2015 Capsule Reviews

Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens

rating: *****

review: For me the sequels started out with a significant bang.  Admittedly, I'm not exactly square with a lot of mainstream opinion, particularly about the Star Wars saga.  I loved the prequels, and I loved the rest of the sequels, too, but didn't much care for Rogue One, which is the only recent entry fans actually did like.  I loved the new characters instantly, but what really seals it for me is that thing that made everyone instantly love the trailer: Harrison Ford's return as Han Solo.  I thought even his death was handled perfectly.  Too many people accept the simplest way of describing a thing to be the only way to view it, and of course Force Awakens has parallels with A New Hope.  But the results are very different.  I'm a huge admirer of J.J. Abrams as it is, so the fact that he got this assignment at all was absolutely best case scenario.

The Hateful Eight

rating: *****

review: Quentin Tarantino has been able to assemble absolute dream casts throughout his career while also pursuing talent he himself sought out that was otherwise being ignored.  Eight is as close to an all-star Tarantino cast as he's gotten, led by Samuel L. Jackson, whose breakthrough film was Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, and Kurt Russell, star of what too many dismiss as a minor Tarantino flick, Death Proof.  Famously, Tarantino initially thought to shelve this script when it leaked, but thankfully he thought better.  Unlike other period films he's pursued this one doesn't much worry about its place in history, but simply allows Tarantino to settle into the characters he's created, and there are few writers in any medium who creates as vivid characters as he does.  An underrated pick for best film he's yet directed.

Self/Less

rating: ****

review: Tarsem caught everyone else's attention with The Cell, a visual spectacle starring Jennifer Lopez just before she became Jennifer Lopez, but it was The Fall that continually captivates me, and I have been following his lamentably sporadic career ever since.  Self/Less also has the virtue of starring Ryan Reynolds, whose career instincts generally seem to intersect with my viewing interests.  Reynolds often chooses roles in which the person he's playing is someone other than he actually is, for a variety of reasons.  This one is a richly textured role in a truly impossible situation where he's trying to reclaim his life, bringing forth his perennially underrated dramatic chops.

Aloha

rating: ****

review: There are a few hallmarks of reaching the ridiculous culture we currently inhabit, and one of them is the rejection of this film on the basis of "Emma Stone isn't Hawaiian!!!"  Which anyone actually watching the movie couldn't possibly have had an honest problem with.  But, as I said, such are the times we live in, and now Cameron Crowe can't be taken seriously anymore.

The Age of Adaline

rating: ****

review: For a brief moment, it seemed as if Blake Lively was going to become a bona fide movie star.  It was during this period she got to star in what's probably going to remain her most interesting role, an ageless woman who finally gets to come to grips with how she reached this state.  Narrated, as with The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, brilliantly by Hugh Ross.

The Martian

rating: ****

review: I honestly thought we were going to enter a golden age of Matt Damon as a movie star, as in him becoming a reliable top box office attraction, after this one.  That didn't really happen, but the results are still pretty magnetic in this adaptation of one of the viral literary hits from that time.

The Revenant

rating: ****

review: Everyone now thinks of this as the one where Leonardo DiCaprio has that encounter with the bear, but it's also the role that finally snagged him the Oscar, and gave Tom Hardy his closest shot at mainstream legitimacy, which of course he accepted in one of his most unrecognizable appearances ever.

Legend

rating: ****

review: If you remember, Hardy had that shot for a movie we'll reach a little later in this chronicle, but there was also this gangster flick in which he plays brothers, which ended up being dismissed "because we'd seen that movie before."  Which is crazy, because no, nobody had.  But this was also the point at which everyone seemed to conspire in dismantling the old Hollywood system of, y'know, movie stars.

Tomorrowland

rating: ****

review: If you want the poster child of modern Disney, you only have to look at the inexplicable rejection of this movie, the most recent attempt by the studio to create something of its own.  And, I guess, the last time Geoege Clooney was a movie star.

Ant-Man

rating: ****

review: I honestly don't believe any movie in the MCU has nailed the MCU formula better than this introduction of Paul Rudd's Scott Lang.  Except maybe the sequel.

