A to Z Challenge 2020 - C

Cast Away (2000)
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt, Wilson
Brief Thoughts: For a lot of people during COVID-19, this whole movie might end up being a giant metaphor. Coincidentally, Tom Hanks even contracted the Coronavirus, but he’s better now. I still find it impossible that appreciation for this movie is relatively limited. It’s a perfect showcase for Hanks, and yet, I think for both Hanks and Robert Zemeckis it was used as an excuse to shuffle them away from mass consumption. Hollywood seems legitimately to discredit filmmakers if they spend too long in the spotlight. And while Hanks remains active today and can garner the occasional hit film, he had not been a serious Oscar contender since winning two in the ‘90s. By any reasonable standard he ought to have won for Cast Away. (Russell Crowe won that year for Gladiator, and of course within a few years he ended up blackballed despite continuing his consistent excellent work.) The ending of Cast Away even brilliantly subverts the stereotypical Hollywood ending. Basically a movie that will have a long shadow.

Children of Men (2006)
Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Starring: Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Charlie Hunnam
Brief Thoughts: Clive Owen may be the opposite of a Tom Hanks or a Russell Crowe, in that he was never particularly a big star, but his consistent excellence makes it perhaps okay to distill his legacy into a single great movie, which of course is what Children of Men is. In a different era Owen would have been Bogie (nearly chose Casablanca for inclusion today, but am sticking with relatively recent movies), but his roles in recent years have been limited mostly to supporting ones. Bogie never relinquished the spotlight once Hollywood figured him out.

Collateral (2004)
Director: Michael Mann
Starring: Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith, Mark Ruffalo
Brief Thoughts: This is actually ones of the movies I’ve watched in the past month, so I’m glad for an opportunity to talk about it here. Like John Travolta, Tom Cruise has been battling backlash to his membership in Scientology over the past few decades. Unlike Travolta, Cruise has managed to maintain a viable movie career, thanks in large part to his Mission: Impossible films. The fact that most of his recent roles have been in action movies suggests he believes that’s the only way to remain relevant, which means his dramatic roles, recently, have been few and far between, which, for me, makes all the more valuable. And Collateral is a very good one. It’s the reason Jamie Foxx had a major movie career for a few years, which allowed him to make movies like Ray, Django Unchained, and The Soloist (which was undeservedly ignored on original release).

Collateral Beauty (2016)
Director: David Frankel
Starring: Will Smith, Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, Helen Mirren, Keira Knightley, Michael Peña, Naomie Harris
Brief Thoughts: In the tradition of Seven Pounds, Will Smith stars in an instant classic drama that’s...completely ignored. Filled to bursting with an excellent supporting cast around him, Smith is at his typical best as a grieving father who can’t move on with his life until fate intervenes. One of those movies where if there was any conversation about it at all, no one seems to have seen the movie  itself before talking about it (another example: Passengers).

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)
Director: George Clooney
Starring: Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore, George Clooney, Julia Roberts
Brief Thoughts: Sam Rockwell is probably one of the most inexplicable movie stars ever. His breakthrough role in The Green Mile might have typecast him as unsavory, and yet he just keeps showing up in spotlight roles and even starring in movies (one of his many highlights: Moon). Probably the one that got him to this point is Confessions, which you can probably assume at this point is, to my mind, inexplicably underappreciated.

Coriolanus (2012)
Director: Ralph Fiennes
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Gerard Butler, Vanessa Redgrave, Jessica Chastain, Brian Cox
Brief Thoughts: Almost the default for modern Shakespeare in film is Kenneth Branagh, but this one comes from Ralph Fiennes. My interest, however, is in Gerard Butler. Probably for pretty much everyone this bit of casting is inexplicable. Even though Butler’s career began well before 300 (consider, for instance, his featured roles in Timeline and Phantom of the Opera, where he played the Phantom), he became in the popular (and Hollywood) imagination stuck in the role of a big dumb brute. Eventually this threatened to curtail his career entirely, but recently he’s been making sequels to Olympus Has Fallen, and I have little doubt he’ll find a way to keep his career interesting.

