Michael May's Blog, page 52
January 17, 2020
10 Movies from 2019 That I Loved on Some Level
20. The Kid
This is the Young Guns 2 I wanted.
Dane DeHaan is a hilarious and charming, but also terrifyingly unpredictable Billy the Kid. And the film goes to a lot of effort to make him physically resemble the historical Billy as much as possible.
Ethan Hawke is a sympathetic and heroic, though flawed Pat Garrett. Chris Pratt is also excellent as a shocking, disturbingly evil character, but that's unrelated to my hopes for a new Billy the Kid movie.
One of my disappointments with Young Guns 2 was that it clearly wanted to explore the effect of Billy's fame on him and his friends, but the first film had already done that and in a more entertaining way. And the sequel undermines its own effort with a framing device that's only tangentially related to the theme. Structurally, Young Guns 2 is actually about convincing Bradley Whitford that Billy is still alive. Which could have been a cool movie, too, but isn't what any of the bulk of the movie is really about.
The Kid doesn't have that problem. It's very much about fame and the consequences of actions, but it explores this through a couple of new characters who meet Billy and Pat and have to make some decisions about what path they're going to choose. It's a focused story with great characters.
19. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
As a fan, I feel extremely well-serviced. Great kaiju action with some updated favorite classic monsters. Excellent cast of human characters. I have nothing to complain about.
18. Captain Marvel
Hardcore. Emotional and inspirational. Captain Marvel got me stoked for Endgame in a whole, different way than I had been before. If Endgame can be said to be disappointing on any level, it was in not giving enough time to Carol's return and role in fighting Thanos, but Endgame already had a lot to do.
17. Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
More ambitious than the first one. It builds the world out in some cool ways. It doesn't quite hit everything it shoots for, but it succeeds at what's most important to me: the Maleficent / Aurora relationship and the theme of Love's triumph over Fear. Maleficent herself is a glorious goth goddess and I want twelve more movies in this series.
16. Ready or Not
As scary, exciting, and funny as I hoped. Samara Weaving is badass. There are a couple of situations where she requires rescuing when I would have preferred her getting out on her own, but she's plenty active. A great character with a great look. Running around fighting bad guys in a wedding dress and sneakers is amazing. More people should do it.
15. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
It's hard to surprise while delivering more of what people liked the first time. But even though Second Part uses the same techniques as the first one did to present its story, it does it in service to a theme that I appreciated even more than the earlier one.
14. Crawl
I grew up in Florida near areas like this, so I have a lot of love for the setting of Crawl. That means that I also know that gators don't usually behave this way, but they're unpredictable enough that I was able to accept that - for the purposes of the film - maybe these gators do. Anyway, it's a great setting filled with a couple of great characters in a great predicament. I really liked Haley (Kaya Scodelario) and her dad (Barry Pepper) and was super invested in seeing them get out of the gator-infested crawlspace beneath their house as hurricane floodwaters rise and rise some more and oh, there are even more gators outside.
It's more survival movie than horror, but that made it even better. Haley and her dad are smart, talented people who make good decisions that are constantly complicated by circumstances they can't control. That kind of tension always works for me and Crawl is a straight-up hour-and-a-half of it.
13. Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase
Super cute.
Seems like every few years there's a new Nancy Drew movie or comic or something that never catches on to become a series. I don't understand why. She's a great character with a cool supporting cast. And this is one of my favorite versions so far. (Another being the recent comic for Dynamite by Kelly Thompson and Jenn St Onge.)
In the new movie, Sophia Lillis is a bright and spirited, but also flawed Nancy who's trying to navigate a lot of things. Her mother recently died, she's moving to a new town (where she's spent some previous summers, so at least she knows some people, but still), and she's being pulled in multiple directions by competing cliques that are interested in either her friendship or detective skills. It's a lot and I loved watching her figure it out.
The rest of the cast is great too, especially Linda Lavin as an eccentric woman who thinks her house may be haunted. Lavin was a staple on my childhood TV thanks to Alice and it's nice to see her again. She was also great in How to Be a Latin Lover a couple of years ago and she may be even funnier now than she was in the '70s.
12. The Rise of Skywalker
Rise of Skywalker bounced all over my list before settling here. And I'm not even sure this is where it should stay.
Right after I first watched it, I probably would have put it in my Top 10, even though I had big issues with the first quarter. The pace in the beginning is way too fast, not necessarily because of the plot, but just for reconnecting emotionally with these characters. And I've never been on board with the Emperor's return or Abrams' taking back Johnson's revelation that Rey's parents were "nobody." These are weaknesses and there are others, but like with the other two movies in the trilogy, I was so pulled into it by the end that the flaws didn't matter on first viewing. I spent the last twenty minutes in happy tears and I loved that last line. (Still do.)
But dang if if the movie didn't lose a lot of appeal the second time around. As much as I was touched by the climax the first time, I could also tell I was being manipulated. Which isn't a problem so long as I'm being manipulated well... and I believed Skywalker was doing that. But on second try, I wasn't so sure. If I'd ranked all my movies then, this would probably have been about 10-15 slots lower. The Nerd Lunch Star Wars panel will be doing a big episode on this, so I'll get into my issues in more detail there.
But for all the stuff that really bugs me, there's still a lot that I love as well. I'll get into that on the podcast, too, but the reason Skywalker ends up this high on my list is that I enjoyed it more the third time than I did the second. There are still big problems. Some of them are basic storytelling problems and some are just events or developments that rub me the wrong way. I expect that, given time, the things that rub me the wrong way will become less important. The storytelling flaws will keep it from being a great film, but I can live with even that.
11. Pokémon Detective Pikachu
Our family dynamic is often that David and I get super excited to see a movie and Diane decides that it looks cool enough to see with us. Detective Pikachu flipped that. David grew up with Pokémon and Diane's a faithful player of Pokémon Go. I like Ryan Reynolds and a good mystery.
If it had been a typical Pokémon story about capturing pocket monsters and making them fight, I'd have skipped it. But Pokémon Detective Pikachu goes broad enough for me while including enough Easter eggs for David and Diane. It's funny, it's cute, it's twisty enough to surprise me in some key places, and it's surprisingly emotional. Justice Smith is great in it and makes me want to watch Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom again because I forgot he's in that.
This is the Young Guns 2 I wanted.
Dane DeHaan is a hilarious and charming, but also terrifyingly unpredictable Billy the Kid. And the film goes to a lot of effort to make him physically resemble the historical Billy as much as possible.
Ethan Hawke is a sympathetic and heroic, though flawed Pat Garrett. Chris Pratt is also excellent as a shocking, disturbingly evil character, but that's unrelated to my hopes for a new Billy the Kid movie.
One of my disappointments with Young Guns 2 was that it clearly wanted to explore the effect of Billy's fame on him and his friends, but the first film had already done that and in a more entertaining way. And the sequel undermines its own effort with a framing device that's only tangentially related to the theme. Structurally, Young Guns 2 is actually about convincing Bradley Whitford that Billy is still alive. Which could have been a cool movie, too, but isn't what any of the bulk of the movie is really about.
The Kid doesn't have that problem. It's very much about fame and the consequences of actions, but it explores this through a couple of new characters who meet Billy and Pat and have to make some decisions about what path they're going to choose. It's a focused story with great characters.
19. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
As a fan, I feel extremely well-serviced. Great kaiju action with some updated favorite classic monsters. Excellent cast of human characters. I have nothing to complain about.
18. Captain Marvel
Hardcore. Emotional and inspirational. Captain Marvel got me stoked for Endgame in a whole, different way than I had been before. If Endgame can be said to be disappointing on any level, it was in not giving enough time to Carol's return and role in fighting Thanos, but Endgame already had a lot to do.
17. Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
More ambitious than the first one. It builds the world out in some cool ways. It doesn't quite hit everything it shoots for, but it succeeds at what's most important to me: the Maleficent / Aurora relationship and the theme of Love's triumph over Fear. Maleficent herself is a glorious goth goddess and I want twelve more movies in this series.
16. Ready or Not
As scary, exciting, and funny as I hoped. Samara Weaving is badass. There are a couple of situations where she requires rescuing when I would have preferred her getting out on her own, but she's plenty active. A great character with a great look. Running around fighting bad guys in a wedding dress and sneakers is amazing. More people should do it.
15. The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part
It's hard to surprise while delivering more of what people liked the first time. But even though Second Part uses the same techniques as the first one did to present its story, it does it in service to a theme that I appreciated even more than the earlier one.
14. Crawl
I grew up in Florida near areas like this, so I have a lot of love for the setting of Crawl. That means that I also know that gators don't usually behave this way, but they're unpredictable enough that I was able to accept that - for the purposes of the film - maybe these gators do. Anyway, it's a great setting filled with a couple of great characters in a great predicament. I really liked Haley (Kaya Scodelario) and her dad (Barry Pepper) and was super invested in seeing them get out of the gator-infested crawlspace beneath their house as hurricane floodwaters rise and rise some more and oh, there are even more gators outside.
