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Candy Cane Lane

23 Dec, 2023

Hmmm. I can see Eddie and Amazon are hoping to create another annual viewing tradition. It is pleasant enough. Edie and Tracy Ellis are cute enough. Jillian Bell is manic as you could wish. Unfortunately, the whole movie is a bit too flat and a bit to desperate in trying to pull every heart string and play every angle.

Worth a morning after bender watch, but not repeatedly.

Last Christmas

18 Dec, 2023

What if you crossed A Wonderful Life with The Sixth Sense and threw in a dash of Bridget Jone's Diary; this I guess.

This George Michael laden movie skips along past logic and sense to serve meandering good spirit, helped along by a-list talent who are chewing the scenery like a dense fruit cake. Not good, not bad. Not sure if it would bear repeat holiday viewings, as it is so dependent on the twist.

Blue Beetle

18 Dec, 2023

Moments of cute, padding with the most irritating side characters you can imagine. Susan Sarandon gave a more nuanced performance in Rocky Horror.

The Flash

18 Nov, 2023

This movie didn't need to be made. And once they mad hit, they'd didn't need to release it. yet they did. The whole movie functions for a set of mildly amusing cameos that involve a lot of horrible movie in between.

It wasn't even worth watching on the plane.

A Huanting in Venice

15 Oct, 2023

Another installment in the Kennent Branagh reboots of Agatha Christie. After the disastrous Death on the Nile, I almost didn't bother. It turned out to be a solid movie for halloween. It was atmospheric. In the tradition of the classic Aggie movies, it was a travelogue to some exotic local. Instead of sunny beaches or other idyllic settings, it was a rundown manor of lost grandeur. Nothing about the acting or plot really stands out, other than it is spook enough and doesn't offend.

Supernatural

07 Oct, 2023

A supposed classic that makes little sense. The idea is a compelling: a scorned murderess' need for revenge is so powerful that she posses a meek socialite to carry out one more murder. It is filled with sinister and shifty characters, but Carole Lombard is neither funny nor frightening. So the movie skulks at the edges of being spooky, but ultimately fails to deliver.

A Stormy Night

05 Oct, 2023

A Stormy Night feels more like an uneven student film than an art house or indie film. The film takes place in a single night and location; giving it the feel of a play. The camera work is compelling. The shots are well framed and the camera moves organically around, creating a sense of claustrophobia and intimacy. Marcos has an easy job. His role is to act like a roguish vagabond artists who is above and bemused by social conventions. He is casually proactive mostly by staying quiet. Alan is supposed to be the anxiety ridden good boy. He follows the rules and is upset when other people seems to get away with ignoring them with little consequence. His role is too intense with speeches and rants that no human being would give, not even in their own heads. Neither character seems to grow or change. It is a single night with some mild tension.

A Strange Loop

07 Sep, 2023

Wow! Wow! Wow! Get ready for some intersectional trauma in the best way possible. I walked in with no idea what I was about to see and I left stunned and babbling. It was a powerful play about a specific human being and their experience with is so different and alien to my own – but so universal and honest that it connects to everyone on a very personal level. It was an experience to be in a room with a couple hundred unique humans and each of us being activated and reflected in some specific facet of the story that connected to us individually and bound us all collectively.

Barbie

02 Sep, 2023

The fact that this fun and goofy movie has become a lightening rod for the so called culture wars is just a glaring example of how bankrupt the conversation is. This movie is about as edgy or challenging as House Bunny or Easy A. It stuck to "feminist" theory that went mainstream 25 years ago with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Anyone claiming to be shocked or offended by this is as honest as people claiming to be shocked by the revelations around the Catholic church.

The movie itself was stylish and silly. It was an immersive fantasy. Like The Nightmare Before Christmas, this is basically a "when two worlds collide" premise. What happens when the plastic feminism of Barbie collides with the real world? The faults and joys of both are lovingly lampooned.

Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny

12 Aug, 2023

There are two Indiana Jones movies: 1 and 3. Temple of Doom exists only for movie marathons. 4 and 5 were never made. Both were from some buzzaro universe where right is wrong, up is down, and Indiana Jones is junk.

Oppenheimer

03 Aug, 2023

If you have a cool report on Oppenheimer, and hope to watch a movie instead of reading a biography, then this is NOT the movie for you. The movie doesn't explain anything or give a clear narrative in a clear, historical flow. It doesn't set the scene, explain the historical context, or even give you much idea about the main players. Instead of focusing on a factual narrative, it puts you into the mind an emotions of Oppenheimer. It tries to connect you to the truth of the experience more than the truth of the events.

