Movies you've seen recently (Part 1)

Cafe Society
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Disobedience: A woman who had left her Orthodox Jewish life comes back and reconnects with a childhood friend. Disobedience ensues.

Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams star. I had thought that the actors were too far apart in age to be childhood friends. In reality they are 8 years apart. A bit of gap to paper over but not as large as I thought.

Allan Corduner from Topsy-Turvy has a small but powerful role. Checking IMDb shows he’s done a lot, little of which I’ve seen (e.g., Homeland). Think I might have to correct that.

A good film up to a point. There’s a misdirection early on that almost works if you didn’t know the basics of the plot.

OTOH the ending (barely a spoiler) is just


… unexpected and not in a good way. Yeah, the writer wanted to avoid Obvious Ending A and Obvious Ending B, but this ending was too off course with the rest of the film. Give it 4 candlesticks.

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MotW: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Netflix). Based on the book of the same title.

Starring 4 people from Downton Abbey, Cal from Orphan Black, Tom Courtenay from a boatload of great stuff, etc.

Set in London and Guernsey after WWII with flashbacks to the occupation of the latter.

Note that there is a book club within the movie which often reads passages from Bronte sisters’ stuff. So you pretty much know all about the romance angle of this movie. (There were even a couple of shots that evoked scenes from movies based on those books.)

It started off deviating from the Bronte norm with 3 men in the life of the female lead. But one gets ruled out, so it’s the usual two choices.

Very, very standard Bronte-like story except for the Guernsey/Nazi thing.

So for me is was fairly meh, but Mrs. FtG liked it a lot. She hadn’t read the book but knew about it.

I give it 2.5 roasted pigs but Mrs. FtG would rate it more like 4.

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**Mile 22 **- A mediocre action picture which compounds its mediocrity with an ending that pretty much requires a sequel (and I don’t think it will do good enough business to get one). The plot and motivations aren’t exactly logical, but the action sequences are pretty good, with the highlights being the scenes of Iko Uwais (The Raid) wreaking havoc. It’s not really as rah rah MAGA as some reviews describe, but there is an undertone of “If it was American, wouldn’t just a little bit of fascism be a good thing?”.

**Crazy Rich Asians **- The best rom com to hit the screens in a long time. It is almost a musical comedy without the musical numbers. Bit of a throwback to something like *The Philadelphia Story *(which, for those who have not seen it, is a significant compliment). There is genuine chemistry between the leads (rare in modern romantic comedies imho), engaging and funny character actors abound (Awkwafina stands out), and the inevitable break-up scene doesn’t occur through stupidity on the part of the lovers. Unfortunately, I’m afraid this won’t be the break-out hit it deserves to be. Because the cast is entirely Asian. There is no handsome white boy, even as the villain trying to break-up our couple, no sassy white best friend. Every important (and not so important) cast member is Asian (primarily Chinese). It makes perfect sense for the plot and, for me, is just about perfectly cast. However, I suspect that there is a large bloc of movie goers who would normally flock to this type of movie, especially after a period of poor to mediocre rom com offerings, producing the “surprise hit” of the summer, who will stay away. Not because they are “racist”, but because of the unconscious prejudice of “I just don’t think it’s made for me” that an all non-white (or non-black) cast will create. I hope I’m wrong about this. The first weekend’s box office will probably be a big indicator.

Juliet, Naked - Another rom com. A good one, but not as good as Crazy Rich Asians. Really good performances by the main cast, good chemistry between the romantic leads, and stupidity is not used as a device to move the plot along. As an indie rom com, it doesn’t provide a happy ending, but it does provide an optimistic ending (I hate inde pictures that seem to think arbitrarily providing “and then he/she/they die” as an ending is edgy and smart in a romance. This movie is definitely worth spending an hour and a half on, but not over Crazy Rich Asians. Did I mention I like Crazy Rich Asians?

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ftg says that Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams are too far apart in age to be childhood friends since Weisz is eight years older than McAdams. One interesting thing is that Weisz (at 48) is currently expecting a baby, while McAdams (at 39) just had a baby. Sometimes people who are that far apart in age are often similar in other ways. Sometimes they look similar in age.

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Note: I said I initially thought the Rachels were too far apart, but seeing that they were 8 years apart made it close enough by Hollywood standards.

Anyway: MotW. Funny Cow. The Big Problem. If you’ve seen The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel you are going to have issues with this film. It superficially sounds similar but it is very, very different in style, tone, etc.

A woman with a ton of troubles struggles to get somewhere in life. Ends up (apparently) as a stand up comic by the name “Funny Cow”. (Seriously.) Told in random flashbacks after her success.

There is just one scene of her doing stand up and it is … hard to take. Racist, crude, etc. For the most part, that she becomes a stand up is irrelevant to the story!

The character actually comes off as something of a sociopath in terms of being emotionally detached from people, etc.

Not really a lot to enjoy about this film. Paddy Considine does a nice job.

Give it two empty bottles as pity points.

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My most recent five:

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2
Had its moments but a disappointing end to the series. Mostly meh.