It's more survival movie than horror, but that made it even better. Haley and her dad are smart, talented people who make good decisions that are constantly complicated by circumstances they can't control. That kind of tension always works for me and Crawl is a straight-up hour-and-a-half of it.
13. Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase
Super cute.
Seems like every few years there's a new Nancy Drew movie or comic or something that never catches on to become a series. I don't understand why. She's a great character with a cool supporting cast. And this is one of my favorite versions so far. (Another being the recent comic for Dynamite by Kelly Thompson and Jenn St Onge.)
In the new movie, Sophia Lillis is a bright and spirited, but also flawed Nancy who's trying to navigate a lot of things. Her mother recently died, she's moving to a new town (where she's spent some previous summers, so at least she knows some people, but still), and she's being pulled in multiple directions by competing cliques that are interested in either her friendship or detective skills. It's a lot and I loved watching her figure it out.
The rest of the cast is great too, especially Linda Lavin as an eccentric woman who thinks her house may be haunted. Lavin was a staple on my childhood TV thanks to Alice and it's nice to see her again. She was also great in How to Be a Latin Lover a couple of years ago and she may be even funnier now than she was in the '70s.
12. The Rise of Skywalker
Rise of Skywalker bounced all over my list before settling here. And I'm not even sure this is where it should stay.
Right after I first watched it, I probably would have put it in my Top 10, even though I had big issues with the first quarter. The pace in the beginning is way too fast, not necessarily because of the plot, but just for reconnecting emotionally with these characters. And I've never been on board with the Emperor's return or Abrams' taking back Johnson's revelation that Rey's parents were "nobody." These are weaknesses and there are others, but like with the other two movies in the trilogy, I was so pulled into it by the end that the flaws didn't matter on first viewing. I spent the last twenty minutes in happy tears and I loved that last line. (Still do.)
But dang if if the movie didn't lose a lot of appeal the second time around. As much as I was touched by the climax the first time, I could also tell I was being manipulated. Which isn't a problem so long as I'm being manipulated well... and I believed Skywalker was doing that. But on second try, I wasn't so sure. If I'd ranked all my movies then, this would probably have been about 10-15 slots lower. The Nerd Lunch Star Wars panel will be doing a big episode on this, so I'll get into my issues in more detail there.
But for all the stuff that really bugs me, there's still a lot that I love as well. I'll get into that on the podcast, too, but the reason Skywalker ends up this high on my list is that I enjoyed it more the third time than I did the second. There are still big problems. Some of them are basic storytelling problems and some are just events or developments that rub me the wrong way. I expect that, given time, the things that rub me the wrong way will become less important. The storytelling flaws will keep it from being a great film, but I can live with even that.
11. Pokémon Detective Pikachu
Our family dynamic is often that David and I get super excited to see a movie and Diane decides that it looks cool enough to see with us. Detective Pikachu flipped that. David grew up with Pokémon and Diane's a faithful player of Pokémon Go. I like Ryan Reynolds and a good mystery.
If it had been a typical Pokémon story about capturing pocket monsters and making them fight, I'd have skipped it. But Pokémon Detective Pikachu goes broad enough for me while including enough Easter eggs for David and Diane. It's funny, it's cute, it's twisty enough to surprise me in some key places, and it's surprisingly emotional. Justice Smith is great in it and makes me want to watch Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom again because I forgot he's in that.
January 16, 2020
10 Movies from 2019 That I Liked a Lot
30. John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
The new-series smell has worn off a little, but not the inventive and beautifully choreographed action nor the surprisingly insightful character work. There was a place near the middle where I thought I'd probably gotten everything I was going to out of the series, but it rallied at the end and made me at least interested in (if not crazy excited about) a fourth chapter.
29. Spider-Man: Far from Home
I appreciate that it deals with the fallout of Endgame, but I mostly love it for capturing the feel of an extended high school trip and all the romance and drama that come with one of those. And for giving me a great, cinematic version of one of my favorite Spider-Man villains. The thing I don't love about it is the cliffhanger ending and the fact that no sequel has been announced yet. But it's a great Spider-Man film and a great epilogue / palate-cleanser after the epic Thanos saga. The fact that it's this low on my list is a testament to how strong the year was as a whole.
28. Crypto
I expected a cheaply made thriller, but was curious to see it because of Alexis Bledel and Kurt Russell. To my surprise, Crypto is superbly directed, beautifully shot, compellingly edited, and has a story that kept me constantly guessing about where it was going next.
Beau Knapp plays a bank investigator who's assigned to audit the branch in his hometown. As he deals with his estranged family (with relatable, emotional performances by both Kurt Russell and Luke Hemsworth), he begins to uncover evidence that the bank may be involved in money laundering with Russian mafia and a local art gallery.
27. The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot
A movie with this awesome a title and as awesome a lead as Sam Elliott doesn't deserve to be artful and dramatic as well. But it totally is. This isn't the SyFy channel cheese it's disguised as. It's The Hero in stealth mode.
26. Sweetheart
What would have been just a pretty good B-level creature feature is elevated by Kiersey Clemons (whom I also loved in Hearts Beat Loud). She believably alternates between terrified and determined as her circumstances dictate. I also enjoyed the mystery of how she arrived on the island, what she was like before she got there, and what happened to the other survivors of the boat accident. Some of the questions have more concrete answers than others, but I even love the ambiguity in the ones that are left to my imagination.
25. The Dead Don't Die
The Dead Don't Die could be Jim Jarmusch's most accessible film so far. Which might be why cinephiles and critics were pretty harsh on it. But I love the cast and the humor and the use of zombies to personify modern fears about climate change, immigration, and other concerns. Or, more accurately, to allow its characters to comment on those fears. I don't know that it has anything especially new to say about any of that, but I appreciate the urgency it expresses and I love the way that Jarmusch conveys it.
24. Stuber
I'm all in for both Dave Bautista and Kumail Nanjiani and they're great together. And I was very pleasantly surprised to discover Natalie Morales and Mira Sorvino in prominent roles. Super entertaining movie with some great heart.
23. Never Grow Old
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this. There have been a lot of B-Westerns lately with recognizable actors and the quality is usually Good Enough without being great. Never Grow Old is pretty great (despite it's generic title).
I always enjoy Emile Hirsch and he's excellent as a family man who's also the carpenter / undertaker in a small Western community. John Cusack's usual charisma makes him shockingly creepy as an extremely bad man who comes to town and sort of takes a liking to Hirsch. As the town becomes more violent, business gets better for Hirsch, which of course creates a moral dilemma.
It's deeper and more complicated than I expected and the acting is super good by everyone (not just the two leads). Special shout out to Déborah François who plays Hirsch's smart and resourceful wife.
22. The Vanishing
The other lighthouse movie from last year is based on historical events and is much more straightforward than Robert Eggers' The Lighthouse. And the best thing is that it's made me love Gerard Butler again. He's a cool actor who's been in some horrible movies, but this is a great, slow burning, tense thriller about three guys keeping a lighthouse on an otherwise empty island. And then something happens. It's sort of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre meets "Horror of Fang Rock."
21. The Golem
I was concerned that The Golem might turn out to be a low-budget gore-fest, but I'm a fan of the creature it's based on and hoped the film might have more to it than just dismembered bodies. It does.
I just happened to watch it over Mothers Day weekend, which was fortuitously appropriate, because it draws heavy parallels between the creation of the golem and motherhood. Hani Furstenberg plays an 18th Century Jewish woman named Hanna who lost her son several years earlier and has been unwilling to have another child since. When the village comes under threat of violence from outsiders, Hanna uses knowledge that she's not supposed to have in order to construct and animate an earthen protector. Much warning is given about how difficult a golem is to control and the film also connects this to motherhood by creating a tight connection between Hanna and her new "child," so that it intuitively knows what she wants. Controlling it is as impossible as controlling our deepest impulses.
The Golem offers a lot to think about and covers it in an emotional, but also fast-paced way.
The new-series smell has worn off a little, but not the inventive and beautifully choreographed action nor the surprisingly insightful character work. There was a place near the middle where I thought I'd probably gotten everything I was going to out of the series, but it rallied at the end and made me at least interested in (if not crazy excited about) a fourth chapter.
29. Spider-Man: Far from Home
I appreciate that it deals with the fallout of Endgame, but I mostly love it for capturing the feel of an extended high school trip and all the romance and drama that come with one of those. And for giving me a great, cinematic version of one of my favorite Spider-Man villains. The thing I don't love about it is the cliffhanger ending and the fact that no sequel has been announced yet. But it's a great Spider-Man film and a great epilogue / palate-cleanser after the epic Thanos saga. The fact that it's this low on my list is a testament to how strong the year was as a whole.
28. Crypto
I expected a cheaply made thriller, but was curious to see it because of Alexis Bledel and Kurt Russell. To my surprise, Crypto is superbly directed, beautifully shot, compellingly edited, and has a story that kept me constantly guessing about where it was going next.