A to Z Challenge 2020 - B

Be Cool (2005)
Directed by: F. Gary Gray
Starring: John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Vince Vaughn, Dwayne Johnson
Brief Thoughts: This is the follow up to Get Shorty, which I have yet to see, another of the “John Travolta reunites with a Pulp Fiction costar” movies that didn’t end up causing as much interest as his agent thought they would (the other was Basic with Samuel L. Jackson). Travolta’s mid-‘90s comeback had fizzled out in large part to the disaster of Battlefield Earth, and the initial backlash to public awareness of his membership in Scientology. Suddenly he couldn’t do anything right. But Be Cool is a great movie, and it’s another of those great Vince Vaughn spotlights that no one ever seems to appreciate, because inexplicably no one realizes how great Vince Vaughn is. It’s also the earliest Hollywood indication that Dwayne Johnson was going to be able to help audiences forget that he used to be known as The Rock and end up having a hugely successful movie career.

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)
Director: Benh Zeitlin
Starring: Quvenzhané Wallis
Brief Thoughts: A truly magical modern fable concerning Hushpuppy and her journey in the Bathtub. In a different year it might have captured the public zeitgeist in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, but it was somehow either too early or too late. Either way, it’s one of my favorite movies.

Big Trouble (2002)
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld
Starring: Tim Allen, Rene Russo, Stanley Tucci, Zooey Deschanel, Ben Foster, Johnny Knoxville, Tom Sizemore, Dennis Farina, Janeane Garofalo, Patrick Warburton, Omar Epps, Jason Lee, Sofia Vergara, DJ Qualls, Andy Richter
Brief Thoughts: As if that cast weren’t enough! It’s Tim Allen’s fourth best movie role, after Scott Calvin, Buzz Lightyear, and Jason Nesmith. Somehow by this point everyone forgot what a huge legacy he had already developed. Ignoring this instant classic was like the symbolic nail in the coffin.  Based on a book by Dave Barry, still my defining humorist of modern times.

The Break-Up (2006)
Director: Peyton Reed
Starring: Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Aniston
Brief Thoughts: Here’s another prime example of the inexplicable inability to appreciate how awesome Vince Vaughn is. To my mind, this is a classic romance. I guess because the turn of the millennium seemed to close the book on Hollywood romance (between Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, and Jerry Maguire, the preceding decade was, admittedly, a pretty good one) it became hard to appreciate the newer stuff. Vaughn is never more broadly appealing, going beyond his usual chattermouth jerk persona in his lament over losing Jennifer Aniston, who, you recall, is Jennifer Aniston, who at this point was still struggling to confirm that she was a big deal, and not just because of Friends.

Buffalo Soldiers (2001)
Director: Gregor Jordan
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Ed Harris, Anna Paquin, Scott Glenn, Michael Peña, Idris Elba
Brief Thoughts: Here’s yet another movie I never understood how it could possibly be ignored. A wicked military satire and classic showcase for Joaquin Phoenix, perhaps it can finally be rediscovered thanks to Phoenix himself finally receiving wide acclaim thanks to Joker.

A to Z Challenge 2020 - A

Here’re some movies that begin with “A”:

A Ghost Story (2017) 

Directed by: David Lowery (The Old Man & The Gun)

Starring: Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara

Brief Thoughts: Lowery is unquestionably one of the best directors working today. You don’t have to worry about him being poached for a blockbuster project, since that already happened (Pete’s Dragon), an artist in the order of Terrence Malick who crafts his movies with exquisite patience, with increasingly fascinating results. It took Malick decades to reach the breakthrough that was The Tree of Life; Lowery’s first major release (Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, which also stars Affleck and Mara) was released a mere four years prior to Ghost Story, which spends its time obscuring Affleck under one of those traditional bedsheet looks as he watches time progress for Mara, and eventually later occupants of his house.