Joy

rating: ****

review: David O. Russell had finally built himself into one of Hollywood's most significant directors when he chose this project as a star vehicle for Jennifer Lawrence.  The result is everything it should have been, except a project that let him keep that spot.

Pan

rating: ***

review: Instantly considered a ridiculous bomb, once I got around to watching it I of course loved the results.  Hugh Jackman gets to do what he wants, but more importantly this is the first time I actually enjoyed a Garrett Hedlund performance.  He seems to be having the time of his life as a youthful Hook.

The Peanuts Movie

rating: ***

review: Sometimes these things will be filled with movies I really just need to watch again (and somehow I didn't even manage that when I was spending recent months wading through that back catalog).  But I suspect doing so would improve my opinion of these particular results.

Ex Machina

rating: ***

review: One of the prototypical modern cult classics, propelled by a fresh cast including Oscar Isaac, Domhnall Gleeson, and Alicia Vikander.

Jupiter Ascending

rating: ***

review: I still find it baffling how the Wachowskis became such pariahs after essentially becoming the patron saints of modern film lore.  This was obviously an attempt to craft a space opera out of the same basic premise of reality not matching up with perception as The Matrix, but as with Force Awakens, perception was instead chosen to eclipse reality.  

Sicario

rating: ***

review: This one became a full-blown phenomenon, and further propelled Denis Villeneuve to Hollywood royalty, and yet its ambiguities are such that the apparent lead character is overshadowed by two characters even the sequel (not directed by Villeneuve) is uncertain that we should cheer them on, even when one of them is Benicio del Toro in a role worthy of his talents.

Home

rating: ***

review: I've long struggled over this one.  On the one hand it has deep personal meaning that goes beyond the actual movie.  On the other, and while I very much enjoy it, I don't know...Either way I'll always be fond of it.

Terminator: Genisys

rating: ***

review: It's the popular thing to dislike every new Terminator movie past the second one, to find some reason to utterly dismiss it, so it really doesn't matter what you've heard or personally think of this one, it's already obvious.  But popular opinion isn't always right.  Another entertaining entry in the series.

Spectre

rating: ***

review: The third Daniel Craig entry in the Bond series left me cold, and circumstances left a considerable gap in my viewing of this fourth one, and so I'm probably still processing it.  But for me, there's little question that his are the entries that will, at least to this point, best stand the test of time, once we stop worrying so much about protecting older material.

Ted 2

rating: ***

review: I've developed this weird thing about seeing sequels without having seen the original, and this is one of them.  It's pretty much exactly what you would expect.

The Visit

rating: ***

review: M. Night Shyamalan redeemed some of his credentials with this one, but it's never going to be one of my favorites.

Furious 7

rating: ***

review: I've gotta be honest, I love this series, but a thorough rewatch is gonna be necessary.  This one is Paul Walker's final appearance, and is best remembered for that, including how they include a subtle nod to "retiring" his character at the end.  But at the moment it's the only thing I remember about it.

Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation

rating: ***

review: It's more popular to think of it as the one where Rebecca Ferguson joins the ensemble, but I tend to lament it as the one where Jeremy Renner takes a huge step back after having briefly threatened to take over in Ghost Protocol.

Fantastic Four

rating: ***

review: "There's never been a good film version!!!" is what you're always going to hear, but of the three that've been released to date, I like 'em all, including this effort to give the team a more youthful appearance.  The only problem with Miles Teller's Reed Richards is that he necessarily takes a passive role in the proceedings, since the rest of the team has to catch up with him eventually, even though the movie clearly pivots around him.

Mad Max: Fury Road

rating: ***

review: This is the one everyone went absolutely crazy about, and so of course it features as minimal a role for Tom Hardy as possible, surely the only Mad Max film yet produced, with his name right there in the title, to be able to say that.

In the Heart of the Sea

rating: ***

review: Based on the true story that inspired Moby-Dick, this is one I unabashedly just need to watch again.

Strange Magic

rating: ***

review: I absolutely adored this when I first saw it, a kind of fond creative farewell from George Lucas, but the visual results are so far below current popular standards it's not surprising that it's completely slipped out of the popular consciousness.  But even if he'd attempted a live action rather than animated approach, I doubt the result would be different.  This was just about the time when audiences started expecting the expected (and yet still mostly grumbling about it).

