Movies I've Seen

This is a librarian's personality at work, cataloguing the movies and TV shows I've seen (since 2004). The Internet Movie DataBase remains the best source of movie information, and I favour Rotten Tomatoes for movie reviews.


A

The A-Team (2010)

One of the most notoriously cheesy TV series of the 1980s brought to the big screen. Not quite as cheesy, but just as dumb - if that makes any sense. I laughed and was entertained, so I have no major complaints.

2010, dir. Joe Carnahan. With Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Quinton Jackson, Sharlto Copley, Jessica Biel, Gerald McRaney, Brian Bloom.

Above the Law

I saw this back when it came out, and more recently (2010) on TV.

Steven Seagal (in his first film role) plays Nico Toscani, a Chicago police officer investigating a massive drug conspiracy - despite being told to lay off the case more than once. He plays an arrogant asshole, but I guess that's not terribly different from most action heroes - but he's less likable than most. What sets him apart to some extent is his martial arts fighting. Unusually, he's brought Aikido to the screen, and apparently refused to make it more flashy for the camera. I can respect that, but it's a fairly un-flashy art, and watching him in action isn't as entertaining as Jackie Chan, Jet Li, or Tony Jaa. I spent the whole movie thinking that he was the titular character, "above the law" (he certainly acts it), but apparently the title was aimed at the CIA and FBI, agencies that are in some respects accountable to no one. An interesting payload for a crappy martial arts flick ...

1988, dir. Andrew Davis. With Steven Seagal, Pam Grier, Sharon Stone, Daniel Faraldo, Henry Silva.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

If only I had remembered Timur Bekmambetov directed this - I would have passed entirely. Or at least sat down prepared to eat a banquet of cheese. It's not that I mind cheese - this movie review list is riddled with ludicrously cheesy movies that I've enjoyed - it's just that Bekmambatov thinks he's making fine art, and this shit can't be taken seriously. Plodding line readings that aren't quite bad enough to be funny and no intentional humour at all. Lots of blood splatter though. That's right: young Abraham Lincoln (Benjamin Walker - a terrible actor without the acting skills or even the appearance to carry off the gravitas we expect - and the movie implied - of Abraham Lincoln) couldn't save his mother from being killed by a vampire and is now being educated in the ways of killing vampires by a more skilled vampire killer (Dominic Cooper, possibly the only person to retain a shred of dignity through this farce). And his weapon of choice is a silver-edged axe. A number of other good actors show up to be humiliated - Anthony Mackie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Rufus Sewell. Winstead looks amazingly similar to a younger Jennifer Ehles - so much so that I checked to see if they're related, but no. If you liked Bekmambatov's "Wanted" (should it be unclear, I did not) you might enjoy this, although it's not quite as "good." The action is similarly insanely over-the-top.

SPOILER ALERT: stop reading now if you haven't seen the movie. Why I'm bitching about logic errors in a movie like this, I don't know - it's just my nature to be bothered by them. Sturges (Cooper) is initially completely unable to touch or attack Adam (Sewell) in any way and we're told that the dead cannot kill the dead. And yet in the climactic battle sequence, Sturges is a key element in attacking and beating Adam. If you make your own storytelling rules, don't break them.

2012, dir. Timur Bekmambetov. With Benjamin Walker, Dominic Cooper, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Anthony Mackie, Rufus Sewell, Jimmi Simpson, Marton Csokas, Erin Wasson, Joseph Mawle.

The Abyss

I saw this when it came out, in its original too-long format: 140 minutes. A group of workers led by Virgil "Bud" Brigman (Ed Harris) on an experimental underwater oil drilling platform are co-opted by the U.S. military to help with the rescue/recovery/exploration of a nuclear sub that went down very near it. Since we saw the crash of the sub, we know that something beyond the capabilities of either the American or Soviet subs is zooming about in the neighbourhood - Cameron's set-up for the still-absurd ending.

Stars one of my favourite actors, Ed Harris. For better or worse, the plot is typical Cameron: pedestrian but absurd. Cameron does one thing I love: he obeys the laws of physics (putting him in a tiny minority in Hollywood). This is a wonderful thing when you're an engineer, as breaking those laws often takes me right out of a movie. He also makes spaces lived-in and realistic. But he loves his overblown plots ... SPOILER ALERT: stop reading now etc. So this time we have aliens on the bottom of the ocean. In the original version, they save Brigman's life - which is very sweet, but unexplained, and then the movie ends. In the much longer (add another 30 minutes to the already excessive run-time) extended edition, we see more character interactions, but especially we see the alien's motivations - and that they were going to destroy humanity ... but didn't because Brigman is such a nice guy (they were saving him because he ended up on the edge of death by preventing a nuclear explosion). It presents a very different view of the whole movie ... but it's still stupid, in fact probably even more so that the shorter version.

I liked Harris, and the relationship between Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as his ex-wife - particularly the heart-breaking scene where she chooses to drown, but the whole movie would have been a hell of a lot better without the aliens. Problem is, Cameron probably couldn't have come up with a story without adding aliens ... Stick with the short version if you're a fan of Harris, otherwise pass entirely.

1989, dir. James Cameron. With Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Michael Biehn, J.C. Quinn, Leo Burmester, Kimberly Scott, Todd Graff, John Bedford Lloyd, Chris Elliott.

Accident Man

I've known about Scott Adkins for a long time. For a lot of martial arts movie fans he got noticed with the "Boyka" series of movies, which I've never watched (although I've seen some of the fights on YouTube). The movie of his that completely won me over was "Avengement:" Adkins is a decent martial artist, but he has a skill that almost no other martial artist can match. He can ACT. In "Avengement," he was an terrifying bundle of rage any sane person knew to avoid immediately after seeing him. Selling something like that - as well and as fast as he did, particularly given that he still allowed a core of humanity to show through - was amazing. And it guaranteed I would track down at least a couple more of his movies.

This and "Avengement" were both directed by Jesse V. Johson (as are several other of Adkins' movies - they're a good team, see "The Debt Collector"). In this case, Adkins is Mike Fallon, an assassin who specializes in making his killings look like accidents. We're introduced to the other assassins that drink at his pub/headquarters, and we see a couple of his kills. But his personal life gets tangled up in his business, putting him at odds with his own group. This leads to numerous brutal fights - an interesting feature of this film being the finest fight choreography ever seen in an Adkins film - by a wide margin (again keeping in mind I haven't seen the Boyka movies). Ray Park and Michael Jai White really helped, and I don't know who Amy Johnston is, but man she can fight.

The action is well defined, excellently choreographed, and brutal. The humour is almost as vicious as the action, and just as worthwhile - but you'll need a fairly strong stomach for both. I would say this sits about half way between "Avengement" and the first "Kingsman" movie - it's not quite as good as either of them, but borrows elements of both to make a very entertaining movie.

2018, dir. Jesse V. Johnson. With Scott Adkins, Ashley Greene, Ray Stevenson, Michael Jai White, Ray Park, David Paymer, Perry Benson, Amy Johnston, Nick Moran, Ross O'Hennessy, Leon Finnan.

Accident Man: Hitman's Holiday

"Accident Man" was a fun movie, and a good showcase for Scott Adkins. It was directed by his long-time working partner Jesse V. Johnson (they've made something like six movies together) and based on a graphic novel about a hit man whose kills all look like accidents. This sequel isn't directed by Johnson, and the listed writers are Stu Smalls and Scott Adkins (as it turns out, Adkins had a hand in writing the previous one as well). And man, do they have a vicious and hilarious sense of humour. This is at least as violent as its predecessor, and has a surprisingly quixotic (a word, I might add, that's actually used in the script) sideline in the idea of making a family wherever you go and/or hanging onto the one you have. It's perverse, it's insane, and it's always entertaining. One important thing for fans of the martial arts: they've retained the excellent choreography of the previous movie. If you're a fan of the genre, this is a must-see. And the ending has a wickedly clever twist on it - another unexpected treat from a martial arts film.

I made a connection between this movie and "Boss Level" - they both have huge kinetic energy and a cast of insane assassins out for our anti-hero. The difference is "Boss Level" has the SF / "Groundhog Day" thing going on and is "action," not "martial arts."

From the credits: "Fight Choreography: Andy Long, Hung Dante Dong, Scott Adkins."

2022, dir. George Kirby, Harry Kirby. With Scott Adkins, Perry Benson, Ray Stevenson, Sarah Chang, George Fouracres, Flaminia Cinque, Adam Basil, Faisal Mohammed, Peter Lee Thomas, Beau Fowler, Andy Long.

Accidental Parkland: The Bounty & Burden of Toronto's Ravines

I saw "Accidental Parkland" in preview at the Patagonia store on Queen West in Toronto (2016-12-15). The movie points out that Toronto is blessed with a truly staggering number of ravines. They've been protected from building because of the danger of flooding, and so the city is left with thousands of hectares of "accidental parkland." And it is, without a doubt, a blessing and an opportunity. Shawn Micallef (professor and newspaper columnist in the city) narrates, and walks the ravines. Someone with a very good eye got the movie some great footage (including a lot of drone shots), although perhaps not enough: while there was no direct repetition of footage, there were several times they used footage that occurred moments after footage seen earlier in the film. As the film only runs about one hour, we might have hoped for better. They talk to a number of more or less influential people, among them Mark Mattson who is "Lake Ontario Waterkeeper" (I had no idea that title existed), Geoff Cape, CEO of Evergreen Brickworks, and Jennifer Keesmaat, Toronto's Chief Planner. At one hour in length it's a bit too long, but for a movie that was made on $26,000 funding from Indiegogo, it's both informative and interesting.

2016, dir. Dan Berman. With Mark Mattson, Geoff Cape, Jennifer Keesmaat.

The Accidental Spy

Jackie Chan plays Buck Yuen, a very fit but apparently unsuccessful exercise equipment salesman. Early on we see his intuition getting him into foiling a bank robbery. Shortly after that he finds out that his father (who he never knew as he was an orphan) may still be alive. His father dies shortly, but not before setting Buck on the trail of a lot of money and some deadly chemicals.

Unlike most Chan movies, this actually requires you pay some attention. But the action seems to be much more about Chan absorbing as much abuse as possible rather than being acrobatic as he was in his earlier movies. The grand finale is a straight (and rather poor) crib from "Speed," and the movie as a whole is just crap. See his earlier movies, pass on this one.

2001, dir. Teddy Chan. With Jackie Chan, Eric Tsang, Vivian Hsu, Wu Hsing-kuo.

The Accidental Tourist

I saw this shortly after it was released and remembered it as very good, but my tastes have changed a lot since then. So it was a pleasant surprise to find that in 2008 this is even better than I remembered it. I thought well enough of it to read the original book by Anne Tyler in the intervening years, discovering in the process that, as eccentric as director Lawrence Kasdan's characters were, Tyler's were much more so. The book and the movie are both really good, and have characters with the same names with similar story arcs: but they're very different. This is a very funny, very poignant movie. Highly recommended.

1988, dir. Lawrence Kasdan. With William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, Geena Davis, Amy Wright, David Ogden Stiers, Bill Pullman, Ed Begley Jr.

Across the Universe

A musical done entirely with Beatles music. I'm not a fan of musicals, but I watched this because of the music. Whatever they paid their director of photography, it wasn't enough: Every. Single. Shot. Was a thing of beauty. Nevertheless I left the movie a little disheartened: the story isn't very good, the references were stretched to breaking (they sang "Dear Prudence" to Prudence and that was fine, but "where did she come from?" "She came in through the bathroom window" was just stupid when acted out literally), the song interpretations are a bit uneven (Eddie Izzard doing Mr. Kite was possibly both the worst and the most interesting), the large middle stretch of surreality may fit the Sixties but was irritating, and it doesn't hold together particularly well. Still, there were some very good ideas and brilliant cinematography.

2007, dir. Julie Taymor. With Jim Sturgess, Evan Rachel Wood, Joe Anderson, Dana Fuchs, Martin Luther, T.V. Carpio, Eddie Izzard.

The Adam Project

We first meet Adam at the age of 12 (Walker Scobell), finding out that he's very smart - but he's small, asthmatic, and can't keep his mouth shut, so he's bullied at school. Then we meet his Mom (Jennifer Garner) who's struggling to keep it together as a single mother after the fairly recent death of her husband, Adam's father. Then we meet Adam, age 40 (Ryan Reynolds) ... when he jumps into 12 year old Adam's life in a time jet from the future. And we find out that their father actually created the science that led to time travel ... and someone else abused it. There's snark, time jumps, and several slightly weird but fun fights.

Reynolds isn't doing anything too different: he brings the abundance of snark and sarcasm. But he brings good comedic timing and charm, and they found a young kid (Scobell) who's a very good younger version of him. The end product is a lot of fun.

2022, dir. Shawn Levy. With Ryan Reynolds, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Garner, Walker Scobell, Catherine Keener, Zoe Saldaña, Alex Mallari Jr.

Adam's Rib

The trailer (which is on the DVD) claims this is a "romantic comedy." I didn't find much humour in it, and very little romance. Most of the humour consisted of the lawyer couple (Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn) bickering constantly over the court case about a woman attempting to shoot her philandering husband and how it was all about equal rights for women.

1949. dir. George Cukor. With Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn.

The Addams Family

A cartoonist drew sick and twisted images of a family he named after himself - back in the 1950s, some of the comics didn't even run. But in the 1960s a somewhat toned down version became a TV series that won lasting fame. I don't remember anyone really expecting this movie to live up to the TV series, but it did: Raúl Juliá and Angelica Houston were absolutely wonderful as Gomez and Morticia, and Christina Ricci pretty much stole every scene she was in as Wednesday. The humour is twisted, but not sick enough to significantly change the audience demographic from the TV show. A lot of fun.

1991, dir. Barry Sonnenfeld. With Raúl Juliá, Angelica Houston, Christina Ricci, Christopher Lloyd.

Addams Family Values

This is the second (and last) of the "Addams Family" movies, based on both Charles Addams' New Yorker cartoons and also the black and white TV series from the 1960s of the same name. Watching this in 2018, I remembered enjoying it in theatres when it was released, but I thought I might find it a bit ... quaint ... at this remove. But the movie is loaded with wonderfully twisted jokes that come at you thick and fast. I could have used any of a dozen of them as an example, but here's a good one: "You'll meet someone. Someone very special. Someone who won't press charges."

The story revolves around Uncle Fester's (Christopher Lloyd) search for love. Unhappily for him, he finds Debbie (Joan Cusack), who marries and kills men for their money. Director Barry Sonnenfeld knows when he's got a good thing: he gives many of the best lines to Christina Ricci (who plays Wednesday Addams) whose slightly creepy and amazingly deadpan delivery makes already good jokes brilliant. Totally absurd and hugely entertaining.

Also notable to me for a very early and significant appearance by David Krumholtz, who was 14 at the time.

1993, dir. Barry Sonnenfeld. With Raúl Juliá, Anjelica Huston, Christopher Lloyd, Christina Ricci, Carel Struycken, Jimmy Workman, Christopher Hart, Joan Cusack.

The Admiral: Roaring Currents

I got interested in this movie because of the naval battle involved, The Battle of Myeongnyang (Wikipedia) in 1597. Wikipedia claimed of the movie itself that it was not only Korea's most financially successful movie, but also very well reviewed. Rotten Tomatoes (as of today, 2016-01-10) has four reviews, three of which are positive. The battle itself is fascinating: the Japanese had routed the Korean navy in the absence of Korea's star general Yi Sun-sin - he was betrayed and tortured (historical fact). After their replacement general proved totally incompetent and got most of their ships destroyed, they put Yi Sun-sin (played in the movie by Choi Min-sik) back in charge. Except he had only 12 ships against a Japanese force in excess of 300 ships. Yi's choice of the battle location in a narrow straight with extremely strong currents proved to be even more advantageous than expected.

I was put off early by the portrayal of the Japanese as slimy and repugnant - they're even wearing heavy make-up to make them look more evil. The Koreans are, of course, good hard-working citizens. Most of them are terrified - who wouldn't be at those odds, they knew what they were facing. And the writers had the decency to include a treasonous captain who tried to leave (also historical fact). But given that the battle was 400 years ago - and that the Koreans and Japanese aren't in any kind of conflict at the moment - I'd kind of hoped their view of it would be slightly more neutral.

Some critics loved the drama of the large scale battles: unfortunately, I saw CG and took issue with the wake thrown up by speeding oar-powered boats. These are fairly large warships powered by men below decks with oars. Instead, they moved about as if powered by motors (odd, that).

Where I have to give some credit is on something else I thought was a bit absurd: the battle is initially taken up only by the Admiral's flagship. I thought that was ridiculous, movie grandstanding ... but in fact it's what happened.

The movie is historically interesting, but if you're interested in the history you might be better served by reading the Wikipedia article linked above or finding a book on the subject. As a movie drama it falls down by being too jingoistic and lacking in nuance.

2014, dir. Kim Han-min. With Choi Min-sik, Ryu Seung-ryong, Cho Jin-woong, Kim Myung-gon, Jin Goo, Lee Seung-joon.

Admission

Tina Fey is Portia Nathan, an admissions officer at Princeton. Paul Rudd is John Pressman, who runs an alternative school that's just shown up on Princeton's radar. When Portia visits the school, John hits her with a surprise: one of the kids at the school (Nat Wolff) is probably hers - that she gave up for adoption at the age of 21.

The biggest problem with the movie is that it couldn't decide if it was going for low brow humour or intellectual humour. Parts of the movie are a charming drama-comedy about a woman coming to terms with the possibility of reconnecting with a son she'd long given up, and other parts are slapstick farce set in the same universe and with the same characters as our other movie. Fey and Rudd are both good, and do what they can, but the movie is too messy to succeed.

2013, dir. Paul Weitz. With Tina Fey, Paul Rudd, Lily Tomlin, Wallace Shawn, Michael Sheen, Nat Wolff, Gloria Reuben, Olek Krupa.

An Adventure in Space and Time

Commissioned to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Dr. Who, this BBC made-for-TV movie celebrates the beginnings of the "Dr. Who" TV series. "Dr. Who" is now a mainstay of TV across the world (or at the very least the English-speaking world), and it's hard to imagine it as anything else: but 50 years ago it was a totally insane idea at the very staid and cautious BBC that barely made it to the screen to become the behemoth it is today. Brian Cox is Sydney Newman, the BBC exec who came up with a rough outline and got it going. Jessica Raine plays Verity Lambert, a former assistant to Newman getting her first shot at producing (she went on to become a force in British TV). Sacha Dhawan is the young Waris Hussein, directing this crazy idea while dealing with racism as the BBC's first Indian director. And David Bradley is William Hartwell, the grumpy and somewhat forgetful old man who became the first Doctor. Bradley was particularly good - as he's at the centre of the story, that's a very good thing.

The last 15 minutes shows interviews and footage of the original people (or family - it is 50 years on ...) talking about the show, giving the whole thing context. Very well done, and recommended for anyone who's a fan of science fiction - even if you're not a big fan of "Dr. Who."

2013, dir. Terry McDonough. With David Bradley, Jessica Raine, Sacha Dhawan, Brian Cox.

Adventureland

That summer job you hated when you were in university ... this is it. James Brennan (Jesse Eisenberg) is headed for grad school in the fall, but needs money and can't get a job waiting tables, so he ends up working at the local amusement park with a mixed bag of perpetual losers and other caught-in-between university students far too intelligent to be working the jobs they're in. Greg Mottola wrote as well as directed, and has pulled out a very funny movie. There's a bit more humour-of-humiliation than I like, but certainly no more than you receive in that part of your life, and it's not played simply for the humour. Eisenberg was good, but I particularly liked Martin Starr, who was charming as the over-educated, nerdy, likable, and less-than-gorgeous Joel.

2009, dir. Greg Mottola. With Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Margarita Levieva, Ryan Reynolds, Martin Starr, Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig.

The Adventures of Baron Münchausen

We see a theatre company performing part of the Baron Münchausen stories in a besieged city in the late eighteenth century. They're interrupted by an old man (John Neville) who claims to actually be Baron Münchausen, and takes over the stage to continue the story (which we see in flashback). After his stories are interrupted by shelling, the Baron and Sally (a very young Sarah Polley) take off in a balloon made out of women's silk underwear for a series of outrageous adventures - pursued (as he always is) by Death himself.

Utterly absurd and very funny, and in many ways the quintessential Terry Gilliam film.

As it turns out, Münchausen was a real person (1720-1797) who developed a reputation in later life for telling tall tales of his war years - which were eventually collected into a book. Gilliam has clearly modelled Neville's appearance on Doré's 1862 caricature of the man.

1988, dir. Terry Gilliam. With John Neville, Sarah Polley, Eric Idle, Uma Thurman, Jonathan Pryce, Oliver Reed, Robin Williams.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Season 1

The definitive Holmes of the 1980s, Jeremy Brett plays the part in what is quite possibly the most accurate and well known version. Granada TV in the UK produced these first six 50 minute episodes, each bringing one of the original Conan Doyle stories to the screen.

Well done and well presented. The acting isn't fantastic but it's good enough, and I enjoyed the series.

1984. With Jeremy Brett, David Burke.

The Adventures of Tintin

The latest in a line of "motion capture" movies, in which perfectly good actors have computer generated skins laid over top of their faces. Oddly, the character I most strongly objected to because he was sitting right in the depths of the uncanny valley, was Tintin himself. All the rest of the characters were more cartoon-like, and thus avoided falling into the valley.

This movie is based on decades of Tintin stories by the comics artist Hergé, combining three of the comic book stories. Tintin (Jamie Bell) is a very young, award winning reporter. He buys a model ship in a flea market, and promptly finds himself embroiled in the search for some form of treasure on the ship his model is of.

As with the comic book, there's non-stop action. The action is usually physically impossible, and occasionally totally ludicrous. Some of this is meant for humour, some of it is just meant to be "cool." Tintin regulars Thompson (Simon Pegg) and Thomson (Nick Frost) appear, and Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis) has a starring role. Of course there's a villain (Daniel Craig), but right triumphs and the inevitable sequel is set up.

I'm generally a big fan of children's movies, but I didn't like this one - at all. I suspect kids would, but I don't have kids and shouldn't be considered a good judge in this matter.

2011, dir. Steven Spielberg. With Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig, Nick Frost, Simon Pegg.

Æon Flux

Lots of special effects. Lots. But guess what, that doesn't make a movie. I kind of enjoyed this science fiction extravaganza, but it's really not a good movie. Based on a graphic novel (or a series), look to the animated TV series for better material.

2005, dir. Karyn Kusama. With Charlize Theron, Pete Postlethwaite.

An Affair to Remember

I first became aware of "An Affair to Remember" through "Sleepless in Seattle" (so our world works). I was later to find that it's regarded as a classic, so I finally gave it a shot.

The basic premise is unfortunately familiar: suave playboy Nickie Ferrante (Cary Grant) is engaged, but that hasn't stopped him having another affair, nor does it stop him flirting with Terry McKay (Deborah Kerr) on their U.S.-bound cruise ship. But she's also engaged, and somewhat better behaved than he is. But they become friends. At a stop in Villefranche-sur-Mer, Terry doesn't believe Nickie is going to see his grandmother: she thinks he has another woman in port. But he invites her along, and it turns out to be true. (I'm considerably confused by where their Europe-to-U.S.A. ship left from if it stopped at Villefranche: I thought most ships from Europe to the Americas started on the Atlantic side of the continent, not in the Mediterranean. Not to mention that Villefranche is an incredibly podunk little town quite near to the much more probable port of Nice ...) They have a lovely day with his grandmother, and both are made to see the world a little differently. As they arrive in New York, they promise to meet atop the Empire State Building in six months - something that was directly echoed in "Sleepless in Seattle."

The start was a little too clichéd for my taste: extra-suave playboy meets his match in beautiful, witty, intelligent and slightly sarcastic woman. And I really, really could have lived without the singing kids - that was a touch too much. But with those exceptions, it's an excellent movie.

1957, dir. Leo McCarey. With Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Richard Denning, Neva Patterson, Cathleen Nesbitt, Robert Q. Lewis, Fortunio Bonanova.

The African Queen

Katherine Hepburn plays Rose Sayer, a mannered and religious woman in Africa at the outbreak of the First World War. After the Germans burn the village she and her brother are missionaries in, her brother dies. Rose ends up travelling down-river with the Canadian captain of the "African Queen," a small steam-boat that delivers mail. Problem is, she and her brother barely tolerated the unmannered, unshaven boor (Humphrey Bogart as Charlie Allnut). She attempts to convince him that they should go down-river (past a German fort and down two sets of very nasty rapids) to a lake, where they should attempt to destroy the "Queen Louisa," a heavily armed German boat preventing the advance of the British.

What follows is referred to by Wikipedia as an "adventure film," but if it wasn't in the National Film Registry and considered a "classic" by half the critics in the world, I would have called it a Rom Com. They don't get along, they fight, they reconcile, they have adventures. It's a Rom Com.

Bogart and Hepburn are both wonderful as lonely older people who don't really know how to deal with this massive change in their lives. Their romance is awkward and a little painful to watch. The ending is a little too convenient, but entertaining.

1951, dir. John Huston. With Humphrey Bogart, Katherine Hepburn, Robert Morley, Peter Bull.

After Life (orig. "Wandâfuru Raifu")

When you die, you are given one week to choose a single memory that you will live in forever. And then the team of people who help you choose that memory will film it, recreate it for you. The premise is thin and absurd, but Hirokazu Kore-eda filmed a bunch of people, actors and non-actors, talking about their favourite memories from their entire lives - and it's mesmerizing. In many ways the second half, which has slightly less talking, is not as good as the first half. A quiet and fascinating movie.

1998, dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda. With Arata, Erika Oda, Taketoshi Naitô.

After the Sunset

Beautiful scenery and beautiful stars can't save the kind of dog's breakfast Brett Ratner likes to serve. Pierce Brosnan and Salma Hayek play a pair of jewel thieves newly retired to a Caribbean island when Woody Harrelson (the FBI agent who has followed Brosnan for years but never caught him) and a particularly tempting gem arrive on the island simultaneously. It's not a bad idea, but Ratner mangles everything so badly it's painful to watch (except perhaps when Hayek is on-screen).

2004, dir. Brett Ratner. With Pierce Brosnan, Salma Hayek, Woody Harrelson, Don Cheadle, Naomie Harris.

After the Thin Man

The original movie "The Thin Man" starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles is a marvelous comedy-mystery about a retired detective (Powell) and his rich wife (Loy) who find themselves solving a murder. Powell and Loy had a great chemistry and were wonderful together. Of course, the box office success of the first movie called for a sequel ...

For those not familiar with the series: "the thin man" of the title was the victim in the first movie, not Nick Charles. So the extension of the "Thin Man" part of the title to all the Nick and Nora Charles mysteries doesn't actually make much sense - except of course to marketers.

This begins right after the ending of the last one, with Nick and Nora arriving back in San Francisco on New Year's Eve. For added comedic value, there's a massive party at their house to welcome them back ... except nobody recognizes them. For more comedic value, their dog Asta finds that Mrs. Asta has apparently been having an affair with the dog next door. Neither of these subplots generated much in the way of laughs, and they don't add to the mystery plot you knew would appear shortly. Which it does, in the form of Nora's cousin Selma - whose husband Robert has disappeared. Nick - as in the last movie - isn't interested in playing detective. And - again as in the last movie - is badgered into doing so by his wife.

Finding Robert proves easy, and we find out he's a liar and a cheat. But when he's shot shortly after that, there are multiple suspects because of the complex web of relationships surrounding him, and suddenly Nick has a murder to solve.

The mystery was fairly interesting - although there were one or two minor but suspicious players / red herrings whose motivations didn't seem to ever be explained. Sadly, they fell back on "gather them all together at the end and see which suspect buckles," same as in the last movie. While Nick and Nora are still charming, they weren't as funny as in the original and a couple added subplots meant for comedy weren't terribly funny and felt unnecessary. I'm going to give the rest of the series (there are four more) a miss.

1936, dir. W.S. Van Dyke. With William Powell, Myrna Loy, James Stewart, Elissa Landi, Joseph Calleia, Jessie Ralph, Alan Marshal, Penny Singleton, Sam Levene, William Law, George Zucco.

Agatha Raisin

"Agatha Raisin" is apparently a well loved British detective fiction series in book form. In 2016, she got a translation to the small screen - and a bit of an update to modernize it. Reaction from fans of the books seems to be very mixed, with some very offended by the changes that have been made. I have no clue about the books. This review is based on the 90 minute pilot episode, and the first through fifth (out of eight) regular 45 minute episodes: that was all I felt a need to see.

Agatha Raisin (Ashley Jensen) starts the series as a highly successful London P.R. person, but she immediately follows through on her plan to retire to a cottage in a tiny village in the country. She makes aggressive moves to "fit in," and so makes herself multiple enemies. The local police man (D.C. Bill Wong, played by Matt McCooey) explicates to us that there hasn't been a murder in Carsley (her new town) in something on the order of 20 years - which I find interesting, as it's well established by the packaging even before you begin watching that this is a (comedy) murder mystery series.

On the plus side, the writers don't try to sell her as a genius detective: she's clever and fairly observant, but also gets herself into some extraordinarily sticky situations. She's not a particularly charming person - she uses people at her convenience (not a great trait in a small village). Most of the villagers are predictably eccentric. But the biggest problems are that the mysteries are at best adequate, and the humour isn't entirely to my taste - raising the occasional smile but definitely not getting frequent laughs.

2016. With Ashley Jensen, Katy Wix, Mathew Horne, Jamie Glover, Jason Barnett, Matt McCooey, Rhashan Stone, Lucy Liemann, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith.

The Age of Adaline

Blake Lively plays Adaline Bowman who lives in modern San Francisco, age 106 - but looking 29. This is explained by the voice-over, which also walks us through the car accident (circa 1937), death, and lightning strike that stopped her aging. When the FBI decides they need to know why she seems to be 29 even though she's past fifty, she starts moving and changing identities every ten years. Not surprisingly, the movie is about ... a change of circumstances.

Lively does a good job as the old but ever youthful Adaline, while Ellen Burstyn plays her daughter (who is in her 60s or 70s) and Michiel Huisman a persistent and charming suitor as she approaches her next move and new identity. It's a relatively slow-paced and talky movie - which I have no issue with - and they do it fairly well. Unfortunately, the wrap-up suffers from severe predictability. Up until that point it was engaging, well acted, and fairly well thought out.

SPOILER ALERT: Read no further if you have any intention of watching this movie. It's just me getting pissy about predictability.

As Adaline races away from both her former and current suitor, I thought "she'll have a car accident. There may even be lightning." I was only marginally off - a woman of 100 years of age, already specifically shown to be a very good driver, makes an incredibly stupid driving mistake. Yup. Next up, lightning - because yes, she's died again. Oh, we've substituted a defibrillator. Next up: she'll find a gray hair because she's resumed aging. Wow, look at that. She did. I think the author(s) thought they were being clever with the symmetry of the car accidents, but instead it feels predictable, obvious, and stupid. I get that it's a romance and I have no issue with her settling in with the charming guy: that's a given. But that puts the onus on the writer to be more creative and interesting elsewhere.

2015, dir. Lee Toland Krieger. With Blake Lively, Michiel Huisman, Ellen Burstyn, Harrison Ford, Kathy Baker, Anthony Ingruber, Amanda Crew.

Ah! My Goddess

Mildly bizarre, kind of complex, targeting teens, doesn't make a lot of sense, and ultimately sickly sweet. Set in the future, with "gods" and "goddesses" walking around in both "heaven" and on Earth. A goddess and an human fall in love, and their love is tested - with a threat that might destroy the earth as we know it.

1993. dir. Hiroaki Gôda. With Kikuko Inoue, Masami Kikuchi, Yumi Tôma, Aya Hisakawa.

Akeelah and the Bee

Incredibly pedantic ("face your fears," and "be nice") and often overly sweet, this movie manages to be emotionally moving on the strengths of Laurence Fishburne's and Keke Palmer's performances. Palmer, at age 12, is something of a miracle. Reminiscent of "Searching for Bobby Fischer." Enjoyable and uplifting.

2006, dir. Doug Atchison. With Keke Palmer, Laurence Fishburne, Angela Bassett, J.R. Villarreal, Curtis Armstrong.

Aladdin

Disney's take on a classic story. Since the genie becomes a main character and is voiced by Robin Williams, you can kind of guess where this one is headed: there's a lot of comedy. And, seeing it in 2011, I wonder if this movie didn't presage the sort of knowing, self-aware comedy that came into children's movies a decade later (with "Shrek" essentially being the vanguard). In the introductory segment, a peddler (also Williams) asks the camera "come closer," and it splats up against his face, "Too close! A little too close." I haven't always been a big fan of Williams, but when he's bright blue and can take on any form he wants, he can be pretty damn hilarious. There are a number of Eighties popular culture references that will go by a lot of people at this point (anyone remember Arsenio Hall?), but Williams is tossing out the jokes fast and furious, and nearly all of them are funny. And the rest of the plot is quite charming and has a positive message for the kids. Hell, I even liked Gilbert Gottfried's voice work, he's quite funny here. This one is a real treat.

1992, dir. Ron Clements and John Musker. With Robin Williams, Scott Weinger, Jonathan Freeman, Linda Larkin, Frank Welker, Gilbert Gottfried, Douglas Seale.

Alegría (live in Sydney)

Cirque du Soleil's show "Alegría" filmed live in Sydney. Very good. I got it at the same time as the DVD of their show "Dralion," and it's an odd comparison: "Dralion" is the better show, but "Alegría" was filmed better.

1999. Dir. Franco Dragone.

Alegría

Franco Dragone brings us a bowdlerized version of Cirque du Soleil. One of the earliest images of the movie is a view of the main character of the movie, Frac, looking up out of a packing case. Whether the horrible pun "Frac in a box" was intentional or not, it sets the tone for the movie. It's awfully difficult to take drama seriously when most of the characters are in clown face. It's a poor story, and there's very little support from the artistry and acrobatics of the Cirque that I expected. Don't see this.

1998, dir. Franco Dragone. With René Bazinet, Frank Langella, Julie Cox.

Alexander Nevsky

Russian anti-German propaganda (look at the date), but kind of fun. Prince Alexander - who is obviously a good prince because he fishes with his people - leads the defence of Russia against the evil Teutons. The evil people with money want to buy off the invaders, but the peasants (the good working people of the country) are roused to defend the land. They sing many songs.

The battle scenes consist of people milling about making chopping motions, the acting is poor, and it's all in the service of a political agenda. Despite which it's a well filmed and interesting movie. And it deserves considerable credit for better historical accuracy than most films - in the day-to-day stuff, if not the politics.

1938, dir. Sergei Eisenstein.

Alfie (2004)

Remarkably similar to its predecessor of the same name, a morality play dressed up as a sex comedy. Jude Law talks to the camera (as Michael Caine did in the original), a cocky sleep-with-anyone guy. But his indiscretions all catch up to him at once, what a shock. Wait, were we supposed to care for this asshole at the end of the movie?

2004, dir. Charles Shyer. With Jude Law, Jane Krakowski, Marisa Tomei, Omar Epps, Nia Long, Gedde Watanabe, Sienna Miller, Susan Sarandon.

Alice in Borderland, Season 1

'Alice in Borderland' started life as a manga, and has graduated to a Netflix TV series (still in Japanese). The main characters are Kento Yamazaki as Ryōhei Arisu (as close as you can get to "Alice" in the Japanese language), and Tao Tsuchiya as Yuzuha Usagi. The series focuses first on Arisu, who with his two best friends is essentially transported from a restroom in the teaming Shibuya crossing area of Tokyo to an alternate, completely abandoned Tokyo. They soon find out that it's not totally abandoned - and the only way to survive is to play "games" every few nights. Comparisons have been made to "Battle Royale" and "Cube," neither of which I've seen - but it sounds about right from what I know of them. The first season consists of eight episodes of about 45 minutes each. This review is based on the first five episodes.

It's both dark and violent. I've never been a fan of horror movies or TV - and particularly not during the pandemic. Horror-comedy occasionally: this has no comedy. If you want to see society and civility break down completely (yeah, I understand this is kind of the point) as people are forced to kill each other to survive ... this is fairly well done, if you can get with the magical premise. Not my thing.

2020, dir. Shinsuke Sato. With Kento Yamazaki, Tao Tsuchiya, Yūki Morinaga, Keita Machida, Ayame Misaki, Nijirô Murakami, Yutaro Watanabe, Sho Aoyagi, Ayaka Miyoshi, Dori Sakurada, Aya Asahina, Shuntarō Yanagi, Mizuki Yoshida, Kina Yazaki, Tsuyoshi Abe, Nobuaki Kaneko, Riisa Naka.

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

This is roughly the 20th film/TV version of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, directed by Tim Burton for Disney (an odd combination). Also odd was the decision to place extremely well known actors in the parts of the Mad Hatter, the Red Queen, and the White Queen (Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, and Anne Hathaway respectively) and an almost unknown actress (Mia Wasikowska - not well known in 2010) as Alice at the core of the movie.

A frame story in the late nineteenth century has been added: we see Alice as a six year old with a recurring dream about the rabbit hole, then we see her again at nineteen at a garden party - where the current state of her life is made clear before she falls down the rabbit hole (again?). Many of the elements of Carroll's story are preserved - the Hatter, the Dormouse, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the Cheshire Cat, the Caterpillar - but the events aren't the same as the original and the Hatter is now a very major character.

I didn't think Wasikowska was particularly good as Alice. That may not be entirely fair when she's standing next to Depp, Bonham Carter and Hathaway, but the comparison is impossible to avoid. But despite that, and despite not having a lot to do with Carroll's original plot, I quite enjoyed this. The art is magnificent, most of the acting (intentionally over-the-top) is very good, and the story is a lot of fun (although I got rather less out of the frame story than "the dream").

2010, dir. Tim Burton. With Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Crispin Glover, Stephen Fry, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Michael Sheen.

Alien Autopsy

The film is about the making of a supposed documentary being filmed by Morgan Banner (Bill Pullman) about British duo Ray Santilli (Declan Donnelly) and Gary Shoefield (Ant McPartlin). Ten years prior they had been in the U.S., and Santilli purchased an ancient film of the 1947 Roswell alien autopsy ...

"Ant and Dec" (Donnelly and McPartlin) are a British comedy duo. Santilli and Shoefield are real people, who show up for a couple minutes in the closing credits. The film details the multiple scams they ran through - how real any of it is is open to speculation. I found it mildly amusing, and at least as annoying - depends on your sense of humour. I kept hitting fast forward (very rare for me).

2006, dir. Jonny Campbell. With Ant McPartlin, Declan Donnelly, Bill Pullman, Harry Dean Stanton, Omid Djalili, Götz Otto.

Alien Resurrection

The fourth (and hopefully final) movie in the franchise. Of course we're still getting Alien / Predator crossovers. Sigourney Weaver made a huge effort to have her Ellen Ripley character killed off at the end of the third movie as she was tired of the role. But this is science fiction, so we can do cloning (and Weaver was offered a huge sum of money for another sequel). Thus, Ripley is back. More or less. In many respects it's the same old story: the military wants to use the Alien lifeform as a weapon. So 200 years after Ripley died, they cloned her from DNA retrieved from the vat where she died in "Aliens 3." Except it was all mixed up with Alien DNA, so it took a few tries to get it right. Ripley is treated as a prisoner and experimental object - definitely not human. Also in the mix is a crew of mercenaries bringing human fodder in, a crew that includes Ron Perlman and "Call" (Winona Ryder).

While I think it's long past time this series should have ended, I also rather liked this movie - twice. And this time around I realized why: "written by Joss Whedon." That explained a lot. And being directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet explains A) the presence of Dominique Pinon in an American movie, and B) the frequent amber lighting. Weaver and Whedon have come up with a particularly psycho version of Ripley, who is herself partly Alien - extremely strong, with acid blood, and can sense the behaviour of the other Aliens a long way away. There's a lovely twist on the android/cyborg thing from the first movie, and at the end, four people (it's the fourth movie in the series, see?) survive. (Although only two of them are fully human, but that's okay.)

1997, dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet. With Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder, Ron Perlman, Dominique Pinon, Gary Dourdan, Michael Wincott, Brad Dourif, Leland Orser, Dan Hedaya.

Alien vs. Predator

No, no, I wasn't expecting quality here. Pretty much by the numbers. People's chests explode, Predators kill Aliens, Aliens kill Predators, big Alien threat to all mankind. Yup. New record though: end credits clocked in at TWELVE MINUTES.

2004, dir. Paul Anderson.

Alienoid

Choi Dong-hoon is a popular director in Korea, having directed several blockbuster films. I encountered him when I saw "Woochi: The Demon Slayer," which is a hugely entertaining Korean historical fantasy film that stretches into the modern day with a wizard having fun and fights in a modern Korean city. This time out he decided to mix science fiction, fantasy (in the form of Daoist wizards again), time travel, and alien technology into an entertaining mess. With one caveat that I wish I'd known before I started the film: the Korean film title ends in "... Part 1" and the movie itself ends in a massive cliffhanger.

We're told that aliens have been trapping other evil aliens inside humans for centuries: this is a prison planet. Guard and Thunder are here to prevent break-outs. The story opens with Guard and Thunder fighting an escaped prisoner in 1380 AD ... and ending up with a human baby to raise because Thunder is a sentimental robot and Guard ... well, doesn't stop Thunder. And we also find out that the Crystal Knife they possess allows them to travel through time - which they do, to the modern day. It only gets weirder from there.

It should be noted that this is essentially an action-comedy: there are multiple comedy set-pieces, some of which retain their humour across cultures to North America. I really enjoyed the movie ... right up until it said "To be continued" at the end. Extremely annoying.

2022, dir. Choi Dong-hoon. With Ryu Jun-yeol, Kim Woo-bin, Kim Tae-ri, So Ji-sub, Yum Jung-ah, Jo Woo-jin, Kim Eui-sung, Lee Hanee, Shin Jung-geun.

Alita: Battle Angel

I have a major issue with books that are open-ended (they don't finish). I like it only marginally better when a movie does this, and I think it should be required in either case to tell people in advance "we're not going to wrap this up." You can make a book or a movie that provides for the possibility of a sequel while still wrapping up your plot threads. Or you can say "Fuck You" to your audience and leave them with a heap of unresolved issues that will only be answered if your movie is popular enough and makes enough money to warrant a sequel. That's "Alita," ending with the big middle finger to the audience. "Here's the real big-bad, and maybe Alita will get at him in the next movie ... or five movies after that."

Now that I've got that out, maybe I can write a review based on the merits (or lack thereof) of the content itself.

If you've seen the trailer, it's kind of hard to miss Alita's giant eyes. And they do occasionally pass into the uncanny valley, but for the most part the special effects are very good. The 3D (BluRay, not theatre) is good, although I did notice some artifacting around moving foreground objects - I was surprised to find that the movie was apparently shot in real 3D rather than being done in post. (Also very surprising that I could get a 3DBR: I thought the technology was officially dead for the home ...)

Alita (Rosa Salazar) is a cyborg, her head and upper torso recovered from the junk heap under the floating city of Zalem - the place that pretty much everyone in Alita's world aspires to live in. Alita is reassembled by Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz), a cyborg repairman. She turns out to be sweet, impulsive, and irresistibly drawn to battle - it's what she loves best. This leads her to the spectacularly brutal sport of Motorball, where cyborgs tear each other apart (and incidentally try to score points with a ball). But bad politics in the city and her own history (which she can't initially remember) lead to her becoming a lightning rod for trouble both inside and outside the Motorball arena.

SPOILER ALERT: I'm going to bitch about the spectacularly poor logic of the ending. Stop reading if you don't want to know about that.

Alita has claimed "I do not stand by in the presence of evil," and so it's implied that she's on a quest for justice against Nova, the leader(? we don't even know for sure) of Zalem. And Nova directly threatened everyone she cared for if she pursued him. And yet, "several months later," at the end of the film, she's directly challenging him from the Motorball arena - presumably on the assumption that winning Motorball is the only way to Zalem. Wait, what? Who set that rule? The management of Zalem, meaning quite likely Nova. And how did the last returnee to Zalem go? In little meat pieces. Oh, and to get there, she has to have played multiple rounds of Motorball, damaging or killing dozens of other cyborgs who (while they may not be innocents) don't deserve to die or have to pay huge amounts of money to get their bodies fixed because of her thirst for revenge. That's not justice, and she claims to be in favour of justice. And if Nova has been letting you play Motorball for several months without harassing or killing those close to you, then this is his game. He wants you to do this. And even if Alita isn't smart enough to work that out, her "father" is. She's had several months to think about it (I worked it out in seconds). So not only is the movie setting up a sequel, it's saying "our heroine is a moron." Not a great start - or end - from my perspective.

2019, dir. Robert Rodriguez. With Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Ed Skrein, Jackie Earle Haley, Keean Johnson, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Lana Condor, Idara Victor.

All About My Mother

I think "Talk to Her" is Pedro Almodavar's best, but this one's pretty good. He puts his characters in absurd situations, but the characters themselves are very good ... In this case, Manuela's son (her only family) dies. She returns to Barcelona to find her son's father and comes into the company of some ... interesting people.

2000 dir. Pedro Almodavar. With Cecilia Roth, Penélope Cruz, Antonia San Juan, Marisa Paredes, Candela Peña.

All Creatures Great and Small (2020) - Season 1

I'd seen bits and pieces of the 1970s TV version of "All Creatures Great and Small" in my childhood, but I'd never been inspired to watch it. Despite that, a modern remake somehow appealed - perhaps because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has reduced my interest in depressing shows and increased my interest in reasonably upbeat fare like this. The show opens with James Herriot (Nicholas Ralph) leaving Glasgow to attend a job interview in Yorkshire with Siegfried Farnon (Samuel West) - who turns out to be entirely unable to keep assistants, with James being something like the fifth or sixth. Improbably, they manage to get along, with Farnon's housekeeper (Anna Madeley as Audrey Hall) acting occasionally as the peacekeeper. In the second episode, Siegfried's younger brother Tristan (Callum Woodhouse) returns home. He's intelligent, too much of a drinker, and a poor student of veterinary science (although a fair practitioner). The most important secondary character in the first season is Helen Alderson (Rachel Shenton), Herriot's love interest - who is unfortunately already involved with Neville Longbottom (not actually the character's name, but the actor is Matthew Lewis who had that role in Harry Potter).

All of this is based at least in part on real people and events. "James Herriot" was the pen name of Alf Wight, and there are real people behind Siegfried, Tristan, and Helen. Mind you, there have been modifications: the original Siegfried sounds borderline crazy, whereas he's portrayed in the books and here as merely eccentric. Other changes were made to suit the books, but the series is at least partly autobiographical.

The series is about as low-key as it gets: it's a gentle comedy about life in a small British town in the 1930s. It's not completely without dark moments: James has to put down a winning racehorse to the considerable distress of all involved. But mostly it's a comedy, and quite a charming one.

2020, Brian Percival, Metin Hüseyin, Andy Hay. With Nicholas Ralph, Samuel West, Anna Madeley, Callum Woodhouse, Rachel Shenton, Diana Rigg, Matthew Lewis, Nigel Havers, Maimie McCoy, Mollie Winnard.

All Creatures Great and Small (2020) - Season 2

As with the first season, this one consists of six episodes and a Christmas special - each of which are a little under an hour in length.

The story is about James Herriot (a stand-in for the original book series author, Alf Wight), a Scottish vet who finds a job in the Yorkshire Dales in the late 1930s working at an established practise. On the plus side, Alf Wight's latest reincarnation has recovered his Scottish accent - something that was magicked away in the previous TV series. His boss is Siegfried Farnon - played by Samuel West, with Siegfried being a stand-in for Wight's partner Donald Sinclair. Farnon is often described as eccentric (which is how he's portrayed in the books) but when West was asked if Sinclair was eccentric, he replied "Oh no - he was mad." Wight apparently toned Sinclair's behaviour down significantly when he created Farnon. Other important characters include Siegfried's brother Tristan, played by Callum Woodhouse - a good vet who likes a good party and is struggling to complete his degree, the housekeeper Audrey Hall (Anna Madeley) who keeps the peace in the house, and Helen Alderson (Rachel Shenton) who's the daughter of a local farmer and James' love interest.

Having started watching this because I was looking for something low key and not stressful (because we were in the middle of COVID-19), it may be slightly hypocritical to complain that I'm now unhappy with it because it's unrealistically up-beat. He's a vet - animals sicken and die sometimes, but hardly at all in this show.

2021, dir. Brian Percival, Sasha Ransome, Andy Hay. With Nicholas Ralph, Samuel West, Anna Madeley, Callum Woodhouse, Rachel Shenton, Patricia Hodge, Matthew Lewis, Tony Pitts, Imogen Clawson, Dorothy Atkinson.

All Creatures Great and Small (2020) - Season 3

James Herriot (Nicholas Ralph) and his new wife Helen Alderson (Rachel Shenton) are very much in love and very happy together. They live with the Farnon brothers Siegfried (Samuel West) and Tristan (Callum Woodhouse) and the housekeeper Audrey Hall (Anna Madeley). The brothers and Herriot run a veterinary practice in the Yorkshire Dales. The year is 1939, and war with Germany looms. This season is six-plus-one episodes (a special Christmas episode as they've done each year), each a TV hour in length.

For the most part, the show holds firm to sickly sweet happenings and plot-lines, with our vets almost never having to put animals down. And every time they do have to, it's played as a big weepy. Most episodes include one or several of our main characters learning a lesson and making a better choice by the end of the episode. I admit that a dark pall is cast over the whole thing with one of the main characters and several of the minor ones going off to war at the end of the series.

I'm not sure I'm coming back for more of this: it's lovely to look at, the characters are well played, but the clear hand of the writers in the decisions of the characters and the outcomes has really started to bother me.

2022, dir. Brian Percival, Andy Hay, Stewart Svaasand. With Nicholas Ralph, Samuel West, Anna Madeley, Callum Woodhouse, Rachel Shenton, Patricia Hodge.

All of Me

Steve Martin plays a lawyer who plays in a jazz band in the evenings. Lily Tomlin plays an incredibly rich and selfish woman who is on the verge of death after a lifetime of illness. She's convinced that a swami will move her soul into a bowl, then into Victoria Tennant's body. Martin meets her as a lawyer, and they don't get along well. Eventually Tomlin dies, and she does indeed go into the bowl ... and then, through an accident, into Martin. She and Martin split his body pretty much down the middle.

A lousy comedy with a few pieces of utterly brilliant physical comedy by Martin. When the two of them are jointly occupying his body and he's trying to get somewhere, he strides on one side and minces on the other. Martin is brilliant in these moments, but absolutely everything is overplayed and the outcome is pretty much inevitable.

1984, dir. Carl Reiner. With Steve Martin, Lily Tomlin, Victoria Tennant, Madolyn Smith Osborne, Dana Elcar, Jason Bernard.

All the King's Men (2006)

The story of an earnest, passionate man (Sean Penn) who rises to power as the governor of Louisiana and becomes as corrupt as those he was trying to drive out, seen through the eyes of his assistant (Jude Law). The tale of a whole bunch of morally bankrupt people told in bits and pieces with not-very-compelling speeches and heavy-handed colourizing (or de-colourizing) of the film. I understand the 1949 version was very good - if so, this doesn't live up to it.

2006, dir. Steven Zaillian. With Sean Penn, Jude Law, Anthony Hopkins, Kate Winslet, Mark Ruffalo, Patricia Clarkson, James Gandolfini.

All the President's Men

Strangely, this is effectively a sequel to 2017's "The Post" (which I watched within a couple days of this) although this movie was made in 1976. It's also facts-based, and portrays several of the same people at the Washington Post (portrayed by different actors), only a year after the events of "The Post." Our two leads are different: Robert Redford is Bob Woodward and Dustin Hoffman is Carl Bernstein. Woodward thinks that the break-in at Democratic National Committee in the Watergate complex is strange: the five guys caught have unusual connections and a very high-priced lawyer. Woodward is a new reporter, but he has a high level government contact who's willing to feed him some information (eventually titled "Deep Throat" by one of the editors because they didn't have any other name for him). He teams up with the more experienced Bernstein, Deep Throat pushes them to "follow the money," and we watch as they try.

It's a tense and effective movie portraying an important moment in American history. I'll still stand by "Spotlight" as the best newspaper film ever made, but this - like "The Post" - is also very good.

1976, dir. Alan J. Pakula. With Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, Hal Holbrook, Jason Robards, Jane Alexander, Stephen Collins, Ned Beatty, Robert Walden.

Allegiant

The sequel to "Insurgent," itself the sequel to "Divergent." Curiosity, a love of science fiction (apparently even bad SF), and the fact that the movies are free because I borrow them from the library keeps me coming back to this crap series. In what has now become standard operating procedure, the third book of author Veronica Roth's Divergent trilogy has been split in half, so three books has become four movies.

I should state that this review isn't based on actually watching the movie: I skimmed it, watching perhaps half the content or maybe a bit less. And that's because it's utter crap. The dialogue is still weak, just like the ideas. The characters haven't evolved: they're still rigidly set in the behaviour patterns they showed in the first movie.

Tris (Shailene Woodley), Four (Theo James), Caleb (Ansel Elgort), Christina (Zoë Kravitz), and Peter (Miles Teller) escape the growing chaos in Chicago, going over the wall and finding people outside. They find out that Chicago was essentially an experiment to see if the human genome would straighten itself out if given enough time and a bit of encouragement, and it has! Tris is PURE! (Four isn't, but Tris - because she's just cool like that - loves him anyway.) But the people outside are UNCOOL. So Tris and Four fight for their freedom again!

Woo. Spare yourself the pain. Consider my sacrifice: I've watched this garbage so you won't have to. Save yourself!

2016, dir. Robert Schwentke. With Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Miles Teller, Ansel Elgort, Zoë Kravitz, Jeff Daniels, Maggie Q, Naomi Watts, Octavia Spencer, Bill Skarsgård.

The Almighty Johnsons, Season 1

The concept of "The Almighty Johnsons" is fairly simple: a family of brothers in New Zealand are a bunch of re-incarnated, nearly powerless, and fairly minor Norse Gods. Our main character, Axl Johnson (Emmett Skilton), finds this out (as the others did before him) on his 21st birthday when the older brothers take him into the woods and make him stand in a circle of stones stark naked. He's more than a little skeptical ... until a bolt of lightning hits him. The reason he was naked wasn't religious: the next youngest brother had been really, seriously pissed to have his favourite jacket fried.

Axl turns out to be Odin re-incarnated, which changes everything. The brothers want to find him the reincarnation of Frigg - Odin's wife. Because if Odin connects with her, all of them will get their full powers back. His brother Anders (Dean O'Gorman, the reincarnation of Bragi, god of poetry, who can talk any woman into his bed) thinks the best solution is for Axl to sleep with as many women as possible. Axl is exceptionally clueless even given that he's 21, but isn't entirely stupid and is a reasonably decent guy who's not overly keen on Anders' methodology. There's a low key ongoing conflict with a group of re-incarnated goddesses who don't want the return to power because they were always subordinate to the very stupid gods, etc. etc.

The series is fairly lightweight, with a fair bit of sex and plenty of raunchy jokes, and not a great deal of threat. On a purely practical level, it consisted of 10 episodes of about 45 minutes each, and all three seasons are available through Toronto Public Library. Characters are drawn a little broadly, but ... well, they're gods, admittedly with human concerns. And the writing is surprisingly good, interesting and funny and a reasonable representation of the ongoing soap opera that is the mythology of nearly any set of gods.

I was particularly fond of the sixth episode, in which their oracle leads them to a funeral and eventually to the reincarnation of Thor (Geoff Dolan). It was very funny, and Axl/Odin finally started taking a bit of responsibility and using his powers (such as they are) to do something worthwhile. The 7th and 8th episodes were also quite good. The season ended with several plot threads coming to a head (of course), including a rather good incarnation of Loki. "Good" in the sense that the actor does a marvellous job of playing a charming but nasty god who also happens to be a lawyer. I wasn't crazy about the directions the series was headed, but the writing remains pretty good so I'm likely to carry on to the next season.

2011. With Emmett Skilton, Tim Balme, Dean O'Gorman, Jared Turner, Ben Barrington, Alison Bruce, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Rachel Nash, Michelle Langstone, Eve Gordon, Hayden Frost, Fern Sutherland, Geoff Dolan, Shane Cortese.

The Almighty Johnsons, Season 2

See my review of Season 1 above - particularly if you're not familiar with the setup of the show (although in that case you probably shouldn't read this review, there may be spoilers).

The weird setup remains much the same: Axl and his brothers are trying to find a way to restore their powers. Less breasts, just as much sex, staggering amounts of drinking, significant abuse of drugs. And still mostly a comedy. The writing is mostly on par with the previous year, although the ideas are perhaps a bit more stretched. They do have the good sense to realize that we'll be more interested in people than in gods, so mostly it's about the trouble being semi-god-like causes the (human) characters we care about. Axl's flatmates continue to play a big role: Gaia as the eternal romantic interest, and Zeb as the comedic relief - although he's a problem for me because most of the time he's full-on goofball, but when the kidnapping occurred, he randomly became smart for the duration (but no longer).

The season ending was this massive obnoxious hook - a new god arises, but not the one prophesied, leaving things in a mess. And it's just kind of dumb. I'm sure I'll watch the third season (it's the last), but I'm not as happy about it as I was after the previous season.

2012. With Emmett Skilton, Tim Balme, Dean O'Gorman, Jared Turner, Ben Barrington, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Rachel Nash, Michelle Langstone, Eve Gordon, Hayden Frost, Fern Sutherland, Shane Cortese, Geoff Dolan.

The Almighty Johnsons, Season 3

See also my reviews of Season 1 and Season 2 above. The short version is this: when Axl Johnson turned 21 (at the beginning of Season 1), his brothers took him out into the woods, gave him a sword, and lightning hit him. At which point he discovered that he was a reincarnated Norse God - with very limited powers. Odin, specifically. And this was a big moment for his brothers, because they're all minor gods and the appearance of Odin could potentially mean that they'll all regain their full powers ... if the reincarnation of Odin is united with the reincarnation of Frigg. So we've already had two seasons of the brothers trying to track her down.

My favourite episodes all involved Thor: he only shows up for about one episode in each season, and Geoff Dolan does a wonderful job of their vision of an overweight goat farmer with a temper as Thor.

I had considerably less trouble with the New Zealand version of English than I expected ... and a good deal more trouble with their expressions. I now know that "munted" means not merely drunk, but so drunk (or messed up) as to not be functional. And it can also be applied to any piece of equipment ("this car is munted"). And that "having a root" means to have sex. And that a "fancy dress party" doesn't mean what we think (ie. suit and tie), but rather what we'd think of as a "costume party." And that was actually one of my biggest issues with the show: Axl (in fact nearly everyone) gets into a staggering variety of costumes across three seasons: at least one dress a season for Axl, his underwear on multiple occasions, butt naked fairly frequently, and on one memorable occasion, a merkin.

ASIDE: Speaking of fancy dress ... the four brothers end up showing up at the fancy dress party (independently) as a police man, an Indian, a cowboy, and a builder (Mike hasn't bothered with a costume, that's his profession). Mike looks utterly disgusted when he realizes what's happened. They don't bother to explain the joke and I'm guessing a very large portion of the show's audience missed it given that the Village People's "YMCA" came out in 1978, but I have to admit that if you did get it it was pretty rich.

This is the weakest of the three seasons, with the writing reaching farther and farther afield to try to bring in interesting elements of mythology to keep us entertained, and turning their human lives into a full blown soap opera. One of the things I particularly liked about the first season was the family bond between the brothers. Toward the end of this season they completely tear that apart, especially in the last three episodes. I thought "oh shit, you're just trying to ratchet up the tension before the inevitable cliffhanger ending before the fourth season you never got." And I believed that right up until the last half hour of the last episode when I finally realized they had actually known the end was coming and had written for it, which was a huge relief: I forgave them a lot for that. The ending was actually pretty good. Despite which ... if you want my recommendation, watch the first season and stop there.

2013. With Emmett Skilton, Tim Balme, Dean O'Gorman, Jared Turner, Ben Barrington, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Rachel Nash, Michelle Langstone, Eve Gordon, Hayden Frost, Fern Sutherland, Shane Cortese, Geoff Dolan.

Almost Famous

I saw this a long time ago, probably when it came out. I remembered it as good, but that doesn't begin to do it justice: this is brilliant.

Set in 1973, Patrick Fugit plays William Miller, a precocious 15 year old who writes a couple articles for Creem magazine and then is invited by Rolling Stone to follow, and do an article on, the (fictional) up-and-coming band "Stillwater." Kate Hudson plays "Penny Lane," a band groupie of indeterminate age (but roughly the same age as William) who has an affair with Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup), Stillwater's guitarist. Hammond has also become William's mentor, while William has fallen for Penny. It's all set in the drug-addled world of rock-and-roll with occasional phone calls from William's exceptionally protective mother (Frances McDormand).

Really a fantastic movie. Hilarious, touching, a little bit heart-breaking, with great performances all around - Fugit, Crudup, and Hudson are particularly good. See it.

2000, dir. Cameron Crowe. With Patrick Fugit, Billy Crudup, Kate Hudson, Frances McDormand, Jason Lee, Fairuza Balk, Anna Paquin, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Zooey Deschanel, Noah Taylor.

Aloha

Bradley Cooper plays Brian Gilcrest, an ex-soldier and former high-end contractor severely injured and effectively demoted, now returning to Hawaii to arrange a proper Hawaiian blessing for a pedestrian gate at a new space centre. He has to deal with his military assignee Allison Ng (Emma Stone), his old buddy "Woody" (John Krasinski) who's now married to the ex-girlfriend he shouldn't have given up (Rachel McAdams), and his billionaire boss Carson Welch (Bill Murray). Not a great start, but not necessarily a bad one either. But then you have to mix in writer and director Russell Crowe's love of over-the-top dialogue (he's used this to some success in the past - "Jerry McGuire" being a prime example - but it's just bad here) and a huge dose of seriously misplaced Hawaiian religion and mysticism, and you get a movie every bit as bad as the critics said it was.

Cooper and Stone do their best with the material, but there's not really any hope for it. The subtitling of the Manly Silence later in the movie was brilliantly funny and at least gave us some good comedy, but didn't aid in saving a movie already short on drama.

My response was to go re-watch Crowe's "Almost Famous," which I still consider to be among the best movies ever made.

2015, dir. Cameron Crowe. With Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone, Rachel McAdams, John Krasinski, Bill Murray, Danny McBride, Alec Baldwin.

Along With the Gods: The Two Worlds

A young Korean firefighter dies saving the life of a young girl. He's taken to the Buddhist afterlife, where he's to be judged in seven trials to determine if he's worthy of reincarnation, and assisted by three grim reapers (alternatively known as "guardians") who help defend him against the prosecutors. The movie claims for him the title of "paragon," but in every trial we see the dubious decisions he's made during his life ... most of which turn out to be justifiable in dramatic reversals.

I saw a substantial similarity to the 1943 classic "Heaven Can Wait," which sees a recently deceased gentleman giving his life story to the devil because he's sure he deserves to spend eternity in Hell. But when I enumerate the differences between that movie and this one, you may not agree with my assessment ... Our nominal hero in this case is extremely uncommunicative, not the talkative star of "Heaven Can Wait:" he doesn't help his guardians for shit, and appears to believe he deserves punishment (that at least is the same). This movie is also action-packed: the journeys between the trials are eventful, and the lead guardian has to return to the real world to hunt down a vengeful spirit that's indirectly interfering with the trials. It's loaded with fantasy action.

Silliness and sentimentality abound, and if you like your movies overstuffed and over-emotional, this may work for you. I found it entertaining, but a second similar movie would be far too much so I won't be returning for the equally successful sequel that burned up the Korean box office. It's every bit as absurd as Bollywood ... except without the musical numbers. Try "Heaven Can Wait" instead, it's a better movie.

2017, dir. Kim Yong-hwa. With Ha Jung-woo, Cha Tae-hyun, Ju Ji-hoon, Kim Hyang-gi.

Aloys

Aloys Adorn (Georg Friedrich) is a Swiss private investigator who worked with his father and meticulously avoids direct contact with other human beings, recording people on his video camera. When his father dies, he drinks himself into a stupor on a bus. When he wakes, he finds his camera and nine of his precious tapes are gone. Soon a female voice calls him, and essentially goads him into a form of fantasy to try to get his tapes back. He spends the rest of the movie stumbling back and forth between reality and a fantasy that he comes to enjoy more than his life.

This is a very weird movie. Tobias Nölle (the director) isn't being ambiguous about what's fantasy and what's reality: you'll know. He wants it to be very clear that what Aloys is enjoying so much is not actually reality ... It's well acted and does a fairly good job of representing the struggle in an isolated man's head between choosing fantasy and reality, but I found it awkward and inelegant.

2016, dir. Tobias Nölle. With Georg Friedrich, Tilde von Overbeck, Kamil Krejcí, Yufei Li, Koi Lee, Karl Friedrich.

Alphaville

Secret agent Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine) enters Alphaville in his Ford Galaxie. He has crossed intergalactic space to visit the city/planet. He checks into a hotel as Ivan Johnson, a reporter for the Figaro-Pravda. He's shown to his room by a Seductress Third Class who starts to undress and offers to join him in the bath. He's attacked by a thug who's entered his room, but Lemmy manages to defend himself. The seductress reclines in the bath, unsurprised by this - it happens all the time. Lemmy tracks down a previous agent also sent by the Outer Colonies, then tries to find Professor von Braun, the creator of Alpha-60 (the sentient computer that runs Alphaville by pure logic), and finally tries to disable Alpha-60.

If that didn't make any sense, trust me, watching the movie itself makes even less sense. What frustrated me most is that people don't act like people: they act like philosophy- or poetry-spewing automaton moving about through what was - in 1965 - modernist architecture and talking about the virtues of logic over emotion (or vice versa). Which also makes it very hard to invest in anyone, or to believe that they could fall in love - or to understand why they would fall in love, when no one's actions or words make any sense.

The film has acquired minor classic status in both science fiction and the movie community. I get that it's Jean-Luc Godard applying the French New Wave to a Noir detective film. But finding meaning in it has been deliberately made difficult with the constant quoting of surrealist poetry, and is an emotionally distancing intellectual exercise that doesn't appeal to me in the slightest. I don't mind the time it took to watch it given the influence it's had on movies since, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who wasn't in film school.

1965, dir. Jean-Luc Godard. With Eddie Constantine, Anna Karina, Akim Tamiroff, Christa Lang, Valérie Boigel, Howard Vernon.

Altered Carbon (Season 1)

"Altered Carbon" is a ten episode Netflix series based on the 2002 science fiction novel of the same name by Richard K. Morgan. The main character is Takeshi Kovacs (Joel Kinnaman), who was dead for 250 years after he took part in a failed revolution. He is an "Envoy," the last one available to be revived, and now Laurens Bancroft (James Purefoy) has brought him back to solve Bancroft's murder. What makes both of these things possible is the "cortical stack," a tiny device implanted at the base of the skull that holds all of a person's memories when it's moved to another body (bodies are called "sleeves"). If, that is, you can afford another body. Bancroft is a "Meth" - a person so rich he can live forever, like Methuselah. Kovacs is unimpressed by the world he's reborn into, and appears about to decline the invitation, but a flashback to the leader of his revolution convinces him to stay. Flashbacks are a big part of the series, filling in Kovacs' and the revolution's backstory.

I haven't seen Kinnaman in much, but haven't really been a fan. But this seems to be the role he was born to play: a gritty, disaffected anti-hero with a conscience who doesn't give a shit about anyone (if those last two elements sound in conflict ... it becomes a major part of the series). The person he spends the most time with is Kristin Ortega (the beautiful Martha Higareda), a strong-willed cop Kovacs finds himself tangling with repeatedly. She's also quite good. I also greatly enjoyed Edgar Poe (Chris Conner), the A.I. proprietor of the hotel Kovacs stays at (where he's the first guest for 50 years). Poe becomes a surprisingly important character. I thought the last couple episodes were a bit over-the-top with the return of another apparently-dead person: certainly the cortical stack allows for this, but the changes in the person are ... extreme, and not - to my mind - entirely justified.

Morgan has created a particularly thought-provoking mental playground with the implications and problems of the cortical stack: what does it mean when anyone can be "resleeved" at any time? Cross-gender, different age ... someone that other people recognize as someone else? He chooses to explore the ideas with more violence and action than I thought was necessary. It was also darker than I liked, but the darkness was justified by the massive economic disparity created by practical immortality.

The first episode was okay, but didn't entirely pull me in: watch the second episode. If that doesn't get you, then ... you may leave. But if you're a fan of SF, I think you'll be staying: this is the golden age of SF movies and TV, and this is one of the best.

2018. With Joel Kinnaman, James Purefoy, Martha Higareda, Chris Conner, Dichen Lachman, Ato Essandoh, Kristin Lehman, Trieu Tran, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Will Yun Lee, Hayley Law, Marlene Forte, Byron Mann, Tamara Taylor, Adam Busch, Olga Fonda, Waleed Zuaiter, Hiro Kanagawa, Matt Frewer, Tahmoh Penikett, Michael Eklund.

Altered Carbon (Season 2)

I was in a great rush to see the second season of "Altered Carbon." Hindsight is 20/20: why would I rush to watch the second season of a show when I thought the first season was one of the best SF TV shows ever? For most people, this would be obvious: of course you watch it as soon as possible. But I'm notoriously hard on sequels, and that's what this is.

Takeshi Kovacs now looks like Anthony Mackie, who can't quite bring the same world-weariness to the role that Joel Kinnaman managed. I said it in my review of the first season, I'll say it again: I was never a huge fan of Kinnaman until I saw him in this series, but he was BORN to play Kovacs. Mackie had a lot to live up to: he was good, but didn't quite manage. The second season is set on Harlan's World 30 years after the first season, bringing Kovacs back to his homeworld, and the world where he met Quellcrist Falconer (Renée Elise Goldsberry) and they took part in a failed revolution. It's not a place he wants to be.

Someone is running around killing Meths: one of the Meths who assumes (correctly) that he's on the kill list hires Kovacs to protect him. Kovacs isn't interested in money, but he's offered Quellcrist Falconer as payment - something he can't refuse. Kovacs is carrying the AI Poe (Chris Conner) with him, but Poe has developed a hell of a glitch that's making him unreliable. Kovacs also gets tangled up with a local bounty hunter who turns out to have a personal interest in the case. As with the last season, this season has a secondary focus on building relationships in the worst of circumstances.

It's pretty good SF, but what impressed the hell out of me about the first season was the brilliant and extensive speculation about the implications of the stack-and-sleeve idea. Unfortunately, that's been mostly covered, leaving this as just a big adventure story.

2020. Anthony Mackie, Chris Conner, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Simone Missick, Lela Loren, Torben Liebrecht, Dina Shihabi.

Altered Carbon: Resleeved

A classic Anime film - made in Japanese and in Japan - this was released shortly after the second season of "Altered Carbon" hit Netflix. Takeshi Kovacs is resleeved on Latimer 250 years before the events of season 1, but still long after the revolution. Unlike the Takeshi we know from the TV series, he barely questions his "assignment" from the head of the Taneseda family at all, and never mentions Quellcrist or the revolution, he just starts fighting. Not that he's given any time to question: this is a bloodbath from end to end (when it's not visually referencing "Ghost in the Shell" and maybe "Bladerunner" to a lesser extent).

This is an inelegant money grab rooted in the success of the first season. Takeshi Kovacs doesn't sound like Takeshi Kovacs: and I'm not talking about the person who did the voice work, I'm talking about the way he speaks and thinks. Here, he's merely a smart man in a difficult situation fighting to survive. He shows no relation to the person we know from the other season(s).

This is modelled on "The Animatrix," a semi-related movie rooted in the success of "The Matrix" done in an Anime style ... although I give that one some credit for originality where this gets none. Most of the film is computer animated. The characters appear to be hand-drawn, but machine animated. They certainly don't move like humans ... rotoscoping might have been better (not something you'll hear me say often!).

2020, dir. Takeru Nakajima and Yoshiyuki Okuda.

Always Be My Maybe

The movie co-stars Ali Wong as Sasha Tran, and Randall Park as Marcus Kim - the two were also writers for the project. Their characters grew up living next door to each other in San Francisco, had an awkward fling as teens, and lost touch. Now she's a celebrity chef, back in San Francisco (where he remained) to open a new restaurant. There's more awkwardness, but they manage to reconnect.

I've said this too many times, but I'm not a fan of embarrassment-as-humour. They use it a fair bit here, but happily not for all of the humour. The movie has some hysterically funny moments. And then there's the whole sequence with Keanu Reeves (as Keanu Reeves) which is comedic gold.

If I'm honest, the section with Keanu Reeves is kind of based on embarrassment too. But it's so novel to see him doing something like this: I'm sure he's done a successful comedic role since "Bill and Ted," but let's face it: seeing him do a farcical version of himself (and he did it so well) is seriously unexpected.

For a rom-com I felt they should have focused more on the relationship between the two main characters than they did, but they did still manage to sell them as a couple - and their reconnection at the end (because, you know, that's how it always is) was well done and more enjoyable than most.

2019, dir. Nahnatchka Khan. With Ali Wong, Randall Park, James Saito, Vivian Bang, Keanu Reeves, Susan Park, Daniel Dae Kim.

Amal

Amal (Rupinder Nagra) is an auto-rickshaw driver in New Delhi, scrupulously honest and eternally polite. One day he drives a rude old beggar (Naseeruddin Shah), who turns out to be a multi-millionaire and later decides to leave his entire fortune to Amal ... if only it can get to Amal in a month despite the problems of locating an auto-rickshaw driver in a city of 13 million and get by the scheming relatives.

I picked it up at the library because it had a 100% rating at Rotten Tomatoes (admittedly from only five critics, but still impressive). It turns out that it's easy to get in Canada because, despite using all Indian actors and being set entirely in New Delhi, the majority of the funding is Canadian. Unfortunately, I found much of the movie dull, and the ending distinctly unsatisfying: setting aside other problems, they left a brand new murder dangling. Go figure.

2007, dir. Richie Mehta. With Rupinder Nagra, Naseeruddin Shah, Koel Purie, Seema Biswas.

The Amazing Spiderman (2012)

I watched this out of a sense of dedication to the genre (superhero films) rather than any great desire to do so. Superheroes are the new myths: morality tales of beings with powers greater than ours but similar problems, often on a grander scale - but ultimately they teach us what's right and wrong. And none has worked its way farther into the North American imagination than Peter Parker: "With great power comes great responsibility."

So here we are playing out the origins of Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) again, complete with a magical spider, Oscorp, and not stopping the criminal who kills uncle Ben. We have a new enemy, the tragic Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans), and the girlfriend endangered by his new notoriety is Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) rather than Mary Jane. But the evil corporation is still Oscorp, and the story of Peter Parker is still a tragedy.

Garfield and Stone are good. Ifans is good when he's human, but I wasn't fond of their CG rendering of the Lizard. Denis Leary is good, Martin Sheen is okay, didn't like Sally Field as Aunt May. It's better than the Tobey McGuire Spiderman, but I'm just so damn sick of the Spiderman story, over and over and over ...

2012, dir. Marc Webb. With Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Sally Field, Martin Sheen, Irrfan Khan.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

The first series of big budget Spider-Man movies starring Tobey Maguire took until the third movie to fall into self-parody, with the utterly ludicrous emo-Peter Parker after Peter is taken over by the Venom parasite. This second series starring Andrew Garfield, has only required two movies to achieve the state of self-parody. There are only two real characters in the movie: Peter and Gwen (Emma Stone). Everybody else is a plot device, a cliché, or irredeemably over-the-top. And even Peter and Gwen are moved around like pieces on a Snakes-and-Ladders board (I'm not going to grace this garbage with a comparison to the more traditional "chess board"). Paul Giamatti shows up as a growling, sweating Russian gangster for five minutes at the beginning. Then he disappears for the entire duration of the movie (2h21m, it's not like they didn't have time to develop actual characters), only to reappear for a few seconds. Dane DeHaan plays Harry Osborn - he looks like a sleazeball from the second he steps on screen, and his father's nastiness is provided as a reason for him being evil, but his dubious friendship with Peter is never believable and barely explored. Worst of all is Jamie Foxx as Max Dillon/Electro: he's played as a genius electrical engineer with the social skills of a wall socket and a persecution complex. They had better than two hours to make a good character with this, and instead they employ brutally over-used stereotypes.

The effects are great, but there's really nothing else to watch this movie for.

2014, dir. Marc Webb. With Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, Campbell Scott, Embeth Davidtz, Colm Feore, Paul Giamatti, Sally Field, Chris Cooper, Marton Csokas.

Amélie (orig. "Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain")

An incredibly charming movie about a young woman in Paris who messes with the lives of her friends and co-workers - and finds her own life changing. Hilariously funny.

Surreal and filmed in massively over-saturated colours and/or gold and green, favourites of Jeunet. I think my favourite moment is when a four image passport photo of a stranger that Nino (Mathieu Kassovitz) is carrying starts telling him about Amélie (who he hasn't met yet) and arguing between the frames about whether she's "pretty" or "beautiful." It's utterly hilarious ... and gives some idea of the sensibility of the movie.

2001. dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet. With Audrey Tautou, Mathieu Kassovitz.

American Gods

(This review is based on only two episodes - and having read the book.)

We've had a lot of Neil Gaiman media lately: "Coraline," "Stardust," and "Neverwhere" at least. This time they're tackling the very well known American Gods - a conversion I immediately labeled as tricky because I had some major issues with the book. First: the main character ("Shadow Moon") is a non-entity - a fact that is made much of in the book. It's very hard to hang a book on a protagonist who has no personality. I thought Gaiman failed, but obviously a lot of people didn't as it's been very popular. And you have a problem translating the concept to TV, as it's essentially impossible to have a characterless character (they don't even try, instead choosing to make him mostly inoffensive). Second major problem: the entire book is a whole bunch of brilliant ideas (about the rise of new gods based on humanity's developing understanding of the world) in search of a worthwhile plot: the book, in part because Shadow is so character-free, doesn't particularly feel like it's going anywhere.

I hoped that the TV series might take the good parts of Gaiman's work (the ideas) and improve on the characters and plot. It was a faint hope, but after seeing the BBC's interpretation of "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" - which took a very-difficult-to-bring-to-TV book and utterly nailed it, I held on to that hope. Perhaps the Americans should have let the British do the work - the book is very much about America, but it's by a British author and is also about an outsider's view of the country ...

Ricky Whittle plays Shadow Moon: he's muscular and untalented, a particularly poor start to the series as the man we're going to have to watch almost the entire time. They also have the equally untalented Emily Browning as his dead wife (spoiler alert - the actress matters, you'll be seeing a lot of her if you watch the series). Orlando Jones goes to town as Anansi (a Ghanaian trickster god and a favourite of Gaiman's - he wrote the character an entire other book), he's not too bad - although in the first two episodes we only see him in ranting ferociously and causing a LOT of death. But their only really good bit of casting is Ian McShane as Mr. Wednesday - the old god Odin. He's excellent, and clearly having fun - as he should.

The problem for me, and the reason I stopped after two episodes, is that they've made it darker, bloodier, and less intelligent than the original. It's poorly scripted, and I'm not putting up with that. Especially now that I've found out that they didn't wrap the book up in one season, but have instead stretched it out for a second season and possibly indefinitely - not something Gaiman planned for, and not something the material is up to.

2017. With Ricky Whittle, Ian McShane, Emily Browning, Bruce Langley, Gillian Anderson, Peter Stormare, Orlando Jones, Yetide Badaki, Pablo Schreiber, Cloris Leachman.

The American President

I think I saw this when it was first released - and now again in 2012. The movie was written by Aaron Sorkin, and reads a lot like a Capra version of "The West Wing" (which Sorkin also wrote). Not a difficult jump to make: not only does this start with a classic Sorkin corridor-walk-and-talk, but Capra is referenced early in the film and a number of actors overlapped from this movie to "The West Wing."

Michael Douglas plays Andrew Shepherd, a popular, widowed Democratic president. He shortly meets Sydney Wade (Annette Bening), a lobbyist for an environmental group - and asks her out. The president, dating, has a lot of awkward political fallout.

The movie is essentially a romantic comedy with a heavy dose of political manoeuvring. Douglas is really good, Bening is good, and the supporting actors are all entertaining. This is a very funny and enjoyable film.

1995, dir. Rob Reiner. With Michael Douglas, Annette Bening, Martin Sheen, Michael J. Fox, Anna Deveare Smith, Samantha Mathis, Richard Dreyfuss, David Paymer, Shawna Waldron.

American Splendor

An HBO movie following up on the success of "Crumb." Looks at the life of cartoonist Harvey Pekar, a friend of Crumb's. Weird blend of reality and fictionalized biography. Spends a great deal of time taxiing down the runway, setting the stage, but when in finally takes off it's really good. The voice-over on the DVD is surprisingly good - a reunion of nearly all the actors and all the people they played.

2003 dir. Shari Springer Berman, Robert Pulcini. With Paul Giamatti, Harvey Pekar, Hope Davis.

American Ultra

The trailers for the movie were kind of fun, suggesting Jesse Eisenberg was some kind of secret agent who was a complete stoner ... to the point that he didn't remember he was a secret agent. It looked funny. And for the first thirty minutes, it was very funny, with Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart being an incredibly convincing stoner couple who are deeply in love. But the real problem is that somewhere around the thirty minute mark, the movie turns much darker, losing the humour and becoming grim and very violent.

One of the reviews I saw suggested that this was a mash-up of "Pineapple Express" and "The Bourne Identity." This is accurate as far as it goes, but you really need to throw in a big serving of "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" for the dynamic between the lovers and the grand finale in the department store. That pretty much covers it (except that all the referenced movies are better than this one), because there aren't any new ideas here: had they given more time to the charming Eisenberg/Stewart stoner couple, it could have been a lot of fun. But in the end I'd have to recommend passing on this, because it ceased being fun after thirty minutes and the extensive CIA inter-departmental manoeuvring that follows isn't even well played.

2015, dir. Nima Nourizadeh. With Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Topher Grace, Connie Britton, Walton Goggins, John Leguizamo, Bill Pullman, Tony Hale.

Amy

Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black" is one of the greatest albums of the 21st century, and her story is one of the great celebrity tragedies of the century as well. My god that woman could sing.

Asif Kapadia directed this chronological documentary about her difficult life. Bulimia, neediness, alcohol, celebrity, poor choices, heroin, her father ... while the movie was playing, I kept thinking "they should have tried harder," but by the end I was thinking "I don't think anyone could have saved her."

It's a fascinating, well constructed, and horrifying ride. I don't think I'll ever listen to her music the same way again: finding out how true to life the lyrics are (she said she never wrote about things she hadn't experienced - and the movie plays songs right after they've set the context) makes the songs, already very good, even more gripping.

2015, dir Asif Kapadia. With Amy Winehouse, Blake Fielder-Civil, Raye Cosbert, Nick Shymanksy, Juliette Ashby, Lauren Gilbert, Mitchell Winehouse, Yaasin Bey, Tony Bennett, Salaam Remi.

Angel (Season 1, Disc 2)

Contains the episodes "Expecting," "She," "I've Got You Under My Skin," and "The Prodigy." I suppose I was hoping for the equivalent of the first season of "Buffy," instead I got something that felt like it had already been running for six seasons. It tries to balance its humour and pathos the way "Buffy" did, but fails: the humour is too flippant, and the pathos doesn't really stand on a solid enough base to really affect the viewer. Disappointing.

2000. With David Boreanaz, Alexis Denisof, Charisma Carpenter.

The Angry Birds Movie

Based on possibly the most popular single game in the history of cell phones.

Red is a volatile bird, sentenced to Anger Management class. There he meets (and tries to avoid) Chuck, Bomb, Terence, and his instructor Matilda. When Pigs visit the island, Red is the only one who's suspicious. So when the Pigs steal all the birds' eggs, they turn to Red for leadership.

It was a strange experience watching this movie: they had a hell of a voice cast, and the jokes come thick and fast. And on paper, they probably looked good. I kept going over the jokes in my head as they went by, and thinking "that ought to be funny ..." And yet it was amazing how few of them were. The movie was stupid, mildly offensive, colourful, innocuous, and highly unsuccessful. Definitely a movie for all ages to avoid.

2016, dir. Clay Kaytis and Fergal Reilly. With Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Kate McKinnon, Sean Penn, Tony Hale, Keegan-Michael Key, Bill Hader, Peter Dinklage.

Aniara

"Aniara" is a spaceship, used to transport people (a LOT of people) from Earth to Mars. The movie starts on the ship, and we're told that Earth is in bad shape, but no further explanation is given. The ship starts on its voyage, and is shortly hit by a small piece of space junk - which completely disables their propulsion. They're left drifting, and a three week voyage suddenly becomes ... indefinite.

Wikipedia tells me that Aniara started life as an epic poem in 1956 (in Swedish, also the language of the film).

Our main view of the trouble is through the eyes of the ship's Mimarobe (Emelie Garbers) - she's the person who runs Mima, a system that allows visitors to experience the Earth as it was when it was healthy, in immersive and completely convincing virtual reality. When the ship is suddenly left drifting, demand for the Mima jumps dramatically. They have enough food and water, but no significant hope of ever leaving the ship. No explanation is ever given of the situation on Earth, or why there's no external communication or assistance. I get that that wasn't the point of the movie (which was more of a horrible sociological experiment), but a few lines would have sufficed ...

I made connections to two other movies: "Wall-E" and "Passengers." There are significant differences in tone in both cases, but both involve huge passenger spaceships and unintentionally long journeys.

The movie is fairly good and makes you think about what would happen under those circumstances. But it's also brutally depressing, and not recommended viewing during a pandemic like COVID-19.

2018, dir. Pella Kagerman, Hugo Lilja. With Emelie Garbers, Bianca Cruzeiro, Arvin Kananian, Anneli Martini.

Annihilation

Jeff VanderMeer wrote the book of the same name that this is based on. I have mixed feelings about his writing: it's brilliant, but sometimes too unpleasant for me to enjoy. The exception was Shriek: An Afterword which is psychotically weird and utterly mind-blowing and features prose that's so dense I had to read at about a quarter my normal speed to make sense of it. Not for everyone, but incredibly vivid and really fascinating.

And Alex Garland, who directed this movie, directed my favourite SF movie of the last decade: "Ex Machina", which was every bit as thought-provoking as VanderMeer's writing.

With expectations like that, I was pretty much guaranteed to be disappointed.

The movie is set a few years from now: a place has appeared in the U.S. called "The Shimmer." The U.S. military is trying to keep it under wraps, but they have to evacuate people because no one who goes in ever comes out. Natalie Portman is Lena, and her husband went in a year ago. He's presumed dead, but reappears. But he's in extremely poor health. So Lena volunteers to go in with an all-female team of scientists (for which she's surprisingly well qualified).

It reminded me of nothing so much as Andrei Tarkovsky's "Stalker." They share a poorly described zone, a group of people of dubious intentions and often incomprehensible motivations, and a surreal story more interested in social commentary than in the "science" part of "science fiction." ("Stalker" is considered a classic but I'm not a fan.) I'm pleased to see I'm not the only person who's made a connection between the two movies.

2018, dir. Alex Garland. With Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson, Tuva Novotny, Oscar Isaac, Benedict Wong, David Gyasi.

The Ant Bully

Cute but predictable. Enjoyable, but you'll be thinking "it's all been done before:" this one doesn't really add anything new. Good voice work, decent animation.

Young boy (Zach Tyler) is bullied by his peers, doesn't connect with his parents. In his frustration, he floods the ant hill in his yard. As revenge, an ant-wizard (voiced by Nicolas Cage) changes him to the size of an ant. The ant queen (Meryl Streep) declares that he has to learn to live as an ant. He's mentored by Julia Roberts' character. As the movie progresses, he finds that his bitterness and lack of teamwork doesn't work. So predictable.

2006, dir. John Davis. With Zach Tyler, Nicolas Cage, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Paul Giamatti, Bruce Campbell, Regina King, Lily Tomlin, Larry Miller, Ricardo Montalban.

Ant-Man

The movie opens twice - the first time in 1989, with Hank Pym (a digitally youth-ified Michael Douglas) quitting S.H.I.E.L.D. over Stark senior's desire to weaponize Pym's shrinking technology. The second time is after the title sequence and set in the current day, with Scott Lang (Paul Rudd - an unlikely but reasonably successful action hero) getting out of jail after a stint for burglary. He's picked up - and housed - by his former cell-mate Luis (Michael Peña - who has a large role but went over-the-top anyway ... although he's reasonably charming and funny). It's quickly established that Lang has a Masters in Electrical Engineering (I approve), his most famous heist was both technologically extremely difficult and charitable rather than lucrative (giving money back to people who had been ripped off), and that he has a young daughter he desperately loves but can't see much because he's an ex-con (and her would-be step-dad is a cop). All of that in about ten minutes, it definitely felt like a data dump. A reasonably well constructed one, but so laden with information that it screamed "prep!" as it happened. And then Hank Pym is back, fighting his former associate Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) who's nearly recreated the Ant-Man tech and is clearly evil because he wants to weaponize it.

All of the characters are drawn a little too broadly, but the actors are also clearly enjoying themselves in a way that makes the movie entertaining to the viewer. The end result is flawed, but fairly well constructed and a lot of fun.

Like any Marvel film, there's both a mid-credits scene and a post-credits scene to look for. The mid-credits scene directly relates to the movie you've just seen, and is fairly rewarding in context. The post-credits scene is an idiotic hook for "Captain America: Civil War," which tells you essentially nothing if you haven't read the related comic books, and hardly anything even if you have.

2015, dir. Peyton Reed. With Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, Michael Peña, Bobby Cannavale, Anthony Mackie, Judy Greer.

Ant-Man and the Wasp

Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is under house arrest for his actions (as Ant-Man) in "Captain America: Civil War," in which he sided with Captain America. The problem is, Captain America was officially against the U.S. government and the law, and while most of Cap's team are on the run, Scott was captured and is waiting out his house arrest by creating elaborate mazes to enjoy with his kid (they're big on the idea that Scott Lang wants to be the best Dad possible). Then he has a dream of Hank Pym's wife (Pym is played by Michael Douglas, and his wife by Michelle Pfeiffer), and breaks the rules of his house arrest calling Hank - who doesn't really want to talk to him. But inevitably Pym and his daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly), now equipped as the new Wasp, get together with Lang and have adventures.

This is certainly the most light-weight of the Marvel series. Sure there's stuff at stake: can they retrieve Hope's mother from her thirty year exile, and they're under attack by a couple new villains (Walter Goggins as a regular gangster and Hannah John-Kamen of "Killjoys" fame as super-villain "Ghost"), but they keep it light with a great deal of silly comedy of the same variety we saw in the previous movie. The first movie is definitely the better of the two, but this one is still entertaining.

2018, dir. Peyton Reed. With Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas, Laurence Fishburne, Michael Peña, Walton Goggins, Hannah John-Kamen, Abby Ryder Fortson, Randall Park, Michelle Pfeiffer, Bobby Cannavale, Judy Greer, Tip "T.I." Harris, David Dastmalchian.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Direct sequel to "Ant-Man and the Wasp," kind of a sequel to "Avengers: Endgame" as Ant-Man appears - more recently in Marvel's chronology - in that.

Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) is happy with his life: he fought with the Avengers, and that was enough to allow him to write a successful book. Life is grand. His daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton) is a scientific genius whose curiosity is being fed by living with the original Ant-Man (Michael Douglas) who's another tech genius and very happy to work with her. When she builds a device to remotely explore the Quantum Realm, the original Wasp / Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) freaks out ... just before they're all pulled into the Quantum Realm.

This is an excuse to let their character creators go wild, as (according to the MCU) all kinds of wonky plants, creatures, and sentient beings exist in the Quantum Realm.

Logic and consistency go right out the window:

  • Previous advice said you HAD to be fully enclosed in your suit when you miniaturized, which now doesn't matter at all.
  • In "Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness" the ability to travel across the multiverse was portrayed as incredibly rare - now it's common.
  • Janet van Dyne was in the Quantum Realm for 30 years, and she aged 30 years ... she appears to have been the only person who hasn't experienced time distortion there.
  • Somehow Cassie's signal into the Quantum Realm was a trigger for Kang ... but none of the activity in "Avengers: End Game" was noticed by Kang?
I could go on ... A friend said recently (about another superhero movie I was complaining about): "It's a COMIC BOOK. Why are you concerned about the logic?" I acknowledge his point ... but at the same time, the earlier movies-from-comic-books felt like they only broke one or two rules, only retconned one thing at a time. Now it's more "what'd'ya wanna do? We'll retcon the shit out of this thing to make it work ..."

And then of course there's the reason Janet wanted to avoid the Quantum Realm: that's Kang, and if you haven't seen the Marvel TV series "Loki," you may be kind of in the dark about him. He's played (in all his many incarnations) by Jonathan Majors.

Some of the visuals and fights were fun, but the over-abundance of characters, poor logic, and reliance on tropes and stereotypes was awfully tiresome. Once again, instead of writing a relatively "small" story (one in which our hero family of Anty-people fought a villain or two in their own neighbourhood with skills on the same scale as their own), the MCU brass are pushing for not just world-destroying, not even galaxy-destroying, but a multiple-timeline-and-universe-destroying villain of "epic" proportions. Because this isn't a movie, it's merely a tiny episode in their never-ending multi-billion dollar-making galaxy-spanning superhero daytime soap opera. This is the episode that introduces the multiple evil twins.

2023, dir. Peyton Reed. With Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jonathan Majors, Kathryn Newton, Corey Stoll, Bill Murray, Katy O'Brian, William Jackson Harper, James Cutler, David Dastmalchian, Randall Park, Mark Weinman, Ross Mullan.

Antz

Woody Allen brings existential angst to animated kid's films. Go figure. A lot of the humour is aimed squarely at adults, and a lot at kids - with little crossover. It's fairly entertaining, more than a bit didactic, and somewhat confused about its target audience. The line-up of actors is pretty incredible.

1998, dir. Eric Darnell and Tim Johnson. With Woody Allen, Dan Ackroyd, Anne Bancroft, Danny Glover, Gene Hackman, Christopher Walken, Sylvester Stallone, Jennifer Lopez, Sharon Stone.

Anvil! The Story of Anvil

Anvil is a Canadian heavy metal band. In 1984 they were on stage at the Super Rock festival in Japan with the Scorpions, Whitesnake, and Bon Jovi. They were hugely influential on all the metal bands of the time ... but they've never had any particular success. Despite which they're still rocking out to small crowds in 2006 when the movie was filmed, with dull day jobs to pay the mortgage because Anvil doesn't pay for shit. But they refuse to quit, believing at every turn that the next concert will sell out, the next album will go gold ...

The movie is quite good, but kind of depressing as they go further into debt to record a new album that no record label is willing to distribute and their concerts sell 50 or 100 tickets. It's a fascinating character study. The irony of it is that the movie has put them back on the map: now they're opening for AC/DC and Saxon.

2009, dir. Sacha Gervasi. With Steve "Lips" Kudlow, Robb Reiner, Glenn Five, Ivan Hurd, Tiziana Arrigoni, Chris Tsangarides, Lars Ulrich, Slash, Lemmy, Tom Araya, Scott Ian.

The Apartment

I was fairly concerned at the beginning that I was going to watch a slapstick comedy with no real content - it took a good 45 minutes to get warmed up and actually put some emotion into the silliness. It was a bit late, but it was pretty good anyway. Jack Lemmon plays a low ranking business man who loans his apartment to higher ranking business men for their trysts - an awkward circumstance at best, and now he finds he's fallen for one of the mistresses.

1959, dir. Billy Wilder. With Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray.

Apollo 11

A new (2019) documentary about the Apollo 11 launch.

I tend to think of the Moon landing in grainy, low quality black-and-white, largely because that's how it was initially seen on tiny little 1960s TV screens, and that's how it's almost invariably represented even now. But a lot of film at and around the event was shot at far higher quality, and director Todd Douglas Miller edits together that and some previously unreleased colour 70mm(!) footage his research uncovered to assemble a recreation of that amazing moment of time.

Miller forgoes any modern narration in favour of ground staff, the astronauts, and possibly some contemporary narrators. The movie really brings home what a spectacular undertaking this was: how difficult, expensive, and dangerous it was. Coming as it does 50 years after the event, I think even those who lived through the event will be impressed by this well done retrospective.

2019, dir. Todd Douglas Miller. With Edwin Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, Charles Duke, Bruche McCandless.

Appaloosa

Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen play enforcers hired to clean the bad elements (Jeremy Irons and his men) out of the town of Appaloosa. As Mortensen's voice-over explains at the beginning, it might be a bit more complicated than that. While this is historically accurate and well acted, I thought that Westerns haven't changed much since the 1950s - except for the rather more frank inclusion of sex. Certainly the violence has always been there - brutal but actually somewhat underplayed in this one. While it was, indeed, well done, I found myself entirely unmoved by this movie.

2008, dir. Ed Harris. With Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, Rene Zellweger, Jeremy Irons, Timothy Spall, James Gammon.

Appleseed

After a massive world war, humanity sets up a single utopian city to live in. Of course, there are cracks and flaws in utopia, quickly discovered by Deunan when she's brought into the city from the outside world. The buildings and machines are all CG and generally look pretty good, but most of the people are hand-drawn. Not that the people look bad, but I found the mix a little disconcerting. The dialogue is awful and the story absurd.

2004, dir. Shinji Aramaki.

April and the Extraordinary World

This is some wild and crazy shit. The introduction is a blatant info dump voice-over in which we're told that the world we're seeing didn't develop the combustion engine (making a direct comparison to our world), and scientists keep disappearing. All set in motion by a scientist working for Napoleon Bonaparte who unintentionally created sentient lizards instead of invulnerable soldiers. April Franklin ("Avril" in the French original, voiced by Marion Cotillard) is the great granddaughter of the scientist in question, and now the government is forcibly recruiting her scientist parents to work for the war effort - which is aimed at the vast forests of Canada as most technology is wood-fired and Europe has been stripped of trees. Got that? Did I mention it's crazy? But that's not a bad thing!

The steam-punk vision of 1941 in which April eludes the government and occasionally does science herself absolutely lives up to the title. The story is crazy yet cohesive, briskly paced, and a blast to watch. I'm at a loss to tell you who the target audience is: I don't think it would sit well with young kids (and some of their parents would be unhappy those kids are seeing it, with the word "merde" being bandied about), yet it's not really aimed at adults either. Teens? But they'd never watch it. How about this: it's for the discerning adult fan of animated movies. And credit where it's due: I once again owe CineFix a debt for their really excellent "Top 10 Animated Movies of All Time" for pointing me to this movie.

2015, dir. Christian Desmares and Franck Ekinci. With Marion Cotillard, Philippe Katerine, Jean Rochefort, Olivier Gourmet, Marc-André Grondin, Bouli Lanners, Anne Coesens.

Aquaman

If I hadn't just watched "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" last night, I would have told you this was the most comic-book-like movie anyone has made. But "Spider-Verse" definitely took that title (and by a wide margin). But this one is live action and glorious to look at as it puts lots action on the screen along with lots of colourful Atlantean stuff.

The beginning of the movie shows that Aquaman (Jason Momoa) is now getting more involved in the events of the world after what happened in the "Justice League" movie. We're shown Aquaman's origins, a (royal) child of Atlantis and our world. And we see events down in Atlantis where the heir apparent wants to start a war with the surface world. So Mera (an Atlantean princess played by Amber Heard) tries to recruit Arthur Curry (aka "Aquaman") to help prevent the war - by making him do exactly what he doesn't want to do, become King of Atlantis.

There are good things about the movie: Momoa is charming and charismatic, and Heard is a good foil. The fights (there are plenty) are entertaining. The sea creatures and Atlantean technology are inventive and colourful and pretty to look at. But there are quite a number of bad things too. SPOILERS: Aquaman's mother has been "dead" for 20+ years, but in short flashbacks she's played by Nicole Kidman - you don't throw Kidman into a movie just to kill her off screen, thus telegraphing something that happens later. The plot is messy and silly. Patrick Wilson isn't a great villain (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II isn't significantly better, but apparently we're going to have to put up with him if there's a sequel). And it's too long (2h23m).

An amusing way to spend a couple hours if you like superhero movies, but not one you're likely to rewatch.

2018, dir. James Wan. With Jason Momoa, Amber Heard, Willem Dafoe, Patrick Wilson, Dolph Lundgren, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Nicole Kidman, Temuera Morrison.

Arabian Nights

Made by Hallmark Entertainment - had I known that up front, I probably wouldn't have watched it. Despite which, it's pretty damn good for a TV mini-series. Lavish production, some clever ideas, and famous stories brought to life in credible style.

1999, dir. Steve Barron. With Mili Avital, Dougray Scott, James Frain, Rufus Sewell, Jason Scott Lee, Tchéky Karyo, Alan Bates, John Leguizamo.

The Best Arbuckle Keaton Collection

A two DVD collection of two-reel silent shorts, directed by and starring Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, all of which co-star Buster Keaton. Arbuckle had his career totally destroyed in 1923 by a massive rape trial - he was completely exonerated, but his career never recovered.

Arbuckle was a physical comedian much in the style of Harold Lloyd and later stars Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Arbuckle had his moments, but I was more interested in watching this early view of Keaton learning his trade - before he became "Old Stone Face." That's right, he actually reacts to things in these ones. And he already really, really knew how to fall down. It was fascinating to see in the short "Back Stage" a stage facade of a two storey building falling on an oblivious Arbuckle who is fortunate enough to be standing such that he goes through a window in the facade without injury. Sound familiar? It's a gag that Keaton borrowed to greater effect in "Steamboat Bill, Jr."(?) in which he used a real house facade and probably would have died if he hadn't positioned himself correctly. It's one of his most famous scenes.

Titles: "The Butcher Boy," "The Rough House," "His Wedding Night," "Oh, Doctor!," "Coney Island," "Out West," "The Bell Boy," "Moonshine," "Good Night, Nurse," "Back Stage," "The Hayseed," "The Garage." The DVD itself was issued in 2001, the dates on the titles range from 1917 to 1920.

Of these, "The Butcher Boy" is the standout and worth checking out if you have any interest in Arbuckle or the effect he had on cinema.

1917, dir. Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. With Buster Keaton, Al St. John, Alice Lake, Jack Coogan Sr., Molly Malone.

Arcane, Season 1

This is an animated prequel to the "League of Legends" online game, available on Netflix.

Vi and Powder are two young sisters living in Zaun, which is the crime-ridden under-city below the city of Piltover. They were orphaned, but taken in by Vander - one of the leaders of the failed revolution that orphaned them. This follows them from when they were perhaps 10 and 15 to when they're in their late twenties. The series is nine episodes of 53 minutes each.

The artwork is ... breath-taking. Superb. Art Deco Steampunk, this series is a work of art in every frame. I probably couldn't have watched all of it just for that - but I might have tried. Really. However, the series also has good characters. I thought Silco (voiced by Jason Spisak) was probably the best: he's a horrible bastard and a drug dealer, but he's alarmingly understandable. He was also a leader of the revolution, who loves his "daughter" and his city and will do anything for either one of them ... no matter the cost to anyone else.

And now I'd like to talk about a couple of problems, which gets me into minor spoiler territory. The biggest, to me, is Jinx. I don't know "League of Legends" at all, and I don't care what they "need" her to turn out as. She's batshit crazy, basically the Joker. And just like the Joker, I fail to see any way she could have survived. She's a loose cannon, doing random dangerous shit all the time. And yet when it's convenient for the plot she's in exactly the right place at exactly the right time with exactly the piece of artillery that's needed. Her perfect placement every time is simply not consistent with the character's madness.

A lesser gripe is that after watching seven and a half hours of the series, they offer no resolution - just make things worse as a cliffhanger for the next season. Have I mentioned how much I hate cliffhangers? This qualifies as a "lesser gripe" because I was kind of expecting it. Doesn't mean I'm going to come back for the next season. The series was good, but not good enough to get away with pissing me off that much.

2021, dir. Pascal Charrue, Arnaud Delord. With Hailee Steinfeld, Ella Purnell, Kevin Alejandro, Katie Leung, Jason Spisak, Toks Olagundoye, JB Blanc, Harry Lloyd, Mia Sinclair Jenness, Miles Brown, Reed Shannon, Mick Wingert, Yuri Lowenthal, Roger Craig Smith, Fred Tatasciore, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Amirah Vann.

Archenemy

A young man named Hamster (Skylan Brooks) living in a rough area of an unnamed city tries to make a living by posting videos of street life on the movie's YouTube equivalent. His sister Indigo (Zolee Griggs) works for the neighbourhood drug lord in an attempt to lift the two of them out of their lousy life. Hamster begins filming local drunk Max Fist (Joe Manganiello) who claims he's from another universe where he was super-powered. Hamster's videos of Max prove very popular as Indigo runs afoul of her boss - and Max steps in to try to save them (and prove he's a hero, not just a drunk).

While the movie is a different take on superhero ideas than the current Marvel mainstream universe, the plot is fairly similar to a number of indie comic stories out there. The movie is helped along by being reasonably well constructed and acted, but isn't exactly outstanding. I enjoyed it simply because it was a bit different, but can only give it a lukewarm recommendation.

2020, dir. Adam Egypt Mortimer. With Joe Manganiello, Skylan Brooks, Zolee Griggs, Paul Scheer, Amy Seimetz, Glenn Howerton.

Are You Afraid of the Dark? (2019)

"Are You Afraid of the Dark?" has already been a TV series twice. In each case, it was about a group of kids gathering at a campfire to tell horror stories. I haven't seen either of the previous series: they were relatively long-running, with multiple 22-25 minute episodes. This incarnation is a miniseries, three episodes of 43 minutes each.

Our heroine is Rachel Carpenter (Lyliana Wray). She's starting at a new high school, where her love of horror movies gets her invited to "The Midnight Society" - where kids sit around a bonfire and tell stories. She bases her story on her own nightmares about "Mr. Tophat" and "The Carnival of Doom," who abduct children. The day after she tells her story, a carnival rolls into town - and it's called ... "The Carnival of Doom." And one of the children from the school goes missing. Rachel has to try to convince her new friends that she didn't know the carnival existed, and try to figure out what's happening.

This is aimed at kids, and as such, to an adult it seems at most sort of gently creepy. Certainly not "horrifying." The kids involved are all reasonably intelligent, and for the most part make reasonable decisions - thus avoiding a lot of the classic horror movie tropes. There are some jokes, but not many of them actually made me laugh. It was nice to see a good excuse for the adults being ineffectual in a kids show: usually they're ineffectual just because, like the adults in Charlie Brown who appear as large objects and make inarticulate noises. In this case, they couldn't help the kids because they couldn't remember because of Mr. Tophat.

Ultimately inoffensive, mildly cute, and forgettable.

2019. With Lyliana Wray, Miya Cech, Sam Ashe Arnold, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Tamara Smart, Rafael Casal.

The Aristocrats

One hundred comedians (or thereabouts) and their takes on one incredibly filthy joke. Some of the view of how comedians work, their analysis of humour, was interesting - but I found the central joke relatively unfunny which left me kind of disinterested in a lot of the proceedings.

The two most obscene and/or disgusting takes on the joke were told by Whoopi Goldberg and Bob Sagat. Sagat?! Apparently after years of doing the excessively family-friendly "Full House" and "America's Funniest Home Videos," he had a lot of bile to get out. Ironically, the version that amused me the most was perhaps the least offensive.

2005, dir. Penn Jillette, Paul Provenza. With Penn Jillette, Whoopi Goldberg, Gilbert Gottfried, Bob Sagat, George Carlin.

Armour of God

One of Jackie Chan's less inspired movies, "Armour of God" sees Jackie as an Indiana Jones-like character called "The Asian Hawk" recovering (and selling) relics from all over the world. An evil cult wants to possess the Armour of God and Jackie has had three of the five pieces pass through his hands in the last few years. So the cult kidnaps one of the members of Jackie's former band and his ex-girlfriend - which saddles him with his ex-best-friend, now her boyfriend. So we get a fairly typical buddy set-up, with the friend being the theoretical comedic relief and simultaneously making Jackie's job of rescuing the girl much more difficult. There are a couple passable fights, a few decent stunts, but it's a hell of a wade to get to them.

1987, dir. Jackie Chan and Eric Tsang. With Jackie Chan, Alan Tam, Rosamund Kwan, Lola Forner.

Armour of God II: Operation Condor

One of Jackie Chan's most sexist movies, which is saying something. He surrounds himself with pretty, second rate actresses and has them shriek, lose their clothes, and be helpless. He occasionally throws in a joke or two aimed at his own sexism, but it doesn't stop him.

Nominally a sequel to "Armour of God," the movie sees the return of only two characters (one being Chan) and neither is quite what they were in the previous movie. But Chan is still a globe-trotting Indiana Jones type, this time after several tons of Nazi gold. He sets out with one woman as his boss, is joined by a second whose grandfather helped hide the gold, and rather inexplicably acquires a third helpless woman along the way in Africa. Good triumphs, but not without quite a number of fistfights - sadly, not among his best. He was concentrating on crazy stunts - powered paragliding, zorbing, fighting in a wind tunnel. A little too over-the-top, not enough good fights.

1991, dir. Jackie Chan. With Jackie Chan, Carol Cheng, Eva Cobo de Garcia, Shoko Ikeda, Aldo Sambrell.

Arn - The Knight Templar

Apparently there are two cuts of this film - one, the original Swedish version, and the second one that includes the original Swedish movie and the sequel in one. I take it this latter one was all that was released in North America, and it's what I saw.

We first meet Arn (Joakim Nätterqvist) in the Crusades, killing bandits in the Holy Land. In the process, he has saved a small group from the bandits - a small group that includes Saladin (Milind Soman). He and Saladin find a deep respect for each other. We're also filled in on Arn's back story: he grew up in a monastery, where he learned to fight from a former Knight Templar. When he stepped out into the world, his ability to fight saves his family - and creates other problems. Which are compounded when he falls in love with Cecilia (Sofia Helin), who is promised to another but loves Arn.

I found the movie too long - interesting that what I saw was a severely cut down version of two movies (the good news being that I didn't think that showed at all). But it's well done and well acted. The tone is sad, somber throughout as Arn and his love go through twenty years of penance and live under constant threat of battle.

2008, dir. Peter Flinth. With Joakim Nätterqvist, Sofia Helin, Milind Soman, Stellan Skarsgård, Simon Callow, Vincent Perez, Bibi Andersson, Michael Nyqvist.

Around the World in Eighty Days (2004)

I love Jackie Chan. I've become accustomed to watching stupid but entertaining movies based around his skills. In this case, all I got was stupid. Charming, but so silly it was pathetic and I didn't think much of the action, usually one of Chan's strengths.

2004, dir. Frank Coraci. With Jackie Chan, Steve Coogan, Cécile de France, Jim Broadbent.

Around the World in 80 Days (2021)

The story is a well-known one: Phileas Fogg (David Tennant) lives his life like clockwork, spending every day at the Reform Club reading the paper. One day an article by his friend's daughter Abigail Fix Fortescue (Leonie Benesch) about a railroad completed in India makes him conclude - out loud - that it would now be possible to travel around the world in 80 days. His obnoxious friend Bellamy (Peter Sullivan) says that even if it were possible, Fogg certainly couldn't do it ... and Fogg makes a £20,000 bet (an immense amount of money in 1870s Britain) that he can. He hires Passpartout (Ibrahim Koma) as a servant for the trip, and Abigail joins them to document the adventure.

At this point they've already been a number of changes from Jules Verne's original story: "Fix" was originally a police man who accompanied them rather than a reporter, so the character has changed gender and profession. Second, Passpartout, while still French, is now of African descent. Both of these things (her gender, his colour) would have presented far greater problems travelling the world at the time than they bothered to mention. They did discuss it a bit, but not realistically.

Putting that aside, I cannot fault Tennant, Benesch, or Koma: they were each lovely in the role they had been given. That's not where the problem lies. Each of the eight episodes is a super glossy story of a time and place: 1) England and France, 2) Italy, 3) Aden, 4) India, 5) Hong Kong, 6) a small island in the Pacific, 7) the U.S., 8) the U.S. and U.K. In each episode they face difficulties either physical or personal that stretch each of them to their limits, etc. And all of this is as Verne intended. But it all seemed too perfectly formed, too cleanly episodic to me, for a trip around the world. And it all really fell apart in the sixth episode, when we see Fogg held at gun-point on their steam ship across the Pacific by a man who wants their trip to fail. Through the magic of television, we flash forward to the three of them in a small boat on a huge ocean. Wait, what? The bad guy was threatening Fogg, and only Fogg: he went and collected the other two as well on an ocean liner with people everywhere? Why not just strand Fogg? And then our heroes in their tiny boat are threatened by bad weather ... and click, we jump forward again to the three of them re-uniting after the crash of the boat. But the bad editing and bad writing don't stop there: we're given to understand that the island is tiny, and their only hope is to make a raft of drift wood. And yet there are Durians. Durians grow on TREES. Large trees.

It's beautifully produced, and has some lovely moments. For the most part, the inner voyages of the three main characters (as each struggles with their own beliefs and limitations) is fairly good. But I had problems with a lot of the details.

2021, dir. Steve Barron, Brian Kelly, Charles Beeson. With David Tennant, Ibrahim Koma, Leonie Benesch, Jason Watkins, Peter Sullivan, Richard Wilson, Leon Clingman, Giovanni Scifoni, Anthony Flanagan, Lindsay Duncan, Shivaani Ghai.

ARQ

I found this Netflix-produced movie during my recent interest in movies similar to "Groundhog Day."

The entire movie takes place in a single house and garage, with a cast of six. Robbie Amell is Renton, who wakes up beside his former girlfriend Hannah in their environmental disaster of a world. He's shortly killed in a house invasion - and wakes up beside Hannah again. Their time loop keeps changing as Renton tries different things - and others start to become aware of the loop. This is the strength of the film: the plot, while a little too convoluted, was well thought out.

Unfortunately, the movie is populated by a bunch of unknown actors. Not always a bad thing, but Robbie Amell is the "paternal first cousin" of Stephen Amell of "Arrow" fame - and he shares his cousin's dramatic range when acting: from stunned to clueless. The rest of the cast is slightly better, but only slightly.

The ending is somewhat unsatisfying [HALF SPOILER ALERT]: this is the only "Groundhog Day" movie I've seen so far where they don't manage to get out of the loop - it's simply implied that they've done something different and have a hope of getting out.

Not disastrously bad, but the worst of the "Groundhog Day" films I've watched and rather poor.

2016, dir. Tony Elliott. With Robbie Amell, Rachel Taylor, Shaun Benson, Gray Powell, Jacob Neayem, Adam Butcher.

Arrietty

Apparently those with a knowledge of juvenile fiction recognize the name as that of a character in Mary Norton's old book The Borrowers, and indeed this is based on that book. It is, however, set in modern day Japan. Hiromasa Yonebayashi is with Studio Ghibli, and has clearly studied Hayao Miyazaki's work. Miyazaki had a hand in the script.

Arrietty is about 10 cm tall, and she and her parents live under the floorboards of a house in the country. Trouble comes in the form of a sick young (human) boy: he means them no harm, but when he spots Arrietty on a couple of occasions, their interactions begin to cause problems for her family.

The movie is quite slow-paced with utterly gorgeous visuals. It's not going to astound you with its pyrotechnics, but it's likely to stay in your mind as a thing of quiet beauty.

2010, dir. Hiromasa Yonebayashi. With Mirai Shida, Ryūnosuke Kamiki, Shinobu Ōtake, Keiko Takeshita, Tatsuya Fujiwara, Tomokazu Miura, Kirin Kiki.

Arrival

In catching up with recent major science fiction films, I watched two Denis Villeneuve movies in a row without even realising it until the credits rolled on this, the second one. This is based on "Story of Your Life," a short story by Ted Chiang.

We are shown first the most influential event of our heroine's (Amy Adams as Louise Banks) life - her daughter dying of an incurable disease ... in the first ten minutes of the movie. And then the aliens come to Earth. Twelve ships, all over the planet. Louise, a linguist, is called to the one in Montana, where she meets physics expert Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner). Under the direction of Colonel G. T. Weber (Forest Whitaker), they meet the aliens and start work on the aliens' complex written language.

This is one of those movies where you can't explain much. It's weird, it's slow, it's thought provoking and fascinating. Highly recommended to fans of thinking SF (and I liked it a lot better than Villeneuve's even more stylish but less substantial "Blade Runner 2049" which I watched last night).

2016, dir. Denis Villeneuve. With Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg, Tzi Ma, Mark O'Breien, Abigail Pniowsky, Jilia Scarlett Dan, Jadyn Malone, Frank Schorpion.

The Arrival

I saw this first when it came out, and again in 2011.

Charlie Sheen (before his infamous meltdown(s)) plays Zane Zaminski, a radio astronomer for SETI who thinks he's heard an alien radio signal. As soon as he mentions it to his supervisor, he's shut down, and it's not just his job he loses. He starts "borrowing" other people's satellite dishes to make a composite radio telescope array, then goes to Mexico to visit the site of an answering signal.

Sheen has a lot of fun as the incredibly paranoid and slightly loopy Zane (with an arrogance that seems to have presaged his own later life ...) and a decent supporting cast and enjoyable script make this a lot of fun to watch ... although perhaps more for science fiction fans than anyone else.

1996, dir. David Twohy. With Charlie Sheen, Teri Polo, Tony T. Johnson, Lindsay Crouse, Ron Silver, Richard Schiff.

Arrow, Season 1

The story centres around young billionaire playboy Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell), newly returned home after five years on a tropical island after the wreck of his father's ship. Evidently risen from the dead, he comes back to right the wrongs his father left him heir to in the city. His weapon of choice is the bow, and he's very, very good with it. And at fighting in general. Not what he was when he left. His vendetta in the city develops in parallel with the story of his time on the island.

There's an idea in Computer Science called "The Principle of Least Surprise," which means you want your user (or even your programmer) to be able to guess what a function or interface does. Unfortunately, "Arrow" seems to have been written according to this same principle. The characters are reasonably well written (if weakly acted), the dialogue is reasonably good, but the action and the plot developments are amazingly free of interesting surprises. I don't claim to have predicted all the plot points by any means, but when they never went anywhere I couldn't have gone myself with 15 or 20 minutes of thought ... Not impressive.

One interesting feature of the show is that no one (NO ONE) in Starling City is anything less than attractive. They're all perfect. Another significant issue is that it's astonishingly similar to Batman: rich playboy by day, masked vigilante by night, with all the techno-toys money can buy. Sound familiar?

2012. With Stephen Amell, Katie Cassidy, Colin Donnell, David Ramsey, Willa Holland, Susanna Thompson, Paul Blackthorne, Emily Bett Rickards, Manu Bennett, John Barrowman.

Arrow, Season 2

Season 2 got away from the Principle of Least Surprise ... but by the 4th episode or so I was kind of wishing they could have chosen a more realistic storyline, like Oliver going water skiing and jumping over a shark or something like that. People who were thought dead reappear. There are assassins (a lot of them), strength-enhancing drugs, deaths, reversals (good people become bad, etc.), people who were dead reappearing (as opposed to those who, say, fell off a sinking ship and were "presumed dead"), more masked villains, more masked vigilantes. It's a full scale soap opera - not that that's significantly different than the original comic books, but I didn't find it terribly palatable then either.

2013. With Stephen Amell, Katie Cassidy, Colin Donnell, David Ramsey, Willa Holland, Susanna Thompson, Paul Blackthorne, Emily Bett Rickards, Manu Bennett, John Barrowman, Colton Haynes.

Arthur and George

Martin Clunes plays the recently widowed Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Arsher Ali plays George Edalji, a solicitor of Indian descent in rural England in 1903. He's accused of maiming multiple animals and sentenced to three years hard labour. After his release, Sir Arthur becomes his biggest sponsor in an attempt to prove him innocent after the fact. Edalji would be unable to practice law having been convicted of committing a crime, so the stakes were fairly high for him. Of course Sir Arthur was not Sherlock Holmes, no matter how much he might have liked to have been - but on the flip side, neither was he a stupid man. (It's loosely based on real events.)

The mini-series consists of three 45 minute episodes, and involves both Edalji's family and Sir Arthur's family and friends. It's all fairly low key, but it's also intelligent and interesting. I enjoyed it.

2015. With Martin Clunes, Arsher Ali, Charles Edwards, Art Malik, Emma Fielding.

Arthur Christmas

An animated movie by Aardman and Sony Animation.

Arthur Christmas (James McAvoy) is the youngest of the family that runs the North Pole: his father Malcolm (Jim Broadbent) is the current Santa Claus, and his brother Steve (Hugh Laurie) is in charge of operations. The beginning, Christmas night with Santa's massive technological sled and an army of ninja elves delivering presents, is brilliantly funny. Arthur turns out to be a horrible klutz - because of this he's been assigned to the mail room where he can't do as much damage. But he visits the control room anyway, and manages to make a scene without meaning to. And then he discovers that a child has been missed - received no gift - and sets out to remedy the situation with the help of GrandSanta (his grandfather - voiced by Bill Nighy) and Bryony (Ashley Jensen), a slightly maniacal Scottish elf from the Wrapping Department.

Both good-natured and very entertaining, this is a fun and charming Christmas story. I was a little reluctant to watch it, but it definitely won me over. Jensen was a particular stand-out, hugely funny.

2011, dir. Sarah Smith. With James McAvoy, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Laurie, Bill Nighy, Ashley Jensen, Imelda Staunton, Marc Wootton, Laura Linney, Eva Longoria, Ramona Marquez, Michael Palin.

The Artist

A black and white, silent film from 2011. It's an interesting conceit: we follow the life of a famous silent movie star ("George Valentin," played by Jean Dujardin) and his rising protégé Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo) who goes into the talking pictures that Valentin scorns.

It's very well done, but it's also frustratingly self-aware. Likewise, it's frequently very clever - but sometimes it was just ... annoying. Nevertheless, Michel Hazanavicius' extensive research and love of silent film paid off with a beautifully constructed film. A huge success as a pastiche and a tribute, I thought the story was somewhat less successful.

2011, dir. Michel Hazanavicius. With Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, James Cromwell, John Goodman, Missi Pyle, Penelope Ann Miller, Malcolm McDowell.

As You Like It (BBC, 1978)

A BBC TV production with a surprisingly untalented cast. Only Helen Mirren is even halfway decent, and she's too old for her role (Rosalind) and rather subdued. It's not disastrous, and it does appear to include the entire text (rather unusual these days).

1978, dir. Basil Coleman. With Helen Mirren, Brian Stirner, Richard Pasco, Angharad Rees, James Bolam, Clive Francis.

As You Like It (CBC, 1983)

Filmed on the stage at the Stratford Festival in 1983, and superior to the 1978 BBC version also listed here. Rosalind, Celia and Orlando are all too old, but it's well acted, and well interpreted - meaning that someone spent a lot of time thinking about Shakespeare's meaning, and some physical hints are given to help us understand Shakespeare's more obscure language ... without going overboard or taking us out of the play. Besides, it's broad comedy. A good production.

Rosalind: Roberta Maxwell, Orlando: Andrew Gillies, Jacques: Nicholas Pennell, Celia: Rosemary Dunsmore.

1983, dir. John Hirsch. With Roberta Maxwell, Andrew Gillies, Nicholas Pennell, Rosemary Dunsmore.

As You Like It (Branagh, 2006)

Kenneth Branagh has re-envisioned this Shakespeare play as set in a British enclave in Japan in the late 1800s. This was a bizarre and distracting choice, and I couldn't see any real strength to the decision. The acting varies from okay to quite good: Brian Blessed phoned in both his performances as the older and younger dukes, Romola Garai (Celia) was too animated, Alfred Molina (Touchstone) was underused, Bryce Dallas Howard (Rosalind) and Kevin Kline (Jacques) were good. As is often the case, Branagh had some very sound insights into the structure of the play and made some good choices interpreting the action. But he chopped the text mercilessly - as he often does - to poorer effect than usual. So he managed two or three really beautiful moments I'd love to cut out of the rest of the movie to stuff into the ultimate version of the play ... but unless you're a big fan of Shakespeare, this production probably isn't worth your time.

2006, dir. Kenneth Branagh. With Bryce Dallas Howard, Kevin Kline, Brian Blessed, Romola Garai, Richard Briers, David Oyelowo, Adrian Lester, Jade Jefferies, Janet McTeer, Alfred Molina.

As You Like It (Royal Shakespeare Company, 2019)

This is a Royal Shakespeare Company stage production of "As You Like It" - as such, it's not surprising it's not in Wikipedia or Rotten Tomatoes, but it was released on DVD (available through Toronto Public Library) so I thought it would be in IMDB ... but it doesn't appear to be. This review isn't about the text or plot (which I've read and seen many times) but about the presentation itself.

As is common these days, they're tinkering with characters and presentation (but very little with the words). This includes shifting Jacques' gender from male to female, as well as Le Beau (a fairly minor character), and most dubiously, Silvius the shepherd becomes "Sylvia," shifting one of the courting couples from man-and-woman to woman-and-woman. We also have Sir Rowland de Boys three sons, each an entirely different race - which is a mite disorienting. I mention these things not because I object, but out of interest: using the best actress or actor for the job is fine by me ... But I do question the choice of "Sylvia" who was a poorer actress than most of the rest of the staff. It brings the gender choice into question: did you do it just to mess with Shakespeare, or to get the best person for the job? Because the play was made slightly worse by substituting a woman there. Think about the ending: Ganymede becomes Rosalind and "cannot" marry Phebe because she's a woman ... but then Phebe marries another woman, Sylvia. Kind of breaks the logic of the play.

They've added more songs: this is already the Shakespeare play with the most songs, more weren't needed. They've made it goofier: it's a Shakespeare comedy, it's already absurd and goofy, why go more?

Some things I did like:

  • Orlando wins a prize wrestling, the Duke takes it away when he finds out that Orlando is Rowland de Boys son (there's no stage direction to this effect - there are no stage directions at all), which means Rosalind's gift to Orlando is - as well as a token of affection - a sign of respect for his triumph and a replacement of her uncle's retracted gift
  • several actors play different characters at court and in the forest - and they change clothes on stage as the scenery is changed behind them:
    • most notably one guy plays the two dukes: which Shakespeare may well have done when he staged the play (this arrangement is also in Branagh's version, and may in fact be fairly common?)
    • which cleverly ties into the "All the world's a stage" speech, with "And one man in his time plays many parts"

One last issue: the actors shout and over-act, because they're on a stage playing to the attending audience. I haven't been to an actual play in five or six years, and the experience is different being there compared to seeing it filmed anyway. But I watch movies all the time and this is in effect, "a movie" ... so the overacting seems out of place. (And yet I had no problem with the limited and relatively barren sets ...)

A final observation that's a feature of the play rather than this performance: Touchstone the clown is a truly horrible person. I knew this, but I guess I get reminded every time.

2019, dir. Kimberley Sykes. With Lucy Phelps, Antony Byrne, Sophie Khan Levy, Sandy Grierson, Emily Johnstone, Graeme Brookes, Leo Wan, Aaron Thiara, David Ajao, Richard Clews, Sophie Stanton, Laura Elsworthy, Amelia Donkor, Charlotte Arrowsmith.

The Assassin

I pride myself on being able to make more sense of movies and catch more details than most other people. As we all know from stories and movies, the prideful are eventually brought low. In this case, by a movie with an utterly glacial pace that shows an unresolved martial arts fight (it seems that both fighters walked away, but there's no explanation of why it happened) followed by a shot of goats in a pen chewing their cuds. The only conclusion is that the director is more concerned with "pretty" than with resolution. I was roped into this movie because it had an 81% rating and is "Certified Fresh" over at Rotten Tomatoes: I'm really going to have to rethink my decision methodology.

The basic premise sees a young woman (Nie Yinniang, played by Shu Qi) who was sent away to train with a nun ... who teaches her to be an assassin ... coming home with the assignment of killing her cousin (Chang Chen) who is now a provincial official and who also used to be her fiancée. There's other political intrigue at work, and some nasty family politics as her ex-fiancée is having an affair with a dancer (or is she officially his concubine? ... but his wife doesn't like it).

There may be cultural clues if you're Chinese that will fill in the gaping holes left by the director's disinterest in the plot (at 1 hour 45 minutes, there's enough plot for a 30 minute short - the rest of the time is filled with scenery and very long silences between conversation).

It's pretty in places, but overall I'd rate this one "agonizing."

2015, dir. Hou Hsiao-Hsien. With Shu Qi, Chang Chen, Zhou Yun, Satoshi Tsumabuki, Ethan Juan.

Assassin's Creed

I don't know anything about the video game series that inspired this movie, although I understand it's better than this turgid piece of crap. This movie is a poster child for why video games shouldn't be turned into movies ... and somehow it dragged several excellent actors down with it.

Michael Fassbender plays both modern-day murderer Callum Lynch, and also Aguilar de Nerha of the Assassin's Creed Brotherhood in 1492. In the modern day, as in the past, the Assassins are fighting the Knights Templar: the Assassins fight for the freedom of mankind, the Knights believe in peace through the removal of all free will. In the modern day, the Knights put Callum into a machine that allows him to relive parts of the life of his relative de Nerha, hoping to find the "Apple of Eden."

The plot only gets sillier, so I'll spare you. Fassbender apparently thought this project was good enough to be a producer. He's pretty much the only person in the whole thing who manages to bring a moment or two drama to the production. The others aren't trying very hard, but they have such a ham-fisted plot and lousy dialogue to deal with that selling this product is akin to selling shoes to snakes even if they'd been working at it. Some of the action sequences are mildly entertaining, although entirely unbelievable.

Overblown, over-long, and intensely ludicrous.

2016, dir. Justin Kurzel. With Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, Charlotte Rampling, Michael K. Williams.

Astro Boy (2009)

An animated children's movie based on the very old and often adapted work of Osamu Tezuka.

Toby (Freddie Highmore) is the brilliant young son of Dr. Tenma (Nicolas Cage), who is killed - partly by his own curiosity and a little by the bad choices of his father and President Stone (Donald Sutherland), for whom Tenma works. Tenma builds a highly realistic (but heavily armed) robot recreation of his son (also Highmore) ... and then rejects him because his behaviour isn't exactly the same as his son Toby. This young child robot has various adventures and eventually saves everyone and everything, and feels better about himself.

The target age group on this one is younger than I'm used to, although perhaps not out of line with the original Astro Boy material. There's very little in here for adults except the pretty visuals, and even seven year olds may notice this is a bit heavy-handed.

2009, dir. David Bowers. With Freddie Highmore, Nicolas Cage, Kristen Bell, Bill Nighy, Donald Sutherland, Nathan Lane, Samuel L. Jackson.

Atomic Blonde

Based on a graphic novel. Spy Lorraine Broughton (an extremely fit Charlize Theron) is sent into Berlin just as the Berlin Wall is about to fall to try to recover a leaked list of all the spies on both sides of the wall that's about to go on the market. Her contact is David Percival (James McAvoy), who has (as described by the folks in London) "gone feral." We see him partying wildly, beating people up, and crossing from one side of the Berlin Wall to the other without much trouble.

There follow a very long list of betrayals and double crosses, with gun battles, and fist and knife fights - all done in Eighties fashion and often in garish colours. The soundtrack of Eighties music had some very good choices ("Cat People," "Major Tom," "London Calling") and some poorer ones ("Voices Carry," two versions of "99 Luftballons" when I could have done without any). The whole plot construct is so complex that we had to keep stopping the film to try to figure out what was going on. I was surprised to learn from Wikipedia that Broughton was supposed to be British (I thought she was an American spy temporarily seconded to the British). In the end we have a movie that's incomprehensible and unrewarding (and unbelievable) even if you can follow it.

2017, dir. David Leitch. With Charlize Theron, James McAvoy, John Goodman, Til Schweiger, Eddie Marsan, Sofia Boutella, Toby Jones, James Faulkner, Bill Skarsgård, Sam Hargrave, Roland Møller, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson.

Atonement

Joe Wright's follow-up to his very good version of "Pride and Prejudice," he chose to adapt another novel - this time a recent novel by Ian McEwan about Britain during the war. While the older daughter of the Tallis family (Keira Knightley) falls for one of the servants (James McAvoy), the younger Tallis daughter (played at different ages by Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai, and Vanessa Redgrave) accuses him of a crime he didn't commit, changing all their lives. Flashbacks and different points of view of the same event mean that you spend a lot of time patching the actual sequence of events together in your head. I found the eventual conclusion ... realistic, but unsatisfying.

2007, dir. Joe Wright. With Keira Knightley, Saoirse Ronan, James McAvoy, Brenda Blethyn, Romola Garai, Vanessa Redgrave.

Attack on Titan

I learned a new word! "Tokusatsu," defined by Wikipedia as "a Japanese term that applies to any live-action film or television drama that features considerable use of special effects (tokusatsu literally translates as 'special filming' in Japanese)." And yes, "Godzilla" is the quintessential tokusatsu movie.

The movie was released in two parts in Japan: "Attack on Titan" and "Attack on Titan: End of the World." This is a review of the first of these two.

"Attack on Titan" is based on a successful manga of the same name. The main premise is that 100 years ago, Titans appeared - 20 metre tall humanoids who like to eat humans. The remainder of humanity (I love the assumption made by so many pieces of fiction that their people are the centre of the universe) builds three massive concentric walls to keep the Titans out, and lives a peaceful and relatively low-tech existence for 100 years. All of which is explained, and our heroes introduced, in 15 minutes before the first new sighting of a Titan - one so large it kicks a whole in the wall so regular Titans can enter. Decimation follows. And then we jump forward two years. Which is a crap story structure, but nothing compared to the wooden prose, lousy exposition, and terrible acting. Now "humanity" has lost their food supply (the outer ring wall contained the farms) and our heroes are part of a desperate mission by the makeshift military to try to fix the breached wall so the Titans within the outer ring can be cleared out.

The effects are good but not great. The method of attacking the Titans is ... physically improbable, as are the Titans themselves (and their food source). Most importantly, the writing and acting are bloody awful. And yet, it's kind of mesmerizing and I watched the entire thing. Whether or not I'll bother to track down "End of the World" is open to question.

2015, dir. Shinji Higuchi. With Haruma Miura, Hiroki Hasegawa, Kiko Mizuhara, Kanata Hongō, Takahiro Miura, Nanami Sakuraba, Satoru Matsuo, Shu Watanabe, Ayame Misaki, Rina Takeda, Satomi Ishihara, Pierre Taki, Jun Kunimura.

Attack the Block

A low budget science fiction thriller that starts out with a mugging in a low rent district of modern London. A young woman headed home is mugged, but escapes further injury when the muggers are distracted by a meteor hitting a car. The meteor has delivered some kind of small and nasty creature, which the muggers attack. Unfortunately, more (and larger) arrive shortly.

The set-up is unusual, and the cast of unknowns (Jodie Whittaker and Nick Frost appear to be the only ones who've been in major movies before, and neither is hugely well known) attack the script with energy and intensity. Very entertaining.

2011, dir. Joe Cornish. With John Boyega, Jodie Whittaker, Alex Esmail, Frank Drameh, Leeon Jones, Simon Howard, Nick Frost, Jumayn Hunter, Luke Treadaway.

Au revoir les enfants

This is now regarded as one of the classics of cinema. It's a semi-autobiographical tale by the director, Louis Malle, who grew up in France during the Second World War. The story is about Julien Quentin (Gaspard Manesse), who at the beginning of the film is returning to boarding school. He's one of the school's hellraisers (also quite smart), but we first see him as a pampered Momma's boy. At his Roman Catholic school, one of the new students is Jean Bonnet (Raphaël Fejtö), who turns out to be a Jew that the priests are hiding. This is a big risk in the middle of occupied France.

The movie plays out as a series of vignettes, scenes from their day-to-day life at the school. There's zero effort to join the scenes together. This lack of continuity made the film a fairly bumpy ride, and somewhat uninvolving. By the end you have a pretty good picture of who everyone is, and where they stand in the world ... just in time for the inevitable tragedy that made this period of Malle's life so memorable he needed to make a film about it.

It's a window on a particular place and period in time, and in the end a fairly good movie, but if we set aside the awe and the horror that surrounds the circumstances and just look at it as a movie ... I just don't understand the respect it gets. It's a good movie, but I didn't feel like it qualified as a great movie.

1987, dir. Louis Malle. With Gaspard Manesse, Raphaël Fejtö, Francine Racette, Stanislas Carré, Philippe Morier-Genoud, François Berléand, Irène Jacob, François Négret.

Austenland

Keri Russell plays Jane Hayes, an American woman obsessed with Jane Austen's novels, particularly Colin Firth's version of Mr. Darcy. She spends all the money she has on a trip to Austenland, where she discovers that her travel agent sold her the cheap package, and playing at romance isn't as good as she'd hoped.

The concept isn't bad, but they start by massively overplaying Jane's obsession. As soon as she arrives in Austenland, she dials it back by a factor of ten and the movie deliberately surrounds her with tasteless boors (number one on the list being Jennifer Coolidge, who's so far past "typecast" she's defining a new category) so she looks like a princess. Throw in a handsome stable boy (Bret McKenzie) and a Mr. Darcy (J.J. Feild) who both fall for her ... The jokes are routinely painfully broad and the romance foregone. Could have been so much better if they'd ever heard the word "subtlety," but as it is, everyone should pass - especially Austen fans.

2013, dir. Jerusha Hess. With Keri Russell, J.J. Feild, Bret McKenzie, Jennifer Coolidge, James Callis, Jane Seymour, Georgia King, Ricky Whittle, Rupert Vansittart.

Avatar

Let's get this out of the way first: young man goes to new place, tries to infiltrate natives, succeeds, becomes enamoured of native culture, helps natives fight his own evil culture. The story is unoriginal. Although they do a good version.

That said, this is simply the most beautiful movie I've ever seen. James Cameron has created an entire world, a stunning visual feast, easily worth seeing multiple times. See it in 3-D, preferably in IMAX if that's available to you. The sense of immersion is much greater in IMAX, having seen both.

Special Edition: The above is about the original theatrical release. The Special Edition hit theatres in late August 2010 with an extra eight minutes of footage and immediately tanked - more because people had had enough "Avatar" than because it was a bad version. The added footage is scattered throughout the film in 10-30 second segments, and, while none of it is revelatory, I thought it added considerably to the film. The film is already incredibly long, but with reason: Cameron is world-building, taking the plot at a leisurely pace to help you understand an entire new world. The new material adds more context and depth: not essential, but one of those rare cases where the director restoring footage is actually a good thing.

Extended Collector's Edition: This version is included on both the DVD and BluRay disc releases. The primary change is another 4 minutes 30 seconds at the beginning, showing something of Jake Sully's life as a disabled, pissed-off veteran on Earth. It makes his character less appealing, and is better left to the imagination. So I'm staying with my recommendation: watch the "Special Edition." It's the best version of the film.

2009, dir. James Cameron. With Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Joel Moore, Giovanni Ribisi, Michelle Rodriguez, Laz Alonso, Dileep Rao.

Avatar: The Last Airbender

By the time I got to three friends having told me I really needed to watch this Nickelodeon series, I started to take them seriously. The biggest problem was trying to watch it on the library's very popular and very scratched DVDs: I was forced to skip "Book 2 Volume 1" (how they label the discs, in this case indicating episodes 1-5 of the second year out of 21 episodes) because the disc was unusable. Each volume has a run-time of 2h02m, made somewhat shorter by five sets of beginning and end credits. The series ran for three years.

I found several problems with the series, none of them particularly serious. It's heavy-handed with the life lessons for the entire three year run - often with the young characters delivering them with more understanding of emotions (and willingness to talk about them) than 12-to-15-year-olds (the age of the characters) actually have. But then, the target audience was (according to Wikipedia) 6 to 11 years old. The animation is relatively low rent, low res, and jerky - although it's also often quite beautiful. Several pieces of the outcome were blatantly obvious: the Avatar would succeed, and I knew where Zuko and Iroh were headed by the middle of the first season (although Zuko's journey took longer than I expected). But despite these short-comings, it was immensely enjoyable: it's funny, it's great to look at, it's amazingly inventive, and it's really charming. I was a little shaky on it after "Book I Volume I" (the first five episodes) because it was TV animation and heavy-handed, but I kept going and was richly rewarded: they take the time to create a huge cast of characters, and to tell their stories in a massive and consistent story arc right across the three year run. Some parts are predictable, but most of it is surprising and very entertaining. It's a crying shame that Shyamalan's live-action movie interpretation is so widely reported to be spectacularly awful.

The series was created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko.

2005. With Zach Tyler Eisen, Mae Whitman, Jack DeSena, Jessie Flower, Dante Basco, Dee Bradley Baker, Mako Iwamatsu, Greg Baldwin, Gey DeLisle.

Avengement

It's really weird when you sit down to watch a trashy action/martial arts film and instead you get a decent movie.

Scott Adkins has been making cheap-ass action movies for over a decade, and recently some of them have been getting decent reviews (I really want to see "Accident Man"). This one sees him in the role of Cain Burgess, badly scarred and hardened after seven years of prison. He gets loose when he's taken out to see his mother who's dying of cancer. He knows who he blames for his seven years of pain, and he decides he's going to be avenged. He goes to a pub where his old gang is hanging out, and takes the lot of them hostage. Much of the story is told in flashback as he fills them in on how he became who he is today.

Adkins is riveting: he's an incredible bundle of rage and violence, but he somehow still has a streak of humanity left. My reaction to his character was "I'm going to be sympathetic to him ... from as far away as is humanly possible" - it's always impressive when an actor can induce such a visceral reaction. It's interesting to compare this thoroughly convincing performance with the lacklustre nasty he played in "Triple Threat" which I watched earlier this evening (also directed by Jesse V. Johnson). The acting in that was ... well, fairly good for a martial arts film, but nothing compared to this.

Someone give this guy a chance: he's actually got skills (outside of the martial arts).

2019, dir. Jesse V. Johnson. With Scott Adkins, Craig Fairbrass, Nick Moran, Thomas Turgoose, Kierston Wareing, Louis Mandylor, Mark Strange, Leo Gregory.

The Avengers (Series 4, episodes 4-23 to 4-26)

Being in the Science Fiction community in the 80s, it was hard to avoid mention of the old British TV series "The Avengers." And then there was the notorious 1998 Hollywood film starring Uma Thurman and Ralph Fiennes, which achieved an appalling 5% on Rotten Tomatoes to remind me again. I've often wondered what this oh-so-greatly-loved show was about. When a random disc from the series appeared in front of me at the library, I picked it up. This is the fourth disc of 1966, including the episodes "The House That Jack Built," "A Sense of History," "How to Succeed ... at Murder," and "Honey for the Prince."

Wikipedia suggests that the first couple episodes were actually about avenging something (a murder), but by the fourth season it was simply an excuse for Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg to run about being goofy, solving crimes with smart minds and an ability to fight, and be charmingly deceptive when necessary. While the cover shows Rigg clinging to Macnee, the DVD shows her to be eminently capable of taking care of herself. He rides to the rescue once, only to find that she's already got herself out of trouble: "Where's your shining armour?" she says, to which he replies "Oh, ah, it's at the laundry." It was lovely to see a capable woman who didn't need rescuing - particularly in 1960s TV. On the flip-side of that, in all four episodes they find a way to get her into a revealing costume. Macnee on the other hand is always dressed in a suit and tie. So only partial points for the creation of a strong female lead.

Charming, somewhat entertaining, and about as deep as a puddle. I'm afraid it falls under the Samuel Johnson quote: "Worth seeing? Yes; but not worth going to see."

1966. With Patrick Macnee, Diana Rigg.

The Avengers

The intersection (I thought of using the word "culmination," but that implies termination, and that's not happening) of several of Marvel's movie franchises: "The Incredible Hulk" (now Mark Ruffalo, the third actor in three movies), "Iron Man" (Robert Downey Jr.), "Thor" (Chris Hemsworth), and "Captain America" (Chris Evans) are all at play here. The two other members of the team, Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) appeared in "Thor" and "Iron Man 2" respectively. They are brought together by Nick Fury (Samuel Jackson, also previously seen in "Iron Man 2") as the "Avengers Initiative" to fend off an attack on earth by Loki (Tom Hiddleston, from "Thor").

Joss Whedon directed and co-wrote. As usual, he manages to balance personal interactions between the characters and the grand scale of the battle they're embroiled in, setting his little plot points early on in the movie so you don't even know they're being set, then skewering you thoroughly on something innocent you learned earlier. Fanboys get what they want - not only do the good guys fight the bad guys, but the good guys occasionally fight amongst themselves. And people who want some intelligence get it too: it's well written and well plotted. And, as reported by just about every critic before me, Hulk's beat-down on Loki is indeed one of the best moments in the movie (short as it is).

The word that comes to my mind is "worthy." Marvel and Whedon had a lot to live up to with the success and quality they managed to bring to "Thor," "Iron Man," and "Captain America" (I'm going to forget about both recent versions of "The Hulk," except to say that Ruffalo makes a far superior Bruce Banner to Eric Bana or even Edward Norton). And they've lived up to all those franchises. Just make sure you know the previous movies before you step into this, and you'll enjoy it immensely.

2012, dir. Joss Whedon. With Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Clark Gregg, Samuel L. Jackson, Stellan Skarsgård, Cobie Smulders.

The Avengers: Age of Ultron

"Age of Ultron" opens with bizarrely blatant CG shots, including one of director Joss Whedon's favourites which sees all of the Avengers lunging across the screen simultaneously. It's cute, but so blatantly a set piece that I recoiled in disgust. From there the movie - and the CG - improve. We meet "the twins," Wanda and Pietro Maximoff ("The Scarlet Witch" and "Quicksilver" in Marvel's larger universe). Which is somewhat disorienting if you've seen "X-Men: Days of Future Past" because in that not only are they played by different actors but they're about a decade apart in age - I wish Marvel would regulate their properties better ... but I digress and this seems to be entirely expected by a lot of people. And then there's the evil dude Ultron who's created by Tony Stark (still Robert Downey Jr., looking too smug this time out), and lots of big fights.

It's fun - even if we have to put up with deliberately contrived fights like the early on "Hulk vs. Iron Man/Hulkbuster suit" ... someone please ring the fight bell. They go about two rounds, and trash a major city. You know the routine, and the excuse: the Scarlet Witch got into Hulk's head. It all builds to a major denouement, and humanity is saved - mostly. Blah blah blah. There are good fights and it was enjoyable, but the first Avengers movie was definitely the better of the two.

James Spader has a blast voicing "Ultron," and does a fine job of bringing the deranged AI to life. Sadly, the only other character development of any description, despite the relatively long run-time, is regarding the possible budding romance between Bruce Banner (the Hulk, Mark Ruffalo) and Natasha Romanoff ("Black Widow," Scarlett Johansson). I suppose there's a bit for the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), but mostly they appear fully formed and we're expected to understand their bond through a few glances between them.

2014, dir. Joss Whedon. With Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, James Spader, Don Cheadle, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Cobie Smulders, Samuel L. Jackson, Anthony Mackie.

The Avengers: Infinity War

Marvel has been building up to this one for a decade, giving many characters their own movies and now finally bringing every single one (umm - except Ant-Man and the Wasp) into one massive movie against the most super-evil villain, like, ever. It's very carefully structured, first introducing Thanos as he slaughters thousands - and we find out he's strong enough to beat the shit out of both Thor and the Hulk. And that's before he gears up his super-weapon (the Infinity Gauntlet). So now we have a threat. And a couple characters tell a couple other characters about it, so you're gently reminded of these characters. And more character introductions, with humour - and a bit of fear. All amazingly well constructed.

We're also eventually introduced to Thanos's master plan. See, the universe is over-populated, and because of that people are living unhappy lives without enough food. His solution? Kill off half the population of the universe. He's been doing this planet by planet, but with the Infinity Gauntlet, he could do it with a snap of the fingers. He explains to Gamora (on whose world he's already applied his solution) that after, everyone has enough to eat, "a paradise." Hold on there, back up a bit ... Aside from the economic collapse this would cause, last I checked, we double the Earth's population in 50 years. So your "solution" is good for ... what, 25 years? How about halving the fertility of all sentient creatures? With that solution you wouldn't even have to kill people, it would all settle down in a generation or two ...

I found the big fight two thirds of the way through a bit dull (and illogical), and the conclusion particularly absurd. They kill off a lot of people - but they're killing off high value Marvel franchises, and anyone with a couple brain cells to rub together knows they won't be leaving these people dead because they can't afford it. One death has weight, but dozens of their major characters? It carries no weight at all because Marvel needs these characters, and so the weight and tragedy evaporates to leave disappointment at the silliness.

2018, dir. Anthony and Joe Russo. With Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Don Cheadle, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright, Dave Bautista, Zoe Saldana, Josh Brolin, Chris Pratt, Pete Dinklage, Terry Notary, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Carrie Coon, Michael James Shaw, Benicio Del Toro, Gwyneth Paltrow, Bradley Cooper.

The Avengers: Endgame

This is Marvel Studios' 22nd movie. And if you're not familiar with the other 21, don't even step into the theatre. Despite a three hour runtime, no concessions are made to the uninitiated, no time is spent on back story. And they reference damn near every character and event in their back catalogue.

I saw the movie in 3D, with D-Box. D-Box at Cineplex is an expensive experience: even on Tuesday, your ticket price goes from the regular $12 to $20. But you get assigned seating, and a very large subwoofer built into your chair. I have to say I did not enjoy the experience: on several occasions it seemed more akin to having someone behind me kicking my chair - really, really hard. Here's the thing: imagine you're in the midst of an on-screen conversation between two characters, and suddenly a third character drops a book. Yes, it's startling, but according to D-Box, your chair just jumped an inch in the air. I get chair-rattling when an airplane or spacecraft is taking off, but they use it to emphasize relatively mundane events that wouldn't in real life cause that level of reaction. The seats also tilt during some scenes. It distracted more than it added to the experience. Even setting aside the price differential, I wouldn't choose to repeat the experience.

The remainder of the Avengers (a term that's now apparently expanded to include not only the Guardians of the Galaxy but also Ant-Man, Spider-Man, and anyone who has winked in their general direction) struggle with the fallout of Thanos' "snap" (see "Avengers: Infinity War" ... or don't see it, which was kind of my recommendation: I really didn't like it much although it's impossible to see this one without it).

I can't tell you a whole lot without spoilers, because by about 20 minutes in I'd have to say "Tony Stark invents time travel," which is A) ludicrous, and B) opens so many logical problems with the entire MCU that I really don't think they should have gone there. But they did, and that means the fight to restore the universe after "the snap" continues, across time. Inevitably the Avengers win, but the victory is bittersweet - unlike the deaths in "Infinity War," I think they plan to make the ones in this movie stick (okay, one dead character has a spin-off movie coming up - but I suspect it will be in the MCU "past").

I'm happy to say that I enjoyed the movie. I have bucketloads of issues with it, but I did kind of enjoy it. If you're a fan of the MCU, you have to see it, it's not really a choice. Do your homework beforehand and re-watch any of the previous 21 movies that you don't remember well.

2019, dir. Anthony and Joe Russo. With Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Brie Larson, Karen Gillan, Danai Gurira, Bradley Cooper, Josh Brolin.

Awakenings

Robin Williams is Dr. Sayer, an academic who ends up working in a chronic care facility in a hospital. Some of the patients are catatonic, and he noticed that many of them responded to certain types of stimuli and were survivors of encephalitis. He begins to treat one of them with the new drug L-Dopa.

Based on a non-fiction book by Oliver Sacks, the movie is reasonably well done and rather bittersweet: I can't say much more without spoiling the movie. Williams' performance was a little shaky, and Robert De Niro's felt exaggerated (although it may have been accurate). And, while it's good as a whole, I didn't think it was in any way outstanding.

1990, dir. Penny Marshall. With Robin Williams, Robert De Niro, John Heard, Julie Kavner, Penelope Ann Miller, Max von Sydow.

The Awful Truth

A Broadway play-turned-movie, and thus full of witty one-liners and caustic humour. But somewhat impaired in the common sense department ... not just the characters, but the screenwriters as well. Cary Grant and Irene Dunne play a married couple who get into a tiff and immediately decide that divorce is the only solution, and we spend the next hour and a quarter watching them reconsider. Silly, and, as mentioned, occasionally funny.

1937, dir. Leo McCarey. With Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, Ralph Bellamy, Alexander D'Arcy, Cecil Cunningham, Molly Lamont, Esther Dale.


B

Babette's Feast

A French woman of unknown origins prepares a huge feast for a group of religious puritans in a remote town in Denmark. Fairly good, but I found much of it emotionally cold - it doesn't draw you in or involve you much.

1987. dir. Gabriel Axel.

Baby Assassins

Chisato (Akari Takaishi) and Mahiro (Saori Izawa) are teenage assassins whose employers make them live together and try to get part time jobs. They don't get along very well, and neither of them is particularly good at holding down a job of any description. Imagine a Japanese John-Wick-style (less action, more comedy) coming of age tale.

I initially had some trouble separating Chisato from Himari (Mone Akitani) when the latter was introduced as the daughter of a Yakuza leader - the only thing I can think of to excuse myself for this is that I was busy watching the subtitles and not giving the visuals all of my attention. The plot also bounced around in time a little, which didn't help.

The dynamic between our two central sociopaths is pretty entertaining, and their attempts to negotiate daily life are sometimes very funny.

The final fight (mostly between Masanori Mimoto and Saori Izawa) deserves mention. It owes some credit to "John Wick" for the basics of "Gun Fu," but it's more than that. The choreography is outstanding. The actors must have rehearsed for weeks - particularly to make it look as natural, sloppy, fast, and vicious as it does. When I say "sloppy," I mean the inaccuracy of someone fighting for their life - not martial-arts-movie-fighting sloppiness, when they miss strikes by half a meter and expect us to read it as a hit. There's none of that kind of sloppiness here. This is visceral and brutal, and reads as more real than 95% of martial arts fights committed to film.

And then ... we get back to comedic violence, and then comedy.

2021, dir. Yugo Sakamoto. With Akari Takaishi, Saori Izawa, Mone Akitani, Masanori Mimoto.

Babylon 5

Babylon 5 is a space station - the fifth of a series, none of the previous ones having gone operational. The first three each fell to sabotage, and the fourth vanished completely within 24 hours of being completed. There's a pilot movie, "The Gathering," that's fairly bad, but should be watched if you're going to tackle the series. The first season is mediocre - "oh look, we have a space station! and aliens!" It sets the scene - I only watched about eight episodes of 22, on the recommendation of a serious fan of the series - but does little of the groundwork for the staggering story arc to follow. The change from the first season to the second is astounding, like a light switch being flipped. Seasons two to four is possibly the most spectacular story arc ever told in TV history: J. Michael Straczynski planned out the whole damn thing from the beginning of Season one, and it's ... amazing. Space Opera on the grandest scale - I've often mocked "space opera," but when it's done right ... and wow, it's definitely done right here.

In "The Gathering," Babylon 5 goes operational with Commander Jeffrey Sinclair in charge. He was a survivor of "The Line," the last line of defence in the Earth-Minbari war. The Minbari totally overwhelmed Earth's defences ... and then surrendered. Why is unknown, and is a big driver of the series. The pilot movie (this should be watched before any of the TV episodes) also shows the ambassadors of the various alien races arriving on the station.

Some of the weakest episodes are "Come the Inquisitor" in Season two, and the entire story arc about "The First Ones" from 4-1 through 4-6. Straczynski clearly has a fascination with the spiritual, but I didn't think it fit in well with the very physical presence of the station the series was named after. G'Kar and Londo Mollari are the best characters, because each has a very distinctive and superbly developed character arc within the fantastic set of stories. Londo's assistant Vir is also wonderful.

After the massive story arc and wars of the first four years the fifth year is a lesser product, disappointing after what has come before. Let's start with "actress" Tracy Scoggins as Elizabeth Lochley: she takes over command of B5 from Sheridan (who remains in a different role). Much of the year is about the telepath resistance, those who want to avoid the iron fist of the Psi Corps. Robin Atkin Downes plays reasonably well as Byron, leader of the rogue telepaths ... but the character's story arc plays out incredibly poorly when he decides that lying and blackmail are fine, even though he's absolutely against the use of violence - bizarre. And then there's Patricia Tallman as Lyta: such a terrible, terrible actress, and she plays a large part in this year as well. The best part of the year is G'Kar's unwilling conversion to spiritual icon among his people: G'Kar is a fantastic character, and this plays well.

The follow-up movie In the Beginning is told as a story to Centauri children by Emperor Mollari - he tells the tale of the origins of the Earth-Minbari war. The movie is quite good as an addition to canon, but shows one of the few instances of Straczynski retconning details: this movie wasn't a part of the grand sweep of his plans, it was clearly added later. For example, Delenn knew what the glowing tri-luminary meant when applied to Sinclair - and yet in the TV series she doesn't know what it meant when it glowed in association with herself (guess: it meant the same thing.) Setting that and a couple other minor details aside, it's quite good.

The movie Thirdspace is definitely one of the weakest entries: a device covered in Vorlon markings (oops - minor spoiler) is towed from hyperspace to B5, and as it starts to power up it causes massive psychic disturbance among the population of B5. Theoretically between the Shadow War and the war with Earth, this seems to be entirely outside the actual B5 timeline: we see dozens of people beaten bloody and senseless, we see multiple starships with explosions, and at the end Sheridan says "no one was hurt?!" Really poor.

The movie River of Souls brings in Martin Sheen as a "Soulhunter," one of an alien species who capture sentient species' souls at the point of death. Straczynski returns to his fascination with the spiritual, and again produces a fairly weak product - although perhaps better than "Thirdspace." This also sees significant retconning: Sheen's character claims the only time the soul hunters had ever been stopped from retrieving a soul was Dukhat, the Minbari leader. But the soul hunters arrive before the death, and we've seen Dukhat's death not once but twice: in the TV series and in "In the Beginning." There were no soul hunters, and their presence isn't something you fail to mention.

The movie A Call to Arms is somewhat better than the other movies. Sheridan and a couple others are drawn together by dreams, and it's eventually revealed that their source is legitimate and their mission is to fight the Drakh - the most significant race left behind who worked with the Shadows. A noticeable oddity of the movie is the use of a different composer - Christopher Franke did the entire TV series and all the other movies, and the new music is in a distinctly different style. This was also the lead-in for "Babylon 5: Crusade."

The Legend of the Rangers: To Live and Die in Starlight was a 2002 B5 movie starring mostly new staff - primarily being about David Martel (Dylan Neal) and the new crew of the old ship the Liandra. G'Kar is the only returning character. Martel was a pretty good character, as was his friend and first officer Dulann, but I was seriously put off by the new weapons control system that saw someone punching and kicking in a space simulation to fire weapons ...

Babylon 5: Crusade might as well have been called "Star Trek: Confrontational." The premise of the show is that the new and fantastic space ship "Excalibur" is searching the galaxy for the cure to the Drakh plague, which will kill billions of humans within five years. So the Excalibur goes around beating people up and doing science - but TNT cancelled it after 13 episodes. Watching it in 2013, I can't see its cancellation as a loss - it just wasn't a very good show.

1994. With Bruce Boxleitner, Claudia Christian, Jerry Doyle, Mira Furlan, Richard Biggs, Peter Jurasik, Andreas Katsulas, Jeff Conaway, Michael O'Hare, Patricia Tallman, Andrea Thompson, Jason Carter, Bill Mumy, Tracy Scoggins, Stephen Furst, Gary Cole, Daniel Dae Kim, David Allen Brooks, Peter Woodward, Carrie Dobro.

Baby Driver

I mixed up the two Wrights, Edgar and Joe, who have radically different histories as directors. Joe: "Pride and Prejudice," "Atonement," "Hanna," "Darkest Hour." Edgar: "Shaun of the Dead," "Hot Fuzz," "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World," "The World's End." This is directed by the latter - the guy behind the trilogy of movies with Simon Pegg. So an odd choice to direct an action movie - and we get an odd action movie.

Ansel Elgort plays "Baby," who jacked the wrong car in his youth and is still paying off his "debt" to mob boss Kevin Spacey. He doesn't talk much, and always listens to music when he drives. But he drives very well. He's met the perfect girl and he's out from under the mob boss's thumb - or so he thinks. But there's another job in his future, and it may end him.

Elgort surprised me: he's handsome - but also acting quite well. Jamie Foxx is passable - but I didn't think totally convincing as a psychopath who will happily kill anyone. Lily James is still coasting on charm - I hope she learns to act soon. The most interesting was Jon Hamm, who was disturbingly convincing as a battered and vicious criminal - he's been building himself quite a career, proving recently he can do just about anything he wants.

The movie itself though ... it takes some weird twists at the end that were a long way from convincing, and ultimately I wasn't a fan.

2017, dir. Edgar Wright. With Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Lily James, Eiza González, Jon Hamm, Jamie Foxx, Jon Bernthal.

The Babysitter's Guide to Monster Hunting

I occasionally (frequently?) watch very silly movies on Netflix. Wikipedia entertainingly classifies this as "family horror," which means it's aimed at tweens and the horror is pretty non-threatening.

The main character is Kelly Ferguson (Tamara Smart), a teenager co-opted into babysitting Halloween night when she would far rather have been at the party where her crush was. Along with this assignment, she holds the memory of having seen monsters coming from her closet when she was five. The two things are of course connected.

Reviews have been mediocre, but while it's unquestionably silly and possibly a bit obvious, I found it mildly charming and I'm totally okay with them making being-a-nerd cool. Disposable but fun.

2020, dir. Rachel Talalay. With Tamara Smart, Oona Laurence, Alessio Scalzotto, Indya Moore, Tom Felton, Tamsen McDonough.

Bad Boys

A couple of really funny jokes in a long and tedious movie. Don't bother.

1995, dir. Michael Bay. With Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Téa Leoni.

Bacurau

Other reviews imply that this is science fiction because there are aliens involved. This is a mild spoiler, but I get pissed by mis-classification like this: there's a drone shaped like a UFO, there are no aliens. Wikipedia classifies this as a "Weird Western," a genre I didn't even know existed - but it makes perfect sense given the proliferation of movies with Western-like structures and weird elements. This is a SPOILER (stop reading now etc., although this is a reveal that appears half way through the movie, not the ending): this is mostly just a weird Brazilian Western variant on "The Most Dangerous Game."

Bacurau is a small and isolated town in Brazil. We're introduced to the residents' lives, the local politics, details like how the drinkable water is trucked in, and the unusual characters who populate the place. Then weird things start happening (first the town disappears from Internet maps, then the phone signal drops) and people start dying (the movie gets pretty bloody).

I was significantly put out that this was neither as SF (in fact not at all) nor as "weird" as the reviews had implied. It's mildly unusual, a bit "weird," but many of the reviews at Rotten Tomatoes imply it's spectacularly strange. In fact, on a scale of one to ten where Alejandro Jodorowsky is about a nine, this rates maybe a three, probably less. I wanted WEIRD, and I didn't get it. On the other hand, most of the people in the town are very well drawn characters: that at least was good. Overall - not really my thing.

2019, dir. With Sônia Braga, Udo Kier, Bárbara Colen, Thomas Aquino, Silvero Pereira, Karine Teles, Thardelly Lima, Rubens Santos, Wilson Rabelo, Carlos Francisco, Luciana Souza, Julia Marie Peterson.

The Bad Guys

This is well reviewed by the critics (88% on Rotten Tomatoes as of 2022-09), and I like animated kids movies. This one has quite a line-up of stars doing the voice work: Sam Rockwell, Awkwafina, Craig Robinson, Richard Ayoade, Zazie Beetz, Lilly Singh. "The Bad Guys" are a crew of criminals: Mr. Wolf (Rockwell), Mr. Snake (Marc Maron), Ms. Tarantula (Awkwafina), Mr. Shark (Robinson), and Mr. Piranha (Anthony Ramos) - they figure they're always seen as "bad guys," so they might as well roll with it. And they're really good at stealing things. Until one day Wolf gets a positive tingle from doing good works, and the crew gets caught and someone tries to convert them to good. They find themselves falling apart as Mr. Wolf wants to do good, and - at the other end of the scale - Mr. Snake wants only to steal stuff and be evil.

The voice work is very good, the jokes are cute and funny ... but the whole thing is aimed at six year olds. Movies like "Spirited Away" and "How to Train Your Dragon" (both favourites of mine) are aimed older than that and have at least some emotional depth and the occasional moral dilemma ... but not this one. No depth. It gets by on a witty script and very good voice work, but isn't going to displace any of my favourites.

2022, dir. Pierre Perifel. With Sam Rockwell, Marc Maron, Awkwafina, Craig Robinson, Anthony Ramos, Richard Ayoade, Zazie Beetz, Alex Borstein, Lilly Singh.

Bad Influence

Michael (James Spader) is a young executive who is letting himself be pushed around in all aspects of his life. After an incident in a bar, he meets Alex (Rob Lowe) and starts to learn from him not to let himself be pushed around. But Alex's wildness goes rather farther than Michael's conscience will let him, and their confrontations become extremely ugly. A psychological thriller of sorts, one I didn't like much although the two leads played their parts very well.

1990, dir. Curtis Hanson. With James Spader, Rob Lowe.

Bad Times at the El Royale

In 1969, the "El Royale" is a motel that's seen better days, right on the border between California and Nevada (it has rooms in each state). It's recently lost its gambling license and now has only one employee (played by Lewis Pullman). Several people, each with a secret, check in for a night that's less quiet than they might have hoped. Jeff Daniels is the probably-not-a-priest, Cynthia Erivo a singer fallen on hard times, Dakota Johnson and Cailee Spaeny a pair of sisters at odds.

Wikipedia describes the movie as a "neo-noir thriller," and it's both dark and violent. I wasn't entirely sold on the cult-leader twist that came in past the half-way mark, but overall it's a surprisingly entertaining film as people try to survive their miserable night. It was more violent than I like these days, but I still found it surprisingly enjoyable.

2018, dir. Drew Goddard. With Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Cailee Spaeny, Lewis Pullman, Chris Hemsworth, Nick Offerman, Xavier Dolan, Shea Whigham.

Bagdad Cafe

"A middle-aged German woman walks into an American truck stop ..." Unfortunately this 95 minute joke is told with Eighties coloured filters over the camera lenses and bizarre jump-cuts, as well as highly improbable personal interactions. Not quite screwball, not quite magic realism, not quite good ...

Marianne Sägebrecht plays Jasmin Münchgstettner, an Austrian woman who has split from her husband in the middle of the American desert. She walks to a truck stop, where she lives in the motel and deals with the short-tempered owner Brenda (C.C.H. Pounder), Brenda's family, and the small selection of odd people who come through or live near the truck stop. Through charm, a fondness for cleaning, and a budding interest in magic (and posing nude for paintings), Jasmin wins the hearts of all around her.

The best feature of the movie as far as I was concerned was that Brandon Flagg (as Brenda's son Salomo) played all his own music on the piano - a lot of playing, and he did it quite well. That's hugely unusual. Unfortunately, that wasn't really what the movie needed most.

1987, dir. Percy Adlon. With Marianne Sägebrecht, C.C.H. Pounder, Jack Palance, Darron Flagg, Christine Kaufmann, Monica Calhoun, George Aguilar, G. Smokey Campbell, Hans Stadlbauer, Alan S. Craig, Apesanahkwat.

Ball of Fire

A group of professors labour over an encyclopedia "of all human knowledge." The youngest of them (also the leader), Bertram Potts (Gary Cooper), goes out to do some research on current slang, and ends up with 'Sugarpuss' O'Shea (Barbara Stanwyck), a showgirl and gangster's girlfriend in tow. She shakes up the professors, and Potts falls in love with her - although she's only using him. Etc. Not terribly inventive, but the professors, while a bit clichéd, are incredibly charming. Stanwyck is very good too. It's a silly movie that had no right to be worth watching, but it's funny and charming and one of my favourite movies.

1941, dir. Howard Hawks. With Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Oskar Homolka, Henry Travers, Richard Haydn, Dana Andrews, Dan Duryea, Elisha Cook Jr.

Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever

This has a reputation as being one of the worst films ever made. In fact, I found it quite disappointing: it's not nearly bad enough to warrant that reputation. Sure, the director (who cheesily styles himself "Kaos") managed to pry incredibly wooden performances from the otherwise competent Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu. Sure, it ignores physics completely, but most action films do that. And yes, it's tedious, with non sequiturs and a somewhat poorly structured plot. But where's the hilariously bad dialogue? It's all just tedious. And the continuity is fairly consistent. The fights are sequential, and most of the blows look vaguely as if they landed. Where are the blatant errors that entertain?

To me the most frustrating problem was the final fight between Liu and Ray Park (finally wearing his own face, instead of Toad in "X-Men" or Darth Maul in "The Phantom Menace"). I'm sure Liu trained hard, but it was immediately and massively evident that Park was a far superior martial artist (he's done it all his life and he's a movie stunt man - he knows how to move). Of course Liu wins the fight: but a five year old child with no martial arts training would be left scratching their head and thinking "how did that happen?" after the fight was over.

My favourite part though is when Banderas tells his wife "we must run." The next shot is a slow-mo shot of their legs running through puddles. Then we have the clichéd speed-up to full speed. We all know what this means: they're fleeing from gun-men or an imminent explosion. And then the pull-back ... revealing that they're not running, they're going at a light trot under no particular threat. I fell out laughing. It was a shot that should have been in one of the parody movies, but it wasn't done here for humour (which is part of why it worked so well ...)

2002, dir. Wych Kaosayananda. With Antonio Banderas, Lucy Liu, Gregg Henry, Ray Park, Talisa Soto, Terry Chen, Miguel Sandoval.

Balls of Fury

Another one of those I'm a little embarrassed to admit I watched ... It's bad. On the other hand, it did have a couple of big laughs - albeit with far too big a wait between them. Reminds me a lot of the over-the-top, hit-or-miss approach to comedy that the SNL alumni seem to take to comedy: it's extremely uneven, and perfectly happy to go for the gross-out.

The basic premise has Randy Daytona (Dan Fogler) coming out of retirement to play Ping Pong again, trying to get into a high stakes Ping Pong match run by the deadly Feng (Christopher Walken).

2007, dir. Robert Ben Garant. With Dan Fogler, Christopher Walken, George Lopez, Maggie Q, James Hong.

The Band's Visit

An Egyptian police band goes to Israel to play a concert. They take the wrong bus and get stuck in a small town with no way out until the next day and no hotels. Locals host them. ...... Yes, that's it. It's quiet, funny (extremely so in a couple places, but quietly so throughout), and charming. See it. The "Muslims meet the Jews" thing is there, but this isn't a preaching movie, it's just ... people.

2007, dir. Eran Kolirin. With Sasson Gabai, Ronit Elkabetz, Saleh Bakri, Khalifa Natour.

Baran

Iranian movie about a short-tempered young construction worker who discovers that the new youth (an illegal Afghan worker) on the site is female, not male. He becomes obsessed with her. They had essentially two filming sites: a skeletal building that they're trying to rebuild (and which quite a few of them live in), and a small village. Very poorly acted, good cinematography, fascinating chiefly because it shows something of Iranian life.

2001, dir. Majid Majidi. With Hossein Abedini, Zahra Bahrami, Mohammad Amir Naji.

Barb Wire

I've always wanted to quote Mr. Cranky's review on this one - he just says it so well: "... if nothing else, 'Barb Wire' doesn't try to fool. Its opening sequence knows full well what Pamela [Anderson] Lee's two biggest assets are -- those half-grapefruit, silicon-implanted protrusions jiggling around on her chest. To inflate the nature of her fame, the filmmakers cram her into a dress two sizes too small so that as she dances to heavy metal music in the opening scene, her nipples fly out of her garment like pop-up thermometers on an overcooked turkey."

The acting is staggeringly bad across the board. I watched this primarily to see what the writers had done with "Casablanca" - the movie is based on a comic book that's a rewrite, with Lee in the role of Rick. Nothing good, and I do mean "nothing." Which is actually a little surprising: almost every re-envisioning manages to find something to improve, or some idea about the old story that's new or interesting. But having Lee pop out of costume repeatedly really didn't qualify.

1996, dir. David Hogan. With Pamela Anderson, Temuera Morrison, Victoria Rowell, Jack Noseworthy, Xander Berkeley, Udo Kier, Steve Railsback.

Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy

More than anything you can see the influence of producer Dino de Laurentiis, who redefined "camp" every time he made a movie. We're talking about the man behind the 1980 version of "Flash Gordon." This movie is mostly about bad special effects and Fonda in slinky outfits (or nothing at all). And I now know where Duran Duran got their name, and where "Flesh Gordon" drew its primary inspiration. Sad to say, this is a landmark in SF film (not entirely a bad thing: SF film needed both sexuality and humour in a bad way). Ludicrous as it is, this is definitely worth watching.

1968, dir. Roger Vadim. With Jane Fonda, John Phillip Law, Anita Pallenberg, Milo O'Shea.

The Barbarian Invasions (orig.: Les Invasions Barbares)

Director Denys Arcand brings back most of the cast of "The Decline of the American Empire" 17 years later. Once again, the topic of the day is sex. Last time it was sex and life, but now one of their number is dying so it becomes sex and death. I found it remarkably ... disposable considering its central pillar is a death - even if it is used as an affirmation of life. Still, enjoyable and with a fair bit to think about.

2003, dir. Denys Arcand. With Rémy Girard, Stéphane Rousseau, Dorothée Berryman, Louise Portal, Dominique Michel, Yves Jacques, Pierre Curzi, Marie-Josée Croze.

Barefoot Gen (orig. "Hadashi no Gen")

A super cute movie about starving in WWII Hiroshima, right up until the bomb drops on them and most people die horribly. Then more people die of radiation sickness. Good fun for the whole family. Gen is a young boy who ends up trying to be a protector to his pregnant mother when the rest of his family dies. The combination of cute and horror didn't really work for me, even if the author did live through the Hiroshima bomb.

1992, dir. Mori Masaki. With Issei Miyazaki, Masaki Kôda, Yoshie Shimamura.

Barely Lethal

Our heroine is "number 83," aka "Megan Walsh" - played by Hailee Steinfeld. She's been raised all her life as a assassin, and she's very good at it, but what she really wants is to be a normal teenager. After a mostly successful mission, she has the opportunity to let her handlers think she's dead - which she does. And off she goes to high school.

From there we get a low grade high school comedy with lots of movie references: Megan has seen "Mean Girls," "The Breakfast Club," and plenty of others, but doesn't really understand high school - or even normal people. Just as she's starting to figure out where she fits, her old life comes back to haunt her.

Predictable and low on laughs. They set up a sequel, but not only is this movie's Rotten Tomatoes score 26%, its worldwide box office take - as of 2020 - was slightly under $1,000,000. I don't know the original budget, but I suspect it was a bit more than that - and return-on-investment is the only decider that matters on making sequels.

2015, dir. Kyle Newman. With Hailee Steinfeld, Sophie Turner, Dove Cameron, Thomas Mann, Samuel L. Jackson, Jessica Alba, Rachael Harris, Rob Huebel, Toby Sebastian, Gabriel Basso, Jason Drucker.

Barney's Version

I was less than sure about this movie adaptation of a Mordecai Richler novel, but it won me over. In a big way. Never bet against Paul Giamatti - he can bring the worst script to life, and handed a good one (like this), he'll leave the audience awe-struck.

Giamatti plays Barney, a heavy-drinking Montrealer. We see his life from his twenties all the way to the very sad ending, and his relationships with his father, his three wives, his best friends, and his two children. Barney is a bit of a loudmouth asshole, but like anyone he has redeeming features. His love of his third wife (Rosamund Pike, luminous as always) is one of his biggest - particularly after his sorry second marriage. Highly recommended.

2010, dir. Richard J. Lewis. With Paul Giamatti, Rosamund Pike, Dustin Hoffman, Minnie Driver, Scott Speedman, Rachelle Lefevre, Mark Addy, Bruce Greenwood, Saul Rubinek, Anna Hopkins, Jake Hoffman, Atom Egoyan, David Cronenberg, Paul Gross, Denys Arcand.

Batman (1989)

I saw this when it came out and loved it, so it was a surprise to me to find that I hate it in 2011 - quite a reversal. The effects in the movie have aged poorly (the most direct comparison being the first of the Christopher Nolan Batman movies), and Burton's visual sensibilities really wore on me this time. I didn't like Tim Burton in 1989, I have no idea why I liked this movie ...

As I remembered, Michael Keaton is considerably better than you'd expect in the role - but then, he was spectacular in "Clean and Sober" so I suppose it shouldn't be a big surprise. Jack Nicholson sets the right tone as the Joker, but the facial prosthetics are incredibly distracting. Burton successfully takes the tone from the goofiness of the Sixties Batman TV series and movie to the much grittier feel of the comic books. It's not a bad movie, but it's far too Burton for me both visually and emotionally.

1989, dir. Tim Burton. With Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger, Billy Dee Williams, Jack Palance, Robert Wuhl, Pat Hingle, Michael Gough.

The Batman

Technically, I didn't watch the entire movie. I lost about two minutes around the 1h20m mark to the library's glitchy copy of the DVD, and then another couple minutes around the 2h00m mark. But I think I got the idea. (TPL's DVDs have been excellent - this was a very rare exception.)

Robert Pattinson plays possibly the most emotionally damaged Bruce Wayne / Batman yet. Pattinson is English, but he managed a convincing American accent (although he doesn't talk all that much). We have his butler, Alfred Pennyworth (Andy Serkis - wearing his own face for once, not doing motion capture), and the one non-crooked cop at Gotham City PD who's his compatriot (same name as always, James Gordon - played this time by Jeffrey Wright).

Then we have the rogue's gallery: Zoë Kravitz as Selina Kyle / Catwoman (and as always, Batman has an uncertain relationship with her as she steals things but also sometimes helps him), Paul Dano as the Riddler, John Turturro as mob boss Carmine Falcone, and a totally unrecognizable (due to extensive prosthetics) Colin Farrell as Oswald Cobblepot / the Penguin.

Is it a good movie? The excessive run-time (176 minutes) allows them to explore all the stuff they wanted to and develop their story well. But it also allows a number of overblown elements full reign - particularly when we get to dramatic pauses, when someone ever-so-slowly raises a weapon, pause for effect, and someone else suddenly appears to rescue them. That shit gets tiresome. Have I mentioned that it's always dark in Gotham? This makes sense as Batman says right at the beginning that he's a creature of the night, but it gets real old. And Gotham is a very, very dirty, crime-ridden city.

I'm tired of this story. I've heard it so many times before. But why come up with a new plot when you can recycle an old one? Frank Miller unintentionally created a competition to see who could come up with the grittiest Gotham, or the most morally repugnant super-villains (this is a top contender in both categories). This is probably a good movie for people who aren't sick to death of this plotline. I rewatch some superhero movies, but this one won't be on that list.

The only extra on the DVD was a short piece about costuming each of the major characters and the set design. They went on at some length about the durable and practical costumes and props, and how Matt Reeves wanted stuff that would really work. Which is of course why Selina Kyle/Catwoman sported 2" sharpened fingernails when she was going out on her motorcycle, or safe-cracking, or fighting. That was a bit of a breach in the logic.

2022, dir. Matt Reeves. With Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Peter Sarsgaard, Andy Serkis, Colin Farrell, Jayme Lawson.

Batman Begins

Another shot at Batman's origins, and a fairly good one. The final dénouement is massively over the top, but that's no different than any other action movie these days.

2005, dir. Christopher Nolan. With Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Katie Holmes, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer, Linus Roache, Morgan Freeman.

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

Animated. Slightly better than the 20 minute TV cartoons it's based upon. A "Phantasm" begins killing off local crime figures, contrary to Batman's desire to adhere to the law. Simultaneously, a woman that he had considered marrying as Bruce Wayne resurfaces in his life. No attempt is ever made to explain the Phantasm's magical abilities: he just does what he does.

2005. With Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, Dana Delany, Hart Bochner, Abe Vigour.

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice

Turns out DC has a chronology just like Marvel, and you really should watch "Man of Steel" (2013) before watching "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice." Actually, my suspicion is that you should NOT watch them: you can do that in either order, and you won't have lost five hours of your life.

In "Man of Steel," Superman's battle with General Zod badly trashed Gotham City. Now Batman (Ben Affleck) is all upset with Superman (Henry Cavill) and determined to take him down to end the threat of the untrustable alien. To which end he constructs a battle suit and makes some nasty Kryptonite weapons. Into this mix we throw Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) aka Wonder Woman, and Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg). And here we hit upon the biggest of many problems with the movie: Eisenberg and director Zack Snyder have apparently concluded that "massively annoying" is the same thing as "massively evil" and substituted the former for the latter in Eisenberg's performance. I wanted to punch him every time he was on screen because he was so irritating. Let's compare this to Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker. Ledger was unsettling the second you saw him, and the air of menace about him was palpable. Punching him wasn't something you thought about: "getting the hell out" was more likely the plan. Eisenberg is a capable actor, but when he does evil things as Lex Luthor it seems more like a mistake than a plan: he's a very poor villain.

This is DC's equivalent to Marvel's "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" - they're starting to get a smaller group of superheroes into the same movie. There are several strategies at work here: 1) roll several superheroes together, see if it sells, 2) question the morality of one or several of the superheroes, 3) which allows superheroes to fight each other because everybody loves that, 4) save the world, 5) hint at a bigger group movie to come (the upcoming "Justice League" movie with Batman, Wonder Woman and more). ("Winter Soldier" was actually post-Avengers so the latter point doesn't apply, but the rest of the points apply to both movies.) I'm sick to death of the comic book penchant for changes of opinion exclusively so we can see a fight between this hero and that ("Captain America: Civil War" is the worst for this) and the team-up-and-save-the-world trope at the end has also been done to death. Superhero movies need to bring something new to the table to be interesting, and this one doesn't.

2016, dir. Zack Snyder. With Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane, Jeremy Irons, Laurence Fishburne, Gal Gadot, Holly Hunter.

The Battle of Algiers (orig. "La Battaglia di Algeri")

Shows the Algerian revolution against the French Colonials from 1956-1962. The style verges on documentary, and is fairly unbiased - and all the more depressing for it, as it shows the French torturing prisoners and the Algerians bombing cafés with children and babies in them. The plot, coming as it did mostly from an account of the war, doesn't tie up its loose ends quite as neatly as a fictional movie, but this is a hell of a portrayal of war. A creepy and depressing piece of work that everyone should see. Filmed in Algeria by an Italian in French and Algerian. Several nominations and awards ... and wasn't screened in France for decades.

1967, dir. Gillo Pontecorvo. With Brahim Hadjadj, Jean Martin, Yacef Saadi.

Battle of the Damned

The premise is simple: some southeast Asian city (filmed somewhere in Malaysia, although the country was never named in the movie) has been over-run by zombies as a result of a wayward biological experiment. The city is blockaded - no one in or out. Major Max Gatling (Dolph Lundgren) and a team are sent in to retrieve the daughter of the man whose company was responsible for the biological fuck-up. They have to fight fast zombies and rescue survivors, and eventually there are robots too (the trailer features them prominently).

The biggest problem of course is the budget: this is a B-movie with Lundgren and a bunch of no-name actors. Lundgren is now firmly established as a B-movie actor, and getting up there in years (54 or 55 when they were filming this in 2012-3). The acting sucks, the dialogue sucks, the action has spectacularly choppy editing, and the robots are obviously primarily CG (although not as bad as I would have expected).

A couple minor notes: poor old Dolph seems to have seriously messed up his knees somewhere along the line. The scenes where they're running from the zombies have Dolph more "hobbling" than "running," which is a bit problematic with "fast zombies." A very minor plus: I haven't watched many zombie shows, but the survivor dynamics did feel at least a little different than most.

2013, dir. Christopher Hatton. With Dolph Lundgren, Melanie Zanetti, Matt Doran, David Field, Jen Kuo Sung, Lydia Look, Oda Maria, Jeff Pruitt, Kerry Wong, Esteban Cueto, Broadus Mattison, Timothy Cooper.

Battleship

Our hero is Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch), the intelligent but unmotivated brother of a Stone Hopper (Alexander Skarsgård), an exemplary American naval officer. Stone forces Alex into the Navy, where he survives - but doesn't thrive. While out on multi-nation naval exercises, Alex gets into a fight with Japanese naval captain Nagata (Tadanobu Asano, looking and acting like Ken Watanabe) that A) puts him on the to-be-discharged-when-we-hit-shore list, and B) blatantly sets up a "these two will have to co-operate later" scenario. All this, just in time for the alien invasion caused by NASA's misguided attempts to communicate with another planet, which locks a few ships in lethal battle with the aliens. Another standard plot device is used to put Alex in charge of a vessel where he's in a position to save the day (and co-operate with Nagata). I leave it to you to guess whether or not he comes through, or gets the girl.

The acting is poor, very much of the "run, jump and grimace" variety on the low end of the action movie spectrum. Kitsch, who's proven he can act in other contexts (even if it was the spectacularly misguided - but interesting - "John Carter") is poor here. Physics is defied at every turn. The effects are pretty, but the movie is dull.

2012, dir. Peter Berg. With Taylor Kitsch, Liam Neeson, Rihanna, Alexander Skarsgård, Brooklyn Decker, Tadanobu Asano, Hamish Linklater, Gregory D. Gadson, Adam Godley.

Baywatch (2017)

The critics panned this one (18% on Rotten Tomatoes), but I thought the trailer was funny. That doesn't guarantee a good movie, and I was pretty sure the critics were right - now I know.

Dwayne Johnson plays Mitch Buchannon, saving lives while surrounded by voluptuous young women. There's at least a bit of good news here: while they're definitely treating the women as eye candy, they're equal opportunity about it with Johnson and Zac Efron both being incredibly fit and scantily clad, and the women are also intelligent and competent (although Mitch is the anchor of the team).

Mitch is burdened with a selfish and obnoxious Olympic swimmer (Efron) as a new lifeguard because his boss sees it as good publicity ... although that's pretty dubious as it's quickly established that he puked his way to losing all his endorsements and teammates. And now the beautiful Victoria Leeds (Priyanka Chopra Jones) who owns the local club appears to be selling drugs.

I enjoyed the first few minutes, with Johnson delivering a whole slew of funny take-downs of Efron's character, but around the ten minute mark the movie started rolling with the penis and sex jokes and never stopped. I might have forgiven them if the jokes had actually been funny - or the plot hadn't been totally predictable. But no such luck.

2017, dir. Seth Gordon. With Dwayne Johnson, Zac Efron, Alexandra Daddario, Kelly Rohrbach, Priyanka Chopra Jones, Ilfenesh Hadera, Jon Bass, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, David Hasselhoff, Pamela Anderson.

Beastars, Season 1

"Beastars" is a Japanese Anime series licensed on this side of the Pacific by Netflix. The series sounds more than a little weird when put in writing, although perhaps it's more understandable if I say that it was a manga first. It's set at Cherryton High School, where anthropomorphic animals from almost all the species go to school together. Sounds like "Zootopia," right? Particularly when you find out that there's an occasional problem with carnivores attacking herbivores. But this is longer form, and they have the time and/or inclination to look at the underbelly of this society: we learn around half way through the season that there's a black market where carnivores can buy herbivore meat, complete with its own gonzo psychologist to deal with rage incidents.

The reason the series succeeds is that the characters are well drawn and complex. For example, "Rouis" (as he was titled in the subs I saw, apparently "Louis" in most other interpretations) appears noble on the outside, but as you get to know him he's kind of a self-centred asshole putting on a show ... but when the chips are down, he's more likely to act nobly than not.

Our hero Legosi is a shy and quiet gray wolf struggling with his own nature as a carnivore, and with relationships (he's a teen). He has his moments of being unable to even speak to a female he's attracted to, but they don't overplay this as much as in most high school Anime. And when he can talk, he's an honest and quietly introspective guy that it's nice to spend time with (a good feature in your main character!). The animation styles vary considerably and look good too.

There are life lessons in there about tolerance of others, and controlling your impulses - but they're applied with a lighter hand than most teen series. Yes it's bizarre, and it's not meant for adults (or kids either with its relatively frank discussion of sex - this is aimed squarely at teens), but if you're in the right frame of mind it can be very enjoyable.

2019. With Chikahiro Kobayashi, Sayaka Senbongi, Yuki Ono, Junya Enoki, Nobuhiko Okamoto, Takaaki Torashima.

Beat the Devil

Humphrey Bogart plays Billy Dannreuther, with the first shot in the movie being a band playing in a town square that pans over to show us four men (Robert Morley, Peter Lorre, Ivor Barnard, Marco Tulli) being taken away by the police and Bogart commenting on their crimes as his associates. Back we go in time to see them waiting in the same African town for a boat to take them to buy land cheap - land loaded with uranium. But they don't trust their contact - Dannreuther. Dannreuther is a charming con man married to Maria (Gina Lollobrigida), but shortly enjoying the company of Mrs. Gwendolen Chelm (Jennifer Jones) - while Maria becomes interested in Gwendolen's husband Harry.

For some reason I thought this was a serious movie when I started it: I was disabused of that idea relatively quickly. It's a flat-out farce, although not a hugely successful one. I found it at least mildly amusing: perhaps not laugh-out-loud funny, but I was grinning at the silliness most of the way through.

1953, dir. John Huston. With Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Morley, Peter Lorre, Edward Underdown, Ivor Barnard, Marco Tulli, Mario Perrone, Saro Urzì.

The Beatles: Get Back

The result of Peter Jackson getting his hands on the extensive footage shot of the Beatles around the making of "Let It Be:" an eight hour TV series that should have been three hours. Yes, it's fascinating to see them working together, creating songs together, and the tensions that occasionally arise, but this could have been presented in three one hour episodes instead of three episodes totaling eight hours.

What I got from it:

  • John is occasionally / often an ass ... although he does get serious when he needs to, but can be very annoying in between
  • Paul is trying to hold it together a bit more than the others
  • George is occasionally pretty unhappy - he quit the group for three or four days in the middle of this
  • Ringo just ... listens, and comes up with near-perfect beats from just listening to their guitar work - he's not flashy, but he's excellent
  • Yoko was always there. Other girlfriends, wives, and children come and go.
  • John and Paul are frickin' fountains of creativity, spewing brilliant songs all over, happily crossing genres and styles
  • Paul switches smoothly from bass to guitar to piano (he plays drums too, but not all that well)
  • the involvement of Billy Preston is interesting - you won't find any other credited musicians on any of the Beatles other recordings
  • if Yoko broke up the Beatles, it wasn't acrimonious (or at least not about that): it was perhaps because John wanted to make music with her more than with the Beatles
  • the real problem is that you had four incredibly creative people in one room, all with different visions
  • George did his best songs here? "For You Blue," "Old Brown Shoe" - he turns out to be a decent piano player too (Okay, "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is his best ...)
  • many famous people show up (Peter Sellers comes to mind), but I was most amused by two momentary clips of a guy named Alan Parsons - who was probably very unimportant here (he's named the "Tape Operator"). They're incredbly short, and only there because of his later fame.
  • Jackson includes multiple performances of some songs (the one that appeared the most was "Get Back?"). While it was interesting to see a song transform from a chorus and a few words into the brilliant song we all know on the album, we heard some songs multiple times in their finished form in practice - and that gets old.

2021, dir. Peter Jackson. With Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr.

Beauty and the Beast

I saw this when it came out, and again in 2011. One of Disney's most famous productions, and one of their most overblown. Full of musical numbers, and some of their most obviously CG animation. All the characters are caricatures, with the loss of charm that accompanies that. I realize I'm disagreeing with 92% of the critics (according to Rotten Tomatoes) when I say this, but I think this is one of their poorer outings.

1991, dir. Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise. With Paige O'Hara, Robby Benson, Richard White, Jerry Orbach, David Ogden Steirs, Angela Lansbury, Bradley Michael Pierce, Rex Everhart.

A Beautiful Mind

John Nash is a mathematician who received the Nobel Prize for economics in 1994. "A Beautiful Mind" is the story of his life, as interpreted by director Ron Howard. Russell Crowe is John Nash, and Jennifer Connelly his long-suffering and loyal wife. I'm usually unimpressed by Howard's more manipulative sentimental notes, but he uses it to excellent effect here - I was hugely impressed with this movie.

An interesting follow-up to this is the one hour PBS documentary "A Brilliant Madness," a biography of Nash. Howard strayed in the finer details of Nash's madness, but ultimately "A Beautiful Mind" was a surprisingly an accurate portrayal.

A second viewing showed that Howard was hammering on some of his traditional emotional notes a little too hard ... despite which it's still a reasonably good movie.

2001. dir. Ron Howard. With Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris.

Becky

Becky (Lulu Wilson) is a 13 year old girl who is bullied at school and lost her mother to an unspecified disease about a year ago. Now her father (Joel McHale) has taken her to their lake house that Becky still associates with her mother - and he's brought his girlfriend (Amanda Brugel) and her son. None of which makes Becky any happier. When escaped convict and neo-Nazi Dominick (Kevin James) and his friends take them hostage but fail to catch Becky, she causes them ... difficulties. You know all this if you've seen the trailer, and that "difficulties" is a euphemism.

Apparently many critics are praising Lulu Wilson. I can see why: she would have been 14 during filming and she did a very good job. The critical reactions to Kevin James have been mixed: some people thought he was very scary, as he was supposed to be. But I'm with the people who weren't convinced. Given his words and actions, I suppose I would have been scared had I been in his presence; but watching him on a movie screen, I wasn't entirely buying it. He was convincingly unpleasant - not terrifying. on the other hand, Lulu Wilson was getting on toward scary by the end of the movie ...

The movie has some graphic violence. To its credit, it does go slightly beyond a standard action-revenge movie in attempting to show the damage this kind of thing does to the psyches of all involved (but particularly a 13-year-old). Wilson's performance and the violence are the only things you're going to remember as the story, structure, and dialogue are all formulaic.

2020, dir. Jonathan Milott, Cary Murnion. With Lulu Wilson, Kevin James, Joel McHale, Amanda Brugel, Robert Maillet, Ryan McDonald, James McDougall.

Becoming Jane

An attempt to reconstruct the early life of Jane Austen. The first half was clever and extremely funny (even though I didn't believe a word of it had actually happened ... they recreated the history, but no one knows the conversations), but the second half had to dig into the romance that almost certainly formed her life, and the reasons that it didn't quite happen. Some of it was a little too pat (such as the reason Jane decides to leave Tom Lefroy), but for the most part it was very enjoyable. The closing scene includes one hell of a wicked jab that you won't be expecting: yes, Lefroy really did name his child that.

Anne Hathaway (as Jane Austen) and James McAvoy (as Tom Lefroy) were excellent, which went a long way to making this one good.

2007, dir. Julian Jarrold. With Anne Hathaway, James McAvoy, Julie Walters, James Cromwell, Maggie Smith, Joe Anderson, Lucy Cohu, Laurence Fox, Ian Richardson, Anne Maxwell Martin.

Bedazzled (1967)

I saw the (very bad) 2000 American remake starring Brendan Fraser and Elizabeth Hurley quite a few years ago (see further down).

Stanley Moon (Peter Cook) is a short order cook at a café. He's in love with the waitress Margaret (Eleanor Bron), but too shy to do anything about it. Unhappy with his life, he tries to commit suicide, but fails even in that. And then George Spiggott (Peter Cook) walks in and explains that he's the devil and he'll grant Stanley seven wishes in return for his soul. It takes a bit of convincing for Stanley to believe it, but he takes the deal.

What follows is a sequence of wishes gone wrong: Stanley keeps trying to get together with Margaret, but in every case some element of the wish goes terribly (and comically) wrong. And as he accuses the devil of deliberately sabotaging his wishes, the two of them develop something resembling a friendship.

Cook and Moore are both quite good. Like its later remake, it lost a lot of emotional weight by being so incredibly absurd in places - although it was also pretty funny because of some of those ridiculous interludes. It still manages some good whacks against Christianity.

1967, dir. Stanley Donen. With Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Eleanor Bron, Raquel Welch, Alba, Robert Russell, Barry Humphries, Parnell McGarry, Daniele Noel, Howard Goorney, Michael Bates.

Bedazzled (2000)

This turns out to be based on a Peter Cook and Dudley Moore movie of the same name from 1967. I wonder if that one was equally atrocious? I saw the 1967 version about five years after this.

It starts out utterly awful, with Brendan Fraser playing a character so broad and dorky that the people who starred in "Revenge of the Nerds" would have been embarrassed to play the role. But then, Harold Ramis is directing: subtlety isn't really his strength. The devil appears in the form of Elizabeth Hurley, in a series of outfits that change at the snap of her fingers. Fraser sells his soul to be with Frances O'Connor's character Alison, and gets seven wishes. But each wish is twisted horribly - as an example, he wants to be a powerful man married to O'Connor, and he finds himself a Colombian drug lord losing control of his empire, married to Alison ... who barely speaks to him and is sleeping with her English tutor.

As the process of repeated terrible wishes slowly educates Fraser, he becomes a much more tolerable person. And the gags finally have some humour and clout. But it's too little too late: sickening crap not recommended for anyone.

2000, dir. Harold Ramis. With Brendan Fraser, Elizabeth Hurley, Frances O'Connor, Orlando Jones, Paul Adelstein, Toby Huss, Miriam Shor, Gabriel Casseus.

Bee Movie

I was never a fan of Jerry Seinfeld: either his stand-up comedy or his show. But he has almost redeemed himself with this incredibly charming film (he wrote and did the voice work for the main character). Perhaps having kids has reduced the cynicism that got on my nerves so much.

The main premise is a fairly typical one: Barry B. Benson, a bee, has just graduated from bee college and is now required to choose a job that he'll hold the rest of his life. But he refuses, and then goes out into the world beyond the hive - and ends up mixing with the humans and causing all kinds of havoc. It's very funny, the animation is good (especially the flying sequences which work particularly well), and there are a bunch of entertaining cameos to keep the adults paying attention.

2007, dir. Steve Hickner, Simon J. Smith. With Jerry Seinfeld, Renée Zellweger, Matthew Broderick, Patrick Warburton, John Goodman, Chris Rock, Larry King, Sting, Ray Liotta.

Before I Fall

Watching "Happy Death Day" earlier this week has put me on a "Groundhog Day" bender of sorts. "Happy Death Day" was the sorority girl slasher version, this is the teen bullying version.

Zoey Deutch plays Samantha Kingston, part of the pretty-girl clique at her high school. Her friends are fairly shallow and occasionally bitches (one in particular), and she herself is spineless enough to go along with their obnoxiousness. For her sins she's thrown into living one troublesome day over and over - as with the other two variants of the movie, it appears that she needs to "get it right."

I really didn't like Deutch - but in this case, it can be argued that that's because she's a damn good actress. She's playing a charming, spineless creature who has a moral compass but simply submerges it in the meaningless life she's chosen to live. Like Bill Murray's character in "Groundhog Day," she uses her endless supply of lives to find out who she really is and what she needs to do. Better than "Happy Death Day" (which wasn't bad), this one stretches for "Groundhog Day" and misses - but it tried hard and was an interesting watch.

2017, dir. Ry Russo-Young. With Zoey Deutch, Halston Sage, Logan Miller, Cynthy Wu, Medalion Rahimi, Kian Lawley, Jennifer Beals, Diego Boneta.

Before Sunrise

Richard Linklater does like his talk. That's all this is, endless talk and negotiation of ideas. Ethan Hawke plays the American and Julie Delpy the French woman who meet on a train on the way to Vienna and spend one evening and night together ... talking. Hawke plays the brash, annoying but kind of charming American to the hilt - a stereotype I've never liked. Much of the blame goes to Linklater's writing and direction - many people love this movie, but I don't really like the script. But the characters are intelligent, and the dialogue has occasional moments of insight.

1995, dir. Richard Linklater. With Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy.

Before We Vanish

A strange, low-key, and fairly low budget Japanese film that's kind of in the tradition of "Man Facing Southeast" (or its American knock-off, "K-PAX"). That is, it's about aliens coming to Earth - but they're not identifiable because they look entirely human. (Which also conveniently means your filming budget is lower.) In this case, three aliens have landed as the vanguard of an alien invasion: it's their job to get a better understanding of humanity. The three take over the bodies of regular people, and then proceed to develop their understanding by taking concepts from people - unfortunately, when they take a concept (such as "work" or "property"), it's entirely removed from the person they took it from. So they leave a trail of people with significant mental problems behind them. These aliens are generally quite willing to explain what they're doing, but for the most part people don't believe them because they look entirely human (although they don't always act it).

If you're thinking this sounds weird, it absolutely is. But the script and acting are very good: I found the movie really fascinating and enjoyed it immensely. Fans of science fiction who mostly like explosions won't be into this (there are a couple at the end, but that's really not what it's about), but fans of thought-provoking SF should try to track this one down right away.

2017, dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa. With Masami Nagasawa, Ryuhei Matsuda, Hiroki Hasegawa, Mahiro Takasugi, Yuri Tsunematsu, Atsuko Maeda, Shinnosuke Mitsushima.

Begin Again

Mark Ruffalo plays drunken asshole music producer Dan Mulligan, and Keira Knightley plays Gretta James, a young British songwriter currently in New York. Their lives intersect, and Dan expresses an interest in producing her music ... even though he's just lost his job.

Knightley and Ruffalo act well, but the viewer's interest in this movie hinges heavily on whether or not they like the music written and played by Gretta James (and occasionally as sung by Gretta's ex-, Dave Kohl, played by Adam Levine). The movie is John Carney's as not only the director, but also the script writer and co-author of most (all?) of the songs. And I didn't like the songs. What there is of a plot is good enough, but it was dominated by the not-so-great music. <sigh>

2013, dir. John Carney. With Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, Adam Levine, Catherine Keener, Hailee Steinfeld, James Corden, CeeLo Green, Mos Def/Yasiin Bey.

Beginners

We first meet Oliver (Ewan McGregor) cleaning out the house of his recently deceased father. We see Oliver's life in flashbacks, including his father (Hal, played by Christopher Plummer) becoming actively gay shortly after the death of his wife, Oliver's mother. And we move forward in his life, with him inheriting his father's dog (an important character in the story) and starting a relationship with Anna (Mélanie Laurent). Oliver is bad at relationships, always sabotaging them, and Hal - although he had known he was gay for over 40 years - had never acted on his gayness before. Thus the film's title.

Well acted (particularly Plummer as the newly freed gay man) with an interesting aesthetic. The story is charming and good, but never quite reaches the heights. Worth seeing.

2010, dir. Mike Mills. With Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, Mélanie Laurent, Goran Višnjić, Kai Lennox, Mary Page Keller, China Shavers.

The Beguiled

The movie opens by telling us we're in 1864 Virginia, well into the Civil War. A young student of a mostly deserted girls' school finds an injured Union soldier in the woods and brings him back to the school. There the headmistress tends to his badly injured leg. As he recovers, the women become interested in him and he becomes interested in them.

This is directed by Sofia Coppola, and she loves her suppressed emotions. It works fairly well here, but it's a stylistic touch that's common to her movies. One of the things I liked least about the movie was the deliberate lack of colour: they were shooting in the American South, which is a vividly green place - but they seem to have shot entirely at dawn and dusk (and maybe at night) so the whole thing looks dingy.

I was interested to find that the Thomas P. Cullinan novel (A Painted Devil) that this was based on already has one movie interpretation, a 1971 movie starring Clint Eastwood with the same title as this one. This was, at the time, radically against type for Eastwood, and the movie wasn't a commercial success - although it's now considered a good movie. Wikipedia suggests the plots are nearly identical, but that Coppola wanted to make the movie from the women's point of view. It's made me curious about the Eastwood version - but probably not enough to go track it down.

2017, dir. Sofia Coppola. With Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning, Angourie Rice, Oona Laurence, Emma Howard, Addison Riecke.

Bell, Book and Candle

In 2020 I got into a discussion with the friend who recommended "The Canterville Ghost," and suggested he might like the similar "I Married a Witch." He said that that movie and "Bell, Book and Candle" were responsible for the existence of "Bewitched." I'd spotted the similarities between "I Married a Witch" and "Bewitched," but I hadn't previously known about this movie, so I gave it a try.

Kim Novak stars as Gillian Holroyd, a witch living in Greenwich Village (presumably in 1958, when the movie was released). She takes a fancy to her new neighbour (Jimmy Stewart in his last romantic lead, as Shep Henderson) - and when she discovers that he's engaged to a college roommate of hers (Janice Rule) that she particularly dislikes, she uses a spell to make him fall in love with her. But things go awry in a number of ways for them: she truly falls for him, and he finds out about witchcraft and isn't happy about what's happened to him.

"I Married a Witch" is the better film: both individually and together I prefer Veronica Lake and Frederic March to Novak and Stewart, and this isn't quite as well written. It's charming and nice enough, but don't rush out to see it ...

1958, dir. Richard Quine. With James Stewart, Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon, Ernie Kovacs, Elsa Lanchester, Hermione Gingold, Janice Rule, Howard McNear.

Bella

When his brother fires a waitress (Nina, played by Tammy Blanchard) at their restaurant for being late, José (who is the chef, played by Eduardo Verástegui) walks out to make sure she's okay, and spends the day with her. In their day together her reason for being late comes out, as do his secrets: the smaller of which is that he used to be a football star, and we later find how he fell from grace.

The movie is very well meaning, but both the structure and the acting are mediocre. I enjoyed it more for it being filmed entirely in and around New York City, and for its portrayal of a Mexican/Puerto Rican family there.

2006, dir. Alejandro Gomez Monteverde. With Eduardo Verástegui, Tammy Blanchard, Manny Perez.

Bend It Like Beckham

Has a lot in common with "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," re-written for an Indian family in the U.K. This is a very funny and up-beat movie about a young Indian girl whose parents don't want her to play football (aka "soccer" for us North Americans), which is pretty much the only thing she wants to do. Humour, misunderstandings, romance, and reconciliation follow. A favourite movie of mine.

2002. dir. Gurinder Chadha. With Parminder Nagra, Keira Knightley, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Anupam Kher.

Benny and Joon

Benny (Aidan Quinn) lives with his intelligent but slightly crazy sister Joon (Mary Stuart Masterson), who isn't entirely stable. At one of Benny's bizarre (and hilarious) poker games, Joon loses a hand and is required to house Sam (Johnny Depp). Personal interactions get complicated, and Benny in particular has trouble adjusting to the changes. Depp does his best to emulate Buster Keaton, Fatty Arbuckle, and Charlie Chaplin, and is spectacularly funny. I found Benny's explosion at the climax of the film a bit excessive for his character, but in all other respects this is a hilarious and wonderful film, highly recommended.

1993, dir. Jeremiah S. Chechik. With Aidan Quinn, Mary Stuart Masterson, Johnny Depp, Oliver Platt, Julianne Moore.

Beowulf and Grendel

Beowulf, but with massive embellishments, redrawn to cast everything in shades of gray. Grendel is no longer an evil monster, and Beowulf is still a hero, but his actions are seen in a very different light. Sarah Polley plays a substantial role as a witch who never appeared in the original poem, and there's a sub-plot about a recruiting Christian priest that's new. The Icelandic scenery (and weather!) is spectacular, and the historical reconstruction is good (it convinced me, but perhaps that's not hard). Very not Hollywood, always a plus.

2005, dir. Sturla Gunnarsson. With Gerard Butler, Ingvar E. Sigurdsson, Stellan Skarsgård, Tony Curran, Sarah Polley.

Beowulf (2007)

Borrows from the 2005 version ("Beowulf and Grendel") - once again there's a strong tie between the community and the monster, and this time also between the mother and Beowulf's later life. But this version is animated, sort of. On top of the actions of real actors. What this primarily does is utterly destroy the acting. Why hire good actors (Anthony Hopkins, Robin Wright, John Malkovich, Brendan Gleeson) if you're going to obscure the subtleties behind artificial masks? There's a circularity to the story (in part by Neil Gaiman) that's annoying in its cleverness. Despite all of which it's quite a spectacle to see.

2007, dir. Robert Zemeckis. With Ray Winstone, Brendan Gleeson, Robin Wright, Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich, Crispin Glover, Alison Lohman, Angelina Jolie.

Beowulf (1999)

Solid B-movie gold. Christopher Lambert plays the titular hero in a post-apocalyptic world with major medieval elements and a touch of technology. Relies fairly heavily on the "Beowulf" myth, although they did make some mildly interesting changes: Beowulf isn't entirely human, Hrothgar's right-hand man isn't a snivelling traitor - his story was actually kind of interesting, if poorly acted (like everyone else). The outpost/keep they're in actually looked pretty good except when they added their awful special effects. It's an atrociously bad movie, but ... I kind of enjoyed it.

1999, dir. Graham Baker. With Christopher Lambert, Rhona Mitra, Oliver Cotton, Götz Otto, Charles Robinson, Brent Jefferson Lowe, Layla Roberts.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

"The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" stars an impressive line-up of the best of Britain's older actors: Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilton, Celia Imrie, Tom Wilkinson, and Maggie Smith. It really doesn't get much better than that - or at least you would think so, but it could definitely be improved by a less clichéd script ... Interesting to see this was directed by John Madden, of "Shakespeare in Love" fame - too bad he didn't have Tom Stoppard write the screenplay this time ...

The story finds seven recently retired British citizens all moving to India and settling in "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," a crumbling colonial era building - lovely but run-down. Sonny (Dev Patel, a bit over-the-top but fairly entertaining) plays the young, charming and bombastic hotel owner under siege by his mother who doesn't agree with his business practises or his choice of would-be wife.

It's often charming - hard for it not to be with the abundance of brilliant actors on tap - but relies too much on the clichés of India, and occasionally over-plays them. While the actors aren't as well known, anyone interested in "India 101" should try the criminally overlooked "Outsourced," another fish-out-of-water comedy set in India that I felt was more accurate to the spirit of the country.

2014, dir. John Madden. With Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Dev Patel, Penelope Wilton, Celia Imrie, Tom Wilkinson, Maggie Smith, Ronald Pickup.

The Best of Not the 9 O'Clock News

A very influential TV comedy show from Britain, starting in 1979 and running into the early 80s. This two DVD set compiles the best bits from quite a few episodes, and runs about three hours. Like Monty Python before them (Python gets an explicit nod in one of the skits) they're very uneven. But definitely worth a look. Of course if you don't know who Margaret Thatcher or the Royal Family are, a fair chunk of the humour will be lost to you. Rowan Atkinson went on to fame as both Blackadder and Mr. Bean, and Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones went on to the very long-running series "Alas Smith & Jones."

1979. With Rowan Atkinson, Mel Smith, Griff Rhys Jones, Pamela Stephenson.

The Best of Youth (orig. "La Meglio Gioventù")

A six hour epic following the lives of two brothers from Rome and their family and friends over nearly 40 years. It takes over an hour to really get interesting, but once it does you're in for the full run. A real Italian history lesson for the rest of us: from floods in Turin to communist rebels to mafia assassinations of judges - but most of the film centres on the smaller things, the lives of the main characters. I was frustrated in a couple places where it became obvious from small clues what the characters were going to do ... but not why. How can we have seen so much of their lives and know so little about their motivations? But that's another aspect of the movie not preaching to its viewers, and ... it's really good. Have a look.

2003, dir. Marco Tullio Giordana. With Luigi Lo Cascio, Alessio Boni, Adriana Asti, Sonia Bergamasco, Fabrizio Gifuni, Maya Sansa, Valentina Carnelutti, Jasmine Trinca, Andrea Tidona, Lidia Vitale, Claudio Gioè.

The Best Years of Our Lives

A 1946 William Wyler movie that opens on three veterans of the Second World War returning home to Boone City in the U.S. Frederic March is the middle-aged Sergeant Al Stephenson, Dana Andrews is Captain Fred Derry, and Harold Russell is sailor Homer Parrish. All three have dreamt of returning home, but having made it back, they all have trouble resuming their old lives. Stephenson's children are now essentially adults, and he's not sure what to make of it. Derry's wife isn't where he expected to find her, and has taken a job that makes it very hard for him to catch up with her. And Parrish lost both his hands - and while he's very skilled with the hooks the military has supplied him with, his parents and fiancée have some trouble with his change of status, and he doesn't deal well with their reaction.

The movie then follows their attempts to resume their old lives, and their occasional meetings at Butch's place, a bar run by Homer's cousin (Hoagy Carmichael). It's a long movie (172m), but thought-provoking and quite good.

1946, dir. William Wyler. With Frederic March, Dana Andrews, Harold Russell, Myrna Loy, Hoagy Carmichael.

Better Off Dead

The "Airplane" of 80s teen comedy, with John Cusack at the centre, the main reason the movie doesn't fall flat on its face. Curtis Armstrong plays the same stoner he played all through the 80s and into the early 90s - overtaken by Jack Black, and now possibly Michael Cera (although he's not usually portrayed as being on drugs). But back to this movie ... Cusack plays a high school student dumped at the start by his dream girl. He makes a couple half-hearted attempts at suicide, tries to become a skiing star, tries to race the Korean Howard Cosell kids, avoids his mother's cooking, avoids his seven year old brother's evil genius inventions and schemes, and is pursued by an insane paper boy (repeatedly). If you like scattershot surreal humour, you'll like this. Not entirely my thing, but I did enjoy the soundtrack by Rupert Hine.

1985, dir. Savage Steve Holland. With John Cusack, David Ogden Stiers, Kim Darby, Diane Franklin, Scooter Stevens, Laura Waterbury, Dan Schneider, Yuji Okumoto, Brian Imada, Amanda Wyss, Curtis Armstrong.

Better Than Chocolate

Two young women start a romance just before one's mother moves in with her. Genuine Canadian content - Vancouver/Port Coquitlam, relaxed attitude about sex and underage drinking. Erotic. Mediocre acting. Passable but not great script.

1999 dir. Anne Wheeler. With Karyn Dwyer, Christina Cox.

Beverly Hills Cop

Apparently they had originally cast Sylvester Stallone to lead this one! And he wrote out most of the humour and added huge heaps of action. They dumped him gently and he took the action scenes and made "Cobra" while they hired Eddie Murphy to replace him.

There's still quite a bit of action left, and some comedy - mostly based around Murphy being annoying. It's what he does. And then there's the soundtrack, possibly one of the most memorable ever written, by Harold Faltermeyer. I didn't say "good," just "memorable." Judge Reinhold and John Ashton are amusing as the actual Beverly Hills cops (Murphy is supposed to be from Detroit), fall guys for Murphy's pranks. The full reversal of the entire department to thinking Murphy is okay despite his trashing entire neighbourhoods to get the bad guy is a little difficult to swallow.

I'm not a huge fan, but this was possibly the most successful action-comedy movie ever made.

1984, dir. Martin Brest. With Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, John Ashton, Lisa Eilbacher, Ronny Cox, Steven Berkoff, James Russo, Paul Reiser.

Bewitched (2005)

Will Ferrell plays a movie star whose career is in a tailspin, now starring on a TV remake of "Bewitched." To ensure he gets the majority of the attention he insists on an unknown as his co-star. He scouts Nicole Kidman himself - the big "joke" of the movie being that she is actually a witch.

There were a bunch of clever ideas and some really good casting that went into this film. Unfortunately, the script is incredibly uneven and Ferrell does what he always does: shrieks and falls down, and expects people to laugh. They're actually targeting meta-humour here: Ferrell playing a failing and unfunny actor, and we're supposed to laugh at him NOT being funny?

The casting of Kidman was brilliant: she's cute, charming, naive, everything she's supposed to be. The script is occasionally over-the-top, where it would have gotten more laughs by treading more lightly. Michael Caine is hilarious as her father, who appears at random to mock (or simply disbelieve) her attempts to be normal. Shirley MacLaine's character is so deliberately over-the-top that she's not really a lot of help. Caine and Kidman's moments together almost made the film watchable, but ultimately the blundering and ever-present Ferrell completely torpedoes what could have been a passable comedy.

2005, dir. Nora Ephron. With Nicole Kidman, Will Ferrell, Shirley MacLaine, Michael Caine.

Beyond Paradise, Season 1

There's a well known BBC TV series called "Death in Paradise," which is about a British detective - set on the small fictional island of St. Marie in the Caribbean. The first two series starred Ben Miller as the British detective, the third through sixth series starred Kris Marshall as Humphrey Goodman (the replacement British detective). I watched the first through third series (still going strong on series 12 in 2023). This is a follow-on series specific to the life of Detective Inspector Goodman - who has now returned to the U.K. He's joined the police force in the small town of Shipton Abbott, the home town of the fiancée he left Saint Marie to be with. Apparently Marshall as Goodman was popular enough in the role that a lot of people wanted to see what he got up to back in the U.K.

I love that most of the crimes are not murder. In fact, none are technically murders, although one of the six episodes does involve a suspicious death. Instead, they deal with art theft, a family's disappearance, attempted murder, arson ... And it's all the more believable for it, as opposed to the less believable shows where the detective lives in a tiny town and there's a murder (or two) every single week. It also definitely leans to the light-hearted and comedic more than the dark.

Episode 3 did have a severe attack of obvious: I spotted the guilty party almost immediately, and it was clear that in a locked room with a cop in it, of course the painting he's guarding will vanish, and I also figured out the heist method about half way through the episode - well before the detective did. Aside from that episode though, I found that the mysteries all made sense and could be solved with the evidence presented, without being brutally obvious.

The show also spends a fair bit of time on the relationship between Goodman and his fiancée (Sally Bretton), who's starting a small restaurant in town (in partnership with her ex-fiancée ...). I'm afraid I saw this mostly as a waste - time that could have been better spent on the mysteries. Still, I enjoyed the series considerably more than I expected. It's also shot in a very lovely seaside town ...

2023. With Kris Marshall, Sally Bretton, Zahra Ahmadi, Dylan Llewellyn, Felicity Montagu, Barbara Flynn.

Beyond Silence (orig. "Jenseits der Stille")

The child of two deaf parents chooses to play clarinet like her aunt, who is estranged from her father. A little too sweet in places (particularly the ending), but intelligent and well filmed.

1996, dir. Caroline Link. With Sylvie Testud, Tatjana Trieb, Howie Seago, Emmanuelle Laborit, Sibylle Canonica, Matthias Habich.

Beyond Skyline

The original movie, "Skyline," was awful. This sequel is, if anything, more ridiculous - but also immensely more entertaining. It's cheesy as hell, but if you're up for that ... it's good fun.

The timelines of the original and this sequel overlap: Frank Grillo is Mark Corley, an L.A. detective bailing his estranged son out of jail. As they're riding the subway, everything shuts down. They eventually figure out that there's been an alien invasion, and most people have looked into the blue light, been zombified and sucked up into the alien ships. In the previous movie, the cast spent the entire movie running around a condo building trying not to be captured: this was achieved with passable special effects, but some of the worst dialogue ever put on film. The fact that we had essentially one set for the entire movie was pretty awful too. The dialogue here is better (not good, but better), and there's sure as hell a variety of sets as we travel from Los Angeles to Lower Bay station in Toronto (okay, that one wasn't officially part of the set list as it's still supposed to be L.A. ... but I live in Toronto and recognized it), sucked up into a spaceship, to Laos where they join the resistance fighters and use machine guns and martial arts and bombs and alien weapons to fight back. It's totally ludicrous - but still kind of fun.

For the most part the effects are reasonably good. But for some reason when it came to the battle of the kaijus near the end of the movie, it looked like Ray Harryhausen - jerky animatronic monsters, even though it was computer generated.

And they end the affair with outtakes - people falling down, prosthetics falling off, people completely forgetting their lines and giggling. Which is really representative of why this one was better than its predecessor: they took themselves too seriously last time, but this time they were having more fun.

2017, dir. Liam O'Donnell. With Frank Grillo, Bojava Novakovic, Jonny Weston, Callan Mulvey, Antonio Fargas, Iko Uwais, Pamelyn Chee, Jacob Vargas, Yayan Ruhian, Lindsey Morgan.

Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (English: "Welcome to the Sticks")

Possibly France's most successful comedy ever, I tracked it down after I nearly fell out of my chair laughing during "The Intouchables" (another, more recent French comedy).

"Bienvenue ..." is the story of Philippe Abrams (Kad Merad), a postal manager in southern France who is trying to get posted to the southern seashore for the sake of his obnoxious wife (Zoé Félix). His attempt to claim that he's handicapped to get such a post earns him a disciplinary assignment to a tiny town on the rather less desirable northern seashore where the locals speak a variant of French called "ch'ti." He is surprised to find wonderful people (most notably his co-worker Antoine - played by Dany Boon, who was also the writer and director) and a lovely place, but when he tries to describe it to his wife back home, she cannot believe he isn't suffering horribly - so he goes along with her version of the story.

I found a few good laughs in the story, but it relies heavily on Philippe lying and humiliating himself repeatedly - mostly in an attempt to do things for other people, but these are simply not gags I enjoy. So for the most part I found the movie a loss.

Interestingly, the town of Bergues, where the movie was set and shot, not only exists but is apparently experiencing a tourist boom because of the film.

2008, dir. Dany Boon. With Kad Merad, Dany Boon, Zoé Félix, Anne Marivin, Lorenzo Ausilia-Foret.

The Big Bang Theory (Season 1)

I don't have cable, and I never really watched broadcast TV. Which means I only started to become familiar with "The Big Bang Theory" through YouTube in the last couple years. YouTube proved that the series has a number of brilliant comedic moments (the Leonard Nimoy napkin is at the top of the list), and I finally decided to acquire the first season ... a used DVD set of the first season cost $5 at BMV (2021). At which point I found out that almost the entire season is on YouTube as "highlights," because I'd seen nearly all of it. Still, it was fun to watch the series through.

Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg), Raj Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar), and Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) are all varying degrees of horrible - not evil, but simultaneously super-intelligent and blind to their own flaws. Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki), who is Sheldon's roommate, acts as an apologist for all of them - but particularly Sheldon - and the voice of sanity, with the lovely Penny (Kaley Cuoco) as the only normal human in the mix. All of which is kind of meaningless to explain as almost everyone already knows the story.

And ... they hired a Ph.D. in Physics as a consultant so every technical reference on the show is accurate. This seems obvious, but most movies these days casually ignore the reality of physics. It's a pleasure to watch a show about science that's not full of technical gaffes. (I'm a former engineer - it matters.)

2007. With Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, Sara Gilbert.

The Big Bang Theory (Season 2)

As with the first season, I purchased the second and third at BMV as DVDs - although the price rose from $5 to $6. Evidently the world is saturated with discarded copies of the early seasons - everybody who wants to watch it has done so by now (2021-12).

The second season isn't as funny overall as the first, but has a couple of the series greatest comedic moments. As I mentioned in the review of the first season, the funniest moment they ever managed to put on film was the Leonard Nimoy napkin (in this season, "The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis"). I'm also fond of Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock ("The Lizard-Spock Expansion"). Another stand-out for me was "The Maternal Capacitance:" while Leonard's mother Beverly (Christine Baranski) is too cold and analytical for me to find her entirely believable, she does deliver some of the show's best lines. Her take-down of Howard and Raj at lunch is brilliant: "That's fascinating. Selective mutism is quite rare. On the other hand, a Jewish male living with his mother is so common it borders on sociological cliché. You know, both selective mutism and an inability to separate from one's mother could be due to a pathological fear of women. That's would explain why the two of you have created an ersatz homosexual marriage to satisfy your need for intimacy."

2008. With Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, Sara Gilbert, Christine Baranski.

The Big Bang Theory (Season 3)

"The Maternal Congruence" has the return of Dr. Beverly Hofstadter (Leonard's mother) and includes some brilliant jokes (her ongoing take-down of Raj and Howard a particular highlight), but also demonstrates the show's stretching for material - particularly Penny getting Beverly drunk and her resulting behaviour.

"The Precious Fragmentation" shows the boys in possession of one of the actual prop rings from "The Lord of the Rings" series, and the amount of turmoil such an item of geek chic produces among them: Penny punching Sheldon when he tries to steal it from her when she's sleeping was a moment of comedic genius - followed by another as Leonard, having woken and realized what's happened, says "that's my girl." As the series started to stretch for material, this episode felt truer to the characters than most.

"The Pants Alternative" includes an improbable but hysterically funny set piece with Sheldon drunk and singing Tom Lehrer, taking off his pants while discussing topology, and then having his memories of the evening restored by YouTube.

"The Adhesive Duck Deficiency" is brilliantly funny in places (Leonard, Raj, and Howard's stoned confessions) and a prime example of the show stretching for material (the hospital trip).

This season included the introduction of Bernadette Rostenkowski (Melissa Rauch), who appears in several episodes and becomes Howard's girlfriend. Their bonding over their over-protective mothers ("The Creepy Candy Coating Corollary") is clever and hilarious, but I failed to find her ongoing interest in Howard particularly convincing. In the last episode of the year we're also introduced to Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik), who would become Sheldon's love interest.

At this point, I think I've seen as much of the series as I really need to - from now on its diminishing returns as the situations become more absurd and humiliating to milk more humour out of the series (although the cameos are just ramping up - they had a lot in later years, and many of them were wonderful).

2009. With Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, Sara Gilbert, Christine Baranski.

The Big Bang Theory (Season 4)

After watching seasons one through three of this show, I decided I'd hit a good stopping point: the absurdity and character distortions had started to increase and the humour had started to decrease. But I found seasons four through six on DVD at a garage sale for $1 each. It seemed like I had nothing to lose (I may have been wrong about that).

This season includes Raj and Howard accidentally kissing (episode 9?), a level of absurdity that wasn't remotely justified by the tepid laugh it inspired. Although as I'm now watching the fifth season, I realize "absurd circumstances" aren't as horrible as the "character distortions" (ie. our favourite geeks acting out of character) that became a standard in later seasons.

The list of (geeky) cameos is impressive (and entertaining): Neil deGrasse Tyson, Will Wheaton, Brent Spiner, Steve Wozniak, George Takei, and Katee Sackhoff. Possibly others I missed.

2010. With Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, Mayim Bialik, Melissa Rauch.

The Big Bang Theory (Season 5)

Most of the way through this season I realized I hadn't laughed in several episodes (in the midst of Howard explaining his astronaut training). On the other hand, I was cringing multiple times per episode. I stopped watching. This season makes season 4 look like a masterpiece (it ain't).

There was one particular episode in this season that showcased what was wrong. Leonard and Penny go out together, but they make it clear it's NOT a date: it isn't romantic, they're just "friends." Then they spend the entire episode ripping each other to shreds emotionally. This is simply not Leonard's behaviour: he's a decent guy who goes out of his way to not hurt people. I'm not saying he never does, but when he does it's unintentional. And while Penny occasionally puts people in their place with spectacular zingers, she's never been one for deliberately hurting people either. Their behaviour in this episode would have ensured that they'd never get together romantically again (among other things, Leonard repeatedly makes it clear everything he ever did was just to get sex). The writers have made Leonard and Penny both act out of character in an attempt to create humour, but it was bitter and unfunny and also unlike anything either of them had ever done before so it doesn't fit. And that's how the whole season goes.

Update: I eventually managed to finish this season. Either it got slightly better or - more likely - I was in a more forgiving frame of mind, being already aware of how weak the humour was. There was less of people being viciously mean to each other.

2011. With Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, Mayim Bialik, Melissa Rauch.

The Big Bang Theory (Season 6)

The writers continue to mine humour by distorting the behaviour of the characters and humiliating them. They occasionally manage a funny joke, although not enough to keep me watching. The highlights are the cameos - Stephen Hawking and Bob Newhart that I can remember. It's painful to compare this to the brilliance of the first two seasons, and I don't want to think how poor it got by the 12th season.

2012. With Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, Mayim Bialik, Melissa Rauch, Kevin Sussman, Kate Micucci, Margo Harshman.

The Big Bounce

A comedy of sorts, in which everyone is scamming everyone else. It's hard to care about any of the characters, and since the humour is pretty limited and this sure as hell isn't a drama, what's left to watch? Pretty poor.

2004, dir. George Armitage. With Owen Wilson, Morgan Freeman, Charlie Sheen, Sara Foster, Gary Sinise.

The Big Brawl

Jackie Chan's first - unsuccessful - attempt at the North American market.

Set in 1930s Chicago, Chan plays Jerry Kwan. His father runs a restaurant and doesn't appreciate that this son prefers to do martial arts training with his uncle rather than be a doctor like his brother. According to Wikipedia the crew were mostly those who had worked on "Enter the Dragon," so it's perhaps less surprising that there was a fine homage to Lee's "Return of the Dragon" fight scene in an alley behind the restaurant. Chan is eventually manipulated via a kidnapping into fighting in a big contest toward the end of the movie.

It's a great showcase for Chan (although he was apparently unhappy with some of the takes), and - as stupid martial arts movies go - it's actually pretty good.

1980, dir. Robert Clouse. With Jackie Chan, José Ferrer, Kristine DeBell, Mako, Rosalind Chao.

Big Brother

Donnie Yen is one of Hong Kong's greatest martial artists. In this movie, he plays a former military man who returns to Hong Kong after years away, to teach delinquent students at a run-down school. He instantly proves capable of avoiding student pranks and getting student's attention. And by the half-way point of the movie he's already "saved" pretty much all the troubled kids by intervention with their families, each time with grand and over-the-top gestures: singing in public, racing go-karts on public streets, fighting an MMA star.

According to the box, "City on Fire" (whatever that is) said it was "'Dead Poets Society' meets 'Special ID.'" Which is very funny (if you're familiar with Yen's "Special ID"), but both of those are better movies than this. It's well-meaning, having a bit to say about education and student suicides, but it's repulsively sweet - except for the parts that are bad martial arts scenes. Yen can be quite charming, and they're banking on that here. But the script gives you a sugar overdose simultaneous with overwrought drama: nobody's going to buy this as a drama movie. And yet if you come in looking for a martial arts movie, you're going to be disappointed as well: there are only two significant fights, and both are so choppily filmed that they have zero appeal to fans of Yen's better martial arts films.

2018, dir. Ka-Wai Kam. With Donnie Yen, Joe Chen, Kang Yu.

The Big Chill

I saw this when it first came out in 1983, but didn't see it again until 2008. It was a relief to see that it's as good as I remembered, possibly even better as there were some nuances I missed back then. Kasdan really did bring together the right cast with a very good story about friendship, trust, and growth. A group of college friends come together for the funeral of one of the members of the clique who committed suicide, although none of them know why. And strange things happen as the result of their reunion. It looks a bit dated, but it remains a damn fine movie.

1983, dir. Lawrence Kasdan. With Tom Berenger, Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, William Hurt, Kevin Kline, Mary Kay Place, Meg Tilly, JoBeth Williams.

Big Country

Gregory Peck plays James McKay, a sea captain coming to the American prairies to join his fiancée Patricia Terrill (Carroll Baker) in this Western. He quickly discovers that the Terrills are in a long-term feud with their poorer and less refined neighbours the Hannasseys - in part because on his first day in the area he's dragged out of his horse cart, roped, and buffeted about by four of the Hannassey's drunken men. He soon finds himself at odds with several of the locals as he refuses to prove his manhood by fighting, something they're all very invested in - including his fiancée, who is appalled at his apparent cowardice. As he discovers, the key to the area is a large ranch called "The Big Muddy," where both the Terrills and the Hannasseys water their cattle. The school teacher that owns the ranch (Jean Simmons) refuses to sell to either family to maintain the fragile peace. But McKay's arrival and subsequent mistreatment (which he's not particularly fussed about) is used by the Terrill family head as an excuse to elevate the feud between the families.

I picked this up from the library because it's directed by William Wyler, it's at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it stars Gregory Peck. And, like all movies, it has some good stuff in it - as mentioned by several critics, Burl Ives as Rufus Hannassey is the most interesting character. Most other characters are fairly black-and-white (Peck being both too nice and too brave to really believe), but Rufus is a blunt and obnoxious man with a sense of honour. But I found myself speeding up significant portions of the movie - a 166 minute running time with multiple minutes of people riding horses across grand scenery becomes quite tedious. It was barely worth the effort with a lily-white protagonist proving his bravery and keeping the peace in a thoroughly pre-ordained way ... although I admit the grand finale show-down and gun fights were unpredictable and more interesting than the rest of the film.

1958, dir. William Wyler. With Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons, Carroll Baker, Charlton Hesthon, Burl Ives, Charles Bickford, Alfonso Bedoya, Chuck Connors, Chuck Hayward.

The Big Easy

Dennis Quaid puts on a Creole accent (irritating, and while I can't say if it's accurate, it was at least consistent) as a New Orleans cop on the take who falls for a district attorney (Ellen Barkin) who's after corrupt cops. The two leads look sexy, and nobody acts badly, but no one is great either. And the plot is split between corruption and romance in such a way that neither quite comes together right. Not bad, but ...

1987, dir. Jim McBride. With Dennis Quaid, Ellen Barkin, Ned Beatty, John Goodman.

Big Fish

I always have mixed reactions to Tim Burton's movies. Billy Crudup plays a thirty-something coming to the bedside of his dying father (Albert Finney), who has told him tall tales all his life. He tries to get his father to tell him more of the truth of his life, and the movie is partly a view of the past, a retelling of the stories he's heard, and partly his attempts at reconciliation. It's a strange movie, but pretty good.

2003, dir. Tim Burton. With Billy Crudup, Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Jessica Lange, Helena Bonham Carter, Alison Lohman, Matthew McGrory.

Big Game

The basic premise isn't bad - absurd, but not bad. Air Force One is shot out of the sky over Finland, and the President of the United States (Samuel L. Jackson, in one of his less bad-ass roles) is lost in the mountains where he has to rely on a 13 year old boy who's a hard-core hunter (Onni Tommila) as they're both hunted by the terrorists who shot down the plane. And, like most movies, there are good moments. But this one can't decide if it's going to be serious (where I thought the potential might lie), or comedic. Certainly, there's comedic potential in a team-up like that, but milk it too much and you've got a cheese-fest ... and they leaned a little too far into the cheese. Or maybe it was just the frequently hammy dialogue. Mildly fun to watch with a couple decent action set pieces and a heart-warming finale ... which is followed by the revelation of another level of betrayal for no reason at all, which sours the ending just a bit more. <sigh>

The BluRay lent to me by a friend had only one "Extra," which was the "Unrated version" of the movie. Very unusual, as it's possibly the only unrated cut I've ever seen that was SHORTER than the original movie (by five minutes!). A quick scan suggests that the primary changes are the inclusion of a longer scene showing our young hunter rehearsing killing his imaginary deer, pulling its still beating heart out and eating it. The only other change that stood out had Jackson in the standard cut saying "Mother-<gunfire>" - his use of the phrase is strategically cut off by a burst of gunfire. In the unrated version, he says the full phrase. Quite a bit must have been cut to add the longer scene with the boy and still have a five minutes shorter version, but I'm not sure what: it seems the stuff that was cut wasn't memorable.

2014, dir. Jalmari Helander. With Samuel L. Jackson, Onni Tommila, Ray Stevenson, Victor Garber, Jim Broadbent, Mehmet Kurtuluş, Felicity Huffman.

Big Hero 6

Hiro (Ryan Potter) is a 14 year old robotics genius who uses his skills for profit in dubious underground robot fights. His older (and equally intelligent) brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney) gently steers him into a university career, but this is cut short by tragedy early in the film. Hiro is devastated, but eventually aided - and to some extent guided - by Baymax (Scott Adsit), a (goofy) health care robot that Tadashi created. Tadashi's friends are eventually roped in to helping find the cause of the tragedy.

The movie is successful on almost every level: Hiro is convincing as a slightly misguided genius, the tragedy is heart-breaking, Hiro's recovery is slow (and more convincing because of it), and the humour is frequent and marvellous without stepping on the toes of the drama. It's a superbly constructed and hugely entertaining film. And the end-of-film easter egg with Stan Lee is definitely worth making it through the credits.

2014, dir. Don Hall and Chris Williams. With Ryan Potter, Scott Adsit, T.J. Miller, Jamie Chung, Damon Wayans Jr., Génesis Rodríguez, Maya Rudolph, James Cromwell, Daniel Henney, Alan Tudyk, Stan Lee.

The Big Lebowski

I tried ... I just couldn't. It wasn't funny. Jeff Bridges plays "The Dude," a stoner who shares the last name of Lebowski with a very rich man who owes a lot of debts to people dumb enough to mistake the Dude for the Big Lebowski. John Goodman (over the top, but acting quite well) and Steve Buscemi play the Dude's equally clueless friends and bowling buddies. I didn't see the whole movie because my thumb developed this nasty tic and kept hitting the fast forward button.

1998, dir. Joel and Ethan Coen. With Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Julianne Moore, David Huddleston, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tara Reid.

The Big Short

This is a surprisingly interesting movie about the collapse of the housing market in 2008, with several of the characters based on real people who shorted the housing market. It's based on a non-fiction book of the same name: The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, by Michael Lewis (2010). Not something most people would consider a compelling subject for a big budget movie, but director Adam McKay makes it quite watchable. That said, my level of enthusiasm doesn't quite reach that of the critics and friends who recommended it: I liked it and enjoyed it, but I didn't think it was quite as brilliant as most people seemed to think. My divergence may have to do with every single character in the movie being slightly over-the-top. I'm kind of torn on this one because I suspect they're not incorrect in their portrayals: people crazy enough to short the housing market in 2006 and 2007 would have to be a little bit "out there," they were going against every other stock broker and trader in the world. The fourth wall breaks by several actors were entertaining, but contributed to the feeling that this was a weird hybrid between a comedy, a documentary, and a drama rather than a "real" drama. This disconnect shouldn't be a problem for most people, and, as mentioned, it's a fairly good movie.

2015, dir. Adam McKay. With Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt, John Magaro, Finn Wittrock, Hamish Linklater, Rafe Spall, Jeremy Strong, Adepero Oduye, Marisa Tomei, Melissa Leo.

The Big Sick

Kumail Nanjiani stars in a movie based on his own life - the bit where he meets and eventually wins his wife. Which is, as it turns out, a very interesting chunk of his life. He was working in Chicago, mostly as an Uber driver and doing stand-up in the evenings, when he met Emily Gardner (his wife Emily Gordon is co-author of the script, but Zoe Kazan plays here in the movie). She's not sure she wants to be dating, he can't tell his family that he's interested in a woman who isn't Pakistani - and doesn't tell her about his family's expectations. Which eventually leads to a blow-up ... just before she gets extremely sick and nearly dies, which tangles him up with her parents for the first time.

I recently watched the Bollywood movie "Ra.One," which reminded me how incredibly difficult it is to blend tragedy and comedy. So it was a real pleasure to see a movie so shortly after that effortlessly did exactly that - making you laugh as the family sits at Emily's bedside, unsure if she'll live or die. And that's another good thing about this movie: most people know walking into this movie that Nanjiani is married to this woman. And yet you feel their pain, you're terrified with them that she's going to die. It just ... feels real. Which is about the best compliment I can give a movie. That, and it's damn funny: that's one hell of a combination.

2017, dir. Michael Showalter. With Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter, Ray Romano, Anupam Kher, Adeel Akhtar.

The Big Sleep

Probably the movie that made Lauren Bacall a star, although that honour could arguably go to "To Have and Have Not" (also with Humphrey Bogart). This is based on Raymond Chandler's first novel, also his first novel starring Philip Marlowe (played by Bogart). For the first fifteen minutes I greatly enjoyed the rapid-fire witty banter, but it becomes tiresome and annoying: it happens occasionally in life, but is never as continuous as this. Bogart and Bacall play well, but an incomprehensible plot may leave you befuddled. Occasionally enjoyable to watch, but very hard to follow.

1946, dir. Howard Hawks. With Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers.

Big Trouble in Little China

One of the cheesiest movies ever made. Kurt Russell plays loud-mouthed trucker Jack Burton, who gets mixed up in black magic in Little China in San Francisco over a gambling debt. The plot and dialogue are absurd, and the end product is both hilariously funny and fun. I've watched it three times?

1986, dir. John Carpenter. With Kurt Russell, Kim Cattrall, Dennis Dun, James Hong, Victor Wong, Suzee Pai, Al Leong.

A Bigger Splash

Tilda Swinton plays rock star Marianne Lane, on vacation on a small Italian island after vocal surgery. With her is her boyfriend Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts). They're quiet life is interrupted by the arrival of Marianne's former producer and ex-lover Harry. Harry - as played by Ralph Fiennes - is a flamboyant obnoxious braggart, and he's brought his (previously unknown) daughter Penelope (Dakota Johnson) with him. Harry and Paul also knew each other previously. We get to watch as the four of them provoke each other, fuck, and squabble.

The acting is very good, I'll give it that - Feinnes is particularly impressive (although very hard to like) as Harry, who loves life so much that he knows where the best food is, swims naked at the drop of a hat, snorts drugs, always says exactly what he thinks, and fucks anyone that will have him. He and his daughter succeed in bringing out the worst in Paul and Marianne. And watching two hours of four really unpleasant people getting on each other's nerves and fighting ... just isn't my idea of fun, no matter how well done.

2015, dir. Luca Guadagnino. With Tilda Swinton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Ralph Fiennes, Dakota Johnson, Lily McMenamy, Aurore Clément, Elena Bucci, Corrado Guzzanti.

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure

I saw this back around when it came out, watched it again in 2014. It remains both incredibly stupid and distinctly entertaining.

Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) are best friends without a clue, on the cusp of failing high school history. They are given a magical phone box that travels through time, with which they collect a number of historical personages for their final report. Napoleon is a lousy loser at bowling and loves water slides. Other such discoveries abound. I was pleasantly surprised by how funny it was.

1989, dir. Stephen Herek. With Alex Winter, Keanu Reeves, George Carlin, Terry Camilleri, Dan Shor, Tony Steedman, Rod Loomis, Al Leong, Jane Wiedlin, Robert V. Barron, Clifford David, Martha Davis, Fee Waybill, Clarence Clemons.

Bill and Ted Face the Music

The return of two of the world's most lovable doofuses, in a sequel very few people were looking for: Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter return, in 2020, to roles they last inhabited in 1991. The movie is equally as much about their daughters, played by Samara Weaving and Brigette Lundy-Paine. And of course it's about time travelling.

The movie is every bit as good as the first one - and yes, that's as backhanded a compliment as it sounds. But - as stupid as "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" was, it was also a lot of fun. And so is this.

It was prophesied that Bill and Ted would write a song that would not just unite the world, but stabilize time and reality. But they're in their 50s, still trying, and playing very small crowds ... Their princess wives (you remember, they brought them back from medieval times) still love them, but their marriages are a bit rocky. And their daughters are every bit as Excellent as their fathers.

For me, the stand-out performance in the movie was Brigette Lundy-Paine as Billie, Ted's daughter. She put the imitation of a young Ted/Keanu out of the park, and did it with amazing charm.

The closing credits are fun as we have hundreds of musicians (both real and air-) show up for a few seconds each. I managed to identify Weird Al Yankovic and Guillermo Rodriguez in the mix, and wondered how many other shooting star cameos I'd missed. But according to Wikipedia, that was about it. Although I should admit that I had no damn idea who Kid Cudi was - and he has a fairly major role.

2020, dir. Dean Parisot. With Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, Kristen Schaal, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Samara Weaving, William Sadler, Anthony Carrigan, Holland Taylor, Erinn Hayes, Jayma Mays, Beck Bennett, Kid Cudi, Amy Stoch.

A Birder's Guide to Everything

Kodi Smit-McPhee plays David, a high school student whose father is about to remarry after the death of his mother. He's not dealing well with the loss of his mother, and has followed in her footsteps as a passionate birder. His friends at school are also birders, and on the eve of his father's wedding, he runs off in pursuit of a possibly extinct bird that he saw, accompanied by his two friends and "the new girl," and eventually joined by Lawrence Konrad (Ben Kingsley), an avid birder they all look up to.

This is an indie movie with a tiny budget, or at least if there was any budget they spent it all on Kingsley (although my suspicion is he worked for the Hollywood equivalent of peanuts because this looked like fun). The kids do a passable job in the service of a fairly good story, life lessons are learned, etc. (it's essentially a coming-of-age story). Which makes it sound more quaint and clichéd than it is: it's ultimately quite enjoyable.

2013, dir. Rob Meyer. With Kodi Smit-McPhee, Alex Wolff, Katie Chang, Ben Kingsley.

Birdman

Michael Keaton plays Riggan Thomson, an aging Hollywood actor who's mainly known for playing the action hero Birdman in a series of three blockbuster movies years ago. He's now trying to bring a play of Raymond Carver's short story "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" to Broadway, but it isn't going well. He's having problems with his actors, and the voice of Birdman mocks him for his inadequacies.

The movie is filmed as if the entire thing is a single take, following actors through the halls of the theatre, onto the stage, up on the roof, out on the street to the bar next door. If you look for it, there are places where they must have made cuts (a passage through a pitch black corridor, or a few moments of a still scene), but even these are few and far between. It's impressive, unusual, and occasionally disorienting. It's also not clear how much of it actually happens, with Thomson performing telekinesis on several occasions, and an ambiguous ending.

I was impressed by it without actually liking it: there are a number of very good performances, and the visual style is nothing you've ever seen before. If you're a fan of movies, this is definitely worth seeing for what it says about actors, the acting, and for the spectacular filming.

2015, dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu. With Michael Keaton, Zach Galifianakis, Edward Norton, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts, Andrea Riseborough, Amy Ryan, Lindsay Duncan.

The Birds

I have a great respect for Alfred Hitchcock which has led me to work my way through much of his catalogue over the years. My favourite Hitchcock is "To Catch a Thief," and my favourite surprise among his less well known movies was "Stage Fright" with its wonderful dialogue between father and daughter. So I finally watched "The Birds" in 2017, a movie I'd never seen. If you're one of the three people left in the world who A) hasn't seen the movie, and B) actually cares about the plot and doesn't want spoilers, stop reading now. I'm writing for everyone who's seen it and I'll feel free to spoil.

We set up our two leads immediately - rich and beautiful practical joker and inveterate liar Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren, who was later to claim Hitchcock psychologically tortured her on the set ... she was probably telling the truth) and handsome and dashing lawyer Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor). A prank of hers leads to her being in the same small seaside town he stays in weekends, where the birds start misbehaving and attacking humans.

The movie - being Hitchcock - concentrates heavily on the human aspects of the situation - Mitch's insecure mother, Melanie's lying, Mitch's ex-girlfriend, the romance developing between Melanie and Mitch. The dialogue is better than your average Hollywood movie, but I didn't think it was up to Hitchcock's standards. Unfortunately, the effects are utterly appalling by modern standards and the movie is crammed full of what are now tired old horror movie tropes: people leaving safe places for stupid reasons, people going places alone, and my personal favourite, Melanie effectively blocking herself into a room full of birds when she was trying to exit the room.

And then there's the ending: they all get into a car and drive away from the birds. No wrap-up, no explanation, no answers to who survived or why any of it happened. Possibly my least favourite Hitchcock.

1963, dir. Alfred Hitchcock. With Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Suzanne Pleshette, Jessica Tandy, Veronica Cartwright.

Birds of Prey

I guess Margot Robbie likes Harley Quinn: having played her in "Suicide Squad," she's back in her own starring vehicle - and a producer. ("Executive Producer" sounds fancier, but the plain-old producers are the ones with the power.) But I don't like Harley Quinn. All this movie did was convince me she's got no super powers (she swings a mean bat, but that doesn't count), she's batshit crazy, she's unlikeable, and - most important when you're making a movie about her - she's not very funny. And yes, they were going for "funny" because the full title of the movie is "Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)."

The movie starts by showing us that she's split with Joker. And while we also see she has bad impulse control and bad planning, she's well aware that his name - and her relationship with him - is protecting her. When she acknowledges to herself and the city that they've split up, a lot of people try to kill her. There's also a very expensive diamond, a kid sidekick, an evil crime lord, and several kick-ass women.

Mildly amusing at best. Could have been better if they'd included more of Harley's new pet - a spotted hyena she named "Bruce Wayne." Or more psychiatry: Harley has a Ph.D. in Psychiatry, she met Joker because she was treating him. As crazy as she is, that knowledge is still in there. It popped out a couple times in this movie, but it could have been used a lot more to much better effect - somebody should have told the writers that that's her superpower.

2020, dir. Cathy Yan. With Margot Robbie, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Jurnee Smollett-Bell, Rosie Perez, Chris Messina, Ella Jay Basco, Ali Wong, Ewan McGregor.

The Bishop's Wife

David Niven plays a Bishop who spends so much time trying to get his cathedral built that he's in danger of losing his wife (Loretta Young). When he prays to God for help an angel (Cary Grant) comes to his aid ... but appears to be about to take his wife away from him.

Grant and Niven are good, Young seems terribly bland - but I think the fault there lies more with the script than the actress. Charming but not overly romantic or funny. I did like Monty Wooley as the somewhat Bohemian history professor.

1947, dir. Henry Koster. With Cary Grant, David Niven, Loretta Young, Monty Wooley, James Gleason.

Black Adam

This is a superhero movie exactly like all the others, except that it's more generic. It's glossy, it's not actively bad. It's just that there's been so very many of them. And the big standout here is supposed to be that Black Adam (played by Dwayne Johnson) is an "anti-hero." Apparently that means he's willing to kill people, while the "good guys" are unwilling to do so under any circumstances. Despite which, this is another remarkably bloodless (in both the literal and metaphorical sense) superhero movie ...

Our story starts nearly 5000 years ago, with "the council of wizards" making another Shazam-alike to battle an evil king in the country of Kahndaq. In the modern day, he (Black Adam) is awoken from his long sleep in a Kahndaq still ruled by oppressors. Sassy Boy and Archaeologist Mom become his guides. The Justice Society (in the form of Hawkman, Doctor Fate, Cyclone, and Atom Smasher) come to try to stop Black Adam - who has powers in excess of Shazam and approaching that of Superman.

I'm not sure if this is as bad as I'm suggesting or if I've just broken after watching too many superhero movies. The acting is pretty poor, the special effects are adequate, the secondary characters have exaggerated behaviours to try to project personality as a replacement for screen time, and the plot is silly. Johnson shows little of his usual charisma.

2022, dir. Jaume Collet-Serra. With Dwayne Johnson, Aldis Hodge, Noah Centineo, Sarah Shahi, Marwan Kenzari, Quintessa Swindell, Pierce Brosnan, Bodhi Sabongui, Mohammed Amer.

Black Butler

Prime silly Manga-turned-live-action, with our (nominal) hero being a young woman (supposed to be 17? played by Ayame Goriki) masquerading as a man to control a very large company. But I say "nominal hero" because the titular character is her butler (Hiro Mizushima), who is a demon that she's sold her soul to so that she can get revenge on the people who killed her parents. Style trumps sanity as we mix imagery from anywhere in the last 200 years (a lot of it from Europe) to come up with an aesthetic they like in a year that's approximately 2015. And the world is divided between two political entities, "East" and "West." The action takes place in the East (aka "Japan"), but our heroine is also a Watchdog for the Queen of the West, and thus has another political agenda besides revenge and managing a massive company.

I found it a little hard to generate sympathy for a person whose life is quite so far beyond my experience: indescribably rich spy who's a teenager masquerading as the opposite gender while pursuing revenge that has nothing to do with her espionage work (which she inherited from her grandfather). Mizushima was a bit silly but also kind of compelling as the demon butler, and the visual aesthetic was at least mildly interesting, but overall a rather poor film.

2014, dir. Kentarō Ōtani, Keiichi Satō. With Hiro Mizushima, Ayame Goriki, Yūka, Mizuki Yamamoto, Tomomi Maruyama, Masato Ibu.

The Black Cauldron

One of Disney's poorer outings, and a blundering insult to the source material. Lloyd Alexander wrote a series of children's books called "The Prydain Chronicles," very good books. The Black Cauldron was the second of five, and possibly the darkest of the lot. The Horned King and his legions of dead soldiers are a horrific threat in the book, and they kill quite a few people. Does anybody die in this movie? Not even a single bad guy. The characters are as quirky as they are in the original, but this is actually a liability - without back-story, it makes little sense that they should be so weird. All is reduced to cuteness and overwhelmed by trite. Even if you haven't read the original, this is going to be a pretty poor movie.

1985, dir. Ted Berman and Richard Rich. With Grant Bardsley, Susan Sheridan, Freddie Jones, Nigel Hawthorne.

The Black Hole

I loved this when it first came out ... Even at that age I thought my taste was better. I guess the effects looked okay back then ... This is appallingly bad. Any movie that gets five lines into the dialogue and says "It's mission, to find habitable life," you know you're in trouble. "Habitable life?!" Bad science I expected: but English that bad was a bit of a surprise. Hell, the robots acted better than the humans and they didn't even have faces.

1979, dir. Gary Nelson. With Maximilian Schell, Anthony Perkins, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Foster, Joseph Bottoms, Yvette Mimieux, Roddy McDowall, Slim Pickens.

Black Panther

As the Marvel canon (the MCU, or "Marvel Cinematic Universe") increases in film count and number of characters, their version of Earth diverges farther and farther from the one we live in - all leading up to "Infinity War" and "End Game." Black Panther was introduced in possibly my least favourite MCU movie, "Captain America: Civil War." Now we're expected to accept that the country Black Panther comes from, Wakanda, has had massively advanced technology for a century or more, but has still succeeded in pretending to be a backwards farming country in the middle of Africa for that entire time and NO ONE HAS NOTICED. Except the arms dealer Klaue (Andy Serkis, who we first met in "The Avengers: Age of Ultron"). He's back - and pissed off, because they took his arm. And they're pissed off because he detonated a bomb to cover his escape that killed dozens (or hundreds - precision isn't a requirement in the MCU).

If you can accept the MCU baseline (and obviously millions of moviegoers do), then this is an enjoyable coming-of-age - or perhaps coming-of-kinghood - tale. Chadwick Boseman returns as the Black Panther, and with his father dead (see "Civil War"), he goes through the ceremony to become King - not an easy process. But much worse is ahead, with an upset Wakandan-American (Michael B. Jordan) with royal blood headed home.

I can't tell you much more without starting to give stuff away. It's fun, it's charming, there's bucket-loads of patented MCU action (invariably free of blood despite several deaths by skewering, so they can retain their family-friendly ratings at the theatres). Not my favourite Marvel film, but far from the worst. I would have preferred to see it on DVD from the library rather than giving my money to Marvel at the theatre, but I had fun so I'm not significantly upset about it.

I was surprised that most of the people in the theatre left before the end of the credits. Don't they know this is Marvel? There is, inevitably, not only a mid-credits scene (Wakanda speaks to the U.N.) and a post-credits scene (Bucky Barnes on the mend).

2018, dir. Ryan Coogler. With Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, Andy Serkis.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

The movie opens with the death of T'Challa - the charismatic and charming Chadwick Boseman (Wikipedia) died before this movie started filming, and I'll give them credit for managing an appropriate tribute to him. But then Wakanda gets entangled in a battle with Namor and the people of Talokan (an undersea city - in the original comics, Namor was from Atlantis). And this ties them to Riri Williams (played by Dominique Thorne), an engineering student and "genius inventor" from MIT who's pulled into this mess because she invented a vibranium detector. (Marvel historians tell us Riri Williams will go on to be "Iron Heart," an Iron Man knock-off - a TV series appears to be in the works.)

There are significant parts of the movie (totalling about 20 minutes of the 160 minute run-time) that are so dark as to be unwatchable on DVD. I have a good, big screen. I even have a very dark room. I couldn't see shit. The directors and DP's see that the camera is successfully acquiring an image in extremely low light ... Maybe it works in theatres, but the logical leap to think this works for home viewing is incorrect. It SUCKS.

According to Wikipedia: "Angela Bassett received widespread acclaim for her performance as Queen Ramonda, and became the first actress to win a major individual acting award [a Golden Globe] for a Marvel film." Seriously? I thought her "acting" was the worst of the histrionics in this super-powered soap opera. Bassett is a capable actress, but not showing it here (in my view). But her acting isn't the only problem with this mess. We have an abundance of characters from other movies that you're expected to know about (most notably Martin Freeman as CIA agent Everett K. Ross) - you've watched all 27(?) previous Marvel movies, right? And we're getting more and more into the "how can we make everybody fight everybody (because fans want to know who would win) but not kill off our Intellectual Property/Cash Cow?" They also went full Namor: pointy ears, wings on the ankles that allow him to fly, bulletproof skin - and neither the script nor Tenoch Huerta Mejía in the role made Namor either appealing or interesting.

This movie is enough of a mess that I'm starting to re-think my recent negative review of "Black Adam," which is at least better than this garbage. And it didn't try to test me to see if I had the superpower of seeing in the dark. A disappointment after the original "Black Panther."

2022, dir. Ryan Coogler. With Letitia Wright, Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira, Winston Duke, Florence Kasumba, Dominique Thorne, Michaela Coel, Mabel Cadena, Tenoch Huerta Mejía, Martin Freeman, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Angela Bassett.

Black Site Delta

Cam Gigandet is building up a solid resumé of B-movies, following the career trajectory of Stephen Seagal ... but without the initial peak. As of 2020, the man has 30 movies to his name on Rotten Tomatoes, only two of which have positive reviews. Worse, nine of them don't have enough reviews to have an average ... which meant no one cared at all.

I mock him, but not only did I watch the movie, I thought it was passable action - and it was better than the movie I watched immediately after it ("Barely Lethal").

We first meet Gigandet's character Jake drinking in a bar, afraid to go home to meet his own daughter. A bar brawl leaves him a killer, and he wakes to find himself in a black site prison with a bunch of other problematic ex-military people. By ten or fifteen minutes in, the base has been invaded by a mercenary force (Jake even knows the evil commander), and the prisoners are free. The mercenaries are after the drone with a nuclear bomb controlled from the base (because that's what's on top of most black-site prisons). So of course the prisoners decide to defend their country rather than just leave.

These days, most action movies have enough of a budget to hire a specialist to teach the actors to move like the kind of personnel that they're supposed to be. This movie clearly passed on such silly excesses. Half the people move like they think they're ninjas, and our heroes clear rooms and halls like ten year olds doing a cop impression.

Now that I'm done bad-mouthing it, I'll admit that I found it an acceptable way to waste 90 minutes. I mean, it's crap but I knew it would be, and it's straight forward crap with plenty of action.

2017, dir. Jesse Gustafson. With Cam Gigandet, Teri Reeves, Benjamin Charles Watson, Dion Mucciacito, Casey Hendershot, John Brodsky.

Black Snake Moan

If you've seen the trailer but not the movie, it may help to know that one of the producers (in the DVD extras) referred to the movie as "a fable." Old black man chains young white girl to his couch in rural Tennessee - yeah, that's believable. Accept it and enjoy the movie: it paints with broad strokes, but it's pretty good. Not least because of Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci, both of whom are excellent.

Ricci plays Rae, whose boyfriend Ronnie (Justin Timberlake) goes off to join the army. Rae promptly goes on a sex, alcohol and drugs bender, and ends up beaten and left for dead in a ditch. Jackson finds her there, and decides to cure her evil ways.

The story is absurd, but gets that way by over-emphasizing accurate points about unhappy people we've all met to make its point. Jackson and Ricci, under Craig Brewer's direction, take what could have been the ultimate in B-movie trash and turn it into an astonishingly decent movie with good help from Timberlake, John Cothran Jr., and Kim Richards.

2006, dir. Craig Brewer. With Samuel L. Jackson, Christina Ricci, Justin Timberlake, John Cothran Jr., Kim Richards, S. Epatha Merkerson, David Banner, Michael Raymond-James.

Black Widow

Scarlett Johansson's swan song as Natasha Romanov / the "Black Widow," a role she's played in multiple movies in the "Marvel Universe." At least ... we assume this is her last movie: she's officially, permanently dead after "Avengers: Endgame," and we're told that this is Johansson's last, retroactive outing. This takes place right after "Captain America: Civil War" with Black Widow hiding from the American military who want to lock her up for "violating the Sokovia Accords."

The movie opens on a pair of Russians in 1995 playing at being an American family: David Harbour and Rachel Weisz as the parents, and a couple young female actors as the false daughters who grow into Natasha Romanov and Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh). Natasha, on the run after the events of "Civil War," unintentionally reconnects with her younger sister Yelena - from whom she learns that the man who created "the Red Room" that she thought she'd killed is still alive, and he's still training/torturing/killing young women to create assassins.

This leads to Natasha and Yelena reconnecting with their false parents: David Harbour is hilarious as an aging, overweight, not very bright former Russian super-soldier (he was supposed to be the Russian opposite number to Captain America) who just wants to punch things and/or reminisce about the old days - some of which he may have embellished, although he is very strong.

I admit to being considerably surprised to finding myself enjoying this one: Weisz and Harbour are charming and funny as the parents, but Johansson and Pugh really make this work as a pair of sisters who had a strong connection but spent a huge part of their life apart. The movie is quite clear (voiced by Natasha) about being about the struggles of holding a family together - but despite the heavy-handedness, is fairly good at carrying through on the idea. And again, Johansson and Pugh steal the show when they're on screen together. I haven't said it because it's just a given: there's lots and lots of action and it's pretty good. One of Marvel's better outings, and a very enjoyable departing bow for Johansson.

2021, dir. Cate Shortland. With Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, O-T Fagbenle, Olga Kurylenko, William Hurt, Ray Winstone, Rachel Weisz.

Blade

This is the best action horror movie ever made. I don't say that lightly: I've seen a LOT of them. Wesley Snipes plays a half-human-half-vampire Vampire hunter, assisted by Kris Kristofferson (in a role that probably saved his career). Humour, violence, and lots of action. See it.

1998. dir. Stephen Norrington. With Wesley Snipes, Stephen Dorff, Kris Kristofferson.

Blade II

The darkest of the three movies, finds Blade teaming up with some other vampires to fight a new breed of uber-vampires. While there's plenty of action, this is the closest to pure horror that the series got. There's a lot of leaping about in the fights, for which they chose CG over wirework. Unfortunately, it's very obvious.

2002, dir. Guillermo del Toro. With Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Ron Perlman.

Blade Trinity

Humour was what was needed to liven up the overly serious "Blade II," but they added too much, with Wesley Snipes still taking himself way too seriously. Parker Posey is supposed to be scary and funny, but manages neither. She's just annoying. Ryan Reynolds, who's a fairly capable actor, was let loose with his own brand of humour in this movie, and is nearly as annoying as Parker. Dominic Purcell is reasonably good as the ultimate vampire. But the addition of Patton Oswalt to the mix tells you what direction they were headed in. Some of the action is enjoyable, but this is a bad movie.

2004, dir. David Goyer. With Wesley Snipes, Kris Kristofferson, Jennifer Biel, Ryan Reynolds, Dominic Purcell, Parker Posey, Paul Levesque, Callum Keith Rennie, John Michael Higgins, Patton Oswalt.

Blade of the Immortal

Takashi Miike is a Japanese director who gained notoriety many years ago for his extremely bizarre and often very violent and grotesque movies. I've often wondered how his cult following has felt about his gradual drift toward the mainstream ... or perhaps it's that the mainstream has widened enough to include his recent only slightly less violent and grotesque works. Although I have to admit that over the years, his stuff has become more dramatically interesting - better acted, better plots. The trailer claimed this was Miike's 100th movie: with shorts and TV specials and everything else he's made over the years, that kind of counting is dubious. But it's pretty close - he's been staggeringly prolific.

"Blade of the Immortal" is based on a graphic novel: our main character Manji (Takuya Kimura) is an involuntarily immortal samurai with a conscience who gets roped into defending a young girl whose parents were brutally killed before her eyes (remember, this is Miike). He gets sliced and diced and reassembles himself and strange stories are told as they pursue an uneven quest for revenge.

Like the other recent Miike movies I've seen, this one is well constructed. It's also typically violent, bizarre, and nasty. I remained interested through most of the movie, although some scenes were a bit long (the movie as a whole runs to 141 minutes). The critics loved it: 85% on Rotten Tomatoes. Not the highest score, but those that gave it a positive score really loved it. And I'm not getting that - it's over-the-top, ridiculous, and mostly entertaining, but they seem to be making it out to be some kind of masterwork, which it's not.

For fans of martial arts movies, don't go watching this one for the fights. There are many, many fights. And many bloody puncturings and dismemberments. But the fights are chaotic and shot in a choppy manner meant to emphasize the bloodshed and violence, not the fighting style.

2017, dir. Takashi Miike. With Takuya Kimura, Hana Sugisaki, Sota Fukushi, Hayato Ichihara, Erika Toda, Kazuki Kitamura, Chiaki Kuriyama.

Blade Runner

One of the greatest science fiction films ever made. I preferred the original with Harrison Ford's voice-over (I'd seen it something like nine times), but the "Director's Cut" is also very good ... and I have to admit the voice-over is pretty bad. I haven't seen "The Final Cut" yet, but I don't expect it to make much of a difference. Based on a Philip K. Dick novel, the movie follows the story of Deckard (Harrison Ford) as he hunts "replicants" (very human androids). The setting is 2019, in a brilliantly conceived dystopian Los Angeles. A pretty bleak story - particularly when you consider that you're intended (in all the later cuts) to wonder if Deckard is in fact a replicant himself ...

1982. dir. Ridley Scott. With Harrison Ford, Sean Young, Rutger Hauer, Daryl Hannah, Edward James Olmos.

Blade Runner 2049

35 years after the original movie, Denis Villeneuve directed this sequel (which is set 30 years later in the movies' internal timeline). Ryan Gosling is KD6-3.7, a new model replicant who is also a blade runner - although a "Nexus 9" model, stronger and more compliant than the older models. Near the beginning of the film he "retires" (just like the last movie, that's their euphemism for "kills") Sapper Morton (Dave Bautista), a Nexus 8 replicant who was in hiding. "K" discovers a buried box near Sapper's home which contains a skeleton. The skeleton shows the marks of an emergency caesarean section ... but is also a replicant. This is the big driver of the story as replicants can't reproduce and this could cause another replicant uprising.

Other players include: "Joi" (Ana de Armas), a hologram AI who is K's companion. Niander Wallace (Jared Leto) who has bought up the Tyrell corporation and is now the replicant manufacturer (and makes Tyrell look like a kindly old man). Luv (Sylvia Hoeks) is Wallace's enforcer replicant. And Lt. Joshi (Robin Wright) is K's boss at the police.

When not being deliberately grubby and polluted, the cinematography is astonishing with an aesthetic that beautifully recalls the original. The movie spends most of its over-long 2h43m run-time making you think about replicants and their servitude: in case you weren't getting it, early on Niander Wallace goes on a heavy-handed rant about the utility of slavery - and kills a brand new replicant because he feels like it. He's made out to be a truly horrible person, and you're forced to think about what it says about a society that's willing to accept intelligent beings as indentured slaves. But in the end, a whole bunch of people (well, you know, mostly worthless replicants) suffer and die so two people can meet - and not a damn thing is done about the whole slavery thing. So, as pretty and well acted as it was, I found it deeply unsatisfying.

2017, dir. Denis Villeneuve. With Ryan Gosling, Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Robin Wright, Jared Leto, Harrison Ford, Mackenzie Davis, Carla Juri, Lennie James, Dave Bautista, Edward James Olmos, David Dastmalchian.

Blake's 7 Series 1

As I write I've only watched episodes 1-6 of this series.

Roj Blake (Gareth Thomas) starts the series as a mind-wiped political dissident. His former comrades reach out to him, and he is shortly framed for a crime he didn't commit (because dissidence isn't even discussed) and shipped to a penal colony. I don't think that I'm giving too much away (given that the series is 35 years old and titled after a group of people) to say that he escapes with a group and starts "dissidenting" again.

I quite liked the first three episodes, the set-up with their dystopian future, evil government, and political manoeuvring. Despite special effects that made period Doctor Who look pretty good - the effects are unbelievably awful, so cheesy the most dedicated fan is going to giggle occasionally, 6" plastic space ship model terrible, etc. But after that it became apparent that it was to be more of an episodic and less upbeat Star Trek - travel about and confront various alien life forms, with periodic confrontations with the evil government - than anything else. The acting is mediocre, but arguably no worse than Star Trek. And a fairly convincing argument can be made that "Blake's 7" paved the way for "Babylon 5," "Farscape," "Firefly," and the 2004 incarnation of "Battlestar Galactica," with its band of squabbling anti-heroes fighting for the right.

1978. With Gareth Thomas, Paul Darrow, Michael Keating, Sally Knyvette, Jan Chappell, David Jackson.

Blame!

A Japanese Anime movie distributed by Netflix, "Blame!" is based on a manga. It's a far future dystopia, in which the humans can no longer control their planet-spanning city and are hunted by constructs of the city as illegal squatters. Our group encounters a mysterious and ludicrously taciturn stranger called Killy who is super-human, carries a REALLY BIG GUN (TM), and is trying to return control of the city to humans. They help him for a while.

It's an adventure story aimed at tweens. The artwork is quite attractive, despite it being entirely in an abandoned city. The dialogue is weak, and the story feels like it's one step of progress on a trip that's going to take 100 steps - it makes some people's lives better, but doesn't resolve the primary question of control of the city.

2017, dir. Hiroyuki Seshita. With Kyle McCarley, Cristina Vee, Christine Marie Cabanos, Keith Silverstein, Cherami Leigh, Bryce Papenbrook, Johnny Yong Bosch, Brian Beacock.

Blast from the Past

In 1962, a brilliant but paranoid physicist (Christopher Walken, of course) takes his pregnant wife (Sissy Spacek) down into their bomb shelter just as a plane crashes on their house. Convinced that "the bomb" has gone off, he locks them in for 35 years. So when his son Adam (Brendan Fraser) emerges in 1997, he embodies early Sixties values in the modern world and knows nothing of modern technology. He meets Eve (Alicia Silverstone) and hilarity ensues. More or less. Unbelievably cheesy, but I have to admit I kind of enjoyed it.

1999, dir. Hugh Wilson. With Brendan Fraser, Alicia Silverstone, Christopher Walken, Sissy Spacek, Dave Foley, Joey Slotnick.

Blazing Saddles

Starts with the construction of the railroad in 1874 in the West. The construction crew is shown to be mostly African-American and Chinese, managed by obnoxious and stupid white men. Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman) is trying to take over land that the railway will go through on the assumption it'll be worth money, and in trying to do that he convinces state governor J. Le Petomane (Mel Brooks, who also directed) to appoint Bart (Cleavon Little) as the new sheriff to the town. Bart being black in an all-white town, Lamarr hopes the townspeople will either leave town or lynch the sheriff. Bart turns out to be quick on his feet, and is assisted in his adventures by The Waco Kid (Gene Wilder).

Possibly Brooks' best known movie, and apparently a well-regarded comedy (#6 on the American Film Institute's "100 Years...100 Laughs" list). I loved this when it came out (I was ten) - it had people falling down, anachronisms and fart jokes, what's not to like? But I was less impressed in 2014. I have to admit that it remains impressive for sheer craziness, and I did find a few laughs in the mix. Wikipedia's comment on one of the aspects of the film is interesting: "The film satirizes the racism obscured by myth-making Hollywood accounts of the American West, with the hero being a black sheriff in an all-white town." With that in mind, it includes classic quotes like "All right ... we'll give some land to the Niggers and the Chinks, but we don't want the Irish."

I would love for someone to do a comparison of this to "Destry Rides Again:" if I recall correctly, the similarities goes substantially beyond Madeline Kahn's mediocre Dietrich impersonation.

1974, dir. Mel Brooks. With Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Harvey Korman, Slim Pickens, Madeline Kahn, Mel Brooks, Dom DeLuise.

Bleach (2018)

Like many Japanese movies that make it to North America, Bleach was first a manga. But its wide popularity has led it to proliferate more than most: it became a TV series, and a video game, and now a movie.

High school student Ichigo (Sota Fukushi - good looking, charismatic ... good choice) can see ghosts - and helps them out as best he can. He's also a pretty good fighter. But one day he finds himself way over his head in the middle of a fight between a "Hollow" (a nasty spirit) and a Soul Reaper - Rukia (Hana Sugisaki) - who is shocked that Ichigo can even see her (and the Hollow). When she's injured and can't finish the fight, she transfers her powers to Ichigo so he can kill the Hollow. And Ichigo manifests with a damn enormous sword to win the fight.

But that's not the big problem: Rukia discovers that she can't transfer her powers back. The reasons why are inconsistent: initially, she literally couldn't, but then she couldn't because Ichigo didn't have enough "energy" so he'd die if she transferred her powers. And the only way for him to get energy is to kill hollows - become a successful Soul Reaper. So she starts training him. Unfortunately, there's more going on: Rukia's brother doesn't care about Ichigo's life: he wants her to kill Ichigo. And there are the "Quincys," who are also hunting Hollows and don't get along with the Soul Society.

It's all pretty silly, but I've got behind even more ridiculous concepts in movies before. Where this one really falls down is when participants in a big fight taking what amount to time-outs to have long philosophical conversations while their semi-sentient enemy waits patiently for them to reach a conclusion rather than attacking. And yet - I kind of enjoyed it (with some pushing through at 2x ...). Still - I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

2018, dir. Shinsuke Sato. With Sota Fukushi, Hana Sugisaki, Erina Mano, Ryo Yoshizawa, Yu Koyanagi, Taichi Saotome, Miyavi, Seiichi Tanabe, Yōsuke Eguchi, Masami Nagasawa.

Bleeding Steel

I have for many years avoided Jackie Chan's movies past approximately the year 2005: some of his stuff through the 1980s and 1990s was quite amazing (I've seen most of it). Between 2000 and 2010, his movies were as often about how much pain he could absorb doing stunts as about the balletic action he used to specialize in. But fairly recently I saw "The Foreigner," which is very good. And I guess it softened me up enough that I was willing to try another recent Jackie Chan movie available on Netflix - this one.

The movie starts with Hong Kong cop Lin Dong (Jackie Chan) rushing to the hospital where his nine year old daughter Xixi is dying of leukemia. But a phone call is enough to divert him to protect a witness instead. He ends up in a firefight with a group of superhuman people who want to kill the witness: most of his team are killed and his daughter dies. Then we jump forward nine years: he's now in Australia, and both he and a skilled hacker are interested in both an author who wrote a successful book and a young Asian girl - as are a group of nasty people who wear the same uniforms as the nasties from Hong Kong.

Is this making sense?

Eventually you find out that it's all connected, but it's complex without being interesting. It's silly, obnoxious and ridiculous while trying to be funny, harkening back to the worst of Jackie Chan's humour in his HK movies of the 1980s. And it's unbelievable pretty much every step of the way. There are trademark Jackie Chan stunts, but they're not his best.

And after you've waded through this mess, the ending is even more improbable ... and deliberately sets up a sequel.

2017, dir. Leo Zhang. With Jackie Chan, Show Lo, Ouyang Nana, Callan Mulvey, Tess Haubrich, Erica Xia-hou, Kym Gyngell, Damien Garvey.

Blinded by the Light

I shouldn't have watched this movie. Gurinder Chadha has become the voice of the Indian experience in the U.K. - I fell in love with "Bend it Like Beckham" when it came out. She's had a mixed career since, but that movie has been enough to keep me watching her movies ever since. But on the other side of the argument - the movie is about a young Pakistani man who's extremely passionate about Bruce Springsteen. I dislike Springsteen more than I like Chadha.

Javed Khan (Viveik Kalra) lives with his family in Luton (I had to look it up: it's a small town about 50 km outside London). It's 1987. He has to contend with a very traditional father, racist neighbours (not all of them), and the classic teen concerns like self-doubt and the opposite sex. At a new school - or maybe just a new year of school - he meets Roops, who pitches him Springsteen. So from about 20 minutes onward we have a solid Springsteen soundtrack to a fairly typical (although well done) growing-up-in-the-suburbs story.

Kalra is charming as Javed. His father (played by Kulvinder Ghir) looks different, sounds different, acts differently than the father in "Bend it Like Beckham," but he puts up the same roadblocks for Javed and has the same story arc. A couple of pseudo-musical numbers (actors lip-syncing and dancing to Bruce) didn't help the appeal of the movie. And given the size of the Springsteen's catalogue, I thought multiple repetitions of a couple of his best known songs was unnecessary (and painful).

A fairly good movie completely ruined for me by the unsurprising inclusion of way too much Springsteen. I thought maybe I'd have got over my dislike of Springsteen by now, but no - this only made it worse.

2019, dir. Gurinder Chadha. With Viveik Kalra, Kulvinder Ghir, Hayley Atwell, Rob Brydon, Nell Williams, Dean-Charles Chapman, Aaron Phagura, Meera Ganatra.

Blindspotting

The movie opens on Collin (Daveed Diggs) in his last three days on parole. He and his best friend of many years Miles (Rafael Casal) are movers in Oakland (the setting is important to the movie), and Collin is trying to prevent Miles' short temper and wild outbursts from getting him sent back to jail. It doesn't help that on the drive home that night, he sees a white police officer shoot and kill an unarmed black man, an event that haunts him throughout the movie.

That sounds dark, it is dark. But this is a "comedy-drama," and rarely in your life will you see a movie that so beautifully walks the line between those two genres. It brings home all the fear of being black in a neighbourhood policed by white officers, but it's never just about that: Collin has a life, he has problems, but that's not where it ends. Collin and Miles are intelligent even if they don't always make the best decisions, there's a lot of good in both their lives, and they're very interesting to spend 90 minutes with.

It's easy to see why Collin's ex- tells him he needs to cut Miles out of his life for his own safety, but it's equally easy to see why Collin and Miles are best friends: Miles, as volatile as he is, is incredibly loyal ("loyalty" being one of his favourite subjects), funny, and very loving to his family. Wikipedia says "The film addresses issues of gentrification, police violence, and racism" - giving you the themes, but not a sense of how well it's done. It's rare to find characters this well portrayed in dramas, almost unheard-of in a comedy-drama.

Eye-opening, heart-wrenching, and hopeful - highly recommended.

Postscript: Wikipedia refers to Diggs as "an American actor, rapper, and singer-songwriter," and Casal as "an American writer, rapper, actor, producer, director, and showrunner." They met because of music, but decided that all Bay-area movies were "missing something" and - over nine years - wrote the script for this movie. Diggs is from Oakland, and Casal is from the adjacent Berkeley. Putting yourself into the movie you're writing and producing is usually an incredibly bad idea, but both of them were superb. Just an amazing movie.

2018, dir. Carlos López Estrada. With Daveed Diggs, Rafael Casal, Janina Gavankar, Jasmine Cephas Jones, Ethan Embry, Tisha Campbell-Martin, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Wayne Knight, Justin Chu Cary, Kevin Carroll, Nyambi Nyambi.

Blitz

"Blitz" opens on Jason Statham's character Tom Brant interrupting three young men trying to steal a car and, when they threaten him and demand his wallet, he beats the crap out of them with a hurley. We find out shortly after that that he's a police officer, and this is his general attitude. It's soon established there's a serial cop killer on the loose, and he's targeting police in South East London, Brant's branch. Brant uses his unsubtle techniques to get the information he needs - and somewhat surprisingly works with the new transfer and head of the investigation, Porter Nash (Paddy Considine). Although maybe this isn't too surprising, as we learn early on that Nash, when pushed far enough, will also step outside the law.

Statham isn't a brilliant actor. He's very good at the physical roles, and can be quite charming - and that's what's kept him employed for so long. Here, they put him in a character almost totally devoid of charm, leaving a violent and unpleasant man without a lot of depth - Considine and Aiden Gillen (as the killer) shine by comparison. The writer did manage what I thought was a surprisingly satisfying ending (although totally illegal - no surprise there). The end product is just "a cop movie with Jason Statham in it," no great work of art and definitely one to switch your brain off for, but if that's your thing it's serviceable entertainment.

2011, dir. Elliott Lester. With Jason Statham, Paddy Considine, Aiden Gillen, Zawe Ashton, David Morrissey, Mark Rylance, Luke Evans.

Blood and Thunder: The Sound of Alberts

This is - as the title suggests - supposed to be about the immense influence Ted Albert had on Australian rock music. And I'm not going to claim otherwise. But to me - as a massive fan of Flash and the Pan - it was mostly a movie about the Young family, AC/DC, and most importantly Vanda and Young. This is a TV mini-series, with two episodes of an hour each.

In 1963, a large chunk of the Young family (including eight(?!) sons) emigrated from Scotland to Australia. In the Villawood Migrant Hostel, George Young met Netherlands immigrant Johannes Hendrikus Jacob van den Berg who he named "Harry Vanda," and the two shortly formed a band called The Easybeats. You may not remember that name, but I bet you've heard their most famous song: "Friday on My Mind" (also written by Vanda and Young). It was Ted Albert who gave them their recording contract. While the Easybeats were rocketing to fame, Malcolm and Angus Young were learning guitar and cooking up a little band called AC/DC. And Vanda and Young were in London (and maybe Los Angeles) writing songs for other bands after the dissolution of the Easybeats. AC/DC had a long road of mostly money-losing touring to get them to fame, and it was Ted Albert who bankrolled them for a couple of their worst years. Vanda and Young recorded and engineered AC/DC's first eight albums in Albert's studio: that's right, these were the guys in the booth for "Dirty Deeds," "Highway to Hell," and "Back in Black." And for a while, Vanda and Young wrote and recorded their own stuff again with this weird band (that I love) called Flash and the Pan that was big in Europe. I'm leaving out a dozen other bands and artists that went through that Albert-Vanda-Young factory because they didn't interest me as much.

Perhaps the most surprising thing to me was Ted Albert wanted to do a movie. When his wife took him to this quirky little musical called "Strictly Ballroom," he knew he'd found the right one. In case you don't know how that ended, a bunch of unknown actors with a first time director called "Baz Luhrmann" made a low budget film that was widely critically acclaimed and swept the world.

One of Vanda and Young's most unusual practices was how they recorded several of their bands. They noticed that several of the pub bands sounded fantastic at the pub ... and flat and uninspiring on recordings. They realized it was that live energy that was missing - so for a decade(?) they were dragging their bands straight from their pub gigs into the studio for a recording session. Their work hours became midnight until 6 AM. It seems to have worked ...

The series felt a little self-serving, a bit of a hagiography, and I wondered if the Albert family had some money in this production. But checking other sources after watching the series, it all seems to be pretty close to the truth. It's a hell of a story.

2015, dir. Paul Clarke. With David Field, Angus Young, Brian Johnson, Malcolm Young, Harry Vanda, Peter Garrett, George Young, John Paul Young, Fifa Riccobono, Gordon "Snowy" Fleet.

Bloodshot

This movie is one of those frustrating beasts where you see what-could-have-been ... but to do so you have to see past what-is. The idea is interesting: a dead soldier (Vin Diesel) is resurrected by replacing his blood with "nanites" (biological micro-machines). Not only does this bring him back to life, but now if he's injured - even catastrophically - he simply re-assembles himself in a matter of seconds.

We open with Ray Garrison (our soldier) - still human, a U.S. Marine - going semi-rogue to save a hostage in Mombasa. Which also proves how effective he is as a warrior. Then he and his wife have a bit of vacation time in Italy ... which is interrupted by a bad guy capturing both of them, killing her in front of him, and then killing him. And then the resurrection. He's supposed to have no memories, but he does, and goes on a vendetta against the bad guy. Except ... all is not as it seems.

It looks okay: the effects are fairly good and the execution is mostly competent. At one point Diesel knew ... approximately ... how to act. But he's been being a manly man in the "Fast and Furious" franchise for so long that all he can do is anger-face and stoic-face ... and he doesn't even make those convincing. He's backed up by a cast of pretty nobodies who aren't particularly good either ... and Guy Pearce. And I have to give some sort of dis-commendation to director David S. F. Wilson, because it takes something to get a crap performance out of Pearce.

Part of my frustration with the movie is caused by the script's treatment of the programmers. They're arguably the most important people in the entire cast as the ones who actually control Garrison's behaviour (or allow him freedom to be himself as the case may be) but they're treated as the comedic side-kicks because really, it's the people who do physical things that actually matter in the world. Never mind that the most important one of these physical people is manipulated and controlled by others for most of the run-time, they're still down-played comedic filler. It's not quite so bad or insulting as the scientists in "Pacific Rim," but it's up there.

Just all around weak.

2020, dir. David S. F. Wilson. With Vin Diesel, Eiza González, Sam Heughan, Toby Kebbell, Guy Pearce, Lamorne Morris, Talulah Riley, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, Alex Hernandez, Siddharth Dhananjay, Tamer Burjaq.

Blood Relatives

Our lead is Francis (Noah Segan, also the director), a 100+ year-old Jewish vampire who has for decades travelled (alone) around the U.S. in his 1960s(?) muscle car. One day, Jane, a 15 year old girl (Victoria Moroles) tracks him down to tell him that he's her Dad, her mother is dead, and she has fangs.

And so we start a low key Horror-Comedy movie that's more about being family and dealing with family than it is about gore or shocks. Segan has some of the classic vampire behaviours (aversion to sunlight being the one he most clearly shows), but doesn't try to look or sound anything like what most of us "expect" a vampire to be. And Moroles is written as a confused teenager - the more so for having cravings no other teens have. It's slow-paced and short on jump scares (if that's what you're looking for), but it's funny, and a thoughtful take on a peculiar situation.

2022, dir. Noah Segan. With Noah Segan, Victoria Moroles, Akasha Villalobos, C. L. Simpson, Ammie Masterson, Tracie Thoms.

Blown Away, Season 1

"Blown Away" is a Netflix series of ten episodes of 25 minutes each, a glass blowing competition show apparently modelled on the History Channel's "Forged in Fire." They start with ten glass artists, give them a challenge, and each week eliminate one from the running. I've always loved glass blowing and wanted to try it - although apparently never quite enough that I got around to actually doing so. But that meant this series held a huge appeal to me. It was a significant added bonus that the show is filmed in Hamilton, with all the assistants to the artists being supplied by the Sheridan College glass-blowing program.

I found a lot to like about the show: the artists were all interesting characters. The pieces they produced were often really beautiful, and always interesting. The episodes are relatively short, which works well. And I learned a lot about the making of glass art. It's a fun series.

2019. With Nick Uhas, Katherine Gray, Deborah Czeresko, Janusz Poźniak, Alexander Rosenberg.

Blown Away, Season 2

"Blown Away" is a Canadian competitive/elimination glass-blowing TV series. This season, they invited artists from all over the world (I think all the artists in the previous series were Canadian). As mentioned in the previous season's review, I've always been fascinated by glass blowing. The progressive elimination format is thoroughly derivative, but the entertaining characters (the artists, a charming group) and the fabulous glass art they create, make the series a lot of fun.

They made good use of their previous artists, with their third place artist (I thought he should have won ... best artist of the lot, also the most personable) from the previous year showing up as a judge in the first episode, and the winner showing up for the final episode. This was perfect use of their previous season's staff - without overuse.

2019. With Nick Uhas, Katherine Gray, Elliot Walker, Cat Burns, Chris Taylor.

Blue Submarine No. 6

I think this was originally a TV miniseries in four parts, only a half hour each - so about movie length. The Japanese don't have quite the same sense of plotting, or good and bad, as we do. This one leaps into the action with no introduction and never fully fills you in on the backstory. The ragged blend of CGI and hand-drawn cell animation is actually fairly attractive, but the plot and conclusion are ... unsatisfactory.

1998. dir. Mahiro Maeda.

Blue Thunder

Roy Scheider plays Frank Murphy, a police helicopter pilot and Vietnam war vet. He and his observer (a very young Daniel Stern) get assigned to a secret military helicopter project, which turns out (predictably enough) to be thoroughly rotten. There's intrigue, mayhem, and chases. As action movies go, fairly good.

1983, dir. John Badham. With Roy Scheider, Malcolm McDowell, Daniel Stern, Candy Clark, Warren Oates, Paul Roebling.

Bluebeard

A divorced Korean doctor with sleep problems (including nightmares, which we the audience can't always tell from reality) suspects his landlords - who run the butcher shop under his apartment block - are serial killers after the addled father of the family makes a confession under the influence of drugs during a colonoscopy. (There are too many colonoscopies in this film.) But he doesn't go to the cops because he's a mess himself and he's not sure he can prove anything.

The movie contains several horror movie tropes: nobody is innocent, most people have psychological issues, don't call for backup (or the police) even when they're clearly needed, go into dangerous spaces you know you shouldn't. It's not horror though: Wikipedia lists it as a "psychological thriller."

Another twisty Korean mystery: the critics thought well of it, I didn't like it much. In part because I didn't feel like the parts fit together at the end.

2017, dir. Lee Soo-yeon. With Cho Jin-woong, Shin Gu, Kim Dae-myung, Song Young-chang, Lee Chung-ah, Yoon Se-ah, Kim Joo-ryung, Yoon Da-kyung.

The Bodyguard from Beijing

One of Jet Li's Hong Kong movies (and the better for it). Passable action, something vaguely resembling romance. The VHS has better subtitles than the DVD.

1994, dir. Cory Yuen. With Jet Li.

Bohemian Rhapsody

This movie shares even more in common than I initially thought with the movie I watched the previous night, "Rocketman." That one's about Elton John, this one is about Queen and Freddie Mercury. Some things are really obvious: they're both musical biopics about flamboyant gay front-men. Less immediately obvious (although I should have realized it) are that they share a very similar time period: the peak of both Elton John's and Queen's fame was through the Seventies and into the early Eighties. Unsurprisingly, both movies are about men trying to deal with their sexuality at a time when being gay wasn't commonly accepted (Elton lived long enough to marry his partner, sadly Freddie didn't live long enough to see today's broader acceptance). Not particularly obvious at all, both movies were directed by Dexter Fletcher (this movie is on the books as being done by Bryan Singer, but he was replaced part way through by Fletcher), and both have people playing John Reid. Aiden Gillen plays him in this movie, getting a smaller and more boring part than Richard Madden's portrayal of Reid as a backstabbing heartless bastard in "Rocketman" ... in this movie, he's just a manager.

The film suffers for being constructed as a standard-issue biopic, but the part that sank it for me was Rami Malek and THE TEETH. I totally get that Freddie Mercury had large teeth and a wicked overbite, but I doubt that Freddie Mercury looked deeply uncomfortable with his own teeth and kept trying to rearrange his own face to fit them. He may not have loved his teeth, but he was used to them. Rami Malek wasn't used to them, and it really shows.

I enjoyed the music, and thought they did a good job of presenting the band dynamic ... while simultaneously making Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon almost bit players in their own story. Mercury was undoubtedly the most important person in Queen, but the three of them deserved not just good portrayals (which they got) but at least a bit more screen time.

2018, dir. Bryan Singer. With Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, Joe Mazzello, Aiden Gillen, Allen Leech, Tom Hollander, Mike Myers, Aaron McCusker.

Boiler Room

Giovanni Ribisi plays a college drop-out who runs his own illegal casino at the start of the movie, and is shortly recruited for a questionable stock brokerage. No one in this is particularly good, and, while the plot is good, it's not enough to make this a good movie.

2000. dir. Ben Younger. With Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel, Nia Long.

BoJack Horseman, Season 1

This review is based on the first two episodes, and is meant (even more than usual) as a reminder to myself rather than a useful review for anyone else.

BoJack (voiced by Will Arnett) is an animated, anthropomorphized horse who lives in a world populated with both people and talking, people-sized animals. 18 years ago, he was the star of a successful and long-running sitcom, but now he's a rich has-been with an existential crisis. Wikipedia entertainingly refers to the series as an "American adult animated tragicomedy sitcom."

I can see that they're taking pot shots at a huge number of aspects of our culture, particularly BoJack's fading celebrity. But I actively dislike BoJack and everyone he associates with - which brings up a point about him and the show. These aren't his friends. He would claim to have friends, but the people he sees every day aren't them. And they're all assholes or stupid, and usually both. BoJack himself isn't stupid, although he has some pretty strongly held delusions about himself and his history. Frustratingly, his self-awareness kicks in if it'll make better comedy, and then goes away again after.

I understand that the second half of the first season, and all the following seasons are "better." And I see that they're taking some good whacks at pop culture and celebrity. But I laughed maybe three times across two episodes, and without even a single appealing character I'm just not enjoying the show.

2014. With Will Arnett, Alison Brie, Amy Sedaris, Aaron Paul, Patton Oswalt.

Bollywood Hero

This is an intensely frustrating piece of work, a TV miniseries of 2 hours 45 minutes that could have been really good. A good idea and good plot fall to Chris Kattan's mediocre acting and general foolishness.