Beau Knapp plays a bank investigator who's assigned to audit the branch in his hometown. As he deals with his estranged family (with relatable, emotional performances by both Kurt Russell and Luke Hemsworth), he begins to uncover evidence that the bank may be involved in money laundering with Russian mafia and a local art gallery.
27. The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot
A movie with this awesome a title and as awesome a lead as Sam Elliott doesn't deserve to be artful and dramatic as well. But it totally is. This isn't the SyFy channel cheese it's disguised as. It's The Hero in stealth mode.
26. Sweetheart
What would have been just a pretty good B-level creature feature is elevated by Kiersey Clemons (whom I also loved in Hearts Beat Loud). She believably alternates between terrified and determined as her circumstances dictate. I also enjoyed the mystery of how she arrived on the island, what she was like before she got there, and what happened to the other survivors of the boat accident. Some of the questions have more concrete answers than others, but I even love the ambiguity in the ones that are left to my imagination.
25. The Dead Don't Die
The Dead Don't Die could be Jim Jarmusch's most accessible film so far. Which might be why cinephiles and critics were pretty harsh on it. But I love the cast and the humor and the use of zombies to personify modern fears about climate change, immigration, and other concerns. Or, more accurately, to allow its characters to comment on those fears. I don't know that it has anything especially new to say about any of that, but I appreciate the urgency it expresses and I love the way that Jarmusch conveys it.
24. Stuber
I'm all in for both Dave Bautista and Kumail Nanjiani and they're great together. And I was very pleasantly surprised to discover Natalie Morales and Mira Sorvino in prominent roles. Super entertaining movie with some great heart.
23. Never Grow Old
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this. There have been a lot of B-Westerns lately with recognizable actors and the quality is usually Good Enough without being great. Never Grow Old is pretty great (despite it's generic title).
I always enjoy Emile Hirsch and he's excellent as a family man who's also the carpenter / undertaker in a small Western community. John Cusack's usual charisma makes him shockingly creepy as an extremely bad man who comes to town and sort of takes a liking to Hirsch. As the town becomes more violent, business gets better for Hirsch, which of course creates a moral dilemma.
It's deeper and more complicated than I expected and the acting is super good by everyone (not just the two leads). Special shout out to Déborah François who plays Hirsch's smart and resourceful wife.
22. The Vanishing
The other lighthouse movie from last year is based on historical events and is much more straightforward than Robert Eggers' The Lighthouse. And the best thing is that it's made me love Gerard Butler again. He's a cool actor who's been in some horrible movies, but this is a great, slow burning, tense thriller about three guys keeping a lighthouse on an otherwise empty island. And then something happens. It's sort of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre meets "Horror of Fang Rock."
21. The Golem
I was concerned that The Golem might turn out to be a low-budget gore-fest, but I'm a fan of the creature it's based on and hoped the film might have more to it than just dismembered bodies. It does.
I just happened to watch it over Mothers Day weekend, which was fortuitously appropriate, because it draws heavy parallels between the creation of the golem and motherhood. Hani Furstenberg plays an 18th Century Jewish woman named Hanna who lost her son several years earlier and has been unwilling to have another child since. When the village comes under threat of violence from outsiders, Hanna uses knowledge that she's not supposed to have in order to construct and animate an earthen protector. Much warning is given about how difficult a golem is to control and the film also connects this to motherhood by creating a tight connection between Hanna and her new "child," so that it intuitively knows what she wants. Controlling it is as impossible as controlling our deepest impulses.
The Golem offers a lot to think about and covers it in an emotional, but also fast-paced way.
January 15, 2020
12 Movies from 2019 That I Liked Just Fine
42. Night Hunter
Has a great concept about a police task force and a couple of vigilantes all trying to catch an online predator, but the actual solution to the mystery is underwhelming after a ton of build-up. What never fails though is the cast. Henry Cavill, Ben Kingsley, Alexandra Daddario, Stanley Tucci, Brendan Fletcher, Eliana Jones, Emma Tremblay, and Nathan Fillion all make the most of their characters. The casting director deserves an Oscar.
41. The Lighthouse
The Lighthouse has three, really strong things going for it. First is Willem Dafoe as a combination of Captains Ahab and Barbossa (with some amazing soliloquies to help him out). Another is Robert Pattinson's equally engrossing, schizophrenic performance as Dafoe's assistant on a remote, island lighthouse. And the third thing is Robert Eggers' shooting in a black-and-white, square frame to make me feel like I was watching a lost Universal classic. I'd like the film more if I understood what the heck was going on, but subsequent viewings could help with that.
40. Out of Blue
I spent the entire movie afraid that the noir-ish mystery was going to become suddenly, weirdly scifi like Serenity from earlier in the year. Out of Blue keeps threatening to be about cosmic matters, but it stays centered on its murder mystery with Patricia Clarkson as a super flawed detective that I enjoyed spending time with. Not all the acting is as good as hers, but she's strong enough to carry the film through the spots where it's trying to lose its way.
39. Glass
I never got around to seeing this more than once and I feel like I need to before solidifying my opinion. After one viewing, I'm very "split" on it.
There are two things that I absolutely adore. First, bringing back Spencer Treat Clark as Joseph Dunn. That was a cool move and it's great that Clark is a fine actor and completely pulls me in. The other thing I love is Casey's (Anya Taylor-Joy) compassion for Kevin (James McAvoy) and its ability to reach through The Horde to connect with the broken child underneath. Taylor-Joy and McAvoy break my heart in those scenes.
Oh, and one other strong like is Shyamalan's making it clear that he was playing the same character in his cameos in both Unbreakable and Split. That was a lot of fun.
My complaints revolve around Shyamalan's telling two different stories, but only really caring about one of them. I imagine that most viewers go into Glass like me, expecting it to be primarily about David Dunn, Mr Glass, and The Horde. And the movie seems to support that expectation for a good long time. The twist is that Glass was never really about these characters at all, but about the supporting characters of Joseph, Casey, and Glass' mother (Charlayne Woodard). I like all of those characters a lot, but I'll need to rewatch the movie to see if I'm satisfied with the arc it gives them. On first watch, I spent so much time focused on the superpowered characters that I was disappointed when the story swerved away from them at the end.
38. Murder Mystery
Modern Adam Sandler isn't as funny as Classic Adam Sandler was, but the bigger problem with Murder Mystery is that his character is a super unlikable guy who barely improves by the end of the film. But slightly improve he does and the rest of the cast rescues the movie for me, starting with the always likable Jennifer Aniston and including Luke Evans, Gemma Arterton, John Kani, Adeel Akhtar, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Luis Gerardo Méndez, Shioli Kutsuna (who's not in it nearly enough), and Terence Stamp. They're all very funny and/or charming.
37. Terminator: Dark Fate
The plot is ridiculous (like super ridiculous the more I think about it), but I enjoyed Dark Fate. I enjoy all the Terminator movies on some level, but they stopped being important to me pretty much after the first one.
The cast is great - both returning and new members - and the set pieces are all good. It just makes no sense that after the future is saved in T2, a whole other company somehow manages to create a whole new batch of killer robots with the exact same design that the now non-existent first company made and comes up with exactly the same scheme to go into the past to destroy humanity's resistance before it begins.
All praise to Dark Fate for bringing back Linda Hamilton, but I actually like the Genisys plot better.
36. Hellboy
It's way more graphically gory than I need, but I liked it a lot. David Harbour is a great Hellboy and I love the way the story leaves room for mini, side-adventures reminiscent of Mignola's short stories, without ever losing sight of the larger, epic-style tale. It's a near-perfect integration of both types of Hellboy stories.
The Blood Queen isn't an awesome villain, but she's fine. And she doesn't have to carry the whole story thanks to other villains like Baba Yaga, Gruagach, and some others I won't spoil. I'm sorry this didn't do well. I'd love to see another one.
35. Dragged Across Concrete
There's an early scene in Dragged Across Concrete where the dialogue is so on-the-nose and clearly about Mel Gibson's personal issues that I considered turning the movie off. But then I remembered that the attraction of the film for me was actually writer/director S Craig Zahler, whose Bone Tomahawk I love in spite of sections that are hard to sit through. I may not have appreciated his choices in that early scene, but Zahler has proven to me that he knows how to write dialogue. I kept watching and I'm glad I stuck it out.
Like Bone Tomahawk, Dragged Across Concrete is a rough movie. It's gruesomely violent and doesn't reward getting attached to too many characters. But the characters are so good that it's tough not to. Most of them are a fascinating mixture of heroic and selfish traits, and even the most vile are deeply, terrifyingly fascinating.
34. Let It Snow
I'm a sucker for teen movies, Christmas movies, small town settings, Ned from the Spider-Man movies, Netflix' Sabrina the Teenage Witch, teen Dora the Explorer, and Joan Cusack. Let It Snow checks all those boxes while also being really sweet, romantic, and sometimes laugh out loud funny.
