Rewatches November 2021

 I watched a lot of different things last month outside of the catalog rewatches, so there's not a lot to cover here except some movies that were well worth revisiting:

Solaris (2002) This is one of those movies I never understood how it got such a lousy reputation.  As near as I can tell, this only happened because critics and/or viewers were bizarrely protective of a book that has disappeared from the popular consciousness and a prior adaptation that was never in it.  Directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring George Clooney, credits that in a previous era would have guaranteed acclaim rather than prevented it, this is the kind of movie that challenges and rewards viewer patience.  Jeremy Davies and Viola Davis are ample supporting actors in this Clooney spotlight.  I never understood why it always seemed so hard to just admit how magnetic Clooney is.  This was before critics finally agreed, for a couple movies at least (Michael Clayton, Up in the Air), that he was indeed a movie star, and so they were still supposed to resent his existence, regardless of the quality of the material he was appearing in.  This is a story about the toxic allure of believing a lie, even when you know a trap has been set.  It is another classic piece of work from both Soderbergh and Clooney.

Source Code (2011) This is a movie I loved on first viewing.  It's the second directorial effort from Duncan Jones (another inexplicable victim of a system that often seems to reject talent regardless of actual talent), a repeating day story about a terrorist attack a powerful new policing tool can help prevent, if only Jake Gyllenhaal can stop worrying about his real world problems long enough to figure out how.  Of course, his real problems are very real, and revealed gradually enough that they're themselves a compelling feature of the movie, but his repeating eight minutes on a train are great drama, and if you're not happy that he manages to be happy he spends most of them with Michelle Monaghan, there's something wrong with you.  Jeffrey Wright has one of his great supporting roles, but the real star is Vera Farmiga, who initially seems too dismissive of Gyllenhaal's plight, but finally becomes his savior, in an ending that elevates the whole movie and places it far beyond its reputation and very close to a classic.  I hadn't watched it basically in ten years, and it was as good this time as it was the last time.

Unoffically, Starman (1984) was part of this, but I was watching it for the first time.  When Jeff Bridges later costarred in K-PAX, that was a movie that wasn't supposed to be enjoyed because it was "too much like Starman."  The two movies are nothing at all alike, as it turns out.

Stick It (2006)  This will always be one of my favorite movies that I was probably not really intended to like at all.  It's a gymnastics teen drama.  Bridges costars, which was one of my early Jeff Bridges experiences, although the movie around him is so fun and lively, you don't need to watch it for him if you're worried he's the only thing you're going to like.  I kind of assume this is a movie that people weren't supposed to like because Olympic gymnastics is still the thing everyone's supposed to love regardless of what we learn about the coaches, and a movie that condemns the relentless judgmental nature of it shouldn't be condoned.  All the same, it's as awesome a movie today as it ever was.

Stranger Than Fiction (2006)  It's very easy to assume that Will Ferrell made this movie believing it was his Truman Show, the movie Jim Carrey made almost a decade prior that thrust him in a more dramatic fashion while also trading on his goofy persona.  And it really, really wants to be that, but I think no one really knew how to nail it.  Ferrell is a man inadvertently living the life of an author's main character in her next book.  No attempt is made to explain how this is possible, except that it's a fact that eventually everyone just accepts.  Ferrell is as great as he ever is.  Everyone in it is fine, in fact, but the story, which is a story about stories, just can't figure itself out.  So you either accept it as is or you're left scratching your head, and settle for continuing to be a fan of Will Ferrell.  Which you should be.  He's been one of the best actors in Hollywood for two decades.

Rewatches October 2021

Safe House (1999) The lack of a real film career for Patrick Stewart kind of always baffled me.  Outside of Star Trek and X-Men, he doesn't have much to show for all his considerable talent.  Rewatching Safe House, it became a little more understandable.  I think either he just wasn't offered a lot of options, or he wasn't very good at making selections from them.  Safe House is a classic Patrick Stewart performance, filled with just about every quirk you've seen if you're familiar with his Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation, except the story itself can't decide if it's ridiculous or if we should be taking it seriously.  Stewart plays an ex-CIA DIA operative who in retirement lives a paranoid life no one around him understands.  Because the film can't decide what it is, Stewart spends most of it looking unnecessarily silly.  I'm left with the question, why waste his talent on something like this?

Screwed (2000) The death of Norm Macdonald hit a lot of people pretty hard.  I had been a fan who tried to keep tabs on his career post-Saturday Night Live, but eventually he sank into an undeserved oblivion (except for a vocal performance in The Orville, his last notable work).  He was one of those people, like John Cleese, who couldn't help but sound hilarious. Screwed is Macdonald playing a butler who hatches a crazy scheme with Dave Chappelle to stage his own kidnapping, with equally ridiculous results.  I love it.

Serenity (2005) This latest rewatch I finally just threw my hands up.  Joss Whedon developed a whole cult following thanks to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which carried over into Firefly, the short-lived show Serenity continues.  Ironically, it wasn't until Whedon reached his career zenith as director of The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron that people finally decided maybe they didn't like him as much as they thought they did.  If I could sum up the career of Joss Whedon in one word, it would be: self-indulgent.  He was never really one to question the logic of his decisions.  The results, more often than not, were far more ridiculous, and not in the good Norm Macdonald sense, than anyone ever cared to admit.

Serenity (2019) In recent years critics have kind of gone out of their way to discredit the kinds of movies that used to define the mainstream.  This Serenity was one of those victims, labeled a total disaster despite being anchored by compelling performances from Matthew McConnaughey, Anne Hathaway, Diane Lane, Jason Clarke, and Djimon Hounsou, and an unusual story whose logic is spelled out despite what you might have heard, high concept, in the aftermath of Shyamalan and Nolan, having apparently become taboo.

Shazam! (2019) With the massive success of the MCU, the DCEU's relative failure tended to be explained as it lacking the sense of fun that pervaded, well, the successful MCU.  So Shazam! happened, and was actually less successful than the DCEU had been to that point.  I like it.  I don't love it (it doesn't help that lead character Billy Batson is outshined by two of his kid costars, Freddy Freeman and Darla (who hopefully has a vastly expanded role in the sequel).

Sicario (2015) Denis Villeneuve's follow-up to Prisoners, and to date his last English-language straight drama, powered by the doubt of Emily Blunt as she attempts to navigate the murky waters of Josh Brolin and Benecio Del Toro.

Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018) The follow-up, not directed by Villeneuve, is basically a repudiation of the first one, Brolin and Del Toro on the defensive, although it makes a strong case for the films best being understood as rare recent star vehicles for Del Toro, as this one ultimately hinges on his enigmatic foreign agent trying to find whatever justice he can.

Side Effects (2013) I can't really explain why Steven Soderbergh voluntarily shrank his Hollywood profile, perhaps feeling guilty over the glitz of his Ocean's trilogy.  Here he relies on Jude Law and Rooney Mara to navigate the tricky waters of the justice system and pharmacological drugs, with an unexpected twist ending.  I hadn't successfully watched the whole film previously (same as had happened with Prisoners), so it was a welcome discovery finding out what the actual film was like.  

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014) I don't think this follow-up is as successful as the first one (which was full of fun performances).  This one is more about the general pulp noir feel, which itself is still fun to experience, and adding the likes of Eva Green and Joseph Gordon-Levitt to the mix, plus increasing the size of Jessica Alba's role, creates enough new atmosphere to make it worth savoring.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) The paradox of the modern film era is that when CGI made anything possible, the very idea of movie magic seemed to become impossible to enjoy.  This early digital landscape came and went to little interest, although the results are still fun to watch, nearly twenty years later.  Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow are a punchy duo in this version of something b-movies did all the time, but this one is just capable of doing it better.

