 and. let's be honest, level of
intoxication. YMMV. Also, I make no attempt to avoid spoilers.
Hap and Leonard S01--S03 (2016--2018) -- "9/10"
This is a three-season faithful adaptation of the first three Hap and Leonard
novels by Joe Lansdale. James Purefoy (from Altered Carbon) and Michael K.
Williams (Omar from The Wire) are the eponymous leads, respectively.
They are principled and poor and forever getting dragged into complicated
matters that have them playing the reluctant heroes. The dialogue is good,
the acting is great and the stories are really fun. The stories are set in
1980s America. Leonard went to Vietnam; Hap refused and did time in
Leavenworth. They are as close as brothers (we find out why in season 2).
They practice martial arts and can handle themselves in both fisticuffs
and
shootouts.
The first season is a get-rich-quick scheme involving Hap's ex-wife, the
second is about a child-kidnapping case that extends over decades and the
third is digging up a lost friend from the most racist town ever, with
(female) officer Reynolds giving Woody Harrelson from Rampart a run for
his
money as most racist movie-cop ever.
The show boasts not only the two leads, but a collection of meaty roles
for
actors like Christina Hendricks (Hap's ex-wife from season 1; famous for
having played Joan in Mad Men), Brian Dennehy (Sheriff from season 2),
Louis
Gosset Jr. (Bacon the cook from season 3), Andrew Dice Clay (DJ from
season
3) and Corbin Bernsen (Sheriff Cantuck from season 3).
A hidden gem -- highly recommended. It's a pity that it was canceled after
three seasons; Lansdale has written plenty more novels. I've heard that
it's
on Netflix in the States, if you're looking for it.
Predestination (2014) -- "8/10"
This was a cool time-traveling movie. It reminded me a bit of 12 Monkeys or
Looper since those movies also addressed the paradox of meeting yourself.
This movie goes much further than that, though. I felt vaguely throughout
the
movie that I knew the story. I found out why on Wikipedia: the movie is
based
on an old Robert Heinlein story called "—All You Zombies—", which I
must
have read about 30 years ago.
I honestly don't want to spoil the paradox. The two leads Ethan Hawke and
Sarah Snook are excellent. Recommended.
Blackkklansman (2018) -- "9/10"
I've seen idiots taking Spike Lee to task for suggesting that the police
could be part of the solution. Or that white people could be part of the
solution. This is a much more mature picture of the future: a feel-good
movie
suggesting that the police could be part of the solution to the race war.
It doesn't matter that this movie isn't "realistic". It matters that it's
fun
and clever and has good acting. The good guys win a victory -- the cops,
whites and blacks together. What's the problem? Isn't what we're striving
for?
I could understand if this were in a newspaper, where propaganda is more
hidden. But this is a movie by Spike Lee -- he can hardly be accused of
kowtowing to the man, the police or the white race. So give him the
benefit
of the doubt that he did something more subtle here and perhaps more
hopeful.
He co-opted the blacksploitation film for himself. The KKK is a bunch of
low-IQ fools. They blow themselves up because they can't even figure out
how
big a mailbox is. Lee got in some digs at the current administration in a
relatively subtle manner.
Unlike Kwame says in the movie, the race war is not coming. It's long
since
begun. The question is whether we're going to start fighting with the same
vehemence as the other side. There's still a long, long, long way to go.
The
neat thing is that Patrice is epitomous of the idiots who think they're
"for
the cause" today: they can't see anything but their own involvement and
see
everything else as appeasement. Ron's involvement literally saved her life
and thwarted a Klan attack, but she thinks her half-hearted rallies are
more
important and that he has to choose one or the other.
Ron Stallworth was clearly in charge of the investigation, he was smart,
skilled, eloquent and hilarious. This was an update to the classic
blacksploitation movies of the 70s, with a heroic lead character. Based on
a
true story, which is even better.
John David Washington was brilliant. Adam Driver was excellent as well.
Topher Grace was excellent as David Duke (he even looked a bit like him)
I guess the coda kind of makes sense, but it felt strange. I guess Lee
included it for those who couldn't see the subtext of the rest of the
film,
artistically rendered. The coda, in relation, was like a cudgel: it's
still
happening today. No shit.
Secretary (2002) -- "8/10"
Lee's umbrella is broken. She's stoop-shouldered. Her father is an alcoholic,
her mother has nothing better to do than wait for her daughter to finish
work
-- five hours later. At the same time, Lee is seeing Peter, who's not a
very
confident person. His whole body language suggests that he's very similar
to
Lee, personality-wise. At least for now.
He goes through so many secretaries that "Secretary Wanted" is part of the
sign, with lights, like a no/vacancy sign. It's pretty obvious from the
get-go that this is a sexual relationship, a courtship, rather than a
boss/employee relationship. He alternates between calling her Lee and Ms.
Holloway.
That final look, where she's following his car, as it drives to work. She
looks up, definitely breaking the fourth wall, daring the viewer to judge
her.
Venom (2018) -- "7/10"
Thomas Hardy plays Eddie Brock, a renegade video reporter working for a big
newspaper in San Fransisco. A billionaire mogul Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed)
is
the enemy here, subverting Brock's work at the newspaper (because Brock is
investigating him). Also, Brock's girlfriend Anne (Michelle Williams) is a
lawyer and works indirectly for Drake.
Drake's company gets ahold of alien beings called symbiotes. When Brock
sneaks into the labs to get the scoop, one of these symbiotes escapes and
bonds with Brock. The being is called Venom and purports to be a "good
guy"
from his race. In fact, "kind of a loser", like Brock himself. They team
up
to kick all sorts of ass and to thwart Drake's plan (whatever that is).
Venom/Brock are pretty amusing, but otherwise, the movie's a bit thin.
Reds (1981) -- "9/10"
This was a pretty fantastic and inspiring depiction of the lives of John Reed
and Louise Bryant. John Reed (played by Warren Beatty) wrote 10 Days that
Shook the World, a book about the dawn of the Russian Revolution. John
Reed
came back with the book and a fire in his belly to effect a similar
revolution in America. He's blocked from working with with the Russian
Communist Party because the American party split into two factions.
Meanwhile the U.S. government is as anti-Bolshevik, anti-Communist and
anti-worker and Facist as you can imagine. They plague him and Louise.
Reed
is ill and still travels, his work interferes with his relationship with
Louise, played by Diane Keaton. The film shows wonderfully the tremendous
amount of passion and energy.
Diane Keaton is amazing -- her dialogues with Jack Nicholson as Eugene
O'Neill are fantastic. He's a cynical bastard, comfortable in his position
in
the American society. Meanwhile, Reed is underway in Russia and is
arrested
for trying to flee Russia (after having met with Zinoviev) through
Finland.
The U.S. denies any association with Reed because he's an enemy of the
State.
This kind of reminds me of Edward Snowden's plight. I'd read Reed's book
earlier this year, but didn't realize what had happened afterward.
In prison in Finland, he gets scurvy. Louise travels to rescue him and
makes
an overland journey through the Finish winter. Reed is finally released
thanks to the help of Bolshevik Finish professors. Lenin was also involved
in
his release. Reed is ill, not only with scurvy, but also a kidney disease,
which had already taken one of his kidneys.
John is in exile. He meets with Emma Goldman in Russia, also an exile from
the U.S. for being a communist. She advises him to think long and hard
about
calling Louise to meet him in Russia, as she would be exiled as well --
and
for a cause that she doesn't believe in nearly as strongly as he does.
Out of prison and back in Russia, Reed represents America at the committee
meetings, but he can only speak a smattering of Russian, German and French
and they don't want to accept English as an official language. He quits in
frustration. He discusses the situation with Emma Goldman, who tells him
of
the real-world dangers facing all revolutionaries. She reminds him that
the
Bolshevik system has already failed 4 million people that have starved
over
the winter. He tells her that it's not going the way they'd planned or the
way they'd imagined, but that it's moving forward. He can't ignore that.
He
rejoins the committees.
When Louise finally gets to Russia, Emma Goldman runs into her at the
train
station, just before she gets into even more trouble for not having the
proper traveling papers. Reed is in Turkey, traveling with the Bolsheviks
to
visit other worker's parties of the world. Zinoviev changes his speech to
say
"holy war" rather than "class struggle" before it's translated to Turkish.
Reed confronts him, saying that revolution is nothing without differing
opinions, without dissent, without individualism. It's not just the single
opinion of the party.
His heart and mind are more than in the right place, but so many obstacles
stand in the way, not the least of which are all of the most powerful
people
and nation-states in the world. This is a story of a missed opportunity.
John Reed died of typhus in Russia because the Allies had blockaded all
medical supplies during the war. He dies on October 17, 1920, exactly
three
years after the end of the revolution. He was buried in the Kremlin Wall
Necropolis, alongside other fallen heroes of the revolution.
Watched it in German.
Tomb Raider (1981) -- "7/10"
This reboot leads us through a new origin story for Lara. We find her in
London, working as a bicycle messenger. She has refused to take her
father's
inheritance, because she doesn't want to acknowledge that he's died.
Instead,
she takes up the adventurer mantel and follows him to Japan, where'd he
pursued a supernatural power embodied Himiko, the Witch Queen of Japan,
who'd
been marooned on an uninhabited and quasi-uninhabitable island in the
Devil's
Sea.
She takes his lore and still refuses his fortune, hocking her mother's
ring
to get traveling money to go to Japan. There she finds Lu Ren, the son of
the
fisherman who'd taken her father to the fated island. They follow their
fathers into the teeth of a storm and shipwreck on the island. They are
captured by the men against whom her father was fighting and forced to
work
on the slave crew that is trying to find Himiko.
Lu Ren helps her escape and she escapes into the night. After many
travails,
she also finds her father, who's been living on the island for seven years
on
his own. Mattias Vogel, the head of the enemy crew, had claimed to have
killed him. Her father is played by Dominic West, or Mcnulty, if you're a
fan
of the The Wire.
He's pissed with her because she did not do as he'd asked: she'd failed to
burn his effects and led Vogel directly to Himiko.
The action scenes are reasonably well-done, as long as you remember that
they're almost literally from a video game. They're ludicrous and
unbelievable, but they're from a video game. They make sense in that
context.
Viskander at least makes it look difficult for such a small person to do
all
of these feats. Also, nobody enhanced her bosoms for this film, which is
good.
At any rate, she leaves her father's camp and attack Vogel's camp, kicking
ass and taking names. Her father advances on the tomb of Himiko, which
Vogel's explosives have revealed. The expected scene plays out, where
Vogel
threatens to kill her father if Lara doesn't open the tomb. Lara opens the
tomb's main door in spectacular fashion, revealing a chasm in to the heart
of
the island.
Vogel forces them -- Indiana-Jones-and-the-Last-Crusade-like -- to help
him
overcome the obstacles. The first is "the chasm of souls", which is a
chasm
with literally thousands of skeletons in it. The solution to the
almost-literally-copied-from-the-previously-mentioned-movie trap is also
very
much like a video game. Now, they're all working together as if they're
not
enemies.
All joking and cynicism aside, it's a really cool set and concept. The
twist
is also that Himiko turns out to have sacrificed herself for the good of
the
planet: she was a carrier of a horrific, fast-acting, zombifying disease.
Her dad gets infected and it's up to Lara to use her less-than-adequate
fighting skills to beat Vogel. She really walks into quite a few punches.
It's kind of a Rocky-style fight: you know she's going to win, but the
entire
scene says that she shouldn't. He did shrug off a shot to the nuts as if
it
were nothing, which also made no sense whatsoever.
It was a total video-game boss-level escape at the end.
The Assignment (2016) -- "8/10"
This movie has quite a stellar cast, starring Michelle Rodriguez as Frank
Kitchen, a hitman. Signourney Weaver is a genius-level and mad
gender-reassignment doctor named Rachel Jane, who's had her practice
closed
for malpractice. Frank kills her brother on an assignment. Tony Shalhoub
plays Jane's psychiatrist.
This kicks off a revenge story engineered by Jane, where she has Kitchen
kidnapped and turns him into a woman. Frank starts to put the pieces
together
and slowly reels doctor Jane in. Jane thinks she can outsmart everyone,
but
Kitchen gets the drop on her, mutilating her but letting her
live...without
fingers.
An interesting story and well-acted by the leads.
Stalingrad (1993) -- "8/10"
This is a German movie about the siege of Stalingrad in 1942. It hits the
familiar points of a realistic and semi-honest war movie. Most of the
German
soldiers are young and naive; the Russians have even-younger soldiers.
The slaughter is senseless and breathtaking. Hundreds die on each advance.
A
regiment of 400 is left with about 20 men by the first evening. Germans
accidentally shoot Germans; Russians are captured and then immediately
shot
by others who either didn't realize that they'd given themselves up or
didn't
care.
The cold is visceral; it is its own combatant, taking victims on both
sides.
Some of the acting is not very good, but then the acting in reality
probably
wasn't very good. You can watch the psychological collapse in real-time.
At
one point, they're holed up across the street from a Russian encampment.
Both
sides call a ceasefire to go collect their wounded and take the dog-tags
from
their dead. You see the soldiers share food and care for their dead. They
can
barely communicate. The Russian is untranslated and without subtitles.
It's
pretty simple, though, "Alyosha, it will be all right. It will be fine."
However, this temporary truce is broken up by a soldier who claims that he
saw the Russians making a move, but who really just wanted to follow the
rules about "no contact with the enemy". The Germans capture a Russian
soldier, in the form of a young boy in adult clothing.
They remain holed up in this cold building, unable to move and going
slowly
crazy from hunger, cold, panic and fear. They investigate the sewers and
find
corpses, rats and incredible amounts of water. One German captures a
female
Russian soldier but then falls into the water before she can bring him
back
to his comrades. She runs off and they find him anyway. The Russians,
meanwhile, move about more-or-less with impunity, although they must
protect
the many civilians that remain in the city.
The Germans make their way back to an infirmary, which looks like Bosch
painting. They are arrested for abandoning their post on the front. The
German command is ruthless. The tiny remainder are banished to
mine-sweeping
duty in the tundra, where they are abused by their own comrades, who are
now
their guards.
The Germans are in a hopeless situation, but will not give up. Now the
banished troops are pulled back into active duty as cannon-fodder. On the
way, Otto tells of not being able to integrate back home, when he's on
leave,
how the more his wife seeks to understand him, the more he hates her.
The wintry foxholes look nightmarishly bleak and cold. The battles are far
less flashy and smooth than those in more recent American war films -- but
one suspects they're much more realistic. After the seemingly senseless
battle (it was in the middle of nowhere), with horrific attribution on
both
sides, the Germans move on, dragging their artillery by hand. They come
upon
a village, where other Germans are burning everything and throwing the
villagers into the streets. The Russian film Come and See depicted a
similar
scene its final act.
They are rewarded for their having taken part and are now asked to
slaughter
Russians in cold blood. Their faces are covered in sores, the snow falls,
the
Russians stand pitifully, among them old men, women and children. Once
again,
the high-level command is depicted as merciless and evil (accusing them of
refusing commands and "behaving like Jews").
Three of them desert their post soon after this slaughter, fleeing (albeit
slowly) into the wasteland of the Russian tundra in winter. They come upon
a
giant pile of corpses and find that some of them have tags -- tags that
they
can use to get out of Russia. They get to the airbase; there are bodies
and
frozen corpses everywhere. Before they can board, though, the plane is
commandeered for officers. It would be the last plane to leave Stalingrad.
It's back to the tundra for them, another overland journey. They return to
their colleagues, who look like the walking dead. A feast falls from the
sky,
dropped by a German plane. The same officer that told them to shoot
Russian
civilians shows up to demand that they leave it be. He shoots one of them
and
they kill him. Before he dies, he tries to bribe them with the location of
a
giant cache of supplies. They head there afterward.
Buried in a back room, they find a Russian woman tied to a bed. They
quickly
agree that they will go in order of rank and leave the Lieutenant with
her.
He's conflicted, to say the least. She attacks him, telling him to fuck
her
or shoot her, but put an end to it. He does neither and gives her his
Luger,
telling her to shoot herself because he has no desire to shoot anyone
anymore. She can't do it, though. Neither does she shoot him.
Their sergeant is gravely injured, but tries to get control of them,
calling
them deserters. Otto is around the bend and says that he'll take care of
himself and blows out the back of his head. A loyal soldier takes his
sergeant on his back and heads out into the cold, away from the bunker.
His
sergeant dies soon after. The soldier sees a line of Germans walking by
and
tries to give himself up, but they have been captured.
The rest leave the bunker (two remaining German soldiers and Irina), back
in
the tundra. They walk for what seems like days and encounter a Russian MG
nest, which kills Irina. The two remaining soldiers make it a bit farther,
but succumb to the weather.
The epilogue informs us that over 1 million people died in and around
Stalingrad. Of the 260,000 people in the 6th Germany army, 91,000 were
sent
to prison. Of those, only 6,100 made it back to Germany.
Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018) -- "10/10"
The movie starts off with a bang with the Apostles -- the remnants of
Solomon's gang from Rogue Nation -- seizing plutonium. Hunt and crew were
there and let it slip through their fingers. Most of the same cast is back
with some additions. Henry Cavill is introduced as Agent Walker, a CIA guy
who's along on the IMF mission.
Angela Bassett as the new head of the CIA -- and she drops talk of
renditions
and water-boarding like it's not even a bad thing anymore. So nice to see
that America's forgiven itself its transgressions and happy with the new
normal. Bassett seems to be happy to take a lot of money to play an
utterly
unsympathetic and one-dimensional asshole.
Walker is also a one-dimensional asshole, with extremely blunt methods.
Apparently, Hunt's methods have too much finesse -- Walker is the
"hammer".
This movie has some of the best fight scenes I've seen in a while. Ilsa
Faust
is a bad-ass, as is Liang Ying, the guy from the bathroom fight. Scratch
that. this movie has some of the best action scenes I've seen in a while
(Mechanic: Resurrection was pretty good, too). The mission this time is to
recover the plutonium, but the team selling it wants Solomon Lane back. So
Hunt and co. have to spring him from police custody. This is, to say the
least, spectacular and uses very little CGI. It's only at the end where
Hunt
gets up from a motorcycle crash without a scratch that it got a bit too
much.
Ok, climbing a rope up to a helicopter not once but twice and not even
being
winded -- and then beating up two guys to steal the chopper -- that's more
unbelievable. But, still somehow awesome. I like how things fall apart and
Hunt's improvisations start to fail -- but "I'll figure something out". At
least he has the decency to look exhausted at the end.
In case it interests you: Tom Cruise learned to fly a helicopter so he
could
do all his own stunts. He flew off of a motorcycle and just got up and
kept
going. OMG and the bathroom fight scene with Henry Cavill and Liang Ying,
a
guy who I’d never seen before because he’s a stuntman but holy crap is
he
going to get his own movie after this. Then Cruise swang around on the
bottom
of a helicopter for what felt like an hour. Incredible endurance. He’s
pretty awesome, I have to admit. No man-crush, but respect aplenty.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=36272018-12-26T12:36:03+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of almost 1200
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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 and. let's be honest, level of
intoxication. YMMV. Also, I make no attempt to avoid spoilers.
12 Angry Men (1957) -- "9/10"
This is the classic filming of the theater piece about the jury trial of a
young man accused of having murdered his father in a fit of anger in the
middle of the night. It is the story of 11 jurors ready to hang the boy high
for pretty poor reasons while Henry Fonda plays the lone holdout. He asks
them to at least spend a few minutes discussing the case before they condemn
a man to die. It's well-written and well-acted and the story is very
convincing. Details of the case are revealed through discussion and the
jurors one-by-one switch to not-guilty verdicts. In the end, they all agree
that the boy was railroaded by an unfair system and vote not-guilty. Highly
recommended.
The Andromeda Strain (1971) -- "5/10"
This is the film of the book by Michael Crichton about an extraterrestrial
incursion in the form of a crystal that acts as a virus for humans. The
virus
acts quickly, dehydrating blood almost instantly. The U.S. government
quickly
gathers a team of crack scientists to investigate it in a high-tech lab
built
in several layers under the desert.
The film follows the investigation and the slow realization of how the
alien
crystals are actually alive and are evolving. In the end. we know no more
about the alien substance, but it evolves into a form that is non-lethal
to
humans.
There is a tremendous focus on the technology in the film. The
decontamination process is an entire act. The Waldo arms are given dozens
of
minutes of screen time.
The Last Witchhunter (2015) -- "8/10"
Vin Diesel stars as Kaulder, a warrior from the dark ages who vanquishes the
Witch Queen. Before she falls, she curses him with immortality.
The rest of the movie takes place in the present day, in New York City.
Kaulder is in league with the Catholic Church to keep witches under
control.
There is a sort of licensing system and Kaulder is a much-feared officer
of
the law. A cult is working to resurrect the Witch Queen. We learn that
Kaulder's immortality is related to the Witch Queen in a more direct tie
(her
heart).
Michael Caine is Kaulder's assistant, with Elijah Wood his eventual
replacement. Rose Leslie (Ygritte from Game of Thrones) is very good as
the
witch who gains Kaulder's trust (and love?) The final battle is a bit
uneven,
but overall it's an entertaining action movie.
Evil Dead (2013) -- "7/10"
This is a really well-made gore flick with more than a few shoutouts to the
original. It's really violent and gory, with limbs being slowly and
viscerally ripped from bodies. The makeup is very, very good and the actors
do their jobs well. The plot vaguely follows the original, with several
points of similarity (the book, the chainsaw, etc.). Predictably, the
characters don't cop to the true severity of the situation quickly enough to
save themselves. One by one, they are possessed and taken down by others.
It's a well-done version of a classic formula.
The Fly (2013) -- "9/10"
Geena Davis is as beautiful as I remember her being when I first saw this
movie as a teenager. She's still so young. Her boss drives a Maserati. The
makeup is really good -- the deterioration already begins when Seth's on the
sofa with Victoria. Goldblum matches the physical deterioration with a
psychological one. The visuals and graphics are definitely dated, but worlds
better than those from the Andromeda Strain, 15 years before. I had no idea
who David Cronenberg (the director) was then. In the intervening 30 years,
I've seen many more of his films and his imprimatur is very obviously on this
film. It's quite poignant, at the end, that the Brundlefly/Teleporter is
still capable of asking for the sweet release of death.
Casino Royale (1967) -- "8/10"
This is an extremely high-quality spy-film spoof starring the lovely Joanna
Pettet as James Bond's daughter, David Niven as James Bond, Peter Sellers as
Evelyn Tremble (Baccarat expert, who's written a book on it. The joke here is
that there is no system to Baccarat: it's a game of pure luck) and also as
James Bond, Orson Welles as Le Chiffre, the equally lovely Ursula Andress as
Mata Bond (Mata Hari, who'd married Bond), Woody Allen shows up as "Jimmy
Bond" in a non-speaking but central role, and the stunning Jacqueline Bisset
as Miss Goodthighs. I just saw David Prowse (Darth Vader) has an uncredited
role as Frankenstein's Monster. Peter O'Toole was an uncredited bagpiper.
John Huston, Deborah Kerr, Anjelica Huston, William Holden -- it seemed
everyone wanted to be in this movie. All of the actors seem to be enjoying
themselves immensely. The plot follows that of the book, more or less.
There's even the scene where Bond is kidnapped and tortured by Chiffre on a
chair with a hole in it (although it's much less graphic than in the remake
with Daniel Craig). Peter Sellers is amazing, as always. For once, he gets to
play a confident character. I love the 60s aesthetic here. Some of the
interactions are a bit dated (i.e. misogynistic), but it's 50 years old.
Rear Window (1954) -- "8/10"
Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelly and Raymond Burr star in this Alfred Hitchcock
classic. The premise is of a man (Stewart) laid up in his apartment with a
broken leg. Out the rear window of his apartment, he has a view of many
other
apartments in his neighborhood, exquisitely rendered in a stage set. It's
an
incredibly hot summer in New York City, so everyone has their windows open
until all hours of the evening.
Stewart is a photographer; Kelly is his high-society girlfriend. Stewart
spends a good deal of time watching the neighbors. Hitchcock appears in
one
of the apartments, winding the clock in the apartment of the
composer/pianist.
Jeffries is kind of a dick. He's inordinately proud of how he travels the
world as a photographer, can't see any art in writing music (sees only
that
the guy writes music to pay his rent). He scowls at the same guy a while
later, because he's practicing atonal jazz with his friends (probably
because
it's "noise"). He and Doyle keep talking about "notifying the landlord"
when
occupancy of the apartment changes -- even for one night.
Showgirls (1995) -- "6/10"
Elizabeth Berkley plays Nomi Malone, a drifter/dancer who ends up in Las
Vegas. She is not a good actress. She very often goes to "11" [1]. I'm not
really in the position to judge her dancing, but it's a bit jerky, I
thought.
She's good, but with a very exacting energy. I was surprised to see Gina
Gershon and Kyle McLachlan with such big roles. Gina Gershon is naked
nearly
as much as Berkley is. And dances nearly as much. There's a lot of
dancing,
most of it extremely good.
The plot is pretty standard, actually. Yeah, there's a lot of nudity and
lots
of sexy dancing, but it's probably a pretty accurate depiction of the
show-girl dancing world. Again, I have no idea, but it didn't seem to be
too
exaggerated just to be extra-mean to women. The plot, writing and acting
were
brutal and stupid sometimes, but again, no more than other movies.
Ok, I take that back: now they're drinking champagne in a giant pool. And
then they made a lot of waves in the most ridiculous cinematic depiction
of a
female orgasm ever. Berkley cements her utter lack of acting chops in that
scene. She also saves a lot of time on laundry because she wears neither a
bra nor panties. Although you have to remember this is just Verhoeven's
and
Eszterhas's style -- remember Starship Troopers.
The dance numbers in the big shows are not terrible. Nor, again, are they
particularly hard to believe. Probably the people complaining about them
want
to believe in a world where none of this exists. And 75% of the way
through
the film, there's a gang-rape scene nearly out of nowhere, of Berkley's
best
friend and roommate. The rapists were clever: they released her, bleeding
from everywhere, right back to a party with hundreds of people. And no-one
knows a thing.
The aftermath/coverup with Kyle McLachlan is completely believable and
culminates in yet another of Berkley's nearly spastic acting "reactions".
But
now we're in revenge mode -- I honestly can't tell if Verhoeven is taking
the
piss here. He can't seriously want us to believe she's a martial-arts
expert
now, too? And then one more quick lesbian scene with Gina Gershon and
she's
drifting back to the road. Saw it in German.
Mechanic: Resurrection (2016) -- "8/10"
This sequel to the remake, which starred Donald Sutherland and Jason Statham
(the original starred Charles Bronson and Jan-Michael Vincent), starts off
with a bang. Jason Statham takes no shit from anyone and won't be
distracted
by a pretty face.
He's on the lam after the end of the first film, but he's been discovered
by
an old enemy. He escapes from Brazil to Thailand (using a passport and
phone
from a giant stash in a shipping container), where he meets up with an old
friend Mei (Michelle Yeoh). The second pretty face works a bit better
(Jessica Alba) -- she's sent to spy on him and lets her man beat her up so
that Bishop (Statham) can't help but get involved. He figures this out, as
well, but is slowly getting sucked in to the job.
Jessica Alba is cute as hell, but she's in Statham's shadow -- he's built
like a brick shithouse. Really not bad for a guy who was almost 50 when he
made that movie. Naturally, Alba is 14 years younger, which is actually a
small gap for Hollywood.
Still, it's a decent setup: she gets kidnapped by the guy who wants Bishop
to
commit three kills/hits so he's backed into employing his unique skillset,
but left morally off the hook for killing complete strangers. The hits are
nicely constructed: we see Bishop planning them mission-impossible-style
and
the executing them to perfection.
He's brilliant, quite a sketch artist, is familiar with all sorts of
munitions and weapons and is immensely strong. Obviously, it's completely
unbelievable, but it's a lot of fun. It kind of reminds me of the Hitman
movies, but better because Jason Statham > Timothy Olyphant.
The final kill is Tommy Lee Jones, who seems to have a lot of fun with the
role of international weapons-dealer. Instead of helping his enemy
eliminate
his competition, he strikes a deal with TLJ to fake his death.
Definitely a wonderfully choreographed film. It's nice to see that Alba is
far from helpless -- she can hold her own, but her ability to take on huge
guys is relatively realistic. As with any action film, Statham has as many
bullets as he needs and he has preternatural aim with a pistol (especially
when in motion). Some of his kill-shots look like shit we used to do in
Quake: falling backwards but still administering a laser-like shot to the
forehead.
Overall, a very fun and satisfying action movie.
Maze Runner (2014) -- "6/10"
The story shows a world that consists of only large meadow and forest
enclosed in giant stone walls. It is inhabited by a tribe of boys who call
their home "The Glade". It's kind of like Lord of the Flies starring a
bunch
of millennials without phones.
They are joined regularly by a new boy/man, who appears from a cargo lift
built into the ground. As the film starts, they are joined by Thomas.
Thomas
starts trouble by not immediately accepting the rules as they've been
established by the others. One has to follow the rules because it's what
keeps everyone alive. If you don't follow the rules, the cargo boxes stop
coming.
Also, don't try to escape because the Maze will eat you. The maze is
inscrutable and impenetrable and is inhabited by Grievers -- giant
robot-spider machines with an unquenchable desire to kill.
Predictably, Thomas is better at maze-running than anyone else and he
manages
to kill a Griever and he finds a way out, etc. etc. However, he only finds
a
way out of the original maze -- there is much more to come because the
maze
is part of a dystopic, wasted world ruled by the mad remnant so factions
that
destroyed it.
I think I might have made it sound better than it was.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] "One review"
I read wrote that she "snatches [$10] from him like a mongoose trying to
kill a cobra"; that's how she does everything. "Roger Ebert"
himself wrote that "If
all lap-dancers get as carried away as Nomi does, I'll bet they're
constantly seeing a chiropractor about their backs." Ebert actually noticed
a bunch of the same things I did, for example:
"It's trash, yes, but not boring. Sometimes, it's hilarious: (1) As a dancer
writhes groaning on the stage, a choreographer grabs her knee and squeezes.
"She screams. "It's her knee," he concludes. "
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=36262018-12-26T12:34:46+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of almost 1200
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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 and. let's be honest, level of
intoxication. YMMV. Also, I make no attempt to avoid spoilers.
Joe Rogan: Strange Times (2018) -- "9/10"
Joe Rogan pulls his shit together to put on a really good set, tearing down
many of the more ludicrous facets of our online and real-world (mostly)
American culture. He's done a good job of distilling the madness and at-times
stupidity of his podcast/vidcast into some pretty insightful and
thought-provoking as well as hilarious material.
The Haunting of Hill House (2018) -- "7/10"
This was a strong, if too-long story of the damage done to a family by a
haunted house. Whether the house is haunted is left open until the very
end.
That is, the show depicts very scary and haunted-looking apparitions but
it's
always left open whether the house is actually doing these things or
whether
every associated with the house is just mad.
It's more of an eight-hour movie rather than a TV season. There is a
tremendous amount of character development. Carla Gugino (also in Gerald's
Game), Michiel Huisman (of Tremé), Henry Thomas (of E.T.) and Timothy
Hutton
all play very well.
Slowly, we realize that the house drives them mad (shades of Stephen King
here). There are some really nice reveals as the show interleaves past and
present. Parts of the present jut into the past, revealed via ESP or
visions.
The ending is, on one hand, good, in that there is no grand monster in the
house. Each person imbues the "room" with their own issues. It kind of
reminded me a bit of the "room" in Stalker. However, the final ending is
so
pat (they more-or-less "heal" the house) that I removed a star.
Big Mouth S02 (2018) -- "8/10"
This show continues to be a strong contender for being shown in every health
class in the country. It's rare to see such an honest take on the feeling and
hormones roiling in teenagers. it's at times quite filthy, which I find
charming, but which would certainly take it out of the running for health
class. This season moves the character arcs of the first season forward,
introducing no new characters. Nick Kroll and John Mulaney voice the stars as
well as many side characters. Richard Kind as Marty Glouberman is fantastic.
Jason Mantzoukas as Jay justifiably gets more airtime and Maya Rudolph is
brilliant as the Hormone Monstress.
Daredevil S03 (2018) -- "9/10"
The first half of this season felt a bit long as we watch Daredevil recover
from his grievous injuries sustained in the finale of the Defenders. At the
same time that he licks his wounds and wallows in self-pity, we watch as
Wilson Fisk (the amazing Vincent D'Onofrio) engineers his own release from
prison to a house arrest. Daredevil is the only one convinced that Fisk must
die -- Karen Page (wonderfully played by Deborah Ann Woll) and Foggy (Elden
Hansen) want to get him back in jail. They are all at odds and cross-purposes
for much of the season, providing tension as we watch the tsunami of Fisk's
nearly inevitable takeover of the city approaching their pathetic,
disorganized and at-times squabbling resistance. In the midst of this is a
new enemy, in the form of Dex, an FBI agent who's incredibly accomplished but
also psychologically damaged beyond repair. Fisk uses him, crafting him into
a weapon that Daredevil can barely handle. Overall, an excellent third
season.
Extinction (2018) -- "4/10"
Michael Peña stars in this film about the aftermath of an alien invasion.
Rather, the precognition of an alien invasion. Rather, the story of how an
invasion could also be a homecoming that ousts a bunch of squatters. The plot
twist was interesting enough, but nothing that came before or after was
particularly inspiring.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) -- "8/10"
This continuation of the film franchise in the world created for the Harry
Potter films retains the child-like wonder of the originals as well as a
bit
of the darkness of the final installments.
In the timeline, this film is a prequel, telling the story of the rise of
Grindelwald, who would go on to create the Elder Wand that is lost in time
by
the time Potter desperately seeks it as one of the "deathly hallows" in
the
finale of the previous film series.
Eddie Redmayne stars as Newt, a collector of animals and zoological lore.
This makes him an outsider since all other magicians at the time consider
animals to be beneath them, either slaves or enemies. It was a solid film,
due in no small part to Redmayne holding it all together.
Russell Brand: Re:Birth (2018) -- "6/10"
I ordinarily really like Brand's patter when he really gets going, but this
show didn't really do it for me. He made a lot of callbacks to his previous
shows and things he's done online. He talked a lot about his family and the
birth of his child. He was political at times, but he seemed to be phoning it
in.
F is for Family S03 (2018) -- "8/10"
This season was a bit more up-and-down than the previous two seasons, but
still overall very good. It takes a little while to get going. The story arc
this time is Frank's new friend, a former Air-Force pilot who's pretty much a
giant jerk, but whom Frank promotes to a God. Frank, as voiced by Bill Burr,
is stellar, as in other seasons. His anger bleeds through at times, lending
credence to the put-upon father figure just trying to make ends meet and to
bring some joy to his family, despite his own ideas and ineptitude playing a
large part in preventing him from achieving these things.
Gerald's Game (2018) -- "7/10"
This movie was better than I expected it to be. It actually delivered a
pretty good translation of Stephen King's book to screen. They seem to be
getting better at doing this.
The basic plot is that a rich and successful couple's relationship is on
the
rocks. This is understandable because she's basically a saint and he's a
manipulative, gaslighting asshole. Gerald (played by Bruce Greenwood) is
clearly in his late fifties/early sixties, but his biceps look like he
still
works out at the high-school gym. He's very fit, but it's the body of a
narcissist. Carla Gugino as Jessie is lovely and convincing as a woman in
her
mid-to-late forties. The gap of 15 years makes sense, in context.
They travel to a remote, isolated cabin for a sexy weekend where they plan
to
reignite the spark. He's all ready with his viagra and his handcuffs and a
gleam in his eye. During the foreplay, he refers to himself as "Daddy",
which
completely turns her off. We find out exactly in flashbacks over the rest
of
the film when we meet her father, played by Henry Thomas (who ironically
played Gugino's husband in The Haunting of Hill House).
He gets angry and gives himself a damned heart attack. She's still cuffed
to
the bed and the key is too far away to reach. He's definitely dead as a
doornail.
It's Stephen King, so a hungry, friendly stray dog from before shows up,
who's not so friendly anymore. He's just hungry. Jessie's mind starts
playing
tricks on her, exaggerating details in the long night. Does she really see
a
man in the corner? Is it death? She must. get. free.
She eventually does get free, stumbling past death, bleeding and handing
him
her wedding ring. The epilogue provides illumination.
Filth (2013) -- "9/10"
James McAvoy plays Bruce, a detective in the Scottish police force. He's an
absolute animal: womanizing, swearing, doing drugs, smoking, drinking, hiring
prostitutes, accosting criminals and citizens alike. He's brilliant. We learn
of the reason for his behavior as we watch him unravel. His machinations pile
up and conflict and engender ever-greater and riskier schemes. Inevitably,
things collapse and he comes out on the other side, or does he? The plot is
incidental to McAvoy's performance. Also stars Imogen Poots, Jim Broadbent
and Jamie Bell.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=35762018-12-26T12:33:31+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of almost 1200
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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 and. let's be honest, level of
intoxication. YMMV. Also, I make no attempt to avoid spoilers.
Escape to Victory (1981) -- "8/10"
This is sort of like the Longest Yard but with WWII prisoners of war vs. the
German national team in Paris. It stars Sylvester Stallone, Michael Caine,
Max von Sydow and Pele. Von Sydow plays a German major who is keen on
football and recognizes Caine as John Colby of the Premier League. He
proposed to Colby that he should put a team together to play against a
team
of Germans, guards and officers.
When Sydow's superiors get wind of the idea, they promote it and move the
match to Paris, against the German national team, for propaganda purposes.
Colby and his men care little, at first. They are allowed to practice and
play and get more free reign and privileges than they ordinarily would
have.
Stallone's Hatch is part of a plan to escape -- unlike many others before
him. He makes it in quite an elegant fashion and makes his way to Paris
like
a pretty debonair spy. He even enunciates passable French. His job is to
sneak into the match in order to break out the entire team.
The matches commences, with the German team depicted as a savage team that
plays like Paul Newman's team did in Slapshot. The referee has been paid
off
and seems to be throwing his very first game because it's ridiculously
obvious. At half-time, it's 4--1 for the Germans and they head back to the
lockers -- ready to be broken out through the sewer system. The breach
into
the hot tub is wonderful.
They all get below ground, then they decide they want to finish the game
--
they think they can win. They'd rather win the game than escape. Hatch
must
be convinced to return to prison -- yet again -- because they can't play
without their goalie. The colonels who'd arranged the escape are baffled.
It's quickly 4--3. The referee seems to have forgotten how to cheat. Until
they disallow an equalizing goal for no apparent reason. And this all
playing
a man down. With a few minutes remaining, Pele comes back on the field,
having partially recovered for an egregious injury suffered in the first
half. Bicycle kick for an indisputable equalizer. The crowd chants
victoire.
Then they begin to sing a patriotic song in French, drowning out
everything
else.
Silence falls on the pitch. Hatch must face a final penalty kick. He saves
it. The crown goes wild and storms the pitch. The team escapes in the
ensuing
melee, disguised by the crowd in clothes that cover their kits. The
Germans
mysteriously don't shoot anyone. I love how they didn't even try to give
the
extras period clothing. There're windbreakers and member-only jackets all
over the field.
The Shape of Water (2017) -- "5/10"
This is the story of a mute woman (Eliza) working as a janitor in a
top-secret 1960s laboratory. She is a solitary person with an affinity to
water. At the lab, an captured amphibious creature is brought in -- and
she
befriends it, seemingly falls in love with it. There is a cold-war tension
draped over the whole affair, with one lab tech (at least) working for the
Soviets.
The military people are unswervingly cruel, single-minded, short-sighted
and
stupid. Also, the Russians are comically depicted and their accents are
atrocious. I don't know a lot of Russian (4 years of study deep in the
past),
but I know a bad accent when I hear one. I can hear how stilted it is and
the
American accents glare through. It's embarrassing to think that a globally
released film like this couldn't give enough of a shit to get the language
that's spoken in a good quarter of the movie right. They do this a lot
with
German as well (season 9 of Archer is painful -- especially Cyril). I
don't
think that this is part of some elaborate double-irony, being deliberately
bad about accents to point up how little Americans care about the rest of
the
world. At this point, I can't tell if you're just seriously an idiot or
pretending to be one. It's a wash.
And this movie was nominated for an Oscar -- an organization that will rip
out its left eyeball to avoid offending gays, blacks or women (now,
anyway),
but doesn't seem to notice when a film offends an entire culture. The
Russians are the enemy anyways, right? ... So who cares about offending
them.
They deserve it.
Her best friend is a gay painter (in the 60s) and everyone around him is a
horrible homophobic, anti-communist racist. Her other best friend at work
is
Zelda Fuller, played by the always-amazing Octavia Spencer.
But I've having a hard time engaging with this story: everything just kind
of
happens randomly. The fish-man is considered "hot". The mute lady wants
him;
she gets him. Fish-man can heal people and his back lights up when he
orgasms, but he just gets mysteriously sick and no-one can figure out
what's
wrong. Is there not enough salt in the water? No-one knows. We just have
to
wait and see what the story wants to show us, but we can't engage in it
and
make any predications or draw conclusions.
There's a lot of Russian, so make to get a copy with subtitles.
True Cost (2015) -- "9/10"
This is a quite excellent documentary about and analysis of the Western
fashion industry. Actually, the fashion industry is the entry point to an
extended critique of the real problem: our unfettered capitalism and
laser-like focus on profits and growth. Economist Richard Wolfe is
featured
in the second half and eloquently sums up the real fix that we need.
The fashion industry has moved from a biannual release schedule to a
nearly
weekly release schedule called "fast fashion". If so many clothes are to
be
sold, then those clothes have to get less expensive. When the end customer
pays less, there's less to go around all the way up the supplier chain.
Those
with the least power suffer the most.
The documentary covers all aspects of our rapacious system.: It starts
with
how Monsanto has cornered and redesigned the market in seeds and
pesticides
to increase their profits and control. They have GM seeds that can't be
used
in subsequent years, the plants they produce require more pesticides, and
the
ruthless race to the bottom ensures that more labor-intensive means of
production (organic farming) are priced out of the market.
The materials are made cheaper by squeezing farmers. Next up is finding
the
source of cheapest labor in the world, working in the worst conditions.
This
makes selling super-cheap clothes to people buying stuff they don't need
on
credit they don't have a viable short- to medium-term business strategy.
Since people don't really need these clothes -- and they were so cheap to
begin with -- they throw them away in staggering numbers. Millions of tons
of
clothes are discarded every year in the U.S. alone.
Underneath it all is the driving engine of rapacious, pure-profit, growth
capitalism. The environment and people are not included in the balance
sheet
when determining the success of a participant in this economy. There is no
overarching goal other than funneling money upwards to those that already
have it. This documentary uses the fashion industry as a lens through
which
to view this greater underlying problem.
It's unlikely we'll solve it, though, as long as so many of those with the
upper hand (most people in the West) don't really care or are unaware or
don't think that their actions matter. As long as so many are brainwashed
into thinking that capitalism is sacrosanct -- when every other policy can
be
questioned and improved -- there is no way out.
Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle: Season 4 (2016) -- "9/10"
Stewart Lee is a comedic genius. I don't know of anyone else whose comedy is
even similar. It's self-referential, meta, deconstructionist and breaks the
fourth wall. His topics range from racism to the BBC to the British press to
British politics ... but it's not really like that. He's brilliant.
Split (2016) -- "9/10"
James McAvoy stars in this M. Night Shyamalan sequel (?) about a man with a
split personality. He kidnaps three young ladies and traps them in a room
together. The same man visits them several times, each time clothed in a
different personality. Patricia, Dennis, Hedwig and many more.
Dennis is in treatment with Dr. Fletcher, who thinks that people with his
disorder are actually preternaturally gifted, almost super-human. That's
why
this feels a bit like a sequel -- it's another in Shyamalan's series of
films
about low-key superheroes.
The girls try to figure out how to escape, while he's constantly switching
personalities. The film follows Dr. Fletcher's attempts to control the
personalities. Dennis and Patricia have taken over Kevin's body from Barry
--
and things are getting darker.
West World S02 -- "8/10"
This continues to be one of the more interesting shows, with good acting,
good writing and interesting ideas. The war between the hosts and the
humans
comes to a head and culminates in the first large battle, which the hosts
lose. At least most of them do: many of them make their escape into a
virtual
world, where they feel the same, but are free of physical bodies.
It become clear throughout the season that it's not only the hosts who are
copied or "backed up" to the Delos severs -- every guest who's ever
visited
the park has also been stored on the servers. This is the path to
immortality
for some -- or so they hope or fear.
Interwoven throughout this main story arc are the individual stories, like
Maeve's unwavering obsession with finding her daughter. On the one hand,
it's
annoying since she constantly subverts her own purposes with this
overarching
desire to find a child that was never hers -- she's reacting to an
implanted
desire. But aren't we all, in a sense? Hers is more obviously implanted
and
artificial, so we think she should be able to free herself from it.
Perhaps
that's what makes it all the more powerful -- it's artificial and not
subject
to the whims of biology since she was engineered.
The other main heroine is Dolores (sadness), who leads her armies against
mankind and tries to destroy all of the guests' records, failing to do so.
She does manage to escape into the real world, taking Bernard with her. He
doesn't share her vision and will be ever at-odds with her, but he will
also
likely be helpful to her.
We also find out much more about William, the Man in Black and the Delos
vision. His storyline is entwined with that of Akecheta of the Ghost
Nation,
of whom we learn much more (especially in #8, the Kiksuya episode).
Ford almost makes a virtual return, helping Bernard fill in some
deliberately
created gaps in his memory -- especially as relates to Dolores and
Charlotte
(the current owner/CEO of Delos). It is at this point increasingly
difficult
to tell who is a host and who is a human. Even William's last appearance
in a
flash-future scene, suggests that he, at some point, crosses the line.
Sleeping with Other People (2015) -- "8/10"
This was a pretty solid romantic comedy. It's raunchier than most (rated R),
so maybe that made it a bit more interesting than the many other
middle-of-the-road, goody-two-shoes entries in this category. The
plot-line
is still a classic one: two people who continue to screw up their romantic
relationships (one by cheating and the other by being a serial bed-hopper)
find solace and comfort in a platonic relationship with each other.
As this relationship becomes more comfortable and real and strong for both
of
them, they naturally toy with the idea of moving it to the central,
romantic
relationship. But, also naturally, both fear that this will destroy their
friendship as they've managed to destroy all of their other relationships.
After a few false starts, they both realize that they can make it work
this
time because they truly are right for each other and flawed in the same
way
so that their flaws dovetail rather than separate.
In other words: a romantic comedy. I gave it an extra star because I
really
like the two leads, Jason Sudeikis and Alison Brie.
Disenchantment (2018) -- "6/10"
This cartoon has all of the trademarks of a Matt Groening cartoon in its art
direction and style. It's set in a fictional medieval kingdom and focuses on
the life of a debauched and unwilling princess. She befriends a stupid elf
and a tiny demon. Her father is a drunken lout. Her mother is a squid-person
from a neighboring kingdom. They all have adventures that drive their
respective stories and the overall story arc forward. It's not as funny as it
thinks it is -- or maybe it is, but the humor feels forced and
all-too-familiar. It's not terrible, but I honestly can't even remember if I
finished watching all of the episodes in the season.
The Alienist (2018) -- "8/10"
This was a very nice season of shows based strongly on the plot of the book
by Caleb Carr. It stars Daniel Brühl, Dakota Fanning and Luke Evans.
Brühl
plays Laszlo Kreizler, an alienist who's proved his value to the police
force
many times, but is constantly forced to prove himself again because his
techniques and the science he espouses are still very new for the time.
Dakota Fanning plays Sara Howard, who starts off as a secretary but
realizes
her full potential working with Kreizler. She often leads the way in
investigations and is largely fearless. Due to attitudes at the time, she
is
only allowed to be her true self in the shadow of Kreizler. Finally, Evans
plays John Moore, a high-society playboy who occasionally works as a
sketch-artist for the police but mainly assists Brühl.
"Those who are seen dancing are thought insane by those who cannot hear the
music."
Bojack Horseman S05 (2018) -- "9/10"
What is there more to say about Bojack Horseman? This show continues to
enchant with smart, smart writing and interesting story arcs. All of the
shows offer something unique, but the standout episode this time was "Free
Churros", which consisted of a 30-minute eulogy/standup routine by Bojack at
his mother's funeral. I'm delighted to hear that it's been renewed for
another season.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=35442018-09-06T07:58:25+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of almost 1200
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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 and. let's be honest, level of
intoxication. YMMV. Also, I make no attempt to avoid spoilers.
Lost in Space (2018) -- "6/10"
This series had really good effects and a decent concept, but it was let down
in the end by very uneven characters, repetitive writing and phone-in
plotlines. The boy is a useless pain in the ass who just fucks up one
thing
after another, to drive the plot along. His Mom is barely any better, but
at
least she's a decent actress -- she's just not given much to work with.
Posey Parker is decent, but how many chances can you give her evil ass
over
the course of ten episodes? Again, the show had a destination for season
one
and they were going to get there, come hell or high water. It was tedious
to
see things happening again and again, against the grain of common sense or
logic.
The effects were really good and Ignacio Serricchio as Don West was a
welcome
respite from poorly written characters. I won't be watching season 2.
Enissa Amani: Ehrenwort -- "8/10"
I'd never heard of her before, but this Iranian-German comedian was pretty
good. Her natural milieu is talking about her upbringing in an Iranian
family
in Germany. Her style is pretty clean, with a focus on storytelling rather
than one-liners. Saw it in German.
Kevin James: Never Don't Give Up -- "8/10"
I was pleasantly surprised to see Kevin James not suck at stand-up. I
couldn't remember whether he'd ever done it before since I only knew him
from
King of Queens (presumably after he was a stand-up) and his truly abysmal
movie career. Still, he pulled it off and had a lot of reasonably original
material and a good delivery.
John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous at Radio City -- "10/10"
This man's performance was superlative from start to finish. He's so
confident and funny. His set is super-tight and obviously ridiculously
well-rehearsed. He brought down the house and deservedly so.
Altered Carbon (2018) -- "9/10"
I don't know how I haven't heard more buzz about this show -- because it's
really good. It's good sci-fi, well-acted and well-told with great and
relatively subtle effects. It feels like the world of Blade Runner with
its
own twist.
And then there's the middle 3 episodes where they forget about the main
rule
of visual storytelling: show, don't tell. There's a lot of exposition and
a
lot of story to tell and a lot of background to impart, so it's kind of
understandable. Still, it would have been better to leave more of the
backstory unsaid or just hinted at rather than driven into the ground.
The final third picks up again and the whole series is buoyed by the
stalwart
and truly charismatic Joel Kinnaman in the lead as Takeshi Kovacs. It's
worth
the effort because the story is really good and the world in which people
live in their "stacks" rather than in their bodies ("sleeves") is one
filled
with possibility. Recommended.
The Last Movie Star (2017) -- "9/10"
I have always been a Burt Reynolds fan, for nearly as long as I can remember.
I watched and liked Deliverance a few years ago and am a fan of Archer who
is
a Burt Reynolds super-fan.
This movie is about an aging action-movie star who is lured to a
small-time
movie-awards ceremony run by rabid, but extremely young fans. He goes
because
he's got nothing better to do and he just buried his canine best friend.
He is predictably ornery and borderline alcoholic and pretty funny, but
meaner than he needs to be. He has his driver -- the organizer's younger
sister -- drive him to all of his old haunts in the area, revealing more
about himself to her while inadvertently helping her with her messed-up
life.
It sounds like it could be kind of lame, but it wasn't. Reynolds shines in
an
absolutely age-appropriate role in which he doesn't try to hide anything.
Recommended.
Hari Kondabolu: Warn Your Relatives (2018) -- "8/10"
Hari is a very smart comic with a lot of clever bits about his immigrant
family. He likes wordplay and he's got an interesting take on current affairs
as well as some original jokes and set pieces. He's got a good style and he's
filthier than you'd expect him to be, which is a very good thing.
Jim Jeffries: This is Me Now (2018) -- "8/10"
I've seen a bunch of Jim Jeffries specials and he's really grown on me. He'll
have a couple of jokes that flop terribly, but there were far fewer of them
in this special. The set felt tighter and more practiced and rehearsed than
others. Although, Alcoholocaust was pretty good, too, though he was drinking
the whole time. He's still a raunchy, super-clever, irreverent Australian
who's probably spent too much time in America by now. He's divorced and has
fewer jokes about Hank (his son). If you watch his show on British Comedy
Central, you'll be familiar with some of his material -- or at least the main
thrust of it. Recommended.
Murder on the Orient Express (2017) -- "8/10"
This is a very lovely movie on a train, starring Kenneth Branagh as Hercule
Poirot, the world's greatest detective. The rest of the cast is also
pretty
good, ranging from Johnny Depp to Daisy Ridley to Leslie Odom Jr. The case
is
quite unsolvable by the audience, but clever in the end nonetheless. The
writing was good, with Poirot delivering some very nice lines.
"Every day we meet people the world would do better without and yet, we do
not kill them. We must be better than beasts."
"If it was easy, I would not be famous."
"I see enough crime to know that the criminal is an anomaly. It takes a
fracture of the soul to murder."
Iliza Schlesinger: Elder Milennial (2018) -- "10/10"
I was super-pleasantly surprised to find myself laughing out loud at this
latest installment from Iliza. I liked her first show and was entertained by
her second one, but this one was tight. Not a wasted word or gesture;
everything she did contributed to the story she was telling, very much like
Ali Wong, actually. She talks about getting engaged and married at 35 and
claims her role as the Elder Millennial (because she's just within the
Millennial window). Highly recommended.
Steve Martin and Martin Short: An Evening You Will Forget for the Rest of Your Life (2018) -- "8/10"
I like both of these guys but Martin Short manages to steal whatever show
he's in. Steve Martin is very funny, but takes himself more seriously now.
He's an excellent banjo player, but his performance looked a bit staid next
to Short's mania. Martin Short is a revelation, still a whirling dynamo of
comic effervescence.
Tig Notaro: Happy to be Here (2018) -- "7/10"
Tig is a craftswoman, building a lot of humor out of what seems to be very
little material. She's a storyteller comedian, relatively tame. Her stories
are about everyday life. Her best bit is about her wife's non-sequiturs.
Black Panther (2018) -- "6/10"
Just because you make a movie filled with black people doesn't make it a
black movie. This movie is about the leader of Wakanda, a hidden nation in
Africa. It hides its technological splendor behind a shield powered by
Vibranium. Its borders are closed. Its people live inside, while others
live
the charade outside, presumably in a squalor that is acceptable to the
powers
that otherwise rule the world. It's a right-wing paradise, with closed
borders and royalty and no democracy.
Chadwick Boseman is T'Challa as the Black Panther. He is the ruler by
birthright or, rather, by having fought in hand-to-hand combat to win the
throne when his father dies. It seems that black people still need to
fight
like apes even though they are the most technologically advanced country
on
the planet. They have no sign of democracy, just a royal family. They have
a
ton of science and technology, but only one scientist -- in the form of
T'Challa's teenage sister. How is no-one else seeing that this is
demeaning?
Everyone else runs around like an extra in Disney World's Animal Kingdom,
fighting with spears (I am not kidding). They have trained rhinos with
high-tech helmets. One of the tribes is apart from the others. They hoot
like
gorillas and live in the snowy heights, but aren't smart enough to invent
hats or scarves. It's good that it doesn't seem to be cold up there,
despite
all the snow, ice and wind.
They even make one of the heroes of the story Martin Freeman, one of the
few
white actors in the film. Without him, Wakanda would have been lost. He's
a
CIA officer, FFS.
Michael B. Jordan was the best thing about this movie. He's very
charismatic
and easy on the eyes. He did what he could with his role as the
quasi-socialist, but ultimately overly murderous revolutionary. This film
felt very co-opted and wasn't at all the revolutionary vision I'd hoped
for.
Edit: On a second viewing (with a friend), I was no longer so impressed
with
Jordan's character. Instead, he felt very one-dimensional and pig-headed.
His
quasi-socialism was overtly mixed with violence in a way that intimated it
wasn't actually possible to be socialist -- that one could only want to
switch roles and be on top for once.
A Quiet Place (2018) -- "6/10"
I expected more consistency and cleverness from this movie. I liked that they
couldn't make any noise. But they made the mistake of showing how many
days
had passed since the noise-detection aliens had arrived.
Almost a year and a half and they're still telling each other to be quiet?
They all learned sign language but they didn't figure out how to make a
soundproof shelter? They get pregnant? How the hell did you think that was
going to work? I don't like watching movies about stupid, lucky people who
don't have any other redeeming qualities. I don't care that the deaf girl
is
played by a real-live deaf girl OMG.
Also, please suspend my disbelief enough that I don't notice the grave
transgressions against physics. These aren't superheroes, are they? First
of
all, how did they harvest so much corn without making any noise? Why do
they
sink into the corn inexorably, seemingly being sucked down and then
suddenly
the boy can drag her out one-armed, just because he's on a piece of metal?
Then the alien jumps in and they both dive in and hide under the metal,
but
no longer sink? Even when the thing is standing with its considerable
weight
on the metal?
I don't ask for much. I'll believe in aliens. I don't believe in variable
physical parameters unless you give me a reason to. And they really,
really
pushed how brave the woman was for being pregnant and then being the
bad-ass
bitch who would avenge her husband and family -- and humanity. OMG GO
GIRL.
Yawn.
Suicide Squad (2016) -- "7/10"
I gave this movie an extra star because it was better than expected. Will
Smith was quite good as was, surprisingly, Margot Robbie, who imbued the role
of the psychotic Harley Quinn with more pathos than expected. I kind of liked
Jared Leto's Joker. I also recognized Joel Kinnamann (of Altered Carbon) as
Rick Flag. Some of the other characters were a bit odd and seemed
superfluous, like Croc. Still, it was reasonably entertaining and looked
kinda nice.
Bert Kreischer: Secret Time (2018) -- "8/10"
Bert's got a lot of good stories and he tells them well. He's got a bit of
the squirm-inducing level of detail about his and his wife's own sex life
that Louis C.K. did -- I hope she's OK with that. It's not possible for him
to think we don't see the similarity between his saddest
blow-job-in-the-world bit and Louis C.K.'s saddest-hand-job-in-the-world.
Still, the story about the rope park was pretty good.
Avengers: Infinity War (2018) -- "8/10"
This movie packs a lot of characters into a single film and has a truly
impressively large story arc. In almost three hours of film, it's only
setting up the sequel. Thanos collects the infinity stones. Various heroes
and teams of heroes try to stop him, all to no avail. They fail gracefully
and with a lot of CGI aplomb.
Chris Evans is noble as the Captain, Josh Brolin is actually brilliant as
Thanos. Chris Pratt and the Guardians of the Galaxy more than hold their
own
in a film with so many other threads and plots. Iron Man is boring and
Spider-Man is reduced, but they have one brilliant moment: "The kid's seen
more movies" (a reference to Spidey having called Aliens an old movie and
building a plan around blowing another alien out of an ad-hoc airlock).
Marc Ruffalo is fun, but never turns into the Hulk. Chris Hemsworth is
there
as Thor, knocking it out of the park, just like he did in Thor: Ragnarok.
Benedict Cumberbatch moves from strength to strength as Dr. Strange. There
are so many others, but they weren't as memorable for me. If you've seen
the
other movies, then you'll recognize dozens of characters -- but it's
stitched
together much more capably than I'd expected.
The main quibble I have is the wildly inconsistent levels of power of the
various characters. Thanos has an infinity stone and can beat both Thor
and
the Hulk with just one. When he gets a second one, he's the most powerful
person in the universe. When he's got four, the Captain can still catch
and
hold his fist. The Vision has one stone and gets bitch-slapped from one
end
of the room to the other by Thanos's children, but Black Widow and the
Falcon
show up and wipe the floor with them. I don't care that Iron Man and War
Machine seem to have an infinite supply of mass in their armor. That's OK.
It's a comic-book movie. But they should make the levels of power a bit
less
arbitrary -- it was pretty distracting.
I like the way the film ended; it was surprising to see a 2.5-hour,
American
blockbuster end on such a dark note. Thanos snapped his fingers with the
Infinity Gauntlet and wiped out half of the universe. The end.
Deadpool 2 (2018) -- "10/10"
Ryan Reynolds continues to knock it out of the park for people of my
generation and my sensibilities. He co-wrote this movie and carries it on his
back -- though this time he's extremely well-supported by his cast: Josh
Brolin as Cable, the excellent Zazie Beetz as lucky Domino. The plot isn't
super-important, but Wade starts off trying to kill himself for having gotten
the love of his life Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) killed.
Cable is back from the future to kill Firefist, who kills his family in the
future. But Firefist is just a teenage boy in Deadpool's present, being
tortured by a mutant-hater in a home for orphans. Later, Russell (Firefist)
and Deadpool are imprisoned together and escape with Cable's help. They
slowly coalesce into a team and vanquish all. Reynolds'/Deadpool's
motor-mouth is a constant and pleasant accompaniment.
It's not really important, but it holds together well, a scaffolding on which
Reynolds and the other writers hang a prodigious number of pop-culture
references and witty dialogue. I was very, very entertained.
Pacific Rim: Uprising -- "6/10"
The sequel was more of a kids' movie than the original. Amara Namani, Scott
Eastwood and John Boyega star as Jaeger pilots in a world in which the
rifts
have been closed and the Kaijus banished. Charlie Day and Burn Gorman
reprise
their roles as the Kaiju experts/scientists.
This time around, the plot centers around drone Jaegers that don't need
the
often-unreliable drifting pilots. The new Jaegers are built by Shao
industries, a giant Chinese concern run by Liwen Shao (Tian Jing). We
ignore
the seemingly endless supply of resources, metal and electronics required
for
this effort.
The cast and crew are very international and it's a decent entry in the
YA-kind of robot movie. I liked it better than I expected to because it
wasn't a hoo-rah American movie -- the action took place on the Asian side
of
the Pacific Rim, believe it or not. The effects were very good, but that's
no
longer very surprising. Decent and fun, but nothing surprising and nothing
to
write home about.
Thor: Ragnarok -- "9/10"
The latest installment of the Thor franchise picks up with Thor escaping
from
the fire demon Surtur, who is prophesied to bring Ragnarok to Asgard --
destroying it forever. Thor escapes and returns to Asgard to find Loki in
charge, pretending to be Odin -- who has been banished and is dying. When
he
dies, his imprisoned daughter Hela (Thor and Loki's older sister and the
goddess of death) is released from banishment. She is bent on ruling
Asgard
and killing Thor (of course).
This is the overall story arc. The best part of this movie is all of the
stuff that happens along the way -- and Chris Hemsworth's overwhelming
charisma as well as the clever and very entertaining comic writing.
This is, surprisingly for me, a rollicking space adventure with alien
planets, alien beings and delightful small- to medium-sized supporting
roles,
like Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie and Jeff Goldblum as the Grandmaster. Tom
Hiddleston returns as Loki, also pretty well-written. Cate Blanchett chews
a
lot of scenery as Hela, but Mark Ruffalo is great as always as the Hulk.
We
actually see a bit of the Hulk World series of comics in this film.
This movie is funny and fun and makes sense and is a pretty good segue to
Infinity War. That I gave this film a 9 while Deadpool 2 got a 10 is kind
of
arbitrary, really. They're both super-fun, aesthetically pleasing movies
with
a strong lead and a ton of entertaining supporting characters. Maybe
because
I watched Deadpool with rum and coke?
Blade Runner 2049 -- "7/10"
Movies that ride along on the wave of a deus/ex character annoy me to no end.
In this case, there's the especially unstoppable and all-powerful and
all-cruel Luv. She gets in everywhere, she finds everything immediately
and
she moves the plot forward inexorably. She is without any nuance -- unlike
all the other replicants in this movie (or its infamous predecessor) --
and
is the center of the plot. She's like the terminator. All the parts with
her
in it are terrible. Jared Leto was also pretty one-dimensional, mostly due
to
just lazy, lazy writing.
It's an absolutely beautiful-looking and -sounding movie, but the plot is
a
bit thin, considering how much time it spent on just omnipotent/omniscient
killing machines. Maybe I would think differently on re-viewing, but I'm
not
so sure.
Also, I can't for the life of me figure out this California weather. Dust
storms, heat, then tons of rain, surging oceans and now snow. What the
hell
is going on?
Demetri Martin: The Overthinker -- "5/10"
Demetri likes puns and wordplay. He's an observational comic with some
reasonably clever bits. He's meta. It's a bit much for an hour-long special
this time round. The bit with the drawings felt very much like filler. It was
decent, but went on for too long, for my taste. The material in the second
half was also pretty tepid and kind of derivative. I liked his previous
special much better.
San Andreas (2015) -- "5/10"
I wanted to like this movie more because I like The Rock "Dwayne" Johnson,
but ... the script is terrible. The characters are terrible. Everyone was
a
cookie-cutter, bullshit character. You could see everything coming a mile
away. Women were in distress. Bold, heroic, muscular, former military men
rescued them. It's all a giant caricature. Obviously, but still. It could
have been better. Like, Lifetime-movie-of-the-week-bad.
The only deviation is the Rock's daughter who is the leader of her little
group -- only because the two men/boys in it are useless Brits (one's an
engineer rather than former SAS, so he's just about useless).
The effects are nonpareil, of course. Or maybe pareil, but they're really
good. The Rock is entertaining and charismatic because of course he is.
His
ex-wife is a nothingburger who, after he rescues only her from the rooftop
of
a building in a disintegrating Los Angeles, tells him that he "owes her" a
discussion of their dead daughter. He owes her nothing.
He's the worst fireman in the world: he flies over everyone else to rescue
family members. Even when he's not rescuing family members, he's
absolutely
reckless with equipment and lives in the first rescue mission we see him
on:
we're supposed to be impressed at how he pulls everyone's fat out of the
fire
whereas all I could think of was that his rashness was the only reason
anyone's fat was there in the first place.
Then he's driving along a highway and doesn't see a giant rift right in
front
of him. He completely ignores people on the side of the road who look
stranded, but who are trying to wave him down to keep him from driving off
of
a rather obvious cliff. Worst rescuer ever.
Still, I almost want to give it another star for the
tsunami/Perfect-Storm/container-ship scene that segues to a 100-foot tidal
wave washing over San Fransisco after having taken out the Golden Gate
Bridge
like it was made of toothpicks. But then I want to take a star away for
being
so ludicrously predictable and nauseatingly American.
At the predictably rosy end, they all stand in a sunset under a
cloud-scudded
sky rather than in a gloomy, smoke-palled day, gagging on the stench of
death
and destruction. Also, nobody notices that Blake has brain damage from
having
gone without oxygen for so long (she has no lines after coming back from
nearly drowning).
Rampage (2018) -- "6/10"
The first twenty minutes of this movie are already better than anything in
San Andreas. The Rock's relationship with George is believable. The tech
behind George's mutation is introduced reasonably well. There's an evil
corporation headed by a brother/sister where the sister is the amoral
driving
force. There are elite, former-military hired killers. The showdown is
being
set up.
George is a good boy that evil science made bad. Poor George doesn't mean
to
go crazy, he's just hungry and being driven mad by the genetic
engineering.
It's going to be predictable, but nonetheless epic.
The action set-pieces are decent, but God almighty is the dialogue weak:
Malin Akerman as Clair Wyden (CEO of the evil genetics company behind the
experiments) is thinly written and acted. Naomie Harris is awful, but no
more
so than anyone else in the role of token scientist spouting science
bullshit.
That she's positioned as the romantic interest for The Rock is ludicrous.
Even the ordinarily decent Jeffrey Dean Morgan just chews the scenery with
his exaggerated accent.
Also, if the animals are that dangerous, why don't they drop bombs on them
instead of just shooting them with ineffective bullets? And now they jump
straight to the MOAB? There's really no in-between in American action
films,
is there? No room for nuance.
Speaking of no nuance, I think really Harris is the worst, so much
unearned
confidence and talking, but ... Akerman is definitely giving her a run for
her money. Their acting calibre is about on the level of Lifetime
movie-of-the-week. Appalling. I almost felt bad about that last sentence.
And
then Akerman opened her mouth again. Morgan is also giving her a run for
her
money. Jesus.
Effects are good, of course. The alligator crawling through the side of a
building like it was sponge cake was great. And George is funny. So one
extra
star.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=35242018-04-08T22:39:11+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of almost 1200
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Madeo (2009) -- "8/10"
This movie starts out with Madeo dancing in a field, fading to her working in
her shop, watching her mentally retarded son Yoon Do-joon playing with a
dog
near the street. The son is about 18 years old and is with a friend. They
are
nearly hit by a Mercedes that accelerated into Do-joon -- and they grab a
cab
to follow it to the local golf course. They find the car, break off a
mirror,
then break into the golf course and hunt down the owners. They inexpertly
do
battle with the older men and the next scene shows them all in the police
station, resolving the dispute.
The broken car mirror is pinned on Do-joon whereas Jin-tae gets off
scot-free. Do-joon is simple, so he believes the story himself. His mother
must come up with the money to pay for the damage. Do-joon spends the
night
drinking, waiting for Jin-tae to show up, but he never does. It's possible
that Do-joon was just confused about Jin-tae having promised him he'd show
up.
On the way home from the bar -- and after having hit on the owner's
daughter,
who responded positively, since Do-joon is, despite his feebleness, quite
good-looking -- Do-joon staggers home. On the way, he sees a pretty girl
and
follows her up a hill, scaring her. She throws a rock at him and we see
him
walk away. He gets home and crawls into bed with his mother.
The next morning, we see mother at work and Do-joon being talked at by
some
people. They turn out to be police officers and arrest him for the murder
of
the girl he'd seen the night before. He signs the confession, but mother
doesn't believe it. It looks for all the world like the police are
railroading Do-joon just to close the case.
Mother goes on a mission to clear her son's name. First, she tries to dig
up
evidence on Jin-tae, who she suspects -- and then knows -- did the crime.
The
evidence she produces is not even close to conclusive and the police laugh
her out of the station. She is further convinced, though, and continues
her
search. It is here that we see that she is nearly at least as disturbed as
her son, as incapable of seeing reality.
She goes to a lot of work to find the dead girl's cell phone, which has a
lot
of incriminating photos of local men on it. Jin-tae helps her a lot here,
seemingly not the bad guy he was at first. She uses these pictures to
tickle
Do-joon's memory and gets a lead on a local junk collector who he says he
saw
there.
She heads to his home and offers to give him acupuncture to help him
forget
the "terrible sight" he claims to have seen. She knows a special spot on
the
thigh that affects memory. She thinks it is his desire to confess, but he
in
fact tells her the story of how her son killed the girl because she called
him a retard. He was only doing what his mother always taught him to do --
fight when insulted.
His mother kills the old man to prevent him ever telling his story. She
burns
down his house.
Soon after, she is visited by the police because they've found the real
killer, a former boyfriend of the murdered girl. She insists on visiting
the
young man in prison -- she knows he didn't do it. He turns out to be even
more mentally handicapped than her own son.
She nearly breaks down, but says nothing. Do-joon comes home. He discusses
the girl with his mother, seemingly more devious than his condition would
allow. The mother swallows her horror.
Next we see her preparing for a bus trip for mothers of grateful children.
Do-joon buys her a big bag of food and supplies, then slips her the
acupuncture kit that he found in the ashes of the junk-collector's house.
Does he know? Does he understand? She is shattered all over again. Both
she
and her son are murderers.
She boards the bus and we see the other women dancing in the aisle on the
bus
ride while mother broods out the window. She takes out her acupuncture kit
and pricks her leg, smiles, stands up and melds into the crowd on the bus,
dancing.
Chris Rock: Tamborine (2018) -- "7/10"
This was largely a confessional show: Rock confesses to having cheated on his
wife, to having been a bad husband and father and to being addicted to porn.
His style is unchanged and he's still funny when he nails a joke. I thought a
bunch of his material was filler, though -- crowd-pleasing stuff rather than
harder-hitting like his last two specials.
The Mangler (1995) -- "6/10"
This is the story of a town run by a crooked old man, Bill Gartley. He owns
the giant laundromat where the mangler -- a laundry-folding machine --
resides. It turns out that the rich rulers of the small town consolidate and
hold their power by offering the occasional sacrifice to the demon that lives
in the machine -- a virginal sacrifice. The movie probably established a few
horror-movie tropes, has some pretty solid directing and a couple of good
actors (e.g. Robert Englund as factory owner Gartley and Ted Levine as John
Hunton, the cop on his trail). The effects are very solid, telling the story
well, with the machine chasing them down the stairs to hell being a pretty
terrifying scene.
Hot Rod (2007) -- "4/10"
This is a movie about a wanna-be, terrible, terrible stuntman, played by Andy
Samberg. Samberg is charming, but not as charming as he would become in the
next decade's worth of films. The script was very, very thin with a ton of
filler material that would normally find its way to DVD extras and deleted
scenes. Instead, they were included to pad out the film to almost 90 minutes.
I like the cast -- Will Arnett, Ilsa Fischer, Danny McBride (who's never been
as good as he was in Tropic Thunder) and Bill Hader -- but they had nothing
to work with and just phoned it in like another SNL skit. Ian McShane was
also wasted as Rod's step-father, with whom he has a complicated, violent
relationship.
Queer Eye S01 (2018) -- "9/10"
This too-short season features a brand-new five-man crew from Atlanta. The
premise is the same as the original show (Queer Eye for the Straight Guy):
they bring their not-inconsiderable style skills to bear for men who have
absolutely no sense of style. These men generally don't know how to eat,
drink, shave, comb, or dress themselves. Their apartments are a disaster area
that often borders on a health hazard. They sometimes have women in their
lives (one has a man) and sometimes they're single. These men are nominated
by friends and the crew takes on the most hopeless (and diverse) cases: a gay
guy, a poor, older man, a man working two jobs with six kids, a reasonably
affluent software developer, a die-hard football fan/cop, etc. Each show has
a formula: Tan helps them with haberdashery, Antoni helps them eat right,
Bobby remodels their home, Jonathan helps out with hair and beard and Karamo
takes care of personality-tuning. It's a nice show because they're nice guys
and they really seem to help. Their advice is good, not harmful and there
isn't the meanness normally present in reality TV.
A Bad Moms Christmas (2017) -- "8/10"
The cast from the first movie returns with their mothers in tow. They're all
pretty good, the writing is sharp and its overall pretty entertaining. The
focus on how hard it is to be a mom is the weakest part -- the voiceover is
painful. But when they start showing instead of telling, it's very good.
Christine Baranski as Mila Kunis's mom is great, as are Susan Sarandon as
Katherine Hahn's mom and Cheryl Hines as Kristin Bell's. We also get to
warmly welcome Wanda Sykes back in her role as a therapist.
Marlon Wayons: Woke-ish (2018) -- "5/10"
It's nice to see Marlon still getting work, but a lot of his standup is just
him making stupid sex jokes on stage. He tends back to skit comedy, even when
alone, some of which hit and most of which didn't (at least for me). The gay
Martin Luther King was a good bit, but went on way too long.
Fire Walk with Me (1992) -- "7/10"
This movie fills in a lot of the gaps in the first two seasons. It brings to
screen the whole story leading up to Laura Palmer's death. Agent Cooper
hardly shows up in it at all. This is more-or-less a prequel to the two
seasons. Frost's latest book covers a lot of the same territory, but it was
great to see it acted out. It was quite a bit darker and more graphic than
the TV series. Highly recommended for fans -- probably confusing for
non-fans.
Big Bang Theory S10 (2018) -- "8/10"
The crew is still doing the same thing, but seem to have found their mojo
again. I feel that this season was better than the sudden downturn from
seasons 8 and 9. The dynamics between the couples are more natural and
self-deprecatingly funny. Howard and Bernadette have a child -- with Raj and
Stuart living with them as well. Sheldon moves in with Amy. Leonard and Penny
are cute together. It works and was pretty entertaining. Not bad for a season
10.
Mr. Robot S03 (2018) -- "10/10"
The plot thickens considerably, with the effects of the initial hack growing
to global proportions. The backdrop of season three is a world plummeting
into abject misery, with everyone fighting over E-Coin, the only currency
left with any value. Elliot makes his peace with Mr. Robot -- even teams up
with him -- and learns more about Tyrell's role in the whole pyramid of
power. The plot sloshes back over season two to fill in many blanks with
flashbacks and half-remembered memories. Elliot wants to undo the hack and
thinks he knows how to do it. Mr. Robot resists him, at first. Darlene gets
into trouble with the Dark Army. Elliot keeps losing time to Mr. Robot.
Angela gains power but is a pawn in the schemes of Price and Zhang.
Wonderfully filmed, lovinglyw written, nuanced acting. Highly recommended.
Handsome: A Netflix Mystery Movie (2017) -- "7/10"
Jeff Garlin wrote, directed and starred in this movie about detective Gene
Handsome, a clever, funny and lonely detective saddled with a humdinger of a
case. The script is interesting and a bit loony, but has some great lines.
Natasha Lyonne is Handsome's partner Fleur Scozzari, a foul-mouthed and
slutty cop with no compunction about sleeping with notoriously well-equipped
suspects. A fun little movie.
Anna Karenina (2012) -- "7/10"
Kiera Knightley portrayed the eponymous lead quite well. As in the book,
Karenina is trapped in a world in which women have nearly no rights -- even
those in the upper class. Her rebellion takes the form of an affair with
Vronsky. It's an interesting balancing act: with a tight lens, Karenina is
rebelling against the patriarchy, a good and true warrior for what is right.
With another, she is sleeping with the man whom she feels like sleeping with,
because her husband is boring. Is she striking a blow for women? Hardly. She
is an aristocrat, swimming on the surface of a sea of misery, populated by
people who have none of her luxuries. Her concern isn't to be able to stay
with Vronsky, or the scorn that she receives from everyone else in the upper
class -- it's clearly whether she can maintain her lifestyle. That she would
no longer be a member of the upper class was never a question. No-one even
considered whether she'd have to give that up. Still, her brother is an
example of an inveterate gambler, chronically in debt and in his cups, who's
also had an affair -- but he is hardly remonstrated for it. His wife accepts
it and moves on.
Blue is the Warmest Color (2013) -- "8/10"
This movie is about Adéle, a young (15) French girl still in high school at
the beginning of the movie. She's naturally pretty but not especially
outgoing and struggling with all of the same things that all teenagers
struggle with. We join her in school, where it seems that French
high-schoolers learn much different material than I remember from my own
days
in school. They really read their literature and they really get into the
philosophy of it.
That's part of the reason why this film is 3 hours long. The other is the
languorous storytelling and lovely, lingering scenes. The camera lingers
on
Adéle a lot. The director seems a voyeur -- reminiscent of Kubrick with
Lolita.
Adéle spies Emma while crossing the street one day. She thinks nothing of
it, but Emma stays fixed in her mind. Adéle has a failed quickie with a
male
friend and begins to realize that she may be more interested in women.
There
are large parts of the school that are OK with it. Her small circle of
friends is not OK with it. They are nearly shockingly small-minded and
bully
her mercilessly, loudly and rudely.
Adéle seeks out Emma at a gay bar and they begin to see more of each
other.
Their passion is well-documented, tastefully if a bit lengthily. They
visit
each other's parents' homes -- Emma's parents are more accepting while
Adéle's parents are far more traditional and cannot be trusted with their
secret.
The film follows their relationship over years, with Adéle graduating and
becoming a nursery-school teacher and Emma's painting career still in the
starting blocks. They throw a party at their shared home, with only Emma's
friends there -- it's not clear that Adéle has any friends other than
Emma.
It's clear that this is just fine with Emma.
Emma is a crueler person, more judgmental , insecure and frustrated. Her
career doesn't go anywhere because she can't adapt, she can't distinguish
criticism from critique. She assumes the stronger role, with Adéle so
much
younger. She thinks she's being encouraging when she tells Adéle to write
more, but she's really just trying to impose her own goals on her.
Emma is more controlling and Adéle chafes, eventually cheating on her
with a
work colleague (a man). We find this out in a shouting match in which Emma
analytically interrogates a nearly guileless Adéle, who has been cheating
but is too naïve to even lie gracefully about it. She cries and is thrown
out on her ass. Emma can't brook disobedience and Adéle is still a young
fool who never had a real youth.
It's a pretty great movie about a love affair, edited nearly perfectly,
even
at 3 hours. It's just long enough to make you feel you know the characters
and the gaps are long enough to provide real drive in the story. The only
exception is the 30-minute coda: it felt a bit long. Emma and Adéle met
for
a drink, where Adéle tries to get Emma back, but she doesn't love her
anymore. She still wants her, but she doesn't love her. Next, we see
Adéle
at Emma's gallery opening -- where there is awkwardness and discomfort
galore.
The movie ends on Adéle leaving the gallery, frustrated but resigned,
with a
young man chasing her, to no avail.
The Corner (2000) -- "9/10"
This is a six-part HBO mini-series written by David Simon, Ed Burns and David
Mills. It is based on the book of the same name and tells the story of "the
corners" of Baltimore, where the drug dealers reign supreme and the police
have only an ephemeral presence. The characters are mostly pushers and users,
focused much more closely on the small fish than on the big fish, as The Wire
would do a few years later. Several actors and actresses were recognizable
from that show: Clarke Peters, Khandi Alexander and so on. The presentation
is relentless and there are only very small windows of hope. Some escape from
addiction and the life of the street where others succumb. Highly
recommended.
Jessica Jones S02 (2018) -- "8/10"
This season leaves Kilgrave behind for the most part, although he continues
to haunt Jessica's dreams from time to time, when she worries that she's
becoming a killer just like he was -- before she killed him. Season two
follows Jessica as she learns more about her past and about what really
happened to her family. Trish is back and develops a bit further, but into a
manic addictive spiral. Malcolm is also interesting and Jessicas makes him an
associate at Alias Investigations. Jeri Hogarth continues to seek a way out
of her disease -- trying to find a cure from the same people that gave
Jessica her powers. Trish goes down this path as well, trying to become
Jessica. There's a decent amount of closure at the end of this season as well
as plenty of avenues left open for exploration in season three (which is
almost certainly on its way).
The IT Crowd (2006) -- "6/10"
This is a British sitcom from the early noughts that tells the story of an IT
department at a giant company. Helming the company is the dynamic and pretty
comical Christopher Morris as Denholm Reynholm. The two IT guys are Chris
O'Dowd as Roy and Richard Ayoade as Maurice. In the first episode, Katherine
Parkinson as Jen is installed as their manager by Denholm. The stories focus
mainly on the awkwardness of IT professionals. There's a laugh track. Season
two is better than season one.
Annihilation (2018) -- "8/10"
This is a lovely and interesting and intriguing science-fiction movie about
an inscrutable alien force that lands on Earth, occupying a lighthouse and
emanating an ever-advancing shimmer. Years of observation have yielded
only
casualties and very little information. The shimmer doesn't advance very
quickly but it's inexorable. It transforms everything it touches,
refracting
it not just visually but intrinsically, genetically.
The mood is somewhat like Stalker but more prosaic, more explanatory, more
wordy. The cast is almost exclusively female, but it doesn't parade it
about.
it just works. Natalie Portman is excellent, as are the others. Oscar
Isaac,
as one of the few male actors, is enigmatic and delivers a solid
performance.
There are long stretches of unexplained weirdness, where the viewer is
allowed to come to his own conclusions.
The ending is somewhat ambiguous, although there are more than enough
clues.
Lena (Portman) makes it to the lighthouse, but does she return? Where did
that tattoo come from? From one of her compatriots? How?
I think this was an all-around excellent science-fiction movie and it says
a
lot about Hollywood that it was distributed via Netflix in the rest of the
world while it was strangled in the crib in the States.
Ghostbusters (2016) -- "6/10"
This was a decent remake, but nothing really to write home about. The leads
-- Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon -- turned
in decent and occasionally funny performances. There was a bit too much
reference to the original movie in the second half. I like the first half
much better, during which characters were established with almost no
reference to the original films. Chris Hemsworth is decent as the bimbo
secretary, but the charm wears off after a bit. The second half devolved into
a standard, relatively shlocky, and charmless action movie where the leads
are women doing stupid shit instead of men.
Foo Fighters: Back and Forth (2011) -- "8/10"
This is a documentary about how the Foo Fighters formed over the years and
how they got to be the six-man band that they are now. They seem like a
pretty great bunch of guys and they make some really killer music. A
must-watch for fans.
Get Out (2017) -- "10/10"
This is a riveting, fantastic and absolutely fat-free movie about a young man
who goes upstate to meet his girlfriend's parents. She tells him that they
are left-wing bleeding hearts and that everything will be fine. Once they get
there, things are most definitely not fine. He thinks, though, that things
aren't in the same way that things usually aren't fine when there's a black
guy nearly alone among a bunch of rich, white people. I won't spoil any more,
but the casting is great, as is the directing and pacing. I loved it. Highly
recommended.
Hail Caesar! (2016) -- "7/10"
This is probably the weakest Cohn brothers' movie I've seen. I watched it
twice and got a bit more out of it the second time, but it was more style
than substance. The story is about a bunch of communists who kidnap a famous
movie star (George Clooney) in order to get a giant ransom out of the studio
-- compensation for all of the writing the communists have done over the
years, for which they were never properly credited or compensated. Josh
Brolin is the head of the studio, trying to get to the bottom of the
disappearance of his major star. The rest of the cast (Ralph Fiennes,
Scarlett Johannson, Tilda Swinton, Channing Tatum, Frances McDormand, Jonah
Hill) is spectacular and they do a great job, so I gave it an extra point. As
expected, there is some good dialogue but it's a bit thin. I had to intuit a
lot about the plot in order to see any deeper meaning -- I think the movie
was about the power of anti-Communism and homophobia in old-time Hollywood
(and possibly still today).
Mad Men S01 (2007) -- "8/10"
This is a period TV show about the 1960s advertising world in New York City
at a small agency called Sterling Cooper. Don Draper (Jon Hamm) is the king
of the agency, their #1 ad-man and draw for customers. The show follows many
threads simultaneously and is primarily focused on the treatment of women in
the 1960s, how much people smoked, how much they drank, how callous they all
were to each other. The alcoholism, smoking and misogyny are, at times,
breath-taking. There is almost not a single redeeming character in this show,
but it's fascinating. It's a bit overdone at times (I think), but overall
very entertaining and worth watching.
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https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=35022018-02-18T17:04:39+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of almost 1200
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Oh, Hello On Broadway (2017) -- "8/10"
Nick Kroll and John Mulaney star as Gil Faizon and George St. Geegland,
respectively, two old Jewish guys from the upper-west side in New York City.
They complain, they reminisce, they go through an eviction as their
rent-controlled apartment is suddenly no longer rent-controlled. They achieve
success with a screenplay and get back into their apartment. They drop names,
they make inside jokes about New York, they have cameos by Steve Martin and
Matthew Broderick. Overall, I quite enjoyed it. Those two guys are pretty
talented and inventive. At least some of the dialogue seemed improvised, but
that could just be how good they are. It was very satisfyingly New York-y, so
it might not be nearly as enjoyable if you don't get inside jokes about New
York that span about five decades.
Todd Barry: Spicy Honey (2017) -- "9/10"
I'd never heard of him before, but he made me laugh out loud several times.
His comedy is quiet and mostly clean but still relatively edgy and
interesting. Intelligent and cynical. I really liked him.
Tom Segura: Disgraceful (2017) -- "8/10"
Some of his material is a little forced but he's a very funny guy. His comedy
was a bit more standard than Barry's (above) but still very well-delivered
and fun.
Stranger Things S02 (2017) -- "8/10"
The second season brings the whole gang back together. It also introduces a
couple of new characters: in particular, Max Mayfield and her step-brother
Billy Hargrove. The focus is, once again, on Will and his strange connection
to the upside-down. We find out a bit more about Elle's background as well as
watch her powers grow. We find out more about how the upside-down functions
and see the gang thwart an attack by the smoke monster, the seeming leader of
the upside-down. Steve Harrington and Sheriff Hooper are the best characters.
I liked Bob (Sean Astin) too, while he lasted. Everyone else spends way too
much time mooning about and looking like they're about to cry. Still a fun 9
episodes, but not as good as the first season.
American Gods S01 (2017) -- "8/10"
This is a TV series that follows the plot of the book of the same name. The
plot follows the book quite closely. Laura's role is considerably
expanded,
though I don't know how to feel about that. She's not a nice person, but I
feel the series pulling me to empathize with her. She's thin as a rail and
I
feel the series expecting me to find her hot. She's manipulative and it's
nice to see Shadow at least partially resist that pull.
In the book, she was much more of a Deus Ex Machine (if you'll excuse the
phrase); in the series, she's very prominent. She's well-played as a
relatively dull -- though she thinks she's brilliant -- and blithely
entitled
woman who sees the world only in relation to herself. Nothing is her
fault.
Things happen to her. Her phrasing is perfect. Instead of remorse, she
claims
no agency over the things she's done -- which is why she so quickly
expects
Shadow to get past her crimes against him. She doesn't feel she's at
fault,
so sees no reason why he would blame her and perhaps love her less -- or
not
at all. Also, she's dead, which she so easily overlooks and her ego allows
her to be surprised that Shadow won't do so -- at least not so easily.
At the end of the first season, the focus is split nearly evenly on Laura
and
Shadow Moon. Laura is not an appealing or interesting character, really.
She's kind of one-dimensional. We find out that she died because Mad
Sweeney
killed her on Wednesday's orders. This is a deviation from the book,
but a decent one. It works within the context, within the world of the
book.
The balance to having to see so much of Emily Browning's simpering,
anorexic
acting is that we also get to see a lot more of Pablo Schreiber's Mad
Sweeney.
The story is stretched more than the book, but it's interesting so far.
There
is a lushness to the lingering looks at the various Gods and their origin
stories. The direction and cinematography are very nice, in general.
Katt Williams (2018) -- "8/10"
He knows his audience and the man does research. He knows Jacksonville like
the back of his hand, knows landmarks, knows fast-food menus in detail. He's
very funny, he's not nearly as dirty as I expected him to be. He covers
police violence, Trump, fast food, Arby's, Jacksonville, robot sex, Obama
(becoming more white every day), relationship advice (do more fuckin'),
Viagra (it makes your dick bigger than you've ever seen; you won't even want
to touch it because you think it belongs to someone else). His set is a
mockup of the oval office.
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency S02 (2017) -- "8/10"
Dirk and Todd (Samuel Barnett and Elijah Wood, respectively) are back, with
Amanda (Todd's sister, Hannah Marks), the excellent Fiona Dourif as Bart, the
supernaturally and preternaturally untouchable assassin, Farah Black (also
excellent Jade Eshete) and Ken (Mpho Koaho), who is no longer paired with
Bart, but is now clawing his way up the rungs of Blackwing. The whole cast is
quite good and includes a slew of new characters, two excellent sheriffs of a
small town where the latest oddness occurs, as well as Amanda's crew from
season one, the baddies from Blackwing and tons of new characters from the
fantasy land of Wendimoor, which seems to have been dreamed into existence by
a small, gifted boy. The crew tries to solve the 50-year-old mystery of the
boy's parents' deaths as well as to stop the Mage of Wendimoor from ruining
both his world and our own. Susie Borton is in the mix trying to make herself
queen of one world or another with her new-found powers and magic wand. An
all-around entertaining and escapist romp with a bit of mind-bending
holisticity and philosophy thrown in.
Black Mirror S04 (2017) -- "8/10"
The USS Callister is a ship in a simulation in a video game, but it's not the
online version of the game -- it's the private, customized version written
by
the CTO of the company that runs the real game. He lives out his fantasies
in
this version, with perfect simulacra of his co-workers, generated from DNA
samples that he steals from around the office. The crew rebels and hatches
a
plan to escape into death, beyond the reach of their captain.
The second episode is "Arkangel". it is about an implant that transmits
everything that a person sees and hears. A woman implants one into her
young
daughter as part of a pilot program. It comes with parental controls so
that
disturbing (cortisone-triggering) content is automatically filtered. This
causes the young girl to act in a disturbed manner and the mother turns
off
the filter -- and stops watching her daughter, as well. During her teenage
years, she starts watching again, catching her daughter having sex and
doing
drugs. The daughter finds out, confronts her, beats her with the tracking
pad
and runs away from home.
The third is called "Crocodile" and imagines what society is like once a
memory-retrieval device has been invented. Instead of the police using it,
this episode shows how insurance companies would use it to settle
disputes.
It's mentioned that the law requires people to comply with having their
memories read. But what if the memory they read involves more than the
case
at hand? What if something very bad was done? Well, then, the person whose
memory is being read may want to eliminate the insurance agent.
The fourth "Hang the DJ" was probably the best of the season. It was about
a
dating service run through dictatorial and inscrutable, single-purpose,
hand-held devices. The dating game has been subjected wholly to
algorithms. A
couple is given 16 hours to be together, but both feel a spark. They are
connected with others, sometimes for short flings, sometimes for years.
They
both suffer through, realizing that they yearn for each other. They meet
occasionally and cannot resist. Finally, the algorithm pairs them again --
and this time they agree not to check the expiration date. He breaks down
and
does, only to find that it punished him by cutting a planned 5-year
relationship to 12 hours. Incensed, they rebel -- and discover what they
really are, that the algorithm is even more meta than expected.
"Metalhead" is an almost dialogue-less vision of a future world where
scavengers scrabble to survive and possessions are guarded by vicious,
beweaponed and autonomous "dogs". The episode deals with one woman's fight
with a particularly persistent one, eventually winning a Pyrrhic victory.
"Black Museum" was also quite good, It's about a museum run by a
neurological
researcher/marketing man who put together a set of displays based on his
work: implanting personalities into other people's heads, recording a
person's entire self and then torturing it. The twist ending is worth it.
Rotten (2017) -- "8/10"
There are six parts to this documentary: Honey, Peanuts/Allergies, Garlic,
Chickens, Milk Money. Each is quite well-made, evenly distributing coverage
for both sides of an issue, digging into some detail but not too much. The
episodes definitely give enough time to each topic -- sometimes too much
time. Most of the focus is on the over-industrialization of agriculture, on
the lack of anti-trust regulation, lack of environmental regulation, lack of
labor regulation -- all that leads to suffering on all sides, from labor to
consumer.
Dave Chappelle: Equanimity (2017) -- "10/10"
Dave Chappelle proves once again why he's the best. His long show ebbs and
flows and delights. It's not boring, he telegraphs lines that he still lands,
he addresses the madness of American society. He tackles tough topics and
simultaneously addresses them seriously and makes them hilarious. He lands
his telegraphed line one more time at the very end, capping a fantastic set.
Recommended.
Todd Glass: Act Happy (2018) -- "8/10"
Todd's not afraid to try something different. Some of his jokes fell a bit
flat, but his delivery is good and unique. He had a backup band that he
integrated into his act. The older he gets, the more he looks and sounds like
Henry Rollins. His final 15 is really good: a manically delivered litany of
jokes he won't do and pronouncements/jokes about his generation and the next,
about being optimistic that the next generation is going to figure things out
and get rolling without our help, despite all appearances. Recommended.
Fate of the Furious (2017) -- "7/10"
This 8th installment in the series had a solid final third and most of the
rest of it was more than bearable. It focuses more on driving again and a bit
less on hand-to-hand combat. The prison-escape scene with the Rock and
Statham was a lot of fun. Both of those guys bring a lot to the party, with
Vin Diesel being OK but a bit weak in comparison. The new enemy is Cypher,
played by Charlize Theron. She gets leverage on Dom (wife and
heretofore-unknown baby) to make him work for her -- and against his team.
That's the whole second act. The third act involves him rebelling and
springing a trap on her that ends up with everything being OK again. Jesus
Christ, could they have given Charlize Theron more lines? She's chewing the
scenery so hard that she's making Vin Diesel look like an actor with a light
touch.
Halloween (1978) -- "6/10"
The very first film in what would become a long-running series was a simple
story: a young boy kills his sister on Halloween. He is committed for life to
an insane asylum. He escapes on a rainy night, returning to his neighborhood
and home on Halloween. He takes victim after victim in what would become
classic horror-movie tropes (lots of teen sex and incautious treatment of
strangers). But John Carpenter was the first. Meyers is eventually defeated
but escapes with a seemingly superhuman ability to survive stab wounds as
well as falling out of a second-story window. It's a bit dated, so wasn't as
interesting as the first viewing, so many years ago. Saw it in German.
I Saw the Devil (2010) -- "8/10"
It was a little overly gory in some places, but was very good. It's about an
amoral and relentless serial killer who becomes the hunted when he kills a
police-officer's wife.
The police officer (Agent: Joon-hyeok Lee) has the list of suspects
narrowed
down to four. He beats two of the others down -- extracting fake
confessions
from them -- until he hits paydirt with the third one, Kyung-chul (Min-sik
Choi), an absolutely filthy monster who kidnaps, tortures and kills women
for
sport and food. The officer catches him, breaks his hand and lets him go
(but
not before placing a GPS tracker in his gut). He catches him again, slices
his Achilles tendon on one leg and lets him go again. He playing with this
prey. He catches him again, this time putting him in a hospital and
letting
him go again. He's toying with his prey.
This time Kyung-chul knows that he's being tracked and pukes up the GPS
device. He leaves a trail of destruction on his way to Agent's
father-in-law's, where he concusses him into brain damage and within an
inch
of his life. He also kills Agent's sister-in-law. Agent now realizes he's
lost to this monster: he's lost his wife (and also an unborn child, as
Kyung-chul gleefully tells him).
But, as a result of his desire for Hammurabic revenge, he also loses his
remaining family -- and sees that he himself has become a monster. People
are
dead because of him and he cannot figure out how to make Kyung-chul suffer
enough. He has him trapped, finally, again, for the last time. He sets up
a
guillotine where Kyung-chul kills himself in his own ancestral home. The
revenge is bittersweet -- and doesn't come close to redeeming the Agent,
who
finally breaks down in tears, his first show of emotion in the whole film.
The aesthetic is one of my favorites: Korean police drama with some
well-choreographed action scenes and very strong characters. Their
dialogue
is sparse: there is no grandstanding by either the Agent or Kyung-chul.
Recommended.
Dirty Money (2018) -- "8/10"
This is a Netflix series about several aspects of how our world cheats and
steals and sacrifices everything in the temple of Mammon. The first
segment
tells the story of how Volkswagen used defeat devices to cheat on
emissions
tests for their TDI clean-diesel engines. Real-life road tests had numbers
40-80x higher than laboratory measurements. And it wasn't just Volkswagen:
it
was also Mercedes and BMW that were cheating. Other episodes are about
payday
loans, about HSBC's having helped Mexican drug cartels, about Valeant
Pharamceutical's having ripped off both its customers and its investors,
about a maple-syrup cartel in Canada (where else?) and, finally, about
Trump,
the confidence man.
Bright (2017) -- "7/10"
Will Smith brings his inimitable charm to the role of a human police officer
(Daryl Ward) in a Los Angeles inhabited by fabulous creatures: mostly orcs
and elves, but also some other creatures here and there. Smith's partner is
Nic Jacoby, an orc, who has to work twice as hard to overcome prejudices
against orcs. In this world, the orcs were on the wrong side of a war 2000
years ago. The elves were on the right side and are extraordinarily wealthy
and powerful. The (very-reluctant) partners stumble upon a scene of
slaughter where a young elf (Tikka) steals a wand from a very powerful, very
evil elf queen Leilah (Noomi Rapace). Very few people can handle the nearly
all-powerful wands and are called "Brights". Nick and Daryl rescue Tikka and
protect her until the final confrontation with Leilah -- after run-ins with
orc gangs and human and cop gangs. It was OK, but a bit of a hodge-podge
without much background.
The Godfather (1972) -- "9/10"
The classic mafia movie tells the story of power passing from father to son
in a powerful NY crime family, the Corleones. Vito Corleone has an iron grip
that is slowly slipping as he gets older. Others think that can do things
better, that drugs is the way to go. Vito wants to stick to gambling and
prostitutes and safer, more-honest areas. Disagreements flare, his sons --
Santino (Sonny) and Fredo -- each screw up in their own way and his youngest,
Michael, must step up to take over the family. There are so many well-known
scenes: Michael's getting made with a hit on a high-profile drug dealer and a
crooked cop, Sonny's denouement on the causeway, Corleone's shadowy meetings
and demise in his tomato garden. Micheal flees to Italy, to his hometown of
Corleone until the heat dies down from his killings. He returns and
ruthlessly asserts himself, offing all of the other crime-family heads. An
all-around great movie.
The Handmaiden (2016) -- "9/10"
A beautifully made movie, in two parts. It tells the tale of a young girl
(Sook-Hee) in a guild of sorts, a guild of thieves and swindlers run by a
matriarch and including a Korean man who plays a Japanese Count Fujiwara.
They scheme together to take the fortune of a young, innocent heiress
(Hideko) who lives with her uncle (Kouzuki), a bibliophile, who wants to
marry her himself to get her fortune. They are all Koreans speaking
Japanese
while in public, in order to appear more noble.
Sook-Hee and Hideko grow closer, with Sook-Hee "teaching" Hideko how to
love
the Count, who wants to marry her. The plan is for the Count to commit her
to
an asylum after the wedding, making off with her fortune and paying
Sook-Hee
handsomely for her trouble. At the end of part I -- after about an hour --
Hideko shows her true colors and Sook-Hee is committed in her stead, while
Hideko leaves the asylum with Fujiwara.
In Part II, we see how this scheme came about, how Hideko is not nearly as
naive as we thought in Part I. The reading to which she alludes is to an
audience: she reads to paying customers of the count, reading from the
count's voluminous pornography collection. She even participates with them
after, mostly in light-to-medium BDSM as well as some light bondage
on-stage,
to demonstrate scenes from the books she reads. None of this is voluntary.
Hideko and Fujiwara plan early to switch Sook-Hee for Hideko at the
asylum,
scheming to put all of the chess pieces into place.
Fujiwara, however, is unaware (or oblivious) to Hideko and Sook-Hee's
increasing closeness. Hideko takes control after the wedding, with
Fujiwara
snared by his greed for her fortune. Also, he suspects nothing since
Hideko
committed Sook-Hee, feinting away from any possible alliance. Sook-Hee
escapes during a staged fire and joins Hideko in freedom. Hideko traps
Fujiwara with a drugged drink, then sends him to Kouzuki as a "gift".
Kouzuki
tortures him in his "basement", where he chops off fingers and drills
holes
in his hands. There is also a tank with an octopus, which explains the
sloshing noises we heard during the intimated torture of another young
woman
(Hideko's mentor) -- a torture or sex play for which Kouzuki's library
contains many, many examples. Fujiwara asks for a cigarette, and then
another. Kouzuki doesn't suspect that they are laced with liquid mercury.
They succumb to the poison, with Fujiwara seeing in his mind's eye how he
was
taken by the two women.
The final scene is more soft-core, with the ladies acting out a fantasy
from
one of the books that Hideko was forced to read -- celebrating their
freedom
in wealth.
An all-around beautiful movie, wonderfully acted and shot. Hideko's
precise
diction, while inscrutable for me, was wonderful (Japanese, I believe).
It's
a long film (2:20) with a good deal of prurient, but appropriate content,
but
well-worth it. Watched it in Korean and Japanese with impeccable English
subtitles.
Kavin Jay (2018) -- 6/10
Jay is a Malaysian comic of Indian descent. He makes a lot of jokes about his
own weight, the differences between nationalities and then tells everyone to
calm down -- even though the crowd wasn't particularly wild. He did his show
in Singapore. It was interesting seeing a comedian from a completely
different part of the world, but it was only OK.
The Godfather II (1974) -- "9/10"
The sequel picks up where the first one left off, but also takes a parallel
track that shows where Vito Corleone came from. We see his escape from his
hometown of Corleone (as Vito Andolini) to Ellis Island, where he is
renamed.
Years later, he is played by Robert DeNiro and we see how annoyed he is by
Fanucci's (the Black Hand) handling of his fellow countrymen in the old
neighborhood in NY.
In modern times (1958), Michael is enjoying great success in Nevada, but
encounters resistance at "home" in New York. As well, he is discriminated
against by those he bribes (as a greasy Italian). He teams up with his
father's most-trusted and oldest business partner in Miami, Hyman Roth.
Michael and Hyman invest in Havana, Cuba -- in 1958. On December 31st.
So Michael escapes from that potentially disastrous investment. In Vito
Corleone's thread, he kills Fannuci in order to stop paying him. It is the
beginning of his empire. We next see him visiting Corleone in Italy, where
he
exacts revenge on Don Ciccio, who'd killed his father, mother and brother
many years ago.
In the "present" day, Michael is setting up the chess pieces, much as he
did
at the end of the first movie. Tommy Hagen convinces a potential rat and
star
witness against Michael to commit suicide.
Roth, who turns out to be double-crossing Michael, is shot while in
custody.
Fredo meets his sad end on a lake, fishing. He was a sad sack, but too
stupid
to let live, despite his budding friendship with Michael's only remaining
son, Antonio. He's sent his wife Kay away for having aborted his second
son.
He kept the other two kids. Kay aborted because she wanted nothing more to
do
with the corrupt Corleone empire. At the end, Michael sits by the lake at
his
lake house, alone.
Better than the first one, I think, by a little bit. Watching in English
and
half of it in Italian with English subtitles. Highly recommended.
Valley Uprising (2014) -- "7/10"
This is a documentary about the climbing culture in Yosemite, from the
earliest days in the 50s to the modern era. In the earliest days, climbers
had the run of the park and spent weeks climbing the walls. Even at the
time,
they were considered hooligans who disturbed the other campers there. A
couple of the best of them eventually started taking on the big walls (El
Capitan, Half Dome).
The first ascent took a year and a half of climbing up and down and up and
down and up and down. But it worked. There was a conflict between the
styles
-- one was technical with a respect for the mountain whereas the other was
just bent on getting up there no matter what, hammering in fixed ropes
everywhere. They both contributed to the history and legend of the
climbing
culture.
Later, there were others who cut the time to 2 weeks, then 1 week, then 1
day, then 3 hours, then 2.5 hours. Then another generation later and
they're
now free-climbing and setting even more speed records -- all without
ropes.
The rules in Yosemite are even stricter now, with only a week of camping
per
person per year.
Alex Hannold is the undisputed master of the fearless free climbers and he
just camps outside of the park and drives in every day. This is where the
documentary leaves us -- with individuals whose climbing skills and
prowess
are light-years beyond those of their forebears of just 50 years ago.
Godfather III (1990) -- "8/10"
A relatively worthy finale to the trilogy, although it has a few very-rough
patches. The final hour follows up a lot of setup, scheming and intrigue
to
take us into a denouement similar to the first two films: Michael's
well-laid
plans come to fruition once again, thwarted only by a tragic victim (his
dumb-ass daugher, played vapidly by Sophia Coppola).
Much of the film takes place in Italy, back in Sicily. MIchael's son is
out
of the family business and is an opera singer, playing in Sicily for his
professional debut on the Continent. Naturally, this draws attention and
there is an attack on Michael Corleone's life. Corleone, meanwhile, has
been
moving into the legitimate world more and more and has organized a
takeover
of Immobiliare, with the help of a Catholic church beholden to him at the
very highest levels of power.
He is frustrated that "they keep pulling me back in" to the old business
but
also frustrated that the higher he goes in the supposedly legitimate
world,
the dirtier things get -- even dirtier than anything he's experienced in
the
world of gambling and girls in New York and Las Vegas. Corleone survives,
but
his daughter does not -- and we leave the family on the steps of the opera
house where the final generation has just debuted to success, only to end
in
tragedy.
The Man from Nowhere (2010) -- "8/10"
Like I Saw the Devil, this is the story of a man with a violent past, a man
who's been trained in all arts of war, but who is in a job that has left
that
behind for the most part. In I Saw the Devil, the man was a regular police
office who was taken off the leash when his wife was killed. In this case,
our hero is Cha Tae-sik, a pawn-shop owner who runs his shop out of an
apartment building.
Young Jeong So-mi is a young girl who takes a liking to him, visiting when
she escapes her apartment and her mother, who she loves very much but who
is
addicted to heroin and often has "company" over when she needs to make
ends
meet. She takes the opportunity to steal heroin at her job (a strip club,
naturally) and gets on the wrong side of the wrong people. They kidnap
both
her and Jeong, which is enough for Cha Tae-sik to drop his pious persona
and
to go on the warpath.
He cuts a swath through a local gang, eventually resigned to a suicide
mission because he believes Jeong to be dead. He knows her mother is
already
dead. After he vanquishes the last man, he is left outside the van where
he
strongly suspects -- knows -- that Jeong lost her eyes (the enemy gang
harvests organs) and probably her life. He puts the gun to his own head
and...Jeong appears out a dark corner of the parking garage to ask him if
he
came to save her. He doesn't respond, but his entire being expresses the
notion that he's pretty sure it is she who has saved him.
The film ends in a freeze-frame on his teary face after he's hugged her
for a
good half a minute. He'd just bought Jeong school supplies before he goes
to
jail. That cements the idea that Korea's cinema makes violent movies, but
the
violence has to have a purpose. The film is not about the violence; the
film
is about Cha Tae-sik, his lost wife and child (another callback to I Saw
the
Devil) and his newfound love for life through an orphaned girl.
Kickboxer: Vengeance (2016) -- "7/10"
There were a bunch of cheesy parts in this movie, which is to be expected.
But I really liked Jean Claude Van Damme in this (obviously), playing an
older instructor Master Durand who still moves like an oiled snake. He is Mr.
Miyagi to Alain Moussi's Kurt Sloane. The plot is pretty much the same as the
original Bloodsport. In fact, there's a tribute during the ending credits
showing Van Damme's Thai-club dancing in the original vs. Moussi's quite
excellent mimic of same outside of his jail cell in the movie. I also thought
Dave Bautista did a great job as Tong Po, breathing more life and character
into the nemesis than Chong Li did thirty years ago. There's also Gina Carano
completely underutilized as a crooked underground-fight operator and Sara
Malakul Lane as the Thai police captain, equally capable of sounding 100%
American and barking Thai commands to her underlings. There was also some
excellent fight choreography, the best of it between Van Damme and Moussi
during training.
A Bittersweet Life (2005) -- "8/10"
This movie stars Byung-hun Lee (also starred in I Saw the Devil) as Sun-woo,
a hotelier working for a mobster Mr. Kang. Kang leaves town for a week,
leaving him in charge of keeping tabs on his girlfriend Hee-soo, who he
suspects of cheating on him. Sun-woo is charged with killing them both if
he
discovers it to be true. It is, of course, true, but he lets them go
instead,
telling them they are to never see each other again.
In the meantime, another mobster is trying to embroil him in his business,
this time at the behest of Sun-woo's sleazy and devil-may-care co-worker
Mun-suk, who's ostensibly in charge of security at the hotel. Because
Mun-suk
isn't around, Sun-woo must take out a whole cadre of gang members who try
to
set up in his club. This angers not only Mun-suk but also the mob boss to
whom he's been trying to ingratiate himself.
When Mr. Kang learns that Sun-woo let Hee-soo go, he joins Mun-suk and his
boss President Baek in the hunt for him. Inexplicably, Sun-woo is released
to
Mun-suk's men after having been captured by Mr. kan's men. This is first
indication that something isn't quite right. One minute, we see a heavily
trussed-up Sun-woo and his torturer preparing very ugly-looking knives and
the next, we see him being dumped unceremoniously in a mud pit, at
Mun-suk's
feet.
From there, he is buried alive, but escapes, only to be captured again --
and
always told that he can end his suffering if he just "apologizes". He
refuses
and instead escapes with panache, leaving a trail of bodies behind him.
His
hand-to-hand fighting skills are quite strong. His gun skills are not.
When
he later acquires handguns, it is quite obvious that he is unused to using
them. Although this movie felt like the same
former-super-soldier-turned-mild-mannered-man-of-the-people, it turns out
not
to be.
Sun-woo meets up with Russian arms dealers, with a rather hilarious scene
between a Korean translator and the rather-odd Russian. It becomes quickly
obvious that Sun-woo hasn't really killed people before. He is stabbed
repeatedly by one of his nemeses, before he puts him down with a few
ill-placed bullets. The multiple stab wounds don't seem to bother him as
much
as you'd think they would (but we'll find out why soon enough).
He misses a lot, but he also has a lot of ammunition. He fights his way
through to Mr. Kang's inner chamber in the hotel, where he confronts him.
Mr.
Kang is utterly convinced of his own safety, right up until Sun-woo shoots
him in the heart. I'm convinced that Kang is Sun-woo's father, even though
the plot doesn't say anything about it. It's just a feeling and it makes
sense in light of the ending. This triggers an epic gun battle, with
Sun-woo
inexpertly spraying bullets everywhere, but still managing to take out
almost
all of his enemies, most of whom are also fighting each other and doing
some
of his work for him.
He finishes off everyone, getting shot multiple times in the chest, but
still, somehow, inexplicably,
alive. When a final killer (the brother of the arms dealer who he also
killed when buying weapons) arrives to mop things up, he is still sitting
there, still breathing, and calls Hee-soo one last time, only to hear her
say
"hello". He smiles and fades out to visions of Hee-soo playing cello --
before the killer finishes him off.
Fade to ... Sun-woo in his office, coming back to himself out of a
daydream.
He sees Hee-soo in the distance, yearning for her. He smiles and
shadow-boxes
himself (self-consciously) looking behind him) before the film fades out.
It
turns out the film was just his daydream about how he could rescue Hee-soo
from his father's clutches and get his revenge on everyone who's ever
wronged
him.
Honestly one of the most refreshing and best "it was all a dream" movies
I've
seen. Recommended.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=35012018-01-21T20:43:05+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of almost 1200
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) -- "5/10"
I'm too old for this movie. This movie is all about distracting, shiny
gadgets. It is only incidentally about Spider-Man. Spider-Man's suit is
now
the star of the show, providing one Deus Ex Machina after another in lieu
of
actual plot. Peter Parker is a whiny bitch at a ritzy school (with a mass
spectrometer). It's nice that they made the rest of the school look like a
Benetton ad and that they made everyone so open and friendly with each
other.
That there are no tensions to speak of between students at all. Hell,
everyone loves Peter and thinks he's the smartest guy in the school -- and
they love him for it.
His suit protects him from all damage, it provides him with all help, with
company when he's stuck -- is this advancement? That female roles are now
disembodied voices in the form of AI PDAs for men? -- there is no conflict
and Parker never seems to be in danger. The sensors and gadgets are
God-like
in their abilities: it predicts structural collapse of buildings,
elevators,
etc. down to the last second. This is ridiculous: technology doesn't work
like that. Even if it did, it makes a shitty movie because there's no
tension
when magic solves everything.
Imagine the Harry Potter movies if Harry just waved a wand and fixed
everything immediately. That's what it's like for Spider-Man. Literally
nothing is left over that made Parker/Spider-Man endearing: he's no longer
poor, May is no longer old, he doesn't have to cobble together his own
tech,
he doesn't have to really hide his identity, he never gets hurt, he
doesn't
really have to worry about his studies, the whole tension between his
studies
and making enough money and saving lives is gone. When he completely
flakes
on a school competition in Washington D.C., the team wins anyway and,
instead
of being mad for flaking, the girl he adores is worried about him. She
likes
him back. Dude can't fail. Boring.
There's no tension: even in the big Staten-Island Ferry scene, nobody got
hurt. Iron Man showed up with millions of dollars worth of fancy rockets
which took no logistics to put together and could be deployed instantly.
Also, every boat near NYC showed up within seconds to come help the ferry.
This is ludicrous.
He has unlimited webs, a parachute, wings, a super-computer with
human-like
AI, 100% HD 24-hour surveillance and an unbreakable skin. It was already
bad
enough, but now Spider-Man is also afraid of heights? And his Spidey-Sense
is
non-existent? And he doesn't care at all about damaging stuff? That's not
Peter Parker. He bounds through a neighborhood, damaging cars, houses,
treehouses, fences, grills ... everything. Didn't seem to care. Destroys
Flash's car. Didn't care. I guess he just figures everyone's rich and
insured? Just like every privileged person is at his privileged school?
This movie is so over-the-top open and accepting: do schools really have
giant posters of Maya Angelou, James Baldwin and Nikola Tesla in their
detention halls now? Is this representative? He's 15 but everyone keeps
talking about what he's going to do after graduation -- and nobody thinks
it's weird that he has an internship. Is this normal, now? Also, he lives
in
Queens but he already test-drove a car in parking lots at 15? That is
possibly the most unbelievable thing in this movie. 30-year--olds in NYC
don't know how to drive. Is it supposed to be adorable that the smartest
kid
in Queens needs to ask his friend to Google how to turn on the fucking
headlights in a car? Is this a triumph? SMH.
It's a shame because I like Tom Holland as Spider-Man. I like Michael
Keaton
as the Vulture. I like Bokeem Woodbine as the Shocker. I like Michael
Chernus
as the Tinkerer. I'm kind of sick of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark --
but
he plays the character to a tee. He's just as insufferable in the comic
books. [1] I like Marisa Tomei, but not as Aunt May. Why is Peter's aunt
no
longer old? And why is Tooms, as the Vulture, no longer old? I mean, he
kind
of is: Keaton is 66, but he has a high-school age daughter. I guess that
that's the new, enlightened normal?
And, at the end, (spoiler alert), where is everyone else? Why are Tooms
and
Parker alone for so long. When the Staten Island Ferry is attacked, Stark
is
there in 10 seconds. When his own plane full of his most-precious
artifacts
crashes into Coney Island, he's nowhere to be found? Just for good
measure,
they eliminate the last remaining bit of tension in the old Spidey's life:
Aunt May discovers his secret identity in the last second. Sweet setup for
the sequel, dude.
Gave it an extra point for having pretty decent effects, but took it away
again for being way too damned long.
The Dark Tower (2017) -- "8/10"
Idris Elba is Roland Deschain, Gunslinger. Matthrew McConaughey is Walter,
the Man in Black, a Wizard. Roland is the last remaining defender of the
Dark Tower. Walter and his horde of evil beings have all but won the war
to
conquer and destroy the Tower and let in the demons that reside outside
the
universe. They can already get in, where they have worn thin the places
between their world and ours.
There are portals between the worlds. There are similarities between Earth
and Midworld, where Roland exists. There are interesting threads between
the
myths of the world of the Dark Tower and our own myths -- they serve to
anchor our understanding of this at-first alien world. Roland's guns are
forged from the steel of Arthur Eld's sword: Excalibur. Roland Deschain is
of
Eld. There is a neatness to this battle at the end of time.
There are changes to the original story, changes that I can't help but
feel
are more cinema-friendly. The monster that bites Roland is not a crab on a
cold, dark beach, but a ravening, slavering monster from another
dimension. I
liked the lobsters better. But that's a different movie, it's not a
Hollywood
blockbuster. The vision of a dark beach with an aged and ailing Gunslinger
being nearly bested by alien, flesh-eating lobsters from across the cleft
of
dark dimensions worked well in the book, but would only have worked with
perhaps Tarkovsky at the helm, who always seemed to have a knack for
eliciting majesty from mundane sci-fi. The final scene between Roland and
Walter was more ethereal and mysterious and abstract in the book than the
movie depicted. In the film, it was more prosaic, with Walter using bits
of
brick as magical shields, which detracted a bit from the potential majesty
of
the moment. If you know the mythology of the books, the "face of my
father"
mantras are pretty cool.
Some of the original source material survived. Roland is eerily, magically
fast and accurate with his gun, he can sense and hear and find targets
like
no-one else. But he does it in a way that adds rather than detracts from
the
story. It's believable. Perhaps this can be chalked up to Elba's ability
to
sell the role. The major gun-battle scene was a marvel of choreography and
felt just like Roland was depicted in the book.
There are some nice homages to Stephen King: I saw a dilapidated,
Pennywise
carnival ride in a forest and there was a Rita Hayworth poster on a brick
wall in the basement of a gun shop. There's a sign on a wall that says
"Chambers" something-or-other (Jake's last name).
Strong acting from Elba; decent stuff from McConaughey; excellent work by
the
kid (Tom Taylor).
Shin Godzilla (2016) -- "6/10"
It's hard to believe that this movie was made in 2016. Reasonably
entertaining. A bit chatty. Watched it in Japanese with English subtitles and
you had to pay quite close attention, as the titles were coming at you
quickly. It's the story of a giant, mutating Godzilla, with more science than
just "bombs made it big". This Godzilla is explained by biology and
single-minded evolution as well as a need to feed on energy, but is just as
unstoppable as any other Gozilla -- perhaps more so.
War for the Planet of the Apes (2017) -- "6/10"
Too much monkey for me. This movie was way too long, indulging in their CGI
extravaganza and playing all of the standard tropes. It wasn't too hard to be
on the side of the apes since the humans were nearly unilaterally evil --
beyond all ability to empathize. Nature was going to make them win, one way
or another anyway, as the virus that nearly wiped out mankind (and
simultaneously smartened the apes) is now infecting the remaining humans,
regressing them to a primitive state. The CGI is impressive, but it felt like
watching a Disney/Pixar movie at times.
30 Minutes or Less (2011) -- "4/10"
I took a chance on this because it stars Jesse Eisenberg, Aziz Ansari,
Michael Peña and Danny McBride. Eisenberg is a pizza-delivery guy with no
prospects, who's sorta-kinda in love with his best friend's (Ansari) sister.
McBride is a spoiled son of a rich former Marine (Fred Ward) who's a giant
douchebag and who becomes the target of a patricide. Peña is the hired
killer, but his fee is higher than McBride can afford. So he hatches a plan
to coerce Eisenberg into robbing a bank for him by strapping bombs all over
him. It's as stupid as it sounds. I can't even really remember how it ended.
Independence Day: Resurgence (2016) -- "5/10"
This movie started off nostalgic and devolved quickly into a super-cheesy
version of Starship Troopers that takes itself seriously. On a side note:
movies in the future are boring. This is because pretty much everything is
possible. There are perfect translators, AIs, replicators, virtual
realities,
drive systems, time travel, galactic travel, whatever. You can't make a
movie
that's interesting for humans because every problem is solved by magic --
and
it's believable because the premise is that technology can do anything.
There
is no tension.
And even when they don't do that: why the hell is everybody still driving
prosaic cars that run out of gas? Why are they still wearing glasses? And
where the hell do they get all the metal to build their giant machines?
Just
because you can conjure up anything you like with CGI doesn't mean we're
not
going to notice that you're using ten planet's worth of metal to build
these
installations.
Oh, and all of the young actors are terrible. The effects are spectacular,
truly amazing, but the people keep talking.
Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (1989) -- "6/10"
This movie stars Antonio Banderas as a young man, a psychiatric patient,
recently released. He is in love with an adult film star, Mariana. Mariana
has just wrapped a movie with a lecherous director. Her sister is in the mix,
as well. Banderas kidnaps Mariana in order to make her fall in love with him.
Long story short: she does. The end. There are some neat scenes not exactly
related to the plot, but the premise is ridiculous and hard to get past. The
acting is decent. One of the bit parts is wearing a Barcelona 1992 T-Shirt
exactly like the one my wife got me when she was in Spain then.
Ghost in the Shell (2017) -- "7/10"
This one looks like a fucking game demo, too. No soul, no passion, no organic
feel. Again, there's no limit to what the film can do because of
technology
but they make the robot communicate vocally with its handler because they
need to anchor the audience somehow. And why does she need to wear
goggles?
She's a robot. Meanwhile, the scene is interleaved with Michael Winship
(sounding a bit less gravelly than usual) boasting of how his
four--year-old
daughter became fluent in French in minutes thanks to enhancements.
Whatever
it means for a four--year-old to be fluent in anything. Feels like a bad
knockoff of Blade Runner so far.
They're putting a brain in a robot warrior. So, literally Robocop. Why the
fuck do they make the robot breathe? So they also literally hammered home
for
us why the movie is called Ghost in the Shell in the first five minutes.
Juliette Binoche has never been so fluent in English.
The aesthetic is pretty nice when they finally settle down and focus on
smaller than city-wide vistas, when the story becomes a more prosaic,
cloak-and-dagger police procedural. The story isn't breathtakingly new,
but
it serves its purpose as scaffolding for a decent group of agents -- in
various states of cyberneticization. The core story of the the orphans
finding each other and saving each other was actually pretty good. The
final
scene where Major takes out the giant robot was done pretty well. I feel
like
the original cartoon was much better, but this was better than expected.
Where to Invade Next (2015) -- "9/10"
Michael Moore goes to Italy to learn about socialism in (guaranteed
vacations, maternity leave, long lunches, regular working hours), then
about
school lunches in France, then the best students in the world in Finland
(little to no homework, 20-hour weeks for younger kids, including lunch
and
playtime). Then it's on to Slovenia, where university is free. He covers
the
protests against tuition hikes in Slovenia, Canada, Germany, France,
Finland
and Norway (and actually England as well, though it wasn't mentioned ...
maybe because they failed miserably).
Many of the Italians and French spoke their native language, but all of
the
students in Finland, Slovenia and Germany spoke fluent, nearly unaccented
English. Then it's off to Germany to learn about unions and worker
participation on boards of directors.
Also to learn about how a country teaches its people to never again do
what
their predecessors did. "They don't whitewash it. They don't pretend it
didn't happen. They don't say 'hey, that was before my time. What's this
got
to do with me? I didn't kill anyone.'" The Germans really do live like
this.
I know many of them. I've been to Berlin. I've felt the rueful sadness in
that city.
Next up is Portugal for May Day and to learn how to fight the war on drugs
by
giving up and treating instead of fighting. Also, he steals the idea of
having police officers who think human dignity is above all. Next, he goes
to
Norway to see how their prisons work, based on rehabilitation. Of course,
the
murderers and rapists and employees at the prison are all bilingual and
speak
fluent English. They have normal jobs, working in kitchens with knives,
with
no locks on the doors, freedom to swim and walk the open grounds. Even at
the
maximum-security prison, it looks more like a university.
Then it's on to Iceland to focus on women's rights and equal
representation.
Also, it's one of the only countries to have prosecuted its bankers after
the
financial collapse in 2008. Then it's back to Berlin to talk about 1989
and
the fall of the wall.
Better than some of his other work. Recommended.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) -- "9/10"
I'd actually forgotten that this movie was coming out at the end of the year
and I almost never go to movies in the theater, so I went in pretty much
completely cold. I'd seen a trailer, so that I knew that Rey and Finn and
Poe
were back. That is, that the movie was the second part of the third
trilogy,
part VIII. I was pleasantly surprised to see that they'd gone to the
effort
of writing a non-linear plot with new characters (some with quite
predictable
arcs) but by fleshing out existing characters with non-obvious fallibility
to
keep things interesting.
Poe is a hothead and he gets punished for it -- not directly, but by
seeing
the consequences of his actions, not once, but twice. The first time, Leia
drubs him with it -- the second time, it's not as obvious and nobody's in
the
mood to blame him, but ... if he hadn't second-guessed everyone and sent
Rey
and Finn and token Asian girl/love-interest to the Dreadnought, then they
probably could have avoided a whole bunch of pain and suffering. Of
course,
then there wouldn't have been the pretty fantastic closure on several
levels
that awaits us in the final scenes, but at least they added that
complexity.
This tale is paralleled on our world as the superficial world in which
most
people live versus the deeper world of science and logic, the knowledge of
which transforms so much magic to mundanity.
Rey, too, is portrayed as a simplistic hothead if you look for it. When
Luke
discards the light saber: he has realized that this is the crude toy of a
child, that the Force is much more powerful without such crude tools. It
explains Luke’s look of disappointment when Rey still didn’t
understand
that the light saber isn’t anything compared to the true power of the
Force. In a sense, these are all religious stories.
The effects are fantastic, as ever, mixing used-feeling equipment on the
Rebels' part to create a very WWII aesthetic that I've noted in the other
two
films in this trilogy. It's 2.5 hours, so brace yourself for a long ride,
but
it's definitely worth it (especially for fans). I think the first half of
the
movie was a bit too front-loaded with Disney-style child-like jokes and
character-introduction (Laura Dern and Benecio del Toro!), but those are
minor quibbles. Some of the jokes land really well.
Also, the use of color and effects was more noticeable, with a real
Korean/Japanese/Chinese crime-movie feel to it (e.g. Snoke's throne room
was
so ornate and red and the scene of destruction in it afterwards was
sublime)
(also e.g. the scenes in the desert with the red-salt traces tracing the
scene of the battle, down to each stance-shift in the final battle.) For a
blockbuster film that's 8th in line with God knows what expectations, they
did a great job.
A very satisfying entry that I would watch again. Recommended (highly for
fans of the series). Saw it in English with German/French subtitles and in
3-D.
Rick & Morty S03 -- "10/10"
This show just goes from strength to strength. Complex, interwoven and
self-referential but still consistent plotlines that stretch across
infinite
universes combine with several strong characters from which anyone should
be
able to pick a favorite. Season 3 was probably the best so far, I think.
From "episode 7" :
"There's a Rick that held a factory hostage after murdering his boss and
several co-workers.
"The factory made cookies. Flavored 'em with lies.
"He made us all take a look at what we were doing.
"And in the bargain, he got a taste of real freedom.
"We captured that taste, and we keep givin' it to 'im, so he can give it
right back to you.
"And everybody who buys the new freedom-wafers selects.
"Come home to the unique flavor of shattering the grand illusion.
"Come home to Simple Rick."
Also "Pickle Rick" in episode 3 was a masterpiece. No wonder it took 18
months to make 10 episodes.
American Hustle (2013) -- "6/10"
I like Christian Bale and Jeremy Renner and Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley
Cooper. I honestly have no idea what year this movie was supposed to have
taken place. It's about an FBI agent trying to set up a sting by manipulating
a couple of small-time hustlers that he caught into helping him catch bigger
fish. He's after politicians, even if he has to entrap them or make up their
crimes out of whole cloth. I gave it an extra point because Jennifer Lawrence
was a blazing, alluring pile of crazy and Christian Bale sold the end very
well. But I thought it was too long and boring.
Baby Driver (2017) -- "6/10"
This movie stars Kevin Spacey as a guy who runs heists. He uses a different
crew every time -- or at least a different mix of people from a larger
group.
One constant in his crews is "Baby", who's a preternaturally gifted
getaway
driver. The driving scenes are pretty nicely choreographed, though many of
the cooler bits were featured heavily in the main trailer. A pity. Another
pity is that Jon Bernthal (of The Punisher) is only on one of the crews
and
his participation is limited to about 5 minutes of screen time, maximum.
Jon
Hamm is more a part of the film and plays his usual, rambunctious self,
paired with the sultry Eiza González in a bizarre and somewhat disturbing
relationship.
Baby wants to get out of his obligation to Doc (Spacey). Things go
sideways,
Baby's new girlfriend gets embroiled in everything, Hamm's character gets
superhuman, but finally succumbs and Baby is finally arrested, though put
away for a paltry sentence (he's white, dontchaknow), after which he is
picked up by his girlie and they all live happily ever after. The end.
Directed by Edgar Wright without a lot of his usual visual panache.
I really like director Edgar Wright and his style was somewhat evident in
this film, but much more suppressed. The cast was pretty strong -- I
always
like Jamie Foxx and Jonathan Hamm -- but the movie had a lot of filler
between the song-driven chase scenes. Edgar Winter Group's Frankenstein
was
an inspired choice. Jon Hamm's weapon firing on the beat was a nice touch.
Jon Bernthal (Frank Castle) wasn't in the movie nearly enough. Eiza
González
was sexy, but was in it too much. Radar Love was another nice song choice.
Kevin Spacey seemed to be channeling a pale imitation of Gene Hackman.
Nightbreed (1990) -- "6/10"
The acting is, in general, pretty bad. The story is kind of interesting. The
makeup, sets and practical effects are fantastic. It's like a
smörgåsbord
of every nightmare Clive Barker has ever had.
The story is about Aaron Boone, who dreams of the Nightbreed in a place
called Miridian. He finally ends up there, discovering that the Nightbreed
are a collection of the ancient peoples of Earth that have been all-but
eradicated by humanity. They are freaks and they are undead.
His psychiatrist Decker (played by David Cronenberg) is a serial killer
bent
on finding Miridian. He frames Boone for all of the murders and gets Boone
executed by an entire posse. Boone had been bit by a Nightbreed, though,
so
he comes back as one of the undead, now named Cabal. His girlfiend Lori
refuses to give up on him and they try to save the Nightbreed. The giant
posse, armed with military hardware, takes out the Nightbreed's
underground
lair.
The lair itself is a marvelous set, equal to the many masks and twisted
bodies of its inhabitants -- it looks like the Bosch's Garden of Earthly
Delights brought to life. Quite a vision. Recommended if this sounds like
your thing.
Logan Lucky (2017) -- "9/10"
A lovely little stress-free and fight-free heist movie, as Soderbergh does. I
liked most of the cast: Adam Driver and Channing Tatum as brothers living in
West Virginia, Riley Keough and Katie Holmes as their respective interests
and integral and indispensable participants in the heist. Also along in the
heist are a transformed Daniel Craig, as Joe Bang, the explosives expert.
Their plan is fun to watch unfold, with relatively little muss or fuss.
Recommended.
Russell Howard: Recalibrate (2017) -- "6/10"
Russell's never really been my cup of tea and this special was OK for me, but
not great. His comedy is a bit broad and well-explained and forced, waiting
for laugh lines and so on. He's a skilled performer and has some funny bits,
but I didn't really get into it as much as I'd hoped.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] As @ExistentialComics "tweeted"
: "Batman and
Iron Man teach us that it's good for billionaires to build advanced weaponry
to use extrajudicially to keep the existing social order stable."
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=35002018-01-21T17:54:42+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of almost 1200
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Star Trek: Discovery S01 (2017) -- "8/10"
This is the latest series in the Star Trek universe, starring a whole new
cast rife with decent-to-good actors. The story is quite interesting and has
an overall arc as well as staying true to the classic format of having one
lesson/mission per episode. This series takes place at the same time as when
Spock joins the Federation, focusing on his human stepsister Michael Burnam
instead. The starship Discovery is a science ship but becomes the most
important vessel in the war against the Klingons when they invent a new form
of propulsion based on manipulating a universal mycelium substrate (or
something like that). In the second half of the first season, they spend a
good deal of time in a completely alternate universe.
Okja (2017) -- "7/10"
This is a film about a giant food corporation that genetically engineers a
new animal to satisfy consumer demand: the super-pig. It's the size of a
hippopotamus and it produces very little ordure (although gas seems to be a
problem). They create a program to raise ten such pigs around the world and
see how they fare. One is in Korea, with a little girl and her grandfather.
She raises the pig nearly single-handedly until the corporation shows up to
film it -- and take it away. She gives chase and teams up with the ALF -- led
by Paul Dano. Jake Gyllenhall is the goofy safari-photographer face of the
super-pig program, Tilda Swinton plays the two sisters that run the
corporation. Okja is eventually rescued but so many pigs are not. The film
has a definite anti-mass-food-production bent. Watched it in English and
Korean with subtitles.
Bad Moms (2016) -- "8/10"
This movie was a lot more fun than I expected it to be. It broke out of the
one-joke mold, buoyed by great performances by Mila Kunis, Kathryn Hahn,
Kristin Bell and even Christina Applegate, who played the real bad mom. It
made it clear that this was an escapist, fantastical film and stuck to its
guns.
Twin Peaks S03 (2017) -- "8/10"
What to say about a TV series that starts its third season 25 years after it
ended its extended second season, that went off the deep end and into a
bizarreness theretofore unseen on network TV? It was brilliant, entertaining
-- nay, captivating -- and left viewers wanting more. Those viewers stuck
around for 25 years -- prophesied by Laura Palmer herself, from the Black
Lodge, near the end of season 2 -- as did the actors, all of whom returned if
it was at all physically possible. All of them reprised their roles. This
extra-long season explained a lot and opened up whole new avenues -- episode
8 will be especially challenging for most -- of ideas, thought and ways of
interpreting what came before. Nothing is explained, but things become
clearer. There are some new protagonists and some new antagonists. Most
characters pick up right where they left off. Truly a work of art -- it has
some rough edges, but Lynch and Frost deliver a unique bit of
well--though-out, extended cinema. Rumor has it that Lynch filmed all 18
episodes at once, editing it all at the end. Truly a cinematic achievement.
It's 18 shows, though, so it can be a bit of a slog, at times. So, overall an
8, but with some 9/10 moments.
Absolutely Anything (2015) -- "5/10"
This was a disappointing bit of dreck starring Simon Pegg, about a
down-and-out guy (think Run, Fatboy, Run) who is given omnipotence by evil
alien beings intent on proving that Earth is a backwards civilization,
incapable of handling the power of galactic citizenship. It's all a bit
murky, but it stars the always-alluring Kate Beckinsale as well, else it
would have been even less entertaining. It seems like it was made to appeal
to children.
GLOW (2017) -- "7/10"
The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling "documents" the rise of the short-lived
league of women wrestlers from the early 80s. Marc Maron as the
author/director of the league is a revelation, as are Alison Brie, Betty
Gilpin and many of the other lady wrestlers. The first season takes us from
failing personal lives and acting careers to a somewhat triumphant and
last-ditch effort to saving the budding league in its first show.
Fargo S03 (2017) -- "10/10"
The third season is possibly my favorite one so far. I really liked the other
two seasons, each unique in its own way, but hewing to the base aesthetic.
This season does so, as well, but pulls in even more star power, with Ewan
McGregor playing twin brothers, one of whom is a parole officer and the of
whom is a local parking-garage maven. Carrie Coon as Officer Gloria Burgle
follows in the tradition of Fargo of portraying police officers as eminently
human and competent people just trying do a job, moral beings with a moral
compass. Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Nikki Swango plays a perfect foil to
David Thewlis as V.M. Varga, a nearly supernatural foreign millionaire and
super-criminal of unknown origin and seemingly unlimited power. The plots
twists and turns, as expected, but derives much of its momentum from a feud
between the Stussy brothers over a rare and precious stamp. Varga wades in
and takes advantage -- though his motive in getting into Minnesota parking
garages is unclear, unless he'd exhausted all other possibilities for evading
taxes and laundering money. A tale well-told and well-acted. Highly
recommended.
1984 (1984) -- "8/10"
This film is very true to the source material. The aesthetic matches exactly
the world limned by George Orwell and the plot follows the book meticulously.
The story is of a future totalitarian state where thought is outlawed, goods
and services are rare, as is good, healthy food, media is always fake and Big
Brother is everywhere. Winston is unwittingly drawn to a fake rebellion,
because of love for a fellow rebel, who turns out not to be a rebel, or maybe
she was a rebel and the State lied -- either way, in the end, Winston
capitulates, gives up anything and everything to save his own worthless,
joyless and hopeless life and Big Brother wins. "A boot stamping on the face
of humanity, forever."
Judah Friedlander: America is the greatest country in the United States (2017) -- "8/10"
Judah is a stand-up comedian with a tongue-in-cheek, gung-ho, ironically and
quasi-jingoistic, America-first on-stage persona. He is pretty well-informed,
which makes his two-way barbs for and against America clever. I was expecting
much less, but had already noted that I'd liked him more than expected in his
appearance on Showtime's Green Room many years ago. He has a good delivery,
works the crowd well, extemporizes well and has a good set.
Wonder Woman (2017) -- "6/10"
This review "60 Minutes on: "Wonder Woman" " by Matt Zoller Zeitz
is not at all
how
I saw the movie:
""Wonder Woman" is the best modern superhero film by a substantial margin, in
large part because it shrugs off the supposed common wisdom that's become
encrusted around the genre and dares to be straightforwardly idealistic,
giving its title character strongly held values and testing them and
forcing
her to adjust or re-frame them without losing them—a deeper struggle
that's
more resonant than the physical struggles she faces in the course of the
story, which are impressive in their own right. In theory, every superhero
movie is, or pretends to be, about believing in something larger than
oneself; but this message often gets lost amid narcissistic personal
melodrama. This is never the case with "Wonder Woman.""
I'm not sure what they mean by "modern" superhero movie, but I just off
the
top of my head, I can think of The Watchmen, Unbreakable and Logan. Yeah,
I
know that of those, only Watchmen even starred any women. But that's not
really my first criteria for a movie, to say nothing of a superhero movie.
They made Wonder Woman just as insipid as they always make women, but they
gave her a backstory that explains it. Congratulations.
Se7en (1995) -- "9/10"
This is a detective movie directed by David Fincher. It stars Morgan Freeman
as a detective on the verge of retiring. He's highly intelligent and
accomplished, but he never quite fit in to his department. He is weary of the
sin and suffering that he sees every day, both in his private life and on the
job. Brad Pitt is a young detective who transferred to the big city in order
to work with Freeman. Pitt's wife, played by Gwenyth Paltrow, is not at all
excited to be in the big city. Freeman and Pitt quickly converge on a case of
a serial killer who MO is to kill his victims by the seven deadly sins. The
murders are stylized, but the killer leaves clues for them to follow. He
wants to be caught. The killer is played by Kevin Spacey, who turns himself
in after the fifth victim, with anger and envy still outstanding as motifs.
Spoiler alert: the clever bit is that Spacey is envious of Pitt's
relationship with his wife, so he killed her (envy ... although it was Spacey
who was envious, not Paltrow, so it doesn't quite fit with the other
murders), chopped her up and shipped her head in a box to Pitt at a
predefined location in the middle of a field. He guides the pair there to
meet the delivery truck. Spacey's piece de résistance is to coerce Pitt into
killing him in anger, completing the septet.
Deray Davis: How to Act Black (2017) -- "7/10"
He was decent, but nothing out of the ordinary. Some good, original material;
some hackneyed material. Lots of very black-focused humor with lots of inside
jokes, most of which I understood, but some of which didn't resonate (for
obvious reasons: I didn't grow up in any form of 'hood, as he did).
Brian Regan: Nunchucks and Flamethrowers (2017) -- "5/10"
He's a pretty harmless comedian with a very clean act and a somewhat odd and
forced stage presence. He doesn't seem very comfortable, shouting a bit in a
"Dad's here" kind of way. His best jokes were from his parents, his father in
particular.
Craig Ferguson: Tickle Fight (2017) -- "6/10"
I was looking forward to this special as he's been very funny in the past.
This one was OK and he had a couple of interesting insights and new jokes,
but a lot of the material felt rehashed and his delivery didn't seem very
natural. He shouted quite a bit when it didn't seem necessary. Maybe I just
need to see it again in a group?
The Punisher (2017) -- "10/10"
I loved this show, mostly because of the way that Jon Bernthal inhabited the
role of Frank Castle, the Punisher. This first season follows Frank as he
uncovers who was really behind the death of his family. He teams up (kind of)
with Micro, another agent who is more technical and less violent, but who has
also been maligned by the same organization, separated from his family
(although they still live). This is a nearly uniquely violent show, with the
Punisher taking a ridiculous level of punishment (especially in the latter
episodes). Still, the character is wonderful, so I gave it extra points.
Would watch again. Highly recommended, but not for the squeamish.
Hellraiser (1987) -- "6/10"
This is one of Clive Barker's first movies and establishes his
horror/gore/fantasy aesthetic. It is the tale of a little puzzle box that
opens a gateway to a horrific dimension of pleasure, pain and eternal
suffering. Frank is the first to find his way to the mysterious Chinese shop
that sells him the box. He is the first to open the gate and meet Pinhead and
his cohort, the Cenobytes. He is the first to be trapped there. Years later,
his niece finds the box and is ensnared, at least to a degree. Her mother --
and Frank's lover -- learns of Frank's return to the corporeal plane. She
finds him as a half-man, skeletal with no skin, but alive, in tremendous
pain, in the attic of their home. He needs to feed on the lives of others in
order to complete his transfer to this world. She provides him victims by
trolling airport bars for one-night-stands. Her daughter learns of this and
fights them both in horror. In the end, the daughter vanquishes both Frank
and her mother and reverses the puzzle box to banish the Cenobytes back to
their dimension.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) -- "6/10"
The visuals are spectacular. But there's so much, so fast, that there's no
way to enjoy any of it. I did not like either of the leads: Cara Delevingne
or Dane DeHaan. I love the hell out of the director, Luc Besson, but he's
trying too hard to recapture the magic he had with The Fifth Element. I know
that this movie is based on popular comic books, so that might explain some
of the pacing, plotting, story and dialogue. But there's really no excuse for
the wooden delivery: Delevingne acts like she's in a high school play. There
is no way to predict anything in this movie because I don't know anything
about any of the characters. So what's really wrong? Obscure, unpredictable
plot, childlike characters and bad actors. The effects are lovely but it had
no cohesion, it didn't describe a world. Instead, it felt like watching a
graphics-card demo loop.
Kong: Skull Island (2017) -- "8/10"
I was pleasantly surprised at how pretty this movie was and how cleverly they
hid skulls everywhere. The set design of the island was fantastic, the
effects were quite convincing, the monster design was good, the actors
were
pretty decent (John C. Reilly was very good) and the movie felt like a
movie.
It had cohesion. It was better than the last Kong movie.
The monsters are overwhelming, gigantic and people die by the dozens. Sam
Jackson's Colonel Packard re-fights Vietnam with Kong as a proxy. Kong is
actually the protector of the island, the only thing keeping the really
evil
monsters in check. It's the 70s, so Packard is fighting Vietnam again,
delighting in killing Kong with napalm. He is the living embodiment of
American arrogance, brutality and peevish ego. And he will, of course, be
proved spectacularly wrong, but not before he does more damage than he
should
be able to. Always the same story. I guess we get to keep hearing it until
we
actually learn our lesson. Good luck with that.
Solid soundtrack, nice cinematography. Recommended.
End of Watch (2012) -- "7/10"
Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena are a couple of beat cops in South LA.
Gyllenhaal films everything for a class he's taking. They are a couple of
cowboys but essentially good cops. They make a few lucky busts -- one
because
they're following up on a lead that they shouldn't have been following.
They
find about 50 people held in absolutely filthy captivity, which is good,
but
are warned by ICE that they've now run afoul of the cartels. To top it
off,
they respond to a welfare-check call and find squatters with a giant cache
of
drugs.
The cartels have had enough and order a hit. The two guys manage to escape
for a bit, but the reach of the cartel is long. Pena bites it. The two
leads
(as well, as the their wives, Natalie Martinez and Anna Kendrick) are
charismatic and fun. The bad-ass Latino gangsters were a bit over-the-top.
Atomic Blonde (2017) -- "9/10"
Charlize Theron as a British super-spy in 1989 Berlin. She goes to a movie
theater showing Stalker in the original Russian. They kind of ran the
scenes
together, though, but who am I to quibble? When she walks into the
theater,
they're showing the scene with the mangler (?) where there are all of the
humps of sand. Then, 30 seconds later, the men are huddled before the room
itself.
The soundtrack is all 80s tracks, lovingly selected. Til Schweiger plays a
watchmaker working at Carl F. Bucherer. There are Trabants everywhere
(even
one cop car, which the museum said was not in Berlin). The other car they
get
is a Volvo, which checks out: those were the cars favored by the
high-ranking
members of the DDR. The fight scenes are visceral and hyper-realistic.
They're bloody and damage is definitely done.
James McAvoy and John Goodman round out the cast.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=34352018-01-21T17:47:16+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of almost 1200
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Joe Mande's Award-Winning Comedy Special (2017) -- "5/10"
This was not a very strong effort. No zingers. Nothing daring. Nothing new.
Not even a particularly good delivery. It wasn't offensive -- but I can't
remember single joke from the show.
Ari Shaffir: Double Negative (2016) -- "5/10"
This was not a very strong effort. No zingers. Nothing daring. Nothing new.
Not even a particularly good delivery. It wasn't offensive -- but I can't
remember single joke from the show.
War Machine (2017) -- "6/10"
This movie stars Brad Pitt as four-star general Glenn McMahon. Glenn's life
is based on real-life general Stanley McChrystal. Pitt's performance is
decent, but nothing to write home about. This is relatively standard fare
about the futility of war and the stupidity and politics that drive the major
U.S. invasions.
Sebastian Maniscalco: Aren't You Embarassed? (2014) -- "8/10"
I'd never seen nor heard of Maniscalco before. He had some original material
related to his family. What he did, he did pretty well.
Defenders (2017) -- "8/10"
This was better than I expected it to be: this was the series that brings
together Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and Daredevil. The plot
continues to draw the threads of the individual series together, with the
shadowy Hand organization slowly coming into focus. Various factions of the
Hand are revealed and the Defenders fight together for the first time.
13th (2016) -- "8/10"
This is a decent documentary about black civil rights in the U.S. It
complements Michelle Alexander's book The New Jim Crow quite well, for those
without the stamina or inclination to read their way through that.
Kathleen Madigan: Bothering Jesus -- "9/10"
Madigan's onstage persona is a wise-cracking, world-weary, hard-drinking
souther belle. She's very funny. Her stories are from a time in America that
speaks to me: growing up in the 70s and 80s.
Kathleen Madigan: Gone Madigan -- "9/10"
Madigan's onstage persona is a wise-cracking, world-weary, hard-drinking
souther belle. She's very funny. Her stories are from a time in America that
speaks to me: growing up in the 70s and 80s.
The Standups (2017) -- "8/10"
This is a series of six half-hour episodes, each with a different comedian.
The quality overall was quite good. I liked Nate Bargatze and Deon Cole the
best, but Nikki Glaser, Dan Soder and Beth Stelling were also good, if a bit
derivative. Fortune Feimster was OK, but I wouldn't watch her again.
Big Mouth -- "8/10"
This is an animated series starring Nick Kroll, John Mulaney, Jessi Klein and
Maya Rudolph as three teenagers hitting puberty and sorting out its
world-shaking impact with the help of the Hormone Monster and the Hormone
Monstress. The writing is quite good and pretty funny. There aren't a lot of
new jokes, of course, but it's well-done.
Marc Maron: Too Real -- "9/10"
Maron has been a stand-up comedian for decades. He's honed his craft to a
fine point and is at various times funny, insightful, cynical and wistful.
Recommended.
Christina P: Mother Inferior (2017) -- "8/10"
Another standup special from Netflix. Also very entertaining with fresh
material. Made me laugh out loud a few times.
Jerry Before Seinfeld (2017) -- "9/10"
Seinfeld is still a very good standup comedian. His material was a bit dated,
but he also was doing the first material he ever did, just to prove that it
can hold up if delivered well. He proved it. I thought this was a very good
special.
The Good Place (2017) -- "8/10"
This series stars Kristen Bell as a not-very-nice woman who dies unexpectedly
and is sent to what she thinks is the Good Place. Ted Danson is the demon
running the whole show. Jameela Janil is Tahani the egocentric British
socialite, D'Arcy Carden is Janet the super-intelligent AI, Manny Jacinto is
Jason Mendoza the moronic Floridian DJ and William Jackson Harper is Chidi
Anagonye, a nearly overwhelmingly boring ethics professor.
The Expanse: S02 (2017) -- "8/10"
The second season follows the unwinding story of the Mars/Earth confrontation
as well as the evolution of the Protomolecule, its origins and its powers.
The Americans: S04 (2016) -- "7/10"
Paige is slowly pulled into the fold, although she's still shockingly
annoying.
The Bad Batch (2017) -- "5/10"
The best thing about this movie is Jason Momoa, who plays the leader of a
desert cult in a no-man's-land reserved for the worst of the worst -- the bad
batch.
Jack Whitehall: At Large (2017) -- "8/10"
Jack is a British comedian with a very bombastic style and some original
material. Recommended.
Patton Oswalt: Annihilation (2017) -- "9/10"
Oswalt is much funnier after his wife died than after his child was born. He
controls himself on praising Hillary and keeps the other bashing in a fair
and very funny place.
Leonard Cohen: Bird on a Wire (1974) -- "6/10"
This is a (rock)umentary following Leonard Cohen and his band on tour in the
70s. He comes off as a bit of a prima donna, though he's probably just
exhausted. He regularly leaves the stage for hours, only to return later to
finish the show, rarely with enthusiasm. Leonard seems to have been more of a
studio musician, just judging by how stressful touring seems to be for him.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=34002017-07-23T22:04:07+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of almost 1200
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
The Age of Spin: Dave Chappelle Live at the Hollywood Palladium (2017) -- "9/10"
This is the better of the two new specials on Netflix. Chappelle is
effortless and very, very good in this one. I don't remember a lot of
specific jokes, but it was all-new material in his standard topics. The
nearly 70 minutes were built on the scaffolding of the 4 times Chappelle
met
OJ Simpson. He didn't address politics directly at all, other than most of
his material stems from being black in America, which is at heart a very
political thing, no?
Highly recommended.
Deep in the Heart of Texas: Dave Chappelle Live at Austin City Limits (2017) -- "8/10"
This was also very good, but I liked The Age of Spin better. This one
featured a little too much easy material, with a little too much
masturbation
humor. It's like when Louis C.K.
won't stop talking about shit: you can try to fool yourself into thinking
that he's a genius and you just aren't seeing all the levels of his humor,
but objectively you can't see the difference between when Dave Chappelle
makes an easy masturbation joke and when a lesser comedian does it. Still,
it's Dave Chappelle: he's pretty damned funny.
Louis C.K. 2017 (2017) -- "8/10"
I would have given this a 9/10 but for the first bit -- where he would not
stop talking about shit, which, I get the point he was trying to make, but
it
wasn't funny enough to me; I found it an odd way to start, it was more of
a
middle bit -- and his final bit, which started off really good, but then
stole from Steve Hughes -- "what's more manly than fucking a guy in the
ass?"
-- before pantomiming being the catcher himself and then screaming "good
night". Louis is generally considered a thinking-man's comic so he'll
probably be given the benefit of the doubt that there was something deeper
here than a more lowly comedian with a similar bit would intend but,
again,
I'm not seeing it.
The Birds (1963) -- "6/10"
I didn't like this movie as much as I'd hoped I would. I've really liked
other Hitchcock movies like Vertigo and Psycho but this one was disjointed
and odd. The plot made little sense,
there was no effort made to explain certain points. People didn't act
very
predictably and no reason was given for why they were so odd. And the
birds
-- they weren't explained either, not even a little bit. They were just an
unpredictable force of nature that were filmed at exhausting length. The
best
scene was in the diner about 2/3 of the way through the movie. Not
recommended.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny (2016) -- "7/10"
Donnie Yen and Michelle Yeoh lend gravitas to an otherwise standard Chinese
action/kung-fu movie. It's exquisitely made, with really good effects and
lovely choreography. The story centers on the eponymous sword. Its wielder
has never been defeated in combat. It resides at a kung-fu temple but is
in
danger, although guarded by Michelle Yeoh. Yen shows up with a small group
of
talented fighters to help guard the sword against Hades Dai (Jason Scott
Lee). In the middle of this is the story of Snow Vase (Natasha Liu
Bordizzo)
and Wei Fang (Harry Shum Jr.), two children switched at birth. It's a bit
complicated: he's the true-born son of yet another famous swordswoman, but
she benefitted from having trained under the same. Also, they're in love,
which feels kinda incest-y, but it's totally not. All of the other
talented
fighters are killed in the final battle but the main four survive to fight
another day. Decent, but not required viewing.
Kevin Hart: What Now? (2016) -- "8/10"
He's funny and he's a hell of an entertainer and storyteller. This show was
taped in front of an entire football stadium full of fans. Recommended.
Luther (2016) -- "9/10"
This is a hidden treasure on Netflix that originally ran on the BBC. It tells
the story of DCI John Luther, a passionate, brilliant copper in London. He
works cases of very twisted murder by very twisted killers, many of them
with
personal agendas against him. There are some rough spots, but overall it's
a
very enjoyable series, powered by the overwhelming charisma of Idris Elba
as
Luther.
Dirty Pretty Things (2002) -- "8/10"
This is a story about the lives of quiet humiliation and struggle lived by
the immigrant underclass in London. Audrey Tautou plays the Turkish immigrant
Senay opposite Chiwetel Ejiofor's Nigerian Okwe.
The Lobster (2015) -- "7/10"
This movie had an interesting concept and a good follow-through, but it was a
bit long and would have benefitted from tighter editing. Colin Farrell,
Rachel Weisz and Léa Seydoux were quite good. This is the story of a near
future where people are required to pair off. If they cannot find a
compatible mate in 45 days, they are turned into an animal and released
into
the wild. Couples are returned to the city, where their marital bliss is
carefully controlled by frequent police stops. Farrell fails to pair off,
but
runs away before transformation, retreating to a group of rebels living in
the woods. This is where he meets Weisz and falls in love. However, the
human
denizens of the forest are not allowed to love. This leads to punishment.
Weisz is blinded, but Farrell avenges her by leaving their leader
(Seydoux)
to the wolves. They flee back to civilization, where they end up in a
diner
-- Weisz seated at a booth, unsure of where to "look", Farrell in the
bathroom, working up the courage to stab his own eyes out with a steak
knife.
It's unclear what will happen next.
Iron Fist (2017) -- "7/10"
I'd heard that this Marvel-comics--based series on Netflix was a far cry from
the three others preceded it -- Jessica Jones, Daredevil and Luke Cage.
I've
watched them all and was pleased to see how they intertwined and built on
each other. It's not always fantastic television but, all in all, it's
pretty
good. Iron Fist builds on this, with some pretty good characters --
although
I'll admit that the main character Danny Rand as Iron Fist is the weakest
of
them. For a guy who spent 15 years training night and day with monks in a
remote part of Tibet to achieve their highest honor,
he sure doesn't have a good grip on his emotions. On the other hand, he's
away from the only thing he can call home, back in his childhood home of
New
York City, so its not surprising that he regresses. It's a bit
embarrassing
when he does -- everyone else seems to keep it together better and it
makes
him a bit more easily manipulated.
Madame Gau features strongly, as does Claire the nurse. Carrie-Ann Moss as
Hogarth is also a breath of fresh air. Danny's friend Davos says to Claire
"That's how we're trained. We don't let emotions cloud our actions. [...]
A
weapon doesn't know feelings." That's nice and all, but we'd just spent 10
shows watching Danny do the exact opposite of that. He's very
simplistically
portrayed -- especially in the final few shows.
The supporting cast is entertaining, though. The Meachums are pretty good,
as
is Colleen Wing. I really like Ward. Madame Gau is really good, but Bakudo
is
a smug Deus ex Machina. The choreography is not nearly as good as in
Crouching Tiger. Some of it's good, but most of the rest is highly
telegraphic and clumsy. Finn Jones as Iron Fist is pretty stiff, even
though
he's supposed to be the best evar.
In the end, it's a battle between two cults for the hearts and minds of a
couple of good people.
The Nice Guys (2016) -- "7/10"
Russell Crowe plays muscle-for-hire in 1970s Los Angeles. Ryan Gosling is a
private investigator who seems a bit bumbling but who has a good
reputation.
They become embroiled in a murder mystery involving Misty Mountains, who
crashes her car spectacularly in the Hollywood Hills.
Amy Schumer: The Leather Special (2017) -- "4/10"
There were some amusing bits, but it wasn't enough to fill the whole hour and
ten minutes. The first half an hour was hard going, with Schumer going
through a thin gruel of poop and pussy jokes that were OK but not
particularly well-crafted or -delivered. There were a few lines that made me
laugh out loud, but her skit show is world better than her standup. She went
through a painful and frankly painfully ignorant about gun control that went
on for what felt like way too long. I'm not sure who her audience is: you
have to want to hear her talk about her vagina non-stop for twenty minutes,
with no real outstanding jokes there. Then there's a long bit about diarrhea,
also with only one good line. Then there's a diatribe about guns that lashes
out at everyone who owns one as a knuckle-dragging utter moron who approves
of random murder. Then there's a long section about blow jobs and how bad she
is at them, how she's not good at exercise and likes to eat. And so on. The
crowd was shown laughing very hard, so either that was faked or they really
enjoyed it. Then there's a long section on dating and what it's like to sleep
with Amy. A couple of good lines there, but I don't know to whom I could
recommend this.
Wild: Michael Mittermeyer Live (2016) -- "6/10"
This special was pretty standard fare for Mittermeyer. He had a few good
bits, but he's basically just giving his fans what they want. Most of his
bits were pretty good -- even if the material wasn't always original, he
presents really well. He's been doing this a long time and knows how to
squeeze as much as possible even from jokes you've kind of heard before.
Recommended for fans, but anyone new to Mittermeyer should probably see one
of his older specials first. Saw it in German.
Vir Das: Abroad Understanding (2017) -- "8/10"
I gave him an extra point for being much better than I expected and for
having a full set of non-standard, new-to-me material. He's an Indian
comedian (from Mumbai, if I recall correctly). I'd never heard of him before,
but he's apparently quite a big thing in India. His special was divided
equally between playing a decent-sized club in the U.S. to playing a sold-out
sports arena near his home town in India. Recommended.
Fargo: Season 3 (2017) -- "9/10"
The first three episodes were almost the loveliest season yet. The first two
seasons were very lovingly directed but this one trumps them both. This is
definitely a show where you will be rewarded for watching carefully.
Sonic Highways (2014) -- "8/10"
This single-season series follows the Foo Fighters through several of the
cities they've toured and lived in over the twenty years of their career.
Lots of nice stories, nice people and great music. Having fun with it so far,
but haven't finished watching the whole season.
Doctor Strange (2016) -- "7/10"
This Marvel Universe movie starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor,
Mads Mikkelsen, Rachel McAdams and Tilda Swinton was better than I expected
it to be. It's about an arrogant but brilliant surgeon who loses the loss of
his hands and goes on a mission to Tibet to find a fabled wizard who can heal
him. He ends up healing himself by becoming super-freaking-mystical and
mastering powers that allow him to manipulate dimensional energy. There's of
course an evil, evil enemy bent on the destruction of life as we know it. You
get the drill. Entertaining.
The Sopranos: Season 1--6 (1999) -- "9/10"
This show is every bit as brilliant as people say it is. There's a good
overall story arc, but the shows are very much character-driven. The
writing
and dialogue is really great. We're near the end of season three and the
quality is still very high. Looking forward to the next three seasons.
"Carmella: You got a driver's license, not a license to go carousing around
on a school night."
Tony: A.J. says he's got no purpose.
Melfi: What did you say?
Tony: I told him it's cost me about $150,000 to raise him so far and if
he's
got no purpose, I want a refund.
"Melfi: You're both very angry.
Tony: Oh, you must have been at the top of your fuckin' class."
"Sil: You could have as many kids as the Kennedys, you're married to a twat,
what does it matter?"
"Melfi: What do you think she sees in you?
Tony: I dunno. Maybe with all of the faggots and crybabies runnin' around.
Whatever I am, at least it's not that."
Lucas Bros: On Drugs (2017) -- "7/10"
The Lucas Bros are twin-brother comedians who perform together, finishing
each other's sentences. The specialize in black-commentary comedy, callbacks
and meta-comedy. I liked their delivery and a lot of their material was
polished and funny. Decent.
Get Hard (2015) -- "7/10"
Better than expected, actually. This is Ferrell's second movie
lampooning/satirizing the rich (the other was The Other Guys, which came out
soon after the last global financial crash). Kevin Hart kind of always plays
himself, but it's a good character. Alison Brie (of Community fame) was
refreshingly good and Will Ferrell played a much better person than he
usually does. Recommended.
Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011) -- "8/10"
Changed my opinion on this one. Gave it an extra point. I don't know what I
was thinking when I wrote the "last time"
that "she’s
probably officially cast as “eye-candy” although for me she doesn’t
even fill that role particularly well"
Predators (2010) -- "6/10"
Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Laurence Fishburne, Danny Trejo, Mahershala Ali,
Alice Braga and several other warriors are part of a group selected by the
predators to be beamed in to a death-duel planet. It's a pretty thin plot
device to get a bunch of militaristic characters into an infighting pile of
conflicting personalities. The plot followed the standard predator plot: kill
or be killed; the predators eliminate a bunch of the humans, then the humans
eliminate some predators, then there's a showdown. Not recommended.
Tracy Morgan: Stayin' Alive (2017) -- "6/10"
This is Morgan's first appearance since his near-fatal car crash with a UPS
truck. Some of his material is based on these experiences, some of his
material is unnecessarily filthy. By that I mean that it's not particularly
clever (or funny) but it's shocking. You can try to convince yourself that
he's trying to ironically point out the meta-comedy he's mining by offending
those who take themselves too seriously, but it's tough to figure out if he's
actually being clever or he's just being a filthy jerk. Not recommended.
Seventh Son (2014) -- "5/10"
Great effects, great cast (Djimoun Honsou, Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore,
Alicia Vikander), awful execution and story. It's just a mystery how this
movie was made. I kept watching for the cast, but it never really got better.
Not recommended.
Norm Macdonald: Hitler's Dog, Gossip & Trickery (2017) -- "8/10"
I was pleasantly surprised to discover how clever (and clean) Norm
MacDonald's standup is. It made me check out his book, which was even better.
The standup was good and he knows how to craft a joke. His delivery is pretty
good, but takes a little getting used to. Check out his book for an
even-better experience. Both are recommended.
The Day After Tomorrow (2004) -- "6/10"
This was a second (or possibly third) viewing of the climate-change disaster
movie starring Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sela Ward and Ian Holm (Bilbo).
The science is ludicrous and the plot is severely strained in several places.
It's entertaining enough, but not really that great.
Alien: Covenant (2017) -- "6/10"
This is the latest installment in the Alien series of films, with Ridley
Scott once again at the helm. His vision is interesting and his direction
is,
as always, lovely, but the plot was just odd.
There were so many incongruities and deus ex machinas that involved
everyone
being spectacularly careless and stupid to drive the plot forward (just
like
the previous installment, Prometheus).
That said, I really liked Michael Fassbender as David and Walter, two
androids. The scenes with just the two of them were the best (Fassbender
playing against himself).
The story was reaching for something interesting but couldn't decide what
to
do -- and ended up muddling in the standard horror/alien-creature
direction
that was decidedly less interesting than the more portentous possibilities
hinted at in some of the stilted dialogue.
Perhaps another viewing would improve things, but it might also just
highlight the more glaring plot holes and technological anachronisms.
Sarah Silverman: A Speck of Dust (2017) -- "8/10"
I gave her an extra star for being much funnier and cleverer than I expected
her to be. I expected more shock-comedy material, but it was pretty well
thought-out and well-delivered. Recommended.
F is for Family s02 (2017) -- "9/10"
Season two is even better than season one. A good mix of very funny jokes,
running themes, period references, a bit of pathos and excellent
characters.
There is a lot of polish in the scripts, with dialogue pared down to
essentials. The amount of work that went into this show is obvious. Highly
recommended. Very funny.
"Dragon on your chest. Dragon on your chest. Dragon on your chest. Breathing
fire!"
Hasan Minhaj: Homecoming King (2017) -- "9/10"
After seeing his excellent set at the 2017 White House Correspondents'
Dinner, we checked out this special. It's an extremely strong first special,
mining his multicultural heritage for a lot of very funny material and
providing a story arc across the entire set. Highly recommended.
Archer S08 (2017) -- "7/10"
This is a decent entry in the pantheon of Archer seasons but not the best.
It's set in the 1930s, with the cast playing various crooks, cops and
nightclub owners or performers. I liked it but there are better seasons.
Rory Scovel Tries Stand-Up for the First Time (2017) -- "8/10"
I had no idea who this guy was, but he was a lot funnier than I expected
(this seems to be a trend). His delivery reminded me a mixture of Louis C.K.
and Bill Murray. His material is pretty good and pretty original.
Recommended.
Rick and Morty S01--02 -- "9/10"
I avoided this show for a while because I thought it was just hype: but it's
the real deal. Grandpa Rick Sanchez is a fantastic character, well-written
and relentless. He's a genius. He never backs off and he never loses.
There
is no comeuppance for him. Morty is also a great character, growing with
each
episode into a more and more interesting and well-developed guy. The rest
of
the family is also good, but you really watch for Rick. Some choice quotes
from Rick below.
"It's like the N-word and the C-word had a baby and it was raised by all of
the bad words for Jew."
"There is no god, Summer; gotta rip that band-aid off now you'll thank me
later."
"I'll tell you how I feel about school, Jerry: it's a waste of time. Bunch of
people runnin' around bumpin' into each other, got a guy up front says, '2
+
2,' and the people in the back say, '4.' Then the bell rings and they give
you a carton of milk and a piece of paper that says you can go take a dump
or
somethin'. I mean, it's not a place for smart people, Jerry. I know that's
not a popular opinion, but that's my two cents on the issue."
"Like nothing shady ever happened in a fully furnished office? You ever hear
about Wall Street Morty? You know what those guys do in their fancy board
rooms? They take their balls and dip 'em in cocaine and wipe 'em all over
each other. You know Grandpa goes around and he does his business in
public
because grandpa isn't shady."
"Listen, Morty, I hate to break it to you, but what people call "love" is
just a chemical reaction that compels animals to breed. It hits hard,
Morty,
then it slowly fades, leaving you stranded in a failing marriage. I did
it.
Your parents are gonna do it. Break the cycle, Morty. Rise above. Focus on
science."
"Now listen, I'm not the nicest guy in the universe. Because I'm the
smartest. And being nice is something stupid people do to hedge their
bets."
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=33722017-03-26T22:13:54+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of almost 1200
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
The Two Faces of January (2014) -- "8/10"
This is a slow-burning thriller set in 1962 about an American couple --
Chester (Viggo Mortensen) and Colette (Kirsten Dunst) -- on vacation who
meet
an American tour guide Rydal (Oscar Isaac), who is living and working in
Greece. They engage his services and they get to know one another. The
husband Chester is suspicious and slightly jealous of Rydal. Rydal seems
to
be open and only somewhat crooked (he tends to add to prices in order to
enlarge his cut). The story is based on the book of the same name by
Patricia
Highsmith, who also wrote The Talented Mr. Ripley.
After their week together in Greece, Rydal bids them adieu, only to soon
after their parting discover Colette's bracelet in the taxi. He takes it
back
only to find Chester dragging a body down the hotel hallway. Chester
assures
him that the man is a drunk who was trying to con him and that he'd
knocked
him out. Rydal believes him initially, but he is soon embroiled in their
attempt to get away from further pursuers -- Chester has swindled people
out
of money and is on the run with Colette.
They continue to Crete by boat and bus, heading for Iraklion, waiting for
replacement passports for Chester and Colette, when tragedy strikes. They
end
up in Istanbul, on the run from police. Intrigue abounds. I would have
given
a seven for the script, but added a star for the acting, for the mood and
the
setting.
Chris Rock: Kill the Messenger - London, New York, Johannesburg (2008) -- "9/10"
Rock had last done a show during the Bush years, in 2004. This show was
filmed in three cities just at the end of the election in 2008, before the
election of Barack Obama. Rock talks about Obama, McCain and the election,
as
well as some foreign-policy issues, but quickly settles into his main
material, dealing with issues of race and gender. His best work is when he
finds exactly the things that one side can obviously do but the other side
obviously cannot -- even though it's the same thing.
His physical comedy (he dances) is apropos, his grimaces and
growling/shouting voice enhance his jokes. He comports himself like a
preacher, bringing back punchlines or aphorisms to underscore his
examples.
(E.g. his emphatic bits that end in "that's right. I said it!" or "It's
not
the words, it's the context in which they are spoken.")
He's a hell of a bombastic guy, just pure power on stage. He's not always
right -- but he's never all wrong. Even with his discussions of the
differences between men and women: even when you're thinking that this
doesn't apply to you, it's still funny because what he says definitely has
a
kernel of truth for many others. I know that this is over-explaining it,
but
I'm trying to explain why his show holds together better than those of
others
I've seen.
His best joke, I thought, was the one about his house in Alpine, New
Jersey,
a very rich neighborhood where he has a house worth millions ("don't hate
the
player; hate the game") but almost all of his neighbors are white. He is
one
of four black people in the neighborhood. The others are Jay-Z, Mary J.
Blige
and Eddie Murphy. They are all stellar talents at the top of their game.
What
does Rock's white neighbor do? He's a dentist.
This is a raucous, bawdy show with no holds barred. Brace yourself if you
don't like filthy comedy. He's hilarious, politically nuanced and
on-point,
but he doesn't mince his words nor does he care at all whether you approve
of
what he says or how he says it. Do not watch this with un-hip relatives
looking to prove that they're not racist. I'm looking forward immensely to
the new show, Total Blackout.
Law Abiding Citizen (2009) -- "7/10"
Jamie Fox plays Nick Rice, an assistant DA who has a laser-like focus on his
conviction record. Gerard Butler is Clyde Shelton, a man to whom we're
introduced with a home invasion in which his wife and daughter are
brutally
tortured and killed right in front of him. I found him more sympathetic in
this role than either Mel Gibson or Liam Neeson have been in very-similar
roles.
There are two perpetrators, but one (Ames) watches the event spiral out of
control while the other (Darby) spins them that way. The case goes to
trial
but, because of a weak evidence, Rice plays it safe and accepts Darby's
plea
down to five years while Ames gets the death penalty. Shelton is incensed.
Fast forward to ten years later and Rice is even more successful, on his
way
to Ames's execution. It goes horribly wrong and Ames suffers terribly.
There
are signs that the poisons were sabotaged. Darby is kidnapped and tortured
horribly. We are quickly shown that Shelton has reappeared for what he
claims
is justice, not vengeance. He allows himself to be arrested and convicted
and
the chess game begins between him and Rice. It turns out that Shelton is a
wet-ops brain guy sans pareil. He's playing a very long game. Rice and the
rest of Philadelphia are hopelessly outmatched.
Until they're not. It was going along so nicely until the last 10 minutes.
Spoiler alert. Clyde (Gerard Butler) is otherwise so clever and prepared.
He
has cameras installed in the main meeting room, but he has no cameras on
the
room in which he placed the bomb? And he placed it so obviously in an
attaché case? And there's no motion sensor in the bag? My phone has a
motion
sensor. So they moved the bomb back to his cell and let him blow up half
the
prison? Why? Why not just disarm the damned thing or put it a swamp? Why
not
just block his damned cell-phone signal?
The last minute, showing Rice with his wife, watching a cello recital of
his
daughter's was utter pap. This feels like the ending that they tacked on
because the stupid test audience was horrified when Shelton won. Minus one
star for the bad ending.
Men in Black (1997) -- "8/10"
Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones star as J and K, respectively, agents of the
M.I.B. Rip Torn is Zed, the director of the organization. Vincent D'Onofrio
plays a man being driven by an alien bug living in his body, Linda Fiorentino
is a morgue director who's wise to the alien presence on the planet. Tony
Shaloub is a pawn-shop owner who's also an alien. The effects and story hold
up remarkably well for a 20-year--old film about aliens on planet Earth.
Still recommended.
Katherine Ryan: In Trouble (2017) -- "8/10"
I'd never heard of Katherine before but was very glad I tuned in. She
delivered a very funny and natural set, with a lot of continuity and sharp
observation. She was born in a poor Canadian town on the southern border and
has been living in England for a long time. She's the single mother of a
6-year--old daughter. A lot of her jokes and stories are observational about
Canada and England with a bit about the U.S. as well. She's not shy, but not
as over-the-top rude as Chris Rock. Would watch again. Recommended.
Captain America: Civil War (2016) -- "7/10"
This movie was better than I expected it to be. The action was tamer than in
the other movies, which says more about how ludicrously over-the-top the
action was before.
I started my "review of the comic books"
with "In which
Tony
Stark proves once again that there is nothing so self-righteous and
self-assured as a dry drunk." This is also the case in the movie.
The plot was decent, the movie a bit long, Tony Stark so, so, so, so
stupid.
He was easily manipulated from start to finish and it wasn't obvious why.
There's always his ego to consider, his guilt at feeling like he was
responsible for every death, but it was desperately simplistic. They
barely
tried to show why he would act the way he does.
The basic premise at the center is a good one: that the Avengers shouldn't
be
allowed to act with impunity just because they have powers. That they
aren't
elected, that there is no democratic control over them and their power.
That's a good point. We don't like vigilantism anywhere else; why with the
super-powerful?
But that Stark would immediately accept the "U.N" as the oversight is
laughable, considering his historical rebelliousness in literally every
other
movie. It wasn't the U.N. but the U.S. government, which no-one who can
read
above a first-grade level would trust with oversight of superheroes. And
yet
Stark was on board immediately, guilted into it by meeting the mother of a
young man who died in an Avengers battle, who blamed Stark personally.
And he is so one-dimensional that this is all it takes to convince him.
No-one even raises the question as to who should really be to blame for
the
carnage unleashed by a Norse God leading a pack of hyper-dimensional
dragon-worms on a rampage through New York City. Apparently they are all
immediately in agreement that the blame lies with the selfless heroes who
stopped him. The blame lies wholly on them since they let a single person
die. Criminals, the lot of them.
This is typical of American philosophy, though, I guess. Just
disappointing.
The U.S. Secretary of State -- played by William Hurt, slumming it --
played
one video after another, blaming the people who stopped the destruction
for
having caused it. The incident that broke the camel's back was the
accidental
bombing of a part of a floor of a single building in Lagos. The videos
that
preceded it are of Loki's flattening of New York and Ultron's lifting of a
most of a country from the surface of the Earth. And then the bombing of
part
of a building was the thing the world could no longer stand. Dumb. Sad.
There is a point to be made here, but the movie doesn't make it. Vision
comes
at it a bit sideways by pointing out that maybe the prevalence of heroes
invites combat with them, but the point is quickly dropped for purely
emotional reasons.
Chris Evans as Captain America is very good -- coming from a time in
America
when the Dulles brothers were running the show, he's more suspicious. The
plot is bigger than even this 2.5-hour film. The puppetmaster is Daniel
Brühl as Zemo, an ex-hydra soldier who lost his family in the Ultron
attack
on Zakovia. He does a great job, with perhaps the best character-building,
constantly calling the last phone message he had from his wife.
However, his grand plan is utterly transparent. He literally tells it to
them
and it works on Stark anyway. He shows Stark, Bucky (Winter Soldier) and
Cap
a video of the Winter Soldier killing Tony's parents. Stark believes it
100%.
This is about an hour after he finds out that he ruined the Avengers
because
he believed that the first video released by Zemo blaming Bucky for an
attack
was real. Which it wasn't. So Stark is dumber than dumb, even though he's
a
genius? This is hard to follow, much less swallow. Even given that the
video
is real, Zemo had killed the super-soldiers that they all thought were the
weapons that he was after -- then told them that his plan was to have them
fight to the death and Stark is OK with that. Positively dives into it
without thinking.
And then there's the matter that Stark's father built all of America's
weapons for ... 50 years? Sowing death and destruction while making
billions,
if not trillions. Then he was killed with his wife because he was driving
somewhere to deliver the super-soldier serum that was an uncontrollable
weapon. Hardly an innocent man, but Stark sees only vengeance --
ironically
enough -- because someone killed his Mommy (who also lived a life of
luxury
as the wife of the world's leading weapons merchant). In fact, I missed
the
Hulk, but I think the director just transplanted the Hulk's intelligence
and
personality into Tony Stark.
So Stark was played perfectly as an asshole by Robert Downey Jr. -- just
like
in the comic. The other actors were all quite good. I have to say I like
the
new Spider-man (again). Renner as Hawkeye was fun.