33. Cold Pursuit
I went from hoping this would be a full-on comedy to fearing it would be Taken 18. It finds a pleasing middle ground between those though as a darkly comedic crime movie. It spends as much time on the criminals as on Neeson's revenge-seeking father and it's funny.
32. Men in Black: International
I was so prepared not to like it after the reviews, but when one of them said that it fails because it doesn't "capture the magic of the original," hope grew. I don't really see any magic in the original. I see a cool concept and snappy dialogue completely overwhelmed by goofy aliens and body-fluid humor.
My hope for MiB:I was that it would build on the world of the previous three and keep the snappy dialogue, but tell a more or less real adventure spy story in that setting. And that's what it does. It's not as emotionally affecting as MiB3, but it does have heart and is easily my next favorite in the series (give or take a beard-alien).
31. Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
A super fun placeholder until we get another Fast/Furious movie. Loved the set pieces; love Vanessa Kirby. One drawback though is that while I'm glad that the series at least acknowledges that Shaw has something to atone for, I'm getting impatient about waiting for him to do it. #JusticeForHan
Has a great concept about a police task force and a couple of vigilantes all trying to catch an online predator, but the actual solution to the mystery is underwhelming after a ton of build-up. What never fails though is the cast. Henry Cavill, Ben Kingsley, Alexandra Daddario, Stanley Tucci, Brendan Fletcher, Eliana Jones, Emma Tremblay, and Nathan Fillion all make the most of their characters. The casting director deserves an Oscar.
41. The Lighthouse
The Lighthouse has three, really strong things going for it. First is Willem Dafoe as a combination of Captains Ahab and Barbossa (with some amazing soliloquies to help him out). Another is Robert Pattinson's equally engrossing, schizophrenic performance as Dafoe's assistant on a remote, island lighthouse. And the third thing is Robert Eggers' shooting in a black-and-white, square frame to make me feel like I was watching a lost Universal classic. I'd like the film more if I understood what the heck was going on, but subsequent viewings could help with that.
40. Out of Blue
I spent the entire movie afraid that the noir-ish mystery was going to become suddenly, weirdly scifi like Serenity from earlier in the year. Out of Blue keeps threatening to be about cosmic matters, but it stays centered on its murder mystery with Patricia Clarkson as a super flawed detective that I enjoyed spending time with. Not all the acting is as good as hers, but she's strong enough to carry the film through the spots where it's trying to lose its way.
39. Glass
I never got around to seeing this more than once and I feel like I need to before solidifying my opinion. After one viewing, I'm very "split" on it.
There are two things that I absolutely adore. First, bringing back Spencer Treat Clark as Joseph Dunn. That was a cool move and it's great that Clark is a fine actor and completely pulls me in. The other thing I love is Casey's (Anya Taylor-Joy) compassion for Kevin (James McAvoy) and its ability to reach through The Horde to connect with the broken child underneath. Taylor-Joy and McAvoy break my heart in those scenes.
Oh, and one other strong like is Shyamalan's making it clear that he was playing the same character in his cameos in both Unbreakable and Split. That was a lot of fun.
My complaints revolve around Shyamalan's telling two different stories, but only really caring about one of them. I imagine that most viewers go into Glass like me, expecting it to be primarily about David Dunn, Mr Glass, and The Horde. And the movie seems to support that expectation for a good long time. The twist is that Glass was never really about these characters at all, but about the supporting characters of Joseph, Casey, and Glass' mother (Charlayne Woodard). I like all of those characters a lot, but I'll need to rewatch the movie to see if I'm satisfied with the arc it gives them. On first watch, I spent so much time focused on the superpowered characters that I was disappointed when the story swerved away from them at the end.
38. Murder Mystery
Modern Adam Sandler isn't as funny as Classic Adam Sandler was, but the bigger problem with Murder Mystery is that his character is a super unlikable guy who barely improves by the end of the film. But slightly improve he does and the rest of the cast rescues the movie for me, starting with the always likable Jennifer Aniston and including Luke Evans, Gemma Arterton, John Kani, Adeel Akhtar, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Luis Gerardo Méndez, Shioli Kutsuna (who's not in it nearly enough), and Terence Stamp. They're all very funny and/or charming.
37. Terminator: Dark Fate
The plot is ridiculous (like super ridiculous the more I think about it), but I enjoyed Dark Fate. I enjoy all the Terminator movies on some level, but they stopped being important to me pretty much after the first one.
The cast is great - both returning and new members - and the set pieces are all good. It just makes no sense that after the future is saved in T2, a whole other company somehow manages to create a whole new batch of killer robots with the exact same design that the now non-existent first company made and comes up with exactly the same scheme to go into the past to destroy humanity's resistance before it begins.
All praise to Dark Fate for bringing back Linda Hamilton, but I actually like the Genisys plot better.
36. Hellboy
It's way more graphically gory than I need, but I liked it a lot. David Harbour is a great Hellboy and I love the way the story leaves room for mini, side-adventures reminiscent of Mignola's short stories, without ever losing sight of the larger, epic-style tale. It's a near-perfect integration of both types of Hellboy stories.
The Blood Queen isn't an awesome villain, but she's fine. And she doesn't have to carry the whole story thanks to other villains like Baba Yaga, Gruagach, and some others I won't spoil. I'm sorry this didn't do well. I'd love to see another one.
35. Dragged Across Concrete
There's an early scene in Dragged Across Concrete where the dialogue is so on-the-nose and clearly about Mel Gibson's personal issues that I considered turning the movie off. But then I remembered that the attraction of the film for me was actually writer/director S Craig Zahler, whose Bone Tomahawk I love in spite of sections that are hard to sit through. I may not have appreciated his choices in that early scene, but Zahler has proven to me that he knows how to write dialogue. I kept watching and I'm glad I stuck it out.
Like Bone Tomahawk, Dragged Across Concrete is a rough movie. It's gruesomely violent and doesn't reward getting attached to too many characters. But the characters are so good that it's tough not to. Most of them are a fascinating mixture of heroic and selfish traits, and even the most vile are deeply, terrifyingly fascinating.
34. Let It Snow
I'm a sucker for teen movies, Christmas movies, small town settings, Ned from the Spider-Man movies, Netflix' Sabrina the Teenage Witch, teen Dora the Explorer, and Joan Cusack. Let It Snow checks all those boxes while also being really sweet, romantic, and sometimes laugh out loud funny.
33. Cold Pursuit
I went from hoping this would be a full-on comedy to fearing it would be Taken 18. It finds a pleasing middle ground between those though as a darkly comedic crime movie. It spends as much time on the criminals as on Neeson's revenge-seeking father and it's funny.
32. Men in Black: International
I was so prepared not to like it after the reviews, but when one of them said that it fails because it doesn't "capture the magic of the original," hope grew. I don't really see any magic in the original. I see a cool concept and snappy dialogue completely overwhelmed by goofy aliens and body-fluid humor.
My hope for MiB:I was that it would build on the world of the previous three and keep the snappy dialogue, but tell a more or less real adventure spy story in that setting. And that's what it does. It's not as emotionally affecting as MiB3, but it does have heart and is easily my next favorite in the series (give or take a beard-alien).
31. Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw
A super fun placeholder until we get another Fast/Furious movie. Loved the set pieces; love Vanessa Kirby. One drawback though is that while I'm glad that the series at least acknowledges that Shaw has something to atone for, I'm getting impatient about waiting for him to do it. #JusticeForHan
January 14, 2020
FCA Invasion | Nerd Year Resolutions
Jeeg, Robert Zerbe, and I look back on some of our favorite movies, TV shows, and books from 2019 while also predicting what our favorites of 2020 might be. We also make some pop culture resolutions and maybe even a Nerdstradamus prediction or three.
January 13, 2020
10 Movies from 2019 That I Didn’t Care For
Counting down all the 2019 movies I watched from least-favorite to most.
52. Serenity
Before I get into the list, I need to say that 2019 was a very good year for movies. I had issues with the 10 movies in this post, but I only actually hated one of them. At the end of this post will be movies that I almost enjoyed if not for some minor details.
The one that I hated though: that's Serenity. I'd heard that it had a bonkers twist ending, but that's a lie. It's bonkers, but it's no twist.
The film isn't subtle about forecasting what's really going on, so the end doesn't reveal any new information. It simply confirms what not-even-all-that-careful viewers will have long ago understood.
Although I shouldn't use the word "understood" since none of it actually makes any sense.
51. Coyote Lake
Coyote Lake starts with a great concept, but switches what it's about partway through. A woman and her daughter, Ester (Camila Mendes from Riverdale) rent rooms in their secluded home near the Texas/Mexico border. But they only rent to human traffickers and drug smugglers, then murder the bad guys and take their money. It's the foundation for what might have been a great crime thriller.
Sadly, all that is just a disguise for what the movie actually wants be: a coming of age story. Apparently Ester's mother is meant to be deeply controlling, but that's not made clear until a handsome young drug smuggler comes along and points it out. His perspective is extremely biased and he's not a good dude to begin with, so it's disappointing that he's so successful at changing Ester's opinion about her mom. Yes, mom is strict, but she's running a highly dangerous vigilante operation. Having some rules seems to be in order and I never got the sense from the performances early in the film that this was a situation that Ester wanted out of. Her dilemma at the end of the film didn't work for me at all.