Kattan plays Kattan - literally, his character is called "Chris Kattan" and the character was in all those fine movies: "Corky Romano," "A Night at the Roxbury," and of course SNL. And he's sick of playing small and/or really bad roles: he wants to be a leading man. In his desperation, he accepts the lead in a movie in Bollywood.

The idea is sound, and the plot is excellent. Some of it is obvious: musical numbers, cultural fish-out-of-water, romancing the beautiful girl. The plot about the director and his sister and their struggle to keep their dead father's movie theatre afloat and live up to his name is pretty good. Unfortunately Kattan is Kattan: his humour is, as always, unfunny - although somewhat muted. He makes an effort, but he's just not enough of a leading man, not charismatic enough. Too bad.

2009. With Chris Kattan, Pooja Kumar, Ali Fazal, Julian Sands, Neha Dhupia, Rachna Shah.

Bolt

It's extremely predictable, but damn it's funny! And cute and incredibly charming too. Bolt (voiced by John Travolta) is a dog who stars in a TV show. He believes everything on the show is true, including his own superpowers. So when his "person," Penny (voiced by Miley Cyrus), is "kidnapped" by the villain of the TV series and Bolt escapes, the real world comes as something of a surprise. He captures an "evil" cat (Susie Essman) and is joined by an adoring hamster in a ball (Mark Walton) as he struggles to get from New York back to Hollywood. I'm guessing you can fill in 90% of the remaining plot from this short summary, and I'm not saying you're wrong. But remember what I said: it's funny. See it.

2008, dir. Byron Howard, Chris Williams. With John Travolta, Miley Cyrus, Susie Essman, Mark Walton, Malcolm McDowell, James Lipton, Greg Germann.

Bon Cop Bad Cop

Yes, it borrows heavily from the Hollywood buddy cop genre, and that's a little disappointing for a Canadian movie. But it's entertaining, isn't that what we're aiming for? And besides, it reeks of Canada: half the dialogue is in French, the references to "Ontario," "Quebec," "Montreal," and "Toronto" are extremely frequent, and, above all, the motivating problem is HOCKEY murders. It's a seriously Canadian film. It's not great art, but it's funny and entertaining and that's a good thing. There are some bad sections, but whenever Colm Feore and Patrick Huard are on screen together it's worth watching.

2006, dir. Erik Canuel. With Colm Feore, Patrick Huard, Rick Mercer, Erik Knudsen, Sylvain Marcel.

Bon Cop Bad Cop 2

2006's "Bon Cop Bad Cop" was one of the highest grossing Canadian films ever made: not that that made anybody rich, but it's kind of nice to see success rewarded. And another plus: like most sequels ten years in the making, this one is better thought out than the ones that follow within a year of their predecessor.

"Bon Cop Bad Cop 2" finds our protagonists Martin Ward (Colm Feore) and David Bouchard (Patrick Huard) still cops - Bouchard is undercover with the Sûreté du Québec, while Ward has moved from the Ontario Provincial Police to the RCMP. They meet for the first time in a while when Ward's team busts the garage that Bouchard's gang is working in, and once again find themselves working together.

To the writer's credit, many of the things about the movie are different: in the previous movie, much of the humour was aimed at Quebec-Ontario differences, here Canadians are struggling with their relationship with the U.S. This time instead of solving a series of murders, they're unearthing a nasty plot that they think revolves around drugs - but they're not at all sure. Both of the characters are a decade older, and time has taken its toll particularly on Ward.

To my astonishment, they populated three relatively minor roles from the previous film with the same actors: Bouchard's ex-wife (now his wife again) is still played by Lucie Laurier. Even stranger, they brought back the two child actors (now adults) who played Ward's son (Erik Knudsen) and Bouchard's daughter (Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse). They were in relatively small roles and they've changed so much that very few people would have noticed if different actors had been hired ... but both are still actors, and this is Canada: they were brought in. Not important, but a nice touch.

Like the previous movie, the plot is a little over-the-top and the last half hour is ridiculously over-the-top action - and yet, Feore and Bouchard still have a decent comedic chemistry that brings a certain charm to the film. If you were a fan of the first film, you should definitely see this - but if you're not, pass it by.

If you haven't seen the original movie, you should definitely give it a try: it's more raw than this and has a LOT of problems, but it's damn funny if you're Canadian.

2017, dir. Alain Desrochers. With Colm Feore, Patrick Huard, Marc Beaupré, Noam Jenkins, Andreas Apergis, Mariana Mazza, Erik Knudsen, Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse, Lucie Laurier.

Bon Voyage

A big line-up of some of the best actors in French cinema struggle with a mediocre script and the bizarre idea that the Nazi invasion of France at the beginning of the Second World War would be a good time to stage a romantic comedy. In one sense it is: people of all classes and backgrounds are packed into hotels and boarding rooms with regard only for expediency, and that gives rise to opportunities for humour: but around every corner are the horrors of displacement, invasion, and war. And the script still needs work. Isabelle Adjani plays a reprehensible actress who uses her beauty to manipulate men, Grégori Derangère a childhood friend who loves her desperately, and Gérard Depardieu the vacillating government minister who is Adjani's latest target.

2003, dir. Jean-Paul Rappeneau. With Grégori Derangère, Isabelle Adjani, Gérard Depardieu, Virginie Ledoyen, Yvan Attal, Peter Coyote, Jean-Marc Stehlé.

Bones, Season 1

"Bones" is based on the books - and to some extent the life - of author Kathy Reichs. The main character is Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel - visibly sister to Zooey), who her FBI partner Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) always refers to as "Bones" because she's a forensic anthropologist.

There's a pattern to the first year: at the beginning of every episode they squabble and don't get along, during the episode they come to understand each other on the subject du jour, they reach a peace. Only to have forgotten their newfound friendship to squabble again in the next episode. Booth and his FBI buddies refer to Brennan and her team as "squints" (scientists) and see them as hopelessly clueless about people and the real world, whereas the scientists see the FBI as clueless and unable to understand scientific concepts. And they're not wrong, at least within the context of the show, as everyone has their niche and their comedic cluelessness. Brennan even has a catch phrase whenever anyone references pop culture: "I don't understand that." (Although, bizarrely, she's familiar with "Treasure of the Sierra Madre.")

And yet the mysteries are interesting and the dialogue is often entertaining, and as annoying as I found the reductive approach to "scientists" interacting with "real humans," I kept coming back to enjoy the mysteries the (non-reductive) dialogue, and the humour.

In the last episode of the first season, Brennan's family gets yanked into the spotlight and we're given our first open-ended episode, with them handing us the fact that someone important thought dead is actually alive ... and the episode ends. When we come back to the first episode of the second season, it's clear that this previously wholly episodic series is now going to string out the story of Brennan's family through the entire season (nothing was resolved in that first new episode ...).

I don't like episodic TV, but I like this even less. Having a continuous story arc is good, but the only reason they're doing it here is to string viewers along: "hey, maybe we'll reveal some new tiny detail of her family next week!" And that's pretty much the only thing that's not wrapped up at the end of each show.

The most blatant use of "episodic" was around the fifth episode of the first season: Booth and Angela Montenegro (Michaela Conlin) figure out that Jack Hodgins (T.J. Thyne) (the institute's self-declared "bug and slime guy") is not only fantastically rich, but also indirectly owns a large portion of the archaeological institute they all (except Booth) work for. This is wrapped up in one episode and never mentioned again in the following 18 or so episodes - as if you wouldn't treat the guy a little differently when you knew he was A) insanely rich, B) worked exclusively for love of the job (he sure as hell doesn't need the paycheque), and C) could choose to turn your world upside down.

A second watch of the first season re-enforced everything I said: it's too reductive, it's too episodic, and on a second watch those characteristics tend to overwhelm the relatively limited good qualities. It doesn't help that the leads aren't particularly good actors.

2005. With Emily Deschanel, David Boreanaz, Michaela Conlin, T.J. Thyne, Eric Millegan, Jonathan Adams.

Bones, Season 2

I have a long-standing line about detective shows: I want to watch the detectives detecting, not fighting for their lives. And as this season progresses, it became more and more clear that this is a fighting-for-their-lives series - often in particularly stupid ways. In one episode Temperance and Hodgins are buried alive (in a car) by a serial killer called "The Gravedigger." It looks for a few moments at the end of the episode that Hodgins might suffer (realistic) PTSD from the event. It's never mentioned again. Not only that, instead of pursuing the Gravedigger every waking moment after that event ... they just move on to other things.

I think I watched through season 4 of "Bones" when it was available on Netflix, but it got so throw-away and silly I didn't even bother to review it here.

2005. With Emily Deschanel, David Boreanaz, Michaela Conlin, T.J. Thyne, Eric Millegan, Tamara Taylor.

The Book of Eli

Denzel Washington plays Eli, a wanderer in a post-apocalyptic world. The apocalypse is never explained, but it's mentioned that it's been about 30 years. Eli heard a voice shortly after the apocalypse and found a book (the Bible, no big surprise) - possibly the only one in existence because most were destroyed as having been the cause of the apocalypse. He's been travelling through a decimated world, headed west, for this whole time. But now he encounters Carnegie (Gary Oldman), who is impressed to find that Eli can read like himself, wants Eli's skills at self defence ... and wants a bible, with the idea that with those words he could build an empire.

Washington is good, as you'd expect. Oldman plays something akin to his regular character, but happily not spot-on - enough different to be at least somewhat interesting. Jennifer Beals hasn't registered on my radar since "Flashdance," and she's very good here - nice to see. There are a couple nice twists in the plot - around the nature of the book itself and a couple other details - that keep it from descending into cliché. The movie is filmed in extremely high contrast with very little colour, more a palate of browns - a convincingly grim world of violence, starvation, and lawlessness. Good for fans of the genre, but unlikely to captivate others.

2010, dir. Albert and Allen Hughes. With Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis, Ray Stevenson, Jennifer Beals.

The Book of Life

The movie starts with two young boys both in love with the same girl. Our hero is Manolo (Diego Luna), a musician at heart born into a family of bullfighters. The woman of his dreams is Kate (Zoe Saldana), and her other suitor is Joaquin (Channing Tatum). When they're children, La Muerte (goddess of death and Queen of the Land of the Remembered, voiced by Kate del Castillo) and Xibulba (ruler of the Land of the Forgotten, voiced by Ron Perlman) make a world-shaking wager over which of the two boys get the girl. We see them again as adults, now on the Mexican Day of the Dead: Xibulba, seeing that he's likely to lose his wager ... cheats.

Seen in the theatre in 3D. The style of animation is unusual, and fairly interesting: the characters are computer-animated, but they appear either as wood puppets (no strings) or bone. The presentation is equally as over-the-top, with the story ranging across the land of the living and both lands of the dead, with lots of magic, heroism and humour at every step. I found the absurdity led to a feeling of inconsequentiality, but the end result is quite funny and enjoyable.

2014, dir. Jorge Gutierrez. With Diego Luna, Zoe Saldana, Channing Tatum, Kate del Castillo, Ron Perlman.

Border (orig. "Gräns")

"Border" is a fantasy movie (although it initially looks like a modern-day movie about a somewhat unattractive border guard). It's currently (2019-05) available on Netflix, although you never know how long they'll keep these things.

Tina (Eva Melander, well hidden under excellent prosthetics to make her much less attractive than she actually is) is a customs officer with an incredible talent for sniffing out guilt, and thus contraband. She lives out in the woods where she frequently goes for walks, and clearly has a strong connection to nature. Things begin to change for her when a man with a similar appearance to her comes through the customs checkpoint. They become acquainted, and she eventually learns she may not even be human.

Even to tell you that the movie should be classified as "Fantasy" is to give away more than the movie itself meant to: they'd be okay if you thought it was about an unusual looking border guard and her isolated life. But I think it's a bit unfair to send someone into a movie thinking they're getting a drama and have it twist about into fantasy with elements of body horror, because you should have at least an idea so you can select the movies you want to see ... Having said that, I'm not going to say anything else about what happens.

It's a weird movie, well constructed and well acted, and I found it intriguing without actually liking it much. This should be seen by fans of urban fantasy - particularly if you like a touch of horror mixed in, but even if you don't - just because it's so interesting.

2018, dir. Ali Abbasi. With Eva Melander, Eero Milonoff, Jorgen Thorsson, Ann Petrén, Sten Ljunggren.

The Born Losers

The first in the series of "Billy Jack" movies (the second was called simply "Billy Jack"). Written, directed by and starring Tom Laughlin. This movie is named after the motorcycle gang that terrorizes the town Billy Jack (Laughlin) lives near, and he quickly becomes embroiled with them. Particularly after they rape several young women in the town, and then terrorize the families to prevent anyone from testifying against them in court. One girl in particular, Vicky (his co-screenwriter Elizabeth James) falls under Billy's protection.

I was interested in these movies as they're occasionally touted as early martial arts movies. Laughlin is put forward as part Indian and ex-army. But the closest we get to martial arts here is Laughlin side-stepping someone and delivering something that vaguely resembles a karate chop. It's hard to tell: the fight editing is jumpy and generally poor, and haymakers are the preferred blow.

This is an exploitation flick. It revels in the rapes, flaunts them, and then revels in the beatings. The acting is staggeringly wooden. Repulsive.

1967, dir. Tom Laughlin. With Tom Laughlin, Elizabeth James, Jeremy Slate.

Born to Defence

I think there's a factory right next to the fortune cookie factory that cranks out bad martial arts movie titles. Hong Kong product, Jet Li's directorial debut. Bloodier than most of his, fights are okay but not great. I like elegant fights, but these ones are messy.

1986, dir. Jet Li. With Jet Li.

Born Yesterday

Directed by George Cukor, the movie opens with Harry Brock (Broderick Crawford) coming to Washington with his showgirl girlfriend Emma "Billie" Dawn (Judy Holliday). He's there to influence politicians (with cash), and her foolishness quickly embarrasses him - although he's no charmer himself. He hires reporter Paul Verrall (William Holden) to educate Billie, a process that's much more effective than anybody expected.

Holliday is unpleasantly convincing as the uncouth and uneducated Billie, and manages to play her improbable transformation reasonably well. I found I disliked pretty much every character in the movie, although I think you're meant to like Paul Verrall, and eventually Billie. She takes her education and starts "doing the right thing," but I found too much of the old Billie in her (and wouldn't have believed it if there was less - a bit of a Catch 22). So - a fairly good movie that I wasn't particularly enthusiastic about.

I liked the movie (and the characters) a LOT better on second viewing.

1950, dir. George Cukor. With Judy Holliday, Broderick Crawford, William Holden, Howard St. John, Frank Otto, Larry Oliver.

Boss Level

Obsessed as I am with "Groundhog Day"-alikes, I was really looking forward to this one. And oddly enough, the trailers don't give too much away - in fact, one of the trailers is essentially the first minute of the film, as we jump in on our protagonist's 139th attempt to survive a day when he wakes up to someone trying to kill him with a machete. He gets his shoes and pants off the floor as he ducks the second cut, gets the pants on as he steps away from another cut, gets into the kitchen for some coffee, drinks some and then disables his attacker by delivering the rest of the hot coffee to his face, etc.

Our protagonist is Roy Pulver (Frank Grillo), who gives us a running voice-over and then explains how he got here - and as we move forward, we join him in attempting to figure out how he can maybe do something about it. Grillo is both obnoxious and charming, determined and willing to grind out a solution (if you're not a video game player, look up "grinding" in that context - there's a reason the movie got its title).

What Groundhog-Day-alikes need most to succeed is a lot of thought put into the structure, and the cycles that the movie goes through. And someone thought about this one a long time: the helicopter you see right at the beginning? That matters, as do most of the other details. The weirdest thing about the structure in this one is that after 20 minutes of violence followed by 20 minutes of exposition and menace, we have 20 minutes of sentimentality ... but then, the aim of the "Groundhog Day" movies is that our hero learns something and becomes a better person. And while it's a bit unusual, I thought it worked. Contrary to my viewing habits, I'm not really a fan of non-stop violence, and I thought they fitted the sentimentality in surprisingly well.

This may be too violent for some (ask yourself if you're okay with a decapitated head bouncing down an escalator), but it's funny, it's well thought out, and the action is really good: I enjoyed it a lot.

2021, dir. Joe Carnahan. With Frank Grillo, Mel Gibson, Naomi Watts, Will Sasso, Annabelle Wallis, Sheaun McKinney, Selina Lo, Michelle Yeoh, Ken Jeong, Meadow Williams, Mathilde Olliver, Rio Grillo, Armida Lopez, Buster Reeves, Eric Etebari.

The Bounty Hunter

(I watched about half of this, fast-forwarding through the rest. I think I saw it years ago ...)

Milo (Gerard Butler) is a New York bounty hunter and former cop short on cash. He's thrilled when he's given the opportunity to bring his ex-wife (Jennifer Aniston) in because she skipped bail. She's an investigative reporter, and was headed to her bail hearing - when she got a tip on a suicide that may actually be a murder. Milo calls his ex-wife Nicole's mother, and easily tracks her down and takes her into custody - a process he greatly enjoys. While Milo tries to get them back to the police station to get his reward, a crooked cop (Peter Greene) comes after them because Nicole's investigation is a problem for him. And since Milo wants to clear the name of his former partner who's involved in the police corruption ...

Can you guess what happens? They spend a lot of time together. They fight but the passion is also rekindled. The problem is he's still a gambling addict and they're both still assholes. Oh, you want to know the problem with the film, not the shoddy conclusion? It's not funny. You've seen it all before, and the charm of the two leads isn't nearly enough to cover for too few and weak laughs.

2010, dir. Andy Tennant. With Jennifer Aniston, Gerard Butler, Jason Sudeikis, Jeff Garlin, Cathy Moriarty, Ritchie Coster, Joel Marsh Garland, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Peter Greene, Dorian Missick.

The Bourne Identity (1988, TV)

I had no idea that Matt Damon's version of this wasn't the first. This made-for-TV movie holds that distinction, but I only found out about it in 2009. While I would undoubtedly do better reading the book, I found watching this movie to be quite an education: I suspect it's more accurate to the book than Damon's version, and the plot line is significantly different. The start is much the same with Bourne being pulled from the sea comatose (and awaking amnesiac), full of bullet holes and with the number of a Swiss bank account surgically implanted in his hip. Denholm Elliot made the drunken but fatherly doctor who removed his bullets and aided in his recovery a much more significant character, and I wish he'd had a larger part. This may be the character he always plays, I don't watch much TV; but it fitted well here. Richard Chamberlain and director Roger Young play Bourne as having a worse temper and being more willing to use others than Damon's version. This version has its share of TV cheese, the love scene in particular being truly appalling. Other than that, I would highly recommend this to fans of the genre, and especially to fans of the Damon version. Be warned it runs three hours.

1988, dir. Roger Young. With Richard Chamberlain, Jaclyn Smith, Anthony Quayle, Donald Moffat, Denholm Elliott, Yorgo Voyagis.

The Bourne Identity (2002)

A man washes ashore full of bullets and without memory. He shortly finds he's a target for several people who want to kill him - and that he's pretty good at killing people himself. It's predictable in the sense that he unravels his own history while fighting off bad guys, but it's better done than most movies of the type: you're always a little off balance, and (with the exception of the five storey drop at the end) they obey pretty much all the laws of physics.

Rewatched this in 2012: this is how action movies should be made. Well constructed, well acted (you know, when acting is actually needed), and with great action.

2002, dir. Doug Liman. With Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Chris Cooper, Clive Owen, Brian Cox, Julia Stiles.

The Bourne Supremacy

Damon is back as Bourne. After two years of a quiet life, he's attacked and his friend killed. He sets out on a vendetta to assure they never bother him again (apparently he's not successful, as there's another sequel). How they manage to make a single man successfully taking on a large portion of the CIA convincing, I don't know - but they do. Again, Bourne is entirely efficient and effective ... but haunted by his conscience. Urban hardly has any speaking lines, but is on screen a lot and quite good as another highly efficient assassin (who obeys the laws of physics). Greengrass' perpetual hand-held filming manages to maintain the sense of always being a little off balance without making the audience seasick. Another very good movie.

2004, dir. Paul Greengrass. With Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Brian Cox, Joan Allen, Julia Stiles, Karl Urban.

The Bourne Ultimatum

Back again, Bourne once again accused/threatened with doing something he had nothing to do with. And again, he sets out to clear his name (or just get rid of the people causing problems) - leaving a trail of bodies behind him. Greengrass again offers his unsteady camera work, and Allen, Stiles, and Strathairn are along to add some class.

The movie has a lot of good action and has some extended scenes that really bring the player's paranoia to the viewer, but this isn't really the equal of the first two movies - in part because it's almost totally action-driven, with character development kept to an absolute minimum and used almost exclusively to either move the action forward or point out how terrible a character is.

2007, dir. Paul Greengrass. With Matt Damon, David Strathairn, Joan Allen, Julia Stiles, Scott Glenn, Albert Finney, Joey Ansah.

The Bourne Legacy

One critic complained that this is a Bourne movie ... without Bourne. So what exactly do you have?

Starts with a tribute to the first movie, a shot of a person floating motionless in the water. Jeremy Renner plays Aaron Cross (the floater), a member of "Operation Outcome." (And I thought the already revealed Operations Treadstone and Blackbriar were quite sufficient.) Because of the public revelation of these programs at the end of the last Bourne movie, Operation Outcome is shut down by killing off the operatives - but guess what, Cross survives and rescues Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) who was part of the science crew on the project, and thus also under threat of termination. They are hunted by another secret organization, even more secreter than the one that was after Bourne (oh geez). And let's not forget the Larx supersoldier program that pops up later in the movie.

This movie feels quite different from the previous movies in some respects - more about the people, more talking. And really, it's better at that than at the chase scenes, and it would be nice to see this Bourne-alike think his way out of stuff rather than muscle his way out, but we aren't so fortunate.

Overall not too bad, but doesn't seem likely to stop the Bourne series slide into mediocrity. If it wasn't so obvious to compare it to the first two Bourne movies (this is better than the third), this would stand alone as quite a decent action movie. Renner has a hell of a screen presence, and Weisz puts in a good performance.

2012, dir. Tony Gilroy. With Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Oscar Isaac, Željko Ivanek, Stacy Keach, Louis Ozawa Changchien.

The Boxtrolls

The movie is set in something vaguely resembling the British Victorian era, uses stop-motion animation just like "ParaNorman" (with which it shares the production company Laika), and is about a young boy trying to save his friends from persecution and death.

Eggs (named because of the box he wears, and voiced by Isaac Hempstead-Wright - Bran Stark of "Game of Thrones" fame) is a boy raised from a baby by the underground dwelling boxtrolls, who come up into the town above at night to scavenge mechanical parts for their inventions. Archibald Snatcher (Ben Kingsley), an unpleasant man who wants to better his social standing, convinces the town that the boxtrolls steal and eat babies, and sets out to round up and kill all of them with a promise of social advancement from the mayor. The boxtrolls don't fight back because they're just goofy and sweet, so the task of defending them falls to Eggs - who has no familiarity with human society. Fortunately, he falls in with the mayor's daughter (Elle Fanning). Laika has laid out a lot of jokes for adults, but you'll have to pay serious attention as a lot of them flash by as names on businesses and boxes ... and be prepared for an endless string of cheese jokes, many of which the kids won't get (although there's plenty for them here).

I wasn't too keen on the style of animation. Even the cutest characters had a slight touch of the grotesque in them - I suppose that was true in "ParaNorman" as well, but I thought it worked better in that one, with it being about zombies and raising the dead and all. Plenty cute and reasonably funny, it's not a bad film, but I don't think I'll be watching it again - unlike "ParaNorman," which is a story of surprising depth (and with better fitted animation) that I've watched several times.

2014, dir. Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi. With Isaac Hempstead-Wright, Elle Fanning, Ben Kingsley, Toni Collette, Jared Harris, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade, Tracy Morgan.

The Boy and the Beast

At nine years old, Ren has run away from home after the sudden death of his single mother. While trying to live on the streets of Shibuya (Tokyo - Shibuya Crossing features heavily in the film), he's approached by a couple of "beasts" - intelligent humanoid animals who sometimes cross into the human world. The very grumpy Kumatetsu suggests, mostly as a joke, that perhaps this child could be his student? Ren follows them, and finds himself in the land of the Beasts (where humans are very rare indeed). He begins a very contentious student-teacher relationship with Kumatetsu, in which it's not always clear who is the teacher. And he meets many other people and beasts who guide him, trouble him, and help him.

The story has a lot to say about trying to be overly independent when growing up. And being true to yourself, and dealing with depression and anger, and treating people right, and ... It covers a lot of ground with astonishing grace. It's not only funny, but also deeply touching, and amazingly beautiful. I think this now ranks #4 on my list of best anime movies - it is beaten only by "Spirited Away," "Paprika," and "Ghost in the Shell," so it's in extraordinary company. A very fine movie indeed.

2015, dir. Mamoru Hosoda. With Shōta Sometani, Aoi Miyazaki, Kōji Yakusho, Suzu Hirose, Yo Oizumi, Lily Franky, Masahiko Tsugawa, Kazuhiro Yamaji, Mamoru Miyano, Haru Kuroki, Kappei Yamaguchi, Momoka Ono.

The Boys Are Back

Clive Owen plays Joe Warr, a sports writer struggling to connect with his young son after the cancer death of his wife. He does his best while enforcing almost no discipline - a thing that haunts him when his older son by another marriage comes to visit. It's very good for what it is, with an excellent performance by Owen - but you'd better want to watch an Australian family drama.

2009, dir. Scott Hicks. With Clive Owen, Nicholas McAnulty, George MacKay, Laura Fraser, Emma Lung.

The Brand New Testament

God, it turns out, is a grumpy old bastard who lives in Brussels. His famous son ran away from home many years ago and got himself killed. God spends his time making life more miserable for his creations. Now his ten year old daughter hates him, and as her departing act of revenge, she posts everyone's death dates to their phones. Then she sets out to find her own six apostles.

I found the movie highly reminiscent of "Amelie." It definitely shares certain elements - the childlike world-view in the face of very adult subjects (religion, sex, death), people talking to the camera as their own life plays out behind them, and of course the charming surreality. Weird, thought-provoking, and very funny, I really enjoyed it.

2015, dir. Jaco Van Dormael. With Benoît Poelvoorde, Catherine Deneuve, François Damiens, Yolande Moreau, Pili Groyne, Laura Verlinden, Serge Larivière, David Murgia.

Brave

Merida is the first daughter of a Scottish Clan, perhaps in medieval times, in this animated movie by Pixar. She's extremely good at archery, and when her parents (mostly her mother) try to wed her to the son of another clan leader (to be chosen by competition), she runs off and does something foolish involving a witch (and bears).

Pixar has always had a side-line in moral lessons, but they've never before let it get in the way of telling the story (okay, "Cars ..."). This time, the moral lesson is front and centre - and in case you missed it, it's then applied with a sledgehammer. Also front and centre is a Disney cutsey-ness (the bear learning to let go and be a bear, a very long and tiresome scene) that's atypical of previous Pixar movies. The common assessment is "this isn't as bad as 'Cars 2.'" That's true, but this is also nowhere near as good as any of the other Pixar pictures. Merida's hair is almost worth the price of admission (watch the trailer if you don't know what I'm talking about), but an hour and a half of hair isn't exactly a movie.

Much better you should go (re-)watch one of Pixar's earlier movies. And pray they get back to that mindset.

Re-watching it didn't help - a couple moments of humour stuck in a brutally heavy-handed FAMILY VALUES film. I cried for the death of Pixar.

2012, dir. Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman. With Kelly Macdonald, Emma Thompson, Billy Connolly, Julie Walters, Kevin McKidd, Craig Ferguson, Robbie Coltrane, John Ratzenberger.

Braven

The premise is simple: drugs are stashed at an innocent man's cabin, innocent man and his family fight the bad guys to not be killed. I was sold on the concept when I found out that the "innocent man" in the equation was Jason Momoa, and he was throwing axes to save his family. I mean, what more could you want?

Momoa plays Joe Braven, a logging company supervisor. The first twenty minutes are spent filling us in the fact that he's a good boss and a good father, husband, and son. Although the latter is a problem, as his father (Stephen Lang) is having significant memory issues after head trauma, and his behaviour sometimes cause problems with the local police.

And here, because I'd seen the trailers and I knew that there was going to be that fight at the cabin, I thought "he's going to die fighting to saving his granddaughter." This allows him a noble death while also freeing Joe from having to put his father in a care home (something neither of them was willing to face). I was close enough on that guess to be thoroughly annoyed: this falls under "if I can guess your plot structure, you're doing it wrong," so major points off for that.

Joe and his wife are both strong and independent and fight very hard for their family. Joe is amazingly inventive in his methods of fighting back, somewhat reminiscent of MacGyver (you can decide if that's good or bad). My final assessment was that it was a decent, if somewhat rote, thriller.

I don't think a location was ever named, but it's implied it's the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. in late fall (after a snow storm). Apparently they filmed much of it in Newfoundland! Both have great scenery.

2017, dir. Lin Oeding. With Jason Momoa, Garret Dillahunt, Jill Wagner, Stephen Lang, Zahn McClarnon, Brendan Fletcher, Sasha Rossof, Teach Grant, Sala Baker, Fraiser Aitcheson, Steve O'Connell, Tye Alexander.

Brazil

It would be simple to say this is 1984 meets Monty Python, and that's certainly true on the surface. But there's a bit more to it. Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) lives in a dystopian world full of broken duct work and a bureaucracy that combines the worst aspects of the current (2008) U.S. government and that of the former U.S.S.R. He works for the government and has, shall we say, a very active fantasy life. It's extremely surreal, occasionally very funny, brutally depressing, and absolutely brilliant.

1985, dir. Terry Gilliam. With Jonathan Pryce, Kim Greist, Robert De Niro, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Bob Hoskins, Michael Palin, Ian Richardson, Peter Vaughan, Jim Broadbent.

Bread and Tulips ("Pane e Tulipani")

A woman with a husband and family is accidentally left behind at a rest stop on the highway when her family is on vacation. While waiting for them, she abruptly decides to hitch a ride, ending up in Venice where she stays rather longer than she had planned. Fitting the plan of comedies everywhere, she encounters and becomes involved in the lives of a bunch of local eccentrics. It's charming and somewhat funny.

2000, dir. Silvio Soldini. With Licia Maglietta, Bruno Ganz.

The Break-Up

I'm not sure why I dragged myself to or through this one. Jennifer Aniston? Of the "Friends," she's the only one with any acting talent - but it's not really that much. And here she doesn't particularly stretch herself playing opposite Vince Vaughn, who has only the one tired old routine. Not funny, not romantic, and not even interesting. You know you're in for trouble when everyone else is a walking plot device.

2006, dir. Peyton Reed. With Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Aniston, Joey Lauren Adams, Cole Hauser, Jon Favreau, Vincent D'Onofrio.

Breakfast at Tiffany's

Watching this was an interesting exercise. Audrey Hepburn plays Holly Golightly (to borrow a phrase from "EdTV"): "she's damaged goods, Bro!" To believe a romantic comedy, you have to be convinced that the leads would appeal to each other and I definitely wasn't convinced that the relatively level-headed Paul Varjak (George Peppard) would fall for this utter wack-job (Hepburn).

Mickey Rooney played "Mr. Funyoshi," the stereotyped Asian landlord: an incredibly obnoxious and unfunny role usually reserved for the deservedly maligned Jerry Lewis.

1961. dir. Blake Edwards. With Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Mickey Rooney.

The Breakfast Club

One of John Hughes' most clichéd - and best - efforts. Hughes has always been heavy-handed, and so his movies are riddled with clichés and stereotypes. But he was successful because from this he usually manages to pull some achingly accurate moments of truth. This movie swings even further in both directions than most of his productions.

Saturday morning finds five students in high school detention. As is admitted in the movie, they represent stereotypes: a brain (Anthony Michael Hall), an athlete (Emilio Estevez), a basket case (Ally Sheedy), a princess (Molly Ringwald), and a criminal (Judd Nelson), attended by a contemptible teacher (Paul Gleason). After some initial stereotypical interactions, they start to talk and eventually there are full confessions and an understanding is reached. And yes, it still sounds clichéd, but it's funny and offers insights into both the people and the stereotypes. Nelson is particularly good, managing to make Bender ("the criminal") both reprehensible and sympathetic - but all the actors do well.

I really wonder what people who didn't go to high school in the 80s would see in this - probably nothing at all.

1985, dir. John Hughes. With Anthony Michael Hall, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Paul Gleason, John Kapelos.

Breaking Away

Strange to see this again, 27 years after seeing it in the theatres ... Dennis Quaid looks so young, and Daniel Stern is pretty funny in a minor role, not yet having fallen into his later stereotype(s). But the main story of this group of four recent high school graduates focuses on Christopher, a talented cyclist who should (perhaps) be in college. Yes, another coming-of-age tale ... done with a little more wit, intelligence and compassion than usual. Pretty good.

1979, dir. Peter Yates. With Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern, Jackie Earle Haley, Robyn Douglass, Barbara Barrie, Paul Dooley.

Breathless (orig. "À bout de souffle")

The movie that probably single-handedly started the French New Wave. Jean-Paul Belmondo's character steals a car, and ends up killing a police man. He spends most of his time on the run in Paris flirting with Jean Seberg. The shooting and editing are incredibly choppy - sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. If that's the charm of the movie, I failed to see it.

1960, dir. Jean-Luc Godard. With Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg.

The Breed

Low budget science fiction story about vampires living among us openly. Cop buddy movie with one of the partners being a vampire (Adrian Paul) and the other human. I enjoyed it despite it being fairly cheesy.

2001, dir. Michael Oblowitz. With Adrian Paul, Bokeem Woodbine, Ling Bai.

Brick

I was interested in this because of what director Rian Johnson did after: "The Brothers Bloom" (which I think was a failure, but nevertheless a very interesting one), and "Looper" (which I haven't seen yet, but which has received almost universal acclaim).

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Brendan Frye, and the movie opens with him kneeling beside the dead body of a young woman. We flash back and find that Brendan is a high school student adrift after his girlfriend dumped him a couple months previously. He receives a desperate and jumbled call from his ex-, which leads him on a wild chase to save her - and when he's unable to do that, to find out who killed her and who put her in front of the killer.

Essentially film noir except that it's set in a modern day high school, the movie is quite complex and uses highly stylized language. Not current or old slang - just a language of its own. This might have worked better if the sets were more stylized, but they feel like Los Angeles with just a touch of colourization and not much more so I found that the language took me right out of the movie. I liked the idea, I liked that I had to pay attention, and Gordon-Levitt is quite good, but the script kept tossing me back out of my attempted suspension of disbelief.

2006, dir. Rian Johnson. With Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Lukas Haas, Noah Fleiss, Matt O'Leary, Emilie de Ravin, Nora Zehetner, Brian J. White, Noah Segan, Richard Roundtree.

Bride and Prejudice

I was a big fan of Chadha's previous film "Bend it Like Beckham," so I wanted to see her Bollywood/British take on Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice." Since I've seen four or five versions of "Pride and Prejudice" and read the book (twice?), I'm not even going to try to look at this separately.

Aishwarya Rai plays Lalita Bakshi, the equivalent of Elizabeth Bennet. Namrata Shirodkar is her sister Jaya (Jane), Martin Henderson is William (Darcy), Naveen Andrews is Mr. Balraj (Bingley), and Daniel Gillies is Wickham. The number of sisters in the Bakshi/Bennet family has been reduced from five to four, but we still have Lalita's youngest sister Lakhi/Lydia (Peeya Rai Chowdhary) to run off with Wickham. The story is set in modern day Amritsar, London, and Los Angeles.

I think my favourite character has always been the father (Anupam Kher) - he's very smart and funny, and just doesn't get enough airtime. But that's not really what the movie is about, just a personal thing. The movie is funny, and while I have to agree with the critics that the musical numbers aren't quite up to Bollywood standards (not as well rehearsed/co-ordinated), they're still quite enjoyable. Overall, a refreshing take on Austen's much-played story.

2004, dir. Gurinder Chadha. With Aishwarya Rai, Martin Henderson, Naveen Andrews, Namrata Shirodkar, Anupam Kher, Daniel Gillies, Nadira Babbar, Indira Varma, Sonali Kulkarni, Nitin Ganatra, Peeya Rai Chowdhary, Alexis Bledel.

Brideshead Revisited (2008)

A whole bunch of miserable people (Catholic and atheist alike) wallowing about in their badly written guilt. What, precisely, was the point?

Charles Ryder (Matthew Goode) plays a young man befriended by the alcoholic and probably homosexual Sebastian Flyte (Ben Whishaw). Ryder falls in love with the Flyte family home of Brideshead, and eventually also falls for Sebastian's sister Julia (Hayley Atwell). Emma Thompson plays the extremely religious family matriarch, Lady Marchmain - who initially hopes Charles will be a good influence on Sebastian, despite being a proclaimed atheist. But she later warns him off Julia, who must marry a Catholic. It all ends badly, and without a rewarding moment anywhere.

2008, dir. Julian Jarrold. With Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw, Hayley Atwell, Emma Thompson, Michael Gambon.

The Bridge on the River Kwai

This won seven Academy Awards in 1957, but didn't particularly enchant me in 2004. It's good but not stunning. Being directed by David Lean, it's 2h40m - fairly restrained for him. Alec Guinness plays a British officer leading prisoners of war under the Japanese in Ceylon. William Holden is an American unimpressed by Baldwin's determination to live honourably at all costs.

1957, dir. David Lean. With Alec Guinness, William Holden.

The Bridges of Madison County

We start with two adult children meeting a lawyer about their mother's will, then jump back to see (through the children reading journals) the most important time of their mother's life. Meryl Streep plays Francesca, a housewife in Iowa who meets a travelling National Geographic photographer (Clint Eastwood, also the director) while her husband is away. She shows him around the area, and they fall for each other.

I found it very drawn out. This was intentional, but to me it was kind of tedious. To my surprise, I really liked the ending with the children. But overall, I wasn't too impressed.

1995, dir. Clint Eastwood. With Meryl Streep, Clint Eastwood, Victor Slezak, Annie Corley.

A Brief History of Time

This documentary film opens on a woman talking about someone: happily, most of us will realize that the person being talked about is Stephen Hawking. After all, the movie is titled after his most famous book. But director Errol Morris (most famous for "The Thin Blue Line") isn't going to tell you who anybody is: people talk, and you guess who they are. The effects are cheap crap and I rather wished they'd passed on them and just stuck with the people talking, but the effects aren't the point of the movie nor are they a huge distraction.

The people and stories chosen paint a fascinating picture of a brilliant but unfocused young man (something Hawking himself admits to) whose ideas and interests come sharply into focus because of his disease. Another piece of that puzzle was added by a colleague (?) who talked about how having to work almost entirely inside his own head (because reading and writing are so problematic for him) meant that Hawking had to develop a unique toolset - and when you have a toolset that no one else in the world has, you make unique discoveries.

A fascinating portrait of possibly the greatest genius of our age - worth a watch if you have the slightest interest in Stephen Hawking. Also a great companion piece to the wonderful "The Theory of Everything," a fictionalized version of his life.

1992, dir. Errol Morris. With Stephen Hawking, Jane Hawking, Isobel Hawking, Janet Humphrey, Mary Hawking, Basil King.

Bright

Urban fantasy has come into its own as a written form in the last twenty years, but it's only just beginning to crack the movie market. Wikipedia defines it thus:

Urban fantasy is a subgenre of fantasy in which the narrative has an urban setting. Works of urban fantasy are set primarily in the real world and contain aspects of fantasy, such as the discovery of earthbound mythological creatures, coexistence or conflict between humans and paranormal beings, and other changes to city life. A contemporary setting is not strictly necessary for a work of urban fantasy ...

In the case of Netflix's "Bright" we have a modern day L.A. where there are Orcs and Elves (and a lot of other fantasy creatures, but those are the ones that matter) - and they've been around as long as humans have. (And yet L.A. developed into almost exactly the same city as it is in our world ... I find that a bit improbable.) The credits make it clear that there's a lot of tension between these three dominant races. Will Smith is Daryl Ward, an LAPD officer who's been burdened with the city's first Orc police officer (Nick Jakoby played by Joel Edgerton) as a partner. Orcs are despised by most humans, and Ward's fellow officers seem to particularly hate Jakoby. These reluctant partners go out on patrol and become entangled in a 2000 year old prophecy involving a wand ("this is like a nuclear weapon that grants wishes"), a young female Elf thief, and another particularly malicious Elf who owns the stolen wand (Noomi Rapace - a talented actress completely wasted on a one-note performance).

A "Bright" is a person (of whatever race) who can handle a magic wand. Most Brights are elves, but about one in a million humans are Brights. The problem is - to find out, you have to grab the wand. And if you're not a Bright, you'll quite literally explode.

The movie is set almost entirely in abandoned industrial buildings, and at night - they're not trying to make it pretty. The effects and make-up are very good. It's violent, and not exactly deep: it's essentially a buddy cop movie about a bad night that involves magic, gangs, and typical buddy cop movie bonding. The only thing that sets this apart is that it involves magic and multi-species racism. I think they were trying to make some sort of statement about racism, but it kind of got lost in the haze. Personally, I think the world needs more urban fantasy movies and I enjoyed it for that alone, but this is no masterpiece.

As an aside, the more I think about it the less correct my statement about a dearth of Urban Fantasy movies seems. One particularly obvious entry is the cheesy/wonderful "Highlander," but there are many others like "Underworld" and "The Sorcerer's Apprentice." Hell, even the TV show "Bewitched" probably qualifies as Urban Fantasy ...

2017, dir. David Ayer. With Will Smith, Joel Edgerton, Noomi Rapace, Lucy Fry, Édgar Ramírez, Ike Barinholtz, Happy Anderson, Dawn Olivieri.

Bright: Samurai Soul

This is a 2021 Netflix Japanese Anime movie extending the world of "Bright." Maybe it was big in Japan ... I watched this because, as damaged and shitty as "Bright" was, it had some interesting ideas. I'm guessing this was made in Japan because the movie was more popular there?

This one is a little bit too much to formula - an Orc assassin, a human samurai, and a young elf girl walk into a bar ... What I mean is, just like the last one: orc, human, elf, complete with matching genders. What this one has is gorgeous artwork. Simplified and computer-generated, but beautiful throughout. The story is set during the Meiji restoration, but once again it's about a wand and the Inferni and the Shield of Light fighting it out. And this is another cheesy story. I kind of like the idea of the world - the races, the magic - but it seems like no one has a good story to put in it.

2021, dir. Kyōhei Ishiguro. With Simu Liu, Fred Mancuso, Yuzu Harada, Matt Yang King, Victoria Grace.

A Brilliant Young Mind

Butterfield plays Nathan Ellis, a young teen who's exceptionally good at math. His supportive and understanding father died when he was nine. His mother (Hawkins) is also very supportive, but doesn't understand him quite as well as his dad did. They find a tutor for him in the depressive and slightly foul-mouthed Martin (Spall) who is a former Math Olympiad competitor. Nathan is also recruited to the Math Olympiad, and is sent to training in Taiwan - which pushes him way out of his comfort zone.

Butterfield and Hawkins are both good, but Spall steals every scene he's in and Marsan is also more memorable (as the obnoxious British team coach) than the two leads. Considerably better than your average uplifting-story-of-the-week, but - despite being "based on a true story" or "inspired by a true story" or whatever it is - I enjoyed it but the movie doesn't manage to achieve greatness.

2014, dir. Morgan Matthews. With Asa Butterfield, Rafe Spall, Sally Hawkins, Eddie Marsan, Jo Yang, Martin McCann.

Broadchurch, Series 1

"Broadchurch" opens with the death of an 11 year old boy. Before his body is discovered, Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller (Colman) returns to work to find that the job as Detective Inspector she was assured she would have has gone instead to Alec Hardy (Tennant) - a investigator notorious for the recent failed Sandbrook murder investigation. Now they have a murder investigation - and she's reporting to him. Broadchurch is a small and tightly knit coastal town of 15,000 people in the UK.

I watched the first three episodes (of eight in the first season), and came up with a term for it - "grief porn." It's well written and very well acted, so we get to see this family (and community) suffering - in their living room, in their bedroom, even in their bathroom. As they sob, the camera lingers, comes closer, to ensure you can see the tears rolling down and that you don't miss a moment of anger, frustration, or hurt. Like watching a car wreck, it was hard to look away. But after three episodes I went online to find out who the killer was, because I wasn't up to five more episodes of the soap opera of intimate suffering. Well done, but definitely not my thing.

2013. With David Tennant, Olivia Colman, Jodie Whittaker, Andrew Buchan.

Brokeback Mountain

A good movie that I didn't like, despite having Ang Lee at the helm. Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger were both excellent.

2005. dir. Ang Lee. With Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger, Randy Quaid, Anne Hathaway.

Brokedown Palace

Two friends fresh out of high school decide to go on a big adventure together. They end up in Thailand, and an encounter with a friendly Australian leads them on a weekend trip to Hong Kong. They're arrested and thrown in jail when drugs are found in one of their backpacks. Most of the movie is about their time in a Thai jail and their attempts to get out. Not a happy movie, and not particularly good.

1999, dir. Jonathan Kaplan. With Claire Danes, Kate Beckinsale, Lou Diamond Phillips, Jacqueline Kim, Bill Pullman.

Broken Arrow

The premise is fairly simple: two pilots (played by John Travolta and Christian Slater) of the "B-3 Stealth Bomber" (a fictional iteration on the B-2) run a top secret exercise with a pair of live nuclear bombs ... only one of the pilots has decided he needs a big pay off and sabotages the mission so that he can steal and sell the bombs. The rest of the movie consists of the second pilot and a Utah park ranger (Samantha Mathis) tangling with the other pilot and his crew, trying to stop the sale and/or detonation. "Broken arrow" is a military term indicating a lost nuclear weapon.

John Woo is best known for his gun battles and explosions. And I don't know what was up with Mathis: her acting is off-the-charts awful in this one. Not that it's a great script or anything, but Travolta and Slater have a lot of fun with it. The action is fairly good - over-the-top Woo, but actually slightly more believable than usual. Classic quotes include "I don't know what's scarier, losing nuclear weapons, or that it happens so often there's actually a term for it," and "would you mind not shooting at the thermonuclear weapons?"

1996, dir. John Woo. With Christian Slater, John Travolta, Samantha Mathis, Delroy Lindo, Frank Whaley.

Broken Flowers

It's the journey itself that matters, not the destination, right? Don't expect any answers from this Jim Jarmusch film - but it's an interesting trip, I guess. Bill Murray plays an ageing Don Juan who receives a letter from a woman saying that she had a son, his son, that he didn't know about, 20 years before. Rather involuntarily, he sets off in search of the woman. The word "sparse" comes to mind.

2005, dir. Jim Jarmusch. With Bill Murray, Jeffrey Wright, Julie Delpy, Sharon Stone, Chloë Sevigny, Jessica Lange.

Bronco Billy

Clint Eastwood directed 1980's "Bronco Billy," in which he also played the title character. Bronco Billy is a sharp-shooting cowboy, the leader of an Old West show that goes from town to town putting on a big top show. They're not doing terribly well financially and it doesn't sound like they ever have. Billy's assistants keep quitting (he shoots at them as part of the act) until - rather against her will - they're joined by a snotty heiress (Sandra Locke - Clint's significant other at the time).

The movie is mostly about Bronco Billy - as one might guess from the title. Initially, he seems like just an obnoxious narrow-minded cowboy wannabe with a hell of a temper. But through various badly acted scenes (Eastwood's manly squinting to show his pain has rarely seemed more ill used) we learn that he's a good-hearted man who'll do almost anything for the people he cares about. Locke's acting is only slightly better as her character has her own transformation through the course of the movie. The clichés, styles, and subtle (and not-so-subtle) sexism of the Seventies are very much on display.

A weird slice of Americana with an unsubtle "be what you want to be" message. Despite its flaws I found it kind of fascinating because of the lifestyle and window in time it represented.

1980, dir. Clint Eastwood. With Clint Eastwood, Sandra Locke, Scatman Crothers, Geoffrey Lewis, Bill McKinney, Sam Bottoms, Dan Vadis, Sierra Pecheur.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Season 1

Humour, as I often tell my friends, is a very personal thing. So in recommending a sitcom - who knows how well it will work for anyone else?

Andy Samberg stars as Jake Peralta, a detective at the 99th precinct in New York. The first episode introduces their new captain, Raymond Holt (Andre Braugher). As Sergeant Terry Jeffords (Terry Crews) explains to Holt in the first episode, Peralta is their best detective, "but the one thing he hasn't figured out is how to grow up." Samberg is hilarious, but this is an ensemble cast - and everyone else is very good too.

2013. With Andy Samberg, Melissa Fumero, Stephanie Beatriz, Terry Crews, Joe Lo Truglio, Chelsea Peretti, Andre Braugher, Dirk Blocker, Joel McKinnon Miller.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Season 2

The series slid just a bit further into exaggeration and absurdity - just enough to really put me off, and I stopped watching for a couple months. The scene that did it was when they put a New York City police captain into a chicken costume. But ... it was still funny (if not as good as the first season) so I eventually continued watching.

2014. With Andy Samberg, Melissa Fumero, Stephanie Beatriz, Terry Crews, Joe Lo Truglio, Chelsea Peretti, Andre Braugher, Dirk Blocker, Joel McKinnon Miller.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Season 3

I watched this season in bits and pieces over months, half a year ago. I don't remember anything about it: I thought the first season was really good, but this one clearly wasn't all that funny ...

2015. With Andy Samberg, Melissa Fumero, Stephanie Beatriz, Terry Crews, Joe Lo Truglio, Chelsea Peretti, Andre Braugher, Dirk Blocker, Joel McKinnon Miller.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Season 4

Another unimpressive and only mildly amusing season. I'm really tired of Joe Lo Truglio's turn as Charles Boyle, and sick to death of Chelsea Peretti as their receptionist Gina Linetti. That shtick was funny in the first season, but as time has passed it's become more exaggerated and not funny at all. And in another failure of faith in their own viewers (possibly justified given my apathy toward the show - they did the same thing at the end of season 2), the writers put a couple of main characters in jail at the end of the season so you'd have a reason to come back. That's a practise I really despise. And yet I'm still watching: I guess it's the pandemic, anything that will make me laugh at all will do ...

2016. With Andy Samberg, Melissa Fumero, Stephanie Beatriz, Terry Crews, Joe Lo Truglio, Chelsea Peretti, Andre Braugher, Dirk Blocker, Joel McKinnon Miller.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Season 5

Another unimpressive season, each one a little worse than the last. If not for the pandemic, I wouldn't be watching these. The first season was so good ...

2016. With Andy Samberg, Melissa Fumero, Stephanie Beatriz, Terry Crews, Joe Lo Truglio, Chelsea Peretti, Andre Braugher, Dirk Blocker, Joel McKinnon Miller.

The Brothers Bloom

Steven (Mark Ruffalo) and Bloom (Adrian Brody) are brothers who have been con artists from roughly the age of 10. It's made clear that Bloom is the actor, always playing roles written by his older brother who is very clearly the leader. Bloom has tried to leave a number of times, but doesn't know what the hell to do with himself when he's away from Steven. Now Steven has assured him "one last con, then we're done." The mark is Penelope (Rachel Weisz), a lonely, charming, eccentric, and staggeringly rich young woman.

The characters and presentation are eccentric. All the leads act well, and I found the movie hysterically funny. Rinko Kikuchi as "Bang Bang," their almost entirely silent explosives expert, brings some of the biggest laughs. Unfortunately, as it builds toward its climax, it becomes fairly clear that it has to end in tragedy, which doesn't sit well at the end of a comedy ... See it for the actors and the humour, but brace yourself for an off ending.

2008, dir. Rian Johnson. With Adrien Brody, Rachel Weisz, Mark Ruffalo, Rinko Kikuchi, Robbie Coltrane, Maximilian Schell.

The Brothers Grimm

Heath Ledger and Matt Damon play the brothers, who make their money scamming people into believing their area is haunted and then they come in and remove the problem - for a fee. They are shortly recruited, involuntarily, to take care of an actual enchanted forest. It's not director Terry Gilliam at his best - typical of Gilliam, he's requested massively over-the-top performances (and a bunch of bad accents), and the ending in particular is irritating, but there's still a lot to enjoy in the movie. It's a great vision of where the Grimm brothers might have started out.

2005, dir. Terry Gilliam. With Matt Damon, Heath Ledger, Peter Stormare, Jonathon Pryce, Lena Headey, Monica Bellucci.

Bruce Almighty

Bruce (Jim Carrey) complains at God. God (Morgan Freeman) lets Bruce take over his job temporarily. If you like Carrey, you'll probably like this movie. To me, the only thing that made it worth watching was Freeman, who's a whole lot more charming and has a lot more presence than Carrey. Jennifer Aniston as Bruce's girlfriend was wasted - she's not a great actress, but she's not bad and could have helped.

2003. With Jim Carrey, Morgan Freeman, Jennifer Aniston.

Bubba Ho-Tep

I was interested to find out only a few days before I watched this film that its director is somewhat notorious for directing bizarre and rather bad (but often cult-following-inducing - notably "Phantasm") horror movies. This one opens with a voice-over by our lead (Bruce Campbell) which includes reference to the oozing pustule on his pecker. You can gauge the level of both the dialogue and the general campiness right there. Campbell's character claims he's Elvis, although he arrived in the rest home he lives in under the name of Sebastian Haff, an Elvis impersonator. Since he broke his hip falling off stage, he needs a walker to get around. He eventually teams up with a black man who claims he's John F. Kennedy (Ossie Davis) to stop a soul-sucking Egyptian mummy (it sucks the souls of the elderly out through their assholes).

Some critics have viewed this as being more about getting old than a horror-comedy, and there's something to that. However you look at it, there's not really a lot of action (and what there is is low speed, as our "heroes" aren't particularly mobile). It's mostly voice-over and dialogue, nearly all weird. The movie has become something of a cult classic, but while I found it kind of perversely fascinating, I'm pretty sure I won't be watching it again.

2002, dir. Don Coscarelli. With Bruce Campbell, Ossie Davis, Ella Joyce, Heidi Marnhout, Bob Ivy, Larry Pennell, Reggie Bannister, Daniel Roebuck.

The Bucket List

Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson play two terminal cancer patients who set out to check off items on "the Bucket List," things they want to do before they "kick the bucket." Of course Freeman is an unassuming mechanic, and Nicholson is, well, Nicholson (asshole billionaire without friends in this case) so we're really mixing it up with the elements of a classic buddy movie ... (that's sarcasm). Off they go to the Great Wall, the Pyramids, etc. But of course we bond and get emotional over the more human elements on the list. Two of the better actors in the world today could only bring a modicum of life to this doddering cliché. Perhaps director Rob Reiner is feeling his age?

2007, dir. Rob Reiner. With Morgan Freeman, Jack Nicholson, Sean Hayes, Rob Morrow.

Buena Vista Social Club

A charming but not particularly exciting documentary about a group of mostly forgotten Cuban musicians brought together by Ry Cooder to make a (highly successful) album and play a couple concerts.

1999, dir. Wim Wenders.

Buffalo Soldiers

A very cynical movie. What do soldiers do in time of peace? Especially if they're soldiers because the alternative was jail time? Joaquin Phoenix plays a Ray Elwood, in charge of supplies at a U.S. army base in West Germany just as the Berlin Wall is falling. He steals stuff and deals drugs. But things get ugly when he comes by a large supply of weaponry that he tries to sell, and a new Sergeant appears on base intent on making his life difficult.

2001, dir. Gregor Jordan. With Joaquin Phoenix, Ed Harris, Scott Glenn, Anna Paquin, Elizabeth McGovern, Michael Peña, Leon Robinson.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

The concept is a pretty good one: the horror movie cliché of the pretty blonde girl walking into an alley and being slaughtered is turned on its head: Buffy walks into an alley, the vampire(s) die. It has its moments, but the TV series it inspired was actually quite a bit better.

1992. dir. Fran Rubel Kuzui. With Kristy Swanson, Donald Sutherland, Luke Perry, Rutger Hauer, Paul Reubens.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 1 (TV)

Put in as a mid-season replacement, Buffy was probably a surprise to the networks. I suppose it should be classified as a "horror-comedy," but it's not actually very horrifying. It is pretty funny though. 12 episodes on four DVDs. The series picks up where the movie left off, with Buffy and her mother in the town of Sunnydale trying to start a new life. She ends up with a team of companions that help her fight evil from episode to episode. I've always been partial to Giles the Librarian (Anthony Head), even if it is his last name. The series is better than the movie, and Sarah Michelle Gellar is definitely a better Buffy.

1997. With Sarah Michelle Gellar, Alyson Hannigan, Anthony Head, Nicholas Brendon, David Boreanaz.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 2 (TV)

Darker and funnier than the first season. Season two weighs in at a more regular 22 episodes on six DVDs. While some of the necessities of TV plotting kick in (don't kill off those recurring characters, illogical things from people's pasts haunt them, good people/creatures become evil, evil becomes good, blah blah blah), this is really entertaining stuff.

1998. With Sarah Michelle Gellar, Alyson Hannigan, Anthony Head, Nicholas Brendon, David Boreanaz, James Marsters.

A Bug's Life

"A Bug's Life" is the second Pixar movie after their ground-breaking entry into the world of animation, "Toy Story." The movie focuses on Flik (voiced by Dave Foley), who's an ant and an inventor in an ant colony that doesn't appreciate innovation (or the chaos he occasionally causes). In an effort to limit the damage he causes the hive, the ruling ants send him away on a mission hoping he'll never return. And so he sets out to find warrior bugs to fight off the invading grasshoppers. What he finds instead are a bunch of circus bugs who he recruits, having mistaken them for fighters. He takes them back to his colony and comedy ensues.

It's an adventure story, it's colourful, it's fun, and it's funny. I would argue that it's actually one of Pixar's lesser properties, having little of the emotional heft of the "Toy Story" series or the underlying adult themes of "The Incredibles."

1998, dir. John Lasseter. With David Foley, Kevin Spacey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Hayden Panettiere, Phyllis Diller, Richard Kind, David Hyde Pierce, Joe Ranft, Denis Leary, Jonathan Harris, Madeline Kahn, Bonnie Hunt, Michael McShane, John Ratzenberger.

Bull Durham

A season in the life of the Durham Bulls, a minor league baseball team. Susan Sarandon is a dedicated groupie, who spends each year with one of the players, who she chooses at the start of the season. Her choice is between the unfocused hotshot new pitcher (Tim Robbins) or the veteran catcher (Kevin Costner) brought in to get Robbins on track. She chooses Robbins, but as the movie proceeds it becomes clear Costner is a much better choice.

About talent, dreams, and sex - not necessarily in that order. The critics loved this one, but I found it mildly amusing at best. It's raunchy as hell if you like that kind of thing.

1988, dir. Ron Shelton. With Susan Sarandon, Kevin Costner, Tim Robbins, Robert Wuhl, Trey Wilson, Max Patkin.

Bullet Train

Brad Pitt is "Ladybug" (all of our characters have names like this), an assassin who's been seeing a therapist as his poor luck has caused multiple unintentional deaths. As he's just returning to work, he's been given what he's told is a simple job to grab a briefcase and get off the bullet train at the next stop. Nothing goes as planned, with multiple assassins on the train all working at odds with each other.

As bizarre as this sounds, I'd recommend that if you're not a parent who already has a basic understanding of the main characters in Thomas the Tank Engine, you get yourself such an education before watching the movie. Although "Lemon" (one of our main characters, played by Brian Tyree Henry) does go on at considerable length in the movie describing their characteristics himself.

A couple of us watching the movie made a strong connection to the work of Guy Ritchie (exemplified by "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels") - the surrealistically comedic, clever and fast-paced dialogue, as well as the heavy involvement of luck in most outcomes. Unlike Ritchie though (I've never been much of a fan), I found this movie massively entertaining. Largely because the characters in this movie - despite being hitmen - are often fairly likeable. And the cast list is ... surreal. One warning: it's quite violent. If you don't like violent comedy, you should avoid this.

A second watch confirmed just how entertaining this is, putting it near the top of my list of favourite action-comedy movies.

2022, dir. David Leitch. With Brad Pitt, Joey King, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Andrew Koji, Hiroyuki Sanada, Michael Shannon, Benito A. Martínez Ocasio, Sandra Bullock, Zazie Beetz, Logan Lerman, Masi Oka, Karen Fukuhara, Channing Tatum, Ryan Reynolds.

Bulletproof Monk

Terrible, terrible movie. Such a waste of Chow Yun-fat. The idea that Seann William Scott has charisma is completely laughable - I think that's what they were going for, but the guy who played Stifler would have to be a damn fine actor to pull it off, and he isn't. Jaime King was terrible. Chow added a bit of charm and looked pretty good in this tale of an eternally youthful monk protecting a world-shaking Buddhist scroll, but the only redeeming feature I found (and it ain't much) is that huge chunks of the movie were shot in Toronto.

2003, dir. Paul Hunter. With Chow Yun-fat, Seann William Scott, Jaime King.

Bullitt

1968's "Bullitt" was selected in 2007 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." I've been intending to watch it for years partly because of that, but also because it has possibly the best known car chase ever put on film.

The movie is essentially a police procedural, which is of course centred around Lieutenant Frank Bullitt. Steve McQueen plays the part so cool he's only slightly better than dead. He's put in charge of a federal witness for an ambitious politician (Robert Vaughn), but everybody's got their own agenda. The witness himself isn't particularly interested in playing it safe, and since he's stolen from a large crime organisation, people want to kill him.

The whole movie proceeds at a remarkably sedate pace by modern standards - we get to listen to coroner's laundry lists of a corpse's injuries on not one but two separate occasions, even though the list of injuries and technical jargon don't advance the plot except to show you what Bullitt is doing right now. I don't have a particular problem with this (many movies these days are too fast-paced), but it was interesting to notice how differently pacing was handled fifty years ago.

Many things are just handed to us at the beginning of the movie with a big fat "this is how it is," and at the end of the movie multiple things are left unresolved. I don't think there was an intent to make a sequel. The main case is solved and closed (by Bullitt, of course), but the whole movie feels a bit like an episode of something bigger. And the car chase was good, but no longer (in 2018) looks as outstanding as it apparently did then.

1968, dir. Peter Yates. With Steve McQueen, Don Gordon, Robert Vaughn, Simon Oakland, Jacqueline Bisset, Felice Orlandi, Pat Renalla, Carl Reindel, Paul Genge, Bill Hickman, Robert Duvall, Norman Fell, Geong Stanford Brown.

Bulworth

Warren Beatty's magnum opus, stomping all over American politics. Very funny, kind of dark. Beatty plays a politician up for re-election who finds himself representing everything he hated in the political process. He gets a whole bunch of life insurance and then takes out a contract on his own life. Then he proceeds to crash and burn, and starts rapping at political gatherings.

It's bizarre, but hilarious. "All we need is a voluntary, free-spirited, open-ended program of procreative racial deconstruction. Everybody just gotta keep fuckin' everybody 'til they're all the same color."

1998, dir. Warren Beatty. With Warren Beatty, Halle Berry, Oliver Platt, Don Cheadle.

Bumblebee

"Bumblebee" is the sixth of the current series of live action Transformer movies. I was fortunate enough to see it in preview (thanks Christia!). This is the first of the series that wasn't directed by Michael Bay - and the switch to Travis Knight (previously of the excellent "ParaNorman" - Knight was a producer and the lead animator - and the even better "Kubo and the Two Strings" - Knight directed, both with Laika) is a welcome one. The first Bay Transformers movie has always been a guilty pleasure of mine - I've never described it as "good," but it was a lot of fun. The series went from that dubious start to bad, and then even worse. Nevertheless, the people at the multiplexes continued to pour in and keep Bay's loud and unpleasant series in business ...

The first movie was fairly simple - "a boy and his giant robot," with multiple humiliating comedic interludes and a huge fight scene with lot of explosions at the end. This one is "a girl and her giant robot," with multiple slightly less humiliating comedic interludes and a big fight scene at the end. This has a smaller scale and more personal feel than any of the previous movies, and better acting in the form of Hailee Steinfeld. The end result is a comprehensible plot that you may actually care about, and enough action to entertain without overwhelming.

There's not much more to say about the movie, except that I'm not really getting the often glowing reviews it's receiving: it seems to me that critics went expecting Bayhem and were so relieved when they got an actual story that they gushed. It's fun and it's not bad, but some of them seem to be mistaking this for a work of art.

2018, dir. Travis Knight. With Hailee Steinfeld, John Cena, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., John Ortiz, Pamela Adlon, Stephen Schneider, Jason Drucker, Len Cariou.

Bushwick

The movie starts with Lucy (Brittany Snow) and her boyfriend Jose (Arturo Castro) heading for the exit in a Brooklyn subway station, chatting about him meeting her family. But as they approach the exit, someone on fire staggers screaming down the stairs. At the exit, Jose is killed by an explosion. Lucy finds a semi-organized armed force crawling the neighbourhood, and is driven into an uneasy alliance with "Stupe" (Dave Bautista). The two spend the entire movie trying to get across the neighbourhood.

This is essentially a disaster movie: law and order are out the window, and our two heroes take up arms to survive. It's implied - eventually, about 40 minutes into the 90 minute movie - that this is a regional problem only, but it's certainly affecting a large chunk of New York. And the neighbourhood of Bushwick is what the movie looks at. (Although apparently its representation of Bushwick is inaccurate and has locals up in arms.) The movie implied a side-line in social commentary (when the origin of the attacking armed force is revealed), but then completely failed to address the subject.

Bautista puts in a good performance as a damaged but decent man struggling with his own demons. Snow, who's been an actress all her life, fails to keep up with the former wrestler. She's not bad, I just found it interesting that he was doing the better job. They're the only actors that matter on this one, their screen time dwarfs anyone else on this project. The filming is claustrophobic and tense, shooting in an almost found-footage style (happily not shaky-cam). The camera follows them very closely as they try to get one block without dying - as if you're there with them. This stylistic choice is very effective, but overall the movie feels kind of weak and pointless.

Being "pointless" in a social commentary movie about armed warfare? Practically de rigueur. In a disaster movie? Not unheard of. But in an action movie - which is what this most wanted to be? Uncommon and unwanted, and another reason for its failure. In action movies, we expect our heroes to with through, and strike a blow for good.

2017, dir. Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion. With Dave Bautista, Brittany Snow, Angelic Zambrana, Jeremie Harris, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Alex Breaux, Arturo Castro.

Bus Stop

A 1956 Marilyn Monroe movie, I thought this would be worth a look for that inclusion alone. I know almost nothing about her beyond the name and the myth.

The movie opens on Beauregard "Bo" Decker (Don Murray) showing off his cowboy skills - roping a calf with considerable speed. He's headed to Phoenix Arizona to compete in a rodeo. Unfortunately - both for him and for us - he's both stupid and socially incompetent. His friend Virgil (Arthur O'Connell) does his best to guide Bo, but Bo's pretty damn unbiddable. Especially after Virgil suggests Bo might want to meet a woman. Bo sees "Chérie" (Monroe) at a cafe, and decides she's the one - whether she wants to be or not. The movie was designed to put Monroe in a skimpy outfit for the entire running time. Chérie isn't exactly the brightest light, nor is she a moral high water mark for the neighbourhood. Bo ropes her (literally at one point) and gets her on the bus to Montana.

The acting is cheesy and overdone, although the script is written in caricatures so the fault isn't entirely with the actors. The whole thing is ham-fisted and cringe-inducing - particularly the punchline. Complete crap.

1956, dir. Marilyn Monroe, Don Murray, Arthur O'Connell, Betty Field.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Famous, but not my thing when I watched it in 2007. Fictionalizes the life of two of the U.S.'s best known Old West bank robbers. Robberies, shooting, machismo, and Bolivia.

1969, dir. George Roy Hill. With Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katharine Ross.

By the Grace of the Gods, Season 1

This TV series followed what's now a very common chain of events to be produced. It started as a light novel series, then became a Manga series, and is now serialized as an Anime TV series. The series is 12 episodes of about 22 minutes each.

Our main character is Ryoma Takebayashi (voiced by Emily Neves and Chris Rager in the English version). We learn in the first episode that he's 11 years old, has been living alone in the forest for three years taming slimes (and practising magic and some martial arts). He's shortly taken in by a duke's family. And we find out that he was originally a 37 year old Earthling who died of Karoshi (death-by-overwork ... a common enough Japanese malady) and was brought to the world of Seilfall by three gods who liked him - and wanted to borrow some of Earth's magic.

The series is unrelentingly sweet and upbeat. We never see bad people (the closest we ever come is a mention that someone's been embezzling), everyone is lovely. There are many dangerous creatures, but Ryoma is incredibly talented and can take care of pretty much anything. The series is full of life lessons about being nice to strangers, having faith in people, and treating your employees right.

It's a bit creepy that this 37-year-old-in-an-11-year-old body is clearly headed toward a romance with an actually-11-year-old girl (Eliaria Jamil, daughter of the duke's family). The gods explaining to him that he's going to experience "infantile regression" (that's how it was translated into English) - but as he's clearly maintained his old memories and lots of skills from his previous life, this isn't enough to make the implications un-creepy.

According to Wikipedia: "A light novel ... is a style of young adult novel primarily targeting high school and middle school students." I guess this series would make sense for people in that implicit age group - from 11-15? Although I think this would be too squeaky clean for the expectations of North American 14 and 15 year olds, who would probably want at least a little more darkness?

2020. With (English voices) Emily Neves, Chris Rager, Suzie Yeung, Anthony Bowling, Caitlin Glass, Kent Williams, Marissa Lenti, Ciarán Strange, R. Bruce Elliott, Monica Rial, Christopher Guerrero, Derick Snow.

Byzantium

Saoirse Ronan and Gemma Arterton play mother and daughter vampires Eleanor and Clara Webb, each in the neighbourhood of 200 years old. It's established early that most of the current vampire tropes don't apply: they're not super-fast or super-strong, sunlight has no effect on them ... but they do have to consume blood. Eleanor looks 16, and Clara treats her as a child while making money as a prostitute. She's never told Eleanor - who's tired of moving around - that they're being chased.

Some of the cinematography is truly gorgeous. The story is more about a dysfunctional family than vampirism, although arguably their family problems stem from 200 years of failing to communicate. I guess it made its point about moving on when it's (long past) time, and that pain is necessary ... I didn't think it was a particularly good film: too bad given the starring line-up and good performances.

The more I think about the film the more badly constructed it seems: it's implied that there are a number of other vampires, but we only ever meet three. It's stated that they're a society that enacts justice, but we never see anything of the sort. They chase Eleanor and Clara, but that's about their "code." And they attempt to recruit Jonny Lee Miller's Captain Ruthven character, who is one of the most morally reprehensible people in existence - they know it but still try to recruit him. And at the end of the movie there's a betrayal that's telegraphed by the physical set-up of the players, but the motivation of the character is unclear at best. The whole movie feels like this: a muddle of unclear characters, ideas, and motivations.

2012, dir. Neil Jordan. With Saoirse Ronan, Gemma Arterton, Sam Riley, Jonny Lee Miller, Caleb Landry Jones, Daniel Mays, Tom Hollander.


C

The Cabin in the Woods

Five young university students (following the tropes, we have the athlete, the promiscuous girl, the stoner, the scholar, and the virgin) take a camper to a cabin in the woods that's owned by the cousin of "the athlete" (Chris Hemsworth). As they travel to the cabin it becomes apparent that their trip is being monitored by an extremely large organization of some sort.

The dialogue is surprisingly good - but then it was written by Joss Whedon (and the director, Drew Goddard). And there's more at work than just a typical horror story: the technicians for the organization are carefully arranging each of the "kills" for a reason. Whedon has a great time turning the horror genre on its head. Reminded me considerably of "Tucker and Dale Versus Evil," another movie that's not precisely horror. This is even gorier.

2012, dir. Drew Goddard. With Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams, Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford.

Cadillac Records

A history lesson about Leonard Chess (Adrien Brody), Chess Records, and the rise of Rock and Roll. Chess opened a studio in Chicago, and the colour of your skin didn't matter so long as your records sold. He was also a bit of an equal opportunity exploiter, although he did try to take care of his artists. Fascinating stories of Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright), Little Walter (Columbus Short), Chuck Berry (Mos Def), and Etta James (Beyoncé Knowles). It's the kind of film you hope is true (as it claims to be). Well acted.

2008, dir. Darnell Martin. With Adrien Brody, Beyoncé Knowles, Jeffrey Wright, Gabrielle Union, Columbus Short, Mos Def, Cedric the Entertainer, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Eamonn Walker.

The Caine Mutiny

An ensemble movie, although Robert Francis is perhaps a bit more at the front than the rest of the cast. He plays a young navy officer assigned to a sloppy ship, initially enthusiastic when the ship is assigned a new captain. That new commander is Philip Francis Queeg, played by Humphrey Bogart. Queeg is detail-oriented, and somewhat worn down by command. Given the title of the movie I guess I'm not giving away much when I say that his ways eventually lead the crew to consider that he may be endangering their lives.

Bogart was fairly good, but I thought the really good performances were by Fred MacMurray, Van Johnson, and José Ferrer.

1954, dir. Edward Dmytryk. With Robert Francis, Humphrey Bogart, Van Johnson, Fred MacMurray, José Ferrer, May Wynn, Lee Marvin, Tom Tully.

Cairo Time

Patricia Clarkson plays Juliette Grant, a woman arriving in Cairo to visit her husband who works with the U.N. He's tied up in Gaza and sends his friend Tareq (Alexander Siddig) to pick her up at the airport. As her husband continues to stay away, she sees considerably more of Tareq and a certain amount of attraction grows.

I didn't much like Clarkson's character (we started off badly when she completely failed to prepare herself for Egypt: she clearly didn't bother to research the place she was visiting), and while I thought Siddig was excellent, there's not a lot of plot. It reminded me a lot of "Lost in Translation," but without the humour or the interest. I was good with watching Cairo and Egypt go by, but as a movie ... not really.

The DVD is from "Mongrel Media," and includes both an ad for Egypt tourism that I fast-forwarded through, and an ad for Mercedes Benz - which I could not fast-forward. The DVD also didn't have subtitles. I don't think Mongrel has ever had subs, which I don't like, but the addition of ads - especially ones that can't be skipped - is revolting.

2009, dir. Ruba Nadda. With Patricia Clarkson, Alexander Siddig, Elena Anaya, Amina Annabi, Tom McCamus.

Calendar Girls

Based on a true story, several middle-aged members of the Women's Institute in a small town in Britain decide that their yearly calendar should be more interesting than in the past: they pose (discretely) nude for it, to raise money for a local hospital. Helen Mirren leads a good cast. Funny and charming.

2003, dir. Nigel Cole. With Helen Mirren, Julie Walters, John Alderton, Linda Bassett, Annette Crosbie, Ciarán Hinds.

Caligula

Take the sex content of your average 70's porno movie, the violence of one of the recent Korean revenge flicks, add a bunch of very well known actors, and edit out any sense of plot continuity while letting the movie run to two and a half hours, and voilà, you have "Caligula." I only managed to watch the first hour, I took to skimming after that - seriously foul stuff.

1979, dir. Tinto Brass, Bob Guccione. With Malcolm McDowell, Teresa Ann Savoy, Guido Mannari, John Gielgud, Peter O'Toole, Giancarlo Badessi, Bruno Brive, Helen Mirren.

Calvary

Brendan Gleeson plays Father James, priest to the small town of Easkey in Ireland. The movie opens with Father James hearing the confession of a man who explains how he was horribly sexually abused by another priest from the age of seven ... and how he's going to kill Father James one week later, because killing a good priest will send a message.

The rest of the week is laid out as labelled days. We meet his daughter (Kelly Reilly), freshly home from London and a suicide attempt over her latest love affair. And we meet the people of the town as Father James ministers to them. And this is where the movie fell down for me: every town, every priest has some unpleasant or difficult people. I don't question that. But every single person in Easkey (with the exception of a French tourist, and James's daughter, neither of whom actually live there) is bitter, violent, or horrible - sometimes all three. Even as they acknowledge, rather excessively, that Father James is "a good priest" - I suppose to emphasize the writer's initial point about killing a good priest.

The movie is incredibly dark, depressing, and unpleasant. I guess the movie thinks that it offered some hope at the end, but I didn't see it that way. A grim and ugly movie about nasty people, with no real hope for improvement - so not my kind of movie.

2014, dir. John Michael McDonagh. With Brendan Gleeson, Kelly Reilly, Chris O'Dowd, Aidan Gillen, Dylan Moran, Isaach De Bankolé, Domhnall Gleeson, Marie-Josée Croze, M. Emmet Walsh.

The Cameraman

I found this movie by looking for Buster Keaton movies and then narrowing it down to the movies he made that actually get some critical respect. This is the first (but not the last) movie he did for MGM. MGM is notorious for taking all creative control from Keaton and essentially destroying his career over the following decade by putting him in a series of cookie-cutter comedies where he and others mugged their way through. But Wikipedia claimed that this movie was still pretty good.

Keaton plays a tintype photographer. After meeting a lovely woman who works at MGM's news division, he decides the way to win her heart is to become a newsreel cameraman. Various hi-jinks and misunderstandings ensue - including Keaton apparently killing an organ grinder's monkey and, having paid for the death, coming into possession of the merely stunned monkey who of course causes him further problems.

I didn't think that this lived up to Wikipedia's opinion of it - I got maybe one laugh out of the whole thing. It seemed like a series of unsuccessfully contrived situations for Keaton and others to mug, and even Keaton's talent for falling down doesn't really get much of an opportunity to shine. Not his best. If you don't know who he is, start with "Sherlock Jr."

1928, dir. Edward Sedgwick, Buster Keaton. With Buster Keaton, Marceline Day, Harold Goodwin, Sidney Bracey, Harry Gribbon.

A Canterbury Tale

Three strangers get off a train in the town of Chillingbourne. As they walk to the centre of town, someone dumps glue into the hair of the young woman and rushes off. And so we have our central mystery, and a charming movie that moves at a glacial pace. I found it interesting for its portrayal of World War II Britain (filmed during the war!), but the characters are appealing, and the dialogue is both intelligent and charming. The three each work toward their own goals, but also keep their eyes open and work to figure out who "The Glue Man" is, as he's done this multiple times in a rather small town. The big climax of the movie is in the nearby town of Canterbury and its cathedral. I think what astonished me most was a walk around Canterbury: dozens of holes in the ground where buildings used to be, each with large careful signs explaining where that business had relocated to. Life goes on even in the face of devastating bombing.

Those familiar with period films will be less surprised that this is well done if I name the directors: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

1944, dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. With Eric Portman, Sheila Sim, Dennis Price, Sgt. John Sweet.

The Cannonball Run

A bit of a strange beast, this is a huge cast screwball comedy, 40 years past the main era of screwball comedies.

The movie is based on the "Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash," an unofficial and probably illegal cross-country race run several times in the U.S. The movie opens by introducing us to our various eccentric characters, spending more than half an hour on that. We spend most of our time during the race with the ambulance driven by Burt Reynolds and Dom DeLuise, who use Jack Elam as a Doctor decoy and Farrah Fawcett as a patient. Other drivers include the team of Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., who are dressed as priests, Adrienne Barbeau and Tara Buckman driving a Lamborghini Countach and using their cleavage to get out of speeding tickets, Jamie Farr as a sheik driving a Rolls Royce, Roger Moore as, well, a parody of Roger Moore, and Jackie Chan and Michael Hui as Japanese (huh? Chan is from HK ...) Mitsubishi drivers.

An interesting side-note: Wikipedia claims that Chan has said that the bloopers shown during the closing credits are what caused him to start doing that in nearly all his movies.

1981, dir. Hal Needham. With Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Farrah Fawcett, Jack Elam, Adrienne Barbeau, Tara Buckman, Terry Bradshaw, Mel Tillis, Roger Moore, Jackie Chan, Michael Hui, Jamie Farr.

The Canterville Ghost

The movie opens in the seventeenth century with Charles Laughton as Sir Simon de Canterville. An act of cowardice sees him cursed to haunt the family castle until a relative performs an act of bravery. We move to 1943, when a group of American Rangers are housed at the castle, awaiting deployment in France. They're greeted by Lady Jessica de Canterville (the six year old Margaret O'Brien) who tells them the story of the ghost. One of the Rangers is Cuffy Williams (Robert Young), who turns out to be a direct descendant of the de Canterville family.

Based on a story by Oscar Wilde (although I doubt he envisioned the involvement of Nazis). If the idea of a cowardly ghost hasn't tipped you off, this is mostly a comedy. Laughton is fun as the ghost, O'Brien is staggeringly cute as Lady Jessica (she was apparently a popular and prolific child star), and Young is appealing as the man carrying both the movie and the fate of the family. Charming and funny.

Fans of this would probably also enjoy "I Married a Witch."

1944, dir. Jules Dassin. With Charles Laughton, Robert Young, Margaret O'Brien, William Gargan, Reginald Owen, Rags Ragland, Una O'Connor, Donald Stuart, Elisabeth Risdon, Frank Faylen.

Captain America: The First Avenger

Evans plays Steve Rogers, a short, thin, and unhealthy young man on the eve of the U.S. entry into World War II. Utterly determined to join the army, he applies at five different places until he's evidently allowed in for "heart," and put in a "super soldier" program. Which magically doubles his weight and triples his muscle mass, or something like that.

Evans is good in the lead and his team-mates have fun. The rah-rah patriotism gets a little old, but Evans, Atwell, and to a lesser extent Jones, carry it on personality. Not a great movie, but immensely enjoyable.

2011, dir. Joe Johnston. With Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Hugo Weaving, Tommy Lee Jones, Sebastian Stan, Dominic Cooper, Neal McDonough, Derek Luke, Stanley Tucci.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Evans returns as Steve Rogers aka Captain America, living in Washington D.C. and an employee of S.H.I.E.L.D. We first see him running laps at the Mall, where he passes Sam Wilson (Mackie) several times, and they become friends. Rogers' disagreements with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s pre-emptive kill plans is highlighted before things get really ugly.

The dialogue is excellent: Black Widow and Captain America bantering about who he should date is hilarious. And "The Winter Soldier" is an effective and menacing enemy for the Captain (although I'm awfully tired of Marvel's reliance on brainwashing ...). But the plot is less well done: most of the critics love this thing, and it's not bad, but Marvel has a problem of scale: they seem to think they have to endanger the entire world and draw in a dozen superheroes with every movie they make now. That's fun occasionally (the first "The Avengers") but having smaller scale movies with more personal stories isn't just a good idea, it's a necessity. This one should have been smaller - a lot smaller.

2014, dir. Anthony and Joe Russo. With Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Cobie Smulders, Frank Grillo, Robert Redford, Samuel L. Jackson, Emily VanCamp.

Captain America: Civil War

The plot points in the first hour of this movie are delivered like plodding hammer blows.

  • Bucky is the Winter Soldier.
  • Under mind control he has done many evil things.
  • Some evil guy called Zemo wants to control him.
  • Steve Rogers/Captain America is still determined to free/save Bucky.
  • Tony Stark feels guilty about the things he didn't say to his parents before they abruptly died.
  • The Avengers have induced a lot of collateral damage in saving the world.
  • Tony Stark is made to feel guilty about a death in Segovia.
  • The Black Panther is mad because his Dad the King was killed.
  • the U.N. thinks the Avengers are dangerous and should have an oversight committee.

The delivery of this information is incredibly work-man-like, with about as much poetry and appeal as the process of bulldozing a lot before raising a house.

I was pretty offended by the "you killed lots of people in Segovia" thing: in "The Avengers: Age of Ultron," we saw the Avengers saving every single person. They made a big deal of it, and we were never shown anyone dying (except one of the heroes). So to say they killed lots of people is essentially saying "we lied about what happened in the last movie."

The Avengers and associated heroes split into two camps: those who think they should be controlled by the U.N., and those who think they should continue to remain at large and control their own destiny. There's wrangling, there are fights, alliances are tested and occasionally changed. There are more fights. And it's not drama anymore, it's just ... soap opera. Just as the comics they're based on are perpetual soap opera, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has inevitably devolved to that same state: "we don't want to kill off our main players, we'll have them injured, we'll have different teams fight each other. And next week we'll have half of them swap sides and do it again." Has some very funny dialogue, but that's not a saving grace. The failures of logic surrounding Zemo's actions are massive.

I'm running against the critics on this one (they loved it), but I think this is a major stumble for the MCU and the beginning of the end. Undoubtedly I'll see many of the MCU movies that will follow, and I'm sure a few of them will be good, but I think it's mostly downhill from here.

2016, dir. Anthony Russo and Joe Russo. With Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Elizabeth Olsen, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Daniel Brühl, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Renner, Paul Rudd, Emily VanCamp, Frank Grillo, William Hurt.

Captain Blood

Errol Flynn plays Peter Blood, a former military man and doctor accused of treason because he treated the injuries of a rebel. As a result, he's sent as a slave to Jamaica. There he forms a motley crew of other slaves (all white) and steals a ship. Within a couple years they're the most infamous and successful pirate crew in the Caribbean.

There are movies that are "classics" that still hold power today ("Casablanca" comes to mind, also directed by Michael Curtiz). This is not one of those movies. It was very successful in the theatres and it's the movie that made Flynn a star, but from a remove of 80 years all I really see is a handsome man posturing and posing. The most memorable pose is, of course, the poster-ready noble-looking-skywards-profile, and he does it so well.

The movie is by modern action movie standards incredibly slow-paced: it's more than an hour before there's anything that could conceivably be called a physical altercation. Prior to that we're establishing characters and politics ... and not doing it terribly well as the acting isn't good. I was also fascinated by the whole "righteous man" / "wrongly accused" thing, and how that fits with being a pirate.

1935, dir. Michael Curtiz. With Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Ross Alexander, Lionel Atwill, Guy Kibbee.

Captain Marvel

Vers (played by Brie Larson) is a Kree warrior, her mentor and trainer is Yon-Rogg (Jude Law). The Kree are at war with the Skrulls, who are evil shapeshifters led by General Talos (Ben Mendelsohn). The war against the Skrull take Vers, Yon-Rogg, and the rest of their crew to planet "C-53" (aka "Earth," circa 1995) where Vers begins to realize that she may have had a life among the humans. This begins a series of reversals and a deeper understanding of herself. And of course she meets a young Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson, de-aged for the part) and Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg, also de-aged).

The movie is charming, funny, and entertaining - and introduces us to a hero with powers on par with Superman (even if that's a DC character). But there are a lot of frustrations about the movie: the biggest and most obvious being that "Avengers: Endgame" is already in theatres, and it feels like all this is just back-story before "Endgame" landed. "Hey, none of the current Avengers can challenge Thanos, we need to fill that slot - time to put 'Captain Marvel' in the microwave to thaw her out." "Oh, and make her a woman - we need more of those." (Mar-Vell has been both genders over the years: they chose the more politically correct one ... a bit late at 20 movies into the franchise.) My second biggest frustration is that Jackson is 70 years old, and he damn well runs and fights like it. They can fix his face in post, but they should have got a body double for the two scenes where he "runs" (more of a crooked jog). Finally, this just isn't their best movie. Yeah, it's fun, but it's not deep, and more than anything it just feels like prep for "Endgame" rather than its own movie.

2019, dir. Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. With Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Jude Law, Lashana Lynch, Djimon Hounsou, Lee Pace, Gemma Chan, Annette Bening, Clark Gregg.

The Captains

A documentary under the auspices of Movie Central / The Movie Network, in which William Shatner jets about interviewing all the other Captains from the Star Trek franchise - up to and including the new James T. Kirk from the 2009 "Star Trek" reboot.

Shatner is a mediocre-to-weird interviewer who likes to talk about himself. Be prepared for a movie that's almost half Shatner. Scott Bakula's big into musicals. Kate Mulgrew is as wound-up as her on-screen character. Patrick Stewart said some interesting things about his life. Avery Brooks is off-the-charts weird. Chris Pine was charming but a bit dull. And Shatner went to where he started, the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, where he threw in some Canadian content by interviewing Christopher Plummer - who didn't play a captain, but did have a major part in "The Undiscovered Country."

Brooks and Shatner singing to each other over Brooks' playing jazz piano was either the high point or the low point of the movie - in fact, it may have been both. An interesting movie for dedicated Trekkies, but not for anyone else.

2011, dir. William Shatner. With William Shatner, Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew, Scott Bakula, Chris Pine, Christopher Plummer.

Carnival Row, Season 1

Our main character is "Philo," played by Orlando Bloom. He's a police officer in "the Burgue," a city with technology and appearance roughly equivalent to London around 1900. But imagine it more steampunk, with blimps and trolleys on raised monorail lines, smoke and pollution. The city, and the country, is being inundated with sentient magical creatures ("fae folk") - and while most of these creatures (notably the faeries and the fauns) are essentially human (and can interbreed with humans, as is made abundantly clear - also an opportunity to goose the ratings with lots of bare breasts), they face racism blatantly similar to what the Africans and Chinese would have faced in the UK or North America in 1900. As the magical creatures' country is being over-run by "the Pact," they have little choice about immigrating to the Burgue - where they mostly work in indentured servitude.

Philo is immediately shown to be sympathetic and polite to the "Critch" (the deragotory collective term for Fae). There have been a number of brutal murders, and Philo is trying to solve them. Over time, we delve into his back-story and find he was a soldier overseas in the failed human war againt the Pact - and that he had a long relationship with Vignette Stonemoss (Cara Delevingne), a faerie. Which becomes problematic when she lands in the Burgue.

Several critics have accused this series of having too much going on. They're not wrong. We're pulled through the war and all its politics, one of our other main characters is the Chancellor of the Burgue along with his conniving wife and son - so we're also expected to absorb the city politics, there's the Philo-Vignette love story, there's the murders and the possibly magical creature causing them, there's the house of prostitution Philo keeps visiting (for work rather than pleasure), there's Philo's old army friend in jail, there's the formerly rich family and a story line straight out of Jane Austen except the new family "friend" is a "Puck" (derogatory term for a faun), there's the racism, and I'm sure I'm missing some other threads. It's too busy ... but I quite liked it anyway.

2019. With Orlando Bloom, Cara Delevingne, Tamzin Merchant, Simon McBurney, David Gyasi, Andrew Gower, Karla Crome, Arty Froushan, Indira Varma, Jared Harris, Caroline Ford, Jamie Harris, Ariyon Bakare, Alice Krige, Tracey Wilkinson, Waj Ali, Maeve Dermody, Leanne Best, Anna Rust, Ronan Vibert, Mark Lewis Jones.

Carnival Row, Season 2

Agreus (David Gyasi) and Imogen (Tamzin Merchant) flee the Burgue, but are captured by the New Dawn - and here we get a very Communist view of an egalitarian society. The New Dawn has taken over most of the Pact's territory - and the Pact, in desperation, turns to the Burge for weapons. Vignette (Cara Delevingne) carries on with the Black Raven, going Pix extremist. Tourmaline (Karla Crome) has turned into a witch, and weirdly ends up roommates with Philo's old war buddy (Ariyon Bakare - who is also a "Marrok," or werewolf). Philo (Orlando Bloom) has outed himself as a half-breed, and is locked up in the Row with all the other Critch. But a Sparas is killing dozens of people, and the police are so desperate to stop it they let Philo out.

It's complicated.

As mentioned in the previous review, this series had too much going on. Which meant that when it came to wrap it up in one season ... there was a lot of wrapping to do. Some of the battles were believable enough, but the outcomes ... I don't think racism throughout an entire nation can be ended overnight (okay, it wasn't ended - but it was massively, and just as unbelievably, curtailed in days or weeks).

For all my complaints, I still mostly enjoyed it. And it does have one HUGE virtue: it wraps up. They knew the end was coming, and they tied up the loose ends.

credits 2023. With Orlando Bloom, Cara Delevingne, Tamzin Merchant, Simon McBurney, David Gyasi, Andrew Gower, Karla Crome, Arty Froushan, Indira Varma, Jared Harris, Caroline Ford, Jamie Harris, Ariyon Bakare, Alice Krige, Tracey Wilkinson, Waj Ali, Maeve Dermody, Leanne Best, Anna Rust, Ronan Vibert, Mark Lewis Jones.

Cars

This was a terribly frustrating movie for me - I desperately wanted to like it because Pixar has produced such excellent movies in the past ("Toy Story," "Finding Nemo," "The Incredibles ..."), but this doesn't live up to that. Instead, I found some hysterically funny moments embedded in a sickly sweet syrup of American family values. Pixar has always delivered family values, but in a more subtle, much more palatable form. And, unfortunately, Larry the Cable Guy does get to deliver several bodily function noises. Despite which there are some truly inspired moments: the Ahhnold SUV, Jay Limo the talk show host, the Japanese news show, the passing reference to Pixar's own short "For the Birds," ditto with "ET," and the truly inspired closing credits (reminiscent of the equally brilliant closing credits in Lasseter's own "A Bug's Life" and "Toy Story 2").

Since writing the above I've bought the DVD, and, while it's mostly true, it's pretty harsh. It's a very funny, very enjoyable movie (but yes, it is sickly sweet).

2006, dir. John Lasseter. With Owen Wilson, Bonnie Hunt, Larry the Cable Guy, Paul Newman, Cheech Marin, Tony Shalhoub.

Cars 2

I've never reviewed a full-length movie on 15 minutes of footage before. This is a reminder for myself (all of these reviews are, but some of the others might actually be helpful to others) that I did give this one a try. This movie looks very pretty, with gorgeous animation supporting the adventures of a James Bond-like spy car, followed by Lightning McQueen's return to Radiator Springs to see his friends. But the writing is incredibly insipid, plodding through the spy stuff by the numbers and then playing up Mater's cluelessness without actually hitting a single comedic note. Most direct-to-DVD authors would be embarrassed by this script.

In a way, seeing this was a relief. Pixar has finally done a bad movie. It made me sad too, but a bad movie from Pixar was inevitable, and I'm glad that's out of the way. Now we won't expect the world from them every time.

2011, dir. John Lasseter and Brad Lewis. With Owen Wilson, Larry the Cable Guy, Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Jason Isaacs, Thomas Kretschmann, Eddie Izzard.

Cars 3

I wasn't initially a fan of the original "Cars" movie: I thought it was overly sentimental and not as funny as Pixar's best work. But in the end I became a fan: they make a virtue of the sentimentality, and I can enjoy that occasionally. But "Cars 2" I never got through: it's generally regarded as Pixar's worst movie, and after 20 minutes I had to stop watching. "Cars 3" holds onto the sentimentality (in a big way), and reminds me more of the remarkably pedestrian and weak "Planes" than the original "Cars."

Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson), after seven years of Piston Cup wins, is finding himself being out-raced by new rookies with the very latest technology. To overcome this, he finds a trainer (Cristela Alonzo), a new training facility, and a new training philosophy. But they keep the old friends: Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), Sally (Bonnie Hunt), and several of the others return from the previous movies - although a big point is made of the death of Doc Hudson (Paul Newman - whose voice is used a great deal despite his being dead).

The critics thought fairly well of this one, with the "Critical Consensus" on Rotten Tomatoes being "Cars 3 has an unexpectedly poignant story to go with its dazzling animation, suggesting Pixar's most middle-of-the-road franchise may have a surprising amount of tread left." It's a fairly sweet story aimed at kids ... but Pixar's best (and these days other studios are managing it too) also nail adults right where they live, and this one fails at that.

2017, dir. Brian Fee. With Owen Wilson, Cristela Alonzo, Chris Cooper, Armie Hammer, Larry the Cable Guy, Bonnie Hunt, Nathan Fillion, Lea DeLaria, Kerry Washington.

Casablanca

A truly great movie. The main character is Rick (Humphrey Bogart), the owner of "Rick's Café Américain" in Casablanca, a disillusioned man who "sticks his neck out for nobody." This is Casablanca in 1941(?), a purgatory, marginally safe ground during the Second World War that people flee to while trying to escape to America. Rick's life is badly shaken with the appearance of Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), the love of his life - who has her politically active husband with her and is looking for safe passage. The story is great, but what really makes it work is good cinematography, good acting, and a sly wit. It's also the origin of several iconic quotes in modern society: "Play it again, Sam," (even though nobody ever actually said exactly that in the movie), "Here's looking at you, kid," and "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

After many years and thousands of movies, this remains in my personal top ten of best movies ever made (along with thousands of other reviewers - I'm not breaking new ground here).

1943, dir. Michael Curtiz. With Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre.

Casino Royale (2006)

The Bond movies have always been financially successful, but almost never critically so. After a wave of franchises re-inventing themselves (Batman, Superman ...) the Bond group decided to have a shot at it. New Bond, less reliance on technological toys and bad puns, very good action, a real sense of danger in what Bond is doing, and real live acting and emotion add up to an excellent movie. I was particularly impressed with the parkour (the chase through the construction site) near the beginning, and the scene when he breaks into M's house (also early on). It shows remarkably well that she's dealing with a group of men (the "double-0s") who are extremely capable, above the law (she put them there), extremely dangerous, and borderline psychopaths. Not a view of Bond we've had before. And because this is the very start of his career we see him change from someone almost human into the character we know (when has Bond every changed before?). And there's a very real possibility he could leave the service or even die. This is the best of the Bonds - by a wide margin.

2006, dir. Martin Campbell. With Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Judi Dench.

Casshern

A blatant triumph of style over substance ... unfortunately even the "style" is already looking a bit weak as it's mostly 2003 CG graphics (I watched it in 2018). The movie is based on a 35 episode Anime TV series. Movies based on Anime series or Manga tend to A) assume you already know the mythology, and B) try to compress nearly all the content - without trimming - into a two hour package. This movie certainly suffers from both these problems. All kinds of weird and non-sensical things happen, but my personal favourite is the four neo-humans arriving at an abandoned castle - where they find an utterly massive robot army available for them to turn against their enemies. No explanation of that is ever given, it just is. The movie presents as science fiction, but it also has ghosts and multiple unexplained (and pivotal) alchemical happenings.

It seemed fairly clear that it was an anti-war statement, while duly noting that it's very hard to break the cycle of hatred and revenge killing. But it's long and makes no damn sense and no longer looks very good because CG has advanced so much in the past 15 years.

2004, dir. Kazuaki Kiriya. With Yusuke Iseya, Kumiko Asô, Toshiaki Karasawa, Mayumi Sada, Jun Kaname, Susumu Terajima, Akira Terao.

Cast Away

Tom Hanks is a workaholic FedEx employee who's the sole survivor of a plane crash. He's stranded on a deserted island for several years. Too long, somewhat overblown, but an excellent performance by Hanks.

2002. dir. Robert Zemeckis. With Tom Hanks.

Casting By

The movie is primarily about the rise of the Casting Director as a prominent position in Hollywood, although it does a sideline in being a hagiography about Marion Dougherty.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Hollywood studios had stars on contract and casting - such as it was - was done by seeing who was available and who would be the biggest box office draw in the title role. Didn't matter that the character didn't fit the actor's style, put that round peg into that square hole ...

Marion Dougherty started arranging minor characters for TV in the 1950s. In the 1960s she was working in Hollywood as a Casting Director, fitting actors to roles she thought would suit them as the contract casting model fell apart. The movie interviews dozens of famous directors and actors to sing her praises, directors saying they couldn't have done it without her, actors saying they'd never have broken through without her. The latter seemed rather superfluous: they didn't interview people who she didn't cast, only the most successful of those she did cast. They interviewed only one director (Taylor Hackford) who downplayed the role of Casting Director, apparently as an incredibly weak attempt to show both sides of the argument - so instead Hackford came off seeming like a villain.

It was educational about the role of casting in movies, but the excessive love it showed for Dougherty (even if much of it was justified, which is hard to tell from within a movie so in love with her) was a little sickening.

2012, dir. Tom Donahue. With Woody Allen, Ned Beatty, Jeff Bridges, Glenn Close, Robert De Niro, Richard Donner, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Duvall, Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Taylor Hackford, Paul Haggis, Arthur Hiller, Norman Jewison, Diane Lane, John Lithgow, Bette Midler, Al Pacino, Robert Redford, John Sayles, Martin Scorsese, Cybill Shepherd, Oliver Stone, John Travolta, Jon Voight, Paula Weinstein.

Castle in the Sky

Another surreal and beautiful world from Hayao Miyazaki, carrying many of his favourite themes: caring for nature, young girls coming of age (although the male character is equally important - unusual in a Miyazaki movie), and lots of flying things. All the characters are well developed and entertaining, and the visuals are fantastic. A great movie.

Anna Paquin's voicing and pseudo-British accent as the main female character was horrible. I would have listened to the Japanese audio anyway, but that sealed the deal.

1986, dir. Hayao Miyazaki. With Anna Paquin, James van der Beek.

The Castle of Cagliostro

Brings the famous anime character (and, further back, a famous French literary character) Lupin III to the big screen. I was interested in this because it was directed by Hayao Miyazaki early in his career, but nothing about it really shows his touch. It's conventional, passable anime.

2021-01: a rewatch shows that it's goofy fun, with a few of Miyazaki's later signature elements. Most notably an autogyro - he always has flying. And some very pretty visuals, although the animation is very low rent: low frame rate, frequent still shots with only one or two small things moving. Not recommended, but possibly fun during the pandemic - available along with his other, better stuff on Netflix.

1979, dir. Hayao Miyazaki.

Castles in the Sky

Not to be confused with "Castle in the Sky," a Hayao Miyazaki movie that I also have an interest in. This is a BBC TV movie, the story of the invention of radar by Sir Robert Watson-Watt prior to and during the Second World War.

Watson-Watt was a meteorologist, but in the mid-1930s he came up with the idea that you could detect incoming aircraft by bouncing radio waves off of them. With the rise of Hitler and his massive production of military planes, the British War Ministry decided (reluctantly, according to the film) to get Watson-Watt to develop this idea. The movie follows his efforts with a team of other "weather men" and "outsiders" to make their product work as envisioned. Drama is developed (after a fashion) by putting them in conflict with their superiors at the war office who want "real scientists" working on the project, or want the money for more offensive war machinery. And also by having Watson-Watt's marriage fall apart.

They play up that he's a "weatherman" and entirely ignore his background to make him seem the opposite of the Oxford scientists that the war ministry threatens to replace him with - but Watson-Watt did in fact have a very strong engineering background. His marriage did fall apart, although I don't know if it was during the period he was working on this, or because of it. As other critics have pointed out, just because an event is historically significant doesn't make it dramatically significant: Robert Watson-Watt seems to have been a charming, very intelligent, and decent guy, but perhaps not dramatically rewarding. And I have no doubt that the development of radar was a huge struggle full of set-backs, but most of the struggles presented to us were manufactured and not terribly interesting. Eddie Izzard does a great job in the lead (in what may be his first entirely straight role ever?) with good support from a number of the other actors, with one notable exception. I quite like Tim McInnerny, but he seemed like a particularly poor choice as Winston Churchill: he's too tall (18 cm taller than Churchill), not fat enough, and mostly sounded like a frat boy trying to imitate Churchill's speech patterns. Happily, he's not on screen much. In the end a poor story only barely worked for me because I was fascinated by the (limited) technical details of the history.

2014, dir. Gillies MacKinnon. With Eddie Izzard, Laura Fraser, Alex Jennings, David Hayman, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Karl Davies, Tim McInnerny, Iain McKee, Joe Bone.

Castlevania Season 1

"Castlevania" started out as an "action-adventure gothic horror video game series." That's Wikipedia's classification, and they carry on to say "It is one of Konami's most critically acclaimed franchises and also one of the best-selling of all time." Konami released approximately a game a year from 1986 through 2014. In 2017, Netflix released the first season of this animated TV series based on the video games.

This season consists of only four episodes, each about 25 minutes in length. The first one lays out Dracula - who's very good with technology - falling for and eventually marrying a female (human) scientist. This doesn't end well, and Dracula basically unleashes Hell on Earth. Even not knowing the video games, it was really clear at the end of the fourth episode that we'd just met the trio that will lead the crusade to save humanity and defeat Dracula. The whole first season - admittedly short - was just ... setup? The equivalent of the game video intro. Yup.

Low rent animation (lots of still shots, or shots with only one small moving element) is combined with reasonably good artwork and a lot of blood. The series has swearing, there's lots of gore, there's definitely the implication of sex, and some sort-of adult themes ... and yet it still feels like it's aimed at kids (it's the logic, and the way that the adults interact that gives this impression) even though it would be inappropriate for them.

Despite my complaints, I was kind of enjoying it. I'll get into the second season (which is considerably longer) and see how that goes.

UPDATE: the first two episodes of the second season introduced a plethora of new vampiric characters, and the whole thing felt ... silly. I probably won't continue.

2017, dir. Sam Deats, Adam Deats, Spencer Wan. With Richard Armitage, James Callis, Graham McTavish, Alejandra Reynoso, Tony Amendola, Matt Frewer, Emily Swallow.

Casual Sex?

A movie about two women looking for the titular "casual sex." Or so they claim, and promptly go look for regular relationships. This is supposed to be a comedy, but for those with any memory of the Eighties, the presence of Andrew Dice Clay in a major role should tell you just how funny it is. We didn't take the warning, and sat through an hour and a half of tripe.

1988, dir. Geneviève Robert. With Lea Thompson, Victoria Jackson, Stephen Shellen, Jerry Levine, Andrew Dice Clay.

A Cat in Paris

The two major characters are Zoé and Nico. Zoé is a young girl who has been silent since her policeman father was killed - her mother is also with the city police department. Nico is a cat burglar, who's connected to Zoé by the cat they share (although neither of them knows it). The cat lives with Zoé during the day, and goes with Nico on his burglaries at night. Zoé's and Nico's lives get tangled together when Zoé follows the cat to find out where it goes at night - and Nico's adventures take her too close to the violent criminal who killed her father.

The run-time is very short at 65 minutes (including the credits). I didn't much like the style of animation (blocky and scratchy), but some critics love it so that's very much a matter of personal taste. However, I'm definitely acquiring a taste for French animated kids' movies (see also "Phantom Boy" and "My Life as a Zucchini"). They retain the North American habit of making villains less threatening than they would probably be in real life, but they dispense entirely with "cutesy" and also tend to address things from a more mature viewpoint than would be expected in an American kids movie.

I didn't like the animation ... but I enjoyed the story and characters quite a bit.

2010, dir. Jean-Loup Felicioli, Alain Gagnol. With Jean Benguigui, Bruno Salomone, Dominique Blanc, Bernadette Lafont, Bernard Bouillon, Oriane Zani, Jacques Ramade, Jean-Pierre Yvars, Patrick Descamps.

Catch-22 (2019)

It's been many, many years since I read the book. I remember liking it, although I think I was young enough that I saw more humour than darkness. This is very fucking dark - and apparently very accurate to its source material (I'm too far removed from my reading of the book to be sure of that).

This is a six part TV series, each episode running 45-50 minutes.

Christopher Abbott is Lieutenant John Yossarian, a bombardier in the United States Army Air Force assigned to Italy. He chose the position of bombardier as one that required training so long he assumed the war would be over before he reached the front, but he was wrong. Now the Germans are trying to kill him and every time he gets near the mission limit that would get him sent home, the mission limit is raised. He tries a number of stratagems to get out of his duties, but he inevitably ends up back on a mission. And as the war proceeds, he watches as war brings out the worst in a number of people, and many of his friends die.

It's very well done, it's good ... and it was way too damn dark to be watching in the middle of COVID-19. I needed something more up-beat ...

2019, dir. George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Ellen Kuras. With Christopher Abbott, Kyle Chandler, Daniel David Stewart, Rafi Gavron, Graham Patrick Martin, Lewis Pullman, Austin Stowell, Pico Alexander, Jon Rudnitsky, Gerran Howell, Hugh Laurie, Giancarlo Giannini, George Clooney, Grant Heslov, Kevin J. O'Connor.

Catwoman

One of the most notoriously awful movies of the last 25 years, and the winner of four Razzies. Those are Golden Raspberries for the worst in film - in this case, Picture, Actress, Director, and Screenplay. I think it should have got one for worst special effects and/or worst fight choreography, but I'm a little late to the discussion since it came out in 2004. (Reviewed in 2017.)

Patience Phillips (Halle Berry) is an advertising artist at a beauty products company. She finds out too much about the not-entirely-safe product the company is about to launch, and is killed. But she's reborn as Catwoman. The story from there is inevitable: she solves the mystery and defeats the evil.

The problem is ... well, everything. The script is crap. Half the scenes are cringe-inducing (which is actually less than I expected after how often I'd heard about this movie ...). Berry is incredibly campy as Catwoman, but never does a single stunt: she's always replaced by blatantly obvious CG. Her outfit is particularly notorious: a skimpy, ludicrous, and surprisingly unflattering leather thing that probably inspired her equally silly hip-swinging walk. Benjamin Bratt plays the beefcake cop caught between the unassuming Patience and the very assertive Catwoman - he gets the least-bad dialogue.

Might be entertaining if you were really drunk, but I doubt it.

2004, dir. Pitof. With Halle Berry, Benjamin Bratt, Lambert Wilson, Frances Conroy, Alex Borstein, Sharon Stone.

The Cat and the Canary

Based on a play, the movie is about the reading of a will at a British mansion in the country. The attendees are unpleasant and in some cases at each other's throats, and the will doesn't help. They must stay in the mansion overnight, complicated by the possible presence of an escaped mental asylum inmate in the area. Tries to be both scary and funny, but succeeds in neither.

1979, dir. Radley Metzger. With Carol Lynley, Michael Callan, Olivia Hussey.

Cat Ballou

Cat Ballou (Jane Fonda) is a proper young woman, just educated to be a school teacher and now being sent back to the "Wild West" to the town where her father is a rancher. But this is a comedy more than a Western, and we're frequently accompanied throughout the picture by a Greek Chorus, Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye, who play banjos and sing fill-in material between scenes.

Ballou falls for a charming outlaw (Michael Callan) on the train home, and inadvertently assists in his escape from custody. On her return home she finds her father is being harassed by the local town who want the land rights to his farm. She hires the gunfighter and author of her favourite Western novels (Lee Marvin) to protect her father, but when he arrives he turns out to be an alcoholic. A particularly dark event (that doesn't fit at all with the tone of the rest of the movie, and is glossed over so the comedy can continue) turns her to train robbery, and leaves her headed to the gallows - which the chorus informs us of in the first couple minutes of the movie. At best mildly funny.

1965, dir. Elliot Silverstein. With Jane Fonda, Lee Marvin, Tom Nardini, Michael Callan, Dwayne Hickman, John Marley, Jay C. Flippen, Nat King Cole, Stubby Kaye.

The Cat Returns (orig. "Neko no ongaeshi")

The title refers to the appearance of a very similar cat character in "Whisper of the Heart," another anime movie.

Haru is a young woman lacking in self-assurance. When she saves a cat about to be run over by a truck, she finds herself offered the rewards for saving the son of the King of Cats - including being taken permanently to the Kingdom of Cats and marrying the prince in question. She's not entirely sure this is what she wants to do, and with some very odd assistance she attempts to sort things out.

While not a Hayao Miyazaki movie, this comes from the same studio (Ghibli) and that influence is obvious in both the primary setup and the attention to detail. I found much of it quite charming (and funny), but it was never as compelling as Miyazaki's best. It's a good start for a young director, probably worth watching.

2002, dir. Hiroyuki Morita. With Anne Hathaway, Cary Elwes, Elliott Gould, Peter Boyle, Tim Curry.

Catch Me If You Can

Biography (of sorts) of a very good and very young con man, Frank Abagnale Jr. Quite a good movie, very well put together.

2002. dir. Steven Spielberg. With Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hanks, Christopher Walken.

Catfish

A documentary (more or less) about a young photographer (Yaniv, aka "Nev") in New York City who receives a painting of one of his photos by Abby, an eight year old girl - a very good painting. He's soon entangled in a relationship with several people in her family on Facebook ... Including heading for an intimate relationship with Abby's older half-sister.

Nev's two office mates (or is it flat-mates?) are filmmakers, and they start filming him about his relationship with Abby. They eventually decide to head out to Michigan to meet this family, and everything goes monumentally sideways. Nobody dies, nothing horrible, it's just ... not what it appears. A weird movie about the state of identity and trust in the age of Facebook.

2010, dir. Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman. With Nev Schulman, Ariel Schulman, Henry Joost, Angela Pierce, Vince Pierce, Abby Pierce.

The Cell

A visual extravaganza, lurid and bizarre. Jennifer Lopez isn't much of an actress, although she did better than I expected. She plays a psychologist using an experimental process to enter the mind of people in a coma. She's asked to enter the mind of a serial killer to try to find the location of his last victim before the victim dies. I thought they did a good job with some of the wild visuals for the mindscapes, but ultimately the plot doesn't support it very well. May be worth seeing if you have a fascination with extraordinary cinematography. This was Tarsem Singh's first movie (he had previously done music videos) and it demonstrated his extraordinary visual flair - and lack of grasp of both actors and plot.

2000. dir. Tarsem Singh. With Jennifer Lopez, Vince Vaughn, Vincent D'Onofrio.

Cellular

About two minutes of intro and no extro at all, just action from end to end. Kidnapped woman manages to make a (long-lasting) phone call to a random guy (Chris Evans) on his cell phone, and his attempts to help her lead him into random acts of ... well, violence. Some major logical flaws surrounding the phone calls, but if you can ignore that it's not too bad.

2004, dir. David Ellis. With Chris Evans, Kim Basinger, Jason Statham, William H. Macy.

Cemetery Man

The original Italian title was "Dellamorte Dellamore" which apparently means something like "of death, of love." I watched this because I'd read it was based on the same material as "Dylan Dog." It appears to be more accurate to say that it's based on material by the same author, Tiziano Sclavi (and the Dylan Dog graphic novel was drawn with Dylan looking like Rupert Everett). This deals with the undead, but beyond that the similarity is almost non-existent. I didn't think I'd be able to find a movie this obscure ... but guess what, it's on YouTube (blurry and low quality, but if that's all you can get ...).

I've never seen a Giallo film. So for me to say this has something in common with the Giallo genre is somewhat suspect. But it's definitely a bloody horror comedy film from Italy, with significant elements of eroticism, perversity, and plain old-fashioned craziness.

Rupert Everett plays Francesco Dellamorte, the caretaker of the graveyard in the small Italian town of Buffalora. (Of course, in an Italian-French-German production set in an Italian town, everyone speaks the language of the star ... English.) Francesco has a problem: the dead often rise from their graves within seven days of burial. But he patrols at night and puts them back in the earth. His helper Gnaghi (François Hadji-Lazaro) has only one word in his vocabulary, although Francesco comprehends entire sentences in that word. And he keeps crossing paths with a gorgeous woman (Anna Falchi) who loves him - as he loves her - but she keeps dying.

It was fascinating in a perverse sort of way, but it's camp for camp's sake without ever really going anywhere.

1994, dir. Michele Soavi. With Rupert Everett, François Hadji-Lazaro, Anna Falchi.

Cemetery of Splendour

A group of soldiers with some form of sleeping sickness are moved to a former schoolhouse in northeastern Thailand. Our point of view is Jen, a middle-aged housewife who volunteers at the hospital and tends to the soldiers. She becomes attached to one named Itt, who sometimes manages to stay awake for an hour at a time.

The pacing is like molasses in winter - although that's not a very Thai concept, and this is a very Thai movie. Jen prays at a local temple - and soon encounters the two princesses the temple was built for. Re-incarnated? It's not explained. A young psychic spends her days at the hospital, reading the dreams of the soldiers out to their loved ones. She and Jen connect and the medium channels Itt and his dreams.

Polar opposite to the Thai films I'm familiar with (the bone-crunching martial arts of Tony Jaa), this shows the peaceful side of the Thai personality. But it also shows the very spiritual/mystical side that's so far outside the North American experience as to make essentially no sense.

Director Apichatpong Weerasethakul is a critical darling, but this didn't work for me.

2015, dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul. With Jenjira Pongpas, Banlop Lomnoi, Jarinpattra Rueangram, Petcharat Chaiburi.

Central Intelligence

Kevin Hart plays Calvin Joyner, who was class president and everything else in high school. He now has a very ordinary life while others are promoted above him at his accounting firm. Dwayne Johnson is Robbie Weirdicht / Bob Stone, the really fat bullied guy from high school who's now incredibly buff. He remembers Calvin, because Calvin was the only person who was kind to him. On the eve of their 20 year high school reunion Bob reconnects with Calvin through Facebook and they go for drinks. And we learn very early on that Bob can fight really well. In fact Bob has some magical skills: if you're not looking at him he can move unbelievably fast (but the movie sees this as humour, not "magic"). Ordinary Calvin is horrified to be dragged into a world of spies and espionage that he doesn't understand, but Bob is overjoyed to be re-united with his best buddy from high school. In fact Bob's love of Calvin is genuinely creepy and feels like it could only be horrifying, but is of course played for humour instead.

Much of the humour is based on humiliation, with Calvin mortally terrified of everything going on around him and Bob acting like he's still a fat, bullied high school boy (but now with muscles). Not my kind of humour. The movie did still manage some laughs for me, so not a total loss.

In fact ... here's a quote from early on that had me in stitches:

Thug: Hey, how about this? Why don't you and your boyfriend apologize to Big Rick here and then go jerk each other off in the parking lot?

Calvin: That's, that's a lot...

Bob: Yeah. You're right, CJ. That's a lot of homophobia coming out of a very angry man. You need to go get that looked at by a trained professional. But, since you have escalated this whole scenario by bringing what I can only assume is an unlicensed firearm into this public place, endangering the lives of all these innocent people, I can no longer, in good conscience, walk away and jerk anyone off in the parking lot.

2016, dir. Rawson Marshall Thurber. With Kevin Hart, Dwayne Johnson, Amy Ryan, Aaron Paul, Daniel Nicolet, Jason Bateman.

Centurion

Rome is trying to expand its empire into Northern Britain, where the Picts are fighting a vicious guerilla war against the Romans. Our protagonist complains that it's "a war without honour," but as the invaders I felt they had even less right than usual to complain about that. Our protagonist and honourable man in a mess of grit and dishonesty is Quitus Dias (Michael Fassbender), a fairly high-ranking officer in the Roman army in Britain. His army is slaughtered, and he and his few remaining men are hunted relentlessly across the frozen British countryside as he tries to get them home.

A grim and exceptionally bloody tale, some of the human moments stand out borne on the acting of a good cast. It's not a story that's going to win anyone by charm, approach with caution.

2010, dir. Neil Marshall. With Michael Fassbender, Olga Kurylenko, Liam Cunningham, Dominic West, David Morrissey, J.J. Feild, Usrich Thomsen, Noel Clarke, Imogen Poots, Riz Ahmed.

Chain Reaction

Where to start? The technological basis for this film is blurry at best. There are more logical flaws than the bridges of Chicago have rivets. Keanu Reeves plays a student machinist kicked out of school for blowing something up by mistake, but his machinist skills are apparently enough to take on or outrun huge numbers of thugs and cops. If he was more of a "MacGyver" it would have been easier to swallow, as absurd as that show was. Morgan Freeman and Rachel Weisz can't save this one - and don't blame it all on Reeves either: he may not have been brilliant, but this is hardly his fault.

1996, dir. Andrew Davis. With Keanu Reeves, Morgan Freeman, Rachel Weisz, Fred Ward, Brian Cox.

Chaplin

A mediocre movie, but a really good biopic, if that makes any sense. Chaplin surely did love his women young ... I'm afraid that's the main thing that stuck with me. If the movie is correct, he married four times, and the oldest of them was 18 - when he was in his fifties. (This appears to be fairly accurate.) Robert Downey Jr. is, as reported, superb in the lead - he does Chaplin's slapstick incredibly well, and that's a hell of a trick. The problem with the movie is that Chaplin had a messy life, and layered on top of this is the idea that what we're seeing is a flashback of his life through the discussion of his biography-in-progress between Chaplin and his agent (Anthony Hopkins). Messy. But fascinating!

1992, dir. Richard Attenborough. With Robert Downey Jr., Dan Aykroyd, Geraldine Chaplin, Anthony Hopkins, Milla Jovovich, Moira Kelly, Kevin Kline, Diane Lane, Penelope Ann Miller, Paul Rhys, Marisa Tomei, Nancy Travis, James Woods, John Thaw.

Chaos Theory

About a man with an overly organized life. One thing goes wrong and his entire life falls like dominoes. Sweet and occasionally amusing, but forgettable and not very good.

2007, dir. Marcos Siega. With Ryan Reynolds, Emily Mortimer, Stuart Townsend.

Charade

Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant turn in good performances, but the movie seemed somewhat unsure about whether it was a murder mystery or a comedy. Eventually it decided on more of the latter, with a concomitant loss of menace. But the leads are charming and the dialogue is clever.

1963, dir. Stanley Donen. With Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, Walter Matthau, James Coburn, George Kennedy.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Johnny Depp at his absolute weirdest - which is pretty damn weird - in a Tim Burton movie, so you know the whole thing is going to be more than a little off balance. I think Roald Dahl would have been pretty pleased with this take on his work. The kids are appropriately over-the-top, the special effects are very good, and the whole experience is damn weird.

2005, dir. Tim Burton. With Johnny Depp, Freddie Highmore, David Kelly, Helena Bonham Carter, Noah Taylor, Deep Roy.

Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle

I don't think I've ever seen a more humiliating or embarrassing piece of film in my entire life. I cringed all the way through it. I ask myself why I watched the whole thing, and all I can think is "car wreck syndrome:" I just couldn't believe it was really that bad. Apparently the original was just as bad so there appears to be a market for it. The action was ludicrous in its even more blatant than usual disregard of the laws of physics (think of the original "A Team" TV series), and the whole movie was a sequence of vignettes attempting to put the three main women in more and more foolish outfits and positions. It made me begin to wonder if maybe the Austin Powers films are actually high art.

2003, dir. McG. With Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, Lucy Liu, Demi Moore.

Charlotte's Web

I think we have "Babe" to thank for the slightly less sentimental attitude about farm animals in children's movies. In any case, it's made quite clear early on that Wilbur is going to be bacon if something extraordinary doesn't happen. And of course that's where Charlotte comes in. Dakota Fanning is great - they couldn't have done this without her. The line-up of voice talent is staggering. The humour is wonderful - although it gets pushed aside to some extent in the second half to make way for a bit too much pathos and sentimentality. Still, definitely an enjoyable movie.

2006, dir. Gary Winick. With Julia Roberts, Dakota Fanning, Dominic Scott Kay, Steve Buscemi, John Cleese, Oprah Winfrey, Cedric the Entertainer, Kathy Bates, Reba McEntire, Robert Redford, Thomas Haden Church, André Benjamin.

Chasing Amy

Probably Kevin Smith's best work. It's meant for a young crowd - it's raunchy and has some scenes that'll make adults cringe, but it's an excellent piece of work despite that. Basic premise: male comic artist falls for female comic artist who turns out to be a lesbian. I suppose it's a romantic comedy, but hardly standard issue. And for once, Ben Affleck turns in a decent acting job.

1999, dir. Kevin Smith. With Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, Jason Lee, Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes.

Chasing Liberty

Mandy Moore plays Anna Foster (codenamed "Liberty" by the Secret Service people who have to keep her safe), daughter to the president of the U.S.A. At the age of 18, she wants to be out doing stuff and dating boys, but crowds of Secret Service people around her make a normal life difficult. In Prague she makes a break for it, on the back of a scooter driven by Ben (Matthew Goode), who we shortly find out is also Secret Service (although she doesn't know it). Her father thinks this is a good arrangement, and makes Ben escort her on her further adventures.

I'll never know if I would have spotted that this was a riff on "Roman Holiday" - I was informed by Wikipedia before I saw the movie. "Roman Holiday" is quite possibly the best rom com ever made, so I thought I'd give this one a shot. Unfortunately, Moore's skills don't extend beyond "cute." Goode is incredibly handsome, charming, charismatic, and a better actor than Moore. He doesn't quite make it into Gregory Peck territory, but Moore is so far from Audrey Hepburn they couldn't see each other with telescopes. The silly and sloppy script is the nail in the coffin, and riffing on "Amélie" with the scooter scenes didn't particularly help. Mildly amusing at best.

2004, dir. Andy Cadiff. With Mandy Moore, Matthew Goode, Jeremy Piven, Annabella Sciorra, Mark Harmon, Caroline Goodall.

La Chèvre

I saw this movie back when it came out, and thought it was hilarious then. I was pretty sure I wouldn't be as impressed in 2012, but I was curious.

Campana (Gérard Depardieu) is a tough detective getting nowhere searching for Marie (Corynne Charbit), the daughter of a rich businessman. Marie vanished in Mexico six weeks prior to the start of the film. The company psychologist (André Valardy) convinces the father that the correct way to find his incredibly unlucky daughter is to send one of the company accountants who is also staggeringly unlucky to find her. And so Campana is saddled with Perrin (Pierre Richard), and back they go to Mexico for more slapstick shenanigans.

Perrin is incredibly annoying: he's been told he's in charge of the investigation and is obnoxious about it, having no clue of the real reason for his presence. He seems to have made it to the age of 45 or so without ever realizing that he's insanely unlucky and that most people don't walk into doors on a weekly basis. But Richard is quite good at physical humour, and Depardieu is a surprisingly good straight man. All in all, an entertaining enough way to pass an hour and a half.

1981, dir. Francis Veber. With Pierre Richard, Gérard Depardieu, Michel Robin, Corynne Charbit, Pedro Armendáriz Jr., Jorge Luke, André Valardy.

Chicago

Renée Zellweger is a want-to-be Jazz singer in the Twenties. She sees her life in musical numbers, and after she murders her nasty boyfriend, much of the movie takes place in jail. The director calls it a satire and the Academy apparently thought it was worth six Oscars, but a couple good numbers couldn't redeem this one for me.

2002. dir. Rob Marshall. With Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere, Queen Latifah.

Chicken Little

Chicken Little (voiced by Zach Braff) is a small but very intelligent chicken in a town full of animals. Unfortunately, after a piece of sky falls on his head and he successfully encourages everyone to run for their lives, he can't find the piece of sky and becomes an outcast.

The movie was Disney's last animated film before they purchased Pixar outright. The animation style is deliberately chunky and crooked, a visual style I didn't like. The dialogue is clever and knowing, very much a la "Shrek" - a method that's been severely overused in the intervening years and is rather a mixed blessing here. There are some clever ideas and a few decent jokes, but overall the movie falls flat.

2005, dir. Mark Dindal. With Zach Braff, Joan Cusack, Steve Zahn, Amy Sedaris, Garry Marshall, Don Knotts, Fred Willard.

Childhood's End

I read a couple of Arthur C. Clarke's books when I was younger but Childhood's End wasn't one of them: I can't compare this to the source material. This is a 2015 three part mini-series from Syfy, with each part running roughly 1h22m.

The series starts in the current world (mostly modern America) with the arrival of the Overlord's ships which hover over several major cities throughout the world. Kerellen (Charles Dance) - who claims to be the "Overlord for Earth" - speaks to pretty much everyone on Earth, explaining that they will usher in a new age of peace, a utopia. He recruits a farmer named Ricky Stormgren (Mike Vogel) to act as a representative. Over the next several years, the overlord's promises are seen to be coming true - although Kerellen refuses to let any human see him, saying that they aren't ready. Ricky stays with us through the second episode, but astrophysicist Milo Rodericks (Osy Ikhile) is our main protagonist through the second and especially the third and final episode.

The story moves through phases, each with several characters. Most major characters are seen in all the episodes, but some episodes concentrate more on certain characters. It's an interesting and fairly good if rather bleak look at what might happen if we encountered an alien race immensely more advanced than we are.

2015, dir. Nick Hurran. With Mike Vogel, Osy Ikhile, Daisy Betts, Yael Stone, Georgina Haig, Charles Dance.

Children of a Lesser God

At this point (2003) this movie really screams "Eighties" - despite which it's still a pretty good movie. The two leads are excellent and the script is good, it's the peripherals that are dated. Marlee Matlin got (and deserved) a best actress Oscar.

1986. dir. Randa Haines. With William Hurt, Marlee Matlin.

The Children of Huang Shi

The story of an inexperienced but determined English journalist (Jonathan Rhys Meyers playing George Hogg) who manages to find his way into the middle of the Rape of Nanking. He's about to be executed for taking photos of the Japanese atrocities, but is rescued by a small group of communists (led by Chow Yun-fat's character). He's forced to flee and finds himself taking care of a bunch of a children in an orphanage. He wants to continue his work as a journalist, but the children rely on him and they become his project.

Well meant, reasonably well acted by very good actors, based on a true story with fascinating characters, well shot, and a hell of a re-creation of war-torn China, the movie as a whole still manages to fall down. I'm at a loss to explain why: it's not bad, but neither is it particularly good.

2008, dir. Roger Spottiswoode. With Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Radha Mitchell, Chow Yun-fat, Michelle Yeoh, Guang Li.

Children of Dune

A second TV mini-series from Sci-Fi to follow up their 2000 version of "Dune." The format is much the same, with three episodes of 90 minutes each. The biggest difference is that the first episode covers the material from Herbert's much-maligned (and deservedly so) book Dune Messiah, and the second and third cover the book with the same title as the series, Children of Dune.

Happily, they've managed to get rid of at least some of the Hippie Sixties that Herbert trowelled on to Dune Messiah. Young rising star James McAvoy does a good job as Leto (although he spends pretty much all of the latter two episodes with his shirt off), but much of the acting is quite bad - including Susan Sarandon who's certainly capable of better. The bad CGI remains the same.

It's not bad, but I thought their version of "Dune" was significantly superior. Partly, I suppose, because it's just a better story ...

2003, dir. Greg Yaitanes. With James McAvoy, Alec Newman, Julie Cox, Daniela Amavia, Alice Krige, Susan Sarandon, Edward Atterton, Ian McNeice, Barbora Kodetová, Steven Berkoff, Jessica Brooks.

Children of Men

Brilliant filming, brilliant SF. Fantastic world-building. In the near future (2027, the movie was made in 2006), there hasn't been a child born in 18 years. The world has pretty much gone to hell - the UK has soldiered on as they've often done, although under brutal military rule and detaining and deporting all foreigners. Clive Owen plays Theo, a former political activist who has turned to the bottle and pretty much given up. Into his world comes his ex- (Julianne Moore), who dumps a huge problem into his lap: a pregnant foreigner. Don't look for light or cheerful entertainment here, but it's a really excellent film.

This movie's one failing (and it's fairly significant) is that the woman at the centre of the movie is incredibly important - and a complete non-entity. Alfonso Cuarón concentrates so much on Owen and Moore that he ignores this essential character.

2006, dir. Alfonso Cuarón. With Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine, Claire-Hope Ashitey, Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Children Who Chase Lost Voices

I placed a hold at the library on this Makoto Shinkai movie immediately after watching "5 Centimeters Per Second," his previous (not-quite-full-length) movie.

Our heroine is Asuna, approximately 10-12 years old. She's very independent and pretty much runs the house after school because she's an only child and her mother is always working. But her life gets explosively weird with the arrival of a huge creature, and her rescue from the creature by a somewhat super-powered young man named Shun. We find out that Asuna's father died when she was very young. Asuna also gets entangled with her teacher Mr. Morisaki (who has lost his wife) after she becomes interested in the mention in a school story of a place called 'Agartha' where Shun claimed to be from.

The story is a heavy-handed and sometimes very weird exploration of how people deal with death, loss, and the process of grieving. Asuna and Mr. Morisaki end up in the underworld, where they have further adventures and attempt to process their own losses.

Obviously I wasn't overly excited about the plot of the movie. It reminded me quite a lot of Miyazaki's "Castle in the Sky" in the artwork, the heavy-handed message, and the weirdness of the environment. I was somewhat disappointed in this one, although the artwork is just as brilliant as his previous movie. I look forward to seeing his future movies.

2011, dir. Makoto Shinkai. With Hisako Kanemoto, Miyu Irino, Kazuhiko Inoue, Yūna Inamura.

The Chinese Connection

Bruce Lee, see the alternative title "Fist of Fury."

Chinese Zodiac

Jackie Chan returns as his "JC" character, a follow-up (or re-boot, according to Wikipedia) of the "Armour of God" series of movies. JC is comes across as the love child of Indiana Jones and James Bond - a tomb raider with a huge amount of technology at his disposal.

JC is trying to track down twelve bronze heads, animals of the Chinese Zodiac, with his team of three other archeologist-tomb-raider-fighters. They're doing it for money, but they team up with a woman who believes deeply in repatriation of artifacts to their home country. Will JC grow a conscience? Does anyone care?

There are muddled sub-plots about the messed up relationships JC and each of his team-members have. There's a morality play. There are two cute but pathetic female characters who cannot defend themselves and are thus "funny" - one of Chan's all-time favourite offensive tropes. I'd like to suggest that his having a strong female character on his team somehow redeems him, but no, she gets a cat-fight with another woman. The big set-piece at the end of the movie is once again Chan doing a stunt that involves him absorbing a massive amount of physical abuse. It's not entertaining. There's precisely one good fight - which is one more than some of his previous movies, so I guess that's a step up. But overall, this is a pretty terrible film.

2012, dir. Jackie Chan. With Jackie Chan, Kwon Sang-woo, Liao Fan, Yao Xing Tong, Zhang Lan Xin, Laura Weissbecker, Jonathan Lee, Oliver Platt.

Chobits

A relatively short (27 episodes, 22 minutes each) Anime series. Obscenely cute, fairly funny. Would be appropriate for ten year olds if it didn't mention (but not show) porn and breasts so often.

Motosuwa can't afford a "persocon" (a personal computer / robot / significant-other-replacement), but finds one on a trash heap. She runs without an OS, and may be a "Chobits," an urban legend of an uber-persocon. He names her "Chii." The series is about her learning to be human, and the evolution of their relationship.

2002. With Rie Tanaka, Tomokazu Sugita.

Chocolat

I didn't see this 2000 movie until 2017, despite (or perhaps because of) its reputation. Learning it was directed by Lasse Hallström didn't help: he directs well-known and extremely emotionally manipulative movies ("The Cider House Rules," "The Hundred-Foot Journey," many others). The summary review of "A Dog's Purpose" on Rotten Tomatoes pretty much covers the problems of his movies: "... offers an awkward blend of sugary sentiment and canine suffering that tugs at animal-loving audiences' heartstrings with shameless abandon." But I continue to occasionally watch his stuff because he also once directed what I consider to be one of the best movies ever made, "The Shipping News."

"Chocolat" opens with the arrival of a woman and her daughter dressed in vivid red coats in a small (and fairly gray) French town in 1959. The woman (Vianne, played by Juliette Binoche) rents a shop with an apartment over it, and opens a chocolate shop - right in the middle of Lent, much to the disgust of the puritanical mayor Comte de Reynaud (Alfred Molina). Vianne has a magical ability to guess people's favourite chocolates, and her chocolates ... free people. They are so delicious that people are inspired to be better, to do the right thing, etc. etc. Of course Vianne has her own demons - mostly in the form of her history of moving from place to place, something she inherited from her migrant mother.

The movie is set in France and filmed in France, starring a French actress, but all dialogue is in English.

The acting is good, but it's all a painfully heavy-handed magic-realist parable with a tediously obvious outcome. If you like having your heart-strings tugged (and don't mind having a clear view of the man behind the curtain doing the yanking), Hallström is your man. But I think I've had enough.

2000, dir. Lasse Hallström. With Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench, Alfred Molina, Lena Olin, Johnny Depp, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugh O'Conor, John Wood, Peter Stormare, Leslie Caron.

Chop Socky: Cinema Hong Kong

A hell of a lesson in the history of wuxia/kung fu movies from the 1920s through 2003. Talks to all the right people. The short run-time (55m) meant that it didn't have time for some things I would have been interested in (wuxia before film and in book form, wire-work versus no wires, relationship to the actual martial arts ...), but does a superb job of showing the trends in martial arts movies, including the pivotal movies and important people. Most interesting to me was the trend in the 1970s to show more blood, blood everywhere, dismemberment ... when all I want to see is the martial arts and maybe some drama. Utterly fascinating to fans of the genre, probably useless to others. Fans MUST see this.

2004, dir. Ian Taylor. With Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Sammo Hung, Jim Nicholson, John Woo.

Les Choristes (aka. "The Chorus")

Yes, it's a bit cheesy and perhaps undeservedly optimistic, but it's also incredibly charming and enjoyable. I'm usually not a fan of choral music, but even I found something to like in the music.

2004, dir. Christophe Barratier. With Gérard Jugnot, François Berléand, Kad Merad, Jean-Paul Bonnaire, Marie Bunel, Jean-Baptiste Maunier.

A Christmas Story

Something of a Christmas classic that I didn't see until 2006. Peter Billingsley plays a 10 year old(?) in hot pursuit of a Red Ryder BB Gun prior to Christmas, while trying to survive the travails of school, parents, and the approaching holiday season. A friend pointed out that the kids do in fact act more like kids than in most any other movie, and it's amusing to compare the nostalgia of the voice-over of the adult to the out-and-out avarice of the child. The story is a bit episodic, All-American vignettes written by Jean Shepherd (who also does the voice-over) that remind me a little of Garrison Keillor.

An amusing side note: director Bob Clark's previous movies were the "much maligned" (as he put it) "Porky's" and "Porky's II," without which (he notes) this movie could not have existed.

1983, dir. Bob Clark. With Peter Billingsley, Darren McGavin, Melinda Dillon, Jean Shepherd.

Chronicle

Our teenage main character (Dane DeHaan) buys a video camera (our primary eye through most of the movie), and the opening shot establishes the reason: he wants to record the attacks of his drunken abusive father. We also quickly learn that his mother is dying. At a party that evening he's called in because he has a camera to record a weird hole in the ground. The two other guys enter and he follows, where they're all exposed to ... something. After which they're all capable of telekinesis to a greater or lesser extent. As their skills grow, they use it for frivolous and occasionally obnoxious pranks. But things turn dark as one of them goes off the rails.

I don't like the sort of "found footage" thing - it's much less jittery than "Cloverfield," but at least the logic of filming in "Cloverfield" is consistent: one camera, one tape, found later at the attack site. This footage has been edited - not professional edits, but clearly not all done by our primary character, and then there's footage from another student's camera and several security cameras ... it makes no sense. Setting that aside, the movie is reasonably good: the characters are well done, and the development of their "powers" are fairly consistent. I didn't like it much because of the dark tone, but should work for most others.

2012, dir. Josh Trank. With Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, Michael B. Jordan, Michael Kelly, Ashley Hinshaw.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Beautiful, not quite so heavy handed with the religion as the original, but unfortunately pedestrian in the interpretation. Oddly, the add-on intro that wasn't in the book was one of the better parts of the movie. The kids acted fairly well except for the youngest - who was nevertheless very cute. The talking animals weren't a huge success.

2005, dir. Andrew Adamson. With William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Skandar Keynes, Georgie Henley, Tilda Swinton, James McAvoy.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Peter: "You've seen him. I wish he'd just given me some sort of proof." Lucy: "Maybe we're the ones that need to prove ourselves to him." In Narnia, God manifests himself as a lion and occasionally provides miracles for the faithful. Although only after hundreds of thousands have been slaughtered.

I was fascinated to find that C.S. Lewis seems to believe that a person killing dozens in a war is fine, but killing a particularly evil enemy while he's on his knees (when, I might add, it could stop a war) isn't noble enough. That kind of logic baffles me entirely. (It's been a while since I read the books: I'm assuming the movie version of the hand-to-hand combat is reasonably close to the book, which it may not be. But I think Lewis's logic is pretty much like this.)

Once again the acting takes a back seat to the scenery and effects - which are absolutely first-rate. Dinklage was a stand-out, a very good actor limited in his choice of roles because he's 4'5". He plays a dwarf here, and perhaps it would have been better if he wasn't such a good actor as he made those around him look like fools. Of the children, Keynes held up the best this time.

2008, dir. Andrew Adamson. With Ben Barnes, Georgie Henley, Skandar Keynes, William Moseley, Anna Popplewell, Sergio Castellitto, Peter Dinklage, Warwick Davis, Vincent Grass, Eddie Izzard, Liam Neeson.

The Chronicles of Riddick

A really disappointing movie ... Riddick is Vin Diesel's character from "Pitch Black," one of the best SF/horror movies of the last decade. The character of Riddick was a pretty compelling one, but they tried to expand on his background and threw in all kinds of nonsensical crap. The overall story of the movie itself was disappointing too (peaceful planet, evil alien invasion, blah blah blah), and Judi Dench's performance was ... lousy. This was Diesel's project: he'd been dying to work with Dench and convinced her. I just wish he'd picked a better project, for both of them.

2003. dir. David Twohy. With Vin Diesel, Judi Dench, Colm Feore, Thandie Newton, Karl Urban, Alexa Davalos.

Chronos

Ron Fricke gained some fame in the early 1980s working with Godfrey Reggio on his visual masterpiece "Koyaanisqatsi." Wikipedia says of him "specializing in time-lapse photography and large format cinematography." "Chronos" was his first work as director (at least if you believe Wikipedia), although it only runs 45 minutes. The original IMAX images come out an odd size on DVD, less than the full width of a 16:9 screen. Scenes vary between nature (we start in the American west), famous sites (Michelangelo's David was in there - odd when I was there two weeks ago), and cities (New York featured heavily). Very few shots are in real time: many are sped up, a few slowed down, and some odder modifications are made. It's lovely to behold, but I didn't feel like it went anywhere. It made me realise that Reggio's "Koyaanisqatsi" (just as dialogue-free) really does have a successful progression and message, because I found none at all in this. I wrote a blog entry on Cinematography a couple months ago, although you don't need to read it: it's a long rant to say that "plot matters more than cinematography to me, even though I love cinematography" ... so I wasn't too surprised to find myself vaguely disappointed by this. At least it wasn't lumbered by lousy actors or terrible dialogue: it's pure, beautiful imagery.

1985, dir. Ron Fricke.

The Cider House Rules

Michael Caine runs an orphanage, Tobey Maguire is his favourite. Maguire leaves to see the world. A coming of age story set in the U.S. during the Second World War, based on a John Irving novel. It's fairly good, but it's also depressing, and if I watch a depressing movie, I want it to be better than this was.

1999, dir. Lasse Hallström. With Michael Caine, Tobey Maguire, Charlize Theron, Delroy Lindo.

Cinderella (2015)

Kenneth Branagh's live-action take on Disney's previously animated interpretation of "Cinderella." Disney's version is based on Cendrillon by Charles Perrault, an interpretation of a centuries-old fairy tale. Just as well they didn't base it on the Brother's Grimm version (both of the step-sisters carve pieces off their feet to fit into the glass slipper in that one). Lily James plays Ella, a beautiful, gentle, and kind young girl with two wonderful parents. But her mother (Hayley Atwell) dies, and her father (Ben Chaplin) eventually remarries to an incredible bitch of a woman (Cate Blanchett) with two equally unpleasant daughters. Why her father would do this after having been married to the love of his life is never explained. Inevitably he dies while he's away on business and the step-mother and step-sisters turn Ella into a slave in her own house, renaming her "Cinder-Ella."

I think you can guess the rest of the story: fairy godmother (Helena Bonham Carter), ball, prince (Richard Madden), glass slipper, search, and - spoiler alert - happy ending. I suppose I watched this out of respect for Branagh: he's amazingly inconsistent, but occasionally very good. Unfortunately, this is Grade A pure weepy schmaltz ... with fantastic costumes. It looks pretty, but James has the emotional depth of a puddle, and everyone is playing straight to archetype anyway. Nauseating.

2015, dir. Kenneth Branagh. With Lily James, Cate Blanchett, Richard Madden, Helena Bonham Carter, Derek Jacobi, Sophie McShera, Holliday Grainger, Ben Chaplin, Hayley Atwell.

Cinema Paradiso

The original was heavy-handed but powerful. The director's cut (released in 2003(?) on DVD) is heavy-handed and incredibly tedious with another 51 minutes of footage. Someone please stop directors from "fixing" the "injustices" forced on them in editing the film ... See the original version: it's good.

1989. dir. Guiseppe Tornatore. With Philippe Noiret.

City Hunter (orig. "Sing si lip yan")

Based on a Japanese manga, Jackie Chan plays a womanizing private detective (with a Japanese name, but speaking Cantonese ...) hired to ... oh hell, I don't remember. Anyway he ends up on a cruise ship where he flirts with women, has fights, and performs numerous pratfalls. This can be considered a spoof or a manga brought literally to life, your choice: someone falls a long way and leaves a person-shaped hole in the deck of the ship, that kind of thing. I was hoping for a bunch of Chan's signature martial arts fights, but they went mostly for a lot of humour that didn't particularly work for me.

1993, dir. Jing Wong. With Jackie Chan, Joey Wang, Chingmy Yau, Richard Norton, Michael Wong, Gary Daniels.

City of Ember

Lina (Saoirse Ronan) and Doon (Harry Treadaway) grow up in the city of Ember, the last of humanity in an underground city that's deteriorating and dying. But due to the sudden death of a mayor, the city's most important secret (the way out, to be used at 200 years) was lost. Lina and Doon both question the complacency and resignation of their elders, and begin to believe in a way out.

Based on the novel by Jeanne DuPrau, the film makers didn't aim particularly high: there's not a lot of deep meaning here, and it's not hugely complex. On the other hand, they did make a charming and entertaining film.

2008, dir. Gil Kenan. With Saoirse Ronan, Harry Treadaway, Bill Murray, Mackenzie Crook, Tim Robbins, Martin Landau.

The City of Lost Children (orig. "La Cité des enfants perdus")

Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's second full length film after "Delicatessen," this one is so surreal and bizarre it makes "Delicatessen" look, well, "normal." And if you've seen "Delicatessen" you'll know that's one hell of an achievement.

Evidently Daniel Emilfork's character "Krank" is unable to dream, so he kidnaps children from a nearby city to steal their dreams. Ron Perlman plays the not-all-there strongman "One," whose adopted younger brother is stolen. Judith Vittet plays a young girl who works for "The Octopus," a very nasty pair of women joined at the hip (Geneviève Brunet and Odile Mallet, identical twins). Krank is assisted by five copies of Dominique Pinon, all of whom deliberately over-act (along with the rest of the cast). The sets are quite impressive. Utterly bizarre. I'm not sorry I watched it, but I wouldn't really recommend it either.

1995, dir. Marc Caro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet. With Ron Perlman, Daniel Emilfork, Judith Vittet, Dominique Pinon, Jean-Claude Dreyfus, Geneviève Brunet, Odile Mallet.

City of Violence

The movie is driven by the murder of ex-gangster Wang-jae, who owned a bar and was stabbed to death after chasing some trouble-makers into an alley. This re-unites his childhood friends: Pilho, who's taken over as the main gangster in town, Taesoo, a cop come home from Seoul, Seokhwan, who works as a debt collector for Pilho, and Donghwan, the struggling math teacher older brother of Seokhwan. The short-tempered Seokhwan (played by the director, Ryoo Seung-wan) and the results-are-more-important-than-rules cop both go looking for answers about the death, and end up teaming up.

It's ... violent. And eventually very bloody. And, as the Chinese proverb says, "he who seeks revenge should dig two graves." Jung Doo-hong (who plays Taesoo) has got a spectacular spin that he uses for kicks and various other manoeuvres, but the editing is choppy - this is no Jackie Chan movie where we see the action and the hits. We see spin and thrash, but not delivery. And there's not a single likeable character in the whole thing: you end up cheering for the hot-tempered asshole mob enforcer and the dirty cop because they're the gold standard of morality in the film.

2006, dir. Ryoo Seung-wan. With Ryoo Seung-wan, Jung Doo-hong, Lee Beom-soo, Jung Suk-yong, Lee Joo-shil, Ahn Gil-kang, Kim Byung-ok.

A Civil Action

Purports to tell a true story, the history of a personal injury lawyer (John Travolta) who sees dollar signs on the would-be defendants of a town water poisoning case that (probably) killed quite a few of the town's children, but finds himself becoming personally involved and eventually very nearly bankrupting his own law firm in the pursuit of a bigger settlement - for the people rather than for himself. I found it amazingly uninvolving: Travolta's character is hard to like at the beginning because all he's after is success and money, but he doesn't become much more likable when he finds his conscience because he's blind to the facts that he can't win (at least not the way he wants it) and that he's bankrupting his firm.

1997, dir. Steven Zaillian. With John Travolta, Robert Duvall, William H. Macy, Tony Shalhoub, Željko Ivanek, Bruce Norris, John Lithgow, Kathleen Quinlan, James Gandolfini, Stephen Fry, Dan Hedaya.

Clash

Trinh, aka "Phoenix" (Veronica Ngo Thanh Van) is a mob enforcer, hiring other criminals to assist her in a job she does under coercion for her boss who holds her daughter as collateral. "Tiger" (Johnny Nguyen) is one of the hired help. This is primarily a martial arts flick.

The acting is awful, the plot weak, and the martial arts mediocre (although slightly better than I expected). Van is a pop star and model - surprisingly, her fighting isn't significantly worse than Nguyen who makes his living as a martial artist and stunt man. Van is gorgeous, but that doesn't make a movie. There's betrayal and deception and lots of people die. Not recommended even for fans of the martial arts.

2009, dir. Le Thanh Son. With Veronica Ngo Thanh Van, Johnny Tri Nguyen, Lam Minh Thang, Hoang Phuc Nguyen.

Clash of the Titans (2010)

A remake of the notoriously bad 1981 film of the same name. I guess the thinking was that they couldn't produce a poorer product. I haven't seen the original so I can't compare.

The film starts with narration about the defeat of the Titans by the gods Zeus (Liam Neeson), Poseidon, and Hades (Ralph Fiennes) - this also introduces Hades creature "the Kraken," and sets up the rivalry between Zeus and Hades. Then we're introduced to Perseus (played as an adult by Sam Worthington), a demi-god (son of Zeus and a human mother) who was raised by a human family and has no idea of his powers. But it shortly falls to him to prevent the Kraken from destroying the city of Argos - and thus we have a quest in which he sets off to find the means to kill the unkillable.

The movie reminded me a great deal of "Transformers" (the first one) - an eye-popping special effects extravaganza in the service of an incredibly cheesy and stupid but somehow entertaining story. There are a million problems with it, but somehow it's just fun. It won't work for everyone, but if you liked "Transformers," you may enjoy this one too.

2010, dir. Louis Leterrier. With Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, Jason Flemyng, Alexa Davalos, Mads Mikkelsen.

Clash of Wings

15 50 minute episodes presenting Walter Boyne's book of the same title about the air fighting during the Second World War. Episodes tend to centre around elements of the war: The Battle of Britain, The German Russian offensive, The early fight between the Japanese and the Americans in the Pacific.

It added interesting things to my knowledge of aerial warfare about manufacturing and supply lines, but had a frustrating tendency to discuss particular planes while occasionally (rarely, but a bad plan when your audience is plane buffs) using footage of planes that weren't even in the air at the time being discussed. In particular, they showed the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 during the early Russian attacks, and the Vought F4U Corsair just after Pearl Harbour: both would appear to great effect later in the war, but not at that point.

Editing was choppy and the voice-over was done by someone with the accent of each country being discussed: consistency would have been better. Especially when they tossed in Boyne himself wandering around a fancy house periodically giving us thirty second sound bites about the outcome of some particular battle.

1990. Discovery Channel.

Clean and Sober

I don't know when I watched this - before I started writing these mini-reviews around 2004. But the movie stuck in my head something fierce, and I've remembered it as a fantastic film.

Michael Keaton made a radical and amazingly successful departure from comedy to do a turn as a cocaine addict who somewhat involuntarily finds himself in a 12 step program. The movie is about his struggles with addiction, his mentor (Morgan Freeman), and the woman he falls for and loses who's in the program with him (Kathy Baker). The plot is nothing extraordinary, but the acting is: a really good film.

1988, dir. Glenn Gordon Caron. With Michael Keaton, Kathy Baker, Morgan Freeman, M. Emmet Walsh.

Clear and Present Danger

I remembered not liking this when it came out, but then I didn't like "The Hunt for Red October" the first time around either. Both are Clancy novels about Jack Ryan - "Red October" has Alec Baldwin as intelligence analyst Ryan, who's played as a thinker, this one has Harrison Ford as more of a action figure. Ford isn't acting well, and Ryan works better as a thinker.

This time out, Ryan is filling the shoes of his sick boss while trying to figure out a drug-related slaughter on a privately owned yacht and why there appears to be unauthorized American military action in South America against drug cartels. This could have been done with the same intelligence as "Red October," but instead they threw a fair bit of action on top of some nasty political manoeuvring. Unfortunately the action's not very good, the politics are only mildly interesting, and the acting is pretty poor (although James Earl Jones is alright as the sick boss). The end product is a heap of expensive crap that shouldn't have been as bad as it is.

1994, dir. Phillip Noyce. With Harrison Ford, Willem Dafoe, Miguel Sandoval, Belita Moreno, Joaquim de Almeida, James Earl Jones, Benjamin Bratt, Harris Yulin, Henry Czerny.

The Clock

Technically, this is an art installation made of movies - but the end effect is a very long movie. Christian Marclay has compiled movie clips showing clocks or related to time to create a 24 hour movie. I saw from 1730 to roughly 1920 at the Power Plant in Toronto. What Marclay has done is hugely impressive - if the average clip is 20 seconds, he would need 4320 clips. And then there's choosing them so there's some visual continuity (not always) and audible continuity (very good). In hindsight, the three years it took him to put it together seems a little short. And yet I'm not sure this is great art: he isn't constructing a story, and, while there was always something to do with clocks or time, I didn't feel like this led to any conclusion or overarching theme. But at the same time, I have to admit I found it utterly mesmerizing for somewhat unclear reasons: probably because I was having fun playing "name the movie" and "name the actor/actress."

Notable clips for me included "Time After Time," "The Matrix," and the 2002 version of "The Time Machine." I was also entertained by a transition from Donald to Kiefer Sutherland. How he got the rights for thousands of movie clips is another mystery entirely.

2010, dir. Christian Marclay.

Close

Stars one of my favourite actresses, Noomi Rapace, as a "close protection officer" (aka "bodyguard"). This Netflix movie got relatively poor reviews for its conventional structure. I watched it for Rapace, but even she couldn't elevate this one.

Rapace is Sam Carlson. We first see her in South Sudan, where the journalists she's protecting come under attack. She proves how effective she is and gets both of them out alive. She's then hired to protect Zoe Tanner (Sophie Nélisse), troubled daughter of a newly deceased mining magnate who doesn't get along well with her stepmother (Indira Varma) who runs the business. Sam and Zoe end up struggling to survive on the run in Morocco (the locations were at least interesting).

The movie get some points for realism: at one point, Sam takes a few minutes alone to have something approaching a nervous breakdown as she cries over the recent violent death of a good friend. Which made me think about the hundreds of action movies starring men, where the only reaction they have to the death of friends is righteous rage - never a tear. Real action heroes don't cry. Thank god there are women to show us what to do occasionally.

On the flip-side of that, we have the poorly thought out plot point about the stepmother, who initially throws her stepdaughter under the bus (figuratively) in pursuit of a business deal and conforms to every Disney stereotype of the evil stepmother. For the sake of a plot point she has a change of heart at a crucial moment (oops, sorry, spoiler). That was deeply unconvincing and they lost all points they gained for realism.

2019, dir. Vicky Jewson. With Noomi Rapace, Sophie Nélisse, Indira Varma, Eoin Macken, Akin Gazi, Mansour Badri, Abdesslam Bouhssini, George Georgiou, Kevin Shen, Mimi Keene.

Closely Watched Trains (orig. "Ostre sledované vlaky")

A mildly surreal Czech comedy about sex, set during the Second World War. That latter part doesn't seem to make much difference - right up until the end. But this is proof once again that old comedy doesn't always translate well - I hardly laughed at all. Mostly it was just surreal. I suppose it's not as funny anymore because it's about sex and we've long ago brushed past all the mores it was sideswiping.

1966, dir. Jirí Menzel. With Václav Neckár, Josef Somr, Vlastimil Brodský.

Closer

A movie about four people abusing each other emotionally for two hours. A lot of people liked this movie, but none of the characters are even remotely likable - and even if that's okay with you I didn't think the dialogue was particularly realistic.

2004, dir. Mike Nichols. With Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman, Clive Owen.

Cloud Atlas

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell was a very complex, spectacularly well written novel that I admired, liked, and was frustrated by. If you haven't read the book, the movie's six plot lines across five or six hundred years is going to be a surprise. The book structure has the oldest story start first. It's then interrupted by the second story, which is interrupted by the third, on up to the sixth. The sixth story completes, then the fifth, the fourth, and so on back to the first. Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer decided to mix all six together in rapid succession, with pieces of each time period averaging about four minutes(?) each, going as low as a minute, with dialogue or voice-overs often stretching into the next segment. I guess they decided that this structure would be easier to parse in a movie - I think they're right. However, that doesn't mean it's easy to parse, just easier.

It's been a while since I read the book, but the movie does seem to be an accurate interpretation (excepting the structural changes). I do remember the frustration of reading the book, and it somehow feels appropriate that the movie was equally frustrating - like many of the Wachowski's products. It has moments of transcendence, but it's also kind of a mess in places.

And what the hell is it about? Connection: connecting to other people, trusting and supporting them. And the necessity of following your conscience and doing good, for without this the world fails. That makes it sound preachy: happily Mitchell and the Wachowskis and Tykwer make more subtle and compelling arguments.

2012, dir. Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski. With Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Doona Bae, Ben Whishaw, Keith David, James D'Arcy, Zhou Xun, David Gyasi, Susan Sarandon, Hugh Grant.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

I suppose any animated film has a degree of surreality to it simply because it's animated: it's been abstracted from reality and any resemblance is constructed in our minds. But most of them occasionally make reference to reality. This one buzzes reality for a few seconds at the beginning and then heads off into deep space: it's extremely surreal. It's very funny in places, both verbal and visual gags. And it's got a couple sharp things to say about North American society and how we perceive each other - the kids will laugh right through it, but the parents will notice. Very good.

2009, dir. Phil Lord, Christopher Miller. With Bill Hader, Anna Faris, Neil Patrick Harris, James Caan, Bruce Campbell, Andy Samberg, Mr. T, Bobb'e J. Thompson, Benjamin Bratt.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2

I was a big fan of the original, which is incredibly surreal, very clever, and very entertaining. It seems with this sequel they decided the primary virtues of the previous movie that they should recreate were bright colours, surreality, and bad puns. The brains and most of the charm got left behind. UPDATE: by 2020 the directors of the original (Lord and Miller) have shown their genius in several other movies: Lord and Miller weren't associated with this. I'm blaming the much reduced quality on that.

All the people who live on the island of Swallow Falls are evacuated after the events of the last movie to allow for the clean-up of the giant food by Live Corp. Our hero Flint Lockwood is given the opportunity to work at Live Corp, working with this life-long inventor-hero Chester. This distracts him from his friends. Eventually he's sent to help clean up the excess food at Swallow Falls (after a large contingent of Live Corp staff have failed). Chester turns out to be evil and friendship saves the day.

The incredibly colourful food animals - with names like "Flamangos" and "Tacodile - Supreme" - probably entertain the little ones, but the original had a lot of thought behind it that's totally lacking here. Very disappointing.

2013, dir. Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn. With Bill Hader, Anna Faris, James Caan, Will Forte, Andy Samberg, Neil Patrick Harris, Benjamin Bratt, Terry Crews, Kristen Schaal.

Cloverfield

Does for the Godzilla/Kaiju genre what "Blair Witch" did for lost-in-the-woods. That is to say, shaky POV. Follows a group of not entirely charming friends who were at a party as they try to survive the night of the arrival of a giant monster, with one of them holding the cam.

Fairly clever and well executed, although some people may get motion sickness. You've never heard of any of the cast, despite the budget. We have J.J. Abrams to thank for this over-the-top craziness. Matt Reeves sounds, in the director's commentary, like an intelligent guy and may actually produce some work worth seeing later.

2007, dir. Matt Reeves. With Michael Stahl-David, T.J. Miller, Jessica Lucas, Mike Vogel, Lizzy Caplan, Odette Yustman.

Clueless

A trip back in time to the 1990s and the cliché of the Valley Girl - all based (loosely) on Jane Austen's Emma. Alicia Silverstone plays Cher, self-centred but well meaning and very rich. She and her best friend adopt new girl at school Tai (Brittany Murphy in her first film role) as a project, and Cher tries to line her up with Elton (fans of Austen can guess how that ends).

Watching it in 2017, much of the style and exaggerated humour is painfully 1990s - but to my surprise, the movie remains quite funny. The script is loaded to the gills with witty one-liners. Some of them miss or haven't aged well, but many of them still connect. And under all the comedy they still manage a passable interpretation of Emma.

1995, dir. Amy Heckerling. With Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, Brittany Murphy, Paul Rudd, Dan Hedaya, Elisa Donovan, Justin Walker, Wallace Shawn, Twink Caplan, Donald Faison, Breckin Meyer, Jeremy Sisto.

Coco

Before I saw "Coco," I accused it (based on the trailer) of being overly similar to "The Book of Life," which came out in 2014 - having seen the movie I haven't changed my opinion. Both are animated children's movies about a young man who crosses into the Mexican version of the land of the dead where he turns to music (a career denied him by his family in the living world) to save himself and return to the land of the living. Within that frame there are many differences, and Pixar's "Coco" is the better film overall, but "The Book of Life" did come first and I feel it's been unfairly ignored in all the noise about "Coco."

Miguel (Anthony Gonzalez) wants to play guitar, but he's expected to become a shoemaker like the rest of his family because music is barred from their lives. In an effort to prove himself a musician, he steals the guitar of his dead idol - and disappears from the land of the living. The "why" of that one is never explained, although the rules of him getting back are explicated in great detail. In the land of the dead he tries to track down his father, and many discoveries are made about his family.

The film spends a lot of time on the ideas of "respect for family" and "be true to yourself," building the core of its conflict on the two being at odds with each other for our main character. It's sweet, enjoyable, and even more than usually family-oriented, but not up there with Pixar's very best ("Toy Story," "Toy Story 2," "Finding Nemo," "The Incredibles," and "Inside Out"). Think of it more in the category of "Cars": charming and funny but not earth-shaking.

2017, dir. Lee Unkrich. With Anthony Gonzalez, Gael García Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, Alanna Ubach, Renée Victor, Ana Ofelia Murguía, Edward James Olmos.

The Cocoanuts

Groucho plays the owner of a Florida resort that's making no money. Chico and Harpo fill in their usual roles of mixed support and trouble-makers, and Zeppo is the romantic straight man. Groucho is intermittently funny, and there are far too many musical numbers that I skipped through.

1929, dir. Robert Florey and Joseph Santley. With Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Zeppo Marx, Margaret Dumont.

Code 8

The movie outlines a world that looks exactly like ours, but "Lincoln City" where the movie is set (which looks suspiciously like some of Toronto's seedier areas) was populated by people with Powers. Now the people with Powers are hated and feared by most of the population, and the police department has built drones and robots to fight those with Powers who can't make a living because they're so marginalized.

Our protagonist is Connor Reed (Robbie Amell), who works under the table in construction as he's a powerful "Electric." His mother Mary (Kari Matchett) is dying of a brain tumour that they can't afford to treat, and in the process starting to lose control of her ability to freeze things. Connor starts taking criminal jobs to try to pay for her treatment, working with Garrett (Stephen Amell).

By this point (perhaps 20 minutes in?) they had multiple marks against them. Robbie Amell is a crap actor. Most of the "Powers" are shown to be very useful, and I really wasn't sold on the idea that they would be uniformly hated - but that's the only view the movie was willing to pitch. The writing lives down to Amell's acting: it was staggeringly pedestrian with wooden dialogue and no humour. And then they tossed in the other Amell cousin, whose only distinction is he's been acting badly for longer than Robbie.

There are crimes, there's a double cross, there's a crisis of conscience, the only difference from your average badly written heist movie being that this involved super powers. And it was set in Toronto - at least I got to enjoy trying to identify neighbourhoods, particularly the incredibly seedy Hotel Waverly which they apparently borrowed right before it was torn down. And at the end, the movie closes out on a relatively minor character who got a good outcome from this mess. What? That just felt weird. I'm not even sure where our main character went.

This bears a noticeable resemblance to both "Project Power" and "How I Became a Superhero" - either of which is more worth your time (although it's interesting to note that those other movies came after this one, and may have stolen some of its ideas).

Poorly thought out on almost every level, this should only be seen by hardcore fans of the Amells. It's their show, and not worth watching for anyone else.

2019, dir. Jeff Chan. With Robbie Amell, Stephen Amell, Sung Kang, Aaron Abrams, Kari Matchett, Greg Bryk, Kyla Kane, Laysla De Oliveira, Vlad Alexis.

Code 46

Ahh, the extraordinary Samantha Morton. Not beautiful, not ugly, not talented or untalented, just ... extraordinary. Her bizarre acting was great as the girl who saw the future in "Minority Report," but in this one I got sick of seeing her writhe, squirm, moan, and occasionally look confused. The movie amounted to a bunch of fairly standard science fiction ideas (papers for everything, language melding, elite city dwellers, memory wiping, control of genetics) and molds them into a poor plot around an unconvincing forbidden love.

2003, dir. Michael Winterbottom. With Tim Robbins, Samantha Morton.

Coherence

A group of eight friends get together for dinner as a comet passes overhead. The scene is set as we learn who dislikes who, who slept with who, and the weird effects that comets have previously had on electricity and people's brains. The power goes out, everyone gets jumpy and paranoid, and really weird things happen - which only increases the paranoia.

The entire movie plays out in one house, and on the street outside the house. It's about disintegrating relationships in stressful situations (such as coming into conflict with another copy of all your friends). The critics thought well of it (88% on Rotten Tomatoes), but I just kept giggling over the silliness, which just kept escalating ...

2014, dir James Ward Byrkit. With Emily Baldoni, Maury Sterling, Nicholas Brendon, Lorene Scafaria, Hugo Armstrong, Elizabeth Gracen, Alex Manugian, Lauren Maher.

The Cold Blue

A modern companion piece to "The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress." This documentary was made during the restoration of that one, from both movie footage and B-roll footage not originally used. This is accompanied by various members of the 8th Air Force (the Air Force the Memphis Belle was part of, but none of that plane's crew were still alive) talking about what it was like to fight in the war on the B-17s. Having just watched "The Memphis Belle" earlier in the day, much of the footage used here was familiar - but the commentary from the surviving flyers is both horrible and wonderful. And it ends with one of the airmen suggesting we all go home tonight and pray God that such a war never happens again.

Both very similar - in subject and footage - to "The Memphis Belle," and very different - because the voice-overs for this one were looking back from 70 years after the war. Every bit as good as "The Memphis Belle," and they should be watched together.

2018, dir. Erik Nelson.

Cold Comfort Farm

This is a 1995 British TV movie based on Stella Gibbons' 1932 book of the same name, a parody of romanticized farm life novels of the time. Kate Beckinsale plays Flora Poste, looking for a place to live after the death of her parents. Rather than live with friends or family in London, she chooses relatives on a clearly dysfunctional and broken down farm in the country. Despite problems, she's determined to persevere - and meddle in everyone's lives to make them better. All the eccentric relatives are painted in broad strokes, and her solutions to their lives even more so. Very silly, but somewhat amusing.

1995, dir. . With Kate Beckinsale, Joanna Lumley, Rufus Sewell, Ian McKellen, Eileen Atkins, Stephen Fry, Miriam Margolyes, Sheila Burrell, Freddie Jones, Ivan Kaye, Jeremy Peters, Maria Miles.

Cold Mountain

Jude Law plays a Confederate soldier in the Civil War, Nicole Kidman his fiancée, and Renée Zellweger the ... farm hand ... who helps manage her farm after her father's death. Law, sick of war, and holding a letter from Kidman asking him to come back and help her, deserts and starts a very long trek back. We watch the trials and tribulations at both ends through most of a year and an excessively long running time (154m). The acting is good, and the story is both epic and personal ... and yet there's something lacking. That may just be me: it was nominated for several Oscars and won one (Zellweger).

2003, dir. Anthony Minghella. With Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Renée Zellweger, Brendan Gleeson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Natalie Portman, Giovanni Ribisi, Donald Sutherland, Rayi Winstone, Kathy Baker, James Gammon, Ethan Suplee.

Cold Souls

Paul Giamatti plays ... Paul Giamatti. An actor that we first see rehearsing "Uncle Vanya," he gets seriously wound up over his characters - to the point that it interferes with his performance. So he decides to have his soul removed and stored. But now he has no compassion or empathy, his wife thinks he feels different, and his performance in the play is awful. Next he temporarily borrows the soul of a Russian poet ... etc.

As you might expect, this is a pretty weird movie. And not, I think, among Giamatti's best performances. Because they're trying to show that he acts differently with each soul, he's overdoing certain behaviours at different times. He carries it better than anyone else would, but it's still not an elegant solution or performance. It's amusing in spots, but mostly just weird.

2009, dir. Sophie Barthes. With Paul Giamatti, Emily Watson, David Strathairn, Dina Korzun, Katheryn Winnick.

Collateral

Jamie Foxx plays a cabbie who finds himself driving a contract killer around Los Angeles as he does a series of hits. It's an action movie, and as they go, it's actually a pretty good one. Both of the main characters act fairly well, and there's a bit more of a nod to reality than usual (although not a lot more).

2004. dir. Michael Mann. With Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith.

Colossal

Anne Hathaway is Gloria, an alcoholic party girl just dumped by her boyfriend. She returns to her unoccupied family home in small town New England, where she encounters her childhood friend Oscar (Jason Sudeikis). Oscar gives her a job waitressing at his bar - shortly after which Gloria notices that the gigantic monster periodically rampaging in Seoul, Korea, has the same physical tics that she does. In fact, she appears to be controlling it ...

While it's listed as a dark comedy, I was a little surprised at how dark it went - although that's tempered by the utterly absurd primary premise.

I remain unclear if this was all meant as a metaphor for alcoholism, or perhaps repressed childhood trauma, or maybe even taking responsibility for your own actions. Or it could just be a crazy movie. In any case, I really enjoyed it.

2016, dir. Nacho Vigalondo. With Anne Hathaway, Jason Sudeikis, Dan Stevens, Austin Stowell, Tim Blake Nelson.

The Colour of Magic

Based on Terry Pratchett's first (and not best) Discworld novel of the same name. Since I've read it it's hard for me to say how this would fly with those who haven't read it - but it looks rather like chaos in the name of humour, too ludicrous to really hold together ... It sticks very close to the book (at least as I remember it), and that kind of ludicrous situational humour has always worked well for Pratchett ... on the page. It's hard to translate to the screen. But as someone who's read it, I found it quite entertaining - all 191 minutes of the original British made-for-TV movie. The effects are quite good, and the leads were mostly very good. I thought Sean Astin as Twoflower was the weakest, but making Twoflower convincing is pretty tough. But right next to him was David Jason in the role of Rincewind, which he did very well indeed (although I've always pictured Rincewind as in his thirties). My main dispute with the movie was the number of people that the Luggage ate: I really thought it should be higher. But again, what's funny on the page is less funny (and less family-friendly) when you actually see it ...

Pratchett has the closing line of the movie in a tiny role as an astrozoologist. A nice touch.

2008, dir. Vadim Jean. With David Jason, Sean Astin, Tim Curry, Jeremy Irons, Brian Cox, James Cosmo, Christopher Lee, Terry Pratchett.

Columbus

When this came out in 2017, I was intrigued and thought I'd see it as soon as it came out on DVD. Which is normally a perfectly workable idea as everything eventually shows up at Toronto Public Library, but this - despite spectacularly good reviews by the critics - never got released on optical disc. So it sat in the back of my mind until I finally thought to look for it on Netflix in May of 2019. To my considerable surprise, it was there.

This is the first full length film by Kogonada, and stars John Cho as the son of an architecture professor who returns from Korea to Columbus, Ohio when his father falls into a coma. The other major role is filled by Haley Lu Richardson, a young fan of architecture locked into a fairly limited life in Columbus.

The pacing is absolutely glacial - which isn't to say I didn't like the movie, in fact it's fairly good. You have to sit back and relax, just let it go at its own speed. The framing of shots is incredibly meticulous, the architecture shown to exquisite effect, and people carefully placed in the shots. It's a bit static though: I think there were perhaps two moving shots in the entire movie.

The movie is about love: how Jin (Cho's character) feels about his distant and now comatose father, how Casey (Richardson's character) feels about her recovering drug-addict mother, how Jin and Casey feel about each other.

2017, dir. Kogonada. With John Cho, Haley Lu Richardson, Parker Posey, Rory Culkin, Michelle Forbes.

The Commitments

The 1991 movie based on the 1987 Roddie Doyle novel of the same name. Our protagonist is Jimmy Rabbitte (Robert Arkins), young and unemployed in Dublin, with a dream of starting a famous band. He starts auditioning and recruiting, and brings together ten people to play American Soul. They start out sounding a bit crap, but they keep rehearsing until they sound fantastic on stage ... while simultaneously they're disintegrating off stage.

The actors were picked primarily for their ability to play or sing, and it shows in the performances: they sound fantastic. So much so that much of the cast ran a couple of tours performing the music in the movie, and both the soundtrack and a follow-up album charted. But the portrayal of a band forming and falling apart again is beautiful, hilarious, and a little tragic: it remains one of the best band movies there is. A great piece of work.

1991, dir. Alan Parker. With Robert Arkins, Andrew Strong, Glen Hansard, Kenneth McCluskey, Angeline Ball, Maria Doyle, Bronagh Gallagher, Johnny Murphy, Félim Gormley, Michael Aherne, Dick Massey, Dave Finnegan, Colm Meaney, Anne Kent.

The Company of Strangers

This is an NFB (National Film Board, for the non-Canadians among you) movie from 1990. Eight elderly women and their young female driver are stranded in the Quebec(?) wilderness when their bus breaks down on an impromptu detour to see the cottage that one of them went to in her youth. And really, there's no more to it than that: it's 100 minutes of old ladies talking. Seriously, that's it - a bunch of unscripted non-actors talking and reminiscing about their lives. And you know what? I loved it when it came out, and I love it in 2018. It's a charming, thought-provoking bit of Canadiana, a wonderful quiet little film that I highly recommend.

Best of all, it's available for free.

1990, dir. Cynthia Scott. With Alice Diabo, Constance Garneau, Winifred Holden, Cissy Meddings, Mary Meigs, Catherine Roche, Michelle Sweeney, Beth Webber.

The Company of Wolves

The movie starts with a rich teenager (Sarah Patterson) in modern Britain being pestered by her older sister (Georgia Slowe). We then enter her dreams, where she lives in a fairytale forest. Her sister is killed by wolves in the forest, and she goes to stay with her grandmother (Angela Lansbury) who loves to tell bloody stories (which are also put on film for us). Grandma also knits her a bright-red shawl for our Little Red Riding Hood. So the whole movie is a dream, except for about two minutes at each end: not a promising structure.

I got interested in this because it had fairly good reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and because it was directed by Neil Jordan. I struggled through it primarily because it was Jordan, but I'm here to tell you that the special effects are appallingly bad, and the pointlessly complex structure doesn't amount to a cohesive whole and the whole damn thing is just idiotic. Really terrible.

1984, dir. Neil Jordan. With Sarah Patterson, Angela Lansbury, David Warner, Tusse Silberg, Micha Bergese, Graham Crowden, Shephen Rea, Georgia Slowe, Shane Johnstone.

Concussion

Will Smith plays Bennet Omalu, an over-educated Nigerian doctor who works as a pathologist in (or near, anyway) Pittsburgh. When Hall of Fame football player Mike Webster (David Morse) landed on his autopsy table at the age of 50, Omalu spent his own money to determine what was wrong with Webster's brain - and discovered something that was eventually named Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). Essentially, "you get too many minor concussions playing football, you get brain problems and you die young." The movie follows his attempts to tell the National Football League about it (according to the movie, he was surprised that they didn't want to hear it - and they have highly paid lawyers to prevent such conversations ...), while also trying to start a family. The movie runs from roughly 2002 through 2009 - by which time the NFL was finally forced to acknowledge there might be some small problem ...

Smith is good as Omalu, and he gets good backup from Gugu Mbatha-Raw as his love interest and wife, Morse as Webster, Albert Brooks as his mentor and head coroner Cyril Wecht, and Alec Baldwin as a former team doctor Julian Bailes - who's very unhappy with what's happening to his former players. The final product is a well constructed (if not stellar) movie about a rather interesting and disturbing subject. It's a good portrait of a man who did what was right in the face of very nasty opposition, and deserves all the accolades this movie implies.

2015, dir. Peter Landesman, Will Smith, Alec Baldwin, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Albert Brooks, David Morse, Arliss Howard, Paul Reiser, Luke Wilson, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje.

Confess, Fletch

In 1985, a movie called "Fletch" was released starring Chevy Chase as the title character. I haven't seen it, or its sequel "Fletch Lives." I was aware of the first movie, but not being a fan of Chase I never watched it. As it turns out, Jon Hamm's outing as Fletch isn't so much a revival of Chase's character as a revival of a character created by novelist Gregory Mcdonald, who wrote ten Fletch novels and another six spin-off novels about related characters. Chase's first movie appears to be a plot match for the first Fletch novel, while this movie draws its title (and presumably plot) from one of the later novels.

Jon Hamm plays Irwin Maurice Fletcher, who really doesn't like his first names and prefers to be called "Fletch." We first see him arriving at an upscale rental in Boston, where he finds a young woman dead on the floor. We rapidly find out his reactions aren't like other people's: he has a casual phone call with the police about the dead body, and then relaxes with a drink in his hand. He then proceeds to irritate the investigators (Roy Wood Jr. and Ayden Mayeri) by being equally casual and unconcerned with them - thus becoming their prime suspect even though he placed the call.

Fletch is in Boston looking for some paintings stolen from the family of his Italian girlfriend (Lorenza Izzo). As Fletch keeps telling people, "I was an investigative reporter of some repute." The police try to trail him as he investigates both the murder and the paintings, with only mixed results: he's very good at losing tails by a variety of eccentric and humourous methods. Ultimately he gets his answers and is almost killed over a missed detail (don't give me this "spoiler alert!" crap - we already discussed him starring in a very long series of books). He's referred to as "stupid" several times, but I think that's really missing the point - and also the police officers who called him that were too smart to have missed the fact that he's a very sharp guy. Occasionally sloppy, and definitely arrogant (which they more accurately called him), but they knew what he'd done and he didn't get there by being stupid.

Hamm as Fletch is very good. His comedic timing is good, although I think I've seen him do better in other movies. I think part of that opinion is based on the movie's insistence on cutting over to Fletch's face for reaction shots, in which he grimaces or frowns or whatever, and that's supposed to be funny. Not as much so as they thought it was ... he was far better in action and dialogue scenes. And the ending was disappointing: another layer of deception is revealed that felt particularly unbelievable (it upped my opinion of Fletch's intelligence and lowered my opinion of his emotional intelligence in one swift stroke). But - and I guess this is probably the most important judgment - I would return to watch Hamm in the role again: it was fun enough for that.

2022, dir. Greg Mottola. With Jon Hamm, Kyle MacLachlan, Roy Wood Jr., Ayden Mayeri, Lorenza Izzo, John Slattery, Marcia Gay Harden, Annie Mumolo, John Behlmann.

Confessions of a Superhero

All I could think watching this movie is how weird my life would look if it were put on film. We follow the lives of four people in Hollywood, all of whom want to be actors, but have instead spent years on Hollywood Boulevard as costumed superheroes posing for pictures and working for tips - glorified panhandling. It struck me as a kind of reality TV show more than a documentary, although I suppose it can be considered as both. And no, I don't think my life is that strange, but we all have our quirks and ideas that make others scratch their heads and feel superior. The filming is awful (focus isn't always there, zooms are abrupt, subjects aren't always entirely in frame) and the intro by Morgan Spurlock wasn't merely gratuitous, it was actively bad. But the movie ... it's not bad. The director makes no judgements, although he chooses to end on relative high notes for each of the characters. Strange stuff.

2007, dir. Matthew Ogens. With Maxwell Allen, Christopher Dennis, Jennifer Wenger, Joseph McQueen.

The Congress

The first half hour of the movie concentrates heavily on battering Robin Wright (played by Robin Wright) for her inconsistency, her refusal to take parts or do what's expected of her - the point being that she has no options, and if she wants to make any money at all, she has to take the contract in front of her. The script has the subtlety of a sledgehammer, and I very nearly quit because it was so godawful - Wright managed to wring a bit of substance out of the terrible material, but Harvey Keitel (as, we are forcefully made to understand, her long-suffering agent) wasn't trying very hard at all.

But after Robin signs over the rights to, well, HER (her digital image, her right to act, everything), the movie jumps forward 20 years to the Future Congress. Which is ... animated. Everyone is what they want to be - and everything and nothing is valid. From that point on, the movie is pure psychedelia - and makes little more sense than that suggests. If you can stomach the first half hour, the remaining 90 minutes is ... more interesting. I'm not sure it's better, just weirder.

Based in part on Stanisław Lem's 1971 SF novel The Futurological Congress.

I watched this because a friend recommended it, and that combined with my respect for Ari Folman and his previous movie "Waltz With Bashir" kept me watching even after the poorly done introduction.

"The events, characters and firms depicted in this photoplay are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or firms is purely coincidental." We see this so often at the end of movies that most of us don't think about it at all. I hadn't thought about it in a long time, not until I saw this movie: this movie, starring Robin Wright playing a character called "Robin Wright" who played "Princess Buttercup" in a movie called "The Princess Bride." The disclaimer seems more than a little inaccurate as Robin Wright is definitely real. (Or is she? I'VE never met her. Maybe Hollywood is an illusion in my mind ...)

2013, dir. Ari Folman. With Robin Wright, Jon Hamm, Harvey Keitel, Danny Huston, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Paul Giamatti, Sami Gayle.

Conspiracy

Val Kilmer plays a shell-shocked vet of the Iraq War. Back home in the U.S. he never leaves his apartment, spends what little money he has on a succession of prostitutes, and lives with his flashbacks. A veteran buddy eventually convinces Kilmer to move down to New Mexico to help him out. When he arrives, no one has ever heard of his friend, and he receives a rather poor welcome. Strangely enough, there's a conspiracy in town, and eventually Kilmer tries to take care of it.

If you took "Rambo," "Soldier," and about a dozen other movies of that variety and stuff them all in the blender, something just like this would come out. Minor oddities included illegal aliens (from Mexico) being the prosecuted group, and the bad guys all belonging to a company called "Halicorp" which is accused of the worst kind of war profiteering - a very clear knock-off of Halliburton. Gary Cole plays the exact same bad guy he played the last time I saw him (I think in "Pineapple Express"). Like any movie, it had a few decent moments; but overall, it stinks.

2008, dir. Adam Marcus. With Val Kilmer, Gary Cole, Jennifer Esposito, Jay Jablonski, Greg Serano.

The Constant Gardener

Would have been an excellent movie if it wasn't for the music video editing, use of colour, and volume. It's an intelligent political intrigue, not a brainless action movie. Despite the editing and with the help of very good performances by Rachel Weisz and Ralph Fiennes, this is a good (albeit very depressing) movie about the evils of drug companies in the Third World. Original story by John le Carré.

2005, dir. Fernando Meirelles. With Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Bill Nighy, Pete Postlethwaite.

Constantine

Based on the DC comic "Hellblazer," "Constantine" stars Keanu Reeves as an attempted suicide who's been to hell and can see the angels and demons walking on earth among us. If you can accept that premise, you might enjoy this movie. Watch past the end of the credits. Fans of the comic will be disappointed in the choice of Reeves, who isn't blond and isn't Cockney. But Rachel Weisz is excellent, Tilda Swinton and Reeves are very good, the ideas are wild, and the action is great. Despite huge flaws, it's highly entertaining. I was particularly impressed with the ending, which someone worked out very well indeed.

2005, dir. Francis Lawrence. With Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz, Shia LaBeouf, Tilda Swinton.

Contact

"Contact" was written as a film treatment by Carl Sagan and his wife Ann Druyan. When movie production stalled, Sagan released the book Contact in 1985, with the film eventually coming out in 1997 - the year after Sagan's death. It's a fascinating take on Science and Faith, and despite some significant flaws, I've been a big fan for years.

Jodie Foster is Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway, a SETI scientist who lost her mother at childbirth and her father at age 9. She's independent, intelligent, excessively honest, and bad at relationships. While working at Arecibo in Puerto Rico, she and her team find an incredibly strong signal coming from the Vega star system. A signal with a LOT of information embedded in it. What comes of this is a machine that - they think - will transport someone to Vega to meet the aliens. Ellie desperately wants to be that person.

I've totally left out Palmer Joss (Matthew McConaughey), a man she had a fling with in Puerto Rico. As the machine is being built, Palmer goes on to considerable fame as a Christian philosopher. He also becomes the middle ground in the film between Ellie's atheism and Jake Busey's religious fanatic.

I find the movie's take on both the science of star travel and the essence of science vs. faith to be quite brilliant - I've watched the movie three or four times, and find it thought-provoking every time. Sagan himself was not (as I suspected, age 10, watching his famous TV series "Cosmos") an atheist like Ellie, but neither was he a follower of a particular church. I have to guess he wrote Ellie and Palmer as representative of those two sides of his personality, science and faith. Towards the end of the movie, Ellie comes up against a particularly nasty conundrum for an atheist scientist: she has an unquantifiable experience that she must ask others to take on faith. It didn't occur to me until this viewing of the movie that there's a very strong connection between the movie and Arthur C. Clarke's "Third Law:" "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

The biggest problem with the movie is Foster's performance. Don't get me wrong, I love Foster. But there are a couple extended scenes where she goes way over the top - or Zemeckis told her to make it an excessive ecstatic religious experience, I don't know. Either way, it's too much and the reason that I can't list this as one of the best movies in the history of the world. Given that, it still remains a thought-provoking and wonderful film about how we view the universe around us and a celebration of humanity.

1997, dir. Robert Zemeckis. With Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Skerritt, William Fichtner, Jake Busey, Angela Bassett, John Hurt, James Woods, David Morse, Rob Lowe.

Cool Runnings

Based, loosely, on the events leading up to the Jamaican bobsled team racing at the 1988 Winter Olympics. It's definitely one of the more bizarre true fish-out-of-water sports stories you can find. Being a Disney product, it spends its time trying to be extra charming - and mostly managing to do so. The four sprinters all have their own reasons and problems - but their coach is a real piece of work. John Candy plays a discredited American bobsledder who had a couple gold medals before he was caught cheating. Candy actually puts in a really good performance. The script is definitely manipulative, but by the end you're really cheering for them. Quite enjoyable.

1993, dir. Jon Turteltaub. With Leon Robinson, Doug E. Doug, Rawle D. Lewis, Malik Yoba, John Candy.

Cool World

A lower budget, crazier, and much more sexualized version of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit." Came with a pretty poor recommendation, sitting as it does at 4% on Rotten Tomatoes 23 years after its release. The confused plot first shows us a human (a very young Brad Pitt, acting rather poorly here) in our world in 1945 drawn into the animated (and comedic) "Cool World" just as his mother dies - a bizarre tonal shift that lets you know director Ralph Bakshi is going to be tone-deaf throughout the movie. We then jump forward nearly 50 years, and see that an unchanged Pitt is now a policeman in Cool World, and out in the real world a cartoonist (Gabriel Byrne) who drew one of the Cool World characters (Holli Would, played by Kim Basinger) is getting out of jail. The cartoonist starts transitioning between worlds, and he and Holli cause major problems.

When the characters are in Cool World, the place is visually fascinating. It's also utterly littered with visual non-sequiturs: fist-fights, safes or cows dropping out of the sky - usually on to characters - crazy things just floating through the air. It's very cool to look at, but doesn't make a lot of sense or add to the plot. Byrne's comic book artist seems like a very white-bread guy, but we're supposed to think he really, really want to be in the utterly insane environment of Cool World - nothing sold me on that at all. Despite all of which I rather enjoyed it, as damaged as it is. It was interesting, and I think I'm looking for that right now after a string of incredibly boring action movies.

1992, dir. Ralph Bakshi. With Kim Basinger, Brad Pitt, Candi Milo, Gabriel Byrne.

The Cooler

William H. Macy plays the titular "cooler," a man whose luck is so bad he's employed by a casino to "cool" tables - his presence will destroy anyone's run of luck. That is, until he falls in love (with Maria Bello's character). So now he's being paid to bring bad luck and is instead bringing good luck ... not exactly what his vindictive employer (Alec Baldwin) wants. Definitely a bit on the surreal side. Macy is entertaining, Baldwin vicious, and Bello gets naked again. Weird, and I didn't like it much.

2003, dir. Wayne Kramer. With William H. Macy, Alec Baldwin, Maria Bello.

Copshop

The Rotten Tomatoes summary says "It doesn't add many new ingredients to the genre, but action fans in the mood for an old-school thriller will be happy to buy what Copshop is selling." Some tense scenes, good action, some intelligence in the script, and good performances from Gerard Butler (I'd almost forgotten he could act) and Alexis Louder make this fairly enjoyable if you're looking for an action movie ... although the ending did put me off a bit.

Louder is Valerie Young, a rookie police officer. She's shown to be smart, honest, and good with a gun. But she ends up in the lockup with a con man (Frank Grillo), a hired killer (Butler), and a bullet wound, while the entire police building is under attack. Who does she trust, what does she do? Etc.

Since I watched the movie I've been trying to figure out what bothered me about it. I think it's Young's squeaky clean character. She's not just morally upright: she's perfect. The first comparison that came to mind is John McClane (Bruce Willis in the "Die Hard" movies ... yeah, you probably know that) - McClane is a reluctant hero, an asshole, and is a "vigilante" despite being a cop. He's a "good guy," on the side of law and order, but ... no one would accuse him of being a straight arrow. Valerie Young on the other hand - while she has a personality, she apparently has no failings. None. She's likeable without being interesting. Bob Viddick (Butler's character) is unquestionably "lawless" (how Young refers to him), but he has a conscience - even if it's weirdly distorted. It's bad when the bad guys are more interesting than your hero.

2021, dir. Joe Carnahan. With Gerard Butler, Frank Grillo, Alexis Louder, Toby Huss, Ryan O'Nan, Chad L. Coleman, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Kaiwi Lyman, Tracey Bonner, Christopher Michael Holley.

Coraline

Coraline is a young girl dissatisfied with her parents, her life, and her new weird neighbours. Live action animation in the same style as "The Nightmare Before Christmas," with which it shares the same director. Coraline find a small door that occasionally leads to a copy of her new apartment - complete with copies of her parents, who seem to be much nicer than her real parents.

The story takes a dark turn - as you might expect of both the director and the original author, Neil Gaiman. The animation is beautiful, the story reasonably good, the characters fun.

2009, dir. Henry Selick. With Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, John Hodgman, Ian McShane, Robert Bailey Jr., Keith David.

Corbin Nash

Starts with a super-cheesy voice-over by none other than Malcolm McDowell, who has lent his decaying credentials to this pathetic B movie. Written by some dude from "Game of Thrones" (Dean Jagger) who is also the lead actor and thinks grimacey-face is acting, along with his brother (Ben Jagger) who also directed. The writing is consummately pedestrian, with people asking questions that are convenient to the writers rather than ones that an actual human would ask. Questions similar to "what is the next plot point you'd like to make?"

Corbin Nash is a rogue cop who learns - from another aging actor with fading charisma (Rutger Hauer who then leaves the set and never returns) that his parents were vampire hunters. And he's destined to become one himself. The first third of the movie is tedious set-up - he and his cop buddy cannot possibly match the vampires physically but his heart is in the right place etc. The second third of the movie sees him in vampire entertainment (and food) fight club, chained or beating people up. And occasionally being angsty and delivering plot points, or having them expostulated to him.

And in the final third he is himself a vampire, hell-bent on killing the bad vampires. Here's the thing: all the publicity told you this was coming, and the movie told you it was coming within about five minutes. Which begs the question: why the hell did it take them 60 minutes of the 90 minute running time to turn him? And, as inevitably as little Lego building blocks click together, he goes out and kills the evil vampires and saves the girl. Oh, and they're totally ready to make a sequel!

It's essentially "Blade" but completely devoid of charisma, worthwhile action, or ... well, anything worth watching.

2018, dir. Ben Jagger. With Dean S. Jagger, Corey Feldman, Richard Wagner, Rutger Hauer, Bruce Davison.

The Core

A Seventies disaster movie made in 2003 with modern tropes and good acting ... which doesn't prevent it from having painfully bad science. But this is one of those ones where you go into it knowing it's going to be really bad and enjoy it anyway. It was fun.

The basic premise is that the core of the Earth has stopped rotating, and everyone on the planet will die in under a year unless our intrepid (and very intelligent and antagonistic) heroes get to the core and detonate a bunch of atomic bombs to start the core rotating again. Against impossible odds and insurmountable problems and etc.

2003, dir. Jon Amiel. With Hilary Swank, Aaron Eckhart, Delroy Lindo, Stanley Tucci, DJ Qualls, Tchéky Karyo, Bruce Greenwood, Alfre Woodard.

Counterpart, Season 1

J.K. Simmons is Howard Silk, an employee of the United Nations in Berlin, where he's worked for 30 years. His job involves reading codes to another person through a glass shield, and recording the coded responses. But he doesn't know why. Until one day they drag him into a cold cement room and sit him down opposite a more badass version of himself (not really a spoiler, this happens in the first episode: if you know anything about the series, you know this). It turns out that there's a second Earth which appeared and started diverging from our Earth right near the end of the Cold War. The entry to that other world is a basement under the U.N. building in Berlin, and the U.N. has kept the whole thing secret while cautiously trading with the other world for knowledge, things like technologies that were invented in one world but not the other.

This is a Starz TV series, ten one hour episodes: there's also a second season that closes the whole thing out.

Tatiana Maslany rocketed to stardom on a similar premise: she acts as multiple clones of herself in "Orphan Black." I watched a couple episodes of that series and wasn't a fan - it wasn't about her, I didn't like the setup. She was good, but she did it by exaggerating character tics. J.K. Simmons on the other hand ... here's the genius of his performance: I don't know how he's doing it. 90% of the time when Howard walks on screen, you know which one he is by a glance at his face. We're not talking about clothes here (although they play a part) or the setting (although it sometimes helps), it's just ... his face. The two Howards have an identical history for about half their lives, but they diverged significantly after the worlds split. And those differences of opinion and experience show.

The setup is entirely and intentionally reminiscent of the Cold War. The two worlds are trading, but there's bad blood and political manoeuvring and spying. All of which happens in Berlin - you know, where the Wall was? Mostly in English, some subtitled German. The simplicity of the effects (two J.K. Simmons and a couple other people, not much else) is in direct contrast to the complexity of the script: there's a lot happening, it's well thought out, and you need to pay attention. I enjoyed the first six episodes more than the latter four: in the seventh episode we go to "The School," which takes us away from Simmons' great acting for an episode and also starts us down the path into a more violent closure of the season. To that point there had been some deaths and it was tense, but that was the turning point where it became more overt.

Overall an outstanding piece of work that should be sought out by any fan of science fiction. Or acting.

SPOILER ALERT, don't read the rest of this if you haven't seen the season, etc. The one complaint I have is that Berlin on Earth Prime has an abundance of new, fancy architecture. This is probably just to differentiate the two Earths, but the rest of it is so well thought out ... and the reality would be that they wouldn't have the cash to build new buildings, nor the people to occupy them, when 7% of your planet's population is dead. They'd be in a massive economic slump ...

2017. With J.K. Simmons, Olivia Williams, Harry Lloyd, Nazanin Bodiadi, Sara Serraiocco, Ulrich Thomsen, Nicholas Pinnock, Mido Hamada, Kenneth Choi, Guy Burnet, Stephen Rea.

Counterpart, Season 2

The second - and final - season of "Counterpart," ten one hour episodes. See the above review for the science fiction parallel worlds set-up.

At the end of the previous season, the two Howard Silks (both played by the excellent J.K. Simmons) got stuck each in the other's world, and had to inhabit each other's lives. The gentler of the two killed someone (in self defense, but nevertheless taking on qualities of his "other") at the end of the previous season and is in custody. The more hard-ass version of Howard is trying to live the life of his gentler counterpart with his wife Emily (Olivia Williams) who barely knows him - partly because she's recovering from a head injury, but also because his behaviour doesn't entirely match what she remembers of him.

Through all this, the ruthless and lethal Mira's (Christiane Paul) 20 year project of revenge against the alternate world moves forward, as agents on both worlds try to figure out what she's going to do.

The success of the series rests on the skills of Simmons and Williams, and they're more than up to the task. The more violent Howard is now dressing like, and trying to behave like his "other," but careful placement of context means that we still have almost no difficulty figuring out which versions of Howard and Emily we're looking at. The writing remains very good: the dialogue was good, I never knew where it was going, but it always made sense and was always interesting.

I didn't enjoy this season as much, although I think it's just as good. This one is a bit darker, with the shadow of Mira and her actions coming into focus. The ending is satisfying although unsurprisingly just as dark as the series as a whole.

SPOILER ALERT: stop reading now etc. After a pretty much flawless run of logic up to the last two or three episodes, I have significant problems with the handling of the virus. Why did they need a couple dozen huge specialty boxes to transport it? They were only injecting ten people. And Mira's arrangement meant that the virus was released and active before the crossing was shut: okay, it was tailored for the world it was on, but there's still a big risk to her world. After hardass Howard hunted down the carriers and killed them, he came in close contact with a couple of them during the fight: that arguably made him a carrier (and he crossed back to his world). And last: how did Mira have virus to inject into Yanek? As we were shown, the development work on the virus was done on the other world.

Actually, there is one other logical error I noticed very early on in the first season. We're told that the other Earth lost 7% of its population to a disease. And yet the other Berlin is differentiated by a variety of wild and different architecture on its skyline. Sure, Berlin has been the leading city for modern architecture ever since World War II, but even when I was watching the first season I realized that a 7% population loss would crush your economy: you ain't building new buildings. That was several months before COVID-19 came along and proved this beyond a doubt. And consider what's happened with COVID-19: our population loss (in July of 2020) is somewhere well right of the percentage decimal point and the entire world's economy is choked. This other world lost 7%. No new buildings - not only would they not have the money, they wouldn't have the people to put in them. I mostly forgave the show this error though because it's not about economy, but about visually identifying the two different worlds.

2018. With J.K. Simmons, Olivia Williams, Harry Lloyd, Nazanin Bodiadi, Betty Gabriel, Sara Serraiocco, Nicholas Pinnock, Kenneth Choi, Guy Burnet, James Cromwell, Sarah Bolger, Samuel Roukin, Christiane Paul.

Coup de Torchon

A cop in French West Africa in 1938 gets tired of being insulted by everyone and takes it upon himself dispense justice in his own unique way - uninformed by much moral sense. I'm sure there were black comedies before this one, but this is very dark. Funny, nasty, and mesmerizing.

1981, dir. Bertrand Tavernier. With Philippe Noiret, Isabelle Huppert.

The Country Girl

It's strange how we come to movies sometimes: Mika's brilliant song "Grace Kelly" includes a Grace Kelly quote: "The last time we talked Mr. Smith, you reduced me to tears. I promise you it won't happen again." While it's been slightly changed ("Mr. Dodd" vs. "Mr. Smith"), the quote is from this movie. Since the reviews - while limited - were good, I thought I'd give it a try.

Bing Crosby plays Frank Elgin, an aging former musical star. Grace Kelly is his younger wife, the titular "Country Girl," and William Holden is his new hard-ass director in a musical stage play. The problem is that while Frank comes across as very charming, he's a self-pitying, lying alcoholic.

The script is trying to tackle big subjects - self destruction, but also loyalty and attraction outside marriage. It was a noble attempt, but these days it looks terribly contrived. Also the emotional turning points in each of their three relationships are all abrupt and unbelievable. Crosby and Holden both do good work with a crappy script, but Kelly (possibly the most beautiful woman ever to grace the silver screen, and usually a decent actress too) can't get her footing on the admittedly bad dialogue.

There are many old films worth tracking down, but this isn't one of them.

1954, dir. George Seaton. With Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly, William Holden, Anthony Ross, Gene Reynolds.

Courage Under Fire

I saw this when it came out and remembered it as quite good. I watched it again in 2012. Denzel Washington plays Lieutenant Colonel Serling who we first see in the Gulf War, where he is involved in a "friendly fire" incident. After the war he has a new medal, a drinking problem, and a job investigating whether or not people should be given the medals they are put in for. The movie centres around his investigation of the death of the helicopter pilot Captain Walden (Meg Ryan). The movie is nominally about her and the Medal of Honor, but is more about Serling and his problems, the stresses of combat, and the desirability of telling the truth - the whole truth - surrounding service deaths.

The acting is uniformly good, although I wouldn't call anyone in this one outstanding - possibly Matt Damon, in a supporting role showing up most of the rest of the cast. I kind of wished the story had been more about Walden - but I think that's because it was how I remembered it, and my memory was incorrect. Serling initially gets almost consistent reports of the incident, but pursues it further and finds the stories diverging in a rather "Rashomon"-like way.

1996, dir. Edward Zwick. With Denzel Washington, Meg Ryan, Matt Damon, Lou Diamond Phillips, Michael Moriarty, Scott Glenn, Tim Guinee, Seth Gilliam, Bronson Pinchot.

The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell

Gary Cooper plays Billy Mitchell, an Army General who believed in the early 1920s that air power was the way of the future, and that the U.S. military services were ignoring it at their peril. As his advice is ignored and shunted aside, he eventually chooses court-martial to force a more public airing of his views.

The movie paints him as a visionary, describing in a 1923 letter almost exactly the attack that was to come on Pearl Harbour (the movie was made in 1955). He was certainly more forward-looking than many of his peers in the military forces, and the movie does go for historical accuracy in other respects (the Shenandoah, his reassignment to Texas), but I very much doubt his description of the attack on Hawaii was that accurate. And unfortunately, accurate or not, this movie is rather dry going. Cooper is very good, but the subject isn't hugely involving.

1955, dir. Otto Preminger. With Gary Cooper, Charles Bickford, Ralph Bellamy, Rod Steiger, Elizabeth Montgomery.

Cowboy Bebop

Japanese anime series, this is a review of the entire year. Episodes have about 21 minutes of content when you strip off the credits, the total run was 26 episodes. 21 minutes is inadequate for character or plot development - which is unfortunate because I really liked the characters and some of the plots would have been great had they not been so insanely condensed.

We first meet Jet and Spike, a pair of bounty hunters cruising around the solar system in Jet's big spaceship. Both of them have their own small ship for local travel and occasionally fighting, but Spike has the really cool ship. Within a couple episodes they've managed to pick up a dog (Ein), Faye (a gorgeous bounty hunter with a gambling problem), and the child Edward, an incredibly eccentric female(!) computer genius. They rarely manage to collect bounties as they often end up doing "the right thing" instead of the lucrative thing. We get filled in on everyone's back stories as things proceed. Some episodes are comedic (eg. Ed trying her hand at bounty hunting and feeding everyone else on the crew psychedelic mushrooms), some are sad (eg. Faye's massive memory loss and re-awakening with massive debt incurred by medical treatment/resurrection she didn't precisely request). But the ending is incredibly harsh and sudden - although not a total surprise. More of a wrap-up wouldn't have hurt.

It struck me as a mash-up of "Firefly" (it's been speculated that "Firefly" was based on this series) and "Trigun." Not that a lot of people would get that: you're likely to see "Cowboy Bebop" long before you see "Trigun."

1998, dir. Shinichirō Watanabe.

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie

This movie showed up on Netflix, and it made me realize I hadn't seen it - despite having watched the preceding TV series (named, oddly enough, "Cowboy Bebop"). The show has a reputation as being "cool" - both pretty to look at (mostly true, despite cheap animation), and containing the handsome and super-cool Spike Spiegel. I didn't mind the TV series, but didn't get as entranced by it as many of the fans do.

It starts with a (re-)introduction to the characters: it's 2071, and they're bounty hunters on the ship Bebop. The crew consists of Jet Black: a former cop who owns the Bebop, Spike, Faye Valentine: gambling addict and walking fan service but otherwise a decent enough character, Edward: their young female (yes, female) hacker, and Ein - a regular-looking dog who's far from regular (although that doesn't really play a part in this movie). It's just as well they did the intro: it's been a long time since I watched the show.

This time, they're pursuing a person or group of people who've released a deadly virus/pathogen on Mars. As usual, each of the crew members goes off on their own to pursue leads in their own eccentric ways. The animation has had a bit of an upgrade since the TV series (there's more money in movies), but unfortunately the story-telling is much the same. I thought it kind of went off the rails when Spike was apparently shot to death but was patched back together by a couple of what appeared to be Native Americans (spouting an attempt at Native American religion/philosophy) on a garbage dump. The later philosophical discussion questioning the nature and truth of reality didn't really fit with the otherwise very action-oriented tone of the film (although that tone-deaf insertion is classically Anime).

This will work fine for fans of the series, but not recommended for others. Try the series if you're interested - it was goofy fun, and didn't aspire to be much more. This aspires ... and fails to rise above its origins.

One minor unintentional amusement: to prove how multi-national the future is, there are many signs and computer screens in English. The problem is ... the budget didn't extend to getting an actual English speaker to vet the content. My personal favourite was a large sign in the middle of the city near the end of the movie that said "No Hanking."

2001, dir. Shinichirō Watanabe. With Kōichi Yamadera, Megumi Hayashibara, Unshō Ishizuka, Aoi Tada, Ai Kobayashi, Tsutomu Isobe, Renji Ishibashi, Mickey Curtis.

Cowboy Bebop (2021), Season 1

Many years ago I watched the "Cowboy Bebop" Anime series (originally released in 1998, I watched it in 2011). Quite recently I watched the "Cowboy Bebop Movie." I didn't love the series, but it was fun. I was underwhelmed by the movie. In 2021 Netflix released a live-action series starring John Cho as Spike Spiegel, Mustafa Shakir as Jet Black, and Daniella Pineda as Faye Valentine, bounty hunters working the solar system in the future. All three have back histories they haven't entirely shared with their partners. Most of what I write about this will revolve around comparisons to the original series. The series seems to derive its name from their employment (bounty hunters are called "cowboys") and Spike's love of Jazz music.

The aesthetic when they're on the ground is essentially 1990s Cuba: old American cars, cigarettes, lovely old buildings, Jazz bars, big handguns. Except when it isn't: they throw in futuristic technology when it helps the plot, and yet police work seems to proceed almost exactly like a 1950s TV show. Filming apparently took place in Auckland, New Zealand (I wouldn't recognize it). But they also spend some time in space: Jet's ship is essentially Serenity/Firefly (old, battered, and occasionally falling apart) and we have jump gates and various colonies and space stations.

One of the original series' biggest problems is the rather abrupt shift in tone from mostly comedic action to violent and tragic death-fight at the end of the series: possibly the only improvement this series made was to start mixing in Spike's history almost from the beginning so you could see that coming. One of this series' biggest problems is that they apparently didn't realize that two solid, real, adult humans bickering like cartoon characters (Spike and Jet fighting as they did in the original Anime) isn't as funny as it is as Anime characters - and also leads to serious issues with suspension-of-disbelief. They do this less as the series progresses - but Jet's utterly ridiculous beard stays with us. It looked cool in the Anime with its spikes ... but in live action it's ludicrous. How hard would it have been to have him with a simple, currently fashionable beard? Credit to Cho and the costumers: Spike Spiegel looks almost as cool in live action as he did in the Anime, and that's an achievement. Pineda's outfits are less revealing than Anime-Faye's - but then, those were utterly ridiculous. Apparently this was partly a practical decision as well as a moral one as they needed to cover up stunt rigging with her clothing, and needed her not to freeze to death on cold shooting nights. Another thing that didn't make it from the original to this (and I feel like it's a loss): while they live by the bounties they retrieve, in the original they often gave up bounties to do the morally correct thing. In this series, they lose several bounties because the mark ends up dead (that happened in the Anime too), and they express some moral qualms, but they never give up a bounty for morality.

A major character in the original series was Ed the hacker. She's mentioned briefly late in this series, but doesn't show up until the last minute of the last episode. Ed was the comic relief to an already comedic series, an intelligent but weird and incredibly goofy character. And when they introduced Ed here, she's fully geared up in her most ridiculous clothing, on her weirdest behaviour, landing on a fairly tragic moment at the end of the series. Totally tone-deaf, and bringing too much of the Anime flavour of the character to live action. And of course her appearance will make absolutely zero sense to anyone unfamiliar with the Anime.

The single worst part of the series to me was Alex Hassell as Vicious, who spends most of the series clenching his teeth to show his rage. There was almost nothing good about his performance. Elena Satine as Julia (love interest of both Vicious and Spike) would have stood out too if Hassell's portrayal weren't even worse ... Not that anybody is going to win an Oscar for something that frequently reads like a farce.

Just as in the Anime, the big finale (this isn't a spoiler) is in a church. But the outcomes for several major characters are radically different. It makes less sense than the Anime ending ... but they're A) trying to be different from the original, and B) setting themselves up for another season. A second season they may not get and which I'm unlikely to watch even if it happens.

2021. With John Cho, Mustafa Shakir, Daniella Pineda, Elena Satine, Alex Hassell, Tamara Tunie, Mason Alexander Park, Geoff Stults.

Cowboys & Aliens

A man (Daniel Craig) wakes in the desert with no idea where he is, or even who he is. Although some of his abilities become clearer a couple minutes later when three men try to rob him and he takes them all out with considerable ease. In town he tries to mind his own business but soon enough he's involved in everyone else's. And then the aliens attack, which leads to a couple discoveries: they're abducting people (surprise!) and the weird bracelet around our anti-hero/amnesiac's wrist is a weapon capable of taking out the alien flyers.

Jon Favreau directs as if there's nothing in the world more fun than making a movie and blowing shit up. This was clearly fun to work on. But the "we're making a Western, ha-ha tricked you here's aliens" routine is decidedly uninspiring and merely passable acting from Harrison Ford and Olivia Wilde (although Craig was quite good) meant that an already messy script ("let's ride back and forth and toss in new characters and twists") never really got off the ground.

2011, dir. Jon Favreau. With Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, Paul Dano, Clancy Brown, Keith Carradine, Adam Beach.

Cradle 2 the Grave

This movie is pretty bad - which is to say it's better than most of Jet Li's American movies. Jet Li is an extremely talented martial artist, and, while he's no actor, he's at least fairly charming. But his goofy Hong Kong movies look excellent by comparison to the tripe he's turned out since he was "discovered." I keep hoping he'll end up in something better.

2003. dir. Andrzej Bartkowiak. With Jet Li, DMX.

Crank

The basic premise is that our hero ("Chev Chelios," played by Jason Statham) wakes up to find he's been poisoned by an enemy and the only way to stay alive is to stay cranked on adrenaline. That tells you pretty much everything you need to know about the movie. I hope you can guess that it's intensely ludicrous. It's a bad movie, but ... pretty entertaining. Although I'm more than a little embarrassed to say that in public.

2006, dir. Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor. With Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Efren Ramirez, Dwight Yoakam, Carlos Sanz, Keone Young.

Crazy Rich Asians

This movie made a big sensation when it came out: finally, a movie by Asians, for Asians, about the Asian experience. All true, except for the "crazy rich" part: our middle class American-Chinese heroine is thrown into the middle of Singapore's richest families by her fiancée - who didn't bother to mention that he was part of the wealthiest family in the entire city-state. (Singapore is technically a country, but "city-state" describes it better - and to be "rich" there is to be very, very rich.) Ironically, Wikipedia says "the film did receive some criticism for casting biracial actors over fully ethnically Chinese ones in certain roles." How accurate does a film have to be, I wonder? My complaint is simpler: the movie may represent an Asian experience - but only that of perhaps 0.001% of the population given the incredible wealth of nearly all the characters. But, of course, it's also the point of the movie (that and family).

Constance Wu plays Rachel and Henry Golding plays Nick, her handsome, charming, and - as she finds out rather late in the game - crazy rich boyfriend who takes her to meet his family at his best friend's wedding. Much is made of the craziness of all the people around them, as well as the couple's relatively down-to-earth nature. Many of the characters are massively over-the-top - some comedic, a couple nasty, many a mix of both. It doesn't go quite far enough to be labelled as a "screwball comedy," but these characters manage to remove any hope of the movie ever having any feeling of "realism." And yet the movie manages enough charm, humour, and romance to achieve its goals: it remains enjoyable.

2018, dir. Jon M. Chu. With Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Gemma Chan, Nico Santos, Lisa Lu, Awkwafina, Michelle Yeoh, Ken Jeong.

Crazy, Stupid, Love.

Steve Carell plays Cal Weaver, whose wife Emily (Julianne Moore) asks for a divorce at the beginning of the movie. He spends his time sitting in a bar bemoaning his state to no one in particular. Jacob (Ryan Gosling), a pick-up artist who takes home a different woman pretty much every night, takes Cal under his wing and tutors him. As Cal learns the tricks of the trade, Jacob unexpectedly falls hard for one woman (Emma Stone). There's also a subplot about Cal and Emily's son Robbie (Jonah Bobo) who's desperately in love with his babysitter (Analeigh Tipton) - who is herself in love with Cal ...

This is essentially the spiritual (and American) successor to "Love Actually." It's about being in love, and the value of that whether or not you can actually have the person you love or not.

Tipton's performance is excellent, but is much more surprising when you find out that this gawky, shy and awkward 17 year old is actually a 22 year old fashion model. Stone is also excellent, although the role is in many ways a more mature version of her character in "Easy A." Gosling and Moore are excellent, but no one is surprised about that. Carell continues to be a very decent dramatic actor. Bobo is great as the intelligent and obsessed young son.

Follows the comedy practise of characters being writ larger than life - some of the things that happen are a bit over the top. And there are a couple of major film-making contrivances in which the identity of certain players are deliberately hidden from us so it can be sprung on us later for laughs. I was mildly annoyed by this, but damn, they were big laughs. Setting aside the exceptionally high level of coincidence required for the big blow-up between the second and final acts (which is again brilliantly funny), the script is really good and supported by excellent performances. I bought it on disc the day it came out.

2011, dir. Glenn Ficarra, John Requa. With Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore, Emma Stone, Analeigh Tipton, Marisa Tomei, Kevin Bacon, Jonah Bobo.

Crazyhead

We first meet Amy (Cara Theobold) as she tries to get off the psychiatric drugs she's on. She was put on them because she occasionally saw people with deformed faces. As the drugs ease up, the "hallucinations" return - but an encounter with another young woman Raquel (Susan Wokoma) who sees the same things convinces her that she may not be crazy. In fact, Raquel eventually convinces her that these people are demons and should be killed.

Raquel is blazingly awkward, leading to a fair number of cringeworthy jokes. And her awkwardness rubs off on Amy to some extent (or may already have been there). It's "horror comedy," so there's a lot of humour, but there are also a few deaths of friends they didn't want to lose.

The series is six episodes of 45 minutes each. It was clearly set up to continue, but despite good reviews and some minor awards, the series was cancelled. Happily, while there are some dangling details, the series does mostly wrap up.

The series made the deliberate choice to simply ignore the existence of the police. They kill multiple people, including ones they had a direct association with, and there are never investigations or questions of any kind - they just walk away. Although they did bury one person in the woods - apparently more for a plot point than anything else.

The awkward humour put me off, but there was enough non-cringey humour and action to keep me watching through the series' short run. I wouldn't particularly recommend it, but fans of horror-comedy may enjoy it.

2016, dir. Al Mackay, Declan O'Dwyer. With Cara Theobold, Susan Wokoma, Arinze Kene, Lewis Reeves, Riann Steele, Luke Allen-Gale, Charlie Archer, Tony Curran, Lu Corfield, Billy Seymour.

Criminal

This is set in the current day, but it falls under the heading of "science fiction" because the main premise of the film is a piece of science that doesn't actually exist yet. Bill Pope (Ryan Reynolds) of the CIA is trying to extract hacker Jan Strook (Michael Pitt) who wants to get away from his insane boss Heimdahl (Jordi Mollà). This is because Heimdahl would happily cause a nuclear holocaust with the control Strook has gained over missile access codes. But Heimdahl has Pope killed, leaving Strook stranded and the CIA not knowing what's going on. So they use an experimental technology from Dr. Micah Franks (Tommy Lee Jones) to transfer the memories of their dead agent into the head of incarcerated sociopath Jerico Stewart (Kevin Costner). When Jerico isn't immediately responsive with the memories he wants, CIA boss Quaker Wells (Gary Oldman) indicates that Jerico should be disposed of. But they don't do it on the spot because that wouldn't give him time to escape. And he does escape, and the memories start to take their effect.

The basic idea is sound, even quite interesting: what happens when you place the memories of a basically decent man in the head of an emotionless criminal? Jan Strook's hacking into the American missile defence system, is improbable, but ... let's let that go, it's a semi-credible threat. And I wouldn't have started watching the DVD if I wasn't willing to accept the memory re-implantation idea. But Strook's former boss Heimdahl - when he's not torturing people, he sits quietly typing - from where he apparently controls the GPS system, the entire world's cellular phone network, and every security camera anywhere (with sound and pan/zoom control). Damn he's good. In fact, he's so spectacularly good that he doesn't need Strook at all, because he's an immensely better hacker ... and he's totally unbelievable. It's unfortunate as Costner turned in a pretty good performance that might have made the movie watchable if it weren't so ludicrous. And in other regards, it's just kind of ... generic. The end result is a bit of a mess and, while not totally horrible, hard to recommend to anyone.

2016, dir. Ariel Vromen. With Kevin Costner, Gary Oldman, Tommy Lee Jones, Gal Gadot, Alice Eve, Michael Pitt, Ryan Reynolds, Jordi Mollà, Antje Traue, Scott Adkins, Amaury Nolasco.

Crocodile Dundee

The movie that temporarily made a world-wide star of Paul Hogan, brought us endless Aussie jokes, and became an icon of the Eighties.

Linda Kozlowski plays newspaper reporter Sue Charlton, who pursues a story of a man attacked by a crocodile to the Australian Outback. There she finds that the story of him losing part of his leg was an exaggeration - although the attack was not. After a tour to the site of the attack, she convinces Dundee to come to New York with her. Comedic things happen in both locations.

The movie screams 1980s. Hogan isn't a particularly talented actor, but he's charming and funny and has written himself quite a few good jokes. Kozlowski, also a mediocre actor, is a passable foil. It remains an enjoyable movie in 2014.

1986, dir. Peter Faiman. With Paul Hogan, Linda Kozlowski, Mark Blum, David Gulpilil, John Meillon, Michael Lombard.

The Croods

I didn't much like the style of the animation or the humour in the trailer, but I decided to watch the movie anyway because the critics liked it, and, let's face it, I like animated kids movies. I only managed to hold my grudge for about fifteen minutes. It's silly, surreal, heavy-handed ... but also charming, and very funny.

The Croods are a family of cave dwellers, with oldest daughter Eep (Emma Stone) being in her rebellious phase. Dad (Nicolas Cage) is very insistent that they stay in the safety of the cave for days at a time if there's any danger at all in the outside world. Their not-very-peaceful existence is interrupted by Eep's interest in Guy (Ryan Reynolds) - and the fact that Guy is fleeing the shifting of the tectonic plates, which is rewriting the geography of the entire world. The creatures they encounter are fantastical, ridiculous, excessive, pretty, and entertaining. It's just that kind of movie. Lessons are learned by all.

2013, dir. Chris Sanders, Kirk De Micco. With Emma Stone, Nicolas Cage, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener, Clark Duke, Cloris Leachman.

The Croods: a New Age

"The Croods" was a very, very silly film. But ... it was also very funny, and I enjoyed it. This second Croods movie tries too hard to be better/cleverer/bigger than its predecessor, but despite some struggles, still manages to be fairly funny.

2020, dir. Joel Crawford. With Nicolas Cage, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener, Clark Duke, Cloris Leachman, Peter Dinklage, Leslie Mann, Kelly Marie Tran.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

I think this was the first DVD I ever purchased. It's also one of the most influential martial arts movies ever made: the first time a well-known director tackled the genre, also for the first time with good actors, a big budget, and a huge world-wide release. This movie legitimized martial arts movies, and paved the way for big budget releases like "Hero," "The House of Flying Daggers," and many others since.

The story opens with Li Mu-bai (Chow Yun-fat) and Yu Shu-lien (Michelle Yeoh). Li Mu-bai is considering giving up his sword, the legendary Green Destiny, and the warrior's life that goes with it. There are hints that this might even allow a long-postponed romance to blossom between the two. But the Green Destiny is stolen, and the two become entangled with Jen (a Governor's daughter, played by Zhang Ziyi) and Lo (a desert bandit - Chang Chen). And to confuse things further, it appears that the Jade Fox (Cheng Pei-pei) - a woman who murdered Li Mu-bai's master - may have re-surfaced. And did I mention that the better-trained among them can fly and perform super-human feats?

It sounds like a cheesy martial arts movie because it's based on a Wuxia novel. And that might have been all it was, but Ang Lee brings superb direction, excellent actors, and stunning cinematography to it, and produces a film that's enchanted millions who were never fans of the genre. Elegant, beautiful, and heart-breaking, this is a really wonderful movie.

2000, dir. Ang Lee. With Chow Yun-fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Ziyi, Chang Chen, Cheng Pei-pei.

The Crow

One of the earlier graphic-novel-to-movie translations, this one of a vicious revenge story. Brandon Lee died during the making of the movie. I still don't understand why the critics like this one so much: sure, Alex Proyas has a great eye for sets and shots, but the story is over-the-top vicious, silly, and not very well acted. If you want to see Proyas really on his game, watch "Dark City." "I, Robot" is more accessible and has issues, but is still very good. If you want to see Lee doing martial arts (this barely qualifies), try the shabby but well choreographed "Rapid Fire."

The plot revolves around a man (Lee) whose girlfriend was raped and he himself was murdered, and his return after death to take revenge.

1994, dir. Alex Proyas. With Brandon Lee, Rochelle Davis, Ernie Hudson, David Patrick Kelly, Michael Wincott, Bai Ling.

Crumb

Robert Crumb had a lot to do with starting the underground comics movement in the late 60s. He's still an active comics author. This movie follows him around for a while, talks to his family, looks at his comics, and looks into his past life. Crumb has no problem talking about his life in considerable detail: it's how he's made his living for the past thirty years. Many of his comics are his own bizarre interpretations of the events in his life. Many of his comics are about sex, and the movie spends time dwelling on his fantasies, and occasionally his actual sex life. Get ready for a really weird ride. He's a pretty strange individual, but as the movie progresses and you meet his brothers and mother, you realize he's the sane one in the family ... Hilarious and extremely disturbing. I highly recommend it - you won't forget it for a long time.

1998. dir. Terry Zwigoff.

Cum On Feel the Noize

The movie is named after the Slade (and Quiet Riot) song "Cum On Feel the Noize," but in Canada it was released as "Come On Feel the Noize." The intent of the movie is to chart the development of heavy metal as a music genre.

Where this falls apart almost immediately is the voice-over. This is a German production with a German director and a German writer. Which suggests it got a bad translation into English, and a poor choice of narrator (according to the movie's own credits: "Gregory Fernandez," who isn't in IMDB's list of credits for the movie and doesn't appear to have really done anything else). What we end up with is something that sounds like a 1970s K-Tel ad. The movie says of Deep Purple's album "Infinite": "their biggest charting record in 30 years ... touring to sell to a whole new generation." The wording, the pacing, and the voice are all straight out of K-Tel - and it's pretty damn off-putting.

Another fairly significant mis-step occurred when they showed part of Twisted Sister's most famous song. The on-screen text credited it as "We're Not Going To Take" (sic). That's just sloppy.

The movie starts around 1970, and mostly credits Led Zeppelin as the real starting point of heavy rock. They talk about Alice Cooper, Deep Purple, Slade ... They address the rise of punk (from which metal gets a lot of musical stylings) and glam rock (from which metal gets its on-stage theatrics). On the plus side, they did seem to get their history right. But then they kind of glossed over the diversity of subgenres that have developed - not that they would have had time to examine any of them closely, but just to point out that Neue Deutsche Härte happened (it's a German film!), that Death Metal and Nu Metal exist (they didn't mention Korn) ... And on and on.

The movie is occasionally (but sadly not always) interesting when the artists are talking. I particularly like Dave Draiman and wish they'd given him more time. But overall the movie is too surface to teach fans much, and too off-putting to keep non-fans of the genre interested. I really wanted to enjoy this one, but no such luck.

2017, dir. Jörg Sonntag.

The Cup

About Buddhism, passion, and Tibet. Probably the only movie you'll ever see in Bhutanese (the Tibetan language?). Based on a true story. Several young monks at a Buddhist monastery in India are determined to see the World Cup football games, even though it's against monastery rules. The people in the movie are (I think) all monks, and not particularly good actors. But it's funny and enjoyable, and very educational about Tibetans and Buddhism.

Update: I was wrong - director Khyentse Norbu went on to make another Bhutanese-language film, the even better "Travellers and Magicians".

2000. dir. Khyentse Norbu.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Brad Pitt plays Benjamin Button, born a shrivelled up and ancient baby, abandoned, forever ageing backward. In love, permanently and from a very young age, with Cate Blanchett's character Daisy. The story is told by Julia Ormond, playing Daisy's daughter, reading Button's diaries to Daisy as Daisy lies dying. It's certainly an epic movie: it follows him from his birth in 1920 to her deathbed in New Orleans during what appears to be the arrival of Hurricane Katrina. The aging of Blanchett, and the reverse effect on Pitt, are managed very well. I liked it, but didn't find it terribly involving.

2008, dir. David Fincher. With Cate Blanchett, Brad Pitt, Julia Ormond, Elias Koteas, Taraji P. Henson, Tilda Swinton.

Curse of the Golden Flower (orig. "Man cheng jin dai huang jin jia")

"Lavish" and "Extravagant" don't begin to do this movie justice: the sets and costumes are spectacular. Too bad the motivations for most of the characters are ... well, opaque. It reminded me a great deal of "The Lion in Winter" (okay, I'm getting old: I've seen most of the predecessors): king and empress at odds, three sons, everybody scheming. The king is slowly poisoning the empress, the empress is sleeping with the first son (child of the previous empress), first son is sleeping with the royal pharmacist's daughter, second son is desperately trying to be loyal to everyone, and third son is young enough to be blithely unaware of everything. Look at the pretty scenery and forget the foundering tragedy plot. Or better: go see "Hero" or "House of Flying Daggers." Both of which are flawed, but very pretty and better than this.

2006, dir. Zhang Yimou. With Chow Yun-fat, Gong Li, Jay Chou, Liu Ye, Ni Dahong, Qin Junjie, Li Man, Chen Jin.


D

Da Vinci's Inquest, Season 1

If the original "Law and Order" had a baby with "Bones" and the baby moved to Vancouver, you'd have "Da Vinci's Inquest." (Don't let the fact that "Bones" post-dates "Da Vinci's Inquest" throw off the comparison - it's otherwise surprisingly accurate.)

Dominic Da Vinci (played by Nicholas Campbell) is a coroner in Vancouver. One of the two pathologists working with him in the Coroner's office is his ex-wife (played by Gwynyth Walsh), who's now dating their boss (Chief Coroner James Flynn, played by Robert Wisden). This is all set up in the first ten minutes of the pilot: this show is going to be partly about the personal lives of the characters. We also follow the police officers who work with them, notably new Detective Mick Leary (Ian Tracey), Detective Angela Kosmo (Venus Terzo), and older Detective Leo Shannon (Donnelly Rhodes). They solve cases, like any crime drama show. But unlike any other, this isn't primarily about the cases: it's about the people. Case story arcs last an episode, two, eight ... and sometimes they're not even entirely resolved. The people's stories flow across episodes, with no neatly containerized story lines - they just keep going. And they don't feel the need (so far ...) to create a serial murderer who locks two of the leads in a buried car to ratchet up tension (I'm looking at you, "Bones"). This is work, this is people's lives. Work which most of them are pretty passionate about - and something you see in the show more than once is the consequences of these people getting sloppy or lazy (it happens when you do it every day until you're exhausted, even when you're passionate about it). They deal with prostitution, drug deaths, drownings, bad convictions ... The show is varied.

Until I saw this, I thought "Slings and Arrows" was the only really good Canadian TV show (and weirdly, I think it's the best TV show ever made ...). But now I'm happy to acknowledge that my home country has produced at least one more, and it gives me hope. The viewer doesn't have the "satisfaction" of seeing a case wrapped up every episode, but I'm finding in the long run it's much more satisfying tracking a very good story with well drawn characters slowly achieving what they want to achieve. So not all individual cases are solved: they're still making their city a better place. It's a real pleasure to watch.

(And there's Jewel Staite as the Da Vinci's daughter, a few years before she took care of the engine on Serenity ...)

1998. With Nicholas Campbell, Suleka Mathew, Donnelly Rhodes, Venus Terzo, Ian Tracey, Gwynyth Walsh, Alex Diakun, Robert Wisden, Max Martini, Jewel Staite, Duncan Fraser.

Da Vinci's Inquest, Season 2

See the previous season review for an outline of "Da Vinci's Inquest." In fact this is enough of a continuation of the previous season that I'm not sure I have much to add. Da Vinci is an alcoholic, and a bit of an asshole - but he never comes to work drunk, and ironically, being an asshole makes him better at his job. This season is often quite dark - although as I write that, I realize the show is about a coroner. He's only involved if people are dead, and usually in an unhappy way. So I suspect the first season was equally dark, but I may not have noticed because I was so pleased to find a really well done TV series.

1999. With Nicholas Campbell, Suleka Mathew, Donnelly Rhodes, Venus Terzo, Ian Tracey, Gwynyth Walsh, Alex Diakun, Robert Wisden, Max Martini, Sarah Strange, Sarah-Jane Redmond, Callum Keith Rennie, Duncan Fraser.

Da Vinci's Inquest, Season 3

More of the same. Which with most TV series would be a bad thing, but when they bring real, well-written characters and varied and always interesting cases, "more of the same" is very good. I'm really enjoying this series.

2000. With Nicholas Campbell, Suleka Mathew, Donnelly Rhodes, Venus Terzo, Ian Tracey, Gwynyth Walsh, Alex Diakun, Robert Wisden, Max Martini, Sarah Strange, Sarah-Jane Redmond, Callum Keith Rennie.

Da Vinci's Inquest, Season 4

Amazingly, this already very good show seems to be better in its fourth season than ever before. It doesn't ever promise you a tidy conclusion. You get them for some cases, for some you don't. And the characters lives just go on: for example, Leo continues to deal with the deteriorating state of his wife, who has dementia. This isn't a major plot point: just a reminder that police men have lives outside of work, and that those lives often influence their behaviour. And we're reminded about this all the time in small ways. Another example stems from a case that I think was in the third season: some bones were found while excavating for the foundation of a new building. This has become an archaeological dig, with all the repercussions that go with that. One of their pathologists, Sunny, goes there periodically (although it's not part of her job) to assist with identifying the ever-increasing heap of bones being pulled out of the site. And poor decisions in prior seasons sometimes come back to haunt our characters, months or even years later. Some bad decisions they get away with. It's ... almost like life.

I love this show.

2001. With Nicholas Campbell, Suleka Mathew, Donnelly Rhodes, Venus Terzo, Ian Tracey, Gwynyth Walsh, Alex Diakun, Robert Wisden, Max Martini, Sarah Strange, Sarah-Jane Redmond, Callum Keith Rennie.

Da Vinci's Inquest, Season 5

Everything I've already said about the series continues to apply: it's very well constructed, it feels realistic, it's a pleasure to watch, it's frequently dark.

As an example of what I love about the writing: Da Vinci has been driving the same SUV since the beginning of the series. As a viewer, you don't really think about this - but that means the car is a minimum of five years old, possibly older. In the last episode of this season, he's headed for a cemetery for a disinterment when the car sputters and stops, so he's desperately calling his office and then walking to the cemetery, where he's half an hour late. It's not a big or important scene, but it clearly shows the difference between this show and every other "cop show."

Mick Leary (Ian Tracey) is having more and more trouble holding his life together as the after-effects of something that happened mid-way through season 4 are tearing him apart. Angela Cosmo (Venus Terzo) is trying (only semi-successfully) to befriend a young prostitute, and she's finding friendship and using the woman as a snitch are incompatible, particularly in the face of the woman's addiction. Which leads her to a couple cops in Vice: Suki (Camille Sullivan) and Brian (Colin Cunningham). Across multiple episodes, we find out that Brian is severely bent, but not quite bent enough for them to pin anything on him. And not surprisingly, Suki wants desperately to not be Brian's partner.

The show is never-ending. And yet in most episodes they manage to get a reasonable wrap on a case or two, giving us some sense of satisfaction. It remains an outstanding series.

2002. With Nicholas Campbell, Suleka Mathew, Donnelly Rhodes, Venus Terzo, Ian Tracey, Alex Diakun, Sarah Strange, Sarah-Jane Redmond, Kimberly Hawthorne, Colin Cunningham, Camille Sullivan, Stephen E. Miller.

Da Vinci's Inquest, Season 6

Dominic Da Vinci spends some time in nearly every episode this season dealing with his attempt to become chief of police. He also works with the mayor intermittently on a safe injection site, something Da Vinci has been wanting since the series started. At the end of the last episode, he heads in to the interview for the police chief job.

After watching six seasons of this, I've finally registered another significant point of realism: the police officers we watch have drawn their guns twice in six years. And the only officer who ever fired a gun suffered from a couple years of depression (he seems to be recovering now). Amazing: you can have a great show without constant gunplay.

Da Vinci continues to be a hot-headed asshole whenever people do things he believes are wrong. He always does what he believes is right. He's always been sympathetic to the families of those who've died, and he's a loyal friend - including to a councilor who's done a couple things Dominic disagrees with. It's representative of the series: people aren't one-note, they're damn complex.

And while all this is going on, people continue to die and their deaths are investigated. The series remains very well written and acted.

2003. With Nicholas Campbell, Donnelly Rhodes, Venus Terzo, Ian Tracey, Alex Diakun, Sarah Strange, Sarah-Jane Redmond, Kimberly Hawthorne, Colin Cunningham, Camille Sullivan, Stephen E. Miller, Gerard Plunkett.

The Dance of Reality

I haven't seen a movie this bizarre since "Eraserhead," thirty years ago. I can give you some idea of the basic premise, but it's totally insane and I can't do justice to its weirdness. I suppose I was curious about Alejandro Jodorowsky after watching "Jodorowsky's Dune."

Jeremías Herskovits (who is in fact the director Jodorowsky's grandson) plays the young Alejandro. He lives in Chile with his parents Sara (Pamela Flores) and Jaime (Brontis Jodorowsky, Alejandro's son - this is very much a family affair). Sara is very strongly Christian, and sings everything instead of speaking. But Jaime is a hard-core communist and atheist who worships Stalin, and demands strength and self-control from his young and fearful son. Alejandro Jodorowsky (the director, not the character played by Herskovits) appears occasionally to stand behind the young Alejandro - to reassure him and make incredibly cryptic pronouncements that clarified nothing. But it hasn't really got weird yet. At one point, to prove his bravery, Jaime delivers water to plague victims. He becomes infected - but his wife saves him by praying to God and then urinating all over him. Jaime now knows what he needs to do: he's going to save the workers by murdering Carlos Ibáñez (dictator in Chile from 1952 to 1958). He fails, and in an even weirder turn, is captured and tortured by Nazis (let's not forget the cattle prod to the testicles - Jodorowsky really likes naked people of both genders). The movie ends shortly after Jaime's return home and spiritual awakening. Oh dear - did I ruin that for you? Trust me, you aren't watching this one for the plot - if you watch it at all.

Let's have a look at the cast list ...

2013, dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky. With Brontis Jodorowsky, Jeremías Herskovits, Pamela Flores, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Bastián Bodenhöfer, Andrés Cox, Adán Jodorowsky, Cristóbal Jodorowsky.

Dark Passage

Humphrey Bogart plays Vincent Parry, accused of murdering his wife. In the first scene, we see him escaping from San Quentin prison on a supply truck. The film is quite unusual in showing most of the first third of the film from Vincent's P.O.V. - and even when it's not his view, his face is never shown until he has plastic surgery (to become Humphrey Bogart). After his escape from prison, he's aided by Irene Jansen (Lauren Bacall - possibly at her most beautiful), a woman convinced that - as he claims - he didn't kill his wife. Parry eventually tries to prove his own innocence.

The movie is very uneven. Some scenes are brilliantly creepy - particularly as he's taken into plastic surgery by a doctor who's lost his license, and who jokes about what a mess he could make of Parry's face if he didn't like him or if he slipped up. The dialogue varies between preposterous and very good. It felt a bit like a failed experiment, but it was sure as hell interesting and I really enjoyed watching it.

1947, dir. Delmer Daves. With Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Agnes Moorehead, Bruce Bennett, Tom D'Andrea, Clifton Young, Rory Mallinson, Houseley Stevenson.

Dark Star

John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon's first full length film, essentially their film school project turned feature. Carpenter's name is probably familiar, but if Dan O'Bannon's name isn't, it's because he went on to become a screenwriter. You might recognize movie titles like "Alien" and "Return of the Living Dead?" "Dark Star" wasn't well received at the time, but has become something of a cult classic.

I liked it only marginally better this time than when I first saw it around 1987. I had a bad tendency back then to take humorous movies seriously: not a good plan with a science fiction farce. But apparently the humour still doesn't work for me, even though I understood much of it at an intellectual level. Teaching a sentient bomb Phenomenology in an attempt to convince it to not detonate struck home when I first saw the movie: that one I enjoy. But thinking "that joke should have been funny" for most of the material doesn't really make a movie enjoyable. Still, it was fairly educational.

1974, dir. John Carpenter. With Brian Narelle, Dan O'Bannon, Cal Kuniholm, Andreijah Pahich, Joe Sanders, Barbara Knapp, Miles Watkins, Nick Castle.

The Dark Tower

I haven't read Stephen King's The Dark Tower series that this is based on. Apparently this is a sequel. But as far as I can tell, they've taken a massive epic and reduced it to a short and trivial fantasy movie for children. Which is doing a disservice to the children's movies that are coming out these days: most of them have more brains than this workman-like foolishness.

The three main characters are Roland Deschain (Idris Elba), Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor), and Walter aka "The Man in Black" (Matthew McConaughey). Jake is a human boy on modern-day Earth who has visions, which has led his parents to think he's insane. Roland Deschain is the last Gunslinger, the protector of the Dark Tower, who is seeking revenge on Walter (who killed his father). Walter is an evil magician who wants to open the universe up to the demons that live outside it by destroying the Dark Tower - and to do that, he's looking for a child with Shine. What "Shine" is is never really explained, but apparently you can send thoughts to people.

The problem is, it should have been a TV series - a long one. Not only have they squeezed it into 90 minutes, they've made something with the brains of a toad - and the repeated recitation of the ludicrous Gunslinger's creed. "I do not kill with my gun; he who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father. I kill with my heart." (It's longer than that, but that's quite enough.)

I can't recommend this one for anybody.

2017, dir. Nikolaj Arcel. With Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Taylor, Claudia Kim, Fran Kranz, Abbey Lee, Katheryn Winnick, Jackie Earle Haley, Dennis Haysbert.

The Da Vinci Code

A long-winded, muddled mess of a movie. I haven't read the book. There are only two types of scenes in this movie: long explanations of art or Christian conspiracy theory, or action. This leaves no time for acting by an otherwise excellent cast. Even with all the explanations, it's occasionally unclear what's going on and you probably don't care anyways.

2006, dir. Ron Howard. With Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, Ian McKellen, Jean Reno, Paul Bettany, Alfred Molina.

Dakota Skye

Tiny little indie movie about a young woman (Eileen Boylan), a high school student who has a "superpower": whenever anyone lies to her, she knows the truth. As she points out in her voice-over, this isn't quite as much of a blessing as you'd think. Having discovered that everyone lies, she's become apathetic, sleep-walking through her own life. Until her boyfriend's stoner best friend (Ian Nelson) shows up: he never lies. And he's a pretty cool guy. His presence forces her out of her apathy and into making decisions about her life.

Boylan, Nelson, and J.B. Ghuman Jr. (Dakota's boyfriend) are all reasonably good. The script is very good. The movie has too many montages, too many long shots with music and no speech. It gets a little old, but they're used reasonably well to develop the plot. I liked it the first time I saw it, but kind of dismissed it because it's an indie. But it seriously stuck in my head, so I watched it again. The idea is excellent, and very well developed: this should be required viewing for fans of superhero movies.

2008, dir. John Humber. With Eileen April Boylan, Ian Nelson, J.B. Ghuman Jr.

The Dam Busters

The movie was made in 1955, just ten years after the end of the Second World War. It's about the development and deployment of the bouncing bombs used against the German hydroelectric dams in the Ruhr Valley (apparently called Operation Chastise). You would expect that it being made so shortly after the war would mean Rah-Rah patriotism, but not as much as I expected. The opening credits expressed gratitude to all the crew and surviving relatives who helped with the film - and this is one of the places the film falls down: everyone who worked on the process was JUST LOVELY. Not a bad or incompetent person to be seen anywhere.

The movie opens with Barnes Wallis (played by Michael Redgrave) working on the design of the bomb, and the first half of the movie is about that and the politics of getting practical trials for the bomb. I found that fascinating - as were the incredibly simple, but very effective, bomb sight that was designed specifically for the mission, and their method for staying at a very exact height on the approach. But around the half way mark, we switch to the actual bombing mission: we watch the men chatting, waiting for the call. We watch them going to the planes. We watch them board the planes, taxi, take off, fly over the ocean, fly over the land. It got somewhat more interesting with the actual bomb runs, but even that was too long. At the end, we're informed of the success of the runs against the Möhne and Edersee Dams, but the Sorpe Dam - which had previously been mentioned several times - isn't mentioned at all. Apparently because it wasn't damaged, but just forgetting to mention that - weird.

I suspect the historical accuracy of the technology is excellent. And they flew four(?) Avro Lancasters simultaneously in the film, a thing we'll never see again (there's one flying in the entire world in 2015). So from a technical point of view it's a wonderful movie. Dramatically, not so much. Recommended for war buffs, but not for the drama or action.

1955, dir. Michael Anderson. With Richard Todd, Michael Redgrave, Ursula Jeans, Basil Sydney.

Dan in Real Life

Steve Carell plays Dan, a widower who writes an advice column on family matters. At a gathering of his extended family, he falls for his brother's new girlfriend. Not a particularly brilliant premise, but workable with the good cast - Carell is actually a pretty good straight actor, in fact I much prefer it to his humour. But the movie fails because about half the time the director takes the easy route, goes for the cheap laugh. Dan acting like a petulant child and sabotaging his brother over family dinner was a particular low point: not because the humour didn't really work, but because it wasn't believable of the character. I was going to say "no bodily fluids jokes," but in fact there's about a minute and a half spent on masturbation, so it does get that low. On the good side there are moments like Dan telling his brother not to give the new girlfriend his (Dan's) book. You think initially that this is just Dan's belief that it's not that great a book, but over time you realize that it's because the book will be damaging to the new relationship. Carell is good, and the three girls playing his intelligent young daughters are good and work exceptionally well with him. If only they hadn't aimed so low so often.

2007, dir. Peter Hedges. With Steve Carell, Juliette Binoche, Dane Cook, Alison Pill, Brittany Robertson, Marlene Lawston, Dianne Wiest, John Mahoney.

Dances With Wolves

Far too long at four hours, there's a passable movie lurking inside this behemoth. The cinematography was beautiful, doing justice to the prairie setting. Kevin Costner was wooden. The leisurely pace has some advantages, but for the most part left me restless. The main story concerns a soldier who has just escaped the chaos of the American Civil War slowly being absorbed into a Plains Indian tribe.

1990. Dir. Kevin Costner. With Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene, Rodney A. Grant, Floyd 'Red Crow' Westerman.

Dangerous Liaisons

France, before the revolution. Not exactly the picture of courtly love. Brutal sexual and psychological manipulation. Excellent. Very depressing.

1988. dir. Stephen Frears. With John Malkovich, Glenn Close, Uma Thurman, Keanu Reeves.

Daredevil

Not as bad as I expected after it received a lot of bad reviews. It varies between Colin Ferrell in the ludicrous role of "Bullseye" (okay, the whole thing is ludicrous, but we're trying to suspend disbelief here and he makes that even more difficult) and the very entertaining playground fight. Not the best of the superhero movies, but not the worst either. The second disc includes a great deal of material about the making of the movie and the comic books which is at least as interesting as the movie itself.

2003. dir. Mark Steven Johnson. With Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Colin Ferrell.

The Darjeeling Limited

Definitely a Wes Anderson movie, with his great eye for visuals and penchant for family dysfunction. Falls squarely in the middle between the resounding success of "The Royal Tenenbaums" and the disastrous "The Life Aquatic." Same cast as always, very similar themes. Three brothers convene on a train in India, speaking to each other for the first time in a year.

2007, dir. Wes Anderson. With Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman, Amara Karan, Wallace Wolodarsky, Anjelica Huston.

Dark City

I own this one, and love it. It's weird, dark, and very hard to describe. Think of the paranoia of Philip K. Dick, throw in Alex Proyas's directing style, and you have a story of aliens invading a city and experimenting with people's memories. Bizarre, but very good, and a visual feast.

1998, dir. Alex Proyas. With Rufus Sewell, Jennifer Connelly, William Hurt, Kiefer Sutherland.

The Dark Knight

The sequel to "Batman Begins."

Cillian Murphy (The Scarecrow) is wasted in what amounted to a cameo appearance, to my surprise Maggie Gyllenhaal is a poor substitute for Katie Holmes (although she's a better actress), and - if you have to die - every actor should go out acting as well as Heath Ledger did in this one. He was superb. I'm about to bitch at length about the Joker, but none of that is against Ledger: it's all about poor writing and logical fallacies. Sure, I'm willing to suspend disbelief when watching a movie. But the movie should have some degree of internal consistency. And nothing about the Joker is consistent (except his intelligence). We first see him robbing a bank, and then killing all his henchmen. Later, we see him burning a huge heap of money because the things he likes ("gasoline, dynamite") are cheap. We see him recruiting by saying "we need one person" and leaving three people from a competing gang to kill each other so he can take the survivor: this doesn't promote loyalty, nor does it select for intelligence or even competence. And yet he executes multiple incredibly complex plans (interception of Harvey Dent in a very heavily protected police van, break-out from jail, Dent/Dawes and the explosives, hospital break-in and destruction, ferry hi-jacking) flawlessly. I don't question his intelligence: Ledger makes him an extremely convincing insane genius. But he has no talent at all for working with people, and his plans are staggeringly convoluted and require dozens of extremely good employees to set up and execute. In fact, this is very similar to the problem the Joker character of the first movie (Jack Nicholson) suffered from. The first half of this movie was good, but the whole Joker thing really got on my nerves through the second half.

2008, dir. Christopher Nolan. With Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Monique Gabriela Curnen, Ron Dean, Cillian Murphy, Chin Han, Nestor Carbonell, Eric Roberts, Ritchie Coster, Anthony Michael Hall.

The Dark Knight Rises

Christopher Nolan directs the third, and evidently final, Batman movie. At least in this series. They left the door open for a sequel - way the hell open, and straining. But I think Nolan is done.

Batman has disappeared for eight years, and simultaneously (no one noticed?) Bruce Wayne has become a total recluse. Batman took the blame for the death of Harvey Dent (as shown at the end of "The Dark Knight"). And apparently Wayne/Batman has no cartilage in his knees ... but that's okay, because he has military-grade prosthetics to help him. Bruce Wayne is drawn out of his house by the cat burglar Selina Kyle ("Catwoman" in canon, but I don't think she's ever called that in the movie - played by Anne Hathaway), who steals a pearl necklace from him ... and a copy of his fingerprints.

This is followed by the arrival of Bane (Tom Hardy) in Gotham. Bane controls an incredibly dedicated and well trained militia, and is revealed to have had connections to Ra's al Ghul and the League of Shadows (we met them in the first movie).

The movie is long and tiring, and - while not so bad as the second movie (excepting, as always, Heath Ledger's performance) - just gritty and kind of uninteresting. I found the ending to be particularly improbable and hard to swallow - not to mention that someone named "Robin" finds himself in possession of the batcave at the end of the movie. I quite liked "Batman Begins," but it was all downhill from there ...

2012, dir. Christopher Nolan. With Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Morgan Freeman.

Dark Shadows (2012)

A re-imagining of a gothic 1960s cult TV series. Johnny Depp plays Barnabas Collins, the head of a wealthy family on the New England coast in 1760. Cursed to be a vampire and buried alive, he's accidentally released in 1972 and returns to the Collins family home to help revive their fishing empire. An already exceedingly quirky family is made quirkier by the inclusion of a vampire. But Barnabas also has to contend with the 200 year old (and still gorgeous) witch who created him (Eva Green) who isn't much friendlier than she was 200 years prior.

The biggest problem is that the movie doesn't know if it's horror, comedy, or even horror-comedy. Aside from a bit of a blood-bath when Barnabas is released, the movie mostly glosses over the horror aspects. And the comedy isn't even particularly funny. Even the usually brilliant Depp can't sell this product.

2012, dir. Tim Burton. With Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green, Bella Heathcote, Helena Bonham Carter, Jackie Earle Haley, Jonny Lee Miller, Chloë Grace Moretz.

Dave

Kevin Kline plays Dave Kovic, a decent guy who runs a temp agency and has a side line in doing presidential impersonations. He's even hired by the White House staff to do a walk-and-wave when the president wants some time off. But when the president has a debilitating stroke, Dave is hired for a longer period - and has to do some more serious appearances. Dave's upbeat impersonation of the president infects not only the people around him, but the entire nation. Unfortunately, there are a number of skeletons in the closet.

Echoes of Heinlein's "Double Star" and "Prisoner of Zenda" are heard loud and clear ... This is a Ruritanian Romance, it's just happens that the two titles mentioned are ones I'm familiar with.

Kline is wonderful, Sigourney Weaver puts in a great performance as the First Lady, and all the supporting cast is great as well. It's very funny. And it has a type of plot structure that I particularly appreciate, being somewhat circular: Dave starts to get involved in what's going on, and ultimately uses the event that roped him in in the first place to skewer the wrong-doers and get himself out of the role. A really wonderful comedy, highly recommended.

1993, dir. Ivan Reitman. With Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Frank Langella, Kevin Dunn, Ving Rhames, Ben Kingsley, Charles Grodin, Laura Linney, Stephen Root, Tom Dugan.

Dave Chappelle's Block Party

The critics loved this one, so I decided to have a look at it. I didn't find it funny enough to cover my disinterest in the music, but Wyclef Jean made it worth my time at the end: "Remember, the white man don't owe you shit. You're responsible for yourself. They got libraries in the ghetto. You need to go in there and educate yourselves. I couldn't speak English when I came to this country, but I went to the library and read. That's what you got to do." And he goes on to say "and if they don't have libraries, talk to your politician, talk to your mayor, make it happen." I think I like him.

2006, dir. Michel Gondry. With Dave Chappelle.

Day Watch

"Day Watch" is the sequel to Timur Bekmambetov's earlier "Night Watch," about the grand fight between good and evil supernatural people in the middle of modern day Moscow. Our protagonist is Anton, who's on the side of light but isn't very powerful and pretty much nothing he does turns out well. At the end of the last movie (SPOILER ALERT FOR THAT MOVIE, STOP NOW), his 12 year old(?) son Yegor - who is to be the most powerful supernatural being in the world - turned to the dark side. So now Anton is caught between the dark actions of his son and the trainee he's with who's bent on stopping the son Anton won't publicly acknowledge. His trainee, Svetlana, is also rather inconveniently the love of his life.

The overall story arc becomes evident over time, but I suspect that even if I'd rewatched "Night Watch" recently, this movie would still have been incomprehensible in many of its small details. Bekmambetov just doesn't fill in a lot of details that we need (despite the almost 2.5 hour run-time). Despite the incomprehensibility, the movie is kind of mesmerising with impressive visuals and all kinds of stuff that's interesting simply because it's clearly not-from-around-here.

2006, dir. Timur Bekmambetov. With Konstantin Khabensky, Vladimir Menshov, Mariya Poroshina, Viktor Verzhbitsky, Valeri Zolotukhin, Aleksei Chadov, Galina Tyunina.

Daybreakers

In 2019 (the movie was made in 2010) most of the human race have been turned into vampires by a plague. A few real humans remain on the run, and many more are held in pens, unconscious, and farmed for their blood. Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke), the head haematologist at Bromley Marks (the lead supplier of blood to the U.S.) is searching for a blood substitute, and bothered by his conscience. The rest of the world is bothered by the high rate of mutation brought on in the population by the blood shortage. Dalton has a run-in with some free humans that he saves - and they take an interest in him because of his profession.

The society resulting from rampant vampirism is reasonably well set up. All the standard vampire limitations seem to apply: stake them or expose them to sunlight and they die (explosively). It was well done and mildly enjoyable right up until the end when they wallop you with an excellent twist that really makes you need to re-think how things are going to play out. Fun.

2010, dir. Michael and Peter Spierig. With Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Claudia Karvan, Sam Neill, Michael Dorman, Isabel Lucas.

A Day at the Races

Bringing the Marx Brothers special brand of mayhem ("anarchic," the critics like to call it) to a sanitarium and race track. Groucho plays a horse doctor mistaken for a human doctor, while Harpo plays a jockey and Chico plays a ... well, driver, con man, and gambler. I fast-forwarded through the three big musical numbers, but found myself laughing quite a bit through the rest of the movie.

1937, dir. Sam Wood. With Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Margaret Dumont, Allan Jones, Maureen O'Sullivan.

Day for Night (orig. "La Nuit Américaine")

Commonly referred to as "Truffaut's love letter to cinema," this is a movie about making a movie - and what a royal pain in the ass it can be. Enjoyable, but cluttered with too many characters, and an excess of scenery (the side effect of having movie scenery and equipment showing in a movie). I do love the original title.

1973, dir. François Truffaut. With Jacqueline Bisset, Valentina Cortese, Dani, Alexandra Stewart, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Jean Champion, Jean-Pierre Léaud, François Truffaut, Nike Arrighi, Nathalie Baye, David Markham.

The Day of the Jackal

Far superior to "The Jackal," the 1997 remake. The plot revolves around an assassination attempt on Charles de Gaulle. Edward Fox is cold and systematic as the assassin. When Fox isn't on screen the movie is about the pursuit of this completely unknown assassin - hard to find when he has no name, no face, and not even a reputation, but they're pretty sure he's very good at what he does.

1973, dir. Fred Zinnemann. With Edward Fox, Michel Auclair, Denis Carey, Derek Jacobi.

The Day of the Triffids (1981)

If you can forgive the appalling special effects (it's the BBC in the Eighties), the unbelievably lurid 60s-esque intro, and the poor music, this is a very good mini-series. It sticks close to Wyndham's excellent original story, and the human drama is well played. So ignore the Triffids and watch the people.

Bill Masen (John Duttine) wakes up in the hospital. He knows why he's there - he works with Triffids, a very nasty kind of plant that's temporarily (he hopes) blinded him - but not why he's been left entirely alone and the city is almost completely silent. Eventually he takes the bandages off his eyes himself and finds that almost the entire world was blinded by the beautiful meteor shower the night before.

This script happily jettisons most of Wyndham's unconscious 50s sexism, but kept every other element of the story - a good thing, because it's a damn good story. Coker (played by Maurice Colbourne) remains one of my favourite characters.

2022 UPDATE: I've rewatched this series multiple times. What I said about the intro, and the music, and the special effects ... all true. But the consistent British acting and the superb and thoughtfully constructed story from Wyndham make this very worthwhile.

1981, dir. Ken Hannam. With John Duttine, Emma Relph, Maurice Colbourne.

The Day of the Triffids (2009)

Another BBC TV series based on the Wyndham book. The technical aspects were better: the CGI (including the Triffids themselves) and the music. And they had some interesting ideas about how to update the Triffids and why people kept them around (this is set in the modern day). But they heavily modified the plot, and chose a couple of very poor actors for the leads. Dougray Scott as Bill Masen could teach Keanu Reeves a thing or two about wooden. He had two expressions: a scowl and ... another scowl. Eddie Izzard is actually pretty good in his unrewarding role as the flat-out evil Torrence (set up from the beginning as the big evil of the series, and stripped of the motivations of his third act appearance in the Wyndham original). Brian Cox is okay, and Jason Priestley is wasted (not a favourite actor of mine, but looked like he could have helped here) in the very reduced and badly modified role of Coker.

The BBC usually goes for good acting and poor special effects on a thin budget. It looks like they spent more here to get better special effects, but the money they spent on big name actors has gone seriously astray. And the unnecessary plot rewrite significantly damaged a previously excellent story. Put up with the awful credits and special effects of the 1981 version: it's otherwise a far superior product.

2009, dir. Nick Copus. With Dougray Scott, Joely Richardson, Eddie Izzard, Jason Priestley, Brian Cox, Jenn Murray, Julia Joyce.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

One of the "classics" of science fiction. A spaceship lands in Washington, and the visitor is shot by a nervous soldier within thirty seconds of descending from the ship. The visitor turns out to be essentially human, and after healing (incredibly quickly) he slips off to try to meet real humans. There are a bunch of bizarre assumptions (he understands humans so well that he can blend in fine at a boarding house - and yet he doesn't know about money or the value of diamonds), but that's probably inevitable. While it shows some of the prejudices of the period, it also holds up remarkably well. (This is where the name "Klaatu" originated - he's the visitor - and his robot is called "Gort.")

1951, dir. Robert Wise. With Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, Sam Jaffe.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008)

If your main character is an alien who has no emotions as we know them, who should you choose to play the alien? Keanu Reeves, of course. I like him and think he's an acceptable and often charming actor, but I still think the choice is kind of inspired. As was the rather strange choice of John Cleese as a Nobel-winning physicist: he pulled it off.

But they almost immediately commit a staggering logical gaff: if you find a self-powered incoming extraterrestrial object hurtling toward Manhattan at a speed that's going to create a massive crater, you don't rush all your carefully collected specialists to ground zero just before the expected impact. Hello? There are other logical problems, but they all pale by comparison to this one.

For those who've seen the original, this is a fascinating exercise in what they've updated: they've updated a lot, and someone gave it a lot of thought, and got most of it right. I was impressed. But if you haven't seen the original I don't think this will be as good or as enjoyable. Can't say for sure as I've seen the first one: it's definitely dated, but it's still good. I was pleased to find that this one is almost as thought-provoking (although the kid is flat-out annoying).

2008, dir. Scott Derrickson. With Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly, Kathy Bates, Jaden Smith, John Cleese, Jon Hamm, James Hong.

DC League of Super-Pets

This movie is derivative, juvenile, silly, and occasionally very obvious. But ... it's also damn funny. I'm surprised the formula worked, but a decent amount of heart and a lot of very funny jokes kept me laughing throughout.

The set-up is ... formulaic: Lex Luthor, a new form of Kryptonite (orange), some pets become "super," all members of the Justice League are incapacitated, band of misfit pets must save them. But on the other side of that coin we have the jokes. One of the better ones - not even the best - has the evil Lulu lassoed by Wonder Woman, who says "You cannot escape my Lasso of Truth." Lulu looks her costume over and says "You want the truth? The boots are a little much." Which manages so much in one snarky line: it gives parents a throw-back to "A Few Good Men," it disparages DC's own fashion sense, it's true without being useful, and it's just funny. DC may finally have taken the lesson Pixar started teaching the producers of kids animation years ago: entertain the parents at the same time as you entertain the kids.

The voice staff is astonishing. Let's put it this way, they got Lena Headey and Alfred Molina to do the tiny parts of Superman's parents, and it only gets better from there with the top two roles - the dogs Krypto and Ace - filled by Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart (is it just me, or do they work together a lot? "Central Intelligence," "Jumanji," Jumanji again, and "Hobbs & Shaw"). Hart's character Ace is the emotional centre of the film, supportive without being overly sentimental, and often very funny. Johnson's character Krypto is the lead, and the character who has the biggest emotional journey.

There's a funny running gag about Krypto's favourite toy, a Batman doll that he calls "squeezy-Bruce." As the end of the movie nears, one of the other dogs shows up with a different superhero squeezy toy, paying off the whole sequence beautifully. What's interesting to me is that a lot of animated movies try for this self-referential humour, and it's annoying or un-funny or both, but in this movie it played out perfectly. Just a better quality of writing I guess ...

Having mocked Marvel (and themselves) throughout, they used what's become a standard superhero movie structure in the final credits. The mid-credits scene is kind of meh, but the end-credits scene is a meta-post-modern analysis of anti-heroes that's one of the funniest things in the movie. The dialogue is aimed entirely at adults and yet kids will still laugh at the very physical punchline. All of this while simultaneously giving their own "Black Adam" movie a healthy boost ... beautifully played.

2022, dir. Jared Stern, Sam J. Levine. With Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Kate McKinnon, John Krasinski, Vanessa Bayer, Natasha Lyonne, Diego Luna, Marc Maron, Keanu Reeves, Thomas Middleditch, Ben Schwartz, Olivia Wilde, Maya Erskine, Yvette Nicole Brown, Jameela Jamil, Jemaine Clement, John Early, Dascha Polanco, Daveed Diggs, Alfred Molina, Lena Headey, Keith David, Busy Philipps, Dan Fogler, Winona Bradshaw, David Pressman.

Dead Again

Kenneth Branagh's second directing gig after "Henry V." Branagh plays Mike Church, an private investigator who finds himself in possession of a woman (Emma Thompson) without memories or a voice. After putting an ad in the paper to look for her family or friends, he gets instead Franklyn (Derek Jacobi), a hypnotist who helps her regain her voice and then, through further sessions, some of her past ... lives. In fact, a large chunk of the movie is played out in the 1940s, in black and white, with a socialite couple (also Thompson and Branagh) whose history ended with the murder-by-scissors of the wife (apparently by the husband) and the execution of the husband. Robin Williams plays a disgraced psychologist in a relatively small part that remains possibly my favourite of anything he's ever done.

Branagh's directing here fluctuates wildly between pretty good and massively over-the-top. He knows he's doing it, he's doing it on purpose ... but it's still way over the top. I think he's reaching for the kind of visuals Hitchcock occasionally used, but with somewhat less success than Hitchcock. Nevertheless, it's an entertaining and enjoyable movie.

1991, dir. Kenneth Branagh. With Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Derek Jacobi, Andy García, Hanna Schygulla, Wayne Knight, Robin Williams.

Dead Man

Johnny Depp is William Blake, who we first see riding the train from Cleveland, Ohio to the western frontier town of Machine. The movie is shot entirely in black and white, set at an unspecified time in the mid- to late nineteenth century. Blake is a mild-mannered accountant, promised a job at the metal works in Machine. But on arrival, he finds they hired someone else in the two months it's taken him to get there, and he's now jobless and penniless in the West. He quickly runs afoul of the locals and gets shot, then finds himself riding in the wilderness with an Indian named Nobody (Gary Fisher), pursued (although he doesn't know it) by three bounty hunters.

But this is directed by Jim Jarmusch: it's not a standard Western. "Nobody" keeps spouting nonsensical statements - even as Blake tells him they make no sense. Blake's condition worsens. The whole thing is surreal, each scene surrounded by Jarmusch's over-and-over fade-to-black. And then there's the music: Neil Young's intrusive, loud, and very irritating electric guitar soundtrack feels totally out of place - he hasn't done a soundtrack since, and that's a GOOD THING (TM). Aside from the soundtrack it was at least interesting.

1995, dir. Jim Jarmusch. With Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, Lance Henriksen, Michael Wincott, Eugene Byrd, Crispin Glover, Iggy Pop, Billy Bob Thornton, Jared Harris, Mili Avital, Gabriel Byrne, John Hurt, Alfred Molina, Robert Mitchum.

Dead Still, Season 1

The main character in this series is Brock Blennerhasset (Michael Smiley), a photographer in Dublin in the 1880s who specializes in memorial photos of the dead. In the first episode, his niece Nancy (Eileen O'Higgins) comes to live with him to escape their unpleasant family, and he acquires a new assistant in the form of Conall Malloy (Kerr Logan). We also meet Frederick Regan (Aidan O'Hare), an officer in the police who's convinced a series of very similar suicides are actually murders.

Wikipedia calls this a "drama," but it focuses so heavily on its bizarre, low-key humour that the "drama" ends up carrying little weight. Blennerhasset is so emotionally opaque that no one - not us or his niece - has any idea why he does the unkind things he occasionally does. His niece is an improbably "modern" woman, and officer Logan is - while a decent detective - hard for us to take seriously because the series constantly makes jokes at his expense. I found the mystery weak, and was particularly frustrated by the bad guy's hiding-in-plain-sight because in the social circles he traveled in he might well have run into people who recognized him from his previous life. And at the end, they solve the base mystery but leave us with a shadowy conspiracy so they can have another series of this second rate crap. I only struggled through the last three episodes to see it wrapped up, and they refused to even do that ...

Six episodes of 50 minutes each.

2020, dir. Imogen Murphy, Craig David Wallace. With Michael Smiley, Aidan O'Hare, Eileeen O'Higgins, Kerr Logan, Jimmy Smallhorne, Mark Rendall, Martin Donovan, Peter Campion.

Deadpool

Deadpool has long held a special place in the Marvel comics universe - an obnoxious, motor-mouthed anti-hero who frequently breaks the fourth wall by talking directly to the audience. Ryan Reynolds played the part both in the appalling "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" and in this movie - although his origin story and appearance are significantly different between the two. I think Marvel would prefer we forget about "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," even though Hugh Jackman is still playing the role of Wolverine. So let's consider this an entirely separate movie.

Reynolds plays Wade Williams, a former special forces operative and current mercenary in New York City. While he talks a lot and is unpleasant to be around, he's shown doing good things for little or no money. He finds a soulmate in the equally obnoxious prostitute Vanessa Carlysle (Morena Baccarin), but a year into their romance he's diagnosed with terminal cancer. This eventually leads to his entering the "Weapon X" program (I don't think it was ever named in the movie) where he's cured and given superpowers ... but the price is very high. Which sets him on the path of vengeance.

The movie starts around the end of my plot summary with an amusing set of credits. It then proceeds into a fight on a freeway that had me laughing so hard I actually paused the movie because I was going to miss the next thirty seconds of the film. Reynolds, who desperately wanted to play Deadpool in a movie of his own, has been handed a great script and is having the time of his life delivering the funniest material ever given to a guy in a superhero costume. The movie eventually backs up to fill in the details I've mentioned, all narrated by Deadpool.

My biggest single problem with the film was T.J. Miller as Weasel: he's supposed to be Wade's best friend, but all he ever does is drink with him and insult him (I understand that this may be their dynamic - but still). This is supposed to be the "comedy relief" (it says so on the case), but I didn't find him very funny and he sure as hell wasn't a friend. On the other hand, Baccarin was an inspired choice as Wade's love interest: she's beautiful, but also sells her foul-mouthed behaviour and attachment to Wade. The fights are good not just as "superhero" fights, but also as platforms for Deadpool's jokes, and the people who scripted the fights clearly revelled in the opportunity to do things that they couldn't put in other more mainstream Marvel movies (Angel's brutal and hilarious crotch shot on Colossus comes to mind, but is far from the only thing).

Has a distinctive style and is perhaps not for everyone, but most fans of superhero movies will enjoy this incredibly irreverent and hilarious ride.

2016, dir. Tim Miller. With Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, Ed Skrein, T.J. Miller, Gina Carano, Leslie Uggams, Brianna Hildebrand.

Deadpool 2

So, more Deadpool. Still 18+ in Canada, and bloodier, nastier, and more offensive than the last one. Here's the thing about offensive humour: the more in-your-face it is, the funnier it has to be to offset it. And this one, while still funny, isn't as funny as the last one. It's in-your-face alright, and it has some good jokes, but here they're relying on the same kind of jokes that worked so well the first time because of shock value - and shock value doesn't work twice.

Ryan Reynolds was always incredibly vocal about how Deadpool was horribly mangled in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" - he wasn't wrong, and in fact references it again at the end of this movie. But that makes it somewhat ironic when Deadpool gushes over Juggernaut being one of his favourite characters (he names comic book issues) ... and the movie completely wastes Juggernaut. Reynolds and director David Leitch both love Juggernaut and thought this use of the character was incredibly cool. In fact, it makes Vinnie Jones' performance in the much reviled "X-Men: The Last Stand" look like a thespian masterpiece.

Another problem: around the fifth time in this movie that we see Ryan Reynolds hamburger, the jokes about his injuries and regeneration are getting old. And if you're no longer laughing you begin to realize that you're looking at a mutilated talking corpse and it's kind of gross. Remember what I said about offensive humour? If you fail to make the audience laugh, then you're in their face with something offensive and grotesque and they'll notice because they're not laughing.

Josh Brolin's super-serious Cable is used as a straight-man to Deadpool's motor mouth, but the real stand-out in the movie was Zazie Beetz as Domino. Her superpower is that she's lucky. Deadpool doesn't agree that this is a superpower but you will, and quickly. And she's just really appealing and funny in the role.

SPOILER ALERT: I'm going to discuss a major (if stupid) plot point. If you don't want to read about it, go away. One of the first things they do is re-establish Wade's love for Vanessa. Then they kill off Vanessa, so her death is the motivating factor for much of what happens in the movie (including his willingness to die and suicidal tendencies). And I thought "no, that's not right. She's too important to him." Then Cable showed up with his time-jumping device and I thought "oh, that's how she comes back." The really depressing part is that I was right. And this deepens the hole they've dug for themselves in "Avengers: Infinity War" in which they killed off dozens of major stars and it was so fucking tragic ... but you know they're all coming back, so it had no dramatic weight at all. Which leaves me with the sour feeling that I can never trust a death in a Marvel production again. Deadpool is Deadpool and you're not meant to take it too seriously, but they were trying to give dramatic weight with her death (they didn't play it for humour) - but instead I spent the movie thinking "when's she going to come back?"

2018, dir. David Leitch. With Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin, Morena Baccarin, Julian Dennison, Zazie Beetz, T.J. Miller, Brianna Hildebrand, Jack Kesy, Leslie Ugams, Karan Soni.

Dealt

I don't know a great deal about magic - I've watched and enjoyed a lot of Penn & Teller's "Fool Us," but that's the extent of my magical education. Despite that, I'm familiar with the name of "Richard Turner." If you don't know it, you should look him up on YouTube - particularly his performance on "Fool Us." Two of the most knowledgeable magicians in the world watch him with their mouths open because he does, indeed, fool them. His skills with a deck of cards are legendary: watching him deal the second card from the deck is amazing. Especially when he turns over the top card so you can see that it never moves while he continues to deal. It looks totally natural, and the fact that he's demonstrating a cheating skill with perfect ease is both deeply disturbing and incredibly impressive.

Oh, did I mention? He's totally blind.

"Dealt" is a 2017 documentary about Richard Turner's life. Early on, someone refers to him as "on the crazy side of obsessive-compulsive," and they're not wrong: the man is shuffling cards when he works out, when he eats, when he sits on the couch relaxing, he never sets them down. But the movie isn't so much about his card artistry (although it couldn't avoid it even if it wanted to as it runs right through his entire life), but about his family and his coming to terms with his own blindness - something he's avoided for decades. He started going blind around ten, and was almost entirely blind by his mid-twenties, but has tried so hard to not be defined by his blindness that his behaviour became a refusal to acknowledge it. But his sister (who he seems to be very close with) had the same eye disease he had, and over the two or three years the movie followed him, he clearly became more accepting of the idea that he could be blind without it being his most important characteristic. It felt like he'd finally accepted that he truly was the best in the world at what he did: many laymen and almost all magicians have known that for more than a decade - he's late to the party. And sure, many of us are more surprised that he did it blind: but that doesn't really matter in the end because he is the best, period, end of story. And in understanding that, he's learning to live with the condition and become an inspiration to others who are blind and near-blind, showing what they can achieve.

2017, dir. Luke Korem. With Richard Turner, Kim Turner, Asa Spades Turner, Johnny Thompson, Max Maven, Armando Lucero, Jason England.

Dear Frankie

Frankie frequently writes to his father who is in the merchant marine since the separation of his parents when he was very young. We soon find out that his letters end up in his mother's (Emily Mortimer) hands, and she replies to them. Which works well enough until the ship Frankie thinks his father is on pulls into port. Rather than give up on the ruse, Mortimer hires someone (Gerard Butler) to play the part of the father, with substantial side effects. Charming, almost sickly sweet, with a very open ending. Mortimer and Butler are good.

2004, dir. Shona Auerbach. With Emily Mortimer, Jack McElhone, Gerard Butler.

Death at a Funeral

The movie opens with a coffin being delivered to an English country house. When it's opened, Daniel (Matthew Macfadyen) discovers the body that's been delivered isn't that of his father as it's supposed to be, but a stranger. This is pretty much the most tasteful joke in the movie. What we get:

  • a guy attending the funeral to flirt with a one night stand (although she's now in a permanent relationship and he knows it)
  • Alan Tudyk high on a mix of acid and ketamine - given to him by his girlfriend who thought it was valium
  • wrestling a cranky, disabled old man onto a toilet, resulting in someone getting shit on their hand ... and their face
  • a gay lover of the dead father trying to blackmail the sons out of £15,000 - or he'll show graphic pictures of the relationship to the funeral attendees
  • two men wrestling a dwarf to the ground and tying him up
  • adding another person to the coffin

This is essentially a 1960s slapstick farce to which has been added all the toilet and drug humour that couldn't be put in back then. If you're in for this kind of humour, it's done well by some good actors. I can enjoy this sort of stuff in small doses, but an entire movie is way too much.

2007, dir. Frank Oz. With Matthew Macfadyen, Rupert Graves, Andy Nyman, Kris Marshall, Peter Dinklage, Keeley Hawes, Daisy Donovan, Alan Tudyk, Ewen Bremner.

Death In Paradise, Season 1

British Detective Inspector Richard Poole (Ben Miller) is sent to the small (fictional) Caribbean island of Saint Marie, where he makes it eminently clear that he doesn't want to remain. But after solving the murder he was sent for in the first episode, he finds out he's going to be staying anyway. He's a prat - despised by his own department in the U.K. and apparently both disinterested in and unable to make friends. But he's an intelligent man and a surprisingly good detective.

I find online that the series has been quite successful, with Season 6 currently going forward. I find it's also accused of being formulaic - and this is correct, as Poole collects the seemingly unrelated facts, then at the 37 minute mark of the 57 minute run-time has an epiphany that he doesn't share with his colleagues or us, and at 50 minutes we have a gathering of the suspects and the big reveal.

His co-workers/employees Dwayne (Danny John-Jules) and Fidel (Gary Carr) are well written and a pleasure to watch. I have mixed feelings about his partner Camille Bordey (Sara Martins), who, while a well fleshed-out character, seems to primarily be a foil to follow him around to point out what an ass he is and turn his social awkwardness into comedy. She's intelligent and notices stuff, but never appears to be instrumental in solving stuff - it would be good if they'd give her the occasional Poole-free success.

Enjoyable, but too much the same and too "easy." I don't think I'll be tracking down the other seasons.

2011. With Ben Miller, Sara Martins, Danny John-Jules, Gary Carr, Selwyn Patterson, Élizabeth Bourgine.

Death In Paradise, Season 2 and 3

I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that I did follow up season 1 with series 2 and 3: it's meaningless fluff, easy to watch, no thought required. Season 3 introduces a new detective, Humphrey Goodman (Kris Marshall). On the surface this is a good thing: he's a very different character than D.I. Poole. He's staggeringly clumsy, he's immensely better at dealing with people, and he likes being in the Caribbean. But his methods of solving cases are identical, as are the structure of each episode. He always solves the case: the bad guy is caught and there's no doubt about who did it.

The show's popularity has only grown as time has passed: as I write in mid-2017, the sixth series has aired to better ratings than any previous one, and the show has been renewed for a seventh series.

2011. With Ben Miller, Kris Marshall, Sara Martins, Danny John-Jules, Gary Carr, Selwyn Patterson, Élizabeth Bourgine.

Death of a Superhero

Thomas Brodie-Sangster plays Donald, a 15 year old with terminal cancer. He's angry and pushes his parents away. They keep sending him to psychologists, while he spends his time drawing, and imagining himself the superhero he spends his time drawing - his superhero is frequently close to death. Andy Serkis plays the one psychologist who actually kind of gets through to Donald, and Aisling Loftus is the girl he meets.

Based on a novel of the same name by New Zealand author Anthony McCarten, who also did the screenplay. Serkis is good, Sangster is okay. Not surprisingly, it's kind of depressing.

2011, dir. Ian FitzGibbon. With Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Andy Serkis, Aisling Loftus, Sharon Horgan, Michael McElhatton.

Death Race

A remake - in spirit only - of Roger Corman's 1975 trash classic "Death Race 2000." Corman was on-board as a producer. Paul W.S. Anderson brings us the story of an ex-race car driver (Jason Statham) framed for murder by a prison warden so she can bring him in to drive in the televised and extremely lucrative "Death Race" inside her prison. This is of course just an excuse for a revenge movie with lots of cars, crashes, explosions, and (very) gory deaths. And don't forget the babes - Natalie Martinez is gorgeous. Pure trash, and highly enjoyable if you like that kind of thing.

In the past I've mostly encountered Ian McShane as an animated bad guy - yes, I know he's done lots of other stuff, but that's what I've seen of him. It was a treat to find out he's a good actor and makes an appealing good guy.

The BluRay release also comes with an extended cut: it's been a while since I saw the theatrical release so I'm not sure what's been added in, but I didn't get the sense that it helped much. It didn't make it significantly worse (as many do), but I think the Theatrical Cut is the better choice.

2008, dir. Paul W.S. Anderson. With Jason Statham, Joan Allen, Tyrese Gibson, Natalie Martinez, Ian McShane, Max Ryan, Jason Clarke, Frederick Koehler, Robert LaSardo, Robin Shou, Jacob Vargas.

Death Trap

A well-known playwright (Michael Caine) riding a string of flops is approached by one of his young students (Christopher Reeve) to review the student's play. He decides to invite the student over and murder him to get the play for himself. This is followed by a string of reversals and betrayals to stagger the mind. It's meant to be ludicrously funny, but to me it was just ludicrous. But it's odd to see Reeve so long ago: I've thought of him for so long as a wheelchair-borne quadriplegic that I'd forgotten he was a good looking actor when he was younger.

1982, dir. Sidney Lumet. With Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, Dyan Cannon, Irene Worth.

The Debt Collector

I watched "Triple Threat" recently. I wasn't terribly impressed, but went on to "Avengement" (also starring Scott Adkins) anyway. And that one kind of blew me away. It's intense, well written, and well acted. So tonight I watched "The Debt Collector," starring (you guessed it) Scott Adkins.

Adkins plays French - who is British, and a martial arts instructor in Los Angeles. The first scene in the movie shows that he's a really, really good fighter, and that his club is direly short of money. One of his students reluctantly introduces him to the world of debt collection as a means to make ends meet. French is paired up with the far more experienced debt collector "Sue" (Louis Mandylor), and they spend a weekend working a debt sheet. The pay is good, but there's more violence than French expected. The morality of the whole process becomes even more problematic for French as their last assignment of the weekend is simply a beat-down, not a debt collection.

Director Jesse V. Johnson (Adkins' frequent collaborator) mixes in black and white footage of cows being herded throughout the movie. Since I was pretty sure this wasn't an arthouse production, I became concerned for our protagonist as it began to look like this wasn't going to end well for the cow(s).

I'm not a huge fan of Adkins' martial arts style, which strikes me more as high quality brawling than the balletic grace of Jackie Chan. But aside from the annoying and unnecessary cows, the movie is well constructed, well written, well paced, and even - at least by the two leads - well acted. So in the end we have a good action movie. "Avengement" is better, but this really is quite good.

2018, dir. Jesse V. Johnson. With Scott Adkins, Louis Mandylor, Vladimir Kulich, Tony Todd, Selina Lo.

Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay

Ricky Jay is a well known magician (if you don't know the name, you'd recognize his face), and he's an intelligent and generally interesting man - although a bit of an ass. Somehow they've managed to make a remarkably boring movie about him - in part by taking a lifetime of magical practice and repertoire and reducing it to less than 15 minutes of footage in the movie. Instead, we have Jay talking about his mentors, magicians long gone (Cardini, Dai Vernon, Charlie Miller). Certainly, he's not telling us their secrets: he's a magician, they don't do that. So he talks about what it was like to be around them. And this kind of story telling isn't really his forte as a performer. I would much rather have seen him perform for an hour and a half.

2012, dir. Molly Bernstein. With Ricky Jay, David Mamet.

The Decoy Bride

This got very poor reviews, but I watched it because I like David Tennant and I love Kelly Macdonald, who is an incredibly talented actress. The premise sees author James Arber (Tennant) about to be married to the very famous movie star Lara Tyler (Alice Eve), but in a quest to avoid paparazzi and confuse the press, Katie Nic Aodh (Macdonald) is pressed into service as a "decoy bride." In time-honoured tradition, James and Katie get off on the wrong foot and hate each other but eventually realize that they like each other - except of course that he's to marry someone else.

The reviewers aren't wrong: this is poorly written and sloppily constructed. They spend far too much time humiliating their characters and expecting it to raise laughs - but occasionally they hand Macdonald a good line and she puts it right out of the park. I hope she does more comedy.

2011, dir. Sheree Folkson. With Kelly Macdonald, David Tennant, Alice Eve, Michael Urie, Sally Phillips, Maureen Beattie, Federico Castelluccio, James Fleet, Dylan Moran.

Defendor

Woody Harrelson plays Arthur Poppington, aka "Defendor." Arthur isn't very bright, but is determined - as Defendor - to take out "Captain Industry." So he dresses up as Defendor and goes out nights to protect the world from evil. We see most of this in flashback, with Arthur being interviewed by Dr. Park (Sandra Oh) in a psychological evaluation.

The film has huge banners all over it proclaiming its Canadian-ness and its various Canadian funding, but three out of five of the main characters are American (Oh and Elias Koteas being the Canadians) and nothing in the content suggests that the city is Canadian (nor is it indicated that it's American).

Harrelson is good, and the script remains fairly true to itself right through to the end (although things resolve a little too positively to feel real) - which, not surprisingly, isn't very happy. The movie is reasonably good, but I didn't particularly enjoy it.

2009, dir. Peter Stebbings. With Woody Harrelson, Kat Dennings, Elias Koteas, Sandra Oh, Michael Kelly.

Definitely, Maybe

After a sex-ed class at school, Maya Hayes (Abigail Breslin) demands her father (Ryan Reynolds) tell her the story of how he met her mother (who he is about to divorce). He turns it into a mystery, changing the names of the three main women in his life as he tells her his romantic history across 16 years. Most of it we see as it happened, but there are occasional interruptions by Maya. It's a comedy, it's ... sort of romantic. Superbly drawn characters despite having a mid-sized ensemble cast, very funny and quite charming. There's chemistry between all the players. I also hadn't the slightest idea where it was going and found the ending satisfying without being obvious - a big surprise for something that's nominally a romantic comedy. An excellent movie, highly recommended.

2008, dir. Adam Brooks. With Ryan Reynolds, Abigail Breslin, Elizabeth Banks, Isla Fisher, Rachel Weisz, Derek Luke, Liane Balaban, Kevin Kline.

Déjà Vu

Denzel Washington plays a cop (actually a federal agent, but the difference isn't particularly important to the movie despite their making much of it) investigating a horrific bombing on a New Orleans ferry that kills over 500 people. He makes a connection on a young woman apparently killed in the explosion whose corpse showed up too early, and because of this detective work is drawn farther into the investigation. This includes viewing the scene four and a half days ago through what he is initially told is an assemblage of satellite data but which turns out to be a device that sees into the past, and you just know time travel will be involved.

MINOR SPOILER: Unfortunately the apartment with the blood-soaked bandages couldn't exist in the time line in which Washington started to investigate. Time travel, particularly when the characters have an opportunity to change things, present an immense technical ("could it happen?") challenge for writers. And they made a huge logical error: having carefully set you up to understand the parameters and how the time travel might work, they choose both options from their own either/or scenario. The first thirty minutes is a surprisingly decent suspense thriller, but it gets sillier and poorer once the SF elements are introduced - the "I can see the past" car chase is particularly stupid.

2006, dir. Tony Scott. With Denzel Washington, Paula Patton, Val Kilmer, James Caviezel, Adam Goldberg, Elden Hensen.

Delicatessen

"Surreal" doesn't begin to cover it. In a post-apocalyptic world, a surviving delicatessen serves up the occasional passer-by to the local residents. I borrowed this because it was directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and it certainly has many of the touches he shows in later films including a heavy inclination to sepia toning and absurdity by the truck load. Well-loved by both the critics and the fans, I guess I just didn't "get it."

1991, dir. Marc Caro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet. With Dominique Pinon, Marie-Laure Dougnac, Jean-Claude Dreyfus, Ticky Holgado, Anne-Marie Pisani, Silvie Laguna.

Denise Ho: Becoming the Song

Denise Ho was born in Hong Kong. In 1988, at the age of 11, she moved with her family to Montreal. She became a singer, winning a singing contest in HK and eventually apprenticing (more or less) with her childhood hero Anita Mui. (It's odd that I actually had an idea who Anita Mui is: not because I was a fan of her Cantopop career, but because she was in several movies with Jackie Chan.) This led Ho to a career as a Cantopop singer herself, but over the last decade she's come out as gay (presumably harder in HK than here), and become a major activist for the deteriorating human rights in Hong Kong. Which has led to her losing both her major markets, HK and mainland China (and most of her promotional deals).

I now know for sure - although I wasn't surprised - that I really don't like her music. I respect the stance she's taken, but between the music I didn't enjoy and the depressing and inevitable political outcome in HK, the movie wasn't much fun.

2020, dir. Sue Williams. With Denise Ho.

Desert Heat

This is a bad martial arts movie (direct to video apparently), but saying "it's just a poor remake of 'Yojimbo'" misses out on some wonderfully sick and morbid humour. There have been many parodies of Mr. Miyagi (the mentor in the original "The Karate Kid"), but who better to parody the role than Pat Morita? Under the direction of the same man who directed him the first time? (Although John Avildsen was so embarrassed by this one he's credited as "Danny Mulroon.") The movie's greatest weakness is its attempts to be a serious martial arts film. That's just boring (and the fighting isn't even good). But the twisted humour is marvelous.

1999, dir. John Avildsen. With Jean-Claude Van Damme, Pat Morita, Danny Trejo.

Design for Living

A Noel Coward play, directed by Ernst Lubitsch in 1933 - pre-Hayes Code. This is an important point: the play is about two men and a woman all living together while both men are in love with the woman and she loves them. Gary Cooper and Frederic March play a couple of starving artists who meet a lovely woman (Miriam Hopkins) on a train. Both of them fall for her, shenanigans ensue. And then she moves in with them, to inspire them in their respective arts ... with a "Gentleman's Agreement" that there will be no sex (it was stated in almost exactly those terms, something that couldn't possibly have happened post-Hayes). It's all utterly absurd and I wasn't overly fond of Hopkins' character, but it was also charming and hilarious. Recommended - if you can track it down. (Since Criterion has done one of their clean-up jobs on it it shouldn't be too difficult.)

1933, dir. Ernst Lubitsch. With Gary Cooper, Frederic March, Miriam Hopkins, Edward Everett Horton, Franklin Pangborn.

Despicable Me

Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) is a supervillain - but he's also getting a bit old and being supplanted by the younger Vector (Jason Segel). Having failed to break into Vector's fortress, he discovers that Vector's weakness is cookies, so he adopts three children who sell cookies to sneak his robotic minions into Vector's place. The bonding process that follows is unbelievable, ludicrous, occasionally sickly sweet, and very, very entertaining. Gru's army of minions (bright yellow, pill-shaped, short, indestructible, semi-humanoid ...) are also very funny.

2010, dir. Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud. With Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand, Julie Andrews, Kristen Wiig, Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier, Elsie Fisher, Pierre Coffin.

Despicable Me 2

Sees our hero and father figure Gru (Steve Carell) teamed up with the Anti-Villain League - specifically his partner Lucy Wilde (Kristen Wiig, hilarious) - to save the world from other villains ... now that he's a dad and not a villain anymore.

Offers plenty of laughs, although the story is somewhat more slapstick than the last one (which already relied heavily on slapstick). Parents will find the cloying cuteness of the daughters overplayed in this one - although they'll also recognize Gru's overbearing concern about his daughters developing an interest in boys. The best scenes are the ones with Wiig in them: she's given many of the best lines and delivers them very well indeed. Once again, the closing credits offer some of the funniest bits (even without the 3D it was intended to play to).

2013, dir. Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud. With Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Benjamin Bratt, Miranda Cosgrove, Elsie Fisher, Dana Gaier, Russell Brand, Ken Jeong, Steve Coogan.

Despicable Me 3

Like any long-running series, the "Despicable Me" movies have played out their comedic concepts and overstayed their welcome. This is better than the appallingly bad "Minions" movie (which was technically the third in the series), but far worse than "Despicable Me 2" which was still a decent movie, suffering primarily in comparison to its progenitor.

There's always an exception to a rule, although I thought for a long time that movie sequels had none. It remains incomprehensible to me how the "Kung Fu Panda" series has remained as funny and as good as it has: all three movies are of roughly equal quality, and all three very entertaining. I suppose there's still time for the series to stick around and destroy itself ...

But I'm supposed to be talking about "Despicable Me 3." This movie finds Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) struggling with unemployment, fired from the Anti-Villain League after his latest attempt to catch Balthazar Bratt (Trey Parker) goes bad - thus setting up the bad guy for the movie. Lucy is struggling with being a mother to Gru's three adopted daughters. And then we're introduced to Dru, Gru's twin brother he didn't know he had.

There are three or four very funny gags, but most of the movie is colourful and absurd mayhem with jokes so weak they don't even raise a smile. Thoroughly disappointing.

2017, dir. Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda. With Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig, Trey Parker, Miranda Cosgrove, Dana Gaier, Nev Scharrel, Pierre Coffin, Steve Coogan, Jenny Slate, Julie Andrews.

Destry Rides Again

I've never seen Jimmy Stewart looking so young (or so thin and tall). And the movie has Marlene Dietrich too! Stewart plays Destry, a young new Deputy who doesn't believe in guns in a violent town. Everyone finds this hilarious except for the sheriff (Charles Winninger) who had hoped Destry would be a gunslinger like his father. Destry falls for the beautiful lounge singer (Marlene Dietrich) who works for the unscrupulous Kent (Brian Donlevy).

The movie shows its age and Vaudeville origins with the staged (literally) singing numbers with Dietrich in a saloon. Stewart is perhaps a bit better than usual: he's playing his usual character, but hasn't worn it in quite as much as he had later. I couldn't really see the appeal of Dietrich. Winninger was good - both funny as the former town drunk and also poignant when he needed to be. Overall fairly funny.

1939, dir. George Marshall. With James Stewart, Marlene Dietrich, Mischa Auer, Charles Winninger, Brian Donlevy.

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame

Andy Lau plays Detective Dee, jailed for eight years for treachery against the crown when he opposed the soon-to-be Empress' becoming protector of the throne. He's summoned to see her when a couple of men spontaneously combust on the eve of her ascendancy as Empress, and then sent out to investigate with the assistance of Jing'er (Bingbing Li) and Pei (Chao Deng). The first is unreliable and treacherous, and the second is a complete asshole ... who at least wants to get to the truth.

As befits a Wu Xia picture, the leads are all capable of super-human feats. Unfortunately, the fight scenes (under the care of Sammo Hung) kind of suck, so don't see it for that. The mystery is complex and mildly interesting, but I was bothered by the spontaneous combustion relying on a non-existent animal (it might have been better if it was caused by religious superstition, as was suggested at one point). I rather liked the Pei Donglai character - as I mentioned, not a nice guy but determined to seek the truth, not a common type of character in the Chinese movies I've seen. But overall it was a pretty poor and commonplace (if high budget) martial arts flick.