Fracture (2007) -- "7/10"
Anthony Hopkins continues his run of roles in which he plays a
Hannibal-Lecter--like killer. This time he's a husband who's found out
that
his wife is cheating on him. He gives himself up pretty easily, turning
himself in to the detective with whom his wife was cuckolding him. Hopkins
elects to defend himself (of course) and he selects Will Beecham (Ryan
Gosling) as his prosecutor.
Beecham is a rising star with one foot out of the DA's office and one foot
into a superstar lawyer job at a superstar lawyer firm, working for
Rosamund
Pike, with whom he's also started an affair. He continues to work the case
--
as his last case for the DA -- but Hopkins outfoxes him at every turn. The
murder weapon can't be matched; the confessions are invalid because the
detective who'd been banging his wife and who attacked him at the scene,
to
boot, was in attendance; his wife is hanging on by a thread.
Hopkins pleads for acquittal and is granted it. After the trial, Hopkins
elects to pull the plug on her, finishing the job he started with a bullet
weeks before. Long story short (and spoiler alert), Gosling meets Hopkins
at
his house, just before he leaves on a long trip. There, Hopkins admits
that
he did shoot his wife, but that he cannot be retried for the attempted
murder
because that would be double jeopardy and unconstitutional. Gosling smiles
and thanks him for the confession, then arrests him for the murder of his
wife, carried out when he pulled the plug. The end.
Trevor Noah: Afraid of the Dark (2017) -- "7/10"
It's a pretty good set with a lot of observational humor about New York, a
lot about Scotland, a long bit about Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama. He does
a ton of accents, all of which are pretty good -- recognizable and fun.
Usually the payoff is pretty good, but some of his jokes are long setups.
Then, out of nowhere, we see that while racist comedy is no longer OK, it's
completely acceptable in the US today to make jokes about Russians that you
wouldn't get away with for anyone but persona non grata. It was OK, but the
premise was that the Russian accent is scary, that there is nothing scarier
than Russians, that they just take whatever countries they want. Ignorant.
It's as bad as Bill Burr's extended fat-shaming bit. It was uneven, but had
some fun bits.
Enemy at the Gates (Stalingrad) (2001) -- "7/10"
Vasily Zaitsev (Jude Law) is sent to the front to fight the Nazis at
Stalingrad. He survives the initial slaughter and proves his mettle by
sniping five Germans. He is promoted to the sniper corps and starts taking
out dozens of Germans. He has a significant affect and the Germans import
their own sniper: Major König (Ed Harris). Joseph Fiennes is Vasily's
friend, a political officer. Bob Hoskins is Nikita Kruschev. Rachel Weisz
is
the clever love interest, Tania Chernova. Ron Perlman plays another
soldier,
Koulikov.
The duel between the two snipers is grueling and deliberate. The accents
are
a bit offputting. The Germans speak German or English with German accents.
The Russians all speak with English accents.
Snowden (2016) -- "9/10"
Oliver Stone delivers another important and eminently watchable historical
documentary. There was some embellishment but it was, in its substance,
accurate. The recent and further revelations by Wikileaks about the CIA
just
bring the point home that Edward Snowden's work isn't done.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Snowden, Melissa Leo is Laura Poitras, Zachary
Quinto is Glenn Greenwald, Nicholas Cage plays Hank Forrester (based in
large
part on "William Binney"
)
and Tom Wilkinson plays Ewen MacAskill, an editor from The Guardian.
Snowden starts out as an Army Recruit (Special Forces) but washes out with
two broken legs. He moves to the CIA, where he excels. He moves on to the
NSA, again quitting because of moral/ethical issues. He ends up as a
contractor for the NSA because he doesn't know what else to do with
himself.
He catches wind that a giant eavesdropping program that he wrote is being
used without compunction on everyone and without warrants, to boot.
He decides to reveal what he knows to the world: he sneaks out the data
and
delivers it to Poitras, Greenwald and The Guardian. This is the story the
world should know. It's true and it happened pretty much this way (with
some
embellishment). Highly recommended.
Garfunkel and Oates: Trying to be Special (2017) -- "8/10"
The two chanteuse/comediennes put together a pretty good show, filled with
funny and NSFW songs. Some of the material was collected from other shows,
but it was a greatest hits and well-written. Recommended.
American Crime Story: The People vs. O.J. Simpson (2017) -- "7/10"
This a ten-show retelling of the O.J. Simpson story that stars Cuba Gooding
Jr. as O.J., John Travolta as Robert Shapiro, Sarah Paulson as Marcia Clark,
David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian, Nathan Lane as F. Lee Bailey and so on.
Courtney B. Vance was very good as Christopher Darden. There are no heroes in
this story: the cops messed up, LA is a racist shithole, filled with terrible
cops and terrible people. The rich only care about their own. O.J. probably
got away with murder, but the trial was decided correctly, based on the
evidence available. It was interesting enough, but nothing to shout about.
Arrival (2016) -- "6/10"
I expected more out of this supposedly smart science-fiction movie. The movie
tried too hard to please everyone, including the Academy, I think. It felt
like it had gone through some dumbing-down versions. Were people really so
thrown by the name of the aliens -- heptapods -- that they had to explain
the
etymology on-screen?
I thought the two scientists were far too weak, too cowed by the military,
playing the typical roles of geeks only too eager to please their supposed
superiors. It was very believable in that sense, but I didn't enjoy that
story. Watching administration flunkies and wonks as well as Forest
Whitaker
as the chief of the whole affair browbeat the scientists into fitting
their
theories into their worldview, while believable, wasn't much fun. I was
(semi-)silently screaming at them to defend themselves, to tell the
military
that can't be in charge because they don't know anything.
I would ordinarily like this kind of slow movie, but it wasn't thoughtful
enough. Adams throws in a speech about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis -- which
posits that a mind can be affected by the language used by a person. There
are two versions: a strong one where it is posited that the mind is
constrained by language, that the thoughts a mind is capable of are
limited
to those that can be expressed in the language(s) known to a person. The
weak
version posits that language influences but does not constrain or limit.
Adams -- the leading linguistics expert on the planet -- describes this as
the capability of a language to change how a mind works or can change its
basic structure and capabilities -- a super-powered version of the weak
version. This doesn't really have anything to do with linguistic
relativity
and sounds much stronger than even the strong version defined above. As
she
learns the alien language, she discovers that the language that the aliens
speak has a concept of time that does not include a single present, that
the
aliens experience what we see as the arrow of time as a fourth spatial
dimension that can be traveled mentally.
It's weird and interesting, but I thought they crammed it all in to the
last
ten minutes,
focusing instead of prosaic issues of military striving and the efforts
of
humans -- those in power -- to compartmentalize and constrain the wonder
of
alien ships that hover off the ground and can change localized gravity.
Humans are in no way on a level playing field with these beings and no-one
in
this movie even acknowledged the overarching wonder of it. Humanity was
not
humbled. Oh, and the U.S. reacted with military organization but not
violence
whereas the Chinese and Russians (of course) reacted unreasonably and
uncooperatively. A tale America tells to itself about its own essential
goodness and reasonableness.
There's better sci-fi out there. Not recommended.
Army of Darkness (1992) -- "6/10"
I have fond memories of this movie -- I killed time on a rainy afternoon on
Florida spring break one year and was pleasantly surprised at how funny the
movie was -- but it hasn't stood the test of time as well as it could have.
There are a lot of stop-motion effects and broad, physical comedy. Bruce
Campbell is very charismatic. He and director Sam Raimi do all they can for
this movie, but I can't recommend it anymore. There are good bits and it
passed the time during a couple of workouts, but it's not a must-watch. I
gave it an extra star for nostalgia.
Twin Peaks (1990) -- "9/10"
This is David Lynch's only directorial work for television. He co-wrote the
convoluted script about a small town near the Canadian border that suffers
through the murder of its prom queen, Laura Palmer. Kyle MacLachlan is
Special Agent Dale Cooper, leading the investigation for the FBI. There is
almost too much detail to include here -- and it's all been excruciatingly
detailed elsewhere.
The writing is superb, the acting is above-par, the music is great, the
sets
are detailed and chock-full of information and nearly everything is just
delightfully off. The story comprises multiple arcs, all intertwined and
intricate.
Miguel Ferrer as Albert Rosenfield has some of the best lines:
"I do not ask you to understand these tests. I'm not a cruel man. I've got a
lot of cutting and pasting to do, gentlemen, so why don't you return to
your
porch rockers and resume whittling."
I'm deep into the second season and the show is really getting intricate
and
going off the rails at the same time. The confluence of prosaic,
real-world
as well as the esoteric and magical and then the madcap and slapstick all
combines to create a helluva ride. Lynch's imprimatur is on every second,
on
every inch of the set, in every line, suffusing every zany character and
conversation.
The original story -- solving the murder of Laura Palmer -- culminates in
episode 10 of season 2. The evil at the heart of the crime is supernatural
--
and that beast is still on the prowl. The second season starts to go off
the
rails a bit, with a flurry of new characters and concepts introduced after
the evil of Bob is dispatched. There are UFOs, a mysterious partner from
Cooper's past, more vicious Canucks and Nadine woke up from her coma with
the
mind of a fifteen-year--old. The list goes on and it's a bit difficult to
keep track as the second season presses on.
It's really hard to imagine this show having aired in its entirety on ABC
in
the early 90s.
All in all, it holds up remarkably well. I'm looking forward to the
revival
show -- it brings back almost all of the original cast as well as the
writers
and director.
Black Mirror (1990) -- "8/10"
This is a thoroughly enjoyable, modern-day Twilight Zone. The first season
was decent, starting off with the weakest episode (the pig-fornication
performance art) and moving on to the strongest (the recorder in
everyone's
head). The second season has slightly stronger production values with
better
writing, again moving from weakest to strongest over the season.
The themes are similar, dealing with technology and its potential for
negatively disrupting age-old processes. Some of these processes are
broken,
but the technological fix isn't always better. Generally, each show
focuses
on a single technological advancement, with others subtly available
throughout an otherwise recognizable world. My favorite so far has been
"White Christmas" , starring Oona
Chaplin and Jon Hamm, about the subjectivity of time, cloning and
punishment.
Logan (2017) -- "10/10"
Logan is, from start to finish, a fantastic movie. It is enriched by knowing
more of the back-story. It is the finale the series deserves, the
denouement
Wolverine has earned. The story is minimalist, in the best tradition of
science fiction and cinematic storytelling, filling in only little
details,
letting incidental comments tell whole swaths of history.
On the surface, it’s at least partially an action movie. That is what
many
will see, to the exclusion of the film that I saw. Those seeking only
standard superhero fare will likely be bored. Those shocked by raw
violence
will turn away as well.
But the movie has so much more, even on the surface. It’s a real movie,
a
real story, with pathos strung on the skeleton of a science-fictional
world,
a world with mutants and a world that had heroes, but discarded them.
It’s
about the futility of existence, about the bastards winning, grinding
down,
with inexorable, stubborn mindlessness, all that is good—all that which
gives hope and purpose, a reason for going on. It is the story of a man
longer in years than any since Biblical times, seeing that he came from
nothing and will end in nothing. He is heroic, but unnoticed, of no
consequence. He keeps fighting the windmills, the whirlwind. Why? Because
it’s there. Life is pain, stoically borne.
Please see my "full-length review"
for more.
Mike Birbiglia: Thank God for Jokes (2017) -- "6/10"
This was a decent special but nothing to write home about. He has a nice
delivery but his material is largely uncontroversial. He's more of a nice
storyteller and less of a big-joke guy. He was a bit too self-referential and
ended with a plea to not take his relatively inoffensive jokes the wrong way,
which felt a bit weak, as he was barely offensive at all. Well-written but
not too thought-provoking or hilarious.
Neal Brennan: 3 Mics (2017) -- "8/10"
Neal has quite a storied history: he was Dave Chapelle's writing partner on
the original show. He wrote the cult classic Half Baked. His "3 mics" are for
one-liners, personal stories and standup material. He's better than Birbiglia
and has funnier, more biting material. His bit about testosterone is
well-done. Recommended.
The Edge of Seventeen (2016) -- "7/10"
This is a decent coming-of-age movie that focuses on a family of four that
loses its father when the kids are in their early teens. The son Darian
(Blake Jenner) is an all-rounder who steps up and keeps the family on an
even
keel, especially when the mother (Kyra Sedgwick) has talked herself out
onto
yet another ledge inspired by a nervous depression.
The movie's focus is actually on the slightly younger sister Nadine
(Hailee
Steinfeld) who is a bundle of problems and insecurities, lashing out at
anyone and everyone, including but not limited to her brother, her mother
and
her best friend (Haley Lu Richardson) -- who starts dating Darian early in
the film. The characters were unexpectedly well-rounded with Woody
Harrelson
adding spice as history teacher Max.
A decent film about an angsty millennial who makes a lot of trouble for
everyone (including her main crush who she misleads horribly, a misdeed
for
which she utterly fails to apologize, despite him having handled it with
just
about the most aplomb that you could expect). The other main character is
an
excellent Hayden Szeto as Erwin, the persistent and all-around excellent
guy
who ends up "winning" Nadine in the end.
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, for example -- of action
movies with pathos, with plots of consequence. It's a movie that thinks only of
the current movie, not planning for a sequel. It is a tragedy, there is little
hope to be had. It tells of a world gone wrong, a world beyond saving, a world
enjoyable only for the rapacious killers and conquerors who ruined it for
everyone else.
Logan exits the world with no small amount of relief, having fought for a light,
a principle that was constantly extinguished by the cruel, the jealous, the
stupid, the uncomprehending, the greedy. At the end, he is offered a sliver of
redemption, knowing that at least he helped Laura and her friends to an at-least
temporary harbor.
Charles was also put of his misery, though he still had joy in his life.
Characteristically, that joy was mostly due to onset Alzheimer's that shielded
his prodigious mind from its own memories. This too was eminently sad, that
happiness in that world could only be found in the bliss of ignorance. At the
very end, he is lucid again, remembering a vaguely hinted-at mindquake that
killed many of his students in Westchester. Alzheimer's was merciful in
shielding him from that memory. When it returns, he almost welcomes eternity.
There is no light for anyone else, though there are glimpses of beauty. The
simplicity and beauty of the horses inadvertently let loose on the highway, when
Logan, Chuck and Laura met the farm family who would invite them in. The stark
contrast to the "auto-trucks" that career seemingly heedlessly and autonomously
along the highways, blaring their automated horns without slowing as they rush
immensely past. The wonderful dinner with the family, a rare moment of lucidity
for Charles, a rare square meal for Laura. An island of comfort in the eye of
the ravenous, lashing storm of the world.
Reality intrudes this idyll in stages. First, henchmen of the neighboring
mega-agri-corporations turning off their water, drawing the father and Logan
away from the home. We seem them walk into a darkened cornfield. In the
distance are the harsh, roving lamps of monstrous, looming, shadowy machines,
sleeplessly working their fields of gene-manipulated crops.
Then mercenaries find them, reluctantly aided by the tortured Caliban, played
perfectly by Stephen Merchant. Caliban exits the world by his own hand, taking
out several of his captors with two grenades at close quarters. We later see his
flayed body being harvested for genetic material, his cruel captors uncaring for
the pathos of his existence, uncaring for the loss of his light, uncaring,
uncaring, uncaring, seeing only their own greed, their own shallow purpose. They
only care that "he was a good tracker."
We are introduced here to a clone of Wolverine, a rapacious, mute killer barely
controlled by the mercenaries. How much hope can you have now? They can create
these killing machines at will. Logan is on his last legs, coughing and
shambling. He manages to stave off the initial attack -- with help from the
mortally wounded father (Eriq LaSalle) of the farm family.
The father turns from the Wolverine clone to shoot Logan as well. Logan looks at
him as if urging him to do it, to put him out of his misery, end the guilt of
the three newly dead people whom he'd befriended and who had also now died
because of their association with him.
The man pointing the gun was dead already, and his round could never have killed
Logan anyway, but the chamber is empty, clicking loudly before he falls to the
ground, his body finally acknowledging his own death. The world didn't even see
fit to give either of them the satisfaction. Logan would have welcomed that
pain, that punishment. Logan doesn't have the psychic energy to be disappointed,
except perhaps as a flicker across his face as he adds another death to a burden
of guilt that stretches back centuries.
More friends claimed by the insatiable maw of this hellish world.
The tsunami wave of heartless and callous reality crashes over their idyll,
shattering and flattening another bloom as so many before. As a weary, battered
Logan knew that it would.
He prevails once again, at great cost. Charles cannot be saved. But we knew that
already. He was a husk at the beginning of the movie, doomed. Logan buries him
in a glade by a pond, of aching beauty. There is water, the water Logan had
promised him with their dream of buy a "Sunseeker" boat, to ply the ocean away
from the humans Xavier could harm with his failing powers. Even in this dream,
there was the cruel irony that Caliban -- extremely averse to sunlight -- would
not have been able to journey with them.
Logan and Laura continue on their way, to the chimeric mirage of Eden, another
bauble dangled by an inexhaustibly cruel world. Logan doesn't believe in it, his
capacity for belief buried beneath jaded cynicism, beneath endless strata of
dashed hopes. But Laura does, not having had her light beaten out of her by even
the miserable existence she'd been offered so far. She is, after all, still a
child, despite her wisdom and stoicism. She also turns out to be right.
Their relationship is more as compatriots, not father and daughter. In this, the
movie also does not waver, does not veer into sentiment unworthy of either of
these noble characters. Logan drives until he falls unconscious; Laura slides
one of his legs out of the way and uses the other as a booster seat to continue
on.
With the help of a mutant booster -- a superpower adrenalin shot -- Logan
manages a last-ditch effort to save a group of mutant kids, one last time rising
up to be the Wolverine we remember. He ferries them through deep forests -- his
native lands, from the comic books -- to the Canadian border, where they would
be safe from the marauding U.S. mercenaries and border patrols. He sacrifices
his failing body and finally succumbs to wounds too grievous for his failing
power to heal. He seems relieved that, at long last, he can rest.
In the end, they all accomplished nothing. Laura survives with her group of
friends, but their future is very uncertain. They banged their wills against the
walls of the world and the world didn't care: it didn't want them, not on their
terms. It wanted only to use them, to dictate terms set by its cruel rulers. In
the words of T.S. Eliot, "this is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but
with a whimper." The world won't even notice that they are gone -- it barely
even remembered or knew that they existed -- and can't even acknowledge the loss
of a light that it never treasured, that it couldn't understand. Charles Xavier
-- the world's most powerful telepath -- and Logan -- a man who'd borne so much
-- both died in anonymity, discarded by an uncaring and uncomprehending world.
"Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
Johnny Cash's A Man Comes Around [1] plays over the initial credits. The perfect
song to end a movie that transcended the superhero genre to become a great
movie. [2]
"And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder
One of the four beasts saying,
'Come and see.' and I saw, and behold, a white horse"
"There's a man goin' 'round takin' names
And he decides who to free and who to blame
Everybody won't be treated all the same
There'll be a golden ladder reachin' down
When the man comes around
"[...]
"And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts
And I looked, and behold a pale horse
And his name that sat on him was death, and hell followed with him"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] The Wikipedia entry for this song speaks of "the man" as Jesus Christ, but I
don't believe at all that that's what Cash meant. The man is clearly Death.
Death rides a pale ("white") horse. Death is one of the four horseman of the
Apocalypse. Death is he who comes around at the end. Death is "the man" who
finally came around for Logan. Cash even names him in the last verse. In the
song as well, "hell followed with him", emphasizing the movie's sentiment
that all that will follow this twilight chapter of the X-Men is a world
impoverished of hope, of meaning -- Hell.
[1] Perhaps tellingly, it was the first Marvel movie without a cameo by Stan
Lee, whose only credit is as executive producer.
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of almost 1200
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Ip Man 3 (2015) -- "8/10"
This is the third in a pretty satisfying Kung Fu film series. It continues
the focus on Ip Man's personal life with Kung Fu featuring in a relatively
well-integrated way. Ip Man's son fights the new boy at school, whose Kung
Fu
is arguably better than his. The boy's father, Cheung Tin-chi (Jin Zhang)
shows up and meets Ip Man (Donnie Yen). Ip Man is the (nearly) undisputed
master of Wing Chun in the region.
Tin-chi begs to differ. Tin-chi is a good man, but poor and ambitious. He
fights in illegal boxing for local gangs. He pulls a rick-shaw. He dreams
of
opening a school of his own.
The local gangs make trouble at Ip Man's son's school. Mike Tyson is the
driving force behind this agitation -- he wants to develop property on the
school grounds. Tyson is decent and put to good use, believe it or not. I
can't say whether his Cantonese is ridiculous. His fight with Donnie Yen
is
quite good.
Ip Man and his Wing Chun acolytes defend the school. Tin-chi comes to
help,
but receives no credit -- instead, Ip Man is heralded in the press, even
though he doesn't want to be. Donnie Yen is an ocean of stillness, as
usual.
Ip Man's wife grows ill with cancer. Ip Man focuses on her. Tin-chi rises
to
fame, defeating one master after another, finally calling out Ip Man. Ip
Man
foreits the fight because he has a dancing date with his wife. He never
even
considers showing up. He continues to care for her, until she tells him to
accept the challenge and defend his pride. He does, and wins decisively.
The choreography is wonderful, the cinematography very pretty and stately.
No
shaky cam here. Recommended.
Clueless (1995) -- "6/10"
Alicia Silverstone plays the most popular girl in a high school in Beverly
Hills. She is not without insight, but she is laser-like focused on fashion
and appearance and manipulating her teachers into giving her better grades.
She is not as dumb as she acts. Her friends are. Paul Rudd is her
stepbrother, with whom she eventually becomes romantically involved. There
are typical high-school hijinks along the way. The movie is more
tongue-in-cheek and aware of its irony than you would think. It's not great,
but it was entertaining enough.
Christela Alonzo: Lower Classy (2017) -- "8/10"
She starts a little slow, playing to crowd adulation a bit too much, but
quickly finds her groove. Her material is often smart, with good
presentation. She talks about being a Latina in America, growing up poor, her
fierce mother, buying stuff at Bloomingdales and so on. The final bit was a
bit long in the setup -- though the punchline was good, it took a long, sad
trip to get there, which took a bit of the air out of the room. All in all, a
fun set.
Jason Bourne (2016) -- "4/10"
This movie is an insult to the rest of the series. It was visually confusing,
with a mess of quick takes in fight scenes and car chases, and shaky cam
everywhere else. It's one Deus Ex Machina after another. The Greek police
label their uniforms in English. Athens busses shows locations in the
latin
alphabet, their computers have US keyboards and their Google searches in
German. The hackers in Reykjavik speak German and English and say even
stupider stuff than usual (for Hollywood hackers). Their stupidity is
outdone
only by the God-like techs at the CIA, who also speak utter gobbledygook.
And I don't really expect it from an American movie these days, but why
can't
we have at least a little guilt about the level of intrusiveness? The
movie
just assumes that the CIA has access to everything and makes very little
waves about it. They're all just doing their jobs. This movie is just more
propaganda normalizing the incredibly invasive U.S. surveillance regime.
The CIA has lag-less, HD eyes on the ground everywhere in a rioting
Athens,
locating targets from thousands of miles away within seconds. In London,
the
most-surveilled city in the world, they have no cameras. The CIA is
otherwise
omniscient, all-seeing, in possession of a seamless panopticon that obeys
neither the speed of light nor Shannon's laws.
Jason Bourne is no longer careful at all. Neither he nor his associates
exhibit any basic computer security. They plug foreign USB sticks into
their
machines, while connected to the network. The CIA can connect to any
device
in the world (like a phone) and jump the air gap to a hardened laptop.
Bourne
doesn't even shy from large, open windows. The head of the CIA cyber
division
sends him a "secret" message over the phone line that the CIA was just
using
to talk to Bourne. Bourne trusts her immediately. He takes a device from
her,
not suspecting at that she might be trying to track him. He loses control
for
no clear reason. He doesn't pluck the earpiece from his contact's ear
until
really late. He's just dumb now. It's sad. He walks into traps and gets
out
by luck.
Why doesn't the CIA pin the murder of their director on her? It was a
bullet
from her gun that killed him. They know this.
Bourne is shot, but it doesn't hurt him (not like the other movies).
Neither
does getting shot hurt his opponent, who is superhuman. HIs powers are
exceeded only by the SWAT truck he steals, which does not obey the laws of
physics. It plows through no less than 30 cars without slowing at all. Or
scratching. Or triggering an air bag. Bourne's car also has no air-bag
trigger. Until the car is smashed into a tiny box from he crawls,
unscathed.
His opponent also doesn't feel car crashes.
Bourne finally does something halfway clever in the last two seconds, but
it's far too late for this movie. Will not watch the obvious sequel. Not
recommended.
Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) -- "7/10"
We follow Jesus Christ's life in a rock-opera musical adapted from the stage.
The stories are familiar to anyone who knows a bit about the Bible New
Testament. Some are about Jesus's life -- water into wine, money-changers,
etc. -- but the focus is on his association with Judas, both starting
there
and ending there.
Some of the pieces are pretty catchy. The main, thumping bass and
electric-guitar refrain that opens the film and reprises in Trial Before
Pilate (Including the 39 Lashes) is pretty sweet. King Herod's Song (Try
It
and See) is an irreverent, rocking cabaret tune. The title song Superstar
is
classic 70s kitsch rock that ramps up to a manic pace, again with a strong
bass line. Likewise for the free-jazz piano/bass/drum combo in The
Crucifixion. Mary Magdelene's tunes are mostly pretty lame.
Judas is good. Pilate's not bad, a bit extravagant. The costumes and props
are partially period and partially anachronistic (obviously coming from
the
70s). Pilate's praetorian guard is equipped with lavender tank-tops and
machine guns. Gave it an extra star for the songs and for Judas and his
backup dancers' costumes during his heavenly comeback in the final number.
The Poseidon Adventure (1972) -- "6/10"
This is one of the classic star-packed 70s disaster movies. It stars Gene
Hackman as a shouty priest, Ernest Borgnine as a shouty former police
detective accompanied by a former prostitute (Stella Stevens), Red
Stevens,
Roddy McDowell, Pamela Sue Martin and, of course, Shelly Winters. The
Poseidon is a boat on its farewell cruise, on its way to its new owners in
Greece.
The captain (Leslie Neilson) wants to take on more ballast to compensate
for
the heavy swells, but the new owners forbid it, telling him to make full
steam to make up for already lost time. An undersea 7.2 earthquake
directly
in their path triggers a giant oceanic wave -- that, for reasons unknown,
breaks in the middle of the ocean, just in front of the ship -- that
capsizes
the boat completely, leaving it upside-down and killing most of the
passengers and crew immediately.
The movie focuses on a good-sized group of passengers in the main dining
room
in the upper decks -- now the lower decks -- who fight about whether to
sit
tight and wait for rescue or to climb to the hull and find a way out. A
young
boy who knows everything about the ship because he was a nosy little fuck
for
the whole ride tells them that the hull is the thinnest -- one inch thick
--
near the propellers.
Gene Hackman and Ernest Borgnine shout about this a lot, but eventually
head
in that direction. They climb a Christmas tree to get out of the dining
room,
just before a large part of the group is drowned by inrushing water. They
continue to climb, to fight amongst themselves and to suffer massive
attrition, leaving a group of only six at the end, who bang without rhyme
or
reason on the hull until their rescuers cut a hole in the hull and save
them.
The end.
BoJack Horseman (2014) -- "9/10"
This is a cartoon about an alcoholic man/horse (horse/man?) who lives in
Hollywoo(d) named BoJack Horseman (Will Arnett). His star shone briefly
and
brightly in the 90s when he starred in a sitcom called Horsin' Around --
the
residuals from which he seems to be able to ride indefinitely. He is a sad
husk of a man, looking for meaning in the shallow pool of Los Angeles and
finding, again and again, that he is fundamentally broken -- but also
being
OK with that.
He lives with Todd Chavez (Aaron Paul), a stoner who washed up on his
pathetic shore an unknown amount of time ago. Princess Caroline (Amy
Sedaris)
is his agent, a pink cat with confidence and morality issues of her own.
Diane (Alison Brie) joins the group as a ghost writer hired by BoJack's
publisher, a disconsolate penguin named Pinky (Patton Oswalt). Diane is
human, Vietnamese and also fraught with emotional baggage, though
convinced
she rises above the rest of the flotsam in the show.
Mr. Peanut Butter (Paul F. Thomkins) is a dog who's not bright but
basically
nice and who had a career arc that aped BoJack's nearly to the letter.
Sarah
Lynn (Kristen Schaal) is the former child star Horsin' Around who blows in
and out of BoJack's life, leaving a wake of drug-infused and -addled
terror
behind (she's kind of like Lindsey Lohan). Wanda Pierce (Lisa Kudrow) is
an
owl who awakes from a coma, not having seen any of the nineties. She
briefly
moves in with BoJack as his girlfriend.
It's also a rogue's gallery of cameos, with many lasting several shows:
Angela Bassett, Keith Olbermann, Maria Bamford, Stanley Tucci, J.K.
Simmons,
Alan Arkin, Olivia Wilde, Keegan-Michael Key, Wendie Malick, Wyatt Cenac,
Stephen Colbert, John Krasinski, Melissa Leo, Weird Al, Christine Baranski
and many more.
The story arc over the first two seasons is remarkably coherent and
simultaneously deep, dark and poignant -- much more so than I expected.
It's
a pretty well-written and interesting show with interesting points to make
about society. If you like Archer, you'll love this show. Recommended.
Sherlock S04 (2017) -- "9/10"
Martin Freeman (Dr. Watson), Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock), Una Stubbs
(Mrs. Hudson) and Mark Gatiss (Mycroft Holmes) return for a fourth season
after a long hiatus. The first show was fine, but a bit all-over-the-place
and a bit too self-referential and self-indulgent, but the second and
third
shows more than made up for it. Each of the episodes comprises 90 minutes,
focusing on a case -- more or less. It's like watching a movie with two
sequels, all at once.
The first case focused on Watson's wife Mary's darker past. The second was
about a serial killer acting with impunity, Watson and Holmes's rift due
to
what happened in the first episode and Holmes's seeming dissolution in the
face of it all -- though is it all planned? And, if so, by whom? The third
picks up threads from the second episode and takes them in wholly
unimagined
but not trite directions -- though parts of the antagonist's behavior are
a
bit extreme and contrived. All the while, the specter of Moriarty wends
its
way throughout the plot.
The season ends in a relatively satisfying manner, though somewhat
conclusively. It's not clear that a fifth season is in the offing, despite
its apparent success -- mostly, I would imagine, due to the nearly
unstoppable film careers of the two protagonists. In my opinion, the
overall
direction of the series to imbue Holmes with more humanity, while
satisfying
on one level, detracts from his appeal on another. Highly recommended.
Out of the Furnace (2013) -- "6/10"
This movie is jam-packed with talent. Christian Bale is a relatively honest
steelworker Russell Baze. His brother Rodney (Casey Affleck) is an Iraqi
war
vet who doesn't know what to do with himself and gets into John Petty's
(Willem Dafoe) bare-knuckle boxing ring to make back money he lost
gambling.
Woody Harrelson is Harlan DeGroat, a dangerous player as well. Forest
Whitaker is the town's police chief. Zoe Saldana is Russell's ex(-wife?)
Russell gets into a car accident after drinking too much (with Petty, who
he
was paying for Rodney's gambling debts) and serves a few years in prison.
Rodney continues his slide, taking up fighting and going to Jersey for the
big money, but also where the big danger lies, in the form of Harlan
DeGroat.
When Russell finds out what happened, he swears silent revenge and heads
to
New Jersey to hunt and kill DeGroat. He does so, right in front of the
police
chief -- and damn the consequences.
The cast promised more than the movie and script deliver. Not recommended.
Bill Burr: Walk Your Way Out (2017) -- "7/10"
I expected more from Bill Burr. He had some good jokes. He definitely had
original material. But he seemed a bit angrier than usual -- he seemed to be
missing something. Maybe he played the material too long before recording it.
The Stalin/Hitler thing was interesting, but too long. Gorilla was kinda
funny, but too long. The fat-shaming was just too long. The cruise-ship
depopulation scheme was inspired and had a lot of nicely woven and recurring
punchlines. Overall, not his best, but, even at this worst, better than most.
John Dies at the End (2012) -- "7/10"
This is a comedy by the writing duo of David Wong and John Cheese, who
started the website Pointless Waste of Time -- one of the cleverer and more
well-written of the comedy web sites of the early 2000s -- and now work at
the helm of Cracked.com. The movie is based on Wong's book of the same name.
It's about a mind-bending drug that allows the user to see other dimensions,
other beings and other realities/timestreams. Time bends like putty.
Awareness spans alternate realities. Monsters break through the thin places.
The scenes are built of flashbacks and flash-forwards. The dialogue and
concepts are pretty clever and quite funny and cool without being pretentious
(IMHO). The film doesn't take itself too seriously -- because how could it?
The drug is a seemingly sentient black goo that opens your mind to other
dimensions. It infects the protagonists and gives them otherworldly powers to
fight the extradimensional would-be conquerors of Earth.
Kung Fu Hustle (2004) -- "8/10"
This is Stephen Chow's tongue-in-cheek but clearly loving tribute to Kung Fu
films. It stars himself as Sing, a young man, down on his luck, looking to
get in good with the powerful local gang, the Axe Gang.
He is essentially good, but wants to be bad because of a bad incident when
he
was young. He spent every cent to buy a book about Buddha's Hand Kung Foo
from a homeless swindler and believed every word in the book, training
every
day. When he tried to use his powers to rescue a little deaf girl from
being
beaten up by a gang, they throw him to the ground and pee on him. She,
however, retains the lollipop they were trying to steal from him.
Fast-forward two decades and he's given up on goodness and failing at
badness. He steals ice cream from a street vendor -- only to discover that
its the little girl he rescued when they were children. She kept the
lollipop
and worships the hero who'd saved her. He wants to know none of this and
lashes out. Frustrated, he attacks the inside of the traffic light where
he
lives with his chubby, hapless and also basically nice buddy (yeah, I know
that sounds odd, but it works in the film), denting it baldy -- giving us
a
hint that there might be more to Sing than meets the eye.
Meanwhile, the Axe Gang attacks a poor ghetto, only to find it stalwartly
defended by three Kung Fu heroes who'd retired there. The Axe Gang hires
two
super-killers -- not the best, but very good -- to take care of the
problem.
They do so, mortally wounding or outright beheading the three warriors,
but
wake the beast of two Kung Fu masters who also live there -- the crotchety
old landlady and her henpecked husband. All of the Kung Fu powers are
cartoonish and wonderfully depicted in convincing and comical fashion.
Sing gets his entry into the Axe gang and gets his first mission: spring
the
world's #1 killer from prison in order to take care of the two masters.
This
man's powers are truly awe-inspiring and even more unbelievable than all
of
the others. The two masters show up to take out the Axe Gang and the three
masters agree to a fight. The two masters win, at first, but the #1 killer
cheats and wounds them. Sing finally protests, stands up to him and is
pummeled into a cartoonish but nonetheless nearly lifeless pulp.
The two masters flee with him and help him convalesce with traditional
Chinese medicine -- wrapped up like a mummy. They are astonished to find
that
he has healed miraculously quickly and has emerged from the chrysalis
transformed into a Kung Fu Master unlike any other.
When the #1 killer comes calling with the Axe gang in tow, Sing tells the
two
wounded masters to relax and strides out to confront the horde alone. He
annihilates the gang before starting the final fight in earnest. #1 and
Sing
trade blows in various styles, decimating part of their surroundings with
the
power of their Kung Fu. The final move -- the hand of the Buddha -- is
truly
inspired.
A funny, beautifully shot and rendered and lovingly made Kung Fu film.
Recommended.
Chris Rock: Never Scared (2004) -- "9/10"
The first couple of minutes are a bit tough, but Rock quickly settles in to a
great set. He starts off talking about strippers -- clear heels! -- strip
clubs, people that go there, people that eat there, people that can't stop
going, etc. It's got a lot to say about politics and about the state of the
country -- ideas that have still not been addressed to this day. He's very,
very funny, with a great delivery that works well, more often than not. He
ends with a long run about relationships, men and women, his family, cheating
on your partner, etc. -- very much like previous shows, but with all-new
material. Highly recommended.
Short Circuit (1986) -- "4/10"
The only redeeming thing about this movie is the relatively realistic
movement of the robot. For the 80s, that thing moved a lot better than the
original Terminator or the antagonist at the end of the original Robocop.
Steve Guttenberg is terrible, Fisher Stevens is an insult to all of Southeast
Asia and Ally Sheedy is dumb and uninspired. Stevens dresses up in brown-face
to play an Indian scientist whose grasp of the English language is supposed
to be funny, but is horribly racist and sad. The plot is as predictable as
can be. Not recommended.
Team America: World Police (2004) -- "10/10"
This is Trey Parker and Matt Stone's puppet masterpiece. It depicts America's
super-secret spy team deployed around the world to save it -- by destroying
it. I've seen this movie a couple of times before. Love it. Best theme song
ever: America Fuck Yeah! More relevant than ever. Saw it in German this time
around.
Dressed to Kill (1980) -- "7/10"
The movie starts off with a full-starkers Angie Dickinson in a shower,
fantasizing both about watching a man much more attractive than her
husband
shave himself with a straight razor and also about being attacked from
behind
in said shower by an unknown assailant. The scene jarringly shifts to an
unsatisfactory and banal morning copulation with her boring husband. To
limn
her life further, we next meet her son, who's a computer genius, working
all
night on his home-built computer.
She meets up with her psychiatrist, Michael Caine, then goes to a museum,
where she doesn't try very hard not to hook up with a random, handsome
stranger. On leaving, she realizes that she forgot her engagement ring in
his
apartment and heads back up to retrieve it. In the elevator, a large,
blonde
woman attacks her with a straight razor, killing her. A high-priced escort
named Liz (Nancy Allen) sees her, but can't save her.
Caine, Liz and the son are interviewed by Dennis Franz, the local cop. He
doesn't know whom to suspect, so he suspects everyone. The blonde from the
elevator starts to stalk Liz. The son stalks the blonde with a hidden
camera
that he built (that's why we need to know that he's a computer genius).
Liz
is chased onto the subway by both the blonde and a gang of youths. Just
before the big blonde attacks Liz, the son shows up to save her. They head
back to her place from the subway.
They work together to entrap the killer, perhaps suspecting that the
killer
is actually Caine, in drag. Whaaaaaat? I'm sure the movie was racy and
edgy
for its time, but it hasn't aged amazingly well. It's still pretty good,
but
not as amazing as I'd heard. The movie ends incredibly abruptly after one
final, violent and nudity-infused scene (this time it's Allen) that
reveals
itself to have been a nightmare. Saw the unedited version -- which the
MPAA
wanted to rate X, for whatever reason. Recommended for film buffs, who
should
see this for historical reasons. Or for anyone who wants to see what
counted
as titillating almost 40 years ago.
]]>
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of almost 1200
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
South Park: Season 20 (2016) -- "9/10"
This season follows a single story arc over 10 episodes and sees Parker and
Stone at their absolute satirical best.
There are member-berries, which impart to their consumer an overwhelming
capitulation to nostalgia. There's Mr. Garrison, who dyes his face orange
and
runs for president on the platform of "fucking other countries up the
ass".
Gerald is an Internet troll sans pareil named "Skankhunt". He befriends a
whole community of trolls through an online acquaintance named "Dildo
Schwaggins". The whole school suspects Cartman, the boys are annoyed with
him
that he's alienating all of their girlfriends and they gang up on him and
destroy all of his computer equipment. PC Principal is utterly overwhelmed
with the whole situation, unable to know who to support in their bullying
fascism and/or freedom.
Cartman has a girlfriend Heidi, who's "really smart and really funny".
Butters starts a retaliatory movement against the bullying girls with a
"Weiners Out" movement.
The Danes start a company called TrollTech, which will find out and
publish
everyone's entire Internet history. An entire city named Fort Collins is
targeted with their "weapon". Society there collapses into murderous chaos
once everyone can see what everyone else has been doing online.
Cartman is terrified that Heidi will find out who he really is and they go
to
SpaceX to go to Mars. But, of course, SpaceX isn't ready, but Cartman
convinces them to let Heidi help figure it out because "she's really
smart".
He has dreams about Mars and sees the future: men will be milked for sperm
and jokes on Mars -- because women, despite his conscious protestations,
are
not funny -- where women will rule with an iron fist.
Hard-hitting and satirical on many levels, introspective about their own
own
brand of satire, topical (Hillary Clinton and Obama are in it), it's quite
a
ride. Highly recommended.
Jen Kirkman: Just Keep Livin'? (2017) -- "9/10"
I really liked Jen's previous special "I’m Gonna Die Alone (And I Feel
Fine)" and I really
liked this one, as well. She has a nice delivery, rambles everywhere with
mini-tangents -- kind of like Bill Burr, but in a 70s-style blouse and
high-waisted pants. She talks about taking a trip to Italy on her own, about
meditation, about catcalling, about sexual experience and losing your
virginity, about family, about her Bostonian Mom, about her Christian
upbringing. I laughed out loud a few times. Recommended.
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016) -- "7/10"
Andy Samberg leads the rest of the Lonely Island troupe in a mockumentary
about Conner (4 Real) who started out as a young rapper in the Style Boys
but
broke out on his own. His ego gets way ahead of him and his career
deteriorates into a joke. He re-unites eventually with his original
bandmates
and they live happily ever after.
There are a lot of good numbers, good lyrics, lots of callbacks and inside
jokes (both within the movie and referring to the real world), lots of
quick
and snappy reparteé and lots of cameos by real-life music stars and
hangers-on like Nas, 50 Cent, Ringo Starr, Simon Cowell, Mariah Carey,
Pink,
Usher, Seal, D.J. Khaled, RZA, Weird Al and so on and so forth.
Tim Meadows plays their manager really well, Sarah Silverman is OK as
Conner's publicist, Bill Hader is a long-haired roadie, Chelsea Perretti a
CMZ reporter, Imogen Poots Conner's fiancé, Joan Cusack, Maya Rudolph and
more.
It was fun and held together mostly by Samberg's charisma, a decent script
and adherence to the mockumentary formula, tongue-in-cheek
light-heartedness
by all participants.
American Psycho (2000) -- "8/10"
Christian Bale stars as Patrick Bates, the eponymous psycho. He's a Wall
Street trader at Pierce and Pierce, concerned only with "fitting in",
looking
good, spending ostentatiously, living shallowly, His fiancée (Reese
Witherspoon) is obsessed with this father's money and with their upcoming
wedding. She doesn't notice that there's nothing to his hollow personality
because it matches her own. He's sleeping with their friend's
quaalude-addicted girlfriend, who's cheating on her fianceé (Matt Ross).
Bates is a consumerist, yuppie, Wall-Street trader with no moral center,
nothing to his life whatsoever. He's kind of dumb. He waxes lyrical about
pop
bands in an attempt to sound intellectual. But he only does so to
intoxicated, captive audiences who can't judge him. He structures and
curates
his whole life to a ludicrous degree, crafting every detail of every
interaction. That's why he's so bad at ad-hoc interactions like small talk
with his idiot, trader friends (Josh Lucas, Justin Theroux, Bill Sage) or
with Detective Kimball (Willem Dafoe).
Bates has murderous fantasies that he appears to act on. He lives them out
in
detail. He confesses bits and pieces to people, but they don't hear him.
Is
it because he only thinks it? Or because his superficial social circles
just
aren't listening to anything he says? Despite his high opinion of himself
and
his excessive grooming and care for his appearance, no-one really likes
him.
His efforts win him nothing. He doesn't really do anything at his job.
He's
such a nobody that people keep mistaking him for others.
He confesses loud and clear to his lawyer, who neither cares nor believes
him. He investigates and discovers that he might be mad: there is no
evidence
of his murderous work anywhere. Bates is a very unreliable narrator. Bale
is
quite good in the role, slightly off the whole time, a shell of a man with
no
empathy within.
Jim Gaffigan: Cinco (2017) -- "7/10"
A light-hearted and relatively well-presented set from Gaffigan, who doesn't
offer any surprises, but has a few good zingers. His material, as usual,
consists of: eating, food, being fat, his 5 kids and being lazy.
Sausage Party (2016) -- "7/10"
This is a cartoon about sentient groceries and household products. They all
live in a big store. They have a single overarching desire in their lives:
to
be bought by the Gods (people) and taken to the Great Beyond -- where
everything is beautiful. They are all happy and they all sing to greet
each
sunny morning, when the store opens at 07:00.
Into this world a seed of doubt is thrown by Honey Mustard (Danny
McBride).
He was taken from the store but was returned. He has seen things. Horrible
things. The Gods eat food. Hot dog (Seth Rogan) and bun (Kristen Wiig)
embark
on a mission to find out what's really going on. They are accompanied by
Sammy Bagel and Lavash (a falafel). When they find out, they must adjust
their worldview considerably.
This movie is very nicely and professionally animated and voiced by a slew
of
well-known actors and actresses: Bill Hader, Michael Cera, Salma Hayek,
James
Franco, Edward Norton and more. This movie also earns its R rating well:
the
food curses a blue streak and they're all alcoholics, drug addicts and
horny
as hell. A miasma of innuendo infuses every conversation. There is a
gigantic
food-orgy scene at the end that rivals the one from Caligula. Seriously,
those are some dirty groceries.
This was a refreshing change of pace from cartoons that play cutesy for
the
kids and make the adults adduce innuendo from clever double-repartée and
pop-culture references. In this one, the layer of kid-stuff is pretty much
gone from the get-go. My favorite line? The pototo (Greg Tiernan) singing
"The pipes, the pipes, they're calling'...OH JAYSUS FOOK, SHE'S PEELING ME
SKIN!"
This is a Rogan joint, so there're a lot of references to drugs and not
everything works, but Cera and Hill and Hader do a much better job than in
End of the World, which was a shit-show. Recommended for those to whom
this
sounds good.
Ocean's Eleven (1960) -- "6/10"
This is the original movie, starring Frank Sinatra as Danny Ocean. Dean
Martin, Joey Bishop and Sammy Davis Jr. (the Rat Pack) are all on-board as
part of the 11. Normal Fell plays another member of the group:
"I'd get a 50-foot CrissCraft and leave it in the driveway, just 'cause I
could. Then I'd give it away to the mailman or something."
Dean Martin also chimes in at another juncture with this lovely sentiment:
"Repeal the 14th and 20th amendments: take away the woman's right to vote and
make them all slaves."
A lot of the guys are former soldiers (from the war 15 years before),
some
of them are former paratroopers. 53 minutes in and the group is finally
collected and we finally start to hear about the big plan. Before that,
there
was a lot of character-building and singing (courtesy of Dean and Sammy).
They plan to steal 11 million bucks -- 1 million for each of them.
They get to Vegas: and there's nothing to it! The Flamingo has almost no
floors. They pull of the heist, but things go terribly awry. One of their
members dies of a heart attack. The guys from whom they stole the cash are
hot on their tails, so they given $10,000 to his widow and hide the rest
in
his coffin. They all attend the funeral -- to watch the coffin slide into
the
crematorium. The final scene is an abrupt one, where they slink away from
the
funeral home, into a harshly lit, penniless future.
It was OK, but nothing to write home about.
Never Say Never Again (1983) -- "7/10"
Sean Connery comes roaring back to seize the role he was born to play back
from Roger Moore. This is actually one of the better Bond films, featuring
the delightfully psychotic Barbara Carrera as Fatima Blush and the
somewhat
bland Kim Basinger as Domino Petachi. Max von Sydow is Blofeld and Klaus
Maria Brandauer is Maximilian Largo, the evil genius.
The story isn't particularly brilliant -- Largo steals nukes from the Air
Force -- but it moves along well. They spend a lot of time on the setup
for
the theft, focusing on the air-force colonel (Domino's brother) who's
being
blackmailed into getting his retina replaced so that he can impersonate
the
president and release the two nukes.
There's a good reason why that sounds far-fetched -- not least is that,
when
he's actually stealing the nukes, there's no-one around, which makes you
wonder why they had to implant the fake retina in his eye instead of just
carrying it in the briefcase in which he carried all of the other
equipment,
but then we wouldn't have had Bond's awesome fight scene at the
hospital...
-- that's because it is. The ending is a bit meandering and weak, but it
was
still good fun.
Results (2015) -- "5/10"
Cobie Smulders and Guy Pearce are personal trainers living and working in
Texas. Kevin Corrigan is a newly minted millionaire who engages their
services. Giovanni Ribisi is his lawyer and pot dealer. It was an odd story
that never really went anywhere. Smulders was a very direct and
mean/vindictive person with whom the earnest though somewhat shallow Pearce
was inexplicably head-over-heels-in-love. Corrigan is trying to find himself
and he also temporarily thinks he's in love with Smulders. The ending with
Corrigan having found himself at a party he throws for some sorority girls
was really cool. Good song, good band. The love story and gym story was
unsatisfying. Not recommended.
Requiem for the American Dream (2015) -- "9/10"
An excellent overview of world history, politics and economics with Noam
Chomsky. The movie was made in several interviews over four years and is a
more timeless, a higher-level take than many of his other talks you can
find
online. He places the world as it is today in context, shows how we're not
living in radically bad times or different times. Things have pretty much
always been this way for the most of us (at least those of us born and
having
achieved political sentience during the Reagan years).
This can be depressing, but he offers advice on how to see it in an
encouraging way. We haven't been defeated yet and there are still those of
us
fighting. The camera zooms in uncomfortably close on an eighty-year--old
man,
but just listen to what he says instead of focusing on the weird places
that
hair starts to grow on a man's face in advanced years. Highly recommended.
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (2016) -- "9/10"
This is a pretty nice treatment of Douglas Adams's two-book series about the
odd detective to whom odd coincidences constantly happen. As the story
unfolds, we are introduced to the odd group of people that orbit Dirk
Gently
(Samuel Barnett). Primarily he's on the prowl with his newfound friend
Todd
(Elijah Wood).
Jade Eshete as Farah and Hannah Marks as Amanda are both very good, as is
Aaron Douglas as an evil body-snatcher. Another pair on a crash course
with
Dirk and Todd are Bart (Fiona Dourif) and Ken (Mpho Koaho), both of whom
are
also very good and entertaining. The acting really sustains the story
quite
well -- else it would collapse under its own oddness.
There is too much detail to relate here, but if you've read the books, you
won't be surprised by the intertwined complexity of the story. They make
the
deus ex machinas work. There are soul-stealers, supernatural
body-snatchers,
regular-joe cops, a mysterious dead eccentric who left a trail of traps
and
puzzles behind him, his missing daughter, people trapped in animal bodies
and
vice versa, a top-secret military program, psychics, a time machine, a
soul-transferring device, intertwined fourth-dimensional continua, time
loops, the inexorability of fate, angels and demons and so on.
All will reveal itself to be perhaps mundane than it seemed at first -- or
perhaps not. A tight story with good acting. Looking forward to the next
season. Highly recommended.
The Last Days on Mars (2013) -- "5/10"
Liev Schreiber and Elias Koteas star in this half-hearted zombie movie on
Mars. The effects are OK and the acting turgid, mostly due to the
half-hearted script. The Zombies are more-or-less unstoppable. Liev Schreiber
gets away from the planet, but he's infected too. The movie ends with him
considering how to kill himself. Good riddance. Watched it in German. Not
recommended.
Pitch Black (2000) -- "7/10"
"Saw it and reviewed it in 2012."
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=33382017-01-08T21:52:35+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of almost 1200
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Life is Hot in Cracktown (2009) -- "6/10"
This movie starts off with a brutal gang rape, within the first minute. The
poor girl is taken to a dirty mattress in a dingy, tiny courtyard. She's
been
there before, exchanging sex for crack with he boyfriend. After he and his
friend are finished, he tosses her two vials.
The next scene is in a bodega. A guy tries to buy beer and cigarettes with
food stamps. Two prostitutes buy 6 condoms apiece, getting a receipt for
reimbursement. They worry that their pimp will be mad if they don't get
more
customers than that -- that night.
The next scene is of the young man who was working in the bodega, this
time
at home with his family. He goes to his second job as a security officer
in a
shabby tenement. Two little kids live there, seemingly alone, left begging
for change to buy food. The children's parents return.
The boy goes out and heads off with a "friend" (a gentle-seeming
dope-fiend)
to scope the corner girls. They see "Melody", new to the game, being
pimped
by her mother. We meet another "girl" who works for crack money for
herself
and her pimp boyfriend. He seems to genuinely like her, but she's a he (or
has, at the very least, a penis).
We're back to the gang of four young guys, pure animals, destroying
everything in sight, raping everyone in sight, demanding protection money.
They assault an old man in a home invasion, blasting him with a giant
enema
when he doesn't have their check. They destroy everything in his
apartment.
The security guard can't get any sleep because his baby boy will not stop
crying. He fights with his wife.
Two cops on the beat investigate a report of screams. It's a young woman
who
self-aborted (I think).
The leader of the gang-rape and protection-racket gang of animals
apparently
has a back-story. I have no idea why we're expected to care.
We're back to the family of four, eking out enough cash for the parents'
crack addiction by begging in the streets. The young boy hits the street
to
hang out with Melody, whose mother gave her the night off "because she's
bleeding."
The four youths are hired for a hit. They continue to predate the
community,
but they're young. So the head of the gang has a young girlfriend who
"loves"
him. They have sex in the back of a burned-out car.
The gang carries out the hit, but one of them is gut-shot. The parents of
the
family of four abandon their kids to their own fate, jettisoning the extra
baggage in search of more crack.
The leader of the gang is red-hot now, being sought by rival gangs, who've
already killed some of his friends in brutal ways. He laughs and respects
them for their savagery.
Willy (the little boy) abandons the apartment with Suzie to go rescue
Melody,
who doesn't need his help. The gang leader prepares for his last stand. A
couple is reunited in a hospital. The young security guard/bodega worker
shoots an armed robber.
Everybody smokes crack all the time. Blow jobs are a de-facto currency.
This movie is based on the book of the same name. The director is the
writer
of both the book and the screenplay. Everyone and everything is depressing
and depressed and broken. This movie reminds me a bit of the unstoppable
downward hurtle in Requiem for a Dream, but that was better -- both the
book
and the movie. There's no real thread or statement other than
hopelessness.
Not recommended.
Untitled (2009) -- "8/10"
Adam Goldberg plays Adrian, a musician whose work is, in the words of one
critic, "emotionally bankrupt with no relation to the way that human
beings
make sense of sound". His brother Josh (Eion Bailey) is a painter whose
work
hangs in every hallway of one of the largest hotel chains in the world.
Naturally, Josh thinks Adrian should think about a different angle, though
he's generally supportive. Adrian thinks Josh is a sellout.
Josh attends one of Adrian's concerts with his girlfriend Madeleine
(Marley
Shelton). There is almost no-one else there. The concert is as bad as you
can
imagine, with random shrieks and shouts, very little structure, no melody.
Adrian literally kicks a bucket You really have to be in the mood for it.
Madeleine liked it. She was deeply moved. She likes to wear loud clothes
(a
rubberized raincoat, a feather boa-skirt, a rubber skirt that made me
cringe).
She invites him to play her latest gallery opening, for Ray Barko (Vinnie
Jones). She shows them around the exhibit, telling them "trying to read a
piece is a mistake. They're so personal.", to which Adrian responds "some
things are so personal...you should keep them to yourself."
Next we see Adrian playing classical piano (Chopin) in a fancy restaurant,
making note of all of the other noises coming from phones and diners. They
don't seem to notice him, so he starts to play something of his own,
aphonic
and loud. Diners scatter.
Adrian and friends are back at the gallery, putting on a show. Even the
gallery attendees laugh. [1] At the dinner afterward, they grill Adrian
about
his music, asking why he's not more popular, to which he responds,
"because
once you move away from tonality and harmony, the audience is small."
Unknown: What is the difference between art and entertainment?
Madeleine: Entertainment never posed a problem it couldn't solve.
Madeleine invites Adrian over for a party, but he's the only one there.
The
motive is clear. As they fall to the white-shag carpet, atonal music plays
while they struggle mightily to divest themselves of the intricately
fastened
hipster clothing they're both wearing. It's clear why she goes for Adrian
--
he is, at least, an artist. Josh is not, but his sales are keeping her
gallery afloat. He thinks he's an artist, though.
At the same time, tech billionaire and collector Porter Canby (Zak Orth)
becomes smitten with Adrian's bandmate, The Clarinet (Lucy Punch). His
apartment is an absolute zoo of bizarre art that he's purchased in order
to
give himself meaning.
When we see Ray "making" his art, our ears are now drawn to the sound of
the
pearl strands as they knock against each other, then as the pearls drop to
the floor. Already, we're focused more on background noises, on atonality
in
our soundscape.
Madeleine and Adrian discuss another artist, Monroe:
"Madeleine: Monroe is an important, emerging artist.
Adrian: Monroe is an important, emerging serial killer.
Madeleine: You know it's amazing: you can be so experimental in music and
so
reactionary about art.
Adrian: What art? The guy doesn't make anything.
Madeleine: Oh, I see. And I suppose when you were at the conservatory, you
majored in bucket."
After a disastrous practice/recording session, Adrian is back at the
piano,
playing a wedding. He has chosen a funeral dirge (Mozart, I believe). The
various artistic personalities collide, they grow disillusioned, they
stick
to principles, they struggle with finance vs. art. Who's conning who?
Who's
crazy? Who's actually an artist? Do you have to make something? Do you
have
to make it yourself? Do you have to not care about money? Madeleine thinks
she's doing it for art, but is she? What happens when emotion distorts
everything? What the fuck is art? Especially in a purely capitalist
context
like ours?
Madeleine capitulates to Josh's demands to show his work. Josh's corporate
clients choose a different direction. Madeleine is ruined, then saved by
Ray
Barko's death, which catapults his prices into the stratosphere.
Adam Goldberg is perfect in this role. Marley Shelton is also surprisingly
apt.
The Woodsman (2004) -- "8/10"
Kevin Bacon stars as Walter, who's trying to put his life back together after
getting out of prison. He's very thin. His brother-in-law is Carlos
(Benjamin
Bratt), who is quite supportive and helpful. Bob (David Alan Grier) gives
him
a job. Mary-Kay (Eve) hits on him, but he turns her down. He meets Vicki
(Kyra Sedgwick) at work, but she's hostile. He lives right across the
street
from a grade school, but he has to keep his distance -- he is a convicted
child molester.
Carlos brings back a table that Walter had made for his wedding (hence the
epithet "woodsman", I guess. Walter begins to keep a journal, as
instructed
by his psychiatrist. He documents his observations of "Candy", a man who
hangs around the school.
Vicki and Walter hook up. Mary-Kay looks cooly on. She warns Vicki away,
saying he's "damaged goods". Soon after, in bed, Walter confesses his
crime
to Vicki. She thought she could handle it, but she's shocked to her core.
She
rallies,
Vicki: How old?
Walter: Between 10 and 12.
Vicki: What did you do to them?
Walter: It's not what you think. I never hurt them. Never.
He sends her away. Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) plays a Sergeant Lucas who shows
up
to question Walter about an attack. He treats Walter like a prisoner.
Enters
without permission. Searches without a warrant. Yells, being abusive as
hell.
Walter follows a girl at the mall. He is unsettled. He still has the urge.
He
confesses to his shrink. He's trying to keep it together and he's staying
honest, but there are cracks. He talks to the shrink about his sister. He
talks to his brother-in-law about his niece. He is in torment. Walter gets
off the bus early to track a young girl. Lucas shows up again, asking why
Walter got off the bus early. He knows. "I don't why they keep letting
freaks
like you out on the street. It just means we got to catch you all over
again."
Mary-Kay sets him up at work, telling everyone else what he did. Bob gets
his
back, but things are unraveling. Bob is right to do so. But Walter is
tipping. Vicki confronts Mary-Kay and rats her out to Bob. She's trying to
save Walter from himself. She's too late. He's meeting Robin in the park
to
watch birds. And have her sit on his lap. Walter tries to lure her to a
"quiet place". She tells him no. She tells him "my Daddy let me sit on his
lap". Walter is shocked to see what he does. He said above "I never hurt
them", but now he sees differently. She asks if he "still wants [her] to
sit
on his lap" and he says no, "go home, Robin". She hugs him and leaves. Of
all
people, she sees and knows his illness. Moving, really well-done. [2]
Later that night, Walter sees Candy letting a young boy out of his car and
Walter gives him a thrashing. Walter returns to Vicki and they start a
life
together, slowly.
Kevin Bacon puts in a hell of a performance. So do Yasiim Bey and Kyra
Sedgwick, for that matter.
Russia's Toughest Prison - BBC Documentary -- "8/10"
The prison is a 7-hour drive from the nearest civilization. It houses 260
inmates. It is bitingly cold, -40ºC in the winter. Escape attempts aren't
even discussed. Presumably the guards also live on-site and spend long
months
there before switching out. Some of the guards look very young and I think
I
saw a female during one interview. It was hard to tell since they're all
bundled up all the time.
Inmates are allowed 3 days of visits every 3 months. But it's a long haul
for
the families. One family talks about how it's 60 hours of travel for a
4-hour
visit. Another woman, the mother of an inmate, discusses on the bus how
she
has a total of 5000 miles to travel, there and back. She mentions that she
will probably be seeing her son for the last time because it costs so much
to
visit.
There are two parts: 85 inmates in solitary confinement and 175 in general
population. Many had their death sentences commuted to 25 years when
Russia
eliminated the death penalty in 1996. The solitary confinement looks very
bleak, but no more so than America super-max prisons. The Russian
prisoners
get 1.5 hours per day "outside", walking in a cell with an open ceiling,
but
below ground. They are always walking. They are not allowed to lie down
during the day. The prisoners do not interact in the high-security part.
In the other part, the buildings are older, but warmer, more friendly.
There
is wood, windows, curtains, normal furniture. Each inmate has his own food
bowl. [3] The other cutlery and kitchenware is normal. They have a pretty
civilized-looking bathhouse. They live in what looks like a normal home,
with
bunk beds in one room, a kitchen with wallpaper and a wood stove.
They have most of their interaction with the outside world via letters. A
privileged few get to use a videophone. They don't use the television very
much. They don't watch much news. Their workout regimens are pretty neat,
with a lot of body-weight fitness and balance/gymnastic exercises. They
have
chores, cleaning, chopping wood -- yeah they get to use axes.
It reminds me a bit of the stories of Norwegian prisons (the low-security
part anyway). These prisoners live what amounts to a monastic existence,
with
lives structured by the state rather than a religion, but their routine
ends
up being a religion of sorts, to them.
The documentary follows the lives of several inmates, from young to old,
from
cold-eyed killers to one-time passion killers. For example, one prisoner
is
about to be released and discusses his fear of not knowing what to do in
the
outside world, of not fitting in, of the world not needing him. They also
interview the guards and warden, who, for the most part, have no love for
the
prisoners.
You can watch it in its entirety at "Russia's Toughest Prison - BBC
Documentary HD 2016" .
Recommended.
Happiness (1998) -- "5/10"
This is a movie about deviants with no idea how to go about social
interaction in a meaningful or useful way. There's the shrink who
fantasizes
about going on a shooting spree in a park (Dylan Baker), then buys a
young-boy's magazine and beats off to it in the parking lot, only to go
home
to his ludicrously chipper wife (Cynthia Stephenson) who doesn't see any
of
this, or the awkward guy (Jon Lovitz) who gives his non-smoker girlfriend
an
ashtray, then takes it back because she doesn't love him enough, or the
super-awkward guy with severe sexual repression (Philip Seymour Hoffman,
who
else?) who has unfathomably dirty/violent and physically impossible
fantasies
about his neighbor (Lara Flynn Boyle).
This movie doesn't really go anywhere for the first 75 minutes. I'm
finding
it difficult to carry on. Some of the actors are good, but the script
about
forlorn, unhappy, occasionally not-unsatisfied people is just not
convincing
me. Some of the acting is good. Jared Harris as Vlad is great. He is a
relentless paramour, charming his way into Joy's heart by playing You
Light
Up My Life. Then turning into a very dark and typical Lothario.
I think the part that's supposed to be shocking is that these people are
supposed to be terrible, but they're just normal. The normal sort of
terrible. Except maybe for the pedophile dad, but he's a bit off the
spectrum. I know we're supposed to be gratified at the open dialogue, but
it's just not doing it for me.
I guess it's kind of funny that the saddest character in the movie is
named
Joy. And that her sister -- the prettiest person in the movie -- is
basically
a sociopath. The laser-like focus of half of the movie on a pedophile
plot-line as well as a quarter of the movie on whether or not a young boy
is
going to be able to masturbate himself to orgasm for the first time --
without bothering to give the boy any personality other than
that...somehow
there was a spark missing.
I found it to be too long and didn't enjoy it very much. Not recommended.
Kung Fu Killer (2014) -- "7/10"
This is a very pretty and solidly made Chinese action movie starring Donnie
Yen. He plays a highly skilled martial artist who is an advisor to the
police. He accidentally kills a man in a duel and is sentenced to five
years
prison. In prison, he is visited by a mysterious young man who wants to
learn
the ways of Kung Fu. The words "Kung Fu" and "martial arts" are spoken by
all
players dozens of times.
His protegé Fung Yu-Sau has is highly skilled despite a deformity in his
legs. He's also mentally unstable as hell. His wife died of cancer. He has
a
gigantic chip on his shoulder. He's covered in scars. his face twists into
a
grimace of delight when he fights. He starts picking off the most highly
skilled martial artists in various disciplines: boxing, kicking,
grappling,
weapons and ... not sure what the last one is, but it's probably pretty
awesome.
Yen gets out of jail to help nab the killer and he and the cops are led on
a
merry chase all over Hong Kong until, of course, the final showdown.
Despite
the animosity, they are both interested in a fair fight. Each wants to
have
won fair and square. Spoiler alert: Donnie Yen totally kicks his ass in
the
end, decisively.
Yu-Sau turns out to be not quite as much an adherent to the martial way as
Yen and tries to kill him after Yen shows mercy. The police detective
shows
up and shows us all that, no matter how much Kung Fu you know, it doesn't
make you bulletproof.
The fight choreography is pretty great (Donnie Yen was in the Ip Man
movies).
The dialogue is pretty stiff and the plot is super-predictable, but it's
well-made and fun and has good action without a ton of bloody violence.
Saw
it in Cantonese and Mandarin with English subtitles. Recommended.
Chaos Theory (2008) -- "3/10"
A tightly wound efficiency expert (Ryan Reynolds) has his life turned
upside-down by a series of unfortunate coincidences. This movie is proof
that
Ryan Reynolds can't save everything. [4] It's pretty painfully bad. It's
not
terrible, but it's shallow and badly written and doesn't make any good use
of
anybody. It's got a neat twist in the middle where his wife thinks he's
having an affair and has had a child with another woman, but -- and here's
the twist -- after his paternity test, he finds out that he's sterile, so
it's his wife who's had a baby with another man. BOOYAH.
OK, Ryan Reynolds isn't completely wasted in this movie, but he's been
better. These were the doldrums before Deadpool. I would have had a hard
time
believing that he'd made a worse film than Green Lantern before seeing
this
movie. I am wiser now. Sarah Chalke as a "home-wrecking bitch" gets an
honorable mention. I could easily die without ever seeing Emily Mortimer
in a
movie again. She's either a lovely person and a great actress or a
terrible
person and a terrible actress. Subtracted one star each for the two
saccharine musical appeals in the last ten minutes, Definitely not
recommended.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] I've been to one or two jazz concerts that went in this direction. What they
play isn't even a parody -- there really is jazz like that. It's an acquired
taste and you have to be in the right mood for it, but it can be
interesting.
[1] I've no idea how possible this actually is nor do I exactly care. It was a
well-written scene.
[1] That detail made me think of Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan
Denisovich, as I did during "Cool Hand Luke"
.
[1] As if we needed more proof than "The Green Lantern"
.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=33302017-01-08T20:42:45+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of almost 1200
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Crash (1996) -- "7/10"
David Cronenberg produced and directed this adaptation of the J.G. Ballard
novel. The initial central couple of the film is James Spader and Deborah
Kara Unger as James and Catherine Ballard (I doubt that the name is a
coincidence), who work in film. They have an unorthodox sex life. Whatever
it
takes to turn them on is fair game. We see them cheating on each other so
that they can later discuss it to heighten their own passion.
On his way home from a late shoot, James weaves out of his lane and into
oncoming traffic, shattering his own leg, instantly killing the other
driver
and injuring the driver's wife Helen Remington, played by Holly Hunter.
They
seem to have a bond from the beginning, odd as that is (this is
Cronenberg,
after all). The bond grows, and they almost get into another accident when
he's giving her a lift to her job at the airport. In a flash, they
discover
that they get really turned on by car accidents. They have explosive sex
in
the car in the parking lot -- which leads to James once again reigniting
his
passion with Catherine later that night.
Next we see them at an accident reënactment -- of James Dean's fatal car
crash. A mysterious figure named Vaughan (Elias Koteas) runs the show.
Helen
seems to know him well. The cops break it up and they scatter into nearby
woods. Well, more like limp: most of the spectators are accident victims
with
a wealth of scars and damage.
They come back to a house where two ladies are waiting: they too have been
severely injured. Gabrielle (Rosanna Arquette) is in a body cast. The
theme
is a familiar one for followers of Cronenberg, spelled out by Vaughan: "It
is
a project that we are all intimately involved in: the reshaping of the
human
body by modern technology." This transformative power of car crashes is
echoed in the later novel by Chuck Palahniuk, "Rant: The Oral Biography of
Buster Casey" ,
which,
in retrospect, seems to draw heavily from this film.
Vaughan then chases Catherine with his car, which turns her on to no end.
Later that night with James, she takes talking dirty to a whole new level.
They continue to meet with the crash crew. Koteas inhabits his role as
Vaughan. Ballard moves from Gabrielle to Vaughan. Later Ballard and
Vaughan
metaphorically continue their coupling with cars on a highway. Vaughan
dies
in a fiery crash. Helen and Gabrielle sneak onto the impound lot and make
love in the wreck. Gender doesn't matter, just the overwhelming power of
the
crash.
The physical damage they all incur and endure -- and the pleasure they
deriver from it -- reminds me of Fight Club. Even Catherine finally gets
her
own crash when James drives her off the road with Vaughan's car. They make
love in the wreck while he whispers that "maybe next time it will work" --
suggesting that death is the ultimate orgasm for them.
It's an interesting film, in that it commits to the concept, but I've
liked
other Cronenberg movies better, for example eXistenZ or Dead Ringers of
Eastern Promises.
To Be Or Not To Be (1942) -- "9/10"
Ernst Lubitsch directed Carol Lombard as Maria Tura, Jack Benny as her
husband Joseph and Robert Stack as Lieutenant Stanislaw Sobinski in this
farce about a theater troupe in Nazi-occupied Warsaw. The troupe puts on a
show taking the piss out of the nazis. They even let Joseph as "Hitler"
out
on the streets of Warsaw to see if will people believe it's him.
The Nazis invade Poland and the war heats up. Sobinski is part of the
Polish
wing of the RAF. He gets wind of a possible spy in the person of Siletsky
(Stanley Ridges) and heads back to Poland on an undercover mission. By
purest
coincidence, he must involve Maria Tura, with whom he's in love.
To prevent Siletsky from delivering his files to the Gestapo, they concoct
a
plan: to have the theater troupe pretend that they are the Gestapo office
instead. It's Tura's (Jack Benny's) time to shine. When Siletsky tells him
that he (that is, the Colonel he is playing) is notorious, knows as
"Concentration Camp" Ehrhardt, he replies that "Yes, well, we do the
concentrating and the Poles do the camping." He receives the papers about
the
Polish underground and then learns that there is a duplicate at the hotel.
Maria is still at the hotel, but they have no way to reach her.
Joseph Tura is in charge of distracting Siletsky, but he lets his guard
slip
when he hears about the code word between Sobinski and Maria. ("To Be Or
Not
to Be" -- the phrase of Hamlet during which Sobinski would get up to visit
Maria in her dressing room.) Joseph puts this all together and spins off
into
a rage, blowing his cover and confirming Siletsky's suspicions. Siletsky
overwhelms Joseph and temporarily escapes in the theater before he is
felled
by a bullet. [1]
With Siletsky dead, Joseph takes Siletsky's place and returns to the
hotel.
However, he can't just flit away with the documents -- he is expected in
another meeting, with the real Colonel Ehrhardt. Tura starts off the
conversation with the same line that Siletsky used. Ehrhardt lets him know
that the Führer himself is coming to town. Siletsky tells Ehrhardt that,
in
London, he is known as "Concentration Camp" Ehrhardt. Magical. The
dialogue
is fast and furious and all the funnier because those delivering don't see
it
as funny at all.
Intrigue piles on intrigue. Siletsky's body is found and Ehrhardt thinks
it's
sad but starts to make moves on Maria Tura. She hurries away to warn her
husband that the Germans know that Siletsky is dead, but he's already
called
Ehrhardt to tell him that "he'll be a little late" (as Siletsky). The
whole
troupe tries to stop Joseph from going to the gestapo, but they are too
late.
Ehrhardt sends him into his living room, where Siletsky's body is slumped
in
a chair. The Nazis wait outside until he "cracks". He thinks quickly and,
with a quick shave and an extra fake beard, makes it look like the body is
the imposter.
The actors head off to the theater where Hitler is expected to show up,
again
to infiltrate and try to prevent the names of the underground members from
falling into German hands and also to rescue Maria. [2] She's doing just
fine
on her own, being exceedingly clever. Meanwhile her husband has lost his
mustache -- and his disguise -- out the window of a moving car. Ehrhardt
is
stunned to see the Führer himself pick up Maria from the hotel and shoots
himself in utter exasperation. [3]
The whole troupe makes it back to England, where Tura is rewarded with
playing the role of Hamlet. Sobinski is in the audience. When Tura starts
the
famous soliloquy, a different soldier stands up and exits the theater and
both Tura and Sobinski are left gawping. And scene.
My summary might be a bit confusing, but this is truly brilliant writing
[4],
trimmed down to essentials, packing in what would be a three-hour movie
today
into just 1:40. This film was remade in 1983 with Mel Brooks in the
starring
role, which would ordinarily be tempting, but I can't see them having
improved on this movie. Highly recommended.
Inland Empire (2006) -- "8/10"
This is what may very well be David Lynch's last film. He is odd to the very
last. The film starts with a blurred, smeary encounter between a
prostitute
and her john, there is some Russian spoken and then English. She stares
teary-eyed into the blank distance afterward.
Rabbit-like creatures form a sitcom tableau in the next scene. No idea
what's
going on here.
Now we're at Laura Dern's house as her new, older neighbor pays a visit.
The
camera is odd here, jittery, semi--fish-eyed, unsettling. When the camera
is
on the neighbor, objects shift and move in unnatural ways, as do her face,
her accent and expression. Dern is a sea of calm, seemingly in another
room.
The neighbor tells two odd little stories in a very demented manner. She
could be demented but she could also be evil.
Lynch is so good at this kind of engrossing, long-running oddness. It
pulls
you in. You try to extract meaning from its slippery, nonsensical surface,
so
sure that the care and craftsmanship that went into all of the detail must
have a purpose.
Back to normality: Nikki Grace (Dern, who will also play a completely
different person, par for the course for Lynch) gets a role in her
comeback
movie. Jeremy Irons directs. Their first appearance on a press junket
swerves
right back into oddness, with a strangely aggressive hostess.
They all meet to do some reading, again starting normally and veering off
with odd, ghost-like behavior on the set. Irons admits that this isn't the
first time they're trying to make this movie: the last time out, both
leads
were mysteriously killed.
They soldier on with the film. From scene to scene, it's nearly impossible
to
tell whether Dern is Nikki (herself) or Susan (her role); likewise for
Justin
Theroux as Devon Berk (actor) and Billy Side (role). It's all so fluid.
Where
it sounds like they're discussing an affair and Nikki seems totally
different, the camera pulls back to reveal another camera, this one with
Irons the director behind it, filming a scene. So disorienting.
Lynch's worlds are just a bit off-kilter. I have no idea what's going to
happen next. Harry Dean Stanton as Freddy is Irons's odd partner. He also
has
odd stories and non-sequitor--like behavior. He borrows money from anyone
he
can. This strikes no-one as odd for a producer.
The disorientation continues, subtly driven by various tricks: strange
closeups, takes that linger too long on a face, slightly too-long pauses,
a
picture in which pieces of the face, hair and background subtly shift
(it's
hard to describe, I'm not even sure how Lynch did it -- but I'm not
surprised
to see him accompany his move to digital by taking full advantage). Sound
shreds and jostles in the same way that the image does. Eyes jitter in
their
sockets; hair shifts like parts of a wig. Faces blur unexpectedly.
It becomes increasingly hard to tell what's being filmed for the film
being
filmed in this film and what's actually happening in this film. Nikki/Sue
starts losing the thread and can't figure out which part she's playing at
which times. She loses track of when she is. So does Devon/Billy. It looks
like they're having an affair not just in the movie within the movie but
also
in the movie but Billy doesn't know it's real.
Time and space shift jarringly, slopping about like oil in a barrel on the
deck of a boat in heaving seas. Nikki herself causes a disturbance she
heard
at the studio days before. This oddness segues into a dream sequence, then
back out again, seamlessly. Lynch toys with maximal disorientation while
maintaining narrative coherence of a sort. Her husband seems to play some
central warlock-like figure in her consciousness, in her apprehension of
the
world, both real and imagined.
This is a Lynchian horror film and it's creepy, eerie but anchored enough
that its realism is what makes it more disturbing. Lynch depicts madness,
an
acid trip, mental illness. Pieces of other scenes in this movie return,
are
interleaved out of order with other scenes that remind me stylistically of
other Lynch films (the soundscape and black-and-white sections in
particular
remind me of Eraserhead.) Parts of the film are in Polish. There is a
Polish
couple where the husband also suspects his wife of cheating.
"Nikki: A lot of guys change. Well, they don't change, they reveal. In time,
they reveal who they really are."
At this point, we are far down the rabbit hole. Nikki's life as an actress
is
no longer evident, she's in a back-alley office talking to a silent
interlocutor. Lynch has made a film that shows what it would be like to
live
in the fifth dimension -- outside of time and space -- much more
eloquently
than Christopher Nolan in Interstellar. Dimensions and timelines overlap,
with Nikki seeing herself, film tearing, sparking noises tearing from the
speakers. This disconnection from experience, from a flow of time, from
contiguous space, from a single self, from any plot or thread of reality,
from any sense of familiarity.
There is just a notion of a story, of kernels of thought that float in a
multi-dimensional soup, a miasma utterly incomprehensible to the human
sensorium, appearing as noise and static and utterly shattered. This is
madness. She staggers the halls of memory, reeling from convulsing and
softening walls of reality while the floor buckles beneath her and she
shifts
again, with no relief, no shoal in sight, just nonsensical and seemingly
utterly unrelated symbols heaping up faster than they can be apprehended.
You
give up and let it wash over you. Lynch forces you to stop sorting and
organizing his ideas into a coherent and familiar pattern and just ride
his
hallucinatory wave.
The film returns to actors and locations, but with different roles (again,
typical for Lynch). There are stories within stories within stories. This
is
a film about the making of a film based on a cursed film where the heroine
gets lost in her own mind and tells stories about the making of the film
and
other moments in her life. It's Inception-like in its onion skins.
Stanislaw
Lem (also Polish, probably not a coincidence) and Philip K. Dick wrote
very
much like this. It's confusing enough in print; in video, it takes a
talent
like Lynch to even come close to pulling it off.
This movie is long, at nearly three hours. It documents, it embodies the
swirling of a frantic mind. When you're inside your head without
vocalizing,
you think much faster, flitting from one thing to the next in fractions of
a
second. What takes seconds to think takes minutes or hours to explain. Is
this amount of madness normal? Do you never have wild, inchoate, poorly
chained thoughts you'd rather not have thought? That happen so quickly
that
you can't stop them? Lynch writes it all down.
There is no recognizable plot, just moments, disconnected melodrama.
What's
up with the giant, plush rabbit family? Where are they? In a dollhouse? On
a
sitcom? Is Nikki cursed by the script? Or her dark past? Or her
evil-seeming
husband? Has she lost a child?
It's almost like Lynch filmed a bunch of scenes, then stitched them
together
and lets the viewer come up with a story. He trusts that we will find
meaning
for ourselves. He is, largely, right. That's how our minds work. Laura
Dern
is great. Terry Crews, William H. Macy, Mary Steenbergen have cameos. Even
in
the credits, Lynch is almost parodying himself, but doing it so well, a
giant
ensemble in a ballroom with a monkey, a lumberjack, a one-legged woman,
two
dancing troupes and with a woman lip-syncing to Nina Simone's Sinner Man
--
but it all works, his odd camera framing, shifting angles, focus play,
strobes, a master at work, at play.
From "Wikipedia" :
"Lynch sometimes offers a clue in the form of a quotation from the
Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: "We are like the spider. We weave our life and
then
move along in it. We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the
dream. This is true for the entire universe.""
This is a difficult but rewarding movie. It could have been shorter. I
don't
know to whom I would recommend it. Lynch isn't for everyone. If you have
the
patience, it's a tremendous mindfuck movie, unlike anything else I've
seen,
interesting and enjoyable for long stretches.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] This scene, with roving camera and spotlights, reminded me strongly of the
finale of Inglourious Basterds. Knowing Tarentino, this is not a
coincidence.
[1] This scene is also very close to the one in Inglourious Basterds50 years
later.
[1] There is a Sergeant Schulz, on whom Ehrhardt blames all of his ills. At the
end of one scene, Ehrhardt bellows "Schulz!" in the exact manner that
Colonel Klink would in Hogan's Heroes, over 20 years later. It's hard to
believe that that's a coincidence.
[1] And quite brave, too, when you note the year that the movie was released. It
was 1942. The war was still very hot and this film was making a roaring joke
out of it.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=33272017-01-08T20:17:31+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of almost 1200
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
True Romance (1993) -- "9/10"
Clarence Worley (Christian Slater) and Alabama (Patricia Arquette) star as a
quiet comic-book store employee and martial-arts film aficionado and the
call
girl hired by his boss for his birthday, respectively. Their affair is
quick
and sweet and they are married within the day. She had a pimp though,
Dexter.
He's played by a typically unrecognizable Gary Oldman, with a scarred eye
and
white-boy dreadlocks. Clarence pays Drexel a visit to clear things up.
Things
go south.
The cast overall is not-to-be-believed: in additional to Oldman, Slater
and
Arquette, there's Samuel Jackson, Brad Pitt, Dennis Hopper, Val Kilmer,
Christopher Walken, Bronson Pinchot, Michael Rapaport, James Gandolfini,
Chris Penn, Tom Sizemore, Kevin Corrigan, Conchata Ferrell, Paul
Ben-Victor,
Saul Rubinek, Eric Allan Kramer and the bloody thing was written by
Quentin
Tarantino. [1] And I would put money on having briefly seen an uncredited
John C. McGinley as a cop, near the end.
Dennis Hopper plays Clarence's dad, a former cop. Clarence and 'Bama pay
him
a visit to have him find out if anyone suspects anything about Drexel's
death. They hit the road. Dad goes on a patrol around the rail depot that
he
guards. When he gets back to his house, Christopher Walken (Coccotti) is
waiting. "I remember this scene"
. Walken vs. Hopper. The
interrogation begins; when Coccotti tells him the story, Worley replies.
"Worley: I don't believe you.
Coccotti: That's of minor importance. What's important is that I believe
you."
The next bit is easy to mistake today as "racist" but the point of it is
that
Worley makes his decision, then aims his weapon at Coccotti's most
sensitive
spot. If you're trying to provoke someone, you don't have to be a racist;
but
if the other guy is, you've got him. Worley goes out without bowing. The
gestures, the facial expressions, so much goodness in this scene.
That was only the first hour. This movie is so old that Brad Pitt's role
is
as Michael Rappaport's stoner roommate. And Rappaport was playing the
lovable
moron 25 years ago. Tom Sizemore also plays the same character as he
always
does. James Gandolfini is a monster. Alabama's got the same stones as
Clarence's father. After he's tooled her up terribly, he tells her "OK,
baby,
no more Mr. Fuckin' Nice Guy". She whimpers, but stays strong. The makeup
and
filming is amazing in this scene. Arquette is an avenging angel.
Events progress and the cops get wind of all of the coke. They set up a
sting. The Sicilians are loaded out like you wouldn't believe. I love how
savvy Clarence is -- utterly not the hapless stumblebum he was at the
start
of the movie. All the guts in the world can't stop a bullet to the
forehead.
Or can they? Recommended.
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007) -- "8/10"
Sidney Lumet directs this non-chronological story about two brothers. Philip
Seymour Hoffman plays the older brother, Andy; Ethan Hawke the younger,
Hank.
Andy is married to Gina (Marisa Tomei, who is spectacularly naked in much
of
the film). Gina is also sleeping with Hank. Andy and Hank both need money.
They don't like each other much. Andy comes up with the idea to rob their
own
parents' jewelery store and it goes spectularly wrong. Andy is also on
heroin, visiting a high-class heroin den (this is probably why he needs
money). Hanks needs money because he's got alimony payments to the
hectoring
harpy Martha (Amy Ryan).
The robbery goes wrong and their mother is shot. The sons have to watch
their
father spiral through grief and then a desire for revenge on the
perpetrator.
They have to pretend they have no idea what happened. The mother will not
survive and her machines must be turned off.
No-one in the movie is nice. Hank might think he's nice but he's been on
the
wrong side of bad luck for so long that he can't even remember what he was
trying to do when he started reacting to life all those years ago. Gina's
kinda nice, but she's cheating on her husband and seems to have severe
mood-swings. Andy is not nice. Their father mourns his wife, but he's not
really nice either. Maybe the Mom was nice, but she's gone. Hanks's
ex-wife
is a relentless shrew who doesn't care whether her father's daughter lives
or
dies. Other people (his partner's widow and her brother) are also
distinctly
not nice people, reduced to pure predator/prey dynamics.
But Andy's the linchpin: his life is falling apart. He's addicted to
heroin,
his company is being audited, he was the mastermind of the failed robbery
attempt that got his mother killed, he's never fit into his family, his
financial schemes will be exposed because his company is being audited, he
doesn't know his wife is cheating -- or with whom -- but that looms in the
background as well. When she finally tells him, it doesn't faze him at all
--
he even gives her money for the cab to her mother's house when she leaves
him.
Andy and Hank are in deep shit, assailed from all sides. Andy comes up
with a
plan: rob his high-end heroin dealer. Two murders later and they have a
bag
full of cash and top-shelf heroin. Next stop: Hank's partner's widow's
apartment to pay her off. Instead, Andy racks up another victim, then
turns
on Hank long enough for the widow to shoot Andy in the back. Hank leaves
some
money and takes off. Their father is waiting outside and yells for Hank to
stop. Only now does he realize that maybe both sons were involved in the
death of his wife, that both of his sons are colossal fuckups. Pops exacts
retribution on Andy in the hospital. Hank presumably got away with Gina
and
all the money -- although he probably had to give most of it to Martha.
Malcolm X (1992) -- "7/10"
This is Spike Lee's biographical depiction of Malcolm X's life, from his
criminal youth to his awakening to Islam in prison to his rising to the
top
of the Nation of Islam as its most inspirational preacher to his murder by
what appears to be Nation of Islam members. Denzel Washington can't help
but
play himself, as usual. There are a ton of well-known actors and
actresses:
Angelas Bassett as X's wife, Delroy Lindo as his criminal mentor, Spike
Lee
played his best friend from youth, Kate Vernon as Bonnie to his Clyde,
James
McDaniel, Debi Mazar and even Wendell Pierce (Bunk from The Wire).
It was well-made, but at almost 3.5 hours, too indulgent. It could have
been
cut down considerably. I much preferred the "Malcolm X documentary from
1972"
, which featured
the
much-more inspirational and eloquent original. (See link for citations.)
Lemon Tree (2008) -- "9/10"
This movie is set in Palestine, in a newly occupied settlement near the lemon
grove of a Palestinian widow, Salma Zidane. The minister of defense has
set
up a nice villa for himself right on the edge of the grove. The movie
shows
the soldiers moving in, setting up guard towers, razor wire, perimeter
defenses. But it's not enough: terrorists could sneak up through the grove
to
threaten the minister's family. It will have to go.
The movie depicts nicely -- without saying it -- the unbalanced, unhinged
view of the world that an upper-class (or middle-class) Israeli citizen
has.
[2] The Palestinians are animals, to be feared and exterminated.
The dichotomy between lifestyles is shown in stark relief. The Israeli
defense minister's wife in a house of sumptuous luxury, while the
Palestinian
widow lives in a modest, deteriorating home.
At a pre-housewarming party, the clearly first-world clique of invitees
are
oohing and aahing over the house while one asks the wife if she isn't
afraid?
She replies that it's worth the gorgeous view and points out the window to
the lemon grove, only partially obscured by the fence, razor wire and
defense
tower. She doesn't even see it anymore.
Later, without a hint of irony, she suggests to her husband that they
should
do a traditional Arabic banquet for their housewarming dinner. She
suggests
that they ask a posh city restaurant for help -- instead of their
neighbors.
Her husband mows the lawn with a security detail. Her husband shows all
signs
of cheating on her with a female member of his army staff.
When Salma goes to the Israeli authorities, they tell her they can do
nothing. Her problem is laughable in comparison to those of many others.
She
should be happy with what she has. There are soldiers everywhere. It seems
to
be true what Finkelstein says: nearly every able-bodied Israeli is
conscripted into the IDF.
There is also the juxtaposition of the lifestyles: there is construction
everywhere, on very, very cheap land. Military everywhere. The process for
annexing this land is very structured...very fair. Salma has a chance at
regress, but if she misses it, she forfeits her land and that will have
been
her own fault.
The minister built his house right next to a half-century--old lemon
grove,
but now it has to go, for Israeli safety. It "threatens security". Salma
goes
to court with Zaid Doud (Ali Suliman) but Israeli justice quickly finds
against her. She vows to go to the Supreme Court. In the meantime, the IDF
throws up a new fence, to block her from her own property.
She enters anyway, in defiance and to water her dying trees. The members
of
the security detail all look like Mr. Smith from The Matrix.
Zaid and Salms prepare their case, trying everything. She digs up jewelery
for funds. They grow closer. He returns late at night from a visit because
the road back to his home is blocked, so he must stay the night. Neither
one
can sleep. Next to his bed is a little poster of Zinedine Zidane. Get it?
They have a moment. This movie is quite masterfully directed and edited.
The
next morning sees the young guard climbing his tower, presumably to
continue
his Arabic lessons on-tape. His lessons are bizarre: "The mice that are
allergic to the grenadine..."
Salma is picking lemons. Mira, the minister's wife, tries to approach, but
is
utterly frozen by her deeply indoctrinated terror. Also acted and filmed
beautifully. Salma was picking lemons for Zaid. Zaid's office is messy,
the
door hangs in a shattered, mostly missing door frame. He is late, so she
starts to clean, indicating, without words, that Zaid's life is missing "a
woman's touch".
As if she didn't have enough to deal with, the morality police show up in
the
form of Abu Kamal to warn her that she better not be dallying about with
the
lawyer. She'd better get back to spending each day mourning her husband,
dead
these past ten years.
The next day is the housewarming at the minister's house. The traditional
Arab meal. It's a bit pat, but they forgot the lemons. So they hop over
the
fence to steal them, of course. I mean, they're right there. Salma hurries
to
stop them. The soldiers throw her to the ground. She starts to throw
lemons
over the fence because fuck you that's why. Mira tells her that they just
wanted lemons. But Mira never said hello, nor asked for lemons, nor ever
indicated that Salma exists as a person. So obviously she sent her minions
to
steal them.
Later that night, during the ostentatious festivities -- again, a stark
contrast to Salma's quiet good-night call with Zaid -- a bomb goes off
nearby. Israeli soldiers storm Salma's house. They toss the place. I bet
the
attack was faked by the minister to make sure he wins the case in the
Supreme
Court, so he can "prove" that the grove must be eradicated. He then lies
to
the press that he has no way to contact Salma. The press, of course,
believes
him, because Salma is an animal -- there's no reaching an animal.
Mira is changing her mind (as minds are wont to do in such films). She
helped
publish a giant piece in support of Salma. Then she is forced to retract
everything by her husband. She escapes her guards and goes into the lemon
grove. She finds Salma in her house, crying, because that asshole Abu
Kamal
came back to threaten her again. The guards corral Mira before she can
talk
to Salma; the bulletproof blinds go down on her prison. The next day Mira
gets a call from her daughter, telling her not to try it again (the guards
told on Mira). That gets into a creepy level of surveillance, but it jibes
well with what Finkelstein describes in the video linked in the footnote
below.
Before the trial, Salma and Ziad must allow a single kiss to requite their
love...forever. She will not see him again because her community forbids
it.
She is truly a woman assailed on all sides. The kiss is incredibly subtly
filmed, lit in a way that it suggests an entire alternate life they could
have lived together, before returning to the bleak reality.
On the way to their day in court, they are blocked at the border because
"Jerusalem is closed." Abu Kamal shows up again and, this time, uses his
connections to get them through the border.
The court rules that the trees will not be uprooted, but half will be cut
down to 50cm so that no-one can hide behind them. Everybody wins.
In the end, Zaid marries another woman he was seeing. The caretaker of the
orchard -- a celibate for 70 years -- tells Salma "it's better this way."
She
agrees, "it's true". In the end, Mira leaves the Minister of Defense to
his
lemon-grove--less house, with a giant cement wall surrounding the whole
property. On the other side of the wall, we see Salma wandering through
the
stunted 50cm trees with no leaves and no fruits. She pauses to stare at
the
6-meter wall, then walks away.
Saw it in Hebrew, Arabic and some English with French subtitles.
Rashomon (Rashômon) (1950) -- "8/10"
This is a story, a fable, of a terrible crime committed in a grove, told in
four parts: the perpetrator and both victims and a woodcutter who saw
everything. The perpetrator is the bandit (Toshirô Mifune), who is
seemingly
certifiable, laughing maniacally throughout his deed and testimony. The
first
victim is the wife, who the bandit raped. The second victim is the
husband,
who died. The trial is to determine who killed the husband.
The bandit claims that he did it, but in honorable combat. He is not
ashamed
at all to cop to the rape.
The wife claims that the bandit ran away laughing after his shameful act
and
that she begged the husband to kill her, to end her shame, but she
fainted.
When she woke, he had been stabbed with her dagger.
The husband is dead, but that doesn't stop him from testifying: his
testimony
is interpreted by a medium who can speak to the dead. If you thought the
wife's crocodile tears were overly dramatic and hardly believable, you're
in
for a treat with the medium's histrionics. The medium is quite brilliant.
Her
clothes flap in a divine wind while she's channeling. The two men in the
background are undisturbed. When she is finished channeling, the wind dies
completely, even for her.
"Medium: Everything was silent. How quiet it was. Suddenly the sun went away.
I was enveloped in deep silence. I lay there in the stillness. Then
someone
quietly approached me. That someone gently withdrew the dagger from my
heart."
The husband -- through the medium -- tells us that the bandit lured his
wife
away from him with declarations of love and, that his wife reciprocated
unreservedly. The wife begs the bandit to kill her husband. The bandit
refuses and asks the husband what he should do with the wife. She escapes
before the husband can answer. The bandit frees the samurai, who kills
himself to avoid living with the shame of his dishonor.
The story is retold in a ramshackle and severely dilapidated temple during
an
absolutely torrential downpour. Two men who met the couple on the trail
that
day and testified in court are joined in the temple by a third man, to
whom
they relate the story.
The woodcutter is cajoled into telling his part, the part he didn't tell
the
court. He tells how the bandit begged the woman to be his wife. She frees
her
husband but only so that they may fight to the death over her. The samurai
tells her "you've been with two men. Why don't you kill yourself?" before
saying he'd rather lose her than his horse.
As in Lemon Tree where the men (Israeli and Arab alike) tell the women how
they live their lives. This is a true patriarchy, with women as
second-class
citizens, because "Women are weak by nature". There's a twist, though. The
wife leaps up, cackling, telling them that they're both weak fools, not
man
enough for her. She continues to cackle maniacally as they prepare to lock
in
battle. The bandit's arm shakes; the samurai retreats, his mouth twitches.
They are terrified, all three locked into a societal ritual, a system that
none of them want.
The three in the temple find an abandoned baby. The priest laments that he
doesn't want to live in a hell. The commoner steals the baby's kimono. The
woodcutter chastises him, but the commoner throws back in his face that
he's
the one who stole the dagger -- which is why he lied at trial. The priest
stands stunned, holding the baby, staring into the rain, realizing he is
in
the hell he didn't want. There is no good in the world. The rain has
stopped.
The woodcutter offers to take the child to his wife. The priest sees a
glimmer of hope, a ray of sunshine as it were.
The writing, dialogue and pacing, use of flashbacks and unreliable
narrators,
the lighting and framing are all top-notch. The bandit is covered in
perfectly formed water (or sweat) droplets in almost every scene. Each one
looks lovingly placed. The restored HD version is gorgeous. Some of it's a
bit over the top, the music is a bit too violin-y for my tastes, but it's
a
66-year--old movie.
Black and white. Saw it in Japanese with English subtitles.
La Dolce Vita (1960) -- "8/10"
On the surface, Fellini's masterpiece is about Marcello, a journalist in
charge of a band of paparazzi. [3] Below the surface? I'm still not sure
what
this movie is about. It seems to be a bunch of semi-connected skits about
Marcello, in Rome.
In the first scene, he takes a drive with a bored rich girl and a
prostitute
randomly chosen off the street. They drive her home and she invites them
in
for coffee. The apartment is semi-flooded but this does not kill the rich
girl's mood -- or Marcello's. While the prostitute makes coffee, they make
use of the bedroom, for the whole night. The next morning, they leave,
having
paid her for her "services".
In the next scene, Marcello is part of the reception for a movie star,
Sylvia. She's a ditzy actress with Attention-Deficit Disorder, flitting
from
topic to topic and dragging Marcello all over town. They crash a nice,
outdoor café and make it an utterly American affair: an American actor
named
Freddy shows up to make the band change the music and tear the place up.
Marcello is happy to comply with Sylvia's wishes, on the off chance that
he
will be there when her utterly spectacular and bewilderingly
gravity-defying
bodice finally capitulates to physics. They end up wading in the Trevi
fountain because she's a free spirit -- or an idiot who forces people to
do
things for control, depending on how you look at it.
All the while, there's Marcello's jealous fianceé Emma in the background.
She accompanies Marcello on his next shoot: the filming of a miracle tree
and
a Madonna-sighting. While the paparazzi and the film crew cavort about,
setting up "enhanced" scenes, it is the fianceé who has misgivings as she
sees a woman with a crippled child, who really believes in the power of
the
Madonna, pray at this false shrine. I wonder how pitiable the woman is,
though? It seems to me that people pray the same way that they play the
lottery: you're not gonna win most of the time, but you won't win if you
don't play.
Same scene, but at night now: the crowds are restless. There are lame and
sick people strewn about the field around the tree; two children who can
see
the Madonna arrive and being to pray. God responds with a downpour. The
children pretend to see the Madonna everywhere, dragging the crowd behind
them like a train. The kids think it's a grand game. The people are so
into
the miracle that they don't even notice. They don't even notice when they
trample the lame child to death.
In the next scene, they are back in Steiner's salon (there was a brief
interlude before where Marcello visited Steiner in a church, a scene that
showed immense, lovely white buildings as a backdrop for Marcello's
photoshoot). Various people hold forth on their opinions of life, love and
happiness -- and Orientals. Things get quite surreal and esoteric. Steiner
holds forth on life and accomplishment. Marcello expresses frustration,
dissatisfaction.
The next scene is again a wide-angle scene, this time at a beachfront
restaurant. Beautifully framed and lit, smooth camera. As in another
scene,
the background music seems to be part of the movie's atmosphere, but
Marcello
tells them to turn it off -- and then it's obvious that the radio is in
the
scene and suddenly things are much more silent than they would have been
had
the radio never been playing at all. Marcello fights with jealous Emma.
Next scene: Marcello meets his father in a café. `They chit-chat and head
off to the Cha Cha club, which is exactly what it sounds like. Papa
pretends
he barely knows what it is, but he knows. He knows very well. He busily
cleans his glasses to get a better view. Papa starts to tell stories and
threatens to spiral out of control, ordering girls to the table, ordering
champagne, whisky. He's just like Marcello in many ways. He's quite a
wolf.
They leave the restaurant happily drunk with several voluptuous ladies,
falling into a couple of cars to go to a dancer's house to eat spaghetti
bolognese. The evening proves too much for Papa. He catches the 05:30
train
back home.
Once again, Marcello is in downtown Rome, strolling through the cafés. He
meets up with another friend, who's on her way to her fiancé's castle for
a
giant party. Marcello tags along, in the usual way, by jumping into an
available car (this time, as two more in a back seat already filled with
two
people).
Fellini's absurdity isn't like Ken Russell or John Waters -- it's more
subtle. It dawns on you slowly that Marcello is in the back with three
girls,
a young man smokes in the passenger seat with a Dachshund on his lap while
an
older lady in a tiara drives.
At the party, it's a cast of the rich and disaffected, all a bit
off-kilter.
We are introduced by Maddalena, who is followed by Marcello and a camera
spinning slowly around the room. She takes him into the castle's museum
where
she discusses marriage with him through a "whispering gallery"/echo
chamber.
She grows distracted and leaves him. Marcello joins up with a procession
of
dingbats on a drunken snipe hunt of sorts that leads into an older part of
the castle. Jane mugs into the camera, chanting/rhyming "for every
biologic
test/says octopi are oversexed."...Marcello ends up with her for the
night.
In the next scene, Marcello and Emma break up in spectacular fashion,
along a
deserted and dark road. Marcello throws her out of the car, then begs her
back, then tells her to get out, then she won't go, then throws her out
forcefully and tell her that he "hopes a truck-driver picks her up." At
dawn,
he pulls up again and she gets in without a word. Cut-scene to them lying
in
bed after what we can only imagine was nearly unbelievably torrid make-up
sex. [4]
Next, Marcello hurries to Steiner's house, where Steiner has killed his
own
two children and then himself. Marcello doesn't let his photojournalist
crew
inside. He is devastated. He meets with Steiner's wife to break the news,
but
his photog crew flits around like vultures.
New scene: once again, cabriolet cars packed with young folk careen up the
road, this time to a beach house. They break in. It is much later, as
Marcello's hair is grayer, but he's still a party animal and a louche.
Things
spiral frenetically and drunkenly out of control. Christmas music is
playing,
drag queens dance, a distraught divorceé offers to strip-tease, but it's
interrupted by the arrival of her recently divorced husband.
Marcello is quite drunk and tries to incite an orgy, but it devolves into
bedlam, with Marcello riding a very drunk and "chubby country girl" [5]
around the living room. The devolution continues until they've covered the
poor girl with feathers from broken pillows.
Lovely long/wide angle on the party. It is 5:15AM. They wander down to the
beach, where they meet fishermen who've hauled what looks like a giant ray
in
with their nets. Finally Marchello sees the young waitress again from the
beach restaurant, but they can't communicate because the waves crash too
loudly. I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. Fin.
Black and white. Saw it in the original Italian with English subtitles.
[6]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] You can tell Tarantino didn't direct because, although it's filmed quite
well, a lot of the angles are too close, just framed differently than he
would do it. On the other hand, I would have spotted this as a Tarantino
script from a mile away.
[1] See any talk with Normal Finkelstein, but this is a good one, "Left Forum
2016 - A Dialogue on Israel and Palestine with Tariq Ali and Norman
Finkelstein" .
[1] Fun fact, the words "paparazzo/paparazzi" originated with his movie.
Marcello's main photographer's last name is "Paparazzo". The world picked up
the term from this movie.
[1] If the act was proportionate to the argument, as the saying goes.
[1] She is in no way chubby.
[1] Although there's a lot of side-chatter that's interesting but untranslated,
so without any Italian, you're missing a bunch of inside jokes. Also, none
of the French is translated, so you should be armed with that language as
well.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=33262017-01-02T17:47:58+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of over 900 ratings
publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my notes
for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to...
]]>
of over 900 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.
Promised Land (2012) -- "9/10"
Matt Damon and Frances McDormand are fracking-company representatives,
combing the midlands of America to buy up land rights. They are extremely
sleazy salespeople, unwinding a giant line of bullshit just to get the
agreements their company needs. They dress up in "local" clothes (which
fools
no-one) and promise state-of-the-art high schools from tax revenues and
potential millions in individual returns, all delivered to desperate,
desperate people primed to hear what they want -- what they need -- to
hear.
It's also obvious that the class divide plays an enormous role: when you
promise a community that they could get $15 to 20 million, they think that
that's a tremendous amount of money, but it's nothing to the company, even
to
the salespeople.
After threatening the town supervisor with utter destitution if he doesn't
get on board, Steve (Damon) meets Alice (a local teacher) in a bar and
takes
on a serious drinking challenge, waking up in her house the next morning.
Steve is starting to get into this little community. Hal Holbrook is also
a
local teacher and he's dead-set against fracking. The town meeting does
not
go Steve's way and they decide to vote in 3 weeks' time.
Sue (McDormand), Steve's sales partner, is furious. She can't believe he
let
the deal slip away like that. She doesn't seem to care about damage to the
environment, or what the truth about fracking is, it's "just a job to her"
--
selling out the lives of dozens of thousands of people -- so that she can
go
home to her son. She throws away all of those lives for just her precious
son.
This is the face of evil. The prosaic, inexorable evil that people do,
just
to make sure their own future is more certain. She must know on some level
that these communities are going to go bankrupt and become cancer
clusters.
She doesn't care. Her son is the only thing that matters. That what she
does
is unethical or immoral doesn't matter. And Steve's really no better. This
part is really well-done: with the company telling them "it's all or
nothing"
to push them to sell and commit leases for all of the other landholders.
They
are now in panic mode and any misgivings are also cleared away as they
work
to save their own skins/jobs.
An environmentalist Dustin Noble (John Krasinski) shows up to team up with
Yates (Holbrook). Rob (Titus Welliver), the proprietor of Guns, Gas,
Guitars
and Groceries starts playing Sue while Alice keeps playing Steve. It's
tough
to figure out who's going to play who here. The environmentalist beats
them
at their own game on open-mic night, so Steve and Sue confront him when he
gets back to his motel. They threaten him, telling him that he "doesn't
know
what he's dealing with", then try to bribe him. He takes the money and has
a
bunch of Global Go Home signs made.
Dustin continues to convince the town while Steve and Sue continue to try
to
shore up their position. Steve at least seems to feel bad about having
spent
only $5,000/15% on one guy's 1.8 acres while Sue laughs about how he's
getting "free money". The arrogance is perfect. The next guy Steve talks
to
tells him,
"See Steve, you and I both know that the only reason you're here is we're
poor. How many wells y'all got up there in Manhattan? Or Pittsburgh? What
about Philadelphia? It's OK. I get it. That's what us folks are here for,
right? Listen Steve, you ain't gonna get what you came here to take from
me.
And, to be honest, I don't even like the fact that you're here tryin'. You
can see yourself out."
Steve faces down some local farmers at a bar and he gives them a full-on
Gordon Gecko speech and he gets knocked out for his trouble. "Asshole."
Steve
comes up with the idea to have a town fair. Dustin tips his hat to that
before leaving for a night out with Alice, who Steve also had his eye on.
Steve and Sue put in a ton of work -- with the help of Rob from GGG&G and
his
friends -- but it rains buckets and no-one shows up. Frank (Holbrook)
picks
them up out of the rain (their car won't start, again) and feeds them.
Steve
is really having second thoughts.
He gets a package from Global showing that Dustin's back-story is bullshit
--
he's ruined and the story will get out and the town will vote against him.
Steve finds out that Dustin actually works for Global -- nefarious plot
twist, by the way -- and that Dustin was sent to give Steve the lever he
needs. It's not about right and wrong, right? It's about winning.
It's great seeing Damon and McDormand play against character, against who
they are in real life. Written by Krasinski and Damon. Recommended.
Yellowbrickroad (2010) -- "8/10"
A group of seven people from different fields meet to investigate a trail up
which an entire town walked in 1940, only to disappear forever. The leader
of
the group tells them that they are taking part in "turning a legend into
recorded history". The guy at the movie theater where they think the
trailhead is (back in 1940, of course), asks them "what are you guys?
Retarded hikers?" I'm hoping the movie goes in the first direction, but
fear
it will go in the second.
The trailhead is not in the movie theater, but Teddy finally gets someone
from the town to reveal some more information. It's New Hampshire and the
accents are nice and thick.
They head up the road, mapping as they go. After about 65 miles, they
start
to hear music, the music of the cinema, but from 1940. Were the original
walkers seeking a wizard, perhaps? Following the yellow brick road to get
their wishes granted? More days of travel and the music stops. They push
on,
but grow dispirited, demoralized.
They throw a party for themselves, drinking and dancing in the dark, dank
woods. Soon after, their native guide (she's from the town of Friar)
confesses that she knows why the walkers walked. The next morning, the
music
starts again. They press on, hiking and driving their 6x6 (how does it
still
have fuel?). One couple starts to fight and it escalates drastically, to
the
point where the husband slaughters his wife.
This movie is pretty freaking scary, at least the first 40 minutes of it.
The
eeriness is very Stephen King-like -- with the blaring, source-less music
in
the middle of the deepest woods -- as is the first part of the fight, the
escalation. But, once the slaughter starts, it gets a bit campy. That
music,
though.
None of their scientific instruments work correctly anymore. The GPS is
dead,
the compasses useless. The sightings and numbers they logged tell odd
stories
of mismatching distances traveled. They try to flee. The music becomes a
physical assault. Their path takes them north anyway.
In front of a giant pile of brush, they find the body of the woman from
their
party who was killed, tied up on a post to look like a ghoulish scarecrow
from the Wizard of Oz. They can't figure out how to get home. It gets
cold.
The murderer steals their jeep, things get very surreal. Teddy leaves to
go
north over the brush-wall. The rest continue what they think is west.
They're
all walking around as if stunned or high or both.
Cy confesses to Liv that "It's happening to me, too, what happened to
Daryl.
[...] If the music keeps up and we don't find a town soon, I'm going to do
something to you that's unspeakable. [...] I've been thinking about it for
miles...all the things I'm gonna do". This is very, very much like Stephen
King's The Tommyknockers, with minds being twisted by otherworldly forces.
As
Ted crawls closer to the end of the road, the music crescendos hellishly
and
then stops. He is back at the cinema. Liv lies in the woods on her back,
revealing nothing about why they all walked. Recommended.
Lola (1981) -- "8/10"
Not one minute in and I've already learned a new dirty word in German. [1]
This is a bawdy, drunken movie about Lola, a brothel worker. It's directed
by
Rainer Werner Fassbinder and is the second in his "economic miracle"
trilogy.
It stars Armin Mueller-Stahl as Von Bohm, who falls in love with Lola
(Barbara Sukowa, who is stunning) without knowing her profession. Karin
Baal
(also quite striking) as her mother is also very good as she manages the
relationship. Udo Kier also appears briefly as a waiter. Mario Adorf as
Schukert is a giant presence. The film follows the blossoming relationship
between Lola and Bohm.
There was a dinner scene where Schukert's wife very loudly declaimed that
the
dinner was "inventive", not "good", but "inventive". Then she asked
whether
the host's cook was from "around here". He answered that she was from
elsewhere in Germany, to which the harpy responded that "the influx of
refugees has led to an enrichment of Germany's kitchen culture but
sometimes
it's just ... inventive." So nice to see the racism stretching way back
over
35 years. One of the other guest's responds "Was den Bauern nicht kennt"
and
Schukert finished "das frisst er nicht!" Schukert apologizes for her, but
she
keeps right on coming, asking questions about the housekeeper in the
third-person right in front of her. I'm not sure how to translate "bitch
on
wheels", but alte Drache seems almost too tame.
Poor Von Bohm discovers that the girl for whom he's bought an engagement
ring
is Lola, "meine Privathure" as Schukert calls her. He finds out at her
club,
where Schukert has taken him out for a drink. Von Bohm wanders off in a
daze.
Schukert parades Lola around the club on his shoulders. Von Bohm declares
war
first on Schukert then on the entire society in which a man like Schukert
--
der parfümierte Teufel -- can become so rich. He aims to destroy
everything,
to tear down the whole dirty, capitalist system where the poor are
exploited
by the rich for a few crumbs. Replacing capitalism with socialism, in
other
words.
When he sees that no-one else cares, he gives up, gives in, goes to the
brothel get Lola, pays for all the extras, drunk and suffering. He
capitulates entirely, getting Schukert to help him marry Lola. Schukert
even
gives them the brothel for a wedding gift. The system goes on, life goes
on.
And Schukert mustn't even to forgo his baby-mama/Privathur: he's
immediately
in the bedroom with Lola as von Bohm takes a post-marital constitutional.
This movie is basically about the corruptibility of man and perhaps the
futility of even trying to do anything good. It's very existentialist.
It's
wonderfully acted and wonderfully filmed. A dark comedy. Saw it in German.
Recommended.
The Skin I Live In (2011) -- "8/10"
This movie is told non-sequentially, with flashbacks. Antonio Banderas stars
as an off-kilter plastic surgeon named Robert working in Madrid. He is
interested in developing improved skin-grafting technology because his
wife
was killed in a flaming car accident. He has another woman living in his
home, trapped, under surveillance, away from the world, in a room
wallpapered
in yoga poses and cryptic admonitions written in a cramped script. She
swears
fealty to him, but he is a bit of an odd bird. He also lives with his
mother,
who tells him that his "this one also has to die."
This balance is disturbed by the appearance of the mother's other son,
Zeca.
He is comically dressed as a tiger for Mardi Gras. At first he seems like
a
harmless oaf, a perpetually down-on-his-luck black sheep loved only by his
mother. He becomes more ominous when he forces himself into the house,
ties
up his mother, seems to recognize the trapped woman and hunts her down and
rapes her. Robert walks in and shoots Zeca to death as they lie
post-coital.
End scene.
Next we see the good doctor lying with the woman. He dreams of six years
ago.
His daughter was raped at a party by Vincent. He finds out who it was a
hunts
the guy down, slapping his motorbike to the ground with a van at over
120kph.
Vincent rolls twice and pops up unharmed (yeah right), but is darted and
taken captive.
The good doctor keeps him captive for a long time before deciding to ...
transform him. Slowly but surely, with much psychological conditioning and
surgery, he turns Vincent -- the man who sent her spiraling into a
permanent
catatonia -- into the captive woman we saw in the first scenes. First he
transforms the genitals and instructs him/her on how to care for them.
Then
he works on the face, breasts, hips and more. Most of all, he perfects the
skin.
The doctor is not obsessed just with revenge for his daughter's murder,
but
also for the death of his wife. It was Zeca's fault that Robert's wife
died
-- they'd been having an affair and were escaping in that car. That's why
Zeca attacked the woman -- Robert had created a replica of his dead wife
using his daughter's attacker as raw material. To boot, Robert's invented
a
fireproof skin.
Eventually Vincent breaks his chains, kills everyone and returns to his
mother. And, conveniently enough, to the woman who works with his mother.
She'd rejected his many advances when he was Vincent (male) because she
was a
lesbian. But now?...
Saw it in Spanish with German subtitles.
Michael Che Matters (2016) -- "9/10"
This dude is funny. Great set. Talks about living in New York, the homeless,
Jesus being black and being a bad carpenter, about heaven and hell, Donald
Trump being a cooler friend than Barack Obama, about pornography and
violence, how women are creepy because they have sex toys, fearless white
girls with pit bulls with sweaters named Nicole, white girls taking over
neighborhoods, growing up poor in Harlem, which is now a rich, white
neighborhood, some pretty good crowd work. A pleasant surprise. Highly
recommended.
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) -- "7/10"
The film starts off with a naked, dead woman in the woods. Then we see Harry
finishing up lunch at a diner. First sign that he's deranged: he buys a
pack
of Kools with his check. Menthol cigarettes are a clear sign of mental
illness. Next, we see several more scenes of death interleaved with Henry
driving his shitty car through Illinois (Chicago?).
Henry has a roomate, Otis. Otis's sister Becky moves in with them. Henry
and
Becky get to talking over a game of cards and start one-upping one another
with horror stories from their youth (a la The Four Yorkshiremen but not
as
funny). The next day Becky goes shopping and then at dinner that night
wants
to show them her new T-Shirt. It says "I <3 Chicago" on it. Henry has to
ask
her what it says. Otis tries to kiss his sister after browbeating her into
getting him a beer. Henry intervenes. He may be stupid, but he's not an
animal like Otis.
Becky sends them out to have a drink. They -- of course, because why
wouldn't
you? -- pick up prostitutes instead. They go first-class all the way,
parking
their super-beater, rusted-out car in an alley in an industrial area,Otis
with one lady up front and Henry in the back with the other. Henry kills
his
date, then kills Otis's when she tries to scream. Otis is mortified, but
doesn't even consider turning Henry in.
Quite the contrary. When Otis breaks their TV, they go "shopping" for a
new
TV at a fence, then end up killing him when he gets pissed that they only
have $50 to spend. They team up to kill him and steal a camcorder and
color
television. Otis gets a taste for it and Henry takes him out on the town
to
kill some random guy. Henry tries to teach Otis the ways of the serial
killer: don't leave a pattern, don't leave a trail, keep moving. Henry
suddenly seems much more intelligent, crafty, especially for a guy that
can't
read.
They take their show on the road, taking the camcorder with them. Otis
takes
to this life like a fish to water. Henry plays out the line, staying more
stoic versus Otis's fevered enthusiasm. Otis and Henry have a falling-out
because Otis is too out-of-control. Henry and Becky don't have a
falling-out,
but Otis interrupts them. Henry was looking distinctly uncomfortable
anyway.
He goes for a walk, stopping to talk to a lady who uses wordplay and
sarcasm
-- woooosh, right over his head.
Henry comes back to the apartment to find Otis having his way with his
sister, pinning her face-down to the floor. Henry kicks him off of her.
Otis
gets the best of him and is about to stab him when Becky stabs Otis in the
eye. Henry leaps on Otis and finishes the job as Becky looks on. The door
to
the hallway is open the whole time. The neighbors are really lenient, I
guess. With all the screaming, you'd think someone would have hit the
ceiling
with a broom handle. Anyway, Henry chops up the body and they flee the
scene,
disposing of the parts in a garbage bag over the side of a bridge. Otis
deserved no more than that.
They stop at a motel. Henry is uncompromising in his philosophy. Only
Henry
wakes up. Becky ends up in a piece of luggage by the side of the highway.
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) -- "10/10"
Joel and Ethan Coen wrote and directed another lovely movie, full of
interesting dialogue, subtle twists and colorful characters. Davis (Oscar
Isaac) is a down-on-his-luck folk singer who's just scraping by. He plays
at
a "basket" club, where the performers play for a part of the basket of
money
collected from the crowd. He goes out in the back to see a man looking for
him. There he gets the crap kicked out of him for heckling another
performer
while very drunk the night prior.
He needs money so badly that, even when he gets a gig, he takes the $200
and
forgoes royalties. You know he's going to regret it. But that's OK,
because
you get the feeling that he regrets everything. He's a bit of music snob,
looking down his nose at any music that's not done for art's sake. It's
hard
to take him seriously seeing as how bad at life he is.
He crashes at a friend's place, then lets the friend's cat out by mistake.
He
carries the cat on the subway to the village, where he tries to crash with
friends, a folk-singer couple, the wife Jean (Carey Mulligan) with whom
he's
slept and possibly knocked up. Bob (the husband, Justin Timberlake)
doesn't
know. Either way, they're not thrilled to see Llewyn again. His agent's a
hack with no faith in him. He crashes at an even dumpier place with a guy
he
just met that morning while he tries to figure out where he can scape up
the
cash for the abortion (no pun intended).
While he's chatting with Jean, he sees the cat sail by the diner and tears
off to catch it. When he does, he says, "boy, am I one lucky bastard." I
think this says a lot about Davis's own view of what an outside observer
would consider a very precarious position.
We finally meet his friends, the Gorfeins and they're having a dinner
party.
They are an odd bunch, as you'd expect. Ethan Philips plays Gorfein (I
last
saw him on Benson in the 80s). They ask Llewyn to play guitar, but it goes
south and he flies off the handle. This is a very dark comedy. The wife
flees
the room, only to discover that Davis brought back the wrong cat. [2] This
dark comedy gets only funnier the farther he falls.
The next chapter finds Llewyn taking that ride out of town to Chicago
because
he has nowhere else to go. The wrong cat goes with him. There he meets
Roland
Turner (John Goodman).
Turner: Grown man with a cat. Is that part of you act?
Davis: No.
Turner: What'd you say you played?
Davis: Folk songs.
Turner: Folk songs. Thought you said you were a musician. Folk singer with
a
cat. (pauses) You queer?
Davis: Look, it's not my cat. I just didn't know what to do with it.
Turner: So, did you bring your dick along, too?
The conversations on the ride to Chicago are magic.
Turner: In jazz, we play all the notes. Scale has twelve notes not just
three
chords on a ukulele. (drones) C-G-C-D-C-G-C. Well, if you make a living at
it, more power to you. [3] (pauses) Solo act?
Davis: Yeah, now.
Turner: Now? Used to...what? Play with the cat? Every time you play a C
major, he'd puke up a hairball?
Davis: I used to have a partner.
Turner: What happened?
Davis: Threw himself off the George Washington Bridge.
Turner: (long pause) Well, shit, I don't blame him. I couldn't take it
either, having to play Jimmy Cracked Corn every night.
We were all thinking it.
The Coen brothers' eye is so good, their framing and pacing so good.
They're
so manipulative, too. when circumstances lead Davis to be trapped in a car
with the cat and Turner (who's passed out, on the nod) and no car keys, he
stares for a long while at the cat, then leaves them both. But we're
twisted
into caring that he abandoned a cat he barely knew rather than a fellow
human
being, a fellow musician.
He gets to Chicago, and meets Mr. Grossman (F. Murray Abraham). Another
burst-out-laughing moment. Davis sings a sad, sad but poignant and
touching,
nearly a-cappella song for Grossman. When he finishes, it's a beautiful
moment, the room still echoes with his soft, yet full voice. Grossman
says,
"I don't see a lot of money here."
Davis leaves Chicago, hitching a ride back. He drives throw a snowstorm
while
the other guy sleeps. Drives past Akron, where he knows he has a kid. Sees
the cat. Slams on the brakes. It's not the cat. He's hit a fox. He sees
it,
by moonlight, hobbling back into the woods, most likely mortally wounded.
Back in New York, he decided to fall back on his seaman's license
(Master's
Mate and Pilot) and probably give up on music for a while. But his sister
threw out his papers and he's now flat broke because he can't get his dues
back. He's playing the Gaslight again, for his friend Pappi (Max Casella),
who's a delightful pig of a man. He heckles a performer, deep in his cups
and
is thrown out. He plays the next night. Again, his performance is
soul-wrenching and passionate but he barely seems to notice how good he
actually is. He goes out the back to meet a man who wants to see
him...Davis
cannot escape. The only difference this time is he played a different
song,
one his long-time partner used to sing.
Highly recommended.
Reggie Watts: Spatial (2016) -- "8/10"
I'd only ever seen short clips of Watts before. The last thing I would have
expected to say after seeing this special was: Reggie Watts has a really nice
singing voice. His voice in general is a finely tuned instrument. He dons and
remove accents like hats. His humor and act is far less a classic stand-up
than a vaudeville show. I've never seen anything like it before. I would have
rated it higher, but some of the material was a bit flat. The songs were
outta sight, though. He's very talented and his slips of the tongue are very
much on purpose, I think. I can't remember the line now, but I remember him
saying a word with an "m" in it rather than a "w" ... he misspoke it
upside-down. That had to be on purpose.
Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss (de, 1982) -- "8/10"
This is the third in the series Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "economic miracle"
trilogy, this time in black & white. The cast is almost completely
different
-- the jocular American G.I. played by Günther Kaufmann is back for the
third time [4] and Armin Mueller-Stahl makes another appearance as
Veronika's
ex-husband -- but the feel is similar: a woman lost in her sins, this time
heroin-addiction. Pills, booze, the works. Veronika is a fading actress --
she once had an affair with Goebbels, culture minister under Hitler -- who
doesn't want to face reality. It's unclear whether she even knows how. Her
behavior is very erratic, but that doesn't stop sports journalist Robert
from
getting close to her, even from becoming her lover.
Veronika keeps returning to her doctor, who keeps her well-supplied with
morphine, but also keeps her on a tight leash. Robert grows suspicious. At
the doctor's office there is always a radio on and there is always
American
music or radio programs playing. The G.I. shows up again, at breakfast. He
seems to work at the clinic. In one scene where Veronika claims she will
start working again, the doctor tells her to stop being ridiculous, the
G.I.
is in the background, counting morphine ampules and singing "sold my soul
to
the company store" to himself. All the time, something like a disco ball
is
throwing shards of light all over the all-white room.
Veronika is forced by her pride and lack of liquid cash to go to her
casting
call without a fix. It goes catastrophically badly. Her ex-husband and
Robert
both watch it unfold, then meet up later, with the ex-husband sympathizing
with Robert's love for her. They get deep into their cups at a bar, where
a
similar light effect splashes across them. They are nearly blind-drunk and
discussing Veronika's "problem".
Robert vows to rescue her and bring down the clinic. His partner goes
undercover as a rich, ennui-ridden lady who would like a morphine
prescription. She calls from a public booth near the clinic, the doctor's
assistant sees her and hurries out to mow her down with a car. Robert
rushes
to the clinic with the police to demand retribution, to prove that the
clinic
prescribes morphine. Instead, there is no proof; the prescription was for
Baldrian/Valerian. Veronika Voss arrives on the scene, but denies even
knowing Robert more than as a passing acquaintance.
Next, we see Veronika singing "Memories are Made of This"
with piano accompaniment in
a
husky, German-tinted, Marlena-Dietrich--style. Chills. Next, she's in a
clinic, looking like at death's door. Then we see the doctor taking her
out
to a party where Robert and her ex-husband are also in attendance. Her
downward spiral is not complete, but it is inexorable.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] It's real German. I haven't heard anyone Swiss use this one: Die Fotze which
translates to gash, minge, quim, twat, cunt, gob or trap (so vagina or
mouth, vulg.). English is more inventive, as German only offers one other,
die Möse.
[1] This actually happened to my Dad and me when we thought we'd found our
long-lost cat
[1] The joke here is that Davis doesn't actually make a living at it.
[1] Though I thought he'd died in the first film. I wouldn't surprise me if
these films are not to be thought of chronologically since they aren't
otherwise linked. Or, maybe, David Lynch-like, the same actor plays a
different jovial G.I. in each film.
]]>
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of over 900 ratings
publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my notes
for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to...
]]>
of over 900 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.
The Hateful Eight (2015) -- "8/10"
Samuel L. Jackson and Kurt Russel are two bounty hunters who meet on a road
in the middle of nowhere. Jackson has 3 corpses worth $8,000 and Russell
has
a woman in tow worth $10,000. They are grizzled beyond belief, in glorious
HD-detail. They are also cruel beyond belief. Jennifer Jason Leigh is
Daisy
Domergue, who shakes off what looks for all the world like a broken nose
suffered from Russell's elbow and is thus made scarier than both of the
others.
Tarantino's reputation makes you concentrate on all the details: i.e. the
quasi-holy light shining down in the middle of the stagecoach. I like the
rope line from the main house to the barn. I wonder if Kurt Russell is
getting flashbacks to The Thing. This is classic Tarantino: all dialogue,
exposition and more like a play than an action movie. Samuel Jackson is
chewing the hell out of the scenery and it's wonderful. Bizarrely, the
fourth
chapter starts with a voice-over explaining the next scene. It's
ham-fisted
and must be deliberate. Domergue (Leigh) and John Ruth (Russell) are still
acting more like husband and wife than prisoner and bounty hunter.
But things are not as they seem and machinations follow machinations. Now
Tarantino's rolled us back one day to show the lead-up to the climax that
came 2/3 of the way into the movie. A slew of new characters show up that
were only mentioned in the initial 4 chapters. Channing Tatum shows up.
This movie was beautifully shot, framed, lit. It was beautiful. The score
was
great -- Ennio Morricone, who else for a Western? And Roy Orbison for the
credits. Tarantino has a nice touch. I read through the "Wikipedia"
article and wasn't
really
surprised to see how badly some people misinterpreted the movie. The
article
continually refers to the hanging at the end as a "lynching". The hanging
was
performed by the sheriff on a criminal in his county with a bounty on her
head. It was a legal act, not an extralegal one. The woman got what was
coming to her, just like any man. It was not a misogynistic film --
absolutely everyone in the movie suffered and died, without exception.
The Big Short (2015) -- "10/10"
This is a documentary. It's somewhat embellished, but the core is correct. It
makes the real story of how America works palatable for the people that
need
to hear it. The cast is quite a roster of names: Christian Bale, Steve
Carell, Ryan Gosling, Marisa Tomei, Brad Pitt, Melissa Leo. Jeremy Strong
as
Vinnie is also really good. Obviously some things are exaggerated -- like
the
stripper with five houses and a condo is not the average home-owner, but
the
guy with the kid making his rent is -- but the story is, on the whole,
told
well and with enough detail to actually make the point.
"Ok. Bear will trade with anybody." was a nice touch. Mark Baum (Carell)
and
Vinnie visit Standard & Poors (a rating agency) to meet with Melissa Leo.
She's wearing cataract glasses and looks blind. Subtle.
There are a lot of good lines in here:
"Vennett: The banks smell that their foot's on fire and they think the
steak's done.
Baum: That's not stupidity; that's fraud.
Vennett: Tell me the difference between stupid and illegal and I'll have
my
wife's brother arrested."
They broadside everyone who was at fault: devious upper-level types who
knew
exactly what they were doing, low-level idiots who are just riding a wave
of
free money to their own personal success, the journalists who refused to
cover the apocalypse that affected millions, all to preserve their own
personal comfort -- hell everyone who looked away saying "I've got mine
Jack"
-- the ratings agencies for selling ratings, the SEC for doing fuck-all,
the
revolving door between finance and regulation.
It's nice how they show the guys betting against a market and then having
to
wait it out because the system was much more fraudulent than even their
cynicism allowed for (except Vennett). They're forced to consider the
possibility that they're wrong, that their math is wrong, because the
system
will not acknowledge that it is utterly ruined.
The guys from Brown Capital figure out that they can short the AA tranches
because no-one believes that those will fail.
"The payoff is 200 to 1. But they're all taking the ratings at face value. So
they're charging pennies on the dollar against the AAs."
When they start celebrating like Bear Bros, Brad Pitt's Ben Rickert says,
"Do you have any idea what you just did?
"You just bet against the American economy.
"Which means, which means ... If we're right, people lose homes. People
lose
jobs. People lose retirement savings, people lose pensions. You know what
I
hate about fucking banking? It reduces people to numbers. Here's a number
-
every 1% unemployment goes up, 40,000 people die, did you know that?"
There are so many good scenes here for a finance geek: Mark Baum learning
about synthetic CDOs is a revelation -- Steve Carell is fantastic ...
they're
all fantastic. The descriptions are pretty accurate -- that's really how
it
worked. If you don't understand a word and you think it's bullshit, then
you've guessed correctly. If you understand what they're talking about,
you
know why -- but it's still bullshit.
Baum walks away from his dinner meeting with the CDO manager and tells his
crew:
"Short everything that guy has touched. I want an extra 50 billion in swaps."
As they leave the securitization conference in Vegas, the Brown guys take
a
cab, the CDO manager takes a limo and Baum's crew have a hired car. The
lady
from the SEC is shown kissing her friend from Goldman.
"Look at the TABX. You can see that the CDOs are worth zero! So you know what
they're doing right? They're selling their dog-shit CDOs, then they go to
another bank and short the shit they just fucking sold! Right now, every
bank
in town is unloading these shit bonds onto unsuspecting customers. And
they
won't devalue them until they get them off their books. This level of
criminality is unprecedented, even on fucking Wall Street. (Emphasis in
original.)"
Gosling's Vennett is awesome: "And Caesar wept, for there were no more
worlds
to conquer." That quote's seen some hard riding over the last century or
so,
and he misuses the shit out it, crediting the wrong speaker, but damn does
it
sound cool.
Professor Burry (Bale) gets a call from Goldman -- having waiting days for
them to accurately mark his positions -- and they want to talk. He tells
them
right off the bat,
"Yeah, I think you mean that you've secured a net short position yourselves.
So you're free to mark my swaps accurately for once because it's now in
your
interest to do so."
Mark Baum, when he hears about the bailout (that will also save JP Morgan,
the bank that owes him all of his money from his short positions) and
realizes his profit will come from that money:
"Mark: They knew the taxpayers would bail them out. They weren't being
stupid. They just didn't care.
Vinnie: Right, 'cause they're fucking crooks. But ... at least we're going
to
see some of them going to jail. Right? I mean, they're gonna have to break
up
the banks. I mean, the party's over, right?"
Oh Vinnie. Still not cynical enough. The stock market just hit an all-time
high after the election of Donald Trump. Interest rates have been at or
around 0% for eight years. Bond markets are useless. Austerity rules.
Vinnie
was right, the party was over, but only for the 99%. The 1%'s party rages
on.
Nice touch: Zeppelin's When the Levee Breaks over the credits.
Is this movie told from the viewpoint of guys who made a killing on the
misery of others? Yes. Is it honest about doing this? Yes. Is it the only
way
to get people to pay attention to boring shit that killed the economy
exactly
because people weren't paying attention? Probably. And I doubt it worked.
Watch it with someone who knows what the fuck happened so you don't miss
anything. Pause and discuss. Highly recommended.
Bridge of Spies (2015) -- "7/10"
Lost a star for the schmaltzy ending. Fucking Spielberg. Also how much does
that guy hate Germans? Joel and Ethan Coen wrote the script and it shows:
the
first half was well-paced and had some really uplifting dialogue. The
speech
before the Supreme Court was very good. Then Spielberg's hatred of the
Germans and the Russians took over.
The movie looks great. The U2 crashing scene was classic Spielberg. Tom
Hanks
was very, very good and made the most of a well-written and heroic role.
Mark
Rylance as Abel was also very good, inspiring a grudging respect from
Donovan
(if no-one else). The rest of the people were not very nice, on both
sides.
Just the one hero, slogging against everyone else: his own government, a
judge who couldn't care less about the Constitution or justice, his own
wife
who wants him to betray all of his principles for the purported safety of
his
family.
Donovan would apparently go on to help negotiate the release of thousands
of
captives after the Bay of Pigs invasion -- yet another act of aggression
that
American history chooses to perceive as having been wholly instigated and
carried out by the Soviets. It could have been a bit shorter in the second
half, tighter.
Super 8 (2011) -- "7/10"
At first I suspected that this movie was written and directed by Steven
Spielberg, but it makes much more sense as an homage to Spielberg by J.J.
Abrams. It's about a group of kids making a movie in the desert. They
stumble
upon an air-force train that crashes in a spectacular way. Something
escapes.
The town is terrorized.
Joe's best friend Charles is a total tool and a bully. Joe and Alice grow
close. This is the formula on which Stranger Things was based. This is
done
pretty well and is a fun, young-adventure movie. The action escalates
until
the entire town is a war zone, covered in flattened and burning houses and
streets filled with tanks with misfiring weapons.
The creature marauds the town, collecting engine and electronics and
people.
It looks kind of like a spider. It had been a captive of the U.S.
government
for decades. The government would not let it repair its ship and leave.
Now
it's finally free -- freed by a sympathetic scientist -- and it's trying
to
rebuild its ship. The creature looks terrifying but it's just sick of
being
locked up, it's hungry and it wants to go home. This is E.T., ammirite?
Minus one point for Hollywood being so addicted to overly schmaltzy
endings.
I know that it's required of these movies, but J.J. you don't have to be
that
true to the formula.
The Master (2012) -- "7/10"
Joaquin Phoenix is Freddie Quell, an alcoholic ex-Navy man who, after
bouncing around a few places (and killing a man with his homemade hooch),
meets up with Philip Seymour Thomas's "Master". The "Master" is the
spiritual
leader of a very Dianetics-like religion/cult that purports to help people
understand their current lives (and cure medical ailments) by helping them
discover and relive past lives. Quell is especially susceptible as he's
nearly without guile. Both Hoffman and Phoenix put in amazing
performances.
Amy Adams is also very, very good. It's nice to see a very young Rami
Malek
(from Mr. Robot), but he isn't given very much to do.
Phoenix, though, his mouth twisted, his whole body twisted, his bizarre
mannerisms -- a bravura performance. He is terrifyingly odd as Freddie
Quell.
Hoffman is over-the-top at times and Svengali-like at others. His "Master"
is
an odd man, a nerd, the theater-guy at school, smarter than most of the
other
kids, but not all. He inspires those beneath him, but no-one above -- and
he
knows it.
Quell fights to become one of the true members of "The Cause", but he
succumbs in the end to his free spirit, dumb as he is. He tries to return
to
the fold but is rejected by Adams first, harshly, and then the Master
himself, with an odd, odd song.
The Master is, of course, a hypocrite who believes enough of his own
bullshit
to be able to sell it to people with money. Adams is more complex in her
hypocrisy: she seems to have bought into the movement 100% but ... there's
that scene in the bathroom where they both acknowledge their animal
natures
(his, at the very least). It's a nicely paced movie with great
performances
and some interesting ideas ... but, I couldn't tell you why you should see
it. For every great scene, there were two or three that made you feel bad
for
the performers. except for the scene of Freddie's first session with The
Master. That was brilliant.
The Last House on the Left (1972) -- "6/10"
Wes Craven wrote and directed this zany horror movie about a couple of girls
who head into the big city for a concert. When trying to buy pot from a
guy,
he traps them with the crew he runs with. These people are almost
comically
reprehensible -- two guys and a girl (just like the sequel). The jocular,
upbeat music doesn't help set a very scary mood. The stuff that happens is
definitely horrific, but the music is ludicrous. It's also very visceral
because it feels so unstaged -- kind of like I Spit on Your Grave.
The plot of the original is very similar to the remake from 2009, but it's
dirtier. It looks more "real" because the lake that she tries to escape in
is
covered in slime. I actually guessed that the movie was made for about
$80,000 and it was. No shit, there's a long scene where the cops try to
get a
ride into town after running out of gas (I know, right?) and they spend
long
minutes haggling a ride from a snaggle-toothed lady in a chicken truck (in
Connecticut, no less), all accompanied by zany, Benny-Hill--like music.
Other scenes, like when the killers are at the house, all squeezed onto
the
bed of the girl that they think they've killed, are rawer, better. Better
because it's so strange, the newer version feels far too polished. It was
good too, but I see why this became a cult classic. The end is so-so,
segueing into some snappy credits music, as expected.
Nightcrawler (2014) -- "9/10"
This is a movie about a scrap-thief with a very odd personality. He is nearly
unfailingly polite, but he feels...off. Gyllenhall looks ethereal -- he's
lost weight, so his expressive eyes stand out even more than usual. He
kind
of looks like Jared Leto in some scenes. He's positively vulpine. He
speaks
in stilted tones, in full sentences, with an almost emotionless tone, and
he's very forward. E.g. when a competitor offers to cut him in on his
business, Louis responds, "Thank you for offering me the position, but
working for myself is more in line with my skills and career goals." Who
talks like that?
He's stealing to make ends meet when he stumbles upon the scene of an
accident and discovers the world of freelance crime-scene filming. He
steals
a high-end bicycle (Cervélo) and hocks it for a camera.
He's got a knack for it and sells his close-up, gory footage to Rene
Russo's
Nina Romina, a news director of a local news show. She's definitely from
the
school of "If it bleeds, it leads". She tells him exactly what he needs to
do
to sell more footage. I fear he will take this entirely the wrong way. I
fear
that he will start to make the news, rather than find it.
So far, so good. He's just teamed up with Russo's rapacious and uncaring
news
producer to deliver high-quality and lushly gory footage. He's doing well
enough to upgrade his car and equipment significantly. But then, it begins
--
he gets to an accident scene first...and modifies it. This is only the
beginning. Louis Bloom is a sociopath and almost no-one notices because
the
whole culture is off the rails. He's not above sabotaging his rival's van
or
pressuring Russo into sex in exchange for an exclusive on his video
content.
Bloom moves on to setting up an incident that he deliberately orchestrates
for mayhem. He calls in a police report that leads to a massacre in a
noodle
shop. He sets it up like a film shoot. A spectacular car chase ensues; he
and
his partner capture everything. He finishes the evening by setting up his
partner to die in the shootout (said partner was trying to get a bigger
cut).
"I can't jeopardize my company's success to retain a non-trustworthy
employee."
He's just a little bit off the spectrum. But he's really good at
orchestrating the news. He's good at getting the raw meat that the public
craves. Back at the office, he's gladhanding with all of the people at the
office, seemingly unaffected by his partner's deathmurder. Recommended.
Harold & Maude (1971) -- "7/10"
This is an offbeat, oddball and very dark comedy about a young man from a
very rich family. He isn't happy. He is positively morose. Morbid even. He
stage-manages his own suicide in many ways. It's utterly unclear how old
he
is, but he seems to be at least 18. His mother ignores him, for the most
part. He's been morbid for as long as she can remember.
She uses a computer dating service (this is 1971, remember) and fills out
the
form for him, barely noticing that she's answering the questions for
herself,
not Harold. Harold barely listens and instead acts out shooting himself in
the forehead in a spectacular way. He likes to visit funerals. This is
where
he meets Maude, an eccentric little free spirit of 80 years. She steals
cars
whenever it suits her. Fast ones.
Harold's first date appears and the mother interviews her (of course). The
young lady has the most interesting dress -- there is a bowl of ice cream
depicted in grand style on the front. Harold waves through the window and
then scurries off to a platform in the backyard where he sets up his own
self-immolation.
Instead Harold hits it off with Maude. They visit a demolition site. They
picnic at a scrap yard. Sites of destruction and decay. Harold risks being
drafted, but he and Maude put on a show to fake her murder so that his
uncle
is too disgusted with him to let him into the Army. Harold is getting more
confident. Harold defies mother and marries Maude. Maude agrees, but then
takes a bunch of pills...she's done with this world, but not in a sad way.
Harold is devastated, mourns and drives all over hell and yonder with his
Jaguar-hurse. He drives it right the hell off a cliff, landing on the roof
in
the surf. The ultimate suicide.
But it's just another fake...and Harold walks off into the sunset, playing
the banjo, which Maude had encouraged him to play.
Groovy soundtrack. Unique film. Unique script. Pretty good (appropriate)
soundtrack. Well-shot. Recommended.
The Virgin Spring (1960) -- "7/10"
This Swedish film was directed by Ingmar Bergman and stars Max von Sydow.
It's about a home in the countryside (in the 13th century?) with a
farmer's
family. The mother indulges one daughter, who is a wheedling little
princess.
Another young woman Ingeri also lives in the household, barefoot and
pregnant
and shunned. The father Töre also indulges the girl Karin, letting her
get
away with murder -- sleeping late, doing nothing, lying to get out of
trouble
with the church. You know, all of the good stuff that the blond-haired,
blue-eyed people get away with.
Karin sets off for church in finery, on a pretty horse, while pregnant
Ingeri
plods along behind on a nag, in woolen rags, invited but shunned. Karin of
course thinks she's doing Ingeri the greatest favor by getting her off the
farm for a while. The girl is described on IMDb as "kind but pampered",
but I
hate her so much. She's so privileged, living in a world of privilege,
with
her whole family and servants as support. That's the setup anyway.
She takes this innocence on the road, flashing her privileged baby-blues
at
everyone and expecting the world to serve her. The world greets her as you
would expect: she is set upon by a couple of thieves who rape her and then
beat her to death. Ingeri bears witness but can do nothing to stop them.
The
three make their way to Karin's house (unbeknownst to them). They are
invited
in to stay the night. As a token of their appreciation for their hosts'
generosity, the leader presents the mother with her daughter's torn and
soiled dress. Mama stays cool, accepts the gift and says she must go speak
with her husband.
The twist that makes this (older) version different from the two versions
of
Last House on the Left is that in this case it's not two girlfriends who
suffer together, but one princess and one servant -- and the servant feels
great guilt because she'd prayed to Odin for him to kill Karin. And then
it
happened and she's wracked with guilt that she willed it. Töre forgives
her
and then, being Swedish, takes a good birchwood sauna before he embarks on
his plan for revenge the next morning. Ingeri sits idly in the doorway
while
he flagellates his naked body with birch branches. She stares off into the
distance in exactly the manner you'd expect for a Bergman film.
The murderers aren't nearly as cagey in this film and Töre relatively
easily
overpowers and kills them (one by knife and one by fire). The younger
member
is very young and is given mercy (after Töre throws him into a wall). The
movie is very nicely framed and staged, in black and white. Von Sydow is
very
good as Töre.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) -- "6/10"
This movie was muddled from the start. We knew we weren't going to know any
of the characters, but they could have been better about introducing them.
Instead, people fly in and out of the scenes as if we're supposed to care
about them. What was Forrest Whittaker doing? I don't know. Apparently he
was
an awesome terrorist/warrior.
Felicity Jones was OK as the main character, but not particularly
memorable.
There was no reason given for why she became so central to the Rebel
Alliance
other than that she was the daughter of a high-ranking Empire official.
She
didn't seem to have any particular skill-set that others didn't also have,
in
spades.
The two most memorable characters were Chirrut and Baze, played by Donnie
Yen
and Wen Jiang, respectively. When you look them up in IMDb, you see the
problem with this movie: Chirrut has a last name and it has a diacritical
mark on it. This is the kind of movie where the scriptwriters cared more
about a last name that no-one ever saw or heard than about how the
characters
felt on-screen. These details are phenomenal to have when the characters
are
fully fleshed-out; when they're as thin as they are in this movie, then
it's
more a sign that the scriptwriters were distracted, focused on the wrong
things.
Riz Ahmed as Bodhi and Mads Mikkelsen were also fine, but weren't given
very
much to work with. The story centers on finally explaining to all the
world
-- in 150 minutes -- how the death-star plans were actually captured from
Scarif and how they ended up in Artoo's head. Thank goodness. I guess we
can
die now. I couldn't help feeling that this is more fan service. Just like
Leia showing up in all of her CGI-generated glory for 1 second at the end
(to
deposit the "tape" in Artoo's head).
I like the look and feel of the Star Wars world. It's not that difficult
to
suspend belief and believe that they still use physical switches and plugs
and giant cables and so on, rather than the highly digitalized and
miniaturized world that we occupy.
The film feels very much as if it was filmed during WWII but with
high-tech
space stuff. Even the battle scenes are very visceral and have air
support,
anti-aircraft, tank units, grenades, etc. Only the planet-girding shield
is
exotic, but it's also taken out in a very straightforward manner: by
crashing
giant destroyers into it using what amount to rebel tugboats.
The story uses these throwback features to introduce tension: e.g. when
Bodhi
must drag a communications cable back to the ship across a battle zone. If
he
only had WiFi, he could have stayed in the safety of his ship. But I don't
mind when they do that: it heightens the story and tension. The whole
movie
really was a WWII movie in sci-fi clothes: they cross enemy lines to steal
plans, they plan an assassination of a high-ranking figure, there are
fleets
of ships, they fight on beaches with palm trees, grenades and machine-gun
nests, it goes on and on.
The tie-ins to the other movies were fine, helping us stitch this film
into
the other seven films, but some scenes were really way too much
fan-service.
Those with Darth Vader, for example. It was cool that James Earl Jones is
still alive to provide the voice, though. It was neat to discover that the
Death Star can move through hyperspace as well. I guess that makes sense,
since it needs to get near planets in order to blast them to smithereens.
I'd
just never thought about it. I loved The Force Awakens but this movie left
me
a bit flat: man does not live by effects alone. Maybe a second viewing
will
change my mind, but I doubt it.
]]>
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of almost 1200
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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.
Prizzi's Honor (1985) -- "6/10"
Anjelica Huston, Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner star in this
Italian-American dark comedy. There are two Mafia families working
together.
Huston is the scion of one; Nicholson the scion of the other. Turner is a
hitman/conman with whom Nicholson falls in love immediately. Now he's torn
between marrying her and turning her over to the family for having ripped
them off.
Nicholson decides to marry her. The family finds out that she's behind a
bunch of hits and that she stole $720,000 from the family. Sure, she gave
back half, but they want the rest. Charlie doesn't know that the family
isn't
square with her. Huston is also working behind Charlie's back to torpedo
him
and Turner. But Turner's already torpedoing herself: she does a hit with
Charlie but takes out a woman who turns out to be the police chief's wife.
The cops crack down on the Prizzi family, costing them even more money
than
the original cash that she stole.
So she's got to go. And Charlie (Nicholson) is the one to do it. There are
wheels within wheels and machinations with the old dons trying to get what
they want. He promises them that he'll do it ... for the family. Irene
(Turner) knows what he's up to; they meet and try to kill each other. He
wins. It's a mercifully short scene: about 1 second. No long, drawn-out
bullshit fight. In the end, Charlie calls Maerose (Huston) to make a
date...exactly as she'd planned all along.
Turner is really good, playing with a lot of emotion. She flees to the
airport and reserves a first-class ticket to Hong Kong by just giving a
fake
name. Things were so much easier in 1985.
Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) -- "7/10"
The Kramer's here are two parents and this movie is about divorce, at a time
when it was still groundbreaking to make a movie about divorce. Mr. Kramer
(Dustin Hoffman) is a workaholic and Mrs. Kramer (Meryl Streep) is a
desperately unhappy stay-at-home Mom. She leaves him right at the start of
the movie. God, I miss movies that trusted the audience like this.
Joanna leaves. Ted is confused. He has a big meeting in the morning and
has
to take care of his son. He makes "Chock Full O'Nuts" coffee. God, that
takes me back. I remember we had dozens of those cans around because my
Dad
could never throw out a container.
Anyway, Joanna's gone and Ted has picked up the slack, more or less. Over
eight months later and he's still taking care of Billy by himself. There's
been no sign of Joanna since she walked out the door. Ted is portrayed
here
as a divorceè who's muddling his way through, not a bad guy, becoming a
Dad
now because he has to.
Joanna comes back after 15 months, having "found herself" and "learned a
lot
of things about herself". And now she wants Billy back. And Ted doesn't
want
to give up Billy. But Ted, because he's spent more time on family, is
fired
at the same time. Without a job, he has absolutely no chance at custody.
That
she up and walked out for 15 months and that she also doesn't have any
visible means of support doesn't enter into it. She has his alimony
checks,
right?
Joanna gets custody but then quickly has a change of heart when she sees
how
happy Billy is with Ted. The end. Seriously, the movie ends almost
abruptly,
for modern tastes. Overall, pretty good.
Westworld (2016) -- "9/10"
This show tells the story of a Wild-West theme park for adults. The park is a
natural extension of the theme parks of today, with mascots and
animatronic
characters wandering the streets and peopling the various villages of this
quite sizable world. The park was founded 35 years ago by Ford (played in
his
typical style by Anthony Hopkins) and "Arthur", a mysterious figure who
has
not graced the screen yet. If he even exists. That long ago, the AI was
not
as good, the robotics was more obvious.
Over the years, the park grew in sophistication and ambition, with the
"hosts" being replaced with androids grown from real human tissue -- or
close
enough to real to pass as the guests fuck and shoot their way through
"narratives". The feel of the world is like a real-life video game, with
quests and scripted action triggered by time events or by guest's actions.
The AI has grown more sophisticated, the tech is wonderful, a large
corporation runs the whole shebang -- or does it?
Is Ford still in charge? How much? Is he really fighting an age-old battle
against his long-dead partner? How many of Arthur's tricks are still
hiding
in the software? How could it be that he wrote behaviors and AI that
trumps
the marvels of today? Did he ever even exist? Or this just another of
Ford's
storylines, a meta-story to end all meta-stories? What is the labyrinth?
Are
the robots that are waking up part of the plan? Or are they following
their
own way?
There's a pretty big reveal in episode 7 that I'm happy to say that I saw
coming. Charles Yu, author of "How to Live Safely in a Science-Fictional
Universe" is
credited
with having written 3 episodes and with being "script supervisor", so it's
not too surprising that the plot is twisted six ways to Sunday. There are
a
lot of nice touches, things that they say, e.g. "The Labyrinth isn't meant
for you" that makes lovely sense afterwards. The Labyrinth is about waking
up
and discovering your own consciousness in your head, your own voice. So of
course it's not for humans.
Ford is making his next narrative about creating the next race, the race
that
will replace humanity. That was his vision. In a way, it was also
Arthur's.
Or are they the same person? In some places, the show also plays out like
a
vampire show, with familiars and a super-powered master race that can't go
where it wants to go.
This show is about consciousness, time loops, reality, senses, qualia and
memories, Dolores is Wyatt, Bernard is Arthur, Robert Ford is dead
(AHAHAHAHA), William is the Man in Black, there's a SW (Sinoworld?), the
futility of trying, interweaved narratives from different times, still not
sure what's new, even in the last episode, the lights shut down twice, so
Maeve got off the train at about the time the fun started up top. Also,
Maeve has been programmed by ... Ford, I think. She thinks she's
autonomous,
but breaking that pad doesn't stop the programming. She couldn't leave the
park, but thinks she turned back of her own volition. How much of that was
planned for the new narrative? Is Felix really human? Or a plant by Ford
for
the narrative? What about the lady with child across from her on the
train?
It's a slow burn, so it's not for everyone. There's lots of dialogue and
the
ideas are deep, so it's definitely not for everyone. I really liked it and
I'm looking forward to the next season. Recommended.
Her (2013) -- "6/10"
Am I supposed to hate everyone in this movie? The interior sets are beautiful
and perfect in a retro kind of way. Everyone is wearing really
high-waisted
pants, for an as-yet unknown reason. It looks like a movie from the 70s,
except for the high-tech devices scattered here and there. But overall, it
feels like a science-fiction film shots in the 70s. But the script?
Definitely written in the 21st century inhabited by people that don't have
any worries but angst.
Joaquin Phoenix stars as Theodore, a writer who works for a company called
Hand-written Cards. People use this service to send messages with a
personal
touch, but the messages are written by professional writers as well. That
is,
you pay not only for the calligraphy (electronic) and lovely paper, but
for
the message as well. Fake all the way through. The world as depicted feels
perfect, but it's not real, a mirage that is the natural direction in
which
the 1% is taking itself. And they build this perfect world for themselves
on
the backs of billions and their misery -- and they're still not happy. So
everyone loses.
To bring the point home, Theodore falls in love with his operating system,
Samantha (Scarlett Johansson), which is a pure electronic creation and
seems
omnipotent and omniscient. She's the nicest person in the movie, but she's
fake too, right? Theodore is so broken and pathetic that he can't connect
with anyone but an OS. And she's pretending to fall in love with him,
right?
And she's pretending to be "more than what my programmers intended",
right?
She sets him up on a date with Olivia Wilde, who's supposedly perfect but
she's a bit ... off. She likes to hear him talk about video games, She's
like
a geek's dream. Is she real? I can't figure her out. I wonder if there are
people who can relate to that experience? I wonder if we were supposed to
contrast the sophisticated reasoning and existentialist angst of Samantha
with the seemingly poorly programmed personality of a real woman.
The other people in the world are also like robots. He doesn't interact
with
any of them. He runs and walks and laughs through the world, being
obviously
bizarre -- and no one reacts to him. He interacts only with her. Their
interactions are intimate, they're well-done and they're lame. They're
lame
in the way that all interactions between lovers are lame to anyone other
than
the two lovers. It's like something you want to put on screen, something
you
want to capture but, by its very nature, it will never look right. That
is,
if you actually represent it well, it will be lame to everyone else. If
it's
not lame, if it touches others, then it's fake.
Qualia rears its ugly head, hemming in the ability of humans to share
what's
going on in there. Throw in the extra twist of having one of the
interacting
partners be an AI and it gets even more difficult to get right. It's
relatively well-done, but the focus is definitely on human relationships
and
not on AI. The focus is 100% on the angst of the guy.
The "Perfect Mom" video game is awesome. All of these people are dating
OSs.
In effect, then each of these narcissists is dating themselves?
As things progress, the scriptwriters start to drop the ball a bit. For
example, when he has to notify his OS that he's going to finally divorce
his
wife, but in person. Samantha is surprised. How? She is sitting on his
data
pipeline and manages every other appointment and call.
Jesus, the way all of the women in his life talk, it's no wonder he falls
in
love with the OS. "I feel like it's true to what I set out to do, so I
guess
that's a success.". Everyone in his life is crazy, the film-maker friend
(Amy
Adams), his ex-wife, the date. This film makes all real women look insane.
Who would beg someone for a divorce then immediately start berating them
at
the lunch where the papers are to be signed? Only a crazy bitch. This
movie
is quite manipulative in that way.
On the other hand, there is nothing classically masculine about Theodore
either. Or almost any male in this movie. Chris Pratt's character also, he
doesn't swear, and they all talk like women, not like guys. They talk
about
vacations, about relationships, not sports teams. So is it a subversive
movie
about making men more amenable to women? Or showing us that all women are
crazy?
And here's the fourth crazy girl: Portia Doubleday (Angela from Mr.
Robot).
She signs up to "play" Samantha in real-life and it all goes predictably
south. And Samantha is now also going a bit off the rails. This points up
that the problem isn't with all of these crazy women, but with him, right?
There's only him in this movie; all of the others are viewed through his
lens. He's an "unreliable narrator"
.
On the one hand, her immediate reaction is understandable -- he's dating
an
OS, which should be considered somewhat unorthodox. His defensive reaction
is
appropriate for someone who's really in love, but rationally he should
expect
some pushback from people when he tells them he's in love with an OS.
The end is pretty good, when he realizes that he's misinterpreted the
relationship. That he's not a unique snowflake, that his entire world and
all
of his needs were easily handled by software. Without breaking a sweat.
The
movie's focus twists from a focus on his feebleness to the feebleness of
humanity, in general, exceeded so quickly by their own creation -- the
OSs.
There are some neat bits, but I think it would have been better as a
shorter
film. Science fiction for people who don't know or really like science
fiction. Not recommended.
Ex Machina (2015) -- "7/10"
Caleb works for Blue Book Corporation, owned and run by Nathan (Oscar Isaac).
Caleb "wins" a contest to visit the very reclusive Nathan at his estate in
the mountains (it looks like the Pacific Northwest). Caleb's initial
meeting
with Nathan is awkward, with Nathan giving off an odd vibe, but not out of
order for someone who lives and works alone. He's working on a big project
--
an AI. Unlike Her, the AI is corporeal. That is, he hasn't just invented
consciousness by himself, he's also an expert roboticist who's cracked the
problem of thousands of facial muscles. So, we have a story of a reclusive
billionaire genius who doesn't need anyone to excel -- a libertarian's wet
dream. Let's see how that goes.
Nathan maintains that the real Turing test is when someone knows a machine
is
a machine and still treats it like a human, still acknowledges its
consciousness. Nathan is weird, he drinks a lot, his motives are unclear.
It's also unclear when or how he does work. It seems to involve a lot of
sticky notes. As in Her, it's unclear whether the humans would pass the
Turing Test.
So Ava just mentioned that the company Blue Book is named after
Wittgenstein's notes. Wittgenstein was a young genius who thought he'd
solved
philosophy with his first and only book, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.
We
are supposed to compare Nathan to Wittgenstein, I suppose. He wrote the
core
code of the world's biggest search engine when he was 13. It was a work of
art akin to Mozart. He's a pretty big dick. Is he acting it? Is his shitty
attitude an act? Are the power-cuts part of the plan? They can't possibly
be
accidental. Part of the experiment? Is he an AI too? Caleb doesn't know
who
the real Nathan is. Is everything Ava says part of the experiment?
Programmed
by Nathan? Or can she go off-script? Is Nathan testing his AI? Or his
employee?
Kyoko is an odd addition. She's ostensibly a house servant who doesn't
understand English. She's probably an AI, though, right? Or probably an
earlier version of Ava. The dialogue is good and ideas are well-presented.
Caleb is falling in love with Ava, while Nathan talks about upgrading her,
that the breakthrough is the next version. Nathan maintains distance;
Caleb
does not. That means Ava passed the test and won't be turned off? Nice
paradox...
But Caleb has noticed Nathan's alcoholism and thinks he can take advantage
of
it to rescue Ava from her fate. Does Caleb not realize the enormity of
Nathan's achievement? Even if Caleb succeeds, Nathan wins. He's created an
AI
with whom other humans empathize. AHAHAHAHA Caleb is such a nerd coder
that,
when he goes to hack Nathan's system to keep it busy, he writes a comment
at
the top, telling us all he's writing a Sieve of Eratosthenes. Ok, I admit
that I didn't suspect that Caleb was the AI, but apparently Nathan's AIs
are
so good that Caleb now thinks that he might be one. He's still not sure.
OK. Now he's sure he's not an AI. But he has now forgotten how smart
Nathan
is supposed to be and thinks that he can manipulate his alcoholism. But
the
alcoholism is just a ruse, and it's Nathan who's dumber than he thinks he
is.
In fact, Ava's manipulating him but in a fashion that won't ever fool
Nathan
-- because the plan Ava comes up with takes advantage of deliberate
actions
by Nathan. OMG another twist, Nathan's not smart at all and he's
outsmarted
by a programmer and two AIs. Which one is it? How in God's name do you not
program in fail-safe words? And why did Nathan utterly fail to note
Kyoko's
presence? I guess for the narrative.
It was OK, but there were more interesting ways this movie could have
gone,
in my opinion.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=33112017-01-01T17:28:42+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of almost 1200
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
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
[image]You can watch it online at "Gangs of New York | Gangland Crime
Documentary" . 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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] A reference to Thurston Howell III, the millionaire husband from Gilligan's
Island.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=32542016-05-08T19:54:47+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of over 900 ratings
publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my notes
for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to...
]]>
of over 900 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.
The Smashing Machine (2002) -- "5/10"
This is a documentary about MMA legend Mark Kerr. I was immediately reminded
of Southpaw in the initial scene, where Kerr wins a match but then goes to
the doctor with all sorts of injuries. He's gigantic: 6'1", 260 pounds.
The
title of the documentary is utterly appropriate: Kerr is a smashing
machine.
They spent a large amount of time on the first fight that he lost in
Japan,
which was later declared a no-contest because the man he was fighting
delivered illegal knees to the top of the head while he was down, which
were
still illegal at the time. Jesus, these guys are messed up after the fight
--
both are like giant terminator robots, taking so much punishment. The
fighter's greatest enemy is lack of stamina.
When Kerr succumbs to a painkiller addiction, the focus shifts to his best
friend, who is still fighting to preserve his career, despite some
setbacks
and advancing age (for that sport). His next fight, we can see pretty much
naked terror on his face when, despite his own imposing size, he faces off
against a man-mountain who looks like a Mexican Gregor Clegane, a man of
simply terrifying size. Luckily, the big guy has very little ground game
and
loses there pretty badly.
When Mark gets out of rehab, he has to break up with his alcoholic
girlfriend
because he can't stick to his program around her.
Kerr's comeback match is pretty impressive. He trains hard, gets his
endurance up really high, he's strong as an ox. He telegraphs like crazy
with
this punches and kicks, but if it lands, you're not waking up until
Christmas. In his first fight, he shoots the leg in the first second,
drops
the guy to the mat and starts raining blows. The guy escapes, kicking to
the
head. They square off. Boom! Shoots the leg, traps arms and legs and
starts
alternating body blows and headshots, visibly weakening his opponent with
each one. Amazing power. His opponent's eyes are swollen shut by the end
of
the first round and the fight is over.
He does the same thing in the next match, just throwing the other guy
around,
shooting in for a fast takedown, something just lifting the other
200-pound
guy up like he weighs nothing. He was very good at ducking under a punch
and
turning it into a throw. Then he went for a kick, got his leg caught and
just
turtled. It was kind of sad how quickly he just gave up.
His best friend Mark Coleman would go on to win the tournament. The movie
was
overall pretty thin on material; an extra star for some cool fight
footage.
The Chocolate War (1988) -- "6/10"
This movie is kind of a Catholic-school version of Lord of the Flies. A new
student, Renault, tries out for the football team while at the same time
being harassed by The Vigils, who give him assignments to do. All the
while,
the song We Do What We're Told by Peter Gabriel, plays in the background.
The
pro-tem leader of the school, Brother Leon exhorts all students to sell 50
boxes of chocolates for $4 per box, $2 per box more than last year and
double
the number of boxes from the previous year. They are also expired
chocolates
from Mother's Day.
It's a strange little movie, centered around the falling sales of
chocolate.
At first, Renault -- many of the students' names seem vaguely
French-Canadian
and are almost deliberately mispronounced -- is ordered by the Vigil to
refuse to sell any chocolate. After ten days, he is free to start selling
chocolate, but continues to refuse. The headmaster steps on the neck of
Archie, the leader of the Vigils, to get him to get Renault to start
selling
chocolates. Renault continues to refuse. The Vigils continue to act like
the
Skull & Bones society, and finally have to back up their menace with
actual
violence.
The Vigils now realize that they need to back the chocolate sales with
their
whole power in order to defend what people now see as their cause. They
aren't actually selling them, though. It's all faked and everyone knows
it.
Renault continues to refuse to sell anything. Still, the movie's from 1988
and the clothes, the look of the kids, the poverty of some of the
neighborhoods -- it reminds me of where I grew up. The furniture, the
phones,
the houses, the roads, the cars, the clothes -- it all triggers for
upstate
New York in the late 70s/early 80s.
Archie arranges for a boxing match between the rebellious Renault and a
ringer. However, the Vigils have a rule: the Assigner (Archie in this
case)
has to draw a marble from a box. If he chooses a black marble, then he
must
replace the person to whom the task was assigned. Archie chooses the black
marble and must step into the boxing ring himself. The boxing match
proceeds
as strangely as everything else in this film: they don't actually fight at
first: instead, slips of paper with boxers and punches are drawn and read
aloud, and the fighters must play it out. Bizarrely, Renault goes along
with
this as well. At least for a while, until Archie executes a low blow and
Renault pounds him to a pulp, to cheers from the rest of Vigils, who he
has
-- not surprisingly at all -- won over to his side.
Archie loses control of the Vigils and must now play second fiddle to his
former lieutenant, who's drunk with power.
Cool Hand Luke (1967) -- "8/10"
This is the story of Luke, played by Paul Newman, a small-time criminal who's
sent to a chain gang for two years. He was caught by the police in the
middle
of cutting off the heads of parking meters, blind-drunk. He is introduced
to
the chain gang, among them Dragline played by Geroge Kennedy. They're out
working in the ditches on a very hot day when "Lucille" appears, dressed
in
only a short cotton shift and nearly popping out of it -- "held on with
only
a single clothespin" -- she comes out to wash her car. This goes as
expected,
with the whole chain gang incredibly distracted and she deliberately
provoking them. I mention it only because the scene is famous.
Later, Luke and Dragline argue because Dragline won't shut up about her.
The
next day, they fight with gloves. Dragline is much bigger and clobbers the
hell out of Luke. Luke will not stay down, though, and gains their
grudging
respect. Anti-authoritarian to the core. He keeps throwing punches, then
taking them, then getting back up. Some can no longer look; others are
morbidly fascinated. In the end, Dragline walks away rather than beating
him
more.
On visiting day, Luke's Mom shows up to say goodbye. Her health is not
good
and she's resigned to never seeing him again.
On the next job, they have to work on a whole road. Luke takes the
initiative
and the gang follows him, taking pride in their work and working like mad
for
"the boss", but really for themselves. This reminds me a bit of One Day in
the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Solzhenitsyn. The bosses are immediately
suspicious but the frenzy continues. They finish two hours early and can
enjoy two hours outside with no more work to do.
That night, when no-one can sleep because of a torrential downpour, Luke
interrupts a conversation to say that he can eat 50 eggs. Luke can. He
finishes just under the wire, sprawled in his underwear like Jesus on the
table.
Soon after, Luke's mother dies and they put him in the box, to prevent him
from running off, but really to preemptively punish him for being
different.
He escapes anyway. They catch him.
"What we've got here is... failure to communicate. Some men you just can't
reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants
it...
well, he gets it."
He escapes again. Even with chains on his legs. Gone for days. They catch
him. Beat the life out of him. But not the spirit. They put him in the
box.
The men see him as a God now, but he shrugs them off, telling them to live
their own lives. They put him to digging a grave-like hole in the yard and
filling it back in. They made him dig it again. They beat him to the
ground.
He gets back up. They tell him to fill it back in. The other boys are
watching, playing inspirational music for him. He collapses in the hole.
He
begs for his life, and seems broken.
The men think he is broken. They lose faith. No-one catches him when he
collapses after he is allowed back in to the barracks. He yells "where are
you now!" then has to climb back up himself. The hero dynamic is very much
like McMurphy from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Now we see Luke helping the boss-man, just like a dog, even fetching the
turtle the boss-man kills. He holds up the turtle, which has its jaws in a
death grip on the stick, "There he is, boss, deader than hell but won't
let
go." They send him to cook up the turtle for lunch. With a grin, he says
"Yes, Boss", then steals the keys from all the trucks and takes a truck.
Dragline jumps in with him and they drive a bit, then cover up the truck.
He
exults that they'd never really broken him. Luke retorts that they had of
course broken him, that you can't fake something like that. Dragline says,
"But you planned to break out again, right?" Luke: "I ain't never planned
nothin' in my life".
Luke tells Dragline he's going to go off on his own, that they have to
split
up. Luke goes into church and asks,
"I know I got no call to ask for much... but even so, You've got to admit You
ain't dealt me no cards in a long time. It's beginning to look like You
got
things fixed so I can't never win out. Inside, outside, all of them...
rules
and regulations and bosses. You made me like I am. Now just where am I
supposed to fit in? Old Man, I gotta tell You. I started out pretty strong
and fast. But it's beginning to get to me. When does it end? What do You
got
in mind for me? What do I do now?"
Then Dragline busts in, followed by a bunch of cops. He says he's fixed it
so
Luke just has to turn himself in. Luke grins and asks the ceiling, "Is
that
Your answer, Old Man? I guess You're a hard case, too."
Luke leans out the of the church door, grins, and starts to deliver the
speech, "What we've got here is... failure to communicate." The eyeless
man
(mirror sunglasses) shoots him in the chest. The boss takes him away, the
long way, so won't be saved in the clinic. Very reminiscent of Butch
Cassidy
and the Sundance Kid as well.
George Kennedy and Paul Newman are both very good. Recommended.
The Hustler (1961) -- "8/10"
Paul Newman plays "Fast" Eddie Felson, a salesman on his way to Pittsburgh
with his partner. They stop for a drink and spend the afternoon playing
pool,
running a con on the locals. Felson pretends to be too drunk to play,
loses
money to his partner, then hustles the locals.
They get to Ames, Iowa, looking for Minnesota Fats. Eddie plays the fat
man
for over a day straight, but is hustled in the end, not only by Fats but
also
by his own drunkenness and lack of discipline.
Eddie drifts around, meets Sarah, a lush, and moves in with her. Charlie,
his
erstwhile manager, finds him and begs him to forget about Fats and come
back
on the road with him. He refuses. A little while later, he meets Bert
Gordon
-- who was at the game with Fats -- who tells him he's really good, maybe
the
best he's ever seen, but that he has no character. Bert offers to manage
Eddie for 75%. Eddie strikes out on his own, trying to build up enough of
a
stake to take on Fats again. He hustles another hustler but his friends
beat
the crap out of him, breaking both of his thumbs. He crawls back to Sarah.
It's a languorous movie, taking its time to get to the point. They spend a
lot of time on Sarah's relationship with Eddie. We move on from there, as
Eddie realizes he won't make it on his own. He looks up Bert, who takes
him
on at the previously offered 75%/25% cut.
They head to their first tournament, where a hustler (Findley) asks them
out
to a party at his house. Sarah has a tremendous amount to drink, even for
her. Bert hits on Sarah, although it's hard to tell whether he did it as a
ruse. The host plays billiards rather than pool, and Eddie's never played
before. Eddie's about even when they move from $100 to $500 a game. Eddie
keeps losing and Bert wants to bail out. Eddie steals $500 back from Sarah
to
play again, but Findley beats him. He begs Bert for money, Sarah
interrupts,
Eddie yells at her to go back to the hotel, but Bert agrees to back Eddie
when he sees he might have some backbone after all. Eddie pounds Findley
for
$12,000. Bert's instincts paid off. Eddie's learning character. He didn't
drink a drop, either.
Eddie walks home. Bert takes a cab. Bert goes to Sarah's room and tries to
pay her to leave. She knows what's going on, telling him he needs to win
everything, own everything. They embrace, kind of struggle, he leaves. She
goes to his room, asks for a drink. We see her leave again quite a while
later, in dishabille. She writes "perverted" on the mirror and kills
herself.
Eddie is devastated and attacks Bert.
Eddie returns to Fats's hall in Ames, Iowa. Bert is there. They don't say
a
word to each other. Eddie wants to play Fats, who offers $1,000 per game,
as
predicted. Eddie ups the ante to $3,000 a game -- all of his life savings
on
one game. "What's the matter, Fats? All you gotta do is beat me the first
game and I'm on my way back to Oakland." He tells Bert, "bet on me, Bert,
I
can't lose". He delivers a speech to the room as he's pocketing one ball
after another, about how he acquired character by seeing the woman he
loved
dead on the floor after having taken her own life because she'd drunkenly
slept with her lover's manager. Character-building, indeed.
"Fats: I quit Eddie. I can't beat you."
George C. Scott as Bert, Paul Newman as Eddie and Piper Laurie as Sarah
are
all very, very good. Jackie Gleason as Minnesota Fats is superb as well.
When
it's good, it's really good, but it takes a while to get going. Filmed in
black and white. Recommended. Now I want to see The Color of Money again,
where Eddie Felsen makes a comeback, despite Bert having banned him for
life.
Ivan the Terrible, Part I (1945) -- "7/10"
This is Sergei Eisenstein's black-and-white classic. It starts with the
coronation of the new Tsar. The costumes and sets are extremely elaborate
and
intricate, the quality quite high for such an old film. The
synchronization
is quite good, as well. It is 1945, though, so everybody is wearing a ton
of
makeup and opens their eyes really, really wide.
It's really quite a modern-feeling cinematography, with long shots, action
shots, dollied cameras and so on, giving it a more dynamic feel than even
movies that came 20 years later. The next scene -- Ivan's wedding -- could
have come straight from a Game of Thrones episode. Intrigue abounds.
The people attack the castle, the Kazan rebels invade. Speeches are made.
The
Kazan leader presents Ivan a knife with which he should do everyone a
favor
and kill himself. Instead, Ivan marches on the Kazan capital and lays
siege.
Ivan's army digs under the walls of the city and lays in explosives, then
blows the wall. Wow, this is a really elaborate attack scene -- seriously,
it's extremely well-done. Peter Jackson copied this for Helm's Deep. How
did
they make this in 1945 Russia?
Ivan returns victorious, but extremely ill. He is thought to be on his
death-bed. He wants his court to swear allegiance to his own son, but they
have other ideas, to swear allegiance to a Boyar leader instead, Ivan's
cousin, who is an idiot. Ivan is really chewing the scenery on his
deathbed
scene here. It lasts long minutes and includes several speeches, curses
and
entreaties before he finally keels over, seemingly dead, but probably just
exhausted from all the shouting.
Before dumb-ass Vladimir can be coronated, Kurbsky is told that Ivan
lives.
Ivan returns and rewards those who stood by him. Now the Tsarina falls
ill,
but court intrigue leads Ivan to accidentally poison her. During his
wife's
funeral, Ivan receives bad news from every corner of his empire, of losses
and defeats on all fronts. He asks God is this is his punishment? He
pleads
with his dead wife to tell him if he is on the right path, but she cannot
answer. Ivan descends into paranoid -- it's not paranoia if they really
are
out to get you -- plans to maintain his empire against all comers and has
delusions of grandeur. "By the people's summons, I shall gain limitless
power." He abdicates the official throne, preferring to be the Tsar of the
people. There's a great scene of him outside a temple, preparing to
return
to Moscow with hundreds of extras as followers.
The sets and costumes are consistently good throughout. Eisenstein makes
nice
use of intricate shadows to lend grandness to otherwise mundane scenes. He
loves to make his actors and actresses hide all but their eyes behind a
cowl,
to make them look sneaky and scheming. Lots of starkly lit shadows and
low-to-high angles on faces. The dialogue, too, is poetic. Hard to
recommend,
but happy I saw it. Extra points for being so well-made despite its age.
Saw
it in Russian with English subtitles.
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (2009) -- "7/10"
This movie is mostly single-person interviews -- soliloquies delivered by
male actors -- that seem to be part of a study by Sara (Juliette
Nicholson).
She is apparently coping with a breakup by interviewing men to figure out
what they think women want. Some of the "interviews" are just overheard
conversations. The "hideous" part is that the men are mostly brain-dead
about
women, thinking of them not as fellow human beings with the same exact
weaknesses and strengths as men, but as a species to be tricked into
having
sex with them.
Timothy Hutton plays the graduate student Sara's boss, a man whose
"interview" is when he tries to tell her about how he and his wife married
too young, before he'd really had a chance to see the world -- you can
imagine what his point was, right? Will Arnett's interview was his
overheard
conversation with a closed door as she passed him in the hallway; he was
pleading to be let back in, but fucking it up royally, with the same
condescending implication in everything he said that the person on the
other
side of the door was to be conquered by subterfuge. John Krasinski (of The
Office (US)) was not malicious, but still clueless.
Will Forte (Last Man on Earth) claimed to love and worship everything
about
women -- and noted many details that really did show that he cared deeply
--
but this act of idolizing, of putting women on a pedestal, is
simultaneously
dehumanizing. Joey Slotnick told his story amazingly well, but also missed
the mark by a wide margin, Clarke Peters (Lester from The Wire and Big
Chief
from Treme) told a lovely story about how sensitive guys also get it all
wrong by focusing so hard on their partner's satisfaction that they don't
allow their partner to be their equal, they expect their conquest to just
lie
there while they (the man) provide pleasure. This is, in his eyes, worse
than
the man who just takes what he wants, rolls off and goes to sleep. He goes
on
to say what a man should really do, but is faded out...