Minions

rating: ***

review: Hey, the Minions are the Minions.  Either you enjoy their hijinks or you don't.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

rating: ***

review: Hugely ironically, because I'm no big fan of his, but Joss Whedon did exactly what Joss Whedon always does with this one.  I honestly think the only reason it's not popular is because audiences were disappointed not to find Thanos in it.  But it proved integral to later developments in the MCU anyway.  Eventually fans will just view it as another entry in the series.  For me it's just par for the course.

War Room

rating: ***

review: This is exactly par for the course in the kind of movie it wants to be.

The Divergent Series: Insurgent

rating: ***

review: I'm not currently able to be overly objective about this series, either.  Eventually, while watching it, I began to view it as posing even more of a model's stance at blockbuster filmmaking than the Hunger Games movies it clearly wanted to be, which themselves just as clearly wanted badly to be Twilight, which badly wanted to be Harry Potter.  In the process, the biggest victim in all of this was Shailene Woodley, who before everyone realized what was going on was poised to become a reliable movie star.

2021 Movies Viewed/Ranked

 Viewed/Ranked

1. The Last Duel
2. The French Dispatch
3. The Courier
4. The Green Knight
5. No Time to Die
6. Boss Level
7. Snake Eyes
8. Die in a Gunfight
9. Last Night in Soho
10. Settlers
11. Needle in a Timestack
12. Judas and the Black Messiah
13. The Mauritanian
14. Belfast
15. Dune
16. Pig
17. Zola
18. Copshop
19. Death of a Telemarketer 
20. Chaos Walking
21. Venom: Let There Be Carnage
22. Old
23. Every Breath You Take
24. The Little Things
25. House of Gucci
26. King Richard
27. Our Friend
28. City of Lies
29. F9
30. The Matrix Resurrections
31. Spider-Man: No Way Home
32. Mortal Kombat
33. Profile
34. Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard
35. Voyagers
36. Nomadland
37. Wrath of Man
38. Naked Singularity
39. Reminiscence
40. State Like Sleep
41. Spiral
42. The Virtuoso
43. Ghostbusters: Afterlife
44. The Suicide Squad
45. Lansky
46. Till Death
47. Those Who Wish Me Dead
48. Godzilla vs. Kong
49. Midnight in the Switchgrass
50. Lady of the Manor
51. Crisis
52. French Exit
53. Twist
54. The Card Counter
55. Zone 414
56. Cosmic Sin
57. Dangerous

Other Notable Releases

• A Quiet Place Part II
• American Underdog
• Black Widow
• C'mon C'mon
• Cruella
• Encanto
• Eternals
• The Eyes of Tammy Faye
• Free Guy
• In the Heights
• Licorice Pizza
• Jungle Cruise
• Nightmare Alley
• Shangi-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
• Sing 2
• Space Jam: A New Legacy
• West Side Story

Box Office: 2021 Top Ten

I've chronicled this over a number of my blogs over the years, but it's probably a good idea to finally do so at one dedicated to movies.  Here, then, according to numbers at Box Office Mojo as of this writing, are the ten highest grossing movies of 2021, both in the U.S. (the first list) and around the world (the second).