50. Body at Brighton Rock
Starts off looking like a survival thriller and it would've been a better film if it kept that path. Karina Fontes is a good actor with a lot of charisma. I looked forward to watching her inexperienced park ranger character try to get through a night alone in the wilderness, guarding a dead body and potential crime scene from wild animals and possibly other intruders.
Sadly, the film decides it wants to be a horror movie complete with supernatural elements, unnecessary jump scares, and a protagonist who makes terrible decisions even considering how unprepared she is for her situation.
Really looking forward to seeing Fontes in more stuff though.
49. X-Men: Dark Phoenix
Nobody asked for an X3 remake and I considered skipping the theatrical release until a friend pointed out that Fox's time with these characters probably deserves a final high-five and "good game" as it comes to a close. I've seen all the others in the theater; it felt right to see this one that way, too. Sadly, though the quality of the series has been inconsistent all along, it's too bad that it finishes with such a bummer film.
There are some things I like. The extreme close-ups was a distinct artistic flourish that worked to pull me into the emotions of the characters who got that treatment. And as tired as I am of the comics trope of villainizing Charles Xavier, it's handled well here by humanizing Xavier as someone who's made well-intentioned mistakes rather than making him deliberately nefarious. I didn't rewatch the previous films before seeing this one, so I don't know how well this connects with his earlier characterization (I hear from others that there's a lot of discontinuity in general between Dark Phoenix and the preceding movies), but without that close reference, it works.
Unfortunately, almost none of the other characters do. I don't care about Jean Grey or Cyclops or Mystique or the Beast or any of the other characters most impacted by Jean's tragedy. The film is full of great actors doing good work (really spotlighted by those close-ups), but the Phoenix Force is a dumb concept to begin with (even in the comics) and only worked as a plot device once because Chris Claremont had built such a dramatic soap opera around these characters that Jean's death would have been powerful no matter what the cause. And maybe because I was a teenager when I read that story.
Whatever made it work that one time, it doesn't work in this film and it's certainly not helped by the addition of generic aliens with random powers and the flimsiest connection to the Phoenix Force, even if one of them is played by Jessica Chastain.
48. Under the Silver Lake
This was pitched to me as a modern noir and there's a mystery angle to it, but it doesn't really work as a mystery story. Because, it turns out, that's not actually what it is. There are mysteries upon mysteries, but Andrew Garfield's Sam is only interested in some of them and it's a little haphazard which ones keep his attention. That's the point, though.
The film is actually about a young man with no purpose. The craziness around him works as an allegory for all the paths he could be taking, but won't commit to. It would be depressing except for Garfield's immense charm and just the sheer inventiveness of the weird situations that writer/director David Robert Mitchell keeps throwing at him. I think I'd like it more after a few more viewings and a chance to think harder about what's going on. There's a lot here.
47. Rambo: Last Blood
Entertaining just barely enough as a Death Wish-esque revenge film, but despite an end credits montage reminding us of events from previous films, it's as much a Rambo movie as A Good Day to Die Hard is a Die Hard movie. It's especially disappointing considering the set up by 2008's Rambo. This could have been something special.
46. The Legend of 5 Mile Cave
I enjoy Adam Baldwin as an actor and this is a fine adventure story for kids. It's a about a young boy and his widowed mother in the 1920s who agree to house a mysterious drifter (Baldwin) in return for helping them on their small ranch. As the boy gets to know the drifter, the man tells stories about a Western hero with ties to a lost cache of gold and possible connections to the boy himself.
It's a low budget production with costumes off the rack and a homemade stagecoach. Whatever "family friendly" means to you, whether good or ill, this is that.
45. The Silence
The Silence is based on a 2015 novel, which makes the similarities with 2018's A Quiet Place look pretty bad for A Quiet Place. But A Quiet Place is the far better movie in almost every way. If it was inspired by The Silence, it improves it.
Silence has some great actors going for it, but gets weird at the end by throwing in a cult that makes no sense given the apparently small amount of time in which it's supposed to have developed. Maybe it's more reasonable in the book, but in the film it's shoved in sideways I guess to raise the stakes in the third act and give the characters an enemy they can actually defeat. Neither is needed.
44. Captive State
There's so much going on in Captive State that I almost want to suggest it would be better as a TV mini-series, but that's a disservice to the incredible achievement of the film. There are a lot of characters and a lot of activity and goals and motivations to keep track of, but the film mostly succeeds in this. There were plenty of times when I struggled to keep up, but that's as intended and it all holds together by the end.
I still don't like that some of the actors I came for (Vera Farmiga and Alan Ruck, especially) have little more than cameos, but the film does focus on some core characters enough to satisfy me. It also reveals that there's an actual story that it's telling (and it's a good one), but that's not apparent until late so that most of the film feels like an exercise in world-building without a definite plot. Again, that's not what's happening, but on first viewing it was hard to tell until the very end. This is another one I'll want to revisit.
43. Shazam!
Taken on its own, it's a fun, unique, and well-constructed superhero story. I enjoyed it on that level.
But I have nitpicks. Many nitpicks that each by itself wouldn't detract from the movie, but as a group they keep me from fully appreciating it. Many of them are old-man complaints born of my love for a specific version of this character and the movie in my head that I wished this was. They aren't fair and I won't subject anyone to them. Some - like a certain almost-cameo that should've just been a real, honest cameo - feel more valid, but are still minor issues. I believe that Shazam! does a lot of good and people should see it; it's just not my bag and that's okay.
52. Serenity
Before I get into the list, I need to say that 2019 was a very good year for movies. I had issues with the 10 movies in this post, but I only actually hated one of them. At the end of this post will be movies that I almost enjoyed if not for some minor details.
The one that I hated though: that's Serenity. I'd heard that it had a bonkers twist ending, but that's a lie. It's bonkers, but it's no twist.
The film isn't subtle about forecasting what's really going on, so the end doesn't reveal any new information. It simply confirms what not-even-all-that-careful viewers will have long ago understood.
Although I shouldn't use the word "understood" since none of it actually makes any sense.
51. Coyote Lake
Coyote Lake starts with a great concept, but switches what it's about partway through. A woman and her daughter, Ester (Camila Mendes from Riverdale) rent rooms in their secluded home near the Texas/Mexico border. But they only rent to human traffickers and drug smugglers, then murder the bad guys and take their money. It's the foundation for what might have been a great crime thriller.
Sadly, all that is just a disguise for what the movie actually wants be: a coming of age story. Apparently Ester's mother is meant to be deeply controlling, but that's not made clear until a handsome young drug smuggler comes along and points it out. His perspective is extremely biased and he's not a good dude to begin with, so it's disappointing that he's so successful at changing Ester's opinion about her mom. Yes, mom is strict, but she's running a highly dangerous vigilante operation. Having some rules seems to be in order and I never got the sense from the performances early in the film that this was a situation that Ester wanted out of. Her dilemma at the end of the film didn't work for me at all.
50. Body at Brighton Rock
Starts off looking like a survival thriller and it would've been a better film if it kept that path. Karina Fontes is a good actor with a lot of charisma. I looked forward to watching her inexperienced park ranger character try to get through a night alone in the wilderness, guarding a dead body and potential crime scene from wild animals and possibly other intruders.
Sadly, the film decides it wants to be a horror movie complete with supernatural elements, unnecessary jump scares, and a protagonist who makes terrible decisions even considering how unprepared she is for her situation.
Really looking forward to seeing Fontes in more stuff though.
49. X-Men: Dark Phoenix
Nobody asked for an X3 remake and I considered skipping the theatrical release until a friend pointed out that Fox's time with these characters probably deserves a final high-five and "good game" as it comes to a close. I've seen all the others in the theater; it felt right to see this one that way, too. Sadly, though the quality of the series has been inconsistent all along, it's too bad that it finishes with such a bummer film.
There are some things I like. The extreme close-ups was a distinct artistic flourish that worked to pull me into the emotions of the characters who got that treatment. And as tired as I am of the comics trope of villainizing Charles Xavier, it's handled well here by humanizing Xavier as someone who's made well-intentioned mistakes rather than making him deliberately nefarious. I didn't rewatch the previous films before seeing this one, so I don't know how well this connects with his earlier characterization (I hear from others that there's a lot of discontinuity in general between Dark Phoenix and the preceding movies), but without that close reference, it works.
Unfortunately, almost none of the other characters do. I don't care about Jean Grey or Cyclops or Mystique or the Beast or any of the other characters most impacted by Jean's tragedy. The film is full of great actors doing good work (really spotlighted by those close-ups), but the Phoenix Force is a dumb concept to begin with (even in the comics) and only worked as a plot device once because Chris Claremont had built such a dramatic soap opera around these characters that Jean's death would have been powerful no matter what the cause. And maybe because I was a teenager when I read that story.
