Johh Wick 3 (2019) showed up on one of the online services I use so I re-watched 1 (2014) and 2(2017) and…well I got bored during the 3rd one. The first two are still exciting, but midway through the 3rd I just stopped caring. i actually skipped forward through a lot of it including the fights just to get to the end. I even went back and watched part of it again, and I could not get really engaged in it at all.
I watched Abominable (2019) with my family and although it is predictably going to end on a happy note, it didn’t feel to me like it was a simple rehashing of other family movies. From the youngest in our family to the oldest we enjoyed the visuals and the theme.
Coincidentally, I also just watched John Wick 3 last night. Over the last couple weeks, my wife and I watched 1 and 2 so both were fresh in mind. I was entertained through JW3 but we were definitely cracking wise a lot more than we did in the first two. The first movie felt like there was this mysterious underworld of assassins operating around us. The second pushed the boundaries of that to the limit and JW3 felt like us working stiffs are the minority population just living in International Assassin Corp’s world (complete with branded company buses!). I wouldn’t quite say it jumped the shark, but it’s definitely revving up the bike and was a distinct quality drop off from the first two.
I just watched a movie called Seven Psychopaths. It was made in 2012 but I had never heard of it. With a name like that, I wasn’t sure I wanted to see it, but actually it was very much like Tarantino’s stuff - violent, but humorous and almost cartoonish at times. And there are animals in the movie but none of them are hurt.
There are a lot of big names in this movie, the biggest being Chistopher Walken and Woody Harrelson. The movie started out really well, but then about halfway through it bogged down and ultimately fizzled. This may be partly because I didn’t sit and watch it straight through (I saw it in three sessions over the course of the weekend). But it was funny and held my interest and I was glad I watched it.
My latest five (all documentaries, as it happens, and all worth a look):
Represent
Pretty good documentary about three women seeking public office (running for mayor of Detroit, U.S. Congress in the Chicago suburbs, and trustee of a rural Ohio township). An interesting if somewhat superficial look at how being a candidate changes your life, for good and ill, win or lose.
Playing with Fire
Another good doc, about Apollo’s Fire, a critically-acclaimed chamber music ensemble in Cleveland, and its charismatic founder and conductor, Jeannette Sorrell.
Golda
Engaging, warts-and-all 2019 biography of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, from her childhood in Milwaukee to her remarkable rise - almost always tougher and smarter than everyone else around her - and eventual fall in Israeli politics.
Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn.
Understandably scathing bio of Joe McCarthy’s right-hand man and later NYC GOP political fixer and celebrity lawyer, a closeted gay man who actively opposed gay rights laws and fiercely denied he had AIDS to the day he died of it. The first three words of the movie’s title come from the words on his square of the AIDS Quilt.
Chichinette: The Accidental Spy
An affectionate profile of a Holocaust survivor and much-decorated former French spy who is still alive, traveling the world and talking about her WW2 experiences to rapt audiences.
Bad Boys (1995) - I thought I was watching this for the first time, but as I watched it all came back to me. I had seen it before. Obviously, it didn’t leave that much of an impression on me. Except for Téa Leoni’s legs … oooh, they’re prefect. I’m a leg man. I digress.
*
The Final Countdown* (1980) - I know I watched this one before, years ago, but I thought there was more to it than there was. The story, in a nutshell, is that the USS Nimitz is sent back through time to just before Pearl Harbor is attacked, does nothing of any real importance, and is then sent back through time again to 1981. It was mostly the Navy’s version of Top Gun - a sanctioned recruiting film, and I have to admit, there is some cool navy shit going on in this flick. Here’s the thing that struck me the most, though: the super-duper, ultramodern, the yokels won’t understand what they’re seeing, aircraft carrier is sent back 40 years! If the super-duper, ultramodern aircraft carriers we have now were sent back 40 years they’d be going up against the crew in this movie. 2020 just doesn’t seem as far removed from 1980 as 1980 does from 1940. A common phenomenon, I’m sure.
Notting Hill
A funny, charming romcom, with Hugh Grant as a bashful London bookstore owner falling for an American movie star played by Julia Roberts. Look for Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville in a small part as a failing stockbroker.
Airplane!
One of my all-time favorite comedies. I introduced my teenage sons to it and they loved it. So many great gags (Kareem snarling at the little kid; Ethel Merman belting out a song as Lt. Hurwitz) and lines (“No, the white phone” “Have you ever been in a Turkish prison?” “You can tell me, I’m a doctor”).
Alien
A ragtag starship crew is stalked by a voracious xenomorph. Still a great sf/horror movie; I noticed the music and the striking planetary visuals more this time.
Aliens
Colonial Marines meet their match in a whole colony of xenomorphs. One of the few sequels better than the original, I’d say. Sigourney Weaver kicks ass as one of the greatest action-movie heroines ever.
A League of Their Own
Heartwarming, funny WWII-era women’s baseball movie. Geena Davis and Lori Petty are great as sisters and rivals, and Tom Hanks steals every scene as their coach, a boozy, washed-up major leaguer.