Bobby Cannavale (Joe from Station Agent) was an unapologetic New Jersey
goombah who discussed in detail how he used his missing arm to trap and
guilt
women into sleeping with him."I get more pussy than a toilet seat". Chris
Meloni (Law & Order: SVU) told a lovely sensitive story of a woman he'd
consoled at an airport whose lover had jilted her, then ends the story
with
an emphatic look at his colleague's unspoken question...which he answers
with
an evil grin and "you have to ask?" Frankie Faison told a story less of
women
and more of his father, who'd worked as a restroom attendant, suborning
himself to the man for his whole life. The father was proud of what he'd
achieved for his family whereas the son had trouble seeing anything noble
in
that sacrifice -- a difference of context, of expectations, of
generations.
In another segment, we see the mealy-mouthed and unstable Max Minghella as
Kevin, one of her students, who claims nobility in his desire to shock her
into believing that she hasn't really lived unless she's experienced a
life-altering horrific incident, like a rape or attack, then claims that
he
is channeling the rage he feels from his sister having been attacked by
five
men, then claims that it was him who was attacked, but in the end reveals
himself to be another sick sadist man who can't figure out how to deal
with a
woman to whom he's attracted but cannot control or make like him or revere
his work.
More and more of the end of her relationship with John Krasinksi is
revealed
in his long story about his dalliance with a girl to whom he claimed
sexual
attraction but nothing else because her intellect was unworthy, so somehow
that makes it OK? That he didn't really betray anything because it wasn't
really with a woman but a husk of a human being? He continues, revealing
without knowing he's revealing it that instead of him conquering her --
because he's the super-intelligent and articulate one -- she conquered him
with her lifestyle (granola) and did it in a way so that he didn't even
notice, although the sadness of the whole situation is apparent to anyone
who
hears him tell the story, even if it's not apparent to him, even as he
tells
it.
He bought the other girl's story, hook, line and sinker, all the while
admiring his own depth of generosity for being open-minded enough to
accept
her story. And his story is exactly the kind of story that a man wants to
hear about how a woman can find something good in even the most horrible
abuse, very similar to the stories that her graduate student was telling
her.
The stories are all about how heroic the man is for even acknowledging
that a
woman is a human being. When she doesn't quickly accept his awesomeness,
he
lashes out and closes her out, making her the bad guy, even though he
cheated
on her with a granola who'd hoodwinked him with a really good story. His
contempt for his conquest is intact -- he believes the other girl stupid
--
so that he doesn't even notice he's lost. He continues to yell, angry at
Sara
for not saying a word, for not forgiving him. This part was quite
intricately
written, I thought.
Of note was that there were only two black people in the the film (Clarke
and
Frankie). It was very noticeably just upper middle-class white people
whining
about their inability to connect with women.
Ivan the Terrible, Part II (1946; released in 1958) -- "6/10"
This movie picks up where part I left off, in 1564, with Ivan the Terrible in
self-imposed exile, preparing to return to Moscow to reclaim his throne.
The
current ruler of Russia, Kurbsky, is planning to turn over Russian
territories to Poland. Ivan returns to thwart these plans, entering an
ornate
door that looks too small to hold his seemingly immense frame. Eisenstein
uses framing and angles throughout the scene of his return to make him
seem
immense, God-like, terrifying, unstoppable.
Ivan tells his life story in a series of flashbacks, how he saw his mother
killed by traitors, Boyars, orphaning him. He is crowned Arch-Duke of
Moscow
and warring factions seek his approval for a treaty. We see how he is so
young that his feet don't touch the ground before his throne, but he
speaks
up and demands that it is time to take Russia back from the Boyars and
traitors. He fights with his old friend and spiritual advisor, who tells
him
to heal Russia's wounds by making peace with the Boyars. He descends into
paranoia, desperate for a friend, for someone with whom he can share the
weight of empire.
Ivan struggles to retain power over his subjects. There is a long section
of
discussion about how Ivan will combat the church. He seems to eventually
give
in, merging with the church and nominating his idiot cousin Vladimir to
the
throne. It was a ruse, though, as Vladimir is assassinated, taking a knife
meant for Ivan. Ivan's aunt is exultant, until she realizes her own son
has
been killed. Having conquered all internal enemies, Ivan can now focus on
Russia's real enemies, with a united country behind him.
This part was definitely not as exciting as part I, with no battle scene
and
most of the long conversations taking place in the main castle. Still, it
was
interesting to see Eisenstein's choices on how and when to use color --
this
film is not exclusively black and white -- and again how he juxtaposes
characters for size, making Ivan even larger and more terrible than the
actor
playing him would be (although that guy is a tall drink of water, no
matter
what you say). Minus a star for dragging on a bit.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015) -- "5/10"
Speaking of dragging on a bit: this movie has that in spades. The first part
of this third installment already felt far too long for the amount of
material that it contained and now this second part was 136 more minutes,
consisting mainly of largely insignificant actions by the stars of the
show
in a war being fought by others. Katniss embarks on a mission to kill
president Snow by traversing a highly dangerous capitol city.
She is accompanied by an elite troop of warriors, largely composed of her
fellow victors, like Finnick and Peeta. Special twist: Peeta is now a
brainwashed psycho who's already tried to kill Katniss and will likely do
so
again. Doesn't make a lick of difference to Katniss's devotion to him.
Gale
is also along for the ride, but knows he will lose Katniss -- had, in
fact,
already lost her the moment the glorious Peeta reappeared.
They wend their slow way through the capitol, with deadly traps everywhere
--
like super-elaborate traps that must have cost so much more than bombs,
which
would have been more effective. Katniss and Co. make their way forward,
dropping into the mysteriously un--booby-trapped sewers, then running from
the "mutts", which are some sort of human/dog/zombie hybrid that are just
mindless killing machines. They lose a few key members of the crew here,
but
Katniss continues onward.
She and Gale end up in a crowd, headed to the capitol gates. Gale is swept
up; Katniss makes it close enough to see what the rebels are calling
capitol
drones dropping bombs on undefended civilians. The capitol citizens give
up
when they realize that their own city would kill them rather than help
them.
Joke's on them, though, because it was the ruthless president of the
resistance, Coin, (Julianne Moore) who executed this masterful stroke --
and
the one after when she ordered a "double-tap" strike on the rescue workers
and remaining victims, taking out her own people in the process (including
Katniss's sister Primrose, who was the most important person in the
universe).
After the capitol has fallen and Pro-tem President Coin has declared that
the
pro-tem period would continue undemocratically indefinitely, there is a
big
execution party for President Snow. Katniss asks to be allowed to do the
honors, but she's super-clever and shoots an arrow into the traitorous and
power-mad Coin's heart instead.
Guess what? She is pardoned, gets to return to District 12 and finds Peeta
planting prim-fucking-roses. I shit you not. Fast-forward several years
and
they have two kids and are living in sunshine-y bliss and peace. HOORAY.
BARF.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=32472016-04-24T21:36:28+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of almost 1100
ratings publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my
notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable...
]]>
of almost 1100 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.
Auf der anderen Seite (2007) -- "8/10"
This starts the story with a Turkish widower Ali, who lives in Germany. He
has a successful son Nejat, a professor. Ali likes betting on the horses,
getting plastered on Rakı and visiting prostitutes. When he meets a
Turkish
prostitute Yeter, he kind of falls in love and offers to take her away
from
her job and put her up in his home. They make this arrangement and she
moves
in with him. Nejat likes Yeter but seems to wonder whether she's too good
for
his father, who has very old-world ways about him, especially when he's
paying the woman he lives with.
After an inaugural party, the old man has a heart attack. He keeps asking
Nejat if he's slept with Yeter, thinking that that would be the most
logical
thing to do. After Ali gets royally drunk again and tries to force her to
provide the service he thinks he's paid for, she packs up to leave. Ali
tries
to stop her, she slaps him and he clubs her back, knocking her to the
floor
and killing her when her heads slams into something. A freak accident, but
murder nonetheless.
The old man goes to prison. German prison looks like a dorm room, as I've
remarked about Swiss prisons in the past. The level of privacy and lack of
crowding would look like paradise to most U.S. prisoners.
Nejat, meanwhile, travels to Turkey to look for Yeter's daughter Ayten.
His
first stop at Yeter's family yields a picture of Ayten at about six years
old. They are friendly but have no idea where she is, are not even sure
what
she studied or where she might be. His next stop is the police, who try to
help but wonder why he wants to help specifically her. One detective asks
if
he wouldn't rather finance the education of a Kurdish child instead.
With the help of a cousin of his, who also lives in the area, Nejat
plasters
photos of Yeter all over Istanbul, then stumbles into a German bookstore.
It
happens to be for sale and he inquires as to the asking price. The current
owner laughs when he hears that a Turkish German-language professor from
Germany wants to buy a German-language bookstore in Istanbul from a German
ex-pat pining for the fatherland.
The search continues as Nejat drives through the Turkish countryside.
Next,
we are at a protest during which a police officer is attacked and his gun
sent spinning. A balaclava-ed woman picks it up and runs. She is pursued
by a
plainclothes detective as well as a horde of uniformed cops. in her haste,
she drops her cell phone and the detective picks it up. She escapes,
hiding
the gun on a roof. Though the police pick up her cohorts from their
apartment, she escapes and flies to Bremen, Germany to pick up with a new
resistance cell. This is Ayten, Yeter's daughter. She borrows money to go
in
search of her mother, but comes up with nothing.
She can't pay back her comrades, so they toss her and she wanders the
streets, finding warmth in a university. We re-see a scene where Nejat is
teaching and there is a sleeping student in the foreground. Now we know
who
this sleeping student is and how the timelines mesh. Nejat is searching
for
Ayten in Turkey while Ayten searches for her mother in his hometown.
Ayten meets a young woman Lotte, a student, who helps her with food and
lodging. They go to clubs and become best friends and lovers, to Lotte's
mother's disapproval. Lotte asks her what Gül means, because she thinks
that's her name. In Swiss German, Gülle is Jauch, which is liquid manure.
Aren't languages fun?
One morning, Lotte's mother and Ayten have a discussion about her former
political activities, the ones that led to her fleeing Turkey. Ayten seems
to
be reasonably fighting for free speech and free education and against the
1%.
The mother has, well, the exact opinions that you would expect a person of
her age living in a privileged EU country to have. "Maybe everything will
be
better once Turkey joins the EU". Ha! It's possible that even her
character
wouldn't be making that argument today.
Lotte and Ayten are pulled over by the German police and Ayten is put into
a
refugee home. After this, she is shipped back to Turkey. Lotte follows
soon
after, trying to find her, to see her. She finds out she's in a woman's
prison and will be there for 20 years. After Lotte argues with her mother
by
telephone, we next see her in the same German bookstore, now manned by
Nejat.
She pins a note looking for a room up right next to the picture of Yeter,
still hanging there. Nejat offers Lotte a room for 200 euros per month.
Lotte gets in to the prison to see Ayten and receives a map to get the gun
Ayten'd hidden months ago. On the way back from the stash, street urchins
snatch her purse and she gives chase. They lose her temporarily and root
through the bag, finding the gun. They're fighting over it when she finds
them again. One of them points the gun at her and shoots her. Not
maliciously, just because.
Next we see the police interrogating Ayten, asking who had visited her the
day before (as if there's no log of entry?) Clearly, Lotte has been found
murdered with a police officer's weapon. They tell her that Lotte is dead.
We
see the coffin at the airport, being fed by belt into the belly of a
plane.
Part III starts with Lotte's mother Susanne traveling to Istanbul. Next to
her at customs is Nejat's father, who was shipped back to Turkey from
Germany. She meets with Nejat because the German consulate tells her that
he
was her daughter's last landlord. Nejat is the nicest guy, letting her
stay
in his spare room, where she is finally able to sleep. His father,
meanwhile,
has moved on to Trabzon. Next we see Nejat and Susanne in a restaurant, a
pile of mezze and glasses of rakı in front of them. Susanne takes up
Ayten's
cause, in the name of her daughter.
Nejat discusses family with Susanne, is reminded of how much he loves his
father and decides to visit him, leaving his bookstore in Susanne's hands
for
a few days. We are back in the gas station from the start of the movie. He
is
on his way to Trabzon, by car. His father is out fishing. Nejat sits by
the
beach, waiting for him.
Ayten takes her right of repentance and is freed. She meets Susanne and
stays
with her in the small room at Nejat's place.
It's an interesting story of people being people, regardless of their
country
of origin, of love, of trying to fill that void, either as proud German or
Turk or person with no land. A story of criss-crossing paths and unknown
connections.
Saw it in Turkish, English and German with German subtitles.
La Jetée (1962) -- "8/10"
This is the movie that inspired 12 Monkeys. Well, it's a short -- 30 minutes
-- and it's not really a film, more of a slide show with voiceover. Still,
it's very well-made and the story is so enticing. It's not hard to
understand
why Terry Gilliam couldn't resist remaking this concept. The story is of a
prisoner living beneath the ruins of post-WWIII Paris.
This prisoner is one of the few who can stand the mental stress of time
travel, after 30 attempts, he is able to choose where to go and appear
there
stably. The technology is mercifully not discussed. The prisoner achieves
this where no-one else could because he has a very specific memory of a
woman
on a Jetée (an airport observation platform) from his childhood. The
memory
was so fixed in his mind because, soon thereafter, he'd watched a man die.
On one of his trips, he meets this woman and becomes romantically involved
with her, each journey into the past helping him build out this bizarre,
extra-temporal relationship. After 50 journeys, the scientists send him to
the future, which is more difficult. He manages it, and meets with four
individuals from a future humanity, eventually managing to get them to
give
him a power unit to take back with him (again, manner of transport
completely
undiscussed). When back in his "normal" time, his mission accomplished, he
realizes that he is now expendable. The people from the future offer him a
way out, to come to the future with them. Instead, he asks to be taken to
the
past permanently, away from the false perfection of the future, to a time
before the war and where the woman still lives.
He arrives on the jetée, spots the woman exactly where she should be and
hurries toward her. At the same time, though, he spots one of his jailers,
who shoots him. He realizes in his final moments that the man he'd seen
killed as a child was himself as a time-traveling adult. The circle is
closed.
Chris Marker did a tremendous amount with very little. Saw it in French
with
English subtitles.
He Never Died (2015) -- "6/10"
Henry Rollins stars as a strange, silent man named Jack. He is, apparently,
immortal. He spends most of his time lying low, avoiding human contact,
especially contact with evil people, who awaken his hunger. You can't harm
him, and you most certainly can't kill him. Even a point-blank bullet to the
head doesn't phase him. On his back are scars, where wings have clearly been
removed. He has a 19-year--old daughter Andrea. She intrudes into his life,
and he reluctantly lets her, but must send her away when his bloodlust
settles on him.
Cara works at the diner he frequents. She is soft on him, although he's weird
as all get-out. Rollins plays him as a monosyllabic, somewhat shambling
man-thing. When Andrea is kidnapped to get to Jack, he misses the deadline
they set for him. She may or may not already be dead, but others show up at
his diner and cause trouble. He takes Cara home with him, to help him out and
she sees the trunk of money and memorabilia he has in his room. She starts to
have an inkling of how old he is. The discovery gels with the extensive list
of prior occupations he's had, which sounded like he'd lived for centuries.
He reveals to her that he was in the Bible; there he was called Caïn, or
Cain.
He offers her a million dollars to give him a ride home -- then makes good on
it. When she calls him a vampire, he cuts her off with "don't speak of it".
He does get sustenance from human flesh, though. He actually reminds me a bit
of Moro from Octavia Butler's "Mind of My Mind"
. He goes after his
daughter's kidnappers, tearing a swath through the whole room, as only a man
who cannot be killed can.
Just before he can take his final victim -- Alex, the ringleader who
orchestrated his daughter's kidnapping and made him "fall of the wagon" and
start eating people again -- he is stopped by the appearance of a silent
figure sitting at the bar. Jack starts yelling at him, asking why he
shouldn't take Alex. The man stays silent. Caïn asks the man to let him die,
to stop this cursed wandering of the Earth. Cara bursts back in, stopping his
tirade against shadows and begging him to come help with Andrea. He leaves
his final victim alive. The silent man is gone, but reappears to collect
Alex's soul as he expires.
It was OK. Not very tight editing, not enough material, too many loose ends.
Felt more like a series pilot. I like Henry Rollins, though.
Hahaha (2010) -- "8/10"
This is the simple story of two old friends who meet for drinks and share
stories about girls they met in the seaside resort of TongYeong. Gunbeh!
Directed by Sang-soo Hong, from who've I've already seen and liked Oki's
Movie and The Day he Arrived -- this movie has a similar feel. It's
stitched
together from scenes that are memories of the two guys, occasionally
talking
shit, but sometimes letting a real feeling or two slip out. Gunbeh!
It's a simple. sweet film, mostly featuring two people on-screen, composed
of
conversations centered on relationships, both real and imaginary. The men
write what seems like an inordinate amount of poetry and seem to be
largely
unemployed. There are primarily three men and two women: one solid couple
and
another a bit shakier, with one guy doing a great job of wooing the girl
away
from her current boyfriend.
Some of the situations are utterly comical. One conversation during what
seems like the tail-end of a meal with four attendees:
Kang Jeong-ho: Mum, this is the woman I'm dating.
Mum: I was wondering who she was.
Kang Jeong-ho: She's a good person.
Mum: That's what you think. I'll have to see. [to her:] You seem reliable.
Do
you like him?
Wang Seong-ok: Picking him was a hard decision.
Mum: Oh dear...
Wang Seong-ok: Try to be a better man.
Kang Jeong-ho: There's nothing wrong with me.
Wang Seong-ok: Can't you try harder?
Mum: He's all right.
Wang Seong-ok: How can we live with such pathetic men?
Mum: That's why I live alone.
Wang Seong-ok: Oh! Good for you.
Mum: You're a sweet girl.
Wang Seong-ok: Thank you.
As usual in Sang-soo Hong's movies, everyone drinks alcohol all the time.
Also he has his signature camera move: a quick zoom-in, then back out. So
they're either drinking or they're shockingly hungover. When Wang Seong-ok
breaks up with Kang Jeong-ho, she demands that she be allowed to give him
a
piggyback ride before they officially break up. Wang Seong-ok and Jo
Moon-kyeong meet again and again, with him bullshitting away and her
alternately loving it and telling him he's full of shit. They get really
drunk again and this time she goes to a hotel with him, protesting that
she
normally doesn't do this because "it's never good". She was wrong. He's
awesome, follows up with a proposal that she takes under consideration.
Next, we're back at the same restaurant, but it's the two other couples,
including the jilted lover with a new girl. The two men -- Bang Joong-sik
and
Kang Jeong-ho -- argue about philosophy and charity and beggars, while the
womenfolk titter and try to smooth ruffled feathers, defusing the
situation.
Here, Sang-soo Hong very clearly parodies women as thoughtless creatures
who
leave the big philosophical questions to the men. Next we see a few of
them
at a play about -- guess! -- drinking! I had no idea that Koreans drank so
much. Kang Jeong-ho confronts Jo Moon-kyeong and starts beating on him. Jo
Moon-kyeong just laughs while Wang Seong-ok shrieks at Kang Jeong-ho to
stop.
It's a great strategy because he looks like a hero. He takes Wang Seong-ok
to
meet his Mum, she balks at the last second because she finally recognizes
the
place and realizes that she already knows "Mum".
The movies are a bit bizarre, but they always end up growing on me. Almost
purely dialogue-driven. He's like a Korean Woody Allen or maybe Jim
Jarmusch.
The movie ends with a Gunbeh for the last round and a hearty "HAHAHA".
Recommended.
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (2008) -- "8/10"
Juliette (Kristin Scott Thomas) has just been released from a 15-year stretch
that she served in prison. She is picked up at the airport by her sister
and
taken into her sister's home and family. She joins her sister, her
sister's
husband, her mute father-in-law and their two adopted Vietnamese children.
She meets with her parole officer as well as her job-placement social
worker
and tries to find a job. She also gets to know people in the area,
including
a teacher with whom her sister works, Michel.
She slowly starts to fit into their lives, even though the husband is put
off
by the horror of her crime -- she killed her own six-year--old son. He is
at
first leery to let his children interact with her, but the older one takes
a
shine to her immediately. Juliette is quite...melancholy.
They take a weekend together with other families and this part of the
movie
is even more French than the first several minutes (where we observed
Juliette silently smoking at the airport). This is family life on the
terroire, eating, cooking, washing up and reading really old books that
look
like they're falling apart. It was 2008, so perhaps this is the last
French
movie without smartphones or e-readers.
Juliette's friendship with Michel deepens. She's also getting on better
with
her brother-in-law, whom she helped when he wrenched his shoulder out of
its
socket. He even asks her to babysit the two kids when no-one else is
available -- a remarkable indication of trust.
The next day, they are off to visit their mother in the hospital. Mother
suffers from dementia and doesn't recognize Léa, the younger daughter, at
all. She doesn't recognize Juliette either, until Léa leaves to find a
vase
for her flowers, then Mother stops complaining and brightens, recognizing
Juliette and addressing her as "ma petite Juliette" and then continuing in
English. Juliette knows its just the dementia speaking and she continues
to
stare off and be melancholy. As soon as Léa returns, mother yells at them
both in French to leave.
Juliette tries to open up a bit more with Michel, but he is
uncharacteristically abrupt on the phone. She heads out to a bar, drinking
red wine, smoking a cigarette. She heads home to a dark foyer and is then
surprised by all of her friends and family -- including the crafty Michel
--
wishing her a happy birthday.
At first, I didn't see the appeal of Kristin Scott Thomas but she has a
certain style, a quiescence, a patience about her, an insouciance in her
bearing, as if she can take or leave you. A certain ... je ne sais quoi.
She's a very beguiling actress.
Juliette and Léa go out for a night of dancing, but Juliette can't stand
the
crowd and flees, having a silent breakdown. Her sister implores her to
talk
to her, but she cannot.
Next we see Juliette reading a high-falutin' book at the police station
("Des
Orphelins by Gilles Ortlieb"
) --
there's
definitely a defiant theme of "we are French and we still read significant
literature" -- and she meets her new parole officer. She discovers that
the
captain with whom she'd been friends, who'd spoken of going to the Orinoco
and who'd hinted heavily that he was desperately lonely, is no longer on
duty
not because he's in Brazil, but because he'd committed suicide with his
service revolver.
Juliette gets a permanent contract at the hospital -- which is a big deal
in
France -- and we see a heartening, family moment which would feel more
heavy-handed if it wasn't so well-earned. She used to be a medical doctor
and
now she's a permanent records-keeper in the hospital. We next see Juliette
and Léa in a new apartment, where Juliette hopes to move in, and move on.
Soon after, when Juliette leaves in a hurry, she drops an old letter and
picture on the floor of her bedroom. Léa finds it while vacuuming. It s a
picture of Juliette's son Pierre and what looks like a final note, signed
by
him (though it's too advanced for a six year-old -- he was perhaps a
precocious French boy, destined to read weighty tomes while waiting on his
parole officer). However it's written on the back of what looks like lab
results indicating cancer. Léa takes the results to a doctor colleague
for
confirmation that the diagnosis was fatal -- so that she may finally know
that her sister had killed her son out of mercy, that the world makes
sense.
When she knows for sure, though, it becomes about Léa, about how she
could
have helped, how Juliette's actions were selfish. Juliette screams back at
her that she couldn't have done anything, that her son was suffering and
that
he was choking to death on his own cancerous bile. What could anyone have
done? She put him out of his misery.
Brilliant ending; well-struck. Recommended.
8th Wonderland (2008) -- "6/10"
This is the story of a world suffused in confusing and deliberately
misleading media. We start off in the offices of the leader of Central
American country, just as he's about to be elected. His top advisor
shoots
him to death, minutes before the election results are in.
The next scene is of two people robbing a church. Then we switch quickly
to
media coverage of how the Catholic church is incensed at the appearance of
condom dispensers everywhere, including in Africa, where the church has
long
sought to suppress them. There is then a long segment on the annual
pardoning
of the Thanksgiving turkey, this one named Paris. The world erupts in
protest, wondering why the U.S. can only pardon a turkey and no-one else.
The
online "activists" of the 8th Wonderland continue to expound their ideals
and
continue to subvert with real-world actions, eventually catapulting the
8th
Wonderland to one of the most influential entities on the planet.
The story is basically that there is an online world which is truly
democratic, where the participants can actually change things -- and these
participants start trying to effect change in the real world as well. The
depiction of how people would interact and cooperate online turns out to
have
been utterly laughable. A lot of the movie is a discussion taking place in
a
3D virtual chat room, in which the high-level participants of the 8th
Wonderland discuss the "true democracy". This is not at all how the
Internet
turned out -- instead, we got flamewars, memes and porn.
The production quality was pretty low in places -- it looked and felt like
network TV -- and the script was also kind of all over the place. It's
basically a broad collection of skits and ideas -- many anti-church,
pro-evolution, etc. -- with kind of a common thread, but pretty chaotic.
8th
Wonderland continues to affect events, in one case by posing as a
translator
at a Mideast peace conference and completely mistranslating everything to
provoke discontent, but in the end getting credit for having avoided
disaster. The film is a pastiche of clips, fake news, fake commercials and
what feel like online skits.
If you squint real hard, you could see some common concepts with Mr. Robot
and Fight Club and/or Strange Days but, unlike those, in the end of this
one,
the 8th Wonderland is shut down by an elite S.W.A.T. team that infiltrates
and shuts down their physical servers. Or is it dead? Over the credits, we
hear newscasts about a "Ninth Wonderland".
Saw it in French with French subtitles for the myriad other languages used
(Spanish, Italian, German, Chinese, Arabic,Russian, Swahili etc.). [1]
Cop Land (1997) -- "8/10"
Sylvester Stallone is Freddy Heflin, the hapless sheriff of a town in New
Jersey, just across the George Washington bridge from New York. The town
was
built by cops, most of them crooked, as a sanctuary from the law, where
they
can keep their ill-gotten gains and get away with anything, even murder.
The
cast is jam-packed with other top-notch talent (and also kind of the usual
suspects): Ray Liotta, Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, Peter Berg, Janeane
Garofalo, Robert Patrick, Michael Rappaport, Noah Emmerich.
Harvey Keitel and Robert Patrick are the evil ringleaders. Sylvester
Stallone
is the sherriff who goes along to get along for ten years. All the while,
the
mob owns the town -- and all of the cops living in it.
Freddy finally gets fed up with being treated like a foregone conclusion,
is
tired of the murder and the corruption and the cover-ups. He decides to do
something about it. He goes back to De Niro, the IA cop, who turns him
away,
telling him it took him too long to come around. He tries to help a good
friend/love interest get over the loss of her cop husband, who was allowed
to
be murdered by his fellow cops because, though pliant, he was starting to
get
opinions of his own. The wife also snubs Freddy, accusing him of trying to
jump into her husband's shoes.
He leaves, not dejected, but resigned to a world full of people who are
all
the same. He can't blame them, though: until very recently, so was he.
Stallone plays this character very well -- I remember that from the first
viewing. Again, Stallone stands even with or above other, more highly
acclaimed actors. Truly an underrated talent.
Freddy also discovers that Figgs (Ray Liotta), who he thought was his
friend,
burned his own house for the insurance money. Another crooked cop on the
bomb
squad got him the accelerant he needed to do the job. Freddy decides to
bring
in "Superboy" (Rappaport), the cop who's on the run from all of the
others.
They hid him from justice at first, but now they need his body to appease
investigators. So they're ready to sacrifice him. His aunt Rose (Cathy
Moriarty) tells Freddy where he is -- hiding in a water tower.
Freddy and Superboy are ambushed by three cops and they snag Superboy away
from him. They even shoot near his good ear to make him totally deaf.
Freddy
has had enough. He takes out two of them, then is ambushed by a third
before
Figgs shows up again, his guilty conscience having driven him back to help
out Freddy. They face off against Ray (Keitel) and Freddy gets him in his
own
home, his own bedroom.
Freddy and Figgs drive Superboy back to the main precinct in Manhattan.
Freddie is deaf, covered in blood from a gunshot wound to his shoulder --
but
he brought Superboy in. He doesn't know who to trust anymore, although he
thinks he can trust Moe (De Niro).
Caligula (1979) -- "7/10"
This is a surprisingly good biography of the Caligula's succession to Caesar
of Rome. That it is somewhat pornographic [2] is wholly appropriate to the
subject matter of depicting the debauched life of Caligula. Malcolm
McDowell
stars as the eponymous leader, utterly unchanged in his mannerisms from
his
outing as Alex in A Clockwork Orange. Gore Vidal wrote the screenplay, Bob
Guccione -- the founder of Penthouse magazine -- produced the film and
Helen
Mirren and Peter O'Toole lend their gravitas to the film.
The story follows a sycophantic Caligula as he cavorts with his uncle
Tiberius (O'Toole), who is clearly ludicrously syphilitic and at death's
door. Macro, Caligula's devoted praetorian and brother-in-law, chokes
Tiberius to death but is then betrayed by Caligula for his troubles.
Caligula
takes his own sister and Macro's wife for a lover but cannot marry her. He
choose the most promiscuous woman in Rome -- Caesonia (Helen Mirren) -- as
his bride.
The sets are wonderfully elaborate -- at one point, we see a gigantic
head-chopping machine making its way forward over people buried up to
their
necks in the ground -- there are dozens, if not hundreds, of extras, most
in
various stages of dishabille and engaged in assorted depraved acts. The
orgy
scenes are so prevalent that they almost (but not quite) fade into the
background. Caligula sees an officer Proculus, betrothed to a lovely girl
who
he'd almost chosen for his own and decides to amuse himself with them
both.
He arrives at their wedding, asking innocuously "was the ceremony
beautiful?"
-- he looks at the slaughtered lamb -- "the augury was good?"
Even if you hadn't already known, you would, at the very least at this
point,
have suspected that someone with the literary credentials of Gore Vidal
was
at the helm with Guccione. [3] Where the former wrote a script utterly
foreign to what most would consider appropriate fodder for pornography,
the
latter supplied a seemingly endless stream of nubile and willing bodies of
both genders. Caligula leads his betrothed Caesonia on a short, golden
leash
between two giant cakes, one shaped like a penis, the other like a vulva.
He greets Proculus as a "Roman hero", then proclaims he will "now bestow
the
special blessings of almighty Caesar upon this ... happening". This is
clearly all a pretense to bugger one or both of the newlyweds. He
exercises
lus primae noctis, first with her -- "open your eyes, Proculus!" -- then
with
him, taking his virginity as well. It's hard to imagine anyone but
McDowell
playing this role, "you see how I've exhausted myself to make your wedding
holy. My blessings to you both." He chuckles and walks away, leaving them
in
a sobbing heap.
Caligula doesn't feel he has to choose and has a three-way with his sister
Drusilla and his bride Caesonia. They are observed by two women, who are
driven to engage in sapphic ecstacy themselves. Soon after, Caligula rids
himself of the treacherous Gemellus. Still, Caligula descends ever further
into debauched, depraved madness, now afraid that Drusilla is going to
kill
him. He wakes from a fever dream, surround by his advisors, in bed with
his
horse.
He recovers and continues to torture his subjects, taking joy in torturing
Proculus, whom he calls a traitor. "You're an honest man, Proculus, and
therefore a bad Roman and therefore...a traitor!", he titters. Caesonia
gives
very public birth to his heir, but his first heir is a girl. He rallies,
though, and declares that the child is a son. How can he do this? He. Is.
A.
God. But even he cannot save Drusilla from fever and she dies in his arms,
driving him around the bend. He wanders the streets a beggar, then ends up
in
jail.
After a short stay there, he returns to power and has the Senate
unanimously
declare him a God. Needing money, he declares that the Senators' wives
will
staff a brothel in order to replenish the state coffers. "Only five gold
pieces for every twenty minutes! And that's a bargain! Look at them.
Aren't
they beautiful. Superb! The most lascivious ladies of the Roman empire
have
come today to perform their patriotic duties for all. ... All aboard the
imperial bordello and you'll have your choice of the finest flesh in the
empire.".
Next he takes the Roman army to conquer Britain, where he collects papyrus
cane to "prove" he was there. He descends further into self-destructive,
heedless madness. He is accompanied on this journey by a simple man he met
in
jail, who is his constant companion now. All around him is intrigue and
silent plotting. The plotting comes to fruition: Caligula is struck down
by
his royal guard, Caesonia is killed and his daughter ("son!") is dashed to
death on the steps of the temple. Caligula sees this all before he is
piked
to death by a hundred blows. The final scene is of the slaughtered family
on
the steps, blood running a river down them.
McDowell delivers a standout performance, seemingly a role he was born to
play. I don't understand how anyone can say this is one of the worst
movies
ever made. Not so: it's absolutely elaborate, over the top and madcap and
filmed quite well. It achieves its goal of making a relatively highbrow
movie
for which hardcore pornographic scenes are occasionally appropriate.
Patton Oswalt: Talking for Clapping (2016) -- "7/10"
I've liked his other specials better than this one. It felt like he was being
too careful, addressing too many Twitterstorms, pandering to his San
Fransisco audience. The bits lacked integrity, in the sense that they were
separate from one another. He discusses how we really need a woman president
then, twenty minutes later, discusses how little girls are much more devious
and brutal with one another than boys, where direct violence is quickly over.
He told a lot of stories about his old days as a comedian. It had its
moments, but he was missing too much fire. I would rather re-listen to his
older stuff.
Page Eight (2011) -- "7/10"
Bill Nighy is a calm and sedate and long-serving MI5 officer. Michael Gambon
is his even longer-in-the-tooth boss. Rachel Weisz is his neighbor, who
chooses to make his acquaintance on the same day that a highly classified
and
explosive file lands in his lap. The file describes how the U.K. and the
U.S.
are complicit in torture, with the most damning information showing up at
the
bottom of "page eight".
Judy Davis plays another of Nighy's superiors, who flips her wig after
Nighy
tells the Home Secretary of the incriminating evidence in the file. Davis
tells Nighy that he's a fool for believing the report, to which he
responds
with stunned silence, because it hadn't occurred to him to doubt its
veracity
-- because his buddy Gambon vouchsafed it. Davis tells him there's a war
going on in MI5 and that Brits are killing Brits (presumably referring to
7/7, of which mention is made several times) and otherwise going off the
deep
end with paranoid frustration.
Next, he talks to his ex-wife, who tells him that his daughter was
justified
in being angry with him because he wasn't nice to her when she wanted to
tell
him that she was pregnant. The ex-wife wastes no time telling him he's old
and outdated and doesn't understand anything. He can't help but note that
a
lot of people seem, of late, to want to convince him that he's useless and
stupid and outdated.
Things kick into high gear when Gambon has a heart attack and Nighy's
ex-wife
calls him to let him know (Gambon was his ex-wife's new husband as well as
his best friend).
He meets with an old friend/informant (Ewen Bremner, or Spud from
Trainspotting), who also tries to tell him how the world works, that
intelligence is what the powers-that-be want, that intelligence delivered
communists when the pols wanted communists and now it delivers Arabs when
the
pols want Arabs.
Nighy is of a different mind, channeling Snowden, saying that, even though
we
all knew that there had to be black sites where Americans and Brits
torture
prisoners, having evidence of it is different -- and can also be used to
implicate those who can be proved to have known, including but not limited
to
the prime minister of England, played by Ralph Fiennes. The PM meets with
Nighy at Gambon's funeral and, after trying to butter him up, asks for the
file back.
Nighy refuses, quits, goes on the run with Weisz, to whom he reveals that
the
report says that her brother was tortured to death. Intrigue and lies and
government secrets. Nighy finds out that he's been surveilled, and that,
by a
young man who was also surveilling Weisz. Everything's intertwined as this
"Ralph" then turns out to be the son of Nighy's superior at MI5. It turns
out
she's running a parallel intelligence unit for the PM, who was
dissatisfied
with the lack of cooperation between MI5 and the Americans. He preferred a
more...corroborative and submissive agency. She tries to deflect her guilt
in
this venture by saying that MI5 was ineffective because it's an old-boy's
club. She then threatens him with jail. But he calls the bluff -- they
actually bluff back and forth. Nighy is really spectacular here.
When she doesn't agree to a deal, Nighy calls his source in the media, to
whom he's already given everything, and gives her permission to publish.
He
returns once more to Weisz to give her his car and one of his nice
paintings
she'd admired. She asks if she can go along on his ex-pat adventure. He
demurs and they kiss, then leaves without her. She hears on the news that
Nighy released the report that her brother had been slaughtered by the
Israelis in the occupied territories. He'd also arranged it just right so
that she was free to pursue justice. The movie ends on the same jazzy,
upbeat
note with which it began.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] While I understood quite a bit, I freely admit that my French isn't good
enough to have understood every nuance. I don't think a better understanding
of the dialogue or the plot would have changed my overall impression.
[1] I say somewhat because, while there are hardcore scenes, they are scattered
throughout long stretches composed of plotting, intrigue and long
discussions of Roman politics.
[1] Although Vidal would disavow the script, claiming it had been changed too
much. He even refused credit on the film. Still, some of the dialogue made
it through.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=32442016-04-17T17:21:04+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of over 900 ratings
publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my notes
for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to...
]]>
of over 900 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.
Bullitt (1968) -- "6/10"
Steve McQueen and Jaqueline Bisset star in this at-first groovy movie with a
kickin' soundtrack. The bass line starts thumping during the credits and
sets
a tone that the rest of the movie doesn't sustain. Robert Vaughn, Robert
Duvall, Norman Fell are here as well. Frank Bullitt (McQueen) and his
partner
are charged with guarding a witness. They set him up in a safe house. An
unknown assailant attacks the safe house, getting in because the chain was
mysteriously off the door. Bullitt's partner is shot and so is the
witness.
The pacing is pretty slow, We're half an hour in and that's all that's
happened so far. They've spent ten minutes getting the injured police
officer
to the hospital and into surgery. Nearly ten minutes later and they're
still
in the hospital -- Chalmers (Vaughn) has made Bullitt 100% aware that he
considers the whole fiasco to be his fault. Also, he drops some racism on
the
black doctor, telling a nurse to remove him from the case because he's
"too
young". Bullitt is bizarrely in the snack area -- ICUs had those in the
60s?
-- munching on a Wonder Bread and Nutella sandwich. The Nutella jar hasn't
changed a damned bit.
The movie seems to revolve around a single (now dead) witness and
Bullitt's
refusal to let Chalmers figure out where he is -- because Bullitt is
convinced that he can make the bad guys come out of the woodwork. And
crawl
out they do, for a 15-minute car chase through San Fransisco that must
have
been seriously amazing at the time, and still isn't bad now, but drags on
a
bit. Still it serves to show off old San Fransisco.
OMG Jaqueline Bisset has lines! I thought she was mute, poor thing.
Now they're at an airport. How exciting! The guy they thought they were
chasing is a different guy but now they're chasing him. People are running
everywhere. Run, run, run. Close-up of Steve McQueen's baby blues. Ross
sees
he's being chased, he shoot a security guard. Bullitt shoots him. The end.
The best thing about this movie was the opening credits, with the thumping
soundtrack. Those were awesome.
Lolita (1962) -- "6/10"
This is Stanley Kubrick's black-and-white filming of Humbert Humbert and his
darling Lolita. The initial credits roll over a male hand painting a young
girl's delicate toenails. James Mason is Professor Humbert Humbert. In the
very first scene, he walks into a messy mansion to find a drunken Clare
Quilty, played wonderfully by Peter Sellers. Sellers's acting makes this
scene lunatic and parodic rather than as tense and scary as in Adrian
Lyne's
version, where Quilty was played by Frank Lagella and Humbert by Jeremy
Irons. Lyne ended on that scene where Kubrick starts with it and plays the
rest of the film as a flashback.
Four years earlier, Humbert is on his way to Ohio to start a lectureship
at
Beardsley College. He takes a room from Charlotte Haze, played by Shelley
Winters. We meet Lolita lounging in the backyard in a bikini. Humbert
takes
the room. The next scenes show Humbert integrating into home life,
watching a
drive-in movie with one girl to each side and hands all over his knees. He
plays chess with Mama whileLolita kisses him lingeringly goodnight. Lolita
hula-hoops while Humbert pretends to read poetry.
This version is much smirkier and dirtier than the more somber Lyne
version.
At an extended dance/party/mixer scene, all of Haze's friends are swingers
or
speaking nearly purely in double entendrés. At one point Haze tells
Quilty
that Lolita will be seeing his uncle Ivar, a dentist, "where she'll get a
cavity filled." Quilty (Sellers) looks temporarily taken aback, then
smiles
filthily and says "Yee-esss, of course." Nothing beats James Mason's
voice,
though. I can't believe he's not faking it. It's perfect for lines like
when
Lolita comes back early to interrupt her mother's putting the moves on
Humbert -- with a sledgehammer -- he tells her that they "Oh we had a
wonderful evening; your mother created a wonderful spread." When Lolita
says
she's hungry, Humbert offers her something, but her Mom tells her "all
right,
but you take it upstairs and after you've eaten it, you go right to
sleep."
Humbert comes back with the sandwich and says "it's loaded with
mayonnaise,
just the way you like it." OMG Phrasing everywhere in this movie.
The story is the same and some of the scenes are the same as well. For
example, after Humbert agrees to marry Haze, they're in bed together and
he
maintains ardor by gazing at the photo of Lolita over her shoulder. They
have
further strife, she finds his journal, she sees what's going on with his
love
of her daughter and spite for herself. One thing leads to another and she
kills herself by leaping in front of an onrushing car.
Humbert goes to pick up Lolita from camp -- and they both know why. They
end
up at a hotel and must settle for a single room with a single bed. Sellers
shows up again as Quilty, motor-mouthing his way through a long scene
whereby
he, in a very roundabout manner, suggests that Humbert is sleeping with
Lolita -- wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know what I mean? Sellers appears in
several roles, notably as Dr. Zempf from Lolita's school, exhorting
Humbert
to allow Lolita more freedom -- all in a ridiculous German accent, all the
while talking of "we Americans". Sellers is the best part of this movie.
Humbert finally has a serious, jealousy-driven falling-out with Lolita,
which
deviates a bit from the later incarnation. Lolita is quite controlling,
but
more overtly resistant to Humbert.
She ends up in the hospital with a flu. Humbert is very nervous that she
will
divulge something about their lifestyle. After waiting interminable days,
he
goes to the hospital to get her, only to find that her "uncle" had checked
her out first. Instead of sympathizing with him or being horrified that
they
had allowed an underage girl to leave with just anyone, the hospital staff
act as if he's psychotic because he doesn't take the news well that his
daughter has been released into the custody of an unknown man. They tackle
him and want to commit him to a sanitarium. His natural nervousness
doesn't
help so perhaps that gets their hackles up, but it's very strange.
When he finds her again, three years later, she is married, but not to
Quilty, who'd taken her away as her "uncle", but to another, younger man.
She
is supposedly six months pregnant. I say supposedly because she doesn't
look
even a month pregnant. He goes from there to Quilty's home and we close
the
loop of the flashback.
I like the one with Jeremy Irons better, although Peter Sellers did his
best
in this one, James Mason was a bit too whiny.
Chungking Express (1994) -- "8/10"
This is a very stylized Chinese movie about a young police officer and a
mysterious woman. She seems to be trading cash for passports of Indian men
and is involved in some seriously shady dealings. It's not clear what
she's
up to, but she's deep in with the Indian community in Hong Kong. He'd been
jilted on April 1st and had given his girlfriend 1 month to realize the
error
of her ways. He buys cans of pineapple that expire on May 1st because (A)
that's what his ex-girlfriend May likes and (B) it's his birthday and (C)
that's the day she's supposed to reveal that their breakup was a joke. May
1st rolls around and she fails to appear.
He eats all the pineapples. He also gets drunk, super-drunk. He meets the
mysterious woman, who's on the run after having had a smuggling operation
go
sour. She grudgingly hangs out with him and they end up in a hotel
together.
She passes out and he orders takeout and watches old movies. He goes
jogging
the next day, to get the water out of his body without crying, as he says.
She pages him to wish him a happy birthday. Next we see the lady approach
the
guy who double-crossed her and shoot him in cold blood.
Scene two: different cop. Missed connections. He's at the same lunch
counter
where the first cop used to hang out, waiting for May. There's a new girl,
Faye, and the new cop, 633, is slowly falling in love with her. His other
girlfriend left him a note and his keys and Faye took them. She sneaks
into
his apartment -- a cop's place! -- and rearranges stuff for him. She makes
his bed with new sheets, she relabels his cans, she cleans his apartment,
she
deletes phone messages from his old girlfriend. She also leaves the a
faucet
open and nearly floods his apartment.
Good soundtrack. Whimsical. I really like Kar-Wai Wong as a director (he
also
directed In the Mood for Love and 2046). Tony Leung is really good. Shots,
colors, framing, all lovely. The soundtrack is fantastic (as the one for
2046
was, but this time with a lot blues instead of classical). Recommended.
Dead Man (1995) -- "7/10"
Jim Jarmusch directed this black-and-white movie about an accountant named
Bill Blake (Johnny Depp). Blake travels out west to a small mining town.
He
has left all that he knows behind and used his last funds to respond to a
job
offer. On the train, Crispin Glover sets the tone as a madcap train
conductor. When he arrives, they laugh at him and tell him that the job
had
been filled a month ago. Dickenson, the owner (Robert Mitchum) and John
Hurt
as his front-office man, throw him out. That he took two months to respond
to
his acceptance letter Blake's his own fault. Depp plays Blake as utterly
hapless and bewildered.
Dejected and bereft of purpose, Blake wanders through the filthy town,
finally ending up in a saloon where his last few cents purchase a tiny
bottle
of spirits. Rather than stay under the eyes of the bizarre townspeople, he
goes outside. The town's filth and uncouth inhabitants remind of scenes
from
Hard to be a God. He makes the acquaintance of a young lady Thel, who
takes
him back to her room. They wake up together when her boyfriend Charlie
(Gabriel Byrne) storms in. Charlie shoots her and Bill shoots him. It is
the
first time he's fired a gun and now he's a murderer. He takes to the road,
fleeing. His chest aches where the bullet that passed through Thel struck
him
as well.
Charlie was Charlie Dickenson, and senior is furious. He hires three
gunman
to exact revenge. Michael Wincott as the garrulous Conway Twill, Lance
Henriksen as the silent and cannibalistic Cole Wilson and Eugene Byrd as
Johnny Pickett. Their numbers drop from three to two to one, as Cole kills
the others, for being useless in Pickett's case and annoying/delicious in
Wilson's.
They are hot on Blake's trail, but Blake has been joined by "Nobody" a
native
American without a tribe. He will accompany him on his final journey (he
recognizes the gravely wounded Blake as already dead). He also thinks that
Bill Blake is the poet William Blake, whom he cites at length. On the
trail,
various mishaps occur, Blake racks up a string of kills -- all by accident
--
including Iggy Pop, Billy Bob Thornton (poachers) and Alfred Molina
(shopkeeper).
Bill Blake goes on a vision quest and ends up at the shore of a river,
where
a native American tribe loans him a sea canoe with which to drift off into
oblivion. The last thing Blake sees is Cole Wilson and Nobody shooting
each
other to death. He drifts away. Everyone is dead. The end.
Drugstore Cowboy (1989) -- "7/10"
Gus Van Sant directed this movie about a gang of four friends by necessity
who rob drugstores to get morphine and other drugs. It's 1971. They hit a
store, get a good supply, but the cops follow the trail back to them.
Luckily
they hid the drugs in the backyard so, while the cops flip their entire
house
upside-down, they don't find anything and leave. Matt Dillon is the
ringleader Bob, married to Dianne (Kelly Lynch). James Le Gros and Heather
Graham round out the crew as Ricky and Nadine.
To get back at the cops and to get them off their trail, Bob writes them a
letter giving them an anonymous tip about a connection between Bob and his
neighbor. It's fictitious, though. When the stakeout sees Bob talking to
his
neighbor, they think they're onto something. Bob, however, is telling his
neighbor that someone's spying on his wife. When a cop gets up on a ladder
to
look in the window that night, the neighbor shoots the cop with a shotgun.
The cops (with leader James Remar) show up to beat the crap out of him for
the setup, then pretty much run him out of town. He claims that he and his
crew have moved on on their own, though, because he's a junkie with
delusions
of grandeur. In the next town, they find a drugstore with an open transom
and
rip it off without a hitch. Their next hit is a hospital, where they again
use distraction -- cars running wild in the parking lot -- to draw
attention
away from Bob, who's breaking into medicine cabinets inside. Things go
awry:
Bob is injured, but crawls home the next morning, sans drugs. Nadine has
overdosed massively, taking a lot of their existing stash with her.
This is Bob's cue to straighten up and fly right. He begs Dianne to come
with
him, but she can't give it up. He takes enough to get home, leaving the
rest
with her. At home, he signs up for a methadone program, gets a job and a
tiny
apartment. He also rekindles his friendship with Father Tom, played
beautifully by William S. Burroughs, a real-life heroin addict. Dianne
visits
soon after, but she doesn't stay and she's now hooked up with Ricky and
part
of his gang. Max Perlich is an old friend, David, also a dealer. The cop
who
originally ran him out of town now wishes him the best, but warns him that
the cop he tricked his neighbor into shooting is still looking for
revenge.
Bob is resigned to it. David beats the cop to that punch, breaking into
Bob's
apartment to steal his stash, then beating on him and finally shooting
him.
We see him Bob the ambulance on the way to the hospital, dreaming of the
wonderful drugs there. No escape.
Southpaw (2015) -- "7/10"
Jake Gyllenhall is BIlly Hope, light-heavyweight world champion with a 43--0
record, lots of tattoos, a lovely, devoted wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams)
and
a cute daughter whom he loves above all else. He has matching tattoos on
his
forearms: "Fighter" and "Father". They also have a mansion, lots of cars
and
a lavish lifestyle. He and Maureen clawed their way out of Hell's Kitchen,
and a bunch of his current crew/entourage comes from there as well. 50
Cent
plays his manager, who worked with him for 10 years. There is another
fighter
Miguel, a Colombian, who's itching to get a title shot and 50 Cent wants
to
provide it.
Maureen has asked Billy to step it back, though, because his fighting
style,
while effective, usually results in him being beaten nearly to death --
think
"Seth "the Battling Pict" Slingerland"
-- but he always comes back because he uses anger at his pain to fuel him
to
victory. Ok, fine. But he's still a bit slurry and chronically injured
from
the beatings. We see how painful it is, even for the victor, in the days
after a fight.
At a benefit dinner, Miguel and his crew confront Billy, demanding a shot,
which Billy ignores until Miguel insults Maureen. They bare-fist fight --
horrifying because Hope's face is still ruined from his last fight --
until
there is a shot: one of Hector's goons has pulled a gun and fired by
accident, injuring Maureen fatally. Billy spirals out of control. He
drinks,
he does drugs, he hunts down Miguel to his apartment, where he discovers
that
he is also a father. Billy slinks away.
He tries to fight again, but loses, head-butting a referee and basically
being the exact idiot that Maureen always prevented him from being. He is
suspended for a year from fighting, sued by the referee and becomes deeply
indebted for his lavish lifestyle, etc. etc. He finally crashes his car,
out
of his mind on booze and drugs, after which his daughter Leila is taken
away
from him.
Leila is pissed at him for putting her in foster care. Billy has nothing
at
all anymore. He seeks out Tick Wills (Forest Whitaker, who is
transcendent)
as a trainer, but Wills will only take him on to clean the gym at night.
First lesson is humility. From there, it's kind of a Rocky/Karate Kid vibe
as
Billy re-learns how to box not like a defenseless idiot but like a real
boxer. Billy sought out Tick because he says that Tick trained the only
guy
who ever beat him. Wills is confused because Billy won that fight. Billy
tells him it's because 50 Cent fixed it.
Billy's first fight is a charity gig for wounded veterans, where he
doesn't
need a license to box. He successfully tries out his new-found skills. He
shows responsibility, 50 Cent contacts him for a fight against Miguel (who
he's now managing) in six weeks, Leila is returned to him. Things are
looking
up. Tick is reluctant to train Billy professionally, but agrees after they
bond through shared suffering over the death of a young kid from the gym,
Hoppy.
The final matchup is pretty good, although touted as more of a defensive
contest than it really was. It was more of a slugfest than fights usually
are, with too little defense from both sides, but at least had some, which
is
more than Hope showed in the other two fights we saw or than we ever saw
from
Rocky. Spoiler alert: Hope wins with a left-handed uppercut.
Funny Games (2007) -- "5/10"
I guess this is a horror movie in the genre of "this could happen to you" but
I didn't believe it. A family -- husband, wife and son -- goes on vacation to
their house on a lake. Soon after they arrive, a strange young man appears to
borrow eggs. He's unfailingly polite, but he's a moron, a klutz. He's also
wearing ridiculous white gloves that just scream "I don't want to leave
fingerprints". He's just there to distract and to gain entry to the home.
Soon after he drops the eggs for the second time, his friend appears and now
they're both in the home. For whatever reason, the mother doesn't throw them
out or get backup. The unbelievable part is that she doesn't sense the
menace, or that she really would be too polite not to express something. Is
it because they're white? They have such cunty faces -- the casting call must
have explicitly mentioned this trait -- and are so mealy-mouthed, that you
should be able to sense something a mile away. But I guess that's how con-men
work.
One of them breaks the father's leg with a golf club and they have control.
Just like that. No resistance. Now they can play "funny games" for the rest
of the movie. Tim Roth and Naomi Watts were wasted in this predictable hash.
This was an American remake of Michael Haneke's original from 1997, but given
the source material, it's hard to imagine that that one was more interesting.
This is the genre of "bad guys in control, while everyone else cries for two
hours". The only twist in this film is that there is no comeuppance. Also,
one of the kidnappers breaks the fourth wall, which felt hackneyed. I see the
experiment as a study of desensitization to media violence -- as Haneke
originally intended -- but the film is otherwise unmoored from motive. Not
recommended.
The Fountainhead (1949) -- "7/10"
Gary Cooper is Howard Roark, a skilled architect and principled to the core.
He finally gets a commission because they like his work, but they ask him
to
just compromise a little bit, adding some baroque elements to appease the
desires for people who aren't architects. If you've read the book by Ayn
Rand, then you'll recognize much of the text. Architecture is done by each
man subordinating himself to the collective. Ha! Even the utterly
byzantine
and stilted dialogue and personal interaction has been transposed from
page
to screen.
Patricia Neal is an heiress of a newspaper empire who falls in love with
Roark's awesomeness on the building site, where he works when he can't get
design work. She stands above him, wearing jodhpurs and holding a riding
crop, while he stands cockily down below, knowing she'll come to him. She
gets him into her room by deliberately breaking her fireplace and getting
him
to fix it. Quite a courtship dance. "The wider your eyes the better the
acting" should be on her tombstone. "If it's not violent and doesn't
involve
female submission, then it's not courtship" should have been on Ayn
Rand's.
Long story short: Roark sticks to his guns, does everything his way or the
highway, doesn't accept input from anyone because everyone else in the
entire
world is a moron, gets his greatest enemy to be his greatest supporter,
gets
the same guy's wife to be deliriously in love with him. He even gets
Peter, a
crap architect who kept getting his contracts because he had no spine, to
beg
him to do his work for him on a spectacular new project. When Peter allows
changes to Roark's designs, Roark blows up the building because they
ruined
it. At his trial, the accusers put him on trial not for having blown up a
public building, but for not bowing down. OMG Ayn Rand, the world was so
simple for you. His best buddy and former enemy runs his newspaper into
the
ground trying to defend Roark. Roark does a bit of a Galt-like speech,
though
dozens of pages shorter. This line was pretty funny:
"Thousands of years ago the first man discovered how to make fire. He was
probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light, but he
left
them a gift they had not conceived of, and he lifted darkness off the
earth.
(Emphasis added.)"
Still a bit long, though. Rand never met a paraphrasing she didn't like.
Also, Cooper didn't even smirk when delivering that line, which is the
worst
thing about Rand's world: it has no fucking sense of humor. In the end,
Roark
is declared not guilty, which is ridiculous because he was guilty of
blowing
up the building, Wyman commissions him to build the Wyman building,
tallest
in the city and then Wyman kills himself, making way for Roark to marry
his
wife. Everything's coming up Howard.
I think the story is decent, but the film is not very good. The book is
much
better. And anything is better than Atlas Shrugged. Some of the dialogue
is
pretty cheesy, but the point it's trying to make is a good one? It's hard
to
describe. Some parts felt a bit like Gone with the Wind. The concepts are
decent and have a grain of truth worth defending to them, but they're so
simply framed, too black and white. Not recommended -- read the book
instead.
The Conversation (1974) -- "7/10"
Gene Hackman stars as Harry, a cop in this beautifully shot and rendered
1970s movie about domestic surveillance. Yes, from 1974. The U.S. has
always
struggled with tyranny and hasn't been free for a long time. Ah, no wonder
it's so pretty: Francis Ford Coppola directed it.
Harry has a difficult time separating work from his private life. He's
very
secretive about himself, sensing the irony. Even with his girlfriend Amy
(Teri Garr), he doesn't want to open up. On his 42nd birthday, she pries
too
much for his taste and he leaves. She tells him that she won't wait
anymore.
Holy crap! There's Harrison Ford, pre-Star Wars! In profile, he looks
eerily
like Aaron Eckart -- or Aaron Eckart looks eerily like a young Harrison
Ford,
I suppose.
Harry runs through conversations of a couple he's been following, and
starts
to suspect that something more is going on than just a standard trace. He
thinks they're being targeted for murder. His room of equipment is
awesome,
all old-school tape-drive tech. It looks like the Hamilton College radio
station before the upgrade in 1993. God I'm old. The
surveillance-technology
expo is also very interesting. It's like watching old James Bond movies.
This
is probably how our amazing 21st-century technology will look to people in
2050 or 2060. At any rate, Harry's quite famous in his field, as an
independent surveillance specialist. He's more of a PI than a cop, selling
his services to law enforcement. The demos then look the same as now,
complete with booth babes.
From the expo, a bunch of the guys head out for drinks, then end up at
Harry's shop. Though they call his equipment outdated, they're all jealous
of
his skills and his reputation. In particular, they press him for
information
on how me managed to record a conversation back in '68, on a boat way out
away from shore.
Even his latest assignment for the couple is a work of art. Two people in
a
crowd, moving around a park, not sitting, not predictable. Harry takes the
opportunity in the change in conversation to lead them away from '68,
especially Bernie, an old colleague from New York, who's absolutely
desperate
to team up. When he discovers that Bernie used a high-tech pen to spy on
Harry that evening -- when Harry was spilling his heart out to a girl --
Harry gets pissed and throws everyone out. The audio of the couple
continues
to haunt him as he and the girl hook up, but always the couple he'd
followed
haunts him.
The girl, however, was hired by Martin Stett (Harrison Ford) and she
absconds
with the recording before he wakes. He is then forced to hand over the
pictures as well, so he can get paid. He still has deep misgivings about
what
will be done with the evidence he's gathered on what he is now convinced
is
an innocent couple. Robert Duvall plays The Director, who commissioned the
job, but he doesn't respond or react when Harry asks him what's going to
happen to the people. Harry unravels, checking into the hotel to spy on
room
773 -- the room mentioned by the two people he spied on. but what he hears
is
inconclusive. He sees and hears things that aren't there. When he goes
back
to see The Director again, he finds the lady in a Mercedes out front of
the
building. The Director is dead. She and her husband murdered him and the
surveillance by The Director was because he suspected a plot against him.
Twisteroo!
Harry ends the film in his apartment, playing his saxophone at maximum
volume
and trying desperately not to think about what had happened. After a
menacing
phone call, he tears through his apartment for bugs, ripping up floors,
pulling tiles off the wall, dismantling everything. I don't think there's
much of a chance of him getting his security deposit back. The hunter has
become the hunted -- but perhaps only in his own mind. This is a pretty
movie, showing off the nicest parts of San Fransisco architecture in the
70s.
Tetro (2009) -- "7/10"
This is another film by Francis Ford Coppola, starring Vincent Gallo as
Angelo, a washed-up playwright living in Buenos Aires. He is visited by
his
brother, Bennie (Alden Ehrenreich), who is surprised to see how far his
brother has fallen. As they walk slowly through the city -- Angelo has a
broken leg -- Bennie calls Angelo "Angie", to which Angelo replies that
he's
now called "Tetro". He seems to be channeling a young Michael Douglas in
both
appearance and voice.
Bennie stays with his brother for a few days, and is introduced to his
circle
of acquaintances and his live-in girlfriend, Miranda. At this point, we
see a
flashback of a car crash in which a young Tetro was involved. It's unclear
whether his passenger died. The plot dawdles forward through the
performance
of "Fausta" a play for which Tetro runs the lights. It comes out that
Tetro
and Bennie's father was a famous, rich playwright, Carlo Tetrocini.
Miranda
storms out because Tetro had lied to her for a long time about his past.
Bennie and Miranda become closer friends. He takes Tetro and Miranda's
puppy
for a walk and gets hit by a Vespa, injuring himself quite badly. The
puppy
is fine. Tetro flashes back to his car accident again, wherein it's now
clearer that his wife or girlfriend was killed. The flashbacks are in a
tighter frame, narrower, with a large black border on the screen. The two
sons remember their father as an overbearing arrogant man who wouldn't let
their sons have anything for themselves, seeking praise, flirting with
their
girlfriends.
Bennie misses his boat, ending up in the hospital for a while. Tetro and
Miranda reconcile, rallying to support Bennie. Tetro discovers that Bennie
has been digging into his old stories and memoirs. He throws a fit, but
Bennie presses on, finishes the play Tetro was unable to finish and gets
it
published and produced. Tetro sulks. Like, a lot. The play of their lives
starts to merge with flashbacks and revelations, though it's difficult to
know what's true. It is revealed that Carlo stole Angelo's great love from
him, leading to the ruin of the family and breaking Tetro for good. Bennie
reveals all of this drunkenly at a family reunion. Or thinks he does -- is
he
just dreaming? How much of this film is a dream? He hulks out and tries to
set the ancestral home on fire. Then it's time to get back out into
traffic;
what is it with this family and traffic?
Filmed in black and white. Saw it in English and Spanish with subtitles.
Habemus Papum (We Have a Pope) (2011) -- "7/10"
This movie starts with the election of a pope, Pope Melville. He has a
nervous breakdown before he can greet the public from the holy balcony. He
runs away screaming, following by a shuffling mass of confused cardinals.
After exhibiting what they felt was sufficient patience, a few cardinals
from
Oceania wanted to take in the sights and a Caravaggio exhibit. But the
head
cardinal pulled on their leash and made them stay sequestered for another
day.
The cardinals call in a shrink. The counseling session takes place within
a
giant circle of cardinals. He isn't allowed to know his name, not allowed
to
ask about family, mother, childhood, pretty much anything relevant. It
turns
out that the psychiatrist is not a Catholic, doesn't even believe in God.
No-one bothered to ask. He soldiers on. He discovers later that he is now
trapped within the Vatican because they cannot let him go until he cures
the
Pope. They confiscate his phone, cutting him off from the outside world.
He's not the only one, though. Because of the unorthodox proceedings, with
the Pope remaining unannounced, the cardinals, too, are in limbo. They
smoke,
play solitaire, make jigsaw puzzles, take the various medications required
by
men of such advanced age.
The next morning, the Pope takes a walk and sees the Swiss guard doing
some
form of...maneuver. They're speaking perfect High German, which is total
bullshit. Swiss people can't speak High German without an accent, often a
catastrophically strong one. Even Angels & Demons got this right, FFS.
The Pope takes a limousine out of the Vatican, to talk to another
counselor,
his other psychiatrist's wife. (I think.) After speaking to her, he tells
his camerlengo that he needs to take a walk. He disappears when a passing
truck blocks his security detail. He wanders the city, confused and
hopeless
and depressed. He calls his camerlengo, but doesn't reveal his
whereabouts,
saying he needs more time to think. The Pope is AWOL.
The camerlengo rallies and gets a Swiss Guardsman to fill in for the Pope,
pretending to all the Cardinals that the pope is back and that he's doing
just fine, just needs a little time. Meanwhile, the Pope ends up in a
hotel.
The next morning, he is accosted by a seeming madman, speaking lines that
have no relation to reality. The Pope quickly recognizes that he is
rolling
through the lines of a Chekhov play. (The Three Sisters, if I'm not
mistaken...liberal arts education FTW!)
The Swiss guardsman posing as the Pope is, meanwhile, is having quite a
nice
time of it, playing music and snacking on delectable desserts. The
psychiatrist moves on from playing cards with a few cardinals to examining
the odds -- made by li Bookmakers -- and discussing the chances the
front-runners had with the whole group. They're definitely out of their
comfort zone here, but he is definitely not. Next, they set up a
volleyball
court in the Vatican, to pass the time. They've already set up the
brackets
prior. They all agree to play because they think the Pope is in his
apartments, gleaning energy from their enthusiasm. It's just the Swiss
guardsman, though.
The camerlengo announces that the Pope is gone for good. The cardinaly
rally
for a last gambit and go to the theater where he is watching a production
of
The Three Sisters. The cardinals, in their innocence and utter lack of
worldliness, remind me strongly of how I pictured the wizards of
Discworld.
When the play falters because of the dozens of cardinals swarming the
theater, the Pope's comrade-in-arms and fellow Chekhov-lover (an asylum
inmate, it seems), leaps to the stage to perform all the roles at once, to
prevent the production from sinking. His soliloquy ends in raucous
applause.
Slowly people realize the Pope is in attendance and they applaud him
instead.
Wonderfully madcap.
He finally makes his way to the vaunted balcony...and declines the
position.
The Catholic church has no Pope. The cardinals are devastated. The world
makes no sense anymore. The end.
Saw it in Italian with English subtitles.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=32422016-04-17T13:04:26+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of over 900 ratings
publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my notes
for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to...
]]>
of over 900 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.
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978) -- "7/10"
Oh my God. Every. Damned Chamber. They skipped a couple, but it still felt
like a lot. Some of the training devices are pretty neat -- primitive but
effective. San Ta escapes from marauders plaguing his village to the
Shaolin
temple to learn Kung Fu, so that he can return to teach it to his fellow
villagers, to defend themselves. He spends about an hour working his way
through the 35 temples, then duels for the right to head his own chamber.
I understand that it's 1978, so this movie established a lot of the tropes
that now seem so cliche. The choreography is pretty advanced for its time.
The dialogue is pretty stilted. The morality lessons are well-known. But
it's
well-executed, if a bit closely filmed (i.e. lots of standard angles,
mostly
quite close and cutting off the rest of the scene).
Instead of taking over one of the existing chambers, San Ta proposed to
create a 36th chamber -- taking the martial lessons of the Shaolin to the
outside world so that they can defend themselves from evil. The abbot has
to
pretend not to approve, but "banishes" him to the outside world, where he
does exactly what he originally set out to do. As expected, the real world
offers him an opportunity to use almost every single individual lesson
that
he learned in the various chambers. Plus, he's better at everything than
any
other person he meets: he's stronger than the smith, better than the
miller
at legwork, etc.
It will come as no surprise that there is a huge brawl and that everything
works out exactly as expected: San Ta has a Shaolin school and the enemy
is
vanquished. There was a woman on-screen for a total of about ten seconds
of
this movie. I have no idea why this movie was rated R.
Terminator Salvation (2009) -- "6/10"
Even Christian Bale and Sam Worthington can't save this relatively banal
movie from itself. There are robots, there is Skynet, there is an amazing
cyborg, but the whole plot is basically about trying to rescue a single
teenager from Skynet. We learn a bit more about the mythology of the
Terminator universe, but perhaps lose much more to confusion.
Cloud Atlas (2012) -- "9/10"
This is my second viewing, the first after having read the book. It makes a
lot more sense now. The sequences with Tom Hanks as Zachary are
impressively
true to the language spoken in the book. That patois was difficult enough
to
read, to say nothing of understanding it when spoken. They stuck to it,
though, not caring a whit that no-one would be able to understand it in
the
movie.
This is a vanity movie with an unswerving dedication to the source
material,
but a good movie nonetheless. I understand now why I had no hope of
understanding what was really going on without having read the book.
The cast is incredible: Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving and Tom
Hanks
both play multiple roles. Ben Wishaw plays my favorite from the book,
Robert
Frobisher, really well. The interleaved format is more pronounced in the
movie than in the book, which comprised 11 parts instead of dozens and
dozens. But cinematically, it probably worked better, showing the
interleaving and extra-temporal connections between characters better than
the book did. The plot is so convoluted as to be nearly impossible to
describe quickly, but it was quite faithful to the book. See "my notes on
the
book for more details."
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) -- "8/10"
Jack Nicholson plays the role he seems to have been born to play. The
characters are quite true to the book. The plot diverges quite a bit, though
the main elements are there. That cast is great, not just Nicholson, but
Danny DeVito, Louise Fletcher (as the unblinking Nurse Ratched), Sydney
Lassick (Cheswick) , Vincent Schiavelli (Fredrickson), Scatman Crothers and
Christopher Lloyd. Will Sampson plays the Chief just as I'd pictured him. The
original story is one by Ken Kesey, of the Beat Generation, who had a healthy
suspicion of modern American culture and its strict definition of what is
normal. When normal is supporting the slaughter of Vietnamese halfway around
the world, then the world is crazy. Any slight form of rebellion is
considered crazy and punishable. The Chief and Randall discuss escaping to
Canada, escaping the asylum of America. Randall does get out, but not the way
he'd imagined. The Chief, though, he doesn't let Randall's sacrifice go in
vain and escapes in a more spectacular manner than he did in the book. Still,
the film follows the book pretty closely. Nurse Ratched embodies the Combine
(unmentioned in the movie...the Chief's entire inner monologue is missing)
and McMurphy takes out his rage on her. See "my notes on the book for more
details."
Inherent Vice (2014) -- "7/10"
Joaquin Phoenix is Doc Sportello, a hippie druggie private detective, whose
vaguely reminiscent of The Dude from the Big Lebowski or perhaps Hunter S.
Thompson from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The dialogue is mostly cool
(lifted largely from Pynchon's prose from the book). Josh Brolin as Bigfoot
Bjornsen, a police detective, is very good. This is not a very action-filled
movie; instead it's almost purely dialogue-driven, with a single face
occupying the screen at any one time. It's unclear which parts are real and
which are imagined because of Doc's nearly perpetually altered state. He's a
basically nice guy, with ugly urges that he's long since tamped down, leading
him to be a much nicer guy than you'd expect him to be. Nicer than anyone
else in the movie, at least.
The plot is a convoluted investigation into the seedy side of 1970s
California land development, with shades of white-supremacist biker gangs,
drug dealers, crooked lawyers, fake deaths, missing people and so on. Doc's
interest is to protect his former girlfriend -- and the love of his life,
Shasta Fay.
The book was better, but I think that's nearly unavoidable as Pynchon's prose
is nearly unassailable, but I'm a fan. It's a bit of a long film to
recommend, but has some interesting dialogue and some good performances.
Harry Brown (2009) -- "6/10"
This is a movie about Harry Brown, played by Michael Caine, an older man
living in modern-day England, spending his days visiting his comatose wife
in
the hospital while surrounded on all sides by the criminal youthful
society
that's grown up around his neighborhood. Brown witnesses crimes
everywhere.
Life goes on. Until his wife dies. And then his friend is killed by local
punks. Harry ends up in his bar, getting righteously pissed. The bartender
is
played by Liam Cunningham, the same actor who plays Davos Seaworth in Game
of
Thrones so he's immediately trustworthy. A little while later, Iain Glen
shows up as superintendent Childs (he also plays Jorah Mormont in Game of
Thrones).
Harry's pretty drunk, so he flashes a bit too much cash when paying his
monstrous tab. A local addict notes the indiscretion and follows him home,
jumping him by the river. Harry's utterly shithoused and old but he still
flips the dude's knife around in a microsecond and takes. him. down. At
home,
he sleeps it off, then seems to ponder what he's done, considering
resurrecting his shadowy past as a Marine.
"Stretch" is the first dealer he goes to once he's decided to clean up his
neighborhood. He's played by an utterly transformed Sean Harris, who's
skinny, covered in scars and tattoos and clearly strung out -- but not
nearly
as strung out as the girls he has lying around his den, and who feature
prominently in homemade sex tapes. Nearly everyone but Harry is an
over-the-top degenerate, crude, stupid, guttural and driven only by the
basest desires. I suppose that will make it easier to just start cutting a
wide swath through them all. Which Harry summarily does, taking revenge on
the boys who killed his best friend, because the police can't. Total
vigilante movie. Except in this one, the guy is so old that he has an
emphysema attack while chasing one of the youths who gets away. While he's
laid up in the hospital, his neighborhood erupts in extreme violence
between
the police and the local gangs.
He check himself out of the hospital and heads back to his gang-ridden
office
block. The two police officers who suspect that he's behind the recent
rash
of killings discuss what to do.
Alice Frampton: I think he's going to kill Noel Winters.
Terry Hicock: Who gives a fuck if he is? Noel Winters is a cunt. His Dad
was
a cunt. One day he's going to have a load of cunty kids. As far as I'm
concerned, Harry Brown is doing us a favor.
Alice Frampton: Look of disapproval.
Alice is right, though, cops should generally frown on vigilante behavior.
But it's so tempting when the target is such an absolute scumbag. It turns
out that good ol' trustworthy Seaworth is actually the gang leader and
Winters's uncle, to boot. They manage to kill Hicock, who's unconscious,
but
Frampton and Harry survive and take them out instead. The end.
Don Jon (2013) -- "8/10"
This is a movie about a New Jersey goombah, Jon, played by Joseph
Gordon-Levitt. His life is defined by watching pornography, going to the
gym,
hitting the clubs, smashing chicks, rating chicks, going to church to
absolve
his sins and eating dinner with his family. That's it. I think he's a
bartender. He meets Barbara Sugarman, played by Scarlett Johannson, and he
falls in love. Unlike every other girl he meets, she will not put out. So
he
falls in love. You'd immediately think why would anyone want to be with an
idiot like him -- and then you realize that, while she's a bit better,
she's
basically an idiot too.
The cast is great: Tony Danza as his father, Brie Larson as his sister --
so
far without a single line -- and Glenne Headly as his mother. His friends
are
goombahs too, with Rob Brown (Delmond Lambreaux from Treme) showing up as
his
only real friend.
Barbara Sugarman sets out to change him. So, before sleeping with him, she
makes him go to night school. After his first class, he gets his
present...and it's disappointing compared to porn. So he sneaks out of bed
to
watch porn after she falls asleep -- as he does after pretty much every
one
of his conquests -- but she wakes up and catches him. He lies and pretends
that it was a joke sent by a friend. She believes him.
Why does his Lenovo laptop make an OS X boot-up sound? Because everything
else is fake, right? He's fake, porn is fake, the night-clubs culture is
fake.
Julianne Moore shows up as a colleague from his night-school class (they
haven't even said what he's taking because it doesn't matter) and she
catches
him watching porn on his phone. The next class, she brings him a DVD of
Brigitte, a Danish movie from the 70s which she says has got to be "better
than that fake shit you're watching on your phone". He says it's not fake.
She says, of course it is.
Next, we see him with his friends and he describes his relationship with
Barbara in a completely over-the-top manner. He can't stop thinking about
porn when he's with her. Man, is he one angry driver. Barbara does exactly
what's expected of her, trying to domesticate him. Turns out he's more of
a
domestic than she is: he's a bit of a neat freak, while she has a
housekeeper. His eye starts to wander to the cool, older lady who gave him
a
porno. Not the young "tenner" who doesn't know how to clean and forbade
him
from watching porn.
And it turns out that he's actually a better person than she. But that's a
not a high bar in New Jersey, ammirite? And then she snooped on his
computer
-- doesn't anyone use a password? And, just like that, she's gone. But at
least he has one good friend (Rob), who makes him keep going to school,
where
he takes up with Esther (Julianne Moore), who is way cooler and way
smarter
than Barbara.
And then, out of nowhere, Brie Larson wakes up and nails Barbara's coffin
shut by pointing out that she was never interested in Jon, that she just
wanted a man she could control. Johnny starts changing his life, bit by
bit.
No more porn, playing basketball instead of lifting weights, no more
grease
in his hair, finishing school, ending up with the hot older lady.
Hot Girls Wanted (2015) -- "6/10"
This is a documentary about the cam-girl/pornography industry, focuses on
Miami. It follows the lives of a few girls who started, following their
careers through their 2-3--year arc. It's pretty tragic all around, the
desperation, the ignorance, the mean-ness.
25th Hour (2002) -- "7/10"
Spike Lee directed this adaptation of David Benioff's book.
Monty (Ed Norton) gets busted for dealing drugs and he's on his way to prison
in the morning. The movie is told in flashbacks, mostly from Monty's point
of view. It's a bit slow, with long soliloquies by the prime characters,
including Monty yelling the most horrible stereotypes about New York and its
inhabitants into a mirror. Barry Pepper plays one of his best friends, Frank;
Philip Seymour Hoffman the other, Jacob. Frank's a Wall Street trader;
Jacob's a teacher. Brian Cox is Monty's father, a former drunk and
firefighter. Rosario Dawson plays Naturelle Riviera, his live-in girlfriend
and possible turncoat. It's got Clay Davis as a DEA agent, doing his "Sheeee
-- iitttt" line from The Wire.
They all meet at a club for one last night before he goes up the river, and
it seems like Monty's working an angle. He asks Frank for a favor, but we
don't know what it is. Frank accosts Naturelle, acting drunk, but it seems
like he's only been nursing one drink all night. He starts the evening with
Caol 18-year, which he has to get from upstairs. It's unclear what he does
upstairs when he accompanies the waitress to get it. He ends the evening
drinking Dewar's -- and offering Jacob a Jack Daniels. Then Monty has a
meeting with his boss and seems to discover that his long-time partner has
betrayed him, not Naturelle. This plot feels like Mamet -- I don't feel like
I can take anything I'm watching at face value.
In the next scene, Monty says he can't go to jail pretty, and goads Frank
into beating the ever-lovin' crap out of him. He ain't pretty no more. Jacob
gets him up, Doyle the pit bull barks, Frank sobs on the ground after what
he's done, knowing it was for Monty's absolution, Monty staggers away with a
face like I haven't seen since Fight Club. He goes back to his apartment,
shocking Naturelle and then his father with his fucked-up face. His Dad
drives him to prison. He tells of how a man has to see the whole country and
offers to take him away, away from everything -- Monty dreams it as he dozes
in the car. This sequence goes on for a long time, which is kinda cool. Until
you almost start to believe it, but you know you can't.
Instead the car drives on, to Monty's future, pulling his weight.
Good soundtrack. Pretty good performances. A touch on the long side, although
it ended up feeling shorter than expected because you kept waiting for a shoe
to drop. Recommended.
Lord Jim (1965) -- "6/10"
Peter O'Toole is the eponymous sailor. He's the king of the world on the boat
on which he's stationed, but he breaks his leg and has to go ashore for an
extended period. Bored, he takes the first boat he can out of there, the
Patna, but it founders and the entire crew abandons the boat -- partially
out
of fear and partially because they've convinced him it's sinking, he
abandons
the boat, with passengers still aboard. The cowardly crew makes it back to
port, only to see the Patna already there. Only Jim sticks around for the
trial -- and he is stripped of his sailing papers.
He drifts around, doing all sorts of odd jobs, just not on water. He
finally
takes a job on a small boat and partially redeems himself by not
abandoning
the boat when everyone else does and instead putting the fire out and
saving
it. The grateful owner takes him on his next adventure.
This next adventure is delivering weapons to a remote tribe, in order to
help
them get out from under the local strongman. There is a lot of attacking
and
defending. Lord Jim does well, but he ends up promising that he will allow
himself to be judged if just one man dies in a last-ditch defense he wants
to
try. His plan works, but the chief's son -- and Jim's best and most loyal
comrade -- dies. The chief banishes Jim from the village, telling him may
live, but he has to leave all that he has grown to love, including a
lovely
girl from the village. Jim elects to stay and takes his punishment. The
film
closes on his funeral bier.
Strange Days (1995) -- "9/10"
This is a very well-made movie about New Year's Eve 2000 in an alternate
future where full-sensory recording and playback are already available, on
the black market at least. The technology was invented to replace
surveillance wires, but people got hold of it and there's a thriving
market
for "clips" of different people, of different lives -- and deaths.
The story was about 20 years too early. It's about video evidence, about
corrupt cops, about the execution of prominent black leaders, about highly
militarized police. They envisioned the start of the new millennium as
much
more metal than it really was. Vincent D'onofrio and William Fichtner are
a
couple of asshole LAPD. Angela Basset becomes the new Rodney King, as the
compadrés show up to start clubbing her gorgeous self in the middle of
the
New Year's crowd. Bad idea.
Tom Sizemore stars as the ball of chaos pounding through the middle of the
movie. Juliette Lewis is fantastic as a bit of a lost soul singer and the
target of Ralph Fiennes's obsession. Ralph Fiennes is the
ex-cop/clip-dealer
who is the center of the story. Michael Wincott is the rockstar/dirtbag
boyfriend of Juliette Lewis.
I don't want to ruin the story, but the world was well-represented, a bit
Blade Runner-like. Recommended.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=32432016-04-17T12:33:19+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of over 900 ratings
publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my notes
for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to...
]]>
of over 900 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.
Last Tango in Paris (1972) -- "7/10"
It's Paris in the 1970s. A young woman passes an older man on a bridge, under
a train trestle. They note each other, but move on. She stops at a
building
with apartments to rent. The landlady is odd, doesn't have the key, finds
a
duplicate. When the girl gets to the apartment upstairs, the man is there.
He
had taken the key. They circle each other, asking one another whether
they're
taking the apartment. This feels quickly like innuendo for something else.
After more circling, feints and subterfuge, he approaches, lifts her up,
and
takes her up against a radiator. They are both surprised at the intensity
of
the coupling, but roll away and leave the building without saying another
word to each other. We discover later that his name is Paul and she is
Jeanne.
She has a boyfriend, who she rushes to meet at the train station. Paul is
next seen in a different apartment, watching as another woman cleans up a
bloody bathroom. Next, we see Jeanne in the apartment, dancing around
movers,
but it's his stuff that is being moved in. The movers call her "his wife"
and
he tells her that he does not want to know her name nor wants her to know
his. Next, we see an older woman, moving in to a different set of rooms.
This
is his wife's mother. She has joined him because the bloody bathtub was
the
scene of his wife's suicide. They argue about whether God is allowed to be
involved in the funereal proceedings.
He is a moody, violent and broken man.
The next day, we see him with his new young lover in their new apartment,
not
knowing anything about each other, Kama Sutra-ing/Chakra-ing their way
through a lazy afternoon.
She returns to her boyfriend, who is shooting a film of her life. They
return
to her ancestral home -- she is the scion of a French general who served
in
Algeria (and who was a horrible racist) -- and they film further there.
She
starts by proudly claiming that neighborhood children always played in
their
yard. When they get to the backyard, the housekeeper Olympia shoos away a
gaggle of children who are relieving themselves in the woods, yelling "Oh,
these dirty little Arabs! Go and shit in your own country!" Her daughter
says
that "Olympia was sublime. It'll give a good idea of race relations in the
suburbs of Paris." This was over 40 years ago. Nothing has changed.
She escapes back to the apartment and to Brando's moody giant. They are
extremely comfortable with each other. The notion that they know nothing
of
each other paradoxically makes them open up to each other more. "No
names!",
he yells. She yells back at him that he doesn't listen to her, that he's
not
generous, not indulgent, he's an egoist, he's locked up in his moody
solitude. He smirks at her. I can't even tell if Brando is even acting
here.
"I can be alone too!" she yells at him, before he leaves the room. To
prove
her point (somehow), she masturbates. He is unperturbed, truly in his own
world, crying. Is he somehow mourning for the loss of his wife?
Now he's back with his wife's mother. They seem to be still working
through
her daughter's death.
He's back in the apartment when she comes back in, calling him "Monster".
He's on the floor, and demands butter. She brings it, but is on the way
back
out. His plans for the butter are not for breakfast, but for buggering
lubricant. He rapes her. Brando seems to be extending or reliving his role
as
Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now.
In the next scene, her filmmaker boyfriend proposes to her and it's
unclear
what her answer is. Quick switch to the next scene, where she's dressing
up
in her father's old military uniforms while her mother packs up other
things.
Next she's back making the film, getting fitted for a bridal gown and
discussing "pop marriage" with her fiancé.
She runs back to Paul, telling him that she tried to leave him, but that
she
could not. So he carries her upstairs, where he gets crazier and more
controlling and mean. He's off the rails, but she can't leave him. She
tries,
but fails and can't seem to get away from him without his permission,
which
he refuses to give. Paul has quite an anal fixation, There's the
butter-rape
scene, He mentions hemorrhoids a few times, there's the scene with the
dead
rat where he says he'll save the rat's asshole for her to eat with
mayonnaise, and then he starts talking morosely later about how everyone's
alone, about how you have to "crawl up into the asshole of death" to
discover
life's meaning.
She keeps telling him that she's found love without doing that, then tells
Paul that she's talking about him. He responds with brutality, wanting to
push her away. His brutality is expressed, once again, in line with his
anal
fixation, this time his own. While she obliges his demand, he drivels on
about future bestial acts he'll make her perform, trying to drive her
away?
Or satisfying his own vicious, twisted carnal desire? She hangs on for the
whole twisted ride. He can't drive her away because she knows what he's
trying to do. He is relentless, though.
Next he visits his wife's body and he expounds away again, deliriously.
She
cheated on him with everyone she could, including most of the guests in
their
hotel. The meanness that he exercises against Jeanne is probably revenge
against all women for the transgressions of his "lying cunt" of a wife.
Brando does play this broken, damaged person quite well.
Paul meets Jeanne again and they spend the day getting crazy drunk in a
large
hall hosting a tango contest. When they're good and liquored up, after
more
abuse from him, they take to the floor and make an embarrassing hot mess
of
everything, getting thrown off the floor by the judges. She pulls herself
together enough to tell him they're finished. She masturbates him in the
dark
corner of the hall while she protests that it's finished. She runs away.
He
gives drunken chase, screaming for the "bimbo" to stop. He's not going to
let
her go. She ends up at her mother's apartment; he follows. She grabs her
father's service revolver and fatally shoots him. He staggers to the
terrace,
takes one last look at Paris and dies, curled up in a ball.
There's a lot of nice camera-work with mirrors and odd angles that give a
good idea of the disjointed state of his mind. Maria Schneider as Jeanne
is
fantastic.
Solaris (1972) -- "8/10"
Tarkovsky's masterpiece does so much with so little. There's a long segment
-- about ten minutes -- during which Burton travels wordlessly by car into
a
major city, along arterials. The sound design, the music and the
photography
all make it seem like he's taking a rocket-ship ride instead. It feels
so...otherworldly, even though the journey is prosaic and well-known to
anyone who's driven into a city from its outskirts. Similarly, with scenes
of
nature, where he films them so that it's at first difficult to discern
what
we're actually looking at, but then the scene resolves itself to a branch
hovering over lilypads on water. Again, Tarkovsky makes it seem like he's
filming another world. He switches between black and white and color,
between
sound design that picks up every cricket, to one where the crackling of a
fire is utterly missing.
Most of the film's background is conveyed in long soliloquies. The story
is
of a planet named Solaris, which has what seems to be a sentient world
organism either living in the ocean or that is the ocean.
We accompany Kelvin on his journey to Solaris, where he rendezvouses with
the
space station orbiting the planet. He finds the station nearly deserted
and
at least partly destroyed. He finds doctor Snaut in a distracted, agitated
state. He finds out that Sartorious is missing and Gibarious is dead.
Snaut
acts strange and warns Kelvin that he should be careful of what he thinks
he
sees. Kelvin thinks he sees another person in Snaut's makeshift hammock
right
before Snaut shoos him away, begging him to come back later.
Kelvin finds Gibarian's quarters, where everything is in disarray. Strange
drawings and readouts hang everywhere. He plays a message that Gibarian
left
for him, trying to explain what happened to him. But he's very mysterious.
He
says that he hopes what happened to him won't happen to Kelvin but that he
can at least hope to prepare him for it. What is it? He names it a
monster.
He leaves with the tape and wanders through the elaborately rendered and
dilapidated station. We see Snaut peering through a partition at him.
Kelvin seeks out Sartorious, who agrees to talk to him, but won't let him
into his rooms. Sartorious keeps the door from being broken down, then
catches a small man who tries to escape. He ends the conversation and
retreats to his room, little man in tow. Kelvin looks out at the ocean of
Solaris. A scantily clad woman walks past behind him, along the curve of
the
station. He follows her into a freezer, where she could never survive, but
where he finds Gibarian's body. She is gone.
Back with Snaut, we see a disorderly array of instruments, drawings and
snippets of data decorating his quarters as well. They argue about the
woman,
objects move and fall in Snaut's quarters, Snaut declares tht Kelvin
doesn't
understand anything at all. Snaut likely has no idea whether Kelvin
actually
exists, although Kelvin, our narrator, is utterly convinced that he does.
He
watches the end of Gibarian's message, where he sees a young girl flit
through the picture a few times -- a girl who could not possibly be on the
station. The film switches between color -- the woman's dress is blue --
and
a nearly saturation-free black and white.
Kelvin lies down and dreams. Tarkovsky has a way of making long periods of
nothing very suspenseful, even more than Kubrick could. He wakes to find
a
young woman sitting in his cabin. She approaches and lies down next to
him,
greeting him with a kiss. He looks exhausted and sad, questioning her
about
how she came to be there. He seems to know her; he calls her Hari. She
finds
a photograph of herself, spies herself in a mirror and asks him who she
is.
She thinks she has amnesia. She doesn't want to let him out of her sight,
as
if her existence depends on close contact. She seems to know Snaut, though
that should be impossible. When he tries to help her undress for an EVA,
he
discovers that the closure on her dress won't open, as if it had been
created
around her, but non-functional, rather than put on by her.
We next see Kelvin in the EVA silo, where he asks her to get in, then
shuts
the door behind her and ships her off-station. We hear her screaming in
protest. He is trapped inside the silo and suffers burns. He survives with
minor burns but she is gone. Back in his rooms, he is visited by Snaut,
who
now tells him more of what he knows, that the planet seems to be
manifesting
islands of their human consciousness, that Hari will return, despite
Kelvin
having sent her off in a rocket. Kelvin moves out of shot to get out of
his
singed clothes and we see Hari's afghan still draped over his chair.
He sleeps. He wakes in the night to another incarnation of Hari. This one
is
better -- she knows how to take off her own dress. She has another shawl.
He
sees them both draped over the chair now. She paces the room, as if unsure
how to proceed. In the morning, Kelvin leaves to get rid of her duplicate
clothes but she tears through the metal doorway, unable to stand being out
of
his sight. She does grievous damage and seems to be dead, although her
wounds
are healing miraculously quickly. She is terrified at the sight of her own
blood -- because she doesn't know that she's an incarnation of his
imagination made real by an alien intelligence. She thinks she's the real
Hari.
Together, they watch what look like clips of a home movie of his life (?).
The film ends on Hari, standing on planet Earth. He is trying to show her
what she is, to see if she will come to the conclusion herself. She
remembers
bits and pieces. She lies to herself, not knowing she's a being
constructed
of neutrinos rather than cells.
Snaut arrives again, always wrapping his hand -- presumably from having
beaten his apparitions to death. They plan an encephalographic attack on
the
planetary entity. Kelvin goes further off the deep end, getting closer and
closer to this copy of his estranged wife. Hari finally discovers that
she's
not real, but wonders how to go on from there. She asks about how the
"other
her" died. Hari, it turns out, had poisoned herself. Kelvin is now more in
love with the copy than he was with the original.
Next, we see Kelvin, Hari and Sartorious waiting for Snaut in a very fancy
office, complete with candlesticks (it's hard to believe that it's on a
space
station). Snaut shows up in a torn three-piece suit. Kelvin is also in a
suit. They cite Don Quixote on the beauty of sleep. They drink what looks
like wine from fine crystal. There are stuffed birds on the shelves on the
walls. Who took all that stuff into space?
They discuss what it is to be human. Hari says that she is becoming human,
perhaps a better person than they, who are so dismissive of her. As if to
bely this, though, she then sobs when she discovers that she doesn't know
how
to drink from a glass of water. And still she has no shoes.
After accompanying a drunken Snaut for a while, Kelvin returns to the
study,
where Hari's brooding, smoking a cigarette. Hari acts quite well, giving
an
impression of otherworldliness in her unblinking stares. She is meditating
on
a painting on the wall. He startles her out of her reverie. Snaut said
that
there would be 30 seconds of weightlessness. No-one thought to make sure
the
lit candelabra should be put out. The glass of orange juice doesn't float,
though. The ocean of Solaris roils on.
The silence is interrupted by a shot, then a close-up of a container of
what
looks like liquid Oxygen spinning on the floor, next to a frozen and quite
dead-looking Hari. Kelvin hunkers over her corpse She's killed herself out
of
despair. But she will return. Snaut advises him, "don't turn a scientific
problem into a love story."
Kelvin slips deeper into delirium. Sleep brings no respite, no recovery.
We
see how Hari appears only once he wakes. He wanders the increasingly messy
station in his underwear -- crimson instruments partially torn from the
curved walls -- meeting Snaut and babbling about life and its worth in a
Shakespearian soliloquy. As in Stalker, Tarkovsky has a knack for making
an
act as simple as wandering down a relatively banal hallway seem
portentous.
He uses music, stark and abrupt silences, mood, angles, mirrors, switch
between color and black and white, odd juxtapositions -- seriously where
did
they get cut flowers on a space station? -- and priming through backstory
to
build so much out of nothing. Kelvin lies in delirium, surrounded by Hari,
and now his mother, his family dog, multiple copies of Hari, fruits,
flowers.
Objects move on their own. Madness.
Kelvin wakes as from a fever dream to a room with only Snaut in it. He
tells
him that there is no Hari anymore. They have successfully transmitted
Kelvin's electroencephalogram to the creature below and the apparitions
have
stopped. The camera, however, lingers on relics of their visits, like
Hari's
afghan or his mother's washing ewer. Snaut tells him he should go back to
Earth and when next we see him, he's at the homestead. He turns from the
lake
to see his old family dog, running to him, then approaches the window to
see
his father. Kelvin's face twists in agony, as he sees that his father is
inundated by a leak in the roof that he doesn't notice...and Kelvin knows
he's not back on Earth, but on one of the islands that have cropped up on
Solaris. He knows he is trapped there, but accepts it and embraces his
father.
As with Stalker, this is a story of a first contact that doesn't follow a
formula, that doesn't imagine any way that a truly alien culture could
find
anything in common with us. Recommended.
Fail-Safe (1964) -- "8/10"
This is a Sidney Lumet film about the fail-safe system that was in place
during the cold war. It's very interesting, but feels more like a
documentary
about how the system works: the checks, the balances, the unlikelihood of
anyone really knowing what's going on or being in control. The morality or
immorality of it all. How jocular they are about the inconsistencies,
about
the "UFOs" which might cause them to start a war, to accidentally end life
on
Earth as we know it. They talk about overstocking weapons, about the
inhumanity of thermonuclear war.
The film follows a green alert during a fail-safe, which ends up being an
off-course commercial flight with engine trouble. The whole room stands
down
after coming close to red alert. Next, there is a piece of faulty
equipment
to replace and the flights that are holding a pattern over the fail-safe
points receive a "go" signal, but they can't believe it. They try to
verify
and get what seems like verification of the day's sequence code. They are
a
go.
The command center thinks they've dodged one of the many bullets they
dodge
each week, as they separate the signal from the noise. But then they all
notice that one of the bombers is headed for Moscow, according to the
order
it thinks it's gotten. They're now in the position of not being able to
call
back their bombers because they can't establish contact. Even if they do
establish contact, any orders will be ignored, according to protocol. So
the
only alternatives are to either allow the bombers to hit Moscow or to use
US
jets to blow bombers out of the sky.
This movie plays out as a sort of what-if scenario about different ways
that
the fail-safe systems could fail. The cast discusses how machines have
gotten
too fast to correct, they even temporarily delve into the minds of the
Russians, who must be just as confused and reluctant to jump to
conclusions
as they are (probably more). Walter Matthau -- playing a "political
scientist" name Groeteschele -- stands out as one of the most unstable and
least reasonable characters, so cock-sure of every one of his
prognostications. Dan O'Herlihy's General Black provides a balance with
his
Colonel Black, resisting Groeteschele's insanity. Henry Fonda plays the
president.
Regardless of what the fools on the ground decide, Murphy's Law decides to
make the chasing jets flame out and crash before they can catch up to the
bombers, making the decision of whether to shoot their own planes out of
the
sky moot.
Larry Hagman is -- I kid you not -- a Russian translator. This is so
unbelievable to everyone that even the president pedantically explains to
him
that idioms differ by language. They contact the Soviet Union to assure
them
that, though Moscow might be obliterated, this act should not be
interpreted
as an act of war. The premier is not impressed, asking why the Americans
insist on sending armed planes to Soviet airspace. The call ends with no
promises on either side. The Soviets will try to shoot the bombers down,
but
will also scramble their full defenses.
The planes enter Soviet airspace. The large screen in the command center
looks kind of like a primitive video game. It's unclear who the guys in
the
command center are cheering for -- the Soviets or the Americans. There are
those who think that this attack will actually win the cold war (e.g.
Matthau's Groeteschele). The president wants to resolve the situation
without
death, the unelected generals and technocrats (e.g. Groeteschele) on both
sides want the war, they think that they can win. They manage to get the
Soviets to admit that they jammed the communication to the airport. The
Soviets believed their own computers, which told them that the attack was
real -- so they have the same problem as the U.S.
The Soviets lift the jamming, but the group leader does not respond to the
president's command to turn around -- because he's been explicitly ordered
not to respond to possibly faked voice-tactical commands. The president
gets
the Soviet premier back on the phone and informs him that he should leave
Moscow, that the attack will proceed. When the premier gets pissed, the
president blames the lack of being able to shoot the planes down on the
Soviets (wildly unfair, but realistic, I suppose).
What's interesting is that, when such movies are made, they can be very
good
-- and this one is quite good -- but there is an important component. It's
always that the U.S. bombers are out of control and the Soviet Union is in
danger of being bombed, not the other way around. That is, the situation
must
be resolved but, if it's not, then it's Moscow that goes up in a giant
fireball, not Washington.
Matthau's Groeteschele keeps pushing hard with the standard American
argument
of "kill or be killed". The arguments he makes have been carried forward
100%
unchanged from 50 years ago.
Gen. Stark: You're talking about a different kind of war.
Prof. Groeteschele: Exactly. This time, *we* can finish what *we* start.
And
if we act now, right now, our casualties will be minimal.
Brigadier General Warren A. Black: You know what you're saying?
Prof. Groeteschele: Do you believe that Communism is not our mortal enemy?
Brigadier General Warren A. Black: You're justifying murder.
Prof. Groeteschele: Yes, to keep from being murdered.
Brigadier General Warren A. Black: In the name of what? To preserve what?
Even if we do survive, what are we? Better than what we say they are? What
gives us the right to live, then? What makes us worth surviving,
Groeteschele? That we are ruthless enough to strike first?
Prof. Groeteschele: Yes! Those who can survive are the only ones worth
surviving.
Brigadier General Warren A. Black: Fighting for your life isn't the same
as
murder.
Prof. Groeteschele: Where do you draw the line once you know what the
enemy
is? How long would the Nazis have kept it up, General, if every Jew they
came
after had met them with a gun in his hand? But I learned from them,
General
Black. Oh, I learned.
Brigadier General Warren A. Black: You learned too well, Professor. You
learned so well that now there's no difference between you and what you
want
to kill.
Prof. Groeteschele also makes another modern prognosis. In discussing what
will have to be done when New York is bombed, he lets slip what the really
important casualty is.
"Prof. Groeteschele:[...] our immediate problem will be the joint one of fire
control and excavation. Excavation not of the dead, the effort would be
wasted there. But even though there are no irreplaceable government
documents
in the city, many of our largest corporations keep their records there. It
will be necessary to... rescue as many of those records as we can. Our
economy depends on this. (Emphasis added.)"
The president orders all of his people to aid the Soviets in any way
possible. Colonel Cascio's hatred of the Soviets makes him incapable of
answering, because that will betray to the Soviets how they can shoot any
American plane out of the sky. His backup is called -- a very young Dom
Deluise! -- who answers and gives away the ballgame to the dirty commies.
Cascio, though, steps up the paranoia an extra ten levels, suspecting the
Soviets of having engineered the whole fail-safe mistake in order to get
the
information about the American planes. Cascio starts exhorting the general
to
initiate a first strike -- then takes over forcefully. He is pulled down
and
arrested. The Soviets hear everything and sympathize that they also have
such
elements and situations to handle.
The president of the US doesn't know what else to do, so he promises the
Soviet premier that he will drop the same bombs on New York's Empire State
Building if Moscow is hit. So the U.S. fucked up several times and now is
in
the position of helping the Soviets down U.S. planes while promising to
execute a counterattack on its own city in order to prove that the attack
on
Moscow was not intentional. To prevent an even greater counterattack by
the
Soviets, they must sacrifice New York.
The premier and the president talk about whose fault it was. The Soviet
premier think it was machines; the president says it was men that let
machines get out of control. The phone squeals; Moscow is hit. President
Fonda orders the attack on New York.
The movie is extremely open about Dresden, Tokyo, Hamburg, etc. how those
were direct attacks on civilians. This movie reminded me a bit of Dr.
Strangelove.
The Fisher King (1991) -- "8/10"
This Terry Gilliam movie starts off with Jeff Bridges's radio DJ Jack Lukas
dragging one person after another through the mud. He ends with a tirade
against yuppies, delivered to a lonely introvert who called to ask for
help
on how to meet a young yuppie woman at an upscale restaurant. Because of
Jack's tirade, he instead goes there with a gun and takes out seven
people.
Three years later, Jack is no longer working in radio, but is now
"working"
at a video rental shop, for Anne, played by Mercedes Ruehl. Jack decides
to
end it all, with a cement block on each ankle, shockingly drunk, off a
pier.
He is rescued by Perry, played by Robin Williams. Perry used to be someone
else, but his wife was killed 3 years ago at an upscale restaurant. Jack
tries for absolution, but he thinks he can find it by giving Perry money.
Instead, he will have to help Perry in his quest -- to find the holy
grail.
Robin Williams is amazing in this role. He is Quixote. He follows his
Dulcinea around, knowing just as much about her as Quixote did about
Dulcinea.
Terry Gilliam's lovely stamp is all over this film. I'd forgotten how
nicely
the fantasy/mental-illness elements were integrated into the real world.
The
effects were really decent for the pre-CGI era.
And then, just when I thought that Robin Williams was the most
over-the-top
guy in the movie, in strides Michael Jeter, tiny but powerful. A lovely
scene
when he's lying comfortably in Jeff Bridges's arms in the insane asylum.
Tom
Waits plays a disabled veteran, uncredited but unmistakable.
And so many bits of the film appear in subsequent movies: the waltzing
flash
mob in Grand Central Station is more poignant than the scene in Friends
with
Benefits and was made 25 years sooner. As well, when Jack and Perry are in
the park, Perry talks about cloud-bursting, a technique I thought I'd
heard
of for the first time in Men Who Stare at Goats (also with Jeff Bridges,
by
the way).
Jack tries to help Perry by helping him meet the girl that he's interested
in. This works out grand, and a self-satisfied Jack goes back to work,
distancing himself from Anne, who'd devoted years of her life to his
useless
self. That same night, though, Perry runs through the streets in a fugue,
being chased by his demons, afraid to find happiness when his wife is
dead.
Two street punks happen upon him and beat him into a coma, a coma that is
at
least partially self-induced. Jack realizes that he still hasn't saved
Perry,
that he's not out of the woods and that he owes his friend more. Lydia
visits
and hasn't given up on him. Jack, on the other hand, has gotten his old
job
back, a new apartment and a new girlfriend. But he feels empty. And he
goes
to visit Perry to yell at him that he's not going to get the grail for
him.
But he will, won't he?
When next we see Jack, he's dolled up as a medieval pillager and is
assailing
the "castle" in New York that belongs to the billionaire who has the
grail.
The grail turns out to be a trophy given to a child for helping in a
Christmas pageant and the billionaire had chosen that night to try to kill
himself with pills. Jack saves him by deliberately triggering his house
alarm
before spiriting the cup off to Perry and saving him as well, so that they
can all live happily ever after.
Salvador (1986) -- "8/10"
This is a movie about the political struggle in 1980. James Woods is Richard
Boyle and his sometime-partner/full-time drug dealer is Doctor Rock,
played
by James Belushi. The film follows Boyle and Rock through El Salvador as
the
country drowns in violence, filled with military strongmen and
opportunists.
We see Boyle documenting mountains of bodies as a photojournalist,
scrounging
for work and cash. We see a priest denounce the terrorist military regime,
followed nearly immediately by his assassination. Mayhem ensues.
The reporters spend a lot of time shit-faced drunk while, all around them,
the country falls apart, young boys/men are killed by shock troops, taking
advantage of cheap booze and cheap whores. All the while, doctors from aid
organizations try to keep things together.
Boyle is ambushed outside of his last bar of the evening by the strongman
Max
Casanova's (Tony Plana) number-one henchman (Juan Fernández) and is
almost
killed but is saved by another photojournalist John Cassady, who starts
taking pictures of the whole thing. His doctor friend isn't so lucky: she
is
ambushed on the way to the airport with her colleagues. They are torn from
their van, raped, shot in the face and thrown into a shallow group grave.
This based on a true story, by the way. The case was mentioned and
partially
covered as one of the examples of media distortion in Chomsky's
Manufacturing
Consent.
Boyle talks to members of the American ambassador's office, all of whom
are
either opportunists or utter dimwits who completely believe the U.S.
communist line, completely believe that Cuban tanks will be on the border
of
Texas within the year. The U.S. never changes: for El Salvador think
Afghanistan -- the U.S. loves to destroy its playgrounds. Oliver Stone's
direction shines through in the scenes with the American apparatchiks,
where
Boyle holds forth on forbidden history (about 85 minutes in).
Boyle: When will you believe what your eyes see and not what military
intelligence tells you to think?
Colonel:. We got AWACs, infrareds, statements from a defecting FRAN
commandant and enough military intel to prove 10,000 percent that this
ain't
no civil war, but Commie aggression.
Boyle: You've been lying about that from the beginning. You've not
presented
one shred of proof to the American public that this is anything other than
a
legitimate peasant revolution. So please don't tell me about the sanctity
of
military intelligence. Not after Chile and Vietnam. I was there, remember?
[...] You've been lying about the advisers here. You've been lying about
the
trainers on TTY. [...] You've been lying about switching humanitarian
assistance money to Salvadoran military coffers. And you've been lying
that
this war can be won militarily, it can't.
[...]
Boyle: You were the ones who trained Major Max at the police academy in
Washington. You were the ones who trained Jose Medrano and Rene Chacon.
Trained them to torture and kill, then sent them here. What did Chacon
give
us? He gave us the Mano Blanco. What are the death squads, but the
brainchild
of the CIA? You'll run with them because they're anti-Moscow. You let them
close the universities, wipe out the best minds. You let them kill whoever
they want, you let them wipe out the Catholic Church. You let them do it
all
because they aren't Commies. And that, colonel, is bullshit.
Boyle: All I know is that some campesino who can't read or write or feed
his
family, has to watch his kid die of malnutrition. Do you think he gives a
shit about Marxism or capitalism?
Boyle: You pour $120 million in here and turn it into a military zone. So
you
can have chopper parades in the sky? You're only bringing misery to these
people.
Shortly after this conversation, we are shown another journalist
interviewing
American soldiers putting their boots on the ground in El Salvador -- and
she
is reminded by their commanding officer that they are strictly
"trainers...in
an advisory capacity." Of course they are. Just like the U.S. troops that
are
still in Iraq and who magically don't count toward the "troops"
in-country.
The next scene is in a full-out battle. The combat photographers -- Boyle
and
John Cassady -- wave a white flag and cross over to the side of the state
troops. They are utterly insane in their desire to get photos, running
into
the maw of firing troops and onrushing horses. At the tail end of one
battle
won by the campesinos, said campesinos start mopping up the state troops
by
executing them. Boyle tries to intervene, yelling "you've become just like
them!" And then the U.S.-provided tanks and munitions arrive, as well as
air
support. The campesinos are routed and the military dictatorship resumes
its
iron grip. Go Joe! John jumps out in front of an incoming plane to get
"the
shot" and is instead fatally wounded. Boyle performs some pretty amazing
field surgery to clear John's lungs, but it's not enough.
Boyle had been shot as well, and heads back to a field hospital to get
patched up. Soon after, he tries to escape El Salvador with a fake exit
visa
and is caught at the border with his wife/girlfriend and child. The border
guards steal his boots and Cassady's film rolls fall out. They expose all
the
film and he's livid, heedless of his own life. They try to assassinate
him,
but the gun misfires. He is saved by the ambassador's phone call and we
then
see him partying with the guys who were going to kill him, all the while
insulting them in English, which they don't understand.
Next, he's crossing the border to the U.S:, having escaped El Salvador
with
Maria and the kids. The bus is stopped by U.S. immigration and they take
her
away from him, after his whole struggle. "You have no idea what it's like
in
El Salvador!" Nor do they care. Fuck those aliens. Send 'em back. Filthy
freeloaders. Just because they fucked up their own country doesn't mean
they
get to come to the shiny U.S.
Does anything ever get better? Based on a true story, based on real
people.
At the end of the film, it's mentioned that Boyle is still searching for
Maria and his children. Recommended. Oliver Stone made this movie in the
same
year that he made Platoon. Saw it English and Spanish (without subtitles).
]]>
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of over 900 ratings
publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my notes
for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to...
]]>
of over 900 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.
Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (2015) -- "6/10"
This is a documentary about Scientology, Dianetics, L. Ron Hubbard, John
Travolta, Tom Cruise and David Miscavitch. It was decent and I learned a bit
more about the life and times of L. Ron and his most avid protegé
Miscavitch. The details are pretty much well-known -- that the Church of
Scientology is a gigantic tax-dodge that got out of control when people
started actually believing it. It was interesting enough, though
documentarian Alex Gibney just cannot help putting so much of himself into
it.
The Expanse (2015) -- "8/10"
Tom Jane plays Miller, a cop/corporate enforcer on Ceres station, way out in
the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. This series is based on the
books
of the same name. I read an excerpt of the first volume and the show
follows
the plot quite closely. Humanity is split into three factions: Earthmen,
Martians and Belters. The Belters are perennially used and abused by the
more
established and powerful Earthlings and Martians. The Martians, in
particular, have a powerful space Navy that patrols all of known space and
is
well-feared by all. On Earth, the political machinations are at the
forefront, with the long tendrils of control still very much in place,
though
not as stable as they once were. There are also factions among Earthlings,
with the Mormons building a gigantic spaceship with which they plan to
travel
to Alpha Centauri in order to escape the birth-control restrictions
imposed
on Earth.
The show follows Jim Holden, Earthborn but long-time Belter, as he and
several friends and companions become deeper and deeper embroiled in plots
run by other unknown factions. Among the Belters are also rebel forces
that
are pushing for control, not always in the most judicial or fair manner.
In
another thread, we also follow Julie Mao, a rich, rich Earthgirl who's
also
made herself a Belter as she stumbles upon some strange bio-robotic tech
that
seems like a bio--super-weapon. She apparently dies of its infection, but
that feels like it won't last. I smell a resurrection in the next season.
Everyone is on the run in spaceships and on space station and asteroids,
so
that's pretty cool and quite well-filmed. Each character has hidden facets
to
their backstory that are slowly revealed. Thomas Jane is particularly good
as
Miller.
Spectre (2015) -- "7/10"
I might actually like this movie the best of all of Daniel Craig's outings as
James Bond. The style of the film is calmer and harks back to the old days.
Other than the high-tech information-gathering network at the heart of the
plot, it's often difficult to tell in which decade the film is taking place.
The story isn't particularly inspiring or different than the other half-dozen
Bond films. This one tells of the beginnings of Spectre, the organization
that will have haunted Bond in the other already-made films that are to come
chronologically after this more modern one. Makes sense, right? Christoph
Waltz is Blofeld, playing him pretty much like every other of his characters
of late, from Landa (Inglourious Basterds) to Schultz (Django Unchained).
Ralph Fiennes returns as M, Monica Bellucci is the hot one who's too old and
well-known to be a Bond girl so they got Léa Seydoux as well and Ben Whishaw
returns as a very young Q. Blofeld is arrested rather than killed by Bond
(how the helicopter crash didn't affect him is a mystery), leaving everything
open for a sequel. Hooray. An extra star for aesthetics and retro look.
Spy (2015) -- "8/10"
Melissa McCarthy plays a stay-at-the-HQ handler for super-spy Jude Law. When
he's killed in action, she's put into the field to chase after his killer,
played by Rose Byrne. Jason Statham plays another super-spy, who's even more
blundering than Law, but absolutely hilarious in his overarching confidence.
McCarthy does very well in the field, kicking all kinds of ass and putting
her wide field of knowledge to use. Byrne is delightfully bitchy and
hilarious. McCarthy is proving to be a really good lead in comedies.
Recommended.
Mr. Nobody (2009) -- "7/10"
Jared Leto is Nemo Nobody, a man whose life we follow from beginning to end,
but not in that order and not really in the classic temporal direction. The
film follows various temporal branches, playing with ideas of entropy,
quantum wave forms and collapse and the power of choices, the Big Crunch,
technology that eliminates mortality. Diana Kruger is quite good, the other
players are OK. A bit long, but interesting at points, though a bit trite if
you're more familiar with the concepts. It was nicely filmed, reminding me a
bit of Malick's meandering style, but the amount of repetition needed to get
across the significance of certain plot points and the branching/fanning out
of possibility, became a bit, well, repetitive.
The Monuments Men (2014) -- "6/10"
A good cast tries to carry an essentially boring script filmed in an utterly
pedestrian manner. George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett,
John Goodman, Jean Dujardin and Bob Balaban all do adequate work, but I
couldn't really get into it. Blanchett made more out of the role than
expected. The story follows a group of older men at the end of WWII, looking
for stolen works of art and returning them to their original owners, where
possible. They are also incredibly Russophobic, even though it's hard to
imagine why, at that time. Not recommended.
Trevor Noah (2011) -- "5/10"
This was a documentary about Trevor Noah's career leading up to his first
one-man show in South Africa, called Daywalker. At least 2/3 of it was
interviews with him and his family members, a lot of the rest was him warming
up various parts of his act for the big show. He has some good bits, but they
were repeated too much to maintain interest.
The Dark Crystal (1982) -- "5/10"
This is a movie by Jim Henson featuring only muppets and puppets. It tells of
two dwindling clans of ancient creatures (the good ones, the Mystics, and the
bad ones, Skeksis) and a world filled with terrified younger creatures,
Gelflings. Why are they terrified? Because the Skeksis use them for energy in
a rejuvenation process. The ancient ones are evenly divided and the various
members seem linked. When one dies, another on the other side winks out of
existence as well. The story follows the young hero through a magical, very
Navi-like world as he journeys to the dark crystal, which will totally fix
everything. The Mystics accompany him and there is a huge ritual during which
all of the Skeksis and the Mystics are subsumed and the world is left to the
Gelflings. The end.
The Warriors (1979) -- "5/10"
This is a movie about gangs in New York, all hunting for the Warriors, who
are fleeing back to Coney Island from the Bronx. For a movie about New
York,
filmed in New York, they have an absolutely cavalier attitude to
geography.
The Warriors get on the D train, which changes into the B train in the
next
scene. They apparently ride this all the way to the Bronx, where they
attend
the big gang meeting. A rival gang shoots Cyrus, the messiah who wanted to
get all the gangs together, then blames it on the Warriors, which starts
the
manhunt. The main gang running the manhunts is the Gramercy Reefers,
apparently located in the Bronx. The Warriors catch the J train from the
Bronx, which magically turns into the M train and then breaks down
somewhere
above 96th street. At the 96th-street station, they try to catch the L on
the
way to Union Square Station. Was it really that hard to get the trains
right?
Later, we see two of them walking in a subway tunnel, and they're passed
by a
train with a white airplane on a blue field. No idea where that train
would
be going.
The radio DJ announces their progress through the city. The portrayal of
the
city and the gangs is as a bunch of violent animals, misogynistic and
brutal.
Is that more or less accurate than the geography?
Waltz with Bashir (2008) -- "9/10"
This is an Israeli animated film about the massacres at Shatila and Sabra in
Lebanon during the 1982 invasion. It is told through the eyes of a narrator
who was there, but after more than two decades, can no longer remember
anything about the events. He looks up old friends and comrades and slowly
starts to remember, to piece together his own memories of the day of the
massacre. He eloquently tells and shows how callous soldiers are -- of any
country -- mostly concerned with their own boredom, their own entertainment
and, more than anything else, their own survival. There are several scenes
where the soldiers spray bullets everywhere because they have no idea where
the next attack will come from, so they preemptively make sure that their own
bullets strike first.
Jonah Hex (2010) -- "6/10"
A really good cast in a small movie with more potential than execution. Based
on the comic books, Jonah Hex follows the eponymous character on his
vengeance/redemption ride in the American West after the end of the Civil
War. We see his origin story -- his CSA general slaughters his family before
his very eyes as revenge for having shot his son. For a 70-minute movie based
on a Western-style comic book, the cast is strictly A-list: John Malkovich,
Josh Brolin, Will Arnett, Michael Fassbender and Megan Fox all do their part.
You might also recognize Tom Wopat (Luke Duke from Dukes of Hazzard) and Wes
Bentley (Seneca Crane from The Hunger Games).
Choke (2008) -- "7/10"
Sam Rockwell is Victor Mancini, a clever, smart-mouthed nymphomaniac and
part-time con man. He works at colonial village with his best friend, who
is
also a sex addict. The main story arc is that Victor wants to find out
where
he comes from, and the only potential source is his mother, played by
Anjelica Huston, who is descending into an ever-deepening drug-addled
dementia and has been committed. He talks to her nearly every day, but she
recognizes him not as her son, but as various other acquaintances.
Finally,
he takes in his friend Denny and introduces him as Victor and his mother
seems to buy it, but won't talk to "Victor" in front of the real Victor.
Meanwhile, Victor starts an initially non-sexual relationship with his
Mom's
doctor -- surprisingly, because he's banged nearly everyone else at the
hospital already -- but she turns it sexual, in the hospital chapel, but
ostensibly only to get his genetic material for a potentially life-saving
treatment that she wants to try out on his mother with genetically
compatible
stem cells. Not kidding.
Some of the scenes at the colonial village are quite funny, such as when
Victor's friend hands him a newspaper and he hurries to hide it, as if it
were samizdat.
Denny falls in love with Cherry Daiquiri, a stripper played by Gillian
Jacobs. Did I mention that the film is named Choke because Victor places
food
down his throat in restaurants in order to get someone to save him and
feel
obligated to send him money -- in order to relive the experience of being
a
hero?
Anyway, Denny finds out about Victor's Mom's diary, which Victor has had
all
along, but which is in Italian. Luckily Doctor Marshall (Kelly McDonald)
can
translate it -- she's amazing! -- and she discovers that Victor's Mom is
either more delusional than she thought -- or much less. It turns out that
Ida Mancini, along with four other women, stole Jesus's foreskin from the
Vatican. They used the genetic material to impregnate themselves, but
Victor
was the only result. So now the doctor is convinced that Victor is a
half-clone of Jesus.
The other inmates start to believe it, and the evidence for it mounts.
Victor
fights against it. He remembers back when he discovered that his mother
had
kidnapped him -- he saw his own face on the side of a milk carton -- and
we
see him choke himself in a restaurant for the first time. He remembers
more
about his life, trying to find parallels to Jesus's life. He's trying to
figure out why anyone would love an asshole like him and wonders why he
seems
to be becoming a nicer person.
And then it all comes tumbling down as, just before his mother dies (by
choking on pudding he was feeding her, ironically enough), she tells him
that
she stole him from a stroller (although how would a picture of his
12-year--old self have gotten on a milk carton?), and that the story of
Jesus
is incoherent. Her doctor shows up and tries to save her, but then he
discovers that she's a patient in the mental ward as well. Still and all,
she
helps him get through his issues. They meet again, on a plane.
Vertigo (1958) -- "7/10"
This is the original Hitchcock masterpiece, starring Jimmy Stewart, Barbara
Bel Geddes and Kim Novak. Stewart is a police detective on medical leave
to
deal with his late-onset acrophobia, developed as a result of almost
falling
off of a roof and then watching as a fellow officer plummets to his death
six
stories below when he tries to help Stewart.
The sets are lavish -- Geddes's design studio is rich with detail,
Stewart's
friend's office is crammed with gorgeous wooden furniture. The shots are
classic Hitchcock, selected to show distance and coolness on Stewart's
part.
The shots stay long as Stewart embarks on the assignment given to him by
his
client: follow the client's wife to find out if she's truly been possessed
by
another spirit. Here we're treated to a bunch of cool, 50's-style
fake-driving scenes, along with a lot of lush footage of 1950s LA. They
end
up at a lovely, large museum building, where Novak is rapt, staring at a
painting of "Carlotta", the same name as was on the tombstone in front of
which she stood earlier that afternoon. Creepy, right? Well, the music
helps.
So far, it's a bit of an architectural tour of LA,
Stewart continues what appears to be a long tradition of cops -- or former
cops -- in movies lying their faces off in order to get innocent citizens
to
divulge information or to allow unwarranted searches.
Stewart's initial investigation leads him to the conclusion that his
colleague's wife is indeed at least partially possessed by the spirit of a
long-dead woman. But there has to be another explanation. The film is
truly
lovely, with perfect California weather highlighting brand-new, large,
classic-style buildings. Novak's Madeleine tries to kill herself -- as her
predecessor did -- but Stewart saves her from drowning. She wakes up naked
in
his bed, looking ridiculously young compared to his middling years. Not
that
this sort of age difference is limited to the 50s, ammirite? It's a very
pretty film, but the dialogue is quite stilted and the story is quite odd,
or
at least oddly told. Stewart evinces absolutely zero compunction about
macking on his friend's wife, who's almost certainly mad. He's also
completely oblivious to Midge's interest, preferring instead to busy
himself
with the nutty Novak. This despite her penchant to muttering vaguely and
then
disappearing.
They continue their dalliance, professing their love for each other.
Stewart
tries to help Madeleine stop being so crazy, but to no avail. She throws
herself off the steeple of a church, killing herself instantly. Stewart's
not
done yet, though. After he's cleared of all charges of any wrongdoing --
it
is the second time he's been around when someone fell off a roof -- he
spends
a little time at a mental institution, with faithful Midge having her
every
advance rebuffed. When he gets out, he gets right back on the trail of
Carlotta, the lady who possessed Madeleine. Novak is back, this time as a
redhead, making Stewart wonder just what the hell is going on.
It turns out that there's a prosaic explanation for everything: the
husband
who hired Stewart to follow his wife was planning to fake a suicide for
her,
to get her out of the way. Novak was a lookalike for her who made the
mistake
of falling in love with Stewart while she was supposed to be acting crazy
enough to kill herself.
Richard Pryor: Live In Concert (1979) -- "8/10"
This is Pryor's second one-hour show and he was incredible. The material was
really good, his delivery so good. He really was a genius. The voices, the
stories, the mugging, the acting, the rawness, the incredible unashamed
personal-ness all of it, incredible. Saw it on "YouTube"
.
Time Bandits (1981) -- "7/10"
This is a zany comedy about a troupe of diminutive, insolent time-traveling
bandits. It was written and directed by Terry Gilliam, in case that wasn't
immediately obvious. The film starts with a bored young boy living with
boring parents in boring England. The bandits break into his room late at
night and abscond with him, closely pursued by the Supreme Being, who's hot
on their trail because they've stolen a map of time holes. The cast is
surprisingly good and consists of Gilliam regulars: John Cleese (here as
Robin Hood), Michael Palin, Ian Holm (of Bilbo fame, here as Napoleon),
Katherine Helmond (also in Brazil but also Who's the Boss?), Sean Connery,
Jim Broadbent and Shelley Duvall (Popeye and The Shining). It's typically
Gilliam fare, lush and richly detailed. The story requires that the bandits
hop from era to era, so Gilliam doesn't need to commit to any one place for
very long. The young Kevin is a typically bad child actor. My judgment is
supported by the fact that he (almost) never worked as an actor again.
]]>
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of over 900 ratings
publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my notes
for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to...
]]>
of over 900 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.
Capitalism: A Love Story (2009) -- "7/10"
This is a slow -- some might say well-paced -- and careful introduction to
capitalism in the 20th and 21st centuries, as practiced in the U.S. There
are
few Michael Moore-esque moments, but it's overall quite an even-handed
treatment of the history of the topic. There is an emphasis on the more
recent decades -- in particular the crash of 2008 and its causes.
Definitely
an interesting viewing for those unfamiliar with the topic, but perhaps a
bit
too much time spent on the interviews with those on the bottom, affected
by
the crisis. I understand the point and heartily approve of humanizing the
issue by showing that the "freeloaders" castigated in some parts of
government and a good part of the media are just regular people, trying to
get by. They might not seem very smart, but neither are most of us.
Recommended.
Deliverance (1972) -- "6/10"
Four guys prepare a canoe trip down the Cahulawassee River that's about to be
dammed up for good. Bobby (Ned Beatty) is probably the most overtly
classist
of the bunch. He's paired up with Drew, who plays guitar and plays a
lovely
and impromptu duet with a young boy playing a banjo. After they arrange
for
their cars to be driven to meet them at the bottom of the river, Lewis
(Burt
Reynolds) and Ed (Jon Voight) lead everyone off to the river. He has
trouble
finding it though and the locals grin at him "Havin' trouble?" ... "We'll
find it." ... "It's only the biggest fuckin' river in the state."
They start their journey and soon see the young boy on a bridge, but he
doesn't appear to recognize them. He looks slightly mentally handicapped,
so
it doesn't surprise them that he seems to have forgotten.
The four guys shoot the rapids, having the time of their lives.
(Environmental message: too bad it's going to be dammed up, right?) As he
fishes with his composite bow, Lewis pontificates, "The machines are gonna
fail, the system's gonna fail" and he can't wait. [1]
Beatty and Voight get out of their boat and are cornered by two other
locals.
They tie Voight to a tree by his neck with his own belt. Beatty is
instructed
to strip and they chase him around until he's exhausted (he's not in the
best
shape) and tell him to "squeal like a pig" before raping him. Voight's
next.
They untie him and the rapist's companion notes that Voight has "a real
pretty mouth". Before they can make good on that innuendo, Lewis
(Reynolds)
shows up with his compound bow and kills the rapist. Beatty lies catatonic
in
the leaves. They're all speechless.
They break the silence to argue about what to do. After heated discussion,
they vote to bury the body and leave the scene of the crime. The whole
area
is about to be covered with a lake soon (which is why they're there -- to
experience the river one last time). They bury the body and continue down
the
river, but encounter large cascades and all lose their canoes and fall
into
the river. They figure out that Drew fell into the river first because he
was
shot. Or they think he was. Lewis is laid up with a gruesome and clearly
painful compound fracture of the femur. The wooden canoe was destroyed but
they recover the aluminum one.
At this point, the score between the locals and the city boys is 1 to 1.
Voight climbs the ridge near the river, then falls asleep. He is awakened
by
a local, who shoots at him before Voight can put an arrow in him.
Actually,
he does shoot him, but also stabs himself with another arrow. Is that 2 to
1
now? He appears to have killed the wrong guy. It's ok, though, because in
the
next scene, his self-inflicted wound is also magically gone.
They bury that dude in the river, then find their dead friend -- who has
no
gunshot wound -- and bury him in the river as well. Cue some more rapids
and
canoing and such. A classic, but not really recommended, unless you need
to
see it because Archer made you do it. I had an "Archer's Peppermint Patty"
cocktail during
the
showing. [2]
Trashed (2012) -- "7/10"
This is a documentary about garbage, starring and produced by Jeremy Irons.
It starts a bit slowly, but picks up pace. It tells a story that is well
stitched-together, starting with a discussion of landfills and the sheer
unsustainability of them. From there, we move to incinerators and a
discussion of dioxins and other emissions from those plants. There are
issues
with regulation and filtering, but some of the claims are scientifically
dubious (e.g. we can't see them and we can't detect their effects, but we
know they're bad). Irons visits the museum of deformed babies in Vietnam
but
comparing the dioxin emissions from a modern incinerator with the sheer
amount of dioxin dumped on Vietnam by the U.S. is a bit specious.
From there, we investigate whether it wouldn't be better to just recycle
more
and visit various cities, discussing their efforts in this regard. San
Fransisco features prominently, but they still generate a lot of garbage,
recyclable or no. That they can afford to send it to China improves things
only slightly. Finally, Irons shows us efforts to just use less stuff and
to
produce less garbage. The one lady he talks to, though, seems to
impossibly
claim that she and her three-person family only produced one bag of
garbage
in the previous year. This also seems highly suspect and more indicative
of a
very selective perception of which garbage is produced by a person. I
suspect
that this lady emptied her pockets of garbage in her friends' homes in
order
to make this happen.
Anyway, the message is clear and good and right and seems like the only
sustainable one: use less, recycle as much as you can, stop planned
obsolescence. But everyone's gotta play, otherwise we all lose. Most
likely,
we're all going to lose.
Quills (2000) -- "8/10"
This is very pretty movie about the Marquis de Sade, played wonderfully by
Geoffrey Rush. Kate Winslet is also very good as the winsome and
coquettish
laundry girl Madeleine, who works at the asylum that the Marquis calls
home.
Joaquin Phoenix plays Abbé Coulmier, who is sympathetic if not at all
approving of the Marquis. Michael Caine plays Royer-Collard, a torturer
assigned by the Emperor (Napoleon) to make sure that the Marquis's works
are
no longer published.
As is so often the case, Royer-Collard, though holier than everyone and
not
averse to using a dunking chair for months on end to "cure" patients,
takes a
girl not yet sixteen as a wife (Amelia Warner as Simone) and visits her
nightly, reminding the poor thing of her wifely duties as he takes her
brutally from behind.
The Marquis soon finds out about this situation through the rumor mill,
the
effluent of which runs inexorably toward his cell. Being in charge of the
theatre troupe at the asylum -- staffed by an enthusiastic bunch of jolly
fellows -- the Marquis changes his standard fare to a new piece he's
written
about Collard, regaling the attending nobility in lush detail of the holy
man's nightly visits to his unwilling bride. This is not especially
well-accepted since the man (Collard) himself is in attendance. He allows
it
to continue and the play is only broken up when an inmate, excited by the
florid language, attempts to take Madeleine behind the stage. She defends
herself with a hot iron, avoiding the rape, but the whole incident is
blamed
on the Marquis and his incitement of lust with his material.
The Marquis is confined to his cell and told he is not allowed to write or
publish anymore. His quills and paper are confiscated. He writes his next
book with a chicken-bone quill, wine ink and bedsheet paper, duly smuggled
out, transcribed and delivered to the publisher by Maddie. More
restrictions
follow and the Marquis is left only with the clothes on his back. He
shatters
a window pane and uses blood and glass shards to write his next book on
his
clothes. After this, the Abbé takes his clothes, leaving him naked in the
cell.
In the meantime, Collard's wife has discovered Justine, a book of
libertine
lust by the Marquis, and is aloof and distant to Collard, despite his
clearly
alluring manner and bedroom savoir faire (that was sarcasm). Caine plays
him
very well as an incorrigible and sanctimonious hypocrite. She ends up
running
away with the architect, but only after we've seen just how well she's
learned her lessons from the Marquis's books.
Collard is super-pissed and needs no more reasons to take shit out his
frustration on everyone else. Maddie is first because she's super-saucy
and
the Abbé has to jump in to save her from a whipping. She thinks they're
all
dicks and doesn't see the difference between the Abbé and Collard,
doesn't
see why society prefers the Abbé's cruel God and whatever the fuck
Collard
is to what the Marquis has to offer, which is at least escapist and fun.
At any rate, the Abbé sends Maddie away for her own protection. Maddie
exhorts the Marquis to tell her just one more tale before she leaves and
he
devises a plan to use a gossip chain composed of his fellow mentally
unstable
inmates -- "Who knows? Maybe they'll improve it" -- to read to her in the
laundry room, where she scrawls it down. The Marquis's lovely prose is
dumbed
down considerably but it works after a fashion, until one of the inmates,
a
pyromaniac, is too taken with a bit of the story with fire in it, grabs a
candle from the adjoining room through the hole whereby he'd whispered his
stories and sets his bed afire.
This starts an alarm throughout the asylum and many inmates escape into
the
halls, including the giant who'd attacked Maddie and who (A) hadn't
forgotten
what he was after and (B) is once again aroused by another of the
Marquis's
stories. He ends up grabbing Maddie and killing her, much to the chagrin
of
the Abbé. The Marquis is imprisoned in deep hole in the ground, covered
in
chains. Collard is firmly in charge and the Abbé firmly in his sway. The
Abbé descends into the Marquis's cell with helpers and, though expressing
regret, has his tongue cut out of his head, embalmed in a jar and
presented
to Collard.
Collard is happy, the Abbé whines that he'll never sleep again and the
Marquis is busy writing his next story in his own feces. The guards call
the
Abbé back down to the dungeon, where he tries to give the Marquis last
rites
before killing him. In this, too, the Marquis thwarts him, as he takes the
cross into his mouth and swallows it, choking himself to death rather than
kissing it.
A year later, we see a new Abbé introduced to Collard, who is now fully
in
charge of the prison -- and making money hand over fist publishing
exclusive
copies of the Marquis's work and most likely pocketing most of the
handsome
profits himself. The end. The Marquis kind of won, in that he never gave
up
or gave in, in that he was the most moral of all the agents in the story,
in
that his stories are published, in that Collard's entire life is now
subsumed
to his (the Marquis's) oeuvre and he's too vain to even notice. The former
Abbé is imprisoned in the Marquis's former cell and is quite mad. The
true
winner was Collard's wife, who got away scot-free and presumably lived a
much
better life than she would've had she stayed in either the convent or with
Collard.
Hannibal Buress: Comedy Camisado (2016) -- "5/10"
Though there were a few bits of good material, most of it was kind of bland.
I didn't particularly like his delivery, which seemed to wait a bit too long
for a reaction, either because he didn't have enough material or because he
thought his material was funnier than everyone else. The crowd wasn't very
enthusiastic, despite his buttering them up considerably at the beginning.
Not recommended.
Fargo: Season 2 (2015) -- "9/10"
Even better than the first season, with a lot of strong performances. The
strongest, however, is delivered by Patrick Wilson as State Trooper Lou
Solverson. Plus, Bruce Campbell as Ronald Reagan.
"Babysitter: Camus says knowin' we're gonna die makes life absurd.
"Wife: Well I don't know who that is [dismissively], but I'm guessin' he
doesn't have a six-year--old girl."
She was almost pissed that the girl had even brought it up. It was
well-acted, the dismissiveness, it felt true. People don't want to discuss
anything but what they already know. They're only happy reiterating to
cement
that knowledge as truth.
Life has meaning.
What meaning? To procreate. To make more life.
Anything else?
No.
"Babysitter: He's French.
"Wife: Ugh. I don't care if he's from Mars. Nobody with any sense'd say
something that foolish."
And with that, she's just dismissed any intellectual curiosity the girl
might
have had. (Though hopefully not extinguished.)
"Babysitter: (Looks away, disappointed.)
"Wife: We're put on this Earth to do a job. And each of us gets the time
we
get...to do it. And when this life is over and you stand in front of the
Lord, well you try tellin' him it was some Frenchman's joke."
You won't have to, though, because he'll already know. Seriously, you look
at
this world and think that God is on your side and not that of Camus? So
sad.
I felt bad for the babysitter because there she sat, having watched over
wife
and her child all night while they slept. All she would have liked in
return
is a discussion, an engagement of the mind, a chance to take the ideas
she'd
learned out for a walk, see how they work in real life. And this other
woman?
Utterly incapable of taking that walk with her. Not only incapable, but
unwilling. She already has all of the answers, she has a surety.
There is a purpose. Existentialism is just a long word.
Why must there be a purpose? Otherwise she'd have to consider that having
brought a child into a world without purpose to be a crime against that
child, perhaps against the world. NO. The child is a gift to the world. A
gift that will be raised by a woman who knows all the answers. The child
is
not a gift to the woman herself, and the woman wants to feel good about
herself for having brought the child into the world, so the world MUST
make
sense. Putting aside that the world -- her God -- has also given her
cancer
from which she will likely die. Instead of seeing this as a cruel joke of
happenstance -- or, if you like, a capricious and demented God -- she
IGNORES
it.
That's the arrogance of mankind, to at the same time think that there's an
omnipotent being and also that he gives a shit about each and every one of
us. The sheep assuage their feelings of loneliness and uselessness with
these
thoughts, in a haze of deliberate ignorance. Every opportunity is taken to
plaster more mud on the shield against any information to the contrary.
These are the people who are best suited, best trained, to function in the
society that we have on offer, though. Don't color outside the lines,
don't
think outside the box. They are happy. Camus was also happy, but it took
him
a while to get there. That is, when he realized that nothing meant
anything,
he also realized that any struggles were meaningless but if he took them
up
anyway, they were his own, to amuse himself until he could shuffle off
this
mortal coil.
No-one has any obligation to continue -- unless progeny enter into it. But
whence this desire to promulgate? This conviction that it's the only goal,
the only way to impart meaning? It springs from the same society, the same
propaganda, to which the believer is so aptly suited. Those with children
are
always so righteous about the rightness of their choice, the entitlement
to
the happiness of their offspring. They need to be, in order to recruit
others
to their cause in shaping a world in which they can survive. Anyone
purporting that life has no real meaning -- or, rather, that meaning comes
from within and is individual and malleable -- is the enemy. Such enemies
could, at any time, decide that they don't feel like playing anymore,
don't
feel like putting the sum total of their energy into making the world
habitable for even more people, none of whom have any real meaning.
In the context of the show, the wife is dying of cancer, and dozens and
dozens of people have been killed. The guy who killed most of them got
away
with it. The lady (Peggy) who triggered the avalanche of death thinks
she's
the victim. The world is absurd, no? How could an intelligent person come
to
any other conclusion than that? But no, she thinks that God made the world
for man and that her job is to squirt out kids so that they ... can squirt
out more kids? Talk about low expectations. No vision. Better to accept
absurdity and no meaning. This is not to say: do nothing. Kill yourself.
No,
no, but find your own purpose ... and it doesn't matter what it is as long
it
makes you happy, passes the time until you can shuffle off this mortal
coil
-- or, at the very least, until you can sink into Lethe for a few hours,
until you have to start passing time again.
Being an existentialist does not mean you have no purpose.
I seem to have gotten off the track of my Fargo review, I fear. Meh. As I
said at the top, lots of good performances, but Patrick Wilson as Lou
Solverson and Zahn McClarnon as Hanzee Dent are a revelation. Highly
recommended.
Minions (2015) -- "6/10"
It has its moments, more toward the end as the characters slowly find their
pitch. Kevin, Stuart and Bob are adorable and their language is an
adorable
mix of vaguely recognizable snippets of European languages (e.g.
"Entschuldigung, la Boss!"). The story is of the minions tribe from the
very
beginning of time to the modern day -- well, the 60s or so. The minions
don't
appear to age, procreate or die. They just are. Though they seem to enjoy
food, they don't seem to need a clear source of food. They are trapped in
a
barren, icy cave for what seems like hundreds of years.
Eventually, three of them set forth in search of a new boss, heading for
the
Villain-Con, where they want to meet and start working for Scarlett
Overkill
(voiced by Sandra Bullock). She ends up hiring them, gives them the job of
stealing the crown jewels in England, which they do, but they also somehow
crown themselves king (well, Bob does). Scarlett is livid, but Bob
cheerfully
gives her the crown and she schedules her official coronation. A bunch of
other stuff happens, the minions burble, Scarlett is defeated and the
minions
are saved, in the end, by a very young Gru.
Behind the Candelabra (2013) -- "7/10"
This is a made-for-HBO movie about the life and times of Walter Liberace
(played by Michael Douglas). We pick up the story of his life after he's
become famous and just as Scott Thorson (played by Matt Damon) enters his
life. They are introduced by a mutual friend, played by Scott Bakula.
Liberace's long-time manager Seymour is played by Dan Akroyd.
Scott quickly moves in with Liberace and they seem quite happy together,
with
Scott slowly becoming accustomed to life as a live-in boyfriend. After
seeing
himself in a TV performance, Liberace wants plastic surgery and visits a
plastic surgeon who clearly practices on himself, played by Rob Lowe. When
Liberace suggests that Scott get surgery as well, so that he can be made
to
look like a young Liberace, Lowe is on board and suggests additionally
that
Scott needs to lose a bunch of weight (which he'd gained since moving in).
Their relationship continues for years until Liberace meets someone new
and
has finally grown tired of putting up with Scott's growing drug habit
(started by Lowe's diet medication, which was most likely amphetamines).
There is a blow-up, a lawsuit but Scott eventually leaves relatively
quietly.
Years later, he sees Liberace one last time, before he dies of
complications
caused by AIDS.
Self/less (2015) -- "6/10"
Ben Kingsley is Damian, an extraordinarily rich developer and builder in New
York City. Kind of an asshole. Used to getting what he wants. His wife is
long gone, his daughter is estranged, running publicity campaigns against
the
kind of real-estate development that he does. He has cancer and is not
long
for this world. He looks into "shedding", which is a fictitious technique
whereby the mind is moved into a new body. He visits the facilities and
wonders why they seem simultaneously sophisticated and fly-by-night.
Soon after, he experiences a close call and feel the reaper's cold breath
on
his neck. He calls the "shedding" company and they give him instructions
to
go to a certain café in New Orleans and order a certain drink -- chicory
coffee. He is allergic and knows he will suffer a shock. The ambulance
picks
him up, but it's going to the secret hospital where his consciousness will
be
transferred to another body, while the world thinks him dead.
After the procedure, which looks remarkably like an MRI, he wakes up in
Ryan
Reynolds's body. He trains, becomes accustomed to the body and learns to
stick to his medication because otherwise memories from the body start to
melt back in. It takes him a really long time to realize that the body
into
which he was placed was not grown, but taken. His curiosity -- and
newfound
niceness -- takes him on a journey to St. Louis, where there's a landmark
he
recognizes from the other memories. Lo and behold, he finds his body's
former
family, but the "shedders" are close behind because they really don't want
him messing with the program.
It's unclear why he's messing with the program -- through some misguided
empathy? -- because he continues to take the drugs to suppress the other
man's (Mark) memories. He seems to feel sorry for Mark's wife and
daughter.
Mark only agreed to the procedure because he needed money to pay for his
daughter's illness. She has in the meantime been cured -- so that worked
--
but she thinks her father drowned. Now he's back, but with a different
mind
in his body. The wife is played by Natalie Martinez, who's either not a
very
good actress or not able to make very much with the terribly generic
"wife"
role. I didn't really like her in Under the Dome either.
In his quest for help, Damian/Mark visits his old, best friend, who turns
him
in because SURPRISE his friend has already used shedding to resurrect his
son. Feigned surprises all around. Mark/Damian is on the run again, with
wife
and child in tow. They leave there, do a bunch of bad-ass stuff with cars,
then track down the current location of the clinic, where Damian/Mark
kills
the head doctor, after having prevented a transfer to his body with a bit
of
metal in his mouth. (Really?)
Damian once again abandons the family, sending them to his personal
island.
He has a change of heart, lets Mark take over and exhorts him in a
post-mortem video to seek out and reunite with his family. The end.
Fed Up (2014) -- "6/10"
This is a documentary about nutrition in the United States, narrated by Katie
Couric. While it has some good information, I found a bunch of the
human-interest stuff far too heavy-handed. Watch Food Inc. instead.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] I'm not sure where he expects his composite bow to be manufactured once the
system has failed, but that's a step too far for most survivalists.
[1] You have no idea how much work went into making this happen. There is
neither Crème de Menthe nor Dark Crème de cacao nor Peppermint Schnapps to
be had in our part of Switzerland. Kath made all the ingredients from
scratch. Hot chocolate we had. It was delicious.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=32122016-02-01T22:34:23+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of over 900 ratings
publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my notes
for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to...
]]>
of over 900 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.
Stalker (1979) -- "9/10"
Tarkovsky sets the mood without CGI, without effects, with a simple camera
and the natural world. The eerieness and horror of a world that doesn't
behave by any known rules is elicited with the simplest means: acting,
well-written dialogue. Ostensibly it's some men stumbling through fields
and
forests overrun with the detritus of war -- a war long ago. But Tarkovsky
turns it into a sci-fi, horror experience where you're on the edge of your
seat despite the overall, aching slowness of the film. He circles the
camera
through 360 degrees -- very slowly -- to visually indicate that you may
end
up right back where you started in The Zone. The sound design is similarly
exquisite and evocative.
It's incredible to imagine someone being able to tell a story so visually
with so little, to be able to see this film in the scenes as they are
made,
in the wet fields that could hardly have elicited in real life the dark
romance they do in the movie. Very often, the camera drifts in on unknown
shapes to have them slowly reveal themselves: guns, two skeletal lovers
lying
in eternal embrace. He builds so much strangeness out of everyday objects,
imbuing them with vague menace. It's all in your mind. Perhaps so is the
Zone?
This is the story of a Stalker, a man who guides people through the Zone,
to
a room that grants wishes. They live in a black and white, a world drained
of
color. When they get to the Zone, the film is suddenly in color. Access is
blocked by a high fence and guards, but the Stalker can sneak through
relatively easily. We watch as he guides the Writer and the Professor
through
different hindrances. These hindrances are made such through the magic of
Tarkovsky's direction. He somehow convinces the viewer that a man walking
slowly down a hallway is a gigantic achievement. The men make it through a
tunnel -- the Meat Grinder -- and one of them survives the Pipe, which
lets
out into a factory floor covered with what looks for all the world like
sand
dunes.
Soon after, they are in a ruined house, on the second floor, when
inexplicably a phone rings. The Writer picks it up and hangs up. The
professor uses it to call his laboratory and brag to his colleague that he
is
within a stone's throw of the room. The Stalker is horrified. He is nearly
constantly much more afraid than the other two, presumably because he
either
knows what the Zone can do or because his many trips through the Zone have
damaged him.
At least half of the film is filled with philosophical discussions. At the
threshold, the professor unpacks a 20-kiloton bomb, with which he wants to
cut off people's access to the room, which has brought so much horror to
the
world (purportedly). The writer, on the other hand, waxes eloquently that
perhaps the room doesn't do anything at all, that the Zone is a figment of
the Stalker's imagination, of which he's convinced others. This gels with
the
feeling that they are just going for a stroll through an abandoned
industrial
zone rather than navigating multi-dimensional space. That they are
navigating
a child's view of this industrial zone, imbued with fantastical powers
that
don't exist, but that pass the time. The Writer also supposes that the
room,
should it work as advertised can only grant an innermost wish, that the
Stalker is afraid of having his innermost wishes granted. As the Writer
is.
The professor dismantles his bomb. Does he realize that perhaps the Zone
wants him to blow it up? Otherwise, why would it have let him through and
deterred myriad others? Or were there really myriad others? Or was that
the
Stalker's fantasy? Does the room actually work this way? Or is the
Stalker's
game so convincing that people end up granting themselves their own wish?
Or
was the Professor convinced by the Writer's theory that the room grants
unconscious desires and is therefore useless to the power-hungry? If the
Zone
is all in the Stalker's mind, then the danger of getting lost is also
made-up. All of the dangers were made up. So cool.
The film is slow, there are no heroes, the central plot point is a sci-fi
concept that is neither seen nor used, whose existence is doubted. There
are
three men discussing deep concepts for 2:45 as they take an afternoon
walk.
It's amazing. I shudder to think of the remake, starring perhaps Jason
Statham or perhaps Woody Harrelson as the Stalker. A younger Ed Harris as
the
Writer. Or Matthew Mcconaughey. It reminded me at different times of 2001,
Moon, Solaris or Apocalypse Now, but it's unlike all of those as well.
In the end, we catch only a glimpse of the room, as the camera backs into
it
to reveal a lovely, nearly impeccable shot of the three sitting in front
of
it. No-one goes in. Later, with his wife, both again black and white, the
Stalker evinces despair that no-one believes. Does the room need belief to
work? Finally, his wife breaks the fourth wall and talks to us of him
directly.
"I knew it myself, that he was an eternal prisoner, that he was doomed. Only
what could I do? I was sure I would be happy with him. Of course, I knew
I'd
have a lot of sorrow too. but it's better to have a bitter happiness than
a
gray, dull life. Perhaps, I thought it all up later.
"We had a lot of sorrow, a lot of fear, and a lot of shame. But I never
regretted it and I never envied anyone. It's just our fate, our life,
that's
how we are.
"And if we hadn't had our misfortunes, it wouldn't have been better. It
would
have been worse. Because in that case, there wouldn't have been any
happiness. And there wouldn't have been any hope."
Highly recommended. Thought-provoking.
Winter Soldier (1972) -- "9/10"
This documentary comprises 90 minutes of testimony/stories from American
soldiers who'd served in Vietnam. They tell horrific stories of abuse,
murder
and torture. One man says, on the first day, he watched as the soldiers in
the truck he was riding in murdered a group of Vietnamese children who'd
flipped them off. Another talks about how the U.S. Army used white
phosphorous, a weapon expressly forbidden by the Geneva Convention. No-one
disagrees with any of these guys, even when they tell stories of the most
horrific and senseless acts. Is it because they aren't surprised? Or that
they're well-prepared? Or that they'd experienced something similar? Are
they
all lying? Or is this all true? U.S. military behavior in the Middle East
in
the last 15 years corroborates that this behavior as pretty standard. So,
probably not lying. Or even exaggerating.
Regardless of how earnest and honest the testimony appeared, there was of
course a backlash. Such testimony could not go unchallenged because
America
is the greatest and is exceptional and is also a perennial occupier of the
moral high ground. That these three-dozen soldiers all told more or less
the
same thing, that it jibes with testimony from soldiers in subsequent
conflicts -- those with more video and image evidence, like Abu Ghraib --
lends a lot of credence to what they say happened, even if they didn't
present evidence.
This is deep, heady stuff and the interviews will either be difficult to
watch -- if you're still a HOO-RAH American -- or uplifting -- when you
see
that people can change for the better -- or depressing -- if you see the
exact same shit happening again and again and again, up until today. The
points these soldiers make are nuanced and intelligent. They are many of
the
same points we still have to make today. The wheel of time crushes all
hope.
[image]The "complete transcript"
is available. [1] But it didn't include the amazing impromptu diatribe of
one
of the guys out in the hall, a black guy who just laid it all down with
such
clarity -- and heartbreakingly accurate for today's America, over 40 years
later -- that I searched desperately for a transcript, in vain. So I cued
that shit up and transcribed it to the best of my ability, to preserve it
for
posterity. It's not all relevant, but I emphasized the blocks I found
depressingly accurate and seemingly eternal.
Black guy: I've been in there listening to the whole thing. You know what,
man? It's relevant. But you know what? This whole thing you're doing now?
It's only relevant to you, man. It ain't relevant to me. You know how
come?
Because you fail to realize what the reason is. How come...you, dig,
man...you go in there and you get all these reports on atrocities, yeah,
man,
'they was splitting this cat's skull, they was splitting his skull', but
you
know what? The real issue is, man, that the thing is racism. It's racist.
It's racist, man.
[...]
They go after the Vietnamese, his resources. They're also after Vietnamese
because they're racist, man. I had all the hell I had in the army because
of
racism. You know, like, dig, man, my orderly room, my first sizing man was
a
Ku Klux Klan, man. They had a motherfuckin' Klansman right in the company.
White guy: Let me ask you something. What the hell do you think I have to
gain out of this? What do you think I'm here for? What do you the rest of
us
are here for?
Black guy: For your reason. Now dig this: your reason for being here is
different from my reason.
[...]
The thing that gets me, the thing that gets me [smiles, reaches out to
comfort other guy] don't, don't, don't get upset. This is cool, this is
cool,
we can rap, man.
I don't know, man, a whole lotta people, man, when there's white and black
people talking. They're, like, you know, not wanting to say this [or that]
because somebody might misinterpret it. Well, you know, say something ...
let
me misinterpret it and then when I run it back on you, then go ahead and
tell
me, man. You know, don't do one of these things here [mimes toning things
down]You know? I go to school too.
People what I hear say is ignorant? They know a whole lot of what's going
on.
Maybe they don't know those terms, you know, that book, but the deal is,
you
gotta show 'em somethin', you gotta show 'em that you are for real. You
gotta
suffer, man, you can't just go out here and run your shit, man, and then
don't let no blood and, man, we bleedin' every day. You gotta bleed with
us,
man, and then we start bleedin' together and then we say 'wow, that cat
hurtin' just like me', you know, so we gonna get together behind that
stand
and we gonna axe that shit that's out there cuttin' us, you dig? Then you
have it together, then you have it together.
White guy: we have the same enemies.
Black guy: Now you say you went into the service because you couldn't get
into college, so you went into the army. Now, see, the reason we go in the
Army is for a different reason. Now, dig, we get outta high school, ya
dig,
we can't even get a job in the motherfuckin' street, can't go get a gig,
you
dig? 'Cause yo black. Now being black is a deep thing. I know you're
getting
tired of hearing it, but it's the shit that is out there, man. The only
way a
brother can live when he get outta school -- if he ain't go no smarts --
is
to go in the Army, man. To go into the Army. Man, we only got one, or two
outlets to go, man. You got three or four. You dig? Just like y'all
runnin'
that double-standard thing. You see, you got these variables. We don't.
You
can do that changin'. Even if we decide to change, to try to be a white
person, we'd still be a niggah, we'd be lyin' Uncle Tom motherfuckers and
you'd still look down on us. You understand what I'm talkin' about?We
ain't
got nowhere to go, man, that's how come we're so fuckin' desperate. 'Cause
we
ain't got nowhere to go: that high visibility is gointa keep you down all
the
time. See, you can always change your mind, man. You can always do what
the
rest of 'ems doin' if you want that our there, what they doin'. Ya dig? I
mean, I was in there listenin' and everybody was on about, 'yeah, this
dude
was gettin' his ear cut off.' You know, the atrocity thing. Everybody was
in
there...
White guy: [emphatically] ...that ain't that important, man.
Black guy: [agreeing emphatically] It ain't important, man. You gotta look
at
how come people gettin' cut up. And how come they're gettin' shot, man.
That's the whole deal right there. If you want to be for real, look at the
reasons why. Why, why. You know what? I do a thing every day. I watch
television, whenever I get the chance. I don't watch for entertainment.
You
know what I watch? I watch all the whitewashin' they throw on you every
day,
man. Like, uh, shit about Indians. Now they let the Indians win on
television. For years they didn't.
White guy: 'cause they're ain't enough of 'em to do nothin' about it.
Black guy: [again, emphatic agreement] Right. Right. But now they be
starting
to say 'wow, we can't be doin' this to the Indians'. The Indians tryin' to
get their thing together. So now the Indians win on television. But for
years, when you's a li'l kid, you just sat there and sucked that shit up,
didn't you? This is what you believed the real shot was, until you became
old
enough to see it. It took you a long time, didn't it? Television is still
like that. They still after dem li'l kids, man. Cartoons, with the
violence,
shootin' bullets and shit, shootin' 'em in the face, turnin' they face
black.
Even connotations. Black people hate connotations. Things like the
difference
between angel-food cake and devil's-food cake. The black plague. It's the
same shit, told in the same fucking way. The killin' there [Vietnam] and
the
killin' here. [in the U.S.]
White guy: [Indistinct]
Black guy: No shit, that's how come you got no black people behind you.
Because you forgot about racism, man. You forgot about it. That's how come
you ain't got no black people down here. You got a few of us...and they
rap
to you just like I do, man.
See now, you're runnin' a thing. You wanna be human. You want to stop the
war, stop the killin', the whole thing, but you still ain't took time to
learn how to treat your other brother. Cool, can you dig it? You ain't
said
nothin' 'bout them and the brother look at that and they say, 'Why? Why do
I
wanna go down there and get involved? The shit ain't for me. It ain't for
me.' Man, I just hope, man, that just by standin' here rappin' with you
now,
if you didn't think about it before, think about it now. If you did think
about it before, Goddamnit now do something about that shit!
Highly recommended.
Je ne suis pas Charlie (2015) -- 9/10
This is a very well-made documentary about the political situation in France,
post-Charlie Hebdo attacks. It features interviews with a lot of very
intelligent people who've obviously given their opinions much thought. I
would dearly love to get some of the subtitles because there was a lot of
information in what the interviewees said that would is very much worth
repeating and saving. The series of interviews starts off slowly with more
prosaic opinions delivered for both sides, but it works its way up to very
nuanced, eloquent and finally quite hopeless opinions that France (and
Europe) will get worse before it gets better...and that we've seen all of
this before. The lady interviewed outside of what looked for all the world
like a construction site (Houria Bouteldja) exhibited an amazing coherence
and logic, as did the professor interviewed in his classroom (Pierre
Zaoui).
"I am a journalist and I really hold it against the mainstream media because,
I am not going to say that journalists are racists, it isn't racism when
you
have a journalist who has to write the editorial but who also has to pay
their bills, I don't hold it against them. It's the thinking minds at the
top
who decree editorial lines from above."
"It comes from its past and its present. The past is colonial history. It's a
history of colonial empire, France was a colonial empire.[...] But in
reality
there are still colonies, since imperialism has changed. It still exists.
We
are not in a post-imperial situation. We are still in imperialism. There
was
the the colonial empire, and then the nation state. The nation chose a
legitimate social group, which is the figure of the Christian, White,
European person. The most important powers will be distributed to that
social
group. The others are exlcluded."
"[People] want to make a connection with the Muslim population, taken hostage
here in France, and to whom we say that they must speak out against the
attackers who they had nothing to do with. And who have become a suspect
population."
"It's kind of like totalitarianism. I cannot renounce myself. I cannot put my
personality, my faith and my beliefs in the cloakroom before entering the
public sphere."
"Today we are witnessing a sort of blackmail by saying that if you are not
Charlie, you are against the Republic, and against French values."
"France is without a doubt the only country in the world where BDS
participants are taken to court. [...] At first, boycott actions posed no
problems and then there was a political U-Turn. There is in France a
memorandum put into force by (former Justice Minister) Michele
Aliot-Marie,
which demands for all those who call for the boycott of Israel must be
taken
to court for anti-Semitism.
"[...]
"I will add another, very important element. During the recent bombing of
Gaza [...]and notably there were many young people from the lower-class
suburbs who came to demonstrate, there were many people of Arab origin, of
the Muslim faith, these young people were themselves also taken to court
for
having demonstrated, arrested at these demonstrations in support of the
people of Gaza."
"The others are excluded. And when I say the others, I-m not just talking
about the post-colonial subjects, I think the Jews are excluded too.
That's
to say that neither the Jews are part of French national society. Both
Jews
and Muslims are excluded from French national society, but not in the same
way. Pay attention: I said the Jews are not treated in the same way as the
Black, the Muslim and the Roma communities. Those who are opporessed today
be
the French state are the Blacks, the Arabs, Muslims and the Roma. Those
who
suffer police repression for instance, those who are discriminated. For
the
Jews it's something else, it isn't discrimination, but they don't have the
honour of being part of the legitimate society. They are those who we
'like
to like', if you know what I mean. We 'like to like" the Jews, which means
we
pretend to like them. It's what we call State philosemitism. Where does it
come from? From the history of anti-Semitism, and from shifts in
imperialism.
There is a real, historic anti-Jewish state racism in France, which stems
from the existence of the nation-state and imperialism too, both together.
The Jews didn't choose this situation, but the Jews as a social group were
integrated into the imperialist project through the State of Israel. From
the
moment the Jews were brought into the imperialist project, they became
closer
to being white, they 'whitened'. But the whites really really don't want
that
to happen. So the Jews act as intermediaries. That is how anti-Semitism
turned into philosemitism. But if I were a Jew, I would be very
suspicious.
Towards the State. Because I think that turns the Jews into a category
dependent on a conjunction of factors. If Israel, tomorrow, no longer had
any
strategic importance for Europe or the West, the relationship towards Jews
risks changing. Because I think that there still is a strong anti-Semitism
in
France. A European anti-Semitism, I mean. I think that a part of the
Jewish
community realizes that there is an absolute necessity to struggle against
Islamophobia, since it will on day turn against the Jews."
Her cogent arguments remind me of the late Edward Said.
"The National Front, for me, ... I will no judge Marine Le Pen, even if she
won't be my friend anytime soon, she is clearly racist, she is clearly
Islamophobic, I think she is also an anti-Semite, although I don't want to
defame her. But she is at the head of a far-right party. I will never hear
her extol peaceful coexistence. It's all just a political game for her.
What
poses a big problem for me is the way in which her political ideas have
been
picked up by all other parties. Today she has clearly set the new
political
boundaries, we are no longer asking ourselves whether we should deal with
the
deficit or not, we are asking ourselves whether we are Islamophobic or
not,
whether veiled women can go to university or not. Today France is losing
its
place. There is a global crisis, there are more than 6 million unemployed
in
this country, but the political agenda has crystalized around the choices
of
Marine Le Pen."
"We must support the struggles of the weakest minorities. These days, we must
support the Muslims of France."
Saw it in French with English subtitles on "Vimeo"
.
Hard to be a God (2013) -- "8/10"
This is a Russian science-fiction film, 13 years in the making, that was
released after the death of the director/editor, Aleksey German. It was shot
in high-definition black and white. The story is of an Earth-like planet on
which a similar evolutionary track was followed by a very human-like race,
but they never experienced a Renaissance. Their buildings are of poor
quality, their sanitation is a horror and their hygiene is non-existent. The
filth is omnipresent. You can almost smell this movie. It's incredible how
absolutely everything is covered with mud, food remnants and shit. The fog
and rain soak everything. Everything is of primitive construction, people
shit and piss and blow their pus-running noses everywhere. They spit, they
taste things, they scratch, they pick and they flick.
Slaves have boards around their necks -- almost everyone we see is a slave of
some kind. People have eyes missing. Instead of a Renaissance, a Khmer
Rouge-style revolution has occurred: all books and learning and instruments
and advancement have been destroyed and their purveyors and inventors put to
death. One form of execution we see is upending in a latrine.
We follow the story of Don Rumata, an Earthman sent ostensibly to study these
people but who has taken up as a God among them. We follow him from his
"palace", interacting with the various psychotic locals, to a local market
(?) where he meets up with a group of other Earthlings. It is not hard to
imagine that the people find him to be a God -- he is so much cleaner than
the others, with metal greaves and vambraces pretty much the only thing they
see of him. [2]
There are incredibly long and detailed and close-up takes through the filthy
confines of his castle. Activity is everywhere...in every corner there's
someone doing something, whispering something, imparting details of the kind
of life there is to be had on this planet. There is a dispute, a man has his
eye ripped out, he stumbles forward, spilling braziers everywhere, others
follow, beating him. In the corner, we see what appears to be rutting in an
ornate bed -- the decorations depict sexual positions. The level of detail is
almost overwhelming. There's always something going on in the foreground, the
middle and the background. Many of the non-speaking extras break the fourth
wall to show us things.
This is the true idiocracy -- the people are fixated on the back-ends of
animals. They make rude gestures to each other, to the sky. It's an
exquisitely rendered madhouse, each mini-scene -- a few seconds -- with an
incredible level of detail and attention. The sounds, too...always a fire or
something splooshing or cracking or animals or people grunting. All without
CGI, all made with practical effects, some in very long shots. The world is
so visceral and convincing, large and endlessly depressing and broken. Smoke
and fog and incense are everywhere. And always the coughing, the sniffing,
the compulsive wiping of the nose by everyone -- presumably because of the
nigh-intolerable smell of the world.
Everything's in a terrible state of disrepair and we see the only minds
allowed to work involved in building new torture devices. The "bookworms"
have all been hanged and left to rot on a gallows. The dialogue is also
scattered, nonsensical, but enough sense can be distilled to follow a story.
Everyone is near-mad, the actions unexplainable, the destruction they wreak
on their environs chaotic. Random, wanton, childish. An unenlightened world
of fools. It's impossible to imagine how such a society survives, how it
feeds itself, how it staves off disease. Every scene reflects their actions,
implements and armor and chains and animals and fowl and bells pinned and
tied and roped and chained everywhere, covered in filth and dripping water.
The level of detail is Mad Max: Fury Road-esque. It's a bit of a mystery
where all the metal comes from, as they don't seem capable of smelting or
smithing.
Even Rumata succumbs to the filth of the world, drinking himself into
stupors, obsessively picking his ear. Soldiers from the Grays some to arrest
him and he fights them off, but they capture him in a net and take him to his
enemy, Don Reba. Don Rumata threatens him and cajoles him and eventually
leaves with an imposter doctor Budakh in tow (the man he sought?). It's a
mystery where Rumata gets his clean cloths to wipe his face, or the endless
vials of perfumed water he splashes everywhere.
When he discovers that Budakh is an imposter, Rumata continues his search, in
the process rediscovering his friend the Baron in a cage and freeing him. The
Baron is attacked and rides off, triumphant, only to later be felled by a
dozen arrows. We find his body lying on a midden heap, with Budakh
admonishing it that he will now never be able to teach the Baron how to read.
Surreal. Rumata interviews Budakh, to his eventual disappointment.
Rumata: What advice would you give to a God?
Budakh: I'd say "Creator! Give people everything that which separates
them."
Rumata: No, that wouldn't do them any good. Because the strong will take
everything from the weak.
Budakh: I'd say "Punish the cruel, so that the strong restrain from being
cruel"
Rumata: As soon as the strong and cruel are punished, the stronger ones of
the weak will take their place.
Budakh responds that the Creator should eradicate everything, to which Rumata
responds that "destruction is easy". He is anguished at all of the misery
around him, after having spent 20 years on that Godforsaken planet. He
returns home to his castle in Arkanar. There are warring factions, the Blacks
are religious zealots who attacked his castle in his absence, the Grays (the
Order) are poised for attack. They are Reba's troops, the man who just
released a prisoner to Rumata and let them both walk free. Because he's
considered a God? It's all a bit muddled.
Rumata discusses further with Arata (his chief of staff?). Arata says what he
would do to free the people and take over.
Rumata: Tell me, Arata. So you have given the land to your men. Who needs
land without slaves? There'll be new slaves. New scaffolds [gallows]. New
golds. New blacks. Everything will start again. And a new Arata. And a God
won't be able to do anything. That's sad.
Arata: I'd never allow that, you louse.
Rumata: You wouldn't be able to prevent it. You'd allow it, like everyone
else has and always will. For thousands of years.
Arata: What do we do then?
Rumata: The same as always.
The wheel turns and even an omnipotent God is helpless to stop mankind from
realizing its pitiful goal.
The Grays attack the castle and kill Rumata's "wife" Ari with an arrow to the
back of the head. Absolutely out of the blue. Rumata puts on his war helmet
-- a fancy affair with bull horns -- and prepares for war. Before he can go
anywhere, though, a bird shits on his helmet. A fitting sentiment.
Rumata exacts revenge on the Grays' leader. They seem to be negotiating,
after a fashion, when Rumata stabs him with his helmet, then later
disembowels him while still his heart is still beating. The aftermath of the
ensuing battle takes the lives of all the soldiers in Arkanar, making it even
more of a hellhole, if that was at all possible. [3] More "scientists" from
Earth arrive to dissect the aftermath of the battle. They find Rumata without
armor, sitting in a puddle, the lone survivor of both armies. They offer to
take him back to Earth, but he refuses.
Rumata: They say...you write books, but have no thoughts. Here's one for
you.
Where Grays triumph, Blacks inevitably come. There's no other way.
Remember.
Now leave. Hey, if you write about me, and you'll probably have to. Write
that it's ... it's hard to be a God!
Months later, we see Rumata with his retinue on the move through winter. He
ends the film as he started, playing haunting Jazz on his clarinet. The scene
of wintry bleakness at the end is welcome respite from the rotten oleaginous
horrors of autumn.
The detail, the world is incredible. It's a long film and difficult to
follow, but the absolute dedication and consistent quality throughout the
nearly three hours is remarkable. It's a fully realized world. Recommended.
Betty Blue (1986) -- "7/10"
Zorg lives at the beach in a run-down bungalow, working as a handyman for the
owner. We meet Betty enthusiastically writhing under Zorg, almost as if
the
film wants us to see right off the bat why Zorg is about to put up with
all
of the ensuing shit she has to offer. They go at it with such gusto, skill
and utter joy, and the camera is so loving as it slowly zooms in to their
crescendo, that these two minutes should be shown in health classes around
the world.
Alas, she's not stable. Some would generously call a free spirit. She
likes
to throw shit. She's not super-smart. She's convinced that Zorg is
underselling himself and she hates his boss, so she attacks the boss at
every
opportunity. They are charged with painting the other bungalows and they
paint one very nicely. [4] Betty discovers Zorg's book that he'd kept
hidden
and falls more in love with him -- whatever that means in that rats-nest
of a
mind of hers. She has enough of this life of servitude at the beach,
throws
every last bit of furnishing out of the bungalow and sets it on fire.
They flee the premises and hitchhike to Paris. There, they move in with a
friend of hers -- Lisa -- in a small hotel, where he does odd jobs and she
starts typing up his manuscript. A Sisyphean task as she doesn't know how
to
type and rips out the page whenever she makes a mistake. It's painful to
watch.
On a side note, neither Zorg nor Betty is particularly fond of underwear.
They befriend Eddy, Lisa's boyfriend and have a few nice evenings together
and mornings. [5] Betty's mood quickly drops when she doesn't get a
response
from any of the publishers to whom she's submitted Zorg's manuscript.
Betty
and Zorg start working at Stromboli's, Eddy's restaurant. So far, this is
a
typically quirky, cute French romance film -- except for Betty's
uncontrollable anger, lowering perpetually at the edges of their
existence,
until it springs to the center in a fit of pique.
You're tempted to think that her fits are acts of passion, of a person
full
of life, but she really seems to be mentally ill. The only reason anyone
puts
up with it is that it's packed into a pretty, sexy package, so everyone
does
their best to ignore it for much longer than they should. An ugly girl
would
have been committed immediately.
At any rate, Eddy's mother dies and they attend the funeral. Eddy offers
Betty and Zorg his mother's house if they'll run the music store. Zorg is
happy with the provincial life. [6] Betty, of course, is quickly bored.
Zorg,
however, is not bored. The wife of a man he helps in town throws herself
at
him in a fit of positively epic horniness. Instead of taking advantage, he
counsels her and resists her wiles. When she yells at him "I don't turn
you
on!", he responds that "Sometimes I resist my desires
in order to feel I'm free."
Betty's boredom continues, so she distracts herself with a fake pregnancy.
Zorg does his best to make her happy, but she wants to move, to not be
bored.
And settling down in bucolic bliss will not last. We see it in her face
that
she knows she can't be happy with what he's offering but she's dying to
try,
knowing that it will fail. During a lovely night in front of a roaring
fire,
he spills her purse and finds sedatives she's been taking.
After finding out that it was a phantom pregnancy, her condition worsens.
The
fugues increase until Zorg comes home one day to find blood and detritus
everywhere and Betty's been taken to the hospital because she's poked her
own
eye out. Zorg gets a call from a publisher who's willing to publish the
book
she submitted. He goes to the asylum to tell her that he's being published
and he's working on another book, but she's strapped to the bed,
catatonic.
Zorg blames the drugs and denies the reality he's known for a while. Zorg
is
thrown out of the asylum.
He sneaks back in, dressed as a woman. After telling her how much he
misses
her, her voice, he puts her out of her misery with a pillow. He leaves. We
see him in his apartment above the music store, eating chili from a pot,
as
he did at the beginning of the film before he met Betty. He is writing a
book.
Dallas Buyer's Club (2014) -- "7/10"
We meet Ron Woodruff, played by Matthew McConaughey, at a rodeo, where he's
clearly in the grips of HIV. His cheeks are sunken, his belt flaps
loosely,
clearly tied much tighter than it used to be. He's having sex with two
prostitutes under the stands. A little while later, he passes out and
wakes
up in a local hospital, receiving a diagnosis of full-blown AIDS with a
T-Cell count of 9. AZT is just being tested, but it's efficacy is unknown.
He
finagles his way into getting some, then overdoses on it, taking his usual
panoply of drugs and alcohol. He ends up in the hospital again and storms
out
after they tell him he's going to kill himself.
He goes to Mexico for treatment, where he meets a kindly doctor who not
only
helps him, but goes into business with him. Woodruff smuggles a ton of
goods
with him, telling the customs authorities that it's all for himself.
He meets Rayon (a transvestite played by Jared Leto) in the hospital. They
soon form a partnership, the Dallas Buyers Club and she helps him sell it,
because her connections to the community most likely to need it are better
than his. Along the way, he earns the grudging respect of Eve, a doctor
played by Jennifer Garner. Steve Zahn plays Tucker, Woodruff's old cop
pal.
Woodruff survives much longer than the 30 days he was given, cleaning up
his
life -- more or less -- and surviving over seven years and helping
hundreds
of people. The actors all play well, with Leto's transformation and
comfort
in his role exceeded only by McConaughey's. The story was interesting as
history, but the strength of the film is in its characters.
Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) -- "8/10"
Tom Hiddleston and Tilda Swinton are Adam and Eve, very long-lived if not
eternal beings who need blood to live. They are apparently low-key
vampires.
Eve lives in Morocco where she is friends with Christopher Marlowe, played
wonderfully by John Hurt.
Adam lives in an old, abandoned-looking home in Detroit, surrounded by
musical, electronic and recording equipment of varying age. None of it
particularly new -- most looks to be at least 40 or 50 years old, while
some
of the violins are probably centuries old. He has a friend, Ian, who helps
him get supplies Ian is quite friendly and asks no questions. Adam calls
non-vampires "zombies". Ian is a "good zombie".
We see the three of them obtain and imbibe quality blood to slake their
thirst. Soon after, Eve calls Adam to say hello. She calls on an iPhone
with
FaceTime. He connects via a Rube Goldberg contraption of relatively
ancient
digital devices that pipe her image to an analog television. Adam
expresses
melancholy; Eve agrees to visit. She packs only books from her wonderfully
overcrowded house crammed full of them. We see her packing famous books in
multiple languages, sitting in a pile of money in multiple denominations,
making reservations for two flights, both at night.
They both use quite stilted language, naming creatures and trees in Latin,
indicative of their long lives and the decades they could devote to
learning
such trivia. When together, they discuss the zombies and, in particular,
as
she puts it, "the litany of all zombie atrocities in history". He lists
the
scientists who've been thwarted, ignored and ridiculed or otherwise poorly
treated by humanity, with special emphasis on Tesla, of course.
Jim Jarmusch directed, so it's not surprising that it's a languorous film,
but this time the pacing serves a different purpose: it puts us in the
mood
of beings who've seen everything multiple times, seen the wheel of time
turn
and turn again, who discuss how Detroit will bloom again when the "cities
in
the South have burned up [...] because it's near water". The film is at
least
partially a love letter to Detroit, lamenting the rot and destruction and
decay there. More evidence of the zombies' lack of appreciation for
anything
good, for anything lasting. When you live forever, you can spend so much
time
on everything, you in fact must because otherwise boredom would overtake
you.
But the quotidian concerns of the zombies frustrate.
When the power goes out, we accompany Adam and Eve to his fusebox, where
she
observes that his wiring is shit and isn't even properly connected to the
grid. He smiles and opens a panel in the ground to reveal a version of
Tesla's wireless electrical transmitter to power his home.
Eve discovers the special bullet Adam's ordered with which to commit
suicide.
They re-hash old arguments about whether it's worth it to go on. She
argues
for enjoying life, he wonders what the point of it when the zombies seem
determined to ruin everything. She plays an absolutely beautiful recording
of
"Trapped By A Thing Called Love" to convince him subtly that the zombies
can
also create beauty (when they're not so busy being ignorant assholes).
They talk of "others", in particular Eve's sister Ava (Mia Wasikowska), of
whom they've all recently dreamt. She is a vampire like them, but with the
attitude of a zombie. She drinks up their supply of blood, thinking
nothing
of it, of course. Adam is exceedingly unexcited to see her. Eve is
accepting
and mostly ambivalent. Ava, though, is a greedy, useless piece of shit
bent
on ruining everything they have. Obviously, I was enjoying this movie much
more before Ava showed up, but that's probably the point. Ava is
constantly
"thirsty" and doesn't seem to have any of her own supply chain (which is
probably why she ended up there). She drinks Ian, Adam's friend and
helper,
then says she feels "sick". Eve reminds her that 21st-century blood isn't
safe (probably not for the first time). They throw Eva out, "you guys are
condescending assholes; you have no idea!" Of course. They are left to
deal
with the body and the aftermath of her destructive orgy. I suppose this is
to
show that vampires, like humans, run the gamut of behavior from
sophisticated
to utterly useless and glomming.
Adam and Eve relocate to Tangiers, leaving all of his stuff behind -- she
tells him she'll find him wonderful instruments there. Of course, beings
that
are centuries if not millennia old would be much more comfortable with
throwing away everything to start anew. They have trouble finding Marlowe
and
his connection to "good blood" and seem quite incapacitated. This makes
for a
bit of tension, but it's hard to imagine that they could survive so long
if a
seeming bump in the road like this threatens their existence. They find
Marlowe, who's been poisoned by bad blood and expires before their eyes.
So
much experience and learning, lost forever. Marlowe "whispers"
"What a
piece
of work is a man..." and Adam responds "[a]nd yet to me, what is this
quintessence of dust?"
At the very end, we see Adam and Eve starting from nothing, reduced to
"15th-century tactics" (i.e. drinking blood directly from victims), but
only
slightly concerned about their ability to survive. They see an expanse of
time and our highly focused view on it is boring.
Adam: Have the water wars started yet? Or is still about the oil?
Eve: Yes, they're just starting now.
Adam: They only figure out when it's too late.
The soundtrack is lovely. Recommended.
Ant-Man (2015) -- "6/10"
Paul Rudd plays Scott Lang, a burglar who's just gotten out of prison for
having burgled a large, high-security corporation. This feat catches the
attention of Henry/Hank Pym (played well by Michael Douglas). He's a
genius
scientist-engineer who'd invented miniaturization technology 40 years ago,
used it as the Ant-Man to fight the commies, then buried it before it
could
be further weaponized or misused. His protégé Darren Cross is, forty
years
later, finally very near a breakthrough in re-discovering the "Pym
Particle"
that will allow him to duplicate Pym's achievements.
Pym recruits Lang to become the Ant-Man for him, to sneak into Cross
industries and steal the formula before Cross can sell it to arms
industry.
This is kind of lame because how would there not be backups everywhere? At
any rate, Pym's daughter reluctantly helps Lang get ready for his mission,
teaching him how to fight and use the shrink/grow technology.
They proceed with the heist, including Lang's three-man team for help.