2014 Capsule Reviews

 Interstellar

rating: *****

review: For me this was unquestionably Christopher Nolan hitting his highest note after The Dark Knight, and still his best film since, his most deeply piercing of the human experience, and the reason I personally became a big fan of Matthew McConnaughey.

Winter's Tale

rating: *****

review: Even before having recently having actually read a book by Mark Helprin, I fell heads over heels for this, which I saw because it stars my favorite actor, Colin Farrell, and costars two other favorites, Russell Crowe and Will Smith.  A truly transcendent fairy tale.

Locke

rating: *****

review: Back when there was still chatter of Tom Hardy being the best actor of his generation, there was a lot of interest in this hugely ambitious and yet incredibly simple movie: Hardy talking into a phone the whole movie, and that's it.  I find the results fascinating.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

rating: ****

review: Believe or not, but for those who are aware that Isle of Dogs later became one of my all-time favorite movies, I haven't really immersed myself in Wes Anderson's films.  This was very, very easy to love, and hits the kind of notes most other films don't even dream considering while employing Anderson's trademark all-star ensemble cast formula.

Miss Julie

rating: ****

review: Colin Farrell again, acting opposite Jessica Chastain in what is essentially a play staged directly to film.  I can't think of two actors I'd rather enjoy carrying a whole movie together.

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

rating: ****

review: Yeah, it's the movie that allowed everyone to love Michael Keaton again, a brilliant jazz case study of legacy and stage acting, filmed as one long cut.  It's hard not to be impressed.

Exodus: Gods and Kings

rating: ****

review: Yeah, it's Ridley Scott waxing poetic about the sad lives of great men, on a biblical scale, but for me it's always been the showcase for Joel Edgerton's best performance.

The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby

rating: ****

review: For a brief moment it really did seem that Jessica Chastain was going to be recognized as one of Hollywood's new giants, but that's not really how it's played out since.  This is arguably her greatest showcase, with an incredible three separate cuts with which to enjoy it.

Edge of Tomorrow

rating: ****

review: You may not realize this, but Hollywood really does go out of its way to try and make you hate its stars, after a while, and they'll do it in such a way that you think it was your idea.  Tom Cruise had already reached that point ten years earlier, and he had increasingly relied on action roles to keep his popular career going.  By the time this one came out everyone was tired of the act, but then enough people realized that it was actually pretty good that it deservedly became a cult hit.

Inherent Vice

rating: ****

review: Thomas Pynchon at last earns his Hollywood moment, and it was absolutely worth the wait.

The LEGO Movie

rating: ****

review: In what might have come off as a shameless plug for toys, it actually turns out to be one of the great Will Ferrell movies, among other things.  Everyone just assumes in animated movies these days it's a Disney Pixar world, but neither Disney nor Pixar is capable of something like this.

A Million Ways to Die in the West

rating: ****

review: Maybe you have to be the rare demographic that's familiar with both the western genre and Seth MacFarlane to appreciate it, but I found this hilarious, a spoof worthy of comparison with Blazing Saddles.

Noah

rating: ****

review: Russell Crowe brings so much weightiness to his performances it can sometimes seem difficult to justify.  I think this one does.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

rating: ****

review: I mean, sure, if you're worried so much about how the villains come off, you might worry about enjoying this one.  But everything else is literally amazing.  There are no better Spider-Man movies than the Webb/Garfield/Stone ones.

American Sniper

rating: ****

review: This is the last adult drama to top a year's box office.  It's probably Eastwood's last big statement.  And it's Bradley Cooper's biggest breakthrough.  This is the one that made him capable of doing whatever he wants.  He deserved it.  

Muppets Most Wanted

rating: ****

review: Everyone loved how the first one made the Muppets relevant again.  I love how this one just lets them be the Muppets again.

Monuments Men

rating: ****

review: Critics seemed baffled that anyone would waste time about making a movie around the guys who saved art during WWII.  I think the movie itself explains that, and does it entertainingly.  

Frank Miller's Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

rating: ****

review: I love these movies.  I'm still astonished they even happened.

John Wick

rating: ****

review: I admit I was pretty late to this party, so I'm still working at fully appreciating the results, but c'mon, this is Keanu Reeves finding a third defining film series.  Who does that???

The Zero Theorem

rating: ***

review: Terry Gilliam is sometimes just weird.  This is him being weird without really nailing the magic he finds in his best work.

Hercules

rating: ***

review: The good news is that this is far, far superior to The Scorpion King.  The bad news is that Dwayne Johnson doesn't quite find the Greek myth equivalent of the Avengers he might have been looking for.

Guardians of the Galaxy

rating: ***

review: It's very enjoyable, a huge breath of fresh air in the MCU, but it ain't quite Star Wars and it ain't quite Princess Bride, both of which it kind of wants to be.  

Dumb and Dumber To

rating: ***

review: Even though Jim Carrey is one of my all-time favorite actors, I confess one of the movies he's best known for I don't really know that well.  So this sequel is greeted, by me, as funny, but maybe not the best way to try and salvage his career at that time.

Snowpiercer

rating: ***

review: Greeted as an instant cult favorite, I caught it later and enjoyed it, but not sure it's quite the treasure everyone says it is.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit

rating: ***

review: This kind of became the franchise where popular film careers came to die.  Undeservedly so.  This was another fine Chris Pine showcase with a fun supporting cast around him.

The Drop

rating: ***

review: James Gandolfini must have been a very confused man.  He received endless praise for his TV work (hey, Bryan Cranston has received the same treatment, by the way), but anytime he did a movie he couldn't find any love.  This is another movie worth considering to try and figure out why.  Tom Hardy, meanwhile, does another accent job.  A movie I personally need to revisit at some point, too.

Deliver Us From Evil

rating: ***

review: At this point I had such high expectations for Eric Bana movies, it was disappointing to see that he had reached his brick wall, from which he has yet to emerge.

The Theory of Everything

rating: ***

review: Kind of the opposite of A Beautiful Mind, this is the Stephen Hawking movie that kind of asks you to be okay with the way his marriage ended.  Colors my whole perception of the results.

X-Men: Days of the Future Past

rating: ***

review: Hugh Jackman had become bigger than the X-Men franchise from the moment he first appeared in it, but at the same time he also forever found it difficult to outlive.  This is the exact moment in which he began to succeed, and it's all the more impossible to care about anything else happening around him.  Except Quicksilver.  That was the second brilliant thing these X-Men movies did.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

rating: ***

review: I originally thought of this as the Nick Fury movie.  Then I thought of it as the elevator fight movie.  Now I guess I really just have to rewatch it, and I still think it's one of the better MCU efforts, but it's still tough to think of the whole movie as a distinct achievement.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

rating: ***

review: I actually do really enjoy the Hobbit movies, but Jackson's decision to have that one guy make truly ridiculous efforts to try and get away with being a terrible person, it gets in the way.  It's the main reason I haven't made an effort to rewatch the trilogy, which on the whole I think is better than the first one.

The Expendables 3

rating: ***

review: I love how this one commits to Mel Gibson being the villain.  If he can't be a Hollywood star like he used to, he ought to at least have interesting roles available.

Transformers: Age of Extinction

rating: ***

review: I love how these movies suddenly just dive into a dystopian future in this one.  

Let's Be Cops

rating: **

review: If Jake Johnson had significantly changed his persona from New Girl for this, he might have gone on to have an actual movie career.  Still enjoyable.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

rating: **

review: I always thought the Transformers were far too big in their movies.  And essentially it's difficult to love these movies for the same reason.  Only here, it just seems more egregious.

300: Rise of an Empire

rating: **

review: On the one hand, it's great to just let Eva Green be the lead actor, but on the other, it's kind of disappointing that they did make an effort to replace Gerard Butler, but they didn't really try.