2010, dir. Tsui Hark. With Andy Lau, Bingbing Li, Chao Deng, Carina Lau, Tony Leung Ka-fai.

The Devil Wears Prada

Anne Hathaway plays a recent grad who wants to be a journalist working for the insanely demanding Meryl Streep at a fashion magazine in New York. The movie is essentially about selling your soul - something I might have guessed from the title, but you never know with a comedy. As her personal life is devastated, Hathaway starts dressing more and more stylishly and occasionally actually receiving acknowledgement from her boss. Hathaway is charming (except for the selling her soul part), Streep is miserable, Emily Blunt is unpleasant, Stanley Tucci plays his normal role (he plays it well, also as usual ... but isn't it time for him to move on?) and Adrien Grenier is around just enough to play the boyfriend, the reminder of what she's losing. It wasn't nearly as humiliating or embarrassing as it could have been and there's definitely some humour, but this isn't a particularly good movie.

2006, dir. David Frankel. With Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci, Adrien Grenier, Simon Baker, Tracie Thoms.

The Devil's Disciple (1959)

I've seen the 1987 BBC production of "The Devil's Disciple" several times, and read the Shaw play a couple times - this is probably my favourite Shaw. Unfortunately, whatever this movie is, it isn't much of Shaw. There were bits of his plot and some of his words, but Reverend Anderson is now an on-screen action hero instead of an off-stage one, and huge chunks of nuance and character have been left on the cutting room floor by the massive changes to plot and dialogue. Like Shakespeare, what Shaw did best was words, dialogue. Unlike Shakespeare, whose non-historical plots often stumbled, Shaw was reasonably good at plot. Getting a Hollywood screenwriter to change them both was an incredibly poor idea. I don't require a word-for-word production, but they've changed so much here, and so much for the worse, that I can't recommend this to anyone.

Burt Lancaster (whose acting I've never liked) plays the Reverend Anthony Anderson, Kirk Douglas plays Richard Dudgeon, and Laurence Olivier plays General John "Gentlemanly Johnny" Burgoyne.

1959, dir. Guy Hamilton. With Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Janette Scott, Harry Andrews, Basil Sydney.

The Devil's Disciple (1987)

Written by George Bernard Shaw, a BBC TV production. The filming is ... iffy. But the performances are good, and the script pretty much puts away any further doubts. My favourite Shaw play.

In 1777 America, Richard Dudgeon (Mike Gwilym) returns home, disowned son of a religious and bitter mother, to find himself owner of the house (with his mother still in it) on his father's death. Just in time to face occupation by the British army. Dudgeon claims to be "the Devil's Disciple," although he may just be doing it because he's infuriated by the religious hypocrisy around him. The local preacher (Patrick Stewart) has a shot at befriending him. I enjoyed Shaw's script immensely (and this production is Shaw, word-for-word - there's some virtue in that).

This is one of Shaw's clearest plays. He often goes for humour at great cost to the structure and message of the play (Major Barbara particularly comes to mind), but his aim here is very clear: a person can say what they want, but their true morality will show through in what they do. By the end of the play you've really got that through your head, both intellectually and emotionally: it's a great piece of writing.

1987, dir. David Jones. With Mike Gwilym, Patrick Stewart, Ian Richardson, Elizabeth Spriggs, Susan Wooldridge.

Diabolique

I've rarely seen a movie so over-the-top that it's boring, but this definitely manages. Sharon Stone plays cold and obnoxious, and doesn't manage to even do that particularly well. Isabelle Adjani does weepy and weak. Chazz Palminteri tries for ferocious sexual animal or some such and just looks silly. The story has the wife and mistress of a brutal teacher teaming up to murder him, but strange things happen after the murder. Even if you can get past the bad acting, there are other major issues: who took the pictures of the wife and mistress moving the crate? All the major parties were occupied. And the ending, in which pretty much everyone dies and is revived a couple times, is beyond ludicrous.

1996, dir. Jeremiah S. Chechik. With Isabelle Adjani, Sharon Stone, Chazz Palminteri, Kathy Bates, Donal Logue.

Dial M for Murder

Hitchcock adaptation of a Frederick Knott play (Knott did the screenplay too). A beautiful young wife (Grace Kelly) is having an affair, and her husband (Ray Milland), while pretending not to know, plots to have her killed so he can keep her money. He's slippery and clever, but things don't quite go as planned. Clever, witty, and well-acted. Not great, but definitely enjoyable and worth seeing.

1954, dir. Alfred Hitchcock. With Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings, John Williams, Anthony Dawson.

Diamantino

The movie is about Portuguese football ("soccer" to us North Americans) star Diamantino (Carloto Cotta). Wikipedia says "... [his] looks and persona bear an uncanny resemblance to that of real-life soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo." If so, Ronaldo should be insulted, because Diamantino is only slightly smarter than the fluffy puppies he sees when he's in the zone on the football field. Ah - I haven't mentioned yet: this movie is both absurd and surreal (these two are commonly found playing together). He helps rescue some refugees, his abusive twin sisters cause their father's death but tell him it was his fault for flubbing a critical goal, and his career goes down the toilet. So he adopts a refugee son - who is actually a female police woman in disguise. And really, that's just the beginning.

I was frustrated by a couple things that kind of don't count when you're watching something as surreal as this - but they still dragged me out of the movie and decreased my enjoyment of it. Diamantino is dumb as a stump - I'm sure several great movies have been made about people this lacking in brains, but I don't usually watch them as they make for less interesting characters. Then there's the voice-over from Diamantino - a more intelligent and omniscient version of him, which is at odds with the character we see speaking on screen. And finally there's the adult-woman-as-young-boy-adoptee thing: sure Diamantino is a moron, and this is an absurdist film, but even he couldn't fail to notice the gender of his "son" over the course of a week together.

Outside the realm of "reviewing," it was a strange co-incidence that I'm 3/4s of the way through the movie "Spaceship Earth" - a documentary about Biosphere 2. Because the mad scientist's lab in this movie was set at Biosphere 2.

I found the second half of the movie more interesting than the first, and I enjoyed the unjustifiably happy ending. I can't really recommend it, but it was at least different.

2018, dir. Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt. With Carloto Cotta, Cleo Tavares, Anabela Moreira, Margarida Moreira, Carla Maciel, Chico Chapas, Maria Leite, Filipe Vargas, Hugo Santos Silva, Joana Barrios.

Dick Tracy

Warren Beatty's take on the classic comic. Painted in broad strokes in every respect, I found it more annoying than successful. The dialogue is broad, the characters are broadly drawn, all the bad guys wear tons of facial prosthetics, and the colours blaze off the screen. "Sin City" took a lot of clues from this one: use the facial modifications and colours in judicious quantities as highlights, not continuous overload. Oddly, I thought Madonna provided one of the better acting jobs in this sloppy mess (the list of people who embarrassed themselves in this one is long). It's an interesting movie and worth seeing, but it's not very good.

1990, dir. Warren Beatty. With Warren Beatty, Glenne Headly, Charlie Korsmo, Madonna, Mandy Patinkin, Paul Sorvino, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Dick Van Dyke.

Die Hard

Of course I'd seen "Die Hard" before I watched it in 2017. I was never a huge fan. But another viewing shows me it's got a lot of good action and some very funny jokes. Ironically, it's become quite famous as a Christmas movie (as it's set near Christmas, with our hero John McClane coming to L.A. to see his family). I'm not sure it's ready to supplant "It's a Wonderful Life" or even "A Christmas Story," I suppose because it has more violence than cheer. But there's a certain segment of the population that considers it a masterpiece, and it is set at Christmas ...

I was particularly entertained to see Al Leong as one of the evil henchmen: he was in half the Eighties action flicks (including, memorably and appropriately, "Big Trouble in Little China"), and he always rocked the Fu Manchu mustache and the long hair while going bald thing, hardly ever spoke and usually died a horrible death. (Look him up on Google Images - you'll remember him if you saw those Eighties movies.)

1988, dir. John McTiernan. With Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Alexander Godunov, Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson, Paul Gleason, De'voreaux White, William Atherton, Clarence Gilyard, Hart Bochner, James Shigeta, Al Leong.

Die Hard 2

Another Christmas finds John McClane (Bruce Willis) waiting at an airport for his wife Holly (Bonnie Bedalia) to land in Washington, D.C. John spots a suspicious package and follows the bearer into the luggage transfer area where he promptly gets into a gunfight. He is again rebuffed by the local police, and again goes rogue. His wife's life is - again - in danger, and he - again - fights ferociously and gets hurt and keeps fighting. Except this time it's not as likeable or funny.

Further sequels followed, and I think I've seen all of them too ... but they're all worse than this one, which is worse than the original.

1990, dir. Renny Harlin. With Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, William Sadler, Art Evans, William Atherton, Franco Nero, Dennis Franz, Fred Thompson, John Amos, Reginald VelJohnson.

Le Dîner de Cons

Pierre (Thierry Lhermitte) and his friends have a dinner each week, and each one of them brings the stupidest guest they can find (prize to be awarded later - no, really, they have a prize). Pierre has found a winner, a man who builds incredibly complex models from matchsticks, carrying pictures of them and going on at great length (Jacques Villeret, who played the same role on stage). But Pierre's back has gone out and his wife is upset with the game. When his new dinner guest comes over, he loses his wife to the hijinks that ensue and every attempt to fix things make matters worse, all of which is hilariously funny ... if you like humiliation. But the only part I enjoyed was Francis Huster as the ex-husband laughing at Lhermitte as he suffers through payback. A thoroughly mean-spirited movie about a bunch of obnoxious people.

1998, dir. Francis Veber. With Thierry Lhermitte, Jacques Villeret, Francis Huster.

Dinner at Eight

A screen version of a 1932 play of the same name, which might as well have been set on a stage for all the set changes we had. About a bunch of unpleasant people doing unpleasant things to each other - I can't claim they're all nasty, as a couple of them do good things. But this is the exception, not the rule.

Millicent Jordan (Billie Burke) is terribly excited to have invited Lord and Lady Fencliffe to dinner, as her husband's shipping business struggles. Their daughter is having an affair they don't know about with an aging and alcoholic actor, and the other invitees include a former movie star the husband had a crush on 30 years prior, a very crass possible business partner and his equally crass wife, and the philandering local doctor and his wife.

Wikipedia's absolute first statement about the movie was "Pre-Code," and in hindsight that's blatantly obvious: the drunken, thrice-married, not-yet-divorced 47 year old actor carrying on with a 20 year old girl PLUS a married doctor having multiple affairs his wife knows about ... dead give-away, if only I'd been thinking. As interesting as that is, the characters are unappealing and the acting is too uneven to raise this to any significant level of interest.

1933, dir. George Cukor. With Marie Dressler, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, Lionel Barrymore, Lee Tracy, Edmund Lowe, Billie Burke.

Dinosaur 13

This is a documentary about the political fallout surrounding the excavation of the 13th T-Rex skeleton, nicknamed "Sue." It was about 80% complete, and as such, quite an extraordinary discovery. It was found by the Black Hills Institute, a for-profit group in the Dakotas. I think we were meant to see how horribly mistreated the discoverers were - and indeed they were run through the wringer by the American legal system - but the main thing I got from it was just how incredibly messed up the American view of the world is, how incredibly profit-driven and uninterested in the public good it is. The film makers try to pretend to be unbiased, but they obviously favour the BHI. The most obvious example of this occurs when we see a shot of the jail one of the BHI guys ended up in: it's titled "Florence Jail, Colorado" (or something similar, don't remember the wording) and then a subtitle appears: "known as 'Alcatraz of the north.'"

Mildly interesting, but a little long and definitely biased.

2014, dir. Todd Douglas Miller.

The Dirty Dozen

The premise is simple: take a major who's smart but doesn't behave well (Lee Marvin) and give him a dozen long term army prisoners to train and storm a German chateau with. It's generally considered a suicide mission, but anyone who comes back will (probably) have their record expunged.

Too long by half at 149 minutes, we spend a lot of time meeting the dozen (who I still couldn't keep straight), seeing their training, and seeing them participate in a war game. The acting is uniformly "okay" - I wouldn't have said there was any danger of awards, but apparently the Academy disagreed as John Cassavetes was nominated. Not a favourite.

It was interesting to read on Wikipedia that the movie was considered shockingly violent at the time of its release, because I didn't even notice. Apparently standards have changed. A lot.

1967, dir. Robert Aldrich. With Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, Richard Jaeckel, George Kennedy, Trini Lopez, Ralph Meeker, Robert Ryan, Clint Walker, Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland, Robert Webber.

Dirty Filthy Love

I suppose I picked this up because of Michael Sheen: he really is one of the best actors around these days. Here he plays Mark Furness, who's lost his wife because of his OCD, and shortly after the movie begins, he loses his job as well. As Tourette's Syndrome and coprolalia start to put in appearances in his behaviour, he begins to realize what his problem is and finds his way into a support group with the help of a woman (Shirley Henderson) who also has OCD.

For the first ten minutes Henderson was on screen, all I could think about was where I had heard that incredibly distinctive voice before. It took me a while to put it together: she was "Moaning Myrtle" in the Harry Potter series of movies. That is one unusual voice.

The movie is described as a comedy, and certainly there are some very funny moments. But I found the overall tone to be fairly grim. There's some hope, but it becomes clear that Mark is never going to have anything approaching a normal life again. There's good acting all around, but unless you have a particular interest in seeing life with OCD (at that it may not be portrayed particularly accurately) I'm not sure I'd recommend this.

2004, dir. Adrian Shergold. With Michael Sheen, Shirley Henderson, Adrian Bower, Claudie Blakley, Anastasia Griffith.

A Discovery of Witches, Season 1

I was intrigued when I heard about the "A Discovery of Witches" TV series: I love urban fantasy (set in 2018 when it was released) and reviews suggested it was kind of Harry Potter and/or Twilight with more brains. A review on the DVD case from the library said "... 'True Blood' with a PhD!" While the author (Deborah Harkness) of the book trilogy this TV series is based on has a PhD, that in no way guarantees that she writes intelligent prose. Although this is of course hard to judge by watching the TV series and not reading the books. Regardless, the reviews definitely set my standards too high.

Our main characters are Diana Bishop (Teresa Palmer) and Matthew Clairmont (Matthew Goode). She is an American (Palmer is actually Australian ...) historical researcher and reluctant witch who has just moved to Oxford, England to continue her research into the history of alchemy. This brings her into contact with a book at the Bodleian Library called "Ashmole 782" which appears for her despite having been missing for a century and a half. This is our first plot driver, as many of the "creatures" (their name for vampires, witches, and demons walking the earth in human form) are very, very interested in this book as it's thought to contain the creatures' genesis. The witches she encounters consider the book a good way to exterminate vampires (not all witches think this should be done, but unfortunately for Diana that's who she meets), which drives her into the company of the good-looking vampire and genetic researcher Matthew Clairmont.

And here we're immediately thrown into a classic - and badly overused - trope, which is also the major plot driver: forbidden love across families (Romeo and Juliet), gangs (West Side Story), or species (Underworld, Twilight). This has often been used to comment on the destructiveness of feuds or racism, but is now so worn down that it's just a convenient literary excuse to escalate simmering resentment between two groups into outright war and thus present obstacles for our lovers. And the writers don't try to make the attraction between our leads subtle, or build over time: they absolutely cannot resist each other within a couple days of meeting, and by three weeks in are clearly destined for eternity - despite little proof to the viewer that they're actually a good match. And wait - a guy who's 1500 years old hasn't learned to control his impulses? Vampire or no, he'd be dead. Also, after a season it's clear how to tell the bad guys: anyone who is loyal to family and friends above race is on the side of right. While it's a sentiment I agree with, it's never that simple in a war, is it?

Matthew Goode and Teresa Palmer are attractive leads who aren't given good dialogue and don't work too hard on their acting. The whole thing is essentially a romance - and there's a reason "rom-coms" are more popular than "roms" - they're more entertaining. This has almost zero humour and takes itself far too seriously while frequently being downright silly. Comparisons to Twilight are entirely justified, and while the writing isn't as bad as that series of movies, it's certainly not very good. I haven't seen mention of the "Underworld" series of movies in reviews of this, but that connection should be made too: after all, that's Romeo and Juliet for vampires and werewolves, with a dollop of genetics.

One of the series' best features was shooting on location mostly in Oxford and Venice. It's really lovely, but if that's the best thing going for you, you're in trouble.

2018. With Teresa Palmer, Matthew Goode, Edward Bluemel, Louise Brealey, Malin Buska, Aiysha Hart, Owen Teale, Alex Kingston, Valarie Pettiford, Trevor Eve, Lindsay Duncan, Gregg Chillin.

The Dish

"Based on a true story." When the Americans went to the Moon, a radio telescope in the middle of a sheep paddock in Australia was used to transmit a significant part of possibly the most famous TV broadcast ever made as Armstrong walked on the Moon. This tells the story of the people and town associated with that telescope. I'm usually not a fan of Australian humour (it can be strange or over-the-top), but this is both straight-forward and clever, and the jokes fit the characters. Manages to convey both the anxiety and the excitement of the event. A marvellously funny and incredibly charming movie, highly recommended.

2000, dir. Rob Sitch. With Sam Neill, Billy Mitchell, Patrick Warburton, Roy Billing.

District 9

In the near future, a very large spaceship settles over Johannesburg. Humans eventually cut their way in and rescue the starving aliens on board. Twenty years later, the million-plus aliens are being kept in a slum that's now to be relocated further away from Johannesburg. In charge of this operation and at the centre of the movie is Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley), a cheerful and not terribly bright man who was probably chosen for the job because he married the chairman's daughter.

A surprisingly decent SF movie, I didn't like it much - in large part because our main character spends most of the movie puking, mutating, and disintegrating. If you're okay with that, it's pretty good.

2009, dir. Neill Blomkamp. With Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, David James.

District 13 (orig. "Banlieue 13")

Free running / parkour and martial arts action flick from France. This has action that should make Tony Jaa and Jackie Chan sit up and take note. The initial (parkour) chase scene is fantastic. There's some good fights and action later, and - while it's mostly predictable - there are some entertaining twists and turns. Action movies don't usually come out of France, and that's another good reason for fans of the genre to watch this one: it's got a different feel. Definitely worthwhile.

2004, dir. Pierre Morel. With David Belle, Cyril Raffaelli, Tony D'Amario, Bibi Naceri, Dany Verissimo.

District 13: Ultimatum (aka. "D13-U", orig. "Banlieue 13 Ultimatum")

Just like the previous movie, except not as good. They do all the same things: we meet David Belle doing good in the hood (trying to blow up the wall around D13 this time ... last time it was destroying a drug stash), and we meet Cyril Raffaelli single-handedly taking out a drug dealer, exactly the same as last time. And this time Leïto (Belle) rescues Damien (Raffaelli) from jail instead of vice versa ... And guess what? They have to save D13 from being exploded, again. Except this time the editing is even choppier so the fights have less visual appeal, and the same problem applies to the parkour. Neither is as good as the previous outing. There are more bad guys, and more good/bad guys, and the end result is more laughable.

2009, dir. Patrick Alessandrin. With David Belle, Cyril Raffaelli, MC Jean Gab'1, Philippe Torreton, Daniel Duval, Élodie Yung.

Dive Bomber

Made just prior to the American entry into the Second World War, this rah-rah patriotic Hollywood product has little to recommend it except the science. Starring Errol Flynn as a flight medical researcher and Fred MacMurray as a leading pilot sometimes involved in medical testing, the flying footage is excellent but too long (even for me, a die-hard fan of that era of planes) and the acting kind of sucks. MacMurray misses the target on both his comedy and his acting. Flynn is somewhat convincing as a womanizing devil and okay as a doctor, but poor as a person with actual human emotions. There are also one or two supposedly "comedic" sub-plots dragged in for the "entertainment" value that fall completely flat while upping an already too-long run-time.

What the story is primarily about is the development of aeronautical methods of preventing black-outs in dives and preventing altitude sickness. And in this alone the movie is quite interesting - although probably only for a science geek like myself. Hardly recommended, even for the latter group. Other points of interest include incredibly early use of Technicolor - in combination with unprecedented naval aerial filming, and atrociously bad direction by Michael Curtiz - who directed Flynn's most famous movies and "Casablanca" (only a year later).

1941, dir. Michael Curtiz. With Errol Flynn, Fred MacMurray, Ralph Bellamy, Alexis Smith.

Divergent

Veronica Roth wrote a successful series of young adult books called The Divergent Series, set in and around a dystopian post-apocalyptic Chicago. The movie series seems to be repeating the same success in the film medium.

Our heroine is Beatrice (Shailene Woodley) who, after going through the Choosing Ceremony, renames herself "Tris." She leaves the faction she was born into (Abnegation - the people who help others) to join the one she's always revered, Dauntless (the police force). But she's discovered that when she was tested, she tested as "Divergent" (not fully explained, but apparently "able to excel at anything") very bad news indeed in a strictly enforced caste system.

Much of the movie revolves around her training as Dauntless, but as they do this they're also building up the politics of the world she lives in, showing the characters of her fellow Dauntless recruits, and slowly moving "Four" (Theo James) from being the recruit's worst enemy to being her romantic interest. I have to give credit where it's due: it's well structured. Unfortunately, the ideas aren't anything new (dystopia, segregation, mind control, face your worst fears) and it's not done so well as to make the basic material into a brilliant story. It's also held back by being a fantasy: she turns out to be fantastically smart and talented (this was never noticed before?), and the hottest and smartest boy in the world (who may also be Divergent like her) falls for her ... and I'm going to call it "fantasy" despite the darker elements, because that fantasy is delivered with the subtlety of a brick to the head.

I'm amused that an author would write a book about the Erudite (intellectual) faction being the evil, trouble-making one: after all, which group would writers be placed in?

Apparently I'm not the first to find significant similarities to both The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner - both of which are young adult dystopian SF series being turned into movies. Although I was more amused by a comparison I haven't heard mentioned yet: the test, Choosing Ceremony, and factions of "Divergent" are a lot like Harry Potter's "Sorting Hat" and Houses. And just like Harry, Tris would do well in more than one of them ...

I'll probably watch the sequel because I like science fiction, people with super powers, and black-and-white morality. Mildly entertaining, but so far from great art they had to change the time zone on their clocks when they made it.

2014, dir. Neil Burger. With Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Ashley Judd, Jai Courtney, Zoë Kravitz, Kate Winslet, Ray Stevenson, Miles Teller, Maggie Q, Tony Goldwyn.

Django Unchained

Django (Jamie Foxx) is a slave in the American South just before the Civil War. He is freed (in typically spectacular, violent Quentin Tarantino style) within the first fifteen minutes by Dr. King Schulz (Christoph Waltz). Schulz is a bounty hunter who needs Django's help to identify some slavers that Django knows, so he frees and hires Django. They work together as bounty hunters through the winter, and then go in the spring to free Django's wife.

Nobody revels in "the righteous kill" quite the way Tarantino does. Many of the critics liked this movie, but Tarantino's love of violent, "justified" kills makes me feel distinctly unclean. "Look, I'm going to create a horrifically evil person(s) so that we can revel in knee-capping them and watching them die horribly!" Urgh.

2012, dir. Quentin Tarantino. With Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins, Dennis Christopher, James Remar.

Do I Sound Gay?

David Thorpe opens his movie by reading the leading titles out loud as they go by, and I have to admit that my reaction to the title question was "yes." After the title, the camera gets pointed at a number of people who attempt to answer the same question about his voice. Thorpe's quest leads him to interview a variety gay celebrities: Dan Savage, George Takei, David Sedaris, Margaret Cho, Tim Gunn and Don Lemon among them. This is interspersed with his voice lessons from several different sources, interviews with academics about the sound of the human voice, and chats with his friends - who are entertaining and likeable people. As I've seen some rather badly constructed documentaries recently, I'll mention that this one is well filmed, well thought out, and very well edited. It all adds up to a fascinating and rather charming movie about finding your own voice that's worth a watch for pretty much anyone, gay or straight.

2014, dir. David Thorpe. With Dan Savage, George Takei, David Sedaris, Margaret Cho, Tim Gunn, Don Lemon.

Dr. No

The first James Bond movie. Sean Connery plays Bond, a role he was to become very familiar with. And most of the elements we became so familiar with over the years were there: suave hero, hot women, evil world-destroying conspiracy, even one or two awful puns. But this has the least action of any Bond movie I've ever seen - that's been ramped up considerably as the series progressed.

1962, dir. Terence Young. With Sean Connery, Joseph Wiseman, Ursula Andress, Jack Lord, John Kitzmiller, Lois Maxwell.

Doctor Strange

Benedict Cumberbatch plays the incredibly arrogant surgeon Steven Strange - very intelligent, an excellent doctor and a horrible person. Ten minutes into the movie he has a brutal car accident that damages his precious hands so he has the shakes and can never operate again. Looking for answers, he ends up in the East: from Kathmandu he finds his way to Kamar-Taj, where he learns from "The Ancient One" (Tilda Swinton). Instead of conquering his shakes as he'd hoped, he becomes a successful sorcerer. The villain is Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen, a good actor typecast as evil in English productions), a former student of The Ancient One who wants eternal life for everyone.

Cumberbatch is good as the titular character, and Swinton has a lot of fun as The Ancient One. The special effects are very good, and the movie is often goofy fun. I enjoyed it, but didn't think it holds up as well as the best of Marvel's movies. (Which would those be? I guess "Iron Man" and "The Avengers.")

2016, dir. Scott Derrickson. With Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, Benedict Wong, Tilda Swinton, Mads Mikkelsen, Michael Stuhlbarg, Benjamin Bratt, Scott Adkins.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

I enjoyed the first "Doctor Strange" movie. It was bizarre and absurd, it was stand-alone: you didn't have to know anything else about the Marvel Universe, and it had a certain internal logical consistency. This, on the other hand, is a giant soap opera that requires you know everything that's come before: the first Doctor Strange movie (of course), the entire Avengers saga - and the Scarlet Witch TV series "WandaVision." This is burdened with all of the MCU history ... and that also allows them to simply switch universes whenever they need another protagonist or antagonist, or another version of someone. Really, just like that? Yup. And just like a soap opera, good guys turn bad (Scarlet Witch turns evil ... oh, wait - SPOILER ALERT) and bad guys become good (more or less - Mordo resurfaces).

Let me put the things they do wrong another way. (Real SPOILER ALERT!) In another universe - ie. not ours - they have Wanda/Scarlet Witch kill off Reed Richards (John Krasinski in a role he may never play for more than about three minutes at a time), Professor X (still Patrick Stewart, but now back from the X-Men's 25 year exile at Fox), Captain Marvel (Lashana Lynch), Captain Carter (Hayley Atwell, powered up like Captain America, and she even says "I can do this all day," spare us please ...) and Black Bolt (Anson Mount) all in one go to show how evil and how powerful she is. But for me, all this really did was de-emphasize every other death in all Marvel movies. How much do you expect me to cry over the death of Professor X when you spent a good part of the movie explaining that there are an infinite number of Professor X's? And another part of the movie shows that you can retrieve a new one any time you want from another universe? This problem with the MCU really started with the ending of "Infinity War" - when they killed off half their heroes, but anyone with two brain cells to rub together knew it wasn't permanent. Sorry guys: you can't have it both ways. We aren't going to weep for deaths that are almost certainly temporary.

The movie has lots of action, but I found the barrage of characters, locations, the ever-shifting set of skills each hero and villain had, and all the deaths, made it a struggle to get through. It had some good moments - Sam Raimi directed, so there had to be something worthwhile in here, and newcomer Xochictl Gomez as America Chavez was charming - but the moments were too far apart to make a cohesive whole.

If you want to see a worthwhile "Multiverse of Madness," see the far superior "Everything Everywhere All at Once."

Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Xochictl Gomez, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, Rachel McAdams, Michael Stuhlbarg, Hayley Atwell, Patrick Stewart, Lashana Lynch, Anson Mount, John Krasinski, Bruce Campbell.

Dodsworth

Sam Dodsworth (Walter Huston) sells his very successful automobile plant in the U.S. to retire and go on a long vacation to Europe with his younger wife Fran (Ruth Chatterton). She's all about nights on the town, which doesn't appeal to him - so she goes off with a string of various young friends.

Dodsworth is more or less a prototypical practical American: a good and intelligent man who understands the value of what he has. His wife is pretty, flighty, and obnoxious, but he loves her. The movie is a portrait of a disintegrating marriage - although ultimately more positive than that would imply.

Highly recommended: superbly written with exceptionally well-drawn characters, the movie will stay with you.

1936, dir. William Wyler. With Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton, Paul Lukas, Mary Astor, Kathryn Marlowe, David Niven, Gregory Gaye, Maria Ouspenskaya, Odette Myrtil.

Dog

Jackson Briggs (Channing Tatum) is a former U.S. Army Ranger who works in a fast food restaurant and desperately wants to go back into the Army, but suffers from a brain injury and PTSD. When his former army partner dies in a car crash, he's told by his former commanding officer that if he transports their army working dog Lulu to his partner's funeral (1700 miles in a car), he'll be called back up. So off he goes with a dog he used to know who's also developed something similar to PTSD. Humour is made of Lulu's vicious and destructive antics and of Jackson's obnoxious behaviour.

The movie reminded me considerably of "Megan Leavey," another story about an army person and a retired working dog, although that one had less comedic intent. But this is a comedy-drama, so Lulu's antics force Jackson to re-assess how he views the world. Tatum is good in the lead, and the story moves along fairly well. I was put off by some of Jackson's most obnoxious behaviour (particularly the pretending-to-be-blind scene at the hotel that's in the trailer) and the deliberate cringe humour that went with it. Tatum was good, and they had (apparently three) very well trained Belgian Malinois dogs to play Lulu. Good, but I didn't love it ...

2022, dir. Channing Tatum, Reid Carolin. With Channing Tatum, Jane Adams, Kevin Nash, Q'orianka Kilcher, Ethan Suplee, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Nicole LaLiberte.

Dogma

Kevin Smith's brutal attack on the Catholic Church. The irony of it, and what makes it so good, is that he is clearly still a man of faith. But that faith is in God, not the Church.

The cast is incredible, and, for the most part, well used. We start with a woman (Linda Fiorentino) who works at a Family Planning clinic. While she still goes to church, she's lost faith. She's shortly visited by an angel (Alan Rickman, hysterical) and sent on a quest to prevent two angels (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, also hilarious - and rather threatening) from returning to heaven - and in the process un-making reality. Jay and Silent Bob are of course present and ever-helpful.

Highly recommended for anyone with a sense of humour about religion.

1999, dir. Kevin Smith. With Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Linda Fiorentino, Alan Rickman, Chris Rock, Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith, George Carlin, Salma Hayek, Jason Lee, Janeane Garofalo, Alanis Morissette, Bud Cort.

Dolemite Is My Name

Rudy Ray Moore is an interesting guy. He's one of those people who's image has continued to grow after his death: his spectacularly raunchy comedy albums were too filthy to advertise in the 1970s, but they sold by word-of-mouth just fine - and now, because he rhymed over music, he's "the Godfather of Rap" (and they kind of have a point). I think a big part of his success was simply being transgressive: these days his records only sound a little rude, and not all that funny. But the people who made this movie had multiple records to mine for material to make the script, and the end result is very funny.

Eddie Murphy plays Moore in the movie: he wants to be famous, but his life isn't going anywhere. Until he repurposes some backstreet rhymes and jokes and puts on the persona of Dolemite. And that serves him fairly well, but he thinks he should be on the big screen. So he mortgages his future to make a badly produced movie.

I knew the story, I knew where it was headed. (I'll give you a hint: the "Dolemite" movies are crap, but they're a kinda funny blaxploitation that was fairly successful.) But the success of this meta-movie is in showing the good and the bad, the failure and the success. Yes, he was making a crap movie - he didn't have much money, and he didn't know what he was doing. But he was doing it because he wanted to entertain people, to make them laugh. And in the end, he succeeded.

It's good to see Eddie Murphy back on form: he's successful in this role because they have a good script and the humour comes from the character he plays, and he's just ... being Rudy Ray Moore. And holy shit, Wesley Snipes may finally have rediscovered the sense of humour he lost 20-odd years ago. This was just a fun movie to watch.

2019, dir. Craig Brewer. With Eddie Murphy, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Keegan-Michael Key, Mike Epps, Craig Robinson, Tituss Burgess, Wesley Snipes, Chris Rock.

Don Juan DeMarco

The story of a soon-to-retire psychiatrist (Marlon Brando) and his last patient, a young man who claims to be Don Juan (Johnny Depp). Depp is just about the only person who could have sold this story in the title role, and he's great. The tale he tells is absurd, funny, and romantic, and the script is sharply observant of the state of love and our view of reality today. This is a really wonderful movie.

1995, dir. Jeremy Leven. With Johnny Depp, Marlon Brando, Faye Dunaway,

Don't Look Up

The movie opens with grad student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) discovering a new comet. With the help of professor Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) they discover that this comet will strike Earth in six months and cause an extinction-level event. This takes them to the White House, where they're brushed off and silenced. They do some talk shows, where they're humoured and doubted.

This being a satire, everyone is a bit over-the-top. As several reviews have said, this is heavy-handed, but also dead-on on denial of facts, the denial of science, political scandals, and rampant corporatism.

What a list of names: DiCaprio, Lawrence, Jonah Hill, Timothée Chalamet, Ron Perlman, Ariana Grande, Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep. The cinematography is occasionally very weird, hopping from topic to disconnected topic very quickly - I assume to show us life happening across the planet, but they did this many times. Mark Rylance does almost exactly the same character as in "Ready Player One," except with a slightly better haircut. He's a darling with the critics right now, but I haven't seen it yet (yes, I know I haven't seen the acclaimed performances).

I found the movie reminiscent of (at least) "Last Night" and "Seeking a Friend for the End of the World" - "Last Night" faces an unexplained apocalypse, but "Seeking ..." is brought about by an asteroid hurtling toward Earth. Being both middle-aged and a fan of Science Fiction I've probably seen more end-of-the-world movies than most people, so many people won't have seen as many of the antecedents.

It was depressing, but also funny and fascinating as they trotted out ever-more-awful unexpected outcomes.

2021, dir. Adam McKay. With Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Rob Morgan, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Timothée Chalamet, Ron Perlman, Ariana Grande, Kid Cudi, Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep.

Doom

Based on the video game of the same name, includes big nasty marines running around sticky dark corridors trying to clear them of horrible monsters level by level.

The awful plot and bad acting reminded me considerably of "Resident Evil," although, bad as it is, it isn't that bad. Karl Urban and Rosamund Pike raise the general level of acting from awful to mediocre. Dwayne Johnson is squarely holding down the awful end of the scale - he's made it to "passable" in recent years, but definitely not in this movie.

2005, dir. Andrzej Bartkowiak. With Dwayne Johnson, Karl Urban, Rosamund Pike.

Doom Patrol, Season 1

The series starts in a mansion that houses Crazy Jane (Diane Guerrero), Rita Farr (April Bowlby playing Elasti-Girl, although she's never given that name in this season), Larry Trainor (Matt Bomer playing Negative Man, again not so titled in this), and Cliff Steele (Brendan Fraser as Robotman). They are "kept safe" from a world that considers them freaks by "the Chief," Niles Caulder (Timothy Dalton). After 30 years of isolation in the mansion, they venture out into the streets of a nearby town (those of us under COVID-19 lock-down can understand the desire to get out). Their outing draws the attention of Mr. Nobody (Alan Tudyk, vamping it up in his perpetual role). The Chief and Jane (and the entire town) are sucked into Mr. Nobody's vortex, although in the second episode Jane and the town are ejected back into reality by being vomited up by a donkey. The rest of the series (nearly 15 hours of it) sees them slowly gaining momentum, trying to locate and rescue the Chief.

This is, as one reviewer put it, committed to its weirdness. They thought that was a good thing, but I disagree. It's mildly interesting by virtue of being batshit crazy, but that's not enough to make it absorbing. For that, you still need good writing. And the writing in this just isn't that great. I got through the entire series (most of it at 1.5x) so I admit I kept watching, but it's just not that good. I guess I liked the characters, so that's something ...

2019. With Diane Guerrero, Brendan Fraser, April Bowlby, Alan Tudyk, Matt Bomer, Timothy Dalton, Joivan Wade, Phil Morris, Kyle Clements, Matthew Zuk, Riley Shanahan.

Dope

"Dope" opens with three definitions:

  1. noun: a drug taken illegally for recreational purposes
  2. noun: a stupid person
  3. slang: excellent. Used as a generalized term of approval

Appropriate to a movie that's so much about words, and a guy who concerns himself with them.

Shameik Moore plays Malcolm Adekanbi, who with his two buddies Diggy (Kiersey Clemons) and Jig (Tony Revolori), bike the streets of Inglewood California as they try to survive their bad neighbourhood, graduate high school, and make it to college. As geeks, it's par for the course for them to get hassled and beat up at school, but the primary plot motivator occurs when they attend a party and a drug dealer puts five bricks of powdered MDMA and a gun into Malcolm's bag (Malcolm didn't know) to smuggle it out when the police arrive. This leads them to a series of absurd and scary adventures.

The writing is quite good, stereotypes are avoided in the best way (the drug dealer Dom who causes them so much trouble matches Malcolm in his geekiness about 90s hip-hop groups), and it's very funny. Unlikely to qualify as a classic, but it's fun and of its time.

2015, dir. Rick Famuyiwa. With Shameik Moore, Kiersey Clemons, Tony Revolori, Chanel Iman, Zoë Kravitz, A$AP Rocky.

Dorian Gray

Based on Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, the director and screenwriter apparently didn't believe that Gray's off-screen acts of depravity in the original novel were sufficient: they load on the on-screen hedonism, depravity, and violence to levels Wilde never even imagined. They also lost a lot of Wilde's wit and social commentary in the process.

Ben Barnes is adequate in the lead, as are most of the cast. Colin Firth is a stand-out, stealing every scene he's in. Every step away from Wilde's version made this a poorer film (and there are a lot of those steps): even if you haven't read the original, this will probably look a pretty shoddy piece of work.

2009, dir. Oliver Parker. With Ben Barnes, Colin Firth, Rachel Hurd-Wood, Ben Chaplin, Rebecca Hall.

Dorohedoro, Season 1

This was recommended by a WatchMojo "best of recent Anime" video on YouTube - and backed up by good reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. Using these criteria, I sampled both this and "Kengan Ashura." The latter is described by Netflix: "Ohma Tokita enters a hidden world where corporate disputes are settled in brutal gladiator bouts. Forget the money, he just wants to fight -- and win." I watched three episodes of that and all I got was secret power-up after power-up, as they went "OMG - he's channelling secret power X, we didn't even know you could do that" repeatedly. It got old fast. "Dorohedoro" on the other hand has some wonderfully crazy world-building, ideas, and characters going for it. It's still pretty silly, but I tend to enjoy learning about well constructed unusual worlds.

Based on the notoriously weird manga by Q Hayashida, our main character is Caiman. He's human - sort of. A sorcerer has turned his head into that of a lizard, and he has no memory of the event or his previous life. So he goes around grabbing sorcerers and stuffing their heads in his mouth so the guy inside him can see them and pass judgement (yup). One useful side effect of his lizard head is that sorcery no longer works on him because he already has a spell cast on him. His best friend is Nikaidō who runs a restaurant where Caiman frequently goes to eat gyoza (food - particularly gyoza - features heavily in the series).

We also become fairly familiar with the sorcerer En and his "family" - particularly sorcerers Shin and Noi, who are En's enforcers. They occasionally compete to see who can kill more people faster, and yet they're mostly portrayed as sympathetic characters. Although En isn't a nice guy at all. I should mention: this is an exceptionally bloody show. And for no particular reason (fan service I assume), Noi and Nikaidō are well endowed - and frequently scantily clad.

Not for everybody, but a lot of fun for the right crowd.

2020. Japanese voices: Wataru Takagi, Reina Kondō, Yoshimasa Hosoya, Yū Kobayashi, Kenyu Horiuchi, Tetsu Inada, Songdo. English Voices: Aleks Le, Reba Buhr, Sean Chiplock, Cherami Leigh, Keith Silverstein, Taylor Henry, Billy Kametz.

Double Indemnity

If the interviews on the DVD are to be believed, this movie single-handedly launched the entire Film Noir genre. Certainly it's a very good movie. An insurance agent (Fred MacMurray) falls for a married woman who convinces him to help her kill her husband after taking out a lot of insurance on him. The three leads are all excellent, and the story falls into place, and then back apart again, with style and an elegant inevitability.

1944, dir. Billy Wilder. With Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Jean Heather, Byron Barr.

Double World

Netflix has a large variety of Chinese movies and TV shows (also - that I've noticed - Spanish and Korean). I have a slight preference for English language materials as it's my native - and only - language, but if a movie is entertaining I'm happy to watch it regardless of language.

UPDATE 2021-06: This turns out to be based on a popular video game? Which explains a lot ...

"Double World" is a Chinese movie, but the main lead (although it's an ensemble cast) is Henry Lau - who was born and raised in Toronto, speaking English. Bizarre - I watch a Chinese fantasy movie on Netflix and the star turns out to be from my hometown. Probably not important to anyone else, but a co-incidence I enjoyed.

The movie is full of your favourite tropes and clichés: noble thief, disgraced-but-noble warrior, traitorous counselor to the king, quests, mechanical marvels centuries before they could be built, reality-defying physics, life-long feuds, vengeance, warring clans, grand tragedy, magic beasts, impossible scenery, etc. Short of putting a banner at the beginning of the film that said "This Is Not Art, It's Entertainment!," they couldn't have been much clearer about their intentions.

Dong YiLong (Lau) is a skilled and acrobatic thief with a conscience. When his village and clan is called upon to provide warriors for their kingdom's defence - through a competition - he volunteers along with a taciturn outcast warrior (Peter Ho ... I think, I'm not doing too well with the cast listing). They have adventures travelling to the capital, they meet people, they fight, etc., etc.

It's not a good movie, but if you're in the right frame of mind it can be entertaining.

2019, dir. Teddy Chan. With Henry Lau, Peter Ho, Lin Chenhan, Luxia Jiang, Ming Hu, Mark Cheng, Him Law.

Dracula has Risen from the Grave

The poster over at Wikipedia seems about right: a young woman is shown from the ample cleavage to the nose (no eyes), with a couple anachronistic modern bandages on her neck (given that the movie is purportedly set in 1906). Christopher Lee as Count Dracula, left frozen in the previous movie, is awakened by someone accidentally dripping a bit of blood on his lips. He enslaves girls (and a priest), and has one line of dialogue. In the mean time, we're shown a bunch of cleavage, some dark forests, skulking across roofs, and a lot of scenes in various old Transylvanian(?) bars. Amazingly cheesy.

1968, dir. Freddie Francis. With Christopher Lee, Rupert Davies, Veronica Carlson, Barry Andrews, Ewan Hooper, Barbara Ewing, Marion Mathie, Norman Bacon.

Dracula Untold

Transylvania is ruled by the charming and likeable Vlad the Impaler (Luke Evans) who is a Good King(TM) and has a wife he worships and a son he adores. Yup, that's how they're playing it. Vlad is Transylvanian, but he was a child tribute to the Turks, a former Turkish child soldier (very good at it too). And now the Turks are demanding another tribute of young boys as soldiers, including Vlad's son. His wife sobs and cries and reminds him he promised her this would never happen ... so he kills the emissaries and brings the wrath of the entire Turkish empire down on his small country.

In an attempt to defend his family (and, incidentally, his country), he goes to that cave on Broke Tooth Mountain, where he makes the deal and becomes a vampire. Temporarily, he hopes.

Warning, Spoilers: This is meant to be a great tragedy, at least the ending sort of essays that. He slaughters tens of thousands of Turks, but for some reason their leader uses a sneaky flanking maneuver that should have been totally unnecessary because Transylvania had no army - at all. And the Turks did this not even knowing what Vlad had become - why? Halfway through the movie the Turks kill everyone in his entire country, but this is as nothing to the deaths of two or three people near him. It doesn't play well.

Finally, they wrap up with a noble and tragic ending ... which they proceed to completely sabotage and de-fang (if you'll pardon the unintentional pun) by a questionable technicality and extending the movie to the modern day to leave room for the inevitable (they hope) sequel.

The movie is supported by some brilliantly applied special effects work that's wonderful to see, but the plot is so bad it's not worth watching at all.

2014, dir. Gary Shore. With Luke Evans, Sarah Gadon, Dominic Cooper, Art Parkinson, Charles Dance.

Dragon Fist

Early Hong Kong Jackie Chan - before he developed a sense of humour and started directing his own movies. It looks initially like a standard "you killed my master" revenge tale, but turns out rather differently. Not that that's as much of a blessing as it sounds - the script is as useless as the acting. The martial arts are okay, but very traditional.

1979, dir. Lo Wei. With Jackie Chan.

Dragon Pearl

I'm going to claim I watched this because Sam Neill was in it. Trust me: that's not a good enough reason.

The movie is a Chinese-Australian joint venture, with the language being mostly Australian-accented English with some subtitled Chinese. Our main characters are Josh (Louis Corbett) and Ling (Li Lin Jin), each the child of an archaeologist on a dig in China. Neill plays Josh's Dad. Ling turns out to be "The Chosen One," destined to help a Chinese Dragon imprisoned beneath a nearby temple. She and Josh tangle with Wu Dong, the rather quirky keeper of the temple. And then, with his help, try to do right by the dragon, except that there's this evil man hiding behind an unassuming facade ... (I had him pegged 30 seconds after he appeared on screen - that's how blatant and obvious the writing is.)

The movie never reaches beyond the level of a "what I did on my summer holidays" kids TV movie, with bad acting, bad writing, and bad effects. Avoid.

2011, dir. Mario Andeacchio. With Louis Corbett, Li Lin Jin, Sam Neill, Wang Ji, Robert Mammone, Jordan Chan.

Dragon Wars: D-War

In 1507 in Korea, the Dragons had their last uprising. But the heroine and her hero fell in love, and denied the necessary sacrifice. Now the dragons, the hero, the heroine, and the protector have all been reborn in ... Los Angeles. So much of the same mythology will play out in 2007, in the modern-day United States.

The acting is mediocre, the special effects are visibly CGI but remarkably good given the budget. Still, it's a good thing I like the occasional movie with a side of cheese, because this isn't very good.

2007, dir. Shim Hyung-rae. With Jason Behr, Amanda Brooks, Robert Forster, Elizabeth Peña.

Dragons Forever

A silly movie that provides a showcase for Jackie Chan, his two former Chinese Opera buddies Yuen and Sammo Hung (who also directed), and his sometime conspirator Benny Urquidez to have an awful lot of fights. Pretty much the same crowd that made the likewise very silly "Wheels on Meals," and with very similar results. Lots of Chan/Hung humour that's mildly amusing at best, and a bunch of truly spectacular martial arts fights that should absolutely not be missed by fans of the genre. Chan, Yuen and Hung were pretty much at their peak, and the set pieces are utterly brilliant.

1988, dir. Sammo Hung, Corey Yuen, Fruit Chan, Alexander Chan, Wan Faat. With Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, Deannie Yip, Pauline Yeung, Yuen Wah, Benny Urquidez.

Dralion

A DVD of Cirque du Soleil's show "Dralion." A wonderful acrobatic show, with the occasional rather odd cutting decision - ie. some fantastic acrobatics going on centre stage, and they decide to show you the singer. Overall pretty good.

2000. Dir. David Mallet.

Dreadnaught

What the title has to do with anything, I don't know. Classically bad Hong Kong chop sockey. I hoped for a bit more from Yuen Woo-ping and Yuen Biao, one of Jackie Chan's classmates. Biao is incredibly acrobatic and Woo-ping is the best fight choreographer in the business, but this movie doesn't do much. It's mildly humorous, but overall not even worth the rental.

1995. dir. Yuen Woo-ping. With Yuen Biao, Tak-Hing Kwan.

Dredd

The 2012 reboot of the notoriously awful 1995 Sylvester Stallone flick ("Judge Dredd"), both based on a long-running comic book series. This one stars Karl Urban as Judge Dredd, Olivia Thirlby as probationary Judge Anderson, and Lena Headey as the very nasty drug lord Ma-Ma. Right at the beginning of the movie during Urban's introductory voice-over describing the extremely corrupt Mega-City One that everyone lives in, we actually see the back of his head for a moment, complete with hair. But then he puts his helmet on and all we see of him for the entire rest of the movie is the helmet, the tip of his nose, and his mouth and chin.

Judge Anderson is a psychic, able to read people's minds - but has narrowly failed her initial Judge tests. She is nevertheless sent out for a trial with Dredd. Dredd lets her choose their first port of call for the day, and she predictably chooses the three homicides that leave the two of them locked in a massive apartment building battling a gang of 300 plus run by the extremely unpleasant Ma-Ma.

The similarities to "The Raid: Redemption" are remarkable: "the law" (including corrupt elements) comes to a huge apartment building riddled with crime, complete with a drug lab, a lethal boss at the top of the tower with video surveillance throughout the building, and charming P.A. system announcements about how people should just kill the cops.

Someone did a pretty good job with the cinematography of the "Slo-Mo" moments in the movie: "Slo-Mo" is the drug of choice in this modern city, and it makes time move very slowly. The movie is very violent (although perhaps slightly less so than "The Raid: Redemption"). Urban spends most of his time scowling, but it would have taken a very good actor indeed to do much with most of his face covered. Thirlby was good, Headey was really good. Overall, not bad if you like that kind of thing.

2012, dir. Pete Travis. With Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, Wood Harris, Lena Headey, Domhnall Gleeson, Warrick Greer, Deobia Oparei.

The Dressmaker

Kate Winslet is Myrtle "Tilly" Dunnage, a dress maker returning to the town in the Australian Outback that she was driven out of when she was 10. She finds her mother, who she stays with, referred to as "Mad Molly" (Judy Davis) - with some justification. The first 20 minutes is spent setting up every person in the village is an eccentric "character." Initially the movie looks like it's going to be about revenge for her being driven out of town. But during the course of the movie, as she starts making fabulous dresses for nearly everyone, we get fashion and comedy as it looks like there may be reconciliation. And then it becomes a rom-com. But that ends and things get darker again. Wikipedia says "... criticism focusing on its uneven tone ..." No kidding. There's some good writing in places, both funny and clever, but the tone is fantastically uneven. And the story arcs of at least a couple characters are ridiculous: Gertrude (Sarah Snook) is unbelievably treacherous (that's not rhetoric: I literally didn't believe it), and Molly's progression from completely nuts to saner than anyone in the town is hard to swallow.

There are elements of a very good film in there. But the director seems to have assembled those pieces deliberately out of order and with no regard to tone to end up creating an actively frustrating movie that had me bellowing at the screen (pity the friend who watched the movie with me - although she shared my frustration).

2015, dir. Jocelyn Moorhouse. With Kate Winslet, Judy Davis, Liam Hemsworth, Hugo Weaving, Sarah Snook, Sacha Horler, Caroline Goodall, James Mackay, Shane Bourne.

Drinking Buddies

Kate (Olivia Wilde) and Luke (Jake Johnson) work at a small brewery. They're best friends, and are both in relationships with other people. When one of those relationships falls apart, things get a little ugly.

Rotten Tomatoes lists this as "Drama, Comedy," but I would list it as "someone else's boring life." The acting is really good, but why would I want to step inside such an accurate recreation of a couple other people's very mundane existences?

2013, dir. Joe Swanberg. With Olivia Wilde, Jake M. Johnson, Anna Kendrick, Ron Livingston, Ti West, Jason Sudeikis.

Drive Angry

Our protagonist is John Milton (Nicolas Cage), brutally interrogating people who know about a kidnapping. As he causes mayhem across the state, he acquires a travel companion named Piper (Amber Heard) and her fine ride (a black Dodge Charger). We find out that Milton is after Jonah King (Billy Burke), a Satanist who killed Milton's daughter and intends to sacrifice Milton's granddaughter. Milton doesn't like that - in fact, it appears he's returned from Hell to take care of business. He's pursued by "The Accountant" (William Fichtner), who's enjoying his time on Earth - and is even harder to kill than Milton.

There's swearing, lots of sex, an incredible amount of violence, and more stupidity than you can imagine. It's all kind of entertaining, if you like that kind of thing.

2011, dir. Patrick Lussier. With Nicolas Cage, Amber Heard, William Fichtner, Billy Burke, David Morse.

Driving Miss Daisy

A quiet little piece about some old people getting older ... Funny and enjoyable. Doesn't talk about racism much, and yet manages to say a fair bit about it.

1989. dir. Bruce Beresford. With Jessica Tandy, Morgan Freeman, Dan Ackroyd.

Drunk Bus

Michael (Charlie Tahan) is a former university student who drives the late night bus loop at an Ohio university. He's stuck in a rut after being dumped by his girlfriend. One night he's knocked unconscious by one of the riders, and the next night he finds he's been assigned a 300 lb. Samoan named Pineapple (played by Pineapple Tangaroa) as security on the bus. Pineapple's radically different outlook on life starts to have an effect on Michael.

I'm notorious among my friends as something of a prude about movie content. I'm not much bothered by blood and gore, but I don't like humiliating humour or awkward sex. I wasn't enthusiastic that this included masterbation and a couple thoroughly awkward sex scenes. But ... setting those aside, this is a charming film about getting damaged by life and starting to recover. (Rotten Tomatoes' summary refers to it as a "coming-of-age" story.)

2022, dir. John Carlucci, Brandon LaGanke. With Charlie Tahan, Kara Hayward, Pineapple Tangaroa, Tonatiuh Elizarraraz, Will Forte, Sarah Mezzanotte, Dave Hill, Jay Devore, Martin Pfefferkorn, Sydney Farley.

Drunken Master (orig. "Jui kuen")

My second favourite early Jackie Chan movie, bettered only by "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow" (which contains all the same actors and stunt men). Chan plays an obnoxious and talented Kung Fu student, who, after causing too much trouble, is forced by his father to study with the titular drunken master. After much brutal training and some typically Chan humour, he bests the evil enemy. So what else is new? But the fights are among his best. Highly recommended for fans of the genre.

1978, dir. Yuen Woo-Ping. With Jackie Chan.

Drunken Master II

As with many Jackie Chan sequels, there's a nominal connection to the previous movie - but not a substantial one. Chan has retained his character's name (Wong Fei Hung), his drunken boxing style, and his rather contentious family dynamics. Pretty much all of the staff are different - but then, the original was 16 years prior.

Most of what goes on is family shenanigans, but there's a sub-plot about Chinese treasures being smuggled out of the country by the British consulate who also happens to own the local steel mill and treats the workers poorly. These parts lead to the spectacular finale in the steel mill, one of Chan's best fights - including some truly insane stunt work.

1994, dir. Lar Kar-Leung, Jackie Chan. With Jackie Chan, Ti Lung, Lau Kar-Leung, Andy Lau, Anita Mui, Ken Lo, Ho Sung Pak, Felix Wong, Hoh Wing Fong.

The Dry

Eric Bana is Federal Agent Aaron Falk who returns to his tiny Australian hometown of Kiewarra during an epic drought. He's back for the first time in a couple decades to attend the funeral of a friend - and the friend's wife and daughter, all killed in an apparent murder-suicide. But it's worse than that for Aaron: he left twenty years prior because several people in town believed the death of his girlfriend wasn't a suicide, but that Aaron killed her. That's a lot of history to carry into a town.

The story is based on a mystery novel written by Jane Harper. A small, drought-stricken Australian town is something of an alien location to a city-living Canadian: a brawl at the local pub sees the two police escorting people home rather than to the jail. Well done, inevitably somewhat dark.

2021, dir. Robert Connolly. With Eric Bana, Genevieve O'Reilly, Keir O'Donnell, John Polson, Joe Klocek, Claude Scott-Mitchell, Bebe Bettencourt, Martin Dingle-Wall, Sam Corlett, Bruce Spence, Julia Black, Matt Nable, William Zappa, Miranda Tapsell.

Dual

In the near future, Sarah (Karen Gillan) finds out that she has a terminal illness. She has a clone of herself made so her loved ones won't miss her. But when it's discovered that Sarah has recovered completely, it's decided that she and her clone will need to duel to the death - "we can't have two of you walking around - that would be ridiculous."

This reminded me considerably of Yorgos Lanthimos' "The Lobster" for its excessively stylized human interactions, and the way they were usually meta-interactions. Although I get the impression the style can also be compared to director Riley Stearns previous outing, "The Art of Self-Defense" (which I'll now avoid).

I watched this because I like speculative science fiction. I also enjoy SF that uses the future, other societies, and social changes to explore our current social issues. I'm still not sure what this movie thought it was exploring (probably not cloning), but when the writers choose to change human interactions into stilted absurdist dialogue to make some kind of point, or for comedy, they generally lose me. This one sure did. There wasn't a single believable human character in this mess.

Minor Spoiler: To its credit, I had several guesses about where it was headed, and I was wrong about all of them. I guessed that the duel wouldn't take place after the original Sarah spent so much time on training ... I got that right, but I was wrong in all my vague guesses about why. It's good I couldn't guess, but by the time we got to the end I'd given up caring about anything in this unappealing mess.

2022, dir. Riley Stearns. With Karen Gillan, Aaron Paul, Beulah Koale, Theo James, Maija Paunio, Sanna-June Hyde, Ali Asghar Shah, Andrei Alén, Kris Gummerus.

Due South Season 1 (TV)

"Due South" is fine Canadian content about a Mountie (an RCMP officer, played by Paul Gross) named Benton Fraser who works at the Canadian consulate in Chicago. He was described by a friend who reads Terry Pratchett as "a Canadian Corporal Carrot," a description so accurate it's given me nearly as much amusement as the series itself. Of course Fraser works at the consulate, but somehow we always see him hanging out with his cop buddy (David Marciano) helping solve cases - usually by extreme attention to detail, and sometimes by sniffing, licking, or tracking. The ideas covered are quite varied, and they manage to keep the episodes fairly fresh and enjoyable.

1994. With Paul Gross, David Marciano, Gordon Pinsent.

The DUFF

Bianca (aka "B," played by Mae Whitman) is an honour student with two beautiful (and intelligent) friends. But she throws it all over when hot football star, childhood friend, and neighbour Wesley (Robbie Amell) casually mentions she's "the DUFF," or Designated Ugly Fat Friend. Which leaves her with no support group in high school, not an ideal situation. She asks Wesley for guidance on de-DUFFing herself. This leads to the worst section of the movie as Wesley has her trying on clothes - she strikes idiotic poses in fantastically ugly clothes. And then he has her approaching random men in the mall to "learn how to talk to men." And after all the idiocy in the mid-section of the movie, Bianca suddenly delivers this incredibly calm and perfectly worded monologue to her enemy at the climax of the movie ... one of these characters wasn't her. But in classic movie style, the writer and/or director made her both in the name of humour.

There are some scenes between Whitman and Amell that are very funny, but for the most part the movie finds its humour in humiliating people - and then ultimately claims to be about respect for individuals and their differences.

I have to give credit to Whitman though: my jaw dropped when I found out where I'd seen her before. She was Roxy Richter in "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World," and it's hard to imagine two less similar characters than Roxy and Bianca.

2015, dir. Ari Sandel. With Mae Whitman, Robbie Amell, Bella Thorne, Bianca Santos, Skyler Samuels, Ken Jeong, Allison Janney, Nick Eversman, Romany Malco.

Dummy

Let's be clear from the start: this is a Romantic Comedy. The outcome is completely inevitable, the only thing that makes it worth the journey is Adrien Brody's excellent performance. He plays a shy and rather emotionally battered 28 year old who quits his job and takes up ventriloquism - and begins to find his voice. The end credits are quick to assure us that Brody did all his own ventriloquism - I'm sure he did, he's just that way. Milla Jovovich plays his misguided and flat out crazy friend "Fangora" with a great deal of energy but not a lot of talent, and Vera Farmiga plays his incredibly sweet and charming love interest.

2002, dir. Greg Pritkin. With Adrien Brody, Milla Jovovich, Illeana Douglas, Vera Farmiga, Jessica Walter, Ron Leibman.

Dune (2000)

I never did see the infamous 1984 movie by David Lynch: I loved the book too much to see it slaughtered like that. While this has many problems, it was an earnest attempt at bringing the entire novel to the screen.

Let's start with the problems: The effects are poor, constantly using massive amounts of blatant CGI. Everybody in the production is from different countries, and the accents vary enormously. The acting is often mediocre. Very heavy use is made of colour tinting throughout. The run-time is four and a half hours (the director's cut is five hours).

And now the good stuff: the run-time is four and a half hours. This let them develop most of Herbert's characters, and bring in very nearly the entire plot as he wrote it - something you couldn't do in less time than this. William Hurt is good as the doomed senior Atreides, although he doesn't stay around long. Alec Newman as Paul Atreides is quite good - and that's a major plus given that he's the centre of the entire mini-series. And the movie as a whole is gripping and disturbing. I highly recommend it.

2000, dir. John Harrison. With Alec Newman, William Hurt, Saskia Reeves, Ian McNeice, Julie Cox, P.H. Moriarty, Giancarlo Giannini, Uwe Ochsenknecht, Barbora Kodetová.

Dune Part I (2021)

To help you understand where I'm coming from on this one, I've read Frank Herbert's book something like ten times. Not in several years, but it was a formative part of my life and I know it very, very well. I refused to watch David Lynch's 1984 version of the movie. I have however seen the 2000 made-for-TV mini-series: it had some problems, but I thought it was surprisingly good. And I've even seen "Jodorowsky's Dune:" that was fascinating, but I'm glad his version of the film was never made.

And now we come to Denis Villeneuve. I think of his track record as somewhat choppy. I didn't like "Incendies," and "Enemy" was seriously freaky. I found "Bladerunner 2049" disappointing, but "Arrival" is a fantastic movie. And even with the movies I didn't like ... I couldn't deny the man's talent. He has vision. He's a big fan of monochrome - I don't mean black-and-white, I mean one colour utterly dominating the screen. He uses this a lot - and I can't even say "too much" because I'm not tired of it yet. In this movie, the preferred colours are beige and brown - but then, it's set on a desert planet.

We're introduced to the Harkonnen family on the planet Dune, and the Atreides family on planet Caladan. The two families are long-time enemies. The emperor takes the spice world Arrakis from the Harkonnens, and gives it to the Atreides. And "spice," which is an essential drug, is worth an unbelievable amount of money. Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) is our protagonist, plagued by visions of the future which increase when he comes in contact with spice. And then his family is betrayed ...

The choice of staff was excellent, just look at the cast list: Oscar Isaac, Jason Momoa, Stellan Skarsgård, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem ... And of course Chalamet, and Zendaya - both rising stars. Many scenes are much shorter than in the book - but I'll take it, because they're appearing in order and hold together well. Liet-Kynes has been gender-swapped: it doesn't matter, if anything it's a good thing as Herbert didn't put women in positions of power outside the Bene Gesserit, and this helps a bit with that imbalance. I always thought of Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) as more emotionally controlled than she's presented here (after all, she's Bene Gesserit). She loved Paul and her husband enough to betray her order, yes, but she's excessively emotional and weepy in this version. I think this is because they've compressed her scenes too much: it doesn't give us time to see that most of the time she masters or controls these emotions.

I was frustrated when I learned before viewing this that it's only half the book, and I'm still a bit annoyed about that after seeing it. But on the plus side, the book really does need two long movies to decently contain its plot line. Overall, a very good interpretation of the book. This didn't feel like a full review to me: I guess I'm withholding full judgement until I see the other half.

2021, dir. Denis Villeneuve. With Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Jason Momoa, Stellan Skarsgård, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Chang Chen, Dave Bautista, David Dastmalchian, Zendaya, Charlotte Rampling, Babs Olusanmokun, Benjamin Clementine, Golda Rosheuvel.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

The opening shot is an enormous troll(?) being taken to a medieval prison, and all the guards are afraid of him ... when he's put in a cell with Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez) he tries to assault her and she beats him unconcious with added commentary by her cell-mate Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine). Further introduction is given by Edgin talking us through what led him and Holga to a life of crime and then prison, as he addresses the parole board at the prison. They exit prison when the parole judge they had hoped for arrives ... although not quite in the manner you expected.

The movie is very silly - it's also funny with lots of absurd but still entertaining action. It's pretty heavy on the ironic humour, but actually pulls off more of its jokes than most in that category do. It's the "Shrek" of live action fantasy adventure films: well thought out, good jokes, and a variety of twists you didn't see coming. And like "Shrek," there will probably be a sequel that nobody's happy with ...

2023, dir. Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley. With Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Regé-Jean Page, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, Hugh Grant, Chloe Coleman, Daisy Head, Jason Wong, Bradley Cooper, Ian Hanmore, Georgia Landers, David Durham.

Dylan Dog

"Dylan Dog" is based on a graphic novel of the same name by Italian author Tiziano Sclavi who placed his titular (anti-)hero in London. The movie puts the action in New Orleans - that at least was a good choice. The idea is fairly good: Dylan Dog (couldn't they have picked a better name?) is human, but the supernatural creatures in the city had accepted him as an arbitrator and helper ... until the death of his wife a few years prior to the beginning of the movie. Since then, he's been working as cheating-spouse-chasing private eye among humans. But the supernatural world drags him back in.

The effects aren't bad, but what really kills the movie is bad writing and seriously poor choice in actors: Brandon Routh is handsome and extremely weak in the lead, Anita Briem is just bad, and Sam Huntington is weak ... A measure of how bad the acting is can be seen by who doesn't look bad: Peter Stormare phones it in and still looks okay doing it, Kurt Angle (with his professional wrestling pedigree) looks almost like an actor, and Taye Diggs steals the show. That's just scary (and not in the way horror movies are intended to be).

The story opens with Dylan being called to the scene of a murder and asked by the daughter of the murdered man to investigate. When it becomes clear that the killer was supernatural, he declines. But when his assistant is murdered and it's clearly related to the other killing, Dylan throws himself into the work.

The movie also falls down because of poor character interactions: Dylan's voice-over make it clear that Gabriel (Stormare) was his best friend: while they could have used Dylan's long disappearance as a reason for the animosity between the two, instead they frame it as being related to "that thing he did" which remains unexplained for the surprise value later ... and which it turns out that if Gabriel was really his friend, they would have talked. This is only one of many failings in the writing.

It turns out that there was another movie loosely based on "Dylan Dog," 1994's "Cemetery Man" starring Rupert Everett (only appropriate given that the graphic novel artist based Dylan's appearance on that of Everett).

2011, dir. Kevin Munroe. With Brandon Routh, Sam Huntington, Anita Briem, Peter Stormare, Taye Diggs, Kurt Angle.


E

Eagle Eye

Works on our paranoia about the staggering level of observation that's possible in modern society, and what could happen if that was blatantly misused. LaBeouf and Monaghan both get phone calls from a mysterious woman who orders them to do illegal things - forcing them to do so with threats and physical coercion. A large number of expensive cars are totalled in the early car chase - and the action editing is so choppy and blurry you can't see a bit of this million dollar spectacle they've put on. So what was the point? Logic also falls by the wayside, a casualty of sloppy plotting. As usual LaBeouf's acting is like a beacon for viewers desperate for a moment of quality. Could have been a good movie, but blew it all on sloppiness and sensationalism.

2008, dir. D.J. Caruso. With Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan, Billy Bob Thornton, Rosario Dawson, Michael Chiklis, Anthony Mackie.

Earthsea

This is based on Ursula K. LeGuin's A Wizard of Earthsea and its sequel, The Tombs of Atuan. I've read the former about ten times, the latter perhaps four. It's kind of hard for me to look at this without thinking of the source material, and believe me, it doesn't hold up well. They didn't want it to be like Harry Potter-lite, or so the director said in the interview - and yet we have sorcerers throwing fireballs at evil soldiers, and horrible looking flying monsters, and a whole bunch of other stuff that didn't come out of LeGuin. Her stories are slow and contemplative, but the producers or the director felt the need for action. So there are large elements from her story, but there are also huge sections that definitely weren't hers. The acting is uniformly mediocre and the story they end up with is fairly bad. Not much to recommend here.

2004, dir. Robert Lieberman. With Shawn Ashmore, Kristin Kreuk, Isabella Rossellini, Danny Glover, Sebastian Roché, Chris Gauthier.

East is East

Listed as a comedy, and highly regarded by the critics. I suppose there is a fair bit of humour, but the emotional content is intense and the humour is frequently quite black. Portrays a lower class Pakistani-English family living in England, with the Pakistani father trying to arrange marriages for his sons, who aren't interested. The ending is pretty mixed - rather more like real life than most movies. I liked it.

1999. dir. Damien O'Donnell. With Om Puri, Linda Bassett, Jimi Mistry, Archie Panjabi.

Eastern Promises

Cronenberg's follow-up to "A History of Violence" - the two movies share a lot in common. Not least of which is Mortensen. This time we're looking at a Russian crime family in London. Mortensen plays the driver, Cassels the irresponsible son to the ruthless father played by Mueller-Stahl. And Watts is a midwife in possession of the child of a very young - and dead - girl who has dubious ties to that family. While the story is significantly different than "A History of Violence," the feel is quite similar - the same sorts of questions about violence and loyalty, and this one is nearly as good (which means it's very good).

2007, dir. David Cronenberg. With Viggo Mortensen, Vincent Cassel, Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Mina E. Mina, Sinéad Cusack, Jerzy Skolimowski.

Easy A

Emma Stone plays Olive Penderghast, a sarcastic A student at a high school in California. She makes up a story of a sexual adventure and ends up with a reputation. Figuring it can't get any worse, she fakes sex with a gay friend so that his reputation will be improved. As rumours and unkind words fly, she starts wearing trashy clothes with a red "A" sewn on them to match the book they're reading at school, The Scarlet Letter. Stone is good, Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson are good as her eccentric, intelligent and supportive parents, and Haden Church is good as her favourite teacher. I even enjoyed the several direct references to Eighties teen movies. But somehow the movie as a whole just never grabbed me. Should work for most people - definitely better than most teen flicks.

2010, dir. Will Gluck. With Emma Stone, Penn Badgley, Amanda Bynes, Thomas Haden Church, Patricia Clarkson, Stanley Tucci, Cam Gigandet, Lisa Kudrow.

Easy Living

Screwball comedy with poor working girl Mary Smith (Arthur) caught up with the extremely rich Ball family in the most ridiculous possible way. Typical of the Depression (and Preston Sturges, who wrote it), we have a poor girl suddenly thrown into the midst of wealth and romance. The product is silly but charming and funny, and Arthur, Arnold, and Milland are all very good. I'm usually not a fan of screwball comedies, but I enjoyed this one: better, more believable characters.

1937, dir. Mitchell Leisen. With Jean Arthur, Edward Arnold, Ray Milland, Luis Alberni, Mary Nash.

Eat Drink Man Woman

About the lives of three Chinese women and their master chef father who has trouble communicating with them. Plays out across several months and all their lives get turned around in various ways. Food plays a central part. Very funny and a great view of a family.

1994. dir. Ang Lee.

Eddie the Eagle

"Eddie the Eagle" will act as a sports history lesson for many, but a lot of us still remember the sensation Michael "Eddie" Edwards made at the 1988 Calgary Olympics. He's the subject of a movie because he embodies multiple contradictions, which makes him fascinating, and he was (and remains) a charming guy.

The movie starts by showing Eddie at a very young age - in poor health but nevertheless determined to go to the Olympics. A few years later his clumsiness - or perhaps "lack of elegance" - fails to endear him to the British Olympic Committee, and he's ejected from the downhill skiing team. Which leads to his taking up ski jumping - a sport in which there's been no British entry in the Olympics since 1928, and where he can dodge the very old rules to get in despite the committee. The BOC changed the rules to keep him out - but with almost zero money and coaching, he trained and competed and just barely made it past the new qualifications to get him in to Calgary's Olympics.

I was significantly put off by the scowl that Taron Egerton wears as Eddie through much of the movie - I think it was an attempt to replicate the real Eddie's spectacularly jutting jaw. The problem is that on Egerton it makes him look upset, whereas the real Eddie merely looked ... unusual, not upset. Aside from that, it's a charming, mildly unbelievable (and almost all true) story of a goofy and charming character who became a hero to millions by coming last at the Olympics.

2016, dir. Dexter Fletcher. With Taron Egerton, Hugh Jackman, Christopher Walken, Iris Berben, Jim Broadbent, Jo Hartley, Keith Allen.

Edge of Seventeen

Several other movies came to mind while watching this: "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl," "The DUFF," and "Paper Towns." They're all recent teen comedies and coming-of-age tales. If I had to tell you to go see one, I'd say "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" without hesitation. If you asked for the best acting, that would be Hailee Steinfeld in this one: she's outstanding. But the movie itself didn't move me. It's not bad, but it didn't strike me as anything special.

Steinfeld plays Nadine Franklin, a neurotic, obnoxious, and intelligent student. Her father dies when she's 13, leaving her with a mother who doesn't understand her and a brother she can't get along with, and only one friend. She's known Krista (Haley Lu Richardson) since they were about six, and they're very close. But Krista begins a relationship with Nadine's brother (Blake Jenner), which causes Nadine to push Krista away and start acting even crazier than usual. If you've seen the trailers, you'll know that Woody Harrelson is in the movie: he plays the long-suffering (and not terribly hard-working) history teacher that she turns to when she's driven everyone else away.

Nadine is an intensely unlikeable person: she's not actively evil, but she can be explosively unpleasant. The miracle of Steinfeld's performance is that you can see that she's not evil, and sort of like her and hope that she gets out of the hole she's dug herself. Had it been any other actress, I don't think they could have pulled this off - particularly when you throw in a mid-sized serving of "humorous" humiliation, one of my least favourite things ... which she (and the script) somehow makes workable.

In the end it's too awkward and gawky, like its protagonist. And her epiphany is far too sudden and complete: Steinfeld's performance can't save that.

2016, dir. Kelly Fremon Craig. With Hailee Steinfeld, Woody Harrelson, Kyra Sedgwick, Haley Lu Richardson, Blake Jenner.

Edge of Tomorrow

Tom Cruise plays William Cage, a PR wonk for the army in the near future. They're fighting an alien invasion in Europe. For reasons that are only partially explained, Cage is suddenly assigned to the front lines of the next attack. Being a coward (and, in his defense, totally untrained), he attempts to decline the offer and then runs away - so he's tasered and shipped unconscious, waking the next day at the front of the attack. He dies almost immediately in the attack ... and awakes the morning of the same day, at the front of the attack. Essentially a cross between "Groundhog Day" and a war movie (specifically Second World War, the D-Day beach landings) - with a bit of the feel of grinding a video game campaign (ie. die, respawn, get a little further, die, respawn, etc.). Well presented, great effects, and a very well constructed story. One of the best SF movies of the decade.

3D BluRay: Having seen the movie in flat form, I bought the 3D BluRay. This was a significant mistake, as it's the worst 3D presentation I've seen: whenever people are in motion (and this is an action movie), the blurring and artifacting around them is absolutely brutal. It's horribly distracting. This problem doesn't occur with the 2D BluRay, and I'll only be watching that in future. 3D was a complete waste of money on this one.

2014, dir. Doug Liman. With Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Brendan Gleeson, Bill Paxton, Noah Taylor.

EDtv

Similar to "The Truman Show," except that the main character (Ed, played by Matthew McConaughey) is aware he's the centre of a live 24 hour TV show. Very funny, well developed.

1999. dir. Ron Howard. With Matthew McConaughey, Jenna Elfman, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Hurley.

8 Mile

To understand this movie, it helps to know a bit about Detroit. I've been there a lot over the years. Back in the Nineties (just before this film was made, in 2002), the core of Detroit was a burned out husk, and anything south of 8 Mile Road was a wasteland of abandoned buildings and horribly run-down neighbourhoods. The core - right across the river from Windsor, Ontario - has since gentrified to a certain extent, but there's still this massive donut of space from one mile from the river all the way to eight miles out where sane people simply don't go at night. And there's very little reason to go there during the day - unless you're a photographer: there are some gorgeous hundred-year-old civic buildings that were abandoned 50 years ago. According to Wikipedia's entry on the film, 8 Mile is also the divider between the poorer black neighbourhoods and the richer white neighbourhoods to the north.

Detroit was (may still be, I have no idea) a hot-bed of rap, and Eminem came up through their vicious system of rap battles, a white guy in the midst of an almost entirely black crowd. In this movie, he plays a slightly different version of himself - just split up from his girlfriend, back living in a trailer with his impressively trashy Mom (Kim Basinger) and four year old sister, working at a metal stamping shop and trying to make it as a rapper with his friends. He has the talent but not the confidence, and one of the first scenes shows him on stage with the mic ... unable to speak. We get a good look at his friends, his family, and his life, all leading up to a climactic final scene back on stage.

Eminem turns out to be a decent actor, at least when he's playing himself - I don't think that's as easy as it sounds. The supporting actors are also good, and the writing is excellent. The movie also brought us what I think is Eminem's single best song, "Lose Yourself," which is effectively a rap retelling of the life of his character. A very good movie.

2002. dir. Curtis Hanson. With Eminem, Kim Basinger, Mekhi Phifer, Omar Miller.

84 Charing Cross Road

Bancroft plays Helene Hanff, an American writer in New York looking for out of print British books. She strikes up a business relationship and correspondence with Frank Doël in Great Britain, buying books on an irregular basis. The correspondence lasts 20 years, and through it we trace both their lives. A very quiet and charming film based on a true story.

1986. dir. David Jones. With Anne Bancroft, Anthony Hopkins, Judi Dench, Mercedes Ruehl.

Elektra

"Elektra" as a character makes her first live-action film appearance in the 2003 movie "Daredevil." In which she dies. And yet, this isn't a prequel, it's a loosely tied follow-up. See, Elektra (played in both interpretations by Garner) is raised from the dead by her sensei/teacher, "Stick," played by Stamp. After that (or is it before? it's hard to tell), she gets an education in "Kimagure," a combination of martial arts and anticipating the future. But none of this is told linearly: it's all flashbacks. This might have been workable, but is considerably confused by many of them being involuntary flashbacks for Elektra herself, who even occasionally mistakes them for reality. After being booted out of Kimagure school for being too violent, she becomes an assassin. We see her at the beginning of the movie on what will turn out to be her last assignment. She meets and saves a father and daughter (Goran Višnjić and Kirsten Prout), and then gets involved in their rather complicated lives which turn out to overlap her own.

Ultimately a very confused and confusing movie with all its unclear flashbacks and supernatural superpowers.

2005, dir. Rob Bowman. With Jennifer Garner, Goran Višnjić, Kirsten Prout, Terence Stamp.

Elemental

Our main character is Ember (voiced by Leah Lewis), daughter of Bernie (Ronnie del Carmen) and Cinder (Shila Ommi). They're fire elementals. Bernie and Cinder have immigrated to Element City, where they face racism from the water, air, and earth people. But they give Ember the best life they can.

One day, Ember is running the family store when a pipe bursts in the basement. Water isn't great for fire elementals, so she seals the leak - but not before a water person ("Wade Ripple," voiced by Mamoudou Athie) pops out of the leak. He immediately starts writing tickets for code violations against their business. She tries to prevent him, and ends up pursuing him into the centre of the city where she's never really been before.

The movie is incredibly heavy-handed about racism and accepting differences between people. And the story beats about honouring your family and still finding your own path are worn slippery by the million movies that have walked this path before. And yet it's Pixar: they find joy and humour in the small moments, and manage to make an enjoyable and pretty movie despite having absolutely nothing new to say.

The "director's commentary" is with Peter Sohn and three of his technical staff, animators and the like. When Sohn talked about how the movie tied in to his own immigrant experience (growing up in a store run by his Korean parents, encountering racism), it was kind of interesting. But they spent much more of their time talking about how unusual and difficult the animation was. I don't question the truth of that, but ... those sections were kind of dull to me.

2023, dir. Peter Sohn. With Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, Ronnie del Carmen, Shila Ommi, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Catherine O'Hara, Mason Wertheimer, Ronobir Lahiri, Joe Pera.

Elementary, Season 1

Following shortly after the BBC's re-imagining of Sherlock Holmes, this is another take both similar and radically different. Jonny Lee Miller plays Sherlock Holmes, a British drug addict now living in modern day New York city. He lives in a brownstone owned by his father with his "sober companion," Dr. Watson (Lucy Liu) (also paid for by his father). Watson is a former surgeon, having left the profession when a patient died on the operating table. Holmes acts as a consultant to the New York Police, and Watson is frequently drawn into his work.

Our two other main characters are Aidan Quinn as Captain Gregson, Holmes' liaison at NYPD, and Jon Michael Hill as Detective Bell, Gregson's lead detective. Everyone plays well, and I was surprised to greatly enjoy the series. I thought it would suffer in comparison to the recent BBC series, but it's different enough and well done enough to stand entirely on its own. Very good.

2013-09: re-watching the first few episodes, I'm astonished at how well constructed these are: it's a very well done series.

2012. With Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu, Aidan Quinn, Jon Michael Hill, Ato Essandoh.

Elementary, Season 2

Not as consistent as the previous season, three or four episodes had me wondering if it was going to jump the shark the next week - but they pulled it back every time. When you add it all up, it's not as good as the first season, but still enjoyable and worth watching. (Until the last three episodes, see below.)

The last three episodes brought back Sherlock's brother (and Joan Watson's love interest) Mycroft (Rhys Ifans). The number of reversals ("he's an idiot, he's a genius, he's a good guy, he's a bad guy") is truly staggering and incredibly tiresome. If they had approached it in a more straight-forward manner, Mycroft and the involvement of his superiors could have been good, with possibly one reversal. But instead I'm seriously questioning if I'm going to pick this up next season.

2013. With Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu, Aidan Quinn, Jon Michael Hill, Ato Essandoh, Rhys Ifans.

Elementary, Season 3

The mysteries are still fairly good, but my frustration about the writing around the 2nd to 3rd season change was immense. That frustration, coupled with a dislike of new character Kitty (Ophelia Lovibond) and her story arc, caused me to stop watching the season for seven(!) years. I returned because COVID-19. And at the end of the season I thought "where's the season end wind-up?" They waited until the last episode to bring that in - and it felt thoroughly improbable. Just like the grandstanding between the first and second seasons, and the worse grandstanding between the second and third seasons. The person who caused all the trouble in the final episode wasn't smart enough (or together enough) to pull off something as complex as he managed.

Sherlock (Jonny Lee Miller) and Watson (Lucy Liu) are still reasonably appealing characters, but they're stuck in deep grooves in a world that only changes at season ends.

2014. With Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu, Aidan Quinn, Jon Michael Hill, Ato Essandoh.

Elementary, Season 4

I took a seven year break on this series half way through the third season because I thought the writing had become sloppy and poor. I resumed watching partly because a friend had assured me the fourth and fifth season were better, and partly because I had time on my hands at home because of COVID-19. Getting through that season was a bit of a chore, but the fourth season is an improvement. At least from my point of view: they concentrate mostly on the episodic mysteries. There were of course predictable elements: Sherlock is cleared of the (almost justified) assault he committed at the end of season 3 in a deus ex machina move that also introduces a character who remains their foil for the season: Sherlock's father (John Noble). And, in typical style, his manoeuvrings feel a bit like they're nailed on to the plot structure. And - again typical - come to a head in the final two or three episodes of the season. Although oddly, they wrap things up fairly cleanly without leaving us with a cliffhanger as they usually do.

I loved that they worked in "Rache," "German for revenge," which is a significant point in the first episode the British "Sherlock." Better yet, they manage to twist it into a very different clue. It was a hell of a nod to their counterpart series - and one that still worked fine if you'd never heard of "Sherlock." Quite elegant.

2015. With Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu, Aidan Quinn, Jon Michael Hill, John Noble, Ato Essandoh, Betty Gilpin, Jordan Gelber.

Elementary, Season 5

I've become a little tired of "Elementary" after watching two and a half seasons inside a couple weeks, but credit where it's due: the writing on this season is probably the best they've managed. Our new character is Shinwell (Nelsan Ellis), a patient Joan Watson (Lucy Liu) saved from multiple bullet wounds back when she was a surgeon. He's recently got out of jail, and is trying to rebuild his life. Shinwell is a charming guy: we know his history is troubled, but he turns out darker than we thought. Watson offers him help, and over the course of the season he becomes quite entangled with her and Sherlock (Jonny Lee Miller). What's unusual about this is that - unlike previous seasons - the appearances and disappearances of Shinwell didn't feel stapled on, they were part of the main plot. Shinwell becomes an informant on his old gang, the South Bronx Killas, determined to take them down. And over the course of the season we learn a great deal about that gang and about their biggest rival gang.

There are plenty of other single-episode mysteries to be solved. But the whole season winds up to the single most brutally brilliant plan the show has put on film as the leader of the South Bronx Killas almost manages an immunity deal and walks away. What makes this so impressive is its relative simplicity: to achieve it, all he had to do was slaughter an innocent to start a gang war, and betray everyone he knew.

It's a toss-up for me if this or the first season is the best. And to be saying that about the fifth season of any TV show is astonishing.

2016. With Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu, Aidan Quinn, Jon Michael Hill, Nelsan Ellis, Jon Huertas.

Elementary, Season 6

Sherlock (Jonny Lee Miller) is suffering from post-concussion syndrome following a blow to the head in the previous season. At a meeting, he meets Michael Rowan (Desmond Harrington), another addict who thanks him, and credits Sherlock's words for keeping him sober. Then he offers to help Sherlock - and by the end of the episode we find out that Michael is a serial murderer. I realized immediately that he would be the boogeyman for the whole season. While I was right, he shows up less than I thought, but enough to cause all our main characters a lot of grief.

Not the best season (1 and 2 hold those titles) but not too bad, although it did feel a bit like going through the motions.

2017. With Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu, Aidan Quinn, Jon Michael Hill, Desmond Harrington.

Elementary, Season 7

This is the final season of "Elementary." It's shorter than previous seasons at only 13 episodes - each of which is about 40 minutes long, the same as previous seasons.

The bogeyman of the season is Odin Reichenbach, multi-billionaire owner of a Google-alike company with its tentacles in everyone's private information. His take is that he's preventing the next 9/11 by pre-emptively assassinating people. Given his name, I assumed that the writer's end-game was to kill of Sherlock Holmes by the end of the series.

In the end, I think anyone who likes mysteries should be required to watch the first two seasons of this series: they're excellent. I didn't like season 3 much, 4 is okay, I thought the fifth season was brilliant at the time ... but feel less sure about it now, and 6 and 7 are kind of mediocre. The wrap-up is nice, and a pleasure to see (although it jumps forward in time multiple times over several years), but the season itself is only so-so.

2017. With Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu, Aidan Quinn, Jon Michael Hill, James Frain.

Elizabeth

I'm told by those that have read about the history of Queen Elizabeth's reign that this is ... inaccurate. Period dramas like this are usually shot in a very straight-forward manner, but there's some use in this one of unconventional cinematography, including bleach-to-white and blurring, which feels a little out of place. But the performances are superb, and the story is excellent. Highly recommended.

1998, dir. Shekhar Kapur. With Cate Blanchett, Joseph Fiennes, Geoffry Rush.

Elizabethtown

After creating a financial catastrophe of epic proportions, the main character (Orlando Bloom) is stopped from committing suicide by a phone call telling him of the death of his father. His visit to the titular hometown of his father introduces him to a talkative flight attendant (Kirsten Dunst) and quirky family members. Has some embarrassing moments (Susan Sarandon tap dancing is right up there), but overall a bizarre and bizarrely enjoyable ride. Second time around I was more impressed: Dunst and Bloom are excellent. Dunst is both annoying and charming, as she's supposed to be. The movie is a mess, the characters are brilliant creations, but Crowe pushes everything a little too far.

dir. Cameron Crowe. With Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin.

Ella Enchanted

Anne Hathaway plays Ella, "blessed" with obedience. She must obey every command given to her. When her father remarries and she acquires some new and unpleasant stepsisters, it comes time for her to set out on a quest to find the fairy godmother who so kindly cursed her.

Unfortunately what we have here is in many ways a live-action version of Shrek 1 + 2. No obnoxious-but-somehow-charming animated ogre (although there are ogres ...), we have instead a beautiful and intelligent but cursed young woman as our heroine. Also on a quest. Also through medieval settings with anachronistic jokes about malls and modern life in general. Also with bad musical numbers set to anachronistic rock music. Unfortunately, they over-applied the "cute," dumped the vast majority of the plot kindly provided by Gail Carson Levine (author of the book of the same name), and wasted the acting talents of several really good actors. A few clever jokes don't come close to covering the other massive flaws.

A related note: the BluRay disc of this movie is the most stripped out production I've ever seen in my life: no subtitles (in any language), no extras, it doesn't even have a menu. You drop the disc in the drive and it plays: that's it.

2004, dir. Tommy O'Haver. With Anne Hathaway, Hugh Dancy, Cary Elwes, Minnie Driver, Eric Idle, Steve Coogan, Patrick Bergin, Joanna Lumley, Vivica A. Fox, Lucy Punch, Jennifer Higham, Aidan McArdle, Parminder Nagra, Heidi Klum, Jimi Mistry.

Elstree 1976

Released in 2015, the movie consists mostly of talking head shots of several of the bit players who were in the original "Star Wars" movie about how it's affected their lives for nearly 40 years. I'm a fan of the original movie, and I get that their entire lives have been shaped by this one movie in which they had only a very small role - but 90 minutes ended up seeming like an awfully long time to discuss it. Of all of them, I think I liked David Prowse (the 6'6" bodybuilder inside the Darth Vader suit, whose voice was replaced by James Earl Jones') best: a charming guy who seems happier with where he's at than any of the others (although Greedo - Paul Blake - is doing okay too). Felt a lot like a duller version of "56 Up" for film actors. Should have been a half hour TV special.

2015, dir. Jon Spira. With Paul Blake, Jeremy Bulloch, Anthony Forrest, David Prowse, Angus MacInnes, Pam Rose, Derek Lyons, Laurie Goode, John Chapman.

Emma (Beckinsale, 1996)

An A&E product, this was made for TV. Despite that unpromising beginning, this is a superb production. The dialogue is great, it looks good, Kate Beckinsale is excellent as Emma with Mark Strong an excellent Mr. Knightley, and they get great support from the entire cast. I really enjoyed this one. Skip the other productions of "Emma" out there and watch this one.

1996. dir. Diarmuid Lawrence. With Kate Beckinsale, Mark Strong, Prunella Scales, Olivia Williams, Samantha Morton.

Emma (Paltrow, 1996)

I expected to like this better than the A&E version, but was surprised to find it worse. The thing is ... while Emma (played here by Gwyneth Paltrow) is indeed irritating and manipulative, she's also quite charming. The A&E script brings that out, this one completely loses sight of the charming part - which leaves very little for Jeremy Northam's Knightley to convincingly fall in love with. The production values on this one are far superior, but that's about it: the acting is about equal, and A&E got its hands on a much better script.

1996. dir. Douglas McGrath. With Gwyneth Paltrow, Greta Scacchi, Alan Cumming, Jeremy Northam, Toni Collette, Juliette Lewis.

Emma (Garai, 2009)

I'm a fan of Jane Austen and have read several of her books, including "Emma." I've also seen many of the movies that have been made from her books over the years. I tend to think of them - particularly versions of "Emma" - in terms of who played the title role. This is Garai's "Emma," and the two others I've seen are Gwyneth Paltrow (1996, American film) and Kate Beckinsale (1996, British TV film). There's a significant trick to Emma: she's both obnoxiously meddlesome and very charming, and the trick is to balance it to the point that the viewer will believe that a man as sensible and practical as Mr. Knightley would love her. Paltrow's version failed spectacularly: her Emma was distinctly unappealing. Beckinsale (in between her vacuous turn as Hero in "Much Ado About Nothing" and becoming an almost full-time vampire) is my measuring stick here: she tramples peoples lives and charms in equal measure, so much so that Mr. Knightley could not help but love her.

This version has a number of things going for it: Jonny Lee Miller as Mr. George Knightley, a nearly four hour running time that allows the inclusion of all the subplots and characters, a very good supporting cast, and a very good writer (who took some liberties with Austen's text, but generally did a good job of it). I initially took exception to Romola Garai's somewhat pouty interpretation of Emma, but have come to see this as as a very good version of the book.

2009, dir. Jim O'Hanlon. With Romola Garai, Jonny Lee Miller, Michael Gambon, Tamsin Greig, Rupert Evans, Robert Bathurst, Jodhi May, Louise Dylan, Laura Pyper, Blake Ritson.

Emma. (Taylor-Joy, 2020)

I'm a fan of the book, and this is the fourth version of Emma I've seen (not counting "Clueless," which I've also seen). I should think of them by their directors, but who remembers? It's so much easier to remember who played Emma. Today, we examine the Taylor-Joy version.

As I've mentioned previously, there's a particularly tricky thing about Emma: the title character is obnoxiously meddlesome, but also very charming. The actress (and director and editor and ...) have to create a character who embodies both of these things simultaneously, or the plot makes no sense - particularly why people like her, and why Knightley would fall for her.

Anya Taylor-Joy is passable in the lead - I think she's better suited to non-period dramas, where I've seen her act better. But it doesn't matter much because her performance is drowned out by a plot that's become almost a farce in the first half as they turn Emma's obnoxiousness up to 11, and ditto Mr. Elton's bad behaviour. Harriet Smith (played by Mia Goth) is Emma's companion for most of the movie, but leaves little impression. The wonderful Bill Nighy has about three lines and is utterly wasted as Emma's father. And, contrary to the book and most other adaptations, the music and the looks and the touching all tell us that Knightley and Emma fall for each other at the dance slightly past the midpoint of the movie. Which is difficult to fit into the plot because it happens prior to Emma's flirtation with Frank Churchill (Callum Turner), which she and Knightley refer to later.

For hard-core Austen fans, you'll be be disappointed by the lack of text written by Jane Austen. They follow Austen's plot, but the words coming out of the character's mouths are rarely those put down by Austen. Austen was one of the English language's greatest prose stylists: to successfully rewrite her text, you have to be very good. And the script-writers on this movie weren't up to the task.

Badly structured and badly thought out, this one is better than the Paltrow version, but falls well below the Garai and Beckinsale versions.

2020, dir. Autumn de Wilde. With Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn, Mia Goth, Miranda Hart, Bill Nighy, Josh O'Connor, Callum Turner, Amber Anderson, Rupert Graves, Gemma Whelan, Tanya Reynolds, Connor Swindells, Oliver Chris, Chloe Pirrie.

The Emperor's New Groove

One of Disney's best efforts. A little annoying in places, but very funny. They manage this by stepping outside of standard film conventions in some odd ways (think of a voice-over narration that's a little too self-aware). David Spade plays Emperor Kuzco, in the only role in which I've ever liked his work. Kuzco is turned into a llama by his advisor (who meant to kill him), and the story revolves around his regaining the throne and becoming less arrogant in the process (that's a surprise).

2000. dir. Mark Dindal. With David Spade, John Goodman, Eartha Kitt, Patrick Warburton.

Empire Falls

Made for TV, but that's a good thing: they had an excellent cast and got to make it as long as they needed (about three and a half hours). From Richard Russo's Pulitzer Prize-wining novel about a small town in Maine. Centres around Ed Harris's character Miles Roby, a good man who's a little too passive and is under the thumb of the town's ruling matriarch. Plays out ... just like life in a small town. I haven't been much of a fan of Paul Newman, but he was great as the tiresome, annoying Max. A very good movie.

2005, dir. Fred Schepisi. With Ed Harris, Helen Hunt, Paul Newman, Robin Wright, Aidan Quinn, Joanne Woodward, Dennis Farina, William Fichtner, Estelle Parsons, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Theresa Russell, Danielle Panabaker, Lou Taylor Pucci.

The Empire Strikes Back

The second "Star Wars" movie (contrary to Lucas's revisionism) and the best of the series. The darkest of the lot, with the best character development (such as it is). Retains the mythic proportions of the first movie and really develops the universe. Definitely benefits from a new hand at the helm (this was directed by Irvin Kershner rather than George Lucas).

1980, dir. Irvin Kershner. With Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, David Prowse, Peter Mayhew, Kenny Baker.

Encanto

"Encanto" is Spanish for "enchantment." Our story opens with the grandmother of the Madrigal family (María Cecilia Botero) telling the story of the origins of the magic that blesses the family and allows them to protect and aid their community. She's telling the story to her granddaughter, Mirabel (Stephanie Beatriz). The story then jumps forward a few years, and shows Mirabel explaining (rapidly, via song) all of her family members and their super powers to some village children. And while she avoids explaining it, we soon find out that she's the only member of the family who doesn't have magical powers.

They're so busy with explication in the form of song that barely any plot actually happens. There are so many people with so many powers, they have a huge amount to explain. But underlying all this is a decent examination of the dynamics of family relations, trauma across generations, and family demands and expectations. The (limited) plot is almost never seen without explanation either in speech or in song - and spectacular, colourful magic realist visuals. And yet ... it works emotionally. For adults as well as children. The children may not understand all of the emotional dynamics, but it's so damn colourful and full of crazy visuals and catchy songs ... how could they not like it?

I was particularly fond of John Leguizamo as Bruno - damaged as a result of misinterpretations of his difficult power, but still charming. Stephanie Beatriz (Detective Roza Diaz of "Brooklyn 99"?!) is good in the lead too. Lin-Manuel Miranda's songs deserve considerable credit. I was also a big fan of of the final door symbolism: unlike all the rest of the family, Mirabel never had a door (and doors are important). But at the end of the film, she gets the most important door of all.

2021, dir. Jared Bush, Byron Howard. With Stephanie Beatriz, María Cecilia Botero, John Leguizamo, Mauro Castillo, Jessica Darrow, Angie Cepeda, Carolina Gaitán, Diane Guerrero, Wilmer Valderrama, Rhenzy Feliz, Ravi Cabot-Conyers, Adassa, Maluma.

Enchanted

The premise is simple: in the animated world, the wicked step-mother (not even hers) launches the charming, singing, naive princess-to-be into the real world to get rid of her. Our world: Times Square, to be exact. Where she (Amy Adams) behaves exactly like a Disney character: singing, charming animals and people, and - with the assistance of our hunky and cynical hero, Patrick Dempsey - finding out about "dates." Her prince (James Marsden) follows her through and proceeds to take on a bus, which he skewers with his sword. Then the incompetent assistant (Timothy Spall) to the evil step-mom (Susan Sarandon) follows them through, etc. etc. You get the idea. Adams is particularly good as an authentic cartoon princess who believes in "forever and ever." I think the movie would have been better if they had skewered the initial naiveté of the cartoon world some (a la "Shrek"), but they chose to go for a faithful and irony-free version. But the result is nevertheless quite charming.

2007, dir. Kevin Lima. With Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Timothy Spall, Susan Sarandon, Idina Menzel, Rachel Covey.

Encounters at the End of the World

Werner Herzog's voice-over starts this documentary about Antarctica by telling us "The National Science Foundation invited me even though I made it clear I would not be making another movie about penguins." Indeed, he does not. I still think the man is insane, and he does make some weird choices, but overall this is a fascinating movie. He goes to Antarctica, shows you not only the pretty scenery but also the ugliness (McMurdo Station, which looks like an Alaskan social housing project) and talks to the people. Who are all intelligent and more than a little bit weird. Most are travellers, many have PhDs and operate forklifts. You've never seen anything like this about Antarctica before - and you should.

2007, dir. Werner Herzog.

Endeavour

"Endeavour" is a Masterpiece/ITV TV series, being the early adventures of the ever-popular Inspector Morse (created by British author Colin Dexter). This is a review of the 90 minute pilot episode for the series, which shows the young Detective Constable Endeavour Morse returning to Oxford where he started (but didn't finish) university, to help investigate the murder of a 15 year old girl.

Morse is considering quitting the force, but gets wrapped up in the case in Oxford. His intensity, attention to detail, and honesty are noticed by the station head Detective Inspector Fred Thursday (Roger Allam) who is direly in need of not-corrupt employees.

It's slow-paced, interesting, thoughtful, and fairly dark. It also nails its time period, but the British have always been better at that than the Americans. A pretty good watch.

2012. With Shaun Evans, Roger Allam.

Ender's Game

Based on one of the best known SF books in the world (with the same name) by Orson Scott Card. I'm a huge fan of the book and couldn't write a separate review of this if I wanted to. The story incorporates a number of elements: the primary motivator for the story is an alien invasion of Earth that happened 50 years prior and was (barely) repelled. Now Earth's military forces are training a new group of soldiers to fight the aliens - all of whom are children in the 10-14 age range. Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield) is one of the last recruited, and one of the best. Harrison Ford plays Colonel Hyrum Graff who deliberately isolates Ender and makes his life more difficult.

To my surprise the child actors were for the most part better than the adults: I'm not a fan of Ford, and he didn't change my mind here. Viola Davis is poor, and Ben Kingsley doesn't have much acting to do (under a very distracting Maori tattooed face - true to the book, but hard to see past). Butterfield does a very weepy version of Ender: not his fault, the script compresses the story down to the emotional high-points (or low-points, depending on how you look at it). He was okay. Abigail Breslin, usually reliable, didn't seem to be working too hard as his sister Valentine. I thought "the Battle Room" was very well done, which was a real surprise - although its importance in the story is diminished by the movie script. All together too compressed a version of the story to come close to carrying the weight of the original book, although I have to admit it's a bit better than I expected given the difficulty of the story.

2013, dir. Gavin Hood. With Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld, Abigail Breslin, Ben Kingsley, Viola Davis, Aramis Knight, Suraj Parthasarathy, Moisés Arias, Khylin Rhambo, Conor Carroll, Nonso Anozie.

The Endless

Wikipedia lists this as "science fiction horror." I wonder about that: "unexplained events" can just as easily fall under fantasy, and is it "horror" when a lot of creepy (but mostly not horrible) things happen?

Two brothers (the directors, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead playing "Justin" and "Aaron") who were raised by a commune in the hills, have different memories of the place: the older claims it was a UFO death cult, the younger remembers a friendly commune. The life they've had since departing the commune has been poor both financially and emotionally, and they eventually go back to say goodbye and wrap things up. Initially it seems Aaron was right: they're welcomed back, people are friendly, they're served a good meal. But while the people remain friendly, strange things happen around them.

The story is mostly about the two brothers working out their problems, something that's re-enforced by a quote at the beginning of the movie: "Friends tell each other how they feel with relative frequency. Siblings wait for a more convenient time, like their deathbeds." The movie attributes the quote to "Unknown," but I suspect it can be attributed to Benson and Moorhead (all Google references to that quote point back to the movie). But it's an interesting observation, and does clearly outline one of the themes of the movie.

It's low budget: unknown actors and simple special effects with some (well done) CGI. But it's well written and consistently interesting: I really enjoyed it.

2017, dir. Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. With Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead, Callie Hernandez, Tate Ellington, Lew Temple, James Jordan.

Endless Night

Hywel Bennett plays the main character, Michael Rogers. Having drifted from job to job for a while, a couple major occurrences change his life: he meets the famous, and terminally ill, architect "Santonix" (Per Oscarsson), and he meets a young woman named Ellie Thomson (Hayley Mills) at a particularly beautiful place where he'd like to build a house - if only he had money. As it turns out, she has a great deal of money, and loves him.

They hire their architect friend to build their dream house on the land - but there's a rumour the land is cursed, and problems and death follow. It is Agatha Christie, after all. The sets, particularly the dream house and casual clothing, are incredibly Seventies. I felt the ending was a terrible cheat: yes, we had a couple clues, but I wasn't happy with it.

1972, dir. Sidney Gilliat. With Hywel Bennett, Hayley Mills, Per Oscarsson, Britt Ekland, George Sanders.

Enemy

Denis Villeneuve's "Enemy" stars Jake Gyllenhaal as two identical men who meet after one notices the other in a bit part in a movie. Their interactions do not go well. The movie is based on the book The Double by José Saramago - Wikipedia's plot summary suggests they're fairly similar, but Villeneuve has moved it from Portugal to Toronto, and addded spiders.

It's weird and creepy and doesn't make a lot of sense. Neither of the versions of Gyllenhaal are particularly sympathetic. It's filmed in black and white and yellow, with all the other colours muted. And my hometown (Toronto) has rarely - if ever - been made to look so ugly and alienating. For all that I have to admit it was kind of fascinating in an unpleasant way. One good touch was that, while the two guys are different in character, we're not given significant outward signs and have to occasionally work it out ourselves (doppelgänger movies sometimes get too blatant about helping the audience separate the different versions of the performer).

2013, dir. Denis Villeneuve. With Jake Gyllenhaal, Mélanie Laurent, Sarah Gadon, Isabella Rossellini.

Enemy Mine

Based on an excellent novella of the same name by Barry Longyear, the story is about two fighter pilots, one human and one Drac (ie. "the enemy") stranded together on an abandoned planet. The story follows their hostilities and eventual co-operation over a long period of time.

The story in the movie diverges further from the novella as we proceed. I'm not sure it would have mattered if they'd followed the original story: most of what goes on, what's important, is the growing acceptance between the two enemies. This is an old, old story: just imagine them as both being human, in any previous war. Longyear told the story well, but trying to bring it to the screen was a bad idea: it just ends up looking silly as they try to mix in aliens and a culture completely unknown to our representative human. The end result is ... not good.

1985, dir. Wolfgang Petersen. With Dennis Quaid, Louis Gossett Jr., Brion James, Bumper Robinson.

The English Patient

Based fairly loosely on Michael Ondaatje's famous novel of the same name. Ondaatje wrote things that couldn't be put on film, and Anthony Minghella does things on film that would be impossible to describe in a book. An extremely badly burned patient is cared for in an abandoned monastery in Italy in the second world war. His history unfolds in flashbacks. A brilliant movie (nine Academy awards), but don't watch it if you're looking for a mood-lifter.

1998. dir. Anthony Minghella. With Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe.

Enigma

The thing that struck me the most watching this movie was the slavish accuracy of the recreation of Bletchley Park (the code-breaking centre in the U.K. during the Second World War, whose existence was only acknowledged by the British government in the 1970s), and how astonishingly similar it felt to the Bletchley Park portrayed in Neal Stephenson's fantastic book Cryptonomicon. For me, the movie was worth seeing just for this: it's a fascinating episode in history (perhaps more so to a computer geek). The main story revolves around one of the code breakers, a mildly unstable mathematical genius (played by Dougray Scott) obsessed with a woman he went out with for a short time. When she disappears, he and her roommate set out to find out what's going on.

2001, dir. Michael Apted. With Dougray Scott, Kate Winslet, Saffron Burrows, Jeremy Northam, Tom Hollander, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Matthew Macfadyen.

Enlightenment Guaranteed

A low budget German movie about two cranky brothers who set off to Tokyo and a Zen monastery together, for very different reasons. It reminded me considerably of "Lost in Translation," not just because of the Tokyo setting, but also because the two brothers seem so lost in not just Tokyo but their own lives. The two main characters are incredibly irritating right up until near the end, when the monastery has finally had its effect on them and they find some peace.

2002, dir. Doris Dörrie. With Uwe Ochsenknecht, Gustav-Peter Wöhler.

Enola Holmes

Millie Bobby Brown is the title character, Enola Holmes. Many people know Brown (including me, although I didn't make the connection until after I'd watched the movie) as "Eleven" from "Stranger Things." Brown is also, I was interested to see, a producer. And given that she really is the age she's presented as being in the movie (16), that's a pretty lofty position. ("Executive producers" are figureheads, money providers, almost powerless. The real power rests with the plain "producers.") She's got a future.

Brown is both charming and very good in the lead, although I had some objections to her talking to the camera. That's fine with "Deadpool" (it's modern, and it's a comedy), less fine in a period piece. Enola is the younger sister of Sherlock and Mycroft - born of the book series "The Enola Holmes Mysteries" by Nancy Springer. As a fan of the Sherlock Holmes canon (I've watched hundreds of hours of TV and movies, but ironically have never read any of the stories), I'm not entirely happy when the canon is bent. And it certainly is here. I didn't mind the addition of Enola, I was a little shaky on the addition of her mother Eudoria (Helena Bonham Carter) ... although I suppose a 16 year old daughter implies the existence and involvement of a mother. What offended me most was their portrayal of Mycroft (Sam Clafin). He's not stupid, but he's nowhere near as bright as Sherlock. The problem is - he's a well established character, and in canon he's easily Sherlock's intellectual equal. On the plus side, Henry Cavill (in a relatively small role) is perhaps the most charming Sherlock we've seen in the last couple decades. Although even with beautiful tailoring, you could still occasionally see his currently massive physique (he's been doing a lot of action: "The Witcher," DC movies as Superman, like that). Which seems improbable for Sherlock. This last isn't really a complaint, it just amused me.

Another couple minor gripes: who knew that the London of 1900 was so diverse! According to this movie, an Indian police inspector (Lestrade, another canon character modified) is normal, as is an African store owner. Neither of those things would have been possible in the time period. Likewise, the movie is all about what women can do, and women's rights: that's closer to reality, as women's suffrage was being debated at the time. Nevertheless the things that Eudoria, Enola, and Edith (the female African store owner) did in the movie would have been considered too outrageous to be accepted in society at the time. But of course my objections are overruled by the inclusive intent of the movie. The result is enjoyable ... I guess I just can't let these improbabilities pass without pointing out that wishing that's how London was in 1900 doesn't make it so.

2020, dir. Harry Bradbeer. With Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill, Sam Clafin, Helena Bonham Carter, Louis Partridge, Burn Gorman, Adeel Akhtar, Susie Wokoma, Hattie Morahan, David Bamber, Fiona Shaw, Frances de la Tour, Claire Rushbrook.

Enola Holmes 2

The movie opens on Enola (Millie Bobby Brown) on the run from the police in 1880s London. We get about a minute in, and flip to the favourite trope of the first movie: Enola turns to the camera and says something like "maybe I should explain how I got here." So we flash back to something less exciting than a foot chase, namely her trying and mostly failing to set up her own detective agency. The reason for her failure: she's female (and young). In this version of London, there's diversity and no racism, but women (more historically accurately) lack many rights we take for granted now.

Enola's only client is Bessie Chapman (Serrana Su-Ling Bliss) who is about ten years old(?), poor, and attempts to pay Enola a couple pennies (which Enola refuses). Bessie's "sister" (another match girl) has gone missing. Ironically, after I'd watched the movie I found the movie's tie-in to the 1888 Matchgirls' Strike more interesting than the movie itself ...

I loved that they emphasized that everyone needs help sometimes, and no one should try to do everything on their own. This was stated by Enola's mother Eudoria (Helena Bonham Carter) and was a dig at her son Sherlock's isolation across the entire Conan-Doyle canon, but was targeted at Enola - and got Enola to reach out and start to build bridges. And even help her older brother to start to do so too.

The movie is glossy, well constructed, and mildly entertaining. I still don't like Enola talking to the camera - it's the smugness and self-awareness that bothers me. Again, okay for a Deadpool comedy, not so hot for a Sherlock-Holmes-adjacent mystery. And the whole thing is too twee, too conveniently fantasy. I imagine there'll be a third installment, I'm less certain I'll return for it.

2023, dir. Harry Bradbeer. With Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill, David Thewlis, Helena Bonham Carter, Louis Partridge, Adeel Akhtar, Susie Wokoma, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Hannah Dodd, Abbie Hern, Gabriel Tierney, Tim McMullan.

Enter the Warrior's Gate

Our hero Jack (Uriah Shelton) is a bullied teen who's very good at video games. His boss at a Chinese antique store gives him a large antique pot as a gift, which results in a warrior (Mark Chao) from ancient (and magical) China appearing to recruit him (under his video-gaming name "The Black Knight") to defend the Empress-to-be (Ni Ni) from the evil "Arun the Cruel" (Dave Bautista). Adventures and life lessons follow, with an attempt at mixing action and comedy.

I have to admit that when I saw this on Netflix and started watching it, I thought I was re-watching "The Forbidden Kingdom" since I'd forgotten the title - and it took a surprisingly long time to realize that I wasn't because the plots are so similar. In "Forbidden Kingdom" Michael Angarano is a bullied teen who goes back in time to an ancient, magical China. In both cases, our heroes are ill-prepared to actually be heroes, and are aided by someone played by the same person who played the store owner that sent them back. Both show us a China that has heroes, but that really needs a white dude to save it.

The movie has no new ideas. Not that that's uncommon, but this one shows its plagiarism more blatantly than most, the most obvious example after lifting the plot line from "Forbidden Kingdom" being our hero teaching the overly formal warrior and Empress-to-be to loosen up and dance.

No one is winning an Academy Award for this one, but it was funny once again (I watched "Bushwick" recently) to see the former wrestler Dave Bautista being the best actor in a movie.

2016, dir. Matthias Hoene. With Uriah Shelton, Mark Chao, Ni Ni, Dave Bautista, Francis Ng, Sienna Guillory, Ron Smoorenburg, David Torok, Dakota Daulby.

Epic

The title is something of an overstatement if you think first of Gilgamesh or World War II, but if you think first of the expression of pleasure then you're good. This is a lot of fun.

Our heroine Mary Katherine ("I go by M.K. now, Dad," voiced by Amanda Seyfried), moves in with her father (Jason Sudeikis) in the country - it was unclear to me if her mother had died, but that's how I read it. Meeting her father again after many years she is thoroughly unimpressed: he's obsessed with finding the "Leafmen," 50 mm tall humans who he claims live in the forest. MK decides to leave, but is transformed to the size of the Leafmen where she has to take up the battle of good vs. evil.

The story is one you've heard many times before - coming of age, reconciliation with family - but the animation is lovely, the characters charming, and the jokes very funny. There's even a bit of tragedy to give some weight to the story (without traumatizing the children). Recommended.

The 3D BluRay version is the poorest of the three 3DBR productions I've seen as I write (the others being "Finding Nemo" and "The Wolverine"). With fast motion of the characters or the camera (there's a fair bit of both), the 3D effect goes a bit sideways. On steadier shots it's great. They give you full 3D when the video is paused: very cool. But I prefer this movie in 2D.

2013, dir. Chris Wedge. With Amanda Seyfried, Colin Farrell, Josh Hutcherson, Christoph Waltz, Aziz Ansari, Chris O'Dowd, Beyoncé Knowles, Pitbull, Jason Sudeikis, Steven Tyler.

Epic Engineering Failures and the Lessons They Teach

"The Great Courses" is a series of courses combining lessons on DVDs and course notes in a book. They are relatively expensive (generally selling for $200+US per course) so you're more likely to find them at schools and large libraries than in private ownership. I've previously borrowed at least three others - "Buddhism," "Stoicism," and "Cooking Across the Ages" - and found them to be uniformly excellent, but in each case I was defeated by the time commitment. The DVD lectures run from 11 to 18 hours worth of material depending on the package. But this time I was determined to finish the course as it's a subject close to my heart: engineering. (In a former life I received a Bachelors of Mechanical Engineering, and it influences my thinking to this day.)

The course is presented by Stephen Ressler, and the blurb about him goes like this: "Stephen Ressler is a Professor Emeritus from the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he taught for 21 years. He holds an MS and PhD in Civil Engineering from Lehigh University and is a registered professional engineer in Virginia. He served in a variety of military engineering assignments in the United States, Europe, and Central Asia. He has focused his scholarly and professional work on engineering education and has won numerous national awards for engineering education and service." What's genuinely great about "The Great Courses" is that they seem to select their presenters more for their skills in presenting than their credentials in their field (which isn't a knock on Ressler - he certainly seems well qualified) - the previous courses I watched also had excellent presenters, and this has made me willing to attempt pretty much any of their courses.

I should start my review of this specific course by saying that, while he does present a couple of formulas, they're very basic and advanced math and knowledge are NOT required to follow the discussion. He uses multiplication and division, not differential equations. He also uses simple but very effective visual aids to model some of the effects involved. Here's a list of all the episodes (each in the 30-40 minute range):

  • Learning from Failure: Three Vignettes
  • Flawed Design Concept: The Dee Bridge (Wikipedia)
  • Wind Loading: The Tay Bridge (Wikipedia)
  • Rainwater Loading: Kemper Arena (Wikipedia)
  • Earthquake Loading: The Cypress Structure (Wikipedia)
  • Vehicle Collisions: Land and Sea (Wikipedia)
  • Blast Loading: The Murrah Federal Building (Wikipedia)
  • Structural Response: The Hyatt Regency Walkways (Wikipedia)
  • Bridge Aerodynamics: Galloping Gertie (Wikipedia)
  • Dynamic Response: London's Wobbly Bridge (Wikipedia)
  • Dynamic Response: Boston's Plywood Palace (Wikipedia)
  • Stone Masonry: Beauvais Cathedral (Wikipedia)
  • Experiment in Iron: The Ashtabula Bridge (Wikipedia)
  • Shear in Concrete: The FIU Pedestrian Bridge (Wikipedia)
  • House of Cards: Ronan Point (Wikipedia)
  • Brittle Fracture: The Great Molasses Flood (Wikipedia)
  • Stress Corrosion: The Silver Bridge (Wikipedia)
  • Soil and Settlement: The Leaning Tower of Pisa (Wikipedia)
  • Water in Soil: Teton Dam and Niigata (Wikipedia)
  • Construction Engineering: Two Failed Lifts(Senior Road Tower, L'Ambiance Plaza)
  • Maitenanance Malpractice: The Mianus River Bridge (Wikipedia)
  • Decision-Making: The Challenger Disaster (Wikipedia)
  • Nuclear Meltdown: Chernobyl (Wikipedia)
  • Blowout: Deepwater Horizon (Wikipedia)
  • Corporate Culture: The Boeing 737 MAX (Wikipedia)
  • Learning from Failure: Hurricane Katrina (Wikipedia)

Most people will recognize several of these. One of the most memorable for me (perhaps because I'm an engineer) is "Galloping Gertie," more formally known as "The Tacoma Narrows Bridge." Once you've seen a video of a several hundred meter bridge flapping in the breeze like a piece of laundry ... you're unlikely to forget it. (YouTube) Many of these are very old (the Beauvais Cathedral collapse occurred in 1284), the Leaning Tower (construction started in the 12th century, but preventing it falling over is a problem that is still being attended to today), and Galloping Gertie self-destructed in 1940. But the most recent occurrence on the list is the FIU Pedestrian Bridge, which happened in 2018 and killed six people while seriously injuring six more - recent enough to remain vivid in the mind of Floridians, I'm sure.

The last disk (Challenger, Chernobyl, Deepwater Horizon, the 737 MAX, and Hurricane Katrina) really emphasizes a point he'd been making throughout the series: new technology brings new gains, but also new and unexpected failure modes. But it also brought home that new technology is allowing us to threaten ever larger numbers of people through a single failure. Another aspect of the final disk was that most of the failures were systemic and high level corporate rather than a specific individual failure. For example, the failures in New Orleans were mostly driven by commercial interests reducing the effectiveness of the engineered solutions of floodwater control. I was personally simultaneously somewhat less interested in these and more horrified by them: as an engineer myself, I mostly wanted to see design and implementation failures. Not that they were wrong to include these examples, I'm just saying my personal interests were more focussed on the practical details than the administrative ones.

A very odd side-note: this series also demonstrates the remarkable effect Jackie Chan has had on movies. I'm not joking. Jackie Chan may not have been the first person to put out-takes in the closing credits, but he popularized it, and it's spread throughout the industry since. You know you've reached peak saturation when a set of educational DVDs includes out-takes in their closing credits. For example, Ressler saying "The Leaning Tower of Pizza ... <laugh> ... I think I need lunch." And practical examples that went wrong on set. Wonderful.

Very long, but completely worth it. Very well done on every level, and highly recommended if you have any interest in the subjects presented.

2022. With Stephen Ressler.

The Equalizer

Denzel Washington plays Robert McCall, who initially appears to be nothing more than a Home Mart (essentially an even bigger version of Home Depot) employee with a very tidy apartment and an inability to sleep at night. That inability leads him to an all-night diner, where he comes to know a very young Russian prostitute (Chloë Grace Moretz). When she's severely beaten for wanting to get out of her enforced lifestyle, he calls on his old skill-set to take care of the city's crime lords. His main enemy is the Russian enforcer "Teddy," played by Marton Csokas. Loosely based on the 1980s TV series of the same name.

The movie is meticulously produced and fairly well acted. Unfortunately the plot is dull as dishwater and completely predictable. Hugely disappointing from the director of "Training Day" - not that he's been exactly consistent.

SPOILER WARNING: Although I was wrong in one aspect of my predictions: I assumed (and hoped, as it would be appropriate and he seemed quite willing) he would die at the end. You know, one guy against ten or so of the Russian mob's best killers? Hardly a scratch on him, and placing an ad online for people in need of help so that there can be a sequel.

2014, dir. Antoine Fuqua. With Denzel Washington, Marton Csokas, Chloë Grace Moretz, Melissa Leo, Bill Pullman, Johnny Skourtis, Haley Bennett, David Harbour, David Meunier.

The Equalizer 3

The movie opens in a Sicilian winery, where we see dozens of bodies. This is followed by Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) killing even more people. In a rare miscalculation, he's injured as he leaves. He drives away, and eventually pulls over and passes out from shock. He's nursed back to health by a doctor in a small town on the Amalfi Coast.

I'm not sure where on the Amalfi Coast this was set, but the town is absolutely gorgeous. It's referred to as "Altamonte," but Google Maps indicates there's no such place on the Amalfi Coast (although there is a town of that name well inland). I suspect that tourism to the Amalfi Coast has surged since the release of this movie - it's incredibly beautiful.

As McCall recovers, he falls in love with the place and its people. But all is not well: the Camorra (think "Mafia" and you'll be close enough) is trying to get its claws into the town. You'll be shocked to hear that McCall decides to become the town's defender.

There's not much more you need to know about the movie: it's very violent as Robert McCall does what he does - with gorgeous scenery and occasional mild ruminations on doing good deeds by killing people. This is - surprisingly, given that this is a threequel - the best reviewed of the "Equalizer" movies. And I'm inclined to agree. It's not that it breaks the bonds of the formula or anything, but it's prettier and a bit better constructed than its predecessors.

2023, dir. Antoine Fuqua. With Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, Eugenio Mastrandrea, David Denman, Gaia Scodellaro, Remo Girone, Andrea Sarduzio, Andrea Dodero

Equilibrium

Low budget science fiction morality tale. A couple people said it was "like 'The Matrix.'" I wouldn't say so: it had several gun battles and it's SF, but the similarities end there. Set in a world where everyone takes drugs to prevent emotions and it's a crime to feel anything. I'm interested to see the director went on to do "Ultraviolet:" that makes a lot of sense.

2002, dir. Kurt Wimmer. With Christian Bale, Taye Diggs, Emily Watson, William Fichtner.

Ernest & Célestine

Célestine is a mouse who lives underground with the other mice. But unlike the other mice, she's not afraid of the bears who live up above. When she's trapped above on an expedition to collect teeth (mice like bear teeth), she meets the bear Ernest and they slowly become friends.

The animation has the look of hand-drawn watercolours, which is the media Célestine herself works in whenever she gets a chance, and it looks pretty good. The ideas are reasonably clever and the dialogue quite funny: it's a fun movie.

2012, dir. Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar and Benjamin Renner.

Escaflowne

Maybe this would have made sense if I'd seen the TV series ... although the notes claim it's a "retelling" rather than an extension. It made sense in places, except for the parts that didn't. Like why a 16 year old Japanese school girl is suddenly in an alternative universe, and a goddess. Or why everyone in the alternative universe is at war, or why there are enormous suits of armour that can magically be called up to wreak havoc on the landscape. Very nice animation in places, but the story doesn't make much sense.

2000, dir. Kazuki Akane, Yoshiyuki Takei.

Escape From New York

A 1981 near future science fiction action film written and directed by John Carpenter, which should tell you all you need to know.

It's 1997 and Manhattan Island has been converted into a maximum security prison. Going to the island is one-way, and ex-Special Forces soldier Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) is about to make that trip for his part in a robbery. But Air Force One is hijacked and crashes in Manhattan. Plissken is told to go get the President (Donald Pleasence), who is still alive - and he's given a medically implanted death sentence if he's not back in 24 hours. He finds out that the President is a hostage of the Duke of New York (Isaac Hayes), and has to get the President and try to fight his way back out.

Russell had been known prior to this as a staple in Walt Disney's films: this was a huge departure for him, even if it was something as cheesy as Carpenter. But he's remarkably good: Plissken is a gritty and not particularly likeable character who doesn't look or sound like anything Russell had done before, and presaged his more interesting roles through the 80s and 90s. Not that this is a good film: it's at best mildly amusing.

1981, dir. John Carpenter. With Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence, Isaac Hayes, Harry Dean Stanton, Adrienne Barbeau, Frank Doubleday.

Escape Plan

Two aging action heroes of the Eighties get together to make one more (I'd love to say "one last," but I very much doubt either of them will quit) blow-em-up action movie together. Sylvester Stallone plays a penal system expert whose means of employment is getting incarcerated in high security jails and breaking out. He's offered an extremely lucrative but non-standard contract that his two trusted advisors want him to decline, but his boss wants the money and his ego says he can do it, so off he goes. Things go sideways immediately, and he finds that the contact he expected on the inside isn't there - and he's in this brutal private enterprise jail for the long haul. Inside, he meets Arnold Schwarzenegger, and they work together on an escape.

Not as bad as I expected and mostly fairly enjoyable, I would have felt better about it if Schwarzenegger hadn't insisted on recreating the action movies of his youth near the end by picking up a massive tripod-mounted machine gun in his hands and slinging it around like it weighed the same as a guitar. Still, a fairly good diversion for fans of the genre.

2013, dir. Mikael Håfström. With Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Caviezel, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Vinnie Jones, Vincent D'Onofrio, Amy Ryan.

Escape to Witch Mountain

Two young children (Kim Richards and Ike Eisenmann) are brought to an orphanage, where it's quickly established to the audience that they have psychic powers - telekinesis, telepathy, premonitions. In fact it's a premonition that gets them in trouble after they save the life of Deranian (Donald Pleasence) who then decides their powers could be used to make his employer (Aristotle Bolt, played by Ray Milland) wealthy. Deranian adopts the children under false pretences, and they decide to escape. They're assisted by their powers, several animals they talk to telepathically, and the owner of a Winnebago (Eddie Albert) while being chased by Bolt, Deranian, and a bunch of other unpleasant people.

I watched this mostly to see how it compared to the 2009 remake. The children are similar, as are the origins of their powers and their pursuit by unpleasant people, but that's where the similarities end. This one is very Disney 70s. Not very good, although better than the remake.

1975, dir. John Hough. With Kim Richards, Ike Eisenmann, Eddie Albert, Donald Pleasence, Ray Milland.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Weird, weird movie. Very good though. Takes you a while to figure out what the hell is going on, but once you do it's fascinating. Jim Carrey plays a man who decides to get his last relationship erased from his memory. During the process he has second thoughts and tries to fight it off. Pay attention and you'll be rewarded.

2004 dir. Michel Gondry. With Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Elijah Wood, Kirsten Dunst, Tom Wilkinson.

Eternals

The Eternals, according to Chloé Zhao's movie, are a group of ten super-powered beings who were sent to Earth around 5000 BC to defend the planet against "the Deviants" - and nothing but, so they didn't help fight Thanos (yup, this is Marvel). We see bits and pieces of their long history on Earth, and their reunion in the present. And we see how they bicker.

This is a long movie, but I can give you a short review: ten main characters - plus the god-like Celestial who sent them, and the Deviants as their enemy, and one boyfriend whose name says he's going to be another superhero - is way too many main characters. It's pretty, but too bloated and there's still not enough time to get to know any of the characters. Think of "The Avengers," one of Marvel's most successful movies: six heroes, four of whom (Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk) had already been introduced in their own movies, and a lead enemy (Loki) who had been introduced in one of those other movies (Thor). We knew the characters already. Every single character in "Eternals" is new, and there's twice as many of them as in "The Avengers."

Did I mention that they bicker? We're supposed to see them as a family, with all the tensions and disagreements of 7000 years of living together - which may be why they've been apart the last 500 years. But when they get together again, it all comes back. Several of the characters are quite annoying - this appears to have been an attempt to make the cast of too many characters distinct from each other, but mostly it makes you not care about them.

I've been thinking about other movies with a large number of main characters, and a very successful one (and a personal favourite) that came to mind was "Ocean's Eleven." How did it succeed in introducing eleven new main characters - plus the bad guy and the girlfriend? That's easy: it was okay with some characters being caricatures. Remember the acrobat guy? He's got maybe two speaking lines. And Saul - he's basically "weird accents and heart attack waiting to happen." Or the brothers - they're just a running gag. The movie concentrated on George Clooney's "Danny Ocean," Brad Pitt's "Rusty Ryan," and - to a lesser extent - on Julia Roberts and Matt Damon. "Eternals" wasn't willing to cut those corners for itself ... so it happened anyway, in a much more messy fashion.


And then there's the accents thing. When they arrive on Earth, they all speak modern English. One of them has a strong Irish accent ("Druig"/Barry Keoghan), one has a strong Scottish accent ("Ikaris"/Richard Madden), and one has a Hispanic accent ("Ajak"/Salma Hayek). And 7000 years later, they all still have the exact same accents. This seems ... improbable. It's a small thing compared to the film's other problems, but I found it annoying.

2021, dir. Chloé Zhao. With Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Lia McHugh, Brian Tyree Henry, Lauren Ridloff, Barry Keoghan, Don Lee, Harish Patel, Kit Harington, Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie, Bill Skarsgård, David Kaye, Haaz Sleiman, Esai Daniel Cross.

Eureka - Season 1

"Eureka" was a TV series by the Sci-Fi Channel that ran from 2006 to 2012. The show's primary conceit had U.S. Marshal Jack Carter (Colin Ferguson) hired to work as the Sheriff of the town of Eureka - which is populated by geniuses who mostly work for a huge contractor to the U.S. Department of Defense. The first episode includes a "tachyon accelerator" which starts ripping apart the fabric of time in the town. The problems are never small or realistic: full human clones, large scale behaviour modification, super-fast healing, an entirely human-looking AI, etc. And yet the problem is often solved by Sheriff Carter's understanding of people or his intuition, even though he's not a genius.

Other major characters are Allison Blake (Salli Richardson) as a law officer with the D.O.D. who's also a romantic interest for Carter, Henry Deacon (Joe Morton) - the town mechanic who is a genius at pretty much everything, Zoe Carter (Jordan Hinson) - Sheriff Carter's delinquent daughter, Nathan Stark (Ed Quinn) as the manager of the government contractor, Jo Lupo (Erica Cerra) as the deputy sheriff, and Douglas Fargo (Neil Grayston) as the semi-comedic assistant to Nathan Stark. And let's not forget S.A.R.A.H., the house the Carters are given by Fargo: it's an AI and also a character in the show.

It's a very silly but funny and enjoyable show.

2006. With Colin Ferguson, Salli Richardson, Joe Morton, Jordon Hinson, Ed Quinn, Erica Cerra, Debrah Farentino, Neil Grayston.

Eureka - Season 2

For the most part, "Eureka" continues to be funny and absurd. But this season I felt there were a couple of off notes ...

In their pursuit of a long-running adversary, the show-runners have created an "artifact" (which is itself a problem - both for the characters and the structure of the show) and a shadowy conspiracy that wants access to the artifact. Last season ended with a death related to the artifact - and that's driven Henry's (Joe Morton) behaviour all season.

In pursuit of comedy, we have Carter (Colin Ferguson) claiming he goes to the gym all the time. We're supposed to believe that he doesn't, as they use his ineptness in the gym as "comedy." But there are several problems with this. We've seen Carter without a shirt before, and it's clear he goes to the gym regularly. Another problem is that he's lying to try to make himself look good. While they occasionally show him trying to pretend he understands advanced scientific concepts to avoid looking foolish, lying hasn't generally been his style. Finally, the scene wasn't actually funny. If you can't make a scene funny without warping a character's behaviour to suit the comedy, you're really doing something wrong.

In the final couple episodes, several of the main characters all betray each other (all with the best of intentions), except for Carter who is of course standing in the middle trying to figure it out. It struck me as sloppy and more than usually absurd (which is saying something for this series).

2007. With Colin Ferguson, Salli Richardson, Joe Morton, Jordon Hinson, Ed Quinn, Erica Cerra, Debrah Farentino, Neil Grayston.

Everybody Wants Some!!

Should perhaps have been called "Mi amigos de fuckwittery," as the protagonist refers to his new college friends at the end of the movie. The movie shows us the first three days of life on a college baseball team in 1980 - with the closing credits rolling just as our protagonist and one of his buddies close their eyes to sleep in their very first lecture.

Blake Jenner is Jake, a pitcher just arriving at university to join the baseball team. His introduction to his new house is to be ordered to turn off the water supply filling the water bed on the second floor that looks like it's just about to drop through to the first floor. What follows is most of two hours of macho athletic posturing, absurd dialogue, cruising for sex, and even a little baseball. Glen Powell as "Finn" got many of the best lines: very intelligent, he supplies a running commentary about the social foibles of his teammates and everyone around them. He's a charming guy who will do anything to get laid (one of his less attractive characteristics). Happily, Jake is a smart guy too - brighter than your average ball player and a charming guy to spend a couple hours with.

Evokes its time period very well, and has a very good soundtrack. Very funny, although about as deep as a puddle.

2016, dir. Richard Linklater. With Blake Jenner, Zoey Deutch, Ryan Guzman, Tyler Hoechlin, Glen Powell, Wyatt Russell, Temple Baker, J. Quinton Johnson, Will Brittain, Juston Street, Forrest Vickery.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

I've seen some weird movies in my life. I have. "Eraserhead," "Paprika," Jodorowsky's "The Dance of Reality," and "Rubber" to name a few. But this - this easily ranks in the top five, and may just have taken the number one spot. Imagine if "Amelie" took LSD and amphetamines at the same time ...

The incomparable Michelle Yeoh is Evelyn Quan Wang, a stressed out Chinese-American woman running a laundromat with her goofy and charming husband. Evelyn's demanding father (James Hong - it's always James Hong) has just arrived from Hong Kong, their business is being audited, their daughter is gay, it's Chinese New Year, and her husband may be divorcing her. Everything All at Once. And then she starts crossing the multiverse.

The movie is at its core about a woman struggling to both find herself and connect with her daughter. To that end, we're subjected to possibly the trippiest movie in the history of cinema as Evelyn tries to stay grounded and connect with her daughter. I gotta say ... I'm still processing this one.

This was directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the pair that brought us "Swiss Army Man." I thought that one was interesting, but not good (but it readily qualified for the "weird" list above). This is an order of magnitude better - while simultaneously making the very weird "Swiss Army Man" look sane and boring. Also filed under "very weird" is the lead pair of producers: Joe and Anthony Russo, the pair who directed the four biggest Marvel movies.

The second most important person in this movie is probably Ke Huy Quan as Evelyn's husband Waymond. Reading about him on Wikipedia is interesting: 'Quan played Short Round in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" (1984) and Data in "The Goonies" (1985). ... Quan stopped acting due to a lack of opportunity in the late 1990s ... He returned to acting as Waymond Wang in the film "Everything Everywhere All at Once" (2022), a role for which he received critical acclaim.' And well he should have: he was wonderful.

Movie references abound: the most obvious one - named out loud - is "Ratatouille," but close on its heels is a blatant visual reference to "The Matrix" (actually "Reloaded," but who's counting?). I have to admit I needed Wikipedia's assistance to notice that the version of Evelyn that's a martial arts movie star was a tribute to Wong Kar-wai (one critic referenced the "exquisite romantic yearning," which is perfect) and as soon as I read that I thought "Oh hell yes!" I suspect there are more references I'll spot on a rewatch.

2022, dir. Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert. With Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, Jenny Slate, Harry Shum Jr., James Hong, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tallie Medel.

Everything is Illuminated

This was Liev Schreiber's debut as both a director and screenwriter. Elijah Wood plays Jonathan Safran Foer, the main character in the novel the movie is based on and the name of the novelist himself. Foer collects things - family things. He puts them in ziplock bags and sticks them on his big wall. We meet him as he sets out for the Ukraine to find the woman who rescued him from the Nazi extermination of their Jewish village. He has purchased the services of a translator and driver, who both turn out to be eccentric in the extreme - their several days together turn out to be "illuminating" for all of them.

The movie has a number of really beautiful moments, and all of the actors are good, but the movie frequently staggered on the edge of surreality and/or magic realism. I thought at first what they needed was to get more surreal, but the extras show that they had tried that, and they were right to avoid it. Perhaps what they needed was to always walk the line instead of straying back into mundane reality occasionally. Definitely an interesting movie.

2005, dir. Liev Schreiber. With Elijah Wood, Eugene Hütz, Boris Leskin, Laryssa Lauret.

Ex Machina

Domhnall Gleeson plays Caleb Smith, a programmer who's just won a contest to go spend a week with the reclusive founder of the very successful software company Caleb works for. Oscar Isaac plays the manipulative and extremely intelligent company founder Nathan Bateman. Their initial encounters are uncomfortable, even creepy. They're isolated a long way from anywhere on Nathan's huge estate, the only other person a Japanese woman who speaks no English at all - "so I can talk trade secrets around her and not worry." But there's one more ... person. That's Ava (Alicia Vikander), the artificial intelligence in a human-like body on the other side of a pane of glass that Caleb finds out he's here to test.

The movie moves slowly and there's almost no action, but this is a movie to give your full attention to: the writing is fantastic and brain-twisting ideas about intelligence and behaviour come thick and fast. You will NOT be bored. This is the polar opposite of "Million Dollar Arm" which I watched yesterday: while charming, it required no thought whatsoever and in fact actively encouraged you to believe their views on how people should behave and change. This one wants you to think. It seems they've decided that AI isn't a very good thing, but the movie encourages you to reach your own conclusions. This is what Science Fiction should be: superbly done and incredibly thought-provoking.

2015, dir. Alex Garland. With Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander, Oscar Isaac, Sonoya Mizuno.

Executive Suite

The movie starts with a voice-over about how the people at the tops of those business buildings you see in major cities are exactly like us normal people: "you'd be surprised" the voice says. The movie then shows us one of those executives - but first person POV, which is very rare in movies ("Hardcore Henry" is extremely unusual even today, and "Executive Suite" was shot in 1954!) ... who promptly dies of a stroke. It then shows the political manoeuvrings that follow after his death, the cult of personality he'd built around himself, and finally emphasizes how different, unusual, special, even exalted a man must be to be the CEO of a company. Not exactly "just like us."

The writing is quite good, and a lot of thought went into the complexity, political wrangling and personal problems of all the people fighting at the top of the heap. And most of the acting (except possibly Barbara Stanwyck) was quite good too. Which made most of the movie reasonably enjoyable. But I guessed - correctly - that the good guys would win, and the whole "not actually just the same as us" thing left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth as they exalted the new CEO. It's also a bit dry - you get their passion for the business (or for money in some cases), but it doesn't quite get transmitted to us, the audience, in the way it does in the best movies. Not a great movie, won't consider rewatching it.

1954, Robert Wise. With William Holden, Fredric March, Walter Pidgeon, Paul Douglas, Barbara Stanwyck, Louis Calhern, Dean Jagger, Nina Foch, Shelley Winters, June Allyson.

eXistenZ

A mental exercise in keeping track of layers of deception, but don't forget the pounds and pounds of animal internals and the penetration. I found the repeated and mostly unrelated switchbacks made the movie less and less involving and ultimately I just didn't care anymore. And of course it was completely disgusting, but then it's David Cronenberg. It doesn't matter if it was meant as a commentary on the dangers of video games, bioengineering, or both.

1999, dir. David Cronenberg. With Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jude Law, Ian Holm, Willem Dafoe, Don McKellar, Sarah Polley.

The Expanse, Season 1

A 10 episode first season produced by the Syfy Channel, based on the novels of James A. Corey (who turns out to be a pseudonym for Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck). The series is set two hundred years in the future (according to Wikipedia - I guess I wasn't paying attention), and humans have populated most of the Solar System. But tensions are running high between Earth, Mars, and the Belt. Not that this is anything new: Corey is just using the politics of Colonialism to create a higher tech political drama. Our main characters are Earth politician Chrisjen Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo), a charming lady who will betray or torture anyone if she thinks it will prevent a war, Josephus Miller (Thomas Jane), a corrupt drunken Belter police detective slowly finding purpose, James Holden (Steven Strait), an intelligent but responsibility-avoiding Earther who works as an ice miner in the Belt, and Naomi Nagata (Dominique Tipper) who is Holden's very sharp Belter crew mate.

One of the first things that happens is that the mining ship Holden and Nagata are on is blown up while they're out on a rescue mission ... but the attacking ship doesn't blow up their shuttle. Why not takes several episodes to clear up. At the same time, Miller has been assigned to find Julie Mao (Florence Faivre) - a job that starts to straighten him out. She was flying on the ship Scopuli, which is the one that Holden and Nagata were trying to rescue when their ship was blown.

The characters are exceptionally good. They could be accused of being too broad, but I was amazed at how distinctive they were without (generally) being over-the-top. The story is ... well, just politics. It's quite well done, but this could as easily have been set as some form of colonial war between Europe, the U.S., and Africa (had such a thing happened). But they're also mostly getting the science fiction elements right (discussing military threats in the form of approaching ships that are two days away, flipping ships to thrust in the other direction ... are we finally going to lose swooping in space forever?!). An absorbing if somewhat dark piece of work, I'll definitely check out the second season when I get the chance.

2023-05: A second watch of this season has brought me to thinking that this is very nearly Babylon 5-level universe-building. I had forgotten my jump to compare this to the politics of Colonialism ... and I wasn't wrong, but with excellent characters, real physics, and some great universe-building, this is a really engrossing series.

2015. With Thomas Jane, Steven Strait, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Dominique Tipper, Cas Anvar, Wes Chatham, Florence Faivre, Shawn Doyle.

The Expanse, Season 2

I really enjoyed the first season of "The Expanse", and leapt at the opportunity to watch the second season when it showed up at the library. This season was 13 episodes as opposed to the previous season's ten episodes.

I thought in the first season that the characters were well done. But now that we're spending more time with them, I'm finding that the writers (the book authors Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck are also the TV screenwriters) concentrate too heavily on two or three traits in each of these people - and the actors are good but not great, which would be required to bring broadly written characters to life. So while each of the characters is very distinctive, they're also relatively shallow. It's better than some author's work, but lacks some complexity that you see in the best shows.

Having said that ... what they're handling even better than last season is the ideas and the sweeping politics of the entire Solar System edging toward war. The action is intense, the effects are very good, and the politics are well played.

I gave them credit for good science in my review of the first season, but I want to say it again: damn it's good to see space flight handled right. I have to deduct a point for having the proto-creature making noises in vacuum, but I think we can blame that on Hollywood. They even got spacing right (ejecting someone without a spacesuit into space - not that I wanted to see that): no bleeding, no instant freeze, just ... you can't breathe. For added scientific accuracy, Adam Savage (of "Mythbusters" fame) has a small but speaking role in the last episode.

The whole series is a pleasure to watch.

2017. With Thomas Jane, Steven Strait, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Dominique Tipper, Cas Anvar, Wes Chatham, Florence Faivre, Shawn Doyle, Frankie Adams, Nick E. Tarabay, Chad Coleman, Terry Chen.

The Expanse, Season 3

I wrote a book review of C. L. Polk's Witchmark a couple days ago that said "if I can predict where you're going with significant elements of the plot, you're doing it wrong." That book was "doing it wrong," but "The Expanse" is not - it went in weird, cool, and fascinating directions I never even guessed at in this season (as it has previously). It held my interest.

It's not perfect, there are problems. Steven Strait continues to lead the cast as James Holden, the nominal captain of "The Rocinante." He is also - starting this season - a producer. Which means he's putting his money where his mouth is ... but he's also a poor actor. Happily, he's the worst of the cast. The characters are well drawn, but the series' greatest strength is what it's always been: it's solar-system-spanning politics and the sheer scale of the narrative. And its ability to surprise me - without disappointing.

I look forward to the next season.

2018. With Steven Strait, Cas Anvar, Dominique Tipper, Wes Chatham, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Thomas Jane, Frankie Adams, Florence Faivre, Chad L. Coleman, Cara Gee, Elizabeth Mitchell, David Strathairn, Terry Chen, Nick E. Tarabay, Nadine Nicole, François Chau, Martin Roach.

The Expanse, Season 4

The first three seasons of "The Expanse" were made by SyFy, which then cancelled the show. Happily, Amazon Prime Video picked it up for this, the fourth season. This season consists of ten episodes of about 50 minutes each.

"The Rings" opened in the last season offer instantaneous travel to planets all over the galaxy. Belters rush through to start mining a planet they name Ilus. Avasarala (Shohreh Aghdashloo), the Secretary General(?) of the UN, sets up a blockade to try to prevent further settlement until more investigation is done, and sends Holden (Steven Strait, whose acting skills haven't improved much) to mediate between the Belters and Earthers on Ilus.

As I've mentioned previously, what the series has been doing superbly is interplanetary politics. Where this season falls down is in the five or so middle episodes on Ilus, where Holden tries to settle the bickering while the whole planet is violently shaken by reawakening ancient technology. That whole sequence felt like frying pan -> fire -> new frying pan -> new fire ... rinse and repeat. It was a struggle to get through. It's not the only thing going on (politics on Earth, terrorists in the Belt, intrigue on Mars), and they got out of it in the last couple episodes, but that large middle block of annoying-adventure-story made this the worst of the seasons so far.

If there are more seasons, I'll continue to watch - but my brother felt the third season was a good stopping point and he may have been correct.

Update: I had a revelation a couple days after writing this review: this is the Western. Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, the authors of the original books that "The Expanse" is based on, are well known for writing the books in the series in various styles. The first, with Thomas Jane sleuthing after a doomed young woman, was done in the style of Noir Detective fiction. I haven't concerned myself with this propensity much while I was loving the series, but in trying to figure out what was wrong with this one ... frontier planet + frontier justice = Western.

2019. With Steven Strait, Dominique Tipper, Cas Anvar, Wes Chatham, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Frankie Adams, Cara Gee, Thomas Jane, David Strathairn, Burn Gorman, Lyndie Greenwood, Rosa Gilmore, Jess Salgueiro, Lily Gao, Paul Schulze.

The Expendables

There were a lot of complaints about this movie online, about it being "old school" or having too many characters. Certainly it's for fans of stuff like "Die Hard" and "Lethal Weapon" - if you stick those in the DVD player for a bit of mindless fun occasionally, you'll enjoy this too. Yes, there are a lot of well known action stars, but they're drawn larger than life - how much time do you need to get to know their characters? Things blow up, moral compasses are rediscovered, the good guys win ... What, you expected high art? It's well done in the genre and I enjoyed it.

2010, dir. Sylvester Stallone. With Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, Eric Roberts, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, David Zayas, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The Expendables 2

Bigger and even stupider than the previous movie, and with more 80s matinee action stars. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis play larger roles, Chuck Norris shows up to help out the good guys (at age 72, the oldest of the crew - although a couple of the others, Sylvester Stallone included, are in their 60s), and Jean Claude Van Damme plays the lead villain (whose name is "Vilain"). Things blow up real good. I was surprised to find myself longing for Stallone's direction - it seems positively restrained compared to Simon West. There's plenty of action for fans of 80s action movies, but don't expect a lot of logic.

2012, dir. Simon West. With Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Yu Nan, Liam Hemsworth, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jet Li, Scott Adkins.

The Expendables 3

Continues almost exactly as the previous two movies have, but each iteration has a little less grace ... After one of his crew nearly dies, Barney (Sylvester Stallone) dumps the remainder of his team and gets a new one of younger mercenaries to fight Stonebanks (Mel Gibson), a former Expendable who is now a conscience-less gun runner. All irony about a mercenary judging a gun runner is completely ignored, because of course Barney has killed thousands of people only with the best of intentions. The new team and the old team eventually assemble for the finale and shit gets blown up.

The action is okay, but there's too much of it for it to carry much weight or have us worried about any of the main characters dying. The acting ranges from appalling (Stallone and Jason Statham yelling at each other when Barney breaks up the team is full-on laughable, as is most of Harrison Ford's screen time), to decent (Kelsey Grammer, Antonio Banderas), to disturbingly good/wasted-on-this movie. The latter is provided by Mel Gibson, who, hand-cuffed and in the hands of his enemies, is still genuinely frightening. It's not nearly enough to rescue this messy dud.

2014, dir. Patrick Hughes. With Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Mel Gibson, Wesley Snipes, Kelsey Grammer, Antonio Banderas, Kellan Lutz, Ronda Rousey, Glen Powell, Victor Ortiz, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Harrison Ford, Jet Li.

Explorers

I decided to watch "Explorers" because it was a well reviewed (77% on Rotten Tomatoes) science fiction movie (I like science fiction) very much of my generation that I'd totally missed.

The first half is a voyage of discovery for three young boys (Ethan Hawke, River Phoenix, Jason Presson) as the smartest of them builds electronics components from the dreams of one of the others. The device they create allows them to create an inertia-less flying machine, which they eventually find out can function as a spacecraft. The second half of the movie degenerates into a really bad variety comedy show with aliens. It would have seemed weak in 1985 - in 2015 it's jaw-droppingly awful.

It was interesting seeing the very young Hawke and Phoenix and the first half of the movie actually felt like it was headed somewhere interesting. But that doesn't redeem the awfulness.

1985, dir. Joe Dante. With Ethan Hawke, River Phoenix, Jason Presson, Amanda Peterson, James Cromwell, Dana Ivey, Robert Picardo, Dick Miller, Mary Kay Place.

Exploring the Deserts of the Earth

A documentary of a 900 day trip by motorcycle across nearly all of the deserts of the entire planet. Wallner is a very good cinematographer who produces some excellent footage, whether she's pointing the camera at people or landscapes. The 357 minute running time is broken up into 12 segments, two DVDs. If this were all deserts and nothing but, I might not have made it through: but it's broken up by the stories of their travels, which are occasionally quite fascinating. In Turkmenistan (? not sure it was that country, but one of the former Soviet republics) they were required to take two government watchers with them. The government watchers followed them into the dunes in a very old minivan, which got stuck. Over and over. Until Martin and Wallner hired two senior citizens in a very large truck to travel with them and periodically rescue the government watchers. Utterly bizarre.

2006, dir. Michael Martin, Elke Wallner. With Michael Martin, Elke Wallner, David Ingram.

Extraction

An Indian drug lord's son (Rudhraksh Jaiswal) is kidnapped by a Bangladeshi drug lord (Priyanshu Painyuli). Borderline suicidal Australian mercenary Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) is hired to "extract" the boy. Mayhem, bloodshed, and betrayal follow. The kid seems nice, but even if the extraction wasn't a double-cross, you're doing a drug lord a favour. And this movie is grim from beginning to end: it has zero sense of humour. You'd think that might be because it was trying to be realistic, but you'd be wrong: our lead good guy is a fucking superhero, hammered with abuse but keeps going like ... well, Thor, who Hemsworth plays in another franchise also led by the Russo Brothers.

The movie was directed by Sam Hargrave. The action scenes are endless, but aside from there being too much, they were effective. The writing and production are from Joe and Anthony Russo, the team that brought us the Marvel's "Avengers" series of movies. This is based on a graphic novel the Russos also had a hand in. Chris Hemsworth was also a producer. The acting is reasonably good for an all-out action movie.

I found this movie a miserable experience. Fun action movies the viewer wants to revisit. This ain't that. Good drama movies take you through an elegant story, teach you something. This ain't that either. This is just a punishing slog of brutality. Which Netflix viewers loved. According to Wikipedia, it "became the most-watched original film in Netflix's history, with over 99 million viewers during the first four weeks."

SPOILER ALERT: Stop reading if you plan to see the movie, etc. There's a sequel. Which also stars Hemsworth as Tyler Rake. Which negates the emotional and physical sacrifice he made in this movie, in which he DIED at the end. Or at least he should have died: he had multiple critical injuries, the last of which was a bullet shot through the neck. Followed by a fall off a bridge into what's probably among the world's most polluted rivers. Survival was only possible because of the financial pressures of sequelitis.

2020, dir. Sam Hargrave. With Chris Hemsworth, Rudhraksh Jaiswal, Randeep Hooda, Priyanshu Painyuli, Golshifteh Farahani, Pankaj Tripathi, David Harbour, Pankaj Tripathi, Shataf Figar, Suraj Rikame.


F

The F Word

Daniel Radcliffe plays Wallace, a medical school drop-out with a lousy job who lives with his sister (Jemima Rooper) in Toronto. His last relationship ended badly a bit more than a year ago. On one of his first social outings since then, he meets Chantry (Zoe Kazan) who seems wonderful ... but has a boyfriend. They become close friends while struggling with their attraction to each other.

The movie is based on the play Toothpaste and Cigars, and was released in "some countries" (per Wikipedia - I think they mean mostly the U.S.A.) as "What If." Director Michael Dowse's record is interesting: with two "FUBAR" movies, "It's All Gone Pete Tong" and "Goon" behind him, he's never done anything remotely resembling a romantic comedy before (and maybe that's a good thing - because he's definitely not playing to a formula).

It's a real pleasure to see Toronto being Toronto: it's my home town, it appears in hundreds of movies, but always as "New York," or "Chicago," or Anonymous, U.S.A. So for once it gets to play itself.

I've said this before, but of the "Harry Potter" crew, Radcliffe is definitely the most interesting: he's been getting out there and doing different projects (some of them distinctly weird, like "Horns" and "Swiss Army Man"), trying and stretching his acting skills. He's not (yet) a brilliant actor, but he's not bad at all and he's charming here. And Kazan - I hadn't seen her before. Also charming, as required. Again, possibly not a great actress (yet), but what a legacy she has: her grandfather was Elia Kazan, one of Hollywood's most famous directors, both her parents are well-established screenwriters, and she herself is also a screenwriter and playwright. A very entertaining story-in-a-story.

The final product is perhaps a little more scatological than I would have liked - mostly, but not exclusively, in the form of Wallace's friend Allan (Adam Driver), but clever and funny writing combined with such appealing leads produces one of the best rom coms I've seen in a long time.

2013, dir. Michael Dowse. With Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan, Megan Park, Adam Driver, Mackenzie Davis, Rafe Spall, Jemima Rooper.

F/X

Rollie Tyler (played by Bryan Brown, who the studio hoped would be a new matinee star ... didn't happen) is a special effects man for the movies, one of the best. He's approached by the Department of Justice, who convince him to stage a false public assassination of a crime boss so he can be put into a witness relocation program. The "assassination" goes beautifully, but suddenly he's on the run for actually committing the murder. He uses his skills to outwit his pursuers and trap the people who set him up.

Watching in 2010, the movie looks very "Eighties" - but it's clever and well done. For a movie that's primarily about special effects, continuity falls down rather badly in one or two places, but good performances and a solid mystery keep it interesting.

1986, dir. Robert Mandel. With Bryan Brown, Cliff De Young, Brian Dennehy, Jerry Orbach, Mason Adams, Diane Venora.

Fabricated City

Kwon Yoo (Ji Chang-wook) is introduced to us as "Captain," a video game player who is an excellent leader and takes extraordinary care of his team. This relatively short introduction is then followed by him finding a phone at the internet café and returning it to a woman's apartment. When he wakes up the next morning, he's arrested for the rape and murder of the phone owner. It's a successful frame-up, and he's quickly jailed for life.

I'll spare you the nasty details of prison, suffice to say that after a few months he manages to break out to try to clear his name. He does surprisingly well, but there's a national man-hunt for him - he only stays on the loose with the aid of his former video game team mates. He's very surprised (why?) that none of them look remotely like their avatars (perhaps because he's young and handsome himself, and does look like his avatar).

The movie is violent and nasty, and a little shaky about its tone: sometimes it thinks it's a comedy (but it never sticks with that for more than a couple minutes), sometimes action, sometimes revenge. Mostly it's a revenge flick, but its emphasis on loyalty within Kwon Yoo's team is kind of appealing (if not entirely believable). I enjoyed it, but I'm not sure it's going to work for many people with its combination of tonal inconsistency and nasty violence.

2017, dir. Park Kwang-hyun. With Ji Chang-wook, Shim Eun-kyung, Ahn Jae-hong, Oh Jung-se, Kim Sang-ho, Kim Ki-cheon, Kim Min-kyo.

Fahrenheit 451

Based on the Ray Bradbury novel, and showcasing not one but two wooden performances by Julie Christie (two different roles). Oskar Werner seems determined to save face for Christie by turning in a performance so wooden it comes with splinters. I was disappointed because the script was actually a good interpretation of Bradbury, although painfully Seventies.

1966, dir. François Truffaut. With Julie Christie, Oskar Werner, Cyril Cusack.

Fahrenheit 9/11

Michael Moore takes a look at the events surrounding September 11th, 2001. He looks closely at a lot of things that the news media have ignored. This is his best movie yet. The word "objectivity" simply isn't in his vocabulary, but, as biased as this is, it's deeply affecting, depressing, thought-provoking, and definitely worth seeing.

2004. dir. Michael Moore.

Failure to Launch

Rom com, based on Matthew McConaughey's character's failure to leave his parent's house by age 35. Sarah Jessica Parker is the woman hired to "simulate" a relationship with him and thus get him to leave. Has its moments, but a wide array of well-acted caricatures couldn't save bad dialogue and a bad plot. The biting animals got particularly tiresome.

2006, dir. Tom Dey. With Matthew McConaughey, Sarah Jessica Parker, Zooey Deschanel, Justin Bartha, Bradley Cooper, Terry Bradshaw, Kathy Bates.

The Fall

I have such mixed feelings about this movie I don't even know where to begin. Possibly the most visually stunning movie I've ever seen. Tarsem Singh is incredibly pretentious, billing himself simply as "Tarsem" as writer, director, and producer ... and the movie went straight down the tubes, with a worldwide gross of $3.6M (as of 2012-02): he's not using big name stars here, but the locations and cinematography were breath-taking and all over Asia, Europe and Africa. In fact, quite a few of the scenes recreated my visit to India - the Red Fort at Agra, the Taj Mahal, and Jantar Mantar. Plus the Charles Bridge in Prague and the Hagia Sophia, which I've also visited. (The movie went a lot more places besides - Wikipedia has an extensive list.) But he's removed the dirt, the crowds, any modern elements, and all distractions - the focus, simplicity, and beauty of the shots, every single one, is astounding.

But the story kind of sucks. It reminded me considerably of Terry Gilliam's "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" - with better cinematography and a poorer story. Sure, I could see what he was trying to do and it was a very grand vision, but the writing was sophomoric at best. Fans of cinematography must watch this, but possibly with the sound down. It's kind of heart-breaking to see such brilliant work in the service of such a poorly realized story.

2006, dir. Tarsem Singh. With Lee Pace, Catinca Untaru, Justine Waddell, Daniel Caltagirone, Marcus Wesley, Robin Smith, Jeetu Verma, Leo Bill, Julian Bleach.

The Family Man

Nicolas Cage plays a business man who turned his back on the love of his life 13 years ago. On Christmas day he finds himself living the life he would have had if he'd stuck with the woman of his dreams (Téa Leoni, who is luminous - as the harried mother of three, more beautiful here than any other woman ever put on film). Cage channels Jimmy Stewart pretty much the whole way, but despite reasonably good acting the silly premise causes the movie to fall apart.

2001, dir. Brett Ratner. With Nicolas Cage, Téa Leoni, Jeremy Piven, Don Cheadle.

Family Plot

Alfred Hitchcock's last movie. I understand it's better than the two prior, but this certainly isn't his best work. I also felt he didn't really have a feel for colour film, not the way he did for black and white.

Blanche Tyler (Barbara Harris) is a fake psychic, "contacting" the other world to fleece wealthy, gullible old women. When she's offered a very large sum of money to locate a long-lost nephew, she enlists her boyfriend George Lumley (Bruce Dern) to do a good chunk of the detective work. Unfortunately, the man they're looking for (William Devane) is a murderer and kidnapper, and doesn't want to be found.

There's a twisty plot and some decent dialogue. But I prefer my Hitchcock with a likeable character (Blanche and George aren't exactly charming), even better dialogue, and better cinematography. Not a bad film, but disappointing.

1976, dir. Alfred Hitchcock. With Karen Black, Bruce Dern, Barbara Harris, William Devane, Cathleen Nesbitt, Ed Lauter, Katherine Helmond, Nicholas Colasanto.

The Family Stone

Is it a comedy? A drama? It's a big, fat mess! Sarah Jessica Parker plays an incredibly uptight business woman brought into the midst of a laid-back, wacky, and slightly unforgiving family by her new boyfriend (Dermot Mulroney). In the script's scramble to cover every possible comedic, political, and dramatic note, a complete car wreck of a movie is assured. The romantic ... re-alignments that occur toward the end of the movie are far too pat, and too politely achieved. And yet there is some satisfaction in watching a large ensemble cast of very talented actors going to town with this mess of text and actually pulling out some moments both touching and funny.

2005, dir. Thomas Bezucha. With Sarah Jessica Parker, Claire Danes, Luke Wilson, Dermot Mulroney, Craig T. Nelson, Rachel McAdams, Diane Keaton, Tyrone Giordano.

Fanie Fourie's Lobola

I saw this on the library shelf and became curious about what "Lobola" meant. It turns out to be the price the groom pays the bride's family to be allowed to marry the bride - and the price is traditionally paid in cows. I watched this at least in part as an education in South African culture - and I certainly got that. I was also to learn that "Fanie" is in fact the male involved, not the woman as I'd expected. Fanie (played by Eduan van Jaarsveldt) is a decent guy, but also a bit of a goofball, a bit of a redneck - he lives and works in his mother's very large garage, creating car art with the help of the family employee Petrus (Yule Masiteng).

The dialogue veers between English, Afrikaans, and Zulu throughout the movie - and the producers decided that they would subtitle the Afrikaans and Zulu (whether you wanted it or not - it's burned in), and not the English (whether you wanted it or not). Which was unfortunate, as some of the English was heavily accented ... But that's a minor issue with the DVD. Similarly, the subtitles don't distinguish between spoken Afrikaans and Zulu - so we, the English speakers, can't tell from the subtitles that the language has changed and the Afrikaans speaker may not be understanding the Zulu speaker ...

Fanie isn't very good with women, and at his brother's bachelor party he's dared to ask a girl out. That girl is the beautiful Dinky Magubane (Zethu Dlomo), who initially rejects him but returns with a counter-proposal: she'll go as his date to his brother's wedding if he'll come to lunch at her place to act as a date in front of her father. He's happy with any date, and she's pleased to bring home a white boy to annoy her father.

This is a romantic comedy, so you know where this ends up - the beats of the romance are pretty standard. They have a pretty tough road ahead of them as his family is staid (and somewhat racist) Afrikaans, and hers is Zulu (and not much more welcoming to a white suitor). What really makes the movie a joy to watch is how it acknowledges the cultural and racial problems (it doesn't try to claim they're small) and still says "we can do this." I was surprised how much I enjoyed the humour: I expected to miss some of it because these are two cultures I haven't got a clue about, but either I didn't miss much or there was just a lot more to enjoy. I found the acting decent, and the movie incredibly charming and quite funny. I hesitate to recommend it only because it's going to be hard to find for most people: if you can find it, watch it: it's great.

2013, dir. Henk Pretorius. With Eduan van Jaarsveldt, Zethu Dlomo, Jerry Mofokeng, Marga van Rooy, Motlatsi Mafatshe, Chris Chameleon, Yule Masiteng.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

The Harry Potter prequel (released after the original eight movies), set in New York City in 1926. Newt Scamander (a British wizard with a thing for magical beasts) shows up in NYC, causing havoc with the escape of a couple of his creatures. He crosses paths with a muggle, and we get the swapped-same-suitcase gag. And then the two of them end up with Tina Goldstein (a demoted Auror) and her Legilimens sister Queenie. But there's much more going on than just Newt's escaped beasts.

The movie creates a couple wonderful characters: Eddie Redmayne's Newt Scamander, and Dan Fogler's Jacob Kowalski (the muggle). I really enjoyed them, and Katherine Waterston and Alison Sudol were good as Tina and Queenie. But as usual, J.K. Rowling struggles with her own overly complex plot and ludicrously overblown denouement: she doesn't know any other way to write. And the magical beasts are boatloads of decent but not outstanding CG, which I found both mildly insulting and not terribly enchanting. Redmayne and Fogler made it surprisingly watchable, but it's brought low by its complexities and silliness.

2016, dir. David Yates. With Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Samantha Morton, Jon Voight, Carmen Ejogo, Ron Perlman, Colin Farrell, Johnny Depp.

Fantastic Four (2005)

Not the best of the superhero movies, but not the worst either. The script and acting were both mediocre, with the exception of Michael Chiklis, who did more with a lump of rock (as "The Thing") than any of the others managed with their own faces. Ioan Gruffudd managed a credible American accent, but spent his time on that - not acting. But it's an enjoyable movie.

The commentary on the Bluray with Jessica Alba, Gruffudd and Chiklis is okay. Alba is deeply concerned about having to walk around in heels (sure, it's a pain, but 15 minutes of commentary on the subject isn't interesting), and Chiklis thought everyone on the entire project was a wonderful person (but he was otherwise pretty interesting). Sounds like Chris Evans ad-libbed half his spoken lines: if so, he's pretty good.

2005, dir. Tim Story. With Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Julian McMahon.

Fantastic Four (2015)

One of the review blurbs on Rotten Tomatoes said that this stirred fond memories of the 2005 version - while acknowledging that that was quite an achievement. It does, and it is: as shaky as the 2005 version was, it was at least kind of fun. This one has almost no action, clichéd dialogue, and weak acting, and is no fun at all. It's a very nearly identical origin story, with Johnny (Michael Jordan) and Sue Storm (Kate Mara - Sue was adopted), Reed Richards (Miles Teller), Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell), and Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell) being exposed to some weird form of radiation. It just takes longer and there's lots of bad dialogue.

Josh Trank - who directed the fairly decent but "alternative" and rather dark super powers movie "Chronicle" - was never going to deliver a movie in the classic Marvel mold. He's complained loud and long since the movie came out about studio interference. But the poor dialogue and poor acting - that's the choice and product of the director.

Marvel would love to have their first family of superheroes up and running to bring the entire Marvel Universe together ... instead they have an even worse stinker on their hands than the first attempt. When should we expect the next reboot?

2015, dir. Josh Trank. With Miles Teller, Michael B. Jordan, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell, Toby Kebbell, Reg E. Cathy, Tim Blake Nelson.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Considerably worse than the previous one, which at least had some character development. This one just rips into not particularly good action. Jessica Alba looks more like plastic than the CG Surfer and the gags aren't funny.

2007, dir. Tim Story. With Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Julian McMahon, Kerry Washington.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox

A stop-motion animated version of Roald Dahl's children's novel of the same name. I didn't like the style of animation much, particularly when there were close-ups on animal faces and they seemed to be caught in a wind storm (although I seem to be in the minority on this). The story is fun and the plot moves along fairly swiftly. Mr. Fox (George Clooney) is a former chicken thief - "former" at the request of his wife Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep), as it's a dangerous line of work. He now writes a column for the paper. But having moved into a new house near some very tempting farms, he returns to his old ways without telling his wife. The farmers are upset and fight back: escalation ensues.

The dialogue is quite witty and well delivered by the high-powered cast, often being quite philosophical about why Mr. Fox does what he does, or why their nephew Kristofferson (Eric Anderson) behaves that way. Huge chunks of it will go right over kid's heads, but will definitely entertain parents. The kids on the other hand will still enjoy the movie for its various "heists," occasional low-brow humour, and fast pace.

2009, dir. Wes Anderson. With George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Owen Wilson, Michael Gambon, Robin Hurlstone, Hugo Guinness, Eric Chase Anderson, Wallace Wolodarsky.

Fantastic Planet (orig. "La Planète sauvage")

We see a world where humans (called "Oms," a play on the French "Hommes") are seen by the dominant species the Draags as both a pest (at 1/50th the size of the Draags) and a pet. Our human commentator is raised in captivity, but his keeper enjoys keeping him around so much that he starts picking up a significant amount of Draag education. Eventually he escapes with a Draag education device and joins the wild Oms (who are constantly in danger of extermination).

Based on Oms en série by the French author Stefan Wul.

I kind of liked the illustrations, but didn't like the animation (if that makes any sense). Wikipedia's description explains it to me, anyway: "cutout stop motion." There are a large variety of incredibly freaky animals and "things" that we see during the film - our reaction was "someone was taking some good drugs." Really, really weird. The vision of humans as a minor annoyance to be periodically stamped out (sometimes literally) was quite disturbing. I'm reluctant to say I "liked" the movie, but it was both interesting and thought-provoking.

1973, dir. René Laloux. With Jennifer Drake, Eric Baugin, Jean Topart, Jean Valmont.

Far From Men

Set in Algeria in the 1950s, a school teacher (Viggo Mortensen) is unwillingly made to take a military prisoner (Reda Kateb, whose character apparently killed his cousin with a billhook) from his back country school house a day's travel to the military outpost. What they don't bother to remind you of at all is that Algeria was right in the midst of a long and ugly rebellion against French rule at the time (and it definitely helps to know that). You're going to need subtitles: even if you speak French, a good portion of it is in Arabic(?). The movie in fact spends no time whatsoever on explanatory text, possibly less than I've ever encountered: you'll discover who these people are by watching and learning, just as they learn about each other. In principle this is proper film-making: this is how life is. In practice I find I might prefer at least a little more explanation. My father, not known for praising movies or TV series, praised this one to the skies: he thought it was the best movie he'd seen in the past four years. I found it less enchanting than that, although well drawn and very well acted characters and a good story arc (which goes absolutely nowhere you thought it might) did make for a good movie.

2014, dir. David Oelhoffen. With Viggo Mortensen, Reda Kateb, Djemel Barek, Vincent Martin, Nicolas Giraud, Jean-Jerome Esposito, Hatim Sadiki.

Farscape, Best of Season 1 (TV)

This set of (supposedly the "best") six episodes from the well known science fiction series is absolute proof that there's no justice in the world. The far superior "Firefly" series was cancelled before it had run an entire season, and this one went on to multiple seasons.

"Farscape" looks good, with production quality oozing out all over. And the acting isn't bad. But the scripts suck and the meaningless "out of the frying pan into the fire" in every single episode became exceedingly tiresome.

1999. With Ben Browder, Claudia Black, Virginia Hey, Anthony Simcoe, Gigi Edgley.

Fast Color

Near-future, post-apocalyptic science fiction with superheroes. I don't think the director (Julia Hart) would be entirely thrilled to hear her movie so described, but she would be hard-pressed to deny it. She likes to describe it as being about woman power and creativity, and it's about that too. Our protagonist is Ruth (Gugu Mbatha-Raw - definitely a rising star actor), a recovering drug addict making her way home across a world almost devoid of water. And she causes earthquakes. But her mother (Lorraine Toussaint) and her daughter (Saniyya Sidney) who she returns to have more positive powers ... but all of them hide those powers from the world. For very good reason.

There are moments of brief action, but most of the movie is about family relations and growing up. Both the acting and script are good, so that works out fairly well.

Spoilers!

This section includes spoilers not only for this movie, but several other superhero movies. I'll name them here so you can avoid reading this if you want to: "The Incredibles," "Hancock," and "Wreck-It Ralph" (1 and 2).

What's never directly addressed in this movie (or even in the extras) is that the drought that Ruth is on her way to solving at the end of this movie was of her own making. That's right: her fear of water and nearly drowning her own child caused her to lock the entire country into an eight year drought.

This is a classic trope in superhero movies: the hero creates a problem, grows up a bit, faces and solves the problem. This can be seen in "The Incredibles" (Mr. Incredible's off-hand dismissal of Buddy causes him to become Syndrome), "Hancock" (he removes a bank robber's hand and the man becomes his archenemy at just the wrong time), "Spiderman" (Uncle Ben, need I say more), "Wreck-It Ralph" (Ralph's desire for a medal brings the Cy-Bugs to Sugar Rush), and " Wreck-It Ralph 2" (Ralph's insecurities create a monster, in possibly the most literal interpretation of this trope). While I'm a bit tired of Peter Parker, I love all those movies except for "Wreck-It Ralph 2". But that's not the point: I could fill pages with movies of "heroes" solving problems they created. Don't get me wrong: it's a form of heroism to overcome your own issues, but for us to hold someone up as a hero when they caused the problem in the first place is somewhat more dubious. This movie is definitely different, in many ways, from other superhero movies. But they fell into that trap, which amuses me greatly.

2018, dir. Julia Hart. With Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Lorraine Toussaint, Saniyya Sidney, Christopher Denham, David Strathairn.

Fast Five

I watched "The Fast and the Furious" back around the time it came out in 2001. I wasn't terribly impressed, and avoided the rest of the series. But "Fast Five" and "Fast & Furious 6" have both received very good reviews (77% and 69% respectively on Rotten Tomatoes as of 2013-09), so I decided it was time to take another look. I like my dumb action flicks.

Domenic Toretto (Vin Diesel) is on the jail bus as the movie starts, but Mia (Jordana Brewster) and Brian (Paul Walker) are there in their fast cars to crash the bus and rescue Dom. The team ends up in Rio de Janiero where an apparently simple car theft gets them tangled up with THE drug lord in the city. Things are further complicated by the arrival of DSS agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), determined to bring the team down.

Their defiance of the laws of physics wasn't quite as bad as I expected - although towing a vault through the streets of the city with a couple of cars was pretty ridiculous. As unbelievable as it was, it was all hugely entertaining. The series has a very weird combination of hot cars, heists, and family values. This one is worth a watch if you like your action movies.

2011, dir. Justin Lin. With Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Matt Schulze, Sung Kang, Dwayne Johnson, Gal Gadot, Joaquim de Almeida, Elsa Pataky.

Fast & Furious 6

Picks up, reasonably enough, where "Fast Five" left off. We see a robbery by another team of Hot Wheels thieves, and our new favourite law enforcement officer (Dwayne Johnson), reviews what happened and decides the only way to catch this world class team is to employ the other world class car thieves, namely Dom (Vin Diesel) and his crew. Dom and company risk life and limb for full pardons ... and they really are risking their lives, because one of the good guys dies! But that's okay, because another crew member we thought was dead is resurrected, so apparently "death" is less permanent than we thought if you live "Fast."

I watched this after passing over F&F2-3-4 because I watched and quite enjoyed "Fast Five" - silly, charming and very entertaining. But this one fell apart for me: one of the virtues of the previous movie was that the villain was a really well drawn character, you felt like you understood him. Not the case here: the villain (Luke Evans) is one dimensional evil. And his team is essentially an evil clone of Dom's team. This cloning is pointed out by one of the good guys, but I'm sorry, that doesn't make it better. And finally, the characters don't play as well and the script isn't particularly funny - not an essential trait, but one that helped a lot in the previous movie.

[SPOILER ALERT:] I was also seriously annoyed by the cliffhanger at the end, in which Jason Statham (presumably the bad guy in the next movie) offs one of our more likable characters. But a friend of mine who's a big fan of the series assures me that if you've seen "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" (I haven't), then this is completion, a form of closure fans have been waiting three movies for.

2013, dir. Justin Lin. With Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Chris Bridges, Sun Kang, Gal Gadot, Luke Evans, Elsa Pataky, Michelle Rodriguez, Gina Carano.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Sean Penn has always been the literal poster boy for this movie, although it's Jennifer Jason Leigh is arguably the most central character. Written by Cameron Crowe, the movie remains something of a cult classic - I didn't see it until 2008. I'm at a loss to see why it's a "classic." Yes, it's a passable representation of school in the Eighties, exaggerated for humour, but ... it's very episodic and I wasn't too crazy about the gags.

1982, dir. Amy Heckerling. With Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Sean Penn, Robert Romanus, Phoebe Cates, Brian Backer, Ray Walston.

Faster

This starts out looking like a slightly better produced violent revenge flick, but gets more complicated as it goes. The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) is actually pretty good, and several of the characters get rather more personality than you expect from the genre. The end is total fantasy - unfortunate given that they made other parts of it unexpectedly real, but overall a pretty decent film for fans of the genre.

After a second watch, I'd say that this is an intensely frustrating film. The Rock really is surprisingly decent. Oddly, the man is actually better at being charming - but here, he's asked to play a reasonably decent man with a ruthless lethal streak a mile wide and single-minded murderous determination ... and he does it pretty well. It has moments of sheer cinematic brilliance - the plot line about the preacher in particular, but it's not the only bit - and moments of utter stupidity. Could have made it beyond the genre if it had had a better plot - too bad.

2010, dir. George Tillman Jr. With Dwayne Johnson, Billy Bob Thornton, Carla Gugino, Moon Bloodgood, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Maggie Grace, Mike Epps.

Father Goose

2011 reviews of this movie point out that Cary Grant was merrily playing against type after decades of being suave and debonair - although the movie is still a comedy (and romantic, more or less). In this case he plays Walter Eckland, bumming around tropical islands and getting drunk whenever he can. Unfortunately, the Second World War interferes, and he is involuntarily recruited as an island watcher. Things get more complicated when a school teacher (Catherine Freneau, played by Leslie Caron) and her seven charges wind up on his island and interfering with his already messed up drinking schedule. Caron is too young for Grant and their characters falling in love is a little contrived, but Grant does look remarkably good and a lot can be forgiven when the movie is this funny. Recommended for people who like this generation of movies.

1964, dir. Ralph Nelson. With Cary Grant, Leslie Caron, Trevor Howard, Jack Good.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

I love Terry Gilliam, but this is exceptionally weird, even for him. Johnny Depp plays Hunter S. Thompson, accompanied by Benicio Del Toro as his severely drugged-up lawyer.

1998, dir. Terry Gilliam. With Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro.

Fearless (aka "Huo Yuan Jia")

Jet Li claims this will be his last martial arts film. Certainly it's one of his better ones. He plays Huo Yuanjia, a martial artist with a burning pride that eventually drives him to go too far, and ruins his life. The recovery offers us something akin to drama - Li isn't a brilliant actor, but he's likable and does a reasonable job. Of course there must be a reconciliation and a final fight (or vice versa, it doesn't really matter). I continue to be thankful for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" which raised the bar for martial arts movies and allowed movies like this - with real cinematography, good action, and occasionally decent acting - to exist.

2006, dir. Ronny Yu. With Jet Li, Shido Nakamura, Yong Dong, Nathan Jones.

La Femme Nikita

The movie that put director Luc Besson on the map with a big bang.

Most people know the plot by now after an American remake and a TV series, but for those few that don't ... Nikita (Anne Parillaud) is a drug addict who kills a cop in a pharmacy robbery gone wrong. She shows no remorse and is eventually sentenced to death. After the death sentence is carried out, she wakes up in a room to be informed by her handler (Tchéky Karyo, both charming and reptilian) that she can train as an assassin for her country, or die for real. She's unsurprisingly not well socially adjusted, so this doesn't always go well. Imagine a trashy and violent version of "Pygmalion."

Watching it in 2017 - having first seen it in a double bill with "Point of No Return" (the previously mentioned American remake) 23 years ago - I find it still carries some clout. It's being 27 years old has some interesting side effects: the sound track of jangly Eighties music is a bit off-putting, but on the other hand the movie no longer looks over-the-top because it's no more violent than any current action movie ... so it comes out about even.

The story is of a young woman who seriously fucked up her life, and gets to find out how much emotional damage she has to take before she's paid her debt to society. You'll feel it, because the actors (particularly Parillaud in the lead) and script are very good.

1990, dir. Luc Besson. With Anne Parillaud, Tchéky Karyo, Jean-Hugues Anglade, Jeanne Moreau, Jean Reno, Marc Duret.

Fever Pitch (2005)

I don't like the Farrellys, I don't like Drew Barrymore, and I'm not crazy about Jimmy Fallon. Which makes me wonder why I would watch this in the first place, and made it a pretty big surprise when I actually liked the movie ... Based on a Nick Hornby novel that's already a successful British movie starring Colin Firth, the Farrellys changed football to baseball and relocated to Boston. Fallon is one of the Red Sox's most dedicated fans, and Barrymore the woman he falls for - and who falls for him. Can they balance his obsession with their love? Teeters on the edge of gross, but but for once the Farrellys resist the urge to fall into a huge heap of shit for a laugh. In fact, it's almost ... charming.

2005, dir. Bobby and Peter Farrelly. With Drew Barrymore, Jimmy Fallon, Jack Kehler, Ione Skye, Evan Helmuth.

A Few Good Men

Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) is a young and intelligent JAG corps lawyer who's mastered the plea bargain but never really been to court. He's teamed up with good investigator/mediocre lawyer JoAnne Galloway (Demi Moore) to deal with the death of a Marine in a hazing gone wrong at Gitmo (before it became infamous).

From an early play by Aaron Sorkin, with all the good and bad that implies - fortunately before he decided the walk-and-talk was a major form of communication. A very sharp screenplay. On the other hand, there are places where it's too self-consciously clever, and there's a staggeringly clichéd salute (both metaphorical and physical) at the end of the movie. But the mystery, the courtroom battle and the personalities involved are all very well played, so overall quite good.

1992, dir. Rob Reiner. With Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Kevin Pollak, Kevin Bacon, Jack Nicholson, J.T. Walsh, Kiefer Sutherland.

Fido

Imagine prototypical Fifties suburbia - with the undead for servants. And occasionally the zombies just ... do what zombies do. Social satire and a chunk of nasty humour. Even though Tim Blake Nelson did what he always does, I thought it was an excellent fit for the movie. And Billy Connolly was great as the titular zombie - the main character who never has a single word of articulate dialogue.

It's incomprehensible to me that this horror-comedy has vanished so completely: it's a great piece of work.

2006, dir. Andrew Currie. With Carrie-Anne Moss, Billy Connolly, Dylan Baker, K'Sun Ray, Tim Blake Nelson, Henry Czerny.

Field of Dreams

Kevin Costner plays Ray Kinsella, who hears a voice when he's standing in his cornfield in Iowa. Eventually he concludes that what it's telling him to do is build a baseball field in the middle of his property. As his reduced corn acreage drives him and his family toward bankruptcy, the voice returns to send him on another quest, to recruit author Terrence Mann (James Earl Jones, wonderful) to help his cause. Amy Madigan puts in a good performance as his feisty and supportive wife as well.

I'm not a fan of baseball, but this is one of the most charming and entertaining movies I've ever seen. I've seen it multiple times across the 30 years since its release, and it remains a favourite.

1989, dir. Phil Alden Robinson. With Kevin Costner, Amy Madigan, James Earl Jones, Ray Liotta, Burt Lancaster, Frank Whaley.

The Fifth Element

This is a very silly film. The first time I saw it I thought it was supposed to be serious, and was very disappointed. Adjust your mind to a full-bore science fiction parody, and it's a complete blast.

Bruce Willis plays an ex-Special Forces major, now a down-on-his-luck taxi driver. Who suddenly has the perfect woman (Milla Jovovich, five years before the "Resident Evil" thing started) drop, literally, into his taxi cab. She also happens to be "the fifth element," the key to defeating ultimate evil.

1997, dir. Luc Besson. With Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich, Gary Oldman, Ian Holm, Chris Tucker, Brion James.

56 Up

In 1964, Granada Television had a movie made called "Seven Up!" with a view to showing the children who would be leading the world in the year 2000. Michael Apted revisited those children when they were 14, and has continued to do so every seven years, resulting in one of the worlds' longest running and most interesting documentary series. I've followed it since "28 Up," and always been fascinated by it as they're all eight years older than me, and give a window into what my life may be like in a few years - although it's also giving me a view of people in Britain, and I'm not British.

I think for me a part of the pleasure of these movies was that they were showing me people somewhat older than me - and I was seeing, every time, that life was still getting better. But that's finally reached a turning point for some of them: poor health and the British economy has effected several of them rather badly (including the librarian, Lynn). But on the plus side, both my favourites - Nick (the engineer) and Suzy - returned, although Suzy had stated in "49 Up" that she thought she wouldn't. Both intelligent, charming people that I'd like to know, who seem to be getting on well with life.

In the previous movie there was some discussion of the notoriety all of them had required as a result of the series - they're frequently recognized, despite their only celebrity being from this one series. And of course it affects their lives - quite strongly. I suspect this is also detracting from my enjoyment of the series, although it's totally unavoidable. Another thing that came up a lot was how people seem to think they know the participants, although our window into their life is hearing them talk for ten minutes once every seven years. It's a well-taken point - but again, discussion of that (although legitimate) takes away from time hearing about what they're actually doing.

The end product is, for the first time, one I enjoyed less than its predecessor. Still a good and fascinating movie, and a project I hope he continues (although Apted himself is, as I write, 74 years old).

2012, dir. Michael Apted.

Fight Club

Violent, yes, but with reason. Excellent social commentary, funny in a very twisted way. Highly recommended. Superbly structured and detailed, stands up to multiple viewings.

1999, dir. David Fincher. With Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf Aday.

Filière 13 ("File 13")

A Quebecois movie, I borrowed this from the library because it was directed by Patrick Huard who also did "Bon Cop, Bad Cop." I was pleasantly surprised: there's a bit too much awkward-situation-mugging and slapstick, but Guillaume Lemay-Thivierge is pretty good at it. And Lemay-Thivierge and Claude Legault both act quite well - good, given that the movie rests on their shoulders.

Legault plays Thomas, one of Montreal's best cops brought low by a permanent debilitating headache. Lemay-Thivierge is the police public relations officer who starts having crippling anxiety attacks. They're both assigned to a boring, dead-end observation job - which they mess up. But they get a break in solving another stale case (which ties into the Gomery Commission of all things), and, despite a suspension, insist on pursuing it while trying to pull their lives together again. Not a bad film.

2010, dir. Patrick Huard. With Claude Legault, Guillaume Lemay-Thivierge, Paul Doucet, Jean Pierre Bergeron, Elisabeth Locas, Marie Turgeon, André Sauvé.

The Final Cut

Near future science fiction, with Robin Williams as a "Cutter," an editor of life stories from an implant that records everything. An interesting look at the ethics (particularly relating to privacy) of such an enhancement. Unfortunately the ideas are a lot better than the plot or the central actor.

2004, dir. Omar Naim. With Robin Williams, Mira Sorvino, Jim Caviezel.

The Final Member

Iceland has a Phallological Museum (it really does: this is a documentary). To translate, that would be a "Penis Museum." Sigurour Hjartarson started collecting penises in 1974, and opened the museum in 1999. The movie is mostly about his quest to have a human penis in the collection. He finds two men who are willing to donate (Pall Aranson, Tom Mitchell), and both of them are - as you might imagine - unusual characters. The movie is eye-opening, hilarious, thought-provoking, and just generally fascinating. We paused the movie repeatedly for fits of laughter and debates about the sanity of the people in the movie, the filmmakers, and our society as a whole.

2012, dir. Jonah Bekhor, Zach Math. With Sigurour Hjartarson, Pall Aranson, Tom Mitchell.

Find Me Guilty

This movie dates back to when Vin Diesel occasionally had hair, and before he became the face of the multi-billion dollar "Fast & Furious" franchise (I watched it in 2020). He plays Jackie DiNorscio, a low level mobster serving a 30 year sentence. He's offered a reduced sentence to roll on his associates in another case, but refuses to do so - and opts to defend himself as he was unimpressed by the defence lawyer who got him 30 years.

DiNorscio is uneducated and kind of obnoxious, but he's intermittently charming and funny, and he's not stupid. The movie mostly revolves around the problems (and comedy) he causes in the courtroom, with his behaviour driven by his absolute belief in "family." The biggest surprise of the film is how successfully Diesel sells the character.

Lightweight, but kind of fun.

2006, dir. Sidney Lumet. With Vin Diesel, Peter Dinklage, Linus Roache, Ron Silver, Annabella Sciorra, Alex Rocco, Jerry Adler, Raúl Esparza, Richard Portnow, Aleksa Palladino.

Finding Dory

I saw this sequel to "Finding Nemo" on the plane to Beijing. Movies are occasionally edited for content (or even for length) on planes, so who knows if I saw the whole thing. It's a children's movie, so probably. It's also a LOT smaller than it would have been in a theatre or even at home: seat-back screens are what, 10 inches? Maybe even less.

Dory starts having flashbacks to her childhood - which is a big deal for her since she can't even remember breakfast. Determined to find her parents, she sets out on a quest - with Marlin and Nemo involuntarily in tow behind her, as they try to keep up. Dory tries to find her family, Marlin and Nemo try to find Dory.

Ellen Degeneres was good as Dory. Marlin and Nemo aren't exactly minor characters, but they've been reduced to something less: they understand what Dory is trying to achieve, and they have no great emotional story arc to follow ... all they need to follow is Dory. It seems rather inevitable after the last movie that there will be tanks and captured fish involved, but I thought they went too far - particularly the grand finale with the truck. Seriously, this seemed like a good idea to you?

Hank the Septipus (he's renamed by Dory who notes he only has seven arms instead of an Octopus's regular eight) is the stand-out new character ... and they know it. As good as he is, he doesn't carry the entire film. It's sweet and funny, it's not bad, but it's neither as good looking nor quite as emotionally rewarding as "Finding Nemo."

2016, dir. Andrew Stanton. With Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks, Hayden Rolence, Ed O'Neill, Kaitlin Olson, Ty Burrell, Diane Keaton, Eugene Levy.

Finding Nemo

Another fantastic movie from Pixar. I wasn't as in love with this the first couple times I saw it, but it's grown to be one of my favourite Pixars. The animation (particularly in the 3D version) is utterly dazzling, and the story is a very funny and charming coming-of-age story - not just for the young clownfish Nemo (Alexander Gould), but also for his insecure and over-protective father Marlin (Albert Brooks). Marlin is assisted in his travels by Dory (Ellen DeGeneres, hilarious), a fish with incredibly bad short term memory (used to great comedic effect).

The 3D BluRay version is glorious - although Disney made a very odd and annoying decision at some point: when you press pause, the on-screen image flattens and the time-based menu pops out at you. So 3D is achievable in pause, but they've broken it to display the menu. Bizarre.

2003. dir. Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich. With Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould, Willem Dafoe.

Finding Neverland

I saw this one on a plane so I may have missed some content, but it claimed it was only edited "to fit the screen." A story based on the events in J.M. Barrie's life leading up to the creation of Peter Pan. I was really frustrated with some of the absurdities in the movie (I'm not talking about the flights of fancy with the children either), but both Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet are excellent.

2004. dir. Marc Forster. With Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet, Dustin Hoffman.

Finding Samuel Lowe: From Harlem to China

The movie was made by "The Africa Channel," and the advertising claims it's about some of the descendants of Samuel Lowe - a Chinese man in Jamaica who returned to China in the 1930s - seeking out their various other family members from Harlem to Jamaica and back to China. Sounds good so far.

The movie opens on Paula Madison, one of the grandchildren of Samuel Lowe. We find out that their mother brought them to Harlem from Jamaica with the intent they should become rich. She and her two brothers are all clearly intelligent, but she's unpleasantly self-confident with approximately zero self-doubt: not someone I wanted to spend an hour and a half with. She may have some right to that confidence: she's been a major, successful TV exec for many years - but that doesn't make her any less abrasive. And she and her brothers are now very rich, something the movie feels comfortable rubbing in the viewer's faces. I'm happy for you ... but I came to learn about your family history, not your pride. And then it comes out: "we own the Los Angeles Sparks [a WNBA team] and the Africa Channel ..." WTF? This is a vanity product?

This review is based on the 18 minutes of the movie it took to come to that little piece of information (which should have been on the front of the box) and deflated all my remaining interest in the movie.

2014, dir. Jeanette Kong. With Paula Madison, Elrick Williams, Howard Williams.

Finding Vivian Maier

John Maloof is around 30, and has spent much of his life going to garage sales and buying up the contents of storage lockers. In 2007 he bought a storage locker lot that included a large quantity of photographic negatives, hoping for images of Chicago for a project he was working on. That didn't work out, but what he got instead were some brilliant photos: photographic negatives are the kind of thing you usually throw out when you find them in the storage locker, but not these ones. So Maloof went and bought up the other lots from the same locker, and began inventorying everything. The photographer in question was Vivian Maier. Maloof convinced one gallery to show her work - I doubt he needed to do any convincing after that, because her posthumous rise to fame has been explosive. And with good reason: she was a brilliant photographer.

Much of the film follows Maloof as he interviews various people who knew her, and even ends up taking an excursion to a small town in the French Alps where she had travelled and had some cousins. She was employed as a nanny - photography was something she did all the time, but she never showed her images to anyone during her lifetime. Highly recommended.

You can try a sample of her photography with at vivianmaier.com.

2013, dir. John Maloof and Charlie Siskel.

Finding Your Feet

It seems I'm not the only person who felt this was similar to "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel." The story starts with Sandra Abbott (Imelda Staunton) finding out her husband of 35 years is having an affair. She runs off to stay with her estranged and rather more open-minded older sister (Celia Imrie), and is eventually introduced to her sister's eccentric and charming friends - who of course influence her and improve her outlook. Just like "Best Exotic," there's joie de vivre, a death, and romance. It's not doing a damn thing new, but it's well done by some of Britain's better actors, charming, and occasionally funny.

2017, dir. Richard Loncraine. With Imelda Staunton, Timothy Spall, Celia Imrie, Joanna Lumley, David Hayman, John Sessions, Josie Lawrence, Indra Ové, Sian Thomas.

Fire Dragon

I found this movie while looking for anything involving Jackie Chan. He's a minor character in this third rate, non-sensical piece of trash. I was unable to find any significant record of the existence of this movie in 2012, although there were a couple references on the internet. To muddy the waters, there are at least two other movies with the same title - one starring Brandon Lee, the other directed by Yuen Woo-Ping.

The plot seems to revolve around a superhuman agent of the ATA who is pursuing some evil Chinese Nazis. He's looking to track down a woman outlaw and her band of weird cohorts who are all introduced as being at ease with ghosts - although ghosts never figure in the story again. Jackie gives our agent some directions to the girl, and does some fighting (in which it's quite clear that he's substantially more talented than anyone else in the film). In the end, very nearly everyone except the agent die in a massive bloodbath in one of the two Nazi camps.

Footage is borrowed directly from the opening of "The Fearless Hyena 2" (all I ever watched of that film, which looks every bit as good as this one) and undoubtedly several other films. The information "Jackie" gives the agent is given while we see the back of his head or pictures of him on the wall, which suggests that he wasn't present for that particular discussion. 2021 update: IMDB refers to the scenes with Chan and Brigitte Lin as "archival footage," aka "We found it on the cutting room floor, no reason it should go to waste ..."

1983, dir. Chester Wong Chung-Gwong. With Chung Kwan, Yi-Chan Lu, Chien-Ping Li, Jackie Chan, Brigitte Lin.

Firefly (TV)

Like all of Joss Whedon's products, both funny and depressing. The writing is superb. This was a very good show. Unfortunately, despite its good qualities, it was cancelled after only fourteen episodes (that's what's on the DVDs - not sure all of them got airtime). The premise is simple: Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), the captain of "Serenity," a Firefly class spaceship, takes jobs of dubious legality and tries to stay away from the eyes of the Alliance. It's essentially a Western in space, but with immensely more thought put into it than the majority of that genre. Because of its short run, it never encountered the stagnation that many long TV series get bogged down in. It also doesn't feel much like other SF series or movies ... although it occasionally goes awfully Western.

2002. Created by Joss Whedon. With Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk, Summer Glau, Morena Baccarin, Jewel Staite, Adam Baldwin, Sean Maher, Ron Glass.

Firewall

Just not a good movie. Harrison Ford looks remarkably like a 63 year old trying to be an action hero. The plot twists and turns to no particular end, except to leave the viewer feeling incredibly uninvolved. Ford plays a bank computer security expert, Paul Bettany the criminal who uses Ford's family to blackmail him into stealing from the bank. While the details are somewhat unpredictable, the whole comes out exactly as you'd expect it and the unpredictability adds no interest at all.

2006, dir. Richard Loncraine. With Harrison Ford, Paul Bettany, Virginia Madsen.

The First World War

Four DVDs, ten episodes of roughly 50 minutes each, based on a book (documentary, academic) by Hew Strachan. IMDB entry about it. This is less daunting at a mere four DVDs compared to ten DVDs for "The Second World War" which I received at the same time. I'm hoping to watch that next.

This pounded home a well known adage: "war is hell." And never more than the First World War. It started with an assassination that should have only affected a couple countries ... And ironically the person assassinated (Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary) was a reformer who wanted similar things to the assassin (Gavrilo Princip), although from the other side of the dispute. This was a disagreement between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and their unhappy subjects the Serbians. But the Germans leapt in on the side of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the French and British felt compelled to take up the defence, and soon not only the whole of Europe but most of Asia was embroiled in the battle. It spread across a couple continents in a couple months, and then dragged in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and eventually the U.S. (and even, indirectly, Mexico).

Aside from mentioning that planes actually mattered for the first time in this war, and mentioning the Red Baron and his squadron for a couple minutes in the second last(?) episode, flying was essentially ignored - much to my disappointment (it's a primary interest of mine).

The whole thing is fascinating: how an assassination in a crumbling empire by a member of a small oppressed group started a war that consumed the entire world - a war that ended up being about Germany versus the rest of Europe. It's also brutally depressing: a couple million people killed (more even than the Second World War), and the map of Europe completely rewritten as three different empires collapsed (Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire). And worse: as the narrator was quick to point out at the end of the movie, Germany was forced to pay reparations (which they mostly didn't pay) and was never defeated on German soil - which led to bitterness and patriotism that only twenty years later led to the Second World War.

2003, dir. Marcus Kiggell, Simon Rockell, Ben Steele, Corina Sturmer, Emma Wallace. With Jonathan Lewis.

The Fisher King

Jeff Bridges plays an obnoxious radio DJ who, through an off-hand remark on air, precipitates a shotgun killing spree in a bar. A couple years later his depression has driven him to the edge of suicide, but he meets a homeless man (Robin Williams) whose life was also changed by that shooting. I found the allegory and path of redemption too blatant and heavy-handed, although they were intended to be that way. Nevertheless, very funny and quite fascinating to watch, because it's so weird.

1991, dir. Terry Gilliam. With Jeff Bridges, Robin Williams, Mercedes Ruehl, Amanda Plummer.

A Fist Full of Dollars

Take "Yojimbo," replace swords with guns, and you have "A Fist Full of Dollars." The movie that set Sergio Leone and Clint Eastwood on the road to fame is very much a Akira Kurosawa film - without the humour. Pretty good for a western.

1964, dir. Sergio Leone. With Clint Eastwood, Gian Maria Volanté.

Fist of Fury

Alternative title in North America "The Chinese Connection." I have a huge respect for Bruce Lee as a martial artist, but he's a staggeringly wooden actor and the martial arts aren't presented in an interesting way. If you have to watch Lee, go for "Enter the Dragon" or "Return of the Dragon."

1972, dir. Wei Lo. With Bruce Lee.

Fist of Legend

Jet Li remakes the Bruce Lee movie "Chinese Connection"/"Fist of Fury." 1937 China, Li returns from Japan because his kung fu master has died. An unusual period, but a very traditional setup. Lots of enmity toward the invading Japanese, including Li's girlfriend. That at least was a bit different. Unfortunately, they lost me when they sped up the fight scenes. I accept well-done wirework, although I'm not generally keen on it, but speeding up fights seems to me an implicit acknowledgement that they just weren't interesting or well enough done at their normal speed. And since you don't watch martial arts films for the acting ... I have to consider this one a loss. Too bad.

1994, dir. Gordon Chan. With Jet Li, Billy Chan, Yasuaki Kurata.

Fistful of Vengeance

This is a terrible movie. This isn't precisely a complaint: I knew it when I started watching the movie. It's a statement of fact, and I have no one to blame but myself. Iko Uwais stars in a Netflix movie that's a follow-up to the "Wu Assassins" series I didn't watch (we're told several times he's the "Wu Assassin"). Uwais was, a decade ago, the breakout star of the best martial arts movie of the decade, "The Raid." It was shot in his home country of Indonesia. He's learned English and is now starring in English martial arts trash for bigger pay cheques with worse action (although probably safer) and worse scripts. I hope this paid well, because dear lord it's awful. Badly plotted, badly written, with bad special effects and bad acting. Not that this is uncommon in a martial arts movie ... but the unforgivable sin to me is that the martial arts, while plentiful, are all poorly choreographed, sloppily done, and sloppily shot. About the only appealing feature was that it appears to have been shot entirely in Thailand. They've built some big buildings in Bangkok since I was last there in 2006.

2022, dir. Roel Reiné. With Iko Uwais, Lewis Tan, Lawrence Kao, JuJu Chan, Pearl Thusi, Francesca Corney, Jason Tobin, Rhatha Phongam, Simon Kuke, Katrina Grey.

Fittest on Earth: Retro/Active

Somewhere in Wisconsin in 2022, a whole bunch of fitness fans and athletes got together for a week of events to select the "Fittest on Earth." I found the selection of events kind of interesting, but the athletes were a surprisingly dull lot, and the events were presented in a dull way. Despite a nearly two hour run time, they didn't manage to make any of the events exciting because they diced them up into such tiny parts. Across 5-to-7 days, there are a LOT of events, so if they want to show some or most of them they have to do it chopped small ... or they could have concentrated on one or two events. Instead they showed us tiny bits of events, and talked to the top three competitors of each gender. And the competitors talked in clichés, ate a lot, and grunted through events.

"CrossFit" is apparently not only the group making the movie, but also a company that makes cross-fit equipment. This amounts to a very long and disappointing ad for a sport/lifestyle. I respect the achievement of the athletes, but that can't make this a good movie.

2023, dir. Mariah Moore. With Adrian Bozman, Ricky Garard, Laura Horvath, Roman Khrennikov, Justin Medeiros, Mal O'Brien, Tia-Clair Toomey, Patrick Vellner.

5 Centimeters per Second

Possibly the slowest-paced movie I've ever seen in my life, I nevertheless found it utterly mesmerizing. Makoto Shinkai (who produced, directed, and wrote) has a way with images and the philosophy of teenage love and angst that's just amazing. The images are a very strange blend of Anime with occasional touches of photorealism, and manage to make things like train schedules and power lines look stunningly beautiful (and sunsets and cherry blossoms even more beautiful than that). The movie is mostly about Takaki Tōno and to a somewhat lesser extent his middle school companion Akari Shinohara. The movie is divided into three segments - when Takaki is about 12, 16, and 22. The first 20 minutes consists of Takaki riding a train, with his voice-over and flashbacks about the girl he's going to meet. And the train delays - we spend a lot of time watching and hearing about train delays. It's great (and no, I'm not kidding.)

I suppose the movie is about longing and what-could-have-been. Philosophical, down-beat, and short (only about 60 minutes), it's not for everyone, but fans of the genre should absolutely see this as it's very good and it's very clear in 2017 that Shinkai is a rising star.

2007, dir. Makoto Shinkai. With Kenji Mizuhashi, Yoshimi Kondō, Satomi Hanamura, Ayaka Onouei.

5-27-77

May 25, 1977 was the release date of "Star Wars." Our lead character is Pat - "Patrick Read Johnson!" as his mother bellows at him whenever he blows the breakers in their house with his latest attempt to make a movie. And when the credits roll at the end of this movie, the first name that comes up is the director's: Patrick Read Johnson.

John Francis Daley plays Pat, obsessed with special effects and making movies, while stuck in his tiny Illinois town. His mother does everything she can to support him - and even gets him a trip to Hollywood. Which turns out rather well when he finds himself on the set of "Close Encounters" talking to Steven Spielberg, and watching a preview cut of "Star Wars" (both of these things actually happened to Johnson). But when he comes back to his hometown, he has to choose between a mundane life there or actually following his dream (given that I've framed this by mentioning he's a movie director, I've kind of blown the ending - my apologies).

Daley is occasionally a little slack-faced in his portrayal of Johnson, and on other occasions he's quite animated and convincing. Most of the cast are young and only so-so actors. But now let's move on to the good news: the movie shows his life as a series of vignettes seen through the eyes of a film editor (also Daley as Johnson) and filled with ludicrous backyard special effects - often excessive to make emotional points. And yes, this is good news: it's seriously off-kilter, but tells the story remarkably well. A story of young geekiness, obsession, and the drive to become a director in Hollywood.

It's probably a good idea of you're familiar with (at least) "Star Wars," "2001," and Spielberg's "Duel" (1971) as they're referenced (both visually and talked-about) multiple times. I may well have missed some other references.

One interesting note: Johnson apparently filmed this in 2010, but getting the money to do the post-production took a decade and the film wasn't released until 2022.

2022, dir. Patrick Read Johnson. With John Francis Daley, Austin Pendleton, Colleen Camp, Neil Flynn, Scott Rans, Mark Kolar, Emmi Chen, Steven Coulter, Justin Mentell.

(500) Days of Summer

Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a young man who falls hard for a young woman (Zooey Deschanel). He thinks she's "the one," she's not looking for anything serious. Which, predictably, gets ugly. But the movie is extremely non-sequential: every section of it is prefaced by a (488) number letting you know what day of the relationship you're on. Some of the days you see several times, through different filters. Extremely funny in places and quite clever, but I found the ending somehow mildly unsatisfactory.

2009, dir. Marc Webb. With Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, Chloë Grace Moretz, Geoffrey Arend, Matthew Gray Gubler, Clark Gregg, Minka Kelly, Richard McGonagle.

Flags of Our Fathers

Shows the American side of the Battle of Iwo Jima, the making of the incredibly famous flag-raising photo, and how that propelled three men (with varying degrees of reluctance) to fame and "heroism" - for the simple fact of being in a photo. I found the structure perfectly understandable but unnecessarily complex - starting as it did in the middle, flashing back, moving forward, then flashing back some more. I'm not sure much was gained by that, but the characters are very well played, the battles are incredibly well staged (and invariably devastating), and the questions the movie raises about "heroism" are thought-provoking. Rotten Tomatoes short summaries are usually pretty good, and the one for this movie is particularly apt: "Flags of Our Fathers is both a fascinating look at heroism, both earned and manufactured, and a well-filmed salute to the men who fought at the battle of Iwo Jima." I hope to see director Clint Eastwood's companion movie, "Letters from Iwo Jima" (which shows the Japanese side of the battle) soon.

2006, dir. Clint Eastwood. With Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, Adam Beach, John Benjamin Hickey, Barry Pepper, Jamie Bell, Paul Walker.

The Flash (TV, 2014)

This review is based only on the first episode.

This series was launched by implication on "Arrow" during Season 2, when Barry Allen (Grant Gustin), pre-Flash-ification, turned up in Starling City and helped out Arrow's team fighting crime. This series starts by showing him at work with the police as a forensic investigator: he's really good, but he's also a bit unfocused due to his obsession with his mother's death when he was a child, and his father's unjust conviction for that death. He's also a bit obsessed with the new particle accelerator in his hometown of Central City coming online ... but when it does, it melts down and causes a city-wide ... event. Barry is struck by lightning and goes into a coma for nine months. When he wakes, he can move incredibly fast. Guess what he does? He uses his power for good, along with his mentor Dr. Harrison Wells (the man behind the failed particle accelerator, played by Tom Cavanagh) and new friends Dr. Caitlin Snow (Danielle Panabaker) and Cisco Ramon (Carlos Valdes).

Gustin is charming as Allen, and they've set up a nice group of characters around him, but by the end of the first episode we're already seeing massive elements of the soap-opera-like structure evident in "Arrow" (also by The CW) with his mentor having hidden talents and apparent evil intent and Barry being in love with his best friend who is dating someone else (and apparently that someone else is identifiable as the Flash's arch-enemy by the character name alone if you know your DC comic characters).

UPDATE: episodes 2 and 3 cemented my opinions: like "Arrow," emotional points are brought home with a sledgehammer, and character development is equally as subtle. Gustin remains charming, but the writing is awful.

2014. With Grant Gustin, Candice Patton, Danielle Panabaker, Carlos Valdes, Tom Cavanagh, Jesse L. Martin.

Flash Gordon (1980)

I saw this when it came out and enjoyed it, as cheesy as it was. Rewatching it (well, at least half of it) in 2023, it's got appalling acting (from multiple unknowns, and even from the couple of big names who could have done better), terrible special effects, spectacularly cheesy dialogue, and a ludicrous plot. How much of this was intentional is unclear: even if the special effects are from 1980, they could have been significantly better ... but I think they opted to make it more like the low budget TV series of the same name from the 1930s that preceded it. At this remove ... it's managed to stumble (intentionally or not) into "so bad it's funny" territory, and earn itself a shaky standing in SF movie history. I'm not sure I'd encourage anyone to watch it end to end. but there are a number of entertainingly awful scenes.

1980, dir. Mike Hodges. With Sam J. Jones, Melody Anderson, Ornella Muti, Max von Sydow, Topol, Timothy Dalton, Mariangela Melato, Brian Blessed, Peter Wyngarde, Peter Duncan.

Flash Point

Donnie Yen produced and starred in this movie about a cop who's perfectly at ease with beating the shit out of anyone he doesn't like. But when a gang of Vietnamese brothers (Collin Chou, Ray Lui, Yu Xing) threaten the life of his partner, what was left of the regulations go right out the window.

Quite violent and not particularly good. There are lots of fights and they're fairly long (generally a good thing in a martial arts movie), but the choreography is only so-so. Yen was happy to bring a lot of MMA and groundwork into this one, and I suppose it does add some realism, but I don't find it as fun to watch.

2007, dir. Wilson Yip. With Donnie Yen, Collin Chou, Louis Koo, Ray Lui, Bingbing Fan, Yu Xing, Kent Cheng.

Flavours of Youth

The movie is a Chinese/Japanese co-production Anime anthology, three short movies assembled together.

"Hidamari no Choshoku (The Rice Noodles)" is about a man remembering the delicious rice noodles he used to eat with his grandmother when he was young. "Chiisana Fashion Show (A Little Fashion Show)" is about a fashion model whose fear of aging out of her profession is ruining her relationships and her life. And "Shanghai Koi (Love in Shanghai)" is about the profound effects of decisions, particularly ones not discussed with the people you thought you were making them for ...

It's a little strange to film a movie in (animated) Chinese cities about Chinese characters ... in spoken Japanese. There's an English dub (which I listened to) but Netflix doesn't even provide a Chinese dub!

This is slow and contemplative Anime. The first and third are about people looking back on their youth, but I'd say this is aimed mostly at adults. Nothing big or exciting happens: people just look at their lives. But "contemplative" is a good thing, and beautifully used, particularly in the first segment. Some of the artwork is quite lovely too (again, I favoured the first section).

2018, dir. Li Haoling, Jiaoshou Yi Xiaoxing, Yoshitaka Takeuchi. With Crispin Freeman, Kendall Gimbi, Evan Rachel Wood, Jona Xiao, George Ackles, Ross Butler, Erica Mendez.

Flight

Denzel Washington plays Whip Whitaker, an airline pilot showing his rather dissolute life (sex, alcohol, cocaine) immediately prior to boarding a plane. The plane has a massive mechanical failure, and Whitaker manages, through impressive calm and spectacular flying skills, to land the plane. But during the massive investigation that follows, his life and problems unravel.

The movie starts off as something of an action flick with Whitaker landing a severely disabled plane - but the rest of the movie is an intimate portrayal of an unpleasant man in denial, complete with an ending that I didn't think really fitted the rest of the movie. Either way I didn't like it much (although Washington was very good).

2012, dir. Robert Zemeckis. With Denzel Washington, Kelly Reilly, John Goodman, Bruce Greenwood, Don Cheadle.

Flight of the Phoenix (1965)

I actually saw this after the 2004 version. This one is better. What particularly stood out was Hardy Krüger's performance as the brilliant, egotistical, and viciously proud aircraft designer ... and Giovanni Ribisi's channelling of that performance in 2004. Ribisi's replica was note perfect. Same idea: transport plane crashes in the desert far off course, and after several days of reducing their water supply the aircraft designer suggests they attempt to build a new plane from the pieces left of the old plane. No one has any idea if it will work, but it's better than waiting to die.

1965, dir. Robert Aldrich. With James Stewart, Richard Attenborough, Peter Finch, Hardy Krüger, Ernest Borgnine, Ian Bannen, Ronald Fraser.

Flight of the Phoenix (2004)

This is a remake and I'd really like to see the original, which is supposed to be better. This is ... not bad, but hardly a great film - even given that all it wanted to be was an action flick. Simple premise: a transport plane crashes in the Chinese or Mongolian desert (they're not sure which) and it looks like their only way out is to put the bits of the plane back together into something that'll fly. It's blessed with good cinematography matched by a beautiful chunk of desert that's their primary set, but the acting is mediocre. The extras suggest that part of the problem was an obnoxious and not particularly good director.

2004, dir. John Moore. With Dennis Quaid, Tyrese Gibson, Giovanni Ribisi, Miranda Otto, Tony Curran, Sticky Fingaz, Jacob Vargas, Hugh Laurie, Scott Michael Campbell.

Flightplan

A comment at IMDB called this "'Panic Room' at 40,000 feet." There's a great deal of truth to that. Jodie Foster puts on her stressed out behaviour for most of the hour and a half, and it's all about her daughter. Unfortunately, the movie is just as tedious as her monotonic performance. The cinematography is deliberately very isolating, and in the process it doesn't so much raise tension as leech the life out of the movie.

2005, dir. Robert Schwentke. With Jodie Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Sean Bean.

Flipped

So not what I expected from Rob Reiner. Fortunately, mostly in a good way. The film is excessively sweet, but it's also (mostly) a kid's movie with none of the nastier humour I've come to expect from Reiner.

Juli (Madeline Carroll) falls in love with Bryce (Callan McAuliffe) the day he moves in across from her as they're both starting second grade. She dogs his footsteps until things get flipped in seventh grade (set in 1963): she loses interest in him and he falls for her. We see it as a he-said-she-said with alternating points of view between the two of them.

There aren't really any laugh-out-loud jokes in this one, but it's charming from end to end, well done, and likely to keep you both smiling and chuckling quietly. Worth a watch. And, if the Wikipedia summary of the book is correct, it's very accurate to its source material (Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen).

2010, dir. Rob Reiner. With Callan McAuliffe, Madeline Carroll, John Mahoney, Aidan Quinn, Penelope Ann Miller, Anthony Edwards, Rebecca De Mornay.

Flushed Away

The action never stops - and that's a bit of a problem. Action and gags go by so fast you feel like you've missed half of it. For the first time, Aardman and company (think "Wallace and Gromit") have gone for computer animation - but they kept the exceptionally wide and toothy mouths. There are endless jokes about singing slugs - which are surprisingly funny. But I didn't really start laughing until three minutes before the closing credits, when they got their best gags in. The story follows a pampered pet mouse (Hugh Jackman) who has an unexpected sewer rat visitor who flushes him down the toilet. This leads him to a number of adventures, most of which involve Kate Winslet as the captain of her own mouse boat (pun not intended). Ultimately, this seemed to me to be a waste of a huge amount of talent (just look at the cast list).

2006, dir. David Bowers, Sam Fell. With Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Ian McKellen, Bill Nighy, Jean Reno.

Flyboys

I got pissed off at this one early on because the characters are flying Nieuport 17s ... with radial engines rather than rotaries. If you're going to go to the trouble of getting so many replica planes and using so much CGI, then make the engines rotate. And then they were always flying against red Fokker triplanes, and that's just not how it happened. Yes, I know more about WWI aircraft than most people, but ... make the effort.

Mediocre acting and mediocre dialogue pretty much do the film in, although I thought that the portrayal of life in an air squadron during the first World War did seem fairly accurate - extremely short life expectancy, rejection by squadmates until you've proven yourself, visits to the whorehouse, living in abandoned mansions, partying wildly after the death of friends ...

2006, dir. Tony Bell. With James Franco, Martin Henderson, Jean Reno, Jennifer Decker, David Ellison, Tyler Labine, Abdul Salis.

Flying Swords of Dragon Gate

Set several hundred years ago in Chinese history - in the time of swordsmen who could fly through the air - the movie is mostly about a group of bandits fighting a spying and repressive government. The first half of the movie, about the evil spy bureaus being attacked by Zhou Huai'an (Jet Li) and an escaped pregnant concubine rescued by another person claiming to be Zhou Huai'an sets up a huge confrontation in the desert in the middle of a sandstorm.

This isn't so much Li's movie as an ensemble cast. And sadly, it's not a martial arts movie - it's a wirework movie. More leaps are made through the air than dialogue is exchanged. I found the wirework distracting ("Iron Monkey" is the baseline for wirework, and this isn't nearly as good). There are disjoint pieces of surprisingly decent drama stuffed in between the crazy fights and around the hard to follow story, but the end product is a mess.

2011, dir. Tsui Hark. With Jet Li, Zhou Xun, Chen Kun, Li Yuchun, Gwei Lun-mei, Louis Fan, Mavis Fan.

Focus

Will Smith plays Nicky Spurgeon, a life-long con man. He meets the gorgeous and talented but inexperienced Jess (Margot Robbie). She convinces him to train her, and eventually they have an affair. There's a hell of a time-jump in the middle of the movie, but the movie is mostly about the increasingly risky and emotionally dangerous cons that they pull.

It's nice watching Smith and Robbie work (and I mean acting, not conning). But every time "Farhad" (Adrian Martinez) walked on screen, we were treated to several minutes of sex humour: he was fairly funny, but it really didn't fit with the rest of the movie. The movie is uneven and not particularly good.

2015, dir. Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. With Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Rodrigo Santoro, Adrian Martinez, Gerald McRaney, B.D. Wong, Brennan Brown, Dominic Fumusa.

Fools Rush In

A romantic comedy pitting Mexican culture against American. Fairly amusing. Matthew Perry has only one role he can play, but he does it well enough and Salma Hayek is charming.

1997, dir. Andy Tennant. With Matthew Perry, Salma Hayek.

For a Few Dollars More

All the humour that was in "Yojimbo" that they didn't put in "A Fist Full of Dollars" was stuffed in this nominal sequel. The story's not nearly as good though, and the dead villain from the last movie is resurrected as a different villain in this movie - very weird. I thought the previous movie was better, but at least this one was funnier - and the showdown at the end is both cathartic and funny.

1965, dir. Sergio Leone. With Clint Eastwood, Gian Maria Volanté, Lee Van Cleef.

The Forbidden Kingdom

Not precisely the Jackie Chan-Jet Li match-up martial arts fans the world over have been hoping for for decades. Among other things, both are known for avoiding wirework, and this is all about wirework. And it combines Disney channel cheese with Hong Kong cheese, not exactly an appetizing platter. Nevertheless ... I kind of enjoyed it. Michael Angarano (star of "Sky High") plays a martial arts obsessed underachiever who is transported to another dimension where he's made to live out something akin to one of his favourite M-A movies tutored by Chan and Li. It's pretty bad, but still quite fun.

2008, dir. Rob Minkoff. With Michael Angarano, Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Yifei Liu, Collin Chou.

Ford v Ferrari

The movie starts in 1963, outlining our rogues' gallery: Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon), Ken Miles (Christian Bale), Lee Iacocca (Jon Bernthal), Mollie Miles (Ken's wife, played by Caitriona Balfe), Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts), and Leo Beebe (Josh Lucas). Shelby is a racer and race car designer retiring from racing because of a heart condition. Ken Miles is his good friend, a mechanic and a superb racer, but often feels too free when expressing himself. Ford's sales are in a slump: Ferrari is broke, but Ford's take-over fails in favour of Fiat. Iacocca convinces Henry Ford II to enter Ford cars into Le Mans to show they can take on Ferrari, but Ford's bureaucracy (embodied by Beebe) cripples their hope of a win ... on the first attempt. And so the scene is set.

Movies have a lot of moving parts: the look, the script, the actors. They can fail on any of these things (and others besides). But I chose these three because this one flies on all three. The script is well written (if a bit too long at 152 minutes). And the actors: that can make or break a movie, and this is perfectly cast. The movie mostly depends on Damon and Bale, and they're excellent. As is all the rest of the cast. And there's the look: I'm not a hard-core car guy, but I am a mechanical engineer and I do like cars, so there's at least a base level of mechanical and car accuracy they needed to achieve. And dear lord those cars looked beautiful. Ironically, while the Ford GT40 is an attractive car, the Ferrari 330 P3 they raced against is gorgeous (they even worked in a joke: "if this was a beauty pageant, we just lost"). But in the end, a movie like this lives or dies by the storytelling: and it's very good.

2019, dir. James Mangold. With Matt Damon, Christian Bale, Jon Bernthal, Caitriona Balfe, Tracy Letts, Josh Lucas, Noah Jupe, Remo Girone, Ray McKinnon, J.J. Feild.

A Foreign Field

A BBC Masterpiece Theatre production about a bunch of people arriving at the D-Day beaches 50 years after. Cyril (Leo McKern) is a British vet who has the mentally damaged Amos (Alec Guinness) in tow. Waldo (John Randolph) is an American vet with his daughter (Geraldine Chaplin) and her husband (Edward Herrmann) in tow, and Lisa's (Lauren Bacall) brother was lost in the battle. Both McKern and Randolph are trying to locate Angelique (Jeanne Moreau), a French woman they both had an affair with.

Unfortunately the structure and beats of the movie are very TV-movie-of-the-week. Guinness is good as the charming but imbecilic Amos, and McKern has a monologue to bring tears to your eyes, so it's not all bad. And Bacall ... even in a role like this she commands attention - damn, what a voice. It's also a good reminder of the war - something that's slowly being forgotten.

1993, dir. Charles Sturridge. With Leo McKern, Alec Guinness, John Randolph, Lauren Bacall, Jeanne Moreau, Edward Herrmann, Geraldine Chaplin.

The Foreigner

I've been avoiding Jackie Chan's movies for over a decade. But a friend (whose judgement I'm thinking I ought to be valuing more) strongly recommended this one. It's not a martial arts film, and Chan's not trying to pretend he isn't past 60. But it is an action film, and a very good one.

Ngoc Minh Quan (Chan) runs a Chinese restaurant in London with his partner. But an IRA bombing kills his daughter, his only remaining family. And for possibly the first time ever, Chan did a good job of acting, truly being a man who's broken by the death of his daughter. Not exactly Oscar-worthy, but he brought dramatic weight to the role that I've never seen him manage before. He sets out to find out who did it and kill them. This takes him into the twisty world of IRA politics, but he sets his sights on one man (Pierce Brosnan as "Liam Hennessy," a politician and former IRA member) and relies on some rather alarming skills he acquired during the Vietnam War.

A surprisingly effective action movie, recommended for anyone who likes them a bit dark.

2017, dir. Martin Campbell. With Jackie Chan, Pierce Brosnan, Michael McElhatton, Charlie Murphy, Orla Brady, Rory Fleck-Byrne, Katie Leung, Ray Fearon, Dermot Crowley.

Forever Young

Captain Daniel McCormick (Mel Gibson) is a young test pilot just prior to World War II who's found the love of his life (Isabel Glasser), only to have her yanked away by fate. His best friend (George Wendt) is working on cryogenics, and McCormick insists on becoming a human test subject. Through another accident he's left in hibernation for 53 years rather than just one, and awoken by accident by a couple kids, one of whom is Nat Cooper (Elijah Wood), playing in an old warehouse. Once he's thawed out (which takes a while) he becomes entangled with Nat and his mother (Jamie Lee Curtis).

There was a time when Gibson used to be funny and charming, and he manages both well here. Curtis is very good, and Wood (at age 10) is doing a pretty respectable job. The story is ridiculous but quite sweet, and I really enjoyed it.

1992, dir. Steve Miner. With Mel Gibson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Elijah Wood, Isabel Glasser, George Wendt, Joe Morton.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Far too much of Jason Segel's penis in this movie. And who wrote it in? Segel, who penned this not-very-funny comedy. Not titillating for anybody (this isn't a particularly attractive man) and not particularly funny. Segel plays Peter Bretter, a TV music composer devastated by the loss of his long-time girlfriend, the gorgeous TV star Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell). He takes off for Hawaii to forget her only to find out she's staying at the same resort with her new rock star boyfriend (Russel Brand). Judd Apatow didn't direct, but his influence is still clear from the producer's seat. Except they're funnier when he's directing. It should be noted that I'm in direct conflict with the majority of critics on this movie.

2008, dir. Nicholas Stoller. With Jason Segel, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, Russell Brand, Bill Hader, Maria Thayer, Jack McBrayer.

49 Up

One of the longest running projects ever done in film, and certainly the most fascinating. Apted started with the film "Seven Up!" for Granada TV in London in 1963, and every seven years has returned to visit the lives of each of the school children he first interviewed in 1963. I've seen them all from "21 Up" onward, and I love them. This one took me a while to get into, I suppose because I'm not a fan of Tony and Jackie who he started with. But then he got to some of the people I really like - Nick and Suzy particularly. The reason for the success of the movies is in large part Apted's not pursuing an agenda (he and Granada had an agenda in '63, but that died when it became his project), just letting them talk. At 49 they all seem happier than they've ever been, and it's great to see that. Highly recommended, all of them.

2006, dir. Michael Apted.

47 Ronin

"47 Ronin" got really bad reviews. As I write (early 2015) it's sitting at 14% on Rotten Tomatoes. And they're not wrong: it's ponderous and pedantic. Consider what the bad guy says to the ronin early on: "You're ronin now - masterless samurai" ... and he's saying that because it's for an American audience who may not be aware that that's what "ronin" has always meant. The actors are almost uniformly Japanese, but they're being made to speak English. And some of them just aren't very good at it. And they've taken this very famous, even revered, Japanese story about the 47 Ronin (Wikipedia) (there was an historical event this was based on) and grafted on a "half breed" (Keanu Reeves' character Kai) and witchcraft. Neither of which fit terribly well. And then there's the acting. If you can call it that. I really liked Hiroyuki Sanada (who plays the leader of the Ronin) in "The Last Samurai" as the grim master swordsman, but apparently that's all he's capable of. Of course when the other lead actor is Reeves, no one is getting upstaged - in fact, it's safe to say no one did any "acting" on this set.

And yet, and yet ... Perhaps it comes from watching years (decades?) of martial arts movies. With some bad movies I'm able to see through what they were doing to what they were actually trying to do, and enjoy that. My tolerance for bad movies has been going down, but decided to make a resurgence just in time for this movie, and I quite enjoyed it. Go figure.

2013, dir. Carl Rinsch. With Hiroyuki Sanada, Keanu Reeves, Tadanobu Asano, Rinko Kikuchi, Ko Shibasaki, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa.

Found Memories (orig. "Historias que so existem quando lembradas")

Possibly the most glacially paced movie I've ever seen. The movie first introduces us to Madalena (Sonia Guedes) and Antonio (Luiz Serra), two elderly people living in a nearly abandoned town in Brazil (Wikipedia claims the town name is Jotuomba, although I'm not sure where they got that - but then, the movie is in Brazilian Portuguese so I watched it with English subs). She brings her bread to his coffee shop, they put the bread away, he makes coffee, they sit on a bench and drink the coffee, all somewhat ritualistically while occasionally casually insulting each other and demonstrating a friendship of many years. And to make sure you get it, the scene is repeated with minor variations the next day. The town population is approximately 10, and life there is set in a series of rituals: baking bread early in the morning, morning coffee, Mass at the church, a meal at the Church. Slowly, so slowly. Although the director had a superb cinematographer on hand to somewhat ease the pain of the molasses-in-winter pace: more than half the shots in the film are static works of art, just beautiful to look at. After 20 minutes of this, a young woman (Rita, played by Lisa Fávero) walks into town along the abandoned rail line: she's a photographer, and takes up residence at Madalena's house. Unsurprisingly, her presence causes an upset to the rhythms and relationships of the place. But don't expect the scenes or plot to pick up speed just because someone young is in frame.

The conclusion is one of those sad/appropriate/beautiful things, a surprisingly satisfying (and unexpected, at least by me) ending to a slow journey. Although it was significantly marred by the lack of English subtitles on the final sentence of the film. Given that it was the only sentence in the scene AND the final line of the movie, it was intensely frustrating and left me wondering what I'd missed. Was it nothing but "thank you," or was it some deeply moving statement, or was it something that completely changed the meaning of the movie? I have no damn idea.

I can't whole-heartedly recommend the movie because it was so damn slow. But if you don't have a problem with that it's a really beautiful movie to look at and has a plot that will leave you thinking.

2012, dir. Julia Murat. With Sonia Guedes, Lisa Favero, Luiz Serra, Josias Ricardo Merkin, Antônio Das Santos.

The Fountain

Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz play a pair of lovers in three different time periods, the most comprehensible of which is set in our time. Jackman is Tom Creo, and Weisz is his wife Izzi, who is dying of a brain tumour. Tom, rather than spending time with his dying wife as she'd like, spends his time at the lab trying to find a cure for brain tumours. Our other sets of people are set 500 years before with Queen Isabella (Weisz) of Spain losing her territory to the Inquisition, and Conquistador Jackman who loves her going to Central America to find the Tree of Life for her. The final and weirdest setting is future Jackman in a biosphere bubble space ship on his way to the Xibalba nebula with a tree that represents Weisz's character.

If it sounds weird, well, it is. Very weird. And filmed entirely in a colour palette of white, black, gray, yellow, and brown - which means that Tom and Izzi's house is dark and creepy, an unpleasant side-effect of the chosen colour palette. All so we can have an explosion of GREEN at the end. Some of the cinematography is brilliant, but the limitations are significant and problematic. The actors give it their all, but it comes off more silly and crazy than noble and romantic as I think it was intended to be. I don't regret watching it because it was kind of interesting, but it was kind of a slog to get through and not really worth it.

2006, dir. Darren Aronofsky. With Hugh Jackman, Rachel Weisz, Ellen Burstyn, Mark Margolis.

Four Brothers

The primary conceit of this movie is the mixed race brothers: two white and two black, who grew up together adopted by the same mother. This idea holds together remarkably well - if the movie falls down, it's not because of this. In adulthood, the brothers are brought together again in Detroit (filmed in Toronto and Hamilton apparently) for the funeral of their mother. This leads to them investigating her death and seeking revenge. I didn't like this initially, but it improved immensely in hindsight, and it's now kind of a favourite movie of mine - very odd. The main problem is the villain played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, being incredibly abusive and humiliating to his underlings: it's hard to believe he could hold a crime empire together when he alienates his staff as much as he does. On the other hand, his downfall revolves around his nastiness.

It's a gritty movie, violent, nasty and realistic. Nobody's a hero (except perhaps mom) - they try, but they're human, and they're scared (or bastards). The acting is very good, and the realism is amazing in this kind of movie and a real treat (but be prepared for violence and blood).

2005, dir. John Singleton. With Mark Wahlberg, Tyrese Gibson, André Benjamin, Garrett Hedlund, Terrence Howard, Josh Charles, Chiwetel Ejiofor.

The Four Musketeers

Originally filmed as part of the 1973 version of "The Three Musketeers," this is a direct sequel to that movie split off by the profit motive and the fact that the run-time would have been around 210 minutes. See my review of that movie as I watched them back-to-back and any comments I made about it apply to this as well.

The plot of this movie revolves peripherally around the siege of La Rochelle (in which the Musketeers fight in a humourous way), but is primarily about Milady de Winter's attempts to kill d'Artagnan for crossing her in the previous movie, and Constance because she's d'Artagnan's lover. The action - having been filmed at the same time as the previous movie - is in very much the same style.

Between Milady and Athos' back-history and the deaths near the end of the movie, this is definitely the darker of the two movies. And probably because of that I prefer the first (the humour works better along with the somewhat lighter plot). But the two movies are quite similar and both very good, and should be seen together.

1974, dir. Richard Lester. With Michael York, Oliver Reed, Frank Finlay, Richard Chamberlain, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Geraldine Chaplin, Charlton Heston, Faye Dunaway, Christopher Lee, Simon Ward, Raquel Welch, Spike Milligan, Roy Kinnear, Michael Gothard.

Four Weddings and a Funeral

I remembered Andie MacDowell being bad from a previous viewing. But I didn't really do her justice: she's appalling. If they had cast almost any other female actress in the lead role, this would have been a much better movie. Too bad: it's otherwise pretty good.

The movie revolves around Charles (Hugh Grant) and several of his friends finding themselves at - you guessed it - four weddings and a funeral. And since it's a rom com, there's also the budding but many-times-interrupted romance between Charles and Carrie (MacDowell) who is also at these events.

A note for fans of "Love Actually": the song "Love is All Around" first appeared here.

1994. dir. Mike Newell. With Hugh Grant, Andie MacDowell, Simon Callow, Kristin Scott Thomas, Rowan Atkinson.

Foxy Brown

Oh. My. God. Primo Seventies blaxploitation trash still available on DVD in 2004 because Quentin Tarantino says it's awesome. I'm going to blame him for my watching it, and it's no wonder he loves it - the violence is staggering for the period. People shot, maimed, going through propellers ... And Pam Grier. She's a beautiful woman. She establishes early on that she wasn't hired for her acting talent - she has none.

1974. dir. Jack Hill. With Pam Grier.

Foyle's War, Series 1

Michael Kitchen is Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle of Hastings on the south coast of England in May 1940. He's a quiet and observant man, left in the police (although he wanted to help with the war effort). Nearly all the crimes shown in the series are related to the war: anti-German and anti-Italian violence, food hoarding, draft dodging, crimes of passion involving soldiers. Foyle is assigned a female driver (Sam Stewart, played by Honeysuckle Weeks) from the MTC (Mechanised Transport Corps) in the first episode, and acquires an assistant in the form of Paul Milner (Anthony Howell): he was a police officer, joined up, and lost part of his leg early in the war.

The episodes are in the 95 minute range, roughly movie length, with four to a season (this varies in later seasons). The acting is pretty good, the budget is relatively low (I bet getting four Supermarine Spitfires in the air cost them!), and there's very little action. It's a great portrait of a country at war, and the mysteries are reasonably good. This season was something of a who's who of those about to become famous in Hollywood, with the first episode including both Rosamund Pike and James McAvoy, the second Charles Dance (he's been in British theatre and TV for years, but this predates his great fame in "Game of Thrones"), and the third has David Tennant (pre-Doctor Who) and Sophia Myles.

2002, dir. Jeremy Silberston, David Thacker. With Michael Kitchen, Honeysuckle Weeks, Anthony Howell.

Foyle's War, Series 2

We're still in 1940, but Foyle's son shows up some more: he's been assigned near Hastings, and occasionally comes to stay with his father. I had the vague feeling that this season was better than the first. Although when I look back over the episodes, I don't seem to have been too keen on any particular one. And the proximity of Foyle's son to not one, but two significant crimes in two different episodes seemed statistically improbable (albeit convenient for the plot). Emily Blunt shows up in one of the episodes, but the season wasn't as studded with future stars as the previous one.

2002, dir. Jeremy Silberston, Giles Foster. With Michael Kitchen, Honeysuckle Weeks, Anthony Howell, Julian Ovenden.

Foyle's War, Series 8

The discrepancy between "Series 8" (the British labelling) and "Season 9" (American) stems from the American splitting of one of the British Series: I think it was Series 4, which had a "Part 1" and a "Part 2" in the U.K.

Series 6 was post-war. Series 7 saw Foyle recruited by MI5, and he continues to work for them in this, the final series. And that's a problem for me: I felt these two series were well done, but I enjoyed him much more as a detective that as a spy - even though he spends most of his time as a spy solving murder mysteries. These episodes are more tense, in that there's more personal risk for Foyle as he sticks his nose into the business of large organizations or governments that are very much alive (unlike his previous "clients," who were generally quite dead). But I also found them less personal: people were killed for convenience, not for reasons of passion or personal plans. And I don't like either of these aspects as much as his police work, although I understand that a change was probably needed.

It was mildly amusing (although not very happy) to see the series go out with a literal "bang" - a hand grenade, not something we'd really seen at any other time in the series (explosives once, but that's all - and not a hand grenade). Literal "bang" or not, my disappointment at the end of the series is tempered by the fact that it's probably best it ended, and the fact that I hadn't been liking the series recently anyway ...

2015. With Michael Kitchen, Honeysuckle Weeks, Daniel Weyman, Ellie Haddington, Tim McMullan, Rupert Vansittart.

Foyle's War Revisited

"Foyle's War" was a superb detective series set in England during the Second World War (the eighth and final series is set shortly after the war). I found this DVD at the library: it appears to have been an American - probably PBS - production, run after the British broadcast of the final series but before it hit America. This hour-long documentary is hosted by John Mahoney (best known as Frasier's dad), who has a role in one of the episodes of the final season.

Mahoney claims another connection with the series: he was himself a British war baby, born during the time the series portrays. Which is interesting, because he's one of the most quintessentially American people I've ever seen put on film. Mahoney is a poor host, nodding constantly like a bobble-head doll and reading off a rather ponderous history of the series with occasional pauses to solicit funding for the station. The only interesting parts to this show - and there weren't nearly enough of them as most of the content was simply clips from the series - was some discussion from show-runners, and of the actors talking about about their characters. Not recommended for fans, or for people who aren't fans. Go watch the first season if you're not familiar with the series.

2016, dir. Dennis Allen. With John Mahoney, Michael Kitchen, Honeysuckle Weeks, Ellie Haddington, Tim McMullan, Rupert Vansittart.

Frailty

Strange movie. Psychological thriller verging on horror, about a man convinced that God is showing him demons that walk the earth, and he must destroy them. They look exactly like humans, but they must be destroyed. The movie manages to be fairly creepy, but overall I didn't like it much. My standard in this category is "Silence of the Lambs," and this doesn't compare.

2001, dir. Bill Paxton. With Matthew McConaughey, Bill Paxton.

Fracture

Ryan Gosling plays a District Attorney taking on a very clear cut murder case just as he's about to move on to corporate law. The case looks easy: a signed confession, a murder weapon, no problem. But it turns out that the killer (Anthony Hopkins) has effectively gamed the legal system by stacking the circumstances in such a way that denying his own confession will work. It's clever, it's very well acted, but I didn't like it much.

2007, dir. Gregory Hoblit. With Anthony Hopkins, Ryan Gosling, David Strathairn, Rosamund Pike, Embeth Davidtz, Billy Burke, Cliff Curtis.

Frank

I admit it - I don't generally like movies where there are no appealing characters. And that being the case here, my review is suspect.

"Frank" starts with Jon (Domhnall Gleeson), a passable musician but also an aspiring and horrible songwriter, who finds himself taken on as the keyboard player for the Soronprfbs (sic), a band led by Frank (Michael Fassbender). Frank wears a papier-mâché head - all the time (including sleeping and in the shower, where he bags it). Jon then joins them to record their new album, an epic undertaking full of broken personalities. Jon's postings on Twitter and YouTube net them something resembling an audience, and a trip to SXSW, where everything comes to a head.

You can make a movie - many have - with a bunch of unpleasant people doing obnoxious or unpleasant things. And that's pretty much how I see this movie. I really didn't like it ... but the person who watched it with me loved it. And so did the critics.

2014, dir. Lenny Abrahamson. With Domhnall Gleeson, Michael Fassbender, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Scoot McNairy.

Freaks

The movie opens on a man keeping a seven year old girl in a house. He insists they stay inside and never look out, and that she practices memorizing the names and behaviours of an identity not her own. She's rebellious and wants ice cream very badly - and there's always an ice cream truck just outside the house. Inevitably, she sneaks outside the house - and things get even weirder.

If I tell you much more than that, I get into the realm of spoilers. I usually take hints about spoilers from the trailers, because if you want to watch the movie you've probably seen the trailer and know what's said or implied there. Which means it's relatively safe to say that this is a near future science fiction superhero movie, although "superhero" implies they're good guys when all I can say is that the main characters are super-powered. And hunted, as "freaks."

I actually watched the trailer after the movie - and was interested to see that another reviewer had made the connection I immediately made, which was to "10 Cloverfield Lane" - they called it a "mystery box" movie, which seems like a good name. In both cases, you're in claustrophobic circumstances with possibly deranged people and you have no idea what's going on until, over the course of the movie, the truth of the world is revealed to you.

The movie is creepy, disturbing, and quite good.

2018, dir. Adam Stein and Zach Lipovsky. With Emile Hirsch, Lexy Kolker, Bruce Dern, Grace Park, Amanda Crew, Ava Telek, Michelle Harrison, Matty Finochio, Aleks Paunovic.

Freaky

Another variant on "Freaky Friday," this time riffing on the idea of "Freaky Friday the 13th." Kathryn Newton is Millie Kessler, a pretty but somewhat shy and bullied teen. When a mass murderer (Vince Vaughn) stabs her with a magical dagger, they swap bodies overnight. So Vaughn spends most of the movie acting like a teen girl in the body of a very tall middle-aged man, and Newton acts like a murderous psychopath trapped in the body of a fairly small teen. Despite looking like "The Blissfield Butcher," Millie manages to convince her best friends (Celeste O'Connor and Misha Osheovich) that it's actually her - so the three of them run around town trying to undo the body swap - as our young and pretty Butcher makes short work of some of the school's nastier teens (seriously - that's not a plot spoiler, you got all of it from the trailer and the rest from every previous slasher comedy).

Vaughn turns in a game performance as a teen girl, but has recently been outclassed by Jack Black in both the Jumanji movies. In Vaughn's defence, Black probably couldn't have done as good a psycho killer, but Black does the better young woman. Newton was reasonably good as a middle-aged psycho. The comedy was passable, but I found a lot of the structure too rote: I correctly guessed the first kill, and while I didn't get the order on the rest I had a pretty good idea who would fall. And of course there was also a looks-dead-but-isn't-actually resurrection toward the end of the film. Too formulaic, and not quite funny enough to justify that.

2020, dir. Christopher Landon. With Vince Vaughn, Kathryn Newton, Celeste O'Connor, Misha Osherovich, Dana Drori, Katie Finneran, Uriah Shelton, Ezra Sexton, Alan Ruck, Melissa Collazo.

Freaky Friday (2003)

I haven't seen the original 1970s original, so I can't make a comparison. Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan play mother and daughter forced to spend time literally in each other's bodies. The climactic concert is the least entertaining thing in the whole movie, but aside from that the movie manages to be both funny and touching a lot of the time. No great piece of art, but better than I expected.

2003, dir. Mark Waters. With Jamie Lee Curtis, Lindsay Lohan, Mark Harmon.

Free Guy

What if an NPC got tired of being beaten, robbed, and killed as a daily routine? What if he started to see the world as a game player, rather than as an NPC? If you've seen the trailers, you know Ryan Reynolds is "Guy." What's not mentioned at all in the trailer(s) is that there's a lot of code behind that character - code that's the subject of a lawsuit in "the real world."

What makes the movie work is a good (and comedic) interpretation of the life of NPCs, and the game itself - combined with a couple other fairly interesting stories about software theft, AI, and romance. Wikipedia says "... compared ... favorably to a combination of action video games and science fiction films such as 'Ready Player One,' 'The Truman Show,' 'The Matrix,' 'Grand Theft Auto,' and 'Fortnite.'" One they didn't mention that's closely related (a comedic take on a video game character going off script) is "Wreck-It Ralph." For me, one of the down-sides was Reynolds being Reynolds: his comedy here is similar to his work in "Deadpool" and "Pikachu." Not that that's terrible: he's pretty funny. But it does feel a bit too familiar.

Overall though, it's a surprisingly successful send-up (and a bit of a tribute) of video gaming as a culture. And it's just ... charming. Surprisingly fun.

POSTSCRIPT: A minor quibble. In the trailer, Guy kisses Molotov Girl and then her player describes this to someone who says "there's no button for that," to which she replies "Oh, he found the button!" It's a great joke, but later Molotov Girl kisses Guy ... and how did she do that when there's no button for that?

2021, dir. Shawn Levy. With Ryan Reynolds, Jodie Comer, Joe Keery, Lil Rel Howery, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Taika Waititi, Britne Oldford, Camille Kostek, Matty Cardople, Channing Tatum, Mike Devine.

Frida

Salma Hayek turns in a good performance as Frida Kahlo, the Mexican painter. Alfred Molina turns in a better performance as her sometimes husband, Diego Rivera. Almost everybody sports a fake accent (they were playing to the English speaking market - they should have been filming in Spanish), some good, some bad. They recreate a lot of Kahlo's paintings in film, in fascinating detail.

2002. dir. Julie Taymor. With Salma Hayek, Alfred Molina, Geoffrey Rush, Antonio Banderas, Ashley Judd.

Friends, Season 1

In the second season the "Friends" writers started leaning into improbable humiliation of the characters as a form of comedy, with that eventually becoming their preferred means of getting a laugh. Ross's encounter with spray-on tanning - or for that matter his fight with the leather pants - comes to mind. And as much as I dislike Ross, I'm just not a fan of people's suffering as humour. (Wait ... I watch horror-comedy, how true can that be?)

I think the first season of "Friends" is some of the funniest comedy ever put on TV. There's a bit of humiliation in the first season, but not much. I greatly enjoyed rewatching the first season, and won't be bothering tracking down any further seasons of the series.

1994. With Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, David Schwimmer.

Friends With Benefits

Justin Timberlake plays Dylan, drawn from L.A. to New York for a job by executive recruiter Jamie (Mila Kunis). They get along, and start hanging out. Eventually they decide that sex without emotions or commitment is a good idea - so lots of sex and a developing friendship.

Given the amount of talk about sex, it's amazing how little we see. Heaps of blankets with bumps in them, some gasping. I didn't particularly like either character, but they worked together very well and had believable chemistry. And I laughed, a lot. It's a funny (if conventional) movie.

2011, dir. Will Gluck. With Justin Timberlake, Mila Kunis, Patricia Clarkson, Richard Jenkins, Woody Harrelson, Jenna Elfman, Brian Greenberg, Emma Stone, Andy Samberg, Nolan Gould.

Friends With Money

Jennifer Aniston stars as a stoner maid and former teacher whose friends are all exceedingly rich. If the scriptwriter is to be believed, most relationships are rocky all the time. When their big revelation is that a man can dress well and be polite without being gay, I guess I shouldn't have expected too much. No one is particularly likable, and the movie is a dull way to pass an hour and a half.

2006, dir. Nicole Holofcener. With Jennifer Aniston, Joan Cusack, Greg Germann, Jason Isaacs, Catherine Keener, Simon McBurney, Frances McDormand, Bob Stephenson, Scott Caan.

Fried Green Tomatoes

Based on "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe" by Fannie Flagg.

1991. dir. Jon Avnet. With Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, Mary Stuart Masterson, Mary-Louise Parker.

Fright Night (1985)

Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale) has a loving girlfriend (Amanda Bearse) and a slightly over-protective mother. One day, someone moves into the atmospheric house next door ... including putting a coffin in the basement. When people start to disappear, Charley comes to believe that the charming guy next door (Chris Sarandon) is in fact a vampire - although he's unable to convince his "Vampire Slayer" TV hero (Roddy McDowall) of this.

I saw this after the 2011 version. The effects are a little on the cheesy side even for the period, featuring the extensive use of blatant prosthetics. The movie is somewhat amusing, but I'd say the remake both looks better and works better as a whole.

1985, dir. Tom Holland. With William Ragsdale, Chris Sarandon, Amanda Bearse, Roddy McDowall, Stephen Geoffreys.

Fright Night (2011)

Anton Yelchin plays Charley Brewster, the teenager living next door to a vampire (Colin Farrell) in this 2011 remake of the well-known 1985 movie of the same name. Fortunately, it manages to bring both the "horror" and the "comedy" to the overworked "horror-comedy" designation. Farrell is charming, creepy, and very nearly indestructible as the new neighbour who appears to be eating his way across the suburb of Vegas in which they all live. David Tennant is hilarious as Charley's "vampire slayer" TV hero.

2011, dir.. With Anton Yelchin, Colin Farrell, Imogen Poots, David Tennant, Toni Collette, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Dave Franco, Reid Ewing.

Fringe (Season 1)

This review is based on watching the pilot and one episode of the series - which is one more than I should have watched, but I thought I should give them a chance.

I'm going to go with Wikipedia's basic description here: "'Fringe' follows the casework of the Fringe Division, a Joint Federal Task Force supported primarily by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which includes Agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv), Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble), the archetypal mad scientist; and Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson), Walter's estranged son and jack-of-all-trades. They are supported by Phillip Broyles (Lance Reddick), the force's director, and Agent Astrid Farnsworth (Jasika Nicole), who assists Walter in laboratory research. The Fringe Division investigates cases relating to fringe science, ranging from transhumanist experiments gone wrong to the prospect of a destructive technological singularity to a possible collision of two parallel universes."

This "review" is more about me than "Fringe," but will help explain my indifference to the show (and others like it). Although my logic may not make a lot of sense to people who aren't me. I was trained as a Mechanical Engineer when I was young, and am a deep believer in following science. If a vaccine will prevent us getting diseases, I'm in favour of its use. I love science fiction - speculation about the future. But I make a very strong distinction between speculating about future technology and claims that those sciences exist now. I suspect anything that smells like a conspiracy theory ("there are people at the government that are trained as telepaths who can read our minds!") sets me off. I'm okay with telepathy and telekinesis and stuff like that as fantasy - but claim it's science, especially science in the current day, and I get really pissed. So "Fringe" triggered my anger, and it didn't help that they're going way out of their way to make it grotesque: the pilot starts with a plane full of people puking their guts out and then melting. And the second episode has lots of the same sort of biological gross-out. Not my thing.

2008. With Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, John Noble, Jasika Nicole, Lance Reddick, Mark Valley, Blair Brown, Kirk Acevedo.

From Paris With Love

This all makes a lot more sense when you notice that Luc Besson is one of the producers. An American-style action film made in Paris with a French director? No common sense at all? Yup, Besson.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays James Reese, an extremely efficient aide to the U.S. Ambassador in France, who has a loving and beautiful French fiancée (Kasia Smutniak). But what he really wants is to be a spy. And that happens when Charlie Wax (John Travolta) comes to town. Wax blows shit up, kills people, and generally causes mayhem wherever he goes. And it's a long time before it becomes clear whether he's after people selling coke, or maybe he just wants to snort it, or maybe he's chasing terrorists. All of which is supposed to be funny.

Travolta is mildly amusing in his role, and Rhys Meyers is fairly decent, but the action is dull and the humour misses its target repeatedly. What's really sad is that there were a couple moments where it's clear that both the two actors and the two characters could have been in a great movie together if the script hadn't sucked so hard.

2010, dir. Pierre Morel. With Jonathan Rhys Meyers, John Travolta, Kasia Smutniak.

From Stress to Happiness

A documentary in which a stressed Argentinian film-maker (director Alejandro De Grazia) meets several leading experts on happiness. The two most notable were David Steindl-Rast and Matthieu Ricard, a pair of intriguing guys who the movie suggests were brought to Argentina for a retreat/trip arranged by De Grazia's wife? The cinematography varies between decent (some of the scene shots from their trip to Patagonia) and terrible: jittery shooting of Ricard with a camera person who appeared to be a plebe with a cellphone who had no clue that her/his footage would end up in a Netflix production ... including Ricard dropping entirely out of frame occasionally. I think what happened was that De Grazia was so impressed with Ricard that he made an after-the-fact decision to make a movie out of the footage he had ... but he had no footage of Ricard because he was sitting right next to him meditating.

The biggest problem for me is that while this is a charming basic intro to Buddhist philosophy, that's a path I've been on for 25 years. I have no doubt that several days with Ricard was an effective introduction, but an hour in a movie has little effect. The influence and feelings are very hard to convey in a movie, as is the philosophy.

2020, dir. Alejandro De Grazia, Juan Maria Stadler. With Alejandro De Grazia, Matthieu Ricard, Tania Singer, David Steindl-Rast.

From Up on Poppy Hill

Studio Ghibli's latest, directed by the junior Miyazaki (Goro, not Hayo) - a coming-of-age tale set in Yokohama in 1963. I watched it with the Japanese voices and English subs, although I'm sure the English dub is very good (Ghibli gets big releases in North America, which means big money, which means good voice work).

Umi Matsuzaki (Masami Nagasawa in Japanese / Sara Bolger in English) is a 16 year old high school student, who runs a boarding house in the absence of her mother - a medical doctor who is studying in the U.S. Every morning she raises signal flags for the ships - not out of necessity, but from dedication to her dead father. At school, she meets and eventually falls for Shun (Junichi Okada/Anton Yelchin), but there's a somewhat rocky road ahead for them.

It's a very low key movie with no fantasy elements whatsoever (worth noting for those familiar with Miyazaki senior's work). Miyazaki's animation isn't quite as smooth or imbued with as much personality as Miyazaki senior's, but it's nevertheless quite beautiful and up to the task. After "Tales from Earthsea" I wasn't sure he was ready for the big time, but I'm happy to be wrong. It's an enjoyable movie.

2011, dir. Goro Miyazaki. With Masami Nagasawa, Sara Bolger, Junichi Okada, Anton Yelchin, Yuriko Ishida, Christina Hendricks, Shunsuke Kazama, Charlie Saxton, Teruyuki Kagawa, Beau Bridges.

Frost/Nixon

A somewhat fictionalized but reasonably historically accurate look at the Frost-Nixon interviews interspersed with documentary-like talking-head commentary from the various participants. Ron Howard shows remarkable restraint here, giving us an almost unemotional view of the events - thus making it more exciting because the discussions and the talking heads bring home, piece by piece, just how incredibly important these interviews were. And here's Howard, master of the overbearing emotional gesture, operating with restraint. I didn't know he could do it, and I think the end result is magnificent. How did it come about that this party-animal British TV celebrity interviewer end up facing off with Tricky Dick and turn out compelling TV? Watch the movie and find out, it's a good one. Michael Sheen is fantastic as Frost, and Frank Langella likewise as Nixon.

2008, dir. Ron Howard. With Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Sam Rockwell, Kevin Bacon, Matthew Macfadyen, Rebecca Hall.

Frozen

Lovely animation, a Disney musical, more than usually simplistic. The animated snowman Olaf kept being under threat of melting ... and I desperately wished he would, because of all the overly simplified and annoying characters, he was definitely the worst. Although the cutesy trolls weren't that far behind. The critics loved this one, which has me mystified: "Tangled" was so much better. But credit where it's due: Menzel's performance of "Let It Go" was incredibly good - man, she can SING. (Yes, yes, it's been horribly overplayed.)

2013, dir. Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee. With Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad, Santino Fontana, Alan Tudyk, Ciarán Hinds.

Fruitvale Station

Starts out with the poor quality cellphone footage of the punchline you probably already know if you know anything about the movie: Oscar Grant, pinned face down on the platform at San Francisco's Fruitvale Station is shot by a BART police man. The movie then backs up from that reality to show us a recreation of Grant's last day of life.

Jordan is very good as the volatile 22 year old ex-convict Grant who loves his daughter and is trying to do right by his family. Not a happy movie, but a good one - and even more timely that the director intended with the recent non-conviction of George Zimmerman for the shooting of Trayvon Martin in the news.

2013, dir. Ryan Coogler. With Michael B. Jordan, Octavia Spencer, Melonie Diaz, Ahna O'Reilly, Kevin Durand.

The Fugitive

I saw this in the theatre when it came out and really disliked it. I saw it again in 2009, because a friend really liked it and wanted to watch it again. What we both really noticed was that the continuity crew must have been on a work-to-rule campaign, because the continuity sucked. Harrison Ford plays Dr. Richard Kimble, a respected doctor convicted of killing his wife - an act he did not commit. When he's offered an opportunity to escape and search for the real killer, he takes it - and is hotly pursued by a Marshall played by Tommy Lee Jones, and his crew. There's some humour, some action, some detective work ... and none of it felt real or enjoyable to me. Ford's acting left a lot to be desired, and no one else was there to take up the slack: Jones is a good actor, but he seemed to have been told to be loud, authoritative, competent, and emotionless. Not particularly good.

1993, dir. Andrew Davis. With Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, Joe Pantoliano, Andreas Katsulas, Joseph Kosala, Julianne Moore, Sela Ward.

Fullmetal Alchemist: The Curse

One of the best known anime TV series imports, justifiably so. Two young brothers (Edward and Alphonse Elric) with an extraordinary talent for alchemy (this being an alternate earth where things are otherwise similar to our own) try to use their powers to bring their recently deceased mother back from the dead. Their mother remains dead, but for tampering with nature one loses an arm and a leg while the other loses his entire body - both end up with "automail" (robotic) replacements. The writing actually addresses real human issues and desires (ie. bringing back those we love from the dead) in a compassionate way - I'm enjoying this considerably more than the other anime series I've seen.

This disc includes the episodes: "Those Who Challenge the Sun," "Body of the Sanctioned," "Mother," and "A Forger's Love."

2003. With Romi Park, Rie Kugimiya.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Scarred Man of the East

The second disc, episodes 4-8 of season 1. More formulaic than disc one, and the transitions between humour and philosophizing are more abrupt, often like throwing a switch. Alphonse bemoans being trapped in a suit of automail a couple times, but politely. It's often tragic: they're losing nice people at the rate of about one an episode, and maybe it's a particularly obvious shot at at the oft-quoted "Principle of Equivalent Exchange." To gain something, they lose something.

This disc includes the episodes: "The Man with the Mechanical Arm," "The Alchemy Exam," "Night of the Chimera's Cry," and "The Philosopher's Stone."

2003. With Romi Park, Rie Kugimiya.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Equivalent Exchange

Episodes 9-12 of season 1. Settling into a formula: Ed and Al are on their search for the Philosopher's Stone to return themselves to full human form, but wherever they go they encounter greed and problems. Ed is always temperamental and touchy about his height but always does right in the end. It's still better than most anime, but it's getting a bit old.

Rewatching this in 2020, I think I was a bit harsh: the series routinely addresses moral dilemmas - real ones, sometimes quite complex - and making their viewers think.

Includes "Be Thou for the People," "The Phantom Thief," and "The Other Brothers Elric" parts one and two.

2003. With Romi Park, Rie Kugimiya.

Fullmetal Alchemist: The Fall of Ishbal

In this disc Dr. Marko is introduced - as Oppenheimer was to Hiroshima, so Marko is to Ishbal. He created a tool that was used to massacre thousands (hundreds of thousands? We don't know) of innocents. And the alchemists fight some more with Scar, introduced in "Scarred Man of the East."

Includes "Fullmetal vs. Flame, "Destruction's Right Hand," "The Ishbal Massacre," "That Which is Lost."

2003. With Romi Park, Rie Kugimiya.

Fullmetal Alchemist: The Cost of Living

Surprisingly human and intelligent, the series continues to be good. "Scar" continues to be a problem, and the "Homunculuses" are introduced a bit more. They're annoying, but everything else about it is good.

Includes "House of the Waiting Family," "Marcoh's Notes," "The Truth Behind Truths," "Soul of the Guardian."

2003. With Romi Park, Rie Kugimiya.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Captured Souls

While the series has always had a sequence that has mattered, I don't think I'd seen a cliffhanger before - they did that between "The Cost of Living" and this disc. And most of the episodes on this disc are quite strongly connected. Alphonse and Ed go to "Lab 5" in the last episode of the previous disc, and much of this disc takes place there. Unfortunately, they also spend a great deal of time expanding the list of "enemies" for Al and Ed by releasing prisoners from the lab and introducing a new "Homunculi." Obviously they aren't planning on ending the series soon. At least they humanized Scar some. I thought this was the most uneven of the discs so far: it's very bad in some ways, and has some of the best moments on it as well.

Includes "The Red Glow," "Created Human," "Fullmetal Heart," and "Bonding Memories."

2003. With Romi Park, Rie Kugimiya.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Reunion on Yock Island

The cover of this disc has a damaged-looking Edward Elric getting his automail arm exploded. I thought "oh god, not again!" Because that's been happening about once a disc for the last three discs. Fortunately the choice of image didn't reflect the content. Unfortunately, it's becoming more and more clear that the Elric's quest will be going on for a very long time. On this disc, they spend a lot of time with Winrey, and are re-united with their childhood Alchemy teacher.

2003. With Romi Park, Rie Kugimiya.

Fullmetal Alchemist: The Altar of Stone

Disc 8, Episodes 29-32. Here we heap on the new villains at a furious pace: several new homunculi, a couple state alchemists turned bad, a difficult showdown with the Ishbalan refugees. This is a tedious and unrewarding disc, and may even be the end of my viewing of Fullmetal Alchemist.

Includes "The Untainted Child," "Assault on South Headquarters," "Sin," and "Dante of the Deep Forest."

2003. With Romi Park, Rie Kugimiya.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Pain and Lust

Disc 9, episodes 33-36. At this point the introduction of new characters and the stretching out of content as the authors see that they have a success and they need to make it lllaaaaaassssttttt ... is becoming more than a little annoying. MAJOR SPOILER WARNING: The fights with the homunculus Greed are too long and become quite tedious. And yet, as obnoxious as he is, they manage to make his death quite tragic: in part because Ed kills him, and Ed has hardly killed anyone and really doesn't want to be killing people, but also because he says some things in his death scene that put him in a more sympathetic light and because his troops are so staggeringly loyal. This is spoiled by fairly clear evidence that we're going to have another homunculus called Greed in fairly short order.

Includes "Al, Captured," "Theory of Avarice," "Reunion of the Fallen," and "The Sinner Within."

2003. With Romi Park, Rie Kugimiya.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Journey to Ishbal

Disc 10, episodes 37-40. Contrary to what I said about Disc 9, I've found out that FMA wraps up at the end of this, the second season. This is good.

The first episode on this disc is essentially a comic interlude with essentially no reference at all to the Elric brothers. The other three are more development of problems in Ishbal, which are clearly going to come to a head soon.

Includes "The Flame Alchemist," "The Bachelor Lieutenant," and "The Mystery of Warehouse 13," "With the River's Flow," "Secret of Ishbal," and "The Scar."

2003. With Romi Park, Rie Kugimiya.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Becoming the Stone

Disc 11, episodes 41-44. The first word that comes to mind for the episodes on this disc is "sloppy." They're wrapping up some plot lines, and clarifying some mysteries, but this disc is more annoying than enjoyable. MAJOR SPOILER WARNING:Scar dies of acts both noble and vengeful, and in the process turns Al into the Philosopher's Stone. Ed and Al's Dad finally reappears, and it becomes apparent that he's probably not entirely human and is responsible for a lot of the problems going on. Major revelations, but ... not too well set in the context of the FM universe.

Includes "Holy Mother," "His Name is Unknown," "The Stray Dog," and "Hohenheim of Light."

2003. With Romi Park, Rie Kugimiya.

Fullmetal Alchemist: The Truth Behind the Truths

Disc 12, episodes 45-48.

Includes "A Rotted Heart," "Human Transmutation," "Sealing the Homunculus," and "Goodbye."

2003. With Romi Park, Rie Kugimiya.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

There were two TV series made from the Fullmetal Alchemist manga: the first was called simply "Fullmetal Alchemist" (2003) and the second "Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood" (2010). This is NOT the latter series, but the final set of episodes in the former series!

Disc 13, episodes 49-51. All is revealed and most business concluded in the final three episodes. I found the conclusion pretty damn unsatisfactory. SPOILER WARNING: It's a little bloody late to be introducing alternative universes to solve problems - even if it is our own Earth. But that's not the only issue: the brothers, having struggled through 51 episodes in pursuit of returning themselves to flesh and blood, are left with another, possibly even more massive, quest. I don't know if this was a deliberate lead-in to the follow-up movie or not.

Includes "The Other Side of the Gate," "Death," and "Laws and Promises."

2003. With Romi Park, Rie Kugimiya.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Conqueror of Shamballa (orig. "Gekijô-ban hagane no renkinjutsushi: Shanbara wo yuku mono")

The "Fullmetal Alchemist" movie made after the end of the TV series.

The production values didn't change since the TV episodes, just the length. SPOILER WARNING: if you haven't seen the TV series, you shouldn't read this or see the movie. The movie wouldn't make any damn sense anyway. So we left Ed on Earth and Al back on their world. This leads to two wildly disjoint stories running in big separate blocks. It's not that it's hard to follow, but it doesn't work particularly well. As always, they are dogged by "equivalent exchange:" everything they do has side effects, often tragic. At least there's something resembling closure. This isn't a particularly good movie even if you've seen the TV series, and would truly be completely meaningless without seeing the series.

2005, dir. Seiji Mizushima.

Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) Reconsidered

[This review of the 2003 "Fullmetal Alchemist" TV series was written 2020-05-28 after watching the series for a second time.]

"Fullmetal Alchemist" was initially a manga by Hiromu Arakawa, running from 2001 to 2010. In 2006, I watched the TV series based on the manga: it's called (no surprise here) "Fullmetal Alchemist" and was released as 51 episodes of 25 minutes each across 2003 and 2004. What that means - that I didn't know back then - is that the TV series came out, and finished, well before the manga was completed.

COVID-19 has left me with plenty of time on my hands, and when I spotted "Fullmetal Alchemist" on Netflix I remembered it fondly and decided to re-watch it. This led to a very interesting discovery, because Netflix kept recommending "Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood." I assumed that it was a sequel to the original, but in looking it up I discovered that it's a re-interpretation of the full manga series, with "Brotherhood" getting started around the time the manga was ending. The first TV series - the one I'm discussing today - was accurate to the manga for about 14 of the 51 episodes, and from there on it diverges. The second one - "Brotherhood" - is apparently accurate from end to end.

The world of Fullmetal Alchemist is commonly described as "steampunk" and incorporates Alchemy. The buildings and interiors are late 1800s European, and most of the technology (cars, telephones, guns, tanks) is 1920s. The people are frequently blond, often with light-coloured eyes (I've always been fascinated with Anime's tendency to non-Japanese-looking people). Our heroes are Edward and Alphonse Elric, a pair of brothers who show an incredible aptitude for alchemy. But their father has left them, and their mother dies when they're young. In their grief, they ignore the strictures against human alchemy, and at the ages of 11 and 12 they attempt to resurrect their mother. This goes horribly wrong, creating a short-lived thing and causing Edward to lose his leg to "equivalent exchange" which governs alchemy. Worse, Alphonse loses his entire body, and only by trading his arm does Ed manage to bind his brother's soul to a huge set of "automail."

And so we meet them: fortunately for them, "automail" is far more advanced in their world than prosthetic limbs are in ours, so Ed is outfitted with a very effective arm and leg. They've realized the error of their ways, they're not going to try to bring their mother back ... but each of them is determined to restore his brother to his proper original body. And to this end, by the time Ed is 14 and Al is 13, they're taking the test to be State Alchemists to get access to the body of knowledge about alchemy held by the military. This all happens in the first couple episodes, and the series is about them trying to keep their morality intact in a time of war while researching the "Philosopher's Stone," which would allow them to restore themselves.

Ed and Al are wonderful characters: Ed is impulsive and occasionally argumentative, Al is the quieter and more even-tempered of the two. Together they make a hell of a team. Sometimes they fight, but in the end they always support each other.

In the first half of the series, they frequently find themselves up against moral conundrums. And not just for-kids-or-teens moral quandaries, these are routinely questions that will throw adults into serious contemplation of how this might be solved. This is inevitably interspersed with Anime humour and manga emotional messaging (people's faces are suddenly oversimplified and turn ridiculous colours to convey a particular state of mind). The show has a broad and interesting set of characters, my favourites (after the brothers) being Scar, Mustang, Greed (yup, we have embodiments of the seven deadlies), and Maes Hughes. Three out of four of these characters die: the series is loaded with tragedy. That implies tragedy is a dominant tone in the series, but it would be more correct to say it's about hope in the face of tragedy. Almost none of the antagonists are out-and-out evil (maybe Envy): all of them have reasons for what they do, although you may not agree with them.

I felt like the quality trailed off as we progressed into the second half. There was no clear point where that happened, but it's less surprising knowing that this series was diverging further and further from the original manga after the first 14 episodes. I'm intrigued to see how the original author chose to end the series, and "Brotherhood" will tell me that. Given how well she started it, I think she'll end it better than this series did ...

2003. With Romi Park, Rie Kugimiya.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood - Part 1

I recently wrote about re-watching the 2003 version of "Fullmetal Alchemist." As outlined there, this led to the discovery of the 2010 remake - this series, "Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood." Go to that previous entry to read why it made sense to remake it. You should also check out that entry for a basic character and plot outline.

The series was released as 64 episodes of 23 minutes each. It appears that these episodes were released one a week for a bit more than a year. But Netflix has chosen to present this as "Part 1" through "Part 5" as they usually present seasons. This review is about "Part 1," which contains the first 13 episodes.

The series artwork is essentially identical to the previous version. This one may be marginally better. But it also uses significantly more manga emotional signalling: someone who is embarrassed will temporarily change from a normally drawn character into a bright red stick figure flapping their arms in the air in horror, sometimes with the Japanese word for "EMBARRASSED" written on screen like a neon banner.

The plot is functionally identical to the previous version: there are some relatively small practical differences, but not much. However, I watched episode 14 (the first in "Part 2"), and the plot has gone wildly different there. The end of "Part 1" appears to be the point of divergence between "Fullmetal Alchemist" and "Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood."

Having so recently watched the predecessor series and with them being both so stylistically similar and so similar in plot, I don't have much to add to my critical assessment of the series: the brothers are wonderful characters, and they populate the rest of the series with more good characters. I look forward to seeing where it will go from here - now that it's going to be different.

2009, dir. Yasuhiro Irie. With Vic Mignogna, Maxey Whitehead, Travis Willingham, Colleen Clinkenbeard, J. Michael Tatum, Caitlin Glass, Christopher Sabat, Sonny Strait, Kent Williams.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood - Part 2

This "season" (see comments about that in the review of Part 1, above) consists of episodes 14 ("Those Who Lurk Underground") through 26 ("Reunion").

As in the previous version, Ed and Al re-unite with their teacher, and much of this is quite similar. But a lot of other stuff is radically different: Greed dies, and at pretty much the same time as he did previously, but it happens in a very different way. And we have the introduction of two significant characters from Xing (Ling Yao and May Chang) who never existed in the other version.

This is equally as crazy as the original series, but I'm liking it somewhat better. Not as much as I'd hoped, but a bit. It's pretty good stuff, if you can handle the crazy.

2009, dir. Yasuhiro Irie. With Vic Mignogna, Maxey Whitehead, Travis Willingham, Colleen Clinkenbeard, J. Michael Tatum, Caitlin Glass, Christopher Sabat, Todd Haberkorn, Monica Rial, Kent Williams.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood - Part 3

Includes episodes 27 ("Interlude Party," largely a rehash of everything that happened in episodes 1-26) to 39 ("Daydream").

The brothers go north in search of May Chang and her Xingese Alkahestry (an alternative to their Alchemy) as they continue to search for a way to restore their own bodies. They meet Major Armstrong's harsh older sister, General Olivier Mira Armstrong, at Fort Briggs. By the end of this set of episodes, we're beginning to have a pretty good idea of the horrors behind the origin of the country of Amestris (where Ed and Al live). And, while it's looking dark for the good guys, we do see some hope that they can raise a resistance.

2009, dir. Yasuhiro Irie. With Vic Mignogna, Maxey Whitehead, Travis Willingham, Colleen Clinkenbeard, J. Michael Tatum, Caitlin Glass, Christopher Sabat, Todd Haberkorn, Monica Rial, John Swasey, Kent Williams.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood - Part 4

Part 4 consists of episodes 40 ("The Dwarf in the Flask") to 52 ("Combined Strength").

The first half of this Part sees the Elrics travelling on their quest to restore their own bodies as they usually do, but the last seven or so episodes have us back in Central for the main showdown between the Elrics and their allies, and the creature called "Father" and the seven deadly sins ... Well, six - Greed is back and is still a loose cannon. Something on the order of 15-20 episodes are eventually spent on the fight for Central (stretching through most of Part 5), and it's a lot less fun than the rest of the show. There are a lot of standoffs, with people making declarations, static images of attacks, and close-ups of twitching eyes.

2009, dir. Yasuhiro Irie. With Vic Mignogna, Maxey Whitehead, Travis Willingham, Colleen Clinkenbeard, J. Michael Tatum, Caitlin Glass, Christopher Sabat, Troy Baker, Ed Blaylock, Kent Williams, Todd Haberkorn, Monica Rial, John Swasey.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood - Part 5

The end of the series, Part 5 consists of the 12 episodes 53 ("Flame of Vengeance") through 64 ("Journey's End").

Always assume if you're watching SF or Fantasy Anime or reading manga that someone is going to make a play for the power of God. Someone does here. It doesn't work out terribly well for him, but it causes a lot of other people grief. It's also more than a little grandiose and absurd.

Many of the characters are good, but the last 20 episodes took pretty much all of them over-the-top. I guess they had to go there to battle the power of a god, but I'd argue that's one of the many reasons you shouldn't write stories about grabbing the power of god. As I mentioned in the previous review, the fight for Central takes far too long and "there are a lot of standoffs, with people making declarations, static images of attacks, and close-ups of twitching eyes" - all of which stretches well into this set of episodes. It was at least a pleasure to see a peaceful outcome for all our characters after all the horror.

In the end, was "Brotherhood" better than the original "Fullmetal Alchemist?" Marginally. The plot structure is a bit better and a bit more cohesive, but makes the other one seem almost restrained, not a word I would ever have associated with it before seeing this version. This one is too long, particularly the 15-20 episodes spent on the fight in Central. Without a doubt this one has a better ending, and for that alone I thank it.

And, as his last act of the TV series, Ed walks out the door on the woman he wants to spend his life with - proving he's become everything he hated about his own father (who left him, his brother, and his mother). Sure, he had a fairly compelling reason to travel - but it's funny the author made him into his father, and I'd love to know if that was intentional. It didn't feel like it was, or something would have been said? Certainly makes an ironic closing note.

2009, dir. Yasuhiro Irie. With Vic Mignogna, Maxey Whitehead, Travis Willingham, Colleen Clinkenbeard, J. Michael Tatum, Caitlin Glass, Christopher Sabat, Troy Baker, Ed Blaylock, Todd Haberkorn, Monica Rial, John Swasey, Kent Williams.

Fullmetal Alchemist (2017, live action)

In 2006, I worked my way through two years worth of an Anime series called "Fullmetal Alchemist" - which was based on a manga series. It concerns two brothers, Alphonse ("Al") and Edward ("Ed") Elric, who at a very young age lost their mother. They attempted to use alchemy to bring her back to life, and as a result, Ed has lost an arm and a leg (now replaced by "automail" - "prosthetics/robotics" to our thinking) and Ed ... well, Ed is just a soul embedded in a hollow suit of automail. He has no body at all. The anime is quite uneven, but at its best it addresses morality, brotherhood, family, war ... many issues, and often does it surprisingly well.

But this movie ... to my surprise, they nailed most of the visuals (although not the human characters). They filmed in Volterra, Italy (I thought it was Siena - they look very similar), a good match to the visual style of the original anime. But then they went and crammed the content of 15 or so 20+ minute episodes into 135 minutes. And they tried to get everything in there (Wikipedia points out that what they were putting in was the first four volumes of the manga). They dropped some stuff, but still packed in far too much and it all happened too quickly. It also works better as animation: it's a bit too absurd for real life (especially when it comes at you so fast), and in one or two spots becomes - literally - laughable.

A failure.

2017, dir. Fumihiko Sori. With Ryosuke Yamada, Atomu Mizuishi, Tsubasa Honda, Dean Fujioka,Misako Renbutsu, Ryuta Sato, Yo Oizumi, Fumiyo Kohinata, Yasuko Matsuyuki, Kanata Hongō, Jun Kunimura, Kenjirō Ishimaru, Natsuki Harada, Shinji Uchiyama, Natsuna Watanabe.

Funny Face

Let me start by saying I don't like musicals. But it would have helped if they had chosen a romantic lead to stand opposite Audrey Hepburn who wasn't thirty years her senior and didn't look like a cadaver by comparison (sorry Fred Astaire). Of course, they did exactly the same thing to her in "Sabrina." And the romantic chemistry was just as non-existent. There are one or two decent dance numbers, and the music by George and Ira Gershwin offers some minor redemption, but I was pretty unimpressed.

1957, dir. Stanley Donen. With Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, Kay Thompson, Michel Auclair.

Furious 7

If I have to listen to Dominic Toretto say "We're Family" one more time, I'm going to kill someone. Probably the person who makes me see another "Fast" or "Furious" movie. Possibly Vin Diesel (who plays Toretto) - if he was on the set of "Fast & Furious 8," he might let me kill him. Apparently he hates these things even more than I do, but he hasn't figured out any other way to write himself a billion dollar check to payroll the things he actually wants to do ... like that god-awful sequel to "Pitch Black." I inflicted this movie on myself in part because the fifth in the series was actually fun. The sixth was bad, and this is considerably worse.

I'm not going to bother describing the plot, beyond saying that Jason Statham is the bad guy and we get another massive dose of family values squeezed in between vehicular insanity (this is the one where they parachute their cars out of planes), extensive and bloodless violence, and the occasional dose of jiggling young women in bikinis. It really doesn't make much more sense than that.

The script is so badly written I knew exactly when Letty would remember everything. Literally, I had time to say "Oh Jesus, here it comes." And she did.

And that ending. I realize that it's meant to be a tribute to Paul Walker, I appreciate that, but all I could think as Diesel and Walker smiled blissfully at each other was "when's the wedding?" Yeah, brothers are supposed to love each other, but that was a bit much.

2015, dir. James Wan. With Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Jason Statham, Jordana Brewster, Djimon Hounsou, Kurt Russell, Nathalie Emmanuel, Tony Jaa, Ronda Rousey.

Futurama: Bender's Big Score

I admit that I've seen less than half of an episode of the TV series. So jumping in on the movie that followed the cancellation of the TV series may seem a bit weird. But I thought I'd give it a shot. And I totally and completely failed to see the humour in it. I know the series had a lot of fans, but I didn't laugh once for an hour and a half. I smiled maybe twice. The plot was barely cohesive and the humour was a dead loss. Not much left.

2007, dir. Dwayne Carey-Hill. With Billy West, John DiMaggio, Katey Sagal, Lauren Tom, David Herman.

Futureworld

The sequel to "Westworld," a movie that was something of a landmark in science fiction films. The good news is that they've come up with a different and interesting twist on the whole idea, the bad news is the end product isn't as compelling as the original - in part because the simplicity of the original and Yul Brynner's iconic gunman made the first one so memorable and scary.

Several years after the disaster portrayed in "Westworld," the Delos corporation has redesigned and rebuilt their incredibly expensive multi-"world" resort, but attendance isn't what they'd like it to be. To improve it, they've offered passes to the press in the hope of getting good reviews. Our eyes are Chuck Browning (Peter Fonda) who wrote the major newspaper exposé on Westworld, and Tracy Ballard (Blythe Danner) a TV reporter from the same syndicate. They reluctantly team up for a visit to the new addition to the Delos resort, Futureworld. Last time it was a horrible malfunction that brought down Westworld: this time everything works correctly, but there's a horrible scheme in the works at Delos.

I'd say that the idea was a good one, and some of the dialogue is fairly good, but the movie is derailed by unnecessary digressions (in particular the magically appearing samurai warriors and the chase scene that ensues). And nothing about it is as memorable as the gun slinger from the previous movie. Mildly interesting and actually a bit better than I expected, but I wouldn't recommend this to anyone - probably not even hardcore fans of SF, as it's often rather dull.

1976, dir. Richard T. Heffron. With Peter Fonda, Blythe Danner, Arthur Hill, Stuart Margolin, John Ryan, Yul Brynner.


G

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

You know it's going to be a great movie when, right at the beginning of the movie among all the logos, you get a huge sparkling Hasboro sign. That's right: this is a movie based on a toy franchise.

Duke (Channing Tatum), his buddy "Ripcord" (Marlon Wayans), and their troop are delivering a nasty new nano-tech weapon for NATO when they're viciously attacked by a group of nasties led by Duke's ex-fiancée (Sienna Miller) (now called "The Baroness") and armed with all kinds of advanced weaponry. They're rescued by another interestingly equipped group - "the Joes." Who also have great names, like "Snake Eyes" (Ray Park), "Breaker" (Saïd Taghmaoui), "Heavy Duty" (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and "Scarlett" (Rachel Nichols). Duke and Ripcord are recruited and end up fighting the nasties.

I was optimistic when I saw the Motion Picture Rating warning that said "... Mayhem Throughout." Lots of violence, no blood. Lots of effects, not much interest. Lots of decent actors, no decent acting. Lots of plot twists, although none too advanced for a 12 year old. All resulting in a movie that's pretty damn bad, but not bad enough to be funny. An all-around disappointment.

2009, dir. Stephen Sommers. With Channing Tatum, Sienna Miller, Christopher Eccleston, Marlon Wayans, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rachel Nichols, Ray Park, Lee Byung-hun, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Dennis Quaid, Saïd Taghmaoui, Jonathan Pryce.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Even bigger and stupider than the original, but bizarrely also occasionally cleverer. Mostly stupider. This time Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson) leads a reduced set of Joes who are working to clear their name after being framed by ... the President of the United States. But being undercover doesn't stop them from getting in fights and blowing shit up. Or taking DNA samples off the president. The goofy humour occasionally (but too rarely) hits home. Johnson, normally charismatic, somehow fails to bring it - and Bruce Willis steals every scene he's in (which I suppose is okay given that he's supposed to be the general who started the G.I. Joes).

2013, dir. Jon M. Chu. With Dwayne Johnson, Jonathan Pryce, Adrianne Palicki, Channing Tatum, Byung-hun Lee, Bruce Willis, Ray Park, Élodie Yung, Ray Stevenson, Walton Goggins, Arnold Vosloo.

Gad Gone Wild

This is classified by Wikipedia as a "stand-up special" (not incorrect) but apparently they don't consider it a movie. But it's available on Netflix. Gad Elmaleh is apparently France's (current) most successful stand-up comic. In 2015, he brought that act to Montreal, a city he was actually familiar with having spent some years in university there. And of course he could do the show in French, a language he's familiar with - which is kind of important considering he spends a good chunk of the show making fun of the English language (particularly as spoken by Americans). Making fun of Americans is of course a good topic to bring before any Canadian audience, but he's also making fun of the French in France, and he's doing it all in French - the Montreal audience just eats it up.

One of his favourite jokes (which he told on several night shows around the time this movie was released) has him describing asking a cab driver in New York to take him to "GFK" (sic) Airport: any French speaker, or even any English speaker who's tried to learn French, knows that it's very, very easy to reverse "G" and "J" (each sound is reversed in the other language). Which makes this a lot funnier if you have some familiarity with the other language, but he manages to milk the joke even if you speak only English.

He mostly mines his own life experience (and it's a pretty extraordinary life, having been born in Morocco, grown up in France, spent time in Canada, and now living in New York ...) for jokes. And he does it in good humour and with only limited swearing. I found it very funny.

2017, dir. Mario Rouleau. With Gad Elmaleh.

Galaxy Quest

The best Science Fiction parody ever made. The most obvious target is Star Trek, in all its (pre-1999) incarnations. Tim Allen plays an actor whose defining role occurred 18 years ago, the captain of a starship on a long dead TV series. He and his "crew" live out a sad existence attending conventions and doing low end commercial appearances. But Allen is approached and recruited for an "appearance" by people he assumes are fans ... and we're down the rabbit hole as they turn out to be aliens in need of leadership believing that he actually is a starship captain. His crew are pulled in, and a bunch of actors try to lead a starship through a space battle.

Part of what drives the movie's success is that the humour comes from who the characters are - rather than distorting the characters to deliver funny jokes in the moment. Another piece to the puzzle is that (unlike something like "Spaceballs," which it's frequently compared to) this movie has a surprisingly good and satisfying plot. Brilliant casting and hilariously funny, highly recommended.

1999, dir. Dean Parisot. With Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub.

Gallowwalkers

Something like the third movie I've speed-watched this week - I'm catching up on crap movies I was curious about. Assume I've seen approximately half the movie. I watched it on YouTube, apparently a rip from a Chinese DVD or BluRay - with the breasts and gore all fuzzed out. Who knows what else went on the Chinese cutting room floor, although the run-time was approximately correct. And you can definitely assume I still believe I'm competent to pass judgement on it despite all that.

(This bit's from Wikipedia:) Production of the film started in 2006, and the bulk of it was filmed in 2009(?) in Namibia because Wesley Snipes was persona non grata in the U.S. at the time. Or more accurately, he would have been welcome - but only in Club Fed. Where he ultimately spent three years for non-payment of taxes.

The script is staggeringly bad, and the film is plagued by blatant continuity errors as well as the more expected logical problems. All the charm Snipes showed in movies like "Major League" (20 years previously) is gone, replaced by his trademark unjustified swagger. Snipes plays a gunman in a bizarre version of the Old West, in which (some of) the dead rise again, and he's now fully occupied with trying to make their deaths permanent.

On the plus side, the visual images, the cinematography, and to some extent the wardrobe are often quite stunning - some of the movie staff deserve a lot of credit for making amazing shots under what were probably trying circumstances. You can get some sense of that (and several of the good lines, of which there are a few between the clichés) by watching the trailer. Then do yourself a favour and DON'T watch the movie.

2012, dir. Andrew Goth. With Wesley Snipes, Kevin Howarth, Riley Smith, Tanit Phoenix, Patrick Bergin, Steven Ender, Dallas Page, Jenny Gago, Simona Brhlikova.

The Game

To me, this is director David Fincher taxiing on the runway before he went on to make "Fight Club." Michael Douglas is signed up for "the game" by his brother (Sean Penn). Douglas plays a soulless investment banker caught up in a series of weird events that may or may not be "the game," and there's some question as to whether or not "the game" is a good thing. Not bad the first time, doesn't hold up to a second viewing.

1997, dir. David Fincher. With Michael Douglas, Sean Penn, Deborah Kara Unger, James Rebhorn.

Game Night

Max (Jason Bateman) and Annie (Rachel McAdams) are an extremely competitive couple who host a regular game night. Max's brother Brooks (Kyle Chandler) resurfaces from Europe and invites everyone to a game night at his place - while also humiliating Max. The game night turns out to be a theatrical kidnapping - the problem being that a real kidnapping of Brooks occurs first and Max and Annie and their friends have no idea that this isn't the game. This results in some uncomfortable - but fairly successful - humour. But then there are more layers of false and real crime to be peeled back, and they kind of lost me on that. It's true, this isn't a movie you should go to expecting realism, but the improbability still bothered me. I also had a lot of trouble with Brooks: in some scenes he's a staggeringly reprehensible guy who'll sell anything to the highest bidder no matter who gets hurt, and in other scenes - after previously brutally humiliating his brother - it turns out he's doing all this for his brother and willing to sacrifice his life for him. So ... fairly funny in an uncomfortable way, but prepare yourself for a major suspension of disbelief.

2018, dir. John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. With Jason Bateman, Rachel McAdams, Kyle Chandler, Billy Magnussen, Sharon Horgan, Lamorne Morris, Kylie Bunbury, Jesse Plemons, Michael C. Hall, Danny Huston.

Game of Thrones, Season 1

Several friends told me I should read George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series, but I've been reluctant to do so for a couple reasons: I don't like series, and this series is particularly infamous for killing off characters, including "heroes" and the ones you like. I have no problem with the latter in principle: he's writing a civil war and that's just the way it goes. But I'm not crazy about reading it. But when the HBO TV series came out, it garnered rave reviews and I thought I might be okay with the story in that form.

It all comes together here: superb writing, excellent production values, and really good acting. I expect production values to be high in an American series, but the other two parts ... well, in Britain they do it the other way 'round: excellent acting, good script, crap special effects. But this has it all.

The setting is essentially medieval, but there are left-overs from a previous age of essentially dark fantasy: dragons, magic, "White Walkers" who can raise the dead. But the majority of the ten episodes of the first season focus on the political intrigue surrounding the throne and the lead-up to a very nasty civil war. Our main players are the Stark family who rule the North, the incredibly rich and ruthless Lannisters who mostly control the throne, the Night's Watch in the far north who protect the rest of the country from the Others on the far side of "The Wall," and the rebel Targaryens who used to hold the throne and now live in exile beyond the Narrow Sea.

The Stark family are noble, loyal, and likeable ... unfortunately they're not always aware enough of the effects of the political intrigue surrounding them. They also all have a hellish temper. Sean Bean plays the head of the house, Michelle Fairley his wife, Richard Madden his senior son, and Maisie Williams his younger tom-boy daughter. Lena Headey, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and Peter Dinklage are the three Lannister siblings - Dinklage plays Tyrion "The Imp," the only one of the three who seems to have retained any humanity. It's fantastic to see Dinklage in a role worthy of his acting skills. Emilia Clarke and Harry Lloyd play the exiled Targaryens.

This is a superb series. See it.

UPDATE: I lost interest in the series half way through the third season when Martin introduced the seventh or eighth faction. It was one too many. But the first season is very good.

2011, dir. Tim Van Patten, Brian Kirk, Daniel Minahan, Alan Taylor. With Sean Bean, Mark Addy, Michelle Fairley, Richard Madden, Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Rory McCann, Aidan Gillen, Harry Lloyd, Emilia Clarke, Iain Glen, Maisie Williams, Kit Harington, Alfie Allen.

Gamer

Gerard Butler plays a convict in the near future, playing in a first-person-shooter game ... in which he's the equivalent of the on-screen character while someone else controls him. He's won 26 games without dying, utterly unheard of, and if he wins four more he'll be released. But there's more going on behind the scenes with politics and the game creator.

The filming is incredibly frenetic, with rapid POV changes, angled shots, broken up "signal," etc. etc. The directors throw up a number of fairly interesting moral questions about bio-engineering and about gaming and the people who play, but then don't address them at all. "Hey, here are some naked breasts. Maybe it's blatant titillation, or maybe it's because gamers are repugnant: but we're not going to discuss that because we're making an action movie and we wouldn't want to force you to think." And yet it's not a terribly good action movie either.

2009, dir. Neveldine/Taylor. With Gerard Butler, Logan Lerman, Michael C. Hall, Amber Valletta, Terry Crews, Kyra Sedgwick.

Gandhi

Impressive work for Kingsley, and a good bio, but far too long.

1982. dir. Richard Attenborough. With Ben Kingsley, Martin Sheen, John Gielgud.

Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo

I thought I had read The Count of Monte Cristo, but perhaps not - maybe I've only seen one of the previous movie versions. Having read the Wikipedia summary of the original Alexandre Dumas novel, I have to admit this is a surprisingly accurate interpretation of the plot - if not the setting, as this takes place in the year 5053. We start out on "Luna" (Earth's moon), but the majority of the story takes place in Paris. Some of the speech is in French, but the large majority of it is in Japanese. Cars look surprisingly similar to our cars (or at least French cars of the 1960s), but the rich ride around in carriages drawn by horses. And everybody drives on the left side of the road - I suppose so as not to mess with the heads of the target audience (the Japanese). But the most immediately obvious thing about the whole proceeding is the visual style: clothing is provided for most characters by making a cut-out in the shape of the character to a background pattern that doesn't necessarily move in quite the same way the character does.

This is an anime series of 24 episodes, 25 minutes each.

Our protagonist is the young Viscount Albert de Morcerf, who we first see on Luna with his friend Baron Franz d'Épinay, where they meet the Count of Monte Cristo. His introduction into their life is shown to not be as accidental as it appears to be, but Albert doesn't notice and happily introduces Monte Cristo into Paris society, where Monte Cristo pursues his revenge on Morcerf's father as well as the father's associates Villefort and Danglars. The biggest change apparent near the beginning is that Edmond Dantes, during his stay in prison, has somehow merged with Gankutsuou, some form of alien.

Albert is charming, but unbelievably naive. I don't use the word "unbelievably" simply for emphasis: his naiveté was so extreme that it made the willing suspension of disbelief impossible on more than one occasion.

And the ending didn't make much sense and was more annoying than satisfying (it also deviated farther from the original plot than any other part of the story). So ultimately, occasionally interesting but silly and definitely not worth the time invested (~9 hours).

2004, dir. Mahiro Maeda. With Joji Nakata, Jun Fukuyama, Daisuke Hirakawa.

Gantz: O

This is a Japanese all CGI all-the-time Sci Fi spectacular ... with everything bad that implies. In some very near future, Masaru Kato (voiced, in English, by Kaiji Tang) dies while trying to save someone from a knife attack in the Tokyo subway. He wakes in a room where it's very badly explained to him that dead people are resurrected and have to play a game: they're teleported with weapons to where monsters are attacking cities and they have to survive, make points, and kill all the monsters, all in two hours. The fact that it's in a city centre and normal people die by the hundreds around them is not - initially - a subject of discussion.