There is a scene where Oppenheimer sees cubist Picasso portrait of a woman. The painting is a metaphor for the whole film. You could never tell what the woman really looked like from the portrait. but it did explore a more esthetic level of truth about the subject. This film is a cubist biography. You will not learn about the facts, but you will connect to the esthetics.

Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

01 Jul, 2023

This movie deserves a lot more love that it gets. This is not Shakespeare or highbrow art, but it is a solid heist movie set in an enduring realm with enjoyable characters. The chemistry between players is fun and enjoyable. Hugh Grant shows he can chew scenery with the best of them. The special effects and visualization is solid. And there are a few gems thrown in for fans of D&D

Moulin Rouge

13 Jun, 2023

It was a glorious assault on the senses. This jukebox music whiplashes you through hits and quick cuts that leave you spinning and doing your best not to sing along. The script and characters are familiar, so you don't have to focus on the plot and just move from one bedazzlement to the next. The hard truths of the movie were softened to make things a hazy, joyful romp.

Everything Everywhere All At Once

20 May, 2023

Yes! Yes!

Where Marvel completely failed, this movie triumphed. It is wrapped in ridiculous sci-fi, Doctor Who-esque special effects. But the story is a gem. It is about a woman and all the family she loves. It is about all the roles she has to play. It is about the trauma of family, of trying to be everyone to everyone. It is about learning who you are, all of who you are, and healing and acceptance. Oh, and also about a giant space bagel that will end the multiverse.

The Mirror Crackd

30 Apr, 2023

Don't. Just don't! After a series of successful Agatha Christies, the studio tried for another. Each film declined from the initial Murder on the Orient Express, but this one was the final installment of this particular batch. While the previous films all offered exotic locals and had the escapism of a travelogue; this gets stuck a cheerful but very bland English village. You get a few moments of poisonous dialogue, but it never reaches the peaks that Dynasty could give in a 2min Alexa fight.

Quantumania

16 Apr, 2023

Paul Rudd's great gift was to take a character that no one cared about and make you love him. But in this movie, I didn't care. It was like Star Wars and the Carebear movie has an ill conceived child. Fight scenes and major moments all based on dumb behavior and poor timing. Bill Murray makes a delightful cameo; but that was the best thing going for it.

Wakanda Forever

08 Apr, 2023

This is one of those franchises that is better than the source material has any right for. Solid acting, sympathetic characters, moral grey areas, and tails of the outsider all combine to do what Marvel does best. This story is solidly in the wheel house of franchises like The X-Men and Spider-Man. It is a little bit sad that best representation of people of color in the Marvel Universe are not from a real place, as if we had to make up a nation for black excellence. Maybe that is the harshest statement about racism, that there are so few real places for black excellence to flourish in the real world of America's Hollywood.

Angela Besset is a queen in every sense of the word!

Notorious

15 Mar, 2023

Spoiled brat? Nazi sympathizer? Spy? Harlot? Good time girl? Patriot?

Ingrid Bergman keeps you guessing as she navigates this Hitchcock triller with a charming and vile Cary Grant as her foil and Claude Rains as her ...

Strange World

27 Jan, 2023

You cannot watch this movie without thinking back to Indiana Jones, Disney's Atlantis, and Avatar the Last Airbender; but the movie is a direct homage to the exotic explorer genre. On another level, it is a reframing of Disney's Brave, a less than successful story about the intergenerational trauma of a child living up to and/or rejecting a parent's expectations and repairing the damage to their relationship.

Strange World fails to deliver on the human story. The characters conversations and behaviors are too abrupt, like the Cliff Note version of human interaction:

  • Dad, I don't want to be an explorer. I like plants.
  • Fine, I'll abandon everyone here and that will be the end of this conversation.

The visuals reference Avatar: Legend of Kora for city and character design; and the blue space Smurf version for the fantastic visuals of the wilderness. Imagination runs wild in the visual design, which annoying sounds like R2D2 knock offs.

The plot hits you over the head like an anvil, which like the blue space Smurf movie, ruins so much of the magic.

Shanghai Express

07 Jan, 2023

Watch! The! Classics!

I was blown away. 90 years after it's making, this film still delivers a spectacle. In 1932, people must have lost their minds. Anna May Wong and Marlene Dietrich deliver full characters with costumes, glances, and sparse lines.

From the moment the train leaves the station, you are on a ride through someplace completely different.

The Man Who Never Was

02 Jan, 2023

Mildly interesting, at best. This slow paced movie is interesting not because of anything on screen, but because of the real story behind it. Apparently the silly plot was the real life idea of the real life Ian Flemming, the man behind James Bond.

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