Divergent

rating: **

review: I love how I really did hear people at the time praising the concept.  But this is strictly a cash grab attempt on the heels of the Twilight movies, and everyone involved knew it.  could have been better if they'd actually made a commitment.  Still more worth watching the complete series than the even less inspired Hunger Games movies, which are laughably just full of themselves.

Left Behind

rating: **

review: Kind of technically the last time Nicolas Cage was in something the studio actually expected someone to see while making it, a remake of a prior set of films based on the book series.  Too bad the whole budget was blown on Cage, although it's still interesting to think he made it at all.  In some alternate reality there're people who equally believe the whole series will be filmed someday, much like the Narnia books.

Selma

rating: **

review: Still one of my biggest cinematic disappointments.  Someone finally makes a movie about MLK, Jr., and it's barely even a movie.  

Rewatches September 2021

 I rewatched Jackie Brown and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (the latter because of its new, and very excellent, novel adaptation) from Quentin Tarantino.  In hindsight Jackie Brown is absolutely the beginning of Tarantino's mature career, when he wasn't just trying to be cool but make truly great movies, too.  The detour into Kill Bill led into a string of movies that truly went for the gusto.  There's no one who makes such complete statements as Tarantino, maximizing the skills of the considerable casts he assembles with the best storytelling and dialogue possible.  Visually there are better filmmakers, certainly, but Tarantino has been so consistent for so long and can do whatever he wants, and has.  And that began with Jackie Brown.

Also unofficial entries this month were Bram Stoker's Dracula (a highly underrated piece of Hollywood art) and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (an undeserved poor reputation, though Robert De Niro again proves he's a great actor with a fairly limited range).

Now onto the catalog rewatches:

Red Cliff (2008-2009) John Woo's epic two-part meditation on the causes of war, including a defense of its necessity at times, is probably going to be very tough to top as my favorite Chinese movie.  I hadn't watched it since the first watch, so it was very much like watching it again for the first time, and again well worth it.

Rent (2005) In college the musical made sense, and in 2005 the movie did, too, but in 2021 it seems like a whole experience that was only possible from a community that only gazes back on itself, which at this moment feels too insular for me.  Still the right call to plug Rosario Dawson into a cast otherwise comprised of the original Broadway actors, including Idina Menzel before Frozen.

The Right Stuff (1983) I think even counting this one I have not technically stayed awake for the whole thing, which the filmmakers clearly saw as a potential problem the historic figures it chronicles couldn't figure out; the excellent cast makes them as lively as they can, but this is a long slog and most of it heads in a direction where the piloting skills that make these guys stand out isn't even necessary, so the story is one long effort to make the audience forget this.  But it's a worthy experience full of real heroes, including the guy who didn't even get to be an astronaut, Chuck Yeager, who drove an author and a director to distraction anyway, and rightfully so.

The Rocketeer (1991) After Tim Burton's Batman, comic book characters were seen as the next big thing, so Hollywood instantly sought whatever was available, and filmable, and the result was a decade that never once lived up to the potential, thanks in large part to relying on nostalgia acts with no connection to what people actually wanted to see.  Rocketeer is great, but it's exactly old-time movie serial material, with no effort at all to update it.  Indiana Jones it is not.

Russian Ark (2002) In the years since, Hollywood has been chasing the continuous tracking shot trick with increasing eagerness (Birdman, 1917), but this is the film that got there first.  Funny enough, it's exactly as Russian as you might expect, even going so far as to feel more like a Russian novel than a film, so keep that in mind (although in this realm you're probably more likely to be interested having it described that way, if you had any interest already).  For non-Russian, non-European audiences (read: American audiences) it's somewhat impenetrable.  But it's still a considerable achievement, and well worth experiencing at least once.  Like The Right Stuff, I still haven't technically made it all the way through, but this viewing left me more confident that I would be interested in doing so at a future date.

Rewatches August 2021

Moby Dick (1998) This is a TV miniseries starring Patrick Stewart as Captain Ahab, with Gregory Peck, who starred in the 1956 theatrical version as Ahab, also appearing.  Stewart had, two years prior, evoked and quoted from the Melville novel in Star Trek: First Contact, which made it ironic for him to end up in this production (as Picard, he eventually realizes revenge is a poor motivator).   I haven't really watched it too many times, so it was worth revisiting.  Stewart makes the role Shakespearean, as expected.  Ted Levine's Starbuck is the real star of the production, however, a counterpoint to Ahab that eclipses even Henry Thomas's Ishmael.

Molly's Game (2017) Jessica Chastain is one of my favorite actresses, and the script is from Aaron Sorkin, so I always assumed I'd love a movie pairing them together.  The opening, in which Molly Bloom explains the irrelevant end of her competitive downhill skiing career, is basically the only time either the script or Chastain really shine, however.  The rest is a gambling tale about a person making bad decisions and endlessly rationalizing them, and that's not really something that interests me.  This is the second time I've watched it.  Maybe a third would change my opinion.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) A longtime favorite, but apparently one I really hadn't watched in a very long time, as this seemed like a pretty fresh experience with it.  All the classic bits, of course, but I found other things I'd completely forgotten about (I have more recent experience with The Album of the Soundtrack of the Trailer of the Film of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which is something I used to listen to a lot), so that certainly made this rewatch rewarding.

Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979) This satire about Jesus Christ is pretty amusing and insightful, as Monty Python tends to be, but it isn't really, for me, as successful as Holy Grail, perhaps because it doesn't attempt to be nearly as silly, but rather as close to serious as Monty Python was ever likely to be.  For general historical satire, I guess I prefer Mel Brooks' History of the World, Part 1.

Moon (2009) It had been a long time since I watched this, too!  Sam Rockwell has turned into such a dependable actor, it's almost easy to take him for granted.  This was before "doomed astronaut" became a whole genre, by the way!  I also enjoy seeing the work of Duncan Jones when it still seemed everyone was going to love him forever.  But it turned out, basically, to be for one film.  Everyone loved him for one film.  (This one.)

Mrs. Miniver (1942) Since I'm still a home video kind of guy, my collection sometimes happens by adding movies because they're paired with other movies.  I spent a long time not watching Mrs. Miniver, so long I eventually completely forgot what movie its DVD was paired with, but now I can say I've corrected this oversight and that I quite enjoy Mrs. Miniver itself, starring Greer Garson in the title role, in a movie that apparently helped motivate the US into taking WWII seriously, which itself is a great way to sell the movie, as far as I'm concerned.  I still wish the title were different, though.

The Odyssey (1997) Another TV miniseries, a chance to revisit one of my favorite classics (actually, so is Moby-Dick).  The greatest takeaway this time is that Christopher Lee's cameo as Tiresias might as well have been an audition for Saruman (and for all I know, basically was).

Out of Sight (1998) George Clooney, once his career finally got into gear, ended up producing a lot of great material in a short amount of time.  This is the first of his classics, and it's just one of the many signs that we live in an age that finds it impossible to identify new classics that it still isn't recognized as such.  Costarring Jennifer Lopez before everyone decided she couldn't act because she decided to start a singing career.

The Perfect Storm (2000) I'm always on the fence as to whether this belongs in Clooney's classics list, but I'll always be a sucker for it, coming from Maine and loving seafaring adventures of one kind or another.  

Pete's Dragon (2016) I'm such a sucker for the director David Lowery, and am continually confused as to how difficult it is for his work to be appreciated, by both audiences and critics.  I loved Pete's Dragon the first time I watched it.  I love it even more now.  The most audacious and inexplicable live action remake of a Disney movie yet attempted.

The Pink Panther (2006) My dad loves the original Clousseau movies.  I'm partial to the Steve Martin versions.  I love Martin's Clousseau, who unlike the Peter Sellers version isn't just a sight gag machine but a lingual hilarity in on the joke of a Frenchman being played by, well, someone who isn't French.  Martin butchering the word "hamburger" is an all-time highlight for me, in and out of Clousseau lore.