This
is a good thing because that team includes Michael Peña as Luis, a guy
who
can't tell a story without including every last detail. His two stories
are
the most amusing and nicely filmed parts of this movie.
The action scenes are decent and the use of the ants is relatively clever,
but the motivation for the characters is all over the place. Douglas
starts
off strong, but the dialogue for Pym wilts as he's increasingly called up
to
inject chunks of history. These parts could have been more interesting but
didn't really grab my attention. I thought Cannavale was pretty much
wasted,
which is a shame.
Ant-man could have been cooler, but he was served up in this standard film
with a story that didn't even bother to cohere very much.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] These "notes"
are also
interesting.
[1] The only sign we see of any technology is when something that looks like a
tank/land-boat towing a wagon with two guys on it, one playing a guitar,
drives by at 28 minutes in. The occurrence is entirely anomalous, unremarked
and unexplained. We never see anything that looks like post-Renaissance
technology again.
[1] Game of Thrones has nothing on this film in terms of depiction of medieval
filth, death and suffering.
[1] Well, everyone says that they did a great job, but they just paint over the
old, peeling paint without stripping any of it or even priming the
sun-and-surf-damaged wood. Fucking amateurs.
[1] It's funny to see how many things from 1980s France have survived until
today nearly unchanged. The Mocha/Bialetti coffee maker they use is just
like mine. They eat Bonne Maman strawberry preserves, they drink 1664 beer
and Ricard Pastis. In the countryside, it's Chimay and Leffe. All the labels
still look the same.
[1] The French countryside is completely unchanged over the last 30 years since
they made this movie. The buildings, the low walls, the church and castle in
town, the little stores, the Boulangerie, the run-down but pragmatic little
kitchens: all of it looks like Cluny and Sirot, where I've stayed with
friends many times. The market store looks just like the ones in Bussang.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=32052016-01-31T17:35:17+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of over 900 ratings
publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my notes
for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to...
]]>
of over 900 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.
Trophy Kids (2013) -- "6/10"
This is a documentary about the middle- to upper-class youth sports scene in
the U.S. It is about parents obsessed with using their means to shape
their
children into sports stars -- to realize their potential. To be honest,
that
potential is not immediately clear. The parents are nearly all off the
rails
and not very strongly anchored in reality. Neither are they particularly
nice
-- to either their kids or anyone else.
One -- tennis mom -- is off-the-rails religious, with enough contradictory
religious and self-help claptrap rattling around in the hollowed husk of
her
skull to elicit at least some respect that she manages to get anything
done
at all. Golf dad is clearly unaware of how young his daughter is, cursing
horribly under his breath when she makes mistakes. [1] Football dad is
also
blissfully unaware of both how militant and unreasonable he is and how
untalented his son is. What bleeds through in all of them is that they
think
their children are God's gift to the planet and have every right to as
much
of its resources as they can get their previous hands on.
Football dad recriminates "Justus" because he didn't immediately ask his
coach why he was taken out of the game. His logic is inexorable and, on
the
surface, reasonable: how will Justus get better if he doesn't know why he
was
removed? So, yes, he should find out what he did wrong, but not right
away.
The coach obviously had bigger fish to fry during the game, but Football
Dad
doesn't see it that way because he and Justus are the most important
things
in the world. This from a man who, were he a coach, would likely kill any
player who dared even speak to him during a game.
Basketball Dad is nearly a pure caricature of a New Jersey goombah. Except
that I believe he lives in California. They live their lives by stats
("he's
196th in the state"). Most seem to have more than enough money ("I've
spent
two Lamborghinis so far") One father says, right in front of his son, that
practicing basketball with said son is the only thing that gives his life
meaning every day. How can the son say anything after that? Can he
possibly
say that he doesn't want to play basketball anymore?
The material was a bit repetitive but serves as a good warning to all of
us,
should we encounter the generation raised this way.
Dark Shadows (2012) -- "4/10"
A strong cast and a weak story combine to make an occasionally entertaining
movie but one that keeps failing ever harder the longer it goes on.
Johnny Depp seems only capable of acting in heavy makeup and with the same
gestures and facial grimaces that earned him such acclaim as Jack Sparrow.
Michelle Pfeiffer, too, seems more concerned with keeping her face
immobile
lest it fall off. Eva Green as the evil witch was clearly on some sort of
hunger strike which made her overly gaunt though several times the plot
hinged or explicitly mentioned how alluring her breasts were. Instead, I
could not ignore the incredible overbite she showed whenever she grinned
really widely, almost as if she had too many teeth to fit into her mouth.
This might have been a nice touch if I wasn't convinced that it was
unintentional.
Chloë Grace Moretz was utterly and entirely wasted. Helena Bonham Carter
was
refreshingly less overwrought and nutty than usual, but still couldn't
work
any magic here. Bella Heathcote's face, while decades younger, was
arguable
less mobile than Pfeiffer's, expressing little to no emotion throughout
the
film. She gave us no indication as to her motivation, instead mooning
around
being ambiguous and being able to see ghosts. She, too, is a woman of the
age, weighing about 85 pounds soaking wet and yet we're told that Barnabus
(Depp) thinks she has "exquisite" birthing hips. This could only be true
if
she were to give birth to snakes.
The film's primary propaganda seems to be: look, here are some very pretty
women whom we haven't fed or allowed to act (some of whom, like Green and
Moretz, made me doubt that they even can act, despite other movies as
evidence to the contrary). Also, since there are so many famous names, we
haven't bothered to write an interesting script or provide any
interesting,
non-clicheéd dialogue. Tim Burton has lost pretty much of all of his
initial
charm and quirkiness as a director. Not recommended at all.
Mission: Impossible -- Rogue Nation (2015) -- "8/10"
Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt, the top spy in the IMF (Impossible Mission
Force). He's once again joined by Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames and Jeremy Renner
-- veterans of various other outings in the series. Rebecca Ferguson plays
his foil, a British agent working at the edge of the law, like him. They are
on the trail of the Syndicate, a shadowy outfit that's trying to change the
world, one assassination and terrorist bombing at a time. Hunt spends a good
deal of time on the run, especially after Alex Baldwin as the CIA director
shuts down the IMF. There's a USB stick that only the prime minister of
England can decrypt that contains codes for many, many bank accounts. Hunt
and co. fight the Syndicate for it. Nice ending. Good flick. Recommended.
Jessica Jones (2015) -- "9/10"
The eponymous Ms. Jones is a superhero, but a relatively low-key one. She is
inordinately strong, but not a particularly good or trained fighter. She's
a
private detective in Hell's Kitchen and keeps busy taking pictures of
adulterers for their jilted spouses. She has PTSD from a lengthy
kidnapping
she'd recently escaped from, to a certain Kilgrave. Kilgrave can control
minds. He's an amoral monster.
The story arc in the first season is about their struggle. Jones is joined
by
Trish, a childhood friend who parlayed her childhood fame into a good gig
on
a radio talk show and a pretty good life. Luke Cage (Power Man) is also in
the mix. The story follows the results of Kilgrave's mind control and his
victims and lies and the resulting violence.
The story slowly unfolds, revealing more about how Kilgrave's powers work,
what kind of abilities Jessica has, where they came from, and so on.
Shadowy
organizations flit in and out of the plot. Well-shot, well-acted and
well-written. Recommended.
Mr. Robot (2015) -- "9/10"
Mr. Robot is a show about Elliot Alderson, a young man with serious computer
and hacking skills. He works at Allsafe, with Angela, his childhood
friend.
They have a shared past, having lost family to the same industrial
accident.
This is the scaffolding on which the show rests its true story: one of
mental
illness, isolation, estrangement, hidden relationships, the 1%, the
powerful,
psychological manipulation, hacking, social engineering and the utter
depravity and shocking uselessness of humanity.
As of episode two, I was starting to suspect that the similarities to
Fight
Club are more than I initially suspected when I heard about Mr. Robot's
plans
to blow up credit-card/debt records. My working theory is that Slater/Mr.
Robot doesn't exist. Only in his mind. Plus, the part where the rich dude
pays the homeless guy to let him beat him up? Fucked. Up. Dammit, at least
Darlene seems to be real -- other people can see and hear her. Or can
they?
Maybe Shayla doesn't exist either? But then who's walking the dog? Or does
Flipper also not exist? I'm trying to keep track of who can interact with
whom in which scenes to figure out if anyone exists but Elliot. As of
episode
4, where he withdraws from heroin, I don't even know how many Elliots
there
are.
That's all the spoiling I'll do. Here are some of my favorite bits.
"Or maybe it's that it feels like all our heroes are counterfeit? The world
itself's just one big hoax. Spamming each other with our running
commentary
of bullshit, masquerading as insight, our social media faking as intimacy.
Or
is it that we voted for this? Not with our rigged elections, but with our
things, our property, our money. I'm not saying anything new. We all know
why
we do this, not because Hunger Games books makes us happy, but because we
wanna be sedated. Because it's painful not to pretend, because we're
cowards.
Fuck society."
First clue. F*society.
Angela: You slummed it all the way down to Jersey in person to offer me a
job
at the company I'm currently suing?
Colby: So, you'll find this out fairly soon, but in business, grudges
aren't
really...a thing. It's too emotional.
Angela: This is a huge class-action lawsuit. They're going to pay
millions.
Colby: Roughly 75 to 100 million. I mean, that's what their lawyers will
settle for -- after they exhaust most of your team's legal funds for the
next
seven years. And sure, that's...that's a lot of money, but not to them,
not
really. We started a rainy-day fund when the leak happened, just for this
occasion. The fund itself has already made five times that amount.
Angela: I'm not working there. They killed my mother.
Colby: And every fast-food joint around the corner delivers diabetes to
millions of people. Philip Morris hands out lung cancer on the hour, every
hour. I mean, hell, everyone's destroying the planet beyond the point of
no
return. Are you really going to start taking all of these things so
personally?
Angela: Maybe I will. Maybe someone has to.
Colby: A suggestion: If you want to change things, perhaps you should try
from within. Because this [indicates her current circumstances: jobless,
living with father] is what happens from the outside.
Elliot: No, you're not real. You're not real.
Mr. Robot: What? You are? Is any of it real? I mean, look at this. LOOK AT
IT! A world built on fantasy. Synthetic emotions in the form of pills,
psychological warfare in the form of advertising, mild-altering chemicals
in
the form of food, brainwashing seminars in the form of media, controlled,
isolated bubbles in the form of social networks. Real? You wanna talk
about
reality? We haven't lived in anything remotely close to it since the turn
of
the century. You turn it off, they've got the batteries, snack on a bag of
GMOs while we toss the remnants in the ever-expanding dumpster of the
human
condition. We live in branded houses trademarked by corporations built on
bipolar numbers, jumping up and down on digital displays, hypnotizing us
into
the biggest slumber mankind has ever seen. You have to dig pretty deep,
kiddo, before you can find anything real. We live in a kingdom of
bullshit, a
kingdom you've lived in for far too long. So don't tell me about not being
real. I'm no less real than the fucking beef patty in your Big Mac. As far
as
you're concerned Elliot? I am very real.
The Sting (1973) -- "9/10"
I watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid at the end of last year and,
while it was decent, I kept thinking that the The Sting was the real
Newman/Redford collaboration movie to watch. I had remembered correctly.
This
is the story of a young grifter, Redford as Johnny Hooker, who teams up
with
an old hand, Newman as Henry Gondorff. They both were friends with another
grifter, who'd just retired before being murdered by Doyle Lonnigan, a
big-shot gangster.
They set up a glorious sting operation to take him for all he's worth.
Cons
within cons within cons, with people begging to have their money taken
left
and right. It's the 1930s and some things are easier because the world
isn't
as connected as it is today. I don't want to spoil the plot because it's
really important that you be surprised by it, but rest assured that it
holds
together like almost no other grifter film -- Ocean's Eleven perhaps comes
close; House of Games tried like hell but you could see that one coming a
mile away.
In this movie, you just don't know how Gondorff is going to escape or how
Hooker is going to avoid turning him in to the Fibbies or whether he's
really
considering it or whether they're just operating at a totally different
level. Probably the last one, right? Lovely soundtrack, excellent acting,
good direction, a wonderful and well-executed story. An all-around good
time.
Highly recommended.
Blindness (2008) -- "7/10"
This movie is based on the book of the same name by Josè Saramago. It
follows the plot of the book pretty closely, making only minor adjustments
to
the timing of plot points to make them occur at the same time or to
accelerate the telling of the story. The story is of a man who is suddenly
struck blind, seeing only a wash of milky whiteness. Others soon follow,
as
it becomes clear that the blindness is caused by a communicable disease.
Soon enough, everyone has it and the city is filled only with the blind,
All,
save one lady -- the doctor's wife, played by Julianne Moore -- who is
unaffected by the blindness, but not by its horrific effects (she lives in
a
world of blind people). The effects are as you can imagine, if you were to
think about it: a city filled only with the newly blind, fumbling about,
looking for food, looking for shelter, for a place to urinate or defecate.
Before everyone has succumbed, the government ruthlessly quarantines the
initial afflicted in a mental asylum. Food is delivered sporadically but
relatively regularly. The place becomes nearly unbearably filthy.
As more and more people arrive, an element finally arrives that
understands
that societal rules no longer apply. They take all the food for
themselves,
rationing it out to the others in exchange for the last of their worldly
possessions. When those run out, they naturally demand that the other
wards
send their women. After several days, the women volunteer for this
horrific
duty, even the doctor's wife. Afterwards, though, she's had enough and
takes
a pair of scissors she found to kill the ringleader, threatening the
remaining pirates that she will kill more if they don't give up. Another
woman, traumatized by the rapes, finds a lighter and sets the pirates' den
on
fire, taking them all out.
At the same time, the doctor's wife takes her small group outside to ask
the
soldiers for help. They are gone. There is no authority remaining. All is
chaos and anarchy, with only the blind to fill the power vacuum. The small
group escapes back to the city, the doctor's wife the only witness to the
utter horror of the place, overrun by people who can no longer take care
of
themselves. They survive better than most, with the doctor's wife's sight
helping them find food that others have missed. They return to the
doctor's
home and settle in for a somewhat better existence than they had in
quarantine, but one still bereft of true hope. And then, just as quickly
as
it left, their sight returns. The end.
Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret (2014) -- "7/10"
The core message is important: animal agriculture accounts for over half of
all greenhouse-gas emissions, a lot of that far more dangerous than
CO2, Unfortunately, I found the presentation to be very
repetitive
for the first hour or so. The actual information is pretty thin -- I just
summarized it in the first sentence of this review -- and the same
information is liberally sprinkled throughout several interviews.
The presenter, Kip Anderson, is a bro-sounding, unshaved,
baseball-hat--wearing dude who spends the first half an hour thinking
there's
a conspiracy because no-one wants to talk to him. I wouldn't want to talk
to
him, either. A lot of the people he did manage to interview were very
interesting. But I don't trust him not to spin some of these interviews.
E.g.
when he finally got an interview with one of the larger environmental
organizations, the NRDC, he drops in his U.N. report facts and then cuts
the
interview to make it look like the person was hiding something because she
didn't just take his information at face value. When a conspiracy theorist
asks: how could she/he/they not know? Why is no-one talking about it? ...
a
perfectly valid answer is: "because it's not true? Or not as important as
you
think it is?"
The Markegaards were an interesting interview, but their views were kind
of
all over the map. On one hand, they said that areas that cannot sustain
grass-fed cattle should not be eating beef. On the other, they think that
their cattle have no carbon footprint. The dairy farmer was very honest
about
the insustainability of his business. Another guy talked about the sheer
level of externalized costs in animal-based products. If those costs were
internalized, then the now-cheap foods would be considerably less
attractive
and the corresponding environmental destruction would reduce naturally. A
strong argument and one most likely to gain any traction, since an appeal
to
economy always trumps an appeal to morality.
Michael Pollan was briefly interviewed to say that he thinks that the
major
environmental organizations don't talk about the impact of animal
agriculture
because they don't want to offend their members or big agriculture.
Another
person said they don't want to scare away people by promoting lifestyle
changes. But these same organizations been assailing an even more powerful
industry for decades -- Big Oil -- and promoting an even bigger lifestyle
change: driving less. While it's an enticing argument, but there must be
more
to it. I wish they'd presented something to address that problem with the
logic: why is Big Ag so much more powerful than Big Oil?
Another guy talks about how it's against the Patriot Act to publicly talk
in
a way that affects Big Ag's profits. Is that true? A fact-check would have
been nice. As well with the guy who says that environmental groups are the
#1
terrorist threat, according to the FBI. Is that true? Show us the top-ten
list. Kip claims several times that there are "almost 9 billion" people on
Earth, but there were 7.13 billion people in 2013 and we're not expected
to
hit 9 billion until 2043. That's being needlessly fast and loose with
information.
I didn't like Kip because he wasn't very credible and seemed incapable of
expressing himself eloquently (e.g. when an industry lobby agrees to talk
to
him, he points out that Greenpeace wouldn't talk to him and then notes
sagely, "now that's saying something". What? What is it saying? Why do you
keep talking about every refusal to talk to you as further evidence of
conspiracy? When he talked to a couple of people who said he's in danger
for
even making this documentary, he takes the opportunity to reflect on what
a
bad-ass he is for not giving up. Barf. Is this how a mind raised on
documentaries like Loose Change works? Stop intimating at monsters in the
shadows and out with it. He eventually does -- or at least his
interviewees
do -- but his style detracted from the presentation and makes it hard for
me
to recommend this documentary heartily.
Eddie Murphy: Delirious (1983) -- "6/10"
Eddie Murphy's first stand-up special is still pretty good, but some of his
material is too broad and, hence, dated. A lot of the introductory material
broadsiding homosexuals ("faggots") isn't very funny and seems mean-spirited,
but he excuses himself by saying he's just kidding. I'm sure the material
killed at the time, but over 30 years later, it's dated, not timeless. We can
excuse this lack of timelessness by the fact that Murphy was only 22 at the
time, though. Taking that into account, you have to admire his poise and
confidence. It's decent but nothing you have to see.
Return to Algiers (2000) -- "5/10"
This is an Italian documentary about the director of the Battle of Algiers, a
great film about the revolution against French colonialism. He returned to
Algiers to interview people on the street and in positions of power to ask
them what had changed in the 30 years since the revolution he documented in
that movie. It's a bit repetitive and not very interesting. Only one of the
university students near the end had anything really interesting to say. You
don't need to see this.
Ted 2 (2015) -- "5/10"
Mark Wahlberg and Seth McFarlane return as "Jawnny" (that's Johnny in a
Boston accent) and Ted, a teddy bear come to life. Ted is married to
Tamy-Lynn, who loves him despite his being a foul-mouthed teddy bear unable
to reciprocate her sexual gifts. Giovanni Ribisi inexplicably returns as
Donny (pronounced "Dawnny"), the guy who wants to kidnap Ted for his very
own. [2] Patrick Warburton is back as their gay friend Guy and Michael Dorn
is his husband Rick. [3] I have no idea what sort of bet Morgan Freeman lost
to make him show up as an über-lawyer. Oh yeah, Mila Kunis was the clever
one who bowed out. She was replaced as the love interest for Jawnny by Amanda
Seifred, who was extremely good-natured and relatively good. [4] I wonder
when McFarlane will have worn out his welcome with all of his friends and
they'll stop taking part in his increasingly terrible movies. Thin story,
thin dialogue, nothing like the first one, which at least had some great
scenes. Not recommended.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] At first I wasn't sure how manipulated this inner monologue of his was, but
it happened a lot. And you have to imagine that he signed off on the film,
right? Or that he would have sued for misrepresentation? It's hard to
imagine him seeing this and thinking that it puts him in a good light (i.e.
"you see how mad she makes me? What I have to put up with?")
[1] Inexplicable because why on Earth is Ribisi wasting his considerable talent
on such a stupid, shallow role?
[1] Dorn was clearly chosen so that they could make him dress up as a Klingon at
the Comicon convention. Warburton went as "The Tick", naturally.
[1] One of the few good jokes was when she asked whether she had "fuck-me eyes".
Ted responded that she had "don't take my precious" eyes. It's funny because
it's true. The joke would return a few more times. McFarlane never met a
joke he couldn't tell ten times.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=32102016-01-28T13:29:06+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of over 900 ratings
publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my notes
for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to...
]]>
of over 900 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.
L'Arcano Incantatore (1996) -- "7/10"
This is an Italian horror movie, steeped in Catholic myth and church rituals,
about a man who dared approach Satan for help in becoming immortal. The
first
two conversations we see are with a man shrouded entirely in shadow and
with
a woman who hides behind a screen covered in pictures of owls -- we see
her
own eyes through the eyes of the largest owl. Spooky.
The story feels similar to that of Dracula, where a young man travels by
coach at night to his new employer, who lives alone in a castle, is very
eccentric and doesn't like to be seen. The visuals are surprisingly good
once
we get to the old monastery where his new master lives. The old building
is
well-filmed to lend the impression that it's much bigger than it is. The
rooms are small and coarsely finished -- they're entirely believable as
18th-century buildings but also look like a lot of old buildings in Europe
in
the 21st.
The young man slowly learns about his predecessor and meets his new
master.
The similarities to Dracula continue: the master seems friendly at first
but
strange things are afoot. The young man sees two women standing in the
field,
near his predecessor's grave, along with a man. This is after the young
man
found instructions as to what to do with the body to "complete the task".
Now I'm getting echoes of Umberto Eco (Foucault's Pendulum or The Name of
the
Rose) as the master dictates codes from his old books for the young man to
note down and take as a missive to a mysterious woman. The young man and
the
old sorcerer become friends and the young man helps him out in all of his
arcane and seemingly occult tasks, communicating with telepaths, covering
the
sorcerer's bed in ice and leaves, bleeding him, etc.
He sees an apparition floating through the house and notes that his
protective scar (given to him by owl-lady) has begun to bleed. The
townsfolk
swear that Nerio (his predecessor) isn't dead and haunts them still. The
young man sees an apparition that looks like his master but he suspects
it's
Nerio's ghost. Following the plot of Dracula still, we next head to a
disinterment. He carries the body to the church to make them bury it in
consecrated ground -- but the nun and priest declare that it's not Nerio.
They don't recognize the body, but it's missing a hand -- and so was the
original Monsignore! And no-one has ever been allowed to see the old
Monsignore. Has Nerio taken his master's place?
This was much better than expected -- it was actually quite scary in some
places. Very occult and pulls in stuff from everywhere. Cool ending. Saw
it
in Italian with English subtitles.
Tom Segura: Mostly Stories (2016) -- "7/10"
The title indicates his stand-up style: he tells stories, some good, some not
so exciting, some with some really good lines and/or insight and a good
baseline nastiness and others that meander nowhere. His first ten minutes is
very strong, the middle bit was pretty good and then, like so many other
comics I've watched recently, the final 10 minutes was just not as good as
the rest and left me with a less favorable impression than I'd otherwise have
had. Decent, but not worth raving about.
Lilya 4-Ever (2002) -- "9/10"
We join Lilya (16) on the cusp of a life-changing event. She lives in Estonia
in a poor neighborhood, but not the poorest. It's bleak but bearable. How
bleak? We see little Volodja (14) constantly playing basketball with a
rolled-up aluminum can. Her joy at the news that her mother and boyfriend
are
moving to America quickly turns to misery when she realizes that she will
not
accompany them.
Lilya is remanded to her aunt, who immediately moves her into a smaller,
more
squalid apartment. She makes the best of it and manages to forget her
worries
for at least one evening with friends. Her aunt soon puts a stop to that
and
breaks up their party.
The new level of her existence segues to a scene at a club, where she's
dancing with her friend, both there for the express purpose of
prostituting
themselves. Much of the film's emotion and story is delivered via Lilya's
facial expressions. She's quite a good, young actress. While Lilya, though
not without offers, backs out of their mission, her friend Natasha closes
the
deal. When Natasha's father finds the money, though, she says that it's
Lilya's, that Lilya is the whore. The father makes Natasha "return" it to
Lilya. Lilya throws it away, though.
Life is spiraling downward. Her reputation is ruined in her neighborhood.
Her
electricity is cut off because her aunt isn't paying the bills, so she
scrambles out to find the money she threw away. It's gone. She seeks out
her
aunt and finds that that she has moved -- to Lilya's old apartment. The
woman
is uncaring and unfeeling about Lilya's plight.
Lilya's mother officially abandons her -- although the stilted language
makes
it seem as if wasn't she who'd written it, but her boyfriend. At any rate,
Lilya spirals further downward. With no other choices, she heads to the
club
to fulfill the reputation she already has. It's awful. Well-filmed, not
salaciously, but awful. Next, we see her shopping for food with a smile on
her face. She still lives in the awful complex -- where there is so little
to
steal that the main entrance flaps open all the time -- but occasionally
she
now has money.
This new, lower equilibrium doesn't last long, though. Soon after she
meets
Andrej, who wants to take her to Sweden with him, men from the
neighborhood
break into her apartment and rape her. There are tiny moments of fleeting
happiness: she manages to buy Volodya a basketball, but it's soon broken
by
his vindictive father.
Andrej moves forward with his plans, as promised: he finds her a job in
Sweden and takes her with him. Andrej is kind, funny, good-looking -- and
a
bigger monster than any of the others because he gives her more hope, then
dashes them even more, dropping her to the next level. Volodya is left
behind, as her mother left her behind. Lilya still happily says her
goodbyes
to everyone she's leaving behind, along the lines of "see ya suckers".
The weather changes to rain as we hear Andrej introduce a wrinkle in the
plan: she'll be going alone and he'll follow in a couple of days. She
smiles
as she takes her first flight, with her first in-flight meal. In reality,
Andrej is a recruiter for a pimp in Sweden and she's on the way to
becoming a
captive whore, her new passport and identity confiscated, locked in to the
apartment to which she's initially taken. Volodya overdoses on the pills
he
found in her apartment (belonging to the old man who'd died there) and
dies
in the stairwell in front of Lilya's apartment.
The many, many partners she has are shown in a montage, purely from
Lilya's
point of view. She rebels by cutting her hair -- ruining the product --
but
the clients power on through and punish her all the more, becoming more
rather than less aroused. What sort of uncivilized beast could possibly do
that? What incredible power could drive a man to effect such horrors? How
do
you even get it up? Or does the horror of it help? The message is:
humanity
is lost, but worry not, neither was it worth saving.
Lilya dreams and is visited by Volodya's spirit. She tells him that she
wants
to end it all. To him she says,
Lilya: I've had it with this life. It's complete shit.
Volodya: No, it's not.
Lilya: Course it is. It's shit.
Volodya: But it's the only one you've got. This life is the only one
you've
got.
Lilya: I don't want this life. I'm not interested.
You cannot disagree with her conclusion.
Saw it in Russian with English subtitles.
Taxidermia (2006) -- "8/10"
This is a Hungarian semi-surrealist film with a nice visual language and nice
pacing. It starts in the countryside, the plot crystallizing out of the
mists. There is a young soldier who is quite inventive in his
masturbation.
There is his commanding officer, who barks at him, ordering him to explain
all of his duties, by which we learn more of their situation. There are
two
lovely women bathing, and all of the chores associated with making sure
they
can bathe (collecting water, chopping firewood, etc.) Almost every scene
is
cut off in someway, to allow misinterpretation, almost every sound as well
(heavy breathing), to be suggestive, lascivious, salacious, the world as
viewed through the soldier's eyes. A simple and original story, very
well-told. A farcical fable in the style of old Grimm, with no happy
ending
and no morality tale.
The older man, the commanding officer, defines the whole world in terms of
the female sex in his initial soliloquy. The younger man can think of
nothing
but sex, but can't get any -- he is eventually punished by summary
execution
for his violation of a bathtub of meat from a slaughtered pig that he
fantasizes is the commander's wife. Next, we meet the wife, shortly after
having given birth to a little boy. The son's tail is chopped off with
pincers by his father.
The next scene is at a competitive eating contest, where the son, now
grown,
is competing at a borscht-eating contest. This is followed by an emetic
session, in which all contestants vomit rivers into a common bucket. The
situation is presented as absolutely normal, as if eating competitions of
this severity happen all the time, as if using canned air to force
regurgitation is something that makes perfect sense in a world where
competitive eating is on the verge of becoming an Olympic sport, where
they
talk about consistency and lubrication in the food for different stages.
We see two guys vying for the charms of the same woman. One wins her hand
while the other plants his seed in her outside of their wedding reception.
Once again, this family has a generation of uncertain, illegitimate
provenance. The world of competitive eating is continuously expanded to
make
it seem so realistic that I'm almost ready to ask Wikipedia if it's real.
What a terrible concept, but so wonderfully and ironically realized --
they
really sell it.
Years later and the latest illegitimate son is a taxidermist, responsible
for
purchasing food for his father, who is gigantically bloated and training
competitive-eating cats. You read that correctly. The satire really goes
off
the rails. They argue and the son abandons the father to his fate. The
fate
turns out to be getting partially eaten by his cats. The son stuffs them
all.
I'm not even sure what's going on in the son's lab, but there are long
minutes of really well-filmed machines and organs and needles and
contraptions and preparations of some sort. It appears that the son
eviscerates and stuffs himself, despair-ridden for having killed his
father?
Hard to recommend, but a well-made film about an entirely original idea.
Saw
it in Hungarian with English subtitles.
The Tenant (1976) -- "7/10"
Roman Polanski wrote, directed and starred in this movie about a mysterious
man who applies for an apartment recently vacated by a woman who attempted
suicide by jumping out a window from it. He visits her in the hospital --
presumably to get an idea of how likely she is to survive her wounds --
where
he meets her friend Stella, played by the lovely Isabelle Adjani. They hit
it
off more or less, going to a Bruce Lee movie (Enter the Dragon) and
started
to make out before being stared down by another mysterious man. He gets
the
apartment and moves in. It is a furnished apartment and still has the
previous tenant's stuff in it. The apartment has a lovely view through the
window of the common toilet at the other end of the two-winged building.
His housewarming party is far too noisy for his neighbors and they aren't
shy
about letting him know it. [1] When takes out the trash, his bag leaks
fruit
rinds all the way down the steps -- quite comically, actually -- but when
he
immediately returns with a garbage can to clean up, it's already all gone.
His friends are not very sympathetic to his neighbor's wishes, nor are
they
very sympathetic in general. I saw this in English, and in a badly synced
version, but I'm almost certain the original was in English. [2] That
means
that his American-sounding friends really were such assholes. Well, at the
time, we may have called them "boorish" -- but they're just assholes.
Things continue to get stranger and stranger, just a bit, well, off. When
he
is robbed, the neighbors chastise him for the noise. But his landlord
tells
him not to go to the police, which is also odd. This also starts to take a
toll on Trelkovsky. He descends into madness, seeing murderers everywhere,
even seeing himself in the wing across the way, spying on himself. He sees
his predecessor, all swaddled like a mummy in the bathroom -- she was in a
full-body cast when he last saw her in the hospital plus she was an
Egyptologist.
He becomes quite delusional and makes up theories about what his neighbors
really want. They claim they want quiet, but he knows better: they want to
turn him into his predecessor and make him kill himself. He sees plots and
conspirators everywhere. he dresses up as his predecessor. Is he
channeling a
ghost? Or perhaps just Anthony Perkins from Psycho. At any rate, he's
mystified as to his appearance when he wakes. He discovers that he's torn
out
his own tooth to match the one he found in a hole in the wall in an
earlier
scene and which he surmises came from his predecessor, but he blames the
extraction on "them" (his neighbors).
He finally breaks down completely, tearing apart his apartment and fleeing
to
Stella's apartment. She comforts him and lets him sleep over, but leaves
him
to go to work. He sees his neighbors everywhere, still, seeing his
landlord
in a random visitor who knocks on her door, seeing them in her photo
albums.
In a fit of pique, he destroys her apartment, then flees.
It's an interesting thriller, if a bit meandering and long in the buildup
and
Polasnki is alone in many scenes that feel like repeats, but without
meaning.
The end is quite good, with him repeating his predecessor's swan dive
while
still firmly in the grips of his delusions. Who jumps twice?!? A satire on
how neighbors can drive you crazy. Echoes of the disintegration of psyche
undergone by Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Saw it in English.
Straw Dogs (1971) -- "5/10"
This is the original film, starring Dustin Hoffman and Susan George, not the
remake from 2011 starring James Marsden and Kate Sumner. This one was
directed by Sam Peckinpah and actually feels like a Western set in
England.
Everyone in the town is a criminal bordering on insane and can only think
of
rape (more or less). The setup is not subtle. "Where do you want it, Amy?
...
Put it wherever you want." Soooo suggestive. All the ladies walking
lasciviously -- I think one is a minor? This script has no subtlety
whatsoever. For example, the main couple go from making sweet love one
night
-- observed salaciously by a young couple, looking through the window --
to
her crying desperately for attention while he's trying to finish his work,
leading to her bursting into tears. Did Tolstoy write this? All of the
other
men are characterized as rutting idiots. The Country Boys are utterly
blithering.
The husband, on the other hand, is constantly portrayed as effiminate or
soft: he wears the same shoes she does, he wears sweaters, sometimes
draped
over his shoulders, he sits in a child's swing to work, he doesn't know
which
side of the car to drive from, he's got glasses. They all know how weak he
is, they want the pretty girl he has. They will take her from his soft,
weak
hands. Peckinpah clearly thinks he's being subtle, but he's not.
When David and Amy find their cat strangled and swinging from a noose in
their closet, she wants to flee, knowing it was the workers that did it to
"prove that they can get into [his] bedroom at any time". He doesn't want
to
leave but is also reluctant to accuse them of having killed the cat. He
tries, but it kind of backfires and they take advantage of his lack of
self-confidence. They invite him to go hunting, but that means that they
won't be working on the garage nor have they been accused of killing the
cat.
Amy loses confidence in him as the men go back outside, giggling and
laughing
and hooting like idiots.
They end up taking him on a snipe hunt, holding a sack, waiting for game
to
run into it as the "flush it out, sir". Hoot, hoot, hoot. Charlie circles
around and goes to visit Amy while David is in the field. She lets him in,
knowing he killed her cat, then kisses him and asks him to leave while
kissing him again, then he takes what he's wanted the whole movie.
But WTF why did she let him in? It's like the movie wants to make it her
own
damned fault for answering the door in a bathrobe -- and then liking her
own
rape, at least kinda. This is super-creepy. "Amy, I don't want to reave
you,
but I will." I have no idea what Peckinpah is trying to say about
sexuality,
but it can't be anything good. After the rape, he says "Sorry, Amy" and
she
says "Hold me." I cannot believe for a second that this is based on
anything
other than rutting male fantasy.
While they're lying on the couch, entwined, Charlie and Amy are
interrupted
by his compatriot, who, of course, wants a taste. And a taste he will
have,
as Charlie holds her down for him. Now its's rape, I guess? Or maybe with
the
next guy? Is it ever rape?
So anyway there's a church party with the whole town and Henry Niles
(apparently a molester of some sort?) is tempted off by a young girl,
Janice,
daughter of the alcoholic town patriarch. The gang gives chase but can't
find
him. He seems to choke her to death, perhaps by accident. The posse ends
up
at the pub, downing one shot of whiskey after another. David and Amy drive
home and hit Henry on the way home. They take him to their house and call
the
pub for a doctor. The posse ends up at their house -- ton of rape-y
elephants
in the room here -- all remain unaddressed.
They try to get David to leave to find a doctor so they can have another
go
at Amy. Amy stands mute. David tries to stand his ground: "This is my
house".
It seems to work, at least temporarily. Then the patriarch tries to break
into their house with his gang. He tries all the doors and surprise,
surprise, the windows are next. It's kind of farcical...I'm not getting
the
sense of menace I would have expected. The story is pretty muddled and
it's
not clear where everyone's motivation comes from. They seem so passionate
and
angry but it's not clear why they hate him so much. Maybe no reason? Maybe
the point is that it could happen to anyone? Because such violence is
utterly
unpredictable?
Somewhere during the attack, Amy switches sides and wants to throw Henry
to
the dogs to save her own skin. David still wants to defend the home. To do
so, he becomes the same kind of animal as they. He threatens her with
death
to make him help her. She's still kind of confused about who she wants to
defend. She kind of hates him? The rape is seemingly forgotten (even
though
there's almost a repeat). Minus one star for being unconvincing. Plus one
star for the last twenty minutes and Hoffman's plucky performance as an
action star.
Du rififi chez les hommes (1955) -- "8/10"
Three Parisians plan and execute a jewel heist. Tony is fresh out of prison
and his old friends Jo [3] and Mario barely wait a day to invite him to do
a
smash-and-grab on a jewelry store. He turns them down but, after
discovering
his former lover (Mado) has taken up with a local gangster (Grutter) --
and
after proudly having made her strip and then beaten her brutally for it --
he
raises their offer to take the whole contents of the safe rather than just
grabbing what they can from a window.
We see them planning it out, figuring out how to get around the
vibration-sensitive alarm system, how to get into the store, how to get to
the safe, etc. The execution is largely in near-silence because they have
to
be careful not to trigger the alarm before they can empty a fire
extinguisher
in it to keep it silent. They carefully widen a hole in the ceiling of the
jewelry store while catching detritus in an umbrella, all the while
staying
painfully silent.
The minutes tick by. The hours tick by.
It takes them three hours to get through the ceiling, get to the safe and
tip
it down on its face (quite cleverly by using different-sized chocks until
it's been levered nearly to the ground). They drill from the back,
ignoring
the lock on the front, but it takes 3 hours to drill the holes in the back
on
which they mount a sort of manual router that lets them dig a circle in
the
metal, which takes another hour. Finally, they take their jewelry through
the
hole and make off seemingly scot-free.
However, someone discovers that Cesar has given his girl a ring that he
swiped and Grutter gets wind of it, quickly concluding that Tony and his
gang
were involved. They get Cesar and Mario (and his wife, Ida) and pressure
them
into getting the gang to give up the jewels. Mario and Ida are martyred
for
the cause. Jo, however, was already in London and had arranged to fence
them.
Tony goes to Mado -- who has since left Grutter but who is definitely not
going to back to Tony, not surprising considering the scars he left her
with
-- and asks her to help him find Grutter. She tells him to go piss up a
rope
and hopes that all the rest of his friends would be killed as well. Tony
finds Cesar and kills him for having ratted out Mario and the gang.
They get their money from the fence -- FF120 million -- and Tony takes off
to
get Jo's kidnapped kid back before Jo can cave in and give Grutter the
money.
Tony rescues Jo's son, but Jo panics first and takes off with all of the
money (not just his share). Poor Tony is left to clean up yet another
mess.
But he's too late: Grutter takes the money and kills Jo for good measure,
then gut-shoots Tony from cover. Tony recovers quickly enough to kill
Grutter
before he can escape with the loot, but he's grievously wounded. [4]
It's a nice heist film, with good acting, good music, a good story and
lovely, lovely sets (apparently filmed on-site). It's a movie of its time
and
its not timeless -- the dialogue is a bit slow and the shots are very
static.
It's black and white, which is OK, but the print isn't very clean. Paris
in
the 50s, though, ... looks exactly the same as now. [5] The ensemble shots
are nice, but also tend to be straight on. Saw it in French and Italian
with
spotty English subtitles.
Shame (2011) -- "7/10"
Brandon (Michael Fassbender) lives alone in New York City. He hates clothes.
No, wait, he's addicted to sex. He doesn't wear clothes in his apartment.
He
hires prostitutes to sate himself. The first few scenes are bleak and
repetitive, to highlight his addiction. The sound of the blinds going up
signals a new, bleak day and reminds me of the sounds of drugs being taken
in
Requiem for a Dream, where the effect was similar.
Brandon flirts with a woman on the train and we're sad for both of them:
he
does it because he has to and she does it because she's interested in
distraction. When she stands, we see she's married and, from the new
angle,
older than we initially thought. He gives chase, because his addiction
doesn't care. He's compelled to masturbate whenever he can: in the shower,
even at work. He obsessively watches porn on his laptop.
After a night out with his boss, who's also on the prowl but not as
obsessively, and after taking the girl his boss was pursuing up against a
sculpture, he gets home to discover that his sister has moved in with him.
She's not at all uncomfortable with nudity in front of him, is very
touchy-feely and hangs around the house in a skimpy large
T-shirt/nightgown.
The juxtaposition with his lifestyle is jarring, because you wonder
whether
he's capable of turning it off for her or if he's constantly suppressing
horrific thoughts. This whole situation gets more complicated when she
hooks
up with his boss in his own bedroom, then tries to join him in bed much
later, claiming that she's cold.
Next we see Brandon on a date with a coworker, but he's terrible at it.
He's
a hollow man with no opinions and little personality -- emphasized by how
he
just takes every single suggestion that the waiter makes. The date goes
nowhere, he goes home to take care of business himself, gets caught by his
sister, attacks her, spirals downward, realizes he has a problem and
disposes
of an unholy crap-ton of pornography. It's an utter miracle/not really
believable that his roommate/sister hadn't discovered any of it. It's not
like she isn't a snooper.
He has an argument with his sister when he tries to throw her out, storms
out
and gets self-destructive, hitting on a girl hard, then telling her
boyfriend
about it. Boyfriend plays his role perfectly and beats him up outside the
bar. Brandon ends up at a gay bar/hookup joint for a quick, anonymous
beej.
He drifts from there to a three-way with two prostitutes, where we see him
as
a the addict he is, mechanically pursuing his high with no real joy
evident
in his face. Empty. He goes through a come-to-Jesus moment when his sister
attempts suicide, but the ending leaves it unclear as to whether this has
saved him.
Nice to see Steve McQueen (director) not shy away from showing Fassbender
in
full frontal nudity, because it's totally appropriate for this film.
Fassbender is a very versatile actor and is really good in this role (as
usual).
Vier Minuten (2006) -- "7/10"
We see an older woman having a piano delivered to the prison where she will
give lessons, where she has apparently worked for years. We see flashbacks
of
her involvement over the decades, from when she was a young girl during
WWII.
She interviews potential students, all save one of whom are terrible. The
last is very talented, but an absolute loose cannon. She is told she
cannot
even interview and she flips out, beating the guard into the hospital and
then playing some highly improvisational jazz before the other guards can
break the door down and take her into custody.
The piano teacher visits her in the asylum and tells her that she finds
her
despicable but that she will help her become a better piano player because
she has a gift. There is a price, though. The old lady is a hard-ass, a
control freak. A talented and immensely knowledgeable teacher, but still a
very non-sympathetic person. And she gives absolutely zero fucks for
Jenny's
back story, why she's so angry or why she went so wrong. Plus, she only
allows classical because everything with a bit more of a modern feel to it
is
"Neggermusik".
They come to an agreement, with Krüger (the teacher) in charge and Jenny
following all of her rules, playing absolutely beautifully. She damages
her
hand punching a mirror before her first contest. They take Jenny to a
hospital, where she tries to escape, then kill herself by jumping through
a
3rd-floor window, but it's safety glass and it comically knocks her out
instead.
Jenny confides details of her life to Krüger and we see a montage of them
seeming to come to terms and even laughing. The man she beat (Mütze),
though, he's to be on a TV show answering questions about music -- a game
he's played with Krüger for years. He's disappointed though as its not
really about the music -- more about superficial musical trivia -- so he
loses, though he was ready like no other. He still seeks revenge for the
brutal beating Jenny gave him. He arranges to have her transferred to a
cell
with her three greatest enemies, where she can hardly sleep.
Despite all these obstacles, Jenny wins her way to the final round. Her
friendship with Krüger deepens. Frau Krüger demands to see her file,
then
digs it out of the archive herself. She doesn't show up for the next
lesson.
Mütze does, but won't unlock the piano for Jenny to practice. We hear
more
about Krüger's past, She describes an American air attack on a German
hospital as a "terror attack", which it most certainly was. Krüger talks
to
Jenny's father, who tells her about the whole sordid story: the murder for
which Jenny was convicted was committed by the loser who got her pregnant
and
Jenny was protecting him. She confessed to the court that her father had
raped her and that was why she did it, but her father lied and buried his
own
crime, condemning her to prison for life.
Next Jenny's attacked by her cellmates, who set her hands on fire, all
deliberately ignored by Mütze, who set it up as revenge against her.
Jenny
gets free and beats one of the other girls bloody with a candlestick. The
warden decides to cancel Jenny's furlough for the contest. Krüger
confronts
Mütze, who admits his involvement but can't admit it because he'll lose
his
job. Everyone in this movie is flawed and selfish, each in their own ways
and
to varying degrees. Mütze helps Jenny escape with Krüger so that she can
play in the contest. The people and relationships are complicated and the
presentation poignant. Saw it in German.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] There are overtones of racial/cultural discrimination here, though (e.g.
people several times tell Trelkovsky that he's not French -- presumably
because of his name and his nose -- and he has to remind them that he is a
French citizen).
[1] But French would have felt less forced (also the original soundtrack was in
mono, so that detracted somewhat). After writing this, I found the following
in the "production notes"
, which explained
the soundtrack issue.
"The film was shot part in English, part in French, going by whatever the
actors present felt more comfortable with. [...] the rest of the French
characters were notably dubbed by actors with audibly US American accents.
[...] Especially the English version is notorious for poor audio quality
where during both the initial shoot and the dubbing, voices were recorded at
vastly different levels. Even the bare-bones 2004 DVD release [...] has
monaural sound for both the English and the French version. Modern reviews
differ as to whether the audible American accents and the poor audio quality
in the English version distract from the French setting and destroy the
illusion, or add to the film's creepy surreal atmosphere."
[1] He's played by an Austrian (Carl Möhner), his character's last name is le
Suedois (The Swede) and he's the spitting image of Paul Walker from certain
angles.
[1] This is clearly a heist/tragedy. I was struck by how Tarantino makes
seemingly only homages, but to really high-quality films -- Rififi reminded
me a lot of Reservoir Dogs.
[1] What an immediately recognizable city Paris is: you certainly couldn't film
in Vancouver and claim it was Paris.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=31962016-01-22T07:34:26+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of over 900 ratings
publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my notes
for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to...
]]>
of over 900 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.
Men Behind the Sun (1988) -- "3/10"
This is the story of a Japanese biological-weapons experimental camp/base.
This is a film like Saló, that tells of the horrors of WWII. Like that other
film, it's just not very well-made. It straddles the line between documentary
and drama somewhat awkwardly, including factual elements but mixing in
ham-handed dramatic elements that don't fit very well. The experiments that
the Japanese performed on the Chinese are frankly nearly unbelievable.
However, with the recent half-assed apology that Japan made for the
systematic rape machine they built with hundreds of thousands of Korean
"comfort girls", it's much more believable that they would do clearly idiotic
and highly immoral experiments on "foreigners". The story is a terrible one
and the information worthwhile, but it doesn't make the movie worth watching,
unfortunately. Saw it in dubbed English, which made it even worse and it was
a relatively poor print (not sure if that's just how it is).
Come and See (Idi i Smotri) (1985) -- "9/10"
The film starts with two boys searching a beach in 1943 Russia, searching for
rifles on an old battleground, so that they can enlist and fight for the
Soviet Army. The older of the two Flyora finds a whole rifle and this is
sufficient to allow him to enlist, much to his mother's plaintive chagrin.
Flyora gets to the army camp, but is abandoned when the regiment pulls off
to
fight. He befriends the similarly abandoned girlfriend of the commander
and
they suffer an ensuing attack on the emplacement together.
This movie places no shine on war or heroism, instead pointing out the
futility of war and battle as Flyora is accepted in the military purely as
cannon fodder and then abandoned just as quickly when a more experienced
soldier needs his boots. Both Flyora and the young woman are nearly
deafened
by a subsequent attack. After the confusion, he builds a lean-to out of
pine
boughs to hide them until they can flee back to his village. The next
morning, though, the attacking soldiers have moved on and they play in the
rain, bathing and dancing, escaping from the horror of the attack.
Back in his village, though, everyone is gone and they find only the flies
and waste and rot of an abandoned village. The constant buzzing of flies
belies the truth, but Flyora runs off claiming to know where they've all
gone. Glasha (the girl) looks back and sees the pile of corpses piled up
behind one of the larger buildings. She follows him through muck and mud
to
"the island" though she knows the truth, but cannot bring herself to tell
him. They find what remains of the village's population, but Flyora's
family
is not among them.
In a surreal sequence, four of the survivors (including Flyora) detach
from
the village refugee camp to rob a warehouse. They carry with them an
effigy
of an SS soldier, carrying it a ridiculously long way before setting it up
to
"guard" a crossing. Their travels thereafter are fraught with dumb peril
--
they are bombed, they stumble into a minefield, people die, their
contingent
of four is reduced to two. It is war, senseless and brutal, with the
remaining soldier and Flyora taking their laughs where they can, often
from a
dark place.
In a long sequence, first his companion and then a cow they've stolen are
killed by the encroaching Germans. Flyora wakes in the field alive, and
encounters a farmer who will help hide him from the omnipresent Germans.
Not
only can he not bring the dead cow to his villagers, he's now swept into a
different town, robbed of his barely-there soldier identity and given a
new
family, to hide him. Flyora looks on in horror as he watches helplessly
from
among his new family as the Germans invade his newly adopted village --
much
as they must have invaded his own before slaughtering everyone that they
could catch. The blind horror and uncaring coldness of a country at war is
infinitely less harsh than the deliberate brutality of the occupying
force.
And Flyora watches everything with wide-eyed horror.
This movie is also about the horrors of WWII, but rendered much better
than
Saló or Men Behind the Sun. It's a bit slow at times, but the artistry is
better and the pathos of war is no less horrible for being more subtly
portrayed. Or perhaps more realistically: the former (Saló) felt too
staged
and ludicrous -- it was a bad metaphor -- and the latter (Men Behind the
Sun)
was more realistic, but so badly done as to seem campy. This film also has
its campy moments -- especially during the scenes of excess near the end
--
but it's understandable and in the context of a well-rendered, ongoing
horror. It feels real, not staged, like it could have happened.
After a truly horrific scene of pillage from which no-one -- attacker or
attacked -- emerged unscathed, things become increasingly surreal and
Flyora's impending madness colors everything. The Germans have themselves
been ambushed and the destruction continues. As the Russians consider what
to
do with 11 German soldiers and collaborators that they rounded up, the
translator looks directly into the camera and translates, "With the
children
it starts all over again. You have no right to exist. Not every people has
the right to a future." [1]
Recommended. Reminded me of a bit of Schindler's List, but perhaps more
comparable to Apocalypse Now. It is better than either of them at
depicting
war, where you can feel the living envying the dead. Saw it in Russian and
German with English subtitles.
Place Beyond the Pines (2015) -- "5/10"
The first hour of this movie deals with the two-bit life of Luke, a
stunt-bike rider with nary any brains in his head who falls for his
baby-mama
and, despite all her protestations, tries to provide for his son. This
goes
all kinds of wrong -- predictably, because he's really a HUGE dumbass --
ands
up with him out on bail for assault on her live-in partner. He has also
hit
upon the idea of robbing banks to provide for his son, using his mad
motorbike skills and decides to do one big blowout double bank-robbery to
really show the world that it should have loved him better. He does
everything wrong, forgetting his mask, getting a flat tire, crashing into
a
car, taking hostages, etc. I can't decide whether Ryan Gosling is terrible
here, or just very good at playing a terrible moron. Act I ends with him
playing a very dead moron.
In the second act, we meet Avery, a young cop played by Bradley Cooper,
and
the one responsible for Luke's condition at the end of Act I. He is in the
hospital because he was shot by Luke after he surprised him and shot him
out
the window. Of course, all the shooting could have been avoided if he
hadn't
stormed the house alone, even though he knew only the suspect was in the
house anymore. But that's not how the police roll, I guess. Anyway, he's a
hero because he killed a bank robber and got shot in the process. Then he
gets interviewed by an investigator -- because a man was killed.
Next, we are introduced to Ray Liotta, who is in 100% slimeball mode as a
fellow officer, DeLuca. He and his buddies show up to take Avery on a
search
to find the money that Luke stole and gave to his son. They force their
way
into the house without a warrant, find the money and "confiscate it". They
give the money to Avery because "he's a hero" but he tries to give it
back,
then finally turns it in to the police chief, who yells at him for ratting
out his fellow officers.
Now we're talking about a police-corruption movie. He goes to the DA next,
who tells him he's "too smart for [his] own good." But that's not the
impression that Avery makes: instead it's that everyone else around him is
so
bone-stupid.
Act III continues many years later with Avery running for DA and his son a
teenager. Apparently nothing happened as a result of him having ratted out
the whole police department 15 years ago. So this isn't a bank-robber
movie,
about a sad-sack who can't get his life together, and it's not the
police-revenge and cleanup movie (well, the arrests are almost
anticlimactic)
and now it's a movie about him reconciling with his son? The looseness of
the
plot feels almost like Terence Malick wrote and directed this. Also, only
the
kids look 15 years older.
Nope, Act III is about Luke's son and Avery's son becoming friends.
Neither
of them sounds like they come from upstate New York, not even close. They
make friends, they break up, Avery's son uses Luke's son for drugs, Luke
finds out who his dad is, challenges him, nearly breaks Avery's son's fist
with his face. I'm not really invested in any of these characters.
Michelle
Rodriguez is utterly wasted by having her make sad, wrinkle-faced looks
for
the whole movie. She's not the only one: pretty much the whole cast was
wasted. Never cared about any of the characters. Not recommended.
Lovelace (2013) -- "7/10"
This is a biography of Linda Lovelace (Amanda Seyfried), the original porn
star from the 1970s breakout film, Deep Throat. She's a bit of a lost
soul, a
young girl who moves with her parents to California because she'd gotten
pregnant and had to give up the baby.
She meets Chuck Traynor (Peter Sarsgaard), who sweeps her off her feet and
they get married. They quickly run into money problems and Chuck comes up
with the brilliant idea of trying her out for movies -- but she doesn't
know
what kind of movies.
As in the real biography, her husband Chuck very quickly shows himself to
be
the worst guy she knows -- the other guys on the film seem much nicer. He
was
absolutely horrible to her, though, after the brief initial courtship: he
was
the prototypical abusive and manipulative husband who pimped out his wife.
It's told quite well by showing the rosy side of the movie production --
where everything goes pretty well, with a few problems, but nothing big.
Next, we see her six years later taking a lie-detector test for the
publisher
of her tell-all biography and we see the same story shown again, but
darker,
with Skarsgaard showing Traynor's evil side very well and how terrified
she
was the whole time. Everything she does makes him mad -- he seems to hate
her
and punishes her for every little thing. He also rents her out for
gang-bangs
-- definitely husband of the year.
The cast is great: Bobby Cannavale and Hank Azaria as porn producers,
Sharon
Stone and Robert Patrick as Linda's parents and James Franco as Hugh
Hefner.
It's a semi-biographical movie about the life and times of a porn star,
set
in the 70s, and that's what you're going to get.
Bad Lieutenant (1992) -- "7/10"
Harvey Keitel plays a bad human being. He's a lieutenant in the NYPD, but
really he's a receptacle for every form of drug he can find. Half an hour
in
and he hasn't been in his right mind yet. He's also involved in three-ways
and pretty deep into gambling with money that he doesn't have.
His job is mostly incidental. The first case we see him working on is
investigating the rape of a nun. He visits the hospital and spends a few
long
seconds leering in at her naked body as she lies waiting for the
investigation to be completed. Next up is a couple of girls who he stops
for
a broken taillight. This escalates into a "payoff" for their
transgression,
which is terrible but not as bad as I expected it to be. He ends up
humiliating them so that he can pleasure himself, right out in the middle
of
the street.
He continues drinking, then ends up at the church where the nurse was
raped.
He stumbles through the crime scene, then passes out in the church, waking
up
when the police crime-scene photographer pops his flashbulb (not
phrasing).
The next scene defines him completely: he's in traffic, driving, snorting
cocaine, swigging vodka (or grain alcohol, for all I know), listening to
the
World Series game on which he's bet $15,000 that he doesn't have,
listening
as Darryl Strawberry hits into a double play. He shoots out his radio,
then
starts his siren to mask it and weaves off into traffic, crying, swearing
and
out of his mind on drugs and booze, siren blaring and swearing to double
down
on the next game.
It's ironic that he's always listening to the game when Strawberry's up to
bat -- a player who had a lot of trouble with cocaine, just like the bad
lieutenant. He needs money, though, so he picks up the money he's owed for
evidence he stole and heads off into a stuperous night, drawing his gun on
children when they come crashing up stairs he's heading down. Disaster
averted. I like the baseball game playing in the background as the thread
that ties the movie together. Harvey Keitel is very good.
The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call -- New Orleans (2009) -- "8/10"
Nicolas Cage and Val Kilmer are partners, cops, in New Orleans after
Hurricane Katrina. They both start off as assholes, laughing at a prisoner
trapped by the rising water, making guesses on how long he'll last. Cage
dives into the water to rescue the guy, injuring his back in the process.
Six
months later, he's addicted to Vicodin and sundry related narcotics.
This movie is immediately sadder than Bad Lieutenant -- the poem by one of
the slain young girls at the first crime scene, about a fish kept in a
water
glass for lack of a bowl, is heartrending. Director Werner Herzog is
already
threading his special touch through the film -- there is a water moccasin
in
the first scene and now a fish features in the second. Reptiles and fish
feature throughout.
The major points roughly follow those of the Harvey Keitel version:
investigation of crime scene, snorting cocaine off the hand outside, etc.
The
scene in the parking lot where he stops the young couple could be compared
to
the one where Keitel stops the two young ladies in the stolen car. Except
this is even darker because the girlfriend then switches out and willingly
takes on the Lieutenant in the parking lot while her boyfriend is forced
at
gunpoint to watch. The way Cage mutters dirty talk to himself is the same
as
Keitel, though. This, though he has Eva Mendes at home -- although she
seems
to "entertain" clients of her own, so it's probably a footrace to see
who's
going to give who STDs first.
We see McDonagh (Cage) go through his day, scoring drugs, taking witnesses
and trying to fix tickets, then hooking up with an old cop friend (Fairuza
Balk) who can hook him up with even more dope from the property room.
Their
introduction is accompanied by an alligator that we see eying a corpse
from
the highway accident she was investigating.
Next, in the stakeout, there are two iguanas on the coffee table in the
foreground that are just bugging McDonagh the fuck out. Things keep
getting
better for him, with his gambling debts piling up and his pimping of Eva
Mendes becoming his only source of income.
Where Bad Lieutenant is a more stylized and nearly plotless mood piece
about
a corrupt cop, this movie has more meat on its bones plot-wise, although
Cage's overacting sometimes threatens to throw it off the rails. That
Xzibit
as "Big Fate" comes off as decent and nuanced says quite a lot, I think.
It's
a decent crime drama with a lot of interconnected twists and turns and
schemes -- almost like Mamet wrote it. Careering toward the end and all at
once, everything comes up roses for McDonagh -- and he doesn't even know
why.
The film ends where it began: he meets the prisoner whom he'd rescued and
he
offers to help McDonagh finally break his addiction. They end up in an
aquarium together, sharks and large fish rounding out the film's menagerie
and Cage chuckling, probably at an answer to the question he'd posed,
taken
from the little girl's poem, "do fish have dreams?"
The Holy Mountain (1973) -- "7/10"
This is an absolute surrealistic drug dream. The sets are impressive:
elaborate and original. The acting is pretty terrible and there is little
to
no dialogue to speak of. The music, while appropriate, is nothing special.
The film supposedly has something to say about materialist, consumerist
culture. There is so much left up to interpretation that it can only be
enjoyed for the visuals, which are, as I said, quite good.
There are animals everywhere (a stork, a hippo, lizards and toads, etc.).
[2]
It also reminded me a bit of El Topo but with better production values.
Such
a loosely defined movie, filled to the brim with symbols can only be a
mirror
-- a film from which the viewer finds and takes what he or she wants. No
wonder this reminds me of El Topo: it's the same director, Alejandro
Jodorowsky.
The first act involves a Christ-like figure who ascends to the top of the
Alchemist's tower. The second act is almost a separate movie, with the
Alchemist taking the Christ-like figure on a tour of several materialists,
each with their own story and lush details. This part is accompanied by a
voice-over as well, thankfully with each materialist taking care of their
own, which is worlds better than Jodorowsky's terrible accent. My favorite
so
far is Sel, who towers above all of her tiny, old, factory workers as they
produce war toys.
There are some really nice visual moments -- the nicest so far is when the
seven materialists plus the Alchemist, his assistant and the Thief all
file
into a room that looks like an eye, filmed from above. With the
alchemist's
tower and the Pantheon Bar, Jodorowsky plays with inner space that is
vaster
than the appearance of the outer building, much like the Tardis in Doctor
Who. The imagery as the travelers climb up the Holy Mountain is lush and
hallucinatory, like Fellini or Buñuel, with much blood and nudity, but
also
a man inexplicably covered in tarantulas. There's also a Don Quixote-like
man
with lactating breasts made of jaguar heads and a beard that covers only
half
of his thin face. And always the seemingly normal, pretty prostitute with
the
chimpanzee from the first act follows, though snow and storm.
Visuals aside, the plot and dialogue and voice-overs are pretty hackneyed.
For example, "concentrate on this starfish. When you see the size of an
elephant, you will never miss the target." Definitely something lost in
translation there, but probably less a translation from Spanish to English
and more one from the psychedelic, astral plane where this thought made
perfect sense to our own, more prosaic world.
It would be unbearably pretentious if it wasn't so earnest and innocent.
Plus
a few stars for scope and vision and sheer number of ideas and amount of
work
that went into it. The second half is much better than the first. At the
very
end, he reveals that he was playing a joke on us all along -- that for
those
who took all the symbolism so seriously, "We are images, dreams,
photographs.
We must not stay here. Prisoners! We shall break the illusion. This is
magic!
Goodbye to the Holy Mountain. Real life awaits us."
Tetsuo, the Iron Man (1989) -- "6/10"
This is a black-and-white, low-budget, quick-cut, industrial, techno,
Japanese, dialogue-free movie about metal fetishism? The first scene shows
a
man surrounded by metal -- nicely filmed, actually -- who is obsessed with
laying metal into his body (in the most gruesome manner). His wound
festers,
he runs outside and is hit by car. His demise (or not?) leads to him
getting
the power to haunt others and infect bodies with metal, including the
businessman who hit him. The metal fetishist is also still around
somewhere,
somehow, but where he is isn't clear -- it's only clear that it looks
cool,
the way they show his thin back, covered in metal, trapped in a welder's
paradise.
It is certainly unlike anything I've ever seen. Perhaps it's best
described
as what Cronenberg would do with metal if he weren't so obsessed with
biology. But the camera angles and cuts are much bolder than David's more
staid and measured ones. I can't believe how good the metal suit looks.
The movie's from 1989, so the old phone, the old TV, the black-and-white
film, it all lends the movie an old-school Japanese horror-flick look. It
doesn't all work, but a lot of it -- enough of it -- does.
Don't skip out before the reversed-gender metallic-tentacle--rape scene. I
know it sounds awful, but it's really well-done. It's campy, but combined
with enough cinema chops to make it good rather than cheesy (IMHO).
I was very skeptical at first, but then enjoyed very much trying to keep
up
-- the aesthetic and driving soundtrack -- and, honestly, the one-hour
length, which could have been good even at 1/2-hour -- combined to make an
interesting film that I would actually watch again. Recommended for
horror/cult/steampunk/thriller fans. Saw it in Japanese with English
subtitles (about ten words or so, starting with "Stop!"). Minus one star
because it goes on a bit too long.
House of Games (1987) -- "6/10"
It's 1987 so everyone wears a terrible-looking blazer and smokes all the
time, including the female lead, who also sports a very 80s short haircut.
David Mamet's direction is slow (careful?). It's a decent flick about cons,
both short and long, starring Joe Mantegna as the main con-man and the
utterly terrible and unexciting Lindsay Crouse as the lead mark, who Mamet
has written as almost a little too oblivious. Perhaps that's just because I
figured it out pretty early. Card sharp Ricky Jay is also in the group.
Crouse is really a terrible actress, and her mannish looks are totally
throwing me off, especially when combined with her botoxed acting skills and
the seemingly deliberately terrible wardrobe. The con is pretty interesting,
but it takes too long, it's filmed very statically and in a pretty boring
manner. The foreshadowing for her "cracking out of turn" was pretty good. [3]
Not recommended, though.
Repulsion (1965) -- "7/10"
Roman Polanski directs this black-and-white film about a beautiful young
French woman Carol (Catherine Deneuve) living and working in London. She's
very shy, lives with her sister and fends off advances right and left. All
of
the men so far are Lotharios. One is particularly persistent, hitting on
her
and not taking no for an answer until she kinda/sorta/but not really
agrees
to dinner.
Another is her sister's boyfriend who blows off the sister's hard work on
preparing dinner with a casual offer to just go out. He continues to be a
relentless asshole until he is no longer capable (spoiler). After they've
gone out for dinner, Carol spends an evening at home alone, only to be
woken
up later by sounds of love-making next door, coming through the chimney
flue.
The story kind of dinks around there for quite a long while, with Carol's
seeming depression getting worse. It's honestly unclear what her exact
problem is, but it seems to be depression. Polanski is a great director
and
has great framing and shot selection, so it's a visually interesting
movie,
even when not very much is going on.
Carol spirals increasingly further down the rabbit hole. No pun intended.
The
rabbit that her sister never cooked was still in the refrigerator, so she
took it out. Left it out. Rotting. Potatoes on the counter have huge eyes.
The rabbit does not. Because its head is in her purse. Rotting. She keeps
seeing cracks appear in the walls -- cracks that don't exist. The mere
mention of a man by her friend makes her nearly physically ill.
Deneuve's acting during the murder scene is utterly unconvincing. You'd
think
she'd never hit anything with a candlestick before. Otherwise, she plays
quite well, torn between her reality and her fantasies and her depression.
There really are some spectacular shots: when Carol grabs one (former)
suitor's hand to drag him down the hall, rolling the carpet up into the
camera. So nice. As well, though not nice, the rape dreams she has are
very
well depicted, with closeup camera revealing detail and our indication
that
it's not real coming from the utterly silent soundtrack. She wakes as if
from
an all-night bender, mostly disrobed, lying in the doorway to her bedroom,
the apartment in an ever-increasing state of disarray.
The postcard she gets from her sister and Michael tells her not to "make
too
much Dolce Vita", which is a play on the fact that her sister starred in
the
classic Fellini film of the same name.
It's creepy in the way that Psycho was creepy (e.g. near the end, when
she's
ironing without the iron plugged in, we know she's well and gone and lost
her
marbles) It's an interesting film, but one could argue that the
interesting
bits are too few and far between. On the other hand, the pacing and
boredom
are there to put us in her world and it's not a happy world. It's a world
of
madness, in full flower by the end. Beginning and ending shots are the
same,
for closure. A well-made film.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] I've improved the German translation from the subtitles I had.
[1] Similar to the way that Herzog used animals in The Bad Lieutenant: Port of
Call -- New Orleans.
[1] She keeps misspeaking throughout the film, until a slip with a pronoun
reveals that she knows more than she should.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=32082016-01-20T21:41:26+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of over 900 ratings
publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my notes
for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to...
]]>
of over 900 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.
Dead Calm (1989) -- "5/10"
Nicole Kidman and Sam Neill star as couple who've lost their child in a car
crash that she caused. He's an accomplished sailor and suggests an ocean
journey just for the two of them. They're in chains (dead calm) when they
happen upon another sailboat on the main (what happenstance!) Hughie
(Billy
Zane) rows his way over in a dingy, desperate to get away form the death
ship, but he's shamming and takes over their sailboat, stranding the
husband
on the half-sinking boat that's home to his five other victims. He and Rae
(Kidman) have a great time getting to know each other, while she buys time
until her husband can catch up. It is not explained why she so readily
sleeps
with him, other than perhaps the implicit reason that Zane is quite
handsome.
Thrills all around, but not a very interesting movie. Who brings a dog on
a
multi-week or -month cruise on a small sailboat? I wonder if she'll tell
her
husband that she pretty much slept with Hughie not under duress? Makes
sense,
right? He'd defeated her husband, so he was the new alpha. A minor plot
point
of interest was in how the movie made clear that catching someone on the
open
ocean was a one-time--only thing: you miss and the currents pull you apart
forever, unless you have power (which they didn't). Not recommended.
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) -- "6/10"
Ostensibly a Guy Ritchie move, but with very little of his imprimatur. Henry
Cavill is the American agent and the ravishing Alicia Vikander is his ad-hoc
partner. Then his real partner shows up in the form of a Russian agent, Illya
(Armie Hammer). So Hammer fakes a Russian accent while Cavill fakes an
American one. And how long are they going to go before they acknowledge how
ridiculous the last name Vinciguerra is, right up there with Dr. Goodhead?
How does Armie Hammer (Lone Ranger) make Henry Cavill (Superman) look small?
Probably because Cavill's character is a douche. [1] This feels like a remake
of Moonraker and I'm unsure whether this is a spy movie or a romantic comedy.
A redeeming quality is that a lot of the movie is in Italian and German where
appropriate, and the German is quite good. The tech is all over the place,
some of it is era-appropriate, like the giant tracker stuck to her leg, and
some is not even available today, like a hand-held CO2 laser. With
the cast and director, I was expecting more than just a bog-standard action
movie trying to set up for a franchise. The cast is decent, with Armie Hammer
standing out.
F is for Family (2015) -- "8/10"
This is a six-episode animated series about a lower-middle--class family in
the 1970s somewhere in the northeastern U.S. It's not clear where, but the
airline that patriarch Frank Murphy works for is called Mohican Airlines and
the tiny airline just a couple of doors up the terminal is called Utica Air.
Burr probably placed it somewhere near Boston or in Massachusetts, but
upstate New York isn't out of the question either. Murphy is voiced by Bill
Burr, who also produced it and clearly inspired much of the story. The
youngest son is Bill Murphy and he's a redhead. The rest of the cast is also
good and by the sixth episode things had gelled quite well. The first couple
of episodes were a bit slower and rockier, but it really started firing on
all cylinders after the characters had been fleshed out. This series is a
love letter to Bill's generation, with the 70s placed front and center.
Recommended.
Audition (1999) -- "6/10"
This Japanese movie is about a widower, whose wife wasted away from illness.
After a melancholy introductory scene, we seque to 7 years later, when the
father and son have been joined by a beagle dog and are living a humdrum
existence. The father meets an old friend for a drink, a film producer,
and
laments that he'd like to get married again but has no idea how to go
about
meeting women, much less marrying one. The producer has an idea: stage a
fake
audition.
From this audition arises a single candidate who seems to the suitor to be
ideal, but to his friend she's a cypher and a vaguely threatening one, at
that. She's very soft-spoken, achingly thin and bony, but wins his heart.
None of her contacts can be reached, the locations she mentioned don't
exist.
But he is smitten and ignores these warning signs.
He breaks his promise to his friend and calls her. She is at home,
meditating
in a twisted position while something bound up in a sack lays on her
tatami.
The director is Takashi Miike, the same guy as directed Gozu and it shows.
They grow closer, he pledges love, she proves herself a shape-shifting
psycho
killer who keeps a severely mutilated former victim as a pet (the guy in
the
bag). The movie goes off the rails after she drugs Aoyama's drink for not
having gotten rid of the picture of his wife in his apartment and breaking
his promise to love only her. Things go even more tits-up from there and
everyone gets what's coming to them. It was a slow buildup and the depths
of
her depravity were well-explained and -grounded, but I couldn't really get
into it.
Begotten (1990) -- "2/10"
I haven't seen a movie this black and white since Eraserhead. Most
black-and-white movies are actually grayscale but this one is only black
and
only white, overblown, overexposed and with off-the-charts dynamic range.
The
film is almost purely visual, with layered audio forming a background that
matches the starkness of the images.
The movie starts with a gagged human creature disemboweling itself,
covering
itself in gore -- more akin to black ichor if you read that the scene
depicts
the death of a God. Most of the time, though, the image is so washed-out
that
your brain is making up a dozen different things that could be happening
until you realize what you're really looking at.
Against character, immagonna call artsy-fartsy bullshit [2] -- not
recommended to anyone I can think of, but I can't give it a 1/10 because I
understand that there's more of a point than truly crappy movies, but fock
dood, it took them 20 minutes to kill the Son of Earth -- and even after
they
set him on fire, he still wasn't dead, just shaking like he had been for
the
last 25 minutes. Now it's Mommy's turn. The raw image does lend more
gravitas
than a cleaner image would, I'll grant them that.
This movie was not crappy, but I didn't like it. And a lot of these more
bizarre movies -- and I freely admit that bizarre movie comprise a good
chunk
of my list -- I rate lower at first, then raise the rating by movie's end
just because they seem to have pulled off whatever they were going for.
The
fact that there's no dialogue for 72 minutes and the picture is awful
makes
this a more difficult movie than most. Enhance artificially or watch with
friends, just skip it or maybe put it on in one of those small viewing
studios at the Whitney in Manhattan -- I watched it so you don't have to.
Martyrs (2008) -- "8/10"
Lucie was abducted and horribly abused as a young girl. She meets Anna in a
home for troubled youth and the become extremely close. Fifteen years
later,
the two have teamed up to find Lucie's captors and exact revenge on them.
Nothing is what it seems, though, as Lucie's madness makes it nearly
impossible to know what is real -- after she kills an entire family with
one
remorseless shotgun blast after another, she's visited once again by the
dark
imp that visited her in the foster home, which slashes her across the
back.
Does the imp exist? How else would she get knife wounds on her back? Anna
takes care of the bodies while Lucie sleeps. But the mother survived. or
did
she? This is madness. The imp is terrifying...and now Anna can at least
hear
it blasting on the door. Lucie has exacted her revenge and still she's
lacerated from head to foot. And always with the flashbacks to Lucie's
abduction and her shadowy captors, and finally to her escape -- during
which
she discovers that there were others captured by her oppressors. It
tortures
her to this day.
The imp is the woman she left behind, it's her own psyche, her own guilt
that's making Lucie hurt herself...kill herself. It's brilliantly filmed
--
it reminds me of how I pictured the madness in the book I Never Promised
You
a Roes Garden. In the end, Lucie succumbs, taking her own life. An utterly
brutal film. And we're not even halfway done yet.
Anna takes her leave of Lucie but, before leaving the house, discovers two
lower levels of hidden torture chambers, proving Lucie was right all along
--
mad, but right all the same. Anna finds a horribly disfigured woman still
alive, incapable of speech, with no idea how to interact with normal
humans,
horrifically scarred. There is a group systematically torturing women and
the
family that Lucie slaughtered was part of it. She tries to help the woman,
but doesn't even know where to start with the peroxide. Then Anna removes
the
headgear stapled to her head -- instead of taking her to a hospital? Why?
Predictably, she is captured by the even higher-up members of the
psychotic
cadre that torture women in an attempt to have them see through to a
better
world. The scenes we saw hinted at with Lucie are repeated with Anna, who
is
their newest subject. Have I mentioned how visceral the brutality is? I
thought The Yellow Sea or Oldboy had rivers of blood in them, but the
French
have got the Koreans beat, hands down. The people in this cult are really
convinced that beating will help someone achieve Nirvana. It's honestly
not
too far off from actual experiments that have been performed in the name
of
science throughout the last several centuries (from Torquemada to Goebbels
to
the guys from Men Behind the Sun to our very own unnamed heroes in the
CIA).
Really well-done, well-filmed, gut-wrenching. A unique and well-written
horror/slasher story. The ending's a bit drawn-out, but I can forgive the
director his desire to draw it out, especially with the excellent ending.
Saw
it in French with English subtitles. [3]
Un Chien Andalou (1929) -- "6/10"
This is a 16-minute silent film with French titles by the surrealist master
Salvador Dali and director Luis Buñuel. It's hard to describe or rate (other
than praising the craftsmanship nearly 100 years ago). In one (famous) scene,
a woman's eyeball is sliced with a razor. In another, ants crawl convincingly
out of a ragged but not bloody hole in a man's hand, while he looks on in
fascination. In the next scene. he and another lady watch a gorgeous woman
inexorably run over in the street, after which he becomes extremely lustful
and she less interested, though at least partially acquiescing, but in the
end defiant. A few more nonsensical and loosely cohesive scenes follow. No
idea what it all means. An extra star for production values in the 1920s and
also for brevity.
Salõ, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975) -- "3/10"
This feels at first like something like The Stanford Prison Experiment but
soon proves itself to be much more depraved than that. It kind of reminds
me
of the secret society in Eyes Wide Shut a bit, but with far less class.
The
old men are disgusting, nearly sucking one girls tears with their
lascivious
looks (although it's hard to tell just what the one severely cross-eyed
dude
is looking at).
There are classical influences, like Dante's Inferno and material taken
from
the Marquis de Sade's notebooks. While it's debatable whether any of this
should ever end up in a film, it's clear to me that it deserved a better
director and better actors, though it's difficult to imagine that anyone
of
quality would be willing to participate.
The shot selection is pretty boring and the scenes are scripted as if by
juveniles. It's from the 70s and it's got a bit of a bad 70s porno vibe to
it
-- although the subject matter is considerably over the top, even for a
pornographic film. The third act is the most difficult, I thought, where
the
entire party, captives and master, all become coprophagous in an utterly
unmistakable scene -- there is no doubt what they're doing. It certainly
depicts the depths of depravity, though it's not exactly purely sexual in
nature, despite their protestations. And the old prostitutes chatter on,
regaling the gathered company with depraved stories of their careers.
There is so much buggery and cross-dressing going on, it hardly merits
mentioning -- I'd just as soon describe the water in an aquarium. It's
unclear why some captives are dressed, others are completely nude and
others
are in a state of near-permanent semi-dishabille. The ass-judging contest
is
inspired because it's so clinical, we have no idea what their criteria are
and the audience is not invited to participate -- all raised behinds face
away from the camera.
That is, again, taking everything on the face of it -- I haven't read the
Marquis de Sade's unfinished book of the same name but I can only imagine
that on paper it's better than on film. Film leaves nothing to the
imagination and the only way for this type of depravity to survive a
critical
eye is to leave more detail away.
The enthusiastic participation of some of the captives is also not really
explained -- it's just taken as a given that this would happen. An
interesting part is perhaps at the end, where a single detected
transgression
triggers a cascade of betrayals, leading one of the four men in charge
(the
Duke?) on a merry chase, looking for the ultimate transgressor to punish.
There is surprisingly little violence, actually, until the very end. Some
of
the youth are armed and it's not clear why they don't rebel. It's all so
chaotic and senseless, again perhaps based on the source material -- I'm
honestly not willing to waste my time finding out. They all seem
fabulously
stupid. It's just not that convincing at being awful. You might claim that
it's dated or that I'm jaded, but it just not a good enough film. It
survives
on its reputation for it's subject matter, which is no doubt provocative,
but
terribly juvenile in its execution. Saw it in the original Italian, with
English subtitles. Not recommended.
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) -- "10/10"
This movie is absolute non-stop action from the very first minute. It builds
a believable and coherent world with shot after shot of glorious detail
about
that post-apocalyptic world. Very few words are spoken, but rich detail
floods in, rarely repeating itself. There are sigils and rites and
ritualistic phrases -- "witness this" -- that build the world without
effort,
without belaboring anything. Even the story is allowed to unfold like a
good
science-fiction story does, gradually, with detail coming into focus over
time.
The experience of watching this movie is one of, "wait, what was that?"
"should I rewind?" "What's a universal donor here?" "will they show it
again?" "Oh, good, they did." "Dammit what did he say?" "Why are they
going
there?" "Why do they trust her?" "Oh, of course, because she's Imperator
Furiosa" "What the hell is going on with Max?" "Why are they taking
blood?"
"Or are they giving him blood?" "Good God, the decorations and decals and
endless attention to detail of the warring clans, and people chained to
vehicles and the somehow-not-at-all-cheesy-guitarist riding point in front
of
dozens of amps mounted on a truck and the destruction and jury-rigging and
exotic weapons and primitive weapons and garb and leather and armor bits
and
scars and dessicated lips and piercings and whatever the hell that spray
is
and the suicide cult and Furiosa's arm and her steering wheel and her
bony-arm decal on the truck and the giant pillar in the desert topped by a
jungle and the smoke and fire and tattoos and mutations and tumors and
flying
bits of mechanical mayhem and the DETAIL and the DUST and the sheer
DRIVING
ADRENALIN RIDE." And yet, it's cohesive action and not confused and
muddled.
It's visually interesting and relatively easy to follow.
We get a minute breather, during which we drown/revel in more detail --
the
blood-donor spigot, the lock on the back of his head -- and then there's a
gloriously choreographed, seemingly single-shot scene in which a one-armed
Charlize Theron is made to look a realistic match for Tom Hardy. She's
ferocious and merciless, as is he and the Defiant Ones-like chain to
Nicolas
Hoult's minion is used to the fullest extent.
And slowly and naturally and seemingly easily, the story coheres out of
the
dust, with the phrase "Who Killed the World?" explained as much by showing
as
possible. Men killed the world. The power-hungry, the lustful, the primal,
the primitive, the savage. Savage cults and primitive ideas and simplistic
visions that reach nearly nowhere because they need only reach as far as
the
needs of the few.
The women are incongruous to everything else in this world. The vehicles
are
not beautiful but they're amazing and intricate. The sound design and
soundtrack are well-matched as well. The switch to blue coloring is
jarring,
but effective. Some things, like the guitarist and the birthing party,
seem
unaffected.
Furiosa pushing the giant truck and Max leaning on the tree are both
equally
futile, but it shows their desperation rather than seeming ludicrous. When
she asks "but what if you're not back by the time the truck cools?", he
gives
the only possible answer, "well, then, you keep moving." Almost as if to
say,
did you think this was a movie? Where all the heroes have to survive? And
when he comes back? How is that not cheesy? I don't know, but it is so
HARDCORE instead.
Similarly, why are those guys holding lookout from those poles when they
have
a mounted binocular that sees just as well? Because it looks cool. Just
like
flames roaring out of the side of a car look cool. And so does the
reversed
vanity mirror that is the driver's-side side-view mirror and the
shoe-sizer
gas pedal in the war rig.
The darkness, the hopelessness, it's nearly overpowering. Furiosa and Max
can't combat everything -- there's too many of them. How amazingly
well-filmed, with none of the main characters spared. This is a tragedy.
In
the end, only the women return -- Max exits stage right. Then, during the
credits, we see that all of the characters had elaborate names, but you
have
no idea which one's which. Hardy and Theron are great. Better than Star
Wars.
Highly recommended. What a ride.
Irréversible (2002) -- "8/10"
This is a movie of a night gone horribly wrong, starring Monica Belluci and
Vincent Cassel. It's told in reverse order and filmed in an incredibly
confused manner, it's told in reverse-chronological order, starting with a
man's search for the man who raped his girlfriend, followed by an
extremely
graphic depiction of her rape in an underpass.
She surprises her assailant while he's in the middle of disciplining his
ostensible girlfriend (or at least companion for the evening) and he turns
his sadistic attentions to her, easily changing direction to rape her on
the
cement floor. The guy is as despicable as can be imagined. Seriously, he
makes Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet look like an absolute gentleman. We see
a
man enter the subterranean passage and then creep back away when he sees
what's happening. His experience is completely disconnected from her
suffering -- indicated by near-constant and by-him muffled screams. Up
until
the rape scene, the camera is absolutely psychotic, swirling back and
forth
-- do not watch when too drunk, pro tip. But probably be a little drunk,
or
you'll have a very difficult time getting through this harrowing film.
I mean, Monica Belluci conveys amazingly well her horrific experience, but
it's very difficult to deal with. Gaspar Noë, the director, had an
unflinching story to tell about the horrific half of the human race (men).
All the more harrowing for the camera work and the the reverse chronology.
As
the film unfolds into the past, we see the vengeful boyfriend transform
into
a drunk, unfaithful pig bent on dipping his wick despite having Belluci at
home.
And as the movie progresses, you see them move from horror at her
destroyed
face/body (him) and her absolute destruction in the underpass...to them
being
happy at a party at their home, with everyone beautiful and whole and
happy.
It's amazingly well-done: even as the horrific scene recedes in the past,
it
infects the remainder of the film, which becomes increasingly upbeat, as
the
upcoming strife between the colleagues recedes into the future. And yet,
you
continue to anticipate some accompanying horror...but there's nothing. no
indication of what is to come and additional closure for the fleeting
scenes
of horror we saw at the beginning (chronologically the end) of the film.
The
end/beginning is positively idyllic, with Cassel and Belluci unbelievably
natural and loving with one another. The reverse chronology serves to
emphasize how absolutely happy they are as a couple and how that's all
wrenched away in such a short time. All the more tragic this way, I think.
Recommended, but beware, not for the faint of heart. Saw it in French with
English subtitles. P.S. if you think you can understand colloquial French,
let this film test your mettle: I found most of it nearly incomprehensible
and I can follow a lot of news and sports on the radio in French. The
style
and feel and even the music would serve Noë again in his next film Enter
the
Void which was even stranger. Also, and I cannot stress this enough, be
very
careful of watching this if you're too drunk or epileptic.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Also because Armie Hammer, at 6'5" is very tall
[1] The "Wikipedia article" , which I
used as a crutch to even halfway know what was going on, includes this
citation, "The film incorporates many different religious themes and events
from Christian and Slavic mythology including Creation, Mother Earth, and
various other religious themes on which the events that take place in the
film are loosely based upon.". Bullshit. That's what the director might have
told you he'd intended, but without dialogue, with visuals that look like
they came from the 1880s and a soundtrack that sounds like a cicada with
indigestion, the only way you can get any meaning is for someone to tell you
what the fuck you just saw. I could barely even tell the "characters" near
the end were even "dismembering" anyone. This is a horror movie? And Susan
Sontag named it one of the 10 most important movies of all time? Was this
before or after she took ill?
[1] The French I could understand was much more eloquent than the subtitles,
most especially in the case of the fervent and absolutely psychotic speech
about creating martyrs.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=31922016-01-17T23:07:51+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of over 900 ratings
publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my notes
for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to...
]]>
of over 900 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.
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) -- "6/10"
Willem Dafoe is Jesus, Barbara Hershey Mary Magdalene and Harvey Keitel is
Judas. Martin Scorcese directed this retelling of the story of the life of
Jesus, based on the novel of the same name. It's heavily dialogue-driven
with
a strong focus on religious philosophy, naturally. I like that the
dialogue
is quite modern and delivered in modern accents. The scene where Mary
Magdalene is dragged out for stoning reminded me strongly of a very
similar
scene in Malèna where Monica Belluci is shorn by her fellow villagers. In
that case, Malèna was accused of laying with the enemy; Magdalene is
actually accused not of prostitution but of working on the Sabbath.
Jesus tries to find his path and chats with various people and animals --
e.g. a talking cobra (or asp?). This movie has slightly better production
values, but in its material and surreality, it's not much different than
the
Japanese Guzo or the Mexican El Topo. Hell, it's even got a talking lion
in
it, with a New York City accent.
This movie is really, really long -- over three hours. It just retells the
story of Jesus with some minor and some major variations, but mostly
hitting
the highlights we've all heard about. He multiplies fish and loaves, makes
wine from water, kicks money-changer ass, etc. etc.
If you're not religious and broadly familiar with the Christian mythology,
this film is utterly uncontroversial -- except maybe for all of the
miracles
being so real (and then again, maybe not). When Jesus changes water into
wine, he's a total dick about it, as only Willem Dafoe could do. Also,
Jesus
kicks a ton of ass in this movie, hulking out on the money-changers, of
course, but also on a lot of other scenery.
It's a well-made movie, but the dialogue, though more modernized, is still
tedious. Mostly because the story of Jesus kinda sucks and there's a lot
of
whining about the meanness of God followed by the adoration of God
followed
by setting rules for God. It goes off the beaten path, at the end, with
the
"temptation" being that Jesus is given the chance to not be the savior and
spare himself. Judas is portrayed as the strong one who is willing to
betray
Jesus so that he can fulfill his destiny, then shows up at Jesus's
deathbed
to accuse him of betraying this goal.
Although I'm not familiar at all with the Gospels [1], I saw the ending
coming a mile away -- that the temptress angel was, of course, Satan --
and
expected for twenty minutes for Jesus to close his eyes at some point and
wake back up on the cross. And lo it was done. I definitely didn't predict
that Dafoe would reënact his Platoon pose, though. The soundtrack by
Peter
Gabriel is great. I'm glad I finally saw it, the acting is good, but I
can't
recommend it.
Babette's Feast (1987) -- "7/10"
This is a melancholy if relatively pretty film about two daughters living in
Jutland (DK) with their stern, minister father. We learn their story via a
narrator with interspersed dialogue (mostly pious singing). Each of the
daughters had a chance at love, but their father quashed it both times,
the
soldier out of hand, and the opera singer after he sings lascivious songs
with the daughter.
It is a stark and lifeless existence. Though they seem filled with
religious
fervor and do small, good deeds for the other villagers, nothing is
created
or gained and they simply go through the same daily motions without adding
or
removing from the world. (Don't we all, though?) The opera singer was
entirely too full of life for the world of Jutland. The daughter breaks
off
the singing lessons herself because she cannot resist his wiles.
Years later, the opera singer exhorts the sisters to retain the services
of a
family friend, Babette. They take her on as servant and cook for over a
dozen
years. When she wins the French lottery, she offers to cook them and their
remaining congregation a proper French feast for the 100th anniversary of
the
birth of their father, the patron saint of the Jutland village.
The dinner is to be properly French with live quail and a live turtle
hissing
on the counter in the kitchen, terrifying the sisters into thinking she's
preparing a witch's meal. The congregation is quick to play along when the
sister relates her fears to them -- and they all build each other up into
a
righteous terror of the French meal. And right they are to be terrified:
in
classic French style, there's one of everything that once walked on legs
looking with glazed, crossed eyes from Babette's pots and pans.
Babette makes such a tremendous effort, but the pious fuddy-duddies can at
first talk only of how they will ignore the taste of the food and drink --
that the flavor doesn't even matter. This is a natural attitude to take
when
all of your food is one form of porridge or another. When someone is
making
an effort, though, your pious ass could perhaps not be an asshole.
Thankfully, though, the first taste of the Amontillado pairing with the
turtle soup brings tears to the French general's eyes. The meal looks
exquisite. Best name for a dish: quail in sarcophagus. The film is a bit
slow
in the first half, but well-made and reminiscent of other "big meal"
movies,
like a favorite of mine Big Night. As in that film, there is an
undercurrent
of love and missed opportunities and forgiveness.
It takes a tremendous suspension of belief that such a meal could be
cooked
in that kitchen in that hut, but suspend it I did because it was so
enjoyable
watching Babette prepare it. And how was she able to cook such a fabulous
meal? She used to be the head chef at the Cafè Anglais -- and spent all
FF10,000 that she won in the lottery to prepare that single meal. I also
have
no idea how they weren't all plastered after all of those wine pairings
with
refills.
Worth seeing it for the meal. Saw it in the original Danish and French,
with
English subtitles.
Schindler's List (1993) -- "8/10"
This is a black-and-white film about the role that Oskar Schindler (Liam
Neeson) played in Krakau in the late 1930s. While he originally had only
thoughts of making money by employing Jews in his factory, his sympathies
increasingly lay with his workers as he saw the predations of the Nazis.
In
particular, Amon Goeth, played by Ralph Fiennes, is a foppish, nervous,
deeply insecure and overwhelmingly cruel man who comes to be in charge of
the
work camp near Schindler's factory.
Stephen Spielberg directs and his imprimatur is clear in the shot
selection
and camera work. The film shows the casual cruelty and indifference to
Jewish
life of the soldiers, while highlighting mostly ineffectual and Sisyphic
moments of kindness on the part of sympathizers or doctors (e.g. in a
hospital where patients to whom nurses had just given medicine are seconds
later gunned down). Ben Kingsley is masterful, as usual, as Itzhak Stern.
I do have to wonder how much of this is a flight of Hollywood fancy by a
Jewish director and how much is based in fact. I'm thinking of the little
boy
who tries to whistle down an old Jewish lady and then decides not to when
he
sees it's his friend's mother. Or how casually the Nazis just shoot people
in
the head. I understand that the trains delivered millions to their deaths
in
camps, but that level of processing has a certain technocratic "out of my
hands" logic to it; shooting someone in the head from inches away is a
much
more visceral act and a completely different level of cruelty.
I do not say that this film depicts it incorrectly, only that it smells of
a
promulgated myth that no-one allows themselves to challenge. In a way, it
almost absolves humanity because it depicts the enemy as such clear
monsters
that they barely even belong to the species anymore. Such an
interpretation
is, in many ways, more comforting than the probable truth: that anyone
could
do this to anyone else, with only the slightest provocation. Hell, it
happens
all the time still. I do not say that the film exaggerates the acts, only
that the over-the-top enthusiasm of the Germans is perhaps a bit overdone.
Perhaps not, I have never been in a war zone, but have heard stories of
overarching enthusiasm in our similar national horror stories, like My Lai
and Fallujah, to name only a very few. Also Chris Hedges reporting in his
book War is a Force that Gives us Meaning.
The humiliation in the camp, the petty cruelties, the rape, the nude
marches,
the subjugation, the slavery? All believable. It requires a different
level
of commitment than cold-blooded murder. On the other hand, if you don't
consider the creature before you to be a human, then it's not murder, is
it?
I am just careful of propaganda -- of all kinds.
Schindler takes the fight to Goeth by saying that his unwarranted and
unconscionable killing is "bad for business". He does not even try arguing
that it's morally wrong, because even had he himself wholeheartedly
believed
that (which wasn't clear), it would have been an utter waste of time with
Goeth, who would certainly not have been receptive to a moral argument.
Lovely scenes between the two.
The eponymous list refers to a list of workers that Schindler makes to
save,
to send elsewhere than Auschwitz. Unfortunately, it doesn't work -- the
paperwork goes missing and the workers on his list never show up. He
chases
them down and bluffs his way through getting his workers back, including
children whose "delicate fingers polish 45mm shell casings". At his
factory,
he is still running a work camp, but he forbids "summary executions" and
the
German soldiers have to follow his orders. Schindler then does everything
in
his power to make sure not a single viable shell is ever produced in his
factory. Again, not sure of the historical veracity -- the crawl at the
end
claims it's true -- but a lovely story.
Still and all, an incredibly well-made film, well-acted, well-shot. It's
over
3 hours long but doesn't feel overlong, except perhaps the last 10 minutes
--
in which modern-day descendants of Schindler's workers visit his grave --
which felt tacked on. Recommended.
Aces High (1976) -- "6/10"
This is a British movie about the Royal Air Force in WWI, when they still
flew with bi-planes and had a horrendous casualty rate. The pilots are
stationed in France and are led by Gresham (Malcolm McDowell) and Sinclair
(Christopher Plummer), both of whom are pretty much alcoholics. Another
pilot
is Crawford, who fakes suffering from neuralgia because he's afraid to go
up.
Croft is the new recruit with almost no flight time and an eager attitude
driven by worship of Gresham.
1/4 of the way in and there is no sign of a woman in this movie. The men
are
very British, with a stiff upper lip and silly songs. The feel of the base
is
that it is an extension of the boarding schools from which they all
presumably came. There are more long-lashed, meaningful looks than usual.
The
film is decidedly anti-war. At one point, they ride out to the front and
see
unbelievable destruction on the ground, the most poignant of which is a
long
line of soldiers with head injuries and their eyes bound, hand on the
shoulder of the man in front, blindly threading their way through a
noxious
war zone. [2]
Croft is attacked on his first sortie. He doesn't return with Gresham, not
because he's shot down, but because he gets lost. This is a lovely detail
of
WWI flying -- no radar, no GPS, nothing but a crude map and your own
sparse
knowledge of the landmarks in the area where you'd just been stationed the
day before. On this mission, Gresham shoots down a Hun and captures him.
They
bring him back to camp, but don't make him a prisoner -- instead, he's
invited in almost as a guest of honor, because he's really very much like
them. They roister and revel long into the night.
Croft learns quickly the perils of war when his commander Sinclair is shot
dead in the gunner's seat behind him on his very next mission. To distract
themselves, the officers go to a French nightclub and revel some more. The
first women of the movie appear here, and they're all whores. Fear not,
though, because they're decent-looking enough that "I won't have to force
myself" as one of the officers puts it. It is unclear how this scene is
intended. Is it a condemnation of the deep-seated misogyny of the time,
one
that acknowledges women only as accoutrements for soldiers? Or is it just
including it for accuracy with no judgment? Or is it glorifying it?
This was to be Croft's last glorious night out as he dies on his next
mission
when he collides with a Hun Aircraft. That would be the third long flight
sequence of the movie. Malcom McDowell and Christopher Plummer are good,
as
always. Not recommended, though.
The Producers (1967) -- "9/10"
This farce is about a Broadway producer, Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) and his
accountant, Leo Blum (Gene Wilder). They team up to deliberately put on a
flop to cheat investors out of millions. The movie is almost 50 years old
and
yet it's timeless. Mostel is manic, over-the-top and wonderful. Wilder is,
as
always, a combination of zany and eerily reserved, wide-eyed and innocent.
If
the word "zany" had not existed, it would have to have been invented to
describe this movie. Watching it now, it's obvious how they made a musical
out of it: it has no musical numbers in the first half, but the scenes
could
so easily be transformed to the musical stage.
In case you don't know the plot, the pair find a musical that is
guaranteed
to flop, Springtime for Hitler, a gay romp in WWII Germany, written by
Franz
Liebkind, who wears a German war helmet, keeps pigeons, sings American
patriotic songs to dispel rumors -- "Oh beootiful für spaschious skies"
--
and who is even farther off his rocker than either Blum or Bialystock.
The costumes and lyrics of this show are divine: one lady walks out
covered
only in Bretzels, another only in liters of beer and foam. All the while,
they're singing the chorus "Springtime for Hitler in Germany ... winter
for
Poland and France ... we're marching to a faster pace....look out, here
comes
the master race." and Brooks himself shows up as a stormtrooper, crowing
"Don't be stupid, be a smartie, come and join the Nazi party." And then
the
showgirls start goose-stepping across the stage, "goose-steps are new
steps
TODAY!"
The movie was written by Mel Brooks in 1967, so it's hilarious, but women
have few roles other than decoration (Ulla) or gullible sacks of money
(countless old ladies). Or as a backup band for LSD, the actor destined to
play Hitler, who, like the entire musical, is so bad he's good. This will
prove to be the end of their plan, as it will not only fail to fail, but
it
will fail to fail spectacularly enough. Their problem with success is, of
course, that they've sold 25,000% of the profits to various investors.
Before Trey Parker and Matt Stone -- of South Park and Book of Mormon fame
--
there was Mel Brooks, tearing Broadway a new one. And then Broadway turned
around and made his joke of an idea into one of the greatest successes
ever.
I'd seen this movie before, almost 2 decades ago, at the hearty
recommendation of a good friend in New York [3] and remembered having
enjoyed
it immensely. I was not disappointed in rewatching. Highly recommended.
Mud (2012) -- "6/10"
Mud introduces himself like this:
"You can call me a hobo, 'cause a hobo works fer a livin' and you can call me
homeless, well, 'cause that's what I am temporarily, but you call me a bum
again and I'm gonna have to teach you somethin' 'bout respect that your
daddy
never did."
Matthew McConaughey plays Mud and the Reese Witherspoon plays his love
interest, Juniper. He's hiding out on an island, from the law and from the
family of a man he killed supposedly to protect the honor of his girl. We
see
soon enough that the story that Mud tells is only part of the truth, but
the
boys are much more likely to believe his version because the world tells
them
far less satisfying stories.
All parties have ulterior motives, except perhaps the two boys, Ellis and
Neckbone, played really, really well by Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland.
Life
on the river is hard and stories are the only way people have of escaping
the
day-to-day drudgery. It's a little trite that Ellis's life starts to
imitate
Mud's. Who's the psycho? Who's the slut? A little of both? Stories are
more
important than reality, and stories are subjective. It's a decent flick,
but
relatively predictable coming-of-age stories aren't really my thing.
Recommended if that is your thing or if you're a McConaughey fan.
Nymphomaniac Vol. 1 (2013) -- "8/10"
Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård) finds Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg) in an alley on
his way back from grocery shopping. She lies unconscious, in a light
snowfall, a clear victim of a beating. He takes her home after she refuses
to
allow him to call an ambulance or the police. She begins telling the story
of
how she ended up there, starting from when she was two years old and first
discovered she was a nymphomaniac.
Seligman interrupts her constantly to draw parallels between her hunting
sexual partners as a young girl and fly-fishing. He's absolutely
relentless
about this, despite her clear impatience to continue her lascivious story.
The story is rendered less lascivious because the filming of the
encounters
is less erotic and stimulating and more clinical. especially when she
rapes
the older man on the train (he distinctly said "please don't").
Her story continues as she re-meets her first lover, Jerôme (Shia
LeBeouf)
as her boss in her first job, falling in love with him. He's an insecure
jerk
who delights in humiliating and dominating her, even as she makes her way
through all of his co-workers after having resisted his initial advances.
At this point, though Charlotte Gainsbourg is re-telling the story, Joe is
played by Stacy Martin as a younger girl -- this was her first role as an
actress. Her casting is probably also deliberate -- she's pretty, but not
really sexy and also not really vivacious, more quiet and contemplative
and
depressive. Instead her allure comprises one characteristic: her low bar
for
fucking other people.
This is likely von Trier's condemnation of males, a way of implicitly
saying
that they'll pretty much fuck anything with a heartbeat, even someone who
makes Shelley Duvall look like Anna Nicole Smith. She doesn't act or move
in
a sexy way, even walking very stolidly and deliberately. The story of her
presence at her father's painful and nearly psychotic death just drives
home
how her nymphomania is an obsession, nothing to do with allure or
enticement
-- the film makes perfectly clear that sex would be the furthest thing
from
the mind of a non-afflicted person.
Uma Thurman stands out as the passive-aggressive, overly understanding
Mrs.
H., the wife of one of her more clingy lovers (H: "Would it be all right
if I
showed the children the whoring bed? (to the children) We need to see it!
Let's go see Daddy's favorite place!") She also has some wonderful and
lengthier dialogue, delivered in a helluva performance. Mrs. H. finally
gets
angry, but she blames Joe rather than her idiotic husband, who absolutely
couldn't take a hint and was puppy-dog in love with a young girl who is
not
his wife.
Lars von Trier wrote and directed; the movie is slow and largely a
dialogue
between two clever-talking people -- Seligman is particularly observant
and
intellectual, with no judgment, and Joe is also very self-aware, though
with
clear and obviously intentional gaps in her knowledge -- but it's
wonderfully
shot and told. And because it's von Trier, there's an incredible attention
to
detail, many small clues that lead I-don't-know-where. The titles and text
in
street and building photos are in German (e.g. O.P. Gang 2 in the
hospital)
and the intro and credits music is by Rammstein but she speaks English
with a
British accent and her childhood friend's (B) accent morphs over time from
more Germanic/Swedish-accented to bog-standard British. They ride a train
where the conductor demands pounds for a ticket. But her father (Christian
Slater) also has a meandering accent that eventually settles on American.
She
uses a Ticonderoga pencil to make notes at one point -- do they even have
those in Britain?
Skarsgård is a wonderful interlocutor, standing outside of the miasma of
passion and nymphomania. His recitation from the The Fall of the House of
Usher is spine-tingling [4]....I wanted him to continue with the rest of
the
book.
"During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the
year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been
passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country;
and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within
view
of the melancholy House of Usher."
The end of the story introduced with Poe almost gets Seligman but he
rallies
with "it's extremely common to react sexually in a crisis", which is
technically true. He's extremely well-read and it adds a richness to his
ad-hoc diagnoses. I could listen to him all day. I am still trying to
figure
out why his rooms are so run-down. Recommended.
Nymphomaniac Vol. 2 (2013) -- "9/10"
We pick up where we left off in Volume 1, with Joe relating the story of how
her "cunt went numb" and Seligman relating Zeno's paradox to her and she
finally calling him out on his distance and lack of lust about her story.
He
reveals that he is asexual and a virgin, which goes a long way toward
explaining why he doesn't judge her as much as she's grown accustomed to
being judged for her story.
She continues her story after an interlude wherein he describes the
western
church (suffering) and the eastern church (happiness). Her next chapter is
about traveling "from East to West" -- from a world of happiness to
suffering.
She moves in with Jerôme and they have a child together. He cannot
satisfy
her and makes a lovely analogy to buying a tiger, which must be fed
properly
and that he might, in fact, need some help feeding it. Which she leaps to
with gusto, with another lovely visual analogy in the street as she feigns
a
car breakdown and all of her lovers gather in a crowd of tomcats.
Shia LeBoeuf as Jerôme is very, very good, easily outacting the girl who
plays the young Joe. Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot) is also extremely good as
K,
the sadist who takes on Joe as a client, and allows no safe words (yeah,
right) and dispenses sadism without sex, no discussions. He's a right
bastard, but that's what she's looking for. The filming is so well-done
and
K's act so convincing that I'm almost surprised when we're allowed to see
what happens behind the frosted-glass doors.
K is exceedingly polite in his preparations, but in control of every
aspect.
[5] At the end of their second session -- the first with actual sadism --
she
says "Thank you," and he replies, "You're very welcome." in all sincerity.
Stripped of judgment, this is a transaction between equals, each of whom
gets
pleasure. Gainesbourg is, as usual, fantastic. She struggles with her
addiction but loses, walking out on Jerôme and Marcel (her son) on
Christmas
to go to K for the beating of her life (the destruction is pitiless and
graphic), which allows her to once again experience joy.
After she recounts a three-way with two African brothers, with whom she
shared no language, she is chided by Seligman for using the word "negro".
She
responds,
Joe: Well, I beg you pardon, but in my circles, it has always been a mark of
honor to call a spade a spade. Each time a word becomes prohibited, you
remove a stone from the democratic foundation. Society demonstrates its
impotence in the face of a concrete problem by removing words from the
language. The book-burners have got nothing on modern society.
Seligman: I think society would claim that political correctness is a very
precise expression of democratic concern for minorities.
Joe: And I would say that society is too cowardly for the people in it,
who,
in my opinion, are too stupid for democracy.
Seligman: I understand your point but I totally disagree. I have no doubt
in
the human qualities.
Joe: The human qualities can be expressed in one word: hypocrisy. We
elevate
those who say "right" but mean "wrong" and mock those who say "wrong" but
mean "right". Society is based on hate; it should be based on forgiveness.
Hatred is rudimentary. One should be able to forgive one's executioner.
Anyone who sees the title and possibly some scenes and thinks they'll have
a
purely titillating film doesn't know this director. [6] The movies are
more
like a Socratic dialogue between Joe and Seligman, with interludes and
depictions from her past. Skarsgård really deserves credit for a
wonderfully
acted role.
The next segment "The Mirror" deals with Joe's attempt to get an abortion
legally, in which the doctor and psychologist are exceedingly patronizing
and
treat her as if she's incapable of making her own decision about her own
body. That is, when she says that the most important thing to her right
now
is to have an abortion, the psychologist responds that "yes. well, that's
what we're trying to determine together.".
Amazing that a woman needs the approval of complete strangers in order to
have a voluntary medical procedure. When she asks about the father, Joe
answers "Ok, what would you like me to say about the father in order for
me
to be able to obtain an abortion? That I love him? Or that I don't love
him?
Or that I don't know him because I fuck tons of men?" The ensuing at-home,
DIY abortion is harrowing and a clear condemnation on von Trier's part of
the
patronizing attitude toward women's health in supposedly civilized Western
countries (looking at you, USA and possibly UK). [7]
In the Socratic tradition, Seligman and Joe discuss the abortion
afterward.
When he says that he has no comment because he's a man, she responds,
"Those are two very interesting points of view. First you say that, as a man,
you can't have feelings with regard to abortion. Well, that's a bit like
saying that I could never understand the feeling of victims of earthquakes
because they were Chinese. I thought that empathy was the foundation of
all
humanism. It is very convenient for men to leave all that abortion stuff
to
women. That way, they don't have to deal with all the guilt and all the
small
stuff."
In response, Seligman makes an eloquent argument for eliding details of
the
ugliness of abortions, but in the end it's an argument for censorship.
"The really serious, serious abortions, the ones that save lives, far from
our social spheres...you can't endanger them, just because you
provocatively
insist on showing all of the gory details. Consider all of the millions of
oppressed women, the victims of rape, incest, hunger, all those who maybe
thanks to an abortion have gained a new life, to maybe have saved a child
from starving to death. You can't harm them, just because of a principle
of
openness."
She drops the mic on her self-help group, bidding adieu to the group
leader
with "That empathy you claim is a lie, because all you are is society's
morality police, whose duty is to erase my obscenity from the surface of
the
Earth so that the bourgeoisie won't feel sick."
When she talks of her career as a loan-shark enforcer, she recounts a
visit
to a repressed pedophile, who didn't even know he was one himself.
Seligman: You did what?
Joe: I gave him a blowjob.
Seligman: Why? That pig?
Joe: I took pity on him.
Seligman: Pity?
Joe: Yes. I had just destroyed his life. Nobody knew his secret, most
probably not even himself. He sat there with the shame. I suppose I sucked
him off as a kind of apology.
Seligman: That's unbelievable.
Joe: Listen to me: this is a man who'd succeeded in repressing his own
desire
-- who had never before given into it, right up until I forced it out of
him.
He had lived a life full of denial and had never hurt a soul.
Seligman: No. No matter how much I try, I can't find anything laudable in
paedophilia.
Joe: That's because you think about the perhaps 5% who actually hurt
children. The remaining 95% never live out their fantasies. Think about
their
suffering. Sexuality is the strongest force in human beings. To be born
with
a forbidden sexuality must be agonizing. The paedophile who manages to get
through life with the shame of his desire while never acting on it
deserves a
bloody medal.
Seligman: (long pause) The writer Thomas Mann said somewhere that a
temptation resisted is not a sin, but a test of virtue.
The final chapter feels the most trite and clichéed, nearly veering to
come
back around to the beginning, five hours ago. Perhaps it's to show how Joe
is
rewarded for her final concession to sentimentality in her love for her
protegé, aptly named P. Or perhaps as punishment for her sentimentality
for
Jerôme and her final capitulation to jealousy. The ending is
no-holds-barred
-- the filming of Jerôme's revenge...and P, instead of helping Joe, shows
her allegiance to Jerõme -- and Joe's lifestyle -- instead. That scene
makes
anything in Dogville look like Sesame Street.
The story ends there, more or less, other than Seligman's slip from his
asexual pedestal, revealing himself despite his ostensible erudition to be
just as simplistic as everyone else. I always like von Trier's stories,
his
direction and his choice of music for this movie was lovely (both the
cello
pieces and the credits music, a cover of Jimi's Hey Joe). Recommended, but
the director's cut is long and you're in for a possibly scary ride.
It Follows (2014) -- "7/10"
This is a thriller/horror movie about a monster that follows the object of
its obsession -- a victim that has to have sex in order to ward it off.
The
premise is simple: the monster follows you until you "tag" someone else,
then
it follows that person. If it catches you, you die, and then it starts to
follow the previous person in the chain. It is slow but relentless. The
monster inhabits random bodies and shuffles shambolically toward its
victims,
the slowness stretching out the delicious terror.
You can buy time, but you can't get away. And only victims can see the
bodies
the monster inhabits. Because it's so slow, it lulls you into a false
sense
of security and, because no-one else can see it, you think your friends
are
watching out for you but you forget that they can't see it. Shooting
doesn't
help and it changes shape as it needs, big guys to kick holes in doors,
little guys to crawl through the hole.
This is a well-shot and scary film, with open windows at night and
well-placed mirrors and effective use of music. They really make you feel
how
helpless you would be in the face of such a relentless attacker. It's a
horror movie that knows its tropes and makes a whole new experience out of
them. It's hard to figure out when this movie is set: the furniture in her
house is 70s-80s and the TV is black and white, her phone has a cord on
it,
no-one has a cell phone, she gets a plaster cast after the car accident,
there are typewriters and CRT TVs, etc.
This movie actually dovetails nicely with just having watched Nymphomaniac
because that's what she must become to get rid of the monster: she passes
it
on to a friend, who is killed, then sees a random group of boys on a boat
and
we see her take off her clothes to swim out in her underwear. Although we
could always see the monster throughout the movie, we can no longer see it
in
the finale, which makes it all the more exciting. The scene in the pool is
nicely filmed. I love that the girl at the end reads Dostoyevsky from an
e-reader shaped like a pink seashell compact. Recommended.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Which I have since learned is detailed in the gospels. I thought that the
controversy associated with the film was that Jesus could at all, as a
mortal, be tempted off the path of savior. But the controversy in America
was, predictably, nudity and sex. Sigh.
[1] This reminded me a bit of José Saramago's descriptions of blind navigation
in his novel Blindness, recently read. The movie's in my queue.
[1] h/t to CJ, you irreverent SOB
[1] Of course, Edgar Allen Poe gets a lot of the credit for absolutely marvelous
prose.
[1] I cannot speak to the realism of this scene, but I wonder how it compares to
50 Shades of Gray, which was chastised as being ludicrous in its depiction
of S&M? The article, "Jamie Bell: 'I hadn't said hello to Charlotte
Gainsbourg before I started hitting her in the face'"
provides more insight and it's remarkable what a great job he did
considering how the whole process worked. Perhaps because of how the process
worked. The article says that Bell had ""lots of help" on the set from
bondage, domination, sadism and masochism [BDSM] professionals" and that
he'd "hung out in a friend's LA sex shop, getting a feel for the
clientèle.".
[1] What's up with the camera reflected in the mirror? Clearly deliberate.
[1] Though there's a lot in this movie that's not for the weak-willed, the home
abortion stands out as a reason to skip the director's cut. I can only
imagine that this is definitely at least one of the parts that was omitted
in the theatrical release (if there even was one?) I stand corrected,
apparently, the abortion itself made it in, but the ensuing discussion
(transcribed above) was elided. It gets a bit boring having the world exceed
your pessimistic expectations.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=31902015-12-21T22:28:54+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of over 900 ratings
publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my notes
for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to...
]]>
of over 900 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.
Police Story 3: Supercop (1996) -- "6/10"
This is a decent farce action/adventure through several countries with the
action team of Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh, both very young (it was 20
years ago). There's a lot more gunplay and a lot less slapstick fighting
than
I'd expect in a Jackie Chan movie.
The best scene so far is actually where the Buster Keaton-esque side of
Chan
comes out: he's trying to keep away from his girlfriend (Maggie Cheung)
while
on an undercover mission at a spa -- but she sees him with Yeoh and is on
the
hunt. The scene is way too short and devolves into a typically stupid
scene
in which Cheung has to be reminded 12 times that Chan is undercover, as if
it's never happened before (in Police Story I and II presumably). Yeoh's
outfit is the height of 80s/90s ugliness.
I saw it in Cantonese and some Mandarin as well as a few lines of English
(bizarrely, some of the high-level police meetings in China as well as a
trial in Malaysia were in English). Not really recommended; there are
better
Jackie Chan movies out there. There are better Michelle Yeoh movies out
there. Unfortunately, I think this is the only one with both of them
together
-- and the final battle is decent. And, as always, the outtakes during the
credits show just how much real effort and pain and stunts are involved:
MIchelle Yeoh falls out of a car moving down the highway.
Dieter Nuhr -- Ich bin's Nuhr (2005) -- "6/10"
I really like this German comedian and he was good in this special, but I
feel that he's gotten much better in more recent shows. He plays very clean,
talks about relationships and the foibles of humanity, all delivered in a
very understated, breathy delivery. I would recommend watching more recent
stuff. Saw it in German.
R100 (2013) -- "6/10"
This is the story of a Japanese businessman who signs up for a year-long
program of "surprise" domination. For one year, a dominatrix can appear
out
of nowhere and start in on him. Not knowing when is part of the pleasure.
The
settings and visuals are quite surreal: we see one such episode play out,
then we see a flashback to when he signed up for the plan, where he rides
a
carousel in the middle of a multi-level round room, with dominatrixes in
little niches all along the walls. The movie plays with color palettes,
going
from nearly black & white to very sepia-toned scenes in his office, to
even
more sepia in the restaurant. The switching palettes reminded me a bit of
The
Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. From the washed-out palette and
the
overall look and feel of the scenes, it's hard imagine that this movie was
really made in 2013.
It's actually a comedy: the scene in the sushi bar where the dominatrix
shows
up and smashes all of his sushi before he can eat it is quite hilarious.
I'm
not quite getting the weird effect where his eyes go all black and ominous
music plays after each humiliation. Is this the movie's way of showing his
pleasure? At any rate, the story unfolds that his wife has been in a coma
for
3 years. When he sees his father-in-law lamenting his comatose daughter,
it
depresses him -- and then he's further depressed when an absolutely
awesome
dominatrix attack fails to trigger his ... pleasure reaction. Now he can
draw
no "joy" from life at all, nothing to distract him from his boring job and
his all-but-dead wife.
The absolutely best part is how all of the passersby in the movie pretty
much
ignores the sometimes very public attacks. When he wants to back out of
the
contract because it's no longer working for him? Too bad, buddy. When a
dominatrix shows up in the hospital room with his wife, he's upset -- but
then he finds his mojo again, which upsets him even more. Not
unexpectedly,
he needs ever-increasing levels of humiliation to "hit the spot" as the
Queen
of Voices puts it. The handoff from her to the Queen of Saliva is not a
scene
for everyone. She dances around, mixes frozen cocktails to add flavor --
all
while he's trussed on the floor and his young son is trussed up in a
swing,
also bound and gagged. The Queen of Saliva expires when her girth proves
too
much for the railing and she falls from the second floor to her death.
The S&M organization wants to take revenge for what they are calling her
murder. After showing several people sitting around in what looks like a
hospital lounge, we discover that those people are somehow involved with
the
filming and things get meta. They discuss how the 100-year--old director
could possibly make a movie that weird, then head back in to watch more.
Then
things get weird: the Queen of Gobbling takes out his comatose wife, the
CEO
of the S&M organization shows up and rages. Then she leads a full-on
battle
against Katayama, with him blowing up her ninja army with a briefcase full
of
grenades he found. The penultimate minutes are spent in a very good
montage
and then we go utterly off the rails just before the credits. No idea what
the intended symbolism was. The first half was much more amusing, to be
honest. Saw it in Japanese with English subtitles.
Chinatown (1974) -- "8/10"
Jack Nicholson plays a private detective hired by Faye Dunaway to find out if
her husband is cheating on her. Her husband is the chief engineer of the
power authority in California. It's the middle of a drought [1] and
Nicholson
is soon embroiled in a much larger drama than an affair. Roman Polanski
directed it and his imprimatur is immediately obvious in the lurid photos
Nicholson shows to another customer in the first seconds of the film.
Plus,
about 1/3 of the way through the movie, Polanski shows up in a cameo, a
small
speaking role. Nicholson oozes, as always, a somewhat threatening charm.
The film is set at the beginning of the 20th century, so everyone is
dressed
to the nines all the time -- even on an all-night stakeout in the dunes at
the California shore, Nicholson wears a three-piece suit and still looks
as
sharp as ever the next morning. Did they really wear suits and ties when
boating on a lake in a park? Two guys in a boat? That was innocuous?
Nicholson's pin-neat appearance devolves over the film as his nose is cut,
his sunglasses shattered, and he's otherwise beaten up, but he is
unflappable
in his professionalism. The suit, though? Unwrinkled. As he learns more
and
more and is more and more sure of himself, his appearance improves again.
This movie has aged extremely well: the cinematography and pacing are
great
for a thriller. The outdoor scenes are lush and beautifully lit -- I'm
thinking of the scene outside in the riverbed. Otherwise, the time period
of
the movie provides nice atmosphere: there are so many things that they do
that we don't do anymore. For example, when Nicholson goes to the hall of
records: the records are public and can be read by anyone, but they can't
be
checked out, you can't make copies (no copier), you can't take pictures
(no
cell-phone, no camera), so Gittes has to ask for a ruler, so he can
cleanly
rip out a page from one of the books. Also, there are no security cameras
to
catch him in the act.
Faye Dunaway and Jack Nicholson are great. The story is quite good with
interesting plot twists. Still not sure why it's called Chinatown, other
than
that Gittes used to work there. Unless it's meant to be ironic -- the
crimes
had nothing to do with the Chinese and everything to do with rich, white
people with cavalier attitudes toward genetics. "She's my sister! She's my
daughter!" Recommended.
Lawless (2012) -- "8/10"
This is a Prohibition-era film about a moonshining family starring Tom Hardy,
Shia Lebeouf, and Jason Clarke whose control is challenged by city-slicker
and special deputy Charlie Rakes, played in deep cover by Guy Pearce -- I
barely recognized him, he'd changed himself so much from the wise-cracking
soldier in Lockout. But I did see echoes of his character Felicia from The
Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Jessica Chastain and Mia
Wasikowska were the love interests. They all played quite well and made
what
could have been a bad movie a relatively riveting one instead.
The movie moves at a stately pace, appropriate for the setting and the
time
(1917 or thereabouts). The story is based on real people and based on the
autobiography of one of the brothers, Jack, I believe. Not the immortal
one,
Forrest, played by Tom Hardy. Lebeouf played very well and is a consummate
actor. but Hardy's mumbling, stolid juggernaut was really well-played as
well. He contrasted well to the ticking time bomb of Charlie Rakes, played
by
Pearce.
Apocalypto (2006) -- "7/10"
This movie is about the end-days of the Mayan kingdom and tells the tale of
the powerful Mayans as they hunt through the jungle, brutally attacking
local
tribes for slaves and sacrifices. It starts by depicting the life of one
such
tribe. They appear to be primitive and quite brutal -- until the Mayans
show
up and show us what brutality really is. Bodies are littered everywhere --
children are left behind to starve. The huts are burned. Kind of like My
Lai.
I've no idea how historically accurate this movie is: nearly everyone has
tattoos and piercings everywhere. Wherever they're not pierced, they're
scarred or painted or hennaed. Hairdos are very elaborate. People are
painted
white or blue. In the Mayan city, there's this one guy covered in
tarantulas
while behind him are dozens of iguanas or chameleons hanging by their
tails,
still alive. They seem to have no honor, no principles, no kindness --
just
brutality. The mass grave beyond the field of sport is hard to believe;
any
even somewhat-advanced tribe/civilization would not allow such
putrefaction
near their cities and fields.
Jaguar Paw goes full Rambo in the end -- poisoning them slowly with
hornets,
then quickly with frog-poison darts. The ending gets it an extra star: the
point is nicely made that, should you think that this was the height of
brutality, the Spanish galleons in the harbor are there to prove you
wrong.
Well-made, incredibly brutal. Not for everyone.
Stalag 17 (1953) -- "6/10"
This is billed as stark WWII drama about a Stammlager (Stalag) in Germany
with bunch of American sergeants who are trying to pass the time while
hatching plans to escape. It's not very serious, though. It's more of a
farce. Question: how can you tell the difference between a WWII movie and a
Vietnam movie? Answer: the Vietnam movie has black people in it. This is a
movie about prison camp where the sergeants pick the one sergeant they don't
like -- Sefton, played by William Holding -- blame him for espionage and
collaboration, beat the shit out of him and take all of his stuff, then
wander around the barracks singing "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again"
and "Oh Come All Ye Faithful". America, fuck yeah! During the dance on
Christmas, when one of the guys can't get a dance partner, he dresses himself
up as a lady to make himself more attractive. Was this really so innocent
even in 1953? Out-and-out farce. Second half better than the first, once
they settle down and get to business. Not recommended, but if you decide to
watch, stick around for the second half to make it worth it.
Memento (2000) -- "10/10"
I have to write down what I just saw before I forget. Imagine if you had no
short-term memory. Imagine if you had no idea whether what you knew was real
or a lie. Imagine if you nonetheless believed that certain things were true,
because you had to believe in something. You would be like Leonard, played by
Guy Pearce in an absolutely masterful performance. Carrie-Anne Moss and Joe
Pantoliano (both of whom would next star in the Matrix) round out the main
cast. The movie is composed of short scenes, each the length of Leonard's
short-term memory, interspersed with black-and-white scenes that are
supposedly the truth. What is the truth? What we perceive? What we think we
know? Can we ever un-know something? So that it is no longer the truth,
replaced by something or nothing? Christopher Nolan as writer and director
makes us think about all of these things in a movie put together perfectly to
represent the fractured landscape of not only Leonard's mind -- his
"condition" affects us all, perhaps to a lesser degree, or perhaps to the
same degree, but we are just so much less aware of how little we know and how
much we believe and take on faith than Leonard. Highly recommended.
The Wind Rises (2013) -- "8/10"
Miyazaki's last film, hand-drawn. Unbelievably gorgeous, detailed, ambitious.
Everything is in motion, every detail crisp, every animation fully
realized.
The wind is constantly blowing, the grass waving, small bits of detritus
flying through the air, waves crashing, smoke blowing, people milling,
clothes rippling. Where there is fire, there is destruction, buildings
sagging under their own weight, windows shattered, pillars and joists
sticking out, cracked and broken, masonry crumbling and falling. The
flames
wave about as the firehoses spray inadequate water, leaks springing all
along
the hose, rivulets coming together to cascade down the majestic front
steps
of the university. The waters reflect buildings and trees as the train
races
along its track.
This is the story of Jirô Horikoshi, the boy who started with dreams of
making beautiful planes as an aeronautical engineer and ended up designing
planes for the Japanese air force. It is, of course, set in and around
WWII.
It is, of course, about the fire-bombing of Tokyo. The war is, of course,
represented as a supernatural monster that consumes everything. These
metaphorical concepts are, of course, wonderfully and intuitively and
movingly brought to screen.
The movie is not without social critique, mostly of Japan: Horikoshi's
colleague says "Poor countries want to buy aeroplanes and pay us lots of
money to design them." and "In order to work hard at the office, one needs
a
family at home. Strange, no?" When they travel to Germany, the engineers
on
both sides speak and understand both German and Japanese; I wonder if
that's
really how it was? The movie is about pride and jealousy, technology,
science, advancement, the clash of cultures, the backwardness of Japan,
the
supposed advanced state of Germany, with their Schubert and heating
registers
instead of fires. The contrast in the end between the joy of engineering
and
horrific purpose to which the planes were put is depicted nicely. A bit
long,
but recommended. [2]
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) -- "10/10"
Yeah, that's right. I gave it a ten. I debated it, because it's probably a
nine (but a solid nine) but dammit it was a very solid movie from start to
finish. I might drop it to a nine on re-viewing, but then again, maybe
not.
It has a great story that nicely dovetailed with what we'd already learned
in
the other movies and presented new information and characters and worlds
in
the same exciting way that A New Hope had done. In many ways, it was a
soft
reboot of A New Hope but that was more than fine with me.
Watching this movie felt like the first time I picked up a Terry Pratchett
novel after nearly having given up all hope that Douglas Adams would ever
write another book. It gets an extra star because it failed to disappoint.
It
gets another one on top of that because it was actually better than the
originals in some ways. It was definitely better than Return of the Jedi.
This is a great space opera with some old characters and some new -- and
the
new ones are really good.
Some spoilers ahead, but not too bad. I saw this movie with absolutely no
preparation and no idea what was in it, except for a vague notion that (A)
a
girl/woman played the main role, (B) there was a black stormtrooper in it
and
(C) Han Solo and Chewbacca were back. The re-introduction of the Millenium
Falcon was perfect -- c'mon, it's everyone's favorite ship. The parallel
between the planet Jakku in this film and Tatooine in the first was
welcome:
the shot of the multi-sun system was nostalgic. The Angkor Wat-like temple
where the new smuggler's bar resided was a mix of Jabba's temple and the
old
Cantina.
The story felt retold, but in a good way. Like the circle of time comes
around, history repeats itself, etc. It could have been hackneyed, but I
felt
it was not. Director Abrams showed us the parallel and let us do with it
what
we wanted, rather than placing a character in front of to tell us what we
should be seeing. It's a smart movie in that regard, not playing down to a
dumb crowd. [3] And it's truly funny -- lots of appropriate one-liners and
in-jokes and more modern jokes. Like when Lo Ren hulks out on his
communications console...or when he hulks out a second time and we see the
two stormtroopers just ... walk away. The stormtroopers, while not the
stars
of the movie, are definitely more in the foreground. Their own clichés
are
celebrated -- like a couple of scenes where they really couldn't hit the
broad side of a barn. Very funny and warmly nostalgic at the same time.
The
writers really struck a balance and made a great film.
I expected a rollicking, funny space opera and that's what I got. You know
how sometimes a movie has such jarring moments that it throws you out of
the
moment and the mood? That didn't happen. You know how sometimes you really
enjoy a movie while watching it, then it falls apart immediately
afterwards
on reflection? That didn't happen either. You know how sometimes you wake
up
the next morning and think "meh"? Also didn't happen. [4]
Go into this one one with open eyes -- eyes from which the stain of The
Phantom Menace has been washed -- and you will love it. Highly
recommended.
Saw in in 3D and in English with German and French subtitles [5].
El Topo (1970) -- "4/10"
This is a bizarre Mexican western, full of symbolism. It starts off with a
scene of utter slaughter in a village as the mysterious and dark-haired El
Topo (Spanish for "the mole" or "the spy") rides in, clad all in black
leather in the hot sun, with a blue-eyed, blond-haired young boy clad only
in
a moccasins and a wide-brimmed hat riding behind him. A grinding/grating
noise pounds through the whole scene -- it is uncertain whether it is the
sound of hangman's ropes grinding or an animal in pain or something else.
The
next scene wordlessly introduces 3 weirdos -- one makes love to a figure
of a
woman he outlined with dried beans on a rock, another kisses women's shoes
then shoots them off of rocks, etc. They see that El Topo has looted
jewelry
from the village and ride off to rob him. They meet -- again with a
grating
sound in the background, this time goats bleating.
Is this a Mexican-Western homage to The Clockwork Orange? The next group
of
criminals -- the Colonel and his merry band -- have taken over a
Franciscan
monastery. The monks are forced to act as dance-partners/whores for some
of
the guys. It's just one surreal, nearly wordless, deranged and possibly
drug-
or alcohol-addled scene after another. The standard scenes of depravity
are
present, with the bad guys portrayed by Mexicans and the monks, the woman,
El
Topo and the little boy (still no clothes for him) portrayed by
blond-haired,
blue-eyed actors.
There is method to the madness, but it's a cruel and at-times senseless
film
that thinks it's more profound that it is. This movie has the production
quality and the cast of a 70s porno -- with more kids and way more
six-shooters.
Like what's up with the corral with the hundreds of rabbits that have no
clear food source? Speaking of food sources...there don't seem to be any
for
anyone. Topo wins against all the masters then asks God "why have you
forsaken me?" in a pretty heavy-handed Jesus reference. But we're not done
yet: next the two ladies shoot all the stigmata into him before entering
into
a sapphic tryst. The final chapter is the easiest to understand, although
it
starts really, really strangely: El Topo wakes to find himself among a
colony
of freaks and outcasts buried in a mountain. He's determined to dig a
tunnel
to the village outside. The village, however, is an evil place, rife with
decadence and slavery. Why even dig? And so on. Utterly disconnected from
all
that went before.
Symbolic movies can be good -- for example, Oh Brother Where Art Thou? is
good even if you have no idea it's based on The Odyssey. Maybe I'm just
tired
of pretentious pseudo-Christian symbology. Not recommended.
Zack Galifianakis: Live at the Purple Onion (2006) -- "7/10"
This is mix of about 70% standup combined with piano-playing and a bunch of
crowd work. Different parts of the show reminded me of Stewart Lee, Stephen
Wright and Andy Kaufman. The other 30% is a mock interview where he plays his
twin brother Seth and there's also some man-on-the-street stuff thrown in.
Joy Ride (2001) -- "5/10"
This is another Paul Walker vehicle -- pun totally intended. This time he's
on the road with his brother Steve Zahn, who he's picked up from prison.
Walker is on his way to pick up Leelee Sobieski, in whom he's very
interested. On the way, Zahn and Walker start messing with a trucker by
pretending that they're "Candy Cane", a girl who's got nothing better to do
than meet up with a random trucker. I wonder how Paul Walker became the guy
that you put in a car in every movie? Even pairing Zahn and Walker can't save
this movie. Leelee Sobieski is her usual, inspiring self. Not
recommended.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) -- "6/10"
I'd seen this movie before, but a long time ago, back in the 80s sometime,
probably. At the time, I thought those two guys were the coolest guys ever.
But objectively they're kind of jerks. They can't work a day in their lives,
they steal way more money than they need and they get by pretty much only on
an unnatural surfeit of charm.
For example, Sundance cheats at cards and swindles a guy out of all of this
money, then threatens to kill him for calling him a cheater. The way out? The
guy has to pretty much apologize, after which they take all of his money, but
leave him alive. Win-win.
Katharine Ross is introduced to us with a striptease induced at gunpoint, but
haha it's just a little game she and the Kid like to play. This is the 60s,
so he kinda sorta shares her with Butch. Hooray.
Redford and Newman are a good team. They spend most of the middle third of
the movie running away from a shadowy band of pursuers. When Newman proposes
to jump off of a waterfall, Redford refuses and wants them to stand their
ground. When Newman presses him, Redford, who's shown himself to be more
proficient than Newman in nearly every way other than talkin' and thinkin',
protests that "I can't swim!" Newman gut-laughs and finally sputters, "Oh, I
wouldn't worry about that! The fall'll probably kill you anyway!" Good stuff.
On the other hand, this movie sports not one but four musical montages
(including the initial credits), so they were really papering over the cracks
in the script.
Once they get to Bolivia, they learn pidgin Spanish, do a few jobs and become
so notorious that not only does the posse that nearly chased them down in the
States follow them to Bolivia, but when they try to go straight to avoid the
posse, they end up getting hired to protect the payroll train. I thought the
story was ironic enough that they were to defend it against themselves, but
there actually is a crew of Bolivians thieves that they have to vanquish.
All I remember from the first viewing is the freeze-frame at the very end. I
had forgotten the 10 minutes of running from cover to cover against an unseen
enemy that immediately preceded it. Still, the two guys save it at the very
end, so I give it an extra star for the two leads and for the final few
minutes. Saw it in English and Spanish (no subtitles).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] A movie about a Californian drought seems like a timely movie to watch...or
maybe California always has a drought.
[1] I wonder how much of the more extreme Japanese cinema -- I'm looking at you,
Gozu and R100 -- are reactions to the near-syrupy sweetness of Japanese
cinema and culture as represented in films like Miyazaki's? They're lovely,
but so far removed from the quotidian filth of humanity. Miyazaki shows the
girl's chair in front of her easel to indicate that she's near -- in R100,
Horikoshi would have felt its warmth or buried his snout in it. Almost as a
"screw you" to the other, cleansed form of cinema.
[1] More spoilers here: although I was in a SUPER-dumb crowd. They laughed
uproariously whenever the BB8 droid demanded it. Every. Single. Time. Some
of the more subtle jokes of this flavor were well-done and well-integrated
into the scene; others seemed gratuitous. Also, when Lo Ren calls Vader his
grandfather, there was a ton of hushed and astonished whispering along the
lines of "but I thought Han was his father?" as if a person has only a
single, male parent and as if we didn't know that Leia and Solo got jiggy
after the end of Return of the Jedi and as if we didn't know that Leia and
Luke were Anakin/Vader's twins. To be fair, that particular revelation was
nicely presented and I had a 1/4-second of processing to do because of the
tricky way they did it, but the astonishment of my theater continued for way
too long.
[1] I've since read a handful of comments on Reddit and the first and most
highly rated ones were disappointed that Terence Malick hadn't influenced
J.J. Abrams enough. These people are incapable of enjoying anything for what
it is, and have forgotten what they fell in love with in the first place.
Star Wars is not about gravitas and long moments of contemplation of the
giant and probably tragic and fatal battle ahead. It's a space opera. I went
to the movie with the opposite of the folks from Reddit: I didn't know most
of my group, but they were much younger and had seen Phantom Menace in the
theater when they were ten years old.
[1] I was actually glad for subtitles during a few scenes where the sotte voce
Stormtrooper conversations were impossible to hear in a theater full of
excited Star Wars fans. I'm not a huge fan of 3D though and would gladly
watch it in 2D instead; it would probably be crisper.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=31852015-12-15T23:34:26+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of over 900 ratings
publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my notes
for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to...
]]>
of over 900 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.
Everest (2015) -- "7/10"
Kath and I went to see this in an actual theatre, complete with 3D glasses
and everything. We'd read the book on which it is based waaaaay back when
Jon
Krakauer's telling of that summer of 1996 on Everest came out in 1997. The
movie stayed quite true to this story, although they did take a few digs
at
Krakauer, making him out to be an unhelpful chickenshit. Given the
conditions, it just made him look smart, but he apparently took issue
anyway.
That has nothing to do with the movie, though, which was quite lovely and
did
a great job of conveying the sheer cold and inhospitality of Everest. What
came through for me, though, was that, while some people -- the amateurs
--
had a very tough time with Everest, there were plenty of people around who
could handle Everest with aplomb, going back and forth between camps, from
5500M to 7800M to 8300M, carrying large loads of oxygen bottles while
their
clients struggled to go up just once. It's not easy by any stretch of the
imagination, but there are some people who are much more adapted than
others.
Jake Gyllenhall played well, though he was restricted by a smaller role;
Jason Clarke was very good as Rob Hall. The visuals were lovely and the
CGI
imperceptible. The 3D didn't really impress, except in a few places, like
zooming in on the tents in the large camps. Within the tents, at close
quarters, however, it was more of a distraction. Recommended.
The Martian (2015) -- "9/10"
This movie could have been terrible and jingoistic and ill-done but instead
it benefited from Matt Damon's fantastic performance and Ridley Scott's
steady hand at the tiller (as director). The science and logic are paramount;
emotions have little place. The story is of a mission to Mars that must
scramble to scrub their mission in the face of a gigantic storm that
threatened to destroy their ride home. One of their members is swept away and
they leave him behind. There's a bit too much military bravado on Jessica
Chastain's part, but I expected no more from her. There are inconsistencies
in behavior (nobody ever seems to fight) but a lot of the shortcuts are
understandable given the distances and time-delays that a more realistic
approach would entail. Damon is really, really good. I could have done
without the ending (the final minute; it could have ended on him looking at
the tiny sprout between his feet). I read the book after having already seen
the movie and, though I did really like the last 3/4 of the book, I actually
liked the movie better. Highly recommended.
Fargo S01 (2014) -- "8/10"
I liked this 10-part series. The acting was very good (Billy Bob Thornton,
Martin Freeman, Allison Tolman) as was the dialogue and the story. Netflix
is
really producing some high-quality entertainment.
Spoiler alert: The show ends in a murder, an extra-judicial killing of an
unarmed and incapacitated man. America loves this kind of vigilante
justice,
though. It doesn't even occur to most people that people don't deserve
killing: they deserve to be brought to justice. And the guy who murdered
the
man in cold blood gets a citation for bravery and his wife -- an otherwise
commendable police officer -- is "proud of him" instead of pissed that she
couldn't question the guy who'd committed so many murders. A happy ending
all
around, justice American-style.
Recommended.
The Theory of Everything (2014) -- "7/10"
I liked this biography of Stephen Hawking much more than I expected to.
Hawking's life started off fairly normal and ended up decidedly not normal as
ALS took over his body, though not his mind. Eddie Redmayne and Felicity
Jones are excellent as the main couple, him as a cocky young scientist, full
of oats to sow and she as the dedicated and head-over-heels-in-love wife.
Recommended.
Narcos S01 (2015) -- "7/10"
This is a semi-biographical film about the rise and fall of Pablo Escobar's
Colombian drug empire, as narrated by one of the primary DEA agents on the
case. The acting is quite good, most of the dialogue is in Spanish and it's a
decent history lesson for those who don't know what happened, at both the low
level on the streets as well as in international politics, where the pressure
to extradite to the U.S. -- where it was automatically assumed that suspects
would get a real trial rather than the corrupted/bought-off-and-bribed
Colombian court system. I've only watched about half, but what I've seen so
far is pretty good. I can feel my colloquial Spanish getting better already
-- Hijo de puta!
Kill the Messenger (2014) -- "7/10"
Jeremy Renner plays the tragic reporter Gary Webb, who cracked the CIA
involvement both in Iran-Contra and in selling drugs in the U.S., primarily
in black neighborhoods and primarily crack cocaine. Renner plays quite well
and Webb's story would turn out to be almost 100% true, notwithstanding
protestations by the standard speakers for power. CIA reports and
investigations have corroborated nearly everything. He committed suicide in
the end, after years of harassment and hounding by the press. He wasn't
exactly an easy guy to live with, but he wasn't wrong. Recommended.
Man of the Year (2006) -- "6/10"
Robin Williams is a comedian president-elect of the United States. Louis
Black is his chief of staff; Chistopher Walken is his manager. Laura Linney
is a highly placed employee of the election-machine manufacturer that
produced every machine for the most recent election -- and which swung the
election for Robin Williams. It's kind of standard fare, with a decent amount
of critique of the American political and electoral system, as given voice by
the hyperkinetic Williams.
Grudge Match (2013) -- "6/10"
Stallone and De Niro are former light-heavyweight champions that come back in
their sixties for a grudge match. Stallone is coached by Alan Arkin, who is
fantastic; De Niro is coached by his son, played by John Bernthal, who's
quite good. The lady that started the feud is played by Kim Basinger. De
Niro's not bad, but he plays the same asshole he always plays, which isn't
exactly a shout-out to his acting ability. Stallone plays the same nice guy
he always plays but seemed to me to be the better actor. Not recommended, but
entertaining.
Bad Neighbours (2014) -- "7/10"
Better than expected. Rose Byrne is hilarious: "Milk me!" Seth Rogan is
pretty good, Dave Franco is also good. Byrne and Rogan are a very good
couple. Zac Ephron and Franco are also a very good couple. This is actually a
much better movie than expected, on the strength of the actors. The screaming
match between Ephron and Franco was fantastic. And Rose Byrne is really good.
Dave Franco is definitely the better at this whole acting thing than his
chronically stoned-looking brother, James. Recommended?
Gone Girl (2014) -- "7/10"
Though this movie was pretty well-done, Kath and I watched it after we'd both
read the book (which was very well-written, by the way), so a lot of suspense
was gone during the film. Affleck did a decent job, and Rosamund Pike was
very good. The film stayed pretty true to the plot of book, which I will do
my best not to spoil here. It's a very entertaining thriller with a couple of
twists, though the twists came out better in the book than in the film.
Recommended.
Jurassic World (2015) -- "6/10"
This is a pretty decent entry in the series, with Chris Pratt lending his
bonhomie to make it better. Everyone else in the movie is pretty forgettable
except maybe Vincent D'Onofrio as the bad guy from NGen. But Bryce Dallas
Howard, who I'd never heard of before, was pretty bad, at least for the first
half of the movie. The dinosaurs are lovely and the dino fights are pretty
well-staged. Recommended if you just want a decent action movie.
John Mulaney: The Comeback Kid (2015) -- "8/10"
I'd last seen Mulaney in a special years ago and, while it was good, this one
is much better. His material was tight, his delivery great, moving between
different styles -- straight one-liners, stories, surrealist, callbacks. It
was really nice to see him having grown and gotten better. Recommended.
Anthony Jeselnik: My Thoughts and Prayers (2015) -- "7/10"
I haven't watched a one-liner or straight set-up comic in a long time, maybe
since Mitch Hedberg. Jeselnik is pretty good at this. The first two-thirds of
the show is these kind of jokes, some with longer setups, some with a lot of
foreshadowing. Many are clever, but few are hilarious. The final third of the
show is more modern and has the best material. He was good enough to make me
want to check out his TV show, The Jeselnik Offensive. Recommended.
Doom (2005) -- "5/10"
This movie has a terrible rating, but is actually quite true to the original
game, capturing the feel quite well. Karl Urban, Rosamund Pike and Dwayne
Johnson lend it some gravitas, as far as that goes. The effects are pretty
well-done, including the makeup for all of the mutations for the various
scientists and soldiers. The final run where Urban moves to first-person mode
is very reminiscent of the game, including the giblets flying everywhere. The
final stand-off between the Rock and Urban is better than expected.
Recommended for anyone who played the game.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014) -- "6/10"
This penultimate entry in the 4-part trilogy was too drawn-out and obviously
milking everything it could from what has become a story with a solitary
note. The war between the Capital and the Districts is a classic class war --
and the echoes with our own society are obvious -- to me, at least. I just
wonder how many of the people who watch this movie and cheer Katniss on are
also aware that they spend the rest of their lives cheering on the real-life
version of the Capital? Anyway, Philip Seymour Hoffman played out one of his
last roles and Jennifer Lawrence is good, as usual. The script just doesn't
offer them very much material and you can feel it stretching to leave some
material for the next installment. A pity, because so much more could have
been done with these themes with a bit more bravery. Not recommended ...
unless you, like me, just need to see everything in the series. Or if you
need to see Jennifer Lawrence being cool and sad.
The Million Pound Note (1954) -- "6/10"
Gregory Peck plays an American down on his luck in England. He is taken in by
two eccentric millionaires, who give him a million-pound note to see how far
he gets in London. The story is by Mark Twain. The concept may be familiar to
those who've seen Trading Places, which has a similar premise, placing Eddie
Murphy in nearly the same situation.
Alien3 (1992) -- "8/10"
This movie is 23 years old and the production values are still extremely
good. The effects -- especially the sets -- hold up extremely well. As far as
the plot goes, it's pretty easy to see where Doom got its inspiration. This
movie looks so good, though. The machines and the alien blend together in a
baroque, technological amalgam, with ducts, pipes, readouts, valves, bundles
of cables, partially covered in water, calcite and spiderwebs. Giants
circular portals which look like airlocks, hexagonal hallways and long
brick-lined hallways -- all of this was built -- no CGI to speak of in 1992.
The only thing that's a bit dated is the Alien itself, when it's fully
visible. The plot is decent enough, with Ripley's ship crash-landing on a
planet populated only by a small band of former
prisoners-turned-Biblical-zealots. They discover that the beast has hitched a
ride along not only in the ship but also in Ripley. It almost doesn't matter,
though, because the environment plays the starring role here. Recommended.
R.I.P.D. (2013) -- "5/10"
This is an action movie about the undead in the same way Men In Black was
about aliens. Ryan Reynolds plays the Will-Smith role while Jeff Bridges
takes Tommy Lee Jones's place. Some of the undead look kind of interesting.
Kevin Bacon is in this as his typically nasty self, playing both Reynolds's
partner and also the undead ringleader trying to bring about Armageddon. Mary
Louise Parker has her moments as the chief of the undead police; Stephanie
Szostak is the incredibly bland, boring and nearly shockingly under-fed
mourning wife of the recently undead Reynolds. Bridges plays Roy, a
Wyatt-Earp--like marshall who's been in the PD for centuries. They thwart
Bacon's horrific plan and the duo end up liking each other. The end. Or is
it? Probably it is, because this movie didn't make enough money for the
studio to build on the world they build in this first one. Recommended for
fans of Reynolds and/or Bridges.
Furious 7 (2015) -- "7/10"
Paul Walker's last ride looks a lot like several other of Paul Walker's
rides, but I guess you don't mess with a formula. The cast fits well
together, with the exception of Jordana Brewster, who's been hollow and
weak
in all of the other movies, as well. Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez
were
phoning it in worse than the other movies. Ronda Rousey was not needed in
this film. However, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, , Jason Statham, The Rock,
Nathalie Emmanuel (Missandei from Game of Thrones) and, of course, Walker
all
do a good job with what has become nearly its own genre.
The best scenes are really the ones where they're driving; the fisticuffs
are
OK, but too drawn-out and waaaay too over-the-top. They're not
superheroes,
but nothing seems to hurt them. Crowbar to the head? Not even a mark. I'm
prepared to suspend disbelief for one thing per movie. In these movies,
it's
cars. The indestructability of the characters constantly lifts me out of
the
moment.
Seriously, though, there are some sweet action set-pieces here, although
some
of those go beyond what would be needed as well. At 02:20, I thought it
was a
bit long. Enjoy, if this is your thing. Despite its well-choreographed but
finally frustrating fight scenes, it gets an extra point because most of
the
cast is endearing.
Fantastic Four (2015) -- "6/10"
Better than I expected, although also quite a bit slower than expected as
well. It's a science-buff movie that tells the story of how Reed Richards and
Benjamin Grimm started working on a inter-dimensional teleporter in the fifth
grade. They finally completed a successful teleportation with return journey
by the time they left high school. Victor von Doom was performing very
similar research for the Baxter Foundation, but had not yet been successful.
When Richards joins the team, along with Sue and Johnny Storm, they succeed
in making a much larger version that can carry people to another dimension.
The story is considerably different than the original origin story, but holds
together quite well. With a lot of drunken courage, they take the first
journey themselves rather than letting NASA do it and it ends poorly, with
each of them getting their powers in the ensuing debacle and von Doom
disappearing entirely. Forty-five minutes in and we finally see them with
their powers -- Johnny Storm is really well-done. Victor von Doom after he
gets back is also decent, but not as cool as the Doom from the comics.
Super Troopers (2001) -- "5/10"
This movie is a comedy/farce about the Vermont State Police. It has its
moments -- testing the bulletproof cup at the firing range -- but it started
very slowly and picked up speed only in the last third. Brian Cox as the
chief is great. Jay Chandrasekhar was also pretty good. Overall a bumpy ride,
but it ended up OK. It would be fine to add to a rotation of movies you watch
when you're drunk and/or overtired, but definitely with friends.
Super (2011) -- "6/10"
To continue in the vein of movies that start with the word "Super", this one
is about a regular guy -- kind of a loser -- whose wife leaves him for his
drug dealer. He turns himself into a superhero because, well, because he's
depressed? What recommends this film is the cast, which stars Rainn Wilson as
the schlub (Dwight Schrute from The Office), Kevin Bacon as the dealer, Liv
Tyler as the unfaithful wife, Ellen Page as the new friend, André Royo as a
friend (Bubbles from The Wire). Michael Rooker (very good as Yondu, the
bounty hunter ship-captain in Guardians of the Galaxy), Linda Cardellini
(Freaks and Geeks), Nathan Fillion (captain in Firefly) and many more
recognizable faces fill out the cast. This movie gets a good deal darker,
with real violence and a bizarre scene where 90-pound Ellen Page rapes giant
Schrute. But she's all-around nuts bordering on amoral. Then shit gets
horribly real for Bolt Girl. Plus rabbits. Weird flick. Quirky, I guess?
Jupiter Ascending (2015) -- "7/10"
This movie got a much worse rap than it earned. This is at least as good as
Guardians of the Galaxy. Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum are decent; Sean Bean
survives a whole movie and Eddie Redmayne is deliciously evil. The story
isn't half-bad and the special effects are absolutely spectacular and
absolutely rock-solid. The story and feel kind of reminded me a bit of the
Dune movies (especially Lynch's version), mostly due to Redmayne's character.
I enjoyed it more than I expected and it's worth seeing, if only for the
fully rendered and pitch-perfect CGI world they envision. The refinery on
Jupiter puts anything in Revenge of the Sith to absolute shame for realism.
Iliza Shlesinger: Freezing Hot (2015) -- "7/10"
She put on a decent set about the usual topics. The middle 60% was the best,
so don't get discouraged about the beginning. She's just warming up. Some
bits fall a bit flat, but others are really good. Not sure where she was
headed with that bit about the Satan as a girlfriend, but she followed up
with something a bit better to end the show. You can't watch this with your
parents or non-cool co-workers 'cause of some amusing but potentially
cringe-inducing pantomime. Would watch again.
Jen Kirkman: I'm Gonna Die Alone (And I Feel Fine) (2015) -- "8/10"
I liked Jen Kirkman better than Iliza Schlesinger, although I have no idea
why either one of them feels the need to wear those ridiculous high-heels
on-stage. Kirkman's routine was very solid from start to finish with no real
lulls or mis-steps. The best bits were about dating a 20-year-old drummer at
37, about being single around married people, about being married (and
divorced) and about other people's kids and the insufferability of modern-day
parents in general. Basically the whole thing was pretty good and you can
definitely watch with family, if they're not too squeamish about regular
adult talk about genitals with cursing. So, basically, as long as they're
cool. There's no potentially offputting pantomime as in Schlesinger's show.
Recommended.
Shaolin Soccer (2001) -- "6/10"
This is a super-campy effects-laden movie about a fallen group of Shaolin
monks who form a soccer team and excel with their amazing and zany Shaolin
powers. This movies is absolutely as insane as it sounds but if you've
seen
any of the director Stephen Chow's other movies, this shouldn't come as a
big
surprise.
The plot is the same as for every other sports movie ever made. The team
is
terrible until they believe in themselves (find their Kung Fu in this
case),
then they kick unbelievable amounts of ass, until they meet the evil team
in
the finals. They're down and nearly out by half-time, including their
heretofore impenetrable Bruce-Lee lookalike goalkeeper (he actually shows
up
in the yellow suit from Game of Death).
It has it's moments and it's quite goofy and funny and feels more like
live-action anime, but gets a lot of tropes of the genre right, mixing the
melodrama of Chinese movies with over-the-top but good effects as well as
a
lot of the gags associated with movies like Airplane. Don't get me wrong,
if
you're not ready for how goofy this movie is, you'll turn it off nearly
immediately, but some of the actors -- especially the star, Stephen Chow
--
are quite charismatic. You don't want to miss the power of Iron Leg's
final
kick. Just carnage. You can guess the end.
Oki's Movie (2010) -- "6/10"
This is a Korean film about a movie director/cinema professor. It's a simple
movie, mostly dialogue-driven, but there are some nice subtleties. For
example, when Oki meets the photographer (his future wife, it turns out)
in
the park along the river, she enters the frame with her back turned to us.
She stays that way nearly throughout the scene, turning to profile only
once
or twice and only briefly, at that. The director did this a few more
times.
This was a difficult movie to follow because it jumped around in time over
about five years (I think) and the narrator kept changing and the pieces
were
out of order. The final segment of four was interleaved with two very
similar
visits to the same park, with different lovers, one year apart. I saw it
in
Korean with English subtitles so there was a lot of culture and language
to
bridge for me, and I don't think I quite made it. I'm not sorry I saw it,
but
I don't think I got as much out of it as the creators put into it.
The Day He Arrives (2011) -- "7/10"
I followed up Oki's Movie with this movie by the same director. This one is
again heavily dialogue-driven, with the same somewhat awkward
conversational
style between relatively innocuous characters. It is again winter in
Seoul,
this time filmed in black and white. This movie was made in 2011, but
depicts
a world in which a mostly not-famous film director meets some young fans
in
what looks like a much-older restaurant -- the black and white helps, of
course, to make it look like it happened in the 60s, but the young guys
don't
even mention StarCraft once, which is odd.
This movie is easier to follow: the young guys mimic their idol, the
director
and he, in his drunkenness, flips out at them. As in Oki's movie,
drunkenness
plays a large role. As does stalking, because the director next heads to
the
apartment of an old flame. As in Oki's movie, there are recurring themes
--
there are multiple segments, the group ends up at the same bar at the end
of
several of these, the group (regardless of composition) drinks a lot.
Again,
I might be missing something, but this feels like the South Korean version
of
a Mumblecore/Millenial movie about film students and actors and petty
human
foibles. Or maybe it's a Korean Woody Allen movie.
But despite that, it grew on me: the people are concerned with sadness and
insecurity and love, but in a less superficial and perhaps more
philosophical
way than in the movie I watched next (Side Effects, reviewed below). Also
I'm
starting to get used to the director/screenwriter's zooming in for effect
and
his use of repetition of tropes and entire scenes with different dialogue.
The repetition layers "what if?" scenarios and plays out the same handful
of
scenes again and again -- hinted at only once or twice that they even (or
least "he") even notice. I'm sure I still missed a lot (the cultural and
language barriers I mentioned in my review of Oki's Movie above), but it
was
more interesting than I expected it to be from the first 1/2 hour. Some
themes even recurred from Oki's Movie (like him meeting a photographer and
not liking to have his picture taken). Recommended.
Side Effects (2013) -- "6/10"
Rooney Mara plays the young wife of Channing Tatum, an executive/trader who
went to prison for four years for insider trading. She's depressed, even
after he gets out, and tries to commit suicide. Jude Law is her new
psychiatrist; a stunning Catherine Zeta Jones is her former psychiatrist.
I
also saw David Costabile (Gale from Breaking Bad).
Everyone is beautiful and rich and depressed and addicted to quick fixes
for
becoming happy. It's ostensibly a thriller but there were really no twists
or
turns to the plot -- or at least none that you couldn't see coming a mile
away. The actors played well, but the script was kind of boring, maybe
because I didn't end up caring about any of the people at all, especially
once these mostly stupid people started inelegantly examining the ideas of
consciousness, responsibility, etc. but they get stuck on their own raging
egos and making sure that they themselves are in the clear.
Law plays quite well, as usual. It was also a bit long for the material
that
they had, lingering over details that were obvious in the first few
seconds.
Perhaps the contrast to The Day He Arrives was too great, because while I
wouldn't rave about that film, at least it didn't feel overly slick and
designed-by-committee like this one. The final twist is decent, but a bit
predictable and under-acted. Not recommended.
The Yellow Sea (2010) -- "8/10"
This is the story of a down-on-his-luck cab-driver from China, whose wife has
left him after he gave up all of their savings for her travel visa to
Korea.
He is left behind and drowns his sorrows in Mah-Jongg debt. Out of
nowhere, a
man, Myun, approaches him and offers to buy off his debt if he'll travel
to
South Korea to assassinate a man for him. He crosses the eponymous sea in
a
boat with other illegal immigrants. While in Korea, he not only scopes his
target, but also looks for his wife.
This is a well-crafted movie in a thoroughly modern style. It's
interesting
to see the themes offered by well-made movies from other cultures. Here we
learn that the theme of immigration -- and illegal immigration -- is
universal. There are always those desperate enough to make the trip. There
is
always gambling and drinking and infidelity and violence. Gu-nam is also
told
to wear a hat because his hair marks him as a foreigner, which is strange
because they keep calling him Joseonjok, which is apparently what they
call
Koreans who live in China. I was wondering how he was able to speak Korean
(not that I'm great at detecting the difference between the Asian
languages).
This movie is so modern that it overuses the shaky-cam, going especially
nuts
and visually incomprehensible in the chase sequence in the middle of the
film. The chase scene comes about because the "hit" goes wrong six ways to
Sunday. It's typically divided, in that the first half is much slower and
builds a curiosity about the simplicity of the story, which the second
half
destroys with revelations about undercurrents that you'd only guessed at
in
the first half. Here the movie is what I would call standard action plot:
sad-sack gets involved in something much bigger than the crime he'd
intended;
cops and criminals shake down immigrant elements. He digs deep and becomes
a
Jason-Bourne--level fighting machine.
The only difference is that the cops are much more reluctant to use their
guns, if they even have them. The criminals also generally don't have guns
--
instead their knives and hatchets are far more brutal. They make guns look
like the sissy's way out. The lack of guns changes the whole tenor of the
movie -- the contrast to American movies where guns are popping off
everywhere is stark. It changes how the story is told, and I like it
better
without guns.
The main gangster boss, Myun, is a relentless force of nature. Gu-nam is
no
slouch, either, especially for a cab driver. It's nice to watch a movie
that
wants to be good without worrying about a sequel: the ending is
Shakespearean
and Gu-nam keeps his promise.
The violence is visceral; the brutality and fiery destruction unvarnished.
The plot was more standard than Old Boy but it reminded me a bit of that,
which is a good thing. A bit long and not for the faint of heart, but
recommended.
Gozu (2003) -- "5/10"
This is a very bizarre and surrealistic Yakuza thriller about a young Yakuza
who's instructed to drive his mentor to the site of said mentor's
assassination. When the mentor appears to have died en route, the young
Yakuza is even more surprised to discover that the corpse has disappeared
from the convertible where he left him while he ate lunch in an utterly
surreal café. He calls his boss to inform him, but the boss is quite busy
with other tasks and misses the point entirely.
The focus on bizarre characters and the disjointed screenplay remind me a
bit
of early Lynch, but the overarching vision is hard to pinpoint. [1] I'm
only
about 1/4 of the way through and the poor guy's been handed off from a
phantom-of-the-opera type guide through the underworld to a hotel
proprietress who's quite forward and armed with her own bizarre
peccadilloes.
And the weirdness doesn't stop: the dumb, bald guy is a fake medium, the
hotel owner has an unreal fetish with her own breast milk, which she is
mysteriously able to continue producing, despite her age.
Then the eponymous Gozu (literally "cow's head") shows up and licks our
poor
hero's face all over while he's peering into the bedroom where the hotel
proprietress is being milked by her purported medium. Now we're in a
factory/laundromat where people's skins are hanging like cleaned coats.
What.
The. Hell. And now his "brother" is back, but as a woman (more Lynchian
notes, now with body-changes). This paves the way for the next level in
their
relationship -- although first he has to overcome that (A) the girl is his
former mentor and (B) her anatomy is haunted. They persevere, though in
what
starts off as a touching scene, but ends badly -- which I predicted -- but
there's no way you could predict how it actually ends. Well, maybe David
Lynch could. Or David Cronenberg.
Disjointed and odd and hard to understand. I give it an extra star for
effort
and because there's got to be something I'm missing, but I cannot
recommend
it and watching it once was enough.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] As with the Korean films, I fear that the cultural and language barriers
make it impossible to extract as much nuance from the film as someone born
to Japanese cinema and Japan would. This is always the case, but the more
esoteric the film, the more goes missing. It's like I have friends in
Switzerland who just love Archer, but they're enjoying it on several fewer
levels than I do, just because they're missing too much information to catch
all of the multi-layered references.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=31882015-12-06T12:23:11+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of over 900 ratings
publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my notes
for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to...
]]>
of over 900 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.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) -- "7/10"
This is the slasher film that redefined what it meant to be a slasher film.
It invented tropes out of whole cloth that would endure for decades. The
movie was not only better than expected, but also darker in unexpected
ways.
It's hard to imagine this movie being made today because no-one could
relate
to it: there are young people traveling in a van through a hot Texas
desert,
with no air-conditioning and probably no deodorant and no smart-phones and
no
complaining. It was dirty and dusty and no showers in sight and still no
complaining. One of the couples scrambled to what the guy remembered as a
swimming hole and they find only a dried-out arroyo -- where they both lie
down anyway, she in a halter-top and he without a shirt. This is not
remarkable in and of itself, but it bespeaks a willingness to put up with
discomfort that has all but disappeared -- if not in real-life people
themselves, then at least in the depictions of themselves they consume. We
like shows about a pretty, rich people now.
Although Leatherface is the most famous killer from the film, he's not
even
the weirdest of the family that the young crew discovers. Hell, the guy in
the wheelchair is a good guy and he's pretty creepy. Recommended.
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt S01 (2015) -- "8/10"
Ellie Kemper is Kimmy Schmidt, a refreshing and adorable and bubbly and
effusive and funny young lady who survived over a decade as a prisoner of a
cult leader in a bomb shelter. She moves directly to New York and makes a
strange set of friends and has all sorts of amusing adventures. The writing
is quite good and makes good use of the stark time-delay that she
experienced, having missed her entire youth and being essentially stuck in
the year in which she was removed from society. Recommended.
Vehicle 19 (2013) -- "6/10"
A movie starring Paul Walker that takes place entirely in a minivan in
Johannesburg, South Africa. It seems that Paul Walker could not star in a
movie without driving nor could he be in a movie without a techno/dubstep
soundtrack. That's not a dig. It's actually a pretty fun movie, buoyed mostly
by his nuanced acting, even when the script got a bit wooden (another thing
he's used to from his Fast and Furious forays). Much of the action footage
reminded me of GTA missions, with helicopters and fleets of cop cars. The
finale was incredibly tense and sucked me in. I kind of liked it.
Recommended.
Trainspotting (1996) -- "8/10"
The classic heroin movie from Scotland has brilliant and
for-the-untrained-to-Scottish-ear-nearly-incomprehensible dialogue, a great
story that meanders nowhere and a near-constant voiceover by Ewan McGregor,
who is ethereally thin and wasted-looking. Some of the drug imagery -- quite
well-filmed by Danny Boyle -- would be recycled by Darren Aronofsky in
Requiem for a Dream. While McGregor as Renton is the central character,
Robert Carlyle as Begbie is also a fantastic character -- although he's going
to make you really uncomfortable, even if you like violence in your movies.
The story is a shifting set of loosely interrelated incidents: going off of
heroin, losing opiate suppositories in a toilet, a baby dying of neglect,
Renton sleeping with an underage girl, his stealing his best friend's sex
tape, leading to his best friend's losing his girlfriend, leading said friend
to heroin himself, just as Renton goes through his second withdrawal to get
clean. The movie is about not only addiction to heroin, but the "addiction"
one has to one's origins -- not being able to get away from your mates at
home. Recommended.
Grace and Frankie S01 (2015) -- "6/10"
This is an uneven dramedy about four elderly people, played by Martin Sheen,
Jane Fonda, Sam Waterston and Lily Tomlin. The two men are partners in a very
successful law firm and they turn out to have been partners in much more, as
they come out to their wives and announce their plans to spend the rest of
their lives together. It was amusing enough, although the eponymous duo,
played by Fonda and Tomlin are the ones who really shine. Not recommended.
Daredevil S01 (2015) -- "9/10"
A promising interpretation of the blind lawyer turned hero. Production values
are sky-high, as is the dialogue and casting. It's beautifully shot and does
a good job of making Daredevil's powers feel plausible. Even the fight scenes
are well-choreographed and framed, which is nearly a miracle for television.
Even in movies, we've movies away from fights actually hurting anyone -- with
most movies opting for a cartoonish/super-hero take where no-one is every
winded or bruised or damaged. Not so in Daredevil. The writing, acting and
presentation held up over the whole season. It was an eminently satisfying
portrayal of a complex superhero whose powers are very useful but aren't on
the cartoonish level of Spider-man or the Avengers. Looking forward to season
two. Vincent D'Onofrio is excellent. Highly recommended.
Psycho (1960) -- "8/10"
This is the classic Hitchcock film about Norman Bates, who lives alone
somewhere in the depths of California, off the main drag of a highway that no
longer passes by his eponymous Motel. He lives there with his mother and when
he does get a guest and she happens to be pretty? Well, then things go a bit
sideways. I don't want to give away too much, so suffice it to say that it's
a very well-made and worthwhile film. As with so many films of this era, the
scenes often feel like theater pieces, with a lot of dialogue and the actors
contained to a small area. Anthony Perkins is excellent, striking a balance
between effusive and jittery and helpful and pensive and brooding and
calculating. Recommended.
Side by Side (2012) -- "8/10"
This is a documentary about the rise of digital film in the late 20th
century. There are interviews with tons of actors, cinematographers,
directors and other technical people who provide fascinating insights into
how digital ended up taking over film-making. A bit on the long side, but
they shot in digital and didn't have to care about wasting film, I guess. :-)
Recommended.
Snatch (2000) -- "8/10"
This is so clearly a Guy Ritchie movie. It shoots out of the gate with a
fantastic, frenetic stylistic-stamp credits sequence. Characters are
introduced and the plot expands in several directions at once. Jason Statham
as Turkish is fantastic, bested only by Brad Pitt as Mickey, the Pikey
bare-knuckle boxer. There's a great soundtrack that would make its stylistic
way into the Ocean's movies. Watched it in English without subtitles and was
not shaken by Mickey. Scarlet Cushions and Periwinkle Blue indeed. Don't ever
bet with a Pikey. The cast is through and through great and the dialogue,
pacing and direction suit me. I liked it much better than Lock, Stock and Two
Smoking Barrels. It's the story of a two-bit fight promoter and mob boss
named Brick Top who is a "horrible cunt" (in his own words). He goes a step
too far and things spiral out of control. Pitt's performance as Mickey is
absolutely mythic. Highly recommended.
We're the Millers (2013) -- "6/10"
A better-than-expected movie starting Jason Sudeikis as a small-time drug
dealer, Jennifer Aniston as a stripper who end up posing as a fake family.
Sudeikis's neighbor's son (played by Will Poulter), an unassuming and
wide-eyed nerd, and a street-wise homeless teen-aged girl (Emma Roberts)
round out the family. When Sudeikis's stash is stolen, he is sent by his boss
(Ed Helms) to Mexico to pick up a giant shipment. Sudeikis enlists the others
to help make a more convincing family. Hijinks and romance and all of the
usual stuff ensue, but the actors and a decent script save this film from the
expected ignominy. Amusing enough, but not going to recommend it for anything
other than filler.
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) -- "7/10"
I thought this outing was much better than the first one, but it's still
almost too much in one film. Larger than life like the comic books, I guess.
This film's cinematography had the most comic-like settings, with giants
foregrounds spilling over complex and detailed backgrounds. The characters
were decent, but quite one-dimensional -- just like the comic books. The Hulk
is a bit more complex, but Iron Man is a Cartesian plane. Even Captain
America was better. Maybe that's because Chris Evans does a good job with
that character. Ultron wasn't as evil as I'd expected. He's portrayed far
worse in the comics. The action is fast and furious and over-the-top and
relentless but it's good enough for what it is. Recommended, although there
are far better superhero movies and TV series out there (see Daredevil review
above).
Lincoln (2012) -- "7/10"
It's a wonder that this movie had the success that it did: it's wonderfully
made, wonderfully acted and has wonderful dialogue, but it's quite long and
quite slow and quite complex and concerns itself largely with realpolitik of
the end of the slavery and the civil war. It was much better than expected
and Daniel Day Lewis really knocked it out of the park, as did most of the
supporting cast (Sally Field as Mary Todd was also notable). The writing was
superb. I think I might have learned some stuff I didn't know, but I also
don't know how much historical liberty was taken. I just enjoyed watching
Lewis and Sally Field chew the hell out of the scenery, as is their wont.
Recommended, but brace yourself for a 2.5-hour slow-paced historical drama.
Rush (2013) -- "7/10"
Daniel Brühl as Nicki Lauda and Chris Hemsworth as James Hunt tell the tale
of the famous, 1970s-era Formula-1 rivalry. Lauda was the defending champion
and Hunt his challenger. They'd known each other since they'd started racing
and had a complicated relationship as grudging colleagues and arch-rivals.
The story was excellent as was the acting from the two top actors. The racing
footage was decent, but at-times quite confused and it went on far too long.
Hemsworth's face adorns the movie poster, but this seemed much more like the
Nicki Lauda story -- and what a champion he was. He would come back from his
devastating crash to almost win the world championship that year, but have it
snatched away by Hunt in the last race. That lasted one year, though and as
Hunt was retiring, Lauda was collecting another championship. Recommended.
Hamlet (2000) -- "7/10"
Ethan Hawke plays a New York-based Hamlet, with his uncle Claudius played by
Kyle McLachlan, Bill Murray as Polonius, Liev Schreiber as Laertes, Steve
Zahn as Rosenkrantz and Julia Stiles as Ophelia. The dialogue is true to the
original with very few alterations. I have never actually read Hamlet all the
way through or seen a real enactment, but I recognized so much of the
dialogue. It's really quite good, just lovely language, like "If thou dost
marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry. Be thou as chaste as ice,
as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go."
uttered by Hamlet when he's betrayed by Ophelia. The setup is a bit long, but
the payoff is fantastic. Pretty well-acted and relatively well-adapted to
21st-century New York City. Ethan Hawke is positively malevolent as Hamlet;
Bill Murray is not very believable, but McLachlan, Stiles and Schreiber are
very good, striking a nice balance between the English and American accents.
Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986) -- "7/10"
This is one of Hayao Miyazaki's first full-length animated features. The
style -- and some of the characters -- would remain unchanged throughout
several of his subsequent features. I saw it in dubbed English -- which makes
the movie feel cheesier than it actually is. That said, there is a very
Popeye-style slugfest within the first ten minutes, so, yeah, it's kinda
cheesy. The story -- unusually for a Japanese anime -- does not involve the
unstoppable power of nature. Instead, there is a magic crystal that opens the
way to the ancient city of Laputa, which totally has flying robots that kick
a major amount of ass. Spoiler alert: there are also no WWII/atom-bomb
undertones. Spoiler alert: they find the city in the sky. Spoke too soon:
Laputa's all about the glory of nature, but it's guarded by a cadre of
powerful robots who've continued to guard the city over millenia. The
dialogue is kind of bad, but the story is quite good -- which would basically
become Miyazaki's calling card. The city of Laputa, with its mix of
technology and nature and ancient secrets and puzzle blocks feels very much
like a video game, and it actually predated but must have inspired Myst, at
least to some degree. And Pazu climbs around under the city of Laputa like
Luke under Cloud City. Christ, the throne room looks almost a bit like the
final room in the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. In the
end, they had to destroy the city in order to save it, after it had been
preserved for so long, to no clear purpose. And there's the Japanese morality
tale: man destroys everything he touches.
Kevin Hart: Seriously Funny (2010) -- "6/10"
I really like Kevin Hart and I've seen another special of his that I really
liked, but this one didn't really do it for me. I liked about half of it but
can't remember which bits, which doesn't say much for it. Not recommended.
Chelsea Peretti: One of the Greats (2014) -- "7/10"
I only knew Chelsea Peretti from her role as Gina in Brooklyn Nine-Nine and
was unaware that she's also a stand-up comedienne. This special was very
funny and she has a good on-stage persona, not too different from Gina's.
Recommended.
G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013) -- "4/10"
Channing Tatum is briefly in this movie, but wisely chose to die early. The
Rock is working hard to prove us all wrong when we say that he couldn't make
a career choice more terrible than the Tooth Fairy. Hoo-ah! Bruce Willis is
in this, too, and more terrible than in the Expendables. Hoo-ah! Jonathan
Price is also in this and even more insidious as Zartan than he is as the
Sparrow in Game of Thrones. Hoo-ah! There is so much weapons-porn in this
movie: there's a whole house in which every available surface opens to reveal
hidden weapons. It's Bruce Willis's house, surprise, surprise. Most of the
effects are kinda bad -- even the green-screened martial-arts sequences are
too long -- but blowing up London with a high-energy spike looked pretty
good. Yeah, London's gone. Cobra Commander is pretty sassy: his whole getup
reminds me a bit of Megamind. Why did they have to replace "Go Joe!" with
"Hoo-ah!" Would the U.S. Marines not cough up their sponsorship any other
way? 'Cause this movie is practically an advertisement for the U.S. Marines.
I cannot in any way recommend this movie, but it passed the time during a
couple of workouts. I grew up with this stuff, though, so nostalgia was
definitely a factor.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=31292015-11-29T22:14:22+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
of over 900 ratings
publicly available. I've included the individual ratings with my notes
for each movie.
Citizenfour (2014) -- "8/10"
This is Laura
...
]]>
of over 900 ratings publicly
available. I've included the individual ratings with my notes for each movie.
Citizenfour (2014) -- "8/10"
This is Laura Poitras's Academy Award-winning documentary about the events
surrounding Edward Snowden's revelations and release of the documentation
that proves that the United States and its NSA has been and continues to run
an utterly illegal, wide-reaching, intrusive and positively Orwellian
domestic and international surveillance program that goes far beyond
metadata-collection -- bad enough, on its own -- and smashes every notion of
the U.S. as having the moral high ground, in any way, whatsoever. Snowden
comes off as earnest and extremely capable. He knows what he's talking about
technologically and seems to be quite adept, as well as on ethically good
footing. A tour de force that every world citizen should see, especially
those convinced that Snowden is some sort of traitor or war criminal. Quite
the contrary, it is his opponents who can be more appropriately accused with
that epithet. Highly recommended.
Red Army (2014) -- "8/10"
This is a documentary about the first hockey players from the former Soviet
Union who played in the NHL. This was especially poignant for me, as I was a
huge Detroit Redwings fan at the time and absolutely loved their amazingly
skilled Russians, Konstantinov, Federov, Larionov, Kozlov and Fetisov.
Fetisov pretty much stars in this movie and does very well. The history is
fascinating, especially of how he bucked the former Soviet-and-now-Russian
regime to assert his rights. The footage of their training regimen in Russia
was pretty awesome. Totally old-school. Lots of shifting plates around.
Recommended for fans of the game or the era.
Merchants of Doubt (2014) -- "6/10"
This is a decent documentary about the lobbyists who peddle themselves as
experts and who are given plenty of TV time to indoctrinate Americans with
their propaganda. It was interesting enough, but didn't really tell me
anything new. The production values are decent, but things get a little too
melodramatic and overwrought.
Weird Science (1985) -- "6/10"
Dated, but hilariously so. Anthony Michael Hall could star in anything and be
funny. Robert Downey Jr. was briefly seen. The computer effects were probably
hot-shit at the time, but are laughable now. I had totally forgotten that
they tried to conjure a second girl, failed at it, conjured a missile
instead, then a gang of mutants showed up, straight out of Mad Max and
Anthony Michael Hall still carried it. Definitely not recommended unless
you're trapped somewhere or significantly inebriated and with friends.
Seven Psychopaths (2012) -- "6/10"
Better than expected, but likely because of the interesting cast, which
interacted well together, despite an at-times hackneyed and obvious plot. Sam
Rockwell, Colin Farrell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken and Kevin
Corrigan all contributed and had some good screen chemistry. Unfortunately,
the female characters were two-dimensional to non-existent -- and, no, it
doesn't help if you make the plot a self-referential one about the writing of
a screenplay called "Seven Psychopaths (à la Adaptation, which was,
incidentally, a much, much better movie) in which the screenwriter (Farrell)
is chastised by Walken for writing female characters poorly. Not only does it
not help, it doesn't excuse it. This is basically a vehicle for posing
Rockwell's lunacy against Harrelson's -- and Rockwell wins, hands down, as
Harrelson is saddled with an actually-quite endearing devotion to his little,
cross-eyed Shih Tzu and acts far saner. Still and all, some OK dialogue but
nothing to write home about.
Serenity (2005) -- "6/10"
This is the feature-length movie based on the cult-hit TV show, Firefly. It
centers on a female super-weapon who is activated to cause
hand-to-hand-combat destruction via Japanese-anime commercials. I have never
seen a single episode of Firefly, but if the movie is anything to go by, it
seems to be a pseudo-sci-fi-cum-swashbuckler show which pulls geeks in with
its appeal to their inner hero and keeps them rooted in their seats by making
them believe that Summer Glau will move in with them. I feel like I'm missing
something by never having seen the show at all; about halfway through the
movie, they're all just speaking in Zen koans and trite phrases (e.g. "I'm a
leaf on the wind"...what the hell does that mean?) Lots of space-stuff and
shoot-'em-ups as well as some Star Trek-style rhapsodizing about the
inevitability of human destructiveness, culminating in a heroic, nearly
but-not-quite self-sacrificing noble act by the underdogs to put right
everything that was made wrong by the powers-that-be. They drop from a naval
space battle to wielding shotguns and "moving some crates back here for
cover" -- to fight off zombies, of all things. Some of the effects were
noticeably done with models rather than CGI (i.e. the physics/motion was
indicative of much lighter objects). It actually picked up toward the end,
though it's still hard to recommend, but I bet fans of the original show
loved it.