1. Spider-Man: No Way Home ($804 million) The MCU unsurprisingly broke the box office back wide open on the domestic front, driven in part by the unexpected chance to see three generations of the cinematic webslinger (the distributors really wanted to keep that a secret, but it's such an important element of the movie, and obviously many people have already seen the results, including probably everyone, at this point, who cared whether or not they knew about such spoilers).  This has been my least favorite incarnation of Spider-Man on the big screen, but as of this entry I think I can move past that.
2. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings ($224 million) Equally unsurprisingly the next biggest winner is again from the MCU, though you'll find its success to be far more in-line with pandemic numbers as they finally began to expand again last year.  This is probably a film that would've performed at exactly these numbers ever before the pandemic, although of course now we'll never know.
3. Venom: Let There Be Carnage ($213 million) Technically associated with the MCU although moreso with the Sony/Spider-Man wing.  Me, I'll just be happy it's Tom Hardy in a bona fide hit, crowd-pleasing movie.
4. Black Widow ($183 million) The MCU strikes again, with an entry that's about a decade late, somehow featuring its original superheroine in the second entry in the franchise to be headlined by one, after her canonical death.  That's exactly where the MCU is these days, folks...
5. F9: The Fast Saga ($173 million) The surprisingly popular franchise that isn't the MCU has endured so long there's as many people baffled by its popularity as who continue to eat it up.  Like Black Widow, it's an installment that draws on material from earlier in the timeline, in more ways than one.  Dom's brother, for one.  But also: Han's back!
6. Eternals ($164 million) Like Shang-Chi I assume Eternals greatly benefited from lower expectations, another new MCU platform that might have seemed far more extraneous previously.  Now it's a welcome distraction and a top ten hit by default.
7. Sing 2 ($162 million) Given Disney's penchant for releasing so many of its recent animated films directly to streaming, a different studio claimed box office glory this year.
8. No Time to Die ($160 million) The final Daniel Craig entry in the James Bond franchise sends the actor out with a bang (I'd call it an historic entry that doesn't deserve the dismissive remarks it's so far generated).
9. A Quiet Place Part II ($160 million) Because these films share a premise with another movie (It Comes at Night) I've seen, I personally have little interest in watching them, because I'm not really a horror fan and so don't need to double down on such things.  Though clearly movie fans like them.
10. Ghostbusters: Afterlife ($129 million) It was nice to see this one succeed, although I wish it had followed its own story beats rather than eventually end on a familiar note.

Global results:

1. Spider-Man: No Way Home ($1,901 billion) As you can see, U.S. audiences were in perfect agreement with their global neighbors for most popular movie, which is usually the case.
2. The Battle at Lake Changjin ($902 million) The Chinese box office has surged to become the second most important one globally in recent years, although Chinese films themselves will only be successful like this there, whereas a global hit depends on how (or if) it plays there.
3. Hi, Mom ($822 million) Here's another Chinese movie.  Was never even released in the U.S.
4. No Time to Die ($774 million) Here's our first real difference, Craig's final turn as 007 having a much more rousing international reception.
5. F9: The Fast Saga ($726 million) A large part of why this series has been so popular is thanks to its multicultural cast, which no doubt helps its international appeal.
6. Detective Chinatown 3 ($686 million) Bet you can't guess which country produced this!
7. Venom: Let There Be Carnage ($506 million) At this point you'll notice how the MCU suffers if left out of Chinese theaters, and who benefits as a result.
8. Godzilla vs. Kong ($468 million) Here's a whole franchise that's been happening with very little actual attention drawn to it.
9. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings ($432 million) You'd think this was made for Chinese audiences, but Chinese politics thought differently.
10. Sing 2 ($411 million) Just so you don't think its success was a fluke.

Rewatches March 2022

I managed to round out the end of the alphabet last month (paradoxically I will begin it later). So let’s get started.

William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996) Arguably the source of Leonardo DiCaprio’s popular career, the project that led to Titanic, I spent a long time being fascinated by it without really having spent time…watching it. So this rewatch was long in coming. As it turns out, it’s a kind of spastic version of what Hollywood has been so paranoid about, a Tarantinoesque take that doesn’t really understand what “Tarantinoesque” is, but is very clearly trying to be so. Thankfully Baz Lurhmann figured out his mistake in later projects, although he’s never really regained creative trust from the mainstream. I’m hotly anticipating his latest film, Elvis.

Wind River (2017) This was another needful rewatch, and now I have the proper appreciation of its achievement. Director Taylor Sheridan is one of the major filmmakers of the modern era, and Jeremy Renner is one of the significant stars, although neither enjoy enough acclaim for their efforts. Jon Bernthal has a brief but crucial supporting role that lets him, for once, avoid the antagonist’s spot he usually inhabits.