The Pink Panther 2 (2009) I love the first one so much I was always uncertain about the second one.  This time I was able to cast aside all doubts.  I love this one, too.

The Princess Bride (1987) Another classic, and one that's generally accepted by most film fans.  I mean, I find it difficult to understand how anyone wouldn't love it.  In a lot of ways, a love letter to classic Hollywood (Cary Elwes is basically an ode to Errol Flynn as Westley, as Mel Brooks would later make all the more blatant in Robin Hood: Men in Tights), and as simple and pure a romance as was ever filmed, and a host of fantastic supporting performances.  My parents always dismissed Peter Falk because of something or other he did in his personal life, but I couldn't care less.  His framing scenes with Fred Savage are icing on this cake.  I later read the original book, which is just as rewarding an experience.

Prisoners (2013) The first time I watched Denis Villeneuve's Hollywood debut, I ended up falling asleep for most of it.  This is not, as many people try to contend when they fall asleep during a movie, a criticism; I fall asleep watching stuff all the time.  Turns out I missed a great deal of the movie.  This is an intricately designed movie, a classic that is yet another victim of the current inability to recognize new classics.  Villeneuve's later movies are absolutely reflected in the results, and I have renewed expectations for his Dune.  

R.I.P.D. (2013) In the years before Deadpool, no one really knew what to make of Ryan Reynolds, and so his work was easy to dismiss.  R.I.P.D. was dismissed as a ripoff of Men in Black, mostly because of the fairly similar premises.  But R.I.P.D. is very much its own thing.  Reynolds comes closest, pre-Deadpool, to finding the exact Deadpool vibe, but it's really Jeff Bridges getting to play his ornery cowboy act one more time that's the star of this show.  That and Marissa Miller.  (That whole bit got completely lost because nobody wanted to admit there was anything worth enjoying about the movie.  When the complete opposite is actually true.)

Also worth mentioning is that upon rewatching 2021's The Courier, I found that I love it even more.  I can't fathom how little appreciate this movie's gotten so far.  I just find movie reactions inexplicable in recent years.  Hopefully all this will even out eventually.

Iron Sky: The Coming Race (2019) Review

rating: ****

the story: Survivors of an apocalypse living on the moon discover their best hope for the future is inside the hollow Earth…and all they need to do is defeat Space Hitler to obtain it!

review: Obviously I don’t review a ton of movies as described above (nor watch them!). I am not a fan of schlock cinema. I don’t make a point even to watch it if it’s the subject of sarcastic commentary. On the surface Iron Sky: The Coming Race is pretty much exactly schlock cinema. You can watch it with the expectation that the results are going to be ridiculous, and be happy with it.

I haven’t even seen the first one yet. I did see Finnish director Timo Vuorensola’s first feature film, Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning, a madcap Star Trek parody, and have remained interested in what he does next. When the chance to see Coming Race came up, I figured it was worth a look.

It was!

For those keeping score, it’s very possible to see in the results direct nods to another sci-fi franchise. There’s a spaceship culled from Star Wars’ Millennium Falcon, the kind of nod that has surprisingly taken a lot longer to happen (outside Spaceballs’ Winnebago, of course!), more than forty years in the making. In fact, the career of Vuorensola suggests that we’re getting that much closer to actual responses to George Lucas, rather than mere attempts to cash in (which was easy enough to attempt…immediately).

The movie, with its political and even social satire (the riff on Steve Jobs and smartphone culture, employing a surprisingly effective performance from Tom Green of all people, is more successful than evoking Sarah Palin, the part critics who just wanted to dismiss the results fixated on), knows when to take things seriously and when to just unleash expectations (Space Hitler’s abruptly hilarious fate!)

Surprisingly or not, comic books, and comic book movies, often seem like they want to be exactly like this, and too seldom manage to pull it off, despite considerable, sometimes painfully desperate, efforts. 

Anyway, it’s the kind of movie that seems unlikely on basically every level, including the ability to be legitimately entertaining. It pulls it off!

Knight and Day (2010) Review

rating: ****

the story: A CIA operative has been set up, and in the process of clearing his name his life becomes entangled with an unlikely accomplice.

review: I will readily admit, until a rewatch a few weeks back I was as convinced as anyone that Knight and Day was nothing much writing about. In 2010 Tom Cruise was scrambling to put his career back on track, and when I saw this particular effort in theaters I thought it was a particularly desperate byproduct. I even dismissed costar Cameron Diaz, who has been a favorite since her film debut in The Mask, as forgettable.

I don’t believe any of that anymore.

If anything, Knight and Day has the potential of being a modern classic. It’s lighthearted and flippant concerning its surface action elements. The whole point is calculated screwball, which in older Hollywood days was the holy grail of romantic comedy. It’s a unique movie in Cruise’s career, which has in the decade or so since its release relied ever more heavily on straight action.

It’s really a waltz between Cruise and Diaz; eventually the tables are turned and it’s Diaz in control rather than the character who seems to have been one step ahead and her to be dozens of steps behind. 

And there’s plenty of support around them, too, something of an embarrassment. Maggie Grace, officially wrapping up her time on Lost, is there in one of her many tiny supporting roles (she’s also in the Taken movies, although you’d be forgiven to assume they’re all just Liam Neeson brandishing his action jones). Peter Sarsgaard (nearly always a villain, alas!), Viola Davis, Paul Dano actually feeling like he’s perfectly cast for a change, even Gal Gadot!

The director in charge of all this is the perennially criminally underrated James Mangold, who has proven himself a master of modern cinema. In fact, restoring Knight and Day, and this is not why I choose to champion it now but it’s a nice benefit, as a treasure would add an additional feather to his cap (Walk the Line, 3:10 to Yuma, Logan, Ford v Ferrari).

Too often today we reduce the art of moviemaking to…whatever’s not the box office blockbuster. There’s a huge tradition and a wide range of material out there. Recognizing achievements is a fine way to encourage the breadth of the medium to continue pursuing that range, rather than allowing it to narrow to “blockbuster” and “art film.”

That and acknowledging that movie stars continue to deliver, regardless of whatever happens in their personal life.

The Mauritanian (2021) Review

rating: ****

the story: A Guantanamo Bay detainee struggles to win his freedom.

review: There are plenty of people who would assume they know exactly how to respond to a movie with this subject matter. And yet, here is The Mauritanian being more or less released to little enough attention. 

It deserves better. It is of course an incredible story, and a true one, about the most controversial of the responses to 9/11 (no shortage of material there), and relentlessly sure that it is in fact representing an innocent man caught up in it.

Tahar Rahim plays the suspected terrorist Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Jodie Foster and Shailene Woodley his public defenders, and Benedict Cumberbatch the face of the prosecution, who quickly enough questions if he’s on the right side of justice.

Rahim became an instant favorite of mine from Mary Magdalene, where he played a surprisingly sympathetic Judas (so he has clearly found himself a type), Foster is Foster, Woodley has the trademark random moment where she seems to forget she’s not a model (for me, anyway; it popped up in the Divergent movies when she’s flying in a futuristic helicopter; I don’t get why she keeps getting away with it, although otherwise she’s a fine actress). For Cumberbatch, putting on another fine vocal performance, it’s an interesting companion to the equally compelling The Courier, also released this year. Zachary Levi has a supporting role as a part of the system that let everything happen to Slahi. It’s another chance to broaden his range, a full dramatic turn where he’s not a good guy.

At the end there’s footage of Slahi himself, which lends credibility to the idea that this story can be taken at face value, that the film’s positive opinion of him is a reflection of how positive he himself is, so many years after all this began, everything he endured.

