Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver

I checked out the latest space opera where a group of farmers on a small moon rise up and rebel against the fascists with their laser guns and their laser swords. There’s a bunch of robots and spaceships the special effects are pretty good. Is it a Star War? No, it is not. For better or worse, you have to hand it to Sofia Boutella. The Algerian dancer is not particularly famous, although she’s been in a few big movies. But she’s fully committed; fighting and crying and shaving her head. She can kick ass and be vulnerable. And this entire Zack Snyder series is resting on her shoulders. (One thing you can say absolutely for certain is she’s a MUCH better actor than Gina Carano.) Certain sequences in this are awesome and beautiful to behold, but others are so corny and plastic. Snyder is still in love with slow motion and glowing, burning embers flying at the actors. Everything is too much of this, too much of that. There’s no modulation from the overly important, serious tone. So, it’s a mixed bag.

Abigail

So, everyone knows: children and ballerinas are ALL evil, right? With a premise this wildly entertaining, the execution only needs to be serviceable for this to be a success. So, while it’s not overly ambitious, it checks all the boxes with the requisite number of (spoiler alert) exploding people and pools of dead bodies and pithy wisecracks. With 2 (two) actors from Downton Abby, the cast is all good, covered in blood and hamming it up with Grand Guignol flourish. The pre-pubescent vampire ballerina (Alisha Weir) is WAY better than one would ever expect, which holds the whole thing together. The pro-wrestling climax is not as surprising or as original as it’s great predecessor Ready or Not, so walking out of the theater is not as much of a rush. But it’s still a sweet, bloody confection to be enjoyed if not overtly admired.

Joy

This eluded me when it came out in 2015. The ad campaign made it look like David O Russell’s sub-par sequel to Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle. Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, and Bradley Cooper AGAIN?? Reviews were bad, even though JLAW got another Oscar nomination. I never knew what it was about, other than another bickering family. But suddenly this appears on the airplane menu, and this was GOOD. The reductive premise is it’s a biopic about a woman who invents a mop. But the obstacles she faces, especially from her own family, make this interesting and turmoil-filled. Despite melodramatic diversions (there’s a “soap-opera” refrain throughout), I found myself fully invested, pulling for the hero, and appreciating the happy ending.

The First Omen

It’s called The First Omen, but it picks-up in the middle of a Catholic Church conspiracy where there’ve already been plenty of previous omens. The “nuns-ploitation” unfolds in a predictable way, and seems to be intent on being an allegory for what happens when an authority (evil nuns) takes away abortion rights from young women who have been impregnated by beings by whom they didn’t choose to be impregnated. The principal nun (Nell Tiger Free) commits to the bit and handles the possession devil-baby stuff with aplomb. More yucky than scary.

Monkey Man

The good news is: Dev Patel made a movie. He and the crew did a bang-up job – a combination of a Van Damme/Jackie Chan/John Woo revenge fantasy and an Indian, socio-political commentary. But it’s a very large, very hot cup of coffee. It’s a lot. It’s a barrage of action. Quick cuts and shaky-cam. Ironic music. It rarely breathes and it’s hard to FEEL anything with this frenetic, indulgent assault. Mistakes were made, the biggest of which is not revealing the backstory earlier. I hope it does well. I hope it makes money. But it’s exhausting. My eyeballs were tired afterwards. I hope the editor gets treatment for an obvious cocaine addiction. 

As I watched I wondered, “Why do people watch these movies?” The gun-fu action isn’t going to re-invent the wheel. The familiar tropes, the hero, the villain, the hooker with a heart of gold, the kid, aren’t going to resonate, per se. There’s a feeling to get - like when Captain America picks up Thor’s hammer. Or when Neo stops the bullets in mid-air with is mind. Or when Furiosa rips off Immortan Joe’s face. It’s a primal satisfaction. A pay off. Lots of punching and blood isn’t going to get you there. And an ambiguous ending won’t provide the rush of adrenalin and oxytocin the audience wants. Tension and release needs to be addressed. Satisfaction needs to be addressed. Even for a violent gun-fu movie made for hyperactive, young males.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

King Kong and Godzilla are BUSY. King Kong is trying to trap and kill dog/monster things with a bad tooth. Godzilla’s stomping around the world trying to charge up like an electric car for some TBD fiery showdown. Life is hard for the big monsters. Good thing we have Rebecca Hall and Brian Tyree Henry to narrate the important points. “Kong is trying to reach the surface!” “Godzilla’s preparing for something…” It’s impossible to look at this with any kind of cinematic critical thinking. The director of Pop Skull has made a computer-generated nature documentary bereft of sophistication or subtext. It doesn’t seem to be an allegory for World War II anymore. It’s epic, but it’s coherent, believe it or not. The busy plot hampers the desired monster-movie playfulness, but there’s still a crescendo of roaring and city-smooshing to please my monkey brain.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Watching this is a surreal experience. Numerous times I had to stop and ask myself, “Did I fall asleep? Did I miss something?” Scenes stop in the middle. Costumes change. Characters refer to previous scenes that aren’t in the movie. Characters seem to know things that they had no time to learn. It’s like it was edited with a chainsaw. It’s a mess. The cast is good. It’s too bad the story/plot/subplot/continuity/dramatic tension/climax are in shambles. What happened??