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
A kick-ass spy thriller, with lots of twists and turns. Tom Cruise still has it, and Rebecca Ferguson is a terrific addition to the franchise as a conflicted, beautiful, badass MI6 agent.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout
Also very good, with Cruise and Ferguson returning. The movie has probably the best helicopter stunts I’ve ever seen.

The Spy Who Dumped Me
Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon play gal pals who get in 'way over their heads in international espionage. A so-so spy parody, although with a particular good chase scene in Vienna.

Incredibles 2
Saw it again and enjoyed it just as much. A great superhero adventure, and a worthy sequel to the original.

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I saw the gender-swapped remake of Overboard recently. I expected to hate it, but it was actually kind of funny and charming. Not the best movie I’ve ever seen, but decent mindless fun.

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This one came out of nowhere. I had seen trailers for it but I had dismissed the movie. Jon Chu, the director, has made a string of forgettable movies. (He doesn’t even make original bad movies. He makes the direct-to-video sequels to bad movies that other people made.)

So I was very surprised when I saw Crazy Rich Asian doing so well on both Box Office Mojo and Rotten Tomatoes.

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I saw Ocean’s 8 last week. A good movie but not a great one. The performances were good but the studio seems to have used up all its creativity with the idea of remaking Ocean’s 11 with a female cast.

I saw Yellow Submarine yesterday. I had seen it way back during its original run and I’ve seen it since on dvd and blu-ray. It’s a top notch movie and the soundtrack is, of course, great. George Dunning was a one-hit wonder; this is the only feature film he ever directed.

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Breath. An Aussie movie based on the novel of the same name. Simon (The Mentalist) Baker stars, produced, etc. it.

Two kids learn how to surf under the auspices of Baker while his wife (Elizabeth The Night Manager Debicki) loafs around. Then stuff happens. Set in the 1970s so you get Landslide on a turntable and a few other such touches.

This is a movie about risk. Kind of drill that home a bit much. Surfing is one risk. Elizabeth Debicki is a former skier. And more would be spoilers.

They do a really good job showing the boys growing over the span of I guess 2 years. But not apparently shot over such time.

An okay movie if you like surfing. It’s clear they cut out a lot of the book. “Threads” are underdeveloped and left hanging, etc.

Give it 2.5 old surfing magazines.

(Credit spotting: The name of the movie dog in real life is “Jed”. The same name as Debicki’s character in The Night Manager. Plus another actor’s first name is “Jed”.)

Note that there is also another recent Aussie movie that this one reminds me of: The Butterfly Tree with Melissa George. She does an above average job for her (which is a low bar) but the other actors are not even that good. Could have been something. A real waste.

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I saw Beatriz at Dinner recently.

I thought the first 95% of the movie was excellent, but the ending totally ruined it for me.

What are we supposed to take away from it?

The world is hopeless, so just kill yourself?

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I really liked it, but I admit I had seen much better plot twists and turns in an episode of Leverage. There was no jeopardy, it was a bit too slick for its own good. But I liked the characters and fun of it all, so I hope there’s going to be another one, this time with a better story.

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I’ve thought about doing a thread to dissect the plots of movies like this. The ones where it’s overly complex and parts of it are hidden from the audience until the final scenes. I’d like to go back and rewatch the movie, knowing the hidden plot, and see if it makes sense based on what the characters are supposed to know and be doing.

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Jumanji (2017). I hadn’t seen this because (1) It’s a remake, which is never as good as the original, and (2) the 1995 film wasn’t very good. And then…

It is good. It’s not just reproduced with new actors: it’s a new movie based on the original idea. I actually really enjoyed this, and I was surprised.

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The most recently theatrically released movie I’ve watched recently is Deadpool 2 - the Super-Duper Cut. I think it was actually better than the first one, if you ignore the temporary Fridging of Vanessa. ‘Hi, Wade!’ ‘Hi, Yukio!’

The theatrically released movie I watched most recently is the 2010 restoration of Metropolis. Still 2 scenes missing, and a lot of the restored ones were barely watchable (but at least they were there)… It really makes me wonder what the people who cut the scenes originally (I’m pretty sure Lang was neither among them, nor consulted) were thinking…I can’t imagine the movie even making sense without the scenes that were cut. And reducing Georgy 11811, Josephat, and the Thin Man to basically cameos - a mostly pointless one in the Thin Man’s case - was a real pity.

Not theatrically released, I’ve also watched (rewatched, in 2 cases) several of the DC Universe Original Animated Movies - Justice League Dark, Justice League vs Teen Titans and The Death of Superman (those three set in the DCUOAM universe) and Batman Ninja.

Not actually sure why I rewatched JLD and JLvsTT, specifically…Netflix probably recommended them when I was looking for something randomly to (re)watch. They are two of my favourite movies in the DCUOAM universe, but I’d have probably worked through the whole thing in order if I was watching for serious.

