Godzilla: King of the Monsters

Oh, no! The giant monsters are coming! What do we do??
Release Godzilla.
Are you insane? He’ll kill us all.
No. Godzilla wants peace. He will help us.
It’s so crazy it just might work…

Stuber

I watched this on the plane. Although a lot of the cursing was censored, and the strip club scene was pitifully cropped, this was FUNNY. Dave Bautista and Kumail Nanjiani understand and master that perfect, buddy-comedy dynamic. Bicker about everything but save each other’s asses when it counts. The director constructs Rube Goldberg action scenes triggering unexpected and hysterical chain reactions during which the leads are suitably vocal and alarmed. It's a throwback to the Shane Black buddy-cop movies of yore; skillfully nostalgic but with a new and unexpected wise-cracky tone. It’s light and funny; a solid airplane movie.

Dolemite is My Name

It’s an unalloyed pleasure to watch Eddie Murphy preen and riff as Rudy Ray Moore in this rags-to-riches, underdog biopic. A lot of this feels almost formula: the plucky gang of misfits, the cooperate naysayers, the supportive woman, the over-confident loser. Think Bowfinger. But as ginned up as the plot can be at times, Eddie’s performance is the gold standard. It’s purely entertaining and, believe it or not, heartwarming. Kudos to Netflix, who are on a winning streak making what USED to be considered safe bets but aren’t any more for some reason. So far, one of the best movies of the year.

El Camino

Jesse’s aged. Being held captive in an underground cage didn’t do wonders for his skin. So, it has nothing to do with the seven years since Aaron Paul did his last Breaking Bad episode. And that’s what this is: a Breaking Bad episode. Slightly longer than the others, but just as good. Better than most. Jesse’s the hero who’s on the run who needs money. And he’s also getting smarter. There are remnants of that teenage clumsiness, but also signs that he’s learned from Walter and Mike, he’s thinking clearly, and he’s willing to take charge and pull the trigger if he needs to. Kudos to the whole enterprise for not trying to be bigger or graver than it needs to be. It’s a small-scale modern western made with emotion and skill.

The Wretched

Well-acted and well-directed low-budget horror film about an ancient, child-eating hag and the housewives it can body-snatch so it can feed. Sort of a roundabout metaphor for divorce and the ways kids can get torn apart or forgotten when the parents split up.

Memory: The Origins of Alien

Many of the details in this “making of…” documentary have probably appeared in other docs, dvd extras, etc. But it’s a nice, nimble reminder of the innovation that went into Alien.

Judy

Sad, sad, sad. No happy ending here. Nope. Nosireee. Judy Garland withers away and dies. It’s well-acted and well-directed, but it’s sad, man.

How the West Was Won

The revelations that were had during this movie-nerd, old people screening at the Dome in real, actual 3-strip Cinerama are as follows:

Cinerama’s not really THAT wide.

The stunts were REAL. You could FEEL them. No CG here.

 It’s Debbie Reynold’s movie. She’s the star. But she’s billed, like, 9th, because those were the days when you probably couldn’t sell a western with a female lead.

Carroll Baker should maybe have been more famous than she was.

 This is the Avengers of its day.