The CG humans look like something from a high end video game cut scene. The women are every bit as realistic as - and built like - Lara Croft. The men aren't quite so unrealistic, although they don't exactly look human either. The "acting" (if it can even be called that) is appalling. The character's behaviour is idiotic, even given the bizarre circumstances they're thrown into. It's bloody, violent, nasty, and really silly.

I'm beginning to think that one of the features of manga - this is based on a manga, and I'm not a manga reader so my interpretation is gleaned from other from-a-manga movies - is that the idea of throwing people into a really wild situation and seeing what happens is all that matters ("Attack on Titan" comes to mind). No explanation is given of where the monsters come from. No explanations of the resurrection, teleportation, or weapons technology are given. No explanation is given of why killing the monsters has been gameified, nor why you wouldn't just given the weapons technology (and resurrection and teleportation) to the military, who are actually trained for fighting. So ... this is just about people in a weird situation. I could deal with that if the people were well written. They are not.

In the end, the only redeeming feature for me was the monster design: the Japanese often have a significantly different vision of what "monster" means. A few are so out there they mostly seem silly to North Americans, but most of them are weird and seriously scary. But this sure as hell isn't enough of a reason to watch a movie this bad.

2016, dir. Kei'ichi Sato. With Kaiji Tang, Cristina Vee, Kyle McCarley, Laura Post, Todd Haberkorn, Josia Wills, Bryce Papenbrook.

Garden of Words

Our two main characters are 15 year old student Takao Akizuki (voiced by Miyu Irino) who is very focused on his dream of becoming a shoe-maker, and a 27 year old woman (voiced by Kana Hanazawa) he meets on rainy mornings in a shelter in a beautiful public park. They talk, he sketches, she reads, they enjoy the park. Things get a little weird when she returns to work - but overall, almost nothing happens except talking and gloriously beautiful scenes (director Makoto Shinkai has already proven he can make commuter trains beautiful). It's just as well that the run-time is a remarkably short 50 minutes.

I think the thing that stuck with me most from the movie wasn't actually in the movie, but in the commentary on the DVD: "loneliness isn't a thing that needs to be fixed." That was Makoto Shinkai. Not that he's encouraging loneliness, connections and family are, as he says, important: but good things can come from being alone.

A very contemplative movie, and another good one from Shinkai.

2013, dir. Makoto Shinkai. With Miyu Irino, Kana Hanazawa, Takeshi Maeda, Suguru Inoue.

Garden State

Written and directed by Zach Braff (best known previously for leading the cast of "Scrubs"), exceeds expectations. Braff also stars in the movie, playing a young would-be actor in L.A. who goes home for the first time in nine years to attend the funeral of his mother. He meets up with some old friends, makes some new ones, and takes a "vacation" from the mood-numbing drugs he's been on for 16 years. The content doesn't sound extraordinary, but the presentation is: the cinematography has some truly brilliant moments, the soundtrack is great, the characters are both hilarious and touching. Comes with a large side order of farcical comedy.

2004. dir. Zach Braff. With Zach Braff, Natalie Portman, Peter Sarsgaard, Ian Holmes.

Gen-X Cops (orig. "Dak ging san yan lui")

Inspector Chan (Eric Tsang, a prolific Hong Kong actor usually seen over here in pathetic-comedic roles like this one) is a failure as a police officer. He gets permission under dubious circumstances to work on a big case, and recruits three police academy rejects - Jack (Nicholas Tse), Match (Stephen Fung), and Alien (Sam Lee) - to help him out. They're not good with authority, but smart and good at fighting. Aided by Y2K (Grace Yip), they fight a war with two fronts: one against the gangsters, the other against a police department that doesn't want to accept or support them.

Tsang's humour has never really been my thing, and the plot is typically HK-over-the-top. But there's some good moments: the three reject cadets have a surprisingly decent rapport, there's some funny stuff not involving Tsang and some decent fights. Jackie Chan produced and has a cameo toward the end, qualifying this movie as one of his better choices. Although I'm not sure I'd recommend this even for fans of the martial arts ...

1999, dir. Benny Chan and Alan Mak. With Nicholas Tse, Stephen Fung, Sam Lee, Grace Yip, Eric Tsang, Moses Chan, Toru Nakamura, Daniel Wu, Francis Ng, Terence Yin, Jaymee Ong.

Gentleman's Agreement

Gregory Peck plays Phil Green, a widower and journalist moving to New York City with his mother (Anne Revere) and his young son (Dean Stockwell). Green picks up a story about anti-Semitism, and decides the best way to break the story is to be Jewish himself for a few weeks. As this is going on, he's falling for Kathy Lacey (Dorothy McGuire). I found that side story rather annoying, probably because I wasn't too keen on McGuire's acting. Rather better were John Garfield as Green's Jewish friend Dave Goldman, and Celeste Holm as Anne Dettrey (Holm won a supporting Oscar for the role, well deserved).

This was based on the best-selling novel of the same name, and it's a blistering indictment of not only anti-Semitism, but also those who don't like anti-Semitism but keep quiet about it. It was hugely successful at the box office and at the Oscars. Unfortunately, it drew several of the people associated with the movie into the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings for those nasty liberal tendencies that they exposed by choosing to be involved with this movie (most actors carefully avoided this movie for that reason). Because it was controversial and successful, it's very likely it was as socially important as the extras on the DVDs suggest.

1947, dir. Elia Kazan. With Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, Anne Revere, Dean Stockwell, Celeste Holm, John Garfield, June Havoc, Jane Wyatt.

Get Him to the Greek

After Aaron Green (Jonah Hill) suggests that the way to kick-start the income stream at his employer's record label is to sponsor a ten-year anniversary concert for his hero Aldous Snow (Russell Brand), he's assigned to get Snow to the theatre and to a pre-show interview. There are several problems: Snow is severely drugged up, his last album was an abject failure, he's desperately pining for his ex-, and Green is totally unused to the rock-and-roll lifestyle.

You don't need to know much more about the movie, except A) it's a comedy, and B) it's incredibly crass and crude. In case that's not clear: this is Judd Apatow/Jason Segel/Jonah Hill all the way. I wasn't particularly crazy about the level of humour on display, but Brand and Hill sell their characters fairly well, and there are some very funny moments.

2010, dir. Nicholas Stoller. With Jonah Hill, Russell Brand, Rose Byrne, Sean Combs, Elisabeth Moss, Colm Meaney.

Get Low

Robert Duvall plays Felix Bush, a hermit in the American South around 1930. He comes out of 40 years of seclusion to plan his own funeral party - despite the fact that he's quite evidently not dead yet. Bill Murray plays Frank Quinn, the desperate and broke funeral parlour manager who takes on the party planning job, and Lucas Black plays Buddy Robinson, the funeral home assistant who spends more time with Bush. Sissy Spacek plays Mattie Darrow, who had a short fling with Felix 40 years gone.

Brilliantly acted by pretty much everybody involved. Both extremely poignant and very funny, an excellent movie.

2010, dir. Aaron Schneider. With Robert Duvall, Lucas Black, Bill Murray, Sissy Spacek, Bill Cobbs.

Get Smart

I was expecting this to be really bad, but I thought I might enjoy it anyway. As it turned out, it's not too bad and I laughed - a lot. Steve Carell plays Maxwell Smart, and they play Smart as a slightly clumsy, maybe accident-prone, but very intelligent doofus. Definitely preferable to "complete idiot," which I was expecting. Not an intelligent film, but it's got quite a few good gags while still retaining a plot and only aiming for humiliation humour once or twice. Fun.

2008, dir. Peter Segal. With Steve Carell, Anne Hathaway, Dwayne Johnson, Alan Arkin, Terence Stamp, Bill Murray, Patrick Warburton, Terry Crews, David Koechner, Masi Oka, Nate Torrence, Ken Davitian, David S. Lee, Dalip Singh.

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

Headstrong widower Mrs. Muir insists on renting a cottage, despite it being haunted. On her first night, she encounters the ghost of the foul-mouthed (only by the standards of a century ago) sea captain who haunts the place. They make a deal and eventually become friends, but real life interferes with her ethereal romance.

A bizarre cross between a romantic comedy and a ghost story, with distinctly limited, "mannered" acting by all the leads. Manages "cute" but not much more.

1947, dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz. With Gene Tierney, Rex Harrison, George Sanders, Edna Best, Natalie Wood.

Ghost in the Shell

With the exception of "Akira," this was the first major American release of an anime movie. They spend a lot of time on visuals: there's one point in the movie where the director takes about three minutes just to show bits and pieces of the city. The visuals are stunning. The story is an interesting one too: in the future when each of us has a computer in our head, can we be hacked? Beautiful to look at and thought-provoking. Possibly the best unknown science fiction movie out there, a hell of a lot better than many better known SF movies.

1995. dir. Mamoru Oshii.

Ghost in the Shell (2017)

I'm incapable of reviewing this independent of its history: "Ghost in the Shell" started as a manga series by Masamune Shirow in 1989. I've never read the manga - but I've seen the 1995 movie eight or nine times, the 2004 sequel around four times, and I've even watched the entirety of the TV series. I think the movies are among the best Anime ever made, and some of the best science fiction ever put on film. So this movie had a lot to live up to.

They do everything they can to bring Shirow's visuals to life: scenes from the first two movies and even from the TV series are recreated in live action in astonishing detail. Is this a good idea? The animated movies are a great source, both full to the brim with strikingly beautiful imagery. That's fine, I guess ... but they played amateur surgeon with what used to be a great plot, grafting in this idea and that, rearranging the Major's (Scarlett Johansson) history and trying to shoe-horn it into a story about hijacked identity. That's similar to some of the ideas Shirow was after, but horribly mangled and ultimately not nearly as interesting or as thought-provoking as the original movies.

Pretty, not as terrible as I expected (after the not-very-positive reviews), but not nearly as interesting or thought-provoking as it should have been.

2017, dir. Rupert Sanders. With Scarlett Johansson, Michael Carmen Pitt, Pilou Asbæk, Chin Han, Juliette Binoche, Takeshi Kitano, Peter Ferdinando.

Ghost In the Shell 2: Innocence

1995's "Ghost in the Shell" was a very intelligent and disturbing movie about the near future that made you really think about what it meant to be human when your body is enhanced (or even fully replaced) with prosthetics and your mind is augmented with computers and extra storage. What happens when someone hacks your mind, and changes your memories of your life - makes you do things to save the wife and daughter you don't even have? I think it was, and still remains, one of the best SF movies in any form.

"Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence" looks to follow that up with a slower-paced and more philosophical contemplation on a similar subjects. I can't really elaborate without giving stuff away, although it's still very much about being most or all machine and still having a human soul. Batou (I've seen his name spelled "Bato," "Batou," and "Bateau") and Togusa return from the previous movie, with Batou questioning his own humanity now as much as Major Kusanagi did in the previous movie. But this time they're investigating the multiple malfunctions of gynoids (turns out that's a legitimate word - androids modelled on the female form) - that are killing people and then themselves, which doesn't really make sense.

The previous movie was (I think) entirely hand drawn, but this one makes heavy use of fairly blatant - but often stunningly gorgeous - CG graphics. And just like the previous movie, this one takes a break exactly at the mid-point for a three minute exercise in jaw-dropping art, showing the city with beautiful music, no speech, and almost zero plot advancement.

As mentioned, this movie is even more philosophical than the last - and with a script loaded to the gills with the quoting of literature and proverbs, what you're going to make of it depends very heavily on the quality of the translation. I think the first time I saw it, less of the quotes had actually been put in quotes in the subs. And I think that's actually better, because - just like listening to an actor speaking your native language - you either recognize the quote or you don't: it's not stuffed in your face that it IS a quote. It's marginally interesting to know that they're playing a reference game with each other, but it would be better if it weren't so blatant, as with the English subs I saw this time.

This isn't as good a movie as the first one, but it's still very good and very thought-provoking (although it would be meaningless without seeing the first one). It's even more visually beautiful - which is saying something.

2004, dir. Mamoru Oshii.

Ghost In the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (Season 1)

"Ghost In the Shell" is one of the best known and most highly regarded of all science fiction anime movies. It's intensely cerebral (to the point that a few people find it too concentrated on ideas and boring or hard to follow ... or both), but it was a property that I absolutely loved. The movie has stood up to multiple viewings, and always leaves me wondering how many of the ideas represented are going to be in our future.

The movie and manga were very popular, and led to this spin-off TV series called "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex." As Major Motoko Kusanagi was both the star of the show and the most popular character, they chose to completely ignore what happened in the movie (Kusanagi joining with the Puppet Master and leaving Section 9) to focus on Section 9 with the set of characters they wanted, centring around Kusanagi, Batou (or "Bateau" or "Bato" depending on your translation), Aramaki, Togusa, and Ishikawa. New members of Section 9 are added in the the form of Paz, Borma, and Saito - although none of these play a large part in the first season.

The season splits its time between Section 9's pursuit of the Laughing Man (a hacker with an incredible skill for avoiding appearing on screens, taking over people's ghosts, and even hacking people's eyes so they see what he wants them to see) and stand-alone - often comedic - episodes. Much of the comedy (such as it is) comes in the form of the Tachikomas, seven or eight AI-equipped tanks that support Section 9. They have annoying voices and no faces, so the animators compensate by having the Tachikomas wave their arms and move wildly when they're talking - I found it quite off-putting. Some episodes were quite political and/or philosophical, and for the last eight or so episodes they retired the Tachikomas and concentrated on the Laughing Man story line. That stretch was definitely better than the very uneven stuff that proceeded it, but overall wasn't all that great.

26 episodes of ~24 minutes each.

2002, dir. Kenji Kamiyama. With Atsuko Tanaka, Akio Ôtsuka, Yutaka Nakano, Kôichi Yamadera.

Ghost In the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (Season 2)

Niihama (the fictional city where our show and Section 9 are based) and Japan are under attack by a group of terrorists called "The Individual Eleven." While Section 9 re-formed after its disbanding near the end of the prior season, its clear there are still elements in the government that aren't particularly happy about its continued existence, so they have a fight on that front as well. While World War III and World War IV are mentioned, not much is said about what happened - but a lot of refugees landed in Japan. And they're a political problem that seems to be tied in to "The Individual Eleven." The season concentrates on moving the season's story arc forward in every episode: there's very little in the way of filler (there was a lot more in the first season).

Not that it doesn't have its flaws: the series is prone to convoluted plots by the bad guys, and fairly regular wild leaps of logic by the authors who take it as a given you'll accept what you're told as a fait accompli even though they didn't really lay the ground work for it ... and despite the fact that a good portion of the series is asking you to think and use your deductive reasoning ... At least this season Kusanagi isn't quite as obviously wearing a one piece bathing suit as a "uniform," although they haven't stopped the fan service ...

Overall, a better season than the first.

Two movies were released around the time of these two seasons: "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - The Laughing Man" and "Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. 2nd GIG – Individual Eleven". The first appears to be the first season cut down to focus on the material about the Laughing Man, with a run-time of 2h40m, and likewise the second is the second season focused on the political events and the "Individual Eleven," also running roughly 2h40m. Wikipedia says they have some original content, but I skimmed both and saw so little that wasn't in the TV series that I ignored them.

26 episodes of ~24 minutes each.

2003, dir. Kenji Kamiyama. With Atsuko Tanaka, Akio Ôtsuka, Yutaka Nakano, Kôichi Yamadera.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - Solid State Society

A 2005 made-for-TV movie following the two seasons of "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex." The events happen a couple years after the end of season 2, with the Major having left Section 9. Aramaki has promoted Togusa to replace her as the leader. The primary problem they try to deal with is the systematic abduction of hundreds - or maybe thousands - of children ... and possibly by a government agency.

While it's not disastrously bad, it's the weakest entry in the series so far. Kusanagi's motivations have always been opaque, but seemed to have some logic: now they seem opaque and lacking any sense. And the logic gaps the writers leap freely over (mentioned in my review of season 2) seem to exist in particular abundance in this movie - perhaps because of the relatively short run-time of 1h40m.

2006, dir. Kenji Kamiyama. With Atsuko Tanaka, Akio Ōtsuka, Koichi Yamadera, Osamu Saka, Yutaka Nakano, Tōru Ōkawa, Takashi Onozuka, Taro Yamaguchi.

Ghost in the Shell: Arise

"Ghost in the Shell: Arise" was aired in 2015, but is set before the 1995 movie and the 2002 "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex" TV series. It's about the formation of Section 9, or at least Section 9 as we knew it in the movies and GitS:SAC. Everyone looks younger: this makes sense for Aramaki and Togusa (who are almost fully human), but not for anyone else as they're almost entirely cyborgs. By making them look younger, it implies they would deliberately age the appearance of their cyborg bodies - which seems improbable. My guess on seeing their appearance was that we were about 15 years prior to GitS:SAC, but I was way off: according to Wikipedia, "Arise" is set in 2027, GitS (the movie) is in 2029, and GitS:SAC is in 2030 (which makes NO sense, as Kusanagi pretty much left this mortal plane after the movie - not entirely ... it's a long story, but she wouldn't have been working with Section 9 anymore. However that's a failing of GitS:SAC, not "Arise"). And Aramaki's hair went from solid brown to solid white in two years??

We find out that Motoko Kusanagi never had a real body: her mother died while Kusanagi was still in the womb, and the only way to save her was to completely cyberize her at birth. And in the first episode she's still in the military because it owns her very expensive body. By the second episode she's gained both Aramaki's interest and her freedom, but she spends the whole thing fighting with a military unit that includes Batou, Borma, Saito, Ishikawa, and Paz. Prequels are BAD: in this case, they insist on condensing recruiting of "the team" to all come from one place (except Togusa from the local police), which seems extremely unlikely. Especially after they all tried to kill her. And let's not forget the Tachikomas - apparently so popular in GitS:SAC that they had to be re-incarnated as an earlier version, the Logicomas. They're only less annoying than the Tachikomas because they aren't called on to talk so much.

The most unfortunate change in character was Saito: in this series he swaps sides twice for money (do we really think the Major would hire him after that?), and he sleeps through everything, meetings and guard duty alike. This is very different than the character we see in GitS:SAC, who is both alert and reliable.

Kusanagi herself is an obnoxious bitch that no one would want to work for. In the movie and GitS:SAC she's a mystery, not terribly friendly, and she often does stuff unexpectedly, but she always has her reasons and it's clear why they follow her. Here ... she's just too distant, unpredictable and unpleasant.

The series consists of four one hour episodes: "Ghost Pain," "Ghost Whispers," "Ghost Tears," and "Ghost Stands Alone," followed by a particularly crappy two-part 50 minute episode: "Pyrophoric Cult," which is hardly more than a setup for the closing 100 minute episode "Ghost in the Shell: The New Movie" which - while not great - was possibly the best of the lot.

Overall not a particularly good series, but at least an interestingly different take on characters I like.

2015, dir. Kazuchika Kise.

Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045, Season 1

I've watched almost all the "Ghost in the Shell" media there is to watch. Really: both of the original movies, the 2017 live-action movie (don't), and all the "Stand Alone Complex" TV episodes and movies. So I know a bit about the universe this is set in. (Okay, I've only read a couple of the manga.) If you're just starting out with "Ghost in the Shell," don't read this review: go watch the original two movies and stop there. The SAC TV series isn't terrible, but neither is it particularly good.

What made the original movies great were good characters, spectacular artwork, and their thought-provoking examination of our potential future when our brains were augmented with computer hardware and software - and we became hackable. Good action helped, but was never really the point to me. The SAC TV series did manage to maintain some of the political intrigue and computer hacking aspects, but wasn't nearly as sharp as the original pair of movies.

My review of this new series (2020, Netflix) is based on episodes 1-6 inclusive of the available 12 episodes, each of which is around 24 minutes.

This series resurrects one of the original SAC's worst ideas: the Tachikoma "think tanks." They're sentient AI tanks that work with the team. Each of the three of them sound and act like a five year old on a permanent sugar high. They kept the sexualized opening credits, and kept Major Kusanagi in an improbably tight uniform. But this new series uses computer animation where everything previous was (mostly) hand-drawn. If you look at any given frame, it looks quite good. But it's incredibly low rent: when the characters talk, they look like hinged-jaw heads, and for most characters their hair is a single mass that looks like plastic and doesn't move. Except for Kusanagi: her hair doesn't look like hair, but it does move.

The series nearly lost me on the opening text in the first episode, in which they quickly outlined the current state of the world: "sustainable war as an economic principle." That's hard enough to swallow, but was almost immediately followed by something like "humanity was in danger of being wiped out" which means it wasn't actually sustainable.

But I stuck around as the action moved briskly along. Absurdly, but briskly. And in the sixth episode we meet the new enemy: "posthumans." We're told they have the equivalent of the world's best supercomputer in their head. Kusanagi asks "are they born with these capabilities?"

THUD.

That was the sound of my jaw hitting the floor. Kusanagi has survived multiple twisty movies and TV series by not only being the smartest person in the room, but the smartest person in the nearest city. And to ask "are they born with these capabilities?" insults the intelligence of any normal human who knows anything about the series, never mind Kusanagi. People in GitS are born human, and then modified: they're not born with computers built-in: biology hasn't changed, just technology. And I guess I sound like a hardcore fanboy, but the show has a history and a mythology that stretches across 25 years. Hell, it would have been better if the answer to her question was "yes" and they'd just retconned the whole series, but the answer was "no." That was my cue to exit the series: intelligent writing is a requirement for a GitS property, and this doesn't have it.

This show isn't recommended if you're not familiar with the series, and it's really, truly not recommended if you already know GitS.

2020. With Atsuko Tanaka, Osamu Saka, Akio Otsuka, Kōichi Yamadera, Yutaka Nakano, Tōru Ōkawa, Takashi Onozuka, Taro Yamaguchi, Sakiko Tamagawa.

Ghost Rider

Wow. Just ... wow. How you can pump this much money, special effects, and star power into a movie and get a turd that stinks this bad, I don't know. Peter Fonda slums it as the devil - and doesn't even do it particularly well. Nicolas Cage is a good actor, but you'll never know it from this movie. Eva Mendes looks pretty and acts dumb, willingly believing that it's okay that her boyfriend's head turns into a flaming skull occasionally. Donal Logue offers a bit of relief. But if you're going to watch psuedo-religiosical camp, "Constantine" is an order of magnitude better.

2007, dir. Mark Steven Johnson. With Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Peter Fonda, Matt Long, Raquel Alessi, Donal Logue.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

Neveldine/Taylor take over for this unnecessary sequel - well, "necessary" in the Hollywood sense as the original made money despite being trash. Plot, common sense and consistency with the previous movie all take a back seat to STYLE. Looking the movie up after seeing it, I note that it was originally released in 3D (I saw it on DVD in 2D) - which explains the frequent use of in-your-face flying chains. Directors with class and sense have already learned that 3D works best as a background, but Neveldine/Taylor still think getting in your face is really cool.

Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage, even more over-the-top than last time) has been hiding out, trying to keep "the Rider," his murderous flame-skulled alter ego, under control. But he's sought out by a French priest-of-action called Moreau, who encourages/pushes him into protecting a young boy that the devil wants ... and who has more in common with Blaze/the Rider than any of them know. As I write out the plot summary, it comes to me that in the hand of any half-way competent screen writer, you could have had a really good moral-dilemma drama with some wicked action, but Neveldine/Taylor are every bit as subtle as the massive scale mining equipment they break out in the second act. Morality? Good dialogue? WTF, let's blow it out with great action and forget the rest. I mean, come on: they gave Christopher Lambert a part, and I don't think they even had irony in mind. I thought the action was actually better than the previous entry, if you don't mind staggeringly ludicrous and totally over-the-top. Enjoy.

2012, dir. Neveldine/Taylor. With Nicolas Cage, Idris Elba, Johnny Whitworth, Ciarán Hinds, Violante Placido, Christopher Lambert, Anthony Head.

Ghost Town

Ricky Gervais plays a misanthropic dentist, who, during a routine operation at the hospital, dies for seven minutes and returns with the ability to see dead people. As the tagline says, "He sees dead people ... and they annoy him." Remind you of another movie? This is the comedy version of "Sixth Sense," with similarities well beyond the basic premise of seeing the dead people. Greg Kinnear plays his most persistent visitor, with Téa Leoni being Kinnear's widow and a resident in Gervais' building.

Gervais tones down his regular comic shtick somewhat, and puts enough humanity into his character to make this pretty good. The biggest problem is the amount of change we see in him in a short time: I think "Groundhog Day" set a watermark for assholes changing into better people, and this one doesn't make it. But nevertheless fairly charming and quite funny.

2008, dir. David Koepp. With Ricky Gervais, Greg Kinnear, Téa Leoni, Aasif Mandvi.

Ghost World

Two teens graduate from high school and find that real life is just as disillusioning as high school. Not a very happy movie. Still not sure if I liked it, but it's fairly memorable.

2001. With Thora Birch, Scarlett Johansson, Steve Buscemi.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife

I was never a huge fan of the original movie(s), but the trailer for this one appealed to me so I decided to watch it. We see Callie (Carrie Coon) inheriting a run-down farm from her estranged and recently deceased father (who the audience knows was a ghost hunter, although Callie apparently doesn't know this or at the very least won't discuss it). Since she's broke, she moves to the farm in a tiny town in Oklahoma with her two children Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and the very intelligent Phoebe (Mckenna Grace). Phoebe unexpectedly finds friends in local kid "Podcast" (Logan Kim) and her summer school teacher Gary (played by Paul Rudd), while Trevor falls for Lucky (Celeste O'Connor). And of course once the very charming cast is established, there are ghosts to be discovered and fought.

The movie has a great time with the nostalgia, referencing the previous movies. The new cast are well chosen and appealing, the script is pleasantly well written, and the whole thing is goofy fun. I particularly liked Mckenna Grace - a bit of a relief as I thought she was spectacular in "Gifted" at the age of ten or eleven, and wondered where she'd go from there.

For those more familiar with the franchise than me (I had to go look this up), Egon Spengler (Callie's father and the owner of the home they move into) was originally played by Harold Ramis. Ramis died in 2014 ... but appears to be in this film. This is the (rather successful, I might add) use of a "digital likeness" put on top of two other actors. And to me, at least, it felt like a nice tribute and oddly fitting that his appearances in the movie are all non-speaking.

2021, dir. Jason Reitman. With Carrie Coon, Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Paul Rudd, Logan Kim, Celeste O'Connor, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson.

Ghosts (BBC), Season 2

The first season of "Ghosts" (there are many things called this, but this one was broadcast by the BBC) came out in 2019. The premise is simple: a young couple inherit a large, crumbling British house, and because of their financial situation, have little choice but to move in and attempt to make it work - despite the fact that the place is haunted. During the first season (and through the actions of the ghosts), the wife dies for a short time and after her revival is able to see and hear the ghosts. I joined the series in this, the second season.

Wikipedia calls this a "sitcom." It's a throwback to the sitcoms of the 1980s: barely any continuity from episode to episode, incredibly broadly drawn characters, everybody learns a lesson during the course of an episode. The heavy-handedness of the personalities considerably reduced the humour for me. It's sweet and mildly amusing, but I very much doubt I'll bother to track down any more of the series.

2020, dir. Tom Kingsley. With Charlotte Ritchie, Kiel Smith-Bynoe, Lolly Adefope, Mathew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard, Ben Willbond, Katy Wix.

Gifted

Chris Evans is Frank Adler, who lives in Florida and makes his living repairing boats. He has raised his math prodigy niece (Mckenna Grace as "Mary") for the entirety of her seven year life after the early death of his sister (also a math prodigy). But when he enters her into public school (later than usual as he's been home-schooling her), her skills come to the attention of her domineering grandmother (Lindsay Duncan), who thinks she knows what's best for Mary.

I thought the movie did a respectable job of bringing up the problems of raising a prodigy without being too heavy-handed about how they should be solved. Okay, maybe it's a little heavy-handed - but it had the courtesy to leave the question open long enough that you're given the time to think about it. The dialogue is intelligent, and the characters very well played. If you're going to have a seven year old in a movie, you couldn't do better than the outstanding Mckenna Grace - and Evans, Duncan, and the often present Octavia Spencer as their next door neighbour were all very good.

The plot summary can be reduced to "man tries to raise math prodigy niece" and just from that you can guess several of the plot points ... but that said, the acting and the writing made this one a treasure for me.

2017, dir. Marc Webb. With Chris Evans, Mckenna Grace, Lindsay Duncan, Octavia Spencer, Jenny Slate, Glenn Plummer.

Gilda

Another star vehicle for the beautiful Rita Hayworth, and probably her most famous film. The movie starts with Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford), an American curbside gambler playing dice in Buenos Aires. He's saved from a robbery attempt by Ballin Mundson (George Macready) who also suggests a casino he can go to. The casino turns out to belong to Mundson, and Johnny is soon employed there. Mundson goes away for a few days, and comes back married - to Johnny's old flame Gilda (Rita Hayworth).

I really liked the first half of the movie, which is uncommonly intelligently written, and keeps you paying attention. But the second half of the movie focuses far too heavily on how much Johnny and Gilda hate each other. Individually neither of them is particularly nice although they both have redeeming features, but put them together and they torture each other. And that leads to a conclusion I didn't entirely agree with.

Worth a watch, but not a great movie.

1946, dir. Charles Vidor. With Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, George Macready, Joseph Calleia, Steven Geray, Joe Sawyer, Gerald Mohr, Mark Roberts.

The Girl from Paris (orig. "Une hirondelle a fait le printemps")

A woman in her early thirties from Paris decides to stop teaching computers and the Internet, goes to farm school and buys a farm way out in the country. With it (for a year and a half) comes the grumpy, bitter old man who originally owned it. She goes to work with her energy, and he complains and causes problems.

Michel Serrault was quite good as the old bastard, but I didn't like Mathilde Seigner in the slightest: I thought she acted poorly and was really annoying. And while the story did move forward some in the hour and forty minutes run-time, I didn't really feel like we'd gotten anywhere. There were lots of goats.

2001, dir. Christian Carion. With Mathilde Seigner, Michel Serrault, Jean-Paul Roussillon, Frédéric Pierrot.

The Girl in the Café

Lawrence (Bill Nighy), a shy and lonely British career civil servant, meets the very much younger Gena (Kelly Macdonald) in a café, and after a couple dates asks her if she'd like to join him at the G8 summit in Reykjavík. Once there, she pays more attention to his hopes for the summit than he has allowed himself to, and she wakes him up out of his very limited life with both painful and hopeful results.

I'd never much liked Nighy prior to this (I'd mostly seen his turns as a villain, in which he gives new meaning to the term "chewing the scenery"), but he's absolutely brilliant here. And MacDonald inhabits her character completely. I wasn't entirely satisfied with the ending, although I'm not entirely sure where I think it should have gone. But the ending is decent, and the rest of the movie is excellent, so give it a look.

2005, dir. David Yates. With Bill Nighy, Kelly Macdonald.

Girl, Interrupted

Based on Susanna Kaysen's book about her stay in a mental ward in the late Sixties. Comparisons to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" are inevitable. While Whoopi Goldberg isn't Nurse Ratched, and Winona Ryder isn't McMurphy, the echoes in the structures and character are too much to ignore. The acting is good, the story is good, the movie is good, but you'll probably enjoy it more if you haven't seen or read "Cuckoo's Nest."

1999, dir. James Mangold. With Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Whoopi Goldberg, Vanessa Redgrave, Brittany Murphy, Jeffrey Tambor.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

Just your average, run-of-the-mill Iranian feminist vampire flick.

Arash (played by Arash Marandi) lives with his heroin-addicted father. But the car he worked so hard to buy is taken by his father's drug dealer for the money his father owes. The drug dealer soon has a terminal encounter with a young and pretty vampire (who wears a chador - played by Sheila Vand). But when Arash meets her (she's never named, and only billed as "The Girl"), they become close.

The movie is shot in black and white. To me, this implies that the cinematography will be very artistic (they are, at the very least, making a statement). Director Ana Lily Amirpour was trying for artistry, but she didn't make the industrial neighbourhoods and oil pumps look pretty or even interesting. The movie is weird and creepy, and lingers on the oddest scenes (the one that's particularly memorable was the prostitute Atti having a dance with a balloon). The pace is slow, and some of the decisions that people make don't make sense for their characters.

It was interesting if a bit too drawn out, but I'm not understanding the rave reviews it's got from critics.

2014, dir. Ana Lily Amirpour. With Sheila Vand, Arash Marandi, Marshall Manesh, Dominic Rains, Mozhan Marnò, Rome Shadanloo.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Makoto Konno is a high school student. Unsure of what she wants to do with her life, she spends her time outside of school tossing a baseball with her two best buddies, Chiaki Mamiya - math whiz and goofball - and Kosuke Tsuda - who initially seems overly serious, but has many redeeming features. Makoto discovers she has the ability to leap through time, which she uses for things like not being late, acing a pop quiz, and avoiding social awkwardness. But her aunt, who she has confessed her abilities to, points out that there may be unfortunate side effects, and indeed those do begin to crop up.

The movie is anime, aimed at younger teens and based on a very popular Japanese teen novel of the same name (although the storyline is apparently significantly different). The animation is uneven - but the variation is between traditional/good and, in places, dazzlingly beautiful. The story is a bit goofy and eminently predictable (our heroine learns about herself and ultimately goes back and lives the day in question over again, but does it right), but the characters and the charm of both the story and animation make this an eminently watchable film.

2006, dir. Mamoru Hosoda. With Riisa Naka, Takuya Ishida, Mitsutaka Itakura, Sachie Hara, Mitsuki Tanimura.

Girl With a Pearl Earring

Colin Firth plays Johannes Vermeer, the well-known (now, anyway - not so much then) Dutch painter. Scarlett Johansson plays Griet, a new servant in his house. They develop a relationship because she has something of the painter's sight. In need of money, he paints her at the request of his patron Van Ruijven (played by Tom Wilkinson, always good), with pearl earrings - leading to what is possibly his most famous painting. Cillian Murphy plays a butcher's boy down the market, the only man courting her who might be able to offer her something worth having. Murphy is a good actor, but I've always found his face harsh and cold, and not convincing as someone attractive or charming. Both Vermeer and Griet are closed off and fairly uncommunicative, so what we know of them often comes through their faces ... which gets a bit old, even though they're both pretty good. A good but not great film.

2003, dir. Peter Webber. With Colin Firth, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Wilkinson, Judy Parfitt, Cillian Murphy, Essie Davis, Joanna Scanlan.

The Girl With All the Gifts

"The Girl With All the Gifts" is a near future SF movie - or a zombie horror movie, depending on how you look at it. Probably best to think of it as both. Our two main characters are Helen Justineau (Gemma Arterton) and Melanie (Sennia Nanua). We're first introduced to Melanie, who is a very intelligent child of about 10 or 11 ... but clearly there's something about her and the other children tended in the concrete bunker - they're immobilized in wheelchairs before being pushed to class, where Justineau teaches them. It eventually becomes clear that the Zombie Apocalypse has happened outside - and that these children are the second generation. They're intelligent, but they're infected, and still like to eat flesh (and a bite will infect a normal human and turn them into a first generation, not-intelligent zombie). But the war on the zombies isn't going well, and Justineau and Melanie end up on the run with a few other humans.

The movie is well thought out, well done, dark, and depressing. Sennia Nanua is outstanding: without her, the title character couldn't possibly have been as well played and the movie wouldn't have worked nearly as well. Gemma Arterton was typically very good, I thought Glenn Close's character was a bit flat. Paddy Considine was very good though: he seems initially to be a nasty military man, but you're forced as the movie progresses to realize he's not a bad person.

The movie was worth a watch, and for fans of SF who don't mind a dark vision of the future, you should definitely take a look. Probably good for fans of horror too (although I'm not much of an expert on horror).

2016, dir. Colm McCarthy. With Gemma Arterton, Sennia Nanua, Paddy Considine, Glenn Close.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

The Swedish version of this film, based on the very well known book by Stieg Larsson. American version to follow shortly. Literal translation of the Swedish title: "Men Who Hate Women."

Mikael Blomkvist (played by Michael Nyqvist) is a journalist who published a major whistle-blower piece on a big industrialist. We first meet him as he's convicted of libel after all his contacts and evidence evaporated. We also meet Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), an extremely good computer investigator with a left-over Goth look, a substantial attitude, and a legal guardian because she's on probation. Blomkvist is going to have to serve a prison sentence, but in the time before that happens, Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube) (another industrialist) asks him to investigate a forty-year-old disappearance. As this is going on, Lisbeth's new guardian is hideously sexually abusing her. Eventually, she and Blomkvist end up working together.

The movie is often hard to watch - forced oral sex, rape, lots of bodies, horrible crimes. Gritty and often unpleasant, but a good mystery at its centre, and a couple good characters. Particularly Rapace as Lisbeth - I can't imagine anyone stepping into those shoes, Rapace owns the character ... it'll be interesting to see what the American production does.

2009, dir. Niels Arden Oplev. With Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist, Sven-Bertil Taube, Peter Haber, Björn Granath, Ingvar Hirdwall, Peter Andersson.

The Glass Key

Early 1940s, this movie usually gets filed under period Noir. But that's not entirely accurate: yes, it's a mystery, there are criminals and sleazy deals. But "Noir" requires a relatively dark ending, and this one has a lightweight ending that doesn't even particularly fit with the movie. It was frustrating because the dialogue and characters were pretty good, but they were sent off in the service of a plot that didn't make a lot of sense.

Brian Donlevy plays Paul Madvig, a crooked political manipulator. His second in command is Ed Beaumont (Alan Ladd) who's incredibly loyal and the brains of the operation. Which is a problem when Madvig falls for Janet Henry (Veronica Lake) who's the daughter of Reform candidate Ralph Henry (Moroni Olsen). It's more of a problem because Madvig decides to back Ralph Henry because of his infatuation for Janet, against Beaumont's advice. Then Beaumont and Janet fall for each other, and Madvig gets in serious trouble with the local crime boss.

All of which makes sense, but it all stumbles to a surprisingly sunny ending that makes zero sense in relation to the beginning of the movie (or even the middle). Not bad, but quite a mess.

1942, dir. Stuart Heisler. With Alan Ladd, Brian Donlevy, Bonita Granville, Veronica Lake, Richard Denning, Joseph Calleia, William Bendix.

Glory Road

Surprisingly decent movie staggering between several classifications: it's an inspirational sports movie, it's about racial equality, it's sports history, it's occasionally sickly sweet. A Disney product, and more or less what you'd expect from them, but the surprise is that it's good. The movie follows basketball coach Don Haskins (played by Josh Lucas) as he fields the first ever all-black starting lineup in NCAA history (1966). The movie was pretty good, but the icing on the cake was the interviews with the real players that ran with the end credits (and are filled out further in the DVD extras).

2006, dir. James Gartner. With Josh Lucas, Derek Luke, Jon Voight.

The Go-Go's

The meteoric rise and demise of the Go-Go's, and their eventual reconciliation. The Go-Go's were (per the movie - and depressingly accurate) the first all-female band that wrote their own material and played their own instruments. They rose out of the punk scene in Los Angeles, but ended up being famous for music that would more likely be called "Pop Rock." You may have heard "Our Lips Are Sealed" or "We Got the Beat?"

The movie is essentially a series of talking heads (the band members, but also former band members, music press reporters, people from bands that toured with them ...) interspersed with old photos and some video footage. It doesn't sound terribly exciting, but they do it sequentially and the end result is fascinating, building a great picture.

One thing this movie did for me was prove how incredibly accurate Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous" was - the drugs, the discomforts of touring, the bickering about who's worth more to the group, the interpersonal politics ... It's all in Crowe's movie, and almost exactly as we see it here.

2020, dir. Alison Ellwood. With Charlotte Caffey, Belinda Carlisle, Gina Schock, Kathy Valentine, Jane Wiedlin, Margot Olavarria, Elissa Bello, Paula Jean Brown, Ginger Canzoneri, Kathleen Hanna, Lynval Golding, Lee Thompson, Stewart Copeland, Miles Copeland III.

Go On - Season 1

"Go On" was a short-lived sitcom (one season, 22 episodes) starring Matthew Perry of "Friends" fame (he's done other things, but that's still what everyone references ...). He's sports radio host Ryan King, whose wife died in a car accident. When he tries to return to work too soon it goes badly, and his manager and best friend (John Cho) forces him to attend a grief support group. While he initially denies his need to be there, he eventually realizes he has a lot to work through. True to the sitcom set-up, the group leader Lauren (Laura Benanti) is severely under-trained, and the group members are all exceedingly eccentric. Ryan's in-your-face antics liven the group up and help many of them progress.

Ryan often starts an episode doing something stupid that turns out to be related to his grief, and during the course of the episode he learns a lesson (or everyone learns a lesson) and he (or several people) behaves better. Episodes are roughly 22 minutes each, which means they go for massive character quirks rather than actual character development. And they don't even stay true to the characters: Ryan's not a genius, but he's not stupid. But in one episode his best friend declares him a moron - and for the duration of the episode, for comedic purposes, Ryan is a moron. Other characters get similar treatment, although the moron bit was probably the worst case. And then there's "Mr. K" (Brett Gelman), the weirdest member of the group. Every writer who came up with a joke so weird it didn't work for any other character just tacked it onto Mr. K, who's a hodge-podge of different behaviours that make no particular sense.

Obviously I was pretty annoyed with some of the problems with the writing. But the characters avoid the worst of the clichés, and most importantly, the show is very funny in places. And while they make jokes about grief and death, it's never making fun of people for grieving. I enjoyed watching one season.

2012-2013. With Matthew Perry, Laura Benanti, Julie White, Suzy Nakamura, Tyler James Williams, Brett Gelman, Sarah Baker, John Cho, Allison Miller, Tonita Castro, Seth Morris, Bill Cobbs, Hayes MacArthur, Piper Perabo, Terrell Owens.

Go West (1925)

Buster Keaton stars as a young man (called "Friendless" in the opening credits) of limited skills who we see first selling all his possessions at a general store and then losing all the money as he has to buy some food and his own razor and toothbrush.

After failing to find a job, he hops the rails to New York where he finds the crowds overwhelming and eventually decides to go west. There he gets a job as a cowboy, although it immediately becomes evident he knows even less about animals than movie viewers raised in the city. He becomes very fond of a particular cow that follows him about. He rides a donkey rather than a horse. And eventually he saves the ranch owner from financial ruin - but then, you weren't watching this for the plot, you were watching it for Keaton's humour. It has some spectacularly funny moments, but not to my mind enough funny stuff overall. But enjoyable.

1925, dir. Buster Keaton. With Buster Keaton, Howard Truesdale, Kathleen Myers, Ray Thompson.

God of Cookery (orig. "Sik san")

Stephen Chow plays "The God of Cookery," whose name is ... "Stephen Chow." He's a pompous ass, and bad choices in friends bring him down. Typically, he finds friends and dedication in low places, and begins the journey back up - perhaps learning a little humility along the way.

All of which is rather missing the point, which is endless opportunities for Chow to do ridiculous slapstick. I think I prefer this to "Kung Fu Hustle," but "Shaolin Soccer" was really his masterpiece. Lots of special effects and craziness as always.

1996, dir. Stephen Chow, Lik-Chi Lee. With Stephen Chow, Vincent Kok, Tats Lau, Karen Mok.

Gods and Monsters

Based on the book Father of Frankenstein, a novel about the last months of Frank Whale's life. Whale directed "Frankenstein" and "Bride of Frankenstein," among other movies. I suppose it's about friendship, as the very gay, intellectual, and old Whale follows an odd path to befriending his straight young gardener. Ian McKellen is superb - his behaviour was so disturbing at times I found it difficult to watch, and yet the character is ultimately sympathetic. Brendan Fraser and Lynn Redgrave do well in their supporting roles.

1998 dir. Bill Condon. With Ian McKellen, Brendan Fraser, Lynn Redgrave.

The Gods Must Be Crazy

I watched this around the time it came out, and last saw it in 2008. This viewing was in 2024. As I mentioned in my old review, the movie borrows heavily from the Keystone Cops. It's also got a healthy splash of old school slapstick. Despite being based on these ancient comedic ideas, it manages to put them to very fine use and end up being very funny indeed.

The movie starts out looking like a documentary about the Kalahari desert with a voice-over about the plants and animals there, and then gives us a few minutes mocking modern urban and office life, before finally getting us set up on our four wildly different plotlines. We have Xi (played by Nǃxau ǂToma), a member of the San tribe who knows nothing of the modern world, who is attempting to dispose of an evil Coca-Cola bottle that's caused strife in his tribe. We have Andrew Steyn (Marius Weyers), researching elephants in the desert. We have Kate Thompson (Sandra Prinsloo) who's abandoned her news reporter job to become a teacher in a tiny town in the desert. And we have Sam Boga (Louw Verwey) and his men, a violent rebel group on the run. Andrew is sent to pick up Kate, and much of the movie is spent on his bungling incompetence with women and the antics required to transport her across the desert in a barely functional Land Rover that's been titled "The Anti-Christ" by Andrew's employee M'Pudi (played by Michael Thys). M'Pudi speaks Xi's language, and so is pulled in as a translator when Xi runs afoul of laws he has no understanding of. And eventually, they all run afoul of the escaping armed rebel group.

None of which really fills you in on the comedic genius of the movie: Weyers is quite possibly the greatest slapstick artist since the 1920s. Weyers was born 60 years too late: he's so good at slapstick he could have had starring roles in Charlie Chaplin's movies. Better yet, the movie uses that slapstick judiciously, breaking it up with social commentary and other forms of comedy.

Wikipedia points out there's been some controversy about the movie's completely ignoring Aparthied, and patronizing the San. They're not wrong, but also ... this is a comedy, not social commentary. Despite these possible problems, the movie remains one of my all time favourite comedies.

There's one official sequel (and three low budget unofficial sequels), but it's not as good and not recommended.

1980, dir. Jamie Uys. With Nǃxau ǂToma, Sandra Prinsloo, Marius Weyers, Nic de Jager, Michael Thys, Louw Verwey, Ken Gampu.

Gods of Egypt

Aside from the humans, about half the costumes, and some furniture, what was NOT computer generated in this movie? Not much. And given that a number of the characters on screen are "gods" (who are nearly a metre taller than your average human), even some of the people are sometimes CG. All this CG is somewhat distracting. And even though the CG is often pretty obvious, it's generally fairly pretty. But much more distracting than that is a bad script coupled with some amazingly hammy acting, some of it from otherwise good actors.

The premise sees us in Egypt several thousand years ago, a country ruled by gods. Bek (Brenton Thwaites), a human thief, doesn't care much about the gods: all he cares about is making a good life for himself and his true love, Zaya (Courtney Eaton). But Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), son of Osiris, is about to be crowned king of Egypt - this is a really big deal that Zaya cares about, even if Bek doesn't. So they attend the coronation - where Osiris's brother Set (Gerard Butler) puts in an appearance, killing Osiris, blinding Horus, and crowning himself. He's not a very good king, and Bek is convinced to aid (exiled, blind, and sulky) Horus.

Thwaites has a certain amount of charm as Bek, although he's not doing a great job. And the big names aren't exactly leading by example: Geoffrey Rush's "I'm the god of the sun and I'm an idiot" performance is probably the worst (particularly given that he's the best actor on set). Butler used to know how to act, but for the last decade he's been letting it slide - I blame "300," because with so many fanboys telling him how awesome his totally over-the-top performance in that was, he's stuck with that roaring, swaggering model ever since. And Coster-Waldau is definitely capable of better than he delivered here - although the script is bad enough that I can't entirely blame the actors. I imagine that trying to fight and act on stilts may also somewhat reduce the quality of your performance. I suspect the director (Alex Proyas, who once looked like he'd go on to be great ...) spent a lot more time on the imagery than the performances. I'm a little surprised this thing made it as high as its current (2016-08-07) 16% on Rotten Tomatoes.

2016, dir. Alex Proyas. With Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Brenton Thwaites, Gerard Butler, Chadwick Boseman, Élodie Yung, Courtney Eaton, Rufus Sewell, Geoffrey Rush, Bryan Brown.

Godzilla (2014)

I saw one or two of the original "Godzilla" movies when I was a kid. MILD SPOILERS FOLLOW. Now we have a modern update, in which a "M.U.T.O." or "Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism" surfaces and starts eating nuclear power plants and nuclear submarines. They destroy human cities and our weapons can't touch them. But Godzilla is on the case: he's heard their deafening electromagnetic cry, and will destroy them.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson (as Ford Brody) carries the majority of the film as a military ordnance expert whose father (Bryan Cranston) turned into something of a conspiracy theorist after he lost his wife (Ford's mother, Juliette Binoche) to a previous MUTO attack that the government of Japan won't acknowledge. Sally Hawkins seems to have been hired entirely to cover her face with her hands and look scared: she appears in multiple scenes doing precisely that. There are nuclear bombs and massive destruction and lots of sobbing. It's really pretty silly.

2014, dir. Gareth Edwards. With Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, David Strathairn, Bryan Cranston, Juliette Binoche, Sally Hawkins.

Going Clear

Science Fiction author L. Ron Hubbard wrote a book called Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health back in 1950. This made him a fair bit of money, but what he really wanted was to be tax-free. So eventually he wrapped it in a religion called "Scientology," and then the money really started rolling in. This movie is based on the book Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief by Lawrence Wright, who spends some time talking on camera. He claims he didn't write the book as an exposé, but just to try to figure out what made devotees of the religion so dedicated.

I've been a fan of science fiction for many years so I knew about L. Ron Hubbard. His move to form a religion was well known and much scoffed at in the SF community, so I thought I knew something about Scientology. And most of what I knew wasn't incorrect, but there's a LOT more to know. I was fascinated to hear that the Church of Scientology blackmailed the IRS into giving them tax-exempt status: they asked all their members to sue the IRS, then after 2400 of them did, they told the IRS it would all go away if Scientology became tax-exempt. There are pictures of the Scientology brass celebrating with the IRS brass.

The most interesting stories come from those who have left the church. The most articulate and intelligent of these is Paul Haggis, a well known TV producer who left after 20 or 30 years when he found out that two of his daughters were being subjected to "cures" for their homosexuality. Others tell of the blackmail and harassment that pursues anyone who leaves the church - particularly those who speak out against it.

Well constructed, fascinating, and kind of horrifying.

2015, dir. Alex Gibney. With Lawrence Wright, Mark Rathbun, Mike Rinder, Jason Beghe, Paul Haggis.

Going Postal

Another British TV production of a Terry Pratchett novel. Moist von Lipwig (Richard Coyle) is a rather good con man, but is ultimately caught by The Guard of Ankh-Morpork and sentenced to death. He awakes after his hanging to find the Patrician (Charles Dance) offering him a choice between restoring the Post Office or a rather more permanent death. Being a sensible man, he chooses the Post Office.

I read the novel several years ago and didn't think it was one of Pratchett's best. They've come up with an acceptable adaptation, but, like the source material, it's simply mildly amusing (and I rather wonder if it would work for non-Pratchett fans). Pratchett himself puts in a short speaking cameo at the end of the film as a postman.

On second viewing my take is a bit different. I still don't think it's a particularly good movie, but I quite enjoyed it anyway.

2010, dir. Jon Jones. With Richard Coyle, David Suchet, Claire Foy, Charles Dance, Marnix Van Den Broeke, Jimmy Yuill, Steve Pemberton, Andrew Sachs, Tamsin Greig, Adrian Schiller, Ian Bonar, Terry Pratchett.

The Golden Compass

There are huge chunks of information missing in this translation from the famous book of the same name by Philip Pullman. I enjoyed the movie immensely, but I had read the books. And I enjoyed it despite the blatantly CG animals - they were good, but still obviously CG. There were a lot of complaints when this came out that it was confusing and didn't make sense: I didn't have that problem, but I can certainly see it. Chris Weitz (who directed) just needed to slow down, allow that it was going to be a longer movie, and do a bit more description mixed into the constant flow of action. The visuals are gorgeous, and some of the characters come across very well despite the lack of time to get to know them. I look forward to the other two movies.

UPDATE: the movie was incredibly expensive and tanked at the box office: sequels are unlikely.

2007, dir. Chris Weitz. With Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Dakota Blue Richards, Ben Walker, Freddie Highmore, Ian McKellen, Eva Green, Tom Courtenay, Ian McShane, Sam Elliott, Christopher Lee, Kristin Scott Thomas, Kathy Bates, Derek Jacobi.

Goldstone

The movie opens on the tiny Outback town of Goldstone's one cop (Alex Russell) pulling over a drunk driver coming into town. Josh (the cop) throws the visitor in the lock-up to sleep it off - and discovers that the man he's pulled over (Jay Swan, played by Aaron Pedersen) is also a cop. If you're considering watching the movie, I think it would have helped me to know up front that sex work is legal in all of Australia. Our anti-hero Jay is following a lead on a young Chinese girl who may not have been doing that work voluntarily.

A couple of reviewers call this a "Western," and that seems reasonably accurate - although it's set in the modern day. The cinematography is often gorgeous, although I found the transitions between the lovely overhead shots (presumably a drone?) and ground level occasionally jarring. The story is a fairly traditional morality tale, with one cop struggling with his alcoholism and his indigenous heritage, and the other finding out just how much corruption he can take before he breaks. Lovely to look at, and possessed of semi-realistic gun battles (better than most). Not a bad story, but not a great either.

2016, dir. Ivan Sen. With Aaron Pedersen, Alex Russell, Cheng Pei-pei, David Wenham, Jacki Weaver, David Gulpilil, Michelle Lim Davidson, Tom E. Lewis.

The Good German

George Clooney plays a newspaperman (in uniform, although why is never entirely clear) returning to Berlin at the same time Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill are there deciding how to carve up Europe, while the Second World War rages on against Japan. The movie is black and white, and Noir all over. Clooney came looking for a woman he knew before the war ... and encounters her immediately. He wonders how that happened so quickly and conveniently, and that's only one of many questions he has to answer. It was intelligent, and you have to think and pay attention, and yet when you're done only about half the puzzle pieces fit: there were a bunch of places in the background where the logic fell down if you tried to reassemble it all afterwards. The ending is a huge and blatant tribute to "Casablanca," but with a lot less hope. Not a good enough movie to be as depressing as it was.

2006, dir. Steven Soderbergh. With Cate Blanchett, George Clooney, Tobey Maguire, Tony Curran, Ravil Isyanov, Beau Bridges, Don Pugsley, Robin Weigert, Christian Oliver.

The Good Girl

Stupid people and their unhappy lives. I guess I like my characters a little brighter than the ones in this movie. Maybe if there was some insight, something clever about the movie, I would have had some hope of liking it. Despite good performances by Jennifer Aniston, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Tim Blake Nelson, the meaninglessness of the whole thing leaves the viewer numb.

2002, dir. Miguel Arteta. With Jennifer Aniston, Jake Gyllenhaal, John C. Reilly, Tim Blake Nelson.

Good Night, and Good Luck

History replays - Edward R. Murrow takes on Senator Joseph McCarthy. George Clooney directs this look at the events at CBS during the McCarthy era. All talk, but definitely thought-provoking and probably extremely accurate as they're using extensive footage of McCarthy and I would expect any broadcasts by Murrow were verbatim (David Strathairn was excellent in the role).

2005, dir. George Clooney. With David Strathairn, George Clooney, Jeff Daniels, Frank Langella, Robert Downey Jr., Patricia Clarkson.

Good Omens

I had mixed feelings about this one from the second I heard it was to be made because of my enthusiasm for the book. You have to understand what the book means to me both to understand my ambivalence to the idea of creating a TV miniseries and to give context to my review.

I've read a lot of Terry Pratchett's books. At least 24 (I've kept a record of the books I read since ~2005 ... I'm a librarian). The count for Neil Gaiman is similar, but slightly lower. I have issues with both their writing styles ... until they wrote a book together, and it was FANTASTIC. Good Omens is, sadly, their only collaboration. It's screamingly funny - funnier even than Pratchett's best solo stuff, with Gaiman bringing a more cohesive story arc and Pratchett fixing up most of Gaiman's problems with characterization. Sure, the plot is still insane, but the structure, delivery, and humour is magnificent and has made this one of my favourite books (I've read it at least three times). And to add to my doubts about adapting this to TV, I was pretty sure the crazy plot was unfilmable. I mean ... this is about the Anti-Christ who - through a mix-up at the hospital - is growing up in a perfectly normal life in small town Britain as the four horsemen gather and the angel and demon assigned to Earth become best of frenemies over millennia. How the hell do you film that?

When I heard that David Tennant had been chosen as Crowley and Michael Sheen as Aziraphale, I was optimistic. And yet, I didn't like their performances. Aziraphale is ... too fussy. And, devil or not, Crowley's eyes are just off-putting. But the more I think about it the more I realize that they couldn't match the images I'd built up in my head of both Aziraphale and Crowley - largely because those images weren't visual, they consisted almost entirely of personality. Which, inevitably, neither of them could match.

The miniseries is remarkably accurate to the book, with most of the variations I noticed having to do with finer plot points it made sense to cut to shorten run-time. Frances McDormand does the introduction and voice-overs (as "The Voice of God," apparently). The title sequences look like they came straight from Terry Gilliam's Monty Python workshop - which is appropriate. One of the series' biggest plot changes was sending Aziraphale and Crowley back to Heaven and Hell respectively for judgment at the end ... and that was a genius comedic twist worthy of Pratchett and Gaiman that I loved.

In the end I find I still have the mixed feelings that I started with. They stayed true to the book, and they did the best possible job that could be done with such a hard-to-interpret book ... including Sheen and Tennant, who did a good job even if it didn't match my expectations. I'm still not sure they succeeded. I may change my mind if I ever watch it again. I think the book is better, but this is at least fun.

2019, dir. Douglas Mackinnon. With Michael Sheen, David Tennant, Ned Dennehy, Ariyon Bakare, Nick Offerman, Anna Maxwell Martin, Nina Sosanya, Daniel Mays, Sian Brooke, Doon Mackichan, Jon Hamm, Sam Taylor Buck, Frances McDormand, Adria Arjoni, Miranda Richardson, Michael McKean, Jack Whitehall.

The Good Place - Season 1

Our protagonist is Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell), a woman who finds herself in the afterlife in "the good place," ie. not "the bad place." Trouble is - she knows very well she doesn't deserve to be here. She manages to rope in her "soul mate" Chidi (William Jackson Harper), a university ethics professor, to try and make her a good enough person that she deserves to be there. The other major characters are Michael (Ted Danson), the immortal architect of their neighbourhood of 200+ people, Tahani (Jameela Jamil) and Jianyu (Manny Jacinto), their neighbours, and Janet (D'Arcy Carden) - who is the neighbourhood's semi-human Siri/Alexa equivalent.

Danson is hugely entertaining, both charming and neurotic. I particularly liked Harper as Chidi - perpetually in some form of horrible moral conundrum, usually as a result of Eleanor's actions. Bell is fairly good, but I was a bit frustrated by the back-and-forth nature of her behaviour: at the beginning of each episode she does, or plans to do, some morally inappropriate thing. Chidi struggles with her, she learns a lesson, and at the end of the episode she behaves better. But in the next episode she proposes some horrible behaviour all over again.

There are 13 episodes in the season, each 22 minutes long. My explanation above suggests they're all very formulaic, but they have a fair bit of variety to them and mostly remain quite entertaining - including, I might add, Chidi's philosophy/morality lessons which are oddly fascinating and add to the overall charm of the series.

The series will particularly appeal to fans of "Pushing Daisies:" both are absurdist, surreal fantasy comedies with a very similar mind-set.

2016, with Kristen Bell, William Jackson Harper, Ted Danson, Jameela Jamil, Manny Jacinto, D'Arcy Carden.

The Good Place - Season 2

On Wednesday (2018-09-26) I discovered that the second season of "The Good Place" was available on Netflix. I had Thursday off work. A binge was inevitable (but then, the episodes are 22 minutes and there are only 13 of them). I finished in a day.

At the end of the first season (above), Eleanor Shellstrop (played by Kristen Bell) had a significant breakthrough of understanding about "The Good Place." This forces Michael (Ted Danson) into a neighbourhood reboot ... only to find that Eleanor always finds Chidi (William Jackson Harper) - and always has her breakthrough (this is essentially the first two episodes of the second season). Which leads to further weird complications with Michael's fellow employees and his boss.

The first season was surreal and absurd. The second season is ... even more so. Less crazy visuals, but even more conceptually weird. And they have a grand old time with it. The point at which Chidi convinces Michael's otherwise immortal character of the possibility of his own death is perhaps the funniest thing I've seen in the past year: Danson is hysterically funny.

Equally as inventive, ridiculous, and entertaining as the first season. That was a surprise to me - I didn't think they could pull that off ... I assumed they'd crash in the second season. This may even be better.

2018. With Kristen Bell, William Jackson Harper, Ted Danson, Jameela Jamil, Manny Jacinto, D'Arcy Carden, Tiya Sircar, Marc Evan Jackson, Maribeth Monroe, Jason Mantzoukas, Maya Rudolph.

The Good Place - Season 3

Season 3 of "The Good Place" landed Fall 2019 on Netflix (as the final season (4) played out on NBC). This review is spoiler-free, mostly because it's almost content-free.

I thought season 2 was, if anything, slightly better than season 1. Unfortunately, season 3 isn't better than season 2, or even season 1. It's still fun, and even if you don't like it you've only lost 13 X 22 minutes out of your life - it's short. We have less of Chidi teaching us moral philosophy, that was an aspect of the show I really enjoyed. More importantly to most people, it's less funny. Fortunately, the show runners seem to be aware that the show is fading, and have made the excellent choice to end with season 4 - which they set up quite well at the end of season 3.

2017, with Kristen Bell, William Jackson Harper, Ted Danson, Jameela Jamil, Manny Jacinto, D'Arcy Carden.

The Good Place - Season 4

I was a big fan of the first season of "The Good Place." And it was a huge surprise to find that the second season was slightly better than the first. The third, however, was a significant let-down. And viewership was dropping, so the people behind the show decided the right thing to do was to wrap it up in the fourth season.

The writing is slightly better than the third season, although not up to the first or second season. Our heroes have to save the world. But not just our world, all of existence and all the souls who've ever existed. Maya Rudolph's character "The Judge" puts in a lot more appearances - which I considered unfortunate, as I'm simply not a fan of her humour. I felt like the final (double length) episode should have been a bit funnier - but what it lacked in humour it made up for in charm, constructing well thought out and satisfying endings for everyone's story arcs.

2019. With Kristen Bell, Ted Danson, William Jackson Harper, Jameela Jamil, Manny Jacinto, D'Arcy Carden, Maya Rudolph, Maribeth Monroe, Marc Evan Jackson.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The last of Leone's three spaghetti westerns (along with "A Fist Full of Dollars" and "For a Few Dollars More," they defined a new genre), and the most highly regarded. I liked this one the least of the three - it was overly long (especially in the recently released English version with older footage added in - it runs to about 2:40) and abrasively unfunny. Eli Wallach and Clint Eastwood form an uneasy partnership in an attempt to track down a fortune in gold coins. They stumble through the Civil War and are pursued by Lee Van Cleef, who also wants the money.

1966, dir. Sergio Leone. With Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach.

The Good, the Bad, the Weird (orig. "Joheunnom nabbeunnom isanghannom")

A Korean tribute and / or parody of Spaghetti Westerns, set in Manchuria in the 1930s. We have three main characters, Yoon Tae-goo (Kang-ho Song), Park Chang-yi (Byung-hun Lee), and Park Do-won (Woo-sung Jung), all pursuing a treasure map and then trying to find the treasure. The cinematography is often excellent, and some of the gags are pretty funny. There's also lots and lots of action. The story ... makes sense, but ultimately isn't particularly cohesive.

2008, dir. Ji-woon Kim. With Kang-ho Song, Byung-hun Lee, Woo-sung Jung, Seung-su Ryu.

The Good Thief

Addiction, recovery, redemption (and luck). Based (very loosely according to the director Neil Jordan, I haven't seen it) on The old movie "Bob le Flambeur." The end result is pretty good - intelligent dialogue, a heist movie that's primarily about the characters. Nick Nolte was excellent.

2002, dir. Neil Jordan. With Nick Nolte, Tchéky Karyo, Said Taghmaoui, Emir Kusturica, Nutsa Kukhianidze.

Good Will Hunting

No psychologists or mathematicians were hurt during the filming of this movie. And neither discipline was permanently damaged. I don't think either the math or psychology is particularly accurate in this film, but in the end it doesn't really matter. It's just an enjoyable story about personal recovery. Matt Damon plays a young mathematical genius with an ugly past and a fear of change. Stellan Skarsgård plays the math professor who tries to help him, Robin Williams the psychologist brought in when no one else can deal with him, and Ben Affleck his best friend. The script was written in large part by Damon and Affleck (don't let that put you off).

1997, dir. Gus Van Sant. With Matt Damon, Robin Williams, Ben Affleck, Minnie Driver, Casey Affleck, Stellan Skarsgård.

A Good Year

Based on the book of the same name by Peter Mayle, which itself was based on an idea cooked up by Mayle and director Ridley Scott - who are good friends. So we find Scott directing ... a romantic comedy?! A love letter from Mayle and Scott to their home neighbourhood of Provence. Russell Crowe plays a high powered stock trader whose uncle dies. Crowe is a self-proclaimed "asshole" who lost touch with this uncle he loved. Now he's forced to spend time in Provence on the huge estate he's inherited. Slapstick, life lessons, and romance follow. Not a particularly brilliant movie, but charming, and Crowe is actually pretty damn funny as well as being a good actor.

2006, dir. Ridley Scott. With Russell Crowe, Marion Cotillard, Freddie Highmore, Albert Finney, Didier Bourdon, Abbie Cornish, Tom Hollander, Archie Panjabi.

Goodbye, Don Glees!

Our main characters are Rōma (Natsuki Hanae) and Toto (Yuki Kaji), two Japanese high school students (this is Anime after all) from a small rural town. Toto has moved to Tokyo to continue high school with the aim of becoming a doctor. As the movie opens, he's returned to their town for a visit. They are joined by Drop (Ayumu Murase), a small guy wearing a dinosaur hoodie who's only slightly younger than they are. Drop is unofficially inducted into Rōma and Toto's "Don Glees" club, and together they attempt to set off fireworks (which almost all fail) and film the event with a new and expensive drone (which is blown away by the wind). Later that night there's a forest fire, which the local bullies on social media blame on the Don Glees. So the three of them set out to recover the drone, which they hope has footage to prove their innocence (there were a lot of fireworks going off that night - I don't think they specified what the event was). This takes them on a two day adventure of getting lost and camping with inadequate supplies, and there are revelations about each of the characters.

The teens behave in ways that are pretty accurate to their age group (15 and 16 years old), but I'd say that the movie is targeted somewhat younger than that - perhaps around 12. There's not a lot for adults in this teen coming-of-age tale among the juvenile pratfalls and heavy-handed life lessons - except the gorgeous artwork which continues throughout. Good for fans of the genre, won't convert new fans ... except possibly for that amazing artwork.

2022, dir. Atsuko Ishizuka. With Natsuki Hanae, Yuki Kaji, Ayumu Murase, Kana Hanazawa, Rino Sashihara, Atsushi Tamura.

Goon

Sean William Scott stars as Doug Glatt, a Jewish boy from a good family who doesn't have the brains to follow his father and brother into medicine. But he does have a talent: he can fight, and after he's caught on film thrashing a minor league hockey enforcer, he's offered a job on a hockey team despite his complete inability to skate. The inevitable showdown is set up relatively early on, with a lot of footage shown of the veteran, soon-to-retire Ross "The Boss" Rhea (Liev Schreiber, good as always, and possibly the most convincing character in this mess).

Glatt's family is over-the-top obnoxious Jewish, and his best friend (writer-producer Jay Baruchel) is incredibly obnoxious as a fantastically foul-mouthed hockey fanatic who aspires to be the next Don Cherry (not mentioned by name). Scott is charming, although the character is played about as dense as any of us would believe without being institutionalized. Alison Pill, as Doug's would-be girlfriend, is fairly good, but again a bit over-the-top. Ultimately, the movie comes across as surprisingly light-weight. It's enjoyable, it's very violent and bloody, it's funny, it's the new "Slap Shot," but ... it just doesn't carry a lot of heft. And the glamorization of the enforcer role is kind of questionable, particularly as they manipulated Scott's appearances so that he was always a "force for good," ie. he's defending his team-mates, not intimidating the opposing team.

2012, dir. Michael Dowse. With Seann William Scott, Liev Schreiber, Jay Baruchel, Alison Pill, Marc-André Grondin, Eugene Levy, David Paetkau, Jonathan Cherry.

Gorgeous (aka "Bor lei jun")

Jackie Chan plays C.N., a rich playboy. He meets the staggeringly naive (but innocent and charming) Bu (Shu Qi) who slowly brings joy back into his life. But he simultaneously has to deal with his obnoxious old friend Howie (Emil Chau) who is determined to see C.N. lose a fight. Since Howie can't fight, he hires Alan (Bradley James Allan) to fight C.N.

Chan wrote and produced this fairy tale romance. Hong Kong produced, no violence, no inappropriate behaviour, environmentally friendly, and no tension. Even the fights have almost no tension because there's nothing riding on them except the fighter's pride. Shu Qi is beautiful, and Jackie Chan can't act.

1999, dir. Vincent Kok. With Jackie Chan, Shu Qi, Tony Leung, Emil Chau, Bradley James Allan.

Gorky Park

Three bodies are found frozen in Gorky Park in Moscow. Arkady Renko (William Hurt) is investigating the murders, but it reeks of a KGB killing so he wants to dump it. But his superior assures him he'll have full support and be protected. Renko is a very good detective, but there's a lot going on: KGB, an American that probably did the killing, and one of the victims was American as well.

The first two thirds of the movie was utterly wonderful: a carefully paced movie that demands you pay attention because they're not going to dumb it down for you at all. I found the finale a little overblown (lots of guns, lots of people die), but this is still a really nice piece of work.

1983, dir. Michael Apted. With William Hurt, Lee Marvin, Joanna Pacula, Brian Dennehy, Ian Bannen.

Grace is Gone

This appears to be very much John Cusack's project, producing and playing the lead role. And this isn't Cusack like you've ever seen him: there's usually some Cusack-isms to his performance, but that's all gone this time. His face moves differently. His body moves differently. And his whole performance is superb.

Cusack plays a man married to a soldier named Grace: not surprisingly (if you've seen the trailer or read the DVD box), as soon as they've established what his life is like with her away, two neatly dressed army officers arrive at his door with the news of her death. He doesn't know what to do and isn't able to tell their two daughters (Shélan O'Keefe and Gracie Bednarczyk) what's happened, instead bundling them into the car for an impromptu road trip. Not surprisingly, they have no idea of what's going on.

Both of the young actresses are very good, Alessandro Nivola is very good in his short appearance as Cusack's brother, and the dialogue is realistic and affecting. And yet somehow the movie as a whole never adds up to much more than a sad story. A memorable one, but not a great work of art.

2007, dir. James C. Strouse. With John Cusack, Shélan O'Keefe, Gracie Bednarczyk, Alessandro Nivola.

The Graduate

I expected a more conventional movie ... It's strange and uncomfortable, but very good. Dustin Hoffman plays a recent university graduate confused about what to do with his life. Having an affair with his father's business partner's wife and then falling for her daughter doesn't help any.

1967. dir. Mike Nichols. With Dustin Hoffman, Catherine Ross, Anne Bancroft.

Gran Torino

I joked to a friend before I saw this that it was "a Western in suburbia." After I saw it, all I did was change that to "a Western in suburbia with a touch of Borat." Clint Eastwood's character is massively racist, and spouts racial epithets throughout the length of the movie. I suppose I laugh at him and not at Borat because "he's just like that" whereas Sacha Baren Cohen is doing it deliberately to provoke people. Not that it's a comedy: there's a lot of humour, but it's also thought-provoking and sad.

Eastwood's character lives in a somewhat down-at-heel neighbourhood somewhere in the mid-West, where we open on the burial of his wife. He's a Korean war vet retired from working on the Ford assembly line, he's a racist, and his kids don't know how to talk to him (and he doesn't know how to talk to them). He finds himself involuntarily befriended by the Hmong family who've moved in next door. His sense of "right" overrides his racial discrimination when his neighbours are threatened by a local gang.

2008, dir. Clint Eastwood. With Clint Eastwood, Christopher Carley, Bee Vang, Ahney Her, Brian Haley, Geraldine Hughes, Dreama Walker, Brian Howe, John Carroll Lynch, William Hill.

Grand Budapest Hotel

I think Wes Anderson's "The Royal Tenenbaums" is a superb movie. I've watched every movie he's directed since, and none have come close to that one. Until now. Anderson has done a great job with this one, although without the brilliant work of both Ralph Fiennes and Tony Revolori, he might not have succeeded.

The movie starts with a young woman at the memorial for "The Author," and then switches to "The Author" himself (Tom Wilkinson) talking about his inspiration (such as it was). Then we switch yet again, this time to the story in the book, a man (Jude Law, probably meant to be a younger version of "The Author") in the decaying Grand Hotel Budapest. But we're not done yet: he hears the story of how Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham) became the owner of the hotel, and that story comprises the body of the film. Monsieur Gustave H (Ralph Fiennes) is the extremely dedicated concierge of what was then a very grand hotel, and young Zero (Revolori) is his new lobby boy. Monsieur H takes very good care of his patrons - in fact disturbingly good care. I had thought by the trailer that events at the hotel would be what the film was made of, but in fact a great deal of it takes place away from the hotel. Fiennes is hysterical as the charming and foul-mouthed concierge, and Revolori brings surprising presence to a role that mostly calls for him agreeing with Fiennes' and following orders. The cinematography is the peak of Anderson's obsession with symmetry, and looks absolutely stunning. Ludicrously crazy, the movie is nevertheless touching and hugely entertaining. Highly recommended.

2014, dir. Wes Anderson. With Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Saoirse Ronan, Edward Norton, F. Murray Abraham, Mathieu Amalric, Jude Law, Harvey Keitel, Bill Murray, Léa Seydoux, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson, Owen Wilson, Bob Balaban.

The Grand Seduction

The town of Tickle Head, Newfoundland is direly in need of a doctor. When they find one in Paul Lewis (Taylor Kitsch, whose character is evidently blackmailed into going), they have a month to convince him Tickle Head is the perfect place to stay. So the entire town, led by Murray French (Brendan Gleeson) and assisted by his friend Simon (Gordon Pinsent) set out to find out everything he loves and try to make it available in the town.

I think they were aiming for "charming" but have hit squarely on "mean-spirited," as the entire town lies and humiliates themselves and their potential doctor. There are a few brilliant jokes, mostly delivered by Pinsent, and the scenery - being Newfoundland - is often gorgeous. But as a whole the movie is a bit unpleasant to watch.

2013, dir. Don McKellar. With Brendan Gleeson, Taylor Kitsch, Gordon Pinsent, Mark Critch, Liane Balaban, Peter Keleghan.

Gravity

We start the movie floating above Earth, with Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) in her spacesuit working on the Hubble Telescope, and astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) swooping about on a prototype (and very successful) jet pack. Houston shortly warns them of a substantial debris field coming their way and to get back inside the shuttle. They don't manage to do so before the debris strikes, breaking everything loose from everything else and hurling Stone off into space where she spins and hyperventilates (a pretty reasonable reaction to my mind).

This is the first time I've seen a really convincing freefall effect in a movie. All the tech in the movie is essentially current day stuff, and the two main actors (in essence the only two in the entire movie) are superb. One of the tensest movies I've ever sat through, incredibly effective. Recommended.

Side note: the orbital physics are brutally wrong. Normally this would have put me off completely. Everything else about this movie is so good that I got through it.

Alfonso Cuarón has charted a hell of a course for himself: "Y Tu Mamá También," "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," "Children of Men," and now this. This is a director to watch.

2013, dir. Alfonso Cuarón. With Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Ed Harris, Paul Sharma.

Grand Canyon

What did Kasdan do after "The Big Chill?" Here's the answer. It has its moments, but not very good.

1991, dir. Lawrence Kasdan. With Kevin Kline, Danny Glover.

The Great Dictator

Charlie Chaplin's satire of Hitler and Nazism, released in 1940. Chaplin really went to town on Hitler, mocking him for the entire duration of the movie. He also makes it very clear that the Jews don't deserve oppression (nor does anyone else). As Wikipedia points out, the U.S. was officially neutral at the time, so Chaplin's stance was unusual. Chaplin later said he would never have made the movie if he had known how serious the Second World War was going to be. But he did make it, and it has some very funny moments. Also his first real talking picture.

Chaplin plays a Jewish barber-turned-incompetent-soldier, and also plays "Adenoid Hynkel," the dictator of Tomania. His parodies of Hitler's speeches are simultaneously horrifying and hilarious.

1940, dir. Charlie Chaplin. With Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Jack Oakie.

Great Electric Airplane Race

"Great Electric Airplane Race' showed up at Toronto Public Library as a DVD. It's an area of interest to me (I was an engineer in a previous life), so I borrowed it. It turned out to be a 53 minute long production of PBS/Nova from 2021.

They open up by spending ten minutes (out of the only 53 available to them) to tell us about global warming, and why burning fossil fuels is bad. I'm well aware of this, it's why I'm watching your documentary - now stop wasting my time ... Not an auspicious beginning. Also - not a literal race, as I'd hoped, but a metaphorical one.

They work their way through several companies that are experimenting with electric planes. The most interesting thing I got out of the series is that if electric planes have a future (currently batteries are too heavy and not powerful enough to provide the range we need to replace commercial jets), things are going to look a lot different. Several of the planes were retrofits, adding electric motors to old Cessnas and the like. But the new builds - they look very, very different from current planes. It seems likely that VTOL will be part of our future, as will multiple engines on every wing.

One of my favourite stupid statements that the show made, more than once, was that there were "no fuel costs." Uh-huh - ever talked to a Tesla owner? They're not paying for gas anymore, but they do pay for electricity. And it may be less than they would have paid for gas, but it's not nothing. Another thing they said more than once was that electric planes meant "no pollution." Again, I call bullshit. No burning fuel, that's true: but old batteries are already a massive recycling problem we don't know how to handle, imagine them on the scale needed to power hundreds of thousands of jet-aircraft-equivalents.

In the end, I found this short on scientific fact and long on rhetoric. It amounted to "people are doing research! We need this! It's so cool!"

2021. With Miles O'Brien.

The Great Race

"The Great Race" stars Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Natalie Wood (and Peter Falk, younger than I've ever seen him) in what amounts to a live action Roadrunner vs. Wile E. Coyote. Lemmon is the dastardly black-clad Professor Fate, Curtis is charming to all, dressed in white, and has a smile that sparkles, and Wood is the epitome of a Suffragette determined to prove women are equal in all things. Pies are flung, mud pits are fallen in, a melting iceberg is ridden. And in the middle, we have a significant "Prisoner of Zenda" interlude in which political intrigue surrounds one of our main characters who looks identical to a prince.

Sequential sketch comedy reminiscent of Mel Brooks, although less crude. All in the service of a ludicrous plot about an automobile race around the world, it delivers some laughs, but to me the failure to deliver the slightest drama, plot, or even marginally realistic characters is a failing. Given that it's a slapstick comedy, this is a rather silly requirement and the movie may well work for others: but I didn't think it entirely delivered in the comedy department either.

1965, dir. Blake Edwards. With Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, Peter Falk, Keenan Wynn, Arthur O'Connell, Vivian Vance, Larry Storch, Dorothy Provine.

The Great Wall

William (Matt Damon) and Tovar (Pedro Pascal) are adventurers/mercenaries/bandits in China during the Song Dynasty, in search of "black powder" (gunpowder, not available in the West at the time). They speak modern American English - a little odd in 1050 AD. They end up on the Great Wall, which turns out to be defending China against the Taotie (evil, intelligent lizard-like creatures much larger than a man). The very large army along the wall is "The Nameless Order," consisting of colour-coded troops of warriors. Director Zhang Yimou's obsession with colour really lets him down here: the colours are anachronistic (they couldn't possibly have been created in the time period), far too consistent, clearly computer-generated, and make the troops look as if they're wearing plastic.

If you can get past that, and the odd need for the Chinese to find a white guy to help save them (or did they just want his help at the North American box office?), it's just an epic war movie with a not terribly interesting plot. The characters are both overblown and weak - partly because the writing is bad but mostly because the concentration is on the spectacle of it all. Don't waste your time.

2016, dir. Zhang Yimou. With Matt Damon, Jing Tian, Pedro Pascal, Willem Dafoe, Andy Lau, Zhang Hanyu, Eddie Peng, Lu Han.

The Great War of Archimedes

Let's start with Wikipedia on the subject of this movie: "... a 2019 Japanese historical film about the building of the battleship Yamato. Based on a manga by Norifusa Mita, the movie is a fictionalized telling of the political maneuvers, specifically around budget and cost issues, that led to the decision to build the Yamato." Note that "historical" only means the setting, not that they retained any accuracy to historical events. The Yamato was built, and General Yamamoto did exist, but I doubt the foresight suggested by the final major twist in the movie actually existed.

The first scene we see is the sinking of the Yamato. The CG is good, but also obvious. And we get five minutes on this event that most of us already knew happened (particularly those in the target Japanese audience). Then we jump back in time, and are given a voice-over about the state of Japan in 1933. Many scenes have a pedantic title card, such as "First New Vessel Construction Conference." A number of characters are introduced in the same way, with title cards like "Yoshio Fujioka - Rear-Admiral." We see a committee proposal for this vast ship: everyone at the conference seems to be a bit of a clown, loud and silly, except for Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (Hiroshi Tachi) who is practical and sees the future (notably: "if we go to war with the U.S. we'll lose").

At this point I'm going to digress to discuss my own misunderstanding of Japanese history. The revered General's name is "Yamamoto," the name of the doomed but incredibly iconic ship (which was NOT named after him, as I thought) is "Yamato."

Yamamoto doesn't believe that the new battleship can be constructed at the cost that was named to the committee, but he can't see the plans because they're classified and he has only two weeks to make the point with no way to do any research. He finds himself an assistant (finally, the actual protagonist of the film), mathematical genius Tadashi Kai (Masaki Suda), who also qualifies as something of a clown (Wikipedia says he's on the autism spectrum - that wasn't mentioned in the film and the concept didn't even exist at the time? but it may have come from the manga). The majority of the film is spent on Kai's attempts to estimate the cost of the battleship, and the meetings that followed.

Japanese culture and particularly hierarchy (not just in the military) were more on display in this movie than any other I've ever seen. And despite the initial absurdity of most characters, many of them are eventually humanized and the movie is ultimately weirdly charming. But then it does what so many Japanese movies do - throws in a weird and totally off the wall twist ...

SPOILER ALERT: stop reading now etc. the big final twist implies that the designers of the Yamato knew what would happen to the ship and designed it to be destroyed and thus save the country. Which is a very odd claim to make when pretty much any other historical source would tell you that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the events that utterly broke the nation leading to unconditional surrender. The pieces just don't fit together in my mind ...

2019, dir. Takashi Yamazaki. With Masaki Suda, Tasuku Emoto, Minami Hamabe, Shōfukutei Tsurube II, Jun Kunimura, Isao Hashizume, Min Tanaka, Hiroshi Tachi.

The Greatest Game Ever Played

Good acting almost carries the day, but it's overwhelmed by a staggeringly clichéd storyline about golf. The parent who disapproves of the impossible dream, nearly does the child out of it for life ... but is inevitably redeemed by some small act at the end of the picture. And let's not forget the woman - the upper class woman whose heart he touches despite his lower class origins. Shia LaBeouf is excellent as usual, Stephen Dillane is very good, Stephen Marcus has fun and looks good, and Josh Flitter is entertaining. But the storyline sinks the whole thing (don't give me this "based on a true story" crap: the writer and director choose what to include). Too bad with so many good people on board.

2005, dir. Bill Paxton. With Shia LaBeouf, Stephen Dillane, Stephen Marcus, Josh Flitter, Elias Koteas, Marnie McPhail, Peyton List.

Greedy

Joe McTeague (Kirk Douglas) is the old, manipulative, and verbally abusive matriarch of a family of money-grubbing bastards. Danny (Michael J. Fox) is the son of the estranged sibling, who left to get away from the back-stabbing. When he's introduced to the family he never knew, he looks for a time like the only decent person in the lot.

SPOILER WARNING: Fox is initially charming as Danny, but his conversion from decent person to money-grubbing bastard and back again is unconvincing. And the repeated switch-backs in Uncle McTeague's behaviour are too frequent and become less and less plausible - and less and less endearing. Has a few laughs, but mostly pretty annoying.

1994, dir. Jonathan Lynn. With Kirk Douglas, Michael J. Fox, Nancy Travis, Olivia d'Abo, Phil Hartman, Ed Begley Jr., Jere Burns, Colleen Camp, Bob Balaban.

The Green Mile

Based on a not-actually-horror novel by Stephen King, "The Green Mile" stars Tom Hanks as Paul Edgecomb, the supervisor at a death row block in a depression-era prison. The first half hour of the film (it runs three hours, so they take their time) is taken to show that Edgecomb and three out of his four employees are dedicated humanists, doing their best to make their prisoner's last days as peaceful as they can manage.

They receive a new inmate, John Coffey (played by Michael Clarke Duncan ... and notice his character's initials) an enormous black man convicted of raping and killing two very young girls. It rapidly becomes clear that Coffey may not be entirely there mentally: among other things, he's afraid of the dark. And as time progresses, they find that Coffey just doesn't seem like a murderer ... and in fact may even be capable of performing miracles.

The movie is perhaps too long, but the time is used to create powerful characters and take a really good look at them. Hanks is excellent as usual, but he gets great support from David Morse, Barry Pepper and Jeffrey DeMunn as his employees, and particularly Duncan - whose brilliant and heart-breaking performance really makes this movie possible. The current-day frame story is unnecessary and detracts from the film as a whole - but happily doesn't break it. A great and thought-provoking movie about morality and man's inhumanity to man.

1999, dir. Frank Darabont. With Tom Hanks, Michael Clarke Duncan, David Morse, Barry Pepper, Jeffrey DeMunn, Doug Hutchison, Bonnie Hunt, Dabbs Greer, James Cromwell, Michael Jeter, Sam Rockwell, Patricia Clarkson, Harry Dean Stanton, Gary Sinese, Graham Greene.

Greenfingers

Clive Owen plays a British convict, recently moved to a minimum security prison where he finds himself with a very old and very ill roommate. The warden believes in work therapy, and soon the former murderers are growing a lovely flower garden. The lessons are laid on with a trowel, but the acting is good and it's very funny. Worth a watch.

According to Wikipedia, "It is loosely based on a true story about the award-winning prisoners of HMP Leyhill, a minimum-security prison in the Cotswolds, England."

2000, dir. Joel Hershman. With Clive Owen, Helen Mirren, David Kelly, Natasha Little, Warren Clarke, Danny Dyer, Adam Fogerty, Paterson Joseph, Lucy Punch.

Green for Danger

Filmed just after WWII, the movie is about a murder (or two) in an improvised British hospital during the war. I'm getting a little tired of the idea that a murder mystery has to be as complex as humanly possible to "keep it interesting." Four or five different people all had motive and opportunity. And in this case it's hard for the viewer to solve as the primary motivator is only given to you at the end by the inspector. The characters are at least entertaining.

1946, dir. Sidney Gilliat. With Sally Gray, Trevor Howard, Rosamund John, Alastair Sim, Leo Genn, Judy Campbell, Megs Jenkins.

The Green Hornet (2011)

My views on this movie should be taken with a grain of salt as I fast-forwarded through chunks of it.

Seth Rogen plays Britt Reid, the party animal son of respected newspaper publisher James Reid (Tom Wilkinson). After his father's death, he discovers his father's very talented assistant (and martial arts expert) Kato (Jay Chou). Somewhat accidentally, they start fighting crime.

What I'm leaving out here is Reid being a dick for the full 108 minute run-time. He's a talentless idiot who's only good at offending people ... but he's very rich because of his father. If you like Rogen's humour (he helped write this abomination) you may enjoy this movie: but believe me, this is probably going to be too much of Rogen-being-an-asshole even for his biggest fans, because that's what they concentrate on. This is a strange choice for Michel Gondry - his stuff has always been bizarre, but usually more intelligent and better than this.

2011, dir. Michel Gondry. With Seth Rogen, Jay Chou, Christoph Waltz, Cameron Diaz, Edward James Olmos, Tom Wilkinson, David Harbour.

The Green Knight

Gawain (Dev Patel) is a young knight at the court of his uncle, King Arthur. He spends his nights drinking, and in the arms of the pretty prostitute Essel (Alicia Vikander). When the king asks him for a tale of bravery or heroism, he has none - so when a strange green knight barges into the court with a challenge, Gawain accepts. (Should I mention here that Gawain's mother is a witch, who seems to have set all of this in motion? Although like many things in this movie, the extent of her intentions is unclear.) The Green Knight is clearly not human, but this is accepted by everyone present as, well, one of those things. The knight's challenge sends Gawain on a quest (after a year of drinking - it'll make sense in the movie). A wild and hallucinatory quest, full of castles, ambushes, giants, and a talking animal.

I can tell you a bit about the ideas behind the movie after watching it: it's a coming of age tale, it's about facing your own mortality, it's about choosing to live honourably. But could I tell you what happened? Hell no. Director David Lowery has even less interest in decisive story-telling than the well-known medieval tale this is based on.

Despite which ... I really enjoyed this. I prefer firm endings, and this one is left way up in the air. And it's pretty slow-paced. But the cinematography is gorgeous, and the whole experience is thoroughly thought-provoking.

2021, dir. David Lowery. With Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton, Sarita Choudhury, Sean Harris, Ralph Ineson, Barry Keoghan, Erin Kellyman, Kate Dickie.

Green Lantern

Ryan Reynolds plays military test pilot Hal Jordan, selected to be the Green Lantern guardian for Earth and the rest of our galactic sector after his predecessor, Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison) is mortally wounded by the evil being Parallax. After the first act of the movie on Earth - setting up Jordan's character and circumstances - the ring that selected him hauls him off to space for his Green Lantern training.

One of the more far-fetched superhero stories, and certainly no great work of art, but it's pretty entertaining and I didn't ask more than that.

2011, dir. Martin Campbell. With Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Peter Sarsgaard, Mark Strong, Angela Bassett, Tim Robbins, Temuera Morrison.

Green Zone

Matt Damon plays Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, chasing after WMDs in Iraq. The intel his company is fed is constantly wrong, and through a series of events he begins to doubt the source of the intel, and then try to chase the person down. The movie is filmed in what one reviewer referred to as "vomit-cam," similar to the Bourne films which Paul Greengrass also directed.

It was fun to watch but something of a fantasy - a depressing fantasy about a very determined and honest man caught in a situation he doesn't like and doesn't control in the middle of a war. Damon does a pretty good job and gets fairly good support from the other actors, but ultimately the movie slides together into a muddled memory of running firefights.

2010, dir. Paul Greengrass. With Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear, Brendan Gleeson, Khalid Abdalla, Amy Ryan, Jason Isaacs.

Gridiron Gang

I was astonished by the trite platitudes fired off throughout the movie. So much so that I nearly quit at half time. And then I was more astonished (and a bit relieved, I suppose) to hear the clips from the documentary this was based on that are interspersed with the credits: the real Sean Porter truly is a platitude-spouting machine. But I guess it works: when you're working with 16 year olds, they haven't heard all of them before (just most of them). But it did have some good moments: "I love sacking the quarterback. I still can't believe that's legal." It's heart-warming in a clichéd way: Dwayne Johnson plays Porter, a teacher at a juvenile delinquent facility in California who decides that discipline through football will reduce recidivism. Apparently he was right.

2006, dir. Phil Joanou. With Dwayne Johnson, Xzibit, Jade Yorker, David V. Thomas, Setu Taase, Trevor O'Brien.

Gridlocked

This is a classic 1990 action flick ... made in 2015. Including Danny Glover, who even gets to say "I'm too old for this shit." Given that he most famously said that 25 years prior, he really is too old and his part in the movie involves little action beyond getting shot.

Dominic Purcell stars as veteran SWAT team leader Dave Hendrix, forced to work the street and baby-sit movie star Brody Walker (played by Cody Hackman) who's doing "community service." But when they visit his former SWAT team, the facility they're in comes under siege by another highly trained team. The movie star is obnoxious-but-honest, the siege team is really evil, there's a traitor in the midst of the good guys, etc. You know, the usual. I was amused to see Stephen Lang as the leader of the bad guys: he's really mastered the evil-military-leader thing. You might remember him from "Avatar," and to his credit he's not playing the same character.

I found most of the movie quite enjoyable: it doesn't have many reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, but it mostly got good grades for being a classic action movie. But at the end of the movie they add a silly segment over the credits that was mildly amusing, and a final shot of one of the stars lounging in an armchair and smirking that significantly soured the whole thing for me. It was unnecessary and I was amazed at how much it put me off an otherwise serviceable action movie.

2015, dir. Allan Ungar. With Dominic Purcell, Cody Hackman, Danny Glover, Stephen Lang, Trish Stratus, Vinnie Jones, Richard Gunn, Saul Rubinek, Steve Byers, James A. Woods, J.P. Manoux.

The Grifters

Stephen Frears heads out to look at the lives of con men. He seems to think that having a conscience that flops about like a fish out of water is a bad thing. The three stars are all various types of grifters, although we only find out about Annette Bening well into the movie. Sleazy, nasty, and it all ends badly. Well done, well acted, and I didn't like it much at all.

1991, dir. Stephen Frears. With John Cusack, Annette Bening, Anjelica Huston.

Grimm, Season 1

"Grimm" is a ... let's say "urban fantasy / lightweight horror / police" TV series that started in 2011, that runs on the idea that there are humans who can transform into animal-like creatures, and there are humans who hunt them called "Grimms." The idea borrows heavily from The Brothers Grimm folk tales. This series suggests that the Brother's tales were all based on real experiences, and that they passed their lore and training in hunting magical creatures down through generations to the present day. Our main character in the series is detective Nick Burkhardt (David Giuntoli) of the Portland Police, who discovers in the first episode that he's a "Grimm." But he goes in a new direction for the Grimms: previously, they killed all the creatures that they encountered, but he rarely kills any and actively helps the law-abiding ones.

The series' worst problem is poor writing - of the "there was a crime" - "we should investigate the crime" - "let us drive to the crime" school of dialogue. The first 15 episodes are verging on stand-alone - a new creature type is introduced, the creature commits a crime, Nick learns about the creature (often with help from his creature buddy Monroe, played by Silas Weir Mitchell), the crime is solved. In the 15th episode, Rosalee (Bree Turner) turns up - another "Wesen," she takes over the local "Tea and Spices" shop that caters to Wesen - and becomes friends with Nick and particularly Monroe. This was a turning point for the series, with them getting into extended story arcs and the writing improving slightly. Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, this doesn't improve the weak acting.

I call the series "lightweight horror" because they usually open with some violent and bloody (or disgustingly gooey) crime - and that's pretty much the end of the gore. There are occasionally hand-to-hand fights or shootings, but mostly we have Nick trying to figure out what's going on and explaining away the supernatural elements that none of the other police know about (except his police captain / boss, who is some kind of secret super-Wesen and Nick doesn't even know it - and no, that's not a spoiler as we find out in episode 1). There's also his trying to have a normal life with his human girlfriend, and keep his human partner Hank (Russell Hornsby) in the dark about Wesen.

The end of the first season endangers the life of a major character and gives us a huge reveal (long-dead person is actually alive) and goes to black. Not a fan of cliff-hangers, but won't go on that rant here.

2011-2012. With David Giuntoli, Russell Hornsby, Bitsie Tullock, Silas Weir Mitchell, Sasha Roiz, Reggie Lee, Bree Turner.

Grimm, Season 2

Before I started watching "Grimm," I was surprised to find that the writing was widely regarded as having improved pretty much all through its run. That's not something you hear every day about a TV show. But it's true: season 1 visibly improved from beginning to end, and season 2 is better than season 1. I'm mostly talking about the dialogue, which was painfully wooden when they started (and the actors haven't significantly improved, so there's still some woodenness).

That's not to say they've managed to avoid turning the whole thing into a huge fantasy-horror soap opera - they haven't. There's the "good guys" in Portland: Nick the policeman and Grimm and his partner police partner Hank, Blutbad Monroe and his Fuchsbau girlfriend Rosalee, and Nick's girlfriend Juliette, and their dubious Zauberbiest ally, police Captain Renard. Then there's the bad guys in Vienna - the Royal Family who want the mysterious key that Nick has, and who are always attempting to murder Nick (and occasionally his allies). But we're not remotely done: there are the far more dubious groups and people, like the Wesen Council (who have appeared momentarily several times and done dubious things), and we should never forget the vile Adalind Schade, who is all tangled up with everyone and seems to slowly be shifting into someone not-quite-so-vile.

They also went full-on obnoxious with the cliffhanger between the second and third seasons - complete with a title card that was a "fuck you" to their fans, something like "you know we had to do it."

Other notes about the season: they dug into the horror a bit more, with more than just the opening scenes having occasional gooey nastiness. Bug-head-guy was the worst of their CG special effects, but at the same time probably their most successfully creepy story line. The ensemble cast they've put together is quite fun, even if none of them are particularly good actors.

2012-2013. With David Giuntoli, Russell Hornsby, Bitsie Tullock, Silas Weir Mitchell, Sasha Roiz, Reggie Lee, Bree Turner.

Gringo Trails

I found this movie at the library. As a frequent traveler, I was interested in their take on the advantages and disadvantages of tourism. Most people travel to see (touch, taste, smell, hear) new places, to experience different cultures. But what if you were simultaneously destroying that place?

I took exception to their implicit logic early on: the movie had a text panel that said "as tourism has risen [in this South American location], the number of Anacondas has steadily declined." Wait, what? They don't actually say it, but the implication is clear: tourism is destroying the snakes. But the reality is a lot more nuanced than that: I don't doubt the Anaconda population is declining, nor do I question that tourism is increasing. But (and why do people utterly refuse to remember this?) correlation does not imply causation. Anacondas are probably dying off because of habitat destruction. Tourists are visiting to see the Anacondas in their natural habitat: tourists aren't the cause of habitat destruction, in fact they're pouring money into keeping the snake's habitat (nearly) pristine. It's slash-and-burn farmers who are destroying the snake's habitat. So, if anything, the tourists are helping the snakes. My logic is based on zero research (so you shouldn't put any faith in it), but I believe the filmmaker's was as well: show me science-based causation and I'll buy your premise.

They certainly manage to show a number of places where tourism has had a destructive effect - I've been to some of these places, and I know they're right about that. The final play was to hold up Bhutan as a model: travel is regulated by the government, it's $250US a day, and you can only get in with a tour group. This has meant that they get old rich people who are there to actually see the place, not to party. And limiting the number limits the effect on the environment and culture.

For the most part I agree with this, although it would have severely shortened my trip in southeast Asia. I was paying maybe $15US a day for a hotel room and food on that trip for six months: at $250US a day, I would have been there less than two weeks on the same budget. The movie as a whole was at best mildly interesting, and at that I think you'd have to be a fairly dedicated traveler to find it even that appealing.

2013, dir. Pegi Vail. With Costas Christ, Yossi Ghinsberg, Pico Iyer.

The Grizzlies

Set in Kugluktuk, Nunavut, Ben Schnetzer plays Russ Sheppard - a Canadian teaching graduate paying off his debt to the Canadian government by working in one of the least desirable schools in the country. Nunavut is plagued by alcoholism, domestic violence, the ongoing fallout of our horrific residental schools, and the highest teen suicide rate on the continent. There are three teen suicides in our new teacher's first couple months, on a town population of 1000 (according to Wikipedia). The story is based on that of the actual Russ Sheppard, who started a lacrosse program at the high school.

It's essentially a traditional inspirational sports movie, but well put together and possibly more disturbingly realistic than most. On the plus side, it's hopeful - as all movies in this category are. While I obviously didn't think it was a great film, I did enjoy it.

2018, dir. Miranda de Pencier. With Ben Schnetzer, Booboo Stewart, Will Sasso, Ricky Marty-Pahtaykan, Anna Lambe, Jamie Takkiruq, Natar Ungalaaq, Paul Nutarariaq, Emerald MacDonald, Tantoo Cardinal.

Grosse Pointe Blank

John Cusack plays a professional hit man returning to his hometown for his ten year high school anniversary ... and a hit. A very funny script, some action, and Cusack's very good acting make this a really enjoyable movie. Minnie Driver is great as the love interest.

1997, dir. George Armitage. With John Cusack, Minnie Driver, Joan Cusack, Dan Aykroyd, Alan Arkin.

Groundhog Day

Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, an obnoxious TV news reporter sent to Punxsutawney with his camera man (Chris Elliot) and new producer (Andie MacDowell) to report on the groundhog's weather prediction. After the report, a blizzard forces them to stay in Punxsutawney overnight, and when Murray wakes up in the morning he finds it's Groundhog Day again. In fact, he lives the day over thousands of times, and the movie shows his progression through hedonism, depression, suicide (he still wakes up the next day), love, and good will. But - and this was essential to the success of the movie - he's still him, still a bit obnoxious. Murray is absolutely at his best here: extremely funny and acting very well. MacDowell is surprisingly charming (I've never been a fan). Overall, an excellent movie.

1993, dir. Harold Ramis. With Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Chris Elliott.

The Guard

Brendan Gleeson plays Gerry Boyle, a loose cannon asshole cop in Connemara, Ireland. Drug dealers and an American FBI agent (Don Cheadle) show up pretty much simultaneously, and he doesn't get along with either of them. It's initially unclear if he's genuinely racist, or he simply enjoys pissing people off. The movie reminded me of "In Bruges," what with both being black comedies with lots of guns, Gleeson, and brother directors (John Michael McDonough who directed this is brother to Martin McDonough who directed "In Bruges"). But this movie suffers in the comparison, as it's not as funny and doesn't have any greater dramatic depth to compensate. Which isn't to say it's a bad film: it's quite enjoyable. But "In Bruges" is better.

2011, dir. John Michael McDonagh. With Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle, Liam Cunningham, Mark Strong, Fionnula Flanagan, David Wilmot, Rory Keenan, Dominique McElligott, Sarah Greene.

Guardians of the Galaxy

The story starts in 1988 with a Walkman and a dying mother: the young Peter Quill is then abducted from Earth. We shortly find out that Quill (Chris Pratt) has grown into a galaxy-traveling tomb-raider, fighter, and thief. Several people are after the same prize Quill wants, and a couple of them are after Quill himself for the bounty on him. After they're all put in jail, they're forced to team up to break out. As they begin to realize that the device Quinn stole will be used to destroy entire populated planets, they start to consider fighting together.

Goofy but very entertaining, an enjoyable ride. Some parts are utterly extraneous, like the appearance of Thanos - but that's just Marvel building up their ultimate villain for a later film (freely acknowledged by James Gunn in the director's commentary). Amazingly, Dave Bautista has moments where he looks like he might be capable of acting, and his comedic timing is actually pretty good. Some great action sequences, a lot of comedy - some of which is utterly brilliant. Good soundtrack that's well used in the context of the movie. Just fun.

The 3D on the BluRay release is fine. Acceptable. I didn't follow too closely, but the movie actually varies between 16:9 and at times much wider: when it's wide, we get black bars at the top and bottom, and the spatter from on-screen events actually sprays into the black bars. The transitions between the two modes weren't obvious: maybe I'll go back sometime and see how it's done ... But the effect isn't as well used as one would hope - enough so that I'll probably watch this mostly in 2D in future.

2014, dir. James Gunn. With Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Lee Pace, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Djimon Hounsou, John C. Reilly, Glenn Close, Benicio Del Toro.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

"Guardians of the Galaxy" was one of Marvel's more obscure comic book titles, and not many people thought that Marvel could make it fly - particularly not with "Rocket Raccoon." But Marvel invested big in the 2014 movie, and it was a smash hit because it's funny as hell and the characters (including Rocket) are great. This is the 2017 sequel.

We open with scene-setting: the Guardians are fighting a huge inter-dimensional beast that's coming to eat a power source that they've been paid to protect. The credits roll on Baby Groot dancing to music as his motley group of "parents" fight this beast in the background. Then the Guardians are completely impolitic as they collect their payment, and Rocket steals shit because that's what he does - so now they're in even more trouble. And then the biggest plot point drops: they meet Peter "Starlord" Quill's father "Ego" (Kurt Russell). And accept his invitation to return to his world, where many discoveries are made and most of the rest of the movie plays out.

The movie follows one of Marvel's standard patterns in that it brings back the cast of the previous movie (not just the Guardians, but Yondu and Nebula), adds a couple new major characters (Quill's father and his servant Mantis), and several minor ones hinting at appearances in further movies (more Ravagers played by big names: Sylvester Stallone, Ving Rhames, Michelle Yeoh).

The movie is mostly about grand action set pieces and comedy, but between those scenes it offers surprisingly deep (for Marvel) - although very chopped up - meditations on the nature of family.

Drax is abusive and obnoxious to Mantis throughout the movie - in the name of humour, of course. He was fantastically obnoxious for the sake of humour in the first movie, but in that case the insults were spread across many people and it was funny. This time it was all targeted at one person and ended up being quite unpleasant. I was unimpressed by the absolute slaughter Yondu and Rocket inflicted on an entire ship full of Ravagers: while I understood the motivation, having them smiling and laughing throughout made them feel a lot less like "heroes." (Deadpool gets away with that kind of behaviour because he's an anti-hero, but the Guardians aren't: they're more "reluctant heroes.") Typical of Marvel sequels, there's less character development than the initial movie - but then, this one is mostly about Quill and his Dad, with both of them getting plenty of time.

The soundtrack included some good tunes from the Eighties, but they didn't try to recreate the R&B and Funk aesthetic of the original movie. Which was probably a good choice, but the Vol. 1 soundtrack was an absolute masterpiece of music selection, and this one can't compare.

Overall an entertaining movie, although not the equal of the original.

2017, dir. James Gunn. With Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Kurt Russell, Elizabeth Debicki, Chris Sullivan, Sean Gunn, Sylvester Stallone, Michelle Yeoh, Ving Rhames.

The Guest

The Peterson family lost a son in the war in Afghanistan. One day, they're visited by David Collins (Dan Stevens) who fought with their son. Hoping for some connection to their son, they invite him to stay for a few days. He's charming, polite, very good looking, and - being a friend of their son - has only their best interests at heart. His casual violence is okay because it's only used to do the right thing, right?

Well received by critics, I thought it was better than your average action movie but not exactly outstanding, and the "he was part of a special program" excuse is getting more than a bit stale. Not to mention the high school Halloween labyrinth finale, which was painfully, blatantly stagey to no good end.

2014, dir. Adam Wingard. With Dan Stevens, Maika Monroe, Brendan Meyer, Lance Reddick, Sheila Kelley, Leland Orser, Chase Williamson, Ethan Embry, Joel David Moore.

Guinevere

A particularly unsatisfying and irritating movie. We are to believe that Sarah Polley is an exceedingly insecure (but incredibly beautiful - she is, after all, Sarah Polley) girl from a family of overbearing extroverts, and that she would fall for a wheezing old photographer played by Stephen Rea. I've heard much of Polley's acting, and she did well later in the picture (by which time I'd decided the story was a complete write-off) but I found her initial insecurities overplayed. The voice-over finale is painfully cheesy.

1999, dir. Audrey Wells. With Sarah Polley, Stephen Rea, Jean Smart, Gina Gershon.

The Guilty

Original Danish title: "Den skyldige."

The tensest movie you're ever likely to see about a man on a phone for an hour and a quarter. That may sound like snark, but it's amazement. The movie consists of Asger Holm (played by Jakob Cedergren) talking on a phone from a police emergency centre for 80 minutes. By rights it should be about as exciting as watching grass grow: instead you'll be on the edge of your seat. This has all the tension that "Locke" was aiming for and (to my mind anyway) failed to find.

Asger is a bit of a prick. He's a beat cop stuck taking Emergency Service calls because of an upcoming trial, and when he gets a guy who's overdosed on speed his response is to tell the guy it's his own fault. I'm not saying he's wrong - it's just that you make sure the person is okay first before going all self-righteous ... He's trying to do his best, truly he is, but he has a temper, he's self-righteous, and his escalating responses to stress just aren't quite what they should be for a police man ... The ending is heart-breaking, but appropriate. All he does is walk out of the station, but his life has changed completely. All of this may sound very similar to "Locke," but the critical difference for me was that I found Asger relatable - and that made all the difference in the world. Highly recommended.

Wikipedia says it's in line for an American remake starring Jake Gyllenhaal. Too bad - better to see this excellent production.

2018, dir. Gustav Möller. With Jakob Cedergren, Jessica Dinnage, Omar Shargawi, Johan Olsen, Katinka Evers-Jahnsen, Jacob Lohmann.

Gulliver's Travels (1996)

A three hour Hallmark TV package that pretty much manages to capture everything of Swift's original vision that still makes sense today. I didn't think Ted Danson and Hallmark were the crew to do this, but I was wrong: I loved this production. They've modified the structure considerably: we start with Gulliver arriving home after eight years in a rather bad state, to find that his wife has been reduced to the state of housekeeper in what was their home for the doctor who replaced him, and she has to constantly fend off proposals of marriage from him. He also has a son he didn't know about. But this is only the beginning of his problems: he rather involuntarily relives all his adventures in his mind, and, in trying to tell the tale, is soon committed to an insane asylum. So we have the two stories in parallel: his current incarceration, and his bizarre journeys from the past. The effects are relatively straight-forward, but work exceptionally well. The whole thing is manic, but that works fine for Gulliver's Travels, right? Danson is good in the lead. And, best of all, they kept most of Swift's vitriolic commentary on the state of humanity (while losing his contemporary political commentary that wouldn't make sense to a modern audience).

I've always been amused that Gulliver's Travels has become a children's story: it was certainly never intended to be. But giants, little people, and talking horses ... That's how it's often interpreted these days. This production is ... borderline kid-safe. But they're definitely not the target audience. Highly recommended. Give it time: the beginning is okay, but it improves greatly as it goes.

1996, dir. Charles Sturridge. With Ted Danson, Mary Steenburgen, James Fox, Ned Beatty, Geraldine Chaplin, Edward Fox, Sir John Gielgud, Robert Hardy, Shashi Kapoor, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Phoebe Nicholls, Kristin Scott Thomas, Omar Sharif, Alfre Woodard, Edward Woodard, Peter O'Toole.

The Gunfighter

Gregory Peck stars as Jimmy Ringo, a relatively old (at age 35) gunfighter in the Old West who wants to settle down. The movie opens by establishing both his speed and his notoriety: he's trying to have a drink in a saloon when a young gunslinger decides he'll prove his mettle by taking on "Jimmy Ringo." This results in the young man's death ... and also three very upset brothers trailing Ringo as he leaves town.

The movie is apparently one of the very earliest that shows that the life of a gunfighter may not have been A) easy, or B) morally black-and-white. In the town of Cayenne, Jimmy tries to get in touch with his true love Peggy, who's also the mother of his child. On his side is the local Marshal who used to be in his gang - and against him is time, as the brothers will soon catch up with him.

In 2020 this plot sounds like a very conventional Western, but apparently it wasn't at the time. Regardless, it's well done and worth a watch.

1950, dir. Henry King. With Gregory Peck, Helen Westcott, Millard Mitchell, Jean Parker, Karl Malden, Richard Jaeckel, Skip Homeier, Anthony Ross, Verna Felton.

Gunga Din

A rip-roaring comedy adventure in colonial India. Or at least I think that's how the movie sees itself. Seventy years after its release it looks more like the three good looking stooges take on the men in shoe polish. All the Indians were played by white actors covered in gunk, and the Carey Grant / Douglas Fairbanks Jr. / Victor McLaglen characters are a bunch of brave but obnoxious soldiers out to cause each other and everybody else problems. But of course they'll also win the war ... The three of them worked well together and were occasionally charming or mildly amusing, but the blatant racism means the movie doesn't play well these days.

1939, dir. George Stevens. With Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Joan Fontaine, Eduardo Ciannelli, Sam Jaffe.

Gunless

I wanted to watch this for several reasons ... A Canadian comedy western starring Paul Gross and Sienna Guillory? Sounds good! But the reviews were poor and, as it turns out, they're pretty much right. Gross plays "The Montana Kid," a violent American gunslinger who finds himself in a small Canadian town after an attempt to hang him goes wrong.

The movie fails on several levels, not least of which is the title: there are a very large number of guns in the movie. The problem is, the Montana Kid (Gross) feels he's been insulted by one of the Canadians (Tyler Mane, playing the smith), and won't shoot the guy if he's unarmed - it's his "code." And he can't find a functional revolver in the town to arm his opponent with. So he has to stick around until a gun is available. He gets to know the locals, etc. etc. Guillory acts well as well as being charming and beautiful. Gross is good, but unfortunately much the same as usual - he's not breaking any new ground. The movie has a number of small laughs and is kind of charming in an understated way (how very Canadian of it), but overall it's kind of disappointing and fairly unbelievable.

2010, dir. William Phillips. With Paul Gross, Sienna Guillory, Tyler Mane, Dustin Milligan, Callum Keith Rennie.

Gunpowder Milkshake

I like Karen Gillan. She's good as Nebula in the Marvel universe, and good in the Jumanji movies. But just because she has practice in making action movies doesn't mean she can live up to the associated acting. Here she plays Sam, a young assassin who got into the profession because it was all she knew when her assassin mother abandoned her at the age of 12. (The logic has already broken down, but it's a movie, we'll run with it.) Gillan is supposed to look incredibly dangerous, but the slouching saunter she's developed to show off Sam's threat looks more like Matthew McConaughey after a couple too many joints. She's somewhat better as a damaged product of her upbringing.

Just as "John Wick" has the hotel, so Sam can visit "the Library," where she gets "books" that have firearms and other useful items inside them.

Men exist in this movie only to be loathed, maimed, or killed. Usually all three. This, as we're told in the movie, is feminism. Women reject the roles foisted on them by men - and apparently become assassins disguised as librarians. And yet, as soon as they meet an eight year old girl, all five main characters want to act like mothers ... the movie is massively tonally inconsistent.

The cast list is fascinating: Gillan, Lena Headey, Carla Gugino, Michelle Yeoh, Angela Bassett, Paul Giamatti. This is several of the best female action stars alive today. Yeoh may be getting up there in years, but she looks great and has done bad action movies her whole life and is right at home in this one. Headey is a great actress, and comes out looking - not good, but - least bad in the acting department here. Bassett has been the least consistent actor: she's been fantastic in some movies, appalling in others. Unfortunately, she's more on the "appalling" end of the scale in this one, looking like she's sucking on a lemon through every appearance on screen. Gillan is having fun slumming it, knows she's slumming it. And Giamatti ... he's one of the best character actors alive today, somebody please give the man better roles ...

Of all director Navot Papushado's poor choices in making this movie, doing the dénouement in slow motion was possibly the worst. Slow motion mayhem can be very cool, but when your budget doesn't extend to extensive rehearsal of the scene, slowing it down shows just how badly the stunt men and actors are waiting for each other to finish that last move, or how far that punch or kick really missed its target by. It looked awful.

Apparently I'm standing against the critics on this one: they mostly like it. <shrug> It's glossy and has a list of names, but that's all it's got going for it.

2021, dir. Navot Papushado. With Karen Gillan, Lena Headey, Carla Gugino, Chloe Coleman, Michelle Yeoh, Paul Giamatti, Angela Bassett, Ralph Ineson, Adam Nagaitis, Michael Smiley, Freya Allan.


H

Hacksaw Ridge

I heard about this around the time they started filming and immediately went to look up the person it's based on, Desmond Doss. I was just as fascinated with him as director Mel Gibson was. Doss was a Seventh Day Adventist, a pacifist, and a conscientious objector during the Second World War. Despite which, he joined up with the American military because he believed their cause was right. He refused to carry a gun and went into the medics. He dragged something on the order of 75 men out of an active battlefield, an act of bravery so great he was given the Medal of Honor.

Andrew Garfield plays Doss. We see him from an early age, including his often difficult relationship with his father (well played by Hugo Weaving), a First World War vet with (as yet unnamed) PTSD. The movie is somewhat hagiographic, but they do manage to put a human face on the man. Gibson said in the attached "Making of" movie that he was trying to make a movie about faith rather than religion - a fine line to walk, but one he seems to have pulled off. The movie doesn't preach, it just shows Doss in action. The battlefield is brutally bloody and nasty, with people blowing up and entrails all over ... and Doss just keeps wading back in to rescue "just one more." It's ironic to hear in the "Making of" that Gibson actually backed off from the reality (Doss's life is very well documented around that battle, despite his being a very retiring man): he was afraid that some of the things Doss did were so over-the-top that people wouldn't have believed it. I had read about Doss finally being injured: when they put Doss's stretcher down beside another injured man, Doss got himself out of the stretcher and put the other guy in because he knew this guy was more in need of help. Gibson deliberately passed on that - and I'm inclined to think it was a good decision. But ironic, when Hollywood is so known for its love of over-the-top gestures.

Another irony is to be found in the form of the nationalities of all the "Americans." The majority of them are Australian (Weaving, Sam Worthington, Luke Bracey, Teresa Palmer), and the main star (Garfield) is British. Vince Vaughn is the only major character who's actually American. And Gibson himself ... used to be Australian. I was 15 minutes into the "Making of" before I realized that Gibson shouldn't sound flatly American. Apparently he talks that way all the time now.

An excellent - and very thought-provoking - movie, in my opinion the best war movie ever made. Not for those who are uncomfortable with bloodshed, but at least it's mostly a war movie about the heroism of saving lives rather than taking them.

2016, dir. Mel Gibson. With Andrew Garfield, Sam Worthington, Luke Bracey, Teresa Palmer, Hugo Weaving, Rachel Griffiths, Vince Vaughn.

Hail Caesar!

Josh Brolin plays Eddie Mannix in 1951 Hollywood. Mannix was a real person, a Hollywood studio fixer who took care of drunk stars, covering up pregnancies and all manner of indiscretions, arranging the appearance of romance ... whatever the studio needed. In this case, he's got a rodeo star (Alden Ehrenreich) who's being asked to act in a parlour drama, a big name (George Clooney) kidnapped by communists, an unmarried pregnant starlet (Scarlett Johansson), and a pair of twin gossip columnists always on his tail (Tilda Swinton).

I don't know what it is about the Coen brothers. They have an unerring knack for humour to suit most of the world while simultaneously absolutely ensuring I don't laugh at their films. I've watched several, because people are constantly telling me how incredibly good they are. Like "Hail Caesar!" It's well produced, and Brolin does a good job as Mannix, but I truly did not get the humour - I think it wrung one laugh out of me. Coen Brothers - so not my thing.

2016, dir. Joel Coen, Ethan Coen. With Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Tilda Swinton, Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Frances McDormand.

Hancock

I love the superhero movies, so take my review with a grain of salt. That said, this is a pretty weird one. Will Smith plays an alcoholic and very lonely superhuman whose acts of retribution against criminals, and methods of saving people, tend to cause staggering amounts of damage. When he saves Jason Bateman's character Ray Embrey, Embrey decides to apply his public relations skills to bring Hancock back into favour with the public.

The movie is different from other superhero movies in that Hancock is initially seen as a complete drunken asshole. It's also different in that the explanation of his powers is more mythic than the pseudo-scientific explanations of the Marvel universe - and perhaps both of these things lost them some of their audience. Personally, I found it a great change of pace. The big dénouement at the end is incredibly clever, and spectacularly heroic. Really good.

2008, dir. Peter Berg. With Will Smith, Jason Bateman, Charlize Theron.

Hang 'Em High

Clint Eastwood's first English language, non-Leone Western. Before the beginning credits even roll Clint has been strung up from a tree by a vigilante mob for a crime he didn't commit. They leave, and after the credits he's cut down by a Marshall who takes him into custody to check his story. The judge who lets him go promptly hires him, as Clint's character used to be a "lawman" himself. As you might imagine, he's a bit upset with the nine men who tried to kill him, and so hangs the tale (no pun intended).

I'm pleased to say that it didn't go anything like the way I expected it would. Unlike the Leone movies, who's good and who's bad is anything but clear-cut, and you may not be cheering for Clint to kill the vigilantes quite as much as you thought you would. A Western about justice that involves Eastwood and that actually provokes a bit of thought: not bad.

1968, dir. Ted Post. With Clint Eastwood, Pat Hingle, Inger Stevens, Ed Begley.

The Hangover

The film opens with three guys in the middle of the desert. They and their car are beat to shit, and Phil (Bradley Cooper) is calling to explain to a waiting bride that, well, they don't know where the groom (Doug, played by Justin Bartha) is. We backtrack, and see the four guys setting out for Las Vegas for Doug's bachelor party. They party a bit, and then we see them the next morning in their suite ... which is totally trashed, and contains both a live chicken and a tiger (fortunately in different rooms). None of them have any memory of the events past about 10 PM the previous evening. So we follow their process of discovery.

The set-up is nuts, and they don't really let up: it's crazy. But somehow it adheres to a bizarre internal logic that mostly works, and, better yet, it's both totally unpredictable and funny. It's ridiculous. And you will laugh (although you may be embarrassed that you did). For me the movie doesn't start until 23 minutes in when they wake up in the morning - unfortunately the 23 minutes lead-in is essential to understanding the characters of our four leads.

2009, dir. Todd Phillips. With Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms, Justin Bartha, Heather Graham, Ken Jeong.

Hanna

Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) is a 16 year old girl raised completely alone by her father (Eric Bana) in the woods in Scandinavia, just south of the Arctic Circle. She speaks multiple languages fluently, has memorized large chunks of the encyclopedia, and loves Grimm's Fairy Tales. Her father has also trained her as an assassin, pretty much from birth. After a short introduction to her incredibly isolated (and bizarre) home life, her father turns her lose on the world - although he's aimed her at just one person. The story follows Hanna as she tries to adjust to a world full of people and places she's never seen before, as her life history is unfolded for us.

While getting Daft Punk to do the score for "Tron: Legacy" was a brilliant idea, director Joe Wright's choice of the Chemical Brothers to do the score here doesn't really work despite Wright's occasionally quirky visuals. The movie as a whole is quite emotionally cold - although perhaps the Chemical Brothers fit with that ...

2011, dir. Joe Wright. With Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana, Cate Blanchett, Tom Hollander, Olivia Williams, Jason Flemyng, Jessica Barden.

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

Good scripts can be sunk by terrible acting, and good actors can be sunk by a terrible script. I don't think I need to tell you anything about the plot, because any familiarity at all with the Grimm Brother's original story will lead to a pretty good imagination of the plot outline. And Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton were very fine choices for the leads, but the plot and dialogue just suck. Not to mention that the weaponry used by the siblings make Hugh Jackman's repeating crossbow used in "Van Helsing" look like a sane and reasonable device by comparison. Violent, bloody, and not particularly funny even when it was trying to be. A not-bad idea gone right off the rails.

2013, dir. Tommy Wirkola. With Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton, Famke Janssen, Peter Stormare, Pihla Viitala.

The Happening

M. Night Shyamalan has outdone himself: yes, this is actually worse than "Lady in the Water." Long lingering shots of Mark Wahlberg looking confused or upset (it's hard to tell which), Zooey Deschanel - pretty and bad, and the most absurd of all his premises yet (the plants are out to get us) all add up to a really poor movie. Wahlberg is actually a fairly capable actor, I'm not sure if it was disinterest or poor direction that left him looking so foolish. Not that it would have mattered: the script was so poor and the reliance on overly drawn-out "scares" meant the best actor in the world couldn't have saved this.

2008, dir. M. Night Shyamalan. With Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo, Ashlyn Sanchez, Betty Buckley, Spencer Breslin, Robert Bailey Jr., Frank Collison.

Happy!, Season 1

"Happy!" is a (Syfy) TV series that was originally based on a comic book series written by Grant Morrison. I'm sure he would be pleased to hear me say it's one of the most fucked-up shows I've ever seen. Movies sometimes come more messed up than this, but I don't think TV has ever reached these extremes prior to this. Oh wait - I've seen "Preacher" - that's about on par.

The opening scene of the first episode has our protagonist Nick Sax (Chris Meloni) fantasizing about blowing his brains out in the washroom of a bar, and after he does it we're treated to him disco-dancing with a huge quantity of blood streaming upwards out of the top of his open head. Nick is a disgraced cop turned part-time hit man - something he's surprisingly good at given the quantity of drugs he smokes and ingests. By the mid-point of the episode he's had a heart attack (a real one), threatened the ambulance attendants with his gun and made them feed him drugs, and acquired an imaginary friend called "Happy" who is a small blue winged unicorn (Patton Oswalt). Happy is the imaginary friend of a young girl (Bryce Lorenzo) who's just been kidnapped, and she knew of Nick (how becomes an important point) and sent Happy ... but no one but Nick can see or hear Happy.

The first season consists of eight episodes of about 45 minutes each.

I got through the season, although I admit I wasn't always giving it my full attention (you may assume from my media consumption that that's common: it's not). I was entertained by some of the dialogue, which was often well written. I was somewhat shakier on the overall plot, which seemed unnecessarily drawn out at times. If I'm going to watch batshit crazy TV, I'll probably head back to watch "Preacher."

2017. With Christopher Meloni, Patton Oswalt, Lili Mirojnick, Ritchie Coster, Medina Senghore, Patrick Fischler, Christopher Fitzgerald, Bryce Lorenzo, Joseph D. Reitman, Debi Mazar, Gus Halper, Laura Poe.

Happy Death Day

"Happy Death Day" looks, on first inspection, like a standard slasher flick. A young woman dies a horrible death at the hands of an assailant in a creepy mask. But then - she wakes up to live the same day again. And again. Definitely similar to "Groundhog Day" - which they reference toward the end of the film.

Jessica Rothe is Theresa "Tree" Gelbman, the mean-spirited sorority girl who is trying to figure out who her killer is before she dies again. Since she's been so unpleasant in her life, she finds the suspect list is very long.

The film has a couple problems. Jessica Rothe is (while very attractive) visibly too old to be the college student she's portraying. Sure, 30 year olds go to college - but they don't live the classic sorority life, and we're meant to believe she's about 20. The other part of the movie that doesn't quite fly is Tree's conversion from horrible person back into the daughter her mother would have wanted her to be. "Groundhog Day" made a similar transformation work by taking Bill Murray's character through thousands of days worth of experiences with small changes each day - and relying on a brilliant performance from Murray. Rothe isn't as good as Murray, and doesn't have nearly as much time in which to reform.

It was an interesting and decent movie, but doesn't live up to "Groundhog Day."

2017, dir Christopher B. Landon. With Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Ruby Modine, Rachel Matthews, Charles Aitken, Rob Mello, Phi Vu, Caleb Spillyards, Jason Bayle.

Happy Death Day 2U

Tree Gelbman (Jessica Rothe) goes multi-dimensional. Wikipedia's characterizations of movies are getting really long: this one is apparently a "black comedy science fiction slasher film." Not that that's wrong, and it makes me feel a bit better about my more long-winded reviews ...

Recommended only for fans of "Happy Death Day" - because then you'll have some idea of what you're getting yourself into. In fact, I recommend the original ... while it had a number of issues, it was inventive and a lot of fun. However ... it didn't really seem like a movie that lent itself to a sequel. To my surprise, the writers got seriously inventive and managed to pull off something as good as the first movie. Fans of the original need to understand that the whole thing has taken a left turn into "Science Fiction," in the process dragging the previous movie with it. But Tree's frustrations, repetitions, and even rewards, have been well thought out and make a movie I may have enjoyed even more than the original.

2019, dir. Christopher Landon. With Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard, Suraj Sharma, Steve Zissis, Phi Vu, Ruby Modine, Sarah Yarkin, Rachel Matthews, Missy Yager, Jason Bayle, Charles Aitken, Laura Clifton.

Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai

My second Takashi Miike movie in a week (the other being "13 Assassins"), both good, both flawed. This is more traditional, less grotesque.

An impoverished samurai comes to the House of Ii, and says he wishes to commit hara-kiri in their courtyard. The people of the house try to talk him out of it by telling him the story of another ronin who came to them some months before, making the same request. He says he will proceed, and he will tell them a story too ...

Given that it's about honour and ritual suicide, I expected it to be depressing. I wasn't wrong. However, about half way through it becomes entirely clear what's going to happen to several people in the movie: mostly because you already know that this man is sitting in their courtyard talking, but intuition and inevitability play a part in it as well. So you spend half an hour watching depressing crap to which you already know the outcome: if I'm going to watch a depressing movie, it had damn well better bring something interesting to the table, not follow a script I figured out 30 minutes prior. So, while it's very well done, the movie is also incredibly ponderous and I wasn't overly impressed. Should work for fans of the genre, but nothing particularly unexpected happens.

2011, dir. Takashi Miike. With Ebizô Ichikawa, Eita Nagayama, Hikari Mitsushima, Kôji Yakusho, Takehiro Hira, Munetaka Aoki.

Hard Boiled

Chow Yun-fat plays "Tequila," a Hong Kong cop (and occasional jazz musician) who sets out on a vendetta against the gun-runners who killed his partner and friend. Tony Leung is one of the gangsters with more of a sense of loyalty than most, and as much talent for killing as Tequila. You don't need to know much more about the plot than that - in fact there isn't much more plot. In a two hour and seven minute run-time, I think 90 minutes is given over to gun battles, the last one at the hospital taking up (literally) more than half of the movie. One of the beauties of gun battles in movies (if you like that kind of thing) is the adrenaline rush they provide: that being the case, brevity is called for. Balletic mayhem can only go so far, and in this case, it went way too far. And when we got to the "save the children" section (getting 50 or 100 babies out of the baby ward in the exploding hospital), I just shook my head in disgust. The body count is breath-taking, and yet ALL the good guys survive. Yep, I believe that.

1992, dir. John Woo. With Chow Yun-fat, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Teresa Mo, Philip Chan, Kwan Hoi-Shan, Anthony Wong.

I don't know what the right word is ... "Mockumentary" implies the aim is humour, but while there's definitely humour in the movie that's not really what it's about. It's supposed to be a tour movie of the punk band "Hard Core Logo" - a reunion tour of five cities in Canada. They fight, they do drugs, they drive a van thousands of miles and smoke thousands of cigarettes. And the ending is a 16 tonne weight dropped out of nowhere that leaves you just staring. Not that it's wrong: it works. But I sure as hell didn't see it coming.

1996, dir. Bruce McDonald. With Hugh Dillon, Callum Keith Rennie, John Pyper-Ferguson, Bernie Coulson, Julian Richings.

A Hard Day's Night

Surreal, funny, and charming. Showed the Beatles as they were just coming into their true fame, running from hordes of screaming fans, and just generally being silly. The script and direction were very good, and director Richard Lester probably deserves the credit he was given as possible father of MTV with the concert footage filming style.

1964, dir. Richard Lester. With John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Wilfrid Brambell, Norman Rossington, John Junkin.

Hardball

Keanu Reeves plays Conor O'Neill, a man with a gambling addiction and the resulting debts to the wrong people. Direly in need of money, he takes (is shoved into) a job coaching a bunch of kids from the Chicago Projects to play baseball. He has every intention of leaving as soon as he can.

You'll be unsurprised to hear that he helps the kids and the kids help him, and there are a number of warm and fuzzy moments. But. While it does have some surprisingly touching moments, Reeves really didn't manage to sell either of the two sides of his character: the asshole-gambler or the reluctant-but-warm-hearted-helper. He wasn't helped by the script, which went out of its way to emphasize both. The kids were fairly well chosen for their roles. But don't watch this movie.

2001, dir. Brian Robbins. With Keanu Reeves, Diane Lane, John Hawkes, Bryan C. Hearne, Julian Griffith, Michael Jordan, A. Delon Ellis Jr., Kristopher Lofton, Michael Perkins, Brian M. Reed, DeWayne Warren.

Hardcore Henry

"Hardcore Henry" was something of a cause célèbre when it did the festival circuit, but it sank fairly quickly in cinemas. It's a gimmick, a film shot like a first-person-shooter game. Henry awakes at the beginning of the movie, and we see through his eyes. A woman explains he's lost an arm, a leg, and his memories and can't talk, but she quickly attaches prosthetics for the missing limbs. By the way, I'm your wife and there's this evil man Akan. Oh dear, Akan is here, he's kidnapped the wife, what will Henry do?! He runs and jumps and shoots and kills, occasionally getting assistance and hints from characters who are no more appealing than the NPCs in most FPSes. And Henry himself - he can't speak, presumably to make him more generic, easier for us to feel like him as we run and maim from behind his eyes. But because he can't speak, we have no sense of character at all from him - the action starts immediately and never lets up, so we can't even learn his character from his actions ... except for things like him being totally unbothered by getting blood, brains, and giblets all over himself. He just keeps running.

At least, that was what had happened in the first 35 minutes. It was becoming increasingly clear that it was going to be nothing but blood and guts action, and the movie helped me discover that I'm susceptible to shaky-cam nausea. Most found-footage movies give you some respite, moments of exposition where the camera stays almost still. Not this one: it never stops, and by the time I quit I was decidedly green around the gills. I would have continued to watch it in small chunks (pun intended - there are lots of small chunks in the movie ...) if there was any hope for intelligence, but that simply wasn't the aim. It seemed obvious to me that a woman who tells you she's your wife when she knows you have no memories and offers no proof should be taken with a big grain of salt ... and (SPOILER) Wikipedia's plot summary tells me I was totally right about that.

Directed by nobody-you've-ever-heard-of and produced by Timur Bekmambetov, which should have been reason enough to stop as soon as I saw his name in the opening credits. For those not familiar with him, his Russian-language "Night Watch" from 2004 was ... fascinating without being good, but it's all been downhill since then with him making masterpieces like "Wanted" (yup, you can curve a bullet, just like a baseball) and "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter."

2015, dir. Ilya Naishuller. With Sharlto Copley, Danila Kozlovsky, Haley Bennett, Tim Roth.

Harold and Kumar go to White Castle

Some of it is insanely grotesque (the character "Freakshow") and it aims really (really) low, but quite a few of the gags are extremely funny. It's a good thing I didn't know this was directed by the guy who did "Dude, Where's My Car?" because I never would have rented it. Who knew he could actually produce something funny? Much of the credit here goes to the two leads (John Cho and Kal Penn as Harold and Kumar respectively) who are funny and work well together. And of course Neil Patrick Harris as a totally drugged up version of himself - hysterical.

2004. dir. Danny Leiner. With John Cho, Kal Penn, Neil Patrick Harris.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

The first of the Harry Potter movies. The young stars are fairly poor actors on their first try, and Columbus's direction is pedestrian, but the product is enjoyable. The wizard chess at the end is positively inspired.

2001. dir. Chris Columbus. With Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Richard Harris, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, Alan Rickman.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

As Rowling's writing gets worse, the direction and acting in the series of movies is improving. Dark, tense, funny, and action-packed, this is very well done. Both Radcliffe and Watson turn in good performances, although Grint doesn't seem to be improving much.

2005. dir. Mike Newell. With Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, Alan Rickman.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

The main actors have grown into adulthood and have learned something of the craft they've been stumbling through previously. That and the best writing and directing yet make this the best of the series so far (although the dénouement, typical of Rowling, is weak). Also the darkest of the series, but we can expect it to get even darker in the sixth and seventh instalments. Oldman manages to be more charming than I've ever seen him before, and Lynch is great as Luna Lovegood. The latter two are what made it worth watching for me.

2007, dir. David Yates. With Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Ralph Fiennes, Brendan Gleeson, Gary Oldman, David Thewlis, Maggie Smith, Julie Walters, Bonnie Wright, Michael Gambon, Imelda Staunton, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, Robbie Coltrane, Evanna Lynch.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Another very dark entry in the series, with lighter moments revolving around the principles' attempts to find love. Filming is good. Despite a passable story arc it still felt like a bunch of connected vignettes and didn't flow terribly well. Still, a reasonably good job this time out.

2009, dir. David Yates. With Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Michael Gambon, Bonnie Wright, Jim Broadbent, Alan Rickman, Tom Felton, Helena Bonham Carter, Natalia Tena, David Thewlis.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1

Harry Potter and crew finally leave the school of Hogwarts: not because they've completed their last year, but because Harry is in hot pursuit of Voldemort and the school is under the control of Voldemort's Death Eaters. Unfortunately, this is only half a film, or more correctly, half a book. It's plenty of film with a run-time of 146 minutes (on par with the others). But the movie doesn't finish out the year: that's being left to Part 2. It's well done for what it is, much on par with the others in the series. Sadly, none of the three main characters have grown up to be great actors.

2010, dir. David Yates. With Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Ralph Fiennes, Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter, Bonnie Wright, Imelda Staunton, Toby Jones.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2

And finally, the close to probably the most financially successful film series ever. It had been a little while since I'd seen the previous movie, so I was a bit disappointed when they gave no reminders whatsoever of where we'd stopped in the previous one. The last two thirds of the movie is essentially "The Battle of Hogwarts," and three much-beloved characters (and several others of course) die in the fighting. Too much of a battle, but a reasonably satisfactory conclusion.

2011, dir. David Yates. With Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Ralph Fiennes, Alan Rickman, Helena Bonham Carter, Bonnie Wright, Imelda Staunton, Toby Jones, Evanna Lynch, Ciarán Hinds.

Harry Wild, Season 1

This is a review not of the entire season, but only the first four episodes.

Jane Seymour is Harry Wild, who retires from teaching literature at a university in (or near) Dublin. She's not sure what she's going to do, but it won't be gardening. While visiting her son who's in the Guard ("the police" to most of the rest of the world), she looks over one of his case files - and her knowledge of literature leads her to more clues. This sets her on her future path.

They seemed to be trying to distinguish the show by having her be the drinkingest swearingest shaggingest most obnoxious retired university professor. And I grant you, that's mildly out of the way of other detective shows about retired older women. Mildly. But then they provide her with a spunky young sidekick (Fergus Reid, played by Rohan Nedd) on the dubious side of the law. And that's so clichéd as to be a bit stunning. And after four episodes of the writers desperately working to insert multiple literary references into every episode so Harry can solve the crimes, and her disregard for other people's health ... I was done. Seymour and Nedd aren't too bad together, and they live in a lovely city (except for the corpses), but that's not enough to defeat the annoying writing.

2022. With Jane Seymour, Rohan Nedd, Kevin Ryan, Rose O'Neill, Paul Tylak, Amy Huberman, Stuart Graham.

Harvey

Jimmy Stewart plays the very amiable and frequently drunk Elwood P. Dowd. His best friend is a 6'3-1/2" tall rabbit named Harvey - who's invisible to everyone else. His sister and nephew are horrified when he comes home and scares off their friends by trying to introduce Harvey, so his sister attempts to have him committed. Accidents, misunderstandings, and comedy ensue.

I loved it in 2007, saying "A very goofy movie that doesn't say much or do much, but is immensely entertaining." It's still fun, but it's not one of the best of the old movies. I think my mild annoyance with it this time is that I don't particularly like Elwood P. Dowd - he's incredibly polite, but still a bit irritating.

1950, dir. Henry Koster. With James Stewart, Josephine Hull, Charles Drake, Cecil Kellaway, Jesse White, Victoria Horne, Wallace Ford, Peggy Dow.

The Hate U Give

Let's face it: middle aged white guy. Not the target audience for this movie. My judgment on the movie is worth every bit as much as my status implies.

Starr Carter (Amandla Stenberg) is 16 years old, and lives in two worlds: the crime-ridden black neighbourhood where her family lives, and the upscale mostly white (private?) school where she goes to class. Her parents put her and her two brothers there after her childhood friend was gunned down, collateral damage in a gang hit when she was ten. Initially I wasn't sure I was going to like the movie: early on Starr is at a party, and I wasn't really understanding everything they said even with the subtitles and I wasn't always getting the humour. But then her friend Khalil drove her home from the party, and a traffic stop turns into a shooting when Khalil gets a hairbrush out of the car and the cop assumes it's a gun and kills him. The story becomes national news, and while Starr's identity is initially hidden, she finds herself in the middle of a media and judicial circus of horrifying proportions.

I'd be hard pressed to pick a topic to say "the movie is about ..." because it's absolutely about finding your voice, but it's also very much about institutionalized racism. Starr's uncle Carlos (Common) is a cop, and listening to him trying to explain how complicated traffic stops are is agonizing, and the best (and most depressing) pitch for institutionalized racism that I've ever heard. What he was trying not to say, but was forced to admit anyway, was you handle it differently depending on the colour of the driver and the neighbourhood you're in.

Stenberg was outstanding, and should have got an award for this. The portrait of her entire family was pretty much pitch perfect: the love and strength, the frustration and terror. Really, really good.

2018, dir. George Tillman Jr. With Amandla Stenberg, Regina Hall, Russell Hornsby, K.J. Apa, Common, Anthony Mackie, Algee Smith, Lamar Johnson, Issa Rae, Sabrina Carpenter, T.J. Wright, Dominique Fishback, Megan Lawless.

Hawkeye, Season 1

The series starts with our young protagonist Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) seeing the Chitauri attack on New York. She's saved - indirectly - by Hawkeye (Clint Barton, played as always by Jeremy Renner), and decides to emulate him. Jump forward a decade and she's intelligent, well trained, and doesn't like her Mom's (Vera Farmiga) new boyfriend Jack (Tony Dalton). They're also very rich, and her Mom runs a security company. At a grand and expensive party, Kate comes to possess - and then wear, in public - Ronin's suit. Which brings her to the attention of a lot of people, including Hawkeye who was Ronin during the Blip (although no one knows that?) and he tries to protect her from the enemies of Ronin, a character he thought he'd killed off.

You need to know the Avengers series, particularly the Blip and the events of "Avengers: Endgame," to understand both the origins of Ronin and Clint's angst about Natasha Romanoff. And "Black Widow," to understand where Yelena (Florence Pugh) is coming from. And then Kingpin (Vincent D'Onofrio) shows up: it would probably help to have seen the "Daredevil" TV series, but I haven't. There's also other stuff in there: a watch that does nothing but is evidently very important, and I found out after I watched the series that Laura Barton (Hawkeye's wife, played by Linda Cardellini) is a former agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (so maybe seeing the crappy "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." is recommended too), which probably explains her interest in said watch. So I probably missed a lot because I know only the movies.

There's a long-running joke about LARPers in the series: early on, Clint is forced to enter a LARP tournament to recover the Ronin suit, and several of the LARPers resurface later. The initial encounter is insulting to that group of people, but they play that down in later episodes. Not, unfortunately, to "respectful," but to "only mildly insulting:" they're presented as "obsessive but competent." I've known LARPers, and to tar all of them with one brush is disingenuous. They're like any other fandom: some are obsessive, some aren't. Some are competent, some aren't. And insulting a fandom that probably has a big overlap with MCU fans may not have been wise. Just saying.

The stakes are lower than the Avengers movies: they make it very clear that while Hawkeye has incredible skills, he's a normal human and he needs medical attention and ice packs after a fight. As does his enthusiastic side kick that he didn't want. They fight criminals in New York. No saving the country, or the world: just ... humans fighting crime. And it kind of felt like Marvel needed to do something like that. It's an origin story too, of course: Kate is becoming a hero, finding out the price and the burdens of the role she wants. And that plays out surprisingly well across six episodes, with it being clear early on how naive she is, and that she has no idea what she's getting into. But Clint mentors her (although he's initially very reluctant to accept the role), and points out just exactly how much her world is going to change.

The resulting product is surprisingly good, and the first MCU TV product I've managed to stick with - possibly because they had the sense to wrap it up in six episodes.

2021, dir. Rhys Thomas and "Bert and Bertie." With Jeremy Renner, Hailee Steinfeld, Tony Dalton, Fra Fee, Vera Farmiga, Alaqua Cox, Florence Pugh, Vincent D'Onofrio, Zahn McClaron.

Haywire

A vehicle to put model and MMA fighter Gina Carano at the centre of an action movie. The movie starts in a diner, where Aaron (Channing Tatum) meets Mallory Kane (Carano) and after a short talk Aaron starts beating her up. She fights back, but only escapes through the aid of Scott (Michael Angarano), another man at the diner - who she then more or less carjacks. The next two thirds of the film is told in flashback as she fills Scott in on what's led up to this.

They've lined up an incredible crew of actors to back Carano - Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Bill Paxton, Antonio Banderas, Michael Douglas - and she's pretty, fit, and a capable fighter. Unfortunately, she's not a very compelling star. The fights are alright, the action mediocre. The final product is surprisingly flat and uninvolving.

2012, dir. Steven Soderbergh. With Gina Carano, Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, Michael Angarano, Channing Tatum, Bill Paxton, Antonio Banderas, Michael Douglas, Mathieu Kassovitz.

He Died With a Felafel in His Hand

Every bit as surreal as the title suggests. Danny (played by Noah Taylor) wanders from shared house to shared house. Obviously intelligent and articulate, but unable to write the novel he thinks he wants to write he's more than a little adrift. Constantly surrounded by insane roommates he slowly starts to figure things out. Bizarre but entertaining.

2001, dir. Richard Lowenstein. With Noah Taylor, Emily Hamilton, Romane Bohringer, Alex Menglet, Brett Stewart, Sophie Lee.

He Never Died

Henry Rollins plays Jack, a middle-aged guy who spends a lot of time sleeping, rarely knows what time it is, and goes to play Bingo whenever he can. He doesn't appear to have a job, and is both very uncommunicative and exceedingly blunt when he does talk. But things go kind of sideways as the intern he visits at the hospital to supply him with his fixes (we don't find out what it is he's buying for a while) unintentionally gets him entangled with some local gangsters. And his 19 year old daughter he didn't know he had shows up uninvited to stay with him.

Rollins, when he's on stage, is a brash, obnoxious motormouth. Jack is about as far from that persona as you can imagine, and it's a hell of a performance. While it's a spoiler, it's in the trailer so I'm going to say it: if he can be considered a reliable narrator, he's Cain. You know, from the bible? His punishment for that murder you may have heard about is to live forever (he's literally unkillable). And he's kind of addicted to eating human flesh: his isolation is an attempt to control that. But events just don't go his way ...

This is listed as "Horror Comedy," but that just doesn't seem to adequately cover it to me. Rollins' acting is above and beyond anything called for in that genre. And his character both has a moral compass and is at least somewhat sympathetic, which doesn't seem quite right in "horror." As for "comedy ..." There are some very (darkly!) funny jokes, but I found it more thought-provoking than funny. I was mildly frustrated by the ending, which offers little closure for anyone involved. So I have no damn idea how to classify this one, but I really enjoyed it. Not for everyone, but if "Horror Comedy" normally works for you and you don't mind having to think about a lot of unanswered questions ... it's pretty damn interesting.

2015, dir. Jason Krawczyk. With Henry Rollins, Booboo Stewart, Steven Ogg, Jordan Todosey, Kate Greenhouse.

Head of State

Chris Rock plays a down-on-his-luck alderman who is (after the death of both the candidate and his running mate) set up to run for president and lose. I have to admit that it actually did have several good laughs, but they were pretty far apart and what came between was predictable and tedious.

2003, dir. Chris Rock. With Chris Rock, Bernie Mac, Dylan Baker, Lynn Whitfield.

Heart and Souls

After dying in a bus crash, four very different people find themselves tied (although they're not sure why) to a boy born nearby the instant of the bus crash. Not the greatest premise, and the execution is distinctly cheesy, but Robert Downey's performance - as the adult young man who is occasionally possessed by any of the four - is something to behold. Intermittently very funny, foundering in schmaltz and cheesiness, but still quite possibly worth seeing for (excessive) good-heartedness and Downey.

1993, dir. Ron Underwood. With Robert Downey Jr., Kyra Sedgwick, Alfre Woodard, Charles Grodin, Elisabeth Shue, Tom Sizemore, David Paymer.

Heart of Dragon

Jackie Chan plays Tat Fung, an elite S.W.A.T. cop with a developmentally challenged older brother (Sammo Hung) that he cares for. The movie lacks the comedy typical of this period of Chan and Hung's movies, appearing to be an attempt to gain them both some respectability as actors. Unfortunately, this is not where their skills lie. To cover their bets, Chan and friends (but not Hung) have a massive set piece fight at the end of the movie on a construction set, although I didn't feel the action was really on par with any of Chan's other movie fights of the period. It's also the only real fight in the entire movie. Don't watch this.

1985, dir. Sammo Hung, Fruit Chan. With Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Emily Chu, Lam Ching-ying.

Heartbreak House

Unutterably silly, even for George Bernard Shaw. As it's Shaw it does have some amusing moments, but damn it's silly. He's poking fun at the conventions of society ... but then, when isn't he? A young woman turns up at the house of a friend where she's greeted by her friend's very eccentric father and the mildly off help. The young woman's secret crush turns out to be her friend's husband, the sisters, both married, flirt with everyone, and everyone has their illusions stripped away (if they had any to start with). BBC "Play of the Month."

1977, dir. Cedric Messina. With John Gielgud, Lesley-Anne Down, Siân Phillips, Barbara Murray, Daniel Massey.

The Heat

Sandra Bullock plays Sarah Ashburn, an uptight, incredibly irritating, and very effective FBI agent. Melissa McCarthy is Shannon Mullins, an effective but obnoxious Boston Police officer. The two are inevitably forced to work together trying to track down a drug dealer, and gee, they hate each other, they bond, they save the world. So obnoxious and over-the-top it's occasionally mildly entertaining, but the characters are massively over-played - and not just Ashburn and Mullins, but Mullins' family, the drug dealers, the other cops, everyone. While director Paul Feig refrained from using fart jokes in the movie, he went straight to it in the extras, and that's kind of the level of the humour throughout.

2013, dir. Paul Feig. With Sandra Bullock, Melissa McCarthy, Demián Bichir, Marlon Wayans, Spoken Reasons.

Heaven Can Wait (1943)

Henry van Cleve (Don Ameche), age 70, finds himself at the entry to Hell where he's greeted by "His Excellency" (Laird Cregar) who decides to listen to the story of van Cleve's dissolute life, for van Cleve is sure Hell is where he belongs. He tells of his privileged and directionless upbringing and his elopement with the woman of his dreams ... You get the idea. Overly sentimental in places, it's nevertheless charming and occasionally very, very funny. Quite good.

1943, dir. Ernst Lubitsch. With Don Ameche, Gene Tierney, Laird Cregar, Charles Coburn, Louis Calhern, Spring Byington, Allyn Joslyn, Eugene Pallette, Marjorie Main.

Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison

The movie opens with a marine (Robert Mitchum) floating in a rubber life raft, where he's clearly been for a long time. When he lands on a tropical island with a few thatch huts, he approaches cautiously with his knife drawn - only to find the area abandoned. He eventually finds there's only one other person on the island, the nun Sister Angela (Deborah Kerr). She's also there because of the actions of the Japanese. The two start to figure out how to live in their primitive surroundings. But then the Japanese take over the island, and they hide in a cave for days.

The movie is a character study of our two leads, Marine Corporal Allison and Sister Angela of the Roman Catholic Church. There are a number of Japanese on screen in short bursts, but they have no significant interactions with our two main characters - despite which, they're shown as human rather than being demonized. The acting by the two leads is great, and the film is beautifully constructed: a very good movie that deserves to be better remembered.

1957, dir. John Huston. With Robert Mitchum, Deborah Kerr.

Hector and the Search for Happiness

Hector and the Search for Happiness started life as a book. Specifically, a French book called Le Voyage d'Hector ou la Recherche du bonheur by François Lelord. I read it in English translation, and it's a marvellous book. Hector, like Lelord, is a psychiatrist. He's become dissatisfied with his life, and very abruptly departs on a world-spanning journey to find out what happiness is. The book is written in the rhythms and language of a children's book, a conceit to tell us that these are simple answers to things we need to know ... but the content definitely isn't for children - including, as it does, sex, cheating in a relationship, kidnapping, and a significant threat of death. The "children's book" presentation is almost impossible to bring from page to screen: they try, with animations, flashbacks, and a papier-mâché plane. It's more successful than I expected, but less than ideal.

Peter Chelsom, who directed this film version, faced the same problem others have faced: he's taking an internal voyage of discovery and trying to convert it into a visual format. Think of the highly successful (and also quite wonderful) book Eat, Pray, Love, and how badly the conversion of that to a movie went. Taking an internal journey and making it into a movie isn't impossible, but it takes an extraordinary director.

The book verges on magic-realist, with crazy events happening almost back-to-back and Hector drawing lessons from each one. But we process things very differently as a movie, and they've packed in nearly all the crazy events of the book in the short span of the movie, which becomes slightly overwhelming. It also doesn't allow you time to sit and contemplate what any given lesson would mean in your life. Simon Pegg does fairly well as Hector, and gets good support from the other actors. Ultimately I quite enjoyed it with a number of really beautiful moments, but I'm not sure someone unfamiliar with the book would find it so successful. (The critics didn't think so: it's currently at 37% on Rotten Tomatoes.)

2014, dir. Peter Chelsom. With Simon Pegg, Rosamund Pike, Toni Collette, Stellan Skarsgård, Jean Reno, Christopher Plummer, Barry Atsma.

The Hedgehog

A French movie loosely based on Muriel Barbery's novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog. I'm told by a reliable source that the spirit of the book (which I haven't read) is most definitely there.

Paloma (Garance Le Guillermic) is 11 years old and extremely intelligent. Her family is very rich, living in an exclusive apartment building in Paris. She has decided to kill herself on her twelfth birthday as all adults are horrible hypocrites (and her parents are played as pretty twitchy people). In the meantime, she videotapes her family. When one long-time building resident dies, an elderly Japanese gentleman (Togo Igawa) moves in - and promptly takes up with Paloma and the grumpy concierge (Josiane Balasko) that no one else talks to.

The movie is hilarious and the characters are wonderful. Look out for the kick at the end.

2009, dir. Mona Achache. With Garance Le Guillermic, Josiane Balasko, Togo Igawa.

Heights

Set in New York, the movie takes place across 24 hours. Glenn Close plays a famous actress, Elizabeth Banks her daughter, James Marsden the daughter's fiancée. The movie revolves around the relationships between the central characters and others I haven't mentioned. The level of co-incidence is extremely annoying, and the unnecessary split shots equally so. Close, Banks, and Jesse Bradford are pretty good, but the acting overall was mediocre.

2004, dir. Chris Terrio. With Elizabeth Banks, Glenn Close, James Marsden, Jesse Bradford, John Light, Matthew Davis.

Helen of Troy

Hollywood is crawling with gorgeous young actresses and the movie-going public doesn't like to look at unattractive people, so I was somewhat impressed that they found someone they could make stand out as much as Sienna Guillory does as Helen. Perhaps they "protected" her some, not putting in Sienna Miller or Megan Fox or any others of that ilk ... but for beauty alone, Guillory was a good choice. Too bad she's only a passable actress, and the only decent actor in there is Stellan Skarsgård (in a too-short appearance). Rufus Sewell does his usual over-the-top intensity and nastiness. The leisurely pacing, blatant CGI, logical failures, and mediocre plotting made the 180 minute running time painful.

2003, dir. John Kent Harrison. With Sienna Guillory, Matthew Marsden, Rufus Sewell, John Rhys-Davies, Stellan Skarsgård.

Hell on Wheels (orig. "Höllentour")

A documentary that shows you everything about the Tour de France (2003) that you've never seen before: the cars and trailers following the riders, the buses, the masseurs, the reporters, the cameramen, the advertising, the fans, even the pee breaks. And the pain: the spills, the scrapes, the people riding with broken bones (coccyx, collar bone, and rib were mentioned). The director followed mostly Erik Zabel and Rolf Aldag from Germany - Lance Armstrong is mentioned a couple times, but they don't even bother to tell you it was him who ultimately won ... I guess they assume you already know that.

2004, dir. Pepe Danquart, Werner Schweizer. With Erik Zabel, Rolf Aldag, Andreas Klöden, Alexander Vinokurov, Steve Zampieri, Dieter "Eule" Ruthenberg.

Hellboy

Based on a comic book series about a demon brought to earth by a Nazi experiment and raised as a normal human. In modern day America he works with others with paranormal powers to keep paranormal threats to the U.S. at bay. If you can swallow the basic premise, it's a pretty entertaining movie. Ron Perlman is good in the title role, and the effects are impressive.

2004, dir. Guillermo del Toro. With Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Jeffrey Tambor, Karel Roden, Rupert Evans, John Hurt.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

After Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth," I had high hopes for this movie. I didn't like "Pan's Labyrinth," but it was visually stunning and emotionally wrenching, showing del Toro as a very capable director. The trailers showed "Hellboy II" with much of the visual sensibility of "Pan's Labyrinth," and indeed, it's very pretty, but it has even less emotional depth than the first "Hellboy." Characters are mocked and parodied rather than developed, the beautiful effects stand front and centre, and everything blows up real good. Quite a disappointment.

2008, dir. Guillermo del Toro. With Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, James Dodd, Jeffrey Tambor, John Alexander, Luke Goss, Anna Walton, Seth MacFarlane, John Hurt, Brian Steele.

Hellboy (2019)

The movie opens in the Dark Ages, with a voice-over from Ian McShane - who lets loose the first comedic "fuck" as part of his voice-over diatribe about the Dark Ages before we're a minute into the film. I don't care if they swear ("In Bruges" is brilliant), and I don't care if they do it for comedy, but this movie is laden with that word under the mistaken impression that it's funny. Sure, it can be - but not as delivered by this cast, or with this script.

Milla Jovovich is the evil Blood Queen, chopped into still-alive pieces in the Dark Ages and distributed across Britain. But in the modern day someone is reassembling her. She's cheesy in pieces, she's cheesy assembled. David Harbour mostly makes Hellboy work, but bad writing, bad directing, bad acting by everyone else, and bad CG monsters leave this one a bloody mess.

If you haven't seen the original, go watch it. No masterwork, it was at least a lot of fun.

2019, dir. Neil Marshall. With David Harbour, Milla Jovovich, Ian McShane, Sasha Lane, Daniel Dae Kim, Stephen Graham, Sophie Okonedo, Alistair Petrie, Brian Gleeson, Penelope Mitchell, Thomas Haden Church, Emma Tate.

Helvetica

"Helvetica" is a font that came out of Switzerland in the 1950s. It's considered very readable and simple, and its use became extremely widespread. The movie talks a bit about the origins of the font and shows a lot of its uses on signs, ads, letterhead, and store windows. And it spends a lot of time with typographers, font designers, and graphic artists, who argue about why it became the powerhouse it is, why it's great, or why they hate it and it should die.

With a relatively short run-time of 80 minutes, I still found this one way too long. If you like listening to these people talk and rant their opinions about fonts, you might enjoy it. But to me the only thing that appealed was the origins and design of the original font, which occupied perhaps five minutes of the movie. The rest was just ... opinions.

2007, dir. Gary Hustwit.

Henry IV, Part 1 (The Hollow Crown)

In 2012 the BBC did a series of Shakespeare plays for TV called "The Hollow Crown," consisting of Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, and Henry V. I found Richard II a particularly dull play when I read it, so I started this series with the more interesting Henry 4-1.

Jeremy Irons is Henry the Fourth, and Tom Hiddleston is the dissipated but self-aware Prince Hal (who will eventually become Henry the Fifth). Joe Armstrong is the hot-tempered "Hotspur," and Simon Russell Beale donned a fat suit to play Falstaff. While I've read the play, it was many years ago ... so my saying "the script seems accurate to the original" shouldn't be given too much weight.

All the actors (many very well known) are okay, although the performances lacked subtlety. True enough that stage actors in Shakespeare's time would have blasted out their lines and emotions, but film allows a closer look at the actor, and microphones let us hear the subtleties of what's said, so overly broad interpretations are no longer necessary. (Of course Falstaff is perhaps the "broadest" role ever created and cannot be played any other way - I'm not talking about him.) The end product - despite reasonable acting, a passable script, and good settings - feels dark, grimy, and both dull and uninvolving.

2012, dir. Richard Eyre. With Jeremy Irons, Tom Hiddleston, Simon Russell Beale, Julie Walters, Joe Armstrong, Alun Armstrong, David Dawson, Tom Georgeson, Maxine Peake.

Henry V (1989)

I saw this first when it came out, and again in 2013. It didn't quite stand up to my memory of it, but it's a good interpretation of the play. This was Kenneth Branagh's first directorial hack-and-slash job on Shakespeare - I say that rudely, and I have problems with his habit of cutting out huge chunks of the play, but in this case he managed to make the play more accessible by focusing on the parts of the play that are more understandable to modern English speakers. While his editing can be problematic, his interpretations of various scenes are often really good: watching Henry's small and tired army struggle through the rain from battle to battle and a final very muddy confrontation at Agincourt was an excellent decision. And the acting was uniformly good. So overall, despite my complaints, it's a very good production.

1989, dir. Kenneth Branagh. With Kenneth Branagh, Derek Jacobi, Brian Blessed, Simon Shepherd, James Larkin, Stephen Simms, Jay Villiers, Fabian Cartwright, Paul Scofield, Michael Maloney, Richard Easton, Emma Thompson, Geraldine McEwan, Christian Bale.

Henry V - The Hollow Crown (2012)

In 2012 the BBC did a series of Shakespeare plays for TV called "The Hollow Crown," consisting of Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, and Henry V. I found Richard II a particularly dull play when I read it many years ago, so I started this series with the more interesting Henry IV, Part 1. I wasn't impressed, and so skipped over Henry IV-2 (which I don't like as much either) to Henry V which is one of my favourite plays of Shakespeare's.

As in Henry IV, Part 1, Tom Hiddleston stars as Henry - now King, having set aside his wild ways. Unlike the previous play, I know the text of Henry V, and so I can tell you that they've utterly slaughtered the text (I particularly noticed it in the Chorus's speeches, which I'm most familiar with). To what end I'm not entirely sure: we still end up with a 138 minute running time, perhaps because of the lingering - and weak - cinematography.

All movies are a visual representation of a huge series of decisions: selection of actors, what text to include and cut, how to frame shots, how to edit. The best thing about this version of Henry V is Hiddleston in the lead - and he's only good, not outstanding as we might have hoped. The pacing is possibly the worst thing, along with the frequent flip-flops of mood (although those can be laid at Shakespeare's feet with his bizarre ideas of comedy in the middle of a war ... they would have worked better on the stage where the audience wouldn't see as accurate a representation of war as we see in movies). Representative of almost everything wrong with the movie was the short appearance of Richard Griffiths as the Duke of Burgundy - who appears to broker a deal near the end of the movie between Henry and the King of France. His slow and apparently intentionally distinctively ponderous way of speaking certainly brings your attention to him - and the actor in the role, which adds absolutely nothing to the play and manages to take a great deal away from it.

If you have to see this, Hiddleston is working hard and does a passable job as Henry. But better not to see it at all.

2012, dir. Thea Sharrock. With Tom Hiddleston, Julie Walters, John Hurt, Geraldine Chaplin, Paul Freeman, Tom Georgeson, Richard Griffiths, Paterson Joseph, James Laurenson, Anton Lesser, Paul Ritter, Malcolm Sinclair, Owen Teale, Mélanie Thierry, Lambert Wilson, Edward Akrout, Tom Brooke, Jeremie Covillaut.

Hercules (2014)

One of Brett Ratner's better outings - which hardly makes it a masterpiece but it's quite entertaining. You are, perhaps, familiar with the central character? A Greek by the name of Hercules (played by Dwayne Johnson) who's very strong. There are a number of nice touches in this version of the story: Hercules is a legend in his own time, but does he live up to it? He has several companions, and they're mercenaries. Is he the son of a god, or just a strong man? I found the big plot twist at the 2/3rds mark more annoying than rewarding, but despite that, good performances by most of the players and writing that was intermittent but occasionally very good made this an enjoyable watch.

2014, dir. Brett Ratner. With Dwayne Johnson, Ian McShane, Rufus Sewell, John Hurt, Aksel Hennie, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Reece Ritchie, Joseph Fiennes.

Here Comes the Boom

Kevin James plays Steve Voss, a high school teacher and "Teacher of the Year" ... ten years ago. Now he's routinely late and doesn't make any effort in class. But when the principal announces that monetary constraints mean that they're going to be cutting the music program and the music teacher, Voss gets into an argument with the principal in front of all the other teachers over the budget, eventually saying that "we" (meaning the teachers) will raise the needed money. We find out soon enough that the only people who respond to his call are the music teacher (Henry Winkler), and the school nurse Bella (Salma Hayek) who Voss is constantly hitting on ... and we find that Voss has no plan. But eventually he discovers through one of his citizenship class students (Bas Rutten) that losing in MMA fighting pays pretty well, and a plan is made.

James is reasonably likable. The humour is scattershot, but happily not as crude as I expected, and occasionally quite good. The movie could be argued to be inspirational, encouraging people to fight for the things they care about, but it could also just be a money grab by James (who starred, wrote, and produced) - it's hard to tell. Whatever it is, it's pretty heavy-handed.

2012, dir. Frank Coraci. With Kevin James, Henry Winkler, Salma Hayek, Bas Rutten, Mark DellaGrotte, Charice Pempengco.

Hereafter

Posits that people who have died and been revived will see a place, the "Hereafter," where the dead go for some amount of time before moving on. And if you die several times (as Matt Damon's character did), you may develop a significant connection to that place and the people in it.

Marie Lelay (Cécile de France) dies, and is revived, in the tsunami in Thailand. While she's dead, she experiences a place of lights, floating, people - an image she pursues back home in Paris, digging into the idea of near-death experiences. We're also introduced to a genuine psychic in San Francisco George Lonegan (Damon) who abandoned a lucrative career reconnecting the living with their dead relatives as he couldn't deal with the emotions involved. His brother Billy (Jay Mohr) sees only the lost money, not the pain the skill has cost George. And we have a pair of twin brothers in London, struggling to deal with their loving but heroin-addicted mother (guess what - there will be a death).

Parts of the movie are good - particularly Damon's performance, and the initial introduction to the twins and their mother - but the incredibly co-incidental meeting of the three principles all at once toward the end of the movie is typical of the poor construction of the plot. The movie just doesn't come together.

2010, dir. Clint Eastwood. With Matt Damon, Cécile de France, Frankie McLaren, Thierry Neuvic, Jay Mohr.

Hero

Jet Li plays an assassin on a mission to kill a warlord who is slaughtering his way across China in the process of unifying the country. The story is assembled in pieces from flashbacks told by different characters, each segment filmed with stunning colour-coded cinematography. The martial arts is completely over the top, surpassing even its prototype "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." It's a parable with ludicrous martial arts action, occasionally excellent acting, and breath-takingly beautiful cinematography that truly deserves a full theatre screen.

2002, dir. Yimou Zhang. With Jet Li, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Maggie Cheung, Zhang Ziyi, Dao Ming Chen, Donnie Yen.

Heroes, Season 1

23 episodes, each running a "TV hour." What made this season good was the character driven plot, the ensemble cast, and the very not-black-and-white characters. As the action increased through the season to the climax in the 23rd episode, the logical fallacies increased exponentially. Despite which I really enjoyed it. I've heard a great deal of bad about season 2 and even more so season 3 (which is still airing as I write), and I think I'm just going to quit here. There are a couple threads that were deliberately left open, but the end of season 1 is a good conclusion.

2006, Tim Kring. With Masi Oka, Sendhil Ramamurthy, Hayden Panettiere, James Kyson Lee, Jack Coleman, Milo Ventimiglia, Adrian Pasdar, Ali Larter, Greg Grunberg, Zachary Quinto, Noah Gray-Cabey.

Heroes Wanted

A Spanish movie about five loser cops and military staff who are brought together to form a new elite squad, essentially the Spanish equivalent of James Bond but several people. Except this is a comedy (if you can call it that). It seems that Spain (or director Joaquín Mazón) is about fifty years behind us on the concept of political correctness: more than half the jokes in this movie have to do with people's sexuality, accents, race, or disabilities. And it's also an amazing collection of clichés: there's barely a "plot twist" in the movie that a person over the age of 15 couldn't predict from seeing almost any previous lovable-band-of-losers movie.

SPOILER ALERT: you're not going to watch this terrible movie, are you? If for some reason you are, stop reading now. Let's outline the spectacularly clichéd structure ... The original "elite team" is killed off during the opening credits. We're introduced to the new band one by one, each showing their quirks. We have training scenes and montages, at which they fail. They're sent on a job. They fail. They're sent on another job, they fail again. It turns out the man who hired them has deliberately hired incompetent people to use as scapegoats, and when they find out the team falls apart. But eventually one of them figures out the evil plan, and brings the team back together to save the day. I'd outlined the whole thing by 15 minutes into the movie ...

2016, dir. Joaquín Mazón. With Miki Esparbé, María León, Jordi Sánchez, Andoni Agirregomezkorta, Juan Carlos Aduviri, Sílvia Abril, Carlos Areces, Joaquín Reyes, Vicente Romero, César Sarachu, Rober Bodegas.

Hidalgo

Over-long paean to the American Mustang (the horse, not the car). Mortensen plays Frank Hopkins, a Mustang rider who enters a 3000 mile race across the deserts of the Middle East. If you like horses (or deserts) you'll love this one - I wasn't so impressed.

2004, dir. Joe Johnson. With Viggo Mortensen, Omar Sharif, Zuleikha Robinson.

Hidden Figures

The movie portrays the rise of three African-American women within the ranks of NASA around the time of the first space launches (roughly 1959 through 1962). The character names - all real women - were Katherine Goble (played by Taraji P. Henson), Mary Jackson (played by Janelle Monáe), and Dorothy Vaughan (played by Octavia Spencer). Blessed with superb technical minds, they struggle with institutionalized racism and sexism. Vaughan is working as a supervisor: the supervisor role has been vacant for months and she has the skills but isn't paid for it. Goble and Jackson are "computers" (people who do complex mathematical calculations), with Goble being the most skilled in the building and Jackson clearly both skilled enough and intelligent enough to be an engineer - a position she wants but which clearly couldn't be done by someone with the double disability of dark skin and female gender. Happily, she doesn't accept this valuation. All three work hard and fight for what they want.

The casual racism and sexism is horrifying when viewed from Canada in 2017, but I guess that was the point. The characters are well drawn and well acted, and it's a really interesting window into a piece of American history - as odd as the juxtaposition of science history and race relations history may seem. This particular aspect of it finds three very intelligent women struggling for the right to be allowed to be the best, and to be acknowledged for it.

There's some slight irony that the worst of their fight seems to have been over by the time the space launches of the movie happened: the historical accuracy section of the Wikipedia entry about the film is definitely worth a read, although preferably after you've watched the movie. I find it an acceptable compromise to show their struggles and achievements in parallel with the great moments of technical achievement they were involved in - all wrapped in a two hour movie. If anything, after reading that section in Wikipedia I felt the movie may have somewhat understated their achievements ... Definitely worth a watch.

2016, dir. Theodore Melfi. With Taraji P. Henson, Janelle Monáe, Octavia Spencer, Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons, Mahershala Ali, Glen Powell, Olek Krupa.

The Hidden Fortress

I was interested in "The Hidden Fortress" for two reasons, and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that George Lucas's use of elements of this movie in the original "Star Wars" movie was the greater of the two. The other was of course Kurosawa. This is a "jidaigeki" film - means the same thing "period drama" does here.

The movie opens on two peasants trying to make their way home near the end of a war. They were forcibly recruited for grave-digging, and now that they've been released they haven't eaten in a couple days. The plot certainly doesn't seem like "Star Wars" ... But when you look at it from a different angle - two lowly comedic characters caught in the machinations of a war they don't understand - you get R2D2 and C3PO stumbling about on unwanted adventures. Plus a powerful general in exile and a strong-willed princess ...

The peasants Tahei and Matashichi are a couple of petty, greedy, and cowardly men who are pushed about by circumstances around them. They're forcibly recruited a couple more times, most notably by General Makabe Rokurōta (Mifune - who else stars in Kurosawa's films?) to help him smuggle gold and a princess (although they don't know about that part as she's disguised) to another clan's territory.

Much of the movie consists of them whining or fighting each other. This was apparently comedy gold in Japan, but didn't raise a single laugh from me. And as a dramatic work ... it kind of seemed that there were two movies running in parallel, the "comedic" one with the two peasants that occasionally intersected the warring clans movie with Mifune's character. And the second movie wasn't very good either.

I know many people consider Kurosawa to be among the greatest directors who have ever lived, but several of his movies have left me indifferent or even annoyed. This is one of those. I did, however, completely fall under the spell of "Seven Samurai:" that one's so good I'll buy into the worship he gets.

1958, dir. Akira Kurosawa. With Toshiro Mifune, Misa Uehara, Minoru Chiaki, Kamatari Fujiwara.

High Crimes

Ashley Judd plays an attorney whose husband is accused of killing civilians 12 years prior while he was a soldier. She doesn't know military law, so she hires Grimes (Morgan Freeman), an alcoholic (but very good) military lawyer. Judd's fairly good, Freeman is very good, but James Caviezel is as confused about his role as the audience, and the plot holes and coincidences (particularly at the end) pile up and kill the picture.

2002, dir. Carl Franklin. With Ashley Judd, Morgan Freeman, James Caviezel, Adam Scott, Amanda Peet, Juan Carlos Hernández.

High Fidelity

John Cusack is the owner of a record store. He's not very successful in love, and spends the movie talking to the camera about his problems in that department and tracking down ex-girlfriends. Based on the Nick Hornby novel. Very funny, even a little romantic. Much better than average "deleted scenes" on the DVD.

2000, dir. Stephen Frears. With John Cusack, Iben Hjejle, Todd Louiso, Jack Black, Lisa Bonet, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Joan Cusack.

High Noon

Classic Gary Cooper western. So many other films owe a debt to this one that you should see it even if you aren't big on westerns. A town marshal is forced to face a crew of killers alone when all of the townsfolk decline to help him.

1952, dir. Fred Zinnemann. With Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, Lloyd Bridges, Lon Chaney Jr., Lee Van Cleef.

The High Note

Chances are, you already know the beats of this story. Yeah, that's a bad music pun about a music movie, but it's also an accurate statement. Maggie (Dakota Johnson) is the personal assistant to legendary R&B singer Grace Davis (Tracee Ellis Ross). She loves Grace's singing, and takes good care of Grace (for which she receives no thanks), but she aspires to be a music producer. And she meets this young singer (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) and starts producing for him ... Will she succeed? Will her obnoxious boss be redeemed? Will there be a setback?

Given the familiarity of the content, it had to be done well to work. And it was, although the redemptive story arc(s) was annoyingly familiar. Johnson was good in the lead if not outstanding - I guess I say this to remind myself she's not permanently made foolish by the "Fifty Shades" series.

SPOILERS (stop now etc.) And is it just me? This movie is very similar to director Nisha Ganatra's last outing, "Late Night." Young female lead (Johnson here, Mindy Kaling there), trying to make her way in the world. Demanding, obnoxious older female boss (Ross here, Emma Thompson there). A boy, a romance. Boss is pushed - partly through the actions of female lead - through mounting challenges to take the difficult but more rewarding path forward. Female lead is acknowledged and gets what she wants. The romance, the setback, and the happy ending are stock, but the obnoxious, redeemable, middle-aged female boss going through a crisis indirectly guided by her young protégé ... that's pretty damn specific.

2020, dir. Nisha Ganatra. With Dakota Johnson, Tracee Ellis Ross, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Zoë Chao, Ice Cube, Jonathan Freeman, June Diane Raphael, Deniz Akdeniz, Bill Pullman, Eddie Izzard, Diplo, Eugene Cordero.

Highlander

Immortals walk among us, and the final show-down is on the streets of New York City in 1986. We learn this from flashbacks to the life of Connor MacLeod (the "Highlander" of the title played by Christopher Lambert in the role that launched his career), and see his education by Ramirez (Sean Connery). We also find out that "the Kurgan" (Clancy Brown) is the ultimate enemy, very strong and very nasty - and if he wins the final battle, all will not be well in the world.

The movie is cheesy, and the soundtrack (by Queen) overbearing, but it remains a really enjoyable movie. Of course it makes sense to make the Scotsman (Connery) play the part of an Egyptian/Spanish gentleman, and the Frenchman (Lambert) play the Scottish Highlander. Both of them with untameable accents. It makes no sense that this is a good movie: and yet it's not just good, it's great. And it inspired a series of sequels (none of which you should watch, just this one) and a TV series. Definitely a lot of fun.

1986, dir. Russell Mulcahy. With Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, Clancy Brown, Beatie Edney, Roxanne Heart, Sheila Gish.

Highlander: The Search for Vengeance

The movie is done in very low rent anime - stills, pans across still shots, only one thing moving, repetition, that kind of stuff. It's written by David Abramowitz, who had a hand in some of the other "Highlander" properties. It opens in the year 2187, with Colin MacLeod (oh those MacLeod boys) visiting a post-apocalyptic New York City (or maybe he only went to NYC later - I didn't find that terribly clear). Before the opening credits roll (admittedly several minutes in) he's disposed of one immortal, while making it clear that the person he killed wasn't the one he was looking for. We find out that there's an incredibly deadly virus working its way through NY, and the only way to get the cure is to join the very authoritarian above-ground society. Colin helps the freedom-loving sewer-dwellers, but only because it's convenient to him and he wants to get at Marcus, the leader of authoritarian society - who we find out in flashbacks is someone he's hated and been trying to kill for 2000 years. In fact, that's been his entire life: hunting this guy down, and getting his ass handed to him every time he catches Marcus. In the mean time, he's developed (or found) the spirit of a druid who hangs around him and acts as what's left of his conscience by talking to him at inconvenient times. So the movie is kind of about him finding purpose, but it's a damn long time in coming. I found it mildly enjoyable as a fan of the original movie, but it's not particularly good.

2007, dir. Yoshiaki Kawajiri.

Hinterland, Season 1

"Hinterland" is another region-specific detective series. I'm calling it that because I watched "Shetland" a couple weeks ago. And right after I watch a detective series set in the Shetland Islands, I find one that's very specifically Welsh, with the name telling you that this is out in one of the less populated areas of Wales (around Aberystwyth). Wikipedia claims that there was even political intent behind funding a Welsh-specific series.

DCI Tom Mathias (Richard Harrington) is new in his department - but no introductions, he just goes straight to work. He's a bit of a grumpy bastard, but a good detective. And he's been fortune enough to inherit a competent crew. The first season is four episodes of 90 minutes each (I'm watching on Netflix, who take a particular delight in not showing British TV shows in their original format - this was originally broadcast as eight 45 minute episodes), each episode a case to be solved. It's implied that Mathias has a backstory, but not a word is spoken about it in six hours of the first season: he's just kind of grumpy and isolated.

I kind of enjoyed "Shetland." I'm less certain about "Hinterland," although as I'm writing this review I've already watched season 2. I'm most interested in the mysteries - not the detective's brushes with death, or their saving another victim within moments of death, and this show is fairly fond of both those tropes.

2013. With Richard Harrington, Mali Harries, Alex Harries, Hannah Daniel, Aneirin Hughes, Iwan Thomas.

Hinterland, Season 2

All that personal history of our lead character the show implied but never discussed in the first season hits us like a brick wall in the second season. There are still cases to be solved, but suddenly the show is half about the cases, and half about the personal lives and behaviour of the staff of the police station. And I felt lied-to by the first season, which said "this is a show about solving cases." Not anymore: now its all about its characters - which interest me less. And to add insult to insult, they end with a cliffhanger. I doubt I'll be returning to this series.

2015. With Richard Harrington, Mali Harries, Alex Harries, Hannah Daniel, Aneirin Hughes, Iwan Thomas.

His Dark Materials, Season 1

I was a huge fan of the book series by Philip Pullman, and I even liked the first attempt to turn it into a movie. It was a bungled mess, but had some redeeming features. But they were trying to pack too much into too short a time: what was needed was, say, a TV series. And a perfect child star: Dafne Keen is Lyra Belacqua, and I find it hard to imagine a better choice for the role. She was very good as X-23 in "Logan," and she's even better here. Lyra is a high-spirited (read: "hell-raiser") and intelligent 13 year old raised at Jordan College in Oxford - left there as a baby by her uncle after the death of her parents in an airship accident. Their world is different than ours: everyone has a daemon (an animal of some sort that accompanies them everywhere, the embodiment of the human soul), and airships are the dominant means of air travel. But by the end of the first episode, she's gifted with an incredibly rare alethiometer, and sent to live with "Mrs. Coulter" - who is obviously powerful and intelligent, but not very nice.

I read the books 20 years ago, so I can't make a precise comparison. But I think this is an accurate interpretation of the first book. What I really want to know is ... are the producers of the series willing to include the death of God? One sentence in the Wikipedia summary of the original books particularly stood out to me: "[His Dark Materials] functions in part as a retelling and inversion of John Milton's epic Paradise Lost, with Pullman commending humanity for what Milton saw as its most tragic failing, original sin." Not surprisingly, the line following that is "The series has attracted controversy for its criticism of religion." It's a coming-of-age story for Lyra, and for Will Parry (Amir Wilson) - he has a smaller part in this series, but I presume his part in the second and third seasons will be much larger.

I was particularly fond of Lin-Manuel Miranda as Lee Scoresby. He's not a very good match for Pullman's physical description of the character (tall, thin, and Texan - Miranda embodies precisely none of these), but he's a perfect match for behaviour and character, and I loved him in the part. I'm actually becoming less of a fan of James McAvoy as he ages: his part here (Lord Asriel) is important but small, and he seems to be over-acting to fill all the screen time he didn't get ... With that exception, the acting is good to excellent throughout.

Another thing I loved about the book is that it acknowledges that a child by herself probably couldn't change the world. Lyra has a powerful will and this is her story, but she's going up against a massive entrenched bureaucracy that wants to destroy her. The story shows that there are a number of adults who support her - either because they love her, or because they believe she can make the change, or both - and are willing to give their lives to help her. The focus stays squarely on her, but as an adult reader/viewer of a young adult work, this support network she develops (although she doesn't even know it herself) makes the whole thing far more believable and gripping.

Structurally, this is eight episodes of about 55 minutes each, distributed by BBC One and HBO. Happily, both critical and fan reception seem to have been better than the 2007 movie, so I hope to see the two sequels this time.

2019. With Dafne Keen, Ruth Wilson, Anne-Marie Duff, Clarke Peters, James Cosmo, Ariyon Bakare, Will Keen, Lucian Msamati, Gary Lewis, James McAvoy, Lewin Lloyd, Daniel Frogson, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ruta Gedmintas, Amir Wilson, Nina Sosanya.

His Dark Materials, Season 2

I loved the first season, but I only liked this season and have a guess that it feels a bit odd for those who haven't read the books. The first season takes place mostly in Lyra's world - similar to our own, but everyone has a "daemon" - a (talking) animal companion, technology is perhaps 50 years behind ours, the world is dominated by the Church, and there's something resembling magic. But some of the first season takes place in our world, mostly in modern Oxford, England. These two sets of events aren't yet noticeably connected. But in the second season the plot lines collide and everything takes place across three worlds, frequently changing between them as characters cross worlds. This was disconcerting for me, someone familiar with the books, and I'm guessing it would be outright disorienting for those less familiar with the storyline.

Dafne Keene, who was so fabulous in the first season as Lyra, mostly looks grumpy and unhappy in this season. The character has some reason to be as she's displaced, pursued, and her and her friend's lives are constantly in peril - but Keene didn't seem up to adding subtlety to Lyra's emotions. But Amir Wilson kind of makes up for it with his performance as Will Parry, a surprisingly kind and decent teenager from our Oxford - despite his messed-up childhood and traveling with Lyra through all of the same difficulties she has.

Lyra is destined / prophesied to do great things (which she cannot be told about or they won't happen). This idea comes from the books, and is carried over to the TV series. One of the things I love about the series is that unlike many children's books, she (and her child companions, notably Will) don't do these great feats alone. They're supported extensively by adults, who often clear the way for Lyra without her ever knowing (and sometimes die for it, and trust me it'll break your heart ...). She still has a massive task ahead of her, but I find it much easier to suspend disbelief than for other children's books where a child (or several) saves the world without any adult assistance.

SPOILER ALERT: I'm going to wreck a semi-important detail of the story, so stop reading etc. I was amused that the adults who have heard from the aliethiometer know - and say in hushed tones - that Lyra is "Eve," and that she's headed for a fall. And yet the church of her world worships "The Authority" (ie. not "God," although the parallels to our Christianity are very clear). This choice of wording goes back to Philip Pullman, and (another spoiler for events probably in season 3) I assume this is because "killing God" would be so much less acceptable than "killing The Authority." We can assure ourselves that this is fiction, and neither Pullman nor the TV series was advocating for killing God. This despite the fact that Pullman has made it clear that he thinks original sin is humanity's greatest strength, and that's kind of the point of the whole series ...

2020, dir. Jamie Childs and Leanne Welham. With Dafne Keen, Ruth Wilson, Ariyon Bakare, Amir Wilson, Lin-Manuel Miranda, James McAvoy, Ruta Gedmintas, Simone Kirby, Andrew Scott.

His Dark Materials, Season 3

The third and final season of His Dark Materials gets pretty weird. We see not only multiple other worlds (including the land of the dead) - but multiple other species. That includes angels, the witches from the first season on Lyra's world, harpies, and something akin to an intelligent elephant. And in the mean time, Lord Asriel is waging war against Heaven (although the TV series is careful never to use that term, he's fighting "the Authority").

It's hard to talk about the season without spoilers: I'll issue a warning before I do. Here's the thing: if you buy into the whole wild and strange construct, the last two or three episodes are deeply affecting and very, very good. If you didn't - it might come across as spectacularly cheesy. I bought in, I loved it, but ... it's hard not to notice that it was a bit heavy-handed in places. That's partly Pullman's writing, but it's also partly the need to compress a lot of plot and philosophy into a relatively short TV series.

They carried over one of my favourite things from the book - one of my favourite, horrific things. The concept of "pre-emptive penance," the idea that you can do penance throughout your life, and then you can do the sin later. Not that they really examined that, but they dropped the term for those who wanted to think about it.

SPOILER ALERT!: Stop reading if you haven't seen the series, etc.

Let's talk about Lyra's parents - brought to the screen with considerable accuracy by the script and Ruth Wilson and James McAvoy. Two of the most awful people who had ever lived. Both with incredible strength of will and fierce intelligence, her mother is possibly the most conniving and manipulative person alive, and her father is willing to sacrifice anything and anybody for what he believes in. Between them, they achieve the unachievable. They are both willing to sacrifice anything - including themselves, and they do. And it's one of the great things about the Pullman series: he was okay with acknowledging that sometimes horrible things are done to achieve great things.

One of the details from the book I was really looking forward to seeing them put on film was when Will and Lyra released "the Authority" (aka "God" by any other name) from captivity in a big box that was forcing him to remain alive instead of dissipating (which he was happy to do). Will and Lyra open a box, and a maybe-angel dissipates - but no explanation is given. So they carried over the scene ... but without explanation only people who had read the books knew what was going on. I thought that was a bit of a cop-out.

I got weepy when we saw Lee Scoresby (Lin-Manuel Miranda) and John Parry (Andrew Scott) again, even after their deaths. A grand end to a great series. That's right people, the possibility of original sin is what makes life worth living.

2022. With Dafne Keen, Amir Wilson, Ruth Wilson, James McAvoy, Lewin Lloyd, Ruta Gedmintas, Will Keen, Jade Anouka, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Jonathan Aris, Chipo Chung, Simon Harrison, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Jamie Ward, Simone Kirby.

His Girl Friday

Walter Burns (Cary Grant), a newspaper editor, learns that his ex-wife and former star reporter Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) is about to marry bland insurance salesman Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy). Burns tries every trick in the book (and there are a lot in his book) to pry them apart and win her back. He throws Hildy a fantastic newspaper story, he has Baldwin arrested multiple times on trumped up charges ... and he talks. Dear god he talks. And Hildy keeps up with him (although she's eventually out-manoeuvred).

Most everyone in this screwball comedy talks incredibly fast - and often overlapping each other. Burns is simultaneously charming and despicable, and Hildy is more or less his match for wits: it's fairly clear she wouldn't be happy with a plain insurance salesman, but it's also fairly evident that resuming her previous life with Burns isn't going to make her any happier ...

Don't expect a moment of believable drama out of this mess, but if all you want is comedy ... this delivers.

1940, dir. Howard Hawks. With Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy, Gene Lockhart, John Qualen, Alma Kruger, Clarence Kolb, Billy Gilbert.

A History of Violence

Canadian content for me, when I badly needed it (I had been in southeast Asia for several months when I first saw this) - better yet, David Cronenberg (the Canadian director) wasn't grotesque, as he often has been in the past. Still, the violence is graphic and in no way heroic.

Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen) is a respected and happy small town businessman whose life is disrupted when he becomes an unintentional hero saving his diner from a robbery/hostage situation. His picture in the news attracts the attention of people who believe he's a retired thug.

Very well done, a good movie full of excellent performances from all the leads. Ashton Holmes surprised me in the role of the teenage son, really good.

The story differs immensely from the graphic novel it was based on, primarily in being much more ambiguous about Stall's motivations.

2005, dir. David Cronenberg. With Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris, William Hurt, Ashton Holmes.

Hitchcock

"Hitchcock" is a fictionalized version of Stephen Rebello's book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, starring about as good a cast as it was possible to get: Anthony Hopkins as Hitchcock, Helen Mirren as his wife, Scarlett Johansson, Toni Collette, Danny Huston, and Jessica Biel.

Hitchcock had just released his very successful "North by Northwest," and wanted to do something different. Predictably, the studio wanted him to do something very similar. When he chose Robert Bloch's Psycho, the studio abandoned him and he was forced to self-finance - including mortgaging their very large home. There's a big subplot about Hitchcock's wife Alma working as a screenwriter with a dashing younger man (Huston) and Hitchcock's suspicions about that.

Hopkins is almost unrecognizable under all the prosthetics they've applied. I also think it's possibly his worst acting in years (which is to say it's adequate ... just not brilliant as I've come to expect). Johansson is locked into a very polite-little-actress role as Janet Leigh - she does almost nothing. James D'Arcy is surprisingly good as Anthony Perkins, although he doesn't have a lot to do either. While the movie is ostensibly about the making of "Psycho," it's primarily about the relationship between Hitchcock and his wife, who - according to this (I don't know if it's accurate or not) - was his biggest collaborator across decades.

2012, dir. Sacha Gervasi. With Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson, Toni Collette, Danny Huston, Jessica Biel, Michael Wincott, James D'Arcy.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

If you've read the books, this is a rehash that misses out on a lot of the best jokes (they simply don't have enough time to play them out in full, but they also missed some opportunities) and adds very few new ones. If you haven't read the books, this is a frenetic and nonsensical exercise in absurdity, nearly impossible to follow. So where's the audience? Bill Nighy was a stand-out as Slartibartfast.

2005, dir. Garth Jennings. With Martin Freeman, Stephen Fry, Mos Def, Bill Nighy, Zooey Deschanel, Sam Rockwell, Warwick Davis, Alan Rickman, John Malkovich.

Hitman (orig. "King of Killers")

Comedy action from Hong Kong, starring Jet Li. He plays a low rent Triad hitman who's kind-hearted and doesn't like to hurt people. He just wants one big score to buy his mother in mainland China a nice house. When the $100 million U.S. kill comes up, his boss just insults him rather than sending him in. But Li sneaks in anyway, and ends up with his own "agent," a loud-mouth con man (Eric Tsang).

Between lousy subs and cross-cultural failures of communication, I didn't get most of the humour, and the fights were mostly disappointing. Kind-hearted, but not Li's best.

1998, dir. Tung Wai. With Jet Li, Eric Tsang, Simon Yam, Gigi Leung.

The Hitman's Bodyguard

Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds) is a high-end bodyguard fallen into disgrace after the death of a client. He's still good at his job, but is no longer where he wants to be in life. An ex-girlfriend who works with Interpol (and who he blames for the loss of his client) drags him into her own job-gone-wrong. She and her crew were trying to protect notorious hitman Darius Kincaid (Samuel Jackson) who is to testify against the war criminal dictator of Belarus (Gary Oldman). Bryce and Kincaid have a series of absurd and often violent adventures together as they try to get from the U.K. to the Hague where Kincaid is supposed to testify. Truths are revealed, revelations ensue, etc. The movie is formulaic, but who really cares when the two stars are perfectly matched and hilariously funny together? This was never going to be great art, and if it's this damn funny, what's the problem?

2017, dir. Patrick Hughes. With Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, Gary Oldman, Salma Hayek, Élodie Yung, Joaquim de Almeida, Kirsty Mitchell, Richard E. Grant.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Jackson made a rather good version of "The Lord of the Rings" in three movies: long, but they fitted the original books, and he dropped the particularly long-winded Elven poetry and the like. But I failed to see how he could turn the slightest of Tolkien's books into another nine hour epic across another three movies. I wasn't reassured when we started the movie with a three minute plate-juggling scene and a song, all highly reminiscent of an old Disney movie. It got a bit better after that, but twelve guys in extensive and absurdly braided facial hair and an incredibly plodding pace gets very old. Oh, let's ratchet up the tension by having our heroes impossibly outnumbered (you'll be shocked to hear they ALL survive - repeatedly). Boring and heavy-handed.

2012, dir. Peter Jackson. With Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Ken Stott, Graham McTavish.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

The Dwarves and Bilbo proceed toward the Lonely Mountain, pursued by vengeful Orcs. Gandalf leaves them to go visit Radagast and the evil Necromancer.

Jackson is stretching his content very thin indeed, and mixing in omens and portents about the "Lord of the Rings" cycle that weren't in the original text of The Hobbit. Over the excessively long 2h40m run-time, I had plenty of time to think about Jackson and his proclivities: I decided to call him "The Prince of Improbable Physics." Orcs live and die by normal physics, but elves, dwarves, and hobbits (at least the ones who are plot drivers) exist in a world of Improbable Physics - where dwarves in barrels on a raging river can arm themselves by grabbing weapons off the orcs who are trying to kill them from the shore, and then throw weapons to each other and no one ever drops one. And then Legolas leaps from head to head of the dwarves in their barrels, shooting orcs with his bow and arrows with 100% accuracy and leaping to the shore when it suits him. Suspension of disbelief can only cover so much - and that's only the tip of the improbable physics iceberg. At least there weren't any mournful dwarvish songs or plate juggling.

2013, dir. Peter Jackson. With Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Ken Stott, Graham McTavish, Benedict Cumberbatch, Orlando Bloom, Evangeline Lilly, Luke Evans, Lee Pace, Aidan Turner, Dean O'Gorman, Sylvester McCoy.

The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies

The third, final, and least bad of the three "Hobbit" movies - and not co-incidentally the shortest of the three (although the running time is still 144 minutes ... and the movie is still bad).

I can't discuss the plot without creating multiple spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen the first and second movies, but it's easy enough to tell you what's wrong with the movie without saying much about the plot. You already know it's full of elves, dwarves, and humans - and Gandalf, a dragon, and a hobbit. The movie suffers from endless and surprisingly dull battle scenes and ponderous dialogue, and I wasn't too crazy about Jackson making Bilbo even braver and more battle-worthy than he was in the book: he's a hobbit, not a warrior.

Like the more recent Star Wars series (the ones George Lucas is claiming are "Parts 1, 2, and 3") I struggled through these mostly because I'm eternally hopeful, but also a little out of a sense of dedication to the story. Don't do it to yourself: read the far superior book. Watch "The Lord of the Rings" series if you want, it's not bad, but this ... <shudder>.

2014, dir. Peter Jackson. With Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Evangeline Lilly, Lee Pace, Luke Evans, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ken Stott, James Nesbitt.

Hobbs & Shaw

What do you say about this? It's a part of the "Fast & Furious" franchise (the 9th? I've lost track). Not a huge fan of the franchise, but this is at least a bit different. I mean, there are worse things to do with your time than watch Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, and Vanessa Kirby bicker while blowing shit up. Okay, there are plenty of better things to do too, but hey, it helped me get through the COVID-19 pandemic.

This may be an offshoot of the Fast series with only a part of the standard cast, but it's not that different really. It's still all about unbelievable vehicular insanity and Family. Oh - and bloodless violence in which only one or two people die in the entire movie, despite the almost non-stop fighting and world-threatening stakes.

Luke Hobbs (Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Statham) are forced to work together. Fans of the series, even peripheral ones like myself, are likely to know the two use different methods and don't get along. They refuse, but circumstances force them to anyway. Guess what the threat is? The death of everyone on Earth. At the centre of this is a huge evil organization called Eteon - I chose the word "organization" intentionally because, while they have the reach and power of a massive multinational "corporation," no source of funding is ever discussed and their aim isn't making money, it's world domination through genetic selection. They behave like a James Bond villain, but make even less sense. Eteon are represented by their cybernetically enhanced superhuman soldier Brixton Lore (Idris Elba), a former military compatriot of Shaw's. Also fighting Eteon is MI6 agent Hattie Shaw - Deckard's estranged sister. And right near the beginning, we get to meet Deckard's mom Queenie - played by none other than Helen Mirren. That accounts for "family" on one side: on Hobbs' side, we spend the second half of the movie in Samoa with his entire extended (and also previously estranged) family.

Johnson and Statham are both listed as producers. Co-incidentally (?) the humour aims pretty low. Statham passes Johnson some clothes, saying something like "that's an old one of mine - I apologize if it's a bit loose around the balls." And there's the name game: we're introduced to "Michael Oxmaul" (if you're missing it, say it out loud with the first name in shortened form: "my-cocks-small") and "Hugh Janus." There's a tiny bit of humour in the fact that these two adults haven't managed to outgrow children's playground humour ... but it's still children's playground humour and it's not very funny.

2019, dir. David Leitch. With Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Idris Elba, Vanessa Kirby, Eiza González, Cliff Curtis, Helen Mirren, Joe Anoa'i, Eddie Marsan, Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Hart.

Hogfather

BBC TV production of a Terry Pratchett Discworld novel. Typically twisted and mildly chaotic, with Death spending most of Hogswatch Eve imitating the Hogfather (Pratchett's stand-in for Santa Claus) in the Hogfather's ... absence. Death also manages to get his granddaughter (the inimitable Susan, played by Michelle Dockery) to investigate the disappearance - although she was trying to get out of the business and Death isn't "allowed" to involve her. Seems he likes humans: "Human beings make life so interesting. Do you know, that in a universe so full of wonders, they have managed to invent boredom." Only one of several very good quotes. But Pratchett is meant to be read, and an accurate translation to the screen doesn't guarantee the same kind of humour the books provide: the movie was mildly enjoyable, but not a great success. Pratchett has a cameo as a toy-maker.

2006, dir. Vadim Jean. With Marc Warren, Michelle Dockery, David Jason, David Warner, Tony Robinson, Nigel Planer, Peter Guinness, Stephen Marcus, Craig Conway.

Holes

Based on the famous children's book by Louis Sachar, who also did the screenplay. Whenever I see a children's movie, I hope for the kind of sly adult humour that Pixar slides into things like "Finding Nemo" or "Toy Story 2." That's not present here at all, but the movie is so bizarre and entertaining in its own right that adults should be happy with it too (kids will certainly be). Shia LaBeouf plays Stanley Yelnats IV, born into a cursed family - except that no one believes in curses in this day and age. Nevertheless, he ends up in a youth camp for a theft he doesn't commit. Very entertaining.

2003, dir. Andrew Davis. With Shia LaBeouf, Henry Winkler, Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight, Tim Blake Nelson, Khleo Thomas.

The Holiday

What I remember most about this movie is that it's unrelentingly sweet. The good news is that it's leavened with humour so you don't go into sugar shock, but it's not a great movie. A lot of good actors have a good time, and the script has enough good stuff in it that this produces many enjoyable moments. The best humour is already blown if you've seen the trailer - Kate Winslet talking to her brother (Jude Law) and her house guest (Cameron Diaz) in a beautifully set up bit of telephone hold tag. But Eli Wallach gets no airplay at all in the trailer, and the whole subplot with him is ... well, sweet, but it does have a bit of bite and a great deal of charm. Jack Black plays Jack Black, and that was neither a surprise nor a pleasure.

2006, dir. Nancy Meyers. With Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Jack Black, Eli Wallach, Edward Burns, Rufus Sewell.

The Hollywood Librarian

The DVD case claims that the movie is about the presentation of librarians by Hollywood, and there is some of that in the first 45 minutes of the movie. There's a lot of material to mine in that category, but instead directory Ann Seidl gets completely derailed telling you how great librarians and libraries are, how great "Story Time" is, and ends with a long bit on the closing of the Salinas, California libraries, and their eventual re-openings.

I really wanted to like this movie: I'm a librarian, and I've always been fascinated (and occasionally offended) by movie portrayals of librarians. But this movie isn't about that - or at least not for very long. In fact, it doesn't know what it's about - and that's a major problem. Yes, libraries are great, and the librarians who staff them are knowledgeable and often helpful, but in the movie a good premise became a puff piece for librarianship. Sorely disappointing.

2007, dir. Ann Seidl.

Hollywoodland

Adrian Brody plays a low rent private investigator looking into the death of actor George Reeves (most famous for playing Superman on TV, played here by Ben Affleck). The acting is excellent all around, but I found the ending (which was accurate to Reeves's life) somewhat unsatisfying. Brody is possibly my favourite actor working today: there's nobody better.

2006, dir. Allen Coulter. With Adrien Brody, Ben Affleck, Diane Lane, Bob Hoskins, Robin Tunney, Lois Smith, Molly Parker.

Home

The Boov are an alien race on the run from another alien race, the Gorg in this children's animated movie. Led by Captain Smek (Steve Martin), they choose Earth as a new home world - and relocate all the humans. But our view of the world after the alien invasion comes through "Oh" (Jim Parsons), a member of the Boov who is always making mistakes and is a social reject, and Tip (Rihanna), a human who wasn't relocated properly and is searching for her mother. It's typical buddy comedy: they meet, they hate each other, they're forced to work together, and they bond.

When you choose a formula that time-worn, you need to really, really do it well. And choosing Rihanna and Parsons as your two primaries isn't a good first step. Parsons has simply taken his "Sheldon" character from "Big Bang Theory" and cranked him up to 11 (the new "11" since arguably Sheldon was already at 11). Rihanna is at best a mediocre actress, and the jokes just aren't that great. For me, the presence of a soundtrack made almost entirely by Rihanna was a definite minus as well.

For all that, I somehow ended up kind of enjoying the film. It's got limited re-watch value, but it's colourful, inoffensive, and mildly amusing.

2015, dir. Tim Johnson. With Rihanna, Jim Parsons, Steve Martin, Jennifer Lopez.

Homicide: Life on the Street

I only managed to sit through the first two episodes of this show. I thought "Law and Order" was depressing. This one is a parody as well: all the characters are parodies, so broadly drawn as to be completely ridiculous - and that's in the first two episodes.

1993. With Daniel Baldwin, Richard Belzer, Andre Braugher, Clark Johnson, Yaphet Kotto, Melissa Leo.

Hope Springs (2003)

Makes me think Colin Firth is having a go at being the new Hugh Grant, the intelligent, charming, quiet, romantic British leading man. Kind of a waste, really: I still think his best role prior to this was his relatively minor but extremely effective part in "Shakespeare in Love." This movie places him in the town of "Hope" in the United States, running away from a betrayal by his ex- (Minnie Driver), and into the arms of Heather Graham. Humiliation and comedy ensue. Has some very charming moments, but it's a serious mess.

2003, dir. Mark Herman. With Colin Firth, Heather Graham, Minnie Driver, Mary Steenburgen, Frank Collison.

Hope Springs (2012)

Kay (Meryl Streep) and Arnold (Tommy Lee Jones) are a couple married 31 years whose marriage has got into a rut so deep they can't even see out. But Kay wants to try to fix things, and drags Arnold, very much against his will, to a one week intensive marriage counseling session. We quickly find out they're deeply uncomfortable talking to either the counselor (Steve Carell) or each other about feelings or sex.

This movie had me thinking about the various numerical ranking methods used to measure the success of films. Number of thumbs up, number of stars, number of bombs, number of "N"s (if you live in Toronto and read Now magazine). This one was, for me, measured in number of cringes, which passed ten. A huge amount of credit goes to Streep and Jones, because I was cringing at what the characters went through or had to do as part of the counseling - but I was cringing for the characters, not for the actors, because I didn't see the actors. The ending is incredibly charming (it's a Hollywood movie, complete with incredibly schmaltzy music - I'm not giving anything away by saying it had a "good" ending), but even great performances by the actors didn't really make 75 minutes of cringing worthwhile for me.

2012, dir. David Frankel. With Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, Steve Carell.

Hopscotch

Walter Matthau plays Miles Kendig, possibly the CIA's best operative, suddenly retired (involuntarily) to a desk job. Rather than accept this fate, he destroys his own file and vanishes - although not from the view of the camera, which follows him as he teams up with an old friend (Glenda Jackson) to provoke and embarrass the agency he once worked for.

While Matthau is under threat of death for his actions, there's not really a lot of menace in the movie - it's a comedy. Myerson (Ned Beatty) is Kendig's former boss, and the person losing the most face. Cutter (Sam Waterston) is Kendig's former protégé, and a lot brighter than Myerson - but still unable to catch Kendig. As a whole the movie is amusing.

This stands out to me as the first Criterion DVD I've actually enjoyed: I don't usually like their choices.

1980, dir. Ronald Neame. With Walter Matthau, Glenda Jackson, Sam Waterston, Ned Beatty, Herbert Lom, Lucy Saroyan, David Matthau, Mike Gwilym.

Horns

Daniel Radcliffe plays Ignatius "Ig" Perrish in a movie based on Joe Hill's book of the same name. The movie quickly establishes that Ig and his lifelong girlfriend Merrin Williams (Juno Temple) were deeply in love. "Were," because we also find that Merrin was murdered, and the entire town thinks Ig did it. Even Ig isn't entirely sure: he was extremely drunk that night and doesn't remember it.

About ten minutes into the film, Ig begins to grow horns from his forehead. He soon finds that people don't seem terribly surprised by this ... and generally start acting on their worst instincts around him. He decides to use this to find out who really killed Merrin. This part of the movie is heavily interspersed with flashbacks to Ig's childhood, in which we find out about the long-standing connections between him and the people he's dealing with in their small town.

When Ig started sprouting horns and people started getting crazy around him, the movie was for a while hugely entertaining: twisted and bizarre, and really enjoyable. Radcliffe put in a good performance. Unfortunately, the back story of Ig's childhood - while probably necessary - was significantly weaker ... and then the movie went all boringly traditional with punishment meted out in a thoroughly snooze-worthy manner. I don't know what they needed to do to hold onto the really great twisted sensibility that made the first half current-day parts of the movie so entertaining, but I know they didn't manage it ... Almost worth seeing for the first half, but most people will find the final act a significant let-down.

2013, dir. Alexandre Aja. With Daniel Radcliffe, Max Minghella, Joe Anderson, Juno Temple, Kelli Garner, James Remar, Kathleen Quinlan, Heather Graham, David Morse, Mitchell Kummen, Dylan Schmid, Jared Ager-Foster, Sabrina Carpenter, Laine MacNeil, Erik McNamee.

Horse Feathers

Groucho Marx is the new Dean at a not-very-good college, where his son (played by Zeppo Marx) is on the football team. There's a lot of antics on the football field, involving all four brothers. Kind of amusing.

1932, dir. Norman Z. McLeod. With Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Zeppo Marx.

The Horse Whisperer

Robert Redford directs and plays the titular character, a cattle rancher with a particular talent for working with horses. The movie starts with Grace MacLean (a very young Scarlett Johansson, around age 13) and her friend out riding. After a horrible accident, her mother Annie (Kristin Scott Thomas) takes her injured daughter and injured horse from New York to Montana to see Tom Booker (Redford), even though Booker didn't initially agree to see them. The mother and daughter end up staying for weeks (or possibly months, it's not clear).

To no one's surprise, the healing process extends far beyond the horse. There's a lot of good stuff in here: the script is decent, and Redford, Scott, and Sam Neill all turn in good performances (Johansson wasn't up to the standard she holds in 2012). But at a run-time of 170 minutes, there's a really good 100 minute movie hiding inside waiting for a much better editor than the film actually got. Lingering shots of horses and Montana scenery are nice, but the cinematographer unfortunately had only the right idea, not the real skills needed to make it as breath-taking as it should have been.

1998, dir. Robert Redford. With Kristin Scott Thomas, Robert Redford, Scarlett Johansson, Sam Neill, Dianne Wiest, Chris Cooper.

Hostage

Willis plays a police hostage negotiator from L.A. who takes a chief-of-police position in a very small town after he's unable to save a small boy in a hostage situation. Since this is an action movie and not a psychological drama, by the time you're ten minutes into the movie that first family is dead and a second family in his new hometown are under threat in a similar situation. It all gets even uglier when it turns out that the father of the new family has mob ties and soon Willis's family comes under threat as well. The acting is mediocre at best and there are dozens of loose ends (Willis's marital problems? but it's not the only one) and logical inconsistencies. And the ending is appropriately over-the-top and unbelievable.

Willis produced, and his daughter in the movie is played by ... his daughter.

2005, dir. Florent Emilio Siri. With Bruce Willis, Kevin Pollak, Jimmy Bennett, Michelle Horn, Ben Foster, Jonathan Tucker, Marshall Allman, Serena Scott Thomas, Rumer Willis.

Hotel Artemis

"The Nurse" (Jodie Foster) runs Hotel Artemis, a hospital of sorts that accepts only criminals who already have a paid membership. The year is 2028 (the movie was released in 2018) and professional criminal Sherman (Sterling K. Brown) uses massive rioting over water rights as cover to rob a bank. He ends up at the Artemis when his brother is badly injured. But it's a busy night at the Artemis: professional assassin Nice (Sofia Boutella), who Sherman clearly knows, is also there, as is a cop(!) friend from the Nurse's distant past, and the city's biggest crime boss is on his way. In the chaos that ensues, pretty much every rule of the Artemis is broken.

Has some trappings of science fiction - dystopian future with water riots, 3D printed organs and other significantly advanced medical technology, but it's mostly an excuse for a talkative action movie about choices and loyalty. I found it mildly entertaining, but it's a pretty long way from being a good movie ...

2018, dir. Drew Pearce. With Jodie Foster, Sterling K. Brown, Sofia Boutella, Dave Bautista, Jeff Goldblum, Brian Tyree Henry, Jenny Slate, Charlie Day, Zachary Quinto, Kenneth Choi.

Hotel Transylvania

Given that the cast is led by Adam Sandler, I was actually expecting worse. And had I known that Genndy Tartakovsky's previous work showed that he thought an anvil to the head was high art, I wouldn't have watched it at all. I can't blame Sandler for the script, and what he does as a voice actor is actually reasonably good. He plays a vampire, over-protective father to a young (she's just turning 118) vampire daughter (Selena Gomez). To protect her, he's built a hotel for monsters where they (many are his friends) can be safe from the evil and destructive humans. One of whom (Andy Samberg) inevitably finds his way to the hotel just before the big party. I got a huge laugh in a couple places, but for the most part found it terribly predictable and flat.

2012, dir. Genndy Tartakovsky. With Adam Sandler, Selena Gomez, Andy Samberg, Kevin James, Fran Drescher, Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon, David Spade, CeeLo Green, Jon Lovitz, Luenell, Chris Parnell, Brian George.

Hot Fuzz

Simon Pegg plays a star cop so good he's exiled to a small town for being too good. This is very much the same crew that brought us "Shaun of the Dead:" both written by Pegg and Edgar Wright, both directed by Wright, and both starring Pegg and Nick Frost - although this time out Pegg plays it pretty much entirely straight ... and manages it very well. Ludicrous and hilarious, takes shots at dozens of different movies - draws heavily on Westerns, police procedurals, and even horror. Great outtakes on the DVD. And it was almost worth the price of admission to see Timothy Dalton slumming and having a great time doing it.

2007, dir. Edgar Wright. With Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Bill Nighy, Martin Freeman, Jim Broadbent, Paddy Considine, Timothy Dalton.

Hot Pursuit

In "Hot Pursuit" Reese Witherspoon plays Rose Cooper, a police woman who is the daughter of one of the most respected cops in the city. But she had a spectacular (and comedic) fall from grace that's left her working in the evidence room. She's also a bit ... intense. But her boss gives her a break, and sends her out to pick up high profile witness Daniella Riva (Sofía Vergara). Things go entirely sideways and our two heroines end up on the run together - with Vergara playing the emotional, curvaceous Latino stereotype and Witherspoon doing the up-tight, controlling White stereotype. Which is a pretty tasteless start for a "Midnight Run" knock-off, but could have produced something worth seeing if it was actually funny. But the script proceeds to insult its characters, its actors, and its audience in equal measure. I'm embarrassed to say that despite all that, I actually rather enjoyed it. It's a terrible movie that includes almost as much wincing (and not where they intended you to) as laughing, but Vergara and Witherspoon are fairly good and do occasionally land some of the jokes despite the idiocy of the script.

2015, dir. Anne Fletcher. With Reese Witherspoon, Sofía Vergara, Jim Gaffigan, Robert Kazinsky, Joaquín Cosio, Michael Mosley.

Hot Tub Time Machine

Three mildly alienated friends and an unenthusiastic nephew find themselves in the 80s after a dip in a disreputable hot tub, re-living a critical day in their lives. Similar in spirit to the almost concurrent "The Hangover," it's not quite as funny and it goes for somewhat grosser humour - but still an entertaining ride. Partly pulled out by decent performances by the four leads.

2010, dir. Steve Pink. With John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, Clark Duke, Chevy Chase.

House of Flying Daggers

Plans within plans, betrayals within betrayals. "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" brought us the new genre of upscale martial arts movies, and Zhang Yimou has cashed in big first with "Hero" and now with this movie. The cinematography isn't quite as breath-taking as it was in "Hero," but the same touch is clear.

2004, dir. Zhang Yimou. With Zhang Ziyi, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Andy Lau.

The House of the Lost on the Cape

This Anime movie opens in an emergency shelter for what we soon learn was an earthquake. Reading up on the movie after watching it, Wikipedia points out that the movie was released a decade after the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami (the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan) in commemoration.

An old lady (Kiwa) at the emergency centre claims to be the grandmother of teenage runaway Yui and mute 7-8 year old Hiyori, and takes them home. Yui is suspicious of the old woman, but things go fairly well. But there's a lot more going on, and fantasy elements slide into the structure of the movie.

The movie is about finding hope after catastrophe - and it's heavy-handed abut it. The artwork is often very pretty, but the juxtaposition of young children, a magical house, a granny of unusual powers, and multiple Japanese spirits was a little too reminiscent of Miyazaki's "Spirited Away," and this movie doesn't fare well in the comparison. If I hadn't known "Spirited Away," I probably would have rated this as "pretty good." But standing beside that work of art, this appears pretty, sweet, and mildly disappointing.

2021, dir. Shinya Kawatsura. With Mana Ashida, Shinobu Otake, Awano Sari, Takuya Tasso, Sally Amaki, Mikio Date.

The House With a Clock in its Walls

Lewis Barnavelt (played by Owen Vaccaro) is a young boy whose parents have just died in a car accident. He's sent to live with his eccentric uncle Jonathan (Jack Black - happily not quite as over-the-top as usual) - who turns out to be a warlock, living in a house with a sinister clock ticking in the walls. Their next door neighbour is Florence Zimmerman (Cate Blanchett), who is a witch and a good friend of Jonathan's. Lewis struggles with his grief, starting at a new school, and - like Jonathan and Florence - starts to worry about what exactly the clock is going to do when its countdown ends. He also starts training as a warlock himself.

Black and Blanchett seem to be having an marvellous time in the movie, and I really enjoyed the sense of whimsy in most scenes. It reminded me considerably of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" - another flawed and goofy movie that was nevertheless charming and entertaining.

2018, dir. Eli Roth. With Owen Vaccaro, Jack Black, Cate Blanchett, Kyle MacLachlan, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Sunny Suljic, Colleen Camp, Lorenza Izzo, Vanessa Anne Williams.

How I Became a Superhero

If anyone follows this movie list, they would be aware that I'm a fan of superhero movies. I've watched all the Marvel and DC movies (although not the many TV series), but I'm particularly intrigued by the independent efforts, recently "Archenemy," "Unknown Origins," and "Thunder Force." None of these were great, but the latter was particularly bad. My favourite twist on the whole superhero thing is still "Dakota Skye" - nobody's heard of it or seen it, but Dakota's "superpower" (she sees the truth in subtitles whenever anyone lies to her) doesn't help her and makes her horribly apathetic ... until she meets someone who never lies. It was such a small and clever idea ...

This is a French take on the superhero movie. I tend to think of the French movie industry as more down-to-earth than the English one (particularly Hollywood) so I was interested to see what they'd do with the idea. This doesn't really go as far afield as I'd hoped, but it was still a lot of fun.

Pio Marmaï stars as Moreau, a police officer handling superhero relations and superhero crimes in Paris. He initially seems obnoxious, sloppy, and burnt-out. But as the movie progresses, we find out that he's a fairly decent guy who happens to know a lot of the influential superheroes around the city, some of whom also help him out with tips. He's given an intelligent new partner he doesn't want (and who doesn't want him), and between the aggravation she causes him (which forces him to be a bit better) and new events on the street (a new pseudo-drug that gives normal people temporary super powers - there are echoes of "Project Power" here) he stumbles towards being a better person.

In the end this isn't all that far off the beaten track from the many previous superhero movies already available. On the other hand, it has several charming characters and a decent plot. I found it far more enjoyable than I had any right to expect - certainly more so than the three other superhero movies I named at the beginning of this review.

Postscript: "Attal" is an uncommon last name: the director of this movie is Douglas Attal. Is he related to French director/actor Yvan Attal who directed and acted in the movie I recently watched, "My Dog Stupid?" I can't tell. What about the producer Alain Attal ... who produced this movie? Seems likely.

2020, dir. Douglas Attal. With Pio Marmaï, Vimala Pons, Benoît Poelvoorde, Leïla Bekhti, Swann Arlaud, Gilles Cohen, Léonie Souchaud.

How to Deter a Robber

This is a low budget movie made in several cabins in some anonymous cottage country. Wikipedia refers to it as a "crime comedy." It did reasonably well with critics (70% on Rotten Tomatoes 2022-08).

Madison (Vanessa Marano) and her very goofy boyfriend Jimmy (Benjamin Papac) are annoyed with Madison's mother and family during Christmas dinner and let themselves into a neighbouring cottage where they get drunk and stoned and fall asleep. In the morning, they find the cottage has been robbed and call the cops, who blame them and insist that they not leave the neighbourhood - so the pair end up staying with "Uncle Andy" (Chris Mulkey). But the robbers are still active and break into Uncle Andy's place.

Everybody is a bit goofy - except Andy, who's reasonably sane, and Jimmy who's off-the-charts goofy. He's a nice, well-meaning guy, and he's not actually stupid, but under the slightest threat of danger his panic response is always the worst possible choice. The burglars are at best semi-competent, and the resulting home invasion stand-off goes spectacularly sideways. And is of course played for laughs.

I've often reviewed horror-comedy movies and got a good laugh out of watching people die horribly. But in those movies, the action was so far removed from reality that it would have been very hard to take it seriously. While this movie plays pretty much everything for laughs, everyone's ineptitude felt almost real. So when we get to the punchline, I'm kind of thinking "Americans think this kind of gun violence is funny?!" Which is staggeringly hypocritical, but ... I still think there's something wrong with American society. And this movie wasn't quite funny enough to support its own violent/comedy punchline.

2020, dir. Maria Bissell. With Vanessa Marano, Benjamin Papac, Abbie Cobb, Sonny Valicenti, Gabrielle Carteris and Chris Mulkey.

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days

"How to Humiliate a Guy in 10 Days," "How to Humiliate Yourself in 10 Days." Two fairly decent actors can't save this festival of embarrassment. Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey are partnered: she determined to destroy the relationship by doing every clichéd horrible thing a woman could possibly do, and he determined to hold it together no matter what to win an advertising account. If you like humiliation humour, this may be your thing: it's certainly not mine.

2003, dir. Donald Petrie. With Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey.

How to Steal a Million

Audrey Hepburn plays the daughter of a very good art forger who doesn't approve of her father's hobby. She tries to discourage him, but finds herself needing to remove one of the family forgeries from its very well guarded place in a museum before it's tested for insurance purposes and the family's secret is let out. To this end she recruits Peter O'Toole after she catches him apparently trying to steal another forgery from her house. Hepburn and O'Toole are quite charming, and the movie is amusing - I think some of the humour has been lost in the years between, but it's still very enjoyable.

1966, dir. William Wyler. With Audrey Hepburn, Peter O'Toole, Hugh Griffith, Eli Wallach.

How to Talk to Girls at Parties

I watched "How to Talk to Girls at Parties" because it's based on a Neil Gaiman story. The reviews aren't great (roughly 50% at Rotten Tomatoes) and it gets accused of being made to be a cult movie (instead of just being made, and becoming a cult movie). And that's fair, because ... it's kind of insane and doesn't make much sense. There are people in plastic body suits in vibrant colours, and crazy punk music, and a couple consisting of a human and an alien (both fairly well acted). There are no deep insights, but I kind of enjoyed it. Whether you will or not depends on your state of mind when you sit down to watch it: I wish you much luck (you'll need it).

2017, dir. John Cameron Mitchell. With Alex Sharp, Elle Fanning, Nicole Kidman, Ruth Wilson, Matt Lucas, AJ Lewis, Ethan Lawrence, Edward Petherbridge, Tom Brooke, Joanna Scanlan.

How to Train Your Dragon

Our hero is Hiccup, the son of a Viking and reluctant heir to a history of killing dragons. Dragons raid their island for food, and he wants to kill a dragon to impress everyone ... he's just not cut out for it. And when he finally comes to the killing part, he can't do it. The dragon he frees instead of killing is injured, and when he helps it a friendship develops.

An incredibly charming film, visually dazzling (from end to end), and with humour to keep both the parents and the kids laughing. Hiccup says of the island he lives on "The food is tough and tasteless, the people even more so." It's a blast in 3D, but it remains thoroughly entertaining in 2D as well (I've seen it both ways).

A friend of mine maintains that this is a great kids' introduction to the scientific method. Hiccup keeps trying stuff, it goes comedically wrong, he makes changes, tries again. It goes wrong again, he fixes it again, until he gets it right. He doesn't quit, and he learns from his failures. Only one of the film's many great virtues.

The original director's commentary (I say "original" because commentary tracks often accumulate as we get further from the release date and there are more "special editions") with directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois and producer Bonnie Arnold is reasonably good. It's serviceable, with them spending as much time singing the praises of their staff as explaining story choices.

2010, dir. Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois. With Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jonah Hill, America Ferrara, Craig Ferguson.

How to Train Your Dragon 2

Let's start with this: I LOVE "How to Train Your Dragon," and I couldn't imagine a sequel being as good. Because of that, I was initially unenthusiastic after my first viewing. I loved that they'd moved the characters forward as much as they had, so the kids of the previous movie are now about 20 years old. There are a lot of very funny jokes, and the artwork is nearly as good as last time. Blanchett's wobbly Scottish accent has remained a sore point even as I've grown more fond of the movie as a whole, and seemed to throw off her otherwise excellent acting. After watching the movie several times, I'm willing to say it's actually really good - very nearly as good as its predecessor.

One of my favourite aspects of the whole series is that they show that leaders (Hiccup, our main character) have to make sacrifices. He loses something in every movie. He is successful, he achieves things and makes gains ... but there are losses too. And I think this is a great (if harsh) lesson for kids.

2014, dir. Dean DeBlois. With Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Cate Blanchett, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, Djimon Hounsou, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, T.J. Miller, Kristen Wiig, Kit Harington.

How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

The sequel to "How to Train Your Dragon" and "How to Train Your Dragon 2," the first being one of my favourite movies. The biggest disappointment about the movie is that if you've seen the trailer, you can pretty much work out the entire plot. Which doesn't mean the movie isn't worth watching: like the other two movies, it's beautiful to look at, well thought out, and well written.

Once again, our dragon-raising tribe of stubborn Vikings comes up against an evil dragon hunter, but this one (voiced by F. Murray Abraham) is smarter than the last - and also the cause of the lack of Night Furies in the world. Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel) is now the clan leader, and brings his usual goofy-but-intelligent style to solving the problems presented.

Fans of the series will have noticed that Hiccup always loses something for his heroism. It's something I like about the series: it acknowledges that there's a price to be paid. That doesn't change here. It's a slightly sad but wonderful and fitting ending to a great series. (I hope they don't change their mind on that - they've had a great run and it would be a shame if they resurrected it for another sequel.)

2019, dir. Dean DeBlois. With Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Cate Blanchett, Craig Ferguson, F. Murray Abraham, Gerard Butler, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kristen Wiig, Kit Harington, Justin Rupple.

Howard's End

One of the later Merchant and Ivory movies. Won some awards and has good people in it, but I didn't like it much - not particularly compelling.

1991. dir. James Ivory. With Emma Thompson, Anthony Hopkins, Helena Bonham Carter.

Howl's Moving Castle

Hayao Miyazaki, but somewhat atypical: this one is based on a Diana Wynne Jones novel (Miyazaki usually writes his own stuff), and the main character isn't exactly a young woman. But it's still Miyazaki: gorgeous images backing an entertaining story about a young woman turned into an old woman who takes up company with a magician in the pseudo-Victorian age. I didn't feel it had quite the depth of "Spirited Away," but still excellent and I've bought the DVD because the art is astonishingly beautiful.

2005, dir. Hayao Miyazaki. With Emily Mortimer, Christian Bale, Lauren Bacall, Billy Crystal, Jean Simmons.

The Hulk

I watched this (despite negative reviews) because it was directed by Ang Lee. Unfortunately, even his skills weren't enough to save it. Or perhaps they were what sank it. It's sad when the most interesting thing in a movie is shot-to-shot transitions - but at least they're cool.

2003. dir. Ang Lee. With Eric Bana, Nick Nolte, Jennifer Connelly.

Hugo

Martin Scorsese's first children's movie and a huge tribute to Georges Méliès, one of the pioneers of motion pictures. There are clips of other film pioneers (Douglas Fairbanks, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin), and a tribute to Lloyd's famous clock-face scene.

Hugo is an orphan who lives in a railway station in Paris sometime between the World Wars. This is a very odd Paris with trains, but without cars or horses. Stranger still, everyone has French names and reads French books, but they speak English. Even when they're reading a French book out loud. Hugo tends to the clocks in the station, but his big dream is to fix the automaton left him by his father. It's a mechanical man that's built to make drawings, but it doesn't do much without the heart-shaped key that Hugo doesn't have ... until he meets Isabelle, the god-daughter of the mean toy store owner who Hugo has occasionally stolen from.

The movie is lovely to look at and of course well done and well structured (it's Scorsese). I enjoyed it, but I didn't think it lived up to the hype that's surrounded it since its release.

One fascinating aspect of it is that it seems to be entirely true to the life of Georges Méliès (except for the children in his life).

2011, dir. Martin Scorsese. With Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, Chloë Grace Moretz, Sacha Baron Cohen, Emily Mortimer, Jude Law, Richard Griffiths, Frances de la Tour, Christopher Lee, Ray Winstone.

The Human Stain

Don't be fooled by the top billing of Anthony Hopkins and Nicole Kidman: half the film is flashbacks to Hopkin's character's youth, as important a story as what's going on in the present day. Unfortunately, constant flashbacks defuse any immediacy in either story line. Excellent performances (especially by Ed Harris in a relatively small role) make an otherwise thoroughly disorganized film worth watching.

2003, dir. Robert Benton. With Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris, Gary Sinise.

The Hundred-Foot Journey

Hassan Kadam (Manish Dayal) and his family lost their restaurant and home in India, and are traveling across France when their van breaks down. Their father decides to buy a local building and start a restaurant pretty much on the spot. There's a slight technical problem: there's a Michelin star restaurant directly across the street in their tiny town, and the owner of that restaurant (Helen Mirren) is less than welcoming of competition. Hassan is a brilliant chef, but will the other chef ever acknowledge it?

This is elevated above movie-of-the-week territory both by the good acting and the charm of the whole affair, but the heavy-handedness of the plot points as it plods to an inevitably happy conclusion made the Producer list including the name "Oprah Winfrey" less surprising than it might otherwise have been. I enjoyed it, but it's definitely manipulative and obvious.

2014, dir. Lasse Hallström. With Manish Dayal, Helen Mirren, Charlotte Le Bon, Om Puri, Amit Shah, Farzana Dua Elahe.

The Hunger

Long before the current (2009) adoration of vampires, there was "The Hunger," based on Whitley Strieber's novel of the same name. Catherine Deneuve plays a millennia-old (but still young and beautiful) woman, and David Bowie her companion of several centuries. The downside of their arrangement is the need to feed on human blood once a week.

Bowie begins to age extremely quickly - decades in a matter of hours - and seeks out a specialist on ageing, played by Susan Sarandon. Sarandon, meeting him only for a minute, thinks he's a crank. Having evaded him for several hours, she sees him again and realizes that he was telling the truth about his condition. Upset at her behaviour, he leaves. Etc.

There's more to the plot, but I'm already giving it too much credit: this movie isn't about plot, it's about atmosphere and style over all else. Worse, it's 80s style. There were a couple good things about it: it introduced me (when it came out in 1983) to the great song "Bela Lugosi's Dead" by Bauhaus, and it put Deneuve and Sarandon in bed together - back then, that was shocking, and probably a first in main-stream cinema.

MAJOR SPOILER WARNING (ie. stop reading if you plan on seeing the movie): the best thing about watching the DVD was the 20-years-later voice-over by an older and wiser director Tony Scott, and Sarandon - who was willing at that remove to state a pretty strong opinion against the ending. I was fascinated to learn (I'd wondered for over twenty years) had Sarandon's character intended to commit suicide, or was she trying to usurp Deneuve? She was trying to commit suicide, being unwilling to be immortal if it came at the price of being an addict. And Sarandon signed on to the movie because she liked that about the character - who in the original script stayed dead. Sarandon was pissed with the new ending.

1983, dir. Tony Scott. With Catherine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon, David Bowie, Cliff De Young.

The Hunger Games

Based on the very popular young adult book (now a series) by Suzanne Collins, the movie visualizes a future where 24 teens from various areas are put in a huge televised arena to kill each other until there's one victor.

Our heroine is Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) who lives in the very poor District 12. She hunts (with bow and arrow) in the off-limits grounds between districts to provide extra food to her family. When her younger sister is chosen as the female "tribute" to the Hunger Games, Katniss volunteers to go in her place (it's in the trailer and in the first fifteen minutes of the movie, I'm not destroying it for you). The male tribute is Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), someone she knows - already a problem when you consider that 23 out of the 24 tributes have to die. Katniss and Peeta are taken to the capital where the games are held, and on the way they're introduced to their inebriated and disillusioned mentor - and past winner of the Games - Haymitch (Woody Harrelson).

Lawrence was excellent as Katniss, and it was a pleasure to see Harrelson really acting - I forget sometimes how good he is as so many of his roles call primarily for scenery chewing. I have to admit that while I like Donald Sutherland, it's been a while since I've seen him in a role where I thought he was acting well: he's superbly, calmly repulsive as the president here. I didn't even recognize Lenny Kravitz is Cinna until the credits roled - he was surprisingly good. The shakycam cinematography is ... fashionable, but incredibly annoying.

I said to a friend after the show "Was that a damning indictment of reality TV?," and he said "it could just be a story."

2012, dir. Gary Ross. With Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson, Stanley Tucci, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Donald Sutherland, Liam Hemsworth, Amandla Stenberg.

The Hunt for Red October

I saw this back when it came out and wasn't particularly taken with it - probably because of the Scottish-accented commander of the Russian submarine (Sean Connery as Marko Ramius). Admittedly somewhat distracting, but on seeing it again in 2013 I have to give it good marks for thought and tension - and even its relative lack of action, which is both refreshing and warranted. But it is tense: Ramius essentially steals Russia's top-of-the-line stealth submarine and appears likely to nuke the east coast of the U.S. - from a sub so quiet that the U.S. won't be able to track or intercept it. But analyst Jack Ryan (Alec Baldwin) thinks otherwise: he's been studying Ramius and is now convinced that Ramius and his senior officers want to defect. So there's a hell of a chase and an awful lot of political manoeuvring. Quite good actually.

1990, dir. John McTiernan. With Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Scott Glenn, Sam Neill, James Earl Jones, Courtney Vance, Joss Ackland, Stellan Skarsgård.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

A film out of New Zealand about 13 year old juvenile delinquent Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison) and his very reluctant adopted uncle Hector (Sam Neill) going on a long trip into the bush together. I'm not much of a fan of director Taika Waititi's sense of humour - and the low point of the movie was his five minute appearance as a confused and confusing (and most importantly, unfunny) minister early in the film. But I suspect that most of the humour in this film is derived from the source material, the book Wild Pork and Watercress by Barry Crump. What makes the movie work is the surprising chemistry between the 65 year old Hector and Ricky: Hector was himself a juvenile delinquent, and he hasn't totally outgrown it ... even if it's mostly morphed into him being a grumpy old codger. Of course they don't immediately connect, and their journey to understanding each other is a bumpy (but funny) one. Charming and very entertaining, I highly recommend it.

2016, dir. Taika Waititi. With Sam Neill, Julian Dennison, Rima Te Wiata, Rachel House, Rhys Darby, Oscar Kightley, Taika Waititi.

The Hunted

I didn't see the full movie, saw the second half on TV.

Benicio Del Toro plays a former Special Forces soldier who kills a couple hunters. His former instructor (Tommy Lee Jones) is called in to track him down. What follows is a fairly poor update of "Rambo: First Blood." Even the locations are similar, using Oregon while "Rambo" went north of the border into British Columbia.

2003, dir. William Friedkin. With Tommy Lee Jones, Benicio del Toro, Connie Nielsen.

Hydra

After watching "Baby Assassins" - and particularly its spectacular final fight - I decided to look up Masanori Mimoto. Which led me to "Hydra," a movie that's been sitting on my "to watch" list for a couple years. The movie jumps right in with the efficient murder of a police officer by one man followed by another man carting off the body for gruesome disposal ... and for the first 11 minutes of this only 77 minute movie, nobody says anything.

Then we meet our lead, Takashi (Masanori Mimoto), the stone-faced chef at a small restaurant/bar in Tokyo. The young owner (Miu) sees him as something of a father figure, and the waiter (Tasuku Nagase) is scared of him as he has some sense of how dangerous this man is. We learn that Takashi was an assassin himself, but has retired from guilt and is attempting to atone for his sins. Continuing to follow the action-movie template, his former employers and the enemies of his former employers come looking for him and try to destroy his good work. So he fights - we're all shocked.

The obviousness of the template aside, the story is executed reasonably well and the action is fairly good. Mimoto has a more minor role in "Baby Assassins," but a truly spectacular fight. It seems that this movie and "Baby Assassins" must have shared a fight choreographer, as the styles are very similar - on closer inspection, Kensuke Sonomura, who directed this film, was the action director for "Baby Assassins."

2019, dir. Kensuke Sonomura. With Masanori Mimoto, Miu, Tasuku Nagase, Takaya Aoyagi, Taskashi Nishina, Satoshi Kibe.


I

I Am Bruce Lee

This is only one of several movies that claims to tell us about the short life and astonishing legacy of Bruce Lee. I was quite fond of "Dragon: the Bruce Lee Story," a fictionalized account of much the same thing (although I haven't seen it in many years).

While this movie covers well trodden ground, it does a good job and brings a lot of interesting interviews to build up a good picture of the incredible effect the man had on both the movies and the martial arts. There was some debate among those interviewed about whether or not Lee was the father of the mixed martial arts, although no debate that he was influential. And no debate at all about Lee's influence on martial arts films - or millions of people's lives. I'm not sure the movie brings much in the way of new information about Bruce Lee's life to the table, but it assembles an interesting group of people to paint a fascinating portrait of the man. Too hagiographic, but still a very good film.

2012, dir. Pete McCormack. With Linda Lee Cadwell, Mickey Rourke, Dan Inosanto, Gina Carano, Kobe Bryant, Diana Lee Inosanto, Shannon Lee, Ray Mancini, Manny Pacquiao, Ed O'Neill, Robert Wall, Taboo.

I Am Legend

The third movie version of Richard Matheson's 1954 book of the same name, the first to use the name of the book. I didn't think I would like this, but their vision of a post-apocalyptic New York was brilliant, and Smith was great (as he so often is). Smith is a military doctor in an utterly deserted New York, three years after a human-made virus has wiped out about 99% of the population of the world. He has a dog, and a major fear of the dark. Recommended.

2007, dir. Francis Lawrence. With Will Smith, Alice Braga, Charlie Tahan, Salli Richardson, Willow Smith.

I Am Number Four

The reviews were correct, this isn't a particularly good movie. Several aliens (who look remarkably human) hide out on Earth, and numbers 1, 2, and 3 are all killed. We follow number 4 (Alex Pettyfer, who's not a brilliant actor). It's a fairly typical coming-of-age/superhero film: he's hunted down by the bad aliens while learning about his powers and finding friends (Callan McAuliffe, Dianna Agron, Teresa Palmer). The special effects are reasonably good, it's heart is in the right (albeit manipulative) place, and I like a good dumb-ass SF movie, so I kind of enjoyed it.

According to boxofficemojo.com, the production budget was $60,000,000. The gross as of 2011-09 was more than double that, which I guessed meant the hot young stars could expect a call-back for the implied sequel. The sequel never materialized. Not to worry if you haven't seen it, it wraps up fairly nicely with only very minor loose ends.

2011, dir. D.J. Caruso. With Alex Pettyfer, Dianna Agron, Timothy Olyphant, Kevin Durand, Callan McAuliffe, Teresa Palmer.

I, Frankenstein

Eckhart plays the titular monster, created in 1795 with an initial story arc that will sound familiar to anyone who knows Shelley's story: the Doctor, horrified by his own creation, the murdered bride, the eventual death of the Doctor. But in this version, even as Frankenstein buries his "father," he's attacked by demons and saved by gargoyles. He spends 200 years in the northern wilds, eventually returning to civilization ... and the movie can be set in the modern day. The demons want him because reanimating corpses is cool, and the gargoyles (who, by the way, are on the side of God) are more than a little concerned about Frankenstein falling into the hands of the demons - even if Frank is really fond of killing demons.

I was interested in the movie because Grevioux, who wrote the original comic, had a hand in the story, and acted in the movie, was the primary writer behind "Underworld," which I quite enjoyed. Okay, not a great movie, but well thought out and I found it very entertaining. This, unfortunately, is not so well done. I enjoyed it, but I also have to admit it's ham-fisted idiocy whose only possible audience is die-hard "Underworld" fans. Everyone else should pass.

2014, dir. Stuart Beattie. With Aaron Eckhart, Bill Nighy, Yvonne Strahovski, Miranda Otto, Socratis Otto, Jai Courtney, Kevin Grevioux.

I Heart Huckabees

This is a deeply weird movie. Unfortunately that's pretty much all it is: it isn't very good. I found that it got funnier towards the end as they spent more time mocking Zen Buddhism rather than Existentialism, and that's a philosophy I know a lot more about. But I almost didn't make it - if "nothing matters," as the movie insists on telling us, then ... why bother watching the movie? For the most part it comes off as a bunch of not-very-funny nonsense. A waste of a lot of good actors.

2004. dir. David O. Russell. With Jason Schwartzman, Jude Law, Mark Wahlberg, Naomi Watts, Dustin Hoffman, Lily Tomlin, Isabelle Huppert.

I Know Where I'm Going!

This is a British romance movie made in 1945 by Powell and Pressburger (those names will mean something if you know the period movies). It stars Wendy Hiller as Joan Webster, a woman determined to marry for money - despite her father being a bank manager and their not being too badly off. But on the way to her wedding, she meets someone ...

This is the earliest use of plot interspersed with credits that I've ever seen (this was made in 1945). At the beginning of the film, we see part of the opening credits, then a voice over tells us about Joan's youth (she always knew where she was going) as we see it, then more credits, then another piece of her childhood, more credits, etc. I mention this because I've watched a fair number of older films, and I think this is the earliest I've seen this - by about 20 years.

The man Joan can't avoid, and unwillingly falls for, is Torquil MacNeil (Roger Livesey). I only really know Livesey from "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" (also a Powell and Pressburger project) an epic movie that I absolutely love, and the lead role Livesey was born to play. He's only serviceable here. And Hiller is so headstrong and so determined to do a stupid thing, I couldn't see the appeal. This is also (a problem I've mentioned before) a "rom" as opposed to a "rom com." Romance movies that aren't also comedic are often dull - and this one could have used a bit more comedy.

Not a bad film, manages some good moments. But not worth digging out of the archives ...

1945, dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. With Wendy Hiller, Roger Livesey, Pamela Brown, Finlay Currie, Murdo Morrison, Margot Fitzsimons.

I Lost My Body

I keep a list of movies I want to watch. It's not exhaustive, tending to the obscure as a reminder of movies that sounded particularly interesting but would otherwise probably never cross my path again. For example, it would have been kind of pointless to write myself a reminder to watch another recent movie "Black Widow:" Marvel's products are ever-present. "I Lost My Body" on the other hand - a weird (but well reviewed), adult-oriented animated movie out of France? That I made a note of. And to my substantial surprise, I found it on Netflix tonight.

The movie starts with a severed hand leaving the refrigerator that it's been placed in at the hospital. Part of the movie is the adventures of the hand as it crosses the city of Paris, for example fighting off rats in the underground. The other parts of the movie tell us the story of Naoufel, a young Moroccan man living in Paris - we aren't surprised to learn, from a visible blemish on the hand, that the hand we've been watching belongs to him. Naoufel - like all children - had great aspirations as a child. He wanted to be both a pianist and an astronaut. He's grown into an intelligent and decent guy, but he's mostly doing menial work. A chance encounter with a young woman changes his life.

The movie is - unsurprisingly, given you know from the beginning that our antagonist is going to lose his hand - a bit depressing. But it's very good. I guess without the very strange secondary story of the hand's quest, we couldn't have had the flashbacks, and the story would have been too boringly linear. But built as it is - it becomes a mystery. Naoufel is a charming, memorable, and well written character who is eminently worth spending an hour and a half with.

2019, dir. Jérémy Clapin. With Hakim Faris, Victoire Du Bois, Patrick d'Assumçao, Alphonse Arfi, Hichem Mesbah, Myriam Loucif.

I Married a Witch

The movie opens at the Salem witch burnings, where Jonathan Wooley (Fredric March) explains to his mother and fiancée that the witch who just burned cursed him and all his descendants to unhappy marriages. And we see this through the first few minutes of the movie, as various Wooleys (all played by March) have horrible wives (with comedic effect, although one wonders how the bloodline stayed alive?). Until in 1942, Wallace Wooley (still March) is about to marry another unpleasant woman (Susan Hayward) when the witch (Veronica Lake) and her father (Cecil Kellaway) are released from their captivity by lightning striking the oak tree that bound their spirits. They set out to cause more unhappiness in Wooley's life, although the two take different tacks and come into conflict. The reincarnated witch determines to destroy Wooley by making him fall in love with her. Slapstick comedy ensues.

Light-weight even by the standards of the time, March and Lake have a lot of fun with their characters and make the movie a pleasure to watch.

1942, dir. René Clair. With Fredric March, Veronica Lake, Cecil Kellaway, Susan Hayward, Robert Benchley, Elizabeth Patterson, Robert Warwick.

I, Robot

It's 2035, and Will Smith plays Detective Del Spooner of the Chicago Police. He really, really doesn't like the U.S.R. robots that are everywhere now. He's called - specifically him - to investigate the apparent suicide of Dr. Alfred Lanning (James Cromwell) at U.S.R. The murder appears as if it might have been committed by a robot - which should be impossible as robots are programmed above all to not injure people. Spooner teams up with U.S.R. employee Susan Calvin (Bridget Moynahan) to try to figure out what's going on.

The line "Suggested by the short stories of Isaac Asimov" at the beginning of the film should stand as a warning to SF fans expecting a literal interpretation of Asimov's famous stories. You won't find it here. With that understood, this is actually a very good, thought-provoking movie with a punchline that revolves around Asimov's "Three Laws" - right up until the end when they blow it out with totally preposterous action. But an interesting story and it sure looks good (hey, it's Proyas).

2004. dir. Alex Proyas. With Will Smith, Bridget Moynahan, Alan Tudyk, James Cromwell.

I Sell the Dead

Dominic Monaghan plays Arthur, a convicted trafficker in corpses. The movie plays out with him being interviewed about his career by Father Duffy (Ron Perlman). We learn how he apprenticed in the trade with Willie (Larry Fessenden) and the two of them competed with "The House of Murphy", another gang of grave robbers. Mildly amusing, well acted, but not as clever as it wanted to be.

2008, dir. Glenn McQuaid. With Dominic Monaghan, Larry Fessenden, Ron Perlman, Brenda Cooney, John Speredakos, Alisdair Stewart, Heather Bullock, Angus Scrimm.

I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK

Full disclosure: I watched the first 25 minutes of this movie and gave up. I only made it that far because I have a massive respect for Park Chan-wook.

Young-goon (Im Soo-jung) works in a factory making radios. One day, she slits her wrist, inserts two wires, and sticks the other end into an electrical socket (she believes she's a cyborg and needs to power up). She ends up in a mental institution, which is where the movie really lost me: every single patient is over-the-top crazy. I find that improbable - and it also makes its characters very hard to sympathize with.

2006, dir. Park Chan-wook. With Im Soo-jung, Rain, Choi Hee-jin, Lee Yong-nyeo.

I'm Not There

I watched only bits and pieces of this bizarre analysis of Bob Dylan's life, trying to see as much of Cate Blanchett's performance as possible. Short of watching actual Dylan footage, I don't think you'll ever see as good a reproduction of him as she managed. Unfortunately I'm not enough of a Dylan fan to do the movie justice and watch the whole thing ... it looks quite weird.

2007, dir. Todd Haynes. With Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Christian Bale, Heath Ledger.

The Ice Harvest

I didn't find a laugh in this entire movie. It was trying to be a black comedy/film noir, but the attempts at humour left the noir aspect crippled so all we see is a bunch of unlikeable people bungling a big crime.

2005, dir. Harold Ramis. With John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Oliver Platt, Connie Nelson.

The Ice Storm

A painstaking recreation of the Sixties ... okay, it's supposed to be 1973, but the Sixties were alive and well in suburbia. The interactions, the children, the adults, the appearance of all the minor props and backgrounds ... Affairs and family problems surface on Thanksgiving weekend during an ice storm. Ang Lee does great work, but I'm not terribly fond of this one. Depressing without being gripping.

1997, dir. Ang Lee. With Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Elijah Wood, Christina Ricci, Tobey Maguire.

An Ideal Husband

Written by Oscar Wilde, with slightly more substance than "The Importance of Being Earnest" - more teeth, anyway. Blackmail, and the possibility of the ruin of a gentleman's life. Proves again that Rupert Everett was born to act in Wilde's plays, although "Earnest" was better. But Julianne Moore has the stand-out performance, staggeringly slimy - she made my skin crawl, quite an achievement in a Wilde play.

1999, dir. Oliver Parker. With Rupert Everett, Cate Blanchett, Jeremy Northam, Minnie Driver, Julianne Moore.

Identity

A psychological horror movie of sorts. Several people arrive in a motel together in a rain storm with the roads around washed out. They're killed, one by one. There's a big twist near the end, but to me it felt like a cheat that wasted the work of some fairly good actors. I wouldn't recommend this one, despite the presence of John Cusack who's one of my favourite actors.

2003. dir. James Mangold. With John Cusack, Ray Liotta, Amanda Peet, Alfred Molina.

Idiocracy

I was interested in this movie because it was Mike Judge's first movie after "Office Space," a personal favourite. Luke Wilson plays an average guy in the army who is volunteered along with a prostitute (Maya Rudolph) to take part in a one year human hibernation project. Through bureaucratic incompetence they are forgotten, and end up sleeping until a garbage slide unburies them in the year 2505. At which time they discover they are by far the smartest people on the planet. This sets us up for a very long string of stupid jokes, a few of which are funny. Not up to "Office Space," and not worth your time unless you're an extremely dedicated fan of Judge.

2006, dir. Mike Judge. With Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard, Terry Crews.

Igby Goes Down

Fucked up. Perverse. Pretty good - just about everyone puts in a good performance, particularly Kieran Culkin in the lead. Culkin plays a young man with a seriously messed up family: pill-popping mom Susan Sarandon, schizophrenic dad Bill Pullman, brother Ryan Phillippe that he (mostly) hates. He's not exactly a charmer himself.

2002, dir. Burr Steers. With Kieran Culkin, Claire Danes, Jeff Goldblum, Jared Harris, Ryan Phillippe, Bill Pullman, Susan Sarandon, Rory Culkin.

Igor

Our main character is an "Igor," born with a hunch on his back and thus required to act as an assistant to one of the many mad scientists in the country of "Malaria." The main job of an Igor is to say "Yes, master" and pull levers. But our hero (John Cusack) aspires to be an inventor himself.

Computer animated in a style that's very reminiscent of Tim Burton, and loaded with movie and pop culture references that don't really produce laughs. The movie starts out with Igor madly trying to be evil. Child or adult, you know he's going to turn out good. Bizarre without being particularly interesting to look at, and definitely not funny, with the possible exception of Steve Buscemi this one misses the mark entirely.

2008, dir. Tony Leondis. With John Cusack, Steve Buscemi, John Cleese, Jennifer Coolidge.

Il Buco

The English translation of the title is "The Hole." Let me outline the plot for you: some people go down a very big cave. An old shepherd who lives nearby gets older. That's it, and it takes 90 minutes to happen. And it does this completely without dialogue. The only translations they bothered with were a few inter-titles, and about one minute of black-and-white TV early in the movie about a new office tower in the north of the country - which I think was meant to set the time period (1961). The big question is: how interesting can they make a plot that minimal?

The movie is set in the hilly region in southern Italy around the real cave, the Bifurto Abyss (over 600m deep). An area that director Michelangelo Frammartino's cinematography succeeds in making one of the most beautiful places in the world. It felt like the cinematography was done by a still photographer - most of the shots consist of an unmoving camera and a view we look at for 20 seconds to a minute as tiny changes occur within it - a postage-stamp-sized truck making its way up a hill, or a time lapse of the sun rising.

90 minutes of this was a bit much for me. The shots inside the cave, as lovely as they were, got a bit tiring. But the exterior shots of the hills and twisted trees and sweeping clouds - so beautiful. Fans of great cinematography should not miss this.

2021, dir. Michelangelo Frammartino. With Paolo Cossi, Jacopo Elia, Denise Trombin, Nicola Lanza.

Il Mare

I really wanted to see this because it's the movie that "The Lake House" was based on, and I'm a big fan of "The Lake House." While the initial layout of the movie is essentially identical (young woman moves out of a lovely house on stilts over the water, young man moves in, letter box does weird things with time), the feel of the movie is radically different. Both of our heroes are incredibly isolated, sad, and lonely. The house in "The Lake House" seems like a refuge, a lovely place to get away from the frantic pace of modern urban life. But in "Il Mare," it's a place of isolation and sadness. It's also by the sea, and instead of being over the water all the time, it's occasionally over the water and frequently over rather nasty mud flats.

In general, when Hollywood does a remake of a foreign film, the original is superior. For once, this isn't the case. This has some occasionally excellent cinematography, but the plot is mediocre to poor, our main characters both look like damaged goods, and the whole tone of the movie is depressing without any particular rewards.

2000, dir. Hyun-seung Lee. With Jung-Jae Lee, Gianna Jun.

The Illusionist

The movie is set in Vienna around 1900, filmed with a yellow/orange/brown cast intended to make it feel older - it's a bit of a conceit, but a nice feel. The screenplay is based on "Eisenheim the Illusionist" by Steven Millhauser. Eisenheim (played by Edward Norton) is a stage magician from the lower classes in love with a countess (Jessica Biel) that he knew when they were both young. But now that he's found her again, she's engaged to the ruthless Prince (Rufus Sewell). The Prince uses chief inspector Uhl (Paul Giamatti) to run a lot of his errands, particularly in respect to Eisenheim. Director Neil Burger meant this movie to be a study about what we can see, what can we believe in - and as a result there's a fair bit of ambiguous material. Norton plays his character so controlled that you don't get much from his performance. Sewell was better than I expected (although still chewing scenery), Giamatti was typically very good, Biel was decent. The ending was ambiguous. But the movie rewards a second viewing as there are a lot of well-worked-out details that you won't catch all of the first time.

2006, dir. Neil Burger. With Edward Norton, Paul Giamatti, Jessica Biel, Rufus Sewell.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

Pure Terry Gilliam, featuring Heath Ledger's last screen role. Christopher Plummer is Doctor Parnassus, with his travelling side show that doesn't fit in particularly well in the modern world. He's accompanied by his daughter Valentina (Lily Cole) and two assistants, Anton (Andrew Garfield) and Percy (Verne Troyer). There's a deal with the Devil (Tom Waits) to be dealt with, and the outsider Tony (mainly played by Ledger, but also Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell in the imagination ...) alternately saving the day and causing trouble. It's a weird, weird movie. Not his best, but pretty good and enjoyable.

2009, dir. Terry Gilliam. With Heath Ledger, Christopher Plummer, Verne Troyer, Lily Cole, Andrew Garfield, Tom Waits, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, Jude Law.

Imagine Me & You

Mediocre rom com about a young bride who meets her perfect girlfriend ... on her wedding day. The three leads are all very attractive and well acted, the supporting roles are too broadly drawn to even think about, the script and plot are middling, and the movie ultimately redeems itself through its wickedly funny one-liners.

2005, dir. Ol Parker. With Piper Perabo, Lena Headey, Matthew Goode, Celia Imrie, Anthony Head, Boo Jackson, Darren Boyd.

Immortals

Tarsem Singh has borrowed from Greek history and mythology (mostly the latter - Theseus, the Minotaur, the Titans) to create what he hoped was an epic story. As usual, he's half succeeded. And unlike most directors, his success and failure within the film are sharply divided between the visual and the story. This is a blazing visual masterpiece with a story that's just kind of traditional and dull (which is arguably better than some of his films, where the stories are occasionally staggeringly awful - "The Cell," "The Fall," "Mirror Mirror").

Henry Cavill is Theseus, a peasant educated as a warrior by an old man (John Hurt) who eventually turns out to be Zeus (Luke Evans). Mickey Rourke plays the king Hyperion, who is searching for "The Epirus Bow," a weapon of the gods that will allow him to unleash the long chained Titans as vengeance on the Gods. In the process, his army is laying waste to Greece - most notably Theseus' village.

Hyperion is played as a remorseless man who kills and tortures without the slightest pang of conscience. And in case you didn't get the point the first time, he's shown doing horrible things multiple times. All the plot points are delivered with this kind of subtlety - complete with really bad acting, as Singh is incapable of getting good performances even from good actors. The wooden prose doesn't help. But the images accompanying this painfully poorly presented story are dazzling: the film is delivered almost entirely in gold and black - sort of black and white, but gold has replaced the grays. And then there's the occasional gorgeous red highlights. And the forms on screen ... always perfect, exactly as Singh wants you to see them, nothing ever mars his images. And they ARE beautiful.

Fans of cinematography should rush out and see this one yesterday (although perhaps with the sound down a bit). Everyone else should probably just skip it. Doesn't much change Singh's record: this is what he does. As poorly constructed as they may be, I'm going to continue to watch his movies: they're that good visually.

2011, dir. Tarsem Singh. With Henry Cavill, Freida Pinto, Stephen Dorff, Mickey Rourke, John Hurt, Luke Evans, Isabel Lucas, Kellan Lutz.

The Importance of Being Earnest

Oscar Wilde's most famous play. Rupert Everett was meant to perform Wilde - not to put down anyone else in the movie, the whole ensemble was excellent. It feels like a movie rather than a play moved to the screen. Very good interpretation.

2002. dir. Oliver Parker. With Colin Firth, Reese Witherspoon, Rupert Everett, Judi Dench, Frances O'Connor, Tom Wilkinson, Anna Massey.

The Impossible

Tells the story of a young family, off for a nice vacation together. At a lovely seaside resort in Phuket, Thailand, just before the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004. Based (apparently with some accuracy) on what happened to a Spanish family, although the family are English in the movie. Massive waves swept ashore on December 26, along thousands of miles of coast. Maria (Naomi Watts) finds her eldest son Lucas (Tom Holland) in the raging waves, and they keep each other safe and sane - although Maria has been seriously injured. They are fortunate enough to be assisted and she's taken to an overtaxed hospital with Lucas in tow.

There's a great deal more to the story, and it's devastatingly well told (although I thought they got a bit heavy on the symbolism and tears toward the end - but it didn't detract significantly from an otherwise superb story). Director Juan Antonio Bayona puts a lot of the story on Holland: I think he was supposed to be 12 for the role, perhaps 14 in real life when they were filming. And he was superb: you couldn't ask for a better child actor, he was heartbreaking to watch. Watts and Ewan McGregor as her husband were of course excellent, but it's much more of a surprise to see such a compelling performance from someone so young. A very good movie, highly recommended - but expect to be a bit shaken by the end.

2012, dir. Juan Antonio Bayona. With Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, Tom Holland, Samuel Joslin, Oakley Pendergast, Marta Etura, Sönke Möhring, Geraldine Chaplin.

In America

The story of a poor Irish family trying to get their life together in Hell's Kitchen, New York. This isn't about immigrants, New York, or even living in poverty: it's about recovery from loss. Before they arrived they lost a son, and, while the movie is relatively positive overall, that's not all they're going to lose. I found the characters were painted with too broad a brush in places, and the whole E.T. doll thing near the beginning kind of lost me for the rest of the film. It certainly has some very touching moments, but it stumbles along rather unconvincingly a lot of the time.

2002, dir. Jim Sheridan. With Paddy Considine, Samantha Morton, Djimon Hounsou, Sarah Bolger, Emma Bolger.

In Bruges

Two British hit men are sent to Bruges (in Belgium) to spend a few days, for reasons they don't understand. The older of the two (Gleeson, who's great) wants to get out and see the sights, the younger (Farrell) is utterly disgusted with the town and just wants to go to the pub. When the boss calls, things get ugly. Travel porn, lots of swearing, assassins, and black humour - done well. Politically incorrect, hysterically funny, eminently quotable (but not at the office), and depressing. A very good movie.

2008, dir. Martin McDonagh. With Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes, Clémence Poésy, Jérémie Renier, Thekla Reuten.

In Good Company

The surprise here isn't that Johansson is excellent, or that Quaid can do gruff and charming, but that Grace is actually really good. Coming from "That Seventies Show," it was awfully hard to tell before this. He plays a very young executive for Globecom who displaces Quaid's character in a buy-out. Johansson plays Quaid's daughter, tightly connected with both men. One of the most interesting comments Weitz made in the extras was that he wanted to look at the problems and traumas inherent in a functional family - after all, we've all seen dysfunctional families onscreen hundreds of times. An underrated, funny, and charming movie.

2004, dir. Paul Weitz. With Topher Grace, Dennis Quaid, Scarlett Johansson, Marg Helgenberger, David Paymer, Clark Gregg, Philip Baker Hall, Selma Blair.

In Her Shoes

"Shoes like these should not be locked in a closet! They should be living a life of scandal and passion, and getting screwed in an alleyway by a billionaire while his frigid wife waits in the limo ..." "Please tell me you just made that up." This pretty much encapsulates Maggie and Rose, the sisters at the centre of this wonderful movie. Maggie the tramp is played by Cameron Diaz, Rose the successful and unhappy lawyer is played by Toni Collette. Their recently rediscovered grandmother is played by Shirley MacLaine. Curtis Hanson takes a novel to a good screenplay to a very good movie, no small thanks to Collette (who is excellent) and MacLaine (who is so good it's breathtaking). The beginning finds Maggie kicked out of her parents house, staying with her sister where she causes worse and worse problems until Rose kicks her out, whereupon Maggie goes to Florida to sponge off their grandmother. The resolution is a little convenient and emotionally manipulative, but it's carried so well by the cast that you're likely to forgive them. Besides, there's a great deal of emotional truth to it.

2005, dir. Curtis Hanson. With Toni Collette, Cameron Diaz, Shirley MacLaine, Mark Feuerstein.

In Order of Disappearance

A Norwegian film (original title "Kraftidioten") starring Stellan Skarsgård as a small town snowplow operator whose son has just died of an overdose. Except he doesn't believe his son used drugs, and sets out to find the people responsible. I watched this because I was under the impression that it was a black comedy, and I suppose that it is - but it might be more accurate to portray it as a story of revenge with occasional jokes - jokes that are darker than the sky at midnight. The humour is also classically Norwegian in being dry as the desert and leaving you occasionally (perhaps frequently) wondering "was that even supposed to be a joke?" My favourite (and in fact one of the least dark) is a 12 year old boy asking his kidnapper who is reading him a bedtime story "have you heard of Stockholm Syndrome?"

Violent, occasionally funny, nasty, and with a thoroughly ambiguous ending, I enjoyed it.

2014, dir. Hans Petter Moland. With Stellan Skarsgård, Pål Sverre Valheim Hagen, Bruno Ganz, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen, Peter Andersson, Kristofer Hivju, Jan Gunnar Røise, Jakob Oftebro, Tobias Santelmann.

In Search of Shakespeare

A documentary that tries to reconstruct the life of William Shakespeare, particularly the parts that aren't as well known. Michael Wood (who wrote and starred) freely admits that big chunks of it are speculation - but does manage to back up most of his ideas fairly well. He takes his time and kind of plods along in places, to the point that this could probably have been done in two hours instead of the four it ultimately took, but worth seeing for fans of Shakespeare.

2003, dir. Gregory Doran. With Michael Wood, the Royal Shakespeare Company.

In the Line of Duty 4

Cheesy martial arts flick, $5.50 in the Walmart bin. I enjoyed it, although it's pretty bad.

2003. dir. Yuen Woo Ping. With Donnie Yen.

In the Loop

A spin-off from the BBC TV series "The Thick of it," which I haven't seen. An ensemble cast of American and British actors play politicians on both sides of the Atlantic wrangling over the possible invasion of some unnamed country (Wikipedia suggests that it's in the Middle East).

While there was a comprehensible plot, it seemed more like a glue to hold together a series of incredibly black comedy vignettes, featuring a whole bunch of incredibly unpleasant people abusing each other and the trust of their constituents. I got a couple laughs from it, but spent most of the movie feeling like I was pushing through a sludgy sea of filth. Just not my kind of humour. (The critics absolutely loved it: I'm alone on this one.)

2009, dir. Armando Iannucci. With Peter Capaldi, Chris Addison, Tom Hollander, Gina McKee, Mimi Kennedy, Anna Chlumsky, James Gandolfini, David Rasche, Steve Coogan.

In This Corner of the World

Before I watched this I had the impression that it was about how "life goes on even during a war." And that's mostly true, although when your family lives on the outskirts of Hiroshima there's a bit more to it.

We first see Suzu as a young girl, along with her siblings. While her appearance doesn't change significantly, we're then given to understand it's 1943 and she's now 18, and a young man she doesn't know has proposed marriage to her. She accepts, moving from one Hiroshima-adjacent town to another. Her new family (they live with her husband's parents) are mostly very decent people - but they suffer through harsh food rationing and frequent air raids. They all lose family members - not just the brothers who have joined the military, but those whose houses are bombed.

The movie has a huge sadness hanging over it because you know what's coming. "Foreboding" might be a better word, but "sadness" felt right to me. And yet there's always hope. It's an amazingly elegant and beautiful film, that never allows you or its characters to give up.

I've seen "Barefoot Gen," and always refused to watch "Grave of the Fireflies" (both Anime about war-time Japan). This isn't as dark as either of them - and is artistically much better than the problematic "Barefoot Gen."

This is in no way a children's film. It starts out being about a little girl, and it's drawn with gorgeous anime artwork that North Americans often assume make it a children's movie, but it includes arranged marriage, sex workers, the potential of a married woman having an affair, people losing limbs, many people dying, and of course Hiroshima and radiation poisoning. It does all this with somewhat cutesy anime artwork, and avoids looking directly at some things (the sex worker was a sex worker entirely by implication), but they're all there.

My two biggest issues with the film are that Suzu never visually transitioned to adulthood, and that no one ever discussed the politics of the war: why are we doing this, should we be doing this? That's a discussion that comes up occasionally when you're in a war, but we don't hear it. With those two exceptions noted, I would recommend this to just about anyone: it's a strange and wonderful - and very beautiful - compound of elegiac examination of war time Japan with ever-present resilience and hope, and the result is both heart-breaking and uplifting.

COVID-19 NOTE: This is a really good movie to watch during the pandemic. Yes, it's somewhat depressing, but I've never seen a movie that gave as much hope, as much belief in the resiliency of humanity.

2016, dir. Sunao Katabuchi. With Rena Nōnen, Yoshimasa Hosoya, Mayumi Shintani, Shigeru Ushiyama, Minori Omi, Natsuki Inaba, Tsuyoshi Koyama, Masumi Tsuda, Megumi Han, Hisako Kyouda, Daisuke Ono, Nanase Iwai.

Incarnation

I came across this movie because of my ongoing interest in "Groundhog Day" and movies like it. In this case, our protagonist keeps waking up on a bench in the middle of a city square, and is shortly pursued by four masked assassins, who kill him - and he wakes up on the bench again. The question is, of course, "why?" We stay mostly with his POV as he tries to survive and figure out what the hell is going on.

This is a low budget indie movie from Serbia. I spotted some minor continuity errors, but on the whole the production values are good.

One critic called this a cross between "Groundhog Day" and "Run, Lola, Run." That's an apt description, although it implies this one is better than it is (I didn't like "Lola," but I realize it's popular and well thought-out). This one is surreal and, unfortunately, not particularly logical. The reason he's stuck, and the solution, don't make a lot of sense. And for those of you that might be interested in the voyage rather than the answer ... while it's initially intriguing, it gets old and the lack of logic makes sitting it out not worth the effort. Not so much upset I watched it, just ... disappointed.

2016, dir. Filip Kovacevic. With Stojan Djordjevic, Dacha Vidosavljevic, Sten Zendor, Dejan Cicmilovic, Tihomir Stanic, Zarko Stepanov.

Incendies

The movie opens with the reading of a will, in which the Marwan twins Jeanne and Simon (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin and Maxim Gaudette) discover that not only is their father still alive, but they have a brother they didn't even know about. But the will doesn't explain who these people are, and requires that they be found. Jeanne sets out from Montreal to an unnamed Middle Eastern country based at least in part on Lebanon, where she begins to discover her mother's violent and incredibly unpleasant past.

The movie is well done - well acted and well filmed - but about half way through it completely lost me. Partly the emotional (and physical) brutality - I suppose they were believable, but I failed to believe that a single person could survive all of that. After the assassination, she would have been dead in seconds. Weeks at most. But that's not how the story plays out. I also had major problems with the time-line: yes, it could work, but the children aren't young enough when we see them for it to be convincing. The constant switching between the voyages of the mother and the daughter, with two very similar looking women in the same places, was also confusing and annoying - and probably intentional.

The friend I was watching it with pointed out that it was structured as a modern myth - thus the brutality, and the tie-ins to Oedipus. Apparently it worked as such for critics - but I hated it.

2011, dir. Denis Villeneuve. With Lubna Azabal, Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin, Maxim Gaudette, Rémy Girard, Abdelghafour Elaaziz.

Inception

Near future SF, with Leonardo DiCaprio as Cobb, who specializes in "extraction," pulling information out of the minds of dreamers. It's not a particularly safe past-time, and a previous job has left him locked out of the United States, and thus permanently away from his children. One final job will solve all these problems ... and we all know how well those final jobs go. This being a Christopher Nolan movie, it's extremely complex as we travel through level after level of dreams and try to keep track of how the hell Cobb and his team are going to get back out ...

The visuals are spectacular, but I found I was spending so much time sorting through the details of the different layers of deception and dreams that I wasn't as emotionally involved or as interested in the characters as I would have hoped to be.

2010, dir. Christopher Nolan. With Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy, Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy, Dileep Rao, Tom Berenger, Michael Caine.

The Incredible Adventures of Wallace and Gromit

This DVD is a compilation of the three Wallace and Gromit episodes, "A Grand Day Out," "The Wrong Trousers," and "A Close Shave." The first episode was nominated for an Oscar but lost to Park's own "Creature Comforts," and the other two won Oscars (Best Animation). They're extremely funny and I highly recommend them. The extras on this DVD are very nice too.

1989, 1993, 1995. dir. Nick Park.

The Incredible Hulk

Not the disaster the Ang Lee version was, but I can't rate it much higher than "not bad." This is a "reboot," not a sequel, meaning we start the story again from the beginning. Norton plays the long-suffering Dr. Banner, who turns mean, huge, and green whenever he gets pissed off. Oh - and he drops 90% of his IQ points. We get a quick intro to the back story of the failed experiment that left him with this problem during the credits, but the story really starts with him living and working anonymously in Brazil, while still trying to work out how to fix his own problem. He's in Brazil because he's avoiding the American military, and one general in particular and ... I'm rambling on about the story, and should be covering why this is or isn't good. Norton's not at his best, and all the other actors are just a little bit too emotional. There's no elegance to the plot, although it makes sense. The effects are heavy-handed.

My greatest pleasures in the movie came from the small things: Lou Ferrigno got a small (but speaking) part as a campus security guard. Blake Nelson put in what was, for him, a rather muted performance - and thus more enjoyable. Culver University was actually my alma mater (the University of Toronto), and I had about fifteen minutes to identify half the buildings on campus. And the big final confrontation is on Yonge Street in downtown Toronto (standing in for New York), where you can clearly see the huge neon signs of Sam the Record Man about three times. All of which should tell you, "if that's the good stuff, this movie wasn't keeping his mind on the important stuff like the plot."

2008, dir. Louis Leterrier. With Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, William Hurt, Tim Blake Nelson, Ty Burrell.

The Incredibles

Another superb movie from Pixar. A family of superheroes are forced into a superhero relocation plan after a bunch of lawsuits take superheroes off the streets ...

This is an adult movie disguised as a kids' movie - both will find a lot in it, but adults will particularly appreciate the ruminations on trying to fit in when you don't really. Very funny and incredibly clever. The DVD has some good extras, and now that I own it I have to say this is one of my favourite movies ever.

2004. dir. Brad Bird. Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Samuel L. Jackson, Jason Lee.

The Incredibles 2

I need to start this review by saying that "The Incredibles" remains my favourite superhero movie ever, and one of my favourite movies period. Which means that this one had a lot to live up to.

The film starts exactly where the previous one left off - with the family in pursuit of "The Underminer" who appeared at the end of "The Incredibles." This doesn't go particularly well, and gets superheroes as a whole in more trouble again. But Elastigirl (aka Mrs. Incredible, voiced by Holly Hunter) is recruited by eccentric billionaire Winston Deavor (Bob Odenkirk) to work toward legitimizing superheroes again - in the process leaving Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) to take care of the kids, a thing he's never really done before. And which is made more difficult by the rapid emergence of their baby's multiple powers. Things get worse for Elastigirl and eventually a new supervillain called Screenslaver surfaces.

Director Brad Bird and crew deliberately (per the extras) alternate between the mundane and the "super," a formula that worked exceptionally well in the previous movie and continues to work here. A lot of thought went into the movie, and there were some great jokes. I didn't think it was the equal of the previous one, but I don't think anything could have been - and they did succeed in making something that did credit to its predecessor.

2018, dir. Brad Bird. With Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Huckleberry Milner, Samuel L. Jackson, Bob Odenkirk, Catherine Keener, Sophia Bush, Brad Bird, Eli Fucile, Jonathan Banks.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

The second and possibly worst movie in the series. "Crystal Skull" is just as stupid, but at least the sidekicks aren't quite as moronic. Here we have "Short Round" (Jonathan Ke Quan) a 12 year old kid, and Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw), an obnoxious and whiny night club singer - who is romantically linked to Indiana Jones simply because they thought it was a good plot device, not because the two would have the slightest interest in each other.

Rough outline of the plot: Indiana gets in trouble in Shanghai, where he's poisoned, doesn't get paid for the job he did, and escapes on the wrong plane with two new sidekicks (mentioned above). The pilots leave via parachute while our hero slumbers. They survive the crash, and find themselves up against a revival of the Thuggee religion in India.

Watch the first movie, it's a blast. Avoid this.

1984, dir. Steven Spielberg. With Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, Jonathan Ke Quan, Amrish Puri, D.R. Nanayakkara, Roshan Seth, Philip Stone, Raj Singh, Roy Chiao.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

The movie starts with a 12 year old Indiana Jones (River Phoenix) on a Boy Scout trip in Utah, where he inevitably gets into an archaeology-related adventure. Back in his present reality (1938), he sets off on a quest to simultaneously rescue his father (Sean Connery) and find the Holy Grail. He's accompanied by his friend Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott) and Dr. Elsa Schneider (Alison Doody).

Even more action packed than the first movie, and not nearly as bad as the second, this one is quite entertaining.

1989, dir. Steven Spielberg. With Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, River Phoenix, Alison Doody, Denholm Elliott, John Rhys-Davies, Julian Glover, Michael Byrne.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

The fourth Indiana Jones movie. Not as bad as "Temple of Doom," but that's not saying much at all: this is still a very bad movie. Harrison Ford is too old to be an action star, and they would have made a better film if they'd simply acknowledged he was 65 years old and had him "win" by being knowledgeable and devious. But that's not the style of the movies, and probably not what audiences wanted. But what they wanted they weren't likely to get from an "action" star that old. Everyone looked like they had a blast making the film, which always helps, but the plot was incredibly stupid. Indy survives being pretty much at ground zero of a nuclear blast, physics is ignored at every turn, and in the end the mystery is solved with "interdimensional beings." Give me the religious hokum of "Raiders" any day.

2008, dir. Steven Spielberg. With Harrison Ford, Shia LaBeouf, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent, Igor Jijikine.

Infernal Affairs (orig. "Mou gan dou")

We start with a triad gang boss sending a bunch of young brothers (gang loyalty rather than blood) to become police recruits. We follow one of these as a cop, kept undercover by the police for ten years ... Apparently he's gone over to the police point of view, but finds himself up against a gang mole in the police department. An ugly game of cat and mouse ensues. Well done with very good acting by the two leads (Tony Leung and Andy Lau).

2002, dir. Wai-keung Lau, Siu Fai Mak. With Tony Leung, Andy Lau, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Eric Tsang.

Infinitum: Subject Unknown

The staff list on this movie reeked of nepotism: it's directed by Matthew Butler-Hart, and stars Tori Butler-Hart in the lead. Keeping with that theme (although I didn't notice this until the end credits): two minor roles are filled by Wendy Muir Hart and Christopher Hart. But there are two other names attached to the project: Ian McKellen and Conleth Hill. The movie opens with solo talking head shots of these two, alternating: they are scientists for Wytness, talking about their parallel universes project. The bulk of the movie is "Jane," played by Tori Butler-Hart, awaking over and over, tied up in a room in a deserted British suburb. She hears voices, and sometimes her entire reality kind of toggles over to ... elsewhere. She keeps getting reset (to the room), but when that's not happening, she tries to get to Wytness (which turns out to be a large English mansion in the country).

I'm a big fan of closure, or at least ... "explanation," in my movies. This offers very little of either. Although a closing note that the entire movie was made near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic explained the staffing, the empty streets, and the talking heads - all in one go. The movie was more engaging than it had any right to be given its limitations, but I'm still a little peeved at the lack of resolution: the journey wasn't good enough to allow for the semi-ending.

2021, dir. Matthew Butler-Hart. With Tori Butler-Hart, Ian McKellen, Conleth Hill, Wendy Muir Hart, Christopher Hart, Matthew Butler-Hart.

Inglorious Basterds

The movie opens with Christoph Waltz as SS Colonel Hans Landa - aka the "Jew Hunter" - politely grilling a French farmer about the Jewish refugees Landa already knows are hidden under the floor boards. This ends badly for the Jews, although one escapes.

The movie then turns to Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) recruiting Jewish American soldiers for the Basterds, a guerrilla group that fights behind enemy lines in France. Their aim is to slaughter Germans in vicious and inhumane ways to strike fear into the German soldiers. The Basterds are then shown in action, torturing and killing and laughing.

The last member of the Jewish family under the floor boards is now living in Paris and running a cinema. She becomes unwillingly entangled with a German private and the movie Goebbels made about the private's heroic escapades.

That's the majority of the pieces. The movie is surprisingly long on talk for a Quentin Tarantino movie: long periods of people trying to pretend to be German and the tension that generates, partially dissipated by talking for too long. And then a minute of extreme violence.

Watching Tarantino movies always makes me feel dirty - this one isn't as bad as "Django Unchained," but having seen "Django" before this, I notice the stylistic cues and ideas he's carried over (and in fact has been carrying with him for years, a burden he cannot put down). In particular the "look what a sleazeball this person is, so we can have a graphic righteous kill later." It's a revenge fantasy film, with anyone in a German uniform automatically being worthy of horrendous torture and slow killing. It ends up amounting to excessively talky torture porn, with top shelf actors. If that's your thing, go to it, but I'm done with Tarantino. (Some day I plan to actually watch "Reservoir Dogs," but every time I watch one of his newer films, that day gets pushed further into the future ...)

2009, dir. Quentin Tarantino. With Christoph Waltz, Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Til Schweiger, Mélanie Laurent.

Inkheart

Evidently my memory of the book was highly inaccurate: I thought this movie version wasn't accurate, but in most respects it's right with the book. I think the large number of elements from The Wizard of Oz series of books may have been an addition specifically for this American production (the author, Cornelia Funke, is German).

The movie's biggest problem is that it doesn't have so much a "plot arc" as an incredible mess of loops and bumps. People are captured, escape, captured again, escape again ... you get the idea. The underlying concept is fun: Brendan Fraser's character Mortimer is a bookbinder who's a "silvertongue:" when he reads a book out loud, the characters he reads are drawn into our world (and someone from our world goes into theirs). He pulled a couple villains (and the rather dubious Dustfinger) out of a book called Inkheart when his daughter was three, before he realized what was happening when he read aloud. He hasn't read to her in the intervening nine years. But now, his villains (and Paul Bettany as Dustfinger, quite good) have located him, and his daughter's life is in danger.

It's pretty and the idea is good, but - as mentioned - the plot structure doesn't work well on screen. Passable as a kid's movie, doesn't have much to offer adults.

2008, dir. Iain Softley. With Brendan Fraser, Eliza Bennett, Paul Bettany, Helen Mirren, Rafi Gavron, Andy Serkis, Jim Broadbent, Sienna Guillory.

Inside Out

The movie opens with a voice-over by Joy (Amy Poehler), who is our narrator throughout the film. She's one of the five emotions (the others being Sadness, Anger, Disgust, and Fear) that control the behaviour of the star of our other story line, Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) - who is an actual human child. When Riley is 11, her family moves from Minnesota to San Francisco - triggering the events in both our story lines (ie. "Inside" and "Outside"). Externally, Riley is unhappy with the move, missing her old home and disliking her new one. Internally, Sadness keeps touching joyful memories and turning them sad, putting her in conflict with Joy. That conflict leads to the two of them getting into a struggle that sees them accidentally ejected from "headquarters" and dumped into the massive long-term memory storage area and then trying to find their way back as their absence causes turmoil in Riley's mind.

I first saw this movie on a 9" screen on an airplane seat back, which is a terrible thing to do to any work of art. I bought the movie as soon as it came out on BluRay, complete with 3D version. There is, of course, immensely more detail in the artwork than I could see on a 9" screen. It's a beautiful movie, full of exceptionally vivid colours. Both the story lines are good, and the joining of the two is a miracle of structure: both story lines become more tense and reach a peak simultaneously, and events in one reflect events in the other. There's an immense amount of well applied humour, including Pixar's trademarked humour-for-watching-parents slyly inserted where the kids won't mind it. According to Wikipedia, the movie went through years of development and massive and repeated changes of plot during the process - including director Docter fearing he was going to be fired over development problems (which actually led to an epiphany about the story). I can believe it was tough to develop, but they got it right in the end.

The quality of the 3D experience is fairly good: I noticed slight artifacting around quickly moving characters, putting this into the second tier of 3D movies (the first tier, with essentially flawless 3D, is occupied only by Pixar's "Finding Nemo"). The only important assessment is whether or not I would watch it again in 3D: some movies, most notably "Edge of Tomorrow," flatly fail this test - it's a very good movie, but the 3D is so bad it's unwatchable and I'll only re-watch it on standard BluRay. But "Inside Out" looks good (if not perfect) in 3D and passes the test.

BluRay Extras include "The Women of 'Inside Out'," "Lava," "Riley's First Date?," and the director's commentary. "The Women of 'Inside Out'" had women from the movie team talking about what they were like as kids and which movie characters they most associated with - it's ... okay. "Lava" was the short that was shown before "Inside Out" in theatres - easily Pixar's worst short, featuring an incredibly creepy singing volcano with a crap song and no particular plot. "Riley's First Date?" has us peering into the minds of the four involved parties when the first boy ever shows up at Riley's house to go out with her. In contrast to "Lava," this one is hysterically funny and beautifully summarises the crisis of emotions going on in the parents' and daughter's heads as this small scene plays out. This alone was worth the purchase price of the BluRay.

The movie commentary mostly consists of directors Pete Docter and Ronnie Del Carmen talking about some of the more technical aspects of the development of the movie, very infrequently referencing what's going on on screen at the time. There are some moments of insight, but for the most part I found it remarkably dry and actually destructive to some of the magic of the film.

2015, dir. Pete Docter and Ronnie del Carmen. With Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Bill Hader, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling, Richard Kind, Kaitlyn Dias, Diane Lane, Kyle MacLachlan.

An Inspector Calls

Based on the 1945 play of the same name by J.B. Priestley, the movie is set in 1912 mostly in the home of the Birling family just after a dinner to celebrate an engagement. Inspector Poole (Alistair Sim) arrives with the news that a young woman has died of apparent suicide, and over the course of the movie its shown that everyone in the house had something to do with the young woman's deteriorating circumstances.

Wikipedia's entry on the play makes it very clear that this a political allegory: "... the play was 'rediscovered' and hailed as a damning social criticism of capitalism and middle-class hypocrisy in the manner of the social realist dramas of Shaw and Ibsen."

The movie has no action, only talk. As the movie leaves no room for interpretation, it doesn't lay out moral conundrums about what could have happened: there's nothing to think about it, you're told what to think. Which leaves this as a rote lecture rather than an opportunity to consider issues. It's too heavy-handed in its opinions about social responsibilities to be interesting. Ironically, I agree with its message - I just can't take it delivered like this.

1954, dir. Guy Hamilton. With Alastair Sim, Olga Lindo, Arthur Young, Brian Worth, Eileen Moore, Bryan Forbes, Jane Wenham, George Woodbridge.

Insurgent

Tris (Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James) are back, only five days after the end of the previous movie. They're hiding out in Amity (one of the factions), but get in trouble when Peter (Miles Teller) deliberately provokes Tris into a fight - Amity believes deeply in non-violence. They end up looking for the Factionless and the members of Dauntless who left Dauntless after the Abnegation massacre (which is weird, because the whole point of the previous movie was that Tris and Four just barely prevented that massacre ...).

The writing is better in places: Veronica Roth (the author of the original books) was trying to write characters in the first movie who were morally ambiguous, but it wasn't very effective. This time it's working better. But the action sequences - even if some of them are "in a sim," are often way stupid and over-the-top (but you have to wonder if that's the fault of the author, the screenwriters, or the director). And Woodley's acting is starting to get on my nerves. She's doing a fine job of the sobby teen girl with too much weight on her shoulders, but she's not bringing much depth to it. And you need some depth when you're running for three-plus movies. So it's a wash - still mediocre SF.

2015, dir. Robert Schwentke. With Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Octavia Spencer, Jai Courtney, Ray Stevenson, Zoë Kravitz, Miles Teller, Ansel Elgort, Maggie Q, Naomi Watts, Kate Winslet.

The Intern

Robert De Niro plays Ben Whittaker, a 70 year old retiree who gets bored of retirement and takes a place in a senior citizen intern program at "About the Fit," a fast-growing internet clothing company. He's assigned to their CEO and founder, Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway). She has no time for him, but inevitably they spend time together and grow on each other. Ben is practical and intelligent, and Jules is over-worked and stressed.

The movie is a comedy, and to that end pretty much all of the characters around the two leads are drawn in broad strokes - they're not particularly believable. But when De Niro or Hathaway are on screen - particularly together - the movie works. It's a gentle and charming comedy, a pleasure to watch when you want a break from depressing movies.

2015, dir. Nancy Meyers. With Robert De Niro, Anne Hathaway, Rene Russo, Anders Holm, Andrew Rannells, Adam DeVine, Zack Pearlman, Jason Orley.

The Interpreter

In some ways this is a very successful film, and in other ways, it's pretty crappy. It's biggest drawback is its complexity: you spend too much time figuring out what's going on and not enough caring about it. And once you put it all together, it's still kind of hard to care. I'm also getting really tired of Nicole Kidman in her "edgy and nervous" role, which she takes on here as a U.N. interpreter who overhears a conversation threatening the life of a visiting politician. As the movie unfolds, her involvement becomes suspect for various reasons. Kidman was okay, but Sean Penn's performance was superb.

2005, dir. Sydney Pollack. With Nicole Kidman, Sean Penn.

Interstellar

Christopher Nolan's latest opens on a near future world with technology much like ours, but with "the Blight" slowly wiping out every food crop man has. Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is an engineer and ex-pilot, a reluctant farmer raising a couple of extremely intelligent children. Until a poltergeist leads him and his daughter to the location of the remains of NASA, where he gets re-hired.

Telling you more would A) blow a lot of the plot, and B) cause your brain to melt at the staggeringly bad science. Apparently Nolan went to a huge amount of trouble to ensure he had a as realistic-looking a black hole as is known to modern science ... This sits rather poorly with one of the themes of the movie, that love transcends time and space. I was watching the movie with a friend, and we got into a big argument about emotional truth in movies (she felt this was what Nolan was going for) and scientific rigour (which I felt the movie lacked, in truckloads ... and anyway why can't you have both?).

I felt the movie was over-long and unsuccessfully philosophical. It is, I suppose, the spiritual successor to "2001," although not as good (I was never a huge fan).

2014, dir. Christopher Nolan. With Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, John Lithgow, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, Topher Grace, David Gyasi, Matt Damon.

Into Flight Once More

For the 75th anniversary of D-Day in 2019, something like fifteen American DC-3 / C-47 aircraft flew from all over the U.S. to Normandy. Given that the planes involved were mostly between 70 and 80 years old, and each was separately and privately financed, this was a hell of an achievement. This 2022 TV special narrated by Gary Sinise documents the planes, the people, and the flights as they flew first to New York, then by steps (following an old World War 2 transit path) to Goose Bay, Greenland, Iceland, Scotland, and finally Normandy. They included footage from the D-Day flights, and talked both to the plane crews and to some of the remaining veterans who were on the D-Day landings.

This is a must-see for aircraft geeks (I'm in this group), a good thing for history buffs, and probably a dull slog for the rest of the world. I recommend it ... and those are the caveats.

2022, dir. Adrienne Hall. With Gary Sinise.

The Intouchables

French, English subtitles. The story is nothing new: two men of radically different backgrounds and ages become good friends. That it's based on a true story is very sweet, but doesn't change the fact that we've seen this many times before. But you should see it anyway, because they did it very well indeed and it's one of the funniest movies I've seen in months - perhaps years. It's broken box office records in France.

Omar Sy plays Driss, a young offender no longer welcome in his mother's home in Paris. He applies for a job as a caregiver to the very rich tetraplegic Phillippe (François Cluzet) simply to placate the legal system and get a signature. Phillippe promptly hires him, having become disgusted with all the other applicants with their advanced degrees and pity.

Most of the humour is drawn from the clash of cultures - man who loves high art vs. man from the projects - and they also draw heavily on quadriplegic jokes. It sounds awful, but it's done with such charm and naiveté that it just works - it feels as if this is how it would (or did) happen.

I had the good fortune to be at the Toronto premiere, attended by the directors Oliver Nakache and Éric Toledano. Someone asked them about the title, and their explanation didn't really make any sense to me: something about not wanting it to be a comedy or a drama, and also somehow invoking the Indian Untouchable cast. They had worked with Sy before - he wasn't an actor at all when they first hired him - and wrote the movie from the ground up for him, knowing his behaviours. They also claimed to have little choice for a man of "that generation" for the Phillippe character. Regardless, both characters are played very well indeed. Although I'm not sure I understand Sy winning the César for best actor, as good as he was. The directors are a couple of very funny guys, and I look forward to seeing their future movies. They chose the subject based on a 2004 documentary they saw on late-night TV, and went to visit the man in question. He told them they were welcome to make a film about his life - but that it had damn well better be a comedy. And it is.

2011, dir. Oliver Nakache and Éric Toledano. With Omar Sy, François Cluzet, Audrey Fleurot, Anne Le Ny.

Ip Man

Donnie Yen plays the title character. Ip Man is a Wing Chun practitioner in the town of Foshan: the movie opens by showing that while Foshan teams with martial arts schools, Ip Man (who has no school) is the best martial artist. We then move forward to the arrival of the Japanese with their 1937 invasion, and the various fall-out from that.

The movie is loosely based on the life of Ip Man, who later went on to become a very famous martial arts instructor - including teaching Bruce Lee. Yen plays fairly well in the lead, but is somewhat unbelievably noble - possibly the result of having living members of the Ip family consulting and on set. The fights are fairly good, choreographed by Sammo Hung and emphasizing the Wing Chun style. Production values are high and the story is ... well, perhaps not accurate to Ip's life, but a good historical recreation. Nevertheless, I didn't find it very involving.

2008, dir. Wilson Yip. With Donnie Yen, Simon Yam, Lynn Hung, Hiroyuki Ikeuchi, Gordon Lam Ka-tung, Fan Siu-wong.

The Ipcress File

Written by Len Deighton. The central idea is a psychological attack on a person that just looks silly 40 years later, but if you can get through that part it's a very decent British spy movie. Definitely 60s, and the music sounds like a James Bond movie from the period.

1965, dir. Sidney J. Furie. With Michael Caine, Nigel Green, Guy Doleman, Sue Lloyd, Frank Gatliff.

Iron Mask

I'd really love to know if anyone involved in this production took it seriously. This is Chinese-Russian co-production starring Jackie Chan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a bunch of Chinese and Russian actors you've never heard of - in a spectacularly ludicrous plot with never-ending CGI (it's not just the fantasy animals that are CG: most of the sets are too). At least three languages are spoken - English, Chinese, and Russian - and everyone is dubbed into English. Including many of the actors who were speaking English, whose accents apparently weren't satisfactory.

The film's original title was "Viy 2: Journey to China" as it's a sequel to an earlier film. It was marketed in North America as "Iron Mask," but on Netflix it shows up under some long and ridiculous title ("The Mystery of the Dragon Seal" is half of it) ... but the title card says "Iron Mask" when you watch it - as a librarian, I object on the grounds of discoverability. Not that the people who can't find it because the title's wrong are missing much. The movie also has the longest set of introductory company names I've ever seen: it ran to 2.5 minutes before the movie actually started.

Let's talk about a plot. A long voice-over describes a magic dragon who makes tea possible, and control of the magic dragon being taken over by evil witches. Two of the good witches are imprisoned on opposite sides of the planet: Chan is imprisoned in the Tower in London along with a guy in an iron mask who has become his martial arts student. And the prison is run by Schwarzenegger, who gets his exercise by fighting prisoners. But no, we're not done with the setup: Jason Flemyng is a scientific genius cartographer exploring the world after being forced to separate from the love of his life (Anna Churina). Flemyng is thrown in prison in Russia where he meets a young man (Helen Yao, another long story). Everybody ends up in China and has tea after lots of fireworks.