Death in Venice

I’ve never read the Agatha Christie book, but I’d be willing to bet it’s significantly less exciting than this adaptation by Kenneth Branagh. He knows he has his work cut-out for him, and in some ways overcompensates with a dancing camera and gothic sets from the Guillermo del Toro design guide. The result is a serviceable thriller/airplane movie with a strong cast and the requisite number of murders and twists.

Dream Scenario

Extremely heart-felt and well-made tragedy about an ordinary schlub who, for unknown reasons, is suddenly put on display, ostracized, and persecuted by the universe. Among other things, it’s a metaphor for cancel culture. But in this case, the ordinary guy, played neurotically and expertly by Nick Cage, did absolutely nothing wrong. The people around him don’t acknowledge this and participate in the pile on, because, well, you’ve got to stone SOMEBODY to death, right? Otherwise it could be you. When the persecution begins to drive him crazy, the schlub starts to make mistakes, which would be the normal human reaction. And then of course, to the people around him this reinforces the originally unfounded belief that he’s a bad man. And the spiral down hastens. It’s incredibly sad.

Cabrini

The cinematography in this is gorgeous by a photog who’s shot other “faith-based” films. The “faith based” marketing of this movie feels incongruous, since the story involved helping impoverished refugees and orphans, something the evangelicals are completely opposed to. It’s a highly stylized true story, and plays more like a Dickens/”Oliver Twist” heartwarming tragedy than a docudrama. It would have been a LOT better if it didn’t have 20 minutes of terrible faith-based previews before it. It’s well-meaning, but impossible to market, and cynically speaking, that’s the purpose of the faith-based movies – marketing. Church for sale.

Easy Rider

Re-watched this trailblazing hippie odyssey in 4K. The music is great. But the story, like the hippies I suppose, is sort of drifty and pointless. For better or worse, they believed that everyone was trying to kill them.

Kong: Skull Island

Re-watched this as a refresher for the Monarch “Monsterverse” sequels in the pipeline. It’s only so-so, but thankfully short.

Anatomy of a Fall

Performances are sharp in this Alpine murder mystery (including the dog!). It’s an astute procedural, akin to Law and Order, and details and depiction of the French Courts is intriguing. I wouldn’t say it’s Best Picture material, but it was emotional and watchable.

Dune Part 2

Part 2 really plays like David Lean made a science fiction movie. In every way it’s epic. All of the designs and cinematography are sublime. The performances are all very serious - taking wild plot points and delivering them with gravity, up to and including Rebecca Ferguson chatting with her unborn child telepathically. There’s no real point in mentioning the effects anymore – they’re always exceptional. But these movies never end. I knew how this would be. It’s called Part 2. It’s right in the title. So walking out of the theater in a rush of oxytocin has become less frequent these days. But it has to be commended for no other reason than everybody had to have worked REALLY hard.

Letters to Juliet

At the end of this sappy, pointless 2010 romance, Amanda Seyfried perfectly delivers the one and only funny/hilarious line in this entire dull, travelogue of clichés. And she knocks it out of the park. Is it worth sitting through this entire movie for this one perfectly delivered gag? No, it is not. The scenery does most of the heavy lifting here, and it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.

Dune

Rewatched in preparation for Part 2. It’s talky sci-fi, and the details of the plot often reveal in bits of dialogue. But, man, they made this movie. It’s glorious to behold and not a sour note in the whole experience. It’s never slow. The really memorable scenes are the small-scale struggles, the escapes, and the mano a mano battles - superhero action stars seemingly thrilled to be doing something different. Eager for Part 2.

Poor Things

The point of this seems to be: a woman’s decisions are her own, no matter how terrible they are. As a woman with a baby’s brain, Emma Stone turns-in an incredible, vulnerable physical performance. But it’s hard not to think that all the grotesque men in her life are really using and abusing her in a way that even a fantasy steam-punk netherworld can’t disguise. It’s a magical place with no pregnancies or STDs, and look at all those pretty dresses! Everything is filmed in a Jean-Pierre Junet fish-eye, wide-angle, and the music is weird, forcing all of the proceedings to feel like one big, long dream. It never grounds itself, even for a second. It’s visionary, and I’m happy this was made, but all the over-modulation leaves me piqued but not entirely satisfied.

The Holdovers

Everyone knows: the teaming up of Paul Giamatti and Alexander Payne can only be a recipe for great things. This is so sad and so poignant; it’s a melancholy masterwork. The three key performances are sharp and deep. It’s rare for a movie to be this astute and emotional as it says what so many people think about Christmas: Christmas sucks. It’s okay if Paul Giamatti doesn’t win the Oscar for this. He’s in a class by himself. Dear Hollywood, be kind to Giamatti. Pay him well. Give him a nice trailer. He’s a national treasure.

El Conde

Presented in beautiful black and white, this Chilean Vampire comedy is an odd-duck. Sometimes Farrelly/Zucker Brothers absurd, and sometimes grey and gloomy in a Woody Allen way. I’m happy this was made, and the filmmaker’s SEEM to have had carte blanche to produce this romantic-comedy horror outlier. It’s probably an allegory for something political in Chili that I don’t quite get, as it skates the line between vampire and satire. But it’s original, you gotta give it that.

The Marvels

This has a Guardians of the Galaxy nuttiness to it. Superhero schtick. Performances are all good; trying to crossover between physical comedy and action heroics. But it feels diversionary. The stakes are low. I mean the world can’t be in jeopardy of ending in EVERY movie, can it? Also, there’s A LOT of cat stuff in this. It’s really cat-heavy. So if you like cats, this one’s for you.