Whatever made it work that one time, it doesn't work in this film and it's certainly not helped by the addition of generic aliens with random powers and the flimsiest connection to the Phoenix Force, even if one of them is played by Jessica Chastain.
48. Under the Silver Lake
This was pitched to me as a modern noir and there's a mystery angle to it, but it doesn't really work as a mystery story. Because, it turns out, that's not actually what it is. There are mysteries upon mysteries, but Andrew Garfield's Sam is only interested in some of them and it's a little haphazard which ones keep his attention. That's the point, though.
The film is actually about a young man with no purpose. The craziness around him works as an allegory for all the paths he could be taking, but won't commit to. It would be depressing except for Garfield's immense charm and just the sheer inventiveness of the weird situations that writer/director David Robert Mitchell keeps throwing at him. I think I'd like it more after a few more viewings and a chance to think harder about what's going on. There's a lot here.
47. Rambo: Last Blood
Entertaining just barely enough as a Death Wish-esque revenge film, but despite an end credits montage reminding us of events from previous films, it's as much a Rambo movie as A Good Day to Die Hard is a Die Hard movie. It's especially disappointing considering the set up by 2008's Rambo. This could have been something special.
46. The Legend of 5 Mile Cave
I enjoy Adam Baldwin as an actor and this is a fine adventure story for kids. It's a about a young boy and his widowed mother in the 1920s who agree to house a mysterious drifter (Baldwin) in return for helping them on their small ranch. As the boy gets to know the drifter, the man tells stories about a Western hero with ties to a lost cache of gold and possible connections to the boy himself.
It's a low budget production with costumes off the rack and a homemade stagecoach. Whatever "family friendly" means to you, whether good or ill, this is that.
45. The Silence
The Silence is based on a 2015 novel, which makes the similarities with 2018's A Quiet Place look pretty bad for A Quiet Place. But A Quiet Place is the far better movie in almost every way. If it was inspired by The Silence, it improves it.
Silence has some great actors going for it, but gets weird at the end by throwing in a cult that makes no sense given the apparently small amount of time in which it's supposed to have developed. Maybe it's more reasonable in the book, but in the film it's shoved in sideways I guess to raise the stakes in the third act and give the characters an enemy they can actually defeat. Neither is needed.
44. Captive State
There's so much going on in Captive State that I almost want to suggest it would be better as a TV mini-series, but that's a disservice to the incredible achievement of the film. There are a lot of characters and a lot of activity and goals and motivations to keep track of, but the film mostly succeeds in this. There were plenty of times when I struggled to keep up, but that's as intended and it all holds together by the end.
I still don't like that some of the actors I came for (Vera Farmiga and Alan Ruck, especially) have little more than cameos, but the film does focus on some core characters enough to satisfy me. It also reveals that there's an actual story that it's telling (and it's a good one), but that's not apparent until late so that most of the film feels like an exercise in world-building without a definite plot. Again, that's not what's happening, but on first viewing it was hard to tell until the very end. This is another one I'll want to revisit.
43. Shazam!
Taken on its own, it's a fun, unique, and well-constructed superhero story. I enjoyed it on that level.
But I have nitpicks. Many nitpicks that each by itself wouldn't detract from the movie, but as a group they keep me from fully appreciating it. Many of them are old-man complaints born of my love for a specific version of this character and the movie in my head that I wished this was. They aren't fair and I won't subject anyone to them. Some - like a certain almost-cameo that should've just been a real, honest cameo - feel more valid, but are still minor issues. I believe that Shazam! does a lot of good and people should see it; it's just not my bag and that's okay.
January 10, 2020
56 Movies I Missed from 2019 (Part 5)
45. Zombieland: Double Tap
I was super stoked for this until the disappointing reviews came out claiming that it added little to the story. I don't trust critics to reflect my personal tastes and I'm still planning to see this at some point (for Emma Stone alone, if for no other reason). But my initial excitement has been fully crushed.
46. The Addams Family
I love these characters, but the trailer made the comedy look super broad without any of the specific quirks about the Family that I find so endearing. I hope that's just a bad trailer, but it kept me from seeing this in the theater.
47. Earthquake Bird
I have no idea why this made it to my list. It has Alicia Vikander, but she's not an immediate draw for me. Maybe it's the mystery story or the setting in Japan. Vikander plays a woman who becomes a murder suspect when her frenemy goes missing.
48. Hunter's Moon
Werewolf movie.
49. Doctor Sleep
I'm curious, but I'm also pretty cold on both filmed versions of The Shining. I haven't read the Shining novel, so maybe that's the missing part of the equation. I got the novel for Christmas and hope that once I've read it, I'll be more excited about what happens next.
50. Badland
Western with Wes Studi and Mira Sorvino. Bruce Dern can be a draw, too, but he was in that awful Hickok movie a couple of years ago, so some of his cred has worn off.
51. Last Christmas
Totally would have seen this opening night if it had actually been released in December instead of the month before. Khaleesi finds love at Christmas with the help of Emma Thompson, Michelle Yeoh, and George Michael songs.
52. Charlie's Angels
I'm mildly curious to see a feminist approach to the concept, but wasn't rushing out to the cinema for Kristen Stewart. I don't know the other two leads. Maybe they're great. I'll find out later.
53. Radioflash
Want to know how to get me interested in your post-apocalyptic survival thriller? Put a big ol' Grizzly on the poster, apparently.
54. Jumanji: The Next Level
I loved the previous one and was excited for more, especially with all the attention that horse was getting in the marketing. Reviews calmed me right down though. It's not just that critics are indifferent about it; it's the specific criticism that it's just rehashing what we liked about the previous movie. Between this and Zombieland 2, I'm evidently skittish about that.
55. Black Christmas
I have to be in a very specific mood for a slasher movie, but this looks like one I'll eventually enjoy.
56. Hell on the Border
Another Western, but specifically, it's a Western about Bass Reeves, the historical person who helped inspire the creation of the Lone Ranger. And it's got Ron Perlman.
I was super stoked for this until the disappointing reviews came out claiming that it added little to the story. I don't trust critics to reflect my personal tastes and I'm still planning to see this at some point (for Emma Stone alone, if for no other reason). But my initial excitement has been fully crushed.
46. The Addams Family
I love these characters, but the trailer made the comedy look super broad without any of the specific quirks about the Family that I find so endearing. I hope that's just a bad trailer, but it kept me from seeing this in the theater.
47. Earthquake Bird
I have no idea why this made it to my list. It has Alicia Vikander, but she's not an immediate draw for me. Maybe it's the mystery story or the setting in Japan. Vikander plays a woman who becomes a murder suspect when her frenemy goes missing.
48. Hunter's Moon
Werewolf movie.
49. Doctor Sleep
I'm curious, but I'm also pretty cold on both filmed versions of The Shining. I haven't read the Shining novel, so maybe that's the missing part of the equation. I got the novel for Christmas and hope that once I've read it, I'll be more excited about what happens next.
50. Badland
Western with Wes Studi and Mira Sorvino. Bruce Dern can be a draw, too, but he was in that awful Hickok movie a couple of years ago, so some of his cred has worn off.
51. Last Christmas
Totally would have seen this opening night if it had actually been released in December instead of the month before. Khaleesi finds love at Christmas with the help of Emma Thompson, Michelle Yeoh, and George Michael songs.
52. Charlie's Angels
I'm mildly curious to see a feminist approach to the concept, but wasn't rushing out to the cinema for Kristen Stewart. I don't know the other two leads. Maybe they're great. I'll find out later.
53. Radioflash
Want to know how to get me interested in your post-apocalyptic survival thriller? Put a big ol' Grizzly on the poster, apparently.
54. Jumanji: The Next Level
I loved the previous one and was excited for more, especially with all the attention that horse was getting in the marketing. Reviews calmed me right down though. It's not just that critics are indifferent about it; it's the specific criticism that it's just rehashing what we liked about the previous movie. Between this and Zombieland 2, I'm evidently skittish about that.
55. Black Christmas
I have to be in a very specific mood for a slasher movie, but this looks like one I'll eventually enjoy.
56. Hell on the Border
Another Western, but specifically, it's a Western about Bass Reeves, the historical person who helped inspire the creation of the Lone Ranger. And it's got Ron Perlman.
January 9, 2020
56 Movies I Missed from 2019 (Part 4)
34. Joker
My interest in Joker bounced back and forth. I haven't liked the character since the late '70s and really didn't care about seeing a Batman-less origin story for him. But then the trailer revealed that Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix had a very specific, personal take that looked interesting. But then it came out and everyone had opinions and were very loud about expressing them and the whole thing just made me tired. I'll get around to it one of these days.
35. The King
I love the Henry V story. Especially Shakespeare's version of it. And especially Kenneth Branagh's version of Shakespeare's version. So I'm interested in a new version, but kind of feel like I'm just gonna compare it to Branagh's, which isn't very fair. Only now I realize that Timothée Chalamet plays Prince Hal and that makes me more eager.