In some ways the sheer absurdity of ... well, everything about the movie ... is quite entertaining. The Russian and English elements make this stranger than your usual Chinese CG fantasy film (which is good, as those are getting old). On the other hand, the acting ranges from bad to awful, the CG is mediocre (not terrible, but quite obvious), and the story is unutterably silly. For the people who wanted to see Chan and Schwarzenegger fight it out ... you get that, but they were 64 and 70 respectively at the time - it's all special effects, just like everything else in the movie.

2019, dir. Oleg Stepchenko. With Jason Flemyng, Jackie Chan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Helen Yao (Xingtong Yao), Yuri Kolokolnikov, Anna Churina, Martin Klebba, Li Ma, Rutger Hauer.

Iron & Silk

Based on Mark Salzman's book about his experiences teaching English in China for two years. Salzman plays himself (with a different name, "Mark Franklin," why?) - he's incredibly wooden, but where do you find a decent actor with martial arts skills like that? Master Qingfu Pan also plays himself - mostly good, since he's portrayed as a grumpy old guy and he does that well. This is not a fast-paced movie, but the cultural education embedded in it is wonderful, and the Wushu lessons he took are interesting. Worth seeing.

1990, dir. Shirley Sun. With Mark Salzman, Vivian Wu, Jeanette Lin Tsui, Qingfu Pan.

Iron Fists and Kung Fu Kicks

"Wherever you consider your stunt men expendable, that's where the next big trend in action is gonna come from."

That was in reference to "The Raid: Redemption" which came from Indonesia in 2011 - just as it applied in Hong Kong in the 1980s and Thailand in the 00s.

This is a movie about the history of martial arts films, as well as the influence they've had. Understand that I'm looking at this with a particularly critical eye: I saw "The Karate Kid" in a repetory cinema in 1985, and I've watched martial arts movies (many, many of them) ever since. I also studied the martial arts intermittently for a couple decades. I'm not an expert martial artist by any means, but I've probably watched nearly as much martial arts movie footage as the makers of this movie.

They start by discussing the Shaw Brothers in Hong Kong in the 1960s and 1970s. They do mention many of the pivotal movies: "Come Drink With Me," "Way of the Dragon," "Snake In the Eagle's Shadow," "The Matrix," "Ong Bak," and of course "The Raid: Redemption." The movie also spends time with industry insiders, both performers and influential people behind the camera. It's a fairly good overview of the subject, although I really didn't like their frenetic editing and garish red-and-yellow inter-titles.

I was disappointed that the Kung Fu Panda series was only given a two second visual nod, and Stephen Chow wasn't mentioned at all (his "Shaolin Soccer" and "Kung Fu Hustle" were very successful martial arts comedies). They mentioned Parkour and Paris, and interviewed Sébastien Foucan ... while ignoring the extraordinary "District 13," which really deserves a place in a documentary about the history of martial arts movies. (How many other French martial arts films are there? Oh right, none except the sequel. And the first one is an excellent action movie.)

2019, dir. Serge Ou. With Jessica Henwick, Scott Adkins, JuJu Chan, Amy Johnston, Richard Norton, Terry Levene, Cynthia Rothrock, Billy Blanks, Don Wilson.

Iron Man

Another of Marvel's comic franchises brought to the screen, and done well. Robert Downey Jr. is perfect as the obnoxious, impulsive, and extremely intelligent Tony Stark. Jeff Bridges and Shaun Toub were really good too, the special effects were excellent, and the story is one of the better ones - particularly the first 45 minutes with Stark and Yinsen (Toub) in the cave, working on the first Iron Man suit. I bought the DVD as soon as it came out - but then, I'm a sucker for superhero stuff.

2008, dir. Jon Favreau. With Robert Downey Jr., Jeff Bridges, Terrence Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow, Leslie Bibb, Shaun Toub, Faran Tahir, Clark Gregg.

Iron Man 2

Cumulatively, the critics are right: this isn't as good as the original, but it's not bad. This movie finds Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) slowly dying from blood poisoning brought on by the palladium reactor in his chest that's theoretically keeping him alive. His behaviour becomes erratic, and it doesn't help when Anton Vanko (Mickey Rourke) shows up as Whiplash - a guy with an Iron-Man-like suit, electrified whips, and a very bad attitude. Then Rhodey (Terence Howard got the boot, replaced by Don Cheadle ... admittedly a better actor) steals one of the other Iron Man suits and there are fights. Several, in fact. If it wasn't the sequel to one of the best superhero movies ever made, no one would ever have complained about this. So: not bad, but not great.

2010, dir. Jon Favreau. With Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson, Mickey Rourke, Sam Rockwell.

Iron Man 3

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is having trouble sleeping after the events of "The Avengers" (possibly as a result of PTSD) - and his latest Iron Man suit is a little buggy. When he issues a direct challenge to a terrorist (The Mandarin, Ben Kingsley), his house is blown up and he nearly loses Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), possibly the only person in the world he cares about. He goes on the run, trying to figure out what's going on and how he can fix it.

There are so many flaws of logic the movie makes me want to cry. Simultaneously, it's got a great story that sees Tony Stark really struggling with his demons - a story very nearly as good as the first movie, which I think set something of a gold standard for superhero movies. It's a strange combination: go in knowing that you're going to find some failures of logic, but enjoy the excellent story.

2013, dir. Shane Black. With Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Ben Kingsley, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Jon Favreau.

Iron Monkey

I first saw this years before its North American release as an extremely poor quality bootleg rented at a speciality video store in Toronto. Despite the quality issues, I really enjoyed it. So much so that I purchased the DVD when it became available. The wire work is way over the top (in the manner of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"), but wonderfully done. The fights are hugely entertaining, and the plot ... well, it's not as bad as most martial arts movies.

1993, dir. Yuen Woo-ping. With Donnie Yen, Rogguang Yu, Jean Wang, Sze-Man Tsang.

Iron Sky

A Finnish B movie (the dialogue is English or subtitled German) with a concept that entertains the hell out of most SF fans. Many of the Nazis left the Earth after the Second World War, and set up a base on the dark side of the Moon. In 2018, after an American manned mission to the dark side, the Nazis are returning to take over the earth.

The riffs on "Dr. Strangelove" and "Downfall" ("Der Untergang") were mildly entertaining, but not particularly successful. And their mockery of the American presidency (and pretty much everything else American) was too heavy-handed to actually be effective. The effects are reasonably good, retro in a manner reminiscent of "Sky Captain." Unfortunately, bad acting and dialogue are the order of the day, and the nonsensical plot in particular sank the endeavour.

2012, dir. Timo Vuorensola. With Julia Dietze, Christopher Kirby, Götz Otto, Peta Sergeant, Udo Kier.

Ironclad

The story is primarily about the defence of Rochester Castle by a small group of rebels against King John (Paul Giamatti) in 1215. There is some basis of fact in these general details, but that wasn't really what they were going for in the movie. James Purefoy plays Templar Knight Thomas Marshall who leads the defence, our main character. And what's with the title? It has no connection with the history at play here, no mention is made of it in the movie, and "Ironclads" were a very well known type of warship used during the American Civil war, making the title staggeringly misleading.

The film is already notorious for the amount of blood spilt. If they'd spent as much time on the fight sequences as they did on the splatter, at least they would have had a decent action movie. But instead most of the sword and axe swings look a lot more like "I've got to be careful not to hurt my fellow actor" than "I'm fighting for my life." The castle group is made up of walking clichés: noble Templar knight, spunky young wife married to unloving older lord, and the dialogue reflects this same problem. I was disappointed in Purefoy, who seemed to have brought his glower from "Solomon Kane" and not much else, and Giamatti was decent but even he was struggling to bring life to a shoddy script. I thought Jason Flemyng was surprisingly decent in his clichéd role of "angry mercenary," and it was a pleasure to see Mackenzie Crook doing a straight role instead of playing "comedic weird-looking dude." Kate Mara looked pretty, but showed no particular talent - although I don't know if I should blame this on her or the awful script.

At least it had trebuchets. But even that was kind of messed up because, sure, you stone the castle to wear down the defenders, but when your attacking army actually makes it over the walls, you STOP hurling stones because you don't want to kill your own people. Typical of the movie: "it looks cool so let's use it, never mind practicality or historical accuracy."

2011, dir. Jonathan English. With James Purefoy, Paul Giamatti, Brian Cox, Kate Mara, Aneurin Barnard, Vladimir Kulich, Derek Jacobi, Charles Dance, Jason Flemyng, Jamie Foreman, Mackenzie Crook, Rhys Parry Jones.

The Island

Different critics see different source material, but most of them, myself included, see something highly derivative of its predecessors. Take "Logan's Run," add a big chunk of Larry Niven's organ banks, add a touch of "The Matrix" for spice, plus action, action, action (hey, it's Michael Bay) and you have this mildly entertaining and unoriginal movie with big stars and stuff blowing up all over.

2005, dir. Michael Bay. With Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson, Steve Buscemi, Sean Bean, Djimon Hounsou, Michael Clarke Duncan.

Island Etude

A Taiwanese movie about a young man with very bad hearing heading out on a bike right around the island of Taiwan. It's very low budget, and seems to mostly be an effort to show off the culture of the island, couched as the kind of oddball stories you encounter when you travel. He encounters a directionless young biker, and ends up staying a night at his house - where he finds out just how messed up the man's family life is. He helps a young Lithuanian woman figure out what train to take, without ever speaking the same language. He meets - a couple times - a movie crew making a fantastically ridiculous-sounding movie. He visits his grandparents, and walks with his grandfather in a religious ceremony as a goddess is moved. He spends a night at a school, and talks to a retiring teacher. He meets a group of retired women on a discount bus tour. And he meets another bicyclist doing an around-the-island tour, whose best friend and cycling buddy had died a couple years prior. And when he gets home, the director of the weird movie gets in touch and says he wants to do a movie about the cyclist's trip around the island - closing the loop and making the movie painfully self-referential.

The movie is surprisingly charming, and an interesting tour of the country of Taiwan. The cinematography is intermittently excellent, although the rest of the time quite pedestrian. Not particularly gripping, and I don't think I'd ever want to revisit it.

2006, dir. Chen Huai-En. With Ming-hsiang Tung, Danny Deng, Saya, Tender Huang, Hsui-hui Chen, Ruta Palionyte, Li-Yin Yang, Nien-Jen Wu.

The Island of Dr. Moreau

Based on the novel by H.G. Wells, starring Marlon Brando as Moreau, Val Kilmer as his assistant, and David Thewlis as the visitor through whose eyes we see. Despite the fact that Thewlis is the main character in the movie, the DVD found no room for him on the cover because of course Brando and Kilmer were the bigger draw. And I have to admit, they both did a fine job of being completely and totally psychotic. Thewlis is a good actor, but here he seems to be trying to live up to seriously conflicting instructions: being the central character in something that gets characterized as "horror," he never does anything sensible (although he's painted as a sensible guy). Not good as horror, not good as anything else, this is a pretty poor movie.

1996, dir. John Frankenheimer. With David Thewlis, Val Kilmer, Marlon Brando, Fairuza Balk, Ron Perlman, Marco Hofschneider, Temuera Morrison, Daniel Rigney.

Isle of Dogs

Wes Anderson's latest goes back to the odd stop-motion animation style he used in "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," with a similarly witty storyline. But this time he goes full in for ... let's see: cultural appropriation, surreality, meta, irony, and absurdism. Definitely a product of its time. A large and famous voice cast contributes.

In Japan in the near future, all dogs are banished to Trash Island by the cat-loving city mayor. The only person brave enough to do anything about it in the face of the mayor's use of the Yakuza and other methods to suppress dissent is his own young ward, Atari. Atari crash-lands his plane on Trash Island, and with the help of a pack of dogs, goes in search of his best friend Spots.

The critics loved it. I enjoyed it, it was entertaining ... but I didn't love it.

2018, dir. Wes Anderson. With Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Bob Balaban, Kunichi Nomura, Ken Watanabe, Greta Gerwig, Frances McDormand, Fisher Stevens, Nijirô Murakami, Harvey Keitel, Koyu Rankin, Liev Schreiber, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton.

It Could Happen to You

New York policeman Charlie Lang (Nicholas Cage) finds himself unable to provide a tip at a diner and promises waitress Yvonne Biasi (Bridget Fonda) half of whatever he wins in the lottery that night. When the ticket he picked up actually wins $4 million, his wife (Rosie Perez) is mightily unimpressed that he intends to carry through on his promise.

The core of the story has some basis in truth: cop, waitress, splitting the lottery winnings. But the relative ages of the players, the divorces and romances, those are Hollywood fictions for our entertainment. Cage and Fonda are over-the-top sweet, giving away money at every turn to make other people's lives better. Perez and Stanley Tucci (as Biasi's estranged husband) are over-the-top money-grubbing horrible people. But Cage and Fonda manage to show a certain joy in life that brings considerable charm to the movie and makes it fun to watch. Overall, a sweet urban fairy tale.

1994, dir. Andrew Bergman. With Nicolas Cage, Bridget Fonda, Rosie Perez, Isaac Hayes, Wendell Pierce, Stanley Tucci, Seymour Cassel.

It Happened One Night

Newspaper reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable) has a rather adversarial relationship with his editor, and the most recent round has got him fired. On the bus back to New York he meets spoiled millionairess runaway newlywed Ellen Andrews (Claudette Colbert) who he alternately insults and assists. Their ride back to New York is turned into an epic adventure by missed buses, lack of money, and washed out bridges. Ellen is ditzy and naive, but also quite smart. Peter has an incredibly acerbic tongue, but is basically a decent person.

Somewhere between a romcom and a screwball comedy, I found large chunks of it silly or annoying. But there are a couple scenes (particularly their flight of fancy as a squabbling married couple in a hotel room) that had me in stitches. One of the better films of the period. Reminded me a lot of "My Man Godfrey," a similar movie made two years later.

1934. dir. Frank Capra. With Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert.

Italian for Beginners (orig. "Italiensk for Begyndere")

The structure and acting of this Danish film are a little uneven, and it looks like it was occasionally shot hand held for no particular reason, or perhaps because of lack of funds. It starts with several deaths, introduces us to a group of Danes taking a weird Italian class, and ends with relationships. Not bad, but rather forgettable.

2000, dir. Lone Scherfig. With Anders W. Berthelsen, Anette Støvelbæk, Ann Eleonora Jørgensen, Peter Gantzler, Lars Kaalund, Sara Indrio Jensen.

The Italian Job (2003)

An enjoyable and action-packed heist film, this remains possibly my favourite in the genre. Some clever ideas and a memorable set of characters make this worth seeing.

2003, dir. F. Gary Gray. With Mark Wahlberg, Donald Sutherland, Jason Statham, Edward Norton, Charlize Theron, Seth Green, Mos Def.

The Italian Job (1969)

I saw this a couple years after seeing the 2003 version, but I think my reaction would have been similar had I seen it first. The humour is ... well, there's a lot of it but pretty much none of it works in 2006. The Minis are fun, and, along with the main character's name, are nearly the only thing to survive into the new version. I found the movie irritating in the extreme - see the new version instead.

1969, dir. Peter Collinson. With Michael Caine, Noel Coward, Benny Hill.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

A dying escaped convict tells a few people where he buried some cash, and they all rush to try to recover it. It's very long, and the humour was definitely not my style. If you have an urge to see this, I'd recommend you see "Rat Race" (2001) instead. The idea is virtually identical, but the humour is more ... up-to-date. It's equally forgettable.

1963. Dir. Stanley Kramer. Spencer Tracy, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Buddy Hackett, Ethel Merman, Mickey Rooney, Dick Shawn, Phil Silvers, Jimmy Durante, Jonathan Winters.

It's a Wonderful Life

One of the most famous movies ever made, now indelibly associated with Christmas because that's when it's always shown on TV (although the association within the movie is quite strong). Jimmy Stewart plays a compassionate business man locked into a small town life not of his choosing, and when financial difficulties hit his small firm he considers suicide. A mildly incompetent angel is sent to help him, and ends up showing him what would have happened if he'd never been born. Stewart is good, Donna Reed is luminous. 60 years of glittering fame has left the movies something of a cliché, but it's still enjoyable and very touching.

1946, dir. Frank Capra. With Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore.

It's Kind of a Funny Story

Keir Gilchrist plays Craig, a 16 year old stressed out about his life and contemplating suicide. He checks himself into a psychiatric hospital - where he finds himself housed with the adults as the teen wing is "under renovation." He finds himself taken under the wing of Bobby (Zach Galifianakis) and falling for fellow patient Noelle (Emma Roberts).

Much of the story is narrated by Craig, and we see some chunks as fantasy flash-backs. It's fairly clear that while he's pretty badly stressed, he's not really that badly off. On the other hand, the stay in the ward offers good psychiatric care and some life lessons (plus weird fellow patients). It's all a little too light-hearted, but passably well done.

Gilchrist is excellent as the uncertain Craig. Roberts is beautiful, but should have been played with more of an edge given what she was in for - this could be the director's fault rather than Roberts'. And it was nice to see Galifianakis in a role that required some dramatic skills rather than straight comedy: it turns out he actually has the skills.

2010, dir. Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. With Keir Gilchrist, Zach Galifianakis, Emma Roberts, Viola Davis, Zoë Kravitz, Bernard White.

I've Heard the Mermaids Singing

I picked this up because I really liked Patricia Rozema's "Mansfield Park" and because it was very well reviewed. I was destined to extreme disappointment. Very surreal, a morality play in a distinctly Canadian style, and our guide is a clueless child in an adult's body (Sheila McCarthy).

1987, dir. Patricia Rozema. With Sheila McCarthy, Paule Baillargeon, Ann-Marie MacDonald.

iZombie

Rob Thomas's most noted follow-up to Veronica Mars - he's done other stuff, but this one got some hype. It's an adaptation of comic book series of the same name. NOTE: My review is based on watching the first two episodes only.

Liv Moore is a medical resident, who within five minutes of the first episode, has gone to a party, seen a zombie outbreak, been bitten, died, and returned to something resembling a normal life as a secret zombie. We're shortly set up with her new job at the morgue, the morgue attendant who has guessed her condition but is very supportive, her need to eat brains and her resultant ability to see into the lives of the dead, her new cop buddy with whom she solves crime, and the suave, intelligent and evil nemesis zombie. All of which is bothersome in its incredibly traditional and blatant set-up of an attempt at a long-running show, but the big failure in my view was the writing, which is mediocre.

Accusations have been levelled at the series that it's not just a mash-up of zombie and detective series, but specifically a mash-up of "Veronica Mars" and "Dollhouse." I haven't watched "Dollhouse," but with Liv taking on aspects of the people whose brains she eats, I can see it. And I wasn't seeing good enough writing to pull this thing out of its derivative state.

2015. With Rose McIver, Malcolm Goodwin, Rahul Kohli, Robert Buckley, David Anders.


J

Jack Reacher

Tom Cruise plays the title character, a former military police man and investigator. When a sniper kills five people and is arrested, Reacher appears remarkably swiftly after the sniper requests his presence.

Based on a Lee Child novel, this is definitely an above-average action film. I hesitate to call it a detective/mystery film as there's too much action, but there are major elements of that too. Reacher's investigation triggers retaliation of increasing virulence, and he fights back while assisting the sniper's attorney (played by Rosamund Pike). Well constructed and enjoyable.

2012, dir. Christopher McQuarrie. With Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins, Werner Herzog, David Oyelowo, Robert Duvall, Alexia Fast, Vladimir Sizov, Joseph Sikora.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

I have friends who adore Lee Child's "Jack Reacher" stories: they refuse to watch Tom Cruise in the role as he doesn't capture the essence of the character. If nothing else, Jack Reacher is 6'5", and Tom Cruise is 5'6" - not quite the commanding presence that Reacher is supposed to have. After two movies, I'd say it goes deeper than that: Cruise has created a competent and amazingly non-descript and uninteresting guy.

This time, he's rescuing Major Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders) - very nearly as competent as he is, but nevertheless over her head trying to figure out a series of mysterious killings in the military apparently caused by one of their external contractors. There's also a mildly interesting subplot about a young girl who may or may not be Reacher's illegitimate daughter.

The movie goes for action and tension, and achieves neither - the action is nothing new, and the characters just aren't appealing enough to invest in. They're fine, but the whole thing is too generic to appeal.

2016, dir. Edward Zwick. With Tom Cruise, Cobie Smulders, Aldis Hodge, Danika Yarosh, Patrick Heusinger, Holt McCallany, Austin Hebert, Robert Catrini, Robert Knepper, Jessica Stroup.

Jack the Giant Slayer

Bryan Singer looked at one point like he was going to be one of the world's great directors. Instead, he's become one of the world's biggest purveyors of high budget dull cinema.

The story is familiar to all ... although Wikipedia points out it isn't quite what I was thinking, instead combining two fairy tales: "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Jack the Giant Killer." Young Jack loves the story of King Erik and the giants. When he grows into adulthood, he comes into possession of magic beans. They grow into beanstalks that lead to a kingdom of giants, and Jack must help some of the king's men rescue the princess.

Singer does absolutely nothing interesting with the ideas involved, relying purely on spectacle to power this high budget bonanza of special effects. It does look pretty, but, aside from the special effects, nothing at all will surprise you and you'll probably leave yawning. Nicholas Hoult is dull in the lead, Eleanor Tomlinson does little to help, even the normally reliable Stanley Tucci was surprisingly lame as a sleazeball prince ... Ewan McGregor stole the scenes he was in - not because he was brilliant, but because nobody else was even trying. A sleeper.

2013, dir. Bryan Singer. With Nicholas Hoult, Eleanor Tomlinson, Ewan McGregor, Stanley Tucci, Ian McShane, Bill Nighy, John Kassir, Eddie Marsan, Ewen Bremner.

The Jacket

"The Jacket" didn't do particularly well in theatres, and didn't do terribly well with critics. It's been classified as a "horror thriller," which seems a bit of an overstatement to me. I think this is the third time I've watched it: the creepy and claustrophobic atmosphere combined with good acting make it highly memorable.

It's the story of a Gulf War veteran (Adrien Brody) accused of murder during an event he can't remember and put into an insane asylum. There he's experimented on by a doctor (Kris Kristofferson) who injects him with a drug and stuffs him in a straight jacket and into a morgue drawer repeatedly. While in the titular jacket he has visions of the past - and the future, although it's less than clear if they're visions or he's actually there. Weird, very frenetic in a retro-Seventies kind of way, loaded to the gills with good acting. Includes an early American appearance by a little known actor called "Daniel Craig," who was excellent. Keira Knightley and Jennifer Jason Leigh were very good, and Brody was outstanding.

One of the reasons I don't accept the classification as "horror" is that the ending, while sad, is also surprisingly positive - not the type of ending you see on horror films. The whole thing is creepy and disorienting in a way that really forwards the ideas of the film. Not for everybody, but if it's your kind of thing I highly recommend it.

2005. Dir. John Maybury. With Adrien Brody, Keira Knightley, Kris Kristofferson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Brad Renfro, Daniel Craig.

Jackie Chan's First Strike (orig. "Jing cha gu shi 4: Zhi jian dan ren wu")

Jackie Chan's second major North American release after "Rumble in the Bronx." A bit of a James Bond ripoff, complete with multiple locations, crazy stunts, gunfights on skis, evil Russian agents, and nuclear weapons. More importantly, it includes some of his best fights and stunts ever.

1996, dir. Stanley Tong. With Jackie Chan.

The James Bond Story

It's important to place this in context: a TV movie filmed while "The World is Not Enough" was in production, the third of the four Pierce Brosnan Bonds. It's clear that Michael Apted, who directed "The World is Not Enough" was trying to make huge changes to the franchise and the relationship of the character to the world, but they come off as relatively small ones - particularly as seen after the release in 2006 of "Casino Royale." But it's an interesting documentary about the series, and what the directors, writers, and actors thought they were doing. Sexism, explosives, women, gadgets, murder, and bad one-liners: how we love it. Or so their box office receipts say.

2000, dir. Chris Hunt. With Sean Connery, Roger Moore, George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, Jane Seymour, Maud Adams.

James Cameron's Story of Science Fiction

This is a TV mini-series (six episodes of 45 minutes each) instigated and hosted by James Cameron. When they say "Story of Science Fiction," they actually mean "Story of Science Fiction TV and Film." It's an important distinction: there's nothing here on the written word (unless it's been translated into film).

I have mixed feelings about James Cameron. Very mixed feelings. He's arrogant, he's kind of an asshole, he's bombastic. He's intelligent, extremely detail-oriented, and loves science fiction. All of these things show in his movies. My two favourite stories about Cameron are both positive: in 2009, both his film "Avatar" and Kathryn Bigelow's film "Hurt Locker" were up for an Oscar. They were divorced in 1991. I'd always thought of him as a blowhard, so when he won the Oscar I was very surprised by his response. He got to the microphone and said he hadn't written a speech because he was sure she'd win. He's always been like that about her: polite and respectful. And then there's Neil deGrasse Tyson's story. When he met Cameron, he went Astronomer-Geek on him, explaining that the stars in the sky over "Titanic" were all wrong because of geography and the time of year. Cameron just nodded and said "uh-huh," but when the DVD came out ... it was fixed. As I say, seriously detail-oriented, and that can pay off in ways both small and large. Particularly if you're a science geek (like myself) watching his films: unlike so many blockbuster filmmakers, he does his damndest to make sure the laws of physics are obeyed in his films.

Something he's managed with this series that's astonishing may not initially sound surprising. He's got footage from all the SF movies. I mean ALL of them: do you know how hard that is? Sure, his own - that's probably not too hard (but it's not just him, the studio has to agree too). Getting the rights to show footage from a movie can be anywhere from slightly difficult through impossible. But somehow, he got the rights for every major SF film of the last eighty years (and dozens of minor ones), and he has the clips to prove it. This is no small feat and a huge help to what he's trying to achieve.

He's also got some of the biggest actors and directors in Hollywood today: Christoper Nolan, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Peter Capaldi, Joseph Gordon-Levitt ... plus academics and reviewers to round out the view. Although I have to ask: what is Sean Ono Lennon doing in there? He's just there because he's a fan of SF and he's famous? The series' worst problem is Cameron himself: he has opinions and can't just let his guests talk, he's got to share. It's not that he's wrong, but I'm trying to listen to Ridley Scott or Steven Spielberg, and you keep interrupting.

In the end it was a passable introduction to the topic (which I didn't need) glossy and enjoyable, but it didn't really offer any deeper understanding of any of the multitude of topics it addressed (episodes were called: "Alien Life," "Space Exploration," "Monsters," "Dark Futures," "Intelligent Machines," and "Time Travel").

P.S. He didn't have all the movies: I just realized he failed to include "Ex Machina," the best SF movie of 2014 - and possibly the decade.

2018. With James Cameron, Christoper Nolan, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Peter Capaldi, Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

James vs. His Future Self

James (Jonas Chernick) is a brilliant scientist obsessed with the idea of time travel. He lives with his slightly crazy sister (Tommie-Amber Pirie), and his best friend is a female scientist (Cleopatra Coleman) he's been too afraid to make a move on. Then his future self (Daniel Stern) shows up to tell him what an incredibly bad idea time travel is, and how he's about to mess up his relationships with both his sister and his best friend. And gives him a deadline of less than a week. As his future self points out, if he actually manages to make a change ... the future self will simply vanish and stop bothering him.

It's awkward. It's distinctly Canadian - and even acknowledges that heritage, instead of the more common behaviour filming in Canada and pretending to be American. It's funny, and kind of absurd - but manages to be thought-provoking despite that. Stern was surprisingly compelling as the older Jimmy, convincing as a man who's had too much time to think about what he's missed out on. Put it all together, and you have a surprisingly good - if weird - piece of work.

2019, dir. Jeremy Lalonde. With Jonas Chernick, Daniel Stern, Cleopatra Coleman, Frances Conroy, Tommie-Amber Pirie.

The Jane Austen Book Club

A group of women - and one man who's never read Austen before - get together for six months to discuss Jane Austen's books. Director Robin Swicord resorts to the practise of over-emphasizing neuroses and quirks for the first half hour to introduce us to the characters. Things even out after that and get better, although I felt they worked too hard to fit the Austen story lines into the participant's lives. But for the most part it works, and is quite enjoyable. I thought Hugh Dancy was quite good.

2007, dir. Robin Swicord. With Maria Bello, Emily Blunt, Hugh Dancy, Kathy Baker, Amy Brenneman, Maggie Grace, Jimmy Smits, Marc Blucas.

Japanese Story

Geologist/programmer Toni Collette is co-opted into taking a visiting Japanese gentleman (Gotaro Tunashima) into the Australian desert in the hope that he will buy her company's software. In the nature of this type of buddy/romance movie, they at first hate each other. Then things proceed much as you'd expect in your average Hollywood movie, until halfway through when everything goes sideways. It's unusual, it's different, it's remarkably long-winded for a short movie, and I didn't like it much. Collette's acting was good, as you'd expect. Tunashima wasn't bad.

2003, dir. Sue Brooks. With Toni Collette, Gotaro Tunashima, Matthew Dyktynski, Lynette Curran, Yumiko Tanaka.

Jason Bourne

The movie became somewhat infamous on release because Matt Damon (who is playing Jason Bourne for the fourth time) speaks something like 12 lines of dialogue in the entire 123 minute runtime. Other people talk (it's not devoid of dialogue), but dialogue just isn't that important in this movie.

The movie starts with a voice-over from Bourne saying "I remember everything." In the unlikely event that you haven't seen any of the previous movies, this is a big deal because all three of the previous movies have centred around chunks of Bourne's life he doesn't recall, a problem created by his induction into the covert program that made him what he is. In the first movie, he couldn't remember his entire life. Having opened with "I remember everything," they then make the movie about something he can't remember. And you'll also be unsurprised to hear that there's another covert program that Bourne unwillingly gets entangled in: this time it's called "Iron Hand."

The entire movie is one chase after another, through streets, malls, squares, and hotels. I'll give it credit: it did a good enough job that I got tense watching it, but the whole thing is a complete recycling of every previous Bourne movie (perhaps not "Legacy" ... maybe they should have, at least it was different).

If you want to see the same crap that you've seen three times before re-arranged into a slightly different order, here you go. This is for you. But I'm considering going back to re-watch the first Damon/Bourne movie to wash the nasty taste of this recycled tripe out of my mind.

2016, dir. Paul Greengrass. With Matt Damon, Tommy Lee Jones, Alicia Vikander, Vincent Cassel, Julia Stiles, Riz Ahmed.

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

If you've seen Kevin Smith's previous four movies, this is intermittently amusing. Otherwise (unless you have a huge love of dick and fart jokes) you might want to pass. On the plus side, the movie is blessed with a staggering number of amusing cameos. "Restricted for nonstop crude and sexual humour, pervasive strong language and drug content." Not that I have a problem with that - if it's funny.

2001, dir. Kevin Smith. With Jason Mewes, Shannon Elizabeth, Kevin Smith, and many more.

Jay Myself

Jay Maisel is one of the world's best known photographers. He's a New Yorker through and through, and in 1966 he bought the Germania Bank Building (I don't think they mentioned the actual name in the movie, I looked it up later). The neighbourhood was scary and he bought it for $100,000 - which he couldn't afford. But he lived there for fifty years. By 2015 the neighbourhood had seriously gentrified and he sold the building for $55,000,000. This movie is - nominally - to document his moving out of the building, but inevitably it turns into much more. The movie was made by Stephen Wilkes, who spent a couple years working with Maisel when he was a beginning photographer.

Maisel is an interesting character. The first impression might be "grumpy old man," but he's intelligent and still - despite a lifetime of photography - utterly fascinated by visual imagery. He filled that 35,000 square foot building with stuff he collected over the course of 50 years. Not stuff he bought, just stuff that looked interesting that he found walking around New York. He had a room for coloured glass. He had a room for mechanical parts. And as a photographer myself, I watched in wonder as he convinced me how worth looking at this stuff was: he made it beautiful. And of course he talks - about the move, about photography.

This is a must-see for anyone in the visual arts: his visual sense will shake up anyone in the arts and make you think hard about how you compose images. If you're not into the visual arts, this may still be worth watching: he's interesting to listen to and it's an odd piece of New York history.

2018, dir. Stephen Wilkes.

Jazz - Swing: Pure Pleasure

Part 5 of Ken Burns's epic "Jazz" documentary for PBS. Covers the likes of Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holliday, Glen Miller, and Artie Shaw. He certainly takes his time, stretching stuff out with more photos and music than were strictly necessary. Good if you're up for the leisurely pace, but I found it a bit tiresome in spots. Good information though.

2001, dir. Ken Burns.

JCVD

Jean Claude Van Damme plays himself, or perhaps a very unfortunate version of himself. Short on money, making B movies, and losing the custody battle for his daughter to one of his ex-wives, he stops at a post office/bank in his home town of Brussels where he gets embroiled in a robbery in progress.

The movie is proof positive that the man can actually act, and because it got much wider distribution that his previous martial arts flicks, it could yet save his career. It's a truly bizarre and extremely self-referential film: I'm not sure I'd want to watch it again, but it's fascinating and pretty good. Van Damme's six minute monologue was done in a single take, and was worthy of Ralph Feinnes rather than a B movie action star.

2008, dir. Mabrouk El Mechri. With Jean-Claude Van Damme, François Damiens, François Beukelaers, Liliane Becker, Zinedine Soualem.

Jerry Maguire

Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise) is a sports agent suffering from an attack of conscience. In a moment of clarity he writes a mission statement for sports management, suggesting a number of changes to the business model to improve client relations (and incidentally cutting income). He's fired, and finds himself with only one overbearing client (Cuba Gooding Jr.), and one employee (Dorothy Boyd, played by Renée Zellweger). Things get more complicated when Jerry and Boyd have a night together.

Everyone is a little (and occasionally a lot) over the top in this one. I have no doubt sports agents are occasionally almost as loud and obnoxious as they're portrayed here, but it did get tiresome: I was disappointed in that aspect of the movie. But it's funny and it's intelligent, and worth a watch.

Quotes: "Show me the money!" "You complete me." "You had me at hello." Sound familiar? Every one of them originated here.

1996, dir. Cameron Crowe. With Tom Cruise, Renée Zellweger, Cuba Gooding Jr., Bonnie Hunt, Jay Mohr, Jerry O'Connell, Beau Bridges, Kelly Preston.

Jessica Jones, Season 1

Let's be clear: my review is based on viewing episodes 1-5, reading Wikipedia summaries of 6-12, and watching episode 13 (the final one) of the first season.

Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) is an alcoholic private detective with super powers and a bad history. She's also a Netflix series and a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the first episode we find out that she's immensely strong, and that she's still trying to deal with the weeks or months she was under the control of "Kilgrave," another "one of them" as one of the more human people in the series puts it. Kilgrave controls people's minds simply by speaking to them, and Jessica is horrified to find out he's still alive.

Her fight with Kilgrave (David Tennant) is the primary element of the series, but there are a number of other people who are (or become) involved: her foster sister (Rachel Taylor), Luke Cage (Mike Colter - long-time comic fans will be unsurprised to hear he has impenetrable skin), a cop (Wil Traval), a university student (Erin Moriarty), the drugged-up neighbour (Eka Darville), and a sleazy but very effective lawyer (Carrie-Anne Moss). But after five episodes I found the darkness and unremitting paranoia (anyone she meets may be controlled by Kilgrave, and may try to hurt her, her friends, each other, or themselves - whatever entertains Kilgrave at the time) too much - especially given the relatively modest skills of the script writers. The writing's not bad ... it's just not particularly good. It's a good idea, but I don't like stuff that unendingly dark. Thus the truncated viewing experience.

2015. With Krysten Ritter, Mike Coulter, Rachel Taylor, Wil Traval, Erin Moriarty, Eka Darville, Carrie-Anne Moss, David Tennant.

La Jetée

I wanted to see this because it's the movie that "12 Monkeys" was based on. I expected it to be weird, and it was: a short (28 minutes), a sequence of black-and-white photos, told in voice-over. After World War III the remnants of humanity form a totalitarian government underground (under Paris in this case), and our hero is thrown into a time travel experiment. This is something of a classic - it must be, Criterion put it on DVD ... The format may sound very limiting, but the movie is both remarkably disturbing and very memorable. Highly recommended.

1962, dir. Chris Marker. With Jean Négroni, Hélène Chatelain, Davos Hanich, Jacques Ledoux.

Jet Lag (orig. Décalage Horaire)

Eminently forgettable cookie-cutter romantic comedy. In the first half Félix (Jean Reno) and Rose (Juliette Binoche) - trapped in a crippled airport - wave their neuroses and problems about like flags, making each hate the other. Incidentally, the audience probably loses all interest in them too. In the second half they soften and get interested in each other, show each other the way to a better life. We're supposed to believe that the influence they have on each other in a 24 hour period will change them forever?

2002, dir. Danièle Thompson. With Jean Reno, Juliette Binoche, Sergi López.

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

A documentary about Jiro Ono and his tiny little sushi restaurant in a shopping mall attached to a subway station in Tokyo ... a tiny little sushi place with three Michelin stars. That's the top rating from possibly the most prestigious restaurant guide in the world.

Jiro is 85 years old and still works all day every day at the restaurant with his older son. His younger son was thrown out of the nest a decade previously(?) to start his own restaurant - the elder son is ready to run a restaurant, but is expected to inherit Jiro's.

The movie makers talked to a bunch of Jiro's suppliers, both his sons, two or three of his apprentices (current and former), and one Japanese restaurant reviewer who thinks Jiro walks on water. Not a single unkind word is said about Jiro, except by Jiro himself he acknowledges that he wasn't much of a father. The sushi looks absolutely mouth-watering, but the whole thing read like a hagiography. I enjoyed it, but wouldn't suggest anyone rush out to see it.

2011, dir. David Gelb. With Jiro Ono.

Jiu Jitsu

As a fan of martial arts movies, I'm thoroughly familiar with stupid plots accompanied by bad acting. All I'm looking for is good fighting, anything else is a bonus. So when I saw a movie starring Nicolas Cage, Alain Moussi, Tony Jaa, and Frank Grillo ... that says "cheesy acting and more than enough money and physical talent to have good action." Grillo has made a number of grade B action movies: the cheesy, ludicrous, and entertaining "Beyond Skyline" particularly comes to mind. Jaa's first couple movies showed a man even more acrobatic than Jackie Chan. Moussi's acting is poor, and he's anonymously rugged looking without much charisma, but he's a really good martial artist. So I set my hopes too high.

You're welcome to consider my review suspect: I watched about half the movie at 2x.

The effects are ... bad. Not terrible, but noticeably poor. I can live with that, just get me to the cool fighting. And that's where this movie falls down completely. The fight choreography sucks. It's not over-edited - this is a common crime in low budget martial arts films where they're constantly cutting away just as someone is about to be struck, or because someone muffed a kick or landing so we see the take-off and landing, but not the whole execution. That's not the problem, except during Cage's fights: they very clearly switch between Cage for the close-ups and a stunt man for the acrobatics. And there's no shortage of fights. No, the problem is that almost every blow stops noticeably short of its target, and yet the target reacts, flies backwards, whatever. Jaa and Moussi (and very likely Grillo) are capable of far better than this: I can only assume that they simply under-rehearsed the fights to save money.

I got the crap dialogue, bad logic, and silly plotting I expected. But there was no redemption in the fights. An all-round terrible movie.

One bizarre side-note: this was clearly filmed at least partly on location on Bagan, Myanmar - and they even mention that they're in Myanmar, and have Burmese speakers. Bagan has more temples per square kilometre than any other place on the planet and it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site that very few people have visited because Myanmar remains an uncommon destination (a repressive government doesn't help).

2020, dir. Dimitri Logothetis. With Alain Moussi, Nicolas Cage, Frank Grillo, JuJu Chan, Tony Jaa, Maresse Crump, Ryan Tarran, Rick Yune.

Jodorowsky's Dune

Alejandro Jodorowsky became infamous in the early 1970s for his violent and incredibly weird surrealist movies "El Topo" and "The Holy Mountain." After that, he got the rights to Frank Herbert's Dune. This movie details the extensive work he and the crew he assembled did on the movie. I knew before I even saw this movie that I would have hated Jodorowsky's Dune had it actually made it to theatres (because of the extensive and incredibly bizarre changes he made to my favourite work of science fiction), but it was fascinating to hear how he went about it. The man drew some of the world's best talent around him with remarkable ease. Where it all stalled out was that Hollywood studios weren't interested in making the 6-to-20-hour weird vision that he'd created because of the cost and the fact that it wouldn't sell. The latter point didn't particularly concern him: the artistic vision must be followed. Jodorowsky saying "I am raping Frank Herbert" seemed to best represent his view of how to translate the book to the screen.

Weirdly mesmerising: Jodorowsky is bat-shit crazy, but utterly fascinating. It also has a bit of the appeal of a car wreck: you can't look away. And the argument made in the movie that his treatment of the movie was influential in Hollywood despite never making it to film does carry some weight.

2013, dir. Frank Pavich. With Alejandro Jodorowsky, Michel Seydoux, H. R. Giger, Chris Foss, Nicolas Winding Refn, Amanda Lear, Richard Stanley.

Joe

Those who've watched movies for many years are aware that Nicolas Cage is fully capable of acting ... it's just that he does it so rarely. He usually prefers to chew the scenery, a thing for which he's often very well paid. It's probably easier than real acting too. But occasionally he does put in the effort, and we get a movie like this one. Joe (Cage) is a pretty ordinary guy. He lives somewhere in the Southern U.S., running his own small business, and most of the time manages to keep his rage issues under control. But when he hires and eventually befriends a young man (Tye Sheridan) who's sometimes beaten by his alcoholic father, things get a little messy.

Not exactly a ray-of-sunshine movie (although there's some hope), it's well acted and a decent character study.

2013, dir. David Gordon Green. With Nicolas Cage, Tye Sheridan, Gary Poulter, Ronnie Gene Blevins, Heather Kafka, Brian Mays, Sue Rock, Adriene Mishler, Dana Freitag.

Joe Versus the Volcano

I saw this when it came out and didn't quite "get it." Watching it again in 2012 I wouldn't say I loved it, but it's a pretty entertaining film. Surreal and absurdist, but entertaining.

Tom Hanks stars as Joe, a bit of a hypochondriac, who works at a miserable job in the advertising department for a medical company that makes anal probes. When he's diagnosed as having an incurable disease and about five months to live, he quits his job in spectacular fashion and asks out the coworker he's liked for years. The next day he's offered a great deal of money for jumping into a volcano to appease a tribal god.

Hanks is hilarious, Meg Ryan is amusing, charming, and sexy in her three roles. I think part of the reason this movie doesn't entirely work (it was a box office flop, but Wikipedia claims it now has a cult following) is because, despite its surrealism, parts of it still seem exactly like our world - most notably to me when Hanks is out shopping for clothes. It should either have been more surreal, or more real - but got stuck in between. Still, a decent attempt and entertaining.

1990, dir. John Patrick Shanley. With Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Dan Hedaya, Meg Ryan, Lloyd Bridges, Meg Ryan, Abe Vigoda, Ossie Davis, Robert Stack.

John Carter

Based on the long series of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Carter is a soldier who fought on the losing side of the American Civil War, and lost his wife and son (although it wasn't clear to me if that was to the war or an accident). We encounter him first as a rich man sending a telegram. Shortly thereafter, he's dead and his nephew - "Edgar Rice Burroughs" - has come to visit and finds himself inheriting Carter's very large estate. And reading Carter's story (which we see re-enacted) of living on Mars, where Carter found himself immensely strong and an unwilling warrior in the middle of a planet-wide war.

The special effects are excellent, and Taylor Kitsch is actually fairly decent in the title role, although perhaps a bit more "brooding" than it really called for. The movie is visually spectacular and I enjoyed it, but the story arc made a series of hops in trying to get off the ground and never managed to fly: I totally get why Disney lost $100 million on this one. Still, very pretty to look at and kind of interesting.

2012, dir. Andrew Stanton. With Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Willem Dafoe, Samantha Morton, Mark Strong, Ciarán Hinds, Dominic West, James Purefoy.

John Dies at the End

The movie starts weird and gets weirder, never particularly interested in making any sense at all. Wikipedia classifies it as "dark fantasy science fiction horror," and it has elements of all these things. If the name "Don Coscarelli" means anything to you, this lack of sense will probably be unsurprising: this is kind of how he makes movies (although at least "Bubba Ho-tep's" plot was mostly coherent). Our narrator is David Wong (who isn't Asian), who works with his friend John as a psychic investigator. They've taken a drug called "Soy Sauce" that makes them become unmoored in time, and also able to cross to alternate dimensions.

I was never clear whether "Soy Sauce" was the cause of the problems or the solution, or possibly both. It was apparently supplied by the aliens as precursor to invasion, but it was also what let David and John solve the problem. Or maybe they solved a different problem entirely. Coherence really isn't a critical part of the story structure here.

I can't really recommend watching it, and yet I don't regret watching it: it was kind of fascinating. If Coscarelli ever gets his shit together about narrative coherence, he already chooses decent actors and makes his subject matter bizarrely compelling. He still wouldn't have a genuine "hit" on his hands (his stuff is just too damn weird), but he might break even at the box office.

2012, dir. Don Coscarelli. With Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes, Paul Giamatti, Clancy Brown, Glynn Turman, Doug Jones, Jimmy Wong, Jonny Weston.

John Wick

Keanu Reeves plays the titular character in an almost perfectly constructed revenge flick. Wick is a mob assassin, who retires for a woman. When she dies of an unspecified disease, and someone kills the dog that was his last link to her, he goes on a rampage. A spectacularly choreographed rampage of epic proportions. I'm losing my taste for action movies, but I have to say ... this one is pretty damn good. If you have to watch bloody action/revenge, this is the way it should be done.

2014, dir. Chad Stahelski. With Keanu Reeves, Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Adrianne Palicki, Willem Dafoe, Ian McShane, John Leguizamo, Bridget Moynahan, Dean Winters.

John Wick: Chapter 2

"John Wick" was one of the surprise hits of 2014, a violent action flick that brought a good action character using a fun-to-watch new form of action (occasionally referred to as "gun-fu") to the screen. It was an absurd world and an absurd story line, but its considerable success guaranteed us a sequel. The critics of Rotten Tomatoes rated this one even more highly than the original (89% as compared to 85%). But when you look too closely at an absurd world (as a sequel inevitably does), the inconsistencies and problems are magnified and drawn out into plain view.

John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is attempting to settle down again after the events of the last movie, but Santino D'Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio) shows up, demanding a favour he's owed (which ties into the mythology of the previous movie). Wick refuses, but is eventually forced to assassinate someone - someone he knows. And then of course he has to fight his way out. And it just goes on and on. And the last twenty minutes are set-up for "John Wick 3," while I sat there wondering why they didn't just finish "John Wick 2," but that's Hollywood for you.

The movie brings nothing new to the table and exposes all the cracks and flaws in the previous movie. One of those really terrible sequels that's not only really bad, but makes the previous movie look worse as well.

2017, dir. Chad Stahelski. With Keanu Reeves, Common, Laurence Fishburne, Riccardo Scamarcio, Ruby Rose, John Leguizamo, Ian McShane.

John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum

I adored the first "John Wick" movie (see above). Of course it was silly, but the balletic "Gun-Fu" fighting was beautifully done and it was a great one-off movie. Except that it wasn't a one-off: its success brought us a glossy but really stupid sequel that I hated. When reviews hit for "John Wick 3," I let the Rotten Tomatoes score (90% as of 2019-11-18) convince me to watch a movie I was pretty sure I would hate. But even knowing that I was likely to dislike it, and willing myself to suspend disbelief, I still really hated the movie. I think the worst of it was that the martial arts, all the fighting, is noticeably sloppier than in the first episode. In the first movie, they rehearsed the fights until they flowed beautifully. In this movie, there are multiple times where people are visibly pulling blows, or waiting around for their opponent to swing or defend themselves. This is probably because they have twice as many fights as the first movie - which isn't necessarily an improvement even if you did rehearse them more. Although in this case, less fights would have meant more time in an increasingly ludicrous and illogical universe. The opening scene has John Wick finding his way into an immense, open, unguarded, and entirely unmanned antique weapons store. The perfect place for a fight between assassins, but the kind of logical discontinuity you're expected to accept every step of the way in this ridiculous piece of shit.

2019, dir. Chad Stahelski. With Keanu Reeves, Halle Berry, Laurence Fishburne, Mark Dacascos, Asia Kate Dillon, Lance Reddick, Anjelica Huston, Ian McShane, Saïd Taghmaoui, Jerome Flynn, Cecep Arif Rahman, Yayan Ruhian, Boban Marjanović, Randall Duk Kim.

Johnny Mnemonic

Keanu Reeves plays Johnny, a courier in the year 2021 who carries large quantities of data in his head when customers are unwilling to trust the data to the internet. The story has him trying to get out of the business: to this end, he's taken a dangerous job and severely overloaded his implants. In fact, it's likely to kill him if he doesn't get the data back out soon, and an awful lot of people want him dead. Based on a short story by William Gibson who also wrote the screenplay.

As promised, the movie is pretty bad (I was further frustrated by really bad subtitles done in ALL CAPS (really) on a full screen DVD ...), but interesting nevertheless. Wikipedia quotes Gibson and director Robert Longo claiming they made a very funny film that was later hacked into a really bad action movie ... it's hard to know the truth of that. Recommended only for hardcore fans of science fiction and/or Gibson.

1995, dir. Robert Longo. With Keanu Reeves, Dina Meyer, Beat Takeshi, Dolph Lundgren, Henry Rollins, Ice-T, Udo Kier.

Joint Security Area

The film opens with two North Korean soldiers being killed in a guard house along the North-South border. Alarms sound, a lot of gunfire is exchanged. Things settle down enough so that a Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission officer (Lee Young Ae) can be sent in to do an investigation in the hope of avoiding war. The story unfolds slowly and with a certain inevitability. Lee Byung-hun and Song Kang-ho are good as the soldiers on opposing sides of the border where the incident occurred. Lee Young Ae was okay, but not great: fortunately, less is required of her. While it offers a considerable lesson about the Korean border to non-Koreans, much of what happens is typical of wars everywhere, and utterly heart-breaking. Recommended.

2000, dir. Park Chan-wook. With Lee Byung-hun, Song Kang-ho, Lee Young Ae, Kim Tae Woo, Shin Ha-kyun, Herbert Ulrich.

Jonah Hex

Jonah Hex (Brolin, playing a DC Comics character) was a Confederate soldier until he crossed General Quentin Turnbull (Malkovich) who then killed his wife and child, and left him scarred for life. We first meet Hex after the war as he works as a bounty hunter. He believes Turnbull is dead, but we find otherwise soon enough - setting Hex on the path of revenge again.

One scene has Hex drinking in a bar. Another guy we've never met before says to the bartender "he doesn't look so tough." There's another short exchange, the guy steps toward Hex saying something about how ugly he is, and Hex blows him through a window with a hidden gun with no further discussion. This is how the entire script delivers its points: subtly. Much of it is incredibly predictable, and the remaining parts are just stupid. For once justice has prevailed: this thing tanked horribly at the box office ($47M budget, total intake as of mid-2011 of $11M).

Fox is in as eye candy ... perhaps she was also meant as comedic relief, but that didn't work out terribly well. Fassbender does a passable turn as Turnbull's psychotic sidekick - I didn't even recognize him. The movie is staggeringly violent ... but only by implication. Hex buries his hatchet (literally) in several people, heads come off ... and the camera cuts away just before every time.

2010, dir. Jimmy Hayward. With Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Megan Fox, Michael Fassbender, Will Arnett, Michael Shannon.

Jonathan Creek

Jonathan Creek (Alan Davies) is a creative consultant and trick creator for magician Adam Klaus (played in the first episode by Anthony Head, after which the character vanishes from the screen, and is played by Stuart Milligan from the second season on). Jonathan and the investigative reporter Maddie Magellan (Caroline Quentin) team up in the first episode and work out how a seemingly impossible murder was committed. This sets the template for the first three seasons, with Maddie and Jonathan sorting out various implausible crimes. The pattern is fairly strict as Maddie or Jonathan stumble upon an inordinate number of crimes, Maddie does a bit of illegal reporting (often break-and-enter), Jonathan assembles the facts in his head - but doesn't tell Maddie or us - and finally does a big reveal at the end. The special between the third and fourth season brought in Julia Sawalha as Carla Borrego, a theatrical agent and later TV reporter, to replace Maddie. They also changed the pattern somewhat, with Jonathan and Carla stepping into the middle of existing crimes that were sometimes still active, involving some threat to them. But the big reveal at the end of the show didn't change.

Jonathan is occasionally mildly annoying, although not so bad as Maddie or Carla. The mysteries are often interesting, although we're rarely given enough information to solve them in full ourselves. No great work of art, the series was nevertheless enjoyable enough to watch four seasons of six episodes each and three longer specials.

1997. With Alan Davies, Caroline Quentin, Julia Sawalha, Stuart Milligan, Sheridan Smith, Anthony Head.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

I approached Susanna Clarke's 2004 book Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell with some trepidation: the thing is 700 pages long and, while many people read and loved it, many others started but could not finish. I had trouble at times with the slow pace, but it's a beautifully realized world and I was sorely disappointed to leave it at the end - even after 700 pages. In April of 2016, I discovered that the BBC did a seven hour TV mini-series of the book in July of 2015. The trailers looked promising, and I finally had the opportunity to watch the series.

It starts in England in 1806. Magic hasn't been practised in the country for 300 years, but now the bookish and unfriendly Mr. Norrell appears, and he is in fact a magician. Another man, a street magician by the name of Vinculus - who has very little real magic, but does seem to have some ability to prophesy - predicts that another magician will appear. That other is the somewhat dissolute but rather charming Jonathan Strange who has no book knowledge whatsoever, but on reading a couple lines and just guessing ... he can do magic that equals Norrell's. Norrell is both taken aback and excited. There's lots more to the plot: the war with France (led by Napoleon, fought by Wellington), a very poor deal Mr. Norrell has made with a very powerful fairy (we're not talking Tinker Bell here), and much more, but that's the basics.

Eddie Marsan is perfectly cast as the unlikeable Mr. Norrell, and Bertie Carvel as Strange passes beyond perfection into some new realm of casting - just amazing. The supporting cast is flawless throughout, although I favour Enzo Cilenti as John Childermass, Norrell's intelligent and un-servant-like servant: I loved Childermass in the book, and Cilenti truly brings him to life. He's made Childermass my favourite character.

While the series is generally accurate to the book, they make some successful improvements: the book is painfully slow for the first two thirds with the last act loaded with all the action. The TV series moves three or four small but exciting scenes closer to the beginning (while keeping the logic cohesive) so the end product isn't quite so back-heavy. They did a lovely job of balancing it out.

One of the best scenes is Jonathan being called in to rescue a military ship that's run aground off the British shore. He doesn't know what the hell he's doing, he just ... makes it up. And it involves horses made of sand. And while the special effects were wonderful, they weren't what impressed me most: it was Strange's lack of realization of the magnitude of what he'd done (because it was so easy for him) and his complete lack of interest in discussing it: he just goes in search of breakfast. The beauty of this is in the accuracy of the portrayal of Clarke's character: again, perfect.

Sets and costuming are an excellent representation of the period, the special effects are perfectly suited, and the script - matching Clarke's words closely, if I recall correctly - is great. The best fantasy TV series ever made.

By 2023 I've watched the entire seven hour series five times: it's that good.

2015, dir. Toby Haynes. With Bertie Carvel, Eddie Marsan, Marc Warren, Charlotte Riley, Alice Englert, Enzo Cilenti, Samuel West, Paul Kaye, Edward Hogg, Ariyon Bakare, Vincent Franklin, John Heffernan, Brian Pettifer, Ronan Vibert.

Josee, the Tiger and the Fish

Tsuneo (voiced by Taishi Nakagawa) is a diligent university student, worker, and diver, trying to make enough money to study abroad in Mexico. He rescues a young woman (Josee/Kumiko, voiced by Kaya Kiyohara) from injury when her wheelchair goes out of control, and ends up being hired by the young woman's grandmother to assist around the house. Josee is not enthusiastic about the new arrangement - and is persistently obnoxious. But Tsuneo is a nice guy, and far more tolerant than I could have been (I found him a bit unbelievable in that regard). He begins to understand her problems and bitterness, as well as finding out about and appreciating her artwork.

Some of the emotional notes are delivered with a sledgehammer - most notably Tsuneo's injury at the mid-point of the film, and everyone's responses. But despite some ham-fisted plotting, lovely artwork and charming characters carry the day ... I didn't really believe it could have happened, but I enjoyed it anyway.

The story is based on a 1984 short story by Seiko Tanabe, and has already been adapted for film - live action, Japanese - in 2003.

2020, dir. Kotaro Tamura. With Taishi Nakagawa, Kaya Kiyohara, Yume Miyamoto, Kazuyuki Okitsu, Lynn, Chiemi Matsutera, Shintarō Moriyama.

The Journey of Man

A Cirque du Soleil production. Not movie length, about 40 minutes? They film in several beautiful locations, and impose their acts in front of these places, trying to tell the tale of a boy growing to manhood and then old age. Pretty, but it's time for me to stop watching their videos and go buy tickets for the live shows again.

2000, dir. Keith Melton.

The Journey of Natty Gann

These days (2006), this is advertised as a John Cusack movie. This is an unjust description: the movie belongs to Meredith Salenger, for better or for worse. Cusack has perhaps 15 minutes of screen time. The story is about a young girl (Salenger) during the Depression whose father (Ray Wise) is forced to leave her behind when he finally manages to find work. She takes it upon herself to ride the rails from Chicago to Seattle to try to find him. The movie is too dark for Disney (who produced it), and yet not dark enough to really show the Depression, so it gets a little lost. Her befriending and taming a feral wolf was also less than convincing. Some of the cinematography was excellent, although partly trashed by a poor DVD transfer and locked into 4:3 presentation. It's not a bad movie, it's just not a particularly good movie.

1985, dir. Jeremy Kagan. With Meredith Salenger, Ray Wise, John Cusack.

Journey to the West

The full title of this 2013 Stephen Chow movie is "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons." It stars Wen Zhang as Sanzang, a "demon hunter" who tries to tame demons by reading them nursery rhymes to bring out the goodness in them. Shu Qi plays Duan, another demon hunter who enjoys the hunt and is much more effective. Sanzang is sent by his master on a journey to the west to find enlightenment and success. It's a bumpy ride, frequently interrupted by Duan who's become fascinated by him.

It's a Chow movie, so the plot is simply a construct on which to hang absurdist skits. They're meant to be funny, but again it's Chow - it's wildly hit-or-miss. The movie started particularly poorly for me: a man scares his five year old daughter by popping out of the water pretending to be a demon. He eventually convinces her it's him, and she should laugh. So she laughs as he's torn apart under water and blood blossoms to the surface. Not exactly comedic gold, and a lousy start to the film.

Qi is beautiful and fairly funny, and Zhang is versatile, running the gamut from comedic crying jags to Buddhist enlightenment. The critics loved this thing (94% on Rotten Tomatoes as of 2016-12), but I found the humour too spotty to really love it.

2013, dir. Stephen Chow. With Wen Zhang, Shu Qi, Huang Bo, Lee Sheung Ching, Show Luo, Chen Bing Qiang, Cheng Si Han, Xing Yu.

The Judge

"The Judge" sees high-priced defence attorney and prodigal son Henry (Robert Downey Jr.) returning from Chicago to the podunk hometown he hates because of his mother's death. He's divorcing his wife and not speaking to his father, the town judge (Robert Duvall), and we learn as the movie progresses that this is his first visit home in more than 20 years. He's about to leave after the funeral when his father is arrested for apparently hitting and killing someone with his car. He stays on to assist with his father's defence.

There's a fine array of acting talent on display: Downey, Duvall, Vera Farmiga, Vincent D'Onofrio, Billy Bob Thornton. They make the movie worth watching, but the beats come along like a standard TV family drama: the "revelation" about why he hates his father, the "revelation" about his ex-girlfriend, the "revelation" about why his father did what he did. All played to the same old formula. But with great production values and acting! If you love Downey, this may be worth your time. Duvall's performance felt a bit more templated to his standard "crotchety old man" routine.

2014, dir. David Dobkin. With Robert Downey Jr., Robert Duvall, Vera Farmiga, Vincent D'Onofrio, Jeremy Strong, Dax Shepard, Billy Bob Thornton.

Julie & Julia

Adams plays Julie Powell, who has decided to work her way through the entire of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, blogging as she cooks every recipe. In a parallel story line 40 years earlier, the ungainly Child (played brilliantly by Streep) is finding her calling at a cooking school in Paris.

Adams is very good as Julie, and both stories are incredibly charming. Worth watching. Almost good enough to forgive Ephron for her (many) past blunders ...

2009, dir. Nora Ephron. With Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci, Chris Messina, Linda Emond, Jane Lynch.

Juliet, Naked

This 2018 movie is based on the 2009 Nick Hornby novel of the same name. The title references an album by an American artist that our British heroine's boyfriend is obsessed with. Our main players are Annie (Rose Byrne), who lives with Duncan (Chris O'Dowd), who mostly ignores her for his obsession with Tucker Crowe (Ethan Hawke). While Duncan screws up his relationship with Annie (she should have thanked him - she desperately needed to get out), Annie begins an email correspondence with Tucker. Which gets more real when family commitments call him to London and they meet.

I've always had a mixed reaction to Hornby's writing - although I say that based solely on movies, having never read any of his books. In looking at Wikipedia, I find I've seen all but one of the six movie adaptations of his books to date (I missed the original British "Fever Pitch"). I loved "High Fidelity," but could live without the rest. This one is alright: the three leads are all quite good. It manages the "comedy" part of "romantic comedy," but the "romance" felt more like a friendship, without any significant passion.

2018, dir. Jesse Peretz. With Rose Byrne, Ethan Hawke, Chris O'Dowd, Azhy Robertson, Lily Brazier, Ayoola Smart, Denise Gough, Eleanor Matsuura, Megan Dodds.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

I was never a huge fan of the original "Jumanji," and even less so its loosely based sequel "Zathura." Both are about board games that, when played, bring elements of the game into the real world with you - including hordes of monkeys or a meteor shower. And you're stuck with the game's problems until you finish playing - which is difficult as the elements of the game keep interfering with the game play and getting worse. But the movies left a lasting impression on a generation (particularly the original "Jumanji," which starred Robin Williams) and the series has been resumed with a re-interpretation of the board game as a video game.

Four teenagers are given detention: the nerdy Spencer Gilpin (Alex Wolff), football player and childhood friend of Spencer's, Anthony "Fridge" Johnson (Ser'Darius Blain), self-absorbed and phone-obsessed beauty Bethany Walker (Madison Iseman), and nerd-girl Martha Kaply (Morgan Turner). In the basement they're supposed to be cleaning they discover an old video game console: once it's plugged in and they've selected characters, they're sucked into the world of the game. And re-assigned personality traits and even, in one case, genders as they occupy their avatars inside Jumanji. Spencer becomes "Smolder Bravestone" (Dwayne Johnson), buff, intelligent, brave, and incredibly strong. Bethany becomes Sheldon Oberon (Jack Black), a middle-aged and overweight cartographer (she is NOT happy about it). Fridge becomes "Mouse" Finbar (Kevin Hart), much smaller, slower, and weaker than he is in the real world, with a skill set primarily aimed at carrying things for Bravestone. And Martha becomes "Ruby Roundhouse," a scantily clad and kick-ass martial artist.

All of the in-game actors do a good job of owning their outside characters. It's clear they had a great time making the movie, and that comes through as more fun for us. Jack Black is particularly funny as a teenage girl in a middle-aged man's body. The dialogue is weak in places, although some argument can be made that it's teenagers talking - not the more adult avatars they appear to me. But for the most part, the ludicrous action (it's a video game) and frequent jokes carry us past the weaker moments. A lot of fun.

2017, dir. Jake Kasdan. With Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, Nick Jonas, Bobby Cannavale, Alex Wolff, Madison Iseman, Ser'Darius Blain, Morgan Turner, Rhys Darby.

Jumanji: The Next Level

I'm not a fan of sequels: if you read my reviews, you'll find I almost never like them. Even when I do, I consider them inferior to their original (in this case, a movie I really enjoyed). The one stand-out exception is the Kung Fu Panda series. Given what I knew of this movie from its trailer - Danny Glover and Danny DeVito as old guys who get sucked into the game along with the crew from the previous movie - I was sure this would be worse. Last time, Jack Black put it out of the park playing a self-absorbed teenage girl trapped in a middle-aged man's body ... but this time Dwayne Johnson had to play a cranky old man (DeVito) in the body of the muscular star of the video game. Don't get me wrong: I love Johnson. But his strength has never been acting: he's charming, charismatic, and powerful, but not a great actor. I thought Kevin Hart would have the same problem being Glover's character. I was pretty sure this movie was doomed from the start.

So let's start there. Did their weak acting sink the movie? Hell no. I'm not going to claim either was brilliant, but they were actually pretty good. And a funny script goes a long way toward forgiveness. DeVito and Glover both put in short appearances at the beginning of the movie, and both are painted in broad strokes so the audience gets the point quickly and we can move on to the in-game part. Spencer (Alex Wolff) has resurrected the busted Jumanji game console because he's insecure and wants to be Braveheart again, and his friends dive in after to pull him out, but nothing works as they expect - not least because the game is no longer the same.

It's completely absurd, it's goofy, it's very funny, and it even manages to create the tension needed to keep the plot moving. I'm very happy to say that this is a lot of fun, and the equal of its predecessor.

2019, dir. Jake Kasdan. With Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, Nick Jonas, Awkwafina, Danny Glover, Danny DeVito, Alex Wolff, Morgan Turner, Ser'Darius Blain, Madison Iseman, Colin Hanks, Rory McCann, Rhys Darby, Bebe Neuwirth.

Jump Tomorrow

This is what's commonly called a "little" movie: no explosions, no big names, no big tragedy, just low budget talk and goofiness. Tunde Adebimpe plays a young Nigerian in America three days away from his arranged marriage that he has no interest in, but he's a passive guy and if life didn't interfere, he probably would have just ... never questioned. But life does interfere, in the form of a chance meeting with the beautiful Natalia Verbeke (who hasn't been in another English movie - too bad!, she's a good actress too), and then the rather less beautiful Hippolyte Girardot. It's an American movie, made in America, but it's wonderfully hard to tell: Adebimpe is convincingly Nigerian, Verbeke's first language isn't English, Girardot is very French, and the last major character is a very French Citroën DS (car). They also went (very successfully) for a sparse 60s feel to the movie, and it all comes out quite surreal and rather funny. Definitely worth seeing (even though you've never heard of it).

2001, Joel Hopkins. With Tunde Adembimpe, Hippolyte Girardot, Natalia Verbeke.

Jumper

Based on the excellent teen SF novel by Stephen Gould, the director of a couple of the Bourne movies kind of made a hash of this. But when you put Hayden Christensen as your main character, it wouldn't matter if the plotting and editing were perfect, the best you could manage would be a passable film. He's a bad actor and I have no idea why anyone hires him. I like the concept: Christensen plays a young man who finds he's able to teleport to anywhere he wants, and leads a life of leisure funded by occasional visits to the insides of closed bank vaults. Then he finds out there are other jumpers, and that they're in a war with "Paladins" who kill jumpers (this is a radical and unnecessary departure from the book). Some good moments and ideas, but among other things there aren't any appealing characters in the entire movie: we're supposed to sympathize with Christensen's character, but he's initially established as a self-centred shit and really doesn't do much to shake the image.

2008, dir. Doug Liman. With Hayden Christensen, Samuel L. Jackson, Diane Lane, Jamie Bell, Rachel Bilson.

Jungle Cruise

The movie stars Emily Blunt as Dr. Lily Houghton, a very Indiana-Jones-like medical doctor in pursuit of a healing tree in the Amazon. For comedic effect, she's brought along her brother MacGregor (Jack Whitehall), and once in the Amazon they hire Frank Wolff (Dwayne Johnson) and his boat to take them up-river. Things become less fact-based as they progress, and the movie eventually earns itself a rating of "Fantasy."

The action is very Disney: improbably perfectly timed rope swings, things like that. It's quite reminiscent of "Pirates of the Caribbean" ... Oh wait, both of them are based on Disney theme park rides.

We eventually find out that MacGregor's impressive dedication to his sister stems from her support of his homosexuality, a story he tells to Frank - who is also totally fine with it. If the movie didn't have other fantasy elements, I think I would have rated it as "Fantasy" for this pair of improbable occurrences (remember, it's set in 1916). Macgregor says "I would have been expelled from society if it hadn't been for her support." I call bullshit: at that time, her support would have had both of them shunned. And then Frank also accepting Macgregor's coming out? Not a chance. But it's very sweet. And of course Disney is simply placing modern mores into their historical-fantasy-adventure movie, something they've always done (although supporting homosexuality has been a long time coming with Disney).

As silly and improbable as the movie is, the action is often fun and many of the jokes are quite good. Johnson and Blunt are a surprisingly good comedic pairing. Whitehall is a decent comedic sidekick: he initially seems destined to be a classical pampered Victorian wimp, but is saved from the worst of the stereotypes by turning out to have a wicked right hook and a semi-sensible attitude to the craziness going on around him.

2021, dir. Jaume Collet-Serra. With Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Édgar Ramírez, Jack Whitehall, Jesse Plemons, Paul Giamatti, Verónica Falcón, Dan Dargan Carter, Dani Rovira, Quim Gutiérrez.

Juno

I hate the soundtrack and dislike the credits ... but everything between the credits that isn't music is golden. An eccentric 16 year old (Ellen Page) finds herself pregnant. Not much more to know about the setup or plot, just that the whole thing is off-beat and very funny. The acting is very good all round and it's a charming movie.

2007, dir. Jason Reitman. With Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Allison Janney, J.K. Simmons, Olivia Thirlby.

Jupiter Ascending

This is the latest movie from Lana and Andy Wachowski. It tells the story of Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), a young woman of Russian descent who lives in the U.S. and cleans houses with her extended family. But we are soon to find out that she's re-incarnated off-planet royalty (they use a pseudo-scientific explanation, but it's essentially re-incarnation) - and her coming to the attention of the off-worlders ignites a rather nasty squabble between three incredibly powerful siblings. And it's all very sordid because, while the aliens are actually human, they're going to "harvest" Earth (ie. kill everyone on it) to create a youth serum for themselves. Jupiter is defended, repeatedly, by a part-wolf bounty hunter (Channing Tatum) who was initially sent to retrieve her.

As silly as that sounds, worse plot outlines have produced better movies (outline the plot of "Star Wars" or "The Empire Strikes Back" in your head and tell me they don't sound silly). But a plot that's both plodding and twisty and depressingly weak dialogue (and less than stellar acting) has left us with something that looks fantastic (a huge chunk of the budget clearly went to the superb special effects) and averages about a groan a minute. I kind of enjoyed the campiness, but unless you really enjoy crap movies I'd recommend you stay away.

2015, dir. The Wachowskis. With Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum, Sean Bean, Eddie Redmayne, Douglas Booth, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Terry Gilliam.

Jupiter's Legacy (Season 1)

"Jupiter's Legacy" started life as a comic book series written by Mark Millar and drawn by Frank Quitely. I tried to read it when it got to the library as a series of graphic novels, but it wasn't really my thing - it's about a bunch of unpleasant people. The story is very much about "The Code," the rules of engagement insisted upon by the leader of the superhero group, which says they never kill their opponents, only bring them to justice. Of course, the supervillains are bound by no such code, and are killing more superheroes (and cops) every year. Never mind that the police can kill under extreme circumstances (this is mentioned only once in the entire season: it seems to be something they should have been discussing).

The story plays out in two more or less parallel timelines: 1929, as the group of friends (not yet superhuman) travel to Africa pursuing the mad dream of Sheldon Sampson (Josh Duhamel). And the modern day (2021) as they and their children (the leaders are very long-lived) fight supervillains and occasionally each other. The supervillains aren't particularly likeable, and the superheroes are unpleasant, entitled, or outright assholes. The only semi-sympathetic person is Brandon Sampson (Andrew Horton, playing the son of Sheldon) who's a decent person but horribly conflicted. And the show's not really about him anyway - he's shown as more of a symptom. I don't think I'll be watching the second season. [UPDATE: Since I wrote the original review, that's become moot: Netflix has decided not to purchase the second season.]

2021. With Josh Duhamel, Ben Daniels, Leslie Bibb, Andrew Horton, Elena Kampouris, Mike Wade, Matt Lanter, Gracy Dzienny, Tyler Mane, Meg Steedle, Richard Blackburn, Tenika Davis, Tyrone Benskin, Aiza Ntibarikure, Ian Quinlan.

Jurassic World

Once again, someone rebuilt the dinosaur theme park. And guess what: the movie is remarkably similar to "Jurassic Park," with kids (Simpkins and Robinson) lost out amongst the very hungry dinosaurs. But since we've seen T.Rex repeatedly, there's a new "bad guy" called "Indominus Rex," a genetically engineered giant hybrid meant to attract larger crowds by being bigger and more toothy. Oh yeah: and the velociraptors are ... not exactly good guys, but they're kind of on the side of the right.

Among our human characters we have Howard as Claire Dearing, the corporate-minded operations manager who is the aunt to the two lost children. D'Onofrio is the evil military guy representing the hidden agenda at the park. And Pratt is the velociraptor trainer and conscience of the movie who respects the animals. Sy and Johnson are both decent actors thrown into relatively minor roles and kind of wasted. Pratt is burly and manly and oh-so-cool, but is given some of the worst lines of the movie (which is truly saying something when the script is appalling from end to end), and he's not even trying to act. "I'll deliver these crap lines, you give me my paycheque." Non-speaking parts and bad guys die, good guys survive. Except for the bad guy who's carrying the sequel in a briefcase (in the form of eggs and/or genetic material) who survives by departing in a helicopter half way through the movie. By the end of the movie I expected Howard to loudly declare "I renounce my evil corporate ways for the glory of family values!" She didn't, but it wouldn't have made the movie significantly worse.

It's a special effects extravaganza. Better prose could have been written by your average college freshman.

2015, dir. Colin Trevorrow. With Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D'Onofrio, Ty Simpkins, Nick Robinson, Omar Sy, B.D. Wong, Irrfan Khan, Jake Johnson, Judy Greer.

Just Cause

Three quarters of this movie is a great psychological thriller, but the last quarter derails to play out as the requisite violent showdown in the bayou. Connery plays a law lecturer who hasn't been in court for 25 years who finds his assistance requested by a possibly wrongfully convicted, educated young black man on death row who is accused of raping and murdering a 12 year old white girl. It quickly becomes apparent that the confession was beaten out of the young man. There's a lot of good, thought-provoking stuff in here before the brutally disappointing blow-out ending - including an utterly brilliant performance by Harris as a murderous psychopath that was worth the price of admission.

1995, dir. Arne Glimcher. With Sean Connery, Laurence Fishburne, Kate Capshaw, Blair Underwood, Ed Harris, Christopher Murray, Scarlett Johansson.

Just Friends

Not my kind of humour, far too much humiliation. Reynolds plays a man who was fat in high school and best friends with a beautiful woman he loved. Ten years later he's fit, good looking, and evidently having his way with any woman he wants. He returns to his hometown, meets the woman of his dreams again, and is humiliated - repeatedly. Hilarious. Hell, they left the best scene on the cutting room floor: Reynolds is engaged to Alanis Morrisette, and she did a brilliant cameo that they felt didn't fit the story arc (they were right, but changing the story arc might have been better than dumping this scene).

2005, dir. Roger Kumble. With Ryan Reynolds, Amy Smart, Anna Faris, Chris Klein, Chris Marquette.

Just Like Heaven

Sweet, forgettable romcom about a depressed guy (Mark Ruffalo) who moves into an apartment haunted by the spirit of its former tenant (Reese Witherspoon). I enjoyed it because it did what it was supposed to do: it was funny and charming (and quite well written). Don't expect to remember it for more than a couple weeks past seeing it though. Good support from Donal Logue as Ruffalo's best friend and Dina Waters as Witherspoon's sister. The latter is particularly interesting: she's married to the director which would normally be a very bad sign, but she was near-perfect, in appearance (she really looks like Witherspoon's sister), comedic timing, and acting.

2005, dir. Mark Waters. With Reese Witherspoon, Mark Ruffalo, Donal Logue, Dina Waters, Jon Heder.

Justice League

It seems like DC has finally got a decent superhero movie out the door. Don't get me wrong, it's flawed - but it's entertaining and fun. Ezra Miller's take on Barry Allen/The Flash was particularly funny and charming. "I've never actually 'done battle.' I've just ... pushed people and run away." And Batman's suggestion to him was great: "Just save one person." "Any particular person?" "No. Just one. Then you'll know." And he does, and he does. Gal Gadot remains great as Wonder Woman, Ben Affleck is good as Batman, Ray Fisher is good as Cyborg, and Jason Momoa is over-the-top as Aquaman - although I think most of the blame there lies with the script and visuals rather than the actor. Oh - and Henry Cavill is charming but dull as Superman. Wait, I thought Superman was dead?! You didn't actually think he'd STAY dead, did you?? The villain was bad: to take on Aquaman and Wonder Woman he's got to be pretty damn strong - but Steppenwolf was full CG and not particularly successful. They also managed to work in a reference to Darkseid (one of the DC universe's galaxy-crushing big-bads), implying he'll be along later.

I bought this one after seeing it on a flight: as I say, flawed but very fun with a really good script - which gives it rewatch potential. The script was partly by Joss Whedon - and you can really tell which parts because they're immensely better.

2017, dir. Zack Snyder. With Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Amy Adams, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen, J.K. Simmons, Ciarán Hinds.

Zack Snyder's Justice League

The original "Justice League" (2017) was rejected by fans and critics ... but enjoyed by me. Although I acknowledge that it's a stinking mess, it has some very good bits. The original director, Zack Snyder, had to leave part way through the shoot, and was replaced by Joss Whedon. Fans clambered to see the Snyder version of the movie - and that's what we have here.

First off, this beast is four hours long. FOUR HOURS. I wanted to see it, but I didn't want to see it four hours worth - this one was a struggle to sit through.

Whedon is well known for his wry and/or dark humour. Something that's always impressed me about his writing is how much he can convey about character in a very short conversation. An example is Inspector Gordon's comment to Batman in the original (this is an approximation, from memory): "Millions in property damage - you haven't lost your touch. But it's good to see you working with others." Aquaman passes and says "Dressed like a bat. I dig it." Batman says to Gordon "It may not last." Not only does this tell you a lot about all three characters, it also tells you a lot about the history between Batman and Gordon - while providing a laugh. And it does it in three short lines of dialogue. This interchange isn't in the new version, and that's a loss. Among other things, Snyder simply isn't capable of such compressed writing - as shown by the distended run-time.

There are many, many comparisons between the two versions on the Internet. I know the 2017 version fairly well, and concentrated on comparing the dialogue I liked. This comparison may not be unique, but it's what I saw (and heard).

  • People have talked a lot about how the Snyder Cut expands on character development - and yet it lacks two pieces with the Flash that I thought were character-defining. His early rant about the ridiculousness of "Brunch" is gone, and more importantly, his admission of fear (and Batman's brilliant response) when they went into battle with Steppenwolf for the first time is gone. To me, Snyder's take makes the characters far more uniform: "we're all stoic brave heroes going into battle." How is that better?
  • But Snyder kept the Flash's comments about "Gorilla Sign Language" and "Competitive Ice Dancing," which is so goofy that I assumed it was Whedon.
  • I totally agree with the removal of the Russian family living near Steppenwolf's base: that was 15 minutes of film that Whedon wasted. Weird how Snyder could remove 15 minutes ... and end up with a movie two hours longer.
  • The reason that Lois Lane was at the monument when Superman was resurrected was very, very different: it was co-incidence in the new version (yes she's there every day, but at that particular time?), intent in the old one. In the original, she was there because Batman arranged for her to be there, to remind Superman of his humanity. I really liked Batman's line "I brought the big guns" (referring to Lois): it showed a shitload of understanding on Batman's part.
  • Minor point: the bank has foreclosed on the Clark home, mother Clark left weeks previously, yet when Superman flies there it's clear that A) no one has moved in, and B) there's a very healthy early season corn crop growing there. Who planted it, who's attending to it? Mind you, this is a failure in both versions.
  • I'm neutral on the removal of Aquaman's speech while sitting on the Lasso of Hestia: very Whedon, somewhat revealing of both character and weakness (he doesn't want to die), but perhaps a bit too goofy. Ultimately, it goes again to Snyder's vision of stoic heroes.
  • In the original, the Flash tries for fist-bumps with Cyborg a couple times during the movie and is denied, and the things he says are both funny and revealing. All of which makes the fist-bump after the final battle very funny - which is completely lost in the Snyder version, although the fist-bump - now meaningless - is still there.
  • Snyder has added multiple characters: Darkseid, DeSaad, The Martian Manhunter, The Joker. Of these, the latter two particularly felt like they were nailed on. The Martian Manhunter appears long enough to fake being someone else two hours into the movie, with no further explanation ... and then appears in the "epilogue" to say "I will fight for this world!" Can you say "blatant setup for another movie!"?
  • Bruce Wayne still saves the Clark home with "I bought the bank," but "I don't know, it's like a reflex for me" is gone. Another Whedon line Snyder wasn't happy with? I liked it, so probably.
  • The epilogue includes a ten minute post-apocalyptic vision that turns out to be a dream of Batman's. Batman is absolutely not one of DC's mystics: he's about technology, bitterness, and revenge, he's not Enchantress or John Constantine to be having visions. But they needed a chance to A) throw in Joker (who hadn't appeared in the first 225 minutes of the film) and B) set up evil Superman. Totally unconnected to the rest of the film, but hey, maybe it's part of the DC comics universe so ... it makes sense to fans?
  • And, if as DC has declared, "The Snyder Cut isn't cannon," why the hell are we setting up Darkseid, Lex Luthor, Deathstroke, evil Superman, visions and alternate timelines that have essentially nothing to do with the main story?

I would have said the changes were a wash if he'd kept the run-time under 150 minutes, but the agonizing length and the new excessive stoicism of his heroes means for me, that with all its flaws, I'm going to prefer the original cut.

2021, dir. Zack Snyder. With Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Amy Adams, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, Connie Nielsen, J.K. Simmons, Ciarán Hinds, Harry Lennix, Ray Porter, Peter Guinness, Jared Leto.

Justice League: The New Frontier

A direct-to-video animated movie set in "the Golden Age" (1950-1960) with the classic DC heroes all pulling together. The list of vocal talent is quite amazing.

The opening introduces us to "The Center," some powerful entity that wants to wipe out humanity and can clearly take over the minds of some humans. Then we're shown a bunch of vignettes in the lives of the various DC heroes - Superman, the Flash, Wonder Woman, various others - including abbreviated origin stories for the Martian Manhunter and Hal Jordan / Green Lantern. Then the Center really cuts loose and the heroes all have to work together despite their various problems (McCarthy-ism actually gets a mention, although it's essentially a non-thought-provoking nod to the parents who might be watching).

The first half of the movie is essentially separate segments about each of the heroes. The second half of the movie is a jingoistic "let's all work together to save the planet" routine. It's not a cohesive whole, and I didn't find it worked particularly well as separate parts either.

2008, dir. Dave Bullock. With David Boreanaz, Miguel Ferrer, Neil Patrick Harris, Lucy Lawless, Kyle MacLachlan, Phil Morris, Kyra Sedgwick, Brooke Shields, Jeremy Sisto.


K

Kagemusha

I'll start with a quote from Wikipedia's entry on the movie: "... kagemusha is a term used to denote a political decoy." The movie opens with the leader of the Takeda clan examining a possible kagemusha that his brother has found. The man is a thief who was to be killed, but he's essentially identical to the lord. When they put him in play, they find that while he's somewhat uncertain, he's a passable actor and fairly clever about fitting into the role. Unfortunately, the actual lord is shortly murdered and for various reasons it appears to be better to try to maintain the ruse for a period of three years. There are about 12 people who are in on the secret, and possibly the least happy about this plan is the lord's son - the lord's generals have chosen to keep an imposter in the role for three years rather than letting him assume the title. So there's internal strife as well as external, as the clan's enemies try to figure out why the lord didn't die of the gunshot wound they're pretty sure he received ...

I enjoyed the beginning, which was interesting political wrangling. But the movie runs 180 minutes, and Kurosawa wasn't using this to create a more complex or detailed story, but instead spent the time on lingering shots and drawn out scenes - often beautiful, but so long that I several times felt like yelling at the TV "the point is made, move on!" It's not a bad movie, but it's too long-winded and the ending is deeply Japanese (the noble and pointless sacrifice).

1980, dir. Akira Kurosawa. With Tatsuya Nakadai, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Kenichi Hagiwara, Jinpachi Nezu, Hideji Ōtaki, Daisuke Ryu.

Kangaroo: A Love-Hate Story

FAIR WARNING: this is more a diatribe of my opinions than a review of the movie.

The kangaroo is the national icon of Australia, and of course unique to that country (okay, they have wallabies in New Zealand). It's an unusual creature, and a big tourist draw. It's also constantly being culled as a "pest" and sold as leather and either pet food locally or speciality meat overseas. The film gives more voice to those opposed to the killing of kangaroos than those in favour, but at least it does spend a bit of time with the opposition.

I admit to being fascinated by the word "pest." Squirrels are "pests" if you live in almost any North American city: they steal bird food, they chew phone lines, and they gnaw their way into your attic and build a nest. In the state of Georgia, deer are considered pests - and I came to that way of thinking when I lived there because there are so many of them that driving at night (this was a small town) was dangerous because they were always leaping across the road. Regardless of the dictionary definition, what we mean by the word "pest" is "something that interferes with my living the way I want to."

Australian farmers consider kangaroos pests because they eat greenery that the farmer's sheep could be eating - never mind that the sheep is the invasive species. One kangaroo fan (I think it was Terri Irwin) claimed kangaroos "eat different parts of the greenery," but of course nobody can prove that either way because it hasn't been studied.

What we get a lot of in the movie is 1) talking heads, 2) footage of the hunters, and of course 3) footage of kangaroos. They did manage to convince me of a few things: the hunters aren't well regulated, the meat is badly handled, and the government is fudging its figures. That last is unsurprising: show me a government that doesn't, on almost any subject. Part of the issue is the sheer scale a country-wide government deals in. But the other side of that coin is something the movie seemed surprised about: the government body meant to regulate the kangaroo industry has become an advocate for that industry. This doesn't surprise me: where does the money come from? The industry - taxation at the very least, likely huge donations. And trust me, the government aren't getting a lot of money from the conservationists on the other side of the argument. So of course the government bends the figures a bit to favour the industry that feeds it.

One thing they wanted us to know about was how brutal the killings could be, and they spend a bit of time on the killing of the joeys. A "joey" is an infant kangaroo still in its mother's pouch. When the hunters kill a mother, they pull the joey out of the pouch, grab them by the hind legs, and swing them against the truck or a rock to kill them. They had footage of that - it's not just something hunters do: it's government documented policy ... with some minor caveat that it should be done quickly and humanely.

On the flip-side of that, I snorted at the person who claimed "if Australians knew how inhumane the Kangaroo hunt is, they'd never eat Kangaroo again!" Really? Have you ever seen a commercial pig, chicken, or cattle farm? Kangaroos may die inhumanely, but pigs, chickens, and cattle are raised in the most confined space it's possible to keep them in: their entire life is pain and inhumanity. And we all eat that all the time, so I'm not buying your conclusion.

I'm okay with (if not enthusiastic about) hunting, if it's properly managed. But if kangaroos are endangered by the hunt, I'm in favour of a massive curtailing of the hunt. Although how successful that would be is somewhat dubious: one of the talking heads pointed out what a complete failure that's been for our oceans. But in the case of the kangaroo, the management would be contained inside one country, thus eliminating the ocean's biggest management problem. The problem is that the government and the kangaroo meat industry seem to be successfully obfuscating the numbers.

In the end, I found the movie clearly biased and lacking in hard facts (not entirely their fault). It was also a bit long.

2017, dir. Mick McIntyre, Kate McIntyre Clere.

The Karate Kid (2010)

A remake of the 1984 movie of the same title. The plot is almost identical, except this time it's set in China (and it's "Kung Fu," not "Karate," but why change the title?).

Smith plays the 12 year old Dre Parker, who's moved the Beijing from Detroit with his mother. He falls for a young violinist at his school, and gets on the bad side of Cheng (Wang), a well-trained martial artist and bully. You know the plot: Cheng trains with the evil Kung Fu master, Dre finds himself training with the maintenance man (Chan, actually doing something resembling acting), and it all hinges on the big tournament at the end of the movie.

It's predictable even if you're not familiar with the original (which it follows quite closely). But they did a really good job with it and it's a lot of fun. This may actually develop the kind of lasting fame the original got.

2010, dir. Harald Zwart. With Jackie Chan, Jaden Smith, Taraji P. Henson, Zhenwei Wang, Yu Rongguang, Wen Wen Han.

Kate & Leopold

Time-travelling-rom-com, my favourite obscure subgenre of film! (In case you're wondering, I'm mostly serious - see also "The Lake House.") Jackman plays a Duke Leopold Mountbatten in 1876 New York brought to modern-day New York by Stuart Besser (Schreiber), who has discovered a way to travel backwards and forwards in time - occasionally. In modern New York, Leopold meets Kate McKay (Ryan) and they fall for each other. Which is lovely, but it's looking like Leopold has to go back in time because his absence is creating time paradoxes. Their introduction of the concept of time paradoxes would suggest that they would work out any in their film very carefully, but they didn't - disappointing, but not too surprising. They also messed up rather badly on the state of Leopold's knowledge: he knew a lot of things (even before he jumped forward in time) that weren't to happen for several years (music, Edison's fame). And they played up Jackman's coming from the past whenever it would be funny, and ignored it whenever it would be inconvenient. But ... suspend disbelief and this is still a rather enjoyable movie: Jackman is great as always, Ryan is really good and has rarely been so lovely, and Schreiber is near-perfect as the slightly unhinged but brilliant ex-boyfriend (I've never really liked him before). Wikipedia's entry on the movie tells me that the DVD includes a four minutes longer "director's cut" that includes an awesome little time travel twist that makes all kinds of sense but probably got nixed by a nervous producer or a test audience. Don't read it until after you've seen the movie.

2001, dir. James Mangold. With Meg Ryan, Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Breckin Meyer.

Keanu

A stupid-ass movie about a couple of stupid-ass middle class guys who fall in love with a kitten, and then when they have to get the kitten back from a drug dealer, decide it's okay to try to act like drug dealers themselves to achieve their ends. This is for comedic effect, although things do get a bit ugly. Not my kind of humour, and I ended up skipping about half the movie.

2016, dir. Peter Atencio. With Jordan Peele, Keegan-Michael Key, Tiffany Haddish, Method Man, Jason Mitchell, Luis Guzmán, Nia Long, Will Forte.

Keeping the Faith

Norton and Stiller are a priest and rabbi respectively, friends since childhood. Long-lost companion Elfman shows up and things get a bit crazy. This is a very enjoyable film, very funny. Norton's first try at directing, and he's remarkably assured at the helm. Not a brilliant movie, but the commentary he supplies on the movie and the deleted scenes show he really understands what he's doing, and I think he's going to be as fabulous a director as he's been an actor if he chooses to follow that path. I love its very warm and laid back attitude about religion.

2000, dir. Edward Norton. With Edward Norton, Ben Stiller, Jenna Elfman, Eli Wallach, Milos Forman, Anne Bancroft, Holland Taylor, Ron Rifkin, Rena Sofer, Ken Leung.

Kick-Ass

Based on a comic, examines what might happen if someone (in the "real" world, without super powers) decided to dress up in a suit and defend justice. That person is Dave Lizewski (Johnson), a high school student who reads a lot of comics and isn't too thrilled with his life. He buys a wet suit from the internet and starts running around on rooftops at night. Eventually he tangles with some criminals - and gets his ass kicked. But he inspires others, and - despite injuries - persists. Of course it all has to ramp up to a big finale in which it seems a lot less like the real world and a lot more like people with super powers.

The ending is massively over-the-top, but for the most part I really enjoyed this as a somewhat more "real" take on superheroes (see also "Watchmen"). Quite violent, but a lot of fun.

2010, dir. Matthew Vaughn. With Aaron Johnson, Chloë Grace Moretz, Nicolas Cage, Mark Strong, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Lyndsy Fonseca.

Kickboxer: Vengeance

Traditional set-up: "you killed my brother so I will kill you!" martial arts revenge killing, but Kurt Sloane's (Alain Moussi) first attempt on Tong Po (Dave Bautista) is stopped, and he goes to train with the legendary trainer Master Durand (a still surprisingly fit and flexible Jean-Claude Van Damme, desperately sucking in his gut when his shirt is off). The plot is a remake of the original "Kickboxer" (1989), in which JCVD was Kurt Sloane training in Thailand to avenge his brother's crippling in the ring at the hands of Tong Po.

Moussi is vanilla in the lead. Not terrible, not overly appealing either. He's good looking, flexible, and well trained in the martial arts.

Sara Malakul Lane plays Liu, a cop who was supposed to escort him out of the country. I didn't think she looked Thai at all, but it turns out she's half Thai and half Scottish. And her primary qualification for being in a movie isn't acting or even martial arts skills, it's a history as a model. Convenient when she gets her top off, but doesn't otherwise bring much to the movie.

And they hired Gina Carano to play a fight promoter in a martial arts movie and never put her in a single fight? Seriously? What, you wanted her for her acting chops? Get serious! And then there's JCVD: it's a proven fact he can act (go watch "JCVD" sometime), but he's not even trying here. Nobody is, so let's blame the director for that one. Bautista has also proven he can act ... so it would have been nice to use him for something more than a one-note muscle-bound bad guy. The script is bad too: when Kurt asks Durand to arrange a fight with Tong Po, he replies "I can't lose two sons." Wait, what? You've trained Kurt for a month (? it's unclear) and you consider him your "son?" We know how long you trained Kurt's brother: a WEEK, that's how long Durand trained him - and considers him a "son." And right after he says he can't lose another son, he arranges the fight. Wow - that's broken logic.

But no one comes to a martial arts movie for the acting, right? So what am I bitching about? And how are the fights? They're okay at best: choppy editing and a particular avoidance of showing hits means it's just not that good.

2016, dir. John Stockwell. With Alain Moussi, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dave Bautista, Sara Malakul Lane, Gina Carano, Darren Shahlavi, Georges St-Pierre, Matthew Ziff, T.J. Storm.

Kickboxer: Retaliation

Having watched "Kickboxer: Vengeance" a couple weeks ago, you'd think I'd know better - but reviews claimed that this was "better" than its predecessor. In part because the director decided to entirely forego a plot. That part is true: we establish that Kurt Sloan (Alain Moussi) is an MMA star (when he wants to be) and that he's happily married to his sweetheart from the previous movie (Sara Malakul Lane). And then he's kidnapped and flown to Thailand, where he's thrown in jail and fights and trains for a final fight against a monster of a man (Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson). That last bit of casting is a real mixed blessing: Björnsson is no martial artist, but he is HUGE (206 cm, 205 kg) and has the credentials: he is, by quite a few measures, the strongest man in the world right now. And then we've got Christopher Lambert as the evil fight promoter who's arranged all this, Mike Tyson as Moussi's new guru, Jean-Claude Van Damme as his returning guru, and Ronaldinho even shows up as part of his training team.

I thought Lane was poor in the last movie. This time it's not really her fault: she's apparently only in the movie to say "you scared me!" or "don't scare me!" and give us multiple reaction shots as Moussi gets the shit kicked out of him in the final fight. And you know what? Just like the last movie, the fights are kind of mediocre. If you're thinking of watching this, go watch Scott Adkins' under-rated "Avengement" or watch "The Raid: Redemption" again.

2016, dir. Dimitri Logothetis. With Alain Moussi, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, Mike Tyson, Christopher Lambert, Sara Malakul Lane, Steven Swadling, Sam Medina, Miles Strommen, Randy Charach, Brian Shaw, Ronaldinho, Fabricio Werdum.

The Kid Who Would Be King

A British children's movie about a modern day bullied young school boy who finds the sword Excalibur. The boy is Alex (Louis Serkis), and he soon finds himself reliving parts of his favourite book, the story of King Arthur. Together with his best friend and two of his worst enemies (like Arthur, Alex recruits his enemies to his cause) and a particularly loopy version of Merlin, they have to defeat the returned evil sorceress Morgana.

The movie is kind of crazy, a high production-values B-movie logic kids movie. That feels like it was conceived and executed in the 1980s (it came out in 2019). The kid actors were good, with Angus Imrie a particular stand-out as Merlin (... when he wasn't played by Patrick Stewart, long story). It's hard to be charismatic while delivering the most ridiculous lines in an already exceptionally ridiculous movie, but he managed it. The movie is overall thoroughly charming, despite being far too goofy for its own good.

2019, dir. Joe Cornish. With Louis Serkis, Dean Chaumoo, Tom Taylor, Rhianna Doris, Angus Imrie, Patrick Stewart, Rebecca Ferguson, Denise Gough.

Kiki's Delivery Service

Another children's coming of age story from Miyazaki in a world that resembles ours except that it has dirigibles, transport biplanes, and witches. Possibly more traditional that his usual work, and occasionally a little heavy handed with its message(s), still a very good movie. The artwork is gorgeous.

1989, dir. Hayao Miyazaki. With Kirsten Dunst, Phil Hartman.

Kill Bill Vol. 1

It must be nice to be Quentin Tarantino. "Your movie is to long to go to theatres. Edit it." "No." "Okay, we'll release it as two movies." I suppose this is Tarantino's tribute to the martial arts movies he loves. As always, he experiments heavily - he switches to black and white in places, and shows about five minutes of the story as anime. And, as always, the blood splatters. The martial arts on display were glossy and completely over the top - I didn't enjoy it much. The emotional content approached nil, which I suppose was to be expected. But that doesn't leave much, does it?

Revisiting this in 2020, having seen most of his other pictures, his love of the vicious bloody kill is more apparent than ever. If there's revenge involved, all the better. The movie is visually stunning in many places, and the set pieces are impressive, but I find his bloodlust stomach-churning. I leave it to others to sing his praises.

2003, dir. Quentin Tarantino. With Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu.

The Killer (orig. "Dip huet seung hung")

The movie that put John Woo on the map. The blurb on the back claims: "The Killer is a pulse-stopping action sensation more bullet-riddled than any movie in history." What they don't mention is the half-hour scenes of staggering sentimentality you have to wade through to see the relatively short gun battles. Chow Yun-fat plays Jeffery, a hit man thinking about retiring since his previous hit (the first scenes of the movie) caused him to accidentally blind the pretty female bar singer Jenny (Sally Yeh). He becomes involved with Jenny, and accepts one last hit in the hope of earning enough money to get Jenny the operation she needs to restore her sight. The movie is very much about loyalty and honour, and terribly heavy-handed about it. Did I mention the sentimentality? This movie went on to inspire a generation of filmmakers (Quentin Tarantino in particular comes to mind, but many others borrowed heavily as well) keeping the honour and replacing the sentimentality with machismo and a quicker pace.

1989, dir. John Woo. With Chow Yun-fat, Danny Lee, Sally Yeh, Kong Chu, Kenneth Tsang.

Killer Elite

Statham once again plays the honourable criminal, a role he's played so often he probably does it in his dreams. In this case he's Danny Bryce, an assassin in 1980, who's decided to get out of the business but is dragged back in (another cliché). His best friend (played by De Niro) who is also a hired killer, gets kidnapped after he refuses to do a job and Bryce has to do the job to save his friend. This involves killing three SAS soldiers and making each one look like an accident - not easy, and the reason his friend ran.

There are some decent bits of action, but the movie is long and tiresome. I can't explain why it doesn't work: it's well constructed, decent acting, some good action, but the ultimate effect is more likely to be soporific.

2011, dir. Gary McKendry. With Jason Statham, Clive Owen, Robert De Niro, Dominic Purcell, Aden Young, Yvonne Strahovski, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje.

Killjoys, Season 1

Ten episodes per season, 42 minutes per episode Science Fiction series.

Canadian-made Firefly-lite mashed up with a kind of "Boba Fett" with a conscience ... Our heroes are three (two in the first episode) bounty hunters, with the problems and politics of the four planet system they work in clearly laid out almost immediately. So much so that the eventual direction of the whole series was telegraphed by the second episode. The writing is often very good, but always uneven. The acting is acceptable but less than stellar. Several days have elapsed since I finished watching the first season, and it's less than clear if I'll be returning to watch the second: I probably will, as it passes the time. (This is known as "damning with faint praise.")

2015. With Hannah John-Kamen, Aaron Ashmore, Luke Macfarlane, Thom Allison, Nora McLellan, Frank Moore.

Kind Hearts and Coronets

Louis D'Ascoyne Mazzini (played by Price) was raised by a mother obsessed with the rich and titled family that had abandoned her when she eloped with an Italian opera singer. In his turn, Louis becomes obsessed with fulfilling her dying wish to be buried on the family estate. He is, after all, eighth or ninth in line for the Dukedom - if only all those intervening family members would die. Initially his interest in that idea is passive, but a chance encounter with one of the family members brings him to the conclusion that causing a death or two would be quite alright. There's also a substantial story line about his dalliance with a beautiful young woman - he proposed to her but she turned him down because he was too poor, instead marrying rich and boring. So now she visits him on the side. (Apparently, when this British movie came to America, the Hayes Code forced some editing on them to lessen the horrible infidelity that was implied.)

I don't know that I ever laughed out loud, but I grinned through huge portions of the movie. Price is so casually and charmingly evil, and the variety of Guinness' that he offs (in so many different ways) is just marvelous. (Alec Guinness plays all eight of the relatives he kills, including one woman.) And the punchline is both ironic and funny. According to Wikipedia this movie is on at least two significant "Top 100" lists (Time and the British Film Institute): I found it a little light-weight for that, but it's definitely a lot of fun.

1949, dir. Robert Hamer. With Dennis Price, Alec Guinness, Valerie Hobson, Joan Greenwood, Audrey Fildes, Miles Malleson, Clive Morton, John Penrose.

Kindergarten Cop

Director Ivan Reitman starts the movie by setting up Arnold Schwarzenegger's character as an incredibly tough (and unshaven) cop who walks into a gang clubhouse with a shotgun and runs out everyone in the place with ease. But he needs proof to actually arrest a serial murderer that he's been following for four years. And that leads to him and a new partner heading out to Oregon where the new female partner is to be a kindergarten teacher in a school - they know the murderer's son is there, but they don't have a name or anything. But the partner gets a horrible stomach bug, and tough cop Schwarzenegger ends up having to teach kindergarten.

The humour consists primarily in making Schwarzenegger look as silly as possible, but enough of it goes so wonderfully against type that it ended up being fun. And of course there's a grand finale, and a little bit of romance. Not a good movie, but surprisingly fun.

1990, dir. Ivan Reitman. With Arnold Schwarzenegger, Penelope Ann Miller, Pamela Reed, Linda Hunt, Richard Tyson, Carroll Baker, Christian and Joseph Cousins.

King Arthur

A modern revision of the King Arthur myth based on a relatively current theory that Arthur and his knights may have been employees of Rome. The knights are greasy and rude, and not precisely morally pure. The movie had some very good ideas and some decent performances and nice battle scenes, but is sabotaged by a messy and uneven plot. You would have to see it to believe that they can make seven winning a battle against 150 almost convincing ... It was nice to see that Gruffudd can actually act when he's not doing an accent (he was pretty bad in the "Fantastic Four"), and he definitely looks better with the beard.

2004, dir. Antoine Fuqua. With Clive Owen, Keira Knightley, Ioan Gruffudd, Mads Mikkelsen, Joel Edgerton, Hugh Dancy, Ray Winstone, Ray Stevenson, Stephen Dillane, Stellan Skarsgård.

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

A documentary about two people competing for the high score on the video game "Donkey Kong." It's not really about the video game, but about the people - and like so many documentaries about these niche environments, it's perversely fascinating. Quite good.

2007, dir. Seth Gordon. With Steve Wiebe, Billy Mitchell, Walter Day.

Kingdom of Heaven

This is one of them there "Epic movies:" big names, big scenes, big bucks ($130 million), big flop. I don't have a major objection to directors or screenwriters re-writing history for a better story ... it's just that Scott didn't manage to make anything good of it. It didn't help any that Bloom decided this would be the movie where he would prove definitively that he cannot act.

The story starts with blacksmith Balian (Bloom) having lost his wife and stillborn child, finding out his real father is the knight Godfrey (Neeson), now headed for the Holy Lands and the Crusades. We find that Balian, Godfrey, and the Hospitaler riding with them (Thewlis) have a remarkably modern and open-minded view of religion (let all religions share the Kingdom of Heaven, and let each worship God in their own way).

I enjoyed watching the siege engines and seeing the historical recreation: Scott messed with the history, but not the period accuracy, except for cleanliness. Everyone should have been dirtier, with poorer haircuts and worse teeth. It's supposed to be 1180! I was amused to notice that the extras included a note that Europeans learned the concept of bathing daily from the Muslims during the Crusades.

There are some good things about the movie: some of the cinematography, the sheer scale, some of the (short) discussions of honour and religion, some of the acting. Might be worth seeing if you like "epics."

2005, dir. Ridley Scott. With Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Brendan Gleeson, Liam Neeson, Marton Csokas, David Thewlis, Jeremy Irons, Edward Norton, Ghassan Massoud, Alexander Siddig.

Kingdom, Season 1

"Kingdom" was a British TV series (six episodes of 46 minutes in the first season) starring Stephen Fry as Peter Kingdom, a small town solicitor attempting to deal with the eccentric residents of his town, his crazy half sister, and the recent death of his half brother (who was also his partner).

I like Fry, which is why I picked this up from the library: he's a charming guy, and Peter Kingdom is a good man trying to navigate rather troubled waters. The other major characters are his secretary Gloria Millington (Celia Imrie), his "articled clerk" (which we North Americans can read as "trainee solicitor/lawyer") Lyle Anderson (Karl Davies), and his fantastically annoying (and somewhat mentally ill) half sister Beatrice Kingdom (Hermione Norris) who moves in with him in the first episode. Recurring characters include the very smelly legal gadfly Sidney Snell (Tony Slattery) who's always suing city council, and Peter's very intelligent aunt Auriel (played by the always enjoyable Phyllida Law).

As a whole, the series is quite low key: the stakes are low and the worst problems are family. The sporadic appearance of a threatening gang enforcer to claim money from Peter because of Simon's debts seemed totally out of place. And Beatrice's reversal over the course of the season from total fuck-up to useful part of his life made her somewhat more appealing but was in no way explained. I really liked the main character, the setting, and most of the secondary characters, but I'm going to skip the other seasons because of the significant logical inconsistencies and tonal failures.

2007, created by Simon Wheeler. With Stephen Fry, Hermione Norris, Celia Imrie, Karl Davies, Tony Slattery, Phyllida Law, John Thomson, Dominic Mafham.

The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness

Documents roughly a year in the life of Studio Ghibli, while the studio was working on both "The Tale of Princess Kaguya" (Isao Takahata) and "The Wind Rises" (Hayao Miyazaki). The filmmaker spent all her time at the location where Miyazaki was and Takahata was not - so, while there were many references to Takahata and he even shows up for a few moments, I don't think he speaks in this film.

Miyazaki is a particularly opaque man. He smokes like a chimney and makes comments that are occasionally unclear and sometimes contradictory of other things he's said. At the end of the movie they showed his retirement press conference, at which he read a statement that said "I hope to work for another ten years." Those working around him, and their working process, make this an interesting movie to fans of Ghibli.

2013, dir. Mami Sunada. With Hayao Miyazaki, Toshio Suzuki, Hideaki Anno, Isao Takahata.

The King's Man

This is, in effect, the origin story of the "Kingsman" organization that we first saw in the very good "Kingsman: The Secret Service." (I see my review of that was ... well, not 100% positive. I've rewatched it several times and really enjoy it now.) The sequel ("The Golden Circle") kind of sucked. This prequel is a mess. It has a game central performance from Ralph Fiennes, and while it has a few fun action set pieces, it also has a couple others so improbable and ridiculous as to offset the good ones. It also felt very muddled as it mixed views of a life of privilege with World War I front-line drama and then switched to an unlikely spy drama.

The biggest and stupidest plot hole (there are many, but this one out-gapes the others) is why anyone would choose to work for "The Shepherd." He's a James Bond villain, but at least James Bond villains appeared to pay their minions. This one expects loyalty to the death, and kills his associates whenever he gets pissed off. Yet they continue to do whatever stupid thing he says even knowing that. No explanation is ever given as to why these accomplished (if unpleasant) people would throw their lives away at the request of this insane maniac.

2021, dir. Matthew Vaughn. With Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, Rhys Ifans, Matthew Goode, Tom Hollander, Harris Dickinson, Daniel Brühl, Djimon Hounsou, Charles Dance.

The King's Speech

The story is pretty simple: Albert (Colin Firth), soon to be King George VI, has a very bad stutter. His wife (Helena Bonham Carter) finds him a speech therapist, Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush). Logue is eccentric but good. Firth, Rush, and Bonham Carter - all superb actors - are put on a well written script, giving us a very good movie.

2010, dir. Tom Hooper. With Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter, Guy Pearce, Timothy Spall, Michael Gambon, Jennifer Ehle, Derek Jacobi.

Kingsman: The Secret Service

A number of co-workers told me how wonderful "Kingsman: The Secret Service" was. One or two had the restraint to refer to it as "fun" rather than "excellent" or other unnecessarily freighted words, but the majority vote seemed to lean to this being a work of great value. So my expectations were very high - and correspondingly crushed. If only they'd stopped at "fun."

The movie starts by establishing the kind of over-the-top excellence of the Kingsmen, but also the guilt that Harry Hart (Colin Firth) feels over losing his new recruit. This leads quite a few years later to him bailing Eggsy (Taron Egerton - playing the troubled son of the dead recruit) out of jail, and recruiting him for the Kingsmen. What follows is a series of action set pieces and escapades with the kind of techno-toys James Bond usually carries - but applied with considerably more panache and enthusiasm than the Bond series has mustered in years.

The end result is a charming and entertaining if rather empty film. It's fun and funny, but don't expect brilliance.

2014, dir. Matthew Vaughn. With Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Strong, Taron Egerton, Michael Caine, Sofia Boutella, Sophie Cookson.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle

It's a Hollywood sequel. What does that mean? More. Of everything. Traditionally explosions, but more importantly tastelessness, stupidity, and run-time. (I was a huge fan of the original film: it was a blast.)

We start the film with Eggsy (Taron Egerton) being attacked by Charlie Hesketh - a former failed Kingsman recruit (seen in the last movie) now apparently working for some other organization. This is followed by missile hits on every Kingsman, leaving only Merlin (Mark Strong) and Eggsy alive. Having no home infrastructure left, they turn to "The Statesmen," a similar organization to the Kingsmen in the U.S. These are played with considerably exaggerated Americaness by Jeff Bridges, Pedro Pascal, Halle Berry, and Channing Tatum. And they find out that Harry Hart (Colin Firth) is still alive (never mind he was shot in the head in the last movie) ... but he has amnesia. Julianne Moore joins the cast as a totally over-the-top drug lord - who is keeping Elton John captive to play Gershwin tunes for her.

One thing there isn't more of is people to save: last time they had to save pretty much everyone on the entire planet, this time they only have to save 100 million or so. As has often been pointed out, when the numbers are that large, nobody can actually visualize or understand the difference anyway.

I admit that I quite enjoyed several segments of the movie. But I cringed just as often as I laughed, and that doesn't balance well for me - especially compared to the original movie which had only one or two cringes and was otherwise hugely entertaining from end to end.

2017, dir. Matthew Vaughn. With Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Taron Egerton, Mark Strong, Pedro Pascal, Halle Berry, Elton John, Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges, Edward Holcroft, Hanna Alström, Bruce Greenwood, Emily Watson.

Kinky Boots

A rather conventional shoe factory in Northampton is about to go under (as many have before it) unless they find a new market for their shoes. You might even guess from the name of the movie where that market might lie. Led by the reluctant inheritor of the factory, Charlie Price (Joel Edgerton), who is assisted by drag queen Lola (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and would-be unemployed shoe-maker Lauren (Sarah-Jane Potts), they struggle to prepare the new line for a major shoe show.

It's funny and charming and I enjoyed it, but it was all a little too easy. Ejiofor is better than the others in the toughest role.

2005, dir. Julian Jarrold. With Joel Edgerton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sarah-Jane Potts, Jemima Rooper, Nick Frost, Linda Bassett, Robert Pugh.

Kinsey

Good as biopics go, and Kinsey was an interesting character. I thought I knew how much of a difference he made, but perhaps I didn't. Fascinating, a bit disturbing.

2004, dir. Bill Condon. With Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, Chris O'Donnell, Peter Sarsgaard, Timothy Hutton, John Lithgow, Oliver Platt.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Robert Downey Jr. plays a lousy robber abruptly recruited to try out for a movie in L.A. He's also our wonky narrator. Once in L.A., he's sent off to detective school with "Gay Perry," played by Val Kilmer, and hooks up with the love of his life from his childhood (Michelle Monaghan). Corpses and schemes pile up quickly. Not full-on surreal, but pretty damn bizarre, a cross between film noir and ... I don't know what, partly a parody of Hollywood. Pay attention: you'll need your wits about you to make it through this one knowing what's going on. It all makes sense, but it's complex and a bit surreal.

2005, dir. Shane Black. With Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer, Michelle Monaghan, Corbin Bernsen, Dash Mihok, Larry Miller, Rockmond Dunbar, Shannyn Sossamon, Angela Lindvall.

Kissed

Molly Parker plays a necrophiliac who has trouble in her relationship with her live boyfriend (Peter Outerbridge). Both are excellent, and the movie is very well done. This isn't a horror movie, nor even intended to shock - although it will probably do that. Any movie that openly portrays necrophilia and leaves it up to you to figure out what you think of it and why is bound to be a pretty uncomfortable voyage for most people. I had to stop it a couple of times when it got too creepy.

1996, dir. Lynne Stopkewich. With Molly Parker, Peter Outerbridge, Jay Brazeau, Natasha Morley.

Knight and Day

Cameron Diaz plays June Havens, who runs into Roy Miller (Tom Cruise) in an airport, then takes the same nearly empty flight with him. Unfortunately, he kills all the crew (he had to) and crash-lands the plane in a field. But makes sure she's okay. etc.

Diaz doesn't look good (although I may be in a small group thinking so) and doesn't act well. Cruise looks like he's having a blast, but his performance is (perforce) over-the-top. It should have been more entertaining than it was, but it was amazingly silly and not nearly as funny as it thought it was.

2010, dir. James Mangold. With Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Peter Sarsgaard, Maggie Grace, Paul Dano, Marc Blucas.

Knights of the Zodiac

Based on the manga Saint Seiya. Every bit as stupid as I expected, so my hope was that it would also be "fun." The effects are reasonably good, and they chose from the top end of B-list actors' list. Famke Janssen, Madison Iseman, Mark Dacascos, Sean Bean (who dies, because he almost always dies ...).

The protagonist is "Seiya," played by the mononymous "Mackenyu" - who turns out to have at least two different last names he's gone by ("Maeda" and "Arata"), neither of which match that of his famous father, Sonny Chiba. Closer examination shows that Sonny Chiba's birth name was "Sadaho Maeda." Mackenyu is good-looking, buff, and an untalented actor. Seiya has a tragic back-story which we see a bit of: he's a street orphan, raised (and taught how to fight) by his older sister, who was taken from him by an evil organization.

After that small piece of back-story, we see Seiya entering an underground fighting tournament. He's very good at not getting hit, but when he's battered by the leader of the underground tournament, he manifests "Cosmo," which we see as flaring blue light and which protects him. And then Sean Bean and Marc Dacascos show up to rescue him before the evil organization can haul him away because he has "Cosmo." It turns out that he's destined to become the Pegasus Knight, defender of the goddess Athena. (Did I mention that this is silly?) We get more fights, a training montage, Seiya bonding with the young woman who will become Athena (Madison Iseman), and eventually the big final fight.

The problem is ... Iseman and Mackenyu are carrying the story, and they're not very good actors. Of course most people who watch this aren't overly concerned with that minor detail, but should they pay attention to the "drama" instead of the action, they'll be deeply disappointed. The supporting cast is no better: take, for example, Mark Dacascos. A good martial artist who isn't a terrible actor, but will never be cast as a dramatic lead. Although Diego Tinoco deserves some kind of recognition as the worst of the lot as the lead henchman of the antogonist: he put on sarcasm-face at the beginning of the movie and didn't drop it for the entire run.

This was never intended to be a stand-alone movie - it was a manga series after all. They carefully set up a sequel at the end, a sequel that's extremely unlikely to land as not only did this bomb with critics, its box office was awful. Sorry Seiya, you may be the Pegasus Knight but we'll never see the rest of the Zodiac.

2023, dir. Tomek Bagiński. With Mackenyu, Famke Janssen, Madison Iseman, Diego Tinoco, Mark Dacascos, Nick Stahl, Sean Bean, Caitlin Htson, Katie Moy, TJ Storm, David Torok, Ryusei Iwata.

Knocked Up

Reasonably responsible woman goes to bar, meets funny irresponsible stoner dude, sex and pregnancy follow. Funny, offensive, occasionally charming, and surprisingly decent.

2007, dir. Judd Apatow. With Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl, Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Jason Segel, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Martin Starr.

Knives Out

Rian Johnson has already had an extraordinarily varied career: "Brick," "The Brothers Bloom," "Looper," "Star Wars: the Last Jedi," and now this. Of those, "The Brothers Bloom" has the lowest score on Rotten Tomatoes at 68%. The critics love him ... except for this critic: he's at about 30% on the Gilesmeter. I've seen all the named movies, and found every one of them overtly stylized and over-the-top. Had I thought about that list of movies before sitting down to this one ... I probably wouldn't have sat down. But I did, and it's ... "okay." Which makes it my favourite Rian Johnson movie.

The movie mashes up every heavy-handed detective trope ever created: Agatha Christie, "Clue," "Colombo," "Murder She Wrote," "The Thin Man" ... I could go on, but you get the idea. Christopher Plummer is Harlan Thrombey, the rich family patriarch and mystery author - dead late on the night of the family gathering for his 85th birthday party. The police think it's suicide, but someone has anonymously hired Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig, having a grand old time putting on a passable if not brilliant Southern accent). He insists that Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas), Harlan's paid nurse and possibly the only decent person in the household, accompany him as he investigates. But she's closer to the death than she wants to be ...

Johnson has crafted an appropriately (perhaps "ludicrously") complex mystery, complete with multiple reversals. Almost continuous hystrionics from an ensemble cast of some of North America's best actors reading a script in which they tear each other to shreds guarantees a fair bit of fun ... but I found it more annoying than masterful, and thought it mistook complexity for brilliance. But fans of the genre will undoubtedly enjoy this blend of send-up and tribute.

2019, dir. Rian Johnson. With Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, Lakeith Stanfield, Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martell, Christopher Plummer, Riki Lindhome, Edi Patterson, Frank Oz, K Callan, Noah Segan.

Knowing

I watched this because it's Alex Proyas. I don't always like his stuff but it's usually interesting. Unfortunately, this is possibly his dullest piece of work. At its best it's distinctly creepy, but it aims too high and draws out many scenes far too long so it ends up being ridiculous and making it extremely hard for the viewer to suspend disbelief.

The story starts in 1959, when a young girl instead of making a drawing for a time capsule writes hundreds of numbers on a sheet of paper. Fifty years later, Nicolas Cage's son is given that sheet, and Cage realizes that the numbers give dates and numbers of deaths for every major disaster from then to now ... plus a couple more. And the "couple more" are of course the focus of the movie, as he watches them happen and tracks down the daughter of the woman who wrote the numbers (who thinks he's crazy). Not a brilliant premise, but could have been a good movie if it had been handled better. Oddly, I didn't see nearly as much of Proyas's visual flair in this one.

2009, dir. Alex Proyas. With Nicolas Cage, Rose Byrne, Chandler Canterbury, Lara Robinson.

Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance

Godfrey Reggio says that this film is about whatever you want it to be about. There's no dialogue, just 90 minutes of stunning cinematography portraying various parts of the earth. Given the title Reggio gave the film, he had a bit more of an agenda than he claims, but it's a pretty amazing thing to watch. Some parts are beautiful but tedious, some parts are ugly but fascinating ... it's a weird, weird mix. The mesmerizing, annoying, and occasionally great score is by Philip Glass. The amazing cinematography is by Ron Fricke.

1983. dir. Godfrey Reggio.

Kubo and the Two Strings

The latest movie from Laika - the company that brought us "Coraline," the marvelous "ParaNorman," and "The Boxtrolls." They've outdone themselves this time with animation of extraordinary beauty. Although it felt like approximately half of the movie was shot at sunset ... But it's not just the colours of sunset that make it so beautiful: many of the sets they've created are ... "simple" is the wrong word. "Simple" in the sense of perfectly planned and artfully, perfectly asymmetrical. Elegant, with gorgeous colours. And the writing is marvelously witty and lively.

Kubo is a young boy who cares for his mother, as day after day she seems to drift further from the world. He goes into the town to play his shamisen, with which he can animate sheets of paper to tell dramatic stories. One day he disobeys his mother's stricture to never stay out after dark ... and "the Sisters" come for him. Magical, powerful, and evil, he's saved by his mother who uses her own magic to send him away. He awakes to find himself in the care of a rather ill-tempered monkey.

The movie is a coming-of-age tale as Kubo goes on a quest and comes to terms with his rather bizarre parentage. I found the ending somewhat disappointing (Laika leans too heavily on their preference for non-violent solutions - admirable, but after four movies a little too predictable). But the journey ... One of the best animated movies of the year, just a lovely piece of work.

2016, dir. Travis Knight. With Art Parkinson, Charlize Theron, George Takei, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Brenda Vaccaro, Rooney Mara, Ralph Fiennes.

Kung Fu Killer

Also known as "Kung Fu Jungle."

Donnie Yen plays Hahou Mo, a now-jailed martial arts instructor. The police visit him after someone starts killing martial arts experts, and Hahou Mo convinces them to let him out because he knows so much about the case. The killer is soon revealed to be Fung Yu-Sau (Wang Baoqiang), but catching him wasn't as easy as figuring out who he was ... Much fighting and violence follows.

Yen is a notch above most movie martial artists as an actor. Not good, but better than his peers (and more charismatic). The fights (and they're why we watch martial arts films) are fairly good, but it's clear that the actors are often on wires. I don't mind that in the movies in which martial artists are essentially magical and can fly, but after years of watching Jackie Chan (who they thanked in the credits, as well as showing a small clip from "The Drunken Master") I've come to expect the best martial arts movies to not use wires unless there's flying involved. There was no flying here, but apparently the martial artists needed wires to stay balanced and achieve some of their moves. Too bad.

2014, dir. Teddy Chan. With Donnie Yen, Charlie Yeung, Wang Baoqiang, Bing "Michelle" Bai, Deep Ng.

Kung Fu Panda

We follow the story of overweight panda Po (Jack Black) who's a huge fan of Kung Fu. In an effort to see the selection of "the Dragon Warrior" he causes general havoc and literally falls into the title himself. Predictable from beginning to end, the movie is nevertheless enjoyable as it beats on the door of every martial arts cliché available and leaves a good laugh pretty much everywhere it goes. The animation is very nicely done as well.

I was surprised at how I completely failed to recognize the voices from the incredible line-up. I knew it was Black in the lead role, but I had trouble associating the voice with him, and the only other voice I identified without assistance was James Hong as Po's father (now that's a distinctive voice).

The 3D is superb - too bad 3D in the home is officially dead ...

2008, dir. John Stevenson and Mark Osborne. With Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Ian McShane, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Randall Duk Kim, James Hong, Dan Fogler, Jackie Chan, Michael Clarke Duncan.

Kung Fu Panda 2

Once again assembles a stellar voice acting cast, this time adding Jean Claude Van Damme, Michelle Yeoh, Gary Oldman, and Victor Garber. Like its predecessor, a fun movie. And the quality drop-off inherent in being a sequel ... isn't there. A wonderful follow-up.

Po the Panda (Jack Black) and the Furious Five - his martial arts brothers in arms - face off against Lord Shen (Oldman), a peacock with a very strong tie to Po's past. Yeoh plays the old goat (literally) soothsayer at Shen's family court - which turns out to be a fairly major role.

2011, dir. Jennifer Yuh Nelson. With Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Gary Oldman, Angelina Jolie, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross, James Hong, Jackie Chan, Michelle Yeoh, Danny McBride, Dennis Haysbert, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Victor Garber.

Kung Fu Panda 3

"Kung Fu Panda" came as something of a surprise: a kids' movie parodying martial arts movies. But the people who created it did a brilliant job of the parody to entertain the parents - and fans of martial arts movies like myself - but also made something fast-paced, colourful, silly, and funny that really appealed to kids. The sequel was another surprise: they had more than enough new ideas to turn out another entire movie of the same quality as the first. But ... they couldn't do that a third time, could they?

I'm with the critics here: they did it again. The dinky little chair-back screen I first watched it on (on a transatlantic flight) demonstrated the dazzlingly brilliant full-screen graphic design that's really being shown off in this one, and the thing stays funny from end to end. They've just about run out of martial arts clichés and tropes to parody, but this hasn't impaired the steady flow of jokes in the slightest. This time, evil martial artist Kai (J.K. Simmons) who used to be Master Oogway's brother-in-arms, returns from the spirit realm to drain the chi from all the great martial artists in the world (essentially zombifying them). At the same time, Po is once again wrestling with his identity as he's taken to the hidden village of the Pandas where his (biological) father lives. Not that the plot matters so long as the jokes keep rolling: and they do.

2016, dir. Jennifer Yuh Nelson and Alessandro Carloni. With Jack Black, Bryan Cranston, James Hong, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, J.K. Simmons, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Randall Duk Kim, Kate Hudson, Jackie Chan.

Kung Fu Yoga

Continues Jackie Chan's obsessions with: cars, high tech gadgets, archaeology, travelling all over the world, repatriation of archaeological treasures (really - the subject has appeared in several of his movies), and - while his lifelong obsession with institutionalizing sexism has been somewhat toned down - he's still sexualizing women because he can and he makes the movies. The movie also uses significant amounts of CG that it seems to think are indistinguishable from reality.

This movie starts with a history/legend of a China-India connection, a story of a great treasure lost between the two countries. Jackie (whose character's name is "Jack Chan") is - once again - a world-famous archaeologist. Along with an Indian archaeologist, a couple of teaching assistants from both countries, and the son of an old friend of his (who is a treasure hunter, another very common trope in Jackie's movies) who happens to be a good martial artist, they get tangled up with a rich and evil man who wants all the gold.

There's bloodless martial arts, lots of talk, pretty scenes in China and India, a lot of things covered in gold leaf, and way too much moralizing. Sort of like a Disney teamed up with Discovery Channel to make a straight-to-DVD movie with a bit more martial arts than usual.

2017, dir. Stanley Tong. With Jackie Chan, Aarif Rahman, Zhang Yixing, Sonu Sood, Miya Muqi, Disha Patani, Amyra Dastur.

Kusama: Infinity

A bit more than a year ago (2018-04) I saw the "Infinity Mirrors" display at the AGO. I had only been peripherally aware of Yayoi Kusama prior to that, but I immediately became a big fan. So I was very interested to see this movie about her.

I wasn't surprised to hear that she had an unpleasant - verging on traumatic - childhood. Nor that she was just generally a very weird lady her entire life. But she's an artist with a history of unusual artworks, cutting her own path rather than following anyone else's. The movie shows fairly clearly that in 1960s New York she had few shows and few sales (she's Japanese, and female, and in-your-face, not a combination that worked well in New York at the time), but she had a massive influence on other artists - who took her innovations and ran with them. She returned to Japan, and in 1977 checked into the Seiwa Hospital for the Mentally Ill. She resides there to this day, walking two blocks to her studio every day where she works.

In the late 1990s her work began to show all over the world - she is now the most sought after and most expensive living female artist in the world. They don't mention it directly, but it certainly seems like she's incredibly dedicated to her work: she works long hours every day and produces thousands of artworks.

Even if you don't like her art, her weird and not entirely pleasant life makes for interesting viewing.

2018, dir. Heather Lenz.


L

Lady and the Tramp

One of Disney's older pictures, with lots of songs and enough "cute" to choke a horse. The biggest threats found in the movie are rejection, rats, and the dog pound. Oh, and the Siamese Cats (now classified by Disney themselves as racist). There are some good moments (famously, the spaghetti dinner in which both dogs slurp on the same strand of spaghetti and end up "kissing" each other), but I find the movie staggeringly sentimental and significantly dumbed down - even by Disney standards.

1955, dir. Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske. With Peggy Lee, Barbara Luddy, Larry Roberts, Bill Thompson, Bill Baucom.

The Lady Eve

Barbara Stanwyck plays a con man, Henry Fonda the rich and bumbling mark. All is going swimmingly for Stanwyck and her two accomplices until she falls for him. Unfortunately, he finds out the truth at the wrong time.

There's plenty of witty dialogue at the beginning, and everyone is good except Fonda. Not that I'm blaming him for the deficiencies of the script: his character is such a clumsy, clueless guy that it's a wonder Fonda managed to sell him as reasonably sweet instead of downright stupid. The second half of the movie revolves around her reappearance in his life under another name - with a different hairstyle and different accent, and we're to believe he's too dumb to see who it is, and will fall for her all over again. I found what followed to be too bitter and nasty to be funny, and the conclusion to be both far too convenient and totally unbelievable. A promising beginning, a very sour end.

1941, dir. Preston Sturges. With Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn, William Demarest, Eugene Pallette, Janet Beecher.

Lady for a Day

Dave the Dude (Warren William) finds that Apple Annie (May Robson) is an essential source of good luck in his life, so when Annie's daughter is about to reappear from Europe and expects her mother to be a society lady, Dave helps out. I found the ending unsatisfying for various reasons, probably mostly because decades of movies have disagreed with director Frank Capra's resolution of the story. Fairy tale fantasy, not quite as cheesy as it sounds, and does manage some astonishingly funny laughs.

1933, dir. Frank Capra. With Warren William, May Robson, Guy Kibbee, Glenda Farrell, Ned Sparks.

The Lady from Shanghai

Not so well known as "Citizen Kane," "The Lady from Shanghai" is still a well known movie directed by and starring Orson Welles. Truth is, I never "got" "Citizen Kane." I understand that it's a good movie, but I don't love it. And the obsessive love this one gets - I don't understand that either. One of the few things it convinced me of was that Rita Hayworth was beautiful: but then, Welles was married to her at the time, so she got LOTS of close-ups (and turned in one of her best performances).

Welles plays Mike O'Hara, sporting an Irish accent he should have passed on. It's not very good, and a couple places where his words are out of synch with his lips suggest it was so bad they had to go back and get replacement tracks after shooting. O'Hara is a sailor who saves a beautiful woman (Hayworth) from a mugging in Central Park. He then flirts with her and eventually finds out she's married. The next day her very rich lawyer husband (Everett Sloane) comes to recruit O'Hara to work on their yacht on a long trip. Things get twisty.

I particularly liked Sloane as the acidic and generally nasty husband, and Glenn Anders as his slightly mad partner was pretty damn entertaining too. But as a whole I thought the movie wasn't much of a success as it tries to be a film noir.

1948, dir. Orson Welles. With Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, Everett Sloane, Glenn Anders, Ted de Corsia.

Lady in the Water

I came to this DVD knowing that the critics really didn't like it, but also knowing that, with it being M. Night Shyamalan, it would probably be interesting even if it was a mess. And it is indeed both things. Without Paul Giamatti (who is fabulous), this would be a complete and total disaster. With him, and with Bryce Dallas Howard's uneven but occasionally brilliant support, I enjoyed watching it. The problem is that Shyamalan has written a children's fairy tale, but presents it here to adults - and adults only. You wouldn't take your kids to this because A) you probably wouldn't think it was appropriate, and B) they'd be bored out of their skulls. But the logic remains child logic, and it doesn't work for adults. Too bad it has so many issues, it could have been great.

2006, dir. M. Night Shyamalan. With Paul Giamatti, Bryce Dallas Howard, M. Night Shyamalan, Bob Balaban, Jeffrey Wright.

The Lady Vanishes

Alfred Hitchcock's last British film, this demonstrates the amazing skills he was to take with him to make the rest of the films that made him really famous. The dialogue is - right from the beginning of the film - both witty and very revealing of the characters speaking the lines. Hitchcock ensures that no line of dialogue is ever wasted just to state a fact: it will also bring you to a better understanding of the character. And vice versa: if the audience needs to know more about a character, he'll also be advancing the plot. And it all flows seamlessly into a beautifully constructed whole.

In this case, our heroine is rich society lady Iris Henderson (Margaret Lockwood), about to return from vacation in the small and "undiscovered" country of Bandrika to be married. She's not terribly interested in marriage, but has little else she wants to do. But on the train back home, an older lady who had befriended her vanishes and most of the people on board claim the lady never existed. She's forced to team up with the charming but annoying Gilbert Redman (Michael Redgrave) in an attempt to solve the mystery.

Paranoia leavened with humour in classic Hitchcock style, all with a slight touch of Agatha Christie (Murder on the Orient Express was published in 1934 ...). One of my favourite Hitchcocks.

1938, dir. Alfred Hitchcock. With Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Dame May Whitty, Paul Lukas, Catherine Lacey, Cecil Parker, Linden Travers, Naunton Wayne, Basil Radford, Mary Clare, Emile Boreo, Googie Withers.

The Lake House

The titular lake house is a fabulous work of art - totally impractical, but fantastic to look at. And so goes the structure of the movie: if you can accept the deus ex machina mailbox transporting letters backwards and forwards through time, this is an elegantly structured and rather good piece of work. The reviews show that I was in a pretty small minority in that opinion. It's true that the dialogue is occasionally weak and I thought Ebon Moss-Bachrach was a poor match as Keanu Reeves's brother (and looked permanently queasy to boot), but Reeves and Sandra Bullock both turned in good performances and I really enjoyed it.

A couple other interesting things to look for are the gorgeous cinematography of Chicago - it's rarely looked so beautiful - and the very amusing Persuasion redux (Jane Austen that is). For SF fans, the time paradoxes are worked out astonishingly well and in meticulous detail.

The movie turns out to be based on a Korean film called "Il Mare" - a fact that's referenced in this movie by the name of an expensive restaurant. One instance where the American remake exceeds the original.

2006, dir. Alejandro Agresti. With Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, Christopher Plummer, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Dylan Walsh, Willeke van Ammelrooy, Lynn Collins.

La La Land

I'm not usually a fan of musicals, and should probably say that my review of any musical is thus untrustworthy ... and yet I really liked this one. To my considerable surprise.

They opened big, with a number that's probably going to haunt L.A. and make it proud for years to come: it's set on a gridlocked highway on ramp. It's colourful, outrageous, well presented, and a good song. As this winds down, we see our two stars: Mia Dolan (Emma Stone), a barrista and aspiring actress, and Sebastian Wilder (Ryan Gosling) a dedicated jazz pianist who wants to run a jazz bar.

It takes a while for them to connect, but they keep running into each other ... which, despite their initial disinterest, often leads to dancing and singing. Both of them did their own singing: I wasn't a huge fan of either of their singing voices. Not that they were bad, and I appreciate and prefer it this way anyway. And Gosling learned enough piano to apparently play everything himself - that's seriously impressive. Too colourful by half: sometimes it served the movie well, other times they were dyeing their actor's faces unflattering colours with floodlights (green? really?) in pursuit of vibrant colour excitement.

This is the third movie ("Crazy, Stupid, Love," and "Gangster Squad") Stone and Gosling have starred in together, and the director in one of the extras on the DVD was happy to compare them to Bogart and Bacall. Certainly, they have a great chemistry and are a joy to watch together.

Again - not a fan of musicals and yet really enjoyed this one.

2016, dir. Damien Chazelle. With Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, John Legend, Rosemarie DeWitt.

Larry Crowne

Tom Hanks plays the title character, who's fired from U-Mart (remarkably similar to Walmart) at the beginning of the movie. He's been Employee Of The Month eight times, but he's considered un-advanceable because he doesn't have a college education. So he gets a scooter to save money on gas and starts taking classes at the local community college, where he meets his very cute fellow student Talia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and her crew of scooter-riding buddies, and develops something of a crush on his disillusioned speech teacher, Mercedes Tainot (Julia Roberts).

Hanks directed as well as starring, and it feels like a vanity project: Hanks is front and centre for most of the movie, playing a goofy charming guy. Worse, he co-wrote the script with Nia Vardalos (of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"), and it's sickly sweet without a moment of threat from end to end. Good performances from Hanks, Roberts, and Mbatha-Raw make it somewhat entertaining and occasionally fun.

2011, dir. Tom Hanks. With Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Cedric the Entertainer, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Wilmer Valderrama, Bryan Cranston, Taraji Henson, Rami Malek, George Takei.

Lars and the Real Girl

Lars Lindstrom (Ryan Gosling) is a quiet guy in a small town (I think it's supposed to be Minnesota, but filmed entirely in Ontario). He lives in the garage out back of the house he co-owns with his brother (Paul Schneider), who lives in the house with his wife (Emily Mortimer). Mortimer tries to bring Lars into their life, but Lars resists. One day he shows up and announces that he has a girlfriend ... who turns out to be a RealDoll, an anatomically correct sex doll. He insists on treating her as human, and at the behest of the town psychologist (Patricia Clarkson), the entire town plays along.

They got some things right - Mortimer and Schneider are particularly good as the long-suffering family, Gosling is good as the delusional Lars, and they skip the puerile jokes - but the entire town being polite and kind to both Lars and his doll? I don't think so. Suspension of belief failed several times in the process. An interesting attempt, but not a huge success.

2007, dir. Craig Gillespie. With Ryan Gosling, Paul Schneider, Emily Mortimer, Kelli Garner, Patricia Clarkson.

The Last Action Hero

"The Last Action Hero" flopped - both commercially and critically - when it was released in 1993 (I rewatched it in 2020). I was among the small number of people who liked it. Arnold Schwarzenegger parodying himself? Count me in ...

The movie starts with Danny Madigan (Austin O'Brien, who would have been 11 or 12 during filming) at a late show of "Jack Slater III" in a very run-down theatre in New York. He's almost alone in the very large theatre, and when the image goes bad he runs up to wake Nick, the projectionist (Robert Prosky), who's clearly a friend of his.

The big story driver is Nick previewing a copy of "Jack Slater IV," to which he invites Danny - complete with a movie ticket Nick got from Harry Houdini but never used: the ticket turns out to be magic and hurls Danny into Jack Slater's world.

Jack Slater is a stock 1980s Arnold Schwarzenegger character. He's a cop, he survives anything with at most minor injuries, he's spectacularly macho, etc. etc. Danny points out that this is clearly a movie they're in and they bicker. Things get ugly when one of the bad guys gets the ticket and manages to escape the movie to our world, and Jack and Danny have to follow him. Jack Slater finds out that things actually hurt in our world.

They manage to mock almost every action movie trope, as well as Schwarzenegger's persona - both on and off screen (the inclusion of the "real" Schwarzenegger and his real-life wife Maria Schriver at a movie premiere is brilliant). The movie is badly structured and could have used some cutting for structure and for time, but despite that it's very funny and impressively meta. In fact, I'd argue you can draw a straight line from it to 2006's (admittedly better) "Stranger Than Fiction."

The number of cameo appearances is incredible, and many of them improve the movie because it's a movie about movies. The cameos by Sharon Stone and Robert Patrick (who played the T-1000 in Schwarzenegger's "Terminator 2") appear early on: they only last about three seconds each (and are apparently almost invisible in the 4:3 version, so watch it on Netflix in beautiful widescreen!), which gives you an indicator of the star power this thing was tossing around. They're beautifully played as Danny is trying to explain to Jack they're in a movie, but of course Jack doesn't recognize them as movie stars. We also have Jean-Claude Van Damme, Tina Turner, Ian McKellen as Ingmar Bergman's "Death" (yes, "Bill and Ted" got there first), Chevy Chase, and dozens of now-forgotten 80s and 90s celebrities. And Al Leong - not so much a cameo, but because he was a henchman in everything back then.

Highly recommended for fans of 1980s or 1990s action movies.

1993, dir. John McTiernan. With Arnold Schwarzenegger, Austin O'Brien, Charles Dance, Art Carney, F. Murray Abraham, Frank McRae, Tom Noonan, Robert Prosky, Anthony Quinn, Mercedes Ruehl, Tina Turner, Sharon Stone, Robert Patrick, Little Richard, Jim Belushi, Damon Wayans, Chevy Chase, Timothy Dalton, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Al Leong.

Last Chance Harvey

My initial assessment from the trailer was "formulaic rom com for the older set," and seeing it didn't change my mind. The movie plods along for the first 40 minutes establishing his miserable life and her dull one until they finally connect and it becomes entertaining. Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman work well together, the dialogue isn't totally predictable and it's often quite funny. They also both have speeches (his at the reception, hers about disappointment at the end of the movie) that absolutely no one else could have made convincing, and yet they both flew. Nice to see them together.

2009, dir. Joel Hopkins. With Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman, Eileen Atkins, Kathy Baker, Liane Balaban, James Brolin, Richard Schiff.

The Last Detail

Randy Quaid plays Meadows, a navy man given eight years of jail and a dishonourable discharge for an (unsuccessful) attempt to steal $40. Jack Nicholson and Otis Young play the "chasers" assigned to get him to jail. Over the course of five days or so they attempt to show Meadows a good time. Let me give you a hint: sailors don't go to the opera or the art gallery when they have free time.

The movie is well-played: Nicholson and Young are very good as navy lifers, and Quaid is good as the young innocent. But the movie doesn't really go anywhere or do much: they "show him a good time," but nobody learns much.

1973, dir. Hal Ashby. With Jack Nicholson, Otis Young, Randy Quaid, Clifton James, Carol Kane.

Last Flag Flying

The movie opens on "Doc" (Steve Carell) going to Sal's Bar. There it takes Sal (Bryan Cranston) a couple minutes and a bit of encouragement to realize that the two of them were in the Marines together. Doc shortly drags Sal out to a church, where they find their formerly hell-raising Marine companion "Mueller the Mauler" (Laurence Fishburne) is now a pastor. The next big surprise is a bit of a spoiler, but it happens 10 minutes in and it's in the trailer: Doc's son has just died, in the Marines, and he's asking his two buddies to help him bring his son home.

This is the best movie I've seen in six months. This is partly because I've spent the last three months watching mediocre TV shows, but also partly because it's really well done. The writing is very good (it's mostly about the stories we tell, the truths and the lies, and when to tell each), but the acting is what makes this one of those rare beasts, a great movie. Carell and Fishburne are very good, but Cranston is a revelation, an absolutely magnetic asshole - a brilliant performance. The three of them together are just a joy to watch, and the movie brilliantly balances humour and pathos, never letting you forget either.

2016, dir. Richard Linklater. With Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston, Laurence Fishburne, J. Quinton Johnson, Yul Vazquez, Richard Robichaux, Cicely Tyson.

The Last Full Measure

I've always been wary of the expression "inspired by true events" in the lead-up to a movie. In this case, I knew going in that this was, how can I say - embellished, but accurate enough in spirit. William H. Pitsenbarger was real (Wikipedia), and after a particularly conspicuous act of bravery during the Vietnam War (which lost him his life) he was put up for the Medal of Honor. The award was downgraded to an Air Force Cross. He was finally awarded the Medal of Honor 35 years later.

This movie is a dramatization of the process to get that honour for Pitzenbarger, with Sebastian Stan playing Pentagon staffer Scott Huffman, tasked with reviewing the potential medal upgrade. He's initially totally disinterested in the process, but encounters with Pitsenbarger's parents and the survivors of the battle eventually get through to him.

We kept flashing back to the day in question during the Vietnam War, which is fair enough. But I found it very hard to track which young guy is supposed to match which old guy: the young actors didn't look like the old actors, and for a movie that was distinctly heavy-handed about some issues, it was pretty light on guidance associating old guy/young guy.

We don't learn much about Pitsenbarger himself - except possibly the most important thing. He was an Air Force Pararesueman who came in a rescue helicopter but chose to stay on the ground, where he shouldn't even have been, to rescue and fight with Army men he didn't know, even knowing what it might cost him.

William Hurt and Ed Harris were typically very good. Sam Jackson ... well, he was Sam Jackson. And I'm not a huge fan of Christopher Plummer, although he was fairly good here. Stan in the lead was decent but not outstanding. It's a tale of extraordinary bravery that could have done with better selected staff and a slightly less melodramatic script. It might also have been better told on the day in question, rather than in flashbacks. I watched this because I loved "Hacksaw Ridge" (also a biographical movie about a medic in wartime who won the Medal of Honor) - ultimately, that one is better written and better put together.

2019, dir. Todd Robinson. With Sebastian Stan, Christopher Plummer, William Hurt, Ed Harris, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Irvine, Peter Fonda, Alison Sudol, Zach Roerig, Ser'Darius Blain, James Jagger, LisaGay Hamilton, Michael Imperioli, Diane Ladd, Amy Madigan, Linus Roache, John Savage, Cody Walker, Dale Dye, Richard Cawthorne.

The Last Legion

At the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, the twelve year old emperor Romulus Augustus (Thomas Sangster) is protected by a group of warriors (led by Colin Firth) and his teacher (Ben Kingsley). Lots of battle with no blood (but a lot of deaths) in the name of family-friendliness. It's cheesy and kind of stupid, but it's also very cute, earnest, and occasionally funny. Aishwarya Rai is pretty, but neither good as a warrior or as an actress - but does manage to pull off the connection with Firth. I enjoyed it.

2007, dir. Doug Lefler. With Colin Firth, Thomas Sangster, Aishwarya Rai, Ben Kingsley, Peter Mullan, Kevin McKidd, John Hannah, Rupert Friend, Nonso Anozie, James Cosmo, Owen Teale.

The Last Mercenary

Jean-Claude Van Damme has been around the action movie business for a very long time. He proved that he could act in "JCVD," but sadly this never led to him getting better roles. So he's still making cheesy action movies. This one doesn't fully acknowledge his age, but his character does have a college-age son. And, more importantly, it's pretty funny. It's not a very good movie or anything, but if all you want is some comedy and maybe a bit of martial arts fighting - you can do a lot worse.

Van Damme plays Richard Brumére, a former secret agent for France who vanished off the map as part of a deal to protect his newborn son. But now a bureaucratic screw-up has put his son's life in danger and suddenly Brumére must enter his son's life for the first time in 25 years. His son has no military training, and is horrified to be thrown into the midst of car chases and gun fights - although his two friends are surprisingly enthusiastic. It's mostly played for laughs, and I found it surprisingly successful. Van Damme's comedic timing isn't top notch, but it's more than adequate to keep things moving and he seems to be having a good time (as does everyone). And he's still seriously flexible. That doesn't mean you should watch this one for the fights: there are quite a few, and they showcase his flexibility, but they didn't do a great job of the fights overall.

2021, dir. David Charhon. With Jean-Claude Van Damme, Samir Decazza, Alban Ivanov, Assa Sylla, Eric Judor, Patrick Timsit, Miou-Miou, Djimo, Nassim Lyes, Michel Crémadès, Valérie Kaprisky, Philippe Morier-Genoud.

Last Night

Director (and actor) Don McKellar's rumination on the question "what would you do if the world was going to end tonight?" The event is never explained, but we have only about seven hours left when we start the movie. It's depressing ... but if it had that effect on me I guess I can't say it didn't do much for me. It's pretty good with a hell of a line-up of Canadian actors.

1998, dir. Don McKellar. With Don McKellar, Sandra Oh, Sarah Polley, David Cronenberg, Callum Keith Rennie.

The Last Samurai

High budget romanticism about the end of the samurai era in Japan. Despite being overblown and grandiose, it still manages to be very compelling: the cinematography is fantastic, the story very well constructed, and the actors do well. Tom Cruise plays a disillusioned hero of the Civil War who goes to Japan to train the Japanese army to fight the samurai. Instead, he ends up adapting the samurai way of life and regaining the honour he thought he'd lost forever. Ken Watanabe and Cruise have a wonderful chemistry. One of my favourite movies.

2003. dir. Edward Zwick. With Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe, Timothy Spall, Hiroyuki Sanada.

The Last Sentinel

This is a B movie post-apocalyptic knock-off of "Soldier" ... "Soldier" is itself a B movie with a better known star: it looks quite good compared to this. Don Wilson is looking old, and showing even less talent at acting than he has in the past. And since his martial arts skills also seem to have declined, why exactly is he the hero here? Maybe because he's financing this. The "drama" consists of Wilson, or Wilson and someone else, moving about in a cinder block wasteland hazed over with the dust of multiple explosions. The evil clone army has all gone to the Storm Trooper School of Marksmanship, so Wilson - despite constantly being massively outnumbered - hardly ever takes cover, relying on frontal attacks at a light jog. Guess who wins?

2022-04 UPDATE: This was directed by Jesse V. Johnson, who has gone on to better things since - see particularly "Avengement" (which also has a far better star in the form of Scott Adkins).

2007, dir. Jesse V. Johnson. With Don Wilson, Katee Sackhoff, Bokeem Woodbine, Keith David.

The Last Stand

Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Ray Owens, sheriff in the small town of Sommerton Junction right on the Mexican border. We eventually find out that he took the job to escape L.A. Narcotics after a drug bust went bad. The worst crimes he deals with are the mayor parking in the Fire Lane and a gun collector firing his toys at hanging sides of beef (an entertainment that the deputies also enjoy). But in Las Vegas, an evil drug lord (is there any other kind? but they go out of their way to assure you this one is particularly awful) is escaping during a prison transfer, and has chosen Sommerton as his border crossing back to Mexico in his stolen Corvette C6 ZR1.

While trailers and posters concentrate on this being another Schwarzenegger ass-kicking movie - and yes, there is some of that - the movie spends a fair bit of time on both his advanced age and his enjoyment of living in a small town where he knows everyone. Characters are reasonably well drawn, there's a fair bit of humour, and the action is good. No Oscars will be forthcoming, but I haven't enjoyed a movie this much in a long while.

2013, dir. Kim Ji-woon. With Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jaimie Alexander, Forest Whitaker, Eduardo Noriega, Johnny Knoxville, Luis Guzmán, Rodrigo Santoro, Peter Stormare, Zach Gilford, Génesis Rodríguez.

The Last Waltz

I should start by explaining my opinion of "The Band." I respect them, I even like some of their songs, and I understand how important they were. But I don't love them. I should also mention that I hadn't seen this before and am only now watching it in 2022 (it was released in 1978): which means I was watching it knowing that it's widely regarded as the best concert movie of all time.

Despite my relatively advanced age, I had to look up most of their guest stars - even some of those whose names they bothered to announce. Van Morrison turned out to be a pretty anonymous-looking guy ... but I knew who he was the instant he started singing. That's a distinctive voice. Others included Neil Young (dear lord I hate that man), Joni Mitchell, Dr. John, Neil Diamond, Eric Clapton, and Ringo Starr (him I didn't have to look up).

I've seen live concert movies before. Not a lot of them, but enough to know they're generally not all that good to look at (or even to listen to sometimes). This is definitely the exception everyone makes it out to be: it was recorded live (mostly - they did a couple of the tracks on a sound stage), but it looks (and sounds) great every step of the way. It's interlaced with interviews with The Band - sometimes them just talking, sometimes with questions from Martin Scorsese (who directed, and was clearly a fan).

The Band knew this was the end of the line for them: this had been set up as their farewell concert. In 2022, the movie feels to me more like a window in time and a brilliant technical achievement than a great piece of music: it was nice to hear some of their best known songs performed live (and very well - they were on their game when this was shot). But it carries none of the immediacy it probably had at the time. I liked it, I didn't love it, and I don't think I'll watch it again.

The 20 minute extra added to the DVD on the 25th anniversary of the event is absolutely worth watching. It mostly has Robbie Robinson and Scorsese talking about how they asked Scorsese to film the event, and then how it mushroomed into this thing with multiple cameras, set design, and something resembling a story line, while their concert promoter decided "if this is an event I'm getting more guest stars" and got some of the biggest and best in the world at the time. And all while keeping it running as a real, one-take concert with a live audience. I've never liked Scorsese's movies, but man, he has skills to bring such an amazing movie out of such a chaotic environment.

1978, dir. Martin Scorsese. Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Garth Hudson, Richard Manuel, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Dr. John, Neil Diamond, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr.

The Last Witch Hunter

Vin Diesel stars (he was also a producer) in this critical failure and box office ... break-even. He's shown first 800 years ago, trying to destroy the evil Witch Queen - who curses him with ever-lasting life. 800 years later in modern day New York, he works for the religious order The Axe and Cross, still hunting down bad witches. His handler (Michael Caine) dies, and is replaced by a new one (Elijah Wood - Vin Diesel makes camp movies but still pulls in some big names). He tries to trace the memories of his death (also his rebirth ...) with the assistance of modern witch Chloe (Rose Leslie of "Game of Thrones" fame).

Cheesy as hell, and nearly as bad as the critics branded it, but I guess it was my kind of silly because I enjoyed it.

They set up a sequel that will never come given the poor box office performance. And the credits mention film credits/assistance from: British Columbia, Australia, Pennsylvania, Quebec, and Ontario ... that's a lot of travelling.

2015, dir. Breck Eisner. With Vin Diesel, Rose Leslie, Elijah Wood, Michael Caine, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Julie Engelbrecht, Rena Owen, Isaach De Bankolé, Lotte Verbeek.

Late Night

Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson) hosts a long-running but fading late night TV talk show. Molly Patel (Mindy Kaling) is the somewhat accidental hire to Newbury's writer's room, the only woman (and an Indian one at that) in an all male and all white crowd. She has almost zero writing experience, but loves the show and starts spouting opinions.

The movie is exceptionally heavy-handed in its views about gender diversity and racial diversity. They name and mock "White Saviour," while making the film about a young female saviour. What I found far worse was that Kaling wrote herself as that saviour: it reeked of "look how good and important I am." It would have been more tolerable if she had written it for someone else, or someone else had written it for her.

The movie is funny: Thompson brings good acting to a somewhat overblown role (her character is a bit too much of everything she is to be believable, even in Thompson's hands), and her comedic timing is very good. Kaling's comedy is good, her acting is okay. John Lithgow manages to be charming in a role that's barely written beyond "supportive husband." The ending screams out "if you're diversified you'll succeed." I'm not disagreeing with that - I'm disagreeing with the delivery, which is with a sledgehammer. My head still hurts from the blow.

2019, dir. Nisha Ganatra. With Emma Thompson, Mindy Kaling, Max Casella, Hugh Dancy, John Lithgow, Denis O'Hare, Reid Scott, Amy Ryan, Ike Barinholtz.

The Late Show

Initially I thought Art Carney and Lily Tomlin were acting in two completely separate movies: Carney in a noir detective flick, Tomlin in some comedy tripe starring Tomlin. But the two movies eventually converged into one exceptionally bad one.

1977, dir. Robert Benton. With Art Carney, Lily Tomlin, Bill Macy, Eugene Roche, Joanna Cassidy, John Considine.

Laura

I spent 30 years not bothering to watch this movie because I knew it was by Alfred Hitchcock and I'd already seen it (and liked it). It was only in 2016 in conversation with a friend about the actor Dana Andrews (we'd just watched "The Best Years of Our Lives") that I finally separated Preminger's "Laura" from Hitchcock's "Rebecca."

Andrews stars as police detective Mark McPherson, who's been assigned to solve the murder of rising advertising executive Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney). The movie opens on McPherson visiting and interviewing Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb) - who we first see in the bath with a typewriter on a stand over the tub. It's both an absurd and brilliant character introduction, as Lydecker is a newspaper writer and all-around personality and asshole who was a close friend of Laura's. He trails McPherson throughout the film as McPherson interviews Laura's fiancée (a very young Vincent Price) and her various society friends.

The movie is sometimes referred to as "Film Noir" these days and it certainly has elements of that - an obsessed detective, a bitter friend, a beautiful dead woman - but I think it's better seen simply as a mystery. Great dialogue, very good acting (Webb hadn't made a major film in 14 years, but he got a well-deserved Oscar nomination for supporting actor), and some unexpected twists amount to what I think is one of the best movies of the time. Great stuff.

1944, dir. Otto Preminger. With Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, Clifton Webb, Vincent Price, Judith Anderson, Dorothy Adams.

The Lavender Hill Mob

Stars Alec Guinness as Henry Holland, who we first see dining in an expensive restaurant in Rio de Janeiro, telling the story of how he got there to another Briton. He had a career for 20 years as a fastidious - and intentionally boring and annoying - bank agent who transported gold bullion. However, having set up this persona, it was always his intent to rob them. And when a new tenant moves into his boarding house, he finally has the method for smuggling the gold out of the country as Alfred Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway) owns a company that casts metal souvenir Eiffel Towers that are shipped to Paris. Their blundering attempt to recruit a couple more criminals to help them work the plan is surprisingly successful, and they're off and running.

I find (per Wikipedia) that "The British Film Institute ranked 'The Lavender Hill Mob' the 17th greatest British film of all time." Really? It was gently amusing in several places, but most of the comedy was either too dry or too British to really entertain me. Guinness and Holloway are charming, but the movie simply didn't grab me. I'm understanding the "British" part of their rating, but not the "great" part ... One small touch that was kind of fun was a 15 second appearance by Audrey Hepburn two years before she rocketed to fame in 1953's "Roman Holiday."

1951, dir. Charles Crichton. With Alec Guinness, Stanley Holloway, Sid James, Alfie Bass, Marjorie Fielding, Edie Martin, John Salew, Ronald Adam, Arthur Hambling.

Law & Order (year 1 disc 1)

This is a disappointing start to the collection: there are only two episodes on the disc and the "extras" that fill it are completely inadequate. The only thing of any substance is a documentary on how "Law & Order" got started: it's very interesting, but it's also only 15 minutes long. And the two episodes aren't their best - they hadn't really hit their stride yet.

Year 1, Disc 1, episodes 1-2: "Prescription for Death," "Subterranean Homeboy Blues."

1990. With George Dzundza, Chris Noth, Dann Florek, Michael Moriarty, Richard Brooks.

Law & Order (year 1 disc 2)

Logan's comment to and about Robinette and how long he'll last with Stone in "Everybody's Favorite Bagman" is the only indication that this was intended to be the pilot episode. If you're watching them in sequence, it seems a little out of place. Particularly since sequence usually doesn't matter at all in "Law & Order." But on this disc they seem to be on track with the thought-provoking material. It's a good series.

Year 1, Disc 2, episodes 3-6: "The Reaper's Helper," "Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die," "Happily Ever After," "Everybody's Favorite Bagman."

1990. With George Dzundza, Chris Noth, Dann Florek, Michael Moriarty, Richard Brooks.

Law & Order (year 1 disc 3)

By this point in the L&O season it must have been pretty clear that they were going to tackle every hot issue they could get their hands on. On this disc, "Poison Ivy" was particularly memorable: I saw it years ago, and opted not to watch it again because it's still an unpleasant voyage of psychological manipulation and abuse.

Year 1, Disc 3, episodes 7-10: "By Hooker, By Crook," "Poison Ivy," "Indifference," "Prisoner of Love."

1990. With George Dzundza, Chris Noth, Dann Florek, Michael Moriarty, Richard Brooks.

Law & Order (year 1 disc 4)

Episodes 11 to 14 of the first year, they've hit their stride. Rarely upbeat, but always well done.

Year 1, Disc 4, episodes 11-14: "Out of the Half-Light," "Life Choice," "A Death in the Family," "The Violence of Summer." 1990-91. With George Dzundza, Chris Noth, Michael Moriarty, Richard Brooks, Dann Florek.

1990. With George Dzundza, Chris Noth, Dann Florek, Michael Moriarty, Richard Brooks.

Law & Order (year 1 disc 5)

Good, but perhaps not the best of this year's discs?

Year 1, Disc 5, episodes 15-18: "The Torrents of Greed (Parts 1 and 2)," "Mushrooms," "The Secret Sharers." 1990-91. With George Dzundza, Chris Noth, Michael Moriarty, Richard Brooks, Dann Florek.

1990. With George Dzundza, Chris Noth, Dann Florek, Michael Moriarty, Richard Brooks.

Law & Order (year 1 disc 6)

What do you say about "Law and Order?" Perhaps "they should have quit while they were ahead." In any case, I really like the first few years. Well done, often depressing, always thought-provoking.

Year 1, Disc 6, episodes 19-22: "The Serpent's Tooth," "The Troubles," "Sonata for Solo Organ," "The Blue Wall."

1990. With George Dzundza, Chris Noth, Dann Florek, Michael Moriarty, Richard Brooks.

Law and Order Toronto: Criminal Intent Season 1

This review is based on the first two episodes only.

The two main characters in the first two episodes were detectives Henry Graff (Aden Young) and detective Frankie Bateman (Kathleen Munroe). After a couple episodes, I was thinking about the posters we've seen around Toronto: these show the two of them, their police captain (Karen Robinson), and crown attorney (K. C. Collins). I think the balance has been more even in the past: in most L&O variants, we spend about half our time with the detectives, and half with the lawyers. In the first two episodes, the single lawyer showed up long enough to mention the need for "indisputable evidence" (both episodes) and then went away again, immediately. So this is a detective show?

Graff is an obnoxious walking encyclopedia: he knows the quality of the soil in your planter box and how it probably got that way, he knows not only the currents on Lake Ontario but also how they change during a storm. As he did this repeatedly on multiple subjects, it seemed less and less likely he could know all this stuff. He's a walking plot device.

My friend and I had a great time enjoying the blatantly Toronto locations, but the weak writing was a problem. I'm reviewing these two episodes (rather than the full season) because I'm not expecting to watch any more, and I want a reminder of why not. It might get better, but that would require the writing improve significantly ...

2024. With Aden Young, Kathleen Munroe, K. C. Collins, Karen Robinson.

Laws of Attraction

I see on IMDB that one of the movie's fans compares it to the "screwball comedies of the 30s, 40s, and 50s." I'm with that: it reminded me a great deal of "Adam's Rib." Unfortunately the luggage that comes with that idea is caricatures rather than characters, with Pierce Brosnan being charming and sloppy, and Julianne Moore being neurotic and insecure. So much so that there's little to convince you he'd fall for her (even though Moore is, of course, beautiful). They play a pair of duelling divorce lawyers in New York who become acquaintances, then friends, sort of, and then ... married, kind of by accident. Not a particularly good movie. [I was impressed to finally register that Michael Sheen is also Lucian in "Underworld," and virtually unidentifiable. He's pretty good, but not a particularly major character (wait, that's "caricature") here.]

2004, dir. Peter Howitt. With Pierce Brosnan, Julianne Moore, Michael Sheen, Parker Posey.

Le Divorce

Possibly one of the least engaging movies I've ever seen. I borrowed it because it's Merchant Ivory: apparently that means less than it used to. I expected a comedy because the tagline is "Everything sounds sexier in French." What I got was a big fat dose of nothing. Naomi Watts and Kate Hudson play sisters, Watts long married to a French husband who is now leaving her. Hudson comes to visit her in Paris and gets involved with an older married man related to the departed husband. It wasn't funny, it wasn't engaging, it wasn't dramatic, it kept circling back to a painting the family owned that might or might not be by La Tour, and might or might not be worth a lot of money. If that's your big point of drama, you're kind of lost.

2003, dir. James Ivory. With Kate Hudson, Naomi Watts, Esmée Buchet-Deák, Melvil Poupaud, Thierry Lhermitte, Nathalie Richard, Glenn Close.

The League of Gentlemen

In black and white, and dating from 1960, this movie is (even) older than I am. A British army colonel, bitter at being made "redundant" after a long and successful career, recruits a group of former army officers, all of whom have criminal records. He proposes that they rob a bank - but with the precision and timing of a good military operation. He's already done much of the planning, but there's still training and the illicit acquiring of needed equipment to be carried out.

I found the carefully detailed and rather sordid history of the individual men to be significantly at odds with the way the movie shows them as rather charming Gentlemen. But mostly the movie is fun to watch, a passable heist movie. However, I suspect most people would be just as happy watching something new that's not quite as good because this just isn't good enough to be a "classic."

SPOILER ALERT: I'm going to talk about the ending - that is, if you're concerned about the ending of a movie from 1960.

It wasn't the Hayes Code that caused them to write the ending provided because this was a British movie from end to end, and the Hayes Code is American. But I heard - I think in commentary on some other movie - that back then, the movie industry required that criminals not be seen to profit from crime. And thus, after an essentially perfectly executed heist, our protagonists (for they're hardly "heroes") are caught anyway. It felt like a bit of a let-down.

1960, dir. Basil Dearden. With Jack Hawkins, Nigel Patrick, Roger Livesey, Bryan Forbes, Richard Attenborough, Terence Alexander, Kieron Moore, Norman Bird.

A League of Their Own

When American baseball players went off to war (World War II), someone decided they could make money by sending women onto the field instead. This is based (loosely, I would assume) on actual events. Jon Lovitz does Jon Lovitz, but it works pretty well in context. Tom Hanks is great as the baseball-player-turned-manager who threw his career away on booze (he's best known for dramatic roles, but his comedic timing is gold too). Geena Davis, Madonna, and David Strathairn are good, Rosie O'Donnell and Lori Petty are okay. The sibling rivalry between Davis' and Petty's characters is overplayed and inadequate to carry the primary dramatic weight of the movie, but the rest of it holds together on small moments and humour. Fairly predictable, but funny and seriously charming.

1992, dir. Penny Marshall. With Geena Davis, Tom Hanks, Lori Petty, Madonna, Jon Lovitz, David Strathairn, Bill Pullman, Rosie O'Donnell.

Leatherheads

George Clooney directs and stars in an attempt at making a 1930s screwball comedy. Of course he's making it in 2008 and setting it in the 1920s with Renée Zellweger as his opposite number, and with the double entendres and alcohol and sex jokes much more out in the open. Clooney plays a professional football player in an era when college football packed stadiums and pro football played to crowds that hoped to reach three digits. After his team goes broke he arranges to get John Krasinski (a war hero and excellent college football player) on his team, with the dubious help of backer Jonathan Pryce. Both of them fall for Zellweger, a reporter who's trying to dig up the truth about Krasinski's war hero status. Enjoyable, painfully authentic (you'll never see a better recreation of football from that time period), not great.

2008, dir. George Clooney. With George Clooney, John Krasinski, Renée Zellweger, Stephen Root, Jonathan Pryce.

Legally Blonde

Reese Witherspoon plays a shopping-obsessed blonde determined to follow her beau to law school after he leaves her. The results are only surprising if you're unfamiliar with the Hollywood way of doing things. What is surprising is the humour, which is available in great abundance.

2001. dir. Robert Luketic. With Reese Witherspoon, Luke Wilson, Selma Blair.

Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde

I knew this was going to be bad, but I underestimated their ability to suck the life out of a good idea. Truly horrible. If you've seen the original, don't see this. If you haven't seen the original, don't see this.

2003. dir. Charles Herman-Wurmfeld. With Reese Witherspoon, Sally Field, Luke Wilson.

The Legend of Korra(Season 1, aka "Book 1: Air")

I'm a big fan of "Avatar: The Last Airbender." Because of that, I was surprisingly reluctant to watch this four-years-on sequel - what if it wasn't as good? But finding it on Netflix during the pandemic was enough of a push that I starting watching it. (Although it should be noted Netflix have only two of the four seasons. This isn't as bad as it sounds, as each season is a complete storyline - a feature I appreciate.)

This series started airing in 2012, four years after the previous series ended - but it's set 70 years after the events of the previous series. And they seem to have gone with the same target audience: kids who were 11 for the original and would now be 15, and ready for more morally complex story lines. They've also changed the society shown in the series a lot: they were pre-technological (except for the evil Fire Nation, who had some "technology"), but their world now has the technological equivalent of our Earth around 1930. A couple forms of bending considered extreme in the previous series (lightning and metal bending) are now relatively commonplace - and bending has become a common part of society, another form of work. It's a big change, and a well thought-out one.

On top of this they heap politics, more of the hatred we occasionally saw in the previous series, extremism, and terrorism. And personal relationships are shown as being more complicated: one man is shown as being torn between two women. These things are handled slightly reductively, this being a teens show, but once again the series doesn't talk down to its viewers. It just puts this stuff out there, and says "life is complicated: you do the best you can."

I'm conflicted about how to describe this series. "Korra" couldn't exist without the original "Avatar." "Korra" is more complex, with less obviously child-simplified plots. It's really interesting and really good. But at the same time, one of the great virtues of the original series was its relative simplicity. In the end, its a great addition to an already extensive mythology.

SPOILER ALERT: STOP READING NOW, etc. if you haven't already seen this season. I found Tarrlok's regrets, confession, and eventual suicide-murder pretty unbelievable. His confession paints him as the gentle younger brother to Amon - but he nevertheless ended up as a corrupt, bloodbending politician, who certainly appeared to enjoy doing bloodbending. But having his bending taken from him makes him all sorry? Not sorry about the loss of his bending (really?! It's never mentioned, but I think he'd be pretty pissed), but sorry for his immoral behaviour. The suicide-murder is a nicely circular bit of logic with him taking out his problematic brother. But I didn't buy that he was mentally at that point. And it reeked of the story writers finding a way for their heroes not having to deal with two baddies so they don't have to make morally ambiguous decisions about imprisoning (or, god forbid, killing) the problematic pair.

2012. With Janet Varney, David Faustino, P.J. Byrne, J.K. Simmons, Seychelle Gabriel, Mindy Sterling, Kiernan Shipka, Dee Bradley Baker, Steve Blum, Eva Marie Saint, Lance Henriksen, Daniel Dae Kim, Clancy Brown, Dante Basco.

The Legend of Korra (Season 2, aka "Book 2: Spirits")

The first season of "The Legend of Korra" was our introduction to the new avatar Korra, and our introduction to the world that's seventy or eighty years advanced from the one we saw in "Avatar: The Last Airbender." It was also about Korra learning to airbend, with the Season (or "Book" as they prefer to call it) titled "Air." This second season is called "Spirits" and is about the origins of the Avatar (not Korra specifically, but all Avatars), the way the spirit world interacts with the human world, and about Korra and Team Avatar learning to deal with those interactions.

Korra is young, impetuous, and occasionally hot-headed. This leads her to leave her air-bending mentor Tenzin in favour of her father's brother Unalaq who promises to teach her about the spirit world. And it's true, he's better qualified to do this than either her father or Tenzin. But his motives are suspect, and when she finally figures this out Korra says to Tenzin: "Everything Unalaq taught me was to help himself. Everything you've done was meant to help me." Which was true, and also a lovely lesson to the viewers to consider the motivations of the people who help you. This also shows the attitude of the show as a whole - combining fun characters and huge action set-pieces with relatively gentle moral lessons.

The original series had good artwork, But the artwork of this entire series is gloriously beautiful, just amazing - although blatantly CG in places. This season makes ideas barely hinted at in the first season ("the spirit world") into a massive, concrete thing that hugely impacts Korra and her friends.

2014. With Janet Varney, David Faustino, P. J. Byrne, Seychelle Gabriel, J. K. Simmons, Mindy Sterling, Dee Bradley Baker, Kiernan Shipka, Lisa Edelstein, John Michael Higgins, Aubrey Plaza, Aaron Himelstein, James Remar.

The Legend of the Swordsman (aka "Swordsman II")

Jet Li is one of a group of warriors sworn to retreat to a contemplative life. Not surprisingly, their plans are thwarted and they're drawn into a fight between rival clans and lots of people die. Lots of weapons martial arts, lots of blood, lots of superhuman powers. I didn't enjoy it much, although I can't explain exactly why: it's not that different from a lot of his other stuff. Perhaps more bleak and violent than usual, and that may be the problem.

1992, dir. Ching Siu Tung. With Jet Li.

Legion

The end of the world comes to a run-down diner somewhere in the desert a good distance from Las Vegas. As the plot develops, the angel Michael (Paul Bettany) arrives equipped with large quantities of firearms to protect one of their number, and we find out that this really is the Biblical apocalypse. God has decided to cleanse the Earth, with Gabriel (Kevin Durand) as the leader of His armies after Michael refused to destroy humanity.

There are several reasonably good actors in this movie, all turning in tired performances. Dennis Quaid is usually okay, Lucas Black is usually very good, Bettany is usually good, but they all just plod through their lines. Tired dialogue plods along, punctuated by the occasional blob of often ill-conceived violence. Among the movie's many failings, it looks and feels like a horror movie, but is too slow-paced and doesn't really have the courage to carry through.

As it turns out, Scott Stewart was also the director of "Priest." "Priest" is also a bad movie with poor acting, but the pacing is somewhat better and "Priest" is visually stunning, pretty much end-to-end. I suppose there's some hope for the man.

2010, dir. Scott Stewart. With Paul Bettany, Lucas Black, Adrianne Palicki, Tyrese Gibson, Charles S. Dutton, Kevin Durand, Dennis Quaid.

Legion, Season 1

"Legion" is the story of David Haller, who's in an psychiatric hospital being treated for schizophrenia when the series starts. (Brought to you by Marvel TV.) Problem is, it rapidly becomes apparent in the first episode that - as messed up and unreliable as he is as our first person witness - he's also a powerful mutant and people are interested in him. We spend a lot of time replaying his childhood and teen years in the first three or four episodes - and only in later episodes do we become fairly clear on which of his friends are real.

Some of the musical choices are astonishingly good: the opening song of the first episode was the Who's "Happy Jack," which plays over a montage of David's childhood - "the kids couldn't hurt Jack, they tried and tried and tried" - David is a powerful mutant unbothered by the abuse of other children, and the song worked very well with the visuals. The music choices were eclectic and occasionally brilliant.

Much of what happens takes place in "The Astral Realm," a place Dr. Strange likes to visit a lot. It's a construct of the mind, and anything goes there. Problem is, some people don't know they've been brought there (if it appears to be the real world) and that this is now a battle of the minds ...

As a whole the series is deeply weird but mostly fairly well written which keeps it interesting.

I find it particularly ironic after such a non-chronological and surreal series that I was offended by what amounted to an alien abduction at the end - I didn't think it fit with the tone of the series. (Yes, I know they'll have some other explanation next season.) The other huge problem was that the ending was a cliffhanger: I've argued before that a cliffhanger ending shows that the writer has no faith in themselves or their viewers. The writer thinks they haven't written something good enough that people would come back without a threat to the lives of major characters. And it's one of the best ways to drive me away from a series (books or TV) - which is unfortunate, as I was kind of enjoying this one.

2017. With Dan Stevens, Rachel Keller, Abrey Plaza, Bill Irwin, Jeremie Harris, Amber Midthunder, Katie Aselton, Jean Smart, Jemaine Clement, Hamish Linklater.

The Lego Batman Movie

The movie starts with Batman (voiced by Will Arnett) doing his gravelly-voiced voice-over of the opening, including all the logos: "Black. All important movies start with a black screen... And music... Edgy, scary music ..." The number of character and movie references they manage to insert - including active characters in the movie, which suggests they got licensing rights, which is amazing - is hugely impressive, and very funny. The Daleks, Sauron, Voldemort, King Kong, many others. For old school fans of Batman, the rogues gallery here includes enemies of his ranging back 60 or 70 years and includes even "Condiment King" (yes, he really existed in the original DC Comics). The story is shortly shown to be about Batman/Bruce Wayne's deliberate isolation and fear of becoming part of a family after losing his previous family. But the frenetic shtick, so entertaining for the first 15 minutes, wears remarkably thin after an hour and 45 minutes. It's incredibly colourful and they make good use of the references, but I was pretty damn tired of it by the end.

2017, dir. Chris McKay. With Will Arnett, Ralph Fiennes, Zack Galifianakas, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson, Jenny Slate.

The Lego Movie

Everybody, from the critics to my friends, told me how wonderful this was. So I sat down expecting brilliance and hilarity. Instead, I got something that was cute and mildly amusing throughout, but a little short on brilliance and hilarity. I'm in a small minority on this one: I didn't dislike it, I just wasn't swept away.

Emmet Brickowski (Chris Pratt) is a Lego construction worker, an everyman with no particular dreams or talents of his own. But he's drawn into the machinations of Lord Business (Will Ferrell) and the wizard Vitruvius (Freeman) when he meets Wyldstyle (Elizabeth Banks) and finds the "Piece of Resistance." He goes on to meet dozens of "master builders," the Lego characters (often superheros like Batman, Superman and Wonderwoman) who are fighting Lord Business. Emmet's lack of talents is made much of, and ultimately becomes an advantage.

2014, dir. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. With Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Nick Offerman, Alison Brie, Morgan Freeman.

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part

My review is unlikely to be positive as I didn't much like the first and inevitably find sequels don't match their predecessor - but I was looking for something lightweight to watch in COVID-19 lockdown.

Emmet Brickowski (voiced by Chris Pratt) has taken the war with the Duplos and the reconstruction of Bricksburg as Apocalypseburg in stride, despite the generally post-apocalyptic atmosphere: as far as he's concerned, everything is still awesome. But his girlfriend Wyldstyle wants him to toughen up and face reality - which he kind of does when his best friends are all kidnapped and taken to the "Systar System," which is through the "Stairgate."

The movie is an endless string of pop culture references and knowingly self-referential jokes. A few of these go a long way ... and the two-a-minute rate in this movie went way too far. I get that they're trying to keep the parents of the target audience entertained as the children are watching, but they could have done that just as well by writing a good story. I'm pretty sure the five-to-eight-year-olds aren't getting the 80s and 90s pop music references, and I found it too frenetic and kind of jarring. Of course this isn't too different from the previous movies, except not as good.

2019, dir. Mike Mitchell. With Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Tiffany Haddish, Stephanie Beatriz, Charlie Day, Alison Brie, Nick Offerman, Maya Rudolph.

Lessons in Chemistry

Brie Larson is Elizabeth Zott, a brilliant chemist relegated to the role of lab tech at a university because of the brutal sexism running rampant in the U.S. in the 1950s. She ends up helming her own cooking show which she uses to teach housewives about chemistry. (This isn't a spoiler as the first episode opens on her TV show.)

Please note: this review is based on watching only the first two of eight episodes.

The show leans heavily on the idea that all men are sexist pigs, and all women except Elizabeth completely buy into the "cook and take care of the men" idea. And then she meets this one man, Calvin Evans (Lewis Pullman) - also a brilliant scientist - who believes in her. And the show is equally blunt about proving he's totally not a sexist, and totally not a racist.

Larson and Pullman are good, but the heavy-handedness of the scripting and plotting was so obvious I was calling out upcoming moments in the show because current events foreshadowed X or Y. And then X and/or Y happened. When I can do that, the writing is just shit. I was cheering for Elizabeth Zott ... but I would have cheered more, and more importantly been more intrigued, if the opposition had been portrayed more subtly. Too obvious for me to watch the rest.

2023. With Brie Larson, Lewis Pullman, Aja Naomi King, Stephanie Koenig, Derek Cecil.

Let the Bullets Fly

My review of this movie should probably be ignored: I saw it with some of the most bizarre subtitles I've seen. They were complete, but incredibly misleading.

The basic premise sees a group of bandits robbing and destroying a train in 1920s China in the hope of finding treasure: they are convinced by a survivor (who was to be political governor of Goose City) to try his scam of taking a city for all the taxes you can. But they run up against the local gangster (played by Chow).

As mentioned, I saw this with horrible subs. Since it's a comedy (very violent action-comedy), I'm sure I missed a lot of the gags. Although it became clear that a lot of the jokes are ... quite weird. Will probably work better for those who speak Chinese.

2010, dir. Jiang Wen. With Jiang Wen, Chow Yun-fat, Ge You, Carina Lau.

Let the Right One In (orig. "Låt den rätte komma in")

A Swedish film, set in Sweden. In winter. Oskar is a 12 year old who is bullied at school. At home, he's reclusive and fantasizes about violence. One night in the apartment complex playground he meets the young girl (Eli) who just moved in. They slowly become friends as people die around them to quench Eli's thirst.

This isn't shock horror - you know what Eli is if you've seen any of the trailers, so none of the killing is a big surprise. What director Tomas Alfredson is going for is creepy, and he delivers in spades. And cold: this is Sweden in winter, and white is the dominant colour even at night. So cold. The adults are all ineffectual, unable to see the violence and unhappiness of the children ... but they do occasionally make a good meal. The movie is primarily about the developing, disturbing relationship between Oskar and Eli.

I've seen complaints online that the English subs on the Swedish language DVD miss a lot of nuances of the language. But this is nothing compared to the trailer for the American remake of this movie (called, pathetically, "Let Me In"). "Nuance" isn't a word the makers of that movie understand at all. Couldn't they leave a good movie alone?!

2008, dir. Tomas Alfredson. With Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar.

Lethal Weapon

One of the best known movies of the 1980s - made before Mel Gibson became so weird, people are apparently now arguing for this as one of the defining moments in the development of the action movie genre.

Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) has just passed his 50th birthday - and been reminded several times by family and co-workers how old he is. He's assigned new partner Martin Riggs (Gibson), an ex-Special Forces soldier turned cop who's become suicidal after the death of his wife two years previously. Murtaugh is contacted by an old Vietnam war buddy and current banker, who wants him to look into the death of his daughter - which turns out to be linked not only to the pornography she was obviously involved in, but also a drug cartel. Rigg's suicidal tendencies makes him handy in dangerous situations - he'll walk right into a gunfight without caring. Of course that also tends to make him a bit dangerous to his partner.

I think of "Lethal Weapon" as an Al Leong movie that happens to star Gibson and Glover. Al Leong was infamous through the 1980s as a bit part player, the Asian martial arts sidekick (usually non-speaking roles), rocking the long-hair-going-bald look and a Fu Manchu moustache ... in this movie he actually speaks!

The movie wanders a bit erratically across the landscape, but Glover and Gibson enjoy a surprising and very entertaining chemistry that moves the movie along nicely.

1987, dir. Richard Donner. With Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Mitchell Ryan, Tom Atkins, Darlene Love, Jackie Swanson, Traci Wolfe.

Lethal Weapon (2016 TV series)

This review is based on watching episodes 1-9 of 18 in the first season. Each episode is about 45 minutes in length.

I saw this on Netflix in June 2020, and it made me want to watch the original movie again. But Netflix doesn't have the movie, so I settled for the TV show.

The set-up is essentially the same: Martin Riggs (Clayne Crawford) is a borderline suicidal detective partnered with the older and saner detective Roger Murtaugh (Damon Wayans). The show fairly quickly fills in the backstory on Riggs: former Navy SEAL, his wife and unborn daughter killed in a car accident leaving him less concerned about his own life than most people. His willingness to step into danger both causes his partner problems and, shall we say, spices up his life.

Wayans and Crawford are charming and funny together. This was worth four or five episodes, which were quite fun. I coasted for another four episodes, but the formula was becoming pronounced enough that I left the show at that point.

2016. With Damon Wayans, Clayne Crawford, Jordana Brewster, Keesha Sharp, Johnathan Fernandez, Kevin Rahm, Michelle Mitchenor, Chandler Kinney, Dante Brown, Floriana Lima, Richard Cabral.

The Letter for the King

This is a Netflix TV series that they released in March 2020, but it has a very long history. The original, much acclaimed book is De brief voor de koning, a 1962 Dutch children's book by Tonke Dragt. I'm interested to find that the book apparently didn't have any magic at all: it was a medieval coming-of-age tale.

Tiuri is the young adopted son of Sir Tiuri the Valiant - he and his mother were refugees from Eviellan. Tiuri now faces the trials for knighthood, although it's quite apparent his combat skills simply aren't that good. Nevertheless, he makes it to the final stage with four others - only to break the rules of the trial because of his compassion, which causes him to leave on a quest to deliver a letter. He's pursued by multiple people from three or four different political entities.

The series focuses almost entirely on the young knights, and a couple friends acquired along the way. The series is blunt about the reality of kingdom and royalty politics, showing that royal marriages are usually purely political and as a result, kings and queens are likely to have a lover they actually like on the side - I have no issue with this, but it's an uncommon attitude for a children's show/book, and contrasts vividly with the lack of reality in the death count: one child hero dies in the entire series.

The acting is uniformly mediocre. There are too many reversals of loyalty, and too much rushing about. There's no coherent model for the magic, and no explanation - particularly not of the odd "look who's the magic wielder" change toward the end of the series. Knowing the magic was tacked on, it absolutely feels like an unnecessary extra. I also have to think that the (surprisingly charming) young gay romance didn't exist in a children's book in 1962. While it certainly looks pretty, the series is kind of sloppy and too long for what it achieves.

As a small tidbit for Canadians watching the series, the song that the Novices whistle a couple times through the show is the wonderful "In Hell I'll be in Good Company" by The Dead South, although they don't use The Dead South's lyrics. (The Dead South are from Regina.)

2020. With Amir Wilson, Ruby Ashbourne Serkis, Islam Bouakkaz, Jonah Lees, Jack Barton, Thaddea Graham, Nathanael Saleh, Gijs Blom, Emilie Cocquerel, Peter Ferdinando, Kemi-Bo Jacobs, David Wenham, Omid Djalili, Andy Serkis.

Level Five

I was interested in this because it's a Chris Marker film - the same director behind "La Jetée," which is a really cool and excellent movie. This had similarly wonderful reviews, but I found it painfully dull. Catherine Belkhodja talks about another person, always referring to "you" and discussing a video game and the Battle of Okinawa. The critics thought it was "meditative" and perhaps mesmerising, but after 25 minutes I was done and pulled the plug. So no, this isn't a review of the full movie.

1996, dir. Chris Marker. With Catherine Belkhodja.

Lexx, Season 1

I was intrigued by the summary of "Lexx" on Wikipedia that said "The narrative includes irony, parody, sexual topics, and fatalism." Okay, let's give this a try.

The first season consists of four 95 minute episodes. The first episode is essentially Terry Gilliam TV. Dark, bizarre, weirdly funny, with a couple stumblingly incompetent characters, and all the characters over-the-top ... It reminded me of both "Brazil" and "The Adventures of Baron Münchausen". I really enjoyed it, even though (or possibly because) I'd classify it as completely crazy.

It's set in a far future, in a repressive and religious civilization where societal roles are strongly (and often terminally) enforced. Several characters - Stanley Tweedle (Brian Downey), Zev (Eva Habermann), Kai (Michael McManus), 790 (the head of a robot, voiced by Jeffrey Hirschfield), and an errant and particularly unpleasant cannibal rather accidentally steal the Lexx - a semi-sentient organic starship that's also the most powerful destructive force in the universe. Unfortunately for the government, Kai - who is dead but re-animated - is also the last of the Brunnen-G, and thus prophesied to cause the downfall of the government/religious leader. Stanley is incredibly ineffectual and whiny ... but he's the only one with the power to control the Lexx.

The first episode juggles the darkness and the humour reasonably well, and thus my comparison to Terry Gilliam. The remainder of the first season was just as silly, but not as thought-provoking. I've been told by friends whose judgment I trust that I should not, for any reason, watch season 2. And even more critically, don't watch seasons 3 and 4. Ah well - I did really enjoy that first episode ...

1996. With Brian Downey, Eva Habermann, Michael McManus, Jeffrey Hirschfield.

Liar Liar

Jim Carrey plays a divorced lawyer with a very young son (played fairly well by Justin Cooper) who gets tired of his father's lies and makes a birthday wish that stops Carrey lying for 24 hours. As you'd expect, this leads to all kinds of Carrey's staggeringly absurd slapstick moments. As usual, it's very hit-or-miss and occasionally difficult to watch. On the other hand, some of it is hysterical - the boardroom scene being a particular stand-out for me. Overall, one of Carrey's better efforts.

1997, dir. Tom Shadyac. With Jim Carrey, Maura Tierney, Justin Cooper, Cary Elwes, Anne Haney, Jennifer Tilly, Amanda Donohoe.

The Librarian: Quest for the Spear

Noah Wyle plays a perpetual college student with 22 academic degrees, let go from the university (against his will) into the "real world," where he has a bizarre interview and becomes "The Librarian." His first day on the job finds him attempting to retrieve the pieces of the Spear of Destiny, one of which has been stolen by the evil Serpent Brotherhood. Combines the sensibilities of Indiana Jones and "Ben Gates," Nicolas Cage's character from "National Treasure" to create a new, and not particularly different, rollicking archaeologist-type adventure.

It's very silly, and the effects and scenery are pure made-for-TV, but I found that the laughs it delivered - while not frequent - were huge. Apparently I'm not alone in being entertained: as of 2019 it had spun off two sequels and a TV series. Wyle is charming, and Walger, while not a great actress, is quite good in the role as his gorgeous, charming and "homicidal" side-kick/assistant.

2004, dir. Peter Winther. With Noah Wyle, Bob Newhart, Sonya Walger, Kyle MacLachlan, Jane Curtin, Olympia Dukakis, Kelly Hu.

The Librarian: Return to King Solomon's Mines

The process of transition - in this case Flynn Carsen (Noah Wyle) changing from student to "The Librarian" (the previous movie) makes a better story than the continuing adventures of "The Librarian" (this movie). And to add to that misfortune, they decided logic was a notch less important than in the last movie (not that it was a high priority then either). Without explanation, his romantic interest from the previous movie, Nicole (Sonya Walger) has vanished, to be replaced by the less appealing Emily Davenport (Gabrielle Anwar), an archaeologist with multiple degrees that we're to believe he'd be more interested in. The chemistry with Walger worked better. Bob Newhart, Jane Curtin, and Olympia Dukakis reprise their roles from the previous movie and apply no great effort to their work. The budget for special effects and locations went up (they appear to have actually shot in Africa). The original still has a great deal more charm.

2006, dir. Jonathan Frakes. With Noah Wyle, Gabrielle Anwar, Bob Newhart, Jane Curtin, Olympia Dukakis, Erick Avari, Robert Foxworth.

The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice

Director Jonathan Frakes seems to have improved his game somewhat this time out: this is funnier and better than its predecessor, although still not up to the first one (that's the problem with sequels). At least they directly addressed Flynn's romantic woes, and even gave a pretty good explanation. The addition of vampires was a little over-the-top, although the mythology of the story implies all kinds of wilder possibilities given that Flynn has already reassembled the Spear of Destiny and the library houses H.G. Wells' time machine, Pandora's Box, and the Arc of the Covenant. But they continue to follow their formula (too bad) in which Flynn goes somewhere, encounters a beautiful woman who helps him for the rest of the movie and has a relationship with her, with a closing sequence in "The Library."

2008, dir. Jonathan Frakes. With Noah Wyle, Stana Katic, Bob Newhart, Jane Curtin, Bruce Davison, Dikran Tulaine.

The Librarians - Season 2

"The Librarian: The Quest for the Spear" was an incredibly silly but marvelously entertaining TV movie made in 2004. It spawned a couple of sequel movies, and then a TV series in which several librarians are recruited at once to defend the world against the resurgence of magic. This being the second season, the series has neither the beginning nor the end in sight. While the events of the shows are a crazy mash-up of science, literature, art, and magic, the writers usually seemed to be doing their homework whenever they referenced real things like books, plays, paintings, or architecture - which makes it fun trying to keep up with the references. And the characters remain charming, with John Larroquette's Jenkins character finally starting to like his charges.

Of the three seasons I've seen (there are four out there in the world, but I have oddly watched these in the order one, three, two), the first was the best. It was no less silly than the other seasons, but was fresh and new and at its most charming.

2016. With Rebecca Romijn, Christian Kane, Lindy Booth, John Harlan Kim, John Larroquette, Noah Wyle, Richard Cox, David S. Lee, Hayley McLaughlin.

The Librarians - Season 3

Back in 2004, TNT created a silly but hugely entertaining TV movie called "The Librarian: Quest for the Spear." It starred Noah Wyle in his first outing as "the Librarian," leader of "the Library" whose duty it is to find and protect historical - and often magical - items. In the first movie, it was the Spear of Destiny. It's a more silly and intellectual "Raiders of the Lost Ark" with lower production values (it was for TV after all). On the strength of that movie, and to some extent Noah Wyle's charm, I've worked my way through three TV movies and two seasons of TV (I watched much of Season 1 although you won't find a review above). I skipped season 2 and watched season 3 because it showed up at the library (oh yeah - I work at a library - that might have something to do with this), so I borrowed it.

As expected, this is 10 episodes (45 minutes each) of unadulterated idiocy. I enjoy the characters of Jacob Stone (Christian Kane), Cassandra Cillian (Lindy Booth), Ezekiel Jones (John Harlan Kim), and to a lesser extent Colonel Eve Baird (Rebecca Romijn) and Jenkins (John Larroquette). Noah Wyle is - to my surprise - in several episodes in this season, having sat out the first season almost entirely. There is magical evil, there's magic, there's vampires, there's a great deal of silliness. It was fun enough to get me through riding my exercise bike, and that was all I asked of it. I still recommend the first movie to people, but the TV series is ... pretty bad.

2016. With Rebecca Romijn, Christian Kane, Lindy Booth, John Harlan Kim, John Larroquette, Noah Wyle, Jane Curtin.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

There are a number of things you need to know to fully appreciate this movie: first, it was made during the Second World War. Second, "Colonel Blimp" was a very long-running and popular cartoon character, an old, ineffective, self-contradictory windbag, a caricature of the army old guard. A lesser but very useful piece of knowledge is that "Mata Hari" was an infamous exotic dancer and possible double agent during the First World War.

The movie follows the life of Clive Candy (Roger Livesey) - from the Bohr War through World War One and into World War Two: his early years as a rebellious and effective officer who galls the old guard, through his later years when he becomes the old guard, galled by the young upstarts. It's a brilliant portrayal, all the more startling for one of the three main characters being a sympathetic German in a time when anything German was anathema. A fabulous and elegant movie.

2020 Update: I don't remember the circumstances under which I first watched this movie - probably just found it at the library. The name isn't a huge selling point (especially to a modern audience), and at the time I had no idea what "Pressburger and Powell" was. But recently I was singing the praises of that pair of directors to a friend, and I looked up "Colonel Blimp" on Rotten Tomatoes and was stunned by the slavish compliments in the review excerpts. I love the movie, but didn't realize it had acquired quite so much of a shine as it has:

"This glorious film is about the greatest mystery of all: how old people were once young, and how young people are in the process of becoming old."

"Staggering and heartbreaking. Still."

"Maybe the most wonderfully British movie ever made."

"The movie looks past the fat, bald military man with the walrus moustache, and sees inside, to an idealist and a romantic. To know him is to love him."

"It stands as very possibly the finest film ever made in Britain."

"It's a heartbreaking study of aging and obsolescence in the face of modernity, but also a paean to a generation of heroes."

"says something wonderful about who we are when we're at our best."

"Maybe the most essentially, urgently British of the 21 films Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger made together."

"The rarest of cinematic treasures: a historical epic that is also intensely personal and emotionally earnest."

"The greatest of all British films, the greatest film about Britishness."

( https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/life_and_death_of_colonel_blimp )

I cannot recommend it enough: if you haven't seen it, go now. TPL has seven copies (and I think they're Criterion, so the quality is excellent). Enjoy.

1943, dir. Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger. With Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr, Anton Walbrook.

The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean

Paul Newman plays Roy Bean, an outlaw first seen after a robbery, visiting a whorehouse where he is shortly robbed and mistakenly not killed. This lapse of judgement leads to him, after several days of recovery, returning and slaughtering about ten people, men and women both. He then decides - in the presence of Anthony Perkins as a preacher who seems more comfortable with the "vengeance" parts of the bible than the "turn the other cheek" stuff, and very nearly stole the whole movie in five minutes - to set up shop as a judge. He shortly swears in some other outlaws as "Marshals," and they proceed to run the town and get rich ... and even enforce something that vaguely resembles law. Occasionally.

This is described as a comedy, and certainly there are some funny parts. Both the humour and the drama are extremely uneven - sometimes very successful, sometimes falling completely flat. To me it felt too long and didn't hold together well at all for its two hours running time.

1972, dir. John Huston. With Paul Newman, Victoria Principal, Ned Beatty, Jim Burk, Anthony Perkins, John Huston, Roddy McDowall, Stacy Keach, Ava Gardner, Jacqueline Bisset.

Life, Animated

The movie is about Owen Suskind and his family. Owen has been somewhat famous in the last year (probably because of the movie, although I'm not entirely sure): he's autistic, and uses Disney movies as a way to deal with the world. The movie is based on Owen's father Ron's book Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes, and Autism. The movie is very well constructed, taking an even-handed view of both Owen's and his family's struggles and triumphs. We see Owen from very early in his life, his regression around the age of three when autism set in, through to his graduation from a class preparing him to live alone at the age of 23. We see a lot of his family - his parents, and his brother Walt. There are even appearances by Gilbert Gottfried and Jonathan Freeman, the voices of Iago and Jafar from "Aladdin." I was left wondering (but reasonably hopeful) if Owen was going to manage on his own.

2016, dir. Roger Ross Williams.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Director Wes Anderson walked the line between tragedy and outright farce in "The Royal Tenenbaums" to brilliant effect. But it's a fine line, and this time he stumbles badly leaving us not caring about any of his characters. It's an incredibly surreal movie, and not nearly as funny as it thinks it is - but not tragic or touching either.

2004, dir. Wes Anderson. With Bill Murray, Angelica Houston, Owen Wilson, Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum.

Life in a Day

YouTube and Ridley Scott asked the whole world to send them footage of one day in 2010 (July 24), which they edited into a 20 minute movie. Recruiting was so successful it was eventually released as a theatre-length movie. Parts of it were really fascinating - people milking goats, preparing food in restaurants, both on the other side of the planet from me - but other parts - "clever" MTV editing and an emphasis on whiny kids - were so annoying that I quit after 40 minutes. Too bad.

2011, dir. Kevin Macdonald.

Life or Something Like It

Lanie Kerrigan (Angelina Jolie) "has it all," meaning the beautiful condo, the pro baseball fiancée, and the AM news TV spot. But an encounter with "Prophet Jack" (Tony Shalhoub) severely damages her materialistic views. He makes several prophesies, most of which come true almost immediately: and the last, that she'll die in a week - which drives the movie. Edward Burns plays the camera man that she has some kind of antagonistic history with, but is also attracted to.

This could have been a decent (if clichéd) movie if it hadn't starred Jolie. She has been known to act occasionally, but has never seemed more plastic, more artificial (both her looks and her acting) than in this movie. Burns is generically good-looking and charming. The relationship between the two flies from vicious antagonism to happiness far too easily and quickly. Shalhoub is by far the most interesting person to watch in this: almost mesmerising as a money grubbing homeless man burdened with a skill he doesn't actually want. But he's not in enough scenes to save this otherwise fairly generic rom com.

2002, dir. Stephen Herek. With Angelina Jolie, Edward Burns, Tony Shalhoub, Christian Kane, James Gammon, Melissa Errico, Stockard Channing.

Lightyear

Buzz Lightyear of "Toy Story" fame gets his own movie. This isn't part of the "Toy Story" continuity, at least not in the way you'd expect: the opening text panels in the movie claim that this is the movie Andy saw that made him want to have a Buzz Lightyear toy. In a decision many fans were unhappy about (and I find at least a little odd), Disney/Pixar replaced Tim Allen's voice work in the lead with that of Chris Evans. Evans did a good enough job, but ... why?

This movie shows us a Star Command vessel diverting from its course to explore a new world. Buzz Lightyear (Space Ranger) and his boss and best friend Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba) are awoken from hibernation to deal with the exploration. Inimical native life strands the entire crew of ~1000 on the planet. Buzz feels responsible, and performs a series of tests that lead to him barely aging as years pass for everyone else. And eventually Zurg shows up, etc.

The movie is colourful, with lovely animation. There are many very powerful and nasty local lifeforms (and Zurg), and yet somehow the only death that ever happens in the movie is from old age. The movie has a number of mildly interesting fantastical elements, but sticks too close to formula (ie. rag-tag crew of misfits help Buzz, and while they're not well trained their unusual skils save the day - that kind of stuff) to really live up to the very high standard set by all four of the "Toy Story" movies.

SPOILER ALERT: STOP READING NOW, etc. as I'm about to discuss a feature of the film that particularly annoyed me and covers events near the end of the film. Buzz is totally focussed on "completing the mission" even as everyone else ages 70 years and he stays young. But when Zurg shows up, Zurg/Buzz's method of "completing the mission" is to try to reset the clock with time travel 70 years into the past, thus eliminating the lives lived by 1000-plus people. Buzz essentially terminates the mission because he doesn't agree with this interpretation - but he forgets the original interpretation, getting the Turnip working again. While this would be way over the heads of the target audience (young kids), it's the kind of logic that Pixar has in the past had the sense to work with - the kind of emotional depth and intelligence that made their work worthwhile for parents as well as kids. This is just one of several ways this particular movie falls down.

2022, dir. Angus MacLane. With Chris Evans, Keke Palmer, Peter Sohn, Taika Waititi, Dale Soules, James Brolin, Uzo Aduba.

Like Stars on Earth (orig. "Taare Zameen Par")

A Bollywood movie that Disney has decided to market over here - partly because it's so sweet and well intentioned, but possibly also to cash in on one of India's biggest stars, Aamir Khan who just hit big in "3 Idiots." Darsheel Safary stars as Issan, an eight year old boy who suffers because his schoolwork is bad until a teacher (Khan) figures out that he's dyslexic and tutors him separately. Khan stars, and also produced and directed.

Living so close to the U.S., I see a lot of Hollywood movies (even more than the rest of the world). And sometimes I think they have a patent on emotional manipulation - oops, did I say that? Shouldn't give them ideas. But then a movie like this comes along, so heavy-handed as to make Hollywood's product look subtle. Well-meaning, but incredibly long (2h40m) and syrupy, with endless musical sections - not dance numbers, but generally drifting views of children. Very nearly ruined "3 Idiots" for me by showing Khan being such a git and highlighting the excessively manipulative techniques of Bollywood films in general.

2007, dir. Aamir Khan. With Darsheel Safary, Aamir Khan, Tisca Chopra, Vipin Sharma, Sachet Engineer.

Lilo and Stitch

Alternating all out mayhem and cute, this is one of Disney's better efforts. There's a little too much Elvis in the mix for my taste, but Stitch's transformation from destructive monster to charming family member is managed fairly well, with the inevitable (and often humorous) setbacks along the way.

2002, dir. Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders. With Daveigh Chase, Chris Sanders, Tia Carrere, David Ogden Stiers, Kevin McDonald, Ving Rhames, Zoe Caldwell, Jason Scott Lee.

The Limehouse Golem

Set in London in 1880, Inspector John Kildare (Bill Nighy) is abruptly handed his first murder investigation - and it's a high profile one as the murderer (dubbed "The Limehouse Golem" by himself and the press) has left a trail of bodies. He's assisted by Constable George Flood (Daniel Mays), and fascinated by Elizabeth Cree (Olivia Cook) who is herself on trial for murder in a case that seems tangled up with the Golem's.

Follows a trope popular in both horror and mystery, in which every single person is eventually revealed to either be a horrible person or have had a horrible life. That's not the only popular structure they use: our antagonist is intelligent, but may in fact be allowing himself to be misled by red herrings and/or his own hopes.

The movie is well presented, with the clothes and scenery of a gritty Victorian London. And well acted too. I thought it started well and was fairly well written, but fell down on its own need to apply a twist to every character put in front of you: everyone had to be something other than what they appeared to be. And that left me wearied by the end of the film, without an anchor and without enjoying myself.

2016, dir. Juan Carlos Medina. With Bill Nighy, Olivia Cooke, Douglas Booth, Daniel Mays, Sam Reid, María Valverde, Henry Goodman, Morgan Watkins, Eddie Marsan, Paul Ritter.

The Limey

Terence Stamp plays Wilson, just released from prison in the U.K. and arrived in Los Angeles to find out about the death of his daughter. We find out within five minutes that he's not a push-over: he takes a beating from five men to listen to them talk about the circumstances of his daughter's death, gets thrown out in the street, stands up, pulls out the gun they didn't find, walks back in, and kills all but one of them.

Wikipedia says of the editing: "The film frequently features dialogue and background sound from previous or future scenes juxtaposed with a current scene." Some conversations are composed of sentences spoken between the two participants in different places. I got really tired of the frequent shots of Wilson on the plane - I assumed that this was a flashback to when he flew to L.A., but Wikipedia tells me (or speculates) that the movie is a flashback in his mind, and I'm seeing him on the return flight.

Stamp was very good, the story okay, the editing annoying. Reviews have been very good, but I'm not really with them on this one.

1999, dir. Steven Soderbergh. With Terence Stamp, Peter Fonda, Luis Guzmán, Lesley Ann Warren, Barry Newman, Nicky Katt, Amelia Heinle.

Limitless

Bradley Cooper is Eddie Morra, an author with writer's block in New York City. His girlfriend Lindy (Abbie Cornish) dumps him. At this stellar moment of his life, his ex-brother-in-law Vernon he hasn't seen in several years shows up and gives him the proverbial "first one's free," a new drug called NZT. Eddie discovers that on it he has incredible focus and recall, and in a few hours has entirely cleaned his apartment and written a chapter of his new book. But then it's back to being normal, and he needs more. So he returns to Vernon, only to find Vernon's been murdered. He reports the murder ... and then hunts out the stash that the murderers missed. It only gets messier from there.

For someone who claims in the first minute of the film to have a "four digit IQ," he's incredibly blind about the consequences of the drug, his limited supply, where it came from, his meteoric and public rise, the idea that loan sharks might be a bad idea, and just about everything else. I wondered for a bit if the point of the movie was that someone who was willfully blind and self-destructive when they have a normal IQ would remain both those things with a higher IQ and only find a grander way to self-destruct, but it didn't quite play out that way. The movie also didn't address the fact that any other NZT user could have done exactly what Eddie did (or claimed to have done) by the end of the movie (which I can't explain without spoilers).

Coming back to the movie's characters ... Eddie is a dick and I had a lot of trouble rooting for him (I get that that's not necessarily the point, but if we've got to watch him for the entire movie ...). The end result was a restless and rather obnoxious movie that wasn't particularly well thought out.

A human being with a "normal" IQ (ie. anyone on this planet now, including the screenplay authors and the author of the book this was originally based on) are - in my opinion - unable to write about hyper-intelligent humans. It's a little like asking a dog to write about the experience of being human. They could perhaps spin a good story, but the second a reader spotted a logical error ... the whole thing goes up in smoke.

SPOILER ALERT: STOP READING NOW, etc. as I'm about to discuss the ending. As I mentioned, Eddie Morra is shown to be willfully blind and self-destructive even when on NZT. But at the end of the movie we've jumped forward in time and if we're to believe Eddie, he's managed to get off NZT while retaining most of the mental ability, thus avoiding the blackmail trap set by his former mentor (played by Robert De Niro). The problem is ... this suggests a complete reversal from his previous behaviour, a reversal we didn't see and weren't given any hint of. It's also not clear if he's even telling the truth: he could have said what he did to avoid being blackmailed. Which makes this seem like either a really shitty wrap-up or a huge hint at a sequel. What we got instead was a one season TV show, with Bradley Cooper as the infrequently seen antagonist ...

2011, dir. Neil Burger. With Bradley Cooper, Abbie Cornish, Robert De Niro, Andrew Howard, Anna Friel, Johnny Whitworth, Richard Bekins, Tomas Arana.

Lion

Based on the book A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley, this is a somewhat fictionalized account of Saroo's both horrible and inspiring life story. He was born and raised in India, but at the age of five he got on a train he shouldn't have and ended up 1500 km from his home. Too young to find his way home, he lived on the streets of Calcutta for a short time and was eventually adopted by an Australian family. In 2012, after years of digging about in Google Earth, he identified his hometown - and eventually found his original family.

The first half of the movie concentrates on Sunny Pawar as the young Saroo in India, his poverty-stricken but loving family, and his terrifying dislocation. He's placed with the Brierleys (Nicole Kidman and David Wenham) in Australia, who take very good care of him. The second half of the movie has Dev Patel as the adult Saroo going to school in hotel management, where he encounters some other Australians originally from India and begins to question the shape of his life.

The first half of the movie is quite depressing, but the second half is astonishing and mostly very positive. The screenplay authors have made Saroo dysfunctionally obsessed with his quest to the point that he nearly loses both his girlfriend and his family over it (when all they want to do is help him). The real Saroo Brierley was quite a celebrity in both India and Australia when this was actually happening, and it seems to me that the writers have overplayed his obsession to make it more "interesting." Which seems unnecessary given very good performances all around that could have supported a somewhat lower key second half. In fact, I think it would have been better: I'm sure Saroo spent a lot of time on his search, but in every other respect the movie went to a lot of trouble to paint him as well adjusted, intelligent, and sane. Despite this questionable choice, the movie is mostly very good.

It looks like Dev Patel is finally turning into the good actor his résumé already suggests he is: I most recently saw him in "The Man Who Knew Infinity" in which he simply looked stunned for the entire movie. He did a good job here.

2016, dir. Garth Davis. With Dev Patel, Sunny Pawar, Rooney Mara, Nicole Kidman, David Wenham, Abhishek Bharate, Divian Ladwa.

The Lion in Winter

Disturbing and brilliant. The script is enough to cause controversy in 2004, it must have caused some problems when it came out. Politics and sex and family (royal families) take centre stage for two hours of jaw-dropping argument and political and emotional manoeuvring. The acting is excellent all around and you'll be left shaking and emotionally drained at the end. Superb.

1968. dir. Anthony Harvey. With Peter O'Toole, Katharine Hepburn, Anthony Hopkins, Timothy Dalton.

Little Big Soldier

I don't think this one got much fanfare or any kind of release on this side of the Pacific: it's a Hong Kong film for an HK and Chinese audience. Starring and written by Jackie Chan.

Set during China's "Warring States" period, Chan is only one of two survivors of a battle in which 3000 men died - and he managed that by faking death. The other survivor is an injured enemy general (Leehom Wang), who Chan drags off as his captive. There are multiple reversals - a duplicitous young woman, politics, a tribe of "natives," soldiers from both sides of the battle ... It is, almost inevitably, a buddy movie.

Chan's acrobatics have slowed down significantly. The drama was somewhat better than your average Jackie Chan movie, but unfortunately that hasn't actually upgraded it to "good." It's not a bad movie, but it's hardly a work of art. And since I watch Chan's movies for the acrobatics, this was disappointing.

2010, dir. Ding Sheng. With Jackie Chan, Leehom Wang, Yu Rongguang, Lin Peng, Steve Yoo.

The Little Hours

A bizarrely American take on a part of The Decameron. And for once, it being "American" isn't all bad. An entirely American cast goes to Italy and improvs very old bawdy stories in modern American English. It sounds bizarre and it is, but it's also pretty funny. Alison Brie, Kate Micucci, and Aubrey Plaza are three nuns - none of whom are exactly righteous sisters of God - in a nunnery with a drunken priest (John C. Reilly in a pleasantly subdued role) and, shortly added into the mix, a good-looking young man (Dave Franco) that all of the women want to sleep with. It gets weirder from there.

Whether or not you'll like the movie is going to be very dependent on your sense of humour. It's crass and crazy, but worked for me in part because the rivalries and tensions of the nunnery are portrayed as being essentially the same as those of the rest of the world. And, as much as religious orders try to portray themselves as being separated from the rest of us, they're still human.

2017, dir. Jeff Baena. With Alison Brie, Dave Franco, Kate Micucci, Aubrey Plaza, John C. Reilly, Molly Shannon, Fred Armisen, Jemima Kirk, Lauren Weedman, Nick Offerman, Paul Reiser.

Little Miss Sunshine

Drama and black comedy about a dysfunctional family. The story is about a road trip in a VW van (which is the seventh major character) to take Abigail Breslin's character to the "Little Miss Sunshine" beauty pageant. In the van we have the coke-snorting vulgar grandfather (Alan Arkin), the father who can't sell his nine step success strategy (Greg Kinnear), the too-honest mother (Toni Collette) and her fresh-from-a-suicide-attempt brother (Steve Carell), the vow of silence brother (Paul Dano), and Breslin. It's all about interactions and problems, and watching your dreams come tumbling down. I wasn't surprised that Collette was great, she usually is. And Arkin was excellent. The big surprises were Breslin, Dano, and Carell: I haven't heard of the latter two, and I actively dislike Carell's comedy. But they were all excellent. A twisted little movie.

2006, dir. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. With Abigail Breslin, Greg Kinnear, Paul Dano, Alan Arkin, Toni Collette, Steve Carell.

Little Monsters

Dave (played by Alexander England) is a musician without a band, and a break-up with his girlfriend forces him to go live with her sister and her five year old(?) son Felix (Diesel La Torraca). He does pretty much everything imaginable around the kid that you shouldn't (mostly foul language, with lots of details, but also violent video games) and pays no attention to Felix's multiple food allergies - inevitably endangering his nephew's life. In pursuit of the hot kindergarten teacher Miss Caroline (Lupita Nyong'o), he "assists" on a class field trip. At a fun-farm they cross paths with the sex- and alcohol-addicted childrens personality, Mr. McGiggle (Josh Gad) when a zombie infestation comes to town. Miss Caroline plays her ukulele and sings songs and does everything in her power to convince the kids it's all a game.

I had three major problems with the film: first, I really wasn't into the humour. Second, Dave's complete personality change during the course of the movie was unbelievable. Third: too much ukulele. It's one of the planet's most objectionable instruments (beaten perhaps by the bagpipes), and it's centre stage here. I usually like horror comedy, but this one was not for me.

2019, dir. Abe Forsythe. With Lupita Nyong'o, Alexander England, Josh Gad, Diesel La Torraca, Kat Stewart.

Little Sister

Addison Timlin is a young nun who returns home after leaving three years previously. She left when her mother attempted suicide, and returns because her brother has just been released from hospital after his time in Iraq. Her brother now has significant facial scarring, and isn't interested in seeing anyone or doing much other than staying in the guest house playing drums.

This is listed as a "dark comedy" by Wikipedia - to me, that would imply a downbeat ending, which isn't exactly the case here. The movie does derive a lot of its humour from family awkwardness. I watched it because it sounded interesting and had a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but didn't think it really lived up to that. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it's very well done ... but it's not my style of humour, or my style of drama: it didn't work very well for me despite being well put together.

2016, dir. Zach Clark. With Addison Timlin, Keith Poulson, Ally Sheedy, Peter Hedges, Barbara Crampton, Kristin Slaysman Molly Plunk.

The Little Things

Denzel Washington plays Joe Deacon, a deputy in a small California town in the early 1990s. He's sent into Los Angeles to pick up some evidence - where we find out that he knows a lot of the police and used to work there. Young hotshot detective Jim Baxter (Rami Malek) who replaced him takes an interest in Deacon because Deacon had the best clearance record in the department before he left. "Deke" takes vacation time from his deputy job to work L.A. cases on the side (probably not a good thing ...).

Washington is as good as usual, playing a messed up cop with secrets. I can't judge Malek's acting: he looks really weird to me and his face doesn't convey much emotion. But Jared Leto as their primary suspect is incredibly creepy and unpleasant, enjoying the attention and deliberately provoking them.

I didn't find the movie as tense as it was trying to be, although it's not exactly relaxing. It's well constructed, but not really to my taste: I prefer straight-up detective movies, and while this appears to be that, it is, instead, a character study. In the end it's not really enough of anything to be a great movie, more like "not bad."

2021, dir. John Lee Hancock. With Denzel Washington, Rami Malek, Jared Leto, Chris Bauer, Michael Hyatt, Terry Kinney, Natalie Morales, Isabel Arraiza, Joris Jarsky, Glenn Morshower.

Live Free Or Die Hard

In the fourth (and we can only hope, the last?) episode of the series, John McClane (played by Bruce Willis) finds new and ever more unbelievable ways to defy both the laws of physics and human endurance. He's backed up by the rather reluctant Justin Long, who looks like the voice of reason: he barely defies gravity or sense at all. Suspending disbelief is a common practise in modern action movies, and I've seen an awful lot of them so I'm pretty good at it. But the sequence in which McClane drives a tractor trailer under attack by an F-22 aircraft - which he ultimately manages to destroy - had me giggling for about two minutes straight. The word "ludicrous" just seems so totally inadequate. I might have let the SUV in the elevator shaft go, but not after the F-22. Has some amusing moments, but really too stupid for words.

2007, dir. Len Wiseman. With Bruce Willis, Justin Long, Timothy Olyphant, Maggie Q.

The Lives of Others (originally "Das Leben der Anderen")

In 1984 in East Berlin, a Stasi (secret police) officer is ordered to find something against one of the state's few loyal playwrights - because a senior party member has a thing for the playwright's girlfriend.

It's unlikely there are going to be many other movies that so accurately recreate the sense of living in East Germany, the paranoia and fear. Director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck and his staff made sure that the movie was extremely accurate in every detail of the former state - and then they went on to create a superbly acted movie from an excellent script. Ulrich Mühe as Stasi officer Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler is spectacularly good. Wiesler is a very cold and controlled character, his face barely moves. And yet it's all there. See this.

2006, dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. With Ulrich Mühe, Sebastian Koch, Martina Gedeck, Ulrich Tukur, Thomas Thieme.

Lo and Behold

I should have known better than to watch a movie about a subject I'm intimately familiar with by an opinionated madman. "Lo and Behold" is a movie about "the internet" by Werner Herzog. I continue to occasionally watch his movies because, while I consider him completely insane, he's quite intelligent and has remained rather fascinating. Here, he digs into the craziness just as much as he digs into the facts.

My greatest frustration was with his discussion around the United States National Radio Quiet Zone, where he went to find out what life was like without the internet. Which is a significant misinterpretation to start with - one he leaves dangling and unexplained - that no radio signals equals no internet. He then proceeds to interview several people with Electromagnetic hypersensitivity - a disease that has so far failed to show any actual scientific proof of its own existence. In most "chapters" of the movie Herzog interviews scientists and entrepreneurs, subject experts: in this segment, he goes straight to the sufferers. More emotional clout I suppose. Although he does the same thing in the chapter called "the dark side," which is about the family of a young girl who was beheaded in a car accident, and within hours many photos of her mangled body were posted on the internet. The mother firmly declares that the internet is evil incarnate. (It's a technology: it's not good or evil, it can be used for either.)

I was more interested in the chapter on sun flares: in this case, he's actually chasing a very real and rather nasty possibility. A big enough solar flare could potentially destroy a huge percentage of the world's computers: the electro-magnetic radiation generated doesn't significantly effect humans, but is genuinely dangerous to (running) computers. It sounds like catastrophism, but, while improbable, it's not impossible.

Some of the interviews are very interesting, but a significant portion of the movie is incredibly misleading. If you watch it, watch it for the entertainment value not the factual value.

2016, dir. Werner Herzog.

The Lobster

"The Lobster" is, according to Wikipedia, an "absurdist dystopian comedy-drama." This seems fairly accurate. It's directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, known for Greek language absurdist films.

Colin Farrell plays David (he may be the only person who ever gets a name in the movie) whose wife has left him. So he's escorted to "The Hotel," where he has 45 days to find a partner or be turned into the animal of his choice. He's asked to make that choice very early on in the film, and he chooses the lobster.

I should acknowledge that I'm not generally a fan of absurdist movies, but if they're well done they can still win me over. But the biggest failing of this movie was taking people and reducing them to a "defining characteristic" (a term used more than once within the movie - a limp, nose bleeds, a good singing voice, near-sightedness) that's the only thing that defines them and the only commonality they have with their partner. Humans are complex, and it's what makes us interesting. Turning us into walking "defining characteristics" makes the people in the movie one dimensional, unappealing, and uninteresting. Lanthimos is using this to comment on human relations and interactions, but if the people don't feel real, it weakens the story. The movie as a whole is somewhat interesting - as in "where the hell is he taking this horror show?" - but certainly not a favourite of mine.

2015, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos. With Colin Farrell, Jessica Barden, Ben Whishaw, Rachel Weisz, Olivia Colman, Ashley Jensen, John C. Reilly, Léa Seydoux, Angeliki Papoulia, Ariane Labed.

Local Hero

I saw this movie around the time it came out (1983). I saw it because I really liked "Gregory's Girl" (director Bill Forsyth's previous movie), but I was indifferent to this one - although my friends loved it. I suspect I wouldn't like "Gregory's Girl" much these days: too cringe-inducing, which bothered me less at the time.

MacIntyre (Peter Riegert) is sent from Texas to purchase a Scottish town and its bay so that it can be replaced by an oil refinery. He's joined by a local Scottish representative of his company - a very young and nerdy-looking Peter Capaldi. The town is enthusiastic about the pay-day headed their way, but they deliberately string MacIntyre along in an attempt to increase the pay-out. At the same time, MacIntyre is trying to understand the odd demands of the eccentric head of the company (Burt Lancaster) and falling in love with the town.

It seems my taste in humour hasn't changed much as I was still only mildly amused by this one. I was mostly trying to find something "heart-warming" during COVID-19 ... It's charming, with a classic setup of an almost-idyllic village full of eccentric characters. But I didn't laugh much.

1983, dir. Bill Forsyth. With Peter Riegert, Denis Lawson, Fulton Mackay, Burt Lancaster, Peter Capaldi, Norman Chancer, Rikki Fulton, Alex Norton, Jenny Seagrove, Jennifer Black, Christopher Rozycki, Christopher Asante.

Locke

Tom Hardy is Ivan Locke, who exits a construction site and gets in his car in the first two minutes of the movie. The entire rest of the movie consists of Hardy driving his car and talking on his phone. That's it: everyone else listed in the cast is just a voice on the phone. His whole life falls apart on this drive. Locke is a very principled and controlling kind of guy, and he's made a decision he's going to stick with, no matter what.

I can't fault Hardy's acting, which is - as always - excellent. But this is the most visually unrewarding movie I've ever seen in my life. And despite my recently concluding that story was more important than visuals ... just, please, GIVE ME SOMETHING. It seems they went out of their way to show out of focus lights and Hardy's face in reflection, and the panel of the car. The story's not terrible, and I kind of get why some people like this, but I flat-out hated it - a huge disappointment.

2013, dir. Steven Knight. With Tom Hardy, Ruth Wilson, Olivia Colman, Andrew Scott, Ben Daniels, Tom Holland, Bill Milner.

Lockout

"Escape From New York" in space, this time with Guy Pearce as the wise-cracking asshole sent into the large penitentiary to retrieve the President's daughter (rather than the President, as in the original). The set-up is much the same, although this time the movie starts with the events that take government agent Snow (Pearce) and put him on the wrong side of the law.

There are a large variety of egregious errors against the laws of physics, and the plot is derivative and blatantly telegraphs future developments. And yet Pearce manages to be hugely entertaining at the centre of this throwaway mess.

2012, dir. James Mather and Stephen St. Leger. With Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Peter Stormare, Vincent Regan, Joseph Gilgun, Lennie James, Tim Plester, Jacky Ido.

The Lodger

"The Lodger" was based on the 1913 novel of the same name by Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes. It was first made into a silent film in 1927 by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Ivor Novello (well known to this day as his name is attached to an ongoing music award, first won by a little-known band called "The Beatles"). Strangely, the movie was remade just five years later as a talkie ... also starring Novello. Hitchcock's version was a success, the talkie was not. And it's been made into a movie another three times (give or take) since.

The copy I saw was impressively awful: the soundtrack was badly written, seemed to have little relation to the film, and did jump-cuts to other parts of the music whenever it felt like it. Those jump-cuts weren't even in sync with the numerous jump-cuts as 5 and 10 second chunks of the film just ... disappeared. The contrast was so blasted out that it was extremely hard to read the teletype news text we were supposed to be able to see, and the movie's most memorable image was almost unrecognizable. I only noticed it going by because I was looking so hard for it (you can find the still in the Wikipedia entry about the film). It shows the pale and pretty face of Ivor Novello with the shadow of a cross over his eyes and down the centre of his face. It's a striking, fantastic image. Imagine it so bleached the cross is almost not present ...

And finally, I'll talk about the movie itself. First, we're shown that London has been subject to a string of murders of fair-haired young women by someone who leaves a calling card that says "The Avenger." Then, a mysterious and thoroughly creepy young man (Novello, as "the lodger") shows up at the house of our heroine Daisy (a pretty fair-haired girl and likely target of the Avenger) and her family, where he takes a room. He even arrives with the lower half of his face covered with a scarf, exactly as a witness described the Avenger. Daisy's cop boyfriend is a bit of a boor, and behaves boorishly when Daisy takes a liking to the lodger. Daisy's parents suspect the lodger after he sneaks out the night of a murder. Etc.

I thought "this is too obvious for Hitchcock, even if it's early Hitchcock." And I suspect he thought so too, and enjoyed playing with expectations: "this is too obvious ... but now you think he's not the one when maybe he really is ..." like that. Novello does creepy really well (without, I might add, being too clichéd about it). The acting is, well, silent movie over-acting, but not nearly as bad as "Metropolis," and it's pleasantly well constructed. Not a great masterwork, but unlike some of Hitchcock's earlier movies (I'm thinking particularly of the deeply disappointing "Rich and Strange," this one is worth seeking out for Hitchcock fans - although I sincerely hope you find a better copy than I did.

1927, dir. Alfred Hitchcock. With Marie Ault, Arthur Chesney, June Tripp, Malcolm Keen, Ivor Novello.

Logan

Apparently we're getting THREE X-Men movies in 2018 (according to Wikipedia): "New Mutants" (didn't actually appear until 2020), "Deadpool 2," and "X-Men: Dark Phoenix." Which makes 2017's release of one lonely film seem awfully restrained.

The movie is set in 2029: Logan (old, tired, and not healing nearly as fast as he used to - still played by Hugh Jackman) is working as a limo driver in Texas, crossing the border to Mexico most days where he and Caliban (Stephen Merchant) are keeping a somewhat senile but still very dangerous Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) cooped up and drugged (to control the fits he has that can injure or even kill anyone within a few hundred metres). There are no new mutants, and almost all of the old ones are dead. But a young girl comes to Logan and Charles: a young mutant girl, very similar to Logan, and being hunted by some very unpleasant people. The three of them flee.

No explanation is given or association made between Caliban's appearance in "X-Men: Apocalypse" and this movie, and the two don't make sense together if you've seen both - but retconning is just a way of life for Marvel movies. Just my perpetual whinge about Marvel's retconning - no one else seems particularly bothered by it.

The movie deserves some credit for not laying out the entire back-story in huge chunks of exposition at the beginning: you just have to accept the way things are and wait for the details to come (some of them never will). And it's a very dark story. My final assessment is that it's quite good ... and I'm unlikely to ever watch it again because it's so depressing.

2017, dir. James Mangold. With Hugh Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Richard E. Grant, Boyd Holbrook, Stephen Merchant, Dafne Keen.

Logan Lucky

The director behind the first three "Ocean's" movies brings us another heist movie - referred to, within the movie itself, as being "Ocean's 7-Eleven" and the "Hillbilly Heist." The movie is led by two likeable if not terribly bright brothers, Jimmy (Channing Tatum) and Clyde (Adam Driver) Logan. Jimmy is unfairly laid off from his job and concludes that the best way to get some cash is to steal from the nearby NASCAR track during an event. Clyde - having lost part of his arm while in the military - is obsessed with the idea of the "Logan Curse," the family's bad luck. They recruit Joe Bang (Daniel Craig, having a great time), an incarcerated explosives expert. Unfortunately, he insists on the inclusion of his two moronic brothers. They also recruit their (happily reasonably competent) hairdresser sister Mellie (Riley Keough).

The movie is fairly funny, which is the main point. I found it improbable that they should succeed in pulling off the heist, but I could deal with that. What really frustrated me was the twist on the end - which I simply didn't believe that the characters would be able to pull off. They just didn't have the brains for it.

Not a bad movie, but if you're going to make a movie about a really well planned robbery, use people who are intelligent enough to make it believable.

2017, dir. Steven Soderbergh. With Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig, Riley Keough, Seth MacFarlane, Katie Holmes, Hilary Swank, Katherine Waterston, Dwight Yoakam, Sebastian Stan, Brian Gleeson, Jack Quaid.

Logan's Run

Strangely, I had never seen this before 2012. Stranger still, I knew the plot intimately because I read the novelization when I was about 15.

Logan (Michael York) is a "Sandman" in some future time, in which everyone leads a life of happy hedonism and is "renewed" at the age of 30. Sandmen track down and kill "runners," those who refuse to be "renewed." Logan is happy with his life killing people by day and getting buzzed and screwing random women at night. That is, until his computerized boss volunteers him to find "Sanctuary," the place that most of the runners are trying to find, while simultaneously revealing that "renewal" is in fact simply death, and Logan himself is to be renewed in a couple days unless he solves the case.

Made in the mid-Seventies, the movie is unbelievably cheesy. The models are bad, the sets are dressed up shopping malls, the social structure of the future world is incredibly simplistic, and the acting is mainly poor. And the only good acting (by Peter Ustinov) simply shows how incredibly mediocre York and Jenny Agutter are. The final conclusion is just as simplistic and absurd as the rest of the story. Sadly, the movie remains well-known in the SF world and fans should at least be aware of it - but I think you'd be better served reading the plot summary on Wikipedia than actually watching the thing.

1976, dir. Michael Anderson. With Michael York, Jenny Agutter, Peter Ustinov, Richard Jordan, Roscoe Lee Browne, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Anderson Jr.

London River

Elisabeth Sommers (Brenda Blethyn) lives on the Guernsey Islands. She sees news of the (very real) July 7, 2005 terrorist bombings in London (three train cars, one bus, 52 killed, many more injured). She tries to contact her daughter who's a student living in London, to no avail. When she goes to London to try to find her daughter, she meets Ousmane (Sotigui Kouyaté), a French African who is looking for his son.

Kouyaté is an extraordinary presence: a giant, skinny spider of a man with a still and sombre face. He and Blethyn act well, and the script is reasonably well written, but in the end I felt I'd suffered with them for no particular reason - except perhaps to see how brutal and unfair the bombings were.

2009, dir. Rachid Bourchareb. With Brenda Blethyn, Sotigui Kouyaté, Roschdy Zem.

Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance

Ogami Itto (Tomisaburo Wakayama) is the Shogunate executioner until he's betrayed by the Yagyu family and his wife murdered. The Yagyu already control one part of the Shogunate, but want the influential position that Ogami holds. He is a superb swordsman and extremely intelligent as we find when he fights the Yagyu who attempt to finish him off. Ogami chooses to live without honour to avenge the death of his wife. He gives his one year old son Daigoro the choice of a ball or the sword: as Daigoro chooses the sword, Ogami takes Daigoro with him on his quest.

The graphic novel this was based on, and to some extent the several movies, were very influential. It's a very bloody and nasty movie, with a surprising amount of sex for the period. I didn't love it, but it was distinctive and interesting.

1972, dir. Kenji Misumi. With Tomisaburo Wakayama, Akihiro Tomikawa, Tomoko Mayama, Taketoshi Naitô, Reiko Kasahara, Tokio Oki.

The Lone Ranger (2013)

Armie Hammer plays John Reid, a newly trained lawyer returning to the American West in 1869. In the town he's returning to, his brother the law man awaits the arrival of an outlaw who's also on the train.

The whole production is lavishly mounted, with a huge A-list set of actors. Director Gore Verbinski and crew, so successful with "Pirates of the Caribbean," think they can do it again with another bizarre performance from Johnny Depp as Tonto, but Tonto doesn't play nearly as well as Jack Sparrow. Nor does Hammer play as well as Orlando Bloom. Everybody has to get their big break somewhere, but Hammer doesn't have the charisma for an action movie lead - especially not playing across from weird-Johnny-Depp. The absurdist humour alternating with Indian massacres isn't the best juxtaposition either. You'll want to skip this movie.

2013, dir. Gore Verbinski. With Armie Hammer, Johnny Depp, William Fichtner, Tom Wilkinson, Ruth Wilson, Barry Pepper, James Badge Dale, Helena Bonham Carter.

The Long Good Friday

There are some problems with this film, including an amazingly intrusive Seventies soundtrack and incomprehensible Cockney slang (and no subtitles so you can't even check to see that it really was incomprehensible), but otherwise we have a pretty interesting British gangster film. Imagine Bob Hoskins as Tony Soprano - but pre-dating Soprano by a couple decades. It doesn't hurt that they have Helen Mirren playing his wife, either. Violent and reasonably intelligent.

1980, dir. John Mackenzie. With Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren, P.H. Moriarty, Paul Freeman.

The Long Goodbye

Elliott Gould plays a version of Raymond Chandler's detective Philip Marlowe. When a friend comes to him asking for a ride from L.A. to Tijuana at 3 AM, he asks no questions. And when the police come asking after the friend he refuses to talk. Or, more accurately, he talks plenty - just not what they're asking. Marlowe is played here as a real smartass. When they let him go he starts digging into the story, trying to find out what actually happened because he doesn't believe the official line.

Marlowe survives the chaotic process as much by blind luck as through his own skills. He's very good at provoking people (including the very rich thug who's decided that Marlowe has the money his friend took from the thug ...) and can't keep his mouth shut - but he is at least a passable detective. I found the character irritating and the story messy at best and decidedly unrewarding. In fact my interest in the movie ran so low that my favourite moment was probably the very early-in-his-career appearance of Arnold Schwarzenegger as an unspeaking and uncredited thug in the bad guy's office three quarters of the way through the movie.

1973, dir. Robert Altman. With Elliott Gould, Nina Van Pallandt, Sterling Hayden, Mark Rydell, Henry Gibson, Jim Bouton, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

A Long Way Down

Nick Hornby's novels have been popular for making movies: "Fever Pitch" (twice - I've seen the American one, I want to see the British one), "High Fidelity" (which I adore), and "About a Boy" (never loved it as much as the critics). So this is the most recent one (the title has remained the same in the transition from page to film), about four people who meet on the roof of a tall building on New Years Eve, all there with the intention of jumping. Martin Sharp (Pierce Brosnan) is the first to arrive, and his reasons are very clear: former morning TV show host who slept with a young woman who turned out to be 15. Lost his job and his wife, went to jail. He's out of jail, but can't get a job. Maureen (Toni Collette) is next, then Jess (Imogen Poots) - who makes a sprint for it, triggering the adult instincts of Martin and Maureen, and finally J.J. (Aaron Paul). They talk, they leave without jumping, they talk more, they make a pact to not commit suicide until Valentine's Day.

The movie got lousy reviews (currently 22% at Rotten Tomatoes), and I understand why - although I'm not sure I can fully articulate it. My suspicion is that trying to compress the recovery of four people into an hour and a half doesn't work well. In a book, you have the time to examine each person's story in detail: here it has to be done in very broad strokes because you have less than 20 minutes per person. The problem isn't the actors: they're all quite good. Perhaps it's that some of it is decidedly black humour and yet the punchline is, well, "heart-warming." And, truth be told, I knew what I was getting into and I quite enjoyed it as a badly-reviewed-suicide-attempt-and-recovery-story. So maybe it'll work for you if you're in the right frame of mind.

2014, dir. Pascal Chaumeil. With Pierce Brosnan, Toni Collette, Imogen Poots, Aaron Paul, Rosamund Pike, Sam Neill.

The Longest Yard (2005)

Adam Sandler stars in a remake of the Burt Reynolds movie of the same name - reports suggest that the original was better, and that's not too hard to believe. Which isn't to say I disliked it: it's not a very good film, but I laughed and I enjoyed it. Sandler plays a washed up NFL quarterback jailed for drunk driving and recruited to form a football team to play the prison guards. Chris Rock plays his assistant, and Reynolds comes on board as a coach. Also starring two massive wrestlers/martial artists (Bob Sapp and Dalip Singh) and a stack of NFL players for that authentic look.

2005, dir. Peter Segal. With Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Burt Reynolds, Nelly, Michael Irvin, Bill Goldberg, Terry Crews, Bob Sapp, Nicholas Turturro, Dalip Singh, William Fichtner.

Longitude

Drama for geeks, the very best. This A&E mini-series (about 200 minutes) is about building - and reconstructing - the first high precision naval chronometer. It has no right to be even marginally interesting, and yet it's utterly fascinating and incredibly compelling. Two stories are told in parallel, that of John Harrison and his son William attempting to build the timepieces in the first place over fifty years in the 1700s, and that of Rupert Gould, obsessively reconstructing the same pieces over nearly the same period of time in the early twentieth century. While the story has been "dramatized," I believe it follows the history of both stories fairly closely. A huge and very good cast plus attention to historical detail make this an excellent piece of work.

2000, dir. Charles Sturridge. With Michael Gambon, Jeremy Irons, Stephen Simms, Anna Chancellor, Gemma Jones, Bill Nighy.

Looper

Very well-reviewed movie about an assassin in the year 2044 who waits in a field until his target is delivered via time-travel from the future, whereupon he blasts the person and disposes of the body. After several (very well paid) years of this, "loopers" find themselves killing the thirty years older version of themselves for a massive solid gold retirement payment. If you've seen the trailer, you know that the assassin is Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and the 30 years older version of himself he doesn't quite manage to kill is Bruce Willis, and the majority of the story is about the havoc that failure causes.

Setting aside the time paradoxes (of which there are dozens), the movie is involving and well-done. Willis and Gordon-Levitt in particular are very good. But I have some major issues with the movie which follow. SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't seen the movie, stop reading.

Director Rian Johnson sets up early on the reason for the loopers: it's essentially impossible to dispose of a body in the future - you have to send them to the past for assassination and disposal. And yet all of the actions of our older looper revolve around his rage at their killing his wife when they came to pick him up for his contract end. I can forgive the massive number of time paradoxes he created because ... well, time travel is a literary device and we don't know how it would work if it existed, so what the hell. But here he's very clearly and repeatedly stated "you can't kill people in the future" and half way through the movie he breaks his own story rules. And then there's the "Beatrix" thing (if you haven't seen the movie - A) why are you reading this, and B) this will make no sense at all). We've been set up to know the scars on the body indicate an old looper who's younger self has been captured. And Johnson chose a name to make it look exactly like that, one that starts with "Be at ..." So not only does he leave you dangling thinking our anti-hero is screwed, but then he jokes about how he manipulated you in the movie by mentioning that they could have used the name "Jenn." Johnson might as well have inserted a cameo of himself sitting behind the camera going "ha ha gotcha" and it wouldn't have been any less jarring - it threw me out of the movie completely. Another significant problem pointed out by a friend who hadn't even seen the movie: why the hell not send old loopers to a different looper for their retirement killing? Sending the looper to themselves for killing is established as a well known problem, and this is a simple solution. Not impressed.

Johnson has established himself as a skilled film maker with "Brick" (high school noir thriller - well done, but the bizarre home-made slang took me right out of the movie), "The Brothers Bloom" (a fascinating failure), and now "Looper." He could make great movies if he didn't insist on making each and every one of them so consciously self-aware and in-your-face.

2012, dir. Rian Johnson. With Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, Jeff Daniels, Piper Perabo, Noah Segan, Pierce Gagnon.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

I saw this in the theatres when it came out, watched it again 2009-08 on DVD (the theatrical cut) and then 2024. I liked it the first time, but the second time ... I enjoyed it with some considerable reservations. It's so purple it scorches the air around it. Purple prose, purple emotions - everything is a grand gesture. Yes, they're fighting for the survival of their entire world, but it still seems too over-the-top. Despite which I'll still call it "good," because it looks good and it's about as accurate a recreation of Tolkien on screen as I can imagine (which is to say "not very," but Tolkien didn't write for the screen).

2001, dir. Peter Jackson. With Elijah Wood, Ian Holm, Ian McKellen, Christopher Lee, Orlando Bloom, Sean Bean, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd, Cate Blanchett, Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen, Dominic Monaghan, John Rhys-Davies, Hugo Weaving.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Rewatched this in 2009 and 2024, theatrical release. Happily it didn't feel quite as overblown as the first one, or maybe I've just adjusted to the writing. It's a good movie.

2002, dir. Peter Jackson. With Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys-Davies, Cate Blanchett, Liv Tyler, Ian McKellen, Miranda Otto, Karl Urban, Bernard Hill, Hugo Weaving, Brad Dourif, Christopher Lee.

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

The final film in Jackson's epic retelling of "The Lord of the Rings." There's much good to be said about this - the scale is epic, the effects excellent, most of the acting very good indeed. But why do directors insist on re-inserting the crap they were rightly required to cut for the theatre version under the terrifying appellations "Director's Cut" or "Extended Version?" Especially when the original running time already exceeded three hours! I really appreciated the theatrical release, but the DVD extended version made me mildly nauseous.

2024-03: The effects are starting to look a little dodgy twenty years on, and the acting and staging struck me as overblown. Still good, but not the epic I took it for when it was released.

2003, dir. Peter Jackson. With Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, John Rhys-Davies, Cate Blanchett, Liv Tyler, Ian McKellen, Miranda Otto, Karl Urban, David Wenham, Bernard Hill.

Lord of War

"They say that I am the lord of war, but perhaps it is you." "I believe it's 'warlord.'" "Thank you, but I prefer it my way." Cage plays the "lord of war," a man who will sell weapons to anyone - so long as the cheque won't bounce. We follow about 15 years in his life. Brutally depressing, not that that surprised me. But what really depressed me was the closing onscreen quote to the effect that "the five biggest arms dealers in the world are China, France, the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom - the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council." The movie itself brought home the physical and moral destruction on a personal level, and that closing quote showed the world-wide problem.

2005, dir. Andrew Niccol. With Nicolas Cage, Bridget Moynahan, Jared Leto, Ian Holm, Eamonn Walker.

L.A. Confidential

In 1990, James Ellroy wrote a crime drama called L.A. Confidential set in the 1950s. I've never read the book, although perhaps I should. Curtis Hanson (who directed) co-wrote the screenplay: his first step in making the movie was an incredible attention to detail in people's dress, the sets, the cars, everything. This is a good place to start. But it's not what the movie's about, it's just a part of the foundation: on top of this he got a fantastic ensemble cast (Guy Pearce, Kevin Spacey, Russell Crowe, Kim Basinger, David Strathairn, James Cromwell) to do a great performance of a dark and complex story of corruption and murder.

Pearce is Ed Exley, a straight-laced (and very intelligent) cop who chooses to start his career by informing on fellow officers. Crowe is Bud White, a thuggish enforcer who eventually starts using the brain he's been gifted with, and Spacey is Jack Vincennes, a cop who spends most of his time consulting on a TV cop show and taking pay-offs for busts to go on the cover of a local sleaze tabloid. A series of events brings the three together on a collision course as organized crime in the city gets a vicious re-organization by parties unknown.

The movie has withstood multiple viewings, and I watch every moment of it avidly every time because it's ... well, perfect. A movie that expects you to pay attention, it moves fast, it's shocking, and you really aren't going to see the twists coming. Pay attention - and enjoy. Easily in my top 10 movies of all time.

1997, dir. Curtis Hanson. With Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, James Cromwell, Kim Basinger, David Strathairn, Danny DeVito.

The Losers

Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays Clay, the leader of a CIA black ops team. While on what they take to be a standard "blow up terrorists" job, the team notices a bunch of children (being used as drug mules) in the target zone. When they call for an abort, it's refused - they rush in and rescue the children before the kill. For which they themselves are left for dead. Several months later they're approached by Aisha (Zoe Saldana), offering them an opportunity to kill "Max," the man who betrayed them.

Lots of action, huge body count, no blood. Exceedingly hard to believe, but fairly funny with likable characters. Max (Jason Patric) is another of the unbelievably amoral villains who seems to care about absolutely nothing, he's just a dangerous asshole. Annoyingly sets itself up for a sequel (that may not come - broke even at the box office, but barely).

2010, dir. Sylvain White. With Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, Chris Evans, Idris Elba, Columbus Short, Óscar Jaenada, Jason Patric, Holt McCallany.

Lost Bullet

The French don't make action movies nearly as often as Hollywood. But when they do - it's almost always more interesting. Some critics (not that many bothered with a French Netflix action movie) argued it was formulaic. Yes, but also well thought out with interesting characters and some wicked good action.

Lino (Alban Lenoir, moving into acting from stunt work) is a mechanic who makes jacked-up cars for crimes. He's an excellent mechanic ... but not a particularly skilled criminal. He's caught and sent to jail. But a cop sees his skills, and gets him out of jail to help the cop's team catch the "go fast" gangs that have been evading them. Lino works in the police garage, likes his boss, etc. But then he's framed for murder. And here's the shocking twist: he escapes custody to prove his innocence. I suspect I'm not the only person who's heard that one so many times before they've lost count. However ... within that framework, the twists are still unexpected and the action is really good. I really enjoyed this one.

2020, dir. Guillaume Pierret. With Alban Lenoir, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Ramzy Bedia, Stéfi Celma, Rod Paradot, Sébastien Lalanne, Arthur Aspaturian, Patrick Médioni, Pascale Arbillot.

The Lost City of Z

Based on a book I read a couple years ago, with the same title. This is a fictionalized version of Percy Fawcett's (Charlie Hunnam) life, particularly his trips to the Amazon. It was interesting to see what they did with the story taking it from a non-fiction book to the screen.

You'll find a couple negative reviews of Hunnam's previous acting if you look around in my movie reviews - but I thought he was really good here. Everyone else was good too, particularly Robert Pattinson in a somewhat subdued role as his second in command. The movie shows how horrible exploring the Amazon could be, and how long (years, and several times) he was away from his family.

But ... I should stay away from stuff I know ends badly, because that's just no fun during a pandemic [I watched this during COVID-19]. No one knows what the hell happened to Fawcett and his son: they went into the jungle in 1925, they didn't come out: director James Gray has given them a much more spiritual end than I think is likely. But the movie is mostly accurate to my memory of the book. They leave out a huge amount of detail - including some of the less appealing parts of Fawcett's personality - as is necessary to fit into a two hour twenty minute movie.

2016, dir. James Gray. With Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, Edward Ashley, Tom Holland, Sienna Miller, Angus Macfadyen, Clive Francis, Ian McDiarmid, Franco Nero.

Lost Horizon

In the process of rescuing "90 white people" from a besieged Chinese town, a noble diplomat (I didn't choose that cliché lightly) and several of the passengers are hijacked, ending up in Shangri-La. The DVD I watched in 2008 had been lovingly restored, in pieces, from a bunch of all different bad prints - including restoring it to its full original, and unnecessary, length of 132 minutes. Editors are a GOOD THING(TM) and for the same reason that director's cuts are usually no improvement, this one has issues: it's too long and too slow. Sickly sweet in many places and ludicrous throughout, I was perhaps most bothered by Shangri-La being populated by a bunch of Tibetans and yet run by a couple white guys. That's 1937 American pictures for you. Still, it has a certain charm, mostly because it does give some thought to the pursuit of a perfect life.

1937, dir. Frank Capra. With Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt, Edward Everett Horton, John Howard, Thomas Mitchell, Margo, Isabel Jewell, H.B. Warner, Sam Jaffe.

Lost in Austen

Jemima Rooper plays Amanda Price, a modern-day fan of Austen's Pride and Prejudice who has read the book so often she has it entirely memorized. And one day she discovers Elizabeth Bennet in her washroom ... and that she has Alice's rabbit hole in the washroom to take her right to the Bennet household. Right at the beginning of the story. Unfortunately, no matter how well prepared, a modern woman isn't quite up to the niceties or the details of life in Austen's time, and she quickly and significantly screws up the story line despite her best efforts. And with Lizzie insisting on staying in the present, Amanda has to fight this battle on her own.

This is a four part BBC mini-series with a full run-time of roughly three hours (unfortunately purchased for a Hollywood movie remake). Rooper is brilliant as a girl who doesn't quite know how to keep her mouth shut - in fact, pretty much everyone on the project acted very well. If you can get past the "Alice in Wonderland" entry mechanism (or should I perhaps reference "The Lake House?") the writing (by Guy Andrews) is brilliant - a marvellous reconception of Austen by someone who clearly knows the original exceptionally well. Fans of the book and/or movies will be surprised (in a good way) by many of the characters - the visions of Wickham and Collins are particularly interesting.

2008, dir. Dan Zeff. With Jemima Rooper, Eliot Cowan, Hugh Bonneville, Morven Christie, Alex Kingston, Tom Mison, Tom Riley, Guy Henry, Perdita Weeks, Gemma Arterton, Christina Cole, Florence Hoath, Lindsay Duncan, Michelle Duncan, Ruby Bentall.

Lost in La Mancha

Around 2000, Terry Gilliam had a shot at making a version of Don Quixote called "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" starring Jean Rochefort and Johnny Depp - after roughly a decade of planning. It was a movie he'd wanted to do forever. You won't have seen this movie, because "Lost in La Mancha" is a documentary about how the production went straight to hell in a hand basket and fell completely apart. They never had as much money as they needed and they couldn't get the actors on set. When they did get the actors on set, they had a massive flood. Rochefort would have been the perfect Quixote ... but he started having medical problems. It looked like it would have been a great movie - very Gilliamesque, but really good. But it imploded. A fascinating view of the film-making process, and how it can go completely off the rails. The film makers are more than happy to cast Gilliam as Quixote, tilting at windmills.

Watching this in 2010 I'm interested to note that it appears Gilliam has reclaimed the rights to the script (owned by the insurance company for several years) and is currently casting With Robert Duvall and Depp (again) confirmed. We'll see if he can pull it off this time.

"The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" was finally released in 2018, starring Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce. Sadly, I haven't seen it yet.

2003, dir. Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe. With Jeff Bridges, Terry Gilliam, Johnny Depp, Jean Rochefort.

Lost in Space (2018)

If you look around on this page, you'll find that I've been watching The Expanse." I was very pleased in the first season that they worked hard on doing the science accurately. By the third season I'd forgotten they were doing it, but they still were. And then I tried Netflix's 2018 version of "Lost in Space." It got passable reviews, and I saw one of those things on YouTube about "SF you should be watching" or something like that - and saw that it had Molly Parker in it. But oh, the egregious science.

The series STARTS with deus ex machina - in the first episode the robot saves the whole family. Deus ex machina is a thing because writers often paint themselves into a corner with their story line and the only way back out is by some god-like power saving the day at the end. They could have introduced the robot in a million different ways - but they started with deus ex machina when most writers see it as a last resort. Wow.

Water does not insta-freeze. Not when the air is at a human-breathable temperature. And not only are they clearly breathing the air, they haven't even bothered to put hats on. But if it DID insta-freeze around a space suit, it would crush it on the spot. Ice floats on top of water because it's less dense - that means it takes up more space than the same amount of water, and insta-freeze would involve a lot of upheaval of the ice surface they were standing on, and extreme compression of any gas bubbles (like a space suit) inside the water/ice. She would have died by crushing in approximately 30 seconds the way they played it.

We return to the scene at night, having been assured the temperature will reach "60 below zero." They're desperately trying to excavate our frozen heroine, when it starts raining. Yes, raining. Which fills the hole and insta-freezes. Wait, it was snowing earlier, and now that it's colder, it ... rains?

By the way, about a kilometre away at 500m lower altitude, there are plenty of green flowering plants. You can make arguments about "alien flora," but they're definitely going for Earth-like, and these two things simply don't match up. They may be on a glacier, but the temperature difference wouldn't be that extreme.

And that's all before we talk about the problems of burning a magnesium-oxygen-water mix right next to the helmet of a space suit.

Can I talk about the big ship? The interstellar ship has multiple rings around a central column - with the ranger ships attached to the open rings on the inside. They're attached to the rings, sticking out perpendicular to the direction of thrust of the main ship and apparently only attached/supported at their airlocks. The design is insanely bad in multiple ways I can't even begin ...

By the way, magnesium is a metal. It is not putty, to be removed by sticking a knife point in and levering. It's a "soft" metal, but it's nowhere near that soft.

Sure, speculative science is part and parcel of science fiction. But it's a lot easier to sell your speculative science when it's based on known science. And the way water behaves and freezes is about the best known science we have ...

Ironically, the acting, effects, and drama are all passable ... but the bad science, quite simply, broke me. And reminded me of one more reason to love "The Expanse."

I thought, I hoped, that "The Expanse" was a harbinger - an indicator that slowly but surely better science would prevail in media. But now I see that the world is steady state: when a series comes along with really good science, another one has to arrive with appalling science. And here we are.

2018. With Molly Parker, Toby Stephens, Maxwell Jenkins, Taylor Russell, Mina Sundwall.

Lost in Translation

Two Americans overwhelmed by Japanese culture meet in their hotel bar in Tokyo, and spend some time together. The friends I saw it with were annoyed that scenes were frequently left incomplete, but I thought that the information you needed to know was conveyed just fine. The woman we were with was also appalled at the idea of Bill Murray as an even marginally romantic lead. Both leads did a very good job, and I really enjoyed the movie. It does a very good job of conveying the isolation travellers feel far from home in a country where they don't speak the language.

This is Sofia Coppola's second full-length film after "The Virgin Suicides."

2003, dir. Sofia Coppola. With Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson, Giovanni Ribisi.

The Lost King

Richard the 3rd is one of England's more contentious kings. Most of the world is aware of him because of Shakespeare's play. Because it's one of Shakespeare's better written plays, it gets presented regularly, and new film versions come out about once a decade. And that means we all know he's an ugly, hunch-backed, evil, child-murdering usurper. Except ... history doesn't particularly support this.

For those who think Shakespeare's proximity in time to Richard make the play more "accurate," you need to understand first (as pointed out by our protagonist) that Shakespeare wrote his play 100 years after Richard's death. In a time when accurate histories of the royals were non-existent, and Richard was a reviled and defeated "usurper" because history is written by the winners. And secondly (not mentioned in this movie), Shakespeare lived and worked at the whim of Queen Elizabeth. He took multiple opportunities in his plays to write long (and usually boring) speeches aggrandizing her relatives - "accuracy" had nothing to do with it, it was all aimed at the survival of his theatre group. He was a great writer, but he was more subject to the whims of the reigning queen than modern playwrights are to current politics.

Our protagonist is Philippa Langley (the link is to Wikipedia - she's a real person), played by Sally Hawkins. After seeing a performance of Shakespeare's Richard III, Langley begins to think the portrayal of Richard in that play may be inaccurate. She begins to research him, which leads her to the local Richard the Third Society (in reality, Langley started her local society: my assumption is that this arrangement made the storyline run more smoothly). She becomes determined to "pay her respects" to this king ... except that nobody knew where he was buried. She's haunted by visions of Richard (Harry Lloyd), and begins to follow up on all the research done into where he might be buried. All while struggling with work problems, odd relationship arrangements, two kids, and myalgic encephalomyelitis (better known as "Chronic Fatigue").

Hawkins' performance has been much lauded, and it's good. But I didn't think it stood out all that much from the very good bunch of actors around her. And the biggest problem for me was that this felt a lot like a TV-movie-of-the-week - "heroine struggles against disease and circumstances and evil academia to triumph and be proven right in the end." The fact that it's pretty much all accurate to reality doesn't change that much. I watched this in part because Stephen Frears directed two of my favourite movies ("Dangerous Liaisons" and "High Fidelity") but conveniently forgot his uneven track record (best represented here by "Tamara Drewe" - which was at least "interesting" if not "good"). I liked this, but it wasn't a stand-out.

2022, dir. Stephen Frears. With Sally Hawkins, Steve Coogan, Harry Lloyd, Mark Addy, Lee Ingleby, James Fleet.

A Lot Like Love

The latest generation of rom com, that starts with the two leads having it off in an airplane washroom without even knowing each other's names. A friendship develops by fits and starts, with several romantic misfires. Will they get together in the end? It's a new generation, but it's not that different. The plot is ... mundane, and the characters are written in clichés just often enough to be annoying, but Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet both act well and are remarkably funny, so the final product is reasonably enjoyable.

2005, dir. Nigel Cole. With Amanda Peet, Ashton Kutcher.

Love Actually

This one is about the twists and turns that love and relationships take. I saw it on a flight back from London, which was interesting: it was filmed in London, and they kept showing places I had been. It's a comedy about love and relationships with plenty of serious moments, but don't call it a "romantic comedy." And do watch it - it's really, really good.

2003, dir. Richard Curtis. With Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Allan Rickman, Keira Knightley, Hugh Grant, Laura Linney, Bill Nighy, Liam Neeson.

Love Among the Ruins

This is a 1975 made-for-TV movie, although you can't fault the pedigree: it was directed by George Cukor, and starred Katherine Hepburn and Laurence Olivier. Unfortunately, that's where the good news ends: the production is stagey (a very small number of sets, and mostly with people standing in one place), mannered, histrionic, and overplayed at every turn.

Sir Arthur Granville-Jones (Olivier) is a barrister, about to defend Jessica Medlicott (Hepburn), who's been accused of having courted and promised marriage to a far younger man and then dumped him. She's quite rich, and the young man (and his family) feel entitled to some money. But Granville-Jones has his own history with Medlicott - they had a passionate affair some 40 years prior, and he's never forgotten it.

Olivier and Hepburn are only so-so, which is a bit surprising for two of that generation's greats in their later years. Most of the fault falls on the script, which makes a bigger deal out of everything than it should, and just isn't very good. And then it seems like the director told Olivier and Hepburn to ham it up while they're playing these already overblown lines. In the end, I was left wondering how Granville-Jones could retain the slightest interest in Medlicott after everything she did even during the course of this short movie. Or she in him for that matter.

1975, dir. George Cukor. With Katharine Hepburn, Laurence Olivier, Colin Blakely, Richard Pearson, Joan Sims.

Love and Friendship

Jane Austen is famous for six novels: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion. Most people know this. Rather less know that she wrote an absurd tale called Love and Freindship (sic) in her teens, and another novella, Lady Susan. This movie is particularly confusingly titled, as it brings the novella Lady Susan to the screen. Lady Susan stands out as the only actively evil (or at least exceptionally unpleasant) protagonist that Austen ever wrote.

I was very pleased to hear that Kate Beckinsale had been chosen for the lead role: before she spent 15 years in leather tights as a vampire who hunted werewolves, she was a very good classical actress. I was afraid the world had forgotten that. Not that this movie particularly stretched her skills: all she has to do is work her way between deceitful and acidic. Nevertheless, it's nice to see her back in Austen.

I should admit up front that I'm not fond of movies based on nasty people doing nasty things, even when (or maybe because) it's a comedy (which isn't exactly how Austen wrote it). So I didn't particularly enjoy this, although I can mostly see it's good qualities. Lady Susan is a widower and a horribly manipulative person, flirting with (and occasionally sleeping with) any man she chooses to the detriment of several families - not least the family of her dead husband, whose home Lady Susan retreats to after poisoning the nest by carrying on with two different men at the last place she was visiting. She then proceeds to enchant the handsome young son of the family.

I didn't much like it, but fans of Austen should definitely consider ignoring my opinion and giving it a watch (the critics absolutely loved it).

2016, dir. Whit Stillman. With Kate Beckinsale, Xavier Samuel, Chloë Sevigny, Emma Greenwell, Morfydd Clark, Jemma Redgrave, Tom Bennett, James Fleet, Justin Edwards, Jenn Murray, Stephen Fry.

Love and Mercy

The movie focuses on two periods in Brian Wilson's life: around the making of "Pet Sounds" in the 1960s, and towards the end of his time under the thumb of his unpleasant therapist Dr. Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti). The younger Wilson is played by Paul Dano, the older by John Cusack. Brian Wilson was (perhaps still is) - according to both the movie and most of the music critics of the last 40 years - one of the greatest songwriters and most influential rock musicians to have ever lived. And "Pet Sounds" was possibly his single most important album ... and also when he really started to unravel mentally. The movie follows the creation of the album and also his travails under the control of Dr. Landy who had misdiagnosed him, was controlling every aspect of his life, and was over-medicating him. Which also happened to be when he met the woman who would eventually become his second wife (played by Elizabeth Banks).

Both versions of Wilson are pretty messed up. And I'm okay with watching Cusack acting messed up. But I've never been a fan of Dano, and watching him act messed up put me right off. It's not precisely that the man's a bad actor, I just ... don't like him. And while I'm happy for Brian Wilson - that he found a good woman and got his head mostly straightened out - the movie seemed to be a lot more about the music than it was about emotional content. I found it somewhat interesting but not terribly rewarding.

2014, dir. Bill Pohlad. With John Cusack, Paul Dano, Elizabeth Banks, Paul Giamatti.

Love and Other Drugs

What most people hear about this movie is the part where Jamie (Jake Gyllenhaal) sells Viagra. But this is about selling Viagra the way "Million Dollar Baby" is about boxing, which is to say it's more surface than core. The centre of the story is about Jamie's relationship with his passionate, sick, and very defensive girlfriend Maggie (Anne Hathaway). But while "Million Dollar Baby" got to the meat of the story and concentrated on it, this one spends a lot of time on Jamie's pimping drugs and the supposedly amusing side-story of his multi-millionaire loser brother coming to live with him. This is probably worth seeing for Gyllenhaal and Hathaway, who are both incredibly gorgeous AND fantastically talented actors who turn in great performances here. But overall not a particularly good story.

2010, dir. Edward Zwick. With Anne Hathaway, Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Gad, Hank Azaria, Oliver Platt, Judy Greer, Gabriel Macht, Nikki DeLoach.

Love Death + Robots

This is a Netflix product that Wikipedia labels "an American adult animated anthology web television series." There are 18 episodes, ranging in length from 6 to 17 minutes. They're animated in a huge variety of styles, with very different subjects, each by different crews - although most (all?) of them are science fiction or fantasy. The series has been accused by some reviewers of having too much "gore and titillation" (per Rotten Tomatoes). They're not exactly wrong, but if you can see past that, there's some dazzling artwork and a lot of interesting ideas. I watched them over the course of three or four months, when I had a few minutes after watching something else - I savoured every one.

If you're not a fan of science fiction, you may not be interested - but even then, the artwork is glorious. If you do like SF, start watching this tomorrow: it's absolutely worth your time.

2019. With Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Gary Cole, Chris Parnell, Omid Abtahi, John DiMaggio, Christine Adams, Josh Brener, Jill Talley, Hakeem Kae-Kazim, Nolan North, Elaine Tan, Aaron Himelstein, Samira Wiley, Stefan Kapičić, Topher Grace.

Love Death + Robots (Season 2)

The second season of "Love, Death + Robots" arrived near the beginning of May. There were eight episodes this time instead of 18 as last time - a major disappointment. And less variety, which was one of the great appeals of the previous season. Several of the episodes seemed to be using video game engines to do their animation - you can do great artwork in those, but when you use it for human faces you drop into the uncanny valley. That also gives a certain feeling of homogeneity to the episodes that used it.

The stand-out names were Michael B. Jordan acting in the final episode (his face was live action I think, the rest animated), and Jennifer Yuh Nelson directing the 3rd episode. Jordan's acting was fine, but not exceptional. Yuh Nelson is perhaps best known for "Kung Fu Panda 2" and "3," both of which are excellent. But here she goes with a particularly reductive story idea, and decidedly uncanny-valley visuals for an episode that stood out more for its mediocrity than its brilliance.

I don't think the episodes in this year were, individually, noticeably worse than those in the previous year. But thinking about that has made me realize that what made the previous year's work so interesting was the sheer variety. And a significantly shorter season means we're lacking that variety this time around. Disappointing. Let's hope that the end of COVID-19 means the next season (if there is one) is more varied.

2021. With Michael B. Jordan, Nancy Linari, Emily O’Brien, Joe Dempsie, Ike Amadi, Nolan North, Fred Tatasciore, Peter Franzén, Jennifer Hale, Sebastian Croft, Brian Keene, Steven Pacey, Scott Whyte, Zita Hanrot.

Love in a Cold Climate

Based on a couple of Nancy Mitford novels, a tale of privilege and the quest for love in 1930s England. Rosamund Pike is our narrator, a clueless naif in the first half. By the end we see her as the only one of the three main girls with any common sense, and most of the rest of the families and friends that surround them are really objectionable people.

2001, dir. Tom Hooper. With Rosamund Pike, Elisabeth Dermot-Walsh, Megan Dodds, John Wood, Sheila Gish, Samuel Labarthe, John Light, Anthony Andrews, Daniel Evans.

Love in the Afternoon

What is it about Audrey Hepburn that made the studios feel compelled to star her opposite men thirty years her senior - in rom coms? "Sabrina" (Humphrey Bogart), "Charade" (Cary Grant), "Funny Face" (Fred Astaire) and this one. Her big debut was "Roman Holiday" - Gregory Peck was 15 years older than her, but at least in that case they looked great - she didn't look like she was standing beside her father and/or a cadaver. I feel compelled to mention that there were exceptions: "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (George Peppard) and "How to Steal a Million" (Peter O'Toole).

Hepburn plays cello student Ariane Chavasse, who lives with her father Claude Chavasse (Maurice Chevalier) who is a private detective. She listens in on a conversation her father has with a client, and learns about Frank Flannagan (Gary Cooper), an American millionaire businessman with a habit of seducing wives all over every continent. When the client - who is one of Frank's cuckolded husbands - declares he's going to shoot Flannagan, Ariane decides to warn him. And so they meet.

I'm a big fan of Cooper's, but aside from being too old for this role, he was flat-out wooden this time out. Hepburn is typically charming, although not great, and the chemistry between the two is less than convincing. It's Chevalier who steals the show - mostly in the first half, where he's utterly hilarious.

1957, dir. Billy Wilder. With Audrey Hepburn, Gary Cooper, Maurice Chevalier, John McGiver, Van Doude, Olga Valery.

Love is All You Need

Our two main characters are Ida (Trine Dyrholm) who just finished treatments for breast cancer only to find out her husband is having an affair with his young accountant, and Philip (Pierce Brosnan), a widowed, successful fruit and vegetable import/export guy. They're thrown together as their children (her daughter Astrid - Molly Blixt Egelind - and his son Patrick - Sebastian Jessen) are getting married on Patrick's gorgeous estate in Italy.

It's a rom com, and it draws its humour from overblown characters and the comedy of everything that can go wrong going very wrong. It's hard to find much good to say about the movie: it's so clichéd and heavy-handed that much of it is flat-out painful. And to add insult to injury, the soundtrack includes FIVE renditions of the world's cheesiest dumbass comedy love song, "That's Amore." The acting is surprisingly good given that that plot and characters are an appalling mess.

As an example of the poor structure of the film, the wedding disintegrates - and both of the intendeds are psychological messes that their parents should (and from previous behaviour in the movie, would) attend to. But instead - exit traumatized children, stage left. That's it, you've served your comedic purpose, we don't care anymore.

Give this one a miss.

2012, dir. Susanne Bier. With Trine Dyrholm, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Bodnia, Paprika Steen, Sebastian Jessen, Molly Blixt Egelind.

Love Serenade

A "quirky" Australian comedy about two sisters and the new DJ in town they both seduce (he doesn't make it difficult for them). There are five speaking parts in the movie, and only four matter: sisters Dimity (Miranda Otto) and Vicki-Ann (Rebecca Frith), DJ Ken Sherry (George Shevtsov), and Albert Lee (John Alansu), the nudist owner of the local Chinese restaurant that Dimity works at. When big-name DJ Sherry moves in next door to the sisters, Vicki-Ann immediately decides he will be hers - but it's awkward virgin Dimity who beds him first. Which creates a great deal of tension between the two.

All three of the main characters are completely off their cams, and make the incredibly eccentric Albert look like a saint. None of them are likeable. I got a couple laughs early on, but this was a distinctly laugh-free "comedy." Some credit is due: the characters were fairly well drawn, and there was nothing predictable about it. Otto showed very clearly why she was the only one to go on to a significant career: she's a good actress. But I'm not a huge fan of un-funny comedies.

And while I don't have any trouble with Barry White tracks per se, they used four or five of his songs, played one twice, and played the title track three times. It got tiresome.

1996, dir. Shirley Barrett. With Miranda Otto, Rebecca Frith, George Shevtsov, John Alansu, Jessica Napier.

Love, Simon

"Love, Simon" has been drawing a lot of comparisons to the John Hughes films of the 1980s. I thought about that a lot while I was watching the movie and it's surprisingly accurate. It's a high school rite-of-passage comedy-drama with elements of romance, and if Hughes were writing in 2018 he would almost certainly have done a coming-out comedy. The fact that our lead, Simon (Nick Robinson), is gay is about the only major variation from the Hughes formula.

Simon is in his last year of high school. He knows he's gay, but even though he's pretty sure his family and friends wouldn't be concerned if he came out ... he's not ready. After he starts an anonymous email correspondence with another gay student at his school, things get a little messy. One of the other students gets copies of some of the emails and blackmails him into doing stupid things.

The group of friends who surround Simon are well scripted and well acted. His family is a little more sketched in, but decent and supportive. Some of the supporting characters are caricatures (notably the school's ludicrous V.P. played by Tony Hale - John Hughes wouldn't have it any other way ...). I'm also not a fan of watching blackmail. But for the most part it's a funny and charming story.

2018, dir. Greg Berlanti. With Nick Robinson, Josh Duhamel, Jennifer Garner, Katherine Langford, Alexandra Shipp, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Keiynan Lonsdale, Logan Miller, Miles Heizer, Tony Hale, Talitha Bateman.

A Love Song for Bobby Long

A movie about three messed up people and a house. Scarlett Johansson's character inherits a house in New Orleans from her estranged mother, but when she arrives there she finds she's also inherited two well educated alcoholic boarders who were friends of her mother. There then follows a drawn-out series of admissions and revelations about relationships between everybody, everybody improves a little bit, and something important gets done. But there's not really anything exciting here: it's kind of sloppy, and even John Travolta can't make Bobby Long as compelling a character as he's supposed to be. Disappointing.

2004, dir. Shainee Gabel. With John Travolta, Scarlett Johansson, Gabriel Macht, Deborah Kara Unger, Dane Rhodes, David Jensen.

Love's Labour's Lost (1985)

One of Shakespeare's least satisfying plays, rightly infrequently performed. A passable cast do what they can with the muddled text. Apparently it was hilariously funny in his own time because most of the characters were caricatures of well known people, but we don't see that now. So the enjoyment of the play must come from the plot (which is even more pathetic than usual) and the prose ... The only character who really shines is Berowne - of the four lords, the only one who has the sense to know that what they're endeavouring to do is impractical and unlikely. He is also occasionally very funny. But, in the end, an unsatisfying production of an unsatisfying play. Part of the BBC's "Complete Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare."

1985, dir. Elijah Moshinsky. With Mike Gwilym, Jonathan Kent, Jenny Agutter, Petra Markham, David Warner, Clifford Rose.

Love's Labour's Lost (2010)

A stage production filmed at the new(ish) Globe Theatre in London.

In the 1980s I saw a version of Romeo and Juliet performed in High Park. The Nurse asks the time, and Mercutio, courteously taking her hand says "... for the bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon." And as he says this, he puts her hand on his crotch. Shakespeare was frequently very bawdy, and modern audiences often forget that between the literary love he gets and the ancient version of our language that he uses - a language we don't fully understand. So I'm very much in favour of the plays being presented with rude visual accompaniment if it makes the old language easier to understand.

"Love's Labour's Lost" is among Shakespeare's worst plays. If we want to be polite about it, we could say "it's among the least accessible to a modern audience." It's full of period political jokes that aren't funny even if you know Shakespearean English because they also require a thorough knowledge of the politics and celebrities of the time. And there's a lot of wordplay - wordplay more complex and harder to follow than Shakespeare's usual, and less successful because of it. In an attempt to make the play funny, this cast spends a great deal of energy on ludicrous physical comedy - not physical comedy to emphasize the language, just silliness chasing about the stage, plus fart and penis jokes. I'm not sure they're totally wrong about this, but I think their excessive gestures could have better been used to interpret some of the language. If Shakespeare isn't worth seeing without adding fart jokes and physical comedy ... why are you bothering to put on the play? (If you haven't gathered, I think this one's not worth staging anymore.)

A game cast drew a few laughs, but the production ran 2h46m and was a hell of a struggle to get through. I think that's the last time I watch LLL - I have better things to do with my life.

2010, dir. Dominic Dromgoole. With Trystan Gravelle, Philip Cumbus, Michelle Terry, Jade Anouka, Seroca Davis, Jack Farthing, Patrick Godfrey, Rhiannon Oliver, Thomasin Rand, Tom Stuart.

Luca

Luca (voiced by Jacob Tremblay) is a young sea monster - a very cute, mostly human-shaped sea monster. He lives with his family off the coast of Italy - Wikipedia tells me the year is 1959. He herds goat fish and is bored with his pastoral underwater life, but terrified of the surface because his parents have always taught him humans are monsters. But that doesn't stop him being fascinated by human objects that he finds on the bottom of the sea. One day this leads to a friendship with another young sea monster (Alberto, voiced by Jack Dylan Grazer) who also collects human stuff ... and who shows him that when sea monsters go ashore and dry out, they look human. And so begins his summer coming-of-age adventure.

The movie is beautiful, with glorious artwork both above and below the sea. The small town in Italy is particularly lovely. The coming-of-age tale is more or less textbook Pisney-Dixar, but brings an immense amount of charm to the table without getting cloying. Lovely to watch and fun without managing to get near Pixar's best: better than "Onward," on par with "Soul," not as good as "Toy Story 4."

2021, dir. Enrico Casarosa. With Jacob Tremblay, Jack Dylan Grazer, Emma Berman, Saverio Raimondo, Maya Rudolph, Marco Barricelli, Jim Gaffigan, Peter Sohn, Lorenzo Crisci, Marina Massironi, Sandy Martin, Sacha Baron Cohen, Giacomo Gianniotti, Gino La Monica.

Lucifer, Season 1

'Lucifer' is a TV series built on a fairly slender but interesting idea from Neil Gaiman, who imagined Lucifer Morningstar leaving Hell - just giving the keys to someone else and taking a vacation. Gaiman wrote this for "The Sandman," so Lucifer gave the keys to Dream in the graphic novel - a character never mentioned in the TV series because that's not part of their mythology, they're playing it much more Christian. We find him in Los Angeles running a highly successful club, and partnering with a female police detective he cannot influence (and who thus intrigues him). Tom Ellis is fairly good as the titular character, Lauren German is okay as his partner. Other recurring characters include Lucifer's brother Amenadiel (D.B. Woodside): an angel desperate to have Lucifer back in Hell because he's in charge in the mean time, Mazikeen (Lesley-Ann Brandt): a demon loyal to Lucifer, and Dr. Linda Martin (Rachael Harris): Lucifer's (and eventually everybody's) therapist.

Arguably it's just a police procedural where one of the two partners is painfully by-the-book and the other is a persuasive self-centred asshole with mild super powers. Which is fun for a while. But I checked out when we got to the second episode of the second season and "Mom" showed up: arguably the show had to do something, be more than just a police procedural, and going bonkers with family problems seems pretty obvious when Dad is God and one of the sons is Lucifer ... But I guess it wasn't a direction I liked.

2016. With Tom Ellis, Lauren German, Kevin Alejandro, D.B. Woodside, Lesley-Ann Brandt, Scarlett Estevez, Rachael Harris, Kevin Rankin.

Lucifer, Season 2

14 months after I watched "Lucifer" season 1, COVID-19 hit. In need of something to watch and having forgotten my objection to the appearance of "Mom," I watched the rest of season 2. And I have to say that the writers were doing well with the humour: Lucifer's snide remarks and sarcasm were enough to get me right through the season. My previous comments apply: police procedural, with one of the two partners having mild super powers. This year though there's more "family" drama: Mom causes havoc, Dad sends another brother. Brother Uriel isn't around long, but there are ... repercussions. By the end of this season we know just how important/unusual Chloe Decker is, and of course Lucifer is still supernatural, so threats of death to either of them have close to zero weight. Mazikeen is mostly having fun, most notably discovering that hunting humans is a sport you can get paid for as a bounty hunter. Amenadiel is tossed about by scripting like a styrofoam chip in the surf, doing and thinking and feeling what they want him to for the needs of the rest of the script. This is unfortunate, as D.B. Woodside is a charismatic guy who could have been better if given a more consistent story arc.

I already have a moderate idea of the whole "Sinnerman" and Pierce story arcs in the third season, and the soap-opera-like qualities of the show apparently dominating the writing. At the moment at least I don't want to watch that. I changed my mind last time, we'll see what happens.

2016. With Tom Ellis, Lauren German, Kevin Alejandro, D.B. Woodside, Lesley-Ann Brandt, Scarlett Estevez, Rachael Harris, Tricia Helfer, Aimee Garcia.

Lucifer, Season 3

This review is based on watching the season through episode 18 (of 26) "The Last Heartbreak" inclusive.

"Lucifer" wasn't exactly a "good" show in its first two seasons, but it was entertaining and quite funny. But abruptly in its third season it all goes sideways. Lucifer (the character) has forgotten every lesson he learned in the past two years, and has reverted to being nothing but the egotistical asshole who doesn't know how to deal with humans that we met in the first episode of the series. He's also become significantly more stupid - more impulsive, more petty, and less aware of things that happen around him. Amenadiel and Maze suffer much the same fate. Most of the other characters are just plot drivers: their behaviour isn't consistent from episode to episode, but changes to suit the needs of the writers. The new plot driver for the season is Cain - the first murderer, cursed with immortality. The guy who plays him (Tom Welling) is good looking, a bad actor, and written utterly unconvincing as someone thousands of years old: unlike Lucifer, Amenadiel and "Mom" (from season 2), he's been leading a human life ... and apparently the only side effect of multiple millennia of life is to be suicidal (except he can't die). I'm not buying their interpretation of the character.

Side note: I'm especially not buying this after seeing "He Never Died," which was an immensely better cinematic take on the whole idea of Cain punished with immortality ... A movie that premiered March 2015, before Lucifer's first season, never mind Lucifer's take on Cain.

Returning to "Lucifer:" Lucifer (the character) is taught lessons this year (very bluntly I might add, subtlety was never a strength of the show and now it's applied even less) - and yet he doesn't remember them from episode to episode. I also didn't believe Maze being so viciously jealous over a relationship she chose to quit: like Lucifer, she was learning in the previous two years, but the writers chose to revert her behaviour because it cranks up the "drama" (really, it doesn't ...) and the "comedy" (again, no). The quality of the writing is much poorer: I don't know if this was budget cuts or the increase in the number of episodes (from 13 to 18 to 26 this year) or a combination of the two, but it's just ... bad. And sadly, and rather importantly, it's significantly less funny.

I suppose that it could be argued that this was a soap opera from day one, but in the first two seasons it managed to retain some of the better qualities of that genre. No more.

2016. With Tom Ellis, Lauren German, Kevin Alejandro, Tom Welling, D.B. Woodside, Lesley-Ann Brandt, Scarlett Estevez, Rachael Harris, Tricia Helfer, Aimee Garcia.

Lucky Number Slevin

All will be revealed ... but in the build-up it's kind of hard to care or believe, and if you do, your trust will be betrayed. Josh Hartnett plays a guy with bad luck caught in between two crime bosses for debts he didn't even incur. The crime bosses are played by Morgan Freeman and Ben Kingsley (so much better than Hartnett). There's some very clever dialogue, and some clever plotting, but this doesn't make a movie.

2006, dir. Jason Smilovic. With Josh Hartnett, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, Bruce Willis, Lucy Liu, Stanley Tucci.

Lucy

"Lucy" starts fast, with our everyday university student Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) in Taipei, forced into being a drug mule by her boyfriend and a Korean drug lord (Choi Min-sik). This is interspersed with Professor Samuel Norman (Morgan Freeman) giving an incredibly rambling lecture (with perfect slides) about brain capacity, and absurdist chunks of stock footage. When the professor talks about reproduction, we see several two-second clips of animals, including humans, having sex. And then we cut back to the incredibly bloody and would-be-terrifying situation Lucy is in, being forced to be a drug mule. Slight tonal inconsistencies.

If you've seen the trailer, you know the bag gets broken in her stomach. Even if you hadn't, the professor's lecture on brain capacity was about as blatant a foreshadowing as any director could possibly manage. So Lucy starts using more than the normal 15% of her brain, and we follow the process outlined by the professor as she gets smarter and learns to control her own body entirely, and then ... etc.

Typically overblown Luc Besson, but without the interest and intelligence that used to make Besson's movies at least enjoyable. He's leading you by the nose without room for interpretation, on a more than usually absurd idea (the "we only use 10% of our brains" idea has been debunked, and even if it hadn't this isn't how it would play out). Visually interesting, but a poor film.

2014, dir. Luc Besson. With Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Amr Waked, Choi Min-sik, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Analeigh Tipton, Pilou Asbæk.

The Lunchbox

If you're familiar with Bollywood movies, forget what you know about them because while this is from India, it surely isn't Bollywood. This is a quiet movie in which two unhappy people form a connection by accident, and not much happens. No singing, no dancing.

Ila (Nimrat Kaur) is a young wife trying to win her husband back by sending him really good lunches. But her lunches go astray, and land on the desk of Saajan (Irrfan Kaan), a crusty accountant who's about to retire. They form a connection through letters in the lunchbox, and it changes the way both of them look at the world. Not much happens, but it happens so wonderfully ... It's a quiet, funny, charming movie. Recommended.

2013, dir. Ritesh Batra. With Irrfan Khan, Nimrat Kaur, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Nakul Vaid.

Lupin the IIIrd: Goemon's Blood Spray

Lupin the 3rd is a "gentleman thief:" the character first appeared in a Japanese manga in 1967, purportedly the grandson of Maurice Leblanc's French literary character "Lupin" - another gentleman thief, active around 1900. He's appeared in Anime ever since, where he's routinely accompanied by Jigen (marksman and friend) and Goemon (humourless and totally honourable samurai of immeasurable skill), in competition for loot with the sexy Fujiko, and pursued by the hapless (but morally sound) inspector Zenigata. 50 years after the first appearance of Lupin the 3rd, we have this one hour long Anime production (it was of course voiced in Japanese, but I watched the English dub).

This time, Goemon is working for a mob boss protecting a gambling boat - which both Fujiko and Lupin rob at the same time. A guy named "Hawk" (who is supposed to be dead) shows up on the gambling boat to kill Lupin, and Goemon tangles with him. As the mob boss's enforcer, Goemon would be honour-bound to protect his master's money as well as his life, wouldn't he? They completely ignore that aspect (because otherwise Goemon would have to kill Lupin) - it's all about Hawk. But Goemon, this brilliant samurai, is defeated (but not killed) by Hawk! And thus hangs our unexciting tale.

The appeal of the Lupin movies (nearly 50 years worth) generally lies in the comedy, and knowing that Lupin will do "the right thing" rather than keep the money if it comes to that (although he'd prefer to do both). Goemon - like Jigen - is a side character, a foil. But not in this movie: Goemon is the lead, Lupin is the commentator. And because Goemon is such a spectacularly good fighter, they have to create someone superhuman who can truly challenge him - and I do mean "superhuman," so much so that I had trouble with suspension of disbelief - which is pretty odd in an already absurd Lupin movie. It's very bloody (an unusual and undesirable trait in a Lupin movie), the heist is dull, and the comedy is weak.

2017, dir. Takeshi Koike. With Keith Silverstein, Lex Lang, Dan Woren, Christina Vee, Richard Epcar.

Lupin III: The First

In 1905, French writer Maurice Leblanc created the character "Arsène Lupin," a "gentleman thief" - at the time Lupin may have been seen as something of a counterpoint to Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes." Lupin proved a popular character, appearing in 17 novels and 39 novellas (source: Wikipedia on Arsène Lupin). In 1967, Japanese author "Monkey Punch" (a pen name, of course) created the manga character Lupin the Third (grandson of the French Lupin) - who's had a greater effect on popular culture, as the world is still making movies about Lupin the Third.

I've never read the manga, but it appears the cast of characters are the same - and they all appear in pretty much every episode. Lupin himself, who is a very skilled thief whose hiests inevitably become entangled in morally dubious situations, where Lupin feels compelled to do the morally correct thing rather than the more financially rewarding thing. Lupin's best friend is Daisuke Jigen, an expert marksman. Goemon - a stoic modern-day samurai whose sword (as Wikipedia puts it, accurately enough) "will cut anything" occasionally claims not to be their partner - and yet he's always there. They invariably run afoul of Fujiko Mine, a voluptuous and somewhat less morally upright thief than Lupin who is always trying to steal the same thing as Lupin (and often succeeding). And finally, there's Inspector Zenigata - who is always a step or two behind Lupin, his life-long enemy ... sometimes he catches Lupin, but it never sticks. Sometimes because Zenigata lets Lupin go because releasing him will result in a better moral outcome.

This 2019 movie (the first CGI Lupin movie - all the previous ones have been hand-drawn) was loosely based on Hayao Miyazaki's now-classic Lupin tale, "Castle of Cagliostro" (which I consider one of Miyazaki's poorer outings). I'd say it's better than that, but hardly great. It's goofy, throw-away fun.

2021, dir. Takashi Yamazaki. With Kanichi Kurita, Kiyoshi Kobayashi, Daisuke Namikawa, Miyuki Sawashiro, Kōichi Yamadera, Suzu Hirose, Kōtarō Yoshida, Tatsuya Fujiwara, Kazuaki Ito, Mitsuru Takakuwa.


M

M

Directed by Fritz Lang in 1931, who considered it his own best work. It was also Lang's first sound film, which shows in a particularly odd way: there's no soundtrack music - period, end of story. In fact, there are at least a couple scenes that are totally silent in this Criterion cut of the movie. Cars arrive at a scene, people get out and talk quietly ... but there's no sound at all, which is quite disconcerting.

The movie is set in Berlin, which is haunted by a series of disappearances of young children. The police are desperate to catch the perpetrator, but after most of a year they have few clues. But the police city-wide crack-down has made business for the criminal classes much more difficult, so some of the city's leading criminals get together to try to figure out what to do about it. This leads to the movie's most implausible idea, which was that the beggars of the city are fantastically well organized and could all be used and relied upon as a spy network.

Peter Lorre stars as the murderer in the movie that brought him to fame. The grand finale shows him ranting in a way that I think was taken quite seriously at the time, but kind of smells like scenery-chewing these days. Not to mention the absurdity of the whole criminal courtroom set-up: we had at this point devolved into allegory rather than dramatic film. Although it does poke at an interesting question: what do you do with someone who has a compulsion to abduct and murder children? If they're "not responsible" by way of insanity, they get treatment and then are released and often commit more crimes. Or do you kill them even though they're legally not responsible, thus saving society from the threat? Either way, the lives lost aren't restored.

I've written some unkind things about the movie and I'm not sure it deserves the "classic" title it gets, but it's well done and interesting.

1931, dir. Fritz Lang. With Peter Lorre, Otto Wernicke, Gustaf Gründgens.

M:i:III (aka "Mission Impossible III")

And I thought the other two were bad - of course, that begs the question why I would watch it. I suppose because I heard it was good. The opening scene shows Philip Seymour Hoffman as the bad guy torturing and killing Tom Cruise's significant other in front of a chained up and begging Cruise. Hoffman could have been a fairly good bad guy, but to throw his performance in at the deep end like this, with him looking as unscary as he does, just didn't work for me. Anthony Hopkins is a very conventional looking guy who played Hannibal Lecter (in "The Silence of the Lambs") and makes him utterly terrifying and completely convincing, but Hoffman just isn't that good. So I was lost from the first scene, and this is a movie where suspension of disbelief is direly needed for the complete and frequent denial of the laws of physics. The face replacements got really old in the last movie: they really should have skipped it this time around.

2006, dir. J.J. Abrams. With Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ving Rhames, Billy Crudup, Michelle Monaghan, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Keri Russell, Maggie Q, Laurence Fishburne.

Machete

"Machete" is a movie based on a fake trailer released with the Rodriguez/Tarantino "Grindhouse." It stars Danny Trejo in his first lead, playing a role with the same name as his character in the movie "Spy Kids" (although the tone of this movie is a bit different). I understand the style is similar to "Grindhouse," but I haven't seen that so I can't compare.

Machete's family were slaughtered in Mexico by the druglord Torrez (Steven Seagal), and he's left to die. The movie jumps forward three years, to find Machete working as an illegal immigrant in Texas. After Booth (Jeff Fahey) sees him in a street fight that Machete easily wins, Booth hires him to kill the very racist Senator McLaughlin (Robert De Niro). This turns out to be a set-up to further McLaughlin and Booth's agenda (make Mexicans look bad) and leaves Machete seriously injured (although he was meant to be dead). Etc.

Blood gushes, breasts jiggle, bullets fly. Trejo can't act, and no one else is trying - it's amusing when Cheech Marin, Lindsay Lohan, and Don Johnson look like the best actors. I imagine that after the shit Seagal has been making, he looked at this and thought "hey, a legitimate project!" If you like violent, nasty, and incredibly stupid, this is your gig.

2010, dir. Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis. With Danny Trejo, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Don Johnson, Robert De Niro, Lindsay Lohan, Jeff Fahey, Steven Seagal, Cheech Marin, Daryl Sabara, Tom Savini, Shea Whigham.

The Machine

Vincent McCarthy (played by Toby Stephens) is an programmer and AI researcher with the British military in a near future where the big enemy is the Chinese. He's mostly working on implants to assist veterans with brain damage, but he's also working on building an intelligent machine. When his latest assistant (Caity Lotz, best known as "The Canary" from the "Arrow" TV series ... and her acting hasn't improved any) dies just after he'd fully modeled her brain, he uses her as a model for an AI machine. His boss (Denis Lawson) forces the research into a more military bent.

A close relative of the brilliant "Ex Machina," this one was made on a lower budget, doesn't look as good and isn't as well acted ... but shouldn't be discounted. It's seriously creepy and quite thought-provoking. Definitely worth a look.

2014, dir. Caradog W. James. With Toby Stephens, Caity Lotz, Denis Lawson, Sam Hazeldine.

The Machinist

The central question of "The Machinist" is "why is Christian Bale's character a psychotic insomniac anorexic?" Since he's unable to answer the question himself, we spend an hour and a half involved in his very ugly and unhappy world. The ending does bring some coherence when I was afraid there would be none, but it was extremely depressing (as expected) and not good enough to warrant the unpleasant voyage.

2004, dir. Brad Anderson. With Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Aitana Sánchez Gijón, John Sharian, Michael Ironside.

Mad Dog and Glory

"Mad Dog" is Robert De Niro, a cop who doesn't come close to living up to his name. Glory is a bartender (Uma Thurman), a temporary "gift" to Mad Dog for saving the life of a gangster (Bill Murray). A quirky and occasionally charming comedy with an annoying and unbelievable ending. I don't usually like David Caruso, but like all the other leads he does a good job here.

1993, dir. John McNaughton. With Robert De Niro, Uma Thurman, Bill Murray, David Caruso, Mike Starr.

Mad Max: Fury Road

This movie, following 30 years after its predecessor (the less-than-stellar "Beyond Thunderdome"), rapidly sets out the grim post-apocalyptic world that our anti-hero Max (now Tom Hardy rather than Mel Gibson) lives in, as he's chased down, trimmed, tattooed, and turned into a living blood bag. Then he's put in a face mask and strapped to the front of the car of the driver who is taking his blood as the leader of this unpleasant new society Max has found goes after a well-placed renegade, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron). And so it goes, with no time for conversation, lots of ludicrous names, and the minimal plot development only allowed in the tiny spaces between the car chases and other forms of violence.

I guess I'm getting old - this is very similar to its equally successful predecessor "The Road Warrior," but I remember liking that one better. Given the similarities, I'm forced to consider it's me rather than the movie, that's different thirty years on. Although that doesn't reflect well on the director: he made the same movie again? And everybody loves it ... Okay, it's not bad - but it's excessively frenetic, physics is totally ignored, and the names are so ridiculous that I found they defied my already over-stretched desire to suspend disbelief.

2015, dir. George Miller. With Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Riley Keough, Zoë Kravitz.

Madagascar

Concerns four New York Central Park Zoo animals (and four "psychotic" penguins) that escape from the Zoo and journey to "the Wild." For some of them this is intentional, for others not so much. There's some enjoyable humour and voice acting in service of a story so light-weight it reminded me of a helium balloon.

2005, dir. Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath. With Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sacha Baron Cohen, Cedric the Entertainer, Andy Richter, Tom McGrath, Chris Miller.