Wing Commander (1999) Popular opinion doesn’t like to admit how it’s formed, but this is a film that’s suffered, since it debuted in theaters, as impossible to measure against The Matrix and, at least as of 1999 (later revisions of taste obviously changed this), The Phantom Menace, and as such hardly worth considering at all, and as such, only worth dismissing at best…But I’ve always liked it. Even fans if the games from which it was adapted couldn’t wrap their heads around this one, since it spends most of its time on a concept unique to it, the idea of prejudice against the main protagonist based on his ancestry. If it had been released any other year prior to the same one in which the first new Star Wars in a near-two decade span, this clear homage to the saga, which still manages to become itself, would have been welcomed far differently.

The World’s End (2013) As it turns out, sometimes if you end up sleeping through most of the first viewing of a movie, you’re probably not really going to get an accurate interpretation of it. What I did see the first time I found…obnoxious. I apparently saw very little, and it only bewildered me. This is Edgar Wright’s final of three collaborations with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. Pegg had become an unlikely Hollywood staple by this point (a regular in Mission: Impossible and Star Trek films as well as star of various films), and as such was beyond being a mere costar with Frost. So in hindsight, and watching, y’know, the whole thing, this is quite the end of an era, and now stands as possibly by favorite of the three (and my previous wasn’t Shaun of the Dead, but Hot Fuzz, which itself will be a keen subject of further rewatching).

The Wrestler (2008) In 2008 mainstream audiences had once again definitively relegated wrestling to a niche market, so the release of a major film production attempting to reverse engineer its appeal by peeling back the curtain. And yet, I think it does so in a fashion it doesn’t really understand. Mickey Rourke’s character is never really put in a definitive context. Wrestling fans are as aware of their history as any other medium. If this were a baseball movie about, say, a Pete Rose figure, that would be pretty clear. But Rourke’s character was created from a false premise. If he is, for instance, Hulk Hogan, or Ric Flair, or Shawn Michaels (who at the time was winding up his career and actually evoking the movie in storylines), his arc would not lead to ending up working in a grocery store. The filmmakers certainly found plenty of aging wrestlers who were leading such lives, but a Hogan, a Flair, a Michaels would never be among them. So the results have to be interpreted through this lens. And can only be a qualified achievement. 

Zodiac (2007) a year before Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. happens to costar with Mark Ruffalo in this David Fincher film that actually pivots on Jake Gyllenhaal’s conviction that he solved the mystery of the identity of the notorious killer. This is another rewatch I needed to do, because I hadn’t previously managed to stay awake through the whole thing, and in hindsight it’s another classic Hollywood movie that isn’t being made at the moment, filled with bona fide movie stars, but not necessarily at that time a cast that would really have been recognized, all three stars at different points in their careers. Actually, this might even have been the film that led RDJ to Iron Man. 

I’m not diving in immediately back to the catalog, so this marks a bookmark in the project, and April will be the first time since last August material for this blog won’t be focused on it.

Rewatches February 2022

After the relatively stuffed month that January turned out to be, I had to scramble to make my efforts look decent in February, but I think I managed nicely...

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) A lot of viewers dismissed this because they didn't think Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne carried enough weight as its stars, but I love the results except as a version of the current popular interpretation of world history being an unapologetic destruction of virgin territory, which is ridiculously simplistic.  

Vice (2018) A fever dream that allows the viewer to believe what they want to about its conclusions (the ending cleverly leans into the current culture divide), although it clearly has one interpretation in mind as Christian Bale hilariously leans into the Dick Cheney voice even in his early years.

Walk the Line (2005) When this was released in theaters I'd been listening to Johnny Cash music pretty heavily with my dad, so I was very prepared to enjoy a movie about him, and while Roger Ebert was very much mistaken when he claimed there was no distinction to be made between Cash's singing and Joaquin Phoenix's version, it's still fun listening to Phoenix's, and this is easily my favorite Reese Witherspoon performance, in which she stops trying to be a precocious individual and actually is one.

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) For me, anyway, the Wallace & Gromit shorts were the last time I particularly cared about short films that weren't attached to Disney and/or Pixar films, so this feature-length version of their shenanigans, with its ridiculously adorable rabbits, will long be one of my favorite animated movies.