36. Blood Quantum
A zombie story made by First Nations people in which zombies attack a reservation as an analogy for European colonizers. Sounds fascinating.
37. Sea Fever
I tend to be attracted to stories set at sea. This one's a horror story about a drifting boat with a water supply contaminated by a brutal parasite.
38. Radioactive
Rosamund Pike (an actor I like a lot) plays Marie Curie (an important historical person I know very little about).
39. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
I love Fred Rogers and the documentary about him (Won't You Be My Neighbor?) was my favorite movie of 2018. So I kept trying to get stoked to see A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, but kept getting bogged down in the hype of it all. I worried that the universal raving about it was raising my expectations to an unrealistic level and besides... I already have a perfectly good Mr Rogers movie.
I think I felt about this the way I felt about Coco after loving The Book of Life. I didn't see Coco for a long time after it came out and I didn't see it in the theater. But I also loved it once I saw it and it's a great companion to Book of Life. I expect I'll love Beautiful Day in the same way, but I need some time to work myself back up to it.
40. Abominable
My initial impression was that Abominable was going to be a cute, but trite film. Sort of a warmed over ET. But one of the trailers won me over with its emotional focus on Chloe Bennet's character and the role of music in the story. I never got around to the theater for it, but I'm eager to check it out.
41. Harriet
I was a huge fan of the TV show Underground and especially loved the episode that was nothing but Aisha Hinds as Harriet Tubman talking for an hour to a roomful of fellow Abolitionists about her story. Hinds was always compelling as Tubman, but she carries that entire episode with very few speaking parts from any other characters. It's a great speech and she delivered it masterfully. There's humor, horror, and hope all wrapped into it, but most importantly there are Ideas. If Harriet is half that good, it'll be well worth watching. Probably multiple times.
42. Black and Blue
I love the concept of Naomie Harris as a person forced to wrestle with her identity as a black woman and also a police officer. It got lukewarm reviews, so I don't know how well it handles that conflict, but it's a great idea.
43. 21 Bridges
Chadwick Boseman being a badass New York detective on a citywide manhunt against a ticking clock. Love this kind of stuff.
44. Dracula
In the midst of my attempt to watch as many Dracula adaptations as possible, news came of this super low budget version. From the production company's Facebook page it doesn't sound like it actually came out last year though IMDb still lists it as a late-September release. I'll keep in on my radar and give it a look as soon as I can.
My interest in Joker bounced back and forth. I haven't liked the character since the late '70s and really didn't care about seeing a Batman-less origin story for him. But then the trailer revealed that Todd Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix had a very specific, personal take that looked interesting. But then it came out and everyone had opinions and were very loud about expressing them and the whole thing just made me tired. I'll get around to it one of these days.
35. The King
I love the Henry V story. Especially Shakespeare's version of it. And especially Kenneth Branagh's version of Shakespeare's version. So I'm interested in a new version, but kind of feel like I'm just gonna compare it to Branagh's, which isn't very fair. Only now I realize that Timothée Chalamet plays Prince Hal and that makes me more eager.
36. Blood Quantum
A zombie story made by First Nations people in which zombies attack a reservation as an analogy for European colonizers. Sounds fascinating.
37. Sea Fever
I tend to be attracted to stories set at sea. This one's a horror story about a drifting boat with a water supply contaminated by a brutal parasite.
38. Radioactive
Rosamund Pike (an actor I like a lot) plays Marie Curie (an important historical person I know very little about).
39. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
I love Fred Rogers and the documentary about him (Won't You Be My Neighbor?) was my favorite movie of 2018. So I kept trying to get stoked to see A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, but kept getting bogged down in the hype of it all. I worried that the universal raving about it was raising my expectations to an unrealistic level and besides... I already have a perfectly good Mr Rogers movie.
I think I felt about this the way I felt about Coco after loving The Book of Life. I didn't see Coco for a long time after it came out and I didn't see it in the theater. But I also loved it once I saw it and it's a great companion to Book of Life. I expect I'll love Beautiful Day in the same way, but I need some time to work myself back up to it.
40. Abominable
My initial impression was that Abominable was going to be a cute, but trite film. Sort of a warmed over ET. But one of the trailers won me over with its emotional focus on Chloe Bennet's character and the role of music in the story. I never got around to the theater for it, but I'm eager to check it out.
41. Harriet
I was a huge fan of the TV show Underground and especially loved the episode that was nothing but Aisha Hinds as Harriet Tubman talking for an hour to a roomful of fellow Abolitionists about her story. Hinds was always compelling as Tubman, but she carries that entire episode with very few speaking parts from any other characters. It's a great speech and she delivered it masterfully. There's humor, horror, and hope all wrapped into it, but most importantly there are Ideas. If Harriet is half that good, it'll be well worth watching. Probably multiple times.
42. Black and Blue
I love the concept of Naomie Harris as a person forced to wrestle with her identity as a black woman and also a police officer. It got lukewarm reviews, so I don't know how well it handles that conflict, but it's a great idea.
43. 21 Bridges
Chadwick Boseman being a badass New York detective on a citywide manhunt against a ticking clock. Love this kind of stuff.
44. Dracula
In the midst of my attempt to watch as many Dracula adaptations as possible, news came of this super low budget version. From the production company's Facebook page it doesn't sound like it actually came out last year though IMDb still lists it as a late-September release. I'll keep in on my radar and give it a look as soon as I can.
January 8, 2020
56 Movies I Missed from 2019 (Part 3)
23. The Hustle
Rebel Wilson's gimmick has grown old for me thanks to (I'm gonna blame it on) Pitch Perfect 3, but I still think she can be funny and I'm a big big fan of Anne Hathaway. I also like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels just fine and am curious to see it remade, even though the critics were rough on this.
24. The Secret Life of Pets 2
Enjoyed the first one and this one has Harrison Ford as a dog with a bandanna.
25. Escape Plan: The Extractors
I enjoyed the first Escape Plan, but geez that second one was rough. Bautista was the draw and he was barely in it. So I'm super skittish about going back a third time, but still irresistibly curious. Bautista has that effect on me.
26. Shaft
I love both the 1971 and 2000 versions, so I was all in on another visit, but then I found out that it's a comedy? Still want to see. Much less excited.
27. Daughter of the Wolf
I have never not enjoyed a Gina Carano movie. And look at Richard Dreyfuss looking all grizzled and scary.
28. Anna
Luc Besson's name on stuff really scares me, but dang if he doesn't put together projects that sound like they're made for me. This has got Kickbutt Assassin Woman, Luke Evans, and Helen Mirren. All good things.
29. Robert the Bruce
Pretty much an official sequel to Braveheart without actually being official. With or without that connection, it's got Angus Macfadyen and I'm happy.
30. A Rainy Day in New York
I never know how much I'm going to like any given Woody Allen movie, but just look at that cast. Timothée Chalamet is especially on my radar these days, but all six names at the top of that poster are big draws for me.
31. Get Gone
Rico Anderson was an actor on the first season of The Orville and I had the pleasure of interviewing him for the Planetary Union Network podcast. While we talked, he told me about this upcoming movie he was in called Get Gone and it sounded great. Basically, it's a horror film about a hoax-busting group that goes to Oregon to investigate an urban legend and gets caught in a war between a drilling company and a secretive family.
32. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
I have this book sitting unread on my shelf and after the movie trailers I think I'm too freaked out to read it. That bit with the insect leg or whatever coming out of the woman's face? No thank you. Killer scarecrows though? Bring 'em on. I'll get around to this, but I'll probably watch it with the lights on.
33. Motherless Brooklyn
I'm a fan of Edward Norton, so I'm especially interested in this passion project (he also directed it) about a '50s noir detective with Tourette's Syndrome. I'd watch Norton playing a detective any day, but the Tourette's angle is especially intriguing since I know very little about that disorder.
Rebel Wilson's gimmick has grown old for me thanks to (I'm gonna blame it on) Pitch Perfect 3, but I still think she can be funny and I'm a big big fan of Anne Hathaway. I also like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels just fine and am curious to see it remade, even though the critics were rough on this.
24. The Secret Life of Pets 2
Enjoyed the first one and this one has Harrison Ford as a dog with a bandanna.
25. Escape Plan: The Extractors
I enjoyed the first Escape Plan, but geez that second one was rough. Bautista was the draw and he was barely in it. So I'm super skittish about going back a third time, but still irresistibly curious. Bautista has that effect on me.
26. Shaft
I love both the 1971 and 2000 versions, so I was all in on another visit, but then I found out that it's a comedy? Still want to see. Much less excited.
27. Daughter of the Wolf
I have never not enjoyed a Gina Carano movie. And look at Richard Dreyfuss looking all grizzled and scary.
28. Anna
Luc Besson's name on stuff really scares me, but dang if he doesn't put together projects that sound like they're made for me. This has got Kickbutt Assassin Woman, Luke Evans, and Helen Mirren. All good things.