The Madness of King George

Nigel Hawthorne (of the British "Yes Minister" TV series) does a very good job as King George the third. George went mad, but medical science at the time wasn't exactly up to taking care of the problem. The ending isn't quite as depressing as that would imply, but it's not a happy film. I didn't enjoy it much, although it's well done.

1994. dir. Nicholas Hytner. With Nigel Hawthorne, Helen Mirren, Ian Holme, Rupert Everett.

The Magician (orig. "Ansiktet")

I've never been interested in Ingmar Bergman's work. I saw one or two of them many years ago and dismissed him. In recent years, with an increasing academic interest in movies, I've been reminded - repeatedly - that he's considered one of the greatest directors who ever lived by pretty much every film critic and film historian who ever lived. So when I came across a reference to "The Magician" (1958) and found that the library had a Criterion copy on DVD, I decided to give it a shot. Quotes to be found over at Rotten Tomatoes:

  • "The movie has elements of Gothic horror and philosophy, along with lusty, low comedy rolls."
  • "It is one of Bergman's most tightly structured and frightening films."
  • "Like the subject it portrays, it is a movie that genuinely seems to sense the guilty delight of life's unending irony."
  • "Tremendously important Bergman, even it it doesn't have the instant cachet of his more famous and direct movies."
  • "Both a rebuke to critics and a confession of charlatanism, 'The Magician' puts forward a one-of-a-kind examination of the problem of truth in life and in art."
  • "An enigmatic, complex and immensely enjoyable film."

Sounds great, right?

The movie opens in a coach pulled by two horses going through a wood. Inside we have the mute magician, Albert Vogler, his assistant Mr. Aman, their manager Tubal, and "Granny Vogler." They constitute the traveling troupe "Vogler's Magnetic Health Theatre." In the woods (following what I admit was one of the most glorious bits of cinematography I've ever seen, of the coach coming through mist among the trees) they find a dying alcoholic actor who immediately spots Vogler's fake beard and dyed hair, and wonders what else is fake. Vogler is clearly fascinated by the guy, but immediately drops him in a puddle. And then packs him into the coach to take with. So they arrive at the next town with a corpse in the carriage, and are welcomed by the police because their reputation has preceded them. They're interrogated and mocked by the chief of police and the very scientifically minded minister of health, and made to perform.

The acting and story structure seem like they're straight out of the silent era of film - everything massively exaggerated. The human interactions are absurd, with people spouting sophomoric philosophy at each other rather than having conversations. Critics have concluded that the movie says many deep things about the nature of illusion (particularly film), love, life, and death (and I'd throw "pride" in there too), but at its core a movie needs to either have a good story or be immensely compelling in some other way. The story is ridiculous, and obviously I didn't find it compelling.

So much for Bergman.

1958, dir. Ingmar Bergman. With Max von Sydow, Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Björnstrand, Naima Wifstrand, Åke Fridell, Bengt Ekerot, Bibi Andersson, Birgitta Pettersson, Lars Ekborg, Toivo Pawlo.

The Magicians, Season 1

The Magicians starts with a blatant reference to C.S. Lewis' Narnia series: our somewhat neurotic hero Quentin Coldwater (Jason Ralph) is a huge fan of a book series called Fillory and Further where three people (in their teens) find their way to another world - called "Fillory" - by stepping into a grandfather clock. I haven't read the books this is based on, but the author Lev Grossman has acknowledged The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as a huge influence; so it would seem this is both intentional and originating with the author (rather than the TV writers). By the end of the first episode, the references to Harry Potter have also been made abundantly clear, as Quentin is singled out by "The Beast," the evil dude who already knows the name of our magical freshman. But he's already got a sidekick, an attractive young woman who knows a lot more about magic than he does: her name in this series is Alice (Olivia Taylor Dudley), but the name "Hermione" might understandably slip into your mind. But to make sure we know it's NOT Harry Potter, two people have sex (floating in the air) by 30 minutes into the first episode.

And thus we have the reviews that say "Harry Potter for adults." What they don't say is "Really - this is Harry Potter, just with some adult elements. And better written."

The falling-out between Quentin and Julia (played by Stella Maeve, Julia had been Quentin's best friend since childhood) in episode 3 was a huge problem for me: the series started so well, and that simply didn't fit. I get that both of them are messed up, but they'd been inseparable friends since childhood and to both lay into each other like that didn't seem likely to me. As we progress it becomes clear that needed to happen for future events, but it didn't really sell me on that when so much of the rest of it has such better human interactions ... I'm also really not a fan of Stella Maeve's acting.

Another Harry Potter similarity: the attitude about magic is "mess with this shit and you die ..." which I have a lot less problem with at the University level, so Brakebills University makes more sense to me than Hogwarts high-school equivalent. Harry Potter expects adult-level responsibility out of children, which never made sense to me (except of course that it's a kids story).

But then there's the ending: after 13 episodes of roughly 50 minutes each, they don't wrap anything up. In fact, they leave everyone's lives far more miserable, with most of our main characters mangled and dying. I have a MAJOR issue with cliffhangers. This was also the terminal deal with Julia's character: what she does in this episode caps the least believable story arc of any of our main characters with another choice I failed to believe, leaving me, in combination with the cliffhanger, with zero interest in going on with the series.

2021 update: Looking back on this I'm a little surprised I haven't returned to it as it had some good features and I'm a fan of urban fantasy. But added to the two major mis-features I've already mentioned (cliffhanger, Maeve's acting and character) is the fact that Quentin is (as actor Jason Ralph has said) a massive douche. He's a self-centred, obnoxious asshole who, while not actually evil, is more likely to cause emotional harm to his friends than the big-bad is to cause them physical harm. This is just not a guy I want to spend time with, and that's probably been the real deal-breaker.

2015. With Jason Ralph, Stella Maeve, Olivia Taylor Dudley, Hale Appleman, Arjun Gupta, Summer Bishil, Jade Tailor, Rick Worthy.

Magnificent Butcher

In 1978, Jackie Chan's career took off like a rocket with the release of "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow" and "Drunken Master" (both directed by Yuen Woo-ping), the first movies that finally allowed Chan to show off his "Comedic Kung Fu." These were both huge box office successes in Hong Kong (and remain two of my favourite martial arts movies). This led to a huge string of imitators, with "Magnificent Butcher" being one of the most successful. And who better to star in the latest Yuen Woo-ping-directed Jackie Chan knock-off but Sammo Hung, Jackie's school-mate and kung fu "brother" (they have a complex history together, but that's another story ... read Chan's fascinating and surprisingly decent autobiography I am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action if you want to know about it).

Lam Sai-wing (Hung) is a butcher, and a student at Wong Fei-hung's school. (Wong Fei-hung is the single most famous Kung Fu folk hero, and appears in literally hundreds of movies.) His school is feuding with another local martial arts school, although a significant comedy scene has Wong Fei-hung politely disarming the master of the other school to limit the feud. But Wong Fei-hung leaves town, Lam Sai-wing's long lost brother appears, the son of the other martial arts master kidnaps the brother's wife, and violence and misunderstandings ensue.

Hung is without a doubt a talented martial artist, but he doesn't have Chan's flair. He improved with age and was at his best when working with Chan, but either way I found this one not particularly funny and the martial arts were too traditional to be interesting. Might be of interest to fans of the genre, but only the seriously hard-core.

1979, dir. Yuen Woo-ping. With Sammo Hung, Kwan Tak-hing, Yuen Biao, Wei Pai, Lee Hoi San.

The Magnificent Seven (1960)

Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai" translated into a Western. The Western was stagnating when this came out, and it was a shock to hear the gunslingers admitting (as did the original samurai) that their often glamorously portrayed life is actually less than happy. It was made six years after the release of "Seven Samurai" - while not terribly well received in the U.S., it was a hit in Europe and has gone on to lasting acclaim. The acting wasn't great, it was sure as hell distinctive: Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, Brad Dexter, James Coburn, and Horst Buchholz as the seven, and Eli Wallach as the bandit chief. It doesn't get much better than that, although this was the breakthrough film for at least a couple of them.

I re-watched this shortly after watching the 2016 remake of the movie. Of the two, this is better - perhaps only by a small margin.

1960, dir. Preston Sturges. With Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, James Coburn, Eli Wallach, Brad Dexter, Horst Buchholz.

The Magnificent Seven (2016)

The original "The Magnificent Seven" was a Western made in 1960, and it was a pretty good movie. It was a Western version of Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai," which I think is one of the greatest films ever made. I'm not a huge fan of Kurosawa himself, but that one film - it builds like nothing else you've ever seen, and can keep you mesmerised despite a runtime of over three hours. I went into this with very low expectations. The original "The Magnificent Seven" was no match for the Kurosawa film it was based on, but it was good. Yes, I know a lot of movie history - I watch a lot of movies.

As it turned out, the movie was decent entertainment. Not as good as its namesake, but it had enough surprises, decent characters (although all a touch larger than life) and dialogue to allow it to be a fun way to pass a couple hours.

2016, dir. Antoine Fuqua. With Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Byung-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, Haley Bennett, Peter Sarsgaard.

Magnolia

I didn't "get it," and this is in places bizarre enough that that's the only way you're going to appreciate it after a deity has been made of coincidence and a run-time of three-plus hours. A large and rather good ensemble cast do their bits to make their parts of the movie better, but the pieces fit together only in a logical sense - not in an emotional sense, at least not that was particularly rewarding to me. Watching Tom Cruise strut and preen and yell "Respect the Cock!" was at least amusing.

2003, dir. P.T. Anderson. With Tom Cruise, Philip Baker Hall, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, Alfred Molina, John C. Reilly.

Magpie Murders

The novel this was based on was by Anthony Horowitz, who wrote and directed nearly all of "Foyle's War," one of the best British mystery series ever made - so I was immediately on board. This TV series (a one-off, we hope - not because it's bad, but because of the structure) consists of six episodes of about 50 minutes each.

Lesley Manville is our lead character, Susan Ryeland. Susan is a book editor at a small publisher, who are responsible for the Atticus Pünd stories - a hugely successful series of whodunits written by Alan Conway (Conleth Hill). Just as her company is about to be bought out by a major publishing house, she receives the latest Pünd manuscript ... minus the last chapter. And the author dies, under dubious circumstances.

Susan runs off in pursuit of the final chapter and possibly also the cause of the author's death. The fact that Conway was a truly wretched human being whose favourite past-time was hurting people means that Susan has a huge number of suspects to contend with. Interleaved with this (pun intended), we see considerable chunks of the most recent Pünd novel - with Atticus Pünd played by Tim McMullan. The visual style is slightly different, and the writing becomes noticeably more clichéd ...

The story-within-a-story structure plays out surprisingly well. I was mildly frustrated by the big final denouement: I didn't think she would be that stupid, especially after reading so many murder mysteries. Somebody - Horowitz presumably - succumbed to the "need" for a particular kind of dramatic ending that didn't quite fit. But for the most part it's very well constructed.

2022, dir. Peter Cattaneo. With Lesley Manville, Tim McMullan, Conleth Hill, Ian Lloyd Anderson, Alexandros Logothetis, Karen Westwood, Matthew Beard, Jude Hill, Harry Lawtey, Michael Maloney, Daniel Mays, Claire Rushbrook.

Major Barbara

Major Barbara is one of George Bernard Shaw's mid-line plays - everyone knows Pygmalion and Man and Superman. But few people have heard of Major Barbara or The Devil's Disciple. I became a fan of GBS after watching the "The Devil's Disciple." Intelligent and thought-provoking, I've watched a BBC production of it several times because I think it's very well written and really interesting. So I'd learned to give Shaw the benefit of the doubt, and a chance to introduce me to new opinions and bon mots.

I read Major Barbara several years ago, and thought it was a mess. I hoped that this production would clarify what the hell Shaw was getting at. Unfortunately, this movie only made it clearer that the play is a mess of ideas about religious idealism, munitions, and money.

Let's start with Wikipedia's summary of the play:

The story concerns an idealistic young woman, Barbara Undershaft, who is engaged in helping the poor as a Major in the Salvation Army in London. For many years, Barbara and her siblings have been estranged from their father, Andrew Undershaft, who now reappears as a rich and successful munitions maker. Undershaft, the father, gives money to the Salvation Army, which offends Major Barbara, who does not want to be connected to his "tainted" wealth. However, the father argues that poverty is a worse problem than munitions, and claims that he is doing more to help society by giving his workers jobs and a steady income than Major Barbara is doing to help them by giving them bread and soup.

This is actually clearer than the articulation given the themes in this production. Since Rex Harrison is playing Barbara's fiancée Adolphus Cusins (Barbara is played by Wendy Hiller), he has to have a larger part (and he's funny and charming, as he should be). I suppose it could be argued that the play offers thought-provoking material about saving souls with dirty money, but the characters within the play keep changing their minds and changing sides until you're so confused you don't give damn about any of them (although the father is consistent: he's made his money in munitions and he's the devil offering money to the Salvation Army). But Barbara and Adolphus change course without warning or apparent reason multiple times. The whole thing is a silly mess, and not even as funny as Shaw usually manages to be.

The moral of The Devil's Disciple could be stated as "a man may say whatever he wants, but his true character will show in his actions." It's vividly demonstrated in the play, with the protagonist declaring his love of the Devil but turning out to be a very moral man even when his life is on the line. As far as I can tell, the moral of Major Barbara is "Haha - suck it idealists, money trumps conscience any day of the week!" Somewhat less impressive.

1941, dir. Gabriel Pascal. With Wendy Hiller, Rex Harrison, Robert Morley, Robert Newton, Sybil Thorndike, Emlyn Williams, Miles Malleson.

Major League

One of the most enjoyable movies I've ever seen. The story isn't just a stereotype anymore, it's now essentially the archetype: lovable band of losers come together and against all odds win big. They're not aiming particularly high and we all know the story perfectly, but it's the telling that matters. The characters are very engaging and the humour abundant. Sit back with some popcorn and enjoy.

Charlie Sheen is great, Tom Berenger and Corbin Bernsen are very good, Wesley Snipes is hilarious in a role before he got so full of himself, and Bob Uecker is brilliant and hilarious as a colour commentator who really doesn't care what comes out of his mouth.

1989, dir. David S. Ward. With Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, Corbin Bernsen, Margaret Whitton, James Gammon, Wesley Snipes, Rene Russo, Bob Uecker.

Make America Laugh Again

A documentary about what it's like to be a Middle-Eastern or Muslim comedian in Trump's America. I had hoped for more humour (there is some), but this is more of a sobering look at what it's like to be a part of an unjustly vilified segment of society. It's more about dealing with the racism as a brown person in an airport, or as a Muslim on a stage. It's a good movie, but in the midst of COVID-19 (I watched it 2020-12), I had hoped for something a bit more upbeat instead of something I found deeply depressing.

2018, dir. Sam Chouia. With Aron Kader, Maz Jobrani, Peter Shahriari, Ramy Youssef, Ahmed Ahmed, Travina Springer.

Maleficent

Angelina Jolie plays the title character in this inversion of "Sleeping Beauty" (which I have to admit I haven't seen, although I know the plot). The character is the villain of "Sleeping Beauty," but here they justify her evil act and make her a basically decent person. While the idea isn't bad, the execution is abominable: pretty special effects can't cover for utterly crap acting all around (Imelda Staunton, Elle Fanning, and particularly Jolie deserve special shame), pathetic dialogue, and a poor plot. Very poor.

2014, dir. Robert Stromberg. With Angelina Jolie, Sharlto Copley, Elle Fanning, Sam Riley, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, Lesley Manville.

The Mallorca Files, Season 1

For those not aware (a huge split in North America, where many have no clue, and many others assume everyone knows about Ibiza and Mallorca), Mallorca is an island in the Mediterranean, a hugely popular tourist destination for all of Europe and most of the world. This first series consists of ten episodes of 50 minutes each.

The primary corporate entity involved appears to be the BBC, but a fair bit of the funding came from the island of Mallorca, and the episodes milk every square kilometre of the island for gorgeous views and tourist sites so the scenery is as pretty as the leads. The island residents are probably sick of tourists ... but the island funding body apparently thinks they need more. And it sure is pretty ...

The series opens (in an episode named "Honour Among Thieves") with a British cop (Miranda Blake, played by Elen Rhys) escorting a handcuffed criminal to the airport - where he's assassinated, and she's saved by German cop Max Winter (Julian Looman) who's attached to the Mallorca police. Blake wants to stick around to help figure out how a secure operation (her delivery of the criminal witness) was compromised. The head of the Mallorca police (Inés Villegas, played by María Fernández Ache) pairs her with Mallorca's other foreign police man, Detective Winter.

The up-tight Blake and laid-back Winter are both very good-looking, and by the end of the first episode I'd concluded I'd bet a healthy sum of money they'd be a romantic couple by the end of the series. Blake and Winter are both intelligent, and they make a charming team. The mysteries were, for the most part, to my liking (having recently watched three seasons of "Midsomer Murders" and the first season of "Whitstable Pearl" I'm well up on what I like in a mystery). And it would be hard to accuse them of the kind of structure found in "Midsomer Murders" or "Death in Paradise" (with its many obvious parallels to this series) - events are quite different from one episode to another. Although there's one thing you're guaranteed: a clear knowledge of who was behind the crime(s). In most episodes they get a full, un-coerced confession. In a couple cases that isn't needed, you know what happened.

The series as a whole is goofy fun. They're not big on continuity between episodes: they don't break it, but they almost never reference events of past episodes in the current episode. This was a point of frustration for me: Blake stays in Mallorca - after having stated a dislike for the place - with the express intention of finding the cause of the security breach in the department that led to the problems in the first episode. That problem is never mentioned again. Yes, a revelation related to that assassination within the episode may have explained the breach ... but then why did she stay?

I spotted a couple more logical problems: the boat break-in in "The Oligarch's Icon" would be illegal in most jurisdictions, but it's never mentioned again because ... what, Blake and Winter were right so it's okay? Also Blake is supposed to be the rule-follower, but this was her idea? And (SPOILER ALERT, stop reading now, etc.) in "King of the Mountains" three people were declared dead in car crash, but only two corpses found, there would have been no trace of third and that wasn't noticed?

A few logical problems aside (apparently I really needed to air them out), I've actually really been enjoying the show. You'll have to watch it to find out if I was right about the developing romance.

2019. With Elen Rhys, Julian Looman, María Fernández Ache, Nacho Aldeguer, Tábata Cerezo, Denis Schmidt, Carlos Olalla, Tanya Moodie.

The Mallorca Files, Season 2

The ongoing adventures of British detective Miranda Blake (Elen Rhys) and German detective Max Winter (Julian Looman) on the Spanish island of Mallorca.

Not a lot to add to the previous review other than the locations continue to be varied and gorgeous, the cases remain varied and interesting, and our leads remain thoroughly charming. One noticeable change: the previous series was ten episodes (they're all about 50 minutes in length), this series is only six episodes ... which was disappointing. Wikipedia says ten episodes were planned, but production was truncated because of COVID-19. I await the next season with anticipation.

2021. With Elen Rhys, Julian Looman, María Fernández Ache, Alex Hafner, Tábata Cerezo, Denis Schmidt, Carlos Olalla, Nansi Nsue.

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

Possibly the most famous detective movie ever made, and an incredibly influential noir film, the 1941 version of "The Maltese Falcon" was the second of three attempts to bring Dashiell Hammett's novel of the same name to the screen. Humphrey Bogart plays the obnoxious detective Sam Spade.

Spade and his partner Archer (Jerome Cowan) take Miss Ruth Wonderly (Mary Astor) as a client. Her story is a ruse, and Archer is killed in short order. Spade gets to work to discover a much more complex story about a highly desirable falcon statuette.

I'm not a huge fan of this one, although it's well done. Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre are both good in their "regular" roles. Astor heaps lies on top of lies, and isn't particularly convincing at any level. Spade irritates everybody, and is breath-takingly clever - although at least he didn't achieve the high watermark of irritating cleverness presented by Philip Marlowe as played by Elliott Gould in "The Long Goodbye."

1941, dir. John Huston. With Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Lee Patrick, Gladys George, Jerome Cowan.

A Man Apart

A lame excuse to put Vin Diesel in a leading roll in an action movie. After his wife is killed by a drug lord, he sets out for revenge. Never heard that before. Violent without redeeming features.

2003, dir. F. Gary Gray. With Vin Diesel.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)

The movie is set in the 1960s. Henry Cavill plays Napoleon Solo, who we first see visiting East Berlin to extract Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander). They're pursued by Soviet agent Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer), who comes close to ruining Solo's rather ornate but effective escape plan. The very next day, Napoleon and Gaby are told they'll have to work with Illya because Gaby's father appears to be building atomic bombs for the Nazi sympathizers who are holding him captive. So none of them like each other (a novel idea).

The movie is an amazingly traditional action-spy-comedy in the mold of almost every one that's come before. And that strikes me as extremely odd, given that it was directed by Guy Ritchie - not a man known for following conventions (except his own). The movie does manage some rather lovely set pieces: unfortunately, Cavill and Hammer are poor enough actors that neither manages to build a memorable character with the lines they're given. Although this isn't entirely their fault as the script is no masterpiece, with "character" being replaced with "a collection of tics" and Vikander - a better actor than either of the male leads - struggling with the same problem.

2015, dir. Guy Ritchie. With Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Debicki, Jared Harris, Hugh Grant.

The Man in the Hat

This one is unusual in several ways. It's surreal and absurd, and it's directed by a composer. The director-composer is British, but the movie is essentially a love letter to the French countryside. And I think we have to mention Jacques Tati, as this is set in France and the titular character (Ciarán Hinds) says essentially nothing for the entire movie, although he does make the occasional noise.

The Man drives his old Fiat 500 across France, pursued by five men in a battered old Citroën Dyane. He overhears strange stories, sees strange things, is sung to several times, and has strange adventures. He sees the same people over and over in different places. These events don't exactly connect into a coherent whole, but the movie isn't about a plot as much as feelings, mild humour, and a sense of place. The French countryside is almost always gorgeous (although I recommend visiting over watching a movie ...), the composer's new songs are reasonably good, and the whole thing is charming and whimsical. I didn't fall in love, but it was a nice way to spend an hour and a half.

2020, dir. John-Paul Davidson, Stephen Warbeck. With Ciarán Hinds, Stephen Dillane, Maïwenn, Brigitte Roüan, Sasha Hails, Muna Otaru, Mark Padmore.

The Man in the High Castle

As I write, I've seen only the one hour pilot as nothing else of the series exists yet.

We learn as we proceed that we're watching the U.S. in 1962, the east coast occupied by the Nazis and the west coast by the Japanese. Life under the Nazis isn't good, and life under the Japanese is little better. To me, the most interesting point was that Hitler was essentially keeping the peace: he's old, and when he dies Goebbels or Himmler is expected to take over ... and then all out war is expected against the Japanese, with the U.S. as the battle zone. But that's not the main point: there's a resistance, and they're trying to move around newsreel movies labelled "The Grasshopper Lies Heavy" that show America winning the war, and which are made by "The Man in the High Castle." Juliana Crain (Alexa Davalos) risks her life to deliver one of these reels as her sister died in the attempt.

The friend I watched it with thought the acting was awful (we had just watched "Birdman"), but I disagree. While it wasn't brilliant, it was acceptable, workmanlike. And so was the structure: the points were carried, things happened in the right order. But ... neither did I see anything particularly inspiring about it. I wonder if I would have taken it any differently if I was familiar with the source material.

2015, dir. David Semel. With Alexa Davalos, Rupert Evans, Luke Kleintank, DJ Qualls, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Rufus Sewell.

Man of Tai Chi

Keanu Reeves' directorial debut, starring himself and a martial artist/stuntman friend he met on the set of "The Matrix." Shot in China with Chinese funding, partly in English, partly in Chinese.

Our hero (Tiger Chen) is the last student at a Tai Chi temple in modern day Beijing(?). He fights well in competitions, but his day job doing deliveries is problematic and doesn't pay well. When he's offered money by a man named Donaka (Reeves) for underground fights, he takes it. He uses the money to fix his master's temple and give his parents gifts, but his fighting and character become more vicious and his master fears for him.

I was annoyed that in the midst of this very reality-based movie there's a mystical strike from Tai Chi that the entire plot hinges on. I was also disappointed that they got sloppy with the wirework at the end: they had used it throughout for slight exaggerations of jumps and strikes, but at the end people almost fly. On the whole, it was substantially better than I expected when I heard Reeves would be directing a martial arts film - but what happens is that it's good enough that I became frustrated by the deficiencies. Definitely worth considering for fans of the martial arts, but no one else.

2013, dir. Keanu Reeves. With Tiger Chen, Keanu Reeves, Karen Mok, Simon Yam, Iko Uwais.

Man of the House

This falls into the category of "I was expecting really, really bad so I enjoyed it." Yes, it's a stupid movie. Tommy Lee Jones does what he does: stone faced, tough old man. But he does it so well, and I just enjoy watching him. And putting him together with a house full of cheerleaders wasn't the worst idea ever. It also wasn't as tasteless as I expected - but then, I had very low expectations. The premise is that he's a Texas ranger protecting a bunch of cheerleaders who witnessed a murder. Of course despite his grumpy nature he ends up helping them and they help him. Comedy (of a sort) ensues.

2005, dir. Stephen Herek. With Tommy Lee Jones, Cedric the Entertainer, Christina Milian, Paula Garcés, Monica Keena, Vanessa Ferlito, Kelli Garner, Anne Archer, Brian Van Holt.

Man of the West

Gary Cooper plays Link Jones, on his way to hire a school teacher for the small town he lives in. He's stranded in the countryside with a saloon singer (Julie London) and a card shark (Arthur O'Connell) after their train is robbed. He leads his two companions to what he thought was an abandoned farm. But there we find out that he knew about this farmhouse because he often went there in the past, and his previous criminal associates are still using it. His arrival causes all kinds of ugliness.

Cooper and London are fairly good, Lee J. Cobb (as the aging gang leader) is perhaps a bit madder than necessary. It's not a particularly cheerful film, but well done.

1958, dir. Anthony Mann. With Gary Cooper, Julie London, Lee J. Cobb, Arthur O'Connell, Jack Lord, John Dehner, Royal Dano, Robert J. Wilke.

Man of the Year

The critics hated this one, and they're right in one sense: the plot kind of sucked. We had two major elements: a comedian (Robin Williams) running for president, and a major problem with the new electronic voting system. One of these is funny, the other isn't, and they're trying to hang a plot on the latter very uninteresting idea. It was a bad idea to start with, and poorly executed to boot. But it's a comedy, and when Williams is on a tear about modern day politics it's bloody hilarious. I don't always like him when he's on a rant, but it worked this time. The movie sank whenever we stumbled back to the pathetic plot. Ah well, you can't have everything. I thought it was more than worth it for the laughs.

2006, dir. Barry Levinson. With Robin Williams, Christopher Walken, Laura Linney, Lewis Black.

Man on Wire

The story of Philippe Petit's high-wire walk between the two towers of the World Trade Center. This is a documentary, and it goes in to considerable detail about the devious (and illegal) methods he and his friends used to get the whole thing set up. Extensive interviews with Petit and the friends who helped him. A good movie about an interesting event.

2008, dir. James Marsh.

The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot

If you hadn't guessed from the title, this one is a bit weird. Sam Elliott is Calvin Barr, a World War II veteran living out the quiet later days of his life in a small town. We see flashbacks to his mission to kill Hitler during the Second World War, and learn that he's still surprisingly proficient at self defense despite his age. As improbable as this all was, it was moving along well largely due to Elliott (as other critics have noted). But then they tried to recruit him to kill Bigfoot ... which I could have dealt with until they mentioned the backup plan if he wouldn't come, which was to nuke a large portion of Canada. My giggling kind of got in the way of my suspension of disbelief, which was unfortunate: I'd got through them killing off Hitler okay.

As crazy as it is, well written dialogue and a very good performance by Elliott make this fairly watchable.

2018, dir. Robert D. Krzykowski. With Sam Elliott, Aidan Turner, Caitlin FitzGerald, Larry Miller, Sean Bridgers, Ron Livingston, Ellar Coltrain, Rizwan Manji, Mark Steger.

The Man Who Knew Infinity

The movie is reasonably closely based on true events: mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan's staggering output of unproven formulae continue to astound mathematicians to this day (and, as time has passed, the vast majority of them have been proven correct).

Dev Patel plays Ramanujan, a young uneducated Indian man living in poverty who does advanced maths inspired by his goddess. Extremely advanced maths: one of his employers sends his work to G.H. Hardy (Jeremy Irons) at the University of Cambridge, where Hardy initially assumes this is a prank played by one of the other math professors. Having realized the truth, he has Ramanujan invited to Cambridge. But it's not easy for an Indian to live in the U.K., particularly arriving just before the start of the First World War. Hardy was a rigorous mathematician and atheist, while Ramanujan was extremely religious and relied heavily on intuition, so they clashed rather badly on how to proceed on occasion. Ramanujan was also haunted by ill health, and separation from his family.

I was fascinated by the story, but significantly put off by Patel's performance: his face doesn't move much, and he spends most of the movie looking put-upon. Not surprisingly, Irons was very good - he pretty much saved the picture. A really interesting story marred by a mediocre performance by Patel.

2015, dir. Matthew Brown. With Dev Patel, Jeremy Irons, Devika Bhise, Toby Jones, Stephen Fry, Jeremy Northam, Kevin McNally, Enzo Cilenti, Arundhati Nag.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

This isn't Alfred Hitchcock's best movie, but neither is it his worst. It is, however, his second version of this movie! And Hitchcock's worst is still better than 98% of the world's output of movies. This movie sees a couple (Doris Day and Jimmy Stewart) in Morocco where they meet some unusual characters. Their son is kidnapped, and a dying man leaves a vague message about an assassination with Stewart. They follow the trail to London.

What makes Hitchcock's work so amazing is the detail and reality - not of the shoddy rear projections while they're riding in buses and cars, but the way the couple acts around each other. It's clear they love each other but have the kinds of issues that married couples always have - something most movies gloss over if the couple's issues aren't the main focus of the movie. But Hitchcock adds these touches effortlessly, just more detail added to the fabric of the movie.

1956, dir. Alfred Hitchcock. With Jimmy Stewart, Doris Day, Daniel Gélin, Bernard Miles, Brenda De Banzie.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Jimmy Stewart plays a young man (although he doesn't look the part - he was, after all, 54 at the time) journeying to the old "Wild West" with a new law degree and the idea that he'll set up shop as a lawyer in the town of Shinbone. But before he even arrives he's beaten severely when his stagecoach is robbed by Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) and his men. He quickly finds out that the Marshal is a coward and law is set by the gun. While Valance is clearly a villain, there are no clear cut knights in shining armour here. A Western in the classic sense, but also an interesting character study and an interesting story.

1962, dir. John Ford. With Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles, Lee Marvin, Edmond O'Brien, Woody Strode.

The Man With the Iron Fists

RZA co-wrote, directed and starred in this tribute to the 1970s martial arts movies he loves. Unfortunately, he was unable to assemble all the pieces he was familiar with into anything interesting. Warring clans, government gold, assassins, superpowers, flashy and absurd weapons ... It's all here, in no particular order, complete with garish sets, a high budget, massive blood splatter and lousy acting (particularly from RZA himself). You can feel the writers thinking "ooooh, let's throw in trope X here, so clever!"

RZA plays "the Blacksmith," who is trying to make enough money to save his love "Lady Silk" from her life of prostitution. But he lives in Jungle Village, and the clans are fighting over the soon-to-arrive gold. If only there were some real martial arts in this movie: instead we have bizarro weapons, wirework, and splatter. No redeeming features, a really horrible movie.

2012, dir. RZA. With RZA, Russell Crowe, Cung Le, Lucy Liu, Rick Yune, Dave Bautista, Byron Mann, Jamie Chung.

The Mandalorian, Season 1

Wikipedia refers to "The Mandalorian" as a "Space Western," while a friend made the connection to Samurai movies. That connection was formalized in film in 1960, when John Sturges brought us "The Magnificent Seven," a Western remake of the brilliant "Seven Samurai" (1954, Akira Kurosawa - a movie I consider one of the greatest films ever made).

In the Star Wars universe, "The Mandalorian" is a bounty hunter. He's played by Pedro Pascal - although we see his face only briefly in the eighth and final episode of the season - Mandalorians never remove their helmets. We find out quickly that he's making his money to support the other Mandalorians, particularly the foundlings, who live in a small enclave. The first episode leads him to ... "Baby Yoda." And if you haven't heard about Baby Yoda, you're living under a rock (although I'm not sure that's a bad idea in this case).

This series is set a few years after "Return of the Jedi," and a couple decades before "The Force Awakens." The Mandalorian is a bounty hunter with a strong moral code who ends up protecting Baby Yoda from the evil remains of the Empire. The Empire is represented in this season - to my considerable surprise - by none other than Werner Herzog ... who does "evil" with considerable ease and a significant German accent. Werner Herzog is both famous (mostly as a film director) and obscure (his old movies are German arthouse, and all of them are weird), and I think he's crazy. Then Gina Carano shows up. It gets wilder with Taika Waititi directed the last episode ... which explained the long and absurd banter between two former Empire guards at the beginning of the show. And the whole thing has Jon Favreau as the show runner, creator, and writer for six out of eight episodes.

There are endless nods to the fans: almost every Storm Trooper helmet type is represented, we visit not only Mos Eisley, but what appears to be "the" Cantina, and of course The Mandalorian himself is heavily based on Boba Fett. It being Disney and Lucasfilm, the effects are predictably very good.

I found the result to be an enjoyable if unspectacular.

2019. With Pedro Pascal, Carl Weathers, Gina Carano, Werner Herzog, Nick Nolte, Taika Waititi, Richard Ayoade, Giancarlo Esposito, Emily Swallow.

Mannequin

An atrociously bad movie that I admit I kind of enjoyed - both when it came out and on re-watching in 2008. Think of "Harold and Kumar go to White Castle": 20 years from now who's going to claim that's a "good" movie? And yet it's funny. Meshach Taylor as Hollywood delivers my favourite line: "You know I would never interrupt you when you're getting a piece of wood." There are no characters, only clichés walking around in this movie. Definitely not for everyone (and staggeringly politically incorrect by the standards of 2021), and you have a better chance of enjoying it if you're old enough to remember (well) the year it came out.

1987, dir. Michael Gottlieb. With Andrew McCarthy, Kim Cattrall, Estelle Getty, James Spader, G.W. Bailey, Carole Davis, Steve Vinovich, Christopher Maher, Meshach Taylor.

Mansfield Park (1983)

Fanny Price is probably Jane Austen's least-loved heroine. Fanny is exceptionally shy and retiring, and kind of the polar opposite of Elizabeth Bennett in the self-assertion department. And I suppose that it doesn't help that these days "fanny" is a fairly vulgar piece of slang in British English. Nevertheless, like all of Austen's books, there's much to admire in Mansfield Park. I suppose it's "because Fanny" there are relatively few TV or movie interpretations of this book.

I was given (2023-01) a partial set of the BBC's 1970s and 1980s interpretations of all of Austen's books as DVD (the owner gave them away because a couple in the set were broken). The only one I'd seen was "Northanger Abbey," because when I first looked for a version of that book on film in 2004, it was the only one in existence. That one is very bad: a poor and heavily edited script was handed to a couple bad actors who had about as much romantic attraction as a couple pieces of dryer lint. So my hopes for this one were low.

Let's start with this: this version is far more accurate and complete than the 1999 Rozema version (which I love, but no one would call "accurate"). This is a six episode, five hour BBC TV production from 1983.

The acting isn't stellar, but it's competent, and after the first half hour I was thoroughly invested. Austen is a damn fine writer, and they stuck close to her text. The cinematography varies between workman-like and uninspired, and occasional rather brilliant two-shots. And they put Fanny in the background a lot - which feels like a very odd choice when she's nominally the lead. But it's appropriate for her character, and actually works.

Jonny Lee Miller has a role, so young (10 or 11) I didn't recognize him. It's a very small role, but worth mentioning because Miller plays Edmund in the Rozema version.

Highly recommended for fans of Austen.

1983, dir. David Giles. With Sylvestra Le Touzel, Nicholas Farrell, Bernard Hepton, Angela Pleasence, Anna Massey, Robert Burbage, Jackie Smith-Wood, Christopher Villiers, Samantha Bond, Jonathan Stephens, Gordon Kaye, Jonny Lee Miller.

Mansfield Park (1999)

This is odd: for the most part I've come to Austen movies knowing the text, but this one was new to me. Director Patricia Rozema takes considerable liberties with the material (two homoerotic scenes between women, public hugging and kissing, implications of rape and torture of slaves), but ... she made a damn fine movie. And when Rozema took liberties with the dialogue, she got it from where? Austen's own materials - just not the novel of the title. Frances O'Connor is good as Fanny Price, Embeth Davidtz gets top billing for a relatively minor role (and performance), Alessandro Nivola and Jonny Lee Miller are very good as the men in Price's life. And one of the 20th century's best known playwrights (Harold Pinter) makes one of his infrequent movie appearances as the head of the house. The drama is brilliant, and some of the humour is cripplingly funny - wickedly biting satire.

Having read the book and seen the movie again: Rozema's version of Fanny has been changed from timid, shy, and afraid of everything (as written by Austen) to a retiring but superb social observer. She's a better judge of character in the movie than Austen intended, and things end well for her more through her own efforts than they do in the book.

Hardcore Austen fans beware: if you're offended by significant changes to the text, this production is rife with them. To everyone else - I highly recommend this as a movie, and even as Austen.

1999, dir. Patricia Rozema. With Frances O'Connor, Jonny Lee Miller, Alessandro Nivola, Embeth Davidtz, Harold Pinter, James Purefoy, Hannah Taylor Gordon, Hugh Bonneville.

Mansfield Park (2007, TV)

Masterpiece Theatre's short TV version of the Jane Austen novel. While they don't go for the wild anachronisms that Rozema introduced, they cut so much of the story that this felt just as unfaithful to the original material as the Rozema. The acting here is overall pretty poor, and when the director wants us to understand how attractive Fanny (Billie Piper) is, he sends her off to laugh and chase a child or a dog. Fanny doesn't do a lot of talking, and while we can vaguely see that Henry Crawford (Joseph Beattie) might like her innocence, and Edmund (Blake Ritson) would appreciate a solid friend since childhood, they didn't really give us much in the way of convincing romance. Read the book or deal with Rozema's wild ideas: either is better than this.

2007, dir. Iain B. MacDonald. With Billie Piper, Blake Ritson, Hayley Atwell, Joseph Beattie, James D'Arcy, Michelle Ryan, Catherine Steadman, Jemma Redgrave, Douglas Hodge.

Manufactured Landscapes

A documentary that shows us Ed Burtynsky who loves nature and might have spent his life photographing it, but found his muse taking pictures of the destruction we wreak upon our environment. He's been doing this for about 25 years. The movie combines one of his gallery openings with film of him shooting in several locations and cinematic reshoots of his photos. His photos are among the best I've ever seen in my life - I've never seen so many photos by one photographer and liked (loved!) such a high proportion of them. They dazzle, they're staggeringly beautiful. And simultaneously appalling, because they're of industrial waste, pit mines, oil wells, garbage dumps and factories. The cinematography keeps up with the photography too.

2006, dir. Jennifer Baichwal. With Ed Burtynsky.

A Map for Saturday

In 2005, at the age of 25, director Brook Silva-Braga decided to quit a job at HBO in New York City to spend a year backpacking around the world. This is his film of the trip. It had a particularly strong resonance for me as I boarded a plane to Bangkok Thailand ten months after he headed off on his trip. I spent six months in southeast Asia. He only spent a couple months in the area I was in, but his experience on the backpacker trail was remarkably similar to mine: being terrified when you start, being jaded by the time you finish, every day is Saturday, meeting people, hanging out with them for hours or days ... He interviewed a lot of people, and it's clear the pattern is very common - including across multiple nationalities. The significant difference I noticed between his experience and mine was that the 25 year olds he was hanging with were getting laid more than I was (and I'm okay with that - I went at age 40). The editing is very good, giving us a well-structured and thoughtful picture about the culture and people you meet on the backpacker trail - and when I say "culture," much of that is about the backpackers rather than the locals.

Highly recommended for both those who have been on the backpacker trail and those who haven't (and if you haven't, why haven't you?).

2007, dir. Brook Silva-Braga.

The Map of Tiny Perfect Things

I'm a fan of movies like "Groundhog Day." This is now effectively its own genre.

We meet Mark (Kyle Allen) in the morning at the beginning of the movie, and it rapidly becomes clear that he knows pretty much everything that's going to happen in his small town. Given my introduction, you'll be unsurprised to hear that he's repeating the day over and over. After some misguided advice from a friend, he decides pursuing girls is the right thing to do with his time ... until his clever moves are interrupted by something that didn't happen yesterday. He pursues Margaret (Kathryn Newton) and discovers that she's also repeating the day. One of the most entertaining parts of the movie, from which it draws its title, is Mark's pursuit of all the "tiny perfect things" around town during the day, several of which he's chosen to witness multiple times.

This is a more low-key affair than most of the other "Groundhog Day" variants: none of the violence of "Boss Level" or "Edge of Tomorrow." It's got less violence than "Groundhog Day" (which has a punch in the face and a couple ineffective suicides). Just two intelligent, charming teens, talking and walking around. The "tiny perfect things" are lovely, the dialogue is interesting and witty, and the characters are great. A marvelous film, a new favourite in the genre.

Media referenced in the movie: "Groundhog Day," "Edge of Tomorrow," "Time Bandits" and Dr. Who.

2021, dir. Ian Samuels. With Kyle Allen, Kathryn Newton, Jermaine Harris, Anna Mikami, Josh Hamilton, Cleo Fraser, Jorja Fox, Al Madrigal.

Marathon Man

One of the most famous thrillers ever made. A graduate history student (Dustin Hoffman) becomes unwittingly involved with a Nazi war criminal (Laurence Olivier) trying to get his possessions out of a New York bank. The infamous dental torture scene still holds a kick, despite 30 years of movies devising new ways to shock. I found the ending disappointing, but overall fairly good.

1976, dir. John Schlesinger. With Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider, William Devane, Marthe Keller.

The Marksman

Wesley Snipes has never really been in anything good, but he's been in some very enjoyable movies like "Blade." Unfortunately, this is neither of those things. Snipes plays a "painter," meaning someone in the military who infiltrates enemy territory and puts a marker on a military target to facilitate bombing. He teams up with a bunch of actors no one has heard of to make a movie no one should bother to see that you'll forget immediately if you do see it.

2005, dir. Marcus Adams. With Wesley Snipes.

Marry Me

Jennifer Lopez is Kat Valdez, a superstar singer about to marry Bastien (Maluma - playing another superstar singer), who she finds out is cheating on her moments before they're supposed to be married on stage. Instead, she picks a math teacher dad (Owen Wilson) out of the crowd, and marries him on the spot. The movie follows their attempts to find out if this insane choice might actually work.

The movie has a number of really good points, but, being a fairly standard rom-com, it also has some seriously stupid bits. In the latter category is the set piece that puts everything in motion. On the plus side, JLo and Wilson are wonderful together. For those who know their rom-coms, it may be reminiscent of "Notting Hill" - the incredibly famous star with the nice guy nobody knows. The classic rom-com plot-point of the couple splitting up because one of them thinks it won't work and then the grand gesture to get them back together ... guess what, that's in here too.

Along with the very silly opening event, other minuses include JLo and Maluma's singing (although many people will probably like this), some mildly over-the-top characters, a plot that hauls in a lot of clichés, and a lot of product placements.

Among the pluses, we have the chemistry between the stars. Wilson playing almost entirely straight and surprisingly charming. Kat's manager (John Bradley) - I'm so tired of the sleazy manager cliché, it was lovely to see a competent guy who's really doing his best for his client, he really likes her (but he doesn't love her, another common cliché). No hideously over-the-top characters. And a (mostly) well written script.

The end result is an intermittently enjoyable rom-com that really manages to embody everything good and bad about the genre. But the most important thing works: the lead couple are convincing.

2022, dir. Kat Coiro. With Jennifer Lopez, Owen Willson, Maluma, John Bradley, Chloe Coleman, Sarah Silverman, Kat Cunning, Michelle Buteau, Stephen Wallem, Jameela Jamil, Khalil Middleton, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Jimmy Fallon.

Mars Attacks

I saw this when it was released and remembered not particularly liking it. But when it turned up for $3 as a DVD, I decided I'd give it a chance because Tim Burton, as weird as he is, is rarely boring.

I'll stand by the assessment that he's "rarely" boring, but he does come close here. The idea seems appropriate enough for him: Martians come to Earth, appear initially friendly, then begin to do horrible things. (All based on a cult series of trading cards by the same title.) Despite a huge and very talented cast, the vast majority of the gags fall flat. It's not funny and it's certainly not good science fiction. Moving on ...

1996, dir. Tim Burton. With Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael J. Fox, Danny DeVito, Martin Short, Rod Steiger, Tom Jones, Lukas Haas, Natalie Portman, Lisa Marie, Jim Brown, Pam Grier.

The Martian

Andy Weir's "The Martian" was one of the most successful science fiction books of the last decade: it tells the story of Mark Watney, an astronaut on Mars whose crew leaves him behind when he's thought to be dead and a storm forces their departure. Awakening alone on Mars, he struggles to extend his own life expectancy in the harsh surroundings.

The movie stars Matt Damon as Watney, and a bevy of other A-List actors as the other Martian astronauts and NASA staff. The thing about Watney is that he just keeps fixing the stuff that breaks and never gives up, never resigns himself to dying. Damon is very good in the role. And one of the things that the movie truly succeeded at was getting geeks right: the genius, the eccentricity, and the dedication. Geeks are usually considered an easy target for comedy, and they do raise a few laughs here, but it comes naturally from the plot without distorting their behaviour. (Can you tell I'm tired of being shown "the geek" as the butt of jokes?) It's a good movie.

2015, dir. Ridley Scott. With Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Peña, Kate Mara, Sean Bean, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie, Chiwetel Ejiofor.

The Marvels

The movie vacillates wildly between comedy, drama, tragedy, and space opera - hell, it even flirted with being a musical. What it was meant to be was a money-making product pumped out by Disney that somehow precisely followed in the rules laid out by 32 previous Marvel movies - and yet still quirky and unique. It's no more successful than that genesis suggests. Which is unfortunate, as they've lined up a fairly good cast (notably Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, and Iman Vellani as the three Marvels).

A sequel to "Captain Marvel," the primary plot driver is the new Kree leader Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton) using a new power-up ("one of the two legendary Quantum Bands") to restore the atmosphere of the planet Hala ... while incidentally destroying a world that the Skrull had taken refuge on. This act also "entangles" the three Marvels (Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau, and Kamala Khan / Ms. Marvel) ... although if you haven't seen the TV mini-series "WandaVision" and "Ms. Marvel" you'll be somewhat in the dark about two out of the three of them. By "entangle," we mean that whenever they use their powers, they swap places with each other. Or at least it happens when it's cinematically convenient. And as mentioned, the tone of the movie is all over the map - now comedic, now tragedy, 5-10 minutes of musical (no joke), a lot of space opera, and some of it's played for drama.

This isn't as bad as "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" which defined a new low point for the Marvel cinematic universe (although they tried with "The Eternals" too), so there's that. I was going to say "I don't know why I don't stop watching," but the truth is I do know: I love superheroes. And those superhero movies unburdened by the MCU history ("Project: Power" and "How I Became a Superhero") are sometimes quite good.

2023, dir. Nia DaCosta. With Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, Iman Vellani, Zawe Ashton, Gary Lewis, Park Seo-joon, Zenobia Shroff, Mohan Kapur, Saagar Shaikh, Samuel L. Jackson.

Marvel's Iron Fist

I don't want to mislead anyone, so: this review is based on watching the first five episodes in full, and then watching bits and pieces of the rest. The reason for this is that the writers were stretching out material that could have been covered in four one hour episodes to 13 episodes. Not only that, the writing was staggeringly pedestrian: as Oscar Wilde once said, "The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one." Painfully dull writing. It also felt like a soap opera with martial arts and a bit of magic thrown in (amazingly similar to DC's "Arrow"). Speaking of which - the martial arts was better than I expected (although still not good). But I'm not watching 13 hours of tripe for the occasional mediocre martial arts fight. Can I just add - for someone who spent fifteen (formative) years studying meditation in Heaven, and who had the focus to beat all competitors to become "The Iron Fist," our protagonist Danny Rand is an incredibly unfocused guy.

2017. With Finn Jones, Jessica Henwick, Tom Pelphrey, Jessica Stroup, Ramón Rodríguez, Sacha Dhawan, Rosario Dawson, David Wenham.

Marwencol

The film opens on the 1/6th scale "Marwencol," a town of dolls created by Mark Hogancamp. He stages an elaborate World War II story line in the town, shooting photos of it as he goes. The film explains that this is his way of dealing with the trauma in his life: in 2000, five men beat him almost to death outside a bar. This appears to have been because he mentioned that he liked to wear women's shoes. As he put it, "they beat every memory I ever had right out of my head:" all he knows of his life before the incident is from photos, illustrations, and what people tell him. His extensive photographic work of Marwencol was eventually noticed by a local photographer, and the film follows him up to his first gallery display. His work has been displayed extensively since.

Hogancamp is a strange guy, although he's doing well all things considered. The movie takes you into his world (both Marwencol and his head) for an hour and a half.

The big take-away quote for me came from Tod Lippy, editor of Esopus Magazine: "There's one major difference I found immediately between Mark's work and a lot of other contemporary art work that I look at and see and like for that matter, that is particularly when you're using dolls, or some kind of, ... you're rephotographing something, there's generally a very strong sense of irony in the work, there's a distance, and it's kind of a little wink-winky, like 'I'm photographing dolls, isn't that ...' you know, funny, or subversive, or clever, or whatever. And I just, the thing that struck me immediately about Mark's work is that there's no irony in it ..." Hogancamp is aware of the distinction between his created world and the real world, although sometimes I think it may get a bit blurred for him with naming all his characters after people he knows in the real world. But the point is, while Marwencol is a created thing, it's also very serious for him and that truly does bring a very different tone to the pictures.

Robert Zemeckis made a really bad fictionalized version of this story. This is far, far better.

2010, dir. Jeff Malmberg. With Mark Hogancamp.

Mary and Max

Australian animated film about a couple of dysfunctional people who strike up a very long term and bizarre written correspondence. When we first meet Mary Daisy Dinkle (Bethany Whitmore, later Toni Collette), she's eight years old with a distant father and alcoholic mother. She randomly picks Max Horowitz (Philip Seymour Hoffman) in New York from a phone book and sends him a letter. He is 44, obese, and doesn't deal well with people. And yet they share many qualities, and the friendship grows across a couple decades.

The claymation is grotesque (in the older sense of the word: features are exaggerated for emphasis) and the story absurd but somehow touching. You're unlikely to want to meet either of the leads, but you end up desperately hoping they'll continue to be friends and draw happiness from each other. A memorable and decent - but not great - film.

2009, dir. Adam Elliot. With Toni Collette, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bethany Whitmore, Eric Bana, Barry Humphries.

Mary and the Witch's Flower

I don't start watching movies because I want to write a nasty review: I watch them because I hope they'll transport me to another world, provide a sense of wonder. I'm not a paid reviewer, so I only watch movies I want to watch. And this isn't a bad movie, in fact it's reasonably good ... but I think it's fair to call it derivative.

Imagine Kiki (of Hayao Miyazaki's "Kiki's Delivery Service") goes to evil Hogwarts, with a big serving of every other Miyazaki film on the side for visual flair. This is a very visually attractive film aimed at children, and the children may not notice how derivative (or how earnest) it is, but adults familiar with Studio Ghibli's output and the Harry Potter films are likely to find this awfully familiar. It also suffers in comparison with "Your Name" by Makoto Shinkai, another Japanese Anime movie I saw earlier the same day - "Your Name" was even more impressive to look at, and distinctly more original in its ideas.

A short plot summary: Mary Smith goes to the countryside to stay with her great aunt. A cat leads her into the woods to an unusual flower, which grants her (although she doesn't realize it immediately) temporary witch powers. A broomstick flies her to a school in the sky, where she's assumed to be a new student. But not all is as it appears (and I've already given some of that away by saying "evil Hogwarts"). I imagine that this would work very well for kids, but fans of Miyazaki shouldn't rush to see it.

2017, dir. Hiromasa Yonebayashi. With Hana Sugisaki, Yūki Amami, Fumiyo Kohinata, Jiro Sato.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

A reasonable attempt at the "Frankenstein" story that blundered badly. Massive failures of logic (far above and beyond the re-animation of life that we take for granted as part of this story), over-acting, scenes that were blatantly obvious five minutes ahead that were lingered over as if they were a great revelation ... The two things they did right were making the Creature intelligent, and casting Robert De Niro in the role: he was brilliant.

1994, dir. Kenneth Branagh. With Kenneth Branagh, Robert De Niro, Tom Hulce, Helena Bonham Carter, Aidan Quinn, Ian Holm, Richard Briers, John Cleese, Robert Hardy.

MASH

Not so much a plot as sequential vignettes of life in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, tied together with weird announcements over the camp loudspeaker. The original book was written about the Korean war, but all references to place were removed to let the American audience think it might be in Vietnam - a war they were still involved in when the movie was released. Inspired possibly the most successful TV series of all time - which is in many ways better than the movie. But it would seem (from the extras) that the movie was the one that broke the ground - utter mayhem on film, an unheard-of combination of blood-soaked, realistic operating rooms in combination with hysterical dark humour. Which the studio very nearly refused to release because "no one would watch such a combination." The jokes are certainly raunchier than the TV series was allowed to be. Launched the careers of Donald Sutherland, Elliot Gould, and Tom Skerritt, and probably helped Robert Duvall along substantially.

1970, dir. Robert Altman. With Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Tom Skerritt, Sally Kellerman, Robert Duvall, Roger Bowen, Rene Auberjonois, David Arkin, Jo Ann Pflug, Gary Burghoff.

The Mask

Maybe the best use Jim Carrey's putty features have been put to. A shy bank clerk acquires an ancient mask that transforms him into an indestructible green-faced maniac. The mask also brings many of the wearer's more hidden traits to surface - in the case of our bank clerk, a wild desire to re-enact Tex Avery cartoons in real life and a bizarre romanticism. The source material (a graphic novel) was about homicide and revenge: the people who got the mask generally slaughtered those they didn't like and generally nobody ended up happy. Not surprisingly, they handed this material to a horror director ... but somehow he decided it should be a comedy and still managed to sell the product - complete with two unknown leads. And I'm glad he did. It doesn't hurt that they also got one of the best dog performances ever put on film, with an energetic Jack Russell terrier who was also incredibly charming. Another nice touch is Royal Crown Revue (one of the best neo-Swing bands of the 1990s) as the club band. This is a very funny movie.

2018: the extras with the DVD make a pretty convincing case for this being something of a landmark with both the use of CGI in film and the edgy comedy tone. It also starred Jim Carrey in his break-through role (although he'd been on TV for a while), and Cameron Diaz in her first film role ever. They took a lot of risks on this one and got it right.

Speaking of extras: the documentaries and deleted scenes on the DVD are very good (and filmed a long time after the making of the film). The later voice-over is an assemblage of various staff talking about the film - not while it's running, and not to each other, but all patched together over top of the movie audio. Worse, if you've watched the documentaries on the DVD, you've actually heard a good portion of what they're saying. I lost interest in that one. But there's a second one that's just the director talking us through all the scenes of the movie and recorded about a year after the release of the movie. He's a little flat when he's talking, but does talk about some interesting stuff related to the movie.

1994, dir. Chuck Russell. With Jim Carrey, Cameron Diaz, Amy Yasbeck, Peter Greene, Peter Riegert, Richard Jeni.

Masquerade

Another Ruritanian romance, I saw very strong similarities to "Dave," probably because I had seen it most recently. But others may well compare it to other movies or books, most likely Prisoner of Zenda or its movie versions - that is, after all, the origins of "Ruritania."

In Korea in 1616, our main character is the poor but well meaning actor/jester Ha-sun (Lee Byung-hun), who is hired to impersonate the paranoid and mostly morally bankrupt king Gwang-hae (also Lee). The king falls into a coma and the impostor is forced to remain in the job for longer than expected. His initial impersonation is punctuated by fart and shit jokes that I could have lived without, a fair bit more comedy, and the very good cinematography that runs throughout the entire movie. As we begin to see just how much danger our impostor is actually in, the movie's tone becomes darker and they drop the comedy. At the same time, Ha-sun has been inspiring those around him with his decency. (Never heard that story before ... yup, definitely a Ruritanian Romance.) Good performances and a very well staged production save this from being a flop, but I found the uneven tone of the movie made it less successful than it could have been.

2012, dir. Choo Chang-min. With Lee Byung-hun, Ryu Seung-ryong, Han Hyo-joo, Jang Gwang, Kim In-kwon, Shim Eun-kyung.

The Master

One of the lowest of the low rent Jet Li movies, a real disappointment.

The story opens with Master Tak (Yuen Wah) in L.A. being beaten up by his former student Johnny (Jerry Trimble). Johnny wants to kill him, but Tak is saved by Anna (Anne Rickets). Tak's student Jet (Jet Li) arrives from Hong Kong, but finds Tak's store severely damaged and shuttered. Three Mexican guys steal his bag and drive off, but he chases them on foot and catches them - whereupon they beg to become his students. Jet meets Mai, a banker who holds the loan on Tak's store, but neither of them knows where Tak is.

Varies between considerable violence and unfunny humour. The martial arts aren't very good and the plot is ludicrous. Stay away.

1989, dir. Tsui Hark. With Jet Li, Yuen Wah, Crystal Kwok, Jerry Trimble, Rueben Gonzáles, Guy Fadollone, Derek Annunciation, Anne Rickets.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Beautifully crafted, but strangely hollow. During the Napoleonic wars, Russell Crowe (playing the captain of the HMS Surprise) pursues the French vessel Acheron around South America. I doubt you will ever see a better done sea picture of that era: the sense of life at sea on a fighting ship is a labour of love. Unfortunately, despite good acting, the plot arc staggers and stumbles and is swamped by occasional sentimentality.

2003, dir. Peter Weir. With Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany, James D'Arcy.

Master of None

"Master of None" comes highly regarded by the critics: it's at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes for both the seasons released through February 2018. The review I particularly remember referred to it as a "modern comedy of manners." So when the first season showed up at the library on DVD, I grabbed it - but I didn't react well to it. It opens with two people having sex, followed by a condom breakage, then research of "Plan B" (the title of the episode, by which they mean the "morning after pill"), and then the social awkwardness of going and acquiring that pill with a person you only just met. Not my kind of humour. So I started skipping forward, giving it about 20 minutes across two episodes. What I saw was a bunch of immature and unpleasant people being incredibly awkward with each other, and I failed to find a laugh in any of it. But then, I didn't like "Seinfeld" either (to me they seem very similar).

2015. With Aziz Ansari, Eric Wareheim, Noël Wells, Lena Withe.

The Matador

In a time of movies stepping outside their genres and doing weird cross-overs, this one is still off-the-charts weird. The director calls it "a black comedy about friendship," which is accurate as far as it goes, but there's so much more going on ...

Pierce Brosnan plays Julian Noble, an aging hitman. When he encounters businessman Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear) in a hotel bar in Mexico, they get a rocky start on a weird friendship. Julian has no home and no friends and isn't particularly good at socializing, although he does try - desperately. Danny on the other hand is a down-on-his-luck salesman trying to recover his financial stability with a deal in Mexico. Julian - despite his penchant for prostitutes - envies Danny his solid marriage and home life. They go to a bull fight together, where Julian reveals his profession - and when Danny doesn't believe him, demonstrates how easily he could kill a random individual of Danny's choosing without anyone noticing.

I remember seeing an interview with Brosnan at the time, in which he said that the role had scared him. It was the first time he hadn't played suave and handsome (he was well known as Remington Steele and James Bond, and for movies like "The Thomas Crown Affair"), and required that he deliberately NOT look good and also put a lot more into the acting. I've always thought of this movie as proof that he really knows how to act - he does a great job.

I saw this shortly after its release and really enjoyed it, then watched it again in 2017 with a friend who commented that it had "more awkwardness per square inch" than any movie she'd ever seen. And it's true: Julian doesn't know how to interact with people and some of the things he says are fantastically cringe-inducing. But it's not just about being a dark comedy with awkward humour - there's a real and quite good plot sneaking up on you as you watch these two wildly different individuals try to form a friendship. Better yet, you'll have no damn idea where it's going in the process. Memorable and surprisingly good, I remain a big fan of the movie.

2005, dir. Richard Shepard. With Pierce Brosnan, Greg Kinnear, Hope Davis, Philip Baker Hall.

The Matrix

One of the best science fiction movies ever made. One of the best action movies ever made - it rewrote the way action movies have been done ever since. A smooth melding of computer technology (in both presentation and content), religion, paranoia, and philosophy brings us a fascinating and thought-provoking script coupled with incredible visuals. See this movie. (Skip the sequels.)

1999, dir. Andy and Larry Wachowski. With Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Gloria Foster, Joe Pantoliano.

Matrix Reloaded

Unfortunately, this movie couldn't begin to compare to its predecessor, which had an incredible overarching sense of paranoia ("What you perceive as reality - is not."). The special effects are great, but the fights are too long (no matter how well staged), the rave is ludicrous, and the "emotional" content is laughable. I was disappointed at the change in Morpheus's character, from being a leader with a vision to a misguided prophet.

2003. dir. Andy and Larry Wachowski. With Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Collin Chou.

Matrix Revolutions

The conclusion of one of the highest flying science fiction series ever. Started with what was possibly the best SF film ever made, ended with what I initially thought was one of the worst. It's not a terrible film, but expectations for it (even after the second one came out) were still high enough to make it look pretty bad. Lots of violence and special effects. The effects are, in many places, quite beautiful. Ultimately the only really worthwhile segment is the Indian gentleman (who is supposed to be a program, not a human) at the beginning of the movie talking about the concept of love: after that it deteriorates into uninteresting action.

2003, dir. Andy and Larry Wachowski. With Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Collin Chou.

The Matrix - Resurrections

Neo and Trinity were dead at the end of the last Matrix movie. Most of us assumed that meant no sequels, or at least no sequels involving them. And the Wachowskis themselves said they weren't going to do any more sequels. Despite which, we join "Thomas Anderson" at his programming job where he's world-famous for having written "The Matrix" trilogy of video games, in a movie directed by Lana Wachowski. There's a woman Anderson sees at the local coffee shop that he longs for - the viewers all know that she's Carrie-Anne Moss / Trinity, although she calls herself "Tiffany."

The movie is massively meta (and I don't mean the-company-formerly-known-as-Facebook - the word had a meaning before them), loaded with references right from the start, complete with an opening scene at "Heart o' the City Motel." Our new action lead "Bugs" (Jessica Henwick) started life wiping down windows on skyscrapers, a direct reference to the first Matrix movie. Neo is referred to as "Mr. Anderson" - particularly by his boss, who has some of the characteristics of Agent Smith. The call-backs are endless, and don't stop after Neo finally figures out who he truly is. A certain amount of quoting can be beneficial: the original Matrix series showed Neo as a very Christ-like figure, but didn't really smash you about the head with it. That was good. This movie uses every possible opportunity to flash back to the previous series - visual references, name dropping, similarities of events. It's a weird combination of nostalgia, referencing, quoting, and self-congratulations.

The Wachowskis didn't want to make this sequel, but were pressured into it - so they referenced that in the script. Neo (at this point still "Thomas Anderson" as his mind hasn't been freed) is a famous game designer who made a series of "Matrix" video games:

Smith: I'm sure you can understand why our beloved parent company, Warner Brothers, has decided to make a sequel to the trilogy.
Neo: What?
Smith: They informed me they're gonna to do it with or without us.
Neo: I thought they couldn't do that?
Smith: Oh, they can, and they made it clear they would kill our contract if we didn't cooperate.
Neo: No?
Smith: I know you said the story was over for you, but that's the thing about stories... they never really end do they? We're still telling the same stories we've always told, just with different names... faces... and... I have to say I'm kind of excited. After all these years, to be going back to where it all started. Back to The Matrix!
Did I mention that it's more than a bit Meta?

Without a doubt, Lana Wachowski (who directed and co-wrote) has come up with an impressive number of new - and often quite interesting - ideas about how the Matrix could morph into something different after the events of the original trilogy. I can't fault her for that. And the new actors (Henwick, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as an incarnation of Morpheus, and Jonathan Groff as Smith) give it their all. But Wachowski has come up with something so self-referential, so very meta that it distracts from the not-particularly-exciting plot. Combine that with action that directly references (in words, spoken out loud by one of the characters) "Bullet Time," while not being nearly as revolutionary as that was in 1999 ... and you've got a really interesting hot mess. Fans of the original series should watch this, non-fans should avoid. And I don't think it's going to have a lot of rewatch value for anyone. (Umm, rewatched 2023-03: I find it both mediocre and utterly fascinating, but you do have to be a fan of the original series.)

2021, dir. Lana Wachowski. With Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Jessica Henwick, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Jada Pinkett Smith, Toby Onwumere, Max Riemelt, Brian J. Smith, Eréndira Ibarra, Lambert Wilson, Christina Ricci, Telma Hopkins, Chad Stahelski.

A Matter of Life and Death

I ordered this movie from TPL because I'd been thinking about the excellent "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp," and thus about Pressburger and Powell. "A Matter of Life and Death" is one of their other movies, and seemed to be well regarded.

The movie starts with a conversation between Lancaster bomber Squadron leader Peter Carter (David Niven) and American radio operator June (Kim Hunter) working on the British shore. He's returning to the UK on a plane that's on fire and can't land: he's saved the other crew, but is about to die himself. After a five minute conversation, they declare that they could love each other, and he leaps from the plane without a parachute ("I'd rather fly than fry").

Carter awakes on the sea shore in what he assumes is the afterlife - only to find he's landed alive in the UK, right next door to June. They celebrate and fall in love. Unfortunately, the afterlife comes calling for him: he was supposed to be collected when he died, but the British pea-soup fog confused the "collector" (Marius Goring putting on a mediocre French accent). He's asked to proceed to the afterlife, but he demands an appeal.

A local doctor friend of June's (Roger Livesey) is pulled in to address Carter's hallucinations, and much is made of the trial - although the movie makes sure to never tell us if what Carter is experiencing is real. Mind you, they also never explain how he survived a fall out of a doomed bomber.

25 minutes of the movie is given to "the trial," in which several people spout philosophy and platitudes about Love, Americans, the British, and British house design (trust me, it's in there). I found the set-up ludicrous and the trial and its grandstanding tedious. But one of the reasons I watched the film is that it's on several very important best-of lists, so apparently I'm in a minority with my negative opinion.

1946, dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. With David Niven, Kim Hunter, Roger Livesey, Marius Goring, Robert Coote, Kathleen Byron, Richard Attenborough, Bonar Colleano, Joan Maude.

Maverick

Mel Gibson plays the card-playing lead character in the old West, trying to get into a high stakes poker tournament. Based on the 1950s TV series starring James Garner. In this movie he's aided and hindered by a lawman (Garner) and a gambling con artist and thief, played by Jodie Foster. The movie is absurd and frequently annoying, but it's also quite funny and charming. Definitely worth a watch.

1994, dir. Richard Donner. With Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, James Garner, Alfred Molina, Graham Greene, James Coburn.

The Maze Runner

A teenager (Dylan O'Brien) awakes in "The Glade," with no memories. He finds out all the teens there - all male - have arrived the same way, once a month. And that the Glade is surrounded by a massive and dangerous maze. He quickly makes an impression - by breaking the rules and saving lives and stuff like that. Then another teen is sent in, way ahead of schedule ... and it's a girl. With a note saying "this is the last one ever." And then the doors to the maze don't shut at night, endangering the lives of all the people in the Glade.

A bit dark to start, and gets much, much darker as it progresses. It also doesn't end, clearly setting itself up for a sequel. Not too terrible as a movie, but from the plot summaries on Wikipedia I can't really see the sequels working.

2014, dir. Wes Ball. With Dylan O'Brien, Kaya Scodelario, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Will Poulter, Ki Hong Lee, Aml Ameen, Blake Cooper, Patricia Clarkson.

McFarland, USA

The Rotten Tomatoes consensus summary of the movie says "Disney's inspirational sports drama formula might be old hat, but McFarland, USA proves it still works -- especially with a talented director and eminently likable star in the mix." I can't improve on that, although I suppose I can add a plot summary. Kevin Costner plays Jim White, a high school teacher and coach let go from his old job for throwing a shoe at an obnoxious football player. The only job he can get is at McFarland High, in one of the poorest neighbourhoods in the U.S. where most of the students are the children of migrant workers. He doesn't last long as a football coach, but after watching some of his students run, decides the school should start a cross country team. Which is surprisingly successful, but there are bumps in the road in such a poor community.

The writer(s) did a very good job, and the cast selection was good (not just Costner, everyone). The end result is very enjoyable. It doesn't hurt to find out at the end that it's not only true, but he started something huge at the school.

2015, dir. Niki Caro. With Kevin Costner, Maria Bello, Carlos Pratts, Ramiro Rodriguez, Sergio Avelar, Hector Duran, Rafael Martinez, Johnny Ortiz, Danny Mora, Martha Higareda, Morgan Saylor.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Our protagonist - and the voice-over we hear at a number of points throughout the movie - is Greg Gaines (Thomas Mann), who hates both high school and himself and avoids social contact as much as possible. He hangs out with Earl (R.J. Cyler) a lot - Earl is his "co-worker" in that they make deliberately horrible movies together, and have done so since they were about 10. When Greg's mother finds out that his schoolmate and former childhood friend Rachel (Olivia Cooke) has leukemia, she forces him to spend time with Rachel. Despite a very rocky start, they turn out to have a fair bit in common and spend a lot of time together.

I've been putting off reviewing the movie for a couple days as it keeps shifting in my memory as I tried to make it out. It's a bit unconventional, but who really wants conventional? There are way too many of those in the world. And the more I think about this, the more I think it's well served by its lack of normalcy. What I was most bothered by was that all the adult characters (in fact all characters except the three in the title) are caricatures. The parents in particular are worse than useless. But I think the biggest piece of the puzzle that fell into place for me was the realization that this is Greg's movie: we see what he sees, and that's how adults look to an alienated teen.

We have a tendency to like and trust our narrators and protagonists, although we have no particular reason to do so. So you realize only slowly (because you're hearing his logic about his behaviour, which is internally consistent) that our narrator is pretty messed up. About half way through the movie it's all laid out very clearly by Earl for Rachel (Earl is a character too, but he knows Greg well). Then you focus on Greg's flaws for a while and like him less. But in the end, you see him through her eyes - and see not only the flaws, but the potential. The movie yanks you about, but in the best possible way and - oddly - without feeling manipulative. I liked it when I watched it, but it's grown in my mind over the last couple days from "good" to "great:" memorable and exceptionally well done, a very rewarding character study.

2015, dir. Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. With Thomas Mann, Olivia Cooke, R.J. Cyler, Nick Offerman, Molly Shannon, Jon Bernthal, Connie Britton.

Mean Girls

Better than average teen comedy, although not great. Funny. Lindsay Lohan was surprisingly good. I was thrilled to see that they filmed both outside and inside Convocation Hall at the University of Toronto, although it's not a particularly long scene.

2004. dir. Mark Waters. With Lindsay Lohan, Tina Fey.

Meat Loaf: To Hell and Back

TV movie, didn't catch the beginning. Based of Meat Loaf's life. W. Earl Brown is a near-perfect match for Meat Loaf in appearance, and a good actor. Zachary Throne is quirky and great as Steinman, and a good fit as he's also a musician. It seems some of the facts were changed for their convenience, but fairly true to the spirit of Meatloaf's life. My favourite parts were Steinman describing their first album: "Of course it's over the top! It's meant to be over the top!" Or Meat Loaf's description of their songs: "mini-Operas."

2000, Jim McBride. With W. Earl Brown, Dedee Pfeiffer, Zachary Throne.

The Mechanic (2011)

Jason Statham stars in this higher budget re-interpretation of an old Charles Bronson B-movie. He plays Arthur "The Mechanic" Bishop, a hitman. The closest thing he has to a friend is his mentor at his firm, Harry McKenna (Donald Sutherland) - who the Mechanic is shortly required to kill. After the funeral, he ends up starting to see McKenna's son occasionally, and eventually takes him on as an apprentice (what could possibly go wrong?).

Violent and cold, reasonably well acted.

2011, dir. Simon West. With Jason Statham, Ben Foster, Donald Sutherland.

The Medallion

Unusual for one of Jackie Chan's movies, this one has wire work and some speeding up. It makes sense in context (ie. some of the characters have supernatural powers) but offended a friend of mine. I can understand that given that Chan's stuff has always been so solidly real. Despite their being an excuse for these modifications, the movie's still a piece of crap. There are one or two patented Jackie stunts and fights at the beginning, but after that it's all silliness, including Lee Evans as the unbelievably annoying side-kick - who is so incredibly irritating for so long that I wanted to strangle both the editor and the director. Claire Forlani is lovely but that's really no excuse to put her in here when she can't act and she can't do martial arts. If he'd stuck with Jennifer Love Hewitt (who co-starred in "The Tuxedo") this would have been somewhat better. But as it is - terrible.

2003, dir. Gordon Chan. With Jackie Chan, Claire Forlani, Lee Evans, Julian Sands, John Rhys-Davies.

Meet John Doe

Barbara Stanwyck plays Ann Mitchell, a reporter laid off from her newspaper job after the paper is purchased. She rewrites her last column before her departure as a letter from "John Doe" who intends to commit suicide on Christmas Eve to protest everything wrong with society. The letter creates such a sensation that she gets herself rehired, and she and the paper set out to hire someone to play the part of John Doe. The man they find is unemployed bush league pitcher John Willoughby (Gary Cooper), who turns out to be a pretty decent guy. Mitchell channels her earnest father to write the speeches, and Willoughby comes to almost believe the mythology - until someone tries to twist it all to their own purposes.

The screenplay is by Frank Capra's frequent collaborator Robert Riskin (although this is apparently the movie that broke up their relationship). This is Riskin and Capra at their most preachy and earnest, telling us to love thy neighbour. Not only was it somewhat less funny than usual for Capra, it got quite tiresome and Stanwyck's histrionics at the end totally destroyed my previously willing suspension of disbelief. Not my favourite Capra.

1941, dir. Frank Capra. With Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper, James Gleason, Walter Brennan, Edward Arnold.

Meet the Patels

Our main character in this documentary is Ravi Patel. He and his sister Geeta decided to document his - and his parent's - attempts to make an arranged marriage for him. His parents grew up in India and their marriage was arranged - and it's definitely worked out for them. But Ravi and Geeta grew up in the U.S. (now living in L.A.?), and Ravi's not sure about the arranged marriage thing. When the movie starts, he lives with his sister, and she is - as he points out right at the beginning of the film - a pretty terrible cinematographer. Framing is bad, and I think the mic was in the shot for about a third of the entire movie. And yet - she and Ravi are funny, likable people, and with the addition of some nicely animated sections - mostly of Ravi talking - the movie overcomes its blatant shortcomings in a big way, to bring us a story about what it is to look for love in America. Ravi is coming off the only real relationship he's ever had, with Audrey the redhead from Wisconsin(? may have been Connecticut). A relationship he's never told his parents about. And now he throws himself into his parent's scheme to find a woman for an arranged marriage. So he goes to India, looks at biodata sheets, flies all over the U.S. for dates, goes to a Patel convention (Patels are supposed to marry other Patels), and joins multiple websites. It's an odyssey, but one that ends on a wonderfully positive note - complete with Ravi pointing the camera at Geeta after she's come home from a date.

Fun and highly recommended despite the cinematic deficiencies.

(Even more highly recommended and also about family and identity in America is "Twinsters" - also a documentary.)

2014, dir. Geeta Patel, Ravi Patel. With Ravi Patel, Vasant Patel, Champa Patel, Geeta Patel.

Meet the Robinsons

Starts out promising with good computer animation and Disney apparently looking to tackle the whole sense of identity and not-belonging that comes with being an orphan in the first 20 minutes, but then wanders off into slapstick, pretty lights, and time travel. It's pretty to look at and occasionally amusing, but ultimately not very good.

2007, dir. Stephen J. Anderson. With Angela Bassett, Daniel Hansen, Jordan Fry, Matthew Josten, John H.H. Ford, Laurie Metcalf, Don Hall.

The Meg

I was seriously sceptical about "The Meg" - I think with some justification. Particularly after not liking "Sharknado," its spiritual predecessor in the category of cheesy shark movies. But a friend who's a connoisseur of all the finest cheese said that this was a good one, and my weakness for stupid-ass action films got me the rest of the way. The writers were having a blast (and, more importantly for us, doing a good job). I was particularly fond of the precocious eight year old daughter, but the other comedic highlight was them working in a brilliant "Finding Nemo" reference, with Jonas (Jason Statham) in the ocean saying "Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming ..." This alone was worth the price of admission.

The concept is simple: underwater research facility sends a sub to visits an unexplored region of the ocean, attracts a megalodon - a 25 metre long shark thought to be several million years extinct. Havoc ensues. The action sequences are appropriately ludicrous but mostly entertaining. And reasonably intelligent and humorous writing made the parts in between the action fairly good. I found the last half to three quarters of an hour somewhat drawn out - if the movie had been 75 minutes instead of 113 minutes it would have been perfect.

The mixed Chinese-American origins of the movie are visible in a couple ways: first, both languages are spoken at different points in the movie (with subs), and second, the hero and heroine don't kiss at the end, they just talk about plans for the future together.

2018, dir. Jon Turteltaub. With Jason Statham, Li Bingbing, Rainn Wilson, Cliff Curtis, Winston Chao, Sophia Cai, Ruby Rose, Page Kennedy, Robert Taylor, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Jessica McNamee, Masi Oka.

Megamind

Two humanoid aliens end up on earth: Metro Man, with very Superman-like powers, and Megamind, who is bright blue, evil, and extremely good with technology. They constantly fight it out and Megamind always loses ... until one day he wins and doesn't know what to do. So he tries to create a new hero to fight him, but as usual, his plan backfires ...

The movie has a good time messing with all the superhero/supervillain tropes, with Megamind doing a fair bit of property damage but always expecting to lose. And when his new hero isn't a hero, and he falls for the girl (knowing "the bad guy never gets the girl") ... I think I like Will Ferrell better as a voice than a face - he's pretty good here, as is Tina Fey. The movie is painted in very broad strokes, but is nevertheless hugely entertaining.

2010, dir. Tom McGrath. With Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, David Cross, Brad Pitt.

Megan Leavey

"Megan Leavey" is a real person, a former Marine and Military Police K9 dog handler. In the movie, she's played by Kate Mara. Leavey is unhappy with her life, and decides to join the military. Once there, she sets her sights on the munitions-sniffing dog program, and trains ferociously to get in. She ends up with Rex, a particularly vicious German Shepherd that she manages to bond with. They're both injured in combat, and after she leaves the military she works to adopt Rex - although he's been listed as unadoptable.

I suspect they may have overplayed Leavey's malaise - both before she joined the military and after she left it, but I don't think they overplayed her determination: you don't get where she got without a great deal of strength of will. An interesting and enjoyable character study.

2017, dir. Gabriela Cowperthwaite. With Kate Mara, Ramón Rodríguez, Tom Felton, Bradley Whitford, Will Patton, Sam Keeley, Common, Edie Falco.

Memories (orig. "Memorîzu")

Three SF shorts brought together by Katsuhiro Ôtomo, who also directed the third film. The first, "Magnetic Rose," finds some space scavengers entering the hulking remains of a ship, in which they find a huge generated environment stemming from the memories of a very messed up woman. The second, "Stink Bomb," has a very dumb man (his stupidness is inconsistent and exists for the convenience of the movie) accidentally turning himself into a biological weapon and then heading for Tokyo. And the third, "Cannon Fodder," shows us a day in the life of a city of heavy artillery, firing at an unseen enemy. I found the endings of all three ... unsatisfactory. But the animation, particularly in the last one, was impressive.

1995, dir. Kôji Morimoto, Tensai Okamura, Katsuhiro Ôtomo.

Memories of the Sword

I really have to lay off the twisted Korean revenge stories. They're kind of stomach-churning. In this case, a young woman has been raised her whole life to be a master swordsman - to take revenge on the two people who killed her parents. But inevitably there are multiple reveals along the way that show it's much more twisted and unpleasant than that ... That is, of course, if you can follow the plot. One of the reviews called it "borderline incomprehensible," which is fairly accurate. I had the advantage of not being in the theatre: I could pause or rewind to sort things out. But the incomprehensibility was dramatically aided by spectacular continuity errors: my personal favourite was when soldiers came for a woman warrior in the tea room she owned, we got a jump-cut to a field where she fought them. There's also intermittently glorious cinematography while this mess is happening. However, fans of the martial arts need not apply: there are plenty of sword fights, but the jumpy editing and the poor choreography make this one about the drama and revenge, not the fighting.

Had I known it was a revenge flick, I would have passed. But even for people who like them, there's little to recommend here: the director tried for the cinematography of movies like "Hero" and "Curse of the Golden Flower," but only held it together for a few scenes ... much like the plot.

2015, dir. Park Heung-sik. With Lee Byung-hun, Jeon Do-yeon, Kim Go-eun, Lee Junho, Lee Geung-young.

Memory: The Origins of Alien

The movie opens with a discussion of Dan O'Bannon's creation of and vision of "the Alien." O'Bannon died in 2009, but we hear about him through his co-author Ronald Shusett and his wife, Diane O'Bannon (who was also an executive producer). They spend time putting the movie in context, surrounded as it was by other SF hits like the original "Star Wars," "ET," and "Close Encounters" that had a much cleaner vision of the future. They talk about the myths and stories (like the three furies, and Lovecraft) and even comics that fed into the plot. And they spend nearly half the movie on the chest-burster scene. Ultimately mildly interesting, but for me too much on a subject I didn't have quite that much interest in.

2019, dir. Alexandre O. Philippe. With Veronica Cartwright, Roger Corman, Ben Mankiewicz, Axelle Carolyn, Henry Jenkins, Roger Christian, Ronald Shusett, Diane O'Bannon, Tom Skerritt.

The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress

When movies show up at the library, I look up reviews. The 2018 documentary "The Cold Blue" showed up, and not only did it have very good reviews, so did the movie that inspired it: this one. "The Memphis Belle" was a documentary shot on (yes, actually ON) Mitchell B-17 Flying Fortresses flying out of Britain on bombing runs over Germany. It was shot by legendary director William Wyler and his film crew. I watched the 2018 restored version. Run-time is only 45 minutes.

The voice-over is in classic 1940s style: a trustworthy voice telling you about the circumstances, the tension, and occasionally the evil of the Germans. Despite the voiceover, the end result is remarkably tense. This is partly because the delivery, although a bit bombastic, is actually relatively dry and isn't overstating the facts: they're clearly in terrifying circumstances. I was fascinated to see some of the practicalities of the insides of the plane: the two gunners in the middle of the body actually have to manoeuvre around each other to swing their gun in a full arc, which seems less than ideal in fighting circumstances.

Other things that were interesting to me were an aerial view of huge chunks of Britain having been turned into an airfield, a launching point for these massive attacks on German-controlled Europe. The description of the day's battle plan greatly increased my respect for the military (I shouldn't have been so surprised), with something like 1000 planes flying out in six groups each to different areas in Germany to break up the response (and that's just one day's mission). And who knew they flew such strict formation even under attack (apparently with reason).

Highly recommended.

2018, dir. William Wyler.

Men in Black

This found Mr. Smith, just off "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" teaming up with Mr. Jones in a movie adaptation of the comic book of the same name. Their job is to keep the many aliens living on Earth (most of whom live in NYC, where the MIB are based) under control. The movie starts with Smith as a NYPD member chasing down a criminal who appears to be human but turns out to be an alien, and then switches to the landing of a "Bug" at a farm in upstate New York where it kills Vincent D'Onofrio's character and uses his skin to appear human. Most aliens are peaceful, but this one is not: Smith and Jones are sent to track it down.

This is a very silly, very funny movie. Tommy Lee Jones' stoneface routine is put to perfect use, and Will Smith is having a blast ad-libbing like crazy. The goo factor is a bit high for a comedy, but despite that the movie is something of a landmark in the comedy genre. Which makes it that much more of a shame that MIB2 is one of the worst comedies ever made.

1997, dir. Barry Sonnenfeld. With Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith, Vincent D'Onofrio, Linda Fiorentino, Rip Torn, Tony Shalhoub, Mike Nussbaum, Carel Struycken.

Men in Black 3

Aaaannnddd ... we're back! Very nearly as good as the first movie of this name, just as silly, and a huge relief to those of us who suffered through MIB2. They've retconned some details, but what did I expect: it's a comedy, the last one was a decade ago(!), and they're just messing around.

The movie starts by introducing "Boris the Animal," an alien assassin who escapes imprisonment on the moon. He plans to travel back in time to stop Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) from imprisoning him in the first place. We are then re-introduced to Agents J (Will Smith) and K, and reminded how annoying J is and how untalkative K is. But the next day J goes to work to find that K has been dead for forty years - so he has to go back in time himself to ensure that K survives.

Other critics have already noted this, but a huge portion of the success of this movie goes to Josh Brolin for his utterly brilliant portrayal of a young K - he channels Jones to perfection, complete with brilliant comedic timing. The jokes are overall immensely superior to the pathetic MIB2. Recommended.

2012, dir. Barry Sonnenfeld. With Will Smith, Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones, Jemaine Clement, Michael Stuhlbarg, Emma Thompson, Alice Eve.

Men in Black: International

The first "Men In Black" movie was novel and inventive and very funny. The second was, well, horrible. The third is a mess, but Josh Brolin's performance and a reasonably funny script made it worth watching. This one is just ... innocuous.

Tessa Thompson is a young girl whose parents are neuralysed (MIB-speak for a short memory wipe) - she sees it happen, and grows up wanting to be a MIB. She of course succeeds, and is partnered with the handsome - but also crazy and irresponsible - "H" (Chris Hemsworth). Inevitably, they're handed a task that turns out to be a lot more problematic than it appears to be. The action happens in New York, London, Marrakesh, and a couple other places. Thompson (Tessa ... Emma is also in this) and Hemsworth are an amiable and mildly funny team. As with previous installments, their character arcs are devoid of logic in the service of not-terribly-funny gags. Thompson (Emma, this time) brings the best delivery (and acting) and they really should have given her more screen time.

A lot of people have been calling this the end of the line for MIB - I hope they're right. Because if they make another, it can only be worse, and this one at least isn't terrible.

2019, dir. F. Gary Gray. With Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Kumail Nanjiani, Liam Neeson, Rafe Spall, Rebecca Ferguson, Laurent Bourgeois, Larry Bourgeois, Emma Thompson, Kayvan Novak.

The Men Who Stare at Goats

The tagline on the box says "No Goats, No Glory." That was the biggest laugh I got out of this movie.

In the 80s the U.S. Army started work on alternative methods of warfare, some non-lethal, some totally and completely absurd. "Remote viewing" was the process of using only your mind to see a place distant in space and time. And the process of the title was all about killing something just by staring at it.

Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) is a newly divorced and unhappy reporter who sets out to prove himself by going to Iraq and reporting on the war. There he meets Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), one of the "Jedi warriors" trained with Bill Django's "New Earth Army" and follows him into the war zone.

I think the biggest laugh I got out of the movie (other than the tagline on the box) was the casting of McGregor as an apprentice "Jedi." The rest of it is end-to-end silliness without any laughs.

2009, dir. Grant Heslov. With George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey, Stephen Root.

Men With Brooms

A truly Canadian sport at the centre of a very Canadian movie. A lightweight romantic comedy centred around curling. A curling team that split up ten years ago is brought together again by the death of their coach. Goofy, with moments of embarrassment and brilliance.

2002, dir. Paul Gross. With Paul Gross, Leslie Nielsen, Molly Parker, Michelle Nolden, Peter Outerbridge, James Allodi, Jed Rees.

Merantau

I found this on Netflix and was interested because of the combination of writer/director Gareth Edwards and star Iko Uwais - the pair that brought us "The Raid," possibly the best martial arts movie of the last decade. This turns out to have been the warm-up: it was made two years before "The Raid," and is somewhat lower key (although it climaxes in a classic bloodbath) and just not as good.

The movie starts with text on the screen, explaining that "merantau" is when a young man leaves home to come of age - and so Yuda (Uwais) leaves his village and goes to Jakarta. There he soon "rescues" a young woman (Sisca Jessica) from a beating by the manager of the strip joint she works at - although she isn't terribly thankful as it also lost her her job. When she's kidnapped for human trafficking, he goes after her. There are fights.

As martial arts films go, this is ... above average. But not on par with the best of Jackie Chan or "The Raid." And if it's going to be this damn bloody and violent, it better be that good.

2009, dir. Gareth Evans. With Iko Uwais, Sisca Jessica, Mads Koudal, Laurent Buson, Yusuf Aulia, Alex Abbad, Yayan Ruhian, Christine Hakim, Donny Alamsyah.

The Mermaid

I keep watching Stephen Chow movies because, many years ago, he directed, co-wrote, and starred in "Shaolin Soccer" - which I still think is hysterically funny. It's incredibly uneven - Chow throws a lot of stuff at it that doesn't stick - but the scenes combining soccer and martial arts parody are brilliant. But I've never found another Chow movie that I liked: most recently, I really disliked "Journey to the West." I suppose I also keep watching because the critics usually love him: "Journey to the West" got 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, and "The Mermaid" got 93%.

"The Mermaid" sees the young woman Shan (Lin Yun) on a mission to kill obnoxious playboy businessman Liu Xuan: he's just bought a large wildlife preserve and has used a form of sonar to drive all the wildlife out. Shan is a mermaid, and she and her kind have been made very sick or dead by the sonar. Shan isn't particularly skilled at killing, and her attempts are played for comedy. As are Xuan's flirtations with his business partner Ruolan (Zhang Yuqi) and his general shallowness. The movie goes decidedly dark in the middle section when a number of people go on a mermaid hunt.

My problem with Chow's humour is that he wouldn't know subtlety if it hit him in the head with a sledgehammer. He doesn't write characters, only caricatures. He's fantastically scattershot in his humour: try anything, if the audience laughs, great - don't worry about the dozens of misfires bleeding out on the floor. And then there's the violence. The closest Hollywood relative to Chow's humour that I can think of is "Airplane" - also not a favourite of mine. It was dumb and over-the-top, but never malicious. In "Journey to the West," Chow thought he'd struck comedic gold having a little girl laugh long and loud as her father thrashes in the water, being torn apart, bleeding out, and dying. In this one he has a merman who has octopus tentacles have to endure his tentacles being treated as sushi while still attached, pounded, chopped, fried, and ground while he makes funny faces. If that's your kind of humour, more power to you.

Yup, there may be some hypocrisy here: I enjoy horror comedies. I guess the distinction is that you know what you're signing up for.

2016, dir. Stephen Chow. With Lin Yun, Deng Chao, Show Luo, Zhang Yuqi.

Message in a Bottle

A romance that starts with ... a message in a bottle. Robin Wright plays a divorced mother who finds the titular message and is captivated by it. She's a researcher at her Chicago paper, so she gets to work on finding out where it might have come from. That leads her to Kevin Costner. It's clichéd with a good script, a bit heavy-handed, and superbly acted. Anything else I could say would be "damning with faint praise."

1999, dir. Luis Mandoki. With Robin Wright, Kevin Costner, Paul Newman, Illeana Savage, Robbie Coltrane.

Metal: A Headbanger's Journey

When a die-hard metal fan grows up, gets a Ph.D. in sociology, and decides to do a movie about his favourite form of music ... you get this. My favourite oddball inclusions were Geddy Lee of Rush and Tom Morello of Rage against the Machine: I suspect Lee is there because Sam Dunn is Canadian and Lee is very articulate, and the "articulate" part applies to Morello as well. Rush is Prog Rock, and RATM is punk: neither is metal. It's a intelligent and reasonably well structured examination of Metal and many of its sub-genres, as well as discussions about how the genre relates to religion, violence, and sexuality.

Hugely interesting to me, Dunn and his co-director and co-producer went on to do "Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage" - possibly the greatest rock documentary ever. And Dunn stays totally out of frame which can't be said of this one.

2005, dir. Jessica Joy Wise, Sam Dunn, Scott McFayden. With Sam Dunn, Dee Snider, Geddy Lee, Tom Morello, Ronnie James Dio, Tony Iommi, Bruce Dickinson, Lemmy.

Metropia

Our protagonist is Roger, a worker in a call-centre in a near-future Europe where Trexx corp. has created a monolithic all-Europe transit system "to prevent wars by bring people closer together" (or some similar sentiment). But Roger rides a bicycle (which is apparently illegal) because "something weird" is going on in the metro. One day, his bike is completely trashed and he has to use the metro, whereupon he starts hearing a voice in his head and follows the girl of his dreams.

This is a dystopian vision with one huge corporation essentially trying to take over the world. The film frames consist of heavily modified and animated photographs, with a general result reminiscent of hinged-jaw photo animations. The backgrounds are often really good, grim and forbidding stuff that set the tone beautifully. But the Gilliam-esque animation makes it hard to really get into the drama of the thing - not that it matters much as logic fails completely at a couple points.

Really weird, very unusual, but still not really worth watching.

2009, dir. Tarik Saleh. With Vincent Gallo, Juliette Lewis, Udo Kier, Stellan Skarsgård.

Metropolis

It's been a long time since I watched a silent movie, possibly years. I'd forgotten the heavy make-up, and that it's not so much acting as barely controlled visual histrionics. Even taking that into account, I didn't much enjoy the story in this incredibly famous classic. It's clear that generations of filmmakers have borrowed and stolen from multiple scenes throughout the movie. Was that the first mad scientist's lair ever put on film? If it wasn't it still must have qualified as the best of the decade.

It was very clear to me from the beginning that this was a propaganda piece for Communism: we have the filthy rich living a life of leisure in their city in the sky, and the oppressed workers living entirely subterranean lives while working long hours at jobs that are killing them - most famously marching in identical clothes in slow, depressed, and perfectly synchronized ranks. But - for those who haven't seen the movie - I was wrong: they weren't championing Communism, just better communication between the governors and the governed. (Given the circumstances, it felt a little like they chickened out ...)

I'm interested to find that I'm not the only one accusing it of having a silly and simplistic story: H. G. Wells and The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction are apparently of much the same opinion. But at the same time, the visuals are still quite cool (an amazing achievement 90 years on), and the influence they've had has clearly been immense. Definitely worth the watch even if I didn't love it.

1927, dir. Fritz Lang. With Gustav Fröhlich, Alfred Abel, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Brigitte Helm, Fritz Rasp, Theodor Loos.

Metropolis (Osamu Tezuka)

Based on the comic by Osamu Tezuka (which is based on many of the ideas from the 1927 movie of the same name), Rintaro has brought us a very confused movie with great visuals. The plot is clear enough, but someone had no idea if this was for children or adults. The plot is too complex for children, the humour and characters are far too weak for adults, and the music is out of place for anybody.

2001. dir. Rintaro.

The Mexican

Brad Pitt is an inept mob delivery boy in love with Julia Roberts. He tries to make one last important delivery. The humour is weak, the movie is a mess, and Pitt and Roberts aren't a convincing romantic couple.

2000. dir. Gore Verbinski. With Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, James Gandolfini.

Miami Vice (movie)

Michael Mann brings his highly influential TV series to the big screen, 17 years after it ended on TV with Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell as Tubbs and Crockett. Mann's fantastic vision (brilliant bleak white spaces, super-saturated colours - all very reminiscent of the TV series) and good acting couldn't rescue an annoying and fairly thin story. People run drugs, things go wrong, people get shot. Mann's cinematography is so good it didn't need an update, they updated the appropriate technology, and he chose good actors - but the story is the same ... except weaker. Too bad.

2006, dir. Michael Mann. With Jamie Foxx, Colin Farrell, Li Gong.

Michael Clayton

George Clooney plays the titular character, a "triage" lawyer, the man they send in when no one else can fix it. 18 years with the firm and not a partner, maybe because of his gambling problem. We meet him as someone attempts to kill him, and then flash back four days to get the full story of why. An associate (probably a friend, it's never entirely clear) of his - another "bagman" as they call themselves, has a bit of an episode. Tom Wilkinson plays the manic-depressive Arthur absolutely brilliantly. Clayton tries to get Arthur back on his meds and in the process finds out more about Arthur's current case than he necessarily wanted to and things get morally and physically ugly. Well acted all around and a very good story too.

2007, dir. Tony Gilroy. With George Clooney, Tom Wilkinson, Tilda Swinton, Sydney Pollack.

Michael Palin: Around the World in 80 Days

In 1989, the BBC broadcast Michael Palin's attempt (on their budget) to circumnavigate the world, following in the footsteps of Phileas Fogg (from Jules Verne's book Around the World in Eighty Days). The primary rule was "no flying." He did get to have a Passepartout (the assistant from the book), although in his case "Passepartout" was actually a crew of five people. The series ran to seven 50 minute episodes, and the DVD included a 20 minute interview with Palin some 15(?) years later.

The journey starts well enough with Palin being seen off by his family and a couple of old Monty Python chums (including Terry Gilliam). They set him a couple tasks to fulfill to prove he's achieved his task. And, like Fogg, he leaves from the steps of the Reform Club in London. The first stretch of the journey is on the Orient Express, a well-heeled (and defunct as of 2009) way to travel across Europe ... except Palin almost immediately runs into problems as he's slowed by a rail worker's strike in Italy.

Because he has only 80 days and cannot fly (although that limitation, as it turns out, doesn't apply to Passepartout), the vast majority of the trip consists of him on various forms of transportation. The most unusual (setting aside deliberate novelty things like dogsledding and the hot air balloon) was the dhow from Jeddah to Dubai, to which they give an entire episode. In the hours he's not traveling, they often have him doing weird things: in Guangzhou he went to a restaurant that specialized exclusively in snake.

The end product is mildly interesting, but because his schedule demanded so much of his time be spent traveling (rather than at actual destinations), it's more about methods of transport and the people on those ships and trains than it is about the places he buzzed through. This is good, in that it's definitely not like most travel documentaries, but bad if you were hoping to see the places he visited.

I wasn't really aware of this, but apparently this series was what launched him on a significant part of his career as he spent the next 10 or 15 years as a travel writer and film maker.

1989, dir. Roger Mills. With Michael Palin.

Micmacs (orig. "Micmacs á tire-larigot")

It's Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and very much so. To me "Micmacs" looks like a cross between "Delicatessen" and "Amelie." Warm-coloured filming, happy band of eccentrics, same actors as all his other films, even smoky shots across the rooftops. Jeunet says in the interview on the DVD that he's been accused of doing the same thing repeatedly: "I'm a seafood restaurant. If you want meat and vegetables, there are plenty of fine restaurants across the street" (paraphrased from English subs on a French interview). As much as I love "Amelie," I'm getting a bit tired of his rather limited style.

"Micmacs" finds our antagonist Bazil (Dany Boon) first orphaned by a land mine, then with a bullet embedded in his skull through no fault of his own. After a stay in hospital he discovers that he's now homeless, jobless, and a bit eccentric. Of course, other sweet and kind and bizarre street people take him in. He eventually sets out to extract revenge from the arms dealers who ruined his life with the assistance of his new friends.

2009, dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet. With Dany Boon, Julie Ferrier, Dominique Pinon, André Dussollier, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Yolande Moreau, Michel Crémadès, Nicolas Marié, Omar Sy, Marie-Julie Baup.

Microbe et Gasoil

Daniel (named "Microbe" for his size) meets new student Théo (named "Gasoline" for the smell he acquires at the garage he works at) at school. They're both outsiders, but get along with each other well. Eventually they decide to build a vehicle ("car" would be too kind a name, although it's an impressive beast) and head out on the road.

The two leads, Ange Dargent as Microbe and Théophile Baquet as Gasoil, are both remarkably good actors given that they're pretty close to the 14 or 15 years old they're supposed to be. They banter and bicker, and they're both bright and philosophical. It's well put together and kind of fun.

2015, dir. Michel Gondry. With Théophile Baquet, Ange Dargent, Audrey Tautou, Diane Besnier, Vincent Lamoureux, Agathe Peigney.

Microcosmos

This movie has it all: sex, violence, death, a terrible storm, and a great soundtrack. But no one you've ever heard of: it's about insects (with the occasional snail and frog thrown in for good measure). The cinematography is extraordinary, and the soundtrack really is excellent. Even if you don't like bugs you're likely to find the movie mesmerising. Beautiful and fascinating.

1996, dir. Claude Nuridsany.

Midnight Run

Robert De Niro plays Jack Walsh, a bounty hunter and former cop who's hoping that bringing in Jonathan "The Duke" Mardukas (Charles Grodin) will allow him to retire from a job he doesn't particularly like. Unfortunately, I knew (although I don't remember how I found out) the punchline to the movie: it was made in 1988, by 2016 I'd had a bit of time to pick up clues. But in the intervening years, it's also acquired a bit of a "classic" shine to it, so I thought I'd give it a go.

This is a comedy: unfortunately for me, I don't love either of these guys' comedic skills, or the writer's decisions about the kinds of jokes to deliver. Walsh is to get Mardukas to L.A. in five days, with a $100,000 payoff (pretty damn substantial in 1988 when this was shot). He has to contend with a treacherous bail bondsman (Joe Pantoliano), another bounty hunter (John Ashton), an FBI agent (Yaphet Kotto), a mob boss who wants to kill both of them (Dennis Farina), and a prisoner who's afraid of flying, freaks out, and gets them stuck with ground transport.

The comedy is at least varied, although a lot of it revolves around interactions between Walsh and Mardukas, with Mardukas being irritating (and well meaning) and Walsh being ... angry. It's somewhat amusing, but I found it kind of a long haul to get to a punch line that had no kick.

1988, dir. Martin Brest. With Robert De Niro, Charles Grodin, Yaphet Kotto, John Ashton, Dennis Farina, Joe Pantoliano.

Midnight Special

We're thrown into the middle of a situation without any information about it: the TV news says two men have abducted a young boy, and we see the boy (Jaeden Lieberher) and the men (Michael Shannon and Joel Edgerton), but it doesn't seem like a kidnapping. They're definitely on the run from the law - driving at night (sometimes with lights off and night vision goggles). We see a very weird church in which the parishioners recite a sequence of numbers back to the preacher before the FBI comes in and takes them all away - apparently the boy was a member of the church, and his speech has become their gospel. And now the boy's father has "kidnapped" him. We learn that the boy wears goggles because he's very sensitive to light and weird things sometimes happen around him.

The movie is more about "what would you do for your child" than the science fiction elements involved, but even that thread is made murky by the SF twist. And some things become clear when we reach the end, but both the person I watched this with and myself found the movie unsatisfying because it abandoned three out of four main characters to a thoroughly crappy fate with almost no explanation. It's well done, but ... yeah, "unsatisfying" covers it pretty well.

2016, dir. Jeff Nichols. With Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, Jaeden Lieberher, Kirsten Dunst, Adam Driver, Sam Shepard.

Midsomer Murders (Seasons 1 and 2)

"Midsomer Murders" is one of the most enduring TV mystery series ever created. The series was created by Anthony Horowitz (who wrote most, if not all, of the screenplays for the first two seasons) and Douglas Watkinson, based on the books by Caroline Graham. The pilot appeared in 1997, the first season in 1998, and the series is - as of 2021 - in its 22nd series (although most of the actors have changed).

List of episodes:

  • "The Killings at Badger's Drift" (pilot, 1997)
  • "Written in Blood" (season 1, 1998)
  • "Death of a Hollow Man"
  • "Faithful unto Death"
  • "Death in Disguise"
  • "Death's Shadow" (season 2, 1999)
  • "Strangler's Wood"
  • "Dead Man's Eleven"
  • "Blood Will Out"

Each episode runs about 95 minutes. The main character is Detective Chief Inspector Tom Barnaby, played by John Nettles. The other major recurring characters are Detective Sergeant Gavin Troy (Daniel Casey), Joyce Barnaby (Barnaby's wife, played by Jane Wymark), and Cully Barnaby (their daughter, played by Laura Howard). Barnaby is responsible for solving crimes (always murders) across the several small villages of the fictional English county of Midsomer.

The series comes complete with a number of problematic "features:"

  • The theme song, which was mediocre at best when I first heard it. You always get tired of the theme for long-running shows, but this one particularly wore on my nerves.
  • The show is (in)famous for the murderer's always ending up killing more than one person, almost always to cover their tracks from the first murder.
  • A friend who's seen ten seasons worth says "there are no happy marriages ... unless one of them is about to die." This is proving true, with the notable exception of Barnaby and his wife and child who are an almost idyllic marriage shown in every episode.
  • Every episode features a dozen red herrings. I'm quite willing to believe that police often end up chasing down incorrect leads, but that every murder should involve so many as appear in this series beggars belief.
  • There's a noticeable shortage of innocent people - the red herrings are people who are running scams, cheating on spouses, blackmailing, thieving, etc., etc., all trying to hide their activities and thus muddying the waters. And that's pretty much ... everyone.
  • They're fond of Barnaby having a realization and rushing to stop one last death near the end of the episode.
  • Continuity isn't a big deal: one episode included a comedic sub-plot about Barnaby's weight, with his wife and daughter making him meals that Troy had to make him eat, but at the end of the episode he had "lost enough weight" and that problem was never mentioned again.

All(? certainly most) of the episodes in the first couple seasons say "Screenplay by Anthony Horowitz" - the man who went on to create and run "Foyle's War." So it was interesting to see Honeysuckle Weeks in a role in "Blood Will Out" in the second season. As a bizarre side-note, that was also the episode that introduced me to the word "didicoys," which dictionary.com defines as "(in Britain) one of a group of caravan-dwelling roadside people who live like Gypsies but are not true Romanies." That was a new one to me.

Despite my list of complaints and mis-"features," the series is generally both charming and entertaining, and has made passable pandemic viewing. It also made me consider what my favourite TV Mystery series are, and that was fairly easy: "New Tricks," "Foyle's War," and "Elementary."

1997. John Nettles, Daniel Casey, Jane Wymark, Laura Howard, Barry Jackson.

Midsomer Murders (Season 3)

List of episodes in the third season:

  • Death of a Stranger
  • Blue Herrings
  • Judgement Day
  • Beyond the Grave

The murders, and the circumstances around them, continue to be varied. The behaviour of the detective and his family remains much the same. Still fun enough to continue watching.

2000. John Nettles, Daniel Casey, Jane Wymark, Laura Howard.

Midsomer Murders (Season 4)

List of episodes in this season: "Garden of Death," "Destroying Angel," "The Electric Vendetta," "Who Killed Cock Robin?," "Dark Autumn," "Tainted Fruit."

I'm afraid that DCI Barnaby's modus operandi is becoming a bit old ... although not so old as the multiple snowballing murders in every episode, or the conniving, obnoxious people in every village.

2000, 2001. John Nettles, Daniel Casey, Jane Wymark.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

I own this on DVD and after an initial bad reaction I've gone back a couple times to try to find redeeming features. It's Shakespeare, and it's got a list of "talent" as long as your arm. But no: the bicycles-as-props and the sets, almost every one of them, are bad ideas. And the director has managed to coax bad performances from pretty much everyone. Bizarrely (or perhaps not), Kevin Kline plays remarkably well as a bad actor turned donkey ... and Sam Rockwell is good in a relatively minor role, but the rest of the performances are sub-par.

1999, dir. Michael Hoffman. With Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer, Rupert Everett, Stanley Tucci, Calista Flockhart, Anna Friel, Christian Bale, Dominic West, David Strathairn, Sophie Marceau, Sam Rockwell, Bernard Hill.

Millennium Actress (orig. "Sennen joyû")

Anime. A very strange structure, a bit surreal, and some problems ... but really good. An old movie studio is being torn down, and one of the employees decides to track down the studio's most famous star. He and his camera man interview her - and end up reliving/re-enacting parts of both her life and her movies. The camera man becomes terribly confused as he finds himself filming across an entire millennium as the actress changes age and his employer keeps reappearing in different costumes to save her. This is actually a very clever idea, but after 35 minutes or so it's a little overused. They move on to further revelations about both his and her lives, which are actually fairly rewarding, as the movie comes to a close.

2001, dir. Satoshi Kon. With Miyoko Shôji, Mami Koyama, Fumiko Orikasa, Shôzô Îzuka, Shouko Tsuda, Masaya Onosaka.

Million Dollar Arm

The movie starts with our sports agent protagonist J.B. Bernstein (Jon Hamm) trying - and failing - to recruit a massively successful football star. Formula start: protagonist is basically a decent guy, but with problems, both personal and financial. He's trying to do the right thing, he's failing. But then he has an IDEA (TM). He'll go to India and find a cricket bowler who will be the next great baseball pitcher. So he sets off, setting up his humorously eccentric team of helpers in the process. You can perhaps see where this is going? He struggles, he finds possible stars, there are setbacks, he learns to be a better person. So - pure Disney in some of the best ways and a couple of the bad ways. It changes little that this is relatively close to being a true story. But it benefits from a good script by Tom McCarthy (he's an actor, but also a writer, and most famously the writer-director of the superb movies "The Station Agent" and "The Visitor") and good acting. Very few would accuse the final product of being "a classic," but it's nevertheless charming, very funny, and hugely enjoyable. I'd say there's a good chance I'll watch it again, just because it was so much fun.

2014, dir. Craig Gillespie. With Jon Hamm, Suraj Sharma, Madhur Mittal, Lake Bell, Aasif Mandvi, Alan Arkin, Bill Paxton, Pitobash Tripathy, Rey Maualuga.

Million Dollar Baby

I'm not always fond of Clint Eastwood's subject material, but he's getting better and better as a director. In this case he's backed up by not one, but two Oscar winning performances. Hilary Swank delivers a devastating performance as a backwoods girl determined to be a good boxer. And remember I warned you: it's not really about boxing. Be prepared to weep.

2004, dir. Clint Eastwood. With Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman.

A Million Ways to Die in the West

Full disclosure: I only watched about two thirds of the movie, fast-forwarding through the rest.

Albert Stark (Seth MacFarlane, who wrote, directed, and starred) is a sheep farmer and a coward in the old West. We learn this because he has a gunfight right at the beginning of the movie ... or rather, he begs and pleads his way out of the gunfight, promising money. His girlfriend (Amanda Seyfried) leaves him, and he consoles himself by getting drunk with his best friend Edward (Giovanni Ribisi) and Edward's girlfriend Ruth (Sarah Silverman, the town prostitute). But there's worse and better lurking in the wings: the most evil and dangerous man in the West, Clinch Leatherwood (Liam Neeson) is headed their way with his beautiful and very unhappy wife (Charlize Theron).

Let me tell you about the humour. The language is entirely modern American slang. In talking his way out of his gunfight, Albert makes a shadow theatre of himself and his opponent, where his opponent's shadow gives his shadow a blowjob. Ruth and Edward have never slept together because they're Christians - despite the fact that we hear thoroughly explicit details of her extensive sexual exploits for money. Not all the jokes are sexual, but the rest are equally low brow and unfunny. To me, the best part was the opening credits, with titles and music that beautifully evoked the Westerns of the 1960s. A horrible movie.

2014, dir. Seth MacFarlane. With Seth MacFarlane, Charlize Theron, Amanda Seyfried, Neil Patrick Harris, Giovanni Ribisi, Sarah Silverman, Liam Neeson.

The Millionairess

BBC "Play of the Month." Silly George Bernard Shaw - we start with the histrionic titular millionairess played by Maggie Smith trying to draw up her will with her solicitor - who can't keep a straight face and keeps laughing at her offers of suicide. It stays just as silly throughout, and even Smith can't make the main role convincing. Not that the other roles are much better. Still, amusing.

1972, dir. William Slater. With Maggie Smith, James Villiers, Peter Barkworth, Charles Grey, Tom Baker.

Millions

A child builds a cardboard house near the railway track. One day his house is obliterated by the arrival of a bouncing bag full of currency. We see his and his brother's attempts to make use of the money through his eyes: he keeps seeing saints, and they give him advice. More than a little surreal. The moral was meant to be that money is really a lot of hassle, but oddly having none of it still might be considered a problem. I find it a little difficult to swallow when the movie industry (even the British one) preaches the non-value of money. Heart-warming fare from the man who brought us "Trainspotting" and "28 Days Later."

2004, dir. Danny Boyle. With Alex Etel, Lewis McGibbon, James Nesbitt.

Mindhorn

I skimmed/skipped through too much of this movie for this to qualify as a proper review: it's here to remind me how much I disliked this. Critics disagree, with the movie having a 92% rating at Rotten Tomatoes as of 2022-01 based on 49 reviews.

Julian Barratt plays Richard Thorncroft, a washed-up actor who once played the lead character on the very successful "Mindhorn" TV show. Imagine "Mindhorn" as a cross between "Magnum, P.I." and "The Six Million Dollar Man." 25 years later, Thorncroft can't get a decent acting gig but remains an unpleasant mixture of arrogance, entitlement, and incompetence. When an unhinged murderer on the Isle of Man (where "Mindhorn" was filmed) demands to speak to Mindhorn (despite his being a fictional character), the police turn to Thorncroft.

The movie's humour is about 90% based on Thorncroft's endless ability to humiliate himself and fuck up. If that's your cup of tea, then run with the critics at Rotten Tomatoes and enjoy this. It's not my thing.

2016, dir. Sean Foley. With Julian Barratt, Essie Davis, Kenneth Branagh, Andrea Riseborough, Steve Coogan, Russell Tovey, Richard McCabe, Harriet Walter, Jessica Barden, Simon Callow, Simon Farnaby, Nicholas Farrell, David Schofield.

Mindhunters

This is utter crap. Oh, wait, did I say that out loud? FBI profilers trapped on an island, people die, everybody's a suspect, blah blah blah. The problem is, you just don't care.

2004, dir. Renny Harlin. With Val Kilmer, Christian Slater, LL Cool J, Kathryn Morris.

Minions

"Despicable Me" is a marvelous movie. The sequel isn't as good, but is still very entertaining. One of the things that greatly helped both was the inclusion of the "minions," who are now so embedded in popular culture that I'm not even going to bother to describe them. I watched this latest movie in the series on a transatlantic flight. Please assume that my judgement was slightly impaired by sleep deprivation, and I may not have seen the edges of the movie (movies are often cropped to fit those tiny seat-back screens).

The movie is narrated by Geoffrey Rush, and starts back in pre-history. The Minions have always sought out and served the most despicable masters. Eventually we get to the 1960s, when they have no master - the lack of a leader leaves them listless, and Kevin, Stuart, and Bob set out to remedy the situation. They eventually find their way to Villain-Con, where they fall for Scarlet Overkill (Sandra Bullock) who is recruiting henchmen. Incompetent robberies and bungled heists ensue.

As I guessed long before the movie was released, while the minions are the best side-kicks ever, their lack of speech and inability to die makes them rather less dramatic than is needed for the protagonists of a full-length movie - even a children's movie. It's colourful and there are some good set-piece jokes (I particularly liked the reference to the Beatles "Abbey Road" - a joke clearly meant for the parents rather than the children), but the movie doesn't make much of a whole.

2015, dir. Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda. With Sandra Bullock, Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton, Alison Janney, Steve Coogan, Jennifer Saunders, Pierre Coffin, Geoffrey Rush.

Ministry of Fear

Set during the Second World War, Stephen Neale (Ray Milland) leaves the Lembridge Asylum after two years as we start the film - we aren't to find out until later why he was in there. While waiting for a train to London, he attends a local charity fête, has his fortune told, and then wins a cake because of something the fortune teller told him. Unfortunately, someone else really wants the cake, and trying to find out what that was about once he gets to London leads him into a tangled mess of problems, up to and including murder. He falls for one of the suspects, a lovely refugee from Nazi Austria who runs a charity associated with the one that produced the troublesome cake.

The original novel of the same name was written by Graham Greene, and the movie was directed by Fritz Lang. I'm not sure it lives up to that legacy, but it was definitely an enjoyable and well put together movie.

1944, dir. Fritz Lang. With Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, Carl Esmond.

Minority Report

John Anderton (Tom Cruise) is a police man in the year 2054 in D.C. He works with the "precrime" unit that uses precognitives to put people away before they commit murder - until he finds that he's about to commit a murder himself. He runs, trying to find out why he would kill someone he doesn't even know.

The vision of the future is brilliant, combining a lot of things I think are highly plausible (including eye scanners everywhere, less privacy, and incredibly intrusive advertising) that Steven Spielberg put together with the help of a panel of experts. It's also got not one, but two beautifully constructed twists that you won't see coming and that will leave you stunned (in the best way).

Science fiction, speculation, mystery, comedy, suspense, action ... I think this is a great film - possibly the best SF film ever made.

2002, dir. Steven Spielberg. With Tom Cruise, Colin Ferrell, Samantha Morton, Max von Sydow, Kathryn Morris, Neal McDonough, Steve Harris, Lois Smith.

Minority Report (TV Series)

This review is based on the first two episodes.

"Minority Report" - the movie - remains one of my favourite SF movies of all time, despite its central conceit that's closer to fantasy in an otherwise science fiction movie. The concept remains important here, as the TV series is picking up the exact same universe as the movie: the movie terminated the "Pre-Crime" program, and turned the three precogs (Pre-Cognitives, who could see the future) loose after a decade of being a detection system instead of human beings. Now Dash (one of the three, played by Stark Sands) has returned to the city and connected with a police detective (Meagan Good), and together they use his visions (and sometimes his brother Arthur's - Nick Zano) to try to prevent crimes before they happen.

Reviews were fairly negative, with the Rotten Tomatoes consensus opinion saying "Lacking either the action or the imagination of its big-screen predecessor, Minority Report is a pedestrian spinoff that fails to capture the vision of the film." This is, unfortunately, exactly right.

2015. With Meagan Good, Stark Sands, Daniel London, Li Jun Li, Laura Regan, Wilmer Valderrama, Nick Zano.

Mirai

"Mirai" was apparently inspired by the behavior of director Mamoru Hosoda's own young son toward his even younger sister. And so we have the story of spoiled four year old boy Kun (voiced by Jaden Waldman in the English version) and his frustrations when all his parents' attention goes to their newborn daughter Mirai. The movie becomes something of a replay of "Scrooge," with Kun meeting various members of his family (notably Mirai - which means "future" - from the future ...) and beginning to see the why and how of the history of his family.

It's a charming movie, ranging from broad comedy through gorgeous images to some interesting commentary on parenting (which are brief enough to not distract the kids who won't really get it) and finally landing on Kun growing up a bit. Charming and heart-felt, but if you want to watch Hosoda at his best, watch "Wolf Children" (I didn't like it, but a lot of people did and I understand why), or - best of Hosoda's previous movies - the outstanding "The Boy and the Beast."

2018, dir. Mamoru Hosoda. With Jaden Waldman, Victoria Grace, John Cho, Rebecca Hall, Crispin Freeman, Eileen T'Kaye.

The Miracle of Morgan's Creek

Betty Hutton plays Trudy Kockenlocker, a small town girl who uses her life-long friend Norval Jones (Eddie Bracken) - who is desperately in love with her - to get her out of her father's house and to a farewell dance for soldiers. She sends Norval off to the movies, and proceeds to get drunk, married, and pregnant ... and unable to figure out who the lucky soldier was. So she drags Norval into the line of fire again.

A classic screwball comedy, now in the American Film Institute's registry. Pure silliness with very little in the way of a plot, but it is at least pretty amusing.

1944, dir. Preston Sturges. With Betty Hutton, Eddie Bracken, Diana Lynn, William Demarest, Porter Hall, Emory Parnell, Al Bridge, Julius Tannen, Victor Potel, Brian Donlevy, Akim Tamiroff.

Mirror Mirror

An updated live action version of "Snow White." It starts with a voice-over by Julia Roberts, who plays the evil stepmother to Snow White (Lily Collins). She's obsessed with being the most beautiful in the kingdom, and will do pretty much anything to keep it that way. Snow White is a wilting flower, pushed out of the nest and into an awareness of the damage her stepmother has done to the kingdom by kitchen staff on her eighteenth birthday. In the forest she meets the seven "giant dwarves."

The setting is Medieval, and yet the language Roberts uses includes common (and obnoxious) modern colloquialisms that really stick out. They're occasionally funny - as they're meant to be - but they break the setting badly. Singh's trademark stunning visuals are lacking: it's attractive, and nothing sneaks into frame to distract you from what he wants you to see, but it doesn't dazzle the way "The Fall" or "Immortals" did. And, like "The Fall" and "Immortals," it's burdened with a sophomoric script and a bad eye for actors. Roberts is fine, but is capable of much better. I don't know much about Collins, but her acting is mediocre and she doesn't convincingly sell the change from downtrodden stepdaughter to someone ready to challenge for the kingdom. While Singh sometimes manages to capture Collins looking a great deal like a young Audrey Hepburn, most of the time she's not as dazzlingly beautiful as she ought to be if she's contending the position of "most beautiful" in the entire kingdom. The overall effect of the movie is essentially Terry Gilliam-lite, and that's not a compliment.

And at the end we get ... a Bollywood musical number to accompany the credits.

2012, dir. Tarsem Singh. With Julia Roberts, Lily Collins, Nathan Lane, Armie Hammer, Mare Winningham, Michael Lerner, Danny Woodburn, Martin Klebba, Jordan Prentice, Mark Povinelli, Joe Gnoffo, Ronald Lee Clark, Sean Bean.

Miss Austen Regrets

Olivia Williams plays Jane Austen in her later life (in many ways this movie is a book-end to "Becoming Jane"). We see her helping her niece Fanny deciding on a husband, then trying to sort out the sales of her books and flirting with a doctor ...

According to this, Jane Austen was not only poor but also bitter and unhappy - although she would never tell that to her sister Cassandra (Greta Scacchi). It's a reasonably good production, but it certainly doesn't have the emotional lift of Austen's own writings.

2008, dir. Jeremy Lovering. With Olivia Williams, Imogen Poots, Greta Scacchi, Hugh Bonneville, Adrian Edmondson, Pip Torrens, Jack Huston.

Miss Congeniality

Sandra Bullock plays Gracie Hart, a Federal agent with a great right hook and no class. After messing up an assignment, she's put on a desk job - and promptly pulled in to go undercover as a beauty pageant contestant when a threat comes in against the Miss United States pageant.

What follows is a series of fish-out-of-water jokes that consistently aim low and never raise their aim. Having said that, if you're going to aim low ... I hope you hit your target as often as they do here. It's crass and manipulative ... and pretty funny.

2000, dir. Donald Petrie. With Sandra Bullock, Benjamin Bratt, Michael Caine, Candice Bergen, William Shatner.

Miss Hokusai

An Anime film based on the manga of the same name, telling the story of the daughter of the very famous painter Hokusai. Trust me, you know Hokusai's work: he did "The Great Wave off Kanagawa", possibly the most famous Japanese painting in existence. O-Ei (the daughter) was also a painter of some note, although she lived in his shadow for a long time. Much of the movie is about her relationships with her blind younger sister and her father. Much of it is also about how we see and process the world around us, and through that how it becomes art.

Like other good movies about the work of famous artists, it has been inspired by the work of the master it's talking about: some of the artwork is gorgeous. The movie is fairly low key as it's essentially a period character study. Some really beautiful moments, but ultimately only a good movie, not a great one.

2015, dir. Keiichi Hara. With Anne Watanabe, Yutaka Matsushige, Kengo Kora, Jun Miho, Shion Shimizu, Michitaka Tsutsui, Miyu Irino.

Miss Minoes

A Dutch children's movie about a woman (Carice van Houten) who is actually a cat made into human form by a chemical spill. She prefers to travel over the rooftops, and eats herring as often as possible. She's taken in by failing reporter Tibbe (Theo Maassen) whose career is restored by the information Miss Minoes provides by talking to the local cats. But there's a bigger and more sinister conspiracy afoot ...

van Houten is good as Minoes. The story is incredibly (too) cute, and yet may upset North American parents as one of the children says "shit" and there's a joke about tomcats knocking girls up and leaving. The North American release catch-phrase is good: "always listen to your felines." The movie is cute, but not one of the great children's movies.

2001, dir. Vincent Bal. With Carice van Houten, Theo Maassen, Sarah Barrier.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Tim Burton's latest movie, based on the fantasy novel of the same name by Ransom Riggs. Asa Butterfield plays Jake Portman, who lives in a world exactly like ours, and has been raised on his grandfather's stories of living through World War II at Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. As Jake grows older, he becomes skeptical of these stories. When his grandfather dies a violent death, his psychologist encourages his family to allow him to go to the supposed location of Miss Peregrine's Home in Wales for "closure." There he finds peculiar children and a dark plot.

Eva Green's performance as Miss Peregrine is, like the movie's visual style, "peculiar." None of the child actors come close to the strange twitchiness she brings to the role. I'm beginning to appreciate Butterfield more though: he does a good (if straight-forward) job in the lead. The movie is grotesque and charming in equal measure, a fun diversion for a couple hours.

2016, dir. Tim Burton. With Eva Green, Asa Butterfield, Chris O'Dowd, Allison Janney, Rupert Everett, Terence Stamp, Ella Purnell, Judi Dench, Samuel L. Jackson.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

Frances McDormand plays Miss Pettigrew, a governess in London in 1939, who finds herself unemployed. In desperation, she steals a job that wasn't intended for her from her employment agency (which has decided not to employ her again because of past problems). This turns her into the social secretary for a beautiful young woman (Amy Adams) who's attempting to sleep her way to the theatrical role of her dreams - while already having two other boyfriends. Miss Pettigrew, the daughter of a preacher, is singularly unimpressed, but so befuddled and desperate that she stays on duty. What follows is a charming and romantic tale as they both show each other a bit of what's missing in the other's lives. And the historical accuracy and sets are spectacular.

2008, dir. Bharat Nalluri. With Frances McDormand, Amy Adams, Shirley Henderson, Ciarán Hinds, Mark Strong, Lee Pace.

Miss Willoughby and the Haunted Bookshop

Opens with a short intro to the childhood of our protagonist: Miss Willoughby was orphaned young, and her father's American brother-at-arms comes the UK to raise her - he plays to her intellect, but also makes her become very good at physical things (particularly martial arts). In the current day she teaches "Ancient Civilization" at university, but is clearly already a detective on the side when we meet her adult self (Nathalie Cox).

The story sees the owner of a bookshop that Miss Willoughby frequents being haunted. Willoughby - with the assistance of her godfather (Kelsey Grammer) who still lives with her in a very large house - tracks down what's really going on.

Feels like a made-for-TV movie, with most of the bad connotations that used to have. It also feels like the fifth in a mystery series - although best I can tell, this is the first appearance of "Miss Willoughby." It's not bad, but it's certainly not great.

2022, dir. Brad Watson. With Nathalie Cox, Kelsey Grammer, Louise Bangay, Steven Elder, Caroline Quentin, Bhavna Limbachia, Nicholas Jones, Wayne Gordon.

We're introduced first to Sir Lionel Frost (voiced by Hugh Jackman), a classically calm British gentleman explorer who finds the Loch Ness Monster ... but whose photographic proof is destroyed in the ensuing fracas with the monster. To prove himself to the "Society of Great Men" that he wishes to join, he shortly sets off in pursuit of Sasquatch in the American northwest. Many adventures follow.

The movie received positive reviews and disastrous box office. I watched it partly because of the reviews, mostly because I have a huge respect for Laika. Laika is the studio behind this production, who also created the excellent "ParaNorman" and "Kubo and the Two Strings." While I didn't dislike this movie, I found it their most lightweight and least distinctive creation. It's a good movie, but after "ParaNorman" and "Kubo" it feels like they're not living up to their potential (an unfortunate burden they must carry).

2019, dir. Chris Butler. With Hugh Jackman, Zach Galifianakis, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Fry, Timothy Olyphant, Emma Thompson, Amrita Acharia, Matt Lucas, Ching Valdez-Aran, David Walliams.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Brad Bird, of Pixar fame, tackles the fourth instalment of the stagnant Impossible Physics series. Reviews have cumulated into "like a cartoon, but in a good way!" Despite which, Bird doesn't abuse physics any more than the previous instalments - although he makes sure people with science degrees will continue to cringe in the usual fashion.

Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt, and as usual, he has to save not just some boring mission, but his entire agency, and the world from nuclear destruction. We first see him being broken out of a Moscow prison, but that's shortly followed by infiltration of the Kremlin, the blowing up of a large part of the Kremlin, the theft of nuclear launch codes, and the disavowal of the entire IMF (Impossible Missions Force). So Hunt works with Jane Carter (Paula Patton), Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), and William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) to save the world.

I liked it a bit better than the previous two entries in the series, and it has some very fine cinematography in places, but it's a very silly movie. I wish that "impossible" in the title meant "very difficult" as it used to in the TV series instead of the more literal interpretation of the word taken by this sequence of movies.

2011, dir. Brad Bird. With Tom Cruise, Paula Patton, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner, Michael Nyqvist, Vladimir Mashkov.

Mission: Impossible - Fallout

I remember once upon a time when plot drove the action in an action movie. Now someone assembles a steady flow of fights and stunts, and the "plot" is simply the glue to hold them together - to get from one to the next. To its credit, this movie has more plot - and substantially more talk - than the utterly ludicrous "Mad Max: Fury Road." Of course if you loved that movie, you can assume my dislike of both means you'll probably love this one too. I totally lost track of who was triple-crossing who and what lies had been told in what context. But that's okay: it doesn't matter, and there's absolutely no doubt that Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) will save the entire world at the last second, again.

I'm in awe of Tom Cruise's willingness to do all his own stunts - including learning how to fly a helicopter through a corkscrew turn, and breaking his foot on a building-to-building leap that stayed in the movie. The action sequences are pretty good. But I find without any doubt about the outcome - or a plot that makes sense - no amount of action is going to make a movie convincing or involving.

2018, dir. Christopher McQuarrie. With Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Sean Harris, Vanessa Kirby, Alec Baldwin, Angela Bassett, Michelle Monaghan, Wes Bentley.

Mission to Mars

Starts out alright with an intro to all the astronauts and their camaraderie, but goes steadily downhill thereafter. The visuals are good, but borrow heavily from "2001" - as does much of the rest of the story. They find something on Mars: it's not the monolith of "2001," but it's not very damn far off. Sappy with a couple horror movie scares, a waste of good actors.

2000, dir. Brian De Palma. With Tim Robbins, Gary Sinese, Don Cheadle, Connie Nielsen, Jerry O'Connell.

Mrs. Brown

I really wanted to see this one, as it was John Madden's film before "Shakespeare in Love" (one of my favourite films). It's very good, but I didn't find it compelling.

Billy Connolly plays a servant in the household of Queen Victoria (Judi Dench) after the death of her husband. He and the Queen develop a bond.

1997, dir. John Madden. With Judi Dench, Billy Connolly, Antony Sher.

Mrs. Henderson Presents

Lots of breasts plus Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins being funny, on the negative side we have lots of pieces of musical numbers and Hoskins naked. Dench plays a very rich and recently widowed woman in London shortly before the Second World War who decides that owning and running a theatre is the entertainment she needs. Hoskins is the manager. And Dench decides that they should do nude shows. Stephen Frears has brought us much better movies, but this is still enjoyable and light-hearted entertainment.

2005, dir. Stephen Frears. With Judi Dench, Bob Hoskins, Christopher Guest, Kelly Reilly.

Mrs. Miniver

Unbridled British patriotism - to be expected of a 1942 production. Some of it is terribly predictable, but there are a couple surprises, and it's reasonably well done. But if you're going to spend your time on British war movies, I think you'd do better with "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp."

2018-06-17: I wrote that in 2005: I just figured out now that it's actually an American film. I think the misunderstanding is forgivable: it does look and sound British, it's just the patriotism and direction (and passel of Academy awards) that were American.

1942, dir. William Wyler. With Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon.

Mrs. Warren's Profession

A Shaw play that didn't see performance until nine years after it was written because the profession of the title (prostitution, never stated outright) is the source of the money that housed and educated our young heroine. But our heroine is unaware of this, and the play revolves around her and several other people's discoveries of this fact. Has some good characters (particularly the indolent, flippant, and extremely astute Frank Gardner) and a few good moments, but it's not Shaw's best and the ending is distinctly un-Shaw.

1972, dir. Herbert Wise. With Coral Browne, Penelope Wilton, James Grout, Derek Godfrey, Robert Powell, Richard Pearson.

Mr. and Mrs. Murder

Our protagonists are Charlie and Nicola Buchanan (Shaun Micallef and Kat Stewart), who run an (Australian) industrial and crime scene cleaning business. But, TV being what it is, the show is primarily about how they solve the crimes for the local police (in the form of Detective Peter Vinetti, played by Jonny Pasvolsky) through observation, obscure knowledge, talking to people at the site, and the occasional house-breaking. Their niece Jess (Lucy Honigman) lives with them and almost always helps out.

In the first episode, Charlie and Nicola recruit Jess to work at the hotel where they were cleaning a room. As she's helping in the laundry room, we have this dialogue:

Jess: So, Holly, what's the weirdest thing you've seen working in a hotel?
Holly: Oh, I don't know. A snake in a bathroom. Some guy thought I'd be interested. I wasn't.
Jess: What, do you mean an actual snake? Or is that a euphemism?
Holly: No, an actual, literal snake. A taipan. I wasn't interested in his euphemism either.

Unfortunately, it's never that funny again. It's an entertaining show, and fun for its run time (2013 only, 13 episodes of 46 minutes each) although they did overstay their welcome a bit. Charlie and Nicola are fun, eccentric, and intelligent characters who were a pleasure to be with for eight or nine episodes. By that time I'd got a bit tired of their constant breaking into people's homes and rifling through their stuff to solve cases. (I also missed episode 12 as the Toronto Public Library DVD set was unreadable on that episode.)

2013. With Shaun Micallef, Kat Stewart, Jonny Pasvolsky, Lucy Honigman.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith

Two assassins, married to each other, each unaware of the other's profession. In the discovery lies much turmoil ... Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie actually manage to pull it off, and it's pretty funny. One of the more enjoyable action movies out there.

2005, dir. Doug Liman. With Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Vince Vaughn.

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town

I was expecting to enjoy this, but more as a quaint, charming, and mildly amusing throwback. Instead I got something much more charming than I was expecting, and side-splittingly funny in places. Cooper plays Longfellow Deeds, a young man from a small town who unexpectedly inherits $20 million - and doesn't seem overly impressed by it. But he goes to New York to settle things, where people try to take advantage of him at every turn. He applies common sense and good manners, and his behaviour is considered insane. (And now I know precisely where the Rush song "Cinderella Man" came from!) Very enjoyable, stands head and shoulders above Capra's other films.

1936, dir. Frank Capra. With Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, George Bancroft, Lionel Stander, Douglass Dumbrille.

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

Dustin Hoffman plays Mr. Magorium, the owner of a toy store in a major city. Natalie Portman is Molly Mahoney, his store manager. Magorium hires a "mutant" (actually an accountant, a cross between someone who can count and a mutant according to Magorium) (played by Jason Bateman) to help with his willing the store to Mahoney on his imminent departure from our world (after 243 years). The story is told, at least in part, by one of the store's habitués, Eric (Zach Mills).

If you watch the trailer you'll have a pretty good idea what this story is about: Hoffman is over-the-top and somewhat entertaining, Portman is mildly annoying, Mills is actually pretty decent. The store ... is a magic toy store. But it's only magical if it's believed in, etc. etc. I found it heavy-handed, overly cute, and distinctly predictable.

2007, dir. Zach Helm. With Dustin Hoffman, Natalie Portman, Zach Mills, Jason Bateman.

Mr. Nice Guy

One of Jackie Chan's worst big budget movies. Nevertheless, it has one of his most spectacular stunts ever: during a fight scene on a construction site, he rolls over a live table saw. The man is INSANE. But damn fun to watch.

1997, dir. Sammo Hung. With Jackie Chan, Miki Lee, Gabrielle Fitzpatrick, Karen McLymont, Richard Norton.

Mr. Right

Our main character is Martha (Anna Kendrick), a young woman who leaves her boyfriend after she finds him cheating on her. She goes on a several day drinking binge, doing crazy stuff - and meets Sam Rockwell's character who she calls "Mr. Right" when she realizes she doesn't know his name. He freely admits he's an assassin, but she thinks that's just another weird joke. When she figures out that he's actually telling the truth, she has some trouble adjusting ...

The humour is too based on awkwardness for me to love the movie - just not my favourite kind of humour. And yet it also managed a number of big laughs for me - enough that I ended up really enjoying myself, as flawed as the movie is. I can't say I'd recommend it, but if you're willing to give its weird (and somewhat bloody) humour a shot, this may be your cup of tea.

2015, dir. Paco Cabezas. With Anna Kendrick, Sam Rockwell, Tim Roth, RZA, James Ransone, Anson Mount, Michael Eklund, Katie Nehra, Jaiden Kaine.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

A friend once referred to Capra's works as "Capra-corn" because they're occasionally incredibly corny. Nothing has embodied that as much as this film. Stewart plays the role that became his standard, the slightly naive but noble all-American man. Picked as a fool to replace a Senator who died, he goes in with his naiveté and his nobility to tackle the extremely corrupt government. The ending is indeed Capra at his corniest. You've probably seen "It's a Wonderful Life," but give him a chance again - not this movie but "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town." Yes, "Deeds" is corny, but it's also hilarious - something this tried for and didn't quite manage.

1939, dir. Frank Capra. With James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Raines, Edward Arnold.

Mr. 3000

Predictable from beginning to end. Bernie Mac has his moments, Angela Bassett is beautiful (but obnoxious), and there's some humour, but fairly lame overall. Mac plays a retired baseball player who bailed out after getting precisely 3000 hits. Nine years later everyone finds out that due to an error, he actually got 2997 hits. He comes out of retirement to try to reclaim his title. Problem is, he's a prick and definitely not a team player. Gee, guess what? He learns. One thing they did get right: it really feels like baseball ... they worked hard at that.

2004, dir. Charles Stone III. With Bernie Mac, Angela Bassett, Michael Rispoli, Brian J. White, Ian Anthony Dale, Evan Jones, Chris Noth, Paul Sorvino.

The Mitchells vs. the Machines

Netflix really felt I should see this - but then, they feel that way about all their new movies. It looked stupid, so I passed it by. But two things changed my mind: Rotten Tomatoes (97%) and the involvement of Lord and Miller. They were producers rather than directors in this case, but if there's one thing Phil Lord and Chris Miller are good at, it's insane goofiness. And I mean really good at, as the directors of "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs" and producers of "Into the Spiderverse," they're pretty much the best team in animation in North America right now.

Our heroine is Katie Mitchell (voiced by Abbi Jacobson), a young woman about to head off to film school on the other side of the continent from her parents who don't understand her. She and her much younger brother have a connection though. We see several of her utterly ridiculous and very meta (but somewhat funny) short films during the the running time of the movie, and she often visualizes her current reality as films. Katie's father cancels her plane ticket to take her to her new school, instead turning it into a family road trip - to her complete horror. Shortly thereafter, a much goofier vision of Skynet takes over the world, and this dysfunctional family that can't agree on lunch is required to save the world.

My biggest problem with the movie (not a huge one) was director Mike Rianda's choice to voice young son Aaron Mitchell himself. I'm usually not very picky about voices in animated movies, but this one stood out: it's a very strange voice, but most assuredly sounded like that of an adult (or maybe an adult imitating a weird child), not an eight- or ten-year-old.

The surreality and the ludicrous energy of this movie are very similar to "Cloudy" - it's unsurprising that Lord and Miller took an interest (or did they shape it?). But it's not as good as Lord and Miller's best. Don't get me wrong: it was funny, crazy, and enjoyable. But in their best efforts, Lord and Miller push the crazy as far as this one does - and yet come back with more emotional truth than this managed to muster. Nevertheless, a decent way to spend an evening.

2021, dir. Mike Rianda. With Abbi Jacobson, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Mike Rianda, Eric André, Olivia Colman.

Moana

The premise is pure Disney princess: the daughter of the ruling family on a Polynesian-like island (somewhere in the past, no modern technology) defies the strictures of her parents and, following her heart, journeys out to sea led by the words of her wonky grandmother. She learns to sail and grows up by providing moral guidance to the trickster demi-god Maui. And of course she saves the world. I didn't expect to like it, and the level of cliché was indeed high enough to cause me pain, but at the same time it does bring both the humour and the good intentions in doses large enough to (mostly) overcome the discomfort. Not one of Disney's outstanding works, but a pleasant enough movie. The catchy tunes can be credited to Lin-Manuel Miranda.

2016, dir. Ron Clements and John Musker. With Auli'i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Rachel House, Temuera Morrison, Jemaine Clement, Nicole Scherzinger, Alan Tudyk.

Modest Heroes

This is an anthology movie from Studio Ponoc, consisting of three Anime shorts and having a total run-time of a bit under an hour. The first is "Kanini and Kanino" by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, the second "Life Ain't Gonna Lose" by Yoshiyuki Momose, and the third "Invisible" by Akihiko Yahashita.

"Kanini and Kanino" is about two children who are evidently about 5 mm tall - they live in a freshwater stream with their family, and use crab claw spears to hunt. They have to go on a dangerous journey to find their father. It's pretty, but I really didn't like it. "Life Ain't Gonna Lose" is about a young boy who goes into anaphylaxis when exposed to eggs (it's also about his mother): it varies between the rather dull minutiae of daily life (his special lunches, he's good at sports) and the terror of his fifth visit to the hospital. Not a particularly enjoyable ride. The final one ("Invisible") is perhaps the weirdest: it's about an office worker who has become invisible, and the problems this causes him. And a final act of bravery that we hope will have him turning a corner. This one was ... okay.

2018, dir. Hiromasa Yonebayashi, Yoshiyuki Momose, Akihiko Yahashita.

Moebius

An Argentinian film school project with a marvellous concept: the Buenos Aires subway system has become so complex that you can lose a train in it. In fact, the lost train may have shifted to an alternative dimension because of the topological complexity of the system it was travelling in. (I'm a science fiction fan, this sort of stuff appeals to me.)

The filming is fairly good, the subway tunnels feel claustrophobic, dirty, and complex. The people are well lit and look good, but aren't great actors - although I suppose my judgment on that is suspect given the rather bad set of subs I saw the movie with. The movie is too long for the concept it's putting across, even with the added weight of its attack on the snail's pace and difficulty of Argentinian bureaucracy. And I wasn't sold on the final act of our protagonist (a topologist brought in to help sort out where the hell the train has gone): he's unimpressed by what's going on around him, but what he does at the end is a bit more drastic than I was willing to buy.

I wish I'd seen it with better subs. Interesting.

1996, dir. Gustavo Mosquera. With Guillermo Angelelli, Robert Carnaghi, Annabella Levy, Jorge Petraglia, Fernando Llosa.

Mon Oncle

Jacques Tati plays Monsieur Hulot (again), the bumbling uncle stumbling around in the new high tech house of his nephew. I watched this because Tati has a reputation, and because it's a Criterion copy and they tend to press only "classics." And I absolutely didn't "get it." In 117 minutes run time, I think I cracked a smile once. I didn't laugh at all. I watched Python Terry Jones's introduction after I'd seen the movie and nothing was clarified. Tati hardly says anything, reminiscent of a silent film comedian (although a lot of others have a lot to say), but foley is used very heavily to emphasize squeaks and bumps. The humour (such as it is) is gentle and innocent - people walking into lamp posts features heavily - but simply left me cold.

1958, dir. Jacques Tati. With Jacques Tati, Jean-Pierre Zola, Adrienne Servantie, Lucien Frégis, Alain Bécourt.

Moneyball

Brad Pitt plays Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland Athletics baseball team in 2001. He's losing several of his best players because the owner doesn't have enough money to pay them, and doesn't know what to do ... until he encounters Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), who uses statistics to pick cheap flawed players who get on-base. Beane meets a lot of resistance from his manager Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and scouts, but is determined to see it through. In the process, he completely changed the game of baseball.

It sounds incredibly dry and I'm definitely not an automatic fan of sports movies, but good performances and a well-planned story with no overdose on the statistics turned this into a really appealing movie. Pitt shows once again that he's one of the best actors in the country - this is different from any performance I've seen him give before. And to my considerable surprise, Hill is really good in what is essentially a straight role. Highly recommended.

Historical accuracy: the game history of the Oakland A's shown in the movie seems to be accurate, as is the staffing. Wikipedia notes that Brand's character is a composite, and the primary source person didn't want his name in the movie. I'd guess that Beane is somewhat idealized as he's still alive and probably got considerable say in how he was portrayed.

2011, dir. Bennett Miller. With Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Casey Bond, Chris Pratt, Robin Wright, Kerris Dorsey.

Monkey Business

This movie opens with the four Marx brothers (this being an early movie, Zeppo was still in front of the camera) stowing away on an ocean liner. After they're discovered, they race about causing complete chaos pretty much everywhere. But they make some friends, and after sneaking off the boat at the end of the trip, they help rescue the damsel in distress.

I didn't watch the musical numbers. Groucho was perhaps at his most non-sensical, and with less of a tie to what was going on around him, also at his least funny. Not my favourite.

1931, dir. Norman Z. McLeod. With Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Zeppo Marx, Rockliffe Fellowes, Harry Woods, Thelma Todd, Ruth Hall, Tom Kennedy.

The Monkey King

Tells a portion of the tale of Journey to the West, the book by Wu Cheng'en. Stars Donnie Yen as the titular character - a prankster, a child, a buffoon. The movie is high budget high concept full-fledged fantasy - and these days, that means no actual physical sets and essentially no shots without blatant CG effects or scenery. And Chow Yun-fat is the only person who isn't wearing facial prosthetics of some sort. But none of them sell the sets, the environment, the story, or - least of all - the acting. It's an incredibly overblown piece of tripe.

2014, dir. Cheang Pou-soi. With Donnie Yen, Chow Yun-fat, Aaron Kwok, Joe Chen, Peter Ho, Kelly Chen.

Monsoon

Henry Goulding is Kit, a 36 year old man who was born in Vietnam, but hasn't been back since he was six. He grew up in England and doesn't really speak Vietnamese. But now he's back in Ho Chi Minh City (still occasionally called Saigon), trying to figure out where to scatter his parents' ashes.

This is a very leisurely-paced movie - and it's more of a gay romance than a drama. Comments from director Hong Khaou quoted in Wikipedia suggest that he thought that the movie was about Kit forging a connection with his birth country: there's a bit of that, but it felt like it was more about Kit connecting with an American man in Saigon.

I enjoyed seeing Vietnam again (the whole thing was filmed in the country), but I was uninspired by the characters and the movie itself.

2019, dir. Hong Khaou. With Henry Goulding, Parker Sawyers, David Tran, Molly Harris, Lâm Vissay.

Monsoon Wedding

An Indian soap opera, a Bollywood movie for the North American who doesn't know much about Indian movies. Pretty good.

2001, dir. Mira Nair. With Naseeruddin Shah, Lillete Dubey, Shefali Shetty, Vijay Raaz, Tillotama Shome, Vasundhara Das, Parvin Dabas.

A Monster Calls

Lewis MacDougall plays Conor O'Malley, a young boy who's bullied at school and whose mother is ill with an unspecified disease (although cancer seems likely). A local yew tree pulls up its roots, and comes to tell him stories (voiced by Liam Neeson) over several nights. As his mother gets worse, his American father (Toby Kebbell) shows up, and he has to go live with his grandmother (Sigourney Weaver) - who he doesn't like.

The story is about dealing with fear and grief. The idea of an animated tree playing opposite a kid actor had disaster written all over it - but director J.A. Bayona chose a really good child lead, and - despite heavy use of the CG-animated tree - managed to bring deep pathos rather than unintentional comedy in blending the animation into our reality. The result is a beautiful and heart-breaking story that you won't soon forget.

2016, dir. J.A. Bayona. With Lewis MacDougall, Liam Neeson, Sigourney Weaver, Felicity Jones, Toby Kebbell, Geraldine Chaplin.

Monster Camp

A documentary about LARPers - Live Action Role Playing gamers. To most people, this would probably be a real eye-opener about a bizarre subculture they had no clue about, but to me it was fairly pedestrian. I felt like I knew them all - not personally, they all live in Seattle, but they're just like Science Fiction fans. Badly socialized, a bit more intelligent than the average, and with a need to escape from reality. Which they do by running around in the woods in elf or dwarf or monster outfits, and symbolically killing each other. The filming isn't great, the characters are ... well, Characters. Fairly good.

2007, dir. Cullen Hoback.

A Monster in Paris (orig. "Un monstre à Paris")

An animated film set in Paris in 1910. Our two bumbling heroes visit the lab of a professor and manage to create a mix of chemicals that produce a seven foot tall flea that loves show tunes. The chief of police decides to draw out and exploit the situation to improve his own political standing, while the flea is actually performing in a cabaret with the sweetheart of one of our bumblers.

A French animated movie, which is relatively unusual (although I saw the English voiced version - the dub was very good). The animation is for the most part really lovely, although I had some problems with their choices of human characters: the main male lead looks like the worst stereotype of a leprechaun. He's short, balding with red hair, wears green from head to foot, complete with a green bowler hat. And the two female leads look almost identical although one has big round glasses and the other doesn't. Overall, a bit light-weight but a funny and charming movie nevertheless.

2011, dir. Bibo Bergeron. Vanessa Paradis, Sean Lennon, Adam Goldberg, Jay Harrington, Madeline Zima, Danny Huston, Catherine O'Hara, Bob Balaban.

Monster Hunter

Based on a video game, this movie sees Army Ranger Natalie Artemis (Milla Jovovich) and her small crew transported from the desert in our world to a desert on "The New World." She eventually teams up with "the Hunter" (Tony Jaa) to survive the extraordinarily large and nasty monsters that exist in the New World.

An announcement at the end of the movie that surprised me a bit (I think I knew once but forgot): the director was Paul W.S. Anderson. The same man who directed (or produced) his wife Milla Jovovich in all six "Resident Evil" movies. This has all the qualities of that series. The special effects are pretty good, but the story is awful - and trust me, no one is even bothering to think about the quality of their acting. And, just like "Resident Evil," this sets itself up for a sequel because Anderson and Jovovich would love to have another high grossing, ongoing, critically nauseating series. Considering the box office grosses six months after release, (2021-06: only about $41 million worldwide), we may be fortunate to not see another.

2020, dir. Paul W.S. Anderson. With Milla Jovovich, Tony Jaa, Tip "T.I." Harris, Meagan Good, Diego Boneta, Josh Helman, Jin Au-Yeung, Ron Perlman.

Monster Run

"Monster Run" is another low rent Chinese fantasy movie that's available on Netflix. It's set in an anonymous modern Chinese city, with our heroine having trouble because she can see monsters in our world and is considered possibly insane (or at least weird) because of this. She's working late when a Yeti appears in her supermarket and a monster hunter comes along and has a destructive fight with the monster. In a time-worn turn of events, she's blamed for the damage to the supermarket.

There are a huge number of flicks like this on Netflix. Before I got on Netflix I had watched a few of these, notably "Painted Skin" and its sequel - and I keep hoping the Netflix stuff will be as good. "Painted Skin" and its sequel were occasionally hard to understand because there's a common cultural mythology that China has that audiences are assumed to already know - which isn't true for North Americans. That aside, I really enjoyed them. But with "Monster Run" I had the distinct feeling that I was missing stuff because the movie was missing details: it was just badly constructed. I watched it through, but it's not good.

2020, dir. Henri Wong. With Bohan Fu, Ye Gao, Jessie Li, Tumen, Kara Wai, Yutian Wang, Shawn Yue.

Monster Seafood Wars

This low budget Japanese movie asks the simple question: if Kaiju attacked and turned out to taste delicious, what would happen?

Deliberately styled on the 1950s and 1960s Kaiju movies, with people in rubber suits stomping around and terrible special effects. They could have done far better with special effects software on any modern PC - but that wasn't the look they were going for.

What I'm not getting is the (relative) critical acclaim: 77% (13 reviews ... an audience that small is self-selected) on Rotten Tomatoes. The dialogue is wooden (possibly intentionally), although there are several good jokes. I paused it at one point, and found myself with the following subtitle on screen: "You know Operation Seafood Bowl won't work without your vinegar cannons." Unfortunately a good part of the movie is bone-headed without offering entertainment value for the bone-headedness. So why the critical praise? It's mildly amusing, but it's not a masterwork of satire nor is it a dazzling tribute/homage.

2020, dir. Minoru Kawasaki. With Eiichi Kikuchi, Yûya Asato, Ayano Yoshida Christie, Hide Fukumoto, Ryô Kinomoto, Masayuki Kusumi, Kei Grant.

Monster Trucks

Our first view of our hero is a shot of Tripp Coley (Lucas Till) on a school bus, being mocked by a school mate passing the bus in his big pickup truck. Tripp is surrounded by 12 and 13 year olds. This is meant to tell us that he's a cool guy at high school who just can't afford his own wheels, but my immediate reaction was "why is an adult riding a school bus?" Till was 25 or 26 during filming, and this wasn't a good way to open when it interferes that badly with suspension of disbelief.

The premise is simple: nearby, an oil fracking operation has released three creatures from deep within the earth. Two are captured but one escapes and hides out in Tripp's truck as the oil company hunts for it to destroy it because - well, Rob Lowe (playing an oil company exec) is just evil and wants to keep sucking oil out of the earth, lifeforms and regulations be damned. Tripp finds that the friendly monster (which he calls Creech) makes a good motor for the truck he's assembling, and with the help of his exceptionally attractive biology tutor (Jane Levy) he sets out to right the wrongs.

The creatures are better than average CG - which is good, because they get a LOT of screen time.

The movie reminds me of every inoffensive second rate Disney movie ever made. And this is its biggest crime: it's just bland. It's not actively bad, but it's incredibly predictable, the humour is weak, and it's just not worth wasting an hour and a half of your life on. Which is a bit sad as it's directed by Chris Wedge, who has a certain talent: Robots - while not a particularly good film - is hysterically funny, and I think his movie Epic is a sadly under-appreciated.

2016, dir. Chris Wedge. With Lucas Till, Jane Levy, Thomas Lennon, Amy Ryan, Rob Lowe, Danny Glover, Barry Pepper, Holt McCallany, Frank Whaley.

Monsters

A NASA probe found alien life in the solar system, took samples, and then broke up in the atmosphere over northern Mexico on its return to Earth. Six years later we find Andrew and Samantha on the edge of the "Infected Zone" that's overrun by alien lifeforms.

This is a no-money independent production with two actors you've hardly heard of. And while it's not exactly Oscar-worthy, its quite interesting with good performances from its leads, surprisingly decent special effects, and a good and pleasantly unpredictable story. Recommended.

2010, dir. Gareth Edwards. With Scoot McNairy, Whitney Able.

Monsters Inc.

Pixar animated film. Finds our heroes Sulley (voiced by John Goodman) and Mike (Billy Crystal) scaring human kids to generate "scream," which powers the entire monster world. While it's not my favourite Pixar film, it's a lot of fun. One of Pixar's least adult-oriented films - the humour is aimed purely at kids.

2001, dir. Pete Docter. With John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Steve Buscemi, Jennifer Tilly, James Coburn, John Ratzenberger.

Monsters University

Prequel to "Monsters, Inc.," this is Pixar post-Disney acquisition. Tells the story of Mike and Sulley at university (and Randall Boggs, who's a major villain in the original movie).

Mike (voiced by Billy Crystal) and Sulley (John Goodman) get along poorly, and their rivalry gets them in trouble, eventually forcing them to (of course) co-operate. And inevitably become friends. Not just because that's necessary for the "next" film, but also because this is slavishly following an ancient movie formula. And, I might add, doing so with an absolute minimum of laughs. Very cute and might entertain kids, but (unlike many previous Pixar movies) it isn't going to entertain adults at all.

2013, dir. Dan Scanlon. With Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi, Joel Murray, Sean Hayes, Dave Foley, Peter Sohn, Charlie Day, Helen Mirren, Alfred Molina, Nathan Fillion, Aubrey Plaza.

Monsters vs. Aliens

Reese Witherspoon voices Susan Murphy, struck by a meteorite and turned into a 20 meter tall woman in this animated kids movie. She's caught and spirited away in a manner similar to Gulliver in the land of the Lilliputians, waking to find herself held captive with several other "monsters" for U.S. military defence purposes and, without any input from her, renamed "Ginormica." The arrival of an alien probe on Earth causes the military to send the Monsters into action. What ensues is reasonably predictable, good-spirited, and with a good message for kids. Funny and enjoyable.

Looks fairly good in 3D. Extras on the 3D BluRay are fairly weak. And here's a hint: don't put your two directors and a producer in a booth to do commentary when they've been awake 26 hours straight flying and doing publicity. They're punch-drunk and clueless and it's not worth listening to.

2009, dir. Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon. With Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett, Kiefer Sutherland, Rainn Wilson, Stephen Colbert, Paul Rudd.

Moon

Sam Bell (played by Sam Rockwell) is the sole staff member on the mining station on the far side of the Moon. His only communication with the Earth is via satellite recordings, no live conversations. As the end of his three year term approaches, he starts to have visions and accidents.

Rockwell puts in an excellent performance. Essentially it's him and the voice of Kevin Spacey as the robotic helper Gerty. The settings are excellent: the base is good, and the models used outside on the moon are almost entirely miniature models with very limited CGI, and all the better for it. The story is disturbing and thought-provoking. This is Duncan Jones' first full length movie, and I'll definitely be looking for further movies from him!

A couple odd side notes: don't think of Gerty as HAL. If you've seen "2001" it's nearly impossible not to, but that's not where they're going with it. And (stranger still) Duncan Jones = Zowie Bowie. Really: he's David Bowie's son, and his birth name was "Zowie." But don't hold it against him, he's not using it as a crutch and he did an excellent job on this movie.

2009, dir. Duncan Jones. With Sam Rockwell, Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey, Dominique McElligott.

Moon Knight, Season 1

The first season is six episodes of 50-55 minutes each.

The story starts with Steven Grant (Oscar Isaac), a socially awkward man who works in the gift shop at the British Museum. He straps himself to his bed at night, and has a habit of blacking out and waking up in odd places. He has a vast knowledge of Egyptian mythology. In the first episode, he has a run-in with both a cult leader (Ethan Hawke) and a mythological Egyptian jackal - which leads to the reveal that he has another personality named Marc Spector, who is an American mercenary and also the avatar of the Egyptian moon god Khonshu.

I loved the Moon Knight comics as a kid. I probably only read about three of them, but they made a lasting impression. To the point that this is only the second Marvel TV series I've bothered to watch - mind you, having Oscar Isaac as the lead is definitely a plus. (The other was the first season of "Legion.")

Oscar Isaac is good in his dual role. Production values are very good - but there are too many CGI creatures/gods. They're pretty good, but the more you look at them the less real they feel.

A few comments about a couple episodes. #4 "The Tomb" ... it would have been better to watch the 1999 movie version of "The Mummy" again - it's similar, better, and funnier. #5 "The Asylum" borrows from episodes of "Legion" and "Doom Patrol" set in an asylum.

I have a LOT of logic issues around the creation of Moon Knight's multiple personalities: if Mark is dominant, when did Steven have the time to learn a shit-tonne about Egypt (and that's setting aside the last episode mid-credits reveal, which implies immensely more time for ... well, that). As a friend pointed out, "It's a comic book movie!"

The directors are fascinating: four episodes are by Mohamed Diab, who's a rising star from Egypt, and the other two were directed by the team of Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson - who have together directed some of the more interesting SF/Fantasy/Horror films of the last decade ("The Endless" and "Synchronic" both got a fair bit of exposure).

2022, dir. Mohamed Diab, Aaron Moorhead, Justin Benson. With Oscar Isaac, May Calamawy, Karim El Hakim, F. Murray Abraham, Ethan Hawke, Ann Akinjirin, David Ganly, Khalid Abdalla, Gaspard Ulliel, Antonia Salib, Fernanda Andrade, Rey Lucas, Sofia Danu, Saba Mubarak.

Moonrise Kingdom

Set in 1965, the story of two misfit children, penpals who decide to run away together. It's also the story of their dysfunctional parents and caretakers and the desperate search for the children.

Wes Anderson has his own incredibly distinctive way of presenting movies, love it or hate it. Or, in my case, both. To me, "The Royal Tenenbaums" is a masterpiece, but he has never again managed to walk the knife-edge between comedy and tragedy nearly so successfully. There's less tragedy here, but many pathetic adults who are played for comedy. There's also a great deal of pre-adolescent romantic awkwardness. The critics ate it up. I liked it better than "The Darjeeling Limited," and much better than "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou," but that's not saying too much. It's okay.

2012, dir. Wes Anderson. With Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Bruce Willis, Frances McDormand, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Bob Balaban, Jason Schwartzman, Harvey Keitel.

Moonstruck

Cher plays Loretta Castorini, a widow in Brooklyn who gets engaged at the beginning of the movie to Johnny Cammareri (Danny Aiello) although it's clear that she doesn't love him. Johnny goes back to Sicily to attend to his dying mother, but requests Loretta invite his alienated brother Ronny (Nick Cage) to the wedding. Much humour ensues as Ronny and Loretta find passion together.

I was thoroughly unimpressed by the clichéd American-Italian acting - accents, hand-waving, adding "capisce?" to the end of sentences, fighting-because-we-love-each-other. This can be partly attributed to the movie being made in 1987, but that doesn't make it better. The whole thing is firmly stuck in parody and caricature from beginning to end. Despite the characters being drawn in incredibly broad strokes, Cher, Cage, and Olympia Dukakis (as Loretta's mother) manage to bring considerable charm to their characters. But when you bring caricatures and a limited story, you'd better be damn funny - and the humour didn't really work for me.

Rotten Tomatoes "Critical Consensus" (as of 2017-01) claims the movie is "Led by energetic performances from Nicolas Cage and Cher, Moonstruck is an exuberantly funny tribute to love and one of the decade's most appealing comedies." So I seem to be somewhat outvoted.

1987, dir. Norman Jewison. With Cher, Nicolas Cage, Vincent Gardenia, Olympia Dukakis, Danny Aiello, Julie Bovasso, Louis Guss, Feodor Chaliapin, Jr.

Morbius

It's not as bad as they said. I mean ... it's certainly not good ... but it's not terrible. A brilliant research doctor (Jared Leto as Morbius) afflicted by a debilitating blood disease creates hybrid bat-human blood ... which fixes his blood disease but makes him a vampire.

One of the early scenes of the movie finds us on a ship, where the doctor is doing his research because it's essentially illegal and "has to be in international waters." Shortly, all the crew are dead and the boat drifts back into New York(?). The ship is named "Murnau." The dead ship idea is from Bram Stoker's Dracula, and F. W. Murnau directed "Nosferatu." For those familiar with Dracula and vampire stories, this is obvious and heavy-handed. For those not familiar ... it's meaningless, so why bother?

Similarly, why did we have the two cops following Morbius around trying to figure things out? Tyrese Gibson and Al Madrigal stand around at scenes of bloody destruction and look confused and unhappy, or occasionally ask Morbius off-the-mark questions. Are they setting something up for the sequel we'll never see? Because they don't advance the plot in this movie.

Morbius is generally seen as an anti-hero, not a supervillain. His antagonist in this movie is his adopted brother (Matt Smith) who suffered from the same blood disease, and takes the same problematic cure. And the problem there was that I didn't really buy him turning out so vicious.

For the first two thirds of the film I thought the effects were passable. It was only in the last third - and particularly the final showdown where they went all out - that the weaknesses showed.

This is a bad movie, only for serious Marvel (or possibly vampire) devotees. I found it interesting enough in its failure to not regret watching it, but I can't recommend it.

A second skim a few weeks later reassured me that this is ... really bad. I wanted to see the good in it, and there are moments. But very few of them. Avoid.

2022, dir. Daniel Espinosa. With Jared Leto, Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, Al Madrigal, Tyrese Gibson.

Morning Glory

Rachel McAdams plays Becky Fuller, unemployed and looking for another position as a TV morning show producer. She ends up with a low-paying position with the fourth-rated morning show in New York City, where she struggles with a mixed staff and particularly her recalcitrant former star reporter Mike Pomeroy (Harrison Ford).

McAdams is really good (and occasionally incredibly annoying, as she's supposed to be) as the intelligent, hyperactive workaholic. Ford is somewhat better than his usual lackluster performance, and Diane Keaton is hilarious. But overall it's only sort of so-so, not providing quite enough laughs and being a bit too predictable.

2010, dir. Roger Michell. With Rachel McAdams, Harrison Ford, Diane Keaton, Patrick Wilson, Jeff Goldblum.

Mortal Engines

Post-apocalyptic science fiction, in which London has become a mobile city, now roaming Europe in search of resources or smaller cities that it ingests. We first meet our heroine (Hester Shaw, played by Hera Hilmar) as she attempts to kill Thaddeus Valentine (Hugo Weaving), head of London's potential new power source. Our other protagonist is an Apprentice Historian at the Museum of London, who finds himself ejected from London by Valentine. He and Hester are forced to team up.

If that sounds ridiculous, believe me, it's only the beginning. There's slavers, cannibals, a flying city, a re-animated man, a doomsday machine ... none of which bothered me as much as the hamfisted scripting. I don't mind if you go all in on a crazy premise - if you can make it work. But whoever wrote this seems to have just graduated high school. Their writing is that unsubtle. The visuals would have been somewhat impressive five years ago, but these days anyone with a computer workstation and Blender can make something that looks like this. And maybe they can get a better script.

2018, dir. Christian Waters. With Hera Hilmar, Robert Sheehan, Hugo Weaving, Jihae Kim, Ronan Raftery, Leila George, Patrick Malahide, Stephen Lang, Colin Salmon, Regé-Jean Page, Menik Gooneratne, Frankie Adams, Leifur Sigurdarson, Andrew Lees.

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

Our heroine is Clary Fray (Lily Collins), an apparently normal teen in New York City (I'm not good on cities: it appears to be New York? although much of it was filmed in Toronto, with Knox College figuring heavily). But her normal life is rapidly turned on its head when she starts to draw a particular symbol over and over, sees a murder that no one else sees, her mother is kidnapped by demons, and she is herself attacked by a demon - that's killed by the same young man she saw murdering someone else earlier. Yup, her life gets real messed up.

A jumble of good ideas are tossed into a huge messy dark fantasy mix along with an excessive amount of teen angst in the first half and overblown supernatural action and paranoia in the second half. And by the way, the movie would like you to know, tattoos are way cool. While I thought the character of Jace Wayland was unevenly written, Jamie Campbell Bower was surprisingly compelling in the role. Which wasn't entirely ideal as he kind of overshadowed the nominal star, Collins as Clary. Despite being universally panned, it did break even at the box office and the sequel is in the works.

2013, dir. Harald Zwart. With Lily Collins, Jamie Campbell Bower, Robert Sheehan, Kevin Zegers, Jemima West, Lena Headey, Aidan Turner, Jared Harris, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Godfrey Gao, Kevin Durand, Robert Maillet, C.C.H. Pounder.

Mortal Kombat (2021)

I have a weakness for cheesy fantasy/action/martial arts movies, and this one somehow managed to get 54% on Rotten Tomatoes (fairly low, but far higher than expected for this). After seeing it - I'm really not sure how it got that score.

The movie opens on the quiet 17th century domestic happiness of Hanzo Hasashi (Hiroyuki Sanada - so typecast as the angry samurai or Yakuza he'll never see another role in his lifetime) and his family, which lasts approximately a minute and a half before Bi-Han (Joe Taslim - a good martial artist ... although that's not obvious with all the wires and special effects involved) shows up and brutally assassinates everyone ... but misses the young daughter, who is recovered by Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano, who I thought was good enough to be working in better films ...). Then we get to the modern day and meet Cole Young (Lewis Tan) who "used to be good" but is now a "human punching bag" in low rent MMA fights that he always loses.

Then we move on to the gathering-of-the-heroes (on Earth, aka "Earthrealm") while evil soul-eating emperor Shang Tsung of Outworld attempts to subvert the Mortal Kombat tournament system by killing Earthrealm's heroes before the tournament even happens. We have Jax (Mehcad Brooks), Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), Kano (Josh Lawson), Liu Kang (Ludi Lin), and Kung Lao (Max Huang). Did you recognize any of those actor's names? I didn't - and I'm a fan of martial arts movies. And the ones I did recognize (Sanada, Taslim, Asano) aren't exactly A-listers.

The acting is appalling - but then they seem to have been aiming for over-the-top. The ridiculous plot is used only to string together fight after fight after fight. The production quality on the fights is fairly good, but really, the fights are only there to allow for brutal dismemberings and the spectacularly gory "fatalities" that the video game series is so well known for. Fans of the video games might enjoy this, but even they may end up fast-forwarding the content between fights.

2021, dir. Simon McQuoid. With Lewis Tan, Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Tadanobu Asano, Mehcad Brooks, Ludi Lin, Chin Han, Joe Taslim, Hiroyuki Sanada, Matilda Kimber, Laura Brent, Sisi Stringer.

The Most Dangerous Game

Joel McCrea plays Bob Rainsford, a big game hunter. He and his friends are in a luxury yacht off the coast of South America when the owner of the boat insists on taking a dangerous passage the captain advises against. The boat sinks, with everyone dying except Rainsford. He finds himself on an island, where he makes his way to an old fortress. There he's greeted by Count Zaroff (Leslie Banks), who is entertaining two other recently shipwrecked guests, Eve Trowbridge (Fay Wray) and her brother Martin (Robert Armstrong). Zaroff shows considerable enthusiasm for hunting and Rainsford's writings on the subject - but is reluctant to show his trophy room. But I've already given away the big secret in the summary: Zaroff loves to hunt "the most dangerous game," humans.

The run time is surprisingly short by modern standards (it was shot in 1932) at 63 minutes. The special effects are really bad, the shipwreck in particular. And looking at the jungle sets, my first thought was of another movie made in the same year, "King Kong." As it turns out, I was closer than I ever guessed: this movie was filmed at night on the same set as "King Kong" using two of its stars, Wray and Armstrong.

While the effects are bad, they're no worse than any of the era. Banks is having fun being suave, sophisticated, and a bit insane. McCrea is mostly just noble - but knows about the hunt, and Wray is mostly there to be protected, but does at least have some brains. On the whole, a rather enjoyable movie.

1932, dir. Irving Pichel and Ernest B. Schoedsack. With Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, Leslie Banks, Robert Armstrong.

Mostly Martha

Martha is a chef, isolated and more than a bit obsessive compulsive. A family tragedy burdens her with a child, and her time off from work introduces another chef into her kitchen. The results are fairly predictable, but the journey is enjoyable. This is the German movie that is the basis for American movie "No Reservations" in 2007.

2001, dir. Sandra Nettelbeck. With Martina Gedeck, Sergio Castellitto, Maxime Foerste, August Zirner, Sibylle Canonica.

Mother, Jugs & Speed

Mid-Seventies comedy, black. Bill Cosby plays the beer-swilling ambulance driver "Mother" - he's pretty cynical and likes to buzz the nuns, but he tries to take care of people. Raquel Welch is the receptionist "Jugs," although she prefers to be called "Jennifer." Harvey Keitel is the new recruit, a suspended cop named "Speed" because some of the other drivers can't tell the difference between that and the drug he's accused of pedalling, cocaine. Their ambulance company is locked in a territory battle, and the crew were already inclined to dirty tricks ...

Cosby is really funny, and his acting is good too. Welch and Keitel are more straight men. Larry Hagman delivers some humour and some nastiness, and Allen Garfield is pretty funny as the messed up manager.

1976, dir. Peter Yates. With Bill Cosby, Raquel Welch, Harvey Keitel, Bruce Davison, Larry Hagman, Allen Garfield, Dick Butkus.

The Mothman Prophecies

John Klein's wife dies. She may have seen something unusual just before her death, and it haunts Klein (played by Richard Gere). Two years later he finds himself rather mysteriously in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, investigating sightings of some sort of creature that prophesies doom and gloom. It's reported to look just like what his wife saw. Periodically quite creepy, but badly structured (perhaps because it's "based on a true story") and ultimately quite disappointing. If you like this kind of thing, your time would be better spent watching a couple episodes of the X-Files.

2002, dir. Mark Pellington. With Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Will Patton, Alan Bates.

Much Ado About Nothing (1993)

In some ways I think this is a wonderful production: Kenneth Branagh (who both directed and acted) realized this is a complete farce (hey, it's one of Shakespeare's comedies) and didn't take it too seriously. He and Emma Thompson (Branagh's wife at the time, and an even better actor than he is) are predictably excellent. But farce or not, I have issues with Denzel Washington and Keanu Reeves as brothers (even half brothers)! And, while Kate Beckinsale is wasted as a pretty trophy, Robert Sean Leonard is front and centre acting badly. Skin colour aside, Washington was quite good, and Reeves was more than usually wooden. Michael Keaton went over the top and around the other side in the role of Dogberry - but really, that's all you can do with it. He was amusing. Ultimately the movie is funny and enjoyable.

1993, dir. Kenneth Branagh. With Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Kate Beckinsale, Denzel Washington, Robert Sean Leonard, Michael Keaton, Keanu Reeves.

Much Ado About Nothing (2012)

Joss Whedon wanted to do something low-budget and simple right after completing "The Avengers," so he got a bunch of actor-friends together at his own place to do a Shakespeare comedy. He's chosen to do it in a (single) modern setting, and in black and white. Certain aspects of it are "interesting" (Conrade is a woman?!), others are really good (most of the participants are seriously drunk for much of what happens - which makes so much sense!), and some are pretty poor (actors not understanding the lines they're saying; Nathan Fillion's dull performance as Dogberry, even though he knew what he was saying). As much as I love Whedon, this isn't the best production of the play: flawed as it is, I guess that honour still goes to Kenneth Branagh's version.

2012, dir. Joss Whedon. With Alexis Denisof, Clark Gregg, Fran Kranz, Sean Maher, Amy Acker, Reed Diamond, Nathan Fillion, Jillian Morgese, Spencer Treat Clark, Riki Lindhome, Ashley Johnson, Tom Lenk.

Mud

We see the world through the eyes of Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and his friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland), a couple of kids growing up in De Witt, Arkansas. They've made a great discovery recently: a boat up a tree on an island in the river, a place they get to in Ellis' small boat. Except - as the movie opens, they discover that someone's been living in the boat. And so they meet "Mud," (Matthew McConaughey). He's homeless, but he claims that's temporary - and he's carrying an expensive gun.

The two fourteen year olds are quite smart, and the movie doesn't condescend to them at all. Mud is the perfect character to put between them and the adult world: he's very superstitious and, despite appearing to be about 45 years old, still has the moral compass of a child - and adresses the two kids as equals. As it becomes clear he may be in some trouble with the law, Ellis insists on helping Mud.

The acting is very good and the story mesmerising. The shifts, or more a merging, of the views of young teens and adults is handled beautifully as all the characters are drawn flawlessly. Very well done.

Something worth knowing before you watch the movie if you've never lived in the American South (I did, for a decade): the cottonmouth snake isn't a simple plot contrivance. In the South they're quite common. They love water, they're poisonous, and they're aggressive. The latter is particularly important: most snakes try to get away when people are nearby: the cottonmouth is just as likely to attack.

2012, dir. Jeff Nichols. With Tye Sheridan, Jacob Lofland, Matthew McConaughey, Sam Shepard, Ray McKinnon, Sarah Paulson, Reese Witherspoon, Michael Shannon, Joe Don Baker, Bonnie Sturdivant.

Mulan

Fa Mulan (voiced by Ming-Na Wen) is a young woman in ancient China in this Disney animated film. When her father, crippled in a previous war, is called on to fight again, she steals his sword, armour, horse and conscription notice and runs off to army camp as the (male) conscript from the Fa family. Her father is horrified when he finds out, but if he reveals her she'll be killed. Of course she has an incredibly annoying sidekick in the form of one of the family "guardians," in this case the failed guardian / miniature dragon with maturity problems voiced by Eddie Murphy. And of course the future fate of China will eventually depend upon her.

I think at the time it came out I liked this because the previous Disney movie I'd seen was "The Lion King:" not a terrible movie, but I was offended by its message to kids: be a slacker, and eventually you'll find guidance from the voice of your dead father. Mulan is a charming, intelligent and outspoken young heroine who takes things into her own hands from the start. She's a very likable character. Unfortunately an intervening decade of Pixar movies has led me to expect better humour and better character development in children's animation.

Passable songs. A charming main character. Stylized and attractive animation. An incredibly annoying and too prominent (but occasionally amusing) sidekick. Ultimately, better than your average animated movie, but not among the best.

1998, dir. Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook. With Ming-Na Wen, Eddie Murphy, B.D. Wong, Miguel Ferrer, Harvey Fierstein, Gedde Watanabe, Jerry Tondo, James Hong, Pat Morita.

Mulan (2020)

The story is the one you know: Mulan (Yifei Liu) is a charming and energetic young woman who doesn't impress the matchmaker (Cheng Pei-pei), after which she steals her injured father's conscription notice and runs off to war. It's not looking like she'll bring honour to her family - a desire that's mentioned several times, just as in the previous movie. There's no comedic, under-powered miniature dragon to help her - but she still gets a household deity to assist, a phoenix that we occasionally see soaring in the background. We find that Mulan has powerful chi, which makes her a great warrior. But as with the previous movie, the revelation of her gender brings disgrace.

Lush, a bit bloated, more accurate to the culture it's based in, and far less comedic than its animated predecessor. Yifei Liu puts in a ploddingly dedicated performance as Hua Mulan. The movie gives a big nod to the martial arts genre with the inclusion of Donnie Yen, Jet Li, and Cheng Pei-pei (and they're not the only actors who have been in martial arts movies, just the most notable). We have fantasy fighting (Mulan leaps from rooftop to rooftop) ... but sadly no serious martial arts choreography.

I didn't mind watching it, but I think you'd be better served by watching the original animated movie again.

2020, dir. Niki Caro. With Yifei Liu, Donnie Yen, Tzi Ma, Jason Scott Lee, Yoson An, Ron Yuan, Gong Li, Jet Li, Rosalind Chao, Xana Tang, Jun Yu, Jimmy Wong, Chen Tang, Doua Moua, Cheng Pei-pei.

The Mummy (1999)

In typical adventure/horror movie style, assembles an unlikely cast of explorers to unearth, release, and defeat the horrible monster. Brendan Fraser is no great actor, but he has an abundance of charisma and charm, and when he and Rachel Weisz are on screen together you forget the pure camp atmosphere and enjoy the chemistry (they have romantic chemistry too, but that's not what saves the movie). An homage to the original Mummy movie and some other stuff (Ray Harryhausen's monster movies) - great campy entertainment, but skip the sequels.

2014: truly one of the greats of camp cinema: absurd, creepy, and hilarious. I've rewatched this multiple times.

1999, dir. Stephen Sommers. With Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Arnold Vosloo, Kevin J. O'Connor, Oded Fehr.

The Mummy (2017)

I've never seen the 1932 version of "The Mummy," but I'm a huge fan of the 1999 movie starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. To me, it's the ultimate camp horror movie: it's wickedly funny (intentionally so), it's got a bunch of good scares, and it's got a pair of exceptionally charming leads. The sequels were pretty awful, but the first one was a minor masterpiece of horror comedy that I've watched four or five times.

Given not only the appalling reviews but the failure at the box office, I wasn't expecting much from this. It was fun to see the giant "Dark Universe" logo after the "Universal" films logo - this being the failed start of a grand new set of movies apparently intended to equal the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But not if you start like this. The parts that were supposed to be funny were stale, and the parts that were supposed to be scary were funny - although not funny enough to make this a classic bad movie.

The basic premise is that a treasure-hunting soldier named Nick Morton (Tom Cruise, playing this one by the numbers) awakens the evil ancient Egyptian Princess Ahmanet - who is intent on raising Set, the god of death. He's assisted in his fight against her - after a fashion - by employees of Prodigium ... which is run by Dr. Henry Jekyll (remember him? can't seem to keep that Hyde character under control). Ahmanet tears up London, and uses Jennifer Halsey (Annabelle Wallis), a woman Morton likes, as bait. There's one reference to the movie's far superior predecessor: we see one of the metal-bound books with a keyed cover from the previous series at Prodigium for a moment.

I had to go back and watch part of the 1999 version again after this one to get the bad taste out of my mouth.

2017, dir. Alex Kurtzman. With Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, Annabelle Wallis, Jake Johnson, Russell Crowe, Courtney B. Vance.

The Mummy Returns

The sequel to one of the best cheesy horror comedies ever ("The Mummy" (1999)), "The Mummy Returns" doesn't come close to living up to the original. Director Stephen Sommers says in the extras that he wanted to make it bigger and better, and in making it bigger he entirely missed what made it better in the first place. A large part of that charm was in the pacing of the first movie, which was surprisingly slow: he let the characters develop, and the tension rise. This one goes big early, with lots more blatant CG effects, where the first one relied more on the more rewarding practical effects. There's a bit to enjoy from the characters I liked so much in the previous movie, but it's mostly sloppy, stupid, and overblown.

The Rock, who has since proven himself to be a reliably charming actor, has a poorly played and incredibly small part in this, his movie debut.

2001, dir. Stephen Sommers. With Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, John Hannah, Arnold Vosloo, Oded Fehr, Freddie Boath, Dwayne Johnson.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

I wasn't a big fan of the second movie, but this is by far the worst of the three. Maria Bello is a good actress, but can't fill Rachel Weisz's shoes. John Hannah appears to be in his own movie, in which he makes a couple jokes in a bar, a couple to a yak, and a couple more in a bar. Someone tacked on a subplot about the Rick and Evelyn (Brendan Fraser and Bello) trying to recover their relationship with their son (Luke Ford, acting exceptionally badly) ... Not that that was necessarily a bad idea, but it's staggeringly poorly executed. And so is the rest of the movie. For martial arts fans, there was a faint hope of seeing a good fight between Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh ... while the fight happens, it's not worth seeing. There are lots of special effects, but it's all very empty without anything like a decent plot. Sure the first movie was cheesy, but it was cheesy-fun. This isn't even cheesy-bad, it's just bad-to-awful.

2008, dir. Rob Cohen. With Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, Maria Bello, John Hannah, Michelle Yeoh, Luke Ford, Isabella Leong, Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Russell Wong, Liam Cunningham, David Calder.

Murder by Death

Wikipedia refers to this as a "comedy mystery film." It was written by Neil Simon, which should have been warning enough for me: I have yet to find a single movie he's written that I liked. But the cast list ... David Niven, Maggie Smith, Alec Guiness, Peter Falk, Peter Sellers. And a fairly young James Cromwell in a silly supporting role sporting a bad French accent.

The plot has "the five greatest detectives in the world" invited to the mansion of Lionel Twain (played by Truman Capote). Each of them brings an associate, and each is a spoof on a famous fictional detective. Niven and Smith are "Dick and Dora Charleston," knock-offs of Nick and Nora Charles in the "Thin Man" movies and books. Inspector Sidney Wang (Peter Sellers in yellowface, so many problems ...) is a Charlie Chan spin-off. Milo Perrier (James Coco) is a particularly stupid Hercule Poirot imitator. Sam Diamond (Peter Falk) is meant to be Sam Spade (think "The Maltese Falcon"), and Jessica Marbles (Elsa Lanchester) is Agatha Christie's Miss Marple.

After they arrive, they're told that someone in the house will die at midnight: that does happen, but many other things happen before and after that. Each of our detectives offers brilliant insights (some based on research, some based on intuition with little-to-no proof), and at other times make incredibly moronic oversights. I found two or three laughs in the entire movie, multiple cringes induced by anti-Asian racism and jokes, occasional sexism, and a set of mysteries that made no sense (I assume this was intentional, but it's still annoying).

A singularly underwhelming production that left me stunned that this thing has a 67% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (and an even higher audience score). I'm going to re-watch the first "Thin Man" movie to get this out of my mind - now that's a "comedy mystery."

1976, dir. Robert Moore. with Eileen Brennan, Truman Capote, James Coco, Peter Falk, Alec Guinness, Elsa Lanchester, David Niven, Peter Sellers, Maggie Smith, Nancy Walker, Estelle Winwood, James Cromwell.

Murder in Alsace (orig. "Disparition inquiétante")

A children's group is at a fair in front of a cathedral in Alsace. Within seconds of the beginning of the movie, the teacher is murdered (in the open) and the children all quietly ... disappear. Our lead cop is Maya Rosetti (Sara Forestier), who finds herself having to turn to her ex-boyfriend Clément Hermann (Pierre Rochefort) who is a child psychologist for help. She's more than a little tempestuous, although a good cop.

This is not one of the better efforts in the series: as we find out more about the people who did it, it seems less and less likely they would have ... or would have succeeded. None of the characters are particularly appealing (or entirely believable). Possibly worst of all, the area's scenery isn't well displayed (this is "Murder in ...", that's kind of the point) - and once again, the compression on the DVD makes the video quality crap.

2019, dir. Arnaud Mercadier. With Arnaud Sara Forestier, Valérie Karsenti, Pierre Rochefort, Victor Le Blond, Gaspard Meier-Chaurand, Orian Castano.

Murder in Aquitaine (orig. "Les enfants du secret")

The scene is set by a young archaeologist leading the press around a new display in the catacombs of a cathedral in Aquitaine. In the middle of the display is a well-dressed skeleton that isn't supposed to be there. Pierre Danrémont (Pierre-Yves Bon) takes the lead for the police, and spends a lot of time with the archaeologist, Sabrine Derrac (Lucie Lucas). Sabrine is distraught, because the jewelry on the skeleton has let her know immediately that this was her mother ... Pierre has to deal with his jealous fiancée who isn't happy with his interest in Sabrine, and his grumpy father who thinks Pierre should have followed him into the wine-making business ... and the whole incident gets tangled up with his family.

The "Murder In ..." series has been inconsistent. None of them great, some are bad, but occasionally one is quite good. And this falls into the latter category: it's wickedly twisty in a fascinating way, and at the end all the pieces click together with a loud "chunk" as you sit there going "holy shit ..." The opening credits make it clear that the area has at least one spectacular cathedral, but after an initial scene set in the catacomb of that cathedral, they really let down the end on the travel porn.

Pierre-Yves Bon also played the lead in "Murder in the Jura Mountains" - but he's a different character entirely (still police).

2018, dir. David Morlet. With Lucie Lucas, Pierre-Yves Bon, Marianne Basler, Cyrielle Debreuil, Didier Flamand, Yvon Back, Jérôme Anger, Majid Berhila.

Murder in: Brides-les-Bains (orig. "Meurtres à Brides-les-Bains")

As I've mentioned before, the "Murder In" series is inconsistent. The last one I watched ("Murder in Moselle") was possibly the least photogenic of any I've seen, spending all its time in a defunct steel mill. This one is the polar opposite, going full blown travel porn in every shot. (With the perpetual caveat that they overdid the compression on every DVD set so it always looks chunky.) This is filmed in a gorgeous mountain village, where there's a death related to the local spa, and the scruffy new police detective has just arrived back from Africa(?) where he shut down a gold smuggling ring (and got shot). He also doesn't bother to mention that the old woman that knows everyone in town is his Mom - who's also involved with the history of the spa.

The case that eventually takes shape is unduly complex without being more interesting for it. But you can always just enjoy the scenery.

2018, dir. Emmanuel Rigaut. With Patrick Catalifo, Line Renaud, Hamideh Doustdar, Hubert Roulleau, Benoît Michel, Michel Vereecken.

Murder in: Canal du Midi (orig. "Les canal des secrets")

This one starts with a tourist boat entering a gorgeous lock in the canal. Inevitably, there's a corpse floating in the lock. We get a bit of an intro to the history of the canal as exposition from one of the police officers. As most of the events take place near the canals, this one is rife with travel porn (although, like previous ones, the compression on the DVD is high which makes it all chunkier).

This is one of the ones where the officer's lives, problems, and disagreements are front and centre, with both our lead police having significant personal issues. I prefer the ones where it's mostly about the mystery and less about their lives. And there are a bundle of red herrings, although they turn out to be pretty plausible. To the writers' credit, all the personal problems they bring up have a fairly direct bearing on the case: in the end, I was okay with it.

2020, dir. Julien Zidi. With Annelise Hesme, Aurélien Wiik, Annie Grégorio, Laurent Bateau, Aurélien Cavaud, Daniel Njo Lobé, Romain Busson, Sylvie Granotier.

Murders in Cognac (orig. "Meurtres à Cognac")

We open with jittery cinematography reminiscent of the late 1990s that runs through character introductions and the credits. And then ... it just smooths out, switches almost exclusively to much more standard shooting. Our two leads are initially seen meeting in person for the first time after having arranged an online hookup ... and then one is called away to a crime scene where both parties are surprised to find they now have to work with the other police person from the hook-up.

The death they're investigating is the cellar master of one of the five local Cognac houses. The investigation is somewhat interesting, but the reliance on a biological improbability (the continued existence of an un-grafted grape type that was thought wiped out - and I suspect is made up in the first place) and the way our female lead's family is tied into the whole thing together was a little too much. Her brother suffers from a psychological condition that doesn't really fit with anything that happened, nor his youth. It's too bad: after the shaky camera work, the mid-section of the film was fairly good, but the explanations blew the whole thing right out of the water.

2020, dir. Adeline Darraux. With Eléonore Bernheim, Olivier Sitruk, Jean-Yves Lafesse, Joe Sheridan, Lucile Durant, Félix Kysyl.

Murder in Colmar (orig. "Meurtres à Colmar")

Unusually (I've seen quite a few of the "Murder in:" movies) the primary lead is a doctor (Pierre Arditi) rather than a cop, come to Colmar a couple months after the death of his estranged police officer son. The second lead is the police officer (Garance Thénault) whose fiancée was killed in the same car accident, initially not interested in the assistance of the doctor who starts digging into three local deaths. The movie also follows the doctor connecting with the grandson he hadn't previously known.

I was with them right up until the end - I was thinking this was one of the best written and best performed of the lot. Until the true criminal was revealed and it was someone we'd never seen before (we knew of them, but it really doesn't work well when you pull someone out of a hat like that). In a crime drama, it's easy to nuke all the goodwill in the world through a poor solution to the mystery, and this one really caused some damage ...

As usual for the series, the video compression is too high and makes everything look a little too chunky. But dear lord the historic centre of Colmar is gorgeous - renaissance houses, cobbled streets, a canal or two ... What a sales pitch for the town.

2019, dir. Klaus Biedermann. With Pierre Arditi, Garance Thénault, Vincent Deniard, Isabelle Candelier, Nathalie Bienaimé, Gaël Raës, Loïc Guingand.

Murder in Cotentin (orig. "Meurtres en Cotentin")

IMDB lists this as "S6 - E7." Cotentin is a peninsula of France in the northwest that extends toward the south side of England. It's right next to the islands of Jersey and Guernsey.

A man is found floating in a pond, with broom flowers carefully placed on the body. Hélène Ribéro (Chloé Lambert) and Étienne Letourneau (Jean-Philippe Ricci) pick up the case, and Hélène finds herself having to question her boyfriend (Lannick Gautry) who was at odds with the murdered man. She also finds out that one of the last people to see the murdered man alive is an attractive younger woman (Léa François) whose appearance fits a local myth ... and who is staying with her boyfriend.

Better than yesterday's "Murder in Alsace," the people were more likable (I'm aware that shouldn't necessarily be important, and yet it is), and more importantly the case was more interesting and made more sense once solved. Also a bit more travel porn than the last one.

2019, dir. Jérémy Minui. With Chloé Lambert, Léa François, Lannick Gautry, Jean-Philippe Ricci, Romain Deroo, Nicolas Phongpheth, Nicole Calfan, Alain Bouzigues, Florent Hill.

Murder in Haute-Savoie (orig. "Meurtres en Haute-Savoie")

Like both "The Murders in Cognac" and "Murder in: The Land of the Cathars" which I watched recently, our two lead investigators have uncomfortably close ties to each other - in this case, brother and sister. And as locals, we hit another recurring theme in the "Murder in" series, as their family is tangled in the history of the murder(s). In this case, we start with an old woman dying after falling or being pushed off the base of a ski lift. What's clear is that she had some bad stuff in her veins, and it wasn't an accident. Haute-Savoie is in the mountains of France on the edge of Switzerland, and is a skiing resort town. It's set in early winter, and it's pretty in a way that's not really my thing.

The investigating officer has lived there all his life, and his father is the local doctor. He's expecting a second police officer up from Lyon to help with the investigation - but the person who arrives is his sister, also a police officer, who's standing in for another officer who became sick. Our lead obviously isn't pleased that it's his sister, and at the same time his daughter is interning at his office ...

This is the first time in a "Murder in" movie where I spotted the criminal a mile out. This was at least partly because of filming techniques: I was thinking "why does the film keep reminding me of this relatively minor character?" Most murder mysteries do this, throwing up red herrings, but in this case it seemed clear in combination with character notes that this was the person.

2018, dir. René Manzor. With Gwendoline Hamon, Thibault de Montalembert, Jacques Weber, Charlotte Levy, Bruno Putzulu, Jean-Pierre Martins, Sandra Parfait, Pierre Laplace, Christiane Cayre.

Murder in Le Havre (orig. "Les fantômes du Havre")

Le Havre is a mid-sized port town (population 170,000) in Normandy, facing the U.K. A mummified young woman is found in the walls of an apartment under renovation, and digging into the murder that left her there stirs up old problems. Our investigating team is family man Gaspard Lesage (Frédéric Diefenthal) and his newly arrived boss Ariane Sallès (Barbara Cabrita) who tries hard to avoid using the local professor/coroner (Nicolas Marié) who turns out to be her estranged father.

This being the "Murder in ..." series, I need to talk about the pretty scenery or lack thereof. There are a couple nice scenic shots, but for the most part Le Havre looks like any other port town. This is one of the least effective of the series in selling its destination as a place I want to visit. A decent mystery story but not much of a sales pitch for Le Havre.

2018, dir. Thierry Binisti. With Barbara Cabrita, Frédéric Diefenthal,

Murder in Moselle (orig. "Amours à mort.")

This "Murder in" entry concentrates not on pretty scenery, but on a steel mill in the Moselle region and its ugly history: a closing and strike in 1991, and its take-over during the Second World War by the Germans. And the secrets and trauma running through generations as a result of both. There are a couple minor travel porn shots, but the movie focuses almost entirely on the ugliness of the shuttered steel factory. There's romance, catharsis, and arrests. Lands squarely in the middle of the series for quality, watchable without being particularly good.

2019, dir. Olivier Barma. With Jérôme Robart, Jeanne Bournaud, Sam Karmann, Jean-Pierre Malo, Alex Fondja, Marie Narbonne, Pierre Laplace, Christian Drillaud.

Murder in Oleron (orig. "Meurtres en pays d'Oleron")

Oleron is an island off the west coast of France, which seems to specialize in growing oysters - certainly the murders in this revolve around an oyster farm.

Our two heroes are the very thorny police captain Judith Valeix (Hélèlene Seuzaret) and the grumpy forensic specialist Vincent Lazare (Michel Cymès). Both are good at their jobs, but neither is particularly good with people. Valeix is also dealing with having moved to the area recently to live with her mother, who has cancer. And now they're faced with a series of murders, carefully placed and marked by the murderer.

Not bad, but not one of the better movies in the series.

2018, dir. Thierry Binisti. With Michel Cymès, Hélèlene Seuzaret, Murielle Huet des Aunay, Kalvin Winson, Ludmila Mikaël, Christian Caro, Vincent Deniard.

Murder in Provence

This sounds like a part of the French "Murder in ..." series that I've reviewed several of. It's not: it is instead a series of three movie-length (90 minutes each) mysteries in Provence - in English. It may of course have been inspired by that series.

Our protagonist is Antoine Verlaque (Roger Allam), a judge in Provence. They make a point of explaining that judges are different in France, being a part of the investigation more than sitting in courtrooms - almost like this was written for an English audience. He's assisted by police woman Hélène Paulik (Keala Settle) and his romantic partner Marine Bonnet (Nancy Carroll) whose work eventually draws her into his work.

The series makes the best of its setting, showing sweeping and gorgeous shots of Provence in 1080p. The first two episodes are fairly good mysteries, but the third, while not necessarily "bad," really put me off by moving into extremely personal territory in the last few minutes of the episode. I apologize to anyone who's read me saying this before, but I want to watch detectives detect, not struggle for their lives. I wasn't loving the series (although it's not bad) before I hit the ending, and the last half hour really put me off.

2022. With Roger Allam, Nancy Carroll, Keala Settle, Patricia Hodge, Kirsty Bushnell, Geff Francis, Samuel Barnett, Christophe Tek.

Murder in Provins (orig. "La Malédiction de Provins")

Possibly the most ham-fisted of all the "Murder In ..." movies I've seen, forcing a divorced couple to work together on the case of a stage director stabbed by someone in costume with a full mask. The man in the divorced couple keeps trying to compare everyone's problems and betrayals to his cheating on her and his regrets. And their son gets involved in the hijinks, including falling in love. The mystery was at least mildly interesting, and Provins' medieval architecture looks lovely ... although I doubt that secret door actually exists in the tunnels under the city.

2019, dir. Olivier Doran. With Thierry Neuvic, Anne Caillon, Gil Alma, Stéphan Guérin-Tillié, Julie-Anne Roth, Noam Pacini, Grégoire Oestermann, Aliénor Seydoux, Édouard Court, Caroline Krieg, Miglen Mirtchev.

Murder in St. Omer (orig. "Puzzle")

One of the more complicated and interesting of the "Murder in ..." series. A poison pen email about an unsolved murder in Doulac (a small town very near Saint-Omer) sets off a new series of events, including another murder that draws in the previous lead investigator (Sagamore Stévenin) who ends up reconnecting with a pianist (Elsa Lunghini) left in a wheelchair as a result of a possibly related event.

The scenery is more ... interesting than beautiful. Endless side-by-side canals they call "the marshes." There is of course a romance. There's always a romance. There are a lot of people involved, and I'm not sure I followed everything ... but it was at least more involving than the previous one ("Murder in Provins").

2019, dir. Laurence Katrian. With Sagamore Stévenin, Elsa Lunghini, Naidra Ayadi, François Caron, Gaëlle Fraysse, Michel Scotto di Carlo, Céline Hilbich, Bruno Paviot.

Murder in the Auvergne Mountains (orig. "Sources assassines")

"Meurtres à ..." (or "Murder in ..." in English) is a French series of TV movies that started in 2013. It's apparently very popular in France, and has continued to run several movies a year. Each one is set in a different region of France - so they don't generally share personnel.

The set of three DVDs I got from the library is labelled "Set 3, Volume 1" - but this has proven very unhelpful in finding anything out about them online - this set is from 2021, but "Set 3" that comes up online is apparently a different set so this is perhaps a second "Set 3." So let's go with the names:

  • "The Auvergne Mountains"
  • "the Tarentaise Valley"
  • "Le Havre"
  • "Reunion Island"
  • "Devil's Bridge"
  • "Belle-Ile"

This one felt more like a family drama than a mystery with a daughter coming to help her estranged doctor mother who is accused of killing another doctor (in a small town in the Auvergne Mountains, of course). The daughter has a baby the mother didn't know existed.

I was expecting travel porn in this, the first of the series I've watched - and I got very little. And low quality video, surprisingly blocky - you'd think they'd avoid excessive compression on something that's meant as regional tourism advertising ... And what a mixed blessing this must be for the regions chosen: "we want to show your beautiful region - ignore the brutal murder in the middle of the advertisement."

Instead of travel porn, much of the movie was set in what appeared to be a 1950s or 1960s era building, the spa that houses the region's "healing baths" ... I learned a lot about their local springs and the arsenic content of the water, but that wasn't what I wanted (pretty scenery? please?). On the plus side - the officer who shot someone is really freaked out (an after effect that many American dramas completely ignore, as if shooting someone was common-place).

A mediocre mystery in a not terribly appealing setting - not an auspicious start, but I kept watching and found that some of them are better and/or very pretty.

2017, dir. Bruno Bontzolakis. With Julia De Bona, Marthe Keller, Joakim Latzko, Jacques Bonnaffé, Agathe Bonitzer, Alexandre Carrière, Geneviève Mnich.

Murder in the Jura Mountains (orig. "Meurtres dans le Jura")

A healer in the Jura mountains is found dead, and witnesses - one with a camera - claim the murder was committed by the local ghost "The White Lady". Two cops from local families who have been feuding for 50 years over the building of a local dam are forced to work together, and the male police officer (Pierre-Yves Bon) is the grandson of the victim ... (Is that allowed? Personal involvement and all that ...). Regional oddities (in this case "healers") are taken at face value and not examined closely: at least the ghost story doesn't get a pass. Lessons are learned, history is revealed, and of course there's romance. But the logic isn't great (particularly not the female officer (Sandrine Quétier) re-enacting her father's death scene for no reason) and the construction is a bit sloppy all around.

2019, dir. Éric Duret. With Sandrine Quétier, Pierre-Yves Bon, Christian Charmetant, Elizabeth Bourgine, Marie Bunel, Annie Mercier, Guillaume Faure, Juliet Lemonnier.

Murder in: the Land of the Cathars (orig. "Meurtres en Pays Cathare")

In 2009 on one of my visits to France I went to Peyrepertuse and Queribus, the ruins of Cathar fortresses. Peyrepertuse is probably the largest and best known of five well established Cathar tourist sites in the south of France. The place was never taken in battle: it's perched on a massive rock spike and the only way to pry the Cathars out was by starvation. Queribus is similarly situated. That made me want to watch this movie set in the lovely "Land of the Cathars."

The movie opens on an attractive woman walking to the ruins of a Cathar fortress (neither of the ones I saw - there are several more). After some other introductory matter (the police captain and her floundering marriage), we find the first woman dead in the display room at the fortress - and the police captain is horrified to find her Downs Syndrome brother sitting in a corner with blood on him. Another cop comes in to handle the case, and as luck would have it, he's our police captain's ex-.

The movie is loaded with co-incidences, misfortunes, and red herrings. The first two aren't applied in excess, but there were a lot of red herrings. All combined, they became annoying. They also used a writing practise I find unfortunate: the characters make their first appearance blaring out their insecurities and problems, and then mellow over the course of the show to make them more appealing. Except for the victim: we had to wait to learn about her issues.

Finally, the movie also fell down in the travel porn division: the opening shot of the victim walking up to the Cathar fortress was lovely, and there were one or two short shots of a nice downtown area on a canal (not sure they even named the town), and ... that was it. Come on: the Cathar castles are impressive as hell. We got a history lesson about the Cathars when we wanted an eye-full. All around disappointing.

2020, dir. Stéphanie Murat. With Élodie Fontan, Salim Kechiouche, Florence Loiret Caille, Samuel Allain-Abitbol, Tom Hudson, Julie Farenc, Benjamin Bellecour, Louise Massin.

Murder in the Maures Mountains (orig. "L'Archer Noir")

The movie opens on a man up a tree, taking samples. He's shot by an archer in black, and when he falls from the tree, the archer walks up and shoots him from short range to finish him. Two cops are put on the job, one from the local police force (Hélène Degy) and one from the military (Laurent Ournac) because the victim died in a military-owned forest. The victim turns out to be a member of a fringe environmentalist group. The investigation ranges through the ranks (and history) of the local military installation as well as a local home for wayward youth.

At this point I've watched 12 of the "Murder In ..." series. I'll give them credit for each being distinctly different from the others - and not just in setting, but in characters, behaviour, structure ... I thought that all of the movies had a romance, but this one managed to prove me partially wrong: there were still a couple of people who needed to be brought together as part of a fractured family, but not an actual "romance." But the quality of the movies is inconsistent at best and often quite poor, with the end result that I think this is the end of the line for me and the series. They're not terrible ... they're just not very good.

2019, dir. Christian Guérinel. With Hélène Degy, Laurent Ournac, Christian Rauth, Cédric Chevalme, Laurent Spielvogel, Estelle Vincent, Jean-François Palaccio, Frédéric Maranber, Théo Bertrand, Hugo Bariller.

Murder in the Morvan (orig. "Meurtres dans le Morvan")

As in the other three "Murder in:" movies I've seen recently ("Murder in Haute-Savoie," "Murders in Cognac" and "Murder in: The Land of the Cathars"), our two leads know each other too well to be working together. In this case, our local detective is joined by another detective who was not only her instructor at police school, but also her married lover. The mystery, while not brilliant, is one of their better ones, and as a whole fairly well constructed. It lacks in travel porn: the movie makes the area seem like slightly scenic farm land.

2018, dir. Simon Astier. With Virginie Hocq, Bruno Wolkowitch, Daniel Russo, Constance Dollé, Benjamin Penamaria, Jean-François Stevenin, Lucile Marquis.

Murder in the Tarentaise Valley (orig. "Roches Noires")

The French title, "Roches Noires," is the name of the tiny town (fictional, I think) in the Tarentaise Valley of France, where the movie takes place.

My complaint about the first I saw in the "Murder in ..." series ("Murder in the Auvergne Mountains," the entry for which also includes some commentary on the series as a whole) was that it was pretty much devoid of travel porn when that's at least half of what the series is about. This entry in the series remedies that problem: our police man arrives right at the beginning to find that only road to the tiny town he's going to is blocked by an avalanche, and he has to do an hour hike in dragging his suitcase. It's the middle of winter, and this is how you show off scenery: opening credits of your police man following an utterly gorgeous trail through the valley. And they had the sense to set many of the scenes outdoors, leaving me desperately wanting to go to the Tarentaise Valley. The mystery, like the last one, was moderately okay, but the characters were fairly good and I really enjoyed this one.

2018, dir. Laurent Dussaux. With Grégori Derangère, Flore Bonaventura, Jérôme Anger, Charlie Dupont, Carole Richert, Nicolas Grandhomme.

Murder on Belle Ile (orig. "Meurtres à Belle-Île.")

The last of the "Murder in ..." set of six I got from the library. Belle-Ile is an island off the coast of Normandy, where a man is found, dead - tied to a menhir. Good start for the travel-porn-and-murder series, and this one milks everything it can get out of the island: they must have visited every possible tourist site on the island in the service of the plot. And I have no complaints.

The two cops investigating are Marine Lamblin (Charlotte de Turckheim), the island's head of police, and Thomas Keller (Nicolas Gob) who's been brought into the island to assist. In classic "Murder in ..." style, they don't initially get along and must discover each other's strengths. And they help each other out a bit in their personal lives as well. It's a pattern in these movies. The movie is as usual passable, and the scenery is particularly lovely.

2019, dir. Marwen Abdallah. With Charlotte de Turckheim, Nicolas Gob, Garance Thénault, Alexandra Vandernoot, Alexis Loret, Cédric Weber, Xavier Mathieu, Sophie le Garles.

Murder on Devil's Bridge (orig. "Le Pont du Diable.")

Our police woman protagonist (Élodie Frenck) is summoned to the very small French town where her mother and wheelchair-bound brother live to look at the apparent suicide of the mayor at Devil's Bridge.

My first response was to use Wikipedia to try to find Devil's Bridge. Wikipedia told me "There are 49 Devil's Bridges in France." But this turns out to be one of the better known ones - in Hérault in south central France. The nearby small town where they set most of the scenes is one of those places that probably looks almost commonplace to someone who lives in France, but makes a North American weep at the beauty. Compared to the other movies in this series, they do a number of crane (or drone) shots over the town throughout just to look pretty rather than actually advancing the plot ... and I didn't mind at all. The murder(s) felt a bit far-fetched, but the characters and the rhythm of the place the story was set in worked well, so I enjoyed it.

2018, dir. Sylvie Ayme. With Élodie Frenck, David Kammenos, Patrick d'Assumçao, Myriam Bourguignon, Pierre-Olivier Mornas, Anne Benoît, Nouritza Emmanuelian, Nina Bouffier, Christophe Truchi.

Murder on Reunion Island (orig. "La Malédiction du Volcan")

This movie is set - as you might expect from the English title - on Reunion Island. If (like me) you don't know where that is, looking it up is interesting as it's a very long way from France - off the east coast of Africa near Madagascar. It's a very pretty place and makes a nice setting for our story (although again, I'd like to complain to the makers of the DVD that overdoing the compression makes their pretty scenery kind of blocky).

One pattern becoming clear with the "Murder in ..." series is that the main characters (other than the murderers) learn something and become better people. That's been consistent across the four I've seen.

But the characters were fun in this one, even if their story arcs were somewhat obvious. There are two cops this time - Juliette Gentil (Catherine Jacob) who's been a cop on the island for years, and the young and recently graduated Zaccharia Bellême (Ambroise Michel) just sent over from France who, much to the annoyance of Juliette, takes lead on the investigation. Again, a passable if not outstanding murder mystery with lovely scenery.

2019, dir. Marwen Abdallah. With Catherine Jacob, Ambroise Michel, Philippe Caroit, Thierry Desroses, Marie Denarnaud, France Zobda.

Murderball

This is a bizarre movie, a documentary about wheelchair rugby. It's impressive, and it's nuts, but with the crazy personalities involved it wasn't a huge surprise to see a "Jackass" segment on the DVD. Perhaps IMDB's plot summary will shed a little more light: "A film about quadriplegics who play full-contact rugby in Mad Max-style wheelchairs - overcoming unimaginable obstacles to compete in the Paralympic Games in Athens, Greece."

2005, dir. Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Alex Shapiro.

Music and Lyrics

It's a little sad when the best humour in a movie that's purported to be a romantic comedy is in the final credits. But of course I made it all the way through to the credits, so I must have found some entertainment along the way.

Hugh Grant plays a 1980s former pop idol reduced to playing high school reunions, and Drew Barrymore plays the woman who came to water the plants but ends up writing lyrics with him. Grant's former group "Pop!" (the opening credits show one of their 80s hit videos) is fairly clearly based on Wham! I took the hint from the extras and maybe there's a bit of Men Without Hats in there too - but Wham! is probably the main influence. Essentially Grant could be playing anyone in Wham! who wasn't George Michael, and credit to Grant and the script for capturing the ageing 80s icon very well. Unfortunately the romcom formula is embedded: they meet, they find common ground, they support each other, one of them does something horrible, then extraordinary measures are called for to recover. Grant and Barrymore are good but while the script contains some good gags it does no favours to the characters and the end product is mediocre. At least the songs they wrote weren't too painful.

2007, dir. Marc Lawrence. With Hugh Grant, Drew Barrymore, Brad Garrett, Haley Bennett, Jason Antoon, Scott Porter.

Must Love Dogs

Standard issue romcom fare, but ... Diane Lane and John Cusack are excellent, as are the supporting cast. The script is intelligent and funny, but the movie sinks under the weight of multiple big messy joke set-pieces that often humiliate the characters involved. The ending in particular is inelegant. But I enjoyed it for the characters and the humour.

2005, dir. Gary David Goldberg. With Diane Lane, John Cusack, Dermot Mulroney, Elizabeth Perkins, Christopher Plummer.

Mutiny on the Bounty

While a fair bit has been changed for dramatic purposes, this turns out to be quite historically accurate. And they've managed to make quite a good picture.

1935, dir. Frank Lloyd. With Clark Gable, Charles Laughton, Franchot Tone.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding

One of the most famous movies of 2002, in which a Greek woman still living with her family and working at the family restaurant meets, and falls for, a man from a fairly traditional American family. Nia Vardalos wrote and starred. It's a comedy about family - especially Greek family. Very funny and charming.

2002, dir. Joel Zwick. With Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Lainie Kazan, Michael Constantine, Andrea Martin, Joey Fatone.

My Blueberry Nights

It takes a lot to make me quit a movie without seeing the end: this movie had what it takes. Maybe Wong Kar Wai just isn't ready to be working in English: it certainly didn't look like his actors knew what the hell they were supposed to be doing. And, while the visuals were distinctive and very, very colourful, they weren't actually attractive. Within ten minutes we know where the ludicrous title comes from as Norah Jones (who shouldn't be the centre of a movie, she doesn't have much acting talent - or perhaps it's only his direction) eats at Jude Law's diner. And also in ten minutes both of them simultaneously get nose bleeds in separate incidents, and shamble into the diner where they hold their noses in an identical manner. Are you trying to tell us something? Here, have a sledgehammer, it would be more subtle. David Strathairn, usually excellent, was poor. Even Rachel Weisz, who I thought was incapable of bad acting, stumbles here.

2007, dir. Wong Kar Wai. With Norah Jones, Jude Law, David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz.

My Boss's Daughter

I didn't watch all of this movie - I couldn't. It was just too humiliating: to the actors, to the characters they played, and ultimately to the viewer. Ashton Kutcher plays a young businessman with a sadistic, manipulative, all-round horrible boss (Terence Stamp). Tara Reid plays Stamp's beautiful and charming (but possibly stupid) daughter. The plot seems to revolve around Kutcher being manipulated by the daughter into house-sitting a depressed owl for the boss, and the subsequent destruction of the house by unexpected visitors. Kutcher is good at looking confused, but doesn't have much of a talent for the pratfall. Did I mention that this is humiliating?

2003, dir. David Zucker. With Ashton Kutcher, Tara Reid, Terence Stamp.

My Brother is an Only Child (orig. "Mio fratello è figlio unico")

The box describes this as two brothers who have hated each other forever and are likely to kill each other, and can they save themselves? All very serious - so I was very surprised to find a lot of humour as they were fighting, and not quite as much threat of loss of life as was suggested. Not that it isn't there: the two are highly political at a time in Italy's history (the 1960s) when being communist or fascist could get you killed. We see two boys growing to young men, one very charismatic, drawn to Communism, the other more angry than sensible, who turns to fascism. And Francesca, the girl between them. Not a great movie, but fairly good.

2007, dir. Daniele Luchetti. With Elio Germano, Riccardo Scamarcio, Diane Fleri, Angela Fiocchiaro, Massimo Popolizio, Vittorio Emanuele Propizio.

My Dinner With Hervé

Hervé Villechaize was most famous as Tattoo on the TV series "Fantasy Island," where his most (in)famous line was "Ze plane! Ze plane!" "Fantasy Island" was a pretty awful show (and yes, I was around to see it when it was on TV, although very young), but Villechaize was an interesting guy. The director of this movie, Sacha Gervasi, did a long interview with Villechaize a few days before Villechaize's suicide in 1993 - and eventually spun that out into the script for this movie. Pete Dinklage plays Villechaize, and Jamie Dornan plays Danny Tate, the alcoholic reporter on the knife's edge of losing his job who's sent to get a fluff piece on Villechaize - and gets far more than he bargained for.

I don't think I've ever seen Dornan act before, and knew him only as "that guy in the 'Fifty Shades' series," so I have to admit I assumed he was incompetent. I'm glad to be proven completely wrong: he was excellent. And - as always - Dinklage was superb. I was a little alarmed by the voice and accent he puts on when I saw the trailer, but A) it's correct for Villechaize, B) he's totally consistent, and C) he's excellent. The story felt a little too contrived, with their fractious relationship and the orchestrated stumbles and recoveries - including it leading to a revelation in the reporter's life. But it appears to be an accurate portrayal of Villechaize (if not Gervasi), who was evidently quite hard to work with.

Huh - what I've written boils down to Rotten Tomatoes summary review: "My Dinner with Hervé offers a standard narrative on celebrity and infamy, but formidable performances by Peter Dinklage and Jamie Dornan find the dimensionality and pathos of Hervé Villechaize the man." And those performances make this well worth your time.

2018, dir. Sacha Gervasi. With Peter Dinklage, Jamie Dornan, Andy García, Mireille Enos, Oona Chaplin, David Strathairn, Harriet Walter.

My Dog Stupid / Mon Chien Stupide

Yvan Attal plays Henri Mohen (he also directed and had a hand in writing the movie), a writer who once wrote a great novel, but hasn't written anything good in years. He has a wife (played by Attal's real-life long-time partner, Charlotte Gainsbourg), and four children that he immediately declares he'd be happy to trade for a new Porsche. I was never entirely clear on how serious he was about that: probably "fairly" - the man is an ass. When a very large, horny, and stupid dog invites himself into their home, Henri declares that the dog stays.

The official labelling of this movie seems to be "comedy," but being French, they manage to work in a passable plot and some drama, so I think "comedy-drama" would be a better designation. And it is often quite funny. Pretty good.

2019, dir. Yvan Attal. With Yvan Attal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Ben Attal, Adèle Wismes, Pablo Venzal, Panayotis Pascot, Éric Ruf.

My Fair Lady

A Lerner and Loewe musical version of Shaw's "Pygmalion." It's astonishingly accurate to its source material. Audrey Hepburn is Eliza Doolittle, and Rex Harrison is Henry Higgins.

On a bet between Higgins and Colonel Pickering, Higgins takes Doolittle into his house to remove her Cockney accent and teach her to speak properly. Higgins is rude and incredibly inconsiderate, but effective. Not being a fan of musicals, I didn't enjoy this much. I thought having Hepburn in it would help, but I found her pretty unconvincing in her poor-flower-girl turn.

1964, dir. George Cukor. With Rex Harrison, Audrey Hepburn, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Stanley Holloway.

My Favorite Wife

I'm not entirely sure why this one has made it to DVD in 2009: it's certainly not one of the good movies of the time. Cary Grant plays a widowed lawyer, getting remarried after the shipwreck death of his wife seven years past. The same day, his original wife resurfaces. It looks like she's going to be the sensible one, but she ends up lying and doing stupid things for a cheap laugh. I found some genuine comedy in the first 15 or 20 minutes, but it was downhill from there.

1940, dir. Garson Kanin. With Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Randolph Scott, Gail Patrick, Ann Shoemaker, Scotty Beckett, Mary Lou Harrington.

My Favorite Year

This just isn't a very good movie. Despite which I still like it - and apparently a lot of other people do too. Peter O'Toole plays a washed up ex-movie star (modelled on Errol Flynn) preparing to appear in a TV show. Mark Linn-Baker is the young TV writer assigned to keeping O'Toole sober until the show is over. O'Toole puts in a brilliant performance surrounded by a bunch of almost entirely unknown actors performing to stereotype. It's hard to tell which is worse: the performances or the script. It's messy, it's stupid, it's occasionally quite charming, and O'Toole dazzles in the midst.

1982, dir. Richard Benjamin. With Peter O'Toole, Mark Linn-Baker, Lainie Kazan.

My Life as a Zucchini

Original French title: "Ma vie de Courgette," based on a novel Autobiographie d'une Courgette. The movie is shot in stop-motion animation, in a style I don't like.

Icare, age 9 - whose mother calls him "Courgette" ("Zucchini" in English) - lives with his alcoholic mother. By five minutes in, he's unintentionally caused her to fall down the stairs and die after she promises to give him the beating of his life. I'm fairly sure the movie wasn't meant for kids ...

Courgette finds himself living in a small orphanage along with a bunch of other troubled kids. The movie is (somewhat predictably) about making family (and friends) wherever you find yourself. Despite the rather ugly animation, I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. The ending was surprisingly hopeful.

2016, dir. Claude Barras. With Gaspard Schlatter, Sixtine Murat, Paulin Jaccound, Michel Vuillermoz, Paul Ribera, Estelle Hennard, Elliot Sanchez, Lou Wick.

My Man Godfrey

One of the most famous screwball comedies of the 1930s, starting with a homeless man (William Powell) being recruited from the city dump as a butler for an insane family. The youngest daughter (Carole Lombard) falls completely in love with him while making his life miserable - although not quite so miserable as the older sister does. Clever and funny, although not believable as a romantic comedy. But then, it's screwball.

1936, dir. Gregory La Cava. With William Powell, Carole Lombard, Alice Brady, Gail Patrick, Eugene Pallette, Jean Dixon, Mischa Auer, Alan Mowbray.

My Neighbors the Yamadas (orig. "Hôhokekyo tonari no Yamada-kun")

Studio Ghibli it may be, but I couldn't watch this one in full. Drawn in a rough comic book style, there was no particular story - just episodes from the life of a not terribly interesting family stumbling through life and squabbling on the way.

1999, dir. Isao Takahata.

My Neighbor Totoro

An incredibly charming anime children's movie. Being by Hayao Miyazaki, the main characters are of course young girls. The copy I watched is an English dubbed DVD with no Japanese audio track from the Walmart cheap bin so I can't complain much, but I wish it had the Japanese track and subtitles. Of course the main target audience isn't much into subtitles. Just a really fun movie.

1993. dir. Hayao Miyazaki.

My Old Lady

Kevin Kline stars as Mathias "Jim" Gold, a New Yorker who's down on his luck and, on inheriting a fantastic apartment in Paris, liquidates his few remaining assets to buy a one-way ticket - only to find out that the apartment is a "viager," a bizarre French arrangement in which the owner pays the apartment resident a set monthly fee until the death of the resident ... and the old lady in question (Maggie Smith as Mathilde Girard) is looking unpleasantly healthy, despite her advanced years.

Mathilde allows Mathias to stay in the apartment, and over time he meets Mathilde's daughter Chloé (Kristin Scott Thomas) and discovers why his father bought into such a strange arrangement. And many things are revealed.

The structure is quite traditional with its revelations of family history and problems, but the acting is very good so the end product is decent, if not brilliant.

2014, dir Israel Horovitz. Kevin Kline, Maggie Smith, Kristin Scott Thomas, Dominique Pinon, Stéphane Freiss.

My Super Ex-Girlfriend

A spoof of the recent superhero movies, although not a terribly successful one. Luke Wilson plays a decent guy who approaches Uma Thurman on the subway (on the urging of his friend "Dwight Schrute" aka Rainn Wilson) only to find out that A) she's "G-Girl," New York's superhero, and B) she's needy and neurotic. He breaks up with her and she does things like chuck a shark at him. The humour's not subtle. Funny in places, predictable, too broad.

2006, dir. Ivan Reitman. With Luke Wilson, Uma Thurman, Anna Faris, Rainn Wilson, Eddie Izzard.

Mystery, Alaska

"Mystery, Alaska" is both the name of the movie, and the name of the fictional town that the characters live in. Much of the town lives for hockey, in the form of the "Saturday Game," a four-on-four game of pond hockey that happens every week and is watched by nearly everyone. All of which is shaken up when a former resident, now a writer (Hank Azaria) has a glowing article published about the town and their game in Sports Illustrated. This eventually leads to the New York Rangers coming to Mystery to play the Mystery team.

Most of the comedy is about the characters in the small town of Mystery, and the critics seemed particularly disappointed that there wasn't enough hockey (and too many characters). The story is also painfully predictable, I'll give them that. But when I watched it, I expected a "comedy" rather than a "hockey comedy" (a distinction that seems to have hung up the majority of the critics), and I found a lot of humour in the movie. The characters are amazingly well drawn: they're all flawed but mostly charming people. And - a thing I was very happy to see - there's very little of the characters stepping outside their own behaviour to make something funny happen. It's funny because of who they already are and what's going on between them.

So it appears the moral of the story is "don't expect a HOCKEY comedy or a surprising plot, and you'll enjoy it." In my case, you'll enjoy it a great deal.

1999, dir. Jay Roach. With Russell Crowe, Burt Reynolds, Colm Meaney, Mary McCormack, Hank Azaria, Lolita Davidovich, Ron Eldard, Maury Chaykin.

Mystery Men

We first meet The Shoveler (William H. Macy), The Blue Raja (Hank Azaria), and Mr. Furious (Ben Stiller) as they attempt to rescue a retirement home from the attack of the "Red Hots" (or some such - anyway, comic-book style villains, as our three attempt to be comic book heroes). They get the crap kicked out of them, and are saved by Captain Amazing, the dominant superhero in Champion City. Our "heroes" set out to recruit a bigger team, ending up with The Spleen (Paul Reubens), Invisible Boy (Kel Mitchell), The Bowler (Janeane Garofalo), and The Sphinx (Wes Studi). None of them has much in the way of actual super powers, and with Captain Amazing kidnapped, their pathetic powers are about to be tested by the city's greatest supervillain, Casanova Frankenstein (Geoffrey Rush).

A ludicrous spoof of superhero movies, but as with any spoof the question is whether or not you like the humour. This movie has a number of fans, but I can't number myself among them. Too bad.

1999, dir. Kinka Usher. With William H. Macy, Hank Azaria, Ben Stiller, Geoffrey Rush, Janeane Garofalo, Paul Reubens, Kel Mitchell, Greg Kinnear, Wes Studi, Eddie Izzard, Tom Waits, Claire Forlani.

Mystery Road, Season 1

I watched "Goldstone" a year and a half ago and was underwhelmed - not that it was bad, just ... dark and depressing and not good enough for me to tolerate the darkness. I later found out that "Goldstone" was actually a movie sequel to a TV series: "Mystery Road." A good friend highly recommended the series, so I watched the first season. It's fairly dark as well, but quite good. Reading over my notes on "Goldstone," I'm thinking this was done by the same cinematographer. The style is similar, and some of the shots are just dazzling.

On to the story (six episodes of ~50m each). Two young men have vanished from an outback cattle station, and Detective Jay Swan (Aaron Pedersen) has been sent in to assist the local head of police Emma James (Judy Davis) with the investigation. In classic detective story style, the town turns out to have a lot of dirty little secrets. Swan has his own problems (a wild daughter who's followed him into town, and a bad habit of going rogue). James tries to get rid of him, but finds the higher-ups won't let her ... and while he doesn't tell her as much as she'd like, it's clear he really is quite good at his job.

The series wasn't just about the disappearance of the two boys, or even the several more mysteries that stemmed from it, but also about what Canada is calling "reconciliation," as we try to come to terms with a shitty history of colonialism and oppressing the natives ... which appears to be pretty much exactly the same in Australia.

2018, dir. Rachel Perkins. With Aaron Pedersen, Judy Davis, Madeleine Madden, Tasia Zalar, Wayne Blair, Deborah Mailman, Tasma Walton, Colin Friels, Aaron McGrath, Meyne Wyatt, Ernie Dingo.

Mystic Pizza

Coming of age poor in Mystic, Connecticut working in the titular pizza parlour. These days Julia Roberts gets top billing because she's the most famous, but the movie is very much about all three of the leads (Annabeth Gish, Roberts, Lili Taylor). It manages to do a fair bit with a bunch of characters and hold it all together - pretty good.

1988, dir. Donald Petrie. With Annabeth Gish, Julia Roberts, Lili Taylor, Vincent D'Onofrio, Adam Storke, William R. Moses.

Mystic River

At its core a murder mystery, but this is more about the people. Kevin Bacon, Sean Penn, and Tim Robbins' characters all grew up in the same neighbourhood, and they played together as kids until one of them is abducted and left with emotional scars for the rest of his life. The three are drawn back together when the daughter of one of the others is killed. Bacon is the police man investigating. A good movie, quite depressing.

2003. dir. Clint Eastwood. With Kevin Bacon, Sean Penn, Tim Robbins.

The Myth (orig. "San wa")

Jackie Chan plays both a modern archaeologist (evidently very rich - it's never explained how an archaeologist can afford a huge residence right on the water of Hong Kong harbour). He also plays a general from the Qin Dynasty. These two stories play out more or less in parallel, and allow Chan to be silly in one (modern day) and serious in the other (Qin Dynasty). Not that what he does is anything I'd call acting. And then there's his buddy, who's researching anti-gravity. So Chan is talked into visiting a site that's purported to have anti-gravity, and his present and the past he's been dreaming begin to overlap. Sadly, while both stories make some sense on their own, the resolution is both unsatisfactory and, umm, just plain stupid. There are a few instances of Chan's balletic fights, and an equal quantity of silly humour. Two guys fighting each other while tied to a cart that's trying to fall over a cliff with the woman who is the object of both their desires on it was pretty damn silly.

2005, dir. Stanley Tong. With Jackie Chan, Hee-seon Kim, Tony Leung Ka-fai, Mallika Sherawat.


N

The Namesake

The story of an Indian couple and the children they raise in America. Kal Penn (of "Harold and Kumar" fame) plays the son of Khan and Tabu, raised in America and disenchanted with the first name ("Gogol") that his parents gave him. We watch his voyage to understanding his heritage and the meaning of his name. Who knew Penn could act? He's good, the movie's good, it's touching, it's just not great.

2006, dir. Mira Nair. With Irfan Khan, Tabu, Kal Penn, Sahira Nair, Jacinda Barrett, Zuleikha Robinson, Soham Chatterjee.

Nanban

I'm a huge fan of the 2009 Bollywood film "3 Idiots." The plot has two students from engineering school several years after graduation searching for their vanished companion from their school days. The movie is mostly flashback, showing how he'd hugely changed both their lives for the better. But now their school nemesis has called them together, saying he knows where the missing friend is. My description for it at the time was "Bollywood Capra:" if you're familiar with the point of origin and the director, you know what this film is like. At the time of its release, it was the highest grossing Bollywood film ever released. Besides which, it's dramatic, hilarious and charming.

There's an inevitable consequence of this success that I didn't even realize until about a month ago: remakes. According to Wikipedia, others have been talked about, but the first out the gate was the Tamil version. (I mock people in North America who won't watch movies with subtitles ... apparently it's a problem the world over, although countries with high illiteracy rates have more of an excuse ...) So I ordered 2012's "Nanban" from Toronto Public Library. It's essentially a frame-for-frame remake of the original. Oh, lots has changed: names, places, dance numbers (there are more, and they're gaudier - which is saying something). But the car that the stars spend a good portion of the movie in appears to be the exact same model Volvo - except blue instead of red. This DVD had lousy subtitles, but skimming "3 Idiots" after assured me that the movies are essentially identical. I'm going to credit differences in the dialogue to bad translation in the subtitles: the similarities are astonishing.

I was strongly reminded of two old English expressions: "we live in hope," and "the exception proves the rule." I had hoped this would be good. And I'd hoped that - despite knowing that most remakes aren't as good as the original. This isn't the exception. It's not disastrously bad: it's got a lot of the comedy going on, but it failed to bring the drama. The main problem seemed to be "Vijay" (all the Tamil stars and the director have single names - must be nice to be unique), who plays the critically important lost friend: he was just ... calm, even during traumatic events. Same movie, not as good.

2012, dir. S. Shankar. With Srikanth, Jiiva, Vijay, Ileana D'Cruz.

Nancy Drew

Drew is portrayed as very retro and polite - a throwback to the era of the original books, including driving a silly little car from the period. The mystery is actually fairly interesting, despite employing some very traditional devices (creepy mansion, death of a famous movie star, creepy gardener, death threats). While Roberts is quite good as Nancy Drew, she somehow doesn't quite have the charisma to make the role an icon. The deliberately retro behaviour didn't help there either. And Flitter, at the age of 13, has already been typecast - quite an achievement.

2007, dir. Andrew Fleming. With Emma Roberts, Josh Flitter, Max Thieriot, Tate Donovan, Rachael Leigh Cook, Kelly Vitz, Daniella Monet.

Nanny McPhee

Firth plays a single father around 1900, with seven extremely intelligent but nanny-hating children. After they've caused the 17th nanny to leave, screaming (they staged a scene in which they appeared to eat the youngest child), "Nanny McPhee" conjures herself up (Thompson, looking hideous). Based on the "Nurse Mathilda" children's novels, this is aimed squarely at children - the occasional sex joke, while amusing, seemed terribly out of place. A combination of charming characters, humour, and occasionally brilliant cinematography created a film I very much enjoyed. Sangster was great, as was Coleman, and it was fun to see Landsbury in such an absurd and entertaining role.

2005, dir. Kirk Jones. With Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Kelly MacDonald, Angela Landsbury, Thomas Sangster, Raphaël Coleman.

Nanny McPhee Returns (aka Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang)

This one goes surreal before Nanny McPhee ever sets foot on the scene. The child actors aren't as good, the target audience is younger, and the delivery and messages are delivered with such clarity that I'm forced to ponder the possibility that the previous movie might, in fact, have been a masterpiece of subtlety. If you're not getting the picture ... I really didn't like it.

2010, dir. Susanna White. With Emma Thompson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Rhys Ifans, Maggie Smith, Asa Butterfield, Bill Bailey.

National Treasure

A passable Disney cross between Indiana Jones and caper movies, with a dash of conspiracy thrown in. A goofy, fun time-waster of a movie. You don't have to pay attention, but if you do there are actually some details in there that are kind of fun.

2004, dir. Jon Turteltaub. With Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger, Justin Bartha, Sean Bean, Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, Christopher Plummer.

Naomi, Season 1

I watched the first four episodes of 13 in this cancelled TV series that's part of the DC universe (broadcast on "The CW," of course). Episodes are around 45 minutes each. Kaci Walfall as Naomi is super-sweet, a 16 year old finding out that not only is she adopted ... she's actually an alien (like her hero Superman). While slightly better written and acted than the other DC TV properties (I'm thinking particularly of "The Flash" and "Arrow"), it has all the same soap opera elements: supportive parents with secrets, a mentor with a dark past, a network of dubious other aliens in and around her town who will support or hinder her depending on their own agenda. After watching four episodes, I read plot summaries of the rest of the season which included statements like "new power of x-ray vision," "unlocks a superspeed power," and "unlocking an invulnerability power." I was tired of the very slow process of revealing secrets after four episodes: I would have been thoroughly pissed after thirteen. And of course the season ends with a big reveal and trauma, never to be resolved.

2022. With Kaci Walfall, Cranston Johnson, Alexander Wraith, Mary-Charles Jones, Mouzam Makkar, Daniel Puig, Camila Moreno, Will Meyers, Aidan Gemme, Barry Watson.

Nausicaä

aka. "Warriors of the Wind," the commonest title in North America. One of Miyazaki's oldest films. Visually spectacular, as always starring a young woman and involving flying ... The visual style for everything except the characters is rougher than his later movies, the animation cheaper, and the story structure a little sloppier. It's interesting to see as a fan, but not one of my favourites.

Be aware that there's an English version around that was edited for TV and that's 40 minutes(!) shorter than the original, a complete slaughter. Look for a run-time of just under two hours.

1984, dir. Hayao Miyazaki. With Alison Lohman, Patrick Stewart, Shia LaBeouf, Edward James Olmos, Chris Sarandon.

Two rich but clumsy people find themselves the only occupants on a huge passenger boat set adrift. This gives a lot of room for Keaton's humour and pratfalls. While there's still no one on the planet who has ever managed to fall down in a funnier way than Keaton, this one doesn't really have enough laughs for its length. The DVD comes with a couple other shorts, "The Boat" and "The Love Nest," neither of which helped change my opinion.

1924, dir. Donald Crisp, Buster Keaton. With Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire, Frederick Vroom.

Ne Zha

Also known as "Nezha."

The movie starts by introducing us to its own blend of Chinese myth and folk tales, starting with the creation of a "Chaos Pearl." Two immortals and a god set about splitting it into its good and evil halves, with the evil half to be destroyed by a lightning strike in three years. Both halves become children, although they are of course semi-god-like. The child Ne Zha, birthed of the "Demon Pill" half of the Chaos Pearl is unruly and very dangerous (and starts talking pretty much as soon as he's out of the womb), so his parents are forced to keep him entirely on their property. He's bored - and proves very good at escaping and causing trouble.

The story is mostly about Ne Zha, his behaviour and growth. But it's also about his parents, and the creature birthed from the other half of the Chaos Pearl. And of course the inevitable showdown.

I wasn't a huge fan of the artwork for most of the humans and human-like creatures in the movie - particularly Ne Zha himself, because we have to look at him the most. But aside from that, the artwork is often quite beautiful. The broad story arc is unsurprising (child from an evil source raised by good parents ... how do you think that will end in a kids film?), but pretty quirky and reasonably entertaining along the way.

2019, dir. Jiaozi. With Lü Yanting, Joseph, Han Mo, Chen Hao, Lü Qi, Zhang Jiaming, Yang Wei.

Near Dark

Kathryn Bigelow's take on the vampire flick - in the mid-eighties, long before the latest surge of vampire movies. Our protagonist Caleb (Adrian Pasdar) sees a pretty girl named Mae (Jenny Wright) in town and picks her up. They flirt, but around dawn she becomes desperate to get home. She also bites him, and that causes him no end of problems. He finds himself violently allergic to sunlight, and drawn into (or kidnapped by) Mae's vampire family. Caleb doesn't take well to the life of a vampire, although he still really likes Mae and she likes him. Ultimately the movie is about family - the one Caleb left, and the one he joined. But there's going to be a lot of blood before you get to the point. Well done, but in some ways too conventional - the story structure is essentially that of a Western.

I was amused to see that the marquee for a movie theatre they passed was advertising "Aliens," Bigelow's husband-at-the-time's last movie (that would be James Cameron).

1987, dir. Kathryn Bigelow. With Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Lance Henriksen, Jenette Goldstein, Bill Paxton.

The Negotiator

Danny Roman (Jackson) is a very good police negotiator, whose life becomes rapidly messed up when a co-worker alleges corruption in the department, and is then framed for the murder of another police man. He takes hostages of his own and demands another negotiator - Chris Sabian (Spacey), who comes from the opposite side of town and therefore outside of the departmental corruption. Of course Roman knows the negotiations playbook, and uses that to his advantage while trying to force Sabian to help him root out the problem.

The movie is actually very good until the ending which is severely unrealistic. Jackson is okay, and Spacey is excellent. Unfortunately the ending blew all of my good will with its stupidity ... too much of a dedication to seeing not only the good guys winning, but also surviving, being vindicated, etc. etc.

1998, dir. F. Gary Gray. With Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Spacey, David Morse, Paul Guilfoyle, J.T. Walsh, Paul Giamatti, Ron Rifkin, Siobhan Fallon Hogan.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

An anime series, 26 episodes of 22 minutes each. Passable mech stuff, irritating overblown characters. The last three episodes go really wonky and incomprehensible.

1995. With Megumi Ogata, Megumi Hayashibara, Kotono Mitsuishi.

Network

A satire that has a lot of interesting things to say about about society in general and TV in particular. None of the characters are particularly likable which made it harder for me to really enjoy it, but it's worth it for the excellent social commentary. This is the source of the very famous quote "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

1976. dir. Sidney Lumet. With Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, and Robert Duvall.

Never Back Down

Young man with a temper moves to a new place, gets in a fight, gets beaten. Gets comedic sidekick and [optional] romantic interest. Finds peaceful martial arts master. Studies hard. Gets in trouble for fighting. Reconciles with teacher. Studies hard. We don't fight, we're peaceful. But a final fight with the bad guy is inevitable. Overcomes temper, learns skills, wins fight. Master learns from student too.

... So that's every martial arts movie ever written. Somehow Wadlow really seemed to think he was doing something new: the only even marginally unusual thing about this was that it was MMA - hardly a revelation. It had some oddly brilliant moments - sometimes it was a cinematic idea (I loved the Youtubing), acting sparks between family members, occasionally really good dialogue. But most of it was bog standard TV fare.

2008, dir. Jeff Wadlow. With Sean Faris, Amber Heard, Cam Gigandet, Evan Peters, Leslie Hope, Djimon Hounsou.

Never Cry Wolf

Based on one of Canada's best known books (same title), this portrays the adventures of the author (Farley Mowat, although he's called "Tyler" in the movie) in the Canadian Arctic trying to figure out just what the wolves do, and what they eat. Some of the cinematography was stunning, as the Arctic is an incredibly beautiful place, but the content is much simplified from the book. This wasn't a bad movie, and it has some very good moments, but ... read the book instead.

1983, dir. Carroll Ballard. With Charles Martin Smith, Zachary Ittimangnaq, Samson Jorah, Brian Dennehy.

Neverwhere

This is a three hour British TV series written by Neil Gaiman. It's fantasy, based around the idea that there's another city underneath London. It was enjoyable, but hardly a great piece of work. Not surprisingly, most of what made it good was Gaiman's dialogue.

1996, dir. Dewi Humphreys. With Gary Bakewell, Laura Fraser, Hywel Bennett, Clive Russell, Paterson Joseph.

The New Mutants
I almost always check Rotten Tomatoes before watching a movie. Their consensus on this one was "Rendering a list of potentially explosive ingredients mostly inert, The New Mutants is a franchise spinoff that's less than the sum of its super-powered parts." Their summaries are usually pretty good, and in this case it's dead on the money.

We start with Danielle Moonstar (Blu Hunt), whose parents and entire reservation village die in ... an event, that's initially labelled "a tornado." She's the sole survivor, and wakes to find herself at a "hospital" with precisely one creepy "doctor" (Alice Braga). There are four other mutant teens being held there, each with their own tragic backstory - every one of them had killed someone (or several people) when they came into their powers. Nightmarish things start happening at the hospital, until it all escalates ...

With a diverse cast of teen heroes who stomp all over each other's emotions and frailties, and an authority figure who's trying to control them all ... they should have been able to craft an exciting story. And yet this falls flat on its face. All the character interactions are generic teen bickering, and the "scares" are classic (ie. well-known and no longer scary) moves from every horror movie past. The acting isn't terrible but it's certainly not great, and even if it was I don't think that could have fixed this. "Inert" is the right word.

2020, dir. Josh Boone. With Blu Hunt, Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Henry Zaga, Alice Braga, Adam Beach, Colbi Gannett, Dustin Ceithamer.

New Police Story

In 2004 Jackie Chan had another swing at his very successful "Police Story" series, and this one makes the first two look almost light-hearted. (If you're not familiar with them, they're fairly grim.) This one starts out with Inspector Chan Kwok-wing (Chan - in a classic Chan sequel move, he doesn't have the same name in this version, and yet he's clearly the same character) drunk again, as he has been for months since the death of his entire team of nine men at the hands of a gang of sadistic and effective bank robbers. He's eventually dragged out of his self-loathing by a new partner (Nicholas Tse). But the gang are perfectly happy to pick up "the game" where they left off by threatening the lives of anyone else Chan holds dear.

Too grim for me - but pretty good if you can get past that. Tse is obnoxious but quite charming, a better than average foil for Chan. Charlene Choi apparently likes working with Chan (as she did in "The Twins Effect") and is also rather charming. The homage to the double-decker bus scene from the first "Police Story" is possibly even more spectacular (and must have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars). The ending is far more upbeat than the movie earned, and the wildly swinging tone put me off almost as much as the grimness.

2004, dir. Benny Chan. With Jackie Chan, Nicholas Tse, Daniel Wu, Charlie Yeung, Charlene Choi, Dave Wong, Hayama Go, Terence Yin, Andy On, Coco Chiang.

New Tricks (TV Series)

Review of Seasons 1 and 2

The premise of this BBC series is simple: a small department of the Metropolitan Police is set up to deal with cold cases and unsolved crimes. It was initially set up as a way to get the first leader of the department (Sandra Pullman, played by Amanda Redman) out of the way - a disgraced rising star. She's only allowed to hire retired police officers - as civilian consultants, not actually police officers, although this limitation turns out to be something of an advantage as the retirees immediately notice they're not subject to the more stringent rules applied to acting police. So UCOS is born, and quickly proves (with their ridiculously high closure rate) that they aren't a dead-end department as was initially expected.

The acting is so-so, the mysteries are reasonably good (although not always the focus of an episode), the characters reasonably good, and occasionally it manages some truly wonderful humour and some very clever ideas. Not a great series, but definitely entertaining.

Review of Seasons 3 through 8

The quality has dropped slightly as the series progressed. In the third season they started making the personal lives of the main characters a big thing, and making some of the cases "lukewarm" (ie. not "cold," my term not theirs) - that is with occasional involvement in active crimes. Mostly the episodes remained enjoyable, amusing, and occasionally even a bit thought-provoking. A surprisingly decent series, although on viewing the first few seasons again I think the change between the second and third seasons was a significant - and not for the better - turning point for the series.

Review of Season 10

As the tenth season opens, Brian Lane (Alun Armstrong) gets into trouble again over the incident that forced his retirement from the regular force. This plays out across the first four episodes, leading to some closure for him, but he's also forced out of the department. He's replaced by Dan Griffin (Nicholas Lyndhurst) who we're told in passing was recommended by Lane. Griffin's a very even-tempered guy, the polar opposite of the very temperamental Lane, but shares one thing with Lane: an extraordinary memory for facts.

Review of Season 11

The end of the tenth season sees the departure of Pullman, who is hired to work with a war crimes unit, and the arrival of Sasha Miller (Tazmin Outhwaite) as the new boss. At this point Gerry Standing (Dennis Waterman) is the only original member of the team - and word is he'll be leaving during the 12th series. I look forward to Standing's departure - he was a great character, but these days he's just tired and grumpy. Largely the writing, but also the actor.

Sadly, the series has declined steadily through its entire run. The good news is that it's still alright because the decline has been an astonishingly gradual one. I'd recommend anyone not familiar with the series start at the beginning and watch the first couple seasons, then stop. But if you like it at all, you won't stop there - you'll just keep watching. Which is okay, although I wish the writing was as sharp as it was in the first couple seasons. I also wish they'd fail sometimes (infrequently) instead of never: they're success rate is impossibly high. I don't think they've failed since the second season, and I find that pretty unbelievable.

Review of Season 12

Season 12 showed up on the shelf at the library in June 2016. The first two episodes are essentially one two hour episode, with Jerry Standing finding himself knowing far too much about a corpse found under a house - a long dead policeman who used to be his boss. This eases him out of the series at the end of the second episode, to be replaced by new ex-copper Ted Case (Larry Lamb) who was introduced in the first two episodes. The problem is ... the new characters can't be like the old characters, and they created such distinctive and good characters on the first try that the new ones can't live up to it - not that they're bad by any means. And the series, to my surprise, still remains interesting enough to watch. The biggest surprise came at the end: I'm sure there was gossip online to be read if you wanted to, but I was unaware that UCOS was disbanded and the series ended at the end of the season. Not a great loss after 12 seasons (even a bit late), but a little sad to see it go.

2003. With Amanda Redman, James Bolam, Dennis Waterman, Alun Armstrong, Denis Lawson, Nicholas Lyndhurst, Tazmin Outhwaite, Larry Lamb.

Next

Nicolas Cage plays a mildly sleazy Vegas performer whose magic show is based in part on a genuine ability to see as much as two minutes into the future. Another movie based on a Philip K. Dick story ... Cage's character uses his skill for petty gambling, but near the beginning of the movie is spotted by a competent and driven government agent (Julianne Moore) determined to use his skill to stop a potential terrorist nuclear blast on U.S. soil. This is further confused by the appearance of the woman of Cage's dreams (literally), played by Jessica Biel (never lovelier). The devices for showing us Cage's skill are clever and interesting to watch, and most of the movie is well thought-out. It relies heavily on the Alice-in-Wonderland excuse, but ... well, that's him seeing the future and I found it more acceptable here than most places. A really good SF (or should I say "paranormal?") movie.

2007, dir. Lee Tamahori. With Nicolas Cage, Julianne Moore, Jessica Biel.

Next Gen

Full disclosure: after the movie started inducing nausea I started leaping forward five seconds at a time - I probably saw two thirds of this Netflix animated movie. But not to worry - I got all the major plot points. It's very hard to miss them.

Made up of equal parts "Big Hero 6," "I, Robot," "WALL-E," and massively overbearing sentimentality, all presented with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Mai hates robots, partly because they're obnoxious, partly because she has daddy abandonment issues, and partly because her mother ignores her in favour of the robots. But it's Mai who finds the super-cool new robot ... that also happens to be a massive weapon (but very friendly). The film-makers try to make points about how important your memories - even the bad ones - are, but it's awash in bitterness, sentimentality, and incompetence. Painful.

2018, dir. Kevin R. Adams, Joe Ksander. With Charlyne Yi, John Krasinski, Jason Sudeikis, Michael Peña, David Cross, Constance Wu.

Nezha Reborn

I saw this on Netflix and assumed - incorrectly - that it was associated with another recent Chinese movie I'd seen on Netflix, "Ne Zha." That one was set millennia ago, this one is set in a steampunk 1930s fantasy China. I found out they weren't associated (except for being based on the same myth), but kept watching mostly because of the aesthetic, which is ... amazing.

As a movie, it's pretty cheesy: young man races motorcycles and acts as a courier for a service of questionable legality in a (fictional) city called Donghai that's sorely short on water. He's rebellious and breaks the law, but has a heart of gold. It turns out that the city (and particularly the water) is controlled by the De Clan, who are actually a family of immortal and evil dragons. But our hero is the reincarnation of Nezha, and as he learns his powers, he goes to war fighting injustice.

The plot isn't very good, but I found it worthwhile because of the interesting and lovely artwork.

2021, dir. Zhao Ji. With Yang Tianxiang, Zhang He, Xuan Xiaoming, Li Shimeng, Zhu Ke'er, King Zhenhe, Gao Zengzhi.

The Nice Guys

Wikipedia calls this a "mystery-crime thriller neo-noir action comedy film" - I would have watched it just for that genre definition.

Ryan Gosling plays Holland March, a chronically sleazy private detective who investigates cases that often exist only in the heads of his clients. He's aware of this, but generally just takes their money. Russell Crowe is thug-for-hire Jackson Healy, going around beating people up when he's paid to do so. A day or so after breaking March's arm for investigating the disappearance of Amelia Kuttner, Healy has a change of heart and returns to March to hire him to continue looking for her.

That's the basic plot outline. And the plot's fairly good, but also not really the point. It's more about how these two ethically challenged and quirky individuals deal with trying to do the right thing and with each other. Many comedies make characters act contrary to their own behaviour just to be humorous, and that tends to really mess up my suspension-of-disbelief and ruin the movie for me - this movie doesn't do that. Both Gosling and Crowe display utterly brilliant comic timing (even better than they've shown in other movies). Staying true to the entertaining characters as written and putting them into awkward situations leads to a howlingly funny movie that I really enjoyed.

Over time this has become something of a favourite movie: it's very well constructed and the jokes have remained very funny through several viewings.

2016, dir. Shane Black. With Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Angourie Rice, Matt Bomer, Margaret Qualley, Keith David, Kim Basinger, Mulielle Telio, Beau Knapp.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

Michael Cera plays Nick, a slightly dweeby guy whose main buddies are his gay bandmates (Aaron Yoo and Rafi Gavron) and who's just been dumped by his hot girlfriend (Alexis Dziena). Norah (Kat Dennings) and her friend Caroline (Ari Graynor) are out clubbing and get entangled with Cera and his crew. The movie plays out over one long night, in which Cera, Yoo, Gavron, and Dennings (and pretty much everyone else) tries to track down a surprise appearance by the very popular band "Where's Fluffy?" The title might be a hint that there's a connection of sorts between the two leads, and they bond over music. It's very cute, it's occasionally funny, and it's definitely of its generation, but it's at best an "okay" movie.

2008, dir. Peter Sollett. With Michael Cera, Kat Dennings, Aaron Yoo, Rafi Gavron, Ari Graynor, Alexis Dziena, Jonathan B. Wright, Zacharay Booth, Jay Baruchel.

Night at the Museum

Ben Stiller plays a fairly familiar character, a bit of a loser who humiliates himself on a fairly regular basis. He finds a job as a night watchman at a museum in the hope of keeping a regular job so that he can keep the respect of his young son, but the job turns out to be anything but regular: every night, all (ALL) the displays in the museum come to life. Ricky Gervais plays the same character he played in "The Office." While I've never liked Stiller's brand of humour (saving possibly "Keeping the Faith"), this is a goofy, enjoyable children's movie.

2006, dir. Shawn Levy. With Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Carla Gugino, Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, Bill Cobbs, Ricky Gervais, Jake Cherry.

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

I needed a brainless entertaining movie. I got a brainless movie. Entertaining? Not as much.

Ben Stiller returns as Larry Daley, former security guard at the American Museum of Natural History, now CEO of Daley Devices, selling his not-too-clever devices with infomercials. When he finds that most of the displays (the ones that come to life at night) are being shipped off to permanent storage at the Smithsonian, he sets out on a rescue mission - which is complicated by the fact that he doesn't work at the Smithsonian, and further by the fact that the tablet that brought his museum to life is now bringing the entire Smithsonian to life.

More over-the-top than the previous movie (and that's saying something), and also allowing some of the comedians more freedom than it should have (Jonah Hill, Robin Williams and Ricky Gervais in particular) resulting in their creepy and unfunny improv, I didn't think it was as successful as its predecessor. A sequel is coming out shortly, so receipts say I was wrong.

2009, dir. Shawn Levy. With Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, Hank Azaria, Christopher Guest, Robin Williams, Alain Chabat, Ricky Gervais, Bill Hader, Jonah Hill.

Night Court, Season 1

"Night Court" was a silly 22 minute per episode situational comedy that ran from 1984 to 1992. It starred Harry Anderson as Judge Harry Stone, who was very young and goofy and possibly last pick to fill a judge's position. But he quickly proves himself to be a decent man who's good at find eccentric and effective solutions to problems. I saw a lot of this series on broadcast TV back in the 1990s, but this is the first time I'd sat down and watched the first season in sequence. (The first season was 13 episodes: later seasons were 22 episodes per year.)

The pilot episode is very funny, but by the second episode it had settled into having some melodramatic absurdity (a bickering married couple, Bull with a baby) be the focus of the episode. While the absurdity and dripping sentimentality were par for the course for period sitcoms, I found it kind of grating. What makes "Night Court" somewhat watchable is the humour - which at its best is very funny indeed. And probably the reason the show got a 2023 reboot.

The history of the actors is interesting if you dig into it: Harry Anderson was a touring magician, occasionally hosted Saturday Night Live, and had a recurring bit on "Cheers." John Larroquette was the court's sex-obsessed prosecuting attorney. Both of them are very tall at 6'4" ... but are made to look normal-sized by Richard Moll (playing bailiff "Bull Shannon") who is the court's towering security guard and frequent comedic foil. Paula Kelly is the public defender - she was only with the series for a year, being replaced by Markie Post who held the role from seasons 2-9. Likewise, Karen Austin played the court clerk in the first season ... but (if Wikipedia is correct) was let go because she had Bell's Palsy (which seems kind of unfair), and replaced with Charles Robinson who played the court clerk in seasons 2-9.

1984. With Harry Anderson, John Larroquette, Richard Moll, Paula Kelly, Karen Austin, Selma Diamond.

Night Court, Season 2

I was entertained throughout this season by the knowledge that public defender Billie Young (played by Ellen Foley - who stayed with the show only one season) is the female lead singer in Meatloaf's "Paradise by the Dashboard Light" - which was a formative song in my life, but is probably unimportant to people not of my generation.

The pattern is set: there's always some case or problem that Harry Stone (Harry Anderson) solves through his humanist outlook, usually stretching through most of the episode. Surrounding that, there's Harry's goofiness, Dan's lustfulness and avariciousness, Billie's occasional dramatics, Mac's deadpanning and unflappability, Bull's inconsistent thick-headedness, and Selma's world-weariness. And of course the bizarre characters who show up in the courtroom.

It remains more than funny enough to continue watching. And they managed to end the season on one of their strongest jokes of the year. It wasn't high-class humour (it appears someone split the seam of their pants), but it was very funny.

1985. With Harry Anderson, John Larroquette, Richard Moll, Ellen Foley, Charles Robinson, Selma Diamond.

Night Court, Season 3

So much mugging. And slapstick. Mostly John Larroquette as Dan Fielding, but they're emphasizing reaction shots from all the characters more as well. There's an orangutan. Bull (Richard Moll) talks to it - and evidently gets responses. The dripping sentimentality has, if anything, got worse in this season.

Fairly early in the season, Bull is somewhat drugged (I no longer remember why, but it's part and parcel of the writers providing improbable events to drive the comedy) and Harry orders Dan to stop Bull from leaving a room. Out of character, Dan agrees. And when Dan tries to stop Bull, Bull says "If you try to stop me, I'll be forced to invent the human pretzel." Dan tries to stop him, and we find out that John Larroquette was still quite flexible. It was a funny gag, but it was also kind of the start of the mugging and slapstick.

The other bailiff (ie. "not Bull") for the first two seasons was Selma Diamond. She died of lung cancer before the third season started recording. She was replaced by Florence Halop (who I didn't think was nearly as good in the role). Unfortunately, Halop - who was also a heavy smoker - died of lung cancer after this season. She was replaced by Marsha Warfield as "Roz," who stayed with the show through the rest of its run. I'm a little sorry that giving up on the series at this point means I won't see Roz at all: I vaguely remember her as being a good character in the series from the occasional episode I saw on broadcast TV back in the day. But the series became significantly less funny this season and I'm quitting.

1985. With Harry Anderson, John Larroquette, Richard Moll, Markie Post, Charles Robinson, Florence Halop.

Night Train to Munich

Made in 1940 and set in 1939, the story revolves around a Czech manufacturer and inventor of armour plating who manages to flee Prague just ahead of the Nazi invasion. The Nazis are very interested to have him, but end up with his daughter instead. She escapes from a concentration camp with the help of Karl Marsen (Paul Henreid) suspiciously easily, but soon finds herself back in the Nazi's clutches, this time with her father. But they're aided by a particularly charming - and somewhat arrogant - British agent (Rex Harrison).

Arguably a war propaganda piece, it's pleasantly low on rah-rah patriotism and high on tension, and quite well done. I really liked this one.

1940, dir. Carol Reed. With Margaret Lockwood, Rex Harrison, Paul Henreid, Basil Radford, Naunton Wayne, James Harcourt, Felix Aylmer.

Night Watch (Nochnoy Dozor)

The forces of light and dark (in the form of "others," people who aren't exactly human and have weird powers) have held to a truce for hundreds of years. The emergence of a stronger "other" has been prophesied, and the night has come - will the new one choose light or dark? Hackneyed, bizarre, inventive, and occasionally quite hard to follow, this is worth seeing for at least a couple reasons: it's filmed entirely in Moscow, and it's blatantly not a Hollywood product.

2004, dir. Timur Bekmambetov. With Konstantin Khabensky, Vladimir Menshov, Mariya Poroshina.

Nightbooks

Wikipedia classifies this as a "dark fantasy" film, although the book it's based on is referred to as "horror-fantasy children's ..." - the latter strikes me as more accurate.

The main character is Alex (Winslow Fegley), a young boy who loves to write scary stories. But on his birthday, his best friend abandons him because he's too weird. Alex is heartbroken, and leaves his apartment to burn his "Nightbooks" (all the stories he's written) in the building's boiler room. But on the way he's lured into an apartment by "Lost Boys" on the TV and a piece of pumpkin pie. Where he becomes trapped, and finds himself required to create a new scary story every night for an evil witch (Krysten Ritter). He meets a young woman named Yazmin (Lidya Jewett) also trapped and enslaved, and a hairless magical cat called Lenore. Yazmin and Alex plot to escape.

In classic children's horror style, Ritter's witch is garish, absurd, and not terribly bright (they have to outsmart her). She is at least mildly menacing as she can and does kill children that she's unhappy with. Yazmin and Alex are cute, and make the movie almost worth watching. I was underwhelmed - but then, I'm an adult watching a kids' "horror" movie.

2021, dir. David Yarovesky. With Winslow Fegley, Lidya Jewett, Krysten Ritter.

Nightbreed

Director Clive Barker (best known as a horror writer) had an idea: the monster as hero rather than antagonist. With the corollary that those who hunt monsters are often much worse than the supposed monsters. I was intrigued by the idea and so I tracked down the Director's Cut of this 1990 movie - it was slaughtered by the studio, who were convinced that no one would watch a movie with the monster as hero. It wasn't until 2014 that the movie was released with a coherent story line and in a form that Barker was happy with.

The movie starts with Aaron Boone (Craig Sheffer) dreaming of monsters dancing in a place called Midian. Back in real life, he visits his psychiatrist Dr. Decker (David Cronenberg, acting instead of directing) who convinces him he's murdered several people recently (the murders were actually committed by Decker). Eventually, Aaron realizes Midian is real and finds his way there, but he's followed by ... well, just about everybody: Decker, the police, his girlfriend (Anne Bobby). For a place that doesn't want visitors, Midian is kind of inundated.

The monsters are mostly visually quite good (although there are a couple small segments of stop-motion animation that stand out for their jerkiness), but the Midian sets are pretty terrible: obvious painted backdrops and the like. But a better story played by better actors would have gone a long way to making me not care about technical deficiencies: Scheffer and Bobby are poor, and the monster-as-hero idea only stretches so far. And Barker hasn't come up with anything more than "young guy figures out he's different, goes to new place, causes horrible problems he didn't mean to, tries to fix them." Despite a two hour run time, approximately thirty seconds is given to the origins of the monsters ("peaceful beings hunted almost to extinction by humans") and none at all to the serial killer - he's just ... there. And apparently the monsters are "peaceful" despite the fact that they like to feed on human flesh and blood. All of which leaves us with a mildly interesting but weak movie.

1990, dir. Clive Barker. With Craig Sheffer, Anne Bobby, David Cronenberg, Charles Haid, Hugh Quarshie, Doug Bradley, Catherine Chevalier.

Nights in Rodanthe

Diane Lane plays a single mother seven months separated from her unfaithful husband (Chris Meloni) who abruptly tells her he wants to come back to her. With this in her head, she goes off to take care of her friend's B&B on the Outer Banks (North Carolina), where she has only one resident (Richard Gere, playing a character with problems of his own) and an incoming hurricane.

This is the second movie I've seen based on a Nicholas Sparks novel, the other being "Message in a Bottle." Being Sparks, it's a overwrought, sodden, saccharin romance. That hits exactly the same notes as the other one. Their love makes them better people. One of them dies tragically and nobly. And you, the viewer, are sick to death of the sobbing by the time it's done. Gere and Lane are both decent actors, but you wouldn't know it here: they're hammering home every possible emotional note like you're going to miss it if they don't hit it with a sledgehammer. The prose and plot have already been banging away on you, so you're going to leave a bit bruised.

2008, dir. George C. Wolfe. With Richard Gere, Diane Lane, Christopher Meloni, James Franco, Scott Glenn.

Nimona

"Nimona" was, first, a graphic novel that I read in 2017. It was one of the most unusual graphic novels I read that year - and that's saying something. It was also the funniest, and amongst the most dramatic. The movie got good reviews from the critics (94% with 87 reviews as of 2023-08-09), so I was very interested to see it. Unfortunately, familiarity with the source material was a bit damaging to my viewing.

The movie starts with Ballister Boldheart (voiced by Riz Ahmed) and his boyfriend Ambrosius Goldenloin (voiced by Eugene Lee Yang) about to graduate in the "Night to Knight Knights" in a slightly futuristic world that also seems somewhat medieval (what with having knights and the occasional castle rampart). But the night goes horribly wrong through no fault of Boldheart's, and he ends up on the run. As an outlaw, he's involuntarily joined by a weird young woman named "Nimona" (Chloë Grace Moretz) who insists she's going to be his sidekick and they should go destroy stuff. He can't manage to get rid of her, but eventually her weird behaviour and skills start to grow on him as he tries to prove his own innocence.

Before I talk about the changes between the source material and movie, let's just talk about the movie. The artwork is good: colourful and appealing. The dialogue is absolutely full to the brim with snark and snappy comments. Which are very funny, but the incredibly abrupt tonal shifts from snark to pathos and back to snark was occasionally whiplash-inducing. In the end, we have a fairly enjoyable movie about friendship and the need for change - both as individuals and as a society.

Now let's talk about the changes from the source material. First, the artwork is much cleaner, but stays reasonably true to the style of the characters shown in the graphic novel. But our main character's name (umm, the other main character, not "Nimona") was originally "Ballister Blackheart," and we met him (in the graphic novel) after the event that made him an outlaw, when he was first meeting Nimona. He was already a wanted criminal, being hunted by Goldenloin. The reader doesn't know he's innocent, or even what he's accused of. Nor did we know that Goldenloin had been his boyfriend. All we can see is he's not a very enthusiastic bad guy, in contrast to Nimona's strong destructive impulses. So we learn these things slowly as they unfold in the backstory - along with Nimona's backstory. I think this was a far better construction, and it makes the story much more about not judging a book by its cover - because we have to find out who Blackheart is as well as Nimona, and neither of them are what they seem. In the movie we already know what Boldheart is about.

Another important change between the graphic novel and the movie came in the management of the jokes. I think the original author (ND Stevenson) managed the shifting tone (comedy mixed with dark back-stories for both our characters) better. I think the way you perceive a graphic novel also makes it easier to change emotional gears quickly as your eyes bounce from panel to panel. If you've read my review of the graphic novel you'll know I didn't love the artwork, but despite that I think it's a really great piece of work. Sadly, they lost some of that potential on the way to the screen.

2023, dir. Nick Bruno and Troy Quane. With Riz Ahmed, Chloë Grace Moretz, Eugene Lee Yang, Jordan Gubian, Frances Conroy, Lorraine Toussaint,

Nim's Island

I wanted to see this for one reason: Jodie Foster does slapstick. And sadly, that's the only good reason to see it. Foster plays children's adventure author Alex Rover - whose main character, also named "Alex Rover," is male and haunts her (played by Gerard Butler). Nim (Abigail Breslin) is a huge fan of Alex Rover. She lives with her father (also Butler), a marine biologist, on a small island in the South Pacific. When Rover emails the biologist for research, Nim answers and Rover becomes entangled in their lives. Immediately and physically. The problem is that the movie condescends to its primary audience (children) and totally ignores its secondary audience (the adults accompanying the children). It had some side-splitting moments of comedy - mostly Foster, who's actually pretty good at slapstick, and passable at being neurotic - but is overall pretty poor.

2008, dir. Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin. With Abigail Breslin, Gerard Butler, Jodie Foster.

9

Animated post-apocalyptic movie. The main character is "9", the last of nine small creatures apparently made of burlap, metal claws, and camera parts. Elijah Wood voices 9, who heads out after his awakening and shortly meets 2 (Martin Landau). 2 gives 9 a voicebox so he can speak, but is shortly after taken away by a cat-like beast. 9 soon meets 5 (John C. Reilly), and then the giant 8 (Fred Tatasciore) and the cowardly leader 1 (Christopher Plummer). 9 brought a small device with him that the cat beast steals, and which eventually allows the start-up of a particularly evil creation called just "The Machine."

The story and dialogue are hideously clichéd, but the visuals are outstanding. 7 is actually a pretty decent character, a woman of action (Jennifer Connelly) - both cool-looking and appealing for what she does. I was also quite fond of 3 and 4, creatures after my own heart: scholars and librarians.

2009, dir. Shane Acker. With Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer, Crispin Glover, Martin Landau, Fred Tatasciore.

Nine Days

We first meet Will (Winston Duke), who lives a quiet life with a lot of TVs in an isolated house. We meet his friend Kyo (Benedict Wong), and find out first that these are people's lives they're watching, and then that Will will be selecting from several souls (that we see as people) for one to be born. But Will is having a hard time since the death of one of his previous selectees.

The movie is just ... people talking, and sometimes watching video footage. Will asks a lot of questions and sets strange tasks for these people.

I watched this with a friend, and we both liked it - with one complaint. Benedict Wong is British, but is perhaps best known for his role in the "Doctor Strange" movies - in which he speaks with a fairly flat American accent. He was born in Manchester, but whatever accent he was aiming for in this movie ... it wasn't Mancunian. It also wasn't very consistent, and both of us noticed this and were bothered by it. Why didn't they just let him use his natural accent? Or even an American one, which he can do reasonably well and would have been more consistent with the rest of the cast?

Aside from the minor trouble with Kyo's accent (which most people outside the UK may not even notice?), this is a really lovely film that makes you think about what makes life worth living, and what we should do with our time.

I found a connection from Will's "creation of moments" and the whole before- and after-life thing to Kore-eda's "After Life," a gentle film about souls being questioned, and thinking about their lives after death.

2020, dir. Edson Oda. With Winston Duke, Zazie Beetz, Benedict Wong, Tony Hale, Bill Skarsgård, David Rysdahl, Arianna Ortiz.

Nine Months

Hugh Grant plays a man whose girlfriend (Julianne Moore) unexpectedly tells him she's pregnant. He isn't sure how to handle it, getting conflicting input from the people and situations around him.

When I buy a DVD, I keep it - but I made an exception for this one. Christopher Columbus thinks that a sledgehammer is subtle because his usual tool is a bulldozer. A stellar cast is completely wasted on unrecoverable tripe - only Robin Williams brought humour to the heavy-handed script. My guess is that he wrote (or improvised) some of his lines himself as he so often does. Don't watch this one.

2001. dir. Chris Columbus. With Hugh Grant, Julianne Moore, Tom Arnold, Joan Cusack, Jeff Goldblum, Robin Williams.

9 to 5

I saw this as a kid, thought it was hilarious. Revisiting it in 2009 was educational. Three women (Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, and Dolly Parton) find themselves working for an autocratic and not terribly bright boss (Dabney Coleman). After he insults them and upsets them once too often, they quietly kidnap him for several weeks and work around him at the office. It's mildly amusing in spots, but terribly dated and over-the-top.

The extras on this 25-years-later DVD point out that this was something of a feminist piece at very much the right moment in time. That may make it "important," but it doesn't make it a better or funnier film.

1980, dir. Colin Higgins. With Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton, Dabney Coleman, Elizabeth Wilson, Henry Jones.

Ninja Assassin

Tells the story of Raizo (Jung Ji-Hoon, aka "Rain"), a young Japanese orphan boy raised from early childhood to be a Ninja. But see, while he passes the tests and survives the training, he's sensitive. And ultimately finds out he doesn't like killing people. So instead he starts killing Ninjas. Huh? The movie is incredibly bloody, with limbs and heads chopped off and blood spurting all over. Rain is unknown over here, although something of a pop phenomenon in his home country of Korea. A number of awards in his home country would suggest hes' a passable actor, but it doesn't show here - although he's surprisingly good in the comedic moments. He's also insanely fit and obviously worked very hard on the physical action. So if you like ridiculous action movies and are okay with a blood bath, this may be your thing.

2009, dir. James McTeigue. With Jung Ji-Hoon, Naomie Harris, Ben Miles, Rick Yune, Shô Kosugi, Randall Duk Kim.

Ninja Scroll

The movie opens with ninja-for-hire Jubei Kibagami walking across a bridge. He's attacked by three other warriors. His complete lack of concern over their attack is proven reasonable as he dispatches all three in moments - although not before we learn that he can be hired very cheaply for causes he considers morally right. He soon becomes entangled in a fight against the Eight Demons of Kimon - one of whom is Gemma Himuro, who Jubei thought he slew five years prior.

An anime movie in the time of feudal Japan, fought between superhuman ninja and demons, for the future of Japan. Complex, clever, and inventive, I really enjoyed this one. A lot of thought went into the characters - both their "abilities" and their behaviour - and into the visuals. The movie was done on what I assume was an incredibly low budget: they frequently use still shots, sometimes overlaid with repeating weather effects, or animate only one part of a larger frame. As a fan of Hayao Miyazaki, this isn't what I'm accustomed to: in his later movies, every inch of every frame was alive and magnificently animated.

And yet, this is proof that skilled artists can do brilliant work in the most limited circumstances. Those still shots I mentioned: frequently dazzling works of art that you're happy to look at for several seconds. And the writing, while weird and wild, is fascinating and often mesmerizing. The characters are human and often appealing, even as they leap through the sky and use magic powers.

With spurting blood, plenty of sex, and an attempted rape, this is not a movie for kids. But adult fans of the genre should run right out and watch this immediately if you haven't seen it: it's already won the status of "classic," and it deserves it. It's rewarded multiple viewings.

1993. dir. Yoshiaki Kawajiri.

Ninotchka

Three communist Russians (Sig Ruman, Felix Bressart, and Alexander Granach) in Paris between the World Wars are attempting to sell a set of jewels to raise money for the state. The original owner, a Tsarist countess, gets wind of this, and her friend (Melvyn Douglas) stops the sale. Comrade "Ninotchka" Greta Garbo is sent along to speed things up. Douglas falls for her, despite her staggeringly utilitarian and dour attitude toward everything. Of course she warms up, but the course of true love is never easy.

The dialogue is often quite witty (Douglas got the best lines and was the most entertaining) and the picture is reasonably charming. The fake Russian accents become tiresome.

1939, dir. Ernst Lubitsch. With Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Sig Ruman, Felix Bressart, Alexander Granach, Ina Claire.

The Ninth Configuration

The movie starts with the arrival of a new psychologist (Stacy Keach) at a hospital for military personnel. The hospital is housed in an abandoned and creepy castle "in the American northwest" (because that makes a lot of sense). The "genius-level" patients are introduced, and we get an hour of farce as we learn their eccentricities - as well as that the new doctor and the old staff aren't entirely grounded either. There are twists and turns to be had as we get into the darker second half, and some of the discussion about suffering and faith that came out in the first half (amongst discussions of Shakespeare for dogs) ties into how the story plays out. There's some interesting stuff in here - for a movie about half the two hour running time, and not delivered with an LSD-covered sledgehammer. It's hard to appreciate when styles in film-making have changed so radically since it was made.

The "ninth configuration" of the title is referred to within the movie as the creation of life - so improbable that the narrator prefers to believe in a divine creator.

William Peter Blatty (best known for writing The Exorcist) directed the movie based on a novel he'd written.

1980, dir. William Peter Blatty. With Stacy Keach, Scott Wilson, Jason Miller, Ed Flanders.

The 9th Precinct

Available on Netflix. One has to assume that a nation as large as China - particularly now it's become such an economic force in the world - is probably cranking out movies like nobody's business. Probably to the point that Netflix is getting them in very cheap bulk deals. This is one of those.

Chen Chia-Hao (Roy Chiu) is a young and idealistic cop dropped by the force because he insists that a ghost saved his life in a traffic stop gone wrong. He's shortly rehired by "the 9th precinct" which deals with ghosts - to be hired there, you have to be able to see the ghosts in the first place.

Chen wants to go after a serial killer after his new department finds a mass grave of young women (and their spirits), but his superior warns him off: they only handle ghosts. But he persists, and there are consequences.

Mediocre acting, mediocre writing, and mediocre production values leave us with an unsurprisingly mediocre film. It was at least mildly entertaining because it was kind of different.

2019, dir. Ding-Lin Wang. With Roy Chiu, Chia-Chia Peng, Chen-Ling Wen, Eugenie Liu, Blaire Chang, Heaven Hai, Yann Yann Yeo.

No Reservations

The American remake of "Mostly Martha." A light and enjoyable film, although not as good as the original. It's an accurate recreation of the original and it comes close, but in most respects it's not quite as good.

2007, dir. Scott Hicks. With Catherine Zeta-Jones, Aaron Eckhart, Abigail Breslin, Patricia Clarkson, Bab Balaban.

Nobody

Bob Odenkirk plays Hutch Mansell, a guy who appears to be stuck in a crap 9-to-5 job and a dull family life. But we rapidly find out that he's got some serious skills when a break-in at his house shows him choosing NOT to use those skills ... and then he takes a bus ride late at night essentially praying for a fight - and he proceeds to take out five Russian gangsters on his own (this is in the trailer, and fairly early in the film). Unfortunately, he hospitalizes the brother of a seriously unhinged Russian gangster, which leads to more fighting and gun-play (or we wouldn't have a movie).

The action strikes a perfect balance - for me at least - between bloody realism and bravado. Hutch absorbs a lot of damage, but Odenkirk totally sells Hutch working through it. He's ... focussed. How they can take "John Wick" and remove the Gun Fu and Keanu Reeves and still have a story as good as this is pretty amazing. I mean - they even have the same nasty Russians, and the same rescue pet at the end. Hutch makes a couple attempts to explain his skills by talking to people he's already beat up ... but they keep dying on him. It's a clever conceit to fill the audience in on why he's as skilled as he is. Odenkirk is great as the world-weary lead who wants a peaceful life ... but who also kind of misses the violence of his previous profession, and most of the success of the movie is down to him. But the action's really good too. One of the best action movies of the last several years.

2021, dir. Ilya Naishuller. With Bob Odenkirk, Connie Nielsen, RZA, Christopher Lloyd, Alexsey Serebrayakov, Gage Munroe, Paisley Cadorath, Michael Ironside.

Nobody's Watching, Season 1

"Nobody's Watching" is a slightly bizarre Netflix comedy from Brazil about "angelus" (not, they insist, "angels") who protect the living. Our main character is Uli (Victor Lamoglia), a new angelus - who has appeared fully formed, the first new angelus in 300 years. All the other angeli work in an unchanging system, never asking questions, and never seeing "the big boss." Uli tries to fit in, but immediately starts breaking rules, doing what makes sense to him. He becomes friends with a couple of the older angeli, Chun (Danilo de Moura) and Greta (Júlia Rabello) and the humans Sandro (Leandro Ramos) and Miriam (Kéfera Buchmann) while getting in trouble with his rule-abiding supervisor Fred (Augusto Madeira).

Goofy and fun, it makes an entertaining follow-up to "The Good Place."

2019. With Victor Lamoglia, Júlia Rabello, Danilo de Moura, Augusto Madiera, Kéfera Buchmann, Leandro Romos.

Noises Off

A British director (Michael Caine) brings a hit sex farce play to the U.S., where he contends with a not-terribly-bright cast and off-stage escapades (which he gets substantially involved in). There's a great deal of straight-up slapstick humour - some of which is even genuinely funny. Not really my kind of thing though.

1992, dir. Peter Bogdanovich. With Michael Caine, Carol Burnett, Julie Hagerty, John Ritter, Christopher Reeve, Denholm Elliott, Marilu Henner, Mark Linn-Baker, Nicollette Sheridan.

Nope

Our heroes are Otis Haywood Jr. (Daniel Kaluuya) and his somewhat irresponsible sister Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer). Otis is trying to run the family horse-training business after the movie opened on the death of his father (Keith David). He's losing ground, and weird stuff is happening all around his California ranch - things that point to visits by a UFO. He and his sister set out to make a profit from filming those strange happenings.

Otis and Emerald are well-drawn characters. The dude from Fry's who helps them out with all their cameras is a bit clichéd (Brandon Perea), and the cinematographer who helps them (Michael Wincott) seems to be a parody of some famous director (possibly Werner Herzog without the accent). I get why Peele included the whole sub-plot about Steven Yeun and his traumatic experience as a child TV star - but that doesn't make it a good or worthwhile sub-plot, it all felt kind of unnecessary.

Wikipedia's "Themes and interpretations" section may be worth reading for those who'd like to disagree with me: it encourages a deeper look at the movie, which apparently rights wrongs in the movie industry and forces us to consider the problems with "spectacle" and "exploitation" in film. I'm not saying they're wrong, and I get that Jordan Peele is all the rage right now, I do. But on the surface, this just seemed ... silly to me. General consensus says it's "horror" ... but it's pretty weak-ass horror and I found it a dull viewing experience.

2022, dir. Jordan Peele. With Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Michael Wincott, Brandon Perea, Keith David.

North by Northwest

One of Hitchcock's most famous films, "North by Northwest" follows the adventures of clever advertising executive Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant), who is mistaken for a spy or secret agent or ... he's not sure what, but now he's framed for murder, people want him dead, and the police don't believe him at all. In his pursuit of the man he's been mistaken for, he crosses paths with the beautiful but deceptive Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), is the subject of an attempted murder-by-airplane, and finds himself chased across the face of Mount Rushmore.

The dialogue is acidic and hilarious. Some allowances have to be made in 2016 for the scenes that are supposed to be "tense:" we've ratcheted up "tension" in movies to a totally unrealistic level (and modern special effects are more believable than those available to Hitchcock) such that a merely real scene of tension barely holds us. But it's Hitchcock: it's intelligent and well written and well performed, an enjoyable movie.

1959, dir. Alfred Hitchcock. With Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Martin Landau, Leo G. Carroll, Jessie Royce Landis.

Northanger Abbey (1986)

Jane Austen wrote a satire - a lot of people don't know that. Partly because it's not her best writing, possibly because - by modern standards - it's a bit difficult to identify as a satire. It might seem that it's just a bit ... silly. The fact that modern audiences possibly can't even tell that Austen's tongue is planted firmly in her cheek makes the story hard to film ...

Catherine Morland is a young woman who loves her Gothic novels (Wikipedia defines them by saying they include "a threatening mystery and an ancestral curse, as well as countless trappings such as hidden passages and oft-fainting heroines"). Catherine is invited to Bath by her rich friends the Allens, where she meets many new people - among them Henry Tilney. She's invited to the Tilney house, Northanger Abbey - a large and forbidding place full of history, where her imagination leans to the books she's always reading. My biggest problem with the novel (yes, I read it) was that while Catherine is fairly sweet, Henry is a great deal more intelligent than her and I really thought it was a bad match ... who knows, maybe that's part of the satire.

This BBC made-for-TV production with Katharine Schlesinger as Catherine Moreland, and Peter Firth as Henry Tilney, is a slight thing of little substance and poor acting. Plot points are given so little time that you really don't have time to register them before we've moved on, and a great deal of the book's content has been removed. It's an exceptionally weak production that's already well on its way (in 2004) to being deservedly forgotten.

2023 Update: I came by a DVD copy of this recently and rewatched pieces of it. It seems this production (aside from severely curtailing the plot) emphasized that Henry is much more intelligent than Catherine, and he likes to speak in obscure references that she simply doesn't understand. And this only makes it harder to believe that the two would want to marry each other. Just not a good production.

1986, dir. Giles Foster. With Katharine Schlesinger, Peter Firth, Robert Hardy, Googie Withers, Geoffrey Chater, Cassie Stuart, Jonathan Coy, Ingrid Lacey, Greg Hicks.

Northanger Abbey (2007)

The opening credits of this 2007 British TV adaptation of Austen's most difficult novel (it's a satire, and people aren't quite sure what to do with it) mentioned the writer was "Andrew Davies," and I thought this was auspicious although I couldn't remember why I thought that. It was only later that I found that he was the man who brought us the famous and much-worshipped Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle version of "Pride and Prejudice." Even had I known that and expected great things, I don't think it would have set my hopes too high: this is a great interpretation of the book. Particularly compared to the painful 1987 version (above) I watched recently.

Felicity Jones is Catherine Morland, the oldest of nine(?) children, a bit of a tomboy, and a huge fan of Gothic novels. She's invited to Bath by some friends of the family, where she encounters some friends of her brother (the brother is a nice guy, but his choice in friends is questionable) and the Tilney family - including Henry Tilney, played by J.J. Feild. And already we're doing much better than the last version - partly for a very good reason (immensely better writing) and partly for a very shallow reason (both the leads are quite attractive). I don't require my leads to be attractive normally, but in a rom com (I can hear the cries of "great literature!" now, and Austen is that, but her books are also rom coms) it's necessary to believe that the leads will fall in love with each other - and I had some trouble with that in the previous version.

Davies takes some liberties, including a clear statement of some of the people actually having sex with each other (Austen would never even hint at such a thing), but he did a great job bringing the characters to life. And - despite a relatively short run-time, he managed to fit in most of the plot without making it feel rushed. It's not really a satire in this version, and it's not entirely accurate to the original text (although I suspect many of the best lines came straight from the original - it's been a while since I read it), but I would argue it's now a better drama than it was previously. And Davies made Catherine a bit brighter: I remember thinking when I read the book that Henry Tilney, who is a very smart man indeed, had chosen somewhat below him and would live to regret the match. But in this version, while she's still an innocent, Catherine is intelligent and funny and it felt like they'd do very well.

Beautifully written, constructed and acted, a joy to watch. Jones and Feild in the leads are perfectly cast.

2007, dir. Jon Jones. With Felicity Jones, J.J. Feild, Carey Mulligan, William Beck, Hugh O'Conor, Catherine Walker, Liam Cunningham, Mark Dymond.

Nothing Sacred

A screwball comedy from 1937, and one of the earliest films I've seen shot in Technicolor (not the earliest movie made with Technicolor, but Wikipedia claims it was the first "screwball comedy"). Fredric March plays the best reporter at his New York newspaper, but when an African Prince he brought to a charity event turns out to be a Harlem shoeshine man, he's demoted to the obituaries. He convinces his boss (the ever-present Walter Connolly - with the interesting character name of "Oliver Stone") to allow him to follow up a story about a small-town girl with radium poisoning (Carole Lombard). Unfortunately for him (although he doesn't find out for a while), she too is a fake.

The film sounded good on paper, taking jabs at the honesty of people in general, the press in particular, and the absurdity of media-generated fame. But the movie felt like someone had a basic concept ("newspaper man on the trail of a tear-jerking story that's a fake"), and a bunch of jokes that didn't necessarily fit the plot. No time seems to have been spent on integrating the jokes into the plot, they're just plopped down at appropriate intervals ... and most of them I didn't even find funny. If you listen to me, it's pretty damn unimpressive. If you listen to Rotten Tomatoes (as I did!), 10 critics out of 10 think it's a good movie.

1937, dir. William A. Wellman. With Fredric March, Carole Lombard, Charles Winninger, Walter Connolly, Sig Ruman, Frank Fay, Maxie Rosenbloom, Margaret Hamilton.

Notorious

Most people rate "Notorious" as one of Alfred Hitchcock's best movies, and watching it (again) after seeing "North by Northwest" a few days ago, I think I'm with them. It's tense, uncomfortable, and thought-provoking. But also heroic, noble, and romantic. To be all those things, in one movie ...

Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman) is party girl whose father is convicted in an American court for supporting the Nazis, and T.R. Devlin (Cary Grant) is an American agent who approaches Alicia to recruit her to help discover Nazi activities in Brazil. They fall in love, but Devlin isn't willing to deal with her history and treats her badly. To prove herself to him or because she's feeling rejected, she keeps getting into more and more danger while he's callous and acts as an enabler.

What sets the movie apart is the quality of the writing (often the case with Hitchcock), the quality of the acting (just about the best cast you could get in 1946), and the uncomfortable topics indirectly addressed (she marries a man to spy on him). Well done and nerve-wracking, Bergman is particularly magnetic. A superb and highly recommended movie.

The title remains something of a mystery to me. I wrote in my original review that I'd found an explanation online: she was "notorious" because her father was a Nazi. But the extras on the DVD I watched this time described a part of the script that didn't make it into the final product in which she was described as "notorious" because of her partying and scandalous constant swapping of gentleman friends before meeting Devlin. Either - or both - will do, I suppose.

1946, dir. Alfred Hitchcock. With Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant, Claude Rains, Louis Calhern.

Notting Hill

Possibly the best romantic comedy ever made. Hugh Grant is at his most charming, Julia Roberts at her most beautiful, and both act quite well. Very funny.

Grant plays William Thacker, who owns a travel bookstore in Notting Hill, London. Roberts is Anna Scott, the most famous movie star on the planet. A pair of chance encounters in his neighbourhood of Notting Hill set them on an oft-interrupted romantic voyage. Rhys Ifans plays Thacker's bungling and socially inept roommate. Thacker's wonderful friends (a marvellous British ensemble) add immeasurably to the story.

1999. dir. Roger Michell. With Hugh Grant, Julia Roberts, Rhys Ifans.

Now You See Me

The movie starts by introducing several magicians: the illusionist Danny Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), the escape artist Henley Reeves (Isla Fisher), the mentalist Merritt McKinney (Woody Harrelson), and con-man and lock-pick Jack Wilder (Dave Franco). They're brought together by a mysterious summons. The movie then jumps forward a year, showing their spectacular combined stage show, and introducing the team's financier Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine), magic debunker Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman), and - after the team appears to rob a bank in Paris via teleportation from Las Vegas, FBI agent Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo) and Interpol agent Alma Dray (Mélanie Laurent).

Woo - did you get all that? It's a big cast of characters, but the movie handles them astonishingly well.

Despite Thaddeus pointing out - correctly - that the magicians will always be several steps ahead of the investigators, Dylan trails doggedly along behind them being repeatedly humiliated when he doesn't keep up. Alma looks like she might have a clue, but - while never quite so far behind as Dylan - doesn't manage to catch up to them either. The end result is a somewhat goofy and unbelievable heist movie with some rather bad logic, but if you can suspend disbelief for a couple hours it's still a lot of fun.

SPOILER ALERT ... don't read what follows if you haven't seen the movie, and don't read it if you've seen the movie, enjoyed it and don't want the magic spoiled!

Logic problems: 1) how did Dylan become part of the Eye? He was 12 when his father died, and he's an FBI agent with no history of ever doing magic? 2) how did a 12 year old have the resources to get to the bottom of the river to find the safe his father died in and know it had collapsed because of bad steel - when a recovery effort was clearly made by someone not 12 years old? 3) The Eye is supposed to be all about giving back to the poor and disadvantaged, a kind of magical Robin Hood ... and yet for a year they worked on a personal vendetta? 4) some of the magic tricks aren't actually possible with current technology. I'm undoubtedly missing many others, but these are some of the major ones and I think you get the idea.

2013, dir. Louis Leterrier. With Mark Ruffalo, Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, Morgan Freeman, Mélanie Laurent, Dave Franco, Michael Caine.

Now You See Me 2

I saw this movie on a flight from Beijing to Toronto - which means a minuscule screen and possible editing "for content" by the airline. I watched it because I quite enjoyed the first movie (no masterpiece, but a lot of fun), and they have a good cast.

The movie picks up about a year after the previous one, with the crew still in hiding because they're wanted by police. They plan a big "magical" take-down of a duplicitous tech giant, but are themselves caught in someone else's web. Trapped and manipulated, they're forced to do someone else's bidding as they struggle to free themselves.

The problem is the same as it often is with Hollywood movies: sequels are thought to have to "go big or go home." Stunts and tricks are bigger, and even more importantly, plot twists are bigger. That's trouble, as the writers seem to think it's going to be really cool to reverse most of what you knew about the cast from the previous movie. I can't explain this much without blowing significant parts of the end of the movie, but let's just say it's too much and not well played. In large part because this isn't a drama, it's a spectacle, and they don't give enough time to the drama - all that stuff is just rushed over.

When the movie is more visual spectacle than drama, a tiny screen doesn't do the movie any favours. But a big screen wouldn't have helped this: the drama is too thin and the reliance on flash too significant. Just bad, and a waste of a hell of a cast.

2016, dir. Jon M. Chu. With Jesse Eisenberg, Lizzy Caplan, Mark Ruffalo, Daniel Radcliffe, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Jay Chou, Tsai Chin, Sanaa Lathan, David Warshofsky.

The November Man

Pierce Brosnan plays Peter Devereaux, a CIA agent. We first see him with the much younger agent David Mason (Luke Bracey) who he's training. They go on a short mission together, Mason takes a shot to kill an assassin against Devereaux's orders - the shot saves Devereaux's life but accidentally kills a child in the crowded square they were working in. Devereaux retires ... and the movie is already falling down, ten or fifteen minutes in, because we don't know if he retired because he was old or had moral qualms, and we see nothing of his - reportedly - peaceful retired life, because an instant later - "five years," we are assured on screen - he's pulled back into the agent's life to extract a friend of his from a bad spot in Russia. This pits him against the Russians, but ultimately and more importantly, his ex-student. And involves him with a beautiful refugee aid worker (Olga Kurylenko) who he needs to keep safe.

I think Devereaux is meant to be an appealing character. But he's a worn down and unpleasant guy who does some rather nasty things - even as he works to avoid killing non-combatants - it's hard to sympathize with him. The ending is particularly problematic as Devereaux is forced to rely on a moral about-face in another character AND that that character could recruit others from within a hostile organization. Cold and uninvolving, another well produced and unrewarding movie.

2014, dir. Roger Donaldson. With Pierce Brosnan, Luke Bracey, Olga Kurylenko, Eliza Taylor, Lazar Ristovski.

Numb3rs (Season 2)

A more directed season than the first one. Rob Morrow and David Krumholtz are good as the brothers, FBI agent and genius math professor respectively. Judd Hirsch is also good as their father, and the series sticks to what it's best at: math and family. The mysteries aren't mysteries in the sense that you can solve them yourself if you pay enough attention - sit back and relax, we'll show you. And the math is pretty thin - but then, I'm an engineer: I'm in a small subset of people who might actually be interested in the details. Ultimately entertaining enough, but hardly inspiring: I'm not going to rush to watch the rest of the series.

2005. With Rob Morrow, David Krumholtz, Judd Hirsch, Alimi Ballard, Diane Farr, Dylan Bruno, Peter MacNicol.

Number Seventeen

Another early Hitchcock (following "Rich and Strange," which I watched a couple months ago). This one was made in 1932 - the year after "Rich and Strange."

The movie is a mystery box, opening with two unnamed men bumping into each other at a house that's for rent. But it's the middle of the night and they find a corpse in the house with them. As they're trying to sort things out, things move around and people arrive, and we still don't know who anyone is ...