A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014)

Directed by: Seth MacFarlane

Starring: Seth MacFarlane, Charlize Theron, Liam Neeson, Neil Patrick Harris

Brief Thoughts: MacFarlane is far better known for his TV show Family Guy and the movie Ted, but for me he will probably never top Million Ways, a ruthless western satire that will forever appear irrelevant to movie fans who can’t make room, for one more movie,  next to Blazing Saddles. Fun fact: Theron and Neeson later made appearances in MacFarlane’s Star Trek tribute series The Orville. Features Neil Patrick Harris’s fourth most iconic performance, after Doogie Howser (pretty sure I’ve never seen this show), Dr. Horrible, and Barney Stinson, but his best mustache ever, and the best song  about mustaches ever. I mean, if that is not praise enough, I do not know what is.

A Monster Calls (2016)

Directed by: J.A. Bayona

Starring: Felicity Jones, Liam Neeson

Brief Thoughts: Jones plays a mother dying of cancer. My mom died of cancer the year before the movie was released. Watching it (and reading the book on which it’s based) was part of my grieving process. Originally I wasn’t sure how much of the story’s impact came from the confluence, but I think I’ve settled into admiring the breathtaking creative achievement as much for its own sake as for its resonance. Doesn’t hurt to capture Neeson (there he is again) in a perfect vocal performance, one of his best parts ever, in a career with no shortage of contenders.

A Thousand Words (2012)

Directed by: Brian Robbins 

Starring: Eddie Murphy

Brief Thoughts: Maybe it’s because my first Eddie Murphy experience wasn’t Saturday Night Live or Beverly Hills Cop or 48 Hrs. (I still haven’t seen any of that material), but rather Trading Places, but I’ve never had a problem separating the legend from the talent. I watch movies like Bowfinger, Life, and A Thousand Words, and it’s the sonic genius in Murphy’s vocal performances (Mulan, Shrek) that I experience. The particular genius of Thousand Words is that it has Murphy play completely against type, forced to display his considerable physical comedy chops (an art that has been ignored since the golden age of film) rather than his famous mouth, in a twist that is usually reserved for Jim Carrey movies. 

Oscars 2020

A few weeks ago the 2020 Oscars were presented, honoring films released in 2019.  I was able to stay awake during the whole ceremony!  (I can fall asleep during anything; the preceding astonishment is less a traditional indictment of the length of the ceremony in recent years and more an acknowledgment that I managed not to, well, fall asleep.  Anyway.)

Best Picture
Parasite won this.  Without actually having seen it (though I have blogging buddies who were among the early cheerful fans), I can only scratch my head over this curious insult to the rich and poor, regardless of the culture, and wonder if it happened at all because of Get Out.  Of the nominated films, I was equally perplexed by Jojo Rabbit (likewise haven't seen), am convinced that 1917 is chiefly an editing spectacle (still haven't seen), wondering if Marriage Story is an update on the traditional Hollywood relationships-are-hell narrative (haven't seen), but would've been happy for Joker, Ford v Ferrari, or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (loved all three).

Best Actor
Joaquin Phoenix (Joker) won this.  Deservedly.  Still weird to think the Joker, of all superhero characters, has become such an Oscar magnet, but he keeps eliciting great performances and great writing. 

Best Actress
Renee Zellweger (Judy) won this.  Couldn't be happier for her.  Probably worst acceptance speech of the night.

Best Supporting Actor
Brad Pitt (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) won this.  I think the younger Pitt would've been amused.  But he had the best acceptance speech of the night.

Best Supporting Actress
Laura Dern (Marriage Story) won this.  I'm sorry, she's hot.  Apparently she will always be hot.

Best Original Screenplay
Parasite won this.  Really should've been Once Upon a Time in Hollywood or Knives Out.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Jojo Rabbit won this.  Really should've been Joker. 