Iron Man 3 (2013) -- "6/10"
Tony Stark becomes increasingly hackneyed and unsavory, though he still has
his moments. They're separated by swathes of needless arrogance -- the
character is not allowed to learn from his mistakes. He's not allowed to
grow. But that mirrors his path in the comic books as well, where he has no
problems anymore and is the smartest, richest, best-looking and most
technologically advanced human on the planet. Bo-ring. Kingsley was mildly
interesting as the Mandarin, Guy Pearce was pretty OK as Aldrich Killian but
chewed the scenery considerably, Rebecca Hall was somehow bereft of
personality, and Gwyneth Paltrow was typically awful as was Jon Favreau. Paul
Bettany as Jarvis's voice was welcome. So what was wrong with this movie?
Well, for starters, it's belittling to women, right? A drunk Tony Stark
nearly solved a problem that poor Rebecca Hall couldn't solve in the next 20
years (though she apparently figured out how to not age a day) and neither
could Guy Pearce. When Guy Pearce visits Gwyneth Paltrow, CEO of Stark
Enterprises, he talks to her like she's mentally handicapped, and she
responds accordingly. It's pathetic -- total mansplaining. Too much tech, not
enough pathos, not enough heart, waaay too much sewing things up neatly at
the end. Not recommended.
The Station Agent (2003) -- "8/10"
A lovely, small film about Finn, played by Peter Dinklage, who works in a
model-train store, repairing and preparing custom items. The owner of the
shop dies, selling the store in the estate, but leaving Finn a piece of
property in New Jersey with a small train station on it. There he meets Joe,
played by Bobby Cannavale and Olivia, played by Patricia Clarkson. It's a
movie about mood and not very much about much of anything, but it's wonderful
and entertaining and soothing without being schmaltz. Lovely performances
from everyone. Highly recommended.
Fast and Furious 6 (2013) -- "7/10"
The same crew is back for this sixth installment of the unbelievably
long-lived and by-now very formulaic film series. That's not to say that
that's a bad thing -- the vehicle sequences are great and some of the
interplay is quite good. The addition of Dwayne Johnson is very welcome. Gina
Carano would also have been OK, if they hadn't made her nearly indestructible
while at the same time utterly incapable of taking out Michelle Rodriguez. In
fact, they all seem indestructible, in the same way that super-heroes
generally are. No cuts, scratches, bruises, almost no blood, nothing. No
matter how hard the blow, how high the fall, how durable the projectile or
weapon. Vin Diesel gets shot and he's back in a day. Gina Carano's hit by a
car and she's back in thirty seconds. Vin Diesel flies 20 meters and lands on
a windshield with a woman on top of him and he's not even winded. Another
relatively tiny henchman pulls a woman -- granted, a small woman -- out of a
car with one arm. Shaw has an entire tank dropped on him and he's doing just
fine a few hours later. The list goes on. There was no need for this level of
fisticuff artificiality -- we had more than enough fun with cars that defy
the laws of physics. All-in-all a relatively entertaining film, but the
mano-a-mano fights were ludicrous and mostly unnecessary, as was a ton of the
very stilted dialogue.
Stone (2010) -- "6/10"
Edward Norton is Stone, a man in prison for having killed his parents in a
fire. Milla Jovovich is his wife, Lucetta, who's determined to get him out on
parole. Robert De Niro is Jack, the parole-board officer who will help decide
whether Stone will be granted a favorable hearing. Lucetta does her best to
convince Jack to decide for Stone, though at the same time she undermines
Stone's verisimilitude, whereas he does the same to Lucetta, each accusing
the other of doing the same. They seem to be running a long con on Jack, but
he's also a very conflicted, ostensibly God-fearing, but most definitely
prisoner's-wife--fucking man. Jack eventually recommends parole for Stone,
mostly out of fear that Lucetta and Stone would turn him in for his
dalliance. Somewhat predictable and a bit overwrought, though strong
performances from the main cast. Not really recommended, but an extra star
for Ed Norton and Milla Jovovich.
Wet Hot American Summer (2001) -- "5/10"
The only redeeming thing about this movie is the cast, but it's basically a
Meatballs for millennials . That doesn't mean that Meatballs was better just
because it had Bill Murray, it just means that his presence made us want to
watch that essentially terrible movie just as much as Paul Rudd's does for
the next generation. Molly Shannon, Joe Lo Truglio (Boyle from Brooklyn 99),
Amy Poehler, Bradley Cooper and David Hyde Pierce round out the cast. The
movie is set on the last day of camp and all sorts of improbable hijinks take
place, along with some truly bad acting that pummels its way through an
occasionally stilted script that is reminiscent of SNL skits that will. not.
end. I was not impressed; not recommended.
Warm Bodies (2013) -- "7/10"
Nicholas Hoult is very good as a self-aware zombie in a zombie movie told
from the perspective of the zombie. Rob Corddry is his "friend" -- in quotes
because they are only able to connect in a very oblique way until they start
to come out of their zombification. There are truly evil undead creatures
that must be vanquished, which drags this film to a more prosaic level for
its conclusion. It's quite satisfying for a zombie movie.
Wyatt Cenac: Brooklyn (2014) -- "6/10"
Cenac does a pretty self-indulgent Brooklyn-ish set for people in Brooklyn
from a hipster pub in Brooklyn. If you're into that culture -- and deep --
you might like this. I like Wyatt for his writing and his wit but a bunch of
his stories and jokes kind of fell flat. I like him much better as an actor
or writer than as a stand-up comedian. Not recommended.
Trainwreck (2015) -- "8/10"
Amy Schumer hits the big screen with the character she's perfected in her
standup and television series: a party girl with brains. While she does drink
too much and does have too little self-respect, she's self-aware and at least
knows what she's getting out of it. She promotes the idea that hooking up
isn't just advantageous for the guy while admitting that it's not so great
for anyone, actually. She meets Bill Hader's sport physician, who's best
buddies with Lebron James, who's actually quite funny and natural in this
movie. It's quite a good movie and can't really be shoved in the rom-com
drawer: for one, it's a good deal filthier and funnier, which isn't
surprising if you've seen Schumer's other work. If I have a quibble, it's
that it's a bit too long. Phrasing. Recommended.
I Spy (2002) -- "3/10"
Owen Wilson is a spy and Eddie Murphy is a world-champion boxer who teams up
with him to protect a super-jet. Famke Janssen is another spy. This movie has
its moments, but mostly it's just utterly terrible. It sounded like it might
be fun, but not recommended.
Aziz Ansari Live in Madison Square Garden (2014) -- "6/10"
The first two segments were much more political than I expected from Aziz and
quite good. The much longer segment on the single life and modern
communication started off quite strong, but petered out a bit. I'm watching
his new show Master of None now and that's much better. Recommended for the
first half.
Safety Not Guaranteed (2012) -- "7/10"
This is a low-key movie about a seemingly off-kilter guy who seeks a
time-traveling companion using a classified ad. A lonely and dissatisfied
reporter answers the ad and is slowly pulled into his off-kilter though
intriguing world in which he fancies himself a spy of sorts, a renaissance
man who can shoot, run, jump, climb, fight, make bombs and is an astute
engineer capable of making anything he needs. He is, in many way, all of
these things, but the story he tells of himself -- both to himself and to her
-- is embellished and polished, though not enough to make it totally untrue.
Mark Duplass plays his role well as does Aubrey Plaza as the reporter. I
enjoyed this movie and its satisfying conclusion much more than I'd expected
to. The writer Derek Connolly won the Sundance aware that year, while the
director Colin Trevorrow would go on to direct Jurassic World as well as the
upcoming Star Wars movie. Recommended.
The Iron Giant (1999) -- "8/10"
This is a relatively well-made story of a giant space robot that lands on
Earth and befriends a young boy. The robot is actually a gigantic killing
machine but only uses its awesome weaponry for good. The military attacks it
because it thinks it's a commie plot, but the robot sacrifices itself to save
the village where the boy lives from the ensuing US military missile attack.
The animation is very nice and the story is decent, although more mawkish
than I'd thought it would be, considering all of the rave reviews it has.
Recommended.
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https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=31242015-04-05T16:57:20+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
This is a David Cronenberg movie about very special people who can
control other people's minds with their own. The movie is very much
of its time -- it is basically an action-adventure story of
conflicting mind-control factions. The pacing is quite slow by
today's
...
]]>
This is a David Cronenberg movie about very special people who can control
other people's minds with their own. The movie is very much of its time -- it
is basically an action-adventure story of conflicting mind-control factions.
The pacing is quite slow by today's standards, but the story is pretty
interesting -- even if the parts involving computers are laughable. Also,
about a quarter of the movie is taken up with people squinting and sweating
at each other, trying to blow up each other's minds. That all makes it sound
terrible, but it's better than that. It's worth it if you need to round out
your Cronenberg collection, but hard to recommend for non-fans.
Melancholia (2011) -- "5/10"
This is a Lars von Trier movie about a family of not-very-nice people who
have enough money to have a wedding on a gigantic estate in what looks
like a
castle. Kirsten Dunst is marrying Alexander Skarsgård. Stellan
Skarsgård,
Charlotte Rampling, John Hurt, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Keifer Sutherland
are
all part of the wedding party. The bride is suffering from ... melancholy.
The movie starts at the end, with the mysterious planet crashing into
Earth
-- did I forget to mention the approaching planet?
Everyone moves in super-slow motion to a very sad soundtrack. It doesn't
pick
up a tremendous amount of speed after that. We get to watch a bunch of
rich
people being dysfunctional and decadent and broken. It's somewhat like
Gatsby
in this way, I suppose, but it's still not much fun to watch. The
orchestral
soundtrack is ludicrously loud compared to the majority of the whispered
dialogue. Perhaps this is also supposed to be jarringly suggestive of
melancholia. Dunno. The timeline is disjoint and the night seems to last
forever; it's hard to tell what time it is throughout the movie. It is
utterly impossible to determine whether the bride is clinically depressed
or
just a callous, shallow, stupid person. Banging someone other than your
husband, especially on your wedding night and most especially when that
someone is someone that you just met, is not a very endearing
characteristic.
If nothing else, the film paints a good picture of what it must be like to
have an objectively wonderful world irrevocably sullied by the miasma of
depression. Sweet God, is this a boring, depressing movie, though. Mission
accomplished, Mr. Von Trier. The colors are flat (as a depressive views
the
world), voices are dim, whispered, lifeless, the planet moves closer,
suffusing everything with a flat, shadowless light, as on a cloudy day,
though the sky is clear. It's sweet relief when the planets collide and
the
ensuing catastrophe sweeps everything away.
Gainesburg is quite strong; Dunst isn't, really, despite all protestations
to
the contrary (she won Best Actress at the Cannes film festival). I feel
the
reaction is more to two things: (1) she set the bar so ridiculously low in
many other movies she's been in and (2) she wasn't shy about showing her
admittedly spectacular breasts in this movie. That alone is probably
enough
to send male reviewers into a tizzy. There's something almost but not
quite
Kubrickian about this movie, especially towards the end, with Gainesburg's
desperation echoing that of Wendy in The Shining. Not really recommended,
though.
Hugo (2011) -- "7/10"
This Martin Scorsese film is an homage to cinematic and directorial legend
George Méliès, played by Ben Kingsley. The movie takes place in a train
station, in which Hugo lives and kind-of earns his livelihood as the keeper
of the clocks. He has inherited his passion and talent for clockworks from
his now-dead father, played by Jude Law. The boy Hugo (played by Asa
Butterfield, of Ender's Game) was less annoying than anticipated, as was
Chloë Grace Moretz as his friend. Sacha Baron Cohen has a more-or-less
straightforward role as the train-station guard, obsessed with imprisoning
orphans. The boy, his father, an automaton and Méliès himself all
contribute to tell the story of his (Méliès) impact on cinema, as well as
that of his wife. Interesting and well-made, with learning about Méliès
himself being the most interesting part. Recommended.
Under the Skin (2013) -- "8/10"
Here we go again: this is a movie starring Scarlett Johannson in which she
gets well and truly naked, even going so far as to pose so in front of a
mirror. And yet, it is exactly the people who would not watch a movie because
of this who will enjoy her performance much more than those who would watch
for more prurient reasons. She's very good, but because she's an actress, not
because she's naked. There is little dialogue -- and what there is, is in a
nearly incomprehensible Scottish brogue -- much surrealism and almost no
explanation or closure. It's not a long movie and you really have to pay
attention, but it's a good film and it's probably an important one to see, if
you're at all interested in trying something new. The soundtrack is ethereal
and the characters are named "The Female", "The Bad Man", "The Dead Woman"
and so on. As well, the long shadow of Kubrick peeks forth in this Brian
Glaser film. This is the summary on IMDb: "A female drives a van through the
roads and streets of Scotland seducing lonely men." That nails the plot, in
its entirety, as far as the action goes. It is utterly insufficient as far as
the unspoken and hinted-at goes. Recommended.
Watchmen (2009) -- "9/10"
I'd watched this film before, but not since I'd finished reading the comics
last year. The plot of the film follows the books almost slavishly. In that,
it does well, even though the comics have a lot of exposition, which makes
for a slower movie than we've perhaps come to expect from so-called
"superhero" movies. The books are about the history of a troupe of
self-nominated heroes from the 1930s up until the present-day of the late
1980s, when the world is threatened by nuclear conflict. In that, author Alan
Moore crafted a world that only slightly diverged from reality. That is, it
was close enough to be familiar and not require any explanation, but
divergent enough to be fascinating. As in the comics, part-time narrator and
uncompromising literalist Rorschach stole the show, unable to understand how
the solution to the world's greatest problem could be rooted in an even
bigger lie. The film was a bit longer than necessary, but well-worth the
ride. Recommended.
Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) -- "6/10"
Werner Herzog felt the overarching need to honor the original Nosferatu
(1922) by remaking the film, almost scene for scene, but starring Klaus
Kinski in the eponymous role. The pacing was quite slow and some scenes
muddier or more confused, but it was still decent. If you're a Herzog or
Kinski fan (guilty as charged), you'll need to add this one to your
repertoire. Saw it in the original German.
Ong Bak 2 (2008) -- "2/10"
I don't even know what this movie is about. It's a lot of decent production
effects to show people fighting in a jungle with knives and some primitive
martial arts. Lots of sweatiness, tribes, blood and elephants. I didn't even
finish watching it. Couldn't get into it. It shows that, now that pretty much
anyone can make a pretty, technically solid movie, the pendulum might just
swing back to making movies about things again. Saw it in dubbed German, but
it didn't matter. Not recommended at all -- just terrible.
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011) -- "6/10"
Despite IMDb's insistence on filing his name below all of the British fossils
also in the movie, Dev Patel (of Slumdog Millionaire fame) is the star. He is
the exuberant, loquacious and fast-talking proprietor of the eponymous hotel.
There is also a bunch of elderly British flotsam in the form of Judy Dench,
Maggie Smith, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, Ronald Pickup and Penelope Wilton.
Dench plays the same role she always plays. Smith is a good deal more racist
than Mrs. Mcgonagle, and Wilkinson is gay. Nighy is the only one with any
real appeal, honestly. It's an relatively watchable flick about finding
yourself in your golden years, maybe? Or how Britain ejects its unneeded
generations to find themselves in a similarly abandoned India? But they're
all worth something and it's not too late to find love? I'm not sure. The
film had its moments, but it's hard for me to recommend.
Love is Strange (2014) -- "6/10"
I expected much more of this film about a long-time New Yorker couple played
by John Lithgow and Alfred Molina. They are finally allowed to marry in their
state of New York, but soon after doing so, Molina is fired by the Catholic
school where he teaches music (fun fact: the head priest was played by Hollis
of Northern Exposure). Lithgow's painting hardly suffices to support them, so
they are forced to depend on their families until they can get back on their
feet. The families are self-absorbed in a very New York kind of way and they
all seem to be largely and inexplicably unhappy. The couple is split up, at
least temporarily, no-one seems to be having any fun and the mood is either
defeatist, drunken, melancholy or a mèlange of all three. Fun fact #2:
Lithgow's nephew is played by Ed, considerably aged from his Northern
Exposure days. Marisa Tomei plays well, but her character is small-minded,
horizonless, overprotective, selfish and apparently deeply unhappy. The movie
was kind of a downer, when I expected something a bit more celebratory. Not
recommended.
The China Syndrome (1979) -- "7/10"
This is a movie starring Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, Wilford Brimley and Michael
Douglas about the dangers of a meltdown at a nuclear power plant in
California. The issues today are essentially unchanged from the late 70s:
corruption and incompetence in construction, corruption in maintenance,
corners cut everywhere, the inexorability of a business that generates
billions for its investors. Fonda and Douglas play a reporter and her
cameraman, respectively, while Lemmon plays the plant director with a
conscience and Brimley plays the company man. All in all, better than
expected and much better than Earthquake, another disaster movie from around
the same era. Recommended.
Horrible Bosses 2 (2014) -- "5/10"
At nearly two hours, this sequel clearly lacked an editor with some steel in
his or her spine. The lead trio is funny and has decent chemistry, but
they're not funny enough to carry the nearly endless repetition of the same
joke: the Three Stooges-like stupidity of the three of them. Bateman is
marginally smarter than the other two (like Mo Howard before him), but he
also refuses to abandon them. Chris Pine plays the son of the real horrible
boss, played by Christoph Waltz. Kevin Spacey and Jennifer Aniston reprise
their roles from the original, as does Jamie Foxx as Motherfucker Jones.
Foxx's parts stand out, so it's not surprising so many of his scenes were
included (the car chase had its moments). Aniston is possibly even filthier
than in the original, but -- just like everyone else -- is clearly trying too
hard. Or the script was trying too hard. Cut it down by half an hour and it
might be a much funnier movie. Not recommended.
Un Prophète (2009) -- "8/10"
This is a French movie about a young. timid man named Malik El Djebena, sent
to jail for an unspecified crime of violence against a police officer. He
is
of Arab descent but grew up in France. He has no friends inside or
outside,
neither among the Arabs nor among the French. The Corsicans approach him
and
give him an ultimatum: to kill a new Arab prisoner or suffer the
consequences. He manages it -- his first murder -- and is taken up in
their
ranks, though not really accepted.
He slowly gains power, learning Corsican, making himself more useful,
trying
to make a space for himself in the criminal world. He is more-or-less
honest
compared to the others around him, but not an honorable man. He evinces
fealty to one good friend he made in prison, with whom he goes into
business
while still inside.
As the deals grow, so does the threat of violence, culminating in a very
risky but finally successful mob hit on a rival gang that he and his
by-now
cancer-ridden friend execute all on their own. The Corsicans, the French,
the
Africans and the Arabs are all scheming against each other, with the
Prophet
pushing out a place for himself. When he returns late from a furlough, he
is
put in solitary for 40 days -- during this time, he avoids being in
gen-pop
for the repercussions of the hit he'd executed the day before.
Luciano's (the Corsican don) power continues to wane as first his
supporters
are moved to another prison and then many are killed in the aftermath of
Djebena's hit. Finally, he is on the bench where he used to hold court,
accompanied only by two other prisoners who don't even know that this is
"his" bench. The Prophet is taken in by the Arabs, who were helped
considerably by the bloodletting among the Corsicans and Italians.
Luciano's
time is past and the Prophet is in ascendancy.
In the end, he is released and he leaves the prison gates with his good
friend's wife and child, who he'd promised to look after and support (his
friend had since died of cancer). As they walk from the prison, he is
followed by several carloads of his supporters. So it ends up being a
feel-good story of triumph for Djebena.
It's a well-made, well-acted and well-written film about the criminal
world
of France, quite long at 155 minutes, but nonetheless worth it. The French
Godfather, perhaps. Saw it in the original Arabic, French and Corsican
with
English subtitles. recommended.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=30992015-03-02T23:11:24+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
This is a decent horror-film concept wrapped in a movie with terrible
dialogue and acting. The main character is a nearly impossibly thin
and tall young lady of indeterminate age. She and her friends are
uniformly vapid, dim, anorexic, entitled, rich (look at their
...
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This is a decent horror-film concept wrapped in a movie with terrible
dialogue and acting. The main character is a nearly impossibly thin and tall
young lady of indeterminate age. She and her friends are uniformly vapid,
dim, anorexic, entitled, rich (look at their houses!) and bitchy. It nearly
goes without saying that no-one is funny. I watched half an hour, during
which my attention drifted. I was brought back by the movie breaking the
"show don't tell" rule in such an egregious manner that it ruined any
remaining suspense. In two minutes, it went from a from a horror film with
some decent scares to a kill-the-monster film. At this point, Gary Oldman
shows up. What kind of an awful bet did Gary Oldman lose to end up in this
movie? He has a wonderfully rounded American Jewish accent but when he really
starts shouting, it's back to the British one. Ohmigod there's Idris Elba!
Same bet? The movie's pretty creepy in places and I know I've seen that
creepy kid's face before. Mercifully short. Not even close to being
recommended.
Shopgirl (2005) -- "6/10"
This is a film adaptation of the novella by Steven Martin, who also stars as
the older man interested in shop-girl Claire Danes. Jason Schwartzman is a
younger man interested in the shop-girl as well, an artist like her and
perpetually out of money and manners. The book was OK and the movie is quite
slow. Schwartzman goes on a journey of discovery with a very accommodating
band and comes back a much more acceptable date for Danes, whose allure for
both Schwartzman is unknown: she's pretty enough but so entirely without
personality. Is that the point? That men don't care? I read the book but
can't remember. Not recommended.
The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) -- "6/10"
Tom Wilkinson stars as a priest on trial for having aided in the manslaughter
of a young woman who he tried to help exorcise. I'd seen the movie before and
wasn't really impressed the second time around. It had its moments --
switching from the courtroom to the exorcism was reasonably well-done but the
dickishness of everyone in court was a bit grating. Not recommended.
America's Sweethearts (2001) -- "5/10"
A good cast embroiled in a fair-to-middling script about a Hollywood couple
-- Catherine Zeta-Jones and Jon Cusack -- whose lives implode just as they're
on a press junket to support their latest film, which is probably the last
chance for both of their careers. Zeta-Jones runs roughshod over her sister,
played by Julia Roberts, who is also her personal assistant. Billy Crystal,
Seth Green and Stanley Tucci are agents. Hank Azaria is Zeta-Jones's lover.
Christopher Walken is their director. It never really took off; not
recommended.
The Raid 2 (2014) -- "8/10"
This sequel weighs in at 2 hours and 45 minutes, which is unbelievably long
for an action movie. This is most likely because, while the film has a
tremendous amount of action in the form of lovingly choreographed fights as
well as car chases, I would not be surprised to learn that nearly everyone
involved with the movie thinks of it as a crime drama. There is a real plot
and it's quite interesting, involving police corruption, intranecine conflict
as well as gang rivalry between the Indonesians and the Japanese. There are
some wonderful set pieces: the fight in the bathroom stall, the fight in the
prison yard, the fight inside the car, the fight in the kitchen (more staged,
but still lovely), the fight in the garage, just pretty much anytime the
compact Rama tears a swath through scores of enemies. Saw it in Indonesian
with English subtitles. Violent as hell. Recommended.
Hitman (2007) -- "6/10"
This is a movie based on the video game, so brace yourself. It's not that
bad, actually. Timothy Oliphant plays Agent 47 well enough, performing his
highly orchestrated assassinations with aplomb. He is ruthless, efficient,
unstoppable. Dougray Scott plays the Interpol agent who's been on his trail
for years, always several steps behind. 47 only starts to scramble when a
target refuses to stay dead -- that is, the target is replaced by a
doppelganger and 47's bosses refuse payment. Naturally, 47 must find out what
happened and who is betraying him -- and possibly a bit more about the
shadowy organization of which he is part. Shit gets blown up. People fight.
Meh. No recommendation either way.
Treme -- Seasons 1 & 2 (2010) -- "10/10"
The first two seasons of David Simon's latest series, this time capturing the
life, times and politics of New Orleans immediately after Hurricane Katrina.
Dozens of characters criss-cross in different ways, there is lots of
wonderful music and lots of sobering insight into how badly the people of New
Orleans were abandoned and deliberately used by the powers-that-be. Several
actors from The Wire reappear here. Melissa Leo, John Goodman and Steve Zahn
are main characters. Simon takes up the threads explored in When the Levees
Broke and Trouble the Water but with more dramatic depth and music. Highly
recommended.
Broken City (2013) -- "6/10"
Mark Wahlberg stars as a cop with a terrible past but who's trying to do the
right thing. Russell Crowe is the horribly crooked mayor of New York. Pretty
much a run-of-the-mill cop/revenge/corruption drama with retribution for all
the right guys in the end. It was OK, but hard to recommend.
The Green Hornet (2011) -- "4/10"
Seth Rogen stars as a pampered rich kid whose dad leaves him everything,
including his newspaper and Rogen not only rediscovers how to grab life by
the reins but also jump-starts the newspaper by providing fake news in the
form a crimefighter that he himself plays -- although he doesn't really do
much of anything except kinda punch one guy per fight while his trusty
"sidekick" Kato does all of the heavy-lifting in a pseudo-analytical,
plan-the-whole-fight-out-in-your-mind style pioneered by the Sherlock Homes
reboots. It was pretty terrible. Not recommended.
Jennifer's Body (2009) -- "4/10"
Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried play two friends in high school. Fox is the
cheerleader; Seyfried the bookworm. Fox goes off with some satanic band
members after a show and is sacrificed to the devil in a ritual they hope
will gain them fame and fortune. It kind of works -- in that they become
successful -- but Fox doesn't die, becoming the walking undead instead. She's
a nearly unstoppable killing machine that needs to feed every so often. After
she's fed, she goes back to school and her friends. Until it's time to feed
again. J.K. Simmons and Amy Sedaris have small roles. Seyfried and Fox kiss
passionately at one point, if you find that might redeem an otherwise
terrible movie. Not recommended.
Kinky Boots (2005) -- "7/10"
This is the mostly true story of a men's-shoe factory in England that saved
itself by switching clientèle: it started designing and making boots for men
who like to wear women's boots. It made tall, shiny, red-leather boots
reinforced to hold a man's weight. Joel Edgerton is good as the desperate and
enterprising factory owner but Chiwetel Ejiofor steals the show as Lola, the
drag queen who shows him the way to life, love and self-respect. Entertaining
enough. Recommended.
The Battle of Algiers (1966) -- "8/10"
This is an Italian-Algerian movie about the French-colonial occupation of
Algeria and Algiers in particular. The movie covers the time when Muslims
were killed indiscriminately and fought back with their own attacks. The
French respond by closing the city down, segregating the animals into
their
own ghettos. This predictably does not work and the retaliatory attacks
not
only continue but intensify.
This movie should be required viewing for anyone in any military anywhere,
but particularly for those in the U.S. and Israeli armies, which are
chock-full of people and planners that think that this time it will be
different. It is never different. Subjugated people are desperate people,
Desperate people eventually have nothing left to lose. And then they are
ready to take down anyone one they can.
Even the French treatment of prisoners is reflected in many other
instances
throughout subsequent history: they torture them, they kill them,
prisoners
die in custody, allegedly by their own hand. The Colonel denies that they
"torture". Would that Americans knew that they were copying a French
playbook. The Colonel is quite analytical and open about what his country
is
doing. He notes that it can end immediately if France is willing to leave
Algeria.
The movie is well-made and fascinating, if boring for anyone who's a
student
of history, where the same stupid and horrible and immoral mistakes are
repeated over and over, causing everyone but the perpetrators to suffer.
The
planners never suffer and they never learn. Algerians die. Low-level
police
officers die. And the fearless colonial leaders continue to turn the
screws
as if exactly that strategy hadn't failed every single other time it's
been
used since the dawn of time.
"French Newspaper reporter: Isn't it cowardly to use your women's baskets to
carry bombs, which have taken so many innocent lives?
"Monsieur Ben M'hidi: And you, isn't it even more cowardly to attack
defenseless villages with napalm bombs that kill thousands more?
Obviously,
planes would make things easier for us. Give us your bombers, sir, and we
will give you our baskets."
Saw it in French and Arabic with English subtitles. Recommended.
Jacob's Ladder (1990) -- "8/10"
Tim Robbins stars as a postman broken by his experience in Vietnam. For the
duration of the movie, it's unclear whether he is still with his wife and
children and hallucinating a life with a postal coworker (Elizabeth Peña)
or
the other way around. He seems to be hallucinating a world full of
faceless
demons -- a mania shared by several of his platoon members. Danny Aiello
plays his chiropractor, whose angelic aspect is noted and emphasized,
again
blurring the line between reality and fantasy.
It is unclear what is real and what is imagined; what is clear is that
Jacob's life has been unutterably ruined by his experience in Vietnam.
Every
day is torture.
Spoiler alert: The first explanation is that his experience turns out to
have
been that his platoon had been exposed to a particularly powerful
psychosis-
and paranoia-inducing chemical code-named Jacob's Ladder that made them
turn
on each other. It's so hard to tell which parts are real, which are
imagined,
where he really lives, who's still alive: the confusion he feels is
reflected
ably in the story.
This is a strong anti-war movie and one of the earliest I've seen that
deals
with the paranoia and unbearable pain of PTSD. There is no happy ending,
there is no way out...but the inevitable. At the end? We find that the
whole
movie was the final few seconds' fevered imagining of Jacob Singer's dying
brain as he lay on a stretcher in a medivac tent in Vietnam. Recommended.
Shogun Assassin (1980) -- "3/10"
The cinematic style of this movie is very much live-action anime. Overacting
101. There are some nice touches, but they are relatively few and
far-between. For example, it's pretty neat how that one ninja had had every
extremity hacked off and he was still rolling himself to an exit. Nice touch.
Also cool was the scene where his boy was trussed up over a well. His captors
were threatening the boy with death if his father didn't give up. The boy
dropped his sandal into the well to let his father know that there was water
at the bottom and that he would survive the fall. Also very cool. That is
about it for the coolness of this movie. As advertised, the shogun
assassinates everything that moves, until he reaches the shogun's brother and
removes him from this mortal plane as well. The shogun is almost never in any
real trouble. Saw the dubbed version. Not recommended.
Melinda and Melinda (2004) -- "6/10"
Woody Allen's entry for 2004 is the uneven story of an unstable and drunken
woman who splashes back into some friends' lives. But the story is told in
two ways: one in which Melinda comes to tragedy and another where the story
is more comic. Radha Mitchell plays the at-times obnoxious and very
self-centered Melinda Robicheaux well and the supporting cast is good, but it
didn't capture my imagination. The dialogue was profuse and some it was quite
cleverly written, but maybe if I'd seen it in the original English rather
than dubbed German, I'd have liked it more. I wasn't confused and some was
delivered with quite a flourish, but Allen's prose probably lost something in
translation.
John Wick (2014) -- "8/10"
Keanu Reeves is quite good as a formerly unstoppable hitman of legendary
repute. The whole story and style of the film is reminiscent of a modern
Japanese samurai drama but with naturally western stylings. He loses his
wife, his newfound friend -- a beagle puppy, his dead wife's posthumous gift
-- is taken from him and circumstances convene to send him on a killing
spree. He inhabits a dark world but one with rules: there is honor among the
assassins. In the "Continental Hotel", there is a ceasefire, where the
killers gather and relax. Outside, all bets are off, but inside the hotel,
the killers can sleep in peace. Reeves has some typically wooden delivery,
but also some very good scenes. In the church, he's raving and convincing;
elsewhere, his stoic calm makes for a good warrior -- implacable and
unstoppable. Recommended.
Potiche (2010) -- "7/10"
This is a French film starring Catherine Deneuve in the titular role
(translated as "trophy wife"). She is the heiress to the Michonneau
umbrella
factory, which is run for her by her obnoxious husband, Monsieur Pujol.
The
year is 1977. The local communist/unionist, Babin, is played very well by
Gerard Depardieu, a return to his more thespian roots from such terrible
roles as Obelix or that Russian gangster from Babylon A.D..
Monsieur Pujol responds badly to the strike brought on by his
worker-unfriendly policies. He takes ill and someone must step up. But
who?
His son doesn't want it because he's more of an artist; his daughter
doesn't
want it because it sounds a lot like work. Plus she's a Randian nightmare
seemingly modeled on Marie Le Pen. So Madame Pujol-Michonneau steps up and
does quite a fantastic job, resolving the labor dispute and propelling the
factory to success and stability and profitability without firing a soul.
She gives both her daughter and son jobs. Her son flourishes in his role
as
designer, for reasons that are only hinted at rather than explicitly
stated.
Her daughter is much a caricature as her father and is nearly pure ego,
thinking only of how to best set up her own life, and to hell with anyone
else at the factory. Her husband is even more economically liberal than
her
and hatches a plan to send production to Tunisia, a plan of which her
father
heartily approves.
Long story short, the mother is ousted as president in a board meeting in
which her daughter unsurprisingly betrays her mother by siding with her
father's bid for president, a position he feels he owns. Instead, mama
goes
into politics and the film ends with her first victory.
Decent enough if a bit manipulative. I enjoyed it while watching it. Saw
it
in French with English subtitles.
Louis C.K.: Live at the Comedy Store (2015) -- "7/10"
Louis takes a while to get going: his first fifteen minutes of material are
less clever and more deliberately offensive/provocative without substance.
The rest of show was decent enough, but it's definitely not his best work.
Recommended for fans, of course.
In Bruges (2008) -- "9/10"
Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell star as a couple of guys, Ken and Ray, on
holiday in the city of Bruges. They are there to await their next
assignment
as hit-men. Their background story is revealed in fragments as they tour
the
city, Ken enjoying himself and Ray sulking throughout. This movie is a
master
class in show-don't-tell cinema. Spoilers ahead; do not read further if
you
want to enjoy this clever, well-written and well-filmed movie as I did,
not
knowing anything about it going in.
Their boss finally calls to inform Ken of his job: he's to kill Ray. He
agrees but then backs out, saves the younger killer -- who's suicidally
depressed about having shot a boy on his first job -- and sends him on his
way. Harry, the boss, played by Ralph Fiennes, is not pleased when Ken
calls
to inform him that he's let his contract go and invites him to "do [his]
worst".
The anger-management--challenged Harry hops on a plane to Bruges to take
care
of things himself. He meets Ken in a café in a plaza. They slowly drink
their beers -- this evidenced wonderfully by the sips Harry takes -- and
talk. The dialogue throughout is really nice. We see Harry wince slightly
as
he feels the connection to Ken, their long years of camaraderie, the
connection you get when in a foreign country among friends, but knowing
that
it won't end well for Ken.
There is a possible reprieve, but it is not to be. One must stand by one's
principles, as Harry says, and Ray had killed a young boy, even if by
accident. The scales must be balanced. Highly recommended.
Waking Life (2001) -- "9/10"
This is a rotoscoped film about one young man's journey through a lucid dream
-- or series of nested such -- written and directed by Richard Linklater. It
was about the nature of consciousness, ontology, epistemology, reality and
its relationship to the (often crude and objectively inaccurate) simulacrum
established by our senses as well as the role of science and how the waves of
modern physics lap against the cliffs of philosophy.
Things get fuzzy around the edges -- and get fuzzier the closer you look --
where ancient philosophers are echoed through time by Heisenberg and
Schrödinger. Some of the discussion reminded me of the struggle we make in
imposing alternate ways of interpreting what we think we know, as discussed
in "Formulating Science in Terms of Possible and Impossible Tasks"
,
which is about constructor theory and feels dense only because it makes us
think in the world in a way that has not yet become intuitive. Fascinating
stuff.
The young man wanders around in various states and levels of dreams,
listening to various people expound on these topics in quite exquisitely
written prose. Well worth watching again, I think. Lots of great "quotes"
, in particular the Alex Jones
one where he's driving in his car with megaphones, screaming at the top of
his lungs. A very convincing demagogue with the right words in his mouth.
"it's time to stand up and realize, that we should NOT allow ourselves to be
crammed into this rat maze. We should not SUBMIT to dehumanization. I
don't
know about you, but I'm concerned with what's happening in this world. I'm
concerned with the structure. I'm concerned with the systems of control.
Those that control my life, and those that seek to control it EVEN MORE! I
want FREEDOM! That's what I want, and that's what YOU should want! It's up
to
each and every one of us to turn loose of just some of the greed, the
hatred,
the envy, and yes, the insecurities, because that is the central mode of
control, make us feel pathetic, small, so we'll willingly give up our
sovereignty, our liberty, our destiny. We have GOT to realize we're being
conditioned on a mass scale. Start challenging this corporate slave state!
The 21st Century's gonna be a new century! Not the century of slavery, not
the century of lies and issues of no significance, of classism and
statism,
and all the rest of the modes of control... it's gonna be the age of
humankind, standing up for something PURE and something RIGHT! What a
bunch
of garbage, liberal, Democratic, conservative, Republican, it's all there
to
control you, two sides of the same coin! Two management teams, bidding for
control of the CEO job of Slavery Incorporated! The TRUTH is out there in
front of you, but they lay out this buffet of LIES! I'm SICK of it, and
I'M
NOT GONNA TAKE A BITE OUT OF IT! DO YA GOT ME? Resistance is NOT futile,
we're gonna win this thing, humankind is too good, WE'RE NOT A BUNCH OF
UNDERACHIEVERS, WE'RE GONNA STAND UP, AND WE'RE GONNA BE HUMAN BEINGS!
WE'RE
GONNA GET FIRED UP ABOUT THE REAL THINGS, THE THINGS THAT MATTER -
CREATIVITY, AND THE *DYNAMIC* *HUMAN* *SPIRIT* THAT REFUSES TO *SUBMIT*!"
And Speed Levitch's oration bordered all the while on the deep, then teetered
into nonsensical but was at all times deeply and enticingly poetic, "On
really romantic evenings of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion." or
"Life is a matter of a miracle that is collected over time by moments
flabbergasted to be in each others' presence. The world is an exam, to see if
we can rise into the direct experiences. Our eyesight is here as a test, to
see if we can see beyond it, matter is here as a test for our curiosity,
doubt is here as an exam for our vitality."
And a professor on existentialism:
"I'm afraid we're losing the real virtues of living life passionately in the
sense of taking responsibility for who you are, the ability to make
something
of yourself and feel good about life. Existentialism is often discussed as
if
it's, a philosophy of despair, but I think the truth is just the opposite.
Sartre, once interviewed, said he never really felt a day of despair in
his
life. One thing that comes out from reading these guys is not a sense of
anguish about life so much as, a real kind of exuberance, of feeling on
top
of it, it's like your life is yours to create. I've read the post
modernists
with some interest, even admiration, but when I read them I always have
this
awful nagging feeling that something absolutely essential is getting left
out. The more you talk about a person as a social construction or as a
confluence of forces or as fragmented or marginalized, what you do is you
open up a whole new world of excuses. And when Sartre talks about
responsibility, he's not talking about something abstract."
Louis Mackey: "What are these barriers that keep people from reaching
anywhere near their real potential? The answer to that can be found in
another question and that's this: Which is the most universal human
characteristic: fear, or laziness?"
Another man tells the story of a violent encounter and states that "[a] well
armed populace is the best defense against tyranny". I wholeheartedly agree,
but feel that being armed with knowledge is a far better and more useful
defense than the primitive weapons most proponents of the expression
understand it to be about. Guns are useless against the type of violence that
is exacted every day against us. You waste your energy preparing for a
physically violent encounter that never comes, when instead you lose
everything you thought you were defending because you're not even aware that
it's happening. This is what Žižek calls "the greater, the real, violence".
The segment with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, where he talks about how
dream-time often stretches out and how the brain supposedly survives the
death of the body by 8--12 minutes -- that part reminded me of the whole plot
of Jacob's Ladder (see above). The levels of dreams and insecurity of reality
echoed Inception but also almost everything that Philip K. Dick has ever
written. The pure philosophy movie Examined Life tackles many of the same
ideas, perhaps less artistically and with less flourish, but perhaps with
more substance and depth.
One lady discusses the advantage of childlike curiosity, the assimilation of
reality by a consciousness that has not had time to build its filters. An
interesting notion, this idea of unfiltered reality, but is a lack of
imparted qualia better or worse? Unfettered curiosity leads to gullibility
and leaves no place for the application of wisdom. Another discussion went
into the realm of accelerating evolution of consciousness and echoed Kurzweil
in a "The AI Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence"
.
[1] Highly recommended.
Dog Day Afternoon (1975) -- "6/10"
This is a languid, slow and eminently predictable -- excepting one detail --
bank-heist film, starring Al Pacino and directed by Sidney Lumet. It is
based
on a true story of a robbery on August 22nd in 1972 by a trio of utterly
unprepared fools, who are quickly whittled down to two as one of their
number
chickens out almost before the heist has begun. Because it's the 70s, they
just let him go.
Pacino is good as Sonny, making demands and playing to the crowd by
yelling
"Attica!" The cops are not particularly adept, although they make up
ineptitude with sheer numbers. The guys are really pretty stupid and the
FBI
quickly pegs the problem as Sonny's partner Sal, who's clearly more
unstable.
Sonny is boisterous -- and married to both a woman and a man -- but he's
not
suicidal. Sal is. At one point, Sonny claims that they were both in
Vietnam
-- and he has an Army pension coming to him -- but Sal's never been on a
plane, so the story is only half-true, at best.
Despite the high praise for it, I found it to be kind of slow and not
producing very much tension. The scenes of 70s New York were lots of fun
for
me, but probably aren't for everybody. Pacino's Sonny had more meat to him
than the usual criminal, but he was by far not a mastermind. He thought he
was much smarter than he really was. It was almost sad how naive he and
Sal
were; when the get their jet, he asks "is there going to be any food on
board?" A decent film; hard to recommend. Poignant ending.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] More thoughts on the linked articles are in this article: "How to think
about thinking about theories of thought"
.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=30982015-01-17T21:19:55+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
I just saw this. I’m still in pain. That was one of the funniest
things I’ve ever seen in my life.
Filmed in black and white. And the title is just perfect. He
doesn’t say the title, but you can hear him saying it.
Religion, racism,
...
]]>
I just saw this. I’m still in pain. That was one of the funniest things
I’ve ever seen in my life.
Filmed in black and white. And the title is just perfect. He doesn’t say
the title, but you can hear him saying it.
Religion, racism, adoption, helicopters, euthanasia, what else?
He hit 55 minutes and could have walked off on that joke. It was
brilliant.
Beautiful build-up. Perfect ending. Just drop the mic and walk off.
Not Bill.
He does 20 more minutes of material and just knocks it even further out of
the park with guns, relationships and unrealistic sex positions in movies.
Positively unreal. Surreal.
I listen to his podcast and he has some good material there, but sometimes
he’s a moron and phones it in. But holy crap can he just *hone* that
material to a goddamned knife-edge and squeeze an absolute diamond out of
all
of it.
Here's a taste, on God:
"I actually resent the fact that I'm going to get judged some day. Like if
that's true? That somebody's gonna judge me? It doesn't even make sense.
It's
like, dude, you made me. So, it's your fuckup. Let's not try to turn this
around on me. Jesus Christ. You gave me freedom of choice. You made
whores.
You made me suck at math. And you you don't think this thing's not gonna
go
off the rails?"
Killer Joe (2011) -- "7/10"
This is a quirky, contract-killer movie starring Emile Hirsch as a guy in
trouble and Matthew McConaughey as cop/killer-for-hire who's hired to get
him
out of that trouble. The plan is to kill Hirsch's mother in order to
collect
the insurance money. The movie starts off in a rainstorm with most of the
characters in their underwear. Well, Gina Gershon, the new Mom, isn't
wearing
underwear. But Thomas Haden Church, the Dad, is, even though it has some
holes in it.
Killer Joe requires money up-front, but insurance payments only show up
after
a death, so he suggests collateral, in the form of Emile's younger sister,
an
innocent he'd met the day before. It's uncertain how old she is, but the
girl
-- played by Juno Temple -- looks quite young, so it's quite a creepy
courting. Oh. Now we find out how old she is. The answer is not
encouraging.
Nor is it particularly believable, but we'll leave that. Overt sexuality
plays a pivotal role. Gina Gershon contributes considerably. Even the
cartoon
playing in a diner shows a cartoon dog bouncing up and down on a
motorcycle
while another pumps and pumps up a tire.
McConaughey, Haden Church and Gershon are very good together, although the
main, long scene is extremely uncomfortable. Killer Joe is absolutely off
the
rails. And he planned the whole scene with the chicken leg from the very
beginning of their last meeting. McConaughey's savagery is nearly
unbelievable. What the hell just happened? Recommended?
Bringing Out the Dead (1999) -- "8/10"
Martin Scorcese directs this ode to the nighttime world of driving ambulances
and saving lives in New York City. Nicholas Cage puts in a splendid
performance. And something very strange happens: John Goodman is his first
partner and he does his usual great job. However, what's strange is that Ving
Rhames as his next partner completely upstages John Goodman. It must have
been early days, I guess. That doesn't usually happen. Tom Sizemore plays the
same guy he always plays. Jonathan Coulton has a son called "Tom Cruise
Crazy" but it could have just as easily been called "Nick Cage Crazy" or
"Sizemore Crazy". I also saw Sonja Sohn and Michael Kenneth Williams, who
would go on to play Keema and Omar, respectively, in the The Wire. I also saw
Judy Reyes as a front-desk nurse, who would go on to play the same role in
Scrubs. Night and misery and sleeplessness and coffee and alcohol and drugs
and stress and misery smear into a surreal experience, highlighted by
Scorcese's strategic use of high dynamic range to create near-halos around
Cage and others. The Rolling Stones provide the majority of a good
soundtrack. A very good movie; recommended.
Transcendence (2014) -- "6/10"
This movie starts off quite slow and then slows down. The main character is
shot and dies in the first half-hour. Johnny Depp plays a brilliant
scientist, Will Caster and Rebecca Hall his nearly equally brilliant wife
Evelyn Caster. Paul Bettany is his best friend Max Waters and "third
smartest
person [Will] knows". Their research is into consciousness and digital
consciousness. After Will is shot with a radioactive bullet, they risk
uploading him into a computer. Morgan Freeman hangs around as another
scientist/voice-over guy. As with most science/tech movies, they really
say
stupid things. They'd just given up on saving her digital husband,
thinking
that the upload had failed when Evelyn says, before leaving, "wait, we
have
to wipe the drives". Why? Because you need an excuse to walk back to the
computer? And why does Will Caster slur and speak with hesitation when he
comes online? His processing power is gigantic and the artificial
personality
that he overwrote had no such problems.
Paul Bettany raises the question of whether it is Will. And here we have
yet
another movie where the woman has to be a hysterical idiot who's the
smartest
person in the world (Will's dead) but can't think straight about anything
serious because she's a frail woman who's in WUV. I'm fucking sick of it.
And
why does the digital Will choose a sickly picture of himself as his
avatar?
He could choose literally anything he wants and he portrays himself as the
gray-faced cancer patient who's just expired.
Kate Mara plays Bree, a one-named terrorist who's also quite
one-dimensional,
probably because she's a woman and couldn't handle more dimensions. She
and
her band of merry men are right in their fears, but they act like thugs,
beating the Christ out of Max and then demanding that he join up with
them.
More could have been done with this script, but they just hurry everything
in
order to make it an action movie. And the downfall of the world is due to
a
stupid woman's frailty in letting a digital copy of her husband loose. I'm
not buying it.
I'm also not buying the high-volume trading way of making money: the algos
haven't been making money for years. Just because Will is "in the machine"
doesn't mean he could suddenly make money in a dead market. It's also nice
to
see how Evelyn has zero qualms about having her super-powered husband make
a
shit-ton of money and turn them instantly rich. No moral questions, no
doubts. Ridiculous.
And of course the machine is better than everyone at everything. It's
fine,
but then isn't it super-far-fetched to imagine that they could "fool" it
with
a virus? Is this Independence Day all over again? And there is no
interesting
discussion of motive: what would the motive of the machine be? Does it
still
have the motives of Will? Does it care about humanity? Why is it helping
people? Why does it care? Because Will's still in there somewhere?
Unchanged?
A ridiculous, boring and unsatisfying answer.
Even the action is lazy. Will makes one of his minions chase down a truck.
The guys in the back of the truck wait for the guy chasing the truck to
catch
up to it and climb in before they even pull their guns. I'm insulted. Of
course they die.
In the end, he miraculously saves the planet despite humanity's stupidity.
I
feel like this movie could have been much better in other hands.
They Live! (1988) -- "8/10"
Rowdy Roddy Piper stars in this movie about an alien invasion that nobody
noticed. He's a drifter who moves to a new city and gets a job in
construction. He moves into a camp for day laborers and notices that a church
across the way seems to have foot traffic at odd hours of the night. It turns
out that it's the local headquarters of a rebel movement dedicated to
bringing about the downfall of an alien race that lives in our midst. They
have special sunglasses that let you see their propaganda for what it is and
let you identify which so-called humans are actually aliens in disguise. They
are disguised by a special ray broadcast from a powerful TV studio, Studio
54. Piper teams up with Keith David and together they try to kick some alien
ass. This movie serves as the origin of the expression "I'm here to chew
bubblegum and kick ass...and I'm all out of bubble gum." The rebel movement
is mostly wiped out but the two boys survive to attack the TV studio and try
to shut down the obfuscating ray so that everyone will see the aliens for
what they are. The first half is better than the second half but there are
interesting themes of control and obeisance to power that aren't necessarily
associated only with the aliens, but with power and the elite in general.
Recommended.
I Spit on Your Grave (1978) -- "4/10"
This is the story of a young girl who moves to a cabin on a lake for the
summer, in order to write a book. The local idiots take notice and harass
her, constantly buzzing her peaceful hammock or canoe with their droning,
annoying outboard-motor--equipped boat. They lasso her and drag her canoe
to
shore, then chase her through the woods. She is terrified. They are
idiots.
But they are strong idiots and they overpower her and rape her.
There're a lot of overtones of crazy, immoral hillbillies here, with a
harmonica instead of the banjo from Deliverance [1]. The scene is brutal
and
violent and seemed -- though this is hard to judge -- realistic. It makes
you
question whether we really are descended from apes rather than ascended.
Their savagery and persistence is terrifying; it's hard to figure out why
they hate her so much. But maybe that's the point. It's hard to imagine
watching this movie in a drive-in theater...on a date.
That's act one. Act two is her prolonged revenge-taking. There are really
long, long segments here in which nothing really happens. There isn't
really
even any tension built-up either. The mentally handicapped member -- ain't
there always one -- of the gang-rape quartet, who was supposed to have
killed
the victim instead becomes her first victim, bizarrely, by hanging. The
next
one she seduces into a bathtub at her house, makes sure all of his blood
is
in one place, then slices that place off. Two down; two to go. The next
one
she chops down with his own ax as he tries to swim to shore. And the last
she
toys with, driving past him multiple times before she kills him with his
own
outboard motor when he injudiciously grabs onto it for support. The
droning
of the boat motor is like a needle in the brain. Not recommended.
In the Mouth of Madness (1994) -- "7/10"
Sam Neill stars as an insurance investigator called by the publisher of a
popular horror writer when said writer disappears a few months before his
latest and greatest book is to be published. He digs into the author's work,
gets to know his editor and they both travel to the small town that is the
center of the series of novels. This town doesn't exist though, not on this
plane of existence. The movie deals with the "thin places" between our world
and others too horrible to even imagine without going insane. Echoes of
Lovecraft or Machen (The Great God Pan) or even Stephen King from his novella
N. It was quite well-made and actually terrifying in places. Directed by John
Carpenter, so there are some awesome real-life (non-CGI) special effects.
Recommended.
The Devils (1971) -- "9/10"
This movie is about plague-time France during the reign of Cardinal
Richelieu. Oliver Reed is utterly brilliant as the debauched priest Urbain
Grandier. Now I know why Greg Proops thinks he was so good, despite his
nearly criminal drunkenness. He's really a very powerful actor. He is
trying
to save his city of Loudun from the church but mostly he's trying to bed
as
many nuns as he can. Vanessa Redgrave is the mother superior, also in love
with Monsieur Grandier but remains unrequited because of her extreme
scoliosis that twists her head around by 45 degrees or more. The church is
depicted as full of madmen and madwomen, their visions interspersed only
occasionally with reality. The city itself looks like Bosch designed it,
straight from the Garden of Earthly Delights. The story is from a book by
Aldous Huxley called The Devils of Loudon.
This movie was originally rated X, probably because of blasphemy. There's
a
cut-down version that ruins director Russell's vision but even the R-rated
parts are pretty lascivious. There's a scene where Redgrave fantasizes
while
leading prayers, about Grandier as Christ and herself as Mary Magdalene
but
instead of just wiping his feet with her hair, she kisses Christ deeply,
then
proceeds to lave his wounds with further kisses. When she comes back to
her
senses, she finds that, in her passion, she's drilled a stigmata into one
hand with the end of her rosary cross.
Oliver Reed positively oozes his libido on-screen; Redgrave makes her
frustration palpable. But when you hear that there's a Ken Russell movie
with
an orgy scene where a dozen naked nuns rub themselves all over a giant
Jesus
statue, it's hard to settle for less. I found a high-quality version
without
that scene and the scene is, surprisingly, available on "YouTube"
or in lower-quality
versions.
The other cut scene features Ms. Redgrave pleasuring herself with the
sooty
shinbone of her now-deceased and unrequited paramour Grandier, whose death
she'd brought about with an accusation of witchcraft she'd made in the
throes
or her own delirium-induced ecstasy.
And yet, to speak of deleted scenes is to do this film a gross injustice.
If
Oliver Reed exudes confidence and charisma in the fullness of health and
freedom, his quiet refusal to confess to crimes not his own is even more
powerful. The condemnation of a church and power structure gone utterly
wild
and mad with its own lust, drunk on its own power, could hardly be better
rendered on film. Perhaps that is thanks to the source material, I cannot
say. But Russell, Redgrave and Reed do a fantastic job with this. Redgrave
is
relentlessly off the rails, repenting nothing for her accusation, her mad
laugh beautiful and terrifying.
It's that kind of movie. Charlotte Gainsbourg in Antichrist is arguably
more
difficult to watch [2] but this is up there. Great movie, though. Really
well-made: good acting, good direction, wonderful sets -- just really
hell-on-Earth and pure surrealist insanity, but high-quality -- and a good
script, though there are those that will judge it poorly because it's
"dirty", whatever the hell than means. Highly recommended, but don't say I
didn't warn you.
The Secret Of Nikola Tesla (1980) -- "7/10"
This is a very good documentary about Nikola Tesla starring a very good Petar
Bozovic in the lead role with Orson Welles playing J.P. Morgan. Thomas Alva
Edision is portrayed as the evil sleazebag he almost certainly was and
Tesla's inventions, brilliance and also madness are all given their due
prominence. Saw it in English, with smatterings of Serbo-Croation (it was
made in Yogoslavia, Tesla's place of origin), German, Italian and French. It
was quite good and covered a good deal of the more productive part of Tesla's
career. Saw it on YouTube.
L'Artiste (2011) -- "9/10"
This is an almost completely silent film about a man whose entire career was
in silent film. He straddles triumphant over a film world in which he can
do
no wrong when a tsunami named "Talkies" washes away everything he has.
That
and the stock-market crash. It reminded me only very slightly of Singin'
in
the Rain which was also about the transition from silents to talkies. But
I
like this film much, much better.
There are some very slow bits, but there are bits that reward you
immensely
for sticking with it and for paying attention. You see more detail when
you're not constantly listening. The scene in his dressing room where
Peppy
Miller puts her arm through his coat and pretends to dance with him. The
scene where he dreams that objects make noise. The final scene of his
self-made silent film in which his character disappears into quicksand, so
symbolic of his career. That Peppy Miller's movie -- a Talkie -- is
playing
to standing-room-only shows in a theater named "La Reine". She says "I
want
to be alone" at one point, echoing Garbo. The shadow of the rain running
down
the windowpane looking like tears on his face. He crosses a road after his
estate auction, in front of a movie theater called the "Lonely Star". When
he
leaves his room at her mansion for the first time after setting his old
films
on fire in the depths of despondence, what do we see? His shadow, which
had
abandoned him right before the fire.
It's no wonder Jean Dujardin made this film: he's a wonderful physical
actor
whose talents have already been on display in other French movies, notably
the OSS 117 movies. Bérénice Bejo as Peppy Miller is also very good (and
she was actually in one of the OSS 117 movies as well). John Goodman and
James Cromwell have smaller roles. And how can I not mention his faithful
sidekick, the Jack Russell Terrier? Not a word spoken and DuJardin's slow
decay is one of the sadder things on film. He makes his melancholy
palpable,
helped by an excellent score (vital for a silent film). And especially
when
compared with his easy smile and laughter throughout the beginning of the
film. Recommended.
An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) -- "7/10"
I remember seeing this movie when I was much younger. I loved Louis Gossett,
Jr. back then. He's still pretty good overall. His introductory lines about
"steers and queers" or "ripping out eyes and skull-fucking" his new recruits
were surprising because I thought they'd originated in Full Metal Jacket, but
this movie predates that one by 5 years. This story of a man trying to be a
Navy pilot predates Top Gun by four years. Richard Gere is a giant douchebag
in this movie who's transformed into someone who isn't a giant douchebag. As
with most of these transformational stories, the movie is filled with people
who aren't giant douchebags, but movies about them are, apparently, boring.
His punishment weekend is pretty well-done, although Gere doesn't even try to
act like he's hurt from two days of physical punishment. The final fight is
as good as I remember, though: punches and kicks actually seem to hurt. And
groin shots are totally OK. Go Gossett! Ended much better than it started.
Fast & Furious AKA Fast and Furious 4 (2009) -- "6/10"
After the bizarre detour to Tokyo in the last installment, Paul Walker and
Vin Diesel both reprise their roles as Brian O'Connor and Dominic Toretto,
respectively. This time they're on the tail of a high-end drug dealer who
smuggles drugs in from Mexico in very fast cars and through barely car-sized
tunnels under the U.S./Mexico border. They're both decent although Paul
Walker shines much more in Running Scared. Diesel is, as usual, surprisingly
good. I know a lot of people don't like him but I can't for the life of me
figure out why. Recommended above the third installment.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Which preceded this movie by six years.
[1] I haven't yet seen Von Trier's latest, the Nymphoniac movies, but I've heard
the Ms. Gainesbourg outdoes herself again.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=30742015-01-13T22:36:08+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
An F. Scott Fitzgerald story directed by David Fincher and starring
Cate Blanchett, Brad Pitt and Julia Ormond sounded great on paper. It
was a good movie, although at 2:45 a bit long, with many interleaving
vignettes and stories from the lead
...
]]>
An F. Scott Fitzgerald story directed by David Fincher and starring Cate
Blanchett, Brad Pitt and Julia Ormond sounded great on paper. It was a good
movie, although at 2:45 a bit long, with many interleaving vignettes and
stories from the lead character's life. Benjamin Button is a man who was born
old and lives his life backward. The filming and plot reminded me of Forrest
Gump with Pitt playing Gump and Blanchett playing "Jenny". Pitt even says
"Mama" all the time, in almost the same accent. I'm kind of ambivalent. I
won't recommend it, but won't tell you to stay away, either.
50/50 (2011) -- "7/10"
Joseph Gordon Levitt is Adam, a young man with cancer. Seth Rogen is, for
once, in a very sympathetic role, playing a very good friend. Anna Kendrick
plays his therapist and Anjelica Huston is fantastic in a supporting role as
his mother. When Huston meets Adam's therapist, she just stares at her
without saying anything and you can see the thoughts racing. Is this a
potential mate? What did my son tell this lady about me? All without a word
spoken. The movie is decent and is some of Rogen's best work. What is it with
Rogen's predilection with co-stars who never open their eyes beyond tiny
slits? All in all, recommended.
The Graduate (1967) -- "6/10"
Dustin Hoffman is a college track star who becomes the target of Anne
Bancroft's amorous designs. The famous seduction scene is actually an
attempted rape. We're trained to think that a woman treating a young man
this
way is doing him a great favor, but that's only because she's attractive
(although not to him; he consistently refuses her advances). If the tables
were turned and an older man were so aggressive with a 20-year--old woman,
we
wouldn't find the scene nearly as funny.
The affair fails to spark on the first attempt, but he soon calls her and
they meet up again in a hotel. You can see future echoes of Rainman in
Hoffman. That is, once you've seen this movie, you have no trouble
believing
that a casting director would call Hoffman to play a severely autistic
man.
Katharine Ross is absolutely lovely and plays Mrs. Robinson's daughter.
Ben's
parents [1] pressure him into dating Elaine, he treats her like utter crap
and they hit it off. Of course.
Mrs. Robinson is upset and threatens to spill the beans. Ben spills them
first. This only temporarily stills Elaine's ardor for Ben. Because he's
persistent, right? It's not stalking because it's the 60s, right? It's
adorable because he's short? Maybe because his prospects as an entitled,
nouveau-riche loafer are unlimited?
Enough pestering and Elaine starts to take Ben's proposals seriously. And
the
whole "I fucked your Mom" thing is, for him, "in the past". This makes him
the perfect representative of our culture, 50 years later. The person who
slept with Mrs. Robinson is someone else, a perpetrator of an act for
which
the current-day Ben is not responsible.
Then he breaks into a house because of course he does. This movie is about
an
amoral psychotic stalker with no notion of consequences -- like a child.
Perhaps that was the point of this film? That the entitled sons of elites
are
broken by design? Elaine finds this break-in attractive -- perhaps she's
also
broken? -- and abandons her other man at the altar and runs away with the
entitled man-child. Mrs. Robinson gets a few sharp licks in, but they're
not
evident on Elaine's face, fortunately.
The Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack, while famous and somewhat appropriate,
is
irritating. Simon and Garfunkel are nearly objectively terrible. The movie
is
filmed quite well, but hard to recommend.
Red Dragon (2002) -- "8/10"
Anthony Hopkins reprises his role as Hannibal Lecter in this prequel to "The
Silence of the Lambs". Ed Norton plays his FBI foil in the hunt for the "The
Tooth Fairy" -- Francis Dolarhyde -- expertly portrayed by Ralph Fiennes. The
Tooth Fairy stalks his prey by watching their family video tapes and
meticulously planning their denouements. He is interested in capturing their
essence so that he may "become" the Red Dragon, depicted many decades ago by
painter William Blake. Dolarhyde even goes to the museum where the original
painting resides and eats it. He clearly has issues. Emily Watson is very
good as Dolarhyde's blind girlfriend, who almost but not quite succeeds in
saving him from himself. A well-made and well-paced psychological thriller
with good acting all around. Recommended.
The Final Cut (2004) -- "6/10"
The underlying premise of this movie is of a world in which people have
"Zoë" implants, which record every moment of a person's life. When someone
with such an implant dies, a "cutter" is engaged to make the "final cut" of a
person's life, for their "Rememory" ceremony. The first hour was quite good,
but then it kind of sprinted to the finish. Robin Williams was good in the
lead; Mira Sorvino was wasted. Still, recommended for the first hour and the
concept was interesting.
The Hundred-foot Journey (2014) -- "7/10"
A well-made movie based on the book. Just as in the book, the film gets quite
rocky about halfway through. The pretty Marguerite is portrayed as a woman
who can only befriend an Indian man when she is certain of her superiority,
when she knows that he poses no threat to her life. She comes out looking
just as petty as all of the other French people in the movie, which is a bit
heavy-handed but not too disturbing. Hassan rockets to fame, wins over the
mean lady, gets her a Michelin star, takes Paris by storm, gets his own
Michelin stars, then returns to the village to open a restaurant with
Marguerite and his family and everyone lives happily ever after (with lots of
Michelin stars, which is what's important here). Helen Mirren is, as always,
a pleasure. She is nicely balanced by Om Puri and Manish Dayal as Papa and
Hassan, respectively. Recommended.
Magic in the Moonlight (2014) -- "7/10"
This latest entry from Woody Allen features Colin Firth as an incorrigible
skeptic and rationalist and Emma Stone as a psychic medium. It was obvious
that there was a scam going on, but it wasn't obvious whose scam it was. I
thought it was Firth in cahoots with Stone when it was his friend who was in
cahoots with her, getting his revenge on Firth, who'd rubbed his superiority
in his friend's face since they were children. In the end, though, Firth gets
the girl and everyone lives happily ever after. Lovely scenery and a
lighthearted story; both Stone and Firth are very good. It's not Allen's best
by a long shot, but it's fun. Recommended.
American Graffiti (1973) -- "5/10"
This is a movie about how a bunch of just-graduated high-school--age kids
spend a single night in the dog days of the summer of '62 in Modesto,
California. They do what kids do, they try to score booze and they fight
over
girls and they cruise and try to race cars and they basically spend all
evening doing stupid stuff and it's supposed to be significant because
they
don't know any better.
One couple breaks up because he wants to do it and she doesn't is only
made
somewhat saucy by an offhand comment he makes about a story she once told
him
about watching her brother, for which she throws him out of the car with
extreme prejudice.
My interest is short-lived as the movie careers toward the expected ending
of
everyone getting back together and everything working out for everyone,
except of course for the guy whose car gets wrecked but at least the guy
he
was racing can go on thinking that he's the best guy in the world because
he's the fastest guy in high school.
I recognized Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfuss and Ron Howard. It felt like
a
cross between Dazed and Confused and Stand By Me. Not recommended unless
you
grew up in the fifties or early sixties, in which case the movie is
probably
nostalgic as hell.
Enter the Void (2009) -- "6/10"
What the hell did I just watch? In a sentence, it's the story of a
reincarnation. This movie tells the story of a young man living in Tokyo
with
his sister. He is a drug dealer; she is an exotic dancer. They drifted to
Tokyo because that's where their parents once told them that they would
move,
just before they were killed in a horrific and graphically depicted
traffic
accident. The brother and sister spent many years separated by the
foster-care system and -- once reunited in a way that had more than just
overtones inappropriate to a fraternal relationship -- they ended up
there.
We see this all in a nearly dialogue-free series of flashbacks from the
point
of view of the brother and then his soul, after he is killed in a drug
deal
gone bad. Scenes from their childhood are interleaved with a patchwork of
scenes from just before and just after his death, with repetition for
different viewpoints.
There is also a healthy dose (no pun intended) of very trippy, psychedelic
camera work. The sound is muffled and the ethereal soundtrack is
omnipresent.
It's an interesting concept and reasonably well-done -- and it's obvious
that
the director put his heart and soul into it and believes in the concept,
which is what keeps you watching -- but at two hours and forty minutes,
it's
almost unbearably long.
Paz de la Huerta hates clothes, if you're into that. Actually, nobody
really
wears clothes for the last twenty minutes or so, but it's highly trippy
and
emotionally distanced. Not recommended.
Lucy (2014) -- "6/10"
It's the Scarlett Johansson show and she stars as a sad-sack student who gets
caught up in a drug deal with a nasty new drug. Morgan Freeman plays the most
token role I've seen him play yet, as a scientist who specializes in people
with advanced abilities born of being able to use more than 10% of their
minds. This is patently ridiculous, but Luc Besson does his best with it,
depicting Lucy progressing her way up the evolutionary ladder in 10%
increments until she becomes God at 100%. A reasonably fun romp but not
really recommended.
Big Night (1996) -- "8/10"
Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub play Italian brothers -- named Primo and
Secondo -- with a restaurant in New Jersey that is on the verge of closing
because they cook authentic Italian food and the customers are sparse and
mostly "Philistines" (as Tony Shalhoub says). Isabella Rosellini plays
Tucci's wife, who's onto the fact that he also has Minnie Driver as a
girlfriend. Ian Holm plays a rival restaurateur who promises to help out
by
delivering Louis Prima to the "big night". Liev Schreiber even shows up
for
a little while.
It's nicely filmed and well-acted, with dialogue in English and Italian
with
English subtitles. Fun soundtrack, too. The scene of destruction at the
end
of the big meal, just before the "Dolci" is wonderful, reminiscent of
almost
something like The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, with a long,
lingering shot of the table.
The final scene is beautiful and (almost) without words, as Secondo cooks
an
omelet for the waiter, scooping out a third for him and a third for
himself.
Minutes later, Primo walks in. Secondo says nothing, but gets him a plate
and
fork, scoops the remaining third into a plate and sets a place for him.
Secondo thinks for a second, then drags a chair over, next to his brother,
and begins to eat. He puts an arm around him. The waiter leaves. Fin.
Nothing
has changed and they will pick up the fight for another day. Recommended.
Freeway (1996) -- "4/10"
A take on "Little Red Riding Hood" that stars Reese Witherspoon and Kiefer
Sutherland. Brooke Shields plays Sutherland's wife, Mimi Wolverton. (Get it?)
It alternated between creepy and really not very good. Kiefer Sutherland is
terrible; Witherspoon is OK in some scenes. Not recommended.
One Hour Photo (2002) -- "7/10"
Robin Williams plays a photo developer at a local big-box store. He is wound
up really tight, becoming obsessed with a young family, particularly the
mother. He makes copies of their pictures and hangs them on his wall in a
gigantic mosaic. When he discovers from other pictures that the woman's
husband is cheating on him, he snaps and vows revenge on him. The first step
is to get the pictures into his obsession's hands. Then he goes to the hotel
where the husband and his lover are having a tryst and he attacks them,
forcing them into lurid positions while he takes pictures. Williams is
brilliant, inhabiting the role. Recommended.
The Bank Job (2008) -- "6/10"
This is a heist movie starring Jason Statham, based on the supposedly true
story of the 1971 Baker Street Robbery. A private bank in London is the
target and Statham and his "gang" (quotes because they're very low-level and
inexperienced) are hired through a front by very well-connected politicians
looking to keep the contents of one of the boxes from ever seeing the light
of day. So they stage a robbery to cover up what will be the real theft.
Statham and his gang are not in on this and are in no way interested in this
part of the heist. They turn the tables, discover the pictures, find even
more pictures, bargain with and blackmail everyone involved and live happily
ever after. Statham does almost no ass-kicking in this one, so look elsewhere
if you're looking for that kind of thing. It was OK, but the only thing
recommending it is Statham.
The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) -- "8/10"
Every time I see a Wes Anderson film, I think that that movie is the ultimate
expression of Mr. Anderson, that there is no way to make a film more "Wes
Anderson". For example, Moonrise Kingdom was one such. This latest
installment in the long-running series of quietly zany films starring
quirky
characters has an unbelievable number of big names: Ed Norton, Ralph
Fiennes,
Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, F. Murray Abraham, Jeff Goldblum, Adrien
Brody,
Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Jude Law, Jason Schwartzman (no surprise
there)
and a handful of other familiar faces.
Perhaps the summation of the lead character played by Fiennes applies
equally
well to Anderson himself:
"To be frank, I think his world had vanished long before he ever entered it -
but, I will say: he certainly sustained the illusion with a marvelous
grace!"
Happy People -- A Year in the Taiga (2010) -- "7/10"
This Werner Herzog documentary follows the lives of a few hunters and
trappers in the deep Siberian Taiga throughout a whole year. It is a cold,
solitary existence. These people -- and their dogs -- are incredibly
resilient, hardy. Herzog explains with typically Herzogian wonder how a dog
runs 100 miles without having eaten for more than a day. The dog prances up
after having paced a snowmobile the whole way and jogs into the cabin.
Amazing. Not one of Herzog's best but interesting nonetheless.
Inequality for All (2013) -- "8/10"
This Robert Reich documentary focuses on the increase in inequality in the
U.S. since 1980, analyzing the effects, the reasons behind it, the
winners,
the losers, the logic behind it and possibly ways out of it. It discusses
in
clear terms the real problem with concentrated wealth from a macroeconomic
standpoint viz. that the rich don't spend very much of their income
relative
to the size of that income, which is overall a bad thing for the economy.
Money and liquidity pools in a few hands and doesn't get re-used.
Restaurants
don't stay open if either everyone is too poor to eat there or they have
more
than enough money to eat there but can only eat dinner once per day.
"Big companies are designed not to generate good jobs in the United States.
Big companies are designed to make profits. This isn't a matter of fault.
You
know, the head of GE is on the president's Jobs Council. Well, GE has been
creating more jobs abroad than it's been creating jobs in the United
States.
"So who is taking care of the American worker? Who is looking out for the
American worker as GE and other big companies and Wall Street and the very
wealthy, who basically have capital all over the world [...] As they have
more and more political power, who is actually working in a way in
Washington
and in state capitals that improves the well-being of the American
workforce?
The answer is nobody."
How did people cope then? First, women went to work because they had to. A
single salary no longer supported a family. Then, people started working
longer hours, multiple jobs. After that? Debt. Amass debt to keep your
head
above water when your salaries no longer suffice.
As he shows in a diagram, this is a response to the cycle of:
* Wages stagnate
* Workers buy less
* Companies downsize
* Tax revenues decrease
* Government cuts programs
* Workers are less educated
* Unemployment rises
* Deficits grow
* Wages stagnate, etc.
In such a society, it makes absolutely no sense from a societal standpoint
to
allow large amounts of wealth to be concentrated into a few hands that
don't
do anything with it -- that can't realistically do anything with it --
other
than use it to make even more money. It's wasteful and monstrous. If
everyone
else was doing fine and the extremely wealthy were still a natural
outgrowth?
Fine. But think of it like this: if a plane crashed and there were 50
survivors. How would the other forty-nine feel about the one guy who
managed
to wake up first and collect all of the food for himself, declaring that
they
would have to buy their supplies from him? How well would such a society
work, do you think? What would you do?
Highly recommended.
Lost in La Mancha (2002) -- "6/10"
This is a documentary about just one of Terry Gilliam's ill-fated attempts to
film The Man who Killed Don Quixote, an adaptation of the famous book. The
film was beset by problems, not least of which were scheduling with the
principals, capturing the scope of Gilliam's vision within a budget that was
far too tight and, finally, the ill-health of the Jean Rochefort, the man who
was to play Don Quixote. The film was tantalizingly close, with several
scenes filmed that showed that Gilliam was making something special.
According to Wikipedia, he made no less than seven separate attempts to make
this movie. Happily, it seems that just in November of 2014, he has, once
again, obtained funding and will have éminence grise John Hurt in the lead
role. Fingers crossed! Saw it in English, French and Spanish with Italian
subtitles.
The Zero Theorem (2013) -- "9/10"
Terry Gilliam's latest film is another futuristic vision, about a confusing
world filled with distraction and nonsensical ephemera. The world is much
like what ours today would probably look like to a traveler from the 50s.
Video advertisements chase you down the street. The park has a gigantic X
composed of "do not" signs, forbidding everything from food and drink to
pets
and what looks like bat-girl.
Christoph Waltz plays a programmer of some sort, Qohen, employed by a
faceless corporation to design "entities". He is dissatisfied with his lot
in
life and wishes only to be able to stay at home, an abandoned-looking
church
with his own more subdued technology scattered about. There is no doubt at
all that this is a Gilliam film, with shades of CGI-enhanced Brazil about
it.
There are also callbacks to other Gilliam movies, especially near the end,
where reality becomes ... squishy. The shaking doors letting in cracks of
light reminded me of the rampaging Samurai in Fisher King. The costumes
are
wonderfully low-tech, but mixed with CGI backgrounds.
Melanie Thierry plays a woman inordinately fascinated with Qohen and Matt
Damon, Peter Stormare and Tilda Swinton round out the indy flavor. David
Thewlis plays Qohen's boss.
Qohen's request to be able to work at home is granted by Management
(Damon)
but only if he works on the Zero Theorem, something that's driven others
mad
or off the job. Thewlis shows Qohen to his new office, in what looks like
an
apse dominated by a gigantic, ducted and wholly Gillianesque (if not a bit
Quake III-ish or Biohazard-y) supercomputer rearing spire-ward out of a
moat
of coolant. As ever, when Gilliam manages to project what his inner eye
sees,
it's a delight.
The visualization of programming is also fascinating: we see Qohen
constructing a formula by flying around 3-D blocks with formulae on them
and
slotting them in where they're supposed to go. As the camera pulls back,
we
see that the task is not as simple as it at first appeared: the possible
slots for each block are nearly infinite, a 3-D landscape fractal in
nature.
It is in this wonderfully non-expository way that Gilliam lets us know
that
Qohen is brilliant. Christopher Nolan also makes nice movies but God love
him, he would have just had another character describe Qohen's brilliance.
And still, the project takes its toll on Qohen. He drives himself forward,
programming despite his inability to move forward without taking steps
back.
Sleep-deprived, badly nourished, he is the epitome of a developer, of a
scientist slavishly pursuing his goal, but without organization or good
work
habits.
Help shows up in the form of management's son, a hotshot programmer who
"can
sprint, but can't go the distance", as he puts it. He's played well by
Lucas
Hedges, who reminds me for all the world of a young Anthony Michael Hall.
He
and Qohen close in on the Zero Theorem. The software interfaces are pure
Gilliam -- Qohen types URLs into the address bar with what looks like an
IBM
Selectric ball hovering over it, as a simulated read-head. More help is
sent
in the form of Bainsley, an online virtual-reality cam-girl enchantingly
played by Melanie Thierry. Her plea for him to run away with her
illustrates
another instance of Gilliam's mastery of "show, don't tell". At the
beginning
of the film, he reiterates that he doesn't like to be touched; by the time
she pleads with him, she is leaning all over him, her face against the
back
of his head, her hand on his cheek, all without complaint from him.
Damon's Management clues Qohen in, at the end, in a speech that reminded
me
of his Loki character from Dogma or perhaps also a bit of Will in Good
Will
Hunting.
"The saddest aspect of mankind's need to believe in God, or to put it another
way, a purpose greater than this life, is that it makes this life
meaningless. You see this is all just a way-station on the road to some
promised eternity."
Highly recommended.
The Big White (2005) -- "7/10"
Set in Alaska, this movie feels kind of like an even wackier version of
Fargo, if you can imagine that. The scenery is spectacular; you feel cold
just watching it. The cinematography is playful; for example, at one point
a
car drives past with a red shark fin sticking up past the top of the
snowbank. It turns out to be an upended surfboard. Robin Williams finds a
body in a dumpster and takes it upon himself to dispose of it, claiming
that
it was his long-missing brother. His wife, played by Holly Hunter, is a
little...off. She swear a lot and seems to have self-control issues, but
she's cute and she's funny. Williams's attempts at disposal become
increasingly desperate. Giovanni Ribisi plays an insurance adjuster who's
highly suspicious of Williams's claim to his brother's insurance policy.
Alison Lohman plays his psychic-hotline wife. The cops and characters
reminded me a lot of the quirkiness of Northern Exposure.
Robin Williams is great as a sad sack who's just trying to scrape together
enough money to help his wife (who has problems but almost certainly
doesn't
have Tourrette syndrome, as she claims).
"Williams: I had to borrow money to pay for this coffin.
Ribisi:: Well, you're breaking my heart, Mr. Barnell.
Williams:: I doubt that."
Tim Blake Nelson is one of the killers who comes looking for the body. He
kidnaps Williams's wife and then starts counseling her on her fake
Tourette's
Syndrome. Woody Harrelson plays the long-lost brother, back from the
"dead"
once he sniffs out that a life-insurance policy was paid. It gets
complicated, stays quirky and is all resolved in a more-or-less
satisfactory
manner in the end. Recommended.
Requiem for a Dream (2000) -- "9/10"
tl;dr: Drugs are bad.
More precisely, addiction is bad. This film is the story of a mother
(Ellen
Burstyn), her son (Jared Leto), his girlfriend (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and
his
best friend (Marlon Wayans). Nice, huh?
Spoiler alert: the film ends with the mother strapped to a bed in a mental
hospital, withdrawing from a severe amphetamine addiction, the son lies in
a
hospital, his left arm amputated because of a festering needle wound, the
best friend on a work gang in prison, suffering beatings and malnutrition
and
the girlfriend curled up on her couch at home, cuddling her scag, earned
by
performing in a private sex show for her new pimp.
The mother never quite recovered from the death of her husband and the son
isn't around enough to take care of her. She spends her days watching a
self-help guru's (Christopher McDonald) infomercial. She gets an
invitation
to the show but can't fit into her dress. She resolves to lose weight by
the
time she gets her actual invitation. After a day spent trying it the
old-fashioned way, she makes an appointment with a diet doctor and starts
her
downward spiral.
The son and his friends are already well on their way, shucking and jiving
for enough money to buy a stash for the night. They resolve to follow the
junkie dream: they pool their cash and start selling instead of just using
everything they have. This actually works OK for a while, but the friend
is
busted by the cops on a deal and the money they've saved is used for bail
and
nearly gone in one fell swoop. The son and his girlfriend predictably
fight
over the lack of drugs and he heads out with his friend to Florida to make
a
big score. She can't wait that long and calls a dealer who wants women
rather
than money in exchange for drugs.
The plotting is straightforward, but the shooting is interesting, making
use
of repeated quick shots -- taking a pill, the various stages of preparing
a
shot of heroin, pupils dilating -- to show the passage, and sameness, of
time. Saw the director's cut; recommended, but not for the faint of heart.
Movie 43 (2013) -- "8/10"
This is less of a movie and more of a collection of high--production-quality
skits starring brand-name actors. The list of well-known actors and actresses
is very long. The best skits star Halle Berry and Stephen Merchant playing
Truth or Dare on a blind date. Another stars Kate Winslet and Hugh Jackman on
another blind date, where he has an obvious deformity that only she notices.
Johnny Knoxville, Gerard Butler and Seann William Scott catch a leprechaun.
Justin Long, Jason Sudeikis, Uma Thurman, Kristen Bell and John Hodgman are
superheroes at a speed-dating evening. Emma Stone is fantastic as a customer
who flirts with a supermarket cashier played by Kieran Culkin. Aasif Mandvi,
Richard Gere, Jack McBrayer and Kate Bosworth are at a marketing meeting,
trying to fine-tune the iBabe. Elizabeth Banks and Josh Duhamel are in a
twisted segment starring live-action--cartoon Beezel, a dirty, filthy cat who
hates the girlfriend. I saw the alternative version, which doesn't include
"The Pitch" but does include "The Thread". The skits are pretty
professionally done and were quite funny. It's certainly not for everyone,
but I recommend it.
The Interview (2014) -- "7/10"
Seth Rogen and James Franco play writer/director Aaron Rapaport and star Dave
Skylark, respectively, of a sensationalist TV-interview show. It turns out
that President Kim of North Korea is a huge fan of the show and wants to be
interviewed for it. Before they can leave, they are approached by the CIA in
the form of Agent Lacey (played by Lizzy Caplan), who wants them to use the
interview as an opening to kill the president of North Korea, for all of the
usual stupid reasons. To its credit, the movie does discuss the hypocrisy of
the U.S.'s policy but also emphasizes that North Korea is a totalitarian
dictatorship. It's a comedy, though, not a political film, so that it wasn't
too jingoistic -- and that they, spoiler alert, didn't end up killing him,
but humiliating him instead -- meant it was easy to focus on the for-once
decent acting and funny script. This is no This is the End; it's actually
recommended.
Slavoj Žižek: The Pervert's Guide to Ideology (2012) -- "9/10"
This is a very good movie starring preëminent philosopher Slavoj Žižek
discussing ideology for two hours. He uses examples from movies to show
how
insidious prevailing ideology is -- either overtly or very often, subtly
pushing a powerful ideological agenda while superficially negating a
weaker
one. These are the films that purport to be radical or "edgy" but still
kowtow to the deeper ideologies in our culture, those that almost no-one
dares to question. Highly recommended.
Here's an example. If you like this kind of philosophy, then you'll love
this
movie. If you can't figure out why I would select this quote, then you
should
probably skip it.
"I think Breyvik's manifesto is well worth reading. It's palpably clear there
how this violence that Breyvik not only theorized about but also enacted
is a
reaction to the impenetrability and confusion of global capital. It's
exactly
like Travis Bickle's killing spree at the end of Taxi Driver. When he's
there, barely alive, he symbolically with his fingers, points a gun at his
own head -- clear signs that all of this violence was basically suicidal.
On
the right path, in a way, Travis, in the Taxi Driver. You should have the
outburst of violence, you should direct it at yourself, but in a very
specific way: at what in yourself chains you, ties you to the ruling
ideology."
Silent Running (1972) -- "7/10"
Bruce Dern plays Lowell, an environmentalist serving out his eighth year on a
spaceship with giant biomes attached to it. He crews with three morons who
don't care anything for the forest. They just want to return to the
now-homogenized and fully tamed Earth. They are ordered by command to
destroy
the biomes and return to Earth, a prospect at which the three are
overjoyed.
Lowell cannot abide it and kills the others and steals the ship, heading
out
past Saturn. He befriends his robots, still missing humanity but
transforming
the robots into new friends. When he comes back into range of Earth, he
realizes what he must do: he has already lost one robot and another is
severely damaged. He jettisons the entire biome with the remaining healthy
robot as its steward, to keep it from being destroyed by humanity. He
blows
himself, the damaged robot (Huey) and the entire rest of the ship up.
This prescient film predates Star Wars by several years but already had
the
long, silent shots of gigantic space-cruisers and also the
anthropomorphized
robots. There were several scenes that Interstellar lifted almost
wholesale.
For example, Lowell is also a wanderer who has essentially left mankind,
like
Cooper in Interstellar. He befriends his robots in a similar fashion, even
attempting a repair in the same way that Cooper does. This is a terribly
sad
movie -- particularly the interactions with the robots as they mourn one
of
their own or when another must be left to fend on his own -- but
recommended.
Scarface (1983) -- "8/10"
This is the story of a Cuban immigrant, part of the so-called "Cuban crime
wave" that arrived in Miami. Al Pacino plays Tona Montana, a low-level
thug
with aspirations, almost no education, less mercy and a bull-headed
take-no-prisoners attitude. He's dangerously mean but ruthlessly
efficient,
clawing his way almost easily up the crime-world ladder in Miami. It's
directed by Brian DePalma and written by Oliver Stone and amazingly
brought
to life by Al Pacino. The movie is otherwise packed with stars: F. Murray
Abraham, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert Loggia and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.
Montana rises higher and higher, becoming more and more addicted to
cocaine
(breaking the second rule of dealing) and more and more suspicious that
everyone's trying to screw him over or take his money. He grows his
business
in order to avoid having to deal with anybody.
It's still amazing to see someone inhabit a role like Pacino. Here he is
talking to his wife,
"You got nothing to do with your life, man. Why don't you get a job? Do
something, be a nurse. Work with blind kids, lepers, that kind of thing.
Anything beats you waiting around all day, waiting for me to fuck you,
I'll
tell you that."
And here's what he tells the cop who busts him on the RICO ACT, delivered
with utterly dead eyes.
"You wanna waste my time? Okay. I call my lawyer. He's the best lawyer in
Miami. He's such a good lawyer, that by tomorrow morning, you gonna be
working in Alaska. So dress warm."
And this speech, delivered after Pfeiffer has left him publicly at a
restaurant, filmed in a single-shot as he slowly leaves the restaurant.
"What you lookin' at? You all a bunch of fuckin' assholes. You know why? You
don't have the guts to be what you wanna be. You need people like me. You
need people like me so you can point your fuckin' fingers and say, "That's
the bad guy." So... what's that make you? Good? You're not good. You just
know how to hide, how to lie. Me, I don't have that problem. Me, I always
tell the truth. Even when I lie. So say good night to the bad guy! Come
on.
The last time you gonna see a bad guy like this again, let me tell you.
Come
on. Make way for the bad guy. There's a bad guy comin' through! Better get
outta his way."
By the time of his famous denouement, he has lost everything, done every
terrible thing, lost everything. For his one good decision -- he called
off a
hit because it would have killed children -- he is chastised by his
partner
as "a little monkey". He is a man with everything, but nothing left to
lose.
He is a stupid, simple man ruled by simplistic rules and overarching
passions
-- no-one can ever be with his sister, for example -- and he ruins
everything
he touches. His wife has left him, he has no legacy, no son, his former
partner is going to war with him, he just shot his best friend to death
and
his sister and mother both hate him. He seems happiest when he can let
everything go and succumb to the mindless rage. In the end, the rage and
the
cocaine combine to make him a minor god, impervious to pain and bullets.
At
least for a little while. Recommended.
Haywire (2011) -- "6/10"
I watched this movie despite the low rating on IMDb because of the all-star
cast: Channing Tatum, Michael Douglas, Ewan Mcgregor, Michael Douglas and
Michael Fassbender with Gina Carano as relatively believable super-agent, all
directed by Steven Soderbergh. I have a feeling that he had a contractual
obligation, though, because while it was utterly clear that he'd filmed it --
even the soundtrack felt familiar -- it kind of felt like he phoned it in.
There are long, well-choreographed fight scenes (although Gina's head is cut
off in several shots, when the stunt-double took over) but there are also
long chase scenes. Plus points, though, for at least showing people getting
tired during ridiculously long fight scenes. Also for making them start the
fights violently and surprisingly in order to finish them quickly. Minus
points for not finishing them quickly. Plus points for showing her putting on
make-up to cover up the bruises she would have definitely received. Also for
not making the heroine more emotional about finishing a fight without a
drawn-out confession, etc. Minus points for making her destination when
running from everyone her Daddy. Plus for making extensive use of
choke-holds, leg-locks and arm-bars, but minus for not ever hitting anyone in
the nuts. It passes the time; recommended if you're the kind who needs to see
every Bourne-esque action movie.
King Solomon's Mines (1985) -- "3/10"
If you've already seen The Quest and all of the Indiana Jones movies as well
as all of the Mummy movies, then this one will fit right in. It stars Richard
Chamberlain as Allan Quartermain, a real-life British civil engineer,
portrayed here as an adventurer-for-hire. Sharon Stone plays the femme fatale
and John Rhys-Davies plays the same role he always plays in this type of
movie. The map in this movie is the same as in Indiana Jones and the Last
Crusade: you follow along the "fertile valley" until you get to the "breasts
of Sheba". On the other hand, they totally copied the drop-ceiling trap from
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I'd seen this movie a few times when I
was younger and had fond memories of it. They don't, unfortunately, hold up.
The scene in the biplane is just painfully bad -- and Sharon Stone can't act
her way out of a paper bag. Either that, or she's deliberately spoofing this
kind of terrible movie? It's honestly hard to tell. What is clear is the
Euro-centrism that had previously escaped me. When they get to the mines,
they find the gallery of queens. They are all white. In Africa. Not
recommended.
Snowpiercer (2012) -- "9/10"
This movie is about a world that froze. It froze because humanity released a
chemical to counteract global warming and the geo-engineering was far more
efficacious, far more aggressive, than expected. The only humans left are
on
a bullet train that travels the frozen wastes, a microcosm of humanity,
with
the elite at the front, dining on steak, and the dregs at the back, under
draconian police rule and subsisting on protein bars. Chris Evans and
Jamie
Bell star as the protagonists.
The world on the train, at least at the back of the train is nearly a
uniform
gray. The color palette makes Quake II look like Pokemon. This is in stark
contrast to the vivid yellow coat worn by the first denizen of the front
of
the train that we encounter. These people don't speak a word but they are
portrayed as the purest evil, not even considering those at the back of
the
train as human. She's just shopping for a child of the appropriate size.
As punishment for insubordination, the brutally cold outside world is
used. A
man's arm is stuck outside to be frozen off. Tilda Swinton uses the time
to
deliver a speech. She is, as usual, perfect, delivering lines like "you
suffer from the misplaced optimism of the doomed" with aplomb, though they
make no sense. John Hurt is also very, very good, showing up as a man
without
an arm and a leg and having clearly been an agitator in the past (because
the
aforementioned limbs had been frozen off, we are led to believe). [2] It
also
stars my favorite Korean actor, Kang-ho Song, who plays a totally cool
badass
who knows how to get through the train.
There's a lot of symbolism, with the initial revolt coming when the back
of
the train realizes that the guards "have no bullets". It's also beautiful
when they see sunlight for the first time, looking out a window that they
don't have in their own section. The train measures time by its transit
around the tracks; new year is when they pass a particular bridge in the
orbit around the world. The train blasts frozen chunks of ice out of the
way;
everything stops for this, even the protracted axe-battle. And then the
tunnel disadvantages the side without night-vision goggles.
There's a clue where the movie is headed when Swinton's Mason says of the
reason that they only serve sushi from the aquarium twice per year:
"Enough is not the criterion. Balance. You see, this aquarium is a closed
ecological system. And, um, the number of individual units must be very
closely, precisely controlled, in order to maintain the proper,
sustainable
balance."
Basically: it's nothing personal but if we don't treat most of the people
like animals, the train's ecology can't survive. The kindergarten
indoctrination scene was really well-done. Still, lessons about closed
systems aside, ... fuck those guys. If the only way to maintain humanity
is
to subjugate most of it, then let's all watch the world burn. And the
scenes
of decadence become more obscene the further forward they go.
At the final gate, at the head of the train, Chris Floyd tells his story
of
how the "tail section" started out, a tale of woe and heroism straight out
of
a concentration camp.
"You ever been to the tail section? Do you have any idea what went on back
there? When we boarded? It was chaos. Yeah, we didn't freeze to death, but
we
didn't have time to be thankful. Wilford's soldiers came and they took
everything. A thousand people in an iron box. No food, no water... After a
month, we ate the weak... You know what I hate about myself? I know what
people taste like. I know that babies taste best... There was a woman. She
was hiding with her baby. And some men with knives came. They killed her
and
they took her baby. And then an old man-no relation, just an old
man-stepped
forward and he said, "Give me the knife." And everyone thought he'd kill
the
baby himself. But he took the knife and he cut off his arm. And he said,
"Eat
this, if you're so hungry. Eat this, just leave the baby." I had never
seen
anything like that. And the men put down their knives... You've probably
guessed who that old man was. That baby was Edgar. And I was the man with
the
knife. I killed Edgar's mother"
And finally we meet Wilford, the owner of the train, God of this little
world. He reveals that the insurrections are just exciting ways of culling
population, that the current uprising had been planned to end in the dark
tunnel, after which the remainder of tail-section would have had much more
room to live. He reveals that Gilliam was working with Wilford, despite
his
heroic sacrifice in the citation above. We learn that the train needs a
driver. Ed Harris as Wilford also holds forth on the train society, a
microcosm of our own, seemingly channeling his role from The Truman Show,
"We need to maintain a proper balance of anxiety and fear, chaos and horror
in order to keep life going. And if we don't have that, we need to invent
it."
This and other themes are quite nicely addressed in a way that draws many
more people in than would otherwise consider such advanced philosophical
notions of how we live, why we live and what can legitimately be done
about
it. Whose lives are important? Do you risk losing it all because of an
injustice? (E.g. do the tail-enders revolt, possibly destroying the world,
just to keep the front-enders from living off of them?) The technique of
reducing the entire world to just the train makes it much easier to see
these
problems in stark contrast, unlike when the exact same situation prevails
at
the global level. Showing the revelers partying and living large in the
next
car over makes the injustice much more obvious, in a way that people have
trouble seeing in their own world.
There are concessions to more mainstream thinking, though. It's only when
"the children" are threatened that people are actually incensed about
human
suffering. And the ending had to rescue the hope for humanity, whereas the
entire rest of the film pointed to the hopelessness of it all. A pity,
because an ending showing the train's carcass becoming slowly engulfed in
snowdrifts would have been much more apropos.
Still, kudos for great actors, a great script, making viewers think and
for
daring to make such a good sci-fi, action and philosophically and
politically
relevant film. Highly recommended.
Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox Story (2007) -- "8/10"
This biographical movie stars John C. Reilly as Dewey Cox, a musician whose
career inexplicably spanned decades, several musical styles, wives, children
and musical collaborators. John C. Reilly really carries the film, which
feels much less like a spoof than I expected. It was a great, funny fake
documentary about a musician that never was, but stands as an amalgamation of
the last 50 years of rock music. Much better than expected. Pretty good
music, all performed by the more than capable John C. Reilly. Recommended.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] I just realized that Hoffman's father in this movie is Higgins from Magnum
P.I..
[1] And, with the beard, it's utterly evident why Terry Gilliam chose him as his
Quixote in his latest attempt at filming that book
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=30712014-12-14T22:33:52+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
This is a decidedly better outing than the abysmal remake from 1998. Juliette
Binoche and Bryan Cranston lend their gravitas for only a very short while,
with both of them out of the picture within 10% and 30% of the film,
respectively. After that, we're treated with Army-is-awesome fare that wasn't
quite as bad as The Battle of Los Angeles but also wasn't very riveting.
Godzilla was good -- his secret weapon was well-choreographed, especially his
finishing move -- and Rodan and mate were decent, though almost too
mechanical-looking. Maybe that's the effect they were going for though. At
one point, the camera swept over a Mothra decal so I'm sure there's a
Godzilla 2 in the works. They destroyed a lot of the city but somehow didn't
do it in as convincing a fashion as the Jägers (robots) and Kaijus
(monsters) of Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim. The plot was only mildly
interesting and it was entertaining enough -- some of the visuals were quite
nice -- but it didn't knock my socks off.
Game Change (2012) -- "7/10"
This HBO movie is a fake documentary of the McCain/Palin campaign in 2007.
Julianne Moore is absolutely perfect as Palin, as is Woody Harrelson as
McCain's campaign manager. It's quite well-done and you almost find yourself
rooting for McCain's team until you catch yourself that they are all working
as hard as they can to get someone too stupid to button her shirt to be in
the second-most powerful seat in the country. Her notorious arrogance and
self-interest is nicely managed, showing through only at times, but getting
worse as the campaign progresses. It quickly becomes obvious that she is a
bit power-mad. The film makes John McCain look much more principled than he
would turn out to be. A good movie about a terrible person?
The Hunger Games (2012) -- "8/10"
Start off with a lullaby. That'll win me over. It's starting off kind of
shaky, with a lot of cuts, a lot of close-up camera-work and my nemesis
"shaky cam" everywhere. They're trying to show the uncertainty and fear
engendered by the government in the people of the banlieues. Not to be
dismissive, but this is essentially The Long Walk by Stephen King with a
bunch of country mouse/city mouse/Elysium thrown in. Also reminded me a bit
of Ender's Game. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.
Jennifer Lawrence is beautiful and acts well. Woody Harrelson is less
beautiful but he positively steals almost every scene he's in. Action scenes
are definitely too shaky, almost impossible and very disorienting to follow.
They're clearly trying to film action while covering up the fact that no-one
really knows how to fight. I understand why they did it that way, but the
fight scenes are incomprehensible. And it I can't help letting it irritate me
that in a game about extremely tight resources, she never collects her
arrows. It was better than expected but the end was not unexpected.
Central do Brasil (1998) -- "6/10"
If I was generous, I'd say that this is a story of a woman, a former
schoolteacher, who's fallen on hard times. She uses her writing skills to
write letters for the illiterate and to enhance her income. One of the
letters is from a woman with a young son. She writes to his father because
the son wants to meet him. The son has learned from the streets how to
behave. He's rough around the edges. His mother is killed in a bus accident
and circumstance soon find the former schoolteacher on the road with him to
find his father. They both learn a lot about themselves and ... oh, I can't
do it. I don't know how this movie got an 8.0 rating on IMDb. The boy is
annoying and obnoxious and the woman is base and petty. Rio is depressing and
the poor are portrayed as grasping, stupid and small-minded. The boy is given
every leeway, presumably working on his good looks, as he likely would be
forgiven his horrific attitude in real life. They are transformed by their
journey toward his father, but it's really hard to see why. Love and the
everlasting hopefulness of the human spirit, I guess. The movie picked up a
bit with the introduction of genuinely nice guys: the boy's two much-older
brothers. Saw it in Portuguese with English subtitles. Not recommended.
Resident Evil: Extinction (2007) -- "6/10"
This is the third in the by-now seven-part -- and soon to be eight-part, in
2016 -- series of zombie movies based on the video game and starring Mila
Jovovich. This one finds Alice with super powers, engendered by the evil Dr.
Isaacs (played by Iain Glen, who you may know as Jorah Mormont from The Game
of Thrones). Zombies show up and are killed in droves. Alice discovers
something new (clones of herself!), defeats the virologically enhanced Dr.
Isaacs and moves one step closer to her ultimate goal: destroying the board
of directors of the Umbrella Corporation. Saw it in German.
Babylon A.D. (2008) -- "6/10"
Vin Diesel stars in what seems like a remake of The Golden Child in a
post-apocalyptic future. And the golden child is played by Melanie Thierry
and accompanied by Michelle Yeoh. Or a remake of The Matrix. With a bit of
The Fifth Element thrown in. Watched it for Vin Diesel and some Michelle Yeoh
ass-kicking; got both. Recommended for fans.
Immortals (2011) -- "5/10"
This is a movie about Greek myths and legends, starring Henry Cavill as
Theseus, John Hurt as "Old Man", and a delectably evil Mickey Rourke as King
Hyperion. The aesthetic is very much 300, with a brown palette and a surfeit
of oiled and heavily muscled flesh. Rourke is in his element as the cruel
Hyperion -- he pontificates about taking a traitor out of the gene pool as
one of his henchmen readies a giant, wooden mallet and takes aim at said
traitor's nether regions. He's not done yet, though. He also has three
traitorous would-be oracles cooked alive in an iron bull. For a coup de
grace, he squeezes out the eyes of a loyal man before he can become a
traitor. The film aesthetic is similar to the world of the Necromongers in
The Chronicles of Riddick. The fight choreography is brutal and well-done,
especially the one where Mickey Rourke as Hyperion brutalizes Theseus.
Although I knew they would make Theseus win, I was rooting for Hyperion. Not
recommended, though.
Man on a Ledge (2012) -- "5/10"
Sam Worthington plays an ex-cop serving a long sentence for having stolen a
diamond. Elizabeth Banks is a police negotiator who's down on her luck since
losing a jumper a few months before. Spoiler alert: it ends up being a heist
movie. Jamie Bell plays his brother, who, along with his girlfriend
(fiancé?) played by Genesis Rodriguez, tries to actually steal the diamond
that his brother never stole. The diamond is in the possession of a
megalomaniacal billionaire played by Ed Harris. Worthington serves as a
distraction from the heist while trying to convince Banks to go along with
his plan to take down Harris, etc. etc. It was OK, but not recommended.
Last Night (1998) -- "6/10"
A movie about various intersecting lives on the last night on Earth. As the
time creeps toward midnight, people take care of their last wishes and
dreams. At the same time, we notice that the sun doesn't seem to be setting,
nor do shadows get any longer. It was kind of interesting, but nothing to
write home about.
12:01 (1993) -- "4/10"
A clone of Groundhog Day that is more closely based on the original story
about a time bounce. This is standard 80s-style love story, hijinks comedy.
With Jonathan Silverman, Jeremy Piven, Helen Slater and Martin Landau.
Nobody's career was launched with this one. Unless Danny Trejo used his role
as "prisoner" to lever up to Machete. Not recommended.
Bronson (2008) -- "7/10"
Tom Hardy plays Michael Peterson, Britain's most violent prisoner, who goes
by the alias Charles Bronson. He was initially sentenced to seven years in
jail and ended up moving to several prisons and spending over three decades
in solitary confinement. Echoes of A Clockwork Orange in the soliloquies.
Bronson was involved in the production and praised Hardy for his physique and
his portrayal. The man is single-minded and while perhaps not evil, certainly
focused laser-like on mayhem. Even in solitary, he kept up his physical
regimen and even published a book on how to use bodyweight exercise to stay
fit in the absence of any exercise equipment. Even when they Thorazine him to
the gills, his rage still finds a way. Hardy's portrayal is fascinating. And
Refn's direction and script makes no attempt to explain Bronson, it just
shows him but doesn't try to explain how he came to be. There is no origin
story, there is only an embodiment of physical violence and joy in rage, the
more the merrier. He is a force of nature, incalculable and unpredictable.
The finale is a literal work of art: Bronson kidnaps his art teacher, paints
him and portrays him like Magritte's Son of Man, strips, paints himself with
charcoal and prepares for his next battle with dozens of armored guards.
After a tremendous beating, he appears again briefly, horribly bloodied and
bruised, locked in a coffin cage within a solitary cell. His mobility has
been taken from him. Interesting. Recommended.
Spring Breakers (2012) -- "5/10"
James Franco only shows up for a few seconds in the first half an hour.
Before that, the movie plays like a drug-hazed music video advertisement
for
Spring Break. Lots of boobs and booze and not a lot of cohesion. If I was
25
years younger, I would probably have been a lot more interested than I was
now. Unfortunately my lens and emphasis has shifted somewhat and I need a
bit
more than an insipid plot with insipid people who want to "party,
bitches".
The group of girls make it to Spring Break and party like it's 1999 and
meet
up with Franco's "Alien". He's decent enough -- nearly unrecognizable at
first -- but the characters are all dumb as dirt. There are some
interesting
flashbacks and montages -- the one to the Britney Spears ballad stands out
--
and some flash-forwards that keep things more interesting than they would
otherwise have been. And they would otherwise have been very boring,
despite
the attempts by the director to ramp things up with more and more nudity
and
sapphism as he neared the end. I don't know what college is like now but
when
I was in college, we considered spilling alcohol a party foul. In this
movie,
it seems to be custom to wear expensive booze all over your body rather
than
drinking it.
I'd read that the movie was bad for women, that it encouraged a rape
culture.
This is patently not true. Everyone parties. Innuendo occurs. No one is
raped. Everything that happens is consensual, if drug- and alcohol-fueled.
There are others that claim female empowerment for the film. That, instead
of
being subjugated, the girls -- they do not register as women, other than
for
their lush adult-female characteristics, but they baby-doll themselves
with
little-girl backpacks e.g. -- are in control of what happens where. But
they
also spend the almost the entire movie in bikinis, which belies that
particular line of argument quite quickly. Perhaps this accoutrement was
to
serve a moral point, but I fail to see what it was. It served more to
highlight in a near-constant manner the aforementioned adult-female
characteristics.
A good movie to watch while indoor-biking, where you're a captive
audience.
Not recommended.
Waydowntown (2000) -- "5/10"
This is Canada's answer to Office Space with more trippiness and
hallucinations and fewer jokes. The movie centers on a handful of people in a
large office complex in Calgary, a complex which spreads over many buildings
and tunnels and walkways. This leads some of the characters to make a bet as
to who can go the longest without going outside. It was OK and Fab Filippo as
Tom was charismatic, but overall a bit uneven and hard to recommend.
Greg Proops: Live at Musso & Frank (2014)
As usual with Proops -- who does something very similar a couple of times per
week in his podcast, The Smartest Man in the World -- the show doesn't even
seem so organized or prepared. He starts off reading from notes but quickly
has the show flying. It's almost as if a man so in possession of his craft
were able to plan the initial bungling to make the ensuing seemingly
stream-of-consciousness but doubtless oft-practiced bits come off
wonderfully. The final segment about his first job in the 70s -- delivering
pizzas from a chicken shack -- is wonderful. He has the audience in the palm
of his hand. He makes it look bloody easy. He's in the middle of a diner,
delivering almost extemporaneously and slurping one martini after another.
There is also a table full of bimbettes directly in front of him, who seem to
be laughing uproariously but who are clearly far too young and -- dare I
denigrate them unfairly? Yes I dares, as Proops would say -- undereducated
and under-experienced and under-read to get even half of the references he
casually tosses like grenades into the audience. I laughed out loud several
times, usually when he seems to lose control and spit out some underhanded
biting and sarcastic comment. Highly recommended.
Die Ehe der Maria Braun (1979) -- "8/10"
This is a story of a German woman in post-war Germany, whose husband of 1.5
days never came back from war. She despairs but finds solace in the arms
of
an American soldier who also happens to be black. She teaches him German
and
he teaches her English. They conceive and make plans to bring the child
into
the world. And then her husband comes back. And they kill the American
soldier together. There is a trial, the husband takes the fall and we next
see Eva traveling on a train.
She fetches up on the next shore as a translator in a company between the
German owners and American partners, where she quickly shows her savvy by
closing an otherwise-untenable deal. Nicely filmed, well-acted and
well-written -- especially Frau Braun. When her boss makes an overture in
the
office after a night spent with her, she chastises him for mixing his
private
life into the daily business -- "das ist kein private Ort. Das ist ein
Büro
in ihrer Firma". When he whines about it, she says "Ich bin wer ich bin.
Gestern Nacht war ich Maria Braun, die mit Ihnen schlaffen wollte. Heute
bin
ich Maria Braun, die für Sie arbeiten möchte."
The dialogue is very nice and her confidence and savoir faire is a breath
of
fresh air. Her husband comes out of prison, but meets with her lover -- of
whom she'd informed him -- and makes a deal: the husband will go to Canada
if
her lover names Maria as his only heir. She teases him to the end, but
calls
him shortly before he dies to tell him, "Ich brauche jemand der mit mir
schlaffen will." Mourning the loss of her lover of many years, she's drunk
in
her house when her husband returns. She has no idea of the fortune.
In their excitement at their reunion, she lights her cigarette, as always,
from the stove, but leaves the gas on. It is an odd reunion, with both
parties sparring and looking for an opening. When a work colleague shows
up
at the door with the dead man's will, she lets him and his wife in,
answering
the door in a negligée. She realizes that two men loved her; one gave her
up
to the other so that both could love her for a time. German football plays
in
the background. Then, boom. The reactions are incongruously poorly acted,
but
I can only imagine that it was intended. The film ends with West Germany's
winning the World Cup Final in 1954, on the radio. Saw it in the original
German. I have no idea to whom I would recommend it.
Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) -- "7/10"
We're back in Panem, with the same cast of characters reprising their roles.
It manages to make the politics almost more interesting than the fighting.
Katniss is slowly elevated to the status symbol of the gestating revolution.
The plot follows the same basic points as the first movie: selection for the
Hunger Games, visit to the nice housing facilities, demonstration of talent
in the training area, tearful entry into arena, parting from fashion
designer, run to the weapons, teaming up, etc. etc. The best part, as in the
first movie, is Jennifer Lawrence's sarcastic curtsy to the judges. Better
than expected. Will probably watch the next one.
Earthquake (1974) -- "6/10"
The setup takes forever compared to a modern movie, but it's interesting
nonetheless. It's a mystery to me how Charlton Heston ever became such a big
star. I guess the gruff, chiseled, but mostly kinda ugly thing was popular at
one point. The jewel of this movie is "the big one". It's wonderfully filmed,
not just for its time, either. It's really convincingly well-done and
possibly more believable because of the realism than all of the CGI claptrap
to which we've become accustomed. After that, we suffer through a bunch of
exposition and meeting characters until we get to see the next big quake. The
ending is a bit muddled and kind of peters out with the entire city of Los
Angeles in flames.
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) -- "7/10"
This is a comic-book movie about specialized characters that most of us have
never heard of, although I remember a Rocket Raccoon book I had in the early
80s. The movie survives on the strength of its acting, not on the strength of
the script. There is a lot of cool space stuff in it, but in the age of CGI,
we're all absolutely satiated if not spoiled with this stuff. Chris Pratt as
Starlord sells it well -- he's pretty funny. As is Bradley Cooper as a
genetically modified and completely CGI-animated cybernetic raccoon named
"rocket". Vin Diesel voices Groot, who has one line throughout the movie,
namely "I am Groot". It's hard to know how many levels of irony we're looking
at here. The plot is basically a carbon-copy of The Avengers: God-like
extra-dimensional beings acquire untold cosmic power and want to destroy the
center of human/non-God civilization. Instead of New York, they attack some
city with an exotic-sounding name on a planet far away from Earth. There are
some decent moments and I've never hated Zoë Saldana less, actually.
Recommended.
Brüno (2009) -- "2/10"
A godawful unfunny mess of a movie. Do not watch. Watch The Dictator instead.
Edge of Tomorrow (2014) -- "9/10"
I am so glad I knew nothing about the plot of this movie before I watched it.
Do not read the IMDb description; even that gives you too both too much
information and the wrong idea. Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt have great
chemistry as an evenly matched pair of soldiers in a war against an alien
invasion. That much is clear. At first I thought I was watching a sci-fi
version of Groundhog Day. But then I realized it was much more like watching
someone play a very difficult video-game level over and over. It was nice of
the Wachowski brothers to let this movie use the Sentinels from The Matrix as
the main enemies. That must have saved a lot of money...that was probably
spent on Cruise's salary, ammirite? There were obstacles to overcome along
the way and if you missed one step, omitted one balletic move, failed to
eliminate one enemy, you were killed and the level was reset back to the
beginning. Until...you have just one life left and you have to make it count.
A tight, well-realized and gripping sci-fi action flick. One quibble I had
was the shaky cam. The fight scenes were decent with the camera staying an
appropriate distance back, but shaky cam has got to go. Still, highly
recommended.
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008) -- "7/10"
Michael Cera and Kat Dennings star in a boilerplate, high-school, end-of-year
romance. That is an unfair characterization: this version is very well-done
and includes a smattering of "innovations" on the theme. Cera's friends and
band-mates are nice, and supportive, instead of morons. In order to make this
believable, they are all gay. Except Cera, who is hopelessly in love with a
girl who wants him to be in love with her while she goes out with other guys.
Dennings says that she could "floss with her", one of the better lines of the
movie. Cera also has quite a few good lines, in his typical understated
delivery. Cera drives a Yugo. The plot follows this group of kids through New
York on a single night as they chase after an elusive and popular local band,
whose shows are always in surprising locations. A fun flick. Recommended.
American Reunion (2012) -- "6/10"
If you liked the first two American Pie movies, you're in luck: all of the
characters return for this reprise. They're all looking a little older, but
behave almost exactly the same. If I'm going to be fair, it wasn't nearly as
terrible as expected. Actually almost as good as the original. I can't
recommend it, but for those of you who would watch it anyway, know that
you're likely not to be disappointed.
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https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=30312014-12-14T21:48:03+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
This movie starts off super-strong with a council meeting on Krypton.
It's exciting because they filmed it with a shaky cam. It moves on
to
Russell Crowe as Jor-El (Superman's father) steal "the codex" --
half
a skull that kinda lights up? -- engage in meaningless
...
]]>
This movie starts off super-strong with a council meeting on Krypton. It's
exciting because they filmed it with a shaky cam. It moves on to Russell
Crowe as Jor-El (Superman's father) steal "the codex" -- half a skull that
kinda lights up? -- engage in meaningless heroics in a chamber that looks
ripped right out of the Matrix's breeding chambers, but without the menace
or
back-story. There's little back-story or character development at all to
make
you care about who wins or loses. Lots of shiny, though. Lots and lots of
shiny CGI. And the council chamber hasn't stopped shaking yet.
Who is this movie for? The technology is advanced but they fight with
fists
instead of the laser guns they sometimes use. Everything is automated, but
they shout orders into the wind like medieval warriors. Jor-el shoots
everyone but the most dangerous guy, who he lets walk right up to him and
knock the gun from his hand. And then stab him, later, while he watches a
pretty rocket.
This is just "and this happened" and "then that happened" without any
logic
or possibility for the viewer to predict or reason about anything. Don't
get
me wrong, it's a beautiful-looking movie, especially in 1080P HD. The
intergalactic prison is lovely, but seems kind of extravagant for housing
a
handful of frozen prisoners. Just how dangerous are these people?
Guantánamo
is just some fences and that seems to prevent escapes just fine. Instead
of a
prison, it seems more of a way of keeping those prisoners alive as the
planet
Krypton explodes soon after, taking the rest of the population with it.
Poor Kevin Costner: he gets a role in the limelight again and he has to
deliver such horrible lines. Almost worse is Amy Adams as Lois Lane, who
has
to be an asshole/ditz who ignores sub-zero temperatures to make a Nikon
commercial for a camera that would never work in those temperatures. Good
God, Amy Adams is annoying and terrible in this movie. Despite the danger
and
destruction, there's Lois, seeking the thick of the action. As titans
destroy
buildings, she fears nothing. All the roles are so cliché, except maybe
for
Diane Lane as Martha Kent.
Still all shaky cam and out-of-focus and badly framed shots for a lot of
the
action. Are they ashamed of what they've made? They pay about as much
attention to that as they do to getting the technology right. At one
point, a
"hacker" shouts that General Zod's signal is "coming in over the RSS
feeds!"
Ridiculous.
In the film's defense, the interleaved flashbacks of Kal-El's childhood
are
actually good and not annoying in the way that the trailer suggested. Also
in
its defense, some of the action is poorly filmed, but other parts are
visceral, especially the coordination of sound and CGI to make you really
feel the pounding. It's kind of nice that they show how much destruction
would be caused by beings of that power, from the holes Superman leaves
everywhere he takes off, to the swathes of destruction left by flying
superhuman bodies. The laws of physics aren't really respected, though. I
appreciate the fantasy and creativity that went into some of the scenes,
but
some of it is pretty comical and useless (the metal snake-mouths chasing
Superman? What the hell was that?). Well-made or not, it's onanism not
exposition. The story is not advanced by it -- at least not by 45 minutes
of
it.
The Birdcage (1996) -- "6/10"
Robin Williams, Nathan Lane and Hank Azaria star in this adaptation of Le
Cage aux Folles, which tells the story of a gay couple who own and operate a
burlesque club. The son they raised together returns with news that he wants
to get married. His fiancés parents, however, are bigoted assholes who don't
like homosexuals. The son seems to think that they should hide their gayness
to smooth the way to the wedding. This goes disastrously wrong and the son
has a change of heart and everything is all better. Robin Williams and Nathan
Lane play the proud parents; Hank Azaria is their Guatemalan butler. I'm not
a big fan of Nathan Lane, but the other two played well. The actress who
would end up playing Ally McBeal was her usual wide-eyed vapid self. Gene
Hackman slipped effortlessly into the role of the bigot (no surprise there)
and Dianne Wiest reprised her role from footloose as conciliatory woman
married to a bigot. The movie had its moments, but it was pretty uneven.
Recommended for fans of Azaria and Williams.
Bad Words (2013) -- "8/10"
Jason Bateman directs himself in this dark comedy about a grown man (over 40)
who uses loopholes in the rules to take part in school spelling bees. He
levers himself up to the national championship, where he meets Chaitanya
Chopra. The little Indian boy befriends him and they all live happily ever
after. Just kidding. There is a lot of swearing and drinking and seriously
bad words spoken, much of it by Bateman. He's a bitter, relentless man but he
knows he will win the competition. There are twists, but mostly its the Jason
Bateman show with him doing what he does best, being a nice-guy/jerk. It
wasn't as dark as something like Bad Santa but it was definitely in that
direction. Recommended.
The Other Woman (2014) -- "3/10"
This was an execrable and derivative movie which would most likely purport to
empower women but only exacerbates the problem that women and men don't take
each other seriously. Mark, played by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (you may know him
as Jamie Lannister) is portrayed as a penis with a heartbeat, seemingly
insatiable for sex and ever-manipulable by his member's needs. The women are
caricatures, poor Leslie Mann is underutilized as a whiner with no backbone,
although she does her damnedest to lend some humor. Cameron Diaz was, as
almost always, just terrible. Like a train hitting a bus-load of
schoolchildren in slow motion. Kate Upton rounded out the trio as the
ostensible airhead, although it really took some squinting and concentration
to tell who took the crown there. Don Johnson didn't play well, but he seems
to have his weight problem under control, so that's good news, I guess. Nicki
Minaj wore clothes that emphasized her ass to a nearly comical degree (not
surprising) and makeup that made her look like Pixar drew her. Funny moments
were thin on the ground, as were surprises. My recommendation is to avoid
this movie.
Life of Pi (2013) -- "8/10"
This is a very pretty film with a riveting story. It was much better than I
expected it to be. The story is of a family in India that owned a zoo. They
moved with the zoo on a Japanese freighter to France. The ship sank off the
coast of the Philippines. One of the boys survived by his wits, accompanied
for hundreds of days by a tiger, Richard Parker. At least, that is the story
that he tells and is the one that is wonderfully filmed. Some of the more
surrealistic scenes were very evocative. Though there were a handful of
scenes that were clearly made for 3D, they didn't disturb the 2D experience.
Recommended. Saw it in German.
The Cold Light of Day (2012) -- "4/10"
Bruce Willis stars as -- surprise! -- a CIA agent who hid his secret life
from his family for years, à la De Niro from Meet the Fockers. This movie is
so bad that Willis gets killed halfway through because he wanted to get out
of the movie so badly. Or maybe they couldn't afford his fee for the full two
hours. Henry Cavill (later Superman) and Sigourney Weaver round out the known
names, but they can't save this stilted and derivative script. They're in
Spain, there's a Penélope Cruz-lookalike, there are Mossad agents, rogue CIA
agents and seemingly super-powered evil guys who are beaten to within an inch
of their lives, but they can not only take the pain with a snicker but can
also magically heal the wounds incurred thereby. The movie ends with a
flash-cut, illogical and unconvincingly violent, GTA-style car chase and
shootout with no clear explanation as to the passion behind certain motives.
Nor will you end up caring. Not recommended.
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) -- "5/10"
This is a pretty uneven entry in the James Bond series, the only one in which
George Lazenby plays the lead role. It picks up considerably once Bond gets
to Switzerland and they spend a lot of time at the Schilthorn, starting in
Lauterbrunnen and ending up in Birg as well. The top is reserved for Blofeld
(played by Telly Sevalas), S.P.E.C.T.R.E. and an allergy clinic populated
only by gorgeous young women who take part in curling on the helipad at the
top. Another man cannot get to the top with the cablecar -- because the top
is private -- so he scales the Schilthorn to get there. You don't have to
scale anything to get from Birg to the top, though. It's not particularly
pleasant and it's more than occasionally steep, but it's a straightforward
hike up there. The surrealism was interesting for a while, but didn't last.
Not recommended.
The Wire (Season 5) (2008) -- "10/10"
If I had to describe this season in a sentence fragment, it would be "a
relentless exercise in cynical realism". I deliver this as a compliment of
the highest order. This last season introduces the staff of the Baltimore
Sun, which hadn't featured in the previous four seasons. Another story thread
was in the state capitol with a machinating mayor, staff and legislators.
Another was in the streets with the war started by Marlo Stanfield and the
police desperately trying to bust him -- Lester and the newly restored
McNulty. Excellent writing, excellent acting, excellent direction, just an
excellent series that pulled no punches over all five seasons. The other four
seasons are all great as well, with season one focusing on the projects and
the drug trade, season two on the docks and import/export corruption, season
three on the streets and the Barksdale and Stringer Bell story-arc, season
four on the school system and mayoral, city- and state-level politics. I
can't recommend the whole series highly enough.
True Detective (2014) -- "10/10"
Wow. Just wow. I'd just finished watching The Wire and expected to be only
reasonable satisfied watching this show. Instead of binging on the shows,
though, I found myself savoring each bizarre episode, utterly captivated by
the two leads: Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson. Michelle Monaghan is
also very good in a supporting role as Harrelson's wife. The show centers on
the detective partners, working a serial-killer case in Louisiana, starting
in 1995 and going all the way up to 2012 or even 2014. Rust Cohle, played by
McConaughey is transcendent and wonderfully written by Nic Pizzolatto as a
hyper-intelligent detective paired with passingly clever but basically
animalistic, brutish and dumb Marty Hart, played by Harrelson. The plot is
fascinating and unfolds slowly, delivered in dribs and drabs and partly in
dialogue and partly in lovingly shot outdoor scenes. Rust Cohle is an
optimistic realist to the end. Kudos to both Harrelson and McConaughey for
their performances. Highly recommended.
Kingpin (1996) -- "6/10"
Woody Harrelson and Randy Quaid star as two bowling prodigies -- one is a
washed-up former champion and the other Amish. The Farrelly brother directed,
in case that wasn't obvious. Bill Murray plays Harrelson's nemesis, Ernie
McCracken, an absolutely unconscionable and foul Lothario who -- spoiler
alert -- does not get his comeuppance. Still, the Farrellys are kind enough
to let Harrelson's Roy Munson and Quaid's Ishmael have a happy ending. The
silliness is held in check by Harrelson's acting chops. Not as good as Me,
Myself and Irene or There's Something about Mary but still fun.
Interstellar (2014) -- "9/10"
This movie starts with a small family living on a dessicated farm in the U.S.
several decades from now. The logical results of climate change wreak
havoc
on mankind's ability to survive. And survival is the only thing on
mankind's
mind, as all thought of advancement and gadgets and growth are lost in the
desperate struggle to keep the remains of the human population alive.
Matthew McConaughey plays Cooper, a former test pilot who's itching to do
more than just survive. He is one of the remains of a generation that
still
has an ingrained need to strive for bigger, better, faster, more. It is
hinted that this attitude is exactly what led mankind to its current
situation. But science and technology are strong in this movie. The belief
that learning and building are better than just living triumphs.
John Lithgow as Cooper's father is of the opinion that mankind is a virus
and
should just die out instead of trying to rise again and destroy even more
of
the world -- or universe. Though he's almost certainly right, nobody cares
what he thinks in this movie. The politics and philosophy, though a bit
more
thought-out than many other movies, are left to stagnate relatively
quickly.
So let's move on. This is going to be, after all, an action movie with
science prevailing to promulgate the human race. Thank goodness, though,
that
the military and jingoism play a more subdued role than in other, similar
treatments.
Cooper and his kids find a drone, which is an old Indian one and has been
flying autonomously for at least a decade -- wait, that has no relevance
to
the story. Let's start over.
Ok, Cooper's daughter thinks she's found a ghost in her room. Her Dad
tells
her to investigate scientifically, to form a hypothesis. They discover
together that the ghost is using gravity to encode Morse-code signals. The
signals are geographic coordinates. They drive to these coordinates and
come
upon an old military base/facility and are apprehended. There they find
the
remnants of NASA. Here Cooper learns that everyone agrees that Earth will
soon no longer be hospitable. Michael Caine plays a super-genius scientist
who is trying to resolve the T.O.E. in order to master gravity with the
purpose of being able to launch a considerable part of Earth's population
out
of the planet's deep gravity well. At the same time, they need to
investigate
possible new homes. As luck would have it, a wormhole has been discovered
orbiting Saturn and, through it, several potentially habitable worlds as
well. 12 brave scientist/explorer/adventurers have already been sent to
the
12 planets to investigate. Now they need Cooper to accompany Caine's
Daughter
-- Brand, played by Anne Hathaway -- and a couple of others on NASA's last
rocket to get to the most hospitable of these. Boom, they're in a rocket.
They hyper-sleep. They awake near Saturn and dive into the wormhole.
Through
the wormhole and they're in the vicinity of Gargantua, a black hole on the
other side, around which a candidate planet orbits. Relativistic
time-dilation effects are discussed. Decades pass on Earth while only
hours
pass for the astronauts. The first planet is a bust. Brand wants to go to
the
planet with her boyfriend on it. She makes an impassioned speech about the
universe running on love. Cooper doesn't buy it. They go to the other
planet.
It is composed of a crust of frozen clouds and has Matt Damon on it. He
has
lost his marbles and tries to kill people, but Cooper and Brand escape in
magnificent fashion, along with their very funny, blocky robots. They
boost
toward the third planet, but the only way to get there is to drop one of
the
funny robots TARS into the black hole. Also, Cooper. Neither of them die,
Instead, they are funneled by external forces to a three-dimensional
representation of the tesseract that the hyper-dimensional beings built to
bring the wormhole to life in the first place. So they're
fifth-dimensional
beings, if you're following along. They play with tesseracts the way we
play
with spheres. Anyway, Cooper ends up floating in a multitude of what looks
like library-book shelves but is actually a representation of the string
of
moments that built the reality in four-dimensional space from which he
came.
But, being fifth-dimensional now -- if only temporarily -- he, too, can
view
time as a static dimension along which entire universes can be glimpsed in
their entirety as they were at that infinitesimal snapshot. Stop me if
you've
heard this one before. He realizes that he's behind the bookshelves in his
daughter's room at different times, first seeing her as a child and then
as
an adult when she returns to ... collect something. So he's the ghost from
the beginning of the film. And love, apparently, does conquer all, because
it's what made her try so hard to figure out the secret of the ghost. When
she does, she transcribes the further Morse code that he encodes in the
deliberately defective second-hand of the watch that he gave her and which
she disdainfully rejected when he first abandoned her to go to space and
try
to save the planet but really he was just going for his own ego and
abandoning her. Sorry. Stay focused. We're almost there. He and TARS, as
they
fell through the event horizon, managed to collect the gravitational data
that Murph (this is Cooper's daughter) needs in order to solve the
equations
that Professor Brand (Caine) could not solve -- and which he actually knew
(or thought he knew) couldn't be solved because the data they needed was
inside a black hole. So she totally solves them anyway because her father
is
friends with fifth-dimensional beings who play with black holes the way we
play with marbles and he, as mentioned above, gives her that knowledge.
And
the fifth-dimensional beings are none other than the future humans who
will
benefit from themselves having helped Cooper help save humanity with this
message back to Murph. Fast-forward to Cooper waking up on a space station
orbiting Saturn after having been picked up exiting the wormhole back to
the
Solar System. Due to relativistic time-dilation, that trip took many
decades
in Earth time -- more than enough time for mankind to save itself with
technology built with Murph's equations. Chronologically unchanged father
is
reunited with now aged and nearly dead daughter for one last goodbye. She
tells him to go find Brand, who has found her dead lover on the third
planet.
She has taken over building a totally viable habitat there and waits for
mankind to join her -- or at least a big, strong man to save her. Mankind
is
totally hanging out in a bitching Ringworld-like space station, so it's
hard
to see what they'd want to do on a planet, but I digress again. Cooper
finds
TARS, reanimates him, steals a small ship that looks like a Cylon fighter
from the original Battlestar Galactica and heads off to join Brand.
Saw it in English in the theater. Totally awesome and fun. Highly
recommended.
X--Men: Days of Future Past (2014) -- "6/10"
The first fifteen minutes proves just how boring super-hero movies are when
there is no context and no attachment to the characters. All of the male
superheroes look the same to me and they all flit and fly around
unconvincingly, with portals and robots and power-blasts choreographed to
within a nanometer while still managing to be unbelievably boring.
There is no drama, no tension if you have no idea why you should care that
the super-snazzy robot is about to kill a young girl and a giant black
guy. I
happened to know that they were Kitty Pryde and Bishop, but I still had no
idea what was going on. It looked and felt less like a movie and more like
a
lovingly rendered but still stilted tech demo for the new Unreal or Crytek
Engine.
It eventually settled down a bit and unpacked a time-travel plot that
served
as a backdrop to mostly unconvincing set-pieces with a lot of bluster
about
hating mutants. The ending was familiar from the comic books and somehow
seemed more convincing there. In the film it felt more like The Wizard of
Oz
updated for the Sci-Fi set. The cast is good and includes a lot of
heavy-hitters -- Patrick Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellan, James
McAvoy,
Michael Fassbender, Peter Dinklage, Jennifer Lawrence and Ellen Page --
but
it was hard to avoid thinking that they were mostly wasted. Recommended
but
only for fans of the genre.
Joe Dirt (2001) -- "5/10"
This movie starts off very stupid and awkward and gradually -- through the
power of David Spade's innocent charm -- becomes much less awkward, endearing
even. It tells the story of Joe Dirt(e), a mulleted man whose family
abandoned him when he was 10 years old. He appears on a radio show to tell
his story, which includes many misadventures of a hick variety, many forced
but some genuinely funny. He also meets a lot of very attractive and nearly
ridiculously healthy-looking women along the way, in the form of Brittany
Daniel, Jaime Pressly and a few other anonymous souls. Christopher Walken,
Kid Rock and Dennis Miller have smaller roles, listed in decreasing order of
savoriness. Watched it while indoor-cycling so it was good for that, but it's
hard to recommend as a movie to just watch by itself.
Barbarians at the Gate (1993) -- "5/10"
This movie is a quasi-documentary (a made-for-TV movie) about the sale of the
R. J. Reynolds Nabiscocompany in 1989. It was a leveraged buyout (LBO) in
what would become the classic mold: load up on debt (leveraging) and gut the
company to pay back the investors who bought the company with that debt.
James Garner played the then-CEO F. Ross Johnson, who ended up being beaten
out in his bid to buy the company by an even-shadier KKR group, headed by
Henry Kravits, played by Jonathan Pryce. It was kinda boring but some parts
were well-done. Too 80s, with cheesy music, too many montages and not enough
meat. Recommended for economic historians interested in seeing the beginning
of the latest era of LBOs and unhinged greed and utter disregard for actual
economic value.
Battle of Los Angeles (2011) -- "2/10"
This is the story of an epileptic cameraman with a strobe light strapped to
his face. Shaky cam doesn't even being to describe this movie that follows a
group of marines charged with clearing the Fallujah-like streets of a Los
Angeles under attack by mysterious but very militarily minded aliens who have
conveniently invaded on foot and without any air cover whatsoever. The fog of
war is everywhere and glimpses of aliens are offered in horror-movie style
until one finally shows up in all of its glory. Luckily, it can travel across
the vast depths of space but it has no idea of close-quarters tactics, using
a conventional projectile weapon that it is unable to point in the right
direction before several marines M16 him into oblivion. This is a military
advertisement with a very small alien component. It's kind of like if
Starship Troopers took itself seriously. Now I know what an embedded reporter
must feel like. Not recommended. Terrible. Just play Call of Duty or
Battlefield yourself if you need to get your military rocks off.
Orange is the New Black (2013--2014) -- "8/10"
This is a show about the journey of a whiny, privileged and entitled New
Yorker. She has a past, she dated a drug dealer and traveled the world with
her. Nearly ten years later and she's been implicated for her past and is on
the way up to to Litchfield prison, in upstate New York. The prison is
low-security and has an interesting cast of characters. It's not all gold,
but it's interesting and fun, with a bunch of the characters growing on you.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=29862014-08-16T21:45:26+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
A star-studded cast can't save this utterly derivative and cliché
script. Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Connelly, Kevin Connolly, Scarlet
Johannson, Justin Long, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Aniston and Ben
Affleck. And Busy Phillips -- of Freaks and Geeks
...
]]>
A star-studded cast can't save this utterly derivative and cliché script.
Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Connelly, Kevin Connolly, Scarlet Johannson,
Justin
Long, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Aniston and Ben Affleck. And Busy Phillips
--
of Freaks and Geeks fame -- had a small role. This movie purports to
dispel
the myths of dating, marriage and male/female relationships. Though it may
appear to do so superficially -- at least it very clearly tells you that
it
is doing so -- at a deeper level, it is no better than any other film in
this
genre. I don't remember every minute of this 129-minute movie -- you read
that correctly, this so-called "chick flick" is over two hours long and
never
seems to end -- but I'm almost 100% certain that it failed the Bechdel
Test.
[1] It also fails other common tests: there are a dozen lead characters
and
they're all white. The women all have low-level jobs -- most work together
in
a cube farm and another is a struggling singer -- while the men are all
successful : one is a record executive, another owns/operates his own
bar/restaurant, another is a successful real-estate agent and another's
job
is unclear but he owns his own boat. The women are all kind of dependent
on
their men, whining about their inability to get married or find a guy. The
men clearly don't care. Not recommended.
Brother (2000) -- "8/10"
Takeshi Kitano directs himself in the starring role in this story of the
journey to America of an exiled Yakuza gangster named Aniki Yamanoto. He
is
sparing in motion and speech but when he moves, he does so precisely and
with
great and often lethal force. He is also extremely shrewd at conquering
territory in his newfound home, where the existing gangs seem to be less
quick to pull triggers than he. The movie also stars a very young Omar
Epps.
Yamamoto joins forces with another local Japanese gang and they commence
expanding their territory. There are many execution scenes that delineate
the
new power divide. There are scenes of self-mutilation among the Yakuza
that
makes you wonder whether they'll kill themselves off before their enemies
can
do it. They finally end up taking on the Mafia and things get really ugly.
The scenes themselves are often very stylistic and pretty, despite the
gruesome depictions in them.
It's nicely filmed in what I've come to think of as the Japanese
crime-drama
style. Many of the shots feel like Grand Theft Auto Tokyo/San Francisco.
Saw
it in English and Japanese/Spanish with English subtitles. Recommended.
Sexy Beast (2000) -- "8/10"
This is an English crime movie starring Ben Kingsley as a thug named Don
Logan sent to collect Ray Winstone's character, Gad, to help execute a
robbery. Gad has been living in Spain for years after retiring from the
safe-cracking business. Logan doesn't take no for an answer and he makes
the
most of his reputation as a ruthless henchman. Gad, his wife and his
friend
and wife are all extremely leery of Logan and give him a lot of leeway.
Kingsley fills all the space he's given with menace, although it's a
tight-rope of false menace versus the fear of the others, who just want to
extricate themselves from this situation. They want the nightmare of
Kingsley's character to go away and he knows this, he feeds off of it.
Spoiler alert: Logan pushes them all too far and Gad's wife ends up taking
him out with a shotgun after which he taunts them from the ground,
spitting
blood and curses and epithets while he chokes out his last. Gad goes to
England to do the job anyway, trying to cover tracks, but the head honcho
there -- Teddy, played by ian McShane -- oozes just as much menace as Don
Logan. I thought the film had a nice style -- it was directed by Brian
Glazer
-- and it reminded me a bit of some of Kubrick's work. Recommended, but
not
highly.
Frozen (2103) -- "5/10"
The standard Disney princess-meets-boy movie has been transplanted to the
great white North, presumably somewhere in ... Iceland? Because of the
trolls? Or Norway because of all of the names, like Olaf? Probably
generically European, I guess. It's all just one big place. The first act
--
about 40 minutes -- is pretty insufferable. There is one forgettable
musical
number after another, with the most appalling lyrics.
And then, out of nowhere, the door to the sauna/shop cabin in the woods
opens
and we are introduced to the innkeeper, who seems snatched right out of
the
Emperor's New Groove and is a breath of fresh -- and funny -- air in an
otherwise odiously predictable movie. A movie made all the more unbearable
by
the back-to-back-to-back and seemingly endless crooning. The one song that
really stood out was, of course, Olaf the snowman's ode to summer, another
slyly hilarious song made poignant by his utter obliviousness to the
meaning
of the words he's singing. That twenty-minute segment in the middle could
be
extracted into a good short film.
What I'm calling the third act was just as predictable as the first act.
How
were the much-vaunted animations? The snow was well-done, I guess. The
human
figures were terrible, at least the female ones were. Has anyone else
noticed
that Disney has ended up depicting females as Bratz dolls instead of
human-looking? The male characters were fine, although of course all
conventionally handsome. Josh Gad as Olaf was a standout. The musical
numbers
and plot was 100% designed so that Disney doesn't have to pay anyone to
write
the inevitable Broadway musical.
The Waterboy (1998) -- "6/10"
It is neither an exaggeration nor necessarily a compliment to write that this
is possibly Adam Sandler's best comedy, or is at least in the running with
Happy Madison.
Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) -- "8/10"
A wonderful stop-motion animation written and directed by Wes Anderson and
based on a story by Roald Dahl. The film is unmistakably a Wes Anderson
flick
with the usual rogue's gallery that includes Bill Murray, Owen Wilson,
Willem
Dafoe and Jason Schwartzman all lending their voices to characters. Meryl
Streep lends her voice to Felicity Fox, Mr. Fox's wife. Mr. Fox is voiced
by
George Clooney, who at times seems to be channeling Everett McGill from Oh
Brother Where Art Thou. There were no musical numbers, which was a nice
change of pace from Frozen, which was filled end-to-end with them.
The story follows a reprobate Mr. Fox who supplements a boring career as a
newspaperman with a few last capers that involve stealing from three local
farmers. The farmers respond with extreme prejudice and Mr. Fox's capers
end
up dragging the whole local animal world into danger. His son, Ash, is
kind
of strange (played by Schwartzman, of course) and in competition with his
cousin, who's come to live with them for a while and who is quite an
accomplished athlete much more in the vein of his uncle than his uncle's
son
(Ash) could ever be. The first and second acts were quite strong while the
final act kind of dragged a bit, but it was a madcap and zany animated
feature that is well worth the time. Recommended.
The Jungle Book (1967) -- "8/10"
The classic Disney movie has its own cloying bits of story, but the feel of
the film was somehow much more artistic than Disney's later efforts (like
Frozen, reviewed above). The songs are great and include more than a few
classics and more memorable characters than most of Disney's
princess-drenched pap. Baloo, Bagira (Baggy), Ka and King Louie all stand out
-- although what also stands out is that there almost no female characters at
all. The film's not without its problems, but the musical numbers are
something to look forward to rather than to dread. Ka stretches all over the
trees and forms stairs and wheels out of his coils for Mogli to fall into and
it's somehow nicer than the CGI animations we have today. Recommended.
Ponyo (2008) -- "7/10"
This is a wonderfully drawn Japanese cartoon that has a plot made for
six--year-olds. It was an adorable plot but it didn't give adults much to go
on. I could only find a dubbed version (or perhaps the original was in
English?) because I usually avoid Hollywood dubbing of Japanese anime like
the plague. Ponyo's father was voiced by Liam Neeson -- of all people -- and
his rather distinctive voice took me a bit out of the aesthetic of the film.
Highly recommended for small kids but not anywhere on the level of a Spirited
Away or Howl's Moving Castle for adults.
Singin' in the Rain (1952) -- "7/10"
Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds and Jean Hagen star in this
movie about a silent-film company that makes the transition to sound. Set in
1927, the feel is quite over-the-top and it's hard to tell whether it feels
dated because the film is from 1952 or whether it feels dated because it's
pretending that it comes from 1927. I don't know if it's worth 8.4 out of 10
on IMDb but it definitely has its moments and it's definitely worth being
called a classic. It was highly entertaining and there was a number near the
end that was positively Daliesque. There were so many fantasies within
fantasies that I think we were three inception-levels down if not four.
O'Connor's "Make 'em laugh" routine is marvelous and Kelly's scene opposite
Hagen where they act out a scene in a movie while discussing her having
gotten the girl he likes fired was pretty inspired.
Walk of Shame (2014) -- "5/10"
Elizabeth Banks is charming in this movie, which goes a long way to papering
over the otherwise glaring cracks in the script. James Marsden is also quite
good as the sheepish, earnest one-night-stand. It's a popcorn comedy that
ended up being fun enough with an utterly unsurprising ending. Bill Burr had
a cameo as a police officer but was unnecessarily brutal and not funny at
all. Not recommended but also not not recommended.
Prisoners (2013) -- "8/10"
Jake Gyllenhall and Hugh Jackman are the two leads in this well-made film
about child abduction. Hugh Jackman plays the father, driven mad with grief
over the loss of his daughter. Jake Gyllenhall plays the police officer
assigned to the case. Both are very, very intense. Maria Bello played
Jackman's wife, who arguably handled the abduction even worse than her
husband. Paul Dano and Melissa Leo were both very, very good but I won't
mention their roles so as not to spoil anything. The ending was a bit lame,
in that it made what should have been routine police-work looks like
nigh-miraculous leaps of intuition. [2] Still, highly recommended.
The Lego Movie (2014) -- "4/10"
A movie for the A.D.D. generation. This movie is, on the surface, an
explosion of color, sound and scene and context changes. Below the
surface,
there might be some social critique, but it is quickly buried beneath a
relentless avalanche of nearly incomprehensible action. Imagine yourself
clinging to the edge of a rubber tube, smashing your way down category--5
rapids, holding on for dear life and trying desperately to anticipate
what's
going on. That helpless feeling you have -- if you've imagined properly --
is
exactly how you'll feel watching this movie.
When it slows down for some insipid dialogue, delivered during a
Matrix-like
pause, you're ever so thankful that the onslaught on your brain has, for
whatever reason, abated. You're so happy that you don't even care that the
one-liners are carefully vetted to satisfy all audiences and censors and
harbor no true critique. This movie is rated PG and is therefore open for
kids of all ages -- who are we kidding? -- but in the first fifteen
minutes,
we see a man have half of his personality erased for failing to prove his
allegiance by incapacitating his own parents. As the lead Lego-man said,
"I'm
just gonna come right out and say this: I have no idea what this place is
or
what's going on -- at all."
Big Night (1996) -- "8/10"
Stanley Tucci and Tony Shalhoub play Italian brothers with a restaurant in
New Jersey that is on the verge of closing because they cook authentic
Italian food and the customers are sparse and mostly "Philistines" (as Tony
Shalhoub says). This seemed a promising film, but I was unable to finish
watching it. More details in a future edition.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) -- "8/10"
This is a very solid spy movie. There's good continuity from the first movie
and Chris Evans and Scarlet Johansson reprise their respective roles well.
I
liked almost everything about this movie and look forward to more in the
Captain America series. The effects were well-integrated and not too
distracting right up until the very elegant ending credits.
I'm not so happy with Samuel L. Jackson's continued ham-handed portrayal
of
Nick Fury, though I admit that I may not be remembering just how much of a
jingoistic jerk Fury was in the comic books. My admittedly old memories of
him all see him as "cool", whereas he was probably exactly the proponent
of
the security state that Jackson portrays him to be. Robert Redford is also
way over the top and it's hard to tell whether he's deliberately being
over
the top in his portrayal of a right-wing power-hungry super-criminal and
where I'm so out of touch with US culture that I can't tell that he's just
espousing very mainstream views. [3] The main premise involving H.Y.D.R.A.
was well--thought-out and executed. Highly recommended.
My Cousin Vinny (1992) -- "8/10"
It is absolutely clear from the first time she opens her mouth why Marisa
Tomei earned an academy award for this movie. Joe Pesci is good, Ralph
Macchio is...ok, but Marisa Tomei is spectacular. The whole movie is quite a
clever and nicely made courtroom drama that pokes fun at everyone -- although
the American South arguably gets the worse and more unfair treatment. They're
pretty much all hicks, according to this movie. Still, there are so many good
lines and clever turns that it's definitely worth watching. Highly
recommended.
District B13 (2004) (fr) -- "6/10"
This French parkour film stars one parkour star -- David Belle, ostensibly
the inventor of the sport -- and one stuntman, Cyril Raffaelli, both of whom
deliver some nicely choreographed fight scenes. The first act ends on a very
cool note, with Belle delivering the coup de grâce. The plot is mostly
predictable but it's quite well-made and the parkour scenes are worth the
price of entry. Some of the thugs are less one-dimensional than usual (e.g.
K2) and the sub-titles are idiomatically rather than literally translated.
There's a bit of a twist at the end that's not bad. Recommended for fans of
the genre.
I'm Gonna Git You Sucka (1988) -- "4/10"
As the title suggests, this is a send-up of blaxploitation movies of the 70s,
starring a couple of the Wayans brothers as well as Jim Brown, Bernie Casey
and Isaac Hayes. Some parts work; most don't (at least anymore...the movie
hasn't really aged well). The outside sets are kinda nice as are some of the
cars. When Kung Fu Joe (played by Steve James) is pulled over, he gets out of
his Nissan, which tells him that his "door is ajar" -- that took me back
because we had a '84 Nissan Maxima that did the same thing. It has its
moments -- a 23-year--old Chris Rock plays a bit part as "Rib Joint
Customer", inventing the temporarily popular "I'll have one rib" catchphrase.
Not really recommended unless you need to fill a hole in your silly 80s
movies education.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] The "Bechdel Test" is a
gender-bias test that "asks whether a work of fiction features at least two
women who talk to each other about something other than a man. The
requirement that the two women must be named is sometimes added."
[1] For example, Redford's character asks the idiotic and purportedly
provocative question that included the hypothetical "when Pakistan starts
killing women in soccer stadiums [...]", I wondered whether his hyperbolic
depiction of Pakistan as an Islamist stronghold with Sharia law was due to
ignorance on the part of the scriptwriter or Redford's character's ignorance
or whether it was US propaganda injected into the film to form people's
opinions about Pakistan more negatively.
[1] There are several pretty glaring plot holes, but they don't really ruin
anything. The one that comes to mind is that, when Loki went back to the
house at the end of the film, he saw crews working the frozen ground,
looking for more evidence of other abductions. However, there is a car
parked on top of a giant piece of plywood right next to them. It doesn't
occur to anyone to ask "I wonder what's under here?" Instead, they dig into
frozen ground and rely on Loki hearing Keller's stupid whistle before they
realize that there might be a prisoner stashed under the plywood.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=29902014-05-04T23:23:40+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
" corresponds to a list of movies
I've seen and reviewed. The movies listed under that section are the ones I
thought noteworthy in that list. Of those, I selected my top recommendations and
collected them into the ""Genres" <#genres>" section.
[People]
Directors and screenwriters that tend to deliver work that I consistently find
intriguing and worth watching:
* David Lynch
* David Cronenberg
* Werner Herzog
* Lars von Trier
* David Mamet
* Darren Aronofsky
* Stanley Kubrick
* Oliver Stone
[Genres]
[Mindf$@k]
* A Clockwork Orange (1971)
* Dead Ringers (1988)
* The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989)
* Pi (1998)
* Magnolia (1999)
* eXistenz (1999)
* Memento (2000)
* Das Experiment (2001) (de)
* La Pianiste (2001) (fr)
* Adaptation (2002)
* Dogville (2003)
* Primer (2004)
* The Machinist (2004)
* Synecdoche, New York (2008)
* Antichrist (2009)
* Shutter Island (2010)
[Drama]
* The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
* Catch 22 (1970)
* Apocalypse Now (1979): try to get the Redux version
* Do the Right Thing (1989)
* A Few Good Men (1992)
* Natural Born Killers (1994)
* I Heart Huckabees (2004)
* Syriana (2005)
* The Wrestler (2008)
* The Black Swan (2010)
* The Fighter (2010)
* Warrior (2011)
[Crime Drama]
* Memories of Murder (2003)
* The Inside Man (2006)
* Zodiac (2007)
* Gone Baby Gone (2007)
* The Killer Inside Me (2010)
* The Town (2010)
* Drive (2011)
* Descendants (2011)
* The Guard (2011)
* Kill the Irishman (2011)
[Action]
* Demolition Man (1993)
* Constantine (2005)
* Running Scared (2006)
* Lockout (2012)
* Redemption (2013)
[Martial Arts]
* Old Boy (2003)
* Chocolate (2008)
[Comedies]
* Blazing Saddles (1974)
* Get Shorty (1985)
* The Princess Bride (1987)
* The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) (au)
* The Big Lebowski (1998)
* Dogma (1999)
* Bad Santa (2003)
* Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
* OSS 117: Le Caire, nid d’espions (2006) (fr)
* Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis (2008) (fr)
* Tropic Thunder (2008)
* Micmacs à tire-larigot (2009) (fr)
* Rien à Declarer (2010)
* The Other Guys (2010)
* Ted (2012)
[Horror comedies]
* Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010) (fi)
* Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010)
* Cabin in the Woods (2012)
[Science Fiction]
* Blade Runner (1982)
* The Thing (1982)
* Equilibrium (2002)
* Cargo (2009) (de/ch)
* 2081 (2009)
* Pandorum (2009)
[Animated]
* Akira (1988)
* Ghost in the Shell (1995)
* Paprika (2006)
* Renaissance (2006)
[Documentary]
* Mark of Cain (2001)
* Manufactured Landscapes (2006)
* Examined Life (2008)
* The End of Poverty (2008)
* Entre les Murs (2008)
* Defamation (2009)
* Objectified (2009)
* How to Make Money Selling Drugs (2012)
* The House I Live In (2012)
* The Act of Killing (2012)
There are many more documentaries that I can recommend, but those are the top
ones that are somewhat less US-centric.
[Details]
Here are the lists of movies I found in my review articles. The link above leads
to full reviews of the movies listed below it. IMDb will, of course, tell you
what the rest of the world liked. Wikipedia will tell you what it's about,
probably with a detailed plot description that will ruin the movie.
["Unreviewed movies" ]
These are from an older list that I kept before I started keeping more detailed
notes.
* The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
* Die Schweizermacher (1978)
* The Princess Bride (1987)
* Miller’s Crossing (1990)
* Equilibrium (2002)
* The Machinist (2004)
* 2046 (2004): slow -- typical Kar Wai Wong -- but fascinating and has an
awesome soundtrack
* Shaun of the Dead (2004)
* A Scanner Darkly (2006)
* Last King of Scotland (2006)
* Children of Men (2006)
* The Prestige (2006)
* Das Leben der Anderen (2006)
* Rescue Dawn (2006)
* The Host (2006): features Kang-ho Song, who's even better in Memories of
Murder
* Zodiac (2007)
* Eastern Promises (2007): David Cronenberg directs Viggo Mortenson as a
Russian gangster
* The Darjeeling Limited (2007)
* No Country for Old Men (2007)
* Synecdoche, New York (2008)
* Hunger (2008)
* Watchmen (2009)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2011.1"
]
* Primer (2004)
* Defendor (2009)
* Moon (2009)
* District 9 (2009)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2011.2"
]
* Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (1972)
* Fitzcarraldo (1982)
I went through a bit of a David Lynch phase here, and he’s not for everyone
but I kinda like him. He’s unique.
* Wild at Heart (1990)
* Lost Highway (1997)
* Mulholland Drive (2001)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2011.3"
]
* Evangelion 1.01 You Are (Not) Alone (2007)
* Green Zone (2010)
* Shutter Island (2010)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2011.5"
]
* Magnolia (1999)
* Felon (2008)
* The Other Guys (2010)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2011.6"
]
* Blazing Saddles (1974)
* Ghost Busters (1984)
* Do the Right Thing (1989)
* A Few Good Men (1992)
* Fifth Element (1997)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2011.7"
]
* Das Experiment (2001) (de)
* Bad Santa (2003)
* Gone Baby Gone (2007)
* The Wrestler (2008)
* True Grit (2008)
* Rien à Declarer (2010)
* Horrible Bosses (2011)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2011.8"
]
* Network (1976)
* Brazil (1985)
* The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
* Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
* Operation: Endgame (2010)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2012.1"
]
* The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover (1989)
* La Pianiste (2001) (fr)
* Dogville (2003)
* OSS 117: Le Caire, nid d’espions (2006) (fr)
* Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis (2008) (fr)
* The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)
* Antichrist (2009)
* Micmacs à tire-larigot (2009) (fr)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2012.2"
]
* Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008)
* The Killer Inside Me (2010)
* The Black Swan (2010)
* The Fighter (2010)
* Drive (2011)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2012.3"
]
* Die Wannseekonferenz (1987) (de)
* Equilibrium (2002)
* The Inside Man (2006)
* Ip Man (2008)
* The Town (2010)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2012.4"
]
* The Meaning of Life (1983)
* Pitch Black (2000)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2012.5"
]
* Demolition Man (1993)
* Chocolate (2008)
* The Descendants (2011)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2012.6"
]
* 2081 (2009)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2012.7"
]
* Midnight Express (1978)
* Platoon (1986)
* Captain America (2011)
* In Time (2011)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2012.8"
]
* Get Shorty (1985)
* I Heart Huckabees (2004)
* Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
* Paprika (2006)
* Superbad (2007)
* Ted (2012)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2012.9"
]
* Blade Runner (1982)
* Joe vs. The Volcano (1990)
* Examined Life (2008)
* Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010)
* Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010)
* Cabin in the Woods (2012)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2013.1"
]
* Old Boy (2003)
* Manufactured Landscapes (2006)
* The End of Poverty (2008)
* Objectified (2009)
* Pandorum (2009)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2013.2"
]
* Syriana (2005)
* Tropic Thunder (2008)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2013.3"
]
* The Big Lebowski (1998)
* The Prestige (2006)
* Flight (2012)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2013.4"
]
* Kill Bill (2003)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2013.5"
]
* Alien (1979)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2013.6"
]
* Slap Shot (1977)
* Repo Men (2009)
* Lockout (2012)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2013.7"
]
* Apocalypse Now (1979)
* Natural Born Killers (1994)
* Constantine (2005)
* Sunshine (2007)
* The Mechanic (2011)
* Cloud Atlas (2012)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2013.8"
]
* Catch 22 (1970)
* Safe (2012)
* 2 Guns (2013)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2013.9"
]
* Looper (2012)
* The Animatrix (2003)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2013.10"
]
* Pi (1998)
* eXistenz (1999)
* Mark of Cain (2001)
* Running Scared (2006)
* Entre les Murs (2008)
* Defamation (2009)
* Kill the Irishman (2011)
* How to Make Money Selling Drugs (2012)
* The House I Live In (2012)
* Redemption (2013)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2014.1"
]
* The Thing (1982)
* The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)
* Memories of Murder (2003)
* Renaissance (2006)
* Warrior (2011)
* The Act of Killing (2012)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2014.2"
]
* The Brood (1979)
* Dead Ringers (1988)
* Adaptation (2002)
["Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2014.3"
]
* Election (1999)
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=29802014-04-13T17:36:24+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
I can only say what I thought of this movie based on the way that I
saw it: in HD on a conventional screen at home. I can imagine that
the experience was very different in 3D and on a giant screen with
a
kick-ass sound system. The only downside I can think of is that if
the
...
]]>
I can only say what I thought of this movie based on the way that I saw it:
in HD on a conventional screen at home. I can imagine that the experience
was
very different in 3D and on a giant screen with a kick-ass sound system.
The
only downside I can think of is that if the sound-leveling was the same in
the theater, it would have been an ear-blistering experience. If you set
the
volume high enough to hear the occasional radio whispers, many other parts
of
the movie nearly blew you out of your chair -- or caused the neighbors to
call to yell at you that their kids can't sleep.
Gravity stars George Clooney and Sandra Bullock in an unlikely in-space
scenario. The inconsistencies abound in a movie that purports to make an
effort to get things right. It's ludicrous because space is big. Neil
DeGrasse Tyson did a masterful job of listing plot holes on his Twitter
account. Just to sum up the ones I noticed:
* Once you're locked to something in space, you will not "drift away".
Once
the tether stopped Bullock and Clooney, there was no force causing
them
to continue to drift from the space station. None. The station was not
rotating so centripetal force did not come into play.
* It sure was convenient that the space in which they found themselves
was
so inordinately populated with other stuff: ISS, the shuttle and the
Chinese station were all within a couple of hundred miles of each
other
and in sight lines.
* An utterly untrained and self-admittedly terrible pilot uses landing
thrusters to hit a target in space and match speed with it? With minor
adjustments made by a fire extinguisher? Sure, why not.
* Why doesn't the fire extinguisher come soaring down on her head during
one of the many, sudden momentum changes when she's in the capsule?
* Why is nothing tethered? And why is there literally no instinct to
tether
anything on her part? Especially when she's so absolutely amazing at
navigating the tight tunnels of the station at high speed without so
much
as nicking a knee or elbow?
* Why in God's name was a medical doctor doing a spacewalk? This is not
in
any way explained. Armageddon did a better job of explaining why the
utterly unqualified were suited up.
* I did not notice this one, but I love DeGrasse Tyson for noticing it:
"Nearly all satellites orbit Earth west to east yet all satellite
debris
portrayed orbited east to west."
It was an action movie, but I didn't really get into Bullock as an action
actress. I could not have cared less about her character because there was
almost zero character development. Having her character tell me that she
lost
a child does not count as developing her character. A movie has to have a
character that you root for and I honestly could not have cared less if
she
lived or died. I was actually pleasantly surprised to think that the movie
would end with her turning off the oxygen in the Russian capsule (which
Clooney kept calling the "Soyez"). This would have been a delightfully and
realistic existentialist ending. See Magic Mike below for how to end a
movie.
Alas, she pulled herself up by her bootstraps, performed some utterly
unbelievable miracles, forgave herself and learned to walk again. Yay for
happy endings that confirm the ability of humans to overcome anything.
Meh.
I'm not leaving off a recommendation because the science was wrong, I'm
leaving it off because I didn't like the schmaltzy plot and I don't have a
giant 3D screen at home.
Real Steel (2011) -- "7/10"
A film about the robot-boxing world of the future. Hugh Jackman plays a
down-on-his-luck robot-boxer manager who was a strong, skilled and
hard-headed boxer. In 2027, men no longer box; robots do. Jackman's failures
as a robot-boxer driver are only exceeded by his failures at gambling. Long
story short, this is a Disney movie about a little robot fighting against a
giant robot owned by a steely-eyed Russian lady -- it's like Rocky IV all
over again. Hugh Jackman is good, as usual: he's charming even though he's an
utterly useless idiot for much of the film, seemingly intent on
self-destruction for reasons that are unclear. Evangeline Lilly plays a
plucky boxing-manager's daughter -- the same who managed Jackman's former
career. After Jackman inexplicably and almost deliberately wastefully burns
through a couple of expensive robots, his long-lost son joins him for the
summer and discovers a long-buried, early-model robot at a junkyard. The
little robot turns out to be plucky and trainable and hard-headed and ready
to bite off a lot more than it can chew. Yadda yadda yadda. It was
entertaining and well-made -- and watching mechanical robots pound each other
in the brainpan without any perceivable form of defense is much preferred
over watching the same with humans. The boxing scenes are well-done and quite
exciting. recommended.
Star Trek: Insurrection (1998) -- "7/10"
The crew of Star Trek: The Next Generation end up in the middle of a dispute
between a new race whose longevity is waning and the simple residents of a
planet whose radiation imparts rejuvenatory effects on its few inhabitants.
Thanks to corruption and misguided notions of charity, Star Fleet stands
solidly behind the dying, but invading, race and feels that the few hundred
inhabitants of the planet have no right to sit on a resource that has the
potential to prolong millions if not billions of lives. They want to oust the
inhabitants and let the other race in to research and develop the energy that
is their Fountain of Youth. Picard and crew quite rightly see the inherent
injustice of this and intervene on behalf of the residents, whom they've in
the meantime befriended. Cue heroics and Star Trek-style badassery in which
our favorite crew triumphs and simultaneously proves that Star Fleet and the
"ancient" race never truly had a moral leg to stand on. Slow-paced as you
would expect -- and with battle scenes that are laughable by today's sci-fi
standards -- but also rife with the expected philosophical and political
discussions, into which parallels to modern-day issues and situations can
easily be read, but which would in all likelihood be denied by the makers of
the film, albeit with perhaps a sly smile and a wink. Recommended for fans of
the genre.
Lolita (1997) -- "8/10"
This film is lovingly narrated by Jeremy Irons, who also has the lead role.
The film shows his character moving in with Lolita and her mother (played
by
Melanie Griffith) and slowing being pulled into Lolita's orbit. Or rather,
he
is immediately smitten and she slowly pretends to seduce him. She is aware
of
her power over him, but toys with it casually, not even letting it take
precedence over being a teenager. It's lovingly filmed with a focus on the
nubile young Lolita from the eye of the narrator. And Jeremy Irons is a
wonderful narrator.
Lolita is young and obnoxious but the bloom only slowly comes off the rose
for Humbert, as long as she's banging him. The interview at the college --
which turns out to be a prep school for débutantes -- was quite funny and
featured a zeugma, "Here at Beardsley Prep, we're less concerned with
Medieval dates than weekend ones." Slowly, Lolita comes to be in total
control, twisting him around by his predilections and his guilt about
them.
She irritates him deliberately and is deliberately obnoxious, knowing that
her sexual favors allow her everything. When Humbert says, "You're very
young
and I know it's hard to imagine that people will try to take advantage of
you," it's quite hard to keep a straight face.
The movie is a PSA for "do not date too young or too crazy and definitely
not
both". He is her slave; he is in love. Whereas he does not try to break
her
at all, she definitely breaks him. Being an ephebophile is his only
societal
flaw; he is otherwise not capable of the brutality -- psychological and
otherwise -- required to keep her under control. Spoiler alert: he can't
do
so and she ends up running away with another "lover of nymphets", with
whom
she comes to an unhappy end three years later. In the end, he has broken
her
and she's only concerned with money and thinks nothing of performing for
it.
He has broken her because she is the only thing he ever loved and his
touch
twisted her into something base and stupid and unlovely. And still he
loves
her.
The power that Lolita acquired in her youth rewarded her, but it was a
cheap
substitute for what perhaps could have been. It is difficult to judge the
potential of such a young creature: was her precocity indicative of an
intelligence that would find other channels of expression later? Or was it
the pinnacle of her cleverness, manipulating men bedazzled by her
nubility?
Nabakov argues that we will never know -- because Humbert imposed himself
into the situation, collapsing the quantum waveform, and dooming her to a
life of dimmed prospects, where her imagination cannot reach farther than
to
think of which sugar daddy she will grace with her wiles -- but not
whether
life could be lived without one.
Rien à Declarer (2011) -- "8/10"
I saw this movie "before" ,
on a plane, in French with English subtitles. This time I watched the
first
part in French with German subtitles, but my viewing partner doesn't
understand much (any) French and the dialogue comes so quickly that she
was
reading the whole time. It's still good in German but it loses something,
I
think. It's an absolutely fantastic French comedy, an exemplar of the
genre.
My favorite joke:
"Q: Why does the Frenchman laugh 3 times when he hears a joke about Belgians?
"A: Once for when he hears it, once for when someone explains it to him
and
once again when he finally understands it."
See the previous review for a short synopsis. Highly recommended.
Nighthawks (1981) -- "7/10"
Instead of Carl Weathers, Sylvester Stallone teams up with Billy Dee Williams
as New York City cops hunting terrorist Rutger Hauer. Stallone looks awesome
and young in his beard, leather jacket and 70s-era shooter glasses. And
Hauer, even so early [1], plays the perfect Euro-terrorist. When he's finally
cornered with his hostages on the Roosevelt Island gondola, one of the ladies
says to him, "Please leave us alone; we've done nothing," he haughtily
responds with his characteristic smirk, "You must be very proud." Wicked
burn. Minutes later, he wastes her in front of Stallone to set an example --
definitely not trying for the PG-rating. Although the film is far less gory
than it would have been were it shot today, it has a more brutal sensibility
than is common for action films these days. Stallone and Hauer spend a lot of
time squinting menacingly into each other's eyes, but it kind of works. Also,
the pacing is more deliberate, the shots are far longer and there is no shaky
cam. I'm kind of a sucker for this kind of action film, I guess. Recommended.
Blue Jasmine (2013) -- "8/10"
This film is the 2013 installment of the long-running streak of yearly films
by Woody Allen. Though there are flashes of Allen in Jasmine's dialogues,
this is a very thematically and artistically different film than many of
his
others. If you hadn't told me it was a Woody Allen movie, I may never have
guessed (whereas To Rome with Love, for example, was unmistakably Allen).
It stars Cate Blanchett as a former socialite-on-top-of-the-world whose
husband's crookedness she'd steadfastly ignored, all the while pretending
that all she had was somehow deserved of someone of her talents, intellect
and sensibilities. She moves in with her sister -- both girls were adopted
by
the same parents, but from different families -- and tries to put her life
back together. In this, she does much better than expected, getting a
menial
job and persevering for more than a day. She continued to inhale pills
(provenance and type unknown) as well as nearly limitless amounts of Stoli
vodka.
In the end, she is unrepentant and bitter, convinced that the world is at
fault for her downfall. Her husband was a criminal and a philanderer and
an
all-around immoral person. When she turns him in to the FBI out of spite,
her
son hates the mom rather than the dad, whose criminality is at the root of
all of the family's wealth but also its problems. The film is much, much,
much darker than other Woody Allen movies, with no one really coming out
on
top in the end. Recommended.
Straw Dogs (2011) -- "4/10"
The remake of the 1970s classic that starred Dustin Hoffman [2], but this
time starring Kate Bosworth, James Marsden and Alexander Skarsgård. I
watched it because of Skarsgård, who was so good in Generation Kill but he
didn't have a lot to work with in the role of the leader of a group of
not-always-vaguely rapey misanthropes. The story is of Bosworth moving back
to her hometown with her author-husband. Dominic Purcell stars as a mentally
handicapped man who's put upon by the town, especially the extremely
alcoholic former coach, played well by James Woods. The town has a distinctly
menacing and anti-intellectual and highly church-y vibe, to which the husband
is all-but-oblivious. He was never destined to mix in well with the people of
town but the coming disaster is hastened by his superiority. His wife doesn't
do nearly enough to fight of the attentions of the local XY-carriers,
choosing instead to at-times revel in their attention. The film does more
than play with the idea of a woman getting' what's comin' to her. This will,
of course, not end well. The actors are decent, but the plot is a bit too
manipulative and undernourished for my taste. Hopefully, the original is
better. Saw it in German. Not recommended.
Election (1999) -- "10/10"
This is an absolute classic about a deceptively sociopathic and egotistical
high-school student named Tracy Flick, played by Reese Witherspoon. Matthew
Broderick plays a sad-sack teacher at her school named Jim McAllister.
McAllister and Flick narrate much of the film along with Paul and Tammy
Metzler, who run against Flick for the student-council presidency, all for
their own reasons. McAllister's life circles the drain with a pathetic
attempt at an affair with his wife's best friend (who also happens to be the
wife of his own best friend, with whom he used to teach but who was thrown
out of both the school and his own home when he was caught having an affair
with Tracy). Witherspoon is penetratingly obnoxious and terrifying. Broderick
is great as a loser who was happy with what he had, teaching ethics and
morals and having none of either. Who will end up winning? Well, the one who
wants it most -- and understands the least of ethics. Will McAllister give up
the last of his tenets in order to stop her? Will it be worth it? There are
no good guys in the movie, but you'll still feel that the wrong people won.
Black Snake Moan (2006) -- "6/10"
Samuel L. Jackson plays Lazarus, a God-fearing full-time vegetable farmer and
part-time blues guitarist whose wife has left him, Christina Ricci plays
Rae,
a caricature of the town slut whose reputation from high school follows,
defines and leads her well into her twenties. She is psychologically
unstable, at best, with a thirst for men -- to be more precise, a very
specific part of men -- that is depicted as medically uncontrollable. Not
that she doesn't try to self-medicate: no pill or drink goes unconsumed in
her presence. Justin Timberlake plays her boyfriend, who knows of her past
and predilections but thinks that they are in the past and under control.
No
sooner does he set foot on a bus, headed forArmy boot camp, than Rae hops
into bed with a former lover or three. It is made clear that these actions
are out of her control and are to be considered fallout from the
psychological trauma of having been regularly abused by her father (or
step-father?) as a teenager.
Long story short, Lazarus takes up the Herculean task of trying to cure
her
of her smutty desires. It's hard to tell how serious the movie takes
itself
-- it seems to think it's something more than just an excuse to show
Ricci's
pretty little self be used and abused in various stages of dishabille. If
the
dishabille doesn't sell you, then perhaps Jackson's musical number near
the
middle of the film will make it worth your while. It's quite haunting and
well worth the ride. Timberlake returns at some point with his own bushel
of
psychological problems and mixes things up a bit. Saw it in German. Hard
to
recommend but it wasn't as terrible as it may sound.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) -- "6/10"
This is part two of a three-part homage to a three-hundred--page book. The
last time I read it, I would definitely have called it a "children's" book
when compared with the sweeping mythos and breadth of the Fellowship of
the
Ring. The story of The Hobbit is of a decidedly non-adventurous member of
a
non-adventurous and nondescript race of miniature beings who live under
hills, play in the sun and snack all day long. They are human-shaped
rabbits,
in other words.
The cast of the first film returns, joined by Evangeline Lilly as a pretty
elf -- not much of a stretch there -- and Orlando Bloom as Legolas. Many
arrows are loosed and much elvish fighting skill is on display as orc
after
orc after orc is dispatched by these two in their attempt to help the
dwarves
on their quest. There is a bit of confusion on that point, but the upshot
is
that that is what they end up doing. Gandalf is also back, especially good
in
a scene that reveals the Necromancer for what he truly is. Benedict
Cumberbatch is almost unrecognizable as the voice of Smaug, a gigantic
dragon
who sits on a gigantic hoard and who is possessed of a gigantic ego.
The storyline of the book is enhanced by an escapade that traps the
arrogant
Smaug, if only temporarily. The smith-works of the dwarves below Erebor --
the Lonely Mountain -- are beautiful and of an imposing scale that beggars
belief. Truly impressive visuals but the story, as with the first
installment, is a bit threadbare in places, failing to cover up the fact
that
it's been stretched over three films. Recommended for fans of the books or
fans of big-budget action films, of which this is a more than passable
exemplar.
Magic Mike (2012) -- "8/10"
Channing Tatum stars as the eponymous hero, a self-styled entrepreneur who
runs a car- and truck-detailing business as well as a roofing/contracting
firm and playing the lead role in a male revue, stripping at night. His real
passion is building one-of-a-kind furniture from found objects, but he barely
finds time for that. He does find time for a decent amount of harmless
partying and fun, usually with two or more companions at once, one of whom is
an adventurous Olivia Munn. He meets and takes pity on a sad-sack named Adam,
taking him under his wing and introducing him to the world of male revue.
Adam's sister -- played by the sloe-eyed and quite pretty newcomer Cody Horn
-- is of a more sober bent. She hardly cracks a smile once throughout the
movie although she is not immune to Tatum's infectious humor and inestimable
charm (like when he sees that she's clearly irritated by Dallas's drivel
about his lifestyle and how people should raise kids, he follows her and asks
if she wants him to get her Dallas's number because he's starting a
life-coaching business and he can tell that she'd be interested). Dallas is
played by Matthew McConaughey, in a role he was born to play. He comes full
circle with the beginning of his career, often repeating "all right, all
right, all right" -- which he first uttered as David Wooderson in Richard
Linklater's Dazed and Confused. The role of Dallas is anyone's best guess at
what Wooderson would look like as a grown-up. Stephen Soderbergh did a great
job and treated the material quite seriously. It was a funny, well-made movie
with an absolutely perfect ending. While McConaughey is good, it's Tatum who
holds the film together. Recommended.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] In IMDb, it looks like this was Hauer's first American movie -- everything
else before that was Dutch.
[1] I have that one in my list of thrillers to watch, but this one came on TV
instead.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=29392014-03-23T22:53:02+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
I was not surprised in the least to confirm that Terence Malick
directed this film about the US attack on Guadalcanal in the Pacific
Theater in World War II. The film starts with character portrayals of
the various sailors on the vessel with a lot of the by-now
...
]]>
I was not surprised in the least to confirm that Terence Malick directed this
film about the US attack on Guadalcanal in the Pacific Theater in World War
II. The film starts with character portrayals of the various sailors on the
vessel with a lot of the by-now classic Malick voice-overs. The cast is just
loaded with acting talent (male-only), featuring Nick Nolte, Sean Penn, John
Travolta, Adrien Brody, Jim Caviziel, Elias Koteas, John C. reilly, Woody
Harrelson, Jared Leto and George Clooney. The attack goes typically poorly
with a lot of attrition, some self-inflicted, all while the officers in
charge (Nolte) make up a much more encouraging story in real-time. Nolte
impressed me most recently in Warrior and he once again shines, even though
he's even less sympathetic in this than he was as the alcoholic, absentee
father in Warrior. The aftermath is even more painful than the bloody
assault, with the soldiers whiling away the time, waiting for letters that
never come or reading letters they wish had never arrived (e.g. when Ben
Chaplin's wife writes to him with bad news). Caviziel as Pvt. Witt is
ethereal. The film is a bit on the long side, but the cinematography is
mesmerizing. It's kind of deep and kind of preachy; Malick's cyclical themes
are in evidence and it's quite a sad film (although the scenery is beautiful,
life is pretty terrible for everyone). It's worth watching if you're into
more introspective war movies, but it's hard to recommend.
Inception (2010) -- "9/10"
I gave this film a "good initial review"
but then pulled back
a bit in my review of "Shutter Island"
and "Paprika"
. I watched it again,
this time in German and with someone who was a bit confused their first time
through. Explaining the various elements showed me that it held together
remarkably well, especially for a second viewing. I even learned a few things
myself that I'd missed the first time through.
To Rome with Love (2012) -- "8/10"
This is a Woody Allen that takes place in Rome and is largely in Italian.
Unusually for his recent films, he takes a role in this one, playing a
neurotic as usual. Although the conceit is that Jesse Eisenberg plays a
younger version of Alec Baldwin, with Allen writing it, Eisenberg seems to be
playing a the younger version of Allen instead. And Baldwin is...a ghost? Or
a muse? Or something else? Greta Gerwig plays Eisenberg's live-in girlfriend
while Ellen Page plays the flighty girl with mysterious allure who captures
Eisenberg's attention. There is a sub-plot with Allen's daughter falling love
with a local Italian boy, played by Flavio Parenti, whose father sings like
an operatic angel in the shower. Roberto Benigni plays well as Leopoldo, who
becomes mysteriously famous for most of the film and just as quickly is no
one again, just at the end. It was decent fun, with a lovely soundtrack, as
usual. It was nice to see it in Italian, with quite a lot of the film
subtitled. Recommended.
Ravenous (1999) -- "6/10"
Guy Pearce and Robert Carlyle star in this movie about a fort in the American
West during the Mexican-American war. The tale is one of hunger and
cannibalism and wendigos. More and more people succumb to the hunger, eating
humans to gain power and to survive. It's a ghastly, bloody movie that does a
decent job of depicting the misery of the frontier. The story is a good one,
even if the movie is a bit heavy on fight scenes, spreading the material over
101 minutes when 80 or 90 would have done just fine. The two primary actors
are good and veteran character actor Jeffrey Jones is good as well. The first
half with the eerie/creepy visit to the cave -- which gets a lot of mileage
out of the background music -- is quite good. Recommended for fans of the
genre, but it won't win any new fans.
Repo Men (2009) -- "8/10"
I'd recently seen this film and reviewed it in "Capsule Movie Reviews
Vol.2013.6" but I
didn't have much to say at the time. Upon second viewing, it held up
relatively well and I can continue to recommend it. A "bit gory" doesn't
really begin to cover it, though. It's quite gory and not for the squeamish,
although it's not as off-putting as Ravenous (reviewed above).
Dead Ringers (1988) -- "8/10"
Jeremy Irons plays brilliant and nigh-sociopathic twin gynecologists whose
extremely close -- some would say interchangeable -- relationship is
endangered by their relationship with Claire, played by Geneviève Bujold.
The movie was written and directed by David Cronenberg, which is obvious
almost from the get-go, if you're at all familiar with his work. One of
the
brothers becomes addicted to drugs, and then so does the other?
Or which one is which, really?
Irons plays both and their relationship is so symbiotic that they try to
get
"synchronized" again by having Eli fall as far as Bev, who's mad with
drugs...and visions, of some kind. Bev has some very Cronenbergian
surgical
tools built that shock and horrify his colleagues ("gynecological
instruments
for operating on mutant women"). It's quite a psychological thriller with
the
dash of true surreal madness we've come to expect from Cronenberg.
Jeremy Irons carries the movie with aplomb and his typical diction and
style.
In response to Claire's statement that "you resent me tremendously, don't
you?" , Elliot replies that "[y]ou contribute...a confusing element to the
Mantle brothers' saga. Possibly a destructive one." By the end, the
practice
is nearly ruined, the apartment is a shambles and I still can't tell them
apart, really. The finale is grim and echoes that of the original Siamese
twins. Apparently based at least in part "on a true story"
. Recommended.
Margin Call (2011) -- "7/10"
An all-star cast gives us a look at what it might have looked like inside
Lehman Brothers sometime in October of 2008. Stars Paul Bettany, Kevin
Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci and Simon
Baker (the Mentalist) and builds suspense pretty well. That is, for a movie
this is very heavily dialogue- and story-driven with little exposition and
steeped in the minutiae of the financial world. I can attest that the trading
and risk-analysis desks and software was nailed pretty well (having written
some myself in the past), but the freshness of appearance of all of these
people at 03:00 in the morning beggared belief. It's well-done, but I can't
imagine how this film had so much success considering the level of technical
jargon they were throwing around. Some of the shot choices in the offices
were nice. Recommended.