Hitchcock hated this movie. I think it's a little better than "Rich and Strange," but still not particularly good. It shows Hitchcock's growing love of reaching shadows - the shadow of a hand reaching for a doorknob and the like.

1932, dir. Alfred Hitchcock. With Leon M. Lion, Anne Grey, John Stuart, Donald Calthrop, Barry Jones, Ann Casson, Henry Caine, Garry Marsh.

The Numbers Station

John Cusack plays CIA black ops agent Emerson Kent given a boring assignment at a "numbers station" after he starts feeling pangs of conscience and fails an assignment. Malin Akerman plays the non-agent cryptographer that he's protecting. One day their heavily fortified base comes under co-ordinated attack by heavily armed and knowledgeable agents of "the other side" (what "other side" is never specified, and doesn't really matter).

Cusack and Åkerman get by far the majority of the screen time. Cusack is quite good, but neither likeable nor nasty enough to really be compelling. Åkerman is good. The big problem is that the movie feels like it's stumbling around trying to find direction. It's supposed to be about Kent's crisis of conscience, but it doesn't quite hold together. They also use a visual trick of implying someone is dead not once but twice, to cheat the viewer without in any way forwarding the plot but seriously pissing this viewer off. A considerable disappointment as a whole.

2013, dir. Kasper Barfoed. With John Cusack, Malin Akerman, Liam Cunningham, Richard Brake, Bryan Dick, Lucy Griffiths.


O

Oblivion

The basic concept has Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) and Victoria Olsen (Andrea Riseborough) as the last humans on the Earth, doing clean-up after an alien attack. Humanity has moved on to Titan, and the aliens are occasionally attacking the human generators that are sucking fuel out of the oceans. Jack is the more inquisitive of the two: he looks at the ruins of human civilization, picks up books and trinkets.

One of the most beautiful films I've ever seen: the filming, the set design, the plane that's on screen for a good quarter of the movie, all beautiful. And yet, for all that trouble, the not-quite-as-it-seems ideas are fairly pedestrian and predictable, and ultimately the movie is a bit of a disappointment. Too bad, it looked so very pretty.

2013, dir. Joseph Kosinski. With Tom Cruise, Andrea Riseborough, Olga Kurylenko, Morgan Freeman, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Melissa Leo.

Obvious Child

Donna Stern (Jenny Slade) is an aspiring stand-up comedian. The movie opens with her on stage, delivering what turns out to be a typically crass and over-sharing monologue, after which her boyfriend dumps her in the bathroom. It should be noted here that a couple of friends have labelled me as a "prude," so what's "crass and over-sharing" to me may well work for you - it certainly did for the critics over at Rotten Tomatoes, where the movie sits at 90%. I don't have a problem with the occasional crude joke, but an 80 minute barrage by a character I rapidly grew to dislike was incredibly off-putting ... and after all that we get a sweet and charming ending. Where the hell did that come from?! Ugh.

2014, dir. Gillian Robespierre. With Jenny Slate, Gaby Hoffmann, Jake Lacy, Richard Kind, Polly Draper, David Cross.

Ocean's Eleven (2001)

A witty heist movie with a famous director and a cast of stars. The characters are introduced one by one, not given a lot of time but enough. And then there's a big and complex robbery ... with another level to it that you don't see until the flashback at the end fills you in. Beautifully constructed and very entertaining.

2001, dir. Steven Soderbergh. With George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts, Andy García, Don Cheadle, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan, Elliott Gould, Bernie Mac, Carl Reiner, Eddie Jemison, Shaobo Qin.

Ocean's Eleven (1960)

I saw this after the 2001 version. Many similarities, many differences - especially the ending which comes as a real surprise when you've seen the more recent version.

Frank Sinatra plays Danny Ocean, bringing his crew from the 82nd Airborne back together for a Las Vegas heist. Witty dialogue and a fairly clever job follow. My favourite gag: Mother: "You'll miss my wedding!" Son: "Mother, I have never missed one of your weddings." Mother: "Yes you did. The first one."

Neither version is hugely memorable, but I'll take the more recent version. Probably because, while they're both well done, I understand the period and language of the more recent one better.

1960, dir. Lewis Milestone. With Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Angie Dickinson, Richard Conte, Cesar Romero, Joey Bishop, Akim Tamiroff, Henry Silva, Buddy Lester, Richard Benedict.

Ocean's Twelve

Not up to its predecessor. I haven't quite put my finger on why, but partly it's because they went for the cheap jokes a fair bit. One of the beauties of the original was the time they spent with the characters: it's true that you "know" the characters from the previous film, but there are so many of them that it wouldn't hurt - and would probably have benefited the film - to do it again. And the heist isn't as obvious, as central, or as interesting while also being substantially more complex.

2004, dir. Steven Soderbergh. With George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy García, Don Cheadle, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan, Elliott Gould, Bernie Mac, Eddie Jemison, Shaobo Qin, Catherine Zeta-Jones.

Ocean's Thirteen

Slightly more rewarding than "Twelve," but nowhere near "Eleven." And "Eleven" was never on a scale that included great movies, it was just good fun. The heist is complex, but we're in on most of it thus avoiding one of the major problems of "Twelve." But I found it hard to suspend disbelief for their solution, and it wasn't as clever a solution as it was in the previous ones. Some good gags, but not very good overall.

2007, dir. Steven Soderbergh. With George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Al Pacino, Matt Damon, Andy García, Don Cheadle, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan, Elliott Gould, Bernie Mac, Carl Reiner, Eddie Jemison, Shaobo Qin.

Ocean's 8

According to Wikipedia, some of the actors in this movie have implied or even stated that the mediocre reviews received by the movie are partly because of the predominance of men doing reviews (the "8" are all women). So you can feel free to discount my review right now. Or you can consider that the movie is getting mediocre reviews because it's just not very good and it has nothing to do with gender.

The movie opens with Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock), sister to Danny Ocean (she was never mentioned and certainly never seen across three previous "Ocean's" movies) having a parole hearing. Exactly like the beginning of "Ocean's Eleven." But less appealing. And after her release, it became clear that she simply doesn't have Danny's charm. George Clooney was spectacularly charming as Danny Ocean - but it wasn't just Clooney himself (although that really helps), but also the script (and Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon ...). Bullock is graced with neither: she doesn't have Clooney's charm, and the script makes her a bit mean and unpleasant. Cate Blanchett as her best friend neither helps nor hinders, despite being distinctive: she doesn't come across as any more appealing. And so it goes as they add members to their team.

The heist was acceptable, but not great. And just like the previous Ocean's movies, there's a heist-within-the-heist that's only revealed right at the end (which doesn't particularly improve the whole thing). It wasn't very funny either: they were tossing out jokes, but all they got back from me was a shrug or an occasional smile. Not a single laugh. There are scenes in "Ocean's Eleven" that I still laugh at after multiple viewings.

It's not a terrible movie, but I would encourage you to re-watch the excellent Clooney version of "Ocean's Eleven" rather than watching this.

2018, dir. Gary Ross. With Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Awkwafina, Rihanna, Helena Bonham Carter, Richard Armitage, James Corden.

October Faction, Season 1

Ten episodes of about 50 minutes each on Netflix: it becomes less surprising in its absurdity when you learn that it was based on a comic series of the same name.

Deloris Allen (Tamara Taylor) and Fred Allen (J.C. MacKenzie) are a couple who travel the world killing monsters for "the Presidio." They have twin children in their teens (Aurora Burghart and Gabriel Darku) who know nothing of their parents' profession and are very tired of moving about once a year. As the series begins, the family is sent back to the town where Fred and Deloris grew up, after Fred's father (also an agent of the Presidio) dies. And, unfortunately for the twins, it's October (apparently a notoriously monster-heavy month, although this is never explained) and their parents' profession is about to make itself very clear to them.

The problem with the series is it's trying to do too many things: it wants to be a horror-comedy with family drama and school drama and political intrigue and lots and lots of supernatural stuff. But it's not horrifying. It's only intermittently funny: I did get a couple big laughs, but I watched a lot of other "jokes" whiz by without a twitch of reaction. And they go for a big reversal of all your perceptions, everything they've "taught" you, as you approach the end of the season. It's too much, too many pieces. It's got some good ideas, but it's too messy to hold together.

My favourite thing about the series was MacKenzie as the family patriarch: he looks and acts like a tired, middle-aged man. It's not the look of a classic action hero - but that's the role he's in and he'll deal with it. He's intelligent and competent and will do anything to hold his family together, and he's also determined to do the right thing.


In clicking through the actors I discovered that every major character is Canadian - with the exception of Burghart, who is British - and at least a couple of the producers are Canadian. Filming was in Canada, which is common enough for American productions ... although it was shot in Cambridge, Ontario - not usually a filming destination. Wikipedia doesn't call this a Canadian production - I suspect the money is American.

2020. With Tamara Taylor, J.C. MacKenzie, Aurora Burghart, Gabriel Darku, Maxim Roy, Stephen McHattie, Wendy Crewson, Megan Follows, Anwen O'Driscoll, Nicola Correia-Damude, Dayo Ade.

October Sky

Tells the story of Homer Hickam (Jake Gyllenhaal), a high school student in Coalwood, West Virginia. Homer wants to build rockets - an aspiration his coal mine foreman father (Chris Cooper) is actively against. He does however have very strong support from his science teacher (Laura Dern).

This movie has a number of things going for it: Homer Hickam is a real person and NASA engineer who wrote an autobiographical book called Rocket Boys (an anagram of "October Sky"), which the movie is based on. Gyllenhaal puts in a really good performance. The period setting is done very well. And the movie is just plain uplifting.

I'm not usually a fan of Dern, but she's both lovely and convincing here. Initially she seems to be overselling the supportiveness, but after a discussion with the school principal it becomes clear that she's desperate to see any of her students escape the boring and often terminal life in the mines that is otherwise their only lot. Cooper is one-note negative toward his son although he does good things for other people. I didn't think it was a good performance, which was disappointing as Cooper is usually very good (we can perhaps blame the script here rather than Cooper ...).

Highly recommended - especially for science geeks, but should make just about anyone cheer.

1999, dir. Joe Johnston. With Jake Gyllenhaal, Chris Cooper, Laura Dern, Scott Miles, Chris Owen, William Lee Scott, Chad Lindberg.

The Odd Couple

This is a "classic?!!" I didn't expect a great movie, but this ... Urgh. Proof that massively exaggerating personality quirks for humour is not only an incredibly long-standing tradition, but can lead to a "classic" movie.

The movie starts with the fastidious Felix Ungar (Jack Lemmon) attempting suicide after his marriage breaks up, but it's just too inconvenient. So he goes to his Friday night poker game, and ends up staying with his buddy Oscar Madison (Walter Matthau) - who is a complete slob. They drive each other crazy. There were two or three laugh-out-loud gags, and that was pretty much it for me: the rest of it was just irritating. I guess I should have known better: it was written by Neil Simon.

1968, dir. Gene Saks. With Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, John Fiedler, Herb Edelman, David Sheiner, Larry Haines, Monica Evans, Carole Shelley.

The Odd Life of Timothy Green

A Disney movie that feels more like one of their 80s live action movies than something they'd make in 2012. Cloyingly sweet, with adults who are childish and have to be educated by the unusual (and emotionally mature) child who has entered into their life. We expect better from Disney these days - at least for their theatrically released movies.

Timothy is born one night in the Green's (Jennifer Garner and Joel Edgerton) garden. He has (heart-shaped) leaves on his legs. And, as we know from the beginning (the frame story finds the Greens at an adoption agency, telling the story of Timothy), he leaves them fairly soon. CJ Adams is cute as Timothy, and it's well meant, but it's also nauseatingly sweet and heavy-handed.

2012, dir. Peter Hedges. With Jennifer Garner, Joel Edgerton, CJ Adams, Common, Dianne Wiest, Rosemarie DeWitt, Ron Livingston, Odeya Rush, M. Emmet Walsh, Lois Smith, David Morse.

Odd Thomas

According to Wikipedia, the concept of horror-comedy dates back to Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," first published in 1820. It's a well worn genre at the movies, but this one is new: cutesy-horror.

"Odd Thomas" is based on a story by Dean Koontz that I haven't read so I'm unable to comment on the quality of the conversion process. Odd (Anton Yelchin) is, as his name suggests, a little unusual: he sees dead people. And yes, there's a bit of "The Sixth Sense" about it, with Odd using his ability to see a young girl who was recently raped and killed to find and catch the killer. It's also established that the town's police chief (Willem Dafoe, kind of wasted in this role) knows about Odd's skills and helps him out. All fine so far. But then we're introduced to Stormy (Addison Timlin), Odd's girlfriend - and their hyper-cute relationship that is repeatedly referred to as being meant to last forever. And now we're given the motivator for the main story arc: a man comes into the diner where Odd works, surrounded by "bodachs," evil spirits that only Odd can see that presage multiple deaths. The majority of the film is Odd trying to figure out what's going to happen and then prevent it.

The primary problem is the tone of the movie. For me, Odd's upbeat personality and attitude didn't make any damn sense for someone who spends a fair bit of his life following ghosts and helping apprehend murderers. And his relationship with his girlfriend is nauseatingly cute, which has no place at all in a movie that's trying to have anything to do with horror. Yelchin tries hard, and Dafoe helps when he can but is seriously underused. Just a lousy movie.

2013, dir. Stephen Sommers. With Anton Yelchin, Addison Timlin, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Willem Dafoe, Shuler Hensley, Nico Tortorella.

The Office, Season 1 (BBC)

The blurb on the DVD says "'The Office' is the comedy phenomenon that reveals the cringeworthy truth about life in the white-collar world." It's such a "phenomenon" that an American duplicate starring Steve Carell has run for a couple seasons. Filmed in documentary style with people almost always aware of the camera and occasionally talking directly to it, "cringeworthy" is the most important word in that blurb. If you like humiliation and people (most particularly Ricky Gervais as the boss and Mackenzie Crook as his assistant) embarrassing themselves, this is your kind of comedy. It's not my thing. I made it through the six episodes on this disk, which is more than can be said about the American version: I only lasted about two episodes with that. An interesting comparison: the British version is probably 1/3rd sex jokes: those are all gone from the American version.

2001, dir. Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. With Ricky Gervais, Martin Freeman, Mackenzie Crook, Lucy Davis.

Office Space

Very funny attack on office life, sort of a Live action "Dilbert." If you work in a cube farm you HAVE to see this. Even if you don't you'll understand the frustrations from your own work environment. The red Swingline stapler (Swingline now makes one and it's very popular) and the attack on the printer/fax are particular highlights.

1999, dir. Mike Judge. With Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston, David Herman, Ajay Naidu, Diedrich Bader, Stephen Root, Gary Cole.

An Officer and a Gentleman

I didn't like it much, but I have to admit it was extremely well done on some levels. Terribly clichéd in some ways, and quite heavy-handed in spots. But the acting was good (Lou Gossett Jr. was excellent) and it had ... I suppose I'll have to use the word "honesty." Working class people struggling with real lives. And sex portrayed as a part of life rather than something lurid or something to be hidden.

The story follows slacker asshole Zack Mayo (Richard Gere) as he randomly (almost) joins the Navy in the hope of flying jets, and gets a lot more than he'd expected.

1982, dir. Taylor Hackford. With Richard Gere, Debra Winger, Louis Gossett Jr., David Keith, Robert Loggia, Lisa Blount, Lisa Eilbacher.

Offside

An Iranian film about young women trying to sneak into the 2006 Iran-Bahrain World Cup Football match. 100,000 screaming fans - and they're all male, because no women are allowed in. The pace is extraordinarily leisurely and the acting poor. I suppose it's interesting because the director clearly believes that women should be let into the games and is challenging a long-standing Iranian taboo, but I found it dull.

2006, dir. Jafar Panahi.

O'Horten

Odd Horten (Bård Owe) is a Norwegian train engineer who is retiring. The movie deals with his last couple days of employment and the beginning of his retirement. And the very, very odd situations he finds himself in.

A fair bit of deadpan Scandinavian humour entirely failed to make me laugh. It will work for some, as it's fairly clever and well done. The opening shot of a train going through multiple tunnels and alternate snow-covered landscape was a brilliant bit of cinematography, but overall the movie was a dead loss for me.

2007, dir. Bent Hamer. With Bård Owe, Espen Skjønberg, Henny Moan, Ghita Nørby.

Old Boy

After 15 years of captivity for unknown reasons, by unknown captors, our main character is released. The movie is end-to-end about revenge, and it's even more vile than I had managed to imagine. The critics loved this, and it'll certainly get your attention. Expect to leave it feeling at least mildly ill.

2003, dir. Chan-wook Park. With Min-sik Choi, Ji-tae Yu, Hye-jeong Kang.

The Old Guard

From Netflix, "The Old Guard" stars Charlize Theron as "Andy," whose full name turns out to be Andromache of Scythia ... keeping in mind that the Scythians ceased to be a dominant force in the world in the 3rd century BC. She leads a team of three others, all equally as hard to kill (although none so old). The four of them guard humanity from itself, doing violence to save innocent lives. But times are changing: on their most recent job, they realize they've been discovered, with a recording of their recoveries from mortal wounds having been made. And at the same time, they realize that a new immortal (KiKi Layne) has just gone through her first death and resurrection.

The story isn't new: war-weary do-gooder warriors, with the superhero twist that they essentially re-animate if they're killed. They don't know why. The modern world has caught up to them and wants their powers. But spectacularly good action sequences, good writing, and good acting make this a really enjoyable ride. The action is top-notch: Theron in particular moves so quickly and smoothly that you begin to believe she's been doing it two thousand years. And nobody has ever sold the tired-of-being-alive immortal bit as well as she does either. I can't classify it as great art, but action flicks don't come any better than this.

My one reservation and annoyance was they deliberately set up a sequel - which can't be as good. Thinking about that made me realize one of the things that made this good in the first place, the scale: they didn't save the world. They're fighting for their lives, and that's drama enough. Think of all the superhero sequels: every single one goes bigger, and they're never as good as the origin story.

2020, dir. Gina Prince-Bythewood. With Charlize Theron, KiKi Layne, Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari, Lucas Marinelli, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Harry Melling, Van Veronica Ngo, Anamaria Marinca, Joey Ansah.

Old Henry

We're first introduced to a trio of men led by Ketchum (Stephen Dorff) pursuing and brutally extracting information from another man. We then meet Henry (Tim Blake Nelson) and his son Wyatt (Gavin Lewis), working hard to maintain a life on their farm - a life Wyatt is very unenthusiastic about. Henry finds a badly injured man who's been shot, and a very large amount of cash. He reluctantly takes the man home to get him a doctor, which puts him on a collision course with Ketchum. Most people - particularly Wyatt - assume Henry is "just a farmer," but we know better and Ketchum spots it immediately.

Blake Nelson has always been a decent actor, although he's generally leaned to fairly comedic roles. This role isn't remotely comedic. Henry has a terrible haircut and a droopy eye and he really doesn't give a shit how he looks, he's a farmer. He's also far, far more dangerous than he initially appears. This is the performance of Blake Nelson's life (so far): he's excellent. The story is brutal, dark, and very effective.

It's also very similar - in my mind - to Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven." Both are about older outlaws who have settled down to domesticity but are forced to revive the skills of their youth. Eastwood's character embarked on that voyage slightly more voluntarily, but neither story ends well. This one stands on its own though: it's a very fine piece of work.

2021, dir. Potsy Ponciroli. With Tim Blake Nelson, Scott Haze, Gavin Lewis, Trace Adkins, Stephen Dorff, Richard Speight Jr., Max Arciniega, Brad Carter.

Olympus Has Fallen

Gerald Butler stars as Mike Banning, a Secret Service agent who falls from grace with the president in the first ten minutes of the movie. Shortly thereafter, the White House is invaded - very successfully - by North Korean terrorists (yeah, like that's a believable threat). And by an incredibly improbable series of events, Banning is the last American standing in the White House. You figure out what happens from there.

All the leads act very well for an action movie. Butler is still good looking and charismatic, but he's looking a little pink and old. Worse, he's four different people here: a good friend to the president, a loving but mildly neglectful husband to his wife (not that that gets a lot of screen time), a fun buddy to the president's kid, and an incredibly ruthless mercenary when he's fighting. That latter character really doesn't sit well with the others when he's torturing North Koreans for information without the slightest qualms. The movie is methodical and well constructed, but it's also loaded with the usual abundance of improbabilities, totally humourless (there's one joke at the end and it stands out like a sore thumb), and distinctly unengaging. And for non-Americans, the large dose of American jingoism will probably leave a sour taste in the mouth.

Very similar to, and released in the same year as the remarkably similar "White House Down" ... which at least had the sense of humour this one lacked.

2013, dir. Antoine Fuqua. With Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett, Robert Forster, Rick Yune, Cole Hauser, Melissa Leo, Dylan McDermott, Radha Mitchell, Finley Jacobsen, Ashley Judd.

On Your Wedding Day

The first third of the movie concentrates on the relationship of our two main characters in high school, and the humour is quite broad. Our leads are Hwang Woo-yeon (played by Kim Young-kwang) and Hwan Seung-hee (Park Bo-young). Seung-hee transfers to Woo-yeon's school, and he decides immediately that she's the girl for him. But she transfers back out after they've become friends. Eventually he accidentally discovers the university she's attending, and decides to go there. His parents almost literally fall over laughing because they don't believe he can make it (he's a smart but distinctly unmotivated guy who's now frying chicken for a living). But he does. The movie charts their bumpy friendship and occasional romance.

The leads are charming and convincing. There's less humour as the movie progresses, and it's happily somewhat less broad. It's a good look at how much timing influences romance, and how our choices for one thing affect everything in our lives.

2018, dir. Lee Seok-geun. With Kim Young-kwang, Park Bo-young, Kang Ki-young, Ko Kyu-Pil, Jang Sung-bum, Cha Yup, Seo Eun-soo.

Once

I've seen several references to this as a "musical." I tend to think of "musicals" as movies that involve totally unnecessary dance numbers in the middle of an otherwise perfectly sensible conversation: this involves none of that. What it does have is musicians playing the part of musicians, writing music, singing and playing.

A man playing the streets of Dublin meets a young woman who loves his music. She helps him believe in his own music, he falls for her. There's not much more to it, but it's pretty good.

(As a side note the male lead, Glen Hansard, is the lead singer of "The Frames," and the director used to be the bass player in that band. Co-star Markéta Irglová is a good friend and writing partner of Hansard's.)

2006, dir. John Carney. With Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová.

Once Upon a Time in Mexico

Third in the series that started with "El Mariachi." A large cast, multiple double-crosses, and unrealistic action rapidly made me lose interest in keeping track of who's dead or about to be.

2003, dir. Rodert Rodriguez. With Antonio Banderas, Willem Dafoe, Johnny Depp, Mickey Rourke, Danny Trejo, Salma Hayek.

Once Upon a Time in the West (orig. "C'era una volta il West")

This Western followed right after the "Fistful of Dollars" series, same director (Sergio Leone). Same histrionic direction: long and lingering shots with overbearing scoring and foley, close-ups on faces and/or eyes ... you know the drill if you've seen any of the previous three. I thought this was better than the others, but more frustrating too: there's actually quite a good story buried inside the 165 minute run-time. This would have made a great 90 minute movie.

Claudia Cardinale plays a woman moving to a small town in the west to marry a man, only to arrive and find the man and all of his children were slaughtered that very day. The slaughter is pegged on "Cheyenne" (Jason Robards), a local brigand she has already met - but was actually done by "Frank" (Henry Fonda). There's also the mysterious "Harmonica" (Charles Bronson), out for some form of revenge on Fonda. All becomes clear over the course of the movie. Would have been great if it'd been substantially shorter.

1968, dir. Sergio Leone. With Henry Fonda, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards, Charles Bronson, Gabriele Ferzetti.

Ondine

Syracuse (Colin Farrell) is a fisherman from a small Irish town. He's also an alcoholic, off the bottle for two and a half years when we meet him pulling a lovely woman (Alicja Bachleda) from the ocean in his net. After coughing up some water, she refuses a hospital visit or contact with anyone other than Syracuse - who puts her up in a remote cabin that used to be his mother's. Syracuse's precocious young daughter Annie (Alison Barry) sees through Syracuse's limited story-telling about "the fisherman and the woman in his net" and rolls her wheelchair out to meet the woman who now goes by the name "Ondine." Annie is convinced she's a selkie, a seal who has shed her skin to stay on land for a while.

The filming of the sea and the Irish countryside is magnificent. Farrell turns in a wonderful performance as a gentle and decent man haunted by the ghost of his past and his alcoholism. Bachleda is good as Ondine, and Barry is marvellous as Syracuse's very intelligent, very imaginative daughter. Stephen Rea is funny and likable as the long-suffering local priest, who has to put up with Syracuse's constant confessions despite his refusal to attend mass ("There's no AA in this poxy little town"). Despite it being set in the modern day, the cinematography and story-telling cast an incredible spell that make it feel like fantasy. The last third of the movie has to bring the tone a little closer to reality and isn't quite as good as the first two thirds, but this has nevertheless become one of my all time favourite films. Fantastic.

2010, dir. Neil Jordan. With Colin Farrell, Alicja Bachleda, Alison Barry, Stephen Rea, Dervla Kirwan, Tony Curran.

The One

Jet Li finally gets a halfway decent American movie, in a science fiction setting no less. Present day on our earth, but on parallel earths another version of Li is running around killing off all of the other Li's so he can be "The One." Silly premise leading to some decent special effects and some great martial arts. Sure, it's cheesy - but it's enjoyable.

2001, dir. James Wong. With Jet Li, Jason Statham, Carla Gugino, Delroy Lindo.

101 Dalmations (1961)

One of the true classics of animation (and please, can we forget the 1996 live action version entirely?!). Obscenely cute but also very funny and clever. The scene with the "Cruella De Vil" song still puts me on the floor.

1961, dir. Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske. With Rod Taylor, Ben Wright, Cate Bauer, Lisa Davis, J. Pat O'Malley, David Frankham.

The One I Love

Ethan (Mark Duplass) and Sophie (Elisabeth Moss) are seeing a therapist (Ted Danson - white-haired but still handsome) because their marriage is on the rocks. The therapist encourages them to go to a particular retreat, saying every couple who's gone has come back happy, rejuvenated, in love again. So off they go. They're alone at the retreat (in fact I've now introduced the entire cast - no joke, no one else). But every time one of them goes from the main house into the guest house, really weird shit happens.

I can't say much more without giving away a lot of that happens in the movie. But I'm going to add that I think this should be classified as Science Fiction, because by the time we're done things have happened that simply aren't possible in the modern world as we know it: it posits technology that doesn't yet exist.

Setting that aside, I had a fairly ambivalent reaction to the movie as a whole. The good news is that you never know where the hell it's going, and yet it's still well constructed ... the bad news is that I didn't much like the resulting product, even though it was kind of intriguing. You do get nicely skewered at the end.

2014, dir. Charlie McDowell. With Mark Duplass, Elisabeth Moss, Ted Danson.

One Punch Man

A short animated series from Japan of 12 episodes of 25 minutes each. Based on a long-running manga. The main character is Saitama, who has trained himself to the point that he can defeat anyone or anything with one punch (and, although young, has thus gone bald). And now he's bored, because there's no more challenge in the world for him. Fairly early in the series he acquires a disciple, a very powerful cyborg named Genos who is one of the very few people who recognizes Saitama's skill (Saitama is powerful, but he's also a bit of a goof). Saitama turns out to be a fairly crappy teacher, but happily Genos manages to teach Saitama a few things. They learn of the Hero Association, and when they apply Genos is rated very highly and Saitama ... isn't, because his written skills are so bad (snarking at standardized testing anyone?). There are absurdist, over-powered evil beings. There are lots of heroes, and rivalries among them. It's a very silly series, but I enjoy anything that messes with the idea of superheroes - and it's also surprisingly funny.

2015.

One Week

The premise is simple - thirty year old man (Joshua Jackson) finds out he has advanced and aggressive cancer. Buys motorcycle and rides west, despite the protests of his fiancée (Liane Balaban) who wants him to get treatment immediately.

I watched this to see the very Canadian scenery, and out of a sense of dedication because it was Canadian. So it was a wonderful surprise when it turned out to be a good movie with real characters and an interesting plot. Shades of "Amélie," with both the bizarre narration and the effects that Jackson has on others' lives. Quite good.

2008, dir. Michael McGowan. With Joshua Jackson, Liane Balaban, Campbell Scott, Gord Downie, Emm Gryner, Joel Plaskett.

Ong Bak

You gotta love martial arts movies. The hero is always a peace-loving (but well-trained) individual who fights only when he absolutely has to. Of course, that's usually quite frequently. In this case, first-time performer Tony Jaa is supposed to be a good Buddhist from a small town going to the city to retrieve the head of the village's Buddha. How strange that he should get into dozens of fights. I read one review when it came out that said "the stunts in this movie will have the makers of 'Jackass' reaching for their Medicare cards," and they weren't joking. The stunts are comparable to the kinds of things Jackie Chan was doing in his early movies, although the fighting is much more brutal. The movie is predictable and occasionally annoying, but any fan of martial arts needs to see this.

2003, dir. Prachya Pinkaew. With Tony Jaa, Petchtai Wongkamlao, Pumwaree Yodkamol.

Ong Bak 2

Despite the name this has absolutely nothing to do with "Ong Bak." This one is set around 1420 AD in Thailand during a period of unrest. Tony Jaa plays a man who, at a young age was rescued from slavery and probable death by the leader of a pirate group who then trains him as a warrior and his successor. But Jaa first wants to take revenge on the group that enslaved him, and the nobleman who had his family killed. Violent revenge flicks are fairly common in Thailand, and this dishes it out in spades along with some excellent fights. Unfortunately, the editing is almost incoherent with several incomplete flashbacks and character development is lacking (even given it's a martial arts movie). It's very violent, but if you're a fan of martial arts it may be worth a watch for the fighting.

2008, dir. Tony Jaa, Panna Rittikrai. With Tony Jaa.

Ong Bak 3

Picks up where "Ong Bak 2" left off. I saw this with the worst subtitles I've ever seen. Remembering that this is set 600 years ago, my favourite was probably the statement "I don't have You Tube." So I can't claim to have understood the story at all. But it clearly involved an immense amount of extreme pain, torture, and blood. And various kinds of witchcraft, which look exceptionally stupid without context. But the big failure is that there aren't many fights, and the few there are are pretty poor. What happened to the guy from "Ong Bak" and "The Protector?" Sad.

Near the end of the movie the head of the village Buddha ("Ong Bak") is damaged in one of the fights. This damage is seen on the head of the Ong Bak in the first "Ong Bak" movie, implying that the main character in the first movie may have been a re-incarnation of our main character in this movie. There's the tie-in that we've all been waiting so desperately for ... (sure).

Having seen it more recently with good subs, I can now tell you it only makes slightly more sense. And what I mostly got out of it is that it's loaded to the gills with unexplained Thai mysticism, and it's essentially one step up from torture porn. Even the fighting's not very good. Horrible.

2010, dir. Tony Jaa and Panna Rittikrai. With Tony Jaa, Sarunyu Wongkrajang, Dan Chupong, Nirutti Sirijanya, Primrata Det-Udom.

Onibaba

I thought "Criterion Collection, Japanese, appears to be anime. Should be good." It's not anime, that was just the impression I got from the cover: it's black and white and hand drawn. Obviously someone considers this a classic, but I won't be joining that crowd. Set in the "Warring States" period in Japan, a young woman and her mother-in-law murder injured samurai to sell their armour and weapons to get enough money to survive. They live in the middle of a huge field of grass, and the shots of the wind in the grass became tedious, no matter how pretty. A friend of theirs returns from the war bearing news of the death of the son/husband. We watch as the gorgeous, naive, and not terribly bright young woman is manipulated by the mother and used (quite willingly) by the friend. Lots of sex. An interview with the director included on the disc convinced me that I would have to be an unusual kind of insane to really "get" the movie, at least his vision of it.

1964, dir. Kaneto Shindô. With Nobuko Otowa, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Kei Sato, Jukichi Uno, Senshô Matsumoto.

Only Angels Have Wings

Jean Arthur plays Bonnie Lee, fresh off the banana boat (literally) in South America on a short stop in a small town, where she encounters a bunch of delivery flyers led by Geoff Carter (Cary Grant). They fall for each other - kind of - and she sticks around. Things get more interesting when a new flyer ("Bat MacPherson," played by Richard Barthelmess) shows up - one that several of them know (and actively dislike) by another name. Better yet, he's married to Carter's former flame.

Funny in places, dramatic in others. While it focuses primarily on Grant and Arthur, it's a very good ensemble piece: I particularly liked Barthelmess as MacPherson/Kilgallen. Quite good.

1939, dir. Howard Hawks. With Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Richard Barthelmess, Rita Hayworth, Thomas Mitchell, Sig Ruman.

Only Yesterday

"Only Yesterday" was released in Japan in 1991, but only saw a North American release in 2016.

This is a very hard to describe movie. It appears to be about a young girl - 10 or 12 years old, depending on what part of the movie we're in. But it's surrounded, framed by scenes from the life of her 27 year-old self. The 27 year old is traveling to the country from her home in Tokyo to help with the Safflower harvest, but keeps reflecting back on her childhood. The visual styles of the two periods are significantly different: the scenes with children are often almost entirely bleached out, with only the characters being fully present. The countryside is gloriously beautiful (although the Anime style reflects the fact that this was made on a smaller budget and back in 1991 - we've come to expect more fluidity ...). But despite all the scenes with children, this is definitely a movie for adults - about the process of straightening out your head years later. Very little happens, but it's a quiet and insightful journey that I quite enjoyed.

1991, dir. Isao Takahata. With Miki Imai, Toshirō Yanagiba, Yōko Honna.

Onward

The movie opens on Ian (voiced by Tom Holland), an elf turning sixteen in a world of modern technology a lot like ours - you know, cars, cellphones, but also centaurs and pixies. And we learn that magic exists, but has been forgotten in favour of technology. The movie lays it on thick that his mother (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and older brother Barley (Chris Pratt) embarrass him horribly (although they love him and he loves them). His father died around Ian's birth. And then we see him at school, where they again overload us with the knowledge that he's socially awkward, has trouble standing up for himself, and doesn't believe in himself. This is about 20 minutes of the movie, spent humiliating the main character to show "he's a nice guy but a wimp."

Then, for his sixteenth birthday, his Mom gives him and his brother a magician's staff his father wanted them to have - along with a spell that will resurrect their father for one day. And we soon find that Barley's role-playing game obsession has left him with a knowledge of magic - but no magical skill, whereas Ian has the skill but no knowledge. In casting the spell, they end up with the lower half of their father, and go on a quest to try to finish the spell.

The movie is about family, and faith in family (and to some extent about sacrifice, again for family). The director's commentary (with director Dan Scanlon and his producer Kori Rae, who had less to say) on the DVD made it clear that he built a lot of the movie on the experiences of himself and his brother after their father died very young. The movie's strongest moments revolve around the relationship of the two brothers - when they're not deliberately making the older brother a dick.

I really disliked Scanlon's previous movie, "Monsters University:" I think it's one of Pixar's poorest movies. Sure, "Cars 2" holds down the bottom end of the Pixar scale, but "Monsters University" tried to reach those depths. This isn't as bad as that: family-friendly and occasionally amusing, although lacking Pixar's usual zingers-for-the-adults jokes. It's pretty weak and disappointing on the Pixar scale, and I'm not a fan.

2020, dir. Dan Scanlon. With Tom Holland, Chris Pratt, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Octavia Spencer, Mel Rodriguez, Kyle Bornheimer.

Open Season

Animated tale of a bear who is happy with his life performing on a stage, eating human food, and living in a comfortable garage - until his calm life is interrupted by a runty deer, and he is involuntarily returned to the wild just before hunting season begins. Typical buddy movie, with Martin Laurence as Shrek the bear and Ashton Kutcher as Donkey. To my surprise, Kutcher ran rings around Lawrence, and almost saved the movie. Billy Connolly is wasted: incredibly annoying without being funny. Ultimately, typical children's fare with few redeeming features.

2006, dir. Roger Allers, Jill Culton, Anthony Stacchi. With Martin Lawrence, Ashton Kutcher, Gary Sinese, Debra Messing, Billy Connolly.

The Opposite of Sex

Really annoying. Christina Ricci's voice-over makes you less involved in the movie, makes you care less. Ricci is a good actress, but the whole effect is pretty poor.

1998. dir. Don Roos. With Christina Ricci, Martin Donovan, Lisa Kudrow, Lyle Lovett, John Galecki, Ivan Sergei.

The Order

I was expecting your average Catholic priest horror-action movie, but that wasn't what I got at all. While it isn't particularly well executed (the effects are mediocre and the acting poor), I found the movie quite fascinating because the central "evil" character (the sin-eater) is astonishingly morally ambiguous. I expected to turn off my brain for the action, but instead found myself enjoying trying to work out whether or not what the "bad guy" did was actually bad ...

I like this movie ... but it's worth acknowledging that hardly anyone else does. As of 2020-04, it holds an 8% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

2003. dir. Brian Helgeland. With Heath Ledger, Mark Addy, Shannyn Sossamon, Benno Fürmann, Peter Weller.

Ordinary People

When this came out, one critic complained that it should be called "Ordinary Rich People," and that's an accurate assessment. A family tries to recover after the death of the eldest son. The script is fairly poor, but the performances mostly manage to salvage it. Robert Redford's directing got better after this, his first effort.

1980, dir. Robert Redford. With Donald Sutherland, Mary Tyler Moore, Timothy Hutton, Judd Hirsch.

Orlando

This was awful when it was released, I have no idea why I felt compelled to rewatch it in 2005 - it's still awful. Based on a Virginia Woolf story, but I suspect Woolf is rolling in her grave - there has to be a lot missing, and what's there doesn't add up to a cohesive story. Tilda Swinton plays a young nobleman around 1600. As the movie progresses, he fails to get any older ... and eventually changes into a woman as centuries pass.

1993, dir. Sally Potter. With Tilda Swinton, Billy Zane, Lothaire Bluteau.

Orphen Season 1

Typical anime TV series. Despite the semi-medieval, almost steampunk, setup, I found it quite reminiscent of "Trigun" with the powerful group leader/magician (although Vash is definitely goofier than Orphen) being followed on his adventures by the comic relief. It's mildly entertaining, occasionally funny, and even has (rare) moments of poignancy. Only recommended for fairly hardcore fans of the genre.

1998. With Shôtarô Morikubo, Mayumi Izuka, Omi Minami.

The Orville, Season 1

"The Orville" is Seth MacFarlane's simultaneous parody and homage to "Star Trek." An argument can be made he's taking a swing at other SF sources as well, but "Star Trek" is unquestionably his primary source. In fact, this is "Star Trek" in everything but name.

I don't have a good history with MacFarlane: I never liked "Family Guy" or "American Dad!", so I haven't watched them. I didn't much like "Ted," and hated "A Million Ways to Die in the West." And yet he apparently played a major part in getting Neil deGrasse Tyson's "Cosmos" funded, so apparently he has a pretty strong interest in Astronomy. The point is, I approached this one with caution.

The Orville is an exploratory spaceship, with an ensemble crew led by Captain Ed Mercer (MacFarlane). The crew is slightly more dysfunctional than any Star Trek crew, and a bit cruder. Mercer's pilot is his best friend ("Gordon Malloy," played by Scott Grimes) - he's a bonehead, but an excellent pilot. His first officer is his ex-wife ("Kelly Grayson," played by Adrianne Palicki), whose infidelity led him to a year-long slump that almost stopped him ever getting a command. Etc.

But - and these are the two reasons why I got through the series - the humour isn't as crass as I expected from MacFarlane (it's definitely still a bit awkward and crude, just not as much as some of his other stuff), and his characters inevitably dig themselves out of their momentary obnoxiousness to prove themselves decent and humane. My favourite joke of the season was from Malloy who, after a video call from a ship in need of help, said "Captain, respectfully submit that the attractiveness of the ship's occupant makes the rescue imperative." Which brings me to another interesting detail: the attractive occupant was Charlize Theron. I may not be a fan of MacFarlane, but Theron (his co-star in "A Million Ways to Die ...") apparently is. Likewise, his other co-star from that movie, Liam Neeson, did a cameo in another episode as a talking head. I guess they like working with him ...

By the third episode ("About a Girl"), the series was tackling the politics of gender reassignment. This is a very Star-Trek-like thing, using science fiction as a platform for social commentary and an indirect look at current politics - and this is something that carries through the whole series. In the end, I found "The Orville" rather enjoyable.

2017. With Seth MacFarlane, Adrianne Palicki, Penny Johnson Jerald, Scott Grimes, Peter Macon, Halston Sage, J. Lee, Mark Jackson, Victor Garber, Chad Coleman, Norm Macdonald, Larry Joe Campbell, BJ Tanner, Kai Wener.

The Orville, Season 2

Returning to the second season of "The Orville" was initially something of a chore: I didn't much like the first three or four episodes, particularly "Home," which saw the departure of one of my favourite characters (Halston Sage as their security officer). The other early episodes were sloppy and too silly, and "Home" was both too serious and staggeringly sentimental. But after that, the series started really digging in to some interesting philosophical and social questions (notably gender politics and the rights of AIs) - with an odd attenuation of the personalities involved. They've toned down the comedy and personalities of the staff to focus more on issues. The people remain imperfect, and I find their difficulties (despite being toned down) make them more human and relatable than the almost archetypal staff of "The Next Generation" (the Star Trek I'm most familiar with).

Sadly, in the second last episode, they had to tackle time travel. It's a time-honoured Star Trek tradition, a shark to be jumped. Never stupider than in Voyager (which seemed to use it every third episode), this pair of episodes saw all the crew gathering in another timeline to try to revert everything to the "right" timeline (classic ST, and a really stupid idea). I wish I thought this was a mistake they wouldn't make again, but it will be.

2018. With Seth MacFarlane, Adrianne Palicki, Penny Johnson Jerald, Scott Grimes, Peter Macon, Halston Sage, Jessica Szohr, J. Lee, Mark Jackson, Victor Garber, Chad Coleman, Norm Macdonald, Larry Joe Campbell, BJ Tanner, Kai Wener, Kelly Hu, Ted Danson.

The Other Fellow

The movie opens with film footage of Ian Fleming explaining that when he created his internationally known spy character, he wanted an anonymous name. He had a book he used to identify birds in Jamaica. The author's name was James Bond, and Fleming thought that suited his spy well. It's a great opening for a film about the burden of sharing a name with the world's most famous fictional spy.

We meet about ten different men named James Bond. Most were born before it became clear that the movies were Fleming's never-ending legacy to the world. There was quite a bit of talk about the jokes they have to endure ("shaken not stirred" seems to be the commonest), but a more interesting - perhaps I should say "horrifying" - one is interactions with the police. Imagine telling the police your name is "James Bond" on the day you forgot to carry your ID with you. The consequences aren't pretty.

The director has a decent ear for weird stories. "Gunnar James Bond Schäfer" in particular kind of creeped me out. He's a Swede who's father abandoned the family when he was very young, and he became obsessed with this icon of masculinity - to the point of changing his name, always dressing like Bond, going on holidays in Bond movie shooting locations, and running a Bond Museum.

James Bond Jr. is another strange case: he was accused of killing someone, and his story would probably have been in the news once ... except for his name, which the media enjoyed plastering in headlines across multiple states for months. Which directly affected the livelihood of another James Bond who ran an outreach organization for children (that involves guns in the woods ... hey, they live in Texas).

The resulting movie is intermittently fascinating. I didn't love it, but it definitely presented a strange picture of the legacy the name has created for those who don't play him on the movie screen.

2022, dir. Matthew Bauer. With Gunnar James Bond Schäfer, James Alexander Bond, James Bond Jr., James Bond, James Bond, Gregory Itzin, Tacey Adams, Charley Palmer Rothwell, Chae-Jamal McFarlane.

The Other Guys

I misjudged this: I thought it was "just" a comedy, but it is, in fact, a full-blown slapstick along the lines of "Airplane" or "Hot Shots Part Deux." Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg are "the other guys," the police who aren't the stars of the department. Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson put in ten over-the-top, property-destroying minutes as the guys who are the stars of the department ... before meeting an equally over-the-top end (and taking with them the biggest laughs in the movie). Ferrell's character Allen Gamble is happy as a forensic accountant, but his partner (Wahlberg) Terry Hoitz is short-tempered, demoted, and infamous for the incident that led to his demotion in which he shot Derek Jeter at a World Series game. They solve crimes about as well as Peter Sellers' Jacques Clouseau - although they aren't quite as stupid.

There are four or five funny jokes, but they're applying the "try anything and see if it sticks" school of comedy, and the amount of idiocy, humiliation, and boredom between the funny isn't a worthwhile ratio: not a movie I'd recommend.

2010, dir. Adam McKay. With Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Michael Keaton, Eva Mendes, Steve Coogan, Ray Stevenson, Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson, Rob Riggle, Damon Wayans Jr., Derek Jeter.

Our Hospitality

One of Buster Keaton's longer films, this one finds him the last member of a family that has a long-standing feud with another family - but he doesn't know it because he grew up hundreds of miles away. As an adult he's called upon to return to his hometown, where the other family hasn't forgotten the feud.

The humour is in the long train ride to the hometown (the train and track must have been custom-built at considerable expense for this film), Keaton's clumsy attempts at romance, endless inept attempts to shoot Keaton (some fairly clever), his attempts to prevent being shot, etc. The bizarre spot of wife abuse humour doesn't fly too well today: Keaton finds a man choking and slapping his wife, and when he tries to interrupt he gets beaten up by the wife. Whereupon the two go back to their routine. Some amusing spots, but not his best movie.

1923, dir. Buster Keaton and John Blystone. With Buster Keaton, Natalie Talmadge, Joe Roberts, Joseph Keaton.

Out of Sight

George Clooney plays Jack Foley, in perhaps his first lead role - and wears it like the star he was to become. He's a bank robber, and a fairly good one - never uses a gun: "it's amazing what you can get if you ask in the right way." But he's not perfect, and has done his time in jail. Fairly early on in the movie, he manages to escape - and gets stuck in the trunk of a car with Federal Marshall Sisco (Jennifer Lopez). They ... connect ... after a fashion - we can tell because he doesn't leave her in the trunk when he's let out, and she doesn't kill him. They chase each other around for the rest of the movie as Jack tries to pull a big heist with his friend Buddy Bragg (Ving Rhames), on the hope of "living the good life" - although Foley clearly knows that's improbable.

Based on an Elmore Leonard novel, with the kind of quick-thinking dialogue that director Steven Soderbergh loves. Not a great movie, but very enjoyable.

1998, dir. Steven Soderbergh. With George Clooney, Ving Rhames, Jennifer Lopez, Don Cheadle, Steve Zahn, Albert Brooks, Catherine Keener, Dennis Farina, Luis Guzman.

Out of Time

Denzel Washington plays a small town police chief who finds himself looking at the burned out ruin of a house that contains the bodies of his girlfriend and her husband. To complicate life further, his ex-wife is the homicide detective investigating and all of the evidence points to him. Looks like film noir, ends up more of a ... gris. This is hardly new territory, but it's done well by good actors, and is quite enjoyable.

2001, dir. Carl Franklin. With Denzel Washington, Eva Mendes, Sanaa Lathan, Dean Cain.

OutFoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism

Rupert Murdoch owns a huge chunk of the media (magazines, newspapers, a movie company) in the United States, but his most effective tool is Fox TV, which reports what they call "Fair and Balanced" news. This movie shows how Fox has become essentially a Republican propaganda machine, and the tricks and methods they use to control the perceptions of the public foolish enough to watch them.

2004, dir. Robert Greenwald.

Outside the Wire

Damson Idris is Thomas Harp, a drone pilot in the year 2036 who disobeys orders and gets shipped to the front line of a war in the Ukraine as punishment. There he's assigned to Captain Leo (Anthony Mackie), who is himself the latest advancement in robotics and AI - a very human-acting man who is actually an android super-soldier.

It's well produced, but at its heart it's just another war movie with our rookie fighter learning that things look and feel very different on the ground than they do from the screen of a drone. The people who created the movie think they've created something new and different by tossing in moral conundrums around AI soldiers, but it's been done before. Which would still be okay if it was done well, but sadly it's not.

2021, dir. Mikael Håfström. With Anthony Mackie, Damson Idris, Emily Beecham, Michael Kelly, Pilou Asbæk, Kristina Tonteri-Young, Bobby Lockwood.

Outsourced

Josh Hamilton plays Todd Anderson, whose job running a fulfilment call centre - and all the jobs under him - are outsourced. He reluctantly goes to India to get the replacement team up to speed, where he promptly encounters various forms of culture shock.

On the surface it sounds like a pretty pathetic and predictable movie. In practise, they manage to dodge many of the expected clichés and the ones they do use are so much better applied and everything so well handled that the movie comes out dazzlingly charming. There are some huge laughs, and almost none of them come through the humiliation of the characters. And the Indian culture is very accurately portrayed: I was particularly amused by the note to Todd from his new landlady saying "don't go out today" on Holi. Good advice - or at the very least don't wear good clothes ...

A gentle, well-acted, well-written and hilarious comedy about recovering your life when your job gets turned upside down. Highly recommended.

2006, dir. John Jeffcoat. With Josh Hamilton, Ayesha Dharker, Asif Basra, Arjun Mathur, Siddarth Jadhav.

Outlander

A review on the box says "Beowulf meets Predator:" true, but you know you're in trouble when the best review they can find to publish is a comparison rather than praise. Jim Caviezel (thoroughly beefed up) plays our (anti-?)hero, zipping about on a spaceship which crash-lands in Norway in 907 AD. (It turns out that Earth was a failed and abandoned colony world.) Unfortunately, he has an uninvited passenger arriving with him: a very large and hungry alien (you're shocked). Caviezel is captured by angry Norwegians, who blame him for the slaughter caused by the alien. The plot is much the same as always: he slowly gains their trust by being extra-macho, tough, and trustworthy, explains the problem, they go hunting. There is romance and a sidekick of sorts ... Although honestly I thought Jack Huston as Wulfric was both the best character and possibly the best actor in the film.

2009, dir. Howard McCain. With James Caviezel, Sophia Myles, Jack Huston, John Hurt, Cliff Saunders, Patrick Stevenson, Ron Perlman.

Over the Hedge

Animated. Hungry raccoon RJ (Bruce Willis) raids the den of a hibernating bear (Nick Nolte) for food, but is caught. In attempting to pay back the bear, he manipulates a "family" of animals led by cautious turtle Verne (Garry Shandling). RJ wants to go raid the human's food in neighbouring suburbia, Verne doesn't. But RJ is a fast talker and convinces the "family" to start raiding. I wasn't too keen on RJ's appearance, but the rest of the characters were good. The humour is hit-or-miss, but in a couple places they hit it out of the park so it's easy to forgive.

2016-03-31: Discussing this with a friend today, neither of us remembered it as a particularly good movie - but (eight years on for me, probably ten for him) both of us remembered the final comedic pay-off with Hammy the squirrel (Steve Carell), a caffeinated beverage, and lasers. It was one of the most brilliant jokes ever put on film in any movie. For better or worse, you need to watch the rest of the movie for the set-up, with the other animals constantly snatching sports drinks and sodas out of the already hyper-active Hammy's paws. I wouldn't say this often, but it's probably worth watching the entire movie just for this joke.

2006, dir. Tim Johnson, Karey Kirkpatrick. With Bruce Willis, Garry Shandling, Steve Carell, Wanda Sykes, William Shatner, Nick Nolte, Thomas Haden Church, Allison Janney, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Avril Lavigne, Omid Djalili.

Owl and the Sparrow (orig. "Cú và chim se sẻ")

Vietnamese. At the centre of the film is a ten year old girl who works in a bamboo blind factory for her uncle, her guardian since the death of her parents. The film opens with her running away to Ho Chih Minh City, where she tries her hand first at selling postcards and then at selling flowers. In the process she meets zoo keeper Hai and airline attendant Lan who she is convinced would be a good couple.

The filming is done with a camcorder, no steadycam. A lot of shots follow the backs of people's necks through hallways. Much of the photography is a bit unsteady. The whole idea is a bit of a fantasy. But the acting is remarkably good and the story charming.

2007, dir. Stephane Gauger. With Han Thi Pham, Cat Ly, The Lu Le, Nguyen Hau, Trong Hai, Hoang Long.

Oz the Great and Powerful

James Franco plays Oscar "Oz" Diggs, a stage magician in 1905, part of a traveling circus. After one of his many flirtations causes him grief, he escapes in a hot air balloon - straight into a tornado. Which, to nobody's surprise (except possibly Oz himself) takes him to the land of Oz - at which point the movie changes from 4:3 black-and-white to 2.35:1 full colour, with all kinds of outrageous plants and animals and inhabitants. Oz immediately finds himself in the company of Theodora (Mila Kunis), a naive but decent witch from the Emerald City. She tells him that it was prophesied by the previous king that a magician would come to save the country from the evil witch, and that he would have the name of the country. Being a con artist, Oz jumps at the opportunity to be king.

Franco is okay. Kunis, who I've thought of as a decent actress in the past, overacts outrageously (yes, it's called for, no, it doesn't fly). In fact, no one is acting particularly well, but then, this movie isn't really about that is it? Lots of special effects, nothing I found particularly mind-blowing. But to my considerable surprise, the movie actually improved as it went, building to a decent (if not brilliant) and clever finale in which stage magic attempts to get the best of real magic.

2013, dir. Sam Raimi. With James Franco, Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz, Michelle Williams, Zach Braff, Bill Cobbs, Joey King, Tony Cox.


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Pacific Rim

I saw "Pacific Rim" in Imax 3D, and I have to say it was the best theatre experience I'd had in months. Assigned seating (Hallelujah!), NO ads, only two trailers (I think 2-3 is the perfect number), and the 3D worked better than I've ever seen.

This movie is a spectacle in every sense of the word: huge, noisy, overwhelming and fun. I heard about an article suggesting that if the name at the top of the screen had been "Michael Bay" instead of "Guillermo del Toro" the reviews would have been substantially poorer, and that's absolutely correct. This is a somewhat better than average Michael Bay movie that just happens to be directed by del Toro. I mean, come on - it's Godzilla vs. Mecha. It's that simple.

I would encourage you, strongly, to pay the price and go see this movie in Imax 3D: it's a blast. And I would encourage you, just as strongly, to pass entirely if you wait until it's only showing on the small screen: the failures of science, logic, and even plotting are so extreme that suspending disbelief is totally impossible (I've now had the opportunity to try).

Be forewarned that you should drink an enormous bucket of "Suspension of Disbelief" before you enter the theatre (why don't they sell that at the concessions stand? Hell, they should give it away free to improve their business ...). The sciences take one hell of a beating in this movie. Both economically and tactically it would make a hell of a lot more sense to throw conventional bombs at the Kaiju (the new Godzilla) than giant robots, and no good argument (in fact no argument at all) is ever made for why we should believe otherwise. The premise for requiring two pilots to run a single giant robot is that "the neural load was too great for one person." I kid you not. Oh, and the two pilots have to be "compatible" (although only at the beginning of the movie, that mattered less and less as the movie progressed). And the two scientists who ultimately help save the world (and get very little thanks for it) are essentially Abbott and Costello: it's incredibly insulting.

I could go on (it gets worse), but to do so I'd blow a couple major plot points.

For whatever reason - and I suppose this is why I'm recommending you see it in theatres - only one of these egregious suspension-of-physics moments got through to me in the theatre and produced a "Yeah, Right" moment. The rest waited until I'd exited the theatre to hit me like a tonne of bricks. I guess if the movie is loud enough and fast-paced enough and the plot is okay, it can bat the annoying reality of science away for the duration of the film. It won't be able to do that on your home screen in 2D with your pitiful speaker system (our chairs shook for about 1/3rd of the movie - it was impressive).

2013, dir. Guillermo del Toro. With Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Burn Gorman, Max Martini, Robert Kazinsky.

The Pacifier

"Kindergarten Cop" redux. If you liked Arnold Schwarzenegger's take on this kind of subject matter (tough guy stuck in baby-sitting role) you'll probably enjoy Vin Diesel doing the same thing. Goofy, family-safe, not very good, but enjoyable anyway.

2005, dir. Adam Shankman. With Vin Diesel.

Paddington

"Paddington Bear" is a very famous character from multiple children's books by Michael Bond. Paddington has appeared (according to Wikipedia) in three previous TV series before appearing in this 2014 live action movie. The first sequence in the movie lays out (in black and white news footage shot shortly after the Second World War) the visit of an explorer to "Darkest Peru" where he encounters a race of intelligent bears, and issues an invitation to visit London. That invitation isn't acted upon until 2014, when a young bear who will eventually get the name "Paddington" (voiced by Ben Whishaw) stows away on a ship. He finds London rather less friendly than portrayed by the explorer, but does eventually manage to find a place to stay temporarily with a family in the city. Where he's unfailingly polite and causes havoc as he's significantly accident-prone.

Perhaps you remember a muffled outcry when the first trailer came out that Paddington looked "creepy?" I was one of the people who reacted that way. But the critics got past that and the movie currently holds a 98% rating at Rotten Tomatoes - pretty damn good. Having seen the movie, "creepy" isn't the word I'd use any more but I still found the animation of the character mildly off-putting. The movie is of course aimed at children, and we expect a certain amount of absurdity and lack of realism in children's movies. But this one plays it up, with massive elements of both farce and surreality. It also lays on the "cute" in layers so thick that I would have expected more adults to gag on it. I perfectly predicted not one, but two reasonably significant plot twists (the parentage of the Cruella de Vil character (Nicole Kidman) and the visual aspect of the climactic rescue of Paddington) because the writers really had zero interest in straying from formula in the plot construction. And yet, I have to admit that I found myself grinning and even laughing on several occasions because of the clever construction of visual gags. In the end the predictability and the odd looks of the main character mean there's not a chance I'd watch this one again.

2014, dir. Paul King. With Ben Whishaw, Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Nicole Kidman, Julie Walters, Jim Broadbent, Peter Capaldi.

Page Eight

Johnny Worricker (Bill Nighy) is an old school spook for MI5 who finds himself caught in the midst of more than usually complex political manoeuvring in his department after the death of his boss and best friend (Michael Gambon), while also dealing with a daughter (Felicity Jones) he doesn't understand and a charming neighbour (Rachel Weisz) who might be a plant.

Those few critics that bothered to review this movie (there weren't many as it was a BBC TV movie) generally claimed that it was good but didn't add anything to the spy movie genre. While I'm inclined to agree with the latter part of the assessment, the outstanding acting from a group of Hollywood A-Listers combined with a superb script make this a really, really good movie. Highly recommended - if you can find a copy.

2011, dir. David Hare. With Bill Nighy, Rachel Weisz, Michael Gambon, Judy Davis, Tom Hughes, Felicity Jones, Ewen Bremner, Saskia Reeves, Alice Krige, Ralph Fiennes.

Painted Skin (orig. "Huà Pí")

I'm comparing this to its sequel, "Painted Skin: the Resurrection" because I watched the sequel first (I heard about it first, it had better reviews, and was easier to lay hands on). This is a similarly mounted grand Chinese fantasy movie, with very similar elements (and the same actors, although they are ostensibly set 500 years apart!).

A fox spirit falls in love with a general - who unfortunately happens to be married to someone else, so the fox spirit insinuates herself into the household. She's assisted by another spirit who loves her, but that she doesn't like much. Then there's the mildly incompetent and unpractised Demon Hunter and the loving wife, and finally the return of the brother-in-arms who loves the wife (Donnie Yen).

Very clean and simple cinematography, quite nice to look at. Could have lived without the demon shedding her skin just to make a point (it wasn't a very good effect). The personal interactions are good, and if you can get into the grand Chinese fantasy setting, it's an enjoyable film.

2008, dir. Gordon Chan. With Zhou Xun, Chen Kun, Zhao Wei, Donnie Yen, Betty Sun, Qi Yuwu.

Painted Skin: The Resurrection (orig. "Huà Pí Èr")

To enjoy this one you're going to have to go with the supernatural basis of the film: it's clearly laid out, but more than a little strange to westerners. Our story starts with a fox spirit who has been trapped in ice for 500 years, freed by her friend, a bird spirit. To become human, the fox spirit has to take a human heart, freely given - oddly, most people aren't willing to part with their hearts. So she survives for the time being on unwillingly donated hearts.

It's a very weird and decidedly surreal voyage, with a surprisingly decent story and stunning cinematography. I'd just watched "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate" which I found disjointed, awkward, and fairly poor, and as this started I thought it would be more of the same. Instead I loved the characters and became utterly absorbed in the story. This could go either way for a lot of people because it's a really weird bit of work - but if you like it, you'll probably really like it. Recommended.

2012, dir. Wuershan. With Zhao Wei, Chen Kun, Zhou Xun, Yang Mi, Feng Shaofeng, Fei Xiang.

Palm Springs

The spiritual sequel to "Groundhog Day." It would be a good idea to have seen that movie first, for the very few people who haven't already. "Palm Springs" never directly refers to "Groundhog Day," but they hit the ground running, spending a lot less time laying out their repeating day situation. And at one point, Nyles (Andy Samberg) says "It's one of those infinite time loop situations you might have heard about." Nyles is stuck repeating the marriage of a friend of his girlfriend - thousands, or possibly hundreds of thousands of times. But when Sarah (Cristin Milioti) joins him in the loop, she's utterly determined to get out and shakes up his lazy attitude.

This is a really good film. It couldn't have existed without "Groundhog Day," but given that - it's just as good. The other essential viewing in this category is the spectacular "Russian Doll", but there are several others worth seeing of similar construction ("Happy Death Day" and "Before I Fall" come to mind).

This was good enough that I watched it a second time three days later. And it's good enough that it holds up very well: things you learn later in the movie radically change the way you see things that happen early in the movie - and it's all well thought out. Highly recommended.

2020, dir. Max Barbakow. With Andy Samberg, Cristin Milioti, J.K. Simmons, Peter Gallagher, Meredith Hagner, Camila Mendes, Tyler Hoechlin, Chris Pang, Jacqueline Obradors, June Squibb, Tongayi Chirisa, Dale Dickey, Conner O'Malley, Jena Friedman, Brian Duffy.

Panic Room

98% of this movie is in one house, one long night. Jodie Foster and (a very young) Kristen Stewart, playing mother and daughter, are trapped in the "panic room" of their new house by thieves, only to find themselves under siege because what the thieves want is in the panic room. Pretty good, as the characters are better developed than in most films of this type.

2002, dir. David Fincher. With Jodie Foster, Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam, Kristen Stewart, Jared Leto.

Pan's Labyrinth (orig. "El Laberinto del Fauno")

During the Spanish Civil War a young girl finds herself relocated to the country with her pregnant mother to join the mother's new husband. The new husband is a vicious army officer. The young girl meets characters similar to those in the fantasy books she reads. The critics uniformly loved this one, but I thought it was, ... well, just "good." Despite being one of the most visually arresting movies of the decade. And it's brutally depressing.

2006, dir. Guillermo del Toro. With Ivana Baquero, Sergi López, Maribel Verdú, Doug Jones, Ariadne Gil.

Pantheon - Season 1

This series (eight episodes of 40 minutes each) is set in the current day ... with the added speculation that there's a company called Logorythms run by "Stephen Holstrom" (clearly based on Steve Jobs of Apple fame) who has invented "Uploaded Intelligence," a process which allows a human mind to be uploaded into a computer. There are a couple caveats: the first is that your brain is destroyed by the upload process so your physical body dies, the second being that in a matter of a few years, your intellect will deteriorate. This is called "The Flaw," and a race is on to fix it. But the uploaded are being used as digital slaves ... at least until they escape, and unsurprisingly they're pissed when they do. And they're in the world's computers with the ability to cause incredible havoc.

Our main character is Maddie Kim (Katie Chang), an intelligent 14 year old whose father died and was uploaded - although initially she knows only that he died. The first episode is about the discovery that some part of her father lives on, and the second episode introduces the idea that he's not the only uploaded person. We're also introduced to another teenager, Caspian Keyes (voiced by Paul Dano), a genius computer hacker.

I'm not sure I buy the basic premise of the series, the idea of "Uploaded Intelligence." At least not yet - we're nowhere close to that kind of technology. But whoever wrote this ("based on a series of short stories by Ken Liu") really spent a lot of time thinking about the consequences and fallout of the problem. This is both very well written and very well plotted, a really impressive and enjoyable piece of work.

2022. With Katie Chang, Paul Dano, Aaron Eckhart, Rosemarie DeWitt, Chris Diamantopoulos, Raza Jaffrey, Daniel Dae Kim, Ron Livingston, Taylor Schilling.

Paper Tigers

In the 1970s and 1980s, there were a slew of period (usually set before the invention of the gun) martial arts movies coming out of Hong Kong that amounted to "OMG they killed our master we must take revenge!" These were serious and bloody - and yet often quite cheesy. "Paper Tigers" riffs on this particular subgenre of the martial arts film - with several major differences. It's set in a modern (unnamed) American city, it's a comedy, and the disciples on the hunt for the evil-doer are middle-aged men who are out of practice. It reminded me quite a bit of Stephen Chow's wonderful "Shaolin Soccer" - in which a former Kung Fu student rounds up his middle-aged, out-of-practice former compatriots in a modern Chinese city to ... play soccer. If you like one of these two films, you should see the other - although Chow's outing is much more surreal.

As a former martial artist, I was particularly impressed with some of the things Alain Uy did in the lead. Not terribly flashy or visually impressive, but some of it was exceptionally difficult and/or shockingly fast. Because it wasn't "flashy or impressive," that work alone couldn't make this a good movie - but happily, it was supported by better acting (and a better script) than you'd expect in a martial arts movie, and a lot of laughs. Recommended for fans of the genre.

2020, dir. Tran Quoc Bao. With Alain Uy, Ron Yuan, Mykel Shannon Jenkins, Jae Suh Park, Joziah Lagonoy, Roger Yuan, La'tevin Alexander, Matthew Page, Ken Quitugua.

Paper Towns

Our narrator and protagonist is Quentin Jacobsen (Nat Wolff), who lives across the street from Margo Roth Spiegelman (whose name we hear in full more often than just her given name ... played by Cara Delevingne) and who's been in love with her pretty much his entire life. She's always been intrigued by mysteries, and when she runs away (frequently) she leaves behind clues. As they're about to graduate from high school, they've drifted apart. But one night, she climbs in through his bedroom window just as she used to - to convince him to be her get-away driver in several acts of revenge. This takes up about the first third of the movie ... but at that point, Margo vanishes. Quentin is convinced he can find her, if he follows the clues.

I expected to find some of the characters stereotyped, particularly the geeks (Quentin and his two friends). But in some ways it was Margo who was the most poorly drawn - or maybe it was that she was actually the weakest of the main actors (it's just as well she was gone for a good portion of the movie, despite being the plot motivator). The movie lays on the life lessons a little heavily, but I found some of the jokes brilliantly funny and thoroughly enjoyed it as a whole.

2015, dir. Jake Schreier. With Nat Wolff, Cara Delevingne, Austin Abrams, Justice Smith, Halston Sage, Jaz Sinclair, Cara Buono.

Paprika

This was heart-breaking to watch: the director Satoshi Kon had a brilliant career in Anime, and this was his last and probably best film ... But I was watching it in early 2011, about four months after his death at age 46. I loved his other movies that I'd seen, "Millennium Actress" and "Tokyo Godfathers."

We start with a police man on surveillance at a circus, but it's not right - and shortly after that it goes wildly psychedelic. Then we learn it was a dream. The credits that follow are some of the most brilliant visual trickery I've ever seen. The movie itself plays out partly in the near future, and partly in the dreams of the main characters: a device called the "DC Mini" allows psychiatrists (or people who've stolen one) to enter the dreams of others. It's a very strange movie. Wonderful visual references to at least a couple other movies, the biggest being "Roman Holiday." Visually brilliant and an interesting plot, definitely recommended.

2006, dir. Satoshi Kon. With Megumi Hayashibara, Akio Ôtsuka.

Paradise Hills

Wikipedia lists this as a "science fiction fantasy thriller," and I was wondering how it could be both "science fiction" and "fantasy" at the same time. After having seen it ... I guess I get it. I could make some snarky comment about the ending being pure fantasy, but that's not what causes their assessment to be accurate. That has more to do with the final revelation about "The Duchess."

Emma Roberts is Uma, a young woman sent to a place called "Paradise Hills" where the lady of the house ("The Duchess," played by Milla Jovovich) is being paid an immense amount of money to re-educate a number of young women to better suit the requirements of their (rich) families. No explanation of the social structure outside the school is given, although we're told that all the women held in this gilded cage are "Uppers," and there are also people known as "Lowers" (I think ... I refuse to go back to check). But that's as much as the film feel they need to explain, and I suppose it's as much as is needed for their purposes.

The problem is that most of it, like the lack of explanation of the social order, is sloppily constructed. That includes the ridiculous Alice-in-Wonderland costumes, the poor acting, the weak script, and the ludicrous ending. If you want to see movies about rebellious people being farmed out to places that try to shape them ... there are many, many others, and some are definitely better than this.

2019, dir. Alice Waddington. With Emma Roberts, Danielle Macdonald, Awkwafina, Eiza González, Jeremy Irvine, Arnaud Valois, Milla Jovovich.

ParaNorman

The movie is stop-motion animation, by the director who brought you the two very different (but both animated) movies "Flushed Away" and "The Tale of Despereaux." Possibly more importantly (especially to the visual style), it's by Laika - who previously did "Coraline" and went on to do "The Boxtrolls" (which I didn't like) and the brilliant "Kubo and the Two Strings." Norman is a pretty ordinary kid, except for his ability to see the dead - which leaves him something of an outcast in the town he lives in. Things come to a head when a long dead witch brings a number of people she didn't like back from the grave, and Norman is suddenly centre-stage.

Probably a little dark and scary for kids, very funny, and with a lot of stuff squarely targeted at parents (without leaving the kids out). A lot of thought went into this one. I've returned to it and rewatched it multiple times. In an already outstanding movie, Norman's final confrontation with "Angry Aggy" is a particular standout, just dazzlingly beautiful.

The last minute or so of the movie compresses what I'd guess was about 100 hours of work into one minute, showing stop-motion animation of the creation of one of the Norman models - constructing a jointed metal skeleton, padding the skeleton, placing it into a mould and pouring in latex, trimming, sewing the clothes directly onto the body, constructing an articulated face and head ... and then he gets up and walks off. I watched the whole damn thing frame by frame, and found it utterly fascinating.

2012, dir. Sam Fell and Chris Butler. With Kodi Smit-McPhee, Tucker Albrizzi, Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jeff Garlin, Leslie Mann, Elain Stritch, Jodelle Ferland, John Goodman, Bernard Hill.

Parasite

The movie starts with an introduction to the Kim family, the parents and two teen-adult children living in a small, lousy apartment, barely making a living folding pizza boxes. The son is introduced to a very rich family, and becomes the English tutor for the rich family's daughter. He casually suggests "Jessica" - a girl he claims not to know, but who he says has a good reputation - as a tutor for the rich family son. And so his sister is hired. And then the father. You get the idea.

This sounds like a movie about scam artists - but it's by Bong Joon-ho, and it's Korean cinema: don't assume you know what it's about. As you've probably heard, there's a twist. When you start the movie, you're likely to have no idea what the title means. You can guess: you'll be wrong. By the time the movie ends, you'll have a very clear answer.

I've only seen one of Bong's previous films, "Snowpiercer." Which I loathed, in opposition to almost everyone else on the planet. This one is better, but my personal biases (I don't usually like creepy movies, and this is way creepy) mean that I don't love it. Although I admit it's intriguing and memorable, in a horrible way.

2019, dir. Bong Joon-ho. With Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam, Lee Jung-eun, Jang Hye-jin.

The Parent Trap (1961)

One of Disney's better efforts at live action, starring Hayley Mills as Sharon McKendrick and Susan Evers, twins who never knew about each other until they meet at camp. After antagonizing each other considerably they settle down, realize their shared parentage, and decide to change places. Sickly sweet, but also occasionally quite funny.

1961, dir. David Swift. With Hayley Mills, Maureen O'Hara, Brian Keith, Una Merkel, Charles Ruggles, Leo G. Carroll, Joanna Barnes.

The Parent Trap 2

I gave this one about 15 minutes because it was on the DVD with the 1961 version of "The Parent Trap." I gave up.

1986, dir. Ronald F. Maxwell. With Hayley Mills, Tom Skerritt, Carrie Kei Heim, Bridgette Andersen.

The Parent Trap (1998)

Pretty much a scene-for-scene remake (although the Reverend got dropped, only spoken to on the phone), pretty much note-perfect. Lindsay Lohan is incredibly cute and not obviously talented ... and awfully hard to associate with the party monster we know today through the tabloids (2009). Again, the two identical twins fight horribly, make up, scheme, swap places, and try to bring their parents back together. Lohan setting booby traps for Lohan is a bit dull, but it gets better when Dennis Quaid, and particularly Natasha Richardson, are on screen.

1998, dir. Nancy Meyers. With Lindsay Lohan, Dennis Quaid, Natasha Richardson, Elaine Hendrix, Lisa Ann Walter, Simon Kunz.

Paris When it Sizzles

A direct (grand?)parent to "Airplane," sports our two leads trying to write a movie screen play in a couple of days while, of course, falling in love. Much of the movie consists of the butchered screenplay itself (starring our two leads, of course), occasionally with their voice-over commentary. Kind of "Breakfast at Tiffany's" in reverse, in that I couldn't see any possible reason for Audrey Hepburn's character to fall for William Holden's character. Intermittently funny.

1964, Richard Quine. With Audrey Hepburn, William Holden.

Paris Trout

A violent and unpleasant story based on the Marion Stembridge murders in Milledgeville, Georgia, culminating in 1953. Dennis Hopper is as usual very convincing as a sociopath.

1991. With Dennis Hopper, Barbara Hershey.

Parker

Jason Statham plays the title character, a thief with a moral compass - slightly warped but nevertheless incredibly rigid. So when the team he works with in a robbery at the beginning of the movie betrays him and leaves him for dead, he sets out to take revenge - damn the cost. Parker has a girlfriend (Emma Booth) who's not a thief, so she pops up occasionally to get naked or throw in some unconvincing romance. And then Jennifer Lopez is tossed in to create comedy and romantic tension - neither of which work because this is one of her poorer performances in her uneven career, and one of the few things about Parker's relationship with Booth's character that the movie managed to sell was his faithfulness to her. The heists are fairly well thought out, and yet the only one that's fun to watch is the first one - which is over and done by about 15 minutes into the movie. Not sure what went wrong with the rest. Ultimately a weak and disappointing movie.

2013, dir. Taylor Hackford. With Jason Statham, Jennifer Lopez, Nick Nolte, Emma Booth, Michael Chiklis.

Passengers

After watching a string of crap movies ("Assassin's Creed," "Skiptrace," "Dragon Pearl," and "Rogue One") it was a pleasure to get to one that didn't think action was the be-all and end-all and that actually required a little thought from its viewers. Don't get me wrong - "Passengers" has a couple action sequences - but it's more about the thought and morality.

Chris Pratt plays mechanical engineer Jim Preston, woken early on a 120 year trip to a planet called "Homestead II." 90 years early. With no way to go back into hibernation and an empty ship (except for robotic bartender Arthur, played by Michael Sheen), it takes about a year before he goes kind of crazy. There are eventually two other awakened passengers: Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence) and Chief Deck Officer Gus (Laurence Fishburne). But the early awakenings turn out to be an indication of further problems with the ship itself ...

While perhaps not a great movie, it was a pleasure to watch an SF movie that had good characters, good writing, and a lot of thought behind it. (Huh - 31% on Rotten Tomatoes, other critics weren't nearly as interested as I was ...)

2016, dir. Morten Tyldum. With Chris Pratt, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Sheen, Laurence Fishburne.

Passchendaele

Paul Gross's take on Canada's involvement in World War I. Gross wrote, directed, and starred in something a little too close to a Canadian version of "Saving Private Ryan." Gross is a soldier we first see storming a German machine gun nest (embedded in the remains of a church) where he bayonets a very young, injured and unarmed German soldier. Gross says this comes from a story of the first World War his grandfather told him, one that may have shaped his grandfather's entire life. Gross's character is then sent home, injured, where he falls in love with his nurse (which certainly happened often enough during the wars). The nurse's young brother is determined to go to war, convinced that it will prove his bravery - despite having been rejected repeatedly for asthma. When he manages to get himself recruited, Gross follows him back to war to try to protect him for the love of his sister.

Like "Saving Private Ryan," this goes for gruesome historical accuracy (in the previous World War): Gross went absolutely all-out in that category - right up until the final fight, where we get a break from realism for a foolish, heroic, and unbelievable rescue. (Don't assume that that means a happy ending.) If you can live with that, it's a good movie with good acting all around, and interesting for its recreation of the period.

2008, dir. Paul Gross. With Paul Gross, Caroline Dhavernas, Joe Dinicol, Jim Mezon, Michael Greyeyes.

Patema Inverted

Patema is a young woman living in an underground society in this Japanese children's anime. She likes to go exploring in the forbidden "Danger Zone," and one day slips ... and nearly falls into the sky. It turns out that "down" for her is "up" for the world above her. She's rescued by an inverted young man who stands normally on the ground, and is kind of confused by her tendency to fall upwards ... Unfortunately, the leader of his society is extremely averse to inverted people.

Kind of a similar idea to "Upside Down," although not nearly so atrocious. Much more kid-oriented, sweeter, and just as illogical, at least the dialogue isn't as incredibly bad and the internal logic is more consistent. Enjoyable, a bit throw-away.

2013, dir. Yasushiro Yoshiura. With Fujii Yukiyo, Nobuhiko Okamoto, Oohata Shintaro, Masayuki Kato.

Patlabor: The Movie

About twenty minutes into this movie, it hit me that the director's habit of suddenly stopping action - and even conversation - to set the scene for a couple minutes, without advancing the plot ... Exactly like "Ghost in the Shell." A quick check showed I was right, both movies were directed by Mamoru Oshii: this one was six years previous to GitS.

The movie was made in 1989, but is set in 1999, and pictures a future Tokyo being built up by "Labors," giant robots. The police use Labors for Patrol, thus the title "Patlabor." The movie starts with a weird vignette that I'd forgotten by the time I got to the end of the movie because it made so little sense. In hindsight, it's explained - but not necessary. And then we have several minutes of labor and patlabor action mixed with the credits. Then there's a lot of exposition about construction going on in the city, and exposition about the police force we're watching. Then a bit more action, and then over an hour of nothing but talk. Not that I minded - it had some interesting things to say about labors and their potential problems. It just felt like false advertising starting with a lot of action when the movie is mostly talk. And then finally, the movie closes out with a ten minute action set piece - and not even a spoken conclusion, just ... done.

The budget was obviously pretty low: a lot of scenes show the back of people's head when they're talking, or nothing moving, stuff like that. It's not the best animation (although I've seen plenty worse).

Despite which, I kind of enjoyed Oshii's philosophizing and pointing out problems with technology (exactly what he did in GitS as well, although with a bigger budget and a better constructed movie).

1989, dir. Mamoru Oshii. With Toshio Furukawa, Miina Tominaga, Ryūnosuke Ōhbayashi, Shigeru Chiba, Yoshiko Sakakibara, Yō Inoue, Michihiro Ikemizu, Issei Futamata, Daisuke Gouri.

A Path to Happiness: A Guide to Living a Balanced Life

Three sections each of approximately an hour, of which I watched only the first entitled "Meditating With the Dalai Lama." He explains the purpose and methods of meditation. He's a very likable guy, but conveys ideas rather slowly because his English vocabulary is fairly limited. Still, quite good.

2006. With The Dalai Lama.

Patrick Melrose

This TV miniseries of five one hour episodes is based on a series of books by Edward St Aubyn. I didn't find out until after I'd watched the series that they're based - very closely, apparently - on the life of the author. The five episodes are each titled after one of the books: Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother's Milk, and At Last.

The title role is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, with Hugo Weaving and Jennifer Jason Leigh as his parents. The first episode begins with Patrick picking up the phone to hear that his father is dead, an occurrence that he celebrates. He flies from London to New York to collect his father's ashes while simultaneously trying to go sober. But his father's death and the events and people that surround it set him on a spiral of drug use.

Cumberbatch is brilliant in the lead. Patrick is a very intelligent guy, who, when he's sober enough, is a decent and caring person. Although he does have a streak of sarcasm a mile wide. But his parents made him a horrible mess (don't worry, the series will explore that in detail). Leigh and Weaving are excellent as his parents: Weaving is particularly convincingly unpleasant. Cumberbatch and the script make Patrick someone you desperately want to succeed, but he stumbles and fails over and over for five episodes, often surrounded by the most despicable people in the English upper classes, because those were the family friends.

This is a comedy, after a fashion. Very, very black. Many of the people in the series are unbelievably unpleasant (I'm not using the word "unbelievably" for emphasis or effect as I suppose I sometimes do: I mean "I did not believe it"), even when brought to life by some of Britain's best actors. And the humour is drawn from their appalling banter and behaviour, so the laughter is strained at best. And it's clear at the end of the series that it's meant to show that Patrick may finally be on the path to getting his life together, but the journey was incredibly dark and unpleasant and I didn't enjoy it. But it was certainly memorable. Many people will like this: I did not.

2018, dir. Edward Berger. With Benedict Cumberbatch, Hugo Weaving, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Sebastian Maltz, Jessica Raine, Pip Torrens, Prasanna Puwanarajah, Holliday Grainger, Indira Varma, Anna Madeley, Blythe Danner, Celia Imrie, Harriet Walter, Allison Williams.

Patriots Day

A fictionalized account covering the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, from the evening before through the capture of the remaining suspect. Mark Wahlberg plays a policeman temporarily demoted to the street (reason for the demotion never covered). He swears a lot, works the finish line, and is heavily involved in the follow-up investigation. We see a number of what seem like random Bostonians going about their lives and jobs. This is of course heavy telegraphing: we're getting to know these people because they're going to be in danger or lose their lives.

With the exception of Mark Wahlberg constantly swearing, the movie is almost entirely lacking in humour - presumably out of "respect" for its subjects. This is one of the problems with making a movie like this so close to the events it portrays. The sense of place, the chaos at the finish line when the bombs went off, feels disorienting and horribly accurate. But as a whole, the movie is pedestrian: a respectful, patriotic, and somewhat boring retelling of an unpleasant event in American history.

I much prefer the movie "Stronger" as a look at the Boston Marathon Bombing: it's about recovery instead of persecution, it's better written, better acted, and a far better viewing experience.

2016, dir. Peter Berg. With Mark Wahlberg, John Goodman, J.K. Simmons, Kevin Bacon, Michelle Monaghan, Alex Wolff, Themo Melikidze.

Patton

One of the better war movies out there. George C. Scott is excellent as the brilliant General Patton, crippled by his own arrogance. Karl Malden plays General Bradley, who gets a less revealing and more sympathetic take. Which of course had nothing to do with the fact that General Bradley was still alive and consulted on the movie.

1970, dir. Franklin Schaffner. With George C. Scott, Karl Malden.

Paycheck

Ben Affleck plays a genius in a world that takes Non-Disclosure Agreements a little farther than we do: his memories of the job are wiped after he finishes. After a particularly long job, he comes out of the mind wipe to find he abandoned the money (multiple millions) and left himself a set of trinkets instead. He's understandably confused by this and spends the rest of the movie trying to figure out what happened on his last job and why he did what he did. Suitably twisty for a Philip K. Dick story (which it was based on), although the ending certainly didn't seem like Dick. An excess of gratuitous action, but fairly enjoyable. Too bad Affleck didn't act.

2003, dir. John Woo. With Ben Affleck, Uma Thurman, Aaron Eckhart, Paul Giamatti, Colm Feore.

Peace by Chocolate

"Peace By Chocolate" isn't just the name of the movie, it's also the name of the actual chocolate company founded by Syrian immigrants in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. The movie focuses on father Issam (Hatem Ali) and son Tareq (Ayham Abou Ammar), fleeing the Syrian civil war with their family. Tareq (who speaks good English) comes over first and gets a typical Canadian welcome, stepping out of the airport into a Canadian snow storm. When his father and mother join him, his father resumes his old work of making chocolates - despite speaking no English. The third-largest role goes to Frank (Mark Camacho), a local who does everything he can to help the family out.

I found the father and son surprisingly unsympathetic: Tareq was desperate to complete his medical degree to become a doctor, which I sympathized with. But he wanted to do that immediately, to the point of abandoning his family in the middle of Antigonish (population 4,500) with no translator. I agreed with Issam that Tareq should stick around for a while - but I felt that Issam showed zero sympathy for Tareq's desire, or even recognition that it would be good for the family. Of course as movie viewers we have no idea what the actual family dynamic was - we see a condensation of a couple years in an hour and a half. It works out reasonably well (or so the movie claims), but when the most sympathetic character is the third-most important character in the movie and not one of the refugees that the movie is nominally about ... It's not a bad movie, but I was expecting "a heart-warming story" and I felt the movie faltered on that front.

2021, dir. Jonathan Keijser. With Hatem Ali, Ayham Abou Ammar, Yari Sabri, Mark Camacho, Najlaa Al Khamri, Kathryn Kirkpatrick, Mark Hachem, Alike Autran, Laurent Pitre.

Peaceful Warrior

Based on the Dan Millman book Way of the Peaceful Warrior. Millman's novel, as poorly written as it is, has been hugely influential on many people - myself included. Unfortunately, someone is always trying to take stories of internal journeys and make movies of them. This usually works just as well as you'd expect.

Scott Mechlowicz plays Dan Millman, a university gymnast on track for the Olympics. But he has a substantial ego and a self-loathing he hides with alcohol and a string of women. Nick Nolte plays "Socrates," Millman's spiritual guide.

Nolte isn't convincing as a man who is totally at peace, and he's especially not convincing as someone full of joy and happiness. The tasks he sets Millman come off as even more random than they did in the book because they have less to tie them together. As a fan of the book this brought back some of the pleasures and reminders about life that the book has to give, but I can't imagine it would leave a good impression on anyone new to the material.

2006, dir. Victor Salva. With Scott Mechlowicz, Nick Nolte, Amy Smart, Ashton Holmes.

The Peanut Butter Falcon

Zak (Zack Gottsagen) is a young man with Down syndrome who lives - involuntarily - in an old people's home in North Carolina because the state didn't know what else to do with him. He's cared for by Eleanor (Dakota Johnson). Tyler (Shia LaBeouf) is a fisherman without a license, stealing from the people who got his brother's license when his brother died. When Zak escapes the old people's home, he crosses paths with Tyler and eventually they head off together to try to find Zak's wrestling hero, the Salt Water Redneck (Thomas Haden Church). Eleanor catches up to them and, rather than returning Zak to the home as she's intended, ends up sailing a raft down the Outer Banks with them.

I have very mixed feelings about the movie: its heart is in the right place and the characters are charming (and well acted, particularly LaBeouf), and they even manage something resembling realism for 99% of the movie. But they choose to toss reality out the window at a critical moment and go for something you might call magical realism because it feels better. I get why they did it, but if you're going to paint your movie as realistic, don't abandon it momentarily - particularly not at the climax of the movie.

It's warm-hearted and sweet, without being sickeningly so. Mostly pretty good.

2019, dir. Tyler Nilson, Michael Schwartz. With Shia LaBeouf, Dakota Johnson, Zack Gottsagen, John Hawkes, Bruce Dern, Jon Bernthal, Thomas Haden Church, Yelawolf, Mick Foley, Jake "The Snake" Roberts.

Penelope

A fairy tale with a modern setting. I had a hard time wrapping my head around that: "That's Christina Ricci with a prosthetic pig nose and it's not a fantasy setting." Took me half an hour to get over that. The nose is the result of a curse that can be cured by "true love" blah blah blah, but the curse is essentially the only magic we see in the movie - another part of the stumbling block. But once I got past all that (hopefully others watching it won't be so slow on the uptake), I quite enjoyed it. Goofy and charming and consistent to the underlying idea. Reese Witherspoon shows up late, plays well, and ... turns out to be one of the producers.

2006, dir. Mark Palansky. With Christina Ricci, James McAvoy, Richard E. Grant, Catherine O'Hara, Peter Dinklage, Reese Witherspoon, Richard Leaf.

Penn & Teller's Magic and Mystery Tour

This DVD includes three segments each about 50 minutes, with the intrepid duo visiting China, India, and Egypt in search of indigenous street magic. While there are occasional fascinating moments, this is overall pretty damn dull. I'm not sure even hardcore Penn & Teller fans would find much here to entertain them: Penn & Teller are our guides, but they do very little magic.

I think my favourite moment was when Teller broke his silence to talk about an Egyptian magician who did the cup and balls trick for them - and he of course knew what was going on, that the balls were being palmed ... but the balls were absolutely not where he expected them and he was astounded. It was fun to see.

2003, dir. Ric Esther Bienstock, Mick Grogan, Hugo Smith. With Penn Jillette, Teller.

Perception (TV)

My review is based on viewing the first four episodes of the series.

Our (anti-)hero is Dr. Daniel Pierce (Eric McCormack, also a producer), a schizophrenic neuropsychiatrist and professor who serves as a consultant to the FBI on significant crimes. Other characters include his former student and current FBI agent Kate Moretti (Rachael Leigh Cook), Max Lewicki (Arjay Smith) as Pierce's teaching assistant who tries to keep Pierce organized enough to keep him sane, and Natalie Vincent (Kelly Rowan), his best friend (who is revealed by the second episode to be one of his hallucinations).

The biggest problem I had with the series was the rigidity of the structure:

  • Pierce talks to his class about some aspect of psychology that will appear in the episode
  • Moretti shows up to take Pierce off campus, 50% chance of conflict with Lewicki
  • crime is described
  • false leads and red herrings
  • Pierce manifests a new hallucinatory friend to help him through the problem
  • crime is solved
  • Pierce talks to class about related aspects of psychology

The characters are too ... convenient. The psychological problems manifested by the criminals are overblown, too blatant. And often too improbable, and too neatly fitting into the crime, solution, and plot. And again, the prescribed structure is tiresome.

One amusing feature was that, while the broad external shots are clearly in Chicago (where the show is set), the interior shots on campus and close-up external shots all appear to be on the University of Toronto, at or near University College or Knox College.

2012. With Eric McCormack, Rachael Leigh Cook, Arjay Smith, Kelly Rowan, LeVar Burton, Jamie Bamber, Dan Lauria.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

Logan Lerman plays Percy, whose life becomes a bit messy when he's attacked by a Fury and discovers that A) he's a demigod and a son of Poseidon (Kevin McKidd), B) everyone thinks he stole Zeus's lightning, and C) if the lightning he doesn't have isn't returned soon, the end of the world as we know it is fairly likely. After the kidnapping of his mother (Catherine Keener) by Hades (Steve Coogan) and some training in which he proves he's an apt pupil with a sword, he's off to save the world ... or at least his mother. Assistance is provided by his guardian, a satyr named Grover (Brandon T. Jackson), and Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario), daughter of Athena.

I think Chris Columbus saw this as the sequel to Harry Potter that he didn't get to make. The feel is astonishingly similar. And, like HP1, he steers the movie with a competent but heavy hand. Not that the original novel is subtle, but Columbus still managed to take away from the movie some. The acting is barely competent, the effects are very good. All the big names you see in the credits list have small parts (Lerman and Daddario weren't well known at the time).

2010, dir. Chris Columbus. With Logan Lerman, Brandon T. Jackson, Alexandra Daddario, Jake Abel, Sean Bean, Pierce Brosnan, Steve Coogan, Rosario Dawson, Catherine Keener, Kevin McKidd, Joe Pantoliano, Uma Thurman.

Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters

This instalment starts with Percy (Logan Lerman) being accused of being a "one quest wonder" (ie. the outcome of the last movie) and trying to figure out who he is and what he's doing. But any philosophy is quickly lost once the evil enemy of this episode is revealed and the quest is on. The quest is assigned, quirky characters are met, power-ups are dispersed, set-backs are encountered. The formula was acceptable once - the previous movie - because the setting and idea were new, but this one is even more poorly helmed by director Thor Freudenthal and plods through uninteresting scenarios to a predetermined end. Pathetic.

2013, dir. Thor Freudenthal. With Logan Lerman, Alexandra Daddario, Brandon T. Jackson, Douglas Smith, Leven Ramblin, Jake Abel, Stanley Tucci, Nathan Fillion, Anthony Head.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Our protagonist is Charlie (Logan Lerman), attending his first day of high school. He is labelled - correctly - by Patrick (Ezra Miller) as a "wallflower." He becomes good friends with Patrick and Sam (Emma Watson) and their friends, but they all have some pretty serious ghosts.

Lerman and Watson are pretty good, but Miller was great as the flamboyant Patrick. One of the quotes of the movie - it appears twice - pretty much summarizes what the movie is about: "We accept the love we think we deserve." The movie goes to some pretty dark places, but ends on a relatively positive note. The original book was written by Steven Chbosky, who also wrote the screenplay and directed.

2012, dir. Stephen Chbosky. With Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, Ezra Miller, Paul Rudd, Mae Whitman, Nina Dobrev, Johnny Simmons, Dylan McDermott, Kate Walsh, Joan Cusack.

Persepolis

Marjane Satrapi wrote two graphic novels, essentially an autobiography, in 2004 and 2005. She was born and raised in Iran under the rule of the Shah. At an early age she went through the revolution, then the war with Iraq, then the incredibly restrictive religious regime. At which point her parents sent her off to Vienna to be safer and go to school. It's one hell of a story, and they're among the best graphic novels anybody's ever written. This movie is the first book (and a bit of the second I think) converted into a movie. The graphical style is very similar to the books, but the feel is very different. Different episodes show up with radically different weighting in the movie, it was very odd - I found the running comparison in my head detracted from the movie. But the movie is excellent. It's a war seen through the eyes of a ten year old whose biggest concern is getting an Iron Maiden tape ... but a month later a rocket goes into their building and kills the family next door. That's the kind of mix you get. Unusual, one hell of an education in the history of Iran, and definitely worth seeing.

2007, dir. Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi. With Amethyste Fezignac, Marjane Satrapi, Sean Penn, Iggy Pop, Gena Rowlands.

Person of Interest, Season 1

Wikipedia has classified "Person of Interest" as a "science fiction crime drama" - I kind of think they should have worked the word "detective" in there somewhere, but I guess "crime drama" covers it. The basic concept has "Harold Finch" (the pseudonym of a reclusive billionaire software programmer, played by Michael Emerson) having created a machine for the government that identifies homicidal intent anywhere in the U.S. It was built only to find terrorists, but also finds many other crimes that are discarded because they're not terrorist action. Finch recruits homeless former special operations soldier John Reese (Jim Caviezel) to help him try to prevent these non-terrorist threats as the government is only dealing with the terrorist threats. But this puts them entirely outside the law, and in possession of a data source they can't even talk about. All they get is Social Security Numbers - and at that they don't know if the person is a target or a threat.

This is all set in current day New York City, and our two protagonists spend their time following people (in person and by electronic means) to determine what's happening in their lives and guessing at what's likely to happen to them. They tangle repeatedly with the authorities, and eventually recruit a couple members of the police force to assist them.

While Finch and Reese are reasonably charming characters (the police officers Carter and Fusco somewhat less so), and any individual episode is usually reasonably fun, I found the cumulative effect got tiresome and unbelievable. Examples include the amount of physical damage, including torture, that Reese accumulates. I'll believe it in one episode, but when it happens to him repeatedly, you know he'd eventually quit: there's only so much of that you can take. Or Carter and Fusco: sure, they can cover for "the man in the suit" in one episode, even two. But their constantly doing what he asks of them would have them fired (and probably jailed) in a matter of months.

I've watched a few episodes in the second season, and (as critical commentary suggested online), the storylines do seem to be somewhat better.

2011. With Jim Caviezel, Michael Emerson, Taraji P. Henson, Kevin Chapman.

Person of Interest, Season 2

"Person of Interest" keeps moving, shifting the pieces in unexpected but somewhat reasonable ways, keeping itself interesting: they don't just get a number and rescue a person, episode after episode. No - they find themselves facing off against different groups who want to control the machine, or destroy it, and different crime families arise - and some of those simply don't behave as expected. A lot of TV shows do things too absurd for their audience to accept - it's called "jumping the shark" for a reason - but "PoI" has mostly managed to keep its twists within the realm of reason given the context of the show. This was an interesting season for me - I found the twists alternatively annoying and intriguing, and in the end enjoyed it rather more than I expected to.

Jim Caviezel's acting continues to be poor - but that's okay, because he's surrounded by a bunch of other poor actors: Michael Emerson, Taraji P. Henson, and Kevin Chapman. Even Enrico Colantoni, who is a thoroughly capable character actor, is underused and poorly managed in his few appearances as "Elias." But better a consistent level of acting than one standout making the others look bad ... And their handling of technology - from Harold Finch's magical hacking skills in which he can break into anything in seconds (unless the story calls for him not to), and the phone "forced pairing," among others - continues to be ludicrously silly. But let it slide - it's a fun show.

2012. With Jim Caviezel, Michael Emerson, Taraji P. Henson, Kevin Chapman, Amy Acker, Sarah Shahi, Enrico Colantoni.

Person of Interest, Season 3

When the show started, calling it "Science Fiction" was ... peripheral. Our heroes were tracking down people whose Social Security Numbers they received and trying to prevent their deaths (or prevent them from killing others). They got the numbers from "The Machine," but it didn't feature heavily. How they get the numbers is now front and centre, and it's all about The Machine and the whole season features the attempt by the very shadowy "Decima Technologies" to create their own more dangerous version of it, "Samaritan."

The show is certainly suggesting relevant questions about surveillance society and AI - whether or not anyone is paying any attention to the questions asked in the age of Donald Trump is unclear. Okay, it was filmed during the Obama administration, but I'm watching it now and Trump's rise only makes the questions more valid.

I like a lot of things about the show: the cast is dynamic, but the new people are often introduced months before they become a major character. The writers are thinking ahead and doing good planning, which pays off for us. I'm not enjoying the turn to pure paranoia, with them being the hunted - they've always been hunted, but by the beginning of the fourth season it's become a dominant factor. The high school reunion episode was hysterically funny (episode 19 ... although its central mystery wasn't terribly exciting), with a pair of trained killers (Reese and Shaw) trying to fit in among accountants and mechanics.

Overall, a good season.

2013. With Jim Caviezel, Michael Emerson, Taraji P. Henson, Kevin Chapman, Sarah Shahi, Amy Acker.

Persuasion (1995)

Not as enjoyable as some of the other versions of Jane Austen books, but this isn't the fault of director Roger Michell: he's painting the same picture that Austen painted. Anne Elliot (our central character, played here by Amanda Root) has a pretty miserable life. Having refused an offer of marriage from Frederick Wentworth (Ciarán Hinds) eight years previously, she's now encountering him again socially while trying to deal with her very difficult and domineering family - and the family friend who persuaded her not to get married. It's Austen, so things will probably turn out well, it's just that her life is a bit darker than other Austen heroines.

This is a good interpretation with good acting, and the best available production of the book.

1995. dir. Roger Michell. With Amanda Root, Ciarán Hinds, Susan Fleetwood, Fiona Shaw, John Woodvine, Emma Roberts, Victoria Hamilton.

Persuasion (2007)

A BBC TV production of this famous Austen story. See the previous entry for a plot outline. Although one of the first things I noticed was that they really weren't overly concerned with Austen's view of the plot. Or the text. And they had a short running time, so they cut even more details. And/or just re-wrote it as they saw fit. And characters are introduced so fast it's hard to keep track of them.

Passable acting (except for Anthony Head as the father who chews the scenery whenever he's on-screen) isn't nearly enough to overcome shoddy filming, a bad script and a overall rushed production. As with most movies, this finds a few moments of poignancy, but you'll be better off watching the much better 1995 version.

Stars Sally Hawkins as Anne Elliot a decade before her meteoric rise to fame in "Maudie" and "The Shape of Water."

2007, dir. Adrian Shergold. With Sally Hawkins, Rupert Penry-Jones, Alice Krige, Anthony Head, Julia Davis, Amanda Hale, Sam Hazeldine, Peter Wight, Marion Bailey, Joseph Mawle.

Phantom Boy

Our hero in this French animated movie (set in New York City!) is Leo (voiced by Alex Gagnol), an 11 year old being treated at the hospital for some really nasty disease that looks like it's probably cancer. But he has a power: he can float away from his body unseen, fly and explore the world as a phantom. He befriends a cop (Édouard Baer) who's also in hospital, and together they try - with cellphones and Leo's skill - to prevent "The Face" (Jean-Pierre Marielle) from destroying the city.

They use a plain style of slightly shaky 2D animation that I'm not a fan of. But the longer I watched, the less I cared: their only concession to the kids that are the target audience was to make the villain and his henchmen somewhat comedic instead of flat out scary. They show Leo's parents leaving his hospital room having put on a good face for him, breaking down crying - and Leo sees it because he's a phantom. A heart-breaking, charming, and wonderful piece of work.

2015, dir. Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol. With Édouard Baer, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Audrey Tautou, Jackie Berroyer, Alex Gagnol, Noa Bernaoui-Savreux.

Phenom

A young baseball player (Hopper Gibson, played by Johnny Simmons) recruited straight to the majors out of high school suddenly throws multiple wild pitches, leading to his assignment to a sports psychologist (Paul Giamatti) who works with him to understand the damage his abusive father (Ethan Hawke) has done to him.

The director uses static shots and various camera tricks that I found isolated us more from the characters in the film rather than bringing us into their life. Hopper Gibson wasn't a very appealing character - he had some justification for the way he was, what with his father being as horrible as he was, but I didn't enjoy his process of discovery. Paul Giamatti was (as he often is) the best thing in the movie.

2016, dir. Noah Buschel. With Johnny Simmons, Ethan Hawke, Paul Giamatti, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Yul Vazquez, Marin Ireland, Elizabeth Marvel.

The Philadelphia Story

Katherine Hepburn's character is about to enter into her second marriage when a tabloid writer and his photographer (James Stewart and Ruth Hussey) are ushered into the arrangements by the ex-husband (Cary Grant). The barbed wit and bickering pissed me off at times, and I wasn't surprised to find George Cukor's name attached to this Hepburn vehicle - see also "Adam's Rib" (which I really disliked for particularly vicious verbal sparring). This is much better, often quite funny - but ultimately empty because there's no emotional solidity: allegiances and interests change at the drop of a hat.

1940, dir. George Cukor. With Katherine Hepburn, James Stewart, Cary Grant, Ruth Hussey, John Howard, Roland Young, John Halliday.

The Phantom Tollbooth

This one's easy to review: read the book instead. While the movie makes some effort to stay true to the spirit of the book, its lessons about looking around, paying attention, and learning are all better absorbed in the longer and less passive media of a book.

The story sees Milo, a very bored child, transported from the real world to the animated world where he encounters a great number of very strange creatures and people, and ultimately saves the world before coming home. Even though the sense of menace in the book isn't great, it's been defused further in the movie: nothing is frightening at all. I didn't like the songs, but that's probably a personal bias.

1970, dir. Chuck Jones, Abe Levitow, Dave Monahan. With Butch Patrick, Mel Blanc, Shepard Menken.

Phone Booth

A man is trapped in a phone booth by a sniper. Filmed in ten days (I think it benefits from this) and in continuity (ie. they never went backwards in the plot while shooting). Colin Ferrell's performance is excellent, and the plot is fairly good. But I thought the ending - the last two minutes - were a real cheat. Director Joel Schumacher says in his voice-over (literally) "fuck them if they can't take a joke." See the movie anyway - it's unusual, and mostly very well done.

2002, dir. Joel Schumacher. With Colin Ferrell, Forest Whitaker, Kiefer Sutherland.

Pick of the Litter

The movie follows potential guide dogs from birth through "graduation," when they're given to the people who need them. SPOILER: not all of them make the cut. If you don't want to read my whole review (which isn't terribly long), Rotten Tomatoes summary is very accurate: "'Pick of the Litter' has all the fluffy adorableness audiences expect from a puppy documentary, along with a story that's as edifying as it is heartwarming."

The directors worked with a charity called "Guide Dogs for the Blind," who train the dogs. They filmed a litter of five puppies, all with "P" names (Poppet, Potomac, Phil, Patriot, and Primrose) as they're sent out to their first homes for socialization and initial training, through their ten week training back at Guide Dog headquarters, and finally to the people they'll spend their lives with. It's staggeringly cute and also quite fascinating. I had always assumed a lot of training went into these dogs: it does, and it's interesting to see what that is. One of the most interesting documentaries I've seen in quite a while.

2018, dir. Dana Nachman and Don Hardy.

Pineapple Express

A "stoner-action-comedy" according to the producer (Judd Apatow), an accurate enough assessment. If you like stoner humour, this is probably a masterpiece, but it didn't really work for me. There are a couple good laughs, but mostly it's Seth Rogen and James Franco stumbling around being stupid (which they do well). Also fairly violent.

2008, dir. David Gordon Green. With Seth Rogen, James Franco, James Remar, Gary Cole, Rosie Perez.

The Pink Panther

I had good memories of the "Pink Panther" movies from childhood, but I'm not sure I saw this one - probably later ones. And in 2008 this one did very little for me. Sellers is pretty good at physical comedy, but the movie as a whole kind of wanders about making the occasional lame joke.

1963, dir. Blake Edwards. With Peter Sellers, David Niven, Robert Wagner, Capucine, Claudia Cardinale.

The Pink Panther (2006)

Not quite as humiliating as I expected, but not too far off. Steve Martin goes full out attempting to imitate Peter Sellers, with limited success. I laughed perhaps twice in the entire movie.

2006, dir. Shawn Levy. With Steve Martin, Jean Reno, Kevin Kline, Beyoncé Knowles, Emily Mortimer.

Pirate Radio (orig. "The Boat That Rocked")

Seventeen year old Carl (Tom Sturridge) is sent to the Radio Rock boat anchored off the British coast in 1966. They broadcast rock music into Britain, where the BBC won't play rock. The boat is managed by Quentin (Bill Nighy), who asks him why he was kicked out of school. "I suppose smoking was the clincher." "Drugs or cigarettes?" "Well, both." "Well done! Proud of you. So your mum sent you here in the hope that a little bracing sea air would sort you out?" "Something like that." "Spectacular mistake." And there, in a nutshell, you have the movie's plot and humour. It's funny as hell with fantastic music and a weak plot. Despite that latter problem I recommend it for the humour and the huge cast of eccentrics they build up (Nighy, Nick Frost, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Rhys Ifans are all wonderful).

2009, dir. Richard Curtis. With Tom Sturridge, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rhys Ifans, Bill Nighy, Nick Frost, Talulah Riley, Chris O'Dowd, Kenneth Branagh.

Pirates of the Carribean

Unquestionably a Disney product, but one of their better live action efforts that actually has some entertainment value for the adults in the audience. Geoffry Rush and Johnny Depp are so far over the top they've come round the other side, but that's part of the fun. The special effects are great.

2003. dir. Gore Verbinski. With Geoffry Rush, Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

This one makes the previous one look like fine art. Too long and too messy, but the special effects are pretty good.

2006, dir. Gore Verbinski. With Johnny Depp, Keira Knightley, Orlando Bloom, Jack Davenport, Bill Nighy.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

Another mess. Far too long (2h45m). Everyone looks filthy, gritty, and diseased - yes, it's intentional, but how is that appealing? The plot is convoluted and stupid. Once again, lots of visual effects fail to make up for a complete lack of appeal. The only relief from annoyance was Keith Richards' promised appearance as Jack Sparrow's Dad - fortunately short, as it doesn't appear Richards can act.

2007, dir. Gore Verbinski. With Geoffry Rush, Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, Bill Nighy, Jack Davenport, Jonathan Pryce, Keith Richards.

Pitch Black

Simple set-up: spaceship crashes on alien world, convict escapes, people start disappearing. Vin Diesel plays Riddick, the incredibly lethal and not very friendly convict. But what the survivors eventually figure out is that Riddick probably isn't their worst problem: this planet has three suns, and it's been years since the sun went down ... but when it does, things get really interesting. And Riddick's skills at killing things start to look more important than his crimes.

Heir-apparent to "Alien" for creepy slaughter-in-the-dark SF horror, the story is very straight-forward, and very well done. More action-oriented than "Alien." Vin Diesel is particularly menacing as Riddick: but do yourself a favour and watch the original theatrical cut, as the Director's Cut, while only three minutes longer than the theatrical, adds primarily scenes of Riddick talking. And Diesel just isn't a good enough actor to carry that, instead dispelling the menace. He's much better at looking evil in the distance. With that caveat, highly recommended.

2000, dir. David Twohy. With Vin Diesel, Radha Mitchell, Cole Hauser, Keith David, Rhiana Griffith, Simon Burke.

Pitch Perfect

I completely ignored this movie on its release, thinking it was just another campy high school comedy (admittedly set at a university). Worse, it's full of musical numbers. But a couple friends twisted my arm to make me watch it, insisting that it was hilariously funny.

The story starts at an university level a capella singing competition, where we're introduced to the two teams from Barden University: the ever-successful (all male) Treblemakers and the usually successful (all female) Barden Bellas, whose initial performance is interrupted by one of the performers projectile vomiting. I'm not usually one for vomit humour, but the announcer commentary (by Elizabeth Banks, also a producer) is side-splittingly funny.

We then jump to the beginning of the next school year, with the arrival of our main character, Beca (Anna Kendrick), on the Barden campus. She's reluctantly recruited into the Bellas, while her would-be love interest is recruited into the Treblemakers, setting up a musical Romeo-and-Juliet situation.

As I had suspected, the plot structure is horribly formulaic, and I do have a bit of an issue with that. But the humour is scathing and often brilliant, and to my considerable surprise I really enjoyed the music and dance (which is restricted to appropriate situations: people don't break into song in non-sensical situations as per 1950s musicals). So in the end I get, and agree with, Rotten Tomatoes 81% rating for this one: lots of fun. Several references to "The Breakfast Club" don't hurt either.

2012, dir. Jason Moore. With Anna Kendrick, Anna Camp, Brittany Snow, Skylar Astin, Rebel Wilson, Ben Platt, Adam DeVine, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Ester Dean, Alexis Knapp, Hana Mae Lee, Freddie Stroma, John Benjamin Hickey, Elizabeth Banks, John Michael Higgins, Christopher Mintz-Plasse.

Pitch Perfect 2

I saw the original "Pitch Perfect" only six weeks before this sequel came out. I saw it under duress, and to my surprise I enjoyed it immensely. I had a pretty good idea of why I enjoyed it: seeing the sequel re-enforced those ideas, by failing to carry through on the things I enjoyed most.

It's three years later, and Beca (Anna Kendrick) and the Bellas are still going strong. So much so that they're doing a command performance for President Obama. If you've seen the trailer, you'll know (and those who haven't, relax - this happens before the title credits, much like the puking in the first movie) that Fat Amy has a spectacular, show-stopping wardrobe malfunction (a euphemism that's going strong more than a decade after the Janet Jackson performance that spawned the term, but I digress). This gets them barred from the ICCA, although Beca manages to get the promise that they'll be reinstated if they win the Worlds in a few months ... something no American group has ever achieved. And so our very thin plot is constructed. About the only thing of significance I've left out is the addition of a new Bella (other Bellas have changed, but that's not discussed) played by Hailee Steinfeld.

Under the direction of Elizabeth Banks (who also continues in the role of reporter and ICCA director) the movie has taken the small step to almost pure sketch comedy. Both the plot and character development are essentially non-existent as we're moved from sketch to mean-spirited sketch. While "Pitch Perfect" didn't have much of a plot, it did at least have something: Beca had to get from point A (friendless) to point B (friends), and we actually saw it happen between the songs. Here, it just doesn't matter. Worse, the music choices and the choreography are significantly worse. Part of the problem was that some of them were meant to be bad, but even the ones that were meant to be good weren't as good as the previous movie.

With all that said, there are some very good jokes - and the inclusion of five (?) members of the Green Bay Packers, and a number of other hilarious cameos, was great. But I won't be replaying this one the way I did the previous one. Update: In fact now that it's out on DVD I've found the movie so humiliating and mean-spirited that I don't want to watch it at all.

As a side note, I'm going to say something I've said before: previews ROCK. You get in free, you get to see the movie before everyone else, they give you free stuff (okay, it was only a small flashlight - yes, there's a connection to the movie) and there are NO ADS before the movie. How great is that?

2015, dir. Elizabeth Banks. With Anna Kendrick, Rebel Wilson, Brittany Snow, Skylar Astin, Hailee Steinfeld, Adam DeVine, David Cross.

Pixels

The movie opens on a group of teenage friends, competing in a 1982 video arcade challenge. Footage of the contest is launched into space. In the modern day, Adam Sandler is the contest runner-up, now an in-home technology installer. He's shortly called to the White House because one of his friends is now the President (Kevin James) - and the world is being attacked by characters from those video games they used to play. They assemble a group of aging nerds (those who know the games in question) to fight off the invasion.

This was never going to be a great movie, but it had the potential to be a lot of fun. But as directed by Chris Columbus, written by him and Adam Sandler, and starring the trifecta of unfunny, Sandler, Kevin James, and Josh Gad ... it wasn't to be. There are a few gags that raise a smile, but many more are dead on arrival, or cause a cringe. As an example of the peak of their humour: the aliens sent their messages to Earth by repurposing 80s and 90s TV broadcasts, so messages of invasion were delivered by (among others) Ricardo Montalbán and Hervé Villechaize, and Hall and Oates. That was worth a grin, but now I've spoiled a couple of the funniest moments in the film for you. The rest were spoiled in the trailer.

This movie is very much about my generation of video games, the stuff I grew up playing. I'll stick with that excuse, and the COVID-19 boredom as to why I watched this. Trust me, there's better stuff available - no matter how bored you are. Perhaps you should go watch the 2010 short by Patrick Jean, also called "Pixels" (it's available on YouTube), which inspired the movie. Or play some of those old games - either would be time better spent.

2015, dir. Chris Columbus. With Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Michelle Monaghan, Peter Dinklage, Josh Gad, Brian Cox, Sean Bean, Jane Krakowski, Affion Crockett, Ashley Benson, Matt Lintz.

The Place Promised in Our Early Days

This is Makoto Shinkai's first feature length film - and watching it means I've watched all his features as of 2020. But I have to say ... if you haven't seen this one, you're not missing much.

His other movies mostly involve some kind of fantasy ("Garden of Words" is an exception): I was interested in this simply because it was the only science fiction movie he's done. It's set in a world like our own, but the northern island of Japan is a separate political entity ("the Union," per the English version of the movie I saw ... although Wikipedia claims this is the Soviet Union). Our two young middle school heroes are building themselves a plane to fly across the straight between their island and the Union so they can get close to the multi-kilometre tall tower the Union has built. Over the course of a summer, they become friends with a young woman. And then we jump forward three years. The inevitable war is approaching (between their government and the Union), and we find out their young female friend disappeared after their summer together. The second half of the movie sees their not-entirely-happy re-union and a weird conclusion to the movie (I expected nothing less from Shinkai).

The characters aren't as well drawn as his later work - both in the literal sense of their figures and faces, and in the far less literal sense of how they're written (although, as mentioned earlier, I did watch it in English translation ... always a bit dubious). But Shinkai's already clearly showing his incredible visual flair: it's spectacularly pretty.

"Your Name" is my favourite of his movies: I would recommend that over this one. This is tied with "Children Who Chase Lost Voices" as his worst work. Although, again, both are visually stunning and neither is actually a bad movie ...

2004, dir. Makoto Shinkai. With Chris Patton, Kalob Martinez, Jessica Boone, Andy McAvin, Kira Vincent-Davis, John Swasey.

Plane

"Plane" is a very utilitarian action movie. It starts by setting up the characters, including pilot Brodie Torrance (Gerard Butler) and prisoner-in-transport Louis Gaspare (Mike Coulter). Amazingly, Butler gets to speak in his native Scottish accent (if you look at his acting history, he's mostly spoken "American").

While it felt like they had put considerable effort into making the details of our character's working in the cockpit of the plane accurate, in other areas there were numerous continuity errors (I wasn't trying to find them, but some were quite obvious). The most annoying one was in a long conversation between Torrance and his co-pilot (Yoson An), every second shot of An had him without his safety harness on - even though they were experiencing extreme turbulence. Then it would cut back again, and he'd be harnessed properly. Back and forth.

They land - badly, but nearly intact - on a small island in the Philippines. One that's controlled by rebels, who are far more interested in hostages and money than rescuing the passengers. (I'm not telling you anything that isn't in the trailer.) Torrance and Gaspare work together in an attempt to free the other passengers.

As I said, utilitarian. With the exception of the continuity errors and some sloppy science, it's not bad: there are fights, dramatic moments, rescues, etc. The kind of people who like this sort of thing will probably enjoy this - you know who you are.

2023, dir. Jean-François Richet. With Gerard Butler, Mike Colter, Yoson An, Tony Goldwyn, Evan Dane Taylor, Paul Ben-Victor, Daniella Pineda, Lilly Krug, Kelly Gale, Joey Slotnick, Remi Adeleke.

Planes

Disney's follow-up to Pixar's "Cars," now that they own Pixar. Dusty Crophopper (voiced by Dane Cook) is a cropduster who dreams of being a racer. His clueless fuel truck friend (Brad Garrett) encourages him, and they court the assistance of Skip (Stacy Keach), a grounded World War II Chance Vought F4U Corsair, as a coach.

It has none of the (what used to be) typical Pixar brilliance, and not even the cleverness of Disney's better work. No humour for adults, it's relentlessly sweet with good messages for kids and occasionally a bit slow, but it is at least pleasing to look at. Despite the many problems, they found enough humour and good-hearted moments that I kind of enjoyed it - in part because I've lowered my expectations of the formerly great Pixar to somewhere in the sub-basement, but it's better than "Cars 2" (which is how my expectations got there).

2013, dir. Klay Hall. With Dane Cook, Stacy Keach, Priyanka Chopra Jones, Brad Garrett, Cedric the Entertainer, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, John Cleese, Carlos Alazraqui.

Playing By Heart

A big, good ensemble cast tackling a script about love and relationships. May well have inspired "Love, Actually," which is very similar but British. :-) Enjoyable.

1998, dir. Willard Carroll. With Gillian Anderson, Ellen Burstyn, Sean Connery, Anthony Edwards, Angelina Jolie, Jay Mohr, Ryan Phillippe, Dennis Quaid, Gena Rowlands, Jon Stewart, Madeleine Stowe.

Planet 51

The movie opens with an idyllic scene of a man and a woman in a car, admiring an evening view. But they're then attacked by evil aliens, who are attacked by the local militia, who are revealed to be aliens (of a different sort) ... and in fact we're watching a horror movie on an alien planet. This animated movie starts with a big and very funny set-up of this idyllic small-town 50s alien environment, which is eventually disrupted by the arrival of a clueless human spaceman (Dwayne Johnson). Planetarium and Observatory worker Lem (Justin Long) gets roped into helping him out - which sets them both to fleeing the local military, and more humour with friends and family.

The intro is often hilariously funny, with bunches of great movie references. The intro is probably strongest, but the gags continue throughout. The visual style was marvellous with their rounded pseudo-50s design (a product of the movie's Spanish origins?), and there's plenty of good jokes mixed in with the failed gags.

2009,dir. Jorge Blanco. With Dwayne Johnson, Justin Long, Seann William Scott, Gary Oldman, John Cleese.

Pleasantville

Two modern-day teenagers (Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon) find themselves trapped inside a 50s black-and-white family values TV show. Highly stylized, surreal, and somewhat heavy-handed about racism and discrimination, but hugely entertaining and really, really good.

1998. dir. Gary Ross. With Tobey Maguire, Reese Witherspoon, Joan Allen, William H. Macy, Jeff Daniels, Don Knotts.

Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself

George Plimpton was an American journalist, writer and editor best known for his book Paper Lion. But calling him "a journalist" doesn't quite explain what he did with his life. Paper Lion was about him on assignment for Sports Illustrated, working for a few weeks as a quarterback for the Detroit Lions football team. Of course he was terrible - an amateur playing football on a professional team - but that wasn't the point: the point was to see what it was like to be a part of a professional football team. And this is what he did with a lot of his life: he was the world's most successful advocate of "participatory journalism." He also played on a hockey team, went to Africa as a wildlife photographer, played basketball, and performed in a circus. And when he wasn't doing that, he was hanging out with the Kennedys, or throwing all-night cocktail parties with the best up-and-coming authors of the twentieth century a couple nights a week. And he spent forty years as the editor of "The Paris Review," a well regarded literary journal.

By the time the movie was done I'd concluded that he must have had a better time living his life than just about anyone has ever had - at the cost of being a crap father and husband. But they glossed over that aspect of his personality. Still - definitely an interesting guy.

2013, dir. Tom Bean and Luke Poling.

Plus One

"Plus One" stars Maya Erskine as Alice, and Jack Quaid as Ben. They're in their twenties, old college friends now burdened with a summer full of weddings, and Alice and her boyfriend have just split. After some negotiation, Alice and Ben decide the festivities will be more easily navigated if they go together.

Jack Quaid is the son of Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan - a heritage that I thought would have made him better looking (which isn't to say he's unattractive). And I couldn't see any relation between him and his father in still pictures - but the second he smiles, "holy shit, he looks exactly like his Dad!"

Alice is a little crazy, and gets thoroughly drunk at the first wedding after her break-up. Ben is mostly fairly laid back, but you see the match between their sensibilities and sense of humour. This is a rom-com, so of course they get together. Sadly for me, I've seen enough rom-coms to know: "it's too early in the movie: there'll be a set-back." And indeed there was.

But it's a rom-com, right? So the important questions aren't about the plot, but rather about the characters and their interactions. They're likeable and they're very funny. I enjoyed it, but not really a favourite.

2019, dir. Jeff Chan and Andrew Rhymer. With Maya Erskine, Jack Quaid, Ed Begley Jr., Beck Bennett, Finn Wittrock, Jon Bass, Jessy Hodges.

Point Blank (1967)

Lee Marvin plays Walker, a criminal left for dead, betrayed by his friend - who leaves with Walker's wife. After his recovery, he sets out to get revenge and/or his cut - $93,000. Walker works his way through "the Organization," looking for his money.

Based on the same material as the 1999 film "Payback" with Mel Gibson, director John Boorman and Marvin concluded the original script (nearly identical to "Payback") was crap, and scrapped the whole thing, primarily keeping the character of Walker. Or so Boorman claims in the voice-over - but the Wikipedia summary of "Payback" is essentially identical.

The movie is painfully Sixties, with flashbacks, flashforwards, and flash-sideways to some other reality. It all makes sense, but the whole is less than the sum of the parts, and Marvin's stone-faced routine doesn't do much with the main character and gets distinctly tiresome. Walker keeps himself alive in some interesting ways, avoiding being killed through a certain animal intelligence, but that's about all the interest the movie offers, followed by an unsatisfactory ending. I also saw the Fairfax "twist" coming a long way out, so no surprise there.

1967, dir. John Boorman. With Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Sharon Acker, John Vernon, Keenan Wynn, Carroll O'Connor.

Point Blank (2010, orig. "À bout portant")

Gilles Lellouche plays Samuel Pierret, a nurse's aide with an ordinary and happy life: he'll be a nurse soon, and his gorgeous and charming wife is pregnant with their first child. But when a criminal ends up in Samuel's hospital, his wife is kidnapped and Samuel is sent running.

There's more to it with dirty cops and a slightly sympathetic criminal, but this isn't Hollywood and Samuel isn't superman - he's an ordinary guy in a really ugly situation, desperately struggling to get back the woman he loves. The movie is convincing and very tense.

2010, dir. Fred Cavayé. With Gilles Lellouche, Rochdy Zem, Gérard Lanvin, Elena Anaya, Claire Perot, Mireille Perrier, Moussa Maaskri.

Point of No Return

American remake of "La Femme Nikita." It's not as good as the original, but I still like it. Having killed a police man, a young woman (Bridget Fonda) finds herself sentenced to death. After her "death," she awakes to confront death again: a government agency offers her the choice of life as an assassin, or a real death. The leads are all pretty good, although what a guy with an Irish accent (Gabriel Byrne) is doing in the middle of a U.S. super-secret government agency I don't know.

1993, dir. John Badham. With Bridget Fonda, Gabriel Byrne, Dermot Mulroney, Anne Bancroft, Harvey Keitel.

Pokémon Detective Pikachu

I watch a lot of kids' movies, at least for an adult. If you're wondering why, that at least is easy: because I enjoy them. Some of them. They can be enjoyed because of a good story, beautiful artwork, or sometimes because the writers have put in jokes that target the adults in the audience. Pixar's movies often manage all three. This movie is rather less successful.

Here's the kids review first: it's colourful, fast-paced, and funny. They'll like it.

Here's the adult review.

The movie opens inauspiciously with blatant CG images of Pokémon roaming in the wilderness. The CG is ... good, but nevertheless very obvious and decidedly damaging to your desire to suspend disbelief. Our two main characters are Tim Goodman (played by Justice Smith, not a great actor although undoubtedly dealing with a great deal of green-screen-only acting) and a talking Pikachu. Voiced by Ryan Reynolds, channelling a kid-friendly version of Deadpool. I loved the first "Deadpool" movie, but it didn't need a sequel - and it certainly didn't need a second small, cute, yellow sequel. But that's what we get: a G-rated version of Deadpool with insults, coffee humour, sarcasm, and a pee joke.

Most (all?) of the complaints that follow are a result of being an adult watching a kid's movie (comparisons to "Deadpool" fall into this category as well). The writing is weak: I spotted the bad guy a few minutes after his introduction, and mostly figured out his intentions. They get a lot of mileage out of a very Inception-esque scenery bending scene ... but when you find out why it happened a couple minutes later, it makes no sense at all (yes, scenery would move - but not as it does in the movie). And yeah, this is an adult complaining about a kids movie, but is writing a kids movie an excuse to write badly and ignore physics and common sense? Pixar has never thought so. Sure, the kids don't care - but the parents who have to watch it do.

Mildly amusing, but mediocre CGI, bad logic and poor writing make this a crap movie (for adults).

2019, dir. Rob Letterman. With Ryan Reynolds, Justice Smith, Kathryn Newton, Bill Nighy, Ken Watanabe, Suki Waterhouse, Omar Chaparro, Chris Geere, Rita Ora, Karan Soni.

Polar

The critical consensus at Rotten Tomatoes says "An action thriller starring Mads Mikkelsen as the world's most dangerous assassin should be terrifically entertaining, but Polar proves it's possible to ruin anything if you try." I looked at that and thought "Nah, Mads Mikkelsen as a hardcore assassin? That's got to have some good stuff in it!" I'm here to tell you that Rotten Tomatoes is entirely correct.

Mikkelsen is Duncan Vizla, an assassin who works for a company called Damocles. Vizla is days away from his automatic retirement at the age of 50, and the company owe him $8 million in retirement money. (The movie is already on shaky grounds, with a firm of assassins having a standard retirement plan ...) We are immediately informed that the company is sending younger assassins to kill older, retiring assassins so that their retirement money stays with the company.

The first half of the movie is split between Vizla's quiet life in the place he's planning to spend his retirement and the young and only semi-competent hit team sent to all his properties to kill him (and failing to find him). The only good scene in the entire movie is at the mid point when they finally catch up to Vizla. It's all downhill from there.

We're treated to a ten minute torture scene: in most movies, even action/revenge flicks like this one, the scene fades as the torturer approaches - maybe we hear fading screams. It's all implication. But no: in this case, someone is tortured, and we get to see several minutes of it. We're assured this goes on for three days. Fans of torture porn might like this - I'm not sure, since it's not my thing ... but I suspect this isn't even specific enough for them. We see lots snipping motions, hear a lot of grunting, see a lot of blood. Not my idea of fun.

And then there's the big twist about the girl he's befriended at the end. (No spoilers, I promise. But after reading this, why would you care? Why would you think about watching this?) They get partial points for a twist I didn't remotely see coming - but only partial because it's kind of ridiculous. And then they set up a sequel, on staggeringly improbable grounds. Couldn't you have spent your energy on making a better movie instead of on manoeuvring yourself into a sequel?

Even Mikkelsen's performance is only "okay" in this piece of shit. Vanessa Hudgens as "the girl" proves herself particularly bad when the twist landed and she totally didn't sell it. And everyone else is just over-the-top, particularly Matt Lucas as "Blut," the big-bad company owner. The blame for this most probably goes to the director rather than the actors - it's particularly obvious in the case of Lucas, who's so ridiculous that the best actor in the world couldn't have sold that crap the script called on him to say.

Believe Rotten Tomatoes on this one. Stay away.

2019, dir. Jonas Åkerlund. With Mads Mikkelsen, Vanessa Hudgens, Katheryn Winnick, Matt Lucas, Josh Cruddas, Ruby O. Fee, Anthony Grant, Robert Maillet, Fei Ren, Inga Cadranel, Pedro Miguel Arce, Johnny Knoxville, Richard Dreyfuss.

Police Story

Jackie Chan plays police inspector Chan Ka-Kui. We see him first involved in a poorly managed sting operation in a shanty town on a hillside where the police are trying to capture a drug lord. The police are spotted, which leads to four cars being driven through the shanty town - through the buildings, down the hill, blowing stuff up all the way ... It's one of the most spectacular set pieces in any of Chan's movies. Chan is single-handedly responsible for rounding up the crime lord and several of his henchmen, in a wicked fight on a moving double-decker bus. Chan is then put in charge of protecting the police's main witness (Brigitte Lin) - we're now into the comedy section of the movie, in which we see what an incredible pig he is to his girlfriend (Maggie Cheung). The final set piece is a massive fight in a shopping mall, which is very good, and it includes the infamous five storey slide down a lighted pole and crash landing ...

1985, dir. Jackie Chan. With Jackie Chan, Brigitte Lin, Maggie Cheung, Yuen Chor, Bill Tung.

Police Story 2

Many years ago I saw "Police Story," one of Jackie Chan's better known efforts from his Hong Kong period. This is the first sequel to that very popular movie, which I somehow hadn't seen (I've seen nearly all of Chan's movies prior to 2000, even the earliest and worst). The biggest surprise happened when I picked the movie up at the library: "Police Story" and "Police Story 2" in one package, issued by ... the Criterion Collection. For those not familiar with Criterion, they release DVDs of what they call "important classic and contemporary films," and their discs are uniformly of excellent quality (bad subs replaced with good, all film quality issues fixed, expert commentaries ...). I don't disagree with their assessment (Jackie Chan has been hugely influential not only in Hong Kong but on fight choreography, stunts, and action movies in general), I just associate Criterion with art house, not martial arts movies ...

The plot is much the same as the first movie. Jackie Chan plays Chan Ka-kui, an effective but short-tempered Hong Kong cop. A threat to blow up a mall allows for lots of chases, explosions, and fights.

The drama - such as it is - is silly, and given no time whatsoever to develop. But that's not why you put this disc in the drive, is it? I watch Chan's movies for the spectacular stunts and especially the balletic martial arts. Chan thinks we watch partially because of the humour: he's right when it's action-humour, and wrong when he tries to do plain comedy. At least he didn't spend as much time humiliating his girlfriend (Maggie Cheung) in this one as he did in the last, although she doesn't go unscathed.

This movie has a boat load of explosions, which I didn't find particularly interesting. There's a huge long set-piece fight at the end, and it's impressive but not one of my favourites. I much preferred the playground fight at about the 1/3rd mark: it show-cased Chan's incredible agility and use of props (as well as his amazing crew of dedicated stunt men / fighters) better than the closing blockbuster. Not his best movie, but fairly good.

1988, dir. Jackie Chan. With Jackie Chan, Maggie Cheung, Bill Tung, Lam Kwok-Hung, Chor Yuen, Charlie Cho, Benny Lai.

Polite Society

After Nida Manzoor's screamingly funny TV series "We Are Lady Parts," I was more than willing to give the well-reviewed "Polite Society" a shot. The movie feels kind of like Gurinder Chadha turned up to 11 - an unnecessary emphasis when Chadha's movies are already at about a nine on the dial. This is about British-Pakistani teenager Ria Khan (Priya Kansara) who wants to be a stuntwoman. And just like Jesminder Bhamra in "Bend it Like Beckham," her family doesn't support her. And just like "Beckham," her sister is getting married. But in this case, our star decides that the wedding is bad and sets out to sabotage it in increasingly spectacular ways.

As one of the friends watching with me pointed out, it alternates between scenes that are mundane and expected, and others that are so surreal that you expect it to turn out to be a dream sequence or alternately the police will arrive to break up the fight. Neither happens, and you're just left shaking your head in confusion. Understand: I like surreal, and something that's consistently mildly surreal is (usually) fine by me. But this one never found its tone, never felt cohesive, never made sense. A serious disappointment.

2023, dir. Nida Manzoor. With Priya Kansara, Ritu Arya, Nimra Bucha, Akshay Khanna, Seraphina Beh, Ella Bruccoleri, Shona Babayemi, Shobu Kapoor, Jeff Mirza.

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea ("Gake no Ue no Ponyo")

Brunhilde/Ponyo is a small creature who resembles a goldfish. When she comes in contact with the human world, specifically a boy named Sosuke who saves her from death, she decides she wants to be human and be with Sosuke. So ... she changes. And runs away from her father's underwater house, in the process releasing his very potent magic into the world.

The movie is aimed at a younger audience than anything Miyazaki has done previously, even "My Neighbor Totoro." Sosuke is five, and that seems an appropriate audience. But it's also the least emotionally involving thing he's ever done. Sosuke and Ponyo are both overwhelmingly cute and boring. A huge disappointment after "Howl's Moving Castle" and "Spirited Away," two of the best animated movies ever.

2008, dir. Hayao Miyazaki. With Yuria Nara, Hiroki Doi, Tomoko Yamaguchi.

The Pool

The main character is Venkatesh, a young man working at a hotel in Panjim, India. He claims to be 18 at one point, but admits later he's younger - I'd guess 14 or 15 (Wikipedia claims he's 20). His best friend is Jhangir, who is 11 and works at a restaurant. They both sleep where they work as one has no family and the other's family is well out of the city. Venkatesh becomes obsessed with a beautiful pool in the neighbourhood, and starts to watch and follow the family who own it. Eventually, the father of that family hires him and it changes his life.

I've seen a few movies about, or set in India, and I've been to India. None of the movies really felt like India: Bollywood movies aren't meant to be realistic, they're spectacular escapism. Danny Boyle's "Slum Dog Millionaire" captured some of craziness and energy of the country, but it was too frenetic and absurd. This is very low key, not a tragedy, just a story about a couple lower class kids becoming involved with a middle class family. Ironic that it takes an American director to really capture the spirit of the place.

Low budget, and with non-actors - they do well for non-actors, but it's pretty clear they're not actors - it is nevertheless a charming and entertaining film. Wikipedia refers to it as a "drama," but I'd say it edges over into comedy. Quite good.

2007, dir. Chris Smith. With Venkatesh Chavan, Jhangir Badshah, Ayesha Mohan, Nana Patekar.

Porco Rosso ("Kurenai no buta")

Middle Miyazaki, with all the classic elements: flying, a strong independent young girl (who often upstages the nominal star), a bit of magic, gorgeous animation, not-quite-as-mean-as-they-want-to-be pirates. Not his best, but charming and enjoyable.

The setting is the Adriatic Sea between the World Wars, but not exactly our world: the main character is Marco Pagot, a former flying hero of the First World War turned bounty hunter, who just happens to be under a spell that's turned him into an anthropomorphized pig. While there are a number of pig/pork jokes, no one is bothered by a pig walking around and flying a plane. Most of the movie is about Marco's rivalry with Curtis, an American pilot, and his relations with two women, Gina and Fio. Gina runs a bar frequented by pirates, and is possibly Marco's best friend. Fio is the granddaughter of an old friend of his, the designer of the second version of his plane, and his partner in adventure for the second half of the movie.

1992, dir. Hayao Miyazaki. With Michael Keaton, Susan Egan, Brad Garrett, Kimberly Williams, David Ogden Stiers, Kevin Michael Richardson.

The Poseidon Adventure

Possibly the very first large scale disaster movie, and interesting just for that. A big ocean liner, swamped by an earthquake-driven wave, overturns, leaving the passengers stuck in (tagline) "Hell, Upside Down." We have the typical motley assortment of characters (preacher, spunky young girl, bright boy, cop, his ex-hooker wife, old Jewish couple). It's cheesy and there are lots of logical problems, but the sets are kind of cool and the human drama is surprisingly involving. Not bad.

1972, dir. Ronald Neame. With Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Carol Lynley, Roddy McDowall, Stella Stevens, Shelley Winters, Jack Albertson, Pamela Sue Martin, Eric Shea.

The Post

In Washington, 1971, Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep) is the owner and publisher of the Washington Post after the death of her husband. Her editor is Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), and she and the board are trying to make the paper a publicly traded company right as the Pentagon Papers broke in the New York Times. Both the people named and many more in the movie were real people, and the Pentagon Papers were a very big deal - which drove the question of freedom of the press all the way to the Supreme Court.

The movie is primarily about the Pentagon Papers and freedom of the press, but they do kind of make a case for what an uphill battle Katharine Graham had every day as a female manager of a paper in the 1970s.

I suspect this movie exists because of "Spotlight," Tom McCarthy's brilliant story of the Boston Globe's series of publications about the child sexual abuse by Catholic priests in Boston and around the world. While I would argue "Spotlight" is the superior movie, this one is still very good. Like "Spotlight," it makes a strong case for free speech and an independent press.

If you watch this, you should also watch its spiritual - and in some ways literal - sequel, 1976's "All the President's Men" (if you haven't seen it).

2017, dir. Steven Spielberg. With Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Matthew Rhys.

Power Rangers

The movie opens in the Cenozoic era, setting up the alien Power Rangers as protectors of life, and the green Ranger - "Rita Repulsa," played by Elizabeth Banks - as the betrayer. So now we know what caused the meteor strike in the Cenozoic: it was the heroic Red Ranger (Bryan Cranston) dying in an attempting to stop the evil Rita, the former Green Ranger. The movie resumes in the modern day: our heroes are five misfits who all arrive at the same place at the same time to excavate the Ranger's coloured Power Coins. By a truly staggering co-incidence, just as Jason Scott (Dacre Montgomery) is getting his red power coin, Jason's father is dragging Rita's frozen and/or dessicated but still somewhat animate corpse up from the bottom of the sea in his fishing boat. Inevitably, the Power Rangers must train (with the assistance of ugly, stupid, and supposedly comedic alien robot "Alpha 5" voiced by Bill Hader), bond, and fight Rita.

I've never seen more than thirty seconds of any of the old Power Rangers TV series, so I have almost nothing for comparison. Early in the film, we get a very old joke: "I milked the cow," "umm, that's a bull," followed by "we will never speak of this again." That encapsulates the level of both humour and originality on display in the movie ...

The young actors playing the Rangers are a game group: they try hard, but they're given a lousy script and incredibly ugly costumes. Cranston is one of the best actors alive these days - and he spends the entire movie as a WALL. Animated, yes, but badly so and his acting skills are totally wasted. Banks seems like the perfect choice to play Rita, and she goes all camp on the role as only she knows how - but in the end it's still neither threatening nor funny ... it just doesn't work. RJ Cyler (formerly of "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl") as the autistic and enthusiastic Billy Cranston/Blue Ranger is probably the best of the bunch although I kept thinking he was on the set of "Stranger Things." And the costumes - man, the costumes. Marvel has done wonders translating insanely colourful and ludicrous comic-book costumes to the big screen, and DC has done a good job too ... but whoever they got for costume design on this one should never work again: it's a trashy plastic toy look that may tie in to merchandise sales, but to do that you have to appeal to people in the first place - and these don't. The (strong) resemblance of the movie as a whole to the "Transformers" franchise was ironically acknowledged when one of the Rangers chucks a yellow Camaro (with black racing stripe) and says "sorry Bumblebee!"

The movie made me think about objects choosing people of merit: the most obvious current comparison was the recent rather similar (and almost as crappy) "Green Lantern" movie. But the idea of things choosing people goes back at least as far as the legend of Arthur pulling Excalibur from the stone.

It's a terrible movie, but I have to admit I was at least mildly entertained. In part because it was so spectacularly bad, and I was fascinated by all the things that went wrong (normally I don't care, I don't know what made this different ...). And a little because of the speculation about objects choosing people (and how improbable that was to have it happen five at once - it's normally one object, one person).

2017, dir. Dean Israelite. With Dacre Montgomery, R.J. Cyler, Naomi Scott, Becky G, Ludi Lin, Bill Hader, Bryan Cranston, Elizabeth Banks.

Preacher, Season 1

Preacher was a DC/Vertigo series of graphic novels by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon that ended in 2000. I didn't read the whole run, but I read pieces and it was entertaining. On the graphic novel scale, it was a bit on the weird side - a preacher gets the power to command people (they have to obey him), and he tries to use that power for good. And his best friend is a 119 year old Irish vampire. That's not too strange as graphic novels go. But on a TV scale ... it's batshit crazy. And I was dying to see it. The places it goes with regard to religion (which I can't discuss without spoilers) - I'm completely astounded this was made in the U.S. Fine, it's AMC - it's still made in the U.S., a country that doesn't take well to the kind of entertainingly sacrilegious concepts this is messing with.

You've got the basic idea: Dominic Cooper is Preacher, aka Jesse Custer. Ruth Negga is his dedicated and exceptionally passionate (ex-?)girlfriend, and Joseph Gilgun is Cassidy the vampire. Cooper is British, but doing a surprisingly decent American accent. Not perfect, but very good. The acting is good throughout. It's true to the graphic novel, complete with all the craziest bits and the significantly uneven plotting - but uneven or not, it's vastly entertaining and I've really been enjoying it. I look forward to the second season.

2016. With Dominic Cooper, Joseph Gilgun, Ruth Negga, Lucy Griffiths, W. Earl Brown, Derek Wilson, Ian Colletti, Tom Brooke, Anatol Yusef, Graham McTavish, Jackie Earle Haley, Ricky Made, Jamie Anne Allman, Nathan Darrow.

Preacher, Season 2

I made the mistake of describing "Preacher" Season 1 as "batshit crazy:" the problem isn't so much that I was wrong, but that having done so leaves me very little descriptive room when the second season doubled down. Not only does one of our characters spend most of the season in Hell, but he becomes buddies with Hitler. Yes, they played the Hitler card. And Noah Taylor looks like he's having a grand old time playing the part, but that's not precisely the point ...

Preacher (Dominic Cooper) is looking for God - he's pretty sure that God is in New Orleans (because God likes jazz). Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun as a 120 year old Irish vampire) and Tulip (Ruth Negga as Preacher's girlfriend) are along for the ride. This season introduces "The Grail," an organization that preserves the lineage of Jesus Christ and awaits the apocalypse while preventing the rise of alternate narratives to the Bible. And Herr Starr the ruthless (and absurd) leader of the Grail. Oh - and then there's the harvesting of souls.

Like the first season, this one is weird and uneven with moments of brilliance, absurdity, and mediocrity. My biggest problem with this season was the transformation of Tulip, who went from being an incredibly strong woman in the first season to being almost weepy and beaten because the Saint kicked her ass. Has she never lost a fight in her entire life? And why did we spend six episodes on her being so bummed out? Now that we've gone seriously over-the-top (pretty sure the third season will go even further), I'm actually not enjoying it as much. Still enjoyable though.

2017. With Dominic Cooper, Joseph Gilgun, Ruth Negga, Ian Colletti, Graham McTavish, Pip Torrens, Noah Taylor, Julie Ann Emery, Tom Brooke, Malcolm Barrett, Ronald Guttman, Amy Hill.

Preacher, Season 3

Jesse Custer's family was what stopped me reading the Preacher graphic novels: I thought they were unrealistic. Which may seem an odd thing to say about a series that includes vampires, God, Hitler, a killer-pope, and the Devil. But Jesse's family is human - more or less, and I'm familiar with the behaviour of humans ... and as written, theirs isn't the behaviour of humans. Most of eight out of the ten episodes in season 3 are spent with Jesse's family, and the only episodes I liked were away from his family - although Cassidy's adventures with Eccarius induced somewhat mixed feelings as well. So not my favourite season, but I'll return for season 4.

2018. With Dominic Cooper, Ruth Negga, Joseph Gilgun, Betty Buckley, Colin Cunningham, Jeremy Childs, Pip Torrens, Julie Ann Emery, Malcolm Barrett, Graham McTavish.

Preacher, Season 4

By this final season, the show seems to have moved on to nothing but spectacle-for-spectacle's sake. And an obsession with penises, the most unpleasant of which is Cassidy (Joseph Gilgun) being tortured by having his foreskin removed hundreds of times (it regenerates - he's a vampire). Hitler and Jesus duke it out at the boardroom table, and God is shown to be powerful, petty, and capricious (in person: the previous three seasons had been exploring these possibilities in a more theoretical capacity). Blood, guts, and the grotesque dominate.

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't but intend to watch this series, STOP READING.

In the end, Jesse Custer (Dominic Cooper) gets his discussion with God (although he had to die, go to hell, and return to get there). Whether or not you find it satisfying is a matter of personal taste: Jesse points out many of the things that atheists and agnostics have been pointing out for decades, which all boils down to God's neglect of his subjects and the suffering this creates.

To me the most irritating thing was the sloppiness of the ending. This is biblical in scale: It felt like it should have a clean ending, like a biblical story. But instead it's spectacularly messy. Jesse manages to thrash God in a fight after releasing Genesis, which makes no sense (bad). The Saint of Killers kills God (good), but ends up on God's throne having declared his choice of hate over love (that certainly seems bad). The writers did manage one lovely twist: the angel and demon who love each other and have been fighting and fucking all through the second half of the season turn out to be the parents of Genesis and turn up to fight for Genesis and Jesse in the end (good). But their deaths turned out to be completely pointless as they fail to stop the Saint of Killers ... and then Jesse talks the Saint of Killers into not killing him (bad, sloppy plotting). At the end of the series, Herr Starr walks away clean: I assume the writers thought this was funny and/or cool, but he was such a reprehensible character that I found it hard to swallow (bad).

A disappointing ending to a series that, I suppose, was bound to end in disappointment.

2019. With Dominic Cooper, Joseph Gilgun, Ruth Negga, Ian Colletti, Tom Brooke, Graham McTavish, Pip Torrens, Noah Taylor, Julie Ann Emery, Mark Harelik, Tyson Ritter.

Predators

A group of hardened military men, a death row inmate (Walton Goggins) and a doctor (Topher Grace) find themselves parachuted into an unknown jungle to be hunted for sport by Predators. Royce (Adrien Brody) ends up as the de facto leader. Brody brings some decent acting to the movie and definitely buffed up for the part. As much as I respected his acting before this, I didn't think he was capable of being scary ... I was wrong. The man can do terrifying. The scenery is lovely to look at. The internal logic is awful (come on, swimming with thirty pounds of armaments attached? - and believe me, that's not the only gaff). It had its moments: the incredibly nasty death row criminal dying a noble death was a nice touch, and there were others. Enjoyable if you like this kind of thing.

2010, dir. Nimród Antal. With Adrien Brody, Alice Braga, Topher Grace, Laurence Fishburne, Walton Goggins, Danny Trejo, Oleg Taktarov, Mahershala Ali, Louis Ozawa Changchien.

Predestination

Based on the short story "—All You Zombies—" by Robert Heinlein - if you know the story, that will tell you a lot about the movie. A large portion of the movie is in a bar, with a bartender (Ethan Hawke) listening to the story told by a young man called the "Unmarried Mother" (for reasons that become clear - played by Sarah Snook). This is clearly an alternate reality, as they're sending people into space in the 1960s. There's also a lot of time travel.

Snook is good in two kind of separate roles, Hawke is fairly good. The time travel paradoxes are well worked out - extraordinary in Hollywood, but credit for that goes mostly to Heinlein. And yet, I didn't think it quite came together as a movie, partly because the main character(s) aren't particularly likable, partly because it's all predestined, partly because it's overly complex - even though it's precisely worked out.

2014, dir. Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig. With Ethan Hawke, Sarah Snook, Noah Taylor.

Press Play

The first 20 minutes runs through the whole romance - two cute and eligible young things meet, and she makes him go to a Japanese Breakfast concert but he sticks with her anyway. They fall in love, and decide to spend their lives together. And then something horrible happens, and we're finally into the meat of the movie. Laura (the young woman, played by Clara Rugaard) spends the rest of the movie with a weird Walkman and a mixed tape that lets her bounce back into the relationship for very short segments of time, where she tries to make it go better.

The primary conceit of the movie is, umm, not great. The romance is cute but kind of insipid: it's all based on the first 20 minutes, they love each other, blah blah blah. Their characters, their relationship simply aren't developed enough to inspire the audience. Which means what we're left with is her desperate race to fix things based on an idiotic walkman-time-machine idea, with the added benefit (not really) of her bouncing back to the present to find her actions in the past have changed things. So we have a generic romance with a not particularly deep time travel story nailed on, with a weak and mildly annoying ending.

As soon as I saw the name of the actor playing the other half of the central romance, "Lewis Pullman," I thought "damn, that's got to be Bill Pullman's son!" (He looked so familiar.) I was all impressed with myself when I found I was right, until I looked at his resume and realized I've seen him in both "Bad Times at the El Royale" and "Catch-22" - in which he played Major Major Major Major - and didn't spot the association before. Oh well. In this one he certainly seemed to be channelling his father. Looks like him, seems to have even brought along some of Pullman-senior's mannerisms and speech patterns from when Dad was doing rom-coms.

2022, dir. Greg Björkman. With Clara Rugaard, Lewis Pullman, Danny Glover, Lyrica Okano, Matt Walsh, Christina Chang, Luke Lenza, Kekoa Kekumano.

The Prestige

A rivalry between two former friends, both magicians, rages across years and consumes their lives. Based on a story by Christopher Priest. Set around 1900. I was amused by the presence of Nikola Tesla (David Bowie). Nolan loves his twists, so expect more than one. I'm okay with that, but I noticed about two thirds of the way through the movie that he was messing with not only with the plot but his filming methods, deliberately obscuring something we should be seeing. The plot tricks are all good (although I felt there were too many) but the camera tricks felt like a cheat - I should be doing my detective work based on the plot, not the camera handling. Nevertheless it's a very good movie.

2006, dir. Christopher Nolan. With Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Piper Perabo, Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall, David Bowie, Andy Serkis.

Pride

I used to have this list of "Happy Movies," with Jean-Pierre Jeunet's "Amélie" as the poster child. The idea was to find movies that were not only really good but also not depressing. Just take a look (I'll wait) at any list of "Best Movies," and I bet you'll find that better than 80% of them are depressing as hell. So, while I'm no longer doing much about keeping up that list, it's a real pleasure to see a movie that could be on it. I enjoy comedies, but often the plot is nothing more than an excuse to nail together a series of skits - sometimes by physical comedians whose acting skills are limited. When a comedy has a good plot and some of Britain's best actors ... worth a look.

This movie is based on the rather long 1984-85 British miner's strike, and their unlikely support by another group of people often harassed by the police: lesbians and gays. The movie opens with the young and innocent Joe Cooper (played by George MacKay) stumbling through London's Gay Pride parade: it's initially unclear if he even meant to be there. His journey with LGSM ("Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners") allows him to act as the audience's surrogate. Having gathered a fair bit of money and been soundly rejected by the Miner's Union, the LGSM eventually simply picked a small town in southern Wales hard-hit by the strike and offered their help directly. The culture clash and slow integration is played out perfectly, with humour, anger and joy. They dragged out one of the oldest jokes in the book ("Listen, we don't mind the gays, and the lesbians, that's fine. But don't you dare be bringing people from North Wales down here!") and even as I recognized it I fell out laughing because it was delivered so perfectly. I defy you not to enjoy this movie.

2014, dir. Matthew Warchus. With George MacKay, Ben Schnetzer, Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Dominic West, Paddy Considine, Andrew Scott.

Pride and Prejudice (1940)

I saw this relatively late - after the '95 and the '05 versions, and after reading the book. This is a relatively short version, in many ways quite compressed - huge chunks removed, a couple places where events originally separated by time are made into one (these changes are minutely detailed in the Wikipedia article). The script also makes pretty much everyone a little ruder than they are in the source material, although just as witty. Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson are very good, but overall I didn't think this was as good as some other versions.

SPOILER ALERT: If you're not familiar with the story, or you are but want to be surprised by their take on it, stop reading. One redeeming feature of this version is their rather interesting take on the end-game meeting between Elizabeth and Lady de Bourgh. It turns out Lady de Bourgh is pushing Elizabeth to make sure that she really loves Darcy and can't be bent by money - once that's established, she gives Darcy her approval of Elizabeth. Probably a "so what?" moment for non-fans, but I thought it was pretty interesting. I don't agree as it doesn't entirely fit with de Bourgh's character, but it was the most interesting change they made in an otherwise witty but poor script.

1940, dir. Robert Z. Leonard. With Greer Garson, Laurence Olivier, Mary Boland, Maureen O'Sullivan, Edna May Oliver, Ann Rutherford, Bruce Lester, Edward Ashley Cooper.

Pride and Prejudice (1995)

I'm a fan of Jane Austen, and have read Pride and Prejudice twice and watched the 2005 / Kiera Knightley version multiple times. I've also read Austen's other books and watched many versions of the movies.

This version, a five and a half hour TV version made for A&E in 1995, enjoys a reputation as one of the landmarks in the Austen media landscape. I mean, it has Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy - what more do you need to know? I'd seen it before, but it had been a long time and a friend wanted to see it. After watching it again, I have ... more opinions.

Pros:

  • accuracy to the original text - 5.5 hours gives you that option
  • the best version of my favourite character, Mr. Bennet ever put on film: Benjamin Whitrow gets to deliver all of Mr. Bennet's best lines, and does it very well
  • Crispin Bonham-Carter is one of the better versions of Mr. Bingley.
  • "The Lake Scene." This is - in all seriousness - one of the most famous scenes ever filmed for British television. It's been recreated in multiple places, but probably my favourite was the direct reference in "Lost in Austen."

Cons:

  • Alison Steadman as Mrs. Bennet - although it's unclear if the fault here lies with the actor or director. Steadman uses a high pitched and annoying voice to deliver Mrs. Bennet's already annoying lines, and frequently throws sobbing hysterics fits. This is fairly accurate to the book, but nothing is done to humanize the character.
  • David Bamber as Mr. Collins: this problem is very similar to Steadman as Mrs. Bennet: Collins is meant to be an obsequious moron, and that part works ... but he also "plays it by the book" and nothing is done to prevent him being a caricature.
  • the run-time: 327 minutes is a bit much!
  • excessively ornate hair and hair decorations - to the point that they're distracting (they may be accurate - I don't know)

I don't list "Colin Firth" as a "Pro" because the director appears to have told him "don't ever smile until well after Elizabeth Bennet tells you you're ungentlemanly." This is a turning point in the book for Mr. Darcy because it's when he realizes how arrogant and rude he's been his whole life, but this wasn't the best way to play it.

Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth was fairly good, but I'm afraid Susannah Harker as Jane was ... forgettable. I think Keira Knightley and Rosamund Pike were the perfect pair of Elizabeth and Jane: Elizabeth is headstrong and opinionated, and who does that better than Knightley? But then you have to find a Jane who's even more attractive than Knightley: for that we have Pike, who's also one of Britain's best actresses. While I'm on the 2005 version: despite less screen time, both Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Collins came off more human in that version. And I think Matthew Macfadyen edges out Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy - don't get me wrong, Firth is probably the better actor, but Macfadyen got better lines in his adaptation and did a very good job of it.

1995, dir. Simon Langton. With Colin Firth, Jennifer Ehle, Crispin Bonham Carter, Adrian Lukis, Alison Steadman, Benjamin Whitrow, David Bamber, Susannah Harker, Julia Sawalha, Polly Maberly, Lucy Briers, Lucy Scott, Anna Chancellor, Lucy Robinson, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Anthony Calf, Emilia Fox.

Pride & Prejudice (2005)

Stars Keira Knightley in one of the most prized roles in all of literature, Elizabeth Bennet. Knightley is pretty much perfect as Lizzie: let's face it, she does "headstrong" really, really well. The movie is also blessed with Rosamund Pike as the perfect Jane Bennet (less literary, but incredibly charming and even more beautiful than Knightley). Brenda Blethyn and Tom Hollander (as Mrs. Bennet and Mr. Collins respectively) deserve considerable credit too for taking characters who are essentially caricatures in the book and, with the original dialogue, managing to play them as almost human. The text is compressed from the original and several minor characters and plot devices are dropped to allow the movie to fit into two hours. The movie's greatest virtue is also its greatest flaw: it brings the incredible passions of Austen's characters to the surface so you feel them, instead of just knowing them. It improves the movie, but takes it further from its source material: in Austen's time you would never express things as passionately as several of the characters do. Personally, I can live with that: this is an excellent movie.

2005, dir. Joe Wright. With Keira Knightley, Matthew Macfadyen, Rosamund Pike, Brenda Blethyn, Donald Sutherland, Tom Hollander, Jena Malone, Judi Dench, Simon Woods.

Pride and Prejudice (1980, BBC)

A five part mini-series (~50 minutes each episode) with a screenplay by Fay Weldon. I wasn't keen on Weldon's interpretation of the text, which made everything more petty and sarcastic than Austen intended. She deviated from Austen's text at her peril, including giving Elizabeth introspective and unnecessary voice-overs. Watching five hours of mind-numbingly flat acting from the entire unknown ensemble was painful, with David Rintoul particularly unconvincing as Mr. Darcy: he's so wooden and so cold for so very long you can't imagine anyone willing to talk to him at all - let alone fall in love with him.

1980. With Elizabeth Garvie, David Rintoul, Sabina Franklyn, Peter Settelen, Priscilla Morgan, Moray Watson.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

There was a sort of inevitability about it once the book was written: the world has an ongoing fascination with Jane Austen and - quite separately - with zombies, so doing a full production of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (by Seth Grahame-Smith, 2009) kind of had to happen. Not that that's necessarily a good thing.

The roles are filled with young and mostly unknown actors, who are gamely attempting to take this ridiculous premise seriously. Lily James (lovely and almost as untalented as ever, although she may be improving) is Elizabeth Bennet. Sam Riley - who has the voice of John Hurt at its most spectacularly gravelly - plays Fitzwilliam Darcy. Jack Huston is Mr. Wickham, Bella Heathcote is Jane Bennet, and Charles Dance is the father who has ensured all five of his daughters are trained in the art of war. There's bloodshed and betrayal and dialogue that no fan of Austen would ever mistake for her prose. Things turn out vaguely P&P-ish, but it ain't Austen and it isn't much of a zombie movie either.

Being a zombie movie, you really should approach it without a brain. People become zombies by infection caused by a bite. Zombies attack people because they want to eat their brains. You kill a zombie by crushing its skull (implied: to destroy the brain). So how do zombies multiply? Via unsuccessful attacks. Wait, what? If the attack was successful, you wouldn't have another zombie because the attacker would have eaten the victim's brains - leaving a corpse with a destroyed brain that couldn't become a zombie.

Not to mention the whole thing that bitten people retain intelligence so long as they don't eat human brains (even pig brains are okay). Most of them know this, so why wouldn't they resist, and stay smart?

So yeah, if you're not already a brainless zombie, don't watch this. I mean, it's not even funny.

2016, dir. Burr Steers. With Lily James, Sam Riley, Jack Huston, Bella Heathcote, Douglas Booth, Matt Smith, Charles Dance, Lena Headey.

Priest

Starts with a pedantic exposition on the state of the world we're about to see - with really nice semi-animated illustrations - with "The Church" (definitely RC with its confessionals) controlling the cities and creating "Priests" to fight the Vampires. Then we get the backstory on our main character with a simultaneous introduction to Priests and Vampires. And finally we jump to the "present day," in which all the Priests have been retired - and, like army veterans nearly everywhere, they have trouble finding work. But it's okay, because the Vampires are back - and worse, our hero's niece has been kidnapped by them.

The dialogue, script, and acting are all wooden (although Paul Bettany and Maggie Q manage a few passable moments, even with the poor script). On the other hand, the action is pretty good and the aesthetic (borrowing heavily from "Bladerunner," "Dark City," "1984," "Brazil," and many others) is spectacular. Overall kind of stupid, but will probably appeal to most fans of the genre.

The action is fun, and Bettany does a good job in the lead. Q actually does a good job (she's inconsistent) as his not-quite love interest, and together they manage to bring real emotion to an otherwise substantial serving of cheese. For once, the "Unrated" re-cut version is worth seeing: all they've done is made blood and breaking bone noises more distinctive and the blood more red and less black. The Director's commentary explains that they had to tone both down to get a PG-13 rating for the theatres. Speaking of which ... the director's commentary includes not only the director, but also the writer, Bettany, and Q, and the end result is pretty interesting. It was cool to hear director Scott Stewart freely acknowledging all the homages and tributes he'd included in the movie - I'd spotted most of them, and he talks extensively about the ideas that informed the way each scene was created. Again, most of which I'd figured out. Which concerns me: I'm not a stupid guy, but the really good directors come up with a lot of stuff I don't think of. Despite and because of all these things, I really enjoy this movie (while acknowledging that it's not that great).

2011, dir. Scott Stewart. With Paul Bettany, Lily Collins, Cam Gigandet, Karl Urban, Maggie Q, Christopher Plummer.

The Princess and the Frog

Disney, animated. Our heroine is Tiana, a young African-American woman struggling to get enough money together to open her own restaurant in New Orleans in the early Twentieth Century. Her hectic life is derailed by the appearance of the lazy, partying, and broke Prince Naveen of Maldonia, and the interference of the evil voodoo-using Dr. Facilier. As a result, both she and the prince become frogs, running (or hopping) for their lives. They initially really dislike each other, but along the way they befriend a motley crew of helpers and of course come to appreciate each other a bit more. You've heard the story before, but the animation is often dazzlingly beautiful, and the story is presented well.

2009, dir. Ron Clements and John Musker. With Anika Noni Rose, Bruno Campos, Keith David, Michael-Leon Wooley, Jim Cummings.

The Princess Bride

Hugely entertaining absurdist parody fairy tale, fantastically quotable, a really wonderful comedy. It's tough to explain the plot, particularly given that there's a modern day frame story (Fred Savage and Peter Falk) and the story busts all kinds of fantasy conventions. Robin Wright has never looked so beautiful, nor Cary Elwes looked so good. Mandy Patinkin and Andre the Giant are great, the entire cast is ... well, perfect. And incredibly charming. Highly, highly recommended.

1987, dir. Rob Reiner. With Robin Wright, Cary Elwes, Mandy Patinkin, Andre the Giant, Chris Sarandon, Christopher Guest, Wallace Shawn, Peter Falk, Fred Savage, Billy Crystal, Carol Kane, Peter Cook, Mel Smith.

Princess Mononoke

Hayao Miyazaki does beautiful work. The moral is a little predictable (don't destroy nature), but there are no clear-cut bad guys, which is a pleasant change. I thought "Spirited Away" was better, but this is pretty good.

1997, dir. Hayao Miyazaki. With Gillian Anderson, Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Minnie Driver, Jada Pinkett Smith, Billy Bob Thornton.

The Prince and Me

Julia Stiles plays a young and focused university student determined to get into medical school. Luke Mably plays the intelligent but unfocused prince of Denmark, desperate to escape his fate, the inevitable kingship. He flies to America and plays at being a university student, messing up Stiles's life and inevitably they fall in love. Predictable, straight-forward, and unrelentingly sweet. Stiles and Mably are good and even have some chemistry, but the whole thing is played so flat there are never any sparks or real surprises.

2004, dir. Martha Coolidge. With Julia Stiles, Luke Mably, Ben Miller, Miranda Richardson, James Fox.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

It's based of a video game (one I rather liked, although that has very little indeed to do with this review) so I wasn't expecting great art. Nor did I get it. But they poured money into this thing like it was going out of style (~$200 million!), and the production values are through the roof. It's a very silly movie, but it's also quite entertaining.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Dastan, a young beggar elevated to princehood for bravery and a noble act in a pseudo-Persian kingdom some 1500 or so years ago. Treachery in the family leaves him fighting not just for his life, but for the integrity of his family's kingdom and possibly the survival of mankind. Fortunately, he knows parkour. On his side (sometimes) is the Princess/Priestess Tamina (Gemma Arterton), and a dagger that can (occasionally) turn back time.

2010, dir. Mike Newell. With Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley, Alfred Molina, Richard Coyle, Toby Kebbell, Steve Toussaint, Ronald Pickup.

The Prisoner (2009)

AMC decided to remake the (in)famous "Prisoner" TV series in 2009. This is a six episode (of course) mini-series. The set-up is modern: Jim Caviezel plays a man who resigns from Summakor, a company that does a lot of observation of people. We never learn much more about them than that. As the series starts, Caviezel awakes near the Village, finding out he's "6," and he can't leave. "2" (Ian McKellen) runs the Village, and clearly wants something from 6, but what is unclear - even at the end, I'm not convinced that what 2 got was what he initially wanted ...

The ideas of psychological manipulation have been updated since the original, but the confusion and absurdity remain. McKellen is very good, Caviezel is merely adequate. The eventual explanation makes a bit more sense than the original did, but you have to make it through to episode 5 to begin to get the slightest inkling of sense from the process (and it remains hard to believe).

I hated the original (but found it oddly fascinating, or I would never have watched this). The two fans of the original I know who've seen this were split: one liked it, one didn't.

2009, dir. Nick Hurran. With Ian McKellen, James Caviezel, Hayley Atwell, Jamie Campbell Bower, Ruth Wilson, Lennie James, Rachael Blake.

Prisoner of Zenda (1937)

As I write (2010), this 1894 novel has been turned into a movie six times (not counting the immense number of derivatives that don't use the same title, like "Dave" or Heinlein's book Double Star). The only one I'd seen is the most recent, made in 1979 with Peter Sellers - I would have been 13 or 14 at the time. This version stars Ronald Colman as the King-to-be and his visiting Englishman body-double. When the King drinks drugged wine the night before his coronation, the Englishman who looks just like him is convinced to masquerade as the King until the drug wears off. But for various reasons, the masquerade is forced to carry on, and the "King" with his two loyal men (played by David Niven and C. Aubrey Smith) must tangle with the King's evil half-brother Michael. Rather period, but quite charming.

1937, dir. John Cromwell. With Ronald Colman, David Niven, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., C. Aubrey Smith, Madeleine Carroll, Raymond Massey.

Prisoner of Zenda (1952)

A frame-for-frame remake of the 1937 version, except now it's in colour with different actors. Unfortunately, the only improvement among the actors was Deborah Kerr as Princess Flavia - the rest were kind of a loss. This movie was on the flip-side of the DVD with the 1937 version, so I got to make a very close comparison: they really are astonishingly similar. Why would you package two such similar versions together? Show us something different. There were about three dialogue changes - that was it. See the 1937.

1952, dir. Richard Thorpe. With Stewart Granger, Deborah Kerr, James Mason, Louis Calhern, Robert Douglas, Jane Greer, Robert Coote.

Prisoners of the Ghostland

Sion Sono is a Japanese director who's developed a reputation for making really weird but interesting and emotionally cohesive movies. I've seen none of those movies, instead opting for this - his most recent as I write in early 2022. Trying to explain the setting was melting my brain, so I'll let Wikipedia try it: "In a region in Japan devastated and quarantined years ago in an accident in which highly volatile nuclear waste was spilled after a crash between the waste transport and a prison bus, a settlement called Samurai Town is ruled by an unscrupulous Governor who has blended elements of Japanese society (both modern-day and pre-modern) and the old American West together at his whim, and is keeping a harem of adopted 'granddaughters' as his sex slaves." I take issue with that last: I don't think it's ever stated that the Governor does that. It's implied, and he's unquestionably a sleazeball who should die, but I still find it a bit hard to mesh that statement with what happened in the movie. In any case, three of his "granddaughters" escape. The Governor puts the criminal "Hero" (Nic Cage, putting in a Nic Cage performance ... the dial may go to eleven, but he's only around five or six here: see "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" for the top end of the dial) in a suit with small explosives at the neck, elbows, and testicles, and promises to unlock him from the suit when he gets back with Bernice (Sofia Boutella) - his favourite.

The movie only gets crazier from there - and not in a good way. The script is poorly written, the ideas are often incoherent, and the logic is ... well, there is none. On the plus side, the images are frequently quite vivid. But mostly this should just be avoided.

2021, dir. Sion Sono. With Nicolas Cage, Sofia Boutella, Bill Moseley, Nick Cassavetes, Tak Sakaguchi, Yuzuka Nakaya, Young Dais, Koto Lorena, Canon Nawata, Jai West.

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes

The movie starts with a frame story, a voice-over by Watson explaining how the documents we're seeing being removed from a bank vault were only to be opened 50 years after his death because of their scandalous and/or secret nature. The remainder of the movie details two separate stories, one particularly absurd and not at all a mystery, while the remaining two thirds of the movie is a more traditional Sherlock Holmes mystery involving a Belgian woman with amnesia and a British government secret in Loch Ness. While I was disappointed that they went down the Holmes-as-buffoon route (except when he was applying his medical skills, when he magically became intelligent), the movie is otherwise well done and very enjoyable.

1970, dir. Billy Wilder. With Robert Stevens, Colin Blakely, Geneviève Page, Christopher Lee, Irene Handl, Clive Revill, Tamara Toumanova.

The Producers

One of Mel Brooks's better known efforts. Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder play a play producer and an accountant determined to make money by creating a horrible flop on Broadway. The humour is broad and didn't amuse me much, although the movie has many fans.

1968, dir. Mel Brooks. With Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder.

The Professionals

A Western set around 1917, with four men - each experts in his field - hired to cross the border into Mexico and rescue the kidnapped wife of a very rich industrialist for a very large sum of money. But ... "all is not as it seems."

Lee Marvin plays Fardan, who leads the men. Dolworth (Burt Lancaster) is his dynamiting, womanizing buddy who has to be pulled out of jail to help. Claudia Cardinale plays Maria the wife, and Jack Palance plays Raza, the Mexican bandit who has kidnapped her (and a previous cohort of Fardan and Dolworth). The acting was passable and the strategy and logic okay, but the personal interactions really fell down in places. And I was sick to death of Lancaster's shit-eating grin by the end of the film - particularly since it seems to have been his one and only acting tool.

MAJOR SPOILER WARNING: stop reading now if you're planning on seeing the movie. While Maria and Raza being lovers was a good twist, I thought the resolution was awful. In essence, the four main characters are made to take her back to the U.S., killing all the way, A) to prove their manliness to themselves, and B) to prove their manliness to the audience. And, having crossed the border and killed nearly everyone, they do both a literal and figurative U-turn.

1966, dir. Richard Brooks. With Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Jack Palance, Woody Strode, Claudia Cardinale.

Project A Part II

One of Jackie Chan's later Hong Kong movies. Fairly good. I've never been too fond of his humour, but this one is a bit funnier than usual.

1987, dir. Jackie Chan. With Jackie Chan, Maggie Cheung, Rosamund Kwan, Bill Tung.

Project Power

A minor twist on the superhero genre, done by Netflix with good actors and a passable but not spectacular script.

We're introduced to "Power," a drug in a pill that gives you five minutes of your own superpower. Although it's established early on that some people die almost immediately after they take the pill.

Then we're introduced to our three leads - teenager Robin (Dominique Fishback) who sells Power to make enough money to finance her mother's diabetes operation, police man Frank (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who's gone renegade and buys Power from Robin so he can match strengths with Powered criminals, and ex-military man Art (Jamie Foxx) whose motives are left mysterious for the longest. He uses Robin to try to find the source of Power in New Orleans (where this is set).

All three of our leads act well. It turns out that Fishback - who's supposed to be 15 or 16 in the movie - was probably 28 when they were shooting, but not knowing that I totally bought her as a teenager. It also makes it less surprising she's a good actress. The what's-it-going-to-be aspect of the super powers was entertaining, although it seemed pretty clear that they were deliberately hiding Art's super power. He knew what it was, but he didn't want to use it and he didn't discuss it, so I was able to guess it would be a big final denouement plot point. And I was right, so they lose points on the writing. Still, ultimately a fun way to spend a couple hours.

2020, dir. Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman. With Jamie Foxx, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Dominique Fishback, Rodrigo Santoro, Colson Baker, Allen Maldonado, Amy Landecker, Courtney B. Vance, Casey Neistat.

Promare

In the future, some portion of the population develops the ability to spontaneously combust - and half the world's population dies in the "Great World Blaze." Most of the movie is set 30 years after that event. The people with the mutation are known as "The Burnish," and are subject to discrimination and oppression.

After quickly setting the scene, the movie really opens on the firefighting group "Burning Rescue" - who fly into action to put out fires started by Mad Burnish, a Burnish terrorist group. They use mecha and a variety of high tech innovations to fight both the fires and the Burnish terrorists.

After 25 minutes of nothing but action, all of which is insanely colourful, we slow down for a character introduction and a heavy-handed statement about the Burnish being human too, and showing their blatant oppression. We have about 20 minutes of plot and dialogue, and then the remainder of the movie is again taken up in outrageous, eye-searingly colourful action.

The resultant plot is, well ... both beyond ludicrous and simultaneously typical of Anime. Mecha fighting to save the world, mecha that grow to the size of small cities. Beings from another dimension. The true solution is harmony and understanding. Oh hell, they even have a mecha called "Deus X Machina," how much more blatant can you get? The artwork is beautiful, the plot is ridiculous beyond belief. I enjoyed it, but I don't think I'll watch it again (as far as I'm concerned, that's the real test).

2019, dir. Hiroyuki Imaishi. With Billy Kametz, Johnny Yong Bosch, Crispin Freeman, Alyson Leigh Rosenfeld, Billy Bob Thompson, John Eric Bentley, Steve Blum, Kari Wahlgren, Erica Lindbeck, Melissa Fahn, Neil Kaplan.

Promised Land

Matt Damon plays Steve Butler and Frances McDormand his fellow employee Sue Thomason visiting a small farming town in modern day America. They represent a natural gas company that's trying to buy the farmer's land so they can use fracking to get the natural gas in the shale under the farms.

While fracking features heavily in the discussions in the movie, you'd be mistaken if you thought the moral lesson in the film was about that: the movie is mostly about Steve Butler and why he does what he does. He's a guy with a temper on him, but he's really good at convincing farmers to sell because he comes from a small farming town that met with complete economic collapse and he deeply believes he's helping these people. But there's trouble - in the form of a very intelligent school teacher (Hal Holbrook) who doesn't like fracking, and an anti-fracking environmental group representative (John Krasinski).

The movie was written by Damon and Krasinski, and the writing is good and occasionally witty but the pace is slow and nothing much comes out of the whole mess. There's a couple "revelations" toward the end, but it's not earth-shaking and at least one of them is poorly handled. Not a bad movie, but won't do much for most.

2012, dir. Gus Van Sant. With Matt Damon, Frances McDormand, John Krasinski, Hal Holbrook, Rosemarie DeWitt, Titus Welliver.

{proof}

Gwyneth Paltrow plays the daughter of a brilliant but mentally unstable mathematics professor (Anthony Hopkins). After his death, she struggles with her inheritance: she may have both his intelligence and his disease. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a grad student who falls for her, Hope Davis her annoying sister. The acting is excellent all around, but I found Paltrow's character a little too belligerent and/or withdrawn to be believable, and the endless flashbacks were occasionally annoying. Overall, fairly good.

2005, dir. John Madden. With Gwyneth Paltrow, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anthony Hopkins, Hope Davis.

The Protégé

Maggie Q is Anna, an assassin rescued at a very early age from a horrible life in Vietnam by Moody Dutton (Samuel L. Jackson) - also an assassin. He raised her and they worked together for years. Now someone has killed her mentor, and she's out for revenge.

Slickly produced but with a script that stumbles between "mildly witty" and just plain bad, and with a leading lady who's better suited to supporting roles ... I found it an unrewarding slog to get through.

2021, dir. Martin Campbell. With Maggie Q, Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson, Patrick Malahide, David Rintoul, Ori Pfeffer, Ray Fearon, Caroline Loncq, Robert Patrick.

Psychokinesis

Seok-heon (Ryu Seung-ryong) is a security guard, the irresponsible and estranged father of Ru-mi. Ru-mi (Shim Eun-kyung) is our other major character: she runs a small and successful restaurant from which she's being evicted so the whole mall can be knocked down. Seok-heon gains telekinetic powers after drinking spring water affected by a meteorite. As Ru-mi's troubles increase, Seok-heon begins to use his powers to help his daughter and the mall's other occupants.

The ingredients are classic superhero tale, but put together with a distinctly Korean style and a surprising amount of heart. Imagine ... a very Korean version of "Ant-Man" (and I do mean that as a compliment as I thought it was one of Marvel's better outings). This is somewhat less comedic, but every bit as much about the father-daughter bond.

The movie was directed by Yeon Sang-ho, whose other output almost always involves zombies (most notably the very successful "Train to Busan"). I'm not that interested in zombie movies, but if he does more like this - I'm there. Charming and recommended.

2018, dir. Yeon Sang-ho. With Ryu Seung-ryong, Shim Eun-kyung, Park Jung-min, Kim Min-jae, Jung Y-mi, Yoo Seung-mok, Lee Jeong-eun, Kim Yeong-seon.

Pump Up the Volume

Christian Slater plays a shy and alienated Arizona high school student who runs a pirate radio station in the evenings. A great Eighties soundtrack supports a very good movie about alienation, rebellion, and, eventually, connection. This is about high school and teenagers, but it's NOT John Hughes: he probably never even dreamt of doing anything this raunchy. And, while Hughes certainly dealt with alienation, it was never as visceral as this. Highly recommended.

1990, dir. Allan Moyle. With Christian Slater, Samantha Mathis, Mimi Kennedy, Scott Paulin, Cheryl Pollack, Annie Ross, Robert Schenkkan.

Pumping Iron

A rather good "docudrama" (it's sometimes marketed as a "documentary") on body building, including the Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia contests in 1975. In this 25th Anniversary edition there's an interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger claiming that he was putting on the hardcore obnoxious personality he shows in this movie. Since I also found out that Lou Ferrigno's father had nothing to do with his training (that was an addition for the movie too), I guess Schwarzenegger may be telling the truth. It was also pointed out in the added interviews that after this movie came out, movie action heroes started having to be seriously buff as a result of this movie, and Schwarzenegger's "Conan" movies - look at the action movies through the eighties.

1978. dir. George Butler. With Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno, Mike Katz.

Punch Drunk Love

Surrealist. Dysfunctional man humiliated by his seven semi-dysfunctional sisters tries to find romance, has trouble. Pianos and puddings appear, disconnected car accidents occur in the background. The soundtrack is utterly bizarre, doesn't fit at least half the time, and seriously detracts from the movie. I watched most of it, but at times it set my teeth on edge. But ... Adam Sandler turned in a decent dramatic performance.

2002, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson. With Adam Sandler, Emily Watson, Luis Guzmán.

The Punisher (2004)

Ah, the revenge flick. Popular to this day, but I'm not a fan - lots of violent killings and no redeeming features. The movie starts with an FBI sting that gets slightly off track, and a death sets in motion the first round of revenge: Howard Saint (John Travolta) and his associates track Frank Castle (Thomas Jane) and kill his entire family - about 35 people - leaving Castle for dead. The remainder of the movie is spent on Castle's elaborate revenge on Saint and everyone around him.

Jane was actually decent in the title role, and the cinematography had some really fabulous moments. Incredibly violent.

2004, dir. Jonathan Hensleigh. With Thomas Jane, John Travolta, Will Patton, Rebecca Romijn, Ben Foster, John Pinette, Samantha Mathis, Mark Collie, Roy Scheider.

The Purple Rose of Cairo

The movie is set during the Depression. Our heroine (Mia Farrow) is shown to be a lousy waitress in part because she's always talking to her sister about the movies she so desperately loves, and she's married to a guy (Danny Aiello) who "only beats her when she deserves it" as well as taking most of their money for drinking and gambling. Which causes her to go to more movies. Until one night, a character (Jeff Daniels) steps out of the film she's seen five times to be with her. This shakes up her life, but also causes a crisis at the movie studio, setting the theatre head, the director, and the original actor into motion.

While it's written and directed by Woody Allen, it benefits greatly from his not being on screen and not (as in his more recent films) putting in a male schlub character who replaces his constant role. The movie has a lot to say about the nature of movies, our relation to them, and the people who make them. Theoretically a comedy, I never laughed out loud at any of the gags - but I did spend much of the movie grinning as it's both clever and thought-provoking pretty much throughout. Recommended, especially for fans of film.

1985, dir. Woody Allen. With Mia Farrow, Jeff Daniels, Danny Aiello, Edward Herrmann.

Push

I was fortunate enough to see this in previews. It's not a "good" movie, but I enjoyed it immensely. But then, I get less picky when there are superheroes involved. In this case, our two main characters are Cassie Holmes (Dakota Fanning), a "Watcher" who is able to see glimpses of the future, and Nick Gant (Chris Evans), a "Mover" who can cause objects to move without touching them. They are hunted by "Division," led by Djimon Hounsou (in considerable danger of being stereotyped as the evil heavy), a "Pusher" who can put thoughts in other people's heads, and Neil Jackson, a better Mover than our hero. The pre-movie on-screen trivia was quite defensive about how it might sound like "Heroes," but really, this was written in 2005 - long before "Heroes." It is a lot like "Heroes," but it also bears a more than passing resemblance to "Jumper." Fortunately, this is better than the latter.

Filmed entirely in Hong Kong, It feels very different from most Hollywood product. Mildly jittery camera work is certainly nothing new, but at least it was used well - it made it feel edgy without viewers needing airline puke bags. Evans and Fanning have a wonderful chemistry, and if you can gloss over some logical problems this is a really enjoyable movie.

2009, dir. Paul McGuigan. With Chris Evans, Dakota Fanning, Djimon Hounsou, Camilla Belle, Neil Jackson, Hal Yamanouchi, Lu Lu, Kwan Fung Chi, Jacky Heung.

Pushing Daisies

The basic premise is at least relatively easy to explain. The "pie-maker" (Lee Pace) Ned has the ability to resurrect the dead with a touch. There are caveats: if the resurrected stay alive more than 60 seconds, some life force of approximately equal value in the vicinity is extinguished. And if Ned ever touches the resurrected again, they'll die - forever. I said it was easy to explain, I didn't say it made sense. When we first meet him, he already has a long-standing arrangement with private investigator Emerson Cod (Chi McBride), in which he temporarily revives the recently deceased to ask them questions, solving murders for reward money. But things become more complicated in the first episode when he has to resurrect his childhood sweetheart Charlotte "Chuck" Charles (Anna Friel) ... and fails to re-dead her as he should have before the one minute mark. She's one of the main characters, they're in love ... and can't touch.

Wikipedia calls the series a "fantasy comedy-drama:" I find the inclusion of the word "fantasy" interesting. The series is set in a reality that's essentially the same as ours, but there's the question of Ned's strange ability, and then there's the surreal places they often go. I'll quote Wikipedia again: "... the series is known for its unusual visual style, quirky characters, and fast-paced dialogue, often employing wordplay, metaphor, and double entendre." That kind of dialogue doesn't actually exist in our world, but it's a lot of fun.

The series lasted two years and 22 episodes, and definitely falls under "cancelled too soon."

Pace is 6'5". I've often wondered if McBride was chosen in part because they wanted someone who looked imposing beside Pace - Pace is thin, but to look imposing they needed someone in the same height range and bulkier: McBride qualified. All the stranger - and possibly deliberate - that they also hired Kristin Chenoweth, who's less that 5'. Not that I'm complaining about either of them: they made the roles their own and did a fine job.

2007. With Lee Pace, Anna Friel, Chi McBride, Kristin Chenoweth, Field Cate, Ellen Greene, Swoosie Kurtz.

Puss In Boots

Takes Antonio Banderas's popular "Puss in Boots" character from the "Shrek" movies and gives him his own movie. Puss, it turns out, was an orphan. His best buddy was Humpty Dumpty (Zach Galifianakis), but they had a major falling-out in their youth. Puss is suave with the ladies and an honourable thief and general daredevil. Now Puss and Humpty are back together along with Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek) for a really spectacular heist.

More surreal than most animated films. Too silly by half, but often very amusing.

2011, dir. Chris Miller. With Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Zach Galifianakis, Billy Bob Thornton, Amy Sedaris.

Puss In Boots: The Last Wish

The movie starts with Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas - playing a character he first inhabited way back in "Shrek 2") having a party in his own honour and generally praising himself and otherwise showing what a self-centred prick he is. He awakes a sleeping giant, then manages to knock it out again ... but is then crushed by a church bell. And finally we get to the meat of the movie: Puss finds out that that was his eighth death, and he has only one left of his original nine lives. And Death wants him. Puss retires to a cat-lady's home in fear - evidently he was only brave because he had spare lives.

Goldi and the Three Bears come to hire Puss, but find his false grave. While there, they discuss their plan to steal the Wishing Star - Puss, overhearing them, decides to steal it for himself to get his nine lives back. Puss is joined in his adventures by Kitty Softpaws (Salma Hayek Pinault) and Perrito (Harvey Guillén) who aspires to be a therapy dog. Several new adversaries are introduced: Goldi (Florence Pugh), Papa Bear (Ray Winstone), Mama Bear (Olivia Colman) and Baby Bear (Samson Kayo) are most consistently entertaining.

The movie tackles the concepts of fear of death, and making a family where you are. If this were a Pixar movie, they probably could have managed to entertain the kids and really bring home their points in adult language to the parents in the room. But everything in here seems to be aimed squarely at nine year olds. I'm not saying this is wrong, just that ... it could have been done better. Not bad, but I felt like it could have been so much better ...

2022, dir. Joel Crawford. With Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek Pinault, Harvey Guillén, Florence Pugh, Olivia Colman, Ray Winstone, Samson Kayo, John Mulaney, Wagner Moura, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Anthony Mendez.

Puzzle

The movie is about Agnes (Kelly Macdonald), a stay-at-home wife and mother and church goer in upper New York (which is interesting as Macdonald's native accent is strongly Scottish - but she sounds mostly American here). She discovers a love of jigsaw puzzles, which leads her to Robert (Irrfan Khan), who becomes her partner in solving puzzles.

I wasn't particularly enchanted with the 20 minutes of setup to show what a boring life she has, and how unappreciated she is. It's necessary, but could have been better. Both Macdonald and Khan are good actors and when they're on screen together the movie crackles (and only then). This is partly because whoever wrote it did a much better job when the two of them are together, but also because of the quality of the acting and the chemistry they have.

It's a quiet movie about a woman discovering that her very limited life can be expanded. I can't give it an unreserved recommendation, but it certainly has its moments.

2018, dir. Marc Turtletaub. With Kelly Macdonald, Irrfan Khan, David Denman, Bubba Weiler, Austin Abrams, Liv Hewson.

Pygmalion (1938)

The 1938 version of the George Bernard Shaw play, starring Leslie Howard as Henry Higgins. Wendy Hiller is Eliza Doolittle, and Scott Sunderland is Colonel Pickering. If you're going to make "Pygmalion," this is probably the way to do it. It's very funny, and for the most part quite well done. Shaw himself actually scripted the parts of the movie that differ from the text of the play!

Oddly, this is possibly the worst visual quality movie I've seen on Criterion: it goes from grainy to smooth as silk every few minutes, very strange.

1938, dir. Anthony Asquith, Leslie Howard. With Leslie Howard, Wendy Hiller, Scott Sunderland, Wilfrid Lawson, Marie Lohr, David Tree, Esme Percy.

Pygmalion (1973)

BBC TV production of Shaw's play. While I'm a big fan of the 1938 version (above), this has a much more complete and accurate text. Of course, the 1938 version was edited by Shaw himself ...

Lynn Redgrave is good as Eliza, And James Villiers and Ronald Fraser play well as Higgins and Pickering respectively. And the BBC opted for the ending that Shaw intended (according to his afterword to the play) rather than the ending many people of Shaw's period preferred to read into it. Pretty good overall.

1973, dir. Cedric Messina. With Lynn Redgrave, James Villiers, Ronald Fraser, Emrys James, Lally Bowers, Angela Baddeley, Nicholas Jones.


Q

Quantum Hoops

A documentary (narrated by David Duchovny) about the best educated and poorest NCAA basketball team on record, the CalTech Beavers - who had lost a spectacular 259 straight games (a streak of 21 years) when the film was made in 2007. The narration is by Duchovny: the movie splits its time more or less evenly between the university itself (33 Nobel prize winners among their graduates, the highest per capita of any university in the world), the current team members (only five of whom had been on their high school basketball teams, and none were starters), alumni players, and a game in what was then the current season that they almost won. It's low budget, charming, and has a number of very intelligent people, but it's not one I'd return to.

2007, dir. Rick Greenwald. With David Duchovny.

Queen and Country

John Boorman's 2014 follow-up to his well regarded "Hope and Glory" (which I haven't seen).

A comment I saw somewhere referred to this as the British Catch-22, and that's very accurate (although released 60 years later than the original, it's set in roughly the same time period). In 1950, Bill Rohan (Callum Turner) is called up to army duty. There he meets Percy (Caleb Landry Jones), a man of considerably less morals than Bill who becomes his friend. Instead of being sent to Korea as they expect, they end up remaining at the training camp and teaching new recruits to type. The movie follows their (mis)adventures with girls, Bill's family, and their difficult superiors. The dark turn at the end isn't nearly so dark as Catch-22.

2014, dir. John Boorman. With Callum Turner, Caleb Landry Jones, Pat Shortt, David Thewlis, Richard E. Grant, Tamsin Egerton, Vanessa Kirby, Aimeé-Ffion Edwards, Brían F. O'Byrne, Sinéad Cusack, David Hayman.

The Queen at War

I borrowed this documentary from the library as a follow-up to a favourite recent movie, "A Royal Night Out" - I wanted to see how the reality compared to the fantasy presented in that movie. As it turns out, much of this one hour film is also about her family, particularly her mother (Queen Elizabeth, who is more commonly called "The Queen Mother" these days) and father (George the Sixth). Their covering George and Elizabeth also tied this together with "The King's Speech," another fantastic movie about very much the same period in time. This movie made me respect both of those movies even more for their extraordinary period accuracy: they probably used the same period footage shown here to create the scenes in their movies.

If you're not a Royalist when you start watching this, you probably will be by the time you're done. The royal family didn't have a particularly strong connection to the people of Britain when the war started, but - fumbling about to figure out what to do in a terrible time - they managed to do absolutely everything right. And this documentary is here to argue that Elizabeth's experiences during the war - which lasted from her 13th to 18th year - were what shaped her into the monarch she is today.

I often conclude these reviews by firmly declaring that something is good or awful, but I feel the need to add some qualifiers in this case. If you're already a fan of the Royals, you may already know this stuff. And for a lot of people, this may feel like a boring history lesson. But covering as it did the period of two movies I love (I've seen each of them about three times), I thought it was an outstanding piece of work.

2020, dir. Christopher Bruce. With Ron Batchelor, Winston Churchill, Marion Crawford, Jane Dismore, Lady Glenconner, Zan Grant, Sheila Holley, Ronald Lacey, Phyllis Logan.

Quick Change

We first see Grimm (Murray) in a clown costume on the New York subway. As the opening credits finish, he's headed into a bank where he lets go of his balloons and pulls out a gun. He shortly has all the people in the building rounded up and in the vault. The movie has a huge tell at this point: two of the people in the vault are Davis and Quaid, so anyone with a couple brain cells to rub together realizes that they're Grimm's accomplices simply because they're (now) famous actors. The robbery is actually very clever - but it's over in 15 or 20 minutes, and that's not really what the movie is about. It's about the inability of Grimm and his friends to actually exit the city, as absolutely everything goes wrong as they try to get to the airport.

I was expecting a heist movie and comedy, and that may have set me up for disappointment: the movie certainly wasn't about the heist. The comedy is supposed to be in the entire city conspiring to not let them out ... but I didn't laugh at all. Disappointing.

1990, dir. Howard Franklin and Bill Murray. With Bill Murray, Geena Davis, Randy Quaid, Jason Robards, Tony Shalhoub, Philip Bosco.

The Quiet Man

Atypical of John Wayne's movies, he plays a man retiring to Ireland with an unfortunate history behind him. He falls for the sister of the local bully. I enjoyed it, but it's fairly sexist by modern standards.

1952. dir. John Ford. With John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, Barry Fitzgerald, Victor McLaglen.

Quills

Geoffrey Rush turns in a great performance as the Marquis de Sade, and the rest of the cast supports him well. The movie is very good - twisted, sexy, occasionally funny, depressing.

2000, dir. Philip Kaufman. With Geoffrey Rush, Kate Winslet, Joaquin Phoenix, Michael Caine.


R

R.I.P.D.

The premise is fairly simple: a modern day cop (Ryan Reynolds) dies, finds himself in the afterlife in the "Rest In Peace Department" partnered with Jeff Bridges' Wild West lawman character, bringing down dead people who refuse to leave the living world. Not a great concept, but not a terrible one either.

Problem is ... it's crap. The jokes are lame, the dialogue is wooden, the special effects aren't special, and Bridges' mouth-full-of-marbles, cud-chewing old west mumble is tired before he opens his mouth ... imagine it after an hour and a half. A waste of your time. Horrible, total crap.

2013, dir. Robert Schwentke. With Ryan Reynolds, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Bacon, Mary-Louise Parker, Stephanie Szostak.

Ra.One

The movie opens with an introduction to a new technology that allows wireless transmissions to shape images and objects in the real world. This is followed by an introduction to Shekhar Subramanium (Shah Rukh Khan, one of India's best known movie stars), a game designer for the same company. It's quickly established that he's well meaning, goofy, accident-prone, very smart, very embarrassing to his son, and married to the stunning Sofia (Kareena Kapoor) - they're very much in love. To impress his son, he designs a new game with an almost entirely undefeatable villain, because his son thinks villains are cool. The villain escapes the game using the new wireless-to-object technology, and suddenly the young son must embrace his father's simple beliefs in heroes and goodness to defeat the villain with the help of the game's hero (G.One, also played by Khan) who is also made to manifest in the real world.

This is classic Bollywood, with the inclusion of several elaborate song-and-dance numbers, morality lessons, and over-the-top tragedy and farce. More correctly, the tragedy isn't over-the-top, but it definitely felt out of place to me when mixed with the level of humour and absurdity that the movie brings to the table.

It was interesting seeing a non-American take on superheroes, but I didn't fall in love with the movie.

2011, dir. Anubhav Sinha. With Shah Rukh Khan, Arjun Rampal, Kareena Kapoor, Armaan Verma, Shahana Goswami, Tom Wu.

Race to Witch Mountain

A remake of Disney's "Escape to Witch Mountain." Las Vegas taxi driver Jack Bruno (Dwayne Johnson) finds himself driving two young children (who are actually aliens) hundreds of miles into the desert, pursued by governmental Area 51 types and an alien assassin. He ends up as their protector, and finds another helper in the form of a scientist (Carla Gugino) excommunicated from three universities for her faint hope that there might be UFOs.

Director Andy Fickman tosses lots of action at this lame and incredibly pedestrian remake, but nothing flies. I'm not sure I can even tell you what's wrong with it, except that the poor dialogue muted Johnson's usually considerable charm and comedic talent. This is just a staggeringly flat movie.

About the only moment of amusement I had in the whole thing was Whitley Strieber in a cameo as himself, getting the brush-off from Gugino's character.

2009, dir. Andy Fickman. With Dwayne Johnson, AnnaSophia Robb, Alexander Ludwig, Carla Gugino, Ciarán Hinds, Tom Everett Scott, Chris Marquette.

Ragnarok, Season 1

"Ragnarok" is a Norwegian TV series made for Netflix that became available in January of 2020. It sees a family - sons Magne (David Stakston) and Laurits (Jonas Strand Gravli) and mother Turid (Henriette Steenstrup) returning to their family home in the small town of Edda. Magne slowly discovers that he's somehow become incredibly strong. Of course, he's still awkward at school. But we also find out that the local factory that employs half the town is A) polluting horribly (although they deny it and get away with it) and B) run by giants (who look like people but are very old and strong). We see the two brothers try to settle into a school where neither of them fits terribly well, and whose principal is the wife of the town's industrialist (ie. one of the giants). Accusations fly over a death in the first episode, and much is made of the state of the environment.

The basic concept of a dyslexic and socially awkward teen re-incarnation of Thor is intriguing, but the execution is uneven and problematic. The series is six episodes of roughly an hour each. The problem is that the pace is too slow for what's achieved, and the inclusion of environmental concerns seems like an awkward add-on that just ... doesn't quite fit. I don't like that this is blaming an external entity for environmental harm: we did this to ourselves and will have to get ourselves out of it. I also don't agree with the conflation of pollution and climate change: some pollution causes climate change, but not heavy metals in the environment as is the focus here. They also imply that climate change is a local phenomena. The end of the season finally sees a fight (which doesn't even manage to be conclusive) that we should have seen around episode three if the pacing hadn't been so slow.

My first preference in TV when it comes to the re-incarnation of the Norse gods is the impressively goofy but very entertaining "The Almighty Johnsons." They're not in quite the same category as the latter is more of a comedy, but ... this one could have used more comedy, taking itself far too seriously.

2020. With David Stakston, Jonas Strand Gravli, Herman Tømmeraas, Theresa Frostad Eggesbø, Emma Bones, Henriette Steenstrup, Gísli Örn Garðarsson, Synnøve Macody Lund.

The Raid: Redemption

This movie came with astonishing recommendations: not only did my action-loving friend think it was awesome, but Rotten Tomatoes currently has it at 84% - despite acknowledging that it's incredibly violent. It also has a great tagline on the DVD case: "1 minute of romance. 99 minutes of non-stop carnage."

Our hero Rama (Iko Uwais) is a rookie member of a special forces team. Today, they're raiding a 15 storey apartment block that's totally controlled by a local crime lord - who has successfully kept his territory as a police no-go zone for several years. He also rents the apartments to criminals, so the building isn't exactly police-friendly. Things don't go well, and many people die and there's an incredible amount of fighting and violence - guns, fists, lengths of pipe, feet, elbows, and the ever-popular machete. And there are some interesting relationships between some of the gangsters and a couple of the cops that are revealed as the movie progresses.

The fighting is exceptionally good and painfully convincing - although I prefer Jackie Chan's more stylised and less violent turn as I find the bloodless version easier to enjoy. The dialogue (when we slow down enough to have any) is a treat: as it turns out, Gareth Evans (who wrote as well as directing) is actually not only capable of writing human interactions, but really good at it. Not something you expect in an action movie like this. And in a minor but very nice detail, the two people who play brothers have an incredibly convincing family resemblance - so much so that I spotted their relation long before the movie told us, and was very surprised to learn from the credits they're actually unrelated.

After quite a bit of thought, I finally realized what was bothering me about this movie: several people absorb enough abuse to kill them, or at the very least knock them unconscious for 24 hours or leave them maimed for life. Many people die, but several of the main characters walk about at the end of the movie and are basically fine when they should be cripples or dead. So apparently my suspension of disbelief didn't work. It would have worked better if everyone was superhuman, or alternatively everyone was human, but the differential responses don't work. Still, in the final analysis, this is an absolute must-see for fans of the genre.

2011, dir. Gareth Evans. With Iko Uwais, Donny Alamsyah, Ray Sahetapy, Yayan Ruhian, Pierre Gruno, Joe Taslim, Tegar Satrya.

The Raid 2

Starts right where the original ended. Rama (Iko Uwais) continues undercover to protect his family, this time going to jail to befriend an important criminal, and then joining him (eventually) on the outside. Too long at 2.5 hours, even more blood-soaked than the last. I miss Jackie Chan's balletic grace and the virtual non-existence of blood in his movies - which isn't a fault in this movie, but does mean I liked it less. I prefer the original for conciseness.

2014, dir. Gareth Evans. With Iko Uwais, Yahan Ruhian, Oka Antara, Arifin Putra, Tio Pakusodewo.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

The first appearance of Dr. Indiana Jones, the world's most famous archaeologist as played by Harrison Ford. This movie was an announcement by Steven Spielberg to the world that action movies were going to change. None of this ten minutes of exposition stuff: two or three minutes is sufficient, let's get back to the action - it never stops. And that's pretty much the way action movies have gone since.

For the two or three of you that don't know the plot, American professor and archaeologist Indiana Jones is introduced taking a gold idol from a booby-trapped Peruvian temple. He survives, although his assistants are less fortunate. But the idol is stolen from him at gun point by his long-time rival René Belloq (Paul Freeman). When he returns to the U.S., he teaches a lecture and is immediately borrowed by U.S. intelligence intent on stopping Hitler from acquiring the Ark of the Covenant - to which end Jones heads off to Nepal, where he collects his feisty female sidekick (Karen Allen) and then on to Egypt.

Fistfights, gun play, explosions and adventures abound. The movie is fast-paced, absurd, and hugely entertaining - and a landmark in action movies. This really did mark a change in the way they were made.

1981, dir. Steven Spielberg. With Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, John Rhys-Davies, Ronald Lacey, Denholm Elliott, Wolf Kahler, Alfred Molina.

The Railway Children (2016)

A stage production of E. Nesbit's children's novel The Railway Children recorded in the National Railway Museum in Yorkshire for TV broadcast. This recording is a bit obscure: TPL has a copy, but as I write the movie isn't listed in Wikipedia or on Rotten Tomatoes: I had to turn to IMDB. As one of the users there said, "This should not work but it does." The play has the three children (who I think are probably meant to be roughly 8, 10, and 12) played by young adults - who alternately refer to the history they're presenting to you ... and play the part of the children they were. It's well presented and surprisingly good.

A mother and three children move from London to Yorkshire when their father is imprisoned for an initially unspecified crime. They were well off, but now have to get by in much reduced circumstances. In the small town they now live in they often go to the railway station, where they make a variety of friends. The whole thing is sickly sweet in a way that only a British children's book from 1900 could be. It reminds me considerably of "Swallows and Amazons" in its excessive wholesomeness.

The play is staged with the audience sitting on bleachers on either side of a railway platform, and they make extensive use of three rolling stages to create rooms, simulate arriving/departing trains, or to indicate separation. Humour - particularly around the strange dual roles of the "children" as both children and adults - is used well and keeps the sickly sweetness from being overwhelming. A real lesson in how adapting for the stage can be done.

2016, dir. Ross MacGibbon. With Rosalind Lailey, Izaak Cainer, Beth Lilly, Andrina Carroll, Martin Barrass, Robert Angell, Stan Gaskell, Michael Lambourne.

The Railway Man

Set in the early 80s, Colin Firth plays Eric Lomax, a former Second World War P.O.W. The movie hurtles through his meeting and wooing his wife Patricia (Nicole Kidman): they meet and are married in the first ten minutes. It's only after the wedding that we (and perhaps his wife, but it's so rushed it's unclear) discover that he has a pretty bad case of what's now known as PTSD. The movie then flashes back for nearly an hour to Lomax's experiences during the war. (Young Lomax is played by Jeremy Irvine.) He, along with many other British soldiers, was captured at the fall of Singapore by the Japanese. They were then used as forced labour to build a railway from Thailand to Burma. But when Lomax is caught with a radio receiver the prisoners have built, he's beaten and tortured.

In the 80s time-line, Lomax is informed that the translator who tortured him is not only still alive, but working at the war museum built on the camp where Lomax was tortured. Lomax packs up and heads for Thailand.

I'll leave the plot there: if you're not aware of the story, prepare to be surprised. I'll add that this is based (apparently fairly accurately) on Eddie Lomax's autobiography.

The structure of the movie is ponderous, and Colin Firth is actually too young to play Lomax (who should have been 60+, not 50). But the performances are good, I was interested in the history, and the outcome is extraordinary. Worth seeing.

2013, dir. Jonathan Teplitzky. With Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman, Stellan Skarsgård, Jeremy Irvine, Sam Reid, Hiroyuki Sanada, Tanroh Ishida.

Ralph Breaks the Internet

The sequel to one of my favourite animated films of the last several years, "Wreck-It Ralph."

John C. Reilly and Sarah Silverman reprise their roles as Ralph and Vanellope respectively, and most of the other voice actors from the previous movie return as well - although the focus is definitely on Ralph and Vanellope this time. The owner of the arcade their game machines are in gets a connection to the Internet, and the two set out to find a replacement part for Vanellope's game.

Unfortunately, they have much the same sequel problem "Shrek 2" had - an enormous number of pop culture, movie, and Internet references don't actually make up for the emotion and storyline you skipped over to give time to all these references. Because it's Disney, they can reference "Star Wars" and Pixar. Because they have the clout, they got permission to spent a butt-load of time on a website called eBay. Google features prominently too. It's mildly amusing to see an ancient and dusty sign that says "Geocities," but A) this may amuse the parents watching the first time (only), and B) the kids won't get it at all. And of course they have the rights to reference Disney Princesses. They drag in about 15 of them (the ones from "Frozen," "Tangled," "Aladdin," and "Brave" - plus several more) - and include several songs, one of my least favourite part of Disney movies, and something the original "Ralph" movie happily passed on entirely. So Vanellope gets part of her emotional development through song - not a very successful option given that Vanellope's singing voice is awful. (I'm not judging Silverman's singing voice - who knows whether or not she did the actual singing - but the movie's internal mythology is tied to the very cracked voice that Silverman created for Vanellope and that is NOT a voice for songs.)

So in the end we have a story that's much grander in scale than the previous one (with Ralph's mis-steps threatening the entire Internet instead of just one game machine), but has a much more limited emotional arc and story because they were too damn busy making clever references. Guess what? That makes the conclusion feel hollow and too easily won because it's rushed (even though the movie clocks in at almost two hours ... although that does include a record 15 minutes of credits and a Ralph-rolling, yes, they referenced Rick-rolling). Has some fun and amusing moments, but nowhere near the strength of the original - making it a brutal disappointment for fans of that movie.

2018, dir. Rich Moore and Phil Johnston. With John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Gal Gadot, Taraji P. Henson, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch, Alan Tudyk, Alfred Molina, Ed O'Neill.

Rambo: First Blood

A lovely showdown between a psychotic Vietnam vet and an antisocial violent sheriff. Most people know this movie, but it was new to me when I saw it in 2010. Of course it stars Sylvester Stallone as a Vietnam vet with nothing to do and nowhere to go, who drifts into a small town where he's immediately escorted out of town by the sheriff (Brian Dennehy) who's willing to see a raised eyebrow as an act of vagrancy and a shrug as "resisting arrest." Things degenerate from there as both refuse to back down. Rambo retreats to the woods and decimates the police force sent after him.

I was actually fairly impressed by the tension built up, even though neither of the leads was particularly sympathetic. Not a bad action movie.

1982, dir. Ted Kotcheff. With Sylvester Stallone, Richard Crenna, Brian Dennehy.

Ramen Girl

Dumped by her boyfriend a week or so after joining him in Tokyo, Abby (Murphy) goes on crying jags and takes comfort in a local ramen shop. By an odd leap of logic she concludes that making ramen (which comforted her) is what she needs to do with her life, and despite the fact that the ramen master speaks no English and she speaks no Japanese, she more or less forces herself upon him as an apprentice. What follows was very reminiscent of a martial arts movie, with the master essentially torturing her with menial tasks and very long hours, trying to make her quit. As time passes, they slowly gain respect for each other. There's a lot of attempts at humour related to Abby not understanding Japanese, some of it successful, some of it not. The movie is overly sentimental and the conclusion foregone. Not worth watching, although if you have to you'll find that like many bad movies made with good intentions, it does manage to find some moments of heart and humour.

2008, dir. Robert Allan. With Brittany Murphy, Toshiyuki Nishida, Sohee Park, Tammy Blanchard, Kimiko Yo.

Ramen Teh (aka "Ramen Shop")

This is a Japanese and Singaporean movie about food and family. Our main character is the young Masato (Takumi Saito, who is excellent), who works in his father's Ramen shop. His father's death sends him to Singapore on a quest to better understand the food from his mother's side of the family, and to reconnect with that family. Every major character in the movie either works in a restaurant or is a hard-core foodie: you'll be dying to eat by the end of the movie, I guarantee it. Setting aside the food porn, we have a low-key but really lovely story of a somewhat broken family trying to heal itself across years and the spectre of a long-gone war.

(The movie deserves a special side-note about flashbacks - there are a number of scenes from a decade or a decade and a half ago, and it was easier than any movie I've ever seen to tell which actors are meant to be which other actors. They just looked ... right.)

Beautifully done and highly recommended.

2018, dir Eric Khoo. With Takumi Saito, Jeanette Aw, Seiko Matsuda, Mark Lee, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Tetsuya Bessho, Beatrice Chien.

Rampage

Based on a video game series of the same name, and only marginally better than that fact suggests. It has Dwayne Johnson in it, which is ... almost enough.

Johnson is Davis Okoye, a former Special Forces soldier (they always are, aren't they?) who works at a zoo and prefers animals to people. But Claire Wyden (Malin Åkerman) and Brett Wyden (Jake Lacy) of Energyne have created a potion (I choose my words carefully) that makes animals get huge and agressive. Three animals are transformed - including Davis's friend George, an albino lowland gorilla. The three huge animals end up in Chicago, destroying buildings.

The Rock is charming and the effects are good, but it's not enough: the movie is just too damn silly.

2018, dir. Brad Peyton. With Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Malin Åkerman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Joe Manganiello, Jake Lacy, Marley Shelton, P. J. Byrne, Demetrius Grosse, Jack Quaid.

Random Harvest

I somehow came across a YouTube video of Robert Osborne (the host of Turner Classic Movies) and Gene Wilder doing an introduction to 1942's "Random Harvest," a movie I wasn't familiar with. They convinced me I should watch it - happily, Toronto Public Library had a copy.

Ronald Colman starred as "John Smith," a shellshocked amnesiac found in the World War I trenches, now at an asylum in England. When the war ends, the celebration leaves the gate of the asylum unguarded, and he simply walks out. In the town he meets Paula Ridgeway (Greer Garson), who finds that while he has significant speech problems, he seems a decent man. This being a movie, she decides to give up her career on the stage to help safeguard this man she's just met: people from the asylum are looking for him, and he doesn't want to go back.

You'll be unsurprised to hear that a romance blossoms between the two as "Smithy" (as she calls him) gets his speech - but not his memories of his past life - back. But a traditional romance would have left their wedding for the end of the movie, with the twists and turns happening before the wedding. But the big twist hits about half way through the film - well after their wedding.

Greer Garson is perhaps best known for "Mrs. Miniver" (released the same year) a movie I was indifferent to. Garson got an Academy Award for that, a thing I didn't understand as I didn't like her or her acting. Sadly, that applies here too: she's fine, but I still don't like her. Colman is effortlessly charming, and does a fairly good impression of a man with memory problems. However, most of us think of romance movies as hopeful and happy, but half of this one leaves one of our parties in misery for years: it's romantic, but in a really dark way. Not really something I'd want to watch again.

1942, dir. Mervyn LeRoy. With Ronald Colman, Greer Garson, Philip Dorn, Susan Peters.

Rango

Animated film with Johnny Depp voicing a pampered pet chameleon with thespian inclinations who finds himself abruptly out in the wild. He figures he can be anyone he wants, so he picks the name "Rango" and acts the tough guy. The movie is narrated (if you can call it that) by a quartet of owls in sombreros who also play much of the soundtrack music. The movie sends up dozens of other movies: I kind of lost track. "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" (Thompson and his lawyer in their convertible), "It's a Wonderful Life" (the bank scene), "Don Quixote" (more the character than a film), The Man With No Name ... I found it amusing that the first two I spotted, "Fear and Loathing" and "Don Quixote" are both movies Depp worked on with Terry Gilliam (although the latter never got finished - see "Lost in La Mancha"). The animation is good, and the movie is pretty funny - recommended particularly for film buffs to play "spot the send-up."

2011, dir. Gore Verbinski. With Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Alfred Molina, Ned Beatty, Abigail Breslin, Ray Winstone, Stephen Root, Harry Dean Stanton, Bill Nighy, Timothy Olyphant.

Rapid Fire

Brandon Lee (son of Bruce Lee) plays a Chinese-American student with no interest in the anti-China political activism that killed his father. When he's tricked into attending a rally/fundraiser, he witnesses a critical drug-related killing and becomes the centre of a nasty physical and legal dogfight that he would rather just walk away from.

You've heard the story before. Many times in fact - it's the prototype for many martial arts films. Lee is a poor actor, and they haven't hired anyone good to back him up, so the badly written script isn't really getting any support there either. But forget all that, let's talk about the martial arts. There aren't enough fights, but the ones that do happen are superb: Lee took his father's martial arts lessons ("use what works for you") to heart, and incorporates not only the Wing Chun that was at the core of his father's style, but also Muay Thai - something Bruce Lee was probably not very familiar with. And Brandon Lee was fast, damn near as fast as his father, which would have made him significantly faster than any other martial artist out there. He and Jeff Imada did the fight choreography for this movie, and the fights are very much worth watching. This is an essential movie for fans of the genre.

This was Lee's last movie before "The Crow," which killed him - an unfortunate loss.

1992, dir. Dwight H. Little. With Brandon Lee, Powers Boothe, Raymond J. Barry, Kate Hodge, Tzi Ma, Michael Paul Chan, Al Leong.

Random Hearts

Harrison Ford plays Sergeant "Dutch" Van Den Broeck, Kristin Scott Thomas plays Kay Chandler. They don't know it, but their respective spouses are having an affair - which they figure out when the plane carrying those two spouses off to Miami crashes in the bay, killing everyone on board. Two very different characters are drawn together by the questions about the affair, and they end up in an affair of their own.

Ford and Thomas are reasonably good and their characters are fairly well drawn, but the movie is too long and too messy.

1999, dir. Sydney Pollack. With Kristin Scott Thomas, Harrison Ford, Charles S. Dutton, Bonnie Hunt, Dennis Haysbert, Sydney Pollack, Peter Coyote, Richard Jenkins, Susanna Thompson.

Rare Exports: A Christmas Story

A while back I watched "Big Game" directed by Jalmari Helander and starring the very young Onni Tommila. Reading about the two of them, I discovered this rather less well-known movie they'd done together a few years previously in Finland. I also found that the critics quite liked it, with the Rotten Tomatoes Consensus saying "Rare Exports is an unexpectedly delightful crossbreed of deadpan comedy and Christmas horror." I thought it sounded interesting as Helander clearly has a streak of insanity that got reined in by Hollywood - with the result that we ultimately got the worst of both worlds: hints of insanity without the good that its full power might have shown. So what the hell, let's see what "Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale" is like.

Tommila is again the hero of the movie, playing Pietari Kontio, the son of a recently widowed reindeer hunter in northern Finland. Nearby, on the other side of the Russian border, a team is excavating the top of a mountain looking for the original Santa Claus. Pietari does a lot of reading about Santa Claus, and finds out that he/it was an exceptionally evil creature fond of stealing children. The excavations are overly successful, and Pietari's father's wolf trap catches ... something. Not a wolf. Three reindeer hunters and Pietari have to take the fight against a Brothers-Grimm-like version of Santa Claus across the border using guns and modern explosives.

Funny, tense, perverse, and bloody, it's a weird and fairly entertaining way to pass an hour and a half - certainly better than "Big Game."

2010, dir. Jalmari Helander. With Onni Tommila, Jorma Tommila, Tommi Korpela, Rauno Juvonen, Per Christian Ellefsen, Ilmari Järvenpää, Peeter Jakobi, Jonathan Hutchings.

Ratatouille

Director Brad Bird and Pixar haul out the animated magic again. The inevitable ruler is Bird's previous effort for Pixar, "The Incredibles." "Ratatouille" doesn't quite measure up, but in the effort they have produced a charming and highly entertaining movie (with superb animation). The story is about a young rat called Remy (voiced by Patton Oswalt) who has a talent for cooking, but needs human help to actually do it ... He finds a young man to help him in Paris, and we follow their adventures together. The script includes one of my favourite quotes of recent years: "In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgement. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so."

2007, dir. Brad Bird. With Patton Oswalt, Ian Holm, Lou Romano, Janeane Garofalo, Peter O'Toole.

Ratchet & Clank

My only excuse is that I was bored and it was on Netflix. I could claim I watched it because of the voice talent involved ... but the truth is that I didn't know that until the credits rolled at the end of the movie.

This is based on a very popular video game that I know nothing about. James Arnold Taylor voices Ratchet, a young Lombax (read: "cute furry perky alien") who wants to be a Galactic Ranger. Paul Giamatti voices "Chairman Drek," the big bad who is going around blowing up planets. He also builds an army of Warbots - but a small and defective one (David Kaye) escapes and tries to warn the rest of the galaxy. Ratchet auditions for the Galactic Rangers, but is rejected. Shortly after that he connects with the defective (but intelligent) warbot, who he names "Clank," and the two of them set out to stop Drek and his mad scientist ("Doctor Nefarious," voiced by Armin Shimerman). They inevitably become tangled up with the Galactic Rangers.

Sweet and well-meaning, and even occasionally funny, it's just not a very good film.

2016, dir. Kevin Munroe. With Paul Giamatti, John Goodman, Bella Thorne, Rosario Dawson, Jim Ward, James Arnold Taylor, David Kaye, Sylvester Stallone.

Ray

A biopic about Ray Charles with Jamie Foxx in the lead role. A lot of people are hugely enamoured of this film. I thought Foxx's performance was excellent, but didn't like the flow of the movie overall.

2004. dir. Taylor Hackford. With Jamie Foxx, Kerry Washington.

Raya and the Last Dragon

"Raya and the Last Dragon" is gloriously beautiful every step of the way. I also found it mildly amusing and surprisingly hollow. While the movie opens with our lead character (Raya, voiced by Kelly Marie Tran) in voice-over explaining how her world is in a terrible state and it's all her fault, we learn fairly soon that her only fault was in trusting someone. That at least is mildly different than the somewhat more common idea that the protagonist created a huge problem and has to solve it - a formula I'm very tired of. Although the consequences of Raya's action were definitely tragic (and true to Disney, reversible).

Raya is on a quest to recover all the now separated pieces of the Dragon Gem, and to find Sisu, the last dragon. She finds Sisu (Awkwafina), and then as they try to collect the pieces of the Dragon Gem, they accumulate the traditional motley crew of supporting characters. Each enters the frame with a great thunder of personality, and then are converted into allies in various ways. The language used (particularly by Sisu/Awkwafina) features an over-abundance of current slang ("oh, so you're not besties?") - which I found jarring in an ancient Chinese setting.

I was both amused and annoyed that they named Raya's pet/transport after a loathed southeast Asian vehicle (it's used a lot of places, but I've seen them most in India and Thailand). That would be Tuk Tuk. Voiced (not that it speaks) by none other than Alan Tudyk, who seems to specialize in non-human roles ...

The movie is really beautiful to look at, but I found the characters - and particularly the over-simplified discussion of the requirement for trust - annoying. I occasionally rewatch my favourite animated movies ... but I don't think this is going to be one of them.


MAJOR SPOILERS (stop reading now etc.): the writers lay out the horrors of the Druun: they sweep over people, and no matter their position when the Druun arrive, they're turned into stone standing upright in a position of supplication. And the Dragon Gem returns everyone who was turned to stone back to normal life. But part way through the movie we see what amounts to a garden full of stone dragons - and no matter how you work through this, they should all have been returned to life by Sisu's first application of the gem (and yet all the dragons except Sisu were all stone for the intervening 500 years).

In one of the grand final scenes as our main characters are all turned to stone one by one, only one of them is set in the pose of supplication, the rest are charmingly posed around her as her surrogate family. Breaking the logic we've been introduced to to suit the desires of the writers. And finally ... we have a big discussion of trust, and particularly trusting people who have betrayed you previously - first of all, that's even more difficult than it's portrayed as being in the film, and second, the act of "trust" is fairly meaningless when it's given under extreme duress (as in, "we're all dying anyway, do we have any other choice?"). It felt almost ... cheap. None of these problems are likely to bother kids, but just because you're writing for kids doesn't mean you have a license to write badly ...

2021, dir. Don Hall, Carlos López Estrada. With Kelly Marie Tran, Awkwafina, Izaac Wang, Gemma Chan, Daniel Dae Kim, Benedict Wong.

Reacher, Season 1

Jack Reacher is a literary character created by Lee Childs - who turns out to be a British author. That's interesting, as Reacher is former American military who spends his time wandering the U.S. and investigating murders and the like there. A previous attempt was made to bring Reacher to the big screen, with Tom Cruise starring in "Jack Reacher" in 2012, and the rather worse "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back" in 2016. The adaptations weren't terrible, but Tom Cruise is 5'6" and Jack Reacher is described as 6'5". That's a huge difference that justifiably offended a lot of fans because Reacher's size is very important to nearly every plotline.

This outing is an eight episode series from Amazon starring Alan Ritchson as Reacher. Ritchson is a mere 6'2", and a former Teenage Mutant Turtle, but he's also massively muscled. In fact too much so: Reacher describes himself as "a hobo," perpetually travelling from place to place. I'm sorry, but while he could easily be "muscular" with that lifestyle, getting into a gym routinely to maintain that huge and chiseled physique as a "hobo" is simply not possible. But he does manage to bring the literary character's imposing physicality.

We first see Reacher arriving in Margrave, Georgia - where he is almost immediately arrested for a murder that was committed the previous night. While being held, he meets Margrave's prickly chief detective, Oscar Finlay (Malcolm Goodwin) and police officer Roscoe Conklin (Willa Fitzgerald) - and shows an incredible knowledge of both police procedure and the law.

Reacher is a lot of things: he's a decent person, a physical powerhouse without the slightest qualms about killing, and an irritating and uncommunicative asshole. He also does Sherlock Holmes-level intuition. Worse (and this is kind of crap writing), Reacher refers to Findlay as a Sherlock-Holmes type - five minutes before Reacher himself goes on a Holmes-like analytical spree on Findlay just by looking at him, saying "you're divorced for this long, you stopped smoking three months ago," etc.

Putting all these relatively minor complaints aside, the series is well constructed and surprisingly compelling. It's also very violent - the bad guys torture people in spectacularly grotesque and nasty ways (we see the fallout and get to hear descriptions) and Reacher kills multiple people himself. This put me off a bit, although not enough to stop me watching. But clearly they intend this to be a series: Childs has written 26 novels starring Reacher as of early 2022 and this series covered the very first one, Killing Floor. My tolerance for violence and the grotesque is falling as I get older: not sure how much more of this I can absorb.

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD: stop reading if you haven't watched the show, etc. I have some BIG issues with the final episode. Somehow each of our three heroes ends up squaring off against their nemesis: Conklin takes on and kills Grover Teale, the man who killed her mentor. Finlay squares off against his former good friend and corrupt FBI agent Picard (and kills him). And finally - and I do mean "finally," as this is the big final fight they show us last - Reacher throws down with KJ, the man who killed his brother. In the chaos in that warehouse, the likelihood of each hero lining up precisely with each villain is approximately nil, but it happened anyway.

MORE SPOILERS: After a second watch through the series, I'm seriously tempted to label this as a "Superhero/Fantasy" series. At one point (the seventh episode I think), Reacher is hit multiple times by a very enthusiastic guy with a crowbar. Head and arms. Not only does he win the fight, he walks away and doesn't even develop visible bruises. You don't block blows from a crowbar and NOT have broken bones. So take your pick: "superhero" or "fantasy." But ... as you can gather from me watching the whole thing twice, I do like it.

Alan Ritchson, Malcolm Goodwin, Willa Fitzgerald, Chris Webster, Bruce McGill, Maria Sten, Willie C. Carpenter, Harvey Guillén, Hugh Thompson, A.J. Simmons, Marc Bendavid, Patrick Garrow, Kristin Kreuk, Currie Graham, Martin Roach.

The Reader

Ralph Fiennes plays Michael Berg, or at least the oldest version of him in the movie, in 1995. A successful lawyer in Berlin, we see his life in flashbacks. At the age of 15 he met the 36 year old Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet), who he has an affair with - a great deal of sex, and he often reads to her. In his early twenties while studying law, he sees her for the first time in years: she is a defendant, an SS guard accused of watching a church full of prisoners burn and doing nothing about it.

Title credit goes to Fiennes, but the real credit for this should go to David Kross who's on screen much more and has to (in only his sixth acting role, and his first in English) do a good portion of his acting naked. He and Winslet are excellent.

I haven't read the book By Bernhard Schlink, but if the Wikipedia summary is accurate, the movie is very true to the book (except for being in English). Wikipedia says the book is very much about Germany and the memory of the Holocaust. That sounds right, but the movie comes across as much more personal: it's about two people and their very long and complicated relationship. The moral questions it brings up are fascinating: not so much about her, but about his actions toward her.

2008, dir. Stephen Daldry. With Kate Winslet, David Kross, Ralph Fiennes.

Ready Player One

"Ready Player One" is set in 2045, in a world ravaged by overpopulation and environmental disasters. Most people spend most of their time in the virtual reality world "OASIS" rather than the real world. Our main character is Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), who goes by the name Parzival in OASIS. He's on an easter egg hunt that could be incredibly lucrative - but no one has cracked it in five years. There are others on the hunt, but the most threatening are "IOI," a well-funded technology company that has hundreds of researchers and thousands of disposable employees/gamers to throw at the problem. The amount of money involved in finding the easter egg means that the stakes are high - and extend outside the virtual world. I'm sure you can guess that neither I nor the movie would lay out the specifics of the easter egg hunt in such detail unless advances were going to be made. Wade falls for Art3mis (Olivia Cooke), another egg hunter. He and a couple other friends team up with her to finish the hunt and beat IOI.

The movie is loaded to the gills with pop culture references: according to Wikipedia: "... reviewers have identified well over a hundred references to films, television shows, music, toys, video games, anime and comics from [the 1970s through the 2010s]." The most obvious ones are Parzival's "Back to the Future" DeLorean, the "Iron Giant," "Chucky," and "The Shining," but I was happy to see a couple glimpses of Firefly-class spaceships. Surprisingly, director Steven Spielberg went out of his way to avoid referencing his own movies, although rights for those might have been easier to get ...

I felt they missed a couple references they could have made: the thousands of IOI minions are called "Sixers" ("because they have no name, just numbers") - but they run around the game with massive glowing characters on their helmets that look like "101" so they really should have been called "Fivers." More importantly, they failed to include a post-credits easter egg - which strikes me as a major miss.

It was also interesting to see a certain amount of embedded hypocrisy: I've watched several Hollywood movies recently that are about fighting big evil corporations. This movie had a budget of $175,000,000 and was made by Warner Brothers - no irony or hypocrisy there ...

It's a hyperactive, absurd, and deeply flawed movie - but it's nevertheless fascinating and a very entertaining adventure. I enjoyed it despite its many flaws.


I'm intrigued by political correctness and the corollary "cultural appropriation." The movie makes sure that our five main gamers are culturally diverse (although the two primaries are white - three if you include the bad guy). Where this gets really interesting is the gamer "Daito," whose "real name" (in the movie) is "Toshiro." Both Japanese names, and the actor's name is Win Morasaki. That sounds awfully Japanese - or at least the last name does - and he does speak fluent Japanese ... but he was born in Myanmar and his birth name is Win Kyaw Htoo (that's a very Burmese name). So is he allowed to be Japanese? How long do you have to live in Japan to "be" Japanese? Or does he get a pass because he speaks the language? It's all so confusing.

2018, dir. Steven Spielberg. With Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Lena Waithe, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg, Mark Rylance, Philip Zhao, Win Morisaki, Hannah John-Kamen.

Real Steel

A Disney "science fiction" movie, one of those ones where everything is exactly the same as our world - except there are giant boxing robots. Hugh Jackman plays Charlie Kenton, a down-on-his-luck guy who keeps losing his giant robot battles and is always on the run from his debts while trying to create new ones - because of course he's going to win that next fight. All of a sudden he has his 11 year old son (Dakota Goyo) dumped in his lap. Do they bond? Of course they do - over giant boxing robots. It's cheesy as hell and incredibly predictable, but a good script and good acting - and the fact that the two are bonding over the two things in the world that Kenton cares about, boxing and giant robots - make this fairly enjoyable.

2011, dir. Shawn Levy. With Hugh Jackman, Dakota Goyo, Evangeline Lilly, Anthony Mackie, Kevin Durand, Hope Davis.

Rebecca

I saw this back around 1986 and really liked it - a bit over-dramatic, but very good. So in 2018 it's been over 30 years since I've seen it. I'm a big fan of Hitchcock so I thought it would be worth watching again, but I was somewhat surprised at my own reaction.

A young woman (Joan Fontaine) is working as a paid companion to an older woman (Florence Bates) on a trip to Monte Carlo. There they meet Maxim de Winter (Laurence Olivier): incredibly handsome, recently widowed, and very rich. An illness on the part of the older woman allows the younger one (who is never named) to spend a lot of time with Mr. de Winter - they fall in love and are shortly married. She is naive and weak-willed, he is abrupt and occasionally quite random - and everyone assures her that his previous wife, Rebecca, was absolutely gorgeous and he's devastated by the loss. After the marriage they go to Manderley, his large country house in Britain with its 20 or so servants.

I had two huge problems with the movie: first, the new Mrs. de Winter is unbelievably spineless and never stands up for herself (until a little over an hour into the movie, perhaps a couple months into the marriage ... I should add it's not her husband who's putting her down), and second, the amount of double-talk required to hide what Rebecca truly was was astonishing. This stems from my having seen the movie before: I knew Rebecca wasn't quite as wonderful as we're first told. But the vague terms used, the prevarications and misleading statements become blatantly and painfully obvious on second viewing. And suggest - very strongly - the movie should only be seen once.

I was also put off by the statement that the 23 year old Joan Fontaine was "plain," and the implication that she was unattractive: both are astonishingly ludicrous. If they'd wanted a plain actress, they should actually have got one instead of trying to convince us that someone beautiful, wasn't. The script wants us to know that the new Mrs. de Winter is very much less attractive than Rebecca - but that's simply not true of Joan Fontaine no matter what Rebecca looked like.

The movie is beautifully filmed and occasionally has some lovely Hitchcockian touches, but overall was more frustrating than rewarding on second viewing.

1940, dir. Alfred Hitchcock. With Joan Fontaine, Laurence Olivier, Judith Anderson, George Sanders, Reginald Denny, Gladys Cooper, C. Aubrey Smith, Nigel Bruce, Florence Bates.

Rebel Moon: Part One

Zack Snyder has a mixed history as a director: "The Watchmen" was good, but I'm less enthusiastic about "300" and "Sucker Punch" is a significant (if admittedly visually stunning) failure. On this movie Snyder was all of Director, Writer, Producer, and Director of Photography. To my eye, he's most qualified for that last role. Unfortunately, he also thinks he's good at shaping stories - which I'd say he soundly disproved on this outing.

I knew we were in trouble right out of the gate: when you need a long opening voice-over to explain the politics of the Imperium (because the writer is too unskilled to work it into the story-telling of the movie), you've got major problems. Highly reminiscent of the opening explanatory text of "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" (remember the excitement you felt at hearing about trade embargoes in the introduction to that movie? Neither do I.)

Our lead is Kora (Sofia Boutella), who we first meet as a farmer in a small village on a moon on the outskirts of the Imperium. But we're quickly told she's not a native, having come from outside a few years ago. When evil admiral Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein - digging himself further into the pit of bad-guy stereotyping) and his massive warship arrive, he explains (violently) that he'll be back in a few days expecting nearly all of their harvest (leaving them to starve). Kora decides to leave quietly, but when several soldiers attempt to rape one of the town's young women, Kora feels compelled to help and shows an incredible skill as a warrior. She then sets out to round up warriors to help them fight the Imperium warship when it returns.

The rest of the movie is essentially an SF re-implementation of the first half of "Seven Samurai" as she and others go from planet to planet collecting brave and famous warriors for their cause. The movie is reminiscent of every SF movie that came before it: the influence of the "Star Wars" franchise is most visible (particularly the Cantina scene of the original movie), but Snyder borrowed from "Alita: Battle Angel," "Bladerunner," and countless others.

Snyder has, as mentioned, a certain visual flair. But cheesy dialogue, ill-drawn characters, and strip-mining the rest of the SF canon for your content make this a weak outing.

2023, dir. Zack Snyder. With Sofia Boutella, Djimon Hounsou, Ed Skrein, Michiel Huisman, Doona Bae, Ray Fisher, Charlie Hunnam, Anthony Hopkins.

The Recruit

A CIA training session full of mind games. Not as disturbing as it wants to be, but well done by both the main actors.

2002. dir. Roger Donaldson. With Al Pacino, Colin Ferrell.

RED

The movie opens with retiree Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) flirting on the phone with Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker) who works for the pension office. Shortly after that, a bunch of heavily armed and well-trained killers entirely fail to kill Frank, who moves on to visit/kidnap Sarah (but he means well). From there we find out that Frank and his friends are ex-CIA, and are now targeted for some reason.

The movie is loosely based on Warren Ellis' short run comic series "RED," which was apparently thoroughly blood-soaked and not very funny. The movie is definitely action-comedy with a bit of romance. Large sections of it were clearly filmed in Toronto, including the Royal York Hotel, the Toronto Reference Library, and City Hall (an odd choice given how distinctive it is, but they don't really give a full shot of it).

The movie is a lot of fun - I would have paid the price of admission just to see Helen Mirren as a machine-gun wielding assassin, but there was plenty more fun to be had beyond that. Karl Urban is also good as the straight-arrow agent in charge of assassinating Frank.

2010, dir. Robert Schwentke. With Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, Morgan Freeman, Karl Urban, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Brian Cox, Richard Dreyfuss, Ernest Borgnine.

RED 2

We rejoin Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) and his girlfriend Sarah Ross (Mary-Louise Parker) as they try to live a normal life. Of course, this is not to be, as the slightly-less-crazy-than-last-time Marvin Boggs (John Malkovich) pops up within two minutes of the film starting. And Sarah is very eager to go on an adventure. So there are more killings and explosions, and all the characters (well, the surviving ones) from the last movie plus a couple new ones, and fun is had by all. While I didn't think it was quite as good as the last one, it was even funnier, so I think it came out about even - and that's pretty damn good for a sequel.

2013, dir. Dean Parisot. With Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, John Malkovich, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Lee Byung-hun, Helen Mirren, Anthony Hopkins, David Thewlis, Brian Cox, Neal McDonough.

Red Cliff

John Woo returns to China to direct an epic, in both scope and length. Originally released in China as two movies, each over two hours in length. The worldwide release was one two-and-a-half hour movie. I'm reviewing the Asian release, both parts.

The time is 200 AD, and the Han Dynasty is reaching its end. Evil Chancellor Cao Cao uses his hold on the emperor to have war declared on southerners Sun Quan and Liu Bei. Cao Cao then sets out with the immense imperial army to settle things at Red Cliff. Takeshi Kaneshiro plays Liu Bei's military expert, and Tony Leung plays Sun Quan's military advisor. They have the biggest roles as the men who arrange to hold off an army of 300,000 with only 30,000 men. Of course, all the superheroes are on their side: traditional Wuxia heroes who can leap small buildings in a single bound, take four arrows in the back and barely flinch, or push back five people with one arm.

I've wondered if the 2.5 hour cut of the movie might not have been an improvement on what I saw. Beautiful cinematography and well-drawn characters weren't enough to overcome the self-indulgence of the lingering shots (very lingering shots) and silliness like improvisational jazz between our heroes on traditional Chinese instruments. The movie is too long and the heroes too heroic - too smart, too perfect, too unafraid of death. Not that cutting the movie would have helped much with the latter. Nevertheless, it's certainly a spectacular piece of work - but more likely to appeal to fans of the genre than to a wide audience.

2008, dir. John Woo. With Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhang Fengyi, Chang Chen, Hu Jun, Lin Chi-ling, Zhao Wei.

Red Notice

"Red Notice" sees Dwayne Johnson as FBI profiler John Hartley. We first see him trying to catch art thief Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds). He comes close, and in the process we learn they're both very smart and very athletic. And that Reynolds is still Reynolds, with that spectacularly obnoxious sense of humour we've seen in movies like "Deadpool" and "Pokémon Detective Pikachu." We also establish that Hartley got his information from "the Bishop," and Booth is in something of a competition with the Bishop, whose dominance in art theft keeps Booth in second place. Shortly after that we learn that Gal Gadot is the Bishop, amused by both of them.

The fights, the sets, and the actors are all perfectly coiffed. None of the actors are overly believable. And it all leads to Nazi loot buried in the jungle in Argentina, like we haven't heard that one before. The plot sees Hartley and Booth teaming up in an attempt to defeat the Bishop - and this (among all the glossy heists and prison breaks) was the least believable thing to me. I'm guessing they let Reynolds improv lines whenever he felt like it - a decision that was probably helped by having a producer who was also named Ryan Reynolds. While these lines are occasionally funny, they're so bitter and nasty, and show such incredible unreliability in his character that no partnership with him could last more than a few hours - never mind the days or weeks it's shown lasting.

Pretty, and intermittently amusing, but mostly disappointing (it's at 35% on Rotten Tomatoes - it's not just me). And yet somehow it's become Netflix's most watched movie ever (or very close to it) and the sequel has been green-lit. A waste of the talents involved.

2021, dir. Rawson Marshall Thurber. With Dwayne Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot, Ritu Arya, Chris Diamantopoulos.

Red Trousers: The Life of the Hong Kong Stuntmen

The phrase "Red Trousers" originates from the pants worn in practise and performance by people who perform in the Peking Opera. Their training was so intense and from such an early age that their skills in physical movement of pretty much any kind are unrivalled. Where these skills are most put to use in Hong Kong cinema is as stunt men. Robin Shou's best known role in the Western world would probably be in "Mortal Kombat" (1995 version), and he's taken it upon himself to make a documentary wrapped around an exceptionally bad short martial arts film he made to highlight their skills. To fans of the genre (such as myself), it's fascinating - and it helps that I've read Jackie Chan's autobiography. If you're not a fan, this probably won't do much for you. Either way, you're likely to come away with the belief that Hong Kong stunt men are, well, insane.

2003, dir. Robin Shou. With Robin Shou, Beatrice Chia, Keith Cooke, Hakim Alston, Craig Reid, Sammo Hung, Ridley Tsui.

The Red Turtle

This is a weird one, on several levels: it's animated, and it has no dialogue, so there are no actors. And it's directed by a Dutch animator (Michaël Dudok de Wit) but released by Japan's famous Studio Ghibli.

A man is shipwrecked on a small island, where he finds food, water, cover, and a bamboo forest. He uses the latter to make a raft - but an unseen force destroys his raft each of three times he tries to leave the island. He's joined on the island by a woman (the "how" of that is what makes this a "Fantasy" movie), and they have a life together. And that's pretty much the whole movie in a nutshell.

I liked it and the animation is lovely, but I didn't find it particularly deep or absorbing - and, unlike the best of Ghibli, I don't expect to watch it again.

2016, dir. Michaël Dudok de Wit.

The Red Violin

The time line of this movie jumps around like a madman on a pogo stick. It's not that it's hard to follow, but multiple casts in multiple times lead to dissociation. I ended up not caring about the fate of any of them and disliking a few (although I realize some of the characters weren't intended to be likable). The plot revolves around the history of the titular violin through 350 years to the present, when it's at auction.

1998. dir. François Girard. With Colm Feore, Samuel L. Jackson, Greta Scacchi, Jason Flemyng, Don McKellar.

Redbelt

I enjoyed David Mamet's "State and Main," and I guess that's why I watched this despite absolutely hating "Lakeboat." He wrote and directed this one. This is the end of the line for Mamet as far as I'm concerned: stupid, manipulative, abusive of his own characters, unrealistic, and with an over-the-top ending that would make a Hollywood screenplay writer blush. Oh, wait, Mamet is a Hollywood screenwriter. Chiwetel Ejiofor is great in the lead, but the character is so ludicrously hamstrung by his own concept of honour that even Ejiofor can't make it entirely convincing. Tim Allen is good too. A bunch of Martial Arts and MMA big names (Randy Couture, Dan Inosanto!) show up to look foolish.

2008, dir. David Mamet. With Chiwetel Ejiofor, Alice Braga, Emily Mortimer, Tim Allen.

Redline

Imagine the live-action "Speed Racer" re-imagined (once again) as Anime, but with the idea that the live-action version was far too subtle. Throw in some breasts so it's no longer kid-friendly. But weirdly, despite an impressive number of explosions and fist-fights, nobody is seriously injured or dies.

Our main character is "Sweet" JP, a racer who we first see in the Yellowline race. He has a 1950s ducktail haircut that extends about 50 cm from his forehead, and a charming personality - thus the nickname. He's also got a mechanic named Frisbee who's indebted to the mob and has got him into race fixing. Despite coming second in the Yellowline, he makes the galaxy-famous Redline race when a couple racers drop out. Competition is cut-throat - in the most literal sense, as the racers put weapons on their cars. JP gets in touch with Sonoshee, the woman who beat him in the Yellowline. And the final race is taking place on Roboworld, which didn't agree to the race and gets their military out to attack the drivers.

I watched a low-res English dub version (that broke up badly on any action) on YouTube - only to find out after I'd watched it that there's a much higher-res version available. But I'm surely not watching it again. It's very pretty and unbelievably ridiculous. Unlike some Anime movies, it does actually have a cohesive storyline - although not a particularly good one.

2009, dir Takeshi Koike. With Takuya Kimura, Yû Aoi, Tatsuya Gashūin, Yoshinori Okada, Patrick Seitz, Michelle Ruff, Liam O'Brien, Lauren Landa.

Regarding Henry

Harrison Ford plays unpleasant and unethical lawyer Henry Turner. Ten minutes into the film he goes to the corner store to buy cigarettes where he's shot in the head by a robber (one of John Leguizamo's first appearances on film). He survives, but requires months of therapy (he can't speak or walk, and remembers nothing). His personality is radically changed, and his homecoming is a little strange. As a virtual child himself and a very different person, he suddenly connects with the daughter he had previously been a terrible parent to, and his relationship with his wife (Annette Bening) is very, very different.

In hindsight, I think it was this movie that gave me the misguided impression that Ford could act: he's really good in this. He never did so before or since, but he's definitely worth watching this one time. (Don't get me wrong: I like Indiana Jones and Han Solo, but I don't think anyone has ever threatened Ford with an Oscar for his acting.) His voyage to recovery and understanding himself (both new and old) and his family plays out beautifully. The final product is overly sentimental but charming, and a pleasant way to pass a couple hours.

1991, dir. Mike Nichols. With Harrison Ford, Annette Bening, Bill Nunn, Mikki Allen, Bruce Altman, John Leguizamo.

Reign of Fire

Memorable for its good and wasted cast (Christian Bale, Gerard Butler, Matthew McConaughey), its appalling script, its spectacularly stupid ideas (they eat ash, they set everything on fire, but ... they're starving in a land of ash?), and what remains to this day the best portrayal of dragons ever put on screen. Sadly, it's just not worth the grief to work through the rest to see that last.

2002, dir. Rob Bowman. With Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey, Izabella Scorupco, Gerard Butler, Scott Moutter, David Kennedy, Alexander Siddig, Ned Dennehy, Alice Krige.

Reign Over Me

A dentist (Don Cheadle) sees, and eventually reconnects with, his college roommate (Adam Sandler). Sandler's character lost his wife and three daughters in one of the 9/11 planes, and has retreated into the past to avoid thinking about the loss. Cheadle has problems of his own, and while he sees Sandler's problems he also finds some freedom in Sandler's odd world. But Sandler's eccentricities and refusal to talk about certain things (including resorting to verbal abuse and mild violence to avoid it at times) makes him difficult to be around. Funny at the beginning, less funny but reasonably compelling at the end, fairly well acted (including Sandler - less surprising looking back from 2021, but very surprising then).

2007, dir. Mike Binder. With Don Cheadle, Adam Sandler, Jada Pinkett Smith, Liv Tyler, Saffron Burrows, Mike Binder, Robert Klein, Melinda Dillon, Donald Sutherland.

Renfield

"Renfield" is a character in Bram Stoker's Dracula. This movie riffs on that character and his difficult relationship with Dracula, which we find in this movie extends to the modern day. Renfield is played by Nicholas Hoult, who has grown horrified of the depredations of his master Dracula. But he's a familiar: it grants him some power, but not nearly that of Dracula and he cannot escape. In his hunt for food for Dracula, he starts attending meetings for people struggling with codependent relationships. From there, he gets tangled up with a morally perfect cop with rage issues (Awkwafina) and both he and Dracula decide to move on from their relationship. But ending it isn't easy.

The movie is massively absurd, thoroughly blood-spattered, and (of course) includes a ludicrously over-the-top performance from Nic Cage. Actually, there are no non-over-the-top performances in this movie ... but nobody tops Cage, which kind of makes the others look almost ordinary. The movie doesn't get far beyond the basic premise I've already outlined, but if you're up for a bloodbath horror-comedy, this is entertaining enough to do the job.

2023, dir. Chris McKay. With Nicholas Hoult, Awkwafina, Nicolas Cage, Ben Schwartz, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Brandon Scott Jones, Adrian Martinez.

The Replacement Killers

Style over substance all the way, but wow, what style. The cinematography is world class, as good as the action is absurd. Chow Yun-fat is excellent, Mira Sorvino is good. The movie attempts to bring Hong Kong action to North America, choosing to use one of HK's best known action stars and set most of the movie in Chinatown of an anonymous American city. The story centres on a hitman who refuses to complete a job and the consequences that follow.

1998, dir. Antoine Fuqua. With Chow Yun-fat, Mira Sorvino, Michael Rooker, Kenneth Tsang, Jürgen Prochnow, Danny Trejo.

The Replacements

Sort of "Major League" for football (although not quite as good). The professional players go out on strike, a bunch of unknowns come in to replace them. Led by coach McGuinty (Gene Hackman) and quarterback Shane Falco (Keanu Reeves), and accompanied by a bunch of strippers-turned-cheerleaders, they face the remainder of the season. Good-hearted and occasionally quite funny. One thing it shared with "Major League" was the sport being played quite convincingly: much of it was done with real football players and the actors trained hard.

2000, dir. Howard Deutch. With Keanu Reeves, Gene Hackman, Brooke Langton, Orlando Jones, Jon Favreau, Rhys Ifans.

The Rescuers

I got this because I remember enjoying the (long delayed) sequel "The Rescuers Down Under" when it was released in 1990. Admittedly that was a long time ago, but I wasn't a child. I found this very disappointing: the style of the animation was a bit dated, but the songs in particular were painful. Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor in the leads were enjoyable, but the movie itself is silly without managing to be either as inspiring or emotionally moving as they sometimes can be.

1977, dir. John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reitherman, Art Stevens. With Bob Newhart, Eva Gabor, Geraldine Page, Joe Flynn, Michelle Stacy.

The Rescuers Down Under

The immensely superior sequel to "The Rescuers." Not great art, perhaps, but one of Disney's more enjoyable movies. Eva Gabor and Bob Newhart return as Bianca and Bernard, the Rescue Aid Society's elite operative mice. This time, they're tasked with rescuing a young boy held captive by a poacher in Australia. George C. Scott has a great time as the evil poacher Percival C. McLeach.

The plot and animation are greatly improved over the previous incarnation. The irritating sidekick is mildy amusing. And everyone is charming. A very sweet movie.

1990, dir. Hendel Butoy, Mike Gabriel. With Bob Newhart, Eva Gabor, John Candy, Adam Ryen, George C. Scott, Tristan Rogers.

Resident Evil

Based on a video game: Milla Jovovich plays Alice, a woman who awakes to find herself without memories in a very large and empty mansion. Several commandos appear and drag her off to an underground lair beneath the mansion on an unspecified mission. Bits and pieces of what's going on are revealed over time, and the actions of the commando team make the zombies and experimental evil animals much worse.

Everyone makes classic horror movie mistakes. People get bit by zombies and are either ripped apart on the spot or continue with the team and slowly become infected. While the movie has great production values, nothing about this is original and even the scares are predictable. Evidently I'm not "getting" something here, as they're working on movie number five as I write. Hey, if it works at the box office, who cares what the critics think ...

2002, dir. Paul W.S. Anderson. With Milla Jovovich, Eric Mabius, Michelle Rodriguez, James Purefoy, Colin Salmon, Martin Crewes.

Resident Evil: Retribution

I was curious what gave these movies such success - so even though I hated the first movie in the series, I had a look at this one as well. Guess what? It's stinking awful too.

This is the fifth instalment in the series, and Alice (Milla Jovovich) is, temporarily, not superhuman. She's been captured by Umbrella (again) and is freed by the manipulative Wesker (Shawn Roberts). Some compatriots are simultaneously attacking the base where she's being held - which recreates several urban areas for testing of the biohazards (read: "zombies and other nasty things"). There's even a "good Rain" (Michelle Rodriguez) and a "bad Rain" (Michelle Rodriguez), both clones of someone from the first movie.

Once again, a sequence of dumb ideas are used to create dull and well produced fight scenes with lots of blood and gore and reversals. Director W.S. Anderson and his wife Jovovich continue to produce high production value trash that's utterly unwatchable for anyone with a functioning brain.

2012, dir. Paul W.S. Anderson. With Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Kevin Durand, Sienna Guillory, Shawn Roberts, Li Bingbing, Aryana Engineer, Shawn Roberts.

Restoration

Robert Downey Jr. plays skilled physician Robert Merivel in London in the mid-1600s. His intelligence and curiosity draw the attention of the King, but the court causes his downfall with all the girls and partying. That takes up half the movie, but then we have to have the redemption and "restoration." The movie isn't particularly well structured, but Downey is very good in the main role, and Ian McKellen and David Thewlis both helped considerably when they were on screen.

1995, dir. Michael Hoffman. With Robert Downey Jr., Sam Neill, David Thewlis, Ian McKellen, Hugh Grant, Meg Ryan, Polly Walker.

The Return of Martin Guerre

I'm trying to find the word for this, and the best I can do is "sloppy." The structure of the movie starts in the middle and recounts the story of Martin Guerre's return to his medieval French town after nine years absence, then moves forward with the accusation that Martin is an impostor. Part of the sloppiness can be blamed on this being a story taken from real life (never as neat as movie scripts), but a large part of it can be blamed on non-linear timeline, which didn't help. Nathalie Baye and Gérard Depardieu do their best, but I was never entirely sold on this one. Strange to say, I actually liked the American remake ("Sommersby") better. Of course, the DVD case said "Contains 12 minutes of additional footage," rarely a good thing.

1982, dir. Daniel Vigne. With Gérard Depardieu, Nathalie Baye, Maurice Barrier, Isabelle Sadoyan.

Return of the Dragon

A lousy movie about a Chinese restaurant in Rome and how some Italian gangsters are trying to buy the property by any means necessary, including intimidating potential customers and beating up the restaurant staff. The owner's cousin Tang Lung comes to the aid of the restaurant staff, and he knows "Chinese Boxing." He's a really bad actor. And the dubbing on the American version that I saw - the Chinese people speak dubbed English, the Italians speak dubbed English, and yet they have to speak to each other through an interpreter.

All of which is true, but kind of misses the point: Tang Lung is played by Bruce Lee, and Lee truly was the greatest martial artist of his generation. Unbelievably fast. He directed and choreographed this one himself, and the fights are quite good. Only for fans of the genre, but if you're a fan, it's essential.

1972, dir. Bruce Lee. With Bruce Lee, Nora Miao, Chuck Norris.

The Return of the Jedi

The third in the original series of "Star Wars" movies. Too cute by half (spare us the Ewoks, please!) and a bit on the sweet side, it doesn't quite live up to the first two, but it's a pretty decent wrap-up to the series.

1983, dir. Richard Marquand. With Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Mayhew, David Prowse, James Earl Jones, Kenny Baker, Anthony Daniels, Billy Dee Williams, Ian McDiarmid.

Revenge of the Sith

The third stinking turd drops from the butt of George Lucas, and millions of fools like me head to the theatre to pay money to listen to agonizingly bad dialogue and watch the light sabres clash. His plots are so poorly written and so absurd the porn industry wouldn't let him write for them. The visual extravaganza means nothing without a decent plot to support it. Painfully, embarrassingly bad.

2005, dir. George Lucas. With Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Ian McDiarmid, Natalie Portman, Samuel L. Jackson.

Revenger

This is a 2018 Korean Netflix martial arts movie.

Apparently there's an island in the Pacific where all the worst of Asia's criminals are sent - from China, Korea, and ten more countries. Now a police officer has had himself sent to the island (how is never discussed as we start with his arrival on the beach) to kill the gangster who killed his wife and child. He easily defeats ten bad guys while still wearing the straight jacket and face mask he arrived in. He hooks up with a hidden and often comedic community of people who are simply trying to live their lives away from the same bad guy and his many evil and sadistic henchmen. (If they're Asia's worst criminals, their building a functional and almost family-like society is just a tad bit hard to believe.)

As silly as the plot and comedic interludes are, at least the movie has a plot: I tried to watch "The Night Comes for Us" on Netflix a while back and gave up in disgust. That movie consists entirely of an endless number of people being hacked to pieces (with huge amounts of blood) as they either defend or try to kill a little girl: that's it.

One of the most important things in a martial arts movie is the fight choreography: in this case it's fairly good, and the fights are shot in long takes (which is also good, because it means they're not editing out mistakes and you can see what's happening). It's a bad movie, but fans of the martial arts may find it enjoyable.

2018, dir. Seung-Won Lee. With Bruce Khan, Hee-soon Park, Jin-seo Yoon, Kim In-kwon, Park Chul-min, Kim Na-yeon.

Rich and Strange

This showed up at the library - an early Hitchcock movie before he moved to the U.S. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 75% based on 12 reviews, so what the hell, let's have a look at it - I'm a fan of Hitchcock. I should have paid attention to the "audience score," which was much lower: it feels like the reviewers were grading Hitchcock's body of work rather than this particular film.

Our protagonists are Emily and Fred Hill (Joan Barry and Harry Kendall), who immediately abandon their middle-class life in London the instant they come into money from an uncle. They set off on a cruise around the world (that's how you travelled in 1931), and find themselves embroiled in shipboard romance. As Fred lies stricken with seasickness (for several days), Emily meets the slightly older and charming Commander Gordon (Percy Marmont). When Fred gets back on his feet, he spends more and more of his time in the company of "The Princess" (Betty Amann).

This is a pre-Code movie (the Hays Code / "Motion Picture Production Code" is an American thing, but its effects were felt around the world and I think the U.K. had a similar set of restrictions). This is very clear from a couple things that happen: married people having sex with others is clearly (although somewhat tangentially) referenced several times. And a woman's bare breasts are seen for a couple seconds in the Folies Bergère. Yeah, I've seen that in other movies - but never one prior to about 1960!

This doesn't feel like a Hitchcock movie: there's almost nothing of the dread and grace and excellent writing that made his later work so memorable. This is a not terribly well written movie about an unhappy couple. There's some point in their being forced to face the problems with their marriage, but no sense of resolution or movement at the end. I found it mildly interesting to see that (of course, but sometimes we forget these things) Hitchcock was once a mediocre journeyman director. And it was interesting to see how Hitchcock was a little stuck in the silent film era, making heavy use of unnecessary inter-titles, having a couple of extended silent scenes, and having somewhat exaggerated acting. But setting aside the lessons in film history, I wouldn't even recommend this to Hitchcock fans.

1931, dir. Alfred Hitchcock. With Joan Barry, Henry Kendall, Percy Marmont, Betty Amann, Elsie Randolph.

Richard III

Shakespeare's "Richard the Third," modernized. In this case, the fittings (tanks, planes, cigarettes, buildings, injectable drugs) suggest England around the Second World War, with the royal family embroiled in civil war. McKellen (who had a hand in the screenplay) is suitably vile as Richard III, but I wasn't overly impressed by the interpretation. I found the implementation actually made it harder to concentrate on the dialogue.

2000, dir. Richard Loncraine. With Ian McKellen, Annette Bening, Jim Broadbent, Robert Downey Jr., Nigel Hawthorne, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith.

Riddick

Sequel to the utterly appalling "Chronicles of Riddick," the good news was that this couldn't possibly be worse. The bad news was that that was setting the bar incredibly low.

The movie starts with Riddick (Vin Diesel) severely injured and alone on an alien world. We backtrack a bit to see the fallout of the previous movie and Riddick's betrayal by some of the Necromongers. Next we see him recovering, and talking about how he's lost his edge. So he spends some time in this hostile environment, in effect "regaining his mojo." Yawn. Then he decides it's time to leave, so he summons a couple of groups of bounty hunters to the planet. Hijinks remarkably similar to those seen in "Pitch Black" (the first Riddick movie) ensue.

As mentioned, not as bad as the second movie. But trying to recapture the qualities of the first movie, while not an entirely bad idea, was kind of doomed because Riddick is now a known quantity and we know he'll kick ass and not die. Which made this violent and action-filled production a bit of a yawner. About the only thing we've really added to the mix is some bare breasts, which is just borrowing from standard horror movie tropes without actually adding anything to the movie. If we're lucky, this series will sink quietly into oblivion.

2013, dir. David Twohy. With Vin Diesel, Jordi Mollà, Matt Nable, Katee Sackhoff, Dave Bautista, Bokeem Woodbine, Raoul Trujillo, Karl Urban.

Ride With the Devil

Set during the American Civil War, tells the story of several people caught up in the action in Missouri. Most of the main characters are "bushwhackers," Southern loyalists fighting a guerrilla war in their state. I found the movie somewhat unfocused as it follows several characters over a long period of time, with some of the main characters dying. But the story is nevertheless very good, dodging every stereotype and cliché to show a decent man growing to adulthood in a very difficult time.

Director Ang Lee gathered a crew of excellent actors to put this one together with good performances throughout. I was particularly impressed with Jeffrey Wright: I haven't been his biggest fan, but he's very good here. Jewel is surprisingly good.

1999, dir. Ang Lee. With Tobey Maguire, Skeet Ulrich, Jeffrey Wright, Jewel, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Simon Baker, James Caviezel, Tom Wilkinson, Mark Ruffalo.

Ride Your Wave

One of the problems with getting older is that you start to recognize patterns across years - in this case, a style of movie-making. This movie falls squarely into the "the love of my life is dead and has returned as a spirit to help me" school of film-making. Its most obvious predecessors are "Ghost" (1990) and "Truly, Madly, Deeply" (also 1990), but I'm sure there are others.

In this case, the movie starts by introducing us to Hinako Mukaimizu (female, student and surfer, age 21), and Minato Hinageshi (male, firefighter, age 19), and their relationship as it blossoms into true love. But he dies saving a life, and we stumble into the cheesy fantasy visitations that are the point of the movie. Both the fantasy aspects of the movie and the more real-world aspects are sloppily structured, the characters are overly broad, the dialogue is mediocre, and the heavy reliance on a poorly sung pop song (it sounds like crap in both English and Japanese, so this appears to have been intentional) is insult-to-injury. On the plus side, it looks pretty - but overall, very disappointing.

2019, dir. Masaaki Yuasa. With Ryota Katayose, Joey Richter, Rina Kawaei, Merit Leighton, Honoka Matsumoto, Sarah Anne Williams, Kentaro Ito, Michael Johnston.

Riders of Justice

Original Danish title "Retfærdighedens Ryttere."

Mads Mikkelsen is Markus Hansen, who returns home from Afghanistan after the death of his wife in a train accident. We quickly find out that Markus doesn't have much of a connection with his daughter, and he's a bit violent. Soon, Otto (who was on the train, played by Nikolaj Lie Kaas) and a couple of his friends approach Markus, telling him that her death wasn't an accident, but a targeted assassination of a witness in a gang court case sitting near her on the train. They were unable to convince the police of this though. This leads them to the gang "Riders of Justice," and a very darkly comedic tale of revenge.

Imagine a stock American revenge flick - pick one that's got some comedy in it. Now, mentally throw it in a blender with the most twisted Nordic comedy you've ever seen - I'm thinking of "O'Horten," but nobody sane has seen that. Anyway, what would come out of the blender would be this. It's closest living relatives are "A Somewhat Gentle Man" and "In Order of Disappearance" ... although I'd argue this is at least a bit better than either of those.

Markus is a supremely capable military man. This is a classic element from the American revenge flick. But he's really not good with the emotions - his, his daughter's, or anyone else's. The fact that this gets discussed is not something you generally see in the American revenge flick. He accidentally builds himself a new family from a variety of very damaged individuals. This is an element from comedies the world over. The resulting movie is wildly perverse and often quite funny.

2020, dir. Anders Thomas Jensen. With Mads Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Andrea Heick Gadeberg, Lars Brygmann, Nicolas Bro, Gustav Lindh, Roland Møller, Albert Rudbeck Lindhardt, Anne Birgitte Lind, Omar Shargawi, Jacob Lohmann.

The Right Stuff

Based on the Tom Wolfe book of the same name - I read the book shortly after it came out, but my memory of it is hazy enough that I can't compare (I'm writing this review in 2014, and the book came out in 1979). About the test pilots and the astronauts of the Mercury program.

The movie starts out by establishing that the military test pilots are a bunch of crazy men: intelligent, very competent, but massive risk-takers whose wives (who play a major part in the movie) live with the possibility of their death every time they fly. But the mid-section of the movie - mostly recruitment, testing, and training - thinks that it's a comedy. We get puke, urine, and even masturbation. Most of it is actually fairly funny, but this isn't just humour-as-part-of-life, this is flat-out switch-to-comedy mode. But then we're on to the actual space program, they're risking their lives again, and they drop most of the humour. I found the change of tone problematic, and the three hour run-time excessive: if they'd cut some of the comedy (particularly Harry Shearer and Jeff Goldblum as the comedy duo NASA recruiters) and a few of the long patriotic shots of our great achievements, the movie might have been better.

1983, dir. Philip Kaufman. With Sam Shepard, Ed Harris, Fred Ward, Dennis Quaid, Scott Glenn, Barbara Hershey, Lance Henriksen, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Shearer, Jeff Goldblum, Kim Stanley, Pamela Reed, Mary Jo Deschanel.

Righting Wrongs

In the 1960s, three men who were to become famous (for two of them, all over the world) attended the China Drama Academy. Their names are Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, and Yuen Biao, and all three made their way into Hong Kong cinema - particularly stunt work - after their childhood stint learning Chinese Opera. Almost everyone knows the name of Jackie Chan, and anyone who knows anything about martial arts movies knows of Sammo Hung. Not many people outside Hong Kong know of Yuen Biao. But these are the three "brothers" who formed a strong bond in their school and helped each other through the industry and into good careers. Yuen Biao is the most acrobatic of the three. If you've ever seen a Jackie Chan movie, that statement may seem improbable - but truly, he's more agile than Chan (or at least he was in the 1980s).

15 or 20 years ago I wrote myself a note to watch Biao's movie "Righting Wrongs" sometime, as the trailer looked good. I got around to that today (2018), having found that Toronto Public Library actually had a copy(!). It opens by establishing that Biao's character Jason Ha Ling-ching is a prosecutor. We see him on the courthouse steps politely pointing out to a lawyer(judge? not at all clear which) that he admires that he may be endangering himself by prosecuting/convicting gangsters ... and within about two minutes the man is gunned down. Biao beats up a bad guy, grabs the big gun that was dropped, shoots people, has a car chase, and blows shit up. Then he goes back to the quiet life of a prosecutor. Wait, what? And after that opening we're supposed to understand he's a by-the-books prosecutor who never takes the law into his own hands and it's an incredible change in his world view and behaviour when he does precisely that 20 minutes later. He's impelled to this new course of action by the murder of multiple witnesses and innocents.

And just to remind me of what 80s imported HK movies were like - the subtitles are absolutely atrocious.

But what am I saying? We don't watch martial arts movies for logic, we watch them for fights! And the fights are ... mediocre. Cynthia Rothrock starred in a fair number of HK movies in the 80s, including this one (where she plays a police inspector trying to catch our vigilante protagonist). The only other couple movies I'd seen her in prior to this, she was speeded up - at least they didn't do that in this movie. But I'm still not a fan, and the editing was choppy. One of the saving graces in Jackie Chan movies are relatively long cuts: the cheap way out if you don't have the time for multiple takes (Chan would sometimes do up to 100 takes to get a shot right) is cutting together two seconds of moves from multiple other takes. This choppiness also significantly diminishes any chance of seeing Biao's incredible balletic grace in action.

To add insult to injury, everybody dies. (Oh, wait, was I supposed to say "SPOILER ALERT?") Justice is served, but every single major character dies - sometimes quite gruesome deaths.

And then there's the humour. This is a movie about vigilante justice that ends as a tragedy, and yet it's full of the same kind of humour as Jackie Chan's movies. Corey Yuen (who also directed) plays "Bad Egg" (really - that's the character's name), a bumbling cop working with Rothrock's character. He and his father, also a police man, squabble constantly: I didn't laugh once. And then, when Bad Egg dies valiantly saving a witness from being killed (don't worry, the witness dies later), they try to draw laughs from the father's pain.

I admit to a certain fascination with this clumsy form of humour I associate with HK martial arts movies (mostly Jackie Chan, which I've seen so many of - but it shows in Sammo's movies as well). I'd love to know if it's A) Chinese Opera humour, B) Hong Kong humour (don't think so - I've seen a fair number of non-martial arts movies from Hong Kong, and this wasn't in evidence), C) Three brothers humour (Jackie, Sammo, Biao), or D) something else entirely. In the Chan movies (notably his older ones - American producers mostly got rid of it) it's often mixed with blatant sexism - happily, that isn't evident here.

At best mildly interesting to the hardcore fan of HK action cinema - and then only if you feel the need to see one of the very few starring vehicles for Biao that made it to North America in any form. A better course of action would be to rewatch or find a copy of "Wheels on Meals" (yes, that's the title) which stars all three "brothers." The plot, logic, and HK humour are appalling in that one too, but it includes several of the best martial arts fights ever put on film - and shows off Biao's skills to much better effect.

1986, dir. Corey Yuen. With Yuen Biao, Cynthia Rothrock, Melvin Wong, Louis Fan, Corey Yuen, Sandy Chan.

Rio

Our hero is "Blu," a rare blue macaw (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg), captured as a baby and shipped to Minnesota. He has an owner who loves him (Leslie Mann) and never learns to fly. One day, his owner is convinced by a Brazilian ornithologist (Rodrigo Santoro) to bring Blu to Rio in the hope of perpetuating the race with the only remaining female blue macaw. When they get there, Blu struggles with his inability to fly, and the wild Jewel (Anne Hathaway), the female macaw who doesn't deal well with captivity. And then there are the smugglers and Carnival.

The movie is incredibly colourful, silly, and often amusing.

2011, dir. Carlos Saldanha. With Jesse Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, Leslie Mann, Rodrigo Santoro, Will.i.am, Jamie Foxx, Jake T. Austin, Jemaine Clement, Carlos Ponce.

Ripper Street, Season 1

The TV series opens on the streets of London, six months after the last Jack the Ripper murder. Detective Inspector Edmund Reid (Matthew Macfadyen) heads up the Whitechapel division with his Sergeant, Bennet Drake (Jerome Flynn). He shortly hires American ex-pat army doctor Homer Jackson (Adam Rothenberg) as his pathologist-equivalent. They also have a lot of contact with the Tenter Street brothel run by "Long Susan" (MyAnna Buring) where Jackson lives.

I enjoyed the first couple episodes, but the improbabilities quickly began to weigh on me. Reid is uncommonly intelligent. That's fine: what's not fine is that his recruitment of Jackson gives him an uncommonly intelligent forensic pathologist before such a thing actually existed. (Did I mention? Jackson's also a very good shot with a rifle.) Not to mention the question of how effective Jackson would actually be given his significant ingestion of drugs and alcohol. And then there's their closure rate on cases: they close 100% of the cases we see. Wait, this is Victorian England: their closure rate at the time was not very good (to put it mildly). And you named the series after a more typical Victorian murder: that one was never solved. So you're going to cry out by appearances "we're all in on the realism of the time: the dirt, the blood, the prostitution and the poverty ... but we'll give you a golden closure rate." In the second(?) episode they run a knight (a gentleman whose preface is "Sir") through with a sword. Apparently without political repercussions, which is entirely unbelievable.

The plots are problematic too: they arrive, on several occasions, in the nick of time. The knife is quite literally descending a couple times. And every plot point is big, there are no small cases. Multiple murders, personal involvement by one of the police, or they have to save half of London from poisoning (in that case while simultaneously fighting off their own superiors who want them to stand down). It all became too painfully ridiculous. I've been thinking of it as a police procedural set in Victorian London, but I think it's more accurate to call it a soap opera that involves cops. I would have preferred the procedural ... I watched the whole season, but won't be returning.

2013, dir. Tom Shankland, Andy Wilson, Colm McCarthy. With Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn, Adam Rothenberg, MyAnna Buring, Charlene McKenna.

Rise of the Guardians

The movie opens with our introduction to Jack Frost (voiced by Chris Pine), summoned into the world by the Man in the Moon - he knows nothing of how he came to be, just his name and his job. 300 years later (seconds in the movie) the other Guardians assemble because of the reappearance of Pitch Black/The Bogeyman (voiced by Jude Law) and find they must rely on Jack, the youngest and least noticed of the Guardians to defeat the Bogeyman.

Visually clever and generally fun, this film is aimed squarely at kids - there's no catering to the parent audience here beyond making a good movie. I was a bit disappointed as Pixar has really started a wave of movies that aim enough material at the parents to keep them entertained while the kids are watching, but that's not attempted here. I would think (caveat: I don't have kids) this would be fantastic for the kids, but I'm not sure how much fun adults will have with it. Includes one hell of a line-up of voice talent.

2012, dir. Peter Ramsey. With Chris Pine, Alec Baldwin, Hugh Jackman, Isla Fisher, Jude Law, Dakota Goyo.

Rise of the Legend

There have been a lot of movies that star a character named Wong Fei-Hung. He's a folk hero of Chinese martial arts, and his father (who taught him) gets a lot of air time as well. Wong Fei-Hung has been played by Jet Li, Jackie Chan, and many others. Wong Kei-ying (his father) has been played perhaps most notably by Donnie Yen in "Iron Monkey." This time Wong Fei-Hung is played by Eddie Peng (who Wikipedia calls "a Taiwanese Canadian actor, singer and model"). Note that "martial artist" isn't in that list, although he did reasonably well in that category. And apparently he's okay with doing wirework too. Wong Kei-ying is played by Tony Leung Ka-fai in flashbacks.

We first see Fei-hung trying to kill a gang leader - not for justice, but so his gang can control a neighbourhood. I don't think it's a spoiler (given that anyone who knows anything about Chinese martial arts movies knows Wong Fei-Hung is a hero, not a villain) to say that about 25 minutes in we find out he has other motives. He's rising through the ranks of the Black Tiger gang, run by Sammo Hung. But two of his childhood friends are members of the Orphan gang. (There are a lot of gangs in this movie.) They work together behind the scenes to clean up corruption in the city and bring down all the evil gangs. And we're also introduced to the childhood backstory, which sets up the awkward and unhappy love connections between our four good guys (conveniently two women, two men, none of whom love the ones that they can have). It's all supposed to be really deep and tragic, but it's mostly stupid and overly complex. The fighting is massively over-the-top and loaded with wirework - and the choreography is at best mediocre.

High budget and well produced, but not a big success.

2014, dir. Roy Chow. With Eddie Peng, Sammo Hung, Angelababy, Wang Luodan, Jing Boran, Zhang Jin, Wong Cho-lam, Qin Junjie, Jack Feng, Byron Mann, Gao Taiyu, Tony Leung Ka-fai.

Risky Business

I saw this first when it came out (in 1983!), and now in 2008. The movie that made Tom Cruise a star. This is a (small) step above most teen flicks, but it still goes in for some obvious jokes (the car off the pier is right up there). The setup is typical: clean-cut teen struggling to get into college, his parents leave him in charge of the house. He calls a call girl (Rebecca De Mornay) - things start out as they normally do, but promptly go out of control as you'd expect in a teen movie. It's funny, but there are better comedies in the world.

1983, dir. Paul Brickman. With Tom Cruise, Rebecca De Mornay, Bronson Pinchot, Curtis Armstrong.

The Road Warrior

With the recent release of "Mad Max: Fury Road," I decided revisiting its most famous predecessor was in order. Max (Mel Gibson) is an emotionally damaged drifter in a post-apocalyptic desert who becomes involved with a small community under attack for their gasoline resources. The attackers are a bunch of car-driving nomads led by "Lord Humungus" (Kjell Nilsson). Max is initially reluctant to assist them, trading his services for "as much gas as I can carry" - but after a couple run-ins with Humungus and his disciples, he decides to help out.

The plot isn't particularly complex, but (unlike "Fury Road") it's given time, and is developed fairly well. Most people remember the movie for the climactic car chase, but it also introduced the world to a much grittier and more violent form of post-apocalyptic SF. The movie was made in 1981, long before computer effects were used in any meaningful way. They used a huge number of vehicles and stunt drivers for the best practical car effects you're ever likely to see.

Watch "The Road Warrior" if you haven't seen it: it's a seminal SF movie that changed both science fiction and car chases forever.

1981, dir. George Miller. With Mel Gibson, Vernon Wells, Bruce Spence, Kjell Nilsson, Michael Preston.

Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

Kevin Costner is Robin of Locksley, a young Englishman who makes it back to England after going to the Holy Lands on the latest Crusade. What little we learn of that was that he was there five years, a good friend of his died, and he was imprisoned at the end. Back in England he finds his estranged father dead at the hands of the Sheriff of Nottingham (Alan Rickman), and all their lands seized. He ends up in Sherwood Forest, joining a band of people disenfranchised by the Sheriff.

This is a whopping big serving of 80s cheese (it was made in 1991, but undoubtedly had its origins back in the Eighties). They've elected to toss a whole bunch of Americans and Britons together - and let everyone talk in something resembling their native accent. Just as well, it sounds more natural ... besides, it's supposed to be 1200, I can't see them speaking pre-Chaucerian English. Except for Morgan Freeman, who speaks in this stupid accent that's meant to indicate he's a Moor, but is just jarring every time he speaks. Rickman is both the main antagonist and the comedic relief - better him than anyone else in this mess, but the comedy and absurdity defuse the threat. Everything plays out almost exactly as you expect: there are no surprises here. Ugh.

1991, dir. Kevin Reynolds. With Kevin Costner, Morgan Freeman, Alan Rickman, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Geraldine McEwan, Christian Slater, Mike McShane, Nick Brimble.

Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind

This is a 2018 HBO production about the life of Robin Williams. They have the good sense to get out of the way, to let him and his friends tell you who he was and how his life went. He was possibly the most maniacal person alive who wasn't institutionalized, but also possibly the funniest man of his generation. The movie uses clips from his movie and TV performances, TV interviews, home movies, photos, even old recordings of his stand-up performances, to build a picture of his life. The first half of the film was screamingly funny, with his meteoric rise to fame and his incredible, rapid-fire improv. The second half sees him well established, but struggling with addiction, insecurity (which is depressingly common even among famous people), and debilitating disease - which led to his suicide. It's a very good tribute to a spectacularly funny man.

I didn't know that the character of "Mork" later found on "Mork & Mindy" originated on "Happy Days." Nor did I know he had classical acting training from Julliard.

UPDATE (a couple days later): watching this inspired me to go to YouTube to try to find some of Williams' stand-up. What I started to watch was "Live at the Met," which the movie had excerpted to great effect. But what I found was that I (still) can't take the man in large doses: he's simply too manic, too wild, his stories too disjointed. His anecdotes are much better when broken up by calmer, more fact-based stories ...

2018, dir. Marina Zenovich. With Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, David Letterman, Billy Crystal, Pam Dawber.

RoboCop

Murphy (Peter Weller) is a cop transfered to the incredibly crime-ridden Old Detroit area, where he's partnered with Anne Lewis (Nancy Allen). He is shortly killed by criminals - but the OCP corporation, who run the police under contract, use Murphy's remnants to build "RoboCop." He wasn't meant to remember anything from his life as human, but he does: and in small behavioural hints, Lewis sees her old partner and begins to suspect. RoboCop turns out to be very effective at policing - so much so that he starts to interfere both with organized crime in the city and with high level corruption at OCP.

Weller is very good as a man slowly recovering his humanity, and the brutal, callous violence of the movie is still hard to watch even in 2012. The script is a brilliant and scathing condemnation of ... so many things, but let's start with corporate culture. I saw this when it first came out and remembered it as good, but I didn't give it enough credit: if you can stomach it, this is a really excellent film.

1987, dir. Paul Verhoeven. With Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Ronny Cox, Dan O'Herlihy, Kurtwood Smith, Miguel Ferrer, Paul McCrane, Ray Wise, Jesse D. Goins, Calvin Jung.

RoboCop 2

Continues the story of "RoboCop" (Peter Weller), a near-future Detroit cop who's had most of his body removed and replaced with robotic parts. They go for the same vitriolic humour and massive, blood-spurting body count (and even repeat the horrible mutilation of our hero, although this time he's a cyborg to start with), but it's not really a repeatable formula and their threats and solutions are more simplistic (and borrow heavily from the original movie). The story is by Frank Miller and he co-authored the screenplay. He's a wildcard who occasionally brings something good to the table ("Sin City"), but more often falls flat (as here, or "300"). See the original, pass on this one.

1990, dir. Irvin Kershner. With Peter Weller, Nancy Allen, Belinda Bauer, Dan O'Herlihy, Felton Perry, Tom Noonan, Willard E. Pugh, Gabriel Damon.

RoboCop 3

Takes "RoboCop" to new (and terminal) lows. The loss of Peter Weller - who actually brought some expressiveness to our facially challenged lead - is nothing compared to the incredibly dumb-ass action flick mentality. In another story penned by the amazingly untalented Frank Miller, OCP (now a subsidiary of a Japanese company) has decided to raze the Cadillac Heights neighbourhood to install a lovely new model city. Forced relocations of innocent people follow, and that leads to an armed resistance. Spunky intelligent leader, spunky super-intelligent orphaned hacker kid, spunky scientist who helps RoboCop, hell, even RoboCop is spunky. The acid wit (as weak as it was in the second movie) is totally gone, no thoughts are provoked, and the good guys win. Makes the second movie look like a masterwork.

1993, dir. Fred Dekker. With Robert John Burke, Nancy Allen, Rip Torn, Mako, Remy Ryan, Bruce Locke, John Castle, Jill Hennessy.

RoboCop (2014)

I'm very familiar with the original movie: violent, sadistic, misanthropic, satirical, and brilliant. Most of the elements of this are the same, although updated: its set a bit further in the future, and the computers and robotics are more up-to-date. But we still have a crime-riddled Detroit, and a corporation called OCP that wants to police the streets with robots. And a project to turn a man into a cyborg. The difference - and the only significant interest the movie offers - is in the fact that officer Alex Murphy fully retains his own memory and personality through the initial trauma and transformation. We watch him try to deal with the process and come to terms with returning to his family as something not entirely human. (That happened in the earlier movie, but quite differently.) They have Samuel L. Jackson as "Pat Novak," a right wing TV personality and commentator who's totally in favour of robotic policing - he's director José Padilha's failed attempt to bring the biting satire of the original movie to life. Novak is obnoxious, but - especially in 2018, the age of Trump - not so different from the political commentary on the TV right now.

Joel Kinnaman was okay in the lead, although not great. And he spends part of the movie doped to his eyeballs so he's acting like an automaton - which leaves the audience very little to grab ahold of. Gary Oldman and Michael Keaton are also okay - I didn't think they brought much. It may seem odd to judge an action movie on its acting, but the original was an incredibly thought-provoking social commentary that just happened to have a lot of action. This movie, while not a total disaster, isn't even in the same ballpark as its predecessor.

2014, dir. José Padilha. With Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson, Abbie Cornish, Jackie Earle Haley, Michael K. Williams, Jennifer Ehle, Jay Baruchel, Aimee Garcia, John Paul Ruttan.

Robots

The plot is so familiar it's painful - small town boy goes to the city to make it big - and this is suddenly supposed to be new and exciting because the characters are robots? Even the kids it was meant for will find it predictable. But the movie does have some major redeeming features and moments of brilliance. There are at least a couple of visual set pieces that are wonderful to see, and Williams is hysterically funny. There's an abundance of fart jokes (from robots ... okay ...), one of which is actually pretty funny. There are at least a couple of relatively subtle sex jokes which will go right over the heads of the kids and have the adults giggling. And there are so many movie references it'll leave your head spinning and make you wonder how many more you missed.

2005, dir. Chris Wedge, Carlos Saldanha. With Ewan McGregor, Robin Williams, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Greg Kinnear, Mel Brooks, Amanda Bynes, Drew Carrey, Jennifer Coolidge.

Rock Star

Mark Wahlberg plays a singer/photocopy repair technician who is seriously obsessed with the metal band Steel Dragon, including performing in a "tribute band." When Steel Dragon loses their lead singer, he auditions for the position and gets it. The transition from small time imitator to lead singer for a massive stadium band comes with a price (to no one's surprise). I really liked this when it came out but it didn't hold up too well on re-watching. I owe it a debt though: it introduced me to Verve Pipe's album "Underneath," which is brilliant. Most of the music is, however, metal.

2001, dir. Stephen Herek. With Mark Wahlberg, Jennifer Aniston, Timothy Spall, Dominic West.

The Rocket: The Maurice Richard Story

Biopic about Maurice Richard (played by Roy Dupuis), one of Canada's best known hockey players. In Montreal, he remains a legend to this day. The movie opens with the 1955 Richard Riot - an odd choice given that we immediately jump back to his early life as a 17 year old machinist and amateur hockey player. The movie - and Dupuis - are incredibly earnest. I suppose that was appropriate for Dupuis: Richard was famous for his intensity, and his stare was known to scare off opposing players.

The movie follows his life - from early marriage, his incredibly rough first season in which he barely played due to injury and the press and fans called him a "lemon," through taking the league scoring record, getting in trouble with the league for outspoken newspaper columns, and finally to the Richard Riot again. Where the movie abruptly ends, telling you in text that Richard played for five more seasons ... and he and the Canadiens took the Stanley Cup in every one of those years.

As mentioned, the movie is very earnest. There are some decent moments. The movie has the virtue of historical accuracy - including Richard scoring a goal in a league game while carrying a 210 pound defence man on his back that I thought was exaggeration - but ultimately I found the movie a bit of a slog.

2005, dir. Charles Binamé. With Roy Dupuis, Julie LeBreton, Stephen McHattie.

The Rocketeer

The plot is a disastrous mess and the acting is horrible (even Timothy Dalton and Jennifer Connelly, who should have done better). Even the effects aren't that great, but the movie is notable to airplane fans for the construction of a flying GeeBee replica. The GeeBees were the fastest planes in the world in the 1930s, and won pretty much every race they entered - when they didn't crash and kill the pilot. There were twelve built, and six crashed. Evidently the pilot who flew the replica landed after the first take and said "I hope you got that, because I'm never getting in that thing again." The replica was every bit as unstable and hard to control as the original. But it's beautiful to see.

1991, dir. Joe Johnson. With Bill Campbell, Jennifer Connelly, Alan Arkin, Timothy Dalton, Paul Sorvino, Terry O'Quinn.

Rocketman

The movie opens on Elton John (Taron Egerton), in a spectacular devil costume complete with large red wings, storming into a rehab clinic to begin sessions. Most of his life to then is shown in musical flashback. His parents were spectacularly cold, although he had a reasonably good relationship with his grandmother. His first male lover of any importance (John Reid, played by Richard Madden) was also a business partner, and nearly as cold as his parents. Which led to a descent into alcohol and drugs, and him driving away his best friend and lyricist Bernie Taupin (Jamie Bell). Or so the movie tells it, often in the form of his most famous songs, or blunt statements of fact that people don't actually say out loud in real life.

I have mixed feelings about it, but it's memorable and the performances are good.

Egerton has already had a lot to do with Elton John: in 2016 he covered John's "I'm Still Standing" in 2016's "Sing" (not a great movie, but I think Egerton's version of the song is better than John's ...), and they were both in the appalling "Kingsman: The Golden Circle" - can't remember if they shared any screen time and I refuse to rewatch it to find out (the first "Kingsman" was a huge amount of fun, but the second ... urgh).

2019, dir. Dexter Fletcher. With Taron Egerton, Jamie Bell, Richard Madden, Gemma Jones, Bryce Dallas Howard, Stephen Graham, Steven Mackintosh, Tate Donovan, Charlie Rowe, Tom Bennett.

RocknRolla

Rotten Tomatoes refers to this as "Guy Ritchie's return to his London-based cockney wideboy gangster movie roots," which I found mildly incomprehensible the first time I read it - mostly because of the word "wideboy." According to Wikipedia, "Wide boy is a British term for a man who lives by his wits, wheeling and dealing. ... The word 'wide' used in this sense means wide-awake or sharp-witted."

I never really "got" Ritchie's "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels:" I saw it, I understood it, but I was surprised by other people's enthusiasm for it. What bothered me was that there were a bunch of not terribly bright people (not nearly so "wide" as the slang term mentioned earlier) running around getting themselves and others into trouble, and then - through no intelligence or action of theirs, usually purely luck - they get back out of trouble. And the worst of the lot dies, which somehow implies that the lesser criminals we've been watching are "okay."

This time we follow the adventures of (among others) Mumbles (Idris Elba), One Two (Gerard Butler), and Handsome Bob (Tom Hardy). And they're not stellar lights: they try to steal a car while the owner they booted from the car looks on ... still holding his keys. Elsewhere we follow Lenny Cole (Tom Wilkinson) and his right-hand man Archy (Mark Strong) as Lenny deals with Uri, the new Russian gangster in town (Karel Roden). Let's not forget Stella (Thandie Newton), Uri's crooked accountant, who deals with One Two occasionally. And then we watch as all their plans and schemes get hopelessly tangled together.

Got to give Ritchie credit for selecting a hell of an ensemble cast of rising stars: he caught Hardy just before his pay cheques ballooned, and likewise Elba. And I've seen Toby Kebbell in a couple other movies (The Sorcerer's Apprentice" and "Wrath of the Titans") but never thought of him as anything more than comedy. Often very funny, but not a lot of acting going on. But here, while his tone was inconsistent, he ran the gamut from funny to pathetic to verging on terrifying - he did a good job.

The movie is intermittently amusing, but just like "Lock, Stock ..." obnoxious people get in trouble for things they didn't do (they did things - just not the ones they got in trouble for), and they get back out by luck. So if that's your taste, go to it - but I wasn't enthusiastic.

2008, dir. Guy Ritchie. With Gerard Butler, Idris Elba, Mark Strong, Tom Wilkinson, Tom Hardy, Thandie Newton, Toby Kebbell, Karel Roden, Jeremy Piven, Chris Bridges, Jimi Mistry.

Rogue One

Set just before the beginning of the original "Star Wars" movie (you know, the one from 1977 that didn't need a number to tell you where in the sequence it was?), this tells the story of Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), the daughter of a Galactic Empire scientist partially responsible for the creation of the Death Star. She reluctantly joins the Rebellion - to find her father (whom she thought dead) and to recover her father's name.

It's a war story, lots of people die. Comedy is inserted in the form of K-2SO (played by Alan Tudyk, who's been typecast as a robot in this rather modern type trap) and Chirrut Imwe (Donnie Yen), a blind would-be Jedi Knight. Yen makes for the best action scenes, and has surprisingly good comedic timing. He's also quite charming. I've liked Jones in the past, but didn't really think she was particularly good here: I didn't think she showed the strength of will needed to enter a war as she did, despite her character's back-story. Diego Luna was fairly good as her partner in crime.

There are endless nods to hardcore fans of the original: for example, one of the characters bumps into a belligerent person and his friend on the street and barely avoids a fight. Fans of the original movie will recognize the two characters from the cantina on Tatooine that tangle with Luke and Ben. There are dozens of these easter eggs, but I found them more distracting than entertaining. Can't these movies move forward instead of constantly referencing the past? Of course that's a bit silly to ask of a prequel ...

This generally avoids the retconning idiocy that Lucas inflicted on the world with "The Phantom Menace," "Attack of the Clones," and "Revenge of the Sith" - ie. the facts actually fit with the movie that nominally follows it. Overall a better movie than "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," but that's not saying much.

2016, dir. Gareth Edwards. With Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen, Mads Mikkelsen, Alan Tudyk, Jiang Wen, Forest Whitaker.

Role Models

Tasteless, derivative, incredibly predictable, and pretty funny. Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott play a couple of guys who give anti-drug lectures at high schools while selling energy drinks, until Rudd has a bad day and gets them in shit. They're ordered to do community service, and end up in a Big-Brother-alike organisation. Scott draws a young and very foul-mouthed black kid, Rudd gets an introverted older kid who's totally obsessed with a live action role playing game. Things progress exactly as you'd expect: bad start, recovery, horrible glitch, grand gesture, everyone happy. But along the way there are some good laughs - better than most, in fact. Enjoy.

2008, dir. David Wain. With Seann William Scott, Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bobb'e J. Thompson, Jane Lynch, Ken Jeong, Ken Marino, A.D. Miles.

Roman Holiday

This movie may have been the start of location shooting, an American movie shot entirely in Rome. And it was definitely the start for one of the movie's greatest stars, Audrey Hepburn, who immediately won an Oscar. Gregory Peck was also excellent, as you'd expect.

Peck plays Joe Bradley, an American reporter stuck in Rome (who just happens to be incredibly handsome). Hepburn plays Princess Ann, a young royal family member (of an unnamed country) locked into a rigorous and demanding life she's come to hate. When she makes a break for it, she stumbles into Bradley's life. She lies to him about who she is, but he eventually figures it out and he lies to her about what he does so he can spend the day with her to write a tell-all story about her. What follows is funny, beautiful to look at, and charming. Hepburn has a beauty and charm about her in this movie that no one has ever managed on film before or since. One hell of a romantic comedy, with a remarkably realistic twist on the ending.

1953, dir. William Wyler. With Audrey Hepburn, Gregory Peck, Eddie Albert.

Romancing the Stone

Bears something of a resemblance to "Raiders of the Lost Ark," which came out three years prior. Kathleen Turner stars as Joan Wilder, a lonely, reclusive and highly successful romance novelist. Her much more outgoing sister is held hostage for the return of a treasure map that's come into Joan's hands (mailed by her now-dead brother-in-law). This forces Joan to travel to Colombia, where various misunderstandings send her hundreds of miles from her destination and into the company of Jack T. Colton (Michael Douglas), who reluctantly helps Joan on her quest as they're pursued by gangsters of various stripes.

Unbelievably cheesy in a very 80s way, the movie is goofy fun if you're in the mood for that kind of thing.

1984, dir. Robert Zemeckis. With Kathleen Turner, Michael Douglas, Danny DeVito, Alfonso Arau, Holland Taylor.

Romantic Comedy

I watch a lot of rom coms. I don't go out of my way to admit that, but if you look at my this list, it's hard to deny. There's something of a concentration on Jane Austen movies among the rom coms on this list, but ... let's face it, they're just high quality rom coms. So I was curious what Elizabeth Sankey (who wrote, narrated, directed, and provided music with her band) had to say about the genre. As it turns out, I have a lot of strongly held opinions about the genre too - so this review is a bit longer than I meant it to be.

Sankey is clearly a fan of the genre, and had watched many rom coms before she dug in to research this thing. She has a lot to say about what's commonly wrong with them, and she's right about several of these:

  • the protagonists are almost uniformly white and middle class
  • if a woman wants sex, she can't have love
  • women who have careers only really need them because they don't have a husband
  • no (zero, nada, zilch) interracial couples. As she pointed out, the only exception is "Love Actually," and they're an already-established couple while the story line is about a man who loves the wife

She spends a fair bit of time on the "stalkers:" rom coms where genuinely creepy behaviour is rewarded, where a suitor goes to extreme lengths to win their beloved. She's right that there are a disturbing number of movies where lawsuit-worthy behaviour is used for humour and gets-the-girl. I've watched very few of these as they generally creep me out: what depresses me about them is that there's apparently a market for this.