Best Animated Feature Film
Toy Story 4 won this.  My niece, years from now, will be baffled that Frozen II wasn't even nominated.

Best International Feature Film
Parasite won this, too.  Some people were baffled that it could be nominated in both categories.  I see no problem here.

Best Original Score
Joker won this.  Well deserved.

Best Original Song
Rocketman won this.  As often as not, the Oscars have no clue in this category.  And most of the performances were awful.  I have no idea why half the songs were even nominated.

Gemini Man (2019)

rating: ****

the story: A hitman ends up fighting a younger version of himself.

review: Here's one of those movies whose reception has just baffled me, for any number of reasons.  I get that Will Smith hasn't been popular in about a decade, but for me, he's still an undeniable talent, and I love that he's getting back into the spotlight.  I also get that Ang Lee somehow lost his critical credibility (I still have no idea how), but to continue treating him as if he's just another filmmaker is beyond idiotic.  And for Smith and Lee to make a movie together and everyone still just sees no worth in their efforts...

Listen, I get it.  You see a movie like this and assume it's just a gimmick: Will Smith battles himself.  It's just another of those movies capitalizing on special effects.  But there's beyond simplifying it.  There's a lot to love, even if you're not as enamored of Smith (and Lee) as I am.

Take Mary Elizabeth Winstead, for instance.  When I watched the movie in theaters, I was initially baffled.  Is that Cobie Smulders? Wait, it isn't?  Oh, it's Winstead!  The last time I caught her was in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, which I took as the geek version of (500) Days of Summer (which was a welcome interpretation).  I expected that she'd go on to have a notable, visible career.  So there I was, a decade later, not recognizing her, thinking she was someone else, and suddenly remembering how much I liked her.  Her character in Gemini Man is pretty much exactly Smulders' MCU character, but given actual space to breathe (which in a half dozen appearances Smulders never got, which was why she had to take the act on the road in Jack Reacher: Never Go Back, and then just got to be awesome in Stumptown).

Then there's Clive Owen.  Actually, this whole movie features people inexplicably unappreciated by today's audiences.  Owen achieved immortality at least once, with Children of Men, but then he drifted into obscurity, and has begun resurfacing in recent years, although you'd hardly know it, because no one cares anymore.  This older Clive Owen is no longer the good guy leading man, suave and self-confident, but the bad guy, and yet he's still magnetic.  Of course. 

Smith is great, as he always is, and watching his current self opposite a version of his younger self (basically just before his career exploded) is a distinct treat.  The motorcycle stunts are a selling point all their own. 

But the best thing about Gemini Man is the unexpected point of the story: Lee is actually arguing that suffering is a good thing.  He believes that soldiers should feel pain.  This is different from not giving them treatment.  Smith ends up far better when he allows himself to embrace a personal life.  (In the mix is Benedict Wong in another standout supporting role, after his MCU appearances.)  The younger Smith is supposed to be one of those perfect killing machines who don't question anything.  In other forms this means robots.  But as we've repeatedly been told (even in Will Smith movies), robots are going to be people, too.  Eventually they'll want exactly what we want.

Even when we don't realize we need it.  We need our pain.  Sucks to have it, but it's an essential part of living.  Pain, regret, loss, all of it.  It helps remind us that there's so much more to life, things that will make us feel those things. 

Movies, especially blockbuster action movies, aren't supposed to help us worry about such things, yet Smith's movies have consistently, as his career has progressed, linger on them.  Lee's movies have sought the transcendent, universal messages that went far beyond his origins, the kinds of movies critics find easy to enjoy, and continually reward, but so often fall far of the mark that more ambitious movies attempt.  Such as, yes, Gemini Man.