The effect is to put a face on the whole thing, not just to say there’s been gross injustice or that everyone detained there has a similar story and is worth rooting for, but that so few stories have come out, much less one this seemingly unlikely. Many reviews have suggested it’s some sort of confusing mess, which it is not. Presumably so the critics don’t come off as sympathetic to a terrorist.

Foster’s character has a response to that kind of reasoning right in the movie. Don’t let such nonsense get in your way.

Judas and the Black Messiah (2021) Review

rating: ****

the story: Black Panthers organizer Fred Hampton becomes the target of the FBI.

review: The big draw, for me, is watching Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out) and LaKeith Stanfield. I assumed Stanfield, who has showed up in a number of interesting projects in recent years, was going to be my favorite of the two, but it’s actually Kaluuya who lights up the screen as Hampton, speaking with rapid fire, charismatic ease. Stanfield is usually pretty subdued, but his presence alone tends to be eloquent. Here he can’t really contend with Kaluuya.

The story is pretty even-handed, even though Stanfield plays the informant who eventually sets up Hampton’s assassination. We watch as Stanfield’s handler, played by Jesse Plemons, grapples with the morality of their assignment, working under the famously heavy hand of J. Edgar Hoover (Martin Sheen).

The results are perhaps best appreciated for what they’re not: Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, a bafflingly lighthearted but on the whole similar story. I was never that enthusiastic about Lee’s film, but seeing this is all the more proof of how easy it is to improve upon. I get that Lee basically saw room for a farce (black guy infiltrates KKK!), but for a filmmaker so well known for his passion, the results were inert. 

Not so with Black Messiah. It even manages to get me onboard with Plemons, a supporting actor who’s gotten a steady amount of positive buzz recently. As the FBI liaison, he at last finds a context that makes sense to me. 

Hampton’s legacy is relatively small as a leader of the black community. His story plays out in the shadow of far more famous assassinations: MLK Jr., Malcolm X. The movie posits that Hampton was poised to succeed them, and that the FBI was desperate to prevent that from happening. That he was militant, at least in rhetoric, is where viewer interpretations of his potential will come into play, but the film itself stays away from judgment.

Suffice to say, his death still plays as tragedy. This is a story that needs telling, and this is a fine way to experience it. It might even be a great way. I will periodically revisit to ascertain.

2013 Capsule Reviews

Saving Mr. Banks

rating: *****

review: An astonishing look behind the curtain of the creative process twice over as Tom Hanks in of his later great roles, Walt Disney himself, convinces P.L. Travers to let him adapt Mary Poppins. Colin Farrell has perhaps his best supporting role as Travers Goff, whom Disney figures out, eventually, is the key to understanding the author’s story.

Man of Steel

rating: *****

review: Zack Snyder begins his epic vision of Superman (and later, the whole Justice League), taking as mythic, and human, an approach to superheroes as cinema has yet achieved.

Star Trek Into Darkness 

rating: *****

review: A bold reimagining of the second Star Trek movie, with Benedict Cumberbatch and his marvelous voice in perhaps its perfect showcase.

The Lone Ranger

rating: *****

review: You can already see how little I care about popular opinion. This is an Americana masterpiece. Gore Verbinski and Johnny Depp (Pirates of the Caribbean) reunite in their single best film together.

About Time

rating: *****

review: Just when you’re absolutely sure I’m crazy, there’s this miracle, Rachel McAdams in her second time travel classic (The Time Traveler’s Wife) along with Domhnall Gleason, Bill Nighy, and director Richard Curtis.

Frozen

rating: *****

review: When I did my original 2013 rankings I had a considerably more dim view of it, but that was before my niece helped me watch it...a million times. And it was worth it. It’s a classic.

Gravity

rating: *****

review: This was kind of the year Hollywood transitioned from what it had been to what it’s been since, which left a year of unexpected wonders that straddled both, and perhaps none embody that more than this one, a one-star (Sandra Bullock, cashing in the last of her popular credentials at the time) showcase from a director, Alfonso Cuarón, at the height of his powers.

Oz the Great and Powerful

rating: ****

review: Probably the purest cinematic expression of Oz on film to date. It’s also James Franco’s perfect starring vehicle.

Prisoners

rating: ****

review: I came very late to this party, having only later discovered the genius of Denis Villeneuve, but having done so it was then even easier to appreciate how great his Hollywood debut is.

The Way, Way Back

rating: ****

review: Nat Faxon and Jim Rash somehow still don’t get the credit they’ve earned. This is perhaps their lowest key movie, but it’s as good as anything they’ve done.

The Counselor

rating: ****

review: There was a period where Cormac McCarthy was Hollywood’s new favorite author, but inexplicably that ended the minute he created an original screenplay. I’ve got enough experience with his books that I can say, this movie has more clarity of purpose in its brutality than can sometimes be seen in his work. And a truly all star cast.

Dead Man Down

rating: ****

review: Colin Farrell subdued, with the Hollywood debuts of the original Swedish Girl with the Dragon Tattoo star (Noomi Rapace) and director, plus Terrence Howard in a typically killer supporting role.

Fast & Furious 6

rating: ****

review: I admit to sometimes having a hard time remembering what happens in which one of these starting in about the fifth one (debut of Dwayne Johnson, for those keeping score). This one is the dramatic return of Michelle Rodriguez, and so is probably as important as anything in building the family legacy of the series.

Her

rating: ****

review: Spike Jonze directs this not-as-far-fetched-as-it-seemed movie as Joaquin Phoenix officially cleanses himself of the bizarre documentary experiment of I’m Still Here.

Mud

rating: ****

review: Jeff Nichols emerges as one of the best new directors of the modern era while getting to crow about helping recast Matthew McConaughey as a mythic southerner.

Pain and Gain

rating: ****

review: I’ve only just seen this one, another key element in the mainstreaming of Dwayne Johnson, with a highly underrated supporting turn from Tony Shalhoub.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

rating: ****

review: The last great Ben Stiller vehicle is perhaps also the last great old Hollywood movie.

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints

rating: ****

review: The other big directing find of the year is David Lowery, sort of the second coming of Terrence Malick but with the instant artistic flourish of the Tree of Life Malick.

After Earth

rating: ****

review: M. Night Shyamalan officially ended this phase of his career by giving the spotlight to Will Smith’s kid, who will never have Will Smith’s charisma. But in this story, that didn’t really matter. Like a lot of Shyamalan’s work, pointlessly dismissed.

World War Z

rating: ****

review: Brad Pitt stars in the unexpectedly successful adaptation of the book originally presented without narrative.

Nebraska

rating: ****

review: In a different era, this Alexander Payne effort would’ve catapulted Will Forte to big success.

American Hustle

rating: ****

review: This is just David O. Russell shamelessly showing off how much clout he’d developed. Worth it!

Blue Jasmine

rating: ****

review: I honestly have no idea if this Woody Allen film has any other merit, but it’s another great Cate Blanchard performance. I have absolutely no idea why she’s not treasured far, far more.

The Great Gatsby 

rating: ****

review: The Pretty Good Gatsby adaptation.

R.I.P.D.

rating: ***

review: Honestly I love this one. The only reason I’m rating it so low is that I just haven’t gotten around to watching it again. A highly underrated cult classic.

The Wolverine

rating: ***

review: Almost, but not quite Logan.

Epic

rating: ***

review:  Never did get to find out my niece’s opinion on this one. I’m a Colin Farrell completist. I watched it. I enjoyed it.

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues 

rating: ***

review: About as good as can be expected. Another step in Adam McKay’s later development as a dramatic director, considering its base satire of cable news.

12 Years a Slave

rating: ***

review: Obviously worth watching and considering but perhaps too obvious when it might have been bold.

