Movies I Watched in November, Part 2

Christmas Eve is a week away (!), so I figure it's about time to do another recap of November's movies. Here goes...

Hiring Taika Waititi (of "Flight of the Conchords" and "What We Do in the Shadows") turns out to have been a stroke of genius, because making the Norse god the lead in a comedy is just what the Marvel Cinematic Universe needed, freshening up-wise. Chris Hemsworth was surprising adept at the deadpan comedy, and he and Mark Ruffalo made a perfect team. It was almost all good, in fact, from the cameos in the opening to Cate Blanchett's suitably over-the-top villain to the setting and art direction, which evoked the pure glory of Jack Kirby more than any comic book movie I've ever seen. The only relatively weak points were, ironically, the big battle scenes at the end. Though they were well-staged and exciting enough, in contrast to the deliberate craziness of the rest of the film (Jeff Goldblum! Waititi as a CGI monster!), they seemed a little, well, by-the-numbers. If you haven't seen it, by all means check it out when it hits Blu-ray, but really, the best way to appreciate those Kirby-inspired visuals was on a big, big, BIG screen.


This was one of the big holes on my cult-movie-viewing resume, an acclaimed (but under-the-radar) 1988 movie about a nice guy (Anthony Edwards) who meets his dream girl (Mare Winningham) then accidentally hears a phone call from a military base announcing that a nuclear war has started and the missiles will hit Los Angeles in just over an hour. I'd heard great things, so when I finally got my hands on this sweet Kino Lorber blu-ray, I finally gave it a shot. Thankfully, the hype was not wrong, and "Miracle Mile" is a something I've never quite seen before: a smart, snappy romantic comedy, sort of like "After Hours" with a heart, that manages to be a nail-biting apocalyptic thriller. No spoilers on how it ends, but I will say I was both (a) surprised and (b) impressed. Also, though "dated" is a perjorative among some movie-watchers, in this case it's definitely (as they say) a feature and not a bug, with all those 1980s neon-drenched L.A locations raising this movie to a whole other, almost magical level.


Just like "Tomorrow Never Dies" a couple of months ago, I popped this one into the blu-ray player partly because I knew they'd be discussing it on the (highly recommended) James Bonding podcast. Truth is, though, this is one of my favorite Bonds, a movie that I'd argue shaped the concept of "A James Bond Movie" in the mind of the public more than any other. (For instance, this is really what the Austin Powers movies are spoofing.) You've got Blofeld, SPECTRE, a colossal base in an active volcano (designed by the legendary Ken Adam) and a Cold War plot involving stolen space capsules and nuclear tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union. In the middle of it all, of course, is Connery as Bond, maybe not as slim and young as he was in, say, "Goldfinger," but giving it all in a couple of still-impressive fight scenes and jamming his tongue into his cheek during the odd interlude where he pretends to be Japanese for some strange reason. It's goofy (and, admittedly, borderline racist), but also the sort of offbeat plot you'd never, ever see in a Bond Movie today. And, if you're a fan of midcentury design, this movie is a never-ending series of jaw-dropping sets. I'd kill to have an office like Tiger Tanaka's, for instance.


Solid Stephen King adaptation on Netflix that gives two strong actors, Carla Gugino and Bruce Greenwood, an intriguing showcase for their talents in what's essentially a two-character play (even though on of those characters dies not long after the story starts.) Gugino and Greenwood play a couple getting away for the weekend and, in an attempt to spice up the marriage, Greenwood produces a pair of (real, not novelty) handcuffs and fastens Gugino to the bedposts. But, of course, things go wrong, an argument starts and that extra Viagra Greenwood took stops his heart and leaves Gugino trapped with no one coming to help. To survive, she has to figure a way to escape her confinement, determine just how tough she is and shut out the nagging voices of doubt in her head (Greenwood continues as an imaginary version of his character, which works surprisingly well.) It's a great hook and a solid thriller, so I recommend it, but I have to warn you that there's an ending (which is in King's novel) that continues the story far past the point it needs to go. If you can skip the last 10 minutes or so, you'll have a much more rewarding experience.

Up next: We finish November with a great Bela Lugosi movie, a doc I've written about before and a landmark couple-on-the-run film.