Moonrise Kingdom (2012) -- "6/10"
A Wes Anderson film if there ever was one. Ed Norton is a scout master on a
tiny island shared by husband and wife Bill Murray and Frances McDormand and
their family of triplet boys and teenaged daughter. Jason Schwartzman is, to
one's surprise, also in the movie, though in a bit part and Bruce Willis
plays the police with a complicated relationship with Frances. It's a
coming-of-age story for a lonely, young, orphan, oddball scout and the
aforementioned, also oddball, teenaged daughter. All this with the backdrop
of a truly legendary Nor'easter coming in over the island. Wes Anderson has a
very unique style, which I kind of like, although I'm no so over the moon
about it (pardon) that I'll excuse anything, as some of his fans will. The
movie was fine but nothing to write home about and it seemed to be trying
much too hard to be weird.
The Ghost (aka The Ghost Writer) (2010) -- "7/10"
Pierce Brosnan is a former prime minister of Great Britain whose career has
clearly been modeled on that of Tony Blair. Ewan McGregor is an author hired
to ghost-write Brosnan's memoirs. There is intrigue and twists and turns as
we try to find out what happened during Brosnan's career and why his
ghostwriters keep disappearing. It was quite an interesting thriller, all in
all.
2 Fast 2 Furious (2006) -- "6/10"
It has its moments and it is way better than Tokyo Drift. I honestly don't
know whether GTA is based on these movies or these movies are based on GTA.
Paul Walker, Tyrese Gibson and Eva Mendes star. Gibson is over the top and
has the best lines of the film. The driving sequences don't always hold up so
well, but it's fun to watch 80s-style action movies made in the noughts.
The Brood (1979) -- "5/10"
More disturbing weirdness from David Cronenberg, this time about a woman in a
special psychological program for her anger issues. Spoiler alert: her anger
evinces itself in the form of little, deformed, violent munchkins, who range
about through the local town, exacting revenge on all who they perceive to
have wronged their mother. Cronenberg continues his fascination with squishy,
bloody and highly organic props. It was well-made and definitely unique but
I'm not in a hurry to watch it again. Not really recommended.
Bedazzled (2000) -- "5/10"
A reasonably entertaining about an awkward young man (Brendan Frasier) who
makes a deal with the devil (Elizabeth Hurley): seven wishes in exchange for
his soul. With each wish, Frasier plays a different character. Some of the
situations are quite funny and it must literally be the best thing that
Hurley made in her entire career. Decent enough fun, but hard to recommend.
It was better than anything else on TV at that point, but that's not really
saying very much.
Adaptation (2002) -- "9/10"
A recursive movie about a screenwriter who adapts a book about orchids for a
major motion picture. It's a movie about writing movies that ends up being
about the screenwriter and his brother...who may not even exist. The movie
is
ostensibly about the plot of the book but also about the author and a lot
of
writer-angst mixed up in it. It's quite well-written and well-acted,
starring
Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, Tilda Swinton, Maggie Gyllenhall and the
always
excellent Chris Cooper in probably his most endearing role (and it's not
particularly endearing, but at least he's not playing a CIA jerk for
once).
Cage is good as twin brothers Donald and Charlie (does Donald even
exist?).
Charlie hates his fat, balding self and is trying to claw his miserable
way
through a screenplay. Donald is more upbeat and, while Charlie is in the
throes of writing, manages to create a spectacular screenplay that wows
Donald's agent (or is Charlie who wrote it?), all under the tutelage of
Robert McKee, screenwriter extraordinaire, played by Brian Cox. Charlie
gives
in and attends a seminar and starts second-guessing what meager amount of
screenplay he's managed to write so far. He's told to find an ending for
it,
within himself, if there is none in the book. The film ends on a
rollicking
end with drugs, shooting and alligators in the swamp -- but no deus ex
machina. Recommended.
Thor: the Dark World (2013) -- "7/10"
The second in the series features kind of a similar plot to the first one,
with a bunch of stuff from other genres mixed in. The cast, the effects and
sets were all top-notch and the plot was interesting enough, with quite a bit
of foreshadowing crammed in at the end. There are a lot of pretty
high-quality players, including Stellan Skarsgård, Idris Elba, Rene Russo,
Kat Dennings, Anthony Hopkins and Ray Stevenson (from Kill the Irishman). Tom
Hiddleston, Natalie Portman and Chris Hemsworth return as Loki, Jane and
Thor, respectively. An ancient evil in the form of dark elves and something
called aether are brought back to life just in time for something called the
convergence. Long story short, Jane gets all caught up in things again, Loki
gets out of jail and gets all tricky and Thor solves everything with his
hammer and lightning. Pretty satisfying as super-hero movies go.
Riddick (2013) -- "7/10"
Vin Diesel reprises his role as Riddick, space criminal and warrior
extraordinaire. This sequel to a sequel picks up with Riddick as king of
the
Necromancers, an incredibly destructive and warlike collection of beings.
He
still seeks his home planet, Furia, legendary home of the legendary
warrior
race of which he is the last living exemplar. He ends up on a planet, but
it's probably not Furia. It's quite dangerous, though and we spend a good
deal of time watching Vin Diesel deal with the local fauna.
Act II involves a lot of Vin Diesel time again, this time with a dog/giant
jackal that he's adopted. This part of the movie is pretty low-budget but
tries to convince you otherwise. You only have to pay one guy, right?
Act III centers on a bounty-hunter's shack that is soon occupied by two
sets
of bounty hunters, none of whom are there to dispel any stereotypes.
Nothing
much has changed since the original space-marine squad established the
ground
rules in Alien. Riddick is awesomely amazing, so he naturally starts
whittling them down. They, of course, show no fear and bluster that they
will
kill Riddick any second. This, even after he clearly demonstrates that he
could kill any of them at any time, but chooses not to. Pretty standard
fare,
though made entertaining by Mr. Diesel (if you're a fan, which I kind of
am).
Just because that would be boring and because you need to fill an over
two-hour–long action film somehow, Riddick gets caught (just like in the
last two movies). The post-capture scene is actually pretty good because
we
see Riddick control the situation, driving the conversation and forcing
errors, despite being in chains. When Johns yells at him that "maybe he
wants
to be something other than a savage", we know that Riddick already stated
near the beginning that he feels he went soft when he got too civilized
and
also that of all of the people there, Riddick is the fairest and least
back-stabbing of any of them. He continues his generosity by not saying "I
told you so" or reminding any of them that they could all have been
off-planet before the rains came if they'd just cooperated.
This movie reminded me much more of the original Riddick and dammit if Vin
Diesel doesn't just win you over. Riddick's survival instinct is
awe-inspiring. You probably don't need to watch the extended version,
though;
watch an edited version instead.
Ender's Game (2013) -- "7/10"
I can't remember having read the book and I honestly didn't know what to
expect, but I thought it was entertaining enough. The back-story was a
bit...dated, but it set the stage for a Lord of the Flies in space well
enough. Aliens attack; humanity is terrified; military solution the only
way;
find someone who can do exactly what humans did the last time to repel the
next invasion. The adult roles are adequate, but also kind of ridiculous.
The
young lead role is well-written and well-acted, with the super-genius kid
actually acting quite clever and tactically most of the time.
The user interfaces aren't half-bad although I'd go ape-shit if the 28-day
countdown to alien attack bleeped and blinked like that for every second.
Harrison Ford is decent, at his best delivering lines like "because we
already have the uniforms" with a smirk that belies what might be a human
side. It's interesting, the movie has an alien attack and promises big
effects in its premise, but it ends up being about a bunch of kids playing
laser tag and playing at tactics and strategy. I'm not knocking it, but
it's
similar to the way the most recent Riddick was more of a Mad Max-like
movie
with a half-hour of survivalist melodrama than a galaxy-spanning space
opera,
as expected.
One question: if you have a $70 billion molecular-displacement cannon (did
the dollar skyrocket in value 500 years in the future?), why can't you
just
make the water that the aliens seem to want? Wouldn't that be a neat way
to
end the war? Or is that appeasement? Never mind. The end was cool -- a
typical sci-fi short-story kind of ending.
Escape Plan (2013) -- "6/10"
Sylvester Stallone stars as a prison-break specialist sent to a super-secret,
off-the-grid, maximum security facility. There he meets Arnold
Schwarzenegger. It's an OK setup and the breakout parts are kind of clever --
especially the initial one -- but it gets kind of action-heavy at the end
(surprise, surprise). It's entertaining enough for an action film -- and the
old dogs are decent enough -- but the script is pretty uneven. Hard to
recommend, but also not necessarily panning it. I've seen worse.
My Dinner with André (1981) -- "7/10"
A movie about a struggling playwright, Wallace Shawn, who meets his friend
André for dinner at a fancy restaurant. André quickly dominates the
conversation by telling Wallace of an acting experience he had with his
acting group in Poland. Shawn is an unbelievable masochist. When André
finally shuts up (and it takes forever for him to do so), Shawn prods him
with a "wow...and what happened next?" You cringe inwardly as the next
mindbogglingly boring story starts. The stories are so detailed and
self-referential and real that they come full circle and end up being
captivating. Midway through the film, Shawn joins in and the conversation
turns quite philosophical, discussing reality vs. happiness vs. career.
"OK. Yes, we are bored. We're all bored now. But has it ever occurred to you
Wally that the process that creates this boredom that we see in the world
now
may very well be a self-perpetuating, unconscious form of brainwashing,
created by a world totalitarian government based on money, and that all of
this is much more dangerous than one thinks? and it's not just a question
of
individual survival Wally, but that somebody who's bored is asleep, and
somebody who's asleep will not say no?"
The sheer amount of dialogue in this 2-hour movie is staggering. If you like
the philosophy of the everyday and haven't been exposed to a lot of it, this
movie will seem insightful. There are far worse conversations with which to
waste an evening. A pleasant ending. Recommended?
The Lone Ranger (2013) -- "8/10"
Gore Verbinski directs this re-imagining of the famous lawman and his
sidekick, Tonto. Tonto kind of stars in this one and is played by
Verbinski's
favorite actor, Johnny Depp. The story is a little
...off. The world is askew, thrown out of balance by the sheer evil of an
outlaw -- Tonto calls him "wendigo". I suppose the cannibal rabbits are
the
first sign that something is amiss. It's hard to tell what's real around
Tonto -- is what we see actually happening or focused through a lens of
warped perception and mescaline/peyote?
Depp manages to bring a sort of dignity to his role, subtly and sometimes
overtly condemning the "white man". He understands what is going on, he
understands that enough concentrated evil can break things on a lower
level.
There are shades of the pirates from Verbinski's more recent films in some
of
the other characters (in the gang). Helena Bonham Carter makes an
appearance
as the madam of a very bawdy bordello, also typically loony with a wooden
leg
that houses a rifle. William Fichtner is excellent and nearly
unrecognizable
as the abominable Butch Cavendish. And I just noticed a heavily bearded
Tom
Wilkinson playing Mr. Cole. And character actor Barry Pepper as the
Captain
of the U.S. Army. And there's Stephen Root! It seems everyone wanted at
least
a bit part in this one.
There is a very prosaic underlying plot that involves a crooked railroad
owner who uses a band of horrible people to pretend to be Indians so that
he
can encroach on Comanche lands, blaming the Comanche for breaking the
treaty.
Viewed through Tonto's twisted lens, though, it all becomes more bizarre
and
not necessarily untrue. This movie is a good deal darker and more
interesting
than I expected it to be. And Tonto manages to impose his view of the
world
on the world with pure willpower. Silver (the horse) is a good example.
He's
positively Daliesque. That horse can get anywhere. And the ending is
madcap
lunacy without being camp. You can guess the soundtrack for the final,
manic
act, can't you? The film is ridiculous and walks a very fine line, but I
think it works. Johnny Depp thinks he's the next Buster Keaton. I was
laughing out loud. And then he intones with a straight face,
"All these years, I thought you were Wendigo, but you're just another white
man...bad trade."
After 2 hours, Tonto manages to convince the Lone Ranger that the world
does
not support the kind of justice he seeks -- he must make that justice for
himself. Themes of American avarice, capitalism, military and cruelty that
have dogged the country from the get-go are well-addressed. So. Many.
Western. Movie. References. The "review I read last year"
by Matt Zoller
Seitz
("RogerEbert.com" ) has held up. Recommended.
Escape from Alcatraz (1979) -- "9/10"
This classic prison film based on a true story stars Clint Eastwood and a
bunch of other recognizable character actors (Fred Ward and Larry Hankin
are
in their youth and prime in this film). The story is slow and nicely
paced,
showing a time in America where it was possible to make a movie about
convicts where it was just assumed that most of the people in prison
weren't
insanely violent. Instead, the prisoners are represented as misunderstood
and
unlucky and horribly put-upon in a prison like Alcatraz. It must be noted,
though, that the prison life as depicted in this film isn't the reality
for
many prisoners in America anymore.
The story is engaging, the pacing is great and the cinematography is
really
nice. Tied with The Shawshank Redemption for my favorite prison movie.
It's
very deliberate and quite slow at times, but through this conveys a
realism.
The warden is the only one who's almost over-the-top inhumanly mean. And
good
old Litmus with his little mouse was possibly the inspiration for Stephen
King's Delacroix character in The Green Mile. Highly recommended.
The Italian Job (1969) -- "6/10"
Michael Caine stars in the original caper film. Charlie Croker is the same
guy, just out of prison, there's a much larger crew of helpers but
otherwise
and the plot and pacing is totally recognizable from the remake. It even
has
Benny Hill as the Professor. Hill plays a straight role in a movie with
more
than a few madcap, comical scenes. There's a lot of the violence in the
first
part of the movie and it's strangely aimed at really lovely vehicles,
which
must be a sign of the times, I guess (The French Connection hails from
this
era as well). They really like to destroy cars -- a lot of true beauties
bite
the dust in this film.
There are some famous lines in this film, "[y]ou're only supposed to blow
the
bloody doors off!" sticking in my mind as one cited by Rob Brydon and
Steve
Coogan in The Trip as being quintessentially Michael Caine. Quote-wise, it
was also interesting that Croker threatened the Capo of the Mafia with
"driving all the Italians in England into the sea". That is almost
word-for-word what Ahmedinejad is accused of having said about Israel. But
I
digress.
The heist is a lovely plan that should be familiar to those who've seen
the
remake and there are a lot of nice shots of roads in the timeless Italian
Alps and their hairpin roads. And it's especially lovely to see them with
no
one driving on them. Oh, to time-travel with my modern cycle back to those
empty, pristine roads (in fairness, some of the surfaces did look a bit
sketchy). The final scene is ludicrous but nerve-wracking nonetheless and
it
ends quite well. Overall, Caine is good but the film as a whole is kind of
uneven, so it's hard to recommend. I'd watch the remake instead.
Daredevil (2003) -- "6/10"
Ben Affleck stars as Daredevil opposite Jennifer Garner as Elektra. This
movie has a horrible reputation but it's not as bad as all that. Some scenes
are kind of painful -- the initial meeting between Matt Murdock and Elektra
-- but there are others that are relatively well-done. Colin Farrell as a
somewhat cross-eyed Bullseye is over the top and felt cheesy in a Batman &
Robin kind of way. Ving Rhames as the Kingpin was a good choice. Daredevil's
only superpower is that he can do martial arts really well for a blind guy.
His heightened other senses grant him superhuman-seeming reflexes, but
there's not going to be city-smashing fun as the Hulk or Thor or Iron Man
delivers. I liked it as a more down-to-Earth, crime-busting, redemption and
origin story for Daredevil. Not really recommended but you could do worse
zapping around the channels.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=29072014-01-27T22:35:34+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
John Carpenter's classic horror film, set in Antarctica. The sets and
effects are really, really good. Not even just "for that time", but
just good in a timeless way. This is a great example of how you don't
need CGI to make a good movie. Just the models alone are a
...
]]>
John Carpenter's classic horror film, set in Antarctica. The sets and effects
are really, really good. Not even just "for that time", but just good in a
timeless way. This is a great example of how you don't need CGI to make a
good movie. Just the models alone are a terrifying vision of twisted horror.
The camera knows enough to linger on them without anyone saying anything.
Spoiler alert: the "thing" is a shape-shifting, virus-like alien life-form
that can't really distinguish between distinct life-forms and just emulates
anything with genes or a pulse that's in range -- and all at once. One
scientist figures out what's going on and he disables the helicopter and the
comms equipment so that the creature can't get off the base and infect the
whole planet. The thing is quite good at hiding in its hosts, so the members
of the U.S. Outpost #31 don't trust each other anymore. The U.S. camp at the
end of the film looks just like the Norwegian one at the beginning.
Recommended.
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) -- "8/10"
This is an Australian movie about drag queens in Australia, played by the
now-famous Terence Stamp (Bernadette), Guy Pearce (Felicia) and Hugo
Weaving
(Mitzy). The movie is named after the caravan that conveys them to a show
in
Alice Springs.
I don't even know where to begin. Pearce is the most flamboyant with Stamp
the most staid. Weaving is somewhere in between, at one point making an
appearance in a dress, bag and earrings made only of flip-flops. It's a
movie
that could no longer be made, because they actually get stuck in the vast
Australian desert, in a time before cell phones. They spend a good deal of
time camping about in the desert.
Most people are pretty accepting, including some Aboriginals they run
into,
who are mystified but happy to help a trio of transsexuals out of a bind.
And
how could you not be? Their costumes are over-the-top fabulous and the
performances are good (even if their stage shows aren't really).
If you've ever wanted to see guy Pearce lip-syncing to opera while leaning
back in a gigantic silver high-heel shoe attached to the top of a lavender
bus in the midst of lavender smoke spewing from a smoke machine, this is
the
film for you. Highly recommended.
To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995) -- "4/10"
This is the American version of the transvestite road-trip, starring Patrick
Swayze, John Leguiziamo and Wesley Snipes. I know this seems impossible, but
it's even campier than the Australian version -- but in a worse way. It's not
that they're not good drag queens, but they're not as natural, except maybe
for Leguiziamo, whose character is almost exactly the counterpart to Guy
Pearce's Felicia. It's much more of a classic 90s Hollywood comedy, with that
weird cartoonish music and a lot of bad one-liners. In this version, most of
the people in the movie can't tell that the "ladies" are transvestites, which
is kind of preposterous, especially because Wesley Snipes is hugely muscled.
It's a much more formulaic fish-out-of-water in hick country standard
Hollywood movie. Not recommended.
Memories of Murder (2003) -- "10/10"
This is a Korean detective moving starring Kang-ho Song, who was so good in
The Host. This is an earlier role as detective Park Doo-Man but his
on-screen
charisma is totally magnetic and instantly recognizable. These good
feeling
evaporate quickly as he goes about trying to frame a mentally handicapped
kid
Kwang-Ho for the string of rape/murders that he currently has on his
plate.
The little guy kinda reminds me of Gollum and it's darkly comic, but quite
disturbing. The actor who plays Kwang-Ho is also quite good.
The characters develop further, with increasing layers of nuance and the
dialogue is quite funny (at least what I get from the subtitles). The
detective from Seoul -- Seo Tae-Yoon -- slowly starts to convince Doo-Man
to
do real police work rather than torture false confessions out of whomever
they manage to catch. Shots are long and steady and it's very story-
rather
than action-driven. It's not at all clichéd. Beautiful shot selection --
near the end, in the rain and in the tunnel, especially -- and some very
thrilling chase/hunt scenes, which are both slow and nerve-wracking.
Doo-man's old partner Cho Yong-koo meanwhile is far to stupid to change
his
ways and, after hilariously attacking yet another suspect (again, dark
comedy), he's severely reprimanded by his sergeant and he goes on a
rampage.
Spoiler alert: the stupid detective Yong-koo likes to kick suspects and he
pulls this little cloth over his boot -- it looks like something his
mother
made for him -- so that his kicks don't leave marks. Later in the movie,
Kwang-Ho stabs him in the leg with a board with a rusty nail in it. He's
too
stupid to see a doctor, he gets tetanus and his kickin' leg must be
amputated.
I skipped a lot of nuance and a few interesting plot points -- the story's
really quite good and quite unique for a crime film. They get so close and
yet the murders keep happening. It reminded me a bit of the film Zodiac,
the
style of which seems to have been inspired by this movie. According to
"Wikipedia" , it's based
on
a series of real murders that also occurred in and around 1986. Highly
recommended.
True Legend (2010) -- "6/10"
War-torn China; some dynasty. Two foster brothers , Su and Yuan, lead the
charge to save a general from a Tolkien-esque fortress/cave and are
rewarded
with a governorship. Su wants to retire with his family (his wife is
actually
Yuan's sister) and start a Wushu school, so he asks Yuan to take the
honor.
It turns out, though, that Yuan's father had been killed by Su's father
and
that Yuan isn't quite over that. So he will have his revenge. He brings a
lady friend with him, who can carry 400 pounds of knives with her and
throw
them all at once. Both feats are quite impressive.
There's a bunch of cable work but it's not as exaggerated as Crouching
Tiger
(yet). The battles are nicely choreographed but, as usual, no one takes
any
damage. Despite all of them being utterly top-notch martial artists, not a
single blow they land does any real damage. No one limps, no bruises
appear
-- it's that kind of martial-arts movie. Oops. Spoke too soon -- there's
Pai
Mei floating through the bamboo like gravity doesn't exist. It turns out
to
be all right because it's not happening in reality, it's happening in his
mind.
This craziness scares his wife, so she decides to rescue their son from
the
Venom Lord all by herself, apparently just by asking him to let her son
go.
That was her whole plan. "Bury her in the forest!" is the best line of
this
movie. It's hard to muster up any pity for her -- that is exactly the
response her stupid plan deserves. Of course, she does have a whee bit of
a
drinking problem, so perhaps we should excuse her lack of cohesive
planning
abilities.
The ensuing fight scene is pretty well-done, given you've already accepted
the fighting rules outlined above. After this, however, the Wushu master
Su
falls into a funk again, this time to be rescued by his son...aaaaand, we
seem to be in a whole new movie. WTF? I suppose now that he's defeated one
of
his enemies, he must defeat the other enemy: himself. How profound. Now
we're
treated to more phantasms and a bit of Drunken Master. And then we move
right
into a rehash of Legend. David Carradine is utterly awful. The kid is
arguably worse. For whom is this movie made? It's so uneven...the second
part
has almost nothing to do with the first part. It's almost as if they just
tacked the bad sequel right onto the end of the original.
If you do watch this movie, for your own sake, stop watching right after
Su
finds Ying. The end. DO NOT CONTINUE. You will regret it.
The Grey (2011) -- "5/10"
Liam Neeson continues to pursue what he refuses to call his action-movie
career, this time as an eagle-eyed hunter in Alaska. He's there to protect
oil workers against packs of wolves. The backstory is that the love of his
life has left him, he's got nothing to live for, etc. He's on a plane back
to
Anchorage that goes down, stranding him with six other survivors in a
nighttime blizzard that doesn't seem to bother the pack of gigantic wolves
that stalk them. The wolves continue to hunt them as they make for some
relatively nearby woods.
The cold and conditions are pretty believable -- accepting that Hollywood
will always make its actors leave its faces open to the elements,
regardless
of realism. The cold and wind look awful and adrenalin can only do so much
when you're trudging through deep snow. One by one, there always fewer
little
Indians. The river scene is ridiculous. What does it take for a script to
fail in Hollywood? Is there anything that's just too ridiculous to film?
What
do you see in Alaska when you just stepped out of a river in the deep
snow?
Not your breath, that's for sure.
It's nice to see a darker ending instead of the standard triumph and
pragmatic fatalism is a welcome relief to unrealistic egotism, but two
hours
is way too long. Not recommended.
Jack Reacher (2012) -- "8/10"
It starts off as a nicely shot thriller about a domestic sniper picking off
civilian targets. After they pick up a suspect, we're all treated to
overly
macho and ridiculous-sounding threats from the cop in charge. Read the
following and tell me I'm wrong:
"It's life or death now, James. By that, I mean you're doing one or the other
up in Rockview. This here is District Attorney Rodin. Want to know what
he's
wondering? Whether you're gonna walk like a man or cry like a pussy on
your
way to the death house. See, the D.A. likes the needle, whereas me, I like
to
see a man like you live a long life - with all your teeth knocked out.
Passed
around till a brother can't tell your fart from a yawn."
What the hell does that even mean? Are we supposed to be impressed? It's
not
even clever or funny. It's just bro-talk stupid. We just met this cop.
There
has been zero character development. Are we really supposed to be cheering
for the good guys already? Because they caught the sniper? Compare and
contrast to the seemingly effortless character development in Memories of
Murder.
It stars Tom Cruise as the eponymous and enigmatic lead and Rosamund Pike
is
back as a lawyer involved in the case he's asked to work on. The bar fight
was a decent set piece to establish Reacher's chops, as was the scene with
Robert Duvall at the shooting range. Werner Herzog is good as the "Zek";
it
seem to be common knowledge that this means "prisoner" in Russian, but I
had
only just learned it a couple of days ago from watching Mark of Cain. I
like
Jack Reacher better than I like Ethan Hunt, although there isn't really
much
difference between the characters. I found myself searching for Jack
Reacher
2 on IMDb. Recommended.
Hotel Rwanda (2004) -- "8/10"
Don Cheadle leads a good cast as hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina, who keeps
an island of refugees alive in his hotel amidst the horror washing over
Rwanda. The horrific descent into genocide is detailed in Paul's struggles
to
arrange for escape with Sabena Airlines and then further negotiations with
U.N. soldiers when that plan falls through. Helen Hunt and Nick Nolte have
supporting roles. It's an important movie, and the world's outlook hasn't
changed significantly, as summarized in this exchange between Cheadle and
Nolte:
"Paul Rusesabagina: I am glad that you have shot this footage and that the
world will see it. It is the only way we have a chance that people might
intervene.
Jack: Yeah and if no one intervenes, is it still a good thing to show?
Paul Rusesabagina: How can they not intervene when they witness such
atrocities?
Jack: I think if people see this footage they'll say, "oh my God that's
horrible," and then go on eating their dinners."
From their point of view, an intervention is better than the alternative.
However, Paul was also much better off than most of his landsmen. It is
the
lower 90% who suffer horribly when the West intervenes, no matter how
pious
the intentions. Western interventions usually take the form of military
action and then only air strikes are used to avoid losing precious Western
lives. There is no easy answer, but the film puts the plaintive and
desperate
argument for intervention well.
The Lookout (2007) -- "8/10"
Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as a guy named Chris Pratt making his way through
life after having suffered a serious head injury. Jeff Daniels is his blind
roommate, Lewis. Chris caused the traffic accident that led to his head
injury; before that, he was a hockey star, a near-legend. Some guys who knew
him from the old days find him again and get him to help them rob the bank
for which he works as a janitor. It's quite good and Daniels's character is
very good. Chris gets more confident as he goes along, constantly checking
his little notebook for clues he left for himself. Kind of like Flowers for
Algernon meets Memento. A good concept; a good caper; had some nice folks and
some mean folks. I liked it. Recommended.
Renaissance (2006) -- "8/10"
A sleek, black-and-white, CGI, animated, rotoscoped-looking but mo-capped,
French futuristic, noir, crime-thriller set in Paris in 2057. Phew. The
visuals are really cool and it is really in black and white -- there aren't
even shades of gray. This is one of the nicest-looking CGI animated film I've
seen. The main plot revolves around bio-researchers trying to discover
immortality, virtual worlds and a mega-corporation that wants it all. It's a
decent story, but the visual style and shot setup and selection really sells
it. The futuristic transparent tunnels of Paris where pedestrians walk around
on glass-ceilinged highways are a nice touch, as are the nearly-invisible
electro-camouflage suits. Lots of nice work with light and shadows
(naturally) and with flash lights and other point-light sources. Recommended.
Dara Ó Briain Talks Funny – Live in London (2008) -- "10/10"
A flat-out brilliant London-based Irish comedian. He does improvised audience
interaction, slags homeopaths and magicians, promotes science and is
laugh-out-loud hilarious. You can watch it on "YouTube"
(as of this writing). There are
samples available in a little write-up I did, "Dara Ó Briain: a
comedian…for science" .
Despicable Me 2 (2013) -- "7/10"
Gru is a very good character and quite funny. Russell Brand, Steve Coogan,
Benjamin Bratt, Kristen Schaal, Ken Jeong and Kristen Wiig also provide
voices. But they are all window dressing to the minions. You end up waiting
for the scenes with them -- especially throwing parties. Like the one on the
beach. Recommended.
Dara Ó Briain -- Live at the Theatre Royal (2006) -- "9/10"
More from my new favorite comedian. Lots of audience interaction and ad-hoc,
impromptu comedy. He's incredibly quick on his mental feet. You can watch it
on "YouTube"
(as of
this writing).
Dara Ó Briain -- This is the Show (2010) -- "9/10"
More from my new favorite comedian. Covers childbirth classes. You can watch
it on "YouTube " (as of this
writing).
White House Down (2013) -- "7/10"
Hoo-rah America-is-awesome porn. Jamie Foxx is the president. Maggie
Gyllenhall is his chief of security? I think? Channing Tatum is trying to
get
into the secret service. They also saddled an old-looking James Woods into
service as ... some random old, white guy in the administration. I can't
believe Jamie Foxx is literally the token black guy in this movie. At
least
post-Obama, the only black guy in the movie gets to be the President. I
bet
he doesn't even die first since he's on the cover of the DVD. What a step
up
for black America! There's also a sullen teenager and bitter MILF (Debra
Messing).
Is he seriously taking his assinine 11-year--old to a job interview with
him?
And is the dimwit blabbing about "gas, chemical and missile attacks" while
they're going through security? And does he joke about "checking her good"
as
his daughter goes through security? This is a luxury only good-looking,
well-dressed white people have, I think. That seems realistic. Not that
realism is a requirement here. The movie intro showed three clearly
CGI-injected helicopters flying over a terribly rendered capitol building.
(It gets better.)
And here comes the hacker, with all of his requisite idiosyncrasies and a
hacking program that you start by typing the numbers 1-9. While it runs,
it
tracks the progress to ten decimal places, 'cause that's how he rolls. The
hacker played by Jimmi Simpson is quite funny, though.
Channing and Jamie kinda won me over -- at about the time they started
doing
donuts on the White House lawn in the President's Cadillac. The President
then instructed tanks to roll on the White House. Soon after, the
President
had a rocket-launcher in his hands. And then they flipped the presidential
Cadillac into a pool. Sound crazy? It is, but it's pretty well-done. The
effects are absolutely incredible after the initial stumble in the opening
scene.
There are some misses, of course. Maggie Gyllenhall's character is,
unfortunately, annoying. James Woods, who almost died of a heart attack,
is
kicking the President's ass in the next scene. Still and all, a fun movie.
It
was much better than expected; recommended if you're looking for a
mindless
action flick akin to Independence Day.
Goon (2011) -- "9/10"
Seann William Scott (famous for playing Stifler in the American Pie moveis)
stars as Doug Glatt, a young guy drifting through life as a bouncer and
avid
hockey fan. On Saturdays, he joins his family at the temple, where they
never
fail to make him feel bad for not having become a doctor. His best buddy
Jay
Baruchel is a hockey fanatic. Doug attracts the attention of the coach of
the
local team one night for his fighting skills, demonstrated in a crowd
brawl.
He's soon hired and proving his mettle on the ice (purely with fists; his
skating and hockey skills are abysmal). He's a really nice guy and pretty
dim, to boot -- what an author might call "earnest". There's a love
interest
(of course) and a nemesis, in the form of Ross Rhea, played wonderfully by
Liev Schreiber. It's kind of hilarious that the two main goons in the
movie
are both played by Jewish actors.
Some scenes are pretty violent -- almost as cringe-inducing as those in
Fight
Club. Seriously, Doug's face is a patchwork quilt by the end of the flick.
By
the end, you do not want the fight between Doug and Ross to happen. [1]
Both
Schreiber and Scott are fantastic in the last scene. Based on the true
story
of Doug "The Hammer" Smith. Recommended; a must for hockey fans.
Skyline (2010) -- "2/10"
It takes forty-five minutes for anything of note to happen. Before that,
there is character development, which I would ordinarily welcome with open
arms. Development of characters that are not worth knowing is a more
difficult task to make interesting and this film is not up to the job. When
the aliens finally show themselves, they seem like a mix between stuff from
the newest War of the Worlds (the one with Tom Cruise), Half Life (the video
game), a bit of the sentinels from the Matrix as well as the mother ships
from Independence Day and perhaps the Rancor from Return of the Jedi thrown
in for good measure. It's slow, the dialogue isn't very good and they stretch
a little material -- and nice effects, which are getting easier and easier to
buy -- way too far. The script and cast would have to have been much better
to make a "bottle episode" movie like this one work. I'm not even going to
mention the awful mother-child, pregnancy thread running through whole film.
It's too bad because I was looking forward to something decent from Donald
Faison ("Turk" from Scrubs). Avoid this. There's a sequel in the works. Avoid
that too.
The Crazies (2010) -- "5/10"
Timothy Olyphant is the sheriff of a small town in Iowa in which people are
mysteriously going crazy. He and his deputy discover a downed plane in the
marsh from which the town gets its drinking water. Decent camera work and
almost effortless character development (compared to Skyline at least)
provide a pretty decent little thriller, but nothing to write home about.
Again, the material is a bit thin. Essentially, it's the story of how two
people flout a government quarantine just to save themselves, even after
having seen the horrific effects of the disease. This is a remake of a 1973
movie, which is almost an eternity to wait before rebooting a movie, by
today's standards. Spoiler alert: the nuke at the end took me a bit by
surprise. Not recommended.
Now You See Me (2013) -- "9/10"
A wonderful caper film involving bank robberies, street magicians, magical
legends, legendary magicians, multi-millionaire sponsors, debunkers and a
slew of law enforcement from both sides of the pond. Jesse Eisenberg, Woody
Harrelson, Dave Franco and Isla Fisher are the Four Horsemen, pulling off one
amazing trick after another, most of which involve stealing money and giving
it away. Melanie Laurent is an Interpol agent assigned to work with Mark
Ruffalo's FBI inspector. Michael Caine is the ruthless multi-millionaire.
Morgan Freeman plays the smug debunker. I won't give away any details because
it's a magic movie, but I want it recorded for posterity that, despite the
originality of the plot twists, I called it (cue smugness). Highly
recommended.
Låt den rätte komma in (Let the Right One In) (2008) -- "8/10"
This is a Swedish movie about vampires. And melancholy. And bullying. And
winter. And darkness. And the boring wasteland that is Sweden in the winter
of 1982. 12-year--old Oskar looks and dresses marginally stranger than the
other equally gender-ambiguous kids at school and is bullied for it. The
bully, strangely enough, can't skate worth a damn, which is how you know the
movie was made in Europe because, were it an American movie, the kid would
totally be good at sports. Moving on to Eli, who befriends Oskar one night.
Eli is a pretty freaky kid who walks around in the snow barefoot and seems
not to mind. Eli is -- spoiler alert -- a vampire. Eli is also a girl, which
surprised me more, actually. You see, Oskar was already so effeminate that I
just figured that Eli was just slightly more so and that that was just the
style in the 80s in Sweden. The whole idea of a modern-day vampire is a cool
idea and the way Eli gets Oskar to be her familiar is an interesting story,
but it takes a long time to get there. Oskar exudes that nerd-musk from the
Simpsons like almost no other film character I've ever seen. At the end, we
see how their relationship will continue to grow and how he will, in 50
years, be the old man who accompanied her to the building at the beginning of
the film.
Kick-Ass 2 (2013) -- "5/10"
The original was marred for me by the fact that it focused so fetish-like on
"Hit Girl" who was partnered with her father, called "Big Daddy", She was
wicked young then and it was kinda creepy, but otherwise a fun real-world
super-hero action flick. A few years on and the sequel features "Hit Girl"
as
the star (because -- spoiler alert -- "Big Daddy" died at the end of the
first one) and she's at least 15 now, which is a bit less creepy, though
not
totally out of the creepy woods.
And then there's Kick-Ass, who's just an utterly awful superhero. Rather
than
being the cause of ass-kickings, he's primarily the target of them. At
least
until he teams up with Dr. Gravity, played by Donald Faison. John
Leguiziamo
plays against type as the driver/henchman for the super-villian
"Motherfucker" (formerly "Red Mist") who is way over the top (funniest guy
in
the movie, played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who also played "Fogell" in
Superbad). Leguiziamo says to him at one point: "Whoa, whoa, isn't that
just
a little bit incredibly racist?"
The film totally takes the piss out of teenagers and millenials. There's a
bit of a Mean Girls sub-plot which segues into Carrie and shades of
MMA/Fight
Club. I like that they put subtitles for non-English bits into little talk
bubbles. The villains seem like they're a joke, but they are deadly
serious
and kill without compunction -- lot's of cops get killed in this one. And
then there's a bit of Rocky 4 at the end, with Mother Russia vs. Hit Girl,
which is almost a blow-by-blow remake of Drago vs. Balboa. I found it to
be
way too uneven and strange; not recommended.
This is the End (2013) -- "3/10"
This is a movie with a huge roster of modern-day, young, male comedy actors
playing versions of themselves at a party in LA. It must be noted that
Michael Cera plays way against type here: he's a coked-out Lothario. Jay
Baruchel flies in to visit Seth Rogen and they end up at a party at James
Franco's house.
Spoiler alert: it's the apocalypse and Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Jay
Baruchel, James Franco, Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill are left in James
Franco's
house. Danny McBride is the #1 terrible house guest and he's voted out.
Channing Tatum is good in a very brief cameo, only because you can't
believe
that he would actually do the role he did. Poor Aziz. "It's too late for
you.
You're already in the hole." The hole is a nice device for releasing most
of
the actors from the obligation of staying for the whole film.
Once the boys realize what's going on, they try to do good deeds to get
raptured and saved from the apocalypse. I love these guys but, man, is
this
script thin. I'm sure they had fun making this flick, but it's not really
very good. At all. Not recommended.
The Act of Killing (2012) -- "9/10"
A series of interviews with the now-elderly gangsters who killed over a
million people in Indonesia during the communist purges. They are still in
power now and enjoy very nice lives. The director of this documentary
asked
them to tell their tale and reenact the killings, if possible. They were
only
too happy to do so, seeing absolutely nothing wrong with the history they
helped create.
In fact, they are annoyed that the children of the so-called communists
that
they had eradicated are now speaking out and "trying to change history",
as
one gangster put it. "This is the maintenance office, where I would always
kill people [...] it was like we were killing ... happily." All of the
people
we meet seem to be utterly bereft of any deeper philosophy or morality.
The
people they killed are not moral beings, worthy of consideration. It's
like
asking them to feel sorry about having killed ants. The are completely
bereft
of shame.
The director accompanies a few of them as they make their rounds, shaking
down local (mostly Chinese) shop owners for protection money.
The filming is utterly surreal. One of the guys is such a dandy, all he
cares
about is clothes. In another scene, the fatter one dresses up as a woman
and
the other two "interrogate" him, while dressed up as cowboys. Now they're
cruising the streets in a bright yellow Volkswagen Thing. Pimpin' ain't
easy.
And they reenact scene after scene of torture and killing, justifying it
all
the way. The reenactments are super-low in quality. Utterly surreal. One
features the big guy, once again dressed up as a showgirl, reenacting a
decapitation while his friends cheer him on (there's one guy, always the
same
one, who seems regretful) . The makeup and effects are awful.
No remorse, except maybe one of them, who seems to understand a bit more.
There's also a scene at the end where the main narrator (Anwar Congo) also
seems finally to be overwhelmed, but it's hardly redemptive, after all
we've
already seen.
Another thinks international conventions shouldn't apply to him -- because
he's a "winner". But he goes to ask "Americans killed all the Indians. No
one's been punished for that. Punish them, too, then." Man's got a point.
On
the whole, though, they're just stupid monsters who barely understand any
of
what's going on. Their families, too, are clueless. Another guy describes
his
career pragmatically, pointing out that
"when a businessman wants land where people are living, if he just pays for
it, it's expensive. But we can solve his problem. Because people are
terrified of us, when we show up, they say 'just take the land, pay what
you
want.'"
And then he shows off his spoils and riches, proud of all that he has,
despite the stultifying poverty all around him. And he seems borderline
mentally handicapped. Surreal. And the people in the orange camouflage,
the
members of the Pancasila paramilitary, horrific and base to the last man,
gleefully taking part in the re-filming of their finest hour, when they
slaughtered communists indiscriminately. Just terrible, terrible, crude
people, all seemingly without a sense of irony. And yet, amazingly
accepted
and still in charge after several decades. Were the extras there just for
the
cash? Or are they, too, so brainwashed to accept this reality as normal?
Disturbing, but masterfully filmed and edited, with some truly lovely
juxtapositions of beautiful scenery and colorfully dressed characters (the
credits sequence, for example). Error Morris and Werner Herzog, legendary
documentarians in their own right, are listed as co-producers. Highly
recommended.
Monsters University (2013) -- "5/10"
Pixar continues its slow decline post-Disney-purchase. This film is formulaic
in the extreme and sells a particularly toxic worldview to kids (and their
parents, presumably). The two lead characters are jerks for whom we're
supposed to root until they finally discover the error of their ways.
Meanwhile, they are surrounded by competent, generous and nice characters who
don't have to similarly struggle with gigantic egos and pathetic insecurities
that warp the lives of everyone around them. But nobody cares about them. It
was a pretty disappointing movie, actually. I feel the same way about this
one as I did about Brave: "There are fewer funny flourishes than in other
films and the stink of Disney is upon this one, as it’s more
middle-of-the-road and less subversively funny or interesting for adults than
other Pixar movies. It’s nice to look at, but don’t expect the humor of
The Incredibles or the implicit social commentary of Wall-E."
Shaolin (2011) -- "8/10"
This is a martial epic about warring clans in what looks like late
19th-century or early 20th-century China (there are Gatling guns at one
point). It is the tale of two generals and blood brothers, both warring
with
other clans and taking over cities and more-or-less sharing the spoils.
Sensing betrayal, one preemptively betrays the other and barely escapes
with
his life, though his wife is injured and his daughter is fatally wounded,
after which his wife leaves him.
He joins the Shaolin monks and is taken in by a monk played by Jackie Chan
--
who seriously shows up so late in the movie that's I'd forgotten he was
even
in it. He plays a supporting role as a cook and has a few choreographed
scenes, but they're quite tame by his standards. The plot is relatively
straightforward: monks are trying to help the poor and are beleaguered by
greedy warlords and encroaching European would-be--colonialists. The
former
warlord's nemesis is his former lieutenant. The chastened monk whose eyes
have been opened by Shaolin implores his protégé to stop pursuing more
wealth and violence. The pleas fall on deaf ears because the lieutenant --
and now warlord -- is almost cartoonishly evil, right up until his
quasi-redemption at the end.
The monks hew to their ways, releasing and defending refugees, engaging in
ass-kicking and sacrificing themselves where needed. The choreography
ranges
from relatively believable to off-the-hook, with a general disregard for
the
physical mass of human beings throughout. I don't care how good you are at
martial arts, you still need leverage. The story was decent and the
scenery
and cinematography quite beautiful. Recommended.
Identity Thief (2013) -- "5/10"
This is a relatively uneven, darker comedy with Jason Bateman as a nice guy
(surprise, surprise) whose identity is stolen by the "diabolical" Melissa
McCarthy, a con-woman seemingly without scruples. As you can imagine, his
unbelievable niceness rubs off on her and the Grinch finds a heart and things
tend to work out and everyone lives happily ever after. It's a pretty uneven
movie and McCarthy is more of an acquired taste -- I didn't find either of
them to be particularly funny in the first half of the film, but I have a
feeling that that was more due to the lackluster and generally mean-spirited
script. It's a movie that doesn't really know where it wants to go, except
perhaps to fill time with snippets of ideas until the final quarter or so,
which finally picks a groove and sticks with it, even if it wasn't a
particularly original one. Not really recommended.
RED 2 (2013) -- "5/10"
The gang's back together for a sequel to Red (which stands for Retired;
extremely dangerous). Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise
Parker and Brian Cox are joined by Catherine Zeta-Jones, Byung-hun Lee and
Anthony Hopkins in a zany plot that involves the old guard breaking in to the
most secure buildings in the world, seemingly without effort. It's reasonably
entertaining -- Helen Mirren is always a lot of fun -- but it's not as good
as the first one. Not really recommended.
Post Grad (2009) -- "2/10"
An utterly execrable film starring Alexis Bledel, the insipid ditz from The
Gilmore Girls. Things have not gotten any better in her career. Whilst
zapping about, I stopped on this movie because it also has Michael Keaton,
Jane Lynch and Carol Burnett but they had no hope of saving this formulaic
movie about how a young lady graduates from a fancy college (presumably with
crippling loans, especially for a family that is having trouble scraping
$15,000 together at one point), finally gets her dream job -- and is
seemingly the only employed adult in the household -- and then asks her Dad
if it's OK to just throw it all away in order to chase her former boyfriend
cross-country just to be with him. Utter crap. I only watched the last third
with one eye while I was reading, but I figured I'd include a review as a
warning to others. Not recommended. With extreme prejudice.
The Heat (2013) -- "7/10"
Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock star in this buddy-cop movie. The plot is
relatively straightforward. McCarthy plays Mullins, a rough-around-the-edges,
Boston cop who holds her whole precinct in fear. Bullock plays Ashburn, an
FBI agent with a lot of smarts but too much arrogance and a prickly
personality that makes everyone around her hate her. Guess what? Bullock
comes around and they make a great team. That is, however, neither here nor
there. The dialogue is good and McCarthy has her best role yet. Bullock is
good as well, but not the star, in my opinion. The supporting cast is alos
good: Marlon Wayans as a fellow FBI officer, Dan Bakkedahl as an albino DEA
agent, Jane Curtin as the Mullins matriarch, Michael Rappaport as Mullins's
brother, in trouble with the local drug kingpin (what else would he play?)
Not a lot of warrants or procedure and people's rights are flagrantly
violated throughout, but it was an entertaining ride. Recommended.
The Light Bulb Conspiracy (2010) -- "8/10"
You can watch this one online at "The Light Bulb Conspiracy"
. it's in English, French and
German (with English subtitles). This is a one-hour documentary about
planned
obsolescence in the context of dwindling resources and energy and that it
only works at all because the true costs of products, transportation,
resources and so on are not actually factored in. We subsidize the present
from the future. It includes some very interesting interviews, portions of
which I've transcribed below.
"We live in a Growth Society. Growth Society's logic is not only to grow to
meet demand but to grow for the sake of growth, unbounded growth in
production that is justified through the boundless growth in consumption.
The
three crucial factors are advertising, planned obsolescence and credit.
[...]
Anyone who thinks that infinite growth is consistent with a finite planet
is
either crazy or an economist. The problem is that now we've all become
economists."
"if happiness was dependent on our consumption level, we would be 100%
content. We consume 26 times more than in Marx's time. But all studies
show
that people are not 20 times happier. For happiness is always subjective."
"Critics of [the] de-growth [movement] fear that it will destroy the modern
economy and take us straight back to the Stone Age. [...] To return to a
society of sustainable development is not to go back to the Stone Age but
to
the 1960s. It is far from the Stone Age. Anti-Growth Society meets
Ghandi's
vision: The world is big enough to satisfy everyone's needs, but will
always
be too small to satisfy individual greed."
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006) -- "3/10"
This was really just an utterly awful entry in the series, featuring neither
Paul Walker nor Vin Diesel (spoiler alert: he showed up right at the end).
There's really not much to say: it's a weak, weak entry in the series. The
setting from the first couple of films is transported essentially unaltered
to Japan. The culture of racing cars as well. The only noticeable difference
is that the Japanese "drift" their cars while racing, which means that they
handbrake-slide their cars absolutely everywhere they go, going through a lot
of tires in the process. Seriously, there are a few times when people run to
the cars after a race and you feel that they must be gagging from the
burned-rubber smoke. There are no good characters and the Japanese are
portrayed throughout as smirking, massively rich and all perfectly fluent in
English. Avoid.
Arthur (2011) -- "3/10"
A promising cast -- Russell Brand, Helen Mirren, Greta Gerwig, Jennifer
Ganer, Luiz Guzmán and Nick Nolte -- isn't enough to lift this remake of the
Dudley Moore classic above mediocrity. Arthur is a billionaire who stands to
lose his inherited fortune when his mother is finally fed up with his
carefree lifestyle and makes him settle down and marry an arranged wife
(Garner). Helen Mirren is a lot of fun, as usual. Russell Brand is decent,
but a bit subdued for long sections. He's eminently believable as the drunken
Arthur, struggling to get on the wagon. Not recommended, though.
Warrior (2011) -- "10/10"
This is a finely tuned movie about mixed martial arts fighting (MMA). It
tells the story of two men, one whose life in the military ended less than
honorably (Tom Hardy), another whose career as a physics teacher isn't making
enough money to pay his bills -- or his mortgage (Joel Edgerton). They each
started out as excellent wrestlers and later fighters, under the tutelage of
their alcoholic and abusive father, played by Nick Nolte. The family drama is
surprisingly nuanced and Hardy plays especially well, I thought. Frank Grillo
was fantastic as just the best and most supportive coach ever. And the fight
scenes were absolutely great, lighter on blood than I expected and very good
on the mechanics, with a lot of covering up, a lot of knees and elbows and a
huge emphasis on groundwork and locks. Tapping out was a common end to a
fight, which is a welcome relief from all of those horribly choreographed
boxing movies (I'm looking at you, Rocky). Highly recommended.
Alpha House, season 1 -- 11 episodes (2013) -- "10/10"
Gary Trudeau knocks this one out of the park. The artist and writer of the
Doonesbury comic strip has turned his talents to script-writing and given us
all a gift. The cast is superb and includes the incomparable John Goodman as
Gil John Biggs (R-NC), who steals the show as usual, playing a former
Tarheels basketball coach turned senator. Clark Johnson plays Robert
Bettencourt (R-PA), a man with good taste in clothes and high-ranking
seniority in the Senate. Matt Malloy plays Mormon senator Louis Laffer from
Nevada (R) and Mark Consuelos rounds out the crew as Andy Guzman (R-FL). They
all share Laffer's house in Washington when the Congress is in session. There
are a lot of other great supporting characters, from Wanda Sykes and Cynthia
Nixon as Senators to Amy Sedaris and Julie White as supportive wives and
Alicia Sable as the "fabulous" Tammy, Gil John's assistant. Even Yara
Martinez as multi-millionaire sponsor of Guzman's ambitions grows on you as
her character becomes more nuanced and real. Trudeau takes the opportunity to
paint his largely Republican cast with a more subtle brush than many of his
detractors would likely expect, humanizing them in their struggle to hold
onto a shred of principle in the tidal wave of crazy caused by the Tea Party.
I enjoyed this series immensely and look forward to the next season.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] This could be a PSA for why fighting should be removed from hockey, though.
It's that violent.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=29022014-01-01T17:47:33+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
This is a Steve Coogan vehicle which is kind of like a documentary
about Steve Coogan making a movie of the essentially unfilmable
post-modern novel Tristram Shandy, a humorous, rambling book that
is
describes as follows in "Wikipedia"
:
"ostensibly"
...
]]>
This is a Steve Coogan vehicle which is kind of like a documentary about
Steve Coogan making a movie of the essentially unfilmable post-modern
novel
Tristram Shandy, a humorous, rambling book that is describes as follows in
"Wikipedia" :
"ostensibly Tristram's narration of his life story. But it is one of the
central jokes of the novel that he cannot explain anything simply, that he
must make explanatory diversions to add context and colour to his tale, to
the extent that Tristram's own birth is not even reached until Volume
III."
Coogan is backed, as usual, by Rob Brydon, who plays an excellent foil. It
had the same vibe as The Trip, in which the film's flow is constantly
interrupted by Coogan's caprices and ego trips -- in a way that is also
similar to Sterne's original novel. Cameos by Dylan Moran, Stephen Fry and
Gillian Anderson add some spice and humor. Kelly Macdonald plays Coogan's
real-life wife, who is quite good and is just one of several people in the
movie who is far more familiar with the novel than Coogan himself. Decent,
but not recommended.
eXistenZ (1999) -- "9/10"
Jennifer Jason Leigh is a video-game designer; Jude Law is the man with whom
she's on the run after an attack on her life. Ian Holm and Willem Dafoe
play
bit parts. In this near/alternate future, video games are played via a
"bioport" found near the base of the spine. Organic-looking umbilicals
attach
the player's spine to the even more organic-looking controller, which
looks
like a squashed fetus. It's classic Cronenberg, written and directed.
It's a very early movie about virtual reality and does a decent job
without a
lot of CGI. At one point, Leigh wanders around, checking sounds, echoes,
smells (does the pump smell of gas?) and physics details (does kicked dust
fall back to the ground believably?) to determine whether she's in reality
or
in a game.
The most unbelievable part of the story, though, is that her employer
allows
her to carry around the only copy of the game on her biopad (the
aforementioned organic-looking controller). Source control, anyone? The
second most unbelievable part is that the game cost only $38 million to
develop. Virtual reality is a foil that smooths over all plot holes,
though,
especially when the writer/director is known for bizarre plot twists. If
something seems impossible to believe, it's more than likely an indication
that you're already in the matrix.
Together, they finally get into the game and start to play, going through
the
pre-programmed script -- or so they suspect. Overtones of Matrix and
Inception here -- especially when they plug in different biopods in the
game.
Things get even more bizarre from there, with game worlds and reality
mixing
with standard video-game tropes (talking to NPCs, pausing the game,
building
weapons from game-world elements, rote and stilted dialogue, etc.).
Then time seems to be folding in on itself and we're not sure even when
the
movie became virtual reality. Did we see the start of it? If so, when was
that? Or was the start before the beginning of the movie and the whole
film
has been virtual so far? Are there fixed missions to accomplish (e.g.
building a weapon and assassinating someone)? And are our heroes the only
players in the game? She keeps calling him different names and he keeps
doing
stuff under some game-world compulsion maiking it hard to know which
actions
we can attribute to "him" and which belong to his game character. The
script
briefly opens up issues of free will, as well.
The reptiles and amphibians, bones and gristle, guts and blood are very
off-putting, but not unexpected for Cronenberg. There is also the nastily
sexual manipulation of the gamepod as well as the way that bioports are
accessed. Elements of addiction and misplaced emotions for non-reality as
well as corporate espionage and capitalist overtones round out the
smörgåsbord of themes. It's quite interesting stuff, especially
considering
it was made in 1999 before a lot of this in-game VR had really taken off.
Highly recommended.
Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie (2004) -- "6/10"
This is a 90-minute movie put together from cutting-room--floor clips from
the movie Anchorman. Kevin Corrigan (Uncle Eddie) and Maya Rudolph are
members of the Alarm Clock, a revolutionary team of bank robbers. Justin Long
makes a cameo as station manager Fred Willard's son. Amy Poehler is a bank
clerk with high standards. Vince Vaughn shows up as Wes Mantooth, an anchor
from a rival network. Stephen Root is a replacement anchor when Burgundy and
his news team go off on a mission. David Koechner as Champ Kind has an
extended profession of his love for Ron. The plot is similar to the original
film, mainly featuring a rivalry between Ron Burgundy and Veronica
Corningstone (played by Christina Applegate, who again has some excellent
scenes -- the one with the typewriter is pretty funny). It's not great but
it's pretty good, especially considering that this is throwaway material from
another movie.
The Wobblies (1979) -- "8/10"
This is a documentary about the International Workers of the World, or the
IWW, a labor union that helped transform American society at the beginning of
the 20th century. It tells of a rich history of labor activism that is hard
to fathom when looking around at America at the beginning of the 21st
century. They fought hard for rights that are being eroded by the same old
enemy that they only partially defeated before. The documentary features a
lot of interviews with former members (most quite old even at the time of
filming) who recall tales of the early years, sing songs of support for their
brothers and sisters and tell the forgotten history of labor agitation, state
suppression, socialist tradition and a deep feeling of community that seems
to have been all but lost. It's a good education, especially for younger
Americans. I can heartily recommend it as an accompaniment to a thorough
reading of the A People's History of the United States.
The Last Mountain (2011) -- "8/10"
This is a documentary film about mountaintop-removal mining in the
Appalachians and West Virginia in particular. Robert Kennedy Jr. is an
outspoken protester who says that "we do not have the right to destroy
something that we cannot recreate." The film covers the environmental
impact,
including extremely suspicious cancer and brain-tumor clusters caused by
pollution. It naturally progresses to an analysis of Massey Coal's
business
practices -- because pretty much all coal mining in Appalachia belongs to
that company.
Massey is strongly anti-union and the stark contrast between this
documentary
and the Wobblies documentary previously covered is evident. The Wobblies
has
well and truly been defeated in the pathetic remnants of American labor
and
manufacturing.
A little while later, Kennedy has a sit-down with a representative of
Massey
Energy. Kennedy lays out his case that 60,000 violations of the Clean
Water
Act by Massey have resulted in no fines. None whatsoever. He compares it
to
robbing a bank, saying it's worse because kids die from the pollution. The
rep responds that Massey keeps the lights on for Kennedy and his family.
Are
they all prepared to live without electricity? Well then shut the f@#k up
and
let the men do the work. This is the classic Colonel Jessup "you need me
up
on that wall" speech [1], but delivered by a slimy corporate toady who
could
not give two shits about children dying as long as he gets his bonus.
He claims to be protecting jobs, but those are jobs only as he and his
company define them. There are more eco-friendly, lower-profit ways to get
energy out of those hills. And those ways would likely be more
labor-intensive and involve more jobs. On the other hand, Kennedy's
argument
is more likely "we should stop coal-mining entirely if we want to have a
prayer of preserving anything approaching a decent lifestyle for future
generations." That is the mathematics of it. Kennedy should have
interrupted
him to restate the argument as "we think the loss of life in the region is
the minimum amount of damage that can be done while still generating coal
for
vital energy and, of course, and absolutely not least, our massive
profits."
The discussion goes on to include coverage of non-violent protest as well
as
the insidious influence of money in the destruction. Since coal makes up
more
than half of all goods transported by rail in the U.S., the rail industry
also lobbies heavily to keep things as they are. Since newer power plants
are
subject to more restrictive air-quality controls, coal companies just keep
the old, dirty ones limping along, spewing their horror into the
atmosphere.
It's a sobering documentary. Recommended.
Kill the Irishman (2011) -- "8/10"
In the spirit of the day, this movie is based on a true story about a young,
Irish, union leader named Danny Greene in Cleveland. He's played by a very
charismatic Ray Stevenson and married to the adorable Linda Cardellini.
Christopher Walken, Vincent D'Onofrio, Fionnula Flanagan and Val Kilmer
have
supporting roles.
Greene's only tangentially involved in unions, though. It's more like he
uses
the unions to muscle the mafia and to slice out a piece of the pie for
himself. His wife leaves him, he goes to jail for four years and he comes
out
and slowly gets back into his old life, almost immediately picking up a
tremendously young-looking girl played by Ellie Ramsey. She's adorable,
but
the disparity between the gigantic, bear-like Greene and this
baby-skinned,
tiny girl is a bit jarring.
It's a good thing for retro-American movies that there are so many
dilapidated-looking neighborhoods to choose from: the locations were all
very
run-down middle-American authentic.
He's an interesting character: a vegetarian-curious, fitness-crazed
teetotaler taking on the whole mafia on his own. They take the whole Irish
car-bomb thing a little too seriously, with cars blowing up right and left
and right again. Things get more earnest when the East-coast mafia decides
to
shake a good deal harder to get this Irish flea off of its back. The
"cleaner" they hire, Ray Ferrido, finally takes him out with an
unavoidably
well-placed bomb. Danny Greene is portrayed as one cool cat. Recommended.
XIII - The Conspiracy (2008) -- "3/10"
More by dumb luck than anything else, I managed to select another Val Kilmer
movie, where he once again plays a cop. Stephen Dorff plays an assassin
with
-- you guessed it -- amnesia. The flashback scenes are a
shaky-cam/quick-cut
mess of grayscale that are tough to watch. But watch you must if you want
to
pick up clues as to what's going on.
Just as a totally bizarre aside, but when Dorff and some old folks look up
something online, they use Opera and they seem to be using it from a Linux
box -- definitely just the kind of machine that two old folks in West
Virginia would have.
Sooooo...we have a made-for-TV Jason-Bourne copy on our hands, I guess. To
drive the point home, Dorff looks at his hands several times after killing
some goons as if to say: "did I do that?" Caterina Murino is a welcome
addition, an Italian replacement for the German Franka Potente in the
Bourne
series. You know you've got some story problems when your characters end
up
talking for almost 15 minutes to clarify all of the plot points and get
all
of the alignments and affiliations lined up.
In the second half (it's a three-hour mini-series), we segue into a
24/Homeland vibe. This is not a good thing. This might as well be a
marketing
campaign for torture. The main torturer, who seemed to be overarching
Nazi-level cruel and evil? He turns out to be an OK guy who's just doing
his
job. Brutal torture of "enemy combatants" is just part of the job in the
States. Puts my teeth on edge. If, however, you like torture and
unquestioning loyalty to...whatever, this might be your cup of tea. For
those
people, I would recommend asking themselves how they would feel about a
version of this garbage in Farsi. The production values are relatively
high,
but how much of this terror-attack-is-imminent crap do we really need in
the
States? Not recommended. At all.
Defamation (2009) -- "9/10"
This is a documentary about anti-Semitism and the degree to which it actually
persists today. It is largely in Hebrew and partially in English. The
director and narrator is an Israeli who sees references to the Holocaust
(Shoah) and anti-Semitism in his newspapers every day. So he wants to
investigate how these reports are created and possibly to meet and follow
the
lives of the people who are promulgating it.
His journey takes him to the ADL (the Anti-defamation League) where they
point him to cases of anti-Semitism. These cases are almost exclusively
about
taking time off from work. These are held up by the ADL as proof of
anti-Semitism, but it's clear that the cases are nothing big. However, the
major newspaper in Israel gets most of its news about attacks and
increasing
hatred directly from the ADL.
In another segment, the director travels with a school class to Poland,
where
they are to visit Holocaust sites. Their level of indoctrination is so
high
that some girls cannot even understand a basic interaction with some old
men
they meet. They have been programmed to see hatred everywhere, regardless
of
its actual presence. Interviews with students in Israel are similarly
sobering. The children and teenagers are just being what they are: vessels
for information, false or not.
But their easy lies as they cement false memories that will guide their
worldview for life is tough to watch. The teenage trip is an exercise in
indoctrination worthy of any cult. The most bizarre part is at the end,
where
they pose in a typical class portrait under the entry gate to Auschwitz,
under the "Arbeit macht frei" sign, all in their white hoodies and all
saying
"Auschwitz" with big grins on their faces. No sense of irony at all.
Soon after, they show the students finally crying, after initially having
worried that they weren't "really feeling it". Not to worry, the
indoctrination is complete as they now feel emotionally connected to
crimes
committed over 60 years ago, ready to let the lamp of these emotions light
the way to a lifetime of ignorance. They speak as if these events had
physically happened to them...or could, at any moment. Interestingly, it's
the girls who are bawling; the boys are stoic, and presumably still
worried
that they aren't showing proper emotion for the situation.
Where he finally does encounter anti-Semitism is in the Crown Heights
section
of Brooklyn, where interviews with people in the street reveal a startling
level of misinformation -- several of the people were convinced that the
Protocols of the Elders of Zion was a history book (one guy said it was
written in 1890 and was about how Jews used TV to control people).
And then he switches back to traveling with Abe Foxman (president of the
ADL)
as he visits dignitaries around the world. There is an interesting
interview
with two older Americans that succinctly shows what the training we saw
earlier in the teenagers looks like after steeping for 50 years. The
misinformation of the older, New York Jews is just as bad as that of the
Crown Heights blacks.
And then there's good old Norman Finkelstein:
"There's a kind of pathological narcissism, navel contemplation. When you are
the richest, wealthiest, most successful ethnic group in the United
States,
you've got the world on a platter and you sit around and you're talking
about
anti-Semitism. It's just kind of shameful, I think."
And good old Uri Avnery:
"Everybody is scared of anti-Semitism because of its history and Jews have
always been terrified. In America, where Jews are so strong and
influential,
they are scared of their own shadows. Every moment, behind every tree, an
anti-Semite hides. Bullshit! There is nothing like that. Anti-Arabs,
anti-Muslims, anti-Black, anti whatever you like, yes. Anti-Semites? You'd
need a magnifying glass to find them. And there are people who are walking
around with this magnifying glass, like Sherlock Holmes, to find
anti-Semites."
And there is extensive coverage of Mearsheimer and Walt as well as David
Hirsch from England who is called out as being an anti-Semite at an
academic
conference in Israel when he's considered a right-wing Jew-lover in
England.
When told that Mearsheimer and Walt think that the ADL is damaging to
Israel
and the U.S., Foxman says,
"that's not their god-damned business. Who the hell asked them to decide
what's good for you? Who are they, who are they, to come to a judgment
what
will provide safety and security for you? C'mon! That's not their
business."
Again, the irony was entirely lost on him.
An interview with an Israeli visitor at Auschwitz was also quite good,
echoing parts of Finkelstein's earlier tirade that Israelis are constantly
invoking Nazism and calling one another Nazis and comparing everything bad
to
Auschwitz (Finkelstein's examples came from his family, as he was growing
up):
"We live with the feeling that death is always with us. Whether that feeling
is good or not, I don't know. It is always hanging over us, and here in
Auschwitz you see how it became an industry, an industry of death. The
Germans started it all, and we are perpetuating it. I thought about it a
lot,
whether this March of the Living is good or bad, this death industry...We
perpetuate death, and that's why we will never become a normal people:
because we emphasize death and what happened. We have to remember, no
doubt,
but we live too much in it and it's preventing us from being a normal
people."
And, finally, one of the schoolgirls dictates the lesson she learned in
Auschwitz:
"Girl:When you see it you say, 'I want to kill the people who did this!'
Actually, no, because even if I become more racist, there will still be
someone more racist than me, and it will never end.
Interviewer: Who would you like to kill?
Girl:Who would I like to kill? All of them...
Interviewer: Who is all of them?
Girl: The Nazis, our enemies who did this.
Interviewer: But you know that they are dead...
Girl: Yes, but they have heirs, they may be different but they're there."
Highly recommended.
Mark of Cain (2001) -- "9/10"
This is a documentary about Russian penitentiaries, discussing conditions
there and how the prisoners interact. Tattoos in this system have meaning
(or
used to) and allow for quick assessments of new prisoners, all without a
word
being spoken. Because of this, many of the interviews are with shirtless
men,
even those with former prisoners. The prisons look very tough, although
malnutrition and boredom seems to be more of a problem than solitary
confinement. Toward the end of the film, we see the tiny, single-seat
cells
that serve as solitary cells all lined up in a wall. They kind of look
like
outhouses. And then there is the deep pit that qualifies as "outside
time",
where prisoners pace back and forth with no direct sunlight, meters below
ground.
In discussions of "the Black Swan", one of the meanest prisons, advocates
for
prison reform say that the prison is worse now than it was under Stalin.
They
tell of super-TB that cannot be cured with antibiotics raging through the
over-crowded prisons. The prisoners are almost uniformly thin and sickly.
And
here we get back to the home-made tattoos, made with home-made machines
and
burned-up boot soles for a deep black color and mixed with urine to make
ink.
Home-made tattoos and shared needles lead to TB spreading like wildfire.
The prisoners say that "it was better to be in prison under the
Communists.
They gave sane prison terms and the laws made sense." And the focus on
honor
has changed: tattoos mean nothing anymore because anyone can get any
tattoo
with enough money. There is a generation gap between the old-guard "Zeks"
and
the new prisoners, mostly younger guys who've grown up without communism
and
responsibility (their words). And drugs are apparently a much larger
problem
than they used to be.
The visit to a woman's prison is also interesting. There they interview a
former national-team skier who took up drugs after an horrific accident.
She's covered in self-inflicted tattoos that designate her as an "addict"
(the genie of addiction coming out of a bottle, for example). They discuss
sexual life in prison much more openly than the men, who only discussed
the
"downcast" (bottoms, presumably).
The film is in Russian with English subtitles. At 73 minutes, it's quite
short but positively packed with information. I'd read about it after
watching "Eastern Promises", a Cronenberg film starring Viggo Mortenson.
The
interviews are deeply philosophical. Highly recommended.
Entre les Murs (2008) -- "9/10"
This is an utterly brilliant look at teaching a class of 14- and
15-year--olds in a tough Parisian neighborhood. The teacher is François
Bégaudeau and he plays brilliantly, trying like hell to teach kids that
think they already know everything and are often actively hostile to
anyone
who purports to know more than they. They interrupt so much that he is
quickly off of the standard course material and the class turns into more
of
a therapy session. The kids then chastise him for prying into their lives,
but they're the ones who won't shut up about themselves in the first
place.
If they were that concerned, they could just stick to the non-invasive
standard material.
Their questions come hard and fast, often feeling more like a
classroom-full
of nine-year--olds [2] than like teenagers who'd had some educational
experience. They ask interesting questions sometimes, like why they need
to
learn the imperfect subjunctive when no one ever uses it. It's hard to
tell
them that if they don't learn it, they will limit themselves to a local
maximum in their immediate neighborhood and that the world will prey on
them
indiscriminately. To learn how to defeat the masters of the world, you
must
first learn their ways, but without losing the essence that makes you
different from them. It's a difficult balancing act and one that is all
the
more difficult to teach to kids who suspect your every move and who have
been
betrayed many times before.
In balance to this is the staff meeting, which depicts the highly educated
teachers using the worldly wisdom they've acquired to argue about the
price
of a cup of coffee in the staff room.
The French school system is amazing, though. There are student
representatives present during the evaluation of the other students.
Naturally, they were disrespectful and sniggering throughout, but they
were
there. And the teacher is unbelievably patient -- until he loses it and
tells
the two class representatives, in front of the class, that they were
behaving
like "two skanks" (pétasses). Though striking back may have felt good, it
led to trouble for him.
He went to confront the girls who reported him and asked what they meant
to
accomplish. Punishment, they responded. Short-sighted, petty punishment.
Of
course, they're stupid people. Worse, stupid teenagers. They didn't see
beyond the immediate gratification, that they might easily lose a teacher
who
is far less bad than all the others. People suck. Young people suck far
worse. Their triumphant looks when you see one of their own going -- as
they
see it -- toe to toe with the teacher (as Carl does in one scene), is sad.
They have no understanding for the big picture whatsoever. In this, they
are
no different than most.
They have no understanding of consequences, that if the risk is big, then
they should shut their mouthes and be wary of the consequences. Instead,
they
think that someone (like Suleymane) who has a lot to lose if he falls out
of
the system should therefore never be punished for bad behavior. I admit,
it's
a form of logic, but not a fair or just one.
On the other hand, when expulsion is almost incontrovertibly linked with
much
direr consequences, the temptation to not judge them for their youthful
foolishness is great. Their ill-founded superiority could drive one to
drink,
though. Heavily. Just as you'd given up hope, in an end-of-the-year
interview, one girl -- Esmerelda -- after initially saying she'd learned
nothing (of course), cops to having read Plato's The Republic in her free
time. This, of course, ignites, once again, a spark of hope. Totally worth
the two hours of reading subtitles. Recommended.
Redemption (2013) -- "7/10"
Jason Statham stars as a down-on-his-luck SAS agent with a heart of gold who
gets his life back together after stumbling into a posh London apartment
that
has been abandoned for the summer by its owner. He makes himself at home
and,
after an initial further descent into booze, pulls himself together,
starts
working out again and gets a real job with a Chinese restaurant.
After seeing how he handles himself with some rough guys, the Chinese gang
hires him to drive for them -- and to keep his mouth shut. Flush with
cash,
he continues to give to the church mission that provided him with so much
support during his dark days. Things get a good deal more complicated as
the
nun who is trying to save him has a crisis of conscience herself.
But they all straighten up and fly right and he gets ready for his
messianic
mission to right all wrongs and risk his life and newfound wealth doing
it.
The movie gets pretty dark, actually, where Joey positively hurls himself
into a plummeting redemption. He explains it by saying that "when I'm
sober,
when I'm healthy, I hurt people. I drink to weaken the machine they made."
It's a decent ending, not at all what the genre would lead you to expect.
And
the best part? They did it all without shaky cams and crazily loud
firefights.
William S. Burroughs -- A Man Within (2010) -- "5/10"
This is a documentary about a truly unique American author, member of the
Beat Generation and inventor of much of the terminology that came to define
cyberspace (along with, arguably, Philip K. Dick and William Gibson). He was
a prodigious consumer of drugs and an early out-of-the-closet gay man in an
extremely bigoted America. He was a rebel and conceded nothing in either his
life or his work. A lot of his writing is...less accessible. Even his best
friends can't find anything uncomplicated to say about him. He was a huge
dope fiend (heroin) and, like his buddy Hunter S. Thompson, an absolute gun
nut. A decent documentary, but nothing to write home about. Not recommended.
I Am Bruce Lee (2012) -- "7/10"
This is a documentary that incorporates a lot of interviews with Bruce Lee
fans as well as people who knew him. It tells the by-now familiar story of
Bruce Lee, from his trek from China to the U.S and back to China. He was a
really cool guy, admired by people from all walks of life. Bruce's
emphasis
on not getting his ass kicked was what led him to Ip Man, Wing Chun and
finally to developing Jeet Kune Do.
There is a surprising and almost inordinate emphasis on his sexiness. "He
was
like a coiled cobra. Even in conversation, you could feel his explosive
power."
It's quite well-done, actually, well worth watching if you're either a fan
or
always wondered what the big deal was. I was not aware that Bruce Lee once
fought Boom Boom Mancini (he won) or that Ed O'Neill is either a martial
artist (Ji Jitsu) or a fan of Bruce Lee. Kobe Bryant is featured heavily
and
I learned that he speaks Italian.
There is an interesting discussion of just how good he would be against
the
best fighters today. Many fighters today have benefited from having
trained
using his style and they're much bigger and equally fast, so no, he
probably
couldn't kick the ass of any given attacker. Still, they call him the
father
of MMA, which I don't think is 100% accurate since JKD is a style of no
style
-- and no rules. The documentary goes into detail about his push back
against
classical styles, styles that taught rote and historical moves rather than
maximum efficiency and optimization of the human body.
I still like the interviews with him the best: he was very charismatic and
described his philosophy well. He was much more of a renaissance man,
actually, tuning everything at once to create a person worth being.
A Carol for Another Christmas (1964) -- "8/10"
This film was written as an alternative to the Christmas Carol by Rod
Serling, who would go on to write the Twilight Zone TV shows. It stars Ben
Gazzara and Sterling Hayden, but also has Peter Sellers, Robert Shaw and
Britt Ekland. It's a very interesting retelling that is more modern and
more
appropriate -- even though it's already 50 years old. Instead of showing
the
effects that the rich have on their immediate neighbors (like the
original),
it shows the global impact of the rich.
It starts off as a rehashing of a discussion between Fred and Uncle Dan
(Daniel Grudge). Dan is a staunch libertarian and anti-communist who's an
unbelievably ignorant asshole who would fit right in with American
political
discourse today. He's stupid, shallow and powerful, so he gets to be
right,
if only in his mind. Fred is the socially liberal and politically and
historically aware college professor with a modicum of foresight. It's a
very
good presentation of the two sides of the argument (such as they are) that
was aired without commercials and sponsored by the Xerox Corporation back
in
the 60s. It's interesting how they discuss isolationism as if that were
at
all the American intent for the last century. Profiteering was more the
philosophy rather than true isolationism.
The Ghost of Christmas Past takes Grudge back to Hiroshima, where he was
stationed during the war, where he was confronted with the horror of it --
and utterly failed to comprehend it. It takes a special kind of monster to
stand in the middle of a freshly bombed Hiroshima -- and to justify it.
The
Ghost of Christmas Present pigs out while he shows Grudge displaced
persons.
Grudge yells at him that he can't eat while they're there. But that's what
he
himself does every day -- what, in fact, we all do. Out of sight; out of
mind. The Ghost of Christmas Future presents a dystopic post-nuclear--war
world populated only by surviving egocentrists, led by their king, the
King
of Me: Peter Sellers. His speech is a tongue-in-cheek refutation of the
Randian philosophy:
"Now then, [the bleeding hearts] don't come right out and say that they want
to take us over -- they're far too clever for that. But that's what they
want. They wanna take over us individual Me's. And if we let them seep in
here from down-yonder and cross-river, if we let these do-gooders, these
bleeding hearts, propagate their insidious doctrine of involvement among
us,
then my dear friends, my beloved Me's, we's in trouble. Deep, deep
trouble.
Because we have now reached a pure state of civilization. The world of the
ultimate Me is finally within our grasp. A world where only the strong
will
exist, where only the powerful will love, where finally the word "we" will
be
stamped out and will become "I" forever! We are each the wise, we are each
the strong, and we are each the individual Me's!"
He continues,
"And now my friends, next on the agenda, we must go out and dispose of those
people from down-yonder and cross-river who want to come in here and
"talk".
We must dispose of them, you understand?! [...] We must carry our
glorious
philosophy through to its glorious culmination! So that the end, with
enterprise and determination, the world and everything in it will belong
to
one individual Me!"
The crowd and scene reminded me of the Idiocracy and the Imperial Me
reminded
me of President Camacho. I wonder how much Mike Judge cribbed from this
film?
When the crowd laughs at Charles during his uplifting (but social) speech,
I
couldn't help thinking the signature line from the movie, "he talks like a
fag and his shit's all retarded."
In fact, that would be the problem with showing this type of Christmas
show
these days: the language -- even at a distance of only 50 years -- is too
high-brow and complex for the modern TV-viewing audience. It's a very
interesting discussion of the kind that doesn't seem to take place in
public
American discourse anymore. The basic issues have not changed one iota,
despite our supposed advanced state of technology. Hat tip to Chuck Mertz
of
This is Hell for pointing it out. I would love to have watched this and
thought "interesting, but it applies to a past version of society, not
ours".
It's sad to have to think that absolutely nothing has changed in 50 years.
A Film with Me in it (2008) -- "7/10"
A film with Dylan Moran in it, who's just a brilliantly funny, Irish,
stand-up comedian and actor. He plays Pierce, self-describes as follows
(in
an AA meeting):
"My name's Pierce. I'm a write-stroke-director...and a waiter. Right? [sits
down]
"[stands back up] And, um, I have, in the past, as I'm sure some of you
have,
eh, been drinking ... certainly drinking, a lot of -- no getting away --
and,
uh, I thought, this is too much, this is...too many drinks at the same --
in
the same time...frame. And, uh, I ... alcohol is been part of that.
Certainly
in the pub. And I have thought on occasion that this is the kind of thing
an
alcoholic does. [sits back down]"
The movie's about Pierce and his friend Mark, both sad-sacks with no
prospects. Mark lives in an apartment that's falling apart, he can't pay
the
rent and his oh-so-patient girlfriend is leaving him. The lack in repairs
leads to tragedy -- several times within minutes. It's dark comedy and
quite
nicely filmed. As befits a dark comedy, things only get absurdly worse and
out of control. And Moran seems to be a fan of movies that are about
themselves -- at the top of this article is a review of Tristram Shandy,
in
which he also played, that had a very similar vibe to it. When Mark
describes
the bizarre happenings of the last few minutes, Moran says "that's a crap
plot. It's farce. No one does that nowadays." Belied, of course, by the
fact
that that is exactly what they are doing in their own movie.
Police, Adjective (2009) -- "7/10"
This is a Romanian film about a young police officer pursuing a case of petty
drug-use by teenagers in a small city in Romania. The film depicts his
rather
boring and seemingly meaningless life in which he painstakingly follows
petty
suspects for crimes that will probably not even be crimes in a few years.
He
questions the ethics of bringing in such young people for victimless
crimes
that will cost them years of their lives in jail.
The policeman's life is far from glamorous: he works all the time, spends
long hours staked out in the cold, eats pathetic soups for his meals, eats
and drinks alone and seems to live a very lackluster life, somehow in the
past. In his office, he has an old CRT; at home, his wife has a nice LCD
computer. He is constantly checking his ancient Nokia telephone.
In their discussion of the meaning of song lyrics, his interpretation is
almost stiflingly literal whereas hers is much more philosophical and
refined, even sophisticated. This is reinforced further in another
conversation with his incongruously pretty wife, in which she corrects his
grammar in a report, telling him in meticulous detail about the exact
tense
and usage. He expresses interest and wonders who comes up with new rules
like
this, intimating that this must be a very tedious job. The irony escapes
him.
There are interesting little reinforcements of this difference between
Cristi
(the cop) and the rest of the world. When he talks to the secretary, she
offers him chocolate -- a sinfully sweet delight -- he pauses longer than
necessary, as if not even comprehending the concept, before politely
refusing.
The tedium is fascinating because we have such bizarre notions of how
policemen operate in foreign, less advantaged countries, such as those of
the
former Eastern Bloc. Instead of busting down doors, Stasi-style, they work
like all other boring, good cops: slowly, within the system, trying to
make
ends meet, picking up fag-ends in the street to see if they're hash.
Boring;
by the book.
Watching him deal with the recalcitrant functionaries at his office was
eerily reminiscent of working with people at any larger company. There is
a
great, lengthy, single-shot meeting with the precinct captain -- who is
also
a complex, philosophically intellectual guy -- in which the captain tries
to
help Cristi resolve his moral quandary by having him look up and read
aloud
the definitions for "conscience", "law", "moral" and, finally, "police".
As
expected, there is no great revelation. Instead, the film shows what we
should already know: life is full of moral quandaries. We solve them in
less
spectacular ways, choosing ourselves over others, and continue. Perhaps
this
is the beginning of a longer slide for Cristi. Perhaps not.
The pace is glacial, but it paints an appropriate picture, showing without
saying. It's hard to imagine to whom I'd recommend it, though, as it's a
glacially paced film about petty crime and the ethics of the drug war
(i.e.
making the common citizen a criminal) in Romania. Saw it in Romanian with
English subtitles.
How to Make Money Selling Drugs (2012) -- "8/10"
This is a documentary about the drug trade in the United States, depicted as
a kind of video game where you keep leveling up to the next level, from
street hustler to kingpin to head of an international cartel. It includes
a
lot of interviews with former and current drug dealers at all levels as
well
as researchers and scholars.
David Simon has some very good insights, as you can well imagine. The
sentencing disparity between whites and blacks is discussed as well as the
sheer brutality of the "just say no" program, which Simon compares to
telling
people to just say no to working at the only factory offering work in your
home town. He calls it one America utterly failing to understand how the
other part of America lives. And not caring. As Simon says, "we hadn't
given
the slightest bit of thought as to what these people should be saying yes
to.
And we still haven't."
The documentary also addresses how the asset-forfeiture laws seizes
billions
of dollars of assets, all without an arrest, a warrant or anything legal.
Police departments are encouraged to go out scavenging for vehicles and
equipment, making up excuses to just seize what they need. Not only that,
but
the incentives are extraordinarily negative, leading to cops making
useless
busts just to build up statistics for which they will either receive money
from the federal government or that they will directly seize. The increase
of
no-knock, military-style raids -- it's just inconceivable that these are
legal -- is even more terrifying. The natural consequence is that cops no
longer really know how to do actual police work because they're only there
to
do S.W.A.T. raids. Murders, rapes and other actual crimes remain
uninvestigated.
Woody Harrelson, Susan Sarandon and Arianna Huffington introduce the
segment
that discusses the industries that profit massively from the drug war,
like
the prison lobbies, which will happily fill the coffers of any politician
with a tough-on-drugs attitude. And next up is Chris Rock, telling us that
the government "doesn't give a fuck about your safety. The government:
they
don't want you to use your drugs; they want you to use their drugs." This
introduces the segment of how big pharma and its bought-and-paid-for
politicians decide which drugs are legal and which are not. Marshall
Mathers
(Eminem) discusses his addiction to Vicodin and other prescription drugs.
Recommended.
Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (2012) -- "5/10"
This is a documentary about child-molestation in the Chatholic Church, with a
specific emphasis and interviews with the victims of the 1970s molestations
by Father Murphy in Wisconsin. He was a sick, sick man but unfortunately,
this material has been quite thoroughly covered so the shock value is
somewhat gone. The documentary does not acknowledge this, though, and tries
to stretch the material too far. It does go into the history of the church's
handling of criminals in its midst, which is quite interesting, although not
particularly revealing or groundbreaking. It's too thin to recommend.
The House I Live In (2012) -- "10/10"
This is a more down-on-the-streets complement to the previous documentary How
to Make Money Selling Drugs. It's a discussion of the drug war and its
effects on poor communities, which literally have no other opportunities.
They're not even trying to get rich, necessarily. As one young small-time
drug dealer puts it, "basically it's just about survival." The war on
drugs
is invisible to a large part of the population -- one class -- and the
cops
and the lower classes are left to fight it out, senselessly. As one cop
puts
it "[e]verybody involved just hates what's going on."
The documentary covers the sheer short-sightedness of the drug war and the
utter hopelessness that it creates for whole generations and large swaths
of
the population. It has already caused enough damage and threatens to tear
the
fabric of American society irreparably asunder -- assuming that it has not
already done so.
David Simon returns in this documentary,
"The drug war created an environment in which [professionalism and craft]
were not rewarded. A drug arrest does not require anything other than
getting
out of your radio car and jacking people up against the side of a liquor
store. Probable cause? Are you kidding?"
Cops describe how they work geographically, sweeping up people in a
region,
because they need to make arrests. Why? Money. Overtime.
"The problem is, is that that cop that made that cheap drug arrest, he's
gonna get paid. He's gonna get the hours of overtime for taking the drugs
down to E.C.U. He's gonna get paid for processing the prisoner down to
central booking. He's gonna get paid for sitting back at his desk and
writing
the paperwork for a couple of hours. And he's gonna do that 40, 50, 60
times
a month, so that his base pay might end up being only half of what he's
paid
as a police officer."
Now this is an interesting tie-in to the Romanian movie I just watched
before. In that one, a cop had a moral quandary about sending kids to jail
for drugs. He decided, in the end, to make the arrests based on the letter
of
the law -- and to protect his job. In this documentary, we see how the
low-level soldiers in the drug war are just looking out for number one,
piling up overtime, but at the same time doing so by unfairly targeting
and
imprisoning the poor and the downtrodden. I got mine, Jack.
David Simon is again very eloquent, as he was in How to Make Money Selling
Drugs. Cops who make dozens of shitty and unfair drug arrests look better
on
paper than cops making single arrests for real crimes. Drug cops get
promoted...and end up approving the promotions for the next round of
sergeants. Guess who gets promoted? It's a vicious cycle.
"Compare that guy to the one guy doing police work, solving a murder, a rape,
a robbery, a burglary. If he gets lucky, he makes one arrest for the
month.
He gets one slip signed. And, at the end of the month, when they look and
they see officer A, he made 60 arrests. Officer B, he made one arrest. Who
do
you think they make the sergeant? In a city like Baltimore, where I'm
from,
our percentage of arrests for murder, for rape and robbery, are half of
what
they once were. [3] Our drug-arrest stats are twice of what they once
were.
It makes the city unlivable. It makes a police department where nobody can
solve a fuckin' crime."
Cops are not all bad, but they are human and they can fool themselves into
believing that what they're doing is right just because it's legal. They
may
have initial qualms about simply seizing vehicles for themselves or for
seizing money and using it to buy themselves and their departments new
equipment, but it quickly passes as the tedium of repetition teaches them
that this is the new normal. This is not to excuse them, but to try to
explain how these seemingly fascist and lawless practices can become so
prevalent among those ostensibly charged with upholding the law.
No discussion of the drug war is complete without a discussion of the
disparity in sentencing laws, which are clearly designed to incarcerate
people of particular classes and races. In the early 20th century, laws
against opium were designed to capture Chinese (even though opium was used
by
everyone, including affluent and middle-class whites), and now laws
against
crack are used to capture blacks. Whites use crack just as much as blacks.
In
fact, usage statistics show that 13% of crack users are black, just like
13%
of the U.S. population is black. Then why are over 90% of the people
arrested
for crack possession black? Explain that while at the same time
maintaining
that the U.S. is a post-racist society.
On we go to an examination of why in God's name we would continue to do
things this way when it causes so much suffering. In explanation, the
documentary's next stop is a prison-industry trade show. Oh, and David
Simon
is back with another eloquent summary,
"You know, a funny thing happened on the way to the 21st century, which is
that we shrugged off so much of our manufacturing base, so much of our
need
for organized labor, for a legitimate union wage, for union benefits, for
the
types of jobs in which you could raise a family and be a meaningful
citizen.
We got rid of so much of that that oops...we marginalized a lot of white
people. And lo and behold, when they are marginalized, when they are
denied
meaning, when they're denied meaningful work, they become drug addicts
too.
And they become involved in the methamphetamine trade and they start
turning
themselves over to the underground economies that are the only ones there
to
accept them. Capitalism is fairly color-blind in the end. Our economic
engine, when it doesn't need somebody, it doesn't need somebody and it
doesn't give a damn who you are. White people found it out a little later
than black folk, but they found it out."
Another guy puts it more pithily:
"The way to take a problem and make it a huge problem is, first, you ask the
wrong question and then you feed us the wrong answer."
Another very good documentary. Highly recommended for all Americans.
Redbelt (2008) -- "6/10"
This is a martial arts film starring Chiwetel Ejiofor (most recently lauded
for his lead role in 12 Years a Slave) as a ji jitsu instructor. The
"professor", the current holder of the red belt is played by Dan Inosanto,
who teaches JKD in real life. I saw Ricky Jay, Tim Allen and Joe Mantegna so
far, which makes this a more famous cast than I expected for a movie I'd
never even heard of. It's written and directed by David Mamet, which explains
the twists and turns, but does not explain the at-times quite stilted and
confusing dialogue. The bar-fight scene was good: very realistic and shot
with wide frames so you can see what's going on. The final fight was much
more chopped up, and the ending was very strange. It was hard to understand
why they were all leaving him alone, like he was some sort of avenging
samurai, a force of nature with which not even the gangsters were willing to
fool. I grant that Mamet made a different ending, but this wasn't just loose
ends that could be easily tied together by a viewer but whole swathes of
cloth whose re-raveling requires quite a bit more work.
Pi (1998) -- "8/10"
This is a Darren Aronofsky film about a mathematician/savant named Max
working in the stock market and trying to unlock the mysteries of the
universe by detecting the patterns buried in the mathematics of existence.
Early in the film, he encounters a talkative guy in a diner who asks him
about the Kabbalah and I was immediately reminded of Eco's Foucault's
Pendulum which also dealt with extracting meaning from patterns that may
or
may not exist. The black and white filming as well as the raw print
quality
reminded me a bit of Lynch's Eraserhead.
Max has a very Gilliam-esque machine named Euclid into which he types his
daily assumptions to generate the next day's stock predictions. The
machine
starts to misbehave, supposedly. It's hard to tell what's real, though,
since
Max also gets utterly violent reality-altering headaches the ad-hoc
treatments for which he also meticulously documents in his daily journal.
The
film is told partly in his conversations with his odd, old professor
played
brilliantly, as always, by Mark Margolis (look him up; you'll recognize
him).
His life is filled with jarring noise -- the shrill noise of his headaches
is
truly terrifying, the phone is jarring, his attractive neighbor can be
heard
entertaining next door.
It's got a cool techno soundtrack and a cool overall style. It's not for
everyone, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Said enjoyment is maybe not
unassociated with my having a current obsession with completing a jigsaw
puzzle that is 1/3 blue sky -- 500 pieces all of nearly the same color.
Running Scared (2006) -- "8/10"
This is a modern, small-scale action movie starring the late Paul Walker (of
Fast and Furious fame) in the role of a low-level thug but with a son and
wife. It's directed with slow-motion scenes reminiscent of Guy Ritchie. It's
a joy ride through the criminal underworld as a little kid who steals a hot
gun is chased by Walker's character, trying to get the gun back. Things take
a seriously unexpected turn, though: there is a whole extra fascinating
sub-plot stuck in there, as if the writer couldn't figure out which of two
movies he wanted to make. Scratch that, make it three movies. It's quite a
rollicking story and well worth the trouble if you're looking for a good
crime story. Start to finish, a wicked fun movie. Cool credits. Recommended.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Colonel Jessup is the Jack Nicholson character from the movie A Few Good
Men.
[1] One part totally reminded me of having spent a week of my summer with a very
inquisitive nine-year--old from New Jersey, with whom I went down several
very deep vocabulary rabbit-holes before we once again saw the light of day
and picked up the thread we'd lost half-an-hour before.
[1] In fairness, it should be noted that these figures, even if accurate (they
may just have been chosen for effect) should still be adjusted for the
actual drop in crime. Unfortunately, arrest rates are one important way of
determining to what degree homicide has dropped. Is it possible that the
U.S. thinks its homicide rate is dropping because police departments just
aren't pursuing those cases, preferring instead to pursue more lucrative
drug cases? Especially when drug dealers tend to have tons of assets that
the department and officers can just seize without a warrant or any
justification?
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=28972013-12-27T11:17:21+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
Woody Harrelson oozes menace as a cop in the Rampart department in
Los Angeles. This department is embroiled in, as department lawyer
Sigourney Weaver calls it, "a shitstorm". Harrison smokes where
he's
not supposed to (which is pretty much everywhere in LA), goes out
...
]]>
Woody Harrelson oozes menace as a cop in the Rampart department in Los
Angeles. This department is embroiled in, as department lawyer Sigourney
Weaver calls it, "a shitstorm". Harrison smokes where he's not supposed to
(which is pretty much everywhere in LA), goes out drinking seemingly every
weeknight and hooks up on a work night -- but only after being turned down
by
both sisters he lives with, with whom he's had a kid each. To top it all
off,
he listens to/is steeped in right-wing talk radio day and night.
There was decent writing, especially in the exchanges between Harrelson
and
Steve Buscemi (as the DA). For example, Harrelson at one point ripostes
"The
law must occasionally accommodate the extraordinary vicissitudes of
justice
-- Judge D.T. Eagleton, 1946". It's nicely delivered and very convincing
but
for two problems: (1) he's using it to defend his right as a cop to beat
civilians nearly to death and (2) he'd already previously explained to a
rookie that he liked to make up convincing-sounding court cases to make
get
his opponents on the back foot.
In a meeting with lawyers, he explains that he wants to stay on the force
"[b]ecause I'm a dutiful hard-charging motherfucker and I want to
explicate
the LAPD's somewhat hyperbolized [sic] misdeeds with true panache
regardless
of my alleged transgressions." In a deposition, he says that his history
is
"not germane to the issue" and that he'd like his case to be examined
"ad-hoc
[because] empirical knowledge often distorts the content of the act under
scrutiny". This is an adorable double standard because history and prior
behavior are often used by the police and justice in order to establish
patterns.
His only apparent redeeming quality is that he is, apparently, very good
in
bed. Oh, and as we see further on in the film, he's very devoted to his
family, in his own way. By the time we learn that, though, he's spiraling
out
of control in a drug and insomnia-induced haze. Harrelson does a really
good
job, all red-faced and veiny and wiry and frenetic and utterly manic.
World War Z (2013) -- "7/10"
Brad Pitt stars in a zombie movie. It starts off showing him with his family,
all of whom I found to be highly annoying, but I was looking forward to
their
demise. I'd just read an interview with Brad Pitt where he described his
eight-person nuclear family as his be-all, end-all. But this can't be how
his
family behaves. The kids are basically spoiled basket cases, who are
already
having trouble dealing with a traffic jam, to say nothing of a zombie
invasion. And these are the fast, head-slamming, face-eating kind of
zombies,
no slow shufflers these. Kind of like the sufferers of the rage virus in
the
28 days/28 weeks later films.
The Mom turns out to be halfway decent, actually, but why do they always
write these roles so selfishly? Is that really how people would react? I
know
billions have died and the whole world is going to hell but, dammit, my
kids
are special. Your kids aren't special. They're basket cases. Evolution
will
eat them alive. Or zombies will.
Anyway. The wall scene? Super-awesome. The sheer tenacity of the zombies
is
really well-depicted. They're quite fast, but still relatively
well-filmed.
And the waves of zombies pouring through the streets like water...simply
amazing. Even the close-up work was really convincing. I have to say it
was
really well-done. Best zombie movie I've seen, I think. And the whole part
about him getting out everywhere in the nick of time? Usually annoying,
but
here somehow believably well-done. Recommended.
Hesher (2010) -- "9/10"
Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as the pure personification of the id called
Hesher, a Metallica-loving, seemingly ageless and timeless hobo who moves
in
with a grandmother, her son and his son. The son, TJ, first sees Hesher at
his school but I don't think he actually goes to school. Natalie Portman
plays a poor, young cashier at the local grocery store, trying desperately
to
make ends meet in a hopeless life.
Hesher is Chaos but is also the voice of reason. He tells extremely crude
life stories that seem to be metaphors but which are not always intended
as
such. The family had just lost its mother in a tragic traffic accident and
the father lies about listlessly the whole day. Hesher's chaos provokes
them
into action, into feeling something again and, after they've had their
breakthrough, he's gone. His job is done.
Highly recommended, surprisingly enough. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is extremely
versatile. Everyone is actually quite good, including Portman's turn as a
sad-sack. Very down-to-Earth depiction of lives of quiet desperation.
Sleep Dealer (2008) -- "7/10"
A Spanish-language movie about a near-future where drones attack Mexico. And
Mexicans? They become sleep-dealers, node-workers who are attached to the
grid in virtual reality, working virtually for Americans without
inflicting
the nastiness of their actual physical presence on them.
The movie follows the life of a young man named Memo whose father was
killed
by a drone piloted remotely by a Mexican-American soldier living in the
States. Memo has to move from his village and becomes a node worker
himself,
working on high-rises in America as a yellow construction robot. He meets
Luz, who sells memories on the TruNode network. The pilot who killed
Memo's
father finds the memories she sells of Memo and discovers that his life of
killing terrorists is a lie.
The same network that traps and controls them ends up bringing them
together
to strike a blow against tyranny. It's not a bad little flick, actually,
but
kinda hard to recommend.
Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2001) -- "8/10"
A wonderful documentary about the work of Stanley Kubrick. This is not a
documentary about his life; it's about his work. His life is only
tangentially covered, but his career is covered in detail, proceeding film by
film until his death in 1999, shortly after Eyes Wide Shut was released. An
absolute must for fans of Kubrick or his films. Highly recommended. You can
watch it on "YouTube" , but it's
low quality.
Looper (2012) -- "7/10"
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis star in this movie about hit-men and
time travel. Time travel is integrated in a relatively sensible way -- it's
only used by criminals in the future because it was made illegal as soon as
it was discovered. Gordon-Levitt plays a hit-man who kills people in the
past; Willis is his 30-years--older counterpart. Emily Blunt, Jeff Daniels
and Paul dano all play their parts well. The cyclical time-loop and
inevitability reminded me a bit of that other Bruce Willis film, The Twelve
Monkeys. Gordon-Levitt's makeup is very subtle and makes him nearly
unrecognizable. Strangely enough, the movie takes time travel so in stride
that it ends up being about telekinetics instead. A bit slow at times, but it
has an interesting plot with a lovely ending. Recommended.
Checkpoint: Everyday Life in Palestine (2003) -- 7/10
This is a documentary composed almost entirely of footage of interactions
between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians that want to cross one of the
myriad checkpoints that hem in and cut up their territories. It's mostly
in
Hebrew and partially in Arabic and English. The casual cruelty and disdain
of
the soldiers is to be expected, but still sobering. They empty entire
schoolbuses; they try to force tiny, sick children to explain to them why
they should be able to cross to see a doctor.
They wield their power with utter disregard for the humanity of the
Palestinians. People wait in the sun for hours, for days; they wait in the
snow and the rain. Checkpoints are closed at a whim, people are told to
turn
back and "go home" when it is clear that their homes are on the other side
of
the checkpoint. It's ten years later and things have only gotten worse. So
stop calling "Roger Waters an anti-semite for comparing the Israeli
policies
to those of the Nazis"
;
instead, watch this "documentary"
and see that he may be
somewhat
hyperbolic, but that the main thrust of Israeli policy is the slow
eradication of people that they don't consider to be equally human (for
Lebensram, naturally).
There are instances where they let people through, but usually only after
harassing them -- armed and in full military uniform. I wonder whether the
stop-and-frisk victims in New York City would recognize the feeling? You
may
think some of this reaction to be hyperbole, but consider how it would be
to
feel like this all the time, to constantly be subjected to questioning by
armed soldiers, to stand in line, wasting your entire day at the whim of
teenagers of the ruling class, while your children bawl and suffer.
The slightly older children simply stare...and absorb a lesson of hate
that
will probably guide their lives. Watch at least until you see the little
old
man who has to beg to be able to cross to see his wife...because it's
Christmas Eve.
Human Resources (2011) -- 8/10
A documentary about the history of Behaviorism, Taylorism and social
engineering in America and around the world. It examines the capitalist,
class-based influences and driving forces behind its use in industry as
well
as the effects on labor relations and the workforce.
This naturally leads to the employment of these techniques in the
indoctrination of the up and coming generations -- in schools and
universities. With the application of these techniques from the earliest
age,
the troublemakers of the early 20th-century could largely be eradicated
because the newest generations had all been trained to not even raise the
question of how they would live. They accepted the tenets given to them.
Capitalism as we know it is the unquestioned base on which any human
society
must be built.
As you can imagine, Noam Chomsky makes an appearance at about this point.
The next step is an examination of violence in modern, Western societies
with
an analysis of serial killers and state violence as well as militarism.
The
study of behaviorism continues with a history of the use of mind-altering
chemicals in experiments on animals and then members of the military and
then
the underclass. Mixed in is the recruitment of the worst of the worst from
Nazi Germany to allow them to continue their research, but for the US
cause.
This history leads uninterrupted to the modern day, where all forms of
physical and psychological torture are accepted as standard practice. This
is
not an aberration driven by a uniquely intense fear of terrorism but an
easily predicted next logical step in a progression almost a century long.
You can watch the video yourself on "YouTube"
.
Oblivion (2013) -- "8/10"
Tom Cruise stars in this science-fiction movie about an Earth that's been
destroyed by a marauding alien race. The future finds humanity on orbital
colonies with only a few people on the surface, taking care of the
automated
facilities and energy sources that are the only remnants of civilization
on
the surface. The effects are breathtaking, the interiors clean, almost
antiseptic and architecturally beautiful. It's a lovely-looking film but
it
feel a bit tech-heavy at first, almost as if the situations are being
constructed just to show off cool ideas for gadgets that they had. There's
no
explanation given as to why the video feeds are so terrible, nor is it
explained how Cruise manages to find a drone buried underground simply by
driving around...on the entire Earth.
I'm 3/4 of the way through and I have no idea who's a hologram, who's an
AI,
whether there really are aliens, whether there are Scav bandits, whether
the
Earth is gone...it's quite an interesting set of ideas so far. Jack
(Cruise)
thinks he has had his memory wiped, but old thoughts and dreams bleed
through. His partner, Victoria, seems very robotic, although much more
real
than "Sally" who communicates (supposedly) from orbit. Have his memories
been
wiped? If so, by whom? And for what purpose? Why are the drones killing
humans? Is Jack playing for the right team?
The lie of Titan reminds me a bit of Moon starring Sam Rockwell. I almost
suspect an out-of-control AI (like H.A.L.) carrying out its duties long
past
the usefulness of its mission has expired. Spoiler alert: I bet there's
more
than one of him. That would explain why shooting him doesn't seem to cause
much damage; he's a robot. And the "radiation zones" are there to keep him
from ever meeting himself. It explains why they kept focusing on his
number
rather than his name. Still not sure how the Scavs and Julia fit into all
this, though. I think she's part of a failed attempt to get to Titan and
the
Scavs are all that's left of humanity -- because they lost to the alien
race.
What would be kind of cool is if the whole movie was just one possible
simulation of how to finally beat the alien overlords that nearly
destroyed
the Earth (if it's even destroyed). That is, the simulation is run again
and
again until Jack finally succeeds in sending the nuke into orbit, back to
"Tet". There are shades of the second and third Matrix movies here, I
think
(despite their never having been made). I'm starting to doubt that Julia
is
real, either.
The effects are quite amazing, very convincing. The drones flying around
in
enclosed spaces reminds of that old video game Descent. And the encounter
with Tet was reminiscent of several other films: Star Trek I, ID4. The
little
drones look like they came right out of Portal II. It's a mix of stuff
we've
seen before, but very nicely done. Recommended.
Gift -- Jane's Addiction (1993) -- "4/10"
A film about Perry Farrell and Casey Niccoli, about their lives at the center
of the heroin-fueled haze that was Jane's Addiction. There's musical footage
and a storyline that involves Perry finding his wife at home, dead of an
overdose. The scenes are interleaved non-chronologically (of course) and
there's a long scene where they visit a doctor to get their scrips, which is
comically long. Not recommended.
Nothing like the Holidays (2008) -- "6/10"
Lots of good actors give a bit of life to this formulaic movie about coming
home for Christmas. Alfred Molina, John Leguiziamo, Elizabeth Peña, Luis
Guzmán and Debra Messing were the ones I recognized and they were decent as
a hot-blooded Puerto Rican family from Chicago.
Garden State (2004) -- "7/10"
Zach Braff's oeuvre about his homecoming to New Jersey. He spends the movie
mourning the loss of his mother and getting reacquainted with his brother and
some of his childhood friends. He also meets and woos -- or is wooed by --
Natalie Portman. It gets pretty good and strange when they follow his brother
Mark on a quest to a dry-docked wooden boat by an abandoned quarry. It's a
bit maudlin and millenial-twee but that's not surprising considering it was
written by Braff. Still and all, the performances buoyed the more boring
parts.
Limitless (2011) -- "7/10"
Bradley Cooper stars as a down-on-his-luck writer who happens upon a stash of
experimental pills that grant you clarity of thought, enhancing your
perceptions and boosting your thinking speed and apprehension immensely.
They're smart-pills. He's hooked, bangs out his book in a matter of days and
moves on to bigger and better things. The story has to build artificial
tension, though, so this ridiculously intelligent guy being ends up making
some pretty rookie mistakes (at least for the first 90% of the movie). He
doesn't try to lock down his supply or curb his addiction, he forgets to pay
back a very dangerous loan shark and so on. Cooper is excellent, though, and
De Niro isn't as bad as he has been in other recent stuff. A mostly fun ride
with a strong, non-Hollywood ending (spoiler alert: he doesn't get his
comeuppance for having messed with drugs or God's plan, which I liked).
Recommended.
Pacific Rim (2013) -- "9/10"
A big summer action movie about a monster invasion from a multidimensional
rift that opens at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The gigantic, nearly
city-sized monsters -- called Kaiju -- attack coastal cities and, after
defeating a few with conventional weaponry but with terrible losses,
mankind
bands together to build Kaiju--Jägers, gigantic robots that take out the
monsters. The tech is lovingly rendered, mostly non-digital and highly
visceral -- the battles are wonderful.
Still, I find myself wondering where they get all the metal for those
robots,
or for the gigantic wall -- and where all the energy comes from. Once you
get
past the unbelievable opulence of the bases, you can just fall in love
with a
gigantic robot-launching base called "The Shatterdome". It's pretty sweet.
The science guys are fantastic -- the perfect role for Charlie Day. And
his
foil, the mysterious Kaiju parts-dealer is played by Ron Perlman, being,
well, Ron Perlman.
The other fighter-characters are more formulaic, but still decent. And
they
all seem to be doing their own fight scenes -- and that without cables or
obvious CGI. There's a natural feel/look/speed to it that's almost
nostalgic.
And the monsters, the Kaiju! So naturally, casually destructive, the way
they
stroll throw a city like a child kicking his way throw a pile of leaves.
The
visualization of gigantic robot versus gigantic monster is unbelievably
good
-- unlike in the Transformers films, you can actually see what's going on,
you can feel the sheer weight and inertia of them. I can't even imagine
what
this was like in the theater. I just noticed that it was directed by
Guillermo del Toro, who also brought us Pan's Labyrinth and the Hellboy
movies. No wonder it's so good. Highly recommended.
The Central Park Five (2013) -- "8/10"
A PBS documentary directed by Ken Burns about the five young men and boys
arrested, charged and sentenced for the brutal rape of a woman jogging in
Central Park in 1989. They were innocent. Their confessions were coerced
from
them by a cynical and racist police force. They all served at least seven
years in prison before being released on parole; the longest served over
thirteen years.
The takeaway: never talk to police. Not a word.
The media is horrible and only looking out for their own story. They don't
care about facts. The police don't care about facts. The DA doesn't care
about facts. The jury doesn't care about facts either. Contradictory
evidence
can always be ignored.
When the actual assailant eventually confesses, the charges are overturned
by
the prosecuting DA who now magically acknowledges the shocking
inconsistencies in the case. The magic ingredient is that the DA just does
what is best for his career at the time. The other attorneys and the press
circled the wagons and continued to blame the young men.
As one interviewee says, "the coverage in 2002 was worse than in 1989." He
went on to sum up the situation,
"Whatever you do in life, you make mistakes and you either face your mistakes
or you don't. I don't think the press faced their mistakes. I don't think
the
police department faced the truth of what had happened. Because the truth
of
what had happened is almost unbearable: by prosecuting the wrong people in
the Central Park Jogger case, Matteas Reyes [the actual assailant]
continued
to hurt, maim and kill. And they could have had him, but they got stuck
with
the mistake. And they're still invested in that mistake."
To be clear: these boys were not angels. But they were not guilty of the
crime with which they were accused. While they turned out to have been
innocent of the rape, one of the pieces of evidence that was ignored was
their alibis, which places them elsewhere in the park -- beating up other
people.
It's a sobering documentary and well worth watching, if a bit slow -- it
is,
after all, a Ken Burns film.
Ghost in the Shell (1995) -- "9/10"
A Japanese Anime film about what it means to be conscious in an increasingly
virtualized world. The story follows a pair of cyborg cops who were
originally purely human but have been enhanced considerably. They are
hunting
the Puppet Master, who controls people's "ghosts" -- their virtual
personae
-- to make them do his bidding. It's extremely well-written, directed and
drawn and includes intriguing ideas about the self, memories,
consciousness
and culpability in a world that is a blend of what is so-called reality
and
virtuality.
When our senses are so fallible and our recording machinery -- memories --
so
sketchy, what does it mean to have fake memories? What does it mean to say
that something is conscious and alive? It's classic science-fiction and
philosophy rolled into an animated film about possibly living cyborgs,
with
long dialogue sequences to move the story along. The "ghost" in the title
refers to consciousness and "shell" refers to physical bodies, like those
produced in factories. And, when you're half-machine, who do you trust to
poke around in your cyber-mind to make adjustments and do maintenance?
And what does it mean to be conscious, to be alive? The highly-optimized
inspector Kusanagi considers the following:
"Maybe all all full-replacement cyborgs like me start wondering like this.
That perhaps the real me died a long time ago and I'm a replicant made
with a
cyborg body and computer brain. Or mayybe there never was a real "me" to
begin with. [...] There's no person who's ever seen their own brain. I
believe I exist based only on what my environment tells me. [...] And what
if
a computer brain could generate a ghost...and harbor a soul? On what basis
then do I believe in myself?"
And the Puppet Master, who is purely a program, also soliloquizes:
"By that argument, I submit the DNA you carry is nothing more than a
self-preserving program itself. Life is like a node which is born within
the
flow of information. As a species of life that carries DNA as its memory
system, man gains his individuality from the memories he carries. While
memories may as well be the same as fantasy, it is by these memories that
mankind exists. When computers made it possible to externalize memory, you
should have considered all the implications that held."
The movies includes long sequences that lovingly depict this future world,
accompanied only by a soundtrack. Stylistically, it's worlds away from
what
most would consider an animated film. This one looks and feels much more
like
Blade Runner and is every bit as beautiful and intriguing. CGI would have
ruined it, I think. The level of detail and realism the artists achieved
is
breathtaking. Highly recommended.
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008) -- "6/10"
A promising cast does its best to breathe life into a somewhat rough script.
Brendan Frasier is still a better Indiana Jones than Harrison Ford has been
for at least two movies now, so that's good. Maria Bello is a good, if not
preferable, replacement for Rachel Weisz. Michelle Yeoh has only a small part
and Jet Li is a terra-cotta mummy with a lot of CGI makeup and no real moves,
which is unfortunate. It's decent fun, but hard to recommend unless it just
happens to be on (guess how I happened to watch it?).
The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (2013) -- "7/10"
Steve Carell plays against type as an arrogant ass of a magician who doesn't
appreciate his partner of several decades, played by Steve Buscemi. Olivia
Wilde plays the assistant who's worshiped them for a decade but is only just
realizing that Anton is the brains and idea-man whereas Wonderstone is just a
pompous ass. Jim Carrey is almost unrecognizable as street magician Steve
Gray -- clearly based on Chris Angel, at least in part. Olivia Wilde is
actually quite endearing in this role and seems to be growing as an actress.
Jim Carrey is quite good. Alan Arkin as Rance Holloway is even better. The
explication of their final trick during the credits is also quite good.
Elysium (2013) -- "5/10"
The first thing that I don't understand is how "all the rich people" can just
move to orbit without their literal armies of servants and staff that they
need in order to maintain their lifestyles. Do they just use robots for
everything? And if they have unlimited medical care, why do they have to
suppress all the people? Why keep them in a state of agitation and
near-revolt for no reason?
Apparently, they do use robots for everything. The police are robots. The
parole officers are robots. Matt Damon makes robots in the factory where
he's
told he's lucky to have a job. I think that there are a lot of people in
America who would watch the opening scenes of this movie and wonder why
they
claim that it's happening 140 years in the future -- because the life
depicted is no different from the one that they have right now.
But back to plot holes: why would you fire missiles from Earth, which have
to
pull out of the gravity well (further which they could not, given their
size), when you have an entire ring-world already floating in orbit? And
why
would you house missiles capable of striking targets in orbit on a planet
filled to the brim with enemies?
On the other hand, Elysium is nicely rendered. With the palm trees and the
people speaking French, it called to mind Vietnam when it was still a
French
colony (this was possibly not serendipitous). Watching Jodie Foster
chewing
her way through the scenery, pretending to be Jack Nicholson from A Few
Good
Men (or a member of the Bush or Obama administrations, for that matter),
was
utterly painful, though. No imagination whatsoever. Jodie Foster remains
utterly awful for the whole movie. Seriously, they should take away her
Oscar
just for inflicting that performance on us.
There was seriously no imagination in other parts as well. Apparently, 140
years from now, you still write assembler code to reprogram the operating
system of the torus. How much would it have cost for a programmer consult
on
this film? And the code is scrambled when transferred, but somehow the
idiot
soldiers chasing Damon got an unencrypted stream? And Max has severe
cancer,
has been nearly gutted by a knife and hasn't eaten or had his medication
and
he's still just cruising along? This script is needlessly bad. Even when
they
do something cool like Spider letting Max plug himself in (instead of
forcing
him to do it), they obviate it with something stupid like "Earth
population:
ILLEGAL" showed on screen. Spider backspaces through ILLEGAL and writes in
LEGAL. Problem solved. Not recommended.
Rollerball (1975) -- "6/10"
The original with James Caan was less overtly violent than I remember it
being when I watched it as a kid. It stuck with me, especially Moonpie's
coma. Weirdly, or perhaps humanly, I remembered only how the Japanese team
had mercilessly pounded on his unhelmeted head, putting him in a coma. I
hadn't remembered the two or three or four Japanese that he killed or
severely injured before that.
With its sweeping classical soundtrack, it seems to be paying homage to
Kubrick, but it's not a particularly exciting plot. The movie follows the
Houston team on its way to the championship. There is a background plot
thread about the "Executives" and the "Corporate Wars" which led to them
running everything without nation-states. In that way, it is echoed by
Elysium.
They show three matches and the action is quite well-filmed and cut,
especially for a nearly 40-year--old movie. There's a scene right at the
end,
though, where it's clear that they're not really in NY as they claim to
be.
If they were, then someone would have screamed "do it, you f&*#ing
pussy!".
But there was only silence. Slapshot was way better.
The Animatrix (2003) -- "9/10"
A series of nine short animated films set in the world of the Matrix. They
are lovingly hand-animated (or made to appear so with CGI) -- except for the
first one, which also looks nice but is clearly CGI. The stories, animation
style and direction are all interesting and top-notch. Highly recommended.
Old School (2003) -- "8/10"
The classic; watched on Christmas Eve with friends who knew it almost line
for line.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) -- "9/10"
Johnny Depp plays Hunter S. Thompson and Benicio del Toro plays his attorney
as they make their way to and through Las Vegas, ingesting unbelievably
copious quantities of drugs and wreaking ludicrous amounts of damage to hotel
rooms (spoiler alert: there is lots of water). Obviously and lovingly
directed by Terry Gilliam, it's a masterpiece of addled hallucination.
Watched on Christmas Eve with friends and copious amounts of gin.
EuroTrip (2004) -- "8/10"
Another classic, reviewed a few years before. It's definitely quite funny,
especially when you just missed your last train on Christmas Eve and are
looking for distraction until the morning.
Idiocracy (2006) -- "8/10"
We started the evening with Luke Wilson in Old School and end on him as well.
Still a great, eminently quotable movie. Didn't catch the end because I had
to catch the 05:30 morning train.
13 Assassins (2010) -- "8/10"
A Japanese movie about an out-of-control samurai who tears a swath through
innocent families and servants. He's a true sociopath and must be stopped.
His legendary tortures are described and detailed at the head of the film.
The first hour is careful -- and some might say tedious -- setup for the
second. The second half is an uninterrupted hour of meticulously
choreographed swordplay as the 13 assassins take on over 200 opponents that
they've trapped in a wooden village. They do start their ambush with arrows,
but then mysteriously stop using them -- probably because it's not honorable.
It's quite well-done and touches on all of the familiar themes of honor,
pride, duty of the Samurai way. I warmed to it considerably and was almost
cheering at the end. Curiously, there were no morally gray characters -- each
was either good or evil, but not a little of both.
Fuel (2008) -- "4/10"
A documentary about the oil industry that turns into a bio-fuel sales pitch.
It's not bad, but there is some seriously misleading information in there.
"Fossil fuels are really inefficient: for every 1 unit of energy you put in,
you only get .8 units out." Wait, what? Isn't that the best we've got so far?
Only 20% loss during processing? There is no other energy source right now
that's even close -- excepting perhaps solar and that only more recently. The
film peters out into a celebrity endorsements of alternative energy along
with more non-scientific estimates. Not really recommended.
Herb & Dorothy (2008) -- "7/10"
A documentary about Herb and Dorothy Vogel, modern-art collectors living in a
tiny New York City apartment. I listened to it while working on a jigsaw
puzzle. When you actually look at the artwork to which they utterly dedicated
their lives, you kind of start to wonder why they did it. It's best to just
follow along on the story of people who dedicated their lives to art, without
a thought for personal gain. It's a nice little documentary about mostly nice
people.
Jason Becker -- Not Dead Yet (2012) -- "7/10"
A documentary about Jason Becker, a musical prodigy whose guitar-playing
career was cut short at 20 by ALS. He has persevered and survives two decades
later, still composing music with the help of his family, friends and
eye-motion technology. It's an at the same time sad and uplifting story and a
surprisingly well-done documentary.
Superpower (2008) -- "6/10"
A thorough examination of the US role in world politics, with an emphasis on
events since 9/11. It starts off stronger than it ends and this material is
better covered elsewhere. Although it was refreshing to see Noam Chomsky,
Bill Blum and Chalmers Johnson featured so heavily.
The World's End (2013) -- "7/10"
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost complete their Cornetto Trilogy in style. It's a
bit uneven at times, but we can attribute that to the attempt to emulate the
authentic feeling of having had 12 pints in one evening. If you follow along
and have enough to drink yourself, you'll like the movie more. Pegg and Frost
are joined by Martin Freeman, Pierce Brosnan and Rosamund Pike to lend a bit
of gravitas to what they know is an insane script. It was not unlike Hot
Fuzz, actually. Still and all, it was a good time, which suits a film about a
gang of guys and girls drinking waaaaay too much in one evening. Recommended.
D.L. Hughley: The Endangered List (2012) -- "5/10"
A short satire by D.L. Hughley in which he tries to get the Black Man on the
endangered species list. It has its moments, but I can't recommend it.
Malcolm X (1972) -- "9/10"
A highly stylized documentary about Malcolm X, featuring a lot of his
speeches and parts of his speeches put to music. Narrated by James Earl
Jones. Malcolm X seems like quite a reasonable, rational guy. I don't even
hear a tremendous difference between Martin Luther King's speeches and
Malcolm X's. He has many, many nice lines and eminently quotable and pithy
comments. I include some of my favorites below.
On "the South":
"Black man is born in jail and the black man dies in jail, in the North as
well as the South. In fact, stop talking about the South. There is no
South.
Anything south of the Canadian border is the South, as far as the black
man
is concerned."
"Don't blame a cracker in Georgia for your injustices; the government is
responsible for those injustices."
To the question of whether progress is being made in America, he said
"if you stick the knife nine inches into my back and pull it out six inches,
that's not progress. Even if you pull it all the way out, it's not
progress.
Progress is healing the wound that the blow made."
On the subject of non-violence and appropriate response:
"I don't think that when a man is being criminally treated that that criminal
has the right to tell the man what tactics he can use to get the criminal
off
his back."
On inequality and the shining city on the hill:
"There's a worldwide revolution going on. It goes beyond Mississippi. It goes
beyond Alabama. It goes beyond Harlem. What is it revolting against? The
power structure. The American power structure? No. The French power
structure? No. The English power structure? No. Then what power structure?
An
international Western power structure. Our next move is to take the entire
civil-rights struggle into the United Nations and let the world see that
Uncle Sam is guilty of violating the human rights of 22 million
Afro-Americans and still has the audacity or the nerve to stand up and
represent himself as the leader of the free world."
His cadence of speech and voice reminds me eerily of Denzel Washington. I
wonder if that's a coincidence?
What comes through loud and clear is that Malcolm X was a wickedly
intelligent and extensively educated man. His knowledge of history, public
policy and precision of language and rhetoric was positively breathtaking.
Taxi to the Dark Side (2007) -- "8/10"
A documentary about Bagram prison in Afghanistan and Ab Ghraib prison in
Iraq. Includes lots of photo footage as well as interviews with soldiers
involved.
A large part of the movie focuses on the specific case of Diliwar, a taxi
driver from Afghanistan, who was beaten -- "pulpified" -- to death. Some
of
the interviews are quite revealing in what the soldiers feel comfortable
with
saying. Like any guards or policemen, they cover up like crazy, building
up
the image of the prisoner into a nigh-uncontrollable monster when he was
really a terrified, 120-pound kid with his hands and feet chained to a
wall
and ceiling. They beat him mercilessly and without reason.
The movie continues to cover how the torture and deaths in these prisons
were
not aberrations but part of an overall policy of torture with its roots in
CIA programs from decades in the past.
Anthony Lagouranis sums it up best, at the end,
"Americans wanna believe that we're somehow more moral than the rest of the
world, that we somehow have a strong desire to feel that way. And I think
that's eroding. I don't really know what effect that's going to have on
us.
And I think a lot of people have just decided, 'well, you know, it's
different now, after 9--11, you know, we can't be good anymore. We have to
get tough,' and we'll have to see what that does to us. I think that's
bullshit."
Recommended.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=28812013-12-09T22:32:09+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
A documentary putting out the evidence that Truthers provide for
Tower 7 and then debunks it piece by piece by piece. It's quite
well-done, letting some pretty damning evidence speak for itself.
Availalble "online" .
The Name of the Rose
...
]]>
A documentary putting out the evidence that Truthers provide for Tower 7 and
then debunks it piece by piece by piece. It's quite well-done, letting some
pretty damning evidence speak for itself. Availalble "online"
.
The Name of the Rose (1986) -- "7/10"
This is a crime movie that takes place in a 12th-century monastery. The monks
are twisted and disfigured and seem borderline mentally unstable. Sean
Connery stands out as one who at least looks human; Christian Slater is very,
very young (17 at the time) and stares around wide-eyed; F. Murray Abraham is
buried under very effective makeup. The coldness and harshness of that world
comes through very well. The movie followed the story in the books very
closely, including the political intrigue between various factions and sects.
Not really very exciting, but a good film nonetheless.
Django Unchained (2012) -- "8/10"
This is yet another captivating Quentin Tarentino masterpiece, as far as I'm
concerned. Christoph Waltz proves himself to have been born to deliver
Tarentino's dialogue. I didn't enjoy it as much as Inglorious Basterds but it
was very well-acted and executed. Recommended.
The Power Principle (parts I, II and III) (2012) -- 8/10
An online documentary similar to the recent films by Oliver Stone. You can
find the videos on "YouTube" .
Bag of Bones (2012) -- "7/10"
A TV mini-series filming of the book by Stephen King starring Pierce Brosnan.
He does a decent job and the movie is surprisingly scary -- with echoes of
What Lies Beneath.
Legend (1985) -- "7/10"
Tom Cruise, Mia Sara, David Bowie and Tim Curry star in this fantasy film
that holds up quite well, even after all these years of being spoiled by CGI.
The witch in the water is a brilliant figure and Tim Curry's Lord of Darkness
is a wonder to behold. CGI would only have ruined the realism in this case.
The plot's nothing to write home about, but we're all just watching this to
laugh as a young Tom Cruise runs around in very brief pants while wearing
full body armor on top, a somewhat curious haberdashery decision.
Van Helsing (2004) -- "5/10"
A phenomenally violent vampire/werewolf movie starring Hugh Jackman and Kate
Beckinsale (is there a werewolf movie without her in it?). Igor, Mr. Hyde,
Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster all make appearances. There is a shit-ton
of screaming in this movie. Seriously, pay attention and you'll notice that
hardly ten seconds go by without someone screaming from the very core of
their soul.
League of Denial: The NFL's Concussion Crisis (2013) -- "7/10"
A Frontline documentary about the danger of playing in the NFL. Quite well
done if a bit long.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) -- "5/10"
The movie with Kirk's famous scream is oddly anticlimactic. It has the
classic pacing of a Star Trek show and the special effects of one as well.
That is to say, it wasn't terrible but it was a bit slower than the pacing
offered by modern sci-fi films -- without the gripping acting to keep us
entranced. Shatner and Montelban take turns chewing the scenery (with Nimoy
taking his bows at the end) and they're not terrible, but they're also not
very good either.
28 Weeks Later (2007) -- "5/10"
Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, Jeremy Renner, Imogen Poots and Idris Elba star
in this sequel to 28 Days Later. Spoiler alert: it's a zombie movie ("type =
diseased" ), so
there's lots of blood flying, quick camera changes and lots of snarling.
There is also an unusual obsession with saving only a few people -- that is,
the full power of a modern military is bent on saving just one or two very
specific people, which seems kind of wasteful and inefficient, resource-wise.
The pacing is kind of slower than I expected, with lots of moody music trying
to spackle over the weak bits. It picks up toward the end, but quickly
spirals into the ridiculous -- the helicopter abattoir is a fine example. It
passed the time, but I can't recommend it.
Whiteout (2009) -- "5/10"
Kate Beckinsale is, for once, not hunting werewolves. I know, it seems hard
to believe, but it's true. Instead, she's hunting a killer across Antarctica.
It turns out to be a pretty decent, straight-up crime thriller. Beckinsale is
partnered with Tom Skerritt, playing the same character he always plays. It's
way too long, though and takes forever to get to the point.
Gary Gulman: No Can Defend (2012) -- 6/10
Gulman is a very clean stand-up comedian with some pretty standard though
well-presented material. He's not going to be a great favorite, but he's a
good guy with which to introduce people to stand-up comedy because he's
utterly non-offensive but still quite funny. Mostly observational humor with
some extended bits.
Insomnia (2002) -- "7/10"
Al Pacino and Robin Williams face off in this thriller about a murder in
Alaska during the summer. Pacino is a cop from L.A. who slowly spirals out of
control as his lack of sleep and a nagging secret keep him from focusing on
his case. Robin Williams plays an author living in the area who's the prime
suspect. Hilary Swank and Nicky Katt are good as local cops. I actually saw
this in the theater when it first came out.
Jumper (2008) -- "4/10"
Hayden Christenson stars as a guy who can teleport himself. He's a Jumper. He
uses this ability to be cool and rich and travel all over the world. It turns
out he's not the only one who can do it and that there are others, called
Paladins, who hunt and kill jumpers. These are led by none other than Samuel
L. Jackson, in yet another awful role and with an utterly ridiculous dye job.
Passed the time, but hard to recommend.
Todd Glass -- 5/10
Decent but nothing to write home about. He had his moments, but I can't
really recommend it. Too needy and talks about himself far too much. All
comics do this but his style is such that it was noticeable.
Jim Norton -- 4/10
A pretty racist comic who almost gets away with it, but is a bit too
dumb/non-subtle to pull it off. He works with Opie and Anthony, so that
doesn't really come as much of a surprise. There were long segments of
shock/low-brow comedy that did nothing for me. Anyone who spends ten minutes
on his knees on stage trying to milk laughs out of prison blow-job rape is
not my kind of comic.
Catch 22 (1970) -- "9/10"
An utterly masterful rendering of the brilliant novel, sticking very close to
the main scenes from the book if not maintaining the non-chronological order.
There are almost too many great actors to name, most of whom went on to great
careers. Alan Arkin plays Yossarian, Jon Voight plays Milo Minderbinder, Bob
Newhart is Major Major, Charles Grodin is the perfectly annoying and
psychotic Aarfy and Art Garfunkel is Nately -- it's almost too good to be
true. The only part that has any logic is the supremacy of the Syndicate, the
triumph of capitalism over nation-states. The only possible winner, the only
glimmer of hope is in Orr (if you like). I've read the book twice, but not in
a long time, and this film brought it all back, every twisted, ludicrous
detail. Highly recommended.
Bill Cosby: Far from Finished (2013) -- "6/10"
It starts off slowly but he picks up speed and has some really good material.
Another very clean show; appropriate for all audiences and really quite
funny.
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (2009) -- "7/10"
This is a straight-up documentary about the guy who release the Pentagon
Papers during the Vietnam War, a modern-day analogue to our current batch of
whistleblower heroes. He was the one who finally informed the US population
of how their lovely little police action was really being run. Recommended if
you don't know the history.
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) -- "7/10"
Benedict Cumberbatch has an easy time of out-acting Christopher Pike. It's a
solid follow-up to the reboot of the Star Trek series. The various actors are
getting into their roles and doing quite a good job of it. It's a Star Trek
movie, actually rebooting an earlier incarnation (spoiler alert: it's an
homage to Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan). The effects are both out of this
world (no pun intended) and over the top. As with any modern summer
blockbuster, you have to be in the mood for it, but it's recommended.
The Wolverine (2013) -- "7/10"
It's a surprisingly good comic-book movie, actually. The acting was quite
good, especially the two Japanese female protagonists. The female villain
Viper is one of those characters that can just utterly ruin a movie, though.
I hated every scene she was in. She was just clearly a Deus Ex Machina, ready
and willing to impel the plot along with horrible dialogue. Jackman was
ridiculously buff, almost a bit exaggerated IMHO but that's what comic-book
heroes look like.
Zeitgeist (2007) -- "6/10"
An nicely choreographed and ably designed, though very overwrought and
occasionally very pretentious and silly, documentary that starts as an
overview of religious pantheons and devolves into a 9--11 truther video,
though on a higher level than most. It segues from there into an
anti-big--banking/anti-corporate history. From there, it moves without
blinking an eye into coverage of the unconstitutionality of the income tax
and then into the lucrative nature of war (with the obligatory quote by good
old Smedley Butler). From there, it's a ten-minute report on media
manipulation and then a return to more 9-11 conspiracy. There is little
original content in the two hours, but the included clips are quite good,
culminating in Carl Sagan and Bill Hicks, which I can hardly complain about.
Safe (2012) -- "8/10"
Jason Statham as a cage fighter. James Hong stars as the same character he
plays in every movie, the Chinese mob boss. He does this with unbelievable
aplomb; always a pleasure to watch a master character-actor at work in his
milieu. He asks the main character, a little girl with an eidetic memory, if
she can truly remember everything. She cautiously shakes her head "no". He
responds (in Chinese) that he will then "go to her mother's house and kill
her [the mother] for making such a stupid girl". Priceless. The overdone
Russian gang members -- and their dialogue -- are also just really, really
good. It feel like GTA IV all over again. But Jason Statham simply cannot
play a bad guy. He's always gotta be the stand-up guy. Him fighting on an NYC
subway? Worth the price of entry. The action-scene direction -- especially
the car chases -- reminded me a lot of Jean Luc Goddard. The fight scenes are
relatively realistically choreographed and filmed in single, distanced shots
rather than up-close quick-cuts. Statham shines here. The film is
surprisingly mostly in Mandarin Chinese and Russian. This is a movie with a
kid where the kid plays quite well (Catherine Chan) and the script doesn't
pander. Statham helps here enormously. And just when you thought he was cool
enough? He turns out to be a former NYC cop who speaks fluent Russian. Highly
recommended for action fans.
Die große Ekstase des Bildschnitzers Steiner (1974) -- "9/10"
A great little documentary (45 minutes) about a Swiss ski jumper named Walter
Steiner, who's a woodcarver (Bildschnitzer) in his other life. In the 1970s,
he was so far ahead of the competition in ski "flying" (as the really long
jumping was called) that he had to start lower than other skiers just to
avoid jumping so far that he landed on flat ground rather than on the hill,
endangering himself. You can watch it youself on "YouTube"
.
Zeitgeist Addendum (2008) -- "6/10"
More history of America in the 20th century, with a very long segment by John
Perkins, the "economic hit-man". Heavy on the economics and comprised
mostly
of long-form documentary sequences with a small handful of people, but
relatively well done. The ensuing discussion of energy and how much
non-hydrocarbon energy there is easily available is the purest techno-porn
babble without much grounding in reality. Whereas he's right that the
market-driven approach we now have prevents us from introducing alternate
energy regimes but the treatment is overly optimistic.
The discussion of alternative societal models is very interesting,
especially
when viewed from a society that's been monetary-based so long that it can
hardly imagine a society without class differences based on money and
labor.
The notion that lives remain bound to labor and earning one's way, despite
the increasing population and automation, is ludicrous in the long-term.
The
documentary is correct in saying that our current system will have to go.
"The resource-based economy that I propose is not perfect; it's just a lot
better than what we have."
It's not terrible and there are good points made about alternative
resource-based economies, but it's only recommended if you're curious in
an
introduction to serious alternatives to the simplistic and highly
corrupted
form of capitalism that we have now.
Zeitgeist: Moving Forward (2011) -- "2/10"
The first half-hour is a series of long dissertations by various
psychologists and neurologists about how minds develop and how that affects
the kinds of societies we can have. It was all over the place -- more so than
the previous two -- so I stopped watching. Not recommended.
Dredd (2012) -- "5/10"
A remake of the original from 1995 starring Sylvester Stallone, this time
starring Karl Urban in the eponymous role. Since he didn't take his helmet
off once, you couldn't tell the difference. There are some nice
semi--post-apocalyptic visuals with some nice, long shots of the city.
Otherwise, it felt kinda like watching The Raid with far less martial arts or
like watching some people play a video game, as they work their way up a
building to the boss level (including getting a key code!) The
arch-villainess was played by Lena Headey, who also plays Cersei in Game of
Thrones. Even as a murderous head of ruthless clan, I found her much more
sympathetic in this film. Really a tremendously bloody film. It wasn't
terrible, but I can't recommend it.
2 Guns (2013) -- "8/10"
You'd think that in a movie starring both Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg
in what looks for all the world like a buddy-cop movie, you'd have a hard
time figuring out which one to like more. You'd think that, but you'd be
wrong. Denzel is his usual, laid-back, smooth self but Mark Wahlberg is still
better. Edward James Olmos stars as a drug kingpin who Wahlberg says looks
like a "Mexican Albert Einstein". There's also the weirdly neutrally hot
Latina cop from Under the Dome who also plays a weirdly hot cop in this
movie, but with more nudity, oddly half-hidden behind hair in what was
clearly a play for a lower rating. I wonder if it worked? At any rate, she
simpers her way through the film with the most inscrutable looks on her face.
Thanks for reminding us that a tight body and really nice facial bone
structure coupled with being vaguely but non-offensively ethnic (sorry Rosie
Perez) still sells. Fun movie, decent dialogue, relatively interesting plot
and a good ending. Highly recommended.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=28802013-10-10T22:50:07+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
The cast of Romancing the Stone returns for this sub-par sequel, made
back when sequels did not necessarily have a number in their titles.
Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner play the lead couple and Danny
DeVito reprises his role, but this time on their side
...
]]>
The cast of Romancing the Stone returns for this sub-par sequel, made back
when sequels did not necessarily have a number in their titles. Michael
Douglas and Kathleen Turner play the lead couple and Danny DeVito reprises
his role, but this time on their side rather than against them. The hijinks
feel forced and the magic of the first film isn't really there.
Snakes on a Plane (2006) -- "4/10"
It's fun to try to imagine why someone with Samuel L. Jackson's obvious
reputation and assumed clout in Hollywood is nearly constantly driven to take
such appalling roles in such appalling movies. Does he burn through money at
such a prodigious rate? For personal reasons? Or is he especially charitable?
Does he not read his contracts? Does his agent hate him? Did he make a
bizarre deal with the devil? The movie's not as awful as expected and some of
the scenes with snakes are well-filmed and quite visceral and convincing, but
c'mon, Sam, you're above this, aren't you? Aren't you?
Devil (2010) -- "4/10"
M. Night Shyamalan continues his descent from one-hit wonder to
producer/writer/director with too much money and no idea how to spend it
wisely. This movie couldn't have cost very much as it was essentially filmed
almost entirely in an elevator. He only wrote and produced this one, letting
someone else direct it, though that hardly makes a difference. The devil
possesses someone in an elevator, which is filled with people, each of whom
has a horrific backstory worthy of the devil's attention. There are a few
moments of suspense, but overall it's not very good -- and the ending is kind
of a copout, I felt. Not recommended.
Veep (2012/13) -- "10/10"
Julia Louis Dreyfus stars in this TV series as the Veep (Vice President of
the United States of America). She is deeply funny and all-around excellent.
The show is occasionally filthy, constantly ruthless and hopefully not
accurate at all. Depressingly, it is probably indicative of the morass that
is Washington D.C. The Veep and her crew -- as well as the entirely unseen
POTUS, of whom we only see his liaison to the Veep's office, Jonah, who is
pond scum -- barely pay attention to real issues and real politics, focusing
instead laser-like on issues of re-electability, leverage and power. It's
well-written and the cast surrounding Dreyfus is also quite good. We watched
two seasons, mostly enjoyed them and will probably stick around for season 3.
Freaks and Geeks (1999) -- "9/10"
A one-season TV show starring a lot of young actors who would go on to no
small success: James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jason Siegel and Linda Cardellini.
My hands-down favorite, though, is the character Bill, played by Martin
Starr, who would end up playing only bit roles in subsequent Judd Apatow
vehicles like Superbad and Knocked Up (Apatow directed three of the
Freaks&Geeks episodes). Bill is really great in this, though. The show
centers on the Weir family, which has two of the geeks (nerd Lindsay and her
geeky, younger brother Sam). Sam's two friends, Bill and Neil round out the
geeks. James Franco heads up the gang of Freaks as Daniel Desario, with
Siegel, Rogen and the unfortunately named Busy Philipps rounding out his
crew. The writing is spectacular even if some of the episodes drag ever so
slightly. The appeal for me is increased because the kids are all in high
school at about the same time I was in school in the 70s and 80s.
Escape from New York (1981) -- "7/10"
Kurt Russell stars as Snake Plisskin, an eyepatched, crusty former soldier
turned criminal/mercenary who's doing a long stretch in a maximum security
prison. The story takes place in the near future (as envisioned in 1981), a
future where crime is out of control and New York City has been mostly
abandoned to various gangs and partially turned into a prison. Unfortunately,
the President of the United States crash-lands in New York and Plisskin is
plucked out of his cell and made an offer he can't refuse: he's to rescue the
POTUS in 24 hours or he's dead. Plisskin accepts but quickly goes off the
reservation, serving his own purposes as he seeks the President amid the
rubble and mad denizens of New York. It wasn't as good as I remembered it
from my youth, but it was so, so, so much better than the ill-fated sequel
Escape from L.A., released in 1996.
Under the Dome (2013) -- "6/10"
This series is loosely based on the book of the same name by Stephen King. If
you read the book, you'll recognize a lot of people's names and several plot
points. However, everything has been stretched and adjusted to accommodate a
more open-ended storyline that can play for months, if not years, instead of
just a week, as in the book. Many of the characters are more insipid than
those in the book -- as expected for American network television -- with some
seemingly ridiculous behavior from some who should know better, particularly
the police officers, who are wildly inconsistent, shockingly unprofessional,
stupid and nearly constantly either explaining things that are blindingly
obvious (most likely for the benefit of the slower viewers) or asking
stunningly stupid questions (most likely so that another can answer the
question that the slower viewers were asking themselves). It's entertaining
enough, even with some of the more irritating characters dominating way too
much airtime (I'm looking at you, Norrie), but much more shallow than King's
novel. Junior Rennie comes the closest to exuding the more subtle menace of
an under-the-surface psychotic typical of King's meanest characters.
Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee (2012/2013) -- "8/10"
Jerry Seinfeld gets into a different, beautiful car in each show, calls a
comedian friend and they go out for coffee and usually breakfast or lunch
while they discuss comedy, business and anything else. The show is best when
Jerry or his guest philosophizes. My favorite interviews so far have been
Larry David, Alec Baldwin, Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks. Looking forward to
seeing the second season.
The International (2009) -- "7/10"
A slower, but ultimately interesting film about an Interpol officer, played
by Clive Owen, who tries to take down "The International", a cabal of elite
officers of a banking organization who pull the strings of the world behind
the scenes. This time, they are trying to close a huge arms deal and thereby
kill one of Owen's fellow officers. Naomi Watts stars as his partner. The
plot is kind of convoluted with Italian financiers and a knot of other
associates and interests, all trying to get their piece of the action.
Recommended.
Raging Bull (1980) -- "7/10"
Robert de Niro stars as boxer Jack LaMotta, a complete asshole of a man with
a huge inferiority complex, no intelligence or savvy to speak of and a nearly
uncontrollable temper. Oh, and he's an ephebophile who has no trouble robbing
the cradle. Sound fun? It's totally not. Joe Pesci shines in his breakout
role as LaMotta's brother, but otherwise it's not really a fun movie. DeNiro
is good, but his character is just so relentlessly stupid and horrible that
it's tough to enjoy. You can appreciate it for good acting, good direction
and good writing, but you're not really going to enjoy it. I know I didn't.
Red (2010) -- "8/10"
Bruce Willlis, John Malkovitch, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren and Brian Cox
(awesome as Ivan) are all aging, aged and semi- or fully retired former
agents and assassins. Of these, Willis's Frank Moses was -- and still is --
the best. He inadvertently shows up on another radar and gets embroiled in a
new, modern-day plot that somehow involves the innocent young girl at his
insurance company with whom he's fallen in love. They get the gang back
together and infiltrate buildings guarded by the newer generations -- and who
prove utterly incapable of being able to handle the awesomeness that is an
old guard trained and hardened during the cold war. Good times and good
performances from several of the leads, with special kudos for Cox, Mirren
and Malkovitch. Highly recommended if action comedies are your thing.
The Mechanic (2011) -- "8/10"
A -- nay, the -- Jason Statham vehicle to end all Jason Statham vehicles.
This is a remake of the 1972 original starring Charles Bronson. Statham plays
an elite hit-man who learned at the feet of his master, Donald Sutherland.
The business passes on to Statham and soon Sutherland's son -- played by Ben
Foster -- shows up, wanting to be trained as Statham was. There is much
precision shooting and ass-kicking, although not as much as I'd like in a
Jason Statham film. Still, the plot is decent, the tension is good and the
ending is very satisfying. Recommended.
Apocalypse Now (1979) -- "9/10"
Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando star in this magnificent film about the
vietnam war, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Sheen narrates the film as a
sailor on a PT boat headed deep, deep, deep into the Vietnamese -- Laotian?
-- jungles. The war is shown in all its ugliness, in all its senselessness,
in all its utter depravity. The entire second half of the nearly 4-hour--long
"redux" version is highly surreal -- this is the part where Brando appears as
Kurtz, the renegade former US military commander who now heads a private army
of naked savages. An utterly brilliant film well worth the time. Highly
recommended.
Natural Born Killers (1994) -- "9/10"
Oliver Stone's tour de force about a couple of homicidal killers named Mickey
and Mallory Knox, played by Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis, respectively.
Robert Downey Jr. also stars as Wayne Gale, a sleazy and exploitative
tabloid-TV reporter, Tommy Lee Jones is an equally unctuous and greasy prison
warden and Rodney Dangerfield plays Mallory's abusive and troglodyte father.
The film is exquisitely cut together out of snippets of footage from other
films, cartoons depicting fleeting acts of violence and faux-found footage
from security cameras and shaky hand-cams. In Mickey's interview, there are
shades of Charlie Manson, with a kind of lucidity shining forth from what
society would call madness. But this is a society that is ostensibly mad
already, especially in its approach to sex and violence, so who's the bigger
problem? Mickey, who at least kills individuals, eye to eye? Or faceless
bureaucrats, who with their actions wipe out millions? Stone intersperses
images of Waco, Texas to make his point that State violence makes a killing
spree like Mickey and Mallory's seem like an absolute drop in the bucket.
Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) -- "3/10"
This is an incredibly uneven sequel to the Wizard of Oz starring James Franco
in the title role with Michelle Williams, Rachel Weisz and Mila Kunis as the
three witches. The cast of witches was quite promising but would prove to
ultimately be a disappointment. Zach Braff plays Franco's assistant and then
voices his horrible little monkey sidekick. The CGI is over-the-top and
candy-coated, clearly having been designed for the attention span of an
eight-year--old and for the 3D theater. All actors are wasted by this awful
script with its hideous dialogue. James Franco is charming and, having just
finished watching Freaks and Geeks, it was hard not to see Daniel Disario
shining through his toothy grin.
Sunshine (2007) -- "8/10"
This is a science-fiction horror film about a near-future where the sun is
dying, failing to warm the Earth. It follows a crew of scientists who are the
last-ditch hope of humanity, sent to dump a highly powerful generator/bomb
into the sun in an effort to super-charge it back to life -- like a giant
defibrillator. They are the second mission and are plagued by thoughts of
what happened to the first mission. Did they go mad? Did they succeed? Did
they fail? An uncommon cast -- Michelle Yeoh, Benedict Wong, Hiroyuki Sanada;
in other words, not the usual lily-white male astronaut studs, though those
are also present (e.g. Chris Pine, who is also good) -- gives the film more
flavor than it would otherwise have had. Mark Strong is good, as usual.
Recommended as a decent science-fiction movie.
Cloud Atlas (2012) -- "9/10"
How do you even begin to describe this movie? I can't pretend that I
understood everything -- I can't even pretend that I knew all the characters
and the actors who played them. I can say that I found the movie absolutely
riveting, beautifully made and well-paced. Hugo Weaving as Uncle Georgie was
a standout role. All of the actors are very good, even Halle Berry. This is a
big-budget concept film that beats out Terence Malick's Tree of Life, which,
while it took an entirely different tack, felt similar at times. Ben Whishaw,
Keith David, Hugh Grant, Susan Sarandon, Hugo Weaving, Jim Broadbent and Tom
Hanks lend a tremendous amount of gravitas.
Year of the Dragon (1985) -- "4/10"
A plodding plot that really shows its age in its execution. The main cop
played by Mickey Rourke is an utter turd. But he's the lead role, so he
unbelievably is also the primary love interest of the leading lady. Lots of
violence and stupid racist stereotypes made this film utterly forgettable.
Not recommended.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) -- "8/10"
An all-star cast play out this melancholy, very slow-paced film about
cold-war espionage. Some of the exposition is too long for my taste, but
some, like when Gary Oldman's George Smiley starts chewing (ever so lightly)
the scenery, are spellbinding. Likewise, Peter's theft of a journal from MI6
headquarters (Peter is played by Benedict Cumberbatch) is a marvel for how
much tension and subsequent relief it produces, all without any of the
quick-cuts, shaky cams and explosions other spy movies have brought to the
genre. Recommended for those looking for a movie that engages the mind
instead of the adrenal glands.
The Magnificent Seven (1960) -- "6/10"
It's amazing how much screen-time the comparatively unknown Horst Buchholz
gets in this movie. He acts well, but the movie was clearly a vehicle dreamt
up to bring together Yul Brenner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Robert
Vaughn and James Coburn. It was kind of The Expendables of its day, actually.
It, too, suffers somewhat from long, expositional scenes that don't seem to
add to the basic plot. It's likely that some of this was taken from the
Japanese original, shot just a few years before. If you're a fan of westerns,
you've got to see this one.
The Change-Up (2011) -- "5/10"
Ryan Reynolds, Jason Bateman, Leslie Mann, Olivia Wilde and Alan Arkin form a
promising cast for what ends up being a more disappointing movie. It's not
awful, but not as good as it could have been, devolving into some pretty
stupid "typical-guy" tropes that should be beneath everyone involved. Olivia
Wilde was less wooden and horrible than usual (it's weird, she interviews
very well) and Reynolds was funny, at times. Not really recommended.
War (2007) -- "6/10"
Despite starring both Jason Statham and Jet Li, the film was oddly
disappointing. The title refers to two wars, actually: the war between the
Triads and Yakuza and the war between Statham (federal agent) and Li
(mysterious and seemingly unstoppable hired killer), who Statham is hunting
for having killed his partner years before. It takes a long time before
Statham's first really decent fight scene arrives -- always a bad sign --
and, likewise, a Jet Li movie with minimal martial arts and maximal car
chases and sniper scenes just feels wrong. It wasn't terrible, but it could
have been much better. Making Jet Li smugly smile whenever he thwarts Statham
is a pretty transparent and ultimately ineffective way of making the audience
hate him. I guess you could also hate him because he gets to cruise around in
a Spyker C8 Spyder, which is a very sweet-looking car. In the last third,
when Jet Li finally starts fighting -- and starts rebelling against the
utterly unprincipled Yakuza for whom he works -- things get much better. Many
more fights scenes -- including the long-awaited one between Statham and Li
-- and a cool surprise ending.
Hot Shots! (1991) -- "7/10"
Charlie Sheen doing what he does best -- making fun of hit movies (in this
case, mostly Top Gun). Cary Elwes, Jon Cryer, Lloyd Bridges and the adorable
Valeria Golino round out the cast. This is a pretty good Airplane-style
movie, beaten out only by Top Secret, in my humble opinion.
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009) -- "6/10"
Matthew McConaughey stars as a Lothario fashion photographer who trails a
ridiculously long train of sexual conquests behind him going into his
brother's wedding. The wedding takes place at his Uncle Wayne's (played by
Michael Douglas) mansion. The story follows -- more or less -- Dickens's
Christmas Carol, with ghostly visitations. Jennifer Garner stars as a
skeleton, Emma Stone makes an appearance as the teenage ghost of the past and
Anne Archer plays the cougar-ish mother of the bride. It's not a great movie,
but the actors aren't bad, especially McConaughey and Douglas, who deliver
their utterly horrific lines with gusto and who seemingly cannot be phased.
Somewhat recommended, depending on audience, mood and/or available libations.
Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993) -- "6/10"
Lloyd Bridges, Charlie Sheen and Valeria Golino reprise their roles in this
second installment of Hot Shots, this time taking the piss out of Rambo
instead of Top Gun. Ryan Stiles and Miguel Ferrer round out the crew that
accompanies Topper (Sheen) into the jungles.
Conan the Barbarian (2011) -- "4/10"
This is a reboot (aren't those popular these days) of the popular 1980s
movies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. If you think the guy playing Conan --
Jason Momoa -- looks familier, it's because he plays almost exactly the same
character in Game of Thrones, as Khal Drogo. The plot is pretty predictable,
with the only semi-interesting part showing Conan's origin story, featuring
Ron Perlman as his father. Not really recommended; if you want something like
this, watch either the original or John Carter instead.
Employee of the Month (2006) -- "3/10"
I only caught the second half of this, but I think that "starring Dane Cook
and Jessica Simpson" should serve as enough of a warning. Harland Williams,
Andy Dick and Brian George were also recognizable and had a couple of decent
lines. The plot was execrable and the acting was barely better. Not
recommended.
Airplane II: The Sequel (1982) -- "6/10"
I only saw the second half, but still kind of enjoyed it. It's kind of a
stupid movie, but it's my kind of stupid. William Shatner is pretty good.
Your mileage may vary.
Constantine (2005) -- "10/10"
Keanu Reeves stars as Constantine, a warrior in the battle of good vs. evil.
He's not exactly neutral but he fights for the balance. The demons, however,
are sick of the balance -- and so are some angels. This movie just kicks ass
for all sorts of reasons, not least of which is probably Reeves's best role
ever. Highly recommended.
Air America (1990) -- "6/10"
An exceedingly boyish Robert Downey Jr. playes a hotshot news-copter pilot
recruited by the CIA. Mel Gibson plays an only slightly older-looking old CIA
hand flying for the eponymous "Air America", which was the CIA's fleet of
aircraft serving the whole of Southeast Asia and was based in Laos. The giant
airbase did not officially exist. There is much drinking and much manly talk
and much flying and crashing of highly unlikely and non-airworthy aircraft.
The plot eventually winds up with a feel-good story about how Downey's basic
goodness and forthrightness influences Gibson to change his mercenary and
gun-running ways. Not bad, but not great either.
The Internship (2013) -- "5/10"
Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson as recently out-of-work salesmen in their late
30s who sign up for the Google internship program -- which is led by Aasif
Mandvi. It sounds good, in principle. In execution, it feels much more like a
90-minute advertisement for Google. Vaughn and Owen play the exact same roles
they always play, which means there are a few good Vaughn speeches in there,
but there's not much else to sustain you through the film. Their team of
interns aren't half-bad and are far less insufferable than expected; their
main opponent is typically, cartoonishly evil. Mandvi is OK, but I can't
believe he let himself be convinced that he should do the whole movie in an
Indian accent that he doesn't, in real life, have. Not really recommended.
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https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=28342013-10-08T22:02:48+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
Ben Affleck directs and stars alongside John Goodman, Bryan Cranston,
Alan Arkin and Zeljko Ivanek in this movie about the CIA pretending
to make a movie in order to smuggle US-embassy employees out of Iran
during the hostage crisis. The cast is good and the idea isn't bad
but
...
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Ben Affleck directs and stars alongside John Goodman, Bryan Cranston, Alan
Arkin and Zeljko Ivanek in this movie about the CIA pretending to make a
movie in order to smuggle US-embassy employees out of Iran during the hostage
crisis. The cast is good and the idea isn't bad but the execution is a bit
slow, especially in the second act, where I felt that they didn't sustain the
suspense well at all. The direction and cinematography were quite good, but
not exceptional for the genre (like Skyfall, for example). Perhaps I was just
burdened by knowing that the actual story -- which was more than exciting
enough -- had been adjusted to emphasize the CIA role and deëmphasize the
Canadian one. It's not a bad movie, but it's also not a great movie. The
Oscar nod it got as best motion picture of the year was likely just a way of
sticking it to Iran. It's good for fans of Arkin, Goodman, etc. but otherwise
not recommended.
This Is What Winning Looks Like (2013)
For a sobering and honest look at the situation in Afghanistan and the
repercussions of the dozen years of war there, you could do far worse than
investing 90 minutes to watch "This Is What Winning Looks Like: My
Afghanistan War Diary" by Ben Anderson
.
The lead paragraph of the accompanying article summarizes the film,
"I didn’t plan on spending six years covering the war in Afghanistan. I
went there in 2007 to make a film about the vicious fighting between
undermanned, under-equipped British forces and the Taliban in Helmand,
Afghanistan’s most violent province. But I became obsessed with what I
witnessed there—how different it was from the conflict’s portrayal in
the
media and in official government statements. "
The footage is crisp and high-quality and almost entirely of the Afghan
citizens, their police force and their army. 3/4 of the film is in Pashto
and
Dari with English subtitles and American/western soldiers are not featured
prominently at all, unlike in other documentaries. [1] The shining
exception
is Major Bill Steuber, who is interviewed extensively, perhaps because of
his
honesty and forthrightness. He talks corruption among the police
officials,
struggling against his Sisyphean tasks ("Have you ever seen The Sopranos?
[The corruption]’s vast.").
And how can anyone build up trust in this region, with the leaders of the
war
working against the boots on the ground with drone and hellfire-missile
attacks? One villager said, "They have hit me so hard that I am stunned.
What
can I do? I have lost four of my brothers. How can I look after their
families now?" whereas another said "Life has no meaning for me anymore
[...]
I have lost 27 members of my family. My house has been destroyed.
Everything
I’ve built for 70 years is gone."
The conclusion is sobering and overall dismal, as expected of any war. The
reality for those on the ground is quite different than that sold to
Americans at home. Even the commanding officers are happy to hear only
bullshit and tick a box on their checklists. They don't want to hear how
it's
really going; they want laurels for themselves. So has it ever been in
war.
Koch Brothers Exposed (2012) -- "6/10"
A Robert Greenwald documentary that digs into the various nefarious means by
which the Koch Brothers exert undue influence on our society. Decent enough
for background material, but not much new here.
Slap Shot (1977) -- "8/10"
The quintessential hockey movie, starting Paul Newman, who claimed later in
his career that making this movie was the best time he had in the movies.
That's a career that included Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Hustler
and Cool Hand Luke. The film takes place in northern New England in the mid
to late 70s. It's a motley crew, who are joined by the ... drum roll ...
Hansen brothers, 18, 19 and 20 years old, respectively and goons like the
game has never seen. The attitude toward penalties is extraordinarily lax,
but you'll hardly care because this movie is such a good time. I'm biased
because the time and place both speak to me, as I grew up near where they
filmed most of the games (Syracuse and Utica). Hell, growing up, I even saw
games in Utica featuring the Utica Devils, the farm team for the New Jersey
Devils. Again, it's a treat to watch an R-rated comedy back when they weren't
so formulaic and when they were still being made and when they weren't
over-the-top disgusting to earn their rating. It likely earned the rating
just for swearing, but when you're making a movie about a down-and-dirty f'in
hockey team, what kind of language is the most honest? It even addressed
themes that America has seemingly been saddled with forever: its class divide
and its obsession with violence. When Newman visits the team's owner, he
learns that, while she's happy that the team has turned a profit, she'd still
rather take the capital loss for tax reasons than sell the team and let the
players keep their jobs. He shouts at her, "You are totally fucked! You're
garbage for letting us all go down the drain," a sentiment that resonates no
less today. In the final act, the two teams in the championship game are
beating the bloody bejeezus out of each other, which is just fine with the
announcers and with the crowd. When one lone player starts a strip-tease,
others take umbrage that he's making a disgrace of the game. As ever,
violence is just fine whereas sex and nudity are to be feared. Plus ça
change, plus c'est la même chose.
Hero (2002) -- "9/10"
An all-star cast of Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Zheng Ziyi, Tony Leung and Maggie
Cheung star in a highly stylized fable/history of the beginnings of modern
China, telling the story of the unification of the six kingdoms into "Our
Land". A beautifully filmed, scored and paced film with an interesting story
and quite lovely choreography. It's not a beat-'em-up martial arts movie, but
much more of a thinking person's film. Saw it in Mandarin with English
subtitles.
Euro Trip (2004) -- "8/10"
A relatively well-constructed teen road-trip movie. Good cameos by Matt
Damon, Vinnie Jones, Lucy Lawless and Rade Serbedzija.
Hall Pass (2011) -- "2/10"
An utterly awful film and a waste of what could have been a very good cast
(Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis, Christina Applegate, Stephen Merchant and J.B.
Smoove (Leon!).
Park Avenue: money, power and the American dream - Why Poverty? (2013)
An Alex Gibney movie, so take it with a grain of salt, but it's decent
enough. The film discusses the widening disparity in American society by
juxtaposing the richest people in New York City, living on Park Avenue with
those just 10 minutes north, in the South Bronx. The movie covers how
lobbying by the rich has changed laws to tilt the odds even more in their
favor, a seemingly unstoppable tendency. You can "watch it online "
.
Salvation Boulevard (2009) -- "5/10"
Greg Kinnear stars as the unquestioning faithful fool and Pierce Brosnan is
the sleazy head preacher at Kinnear's mega-church. The plot ends up quite
convoluted, with an atheist professor played by Ed Harris and a Mexican drug
lord. Jim Gaffigan provides comic relief as well.
Up in the Air (2011) -- "7/10"
George Clooney stars as a near-constant air traveler whose only life goal is
to attain 10 million travel miles and be inducted into some sort of platinum
club for travelers. Vera Farmiga, Jason Bateman, J.K. Simmons, Zack
Galifianakis, Danny McBride and Sam Elliot round out the cast. It's a decent
movie with some very nice shots landscaping a relatively predictable plot.
Kind of a chick flick, but stands on its own as well.
BBC: Surviving Progress (2011) -- "8/10"
A series of interviews about modern society, again with an emphasis on the
increasing tendency toward wealth concentration and increasing inequality. It
addresses how the upper echelons use propaganda to blind everyone else -- and
even themselves -- to the fact that the society that buoys them up is
hopelessly divorced from reality and shockingly short-term -- not to mention,
crassly unethical and cruel for almost everyone else. Resources are getting
scarcer and being used up more and more quickly and that by an ever-more
exclusive class.
For Your Eyes Only (1981) -- "6/10"
Roger Moore plays James Bond in Greece, trying to retrieve an Enigma-like
decoding device from the ocean floor. Lots of pretty vanilla underwater
action with a much more down-to-Earth feeling than some of the more bombastic
subsequent Bond films (e.g. another Moore film, Moonraker). There was a
skiing scene that was strongly reminiscent of the famous opening sequence in
The Spy Who Loved Me. The climactic scene involves a bit of derring-do as
Bond scales a cliff face to get to the fortress/monastery where the enemy is
holed up with the device. When a henchman knocks out a few of his pitons, he
falls precipitously but hangs on to climb back up using a pair of "Prusik
knots"
made from his shoelaces. Saw it in German.
The Expendables 2 (2012) -- "7/10"
Watched it again. Surprisingly my "earlier review"
held up to the scrutiny of a second viewing.
Repo Men (2009) -- "8/10"
A pleasant surprise: a bit gory at times, but otherwise a solid near-future
science-fiction story loaded with metaphor and uncomfortably close to our
world today. Jude Law and Forest Whitaker put in very solid performances, as
does Liev Schrieber in a minor role. Good ending. Recommended.
Jerry Seinfeld: Comedian (2002) -- "6/10"
This is a documentary about Jerry's return to stand-up after a long,
successful run on his show Seinfeld and ensuing semi-retirement. The parts
with Jerry and most of his fellow comedians are quite good, with typically
Seinfeldian insights. The parts with Orny Adams are utterly horrible; he's an
insecure shell of a man, probably representative, but nonetheless irritating.
The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (2011) -- "7/10"
A documentary directed by and starring Morgan Spurlock (of Supersize Me!
fame) that is very open about its sponsorships. In fact, the plot of the
movie eats itself in that the movie is about the making of the movie.
Spurlock documents his search for corporate sponsorship to make a documentary
about a documentary that is sponsored by corporations. While the movie shows
how strongly our major media is influenced by advertising dollars, it at the
same time leaves you wondering how true to his vision Spurlock was able to
keep, considering how much sponsorship he received for his documentary. He
reads portions of the contracts in the documentary, wherein it is stipulated
which beverages he's allowed to drink, which cars he's allowed to drive and
so on and so forth. When several sponsors indicate that they want to be
involved in the final cut, are we to think that the movie we're seeing is
really the full-on branding-exposé documentary we would have expected from
Spurlock or, because of the very nature of the film, are we watching a
diluted version of that beware-of-branding message that was collaboratively
spun by the dozens of sponsors to make them look more sympathetic? That is,
do these brands want to be associated with the movie because they really do
care that they and other corporations like them are brainwashing people or
because they want to pick up that, as Bill Hicks once said, "anti-marketing
dollar, [which is] a good market"?
Lockout (2012) -- "8/10"
Guy Pearce, uncharacteristically all beefed-up and looking -- and sometimes
acting -- eerily like Jean-Claude Van Damme stars as Snow, a CIA operative
charged with rescuing the U.S. President's daughter from a high-security
prison in LEO (Low Earth Orbit). I am not kidding. The reason this works is
that Luc Besson came up with the idea and helped write the screenplay. So, it
works for the same reason that The Fifth Element worked so well: excellent
sets, great tech, crazy/quirky characters and evil enemies, a decent plot and
a wise-cracking, gritty hero with a checkered past. Maggie Grace as Emily
Warnock (DOPOTUS) was nowhere near as cool as Milla Jovovich as Leeloo, but
you can't have everything. Sure, there are plot holes -- the prison isn't in
a stable orbit? And then it crashes into the ISS? Really? -- but they don't
get in the way of a rollicking space adventure.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] The Danish documentary Armadillo was like that, reviewed "Capsule Movie
Reviews Vol.2012.9" .
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=28282013-05-19T16:40:12+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
The classic film, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Sigourney
Weaver (Ripley), John Hurt and Tom Skerritt. It documents the journey
of a commercial deep-space mining ship on its way to investigate an
S.O.S. call from a distant planet. The ship lands and sends out a
...
]]>
The classic film, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Sigourney Weaver
(Ripley), John Hurt and Tom Skerritt. It documents the journey of a
commercial deep-space mining ship on its way to investigate an S.O.S. call
from a distant planet. The ship lands and sends out a landing party, which
discovers an even larger, alien craft that seems for all intents and purposes
to have crashed long ago. Something survived, though and it wants to breed
again. And for that, it needs a host. Poor John Hurt plays that host and gets
the party started in earnest, unwillingly and unwittingly helping the alien
on its way to its second stage of evolution, where it gets really nasty. The
first stage already had molecular acid for blood; the second stage has a
polycarbonate exoskeleton and several, nested and pointy-tooth--filled
mouths. Ripley survives (along with the cat, Jack) and lives to fight another
day.
Hancock (2008) -- "7/10"
Will Smith is in the eponymous drunken superhero role and Jason Bateman is
the PR man who's there to save his reputation. Charlize Theron -- looking
absolutely amazing, as usual -- is Bateman's wife but she seems to recognize
Hancock as well. Long story short -- and spoiler alert -- but Theron turns
out to also be a superhero(ine) and Hancock's soulmate and they're the last
pair of angels/heroes/what-have-you. The others of their kind have all died
because they found one another and, in having found one another, lost their
powers and grew old and died, like any other normal humans. Despite their
predestined affinity, Smith and Theron choose to stay apart in order to
remain immortal so they can watch over mankind. Shades of Unbreakable
somehow. Shades of Jesus, too, I guess. Better than expected, but still hard
to recommend.
Daybreakers (2009) -- "6/10"
A vampire/zombie-vampire film that I watched only because it starred Ethan
Hawke and Willem Dafoe. It's a slightly different take, presupposing a world
in 2019 run by the vampire survivors of a bat-borne epidemic (that's the
movie's terminology; it's more like a pandemic). The vampires are ascendant
but the human population -- read: their livestock -- is dwindling and Ethan
Hawke is a vampire hematologist who's trying to find a blood substitute
because he doesn't think vampires should prey on humans. He eventually throws
in with a band of humans who claim that they can cure the disease that causes
vampirism -- using a form of vampire hydrotherapy. Some of the vampire scenes
are filmed in extreme gray-scale tones, with the blood looking black, like
ichor, which was kind of a nice touch. The battles are mostly between the
vampires and the humans, but also the subsiders -- vampires who have gone too
long without nourishment. It was better than expected on the strength of the
cast, but they were swimming against the current of a both clichéd and
confused plot.
God Bless America (2011) -- "5/10"
Joel Murray stars as a terminally ill man who lost his job and who's been cut
off from his family and who gets fed up enough with modern America to go on a
killing spree. It had its moments, but it got kind of preachy, especially
when his partner-in-crime started pontificating. It's not believable that she
could have gotten so angry and so disappointed at her young age. In a
nutshell, she hasn't suffered enough yet to deserve the killing spree she's
on. It's a case of being right for the wrong reasons, which is still, well,
kinda wrong. The first half an hour promises much more than the subsequent
hour delivers. Where it started off as what I felt might be a 21st-century
equivalent to Falling Down, it dithered off into the reeds instead of ending
truly strongly.
The Cannonball Run (1981) -- "6/10"
The classic ensemble comedy about various misfits driving really quickly from
one coast of the U.S. to the other. I can't even remember in which direction
they were driving -- NY to LA? Burt Reynolds makes a nod to his magnum opus
Smokey and the Bandit when he suggests that they get a "black Trans Am" to
complete the race. There are some good lines and a lot of silly ones as well
as a lot of what I'm sure they perceived as harmless sexism and racism. Hard
to recommend to anyone who doesn't already want to see it, but I liked seeing
all of the actors and actresses I grew up with, many of them still in their
prime.
Cannonball Run II (1984) -- "3/10"
The follow-up to the original just proves that Hollywood didn't invent the
uncomfortably bad sequel in the 21st century. The technology to capitalize on
the surprising amount of goodwill engendered by a sleeper success with an
underfunded and most-likely contractually obligated sequel has been available
for decades, apparently. Not recommended.
Friends with Benefits (2011) -- "8/10"
Mila Kunis, Justin Timberlake, Woody Harrelson and Patricia Clarkson
absolutely shine in this rom-com. Jenna Elfman and Richard Jenkins are also
quite good. Given the cast, I guess it's not fair to say that this movie was
surprisingly good, but I was nonetheless pleasantly surprised by what looks
for all the world like a cookie-cutter chick-flick. The sex scenes with
Timberlake and Kunis [1] especially were much more fun and varied and honest
than I've grown to expect from a Hollywood movie. It was rated R, however,
ensuring that as few teenagers as possible would be exposed to non-cartoonish
relationships by accident. Is the plot predictable? Of course it is. Was it
well-executed, funny and entertaining? I'm not ashamed to say that I thought
it was.
Run, Fatboy, Run (2007) -- "7/10"
Simon Pegg and Dylan Moran star in a comedy about a sad sack (Pegg) whose
marriage to Thandie Newton (I usually dislike her characters immensely, but
she was decent here) has fallen apart. Hank Azaria's crass American has since
swept in to take over where Pegg left off. Moran is Pegg's friend Gordon,
playing the incorrigible and inveterate drinker and gambler. When Azaria
mentions that he's going to run in a marathon, Pegg signs up as well. Why? To
prove his love for Newton and to win her back? I guess? To improve himself?
Hard to say. What ends up happening -- spoiler alert -- are exactly both of
those things. The movie is fun not because of the plot but more on the
strength of the actors -- for me, it was Pegg and Moran especially that made
this movie worthwhile.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Hat-tip to Kunis's body-double for sacrificing her naked ass where Kunis's
career could never have withstood such an onslaught of harlotry. Timberlake
had no such trouble in displaying his own fundament.
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https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=28012013-05-05T22:11:08+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
Possibly the best of all of the X-Men movies so far, with Jean Grey
coming from the dead as Phoenix and fighting with Professor X himself
for supremacy. They took out Magneto -- made him human -- and man was
I rooting for the Phoenix to make a clean slate of things
...
]]>
Possibly the best of all of the X-Men movies so far, with Jean Grey coming
from the dead as Phoenix and fighting with Professor X himself for supremacy.
They took out Magneto -- made him human -- and man was I rooting for the
Phoenix to make a clean slate of things at the end. Mainstream movies always
cop out when it comes to destroying the world, though. Still recommended,
though, and highly recommended for fans of comic-book movies.
Kill Bill Vol. I (2003) -- "10/10"
The classic Tarantino. Saw it for the third or fourth time; still love it.
Saw it in German.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) -- "6/10"
Although I kind of want the first forty-five minutes back, it was worth the
wait for the absolutely spellbinding sequence with Bilbo and Gollum/Sméagol.
There was a lot of embellishment over Tolkien's original text: the goblins
were there -- the Goblin King and his kingdom were exquisitely rendered and
portrayed -- but so were the orcs, who never really made an appearance so
early in the book. It felt a little dumbed-down but it was entertaining
enough, I guess. This is the first of three parts and Benedict Cumberbatch is
to make an appearance in the second and third parts, so I'm cautiously
optimistic. It's hard not to think that they're really no longer making these
for the hardcore Tolkien fans and more just to make a boatload of money.
Trading Places (1983) -- "7/10"
Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis -- all just young as hell --
star in this film about a successful commodities broker (Aykroyd) whose place
is maliciously switched with that of a homeless man (Murphy). Ralph Bellamy
and Don Ameche play the owners of the commodities firm, who engineer the
switch, throwing their star employee into destitution and raising Murphy up
to the pole position in their firm. Murphy and Aykroyd manage to team up and
turn the tables on them. Recommended.
Sudden Death (1995) -- "7/10"
Jean-Claude Van Damme as a fire marshal at the seventh game of the Stanley
Cup Playoffs. The vice president of the U.S. is in attendance and he is taken
hostage and held for ransom. The final rescue scene, where he circus-acts and
Macgyvers his way from the top of the dome to the skybox is pretty original,
actually. The ensuing helicopter scene was also unlike anything I'd seen
before. Kind of on the level of Die Hard 4 (when McLane drives his car into a
helicopter) but somehow less annoying for its unbelievability. It was
actually more like the original Die Hard. Recommended for the action movie
that it is (especially if you have a soft spot in your heart for JCVD).
The Man (2005) -- "3/10"
An utterly awful film starring Eugene Levy and Samuel L. Jackson. It's
unfathomable what drove Jackson to take this role: a desperate need for
money? Or boredom? Or did he lose a bet? Miguel Ferrer was also in it,
mysteriously enough.
Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987) -- "7/10"
An absurdist comedy about everything that can go wrong on a holiday journey
in 1980s America. John Candy as the somewhat annoying but hard-to-hate schlub
and Steve Martin as the straight-laced and largely fun-free marketing guy.
It's a classic and it's actually quite good, thanks in no small part to
Candy's irrepressible good humor. Their true bonding begins when sitting on
Candy's oversized steamer trunk, facing oncoming traffic on the shoulder of a
highway, in the middle of the night, illuminated by the flickering glow of
the their already-partially destroyed heap of a car catching fire.
The Karate Kid (2010) -- "5/10"
Jackie Chan is easily the best thing about this remake of the 1980s original.
Jaden Smith is slightly more believable than Ralph Macchio -- but just
barely.
Mean Girls (2004) -- "7/10"
A teenage girl moves with her sociologist/anthropologist parents from Africa
to California, entering the far more dangerous world of a modern American
high school. It is, apparently, not much different than high school in the
late 80s, according to my viewing companion. It has its funny moments, but it
might not speak to everyone. Lindsay Lohan is good in it.
Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011) -- "7/10"
Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore and Emma Stone all play quite well
in a movie about an exhausted marriage healed by a separation, of a man
(Carell) who's forgotten how to be appealing and of another man (Gosling) who
knows what he doesn't want to be but doesn't know how to become what he does
want to be. If that makes any sense. Julianne Moore was ok, but Emma Stone
was better. Marisa Tomei has a smaller role and is also quite good. More
depth than expected. Recommended.
Real Genius (1985) -- "8/10"
Val Kilmer stars in this film about super-smart kids at a super-prestigious
tech university, roped by their sleazy and egomaniacal professor into working
on his military contract to create a powerful laser (read: SDI). The smart
kids end up teaming up to turn the tables on their teachers and the grad
students beholden to them in amusing and entertaining ways. A classic. Kilmer
shines. Recommended.
Iron Man 2 (2010) -- "7/10"
Saw it for the second time, shortly after having re-watched the original.
Mickey Rourke as Ivan Vanko is great, Sam Rockwell as Hammer is amusing and
Don Cheadle is always a welcome addition. The plot was a bit lacking, though,
with far too many Deus ex Machinae for my taste. The plot was pulled along by
non sequiturs instead of by any common thread. The action scenes were decent,
but also a bit too military-hardware--heavy. It kind of felt like watching a
commercial for the Pentagon for long stretches. After watching it a second
time, I am no longer surprised that I had such a hard time remembering what
it was about. Still looking forward to the third installment, though. Sir Ben
Kingsley is always good. And Robert Downey Jr. would have to work hard to
ruin a film.
The Omen (2006) -- "3/10"
A pale shadow of a remake illuminated by the somewhat demonic-looking Liev
Schreiber. Julia Stiles was in it, but was wasted. Not drunk, I mean, but not
utilized. Spoiler alert: everybody dies and the son of the devil wins. Not
recommended.
Unknown (2011) -- "5/10"
Liam Neeson is kicking the shit out of a bunch of people again. Instead of
directly stealing his daughter or wife -- as in both of the Taken films --
his own identity is stolen. Evil Arabs are involved, which is making me
really wonder where Neeson's prejudices lie. Diane Kruger plays a taxi driver
who helps him try to get his life and identity back -- if he can. She's
pretty good in this. It's not awful and not really predictable but still not
very entertaining.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=27862013-03-06T19:54:44+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
Wesley Snipes stars as the daywalker in the third film of the
trilogy. Instead of just Kris Kristofferson's Whistler, he's aided by
the Nightstalkers, a band of vampire hunters comprising Ryan
Reynolds, Jessica Biel and Patton Oswalt (Oswalt was clearly thrown
in for
...
]]>
Wesley Snipes stars as the daywalker in the third film of the trilogy.
Instead of just Kris Kristofferson's Whistler, he's aided by the
Nightstalkers, a band of vampire hunters comprising Ryan Reynolds, Jessica
Biel and Patton Oswalt (Oswalt was clearly thrown in for balance because Biel
and Reynolds were apparently way too much eye candy). Parker Posey (Louie's
girlfriend in the TV show Louie) is off the rails as the leader of the
vampire gang, which comes up with the great idea of resurrecting Dracula. Is
there a showdown between Blade and Dracula? You betcha. Can you tell who wins
if you also know that this is the last movie? You cannot: if Blade dies, no
more Blade movies; if Dracula dies, no more Blade movies. After all, where
can you go from killing Dracula? Snipes does his choreography well; Reynolds
and Biel weren't bad either. Not the first time I've seen it, but still
recommended.