I just watched Justice League Dark Apokalips. Not as good as other DC anime, and the plot pissed me off. How does the JL get to declare war on another planet without talking to any world leaders? In my day even the cartoons knew better…
Saw Freaks on Netflix last night. My wife and I enjoyed it. The topic has been overdone this decade, but it offered a somewhat fresh perspective which made it worthwhile.
What are some examples of things that have “done” the same “topic” this decade as Freaks? I’m not even sure what “doing” it would be. I’m not even sure what the “topic” is.
I threw in Yellow Submarine late last night to take a break from editing. For the first time, I put on the closed captioning, figuring I might understand what some of the odd throwaway lines were.
I was surprised that a.) I’ve apparently misunderstood some Beatles lyrics for a LONG time; b.) There’s a pretty decent joke by “John Lennon” about being the “Ego Man” that I never caught before.
*The Beatles didn’t provide their own voices, except for the kicker at the very end (and, of course, their recordings throughout). Actor John Clive provided the voice of Lennon’s character.
Shoes - 7.5/10
I finally watched a movie, and I finally finished a silent movie after a few attempts at other ones. I didn’t know this one was only an hour long. My DVR had it at 2 hours, and the “Movie Info” had it at 101 minutes. It was just on TCM, so it might be available On-Demand. Has anyone seen this? If so, what did you think?
I liked that the movie centered around the young woman. She’s in every scene, and even when there isn’t much happening, she’s reflecting on a life that could be. I guess I always have loved movies centered around poverty and struggle.
Rocketman (2019) - I finally got a chance to see it (it just showed up on Amazon Prime). I wouldn’t exactly say I was champing at the bit to catch it. I mean, I’m as much of an Elton John fan as the next guy - had a couple albums, knew all the words to his songs on the radio, that kind of shit - but I didn’t think I’d enjoy the bursting into song at the dinner table style of musical I knew it was. I stand corrected. I really enjoyed it. Taron Egerton was amazing as Elton. I was happy that they didn’t Bohemian Rhapsody out and make it PG-13. Also, it was nice to hear the actor’s interpretations of the songs as opposed to lip-syncing over the actual recordings or whatever. Thumbs up.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) - Ok, full disclosure, I didn’t actually watch the whole thing. I caught about 90% of it in about five different settings. So I guess all I have to say is that is beautifully filmed and well acted, but I don’t really get the plot. Other than that, what vexes me is that Benjamin is born as an old man in an infant’s body. As his body grows, he de-ages until he ends up dying as an infant … but in an infant’s body again. Why didn’t he die as an infant - having forgotten how to speak and walk and everything whatshername said - but in an old man’s body? Eh, maybe I’ll give it another shot.
I watched another stinker last night, Suspicion, a Hitchcock movie starring Cary Grant.
In this movie, two people, a dimbulb and a leech, get married after having spent about ten minutes together. The dimbulb decides the leech is also a killer, but what can you do? Cary Grant is just that handsome. After a barrelful of red herrings, far too many people are still alive and the movie is over. Hitchcock should roll over in his grave every time someone is subjected to this crapfest.
Just finished Uncut Gems on Netflix. This is a drama starring Adam Sandler, who spent the entire movie channeling Al Pacino at his shoutiest and most annoying self. At the halfway point, I couldn’t believe I was only halfway through this thing. Now, I don’t like Sandler’s comedy schtick, and just one of his man-child movies was enough to put me off those forever. I thought I’d give him a shot as a dramatic actor, but won’t make that mistake again.
In 1996, I was watching Siskel and Ebert review Bulletproof with Damon Wayans and Adam Sandler. Ebert complained that Sandler had a tendency to think the only way to display strong emotion was yelling. I remember that whenever I see the guy, decades later.
That said, Sandler, imo, takes direction well. If he’s not in control of the project and surrounded by his cronies, you can get a decent movie out of him.
On the thread topic: I just watched Statham’s The Meg. I was kind of ticked by one thing, chiefly - at least four times in the movie, characters fell into shark infested waters when the boat started moving. How many people do you have to see die the same way before you grab a handhold?
HBO Max came online this week, and includes the films of Studio Ghibli and the great Japanese animator, Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, etc). It seems everywhere I turn this week somebody is squeeing about Studio Ghibli. I’d never had the pleasure, so we thought we’d see for ourselves and last night watched Spirited Away.
Meh.
It’s certainly imaginative – bordering on bizarre and grotesque occasionally. I’d never seen anything like it. And some of the visuals are quite stunning. But a lot of the character animation is just flat and lifeless, and the story just meanders aimlessly. After 90 minutes of going nowhere (with another 40 to go) we bailed.
Little Children (2006). It was available free with ads on VUDU.
Okay, I didn’t really watch the whole thing. I got about two thirds in, rated it a 3 out of 5, and then got on with my life. I just didn’t care about the characters. Not that I detested them, mind, simply didn’t care. A quick glance at the synopsis on Wikipedia was enough to convince me that there simply wasn’t any point in watching to the end. Nothing was going to happen that was going to finally “grip” me. At no point would I feel anything but an unbridled sense of “meh.”