The Death of Superman is a HUGE improvement on the last attempt to do a movie of that storyline (Superman: Doomsday, which culminated in Our Hero tossing the Dark Superman into the middle of Metropolis from orbit)…that they’re planning to do it as 2 movies certainly helps, so Death can focus on building up to the death and give the fight with Doomsday the attention it deserves, and Reign won’t have to turn the replacement Supermen into a composite who manages to be less compelling than any of them.

Ah, Batman Ninja, though…that’s…a gloriously weird specimen. Batman, most of his supporting cast and enemies, and Deathstroke are sent to Japan in the Warring States Period by Gorilla Grodd, where most of the villains set themselves up in the places of the significant Daimyo. And that’s the relatively straightforward part of the plot. It starts going a little nuts in the second half, and officially gets balls to the wall batshit in the third act. And it works. So very well. It’s also worth watching in both English and Japanese…due to a tight timetable and barebones translation, the people who wrote the English script basically had to make it up from scratch…so, while they avoided significantly changing the plot, the dialogue is totally different, leading to some slightly different characterizations. (Batman, Harley, Catwoman, and Joker, particularly).

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Revenge For Jolly, a black comedy starring some fairly big names (Oscar Isaac, Elijah Wood, Kristin Wiig, Adrian Brody, others you know). It’s basically a McGuffin movie. The “protagonist” played by Brian Petsos (who I never heard of before) is a quasi-criminal low-life who owns a miniature pincher named Jolly. He was supposed to a thing for a guy but he couldn’t (pretty much verbatim from the movie) so someone name Bockmire killed Jolly. The rest of the movie is him and his cousin (Oscar Isaac who is fantastic, funny as hell) killing pretty much everybody in order to find Bockmire. The End. I mean I won’t spoil the last five minutes, but that’s pretty much the entire plot.

They go from their neighborhood bar to a motel room with a couple of prostitutes to a lawyers office to a wedding reception growing progressively more violent and drinking beers along the way in their pursuit. There are no knee slappers here, but the performances are top-notch. Bobby Moynihan is hilarious, briefly, as one of the slippery lawyers; Elijah Wood plays the first victim, his last words being, “I’m sorry. I realize that sometimes pets -”.

It’s dark and violent, but goddamned funny. There’s really no redeeming theme that I can discern. Maybe loyalty? The folly of chasing one’s demons? I don’t know. But you should watch it. It’s good. I see it got a 4.6 on IMDb, but fuck them, it’s good.

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And the award for worst movie I’ve seen in a while goes to:

Love After Love. Stars Andie MacDowell and Chris O’Dowd. (Note the rest of the cast barely have an existence in the movie. There are essentially robots.)

A very misleading premise: MacDowell finds love after losing her husband. This is really not the story at all. In fact, there is not a “story” period.

Starts off with the usual end-credit cast listing with who played who. Okaaay. But it soon becomes clear that the film is intended to be non-standard thing. Forget story, forget relatable characters, forget understand what’s going on at all.

It just sucks.

Got taken by the high RT score. But the panners sum it up nicely.

For those scoring MacDowell movies at home. Regarding weddings and funerals:

0 weddings. 2 funerals.

Do not waste your time on this.

Give it a simple 0.

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The Bachelors.

J.K. Simmons is a HS calc teacher with a HS age son. The wife/mother recently-ish died. Old J.K. decides it time to leave Dodge. New adventures in LA ensue.

Also starring Julie Delpy. (Can you guess what part she plays in this? I thought so.)

It’s the usual things go this way (for both), then they go that way (for both), etc. The only “surprise” is the last change in how things are going is completely out of nowhere and pretty much seems to be done for plot convenience.

Good acting and all that. In particular, for someone like me, it’s worthwhile just to watch J.K. Simmons. Shoot, I’d watch J.K. eat clams. It just needed a more original plot.

Sidenote: It has Tyrel Jackson Williams (Charles from Brockmire) in it as one of the HS kids. He looks really young compared to his Brockmire persona. IMDb says it was filmed in 2016. But still …

Speaking of spoilers (?), regarding the movie poster: It shows a thing that only happens in the last scene of the movie. Nice job there.
Give it 3.5 Juno Dads.

You know, somehow I’ve never gotten around to see the Before Sunrise/Sunset films. Someday.

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I’m not happy about it, but had bad reactions to two very well reviewed films, Incredibles 2, and She.

The Incredibles sequel was talky and wore its very ordinary philosophical ideas on its sleeve. The plot was a repeat from the first film, but broke continuity with the first film’s ending. The often beautiful phyics of the first film were mostly gone, and were replaced by “comic book” physics. (That mostly refers to ElastiGirl’s motorcycle adventure.) A huge disappointment for me.

She was well directed with several interesting concepts, but the basic story line was painful in the way a bad situation comedy is painful — the leads do something awesomely stupid and it’s obviously going to have eventual repercussions.
Sort of a mild spoiler:

If the Operating System is not truly a conscious entity then the protagonist is selling his life down the river, and if the Operating System is truly a funny, artistic conscious entity then the human race is selling itself down the river. I didn’t much care which eventuality the director decided to go with.
But it was extremelywell made.

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For a hundred million dollar movie, it had a curiously made-for-TV feel to it.