Captain Phillips

rating: ***

review: The point doesn’t even come until a fleeting moment in the end when Tom Hanks gets a quiet showcase as the Everyman caught in events bigger than him. Hanks later attempted to duplicate this in Sully and his better 2013 movie with A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, just trying to be relevant again. I think he finally nailed it with News of the World.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

rating: ***

review:  Such is my disappointment with the acclaim afforded to a previous trilogy (the first of which I love, the other two...) that I think this one’s better but it doesn’t seem to be reflected in my rankings. To be revisited at some later point, perhaps.

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

rating: ***

review: Two movies in 2013, both in supporting roles for Jim Carrey. Unthinkable at the height of his career. Steve Carell is the nominal lead, already sliding down his high. The two previously traded off with Bruce Almighty/Evan Almighty.

A Good Day to Die Hard

rating: ***

review: To date the final in a consistently enjoyable series.

Thor: The Dark World

rating: ***

review: Often considered at or near the bottom of the MCU films, some of it’s quite good.

The World’s End

rating: **

review: The last of three to date Pegg/Frost/Wright collaborations is the one I find least satisfying, at least, perhaps, until a rewatch.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation 

rating: **

review: These films weren’t terrible. Could have been better. This one at least unabashedly has Dwayne Johnson carry it.

Despicable Me 2

rating: **

review: The first one’s a classic. I saw this one about five years back on a loop. Still couldn’t tell you much of what it accomplishes.

Jack the Giant Slayer

rating: **

review: I’ve watched this one twice now. It’s worth at least that much. Maybe the third time’s the charm.

Kick-Ass 2

rating: **

review: Like a lot of the things derived from the mind of Mark Millar, desperate for cult status. And like a lot of it, falls short. But has Jim Carrey!

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

rating: **

review: Jeremy Renner probably still regrets cashing in for this. But it’s probably still as close to a Hawkeye movie as there’ll ever be.

Iron Man 3

rating: **

review: The twist with the villain is fine. The rest of it is a self-indulgent waste of time.

Riddick

rating: **

review:  After Chronicles of Riddick failed to stick, someone thought it was a good idea to return to the feel of Pitch Black. They were wrong.

Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

rating: *

review: My sister’s a big fan of the books. She doesn’t like the movies at all. I liked the first movie. This one’s an insult.

Don Jon

rating: *

review: Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s desperate lob.

Oscars 2021

The Oscars were this past Sunday. Somehow I don’t think I’ve even blogged about the Oscars here before, but I figured it was worth it for this strange past year. If you read this blog you know I had very different ideas about the best films of 2020, but it’s interesting that Hollywood felt conciliatory to the Americans it’s kind of spent four years despising by handing Nomadland Best Picture and Frances McDormand her third Best Actress for as many similar roles. 

I actually used to be quite devoted to the Oscars. In recent years they seem to have gone out of their way to honor niche films, which is all the funnier because for years the complaint has been that they have abandoned populism (even though, at least in the past twenty years at least, every time they have the popular choice ends up as an “it didn’t deserve it” argument, except inexplicably Return of the King, which was only a return to diminishing rewards for a trilogy that began brilliantly and then just muddled along). I suppose they had no choice but to honor a niche film from 2020, because that’s really all there was.

Personally, if a movie is released exclusively on a streaming platform, it shouldn’t be eligible for an Oscar. It’s a TV movie. TV movies are eligible for Emmys, not Oscars. Or Golden Globes, which cover both. I get that streaming has excellent prospects these days, but it’s temporary money, and hopefully everyone knows it. Even HBO can’t find projects like it used to. Clearly it’s just me, but I’m also tired of these services (not all of them) keeping these projects locked up, even rare things like the completed The Other Side of the Wind, which is just criminal. That’s also the opposite of the theater experience. Eventually we have options. When that’s no longer the case, it creates a warped effect that strangles art. Imagine if we weren’t allowed images of Banksy’s art. His work would be lost forever!

But, anyway, congrats to Nomadland and McDormand.  Maybe this is another step in bringing people back together. 

2020 Movies Viewed/Ranked

Viewed/Ranked

1. Crazy Samurai Musashi 
2. Waiting for the Barbarians 
3. True History of the Kelly Gang
4. Emma.
5. WW84
6. Tenet
7. Bill & Ted Face the Music
8. The Gentlemen 
9. Capone
10. The Way Back
11. Sonic the Hedgehog 
12. News of the World
13. Downhill
14. Greenland
15. Ava
16. Let Him Go
17. Unhinged
18. The Night Clerk
19. Bloodshot
20. Birds of Prey and the Fabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn 
21. Bad Boys for Life
22. The Burnt Orange Heresy 
23. The Rhythm Section 
24. The New Mutants
25. The Last Full Measure
26. Mulan
27. Archenemy 
28. Irresistible 
29. The Hunt
30. Jungleland
31. The Tax Collector
32. Infidel
33. Emperor 
34. The Vanished
35. Fatman
36. Legion
37. Robert the Bruce
38. The Empty Man
39. The Warrant 

Crazy Samurai Musashi (2020) Review

rating: *****

the story: One samurai versus four hundred.

review: Audacious, assured storytelling is my favorite kind. As such, it’s tough for me to experience something like Crazy Samurai Musashi (also known as Crazy Samurai: 400 vs 1) and not fall instantly in love with it, which is of course what happened.

The showcase of the movie is one take that stretches for nearly the whole feature, an hour-plus of continuous fighting for the eponymous figure, with a few grateful breaks. If you’re going to do something like that, you need to keep things interesting, and the assured directing of Yuji Shimomura does exactly that:

The action, framing, scenery, and score are constantly shuffled.

As the showdown continues, Musashi tires but never gives up. It’s what the movie needs to propel it to even greater heights, a believability that can sometimes be lost in such artful presentation. Long takes, whether real or implied, can sometimes be dismissed as gimmicks, especially if pushed to feature-length, as if that’s most of what’s being achieved. This is an experience that takes that into account, and pulls the audience into the drama.

The story seems simple enough, and barely there, but sometimes simplicity is exactly what is needed. Far too often filmmakers rely on the same decisions others have made, however executed. Crazy Samurai has had a complicated reception, I think, because it breaks so many rules, expectations viewers tend to use as crutches. Yet it remains vivid throughout, telling a complete story, even as it swerves away from the expected, dives into myth at the end. It’s a samurai John Wick at that point. This is not a bad thing! All you really need to know is that this one guy probably has more honor than all his hundreds of opponents combined, a point suggested but hardly belabored. 

And that may be the best thing to say about it. It’s a movie whose appeal seems obvious, too obvious. But ends up being more than earned, a new blueprint in a seemingly exhausted template. For a movie that took a long time to have an official release, it has become, officially, my favorite of 2020.

Shakespeare in Love (1998) Review

rating: *****

the story: Will Shakespeare’s inspiration for Romeo & Juliet.

the review: One of the most ridiculous common opinions in film criticism is that of course Saving Private Ryan should have beaten Shakespeare in Love at the Oscars. I think this mostly stems from the original backlash against Harvey Weinstein, the since-disgraced producer who helped usher the ‘90s independent film renaissance. 

Saving Private Ryan is a combat-drenched, grinding experience of misery. Its showcase moment is the landing at Normandy on D-Day, and then a parade of stars then and from the immediate future (I always like to remember Vin Diesel’s part as a reminder he’s good for more than muscles and cars), until we reach Ryan himself, Matt Damon, who surprises everyone by not even wanting to be saved. This would work far better if it didn’t take so long to reach him, if we had followed his war experiences in parallel to the unit led by Tom Hanks. Instead it’s just a lot of disjointed war scenes.

Shakespeare in Love is quite different. It’s a deliberately crafted experience that speaks both to the heart of our culture, in exploring a fictional account of the greatest playwright who ever lived, and to social issues, the very role of women in society.