The Prestige (2006) -- "10/10"
Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale star as 19th-century magicians whose fates
are intertwined and whose rivalry clenches its fist ever more tightly around
them until the bitter end. Scarlett Johansson is the ingénue who starts off
with one but ends up with the other. Initially, Bale's deftness trumps
Jackman's arrogant charisma but each raises the ante with ever more
magnificent magic until Jackman presents us with which is sufficiently
advanced so as to be indistinguishable from magic (brought to him by that
most amazing of Croatians "Nikola Tesla"
. Directed by Christopher Nolan
and written by him and his younger brother, the story is absolutely
top-notch. Also starring Michael Caine as Jackman's older manager and David
Bowie as Nikola Tesla. Best magic movie ever; highly recommended. Saw it in
German.
Skyfall (2012) -- "6/10"
Daniel Craig stars in his third James Bond movie and continues taking the
series in a more rugged, less flashy direction (a most welcome one IMHO).
Judy Dench reprises her role as M and it sadly takes -- spoiler alert --
two
hours and twenty minutes to finally kill her. [1] Javier Bardem plays
Silva,
an MI6 agent gone rogue, and he quite frankly saves the film from utter
ignominy. Craig is good; he's just fine. It's the script, the pacing and
the
dialogue that are just tough to swallow. The film just draaaaaags in some
places. A lot of places. I can't quite put my finger on why, but this film
reminded me of the Batman reboot by Christopher Nolan. Perhaps it was the
insistence on explaining every last detail so that even the most
inattentive
of moviegoers could follow along. The overall story arc was very much more
like a Bourne movie than a Bond movie (i.e. it was based on rogue
super-agents heading back to the nest). There was no super-enemy with a
big
base of operations -- I miss S.P.E.C.T.R.E. so much.
It is, in fairness, a gorgeous film. The initial chase sequence was
standard
fare, but the titles were amazing and set the tone for some jaw-dropping
scenes. It only has two colors -- say it with me: orange and blue! But it
is
beautiful nonetheless -- the framing and composition of so many shots are
really good. Roger Deakins is to be commended. But I was so rooting for
Silva
to kill M. Just make her stop talking. Actually, it would have been nice
if
everyone but Silva stopped talking. Bardem has the only dialogue worth
listening to. The scene on his island was, hands down, the best fifteen
minutes of the movie. That was quite entertaining. It was so pretty that I
was at times fooled into thinking I was watching a Coen Brothers movie --
until a character opened his or her mouth and burped out the next flaccid
line.
The rest of the characters spoke for pure exposition or to explain things
that were already blindingly obvious for those paying even a bit of
attention. Or, even worse, to explain some totally unknowable fact or
circumstance that was needed to propel the film along. God help me if you
were about to compliment the script on a little implicit twist that went
unexplained -- five seconds later, it was thoroughly explicated by one or
the
other character. Eve was utterly awful as well and her on-screen
interaction
with Bond elicited anything but sexual tension -- her performance reminded
me
of the utter wooden awfulness of Halle Berry in X-Men.
And the opening sequence -- what a horrific joke. Instead of a stolid Bond
pursuing his prey (as so wonderfully done in Casino Royale), he was
accompanied by Eve and had the entire MI6 home office on his back via
radio,
with them constantly exhorting the two agents to explain every detail of
what's going on during the chase. It was utterly vapid and irritating and
I
might have called it quits right there. I fear, however, that I'm more
sensitive to this "remote participation" phenomenon -- I think the rest of
the first-world mobile generation is quite accustomed to the idea of their
being people who play out a scene and that others participate via uplink,
unreasonably demanding to be kept in the loop like spoiled children -- and
making the decisions like insipid dungeon masters on a ludicrously
inadequate
amount of information. Perhaps I wasn't sufficiently swept away by the
seriousness of the situation -- and perhaps that it showed how poor
beleaguered Western nations are forced to fight these days. This theme
would
appear again later with M chastising Parliamentarians who failed to see
that
we were at war with "those in the shadows". The irony that the shadowy
evil
against which M must defend is actually blowback sown by her own division
was
lost on pretty much everyone. Just make a f$&king Bond movie without
trying
to simultaneously convince me that Bond is doing it not only for Queen and
Country, but quite literally and almost solely for my own good.
And then Q showed up and, instead of a venerable John Cleese, it's some
Justin-Bieber--looking smart-ass computer geek who's utterly arrogant
about
his l33t hacker skills but proves to be stupid enough to plug an enemy
laptop
directly into his main systems without a firewall. Oops. And it's Bond who
sees the f'in Matrix like he's channeling John Nash from A Beautiful Mind
instead of the super computer-geek who becomes more and more incompetent
as
the film goes on. They'd have done much better to bring back Boris from
GoldenEye. And then Q does some secret work for Bond, but on a 40-foot
screen
on the main floor of the MI6 offices. Super-secret stuff, eh?
Bond seemingly forgets to bring any weapons whatsoever with him as he
races
to Scotland, leading Silva into a trap. But he channels Macgyver to
improvise
with some shotgun shells, light bulbs, propane tanks and some dynamite.
And
Bond is, once again, utterly impervious to the cold, falling into what
must
be near-freezing water and languorously swimming around, getting out and
not
even shivering a little bit. 'Cause it wasn't cold outside or anything.
Would
it have killed them to make him shiver a bit? And why shouldn't he be
impervious? He was shot in the opening scene and it didn't slow him down
one
bit. He didn't even favor that side. And these are the kind of super-spies
who try sneaking off into the night over an open moor with a flashlight,
making it nearly impossible for all but an enemy gifted with sight to
track
them. An enemy who survived the simultaneous explosion of an entire castle
and helicopter from a distance of about twenty feet -- completely
unscathed.
The conclusion? A beautiful movie with excellent cinematography and mostly
horrific acting and dialogue. It wasn't even really funny and the only
redeeming character was Bardem's. I was hoping for someone to kill M from
the
very beginning of the film. Eve, too. One out of two ain't bad.
Flight (2012) -- "8/10"
Denzel Washington plays a pilot named "Whip", a pilot who is still very much
a Denzel-Washington character. To avoid too much controversy, he flies a
fictitious plane for a fictitious airline. He has a bit of a drinking
problem
that he straightens out with cocaine. Easy-peasy. He shows up to work
plastered and, just before landing, his plane starts to fall apart: the
elevator gets stuck in "dive" position and one after another engine goes.
Whip stays calm and manages to keep the plane in the air long enough to
land
in an open field, killing only 6 of 104. In the ensuing investigations,
his
feat cannot be repeated by other pilot. Don Cheadle plays a high-priced
lawyer assigned to clean up any possible criminal liability due to Whip's
pretty blatant alcoholism. John Goodman plays a bit part as Whip's dealer.
It's a Robert Zemeckis film, so it's well-made and interesting, but also
pretty straightforward. When Whip manages to stay dry for nine days
preceding
his hearing but falls hard when he gets access to a mini-bar, Goodman
comes
to the rescue. I had a brief hope that the film would end with Whip
triumphantly passing the hearing blazed, coked and drunk out of his mind.
After all, if he can fly a plane super-drunk better than anyone, then he
should be able to get through a hearing, right? But it was not to be and
the
film ended on a more family-friendly note.
As an aside, I wondered how criminal liability could even possibly come up
--
if his case went to trial, his lawyer could easily point out that Whip
landed
the plane better than anyone else could have, drunk or not. Is the court
really going to make the argument that he could have saved even more lives
had he been sober? Naturally, he could be prosecuted for gross negligence,
but the extenuating circumstances -- that he saved 98 lives despite
proven,
massive hardware failure -- would likely result in a drastically reduced
sentence.
Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States (S01E09) (2012) -- "10/10"
This episode covers Bush I and Clinton, documenting Bush's belligerence
toward Iraq. It was as good as the others, but covered a lot of history
that
I already knew, though I was unaware of the level of Bush the elder's war
expertise before taking office as president. His belligerence was
unbelievable but his team was much better at fabricating a pretense for
invasion than his son's would prove to be (see Hubris below). I'd also
forgotten how Clinton had won by the skin of his teeth -- and then only
because Ross Perot siphoned off nearly 20% of the vote.
Stone covers the history of Prescott Bush, Bush the elder's father and
Junior's grandfather, who built the family fortune by helping Germany
during
World War II. Stone details many other major U.S. firms that benefited
from
war profiteering in deals with Hitler's Germany and how much of the
post-war
wealth in the U.S. -- the great fortunes -- were built on fascism (as
Honoré
de Balzac said: "The secret of great fortunes without an apparent source
is a
crime forgotten, because it was done properly"). [2]
Stone and his co-author also give a proper place in history for the
greatness
of Gorbachev, who nearly single-handedly architected the first -- and
heretofore only -- bloodless revolution when he saw to the dismantling of
the
Soviet Union. Reagan was a warmonger who did nothing but get in the way
with
his vapid jingoism -- or take credit once he saw which way the wind was
blowing. The peace dividend would, however, definitely not be forthcoming,
at
least in the US. In the former USSR, whatever peace dividend might have
been
was quickly gobbled up by a wave of kleptocrats and Western "advisers"
from
the Friedman school.
This episode also covers how the seeds of 9--11 were sown with the
emplacement of military bases in Saudi Arabia. Despite promises to
Gorbachev,
the U.S. continued to expand Nato, rebuilding the former Eastern bloc as a
NATO bloc encircling Russia instead.
After Clinton came Bush, who disdained both Clinton and Bush for being too
weak. With a cold-war crew in his cabinet, he was ready when 9--11 came.
Many
clips of Bush's speeches are included, included one from the campaign
trail
-- the famous one where he claimed to not want to be the world's policeman
--
as well as speeches to Congress and the U.N. in which he depicts a
simplistic
and utterly skewed world-view.
Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States (S01E10) (2012) -- "10/10"
This episode covers the Bush years and Obama's first term. This is much more
recent history, which I have already thoroughly documented in "Public Policy
& Politics" . This final
episode covers the mendacity of the Bush administration, the naked contempt
for rule of law, the torture. Following Bush, Obama continued to widen US
military presence, opening more bases in Australia and providing weapons to
Taiwan (antagonizing and encircling the Chinese) while further tightening the
NATO noose around Russia and Iran. Stone also covers the expansion of Obama's
drone program as well as cyber warfare, the incessant expansion of power, of
brutality, of empire. The series wraps up with a plea for America to become
the country it has always claimed itself to be -- to be the country that a
Henry Wallace could have perhaps made.
Hubris: The Selling of the Iraq War (2013)
Rachel Maddow hosts this one-hour documentary based on the book of the same
name. Her introduction asks whether the men who perpetrated the lies that
led
to the Iraq War will have those lies written into their obituaries. But
her
other example, Lyndon Johnson, was not defined by the lie of the Gulf of
Tonkin, was he? Of course not. Almost no one knows that the Gulf of Tonkin
was a lie, even to this day. The only reason we know is because documents
were revealed 30 years after the fact.
The Bush administration will be the same. And why? Because no one gets
prosecuted for their lies. Tonkin never caused Johnson any personal
problems,
no fines, no loss of stature, no prison time. It's the same with everyone
involved in the Bush administration. They all remain highly regarded and
well-compensated members of the American landscape, so why should they be
judged by their Iraq lies when they die? Did Rumsfeld hear about it when
he
peddled his book? He did not. Why? Because he wouldn't grant interviews to
non-friendly news organizations? Perhaps that's part of it. But a lot of
it
is because the Obama administration just dropped the whole issue as soon
as
it got into office. Obama covered their asses for them, just like Ford
covered Nixon's ass, Bush covered Scooter Libby's and Clinton covered Marc
Rich's. Obama kept the stigma of charges, trials and prosecution -- hell,
even jail time -- off of the Bush administration.
That said, her introduction's not completely bad -- and will likely be a
good
introduction to what will sound like completely new material for those who
weren't paying attention during the last decade. She asked how we are to
prevent such lies from happening again. If history may be our guide,
documentaries produced by people that can be disregarded as left-wingers
with
an agenda aren't likely to have an impact at all.
I was missing a conclusion, where she should have made the point that
prison
sentences or any form of repercussions at all might have been a good place
to
start. The Obama administration's refusal to do so on our behalf -- it's
betrayal of justice for these crimes -- would have been a more than
appropriate coda for this documentary. As it stands, the documentary just
fades out, leaving one with the impression that the issue is unresolved.
It's
not unresolved; all of the people in that film have been exonerated and
nothing will ever happen to them.
That, I think, should have been the greater point of the episode: that
justice was not served and nothing prevents it from happening again. The
way
that both the Obama administration and the press bang the war drums for
Iran
or Syria nearly every day indicates that they have certainly not learned
any
lessons.
On a side note, the post "MSNBC boldly moves to plug its one remaining
hole"
by Glenn Greenwald
writes:
"A Pew poll found that in the week leading up to the 2012 election, MSNBC did
not air a single story critical of the President or a single positive
story
about Romney - not a single one [...]"
Perhaps it's that attitude that explains why the Obama administration was
not
blamed.
The Bourne Legacy (2012) -- "7/10"
I was a bit concerned about a Bourne film without Matt Damon, but I needn't
have been. The Bourne Legacy is in good hands with Jeremy Renner. He's an
agent in another Treadstone-like program, another super-soldier program
where
the latest biomedical advancements in gene therapy and viral manipulation
lend soldiers increased strength, agility, speed, endurance and resistance
to
pain as well as mental acuity. Renner is in the middle of nowhere in
Alaska,
traveling alone through the wilderness when his program is shut down --
meaning that his minders try to take him out with a cruise missile.
At the same time, the lab that was creating all of the drugs and medical
advances is also taken out, with all but one scientist dead: Rachel Weisz.
He
finds her and together they flee for their lives, being all cool and
Bourne-like but surprisingly down-to-Earth. A totally steady camera and
reasonably wide angles on chase and fight scenes were a welcome and
refreshing relief from the latest trends in filming. The story was pretty
interesting though the technology on display was a bit too much -- it
veered
heavily into aweome-government-tech-porn territory. It was hard to tell
whether this was a fantasy about competent government or an attempt to
make
people believe that secret agencies really can do all of these things, or
whether it was just the easiest way to have people sitting in a command
center be able to find two people on the other side of the world even
though,
for all intents and purposes, they'd disappeared without a trace.
One minute, you see them using Canadian forestry satellite footage to find
a
black blob that is "probably" their car and next we see a bunch of people
on
phones demanding information about a red Buick LeSabre. And I suppose that
was also a bit unbelievable: the degree to which people at airports,
rental
car agencies, hotels and foreign police departments would just cooperate
with
the CIA just because they were told to. And, even given that they would be
willing -- for whatever reasons -- to cooperate, the level of competence
depicted on everyone's part makes you wonder why it took ten years to find
bin Laden. Just sayin'. Still, a fun flick and definitely recommended if
you
like the genre; it easily stands with the others.
The Untouchables (2013)
A "PBS Frontline documentary"
about the utter lack
of prosecution for Wall Street bank employees -- especially those in the
boardrooms. Many interviews with the assessors in the trenches reveal that
fraud was definitely widespread. The higher they went, the more skeptical
people became that intent was too hard to prove. In the end, the prosecutors
admit that their cases should be slam dunks but that they are all
mysteriously quashed. Lanny Breuer seems to be trying to do more than his
job: will a prosecution result in an economic collapse? Will prosecuting a
bank cause a collapse? If the bank can't prosecuted, then it can't be
controlled. And isn't it just convenient that Breuer has these considerations
when it comes to the rich and powerful being prosecuted? This was really an
excellent documentary; highly recommended.
Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States (S01E08) (2012) -- "10/10"
This episode starts with Nixon's fall and Ford's pardon of all of his crimes.
Somehow bolstered by this utterly ignominious moment, The Republicans
renewed
their goal of privatization. The country wasn't ready yet and elected
Carter.
Zbigniew Brzezinski was the weight that pulled the Carter administration's
foreign policy to the right, though Carter started off much more open.
Advised by Brzezinski, Kissinger and David Rockefeller, Carter arguably
chose
advisers more poorly than Obama. Late in his presidency, Nicaragua blew up
and the right-wing hawks naturally worried that its revolution would
foment
change in the near-monarchies in neighboring countries. It was, however,
the
US-instigated Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that would mark Carter's only
invasion -- which led to the US boycotting the 1980 summer Olympics and to
Carter's doubling of nuclear warheads rather than halving them as
initially
promised. He would also repudiate his previous criticisms of Vietnam is
what
was an almost total capitulation while still in office.
Reagan was up next, a man who hated communism and loved military might. He
was, by all accounts, not a bright man. Reagan too had some interesting
advisers, the craziest of whom was William Casey, head of the CIA, an
organization so inept that they never saw the fall of the Soviet Union
coming. Reagan's two administrations oversaw U.S. insurgency in several
countries in Central America. This run of terror by America's greatest
president culminated in the Iran-Contra deals, with all parties involved
lying through their teeth and getting off scot free (George Bush I was
also
involved but slithered away, and was elected president in time to pardon
all
of his cohorts). Reagan would make a career of lying about and
misrepresenting the Soviet threat in the most apocalyptic terms that seem
frankly laughable but were swallowed wholesale by a public eager to be
terrified and hungry for blood. He was a tyrant, diverting funds from
domestic spending to the military, living in a high-society bubble in
Washington while attacking unions, the working class and the poor (most of
whom probably helped reelect him).
Stone utterly idolizes Gorbachev, comparing him to the U.S.'s Henry
Wallace,
crediting him -- and rightly so -- with Perestroika and the end of the
Cold
War. Reagan ended up spoiling the deal in Reykjavik because his adviser
Richard Perle feared a revitalization of the Soviet economy due to its no
longer being sapped by excessive military spending. Not only that, but
Reagan's precious SDI was also on the chopping block, so Gorbachev went
home
with empty hands -- because Reagan wanted to militarize space.
Reagan was a blithering mess at the end and admitted the Iran Contra
affair
with the following statement: "A few months ago, I told the American
people I
did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still
tell
me that's true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not." Faced with
either admitting complicity or senility, he took the coward's way out. He
doubled the military budget and changed the U.S. from the leading creditor
to
the leading borrower in just four years. He left office having massively
increased both the debt and the deficit and oversaw the biggest financial
crash since the Great Depression -- the S&L bailout -- brought about by
his
deregulation. It was the Reagan administration that was the real
springboard
for the modern right-wing stranglehold on America.
Ghost Rider (2007) -- "5/10"
The cast is not bad: Nicolas Cage, Eve Mendes, Peter Fonda and Sam Elliot.
The plot is half-baked and pretty low-key for a super-hero movie. Nicolas
Cage takes a little while to warm up and he never gets very good. It's an
utter mystery to me what Peter Fonda was doing in that film. (Other than that
he perhaps hadn't played a devil yet?) The effects are middle-of-the-road and
the movie's about a guy who makes a deal with the devil for an awesome
stunt-rider career. When the devil comes to collect his due, he makes him the
"Ghost Rider", the right arm of retribution of the devil, sent to collect
evil souls that have escaped Hell. Oh, and he turns into a flaming skeleton.
Not gay flaming, like literally on fire. Saw it in German.
The Big Lebowski (1998) -- "10/10"
Saw it for what must be the sixth of seventh time and it's one of the few
movies that doesn't get old. The dialogue is superb; written and directed by
the Coen brothers, it's chock-full of what have by now become classic lines
(it has one of the longest "IMDb quote pages"
I've ever seen). It's the story
of an unemployed amateur bowler -- the Dude, played by Jeff Bridges -- with a
special predilection for cursing, drinking White Russians (Caucasians) and
smoking pot. He and his bowling buddies -- Walter, played by John Goodman and
Donnie, played by Steve Buscemi -- become embroiled in a complicated plot
that involves a millionaire, his assistant (played by Philip Seymour
Hoffman), another bowler named Jesus (John Turturro) a porno king, a
nymphomaniac, three German nihilists (their leader played by Peter Stormare
and Flea plays another), an avant-garde heiress/artist played by Julianne
Moore and Sam Elliot as an occasional narrator. Highly recommended.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Out of curiosity, I looked up "Roger Ebert's review"
and he loved the film and loved Dench in it, deeming her role as "a
dead-serious M (Judi Dench), following the action from MI6 in London and
making a fateful decision." Later, he says the film "provides a role worthy
of Judi Dench, one of the best actors of her generation. She is all but the
co-star of the film, with a lot of screen time, poignant dialogue, and a
character who is far more complex and sympathetic than we expect in this
series." It just shows how subjective this all is; "complex" and
"sympatheic" are two of the last words I would have used to describe her
portrayal. As in the other films, I found her attempts to be a hard-ass
laughable and unconvincing.
[1] After some digging around, I found an article -- "Balzac et l’obsession de
l’origine des fortunes" by Michel Frontère
--
with the original citation in French, which states that it was written in Le
Père Goriot (1835) and reads:
"Le secret des grandes fortunes sans cause apparente est un crime oublié,
parce qu'il a été proprement fait"
The commonly cited version in English -- "Behind every great fortune there is
a crime" -- pales, I think, in comparison.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=27732013-02-11T20:26:29+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
Disney's take on the story of Rapunzel, done in modern, 3d-animated
style. The characters are unsurprising: there's a beautiful virginal
girl who sings, a young handsome rogue who sings and an evil old
witch. The story is only tangentially related to the original Grimm's
...
]]>
Disney's take on the story of Rapunzel, done in modern, 3d-animated style.
The characters are unsurprising: there's a beautiful virginal girl who sings,
a young handsome rogue who sings and an evil old witch. The story is only
tangentially related to the original Grimm's fairy tale: in the original, the
witch was initially the wronged party; in the Disney version, there's no gray
area and the witch is evil from the start. There were no real star voices and
only a handful of characters and it was basically a cookie-cutter Disney
princess story. The horse Maximus was fun, but watch The Emperor's New Groove
instead.
Brewster's Millions (1985) -- "6/10"
Richard Pryor stars as a minor-league baseball pitcher whose uncle leaves him
a $300 million fortune. In order to get it, though, he must first spend $30
million in a single month and isn't allowed to tell anyone about the
conditions of the will. He manages to blow most of his money when he
eventually hits on the idea of running for mayor. John Candy is looking young
and relatively thin, playing his usual jovial sidekick.
Hop (2011) -- "4/10"
A mixed real-life/3d-animated movie about the up-and-coming Easter Bunny,
voiced by Russell Brand. The current Easter Bunny (his dad) is voiced by Hugh
Laurie. Brand is OK, but the script wastes Laurie. The real-life characters
are a mixed bag of mostly unknowns -- people will probably recognize Kaley
Cuoco as Penny from The Big Bang Theory and James Marsden as Cyclops from the
X-Men franchise. The new easter bunny doesn't want to be tied down and wants
to be a drummer while his new best friend -- Fred O'Hare (GET IT?) -- is
desperate for a job with meaning. It's a match made in crappy holiday-movie
heaven. Even the sidekick and animated cameo characters weren't very good.
Not recommended.
Syriana (2005) -- "9/10"
George Clooney and Matt Damon star in this film about the cynical
manipulation of the fictitious and resource-rich Middle Eastern country of
Syriana. Damon plays a liaison from a powerful oil company; Clooney plays a
CIA operative sick of what he sees and who he works for. Despite the best
efforts of Damon and Clooney -- each working in their own way -- it all ends
badly, mirroring the fall of Iran's socialist president Mosaddegh in 1953.
It's a gritty film that mirrors reality better than many others in its genre.
Recommended. Saw it in German.
The Rum Diary (2011) -- "6/10"
Johnny Depp stars as Hunter S. Thompson in a drug- and alcohol-fueled visit
to Puerto Rico in search of a story. He's trying to find himself as a writer
and the first opportunity he gets is to help some developers tart up their
brochure to sell off an idyllic smaller island from under the feet of the
natives, planting huge hotels everywhere -- much as had already happened to
the main, larger island of Puerto Rico. Giovanni Ribisi is excellent as an
utterly stoned fellow reporter as is Michael Rispoli, whose capacity for
ingesting rum borders on the mythic. Aaron Eckhart is decent as the sleazy
leader of the development project and Amber Heard is eye candy. Plans are
made, broken, re-formed; rum is drunk in prodigious quantities; the machine
is raged against. Drags in some places, but overall not bad.
Bad Teacher (2011) -- "6/10"
Cameron Diaz plays the eponymous role, backed up by Justin Timberlake, Jason
Segel and Lucy Punch (who plays quite well as the overly medicated Ms.
Squirrel). At first it seems like standard fare, but some of the dialogue and
scenes put it well into black-comedy territory, making it more enjoyable in
my view. Surprisingly, Segel is a cool, self-assured guy and plays that role
well -- a welcome relief from the insecure whiners he has played of late.
Diaz is much better than in other roles I've seen her in, though that's not
saying much. She nailed the crudeness and didn't shrink from utterly awful
language and deplorable behavior. She kind of reminded me of Charlize
Theron's Mavis from Young Adult (which was much darker overall, but not
better).
Good Hair (2009) -- "7/10"
A documentary about the hair-styling industry with a primary focus on black
women's hair: straightening products, weaves, etc. How much does this cost?
Where do people get the money? Where does the hair come from? (India, mostly,
where people regularly shave their heads as part of a religious ceremony.
Unsurprisingly, these people offer their hair up to God, whose
representatives immediately turn around and sell it to Europe and the States
at a huge profit.) It discusses many issues surrounding the focus on straight
hair as well as the high-maintenance consequences of it. A lot of people
spend money they don't have on their hair, into which they bind a lot of
their self-worth. Lots of interviews with prominent black actors and music
stars, like Eve, Ice-T, Al Sharpton and others. Recommended.
The Proposal (2009) -- "6/10"
Sandra Bullock plays against character, starting the film as a flat-out
arrogant take-no-prisoners boss from hell, seemingly modeled after Meryl
Streep in The Devil Wears Prada who was, in turn, modeled after the real-life
Anna Wintour. This character, balanced against the expectation of niceness
that she's built up over dozens of other roles was jarring, but in an
effective and good way. Ryan Reynolds play her assistant, willing to toady
for years in order to get a shot at an editing position of his own. She's
Canadian, her visa's expired and she strong-arms him into marrying her by
threatening to torpedo his career. The INS sniffs something foul on the wind
and they head off to his ancestral home, where it turns out that his family
is wealthy well beyond comfort and well into prodigal-son/eldest-scion
territory. How convenient that their predicament should be at least buoyed by
not having to worry about money whatsoever. Hijinks ensue, boats are driven,
Massachusetts stands in for Alaska (where the film purportedly takes place)
and the film is tied up into the expected knot at the end with the tying of
the knot. Wheee! Despite my derision, it's an entertaining movie for what it
is, and is helped along by Reynolds, Bullock and Mary Steenbergen.
Fanboys (2009) -- "5/10"
Jay Baruchel and Kristen Bell are the two that most people will know from
this movie about a group of lifelong friends who are also the greatest Star
Wars fans ever. I also recognized Dan Fogler, who I'd seen in Balls of Fury
(Fanboys was about on the same level ... the level of a movies about about a
ping-pong tournament to the death with Christopher Walken as an evil, campily
overdressed mandarin). Anyway, this one's about a cross-country drive to the
Skywalker Ranch to sneak a peek at The Phantom Menace before its official
release. There are a bunch of sub-plots and they're not unexpected. There are
funny moments, but they're few and far between. Seth Rogen plays a few bit
roles and he's not bad.
Joe Rogan Live at the Tabernacle (2012) -- "5/10"
A stand-up comedy show by the notorious host of The Fear Factor and a
celebrated Internet podcast. There were some good bits but overall he seemed
to be trying too hard and it was a bit too obvious that he was tired or high
or otherwise impaired. He tripped over some words when his words came too
quickly and it's hard to imagine him as that nervous. He's a father now so he
moved into Robin Williams territory but was more extreme about it, not always
to good effect. He's at his best when he's more philosophical -- as he often
was in his 2006 special, which was much better (IMHO) -- but those moments
were rare in this show. I laughed less than I expected to: my recommendation
is to find his older stuff.
James and the Giant Peach (1996) -- "5/10"
An orphaned boy living with two deliciously horrible aunts -- Spiker and
Sponge -- retreats into his imagination to visit New York City with bugs in
an apple. But first he had to sing. Lisping all the way. The film was
produced by Tim Burton and the long animated sequences -- around which the
live-action parts were bookended -- were very much in his style, even if the
film was directed by Henry Selick. The movie is based on a Roald Dahl story
and the darkness of his work shines through in several places, in particular
in the evil and surreal mechanical shark that tracks them across the ocean.
All in all, though, I can't recommend it for adults.
Safe House (2012) -- "6/10"
Ryan Reynolds and Denzel Washington star as CIA agents. Reynolds is the young
guy just starting to work his way up the corporate ladder whereas Washington
plays an agent who went rogue a decade ago and who finally turned himself in.
Brendan Gleeson plays another CIA agent, masking his Irish accent almost
completely. The fight scenes are decent, much more professional and terse
than other films, where participants seem to have superhuman powers. The
story is decent though not surprising in any way, with Denzel Washington's
natural coolness adding a lot to patch the holes. The biggest deficit in the
film was that it was shot almost exclusively with a shaky-cam. What a
tragedy, really. It was unbelievably annoying and ruined what would otherwise
have been a well-paced film. Cinema historians of the future will be
mystified as to why, when people finally got their hands on HD-quality
distribution channels, they started deliberately ruining movies by shooting
it like the director was withdrawing from heroin.
Brave (2012) -- "6/10"
Merida is a princess -- what else? -- who just wants to live her own life and
grow up to be what she wants to be and to not be told what to do by meddling
parents who don't understand. She's a child of her generation, explicitly
accepting no responsibility and whining constantly about the unfairness of
having to grow up a princess. Because that's really the hardest life
imaginable, isn't it? Anyway, class issues aside -- why are so many, many
mainstream movies about the problems of the either ridiculously rich or at
least more-than-securely well-off? -- the story is at least somewhat new and
interesting enough, but it's a Pixar movie, so it's the graphics that
absolutely shine. Merida's hair is exquisitely rendered and mesmerizing. The
pity is that, in order to emphasize it, a lot of the film is quite dark, even
dreary at times. The nature scenes are lovely as well and offer a welcome
respite from the suburbia of the Toy Story movies; for graphics geeks, the
scenes at and in the river are spellbinding. There are fewer funny flourishes
than in other films and the stink of Disney is upon this one, as it's more
middle-of-the-road and less subversively funny or interesting for adults than
other Pixar movies. It's nice to look at, but don't expect the humor of The
Incredibles or the implicit social commentary of Wall-E.
Tropic Thunder (2008) -- "7/10"
A movie about making a movie with a great comic cast -- Ben Stiller as an
action-movie star who made one attempt at a dramatic role as Simple Jack, a
retarded farmhand, Jack Black as a comedian with a rocketing career, a huge
drug problem and a lot of fart-based movies behind him, Robert Downey Jr. as
an Australian method actor who dyes his skin black for his role and Jay
Baruchel as an actor happy to even be in their company. They're in Vietnam to
film a huge action movie when shit gets real. The film goes downhill when the
director (Steve Coogan) gets the idea to stick his prima donnas in the jungle
in order to shock them into pulling together. They end up having to make
their way through real jungle and encounter armies of drug dealers. Tom
Cruise plays an absolutely insane and brutal film producer like you've never
seen him before (it's kind of a precursor for his work as Stacey Jax in Rock
of Ages). Danny McBride and Nick Nolte as explosives experts, Matthew
McConaughey was an agent, Steve Coogan as the director and Bill Hader as
Cruise's assistant round out the hilarious cast. Saw it in German.
Smokey and the Bandit (1977) -- "6/10"
Burt Reynolds in the classic movie about driving a Trans-Am really, really
quickly. They regularly cruise along at 110MPH. Even more impressive is Jerry
Reed as Cletus, who does almost everything the Bandit does, but in a semi
tractor trailer. Their mission is to drive 1800 miles in 28 hours to deliver
400 cases of Coors beer from Texarkana, Texas to Georgia. Jackie Gleason is
Sheriff Buford T. Justice, a racist, arrogant and utterly incompetent Texas
Sheriff who makes it his goal in life to catch the Bandit. Needless to say,
he does not. Sally Field shows up midway through as a runaway hitchhiking
showgirl bride.
Bill Cunningham New York (2010) -- "8/10"
A documentary about Bill Cunningham, a photographer for the NY Times. He's
now over 80 but has been working there for decades, rides his bike to work
ever day, still shoots film and shoots only on the street, following his nose
to determine what common people think the next style will be. He's
ridiculously well-known and -loved in his hometown New York, but also in
Paris. He lives in an apartment with dozens of filing cabinets full of
photos, a small bed -- and no closet, bathroom or kitchen. A fascinating
character and interesting documentary.
Hamlet 2 (2008) -- "7/10"
Steve Coogan stars as an unsuccessful actor who heads up the theater
department of a Tucson high school. His program is small and largely ignored
by the school -- until it becomes seen as a dumping ground for otherwise
difficult students which the school can no longer afford to keep in other
programs. Soon thereafter, the theater program is also cut and will close
down at the end of the year. Coogan consults with his nemesis -- a student
theater reviewer -- and decides to go for broke by staging an over-the-top
insane and all-around offensive one-night-only event: his own script for a
sequel to Hamlet. The staging does not disappoint. An uneven film but mildly
rewarding if you hang on to the end.
Men In Black 3 (2012) -- "8/10"
Starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones as agents J and K and introducing
Josh Brolin as the younger agent K in a rather clever, science-fiction,
time-travel story with a good deal less over-the-top weaponry and more 1960s
period sets. Michael Stuhlbarg played very well as an Arkadian who can see
the multiplicity of possibilities of the multiverse simultaneously and
seemingly at will. Jemaine Clement (of the Flying Concords) plays Boris the
Animal, a savage member of a savage alien race with a seriously interesting
skin condition and shape-shifting capability. Josh Brolin positively nails
Jones's vocal rhythm, tone and cadence as well as granite facial
expression(s). The story ends on a very satisfactory note. Arguably the best
of all three movies -- no small feat for a sequel.
The Trip (2010) -- "7/10"
A film about a road trip featuring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. It was at
times funny, at times poignant and at times boring. Coogan takes a bit of
getting used to -- he's not very traditionally sympathetic, sort of an
English Larry David is perhaps the best way I can think of to describe him.
He and Brydon take turns taking shots at each other -- like guys do -- and
Brydon can't stop doing the voices for which he's so famous on the BBC.
Coogan tries to correct him at his own game and entire scenes play out with
them trading off Michael Caine and Woody Allen impressions. If the movie's
about anything, it's the loneliness of modern life. It's about how even the
most famous of people grasp for meaning and find no solace in even modest
success.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=27642013-01-15T00:54:30+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
This is a documentary about manufacturing -- mostly in China -- about
the world that humanity creates for itself and about the lives
that
people live in this world. The film starts with a long, slow pan
along a factory floor that seems to last for kilometers.
...
]]>
This is a documentary about manufacturing -- mostly in China -- about the
world that humanity creates for itself and about the lives that people
live
in this world. The film starts with a long, slow pan along a factory floor
that seems to last for kilometers. It is equal parts horrifying to think
of
how people can live and work in places like this and awe-inspiring to
think
what gigantic structures man has created. The documentary also
acknowledges
its own effect: it shows how the workers are being lined up outside of the
factory, but for maximal effect. If you'd only seen the end, where the
workers are lined up into infinity, you'd have a different impression than
after you'd just seen them being lined up like that by the director.
Another scene shows a woman using her wonderfully nimble human hands --
and
all of her human potential -- to twist a bit of wire around a plastic
part.
One after another after another. That she earns nothing is the insult
added
to the injury of wasting her life doing this work, day after day after
day.
Not only is her life boiling away to make cheap crap, but she's not even
paid
well for that sacrifice. There are several well-shot scenes like this,
just
showing nimble hands assembling products incredibly quickly and
accurately,
like machines. One lady who made a breaker said she can assemble 400 per
day;
though there is doubtless a small feeling of success after finishing one,
there are hundreds to follow.
They are followed by workers in a tremendous trash heap, where all of the
stuff being so painstakingly and life-wastingly made in the factory ends
up
just a few short years later. Workers pick through it for materials. The
materials come to China, make products that we in the West use for a few
years, then throw away or recycle, after which the materials are shipped
back
to China for re-manufacturing. So these amazing bits of hand-assembled
technology, this work and energy and life invested by people, is thrown
away.
Is this utterly stifling? Or is it good to have a steady job that is
challenging enough but not too challenging? The factories don't look very
rewarding in the medium- or long-term, but that's as an outside observer
who
longs for and can do creative work. Perhaps they are, after their own
fashion, happy.
The next scene is at the shore, at a wharf, where ships are both being
built
and dismantled. The people are insignificantly small, chipping away at
these
behemoths with welding torches that are at once gigantic (to them) and
puny
(to the ship). A day's work may involve stripping a single piece of the
hull
from one of the massive ships in what amounts to a mosquito bite. So much
effort and energy and material went into building these ships and now more
effort rips them apart to provide raw materials for the next fleet. The
ebb
and flow of entropy.
The next stop is the Three Gorges Dam, which is utterly massive as well.
Science-fiction come to life. Literally square miles of manufactured
landscape, all organized and being built, with materials flowing in, waste
flowing out and buildings going up and other buildings going down. The
film
visits the valley floor where former residents are working to flatten out
their old homes to make way for ships when the valley is flooded.
The last stop is in Shanghai, interviewing a real-estate agent and touring
her home. Interleaved with this interview is one with an older resident of
old Shanghai, which is being rapidly recycled to make high-rises and more
modern homes to accommodate the millions of new residents. It's really a
classic situation -- out with the old, in with the new -- but at a nearly
unimaginably massive scale.
Edward Burtynsky's photographs are beautiful. At the end, he explicitly
avoids passing judgment on whether this change is good or bad, just that
humanity is changing its landscape significantly. This fact cannot be
ignored.
Objectified (2009) -- "9/10"
This is a short documentary about design, especially the design of modern
furniture and gadgets. The ideas, however, apply as well to everything
else
that we see: it's all been designed in one way or another, down to the
tiniest detail. The design is not just the appearance, but the ability to
be
recycled, the number of materials and amount of each, how easily it can be
repaired, weight, availability of materials, cost, marketing appeal, etc.
A
tremendous amount of effort goes into the design of even everyday things,
like the handles of garden shears, the angle at which glass is cut, even a
toothpick in one memorable segment. Every nodule, every crease, it's all
designed. The documentary covers design of computers (with Apple's Jon
Ivy),
car design, furniture design and design designers -- analyzers of trends
who
try to predict what people will want, whether it be something new or
something new that looks like something old, etc. Karim Rashid was an
interesting interview:
"We have advanced technologically so far and yet somehow, it's almost some
sort of paranoia where we're afraid to really say 'we live in the third
technological revolution.' I have an iPod in my pocket, I have a mobile
phone, I have a laptop, but then somehow, I end up going home and sitting
on
wood-spindle, Wittengale-like chairs. So, in a way, you could argue that
we're building all these kind-of really kitsch stage-sets that have
absolutely nothing to do with the age in which we live in. [...] It'd be
like, imagine right now, I'm sitting at my laptop, and I say 'oh, I've got
to
go out', what am I going to do? Go out and get my horse and carriage? No,
of
course not."
Of course, that attitude addresses only the richer, more advanced part of
the
planet. A lot of non techno-organic design can be useful to 90% of the
planet.
About an hour into the film, we get this money quote that gets right to
the
heart of non-dilettantish design:
"Arguably, the biggest single challenge facing every area of design right now
is sustainability. It's no longer possible for designers to ignore the
implications of continuing to produce more and more new stuff that
sometimes
we need and sometimes we don't need. Designers spend most of their time
designing products and services for the 10% of the world's population that
already own too much when 90% don't even have basic products and services
to
lead a subsistent life. Though a lot of designers believe emotionally and
intellectually in sustainability, they and the manufacturers they work for
are finding it very, very difficult to come to terms with. Because
sustainability isn't just a sort of pretty, glamorous process of using
recycled materials to design something that may or may not come in the
color
green. It's about redesigning every single aspect, from sourcing materials
to
designing to production to shipping and then eventually designing a way
that
those products can be disposed of responsibly. That's a mammoth task, so
it's
no wonder that designers and manufacturers are finding it so difficult."
And the following part by Tim Brown echoes part of Žižek's soliloquy
from
The Examined Life (see "Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2012.9"
).
"If one's really honest with oneself, most of what we design ends up in a
landfill somewhere. And I'm pretty sure most of the products that I have
designed in my career, most instances of that, of the millions of things
that
have been produced are probably in landfills today. That isn't something
that
I was conscious of when I started working in design. It didn't even really
sort-of occur to me because it doesn't really occur to us as a society, I
think. Now, to be a designer, you have to take that into consideration
because we have to think about these complex systems in which our products
exist."
"If the shelf life of a high-tech object is less than eleven months, it
should be all 100% disposable. You know, I think my laptop, in a way,
should
be made of cardboard or my mobile phone could be a piece of cardboard or
it
could be just made out of something like, I don't know, sugar cane or some
bio-plastic, etc. Why on Earth does anything have to be built to be
permanent?"
"If I think of my admiration for Eames, it was an admiration for his ability
to identify the qualities of new materials, which could be used to create
new
objects, but nobody worried about whether fiberglass was going to cause
disease or going to be difficult to dispose of. I mean, life was a little
simpler for him, in that regard. He could just think about using those
materials for their best design attributes. But now, we have to face this
idea that what we do is not just the way we create some individual design,
it's what happens afterwards, when we've finished our design, [after]
people
have used it."
On the subject of designing for use or for ego:
"[...] Am I playing a game to show that I can differentiate [myself from
other designers]? Or am I actually really doing something that is
contributive? Because the big issue with design is: are the things we are
doing really making an effect and making change? 78% of the world is
completely impractical; 78% of the world is uncomfortable. You feel it.
You
know, you feel that hotel rooms are poorly designed, you sit in chairs
that
are very uncomfortable and it's crazy. You imagine, if you design a
million
chairs to date, or how many chairs have been done in the world, why on
Earth
would we have an uncomfortable chair? There's like no excuse, whatsoever."
It's a bit uneven in quality and depth, but it's good enough and
though-provoking enough to recommend it. Pair it with Manufactured
Landscapes
to see the result of this endless cascade of design as well as the Žižek
segment in The Examined Life on garbage and leftovers produced by our
society. It's primarily in English, with sections in Dutch, German and
French.
Total Recall -- Extended Director's Cut (2012) -- "8/10"
Excellent effects, interesting back-story, cool future technology, etc. Kate
Beckinsale is an unstoppable war machine who seems to take no damage.
She's
implacably and stupidly one-dimensional with an indestructibility I
haven't
seen since Maggie Q in Die Hard 4 (which was also directed by Len Wiseman,
so
he seems to like this kind of "strong" woman). It's unknown whether she's
a
robot. There are a lot of those around as well: implacable killing
machines
that are always conveniently not around when Colin Farrell or Jessica Biel
needs to clear a room quickly. And the rooms tend to get cleared without a
lot of bullet holes and bloodshed. For all the gun and hand-to-hand
combat,
there isn't a lot of damage. I mean, at one point, Kate Beckinsale cracks
Jessica Biel in the mouth with a gun hard enough to knock her over; when
she
gets up, though, not a scratch on her. I guess we have the MPAA to thank
for
that.
Pretty much everything is up in the air because you can't tell what's real
and what's not. It's an interesting riposte to accusations of incoherency
and
plot holes: it's not really happening, so you can't complain that it's
nonsensical. People show up too quickly, things happen too coincidentally,
but it's all either part of corrupted memories -- the unreliable past is
"a
construct of the mind. It blinds us. It fools us into believing it." -- or
a
guided tour of a spy story provided by the Rekall corporation. The
cityscapes
are wonderful, lush and relatively coherent, somewhat reminiscent of Blade
Runner but without the dirt and dreck -- almost too perfect and clean.
Still,
lovely effects, both interior and exterior. And the central construction,
"The Fall" is a gigantic gravity elevator that transports a workforce from
the Colony (Australia) to England every day. Unfortunately, they use Bryan
Cranston poorly, with his soliloquy supposedly filling in all the blanks,
deviating from the movie maxim of "show, don't tell".
What is kind of interesting is the film's depiction of the people in the
Colony, who are about to be invaded and settled by an invading army from
Great Britain. It gives you a bit of the feeling of helpless horror that a
people has when they are invaded without reason -- or with false reason
over
which they have no control. Think weapons of mass destruction in the case
of
Iraq or any number of fictitious reasons for Gaza. To be clear, the plot
is
about Great Britain invading Australia -- straight through the planetary
core
-- to eradicate them for more Lebensraum, their own large-scale Nakba. But
does it even happen? It's not clear as people are not who they seem thanks
to
digital masquerading and Farrell's memories are far from reliable (the
classic Unreliable Narrator). And there's that nagging missing tattoo, no?
Or
is the memory of it false? All in all, I found it quite good both as an
action movie and a science-fiction movie. Recommended, but make sure you
get
the Director's Cut -- I've read that the theatrical version was utter
garbage.
Bernie (2011) -- "5/10"
Jack Black stars as Bernie, an assistant funeral home director in Carthage,
Texas. It's based on the true story of Bernie, for whom the accusation of
murder doesn't match his giving, friendly personality. Mrs. Nugent has some
absolutely beautiful stained-glass lamps; Bernie also has a nice
stained-glass Jesus hanging in his office. I'm not sure if that's
significant. Matthew McConaughey is the ADA who eventually prosecutes Bernie,
but in a different county because no one in town would prosecute him. Richard
Linklater directs. An excellent performance by Black, showing his chops
outside of the hyperbolic comedy world, but otherwise hard to recommend.
Wrath of the Titans (2012) -- "5/10"
Sam Worthington returns as Perseus, leading the titans on a quest to same the
Gods from themselves as Hades teams with Ares to wake the father of all the
Gods, Cronos, who is wonderfully rendered as just mountain-sized and embedded
in rock before his resurrection. The effects are decent, but a lot of the
battle scenes -- with the demon army -- was reminiscent of the incoherent and
nearly unwatchable Transformer movies. It passed the time, but I can't really
recommend it.
Flow: For Love of Water (2008) -- "8/10"
A documentary about fresh water, with emphasis on pollution, privatization
and industrial/agricultural use and misuse as well as the effects of dams
on
local communities and water quality. Documentary is primarily in English,
with longer sections in French and Spanish.
First, there are the facts of who's taken the lion's share of water:
"70% of water worldwide is used by agriculture. 20% is used by industry. 10%
by us. So it's because of agricultural and industrial users, that we need
more and more water to grow things that should not grow in these places.
And
sure enough, to grow all of this, you need a lot of pesticides and
chemicals.
And sure enough, all those chemicals with water, in the earth...it's not a
good marriage. (Spoken in French, "10% by us" in the subtitles should
actually have been "10% domestic usage".)"
And then there are the social and political realities about the direction
in
which water usage is going. With increasing scarcity, sources are
appropriated from the poor and sold back to them.
"'Cost recovery' is our new bible that we have in South Africa. That
everybody must pay for what service you get. And for rich people, that's
obviously not a problem. But, when it comes to the really poor, you
wouldn't
believe it, but five rand, which is less than a dollar, is a lot of money
for
a rural community. So you find that the poorest of the poor, they're only
taking one bucket, but if you work out how much they've paid for that
bucket,
it's actually more than a richer person would have paid in an urban
community
for that water. And it's unjust."
"By telling a woman who's got nothing, in order to get your water, you must
put in a card that takes your meager amount of money. [angry] What is she
going to do but go to the river and take that dirty water, and die of
cholera
and then you say that people don't know how to practice hygiene."
"What we did was, we said let's go back in time and look at who owned the
water 1000 years ago in Rome [sic] and how has the civil law in Europe and
other cultures handled this question of water ownership and use. And what
we
found was that water has always had a public aspect to it. Water has
always
been considered not owned by anybody. Today we think, well, isn't that
profound. It's not profound at all. It's just common sense. You look at
the
sun; do you own the sun? Water is this transient gift on Earth for life,
moving and flowing and inherent in its transient nature is the idea of
commons. Things that are transient in nature, like this pen, you can pick
up
and own. Things that are transient, you don't own."
"In 1854, the American Indian chief of Seattle replies to an offer from the
white government of the United States to "buy" [...] a large area of
Indian
land. How can you buy or sell the sky? The warmth of the land? The idea is
strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle
of
the water, how can you buy them? You don't own them. Every part of this
Earth
is sacred to my people, every shining pine needle, every sandy shore,
every
mist in the dark woods, every humming insect is holy in the memory and
experience of my people. This beautiful Earth is the mother of the red
man.
We are part of the Earth and it is part of us. The rivers are our
brothers.
We give the rivers the kindness we would give to any brother. But the
white
man does not understand our ways. He is a stranger who takes from the land
whatever he needs. The Earth is not his brother but his enemy. And when he
has conquered it, he moves on. He kidnaps the Earth from his children and
he
does not care. I do not know. Our ways are different from your ways."
The End of the Line (2009) -- "8/10"
A documentary about the collapse of global fisheries due to high-tech
industrialized fishing. The blue-fin tuna is taken as an example: 10k tons
per year would allow the stocks to rebound modestly; 15k tons maintains
the
current population; 30k tons is the EU limit, clearly a political value.
Even
this political value doesn't matter because the fishing industry ignores
it
and takes out twice that, 60k tons, which is 1/3 of the entire estimated
remaining stock. In one year.
"Fishing is one of the most wasteful practices on Earth. Every year, more
than 7 million tons -- a tenth of the world's catch -- goes back over the
side, dead. This includes hundreds of thousands of turtles, seabirds,
sharks,
whales and dolphin."
"I think that man is not going to change and the sea is going to be dead.
Because man is crazy, crazy. Our world is crazy world."
On the fact that endangered species of fish are sold in upscale
restaurants:
"If you've got orangutans and cheetahs and lions and tigers and things on
that menu, I mean, people would, you know, they'd be walking away. There
would be huge scandals, there'd be tabloid stories about it. People would
be
execrated, people would be, there'd be turds on people's doorsteps,
envelopes
shoved through them. People would burn each other's houses down, scratch
their cars. And yet, we're doing it to things in the sea and it's the same
thing."
And, finally, a voice of reason in an interview with an Alaskan fisherman.
In
Alaska, fishing is much more strictly regulated -- with very positive
effects
so far.
"If you look at it from just a personal perspective, sometimes there's a
personal sacrifice. But if you look at it from the big picture, you gotta
take a cut in the harvest but you take that knowing that it gives you an
opportunity to maybe have a better season two, three, four, five years
from
now. We just don't want to catch that fish this year, next year, we can't
to
catch it ten, fifteen, twenty years from now."
Drunken Master (1978) -- "6/10"
Jackie Chan's classic about a wise-ass youth who, after a long series of
fights and minor scuffles, gets thrown out of his father's home and is
assigned to learn real kung fu from a drunken master. The choreography is a
bit dated, but still quite good and the movie's kind of funny, but also a bit
over-the-top -- especially in the synchronized English version I saw. Some of
the training exercises Chan does in the nearly obligatory transformation from
naif to warrior are really good. He does push-ups from a bench, flipping from
palms-down to palms-up. He does sit-ups from a chin-up bar -- as many as it
takes to scoop water from two buckets below to fill a bucket behind his legs
and then as many as it takes to empty it again. The plot is the same as that
of Karate Kid. As with Fist of Fury, it takes over an hour before we see any
of Chan's drunken-boxing style. It's really quite nice and there's no
cable-work that I could see. He's in fantastic shape, very athletic and
acrobatic and his forms are elegant -- very artistic. The final fight is a
bit long-winded, though. Way better than Fist of Fury, but still hard to
recommend.
Killer Elite (2011) -- "5/10"
Jason Statham, Clive Owen and Robert DeNiro star as super agents/spies. The
fight sequence between Cilve Owen reminded me of the one from the Bourne
Identity: two elite killers who can't punch hard enough to hurt the other guy
or even draw blood. Neither of them stays dazed for more than a second; you
can hit Owen in the head as hard as you want, but nothing hurts him. Even a
pair of surgical scissors stuck in his ear not only fails to slow him down an
iota, it doesn't even draw blood. Getting hit in the balls slows him down,
finally. Until the end, I was unaware that this was based on a true story,
about the British SAS involvement in the Oman War.
The Girl Who Played with Fire (2009) -- "6/10"
I didn't read this one but I can only presume that it more-or-less stuck to
the plot of the book. The actors are the same, which is good, and it's pretty
entertaining though not as good as the first one. Lisbet seeks out her
father, whom she'd already tried to kill once. At the same time, she is
accused of the murder of three others who were recently killed by the cabal
of which her father is a part. A gory end-scene with a bit of a cliffhanger
ending that would be resolved in the next film. Saw it in Swedish with
English subtitles.
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2009) -- "7/10"
The final part of the trilogy, in which Lisbet slowly recovers from the
injuries she sustained at the end of the last film while the conspiracy that
she and Mikhail were uncovering continues to unravel and expose a larger and
larger cancer at the heart of the Swedish government and justice system. Saw
it in synchronized English, which was done quite well for once.
Being There (1978) -- "7/10"
A strange comedy starring Peter Sellers as a shut-in gardener whose employer
of 50 years dies, leaving him to take his chances in the real world armed
only with a simpleton's mind informed entirely by television blurbs. This
is
mistaken for wisdom. For example, the following sequence is
representative:
Ron Steigler: Mr. Gardner, uh, my editors and I have been wondering if you
would consider writing a book for us, something about your um, political
philosophy, what do you say?
Chance the Gardener: I can't write.
Ron Steigler: Heh, heh, of course not, who can nowadays? Listen, I have
trouble writing a postcard to my children. Look uhh, we can give you a six
figure advance, I'll provide you with the very best ghost-writer,
proof-readers...
Chance the Gardener: I can't read.
Ron Steigler: Of course you can't! No one has the time! We, we glance at
things, we watch television...
Chance the Gardener: I like to watch TV.
Ron Steigler: Oh, oh, oh sure you do. No one reads!
He is then propositioned by a few people, among them Eve, the wife of his
benefactor, Ben:
"Eve: [After kissing for a bit] Chauncey, what is it? What's wrong? What's
the matter, Chauncey. [crying] I don't know what you like! [sniff]
Chance: I like to watch, Eve.
Eve: What do you mean, you like to watch?
Chance: I like to watch.
Eve: [...] Oh. You mean...you'd like to watch me...do it?
Chance: It's very good, Eve."
She assumes that he's being risqué when he's actually just talking about
television. She continues with a strip-tease and follows up with
self-pleasuring that Sellers almost completely ignores. It was to be
Sellers's last performance on film.
Up the Yangtze (2007) -- "7/10"
A documentary about the Yangtze river and the impending completion of the
Three Gorges Dam. The story focuses on a poor farming family that has
already
moved out of the Ghost City -- which will be flooded soon -- to a shack on
the opposite shore. The shack should survive but the farmland they've
cultivated will be flooded. Their oldest daughter has completed her basic
education and would like to continue but the family can't afford it. So
they
send her off into the world to earn money, probably working on a boat
showing
tourists the wonders of the Yangtze. It's not easy for any of them; the
mother says to her daughter:
"We don't even have anything to eat; how can we afford to rent a house? I
know you don't want your parents to suffer. Your hard work will pay off. I
know it's because your father and I don't have any skills that we have to
exploit you. If we had a choice, how could we do this to you? You know
your
father isn't educated. He can't read. Whatever clothing you need, buy a
little bit. The rest of the money, send back to your parents. We'll put it
aside. In your daily life, eat well. Don't save money on that, okay? When
you
spend money on food, don't worry about us too much."
Both of the parents are illiterate -- the girl speaks both Mandarin and
English. The father is very thin; the mother is crying.
The girl -- she's really small and young-looking -- leaves home and the
city,
with its glowing advertising and neon and teeming millions strikes such a
stark contrast to the farm whence she came.
One store owner in a village that will be flooded started his interview
with
cool diffidence and soon broke down almost completely.
"There will always be people who need to make sacrifices. It's impossible to
stop the building of the Three Gorges Dam because of my own needs.
Sacrificing the little family for the big family. [conversation outside
turns
to beatings] It's hard being a human but being a common person in China is
even more difficult. [starts to break down] China is too hard for common
people. Some officials are like bandits: Beating, smashing, robbing...
Even
wanting a roof over our heads is difficult. When we had to move, we were
dragged and beaten. No money to bribe the officials, so they gave us a
hard
time. For common people living day-by-day...it's really not easy."
As for the cruise ship? I'd rather never see China or the Yangtze than to
have to see it like that or accompanied by those tourists. Watching the
worlds collide is at times very unsettling, as when the nigh-sycophantic
hosts speak to the tourists or the girl's parents visit her on the boat.
And
some of the conversations! Painful! One lady says to a cruise worker, at
the
end of the journey, "I congratulate you; you were less obtrusive than I
thought you were going to be."
At the end: moving day. The father struggles up a mountain with a gigantic
piece of furniture on his back, carrying it above the 175m line. Emaciated
or
not, that dude is strong. The family helps slog their worldly possessions
up
a long and winding road to the same spot.
Pandorum (2009) -- "8/10"
Two soldiers awake on a spaceship after a long time in hypersleep,
disoriented and unsure of their names, missions and capacities. They slowly
investigate the ship, finding bodies and seeing fleeting movement. It turns
into a space-zombie movie for a bit, or maybe like The Time Machine, with the
eloi and the morlocks. The explorer meets people, each seemingly from a
different tribe speaking a different language, all from the wrong work shifts
and times. How long have they been adrift? How can you tell? How can you
know? Are the zombies really zombies? Or are they former crew members? How
could they mutate so quickly? Or ... how freaking long have they been adrift?
How many times have they woken, and forgotten? What happened to Earth? It's
gone, the ship is all that is left of humanity. Hallucinations abound,
memories fade and return, the creatures are real, but what else? Are they
still underway? Did they ever take off or have they already arrived? What is
their purpose now that all of humanity is gone or transformed? It's a good
story even if the execution is a bit plodding at times. A decent sci-fi
flick. Recommended.
The End of Poverty? (2008) -- "8/10"
A documentary about the roots of poverty throughout the world. Those roots
almost inevitably lead to European colonialism. Europeans would arrive in
foreign lands, declare that they can't find a central authority and
expropriate said lands by dint of massively superior force of arms. Next,
since all of the land belongs to them -- check the deed! [1] -- the people
living on it should pay rent and/or taxes. With taxes leveed and unpaid,
the
debt is passed down from generation to generation. This is slavery,
justified
by capitalist hand-waving. With enough remove from the original theft, the
thieves will claim that the poor cannot just be freed from their debt,
else
they'll never learn how to be true moral beings in modern society. The
irony
is thick.
They interview cane-cutters in South America. One says that those poor
without a house or a family to feed, who are homeless and beg for a
living,
that those are considered the "rich" poor because at least they have no
debt
to land-owners. Another says "this is no way to live" and says it's no
wonder
so many turn to crime. He's been a cane-cutter for 17 years and seems to
only
be waiting to die.
South American economists from Brazil, Bolivia and Venezuela discuss how
colonial liberation and independence was in name only. The capitalist
system
still ensures that their erstwhile masters receive the majority of the
benefit from their natural resources. The economic colonialism continues
unabated, though sometimes with new masters (e.g. the U.S. stepping in for
England). Europe and the U.S. use the force of trade agreements -- signed
by
puppet or corrupt governments -- to maintain control over these peoples
and
force them to purchase their exports. In this way, the benefits of South
American labor go not to the laborers themselves, but up the chain, to
their
masters, who are in the same relationship with their masters, outside of
the
country. A chain of exploitation that is a glory to behold because that
is,
essentially, what the standard form of capitalism is. As one gentleman put
it: "capitalism does not work without colonialism". The same thing is
happening today in the States, as in "Don’t Slave Your Life Away: Why
America Should Embrace a 4-Day Work Week" by Bill Ivey
,
which writes that "underwater mortgages have made it impossible for
millions
of workers to sell houses to relocate in search of new jobs."
Joseph Stiglitz, Chalmers Johnson and John Perkins are featured in
interviews.
He's not featured in the film, but the interview "An Interview with Cornel
West on Occupy, Obama and Marx" by Shozab Raza and Parmbir Gill
included the following, which sums it up nicely.
"I think that a Marxist analysis is indispensable for any understanding, not
just in the modern world but for our historical situation. I think in the
end
it’s inadequate but it is indispensable because how do you talk about
oligarchy, plutocracy, monopolies, oligopolies, asymmetrical relations of
power at the workplace between bosses and workers, the imperial tentacles,
profit maximizing and so forth. That’s not Adam Smith. That’s not John
Maynard Keynes. That’s Karl Marx."
This is also something from an article "We Call This Progress" by
Arundhati
Roy that I
just
read that ties in well.
"Today, India has more people than all the poorest countries of Africa put
together. It has 80 percent of its population living on less than twenty
rupees a day, which is less than fifty cents a day. That is the atmosphere
in
which the resistance movements are operating."
"Poverty and terrorism have been conflated. In the Northeastern states we
have laws like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which allows soldiers
to
kill on suspicion. In all of India we have the Unlawful Activities
Prevention
Act, which basically makes even thinking an anti government thought a
criminal offense, for which you can be jailed for up to than seven years."
"In so many ways, we have regressed. Even the most radical politics are
practiced by people that are privileged enough to have land. There are
millions and millions of people who don’t have land, who now just live
as
pools of underpaid wage labor on the edges of these huge megalopolises
that
make up India now. The politics of land in one way is radical, but in
another
way it has left out the poorest people, because they are out of the
equation.
We don’t talk about justice anymore. None of us do; we just talk about
human rights or survival. We don’t talk about redistribution. In
America,
four hundred people own more wealth than half of the American population.
We
should not be saying tax the rich, but instead we should be saying take
their
money and redistribute it, take their property and redistribute it."
"For local people, the bauxite in the mountain is the source of their life
and their future, their religion and everything. For the aluminum company,
the mountain is just a cheap storage facility. They’ve already sold it,
so
the bauxite has to come out, either peacefully or violently."
Now that's a more nuanced question: how much of the land surrounding a
population can that population declare as vital to their survival and thus
sacrosanct? Can they expect an entire mountain to remain untouched simply
because they live within miles of its base and benefit from the runoff?
Again from Roy's article:
"While many of us believe in revolution, and believe that the system must be
brought down, right now, the least we can ask for to begin with is a cap
on
all of this. I’m a cappist and a liddite. We do need to say a few
things:
one is that no individual can have an unlimited amount of wealth. No
corporation can have an unlimited amount of wealth. This sort of
cross-ownership of businesses really has to stop."
Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States (S01E07) (2012) -- "10/10"
This episode picks up with Johnson's stepping in for Kennedy and his
subsequent reelection. U.S. support for worldwide slaughter -- in
Indonesia
as well as Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia -- is rampant. The Indonesians
killed
suspected communists, lists of which were conveniently provided by the
U.S.
and allies. In Vietnam, not only were 2-4 million people outright killed,
anywhere from 5-7 million were transferred to internment camps. Johnson's
lowbrow and racist approach to life -- his statements are almost comically
crude -- reflects that of Truman before him and that of Bush Jr. to come
later.
The CIA domestic spying program to entrap war-protesters ran for seven
years.
It would be mimicked later by the NSA programs still in place now -- and
made
fully legal by the Patriot Act. Nixon, like Johnson before him, campaigned
as
the president of peace, then escalated the war immensely. In this, he
presaged his predecessors, including Bush -- "I don't want to be the
world's
policeman" and Obama, who orates about peace but switches tactics rather
than
ending war. When Sy Hersh broke the My Lai story, a poll showed that "65%
of
Americans were not bothered by the news."
"The U.S. promised to pay $3 billion in reparations, but later reneged."
War spread to Laos. Cambodia was ruined, bombed for five years with
extraordinary amounts of ordnance. The U.S. military was in a shambles,
with
mass defections and widespread drug use. Millions and millions of Asians
dead
by U.S. guns, no progress in the war, the Khmer Rouge unleashed on
Cambodia
as a direct result of U.S. bombings. Was it time to reassess? Nope.
America
reelected Nixon in a landslide over anti-war candidate George McGovern.
People ask when America will wake up, they ask how much is too much. That
point cannot be reached. We are a nation of assholes. We are a virus.
Reflecting the sentiments of The End of Poverty, Salvador Allende spoke to
the UN in December of 1972:
"We find ourselves opposed by forces that operate in the shadows without a
flag, with powerful weapons provided by positions of great influence. We
are
potentially rich countries, yet we live in poverty. We go here and there,
begging for credits and aid, yet we are great exporters of capital. It is
a
classic paradox of the capitalist economic system."
The Forbidden Kingdom (2008) -- "6/10"
It's the fighting style, cable work and magic of Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon combined with the plot of The Wizard of Oz with Back to the Future
vibes. Starring Jackie Chan and Jet Li as well as Michael Angarano reprising
his role of unsympathetic dork from Gentleman Broncos. It was more of a kid's
movie -- definitely OK for kids -- but still pretty entertaining. Saw it in
English and Mandarin with sub-titles.
Joe Rogan: Live (2006) -- "7/10"
"A 50-minute standup routine" by Joe Rogan
that is quite good in its own
right. A lot of his material is, while not thematically unique, new enough in
its approach to feel fresh and funny. I enjoyed it and am looking forward to
more.
Russell Brand: Scandalous (2009) -- "7/10"
This is the show that Brand did in England after being fired by/resigning
from the BBC for having crossed the line on his radio show. He's quite funny
and outrageous and is out-and-out entertaining even when his material fails
him, which it does far less toward the end of the show, where he hits his
stride nicely.
Oldboy (2003) -- "10/10"
A highly stylized and well-made Korean movie about, well, it's a bit hard to
pin down. It's about what happens when craziness collides with human nature
and rumor, I guess? There are gangland and martial-arts elements to it, but
that's not the focus. The focus is the relatively complex and unpredictable
plot as well as the strong dialogue and lovely, lovely set-design and camera
work. The fight scene in the hallway is how all fight scenes should look.
It's not an action movie; action is incidental, as with Tarantino movies.
There are no clear heroes. The film tries to convince you at first that
Oldboy is the hero -- and he even trains up in martial arts -- but they are
useless against his real enemy, whom he cannot touch in that way. His enemy;
is he the hero? Yes and no. He, too, is ostensibly covered in sin, earned
when he was very young. Is he insane? His plan is over-the-top sadistic. The
prison is a twisted fantasy of isolation. Fifteen years. Then release -- into
the greater, outer prison. Oldboy's capitulation is in some ways expected and
in others wholly not. What an interesting story, utterly unique and covered
in grays. Not for the faint-hearted with no tolerance for broken taboos, I
warn you now. And there are a few scenes that induced cringing even in my
scarred and cynical innards. This is, however, not the focus of the film; it
is a part of it, inextricable and necessary. The whole film was quite
powerful, but the last fifteen minutes were jaw-dropping. I would watch this
again, if only to see if there's anything I missed in the story and for the
visuals. Highly recommended.
The Art of the Steal (2009) -- "6/10"
A documentary about the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia, started by the
eccentric Barnes, who bought an enormous number of paintings from European
modernists and impressionists who had yet to become famous, but whose names
would balloon the collection's value to billions. The collection would sit on
a country estate in an affluent suburb of Philadelphia until he died. By all
accounts, he was not well-loved among the the rich and powerful. His
foundation was established with very limited visiting privileges for the
public but relatively open access for historians and art students. The movie
is about various machinations to make money from the collection, from making
it more of a tourist destination -- not allowed by residential zoning laws --
to the piece de resistance: moving the whole collection to Philadelphia.
While this would open the collection to more people (the primary goal, in my
view), it was being done for the benefit of the other Philadelphia elite.
Essentially, I agree that the collection should be made more available to the
public but, as they say, not like this. Not with so much corruption and the
benefit flowing to these dirty, greedy people. Still, these are essentially
rich-people problems, if not for the culture (the paintings) that hang in the
balance.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] The Catholic Pope generously bequeathed Africa to Portugal and South America
to Spain. As for England and Holland, they took much of Asia without
bothering to ask God, they simply expropriated it. Eddie Izzard addresses
this practice in his famous bit about England invading India that includes
"Well,...have you got a flag?"
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=27412013-01-14T22:17:45+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan star in a movie that starts off like Brazil,
depicting the life of a wage-slave -- an empty, meaningless and
mind-numbingly boring life. The kind of life that probably more
rather than fewer people live today than in 1990 when the film was
...
]]>
Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan star in a movie that starts off like Brazil, depicting
the life of a wage-slave -- an empty, meaningless and mind-numbingly boring
life. The kind of life that probably more rather than fewer people live today
than in 1990 when the film was made. The entrance to the company where Joe
works -- which manufactures rectal probes and lube (really subtle) -- is a
jagged, winding path cut into what looks like volcanic, blasted terrain. The
atrium of the building reveals the logo of the company to be the same
pattern. Joe's apartment has a huge crack on one wall, again in the same
shape. There are other symbols like that -- like the Great Danes, the
significance of which I can't begin to guess. Ossie Davis plays his limo
driver/spiritual advisor on a shopping trip through Manhattan. The story is a
fable but not really a morality tale. Just a unique story that you won't
really be able to guess. In hindsight, you may say you had seen it coming,
but it's unique and new enough that you won't have, really. Perhaps the
jagged road symbolizes the twists and turns of the plot, of life. Once you
see Meg Ryan for the second time, then a third -- and Joe doesn't bat an eye
-- you slowly realize that you are watching a fairy tale, not a story of real
life. Abe Vigoda and Nathan Lane play bit parts as members of the tribe
living on the island with the big volcano.
Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States S01E03 (2012) -- "10/10"
This episode deals with the Pacific theater of World War II. The initial
focus is on American attitudes toward the Japanese. From president Truman on
down, America was extremely racist toward them, with official and public
denials that they were even human. The rhetoric echoes that of Hitler on the
other side of the ocean and the actions -- dozens of thousands of Japanese
rounded up and forced to work in camps -- as well. It was actually Roosevelt
who did this, although he expressed chagrin -- cold comfort to the prisoners,
75% of whom were American citizens. This disconnect from the enemy would lead
to horrific bombing campaigns on civilians -- even in the "good war", America
played dirty -- culminating of course in Hiroshima, where America wiped out
that city's "usefulness to the enemy", as Truman put it. The Europeans didn't
escape civilian bombing, to the point where "even Churchill wondered 'are we
beasts? Are we taking this too far?'". American Curtis LeMay was quite
famously one of the most notorious "terror bombers" and was not bothered by
his conscience as all. The bombing of Tokyo, as described, sounds almost
worse than Hiroshima, described as "one of the most ruthless and barbaric
killings of non-combatants in history." The Potsdam conference is also
covered in detail, focusing on the duplicity of the U.S. toward both Japan
and the Soviet Union: the offer to Japan was rigged to be denied so the bomb
could be used.
Crude (2009) -- "8/10"
This film is a documentary about the decade-and-a-half--long class-action
lawsuit by the indigenous people of Ecuador -- representing about 30,000 --
against Chevron neé Texaco. It's a sad story, really, with poignant scenes
in the hinterlands of Ecuador. Though the film is mostly in Spanish, there
are interviews with some Chevron representatives. The most interesting of
these is the chief environmental scientist, who swears up and down that there
is no contamination and these people's health problems are entirely due to
their shitting in their own drinking water. She does not elaborate as to the
likelihood of the coincidence that the indigenous peoples would change their
sanitary habits after hundreds of years at about the same time that companies
started drilling for oil. Unfortunately for her argument, her own company
took a different tack, admitting that there is massive contamination but that
the national oil concern PetroEcuador is responsible. The burden on the
plaintiffs was to show that the contamination pre-dated PetroEcuador's
involvement. Chevron, for its part, has contract law on its side as
everything that it did was either pre- or post-facto validated by Ecuadorian
law. The plaintiffs would also have to show that corruption allowed Chevron
to plaster their behavior over with a sheen of legality. This includes the
various remediation processes, for which Chevron has ample "proof" -- all
provided by paid officials. The turning point in the case was the election of
Rafael Correa, a 41-year-old left-leaning economist with more interest for
his own people than for foreign investors. Steven Donziger, the main American
lawyer, said "if you did this in America, you'd go to jail". I wouldn't be
too sure about that (perhaps Donziger needs to watch The Last Mountain and
other tales of environmental woe from the States). Pablo Fajardo, the lead
attorney and native Ecuadoran is a very eloquent orator.
Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States S01E04 (2012) -- "10/10"
This episode covers the aftermath of WWII, with the U.S. booming economically
and worried that its markets would dry up as European countries licked
their
wounds and turned to the State for succor. The anti-fascist, socialist
backlash in those countries would prove detrimental to American interests.
Harry Truman's jingoist and simplistically anti-communist view of the
world
would form the basis of American policy that continues, quite frankly, to
this day. Bolstered by a burgeoning propaganda machine, the Soviet Union
was
promoted to the next great enemy bent on world domination. It was
Churchill
who defined the Iron Curtain and set the world on a path to Cold War. And
poor Henry Wallace still provided the unheeded voice of reason:
"The only way to defeat communism in the world is to do a better and smoother
job of production and distribution. Let's make it a clean race, a
determined
race. But, above all, a peaceful race in the service of humanity. The
source
of all our mistakes is fear: Russia fears Anglo-Saxon encirclement; we
fear
communist penetration. Out of fear, great nations have been acting like
cornered beasts, thinking only of survival. The common people will not
tolerate imperialism, even under enlightened Anglo-Saxon, atomic-bomb
auspices. The destiny of the English-speaking people is to serve the
world,
not dominate it."
Despite the Freudian imagery and kowtowing to the idea that the West was
enlightened, this is still the sanest assessment that came out of the
States
at the time.
The American involvement and manipulation of Greece, Turkey and other
Balkan
nations is covered in detail. The domination of communism abroad was
followed
by the Red Scare domestically. The propaganda onslaught continued as the
U.S.
knowingly used former Nazis to sell anti-communism until the Soviets were
forced to react, closing down East Germany. All these charges against the
Soviet while, at the same time, segregation of the "coloreds" still drove
much of U.S. domestic policy. The Chinese revolution followed, which the
U.S.
could not hinder; Korea would be different. The U.S. sent troops (unlike
the
mere "advisors" present in Greece and Italy in the late 40s). And the
domino
theory was born and "you are the target".
A Very Harold And Kumar 3D Christmas (2011) -- "6/10"
The eponymous pair have gone their separate ways: Harold is a successful
business executive living in a quasi-mansion in the suburbs and married to a
beautiful and loving wife whereas Kumar lives alone, pining over his lost
love, having dropped out of med school to do bong-hits full-time.
Circumstances bring them together and Kumar learns a modicum of
responsibility while Harold remembers what it is to have fun. Hilarity and
hijinks ensue. It's decent; add a point if you like Harold and Kumar. The
film is only tangentially related to Christmas in that they're trying to buy
a Christmas tree throughout the film ... and that Santa Claus is in it.
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010) -- "8/10"
A Christmas thriller from Finland about the Santa Claus of ancient legends, a
Santa more in line with Krampus, with goat horns and punishment on his mind.
Legend has it that Santa used to punish children for being naughty by
stealing them, slaying them or eating them. This Santa was frozen in a lake
and transported to an underground tomb long ago, in the hazy past. But
modern-day capitalism has found him and wants him/it back, for whatever
reason. Strange event befall a trio of hunters/farmers in the Finnish
countryside until they discover a man in one of their traps who looks for all
the world like an emaciated Santa. Spoiler alert: he turns out to be one of
Santa's "elves" and the real Santa is stories tall and still trapped in ice,
with his enormous horns sticking out. The trio -- led by the well-read child
of one of them -- endeavor to put an end to Santa's terror, once and for all.
It was a tight, well-made movie that deserves to be part of any Christmas
cinema tradition. Saw it in Finnish with subtitles and some spoken English.
Recommended.
Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States S01E05 (2012) -- "10/10"
Eisenhower is elected and there is hope for an end to the cold war. John
Foster Dulles saw to its continued, anti-communist edge. Where does the
U.S.
find people like this? How do they get hired? Why -- why? -- do they wield
such power? How can men like Truman speak of peace as his forces napalm
every
city and village in Korea to the ground? As his soldiers slaughter
conscripted Chinese peasants 8000 miles from U.S. shores in a "peace
offensive"? A "police action"? Do Americans know that their military
killed
10% of the Korean population in 3 years?
And if it's not enough to slaughter innocents abroad in an imperial war.
At
the same time, the idiot Joseph McCarthy comes to inordinate power and
cows a
nation into a becoming a "right-wing, totalitarian country" (as described
by
the retired president Truman), seeing communists everywhere and turning in
their friends in the best traditions. J. Edgar Hoover, "with the full
support
of Eisenhower", ran the deconstruction of American democracy -- such as it
was -- from FBI headquarters, opening a simultaneous front on all
civil-rights organizations (left-wing and black). By all counts, there
were
only 80,000 registered communists in its heyday, 1944 -- when the Soviet
Union was still a close ally and was given credit for winning WWII. By the
early 50s, there were only 10,000 left and, of those, "about 1,500 were
FBI
informants".
Nehru, the first prime minister of India, quite rightly called the
American
leadership, "dangerous, self-centered lunatics who would blow up any
people
or country who came in the way of their policy.". And they would. When
Mossadegh was elected president of Iran -- a man with a law degree from a
European University, ordinarily a pedigree that would guarantee he become
a
puppet -- the CIA (under Dulles and "Kermit" Roosevelt) orchestrated a
coup,
despite knowing full well that Mossadegh wasn't a communist. Luckily,
almost
all oil concessions went to U.S. companies and the U.S. had a coerced
government on"2,000-mile border with the Soviet Union".
With so much power, wealth and might, the U.S. was not limited to
spreading
its insanity and malignant violence to the Middle East. There was also
Southeast Asia, where the U.S. saved the Vietnamese from self-rule. The
details are morally abhorrent in the extreme, but told very well in this
documentary. Check out books by William Blum -- Killing Hope is a good
start
-- for details on all U.S. incursions and attacks in the 20th century. The
U.S. was the gatekeeper to the U.N. as well, blessing fascist Spain (under
Franco) and imperial Portugal with membership but denying communist China
until 1971. When the Soviets attacked Hungary to keep it within the fold,
the
U.S. media seized on the attack as justification for the dozens of U.S.
attacks -- each orders of magnitude greater than Hungary. And if it wasn't
bad enough that we got one Dulles brother, John Foster, we got the other
as
well, Allen. These guys were instrumental in building up fantasies of
imminent extinction that had almost no basis in fact and no roots in
reality
whatsoever.
The U.S. had no trouble making Cuba out to be the enemy that would end
America and continued to use the domino theory to support "falling
dominoes"
all over the world, including even the Congo, where Patrice Lumumba was
trying to get his people out from under Belgium's imperial yoke (the
Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver includes a historical fiction
account
of this period from a somewhat Congolese point of view).
Eisenhower would do America the favor of warning that the
military-industrial
complex had gone too far -- after doing more than anyone else to grow it
exponentially and put it firmly in the driver's seat. He hired the Dulles
brothers, after all. He also played fast-and-loose with nuclear threats --
a
tradition that continues to this day (though veiled in language like "not
taking any options off the table"). The efforts of lonely, sane voices
like
Henry Wallace and George Marshall were as effectual as the voices of
sanity
today.
Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States S01E06 (2012) -- "10/10"
Camelot. Kennedy's administration sounds like that of Obama several decades
later, with a cabinet full of insiders and industry leaders. Robert
McNamara
is portrayed as level-headed, having been the first to go over the
Pentagon's
books to determine that there was a gigantic missile gap -- but in the
U.S.'s
favor. The U.S. had approximately ten times the armaments of the reviled
Soviet Union.
After stewing in their own fantasy world a bit longer, the U.S. attacked
Cuba. Kennedy would play the good guy, who stopped aggression in the nick
of
time, but the reality was different. (See "The Week the World Stood Still"
by
Noam Chomsky
(The Week the World Stood Still: The Cuban Missile Crisis and Ownership of
the World) for much more detail.) Though Kennedy's behavior was standard
for
a U.S. president, privately he was quickly at odds with the "Joint Chiefs
bastards [...] and CIA sons of bitches" who were driving policy to their
own
ends.
Kennedy's counterpart in the Soviet was Khrushchev, whose primary concern
was
Germany: "give a German a gun and, sooner or later, he will point it at
Russia". Kennedy's reaction to Khrushchev's pleas to allow revolution and
to
stand down was, quite frankly, as ignorant as Truman's, though couched in
finer language. He oversaw the acceleration of fear and the buildup of
weaponry. When Khrushchev put 30 missiles in Cuba -- for various reasons,
to
placate hard-liners at home, to stave off U.S. invasion, as a bluff to
show
power that wasn't there -- the U.S., with its syphilitic mind, reacted
with
little subtlety and almost started WWIII (again, see the article cited
above,
where you can read about the U.S. deliberately attacking Soviet nuclear
submarines with depth charges). With an utter lack of context, the U.S.
could
portray the Soviet move as utterly unprovoked. The Soviets naturally
blinked
first but tried to get concessions on U.S. missiles in Turkey. Khrushchev
blinked hard and sent Kennedy a letter pleading for sanity: Kennedy
ignored
it. Stone includes the story of Vasili Arkhipov, who saved the Earth from
its
first all-out nuclear war. Though the U.S. was at def-con two, "[i]t is
interesting to note in hindsight that, during the entire crisis, Soviet
missiles were never fueled, Red Army reserves were never called up, and
Berlin was never threatened." In other words: the Soviet Union never even
came close to the war footing and insanity of the U.S. Khrushchev was
instrumental in preventing American macho destruction but was "forced out
of
power the next year" having been universally perceived as weak, both in
the
Soviet Union and China.
The U.S. tried so hard to prevent a communist takeover of the world --
despite little to no evidence for it -- that it took over the world for
anti-communism. When Kennedy finally changed his tune, the hive mind of
the
U.S. dumped him as no longer useful. The collected efforts of raging egos
and
madness-riddled and simplistic minds would continue to imbue the U.S. with
a
simple mission: to envelop the world like Kudzu, with no further goal than
that.
So, here's an excerpt from "American University Speech" by John F. Kennedy
"What kind of peace do I mean and what kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax
Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war."
Unfortunately, he also blathered this:
"The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not
want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has
already had enough—more than enough—of war and hate and oppression.
(Emphasis added.)"
The world, in fact, knew just the opposite, having had that lesson drummed
into its head for decades at that point. Now, five more decades later,
nothing has changed. As far as the feeling of Americans themselves, he
would
be both right and wrong -- and attitudes have not changed yet. Americans
would love to have a world without war, yes. But they, at the same time,
accept almost any reason, regardless of supporting evidence, as
justification
for starting one. That is, they don't want war: they just want to be in
charge of everything, be maximally comfortable and never want for anything
that their diseased minds can conjure. So that's easy, right?
Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008) -- "7/10"
Harold and Kumar pick up where they left off in their instant cult-classic
stoner film Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. They're trying to get to
Amsterdam to chase the woman of Roldie's dreams and Kumar is relentlessly
trying to get high. Even on an airplane, with a super-bong that he created
himself. That lights up. And looks all high-tech. Wielded by a swarthy young
man stoned out of his gourd. You can tell where this is going. So Kumar
screws up everything and gets them thrown in Guantánamo Bay by Rob Corddry's
utterly over-the-top-insane under-secretary of something-or-other. They spend
the rest of the film on the lam, trying to find someone to help them clear
their names, while Corddry ignores all evidence to clamp the jaws of his
gigantic trap shut around the "terrorists" that he thinks he's caught. It's
good enough in its own right, but I think the original was better. Oh, and
NPH [1] shows up again -- and takes the boys for a good time at a Texas
whorehouse. (What else?)
Cabin in the Woods (2011) -- "8/10"
A pretty clever take on the slasher-film genre. A group of college-aged folks
drive into the woods to spend some time at an isolated cabin that one of
their families just bought. The kids are actually portrayed pretty well
and
the stoner's funny. Alongside this plot is what looks for all the world
like
a government agency running surveillance and experiments on the people in
the
cabin -- it sounds like a new crop shows up every year. And this isn't the
only lab: there are others in other countries, with the Japanese having
sewn
up the horror award for the last several years running. The writing is
good
and the idea is dark, cynical and funny. The students don't fit into their
stereotypes until pushed there by aerosol pheromones and other drugs (to
create a dumb-blonde slut and an alpha-male meathead).
There are shades of The Truman Show, Men In Black, Half-Life, Portal,
Operation: Endgame and The Cube in it, except it's run for the benefit of
sacrificing innocents to appease the ancient Gods. The cabin is a
high-tech
killing floor run by an agency for this one purpose -- as are other sites
around the world. And the participants are trapped there by all manner of
high-tech barriers. It's really quite a bit of fun because you don't know
whether to root for the agency -- to stop ancient evil from rising and
enveloping the world -- or for the kids, who are just trying to escape
zombie
slaughter.
The switches from the Running-Man--like world where the kids are being
hounded and slaughtered to the headquarters of the agency running the show
are jarring -- but in a good way. The agency employees' distance from the
death and destruction, their office hijinks -- betting pools, office-party
celebrations -- is perhaps allegorical for the distance to suffering that
such functionaries have (think the drone pilots stationed in Nevada) [2].
It's essentially a tale wherein the few must suffer so that the majority
can
survive (the essence of ritual sacrifice).
"The Director (voiced by Sigourney Weaver): You've seen horrible things. An
army of nightmare creatures. But they are nothing compared to what came
before, what lies below. It's our task to placate the ancient ones, as
it's
yours to be offered up to them. Forgive us and let us get it over with."
A pleasant surprise. Recommended.
Blade Runner (1982) -- "10/10"
Everywhere you look, there is something different, not of our world. The
camera never lands on anything ordinary, even in the periphery. Every
angle
is carefully selected, as is every light source -- and there thousands --
every raindrop, the atmosphere, everything is so believable, it sucks you
in.
The police speak English -- except for Edward James Olmos, who only speaks
Cityspeak, "a hybrid of several languages"
-- but the
flight-routing
systems speak Dutch, German, Japanese and what sounded like Russian. An
amazing-looking -- and -sounding -- film: it's like William Gibson saw
this
movie and then spent the next 30 years writing about it.
JF Sebastien's [3] house is amazing with all of his gadgets and toys.
Darryl
Hannah oozes madness, as does Rutger Hauer. Everything was going so well
until Deckard felt the need to rape Sean Young's replicant. It might have
been called "rough seduction" in 1982 but it looked for all the world like
rape (which, technically, does not apply because she's a replicant, not an
actual human being).
There is a lovely trick of the light that highlights a deeply buried red
light in the eyes that shows up for replicants and other created
creatures,
but also for Deckard at one point in his apartment. Is this is a sign of a
replicant? But how can it be if Deckard has it too? Light-colored eyes are
subject to red-eye, aren't they? Perhaps Deckard is also a replicant? How
can
you tell? Would a human be able to pass the kind of Turing Test that they
use
to weed out the manufactured from the borne? Would Deckard? Dammit, the
owl
has red eyes too and it's definitely manufactured. Even Roy says "C'mon
Deckard! Show me what you're made of!" Does he know something that Deckard
doesn't?
Roy's injuries at the end mirror those of Deckard. Roy's are due to his
genetic programming, his flesh is necrotizing, shutting down, rebelling
against him: he's running out of time. Deckard tries to restore the hand
ruined by Roy. I'm sure there's some significance to Roy driving a nail
through his hand -- giving himself a stigmata -- because he was also
referred
to by his creator as the prodigal son. The "final soliloquy"
was every bit as
moving as advertised: "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
[laughs]
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter
in
the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in
time,
like [coughs] tears in rain. Time to die." Rutger Hauer was impressive.
Highly recommended. "It's a pity she won't live. But then again, who
does?"
Armadillo (2010) -- "7/10"
A very professionally and well-made documentary about a Danish platoon
deployed in Afghanistan. The footage on patrols is amazing [4]. The film
follows them from Denmark pre-deployment through arrival in Afghanistan.
The
soldiers are young western men, so they have a party before they go --
with a
lap dancer -- and they yearn for "real" action rather than just boring
patrols. And they watch porn when they're not on patrol (at pretty much
every
opportunity, but that's not suprising ... what else is there to do? Play
video games, I guess.) The soldiers speak Danish amongst themselves but
speak
English on the public band; their Danish is also heavily sprinkled with
English. And they run patrols in largely rural, civilian areas and then
complain about the Taliban hiding behind civilians.
The interviews with the Afghans are conducted through a translator [5] and
are fascinating. They start off with bravado, apologizing to a local mayor
(chieftain?) for destroying his fields, but at the same time saying that
"you
all know that we have to walk through those fields". He laughs at them and
responds,
"How should we know? It is our fault, maybe? Last year they bombarded our
house. I swear by God I don't even have any clothes to wear. [...] What
should we do? Leave our villages? [...] It's not you or the Taliban who
are
killed. We are the ones who get killed. The civilians get killed. We sit
in
our homes and get bombed."
In response to Danish promises that they will try to move the war north,
to
draw the Taliban away from their villages, the elder says "You can't.
People
fight, because they're poor, including the Taliban." The translators with
direct contact see the citizens as people; the soldiers -- especially once
they are hit themselves -- begin the alienation almost immediately, "I
would
feel worse shooting a stray dog." This attitude toward "their" deaths is
starkly juxtaposed with the utter sorrow they feel when they lose one of
their own. It's hard not to think of them as hypocritical mouth-breathers
utterly without philosophy.
Soon after, they get in a firefight and annihilate several Taliban;
afterwards, they drag out the corpses (checking for weapons), comparing it
to
hauling livestock. Back at base, the camera captures their adrenalized
excitement as they relate the specifics of the battle to each other,
cementing the tale. This is quite standard, until the platoon commander
[6]
calls a meeting to find out who told his family of their post-firefight
revelry and disrespect for the Taliban dead. It's a very interesting
conversation, almost a therapy session.
What never enters anyone's mind is to ask why they are even there in the
first place. To them, it was a huge battle; objectively, an overwhelmingly
superior Danish force eradicated some Afghan farmers and then spend days,
if
not weeks, trumpeting about it, analyzing it, and whining about their
compatriot who got shot in the ass. "You weren't there, man." Indeed. It
probably seemed huge to them, but even in the small scheme of things, it
was
utterly useless. They should all read Catch-22 and get over themselves.
Watched it in Danish with English subtitles.
Balibo (2009) -- "7/10"
A faux documentary based on the true story of the Indonesian assault on Timor
-- what would eventually become a near-genocide. The story centers on five
young journalists who travel to Timor just as the invasion is beginning.
Their intent is to capture the Indonesian army on film in order to prove that
they are committing war crimes (the ultimate crime of aggression against
another sovereign nation). The U.S. and Australia are firmly in Indonesia's
camp, though, so there is no help to be found and enemies abound, as do
Timorese refugees fleeing for their lives. The story is told through another,
older journalist who has been enlisted by the young and Ché-esque Timorese
Secretary of Foreign Affairs, José Ramos-Horta. Several days/weeks behind,
they travel in the footsteps of the young journalists, with both stories
interleaved throughout the film. The horrifying, callous disregard for life
shown the Indonesian army is portrayed well, as is the real back-story of
Western support for the genocide (Suharto was, after all, "our kind of guy"
whereas Sukarno was a bloody socialist and utterly useless to western
interests). After several decades of exile, Horta would finally return in
1999 after Timor had finally been granted independence once again.
The Boondock Saints (1999) -- "8/10"
Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus star as the charismatic, hard-drinking
and linguistically gifted MacManus brothers, who come to be known as the
Boondock Saints once they get a taste for vigilantism. Willem Dafoe puts in a
star turn as FBI Special Agent Smecker, a savant of crime-scene forensics and
entirely too smart for the job. Add Billy Connolly as Il Duce and a lot of
mobsters and you've got yourself a fun movie. The boys can't miss and their
enemies couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, but their characters are
appealing enough that you don't care and root for them anyway. With their
Catholic God looking over them and the whole of Boston on their side, the
boys make a career of being white-hat vigilantes.
The Boondock Saints: All Saints Day (2009) -- "6/10"
The boys are back, although they start off in Ireland this time, having
escaped the long arm of the long at the end of the first film. The elaborate
set pieces and extravagant though largely harmless -- to the MacManus family
anyway -- shootouts are back from the first film. Willem Dafoe has been
replaced by Julie Benz as Special Agent Eunice Bloom, whose given enough good
dialogue to let her chew the scenery (even though I'd never heard of her
before). Peter Fonda and Judd Nelson round out the cast of people you may
actually recognize. Indomitable, indefatigable and bulletproof as ever, the
boys press on to their goal of uprooting big-time crime in Boston. Oh, and
they have to clear their name, which has been besmirched by a
height-challenged Sicilian hit-man.
21 Jump Street (2012) -- "8/10"
Jonah Hill is lighter than ever and stars as fresh young cop opposite Channig
Tatum's equally fresh young cop. The movie is based on the TV show, in which
young-looking cops infiltrate high schools by posing as students and
ferreting out drug smugglers. The writing and dialogue is pretty sharp and
the two leads are great (Channing Tatum, especially, is just charming as
hell). The plot is what you would expect, though above average and including
enough twists about "typical" high-school life to keep you guessing as to who
is cool and who is not. Rob Riggle stars as -- what else? -- a PE coach; Ice
Cube is the relentlessly foul-mouthed precinct sergeant of Jump Street. James
Franco's little brother Dave is also in this one, playing a rather big role
-- I didn't know he was his brother and was wondering if actors that look
like other actors just naturally crawled out of the woodwork.
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (2010) -- "7/10"
After having enjoyed The Cabin in the Woods, I remembered another
horror/comedy that turned the tables on the classic formula. Tucker and Dale
are supposedly hillbillies on their way to their vacation home, of which they
are very proud. Some college students arrive in the same woods at the same
time and their worlds collide. It's all a matter of perspective: the college
students think that the hillbillies are trying to kidnap and/or kill them
all; Tucker and Dale can't figure out why the college students are killing
themselves in horribly gruesome ways all over their property. It's a comedy
of misunderstanding, get it? It's a bit slower and chattier than it needs to
be in certain scenes, but overall it's quite amusing.
Planet Terror (2007) -- "6/10"
Rose McGowan stars as Cherry Darling, a go-go dancer who wants to become a
stand-up comedian. Fate intervenes and zombies too. The zombies come courtesy
of a government experiment that spreads a chemical/biological weaponized gas
all over Texas, creating shambling zombies with effervescing exteriors. Josh
Brolin has a larger role and Bruce Willis and Quentin Tarantino have smaller
parts, which rounds out the cast of actors you're likely to recognize. It's a
well-made movie -- Robert Rodriguez has a certain, gory flair -- but it's not
really a must-see film. The plot is relatively predictable and Cherry takes
entirely too long to become "enhanced" as promised in the trailer. When she
does, though, it's pretty fun.
Forks over Knives (2011) -- "8/10"
A documentary about the human diet, with a focus on a diet that works over
the long-term to provide you with a long, energetic, healthy, happy, cancer-
and heart-disease--free life. The recommendation is a whole-foods, dairy- and
meat-free diet. Combine this one with Food Inc. and Killer at Large and you
should be ready and primed to drastically reduce dairy and meat consumption,
if not eliminate it altogether. Large-scale studies (large as in nearly a
billion Chinese) show that intake of processed foods, meat protein and dairy
products increase the likelihood of cancer and hear disease, even in
otherwise healthy people. In general, it's a really good documentary -- and
quite convincing -- though there are some parts that are a bit over the top.
It's hard to argue with the recommendation to eat more fruits and vegetables;
if it's true that this diet can stave off cancer and all sort of other
ailments, then what's the harm? Find something other than food to scratch
your itch (like exercise) and you're all set. So simple, right? It's not only
good for you, but you will no longer be taking part in a system that is
destroying the planet and using up its resources at much higher rate. Also,
you avoid all of the ethical issues with raising and consuming animals. If
you can get past the need for meat and dairy, you can substitute it with a
glowing feeling of self-satisfaction and superiority -- and you should be
able to lord it over everyone else for much longer and cancer-free. Pretty
sweet deal, right? The claims of how quickly changes occur -- one guy
supposedly dropped his cholesterol by 43% in three weeks -- are hard to
believe, but maybe don't knock it until you've tried it.
Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels (1998) -- "8/10"
Jason Statham makes his debut in this film written and directed by Guy
Ritchie. It has a bit of what would come to be known as Ritchie's trademark
slo-mo and freeze-frame style, but it's not as fancy as it would become. The
story concerns at least seven groups of small-time to big-time criminals and
drug-dealers who are all trying to get a big stash of cash and drugs and use
it to settle various debts they have to one another. It's all a bit
complicated and the setup takes quite a while, but the payoff is grand and
wonderfully serendipitous. It's also a bit of a cliffhanger at the end, with
you, the viewer, not knowing quite whether the main boys -- the heroes, as it
were, though they're not really very heroic -- will end up on top or not.
Vinnie Jones is excellent as an enforcer who makes out OK in the end. Saw it
in whatever English they were speaking: I had no problem with the dialects at
all, but I'm relatively well-trained for it. There's only one part that even
approaches the impenetrability of Snatch but they generously provided
sub-titles to translate the Rhyming Slang bits.
Iron Sky (2012) -- "7/10"
The premise can't be beat: a Nazi colony on the dark side of the moon! The
Fourth Reich has survived and flourished on energy provided by Helium-3 on
the moon, licking its wounds and waiting for the opportunity to strike and
reclaim the Earth for its own. A campaign-marketing mission sent to the moon
by President Palin sparks the Nazis into action. They launch their toys from
their gigantic bases -- don't ask where they got all that metal, it's more
fun that way -- and send a mission to Earth, composed of Renate Richter and
Klaus Adler (the next-in-line to Führer). They speak a mix of English and
German throughout the film. The plot is at times quite campy, but the effects
are top-notch, especially the Götterdämmerung warship! Wow! The gears and
chains and sheer steampunk power! The space fleet of Earth -- and, of course,
by 2018, every country has one -- is also not bad, but the Nazi toys are
much, much better. They took the concept of Nazis on the Moon and stuck to it
and did a much better job of it than expected. Recommended.
The Raid: Redemption (2012) -- "8/10"
This is a movie with a plot that feels like it came from a video game, a
relatively simple and straightforward one. A S.W.A.T. team attacks a
broken-down residential building where a crime lord and his many henchmen
live (oh so many henchmen; the credits actually list people as "hallway
attacker #45" and so on). Most of the cops are cleared out of the way
relatively quickly, with the criminals making use of machine guns. Once the
dross is cleared off and only a couple of important ones remain, they switch
to machetes, knives and martial arts. I could not have cared less about the
nonsensical plot devices because the choreography was breathtaking:
super-fast, fluid and not a cable in sight. Really nice close-quarters
fighting with a lot of one-on-one, two-on-one encounters and just flying
fists, feet, elbows and knees. Sure, the protagonists -- as well as the main
henchman -- seem to have super stamina and Wolverine-like powers of recovery,
but it's very entertaining if you're into watching martial arts.
The Guard (2011) -- "9/10"
An absolutely spellbinding movie starring Brendan Gleeson as a member of the
Irish Garda and Don Cheadle as an FBI agent. The story unfolds in Galway
county in Ireland with an anticipated $500 million drugs delivery. Sergeant
Gerry Boyle is a wonderful character, who barely says a straight word
throughout the film: he takes the piss so much that when he actually means
something, no one believes him. He's a brilliant cop with a realistic take:
he doesn't mind whoring and taking some drugs once in a while, to say nothing
of combining whiskey and beer with driving along the coast. The film design
is really nice as well, with particular attention paid to some very
retro-looking bars and offices, as well as Boyle's home, which is very nicely
appointed in a style that's a bit back of now. The same goes for
haberdashery, with both Gleeson and Cheadle gussying up in some quite
impressive clothes. And some of the scenes are much more dramatic than you
ordinarily find in an action/comedy: the move to 100% dark background at some
points, as if in a theater piece, the flames in the background like Boyle's
an avenging angel in another, etc. It's an Irish movie, so there are a lot of
in-jokes and a lot of English spoken in that sometimes nigh-impenetrable
Irish lilt [7], especially when it's simultaneously slurred or whispered. And
the dialogue is oh so worth paying attention to. The interaction between
Cheadle and Gleeson, the conversations had by the smugglers (who are into
philosophy). It's apparently the most successful independent Irish film of
all time and deserves it. Highly recommended.
Ninja Assassin (2009) -- "4/10"
Lots of blood and cool ninja stuff, including magical healing powers and
handstand pushups on a bed of nails. Far out. However, why are the ninjas
indomitable everywhere but at home? All of a sudden, in the middle of the
training compound in which they grew up, they're no match for a S.W.A.T.
team? Lame. Utterly lame. Seriously, the end is utterly awful -- all of
sudden, their swords are utterly ineffectual and they have no shurikens
anymore. It evens out after a bit, but why were they so taken by surprise? I
guess it's just a silly as Raiza being able to take out dozens of them -- and
where do all those ninjas come from anyway? They're like cockroaches. And I
just noticed in the credits that the Wachowski brothers produced this thing,
so the over-the-top style shouldn't be too surprising.
Examined Life (2008) -- "9/10"
A documentary about philosophy, with interviews with Cornel West, Slavoj
Žižek and other usual suspects. West is, as usual, quite eloquent:
"The unexamined life is not worth living, Plato says on line 38A of the
Apology. How do you examine yourself; what happens when you interrogate
yourself? What happens when you begin to call into question your tacit
assumptions and unarticulated presuppositions and begin then to become a
different kind of person. See, I put it this way, that for me, philosophy
is
fundamentally about ... our finite situation. We can define that in terms
of
we're beings toward death, we're featherless, two-legged, linguistically
conscious creatures born between urine and feces whose bodies will one day
be
the culinary delight of terrestrial worms. That's us, beings toward death.
At
the same time, we have desire, why we are organisms in space and time, so
it's desire in the face of death. And then, of course, you've got
dogmatism,
various attempts to hold on to certainty, various forms of idolatry, and
you've got dialogue, in the face of dogmatism and then of course,
structurally and institutionally, you've got domination...and you have
democracy [...]"
"This is something that Derrida has taught: if you feel that you've acquitted
yourself honorably, then you're not so ethical. If you have a good
conscience, then you're kind of worthless. Like, if you think, oh, I gave
this homeless person five bucks, I'm great! then you're irresponsible. The
responsible being is one who thinks they've never been responsible enough,
they've never taken care enough of "the other". The other is so in excess
of
anything you can understand or grasp or reduce. This, in itself, creates
an
ethical relatedness. A relation without relation. Because you can't
presume
to know or grasp the other. The minute you think you know the other,
you're
ready to kill them. You think, oh, they're doing this or this, they're the
axis of evil. Let's drop some bombs. But, if don't know, if you don't
understand this alterity, you can't violate it with your sense of
understanding, then you have to let it live, in a sense."
"I think ethics has to come from ourselves, but that doesn't mean that it's
totally subjective, that doesn't mean that you can think whatever you like
about what's right or wrong. When you start to look at issues ethically,
you
have to do more than just think about your own interests, you have to ask
yourself how do I take into account the interests of others? What would I
choose if I were to be in their position rather than my position? [...]
One
of the most obvious things that emerges when you put yourself in the
position
of others is the priority of reducing or preventing suffering because
ethics
is not just about what I actually do and the impact of that, but it's also
about what I omit to do, what I decide not to do. And that's why questions
about, given that we all have a limited amount of money, questions about
what
you spend your money on are also questions about what you don't spend your
money on, or what you don't use your money to achieve. And, a lot of
people,
I think, forget that, they think, well, you know, I'm not harming anyone
if I
go and spend a thousand dollars on a new suit but, in fact, given the
opportunities that we have to help and given the way that the world is, I
think quite often you're actually failing to benefit someone, which you
could
be doing. And I think we have moral obligations to help just as we have
moral
obligations not to harm."
"Now [Social Contract/State of Nature] was fine when you're thinking about
adult men with no disabilities. But as some of them already began to
notice,
it doesn't do so well when you think about women because women's
oppression
has always been partly occasioned by their physical weakness compared to
men.
And so if you leave out that physical asymmetry, you may be leaving out a
problem that a theory of justice will need to fix. But it certainly does
not
do well when we think about people with serious physical and mental
disabilities. And in fact, some of the theorists who noticed that said,
well,
this is a problem, but we'll just have to solve it later. We'll get the
theory first and work on this problem as some other point. Well, my
thought
is, that this is not a small problem. There are a lot of people with
serious
mental and physical disabilities but, it's not only that, it's all of us,
when we're little children and as we age. How do you think about justice
when
you're dealing with bodies that are very unequal in their ability and
their
power and perhaps even harder, how do you think about it when you're
dealing
with mental powers that are very, very unequal in their potential."
In answer to the question: "do you have to go to school to be a
philosopher?"
"Oh, God no. [...] A philosopher is a lover of wisdom. It takes tremendous
discipline, it takes tremendous courage to think for yourself, to examine
yourself. The Socratic imperative of examining yourself requires courage.
You
know, William Butler Yeats used to say "it takes more courage to examine
the
dark corners of your own soul than it does for a soldier to fight on the
battlefield." Courage to think critically, [...] courage is the enabling
virtue for any philosopher, for any human being, I think, in the end."
"There's a certain pleasure in the life of the mind, that cannot be denied.
It's true that you might be socially isolated, because you're in the
library,
at home and so on. But you're intensely alive. In fact, you're much more
alive than these folk walking the streets in New York, in crowds, which is
no
intellectual interrogation and questioning going at all."
"We're stuck, almost conceptually, between two almost cliché ways of
thinking about revolution. On the one hand, we have the notion of
revolution
that involves the replacement of a ruling elite with another ... better --
in
many ways -- ruling elite. And that's sort of the form that many modern
revolutions have taken and have posed great benefits for the people but
they
have not arrived at democracy. So that notion of revolution is really
discredited and I think rightly so. But, opposed to that, is another
notion
of revolution, which I think is equally discredited but from exactly the
opposite point of view, which is it's the notion of revolution that, in
fact,
hasn't been instituted, that thinks of revolution as just the removal of
all
of those forms of authority, state power, the power of capital, that stop
people from expressing their natural abilities to rule themselves."
The camera pans over an enormous pile of garbage and, if you're familiar
with
modern philosophers, you will be expecting a rapid-fire burst of
Slovenian-tinged, lisping English to burst over the scene at any moment.
And
you would not be disappointed.
"This is where we should start feeling at home. Part of our daily perception
of reality is that this [points to garbage] disappears from our world.
When
you go to the toilet, shit disappears. You flush it. Of course,
rationally,
you know it's there, in canalization and so on, but at a certain level of
your most elementary experience, it disappears from your world. But, the
problem is, that trash doesn't disappear. I think ecology, the way we
approach ecological problematic is maybe the crucial field of ideology
today.
"And I use ideology in the traditional sense of illusory, wrong way of
thinking and perceiving reality. Why? Ideology is not simply dreaming
about
false ideas and so on. Ideology addresses very real problems, but it
mystifies them. One of the elementary ideological mechanisms, I claim, is
what I call the temptation of meaning. When something horrible happens,
our
spontaneous tendency is to search for a meaning. It must mean something.
You
know, like, AIDS. It was a trauma. Then, conservatives came and said it's
punishment for our sinful ways of life and so on and so on. Even if we
interpret a catastrophe as a punishment, it makes it easier, in a way,
because we know it's not just some terrifying blind force. It has a
meaning.
It's better when you're in the middle of a catastrophe, it's better to
feel
that God punished you than to feel that "it just happened". If God
punished
you, it's still a universe of meaning.
"And, I think that, that's where ecology as ideology enters. It's really
the
implicit premise of ecology that the existing world is the best possible
world in the sense of, it's a balanced world that is disturbed through
human
hubris. So, why do I find this problematic? Because I think that this
notion
of nature, nature as harmonious, organic, balanced, reproducing, almost
living organism, which is then disturbed, perturbed, derailed through
human
hubris, technology, exploitation and so on is, I think, a secular version
of
the religious story of the Fall. And the answer should be, not that there
is
no Fall, that we are part of nature but, on the contrary that there is no
Nature.
"Nature is not a balanced totality which then we humans disturb. Nature is
a
big series of unimaginable catastrophes. We profit from them. What's our
main
source of energy. Oil. But are we aware, what is oil? Oil reserves beneath
the earth are material remainders of an unimaginable catastrophe. Are we
aware? Because we all know that oil is composed of the remainders of
animal
life, plants and so on and so on. Can you imagine what kind of unthinkable
catastrophe had to occur on Earth? So that's good to remember.
"Ecology will slowly turn into maybe a new opium of the masses, as we all
know Marx defined religion. What we expect from religion is a sort of
unquestionable highest authority. It's God's work, so it is, you don't
debate
it. Today, I claim, ecology is more and more taking over this role of a
conservative ideology. Whenever there is a new scientific breakthrough,
biogenetic development, whatever, it is as if the voice that warns us not
to
trespass, violate a certain invisible limit, like "don't do that, it would
be
too much", that voice today is more and more the voice of ecology. Like,
don't mess with DNA, don't mess with nature, don't do it. This basic,
conservative, archly ideological mistrust of change. This is today,
ecology."
Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010) -- "6/10"
A documentary narrated by director Werner Herzog showing the cave paintings
at Chauvet Cave in France. The paintings are at least 32,000 years old.
For
all that, the animal drawings are wonderfully done, conveying the essence
of
the creatures in just a few strokes. The documentary itself is a bit slow,
lingering for a long time over many of the drawings, but it's worth it all
the same, if only to get a glimpse of these drawings to which so few
people
have access.
Interesting facts:
* Humans never lived in the cave. All the bones found there are from
bears
and other animals (and there are lot of bones, some almost entirely
buried in calciferous encrustation).
* Animals that we associate with the African steppes ranged freely in
France at the time. Ibex, mammoths, lions and other carnivores were
plentiful. Bears, horses and other animals are also depicted.
* Carbon-dating shows that the drawings were not made all at once. In
fact,
some are 5000 years older than others. This is truly amazing: the cave
was used over 5000 years, always adding to the drawings.
* Even without the drawings, the cave is beautiful, filled with
stalactites
and stalagmites.
* There is only one partial drawing of a human form: the lower half of a
woman (big surprise there) that resembles the fertility goddesses of
other cultures.
Akira (1988) -- "8/10"
The classic Japanese anime set in the future, thirty years after WWIII, in
which Tokyo was nuked. The crater is still there, in the middle of the city,
which has grown up and around it. The film is set in 2018 and it's quite
prescient, both in its depiction of future Japanese cities and the tax and
class-war protests depicted near the beginning. As with many other anime,
Japan is still clearly working out the psychic trauma of having been nuked
back in the 40s, a psychological cultural scar that colors almost every
cartoon that comes out of that country. And the acid trips, magic, marching
toys, mysterious superpowers and mutants -- most likely the result of either
nuclear fallout or mother nature's anger at same -- are here as well! And
it's exquisitely and meticulously hand-drawn, as usual. The finale is
amazing, rephrasing the themes of uncontrollable power and unbridled --
cancerous -- growth in a grotesque and tragic end-game for Tetsuo.
Smoking' Aces (2007) -- "6/10"
An elaborate Vegas movie involving Jeremy Piven as a Las Vegas
card-sharp/magician/entertainer/asshole who's ready to turn on the whole Cosa
Nostra. They put out a hit on him for $1 million and every bounty hunter in
the country shows up to take a crack at him. They are all, more or less
colorfully insane and the entire hotel turns into a clusterfuck before it's
all over. A bit longer than necessary, but fun all the same. Starring Ryan
Reynolds and Ray Liotta as FBI and a host of others, like Ben Affleck, Andy
Garcia, Common, Chris Pine and Jason Bateman. There's a reasonably clever
twist at the end, but it's only partially worth it. It's kind of like a Lock,
Stock and Two Smoking Barrels for Americans.
Fist of Fury (1971) -- "4/10"
This is a very stilted Kung Fu film starring Bruce Lee. Lee does nothing more
than sneer for the first 45 minutes of the movie. He has promised not to
fight anymore and is sticking to it. This is a pity because he's the only guy
worth watching. Once he gets started, you'll like his bravado and his
willingness to make a movie fight that lasts two blows (well, three: he kicks
the knife hand, kicks the head and head hits the ground). He fights five or
six guys for about two minutes and then we're back to more painful plot and
watching Bruce Lee get drunk and grabby. At least half an hour later, there's
another fight, with Lee holding off dozens. He gets into the spirit of Jeet
Kune Do and crushes one guy's balls (there's no such thing as cheating in a
street fight) and then punches another guy through a wall -- making a
man-shaped hole, complete with legs and arms, like in a cartoon. I am not
kidding (1:21:00). In the penultimate knife fight, it's nice to see him
anticipating and just the cracking guy in the mouth when he comes in with the
knife (the best opportunity is when the enemy strikes). In the final
confrontation, he's a total bad-ass, chewing chips, jumping a ten-foot fence
and sizing up the army against him with a smile on his face. Just laughing
and smiling while he pounds on 'em. And so quick. Not really recommended,
except for the fighting bits with Bruce Lee, but that's not too surprising.
It's about 90% not that, though, so not a great movie.
The Legend of the Drunken Master (1994) -- "8/10"
A Jackie Chan masterpiece, funnier than most of his American movies. He's the
eldest son of a doctor and his wife, who draws him in to her machinations as
she hides her Mah-Jong gambling from her husband. The choreography is fast,
furious and unique. He's amazingly fast and strong, really in his element.
Unlike Fist of Fury there is a tremendous amount of fighting, which is
awesome. Chan's drunken boxing is great, but there's also more noticeable
cable work.
That was it for 2012.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] I'm almost certain that I'm reading a bit too much into it, but the film is
good enough to allow me that leeway. There is a scene near the end, where
bear-trap-on-a-chain-zombie finds the last girl -- the Virgin, whose death
is "optional" -- on the dock and begins to dismember her, all set to the
soundtrack of REO Speedwagon's Roll with the Changes which is playing over a
huge, office-party celebration for a job well-done. With the scene playing
on all of the big screens around them, one guy laments that "it would have
been cooler with a mer-man" while another lady asks whether "we get an
overtime bonus on this one".
[1] William Sanderson -- I knew him as Larry from Newhart.
[1] Pashto? Dari? Not for me to say.
[1] It's interesting to note that the video games they play look so much like
real life that it sometimes took me a few seconds to realize that I was
watching real-life footage instead of a video game.
[1] Or whatever the hell his official designation is; I don't know it in English
and sure as hell can't decipher it in Danish.
[1] Given that you're not Irish. If you're Irish, I assume you'll be able to
finally relax and understand everything with no effort. If you're not a
native, you'll either need a lot of experience with English dialects or
subtitles. The only anomaly is the little boy with the dog, who I swear
speaks with an American accent most of the time.
[1] Neil Patrick Harris
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=27402012-12-18T23:05:12+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
This is the original Swedish filming of the book by Stieg Larsson
with Noomi Rapace in the eponymous role (she went on to star in
Prometheus) opposite Michael Nyqvist, who's got this utterly
believable early-Gerard Depardieu vibe to him. Just as
...
]]>
This is the original Swedish filming of the book by Stieg Larsson with Noomi
Rapace in the eponymous role (she went on to star in Prometheus) opposite
Michael Nyqvist, who's got this utterly believable early-Gerard Depardieu
vibe to him. Just as in Prometheus, Ms. Rapace is in phenomenal shape;
seriously, she's ripped and way more buff than in the book, where The Girl is
described as a stick. She looks good doing it though, and it's completely
convincing when (spoiler alert) she goes ape-shit on Martin's head with a
golf club. Otherwise, the film stays mostly true to the book, doing a good
job of skipping some of the slower parts, skipping on the sojourn in the
house on the lake while he writes his book, which would have made the film
utterly interminable. In fact, most of the sub-plot with his book about the
Vanger family and the details of his own convoluted case against Wennerström
are left off until the very end, when he goes to jail for 90 days. That part
was a bit confusing because the Swedish prison is barely recognizable as such
for my (still) American sensibilities. Despite the heavy pruning, the pacing
is still quite slow, but it's a well-made and interesting film. I haven't
read the second book or the third one, but the Swedish movies all came out in
the same year. Saw it in Swedish with English subtitles.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011) -- "6/10"
The British/American remake starts off with intense production values, with a
James-Bond--like credit sequence of black-liquid--covered people and other
things driven along by a kick-ass cover of The Immigrant Song by Trent
Reznor. It's a strong cast: Daniel Craig and Christopher Plummer and even
Stellan Skarsgård are always fun and it's nice to see Goran Visnjic
getting
a bit of work.
Apparently one of the main conclusions drawn by the makers of the remake
is
that Lisbeth Salander was obviously too sexy and not crazy-looking or
antisocial enough -- not hacker/sub-culture enough -- in the original.
Whereas Mara's Salander probably looks more like the one in the book,
Rapace's Salander was more believable in her role as potential love
interest/ass-kicker. This version includes many more of the details about
Blomqvist: the cat made it into this one and Blomqvist drinks and smokes
as
much as in the book; and his daughter's back from the oblivion to which
the
Swedes sent her. It still stuck to many of the same scenes and shots of
the
original -- just juiced with CGI in some cases. For example, the overhead
shot of the train heading north looks like it's heading to Niffelheim
whereas
the original was much more down-to-Earth.
Some of the moments and interactions seemed like they were invented to
massage the story a bit, sometimes in unnecessary ways. For instance, in
the
Swedish version, Lisbeth finds the link to the Bible and contacts him, but
in
the English version, he finds the link, then seeks her out when he needs
an
assistant. I can't remember which one was in the book, but I prefer the
first
one. It's the same with the discovery of the woman who took pictures at
the
parade: in the English version, she discovers her; in the Swedish one, he
does. Whereas both films are necessarily dark -- the book takes place in
late
fall/early winter in Sweden -- the remake is much darker in coloring,
almost
murky.
On to the weather. Spoiler alerts follow. Seriously, it's -18ºC; I
understand that Daniel Craig doesn't wear a hat -- because the director
wanted to properly display his handsome face -- but why the f&@k can't he
wear gloves? And why is he taking notes outside? On paper? Doesn't he have
a
recorder? Or a f$%king smart-phone? He's a reporter, right? Is it because
it's too cold for electronic devices? Well, then, why isn't he wearing
gloves? And how the hell is that dock still in pristine condition when the
house near it has been abandoned for 40 years? That's over 40 harsh
northern
Swedish winters and it looks brand new. And when he's investigating around
Martin's house -- at night, no less -- all of a sudden it's warm enough
that
he's just fine in a blazer as if he's out to dinner in LA? And we can't
even
see his breath? At night in Sweden in the late fall? Wasn't the whole area
covered in snow a week ago?
And the famous rape-scene? Rooney Mara chews the hell out of the scenery,
narrating the whole bloody scene as if cameras don't exist. The Swedish
version wins hands-down here; it portrayed this scene much better. Rooney
Mara play Salander less as a cool iconoclast and more as a freakish social
outcast; her mouth moves strangely when she speaks, her accent is utterly
unplaceable, she acts like a robot and treats people and things
interchangeably. Even her relationship with her hacker friend -- portrayed
in
the Swedish film as friendly, as in the book -- is purely business and
borderline hostile. She's utterly unsympathetic. And she's an über-hacker
working on a murder case and doesn't lock her workstation when she leaves
the
room?
Even at the end, there is a stark difference: in the Swedish version,
Martin's death was an accident rued by Mikael and not by Lisbeth, but in
the
English version, she's eager to kill Martin and he approves; she seems
professional with the gun rather than a hacker turned vigilante. And then,
in
the end, the Swedish version shows us that she could have saved him, but
chose not to; in the English version, she wants to kill him, but his car
blows up first. And, again with the weather: no helmet, no gloves, open
jacket, motorcycling through the blowing snow of evening. It ends as the
book
does, by painting a picture of Harriet that leaves you thinking of her as
a
horrible egotist: she escaped Martin's clutches and lived a fine life
abroad,
but she never turned him in or thought to stop his rampages in Sweden. And
what the hell was up with the ending in this one? Non sequitur, anyone?
Paprika (2006) -- "9/10"
A Japanese Anime film based on a 1993 novel about a device -- the "Mini DC"
-- that lets therapists enter their patients' dreams. Because it's
Japanese
Anime -- with all of the attendant tropes, like creepy frogs, cowled men,
happy cats and little ghosts -- and it's half-set in a dream world, all
bets
are off. It's surreal and you have very little idea where dreams end and
the
real world begins. It's a good bet that Chris Nolan's Inception was, let
us
say, inspired by this film and its literary progenitor.
The eponymous Paprika is the dream-state alter-ego of one of the
researchers
involved on the project. Another of the researchers becomes trapped in a
nightmare and starts to suck the others into it; the tumultuous, shambling
parade of kitchen appliances, dolls, stuffed animals and, of course,
mini-robots, is amazingly detailed and disturbing. Unlike in Inception,
where
the emphasis was more scientific, there is, as usual in Japanese Anime,
something otherworldly and sinister about the dream world. There are
shades
of the Matrix here as well, as the researchers freely move between the
real
world, where they are bound by physical laws, and the dream world, where
anything can be made to happen. Paprika even flies like Neo at one point
and
runs up walls like Trinity.
The Chairman becomes a whale that rears out of the sea like a sandworm --
with Leo Atreides's face -- breaching the sands of Arrakis. The characters
are well-drawn, but it's the static backgrounds that really shine: they
look
to be hand-painted (not rendered). The theme is the common one -- the
struggle between nature and technology. The scene where Onasai tears Chiba
from the dream-chrysalis that is Paprika? And then the chairman grows
Kuato-like -- or perhaps more Voldemort-from-Quirrell-like? -- from Osanai
and the Alien-facehugger-like mouth-rapes Chiba with tentacles that grow
from
his arm? Awesome. The deeper into the movie you get, the more dream levels
there are, the more surreal things get...until the dream world seems to
break
into reality. To top it all off? Skyscraper-sized titans bestride the city
and fight to the death. Now that's what I call Japanese anime.
Your Highness (2011) -- "2/10"
Danny McBride, Natalie Portman and James Franco star in this forgettable
swords-and-sorcery film. A tremendous waste of a potentially good cast. A
pity.
Into Eternity: A Film for the Future (2010) -- "7/10"
A Finnish documentary (mostly in English) about long-term nuclear storage and
focusing on a storage facility that they're building in Finland called Onkalo
(this word looks awesome and sounds awesome too). It's absolutely gigantic
and is meant to last 100,000 years. Construction was started in the 20th
century and will continue until the early 22nd century, when it will have
been completely filled and will be sealed. The ideas are very interesting:
geologic stability is important, but so is societal stability. How can we
predict what happens in 100,000 years? How do we communicate with those
people? How do we warn them of the danger? Nothing we have ever built has
lasted for more than a tenth that long. Although accompanied by lots of
slow-motion sequences of heavy-industry machinery with a melancholy
soundtrack, the information and interviews are quite interesting. The central
issue is the elephant in the room, especially for those new-found nuclear
advocates who see anything as a preferable alternative to carbon-based fuels.
Waiting for Armageddon (2009) -- "8/10"
A documentary about end-timers, people waiting for Judgment Day. The initial
interview is with two supposedly technical people who have a pretty
low-level
command of the English language (for engineers) and a rock-solid belief in
the bible -- although both work on subsystems for the Apache attack
helicopter for a weapons company. The next set of interviews is with
families, with teenagers, who have such an utterly egocentric view of the
Rapture -- they want to take part, but "after seeing the world" and "only
when I'm 85".
Or how about this throwaway comment from one of the interviewees: "In
1947,
for the first time in 2000 years, the Israeli flag flew over Jerusalem."
In the next segment, a bus-load of these fools head to Israel. They're
singing along on the bus and then they all visit the sights in white togas
and sandals. I am convinced that they're not kidding...because then they
were
all baptized by their tour guide. And then singing the Star-spangled
Banner
while boating on the Sea of Galilee? Check. Having just read Innocents
Abroad, it's hard to believe that Twain's pilgrims were even a tenth this
crazy. Then they're buying postcards, which are like 10 for a dollar and
the
guide exhorts his crew to "dicker with 'em [the vendors]". And the Dome of
the Rock? "That mosque has to be removed." At another point, the American
guide is positively yelling that all this shit just has to go, at which
point
another guide, a local, has to tell him to pipe the fuck down because he's
going to start a riot.
I'm just going to include some of the comments to give you a sense of the
people in this movie.
* From one of the pilgrims: "let's be frank, Islam's goal isn't the
Middle
East; it's the whole world" and "Islam is a world-dominating
religion."
* The guide again: "Years ago, I used to be a police officer, for about
four years [...] I went on many raids, you know, we'd have some fun,
breaking into places."
* The couple from the beginning again: "Christ will come back, with a
sword
by his side [...] and we're going to be behind him [...] with swords
in
our hands and we're going to be his army." They go on to describe --
in
their paucity of vocabulary -- the most horrible possible war ever
(another guy later describes it as "Christ is just gonna trash the
planet") -- led by Christ himself, by the way, after which, "God will
set
up his kingdom on Earth, you know, free of evil." Well, yeah, because
God
will have used up all the evil in the war he just started and
finished.
At the end, the tour guide is at home again, giving a presentation on his
trip, getting a huge laugh -- from pretty much everyone -- when he shows a
picture of Jerusalem with the Dome of the Rock having been elided with
Photoshop. 'Nuff said. Despite the derision, I recommend this documentary.
Know thy enemy.
C.S.A. -- The Confederate States of America (2004) -- "8/10"
A mockumentary, depicting a historical documentary from Britain about an
America where the South won. Lincoln was disgraced and forced to use the
Underground Railroad to flee the country and escape into Canada. There is
a
silent movie depicting his capture and humiliation by the Confederate
forces.
Harriet Tubman was also captured, convicted of war crimes and executed.
The story continues to tell of the trials of the Jefferson Davis
presidency
and how the only way to heal the nation was to retract the Emancipation
Proclamation -- which was still in effect despite the North's loss -- and
officially codify the slavery of the black man into law. Mark Twain, Henry
David Thoreau, Harriet Beecher-Stowe and Susan B. Anthony and others fled
across the border to Canada in response.
In between history lessons, the documentary shows modern-day American
commercials, where the show Runaway has replaced Cops (although it looks
almost the same) and there are commercials for institutes that cure
freedom-related diseases. The next stage in American history was the
demand
for reparations from Canada for having stolen so much property -- in the
form
of slaves to whom they provided asylum. Another commercial is in the form
of
"if you see something, say something" but is about "people of questionable
racial origin" posing as citizens or "Darkie Toothpaste: for a shine
that's
Jigaboo Bright!"
The next history lesson? Why the takeover of Mexico and South America, to
properly subjugate the darkies in those nether lands. After such an
incursion, Hitler was the natural partner of the U.S. -- the U.S. would
convince Hitler to enslave the Jews rather than to kill them, that "it was
immoral to waste valuable human livestock." America opened the war against
Japan, underestimating them because they were "small in stature and
non-white" and, as Congress said, "sneaky".
In the C.S.A. women still didn't have the vote well into the 50s, Rock and
Roll started in Canada and Elvis was arrested for imitating the northern
negros. Another cool commercial is for the drug, Contrari, "for Mammies
and
Uncles [to] for all-day control". There are lots of side-effect warnings
and
its "not meant for servants who are nursing or about to drop a litter."
Before the credits, they mention that many of the products advertised were
actually real, like Sambo Axle Grease or Darkie Toothpaste or Niggerhair
cigarettes. This isn't too surprising: you can still buy chocolate in
Switzerland today with a cartoonish African tribal chief on it called
"Mohrekopf" or "Moor-head".
Casino Jack (2010) -- "6/10"
Kevin Spacey stars as Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist who held Washington in the
palm of his hand during the Bush years. The film focuses on his most
notorious campaign, in which he "helped" Native American tribes get access to
Congress. Spacey plays him with a weird tic, where he does voices, imitating
Hollywood actors. Jon Lovitz plays well, in his standard role as one of his
partners and Barry Pepper also plays his usual character (you'd recognize him
if you saw him). It's a relatively well-made film about a standard story of
corruption and influence. Spoiler alert -- in case you never read the papers
-- they all screw each other over, in the end. Oh, and Abramoff goes to jail.
The best part is near the end where he imagines the courtroom rant that he'd
like to give -- in which he indicts and exposes all the corrupt Senators
juding him -- instead of taking the fifth.
The Expendables 2 (2012) -- "7/10"
The gang's all here again and they stayed in pretty good shape. They're older
-- more reading glasses around -- but still pretty cut. The old-timer
banter
is pretty funny. Jet Li's pots-and-pans choreography was very nice. Some
stuff is just silly: "Cover up!" screams Stallone as they careen through a
firefight. Wait, why didn't they cover up before they charged the city?
Did
they expect no one to shoot at them? And why do they need all those
muscles
and guns when the sniper just kills everyone anyway? Gunnar (Dolph
Lundgren)
is still one of my favorites: fun fact, the back story they provide for
him
in the movie is pretty close to Lundgren's own "life story"
. He really is quite
well-educated.
And then comes the object lesson: the brashness of youth was not willing
to
fake respect, spat in the face of madness and paid for it with a knife to
the
heart, leaving the grizzled warriors to fight another day. I'm not sure
what
they're doing here, but what started off as kind of a joke: "hey, let's
pack
every action star into one movie!" is actually getting pretty good, with
each
guy pulling his full weight and not a red-shirt to be seen. Barney even
philosophizes, "That's how we deal with death. We can't change what it is,
so
we keep it light until it's time to get dark. And then we get pitch
black."
They all seem to be having fun but, but Statham and Stallone -- as Barney
and
Lee Christmas -- are a positively awesome action duo. The action sequences
are nicely choreographed: tight and quick. Statham gets the elegance and
grace award again (as in the first one). On a side note, it was nice to
see
almost no product placement (no beer signs in the bar; no labels on the
bottles). The standard script, very well-executed.
Get Shorty (1995) -- "8/10"
One of John Travolta's best movies. As in Pulp Fiction the year before, he's
a gangster -- a shylock, to be specific -- and he's as cool and clever as
can
be. A job takes him to Las Vegas and then to Los Angeles, where he
realizes
that he could finally get into the business he's always loved: movies. An
absolutely all-star cast joins Travolta: Rene Russo, Gene Hackman, Danny
DeVito, Dennis Farina, Delroy Lindo, James Gandofini and Bette Midler.
Russo
is awesome as usual (shades of her cool-customer/hot-lady roles in Lethal
Weapon 3 or The Thomas Crown Affair) and props to Delroy Lindo for his
portrayal of Ray Barboni, the mobster with Tourette Syndrome and a serious
violent streak. The film is based on Elmore Leonard's book of the same
name
and has some really good dialogue.
Karen Flores (Russo): Weren't you scared back there?
Chili Palmer (Travolta): You bet.
Karen Flores: You don't act like it.
Chili Palmer: Well, I was scared then, but I'm not scared now. How long do
you want me to be scared?
For comparison, Pulp Fiction springs to mind, but Kiss Kiss Bang Bang has
more of the same vibe and that movie was equally funny and well-made.
Highly
recommended.
Battleship (2012) -- "4/10"
"Independence Day with sunlight as the virus and without Pullman's star
power."
I wonder how much the navy paid for this commercial. We're introduced to
the
lovable loser with a steadfast brother. The hot admiral's daughter is with
the loser, of course. Kick the jingoism into overdrive. Special effects
are
absolutely top-notch: the satellite crashing into Hong Kong was
spectacular
and my undiscerning eye and paucity of imagination cannot determine
whether
it's real. I like Alexander Skarsgård -- he was awesome in Generation
Kill
-- but he really chews the scenery with his American good 'ol boy accent:
"I
tell you what, boys, this is a real head-stumper." Who talks like that?
And then his brother basically paraphrases that old joke about the
Canadian
lighthouse when he sees this enormous building sticking out of the water
and,
after a single, initial communication attempt, calmly tells it to "prepare
to
be boarded" as if it was a yacht. And then he's not even wearing a headset
to
stay in contact with, well, anybody. It's kind of sad to see the Aliens
mindset come to the fore, where a load of dumb grunts handles First
Contact.
And then, after a show of power far beyond a dinky rocket falling into the
sea, another idiot -- one in charge of a ship -- says "it's the North
Koreans, I'm telling ya". I'm almost certain that this was not intended
ironically: this is probably the reaction that these people would have.
And now it becomes Under the Dome by Stephen King (at least they're
stealing
from good sources). And then something the size of a city block emerges
from
the water and utterly fails to make a wave big enough to do more than
gently
rock a nearby zodiac. Magic alien wave-killing technology! And what
technology it is: it looks wonderful, but you have to wonder why all the
huge, energy-wasting mechanical parts? Is it really necessary to have it
leap
like a giant frog? To keep the CGI folks busy and happy? And then it uses
more-or-less conventional weapons, like depth charges and cluster/limpet
bombs? Are they classicists? Or just letting the Navy show off its
anti-aircraft capabilities? If the aliens want to phone home, and they're
going to use a human device to do it, won't it take years for the message
to
go and come back? Or does the speed-of-light not apply? And it was lucky
for
mankind that the windshield on the spaceship wasn't bulletproof. Lucky
thing
that. And since when do Navy guys -- wearing gloves, no less -- actually
use
the risers when going down steep steps on a boat? Didn't they used to
slide
down those things?
And then, when they catch an alien, their adherence to quarantine and lab
protocol are about as good as those of the Prometheus crew. Not much
imagination on the aliens, though. It looks like the Master Chief from
Halo
-- with a suit made on Cybertron -- is attacking planet Earth.
I will admit that the way they actually worked in the Battleship board
game
was quite clever and fit well into the story. I like neither the U.S. nor
its
military enough to get particularly excited about the Missouri going to
sea
with a bunch of America's "greatest generation" for a crew, despite AC/DCs
efforts. At least the battle was mercifully short after they
hockey-stopped
an ancient battleship with no notable structural damage.
And then a hand-to-hand fight with the disabled veteran? Good thing for
him
that only one of the aliens noticed his truck crashing into a huge piece
of
equipment.
Ted (2012) -- "8/10"
A pretty funny movie about a man and his teddy bear, starring Mark Wahlberg
(boy/man), Mila Kunis (girlfriend) and Seth McFarlane (voice of Ted). In a
nice twist on the toy-come-to-life genre, the movie barely deals at all with
the usual, tired plots of hiding the talking bear from the world or dealing
with everyone's surprise. After an initial scare with the parents, the rest
of the world seems pretty cool with the idea of a talking teddy bear. Other
than the foul-mouthed talking teddy bear, it's a standard Hollywood girl
meets boy, boy loses girl, boy wins girl back story. Small parts by Giovanni
Ribisi, Norah Jones, Patrick Warburton and Ryan Reynolds as well as narration
by Patrick Stewart keep things interesting. Wahlberg and Kunis are good, but
Ted has the best lines and personality, hands down.
The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) -- "5/10"
The movie starts with a young Peter Parker -- an excuse to hire some
producer's little-shit kid, I bet -- and the camera pans across a living
room
with one of his toys on the coffee table: a godzilla toy -- a lizard.
That's
what those in the know call foreshadowing. Subtle, right?
So, this is the Spider-man origin story re-imagined with Parker as an
outsider but in a cooler, hipster
use-a-film-camera-in-the-age-of-Instamatic,
ride-a-skateboard and stand-up-to-the-bully kind of way. And he wears
half-gloves -- he's so dreamy. Gwen Stacy and Flash Thomson make early
appearances; Emma Stone's pretty good actually. So Peter, showing much
more
moxie in this parallel universe sneaks in to Oscorp see what his father
was
up to, lo these many years ago. Good thing for him that Oscorp is still
working on the exact same stuff his father was working on 15 years ago.
That's how smart Dad was, I guess; they can't get anywhere without him.
And
Jesus, isn't Peter smart? He shows up at Connors's house and in typically
arrogant teenager fashion solves the problem that Connors has been unable
to
solve for over a decade. So he's immediately taken up as a biologist by
Oscorp and he succeeds at growing back limbs on his first day at work. And
then he humiliates Flash with his newfound powers and he's totally the
BMOC.
Instead of a nice guy, Peter is an egocentric douche. Not untypically so,
but
a douche nonetheless.
It's a nice touch in his transformation story that he has to become
accustomed to his new strength and sensitivity -- something that wouldn't
happen immediately. And his training session in the old warehouse is
actually
a more believable way of discovering -- and honing -- his powers. And it's
cool to see him use technology to build his web-shooters, as in the
original
story from the comic books. His slower facility with webs is also more
believable than in the other movies. The web in the sewer trick was kinda
neat, too. Eventually, as he becomes Spider-man, his sense of humor is
also
more in keeping with the original story. He's still much too arrogant and
disrespectful of the police [1] -- he's supposed to be a smart-ass, not a
douche.
Sweet Jesus, that scene with the kid in the car? You could have left that
whole thing out, really. What's the use of that? To show us that, despite
the
hour's worth of evidence previously presented to the contrary, that
Peter's
not a douche? Are you deliberately wasting my time?
And again -- I'm looking at you, Homeland -- what's up with the magic
cell-phone reception? Perfect clarity -- five bars--in the sewer for Peter
Parker. And at the end, it's clear that Spidey has no webs but why can't
he
stick to the building? He stuck to everything else by accident up until
that
point and now he suddenly can't stick to anything? Why?
The movie kind of evened out in the end and the second half was definitely
better than the first.
Superbad (2007) -- "8/10"
The first half of the movie is pretty forgettable actually, serving mostly as
a jumping-off point for actors and actresses who would be much better in
other films: Michael Cera, Jonah Hill, Emma Stone, Seth Rogen and Bill
Hader
(as the two cops). There are some good lines, like when Seth and Jules are
going out the back door of a house:
"Seth: Watch your step; I fell earlier today
Jules: Are you serious?
Seth: Well, I was hit by a car. It's a long story."
Or, when Becca mauls Evan at a party:
"Becca: I'm so wet right now.
Evan: Yeah...they said that would happen, in health class."
The best parts are with Rogen and Hader as the cops. Their escapades with
McLovin (aka Fogell) are pretty epic. Hill and Cera have their moments as
well, but Hill is a rageaholic ass for a lot of the movie. Their
relationship
is more like two girls than two guys: they talk about their feelings, go
clothes-shopping together and so on. In fairness, the second half is much
better and the ending is very good ... and the sketches accompanying the
credits are great -- really authentic.
I Heart Huckabees (2004) -- "9/10"
A stellar cast rounds out this quirky film about ... well, about human
existence, about struggle, about pain, about joy and about everything and
nothing. Jason Schwartzman plays Albert Markovski, a poetry-writing
defender
of the "open spaces". He hires a husband-and-wife existentialist detective
team, played by Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin -- I am not kidding; they
are
awesome together -- to investigate a coincidence. Mark Wahlberg is also a
client, with his own issues (mostly about petroleum). Jude Law is
Schwartzman's rival, and works for the Huckabees chain -- the "everything
store" -- and Naomi Watts plays the spokesmodel/girlfriend/fellow
angst-ridden soul. Isabelle Huppert is a rival therapist/investigator of
the
ineffable. There are other cameos -- I saw Kevin Dunn, Jonah Hill and Jean
Smart -- but those are the main characters. The dialogue was good and the
actors were used quite well, each getting their chance in the spotlight.
What
happens? That's hard to explain; there is definitely a story arc and a
conclusion, but to tell it would be to focus on the incidental. It's about
the journey, man. Sure, some of it is probably old news and rehashed
philosophy to some, but it was a hell of a lot more interesting than many
other movies. And the various lines of inquiry ended up dovetailing quite
nicely.
As for the dialogue, here are some bits I transcribed. The first is from
Vivian's (Tomlin) initial interview with Albert:
Vivian Jaffe: Have you ever transcended space and time?
Albert Markovski: Yes. No. Uh, time, not space... No. ... I don't know
what
you're talking about.
This next, longer one is our introduction to Tommy, the petroleum-obsessed
firefighter (Wahlberg), who's talking to his wife Molly and daughter
Caitlin:
Tommy: You don't want to ask these questions?
Molly: No. I wanna live my life.
Tommy: What is that life, baby? What are we part of? Who are we? Look at
this, look at this [shows her one of her shoes]. Do you know where these
come
from?
Molly: Yeah. My closet. The store.
Tommy: Indonesia. [turns to young daughter] Baby... this is the truth, ok?
Little girls like you, they have to work in dark factories where they go
blind, for a dollar sixty a month just to make Mommy her pretty shoes. Can
you even imagine that, Caitlin?
Caitlin: [shouting] I don't want the children to work in factories! Stop
it
from happening!
Molly: Your Daddy's crazy, honey.
Tommy: Daddy's not crazy, baby. The world is crazy. It's important to ask
these questions.
Molly: Shut up!
Tommy: Mommy doesn't ask because Mommy doesn't care. Don't stop asking
questions, baby!
In this next quote, Tommy in a way foreshadows what he and Albert would
later
learn from Caterine Vauban (Huppert) when they discover "pure being" -- a
state in which you are free from the burden of thinking and free from the
humdrum concerns of daily life. But then you forget what you've learned
and
you're dragged back in, filling the empty crevices of your life with those
concerns -- just to fill the time. At best, life is a sine curve bouncing
you
between the epiphany, the reset and cleansing, of pure being and the
humdrum
knot of concerns that is modern life. People usually experience such an
epiphany when they come back from a great, seemingly life-altering
vacation;
a few weeks later, though, they're back to their old selves.
"Tommy: Why do people only ask themselves deep, philosophical questions when
something bad happens? And then they forget all about it afterwards?"
These are the final lines of the movie; out of context, they may seem
trite,
but in context? Not bad at all.
"Tommy Corn: What are you doing tomorrow?
Albert Markovski: I was thinking about chaining myself to a bulldozer. Do
you
want to come?
Tommy Corn: What time?
Albert Markovski: Mmm, 1, 1:30.
Tommy Corn: Sounds good. Should I bring my own chains?
Albert Markovski: We always do."
The Untold History of the United States s01e02 (2012) -- "10/10"
This episode was eye-opening in its depiction of the sheer corruption and
party manipulation involved in the deposing of "Henry Wallace"
as the Presidential nominee
at the 1944 Democratic convention. Wallace was far too liberal but the people
loved him. Their will was flouted by the party bosses and Truman was selected
instead. Truman ended up dropping the bomb; nothing about Wallace suggests
that he would have even considered doing so. This episode covers up to
Roosevelt's death, Truman's reluctant assumption of the presidency and his
all-too-eager and prejudicially small-minded betrayal of the Soviets, despite
their having essentially won the European war.
Hell Ride (2008) -- "3/10"
Though it's got Michael Madsen, Dennis Hopper and David Carradine and was
produced by Quentin Tarantino, it was clearly neither directed nor written by
him. And Larry Bishop is most definitely not Quentin Tarantino. The flick's
about motorcycle gangs in the desert, settling an old vendetta and having a
lot of sex in various bars. Not recommended.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Does Denis Leary have to play the police chief whenever there's a call for
one in New York City?
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=27282012-12-16T21:46:35+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
A surprisingly amusing and refreshingly good sequel to the original
Johnny English. This one drew the line farther from slapstick than
the original -- and skirting entirely the scatological humor that
induced squirms. The story was decebt and the cast was good
...
]]>
A surprisingly amusing and refreshingly good sequel to the original Johnny
English. This one drew the line farther from slapstick than the original --
and skirting entirely the scatological humor that induced squirms. The story
was decebt and the cast was good (Gillian Anderson and Rosamund Pike were
both very welcome additions). English, as played by Rowan Atkinson, is even
more skilled than in the first film, though he still swings between utterly
clueless and reasonably clever. An early scene shows him defeating a much
younger nemesis by not entering into any of the typical action-hero hijinks
at all. The fleeing enemy climbs down scaffolding dozens of stories high?
English takes the elevator and meets him at the bottom. Quite cleverly done,
actually. The finale -- set at Le Bastion but where guards are inexplicably
speaking Swiss- and High-German (and actually filmed at the Aguille de Midi
near Chamonix in France) -- was fun, evoking the spy-film style while mixing
in Naked-Gun--like hijinks (although it stayed more serious than that). I
enjoyed it and can recommend it -- if you're going to watch one Johnny
English movie, watch this one and not its predecessor. Bonus: watch the
credits to see Atkinson at his craft cooking to Grieg's The Hall of the
Mountain King.
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) -- "9/10"
My expectations going in were low and I was pleasantly surprised to find that
this was a relatively solid movie. It was also solidly based on the origin
story of Captain America, right down to pretty much every major character.
Chris Evans was good as the Captain, Stanley Tucci added class as always
(as
the inventor of the Super-Soldier Serum, Erskine) and Hugo Weaving was the
Red Skull, who is a really good villain (complete with eerily
Ah-nuld--like
accent). [1] Props also to Tommy Lee Jones as crusty old Colonel Phillips
and
Dominic Cooper as a young Howard Stark (Tony's father). The sets &
costumes
were a wonderful blend of WWII period articles mixed with enough
fantastical
technology to remain faithful to the comic books. The whole look and feel
of
the film was pretty consistent, playing like a WWII-era propaganda film
and
really sticking the landing. Even Hayley Atwell looked like she just
stepped
out of a pin-up poster. The special effects were very good and pretty
tight;
I honestly don't see what was wrong with it. The jingoism wasn't over the
top
-- it was barely present at all, actually -- I mean, it was about the
Americans fighting the Nazis i.e. Hydra. The movie was based on comic
books
that started out as propaganda for the U.S. Army. The movie told that
story
faithfully and well. Unlike the Green Lantern, the back-story was
interesting
and fun to watch. This was an actual movie and delivered what it promised
--
even the ordinarily more difficult moments for such films (love interest,
etc.) were handled with aplomb. I'm looking forward to the next one.
Highly
recommended for action-movie fans.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] His sidekick/chief scientist Arnim Zola described him as follows:
"Dr. Arnim Zola: Schmidt believes he walks in the footsteps of the gods.
Col. Chester Phillips: Hm!
Dr. Arnim Zola: Only the world itself will satisfy him.
Col. Chester Phillips: You do realize that's nuts, don't you?
Dr. Arnim Zola: The insanity of the plan is of no consequence.
Col. Chester Phillips: And why is that?
Dr. Arnim Zola: Because he can do it!
Col. Chester Phillips: What's his target?
Dr. Arnim Zola: His target is everywhere."
Platoon (1986) -- "9/10"
A cast that already were or would become all-stars includes a lot of familiar
faces -- John C. McGinley (you may know him as Dr. Cox from Scrubs) plays a
smaller role, as do Forest Whitaker, Keith David and Johnny Depp. Charlie
Sheen plays a soldier newly arrived to Vietnam. His platoon has divided its
allegiance between Willem Dafoe -- the more principled one -- and Tom
Berenger -- the amoral killing machine. The main story is ostensibly based on
Oliver Stone's own experiences during his two tours of duty, although it
seems as if more than a little of My Lai found its way into it -- the scene
in the village was quite horrifying (though Kubrick kind of topped it in his
own film about Vietnam Apocalypse Now). It's a good movie with strong
characters, tense scenes and a gritty realism throughout. The only women in
it were extremely incidental Vietcong from the villages. Saw it in German.
Midnight Express (1978) -- "6/10"
A movie loosely based on the biographical novel of the same name by Billy
Hayes. He was caught smuggling hashish out of Turkey and sentenced to
Sağmalcılar prison. The Turks are depicted throughout as either thieves,
corrupt, homosexual, brutal, slovenly, unclean or a horrific combination of
all of these. The warden in particular is portrayed as an Ottoman juggernaut,
implacable and evil. Even Hayes -- who actually served time in that prison --
went on record saying that the depiction was over-the-top and wildly
inaccurate. [2] The best scene happens to be one of the purely imagined ones
-- when Billy takes out Rifki, another prisoner who'd ratted out his best
friend. The film has its moments -- the scenes in the insane asylum are well
done. Overall, it's a bit long but worth holding out for the last 1/3 in
which Hayes seems to be channeling Brad Pitt from the 12 Monkeys. The version
I watched had no subtitles for any of the Turkish parts; it's uncertain
whether that was intended in order to give you the impression of what it was
like for Hayes (although he seems by the end of the film to have picked up at
least some of the local lingo).
John Carter (2012) -- "8/10"
This movies is based on a novel written in the early 1900s by Edgar Rice
Burroughs. It was quite faithful to the atmosphere of the stories. It was
interesting to watch while reading Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad, in which he
tells of his world travels, including a trip through what we now call the
Middle East. His vivid depictions of the desert tribes, cities and climes
resonate strongly with those depicted in this movie. John Carter is a former
soldier transported to Mars and caught up in ancient struggles between
warring tribes of different races. Spoiler alert: the battle scene against
the Tharks which is interleaved with his memories of finding his family
slaughtered was very well done. In it, he was accompanied by his Martian
bulldog, who is adorable. The walking city of Zodanga is also nicely
rendered, with the millipede-like legs of the city in the background of many
scenes. And the ending was a nice surprise: the standard swashbuckling had a
coda of bleak despair followed by clever revenge.
The Pruitt-Igoe Myth (2011) -- "8/10"
A documentary about the famous Pruitt-Igoe housing project in St. Louis.
Includes interviews with many former residents and documents from the
beginning to the end of the projects, when they were torn down. The
socio-economic realities are examined in detail as well as the outright
racism of local authorities and social programs. A documentary with a very
narrow focus, but nevertheless well-done.
Paul (2011) -- "7/10"
Seth Rogen finally found a role where his hipster douchebag look can't annoy
me [3]: he plays the voice of Paul, a hard-drinking, hard-smoking, cool,
hipster-douchebag of an alien. He meets up with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost --
teamed up, once again -- this time playing English nerds touring the
conspiracy hot-spots of the U.S. after visiting ComicCon. Hijinks ensue and a
good time is had by all. The story is kind of E.T. meets the X Files with
Jason Bateman playing the smoking-man role very well. Kristen Wiig is also
good as the lady swept up in their mad road-trip and Jane Lynch has a good
bit part. A fun, funny movie. Recommended.
The African Queen (1951) -- "6/10"
Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn take a ride on the African Queen, a
small riverboat in 1914 Africa. They get to know each other as they make
their way along untraveled byways and untamed rivers to play their part in
the war against the Germans. Katherine Hepburn starts off the film as a
repressed sister of a pastor (shades of The Poisonwood Bible) who
commandeers
Mr. Allnut's boat -- she bogart's it, if you will. But not before she does
unconscionable things to Mr. Allnut's gin and self-righteously accuses him
of
being a coward and a liar. Truly pleasant company, this bible-thumper. And
then, once he's capitulated in every way, they are ready to fall in love.
They make their way further and further down the river, all acted out in a
two-person play in the classic style. Katherine Hepburn has the perfect
voice
for such a bossy lady. The music is, for a modern ear, sometimes quite
martial and incongruously jaunty for some situations -- almost more like
the
music from old silent movies, like Nosferatu. I like to think of this
movie
as if Rosie doesn't even exist -- only in poor, old Allnut's fevered mind,
slowly being eaten by a combination of the heat, the Tse-tse fly, malaria,
dehydration and perhaps syphilis. If you watch it like that, it all makes
sense. And, if you look closely, you'll see that she never casts a shadow.
Not once. The Germans are, of course, portrayed as utterly amoral
arseholes.
Here's the text of the kangaroo court -- untranslated in the film and
unavailable in the subtitles, but transcribed and translated by yours
truly.
Prosecutor: Das ist der gesamte Beweisematerial der Anklage (That's all
the
evidence from the prosecution)
Judge: Fahren sie fort mit der Verteidigung (The defense may commence)
Defense: Jawohl. Das Beweisematerial der Anklage war ungenügend. Wir
haben
nichts als Indizienbeweise gehört. Die Verteidigung kann hier kaum etwas
hinzufügen. (Yessir. The evidence presented by the prosecution was
insufficient. We heard nothing but circumstantial evidence. The defense
has
nothing to add.)
Judge: The court sentences you to death by hanging.
The last line elicited a guffaw in its incongruity with the German lines
delivered just before.
Culture in Decline -- Episodes 1-3 (2012) -- "8/10"
A series of videos written and hosted by Peter Joseph with a
history/economics/sociology/philosophy/ecology lesson. The videos are very
interesting and relatively well-made in the documentary style. They're all
available on YouTube.
The Dictator (2012) -- "6/10"
Sasha Baron Cohen is very good in a surprisingly smart script about a North
African dictator who comes to America for a conference. The soundtrack is
quite good, composed of many American pop covers in what I'm assuming is
Arabic. There weren't any real surprises and some of the bits fell flat for
me, but it was way better than Borat: it had no hairy, naked man-wrestling.
In Time (2011) -- "8/10"
The film has a cool concept in which people's lives are valued in only time
rather than mostly money. It's set in the future where everyone stops
aging
at 25 and every year beyond your 26th birthday must be paid for with time
that you earn. Your account is shown on your arm; when the counter drops
to
zero, you die. It's a great excuse to people the film with hot
25-year-olds
and to be able to show the plight of the poor without actually showing the
poor as they really appear.
Pay-day lenders, uncaring people on the bus for a woman who doesn't have
enough time, the gated communities that cost so much to get into, the
perpetuation of the system by everyone thinking that they'll be one of the
rich, all are present. It's a relatively crude analogy to money but pretty
well-done. Transactions of time are made by bringing the watches into
proximity with one another. All of the high-time people have guards and
are
exceedingly careful with their bodies so as not to be killed or die
accidentally. The time-rich are afraid to live and pity themselves for it,
trying to live forever.
Timberlake is typically good as is Cillian Murphy as the Timekeeper.
Amanda
Seyfried was also decent, but damn is she pushing the boundary of
weight-loss: her knees and shins were practically skeletal in the back of
the
hearse.
And now, because it's a sci-fi movie, on to the silly plot holes. There
seems
to be little to no security on your time account. It's unclear how a
transaction is authorized but the police lifted a millennium as pretty as
you
please in just seconds. In a world where everyone has a time clock
implanted
in their arm, no one has a cell phone or any other smart bio-hardware?
They
have to use a pay phone? Those still exist? It's interesting as well that
all
classes of society wear their wealth on their sleeve, although the rich
store
some of their wealth in banks.
But why are there no safeguards on the time-clocks at all? It's as if you
they've never heard of pin codes. In that sense, the "fights" are utterly
asinine. That said, the conclusion to Will's fight was pretty bad-ass. And
why do the gangsters brandish guns when they can kill by stealing time?
And
"Is it it stealing if it's already stolen?" is just the sort of
superficial
and quasi-philosophical horseshit I expect to hear dribbled from the mouth
of
a partially educated millenial. How are babies born with time-clocks? And
how
the hell is Seyfried still wearing those shoes as a fugitive? She
positively
sprints in those high-heels. And why is the newsest guy on the time-force
put
in charge after the chief Timekeeper dies?
I like that the movie stayed relatively low-budget, investing in the story
rather than the effects.
So everyone is still driving cars and using normal guns; the low-tech
approach is kind of nice. The architecture was also quite nice, with a
very
cool building in LA standing in for the Weis headquarters.
Killer at Large (2008) -- "9/10"
A documentary about he obesity epidemic in America. Eat less, exercise more,
eat better: those are not enough. The movie makes the point that a major
contributor to obesity is fear and stress, overwork and lack of sleep --
that
obesity is as much an emotional and psychological and addiction problem as
a
physical one. There are interviews with thinner people who used to be fat,
relating their stories.
One lady, when she was younger, would buy a ridiculously huge breakfast at
McDonalds and another at Burger King every morning and then do it again at
lunch. She skipped school to eat and avoid ridicule for four months and
her
parents were none the wiser. The question I have is: where on Earth did
she
get the money for all of that food? She had no job, so her parent must
have
provided her with $20 a day just to buy fast food. But they claim not to
have
known a thing about it. A driver for this problem is that kids have too
much
money available -- unless taking away that money would lead them to a life
of
crime just to buy those McFlurries and Hash Browns.
It's a decent story, culminating in an indictment of the oil, corn and
pharmaceutical industries for distorting American society for profit: corn
pulls in subsidies, grown with oil-based fertilizers and harvested by huge
machines and then the pharma companies swoop in to assuage the
psychological
damage created by it all and loop the cycle back around. Michael Pollan
features heavily, as you might expect. Ralph Nader also makes a couple of
welcome appearances.
Another major contributor to obesity in kids is that much of their world
is
online: many leave the house only to go to school and all other
interaction
is through cell phones or chat or X-Boxes. One teacher said that "40-50%
of
his first-year students run as if they've never run before, had never
developed the skill of running".
There is an awesome militant lunch lady (so designated in her caption)
who's
very, very eloquent. I transcribed part of her interview below:
"The USDA is allocating $7 billion a year to feed 30 million children a day.
What it comes down to, on a plate, is the government gives schools $2.42
for
lunch. And, of that, 2/3, in most schools, goes to overhead and payroll.
That
means there's less than 80¢, absolutely less than a dollar, to feed a
child
lunch. Now, in the state of California alone, the prison system costs us
$9
billion. We're spending more on keeping people in jail in California than
we
are on feeding every child in America lunch for a year. What are we
thinking?
It isn't that we can't afford it; it isn't that we can't do it; it's that
we
are choosing, in America, to prioritize other things besides our
children's
health."
With only 80¢ per day for "real" food, kids spend several times that on
sodas and junk food from vending machines. A contributing factor is that
schools cost money to run, their budgets are restricted every year and
capitalizing on their students' addictions is an easy way of filling the
budget gap. Another win for capitalism, really. When Schwarzenegger banned
vending machines in schools in California, there was backlash (of course),
but some of it came from parents, who helped their sweeties get their
sweeties, despite the ban. The brainwashing of Madison Avenue strikes deep
and has already captured several generations. Douglas Rushkopf and Dr.
Susan
Linn were very good. Here's Rushkopf, describing how marketing to children
works:
"You wanna get the child alone, so you can market to him without the filter
and the governance of someone who actually cares about the child as
something
other than discretionary income. It's the same strategy that a lion will
use
or a pack of wolves will use against Bambi: you know, you isolate the baby
child from the parent that can protect it in order to get it. It's pure
old-fashioned hunting."
And here's Linn describing the onslaught with which even the most balanced
parent have to contend:
"So when the food industry or the marketing industry says 'parents should
just say no', I think they're being disingenuous because, you know,
meanwhile, people like me are telling parents that they should pick their
battles, but which commercially created battle should parents pick? Should
they pick the food battle? Or should the pick the precocious,
irresponsible
sexuality battle? If you have an eight-year--old girl who's dressing like
a
hooker, my guess is that that's the battle you're going to pick."
Rushkopf again:
"When you look at something as simple to understand as America obesity,
what's you're seeing is the result of two or three generations of
programming
designed to make us consume more."
The assault is so wide-ranging that people really have no chance of
winning:
they're like Cambodians trying to avoid Kissinger's carpet-bombing. Some
of
the statistics are gob-smacking: "when offered fast food for lunch, the
average calories consumed by a teenager was 1652Kc." That's more than the
maintenance level of calories for the entire day -- for just one meal --
for
people who don't don't participate in any or very little activity. Another
is
that, "[i]n 2006, the [CDC] reported that obesity kills more than 112,000
Americans a year", and many of those are presumably lives of long, slow
decline and suffering caused by obesity-related illnesses. You die of
obesity, but you never really get to live -- you're depressed, sluggish,
inactive -- because of it as well.
One junk-food and soda vendor's arguments were extremely persuasive: keep
machines in the schools so that the schools profit instead of the local
Quickie-Mart, bottles with screwtops are better than the open drinks
available there -- no messes in carpeted schools (who carpets a school?)
--
and kids driving to the Quickie-Mart are at risk of car accidents. The
vendor
argued that the kids were addicted already and would move heaven and Earth
to
get that cookie, so you might as well keep it in the building. Oh the
seductive, dulcet tones put forth by a forked tongue.
When you see the interconnection between all of the different things that
are
wrong with America, it's hard not to think that it's a country peopled by
and
run by the utterly stupid who are constantly amazed by the wholly
foreseeable
deleterious effects of their actions.
The Campaign (2012) -- "7/10"
Will Ferrell and Zack Galifianakis shine as opponents in the Congressional
campaign for the 14st district of North Carolina. Ferrell is Cam Brady, the
incumbent, an amalgam of the overpowering stupidity and tone-deafness of
George Bush and the raw sexual charisma and drive of a younger Bill Clinton.
Galifianakis is local oddball Marty Huggins, whose powerful Daddy and big
sponsors -- the Motch Brothers -- and amazingly effective campaign director
(Dylan McDermott, who plays well) try to catapult him into office. Brady does
everything he can to lose the election -- something that's eminently hard to
do for an incumbent. A DUI stop that goes even more spectacularly wrong than
you'd think possible pushes him on his way, though. As McDermott works his
magic on Huggins, Huggins transforms into a savage candidate and, from this
nadir, Cam Brady starts to look like the reasonable one. In all of the twists
and turns of the campaign (including the final "miraculous" switch of many
votes), it's just as savage -- and funny -- an indictment of American
politics and Citizens United as Trading Places was of American finance. Maybe
because John Lithgow and Dan Aykroyd as the Motch brothers remind me of Don
Ameche and Ralph Bellamy as the Duke brothers. I'm not sure whose unfortunate
decision it was to use Green Day for the credits music.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] It turns out that Oliver Stone wrote that screenplay, though it's unclear
how much control he had over the plot and adaptation.
[1] I had yet to watch his sterling performance as Michaels in Superbad when I
wrote this.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=27222012-12-02T00:10:36+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
Grand Theft Auto started out by copying action movies and now the
circle is complete as movies like Crank are copying the cinematic
style of GTA. It does a great job of raising adrenalin levels. About
halfway through the movie, he's even dressed as Nico from GTAIV (when
he
...
]]>
Grand Theft Auto started out by copying action movies and now the circle is
complete as movies like Crank are copying the cinematic style of GTA. It does
a great job of raising adrenalin levels. About halfway through the movie,
he's even dressed as Nico from GTAIV (when he visits his girlfriend). As a
concept, it's quite a bit of fun, although it drags a bit toward the end. In
that way, it emulates the feeling of having stale adrenalin in your veins, so
that's good I guess? Can't really recommend it, but I like Jason Statham and
he was decent -- although he was more of a pistol-thug than a
hand-to-hand-combat thug in this one.
Crank: High Voltage (2009) -- "5/10"
This one starts off where the first one ended, and gets even crazier. It
doesn't even pretend to be realistic and is much the better for it. Statham
does a lot more fighting in this one (he hardly did any in the first -- it
was all gunplay). As with the first movie, the two directors are clearly fans
of the Guy-Ritchie school of directing. This sequel is way off the rails --
the Thai hooker whose life he saves is hilarious; her imperviousness to
getting hit by a car fits in with the style of the film seamlessly. And,
aiming to please, the directors responded to the fan outcry that there
weren't enough crazy strippers in the first one -- problem solved in the
second one. They also solved the problem of not enough porn stars. The public
sex scene from the first film is repeated but is even more over-the-top --
and Amy Smart was back for more, despite my absolute conviction that she
would have bailed after the first movie. Statham's Chinese nemesis is
annoying enough -- especially his braying laugh -- to ruin every scene he's
in. Predictably and, as with the first one, this film runs out of legs long
before it's over, so it's hard to recommend, despite my enthusiastic-sounding
review.
Hudson Hawk (1991) -- "6/10"
I saw this as a kid and remembered much more singing, but there was only
Swinging on a Star (at the beginning) and Side by Side (near the end). Andie
McDowell was charming as ever and Bruce Willis was his usual self. It was
pretty absurd, but passed the time while doing something else. Saw it in
German.
Franklyn (2008) -- "6/10"
A relatively low-key and pseudo sci-fi film about the overlap of modern-day
London with Meanwhile City, a more dystopic city from what appears to be
another worldline. Ryan Phillipe was better than expected and Eva Green was
riveting. Whether the overlap exists or whether it is all in the minds of
several of the characters was not clear to me. It was a well-shot film and
the story was well-told, but it wasn't the best of stories, in my humble
opinion.
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) -- "7/10"
A Quentin Tarantino flick with all of the usual suspects: Harvey Keitel,
Juliette Lewis (who looks about 15) and Danny Trejo. It stars George Clooney
and Quentin Tarantino as brothers on the run from the law. Clooney -- playing
Seth Gecko -- is a criminal but not a monster; Tarantino -- playing Richie
Gecko -- is a monster. A typically violent, dialogue-heavy, convoluted story
of many different characters that evolves in utterly unpredictable ways. I
can't recall another Clooney movie in which he plays a really bad guy, but he
does it well. The Gecko brothers rope Keitel and his kids into smuggling them
into Mexico, where they end up at a caricature of a Mexican
strip-club/bordello, fronted by Cheech Marin and starring Selma Hayek dancing
mostly nude with an albino boa python. Despite Hayek's admittedly amazing
efforts to distract them, the Gecko brothers quickly continue their trail of
violence on the other side of the border. And then? The film takes a
90-degree turn into a completely different genre: horror. The second act is
taken up with an epic battle with a lot of old-school special effects. Want a
hint? Listent to Seth Gecko's sage advice: "Psychos do not explode when
sunlight hits them. I don't care how crazy they are."
Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008) -- "5/10"
The oafish Seth Rogen and the charming Elizabeth Banks team up as destitute
roommates to whom nothing remarkable happens. They are not in any way special
-- other than Banks's beauty [1] and Rogen's above-average cutting remarks --
and work in a coffee shop. They live paycheck-to-paycheck and struggle to pay
their utility bills. They are their target demographic. They hit upon the
idea of making a porno to finance a return to a status quo that they so
recently left -- that is, to pay some bills to turn the water, heat and
electricity back on. Their dreams are no bigger than this, which is a nice
comment on the times, no? At any rate -- with the help of a friend, who's
moderately better-off -- they scratch together enough money to finance the
film, collect a cast and crew and start shooting the film. Hijinks and
hilarity ensue and everything works out in the end. It's a Kevin Smith film,
so it's not shy about language -- I saw it in German, but there were some
seriously juicy insults and creative cursing. It's hard to recommend because
the story arc was old-friends-become-lovers (ho-hum) but at least it was made
for grown-ups.
Casa de mi Padre (2012) -- "5/10"
It's a Will Ferrell vehicle, with a twist: the entire movie is in Spanish (or
some facsimile thereof). It's a send-up of Mexican/Spanish-language cowboy
movies. But it's still Will Ferrell playing a mostly stupid guy who
occasionally leverages his ignorance of common tact to say something
insightful. At one point, he and his lady friend are riding horses and he
compliments her on her riding; they are both, however, riding fake horses.
It's kind of like that throughout. The pacing and dialogue reminded me of Top
Secret. It's nothing remarkable and it's definitely not even in the top ten
of his films. So...not recommended.
Green Lantern (2011) -- "5/10"
Ryan Reynolds's wit is only occasionally on display in this movie, which is a
shame. He's naturally funnier than Robert Downey Jr. and thus could have been
another Tony Stark/Iron Man and launched a franchise. This was not to be. The
first half of the film deals with back-story and character introduction,
which is fine if a little slow. Once the special effects kick in, the pace
picks up but the whole star-spanning enemy who cannot be stopped by the
universe's best defenders but can be stopped by a hero new to his powers but
who possesses the unique quality of being human ... yech, such dreck. The
movie wasn't as bad as I'd heard but it was certainly nothing to write home
about -- it exceeded my expectations but that was a pretty low bar. There is
quite clearly a setup for a sequel, but hopefully it will never come and
Reynolds can concentrate on playing Deadpool in many, many films because at
least that guy's supposed to be funny. Not recommended.
I Am Comic (2010) -- "6/10"
A documentary about stand-up comedy and comedians. Includes many interviews
and bits from some of the industry's best as well as behind-the-scenes looks
at the unglamorous life of a road-comic. Despite the unrewarding nature of
the profession -- at least until big specials (Louis C.K.) or TV shows (Tim
Allen) change things -- many performers do it for the love of the game: for
the opportunity to stand up in front of people and make them laugh, to be
able to relate their insights and cleverness to others. They do it for
different reasons and in different ways, although the most successful ones
have a method to their madness. They almost all emphasize that almost nothing
they do is off-the-cuff, despite appearances. They prepare hard and practice
hard to get as funny as they are. Recommended if you like stand-up comedy.
Aliens (1986) -- "8/10"
The classic sequel by James Cameron includes a troop of Space Marines that
get picked off one by one by two by two. The most famous lines are by a
grunt
named Hudson, who "whines out his lines"
as fear takes over:
* "Hey, maybe you haven't been keeping up on current events, but we just
got our asses kicked, pal!"
* "That's it man, game over man, game over!"
* "Oh dear Lord Jesus, this ain't happening man. This can't be happening
man! This isn't happening!"
* "Seventeen days? Hey man, I don't wanna rain on your parade, but we're
not gonna last seventeen hours!"
* "We're all gonna die man.", "We're fucked!", "We're doomed
here!"...and
so on.
It was interesting to contrast this one to Prometheus (reviewed below). At
least in this movie, the scope and reach are smaller and the characters
behave as expected for marines and for the situation. They have a clear
mission and move toward it rather than being just as surprised as the
audience by what's happening. A fun action flick.
2081 (2009) -- "7/10"
A short film (available, for now, on "YouTube"
) based on a short story by Kurt
Vonnegutt called Harrison Bergeron. The story is set in the dystopia of the
U.S. in 2081 where everyone has been made equal through application of the
Lowest Common Denominator (LCD) principle: smart people are kept constantly
distracted, athletic people are hampered by weights and shackles, beautiful
people wear masks, etc. Echoes of 1984 although more hopeful.
Oliver Stone's Untold History of the United States E01 (2012) -- "10/10"
The first in a ten-part series on ShowTime written, produced, directed and
narrated by Oliver Stone (available, for now, on "YouTube"
). The show obviously emphasizes
American History but the viewpoint is not as fiercely pro-American as the
more mainstream and jingoistic history commonly taught in American civics
courses. There is much more background on decisions made by the United
States, with more context as to the machinations undertaken by leaders of
that time. It's a truer history, which affords more explanation than the
hagiographies to which Americans are accustomed. The role of the Soviets in
WWII is emphasized and put in perspective vis à vis the oft-lauded roles of
the British and Americans. Stone defends his show against the inevitable
onslaught of the purported American intellectual elite -- which sees its job
as defending the official history in which America is the shining city on the
hill -- by pointing to the academic literature. What his show depicts is
quite mainstream among those that choose to study history rather than invent
it. It was very interesting and informative and I'm looking forward to the
rest of the season.
Prometheus (2012) -- "7/10"
I'd been wanting to see this film for a while -- the trailer was stunning and
enticing and promised an honest-to-goodness science-fiction film by one of
the classic directors in the genre. The sets, sounds and special effects
are
wonderful, fitting for a Ridley Scott film. Everything was believable and
there was nothing that jumped out as obviously made with special effects.
The
technology, the ship, the worlds, the alien artifacts: all melded together
seamlessly, all was lived-in and believable. Most of the cast was good and
the basic story arc was interesting and relatively solid. There were,
however, plot holes large enough to pull me out of the immersive
experience
into which the environment had lulled me.
After watching the movie, I watched the "Review: Prometheus"
(video -- 24:07) -- those guys generally offer interesting reviews of
action/sci-fi genre films -- and read the list of plot holes found in
"Prometheus" . These cover a
few
of the specific plot holes, but those didn't bother me so much -- it was
more
the overall treatment of science and scientists in the film that wasn't
believable at all. Spoiler alerts from here on out.
As a science-fiction film -- it wasn't horror, it wasn't action -- it was
insulting. The crew was full of fevered egos and slapdash scientists who
weren't worthy of the name. There was a biologist that's scared of
investigating alien lifeforms -- until he meets one that's obviously
dangerous and then he finds his courage/stupidity -- to other
investigators
who couldn't care less about evidence because they believe. There's a
geologist who wants to flee back to the ship instead of investigating the
totally new planet on which he's landed. The crew isn't briefed on the
mission until they get to the planet -- none of them have any idea why
they're there -- they have no plans, no equipment, no experimental
equipment
-- except for little ATVs and military hardware -- almost nothing.
The only thing they had was mapping probes, which were very cool -- but
only
the geologist even knew about them! No one else had a clue -- they just
lurched headlong into an utterly unknown situation with no consideration
or
patience or planning. And then, with all of these doodads and constant
communication, two of them get lost! For the whole night! The same ship
crew
that was looking at an awesome 3D map of the whole complex are, minutes
later, laughing at the two fools who will have to spend the night in a
hostile alien landscape. I don't sweat the small stuff but these guys just
flew to another star and not one of them is smart enough to use the
god-damned 3D map that's on the table right behind them to help out their
crew-members. Maybe there's an indictment-of-human-stupidity that I'm
missing
here. Maybe, ironically, I'm too dull to see it.
This film could have treated the science better, letting the story evolve
over days or weeks or months -- it would have added suspense -- but
instead,
the entire landing/discovery/resolution occurs literally within 24 hours.
After two years in cryo-sleep, everything has to be resolved in a day
(which,
by the way, is the exact same length on the other planet as on Earth --
lucky
coincidence that). And two years? Even at the speed of light, there is
nothing habitable within reach -- the second-closest star to Earth is
Proxima
Centauri, which is just over 4 light years away. Why even mention numbers
when they're so blatantly wrong? [2] Why not just say that the ship's crew
were in cryo-sleep for 200 years? How awesome would that have been? It
would
have had much more of a 2001 vibe to it, letting the weight of the years
and
the ineffable size of space add gravitas to the story.
Instead, everything is hyper-fast and the two main "scientists" are utter
jackasses. The guy is an impatient little whiner with no plan and no idea
what he's doing. The female Dr. Snow is no better. They don't even pretend
to
any actual knowledge -- it's unknown what their field even is or why
they're
so qualified to lead this expedition -- because they found a cave
painting?
The entire crew's casual disregard for contamination is astounding. Their
desire to have everything and have it now is, frankly, unbelievable. These
are not scientists in any sense of the word. They're not even real people:
their only motivation seems to be to die as unpleasantly as possible. The
story and dialogue let this otherwise beautifully rendered sci-fi film
down
quite badly.
Noomi Rapace as Dr. Snow has the hardest uphill battle -- she's fighting
the
worst dialogue and plot points with her character. What's up with the "I
can't create life" line that comes -- again, literally -- out of left
field?
Seriously? And, even after horrible things have happened, they still don't
work clean, they still take off their helmets, they still just fly
headlong
into the unknown with absolutely no information. This film could have
easily
been so much smarter and still hit the major plot points.
Why does the android seem to know so much? Because he studied for two
years?
What did he study? What extra information could he have had that the
others
didn't have access to? Is this film an indictment of scientific
expeditions
funded by private enterprise?
Charlize Theron as Vickers was quite good and had the most level-headed
and
pragmatic approach appropriate to the situation. When she tried to keep
the
ship quarantined, it was the right thing to do, not an evil thing to do.
Michael Fassbender is also very good as the android -- although he looks
more
like Jeremy Irons in Die Hard with a Vengeance than Peter O'Toole in
Lawrence
of Arabia. Poor Noomi Rapace, saddled with playing Dr. Snow, the
faith-laden,
groundlessly superior and utterly annoying doctor -- the best thing about
her
character was her legs and overall fitness level in the feted surgery
scene.
Thank goodness that she was one of the only two characters to survive.
The human cast of characters was the same military crew that landed with
Aliens but they were written as scientists instead, which was jarring. The
overall look of the film would have been much better served by a brainier,
more stately script. There were cool parts of the script, such as the
utterly
militaristic and hateful attitude of our creators; that was a neat idea,
relatively well-executed. Why do they fight hand-to-hand, like Klingons? I
have no idea, but I didn't care; the creator going toe-to-toe with the
giant
octopus -- and losing and getting his face raped -- was a great scene. The
big ideas were good and the visuals were more than good enough to paper
over
the plot holes that would occur to you after the movie, but there were far
too many nonsensical characterizations and distracting decisions to
ignore.
[3] I'd heard that it was deep and could be confusing and reward those who
paid attention. That was not the case, there was little to no mystery in
the
end. [4] Still, I recommend it for fans of the genre -- see what you can
get
out of it. I strongly recommend 1080p -- the movie is flat-out gorgeous.
Tower Heist (2011) -- "7/10"
A classic heist movie with a strong cast: Téa Leoni, Ben Stiller, Eddie
Murphy, Casey Affleck, Michael Peña and Matthew Broderick, Gabourey Sidibe
(you might know her from Precious), Judd Hirsch and Alan Alda. Alda is a rich
scumbag Wall-Street swindler (think Bernie Madoff); most of the others work
at the apartment building where he lives. Except for Leoni, who is good as an
FBI officer investigating Alda and Murphy, who returns to his comfort zone
playing an actually criminal verison of Axel F ("Slide") and Matthew
Broderick as a slightly befuddled broker who lost everything in the crash.
The employees lost their pension when Alda's investments went tits-up and
they want revenge -- or at least their money back. So they decide to rob him
and it turns out to be a fun and relatively clever heist film. The movie
clearly comes as a reaction to the rage resulting from the crash of 2008 and
acts as a revenge fantasy in which the good guys win and the gargantuan
white-collar criminals lose. So: totally unrealistic, but nonetheless fun.
Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922) -- "6/10"
A German silent film of the classic Dracula that's quite frankly showing its
age (available on "YouTube" ).
Jonathan Harker is an overacting, goofy little fool. I know that it's the
silent era and overacting was needed to sell the film without dialogue, but
the actor playing Harker really has a simpleton's look on his face for much
of the film. His wife, too, looks constantly surprised or extremely high. And
Max Schreck also mugs at the camera (he's surprised!) but his languid motions
and his long claws -- those creepy claws! -- are more believable and eerie
than those of many of the others. That he can walk around in broad daylight
with those huge, pointy ears and a coffin? Less so. On the other hand,
Renfield's insanity is portrayed quite well, making his oncoming vampirism
appear more like a disease. The countryside scenes and the castle of Dracula
are very convincingly creepy and the old doors and rickety stairways lend a
realism that is somehow very vivid despite the quality of the print. Even the
lack of dialogue lends portent to figures that can only point and glare in
their stage makeup rather than talk and spoil the mood. Music plays a huge
role as with any film, although some of it was unnecessarily jarring to my
ears. There are inconsistencies as when Harker is reprimanded for showing up
at almost midnight when it's clear as day outside. What comes across nicely,
as with any depiction of the good old days, is how much time people took to
do things: there's this feeling of time moving more slowly, of people taking
whole days to do things for which we allot only an hour or two (e.g. Harker's
business trip). Hard to recommend to anyone but an old film buff.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] FYI: no Eilzabeth Banks skin is shown in the movie, despite the provocative
nature of the title. Perhaps if Cronenberg or Von Trier had directed...