Warcraft (2016) The career of Duncan Jones fell apart fairly completely shortly after this, and watching Warcraft specifically again was to find I maybe wasn't as interested in the movie itself, originally, as the career of Duncan Jones, but it's still an accessible alternative to a fantasy landscape that isn't beholden to any specific knowledge of the source material.

The Way of the Gun (2000) It's amazing how paranoid critics have been about "another Tarantino," so that they've routinely rejected any material they deem remotely similar, including this movie, which is a great showcase for Benicio Del Toro and Ryan Phillippe, both of whom as a result had a much harder time impressing their careers, and talent, on the popular consciousness because of it.

We Are Marshall (2006) Looking back, I'm not quite as enamored with this one as I used to be.  In 2006 it was, as it in hindsight remains, for me a spotlight outside of Lost for the appeal of Matthew Fox, but as it was for me then an introduction of sorts to Matthew McConaughey, I've since watched other material I think I can say I reliably enjoy more.

Rewatches January 2022

I made a concerted effort to tackle more of the catalog movies to start off the year, coming up with a whopping seventeen (two bonus, but I'll explain).

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) This is easily one of my favorite movies, and my favorite Will Ferrell, in which (and he had a whole string of sports movies at one point) he plays a NASCAR driver dueling an evil Frenchman played by Sacha Baron Cohen.  It's one of Ferrell's John C. Reilly movies, too, and is one of Amy Adams' breakthrough appearances.  

They All Laughed (1981) A Peter Bogdanovich film (good timing, since he just passed away) in which John Ritter and Audrey Hepburn, among others, are involved in unlikely romantic pairings.  Included in the DVD release is an interview between Bogdanovich and Wes Anderson, in which I suspect Anderson was most interested in talking with a guy who knew Orson Welles, one of the few people who put as much effort into making movies as Anderson himself.

Thirteen Days (2000) Kevin Costner's second JFK flick revolves around the Cuban Missile Crisis, and for me is a prime example of Kennedy's brilliant leadership.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) Martin McDonagh finds mainstream success with this cautionary tale about social media logic starring Francis McDormand as one of her iconic Midwestern roles (see also: Fargo, Nomadland), plus Sam Rockwell being Sam Rockwell, and Woody Harrelson in what seems like it's a villainous role, but isn't.

Three Kings (1999) David O. Russell's breakthrough movie, George Clooney's second classic (after Out of Sight), and the first classic movie based on a war in Iraq.

The Time Traveler's Wife (2009) I'm convinced a large part of what's wrong with the culture today is that there are too many idiots who are getting to control the narrative.  This movie was one of the early victims.  Adapted from a bestselling book (which I didn't read until later; I saw the movie originally because Eric Bana was one of the leading stars of Hollywood at that time, and I was a big fan), viewers found it creepy instead of romantic, that little girl in the field finding the naked time traveler being interpreted in exactly the manner you would if those few words are all you know about it.  But it's a classic book, a classic movie, and that's that.

To the Wonder (2013) The final movie Roger Ebert reviewed before his death, it was also the movie other critics chose to decide Terrence Malick was no longer someone they wanted to enjoy.  Their loss.  Unlike Tree of Life, which I found riveting, I couldn't make it through the first time.  This time was easier.

Tomb Raider (2018) Another movie that didn't deserve total instant dismissal.

Tomorrowland (2015) The movie that proved Disney was no longer capable of generating its own hits, quite undeservedly so.  Criticizing the continuing impulse to complain without actually doing anything, this was one of several high profile laments over the apparent death of the space program that happily has finally gotten back on track.  Also another George Clooney movie needlessly dismissed.

Topsy-Turvy (1999) I originally saw this in college as part of a world cinema series.  It's the story of Gilbert & Sullivan's production of The Mikado (which later popped up as a favorite of Grissom's in CSI), which in the grand Hollywood tradition of movies about making movies, is instead a movie about making an opera.

Training Day (2001) Denzel Washington, reaching an acting crescendo in the final moments of a brilliant performance.  I'm not sure he's found material worthy of it since.  Similar, but never of comparable challenge.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) Bogart drives himself crazy trying to justify a wasted existence.  The gold becomes just an excuse.

Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story (2006) Based on the book (which I actually read, although I was greatly distracted by Uncle Toby, much as Steve Coogan is so paranoid about), one of the great movies.  It really is.

True Romance (1993) One of two scripts Quentin Tarantino did not direct himself (the other being Natural Born Killers) is grounds for a Christian Slater performance that at its best transcends his Nicholson act, and features one of those trademark Tarantino moments, in which Dennis Hopper very inappropriately tricks Christopher Walken into killing, rather than torturing, him.

Under the Silver Lake (2019) Released the same year as Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Andrew Garfield stumbles into a weird cult phenomenon of his own, including a bewildering revelation about an old songwriter that's the best scene in the movie.

And, in Tampa, January means Gasparilla, the pirate festival, which means I watched two additional movies, out of the regular catalog, filed by franchise:

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) The fourth in the series, revolving mostly around Jack Sparrow, Blackbeard, and the Fountain of Youth, featuring Sam Claflin before I later caught back up with him in Every Breath You Take.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017) I admit, at the time I had little patience for the fourth and fifth films, because they violated what was a key draw for me with the first three: Jack Sparrow is balanced by an equally compelling costar or two.  Penelope Cruz is the replacement costar in Tides, but there really isn't one in Tales.  Orlando Bloom does return, but only for glimpses, in it (with an even briefer look at Keira Knightley).  Fortunately, like the later Claflin role that caught my notice, the replacement costar in Tales, Brenton Thwaites, ended up back on my radar in the TV show Titans, making it easier to revisit.  Claflin's role is incredibly minimal, by the way, in Tides, where Thwaites, playing the son of Bloom and Keira's characters, is in effect taking Bloom's spot.  The whole thrust of Tales is revisiting the feel of the first one.  

So I will have to officially include both as worthy installments in the series.  I enjoyed them.

Rewatches December 2021

 This was another month bogged down in non-catalogue affairs, plus Christmas (more on that later), so not a ton to speak of, but plenty to say anyway...

The Stunt Man (1980) I don't think I'd even heard of it until I saw a special edition DVD at K-Mart, and then I kind of fell into the rabbit hole suggested by the accompanying documentary about the difficulties of the production.  Watching it again, now, obviously Peter O'Toole is always magnetic, which was most of the response it received on release (O'Toole received one of his non-winning Oscar nominations for the performance), but as with a lot of movies it now looks pretty dated, so that was distracting.  

Super Troopers (2001)

Super Troopers 2 (2018) The first is the breakthrough Broken Lizard production that became a cult classic, although I didn't see it until years later, and by that time I'd seen the troupe in Club Dread, which I loved, and so that was my Broken Lizard film (Beerfest was of course even more delightfully ridiculous), but as far as mainstream popularity goes Super Troopers remains the legacy.  So the belated follow-up finally happened, and I loved it the first time I watched it and loved just as much this time.  Just a lot of great Canadian humor this time.  Broken Lizard is never gonna be the American Monty Python, but the guys certainly tried.  

Syriana (2005) This was kind of the movie that convinced critics it was actually okay to like George Clooney (for a while), in which he participates in a grim assessment on the war in Afghanistan (Matt Damon costars).  I think it's predictably cynical.  Star Trek alum Alexander Siddig plays a prince looking to inherit the throne with grand ambitions for reform, so of course Clooney is assigned to take him out, because his brother is much better for American interests.  Clooney packed on the weight and grew a beard for the movie, and was rewarded with stellar notices for a few movies he starred in afterward, including Michael Clayton and Up in the Air.  

My Christmas tradition is watching Christmas movies and TV specials.  I've only recently added Bill Murray's Scrooged to the bunch, but it's become, actually, the one I most look forward to.  Also in the mix this year were the Jim Carrey A Christmas Carol; the Patrick Stewart version (which I've watched every Christmas morning for years); The Polar Express; Elf, Carrey's The Grinch Who Stole Christmas; Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer; Olive, the Other Reindeer; Hoops & Yoyo Ruin Christmas; and the Community episode "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas."  If you can't get a good sense of what I enjoy out of that, I don't know what to tell ya.