And it’s filled with great acting. Judi Dench won wide acclaim for a relatively brief performance as Queen Elizabeth; Joseph Fiennes, in his one shining moment as someone other than the younger brother of Ralph Fiennes, seizes the opportunity; and Gwyneth Paltrow, who later seems to have gone out of her way to get people to hate her, has a truly effervescent role of a lifetime.

And Ben Affleck, before anyone had even considered to hate him, steals every scene, and Tom Wilkinson, getting to play a bad guy who gets to be a good guy, and Geoffrey Rush being Geoffrey Rush, and Colin Firth actually being insufferable, as I often find the overhyped praise he tends to garner...

It’s a celebration, that rare moment Shakespeare gets to be loved, not merely for his words but as a person. There’s a great running gag involving Christopher Marlowe. In short, the whole movie is a culmination of the last time everyone agreed Shakespeare was worth the time, when Branagh was still in the thick of building a career around him. And remembering that this is a great movie worthy of its praise and laurels might even bring the Bard back, again. 

And they don’t make movies like this every day. That’s the biggest sin of trying to downplay it, that you can have a thousand war dramas (the same year, Malick returned with The Thin Red Line, for instance) but very few efforts to have a romance that isn’t saccharine, that has ambition, speaks about a famous person, and one who himself wrote great romance. The boldness of Dench’s Elizabeth alone is a testament to what’s of real value here.

Emma. (2020) Review

rating: *****

the story: A young society lady is master of everything except her own heart.

review: Happily, Anya Taylor-Joy is experiencing one of those rare conflagrations. She’s someone I’ve grown to enjoy watching who also happens to be having a moment of critical popularity. Emma. is one of several recent projects she’s appeared in to help her reach that status, and I can say that I am utterly enchanted with it.

Of course, it’s based on the oft-adapted book by Jane Austen, though in the hands of first-time director and herself a remarkable discovery, Autumn de Wilde, it’s beyond fresh. It’s like elevating Austen to the realm of Shakespeare while simultaneously freeing the material in the most lively ways possible.

The story itself is as relevant as ever, full of piercing social insight, and in this presentation (a period drama in the vein of The Favourite) as likely to be enjoyed as appreciated.

The casting is impeccable. Taylor-Joy, of course, unleashed to her full potential, surrounded by equally inspired actors, including the perennial standout Bill Nighy as well as breakthrough performances from Callum Turner and Johnny Flynn. Turner particularly intrigues me here; in the Fantastic Beasts films he’s struck me as the least fantastic element, but he now strikes me as a revelation of physical presence alone, a Stan Laurel smile pressing itself against the starched collars out of the many lush costumes on display.

The score alone deserves recognition! I always love when a film is truly complete like that, in direction, staging, acting, and music. That’s how to reach the brass ring with me. 

It’s the kind of film you can happily share with those who think the classics are stuffy, or even if you don’t want to fuss over Emma.’s origins at all. It stands on its own. A classic crafted from a classic.

Vanilla Sky (2001) Review

rating: *****

the story: A perfect life goes off the rails in disorienting ways.

review: I just watched Vanilla Sky for the first time. It’s one of those films that took on instant notoriety, so that if you never saw it all you knew was that it was probably problematic at best, incomprehensible at worst. It could not have arrived in theaters at a better, or worse, time.

It’s a remake, but that didn’t help anyone make any better sense of it. It was just weird. 2001 gave us two other, similarly complex films at even more diverging ends of the spectrum. One was A.I. Artificial Intelligence, a Spielberg movie that was also a Kubrick movie, and no one knew what to make of that. The other was Memento, the movie that made Christopher Nolan’s career. With Vanilla Sky, this was a mind-bending confluence of films that seemed to try and reconcile the cerebral injection of M. Night Shyamalan into the language of American cinema. And of course only one of them survived in the popular consciousness, the new voice.

Ten years later Nolan had reprocessed it into Inception, of course, but that was well after Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind had already gotten there, a critical favorite but a box office dud.

Funny enough, but Vanilla Sky might almost be termed an earnest remake of another Jim Carrey film, The Mask. Cameron Crowe seems to go out of his way to evoke the comparisons early in the film, from the casting of Cameron Diaz herself to Tom Cruise aping Carrey’s cartoonish antics for a brief but memorable moment.

And, I gotta say, I really wish anyone remembered any of this.

Crowe was a Hollywood golden boy for a split second. He had a huge success with Jerry Maguire, and then followed that up with the well-received Almost Famous, a version of his own origins. Then he made Vanilla Sky and suddenly could do nothing right.

This is easily his most ambitious film. Anyone, regardless of how they view the merits of the end result, should be able to admit that. Heck, it’s arguably Cruise’s best spotlight, too, at last willing to let it all hang loose. And it’s fascinating. And it spins its web about as seductively as any film appearance Penelope Cruz has ever made, so human and yet so very intoxicating at the same time. And the big twist, even if you know the source material, works, too, for all the subtle setup put into it. The results never lose sight of the end goal, and never wallow in misery. (The only real comparison I have to that is Steven Knight’s brilliant Serenity.) Cruise always has something interesting to work off of, a different character, whether Diaz, Cruz, or Kurt Russell or Jason Lee. There’s even Michael Shannon in a small role for future-proof credibility!

Having now seen it, and maybe it’s the subsequent history of film, and even the equally ambitious TV show Lost I have the pleasure to draw from, but I’m so, so glad to have done so. The history of film in the 21st century falls a little more clearly into place, and a classic takes its place in history.

Hopefully other viewers catch up at some point, too.

The Latest Hollywood Hatchet Job On Orson Welles

Orson Welles was the boy wonder. He achieved miracles. And then he made Citizen Kane, and then to achieve anything at all again became a miracle.

Famously, Welles had to contend with studios butchering his films. The Magnificent Ambersons was the first of them. Later he labored years on projects he couldn’t find proper funding or support for, including The Other Side of the Wind, finally completed and released via Netflix only a few years ago. And now Netflix touts Mank, in which the genius of Citizen Kane itself is ascribed to Herman Mankiewicz. 

Mankiewicz and his family (Tom, even TV host Ben) were a part of the Hollywood establishment. Quite obviously, Welles was not. The film Welles is sometimes best known for these days is The Third Man, which he starred in but did not direct. The insidious nature of the continuing campaign against Orson Welles is such that people don’t even watch Citizen Kane. It’s a critical darling, after the fact, that’s occasionally listed as the best film ever made, but still not a popular one. And anytime it slips from the critical radar, it becomes that much easier to ignore completely. Or rewrite, as it were.

And internet people with opinions (surely an epithet) will talk about Mank as if it actually achieves something. I’ve read from one such voice its Welles is a better one than the real Welles, which is exactly the level of absurdity it’s likely to provoke. Its director, David Fincher, and its star, Gary Oldman, certainly have distinguished pedigree. I just don’t understand why either would so eagerly hitch their wagons to such a project. And it might even shed light into how Citizen Kane was conceived. But not written. Not created. That was Orson Welles. Herman Mankiewicz never approached that level of achievement, before or after. Orson Welles did, with every project he ever pursued.

And we’re supposed to be happy denying that. We’re supposed to marvel at this other guy, this Hollywood hack, in a biopic that attempts to frame him as the real hero of the most sensational movie ever made, the pinnacle of a career that not only chased greatness but accomplished it repeatedly, despite every obstacle. And industry obstruction. Now including posthumous effort. Of which Mank, sadly, may be only the beginning.

Interstellar (2014) Review

rating: *****

the story: An astronaut goes on an epic journey.

review: Outside of Memento and The Dark Knight, my favorite Christopher Nolan film has long been Interstellar. That seems like weird wording, but they are three distinct achievements, and so at least for me it makes sense. The conventional logic always picks Inception as Nolan’s best high concept, but for me Interstellar is infinitely better. It’s not just a piece of clever filmmaking. It may be Nolan’s best emotional investment.