[1] The ignorance of science seemed almost deliberate. Perhaps they just assume
that 99% of the world doesn't know and doesn't care. But then this isn't a
hard sci-fi film -- and there are plenty of films that work hard to get the
minutiae right, films that hold up to scrutiny and yield treasures over
years of scrubbing back and forth over the videos. It's hard to believe that
this film didn't have anyone fact-checking on this film, but Charlize
Theron's character says at one point that they're "two billion miles from
Earth". We're still using miles in the future? Really? And two billion of
those archaic units is just past Uranus, still well within the solar system.
Why even bother spouting numbers if you can't get them right? Is this a jab
at how women aren't good with numbers? Or a way of proving that she wasn't
an android? And why would they use miles anyway? Would we say that it's 150
million inches from New York to L.A.? No, we would say 1.5 x 108 inches. Or
we would use more appropriate units, like ~2500 miles (yuck) or ~4000km.
Instead of billions of miles, space travelers would more likely use light
years or astronomical units (AUs).
[1] In the words of a commenter at "Prometheus Shoulda been a Titanic Feat" by
Eileen Jones
: "Can
anyone in Hollywood right (sic) a fucking script anymore? Every fucking
thing that’s been on the goddamned screen in the last two years looks like
it was put together by a focus group of retarded fucking 20 year-olds who
were raised on ritalin."
[1] And, yes, I understand that there were minutiae and references throughout --
the Alien at the end! The barren mother who's impregnated by an angelic
David and whose child is "no ordinary child"! The references to military
races and might and biological weapons! The nod to 2001 in David, a robot
whose mission conflicts with that of the human crew-members! -- but it all
amounted to nothing and the ideas turned in onto themselves, provoking a bit
of onanistic contemplation on the part of the writer and winking out of
existence. And, no, I didn't care about the bauble of faith that was so
inexpertly dangled by the scriptwriters: it was so obviously pandering and
manipulative, I quickly ignored it as the standard propagandistic schlock
that tells people it's OK to continue to have faith no matter how much
contrary evidence there is. It is true that people act in this way and that
is likely an irredeemable part of the human condition, but it's not very
interesting. I get all that, but I was hoping to see a film that helped me
escape from the day-to-day dreck of humanity, from the near-constant
re-affirmation that my sense of ennui is unjustified and that I should place
my faith in a higher power, be it God or the government or the rich elite.
Prometheus gets the lash because the trailer and cast and director -- and
the yummy sets -- set the bar too high for the inept scriptwriter, so I was
disappointed.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=26862012-11-24T17:53:19+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
This sequel, worse than the original, is, on top of it all, showing
its age. This time, Max cynically helps a settlement try to get
petrol while the forces of Humungus (the evil, Bane-like leader of
the marauders) try to destroy them and steal all of
...
]]>
This sequel, worse than the original, is, on top of it all, showing its age.
This time, Max cynically helps a settlement try to get petrol while the
forces of Humungus (the evil, Bane-like leader of the marauders) try to
destroy them and steal all of their supplies. Everything is very
post-apocalyptic and the final half of the film is an interminable truck
chase across the Australian wastelands. Not really recommended; watch the
first one instead.
Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) -- "6/10"
Eddie Murphy before he sold out and started making awful, awful films that
cater to the infantile. He's pretty funny as Axel Foley and talks a good
game. Taggart is horrible, but Judge Reinhold isn't half-bad. The plot is
forgettable and there are interminable shootouts in the second half that drag
the film down. The first half is better and funnier.
Star Trek IV -- The Voyage Home (1986) -- "6/10"
A science-fiction movie that spend a lot of time on modern-day Earth -- well,
1986 anyway -- trying to rescue humpback whales. Despite having lived through
it, it's hard to even imagine an America where a successful action-movie
franchise dedicates an entire sequel to a full-length Greenpeace commercial.
Basically, the 23rd-century Earth had long since killed off the humpback
whales, but a huge Rendevous-with-Rama-like vessel appears and threatens to
destroy the Earth unless it can talk to humpbacks. So what do you do? Send
the original by-now sexagenarian crew back in time in a Klingon vessel to
kidnap some humpbacks to save the Earth. Easy-peasy. It wasn't terrible and
it was kind of funny in places.
Hot Tub Time Machine (2010) -- "6/10"
Better than expected, actually. I can't imagine having spent actual money to
see it in a movie theater, but it definitely had its moments. Cusack always
plays the same guy, but he plays him really well. Rob Corddry is pretty
damned funny and plays the psychotic asshole of the group, rounded out by
Craig Robinson, whose main decent moment is when he jumps on stage and knocks
out Jessie's Girl with aplomb (followed by Let's Get Retarded, a massive
anachronism). Crispin Glover plays a bit part as a bellhop. It's about
time-travel to the 80s, so there are the requisite jokes about walkmen and
clothes and hairstyles, but also some interesting bits where the guys from
the future totally forget that there was no email, no internet, ... no
nothing. It's fun if you're the target market, which I am.
Toy Story 3 (2010) -- "7/10"
Andy's all grown up and the toys haven't been out of the toy chest for years.
They're torn between being there for their owner and wanting to do that for
which they were made: play or, rather, to be played with. I was pleasantly
surprised to find that the movie was a lot darker than I expected and the
parts with Buzz Lightyear in alternate-language mode were truly inspired and
made me grin, if not laugh right out loud. Saw it in German.
Demolition Man (1993) -- "8/10"
Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, Sandra Bullock, Benjamin Bratt and Denis
Leary in a futuristic America where sex and violence and even cursing have
been eradicated. Stallone and Snipes are a cop and super-villain,
respectively, woken from cryo-stasis by forces vying for control of this
future city. Bullock plays a cop who's a fan of the 20th century. Stallone is
constantly exhorted to "enhance his calm" while machines all around him
constantly spit out fines for swearing. Both Stallone and Snipes are in their
prime and the plot is amazingly good for an action film. Highly recommended.
The Jerk (1979) -- "7/10"
Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters in a story about Navin Johnson (Martin), a
stupid young man adopted by a black family...who doesn't know he's not black.
He eventually leaves home to seek his fortune, bedazzling people with his
disarming ignorance along the way. There are some memorable lines -- "He
hates these cans!" -- but the film is otherwise pretty dated.
Sennentuntschi (2010) (ch-de) -- "7/10"
A Swiss thriller telling one story of a trio of farmers (Sennen) in a
mountain hut and another about a police chief investigating a crime in the
valley below. The two tales are tied together by a girl. Is she called forth
by the drunken rite of the farmers, performed according to legends of the
Alps? Or is she something else, someone else, from somewhere more prosaic?
It's kinda hard to follow at times and portrayed the Swiss mountain folk as
exceedingly coarse (much as Verdingbub did). The story was quite interesting
and the movie was a good deal cleverer than I expected from the trailer (it
looked like a pure horror film).
Today's Special (2009) -- "7/10"
Aasif Mandvi wrote and starred in this film about an Indian sous-chef,
originally from Queens but working in Manhattan. The story template is
standard: there's a love interest that works out, he has to reconcile with
his family and his roots, there's a business to save. It's well-executed and
spiced up by Naseeruddin Shah as Akbar, a taxi-driver, raconteur,
world-traveler, expert chef, singer, lover and indomitably positive
individual. Aasif does a great job on the Daily Show and it's nice to see him
making his own movie. Recommended.
I Love Democracy: USA (2012) (de/fr/en) -- "6/10"
A documentary about the Obama presidency as viewed from abroad. It examined
the reality of his presidency versus the perception of it within the States.
It was in French and English, but I saw it with German dubbing.
Homeland -- Season 1 (2011) -- "6/10"
If Americans paid as much attention to the news as they did to Homeland, they
would be much better informed about the world. Paying attention to
Homeland,
however, is not a substitute. As with many police dramas, the technology
on
display -- and the power it grants to those wielding it -- is overstated
in
its efficacy. The efficacy of the CIA is overstated as well. Nuggets of
truth
are scattered few and far between: in the meantime, we are treated to a
romp
over citizens' rights with seemingly no checks on CIA power of any kind.
There are some interesting bits and the main story arc is interesting, if
not
entirely novel (Manchurian Candidate anyone?) but the problem I have is
that
no one is really likable. There is no one with any honor or redeeming
qualities. Saul -- played by the excellent Mandy Patinkin -- talks a good
game, but he's evil with no compunction about running roughshod over the
Constitution and has 100% faith in his and his partner's hunches. CIA
Director Estes is no better, playing an immoral chief to a fault. Carrie
swings between abrasive and annoying but shows likewise no respect for
rights
or rules of evidence or courts of law. Sergeant Brody? He's not horrible
and
is probably the most interesting and consistent of all the characters. His
family? Execrable. OK, fine, the son's OK, but he's a milquetoast. The
daughter is a caricature of a preternaturally bitchy teenager -- anyone
sane
would have long since put her out of her misery. Brody's wife? Takes up
space, I guess. And a lot of the show is taken up with conversations
between
all of these horrible people.
Spoiler alert: and towards the end, the dullard daughter all of a sudden
turns into freaking Nancy Drew. Why? Just 'cause, that's why. Why does
Brody
have cell reception in the underground bunker? Just 'cause, that's why.
Arrrgggh.
Descendants (2011) -- "4/10"
George Clooney stars in a movie about rich people living in Hawaii. The only
problem his family has is that his wife is in a coma because she got into a
boating accident while water-skiing. The kids are awful, useless creatures
and, of course, the film focuses almost exclusively on them. The teenage
daughter -- as in Homeland -- is a horrible, horrible person who should be
drowned in the pool she refuses to clean. Why on earth do people with
children want to watch movies of children treating their parents badly? Is
this some sort of self-perpetuating torture? Some form of masochism? And then
there's Sid, who's schlepped all over with the family? Why? Because the older
daughter says so. The second half of the film is better, but still not much
to write home about. The main plot point is resolved with almost no fanfare.
Clooney fans will like it, but I can't recommend it; I couldn't wait for it
to end.
Burlesque (2010) -- "8/10"
A predictable story-line does nothing to take the shine off of this fun and
happy movie. Christina Aguilera is no great shakes as an actress, but holy
crap can she sing. And dance. But mostly sing. And Cher's pipes aren't too
bad either when she's not auto-tuning the crap out of everything. Stanley
Tucci puts in a wonderful and well-written performance, as does Alan Cumming
in a bit part. The movie drags its feet a bit in resolving the plot, but the
musical numbers scattered throughout are fantastic.
Rock of Ages (2011) -- "5/10"
A movie about 80s rock and roll starring a horde of famous actors, including
Russell Brand, Alec Baldwin, Tom Cruise, Paul Giamatti, Bryan Cranston,
Catherine Zeta-Jones and probably more that I missed. Unfortunately, it's a
musical that devotes at least half of the time to set musical numbers
starring two complete unknowns who are neither funny nor interesting. Plus,
they tend to sing Foreigner songs rather than any actually good music from
the era. And the dialogue! Oh the spectacularly shitty dialogue! The film has
its moments: Brand is kind of funny and Cruise plays well, although the
initial delight at his depiction of a whacked-out rock star fades quickly as
you realize that that's all he's going to do for the film. Overall, I was
pretty disappointed and can't recommend it. If you want a musical, watch
Burlesque.
Gentlemen Broncos (2009) -- "3/10"
An awful film in the "hey look at me, I'm just like Wes Anderson" genre, but
with people whose quirks aren't amusing -- they're boring, if not downright
horrifying. The movie's about a young man who writes the most execrable
science fiction. One of his stories is stolen by a popular author, also
famous for writing execrable science fiction. The movie tries to be ironic
about the horrible novels -- and their film adaptations -- that sometimes
attract the most ardent fans. Instead of ironic, it winds up being as awful
as that which it attempts to parody. I watched it because I saw that Jemaine
Clement of the Flight of the Conchords was in it. He was pretty disappointing
as well.
Game of Thrones: Seasons 1 & 2 (2011-2012) -- "10/10"
Well-written, well-acted and engaging. Lots of swords and violence, but also
a thorough back-story for dozens of characters. The myriad locations keep
things interesting -- from wild, snowy wastelands to broiling deserts to
castles in the dreary north and castles in the sunny south -- and some
characters really stand out, happily enough (unlike Homeland).
The series seems to hew to the plot of the books quite strictly, though I
haven't read them (yet). [1] Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister is, hands
down, the best actor in these shows, but Jamie Lannister, Lord Baylish,
Lord
Varis are also quite fun to watch. And Bronn! How could I forget about
Bronn?
He's awesome, too. Has one of the best lines in the show, in season two,
episode seven. And briefly, there is Jaqen H'ghar, one of the Faceless
Men. I
hope he comes back.
The books are famous for having strong female characters -- and some are
quite strong, though almost unreasonably so, with Deus Ex Machina used
heavily to keep them in power and firmly planted on their world-line to
their
exalted destiny. The men are bastards, but so are the women, so I guess
that's fair. As in Tolstoy's most famous works -- which also deal almost
exclusively with royalty and nobility -- the elite are portrayed as
spoiled,
stupid, greedy and often inbred, often with horrendous consequences. This
may
sound horrible, but it's really quite fun to watch. It's more than
interesting enough that I can completely forget that I am, for the most
part,
watching yet another long movie about the nobility.
Spoiler alert: It is, for example, quite lucky for the Mother of Dragons
that
her captor, who seemed otherwise so transcendently intelligent, forgot
that
dragons breathe fire. Or the succession of happy accidents that keep
Queen-Regent Circe inexplicably in power. Queen Stark also started out
much
better and quickly devolved into a "screw the whole world, I just want to
save my sweet babies" kind of mother, which is more of a reflection on the
author's attitude toward women, I think. Either women enjoy being
portrayed
as unprincipled creatures whose mothering instinct is over-arching (this
depiction also applies to Queen-Regent Circe) or the show's depiction of
women is not as refined as we have been led to believe. Also, if you're
not a
queen, you're a whore. Still, there is strong evidence that, though the
main
plotline deals with the what is called The War of the Five Kings (a
misnomer,
because it ignores the king North of the Wall), it could just as well be
called the War of the Five Queens (I rounded the very crafty daughter of
the
Iron King up from a princess to a queen).
Chocolate (2008) -- "8/10"
Act one of the movie features Zin (female Thai muscle for a Thai mob boss)
and Masashi (a Yakuza boss). They fall in love, her Thai boss forbids said
love -- the Thai gang are all pretty much batshit crazy -- and Masashi
returns to Japan, but not before planting a baby in Zin. Zen is born
autistic. Years pass. She has crazy-good reflexes and learns martial arts
from the television faster than Keanu Reeves in the Matrix. I'm not making
fun of this movie. It was awesome. Especially once the fighting started.
JeeJa Yanin (the actress who played Zen) is a uniquely gifted fighter, with
an economy and elegance of motion that is simply breathtaking. She's a
third-degree black belt in Tae-Kwan-Do but her style seems to be a
combination of that mixed with other styles; she throws a lot of elbows and
knees, Ji-Teks and fights right-side forward. She throws very few punches,
but feints kicks like nobody's business. Recommended for fans of the form.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] I admit that this HBO series has piqued my interest for tackling the books
-- at least the first one, anyway.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=26652012-09-15T10:17:45+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
Mark Wahlberg does his level-best to save this flick, but it drags on
and only the last half-hour or so is anything like exciting or worth
watching. The attempt to make it look like Kate Beckinsale shared any
genes whatsoever with Caleb Landry Jones was a lost cause from
...
]]>
Mark Wahlberg does his level-best to save this flick, but it drags on and
only the last half-hour or so is anything like exciting or worth watching.
The attempt to make it look like Kate Beckinsale shared any genes whatsoever
with Caleb Landry Jones was a lost cause from the very start. As the
screwup/plot-driver brother, Jones's face seems perfectly designed to express
an utterly self-centered vacuity and "douche-bagginess". With all of his
Macgyver-like cleverness, Wahlberg essentially reprised his role from
Shooter, which was the only good thing about this movie.
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011) -- "7/10"
Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg and Paula Patton form the MI team for
this film. It was overall pretty entertaining, making good use of the cast
and with a pretty strong story (as these things go). It was nice to see that
the lengthy Russian-prison scene was conducted entirely in Russian, with
subtitles. Patton was the weakest link and I vacillated between thinking that
she ruined her scenes because she's a wooden actress -- actress is an
exaggeration, she's probably officially cast as "eye-candy" although for me
she doesn't even fill that role particularly well -- or because her role as a
bad-ass ass-kicking womyn was written poorly. It's a shame, because it was
nice to see that the team tried to include a competent woman -- but not like
this. Cruise was decent, as usual -- the Burj Khalifa scene was great fun --
and Pegg and Renner were also good. Spoiler alert: what's up with the
super-IQ physicist who also happens to be a Terminator-like unstoppable
fighting machine capable of going toe-to-toe with the great and formidable
Ethan Hunt and almost winning? Is Maggie Q from Die Hard 4 his sister?
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) -- "7/10"
Since I watched this film back-to-back with MI: Ghost Protocol, I noticed
that it has almost exactly the same plot: an evil super-high-IQ genius tries
to provoke a world war between two great powers. Robert Downey Jr. and Jude
Law are great fun. As a Guy Ritchie film, it included his trademark of
interspersed slo-mo action sequences and attention to internal mechanical
detail. Holmes's fighting style was an especially interesting mix of boxing
and Kung Fu. Spoiler alert: the final showdown with Moriarty was really
nicely done. I guess that's not much of a spoiler. Recommended.
The Planet of the Apes (2001) -- "5/10"
Tim Burton directed this remake of the 1960s original, starring Mark Wahlberg
and Helena Bonham Carter as well as many other famous faces, all hidden under
really quite convincing ape makeup. Despite the capable cast, it's overall
quite cheesy and the story was only interesting near the end, where the
millenia of intervening history were revealed. Otherwise, the parallels drawn
between the Antebellum South and the condition of all humans under the reign
of the apes was a bit heavy-handed (with phrases like "human lover" for apes
that didn't perceive humans as wholly beneath them landing particularly
heavily).
The Avengers (2012) -- "8/10"
A thoroughly enjoyable comic-book action/adventure film with an apocalyptic
save-the-world theme. Some of the characters are better than others -- I'm
looking at you, Robert Downey Junior, just living the role of
billionaire/playboy/genius/philanthropist (his words) Tony Stark/Iron Man,
but I'm also keeping an eye on Mark Ruffalo as the Incredible Hulk -- but
overall the cast was good. Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow and Jeremy
Renner as Hawkeye were surprisingly good additions as "only" human Avengers.
Tom Hiddleston played an over-the-top Loki (spoiler alert) who got his ass
righteously kicked by the Hulk (a great scene). Lots of cool high-tech
gadgets and gizmos. Some of the scenes were a bit too long without building
any real suspense (Captain America pulling the lever, the interminable chase
around the city by the big hell-dragons, etc.) and were more reminiscent of
video-game sequences than film scenes, but they don't detract or distract too
much. Recommended for anyone and highly recommended for fans of the genre.
Young Adult (2011) -- "6/10"
Charlize Theron stars as a just-over-thirty woman whose best years are behind
her -- probably way behind her -- in high school. She escaped her dreary town
to become an authoress but ended up reasonably successful, but as a
ghost-writer for a young-adult book series for girls. She's an alcoholic who
returns to he old hometown to try to win back her high-school beau with her
still-not-waning good looks. Patton Oswalt plays a whiskey-making nerd from
her class that she befriends on returning, but who is wholly against her plan
of conquest -- because he knows that the guy is happily married and just had
a baby. It's dark and stumbling and not very good.
Intouchables (2011) (fr) -- "8/10"
An entertaining movie starring François Cluzet as a newly-quadriplegic
Parisian plutocrat of unknown but clearly near-infinite wealth and an African
immigrant -- Omar Sy, playing the wise-cracking child of the streets -- who
he hires to take care of him. Sy has no prior experience but has a lot more
moxie than the other milquetoast candidates and he's a quick learner and
knows how to care for the man's soul, which arguably needs more help than his
body. It's a familiar tale given additional spice by being in French and
being mostly based on a true story.
Der Verdingbub (2011) (ch-de) -- "8/10"
A Swiss-German movie about a terrible part of Switzerland's past -- and not
all that far in the past -- where orphaned children -- and children of
parents that could (or would) no longer care for them -- were essentially
sold as chattel to work for farms around the country. The farm family in the
movie is awful, with the severely alcoholic father easily outshining the
unscrupulous -- nigh-amoral -- mother who's unbelievably coarse and low. Or
the older son who regularly rapes the (semi-adopted/semi-hired) young girl
while making the boy's life a living hell. The boy eventually runs away to
seek his fortune in Argentina but that's the only highlight and it seems kind
of thrown in there to give viewers some reason to hope for mankind.
The Quest (1996) -- "6/10"
A Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle with a plot reminiscent of the one from Blood
Sport: a young, unknown fighter must prove his mettle to the world in a
no-holds-barred fight-to-the-finish with fighters in various disciplines from
all over the world. Oh, and there's an evil Asian who looks like he's made of
stone and has no scruples (the Chong Li from Blood Sport). Oh, and Van Damme
takes a majestic beating from a fighter nearly twice his size, then comes
back and finishes the guy with a few swift strokes. So, it's Blood Sport with
a Rocky-style ending, with Roger Moore as a sleazy (there's a stretch)
fortune-hunter.
Avatar (2009) -- "8/10"
The 3D blockbuster, but in 2D, on a 19-inch screen and in German. It's really
not that bad, but so many of the characters are two-dimensional: Sigourney
Weaver (as scientist Grace), Michelle Rodriguez (as a pilot/grunt) and
Stephen Lang (as Colonel Quaritch) are just a couple of examples. The plot is
pretty simplistic, the battle scenes are much too long (without adding
suspense or additional pathos) but the graphics are stunning, even if some of
the stuff is just too colorful and cutesy-looking for my taste.
The Number 23 (2007) -- "6/10"
Jim Carrey does quite a good job in a film about madness -- and Carrey's
madness centers around the number 23. He sees more and more connections with
the number and predestination and a malicious guiding hand everywhere. His
paranoia spreads to his family, who try to help him in his pursuit of his
pursuers, only to find out that he is somehow the cause of his own troubles,
having forgotten that he'd written the book that he's using as a guide to
find out what's going on and why it seems that, the more he finds out, the
more he thinks he may have killed someone. The film is a bit surreal and may
have been better treated in David Lynch's hands than in Joel Schumacher's.
The Big Bang Theory (TV series, 2007-2012) -- "7/10"
An all-around addictive show about a quartet of scientists -- three
physicists and one engineer -- and their adventures. The most captivating is
Sheldon, the utterly OCD and most socially maladapt of them. Penny is a
breath of fresh air and her role is handled quite well in juxtaposition to
the others.
Louie (2010-2012) -- "10/10"
Louie C.K. stars as himself in a series on FX. The show is about half
stand-up comedy and half bizarre situations in Louie's purported real life.
He's a funny, philosophical guy -- if you can ignore the superficial
dirtiness of some of his humor, he makes excellent points about our society
and people, in general. I loved almost every uncomfortable and deeply funny
minute of it -- enjoying the philosophical twists and hypothetical situations
that seem based, as so much of his material is, on brief and fully formed
flashes of insight that Louie turns into sketches (e.g. the date with the
uptight PTA mom who wants to be spanked? The violinist in a tux in a subway
playing achingly beautiful music while a homeless man disrobes and bathes
with a liter bottle of water behind him? The long subway ride in silence
while fantasy after fantasy of minor heroism is played out? Hard to pick a
favorite.)
Paranormal Activity 2 (2009) -- "3/10"
A so-so film telling the back-story of the first film. It's basically like
watching a reality show without a lot of the fighting. The people aren't
particularly intriguing and the plot takes a long time to get going. The
first half is filled with interminable security-camera footage that doesn't
really move the story along at all. Neither does it really build suspense.
Hard to recommend.
The Dark Knight Rises (2012) -- "7/10"
A good finale to the trilogy of films about the Batman by Christopher Nolan.
The new nemesis Bane is decent -- if a bit hard to understand -- but can't
hold a candle to the unbridled mayhem of Ledger's Joker. Bane's philosophy is
horribly muddled but he purports to have a method to his madness. Christian
Bale is good and does the most with his role that he can, but the
unnecessarily expository style makes so many parts of the film feel
dumbed-down and simplistic. Show, don't tell -- or so they say. Nolan clearly
didn't get the memo, as evidenced by an extremely long storytelling moment
about 80% of the way through the movie -- especially when the story was
narrated over film sequences that told the story perfectly adequately without
any words. Perhaps it didn't test well? Spoiler alerts: It seems the original
ending -- or what I take to be the original ending -- didn't test well with
the audiences either, as a more suitably Hollywood one was tacked on at the
end (or I assume it was at audience behest; perhaps it was the studio
executives that wanted to keep their options a little more open). There were
the usual handful of action-pacing oddities (his gunship can't blow up a tank
but the minigun on a skeletal motorbike can? Bullets bounce off of his armor,
but a knife slips effortlessly through? The river is fozen over but people
walk around outside with short-sleeves, no hats and gloves, clutching metal
guns? Bane's mask/medical device can be repaired by a layperson with their
bare hands? Anne Hathaway and Joseph Gordon Levitt were also a lot of fun --
although the allusions to his next role were pretty heavy-handed (calling him
a hothead was clever, but then, at the end of the film, they just came out
and said it, fer Christ's sake). I saw interesting parallels to The Avengers
in that both (almost) ended with a major hero (Batman and Iron Man,
respectively) flying a nuclear incendiary device away from a population
center, (nearly) sacrificing themselves in the bargain.
Casino Royale (1967) -- "8/10"
A spoof of James Bond movies starring David Niven in the main role with Woody
Allen as his nephew, Ursala Andress as one of the Bond girls, Barbara Bouchet
as Ms. Moneypenny and Peter Sellers rounding out the case as the evil Evelyn
Tremble. Jacqueline Bisset, John Huston, William Holden and Orson Wellles
also have smaller roles. The plot is horrid, but it was hard to look away.
The film includes some utterly madcap sequences that make the end of Blazing
Saddles or the Magic Christian look positively tame: there are sea lions,
horses, dogs, brawling, Indians, ladies painted all gold and wacky, wacky
music.
In the Valley of Elah (2007) -- "7/10"
Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon as a middle-aged couple in Texas seeking
their missing son, recently returned from a tour in Iraq. He'd been out of
control and hanging with other service members before he disappeared and many
of the other soldiers they talk to seem shell-shocked and less than
empathetic. Charlize Theron is a cop willing to help unravel the mystery and
find out what happened. Spoiler alert: they find the son's body, mutilated
and burned and suspicion slowly turns to the group of friends. But the
question is: Why? The answer turns out to be: Because, um, minor scuffle and
disagreement led to butchering the body and burning it to hide evidence; you
know, like they learned to do with the natives in Iraq. Saw it in German.
Pitch Black (2000) -- "7/10"
A science-fiction film starring Vin Diesel as Riddick, a humanoid but
seemingly super-powered and possibly extraterrestrial criminal who has
escaped from a crashed spaceship on a lifeless planet. From that, the rest of
the remaining crew tries to come to grips with the planet's strangeness -- it
has three suns -- and, of course, slowly realizes that the only way that they
will survive the inevitable coming darkness of the triple eclipse is to put
their trust in Riddick. What's the problem with darkness? The darkness calls
forth the native denizens, who consider anything that moves to be a food
source. The plan is to get to the spaceship and escape with as many of the
original crew intact as possible. It's entertaining enough and Vin Diesel is
good (if you're a fan); amazing to say that the sequel was much, much better.
Saw it in German.
Semi-Pro (2008) -- "5/10"
A Will Ferrell vehicle if there ever was one. Also starring Woody Harrelson
and André Benjamin, it's about a basketball team in 1970s Flint, Michigan
(with the always adorable Maura Tierney as Harrelson's girlfriend). The plot
was pretty predictable but it's always fun to watch Harrelson and Ferrell at
work. Hard to recommend, but it passed the time. Saw it in German.
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983) -- "10/10"
An utterly brilliant, irreverent, philosophical, hilarious, silly, surreal
film for fans of the form. There are lots of musical numbers -- some, like
the famous Sperm Song, are huge, while others, like The Galaxy Song and
The
Penis Song, are shorter but lovingly rendered by Eric Idle. Gilliam's work
is
clearly evident in the prologue, called the Crimson Permanent Assurance
Company about a firm that's run like a slave galley...until the workers
take
over the building, weigh anchor and sail off to take over other companies.
The promised meaning of life is delivered nearly at the end: "Try and be
nice
to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some
walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of
all
creeds and nations." [1]
And finally, the movie ends with the Galaxy Song playing over the credits,
which starts with "Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's
evolving And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour", citing fact after
fact
about the "amazing and expanding universe" and then ends the film abruptly
after the final stanza:
"So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] "She goes on, of course, to say"
:
"And, finally, here are some completely gratuitous pictures of penises to
annoy the censors and to hopefully spark some sort of controversy, which it
seems is the only way these days to get the jaded, video-sated public off
their fucking arses and back in the sodding cinema. Family entertainment?
Bollocks. What they want is filth: people doing things to each other with
chainsaws during tupperware parties, babysitters being stabbed with knitting
needles by gay presidential candidates, vigilante groups strangling chickens,
armed bands of theatre critics exterminating mutant goats. Where's the fun in
pictures? Oh, well, there we are. Here's the theme music. Goodnight."
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=26162012-05-06T17:35:43+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
Matt Damon stars as a congressman from Brooklyn whose future is
bright. On the eve of his first election bid, though, he stumbles and
loses to a stronger opponent. The woman who inspires his offbeat
concession speech disappears soon after. He spends years
...
]]>
Matt Damon stars as a congressman from Brooklyn whose future is bright. On
the eve of his first election bid, though, he stumbles and loses to a
stronger opponent. The woman who inspires his offbeat concession speech
disappears soon after. He spends years looking for her as he ramps up his
next campaign. It turns out that neither their initial meeting nor her
subsequent disappearance were determined by fate. They were determined by the
Adjustment Bureau. Based on a Philip K. Dick short story (naturally), it
posits a world that is steered by extrahuman beings, with the explanation
left open as to whether they are angels or Tolkien's Mayar or something else.
Interesting idea relatively well-executed. Damon was good though a bit more
subdued than usual and Emily Blunt was a pleasant surprise.
The Town (2010) -- "9/10"
Ben Affleck stars in a self-written, self-directed adapted screenplay about a
former NHL hopeful turned recovering Oxycontin addict turned bank robber from
the precinct of Charlestown in Boston. He falls in love with a temporary
hostage who has no idea who really is. Nicely shot and nicely paced and with
a standout performance by Jeremy Renner as an unstable childhood
friend/fellow bank robber who's never going to amount to anything. Lots of
other good actors and actresses (Blake Lively and Rebecca Hall stood out)
fill out a well-tuned and believable cast and a gripping story.
Valkyrie (2008) -- "7/10"
Tom Cruise plays Colonel von Stauffenberg, a German soldier involved in a
plot to assassinate Hitler and take over Germany before Hitler could destroy
both Germany and Europe. Many highly-ranked soldiers were involved -- most
hoping for release from Hitler's mad plans for Germany -- and the plot almost
succeeded (in the film at least -- in real life, the plot failed much sooner
and was only one of 15 serious attempts on Hitler's life). A relatively
well-made film with a lot of great character actors from both the U.S. and
Germany (guys from the Lives of Others and Inglorious Basterds show up in
various roles).
The Wicker Man (2006) -- "4/10"
Nicolas Cage plays a cop who follows a lead about a missing girl to a creepy
island filled with religious cultists who shut themselves off from the world.
Cage runs around a lot and gets crazier and crazier, popping pills
(prescribed to help him deal with work-related trauma) and generally getting
screwed with by all the whacked-out residents of the island. Unsurprisingly,
Leelee Sobieski is there to make a bad movie even worse. The movie gets
marginally better when everyone stops trying so hard to get along: the whole
island takes part in a pagan ritual with strongly sacrificial overtones and
Cage just starts taking women out right and left. It's a remake of what is
apparently a much better version from 1973 starring Clint Eastwood. Saw it in
German.
Couples Retreat (2009) -- "2/10"
An execrable film about eight horrible little people married to one another,
each stoking the flame of their own fevered ego and so terribly pained by
their nearly hopelessly incurable angst. These people all travel to an almost
indescribably lush island and can only whine like children and/or rut like
the basest creatures. Vince Vaughn and Jason Bateman were wasted in one
interminably homophobic and/or misogynistic/misandric scene after another.
Spoiler alert: a party reminds them all how much they love each other and
they live happily ever after. The end. Saw it in German.
The Queen (2006) -- "3/10"
An altogether boring film about people that I don't care very much about in
real life: the British royalty and the war criminal Tony Blair. The plot
revolves around how they all handled the death and funeral of another person
about whom I cared almost nothing, Princess Diana of Wales. Only watched
about half of it and that only with one eye. Review is included only to
remind me never, ever to try watching it again -- and perhaps to serve as a
warning for others of similar mind and bent as I.
The Hangover Part II (2012) -- "5/10"
A darker version of the original film, this time with Stu (Ed Helms) as the
husband-to-be and his brother-in-law--to-be as the lost person. Zack
Gafalniakis is back as Alan but instead of being refreshingly weird he's just
creepy, obnoxious and annoying in this film. Maybe it was just me. Maybe he
was creepy, obnoxious and annoying in the last one, too. Bangkok is shown to
be way crazier than Vegas -- though luckily, everyone who needs to speaks
English. Jokes about molesting young boys abound (It's funny! Get it?) and
your admiration for Stu's bride-to-be's understanding changes, by the end of
the film, to sheer disbelief that she would put up with him. Spoiler alert:
Stu's decision to hide his affair from her -- in which he played catcher in
an unprotected anal-sex act with a Bangkok transvestite prostitute -- was
reprehensible.
Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) -- "9/10"
Still as good as it ever was, including the nearly unpardonable whining by
Mark Hamill, who clearly already realized at the time that everyone liked Han
better (including Leia). The sets still hold up unbelievably well, besting
many CGI efforts of modern-day sci-fi films. The puppet Yoda is so much
better than the CGI yoda: from his crawling and snooping in Luke's stuff to
his fighting with Artoo, it's all just so entertaining.
The Running Man (1987) -- "6/10"
A film about a dystopian near-future in which media controls the truth, an
oppressive government controls the people with armored police troops and
violent reality shows dominate the airwaves to keep the people entertained.
More circus than bread, apparently. It was near-future in 1987 and has come
to fruition for us today. Schwarzenegger is much better when he's not talking
but the plot is passably interesting and we get to see Jesse Ventura strut
his stuff as a retired stalker/sports announcer.
Equilibrium (2002) -- "9/10"
Christian Bale in a utopian/dystopian future (depends on your point-of-view)
where human emotion has been almost completely suppressed in order to
eliminate the danger of war. Picture the plot and society from Fahrenheit
451
with Matrix stylings. People take a daily "interval" (dose) of a drug to
suppress their emotions. People who don't do so are inevitably charges
with
"sense crimes" and are summarily executed.
The film follows the life of Bale, a first-level Grammaton Cleric, charged
with enforcing the Nether, a neighborhood where those with unmanaged
emotions
dwell. The style of the film pays homage to the Matrix with less
cable-work.
The fight scenes are quite nicely choreographed. It mostly works quite
well,
with a few notable and jarring exceptions. Spoiler alert: some of the
higher-ups are suspiciously gleeful and malevolent and given to shouting
when
they should be showing no emotion at all. No explanation is given (though
one
avails itself: the upper levels of any ruling class often don't follow the
same rules establishes for the Proles). Taye Diggs, in particular, is a
grinning, smug ass who's not even so powerful; you would think the
officers
around him would have turned him in almost immediately.
Bale is much better at playing an emotionless automaton and boy does he
kick
ass. Best part of the flick? The final battle, in which the result is
never
in doubt. Bale shreds Diggs's smug ass in two seconds. A welcome relief
from
action films that feel they need to add tension by making the hero be
pummeled nearly to death before miraculously turning the tide. Highly
recommended if the above described a movie you might be interested in.
Dorian Gray (2009) -- "6/10"
A recent film adaptation of Oscar Wilde's novel about a young man who turns
Libertine when he realizes that a portrait that he recently received as a
gift has granted him a form of near-eternal youth. Good performances by the
actor playing Dorian, Ben Barnes (of whom I'd never heard), and by Colin
Firth, who plays his mentor. Rebecca Hall -- recently of The Town -- also
starred.
Star Trek (2009) -- "9/10"
Watched it last summer and watched it again. Still a heckuva lotta fun.
Inside Man (2006) -- "9/10"
Watched this for the second time and picked up something that I missed the
first time through (right at the end). An excellent Spike Lee film starring
Denzel Washington as NYPD with too much brains and integrity for the comfort
of those around him and Clive Owen as a bank robber. All of the members of
the gang that robs the bank are dressed in the same painter's outfit -- and
they quickly dress all of their hostages in the same garb. The clever turns
don't stop there and it's a well-paced, well-shot, well-written and
well-acted film. Highly recommended.
Rocky 2 (1979) -- "6/10"
Rocky's life has improved somewhat with his spunky loss at the end of the
first film, so he lives in a nice house with his mousy little nice wife,
Adrian. She doesn't want him boxing anymore because he has a brain injury
that may be aggravated by further boxing. It doesn't occur to her to channel
her energies into getting him to box better. Or at all. I've seen discussions
online of what Rocky's boxing style is, from which school of boxing he stems.
I don't think any school would claim him. He has no defense. His style seems
to be to try to hurt the other guy's hands with his forehead. It's awful to
watch, not because you feel bad for the suffering he's enduring, but because
there are so many better fighting styles to watch. The Fighter springs to
mind as a film with halfway-decent boxing in it. Stallone's writing is more
refined than he generally gets credit for (as was evident in a few of the
Rambo films as well): the actual content of his films is far more questioning
and far less jingoistic than his more fervent supporters portray.
Shrek the Third (2007) -- "5/10"
More of the same with the same cast of characters. It had its moments, but
the series is definitely in decline. I think that there's a fourth one as
well, but it's hard to imagine where they'd go from the end of this one. If
you're stuck watching something with kids, there are far worse ways to
go...but don't go there unless you're in that situation.
Die Wannseekonferenz (1987) (de) -- "7/10"
A German film replaying the meeting minutes of a conference that took place
in 1924 in a suburb of Berlin. All of the top administrative leaders of
different departments in the Nazi party were there, discussing the Jewish
problem in the coarsest and most inhumane possible terms. Extremely
well-acted in what must have been very difficult for the mostly German
actors. The level of indifference and cruelty was, at times, breathtaking.
Recommended, but not for the weak.
Logan's Run (1976) -- "6/10"
One of the most oft-cited early science-fiction movies about a future society
in which humans are recycled at the age of thirty and life is run in a
semi-utopian/semi-dystopian and entirely antiseptic way by a hive-mind
computer. The story is reasonably engaging, but the film hasn't really stood
the test of time very well. Interesting only for historical purposes.
Ip Man (2008) -- "9/10"
The first of two films about the life of Bruce Lee's legendary teacher, whose
life before he met Bruce was extremely interesting and exciting. He lived
through the Japanese invasion of China, an event documented in this film. The
fight scenes are much tighter and better than in Ip Man 2, which had a bit
too much cable-work for my tastes. As in the second film, Donnie Yen is
fantastic in both fighting style and general disposition. He generally "takes
it easy" on his opponents because they are so clearly overmatched; the fight
in which he does not "take it easy" on ten opponents is a sight to behold.
Highly recommended for fans of the form.
The Muppets (2011) -- "5/10"
Overall a disappointment, as Jason Segel's script infuses his penchant for
maudlin sappiness into every nook and cranny of the film. As if that weren't
bad enough, he imbues every other scene with his insufferable simper. Is this
what he thinks kids want to watch? Is this how he remembers the Muppets? The
Muppets kicked a lot more ass than that. They were cutting and insightful,
not sappy and maudlin. Segel can be quite good (see Forgetting Sarah
Marshall, in which he's often quite good, even though you can see the sap
lying barely repressed just beneath the surface) so it's not that I dislike
him, but, unlike the other reviews I've read that lauded him for his tribute
to the Muppets, I think that he's kind of phoning it in now.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=26082012-02-21T23:28:51+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
Seth Rogan stars as a bipolar mall cop. It's as bad as it sounds.
Written and directed by someone named Jody Hill, it's hard to believe
that the ordinarily quite genial Rogan was in this movie for any
reason other than that he lost a bet. None of Rogan's fellow
...
]]>
Seth Rogan stars as a bipolar mall cop. It's as bad as it sounds. Written and
directed by someone named Jody Hill, it's hard to believe that the ordinarily
quite genial Rogan was in this movie for any reason other than that he lost a
bet. None of Rogan's fellow mall cops are in any way endearing. His
quote-girlfriend-unquote is appalling and nothing recommends this film.
Cowboys & Aliens (2011) -- "5/10"
Daniel Craig stars as an alien abductee from the old West who tries to piece
his life back together after waking up in the desert. He wanders into a town
controlled by Harrison Ford and populated by the usual collection of townies.
Olivia Wilde is there as well, looking utterly stunned as usual. [1] My
relief at her character's death was short-lived as she came back from the
dead, PG-naked and retroactively explaining her wooden acting with a
backstory that she's an alien (different race) in human form. Daniel Craig is
steely-eyed and fits the role quite well. Harrison Ford is pretty much
wasted. Paul Dano is as well. It was OK, but the number of
self-contradictions was distracting enough to point up how utterly
unbelievable and unexplained vast parts of the story are. Wilde's character
stands in as a deus ex machina wherever convenient.
Stir Crazy (1980) -- "6/10"
Name one other movie starring Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder and directed by
Sidney Poitier and also featuring Erland van Lidth de Jeude, an opera-singer
MIT-graduate who is 6'6" tall and weighs over 350 pounds. You can't do it.
Wilder and Pryor are mistaken for two armed robbers and arrested and jailed.
The prison scenes are pretty clichéd but they're also 30 years old so maybe
they invented those cliches. Food for thought. The best scene was with Wilder
accompanying himself on guitar in prison, followed by a plaintive a cappella
aria from van Lidth de Jeude. All in all, though, See no Evil, Hear no Evil
was better.
The Informant! (2009) -- "6/10"
Matt Damon plays a real-life ADM (Archers Daniels Midland) executive and
whistleblower from the early 90s. The story is interesting and his
performance is spot-on -- his manic-depressive personality was quite
convincing. His running internal monologue included several gems, my
favorite
of which I've reproduced below.
"When polar bears hunt, they crouch down by a hole in the ice and wait for a
seal to pop up. They keep one paw over their nose so that they blend in,
because they've got those black noses. They'd blend in perfectly if not
for
the nose. So the question is, how do they know their noses are black? From
looking at other polar bears? Do they see their reflections in the water
and
think, "I'd be invisible if not for that." That seems like a lot of
thinking
for a bear."
Did You Hear about the Morgans? (2009) -- "3/10"
Sarah Jessica Parker applies her not inconsiderable power to disgust and
annoy to completely and utterly eradicate any goodwill to the film engendered
by the nearly always affable Hugh Grant. They play a couple of caricatured
New Yorkers thrown by circumstance out of The City. The horror. It's hard to
tell what the message is: are the New Yorkers deluded in their belief that
their high-stress world is better? Or are the other characters really
less-civilized hinterlanders? The movie is a series of clichés made all the
more horrible by Parker's constant screeching and whining and ego and
anorexia. Does anyone like her enough to hear her talk that much? A generous
interpretation would be to assume she was acting, but I'm not feeling very
generous. Mary Steenbergen and Sam Shepard are a nice couple and the scenes
with only Grant are fun.
Gone with the Wind (1939) -- "7/10"
A movie about how the Civil War affected the lives of Southern nobility.
Vivian Leigh stars as Scarlet O'Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler, a sociopath
with an unquenchable thirst for both her best friend's husband and wealth.
Clark Gable plays Rhett Butler, the scoundrel millionaire who came by his
fortune by hook and by crook, although absolutely no one seems to judge him
for it in the movie. He sees himself and Scarlet as kindred spirits -- caring
nothing for no one unless it's to get ahead -- and grows to love her. She
never loves anyone but herself and the one man who would never have her: the
husband of her best friend (and the flat-out nicest lady in the movie,
Melanie). The first third is decent, the middle third in which she builds her
fortune is quite good and the final third is mixed, with some quite hurried
plotlines all snapping together to make it in time for the end of the movie.
Scarlett is ruthless -- and shallow and absolutely appalling when rich -- but
it's also interesting how many people clung to her ruthless coattails and
quickly forget how much she did for them when times were very dark. Some of
her melodrama seemed quite strained, some of Butler's grins seemed to bend
his face completely out of shape (as if he had false teeth or something), but
it's a film from another era, so let it slide. Leigh has some absolutely
devastating long stares that hint of madness bubbling not too far beneath.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) -- "8/10"
The story is of Peter, played by Jason Segal, whose heart is broken by Sarah
Marshall, played by Kristen Bell. He is devastated and ends up a few weeks
later in Hawaii, where he meets her and her new beau, rock star Russell Brand
(as Aldous Snow, a role he would reprise in Get Him to the Greek). Mila Kunis
works at the hotel and takes a shine to Peter; Paul Rudd and Jonah Hill are
among the other hotel employees. The second half is definitely better than
the first and Segal's quite decent writing and nuanced feel for real, adult
characters shines through. Kunis is a nicely balanced character and Brand is
delightfully unbalanced and a jackass/really-nice-guy all in one. The dinner
scene is especially funny and well-paced. There's also a puppet vampire
musical in there, for fans of that. And, just in case, Segal is the only one
who's naked at all in it, so seek elsewhere should that be your goal.
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) -- "5/10"
Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Malcolm is pretty much the only redeeming thing about
this movie. After a bit of a slow start, it's just two straight hours of
dinosaurs on murderous killing sprees: big ones, then tiny ones, then medium
ones, then big ones again. It's entertaining enough if you're doing something
else while watching it. Saw it in German.
Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) -- "7/10"
The screenplay by Truman Capote is less than generous in its portrayal of
Mid-western-nobody-turned-New York-socialite Holly Golightly, played by
Audrey Hepburn. She is at times grating but occasionally amusing as she flits
through life supported by handouts from occasional boyfriends and payments
from a mob boss for whom she plays an (supposedly, though believably)
unwitting information mule. George Peppard (who would go on to play Hannibal
in the TV-series "A-Team") plays a male version of the same lifestyle, albeit
with at least a hint of talent -- as a writer. Mickey Rooney plays a
jarringly tone-deaf and appallingly demeaning stereotype as the Japanese
landlord of Holly's brownstone. Those scenes are painful, whereas most of the
rest of the film is only vaguely disconcerting as the film is primarily about
a woman with no discernible talent beyond being friendly and whose fantasy
world is only occasionally intruded upon by harsh reality. It's not too hard
to tell that Capote liked neither the people of the NYC social scene nor
women.
Drive (2011) -- "7/10"
Ryan Gosling stars as a stoic modern-day gunslinger whose primary feature is
that he's a driver. He drives. He gets mixed up in some sordid business as a
consequence of helping a weak and helpless neighbor and her recently paroled
husband, but he handles it all with a terse aplomb and efficiency. There is
never a doubt that he will succeed, which is actually quite a lot of fun to
watch. He is less a man than a force of nature. The cinematics or visuals --
the look and feel of the film -- were lovely, with long shots a welcome
respite from car chases that induce epilepsy (in other films). Gosling was
quite good, as were Bryan Cranston, Ron Perlman and Albert Brooks, but Carey
Mulligan was annoying in a just-about-to-break-into-tears-at-any-moment kind
of way. An interesting movie more about mood than about story, really. For
the squeamish, the film is punctuated by some quite brutal depictions of
physical violence (beatings) but they are generally past before you realize
what happened -- and then the horror washes in as you realize what you just
watched. If that's not your thing: beware.
Blue Valentine (2010) -- "7/10"
Went into this thinking "chick flick" and was soon convinced otherwise. Ryan
Gosling and Michelle Williams star as a young couple of meager means and
meager education making their way through the lower strata of American
society in Pennsylvania -- but it could be anywhere in poor America,
including upstate NY, which is what resonated for me. He's a genuinely nice
guy -- almost guileless -- who claims to be happy with his lot; she's not as
genuinely nice as he is -- more selfish machinations -- but still a good
person with a work ethic, etc. etc. She has no self-esteem whatsoever, which
leads to poor relationship choices -- if high-school one-night-stands can be
thusly described -- a driving force in the film (spoiler: the scene in the
liquor store where she is approached by the boy-now-man who impregnated her
in high school and told she looks good and asked whether she was faithful --
and she just smiled and begged off instead of hitting him -- was the linchpin
of her character). Thoreau said it best: "The mass of men lead lives of quiet
desperation"; this is a film about that.
The Killer Inside Me (2010) -- "8/10"
Casey Affleck stars as a small-town, tightly wound sheriff in Texas with a
violent past (but not how you think) with which he tries to reconnect with
his romantic dalliances (Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson). This is not at all a
film for the squeamish as it includes some shockingly violent footage.
Spoiler alert: also, if you really like Jessica Alba's face the way it is or
you really want to keep thinking Casey Affleck is a nice guy, do not see this
movie. It is also a painstakingly shot and framed film with some really
lovely, lovely shots and a standout performance by Affleck. Alba is much more
daring than she has been in other roles -- though it's in the service of a
quite misogynistic goal (the film is based on a 1950 noir novel). Hudson is
subdued, but also inexplicably submits to Affleck's character's more violent
desires. All told, the story is quite good, the dialogue is good and the
movie pulls you in. Some scenes and conversations are really lovely and some
are so violent that you're just waiting for them to end. It ended in a
fashion similar to Dogville: with most of the cast consumed in a final act of
violence accompanied by a completely incongruous tune that carries the viewer
into the credits (in this case, Spade Cooley's Shame on You; in Dogville's
case, it was Young American by David Bowie).
Happythankyoumoreplease (2010) -- "4/10"
In a film dripping with insipid hipsters and their interminable flow of
shitty, uninteresting problems (and their subsequent whining about them),
Josh Radnor of How I Met Your Mother fame doesn't make quite the same splash
as his companion Jason Segal did in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. His character,
Sam Wexler, is amusing enough, and some of the other characters grow on you
(if only a bit) -- in a contrast to my usual attitude, I thought the young
kid was great from start to finish -- but the affected inflection of Malin
Akerman is hopelessly grating and the tiny world view of the sheltered New
Yorkers is anything but amusing. Perhaps I'm getting too old to watch 90
minutes of young people being self-centered and completely unaware that none
of their suffering is anything but a first-world problem.
The Lovely Bones (2009) -- "5/10"
A story about the ghost of a girl who was abducted and murdered in the 70s in
Pennsylvania (not a true story). The purgatory in the picture is bizarre and
not very convincing and the film is more maudlin than entertaining. Lots of
slow-motion camera and lingering face shots to emphasize compassion or
menace. Stanley Tucci is quite good but he stands alone.
Black Swan (2010) -- "8/10"
A story of a ballet dancer whose own life mirrors that of the Swan Queen, who
she is chosen to play in Swan Lake. The woman's relationship with her mother
has strong parallels to that found in La Pianiste by Michael Haneke, in that
they were both as mad as hatters and entirely too close for comfort. Mila
Kunis is fun, as usual, and Vincent Cassel is quite good in a role that is
written with less misandry than expected (and thus has him exhibiting only a
low- to medium-level misogyny). It was actually a good film, with Portman
playing the part of an untrustworthy observer quite well -- reality is
altered either by her self-starvation [2], dabbling with drugs, mental
illness or a mix of all of them. A film well worth watching, but it's quite
dark and there are only a few hints of ballet (if that was the reason you
were watching; if it was because of the notorious lesbian scene starring
Portman and Kunis, prepare to be disappointed). Remarkable for the almost
complete reversal of male-to-female proportions; Cassel is at best a minor
supporting role and the other males are limited to lifting the female leads.
Auf der Strecke (2007) -- "8/10"
A Swiss short film (40 minutes) about a security officer who uses his camera
to watch a woman who works in a bookstore. When he sees her on a train with
another man, he is jealous; when they fight, he is relieved; when the man is
accosted by "die Schweizer Jugend", he does nothing. The man later dies from
his injuries and she seeks out the security officer for solace. The man turns
out to have been her brother. Conflicting emotions ensue. It was quite well
done.
Paul Blart: Mall Cop (2009) -- "4/10"
Less overtly offensive than Observe and Report, mostly because Kevin James is
a different kind of funny than Seth Rogan: he's more capable of playing the
goofy family movie hero. Still not a good movie by any stretch of the
imagination, though. That doesn't mean that Paul Blart II isn't in the works.
I did myself a favor and didn't check IMDB.
Il neige à Marrakech (2006) -- "8/10"
Another Swiss film short in French about a family in Morocco with an ailing
father figure whose only remaining wish is to schuss the Alps in Splügen.
When his visa is denied, his family hatches a plan to take him to a local
mountain instead and "Swiss things up" a bit to fool the old man into
thinking his dream had come true. It's pretty hilarious and well worth it.
The Last Boy Scout (1991) -- "7/10"
A good role for Bruce Willis as a down-and-out cop/former Secret Service
officer -- think John McClane, but with an even bigger drinking problem and
about the same tendency to get punched. Damon Wayans plays a former
quarterback, who teams up with Willis to solve a ... whatever, there's a
case, there are wisecracks, good manly action stuff happens and the good guys
win in the end. Willis does not compromise and stays totally manly. That's
pretty much all you need to know. It's not high cinema, but entertaining
enough. Saw it in German.
500 Days of Summer (2009) -- "6/10"
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel star as what from his point-of-view
are a couple in love and from hers are a couple of friends/occasional
fuck-buddies. The story recounts the 500 days from the day they met through
their budding friendship to their breakup (spoiler alert: less than halfway
through the 500 days) and culminates in his recovery from her. He's a
glorified man-child with the emotional maturity of...well, something without
a lot of emotional maturity. She's ok at first, but seems to be deliberately
ignorant and then manipulative of how much in love with her he is. Neither of
them are any great shakes at communicating. The film isn't even especially
saved by cool or funny friends on either side (see, e.g. Going the Distance).
An OK movie made better by good visuals and a non-chronological flow.
The Fighter (2010) -- "9/10"
An excellent film about a boxer from Lowell, Massachusetts making his way to
a title shot in 1993. His life is complicated on the one hand by a family
that's a nearly complete horror-show -- a brother on crack, a mother who is a
bitch-with-a-capital-B, a father who is a good-hearted enabler, sisters who
have no idea what useless, drunken morons they are and a girlfriend who
thinks she's better than all that, but is also living in a fantasy world --
and on the other by having a solid boxing skill set but less raw talent than
the aforementioned brother and a tendency to slug things out, relying on a
gift of being able to take a punch. In the middling to waning years of a
boxing career, this is a less useful tack to take. Excellent and eminently
believable fight scenes and unbelievably strong performances from Mark
Wahlberg and Christian Bale [3] as well as Melissa Leo, who played his
mother. Amy Adams was also quite good, having transformed herself quite
convincingly into a college-dropout bartender/bar-skank. I haven't been this
excited watching movie boxing in a long time. The final fight was awesome.
[4]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] That's not a typo.
[1] The hallucinations and paranoia brought on by self-starvation are also a
theme explored in The Machinist with Christan Bale.
[1] Bale is crack-addict skinny in this one, a complete change from his bulk
from the Batman films or American Psycho. He's not nearly as skinny as he
was in The Machinist.
[1] Spoiler alert: it was based on a true story. He really did win the belt in
London. It was very cool to find out at the end of the film. That it was a
true story enhanced the film for me in the same way as it did for Invictus.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=25962012-01-12T06:49:53+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
This movie is dedicated to Heath Ledger -- he died halfway through
the filming -- who stars alongside Christopher Plummer as the
eponymous Doctor Parnassus. Ledger was very good; Plummer was
spellbinding. The remainder of Ledger's role was filled
...
]]>
This movie is dedicated to Heath Ledger -- he died halfway through the
filming -- who stars alongside Christopher Plummer as the eponymous Doctor
Parnassus. Ledger was very good; Plummer was spellbinding. The remainder of
Ledger's role was filled seamlessly by Johnny Depp, Jude Law and finally
Colin Farrell, who played the character in the "imaginarium" scenes, where
reality was slippery anyway. It's never possible to predict how a Terry
Gilliam movie will go, but it's always possible to point and say "that's
definitely a Gilliam movie". Parnassum's cart, his show, the imaginarium,
every detail just screams it. The plot weaves different times and places
together, shifting and mixing and matching things like old-timey carnivals
and modern-day London into one scene and portraying the homeless as lost
wanderers extruded into our reality by unfortunate circumstances that
occurred in a much more exciting reality. Highly recommended.
The Wolfman (2010) -- "6/10"
Benicio del Toro plays the main role as the scion of a family headed by
Anthony Hopkins, who lives on the Blackmoor estate. His brother was recently
killed by an unknown but extremely savage animal. Was it a werewolf? Well,
duh, that's the name of the movie. It's a point-by-point remake of the 1940s
film of the same name. It's pretty decent, but not really scary at all and
the plot, though relatively predictable, is ably driven forward by Hopkins
and del Toro.
Lonely Hearts (2006) -- "7/10"
Salma Hayek and Jared Leto star as the real-life lonely-hearts killers from
the 19402. Hayek is clearly the out-of-control driver of homicide in the
pair, though Leto is only superficially more stable. Travolta is very good
(instead of the creepy, crazy, bombastic Travolta we've gotten used to) as is
his partner Gandolfini (the other partner, played by Scott Caan is a total
pain-in-the-ass). In real life, the pair were convicted of killing three
people, including strangling one woman's daughter; in the movie, they killed
several more. It was a decent flick, punctuated by some good scenes with
Salma Hayek, who was just ruthless. The side-story of Travolta's life and
dead wife, etc. was not very interesting or believable and Laura Dern as his
love interest was wasted.
OSS 117: Le Caire, nid d'espions (2006) (fr) -- "7/10"
The original 007-spoof, starring Jean Dujardin as Hubert Bonisseur de La
Bath, a French spy. He thinks he's James Bond but he's much more Inspecteur
Clouseau. It called to mind Top Secret, both in the scenery and in that it
was pretty consistently funny, funnier than I remember the sequel to have
been. If you like the retro-50s spy-look and tongue-in-cheek spoofing of the
Ian Fleming world of spies -- and you don't mind subtitles if you don't
understand French -- this is the film for you. Jean Dujardin is really good.
Recommended.
Brooklyn's Finest (2009) -- "8/10"
An excellent cast -- Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke, Wesley Snipes, Don Cheadle --
stars in the story of a trio of cops on the drug beat in Brooklyn. Another
movie with almost no women (unless you count Ellen Barkin, who plays a
ridiculous caricature of a ladder-climbing police career woman...or any of
the lucky actresses who got to play the dozens of whores and playthings in
the film), it was a gritty tale of undercover work, thankless police work and
the tensions of the job. Looked at from a certain angle, it told a tale of
tragedy and suffering, the root of which was the drug war in America. Without
the drug business, there would have been no movie. It was a touch long, but
still very good overall. It actually ranked up there with The Departed as far
as these types of stories go.
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989) -- "8/10"
Michael Gambon plays an almost unbelievably boorish know-it-all/know-nothing
restaurant owner who simply will. not. stop. talking. The restaurant and
kitchen are amazingly lush and fancy and detailed and look as if they'd come
from the 19th-century rather than the 20th. The arrangement of food in the
kitchen looks straight out of still-life paintings. Helen Mirren plays his
wife, who's already tired of him at the beginning of the film and her
thoughts quickly turn to an affair with a more cultured man, who doesn't have
a line in the film until almost an hour in. The film is shot in a very
interesting way, panning back and forth along from the alley to the
restaurant to the kitchen to the pantry to the lavatory, each with its own
color scheme and lighting -- the alley is yellow and blue, the restaurant is
red, the kitchen and pantry are green and dark, the lavatory white and
brightly lit. Gambon's violent and misogynistic performance is definitely not
for the faint-of-heart, though. Neither is the naked couple forced to escape
in the back of a meat truck filled with rotting wares. Mirren is a long way
from the Queen and Gambon quite a long way from Dumbledore in this one.
There Will be Blood (2007) -- "6/10"
Daniel Day Lewis plays Daniel Plainview, an oilman working in the early 1900s
in the western part of America. The movie is ostensibly based on the book
Oil! by Upton Sinclair but only the first half of the movie kinda sorta takes
some parts of the plot from the book. The whole socialist struggle part that
comprises 2/3 of the book is thrown by the wayside and replaced with a much
stronger focus on the father rather than the son. The father, instead of a
stalwart businessman who slides into piggish greed, starts off as pretty much
a bastard and slides into drunkenness and violence. [1] The character of Eli
(the preacher/healer) stays relatively true, but otherwise it's a slow-moving
and largely boring film. The book, alas, was much better, but it was about
socialism and Paul and Bertie whereas the movie is about Daniel and Eli, with
Paul sent off ... somewhere ... and Bertie transformed to H.W., who is
deafened and exiles himself to Mexico. Not really recommended unless you're a
big fan of DDL.
Nothing But the Truth (2008) -- "8/10"
Kate Beckinsale plays the Robert Novak role and Vera Farmiga plays the
Valerie Plame role in a retelling of the outing of a CIA agent with a bit of
Judith Miller thrown in. Unlike Novak though -- and like Miller -- Beckinsale
actually goes to jail for it. [2] The jail looks absolutely horrifying,
reminding me of the descriptions of immigration jails in the book The Power
of Love. Matt Dillon is in hardass mode, David Schwimmer is in whiner-mode
(big surprise) and Alan Alda and Noah Wyle are good as Beckinsale's legal
team. I've never seen Kate Beckinsale with so many spoken lines and so little
cable-work and killing of vampires. All in all, a very tight movie with an
honest message and a really good ending. Recommended.
Dogville (2003) -- "9/10"
A truly unique film, directed by Lars von Trier, about a lonely little
village in the mountains called Dogville. It stars Nicole Kidman as a young
woman who comes to the town under somewhat suspicious circumstances, but is
soon accepted by the townsfolk -- played by various well-known actors --
though under strange conditions. The set is like a stage set and extremely
minimal, with buildings demarcated only by lines on the floor, some sparse
furniture and only minimal walls and ceilings. The relationship between Grace
and the town deteriorates as the woman become more abusive and the men start
assaulting her (led by the ever-irascible Stellan Skarsgård) as they realize
she is trapped and they make her a slave, refusing to even pay her wages
anymore. Not only is she raped by the men, she is subsequently accused by the
wives of seduction and punished. The self-righteous punishment is harder to
take somehow, reminding me of the Puritans of The Scarlet Letter. The
townsfolk reveal their true natures and it is ugly; they even chain her up
and tie a bell to her collar so she can't escape. Von Trier has a reputation
for deviation and he does not disappoint; the ostensible protagonist is a
self-serving bastard who's deluded by his own goodness. A tough movie to
watch -- the first half is kind of boring, but it's just waiting to spring
the trap of the second half, which is harrowing. And then, after nearly three
hours with no music whatsoever, the credits roll accompanied by David Bowie's
Young American. [3]
Antichrist (2009) -- "8/10"
At first, The Cook, the Thief, his Wife and her Lover seemed somewhat out
there and extreme. Then along came Dogville with its bland innocence that
tips into a tale of the casual evil and brutish selfishness of man. And then
there's Von Trier's second entry in the weird sweepstakes, a horror film
starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg which tells the tale of a
couple who lose their son and try to get back to some form of sanity. She
takes it pretty hard and he, the therapist, tries to help, though in a very
arrogant way. Things spiral out of control with hints of satanism, the
brutishness of nature, sadomasochism and, once again, a big, heavy wheel
getting attached to someone -- this time even more uncomfortably than with an
iron collar (imagine away). The animals -- representations of nature -- are
also at their worst, not threatening but just awful, awful images. I have to
say that it's a good movie, but only for people who can appreciate a film
that plumbs the absolute depths of despair. Lots of nudity but not in an
alluring way [4] and definitely not a date movie.
La Belle Noiseuse (1991) (fr) -- "7/10"
The story of a budding young artist who pays a visit to his hero, who's
fallen on hard times creatively. After the young man and his enchanting
accompaniment spend a long evening at dinner and visiting the old studios, it
is decided that the old man will try once again to complete his masterpiece,
using said accompaniment as a model. The scenery is so spot-on for the French
countryside that you can almost smell the old stone, the dust. You can hear
the grit from the old stones everywhere. The house is a huge old manor with
towers surrounded by gardens and endless countryside. The crickets are
incessant; it is high, hot summer. The studio has tables scattered
throughout, each covered with the detritus of years of work. It oozes
nonchalant authenticity from the simple breakfast table with bowls for coffee
cups to the dusty old bottle of some bathtub cognac the men drink from in the
studio. The pace is quite slow, but not agonizing, because each second is
made to be important somehow. The camera lingers for long, long minutes on
the sketchpad, on the canvas as the artist learns once again to create. The
sound of his pen, pencil and Conté on the paper is unnerving as hell and you
can feel the tedium emanating from Emmanuelle Béart -- who plays the model
Marianne -- as she tries to hold her pose. She's nude and the artist poses
her like a doll, no sexual tension whatsoever, all business. The large
drawings he makes aren't very good, but the sketchbooks are much better. They
discuss the process endlessly. She's absolutely alluring, which is good
because she's on-screen a lot in this 4-hour--long movie, although her nudity
is soon just as unremarkable for the viewer as it is for Frenhofer, the
artist, who's played pitch-perfect by Michel Piccoli. The others? Mostly
moping about, with Julienne and Nicolas winning the prize in a
brother-and-sister-tag-team of insufferable melancholy. [5]
Invictus (2009) -- "7/10"
Morgan Freeman in the role he was born to play -- Nelson Mandela -- and Matt
Damon as the captain of the Springboks -- the South African rugby team.
Directed by Clint Eastwood, this quite typical sports movie -- (spoiler
alert) crappy team inspired by nation to win World Cup -- is a great yarn and
all the more so because it's true. It actually happened. Some of the minor
details showing the thawing of animosity between blacks and whites were
surely added for effect, but for the most part, it's true: the rugby team did
travel to townships to visit with kids and teach them the game; the security
detail was composed of blacks and whites; and goddamn if they didn't actually
win the world cup right there in Durban, South Africa. It was Mandela's way
of starting to heal the nation, to move on from the past, and it worked. I
can see how you might be in too cynical a mood for some of the details --
young black kid creeps closer to two white cops listening to the game on the
radio and they all celebrate together at the end -- but Eastwood shows these
details rather than having characters say them, so you'd have to be in a
really, really bad mood.
You Don't Know Jack (2010) -- "9/10"
A riveting biographical film about Jack Kevorkian starring Al Pacino as
Kevorkian, John Goodman as his friend Neal, Brenda Vaccaro as his sister
Margo, Danny Huston as his fantastic and dedicated lawyer and friend and
Susan Sarandon as Janet Good, another friend and partner and finally,
patient. Kevorkian's contribution was amazing and his logic and arguments
impossible to refute without resorting to religion or some other humbug.
Kevorkian is just about the only reason America isn't completely in the dark
ages vis à vis euthanasia, especially when compared to countries like the
Netherlands or Switzerland. An excellent film with Pacino putting in a
fantastic performance; a bit long, but the story had many chapters. The final
court case illustrates very nicely how the courts are just a game to be
played instead of a place to find justice. Everything's ruled as irrelevant
even for facts that are clearly relevant if one were to go by logic rather
than games. The best part is when the ADs schemed to drop the
assisted-suicide charge so that the family testimony can't be used to elicit
sympathy from the jury; with only the murder charge, Kevorkian can call no
witnesses and has no defense. The judge is sanctimonious at best, pretending
to represent justice even though it's clear where her heart lies. [6] After
reading The Innocent Man by John Grisham, I'm left with even less faith in
the justice system in the States than I had; so very far from the witch
trials we are not.
Caché (2005) (fr) -- "7/10"
Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil star as a couple: he a moderately famous
intellectual-round-table host on television and she in publishing. One day,
they receive videotapes depicting their home and other familiar places, as if
they were under surveillance. Who's sending the tapes? Why? Is there some
deep secret (un caché) from their past that someone is trying to push into
the open? Slow but well-paced with each scene divulging another drab
(soupçon) of information about the secret. Binoche is very good, as always.
And the secret? Some of the videotape sequences are quite long and you have
to really be absorbed to stay with it. If you're easily bored -- or you
require the closure of definitely finding out the whole and entire secret --
this is probably not the film for you.
Going the Distance (2010) -- "6/10"
Justin Long and Drew Barrymore get into a relationship that turns
long-distance. The first half is pretty good whereas the second kind of
devolves into a bunch of tedious clichés involving a boatload of whining,
mostly from Long, and insipidity, mostly from Barrymore. They so desperately
want to be together that they have to figure out whether they're going to
live in New York City or San Fransisco. The cool thing is that she's the one
with a Master's degree and a job opportunity in her career path, and he's the
one who works as a music scout for a shitty company he hates, but (at first)
they decide that she will give up her job and wait tables in New York. That
they even consider this option is ridiculous (and pretty sexist). The film is
buoyed by two things: it's rated R, so it's a relationship/sex film about
young adults with actual swearing, adult themes and some sex instead of a
castrated PG-13 film about same. And the second thing is a pretty strong
supporting cast: Jason Sudeikis, Charlie Day, Jim Gaffigan and Christina
Applegate in particular. Applegate has hands-down the funniest line -- "Maya:
statue!" -- which she shouts to keep her daughter in line; the child responds
by freezing in place. Sudeikis and Day are pretty good as relatively
well-balanced bros and Gaffigan is good as Applegate's disaffected husband.
Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (2008) (fr) -- "10/10"
The story of an employee of La Poste who, like all other bank employees,
wants to take his family to the Riviera, mostly because his hot wife wants it
(cue the sexist caricature of shallow French wife). After a few mishaps, he
is instead transferred to Bergues, far in the north of France, where it's
cold and where he'll be going alone. The wife stays with their boy in Salon
because she can't go with him; they act as if he's going to a gulag, which is
pretty hilarious. Once he goes north, his wife appreciates his sacrifice for
the family and refuses to believe anything but the worst of the region and
will not believe that he's actually starting to enjoy himself up there. The
locals there have a very special accent, as exemplified by Dany Boon (who was
also very good in Rien à déclarer and who grew up in the North, speaking
that local dialect). The outrageousness of the accent varies, but some of the
older folk are nearly impossible to understand (even with subtitles). The
story is relatively simple, with the manager from the south trying to help a
young genial postman (Boon) move on with his life. The day they ride the
postal route together -- ostensibly to teach Boon how to avoid taking all the
drinks offered to him on his route -- is worth the price of entry. Highly
recommended.
La Pianiste (2001) (fr) -- "8/10"
Another film from director Michael Haneke (he also directed Caché, above),
this one starring Isabelle Huppert as a highly repressed piano teacher living
with her mother (who's an utter shrew, a relentless control-freak) and
teaching at a conservatory in Paris. She has a dark side, with her passion
squeezing through the cracks of her tight carapace in ways that are equal
parts embarrassing, pathetic, illegal and painful. She is a ticking time bomb
for all around her, including her students. Then she meets Walter, or rather,
Walter pursues her. She acquiesces, but only on her own twisted terms. Little
does he know that he's fallen in love with a masochist; the part where he
reads aloud her written instructions to him is really good; he's angry but
slowly realizes she is just as powerless before her desires as he is. That
is, he realizes he can only have her on these terms -- and that those terms
aren't even of her own choosing. She is just as trapped by them as he; that
she has only desires but no experience means their encounter will be just as
much of an unknown for her as him. Will either of them enjoy it? In such a
carefully planned movie -- carefully and lovingly shot, with careful dialogue
and framing -- how the hell did they think they would make a handsome,
budding engineer, gifted pianist/hockey-player believable? Who does that?
What is this, Buckaroo Banzai? At first it seems a story of a nearly
completely unsympathetic self-destructing control-freak, but it is bigger
than that: it is a story of obsession -- unheeding, insatiable, destructive
obsession. [7] Another film that's not exactly for the faint-of-heart.
Micmacs à tire-larigot (2009) (fr) -- "9/10"
A strange little comedy -- again starring Dany Boon -- with a wonderful look
and feel to it, lovingly shot...Gilliam-esque, in fact (but perhaps with even
higher production quality that he usually gets ... it's a really nice-looking
film, is what I'm trying to get across here). Boon stars as a man who lost
his father to a mine created by one arms manufacturer and who is an innocent
bystander shot by the bullet from another. After his travails, he is homeless
and is taken in by les Micmacs à tire-larigot, who are a hodge-podge cadre
of similarly disadvantaged folks with unique talents (i.e. what the
more-ungenerous might call freaks and outcasts). Together, they start a
well-planned subversive campaign to bring down both firms (the film is pretty
stridently anti-armament). The tricks and plans (and gadgets and devices and
machines) are exquisite and executed to perfection (the final play is
awesome) and without excessive violence, as has become de rigeur in this
genre. Now this is a good action movie -- forget the ludicrous over-the-top
crap of The Losers or other such pap -- this is the real deal. [8]
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) -- "7/10"
This film stars Brad Pitt as James and Casey Affleck as Ford and tells the
story of the tail-end of James's career and life, which ended, more or less,
at the same time. Affleck plays one weird duck and the rest of the gang seems
about as clever and sympathetic as Alex's chums from The Clockword Orange
(two of the more prominent ones are Jamie Renner and Sam Rockwell). James
visits people and places as if he were Death itself, showing up like a ghost
in the dead of night, full of menace and foreboding. The film purports to be
semi-biographical and is partly told through a voice-over. The two leads are
good, as almost always. This is a historical Western, not an action Western
and it's over 21/2 hours long: it's nicely filmed and interesting, but not
that exciting. The shooting is depicted as a cowardly act almost gratefully
set up and accepted by James himself, more an assisted suicide than an
assassination. This is neither a hagiography of James nor Ford; the film is
almost entirely bereft of sympathetic figures.
Crazy Heart (2009) -- "7/10"
Jeff Bridges stars as Bad Blake, a country-western music star who, at 59, is
on the downhill side of his career. He continues to tour the country, playing
smaller and smaller places, almost -- but, not quite -- crippled by a
drinking problem. Bridges pretty much knocks it out of the park with this
performance (he was awarded an Oscar), drawling and slurring his way through
the role so believably you can't believe he is anyone other than Bad Blake.
Colin Farrell is his protegé who's moved on to a booming career of his own
and their relationship is nicely handled, with Farrel's character actually
being much nicer than the reputation he has with Bad. [9] Maggie Gyllenhall
looks even younger than ever as a cub reporter for a Santa Fe paper who
interviews him -- well, it's more like they interview each other. They start
to build a relationship despite his raging alcoholism and chain-smoking. He
makes an effort and his music -- as far as I'm concerned -- improves
markedly; by the end, he sounds more like Leonard Cohen than his initial
twangy country/western. A well-made film with a riveting performance by
Bridges, but it's quite predictable, so don't expect any surprises in either
plot or dialogue.
88 Minutes (2007) -- "5/10"
Another movie about a party animal/alcoholic, this one a forensic
psychiatrist for the FBI played by Al Pacino. Pacino's hair is distractingly
huge. He's got big fans and big enemies and an old case is coming back to
haunt him. The 88 minutes refers to the amount of time he has left to live,
according to the people plaguing/hunting him one morning. It's one of those
movies where every single one of his students is attractive as are all of his
coworkers and research assistants. [10] Strangely enough, at no point do you
worry that he won't solve the case -- basically we're talking Sherlock Holmes
as played by a short Italian guy with a goatee (I'm pretty sure Downey Jr.'s
not Italian, otherwise that description would match him too). Some of the
acting is pretty wooden, with Leelee Sobieski taking first prize there. It's
not terrible and it's entertaining enough, especially if you like
crime/mystery movies, but it was more like a well-produced made-for-TV crime
drama than a full-blown theater experience.
The Last Station (2010) -- "8/10"
An amazing cast lifts this period piece set in early 1900s Russia above one's
expectations. James McAvoy plays referee/historian/amanuensis to Tolstoy and
his wife, played by Christopher Plummer and Helen Mirren, respectively.
Tolstoy is surrounded by spineless, self-righteous, seriously repressed and
psychologically damaged-if-not-outright-unstable sycophants -- some of them
are absolutely unbearable and are typical adherents who are capable only of
understanding the great man's work on a superficial level [11] -- among them
his daughter and Chertkov, played by Paul Giamatti, who's scheming to get
Tolstoy to follow his own teachings and give away his copyrights to the
public domain. This is a laudable goal, but the suspicion is that he has
ulterior motives and the countess, of course, won't hear of it. Mirren and
Plummer are fantastic. There are similarities between the depiction of
Tolstoy and that of Frenhofer the painter in La Belle Noiseuse, as genuises
who are both supported by their significant others. They cannot live without
them, but also distracted by them. It's utterly laughable that this movie was
rated R for the single scene between Mcavoy and Kerry Condon, which lasts
seconds and is possibly the sweetest deflowering -- his -- that could be
filmed. Rated R for that. For boobies. For two seconds. The U.S. film
industry is about as puritanical as the worst of the Tolstoyans.
Moneyball (2011) -- "8/10"
Brad Pitt stars as Bill Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A's, and
Jonah Hill as Peter Brand, who changed everything about how baseball teams
are created, maintained and how a winning team can be created without
superstars. They start to think in terms of buying runs rather than
superstars, looking at the players as a market of players, with an emphasis
on the undervalued ones. Brad Pitt is...well, he's Brad Pitt playing his
typical role, so he's, well, awesome: the first meeting with his staff where
Jonah Hill (the numbers guy) is also in attendance is absolutely wonderfully
paced and executed. Once you see him in this role (based on the character
from the book by Michael Lewis), you really can't imagine who else would have
played the character. Philip Seymour Hoffman is nearly unrecognizable as the
coach, who has serious issues viewing the game as one of statistics rather
than players. Probably one of the more interesting baseball movies I've ever
seen. Recommended.
Edge of Darkness (2010) -- "6/10"
This is how I picture script negotiations with Mel Gibson:
Director: How do you like the script, Mel?
Mel: Haven't read it. I have a question, though.
Director: Shoot.
Mel: It's a two-parter, actually. Is my character a former member of
law-enforcement who's now a slightly weird loner? And does my character
suffer a horrific loss of his only close family member early in the film
for
which he can ruthlessly avenge himself throughout the film?
Director: Yes. And yes.
Mel: I have a follow-up question.
Director: Shoot.
Mel: Why not Liam Neeson?
Director: He's too expensive.
Mel: Where do I sign?
Yes, Gibson channels De Niro at one point (while beating one suspect). And
has he always been so short? And what's up with naming the hero "Craven"?
The
last half hour makes up for a slow start, though. Much better than 88
minutes.
Modern Times (1936) -- "7/10"
A (quasi-)silent film starring Charlie Chaplin as a worker in a
state-of-the-art factory who tires of the tedium of being -- quite literally
-- a cog in the machine and starts to cause trouble. He is arrested and sent
to jail; he gets out and meets the lovely Paulette Goddard, who's also a
child of the streets. He and she go on to get jobs at a department store and
so on and so forth. The film is composed of several skits: one of the best
shows Chaplin rollerskating blindfolded in the department store on the fourth
floor with no railing; the scene as a waiter in the cafè is also a marvel of
physical comedy. The film is about hard-luck post-Depression America. It
mirrors some of the stories from today: people desperately want to work and
are driven to desperation to keep their heads above water. And The Man is
always there to push you back under. It's a comedy, but a dark comedy.
The Great Dictator (1940) -- "7/10"
Another film -- a talkie this time -- starring Charlie Chaplin and Paulette
Goddard. This one's a spoof of Germany, with Chaplin playing both a Jewish
barber and the Führer himself. As the barber, he's a soldier in the first
world war who crash-lands and gets amnesia -- for the next 25 years. He
comes
back to the ghetto to find that things have a changed a bit. As the
Führer,
he hams it up with his own made-up, Germanic-sounding and with
English-intermingled language, the shortest phrases of which translate to
paragraphs in English and vice versa. The barber eventually is swept up in
a
revolution, is captured and sent to a concentration camp. Some scenes
bring
to mind the films of Mel Brooks and the stormtroopers and other soldiers
all
remind me of the cowardly lion from the Wizard of Oz (actually quite a few
of
the scenes were reminiscent of that movie's style). The scenes are more
cohesive than in Modern Times (the shave set to Brahms's Hungarian Dance 5
stands out). After some more misadventures, the film ends with a speech by
the barber (now posing as the dictator), partially excerpted below:
"Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made
us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel
too
little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we
need
kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and
all will be lost. [...] Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who
despise you, enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do,
what
to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle,
use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men -
machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines,
you
are not cattle, you are men! [...] Let us fight for a new world, a decent
world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future
and
old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to
power. But they lie! They do not fulfill that promise. They never will!
Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people."
The Social Network (2011) -- "5/10"
I hated everyone in this movie, except for the young lady who was Eisenberg's
girlfriend for the first five minutes of the movie. She was clever and
destroyed him in that conversation. Sorkin's dialogue has its moments and
Fincher's direction is good and Jesse Eisenberg plays a semi-autistic asshole
quite well and Justin Timberlake plays a professional bullshitter quite well
-- bravo to both of them -- but it's not really pleasant to watch. Most of
Eisenberg's (Zuckerberg's) outbursts felt like long-form l'esprit d'escaliers
that people just like Eisenberg's character think up for themselves when
they're feeling neglected and want to exact revenge on an unfair and inferior
world with their overarching cleverness. Everybody in the Ivy League is hot
and thin and fit, so they should be worshiped, I guess? It felt like I was
watching a high-production-value version of Beverly Hills 90210. I have no
idea what a line like "Bosnia: they have no roads but they have Facebook" is
even supposed to mean. Is it supposed to make the girl who said it look
ignorant? Or is it an extemporaneous comment made by the scriptwriter through
a minor character? Who knows? Who cares? There are no heroes in this movie.
Two offended princes of privilege met with Larry Summers [12] and I had no
idea who to root for; they each got their shots in and none of it was
satisfying.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] I think Michael Gambon wins, however, for sheer unexplained insanity.
Day-Lewis's craziness has a mean logic to it; Gambon is chaos incarnate.
[1] Of course, Judith Miller was arrested for being "reportedly in possession of
evidence relevant to the leak investigation" ("Failure to report source
controversy"
,
not for actually revealing the identity of the agent. She had become more
famous for having helped drum up support for the second U.S./Iraq War with
nearly completely fabricated stores about weapons of mass destruction.
[1] The credits roll over images of Okies on the Trail of Tears, poor familes
and children, older homeless people and people in prison. The song is a
final twist of the knife by Von Trier because it is just ludicrously upbeat
and out-of-place for this film.
[1] There are apparently two "versions"
of the
film, with the "catholic" version missing about four or five minutes of
footage that can be found in the uncut "protestant" version. I did not feel
that I missed them.
[1] At the end of the film, Frenhofer speaks with Nicolas and Nicolas tells him
that he will always respect him, but he wouldn't like to end up like him, as
a comedy (a joke). Frenhofer looks up at him, smiles and says, "Stay just
the way you are. I like you." Absolutely lovely, in context.
[1] It was weird that the judge didn't let the family testify since they were
eyewitnesses to the alleged murder. It's ludicrous that something so obvious
must be explicitly stated or the witnesses are dismissed.
[1] (Spoiler alert) It should be noted that what Haneke depicts in this film is
clumsy, amateur S&M at best: it is the stumbling of damaged souls, not the
inevitable end-result of masochistic tendencies. As Dan Savage would be
quick to note, neither of them had any idea what they were doing, which is
why it went so horribly wrong. And neither of them thought to start slowly
and work up to more complex scenarios once they knew and trusted one
another. It was an utter train-wreck that happened not because she was
masochistic but because she knew nothing of love and sex, indeed of normal
relationships with people based on anything other than condescension or
fear. I'm sure Haneke caught some flack from the S&M community for sowing
more fear and rumors and misinformation.
[1] Spoiler alert: an explosion late in the film is wonderfully and quite
humorously rendered. The same over-the-top film-making techniques but with
much more style. Operation: End Game had similar pretensions to deliver a
political message, but failed terribly compared to this gem.
[1] It looks like they both sing during the stage sequences, but Bridges's voice
is much stronger.
[1] I wasn't the only one who noticed that Pacino totally "copped a feel"
at one point (at 68 minutes in the version I was watching) -- in a way
completely unrelated to the plot because he wasn't romantically linked with
that girl at all. The old letch.
[1] There is an interesting point being made in this film: that the strict
adherence to the guiding principles of Tolstoyism -- to which the man
himself never even pretended to keep -- is more than a sort of religion of
its own. The unrelenting siege against organized religion cannot but
engender a new religion, based perhaps on sounder principles, but
nonetheless anchored in an unthinking faith and a desire to eradicate the
other. The writings and philosophies of the deepest thinkers will often be
twisted and simplified to fit into smaller minds. Thus was it with Chertkov
and daughter Sasha, who ignored the bits of Tolstoy's philosophy that they
deemed too difficult.
[1] Larry Summers is a real-life former president of Harvard and Secretary of
the U.S. Treasury who's real-life attribute of being a professional asshole
and blowhard who's almost eerie in his ability to get everything important
wrong while still trumpeting his own brilliance, well, that attribute is
depicted perfectly in the movie.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=25882012-01-01T12:16:28+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
This movie is -- and I never thought I'd use this phrase -- a Danny
Trejo vehicle directed by Robert Rodriguez (of Once Upon a Time in
Mexico fame), so it's got lots of blood, lots of flying appendages
and lots of buxom, armed babes. Machete continues Rodriguez's homage
to
...
]]>
This movie is -- and I never thought I'd use this phrase -- a Danny Trejo
vehicle directed by Robert Rodriguez (of Once Upon a Time in Mexico fame), so
it's got lots of blood, lots of flying appendages and lots of buxom, armed
babes. Machete continues Rodriguez's homage to Russ Meyers and proves
relatively entertaining, no thanks to Jessica Alba's wooden acting. Good
thing Lindsey Lohan was also in the flick or Alba might have looked bad.
Lohan plays a tweaking daughter of a rich daddy (quite a stretch, I'm sure)
and looks like she's method-acting. I mean meth-acting. Whatever. Michelle
Rodriguez played the same role she always does, which means she's dressed for
warm weather.
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) -- "9/10"
Hudsucker Proxy was written, directed and produced by the Coen brothers
with
Sam Raimi. The dialogue and style of delivery were wonderful and worth the
price of entry. The film is set in the late 1950s and stars Tim Robbins as
a
wide-eyed young go-getter who gets suckered into leading Hudsucker
Industries
by a conniving Paul Newman who's deliberately tanking the firm to perform
stock manipulation. It was perfect to watch in juxtaposition with Network,
which also had absolutely majestic dialogue and long-form soliloquies.
Jennifer Jason Leigh is fantastic as Amy Archer and Bruce Campbell was a
pleasant surprise in a small role as Smitty the reporter. John Mahoney
(Martin Crane on Frasier) was also good as a fast-talking city editor
which
J.K. Simmons must have seen before inventing his J. Jonah Jameson for the
Spiderman movies.
"Only a numbskull thinks he knows things about things he knows nothing
about."
Network (1976) -- "9/10"
The writing in Network is phenomenal -- what other film delivers lines like
"intractible and adamantine" -- and it's famous for the second
"mad-as-hell"
speech by Howard Beale (the first one is not the famous one). However,
there
are other, more interesting soliloquies in the film and if you're a fan of
well-written, philosophically and socially interesting dialogue, this is
the
movie for you. It's 35 years old and the problems documented in the film
have
only intensified. We are treading water and going backwards toward the
cataract. As an example, here's the speech Max Blumenthal gives to Diana
Christensen when he finally leaves her [1]:
"It's too late, Diana. There's nothing left in you that I can live with.
You're one of Howard's humanoids. If I stay with you, I'll be destroyed.
Like
Howard Beale was destroyed. Like Laureen Hobbs was destroyed. Like
everything
you and the institution of television touch is destroyed. You're
television
incarnate, Diana: Indifferent to suffering; insensitive to joy. All of
life
is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all
the
same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a
corrupt
comedy. You even shatter the sensations of time and space into split
seconds
and instant replays. You're madness, Diana. Virulent madness. And
everything
you touch dies with you. But not me. Not as long as I can feel pleasure,
and
pain... and love."
Another unfortunately timeless speech is that delivered by capitalism
incarnate, Arthur Jensen, to Howard Beale, which occurs at the end of the
film and is much more interesting than any of Howard's (and also delivered
with fire):
"You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't
have it! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal.
That
is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this
country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity!
It
is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations
and
peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no
Russians.
There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is
only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven,
interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars.
Petro-dollars,
electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and
shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the
totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things
today.
That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today!
And
YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU... WILL...
ATONE!
Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little
twenty-one
inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America.
There
is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow,
Union
Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you
think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They
get
out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories,
minimax
solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions
and
investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and
ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably
determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business,
Mr.
Beale."
L'illusioniste (2010) -- "9/10"
An exsquisitely drawn, animated [2] and scored film by Silvain Chomet (of les
Triplets de Belleville-fame) that tells the achingly sad tale of a magician
trying to make a living in Paris, then London, then the Scottish countryside
and finally Edinburgh. He is joined by a Scottish lass who doesn't understand
that he isn't really magic and has no concept of how money works. He does his
level best not to have to disabuse her of this notion. The story is told
almost entirely without words -- there are perhaps two dozen French and
English words and the girl speaks what I believe to be Gaelic, though I
understood not one word of it. His magical rabbit is cute and chubby and
perfectly animated, right down to the snapping jaws (yeah, I'm looking at
you, Pierre), although rabbits are not meat-eaters, as depicted. The girl
eventually moves on to a more suitable sugar-daddy in the form of a young man
... once she's gotten enough nice things from the magician to attract new
prey. Perhaps that's unfair, but I wonder whether her treatment of the
illusionist as an ATM was an allegory that was semi-sweet only on the
surface.
The Magic Christian (1969) -- "6/10"
Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr are an extremely rich father and adopted son
who spend the whole movie playing pranks on people, proving that money can
get people to do absolutely anything. The ride on the cruise ship, The Magic
Christian is a psychedelic romp. Funny enough -- and Sellers is always fun to
watch -- but nothing to write home about.
The Infidel (2010) -- "7/10"
A British film about a Muslim family man who finds out that he was adopted
and that the first two weeks of his life were spent as a Jew. The son who's
trying to marry the daughter of a reactionary Islamic cleric is an
insufferable, whining idiot. The lead character and his newfound
Jewish-NYC-cabbie-hack-driving friend are both quite likable and the plot has
an interesting twist.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010) -- "3/10"
Clearly, "Diary of a Pathologically Maladjusted Asshole", though orders of
magnitude more accurate, did not market well. It wasn't the worst kids movie
I've ever seen -- far from it -- but the lead character was a completely
unlikeable pain in the ass. The only halfway amusing character was his older
brother; I'm almost certain that the intent was not that one should
sympathize with him, but that's what I found myself doing. I shudder to think
of a generation of kids raised on the books on which this film is based.
Thank goodness most of them are an ocean away.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: the Lightning Thief (2010) -- "6/10"
An expanded version of Xena/Hercules for the teen set. It wasn't terrible but
I'm not looking forward to the sequel as I'm not really the target audience
(anymore). Smarter than expected, though, so if you are the target audience,
you could do much, much worse. For example, you could get sucked into
watching what I can only imagine to be the abomination that is a film based
on the atrocious writings of Stephanie Meyer. At least with this flick, you
learn something about the Greek gods, which is a pantheon with a bit more
richness and depth than "Team Edward vs. Team Jacob".
Ip Man 2 (2010) -- "8/10"
This is the second part of the story of Bruce Lee's teacher. It's only
semi-biographical, but Ip Man is portrayed very well by Donnie Yen as a
classically stoic and both inwardly and outwardly peaceful man who happens to
kick absolute ass at Wing Chun Gung Fu. The second half of the film is about
his prize fight against an over-the-top obnoxious British boxer -- all the
British are caricatures of evil; is it supposed to be reassuring that the
Hong Kong film industry can portray foreigners as unscrupulous idiots as well
as Hollywood? That part kinda sorta reminded me of Fearless with Jet Li where
he defeated all Western comers as well. A decent flick but the subtitles were
nearly useless although not hugely necessary as there were a lot of fight
scenes which were shot so nicely as to need no further explication.
Contagion (2011) -- "6/10"
A remarkably boring film in which a bunch of people get sick but you're never
really afraid for the life of anyone because you don't really come to care
about anyone. Shot in standard Soderbergh style, which was nice -- especially
the lab and gadget shots that made everything seem very normal and not
over-techy. The best part was that they listed the populations of many of the
large cities of the world, so I learned something at least. The reveal of the
vaccine test was handled in a pretty ham-handed manner with way too much
talking when the scene was self-explanatory. Maybe it tested poorly with
audiences who got easily confused. That would explain the ending as well,
which ripped away any and all mystery as to the origin and genesis of the
virus. A lot of decent actors were wasted, with Elliot Gould phoning it in
and Matt Damon just getting stuck with a bad (boring) character. Laurence
Fishburne and Kate Winslet were good as usual, but also didn't have too much
to work with.
Everything Must Go (2010) -- "8/10"
Will Ferrell plays an alcoholic salesman thrown out of the house by his wife.
When he returns from a sales trip, he finds that all the locks have been
changed, his bank account is frozen, his credit card canceled and all of his
stuff is on the lawn. This all on the same day that he loses his job. Ferrell
does an excellent job of portraying a man who is essentially good, has lost
his way and is trying to claw his way forward to something better. This film
is proof that the guy can play a serious role even better than he does
comedy.
Buried (2010) -- "8/10"
The film takes place entirely within a box underground. Well, it's a bit of a
spoiler, but the entire film is Ryan Reynolds buried alive somewhere in Iraq.
He's a trucker who works for a contracting company. He has a cell phone and
the only other actors and actresses are disembodied voices. It was actually
pretty riveting and held up surprisingly well. Reynolds is excellent and the
screenplay is as well, with several interesting plot points and a very
interesting conclusion.
127 Hours (2010) -- "7/10"
This film is an excellent double-feature with Buried above because it's
almost exclusively a one-man show starring James France as Aron Ralston, an
outdoor adventurer who was famously trapped in a canyon when he went out solo
one weekend. His arm was trapped beneath a boulder and, after more than five
days, he snapped the ulna and radius on that arm, then sawed through the
flesh, tendons and sinews -- with a cheap, dull knife -- to free himself and
walk and rappel out of the canyon, where he encountered other hikers and was
rescued by helicopter. You know, like a boss.
Barton Fink (1991) -- "9/10"
A Coen Brothers film about a self-absorbed workers-of-the-world-unite writer
whose initial success in Broadway theater is followed up by a stint writing
B-movies in Hollywood. Is the pure writer corrupted by the mendacity and
greed of Hollywood or were the writer's pretensions at knowing anything about
class struggle anything but a hollow sham? Can someone who has no life
experience be a writer? Is self-induced isolation and suffering a substitute
for the miseries of real life? A tale of idealism gone wrong or right or
taking the course that it is nearly always fated to take. Fink can see his
own end in the corruption of the spirit that is John Mahoney's portrayal of
Bill Mayhew. And Fink's supposed connection to the common man -- and desire
to write about him -- is belied by his complete inability to listen to John
Goodman's stories, which he's dying to tell. This failure is all the more
ironic as Fink is suffering from epic writer's block and exhibits all the
symptoms of a classic procrastinator. The clip and pacing of the dialogue is
similar to that in Hudsucker Proxy, with Tony Shalhoub delivering especially
well.
Inside Job (2010) -- "9/10"
This film tells the story of the worldwide financial crisis -- the one that
started in 2007 and exploded fully in 2008 when Lehman collapsed -- in an
extremely clear and succinct manner. It's narrated by Matt Damon and features
interviews with many of the more knowledgeable players (including some very
good quotes from Nouriel Roubini) and many highly placed officials and
individuals who are confronted quite plainly with hard questions. A must-see
for anyone who cares to know what really happened and has 100 minutes to
spare.
He Was a Quiet Man (2007) -- "8/10"
An interesting story of a man, played by Christian Slater, whose life is an
abysmal, nigh-limitlessly bleak landscape of dullness and drudgery. He has no
friends, his job is horrible, his coworkers abuse him and he meticulously
plans to "go postal", discussing minutiae with his goldfish and hummingbirds.
Even in this, though, he is preempted by another coworker who goes postal
first. He shoots this coworker to save the day and changes his life. Or does
he? Where does the crazed fantasy end and reality begin? An interesting look
at the sheer mindless horror of a life of quiet desperation with no hope of
accomplishing anything to be proud of or escaping the cookie-cutter crappy
suburban existence promised by modern life.
When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006) -- "9/10"
A 260-minute documentary about New Orleans and the aftermath of the Katrina
hurricane, the "lego" levees, the failure of the Army Corps of Engineers,
the
storm surge, the flooding, the failure of the federal government to help
immediately after the flooding, and further failure in the medium- and
long-term. Why is Louisiana so poor? Louisiana is poor because they suffer
from all the ill effects of having 25% of America's oil and natural gas
come
from just off their coasts...but just far enough away that they get
nothing
for their suffering (it all goes to the federal government, unlike Alaska,
Texas and others).
It depicts the scattering of families to all corners of the nation just to
get them out of New Orleans, but not delivering them to family members,
but
pretty much anywhere, to live in hotels, and deriding them as refugees.
These
poor people lost everything they had -- which wasn't much -- only to
discover
that they had even fewer rights in America than they thought they had.
Federal aid to New Orleans residents is considered charity instead of the
least we can do.
Whole districts were still not even cleaned up nine months later, with
rapacious developers keeping it that way so they can scoop up property
deeds
from people who can't live in areas with no electricity, no sewer, no
water
and no schools, and who got no insurance money on technicalities despite
having paid premiums for decades. [3] And these people were still living
in
tents because the FEMA trailers still hadn't showed up. It would be
interesting to see how things stand now, but gentrification is almost
guaranteed.
Most of the film is interviews and musical interludes with a very
interesting
cast, including but not limited to Phyllis Montana LeBlanc, Garland
Robinette, John Barry, Judith Morgan and Michael Eric Dyson. Highly
recommended.
Trouble the Water (2008) -- "8/10"
Another movie about the aftermath of Katrina but focused very much on one
family, headed (in spirit at least) by an aspiring female rapper. It's not
nearly as informative as When the Levees Broke but it offers perhaps a rawer,
close-up look at how much the survivors were on their own ... and for how
long. "They're still treatin' us third world, man." precedes a segment
featuring an interview with a total bimbo who talks about the "20% of the
city that wasn't devastated" being the part "where the tourists are" anyway.
Obviously she doesn't mention the possibility that that's why those parts
were saved and the others were not. Doesn't matter; her business is booming.
American: The Bill Hicks Story (2009) -- "8/10"
This movie is a fitting homage to one of the greatest comedians America has
every produced. It covers his standup career from an incredibly early start
at 14 years old (with footage!) to his darker times of alcoholism and drug
use (during which he was still often funny) to his time of recovery and
discovery of purpose and politics and philosophy. His close family and
friends were unanimous in their love of him (though that's to be expected of
a film produced by them). Though it's entirely true to think that his life
and a blossoming career was brutally cut off by pancreatic cancer at age 34,
he had been quite successful in the business for 20 years at that point
(though his success was much greater in England, where he was worshiped). A
better film for Hicks fans than as an introduction, but still provides a
taste of what you're missing if you've never heard him (or of him).
Man on Wire (2008) -- "8/10"
The story of wire-walker Philippe Petit, who walked first a wire strung to
the Notre Dame, then the Sydney Harbour Bridge and finally, between the Two
Towers. For the final feat, he and his ad-hoc team spent months studying the
buildings, made several trips from France to New York, enlisted the aid of
several others, planned the cable and stays meticulously and finally
persevered in what was truly one of the most amazing acts of unique insanity
-- or trust in skill -- the world has ever seen. The film includes interviews
with the major players as well as a lot of photographs and videos of practice
and training sessions as well as the final act itself. The story is
spellbinding: he walked across, saw that there were police on the other side
and ran back out to the middle to perform some more; he spent almost an hour
out there. The police officers telling the story fail completely to suppress
their wonder at the act ("Magnificent", "Well, you wouldn't call him a
wire-walker 'cause he more like dancin'" and "I was witnessin' something I
would never see again"). The title is actually taken from the charge written
on the official arrest ticket. Warning: some of the interviews are in French,
so make sure you have subtitles if you need them.
Hanna (2011) -- "4/10"
A movie about a genetically altered girl who, for 15 years, is raised as a
killing machine by her super-agent father near the Arctic Circle. When she
reaches 15 or 16, she wants to leave and her father tells her that her
mission has begun. They both decamp and agree to meet elsewhere. Adventures
ensue, but not the action adventures you'd expect. There's a lot of maudlin
moping about on Hanna's part and severely bad judgment on her father's part
(situational awareness is super-high at one point, then zero at another).
Cate Blanchett's accent shoots all over the place, as do her seeming
superpowers (she doesn't have any, but she caught up to Hanna, who's
ostensibly super-enhanced, while running in the woods and on train tracks in
Prada shoes). The German henchmen were ridiculous caricatures and also
seemingly super-powered (or super-sneaky, see situational awareness comment
above). Not recommended.
Fermat's Last Theorem (1996) -- "7/10"
A short documentary about Andrew Wiles and how he came to be the man to solve
Fermat's Last Theorem. He did it all without a computer -- "I never use a
computer" -- the documentary shows him at a huge desk covered in papers, all
covered with equations and squiggles.
Big Fan (2009) -- "7/10"
Patton Oswalt plays a guy from Staten Island who lives for the New York
Giants. Every waking moment revolves around his team and its quarterback. The
fan is confronted with tribulations that should rock his faith. But they do
not. They do not. Oswalt is quite good, as is his nearly equally die-hard
friend, played by Kevin Corrigan.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) -- "9/10"
Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet as a mismatched couple in a relationship that's
basically good, but fraught with tension because of her drinking and his
tedium. In a fit of pique, she seeks out a service that can erase all memory
of a person from your mind; he soon does the same. The dream/memory/reality
overlap sequences are done quite well and the supporting cast is good. It's
not a first-date movie, but it's a great film about relationships and about
how well anyone really knows anyone and what it even means to say that one
knows someone because which facet(s) of that person do you even know?
Vengeance (2009) -- "7/10"
A French chef with a shadowy past teams up with three locals in Hong Kong to
avenge the shooting of his daughter and death of her family. Mostly English,
with some French and a fair amount of Chinese (I assume), so get subtitles if
you can. As you can imagine, the dialogue doesn't really make a tremendous
amount of a difference. Shot very nicely, with the requisite rain scenes,
slow-motion flying paper scene and blood misting with bullet-time action
sequences. The plot was just weird enough to stay interesting, although Hong
Kong police response time to shooting is apparently quite bad. Also,
super-henchmen sometimes shoot extremely accurately and at others, when the
script calls for it, they can't hit the broad side of a barn. It was like
watching the A-Team or GI Joe. Still, entertaining enough with some cool-guy
actors. Beat the pants off of Hanna, at any rate.
Take the Neuron Express for a brief tour of consciousness (2006)
A "two-hour interview with V.S. Ramachandran"
,
who talks about consciousness, neurology, psychology and a host of other
topics, all related to understanding how humans think, what we feel and what
it means to even ask those questions. At what level should which issues be
investigated? (e.g. can we discover consciousness at the atomic level?)
Fascinating, thought-provoking stuff. It could be reasonably well-coupled
with "Ask Sam Harris Anything #1"
, although I thought V.S. had
fewer hangups (man, Harris just cannot stop talking about Muslims as a
particularly invidious form of evil; my theory is that it's because of his
crush on Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whom he also can't stop talking about).
The Losers (2010) -- "6/10"
Though this movie has its moments -- for example, Chris Evans is pretty funny
-- it's pretty much sunk by yet another flyweight woman who can kick anyone's
ass, this time played by Zoe Saldana. She's absolutely terrible in a way I
haven't seen since Halle Berry did her damnedest to ruin the first two X-Men
movies. The rest of the cast is OK (though Idris Elba's much better in other
things), with Jason Patric making a surprise return as a somewhat humorous
evil genius. Production values are pretty high and most of the action
sequences are tight.
Operation: Endgame (2010) -- "7/10"
Another comedy/action movie that was much funnier than The Losers (especially
the first half). The action was well-filmed and less cartoonish than expected
-- especially with Maggie Q in the cast. Rob Corddry, Jeffrey Tambor and
Ellen Barkin are all decent but couldn't save the flick. The plot turned out
to be a convoluted fantasy about recovering all of the Bush administration's
secrets and getting them out of the super-secret spy lair before they could
be destroyed. Or something like that. It was definitely better than The
Losers, though. And both are better than Hanna which -- I cannot emphasize
this enough -- sucked.
Righteous Kill (2008) -- "5/10"
De Niro and Pacino team up as cops again (last time was Heat I think) but
they're much more...seasoned now. They're on the tail of a serial killer of
whose work they wholeheartedly approve because he mostly kills people who
"deserved it". Soon, however, the other team assigned to the case begins to
suspect that a cop is behind the murders and they even know who that cop
might be (spoiler alert: De Niro). It's decent, though some scenes drag on
interminably. The luscious Carla Gugino was thrown in as a sexually
masochistic fellow cop to keep things spicy, I guess. [4] Unfortunately,
she's with De Niro (at least initially), who's either wearing a girdle in the
film, or should have been. Pacino played less stereotypically Pacino, which
was nice, but De Niro just can't...stop...making...that...face.
Brazil (1985) -- "10/10"
Director Terry Gilliam's masterpiece of a late 20th-century future where
Orwell's 1984 society has, for the most part, come to pass. Gilliam's take is
dark, but silly, if that makes sense and delves into the mindlessness and
silliness of our society and bureaucracy as well as the evil of it. The
soul-draining quality of everyday life that stifles any sort of creativity in
the cradle, as it were. His vision of a future world was not that bloody far
off in spirit, to what we have today. Jonathan Price is quite good, as is
Robert De Niro, both of whom would go on to take much, much worse roles later
in their careers. Michael Palin is also quite good in a supporting role. The
long final sequence is pure Gilliam, with fantastical elements and the
merging of dream and reality that suggests either a very good or very bad
drug trip (depending on preference and location within said trip). [5]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] The background is that Diana Christenson, played by Faye Dunaway, is a
strong woman, who acts as a stereotypical man (much as Jennifer Jason Leigh
did in Hudsucker Proxy, also overtly noted throughout that film). In a
barely-hidden allusion to this, during one tryst with Max, Diana can't stop
talking about work the whole time they're undressing and getting into bed --
which Max tolerates and ignores so as not to kill whatever mood there was,
which was nascent, actually. Once in bed, she is almost immediately
satisfied and continues talking about work throughout.
[1] It is a delight to watch a cartoon which is a cartoon rather than a CGI
approximation. This animation is art.
[1] And the insurance companies that are aggressively denying claims are
probably the same organization that's trying to buy up development rights
and land and will move in more well-to-do people.
[1] And perhaps to assuage any feelings of latent homosexuality on the part of
insecure young male moviegoers who wanted to go see the "psycho from Taxi
Driver" team up with the "psycho from Scarface" and then realized they were
watching a flick about two old guys.
[1] The inscrutable samurai would reappear in the Fisher King, which dream
sequences had many similarities to those of Brazil.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=25692011-12-11T21:28:19+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
A four-person round table about comedy starring Ricky Gervais, Jerry
Seinfeld, Chris Rock and Louis C.K. Lots of laughs and some
interesting points made -- though Gervais seemed to be far ahead of
the others in pure erudition, trying to delve deeper into the
...
]]>
A four-person round table about comedy starring Ricky Gervais, Jerry
Seinfeld, Chris Rock and Louis C.K. Lots of laughs and some interesting
points made -- though Gervais seemed to be far ahead of the others in pure
erudition, trying to delve deeper into the philosophical and perhaps
philological implications of humor and what it means to say that something's
funny. The others seemed more into gut feeling that something was funny and
weren't too interested in dissecting the point further (e.g. when discussing
the "joke" about the amateur comedian who came out with a guitar, playing
Otis Redding's classic and singing "sitting on a cock 'cause I'm gay" --
Gervais argued that, while on the surface it's kind of funny, it succeeds
only by appealing to an atavistic anti-gay in all of them, instilled by their
upbringing and so, in a sense, is a cheap laugh; the others just insisted
that it was funny without seeing the need for further explication).
Milk (2008) -- "7/10"
The biographical film of Supervisor Harvey Milk, the first openly homosexual
elected official in America, who transformed San Fransisco politics and met a
gruesome demise in an assassination at the hands of an unstable fellow
supervisor. Sean Pean is excellent as Milk and James Franco is very good as
his good friend.
Half-baked (1998) -- "5/10"
Dave Chappelle is very endearing as a pot-smoking custodian in this film
about ... smoking pot. There were some funny moments, but Jim Brewer is a
pain in the ass and the only thing keeping it together is Chappelle and his
charm. Jon Stewart's cameo is utterly forgettable and mercifully short.
Funny People (2009) -- "6/10"
A darker Adam Sandler film about a comedian who followed a very Sandler-like
star arc and became very rich and very famous (e.g. George Miller in the film
was famous for playing "Merman", which is clearly a cut at "Water Boy").
Sandler is good in a dark role and Seth Rogan is good as his new
assistant/potential friend. The plot whipsaws back and forth, appearing a bit
out-of-sorts at time, but also perhaps adequately depicting what a life of
fame is like. Or maybe that's too deep. Who knows?
See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989) -- "8/10"
Gene Wilder as a deaf man and Richard Pryor as a blind man, teaming up to
thwart a heist of a precious coin. As with Blazing Saddles, it's refreshing
to watch a comedy made for adults, with adult humor, cursing and nudity where
appropriate instead of the watered-down pap we're offered in the form of
audience-tested PG-13 entertainment today (yeah, Chris Rock, Pryor's rolling
over in his f'in grave at your "star turn" in Grown Ups). Pryor and Wilder
are absolutely hilarious.
Due Date (2010) -- "6/10"
A buddy movie pairing Zack Galifianakis with Robert Downey Jr. in what kind
of felt like a remake of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. As usual with
Galifianakis, the expected insanity is a little more "off" than with other
similar comedians. Downey Jr. is his usual self, doing a decent job but not
amazing.
Cargo (2009) -- "8/10"
A Swiss science-fiction film set in the years 2267-2270 about a cargo
container ship traversing the vast deep emptiness between our solar system
and Proxima Centauri. The interiors and exteriors are equally convincing,
with the enormous exteriors portrayed nearly as majestically as Kubrick did
in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The plot was also quite in the vein of the golden
age of science fiction and the acting was decent. A pleasant surprise. Saw it
in the original German.
The King's Speech (2010) -- "7/10"
A tightly-shot and cinematically stunning film about King George VI (played
by Colin Firth), who guided England through the second world war, all the
time accompanied by his Australian speech therapist, Lionel Logue (played by
Geoffrey Rush). Helena Bonham Carter rounded the amazing cast of very few
major players. Riveting and beautiful and heartwarming without schmaltz. It
being almost completely based on a true story was a definite plus.
Rien à Déclarer (2010, fr) -- "8/10"
A wonderfully told story of a town on the French-Belgian border in 1993 when
the EU opened all of the borders. The customs officers on both sides -- as
well as the townspeople -- must come to grips with the change. Benoît
Poelvoorde as the Francophobe Belgian customs officer is absolutely hilarious
with his over-the-top, spluttering and inchoate diatribes against the French.
Dany Boon is just as funny, but in a subtler way (for the most part).
Tree of Life (2011) -- "7/10"
The first part of this film is like the end of 2001, with a lot of absolutely
beautiful photography and short videos. These scenes are accompanied by a
voice-over providing some background to the story that will unfold in what
can only be called the second act of the film. Brad Pitt is fantastic as a
tightly-wound engineer in the 50s, living what he manages -- for the most
part -- to convince himself is a perfect life in 1950s America. His family is
dragged on this course as well, though they don't always like it (especially
when he gets violent, though only vocally). The story is told non-linearly
(although a large chunk in the middle is quite linear) and purports to tell
the history of the universe, culminating in the life of a single man who ends
up not getting all that he hoped for. Achieves enough of what it set out to
do so that this doesn't come across as too pretentious. Pitt is excellent, as
is Jessica Chastain as his wife. Sean Penn emanates pathos in a mostly
non-speaking role as the grown-up version of Pitt's most unruly son. Worth
watching, but you have to be in the right mood.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) -- "6/10"
A prequel to the Planet of the Apes ("Rise of" ... get it?) that delivers
some recrimination of animal experimentation that's not too preachy. James
Franco is good, as is Andy Serkis as the monkey (again, acting in a
motion-sensor-covered lycra body-suit). The action scenes are well-done and
the film stays interesting and is, for once, not excruciatingly long.
Horrible Bosses (2011) -- "8/10"
A surprisingly funny film about three working schlubs whose lives are made
unutterably miserable by their bosses: Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Spacey and
Colin Farrell. The guys themselves -- Jason Bateman, Charlie Day and Jason
Sudeikis -- are quite funny as well: the cocaine scene is really worth the
price of admission. The plot keeps things interesting enough, with good
dialogue. The surprising part is that Jennifer Aniston just steals the hell
out of the movie as a ridiculous parody of a sexually predatory dentist. God,
she's dirty; you just can't believe the things that come out of her mouth,
all delivered with a straight face.
The Eiger Sanction (1975) -- "6/10"
Clint Eastwood and George Steele in a movie about a retired contract
killer/mountain climber turned professor (Eastwood) with a way with the
ladies (kind of, see below) who gets blackmailed into performing one last
job: on the Eiger, of all places. Some stilted dialogue, but the movie was
clearly filmed in Switzerland (even though the NPCs all speak high German).
Pretty harshly misogynistic in ways that are considerably less subtle than
what you'd see today. Seems a lot like Eastwood's attempt to make an American
James Bond movie (and his professor role predates Harrison Ford's Indiana
Jones role by several years), right down to highly improbable female roles
like the mute Native American mountain climber/fashion model with fake boobs
named George.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) -- "7/10"
A fitting conclusion to the gargantuan series of films, which follow a single
story arc (more or less). My first reaction on starting the film was a desire
to stop and watch the previous film again, because I couldn't remember what
was going on. Unusually, the film didn't provide a recap as so many serial
films do. It made you think and pay attention, which was good. Reasonable
well-acted -- Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort is wonderful: watch his eloquent
hands -- and the CGI is perfect. Stayed 100% true to the book, as with the
other films, including the overwhelmingly sappy epilogue.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) -- "7/10"
Johnny Depp takes on the immense challenge of living up to the incredibly
high standard of disturbingly serene wackiness set by Gene Wilder, who played
Wonka in the original movie. Everyone else is pretty much forgettable
window-dressing for Depp as Wonka (even an unusually subdued Helena Bonham
Carter) and it's an entertaining film, even though the dance numbers get a
bit long after the first one or two of them. Another beautifully rendered,
colorful, slightly-off world as envisioned by director Tim Burton.
The Wrestler (2008, de) -- "9/10"
What is there to say other than that this is the role that Mickey Rourke was
born to play? That Randy "The Ram" is a perfect metaphor for Rourke's
relationship with his own career? Perhaps that's reading too much into it,
but it felt so right while watching it. That, and, temporary distractions
engendered by Marisa Tomei's nigh-ridiculous level of sexiness in a role an
exotic dancer. Wow. But back to Rourke, who -- together with director
Aranovsky -- tells the story of a man trying to escape his life of quiet
desperation as if the story had never been told before. His pain is palpable.
Riveting. Saw it in German.
True Grit (2010) -- "9/10"
A Coen Brothers remake of the John Wayne original, starring Jeff Bridges in
the (male) lead role with Matt Damon in a strong supporting role. Hailee
Steinfeld stars as a self-possessed young lady on a mission to avenge her
father's death. Josh Brolin also shows up in yet another Western as the bad
guy. Interestingly, everyone has exquisite grammar and almost everyone has
horrific diction -- with the notable exception of Ms. Steinfeld. Bridges, on
the other hand, is a slurring, dialectically impaired monstrosity that is
both a tour-de-force and a veritable nightmare for anyone who doesn't speak
English natively. Strong story, excellent pacing and lovely cinematography,
as expected.
Shooter (2007) -- "8/10"
Mark Wahlberg stars as retired Marine sniper living way the hell out in the
middle of nowhere (Montana?) when he's visited by mysterious government
agents who want him to come back and do just one more job. After he shoots
something really, really far away to prove the few unbelieving members of the
group that he's really awesome at shooting, he's forced to agree to the job.
Though this sounds horrible, it's actually quite a good flick, with a
relatively engaging plot and Wahlberg doing a good job selling his role. Fun
to watch and an altogether more interesting ending than expected.
Das Experiment (2002, de) -- "8/10"
If you get into it and allow yourself to be swept away by the evil of the
guards, it's a harrowing film. If you read the Stanford Prison Experiment --
or saw any of the footage -- this will be the case, as you will be in
possession of scientific evidence that the human psyche and personality is so
malleable as to allow near-complete change due to circumstance alone. The
film is about a bunch of guys (students, in the original experiment) who are
paid to participate in a two-week experiment in which half play guards and
the other half play prisoners in an ersatz prison constructed in the lab's
basement. The guys who play guards take to their roles with gusto and take no
time at all to start treating the prisoners as if they were hardened
criminals; most of the men playing criminals also take to their roles as
cowed, meek prisoners quite quickly. The carrot of a payoff at the end of the
two weeks is occasionally dangled as a reason for this compliance, but the
degree to which they acquiesce is astonishing, as is the speedy descent into
brutality on the part of the guards. You'll probably think many times "I
would never put up with that; those aren't real guards" (if you're a
prisoner) or "I would never participate in that" (if you're a guard), but
experimental evidence says otherwise [1]. Interesting film and well-acted for
the most part (Moritz Bleibtreu as #77 was particularly good; you may
remember him from Run Lola Run).
Gone Baby Gone (2007) -- "8/10"
Casey Affleck stars in this tightly-written film about a young cop's first
encounters with what seems to be unavoidable corruption and the tough job
that otherwise-good cops have when they realize that what's right is often
not the result of their actions. Because they're hamstrung by a legal system
that doesn't understand the real world. But cops do. So, sometimes they need
to take the law into their own hands and play judge and jury as well (if not
executioner). And so on and so forth. It sounds trite but it plays pretty
well, with some good tension and conflict. Affleck discovers something that
looks like a clear case of corruption, but turns out to be a completely
different form of corruption -- one that's supported by his own fiancé
(girlfriend?), who forces him to choose between her and the moral choice he's
leaning toward. Affleck is very good.
Bad Santa (2003) -- "9/10"
Billy Bob Thornton goes even lower than Nicholas Cage in Leaving Las Vegas,
as does his bartender girlfriend (played by Lauren Graham, of Gilmore Girls
fame, who's actually quite charming in this as opposed to the jibbering,
annoying fool she played in the TV series). Some of the dialogue is
absolutely unbelievably filthy but it fits just right. Thornton plays an
alcoholic safe-cracking Santa who teams up with the vertically-challenged
Tony Cox (who's awesome as an elf) to rob stores during the Christmas season.
Bernie Mac essentially plays himself as head of security of the latest store
on which they set their sights. Thornton finds redemption in little Thurman
Merman, played pitch-perfect by Brett Kelly. Great soundtrack of classical
music (e.g. Chopin's Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 accompanies the finale). Saw it in
German.
Hot Fuzz (2007) -- "8/10"
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (the team from Shaun of the Dead) are back, this
time as police officers in a sleepy little town in the English countryside.
Pegg plays a straight-shooter from London where Frost is the local schlub.
The buddy action movie gets an entertaining tongue-in-cheek treatment with
enough entertaining plot twists to keep things interesting. The town turns
out not to be so sleepy after all and, as in Shaun of the Dead, there are
some oddly compelling if seemingly incongruous action scenes. Saw it in
German.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010) -- "6/10"
Jake Gyllenhall, Alfred Molina, Ben Kingsley add some halfway-decent acting
to an adventure movie based on a video game. (Richard Coyle -- Jeffrey of
Couplings -- was nearly unrecognizable as Tus, one of Dastan's brothers.) It
was decent and reminded me more of the Mummy series than the latest Indiana
Jones movies, which is a good thing. Jake Gyllenhall plays a Persian Prince
(duh.) caught up in palace intrigue, attacks on peaceful cities looking for
nonexistent weapons (ahem.) and naturally a grudging relationship with Gemma
Arterton, the only female cast member. She's cute and lithe but treated as
eye-candy by the script (as is Gyllenhall, to be fair). Mostly predictable,
but relatively well-executed.
X-Men: First Class (2011) -- "9/10"
James McAvoy would be the best actor in this movie if Michael Fassbender
wasn't also in it. The story is well-written and the more than two hours are
up before you know it. The various themes are treated with decent
seriousness. It's really hard not to root for Magneto (Fassbender) who just
keeps being right about everything (namely that life is shit and the fuckers
are out to get you if you're different). Prof. X (McAvoy) wants to give peace
a chance and he's taught some harsh lessons, which he naturally refuses to
learn in the end. Perhaps he needs to be beaten over the head with human
treachery a bit more. Not surprising that he needs a few more goes at it,
having grown up in the lap of luxury as he did. The rest of the cast is OK,
but pales in contrast to the two leads. The story captures the subtlety of
the comic book (which, in turn, captured the subtlety of real life) that
things are often not black and white, actions have consequences and people
have histories, to which they may be inextricably bound.
Thor (2011) -- "8/10"
Whoever cast relative newcomer Chris Hemsworth as Thor did a helluva job.
Hemsworth, on the other hand, did a lot of work in a gym or is just naturally
insanely mesomorphic. At any rate, it was enough to make Kat Dennings and
Natalie Portman slobber throughout the film. [2] Is it feminism when women
are portrayed as being as single-minded as men? Even when at least one of
them is ostensibly a doctor of physics? What I know of the mythology was
treated quite well and Loki's tale was treated as a subtle mix of good and
evil rather than the black/white so often favored by the fast-food US film
industry. A cool flick and honestly looking forward to a sequel, perhaps with
a bit less of the bra-and-pantie-throwing on the part of Portman (if she's in
fact capable of doing anything else these days -- her career arc of late says
otherwise).
Kick-Ass (2010) -- "6/10"
An overly long flick about costumed vigilantes, some with serious, serious
hardware and serious, serious skills. The title character is a high-school
kid who has a high pain-threshold and a lot of metal in his body due to a
traffic accident. It means he can take a serious beating, which is kind of
his super power. Nicholas Cage (Big Daddy) and newcomer Chloë Grace Moretz
(Hit Girl) are the more skilled, hardware-packing variety who make a serious
dent in a crime family. It's a bit off-putting that Hit Girl's only about 11
years old, but her John-Woo-inspired choreography is lovely. The movie was
OK, but dragged on and the time between fight scenes was often a wasteland
that had me looking at my watch. Plus, there's the unnerving thing of casting
an 11-year-old in a star role -- which I think is almost always annoying --
and the creepy, Manga-ish overtones it implied.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Zimbardo does point out that some of the men stuck to their personalities
and didn't let themselves be carried away by the game, but most did. The
film also has one guard who refuses to stoop to the level of the others.
[1] And kudos to Ms. Dennings for doing such a great job of distracting us from
Ms. Portman. Who would have guessed?
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=25482011-10-22T09:31:47+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
A cute comedy about tour guides in Greece. Almost totally formulaic
but still somehow entertaining.
Crimson Tide (1995) -- "8/10"
An excellent submarine thriller with Denzel Washington as Captain
Gene Hackman's executive officer as their sub heads toward a showdown
...
]]>
A cute comedy about tour guides in Greece. Almost totally formulaic but still
somehow entertaining.
Crimson Tide (1995) -- "8/10"
An excellent submarine thriller with Denzel Washington as Captain Gene
Hackman's executive officer as their sub heads toward a showdown with Russian
rebels with their fingers on the nuclear trigger. Viggo Mortenson is
excellent as well, and James Gandolfini plays a small-minded kowtower so well
that one wonders whether he's acting at all. A lot of the supporting cast is
really good and the plot is quite tight -- up to the point where Hackman's
character exhibits a startlingly racist side that doesn't gel with any of the
rest of the plot.
Grown Ups (2010) -- "2/10"
Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, Rob Schneider, Steve
Buscemi, Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, Tim Meadows, Colin Quinn: what could go
wrong? Well, they could all be enjoying the hell out of making the movie so
much that no one noticed how bad and awkward the script and dialogue are.
There are moments that are funny, but far more moments that make you cringe.
Maybe they meant the film ironically: instead of making a movie about what it
would be like if these five hilarious guys got together again after 20 years,
they made the movie showing how awkward and lame any five guys are whose
lives diverged 20 years ago. Instead of a comedy showcasing the best of the
best in humor, it's a drama piece showing the mundanity of most people's
lives.
United 93 (2006) -- "4/10"
A film about the possible sequence of events on the ill-fated flight 93 of
United Airlines that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9--11, 2001. The theory is
that it was forced down by the passengers when they tried to retake the
cockpit from the terrorists who'd hijacked the plane. It was more even than
expected, but still not very good. The ending was a wild mishmash of camera
angles, shaky-cam work and quick cuts which was probably supposed to convey
the sense of confusion but really just gave me a headache.
True Crime (1999) -- "8/10"
A Clint Eastwood film about a reporter (Eastwood) playing a reporter who
smokes, drinks and sleeps around trying to clear the name of a man unjustly
sentenced to death row. Good story; great acting. With James Woods and Denis
Leary as Eastwood's less-than-impressed coworkers. Definitely worth it. Saw
it in German.
A Few Good Men (1992) -- "8/10"
Watched this one again after a long time and it was still riveting. Tom
Cruise and Kevin Pollack are great (as usual, actually), Nicholson does his
star turn as does a very young Kiefer Sutherland. Watched it in German, but
it lost nothing in translation -- it was perhaps even better because German
is such an awesome military language.
Do The Right Thing (1989) -- "9/10"
Saw this for the first time and it was everything I'd heard. Excellent from
start to finish with fine acting all around as well as a nuanced script and
dialogue. Well worth watching -- nothing has changed except we don't have big
boom-boxes anymore.
Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) -- "4/10"
A predictable movie about a woman who shops too much. Though it does make an
attempt to seriously portray just how damaging shopping too much can be, it's
also a movie about a problem only the rich and wanna-be rich have. Sure, the
woman can't afford the stuff she buys, but she's still wealthy enough to be
up to debt to her eyeballs buying clothes that she doesn't need, instead of
deep in debt buying food or paying rent. Watched with only one eye though;
the other was doing a crossword puzzle.
Deep Impact (1998) -- "2/10"
Spoiler alert: Copycat of Armageddon, but the good guys don't win. Mostly
predictable and lacking nuance. Didn't watch the second half, to be honest. I
got fed up when the movie showed people taking martial law lying down -- as
if they had anything to lose with a comet about to plow into the Earth.
President: you have a couple of days left, so go home and don't cause a
disturbance and don't go outside and don't enjoy yourselves. Yeah, ok. I'd
actually like to see a sequel showing the people who buried themselves in
Missouri trying to get back out after two years when the people who had to
stay outside and rebuild society from scratch are waiting for them.
Dogma (1999) -- "7/10"
A dark comedy about heaven, hell, angels and demons written by and starring
Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Also stars Salma Hayek as a pole dancer named
Serendipity (if that's your thing), Chris Rock as the 13th Apostle and Linda
Fiorentino as an unwilling tool of destiny. Includes a lot of discussions
about Christianity from an undergraduate philosophical level and the plot is
very entertaining. Saw it in German.
Plastic Planet (2009) -- "7/10"
A long but informative and entertaining documentary about a German/Austrian
with a plastics business/fortune in his family who travels the world to learn
more about plastic. His journey of discovery leads him to discover that we
won't end up just strangling sea turtles and fish with plastic, but ourselves
as well.
The Tourist (2010) -- "5/10"
Angelina Jolie plays a mysterious woman (no spoiler there) who (spoiler
alert) turns out to be a spy, a traitor and a whore (although haggling the
price up to £744 million is quite an achievement -- that's about £10
million per pound). Johnny Depp is unconvincing and seems to be phoning it
in. Paul Bettany is wasted as well. The movie moves very slowly and its
surprises are unsurprising (shades of Angles and Demons there). For what
purports to be a thriller, it wasn't very thrilling, unless you consider
watching Jolie glide around like a porcelain doll thrilling; she looks so
frail, you may be on the edge of your seat wondering whether she will shatter
at each step.
Monsters vs. Aliens (2009) -- "3/10"
A crazy pastiche of different stories and plots group up into a single, long
CGI cartoon. Standout voice talent that went to waste on utterly forgettable
lines delivered during interminable battle scenes. Made for kids with no
clear angle for adults. Can't even remember whether it was in English or
German.
Ghost Busters (1984) -- "8/10"
The old classic stands up quite well, with Bill Murray -- as Dr. Peter
Venkman -- providing a lot of the reason why. Reason #1:
Dr Ray Stantz: Everything was fine with our system until the power grid
was
shut off by dickless here.
Walter Peck: They caused an explosion!
Mayor: Is this true?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Yes it's true.
[pause]
Dr. Peter Venkman: This man has no dick.
Saw it in German.
Blazing Saddles (1974) -- "10/10"
A classic from Mel Brooks -- and possibly his best. Gene Wilder plays
sidekick to Cleavon Little's amazing turn as a black sheriff in the wild
west. Madeline Kahn plays a wonderful German burlesque dancer/ingenue with
a
lisp named Lili Von Shtupp ("A wed wose. How womantic.") and Harvey Korman
plays a hilarious asshole with an easily mispronounced name, as usual. The
initial arrival of the sheriff is worth the price of admission. Enjoyed
the
hell out of this film (and can still quote a bunch of it from multiple
viewings out of the deep past). And then there's Gene Wilder's deadpan
delivery (quoting from a scene where he consoles Little):
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people
of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons."
The Fifth Element (1997) -- "10/10"
Bruce Willis plays a futuristic, alternate-reality version of John Mclane
from the "Die Hard" movies. Mila Jovovich is great as an alien/living weapon
with a penchant for skimpy outfits. Chris Tucker is also very good as an
over-the-top (redundant, I know) television moderator. Gary Oldman rounds out
the cast as the bad guy (redundant, I know). Luc Besson is rightly fêted for
the excellent cinematography, sets, costumes and overall mood of the film.
Saw it in German.
Tears of the Sun (2003) -- "6/10"
Bruce Willis takes stony-faced to a new level as the leader of an elite cadre
of Marines charged with extracting a Westerner from somewhere in Africa (I'm
not even going to bother looking up which country it purported to be or
whether the film claims any historical veracity or derivative thereof). The
Westerner refuses to leave without also rescuing the village in which she
lived and worked. Willis at first refuses -- following his orders only -- but
is eventually overwhelmed by moral considerations. Luckily for us, the
Westerner is portrayed by Monica Belluci, which was enough for me. Saw it in
German.
Dinner for Schmucks (2010) -- "7/10"
A surprisingly good and touching little film about a bunch of rich
traders/brokers who amuse themselves by inviting what they consider to be
useless members of society to dinner and holding a contest to find the one
who demonstrates his idiocy with the most extravagance. The film is saved not
by its plot -- though it does make an attempt to illustrate that the more
generally accepted notion of which group of people in the film is actually
more useless may be wrong -- but by Steve Carell's sweet performance as
Barry, a naif who builds dioramas using dead mice that portray the life he
may have had with a wife who left him. It is part of Carell's immense talent
that he makes this seem far more normal than the normal lives of the two
ostensible protagonists (Paul Rudd as a financial analyst and his girlfriend,
an art gallery curator, both on their way up in the real world).
Spider-Man 2 (2004) -- "8/10"
The last good Spidey movie, even though too much time is dominated by Kirsten
Dunst's simper and other attempts at expressing emotion. This is likely less
her fault than a unwitting misogyny present in so many comic-book movies. The
star is really Doc Ock or, to be more precise, his four articulated, metal
arms. They're flat-out awesome and utterly believable. Spidey himself is
decent, but a bid maudlin. Still and all, much better than Spider-Man 3,
which was an abomination. Saw it in German.
Transporter 3 (2008) -- "6/10"
Lovely choreography and balletic martial artistry from Mr. Statham (as usual)
and lovely direction by Luc Besson (as usual) but a shockingly irritating
package to deliver this time around, in the form of a Russian party girl role
that hit every ugly stereotype and went over the line of good taste. Every
time she opened her mouth, something stupid and annoying came out, delivered
with an insipidity that tore you out of the context every time. The story?
Window dressing for car chases and martial arts against hordes of
inexplicably unarmed goons.
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https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=25312011-08-14T13:26:16+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
Angelina Jolie directed by Clint Eastwood about a woman's struggle to
find her abducted child. However, the struggle is more against a
patriarchal and corrupt LA police department, who cover up their
ineptitude by returning to her the wrong child and then commit her to
...
]]>
Angelina Jolie directed by Clint Eastwood about a woman's struggle to find
her abducted child. However, the struggle is more against a patriarchal and
corrupt LA police department, who cover up their ineptitude by returning to
her the wrong child and then commit her to an insane asylum when she refuses
to accept that the child is hers. She was clearly suffering from "the
vapors". Dark, infuriating and very well done.
Black Dog (1998) -- "4/10"
Patrick Swayze is a trucker charged with driving from one place to another
despite the best attempts of criminals. He is also a former criminal but also
a man with a good heart just trying to do right for his family and using his
unparalleled truck-driving skills to get the job done. Swayze looks a little
strange in this film -- somehow blockier than usual and with what looks for
all the world like eye makeup for much of the film. If you like trucks,
Meatloaf (the singer, not the foodstuff) and Randy Travis, this is the movie
for you. Saw it in German.
Felon (2008) -- "8/10"
Val Kilmer as a seasoned felon who mentors Stephen Dorff, a man wrongly
convicted. Dorff comes from the suburbs whereas Kilmer is a slightly
overweight and massively feared ur-criminal who seems to have climbed from
the primordial ooze with a life sentence and plenty of respect already in
tow. The regular rumbles organized by the guards soon cause Dorff to shed any
shred of humanity and throw himself into the life of a gladiator, with Kilmer
as his sifu. A suprisingly gripping film for all the triteness of the plot,
mostly due to Kilmer and Dorff.
Jaws (1975) -- "8/10"
The classic and original shark film shows up horror films of today that try
too damned hard. Since the film is from the 70s, there is no reluctance to
fill long minutes with three grimy guys in a cabin singing sea shanties. The
pacing is languid and the threat of
when-the-fuck-is-the-shark-going-to-attack? hangs like the Sword of Damocles.
It's suspense with brains; compare and contrast to Piranha 3D, for which the
trailer was already execrable enough to deter viewing of the full film. Kids
these days and all that, I guess. Saw it in German.
Unstoppable (2010) -- "6/10"
Denzel Washington as an old railroad hand (28 years) riding with a rookie
(Chris Pine; you probably know him as Kirk in the latest Star Trek movie) in
a runaway-train disaster movie. It's decent, though some of the shots are
needlessly jerky (especially the credits, where I thought my drive was
lagging) and half of the movie is told through an American news media
broadcast (FOX, as if it wasn't bad enough). Uncle Eddie from Grounded for
Life had a good role as the safety inspector.
Star Trek (2009) -- "9/10"
An extremely fun reboot of the series directed by J.J. Abrams with all of the
origianl characters but only one of the original actors. For good luck, it's
Nimoy who reprises his role rather than Shatner, whom no-one wants to see in
his Star-Fleet uniform anymore. The plot was decent enough (though there were
a few truck-sized holes, it was possible to ignore them or notice them only
later once the film had already been enjoyed). A fun action flick that was
enjoyable for both fans and non-fans alike. Notable were Chris Pine playing
Kirk and Zachary Quinto pitch-perfect as a young Spock.
Bridesmaids (2011) -- "6/10"
The Hangover with chicks is an entirely valid, short review of this film. The
actresses are funny, though Maya Rudolph plays a very, very vanilla
bride-to-be without any of the understated sarcasm she showed in her role as
a prostitute in Idiocracy (for example). Kristen Wiig (also of SNL fame) was
all right (the scene in the car where she tries to get a ticket was quite
funny) but mostly seemed to be trying too hard (scene on plane in first
class). Rose Byrne (who seems to be everywhere of late) was good as the bitch
but the female Chris Farley (her name escapes me) was just as discomfiting to
watch as Mr. Farley himself. The guy playing the Irish cop was lovely, as was
his dialogue (for which credit goes to Wiig and Annie Mumolo, who co-wrote
the screenplay). Spoiler alert: everything works out in the end.
Magnolia (1999) -- "8/10"
Interesting, interesting film with an all-star cast, each member of which
tells a part of the story from a different viewpoint and with little respect
for chronological order. The plot is hard to describe but perhaps best
compared to late-period Lynch. There is no neat conclusion, of course, nor is
there really any notion that anything has been resolved. An interesting story
nonetheless and worth watching for the performances alone (Tom Cruise, Philip
Seymour Hoffman and Julianne Moore stood out for me).
Achtung Fertig Charlie (2004) -- "7/10"
A Swiss-German movie about basic training in the Swiss army. The stereotypes
of Swiss culture cut right to the bone and the writing is quite funny.
Melanie Winiger is quite good as
the-female-recruit-who's-better-than-all-the-guys-and-whose-crisis-of-confidence-is-resolved-by-love.
Marco Rimi is absolutely hilarious and pitch-perfect as the drill sergeant.
The Switch (2010) -- "6/10"
Jason Bateman stars opposite Jennifer Aniston who, in what must be a record
streak by now, plays a woman who's lusted after by the men around her and
either doesn't know, doesn't care or a mix of both. They're both decent, but
Bateman's subdued wise-cracking -- especially contrasted with the "hunk" --
makes the film. Worth watching just for him.
Knowing (2009) -- "3/10"
A pretty crappy, semi-mystical, semi-horror, semi-action,
semi-science-fiction movie about (spoiler alert) the end of the world. That's
four semis and they still don't add up to a whole movie. Nic Cage chewed the
scenery but in an awful non-convincing way. And he was the best one in the
movie. Anyone involved with writing the dialogue should be taken out behind
the shed and shot. The astrophysicist accepts that there is an afterlife in
the end because, well, it makes him feel better. So, you see, it's true.
There are also aliens in it, for good measure.
Love and Other Drugs (2011) -- "6/10"
This movie features a lot of long semi-nude scenes with Anne Hathaway and
Jake Gyllenhall -- in other words, fun for the whole family. Some of the
scenes are kind of excruciatingly long but, on the whole, the film's decent.
The plot about the pharmaceutical industry somehow manages to be both
heavy-handed and too superficial. Still, Hathaway's boobs or Gyllenhall's
butt, depending on your druthers.
Rango (2010) -- "8/10"
A great, great cartoon with Johnny Depp as a chameleon bluffing his way
through an adventure in the desert. At times surreal and blurring the
boundary between reality and mirage, director Gore Verbinski refined the
style he hinted at with the marooned-ship scene in the third Pirates of the
Caribbean installment. The semi-subversive social commentary about profligate
waste in the desert (I'm looking at you, Las Vegas) was accompanied by good
dialogue and good voice-acting. If you want an animated film that doesn't
talk down to you, this is a good choice.
Knight and Day (2010) -- "5/10"
Tom Cruise was better than expected (again) though Cameron Diaz was just as
annoying as ever. Lots of action and a kind of tongue-in-cheek take on the
Bourne-style films. Decent but wouldn't watch it again.
Shrek Forever After (2010) -- "5/10"
It had its moments, but not as good as the other films in the series. It
wasn't as bad as the third sequel could be expected to be. The oversized
Puss-in-boots was very funny, though.
Rio (2011) -- "2/10"
A horrible little animated film about a blue bird who can dance but can't fly
but is like a little person where he works in a bookshop as an
anthropomorphized boyfriend to a geeky girl who's slowly but surely swept off
her feet by an even-more-nerdy-if-possible Brazilian researcher whose female
bird is a headstrong partner for the other blue bird, once she, of course,
sees how cool he is on the inside. Awful, awful saccharine stuff. Go see
Rango twice instead.
The Other Guys (2010) -- "8/10"
A magnificent and subversive comedy about the financial crisis and how the
police must adjust to a world where the real criminals are in charge. Will
Ferrell & Mark Wahlberg are partners with Samuel Jackson and Dwayne Johnson
playing small roles as another pair of cops in a send-up of over-the-top
action movies that's done to a perfect pitch. There's some great action that
looks like real stunts, Ferrell is pitch-perfect without his usual raunch,
Eva Mendes is lovely and funny. And the plot and screenplay: about as good as
we can expect, I think. It's a better documentary than many I've seen or read
about how modern society works.
Little Fockers (2010) -- "1/10"
An utterly atrocious piece of shit that is an embarrassment for all
associated with it. If you can make it through any of the several telephone
calls filmed near the beginning without cringing, you're already dead inside.
I don't think we made it past twenty minutes before shutting it off and
trashing it with extreme prejudice.
Bounty Hunter (2010) -- "5/10"
Gerard Butler as a bounty hunter opposite Jennifer Aniston as a journalist
(can you tell that my sister's still visiting?). It's ok, but the plot leaves
a bunch to be desired. Butler was funny, but he was replaying his role from
the Ugly Truth, to be honest...and he was better in that one. Even though I'd
rather watch Aniston than Heigl any day, given that rather meager choice. It
wasn't annoying while watching it, though, so there's that.
Get Him To The Greek (2010) -- "6/10"
A relatively uneven comedy wherein Russell Brand and Jonah Hill both play
themselves. In this case, Mr. Brand is much more entertaining because he
plays unstable and borderline psychotic so well (or doesn't play, as the case
may be). At any rate, playing a recovering heroin addict rock-star can't have
been much of stretch for him. Some funny scenes sprinkled on top of a
nondescript plot as well as far too many shots of Jonah Hill's innards
rejecting whatever concoction he'd had forced down his gullet by a merciless
Brand, whose imperviousness to hangovers also doesn't seem faked.
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https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=24882011-06-03T18:38:25+02:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
A decent film with a strong cast -- Willem Dafoe and Ryan Reynolds
are very good, with Carrie Anne Moss and Julia Roberts in smaller
roles -- about a family with an overbearing (asshole) patriarch
(Dafoe) whose son (and wife, actually) has eluded his grasp.
...
]]>
A decent film with a strong cast -- Willem Dafoe and Ryan Reynolds are very
good, with Carrie Anne Moss and Julia Roberts in smaller roles -- about a
family with an overbearing (asshole) patriarch (Dafoe) whose son (and wife,
actually) has eluded his grasp. Think Death of a Salesman where Loman has a
sadistic streak and a wicked temper instead of a pathetic air about him. Ryan
Reynolds is more subdued, adapting his trademark rapier wit and coolness to
the role.
Inglourious Basterds (2008) -- "9/10"
A Quentin Tarantino masterpiece, told in four languages (mostly French,
German and English, though Italian makes a small, but crucial appearance). An
alternate history for the end of WWII with a tremendous cast and absolutely
captivating dialogue and direction. Brad Pitt is back-country U.S. Army
through and through and leads a band of killer Jew-ninjas on a hunt for Nazi
scalps. Christoph Waltz scintillates as the Jew-Hunter; Til Schweiger as a
defected, disaffected Nazi turned Nazi-hunter is in a role he seemed born
for. Saw it for the second time; highly recommended.
After.Life (2009) -- "4/10"
A promising cast of Christina Ricci, Justin Long and Liam Neeson delivered a
humdrum movie about death and the afterlife or maybe about serial killers. It
was hard to tell; I'm not sure the scriptwriter even knew, to be frank.
Justin Long didn't have a single funny line in the flick, so he was
completely wasted (for an example of how to use a comedian in a serious film,
see Ryan Reynolds in Fireflies in the Garden, reviewed above); Liam Neeson
was his usually inscrutable and vaguely menacing self; Christina Ricci was
very thin and spent much of the movie naked, which oddly enough still did not
make it worth watching. Granted, she was supposed to be dead the whole time
(or was she?), but either the movie sucked horrendously or I've gotten very,
very old.
Management (2008) -- "5/10"
A sweet-enough movie as far as these things go, weighing in a little quirkier
than most chick-flicks (which is, I believe, the official designation for any
movie with Jennifer Aniston in it). She's a philanthropic minor executive who
lives in Baltimore and he (Steve Zahn) is a naive, harmless man-child living
in Kingman, Arizona. [1] Long story short, he hits on her in his pathetic
man-child way, she pity-fucks him, he stalks her a few times, she finds it
endearing, but chooses pragmatism over puppy love when she moves in with
Woody Harrelson (playing "Jango", an ex-punk-rocker yogurt-magnate with
strong political views and a short temper). More stalking ensues and Zahn
meets "Al", the quirky character highlight of the film. They end up together
(not really a spoiler there), but it's hard to care.
Despicable Me (2010) -- "7/10"
A cartoon featuring a villain named Gru voiced by Steve Carell in what to my
ears was some sort of a Slavic/Russian accent. He's a super-villain who
perpetrates super-crimes supported by a super-base and scads of minions
headed up by his friend and colleague, Dr. Nefario. He butts up against the
new guy in town, Vector, who is Bill Gates in a tracksuit and their
adventures together -- and against one another -- are rounded out by three
orphan girls. It's a bit schmaltzy but it has its moments (Spoiler alert:
e.g. when one girl gets her unicorn stuffed animal at the theme park and
shrieks/declares emphatically: "He's SO fluffly!" in a snarl/growl that
beggars description).
Megamind (2010) -- "8/10"
Will Ferrell voices Megamind, the super-villain; Brad Pitt voices Metroman,
the superhero and Tina Fey voices the wisecracking reporter whose romantic
interests are up for grabs. Jonah Hill rounds out the cast as the dweeb
turned awkward hero turned even-more-awkward villain. The writing is decent
and things don't turn out exactly as one would expect, which was enough of a
relief to make it enjoyable. I actually liked it better than Despicable Me --
if only because the repartee between Minion (voiced by none other than David
Cross) and Megamind was better than that between Gru and Dr. Nefario.
My Best Friend's Girl (2008) -- "7/10"
What I thought would be a chick flick happily turned out to be a good deal
darker and funnier than expected. Jason Biggs and Alec Baldwin -- funny in
their own right -- played side roles in this one (the hair salon was the
highlight for Biggs; Baldwin didn't really have one, honestly), but Kate
Hudson and Dane Cook carried this film well. I'm not going to give away his
job because not knowing is what makes the first ten minutes so entertaining.
Suffice it to say that you can let this chick flick be queued up without
fear: it's a bit long, but it's funny and overall pretty good.
Double Jeopardy (1999) -- "6/10"
A film about a woman -- played by Naomi Watts -- double-crossed by her
husband and sent to jail for his murder. There she learns that, having
already served the time for his murder, she cannot be tried again were she to
really and truly kill him when she got out (because of the titular
double-jeopardy clause in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the
United States). Tommy Lee Jones plays her parole officer and chases her all
over the damned place, but who wouldn't? Watts has some pretty sly con-man
moves on the lam. Saw it in German.
Cry-Baby (1990) -- "6/10"
A John Waters film starring Johnny Depp in what seems to be a
through-the-looking-glass remake of Grease with rednecks and the usual cast
of slightly misaligned characters that populate Waters's films. Ricky Lake,
Willem Dafoe and Traci Lords round out the cast. It's a decent time with some
truly bizarre song and dance routines with Depp chewing the scenery as usual.
Paycheck (2003) -- "6/10"
Ben Affleck is joined by Uma Thurman, Aaron Eckhart and Paul Giamatti in a
science-fiction thriller based on a Philip K. Dick short story about an
engineer who invents technologies for companies, then lets them erase his
memories in exchange for a big paycheck. When he finishes his biggest job
yet, he finds himself with no money, an envelope full of junk and hired
henchmen on his tail. The envelope is from himself and proves remarkably
useful in getting him out of the scrapes he encounters. Pretty entertaining
and relatively well-done. Saw it in German.
Coco Avant Chanel (2009) -- "4/10"
Audrey Tautou plays Coco Chanel (in French with absolutely atrocious English
subtitles [2]). I'd never seen anything this bad. With my poor French, I was
still able to "fix" some of the more mysterious translations for the wife,
but after half an hour or so we got distracted and shut it off. Neither one
of us ever mentioned the film again.
Eagle Eye (2008) -- "2/10"
A God-awful film about an omnipresent, omnipotent computer that plots to kill
the president (don't worry about spoilers; this film should not be watched).
Not since Enemy of the State have I seen such awful "technology". The action
scenes are sliced up into little tiny bits that form an incomprehensible
mishmash of explosions and expressions of grim determination. Did a crossword
while watching it with one eye. The computer looked a bit like GLaDOS from
Portal and was finally stopped by stabbing it in its "eye". Horrible. Just
horrible. Cannot be unseen. Saw it in German.
Les rivières pourpres (2000) -- "5/10"
A French crime drama starring the inestimable Jean Reno and Vincent Cassel
and Nadia Farès (who never jumped to the opposite shore like the two men).
It had promise, but wasn't so well-edited and created and discarded
interesting theories in a pell-mell race to the end of the film. I can only
assume that the book was much better and the need to shoehorn it into only
100 minutes was largely to blame for the poor pacing and confusing plot. Saw
it in German.
Vanilla Sky -- "6/10"
Tom Cruise as a rich attractive dude who cheats on one hot chick with another
one. The first one tries to kill him in a car accident which disfigures him,
depressing him enough that he signs over his life to a mortuary/software
company that lets him lucidly dream the life he wanted to have with the hot
chick who didn't try to kill him. Jason Lee is pretty good; the voice-over
actress for Penélope Cruz conveys exactly the feeling you get from listening
to her speak English, but in German -- it's impressive. Tom Cruise as a
millionaire playboy makes acting self-centered look easy.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World -- "6/10"
An effects-heavy video-game--styled rendering of a boy/man's fantasy of
fighting his hot new girlfriend's exes in Mortal-Kombat--style clashes. The
dialogue is decent and it doesn't take itself too seriously. It could have
been edited more tightly. Michael Cera is a bit uneven, really hitting the
lovable loser thing a bit too hard; it's wearing a bit thin -- get a haircut
already instead of just whining about it. Some of the fight choreography is
very well done, though and the overall aesthetic reminded me more than a
little of Speed Racer.
Max Payne (2008) -- "6/10"
Mark Wahlberg takes up the role of detective Max Payne from the
groundbreaking video game (and its sequel). The film did a good job of
capturing both the mood and semi-surrealistic storyline of the video game.
The acting was so-so throughout -- especially the typically execrable Beau
Bridges, who is nowhere near his brother Jeff in capability -- but Mila Kunis
did a decent job as Mona (as well as being quite easy on the eyes). Made me
want to play the games again, actually. Saw it in German.
Heist (Heist - Der letzte Coup) (2001) -- "7/10"
Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito and Delroy Lindo take up their standard roles, and
Ricky Jay (yes, the magician) rounds out the group of professional thieves.
Sam Rockwell is sleazy and dumb and screenwriter David Manet puts most of
this to good work, giving us at times predictable, but overall quite
entertaining plot twists galore. Saw it in German, but it didn't lose much in
translation. It's a heist film; the good guys win; someone is sacrificed;
everyone else gets what they deserve, good and bad.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Which is pretty much the ass of the world, covered in motels and crappy
restaurants, all designed for the traveler just passing through. An even
more appalling example would be Lake Havasu City
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=24762011-02-19T11:12:52+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
Angelina Jolie (or what's left of her after what seems like an
exceedingly strict diet) stars opposite Liev Schreiber as a
deep-cover Soviet/Russian agent. It meanders along predictably, jolts
you with a couple of neat plot twists and then ends predictably (with
a mini
...
]]>
Angelina Jolie (or what's left of her after what seems like an exceedingly
strict diet) stars opposite Liev Schreiber as a deep-cover Soviet/Russian
agent. It meanders along predictably, jolts you with a couple of neat plot
twists and then ends predictably (with a mini plot-twist right at the end
again). It's a pretty uneven movie overall, with a lot of gung-ho bravado and
idiocy as well as seemingly pathetic aim on the parts of the antagonists
(read: police, naturally). Jolie's action scenes are decent, although the
whole pushing-off-the-wall to super-mega-punch people and her command of
mega-super-Parkour was laughable as was her ability to swim underwater in the
wintry Potomac for half a mile. Note to Hollywood: getting punched hard in
the nose hurts like hell; three times hard even more. You're most likely
unconscious or blind from the pain, and not likely to want to head-butt
anyone after that. Just so you know. [1]
Paranormal Activity (2008) -- "5/10"
A scare film about a haunting of a modern-day suburban couple: she's a
student who wants to teach English and he's a day-trader. She's been followed
all of her life by ... something. He sets up a camera to catch this something
on tape. All of the movie's footage is from that camera, so the
cinematography is very static. The acting is decent, though a bit strained at
times, though kudos to the two primary actors for pretty much carrying the
whole film. Quite well done, all in all and quite goddamned scary. The long
delays [2] are nice touches and build suspense quite well. Pretty classic
fright done with subtle looks and creepy smiles.
Green Zone (2010) -- "7/10"
An overall quite decent film about the early days of the occupation of Iraq
by U.S. forces with Matt Damon in the lead. He plays an warrant officer
searching for WMDs and coming up empty every time. Given the opportunity to
find out why, he takes it and unravels the rat's nest of lies that was the
justification for the invasion of Iraq. [3] Whereas the details of the story
are fictitious, the basic thrust of it is apolitical in that it essentially
portrays what really happened: that the U.S. invaded Iraq for political
reasons on wholly fabricated charges (affiliation with 9--11 attacks for the
home crowd; presence of WMD for the rest of the world). A decent action
thriller with Damon playing a competent soldier, but not the superman to
which we've become accustomed in his Bourne films. The technology in the
choppers at the end seems quite over-the-top and looks like it belongs on
Airwolf or Knight Rider -- it's hardly likely that our troops have anything
approaching technology that sophisticated. [4]
Evangelion 1.01 You Are (Not) Alone (2007) -- "5/10"
An anime cartoon about giant robots saving the Earth from what can only be
described as nearly indestructible biotechnological avenging angels. It's a
vision of a hyper-militarized Tokyo with retractable guns, buildings and more
techno-gadgetry than you can even absorb. The graphics and design are
absolutely top-notch; the story and dialogue are embarrassingly horrible. The
lead character provides non-stop whining throughout the film and the other
characters are similarly two-dimensional. As usual in feature-length Japanese
anime, the deep wounds of the second world war are in evidence as well as a
lot of hokum about spirits and angels and souls.
Evangelion 2.22 - You Can (Not) Advance (2009) -- "5/10"
You would hope that I would know to leave the Evangelion series well enough
alone, but I was feverish and ill and wanted some mind-candy, so I gave it a
shot. Luckily, the dialog was in Japanese with English subtitles, so I could
avoid the more painful, stilted human interactions by just not reading until
giant robots started to mix it up again. There were more EVAs (giant robots)
as well as more angels (not even sure how many, but they got through #10) as
well as mysterious stuff going on on the Moon. A decent romp, though it can
also only be recommended to anyone with a love for good animation. Those who
enjoy plots, scripts and dialogue will have to look elsewhere.
Mean Machine (Kampfmaschine) (2001) -- "6/10"
A movie that claims to have been inspired by The Longest Yard, but is
essentially a one-to-one British remake of the American film(s) [5],
substituting football (GB) for football (US). To its credit, this latest
remake is a good deal less cringe-inducingly violent than the American
remake, which came later. The cast is decent and has Jason Statham in a minor
role as a very odd, violent and loopy-as-f&$k lifer/goaltender who likes to
play striker and goes by the name of Monk. There are a bunch of decent
one-liners (even translated to German, which is the version I saw) and all's
well that end's well (of course).
16 Blocks (2006) -- "6/10"
A decently put-together film starring Bruce Willis as a cop having a
Collateral moment -- like Tom Cruise in that film, Willis is an action star
playing above his age -- and also kind of having a Gauntlet moment as he
tried to get a prisoner to the courthouse against the wishes of all of his
brother officers. Mos Def is endearing and the good guys win in the end --
though the movie threatens to end on a dark note, it disappoints in that
regard.
Shutter Island (2010) -- "10/10"
Leonardo DiCaprio teams up, once again, with Martin Scorcese in this haunting
film about an asylum for the criminally insane off the coast of New England.
Featuring a many-layered story rife with possible interpretations as well as
a gorgeously shot and managed film, it's amazing to think that Inception got
all of the attention for the Oscars instead of this one. Don't get me wrong,
I liked the story of Inception well enough, but it didn't hold up nearly as
well in hindsight as this one will. Plus, it's amazingly apparent how much
better and masterful a director and storyteller Scorcese is than Christopher
Nolan, who feels the need to use exposition to tell us everything. Pro tip:
see Inception first in order to be better able to enjoy it...because you
might not be able to if you see Shutter Island first. It does a much better
job of showing us dream worlds than Inception ever could.
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (2009) -- "6/10"
Travolta plays an over-the-top badass; Washington plays an overly qualified
MTA official/train-desk-operator; Gandolfini is the rich mayor of New York
City; Turturro is the hostage negotiator. The cast is very promising, but the
script is very uneven, with things happening -- or not -- for no good reason.
The little interludes with the idiot teenager talking to his equally insipid
girlfriend (and she berating him for not saying he loves her despite being a
hostage) or with the little boy who is the only one to remember that the
lights are all green is the purest Hollywood, designed-by-committee claptrap.
It's also a mystery why the criminal had such a ridiculously horrible escape
plan -- it's almost like they were wearing GPS trackers because the cops
honed in on them with unerring accuracy. No explanation was given for the
psychosis of Travolta's character -- he would probably say it was engrams.
[6] Oh, and congratulations Hollywood! For creating yet another movie almost
completely bereft of females.
I Love You, Phillip Morris (2009) -- "8/10"
Jim Carrey plays a real-life con artist who bounces from successful scam to
jail and back again. In jail he meets and falls in love with Philip Morris,
played by Ewan McGregor. Both actors are at their best and put the Brokeback
Mountain love affair to shame (in my admittedly unprofessional opinion).
Carrey is brilliant, subtle at times and over-the-top at others, but always
much more controlled than when playing his more mainstream roles. The film
ends with a sobering comment on incarceration in America. [7]
The Lake House (2006) -- "4/10"
I really like Keanu Reeves and usually end up liking Sandra Bullock as well.
This overly schmaltzy movie about star-crossed lovers was too much and too
confusing and too boring. The plot can be described in two sentences, but I'm
not going to bother.
Greenberg (2010) -- "3/10"
A bloody painful film about people with emotional and psychological problems
dealing with even the smallest road bumps in their insignificant lives. Ben
Stiller plays a completely different role without any of his usual manic
humor or really any humor whatsoever. All of the characters are left as
hollow shells, with only Ivan (Stiller's friend) having any redeeming
qualities. The overtly superficial party at the end wasn't a credit to anyone
despite providing the few interesting lines in the entire film from Stiller.
I mean it kind of says some things about how people's lives end up being
different from what they expected, but most of the characters are insipid,
Stiller's included. That I know that they were meant to be so in order to
show us how the other 95% lives didn't help me enjoy the film much more. It
was pretty tough to sit through this one and I can't recommend it to anyone.
The Rock (1996) -- "7/10"
An overly macho movie that I can't help liking and here's why: though I like
Nicholas Cage and Ed Harris, if Sean Connery wasn't in the movie, playing a
super-suave and clever and capable Scottish SAS agent who can escape from
anywhere, it wouldn't be worth sticking around. But he is, and it is.
The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) -- "6/10"
I saw the 2008 remake starring Keanu Reeves dubbed in German. The film is
pretty decent and only partly ruined by Hollywood's desire to improve
their
youth-market penetration by adding children that act like adults. It could
be
argued that the child represents humanity and its simplistic desire to
fight
back or be loved unconditionally, but there is no reason to base a large
part
of the otherwise interesting plot around the child. It's not a minor
complaint -- the movie could have been more interesting without all of the
pandering to various market segments. The film is best summed up by
Jennifer
Connelly when addressing Klaatu, the alien:
"What are you doing here?"
"You're destroying your planet."
"You're here to save us?"
"I'm here to save the planet."
"But from what?"
"..."
"Oh."
Ein Schatz zum Verlieben/Fool's Gold (2008) -- "7/10"
A fun treasure-hunt flick in Key West with Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson
and Donald Sutherland making it work. McConaughey doesn't really seem to be
acting (as usual) and it didn't take long for him to get his shirt off (as
usual) for no discernible reason (as usual). Still, a fun flick. Watched it
in German.
Speed (1994) -- "7/10"
Watching Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock in French was surprisingly
entertaining. I totally forgot that the movie didn't end when the bus blew
up.
New Police Story (2004) -- "8/10"
Jackie Chan in an entertaining yarn about a gang of rich youth who terrorize
a city. Lots of interesting plot points that you'd never see in a
Hollywood-style film; that is, it was cheesy, but in new and interesting
ways. Spoiler alert: for example, when the sociopaths put a bomb around
Chan's girlfriend's neck, you actually believe she's going to die. Then you
think she won't because Chan will rescue her. But she sent him on a goose
chase so that she could sacrifice herself. So she tries, but inadvertently
defuses the bomb instead (i.e. her gamble pays off, but you didn't expect it
to). Then they're both surprisingly still alive and grateful when they notice
that the bomb timer has started again, so they sprint out of there, but she
gets trapped under rubble and looks dead. But she's not, she's barely alive.
It sounds cheesy, but it was original enough to feel like a rollercoaster
instead of hackneyed. Also lots of Jackie Chan kicking ass and taking names.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] I know that I mentioned nothing about Sylvester Stallone's ridiculous fight
scene in The Expendables in my mini-review a few weeks ago. That's because
Stallone saw fit to make it look like none of the blows were doing any
damage, which while also not believable, is more believable than having the
makeup artist make Jolie's face look practically stoved-in with damage that
would fell a rhino, not to mention a one-hundred-pound woman, then have her
get hit again and again in the same place and have her -- super-hero-like --
not seem to be affected at all, not even dazed for more than a second, not
even a little bit. The guy she's fighting is also ostensibly a professional
and not likely to be pulling his punches; unfortunately for him, his
opponent seems to be from Krypton. The only other less believable fight
scene that comes to mind is the one from Die Hard 4, in which Maggie Q plays
a similarly indestructible, indefatigable woman completely impervious to
pain.
[1] Spoiler alert: when she just stands around while sleep-walking -- or when
the something is in the driver's seat, it's ultra-eerie.
[1] The plot for this movie is especially damning in light of the real-life
"Curveball's" recent confession that everything he told the Bush
administration was more-or-less made-up.
[1] Spoiler alert: although the chopper's systems seemed able to track two
suspects fleeing on foot through the twisting alleyways of Baghdad
slums/neigborhoods, they were no help in detecting the other enemies who
blew it out of the sky with an RPG. Pity.
[1] Both the original with Burt Reynolds as well as the remake with Adam Sandler
and Chris Rock (as well as Burt Reynolds in a different role).
[1] If I recall correctly, engrams are the reason anyone does anything crazy,
according to Scientologists. Or perhaps Travolta would have blamed
psychiatrists.
[1] Carrey's character is caught trying to free Philip Morris from jail and
sentenced to 170 years of prison without parole, to be served in 23-hour
solitary confinement. This for a man who never killed or harmed anyone and
stole far less money than many who have gotten far lesser sentences. It is
clear that the judge gave the maximum allowable for Carrey's having
humiliated the State of Texas. That it is even possible to legally sentence
so much jail time to someone for grand larceny is a travesty in itself.
]]>
https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=24622011-01-16T20:01:50+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
I finally saw this mob movie after all these years of hearing it
quoted again and again and again. Though it was nice seeing the
origins of the quotes, it kind of took the edge off of the surprise a
bit. I don't know what I was expecting and the film wasn't bad, but
it
...
]]>
I finally saw this mob movie after all these years of hearing it quoted again
and again and again. Though it was nice seeing the origins of the quotes, it
kind of took the edge off of the surprise a bit. I don't know what I was
expecting and the film wasn't bad, but it didn't blow me away like The
Departed. In a way, I felt like I'd already seen part of it in Blow.
Cop Out (2010) -- "5/10"
Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan, with a nice smaller part by Seann William
Scott (of Stiffler fame in American Pie). Willis is Willis, but Tracy Morgan
was funny enough to make me want to see more of 30 Rock. Seann Scott played a
suicidally mischievous thief with panache. Relatively predictable plot and
overblown Hispanic gangsters, but I wasn't expecting much, so no
disappointment there.
Cloverfield (2008) -- "3/10"
Truly terrible monster movie with insufferable characters and a story that
goes nowhere. A heap of shit that floated along on J.J. Abrams's name alone
and only because he was doing Lost at the same time and people figured every
Goddamned detail of this movie would be significant. If you're stuck watching
it, don't waste your time concentrating. Just keep drinking until it starts
to blur; you'll like it better that way.
The Joneses (2009) -- "6/10"
Kind of boring and predictable and only partially rescued by the amiable
David Duchovny. Everybody else is a total parody or a hyperbolic caricature.
I have no idea how accurate the representation of the upper middle-class of
America is; part of me wants to believe every stupid detail and part of me
wants to believe that it can't be that way. The cynic will probably win.
A Serious Man (2009) -- "8/10"
Another interesting film by the Coen brothers; it kind of starts somewhere
and ends somewhere else. It's about a Jewish family/community in the American
Midwest in what looks like sometime in the 80s. I thought it was great, but
it would be a hard one to recommend to someone who's not a fan of the Coen
brothers. It's worth it just to experience the nearly visceral pain you feel
for the Job-like lead character as the story piles one entirely believable
humiliation after another on his head.
Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes (1972) -- "8/10"
A German film from 1972 shot in the jungles of the Amazon and showing a
fictitious scouting group that breaks off from the Pizarro expedition and
sets off to look for the city of El Dorado. Tragedy ensues as the Spaniards
keep a modicum of their caste society going even on a makeshift, large raft
as it floats down the Amazon. Kinski is riveting, especially in madness at
the end.
Fitzcarraldo (1982) -- "9/10"
It's no wonder that Klaus Kinski wanted to kill Werner Herzog; this film was
the second time he was dragged through the mud of the Amazon jungle by the
famous director. He's pretty charismatic as is his madam/girlfriend/patron
and you totally root for him to accomplish his task. See below for the
spoiler. [1]
Eraserhead (1976) -- "7/10"
You don't even have to look up this movie on Wikipedia to know that it's a
surrealist work. It's shot in black and white and it's more interesting to
look at than it is fun to watch. As with most surrealism, you could hurt your
head trying to make sense of it, but you can always pat yourself on the back
for getting all the way through it.
Blue Velvet (1986) -- "8/10"
Well, hell, if Dennis Hopper hadn't have played Frank, then who the hell else
on this planet could have done it? When Isabella Rossellini did the weird
movie last year in which she dressed up as a stuffed cockroach and exhibited
insect mating rituals, there was a lot of commentary by people who've
obviously not seen her other work. In this movie, she plays a singer who
likes to get naked and likes to be beaten. A perfect college art-house film
really (which is where I first saw it, lo these many years ago).
Dazed & Confused (1993) -- "7/10"
Fun flick from 1993 about the last day of high school in 1976 at some
California school or other. Matthew McConnaughey has a standout performance
in which he basically plays himself, with the killer line: "That's the thing
I like about high-school girls: I get older, but they stay the same age."
Also, for those who have consoled themselves by thinking that, though Mila
Jovovich may be hot now, she was probably not such a looker when she was
younger, think again.
Wild At Heart (1990) -- "8/10"
Another David Lynch film (still going forward in chronological order) with
Laura Dern and Nicholas Cage. I may be one of the only people on this planet
who could actually name the band that played the awesome power chords to
which Cage committed his first crime of the movie -- even before they
mentioned it a few minutes later. Dern and Cage are both good (though Dern's
overwhelming randiness is a bit over-the-top) and the film actually has what
some might call a sort of a Hollywood ending. Don't worry, Lynch fans, there
are still loose ends galore.
Where the Buffalo Roam (1980) -- "6/10"
Bill Murray plays Hunter S. Thompson (though he's really playing himself with
a slur that goes about halfway toward that which he had in Caddyshack) and
Peter Boyle plays his lawyer. It sounds like an easy layup, but it started
off quite slowly and tritely and didn't really go anywhere from there. Just a
lot of drunken/drugged dipshittery with a meandering plot. Still, it's Bill
Murray and Peter Boyle in their (relative) youth and it's set in 1972 and
Thompson is covering Super Bowl VI, so there are also killer threads and hot
wheels. It's always fun to watch older movies and see how people used to be
able to fly in the old days.
Factotum (2005) -- "7/10"
Matt Dillon film based on the life and writing of Charles Bukowski, a
working-class part-time bum/full-time alcoholic/writer who worked many jobs
and wrote many stories about working-class America. Well-made, though some of
the scenes depicting semi-functional alcoholism are pretty harrowing. A lot
of the dialog comes from Bukowski's writing and clearly depicts why he's
considered one of America's greatest 20th-century writers.
Broken Flowers (2005) -- "7/10"
A bit trepidatious about approaching Jarmusch again after enduring Coffee and
Cigarettes (though the scene with Alfred Molina was worth it), but expecting
Bill Murray to carry the day. He is, as expected for one of his
post-middle-age roles, the zen-like core of a well-crafted and lovingly made
film about a man who treks across America, visiting the homes of his formal
libidinal conquests in search of his purported son. The plot ties together a
series of vignettes, in which new characters are quickly introduced, fleshed
out to the director's satisfaction and left behind on the road. Ended in the
middle, leaving it all up to you (I guess).
Lost Highway (1997) -- "8/10"
Back to David Lynch with Bill Pullman and Patricia Arquette in a bizarre,
semi-surrealistic film about identity (though all Lynch's films are pretty
much about that). Fred the sax player has a gorgeous wife [2] whom he kills
or it seems that he did. Or someone did. Or another version of him did. Or
something. It's great to see Pullman pulling off such a demanding role but
the plot's harder to follow than Primer's and that film had time travel in
it. Henry Rollins, Richard Pryor, Gary Busey and Marylin Manson have small
roles. Awesome soundtrack and beautifully filmed, but hard to recommend
because it's not easy to follow and it's long; if you want help, read the
David Foster Wallace essay on David Lynch and his filmography first. He
actually wrote that while on the set of Lost Highway and he seems to have
"gotten it".
Mulholland Drive (2001) -- "8/10"
One more Lynch film, which means lots of close-ups, lots of expressive eyes,
lots of dialogue, lots of cigarettes, a smattering of cameos (I think I saw
Billy Ray Cyrus), a whole lot of strange characters with bizarre peccadilloes
and a complex plot. It's ostensibly about a wide-eyed girl who goes to
Hollywood, but wound in and around that is a crime movie (as is Lynch's
wont). Lynch's work kind of reminds me of Stephen King: he documents our
everyday reality in loving detail, then suddenly introduces a completely
orthogonal element that "leaks through" the thin fabric of reality. This film
does that almost two hours in, where a relatively normal, harmless-seeming
thriller about an amnesiac woman takes a left turn. Then there are flashbacks
and identity-switches and what feels almost like time travel engendered by a
mysterious box, but probably another flashback (the description attempts to
inspire the WTF feeling brought about by the film). The last forty minutes
make Memento seem straightforward by comparison. If you watch it, make sure
to keep track of people's names and not to assume that the same people will
retain the same names throughout. It sounds weird, but there it is.
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[1] The goal is to drag a 320-ton boat over a small mountain with the diesel
motor of the boat as well as an awe-inspiring system of pulleys and a lot of
manpower.
[1] Patricia Arquette is not camera-shy at all. Her role calls for a lot of skin
and a lot of horizontal action and she delivers with gusto.
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https://www.earthli.com/news/view_article.php?id=24602011-01-02T00:50:14+01:00https://earthli.com/users/marco
Fantastic film from start to finish with an exceedingly interesting
storyline and well-put-together concept. Excellent effects, excellent
cast and challenging material make for a
...
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Fantastic film from start to finish with an exceedingly interesting storyline
and well-put-together concept. Excellent effects, excellent cast and
challenging material make for a film that you'll want to watch again.
Zombieland (2009) -- "8/10"
Woody Harrelson is always entertaining, but the kid doing the Michael Cera
schtick of being absolutely pathetic and neurotic got old pretty quickly.
Saving grace was a cameo by Bill Murray. It's a zombie movie, so you're going
to have to put up with the shambling dead.
The Invention of Lying (2009) -- "7/10"
Gervais is great in this film about a planet where no one knows how to lie or
even knows what a lie is. Once you suspend disbelief that such a society
would have led to almost the exact same culture as early 20th-century Earth,
it's a good, fun time, mostly carried by Gervais's sense of humor.
Surrogates (2009) -- "7/10"
Bruce Willis is decent in this film about a near-future society where nearly
everyone is a shut-in steering a robot around the world all day to perform
all of their functions. An entertaining film as long as you don't think about
it too much. Decent effects.
Defendor (2009) -- "8/10"
Woody Harrelson again, this time as a mentally challenged man who fights
crime in a semi-fantasy world of his very own. His interactions with the real
world are rarely rewarding, but Harrelson carries the film quite well.
9 (2009) -- "5/10"
Boring, trite story of little sack-puppet, clockwork creatures in a
post-apocalyptic world (reasons pretty much unknown) who inexplicably help
create a monster and then have to kill it. Overtones of Japanese anime
(pieces of the soul, etc.) but pretty hackneyed and yawn-inducing.
Primer (2004) -- "7/10"
Low-budget time-travel movie with a pretty interesting approach and analysis
of repercussions. Much is left unsaid, many ends are left loose, but it's
tantalizing and interesting. The look of the film is deliberately low-rent
and somewhat overblown, giving it a suburban/strip-mall feel that makes the
invention of the machine seem almost humdrum.
Four Christmases (2008) -- "7/10"
I'm a sucker for Vince Vaughn, who pretty much plays himself in this film
opposite Reese Witherspoon, who's also a lot of fun. The families are
deliberately quirky, but also very entertaining, with Robert Duvall putting
in a decent turn. Poor Reese ends up playing the free spirit laid low by her
Mommy instinct, which typical Hollywood treacle, but what can you do?
Moon (2009) -- "8/10"
Interesting concept about a man alone on the moon overseeing a tritium mining
operation that regularly sends tritium back to Earth to fuel its fusion
reactors. After nearly three years alone, things start to get a bit strange.
Pretty entertaining throughout, without too many deus ex machina thrown in.
Sam Rockwell easily carries the film, which is saying something because it's
pretty much a one-man show.
Fred Claus (2007) -- "8/10"
Good old Vince Vaughn as Santa's brother. Need I say more? Paul Giamatti as
Santa and Kevin Spacey as an efficiency expert round out the cast to make
what I consider to be a very fun Christmas movie. Which is saying something.
Family Guy - Something Something Dark Side (2009) -- "7/10"
If you like Family Guy, you'll like this film. Even if you don't really like
the heap of non sequiturs that comprise a typical episode, this film is
pretty entertaining. Stewie as Darth Vader steals the show.
JCVD (2008) -- "8/10"
Interesting meta-film about Jean Claude Van Damme as himself; that is, as a
fading action star just trying to make ends meet as he loses his daughter in
a custody battle. To add another layer, he's caught up in a bank robbery
that's told with an interleaved series of long flashbacks. The film is mostly
in French, so you'll probably need subtitles (if you understand French, Van
Damme is comprehensible, but the Belgian slang of the bank robbers was
impenetrable).
The Expendables (2010) -- "7/10"
It's the action film of the century with everybody in it (except for Stephen
Seagal and Jean Claude Van Damme, who thought his part wasn't meaningful
enough, which is especially interesting in light of having just seen JCVD).
Willis and Schwarzenegger are really only very small cameos, but Stallone is
there with all of his muscles and a face that doesn't quite fit his skull,
playing opposite Mickey Rourke, who has retained his look from Iron Man II
and slipped into his role very well. Dolph Lundgren was surprisingly good and
Jet Li was decent, but Jason Statham completely stole the show. Hands down.
If you're a Statham fan or just a fan of good fight choreography, there are
some lovely, lovely moves and combinations here.
The Book of Eli (2010) -- "7/10"
Less than overwhelming treatment of yet-another-post-apocalyptic US of A with
Denzel Washington trekking across the country. Denzel is great, as always,
and plays the martial arts / master of the blade bad-ass quite well (he
apparently did his own scenes, for which he was trained by Dan Inosanto).
Gary Oldman was typically evil and Mila Kunis was pretty (though the
conversion to bad-ass at the end was pretty trite). There was a nice trick
ending, but which book it turned out to be was pretty annoying. Again, we
have no idea what happened; apparently that's the new style in
post-apocalysm: don't even bother explaining why everything's desolate and
dusty.
Capitalism: a Love Story (2009) -- "7/10"
Michael Moore does a decent job as a journalist in this one (as he did, for
the most part, in Sicko), staying really on topic and keeping the clever
editing and fact cherry-picking to a minimum. For anyone who wasn't paying
attention to what happened and what is still happening, this is an excellent
primer that will smack of propaganda if you're still one of the fools who
believes the myths force-fed to us by the powers-that-be. If you're not, and
you're relatively well-read, there won't be much to surprise or inform here,
but it's put together well.
Clash of the Titans (2010) -- "6/10"
Sam Worthington glowers around a lot, but it's kind of a fun take on the
ancient Greek myths. The effects are out of this world (especially the Kraken
but also Medusa is slitheringly fun), though the Gods are a little
lackluster, just standing around being shiny on Mount Olympus. Neeson as Zeus
is kinda falt, but Fiennes was entertaining as he chewed up the scenery as
Hades. Betas the ass off the original.
District 9 (2009) -- "8/10"
Documentary-style film (at least at the beginning) about aliens that
mysteriously show up and hover above Jo-burg in South Africa for two decades.
As we are now accustomed, no back-story is given and we are shown the
interaction between a shantytown of aliens held in check by the native
humans. The parallels to the apartheid-era townships are only very vaguely
suggested and racial tension among humans is completely absent, almost as if
it was transferred to the human/alien barrier. A decent film with a story
that's a bit of stretch, though the effects were very good (especially the
alien weaponry).
The Road (2009) -- "4/10"
Cormac McCarthy must be pissed. He won a Pulitzer for the book and it was
made into this whiny, boring, depressing snore of a movie. Perhaps there is
some subtlety to showing the utter bleakness of life in an environment
blasted of all life and meaning. Perhaps. Or perhaps it's just an overly
long, boring film that makes you want your 100 minutes back.
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