2020: The Year Ahead

We've already seen the release of Bad Boys for Life this past weekend.  Here's some other notable upcoming 2020 movies (all release dates subject to change):

• Birds of Prey (2/7) The long-awaited return of Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (2/14) For me it's Jim Carrey's big screen comeback.
• Bloodshot (2/21) Vin Diesel attempting to launch another superhero cinematic universe.
• The Way Back (3/6) New from director Gavin O'Connor starring Ben Affleck.
• My Spy (3/13) Another shot at solo stardom from Dave Bautista.
• A Quiet Place Part II (3/20) I've yet to see the first one.
• Mulan (3/27) Disney's biggest live action remake gamble.
• The New Mutants (4/3) The last Fox/first Disney X-Men movie.
• No Time to Die (4/10) Daniel Craig's final Bond.
• Black Widow (5/1) It was finally made.
• The Personal History of David Copperfield (5/8) Starring Dev Patel.
• Greyhound (5/8) Starring Tom Hanks.
• The Woman in the Window (5/15) New from director Joe Wright, starring Amy Adams.
• Fast & Furious 9 (5/22) Latest in the series.
• Wonder Woman 1984 (6/5) Sequel.
• Top Gun: Maverick (6/26) Sequel thirty years in the making.
• Minions: The Rise of Gru (7/3) They're back.
• Free Guy (7/3) Sort of the test pilot of Disney Deadpool.
• Ghostbusters: Afterlife (7/10) They're back!
• Tenet (7/17) Latest from director Christopher Nolan.
• Infinite (8/7) New from director Antoine Fuqua starring Mark Wahlberg.
• Bill & Ted Face the Music (8/21) Keanu Reeves is sort of a demigod.
• The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard (8/28) Sequel.
• Unhinged (8/28) Starring Russell Crowe.
• The Trial of the Chicago 7 (9/25) New from Aaron Sorkin.
• Last Night in Soho (9/25) New from Edgar Wright.
• BIOS (10/2) Starring Tom Hanks.
• Death on the Nile (10/9) Kenneth Branagh's next Hercule Poirot.
• West Side Story (12/18) Spielberg's update.
• Dune (12/18) Denis Villeneuve's update.
• The Last Duel (12/25) New from director Ridley Scott starring Adam Driver, Matt Damon, and Ben Affleck.
• News of the World (12/25) New from director Paul Greengrass starring...Tom Hanks.

2019

Viewed/Ranked

1. The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
2. Yesterday
3. Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood
4. Joker
5. Knives Out
6. Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker
7. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
8. Hotel Mumbai
9. Serenity
10. The Standoff at Sparrow Creek
11. The Lighthouse
12. Detective Pikachu
13. The Hustle
14. Dumbo
15. Glass
16. High Life
17. The Upside
18. The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot
19. Ford v Ferrari
20. Donnybrook
21. Under the Silver Lake
22. Captain Marvel
23. Fighting with My Family
24. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
25. Men in Black: International
26. Dark Phoenix
27. Avengers: Endgame
28. Alita: Battle Angel
29. Shazam!
30. Gemini Man
31. Into the Ashes
32. Spider-Man: Far From Home
33. The Secret Life of Pets 2
34. Hellboy
35. Captive State

Other Notable Releases

• 1917
• A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
• A Dog's Way Home
• Ad Astra
• All Is True
• Angel Has Fallen
• Brightburn
• Charlie's Angels
• Doctor Sleep
• Downton Abbey
• The Farewell
• Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
• Fast Color
• Frozen II
• Good Boys
• Harriet
• Hustlers
• Jojo Rabbit
• Judy
• The Kid Who Would Be King
• Little Women
• Midsommar
• Missing Link
• Motherless Brooklyn
• Pain and Glory
• Parasite
• Pet Sematary
• Rambo: Last Blood
• Richard Jewell
• Stuber
• Terminator: Dark Fate
• Toy Story 4
• Uncut Gems
• Us
• The Wandering Earth
• Where'd You Go, Bernadette
• Zombieland: Double Tap