2001: A Space Odyssey effectively began a whole new genre. It’s often overlooked as such but Star Trek: The Motion Picture pioneered efforts to solidify the astronauts in trouble genre. The Hollywood Solaris remake revived it, and of course in recent years there have been so many that many of the more recent ones, including worthy contenders like Ad Astra and High Life are actually obscure. But the best of them, arguably the best overall, is Interstellar.

This is Nolan reaching as far into the profound as he has so far been willing to go, at least as far as the sweep of history 2001 meant to be, toward Terrence Malick, Tree of Life territory. A lot of Nolan’s movies are allegories for his criticisms of conventional modern thinking, what we keep telling ourselves we shouldn’t be doing, what’s so wrong with the world. Here he aims himself at the abject nihilism of our future prospects, chief among them what happens to a planet pushed to its environmental brink, and whether or not humans are capable of adapting.

He pursues this by telling a story about a man and his daughter, a man who goes on an epic quest, and the daughter who doesn’t want him to go, a man who sees wonders, and a daughter who sees wonders, too. About how these wonders are strangely interconnected. 

Matthew McConaughey had just reached his peak of critical approval. He had a one-two punch with True Detective on TV and Dallas Buyers Club in the movies. Suddenly he had his choice of the best material. His charisma has often been taken for granted, his stereotype seen as a big dumb hunk of beef. Yet the career I see is one filled with fascinating choices, full of unbelievable diversity. That’s a story for another day. Suffice it to say, but out of all that Interstellar, for me, somehow stands heads and shoulders above all of it. And his best scenes are wordless, are McConaughey crying at seeing his children, growing up, on a screen.

The bond he shares with his daughter, in particular, portrayed at three different ages, Jessica Chastain in the middle, is of course the heart of the movie. The message their bond sends is often overlooked. Especially if it’s a Disney movie, we’re often told the younger generation has all the answers, but this is a movie that acknowledges how progress can be made through generational ambition, how the dreams and the bonds forged between a father and daughter can change the world.

The splendor of movie magic finds its poetry in an infinite bookshelf that allows them to communicate through time. It feels like Nolan channeling Shyamalan, and maybe this is the precise moment in which they finally meet. I love them both. They are both treasures of the medium. I don’t mind observing this.

The sheer spectacle of the cast alone is worth noting. There’s McConaughey and Chastain, of course; Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, Matt Damon! Topher Grace, John Lithgow, Ellen Burstyn, Timothée Chalamet, David Oyelowo, Wes Bentley...I officially ran out of space in the number of labels Blogger let me add, that’s how rich this cast is. Some roles are larger than others. Every one of them is worth admission.

It is a transcendent experience. For me, that’s the height of cinema, the ability to reach well beyond the normal, not merely some beautifully told tale, but one that’s a truly singular experience, that could not be duplicated in another medium, that uses all the available tools to maximum effect, a convergence of epic talent and vision.

The very strange thing is that Arrival is very much at the same level and tells much the same story and is as tall an achievement, and I don’t much think of them as rivals, and they were in theaters within two years of each other. That’s pretty stellar.

WW84 (2020) Review

rating: *****

the story: Wonder Woman learns and helps others see the danger of wish fulfillment.

review: Sometimes, I admit, if a movie receives overly glowing praise I start to look for reasons other than the movie itself. It goes the same for negative reviews, of course. Generally I will outline all the reasons I did, or didn’t, like a movie in my reviews for this very reason, total transparency. Wonder Woman was a movie that received glowing reviews, in large part, I always suspected, because it was what people thought the DCEU should be like. I hate message reviews. If you like a movie, like it for its own merits. So I kind of put off watching it for a while, and maybe as a result of all this I wasn’t overly wowed by it. 

Well, I was certainly wowed by WW84. Absolutely. This is the kind of confident achievement I expected from the first one, a bold statement that also works as a full spotlight for Wonder Woman herself. So yes, it works on at least two levels.

I suspect part of why people in general aren’t wowed by it is because it hinges itself on a message that seems to fly in the face of all current logic. It seems to say that getting what you want, and perhaps even deserve, might inherently be a bad thing. Most of the people casting wishes in the movie are asking for seemingly good things. Well, as the old saying used to go, careful what you wish for. Funny enough, the movie even references the equally old curse of the monkey’s paw, a magical solution that comes with a terrible price. Genie magic traditionally comes with the same catch, which Disney’s two versions of Aladdin are careful to explain, too.

Yet when Wonder Woman does it, it might actually seem like a bad thing. We’re in a strange era of empowerment at the moment. Somehow in order to be seen as worthy, everyone has to fit into some sort of stereotype. Wonder Woman is of course a woman, and as such empowerment should simply mean she’s a powerful woman. I mean, right?

Except this is a woman who embodies truth, not power. She literally spends the whole movie fighting bad guys while simultaneously going well out of her way to rescue bystanders. Her idea of heroics isn’t to collect all the laurels (I’m almost sad that from the point we next see her she’ll have acquiesced to being a public figure) but merely to do the right thing.

Her rival in the movie has a similar attitude until jealousy leads her to forget it. That’s telling, too. The villain is motivated to make a success of himself. Both of them quickly lose sight of what they stand to lose well before they hold any real power as they pursue that “better version” of themselves.

The opening scene itself is edifying. The young Wonder Woman is so caught up with the idea of winning a competition that she overlooks both the fact that she is by far younger than her opponents and that her shot at victory only happens because she takes a shortcut, even if the opportunity presented itself by accident and not design. We never really see how she overcomes impatience except that in the present she has spent some sixty years leading a lonely life of little outward acclaim and convinced she’ll never love again. And maybe it’s the idea of patience itself that’s the point.

Patty Jenkins is a miracle of visual splendor in a movie that in a lot of respects looks like something we’ve seen as far back as Superman: The Movie. Yet she never once settles for something less than extraordinary. The whole movie pulses with vigor, packed with deliberate, calculated intention.

Gal Gadot and Chris Pine have even better chemistry this second time around, Gadot that incredibly rare idea of a humble superhero, Pine the movie star who never shies away from taking a backseat. Kristen Wiig, who never quite became a movie star despite killing it in Bridesmaids, pulls off her expected (and superhero movie trope) goofy origin mode into an increasingly credible threat. Pedro Pascal, who has become a geek darling thanks to The Mandalorian, is the best ‘80s throwback with his bad hair and cheap but flashy suits. Robin Wright and Connie Nielsen of course remain perfect elder Amazons.

Even the name of the movie was well-calculated. “WW84” can of course be extrapolated as “Wonder Woman [in] 1984,” but also “World War 1984,” or even simply “World War 84,” by which the movie acknowledges Wonder Woman’s WWI origins, and the wars that happened, and nearly happened, in the time between. It seems somehow forgotten that in 1984 the Cold War was in fact still happening. I don’t think that’s Reagan being depicted as president, meanwhile, or doesn’t have to be viewed as such. The nuclear race was raging long enough that just a few years later the most famous single comic book story (Watchmen) hinged itself on the apocalyptic outcome everyone had dreaded since at least the ‘50s.

It’s the kind of experience that isn’t about superheroes being cool. It isn’t a movie set in the ‘80s that tells you so by steeping itself in ‘80s music. It’s a movie set in the ‘80s, drawing on that time period for certain elements but is otherwise a movie about what makes Wonder Woman unique, what makes her special, what makes her, at last, worthy of starring in big budget movies. 

And you wonder what took so long. This isn’t an entry in the DCEU, this is its own experience, fitting in with things we’ve already seen, but most concerned with showcasing a vibrant new take on an increasingly well-worn genre, in which we think we’ve seen it all. If WW84 is any indication, we certainly have not. The best may in fact be yet to come. And WW84 is now in the conversation for the best we’ve yet seen.