29. Robert the Bruce
Pretty much an official sequel to Braveheart without actually being official. With or without that connection, it's got Angus Macfadyen and I'm happy.
30. A Rainy Day in New York
I never know how much I'm going to like any given Woody Allen movie, but just look at that cast. Timothée Chalamet is especially on my radar these days, but all six names at the top of that poster are big draws for me.
31. Get Gone
Rico Anderson was an actor on the first season of The Orville and I had the pleasure of interviewing him for the Planetary Union Network podcast. While we talked, he told me about this upcoming movie he was in called Get Gone and it sounded great. Basically, it's a horror film about a hoax-busting group that goes to Oregon to investigate an urban legend and gets caught in a war between a drilling company and a secretive family.
32. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
I have this book sitting unread on my shelf and after the movie trailers I think I'm too freaked out to read it. That bit with the insect leg or whatever coming out of the woman's face? No thank you. Killer scarecrows though? Bring 'em on. I'll get around to this, but I'll probably watch it with the lights on.
33. Motherless Brooklyn
I'm a fan of Edward Norton, so I'm especially interested in this passion project (he also directed it) about a '50s noir detective with Tourette's Syndrome. I'd watch Norton playing a detective any day, but the Tourette's angle is especially intriguing since I know very little about that disorder.
January 7, 2020
56 Movies I Missed from 2019 (Part 2)
12. The Vast of Night
I don't know any of the filmmakers, but this scifi thriller about a couple of kids looking for the source of a mysterious frequency in New Mexico got good reviews.
13. Them That Follow
Religious snake-handling is a fascinating subject, but mostly I'm attracted to the rural Appalachia setting. And Walton Goggins.
14. Official Secrets
Keira Knightley always trips my radar. I didn't rush to the theater to see Official Secrets because it felt like other films I've seen before (and recently), but reviews and online buzz are good.
15. Words from a Bear
As I continue learning more about American Indian culture, this documentary about Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Navarro Scott Momaday (he won for House Made of Dawn in 1969) is something I want to see.
16. Troop Zero
I'm guessing that Jim Gaffigan is what initially caught my attention, but I'm all for a movie about empowering young, misfit girls.
17. Knives and Skin
Teen Noir. Maybe I'll watch this as a double-feature with Brick.
18. Booksmart
Teen comedy about empowered girls. Got all the good reviews.
19. Superpower Dogs
My wife and son love dogs, so I keep putting dog movies on our family list. I'm going to learn my lesson one of these days, but this one's a documentary and not a dumb comedy, so it probably won't be the one that breaks me.
20. Love Is Blind
It has Matthew Broderick, but that's not an instant draw for me. I think it was just the wacko plot that grabbed me. It's about a woman who literally cannot see the physical presence of her mother, so her therapist has her spend time with a dude whom she also cannot see, but who has fallen in love with her.
21. Missing Link
I like those Laika movies and I like adventure stories about big, hairy, ape-people.
22. Plus One
I'm a sucker for wedding comedies.
I don't know any of the filmmakers, but this scifi thriller about a couple of kids looking for the source of a mysterious frequency in New Mexico got good reviews.
13. Them That Follow
Religious snake-handling is a fascinating subject, but mostly I'm attracted to the rural Appalachia setting. And Walton Goggins.
14. Official Secrets
Keira Knightley always trips my radar. I didn't rush to the theater to see Official Secrets because it felt like other films I've seen before (and recently), but reviews and online buzz are good.
15. Words from a Bear
As I continue learning more about American Indian culture, this documentary about Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Navarro Scott Momaday (he won for House Made of Dawn in 1969) is something I want to see.
16. Troop Zero
I'm guessing that Jim Gaffigan is what initially caught my attention, but I'm all for a movie about empowering young, misfit girls.
17. Knives and Skin
Teen Noir. Maybe I'll watch this as a double-feature with Brick.
18. Booksmart
Teen comedy about empowered girls. Got all the good reviews.
19. Superpower Dogs
My wife and son love dogs, so I keep putting dog movies on our family list. I'm going to learn my lesson one of these days, but this one's a documentary and not a dumb comedy, so it probably won't be the one that breaks me.
20. Love Is Blind
It has Matthew Broderick, but that's not an instant draw for me. I think it was just the wacko plot that grabbed me. It's about a woman who literally cannot see the physical presence of her mother, so her therapist has her spend time with a dude whom she also cannot see, but who has fallen in love with her.
21. Missing Link
I like those Laika movies and I like adventure stories about big, hairy, ape-people.
22. Plus One
I'm a sucker for wedding comedies.
January 6, 2020
56 Movies I Missed from 2019 (Part 1)
As usual, before I rank the movies I watched from 2019, I want to call out some that were on my radar, but I didn't get around to. This list was crazy long last year, because I sucked at keeping up with current movies in 2018. This year, I kept it down to just over the number of current movies that I actually watched.
Here they are in the order in which they were released. More or less. Because of initial releases in festivals and whatnot, some of this is really hard to organize.
1. Scrawl
Daisy Ridley in a horror movie about a couple of kids who make a comic book and then things in it start happening in real life. I like that it's about comics. I like even more that Ridley's in it.
2. The Public
Emilio Estevez directs his next film after The Way, which I very much enjoyed. It's about homeless people taking over the public library during a bitter cold spell as an act of civil disobedience. So that sounds interesting. And in addition to Estevez, it also stars Gabrielle Union, Jeffrey Wright, Alec Baldwin, and Christian Slater.
3. Transit
I must have seen a trailer that I like or something, because I'm not familiar with the filmmakers. Or maybe it was that tagline: "Casablanca as written by Kafka." It's about a guy trying to escape occupied France under an assumed identity, but then falls in love with the wife of the person he's pretending to be.
4. Little Woods
A modern Western with Tessa Thompson as an outlaw partnered up with her sister (played by Lily James).
5. The Nightingale
The writer/director of The Babadook has created an Australian Western about a woman who teams up with an Aboriginal man to get revenge on a dude. I love every word of that.
6. Teen Spirit
Elle Fanning always gets my attention, but I heard great things about not only the movie, but also its soundtrack.
7. The Chaperone
Alright, Julian Fellowes. You had me at Downton Abbey, Elizabeth McGovern, and Haley Lu Richardson's haircut.
8. In Like Flynn
I'm a big fan of Errol Flynn. Sign me up for a movie about his adventurous, pre-Hollywood life in Australia.
9. Slaughterhouse Rulez
Margot Robbie and Simon Pegg are people I like in this comedy about monsters attacking an English boarding school. I also like monsters and English boarding schools.
10. The Price of Death
Sounds like a low-budget Maverick meets 3:10 to Yuma, but it's a recent Western, so I'm interested.
11. All Is True
I'm actually embarrassed that I haven't seen this one yet. Kenneth Branagh directs a film in which he also plays William Shakespeare with Judy Dench as his wife and Ian McKellen as his patron, the Earl of Southampton. I mean, get your act together, Mike.
Here they are in the order in which they were released. More or less. Because of initial releases in festivals and whatnot, some of this is really hard to organize.
1. Scrawl
Daisy Ridley in a horror movie about a couple of kids who make a comic book and then things in it start happening in real life. I like that it's about comics. I like even more that Ridley's in it.
2. The Public
Emilio Estevez directs his next film after The Way, which I very much enjoyed. It's about homeless people taking over the public library during a bitter cold spell as an act of civil disobedience. So that sounds interesting. And in addition to Estevez, it also stars Gabrielle Union, Jeffrey Wright, Alec Baldwin, and Christian Slater.
3. Transit
I must have seen a trailer that I like or something, because I'm not familiar with the filmmakers. Or maybe it was that tagline: "Casablanca as written by Kafka." It's about a guy trying to escape occupied France under an assumed identity, but then falls in love with the wife of the person he's pretending to be.
4. Little Woods
A modern Western with Tessa Thompson as an outlaw partnered up with her sister (played by Lily James).
5. The Nightingale
The writer/director of The Babadook has created an Australian Western about a woman who teams up with an Aboriginal man to get revenge on a dude. I love every word of that.
6. Teen Spirit
Elle Fanning always gets my attention, but I heard great things about not only the movie, but also its soundtrack.
7. The Chaperone
Alright, Julian Fellowes. You had me at Downton Abbey, Elizabeth McGovern, and Haley Lu Richardson's haircut.
8. In Like Flynn
I'm a big fan of Errol Flynn. Sign me up for a movie about his adventurous, pre-Hollywood life in Australia.
9. Slaughterhouse Rulez
Margot Robbie and Simon Pegg are people I like in this comedy about monsters attacking an English boarding school. I also like monsters and English boarding schools.
10. The Price of Death
Sounds like a low-budget Maverick meets 3:10 to Yuma, but it's a recent Western, so I'm interested.
11. All Is True
I'm actually embarrassed that I haven't seen this one yet. Kenneth Branagh directs a film in which he also plays William Shakespeare with Judy Dench as his wife and Ian McKellen as his patron, the Earl of Southampton. I mean, get your act together, Mike.