Right in the middle, she names "When Harry Met Sally" as a great movie - in part because the romance isn't presented as the one-and-only, gotta-be-right-now thing. I agree, it's good - but I think several other rom coms she brushed over or didn't name at all ("Stranger Than Fiction," which she seemed indifferent to, and "Definitely, Maybe" which I don't think was mentioned) are better.

She talks about the stalkers, the improbable and unrealistic plots ... and then gets offended that critics don't take the genre seriously. Are you a fan of action movies? No? Why not? Is it because 90% of the genre is staggeringly formulaic and the actors wooden? And why is this? Because there's a huge market for manly men saving the day and/or taking revenge, and people will go to see those movies no matter how dramatically inert they are. As a result, there's a huge industry churning out cheap direct-to-streaming action movies. That describes rom coms as well, with its huge built-in market if you can find a good-looking guy, a good-looking girl, and a story that has them falling in love. Of course the critics disdain them: they want to see dramas because dramas don't have the built-in market that rom coms and action movies have, you've got to work harder.

She also calls out the oddballs - things like "I Love You Man," which she says is a rom com between two guys - except they're both straight and it's a platonic friendship. She's probably right about that one, but I haven't seen it (and don't intend to). However, her calling out "The Heat" as another "platonic rom com" would require reconsidering every buddy cop movie ever made. I mean, should "Tango and Cash" have got a room? (Umm, well, maybe.) Or perhaps "Rush Hour" was actually a romance? I get that she's seeing other kinds of movies borrowing tropes from rom coms, but that doesn't make the movie a "rom com." And borrowing happens all the time, movie genres cross-pollinate like crazy. Hell, she never mentioned "Bend It Like Beckham" which is a sports comedy that's closer to rom com territory than "The Heat." Nor did she mention "Under the Tuscan Sun," which is practically the definitive not-a-rom-com by borrowing every trope the genre has to offer and then NOT having a couple at the end.

Other movies she cites as "atypical" include "La-La Land," "Ruby Sparks," "The Big Sick," and "The Silver Linings Playbook." She sees these as being sort of sneaky rom coms: she thinks they pretend to be something else to avoid the critical disdain romantic comedies attract, but are essentially rom coms at heart. I don't see it that way: I like all these movies (except maybe "Ruby Sparks," which was at least interesting), and I think each of them has simply done a better job - better writing, different and/or better structure, better acting, better directing - to create a rom com that's actually a good movie and deserves good reviews regardless of genre.

Sankey seems almost surprised to find an explosion of mainstream queer cinema in the last couple decades, almost as if she's somehow not aware that Hollywood simply doesn't make films that challenge societal norms. They trail behind what's socially acceptable, they don't push the leading edge ... So now that it's socially acceptable, they're willing to cash in.

In the end, she's still right on at least a couple of her major points: most romances in rom coms are white, and middle class. And they're never, ever mixed race. But ... for her viewing pleasure, I present "Love, Simon" (it was released around the time she would have been doing post-production on this movie). Okay, it's a teen film. But (SPOILER ALERT (for "Love, Simon"), stop reading now etc.) it's a teen rom com and the punchline is both queer and mixed race. And it's a pretty good film. Arguably though, this supports her point: "Love, Simon" is unique to date among mainstream movies in presenting such a couple, and it's sad we've had to wait so long to see it to happen.

2019, dir. Elizabeth Sankey.

Romeo and Juliet (1968)

Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is probably the best version of the play the world is ever going to see. It's not perfect, but there are so many difficult things about making a production of it that I really think this is as close as we're going to get. Its greatest weakness is Mercutio - the comedic relief - who is entirely unfunny. The fault lies less with the actor (John McEnery) and more with the screenwriter's interpretations of the text. Romeo (Leonard Whiting) is very young, and Juliet is even younger (she's supposed to be 13 - played by the luminously beautiful Olivia Hussey), and the two leads show the impetuosity of their age well. And isn't that what the whole play is about? Very well done.

1968. dir. Franco Zeffirelli. With Olivia Hussey, Leonard Whiting, John McEnery.

Romeo and Juliet (1976)

A British TV production. I liked the interpretation of Mercutio, but that was where my interest in this production ended. Romeo (Christopher Neame) was bad, and Juliet (Ann Hasson) was horrible - to the point that after an hour and forty minutes I couldn't take it any more. Instead I went and watched Gwyneth Paltrow as Romeo in "Shakespeare in Love" - now that was a good production of the play.

1976, dir. Joan Kemp-Welch. With Christopher Neame, Ann Hasson, Robin Nedwell.

Ron's Gone Wrong

The setup for "Ron's Gone Wrong" is ... let's call it "Pattern A" as it is the most common layout for a kids movie in existence. Barney Pudowski is a good but lonely kid, reasonably intelligent, with a weird but loving family that doesn't fully understand him. He is alienated and bullied at school.

Stop me if you've heard this before.

Now we have a very slight twist on another extremely common element: a fictional company called "Bubble" releases the "B-Bot," a new companion robot for kids. But let's get back to formula. Everyone gets one ... except Barney. His father, seeing how much it means to him, acquires a B-Bot. Except because there were none left, he gets one that's broken. It does weird things, and Barney's life is made both worse and better.

All that said, kids of course won't be familiar with all the previous movies that followed this pattern. I suspect they'll find it a lot of fun. And even I found it somewhat amusing, although I was surprised at how similar to "Onward" it felt - another heavily patterned and not-great-not-terrible animated kids movie.

2021, dir. Sarah Smith, Jean-Philippe Vine. With Jack Dylan Grazer, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms, Olivia Colman, Rob Delaney, Justice Smith, Kylie Cantrall, Ricardo Hurtado, Cullen James McCarthy, Ava Morse.

A Room With a View

Miss Lucy Honeychurch (an amazingly young Helena Bonham Carter) is in Florence with her maiden aunt and chaperone Charlotte Bartlett (Maggie Smith, also much younger than I think of her now, although 30 years older than Bonham Carter). They are proper British citizens, and Charlotte in particular is unimpressed by their fellow residents the Emersons (the father is played by Denholm Elliott, the son by Julian Sands), who are kind-hearted but most uncivilized. And yet Lucy finds herself drawn to George (the son). But we soon find her back in England, engaged to the fairly intelligent but snobbish Cecil Vyse (played by Daniel Day-Lewis).

For those not familiar with the phrase "Merchant Ivory," James Ivory was a movie director and Ismail Merchant was a producer. Their partnership lasted 44 years and produced something like 30 films, with this one being in the middle of their run and possibly the best of the lot.

Something about Bonham Carter's acting put me off slightly. She's good, but I still felt she was a little off - although not enough to significantly detract from a very enjoyable movie. The cast represented the very best Britain had available (and that's saying something), with Smith, Elliott, Simon Callow and Judi Dench, and then the up-and-coming crowd of Bonham Carter, Day-Lewis, and Rupert Graves. I was particularly fond of Callow, who made Mr. Beebe an incredibly charming, laid-back and funny Reverend. Graves was also notably good (and incredibly young) as Lucy's madcap younger brother Freddy. The movie also left me curious about what happened to Sands: he was quite good in this movie, but currently has a lower profile than many of the other actors in this film. Turns out he's still working, often in TV and in smaller roles.

The movie centres around Lucy's rather slow and somewhat rocky journey from the excessively restrained Victorian values represented by her aunt Charlotte to a more open and less emotionally corseted view of life - a hybrid of her mother's relatively open views and the Emerson's very positive world-view. Low key and upbeat, it's a pleasure to watch.

1985. dir. James Ivory. With Helena Bonham Carter, Julian Sands, Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Simon Callow, Daniel Day-Lewis, Denholm Elliott, Rupert Graves.

The Roundup

Ma Dong-seok (sometimes - usually on American movies - credited as "Don Lee") plays police officer Ma Seok-do, reprising a role he first played in 2017's very successful "The Outlaws" (which I haven't seen). This time, he and his Captain go to Vietnam for what appears to be a fairly straight-forward repatriation of a Korean criminal. But it's rapidly clear that Ma Seok-do uses his own playbook, and even though they don't have jurisdiction he goes on a rampage in Ho Chi Minh City looking for the associates of the criminal who's turned himself in. There's comedy and there are bloody murders, and the action returns to Korea for the second half of the movie.

Ma Dong-seok is ... well, he's not beautiful, and he's bulky. But he's also charismatic and muscular, and it's almost believable that when he hits someone, they fly backward a couple metres. The main criminal they end up pursuing is Kang Hae-sang (Son Suk-ku), who is alarmingly proficient with a cleaver, and has no conscience.

Sits slightly uncomfortably between "Action Comedy," "Police Drama" and "Bloody Revenge flick," but if you're okay with some violence (and subtitles), this is a lot of fun to watch.

2022, dir. Lee Sang-yong. With Ma Dong-seok, Son Suk-ku, Choi Gwi-hwa, Park Ji-hwan, Heo Dong Won, Yoon Byung Hee, Kim Seung Hyun.

A Royal Night Out

On the final day of the Second World War in Europe, the princesses Elizabeth (Canadian Sarah Gadon) and Margaret (Bel Powley) are allowed to join the celebrations outside the palace. They slip their chaperones, and have a wild night on the town - Margaret being misled by the man she's with, Elizabeth getting assistance to find her sister from a reluctant airman. There's not a lot more to it, but it's both incredibly charming and very funny. Gadon is pretty much perfect as a princess who has never before been free, yet knows her responsibilities and what's required of her. And it was as I was admiring her marvelous performance that I realized I was watching "Roman Holiday" - throw in a wayward sister and shoot it in colour in London, it's almost the same film. And - amazingly - it has damn nearly as much grace and charm. A very fine film indeed.

2015, dir. Julian Jarrold. With Sarah Gadon, Bel Powley, Jack Reynor, Rupert Everett, Emily Watson, Roger Allam, Ruth Sheen, Jack Laskey.

The Royal Tenenbaums

"I've always been considered an asshole for about as long as I can remember. That's just my style. But I'd really feel blue if I didn't think you were going to forgive me." Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) is father to three genius children with his wife Etheline (Angelica Huston). But Royal walks out on them early on. After a short introduction to their childhood, we see them mostly stripped of their genius in adulthood - and Royal reappearing to try to reconnect and/or cause problems (both are fun for him).

The movie is incredibly surreal, but it's also hysterically funny and deeply emotionally touching because underneath the surreal is truly emotional material - and while it's been heavily stylized, you still really feel it. I can't explain how director Wes Anderson pulled it off so well in this movie and yet stumbled so badly with "The Life Aquatic ..."

2001, dir. Wes Anderson. With Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson, Angelica Houston, Gene Hackman, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Danny Glover.

RRR

"RRR" is 2022's Indian box office success story. It shows us an imagined meeting between Komaram Bheem (N. T. Rama Rao Jr.) and A. Rama Raju (Ram Charan) before they became heroes of the revolution against the British Raj. Bheem is trying to rescue a child from his village who's been abducted by British Governor Scott Buxton (Ray Stevenson) and his wife (Alison Doody), while Raju initially appears to be a very dedicated and extremely physically capable police officer of the British Raj.

The two first meet without knowing anything about each other when they both decide to rescue a young boy trapped and about to die in a rail accident. The two exchange a couple hand signals, and then - perfectly in tune - manage a complex, perfectly co-ordinated, and physically impossible rescue. After which we're treated to a bonding montage on the bromance of the century.

But all is not well: Bheem is trying to find the young girl in defiance of the Raj, and Raju is the attack dog set to stop him, so they must eventually come to blows. And what blows - the fights are epic, impossible. Each protagonist is captured and tortured, horribly - in ways that would have broken any mere mortal physically and psychologically, but our heroes fight on. And after they realise they're on the same side, they're unstoppable.

This is one of the stupidest movies I've ever seen, which is impressive given the sheer number of movies I've watched in my life. For the three of us watching, there was a lot of laughter and no awed appreciation. It appears that we're in a minority, as this movie has not only blown through box office records, but also has a 95% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes. If you're okay with over-acting and a complete defiance of the laws of physics and medicine, this is a lush and ridiculous movie. If you're not okay with those things, this is a steaming pile of crap.

2022, dir. S. S. Rajamouli. With N. T. Rama Rao Jr., Ram Charan, Ajay Devgn, Alia Bhatt, Shriya Saran, Samuthirakani, Ray Stevenson, Alison Doody, Olivia Morris, Chatrapathi Sekhar.

Rubber

The movie opens with a guy getting out of the trunk of a car to explain to both the "audience" gathered in the desert to watch a "film," and also to us (straight into the camera) that things in movies happen for "no reason," and this is an homage to "no reason." Yes, yes ... this is about as "Meta" as a movie can get.

We watch as a tire emerges from a dump, and learns to kill just by thought. As the tire proceeds on its adventures, we occasionally look in on the "audience," who offer commentary on the "film." Although the "audience's" role in the "film" becomes more and more tangled.

Deliberately weird and absurd, it remained cohesive and intriguing enough to retain my interest.

2010, dir. Quentin Dupieux. With Stephen Spinella, Jack Plotnick, Roxane Mesquida, Wings Hauser, Ethan Cohn, Charley Koontz, Hayley Holmes, Haley Ramm, Daniel Quinn, Devin Brochu.

Ruby Sparks

Having just watched "The F Word" recently, which also stars Zoe Kazan, I said of her: "... what a legacy she has: her grandfather was Elia Kazan, one of Hollywood's most famous directors, both her parents are well-established screenwriters, and she herself is also a screenwriter and playwright." This is where she shows what she's got as a writer: she wrote both the story and the screenplay.

Paul Dano plays Calvin Weir-Fields, a young and very successful novelist who's not very good at relationships. He's having trouble working on his next novel, and at the behest of his therapist starts writing about a young woman. Things related to her start appearing in the real world, and eventually she herself appears (the titular Ruby, played by Kazan). Having established that other people can see her, he fully accepts her into his life and is ecstatically happy. Except of course that it doesn't all go according to his not particularly realistic plan.

Another take on the Pygmalion myth, the fallout fits fairly well with Ruby's origins. The central conceit is never explained, leaving us squarely in the realm of (slightly creepy) fantasy. But the movie struck me as being clever (witty, mildly interesting) without actually being intelligent (it never got much beyond its one big idea), and so it's kind of a one shot, not worth a second viewing. I also didn't feel that Calvin deserved even as positive an ending as he was given, but then moral worthiness and positive outcomes are only strongly linked in children's books. While this isn't brilliant work, I think Kazan bears watching watching both as a writer and an actor.

2012, dir. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. With Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Annette Bening, Antonio Banderas, Steve Coogan, Elliott Gould, Chris Messina, Toni Trucks.

Rumble in the Bronx (orig. Hung faan aau)

Jackie Chan's first serious entry into the North American market. I was very glad to see him get here, but this isn't my favourite film of his. Some spectacular fights and stunts (the leap from the parking garage is insane, in the best possible way) and craziness (a full size hovercraft?? On city streets!?), but it's one of his nastier movies (blood, people get shot, people die) and not one of his most enjoyable.

1996, dir. Stanley Tong. With Jackie Chan, Anita Mui, Françoise Yip, Marc Akerstream, Bill Tung.

Run Lola Run

The critics loved it. I didn't. The premise is that Lola's boyfriend has rather abruptly gone 100,000 marks (think about the same amount in dollars) in debt to the mob, and Lola has 20 minutes in which to turn up that amount of cash or he's likely to die. She runs a lot. It's inventive and often interesting, but I found it pretty irritating in places - I didn't like the characters much and there's some repetition as they rewind and reconsider her decisions.

1999. dir. Tom Tykwer. With Franka Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu.

Run Silent, Run Deep

This is a 1958 black-and-white film about an American submarine taking on the Japanese during the Second World War. Clark Gable plays Commander P.J. Richardson, whose sub was taken out of action by "Bungo Pete," a Japanese boat commander in the Bungo Straits. He's put on a desk job in Pearl Harbour, but when he hears about Bungo Pete's fourth successful submarine sinking, he asks to be put back on active duty. The sub he's put in charge of is the U.S.S. Nerka where he's not entirely welcome, as he's displaced the very popular executive officer (Burt Lancaster) who was supposed to get the job. He further increases the crew's animosity by drilling them relentlessly.

Reading up on this on Wikipedia, I find the author of the book of the same name that this was based on (Captain Edward L. Beach Jr.), didn't like the movie - later claiming they had effectively bought only the title and not used his content at all. This seems to be an accurate enough assessment, but it doesn't mean the movie is bad: in fact, it's quite good. On a personal note, I was surprised to find that Lancaster did a good job: he hadn't yet developed that self-satisfied, smirking, strutting incompetence that was his trademark in later years. Gable was good and the supporting cast was serviceable. The script is good, with better than average dialogue and a lot of tension, making for a very enjoyable movie.

1958, dir. Robert Wise. With Clark Gable, Burt Lancaster, Jack Warden, Brad Dexter, Don Rickles.

The Rundown

The Rock does what he normally does. That's okay, but Seann William Scott and Christopher Walken do what they normally do too, and that's really, really tiresome. The Rock is big, strong, incredibly tough, charming, and intensely honourable. Scott is at his most unbelievably annoying. Walken plays the same bad guy he's played in a dozen movies previously. The movie isn't improved by the monkey humping jokes, or by an extended pissing joke. The highlight for me happened about five minutes in with Arnold Schwarzenegger's five second cameo. All I wanted was to be entertained, but this movie didn't even make it up to that weak standard.

2003, dir. Peter Berg. With Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott, Rosario Dawson, Christopher Walken, Ewen Bremner, Ernie Reyes Jr.

Rush

A movie about the rivalry between 1970s Formula 1 drivers Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl) and James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth). Some changes have been made from reality, but for the most part this is an accurate biography of both men - and accurate reporting on the races portrayed in the movie, although it's primarily about the men, not the cars or even the races. Both are significant assholes in their own special way, Hunt drinking and screwing at every opportunity (and vomiting before races). Lauda was his opposite: a cold, calculating man who said what he thought and didn't give a damn if he upset people. But both were excellent drivers, meeting first in Formula 3 racing and moving at more or less the same time to Formula 1. Most of the movie is about the 1975 and 1976 seasons.

Director Ron Howard is inconsistent, but for the most part he's improving with age: this is seriously good stuff. Accurate biography, and a very good dramatization of a fascinating story.

2013, dir. Ron Howard. With Chris Hemsworth, Daniel Brühl, Olivia Wilde, Alexandra Maria Lara, Pierfrancesco Favino, David Calder, Natalie Dormer, Stephen Mangan, Christian McKay, Alistair Petrie, Julian Rhind-Tutt.

Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage

I'd have to say this is pretty much the perfect bio film. It may not work for anyone who isn't already a fan of the group: but if you are, it's as good as it gets. Even if you're not a fan, this is worth considering: while the structure is as straight-forward as is humanly possible (start at the beginning, trace their history year by year), the movie builds beautifully, showing a portrait of three intelligent and likeable guys working together for nearly forty years (the movie runs through early 2010). Multiple interviews with hugely famous musicians who all worship this intellectual Canadian heavy-metal-prog-rock band. An excellent movie.

2010, dir. Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen. With Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, Neil Peart, Kirk Hammett, Kim Mitchell, Gene Simmons, Jack Black, Billy Corgan, Taylor Hawkins, Vinnie Paul, Trent Reznor, Tim Commerford, Les Claypool.

Rush Hour

Despite being directed by Brett Ratner, despite including Chris Tucker, this is one of Jackie Chan's better Hollywood efforts. Tucker is incredibly annoying - yes, I know he's supposed to be, but it often outweighs the humour created. It's not Chan's best action movie: the stunts and fights are pretty good, but not as spectacular or as extensive as he usually manages. But it's better plotted and funnier than most of his movies. Not a difficult achievement, I admit, but a pleasure to see nevertheless.

Chan plays a Hong Kong cop who comes to L.A. to help rescue the kidnapped daughter of a diplomat - both of whom are friends of his. The daughter is about 10, and Chan fondly suggested before they part in H.K. that she practise her "kicks and eye gouges." And when we see the abduction scene, she makes it hell on the guys who grab her, injuring two or three of them. That showed more strength in a female character than probably any other Hollywood movie that year ... I thought it was a very good moment in the movie.

When Chan gets to L.A., he's partnered with disgraced L.A.P.D. cop Tucker, who's actually meant to keep him away from the case. But of course ... ah, you know the rest.

1998, dir. Brett Ratner. With Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker, Tom Wilkinson, Elizabeth Peña, Tzi Ma, Ken Leung, Chris Penn, Mark Rolston, Rex Linn, Philip Baker Hall, Julia Hsu.

Rush Hour 3

Same shtick as the other two, but it's getting awfully tired. Fighting the Tong in Paris - the action is slowing down, and Chris Tucker is tiresome beyond description. Having seen a Tony Jaa film the day before, I think Jackie should stop doing action films - which means no films at all, because he's no actor. I love his older films, but his time is past.

2007, dir. Brett Ratner. With Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker, Hiroyuki Sanada, Max von Sydow, Yvan Attal, Noémie Lenoir.

Russell Peters: Outsourced

Stand-up performance by Peters: just him, a stool he never uses, and a microphone. I think "political correctness" is the scourge of our age, but listening to an hour and a half of race jokes got a little uncomfortable. Some of them were pretty funny, but a lot of them he stretched out about twice as long as he should have.

2006, dir. Alan C. Blomquist. With Russell Peters.

Russian Ark

Weird. A huge technological achievement and frequently pretty to look at, but often incomprehensible without a knowledge of Russian history. Filmed at the Russian Hermitage Museum in one continuous 87 minute take with around 1000 actors, it's an impressive film. But it's still weird.

2002. dir. Alexander Sokurov. Camera Tilman Büttner.

Russian Doll

"Russian Doll" is an eight episode (~27 minutes each) Netflix series starring Natasha Lyonne as Nadia, a woman who dies and relives her own birthday party repeatedly. I watched the series because it had excellent reviews, but also because I have an interest in Groundhog-Day-alikes in 2019. Lyonne is excellent in the lead as a drugged up, unpleasant, intelligent software designer living in New York City. At the end of the second episode she meets Alan (Charlie Barnett) who has a similarly repeating day, and together (sometimes) they try to figure out what the hell is happening to them.

The series is funny, creepy, sad, thought-provoking, well written, well acted - pretty much everything you could ask for from a show. Highly recommended.

2019. With Natasha Lyonne, Greta Lee, Yul Vazquez, Charlie Barnett, Elizabeth Ashley, Rebecca Henderson, Ritesh Rajan, Jeremy Lowell Bobb, Dascha Polanco, Brendan Sexton III.

The Russian Five

I'm not a huge fan of hockey, nor of the Detroit Red Wings. But this is an interesting story that begins in the late Eighties, with the Red Wings at or near the bottom of the league and desperately trying to claw their way out. They spend a couple third and fourth draft picks on Russian players - with no guarantee they could actually get them out of the Soviet Union. But they manage to get them both to defect within a couple years, and pick up a third out of Russia, and eventually (as you can guess from the title), a couple more - this time from other NHL teams. The result is everything they'd wished for, although it took longer than they'd hoped. The story takes a somewhat tragic turn that I might have known about had I been a fan, but of course I'm not.

I found Jim Devellano a bit too twee and self-congratulatory (he was the Red Wings' recruiter, and the talking head with the most time on screen), and Jeff Daniels somewhat unnecessary - he's famous, but he's trying to speak for the whole of Detroit, and does he really do that? But even for a non-fan, the Russian Five's skills on the ice were obvious. They were also surprisingly interesting to listen to. I thought it was a bit too long, but for the most part very good.

2018, dir. Joshua Riehl. With Jim Devellano, Sergei Fedorov, Viacheslav Fetisov, Vladimir Konstantinov, Vyacheslav Kozlov, Igor Larionov, Jeff Daniels, Wayne Gretzky.

Rust and Bone

We start with Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts) arriving in Antibes in the south of France with his five year old son. He lives with his sister and her boyfriend (or husband?) and works as a security guard. At the club he works at, he meets Stéphanie (Marion Cotillard), who we soon learn is a killer whale trainer at the aquatic park. She shortly loses the lower portion of both legs in an accident and becomes extremely despondent.

The movie is about their changing lives and how their relationship develops. Both actors are very good, but their characters are both distinctly unpleasant people. And I found the idea that the near-tragedy five minutes before the end led somehow to a fairytale ending for these two people - who couldn't be nice even on their best behaviour - was totally unbelievable.

2012, dir. Jacques Audiard. With Marion Cotillard, Matthias Schoenaerts, Armand Verdure, Corinne Masiero, Bouli Lanners.


S

Sabrina (1954)

The Audrey Hepburn/Humphrey Bogart chemistry was less than convincing. The cast was otherwise quite good, and it was pretty funny. William Holden plays a playboy millionaire, Hepburn the chauffeur's daughter in love with him, and Bogart plays Holden's older brother determined to throw off the match.

1954, dir. Billy Wilder. With Audrey Hepburn, William Holden, Humphrey Bogart.

Sabrina (1995)

Wow ... same movie, but ... better. Julia Ormond is dazzlingly beautiful and very good in the lead. The chemistry with Harrison Ford isn't entirely convincing, but it's better than Audrey Hepburn/Humphrey Bogart and the age difference isn't quite as extreme. The sets and plot are nearly identical to the original - simply updated to the 90s, but the dialogue has, if anything, been improved. Greg Kinnear is the playboy millionaire, Ormond plays Sabrina, the chauffeur's daughter freshly returned from Paris and suddenly looking incredibly fetching, and Ford is the hard-as-diamond family business manager determined that Kinnear won't fall for Sabrina because that would destroy a billion dollar business merger. I like this version better than the original.

1995, dir. Sydney Pollack. With Julia Ormond, Harrison Ford, Greg Kinnear, Nancy Marchand, John Wood.

Safe

A classic Jason Statham vehicle, in which he plays an ex-cop cage fighter who gets tangled up with the Russian mafia and then, by protecting a young Chinese girl, the Chinese mafia as well.

Statham is serviceable as ever, and I was pleasantly surprised by the movie as a whole. Don't get me wrong: it's a preposterous action flick in which a down-and-out good guy takes on not one but three armies of crime, but Catherine Chan was actually a pretty good sidekick for him in her bizarre role as a genius school kid with a photographic memory.

2011, dir. Boaz Yakin. With Jason Statham, Catherine Chan, James Hong, Reggie Lee, Chris Sarandon, Robert John Burke.

Safe House

Matt Weston (Ryan Reynolds) is a "housekeeper" at a safe house for the CIA in South Africa. He's bored out of his skull and desperate to get out - until Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington), one of the CIA's most notorious ex-operatives, is dropped into his house and the house comes under attack. Suddenly he's on the run with Frost, trying to keep control in a rapidly spiralling situation.

Reynolds is particularly good here, showing us the toll that beating and killing other people is taking on a new operative emotionally. Washington is fairly good as the highly skilled and morally ambiguous Frost. But the script came off a gurney at film school where it had been left for re-writes or possibly disposal. There's some occasional good dialogue, but the story arc is about as generic as you can imagine: unknown betrayer (I had the right one picked about 15 minutes into the movie), antagonist not as evil as he's portrayed (although at least they left him morally grey), etc. Could have been worse, but ... disappointing.

2012, dir. Daniel Espinosa. With Ryan Reynolds, Denzel Washington, Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson, Sam Shepard, Rubén Blades.

Safety Last

Back in the silent era, there were (at least) four major comedy stars. The best known of these now is Charlie Chaplin, while most people recognize the name of Buster Keaton. Hardly anyone remembers Fatty Arbuckle, and very few people know who Harold Lloyd was - even though 90% of cinema-goers would recognize the most famous scene from this movie: Lloyd hanging off a clock face seven stories in the air.

Lloyd plays "The Boy," who goes to the city to make it big so he can marry "The Girl" (Mildred Davis). He's a bit of a goof, and gets in trouble. And when The Girl comes to town, he lies horribly to convince her he has a much better job than he actually has. An opportunity comes up to make a lot of money - he convinces a friend to climb the department store he works in. But in the end, the friend can't make the climb (he's being chased by the police) so The Boy has to do it. This occupies about half the movie, with them finding new and odd ways to make him almost fall off the building at every floor (with a clock around the seventh).

Unfortunately, like most Buster Keaton movies, this one has been strip-mined for gags in the intervening years and much of it looks derivative even though it's the original and the more recent movies are the copies. I was impressed by Lloyd's athleticism, but hardly laughed at all in the 1h13m run-time.

1923, dir. Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor. With Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Bill Strother, Noah Young, Westcott Clarke, Earl Mohan.

Safety Not Guaranteed

Our heroine Darius (Aubrey Plaza) has been disappointed by life, a wallflower for whom things have not gone well. She and her caustic wit now work as an intern at a Seattle magazine, where she's assigned with another intern to a reporter (Jake M. Johnson) doing a story down the coast in Ocean View, about a guy who placed an ad in the paper for a companion for time travel. The movie title is derived from the last line of the ad. The reporter's agenda rapidly becomes clear as he alienates Kenneth (the time traveller, played by Mark Duplass) and goes off to pursue an old flame, leaving our heroine to try her hand with Kenneth. She succeeds beyond expectations, and finds out that while Kenneth is neither a genius nor totally sane, he's well-meaning and fairly likable.

The movie has well-drawn characters that most people will find they can relate to or have met during their life. And it's hilariously funny. The ending surprised me by being very good - much more satisfactory, in an odd way, than I had expected.

2012, dir. Colin Trevorrow. With Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass, Jake M. Johnson, Karan Soni.

Sahara

Claims to be based on a Clive Cussler novel. If it is, Cussler writes pretty stupid Indiana Jones knock-offs. Matthew McConaughey plays Dirk Pitt, an underwater archaeologist formerly in the Marines. With his lifetime buddy Al (Steve Zahn) who was in the Marines with him, they recover stuff and do good deeds. On a job in Africa Pitt pulls out his old theory that there's an American ironclad ship from the Civil war with bundles of loot on it somewhere in Africa. They also become entangled with a beautiful WHO doctor (Penélope Cruz) and thus with the civil war in Mali. It's cute, mildly amusing, has a lot of action, makes no sense at all, and is very dumb.

2005, dir. Breck Eisner. With Matthew McConaughey, Steve Zahn, Penélope Cruz, William H. Macy, Lambert Wilson, Delroy Lindo.

The Saint (2017)

(I watched about half of this, fast-forwarding through the rest.)

As bad as the 1997 movie of the same name was (Elizabeth Shue as a genius nuclear physicist? and that ain't the dumbest choice they made ...), it looks pretty good compared to this. Now available on Netflix, this was meant as a pilot for a 2013 TV show starring Adam Rayner as Simon Templar. It never saw airtime when it was made because the series wasn't picked up, so there was no follow-through, and the only reason it's available now is apparently as a "tribute" to Roger Moore after his death. Roger Moore played the original Saint in the successful 1960s British TV series (six seasons, 118 episodes) - but in this movie, he gets about 30 seconds of air time as he's set up right at the end of the movie as the big-bad, for the TV series that never happened.

Rayner and Eliza Dushku as Patricia Holm, his partner, actually looked like they had passable chemistry and could have managed a charming season together. Unfortunately, the action was unimpressive and the plot was a mash-up of every evil-criminal-organization movie/TV series you've ever seen before. Not terrible, but remarkably bland.

2017, dir. Ernie Barbarash. With Adam Rayner, Eliza Dushku, James Remar, Ian Oglivy, Enrique Murciano, Sammi Hanratty, Greg Grunberg, Thomas Kretschmann, Yani Gellman, Roger Moore.

St. Elmo's Fire

A painfully Eighties movie about a group of seven friends just graduated from college. What it's supposed to be about isn't clear, even if you watch the extras on the DVD - everybody has a different opinion, and none of them really make sense.

Each of the men are obsessed with women in their various ways, pretty much all morally repugnant. One of the women is equally obsessed with a lifestyle she can't afford. So we have a disorganized and unfocused film about a bunch of college friends becoming less friendly and trying to find their way in life. (That's what it's about - but I don't think anyone on the DVD said so ...)

1985, dir. Joel Schumacher. With Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Mare Winningham, Andie MacDowell.

Saint Ralph

Ralph Walker (Adam Butcher) is a ninth grade student at a Catholic school. Since his father died and his mother is in hospital, he's living alone at his house. The movie opens with a sequence of masturbation jokes to establish that he's a young teen in a humiliating life. I barely made it through that. But if you can struggle through, his crazy plan to perform the miracle of winning the Boston Marathon because a miracle is the only thing that will bring his mother out of a coma - well, it plays out fairly well. He's a little bit nuts, but he'd have to be to attempt this. And he's determined, and eventually convinces a priest who was a former marathoner himself to help out.

For me, it was a great big dose of Canadian content, although I hadn't even realised it when I started watching the movie: Gordon Pinsent was the first hint, the weird mix of accents another ... and finally the fact that it was set (unrepentantly) in Hamilton. And the conflict resolution ... the priest who coaches Ralph gets in trouble with the head of the school, and you figure he's going down. But instead we get a polite and classically Canadian defusing.

Too much humiliation at the beginning, but a lovely cast and a charming script made it, ultimately, quite a good experience. Recommended.

2004, dir. Michael McGowan. With Adam Butcher, Campbell Scott, Michael Kanev, Gordon Pinsent, Tamara Hope, Jennifer Tilly.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

Ewan McGregor is a fish expert and Emily Blunt is a financial advisor to a very rich Yemeni sheikh who wants to bring salmon to the Yemen River. McGregor's character is adamantly against the project initially, but first his government and then the enthusiasm of his compatriots starts to turn him.

The movie is absurd, but works based on the charm mustered by the story and the actors, who are all quite wonderful. It's silly, but it's a surprisingly enjoyable ride. Recommended.

2012, dir. Lasse Hallström. With Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt, Kristin Scott Thomas, Amr Waked, Tom Mison, Conleth Hill, Rachael Stirling.

Salt

Angelina Jolie plays Evelyn Salt, a CIA agent with an arachnologist husband. We first meet her being tortured in a North Korean jail on suspicion of being an American spy, but she's released as part of a prisoner exchange. A couple of years later (moments in the film), a Russian defector the CIA is interrogating tells them that Salt is the name of a Russian mole who will kill the Russian president on American soil in a couple days. Turmoil ensues and Salt goes on the run, claiming she's not a mole but refusing to come in.

There's lots and lots of running about in the first third, followed by action, explosions, killings, and reversals. Jolie tries hard, but the reversals are too sudden and no clues or warnings are given, so the final product is pretty unengaging.

2010, dir. Phillip Noyce. With Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor, August Diehl, Daniel Olbrychski.

Salting the Battlefield

Bill Nighy reprises his role as Johnny Worricker in this BBC TV movie. This is the third in the series started by the outstanding "Page Eight," and the follow-up to "Turks & Caicos." Johnny, along with his girlfriend Margot Tyrrell (Helena Bonham Carter) are forced to relocate several times as MI5 agents close in on them, while at the same time Johnny and his colleague Rollo Maverley (Ewen Bremner) back in London are feeding information to the papers about the scandal that's put Johnny and Margot on the run.

Better than "Turks & Caicos," I guess I was disappointed because it didn't end as well as I'd hoped for Johnny. While it's not by any means a bad movie, I'd suggest watching "Page Eight" and leaving it at that. In fact, I can't recommend "Page Eight" enough.

2014, dir. David Hare. With Bill Nighy, Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes, Rupert Graves, Ewen Bremner, Judy Davis, Saskia Reeves, Olivia Williams.

Samsara

Ron Fricke, who directed "Samsara," was the cinematographer for Godfrey Reggio's "Koyaanisqatsi" and its sequels before going on to direct "Chronos" and "Baraka." How he bankrolls these things I don't know: they are, without a doubt, gorgeous works of art that I heartily endorse. But my "endorsement" means essentially nothing as I bought the BluRay used for $10 at BMV and these things must cost millions to make, but I find it very hard to imagine they attract anything like that much in business at the theatres. It's very easy to forget about him between movies - his last movie ("Baraka") came out in 1992 and this one came out in 2012. I was made aware of it by Cinefix's brilliant "Top 10 Most Beautiful Movies of All Time," who ranked it first, and the clips they used were totally convincing. They said of it, "There isn't a single frame you couldn't hang on your wall and marvel at for years: it's a moving museum, a guided meditation, and a visual revelation ..." They're right: there isn't a single utilitarian frame in the entire thing, not one frame of just getting from here to there: it's pure, perfect visual art. It often felt like photography in motion: more like a photographer had set up a brilliant shot ... and then shot frame sequences rather than a single photo.

But like Reggio and Fricke's other movies, being without plot and dialogue doesn't mean it has nothing to say: having watched the movie, I've concluded that Fricke is:

  • a Buddhist (although the title is a dead giveaway)
  • a vegetarian
  • a conservationist
  • anti-gun
  • fascinated by people
  • fascinated by religion

And, most importantly (as a viewer), a brilliant editor. This is his best film: get the BluRay (or better yet, the 4K version if/when it becomes available) and watch it on a BIG screen. You won't regret it.

One thing I noticed was that it shared about ten minutes of very similar footage to Jennifer Baichwal's 2006 tribute to Ed Burtynsky, "Manufactured Landscapes." Burtynsky is one of the world's greatest living photographers, and Baichwal did an incredible job of bringing his imagery to film. The overlap between movies shows in the scenes of Chinese factory workers (both inside and outside the factories), and in the views of electronic waste. Anyone who likes this movie should see that one as well.

(According to Box Office Mojo, as of 2016-09-10, "Samsara" has made $2.6 million. They don't list the budget, but I imagine it cost more than that as they filmed on 70mm across five continents and five years.

2011, dir. Ron Fricke.

San Andreas

A sweet story of a family recovering from the loss of a daughter ... in the midst of the world's largest ever earthquake. Dwayne Johnson is charming, manly, and not particularly talented in the acting department - as he always is. I think his acting is improving. A little. But I like him anyway. This time out he's a helicopter pilot, and the first task of the movie is to prove how good (and how manly) he is. And then we find out that much of California is going to fall into the sea, as he pines for his ex-wife (Carla Gugino). Together they have to rescue their daughter (Alexandra Daddario - shown first in a bikini for no reason except to prove how hot she is) in the middle of a disintegrating San Francisco. Paul Giamatti and Archie Panjabi (and Will Yun Lee, who exits the movie cruelly early) occupy a minor technical subplot that only exists to tell you just how bad the quakes are going to be.

The movie reminds me considerably of another I watched recently, the scientifically preposterous piece of tripe "2012." They're similar in that in both cases a divorced man struggles against spectacular special effects to save his family from almost certain death. They're different in that this one offends mostly the laws of chance rather than the laws of science. And this one shows that you can have a lesser cast ("2012" had several of this continent's best actors, and they all phoned it in) and still be more charming. The writing's still bad - lousy dialogue, silly ideas - but the actors try harder than in "2012," and The Rock, as usual, absolutely radiates charisma even while his acting is weak.

You really shouldn't watch this, but if you feel the need for a mindless action disaster movie, there are plenty worse available.

2015, dir. Brad Peyton. With Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Alexandra Daddario, Paul Giamatti, Ioan Gruffudd, Archie Panjabi, Hugo Johnstone-Burt, Art Parkinson, Will Yun Lee, Kylie Minogue.

The Sandbaggers

I watched all three seasons of this British TV series within a month - it's utterly mesmerizing. Roy Marsden plays Neil Burnside, who is the head of the Secret Intelligence Service. He's in charge of the three "Sandbaggers," the guys who are sent out to do the political dirty work like getting and passing information, aiding or preventing defections, and even occasionally assassinating people. Burnside is extremely intelligent, effective, and arrogant. He's constantly in trouble with his higher-ups, and things that seem obvious to both him and us, the audience, are often stopped in the name of political expediency.

The acting is good, but what really makes this show is the writing. You're expected to give it not only your full attention, but a lot of thought: no spoon-feeding here. You won't be disappointed either: there are no compromises, and every detail has been thought through. Very little action, just talk ... and you'll still be on the edge of your seat throughout. Highly recommended!

1978. Written by Ian Mackintosh. With Roy Marsden, Richard Vernon, Ray Lonnen, Alan MacNaughtan, Elizabeth Bennett, Bob Sherman.

The Sandman, Season 1

"The Sandman" started life as a series of comic books - a series that had a significant and lasting impact on comics, and sent the author of the series - a young guy named "Neil Gaiman" - rocketing to fame. I didn't read the actual comic books, but I was working at the Merril Collection at the time they were published and that meant I heard about the series quickly and started reading the graphic novel collections. I was one of the many, many people who thought that the series was pretty much the definition of "unfilmable." As a result, I approached this TV series with a mix of fascination and trepidation, buoyed by the good reviews. And you know ... I'm totally okay with being proven wrong.

Tom Sturridge is Dream, the main character. He is one of the Endless, the embodiment of all humanity's dreams, and governs the dreams of every creature in the universe. The first episode - as in the comics - sees him captured in an arcane ritual in 1915(?) by Roderick Burgess (Charles Dance) who was actually trying to capture Death (who is also one of the Endless, and Dream's older sister). He's held captive for over 100 years, until an accident frees him. He's pissed - and his absence has changed a lot of things.

For some reason I loved (even more than the rest of the series) the Hob Gadling story arc. In the greater scheme of things, it's merely to make a point about Dream maturing slightly and perhaps better understanding his own place in the universe. But I like the Hob Gadling character (played here by Ferdinand Kingsley) and I like the story arc that goes with - and, like the rest of this TV series, they did a good job of it.

Many characters have shifted gender or skin tone from the source material. In the original, Death appeared as a pale-skinned Goth-looking young woman. But like the other Endless, she changes form at need. So it doesn't matter that in the TV series she's black: they picked a young woman (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) who captures the spirit of the character perfectly. She's great.

Lucien, the Librarian of the Dreaming (a favourite character of mine) has become Lucienne. He was older, male, white, and scarecrow-thin. She's now female, black, and fairly young-looking, but again: they caught the spirit of the character, and that's more important than skin colour or gender. Fortunate for them that this is about concepts and ideas more than skin or gender because they could choose the best actor for the job regardless of other characteristics. They've filled several parts - some very small so far, like Merv - with big names who were happy to take small parts to be involved in a property they love. Mark Hamill has about four or five lines across 11 episodes as Merv, but he apparently jumped at it because he's a huge fan.

One thing I can't answer to that intrigues me. How would this look to someone who didn't grow up with the comics? It must look batshit crazy. "Preacher" comes to mind as a similarly bizarre comic-turned-TV-series.

Another strange thing that happened in the comic-to-TV translation: this feels darker to me. That doeesn't make sense, because the comic book had the same sequences, for example the same convention of serial killers. But it feels different when it's glossy colourful frames on a comic book page to when you see talking, moving people on a TV screen doing the same horrible things. They're presenting the same material - but the change of media has a bigger effect than I expected.

They've changed a number of smaller plot points while accurately maintaining the larger story arcs. The thing that intrigues me the most is that this version of Dream seems to be ... learning, accepting that he's made some mistakes and slowly trying to remedy them. The comic book version was far more unbending. And the outcome of the entire series was predicated on his inability to change. And yet - Lyta Hall has already had her baby, which suggests that the original end-game is still in the works. I like that this Dream is a bit more flexible ... but I don't know how they can resolve the series in the same way having gone down this path. I'm more than willing to find out though, as it's been extraordinarily well done so far.

2022. With Tom Sturridge, Vivienne Acheampong, Boyd Holbrook, Gwendoline Christie, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Charles Dance, Jenna Coleman, Asim Chaudhry, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Mason Alexander Park, David Thewlis, Stephen Fry, Kyo Ra, Razane Jammal, Patton Oswalt, Ferdinand Kingsley.

Sanjuro

Toshiro Mifune is back in the role of the rogue samurai he first played in "Yojimbo." I watched the Criterion DVD, which claims that the movie is comic genius. I saw a fairly intelligent man (Mifune's character) leading a bunch of well meaning morons to save a (mostly) innocent man. A Japanese version of the Keystone cops? I think I laughed once. Some decent cinematography.

1962, dir. Akira Kurosawa. With Toshiro Mifune.

The Sapphires

The measuring stick for movies about musical groups is "The Commitments" "The Sapphires" doesn't quite hit that lofty standard, but it's nevertheless a thoroughly entertaining ride.

Three aboriginal (Australian) sisters go into town to play at a talent show. Problem is, this is 1968 and aboriginals aren't considered fully human (a fact made clear by text on screen before the movie starts). They're the best group, but lose the contest anyway. The drunken Irish M.C. Dave (Chris O'Dowd) helps them get an audition to go play for troops in Vietnam. They're joined by their fair-skinned cousin who the government had taken away to be raised in a white family, and after some rehearsal, they successfully audition.

What this description leaves out is the ... hmmm, "plain speaking" favoured by the sisters. And the drunken obnoxiousness of Dave. The music is pretty good, and it's a very funny movie. I remember some friends of mine liked this when it was released, but it's quietly disappeared since: it deserved a better fate. Go watch it.

2012, dir. Wayne Blair. With Chris O'Dowd, Deborah Mailman, Jessica Mauboy, Shari Sebbens, Miranda Tapsell.

The Satellite Girl and Milk Cow

Is it "Anime" if it's from Korea rather than Japan?

The movie starts with the Korean satellite KITSAT-1 describing her life to us as she orbits the planet. But she's drawn down to earth by the voice of a boy she hears. Unfortunately, the boy has just been turned into a milk cow (this is what happens when your heart is broken - you turn into some form of animal) and The Incinerator is trying to eat him. The Incinerator is several storeys high, and goes around capturing lovelorn animals and throwing them into its burning heart. Fortunately, Merlin - re-incarnated as a roll of toilet paper - directs KITSAT's fall to hit The Incinerator. This doesn't destroy The Incinerator, but slows it enough that Milk Cow is saved. KITSAT is reincarnated as a human, with some features of a rocket. KITSAT and Merlin end up living with Milk Cow and his semi-sentient dog (who does part of the house work). They make money by selling Milk Cow's milk (yes, "his" - he's a milkable male cow).

Wait, wait, I forgot - there's also the weird dude who slides in and out of mirrors, and uses a toilet plunger to steal the livers of the lovelorn animals to sell on the black market.

And it's all set in modern day Seoul.

I spent the first half hour just giggling at the insanity: it was very inventive and hugely entertaining. But like anything, you get used to it, particularly as they ceased to have new weirdness to add after about the 40 minute mark. Eventually it devolved to a bog standard girl-boy romance (although The Incinerator did have to be defeated).

I'm not going to call this a "good" movie, but since we watch movies for entertainment, this one was surely entertaining. I'd love to hear the experience of someone who watched it stoned - would they even believe their own memory of what happened in the movie?

2014, dir. Hyeong-yoon Jang. With Ah-in Yoo, Yu-mi Jung.

Saving Face

New York City. Our heroine is a young female doctor. Heroine falls for a new girl. Her mother has been living with the grandparents, but is booted out when she gets pregnant, and moves in with heroine. Half of it's in Mandarin, the other half in English. I'll spare you the suspense: it's a romantic comedy. From the first fifteen minutes I thought I was going to love it - the dialogue has spots where it's hysterically funny. Unfortunately, it's pretty badly structured and struggles with that throughout. Still, kind of charming.

2004, dir. Alice Wu. With Michelle Krusiec, Joan Chen, Lynn Chen, Jin Wang, Guang Lan Koh, Jessica Hecht, Ato Essandoh.

Saving Grace

Grace (Brenda Blethyn) is a middle aged widow just burying her husband as we meet her. We soon find out that his death was probably a suicide, most likely because he'd accrued massive debts - which he's now left to her. But this isn't a tragedy, it's a comedy: Grace's way to save the house she loves is to grow pot - because growing plants is what she does best.

Blethyn is quite good, as she usually is - in fact, all of the acting is good. But the plot is, well, silly. Very silly, as evidently marijuana turns you into an utter babbling idiot and that's just hilarious on screen ... or not. It was cute, it was somewhat amusing, but I wouldn't really recommend it.

2000, dir. Nigel Cole. With Brenda Blethyn, Craig Ferguson, Martin Clunes, Valerie Edmond, Tchéky Karyo, Jamie Foreman.

Saving Mr. Wu

The movie opens on Mr. Wu (Andy Lau) and a movie producer leaving a night club. Three men claiming to be police force Mr. Wu into a car and take him away. The movie bounces around in time across the 20 or so hours in which Mr. Wu is held hostage: sometimes we see the police investigation, sometimes their interrogation of the gang leader who they caught part way through the process, sometimes the hostage and captors.

Reviews on Rotten Tomatoes are very positive, although there are only four of them. I found it somewhat pedestrian and too complementary to both the police and the kidnapped man. And I can guess why, in both cases: the movie was made in mainland China with its restrictive government who act as censors, and probably wouldn't allow any movie that showed anything but glowing competence on the part of a state body like the police. They also filmed Beijing on the non-smoggy days: the government would undoubtedly prefer that, but so would the film-makers. And then there's "Mr. Wu." He's based on a real actor - a real actor who survived a kidnapping attempt, and is on the cast of this movie as a police man. He's afraid but calm in the face of his own death. He's intelligent, quick-thinking, and kind. He's a very model citizen in the most trying circumstances imaginable.

Seriously?

The movie is well constructed, well filmed, and well acted. But it's far too close to its own subject matter to give an honest portrayal of what actually happened, so we get a kidnapping hagiography. It's bizarre and left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth.

2015, dir. Ding Sheng. With Andy Lau, Wang Qianyuan, Liu Ye, Wu Ruofu, Lam Suet, Zhao Xiaoyue, Cai Lu, Vivien Li, Yu Ailei.

Say Anything

Cameron Crowe's debut film has all the depth of emotion and character that were lacking in most of the 80s teen flicks. No stock characters, no formulaic plot. John Cusack plays Lloyd Dobler, a bit of an under-achiever but charming and very optimistic. After high school graduation, he decides that he's going to go out with the school valedictorian, although his friends tell him "Diane Court doesn't go out with guys like you. She's a brain ... Trapped in the body of a game-show hostess." But she does go out with him. They then run into problems with Diane's over-protective father. Romantic, thought-provoking, great script, just a really good movie.

1989, dir. Cameron Crowe. With John Cusack, Ione Skye, John Mahoney.

The Scarlet Pimpernel

I have forever thought of this movie (and the original book) as "The Scarlet Pumpernickel" which would turn it into either a comedy or horror movie about bread. Instead, it's a cliché-ridden wanna-be actioner that actually has very little action, mostly talk. Based on the novel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy, our hero is an effete Englishman best known for his taste in clothes and his foolishness, who is in secret "The Scarlet Pimpernel." Under this name he disguises himself, sneaks into post-revolutionary France, and rescues the poor, mistreated aristocracy that are about to go to the guillotine. This is another place where the movie kind of loses me: yes, the guillotine was brutal and nasty, but what the aristocracy did to arrive there was too: it's hard to see the citizenry of France as the evil enemy. And the acting is only passable. Despite all of this it's a goofily enjoyable film as our hero prances about reciting bad poetry and going to the tailor in England, and rescues people about to be beheaded in France.

This print from "Madacy Entertainment" gave me a new appreciation for Criterion: I've never been too keen on Criterion's choices of movies, but when they restore a movie, it looks GOOD when they're done. This DVD sported bad blacks, bad contrast, no subtitles, and bad sound. Criterion really does do superb work.

1934, dir. Harold Young. With Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon, Raymond Massey, Nigel Bruce, Anthony Bushell.

The Scarlet Pimpernel: Mademoiselle Guillotine

Part (a middle part) of the A&E series of Pimpernel movies/mini-series. It bears almost no resemblance at all to the Wikipedia summary of the Orczy book Mam'zelle Guillotine from which it appears to take its name. The Pimpernel returns, once again (but this time with his wife), to France - to rescue the adopted daughter of a French nobleman. She was left at a convent, but is no longer there. The episode ends abruptly in death for several parties, a significant failure for the Pimpernel. No wrap-up - this isn't a movie, it's a mid-season episode (despite running 90 minutes). "Oops, she's dead." Run credits. Richard E. Grant's okay as the Pimpernel, but the story lacked interest.

1999. With Richard E. Grant, Elizabeth McGovern, Martin Shaw, Christopher Fairbank.

School of Rock

There's a reason Jack Black doesn't get a lot of leading roles: he can be very amusing in supporting roles, but in the lead he can get tiresome. In this case the movie was written around him, and it works fairly well. Fortunately the kids he works with are charming, and the movie as a whole is pretty funny. Black plays an out of work musician who cons his way into a substitute teacher position, and trains the class to play as a rock band.

2003. dir. Richard Linklater. With Jack Black, Joan Cusack.

Schultze Gets the Blues

A bizarre little movie about a taciturn, retired German miner who finds a new fascination with his accordion when he discovers that he can play Zydeco as well as Polkas.

The director has a love of long, lingering shots of still landscapes, occasionally with people moving through them, and the pace of the plot is positively glacial. It's totally not Hollywood and that's in its favour, but I found the repetition of one Zydeco song over and over (not even played well!) got quite tiresome. And the ending, after Schultze's visit to America, is fairly unsatisfying.

2005, dir. Michael Schorr. With Horst Krause, Karl-Fred Muller, Rosemarie Deibel, Wilhelmine Horschig.

Scoop

I watched this for Scarlett Johansson and Hugh Jackman, but they couldn't save a mediocre script nor compensate for the presence of Woody Allen, who I find more intolerable every time I see him. He plays a whiny, neurotic little shit in every movie, and not only is it no longer funny, I found myself fast-forwarding through large chunks of the movie to avoid the pain. The plot has a dead newspaperman feeding Johansson (an American journalism student on vacation in London) tips on a society murder. Allen is a magician tied up in the incident, and Jackman the society playboy under suspicion.

2006, dir. Woody Allen. With Scarlett Johansson, Hugh Jackman, Woody Allen, Ian McShane.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Based on the manga-like graphic novels by Bryan Lee O'Malley. Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera - who else plays slackers these days?) is a 23 year old slacker, gamer, and occasional musician. One day at a party he meets the girl of his dreams - literally. Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) has in fact been in his dreams, and now he'll do anything to date her. Including, as it turns out, fighting all seven of her evil exes.

Incredibly frenetic and ADHD, this is definitely a movie for its generation. Conversations start on one day and street and end on another day and street thirty seconds later - the movie moves that fast. Early in the movie, Scott's girlfriend previous to Ramona uses the word "Love" to him and it comes out as a big puffy pink word which Scott disperses by flapping his hand as if it were an annoying cloud of flies. You get the idea.

I read the graphic novels before seeing the movie. While the movie dropped a whole lot of plot points in the name of keeping the run-time under two hours, they stayed remarkably true to the spirit of the novel (not too surprising given that the movie was financed by Oni Press, the people who did the graphic novels). I was really sorry they dropped the subplot about Kim Pine helping him win Ramona back ... I really liked Kim's character. I attended the movie with a friend who wasn't a gamer and she missed some of the jokes: she still enjoyed it, but it definitely helps if you play video games. The final battle with Gideon is too long and becomes tedious, but before that the movie is utterly hilarious. Kieran Culkin is excellent as Scott's gay roommate Wallace, and I liked Alison Pill as the under-utilized Kim Pine.

This movie is in competition with "Turning Red" as the most TORONTO movie in history (and by the I mean "showing Toronto as itself, not as some American city because it was cheaper to film here).

2010, dir. Edgar Wright. With Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ellen Wong, Kieran Culkin, Alison Pill, Chris Evans, Anna Kendrick, Brandon Routh, Jason Schwartzman.

Screamers

Another Philip K. Dick story adapted for the screen, relatively early on. Post-apocalyptic nastiness featuring paranoia and despair, two of Dick's favourite ingredients - or possibly his only ones. The ending didn't strike me as quite as bleak as real Dick, and Wikipedia confirms that there were changes made. The movie remains apropos - the titular devices/characters are autonomous killing machines, and that idea's certainly not going away.

Peter Weller plays the commander of a mining outpost on a distant planet in the year 2078 caught in the middle of a devastating war with no way out, and their own weapons (called "Screamers") are mutating and starting to attack them. He sets out to try to make a peace with the local enemy base. Remarkably reminiscent of "Alien" in its stark landscapes and threat of death around every corner, although not as good.

1995, dir. Christian Duguay. With Peter Weller, Roy Dupuis, Jennifer Rubin.

Scrubs Season 1

The story of three young doctor interns at Sacred Heart Hospital, and some of the other hospital staff. Dr. John "J.D." Dorian (Zach Braff) narrates. 24 TV-half-hour episodes. I iinitially had a love-hate relationship with their over-the-top scripts and the magic realism (for lack of a better term), but have grown to love it. It's a very funny show.

2002. With Zach Braff, Sarah Chalke, Donald Faison, Neil Flynn, John C. McGinley, Judy Reyes.

Scrubs Season 2

Our interns are now residents, financially strapped and relationally challenged. Almost as fun as the first season, with some great guest actors - the relationship between Heather Locklear and Dr. Cox (in "My First Step") is hysterical.

2003. With Zach Braff, Sarah Chalke, Donald Faison, Neil Flynn, John C. McGinley, Judy Reyes.

Scrubs Season 3

Things continue, much as they have before. Guests Michael J. Fox and Brendan Fraser were standouts, but for the most part the show seems to have cut its groove and stays in it. I still enjoyed the season considerably - very nearly as much as the second one, despite the fact that the show's template has hardened to stone. It's a very distinctive and bizarre style, but fun.

2004. With Zach Braff, Sarah Chalke, Donald Faison, Neil Flynn, John C. McGinley, Judy Reyes.

Seabiscuit

"Seabiscuit" was an unlikely but world-class racing horse in the 1930s. This is based on what is supposed to be an excellent book of the same name. Unbelievably heavy-handed on the emotional manipulation, but mostly well done. I was led to speculate on the horse's name: perhaps he was the offspring of Sausage Biscuit and Sea Anemone?

2003. dir. Gary Ross. With Tobey Maguire, Jeff Bridges.

The Seagull's Laughter (orig. "Mávahlátur")

I was disappointed to see that Ugla Egilsdóttir, who was fabulous as the 13 year old lead ("Agga"), hasn't been in anything since. I spent the first twenty minutes of the film giggling every time she was on screen: an intelligent, cute, and obnoxious child. Set in Iceland in the early 1950s and seen through Agga's eyes, we see the glamorous Freya (Margrét Vilhjálmsdóttir) returning from America after the death of her serviceman husband. She's not happy with the tiny town she's returned to and has an axe to grind. I found the ending irritating, as the viewer is left without a definitive answer as to what actually happened, but overall a fascinating film.

2001, dir. Ágúst Guðmundsson. With Ugla Egilsdóttir, Margrét Vilhjálmsdóttir, Heino Ferch, Hilmir Snæ Guðnason.

Searching for Bobby Fischer

Based in part on the life of Josh Waitzkin (played by Max Pomeranc), the movie shows a year or so in the life of a very young chess prodigy. The title refers to another legendary chess prodigy, and to both his disappearances and Waitzkin's refusal to adopt some of Fischer's less appealing traits in the name of better chess. The supporting cast is excellent and there are evidently quite a few chess-related cameos (I wouldn't know). The end product is wonderful.

1993, dir. Steve Zaillian. With Max Pomeranc, Joe Mantega, Joan Allen, Laurence Fishburne, Ben Kingsley, William H. Macy.

Searching for Sugar Man

A documentary about two South Africans on a search for the American musician Rodriguez. Sixto Rodriguez did two brilliant albums around 1970 that sank without a ripple in North America. But in South Africa he became almost the voice of the revolution, and hundreds of thousands of bootlegs of his albums passed from hand to hand. He never knew it, and he remained a mystery to his fans in S.A. In 1998, our two protagonists set off on a quest to find this legendary man who they had heard had killed himself on stage. But the truth was far stranger and more rewarding than they had ever imagined, for them and Rodriguez and his family. (If you don't know what happened, try to keep it that way - although the movie is very rewarding even if you know the outcome.)

Named after Rodriguez's most popular song, this is an incredibly bizarre and fascinating modern fairytale. Truly surreal. I highly recommend both the movie and Rodriguez's two albums. I can honestly say that I heard his music before the movie came out, although only by eight months or so. I heard it in a CD store, and for the second time in my life I asked what CD was playing in a store and actually tracked it down. My first reaction to his music, which remains true, was "hey, it's like Dylan but good!" Sorry Dylan fans, I'm just not crazy about Dylan. Don't let that bias you against the movie!

2012, dir. Malik Bendjelloul. With Stephen "Sugar" Segerman, Craig Bartholomew Strydom, Sixto Rodriguez.

Season of the Witch

Plodding medieval witch story, with Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman as a couple Crusades knights who, after five years of slaughtering, suddenly decide it's wrong because one of them kills a young girl. As deserters, they're caught and recruited to transport a witch to a monastery where she will be tried and presumably killed. Very straight-forward and over-long, the only amusement comes occasionally from interactions between Cage and Perlman.

2011, dir. Dominic Sena. With Nicolas Cage, Ron Perlman, Claire Foy, Stephen Campbell Moore, Robert Sheehan, Ulrich Thomsen, Stephen Graham, Christopher Lee.

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

A friend got preview tickets to this, so I had a chance to see it before it hit theatres. This also motivated my watching the original a couple days previously. Unfortunately, John Madden (who directed both) and Ol Parker (his screenwriter, this time and last) have decided that the problem with the first movie wasn't them overplaying things, but rather that they weren't clear enough ... so this latest movie should be drawn in broader strokes. Given that I thought the original was too broad, this presented a problem for me. Dev Patel in particular suffers for this: he's supposed to be a likable but bombastic guy, but because of his dislikes and suspicions at the beginning of the movie he alienates everyone: all the guests at the hotel, his fiancée, and his fiancée's family. But he gets his head adjusted by the end and all is well, because it's just that kind of movie.

So what actually happens? Sonny Kapoor (Patel) and Muriel Donnelly (Maggie Smith), co-managers of the hotel, decide it's time to expand the hotel chain, and approach an American hotel chain (run by David Strathairn - never let it be said they don't pull in the big names ...) for financial support. They are told that a hotel inspector will come, but they won't know who. Sonny decides he knows who that is among the couple new guests (Richard Gere and Tamsin Greig), and much incredibly idiotic preferential support follows. Cringeworthy and idiotic. With the steamroller of brilliant actors available to them, the movie couldn't be a complete loss - these are talented people who can drag something worthwhile out of the worst of scripts. But this isn't something you should be rushing to see.

2015, dir. John Madden. With Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Dev Patel, Penelope Wilton, Celia Imrie, Maggie Smith, Ronald Pickup, Richard Gere, Tamsin Greig, David Strathairn.

Secondhand Lions

A hilarious film awash in its own nauseating sentimentality. Robert Duvall and Michael Caine make it watchable, as they're obviously having a great time. The idea is simple: Haley Joel Osment is abandoned with his two great uncles by his flaky mother, and we have a coming of age story for Osment and a return of purpose for Duvall and Caine. Unfortunately, director Tim McCanlies lays on the life lessons so thick it's sometimes hard to find the story underneath. Despite which, there are some remarkably funny moments. Almost "Big Fish" for the younger set.

2003, dir. Tim McCanlies. With Michael Caine, Robert Duvall, Haley Joel Osment, Kyra Sedgwick, Josh Lucas.

Secret Agent

The movie is based on W. Somerset Maugham's book Ashenden: Or the British Agent and directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

John Gielgud plays a man just returned from the front in the first World War to find that he's been declared dead and his funeral was held recently. He's approached by a military staff member who explains he's going undercover and his new name is "Ashenden." Arriving at a hotel in Switzerland that he's been sent to he finds that his "wife" (he doesn't have one and didn't know he'd been assigned one) is already in his hotel suite. When he gets to the room he finds a man sitting in a chair and talking to his "wife" who is in the bathroom - the following exchange occurs:

    Man: Are you Mr. Ashenden?
    Mr. Ashenden: Guilty.
    Mrs. Ashenden (entering wrapped in a towel): Darling!  You're here at last.
    Mr. Ashenden: Angel!  How well you're looking.
    > They kiss.  He tastes the face cream she's transferred to him.
    Mr. Ashenden: Delicious.  I hope you haven't been lonely?
    Mrs. Ashenden: Oh no, this young fellow and I picked each other up in the lounge yesterday, didn't we?
    Man: Yes.  A good angel threw us together.
    Mrs. Ashenden: He's been most kind and entertaining.  Mr. Roger Martin, isn't it?
    Man: It sounds well the way you say it, but it's really Robert Marvin.
    Mr. Ashenden: Pleased to meet you Mr. Larkin.
    Man: How'd'you do, Mr. Ash-in-can?
    Mr. Ashenden: Not at all.
    

Sadly, it doesn't read nearly as well as it plays out. I was laughing so hard I paused the movie. I wonder if that was W. Somerset Maugham or Alfred Hitchcock - both are very good writers with a wicked sense of humour.

Ashenden finds out that his new "wife" is on her first assignment, and quite eager to get to the killing (they're after an enemy spy who's to be eliminated). He assures her she may not like it as much as she thinks, but she dismisses his concern. They also meet "The General" (who's not a general), the assassin assigned to their case. He's unpleasant and comedic rather than scary, but he's completely amoral and loves killing. He goes about his work, and Mrs. Ashenden finds out Mr. Ashenden was right ...

Gielgud and Madeleine Carroll were very good as the newly created couple - attractive, intelligent, and witty, much in the manner of the "Thin Man" movies: it would have been a better movie if they'd been on screen together more. Peter Lorre as "the General" does ... Peter Lorre.

Definitely has some interesting stuff in it, but it's also not Hitchcock's best. It was interesting to see the ending: many of Hitchcock's movies wrap up very conveniently, with a fairly happy ending coming as a surprise after a dark movie. Never more so than here: the train they're all on crashes and exactly the right people die, saving the day but leaving our hero's hands clean ... Hitchcock got better at crafting his endings in his later movies, so it doesn't feel quite so Deus ex machina as this.

1936, dir. Alfred Hitchcock. With Madeleine Carroll, Peter Lorre, John Gielgud, Robert Young, Lilli Palmer.

The Secret Garden

This is the latest film interpretation of the Frances Hodgson Burnett children's book of the same name - I've seen none of the previous versions. This one stars Dixie Egerickx as Mary Lennox, a young girl whose parents both died in India (1947, the fighting during Partition). She's sent home to England to live with her depressed and reclusive uncle (Colin Firth, but his role in the movie is very small), and pretty much left to her own devices in an immense house on a very large property. Mary Lennox gets some leeway having just lost her parents, but is by any measure an obnoxious child. Although the friend who watched it with me tells me that Mary is far worse in the book (and that it was originally set around 1900).

The original book isn't fantasy (although it does sound like it has prophetic dreams), but this movie is: it could have been called "The Magic Garden" as plants move to assist climbing, or bloom or wilt in response to events. The fantasy elements of the film were unnecessary, it could have been just a (beautiful) garden and the outcome of the story would have been the same. I think it has been in previous interpretations. They added nothing to the story by making the garden magical - in fact, they distracted from the people as we watched for what weird things the garden would do next. Firth's role is minor and adds nothing to the story, and the resulting movie is kind of "meh."

2020, dir. Marc Munden. With Dixie Egerickx, Edan Hayhurst, Amir Wilson, Julie Walters, Colin Firth, Isis Davis, Maeve Dermody.

Secret Headquarters

More reminiscent of "The Adam Project" than the directors' own (better) "Project Power," this is aimed squarely at kids with little appeal for adults. Also not as good as "The Adam Project," which wasn't a particularly high bar. This is directed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, who put together the entertaining "Project Power" for Netflix, but they chose to aim particularly low with this one. Part of the similarity to "The Adam Project" is the star of both it and this, Walker Scobell. Scobell is fairly good, and not the problem in either instance.

Owen Wilson is Jack Kincaid, who was chosen by an alien artifact to be "The Guard," a superhero who protects planet Earth. But the demands of his superheroing gig has left him a very negligent dad. When his kid (Scobell) and some of his friends find his man cave and start playing with his toys, they set off a series of events that lead to an evil corporate leader (Michael Peña) trying to take over the technology that the Guard controls. The kids and the Guard have to fight to protect the technology and the world.

2022, dir. Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman. With Walker Scobell, Owen Wilson, Jesse Williams, Keith L. Williams, Momona Tamada, Michael Peña, Charles Melton, Abby James Witherspoon, Kezii Curtis, Jessie Mueller.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Based on a James Thurber story to which it has little actual resemblance, Ben Stiller (who also directed and produced - although it wasn't his brainchild as that suggests) stars as the daydreaming Walter Mitty. He works for "Life" magazine managing their photographic negatives, and has a thing about Cheryl (Kristen Wiig) who works in acquisitions. He tends to zone out rather badly as he goes off into fantasies, which doesn't help when "Life" is acquired and everyone is under threat of downsizing.

The primary difference between the story and the movie is that the original Mitty never did anything outside of the ordinary: his fantasies were an escape mechanism from a boring life. But about half an hour into this movie, this version of Walter Mitty does something: he gets on a plane to Greenland in search of an important missing negative (actually the photographer who made it, who isn't reachable except in person). And of course he ends up having wild adventures.

It ends up being kind of charming, and has a good dose of travel porn - although it turns out that Iceland stood in for not only Greenland, but also Himalayan Afghanistan. But it's a very beautiful place. And, while I wasn't enthusiastic about Walter's fantasy sequences, and his pursuit of the negative was of course over-the-top, his change into a more focused man was somewhat better handled than I've come to expect from Hollywood.

As a photographer, I have serious objections to the sequence of photographic clues Walter follows: They are spaced days apart, and the pivotal shot in the roll (the one that's missing and started the adventure) was the ONLY shot the photographer took of that subject. No photographer does that, not even an amateur using film: if you think it's a cover-worthy shot, you shoot the entire roll. And then you put another roll in. But ... movies see much worse manglings of fact, so not truly a horrible crime.

2013, dir. Ben Stiller. With Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Shirley MacLaine, Adam Scott, Kathryn Hahn, Sean Penn, Patton Oswalt, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Adrian Martinez.

The Secret in Their Eyes (orig. "El secreto de sus ojos")

Benjamin Espósito (Ricardo Darín) retires from his position as court investigator(?) in Buenos Aires, and tries to start a novel about a case that's haunted him for over 20 years. We see much of the case in flashback as he seeks out the assistance of his former boss, now a judge, Irene Menéndez-Hastings (Soledad Villamil) in the present day.

I had some minor discomfort with some of the final plot structure, but overall the movie is really good. The plot (one or two minor details aside) is fantastic, the acting is superb, and the whole thing both devastating and thought-provoking. Movies this good only come along once a year - twice, if you're really lucky and living right. And yet it will be totally ignored despite a Best Foreign Film Oscar by all but the critics and the most dedicated film fans because it's in a foreign language - where's the justice in that? See this.

2009, dir. Juan José Campanella. With Ricardo Darín, Soledad Villamil, Guillermo Francella, Pablo Rago, Javier Godino.

The Secret Life of Pets

It turns out that our pets do strange things when we're not home ... and the trailer (well, only the first one) for the movie didn't give away much more than the first five minutes of the movie (amazing they needed so little of the movie to both set the stage and make you laugh enough to want to watch it ...). It was all they really needed to sell me on the movie: a very proper Standard Poodle listening to classical music until his owner exits the apartment ... when he immediately starts thrashing to System of a Down's "Bounce." I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. And it remains the best joke in the entire movie, but they had a good shot at it: they managed to put a lot of jokes into a relatively short runtime.

Our hero is Max, a happy dog made unhappy by the addition of a new dog to the household. Their rivalry leads to both of them ending up miles from home, struggling to get back. You get the idea: the plot's not important, only the large array of crazy characters from a crew of voice actors who are clearly enjoying themselves. A fun and funny movie.

2016, dir. Chris Renaud. With Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, Kevin Hart, Steve Coogan, Ellie Kemper, Bobby Moynihan, Lake Bell, Dana Carvey, Hannibal Buress, Jenny Slate, Albert Brooks.

The Secret of Kells

The story is about the creation of "The Book of Kells." The animation is in 2D, a flat and perspectiveless style that at first glance looks, well, a bit lame. But give them about 30 seconds - that's all it will take for them to show you what magic can be worked. Like the book and the illustrations it draws from, this is a movie of dazzling beauty. The stylization and patterning are jaw-dropping: the movie deserved its Best Animated Feature Oscar nomination. It lost the Oscar to "Up," but I think this movie should have won (sorry - as good as it is, we've seen things in the style of "Up" before).

I'm a bit shaky on recommending this for kids as there's a slaughter in the third act - the incredibly stylized Vikings take the fortified town where our hero lives and kill what appears to be 50-100 people. Again, very stylized, but the burning town has the screen painted blood red for a good five minutes. It's horrifically beautiful, your call if you want to show it to younger children.

Highly recommended for fans of animation - you've never seen anything like this and it's utterly gorgeous.

2009, dir. Tomm Moore. With Evan McGuire, Christen Mooney, Mick Lally, Brendan Gleeson.

The Secret of My Success

Michael J. Fox plays Brantley Foster, moved to New York from Kansas, where he has trouble getting a job until he gets some assistance from his uncle Howard (Richard Jordan). Not content to work in the mail room, he starts applying his considerable intelligence to the annual reports and occasionally dresses up in a suit and masquerades as one of the company's businessmen. While trying to avoid sleeping with his aunt, who pursues him relentlessly, and chase down the girl of his dreams. Goofy, funny, 80s, forgettable.

1987, dir. Herbert Ross. With Michael J. Fox, Helen Slater, Richard Jordan, Margaret Whitton, John Pankow.

The Secret of NIMH

Based on the book "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH," animated by Don Bluth and company before he decided "sickly sweet" was the way to go. "Mrs. Brisby" (as she's called in the movie) decides to go see "the Great Owl," even though she's aware that "owls eat mice." She goes because her son is extremely sick and the owl is possibly the only source of advice to save her son. In the owl's quarters she stumbles over the bones of small animals. Not something you see in your average Disney movie. Unfortunately the goofy, unco-ordinated crow voiced by Dom DeLuise for comic relief is very typically Disney. Nevertheless, one of the better animated movies out there. It was very funny and educational to see both Shannen Doherty's and Wil Wheaton's names in the credits, now that they're better known.

1982, dir. Don Bluth. With Elizabeth Hartman, Derek Jacobi, Arthur Malet, Dom DeLuise, Hermione Baddeley, Shannen Doherty, Wil Wheaton.

Secretary

I'd better go with the IMDB summary on this one: "A young woman, recently released from a mental hospital, gets a job as a secretary to a demanding lawyer, where their employer-employee relationship turns into a sexual, sadomasochistic one." Surprisingly well done.

2002, dir. Steven Shainberg. With Maggie Gyllenhaal, James Spader, Jeremy Davies.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

Upon the announcement that a world-destroying asteroid is on its way, Dodge's wife leaps out of their car never to be seen again. Dodge (Steve Carell) proceeds about his life as if nothing has changed, although the number of people at work has clearly gone down by 75% or more. But he just keeps doing his normal things. People around him respond in different ways, mainly exemplified by a party thrown by his friends who eat and drink anything they want, take drugs, and plan for indiscriminate sex.

Having escaped the party, Dodge encounters Penny (Keira Knightley), a woman from his building in some emotional distress. Their paths cross a couple more times, and he ends up on a journey with her - initially to fulfill a last wish of his, but the trip morphs into trying to help her see her family in the U.K. one last time. They cross paths with a lot of people, all of whom are responding to the imminent end of the world in different ways.

Carell and Knightley are both fairly good. The movie is about how people would deal with such a catastrophe - in a very similar manner to "Last Night." But that precedent can safely be ignored because it's Canadian. I wasn't particularly amused by the crude humour of the guilt-free drinking-drugs-sex thing, but the movie settled into watching two relatively decent people try to deal with it, and that was more appealing.

2012, dir. Lorene Scafaria. With Steve Carell, Keira Knightley, William Petersen, Derek Luke, Martin Sheen.

Semi-Tough

A movie about two professional football players, Billy Clyde and Shake (Burt Reynolds and Kris Kristofferson), and their female roommate and best friend Barbara Jane (Jill Clayburgh). Set when it was shot, in 1977. When Barbara Jane returns from a trip to Africa, she finds Shake has taken a self-improvement course that's made him more assertive and charismatic, and she falls for him. As she's falling for Shake, Billy Clyde begins to realize he wants Barbara Jane. This is all set against a background of sports buffoonery and mockery of self-help gurus.

The movie is extraordinarily foul-mouthed for its period. The poster suggests it's a sexploitation flick, but it doesn't even manage that. There are a couple of good jokes, a spectacular racist slur that's meant as a joke but totally couldn't fly in 2020, and a trio of unpleasant people at the centre of the film stumbling through a badly plotted mess.

1977, dir. Michael Ritchie. With Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson, Jill Clayburgh, Robert Preston, Bert Convy, Roger E. Mosley, Lotte Lenya, Richard Masur, Carl Weathers, Brian Dennehy, Ron Silver.

Sense and Sensibility (1981)

In the 1970s and 1980s, BBC TV worked its way through all six of Jane Austen's well-known novels. This is one of that series, with Irene Richard and Tracey Childs as Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, and Robert Swann, Peter Woodward, and Bosco Hogan as Colonel Brandon, John Willoughby, and Edward Ferrars respectively. If you don't recognize the actors' names ... they weren't well-known then either.

Each interpretation of Austen requires that there be a screenwriter to adapt the novel for the screen. And each must choose between using Austen's words, or condensing what she wrote, or re-interpreting. I can't say that there's even a consensus on which is best: the well-loved Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice stays very close to the original text, but the superb Ang Lee version of this book sticks closely to the spirit of Austen's writing while using little of her actual prose.

I would say that 50% of the words that came out of people's mouths in this rendition are true to Austen - which leaves us with 50% being the work of the screenwriter. And this is one of the instances where it would have been better to stick with Austen's original text. This is seven episodes of about 26 minutes each, and I was surprised to find myself mostly buying into it by the last episode - a bit late, but I hadn't expected to at all after some of the failures. It's not a bad production, but one thing I felt they failed to let us see is that Elinor and Marianne love each other very much. Yes, they're very different, and they often disagree (this version showed us both of those things), but they also love each other - and this version didn't really convey that.

After having (re)watched the BBC TV version (also part of this set) from 1980 of "Pride and Prejudice," I was well reminded that there are far worse versions of Austen (that one has spectacularly wooden acting, on top of a petty and unkind interpretation of all of Austen's prose - by Fay Weldon no less). This isn't a bad production, but prefer the 1995 Ang Lee or the 2008 TV version adapted by Andrew Davies - both are excellent and better than this.

1981, dir. Rodney Bennett. With Irene Richard, Tracey Childs, Bosco Hogan, Robert Swann, Diana Fairfax, Donald Douglas, Annie Leon, Peter Woodward, Marjorie Bland, Peter Gale, Amanda Boxer, Christopher Brown, Hetty Baynes, Julia Chambers, Pippa Sparkes, Philip Bowen, Margot Van der Burgh.

Sense and Sensibility (1995)

Probably the best interpretation of Jane Austen put on film - not the most accurate, but probably the best. Emma Thompson did the screenplay: she did away with almost all of Austen's dialogue, while maintaining the spirit of the book ... Kate Winslet and Thompson are a pair of sisters around 1800 whose family fall on hard times (well - Austen's view of things: most of us would be happy with the house and servants they end up with ...). Elegant, mannered, fabulous dialogue, funny. The cinematography is brilliant, shot after shot. A very good production.

1995. dir. Ang Lee. With Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman, Imogen Stubbs.

Sense and Sensibility (2008)

BBC mini-series production of the Jane Austen novel. Hattie Morahan and Charity Wakefield are very good as Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. David Morrissey plays Brandon rather darker than previous versions, it's an interesting turn. My main problem with this version (and it's not a huge one) is that they had an ugly Willoughby. He's played by Dominic Cooper - who in most movies looks fine, but is unattractive here. His acting is fine. Overall a very good production - I thought it held up astonishingly well against Lee's version, which has become the benchmark for all Austen productions.

2016: having watched the extras and heard the producer (Anne Pivcevic) and writer (Andrew Davies) talking about what they'd tried to achieve ... a lot of what they were saying was "different than the movie." They were making this more than a decade after the Ang Lee version, but it left its mark as probably the best Austen interpretation ever put on film. And in re-watching the movie, there were places where it seemed like there was a conscious decision to veer further from the book, just to be different than the Lee version. It's still a good production, but those familiar with the book will notice some changes.

2008, dir. John Alexander. With Hattie Morahan, Charity Wakefield, Dan Stevens, David Morrissey, Dominic Cooper, Janet McTeer, Lucy Boynton.

The Sense of an Ending

Our main character, Tony (Jim Broadbent), is a divorced Londoner in his 60s running a very small camera shop. He's on reasonably good terms with his ex-wife, and their daughter is about to have a child. Into his fairly quiet life is dropped a small sum of money left him by the mother of a girlfriend he had in university, along with the mention of a diary that has also been left to him. The diary is in the possession of the ex-girlfriend, who he attempts to contact.

Tony initially seems like an okay guy - a bit short-tempered, a bit of a prat, but a decent enough person. But as the movie progresses, we see some of his university years in flashback - and watch as he realizes that he wasn't as nice a person as he remembers being. As his behaviour towards the ex-girlfriend in the present day veers into decidedly indefensible territory, he becomes a very unappealing person to be spending a movie with.

But somehow in the last moments of the movie this all comes home to him and suddenly his behaviour toward his own family becomes much better. It feels totally unjustified and untrue to the character we've just spent an hour and a half getting to know. I get that recovering a piece of your past like that might change your behaviour, but I didn't buy the scale of his recovery.

The movie is meticulously constructed and well acted, but I didn't buy the character twist at the end.

2017, dir. Ritesh Batra. With Jim Broadbent, Charlotte Rampling, Harriet Walter, Emily Mortimer, Michelle Dockery, Billy Howle, Freya Mavor, Joe Alwyn.

Sense8, Season 1

I approached "Sense8" with mixed feelings: behind it are two (well, three) of the most inconsistent but periodically brilliant show creators of the last couple decades, J. Michael Straczynski and The Wachowskis. I think "Babylon 5" is probably the best SF TV show ever made, and "The Matrix" is likewise one of the best SF movies ever made (although I prefer to ignore the sequels, both Matrix and "Crusade").

The concept is relatively simple: eight people all over the world find they can see through each other's eyes, occupy each other's senses, communicate with each other. But it's made very clear from the first moments of the series that a large and very powerful organisation (and in particular, one man) is hunting anyone with this unusual power. The eight are a diverse lot: an Icelandic DJ, a German thief and brawler, a Korean business woman who's exceptionally good at Tae Kwon Do, a Chicago cop, an Indian pharmacist, a Kenyan matatu (bus) driver, a Mexican actor (who gets all the macho roles but is a closeted gay), and a trans-woman activist and hacker. Each helps the others out with their "particular set of skills" as the series progresses and their lives change. But of course there's always the ominous threat from the Biologic Preservation Organization and "Whispers," the sensate who works for the BPO and hunts other sensates.

This relatively simple concept leads to what must have been an insanely complex shooting schedule, as they had to shoot not only the eight actors in their eight separate countries, but then conversations between the sensates are shot in BOTH places that any two or even occasionally several of them are located. Sure, some of it was done on sets and stages, but a lot of it looks like it was shot on site. Crazy - and they do a good job of it.

For a series that's all about connection and love (and often surprisingly graphic sex - well, for a TV series), it's pretty violent and nasty in places. It's strengths are that emphasis on connection, love, and support of the people you care about, good characters, and good writing. It's weaknesses are a tendency to the operatic in the twists and turns and the evilness of the bad guys, and a love of over-long, drawn out shots and scenes. I get that you're showing us their connections, but ... move along. You didn't need to take so long.

The writing also reminds me a bit too much of novelist Dan Brown: I heard once (second hand, sadly I can't locate a source) that he publicly stated that all he ever did was toss together the same set of ingredients - one of which is always a big shadowy conspiracy. And very little reason has been given for the existence or behaviour of the BPO.

I've watched the first episode of season 2 (more killing, another orgy), and it really wasn't feeling like it was going anywhere at all despite the extended two hour run-time (most episodes are one hour). I'll probably watch the rest of the second season, but my enthusiasm is limited.

2015. With Aml Ameen, Doona Bae, Jamie Clayton, Tina Desai, Tuppence Middleton, Max Riemelt, Miguel Ángel Silvestre, Brian J. Smith, Freema Agyeman, Terrence Mann, Anupam Kher, Naveen Andrews, Daryl Hannah.

Sense8, Season 2

I came back to "Sense8" because I loved the characters and the writing. Not the plotting, but the writing - the character interactions are very good. The deus ex machina moments less so. And I like that it's deeply respectful of its characters: it gives them enough time to develop, lets us know who they are. Although as I approached the end of the season, I began to feel something I never expected: is it possible for a show to be too respectful of its characters? It would seem the answer as yes, as the musical interludes and moments of tenderness (and sex) stretched out for up to five minutes at a time ... I think too many current shows and movies are too fast-paced, but these beautifully filmed moments in Sense8 don't move the plot forward - at all. It doesn't need to be fast-paced, but it does need to keep moving ...

I was also disappointed by the replacement of Aml Ameen as Capheus with Toby Onwumere. After four episodes I was willing (grudgingly) to admit that Onwumere is pretty good, but Ameen was the better of the two.

In this season, they move the lives of most of the characters forward [SPOILERS!]: Capheus thinks about running for office, Sun escapes from jail and goes looking for her treacherous brother, Kala finds out her husband's business may not be as up-front as she hoped, Wolfgang - through no efforts of his own - appears to be headed towards being a new crime boss in Berlin, and Lito comes out and tries to break into Hollywood. But Nomi, Amanita, and Bug have no apparent life except hacking to help everyone else, and likewise Riley and Will are hiding from Whispers, trying to trick him into revealing more than they're forced to. (Totally amazing how Will broke a several month heroin habit overnight by the way ...)

Again, good characters (Lito and his little family are particularly wonderful), but the crazy ideas and happenings outside the characters aren't great. Honestly, I'm glad they broke the bank on this one: the cancellation has forced them to close the whole series in one two hour(?) special coming some time in 2018. I look forward to it, because they left the second season dangling with the clear intention of running for at least a couple more years and I'd much rather have closure.

2016. With Toby Onwumere, Doona Bae, Jamie Clayton, Tina Desai, Tuppence Middleton, Max Riemelt, Miguel Ángel Silvestre, Brian J. Smith, Freema Agyeman, Terrence Mann, Anupam Kher, Naveen Andrews, Daryl Hannah.

Sense8, Season 2 Finale

Created after they knew the series was cancelled - but they were given an opportunity to create this wrap-up episode. This is listed on Netflix as the final episode of Season 2.

More of the same (violence, and in between lots of true love and sex), but less character and more plot-driven. I was glad to see the characters I liked have a happy ending, and mostly glad to see it done in one 2.5 hour episode. The title is surprisingly predictable, being a latin phrase drawn from a poem written by Virgil - that gets mentioned in the episode - meaning "Love Conquers All" (the translation isn't mentioned: I guess Lana Wachowski didn't want to be that obvious).

Some things felt very rushed. It was clear that the other clusters and power groups were meant to be developed, probably over at least a couple more seasons of the can-we-trust-them-or-not paranoia that I was so happy to lose via this cancellation-and-wrap-up route that brought us to this one long episode. Things like Puck and the rest of his cluster suddenly being trustworthy, and the almost totally unexplained group that Bodhi belongs to. And yet, in classic "Sense8" style, several scenes are overly drawn out.

And what is the last frame of the story that we're left with? A rainbow-coloured dildo still slick from use after our favourite cluster's final joyful orgy. Lana is nothing if not classy.

Not as satisfying as it should have been.

2018, dir. Lana Wachowski. With Toby Onwumere, Doona Bae, Jamie Clayton, Tina Desai, Tuppence Middleton, Max Riemelt, Miguel Ángel Silvestre, Brian J. Smith, Freema Agyeman, Terrence Mann, Anupam Kher, Naveen Andrews, Daryl Hannah.

The Sentinel

This kind of film is so common it's becoming its own genre: Secret Service agent is accused of treachery, goes on the run to prove his own innocence. Within that context, it's reasonably good. A couple minor twists, nothing brilliant.

2006, dir. Clark Johnson. With Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland, Eva Longoria, Kim Basinger.

Serenity

When the popular TV series "Firefly" was cancelled, Joss Whedon decided to bring the continuation to the big screen (with the TV cast) and thus we have "Serenity." I hadn't seen the TV series when I saw the movie. There are occasionally moments when you feel like you're missing background information, but this stands well on its own. Big scale space opera, with the rogue ship operator harbouring a terrible secret (which he doesn't initially know about) and trying to get that secret out to the rest of the galaxy. Not perfect, but damn good. Whedon's commentary on the DVD is very good.

Even better if you've seen the TV series, and also gets better with repeated viewings: Whedon really knows how to put a story together.

2005. dir. Joss Whedon. With Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk, Morena Baccarin, Adam Baldwin, Jewel Staite, Sean Maher, Summer Glau, Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Sergeant York

Gary Cooper plays Alvin York, a guy from the back woods of Tennessee who (in real life as well as in the movie) went on to become one of the biggest heroes of World War I - despite having enrolled as a conscientious objector.

The movie alternately mocks and reveres the townsfolk of Pall Mall - making fun of their quaint language, poor spelling, and isolation, while simultaneously raising them up as hard-working, morally upright pioneer types. It's a bizarre mix. Early on, it's established that York - even drunk and at night - is a superb shot. Before America's involvement in the war he sobers up and gets religion, and thus is enrolled as an objector. He has a change of heart, and goes on to glory.

Cooper is good in the lead - in fact, this is some of the best choices of actors for the entire cast that I've ever seen in a movie. They were also fairly strong on the historical accuracy, rather to my surprise - although there should have been more mud at the front, but that's hardly a big problem. A pretty good movie, considering it could be argued to be a blatant propaganda piece as the United States teetered on the edge of entering the Second World War.

1941, dir. Howard Hawks. With Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Joan Leslie, Margaret Wycherly, George Tobias, Dickie Moore.

Serving Sara

Mildly funny, but as a whole a complete mess. Some of the interviews on the disc suggested to me that the fault lies in large part with the director, who didn't seem to know how to orchestrate humour.

2002. dir. Reginald Hudlin. With Matthew Perry, Elizabeth Hurley, Vincent Pastore, Bruce Campbell, Cedric the Entertainer.

The Sessions

John Hawkes plays Mark O'Brien (this is based on the life of the real Mark O'Brien) who is paralyzed from the neck down and living in an iron lung (the results of polio). At the age of 38, he decides he wants to lose his virginity after he researches and writes an article about sex among the disabled. He receives unlikely support from his priest (William H. Macy, particularly charming) and his own assistant (played by Moon Bloodgood), and starts to see sex surrogate Cheryl Cohen-Greene (Helen Hunt).

The movie has a great deal of frank talk about sex, and a fair bit of naked Helen Hunt. Which is fine, but it's a successful movie based on the characters, the actors, and the script, all of which are both funny and very good.

2012, dir. Ben Lewin. With John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy, Moon Bloodgood.

The Seven Deadly Sins (Season 1)

"The Seven Deadly Sins" (based on a manga) tells the story of the kingdom of Liones, which is protected by the Holy Knights. The problem is, the Holy Knights are behaving badly and causing suffering throughout the kingdom - including quietly taking most of the royal family hostage. But the Princess Elizabeth escapes, and goes on a quest to find the Seven Deadly Sins, a group of Holy Knights who were responsible for the murder of the head of their order a decade ago. In her quest, she takes refuge at The Boar Hat tavern, which is run by a tiny and handsome young man ... who we soon discover is actually Meliodas, aka "The Dragon Sin of Wrath" and captain of the Seven Deadly Sins. He decides to join her as it's time to get the Sins back together so they continue the quest together.

This is a Netflix Anime series (~20 episodes of 23 minutes each) constructed like a cross between Dungeons and Dragons and any silly animated quest show you've ever seen. With the addition of fan service and occasional perversion from Meliodas, who once in a while squeezes Elizabeth's breasts or ass - or even buries his head between her thighs. Later on she has a bit of a crush on him, but he also does this when they first meet. And part way through this series, another fan-service-pretty-girl tells him "I'm right here, you can grope me any time," to which he replies "it's no fun if you tell me it's okay," and never touches her. Which places his creepy behaviour squarely in the middle of "legally actionable" in pretty much every country in the world. And yet it's played for laughs.

Aside from the occasional creepy interludes, it's a goofy series with ever-escalating stakes. The bad guys demonstrate greater powers, the good guys pull out some new power - often with the action paused on screen and a labelled name on the mighty attack style. People lose their memories, they recover them, they're dismembered, they put themselves back together or get put back together ... I leave it running while I do other things: it's colourful, pretty, and crap, but still entertaining.

2014. With Bryce Papenbrook, Erika Harlacher, Christina Vee, Erica Mendez, Ben Diskin, Max Mittleman, Erik Scott Kimerer, Lauren Landa, Robbie Daymond, Carrie Keranen, Erica Lindbeck, Ray Chase, Jamieson Price, Kaiji Tang, Patrick Seitz.

The Seven Deadly Sins (Season 2): Signs of Holy War

This "season" of "The Seven Deadly Sins" is actually only four 23 minute episodes, a goofy (more so than usual) interlude between two major quests - the previous one to gather the Seven Deadly Sins in the cluster of episodes called "The Seven Deadly Sins," and the next to prevent the destruction of the world (? I haven't seen it yet) by the Ten Commandments called "Revival of the Commandments." I enjoyed it as a break from the ever-escalating battles, and showing something approaching camaraderie between our eccentric companions.

2016. With Bryce Papenbrook, Erika Harlacher, Christina Vee, Erica Mendez, Ben Diskin, Max Mittleman, Erik Scott Kimerer, Lauren Landa, Robbie Daymond, Carrie Keranen, Erica Lindbeck, Ray Chase, Jamieson Price, Kaiji Tang, Patrick Seitz.

The Seven Deadly Sins (Season 3): Revival of the Commandments

The third season(?) of Netflix's "Seven Deadly Sins" Anime series. 24 episodes of about 23 minutes each.

People lose their memory. People die and come back. There are revelations about people's histories. The seventh deadly sin finally joins the team (and he's more powerful than the rest of them combined ... at least at certain times). Lots of people get power-ups. Fan service continues, and the series is still brightly coloured and silly.

I'd like to think that if we weren't in a pandemic I wouldn't be watching this, but who knows?

2016. With Bryce Papenbrook, Erika Harlacher, Christina Vee, Erica Mendez, Ben Diskin, Max Mittleman, Erik Scott Kimerer, Lauren Landa, Robbie Daymond, Carrie Keranen, Erica Lindbeck, Ray Chase, Jamieson Price, Kaiji Tang, Patrick Seitz.

7 Plus Seven

Apted's ongoing documentary series, revisiting the lives of several Britons every seven years. The first ("Seven Up!") was a 40 minute black and white special for Granada Television, after which Apted picked up the reins and made the series fly. This is their teen years, and a very good start to an excellent series. All future titles are numerical: "21 Up," "28 Up," "35 Up," etc.

1970, dir. Michael Apted.

Seven Psychopaths

A decade ago I watched "In Bruges," one of the most quotable, memorable, and brilliant movies I've ever seen. A few days ago I watched "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" and realized they were both written and directed by the same man, Martin McDonagh. So I thought I ought to get around to watching the one in between: "Seven Psychopaths" - also written and directed by McDonagh.

It's a very self-referential film: our main character is a screenwriter named Martin (Colin Farrell) who's trying to write a movie called "Seven Psychopaths." And as he explains the scenes he's considering putting in the movie, they play out before us. His best friend Billy (Sam Rockwell) is a dog-napper, whose business partner is Hans (Christopher Walken), and they've recently accidentally kidnapped the dog of one of the area's mob bosses (Woody Harrelson). Marty and the two dog-nappers flee to the desert (the Joshua Tree Monument by the look of it) with the dog, where they talk about scenes for the movie.

The problem for me - and I acknowledge that I wasn't surprised about this given that the movie is called "Seven Psychopaths" - is that there's not a single likeable character in it. And it's seriously crazy, in an unpleasant sort of way. But in the end it manages enough interesting moments to be worth the time spent - and if you're okay with no likeable characters, you should definitely give it a go.

2012, dir. Martin McDonagh. With Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Walken, Tom Waits, Abbie Cornish, Olga Kurylenko, Željko Ivanek, Linda Bright Clay, Long Nguyen, Harry Dean Stanton.

Seven Samurai

The most famous movie of one of the world's most famous directors, Akira Kurosawa. My second viewing.

The movie opens on a small village in Japan in 1586, with a villager overhearing that the bandits who have harassed their village for years will be returning shortly. The villagers weep and shout at each other (in a fashion I've come to think of as very Kurosawa), until the village elder tells them to go hire a group of samurai to protect the village. The four men sent to recruit the samurai are also weak-willed and clown-like in a typically Kurosawa fashion, but once they manage to recruit the older Kambei (Takashi Shimura), things got a lot better for me. Kambei is an experienced, level-headed and relatively old ronin - more importantly, his character feels entirely genuine, instead of the clowns Kurosawa often likes to put on screen as the common man.

I'm making this movie (or perhaps myself, unclear which) sound bad: but once Kambei appears, the drama starts to develop. The villagers have almost nothing to pay with, so their choices in samurai are limited - but they nevertheless find enough warriors to defend the village. They also find themselves being followed to the village by "Kikuchiyo" (Toshiro Mifune), a man who claims to be a samurai but has none of the skills - only an excessive swagger.

The movie is incredibly long at 208 minutes, but it's also a dazzling, brilliant piece of work that deserves every bit of praise that's been heaped on it in the 60 years since its release. It shows battle, depravity, sacrifice - it shows people at their worst and their finest, and everything in between - sometimes all at once. Brilliant.

I only wish I appreciated Kurosawa's other works half as much.

1954, dir. Akira Kurosawa. With Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Daisuke Katō, Isao Kimura, Minoru Chiaki, Seiji Miyaguchi, Yoshio Inaba, Yoshio Tsuchiya, Bokuzen Hidari, Keiko Tsushima, Kokuten Kōdō.

Seven Swords

Post-"Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" martial arts movie, with a big budget and intermittently superb cinematography. Unfortunately the editing left something to be desired: there are a huge number of characters that are almost all under-developed, to the point that we are expected to recognize some of them and simply don't - while simultaneously leaving us with a run-time of 153 minutes. It's essentially the Chinese version of "Seven Samurai" although they certainly changed more than "The Magnificent Seven."

In the mid-seventeenth century the Qing Dynasty has banned the use of martial arts by commoners. An army run by the evil Fire-Wind makes its fortune by killing anyone who could possibly be considered a martial artist - including women and children (remember they're evil) - to claim the bounty. He is served by a bunch of evil men in nasty-looking facial make-up using totally absurd (but ominous and of course deadly) weapons - including the decapitating umbrella of death (my name), an incredibly awkward trident, flying piercing chains, and thrown flying buzz-saws. Fire-Wind himself favours a sword about a meter long that's about 25mm thick and 150mm wide through most of the body: at that rate no normal mortal could hold the thing off the ground for more than a few seconds, never mind wield it in battle (shades of Final Fantasy). A couple of the villagers take the man who warned them of the coming invasion by Fire-Wind's army to Mount Heaven where they are joined by four more swordsmen and the (unexplained) benevolent master gives each of them a named super-sword ("Dragon," "The Transcience," "Heaven's Fall," etc.), a couple of which behave just as absurdly as the evil enemy's weapons.

You'll have two huge challenges: suspending disbelief and keeping track of the characters. Good luck.

2005, dir. Tsui Hark. With Donnie Yen, Leon Lai, Charlie Yeung.

Seven Up!

The genesis of Michael Apted's brilliant, seminal "Up" series. At the time he was just out of film school, and, unlike all the later movies, he didn't direct - he was the researcher. Filmed in black and white for Granada Television, this is the least interesting of the set, and I didn't manage to sit through the whole thing despite it's short running time. I'd already seen much of the footage by watching later "Up" movies. Having seen this, I guess (despite its incredible importance) I'd recommend starting with "7 Plus Seven."

The idea at the time was to interview 14 British seven year olds to find out the state of the nation. But when it got interesting was when Apted went back seven years later to find out how those children were doing at the age of 14. And then again at 21, 28, 35 ...

1964, dir. Paul Almond.

Seven Years in Tibet

Brad Pitt plays Heinrich Harrer in this only half-accurate biographical story of Harrer's time in the Himalayas, India, and Tibet. David Thewlis plays Peter Aufschnaiter, another mountain climber. They were in the Himalayas in 1939 when the war broke out, and on their return to India were interred in a P.O.W. camp as enemy hostiles (both were Austrian). They eventually escaped, and spent many years in Tibet - and Harrer became a close friend of the young Dalai Lama (Jamyang Wangchuk). The movie follows their trip to the Himalayas through the fall of Tibet to the Chinese and finally Harrer's return to Austria in 1952.

I don't think this movie faired well at the box office. Pitt wasn't ideal dyed blond and trying to pretend he had an Austrian accent - but at least his bad Austrian accent was consistent, unlike Thewlis's which varied from bad Austrian to full English and back again. The movie doesn't flow too well (story arcs in real life aren't as tidy as they are in fiction - this is based on a great book and true story of the same name), but I found it fascinating and moving.

1997, dir. Jean-Jacques Annaud. With Brad Pitt, David Thewlis, Mako, B.D. Wong, Jamyang Jamtsho Wangchuk.

17 Again

You get pretty desperate for movies when you need one every time you get on your stationary bike ... that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Matthew Perry plays a grumpy father of two, who abandoned a possible college basketball scholarship to be with his pregnant girlfriend. She's now divorcing him and he's wondering how his life might have been different. Along comes magic janitor man who makes him ... 17 again. And now we have an excuse for popular boy of the year Zac Efron to parade around a school in a variety of outfits while girls swoon over his mature (and messed up, at least for a teenager) behaviour.

Leslie Mann was good as Perry's adult wife, and I was surprised by Efron who was actually quite convincing as an adult in a teen's body. But the movie aims low, using massive exaggerations to bring out the humour. When you use an "Alice in Wonderland" excuse to start the movie you'd better make an exemplary movie: "Pleasantville" comes to mind. This one is mired in clichés and broad gestures.

2009, dir. Burr Steers. With Zac Efron, Leslie Mann, Matthew Perry, Thomas Lennon, Sterling Knight, Michelle Trachtenberg, Melora Hardin.

Seventh Son

Based on The Spook's Apprentice by Joseph Delaney. Jeff Bridges plays Master Gregory, the last of the "Spooks" - an order of knights who deal with supernatural problems. In his youth, he imprisoned (but didn't kill) Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore), a particularly powerful witch. And now she's back. He loses his first apprentice (Kit Harington) to her shortly after the credits, and goes to recruit Tom Ward (Ben Barnes) who is the seventh son of a seventh son, and thus magically gifted.

Bridges looks like someone told him "do Rooster Cogburn, but funny! And stick your lower jaw out the whole time." He's unbelievably awful. Moore, Alicia Vikander, and Olivia Williams are all good actresses, but they phoned it in - with the ironic side effect of making Barnes, a significantly poorer actor, actually look like he's doing a good job. (He's better than he was in "Prince Caspian" or "Dorian Gray," but he still has a long way to go.) It's a big budget American movie, so of course the effects are excellent. And the story - if it weren't for the appalling acting - could have been okay. I kind of enjoyed it, but it's pure tripe.

2014, dir. Sergei Bodrov. With Jeff Bridges, Ben Barnes, Julianne Moore, Alicia Vikander, Kit Harington, Olivia Williams, Antje Traue, Djimon Hounsou.

Sex and Lucía (orig. "Lucía y el sexo")

The first hour is essentially art porn, severely lacking in plot. The second hour struggles to recover from that deficit, but fails to make much sense at all. It's about mothers and daughters and fiction and reality and the sea. The extras on the DVD helped me to understand that the director thought he had brought us to a happy ending: a place of recovery and forgiveness, but to forgive the main male character would be to condone messing around on your girlfriend, screwing up the life of your ex- and your child by her, lying to all of them, and screwing the babysitter. And a couple other things. I was thoroughly unimpressed with the plot of the movie: having to look at the extras to figure out what the hell the director thought he was doing - because he absolutely didn't put the details in the actual movie - is pathetic. On the other hand, seeing Paz Vega and Elena Anaya naked and jiggling was pretty damn awesome. But ... but ... it's a really bad movie.

2001, dir. Julio Medem. With Paz Vega, Tristán Ulloa, Najwa Nimri, Daniel Friere, Elena Anaya, Silvia Llanos, Javier Cámara.

Shadow

"Shadow" is famous for its cinematography, and the critics love the way it looks and the fights. What they don't mention as much is that the first hour of the film is spent setting up palace intrigue and inter-kingdom politics, and it's poorly explained, boring, and over-acted. But most of the last hour is spent on fights and sneak attacks and betrayals and plots within plots.

It's true, the cinematography is ... extraordinary, but that's not entirely a compliment. It's pretty, and well done, but I didn't love it. It's NOT black-and-white: it's heavily de-saturated colour. We almost see the colour of human skin, the green of bamboo, and we're allowed to see blood. There are many fights, complete with implausible hand-mounted crossbows, and utterly absurd bladed umbrellas of death. The umbrellas functioning as shown in the film is about as probable as the Flying Guillotine working, and my inability to suspend disbelief about those devices has a lot to do with this review.

Everyone in the movie is chewing the scenery, and the betrayals and grand tragedy of the whole thing were just the icing on the cake. I really hated this one. "Hero" was a Zhang Yimou movie worth seeing: this one is not.

2018, dir. Zhang Yimou. With Deng Chao, Sun Li, Zheng Kai, Wang Qianyuan, Hu Jun, Guan Xiaotong, Leo Wu, Wang Jingchun.

The Shadow

Alec Baldwin stars as Lamont Cranston, a man trained in certain mental powers and then let loose to help control crime in 1930s New York City. We see him first as Ying Ko, a ruthless opium warlord in Tibet where he is caught and reformed by the Tulku, who also trains him in the ability to cloud men's minds.

In New York, the arrival of Shiwan Khan (John Lone), the last descendant of Genghis Khan (equally as intent on taking over the world as his ancestor was), gives cause for the Shadow to really go to work. Khan has very similar powers of mind to those of the Shadow, as he trained with the Tulku as well. But obviously he's evil because he killed the Tulku!

Sorry, the Thirties nostalgia isn't enough to make this a good movie. It's a story written for the Thirties, and it doesn't work in 2010 (or even 1994 when it was released). Not a disaster, but the story feels silly and it's not compelling.

1994, dir. Russell Mulcahy. With Alec Baldwin, John Lone, Penelope Ann Miller, Ian McKellen, Tim Curry, Jonathan Winters.

Shadow and Bone (Season 1)

This TV series is from a teen book, and so it has (only slightly angsty) teen heroes in the form of Malyen Oretsev (Archie Renaux) and more importantly Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei Li). It has a very evil big-bad, the cause of everything terrible in their world. And it has writing that traverses the range from idiotic to sublime.

Alina and Mal are friends, with a very strong bond having grown up together in an orphanage in the country of Ravka. They're shipped off to the army together, both soldiers - he a tracker, she a cartographer. Until - in the middle of the first episode, we find out that she's a Grisha (a "witch" by another name) and the legendary "Sun Summoner." Which appears to be good, as her country is divided in half by "The Shadow Fold," a large area of perpetual dark that's hard to cross and full of nasty creatures. She's escorted to the highest ranking Grisha in the country, General Kirigan - a descendant of "The Darkling" who created the fold, who aspires to undo the work of his forebear. And "Sun" is what's expected to destroy the Fold.

We also meet The Crows, led by Kaz Brekker (Freddy Carter) who owns a bar - but has a plan to make a million, if he can only kidnap the Sun Summoner. And, not co-incidentally, get revenge on Pekka Rollins, a mob-boss who has done him some unspecified but horrible wrong. Kaz is accompanied by Jesper (Kit Young) who's exceptionally good with guns, and Inej (Amita Suman) who is extremely good with knives and very good at getting in and out of places.

An example of the brilliant writing: at one point, Alina is trying to escape a castle, and she crawls into a trunk attached to a carriage. That just happens to be the very carriage belonging to the people who are looking for her. This sounds at first like exactly the kind of staggeringly improbable event that puts me off many stories. But in this case, there was only one carriage because of what was going on, it was the one that had to be there and it was the one she had to get into. It was blind luck ... but it wasn't improbable. In fact, it almost had to happen.

Another nice feature is the political and social complexity: there are several countries in the immediate area, with different cultures and traditions. There's discrimination, based on race (notably, Alina is part "Shu," and thus despised by many) and abilities (Grisha are feared everywhere, and loathed as heretics in most countries except Ravka where they've become tools of the army). A lot of stories feel like the creators were so focused on their main character that they never thought about the world around their characters except as to how it could make their story work. But this world (which the fans apparently call "The Grishaverse") is extensive, complex, and seems to be well thought out.

But some of the writing gets very sloppy at times: among others, the overused you-think-he's-dead-but-he's-not crops up at the end of the season.

Despite some stumbles, the charming characters and the often good writing make this an enjoyable show to watch.

2021. With Jessie Mei Li, Archie Renaux, Ben Barnes, Freddy Carter, Amita Suman, Kit Young, Zoë Wanamaker, Sujaya Dasgupta, Howard Charles, Danielle Galligan, Daisy Head.

Shadow in the Cloud

Chloë Grace Moretz stars as flight officer Maude Garrett assigned to a B-17 cargo flight loaded with sexist assholes. She's carrying a top secret package, which she surprisingly readily entrusts to the top turret gunner, and is then loaded into the bottom turret for take-off. Her time in the turret listening to and participating in the in-plane comms chatter was passable drama ... with a bit of the supernatural thrown in.

Inevitably, what's in the package is a big reveal part way through the movie. Since it's already been made clear that this movie has fantasy elements - and we've seen that the contents of the package caused light to glow on Maude's skin - I found the big reveal to be disappointingly boring. Although some credit is due that I totally did not guess what was coming, and the logic - of that piece of the story anyway - made some sense. And for the first hour, that was enough: the story was unexpected and at least mildly interesting. But around the hour mark, our heroine gets out of the turret and crawls around the underside of the wing of a flying B-17 bomber - right after the pilot says "evasive manoeuvres!" Those never actually happen, they just fly a perfectly straight line as they're strafed by several enemy planes. The cruising speed of a B-17 is 180mph, and even without "evasive manoeuvres" it wouldn't be humanly possible to do what she did.

Yup, there's me enforcing physics when I'm supposed to be suspending disbelief. But this is one of those times when the physics is so broken I simply can't.

It got even stupider from there, with the big bad coming back from death a couple times, and Maude being a bad-ass heroine despite debilitating injuries. I'm all for bad-ass heroines. But please, I'm begging you: put them in decent movies. Not this.

2020, dir. Roseanne Liang. With Chloë Grace Moretz, Taylor John Smith, Beulah Koale, Nick Robinson, Callan Mulvey, Benedict Wall, Joe Witkowski, Byron Coll.

Shadow of a Doubt

One of Alfred Hitchcock's better known movies, and apparently his personal favourite. As his daughter said in the extras, "My father loved the idea of bringing menace into a small town." When we first see "Charlie" (Charlotte, played by Teresa Wright), she's bored of her small town life - and she knows just the cure, the arrival of her uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) whom she was named after. And arrive he does, charming everyone ... but he's a little creepy too. It was a subversive film at the time, this sweet, charming family, in their sweet house in a sweet town ... and Hitchcock turns it on its head. We're pretty used to that idea now, but now it's equally strange because it looks so old and we expect it to be sweet. So the end result is much the same. The casting was excellent. Very good.

1943, dir. Alfred Hitchcock. With Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, Macdonald Carey, Henry Travers, Patricia Collinge, Hume Cronyn.

Shaft (1971)

Wikipedia describes "Shaft" as a "blaxploitation crime action film." John Shaft (Richard Roundtree) is a private investigator, hired to recover the kidnapped daughter of a Harlem crime boss. We first see him crossing a very busy New York street against a red light: when a driver honks at him and tells him to get out of the way, he gives them the finger. I was on the side of the driver.

Shaft is just so damn cool that he's rude to everyone: black, white, male, female ... his most polite interactions were with a stool pigeon who he gave money to and treated like a friend, and a street kid that he also gave money to (which may have been the only decent thing he did in the movie). And he's nice to the very gay bartender across the street from his apartment (who also grabs his ass). The soundtrack and dialogue are both agonizingly Seventies, and the drama is mediocre at best. I get why the film is important: it was the first and most lucrative of all the Blaxploitation films, starting a massive movement. But being "important" doesn't equate to being "good."

1971, dir. Gordon Parks. With Richard Roundtree, Moses Gun, Charles Cioffi, Christopher St. John, Gwenn Mitchell, Lawrence Pressman.

Shaft (2000)

They used the same damn title song. It's a spectacularly cheesy 1970s song praising the coolness of John Shaft. I think they rerecorded, but it's still awful. This time Samuel L. Jackson is "John Shaft," although Richard Roundtree is back as his uncle (also "John Shaft," although it's Jackson who's front and centre). My main complaint about the previous movie is that Shaft was a total asshole and no matter how cool, he couldn't have kept the loyalty of his friends because he demanded a lot and gave nothing. They've fixed that on this outing: Jackson's Shaft actually does things for his friends and occasionally treats them with respect (although he's still a hot-tempered asshole).

Shaft starts out in the police force where he's involved in investigating the murder of a young black man. The murder appears to have been committed by Walter Wade Jr. (Christian Bale), but the only possible witness (Toni Collette) vanishes and Wade skips bail for two years. When Wade comes back to the U.S. he makes an uneasy alliance with the Dominican drug lord "Peoples" (Jeffrey Wright), and the two of them cause all kinds of havoc.

Still not a good movie, but better produced and acted than the previous one.

2000, dir. John Singleton. With Samuel L. Jackson, Vanessa Williams, Jeffrey Wright, Christian Bale, Busta Rhymes, Dan Hedaya, Toni Collette, Richard Roundtree, Ruben Santiago-Hudson.

Shakespeare In Love

One of my favourite films. Comedy, romance, action, Shakespearean misunderstandings, all with a brilliant script and acting. Joseph Fiennes, never as well known an actor as his brother, does an excellent job here as a young and unknown Shakespeare who falls for a gentry woman (Gwyneth Paltrow) engaged (rather involuntarily) to Colin Firth's character.

It helps to know "Romeo and Juliet," the play that Shakespeare is writing in the movie and the troupe is performing during the course of the movie - I think everything is well enough explained that you could watch the movie with no knowledge of Shakespeare at all, but it will be better if you know the play. And after that it would help if you knew perhaps "Twelfth Night," and Shakespeare's penchant for having young women disguise themselves as boys, and that all female roles in the Elizabethan theatre were played by men ... etc. etc.

Rewatching this in 2019, it holds up superbly (with the possible exception of watching Paltrow, remembering her intervening infamy). The structure and writing are extraordinary, and the movie remains one of my favourites ... and inevitably leads to me re-watching Trevor Nunn's excellent "Twelfth Night."

1998, dir. John Madden. With Joseph Fiennes, Gwyneth Paltrow, Geoffry Rush, Colin Firth, Judi Dench.

Shall We Dance? (1996)

I saw this a couple years after seeing the American remake, and find myself in a rather small group that actually likes the American version. The original Japanese movie is, in most respects, better, but that leaves a lot of leeway for a good remake. Our hero Sugiyama (Yakusho) is a successful but unhappy accountant, who suddenly decides to take up the very suspect art of ballroom dancing - mostly because he finds the teacher attractive. But it doesn't turn out at all as he expects. Charming and fun.

1996, dir. Masayuki Suo. With Kôji Yakusho, Tamiyo Kusakari, Naoto Takenaka.

Shall We Dance? (2004)

"And you know what the worst of it is? Huh? I'm not gay. Can you imagine how much easier my life would be if I were? I mean a straight man who likes to dance around in sequins walks a very lonely road." A really charming movie, very sweet, fairly funny. I look forward to seeing the Japanese movie it was based on.

2004, dir. Peter Chelsom. With Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Omar Miller, Peter Canavale.

Shane

A traditional and not terribly exciting Western, not quite sure why it's still around and well known. Preaches non-violence through the course of righteous violence, a gospel I'm very tired of. Alan Ladd plays a cowboy drifter who starts work for a prosecuted homesteader threatened by an evil cattle man and his hired gun (Jack Palance). It's well done for what it is, but if you've seen a few Westerns, this one hardly strikes me as being worth the effort.

1953, dir. George Stevens. With Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, Van Heflin, Jack Palance.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Simu Liu leads the cast as "Shaun," a young man working in San Francisco parking cars with his best friend Katy (Awkwafina), until the scene made famous by the trailer in which he's attacked by a bunch of bad guys led by a guy with a machete for an arm. And Katy, who assumed he couldn't fight, finds out that Shaun is really, really good at fighting. Shaun, real name Shang-Chi, decides to head to Macau to protect his sister who he figures they'll be after next. Katy insists on going with him. If you've seen the trailers, you also know the big-bad is Shang-Chi's father - the actual leader of "The Ten Rings," who also possesses ten rings that have mystical power.

I've seen every Marvel movie there is, for better or worse. And for me (perhaps not anyone else), the form of fantasy/alternate world we end up in here (with Chinese fantasy lions, loads of bizarre animals, a Chinese dragon, and essentially Cthulhu evil creatures) was really jarring. I watch plenty of fantasy movies and TV, and that's all good ... but to me this just didn't fit with the like-our-world (plus-science-fiction) universe that Marvel has built up. (I say that ... but I was somehow okay with "Dr. Strange.")

The leads are good, the fights are decent, and perhaps my favourite bit, they resurrected Ben Kingsley as Trevor Slattery - a subtle "fuck you" to those who didn't like him as "The Mandarin" (the fake leader of the fake Ten Rings in "Iron Man 3" - I thought their parody of "The Mandarin" was brilliant), and the man's still funny in the role.

2021, dir. Destin Daniel Cretton. With Simu Liu, Awkwafina, Tony Leung, Meng'er Zhang, Fala Chen, Florian Munteanu, Benedict Wong, Michelle Yeoh, Ben Kingsley, Ronny Chieng, Andy Le, Yuen Wah.

Shanghai Kiss

I nearly gave up on this one because the main character, Liam Liu (Ken Leung) is an asshole, and it gets tiresome. It goes on for a long time, and the epiphany and shift is both late in coming and too blatant, too big, but the movie does recover some at that point. Liu is an aspiring actor in L.A., tangled up in a relationship with a 16 year old girl 12 years his junior (who's probably more mature than he is) when he inherits a house in Shanghai from a relative he didn't know and decides to move there.

Direct-to-video. Leung is excellent, Hayden Panettiere is very good, the script is okay. Don't rush out to get this, but it's not bad. Amusing nods to "X-Men: The Last Stand" (which Leung was in, saying here "Liam is my slave name" - and it was even a good joke in the context) and "Casablanca" ("not today, not tomorrow, but for the rest of your life ...").

2007, dir. Kern Konwiser, David Ren. With Ken Leung, Hayden Panettiere, Kelly Hu, Joel Moore, James Hong.

Shanghai Noon

Jackie Chan plays an imperial guard sent to rescue the errant Chinese princess who has escaped (into more trouble) in the American West. He runs into the outlaw Roy O'Bannon (Owen Wilson) several times, and they eventually and reluctantly team up.

The parts of the movie that aren't straight-forward plot development are almost all Wilson clowning around. I find the man deeply unfunny (but I like his brother, go figure), and disliked every scene the man was in. Worse, there aren't very many fights, and this movie is probably the turning point at which Chan started making movies less about acrobatic fighting and more about insanely painful stunts. Most memorable in this case is his falling down the inside of an under-construction church bell tower, hitting every plank and platform on the way down. If I wanted to see people absorbing pain, I'd watch Jackass.

2000, dir. Tom Dey. With Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson, Lucy Liu.

Shaolin

One of the new martial arts epics with a big cast of good actors, huge sets, and good cinematography. The sweeping tragedy of it reminded me considerably of Bollywood. I don't think a time was stated, but we have railroads, canons, and machine guns (although the latter are very new).

Andy Lau is Hou Jie, a warlord in the Dengfeng area. We see his brutal treatment of everyone around him, and his eventual fall. Literary irony finds him turning to the Shaolin temple he had previously disrespected for sanctuary.

While it's well done and I enjoyed it, it's not a great film and I'm not entirely sure of who to recommend it to. The martial arts is partly done on wires (hey, they're Shaolin monks). Probably works best as a story of war and repentance.

2011, dir. Benny Chan. With Andy Lau, Nicholas Tse, Jackie Chan, Xing Yu, Fan Bingbing, Wu Jing, Yu Hai, Hung Yan-yan.

Shaolin Soccer

Possibly the best martial arts movie spoof out there: a group of former Shaolin students get together to play soccer. The CGI and wirework soccer games are hilarious. I got a really interesting disc of this one from the video store: it had the original Chinese release and the American theatrical release both on the same disc, both dubbed or Cantonese with subtitles. The American edit is 25 minutes shorter - most of what was cut seems to be bizarre Chinese humour that doesn't fly too well on this continent. I didn't watch the whole American version, but it was pretty clear they'd managed to remove or modify some stuff they should have left alone as well - I'd recommend watching the Chinese version.

2001, dir. Stephen Chow. With Stephen Chow, Vicki Zhao, Man Tat Ng.

Shaolin Temple

An early Jet Li movie that sees him hiding out in a Shaolin Temple after his kung fu master father is killed by one of the generals in the brutal regime that's ruling at the time. Comedy ensues, although it gets serious (after its own fashion) toward the end to have a crack at that nasty regime.

Apparently this was Li's debut role - and even at this point, he looks pretty good on screen. But the story is awful, the effects terrible, and the acting atrocious: the martial arts aren't well enough presented to make it worth struggling through all that to watch them. Not the worst martial arts movie in the world (sadly not by a very long shot), but pretty terrible.

1982, dir. Chang Hsin Yen. With Jet Li.

Shaolin Wooden Men (aka "Shaolin Chamber of Death")

One of the earlier Jackie Chan movies in which he stars. Chan plays "Little Mute," a new Shaolin student who doesn't speak. Over time he learns Shaolin Kung Fu - but also the vicious Kung Fu of a gangster held prisoner in a cave by the monks, and the Gliding Snake style of a Buddhist Nun. To "graduate" from the school, he must survive several minutes in an alleyway populated by attacking wooden men.

Painfully traditional, but more importantly the fights are poor. If you want to see older Chan, watch the two directed by Yuen Woo-ping, "Snake in the Eagle's Shadow" and "Drunken Master." Both have a similar feel to this, but are far superior.

1976, dir. Chen Chi-Hwa. With Jackie Chan, Chiang Kam, Hwang Jang Lee, Kam Kong, Yuen Biao, Kim Kong, Lo Wei.

Sharknado

"Sharknado" is at 82% on Rotten Tomatoes, where the "Critical Consensus" says "Proudly, shamelessly, and gloriously brainless, Sharknado redefines 'so bad it's good' for a new generation." I used to love a good bad movie, but apparently I've lost my taste for it. I watched the whole thing, and was most impressed that they actually have more continuity errors than "Plan 9 from Outer Space," a record I thought would never be broken. This is mostly achieved by cutting from a view of the storm (gray skies, rain pouring down) to our heroes looking at and griping about the storm (sun and blue sky) and back again, repeatedly. Not as interesting as "Plan 9's" instantaneous day-night transitions and character costume mismatches. And not as entertaining either. For me, this was just "so bad it's bad."

2013, dir. Anthony C. Ferrante. With Ian Ziering, Jaason Simmons, Tara Reid, John Heard, Cassie Scerbo, Aubrey Peeples, Chuck Hittinger.

Sharkwater

Very much Rob Stewart's movie - he filmed it, directed, produced, and was on screen for much of it. It's about sharks, and the recent decimation of their populations across the world. Very few people like sharks - except Stewart - and so there are no laws about killing them and no one cares. He'd like to change that. He set out to tell you how beautiful and non-dangerous they actually are, and ended up ramming ships, getting arrested, running from the law and getting chased by Coast Guard with a machine gun, and nearly losing his leg to necrotizing fasciitis. The video is uneven, but some of the underwater footage is gorgeous. I agree with his goals, but I'm not sure about his part-time cohort Paul Watson, in charge of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. The movie certainly paints them as being in the right, but their methods are questionable. Still, Watson is definitely the most interesting person in the movie: a very intelligent guy, way out there politically.

2007, dir. Rob Stewart. With Rob Stewart, Paul Watson.

Sharpe's Movies

Richard Sharpe is a character created by Bernard Cornwell in a long series of books, all of which were titled Sharpe's <Something>. Sharpe was an orphan, and all he's known is the street and the army. At the beginning of the first movie (and book) he saves Wellington's life (technically "Sir Arthur Wellesley" at the time as he hadn't yet been given a title) when three French horsemen pursue him and nearly kill him. Wellington says "You've done me a damn good turn, sir. And now I'm going to do you a damn bad one: I'm giving you a field commission" (not verbatim, but quite close). This is a promotion, but much worse than it sounds: in the British army at the time, the officers were "gentlemen" who bought their commission or were given it because of their titles, and the army was made up of men like Sharpe: commoners with no name and no means. As an officer, Sharpe was no longer accepted by the men of the army, but was also never to be accepted by the other officers who saw him as a "jumped-up guttersnipe." He has a fierce temper, an excessive sense of honour, a very good brain, and a knack for killing - and even more importantly a knack for surviving. He's an appealing character.

The books spawned a long series of TV movies made by ITV in the UK starting in 1993, with titles that generally matched the book's ... although the plots don't quite have a one-to-one relationship with the books. I'm told the books are very good: I've only binge-watched all the movies. The first 15 were made in three seasons of five each, each one exactly 1h41m and the DVDs are at a rather odd display ratio of about 1.7:1 (rather than full widescreen at 1.78:1). The last two are oddities, made later, set in India, and showing Sharpe after his nominal retirement from the army.

  • "Sharpe's Rifles" (1993) is the first and the best. As with most series, the plot in which the protagonist becomes a hero is the best (this is why Marvel retcons and tells origin stories over and over ...). The production values are relatively low, but the actors are good and the script is outstanding. Highly recommended as a stand-alone movie!
  • "Sharpe's Gold" is one of the weakest, with Spaniards with Aztec practices hiding in the hills (and basically NOT Cornwell)
  • "Sharpe's Regiment" sees Sharpe back in England for the first time on film, trying to track down his new regiment - which turns out to be something of an accounting fiction. Except that the colonels and generals who cooked the books aren't happy to have their fiction uncovered. But being in England, the feel of the movie is quite different, although Sharpe is still struggling to solve a mystery. I didn't like it much.
  • "Sharpe's Justice" - post-war (but pre-Waterloo) he's back in England, and pitted against factory workers in the town where he was born - the people he came from
  • "Sharpe's Challenge" (2006) - immediately clear it's different: it's the first in full widescreen, and has a run-time of 2:18 whereas every other one was 1:41. It's also one of the weakest, with heavy-handed dialogue and improbable and convenient co-incidences.
  • "Sharpe's Peril" (2008) picks up days after "Challenge," with Sharpe and Harper's stay in India extended rather against their will. It's not Cornwell, but it's not too bad. 16:9, and we're back to 1h41m

I recommend watching the first, and possibly the second. My reluctance to recommend the rest comes in part from them being too dark for my taste (which probably isn't a problem for most people, it's a war after all), and a certain sense of sameness (despite generally good writing).

1993. With Sean Bean, Daragh O'Malley, Michael Mears, John Tams, Jason Salkey.

Shazam!

"Shazam" is one of the oldest of DC's stable of comic book heroes. He was originally a knock-off of Superman created by Fawcett comics, and DC's lawsuit made Fawcett cease publication - eventually DC got control of the character.

The story starts in the 1970s with Thaddeus Sivana being tested by the wizard Shazam (Djimon Hounsou) to see if he's worthy of the powers Shazam can give him. He's not, and Shazam casts him out. We jump forward to the present day to find Thaddeus (now played by Mark Strong) hasn't forgotten about the wizard or the power he represents. We also meet the 14- or 15-year-old Billy Batson (Asher Angel) as he's being moved into his Nth foster home (he's run away a lot, looking for the mother he lost when he was very young). Soon after, Billy ends up in the same cave where Thaddeus was rejected, and is imbued with the powers Thaddeus was considered unworthy of, becoming the hero Shazam (Zachary Levi). Hounsou gives a long recitation of the new hero's powers: most obvious is "the strength of Hercules," but one we'll get back to is "the wisdom of Solomon." Then follows a fairly long section of the movie in which an adult-looking superhero acts like a ten year old child (not a 14 year old) as he and his foster brother discover his abilities. But eventually he has to do some growing up as the evil Dr. Sivana comes into his power.

The movie is officially set in Philadelphia, but pretty much everything to do with public transit (including exterior shots around stations) were shot in Toronto (Lower Bay Station has appeared in 50+ movies over the years, including this one). I had fun playing name-that-place.

I watched a DVD extra some years ago that explained that when you're dealing with both younger and older versions of a person, you get the older one to learn the ticks of the younger one so they act alike. The reverse doesn't generally work because five year olds or twelve year olds aren't usually good actors. One of the things that bothered me the most about this movie was that Billy Batson was quiet, and Shazam (the superhero, not the wizard) wouldn't shut up. Asher Angel and Zachary Levi are good choices as the teen and the magically enlarged teen/superhero respectively as they're similar in appearance and movement ... but they should have made Billy talk more and Shazam less so their behaviour would meet in the middle. Obviously this is more a failing of the script than the actors. The other thing that really bothered me was all of the silliness as Shazam is learning his powers. I get he's just a kid ... but in the original comics he had access to "the wisdom of Solomon." Trust me, he ain't using that in this movie.

Overall it was fun and amusing, but its lack of depth means I'm unlikely to ever revisit it. For comparison, I've already re-watched the equally nutty "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse" twice because it's so well and thoughtfully constructed.

2019, dir. David F. Sandberg. With Zachary Levi, Mark Strong, Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, Djimon Hounsou, Grace Fulton.

Shazam! The Fury of the Gods

I kind of enjoyed the original movie: it was silly but fun.

This movie leans even harder than the original into the teen awkwardness - trying to milk laughs both from our adopted family's internal dynamics and problems at school and from adult superheroes who are mentally teens saying silly things. The divergence between the behaviour of Billy Batson (Asher Angel) and Shazam (Zachary Levi) - who are supposed to be the same person - has diverged even further: Billy is a kind of quiet, fairly sensible 17 year old, but when he becomes Shazam, he's a motor-mouthed 12 year old (in Levi's body). With the rest of the Shazam family, they try to make their behaviour as "adult" superheroes mirror their child-state behaviour, but the Levi-Angel split that was visible in the first movie has been made even more apparent in this movie. Which doesn't really make sense: the point of the humour seemed to be that we have adult-looking superheroes who act their actual mental age ... but "Shazam" is actually saner and quieter as a teenager?

Our antagonists this time are Helen Mirren (slumming, but maybe it sounded fun to play a god) and Lucy Liu, both playing daughters of the Titan Atlas. They're out to reclaim their powers - which, it turns out, the Shazam family are powered by. Not that the two goddesses are short on powers to start with. There's a huge dragon, there are monsters, there's an intelligent pen that writes them notes, there are unicorns. And there are product placements: a stinking massive one for Skittles, but it certainly wasn't the only one - we also get chips (I forget which kind) and "The Fast and the Furious" franchise. And at the end, Gal Gadot/Wonder Woman puts in a seriously deus ex machina cameo - to solve the problems the writers couldn't figure out how to handle otherwise (that's what "deus ex machina" is for, right?).

I added a blurb in my blog for this one: "Sequelitis: when somebody had to go number two."

2023, dir. David F. Sandberg. With Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, Adam Brody, Rachel Zegler, Ian Chen, Ross Butler, Jovan Armand, D. J. Cotrona, Grace Fulton, Meagan Good, Faithe Herman, Lucy Liu, Djimon Hounsou, Helen Mirren.

She Done Him Wrong

I saw this at the library and thought "I really should see at least one Mae West film." My first reaction to her was that she wasn't very attractive - after the first five minutes of the movie were spent telling us how attractive she is, and my second reaction was "my God, what an appalling accent!" However. They did give her some great lines, and nobody delivered them better. Cary Grant is slathered in make-up, and showing early signs of rising to his later iconic status in this, his second starring role.

I was also fascinated by how close the movie was to its Vaudeville roots, with singers and musical numbers and comedy. Acting wasn't really a part of it, just delivering lines.

1933, dir. Lowell Sherman. With Mae West, Cary Grant, Owen Moore, Gilbert Roland, Noah Beery.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (Season 1)

Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany) is a lawyer, and Bruce Banner's cousin (Bruce is still Mark Ruffalo). In a car accident that involves both of them, she gets some of his blood in her bloodstream and, well, "Hulks out" - although she retains a great deal more rationality than Bruce did initially. This first season consists of nine episodes of about 30 minutes each. Wikipedia describes the She-Hulk comic book: "... she often breaks the fourth wall for humorous effect and running gags." And yeah, the TV series has got that. Just like "Deadpool" - but less foul-mouthed and violent. Or maybe it's "Hawkeye" with more self-awareness ... either way, it's Marvel recycling ideas they've already used.

Jennifer Walters tells us that she doesn't want to be a superhero, she doesn't want the attention. She's determined to just return to her regular life. And yet by the end of the first episode the truth is (of course) revealed to the world at large. And here I stumble over the show's hypocrisy: she says she doesn't want the attention, and then turns to the camera and explains things to her audience of millions. Just a little self-contradictory.

The show spends nearly all its time mocking anything and everyone that comes on screen. So much so that when it tries to make emotional points or have character breakthroughs ... they miss their target. The most obvious place this occurs is with Jennifer's family - who are so objectionable (for comedy, of course ... except I didn't find them funny) that her continued involvement with them makes no sense at all. A close second is when she's more or less forced to join a retreat - the writers try to show her having an emotional breakthrough, but they've worked so hard to make everyone around her complete caricatures that it's pretty much impossible to buy into.

There are still issues with the technology that turns actors into big green characters: She-Hulk always moves a little awkwardly, suspiciously like someone walking on short stilts when she should look graceful and natural. And her face never looked quite right to me. James Cameron's "Avatar" proved this could be done ... but while Marvel TV probably has the financial resources to work at that level, it might bankrupt even them to do so. So we get a green face with a touch of the uncanny valley.

The ninth and final episode of the season sees her talking to the camera even more, and ultimately deciding to break out of the show itself (into what's supposed to be your streaming service interface) to re-arrange the plot. This truly over-the-top fourth-wall break was "quirky" but not actually funny, and added pretty much nothing to the series. It also convinced me that they can go where they want in future, I won't be returning. I don't mind "meta" if it's handled well: this just ... wasn't.

2022. With Tatiana Maslany, Jameela Jamil, Ginger Gonzaga, Mark Ruffalo, Josh Segarra, Mark Linn-Baker, Tess Malis Kincaid, Tim Roth, Megan Thee Stallion, Benedict Wong, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Jon Bass, Charlie Cox.

She Never Died

There was a film in 2015 called "He Never Died," starring Henry Rollins as Cain. Yes, the biblical figure, and it's set in the modern day. Evidently it was the intention of the director of that movie, Jason Krawczyk, to expand that universe. Wikipedia says of this movie that it "is intended as a follow up sister-sequel to ... 'He Never Died.'" I loved "He Never Died," so I tracked this one down. Our main character is Lacey (Olunike Adeliyi), who is also grumpy in the mornings (like Cain), likes to eat human flesh (just as Cain was cursed to do), and is unkillable (same as Cain).

We first meet her as a shadowy figure rescuing a woman who was apparently about to be kidnapped (it had immediately been established that a lot of women were going missing in this city). Except that the rescue seems somewhat incidental to the mayhem she inflicts on the kidnappers, which seems to be the main point.

When we first meet her, she's homeless. She's also not very subtle, and crosses paths with an aging police detective who isn't overly concerned that she eats people so long as she eats the ones he wants, and he gives her a place to stay. And that leads to her "rescuing" another girl, who is somewhere between terrified and grateful - and insists on hanging around with her.

Wikipedia calls this a "horror comedy." There's a bit of comedy, black as midnight. Lacey has only two moods: emotionless calm mixed with slight annoyance and hungry killing rage (I kept thinking "you wouldn't like me when I'm angry," which kind of changed the tone ...). This one is a bit gorier than the previous one. I found Rollins' Cain significantly more appealing than Adeliyi's character - because Cain talks more, and we know more about him so it's possible to have some sympathy for him. He also makes an effort not to eat people - which doesn't concern Lacey in the slightest. Lacey barely talks at all, and the revelation of her true identity is left for the very end of the film so we don't get the chance to put it in context with her character as we get to know her (not that we ever do). And she eats drug users not because it's morally better, but because they taste better. But at the end of the movie we're supposed to like her? I liked Cain - I didn't want to be anywhere near him, but I felt like I had some understanding of him and he had a moral compass. Lacey has none.

This movie would make less sense if you hadn't seen the previous movie. And their attempt to set up another sequel hints you should see both, but I wouldn't hold your breath for that sequel. I'm also against the critics on this one: I like the previous one better.

A couple small footnotes: this is a Canadian movie, filmed in North Bay. And Lacey's not a canonical Biblical character, more of a mythological one - I preferred the biblical one, easier to get the reference.

2019, dir. Audrey Cummings. With Olunike Adeliyi, Peter MacNeill, Kiana Madeira, Michelle Nolden, Noah Dalton Danby, Edsson Morales, Katie Messina, Murray Furrow, Lawrence Gowan, Nick Stojanovic.

She Said

No doubt you think Harvey Weinstein is a reprehensible human being. What this movie brings home is the sheer scope of the institutionalized protection that enabled his horrible behaviour for 30 years. This is a biographical drama movie based on the book of the same name by reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey.

Carey Mulligan is Twohey and Zoe Kazan is Kantor, the New York Times reporters who eventually broke the Weinstein story. Both are shown as recent mothers, struggling to balance family and work. Their investigation starts with Rose McGowan (voiced by Keilly McQuail, we never see her). McGowan - as many will remember - was the woman who made public the story of her sexual assault by Harvey Weinstein. An act for which she was attacked and discredited. Twohey and Kantor pursue the story, following leads even to other continents, dig into multiple non-disclosure agreements and settlements. The story focuses mostly on the women and their stories, rather than on Weinstein. Somebody plays the back of Weinstein's head for about a minute near the end of the movie.

A comparison to "Spotlight" sprang to mind immediately. The comparison is hard to avoid: both are about real, long-term newspaper investigations into massive cover-ups of sexual assault. "Spotlight" is about multiple Catholic priests, This movie is about a single man. Both reached back decades. This movie suffers in comparison, but I think "Spotlight" is one of the greatest movies ever made. This is nevertheless a very good (and important) movie. (Also in this genre of long-term research newspaper stories is "The Post," which I haven't seen.)

2022, dir. Maria Schrader. With Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan, Patricia Clarkson, Andre Braugher, Jennifer Ehle, Samantha Morton, Ashley Judd, Zach Grenier, Peter Friedman.

The Sheik

I only managed to watch about 30 minutes of this. Most famous simply for Rudolph Valentino's looks, I couldn't see much else about it worth seeing - and Valentino didn't even strike me as that good looking. The "Image Entertainment" DVD I was watching shows different parts of the movie in different shades: some with a light purple tint, then orange, then yellow. Why, I have no idea. And it certainly didn't add to the experience.

1921, dir. George Melford. With Rudolph Valentino, Agnes Ayres.

She's the Man

I rented this based on my respect for "10 Things I Hate About You," which is written by the same scriptwriters. Both are teen flicks set in high school based on Shakespeare plays. Doesn't sound too promising, but an extremely witty script kept "Ten Things ..." afloat. Unfortunately the majority of this movie is spent on fish-out-of-water humour, with Amanda Bynes pretending to be a boy at her brother's new school so she can play soccer. The relationship to the original play ("Twelfth Night," in this case) is even more stretched than it was in "Ten Things ...", and the effort is considerably less successful.

2006, dir. Andy Fickman. With Amanda Bynes, Channing Tatum, Laura Ramsey, David Cross, James Snyder.

Sherlock, Season 1

The BBC turned a couple of guys who are utterly obsessed with the original Sherlock Holmes books loose on creating a modern-day Sherlock. And thus we have Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Watson, solving crimes in 2010 London.

We meet Dr. Watson first, short on money on an army pension, sent home injured from Afghanistan. He's in need of a roommate, and an old friend points him to Sherlock, whose powers of observation, intellect, and ego far exceed those of most mortals. Watson seems to have a slightly higher tolerance for Holmes' arrogance than most plus a bit of an adrenaline addiction, and ends up helping Sherlock out on cases as well as rooming with him.

The first episode (there are three in the "season," each 90 minutes) introduces us to the characters very effectively, along with the witty banter and an interesting serial killer. I enjoyed it immensely.

Unfortunately, the second and third episodes are overloaded with "clever" and lose out on the humanity of the first one. The cases are complex and somewhat interesting, but the attempts at character development are weak, and the final product is amazingly cold and distant given the strength of the first episode.

2020 Update: in the years since, the first episode has become one of my favourite "movies:" I've rewatched it several times. But I pass on the rest of the series.

2010. With Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Rupert Graves.

Sherlock Season 2, Episode 1: "A Scandal in Belgravia"

Rarely have I anticipated a TV show as much as this one. While I wasn't keen on the second and third episodes of season 1, I thought the writers might get it together for a new season. Given my anticipation and that each episode runs 90 minutes, I'm going to review this season's episodes individually.

The previous season's cliffhanger with Moriarty (Andrew Scott) is resolved fairly gracelessly - there's rarely a good way out of such things. But from there the episode moves along nicely, showing some of Holmes' (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Watson's (Martin Freeman) day-to-day life, with Watson's blog about Holmes' cases attracting customers, and Watson pointing out that Holmes' website is less effective in doing so with its description of the 240 types of tobacco ash ...

We're introduced to Irene Adler (Lara Pulver) - in this incarnation, a dominatrix with an extremely compromising client list and collection of photos. She also has a mind very nearly as sharp as Sherlock, Moriarty, and Mycroft (Mark Gatiss). As expected, she and Sherlock are simultaneously having a battle of wits and flirting.

The episode addresses Sherlock's apparent utter lack of concern for the emotions and physical well-being of others. It's also hysterically funny in places, and has some nice references to its source material (there's a wonderful bit with a deerstalker). The biggest case they handle during the episode occurs in fits and starts, with bits sticking out all over and poor narrative flow. And yet the episode is quite satisfactory, in large part because of the character elements - the kind of material that made the first episode of the first season better than the ones that followed. It'll be interesting to see where they go from here.

2012, dir. Paul McGuigan. With Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Lara Pulver, Mark Gatiss, Andrew Scott, Una Stubbs, Rupert Graves.

Sherlock Season 2, Episode 2: "The Hounds of Baskerville"

Sherlock is bored out of his skull, desperately searching for either an interesting case ... or a pack of smokes. What turns up (and makes him forget smoking) is a fantastically huge hound that may have killed someone 20 years prior near the Baskerville military facility. The mystery isn't the best they've managed, but the characters play out well and I enjoyed the episode.

2012, dir. Paul McGuigan. With Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Una Stubbs, Rupert Graves.

Sherlock Season 2, Episode 3: "The Reichenbach Fall"

Sherlock has a series of high profile successes, and Moriarty eventually decides it's time for Sherlock to take a fall. Through a series of machinations, he makes Sherlock look bad in the press and entirely lose the trust of the police.

I found some logical problems with the ending, but as they've happily continued to focus on character as well as mystery in this episode, it was still quite enjoyable. I'm happy to hear that the third series has been green-lighted.

2012, dir. Paul McGuigan. With Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Andrew Scott, Mark Gatiss, Una Stubbs, Rupert Graves.

Sherlock, Season 3

SPOILER ALERT! (ie. stop reading now etc.) The first episode was more scene-setting (Sherlock's return, what he'd been doing, how he faked his death, Watson's new life) than mystery. The second episode was primarily about Watson's wedding, but included a couple mysteries. The filming has become much more frenetic in this latest season, zooming, swooping, cutting between scenes. Sherlock's whole best man speech (during which he had to solve a mystery and save a life) was mildly over-the-top but very entertaining. But the final episode jumped the shark as the writers succumbed to a revered American TV and movie tradition: "it's got to be personal." So Watson, Sherlock, and Watson's wife are all under threat (and the wife turns out to be not what anyone thought at all). And in the end, Sherlock sacrifices himself (not his life, but his liberty) - very noble, but pretty stupid. And not very Sherlock. Sherlock is about solving apparently impossible mysteries, and unless "the woman" (Irene Adler) or Moriarty are around, it ain't personal. And I'm good with that. In fact, I think it was an incredibly weak choice to go so personal.

2014, dir. Paul McGuigan. With Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Andrew Scott, Mark Gatiss, Una Stubbs, Rupert Graves, Lars Mikkelsen, Louise Brealey, Amanda Abbington.

Sherlock: The Abominable Bride

On January 1, 2016, "Sherlock: The Abominable Bride" was shown on the BBC. This is a one-off after the third series and not part of the upcoming fourth series. It was notorious before it even hit screens because it threw Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Watson (Martin Freeman) back to Arthur Conan Doyle's time - even though the entire three series prior had been set in the modern day. The weird thing is ... once you watch this, you'll find it's actually in sequence. Unfortunately, I can't explain that without revealing a whole bunch of spoilers.

The show starts by recapping the meeting of Holmes and Watson - almost identical to that in the very first episode, but all set circa 1890. And so it goes, with most of our current characters all showing up, Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson being most visible. We jump forward, with Holmes an established detective in large part because of Holmes's various stories in (or at least advertised in) The Strand. But the case of interest is, of course, "The Abominable Bride." The script goes out of its way to emphasize the sexism of the period, which becomes an important issue.

I have to admit that I deeply loved the first episode of the first season ("A Study in Pink"), and haven't felt that any of the intervening episodes have come remotely close to that one. This one is pretty weird, and has some distinctly interesting elements. The end product gave me very mixed feelings - I guess that probably means it's worth watching.

2014, dir. Douglas Mackinnon. With Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Andrew Scott, Mark Gatiss, Una Stubbs, Rupert Graves, Natasha O'Keefe.

Sherlock, Season 4

Season 4 of "Sherlock" consists of three episodes: "The Six Thatchers," "The Lying Detective," and "The Final Problem."

Sherlock Holmes is a detective, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Conan Doyle did, on a couple occasions, put Sherlock in direct personal danger (Moriarty), but most of the stories were about Sherlock solving cases. But Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, the people behind this modern re-imagining of Sherlock, didn't feel this was enough. Every episode is now about one of the main players being in deep personal danger. And there are deaths - and unbelievably narrow escapes, in every episode. I'm entirely failing to see what's the problem with having Sherlock solving problems at arm's length: it was an extremely successful formula for Conan Doyle. I suppose that Moffat and Gatiss have made it more personal from the start, but not like this. Two episodes in high gear with full, in-your-face absurdity and cliff-hangers between episodes has done me in.

The series started in 2010 with "A Study in Pink," which gave us what amounted to "the origin story" of Holmes and Watson, as they meet, become flat-mates, and learn each other's strengths and weaknesses. I've made it this far into the series because I thought "A Study in Pink" was one of the best stand-alone detective movies ever made.

I made it through to the end of season 4, episode 2, and have no intention whatsoever of finding out about the third (non-canon) sibling we've been introduced to who appears in episode 3. I'm done with the show.

2017. With Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Toby Jones, Mark Gatiss, Una Stubbs, Rupert Graves, Amanda Abbington.

Sherlock Holmes

Like every other franchise, "Sherlock Holmes" gets re-imagined and kick-started. In this case, by Guy Ritchie who has decided that Holmes and Watson are action heroes. Holmes, when not on a case, is depressed and performs bizarre experiments. Watson (happily more intelligent than he was in the original) has a significant gambling problem and a fiancée.

Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law are very good in the leads, and the primary mystery (with Mark Strong playing Lord Blackwood, apparently using black magic to take over the world) is reasonably well worked out. But I found a significant logical breakdown in one of the early set pieces, in which Holmes chooses to get into a betting fist fight. He later tells Watson "I placed your customary bet," which implies he fought regularly so there was no reason the audience would be so stunned at the outcome of the fight.

I found the movie enjoyable for the interplay between Downey and Law (and to a lesser extent Downey and Rachel McAdams), but overall not a particularly great experience.

2009, dir. Guy Ritchie. With Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong, Kelly Reilly, Eddie Marsan, Hans Matheson, James Fox, Robert Maillet.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Guy Ritchie continues his action version of Holmes and Watson with all the major characters returning and Stephen Fry taking the part of Mycroft Holmes. This time the major villain is Moriarty (Jared Harris). The action is almost non-stop, with "Bullet Time" or its modern equivalent playing a fairly major part in later action sequences. The intellectual acumen of the two main players (Holmes and Moriarty) is at times entertaining, and Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law are clearly having fun as Holmes and Watson with the wonderful Noomi Rapace thrown in for seasoning, but the never-ending action was tiresome and the conclusion mildly disappointing.

2011, dir. Guy Ritchie. With Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, Jared Harris, Noomi Rapace, Stephen Fry, Rachel McAdams, Kelly Reilly, Paul Anderson, Eddie Marsan.

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking

An interesting Sherlock Holmes movie, caught as it is between the age of Jeremy Brett (who played the role from 1984 to 1994) and the modern age of a dozen Sherlocks which started in 2009 with Robert Downey Jr. in the nasty "Sherlock Holmes," and includes Benedict Cumberbatch (2010 on) and Jonny Lee Miller (2012 on).

In this 2004 production shot entirely in heavy fog, Rupert Everett tackles the role of Holmes with Ian Hart as Dr. Watson. We start late in their history together, with Watson leaving his American fiancée's side to take Holmes a mystery he hopes will bring his friend out of his opium den and his boredom. Everett is quite good as Holmes, Hart is good as Watson, Neil Dudgeon is fine as Lestrade ... but they decided to go with a non-canon story, and it isn't great. Not terrible, but not great.

They were also burdened with an early performance by Michael Fassbender. At the time I'm sure it didn't seem like a burden, and the problem isn't his acting, which is fine. The problem is that we now know him to be a star, and when the camera lingers on him, it screams out "this man is important!" even as he does mundane things. It broke a major plot point very early.

2004, dir. Simon Cellan Jones. With Rupert Everett, Ian Hart, Nicholas Palliser, Neil Dudgeon, Anne Carroll, Tasmin Egerton, Perdita Weeks, Jennifer Moule, Eleanor David, Michael Fassbender, Jonathan Hyde, Helen McCrory.

Sherlock Holmes and the Great Escape

An animated children's movie set in a world populated by anthropomorphized animals, mostly dogs. The technology we see is approximately that of our world in 1900. Sherlock Holmes is a dog detective pursuing "White Storm," a Robin-Hood-like character (another dog) who steals from the rich and gives to the poor. I think I watched this because of the implied connection with "Sherlock Hound," one of Hayao Miyazaki's earliest works (1984, a TV series he directed the first few episodes of). That association is only an implication: this is a recent Chinese production (I watched it with English voices) that has no association with the other series.

The movie uses clues and Sherlock's detective skills to insert educational science moments: the one I remember most was the last in the film, where changes in air pressure in our eardrums from rapidly changing altitude was explained. I thought this was done surprisingly well, all things considered. It is, overall, rather charming and a likeable movie.

One failing (to my mind) is a scene part way through the closing credits which sets up Moriarty as an upcoming Sherlock adversary for a sequel. Bizarre and unnecessary.

2019, dir. Matthew Chow, Toe Yuen. With Robbie Daymond, David Errigo Jr., Kevin M. Connolly, Greg Chun, Jason Marnocha, Erica Mendez, Abby Trott.

Sherlock Hound, Case File 1

Proof positive that not everything Hayao Miyazaki touches is gold. In a world that looks like London around 1900, the dominant "people" are dog-like, and Sherlock Hound is assisted in his detection of wrong-doing by Dr. Watson. Aimed squarely at the 7-10 crowd with nothing remarkable about it. This would appear to be a normal low budget Japanese anime TV series that only made it across the Pacific because of Miyazaki's name.

1984, dir. Hayao Miyazaki, Kyosuke Mikuriya. With Taichirō Hirokawa, Kōsei Tomita.

Sherlock Jr.

One of Buster Keaton's most inventive films. These days it doesn't look quite as clever because every visual gag in it has been strip-mined by every comedy since, but when viewed with the time period in mind, it's a breath-taking piece of work. Keaton plays a movie projectionist who wants to be a detective. He falls asleep, and his ghost goes to work to save the damsel in distress in the movie - he dives into the movie, straight through the screen, gets kicked out, dives back in again, falls down - several times, etc. Some of his best work.

1924, dir. Buster Keaton. With Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire, Joe Keaton, Erwin Connelly, Ward Crane.

Shetland, Season 1

I'm using the Netflix "seasons" terminology: eight episodes (about 55 minutes each) in what they call the first season. ITV in Britain, who made the series, broadcast the first two episodes as "Series 1" and the next six episodes as "Series 2," but Netflix has mashed them together into "Season 1." This is made up of four sets of two episodes, each of which covers one of the source Ann Cleeves' books, in order "Red Bones," "Raven Black," "Dead Water," "Blue Lightning."

Our main character is Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez (Douglas Henshall), who is the lead police officer for the Shetland Islands. For those interested, the current population of those cold and isolated northern Scottish islands was roughly 23,000 in 2019. And one of the points the show makes is that Perez only sort of has access to modern technology. He's got a local doctor rather than a forensic pathologist ... or he can wait several days as the body is shipped to the mainland for more official results. And because it's such a small community, he knows many of the people, and everybody is in everybody else's business all the time - especially on the smaller islands.

Like most mystery writers, Cleeves seems to be fond of red herrings: a bit more than I'd prefer, but not unreasonable in the context of the police work. She also seems to like her murders in pairs: one person dies near the beginning to get the story line moving, and near the halfway mark, as a consequence, someone else dies.

With the mild complaints aired out, Henshall is very good in the lead, gets good support from the other actors, and has pretty good mysteries to solve. But starting with Netflix's "Season 2" (actually "Series 3"), they switch to six episode story arcs, which I may find annoyingly long - I was happy with two-episodes-and-wrapped-up. We'll see.

2013, 2014. With Douglas Henshall, Alison O'Donnell, Steven Robertson, Mark Bonnar, Julie Graham, Lewis Howden, Erin Armstrong, Annie Kidd.

Shetland, Season 2

Season 1 above was actually "Series 1" and "Series 2" by the original British labelling. Netflix calls the British Series 3 "Season 2" and that's what I'm reviewing here. There's a change of format this time: the story arc lasts for six episodes of 55 minutes each, whereas previously the story arcs lasted only two episodes. This one is darker and more personal, with Jimmy Perez's family and friends being threatened by the criminal(s) he's investigating.

It seems the show has picked up either credibility or cash, as it had quite an array of names this time: Ciarán Hinds, Saskia Reeves, Archie Panjabi, James Cosmo.

The series starts with a young man in a short argument with an older man on the ferry to Shetland. A young woman approaches the young man to make sure he's alright, and they end up flirting. But when she awakes in the morning, the young man has vanished, and never gets off the ferry - so she reports to the police. This sets off a string of events, including the older man and eventually police and criminals in Glasgow as well.

Unfortunately, I have a LOT of issues with this series. The first is the darker tone: not something I want during the pandemic. The rest have to do with logic and structure.

The omniscient viewpoint lies to us. As an example (not what happens in this series, but similar): we watch a person for a while, then we see them settle in to read a book. We cut away. We cut back to the person reading their book, later. We find out after that a terrible event happened in the middle. It's very strongly implied that the omniscient viewpoint would tell us everything that happened to the person in that time period because we were following them. We trust the camera, and because of that we believe we know what happened to the person - but we don't. I don't think I'm explaining this well: I'm okay with not guessing the ending because I didn't piece together the clues I was given correctly, but in this case it felt like they had deliberately lied and misled us with the camera, which isn't a good way to construct a murder mystery.

Jimmy Perez (Douglas Henschall) in the second episode is knocked down and struck - not once, but twice in less than a minute - by a skinny kid, and I sat there thinking "okay, this is them blatantly telling us the man can't fight." But in the third episode he easily takes out a guy who's hired muscle for a Glaswegian crime kingpin - and weighs as much as Perez and the kid combined. It just didn't make sense.

Finally, how was Tosh lied to at the airport? There were big sign boards and at least a couple public announcements saying that Tosh's flight was delayed. And yet it apparently went on time. Yeah, she thought the guy was cute, but she didn't deliberately skip her flight and that means a level of orchestration (taking over signage and announcements for a long period of time) worthy of a villain in a James Bond movie. Again, doesn't make sense.

Disappointing.

2016. With Douglas Henshall, Alison O'Donnell, Steven Robertson, Mark Bonnar, Julie Graham, Lewis Howden, Erin Armstrong, Ciarán Hinds, Saskia Reeves, Sara Vickers, Archie Panjabi, James Cosmo, Andrew Rothney, Anna Chancellor, Annie Kidd.

Shin Godzilla

This is not a movie about a giant monster. This is a movie about how a government would respond to an attack on their country by a giant monster. It's so very not Hollywood (and significantly anti-American) that it's quite refreshing to watch. Although one of the expectations I have, having grown up with Hollywood movies, is that the movie should focus on particular people. Instead, this movie just moves around to whoever the current important committee, policy-maker or politician is. It's not about the monster, it's not about people, it's about ... government. And yet it's a surprisingly enjoyable film.

This is produced by Toho, the company that brought Godzilla to the world in the 1950s, and created multiple spin-off movies through the 1960s. And yet early in the film someone says (paraphrased) "we don't know what to do - a giant monster has never attacked Tokyo before!" Really, Toho? Ignoring your entire back catalogue?

The movie opens on an abandoned boat in Tokyo harbour, which is shortly demolished by a massive fountain of water from underneath. Soon after, a very weird monster (who looks almost nothing like the classic Godzilla) crawls out of the water and starts thrashing its way through Tokyo. But what does the movie concentrate on? Not the destruction (although we get quite a few shots of that - fairly lo-fi, they didn't go Hollywood on that either), not individual stories of tragedy or triumph ... but instead the government, the prime minister, and various committees trying to figure out what the hell to do about this evolving horror show. As odd as it is, it's also fairly interesting as we watch them deal with the conundrums: will a military attack stop it? What about the collateral damage - have we evacuated all the civilians? How do we respond to an "offer" (more of a threat) from the U.N. of a massive military strike in our primary population centre because they consider the monster a threat to the entire world?

Strange, but fairly good. Recommended to fans of science fiction and Godzilla, although perhaps not those who are looking for a mindless action movie.

2016, dir. Hideaki Anno. With Hiroki Hasegawa, Yutaka Takenouchi, Satomi Ishihara.

The Shipping News

Based on a reportedly excellent and award-winning book of the same name, this is a superb movie. See the movie first though: fans of the book disapprove of some of the changes (primarily the two main characters being reasonably attractive - not the way they were painted in the book). It's about the recovery of self respect, and shows a very slow (and therefore more believable) recovery. Newfoundland plays quite a role, and looks great. Judi Dench is particularly superb in her supporting role, although everyone is excellent. Highly recommended.

2001. dir. Lasse Hallström. With Kevin Spacey, Julianne Moore, Judi Dench, Cate Blanchett, Pete Postlethwaite, Scott Glenn, Rhys Ifans, Gordon Pinsent.

Shirley Valentine

Shirley Valentine (played by Pauline Collins) is a lower class middle-aged British housewife with two grown children and a husband who ignores her (except when he needs dinner). When an opportunity to go to Greece with a friend comes up, she's both terrified and fascinated. She goes, and finds out that her life, contrary to her perceptions in the suburbs of England, is not yet over. She falls in love with Greece, has an affair with a bar owner (Tom Conti), and stays considerably longer than she was supposed to, much to the confusion of her husband.

Based on a British one-woman stage play that also starred Collins - it must have been radically different, primarily because it was one person, but also because it was a before-and-after thing, whereas much of the movie plays out in a very lovely location in Greece.

Collins is very good, but I was a bit unhappy with the character of Shirley, who talks to the camera too much. I liked her self-awareness, but found her too annoying at times. Conti was very good, even putting on a mediocre Greek accent.

1989, dir. Lewis Gilbert. With Pauline Collins, Tom Conti, Alison Steadman, Julia McKenzie, Joanna Lumley.

Shoot 'Em Up

When a movie can make "Crank" look articulate and artistic, you know you have a masterpiece on your hands. Clive Owen chomps carrots. Monica Bellucci gives breast milk and blow jobs. There are so many incredibly bad puns that the old James Bond scriptwriters would wince in pain. The director was inspired by John Woo, but Woo's creative mayhem this is not. My only excuse for watching this shit is that both Owen and Paul Giamatti are very good actors. I'm sure they had fun making this, but I hope they have the decency to be embarrassed.

2007, dir. Michael Davis. With Clive Owen, Paul Giamatti, Monica Bellucci, Stephen McHattie, Greg Bryk, Daniel Pilon.

Shooter

Mark Wahlberg plays a retired (but young) army sniper drawn out of retirement by his honour ... and promptly framed for it. You know the drill: honourable innocent man has to prove his innocence. But as these things go, it's pretty entertaining, although maybe a little harsh. Kate Mara is very hot (and gratuitously partially undressed), and Peña gets in the best performance of the show as a slightly goofy but intelligent new recruit who turns out to have the balls when the time comes.

2007, dir. Antoine Fuqua. With Mark Wahlberg, Michael Peña, Danny Glover, Kate Mara, Elias Koteas, Ned Beatty.

Shooting Fish

Dylan (Dan Futterman) and Jez (Stuart Townsend) are a pair of orphans in their twenties who are conning their way to a couple million pounds so they can buy a "stately home" to live in - the kind they never had as children. They hire Georgie (Kate Beckinsale) to help with typing services on the first scam we see, and they both fall for her. She's not a con man, but isn't entirely honest with them either.

I found the comedy a bit slow to get started, but it was often surprisingly clever and all three of the leads are quite charming. The ending is even less realistic than the rest, but remains squarely in "charming." Not worth going to see, but if it lands in your lap it's not a bad way to spend a couple hours.

1997, dir. Stefan Schwartz. With Dan Futterman, Stuart Townsend, Kate Beckinsale.

Shooting the Past

Wow, a LIBRARIAN'S movie. This is so much about collections and librarians I have a hard time imagining that it would appeal to anyone else. I mean, our big plot point is the threat of destruction of a collection of 10 million photographs. Certainly this would be a loss, but the only people in the world who get excited over such a thing are librarians, so I have trouble imagining anyone else maintaining interest for the 150 minute run time. Although there are certainly some beautiful photos. But if you are a librarian ... it's pretty entertaining. Spall is great - he accurately calls himself "a scruffy, irritating prat," but he simultaneously embodies the skills of a superb librarian: he can follow the faintest trail of information through an immense collection of photos to find a person across years, a family across generations. Made for TV, Masterpiece Theatre.

1999, dir. Stephen Poliakoff. With Lindsay Duncan, Timothy Spall, Liam Cunningham, Billie Whitelaw, Emilia Fox.

The Shop Around the Corner

A well-known goofy romantic comedy based on the play "Parfumerie" by Miklós László. The play is set in László's hometown of Budapest with the odd result that the American cast uses Hungarian names, reads Hungarian papers, uses Hungarian currency, and speaks English.

Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) and Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan) are two employees at Matuschek and Company. They come to detest each other in person while each is simultaneously falling in love with an anonymous pen pal ... that will eventually turn out to be the person they detest.

Events in the movie were subversive enough that I began to wonder if this was really going to reach a romantic comedy ending - an enjoyable twist on the whole genre.

1940, dir. Ernst Lubitsch. With James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan, Frank Morgan, Felix Bressart, William Tracy, Joseph Schildkraut.

Shopgirl

Written and produced by Steve Martin, certainly feels like one of his products. I don't like his humour, and I particularly don't like his characters who are too heavily flawed to remain likable. Martin remains in love with his home town of Los Angeles, and it's painted in glowing colours (someone messed with the colour saturation and balance in many of the shots). The story sees depressed and lonely salesgirl Claire Danes courted by the goofy and not terribly bright Jason Schwartzman, and the suave and distant Martin.

2005, dir. Anand Tucker. With Claire Danes, Steve Martin, Jason Schwartzman, Bridgette Wilson.

Shortbus

I'm all for sex in the movies, but perhaps not sex as a movie, especially when the moral seems to be that if you've got sex problems they can all be solved by deviant sex acts. Sex is a part of everyone's lives (even if it's only thinking about it), so yes, it should take a more prominent place in movies. But this massively overplays its hand.

2006, dir. John Cameron Mitchell. With Sook-Yin Lee, Paul Dawson, Lindsay Beamish, PJ DeBoy, Raphael Barker, Peter Stickles, Jay Brannan.

The Show

Surreal / Absurd content from writer Alan Moore, who also acted as one of the strangest characters in the movie. Fletcher Dennis (Tom Burke) arrives in Northampton, looking for James Mitchum - and the expensive cross he wears. As he looks, he encounters a librarian who hacks computer systems and occasionally dresses as a superhero to do it, and a couple of ten year old kids who run a (surprisingly effective) detective agency. But that's not the real point: the real show is the dreams that he and the reporter he starts working with keep having, which include long dead people but real world intentions ...

I sometimes like surreal stuff like this (which is why I keep watching it), but more often than not recently it's caught me the wrong way. This was ... interesting, but a bit too weird without a solid point. Not really my thing.

2022, dir. Mitch Jenkins. With Tom Burke, Siobhan Hewlett, Ellie Bamber, Alan Moore, Sheila Atim, Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Richard Dillane, Christopher Fairbank, Darrell D'Silva, Bradley John.

Shrek

Not sure I need to say much about this: it's hysterically funny, I own it, I've seen it a dozen times. There's kid humour and there's adult humour - much of which is in the huge number of movie tributes ("Highlander," "The Neverending Story," many others). See it.

2010 Note: having seen the sequels and the animated films that followed in its wake, I find "Shrek" itself to be less appealing and less funny these days. It broke ground by being incredibly irreverent and making fun of every fairy tale and animated movie that came before, but the huge number of imitators since affects the viewing of the original, making it a lot less fun. Too bad: it really was a hugely influential and funny film.

2001, dir. Andrew Adamson, Vicky Jenson. With Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy, John Lithgow, Vincent Cassel.

Shrek 2

Not as good as the original, but reasonably enjoyable. Even more movie references, with a bunch of pop culture references ("Farbucks Coffee") and a lot of adult humour that went right over the head of the kids (who were hugely amused anyway).

2004, dir. Andrew Adamson and Kelly Asbury. With Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy, John Cleese, Julie Andrews, Jennifer Saunders, Rupert Everett.

Shrek the Third

How the mighty have fallen. The first "Shrek" movie was made to mock crap like "Shrek the Third." The first movie had humour ingrained in every aspect, riffs on dozens of movies, jokes in every move and flip of the hair. Not all the jokes worked for everyone, but there were just so many that pretty much everyone loved it. This one has about the same hit-miss ratio, but it only has about ten jokes - every one of which is set up with a sledgehammer.

2007, dir. Chris Miller. With Mike Meyers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas, Julie Andrews, John Cleese, Rupert Everett, Eric Idle, Justin Timberlake.

Shrek Forever After

Better than the third Shrek, but by no means a good movie. Seeing it in 3D probably made the difference between maybe liking it and disliking it. The problem with Shrek was that the first one completely shredded fairy tales with its irreverence and humour ... and that was an idea that could only really work once. Of course that begs the question why I've seen all four of them. I guess I'm just very hopeful, and they did manage to find more humour.

2010, dir. Mike Mitchell. With Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas, Julie Andrews, Walt Dohrn, John Cleese.

Shut Up and Sing

I don't like country music, but between the treatment the Dixie Chicks received after Natalie Maines' comment about President Bush at a 2003 concert in London (to the effect that they were ashamed that he was from their home state of Texas) and the song they eventually wrote in response to that treatment (the absolutely brilliant "Not Ready to Make Nice"), I was more than willing to watch this movie about the whole sequence of events. The tagline, "Freedom of speech is fine, as long as you don't do it in public," is appropriate. Maines' comment was received very poorly by conservative elements back in the U.S. And since the Dixie Chicks' base is Country music fans, who are mostly conservative, that off-hand joke changed their lives forever.

Here's the short version: they had horrible things said about them, they (particularly Maines) received death threats ... and they stuck together. Not only did they stick together, two years later they wrote a new album that addressed the controversy and their reactions to it called "Taking the Long Way." It was successful despite (and possibly to some extent because of) the controversy - and although they were no longer welcome in their home state or dozens of other Country Music bastions, they found themselves more popular elsewhere.

The movie covers a lot of topics, the most obvious being free speech. This movie was a warning about the view expressed in the tag line, and it's deeply depressing to find ourselves in 2024 with it having got worse rather than better. But the movie also addresses resiliency, and the willingness to change. The Chicks lost a lot of radio stations, and interviews with the station programming managers show that playing Chicks' songs would have been financial suicide for them. And then there were the sponsors, who reacted in much the same way - except the Chicks might have kept the sponsors by issuing the appropriate apologies ... and they had the strength to say no. They went through a couple years of turmoil, but it made them stronger and (I may be projecting a bit here) happier. It hit their income a bit, but not nearly so much as you'd think, as they started selling much better outside traditional Country Music markets. "Taking the Long Way" also won three Grammys.

Because of this movie I really listened to the album "Taking the Long Way" around 2007. Three of the songs on that album have become mainstays in my playlists to this day: "The Long Way Around," "Lubbock or Leave It," and "Not Ready to Make Nice," all of which are about the trauma they went through. From Wikipedia, Maines said of "Not Ready to Make Nice": "We tried to write about the incident a few times, but you get nervous that you're being too preachy or too victimized or too nonchalant. Dan came in with an idea that was some kind of concession, more 'can't we all just get along?' and I said, nope, I can't say that, can't do it. And we talked about it, and he said, what about 'I'm not ready to make nice?'":

    Forgive, sounds good
    Forget, I'm not sure I could
    They say time heals everything
    But I'm still waiting

    I'm through with doubt
    There's nothing left for me to figure out
    I paid a price
    And I'll keep paying it

    I'm not ready to make nice
    I'm not ready to back down
    I'm still mad as hell and I don't have time
    To go round and round and round.
    It's too late to make it right
    I probably wouldn't if I could
    'cause I'm mad as hell, can't bring myself
    To do what it is you think I should ...

    I know you've said
    "Can't you just get over it?"
    It turned my whole world around
    And I kinda like it

    I made my bed and I sleep like a baby
    With no regrets and I don't mind saying
    It's a sad, sad story when a mother will teach her
    Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
    And how in the world can the words that I said
    Send somebody so over the edge
    That they'd write me a letter, sayin' that I better
    Shut up and sing or my live will be over

    

It's a powerful song, made more powerful by not referring directly to their own problems - it could be about anybody saying something that someone else doesn't like.

I love the movie, and I loved hearing this intelligent and strong-willed group of women talk and struggle through this firestorm of criticism. Still, I wonder if the movie would speak to people who didn't live through the incident (particularly non-Americans ... I was living in the U.S. when Maines said what she said). On the other hand, the movie does retain a lot of relevance in the ongoing fight for freedom of speech ...

2006, dir. Barbara Kopple, Cecilia Peck. With Martie Maguire, Natalie Maines, Emily Robison, Adrian Pasdar, Rick Rubin, Simon Renshaw, Gareth Maguire.

Sicko

Michael Moore is such an asshole. Basically the Rush Limbaugh of the left. While I usually agree with his political objectives, I'm a bit embarrassed to be "on his side." In any case, this documentary is a big fat attack on the very broken American health care insurance system. I endured that system for ten years and I'm not surprised by anything he showed. I'm also very pleased to be back at home in one of the systems he held up as a superior example, Canada - not that it's as much better as he wants you to believe, but it certainly is a lot better.

Moore's anonymously paying off the hospital bill of a political opponent (who ran a Moore hate website) would have been a weird but magnanimous gesture - if he hadn't turned it into a twisting knife by revealing in the movie that he had done that.

2007, dir. Michael Moore.

Side by Side

A movie about Hollywood's conversion from photochemical to digital film creation, with Keanu Reeves interviewing a variety of the biggest names in film - several directors (James Cameron, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Steven Soderbergh, to name only a few), a lot of directors of photography, and several actors. He details the rapid progression of digital technology, from the nascent scene around 1999 when the first few movies were filmed on it (and looked awful) up to 2012 (when this film was made) by which time camera companies had essentially ceased to produce photochemical film cameras. Several of the directors and D.P.s bemoaned the slow death of film, but most were ready to embrace the rapidly improving digital. They cover the history of the cameras and the technical qualities of them, the editing process, and even projection.

Reeves isn't the man to do a voice-over: his voicing is too flat. But when he's on screen, it's clear that he's fascinated by this stuff (he was also one of the producers on the film), and he's a decent interviewer. To me, the movie was wonderful: the incredible technological progression, the fantastic line-up of some of the greatest minds in cinema. Not for everybody, but for those who are into photography, cinematography, and technology - a must-see.

2012, dir. Christopher Kenneally. With Keanu Reeves.

Sideways

Two middle aged guys off on a tour of the wine country of California before one of them gets married. A huge hit with the critics, and an enjoyable movie. The movie went all kinds of places I wasn't expecting, and it did it well. This is also the movie that brought the brilliant Paul Giamatti into the limelight (it should have been "American Splendor," but no one saw that). And it gave a huge lift to Thomas Haden Church's career.

2004, dir. Alexander Payne. With Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen, Sandra Oh.

Signs

M. Night Shyamalan's third movie. His take on crop circles and alien invasion. He manages the mix of humour and suspense in a manner worthy of Alfred Hitchcock. Mel Gibson plays a preacher who has lost his faith, and Joaquin Phoenix his brother. Crop circles appear near their small town, and we have aliens mixing with a crisis of faith. Not as good as "The Sixth Sense," but still very good.

Unfortunately, this was the turning point in Shyamalan's use of logic. His previous two movies were impeccably logical, everything worked out in meticulous detail. But here he stopped bothering. The logic is very broken: the whole thing about water, why did they come here exactly?!

2002, dir. M. Night Shyamalan. With Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin, Cherry Jones.

The Silence of the Lambs

I saw this movie when it came out in 1991, and remembered it as one of the best films ever made. Which is a lot to live up to, coming to it again in 2019. But it managed it, and many other people list it as one of the best and most influential films in existence. It's on multiple American Film Institute best-of lists, and has five Academy awards: Picture, Director, Actor, Actress (you know, all the important ones!), and Adapted Screenplay. And of course it has the first screen appearance of Dr. Hannibal Lecter as played by Anthony Hopkins, who was utterly terrifying - even when all he was doing was talking.

Lecter has proven particularly iconic. Created by author Thomas Mann, he's a man who's meant to scare you who doesn't just stab and torture. He's a psychologist who takes pleasure in learning the minds of others - and then using that knowledge to hurt them. (And he eats people for dinner.) I'd seen Anthony Hopkins in several movies before this one hit theatres: everyone knew he was good, but I didn't think he was a good fit for this type of character. He just seemed to be too mannered and, well, British. I couldn't have been more wrong. Director Jonathan Demme's introduction of the character ratchets up the tension: Jodie Foster's character Clarice Starling has to walk a hallway of the psych ward's worst offenders, with Lecter's cell at the end. As she approaches, before we even see Lecter, we realize this guy is so horrible they had to make him a specialized Plexiglas cell. And there's Hopkins, so polite and so terrifyingly cold and observant ... Without Hopkins, this movie couldn't have succeeded as it did. But if I say that, I have to mention Foster's performance. She made Clarice Starling simultaneously vulnerable, tough, and nearly as aware of details as Lecter. The two of them together with a superb script is just shatteringly good. Julianne Moore (another excellent actress) tried to portray Clarice Starling in the sequel - and only succeeded in proving what a superb job Foster did here.

A quick outline of the plot for those few who don't know it already: Clarice Starling is an FBI trainee (this is a while ago, Foster was quite young) picked out by her would-be mentor, Agent Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn). He sends her to interview Lecter - and apparently he chose well, because Lecter seems to like her and gives her some useful information. They use this to pursue another serial killer, Buffalo Bill. Bill has just grabbed a senator's daughter, so there's pressure to catch him before the daughter turns up dead and skinned.

While there are a few markers of the period the film was made in (things like Crawford's use of a predecessor to the flip-phone), they were never the point of the movie and it's aged remarkably well. A must-see movie.

1991, dir. Jonathan Demme. With Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn, Ted Levine, Anthony Heald, Brooke Smith, Diane Baker, Kasi Lemmons.

Silent Movie

Probably Mel Brooks' best movie ... which isn't saying much in my book, but some of the immense number of hit-or-miss visual gags do actually hit. Brooks plays a film director who lost his career to drinking. Now, with his two friends (Marty Feldman and Dom DeLuise, who are in every single scene with him) he's out to make a new movie - a silent movie, in the modern age. To make the movie successful, they're going to get all the big stars - Burt Reynolds, James Caan, Paul Newman, Anne Bancroft, etc. Much of the comedy in the movie revolves around their pursuit of these stars.

This being Brooks, the jokes are incredibly broad. This being a silent movie, the gags are almost entirely visual, although there's a fair bit of audible non-dialogue humour. And one of the big gags of the whole movie is the only word of dialogue in the entire thing being spoken by Marcel Marceau (a very famous mime at the time). Scattershot, amusing enough to watch once.

1976, dir. Mel Brooks. With Mel Brooks, Marty Feldman, Dom DeLuise, Bernadette Peters, Sid Caesar, Anne Bancroft, Liza Minnelli, Burt Reynolds, James Caan, Paul Newman, Marcel Marceau.

A Silent Voice

The movie starts with a teen (Shoya Ishida, voiced by Miyu Irino) planning to commit suicide. He cleans up his room, pays his debts, and is fortunately stopped by his sister. This sends him on a replay of grade 6, where he horribly bullied a deaf girl in the class. She's driven from the school, but eventually his bullying turns on him and by high school he's a social outcast. Which led to him standing on the edge of a bridge ...

Ishida trying to make amends with the girl he bullied. He's repentant, but also doesn't think he's worthy of forgiveness ... and anyway it doesn't go well. The movie follows both his painful path to something resembling redemption and her equally painful path to partial recovery.

The movie is incredibly beautiful in places. It's often uncomfortable to watch, has a lot to say about bullying and social anxiety, and is often heartbreaking. Atypical for Anime, and highly recommended.

2016, dir. Naoko Yamada. With Miyu Irino, Saori Hayami, Aoi Yūki, Kenshō Ono, Yūki Kaneko, Yui Ishikawa, Megumi Han, Toshiyuki Toyonaga.

Silver Linings Playbook

Bradley Cooper plays Pat Solitano Jr., released from a mental health facility into the care of his mother (Jacki Weaver), perhaps earlier than he should have been. He's obsessed with getting back together with his wife (who has a restraining order against him). At a dinner at a friend's house, he meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a recent widow - the two compare notes on the various psychological drugs they've shared. They run into each other a lot, and eventually work out a deal where Pat will dance with Tiffany in competition, and in return she'll sneak a letter to Pat's wife.

I was annoyed by the need of the movie to show that everyone else in the movie is just as crazy, or has just as much trouble dealing with life, as our two main characters. I suppose they meant to make the point that all of us have moments of crazy, but that's not really how it read: Pat got locked up because his anger exploded into the real world and he nearly killed someone, but according to the movie everyone else is just a hair's breadth away from similar problems ...

The acting is excellent and the characters reasonably sympathetic despite their broadly painted problems. There's plenty of humour, and more drama. And yet in the end I was only mildly pleased with the movie, unlike the majority of critics in the world (92% on Rotten Tomatoes in 2020).

2012, dir. David O. Russell. With Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Anupam Kher, Chris Tucker, Julia Stiles, Shea Whigham, Dash Mihok.

Silverado

Kasdan's nod to the Westerns he loved as a kid - written by him and his brother, it's both an homage and borderline spoof. It starts with the introductions of Glenn's and then Kline's characters, and these introductions are pure genius (if somewhat over-the-top). As more and more people are introduced, you find out that the intention of the movie is to incorporate every possible cliché ever used in a Western movie (to name just a few: wagon train, evil sheriff, gallows, and the favourite of the friend I watched it with: shot-and-falls-from-the-balcony). The movie is a bit crowded with larger-than-life characters, but is never the less hugely enjoyable.

1985, dir. Lawrence Kasdan. With Scott Glenn, Kevin Kline, Kevin Costner, Danny Glover, Brian Dennehy, Linda Hunt, Rosanna Arquette, John Cleese, James Gammon, Jeff Fahey.

Silverhawk

I debated admitting I've seen this movie. Sure, I watch martial arts films, but I got my self respect. This is truly horrible. Very few martial arts films actually have good acting, cinematography, or plots, barring a small wave started by "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." So martial arts fans don't measure movies on the same scale. We look for good fight scenes and stunts, and if there has to be wire work, it better be good. Yeoh is a talented martial artist, but the humour is unsuccessful, the stunts lousy, the fights awful, and the cuts during fights occur every half second or so. No one should watch this.

2004, dir. Jingle Ma. With Michelle Yeoh, Richie Ren, Luke Goss, Brandon Chang, Michael Jai White.

Silver Streak

Somehow, this is indelibly associated in my mind with "Mother, Jugs & Speed." I have no idea why ... perhaps because they were a double bill on the marquee across the street when I was growing up - they both came out in the same year.

George Caldwell (Wilder) has boarded the titular train in Los Angeles with the intention of riding it all the way to Chicago. He meets the beautiful Hilly Burns (Clayburgh) and the rather less attractive Bob Sweet (Beatty) in short order. The movie then goes for Hitchcockian mystery mixed with comedy. The mystery isn't bad, but the comedy, which in Hitchcock would arise from circumstance, is instead inserted like wooden pegs driven home with a sledgehammer and no particular relation to the plot ... until Pryor finally shows up an hour into the film. Pryor and Wilder are hilarious together, but by then they've blown out the mystery and the viewer's trust - come on, George is knocked or thrown off the moving train THREE times, and succeeds in getting back on every time? What, a train called "Silver Streak" crosses America at 20 miles per hour? Has some decent comedic moments, but otherwise a real waste of time.

An odd side-note: Kiel appears as an evil henchman (did he ever get any other roles? At over seven feet, I guess not) ... with steel teeth. He sported essentially the same dental work in the Bond movies "The Spy Who Loved Me" and "Moonraker" after this movie. I doubt that's how Kiel's teeth really look, so it's particularly interesting that the Bond movies seem to have borrowed the man and the teeth ...

1976, dir. Arthur Hiller. With Gene Wilder, Jill Clayburgh, Patrick McGoohan, Ned Beatty, Richard Pryor, Richard Kiel.

A Simple Favour

Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick) is a perky and overly energetic single mom who runs her own vlog about crafts and recipes. She meets the mother (Blake Lively) of one of the other boys at her son's school, and they become friends. And this is where the movie completely fell down for me: Lively's character Emily Nelson is an incredibly unpleasant hedonistic bitch, and we're supposed to believe that this straight-laced, up-tight single mom wants so badly to be like Emily that she'll put up with dismissal and insults? And that somehow Emily finds this appealing? Opposites don't always attract.

Emily disappears, and Stephanie goes on a hunt for her friend (while also getting a little too close to her friend's husband (Henry Golding)). Truths are revealed, and a not entirely believable ending eventually occurs. Paul Feig (who directed) managed to produce something more like a neo-noir than a comedy, but the touches of his humour are visible. I give him credit for a better attempt that I expected, but it's not a favourite.

2018, dir. Paul Feig. With Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, Henry Golding, Linda Cardellini, Joshua Satine, Ian Ho, Andrew Rannells, Jean Smart, Rupert Friend.

The Simpsons Movie

A nearly incoherent plot full of ludicrous incidents is more than compensated for by typically sly humour. Very funny.

2007, dir. David Silverman. With Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Harry Shearer, Hank Azaria.

Sin City

Bizarre. Based on Miller's Sin City series of comic books. Characters speak in horrible clichés - I think it was deliberate, but if it was it should have been more consistent. Visually stunning, hideously violent. If you can take the violence and the cliché-ridden dialogue, the visual style is truly breath-taking. Disjoint, with multiple interwoven stories.

2005. dir. Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller. With Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Elijah Wood, Rutger Hauer, Clive Owen ...

Sing

Set in a world of anthropomorphic animals, we open on Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) talking about the greatness of his theatre ... which is quickly contradicted by proof of how deeply in debt he is. He has the clever idea to have a singing contest for a prize of all the money he has, $1000 ... but his secretary misprints it and sends out hundreds of flyers that say $100,000. So he gets lots of applicants. And they're all characters, and we're introduced to the daily lives of the best of them. Rosita the pig has a husband who pays her no attention, and 25 piglets. Johnny is a good singer, but his dad keeps pressuring to join the gang and rob banks. Etc.

The animation is pretty good, and the cast list is seriously impressive (see below). But the plot is remarkably pedestrian and straight-forward. It's not actually bad and has some good gags (Rosita's household automation comes to mind), but it's neither as entertaining nor as funny as it should be. Egerton stands out as Johnny, and his performance of Elton John's "I'm Still Standing" is pretty good. But when "pretty good" is the highlight of your film, it's not a winner.

2016, dir. Garth Jennings. With Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Seth MacFarlane, Scarlett Johansson, John C. Reilly, Taron Egerton, Tori Kelly.

The Singing Revolution

"The Singing Revolution" tells the story of Estonia's oppression by and eventual escape from the rule of the USSR. It's narrated by Linda Hunt. The main premise is that the Estonian's love of singing kept their national pride alive for fifty years despite the Soviet efforts to crush their will. I found the narration unnecessarily heavy-handed and distracting: Hunt spends her time telling you how horrible it all was, when letting the facts speak for themselves would have been more effective. The USSR invaded Estonia in 1939 under a pact they made with Hitler. Just because Hitler broke that pact didn't mean the USSR left Estonia. They didn't leave until the break-up of the USSR in 1991 (which makes it dubious to me that this was a "revolution:" they would have escaped from the USSR with or without the singing at exactly the same time). But the movie is big on the idea that the very popular national gatherings to sing, where songs of national pride were often sung despite the objections of the USSR, were what held the country together and drove it forward. Even based on the possibly over-optimistic story presented in the movie, I think it's something of an exaggeration to claim the singing liberated the country.

2007, dir. Maureen Castle Tusty, Mike Majoros, James Tusty. With Linda Hunt, Mari-Ann Kelam, Inna Sooaar, Imra Sooaar, Enn Sarv, Toomas Raudberg, Anne Raudberg, Tunne Kelam.

Sirens

A tale of sexual awakening set in the 1930s in Australia. A young clergyman and his wife are sent to try to talk some sense into an artist who wants to display controversial pictures of naked women. What they find is an unrepentant man with a supportive wife and three beautiful models that live with him and scandalize the town. It's a sensual film, although not a particularly good one overall. Most famous for bringing Macpherson (very famous model through the 1980s) to the screen - she was better than I expected, but not actually good, and hardly a great reason to see a movie.

1994, dir. John Duigan. With Hugh Grant, Tara Fitzgerald, Sam Neill, Elle Macpherson, Portia de Rossi, Kate Fischer, Pamela Rabe, Mark Gerber.

The Sisters Brothers

Based on a novel of the same name by Patrick deWitt, tells the story of the brothers Eli (John C. Reilly) and Charlie (Joaquin Phoenix) Sisters, hitmen in the old West. As the movie progresses, we learn about the history of their family (a very abusive, alcoholic father), who they work for, where they're going, who they're going to kill, etc. And that they're very, very good at what they do.

I've seen reference to this being partly a "comedy." It's got a few laughs (most of them dark), but it's certainly not what the movie is primarily about and I think it's a poor choice to apply the term to this movie.

The movie has a lot of action - and pretty much all of it happens off screen. "The point," the director is telling us, "is that this is about the people." If you're looking for a Western with gunfights, look elsewhere: this is a character study. I found it a surprisingly good one: it's very well acted, and pretty much never went where I expected - without ever getting derailed. The ending in particular was absolutely not what I expected: I'm still a bit surprised, and yet it was strangely satisfying.

I'm not much of a fan of Westerns. But when the acting is this good, and the story is this well written and unexpected ... highly recommended.

2018, dir. Jacques Audiard. With John C. Reilly, Joaquin Phoenix, Jake Gyllenhaal, Riz Ahmed, Rebecca Root, Allison Tolman, Rutger Hauer, Carol Kane.

Sisu

According to Wikipedia:

Sisu is a Finnish concept described as stoic determination, tenacity of purpose, grit, bravery, resilience, and hardiness. It is held by Finns to express their national character. It is generally considered not to have a literal equivalent in English (tenacity, grit, resilience, and hardiness are much the same things, but do not necessarily imply stoicism or bravery).

Our main character is an old man, out looking for gold in Lapland toward the end of the Second World War. The opening voice-over explains (the whole thing is in English, despite the setting and cast almost all being Finnish) he's "left the war behind." He finds a lot of gold, but some retreating Nazis (who also have a truck full of captive women, they'll be important if you actually watch the movie) find him and decide to take his gold.

That's it for the plot. What, you were expecting more? They find our main character very, very hard to kill. And he's very skilled at killing them. People get knifed, shot, exploded, and hanged. It's all good fun.

It seems my taste for bloody mayhem is receding as I age. This was ... well, not "too much" for me, but it didn't really appeal. And I had a lot of issues with our anti-hero's durability. They make the point in the movie that this guy is a legend to both the Germans and the Finns, and that his nickname is "Koschei" ("the Immortal") and he simply refuses to die. But if you view him as human (as I made the mistake of doing), there's no way he could have survived what happened to him. So ... this should be classified as a "Superhero" movie - he ain't human. And if you do something silly (as I did) and stop and think about his motives ... well, the only thing our main character cares about is his gold. Not the war, not human rights (although he does show some slight sympathy for the female captives), just ... "I want my gold back." Not very appealing, just a vehicle for carnage.

This is the work of Jalmari Helander - and I'm mildly embarrassed to say I've seen his entire filmography. Not that that's hard when it consists of three films (the other two being "Big Game" (2014) and "Rare Exports" (2010)). The first movie starred a very young Onni Tommila, the second starred Onni and his father Jorma. This movie stars Jorma, with Onni in a still-prominent role. All three movies are both absurd and bloody. They're all mildly interesting but none is great.

2022, dir. Jalmari Helander. With Jorma Tommila, Aksel Hennie, Jack Doolan, Mimosa Willamo, Onni Tommila.

16 Blocks

The movie opens on a badly broken cop, Jack Mosley (Willis) who appears to get only minor assignments and drinks heavily on the job. After his brokenness is established and at the end of an overnight shift, he's given the assignment of transporting a witness 16 blocks to the courthouse. The witness is Eddie Bunker, played by Mos Def at his most annoying. The man is annoying even in roles when he doesn't mean to be: imagine what he's like when he's trying. A two hour movie of that was all I could take. And everyone kept calling him "the kid," even though he was 33 at the time. The assignment turns out to be a bit more than Jack signed up for: someone tries to kill the witness while Jack is out of the car buying alcohol. He manages to stop that, but things get progressively uglier as it becomes clear that Eddie's testimony is important, and there are a lot of people - even cops - who want him dead.

The movie is annoying, gritty, and has an ending far more upbeat than the content deserves. Not one I enjoyed.

2006, dir. Richard Donner. With Bruce Willis, Mos Def, David Morse.

Sixteen Candles

One of Hughes' most famous teen comedies - along with "The Breakfast Club," "Pretty in Pink," and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." This movie finds Samantha Baker (Ringwald) totally ignored by her family on her sixteenth birthday because her older sister is getting married the next day, while also trying to deal with her desperate crush on the older and already-taken Jake Ryan (Schoeffling) and fending off the advances of "the Geek" (Hall).

Hughes has always favoured exaggeration and humiliation in humour, and he goes to town here. Hall played geeks and doofuses all through the Eighties, but this is one of the most extreme versions of the character. That and the incredibly ludicrous and possibly racist portrayal of "Long Duk Dong" - a foreign exchange student - by Watanabe, completely sink the movie for me. Hall played a similar but more open and not as exaggerated version of his geek character in Hughes' next movie, "The Breakfast Club:" watch that instead.

1984, dir. John Hughes. With Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Michael Schoeffling, Justin Henry, Gedde Watanabe, John Cusack, Joan Cusack.

The 6th Day

The title is a biblical reference: on the sixth day, God made man. The movie is science fiction set in the near future where cloning animals is easy, and laws banning the cloning of human beings are called "6th day laws." Our hero is that epically untalented actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. And what could be better than one Ahnold? Two Ahnolds! After a fairly regular day, Adam Gibson (Schwarzenegger) comes home to find that another him is already home ... Some unpleasant people try to kill him (Michael Rooker, Terry Crews in his acting debut, Sarah Wynter, and Rodney Rowland who looks almost exactly like Stephen Dorff). They all work for Michael Drucker (Tony Goldwyn) who can, in fact, clone human beings. Despite only being a helicopter pilot, Adam (notice that name?) is inevitably skilled enough to take on a crew of four assassins (several times - they get brought back after he kills them). The action is mildly entertaining. The movie made glancing passes at several morally interesting problems surrounding both the cloning of pets and the cloning of humans - and proceeded to not explore any of them (except for the evil profit motive of Drucker). It did however make it totally clear that cloning humans was bad. Unless the person cloned was someone nice like Adam Gibson. Then it was okay.

Had some charming moments, but it's mostly a vehicle for Schwarzenegger to ham it up (and he wasn't even doing it as well as usual). Fairly unimpressive.

2000, dir. Roger Spottiswoode. With Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tony Goldwyn, Michael Rooker, Sarah Wynter, Michael Rapaport, Wendy Crewson, Rodney Rowland, Terry Crews, Robert Duvall, Wanda Cannon.

The Sixth Sense

Shyamalan's first (non-indie) film. A psychologist (Willis) treats a young boy (Osment, who was fantastic) who claims "I see dead people." Unbelievably creepy, and extraordinarily well developed. If you're lucky you'll come to the movie not knowing the punchline of the movie, but one of the great beauties of the movie is that you can watch it knowing that punchline and the structure of the movie is, well, perfect. (Not something anyone would accuse Shyamalan's later movies of.)

1999, dir. M. Night Shyamalan. With Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams, Donnie Wahlberg.

Skiptrace

Chan plays Bennie Chan (which is still better than some movies, in which he is simply "Jackie" - at least they changed part of his name), a Hong Kong police officer obsessed with arresting the crime boss "Matador" ... who he's never seen, but has been pursuing for nine years. Bennie's quest leads him to Connor Watts (Knoxville), a con man and gambler who witnessed a crime connected to the Matador. Bennie rescues Connor from the Russian mob (he's in trouble with everybody). The bulk of the film consists of Bennie and Connor making their way across Russia, Mongolia, and China on the equivalent of "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" and the "Midnight Run."

Knoxville opens the movie telling a long tall tale to a bunch of airline stewardesses, who are all apparently enthralled by his charm despite the fact that they know he's lying. But it takes a far better actor than Knoxville (and better script writers!) to sell something like that. After that they mostly stuck with him getting punched or eating goat testicles - territory he's more familiar with. He was much better at those things. Chan is long past his prime, but manages better stunts and fights than he has in several of his recent films. The end result is a mildly entertaining contrivance that I'd only recommend to hard-core Chan or Knoxville fans.

2016, dir. Renny Harlin. With Jackie Chan, Johnny Knoxville, Fan Bingbing, Michael Wong.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

Everyone should see this movie, but no one should be forced to listen to it - visually stunning, with a truly abysmal script. If only director Kerry Conran had stuck to doing the visuals and let someone else handle the writing and directing. It looks like the world of the future as seen in the 1930s and 1940s pulp magazines. Worth seeing for that alone, but a big screen is definitely preferred.

2004. dir. Kerry Conran. With Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Giovanni Ribisi, Angelina Jolie.

The Sky Crawlers

Director Mamoru Oshii is one of the stranger Anime directors out there ... although he stands out for being weirdly contemplative in his movies rather than weird random violence (which is common enough in Anime). I love and adore both "Ghost in the Shell" and "Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence," both subject to his odd moving meditation moments. These moments can even be found in his earlier "Patlabor: The Movie" which I saw relatively recently. "The Sky Crawlers" was filmed in 2008, four years after the second GitS movie. The moments of contemplation are somewhat better integrated into the story line, but it's still clearly an Oshii movie.

Our protagonist is Yūichi Kannami (voiced by Ryō Kase), a young pilot newly assigned to Area 262 (as this production fetishizes aircraft, that may be a reference to the Messerschmitt Me 262). He gets an oddly lukewarm reception. He rapidly proves to be a good pilot, and his room-mate takes him out on the town where he meets the prostitute Fūko. But even as that relationship starts, he finds himself entering a relationship with his commanding officer, the homicidal and/or suicidal Kusanagi. (Anyone familiar with "Ghost in the Shell" will remember that name.)

As this proceeds, we're also finding out that all the pilots are "Kildren," humans who never grow old ("why would we want to grow old when we could die any day?"). My guess was that the name was a play on "Children" and "Kill." Wikipedia tells me that the Japanese term was "Kill-dolls," which is even more grim. We also learn that the people we're watching work for Rostock, which is perpetually at war with another company called Lautern.

There are a couple blatant references to GitS: the Base CO's name is Kusanagi, and there's a basset hound who lives with them at the base and is in a lot of shots. I don't know if "Kusanagi" is a common Japanese name ... I don't think so, and even if it is I don't think he should have repeated it here, particularly not as a female leader. Even if it's their equivalent of "Smith" as a family name.

As usual for Anime, the point of the story is a bit muddy. Even though one of the main characters moralizes a good bit of the punchline out loud at one point: the general populace is so used to war that the only way to maintain peace is to create a controlled constant war. But what they were trying to say with the creation of "Kill-dolls" and their never-ending horrific lives was never clear to me. Not a bad film, but nowhere close to GitS.

2008, dir. Mamoru Oshii. With Rinko Kikuchi, Ryō Kase, Shōsuke Tanihara, Chiaki Kuriyama, Megumi Yamaguchi, Daisuke Hirakawa, Takuma Takewaka, Yoshiko Sakakibara.

Sky High

Derivative, cheesy, and predictable. Also highly entertaining. High school for the children of superheroes. Takes some pot shots at how not-fun high school can be, and has some fun with the whole superhero genre. Being a Disney movie, it's more squarely aimed at children than the recent spate of superhero movies. Comes complete with a great 80s soundtrack.

Remains a favourite of mine, although I'm a bit embarrassed to admit it. Includes a couple brilliant quotes: "You look at them and see the defenders of the world. All I see is my dad wearing tights." "... if life were to suddenly get fair, I doubt it would happen in high school." And a mild spoiler (comes right at the end of the movie, stop reading etc.), "In the end, my girlfriend became my arch enemy, my arch enemy became my best friend, and my best friend became my girlfriend. But, hey, it's high school."

2005, dir. Mike Mitchell. With Michael Angarano, Kurt Russell, Kelly Preston, Danielle Panabaker, Lynda Carter, Steven Strait, Bruce Campbell.

Skyfall

The third Daniel Craig Bond and the fiftieth anniversary for the franchise.

Usually Bond movies open with a big action sequence - this movie is no exception, but unlike most movies, the outcome of the events before the credits have a direct bearing on the rest of the film. In this case, Bond is trying to recover a stolen hard drive with a list of deep cover British agents all over the world - and it's one of the best action sequences ever put in a Bond movie. As is made clear in the trailer, the main villain (Javier Bardem) is targeting M for her past crimes. This Bond movie is more personal than most for both Bond and M - a fair bit of the action takes place in London, in and around MI6 headquarters, and M herself is also under political threat.

Bardem is, as reported by every other reviewer, excellent. Charming, intelligent, extremely lethal, and not insane - just holding a very nasty grudge. Craig doesn't do anything new with Bond, although he's fine. Judi Dench is good as M. Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw and Ralph Fiennes offer better than average supporting roles. Great cinematography (to the point that it was quite distracting in places). Unlike most people, I prefer "Casino Royale" - this is a good Bond movie that I didn't enjoy.

2012, dir. Sam Mendes. With Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Naomie Harris, Ralph Fiennes, Bérénice Marlohe, Ben Whishaw, Rory Kinnear, Albert Finney, Ola Rapace.

Skyline

Blue glowy lights fall from the sky. Everyone who looks at them is sucked into the alien spaceships.

The dialogue is among the worst I've ever heard: incredibly flat and uninteresting. Almost all the action is in or around a condo complex where our characters try to hide out from the invasion. There's lots of running, lots of being upset. The effects are decent, but this is a seriously lame-ass movie that should be avoided at all costs.

2010, dir. Greg and Colin Strause. With Eric Balfour, Scottie Thompson, Donald Faison, Brittany Daniel, Crystal Reed, Neil Hopkins.

Slap Shot

Paul Newman plays the coach of the minor league Charlestown Chiefs hockey team. He's a bit old to be a player, but he's that too. The team is losing most of its games and not drawing a crowd so it's doing poorly financially as well. The manager picks up the three Hanson Brothers, a trio of childish players with thick glasses. Initially Newman won't play them, but eventually in desperation he does. Whereupon he discovers that their violent enforcer tactics draw a crowd and help win games.

The movie is incredibly foul-mouthed and quite violent, and must have been shocking when it was released: I was still a bit surprised by it in 2010. While it's painfully dated in its clothes and hairstyles, it's also incredibly funny. One of the better sports films out there.

1977, dir. George Roy Hill. With Paul Newman, Strother Martin, Michael Ontkean, Lindsay Crouse, Jennifer Warren.

Slash/Back

So aliens land in Pangnirtung - as they do, landing in small towns everywhere. This small town just happens to be on Baffin Island. And the aliens start taking over people's bodies ... as they do. The adults have all gone to the next town over for the solstice dance, so our four teenage (barely) girls band together to take out the nasty aliens. After all, they're Inuit hunters.

Wikipedia says this was the first film made in Pang. I can hear your gasps of surprise. Unusually, not only is the town real, the movie's claimed population for the town (1500) seems to be correct. Somewhat less surprising when you're filming up there: a couple surnames are repeated on the cast list more than once. Also unsurprising: when you're choosing from a small population and using kids who are 12 to 15 years old as leads ... the acting is pretty crap. But first, it wasn't a deal-breaker for me, and second ... that's the end of the bad news. The script is hilarious, the scenery is gorgeous, the characters are fairly good despite the poor acting (because the writing was pretty good?). Also, being properly Canadian and Inuit, one of the songs is by Tanya Tagaq.

I'm not quite sure what audience they were expecting to find with this - it's a movie about 13-year olds fighting off a bloody alien invasion that kills several people. Or maybe (and I think this is more likely) they were just having fun, making something they thought they would like. And I liked it too. If you're a fan of horror-comedy, this is definitely worth a try.

2022, dir. Nyla Innuksuk. With Tasiana Shirley, Alexis Vincent-Wolfe, Nalajoss Ellsworth, Chelsea Prusky, Frankie Vincent-Wolfe, Jackie Maniapik, Rory Anawak, Nikita Burke, Christopher Metuq, Evan Innuksuk, Paulette Metuq, Shaun Benson.

Slay the Dragon

This is a documentary about gerrymandering, and particularly a citizen's crusade against it in Michigan. Gerrymandering is the process of redistricting your constituents to improve your own (or your party's) odds of winning the next election. This is a bipartisan problem (it's an American film, so I'm using American terms): whoever's not currently in power will claim that only the party in power can do it ... and that's true, but they're perfectly happy to do it when they're back in power.

In this case, we're looking at a nation-wide redistricting effort by the Republicans - which the movie claims (fairly convincingly) was responsible for the Flint water crisis. If you can't be voted out, how can people hold you responsible? Which left the Michigan Republicans making some poor financial decisions, cutting budgets they shouldn't have, etc.

The majority of the movie focusses on the citizen's anti-gerrymandering movement in Michigan, with some coverage of Wisconsin. The movie is helped along by the young and rather charming Katie Fahey who founded "Voters Not Politicians" to get redistricting reform on the ballot. While I have some sense of the urgency of their political cause and totally agree with it, it's perhaps not as urgent to me (a Canadian) as it should be to all Americans. Gerrymandering does happen in Canada, but hasn't reached quite the fever pitch it's at in the U.S. Nevertheless, an interesting movie.

2019, dir. Barak Goodman, Chris Durrance.

Sleeping Giant

Possibly the best reviewed Canadian movie of the last decade, currently sitting at 90% on Rotten Tomatoes.

"Sleeping Giant" is a place I've actually visited: an immense outcropping of rock about 50km from Thunder Bay, Ontario (where this movie is set) that vaguely looks like a sleeping human figure.

The movie is about three teens staying in the area for the summer - hanging out, smoking weed, chasing girls, being obnoxious. The movie is incredibly episodic, just showing occasional windows onto their activities until their anger and competition with each other reaches a peak. It seems like a fairly accurate portrayal of what it's like to be a teenager - but honestly it's not a part of my life I particularly want to remember, and it ends badly for these three. Fairly well done, but not comfortable or up-beat.

2015, dir. Andrew Cividino. With Jackson Martin, Reece Moffett, Nick Serino.

Sleepless in Seattle

Probably not the most staggeringly sentimental movie ever made, but definitely making an effort. The score sounds like it was composed in the 1940s, and the songs chosen definitely were from that period. Wraps in multiple references to "An Affair to Remember" and a couple to "The Dirty Dozen" for good measure.

The opening credits find Sam Baldwin (Tom Hanks) burying his wife, the mother of his young son Jonah (Ross Malinger). Sam relocates from Chicago to Seattle in an attempt to see less that reminds him of his wife. His son calls in to a radio psychologist, and Sam ends up talking on the air about his wife some. He's given the moniker "Sleepless in Seattle," and is shortly inundated with hundreds of women from across the continent who want to be with him. But the movie concentrates on Annie (Meg Ryan), who's already engaged to be married. Several mentions are made of "magic" (essentially "eternal love at first sight") and it's clear (particularly to Jonah) that Sam and Annie are meant to be together, but like "An Affair to Remember," it looks like fate may keep them apart.

There are some truly brilliant moments in here, but the next second director Nora Ephron is ladling on the schmaltz so heavily that you feel like you're drowning in it. It's an odd experience.

1993, dir. Nora Ephron. With Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Bill Pullman, Ross Malinger, Rosie O'Donnell, Rob Reiner, David Hyde Pierce.

Sleepy Hollow

Someone had a good time playing with the colours. The palate is incredibly gray most of the time, marked by yellows and occasional other additions. Johnny Depp is excellent as the cowardly Ichabod Crane (I have no idea how this compares to the original Washington Irving), and Christina Ricci is fascinating as his foil and love interest. Feels a lot like Tim Burton meets Terry Gilliam (think of the later "The Brothers Grimm").

1999, dir. Tim Burton. With Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon, Casper Van Dien.

Slings and Arrows Season 1 (TV)

Brilliant TV. Canadian too - I'm a patriot, but the sad truth is that Canada produces a depressingly small number of good movies or TV shows. But this isn't just good - it's superb. The series (all six episodes of it) centres around the "New Burbage" Festival, very clearly modelled on the Stratford Festival in southern Ontario, mostly about a production of Shakespeare's Hamlet. The personalities surrounding and driving the play are teetering on the brink of parody, but they're actors so it's a little easier to believe. Especially since it's so well done. Helps if you know Shakespeare, but it might start you reading it if you don't know it.

The story finds Geoffrey Tennant (Paul Gross, brilliant), returning to New Burbage as the artistic director when the position is vacated by the death of his former friend Oliver (Steve Ouimette). He has to deal with his former flame (Martha Burns, also excellent, and his wife in real life), the ghost of Oliver, and stage a production of Hamlet with a young and questionable American movie star as the lead. Rachel McAdams proves she really can act as the aspiring Ophelia.

2003, dir. Peter Wellington. With Paul Gross, Martha Burns, Mark McKinney, Steve Ouimette, Don McKellar, Rachel McAdams, Luke Kirby.

Slings and Arrows Season 2 (TV)

Damn they're good. Colm Feore is an off-beat ad executive trying to help Mark McKinney out with advertising as Geoffrey (Paul Gross) struggles with a recalcitrant and obnoxious lead on the production of Macbeth that he didn't want to do.

2005, dir. Peter Wellington. With Paul Gross, Martha Burns, Mark McKinney, Steve Ouimette, Don McKellar, Colm Feore.

Slings and Arrows Season 3 (TV)

Just as good as the other two seasons (and possibly better), the final brilliant season of Slings and Arrows. A bit darker than the previous ones: the big play is Lear, and the lead is both temperamental and extremely ill. William Hutt (one of Canada's best known stage actors) and Sarah Polley (one of Canada's best known film actors) are the big additions to the season. As always, I wished desperately that I could have seen more of the final production of the Shakespeare play itself. Hutt may have known that this was his swan song (he died within a year) and puts in a performance that exceeds that of the already excellent cast.

2006, dir. Peter Wellington. With Paul Gross, Martha Burns, Mark McKinney, Steve Ouimette, Don McKellar, Sarah Polley, William Hutt.

Slow West

Kodi-Smit McPhee plays Jay Cavendish, a young Scottish man trying to make his way across the wild West - naive and willfully blind as only a teenager can be. The time is unspecified, but as Silas (Michael Fassbender) says, it's a miracle he made it as far as he did in one piece - and Silas' opinion is fairly quickly proven true. Jay hires Silas, although he thinks of him as a brute. They make their way across the country, negotiating a minefield of bounty hunters and hungry and desperate people - but Silas isn't doing this just for the money Jay is offering ... as Silas' voice-over says, it's the last days of the bounty hunters and the outlaws, and the ones who hold on the longest are the most dangerous.

A dark and unhappy vision of the West. Well constructed, well acted, worth a watch.

2015, dir. John Maclean. With Kodi Smit-McPhee, Michael Fassbender, Ben Mendelsohn, Caren Pistorius, Rory McCann.

Slumdog Millionaire

Jamal (Dev Patel) grew up in the slums of Mumbai. Now he's on the Indian "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?," and time was called just before the final question. He's dragged off by the police because he's clearly cheating. But the answers are there, in the history of his life. Most of the incidents that led to his knowledge are less than pleasant, and they also reveal his love for Latika who he first met when he was nine or ten. And his problems with his brother. The MTV style of filming (frequent angled shots, quick cuts, manipulated colours) got on my nerves, but it was, absolutely and without a doubt, India. That may sound stupid because of course it was filmed there: but you can film there without getting the feel of the place. But Boyle most assuredly succeeded in that.

This movie also launched Dev Patel's career - like a rocket.

2008, dir. Danny Boyle. With Dev Patel, Madhur Mittal, Freida Pinto, Irrfan Khan.

Smallfoot

Many children's movies these days are works of art or aimed at adults as much as children - so much so that I become disappointed when I encounter one that's just a children's movie. I generally watch them based on reviews at Rotten Tomatoes. You can dismiss my dislike of this film as being caused by my dislike of musicals. I can get past that dislike if they're good enough, "Tangled" being the best in-genre example: "Smallfoot" definitely didn't manage to pull that off.

Our hero is the Yeti Migo (voiced by Channing Tatum), living high up on a mountain peak in the Himalayas. When he's banished from the village for asking too many questions, he ends up descending the mountain and finding the titular "smallfoot" below the clouds.

The movie has a moral conclusion I found a bit surprising (and reasonably positive) in a children's movie: "the truth is messy and difficult, but it's better than living a lie." But for the most part it's goofy silliness with lots of colourful action and no particular redeeming features for adults.

2018, dir. Karey Kirkpatrick. With Channing Tatum, James Corden, Zendaya, Common, LeBron James, Gina Rodriguez, Danny DeVito, Yara Shahidi, Ely Henry, Jimmy Tatro.

Small Soldiers

A toy company is acquired by a multinational conglomerate, and when one of the toy designers goes looking for computer chips in inventory, he finds slightly flawed military grade AI chips. The toys get sent out with a lot more brains than was intended ... and a great deal of attitude. A pre-release lot gets into the hands of a toy store owner's son ... and the toys go to war.

I saw this back when it was originally released, and again in 2012. What I found impressive about this movie was that the problems inherent in intelligent, learning, war-oriented toys were not only well thought out, but so was the build-up and final confrontation. The effects look a bit weak in 2012, but not as bad as I expected. The movie is crazy, but it actually makes sense and didn't feel particularly contrived. It's a weird movie, but pretty good. And very funny.

1998, dir. Joe Dante. With Gregory Smith, Kirsten Dunst, Jay Mohr, David Cross, Phil Hartman, Kevin Dunn, Ann Magnuson, Tommy Lee Jones, Frank Langella.

Smoke Signals

Two young men from an Indian reservation set out for Phoenix, Arizona where one of their fathers has died. They are tied together by their history, and by an act of the father in their very early childhood, but their friendship is uneasy at best.

It's an independent road movie with no budget at all and no actors you've ever heard of, and a weird, almost cameo, appearance by Tom Skerritt right in the middle. It's a road movie buddy comedy with Indians. It has its moments, but I didn't think it was overly funny and drew its characters too broadly.

1998, dir. Chris Eyre. With Adam Beach, Evan Adams, Irene Bedard, Gary Farmer, Tantoo Cardinal, Tom Skerritt.

Smokin' Aces

"Aces" is a stage magician who does card tricks, who finds his way into the world of the mafia. He enjoys the life of a rich mafia man, and slowly makes it his own. But his rise has led to rivalries, and as the movie starts, he's trying to work out a witness protection deal with the FBI to save his own life. There's a contract on his head by the mafia don that brought him into the world he loves so much. We're introduced to the rogue's gallery of assassins who will be competing to kill him by the discussion of the "good guys" who will be trying to protect him. And thus we enter into an hour long cat-and-mouse game and gun battle. If you're paying any attention, you know there's more to it than meets the eye, but if you're paying attention you're going to be pretty disappointed by the pay-off at the end. Spectacular, nasty action sequences, so maybe if you like that kind of thing ...

2006, dir. Joe Carnahan. With Ray Liotta, Ryan Reynolds, Andy Garcia, Jeremy Piven, Ben Affleck, Common, Alicia Keys.

Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin

Early Hong Kong Jackie Chan - before he developed a sense of humour and started directing his own movies. Typically sexist, lots of very traditional style Chinese martial arts. The plot revolves around Chan being in possession of a book containing the deadly "Snake and Crane Arts of Shaolin" which everybody wants. Some of them want to know what happened to the masters who wrote the book and disappeared rather mysteriously. Not his best (although he made plenty worse).

1978, dir. Chi-Hwa Chen. With Jackie Chan.

Snake in the Eagle's Shadow (orig. "Se ying diu sau")

Jackie Chan's best early movie (in part because it was directed by now legendary action director Yuen Woo-Ping). Chan plays a young man who is perhaps a bit slow, who wants to learn Kung Fu and works at a Kung Fu school where he's used as a mobile punching bag. A chance encounter with an old man entangles him in a plot to wipe out an entire school of martial arts, but also teaches him Kung Fu. Etc. etc. Nothing really new here, except it's just done so much better than the majority of martial arts movies. Excellent fights. Highly recommended for fans of the genre.

1978, dir. Yuen Woo-Ping. With Jackie Chan.

Sneakers

Robert Redford plays Martin Bishop (or "Martin Brice," depending on how you look at it), a security expert whose team breaks into businesses at their behest to test the business' security. But he has a past that's about to catch up to him, and the NSA puts him onto a job that he really doesn't want to be involved in. This is essentially a caper film, so much cleverness and a couple of double crosses are involved.

I wasn't a huge fan of this when it came out, but re-watched it in 2011. Each of the members of Bishop's team are well-played by the cast (Sidney Poitier, Dan Aykroyd, River Phoenix), but David Strathairn is particularly good as "Whistler," who is blind but incredibly talented with superb hearing. The movie has some good gags, but the plot (and threats involved in the plot) don't really carry a lot of weight.

1992, dir. Phil Alden Robinson. With Robert Redford, Ben Kingsley, Sidney Poitier, David Strathairn, Dan Aykroyd, River Phoenix, Mary McDonnell, Stephen Tobolowsky, Donal Logue, James Earl Jones.

Snow Falling on Cedars

American West Coast, just after the Second World War. A fisherman turns up dead, apparently clubbed in the head, tangled in his own nets, and drowned. A Japanese man who had dealings with him is put on trial. And watching all this is the one-armed white ex-lover of the Japanese wife, still in love and obsessed.

We're given fractured pictures, quick flashes of the past, the present ... and then very long, lingering shots. It's a disorienting and annoying way of presenting things. The score was also far too loud in many sections. With these caveats, it's still a good movie - interesting as a mystery, a drama, and as a portrait of a community entering, and recovering from, racism.

1999, dir. Scott Hicks. With Ethan Hawke, Youki Kudoh, Reeve Carney, Anne Suzuki, Rick Yune, Max von Sydow, James Rebhorn, James Cromwell, Richard Jenkins, Arija Bareikis, Eric Thal.

Snow White and the Huntsman

2012 was a banner year for the Brothers' Grimm's story of "Snow White," with two major movie versions in one year - the other being "Mirror Mirror." Unfortunately, while both held some interest, they were also both fairly bad.

Snow White (Kristen Stewart) is the princess growing up imprisoned by the evil queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron). When Ravenna's mirror tells her Snow has become more beautiful than her, she orders Snow brought to her with the intention to kill Snow - but Snow escapes. The Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) is brought in to find Snow in the Dark Forest, but instead he helps her get further away.

If Steward can act, she wasn't up to proving it here. I liked Hemsworth in "Thor," but he's not bringing it here either. And Theron, more capable than either, seems intent on chewing the scenery in runny black make-up. Rupert Sanders has made a very dark version of the story with some interesting ideas, but it plods along with poor acting and is simply not worth seeing.

2012, dir. Rupert Sanders. With Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Sam Claflin, Sam Spruell, Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins.

Snowpiercer

A Korean director options a French graphic novel, which he directs, in English, in the Czech Republic. It doesn't get much more international than that.

The story is post-apocalyptic, with a small remnant of humanity living on the eternally running train. Outside, the entire world is a frozen wasteland. (Physics and logic are NOT fortes of this movie.) Our main character is Curtis (Chris Evans), one of the poor on the tail end of the train - the one who will lead the revolution against the rich at the front of the train.

The movie is about class, and just how nasty we can be to each other (and occasionally ourselves). It's very violent, very well done, and pretty damn depressing. Will probably work best for genre fans (SF fans, although thinking action fans will appreciate it too).

2013, dir. Joon-ho Bong. With Chris Evans, Song Kang-ho, Go Ah-sung, John Hurt, Jamie Bell, Tilda Swinton, Ed Harris, Ewen Bremner, Luke Pasqualino, Alison Pill, Octavia Spencer, Vlad Ivanov.

Soapdish

Sally Field plays the (only slightly) ageing lead lady on a soap, and we watch the drama in the actor's personal lives. It's an over-the-top, mildly surreal farce, but unfortunately not a particularly good one. It has some funny moments thanks to an outstanding cast, but they can't make the plot any less of a muddled mess. It's really too bad Kevin Kline doesn't do more slapstick - he's very good at it.

1991, dir. Michael Hoffman. With Sally Field, Kevin Kline, Robert Downey Jr., Cathy Moriarty, Elisabeth Shue, Whoopi Goldberg, Teri Hatcher, Garry Marshall.

Solaris (2002)

I haven't seen the older, longer Tarkovsky version, so I won't be comparing. This is science fiction, but it's about memory and alien-ness, not technology. Chris Kelvin (George Clooney) is sent to a space station above the planet Solaris at the request of his friend, the captain of the space station. There he finds that people in the station are haunted by manifestations (physical and real) of loved ones, evidently put there by the planet. I didn't think Clooney's acting was up to carrying the full burden of the script, and the ideas and weirdness left me cold. The visuals were excellent, but that's hardly something to save the movie when it's as strange and alienating as this one is.

2002, dir. Steven Soderbergh. With George Clooney, Natascha McElhone, Viola Davis, Jeremy Davies, Ulrich Tukur.

Soldier

Kurt Russell plays a trained-from-birth future soldier, discarded in favour of a newer breed of super soldier. He's left for dead on a garbage dump planet, where he finds a small colony of crash-landed humans. While this isn't exactly an art movie, Russell does an excellent job showing the slow socialization of this lifetime soldier through the smallest of facial movements. Inevitably he ends up facing off against his replacements (and can you guess the outcome?). Highly entertaining for fans of the genre. Russell and Sean Pertwee are particularly good, and Gary Busey is better than usual in his normal role.

1998, dir. Paul W.S. Anderson. With Kurt Russell, Jason Scott Lee, Sean Pertwee, Connie Nielsen, Michael Chiklis, Gary Busey, Jason Isaacs.

Solomon Kane

When I first saw this in December 2010, it still didn't have a North American distribution deal. I've watched it several times since, and it's never been released over here. Why not remains incomprehensible to me: it had excellent reviews and very good box office in Europe, and would have done well over here.

James Purefoy plays Solomon Kane (a character created by Robert E. Howard of "Conan" fame). This is considerably darker than Conan, and probably qualifies as (Fantasy) Horror. Kane is a privateer damned to Hell and turned pacifist Puritan in an attempt to avoid the devil. But pacifism isn't his fate. A slaughter of innocents eventually drives him back to violence: "If I kill you, I am bound for Hell. It is a price I shall gladly pay."

Purefoy is brilliant in the lead. Pete Postlethwaite and Mackenzie Crook give him some good support, the effects and cinematography are excellent, and the story - except for a somewhat overblown ending - is great. Highly recommended (although only if you have a good tolerance for violence and blood).

2009, dir. Michael J. Bassett. With James Purefoy, Pete Postlethwaite, Mackenzie Crook, Max von Sydow, Rachel Hurd-Wood, Alice Krige, Samuel Roukin, Jason Flemyng.

Solstrom (Disc 1)

Cirque du Soleil takes their shtick to the small screen. While it allows them to skip scene changes, do retakes, and just generally tighten it all up, the bridging story seems more important and thus its silliness becomes more apparent. And I found the whole drill became rapidly annoying by the third episode on the first disc. If I had been watching them each a week apart it might have worked better, but after three episodes there's already some duplication.

2000.

Some Kind of Wonderful

This is probably my favourite John Hughes movie (he wrote and produced, but didn't direct). In some respects "The Breakfast Club" is better, but in this case Hughes drew three very good characters rather than just relying on stereotypes as he frequently did. Set in high school, the main character is Keith Nelson (Eric Stoltz) who is an artist, a bit of an outcast, and works in a garage. His best friend is Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson), also an outcast, whose main interest in the world is drumming. And then there's Amanda Jones (Lea Thompson), the beautiful girl that Keith falls for - which triggers Watts' realization that she loves Keith, but sadly Keith doesn't know. (Me, I would have picked Watts from the start ...) Typical love triangle, but it plays out pretty well (if you can deal with the dated clothes, hair styles, and slang).

1987, dir. Howard Deutch. With Eric Stoltz, Mary Stuart Masterson, Lea Thompson, Craig Sheffer, Elias Koteas.

Something's Gotta Give

Jack Nicholson's 63 year old character only dates women under 30 - he starts the movie with Amanda Peet. When he has a mild heart attack, he ends up spending more time than he meant to with Diane Keaton, more age-appropriate for him. Keanu Reeves plays his doctor, a man also very interested in Keaton. To me, the movie was most notable for Frances McDormand, who looked great, and Reeves, who put in a very good performance. Keaton was severely over-the-top in places, and I have to think that was the director's fault: "scream and wail more." A messy movie with occasional moments of interest, but not very good.

2003, dir. Nancy Meyers. With Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton, Amanda Peet, Keanu Reeves, Frances McDormand.

A Somewhat Gentle Man

Stellan Skarsgård stars as Ulrik in this Norwegian movie, a gang enforcer just released from jail after 12 years for murdering someone. His old boss Rune Jensen (Bjørn Floberg) finds Ulrik awful accommodations with Rune's sister and immediately begins to demand that Ulrik kill the man who put him in jail. Ulrik is more interested in just living his life and reconnecting with his son (Jan Gunnar Røise). Despite being a killer, he is, in many ways, easy to push around. And from this we get our typically twisted and extra dry Scandanavian humour.

I have to admit, I did find the movie quite funny - but I was put off by Ulrik's sex life, in which he allows two out of the three women in his life use him for sex. And in every case we can see this because he's more interested in eating the meal in front of him than getting laid. Except for that third woman. Let's hear it for uncomfortable humour ...

2010, dir. Hans Petter Moland. With Stellan Skarsgård, Bjørn Floberg, Gard B. Eidsvold, Jorunn Kjellsby, Bjørn Sundquist, Jon Øigarden, Kjersti Holmen, Jan Gunnar Røise, Julia Bache-Wiig, Aksel Hennie, Henrik Mestad, Jannike Kruse.

Somewhere

Stephen Dorff plays Johnny Marco, a Hollywood movie star living an unhappy and dissipated life while surrounded by booze, parties, and women. Then his ex-wife drops his daughter on him for a while.

Coppola establishes the pace from the first shot: incredibly leisurely, verging on glacial. I realize I watch too many action flicks and that's caused me to have a mildly ADD approach to movie-watching, but I was okay - in fact, very happy with - Coppola's own "Lost In Translation" ... not exactly a speedy movie. But this one is too damn slow, and I got tired of watching Dorff's face, and even more tired of watching his Ferrari.

It's a great portrait of a man - Dorff acts well, and the leisurely pace shows his life and unhappiness superbly, but it just takes too long. While the ending is ambiguous, I thought it was fairly hopeful. One of the pleasures of the movie was seeing that, despite his ridiculous lifestyle, he loves his daughter and being around her made him better and brought him back to life.

2010, dir. Sofia Coppola. With Stephen Dorff, Elle Fanning, Michelle Monaghan, Chris Pontius, Simona Ventura.

Somewhere in Time

Chris Reeve plays Richard Collier, a playwright who becomes obsessed with a stage actress of seventy years prior. To be with her, he thinks himself into the past. They dress it up a bit more than that, but not by much: that's what he does, he lays down on the bed and decides he wants to be in the same place seventy years ago. And he has a lovely time with Elise McKenna. Of course there are problems, but what romance is perfect?

Reeves comes across as a big goof - charming, but not someone you would rush to trust. Jane Seymour is dazzlingly beautiful as Elise McKenna. Christopher Plummer is McKenna's manager, who makes a bunch of cryptic and never explained comments about her future. The ending is ambiguous. And I now know why most romances are "Rom Coms" - romance without the comedy is a pretty heavy slog. Especially when it's as dull and absurd as this one.

1980, dir. Jeannot Szwarc. With Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, Christopher Plummer.

Sommersby

Based on the French movie "The Return of Martin Guerre" (although the producers were loathe to admit it and I think it took the threat of a lawsuit for them to do so), this is about the return of a man to his town after the Civil War. He behaves differently, and some people think he's an impostor. Paced and built better than the original (although slightly overblown in all dimensions as so many things from Hollywood are), this is a beautiful story. The ending is significantly different than Martin Guerre. And who would have thought an American remake could be better than a French original??

1993, dir. Jon Amiel. With Jodie Foster, Richard Gere.

Son of Rambow

Brit kid comedy set in the early 1980s. Will (played by Milner) is a very sheltered kid whose family belongs to the Plymouth Brethren. He's a good artist: his bible is unreadable because of his drawings. He stays out of trouble at school, but is drawn into it by Lee Carter (Poulter). Carter abuses Will's friendship, and Will is happy because he's seeing the world outside his restrictive household.

The child actors were astonishingly good, and any given conversation, most immediate interactions, made sense. But the long-term interactions of the kids didn't make sense to me. They also repeatedly defied physics ... until the plot called for an injury or two. So no points for consistency. Mildly amusing.

2008, dir. Garth Jennings. With Bill Milner, Will Poulter, Jessica Hynes, Jules Sitruk, Ed Westwick, Tallulah Evans, Anna Wing.

Song of the Sea

In 2009, Irish director and illustrator Tomm Moore released his first feature length film, "The Secret of Kells." I remember thinking when I first saw it, "seriously? you're going to do a movie in totally flat 2D images in this day and age?" It took all of about two minutes to convince me he'd made the right choice: the art is outstanding. He's stuck with the same graphical style for this one, but it's smoother, more polished and elegant. And the story itself is better constructed. It's set in the modern day, with our two most important characters being the son (Ben, voiced by David Rawle) and daughter (Saoirse, voiced by Lucy O'Connell) of a lighthouse keeper (Conor, voiced by Brendan Gleeson). Their mother leaves very suddenly right after Saoirse's birth. Most of the story takes place when Saoirse is six: Conor sends them to live with his mother, which neither of them wants. Ben is mean to his younger sister, but when strange things start happening, he becomes her defender.

A wonderfully lyrical story with gorgeous artwork, definitely recommended.

2014, dir. Tomm Moore. With David Rawle, Brendan Gleeson, Lucy O'Connell, Lisa Hannigan, Fionnula Flanagan, Jon Kenny.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

I really enjoyed this movie ... not that it's particularly good, but it's definitely entertaining. Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel, and Alfred Molina (in particular) all looked like they were having loads of fun, and that really came through, added to the fun of the movie.

We are first introduced to Morgana, Merlin, and Merlin's apprentices - Balthazar (Cage), Horvath (Molina), and Veronica (Monica Bellucci). Morgana wants to destroy the world, Horvath betrays Merlin and the other apprentices. Merlin dies and sends Balthazar on a many hundreds of years quest to find "the Prime Merlinian" (ugh, couldn't they have come up with a different name?), the only person who can stop Morgana. This is all explained in about five minutes.

Which brings us to the present day. Baruchel is Dave Stutler, a physics student - now identified as "the Prime Merlinian" by Balthazar, who takes Dave on as his apprentice.

With the exception of the scene that was lifted straight from Disney's "Fantasia" segment of the same name, the movie is just fun to watch. The special effects are good, but blend well in the sense that they're there to show what the sorcerer's can do - not what the special effects guys can do.

2010, dir. Jon Turteltaub. With Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel, Alfred Molina, Monica Bellucci, Teresa Palmer, Omar Benson Miller.

Il Sorpasso

The title, "Il Sorpasso," apparently translates to "the overtaking:" Bruno constantly tailgates, honks, and passes other cars. The movie starts with extrovert Bruno borrowing Roberto's phone (this is 1962 - not a cellphone) - then as thanks, he offers to take him out for a drink. Which turns into lunch, and a drive out for dinner, and ... It's an Italian mismatched buddy comedy, an epic road movie, starring Vittorio Gassman as the magnetic and irresponsible Bruno, and Jean-Louis Trintignant as the shy and uncertain law student Roberto. Humour is found in Bruno's antics and unpredictability, and in Roberto's wishy-washiness as we hear his thoughts - he thinks "I should tell him I need to leave," and Bruno asks "Are you thinking of leaving?" to which Roberto replies "No, no - let's party!"

I knew what I was getting in to, and I didn't think I would like the characters or the movie. But Gassman as Bruno is utterly mesmerising and disarmingly charming - even though he's unpredictable and occasionally quite crass or unpleasant, you totally understand why Roberto falls under his spell. I didn't laugh out loud much, but I grinned a lot and the characters really carried the story.

1962, dir. Dino Risi. With Vittorio Gassman, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Catherine Spaak.

Sorry to Bother You

Our main character is Cassius Green (Lakeith Stanfield), driven by poverty to take a job as a telemarketer. After a couple days of failure, one of his co-workers (Danny Glover) suggests he try using his "white voice." He turns out to be spectacularly good at that, and is soon promoted to the much more lucrative "Power Caller" floor - just as all his friends among the telemarketers are taking job action against their employer, which he declines to join.

What that description doesn't include is the surreality of the movie: the least of which is when he makes a call he's suddenly sitting face-to-face with the person on the other end of the line (including when they're on the toilet or having sex). And "white voice" is achieved by over-dubbing: Cassius is white-voiced by David Cross, another employee is white-voiced by Patton Oswalt. And then there's the slavery and re-engineering of humanity by the world's biggest corporation ... All as our hero goes on a surprisingly traditional philosophical voyage to realize it's wrong to do anything for money.

I found the movie kind of fascinating because of the its sheer weirdness, but most critics thought the movie was very funny. I get that it was meant to be, but the humour didn't really work for me.

2018, dir. Boots Riley. With Lakeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Jermaine Fowler, Omari Hardwick, Terry Crews, Patton Oswalt, David Cross, Danny Glover, Steven Yeun, Armie Hammer.

Soul

The beginning of the movie is structurally brilliant: you see our protagonist Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx) suffering through the high school band class he's teaching. In five minutes, we've learned about his life, that he loves Jazz, that this isn't the job he wanted, but he's nevertheless really trying to teach these kids. He's even reaching one or two of them. And over the afternoon, he's hit with a full time school job offer and a chance to play with a Jazz legend he worships. In his enthusiasm he fails to pay attention to the world around him ... and dies (maybe-sorta). At this point we're ten minutes into the movie, and Pixar and director Pete Docter finally get us where they wanted to be to make their points: the afterlife. Or the before-life.

There's a long mid-section with Joe back on Earth - but in the body of a cat. I get why they did this, for two very different reasons: it forces Joe to see his own life from the outside, and it allows for slapstick comedy. I didn't mind the revelations about (his?) life, but I really wasn't keen on the awkward cross-body slapstick humour, which was over-used a decade ago.

And then there's the conclusion. The slapstick kept the kids entertained, while the parents listened to the life lessons ... and the conclusion is totally and completely for the parents. Oh, kids will probably be entertained, but the existentialist philosophy of the whole thing is only for the adults in the room. Weird.

The artwork when we're on Earth is functional. The artwork off Earth is quite lovely. And while I'm not a big fan of free form Jazz, I was very happy to listen to this soundtrack - it's very good. In the end, we have what I see as a very uneven construct that I mostly enjoyed, but I don't think it's one of Pixar's best efforts.

2020, dir. Pete Docter. With Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Graham Norton, Rachel House, Alice Braga, Richard Ayoade, Phylicia Rashad, Donnell Rawlings, Questlove, Angela Bassett.

Source Code

Duncan Jones' follow-up to the excellent (but unfortunately not widely seen) "Moon." Someone other than me thought "Moon" was good: they gave him a shitload of cash for this one.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays military pilot Coulter Stevens, who finds himself on board a Chicago-bound commuter train with no idea how he got there. In fact, he has someone else's driver's license ... and their face. Eight minutes after he awakes, the train explodes killing everyone on board. And Coulter Stevens awakes in a small capsule, where he's given instructions to go back to the train and live those eight minutes over and over until he figures out who the bomber is. Not a fun assignment for him, particularly when he really doesn't want to watch the woman he's grown to like (Michelle Monaghan) die, over and over again. And his handlers are reluctant to tell him anything about how he got to be where he is. I wasn't entirely happy with the conclusion, although it was better than I expected. But the movie is exceptionally well done.

2011, dir. Duncan Jones. With Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga, Jeffrey Wright, Michael Arden.

Southland Tales

Alternate reality science fiction, set in 2008, based on the idea that someone set off a nuclear bomb in Texas sending the U.S. over the brink into "World War III" and complete paranoia. The Patriot Act has expanded into an immense new surveillance program and policing program called USIdent. Papers are required to cross state borders.

This is director Richard Kelly's follow-up film after "Donnie Darko" - which is a movie I hated. This one makes just as little sense, and a bunch of story lines all come together for an immense climax that makes no sense at all. The only really interesting thing to me was Dwayne Johnson's performance: it was certainly outside his usual range. He was both more arrogant and less self-assured than his usual characters, and he actually did pretty well.

What makes this whole exercise extremely frustrating is that Kelly's vision of the near future (or alternate future, depending on how you look at it) seems extremely likely and very well constructed. But that's not enough to carry a movie: you need a plot that's cohesive and makes sense.

2007, dir. Richard Kelly. With Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Justin Timberlake, Wallace Shawn, Miranda Richardson, Mandy Moore, Christopher Lambert, Kevin Smith, John Larroquette, Jon Lovitz, Cheri Oteri, Amy Poehler, Bai Ling.

Souvenir of Canada

Douglas Coupland tackles Canada's national identity based on his two "Souvenir of Canada" books. Utterly useless to outsiders as a lesson on Canada, but intriguing and amusing to those who grew up Canadian - although, whether he realized it or not, Coupland targeted primarily his own generation. He shows us stubbies (old style Canadian beer bottles) without ever naming them or talking about their significance, and many, many things fly by like that - present for Canadians to laugh at or reminisce about, meaningless for others. He talks about when Terry Fox started and ended his Marathon of Hope, but doesn't mention Fox's death or that the Marathon was never completed - we all know that. It's a strange movie, partly made up of Coupland's bizarre imaginary playground, but often hitting on things that are core Canadian issues.

2005, dir. Robin Neinstein. With Douglas Coupland.

Soylent Green

While there isn't a computer in sight (their vision wasn't entirely accurate), this is actually a pretty good look at the future: massively overpopulated with huge shortages of food, water, and power. It stays on those themes (and the resultant changes in mores) and brings them home pretty well: it's quite claustrophobic. But there are some weird moments when all the people disappear, and the punchline (about Soylent Green), which I've known for years, isn't nearly as mind-blowing as they think it is. Still, pretty good.

1973, dir. Richard Fleischer. With Charlton Heston, Leigh Taylor-Young, Chuck Connors, Joseph Cotten, Brock Peters, Edward G. Robinson.

Space Pirate Captain Harlock

Based on the famous manga and anime series from the 1970s, this is a new CG reboot. After a voice-over sets the scene with humans expanded to nearly every planet in the galaxy, we see Harlock's ship landing on a planet looking for a single recruit. They take on Yama - who we soon discover to be an agent of Harlock's main enemy, the Gaia Sanction.

I had a couple minutes of trouble with the CG humans as they stood squarely in the uncanny valley - but within about five minutes I was okay with it. And the effects and sets are just ... spectacular. To the point that I actually paused the movie several times to examine details, something I almost never do. I found the characters interesting, but their behaviour, even given their pasts (when they're finally revealed), was somewhat confusing. The story was ultimately reasonably enjoyable, but the ending was as confusing as the characters. Best for fans of the genre but probably not for general consumption.

2013, dir. Shinji Aramaki. With Shun Oguri, Haruma Miura, Yû Aoi, Arata Furuta, Ayano Fukuda, Toshiyuki Morikawa, Maaya Sakamoto, Miyuki Sawashiro.

Space Cowboys

A highly enjoyable and somewhat forgettable movie about sending a bunch of old guys into space. The four leads appear to be having a great time, and it pays off in entertainment for us. This ain't great art, but it sure is fun.

2000, dir. Clint Eastwood. With Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, James Garner, James Cromwell.

Spaceballs

Mel Brooks's broadside at the original "Star Wars" movie(s) - although there are parodies of other things in there as well, most notably "The Wizard of Oz." Broad humour, unfunny parody, just generally stupid.

1987, dir. Mel Brooks. With Mel Brooks, John Candy, Rick Moranis, Bill Pullman, Daphne Zuniga.

Spaceship Earth

The short summary of this movie is "it's a documentary about Biosphere 2." But it's about so much more, most notably the rather impressive group of hippies who made it happen. Not that that word ("hippies") was ever mentioned during the film, but it's a very distinctive philosophy and they certainly match the time period. But whatever you think of hippies, these ones were atypical. Smart and ambitious, and one of their few rules was "no drugs." They ran a theatre. They read Rachel Carson and Buckminster Fuller, and they believed humanity was destroying the Earth (the hippies got that one right a couple decades ahead of the rest of us). Just running a theatre was too easy: they relocated and started a ranch while still running a theatre. They never knew what they were doing when they started any of these projects, but they learned. The ranch got to be self-sustaining, so it was time to move on. They built a ship - the ocean-going variety - although none of them knew anything about that either. They went around the world in the ship. They built a hotel in Kathmandu: they had a guy with oil money who liked them, he would buy properties around the world, they would go there and "enhance the property's value." They did theatre everywhere. And eventually ... they decided to build Biosphere 2.

It was a huge and expensive project - again backed by oil money. And it only sort of went according to plan. But I'll leave the rest to you to watch the movie, which you should do: it's an intriguing story. But I'll add that one name that's big in American politics right now does come up near the end: Steve Bannon (this was around 1994).

These people were unquestionably weird and possibly a little bit crazy, but very smart and my god I envy them their pre-Biosphere travels and would have loved to go with them - although I don't think I could have fit in. <shrug>

2020, dir. Matt Wolf.

Spanglish

This is all about raising your kids and cultural divides. Vega (absolutely gorgeous) plays a Mexican single mom raising her daughter in Los Angeles. She takes a job with the Clasky family (Sandler and Leoni). Sandler plays it almost straight, and does a passable job ... it's Leoni who's massively over-the-top. Probably the best comedic moment in the entire movie comes when Sandler and Vega decide to have a conversation, although neither speaks the other's language. Bruce, playing Vega's daughter, acts as translator. Having been told to translate "very accurately," she proceeds to do word-for-word ... and emotion-for-emotion on both sides of the discussion. Comedic brilliance, but otherwise not a great actress. Steele is very good as the Clasky daughter. Setting aside the intensely frustrating ending, this is an enjoyable and often funny movie.

MAJOR SPOILER WARNING - stop reading now if you haven't seen the movie. About the ending: it's not that I can't deal with unresolved stuff or feel that a romance is required. It's that the director himself said the movie is about raising your kids - that's the central and most important thing. And if that's the case, why the fuck is Sandler's character sticking with Leoni's character?? She has no redeeming features, she's a rolling disaster for the entire year of the movie, and she's very clearly screwing up their kids - in fact her only redeeming feature might be that she's aware of that ... occasionally. Sandler is clearly deeply infatuated with Vega, she feels the same and would be immensely better for his kids ... and they walk away. Yup, makes sense to me.

2004, dir. James L. Brooks. With Adam Sandler, Téa Leoni, Paz Vega, Cloris Leachman, Shelbie Bruce, Sarah Steele, Ian Hyland, Cecilia Suárez.

Spare Parts

The movie is based on a "Wired" Magazine's article: a team of four students from Carl Hayden High School in Phoenix, Arizona put their underwater ROV (remote operated vehicle) into a competition ... and beat MIT. So I knew the outcome going in, and now so do you (sorry).

The movie starts with an introduction to the various students, and the hiring of a substitute teacher (George Lopez) who has a Ph.D. in engineering and a bad job record. While this is based on a true story, the writing formula echoes every other underdog team put on film - I particularly noticed connections to two other "based on a true story" movies, "McFarland, USA" (I saw it recently and the group of kids is similar given that they're poor and Hispanic - although that one is a sports film) and "October Sky" (poor mining town in Virginia, kids build rockets ... and one of them ended up at NASA). "The formula" is "the formula" because it works: team created against the odds, someone is reluctant, oddball characters, major set-back, triumph. This one is charming and competently acted, but what made it for me was the engineering aspects. Places like MIT get into this feedback loop of high tech and big money, and end up aiming only at refinement, not big changes. Teams like Carl Hayden have no money, and in trying to do things with "spare parts" end up inventing new, and often better ways of doing things. So ultimately formulaic, but fun.

2015, dir. Sean McNamara. With George Lopez, Marisa Tomei, Jamie Lee Curtis, Carlos PenaVega, José Julián, David Del Rio, Esai Morales, Oscar Gutierrez.

Spawn

Todd McFarlane's graphic novel of the same name turned into a movie. A mix of brilliant and stupid ideas, which appears to be McFarlane's mode of communication. The end result from a novice director is predictably uneven - I enjoyed it, but there are spots where you just have to wince. The basic premise has Jai White as an assassin with moral qualms set up and killed by his boss (Sheen), then offered the opportunity once in Hell to return to Earth to see his wife if he'll lead the army of Hell. He makes the deal and becomes Spawn.

1997, dir. Mark Dippé. With Michael Jai White, Martin Sheen, John Leguizamo, Theresa Randle, Nicol Williamson, D.B. Sweeney, Melinda Clarke.

The Specials

This movie was resting in well-deserved obscurity when I discovered it on the rack at the library - a donated DVD in excellent condition, probably because the previous owner never watched it.

"The Specials" are the seventh best group of superheroes in the world, and they're more concerned with getting a toy merchandise deal than saving the world. I'm inclined to like movies about superheroes, but this one adheres to the Saturday Night Live theory of humour: jokes about sex and bodily fluids combined with blatant stupidity is obviously hilarious. I'm not opposed to jokes about sex or even occasionally bodily fluids ... but if you can't tell a joke without resorting to that, your jokes about sex and bodily fluids won't be funny either. And stupidity-as-humour supporting an entire movie seems to have worked for "Dumb and Dumber," but doesn't seem to have flown in any other context. You also won't see anything super-heroic, although Kennedy spends the movie painted blue and Sean Gunn spends it painted green.

The movie is short at 82 minutes, but still far too long for the number of ideas and funny jokes they mustered. They actually had a half-way capable cast, but the script (by James Gunn) is just painful.

2000, dir. Craig Mazin. With Thomas Haden Church, Rob Lowe, Judy Greer, Paget Brewster, Jamie Kennedy, Jordan Ladd, Kelly Coffield, Sean Gunn, Jim Zulevic, Mike Schwartz, Barry Del Sherman.

Spectral

A military SF movie from Netflix. Soldiers fighting insurgents in Moldova are being killed by what appear to be smears on their hyperspectral imaging googles. So the inventor of the goggles (Dale) is flown to Moldova to work with one of the military teams in the area and a CIA specialist (Mortimer) to figure out what's going on. With equipment he brings with him, they're able to determine that the essentially invisible apparitions are human in shape, but it's a while before they figure out how to fight them.

The special effects are pretty cool, but the eventual explanation takes a few big words from science (like "Bose-Einstein Condensate") and makes no damn sense at all. There's some passable acting in there, but the movie's not really about that. So the final product is mildly entertaining if you like that kind of thing, but not even good by genre standards.

2016, dir. Nic Mathieu. With James Badge Dale, Max Martini, Emily Mortimer, Bruce Greenwood, Clayne Crawford, Cory Hardrict.

Spectre

Craig's fourth outing as James Bond. As has been mentioned before, I thought his first movie as Bond ("Casino Royale") was the best thing they'd ever done with the series, by a rather wide margin. Because of that and mediocre reviews I stayed away from "Quantum of Solace," Craig's second. Good reviews lured me back to the third, "Skyfall." It struck me as terribly workman-like: Javier Bardem turned in a better-than-average villain, but the movie was overlong and a bit tedious. So that's where I'm coming from - I watched this one on a "whatever" whim on a Saturday night, and got exactly what I paid for with a movie borrowed from the library.

Bond goes rogue (again), causing chaos in Mexico City and Rome. He is, with the ponderous inevitability of 24 previous Bond films, found to be justified. He seduces Seydoux and Bellucci - each in the heat of the moment after violent action. He saves MI6 (and, to some extent, the world) again. I'd apologize for the spoiler, but dear lord, you knew he'd succeed, right? It's well filmed and ploddingly workman-like in much the same way as "Skyfall." Lives are endangered, shit blows up, the plot and dialogue plods onwards. I'd ask "where's the writing that made 'Casino Royale' so good?", but in truth it wouldn't help all that much with the utter inevitability of the outcome. With "Casino Royale" there were actual moments of doubt with a new Bond.

I'm so, so sick of these movies.

2015, dir. Sam Mendes. With Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Léa Seydoux, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Dave Bautista, Andrew Scott, Monica Bellucci, Ralph Fiennes, Jesper Chistensen.

Speechless, Season 1

This review is based on episodes 1-15 of the 23 in the first season. Each episode is ~30 minutes.

"Speechless" is an American sitcom TV series about a family whose oldest son JJ (Micah Fowler) is restricted to a wheelchair and unable to speak because of Cerebral Palsy. His British mother (Minnie Driver) is a hard-ass who will do anything to assure a good life for her son. Other characters (and it being a sitcom, emphasis on the word character) include the father, the other son and daughter, and the former school grounds-keeper who becomes JJ's aide.

I loved the first episode. But as I worked through the episodes, I found it had a set structure, and bore a strong resemblance to the sitcoms of the 1980s. Plot continuity from episode to episode was minimal, and each episode has a topic-of-the-week flavour. And while the show likes its characters, it's not above humiliating them. Except JJ. Which is ironic on a show thats social message is "treat people like JJ as human." Well, if you want to treat JJ like everyone else, then you have to humiliate him occasionally too ... but we're too respectful for that, aren't we?

While the show is often quite funny, I stopped watching it because it's too fond of using broad character moments for humour, too weak on actual character development, and too similar to the shallow 80s sitcoms.

2016. With Minnie Driver, John Ross Bowie, Mason Cook, Micah Fowler, Kyla Kennedy, Cedric Yarbrough, Marin Hinkle, Rob Corddry, Andrea Anders.

Speed

I think I saw this shortly after it came out, haven't seen it since. It's an incredibly silly movie ... and yet it's one of the classics of action cinema. I can kind of see why, although the flaws are enough that I'm unlikely to watch it again. There are huge problems ... and there are some really good elements that mostly redeem it.

Bad:

  • the whole "bus must stay over 50" concept ... but I guess we have to swallow that to watch at all, and it's not terrible
  • Keanu Reeve's (typically) wooden acting ... although it did manage to show me he's improved in the intervening years
  • The whole subway sequence at the end, which I think they should have dropped entirely
  • And finally, the prize: a bus jumping a 50 yard gap in the freeway (physically impossible, and they don't even make it look probable)

Good:

  • Dennis Hopper's vicious (but not really over-the-top!) villain
  • The palpable tension on the bus for most of the ride
  • And, surprisingly, the rapport between Keanu's character and Jeff Daniels' character

Still not a favourite of mine, but at least I kind of understand why it holds the regard it does.

1994, dir. Jan de Bont. With Keanu Reeves, Dennis Hopper, Sandra Bullock, Joe Morton, Jeff Daniels, Alan Ruck, Glenn Plummer, Beth Grant, Hawthorne James, Carlos Carrasco, David Kriegel.

Speed Racer

What the Wachowski brothers need more than anything is a good filter. "Yes, make 'The Matrix.' No, we'll pass on 'Reloaded.' 'V for Vendetta' sounds great, but we don't know what kind of crack you were on when you came up with 'Speed Racer.'" But instead the movie companies just throw money at them. This is a strange one, and incredible kaleidoscope of over-amped colours: it has moments of genius (usually visual and surreal - the acting is just over-the-top or flat), but it has at least as many moments when you cringe and look around in unadulterated embarrassment to make sure that no one is seeing you watching this shit. A cadre of good actors couldn't save the resulting mess (Christina Ricci sure as hell wasn't trying), although they definitely looked like they were having fun. Oddly, the script actually had a few moments of feeling, decently written. Just weird.

2008, dir. Andy and Larry Wachowski. With Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, Matthew Fox, Scott Porter, Benno Fürmann.

Spellbound (2002)

An oddly fascinating movie about the 10-12 year olds headed for the 1999 national spelling championship. It sounds dull, but ... they're characters. Pretty good.

2002, dir. Jeffrey Blitz.

Spellbound (1945)

It's not often I come across a Hitchcock movie with a pair of major stars that I haven't seen. I thought I'd seen all the major Hitchcocks, but never did a good check on that. Looking at his filmography I realize there are rather more than I thought. Anyway, a Hitchcock movie starring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck showed up at the library and was irresistible to me.

Bergman's character Dr. Constance Petersen is a "psychoanalyst" (trust me, that old term is appropriate here) working at an institution when their new boss shows up. Dr. Anthony Edwardes (Peck) is young and handsome ... and Petersen quickly finds that not only does he have significant psychological issues, but he's not actually Dr. Edwardes - and in fact he may have killed the real Edwardes. Unfortunately, she's fallen head-over-heels for non-Edwardes, as he's fallen for her.

The movie relies very heavily on what I take to be Freudian psychology: there are guilt complexes, phobias caused by events, amnesia, and dreams are interpreted. Peck varies between being his usual charming self, and looks of "shock" and "horror" which I put in quotes because they were so heavy-handed and poorly played. Bergman was okay, but I found the psychology so preposterous that the whole movie was a total loss for me. Peck was terrible, and it's far from Hitchcock's best.

1945, dir. Alfred Hitchcock. With Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov, Leo G. Carroll, Rhonda Fleming, John Emery, Norman Lloyd.

Spiderman

I saw this back when it was first released, and in 2008. I was unimpressed with it the first time, although I thought it had some good moments, but I wanted to give it a second chance because I like superhero movies. Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst have zero romantic chemistry. Many of the action sequences, which looked good only six years ago now appear blatantly CG. But the biggest problem for me is the underlying story of Peter Parker: in this movie, as in the original comic, fate has singled him out to have a really shitty life. He's an angst-ridden kid whose actions invariably hurt his loved ones. I'm sick of that. Apparently others aren't: Spiderman started in the 1960s and is still going, several issues per month. Willem Dafoe is quite good as the mildly verbally abusive and neglectful father of Peter's friend, but wildly over-the-top as the Green Goblin. Not really his fault, the Green Goblin is insane. J.K. Simmons captures J. Jonah Jameson to perfection ... sadly not a character that needed to come to the screen exactly as seen in the comic books.

2002, dir. Sam Raimi. With Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst, Willem Dafoe, James Franco, Cliff Robertson, Rosemary Harris, J.K. Simmons.

Spiderman 2

McGuire and Dunst continue to be the least convincing romantic couple ever put on film. The movie remains true to the tone of the comic - Peter Parker aka Spiderman has a fairly lousy personal life and being Spiderman makes it worse. A passable movie, but cannot compare to my favourites, the X-Men movies.

2004. With Tobey McGuire, Kirsten Dunst, Alfred Molina.

Spiderman 3

I remember a time when I saw McGuire act in a movie ... watching this one it hardly seems possible. Tobey McGuire is beyond awful, Kirsten Dunst is bad ... and you know it's a mess when James Franco's is one of the better performances on board. In fact the best of the lot is Thomas Haden Church, but he spends so much of his time being a special effect it doesn't amount to much. Dunst and McGuire extend their run as total destroyers of romance whenever they're together. Franco is forced to continue the absurd role premiered by Dafoe - jazzed up on drugs, oscillating between best buddy and homicidal maniac ... you know, most people's best friends are like that. The movie also introduces us to the evil emo Peter Parker (infected by an alien symbiote), with the straight, lank and greasy hair, who alternately attracts and repels women (the movie wants you to think it's both, but watching him I can only go with "repels"). Every movie Peter Parker learns big life lessons from Mary Jane, or from Aunt Mae's homilies, and every movie he's forgotten them again so he's forced to learn them again.

The special effects are fairly good, but they can't even begin to cover the fact that this is by far the worst of an already not-particularly good series. Don't see this.

2007, dir. Sam Raimi. With Tobey McGuire, Kirsten Dunst, Thomas Haden Church, James Franco, Topher Grace, Bryce Dallas Howard, Willem Dafoe.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Review of the original: "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse." Like the last one, the real drivers here are writer-producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.

Almost as good as the first one (something of a miracle, given how good the first one was), often just as hyperactive. Suffers slightly from go-big-or-go-home - although Lord and Miller are the two who could pull this off ... So they went with 10,000 versions of Spider-Man. Almost as good ... right up until the end where it became clear it wasn't going to end and they went with a classic (and no less annoying for it) comic book "To Be Continued."

Gwen Stacey (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld) gets recruited by the multi-versal Spider Society, and chooses to visit her friend (from the previous movie, and still our main character) Miles Morales (Shameik Moore). Miles fights "The Spot," who can move through portals. The Spot is weak and goofy, but slips through Miles' hands and starts jumping universes to increase his own power so he can beat Miles/Spider-Man. Several of the Spider-Men chase him. Miguel (Spider-Man 2099, voiced by Oscar Isaac) - the leader of the Spider Society - explains "canon events" to Miles. How each of the Spider-people has important people in their lives that die, and how those events cannot be disrupted and must happen. Miles disrupts one of these events in another universe, which causes a tear in space-time ... or something like that. But far worse is that his own father is scheduled to die at the hands of Spot and he's not "allowed" to do anything about it.

Lord and Miller have decided that this movie is about story-telling and fate: it's not just a Spider-Man story about Miles Morales, it's also carrying a big discussion about how stories are constructed - one that both Miles and the audience have to navigate. This is talking about the whole multi-verse thing that Marvel's comic books built up over decades so they could repeatedly tell the same story with variations. It's trying to nail an over-arching structure onto it, and they leave us with the question "is Miles's fate sealed, or can he (and his Spider-friends) change it?"

It's better than it sounds, just as the last one sounded insane if you put it on paper but was great if you watched it. But even Lord and Miller can't make "To Be Continued" appealing.

2023, dir. Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson. With Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Brian Tyree Henry, Lauren Vélez, Jake Johnson, Jason Schwartzman, Issa Rae, Karan Soni, Shea Whigham, Greta Lee, Daniel Kaluuya, Mahershala Ali, Oscar Isaac.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

I was sick of Peter Parker by the time we got to the second Tobey McGuire movie. I thought they did a better job with the first (not the second!) Andrew Garfield movie, and they also did a good job with Tom Holland ... but I'm sick to death of the Uncle Ben thing and "with great power comes great responsibility" because I'd seen Spider-Man's origin story dozens of times in the comics before I ever saw the movies. So I was a little shaky on this one, but it looked like they were taking a very different approach.

"Different" doesn't begin to cover it: even given the liberties we take for granted in an animated film, this is still frenetic, absurd, and surreal. And yet it totally works. Among the glowing reviews, there were a number that said things like "they've really managed to bring the look and sensibility of a comic book to the screen." Sure, whatever, I thought. But they really did. It's not a straight lift, although they do use framing and split up the screen sometimes. It's a magnificently crazy and beautiful experience that gives you the feel of comic books while bringing the strengths of film as well.

Our main character is Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore), half African-American and half Dominican, living in New York. By (admittedly very wild) coincidence, he's bitten by a radioactive spider shortly before witnessing the death of Peter Parker/Spiderman. This is tied in with Wilson Fisk/Kingpin creating a tear between multiple dimensions that sucks several Spider-beings into Miles' dimension. Yup, sounds completely ludicrous when you write it out. But it's a comic book, and they absolutely make it work. One of the best movies of the year.

The power behind the throne here - producing, writing, and driving this to higher levels of surreality - were Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who created the equally brilliantly insane "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs," and the first "Lego Movie." That's a pair worth watching.

2018, dir. Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman. With Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali, Brian Tyree Henry, Lily Tomlin, Luna Lauren Velez, John Mulaney, Kimiko Glenn, Nicolas Cage, Liev Schreiber.

Spider-Man: Homecoming

They do us the favour of entirely skipping Spider-Man's origin story (which we've seen twice quite recently - Tobey McGuire in 2002 and Andrew Garfield in 2012) and move on more to the whole process of Peter Parker adjusting to his new place in the world (which, it must be said, is usually also part of the origin story). Tom Holland (who plays Peter Parker in this outing) and his buddy Ned (Jacob Batalon) manage more humour than any previous version of Spider-Man. After "Captain America: Civil War," high school student Spider-Man is back in New York and hoping to work with the Avengers. While waiting for them to call, he occasionally fights crime in his area with the assistance of the super-suit Tony Stark gave him. At the same time, Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton) and his salvage company embark on a criminal career salvaging alien and superhuman artifacts and repurposing them for high powered weapons. Toomes uses a flight harness created by one of his employees to become "The Vulture" (I don't think the name is ever mentioned in the movie, but the character name, the appearance, and Keaton's relatively advanced age all match up with that comic book character).

Overall, they've constructed a serviceable and at least amusing story. It's not hugely memorable, and not a great film, but also far from Marvel's worst. Considering how sick I am of the Spider-Man story, I have to give them credit for keeping me interested.

2017, dir. Jon Watts. With Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Jon Favreau, Jacob Batalon, Zendaya, Donald Glover, Tyne Daly, Marisa Tomei, Robert Downey Jr.

Spider-Man: Far From Home

Sequel to 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming.

You can feel the production line behind this one. This is the 23rd "Marvel Cinematic Universe" film: I'll give them credit for having better writing staff and better chosen actors than most sequels, but it's a formula nevertheless. Looking back, it was "Ant-Man" that set the comedic tone for this one (and the success of "Thor: Ragnarok" that locked it in). Action-comedy: buckle up for way more of it than you want to see. Not just this movie, but every MCU movie to follow.

This time, Peter Parker (still Tom Holland) is on a class trip to Europe. Nick Fury wants Spider-Man to take over for Iron Man (after what happened in "Avengers: Endgame"), while Peter mostly just wants to enjoy his trip and get a date with MJ (Zendaya). Of course "with great power comes great responsibility" rears its ugly head. A new superhero who is eventually named Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) fights an Elemental in Venice, and Peter gets dragged into the action. Both Fury and Mysterio manipulate Parker's class trip, making his life harder and endangering his class-mates. The outcome is a foregone conclusion because Marvel doesn't kill off its stars (unless they've really had enough, see Robert Downey Jr.).

It was fun, cute, clever, and ... the same as always. I'm glad I'm not paying for these - the library is a great service.

2019, dir. Jon Watts. With Tom Holland, Jake Gyllenhaal, Samuel L. Jackson, Zendaya, Jon Favreau, Jacob Batalon, Marisa Tomei, Tony Revolori, Angourie Rice, Remy Hill, Martin Starr, Cobie Smulders, J.B. Smoove.

Spider-Man: No Way Home

"No Way Home" picks up seconds after the end of "Far From Home." The world knowing that "Peter Parker is Spiderman" ruins not only Peter's (Tom Holland) life, but those of his friends as well. Which fuels a sketchy decision by Peter to ask Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to manipulate time to prevent the reveal from happening. But Dr. Strange can't manipulate time anymore ... and here comes the first in a long series of very, very stupid decisions by both Dr. Strange and Peter/Spiderman, many of which are spectacularly hard to believe from two people who Marvel has always pushed to tell us are extremely intelligent. But these absurd decisions are our plot drivers. Strange offers to use magic to wipe the memory of Peter Parker from everyone in existence. Neither of them thinks this through and Strange just starts the spell - at which point Peter says "but wait! MJ has to remember me!" He keeps adding people until the spell gets out of control.

The consequences are bizarre, with Spiderman ending up fighting a rogue's gallery of bad guys from across the multiverse (this means "previous Spiderman movies"). Hauling in Alfred Molina as Doc Ock from a Tobey McGuire Spiderman movie was kind of brilliant ... although their logic for getting him there was utter shit.

The end result has a spectacularly silly plot, well written characters (except for the many poor decisions), too many characters, no time for introductions if you don't already know the entire Marvel mythology, and still too long a running time at two and a half hours. It's also fed my growing annoyance with Marvel about what do I know about these people when you can rewrite it with a spell, or time travel, or an Infinity Stone any damn time you want? And of course they kind of ripped off "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" (which was better). Extremely frustrating.

SPOILERS AHEAD: STOP reading now if you haven't seen the movie and want to be surprised by the plot.

In the middle of the movie, Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) dies. We were in the middle of a Dr. Strange spell: after "Infinity War" and "Endgame" I know dead people don't stay dead. I assumed that things would be reset and she would be alive again. The end result was there was no pathos, no drama in May's death for me because I have exactly zero trust in Marvel's writers. And of course their opening "the multiverse" like this means that even if a character dies in one universe, they can always be brought in from another (although they may not look exactly the same). Or we can have a different version of the same person appear from another timeline (witness Gamora). So ... how much pathos is there in a death when death has been proven to be transitory?

Remember I mentioned "very, very stupid decisions?" Peter has his entire rogue's gallery incarcerated in Strange's magical jail. But he decides he has to "save" them - very laudable. How about this: save them ONE AT A TIME. Let one out, fix the problem. But no: he lets out five of his most lethal enemies all at once on trust, what could possibly go wrong? Oh wait - yeah, Aunt May died.

Setting aside the incredibly poor decision-making that's the primary plot driver, the character writing is good. The villains all have at least some depth (ie. not just one-note evil), and the interactions between the three Peter Parkers (Andrew Garfield and Tobey McGuire both return) were both funny and surprisingly emotional.

One final complaint: the post-credits scene isn't so much a "scene" as simply a full-blown trailer for "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness." It's just more disjointed than most of the trailers, having most of the pieces but with less semblance of order. Marvel's post-credit teasers were more fun when they were just that: teasers.

2021, dir. Jon Watts. With Tom Holland, Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch, Jacob Batalon, Jon Favreau, Jamie Foxx, Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, Benedict Wong, Tony Revolori, Marisa Tomei, Andrew Garfield, Tobey Maguire, Thomas Haden Church, Rhys Ifans, J.K. Simmons.

The Spiderwick Chronicles

Based on a children's book, finds rebellious 12 year old Jared (Freddie Highmore), his twin brother Simon (also Highmore), sister Mallory (Sarah Bolger), and mother (Mary-Louise Parker) moving into a house with a history. Jared shortly discovers the secret study of his great-uncle Arthur Spiderwick, and opens "the book" despite warnings not to. This of course precipitates a series of supernatural events involving brownies, goblins, and an ogre.

Sadly the movie doesn't have anything for adults in it. But it's a pretty good kid's movie and the visual effects are enjoyable.

2008, dir. Mark Waters. With Freddie Highmore, Sarah Bolger, Mary-Louise Parker, David Strathairn, Martin Short, Nick Nolte, Seth Rogen, Andrew McCarthy.

Spies in Disguise

The movie opens with two set-up scenes - the first is of a very young Walter Beckett (voiced at this point by Jarrett Bruno, but Tom Holland for most of the movie) who is already inventing non-lethal spy gadgets. The second is of spy Lance Sterling (voiced by Will Smith) taking on a huge contingent of Yakuza in Japan - and my first thought was "wow, they just visually quoted 'Kill Bill.'" And of course every James Bond movie ever. The main point of the sequence was to show us how incredibly good he is, but also the massive ego and loner mentality that goes with his success. The sequence also introduces our primary bad guy (Ben Mendelsohn).

Shortly after Sterling returns to hero worship at his agency, he gets tangled up with the now adult Walter who (having graduated MIT at age 15) is making gadgets for the agency. Sterling promptly has Walter fired, then gets in lots of trouble, seeks out Walter, and turns himself into a pigeon by mis-using some of Walter's tech. And now we have a classic mis-matched buddy movie: they don't like each other but they have to co-operate to survive what's coming.

I've mentioned James Bond and "Kill Bill:" the other movie that came to mind was "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs." It's an animated movie, let's make it surreal. Nowhere near as crazy as "Cloudy" (to its own detriment), this is colourful and fun without doing anything new, or leaving a lasting impression. Although the gag (included in the trailer) when Sterling first finds himself turned into a pigeon is pretty memorable: "Look at you? I can't not look at you, Walter. I can see my butt and your face at the same time!" To accompany this they give us his 360 degree vision for a few moments. Kind of the high point of the movie ...

2019, dir. Troy Quane and Nick Bruno. With Will Smith, Tom Holland, Rashida Jones, Ben Mendelsohn, Reba McEntire, Rachel Brosnahan, Karen Gillan, DJ Khaled, Masi Oka, Jarrett Bruno, Carla Jiminez.

The Spirit

Not quite as bad I'd heard, but still pretty damn awful. Miller is good with visuals, but plot and getting decent performances from actors are not among his skills. Worse, what's good in the visuals was already done, and better, by Rodriguez and Miller when they made a movie of Miller's own "Sin City." Here, Miller is trying to bring a "classic" by Will Eisner to the screen. Eisner was hugely influential on comics, but "The Spirit" wasn't so much a "classic" as a very long-running experiment. I liked Ebert on this one: "To call the characters 'cardboard' is to insult a useful packing material."

2008, dir. Frank Miller. With Gabriel Macht, Eva Mendes, Paz Vega, Jaime King, Dan Lauria, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson, Stana Katic.

Spirited Away

The movie that brought Hayao Miyazaki to my attention, along with most of North America. One of the best animated movies ever made. Pretty much indescribable, it's a stunning visual treat with a fabulous plot that develops steadily and sweeps you away. Disney made sure that the English voice work was extremely well done. See this as soon as you can.

2013 update: in the years since its release I've watched this perhaps twelve times. The story remains excellent and the artistic detail is astounding - the movie continues to reward every viewing.

2001, dir. Hayao Miyazaki.

Split

"Split" is generally regarded as M. Night Shyamalan's return to form after several exceptionally bad movies ("Lady in the Water," "The Happening," "The Last Airbender," and "After Earth"), although it was preceded by 2015's "The Visit" which has received "mixed to positive" reviews.

The movie opens quickly with three young women (Anya Taylor-Joy, Haley Lu Richardson, and Jessica Sula) being kidnapped by James McAvoy's character. As is made clear by the trailer and the poster, he has a fairly large set of personalities, so that part's not a surprise unless you're coming to the movie with no fore-knowledge whatsoever. So his behaviour after locking them up isn't much of a surprise - although McAvoy puts in a good performance, so it's definitely creepy.

We see some of McAvoy's visits to his psychologist (psychiatrist? who knows - played by Betty Buckley) - which allows the movie to lay out her beliefs about the possible abilities of people with dissociative identity disorder who seem to be able to change their own body through belief. And we also see flashbacks of Casey's (Taylor-Joy) increasingly unpleasant childhood.

Between these two things, Shyamalan laid out the plot a bit too clearly and I had a very good idea where he was going with most everything. He's been known in the past for pulling extraordinary twists at the end, having embedded hints throughout the movie. Hardly anyone catches them. If there was a twist that I wasn't supposed to see ... well, I got all the big ones. And I didn't find it emotionally involving or scary, just a bit creepy and unpleasant. A good performance from McAvoy wasn't enough to pull this one through.

2016, dir. M. Night Shyamalan. With James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley, Haley Lu Richardson, Jessica Sula, Brad William Henke, Semastian Arcelu, Neal Huff.

Spoiler Alert

The movie is narrated by Michael Ausiello (played by Jim Parsons), who is the author of the book this movie is based on. The movie starts in a hospital, with Michael's lover Kit Cowan (Ben Aldridge) dying of cancer. Thus the title of the movie. We then go back 14 years to see the beginning of their relationship, with the movie filling in most of the rest of their history.

There's nothing particularly new or innovative here. But on the plus side, it's a well written story of the struggles of keeping a loving relationship together - with a death near the end - led by two excellent performances from Aldridge and Parsons ... which means you're likely to want to have a box of tissues on hand. I'm not much of a fan of weepy movies, but if you have to watch one, this one is done very well.

2022, dir. Michael Showalter. With Jim Parsons, Ben Aldridge, Sally Field, Bill Irwin, Antoni Porowski, Nikki M. James, Jeffery Self, Tara Summers, Shunori Ramanathan, Paco Lozano.

Spotlight

I watch a lot of movies. In 2004, I watched one called "The Station Agent," which was wonderful. It was Tom McCarthy's first film (as director), which he made for about $500,000 - starring someone no one had heard of at the time called Pete Dinklage. McCarthy had been a bit part actor around Hollywood for a while, and decided to try his hand at directing - and he did a good job. So I watched "The Visitor" as soon as I could get my hands on it, and damn, that's a good movie. In fact, as a director he has only one flat-out stinker on his record ("The Cobbler," at 10% on Rotten Tomatoes). "The Visitor" is his next lowest rated at 89% - ironically, I'd probably argue that it's still his best.

"Spotlight" is the name of a team of reporters with the Boston Globe who focus on one story for a long time, really dig into it. In 2001 the paper's brand new editor Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) who had been on the job one day, pointed them at a court case against an abusive priest and the sealed documents in the case. From there it just kept growing, getting bigger, scarier, and more horrible.

The movie is both a thank-you and a plea that we not lose this type of investigative journalism - and McCarthy's right, no website news outlet has the resources to handle something like this - especially not at the local level. The Church would have won, and that would have been very bad.

As a movie, it's done extraordinarily well, with one of its greatest virtues being its relatively simple structure. It lays out the problem, and then follows the reporters as they follow threads, hit roadblocks, and stumble on ever larger cover-ups. The team of reporters consists of Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, and Brian d'Arcy James, all of whom are excellent. All the supporting roles are filled, often with actors just as prestigious - and more importantly, acting well. A great piece of work - one of the best of its decade.

2015, dir. Tom McCarthy. With Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, Brian d'Arcy James, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring

A Korean Buddhist fable. Bizarre, but good. Extraordinarily beautiful. Follows the life (about 45 years worth) of a Buddhist monk and the child he raises on an isolated monastery floating in a small lake.

2003. dir. Ki-duk Kim.

Spy

I watched "The Heat" fairly recently, another movie directed by Paul Feig and starring Melissa McCarthy. It's theoretically a comedy (odd couple cops forced to work together), but broadly drawn, heavy-handed, and not particularly funny. I admit that may just be me as it did reasonably will with critics, at 65% on Rotten Tomatoes. But my view on that movie has ensured I'll never watch "Bridesmaids" - between it being Feig and the gross-out gags. So you can guess that I approached this one with some trepidation. It also means this review probably won't be overly useful to people who are good with broad humour: you know who you are.

McCarthy plays CIA analyst Susan Cooper who guides her field partner Bradley Fine (Jude Law) with current intel in his earpiece at all times. She's extremely good at it, and with her help Fine remains the top agent in their group. The interplay between the two is pretty funny. Neither McCarthy nor Feig believes in subtlety, so they make it eminently clear from the get-go that Cooper is in love with Fine. And this leads early on to what I consider the worst and least funny scene in the movie, with Cooper swooning over Fine at dinner. Plot devices happen, and Cooper volunteers to go into the field. Subtlety is again completely lacking, but I have to admit some of the set pieces and characters (particularly Jason Statham, who redefines the term "rogue agent") are hilarious.

The mid- and after-credits scene with McCarthy and Statham is a wonderfully unclear blend of post-event celebration and outtake - and also cripplingly funny and worth the price of admission. I think the movie as a whole would have been funnier if it was less heavy-handed, but the skewering of the entire spy genre is impressive and occasionally quite brilliant.

2015, dir. Paul Feig. With Melissa McCarthy, Jason Statham, Rose Byrne, Jude Law, Miranda Hart, Bobby Cannavale, Allison Janney, Morena Baccarin.

Spy Game

Brad Pitt plays a young and still idealistic CIA agent, who we see before the title breaking into a Chinese prison in an attempt to break out one of the prisoners. Robert Redford plays his former mentor on his last day at the CIA before retirement. The movie plays out in a series of flashbacks, as Redford is questioned by the CIA about his association with Pitt. Both are effective agents, but the film is about their different styles and moral decisions.

While I'm not always a fan of Tony Scott's direction, this movie actually comes out quite well. Constant flashbacks usually annoy me or leave me disoriented, but here they're handled pretty much perfectly. Redford and Pitt are both excellent, and the story is a very well-constructed old-fashioned spy thriller that manages to be exciting on a visceral level, intelligent, and thought-provoking. Definitely worth a look.

2001, dir. Tony Scott. With Robert Redford, Brad Pitt, Catherine McCormack.

Spy Kids

Robert Rodriguez's first foray into children's movies, and his best (anyone going to claim that either of the sequels or "Sharkboy and Lavagirl" are better?). A goofy and enjoyable flick about a couple children who find out their parents are retired spies - and then have to gear up to save the parents from an evil plot. Clever and funny.

2001, dir. Robert Rodriguez. With Alexa Vega, Daryl Sabara, Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino, Alan Cumming, Tony Shalhoub, Teri Hatcher, Cheech Marin, Danny Trejo, George Clooney.

Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams

Equally as silly as the first movie, and almost as much fun. Carmen (Alexa Vega) and Juni (Daryl Sabara) are back, but this time their parents (Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino) are out of retirement and helping (or occasionally hindering). But this is mostly the kids' movie. Additional comedy comes from the rest of the spy family, their uncle (Danny Trejo) and grandparents (Holland Taylor and Ricardo Montalban). Steve Buscemi shows up to be goofy too.

2002, dir. Robert Rodriguez. With Alexa Vega, Daryl Sabara, Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino, Alan Cumming, Tony Shalhoub, Cheech Marin, Danny Trejo, Ricardo Montalban, Holland Taylor, Steve Buscemi, Emily Osment, Matt O'Leary, Mike Judge, Taylor Momsen.

Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over

The worst of the three, but still has some redeeming features - including a very impressive cast list and an (intentionally) hilarious performance by Sylvester Stallone. Juni (Daryl Sabara) comes out of "retirement" (at age, what, 14?) to rescue his sister Carmen (Alexa Vega) who is trapped in a video game that may be about to take over the world. The game was written by the Toymaker (Stallone), who is plagued by his three other personalities (also Stallone). The effects are, if anything, cheesier than the previous installments, but it's still sporadically funny and charming.

2003, dir. Robert Rodriguez. With Daryl Sabara, Alexa Vega, Sylvester Stallone, Ricardo Montalbán, Holland Taylor, Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino, Salma Hayek, George Clooney, Cheech Marin, Danny Trejo, Emily Osment, Alan Cumming, Tony Shalhoub, Steve Buscemi, Elijah Wood.

The Spy Next Door

Jackie Chan was the martial arts hero of the 1980s and 1990s. But as his body absorbed more abuse and he got older, his stunt work became less impressive. The only movie he's done after 2000 that was worth seeing was "The Foreigner" (unless we count the "Kung Fu Panda" movies, for which he did voice work). This particular movie came out in 2010. I knew all this ... I'll once again blame the pandemic for my avoidance of anything thought-provoking or depressing.

Full disclosure: I watched this 94 minute movie in about 60 minutes, zipping through quite a few scenes of exposition. Not that the action scenes were that much better.

Chan plays Bob Ho, a Chinese spy on loan to the CIA. He's planning on retiring, and has found a lovely woman ("Gillian," played by Amber Valletta) somewhere in the U.S. that he wants to settle down with. The problem is, her three kids don't really like him and his spying career isn't quite finished. Bob uses spy tools to both get a handle on the kids (not, of course, in a way that's invasive of their privacy as that would make him uncool / creepy) and to seem cool to them, but then the bad guys come after him and he has to protect the kids while fighting for his life.

Reminiscent of the better "Kindergarten Cop" (1990) and Vin Diesel's not-so-great "The Pacifier" (2005), with a touch of "Spy Kids" (2001) thrown in. Chan's stunts aren't that good, and there's a fair bit of wirework (something he used to religiously avoid). Not very funny, mildly cute, and with surprisingly poor stunts. The inclusion of Billy Ray Cyrus (who grooms that man? Nobody?) gives you some indication of how poor the staffing choices were.

2010, dir. Brian Levant. With Jackie Chan, Amber Valletta, Magnús Scheving, Madeline Carroll, Will Shadley, Alina Foley, Billy Ray Cyrus, George Lopez, Lucas Till, Katherine Boecher.

Stage Fright

The movie opens with Eve Gill (Jane Wyman) and Jonathan Cooper (Richard Todd) in a car, clearly worried that the police are after them. Jonathan explains to Eve what's happened: he's been having an affair with famous stage actress Charlotte Inwood (Marlene Dietrich), and when her husband abused her and she accidentally killed him while defending herself, she turned to Jonathan for help - and he may now be suspected of the murder. Eve is infatuated with Jonathan, despite his affair with Charlotte. She knows she's being used, and says to Jonathan "I wish I'd taken courses in playing second fiddle." She takes him to her father's seaside home, in the hope of hiding Jonathan on her father's boat. It was when we met her father (Alastair Sim - most famous as Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol") that I completely fell for the movie: her father is a quick-witted old smuggler who clearly loves his innocent young daughter and understands her personal foibles far better than she does. This kind of writing has always been one of Hitchcock's greatest strengths: he never has to spend time on exposition to tell you about people because their characters shine through in their speech and behaviour. So much so that two minutes with his characters is better than half an hour of blundering fluff provided by the vast majority of Hollywood screenwriters. The scene between Wyman and Sim would have made the whole movie worth while by itself, but there's plenty more fun to be had.

Eve concludes that her best course of action is to put her acting skills to work to try to expose Charlotte Inwood to take the heat off Jonathan. There are plenty of twists and turns along the way, including a handsome police detective (Michael Wilding, who's a dead ringer for Alan Cumming) and a black-mailing housekeeper.

I don't like Dietrich and I really don't like Dietrich doing staged musical numbers. I wasn't keen on the big twist at the end. And yet the quality of the writing made this wonderful fun to watch.

UPDATE: I don't know Sim's work well (or perhaps at all) but I find it hard to believe he's done anything better than this. He's a (major) supporting character, but he's incandescently good as a kind-hearted, extremely intelligent, loving, and slightly larcenous father. Hitchcock's writing (and/or choice of screenwriter!) for the part was fabulous, and Sim makes it shine. The movie as a whole isn't nearly as good as his performance (although it's fairly good), but I've returned to the movie just to watch Sim play this part.

1950, dir. Alfred Hitchcock. With Jane Wyman, Marlene Dietrich, Michael Wilding, Alastair Sim, Richard Todd, Kay Walsh, Sybil Thorndike.

Stake Land

It's a violent horror movie - but it's not about the horror. It's about survival and people.

Martin (Connor Paolo) is our teenage protagonist who gives us our voice-over - taken under the wing of Mister (Nick Damici), an accomplished vampire killer. After the world is over-run by a vampire epidemic, Martin's parents and baby sibling are killed by a vampire, and the vampire is killed by Mister. They set out, hunting vampires and headed toward "New Eden," a place that's supposed to be free of vampires.

As they travel, they cross paths with "The Brotherhood," a religious group who believe the vampires are a good thing. It doesn't help that The Brotherhood's leader's brother was an aspiring rapist that Mister killed. They acquire - and lose - several traveling companions during the course of the movie.

Low budget but surprisingly decent. Also seriously depressing.

2010, dir. Jim Mickle. With Nick Damici, Connor Paolo, Michael Cerveris, Sean Nelson, Kelly McGillis, Danielle Harris.

Stalker

Not, as the title immediately suggests to any North American of my generation, a horror movie. Bizarre Russian SF. "Stalker" is the central character, a man who can find his way through the mysterious "Zone". The "Zone" simply appeared in their country twenty years prior, and most people die immediately on entering it. But if you go with a stalker, he can probably get you to "The Room" where your deepest wish may be granted. In this case, Stalker takes "Writer" and "Professor" into the Zone. Written by the Strugatsky brothers, Arkadi and Boris.

I watched this because Alex Proyas (director of "Dark City") said that it was one of his top five movies, and it was the only one I didn't know of the five. In its favour I can say that the sound is absolutely fascinating: massively overdone, but staggeringly atmospheric despite that. This is a movie to listen to. But the filming ... we see two and a half hours of our three unattractive, (anti-)heroes, often in considerable close-up, stumbling through overgrown industrial wasteland and tearing philosophical chunks out of each other ... when you can understand A) the badly translated Russian and B) the bizarre Russian view of the world. Watching it was a slow and painful process, and (with the occasional exception of the sound design and rarer moments of cinematography) thoroughly unrewarding.

1979, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky. With Aleksandr Kaidanovsky, Alisa Frejndlikh, Anatoli Solonitsyn, Nikolai Grinko, Natasha Abramova.

Star Trek the Next Generation, Season 1 Disc 1

Contains the episodes "Encounter at Farpoint" (double length pilot), "The Naked Now," and "Code of Honor." "Farpoint" was a truly inauspicious start - the introduction of the idiotic "Q" character, Deanna Troi wandering around with a foolish grin saying "I feel great joy," and everyone over-acting because we're just not going to take the time to introduce the characters over a longer period of time. And then in "The Naked Now" Data and Tasha have sex (sure thing), and Wesley saves the Enterprise - something he was to make a depressingly frequent habit of.

1987. With Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Wil Wheaton.

Star Trek the Next Generation, Season 1 Disc 2

Contains the episodes "The Last Outpost" (including the first over-exaggerated appearance of the Ferengi), "Where No One Has Gone Before," "Lonely Among Us," and "Justice." And of course we have Wesley Crusher. While Wil Wheaton has turned out fairly cool, his character was a disaster and it was just as well he was removed after the first season.

1987. With Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Wil Wheaton.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Huge amounts of money spent to create one of the worst movies ever conceived. The director and producers are so in love with their pretty models that the movie has a plot that could have occupied 45 minutes if it wasn't for the endless loving, caressing passes the camera makes over the Enterprise and the various parts of V'Ger. I guess they were trying something similar to the visual sequences from "2001: A Space Odyssey," but they didn't quite manage. And the plot is so ludicrously painful that most SF fans would be better served sticking a fork in their eye than watching this.

It's a real miracle that the franchise survived this abomination. At least they recovered nicely: the second movie ("Wrath of Khan") was one of the best things ever done with the franchise.

1979, dir. Robert Wise. With William Shatner, DeForest Kelley, Persis Khambatta, Stephen Collins, Leonard Nimoy, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

This really is pretty much the best thing they ever did with the franchise. In 2011 the special effects look pretty lame, but it really doesn't matter: this thing's got story, character development and drama. It's a great plot, almost everyone is acting remarkably well, and it's just a joy to watch. And while there are a lot of things I like about this movie, my favourite is probably watching Mr. Roarke of "Fantasy Island" (Ricardo Montalban, for the many people who aren't that old) turning in a brilliantly vicious performance as Khan. If you're a fan of science fiction, this is a must-see.

1982, dir. Nicholas Meyer. With William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Ricardo Montalban, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, Kirstie Alley, Bibi Besch, Merritt Butrick, Paul Winfield.

Star Trek IV: The Journey Home

"Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" holds a special place in the "Star Trek" canon: it's the goofball time-travel comedy in the middle of a bunch of "serious" movies. I should admit that, while I've seen most of the "Star Trek" movies, I haven't seen either "Star Trek III" or "Star Trek V" as they both have terrible reputations. Nevertheless, I have a fairly good idea what went on in "III," and it's important to this one. After "II," Spock's body is laid to rest on the Genesis planet, which resurrects him, so his behaviour in this movie is odder than usual.

The command crew of the Enterprise are returning to Earth in a stolen Klingon Bird-of-Prey to face a variety of military charges arising from their actions in the previous movie when an enormous probe of unknown origin approaches Earth. Its transmissions severely damage the entire world's power grid. Kirk and crew receive the distress call, and figure out they have to go back in time to retrieve some now-extinct humpback whales who can answer the probe's queries. The rest of the movie is silly fun with the crew from the future not fitting in particularly well in the San Francisco of 1986. They get a lot of help (and something of a love interest for Kirk) from a whale biologist (Catherine Hicks) at an aquarium in Sausalito.

There are a number of what now (in 2016) seem like fantastically cheesy lines, of which Scotty gets the worst. The end result is heavy-handed about humanity's destruction of our environment (specifically whales), often funny, and generally fun. It's certainly not the best Star Trek (that honour goes to "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan"), but it's definitely one of the more enjoyable in the immense and ever-growing Star Trek catalogue.

1986, dir. Leonard Nimoy. With William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, Catherine Hicks.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

After a massive explosion on the moon of the Klingon world that puts their homeworld at risk, the Enterprise is sent to broker a peace with the Klingons. As Kirk is quick to point out, he hates the Klingons - why send him? Which yielded one of the great Star Trek quotes, with Spock saying "There is an old Vulcan proverb: only Nixon could go to China." Kirk struggles with his hatred and then has to deal with the sabotage of his mission.

One of the better Star Trek movies, but not really a favourite of mine. The devious Shakespeare-spouting Klingon general Chang (Christopher Plummer) was clever, but somehow rubbed me the wrong way. I also found the players involved in the sabotage plot unbelievable: they're working together because what?

1991, dir. Nicholas Meyer. With William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Kim Cattrall, Christopher Plummer, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Mark Lenard, Brock Peters, David Warner, Michael Dorn.

Star Trek: Discovery (Season 1)

"Discovery" got a notoriously awful start: the first episode is appallingly bad, and most reviewers - unsurprisingly - went live with terrible reviews based on that episode. The second episode is merely bad. After that, things got more interesting: it's good to see Star Trek taking chances, doing different things. It's also good to see them telling a larger story arc with the expectation you should watch the episodes in sequence and remember what's happened (although they bracket all the episodes with "previously on" and "coming up on" blocks, each a couple minutes). The down-side of this more chronological story-telling is that they're perfectly happy to use it to make cliff-hangers at the ends of episodes. I am NOT a fan of cliff-hangers: they're insulting to the fans. You don't think we'll come back unless you leave the fate of your characters in doubt? You don't think much of your own product then, because we'd be coming back if it was any good ... Another mixed blessing here (mostly good) is that they're clearly willing to kill off major characters (this is a war, after all) - which means that, unlike other Star Trek series, a cliff-hanger actually carries weight.

SPOILERS FOLLOW - stop reading now if that matters to you.

The first major problem I have with the series is they've changed the appearance of the Klingons AGAIN. Unnecessary and pointless. The first couple episodes rushed through the start of the human war with the Klingons - and simultaneously set up Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) as a mutineer (with the best of intentions). If they'd taken more time, two or three more episodes to set up the politics and characters, it could have worked better. But they were in a big rush to get to the big set pieces of the episodes coming up.

Which includes the instantaneous-go-anywhere spore drive (because no one has ever taken a trip on mushrooms before). Not to mention that this doesn't fit anywhere in Star Trek's overall mythology. And a character who appears Human but is in fact Klingon ... I can accept Cylons who look human, sometimes don't even know they're not human. But a Klingon so modified that they can pass for not only human biology but also human psychology? I'm not buying it as described. And then we get into the alternate universe AND time travel thing: they use both in one fell swoop here, avoiding any need for consistent plotting by resurrecting characters across time-lines.

In the 13th episode, after about four episodes spent in an alternate universe full of evil humans - we can track that concept back to the original series, hardly a new idea - Discovery returns to their own universe nine months late to a war with the Klingons almost entirely lost.

I abandoned the series at that point, as I could see only two plotting options: time travel again (but they're out of mushrooms) or stay in the current time and save the day with their Klingon invisibility cloak breaker. Either way, they needed more mushrooms, and I felt sure I wouldn't like the magical methods by which they get them - too many gods in the machine. I returned to the series because it was pointed out to me that there were only two more episodes to go (I'd assumed the more standard 22-per-season), and a friend said she liked where they went at the end of the series. But they went all deus-ex-machina as I expected with the mushroom supply, taking over an entire moon and magically growing a planet's worth of spores in a few hours. And then they grabbed another rabbit out of a hat, giving an unbelievably powerful and dangerous weapon to their adversaries - stop and think about that one ... but according to them it totally saved the universe.

It looks pretty. They're taking chances, which is a necessity when the series is over fifty years old: you HAVE to break new ground or you're just going to do the same old stuff. But they're doing it with magic technology: not small increases in tech as always happen, but huge leaps and bounds that have no place in the Star Trek cannon. I'm not a Trek purist, but I strongly prefer universes to be internally consistent. And they're not solving problems with human social trouble-shooting skills, they're doing it - almost entirely - by pulling out new magical technological solutions that don't even fit the show. Incredibly lazy plotting, insulting to both their characters and their viewers.

2017. With Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Shazad Latif, Anthony Rapp, Mary Wiseman, Jason Isaacs, Michelle Yeoh.

Star Trek: Insurrection

The movie starts with a malfunctioning Data attacking an anthropological research team on the surface of a planet and revealing them to the natives. The Enterprise comes to bring him in, and then stays to investigate the causes. Of course there's more going on than meets the eye.

Jonathan Frakes, who plays First Commander Riker, also directed the movie. And while "Star Trek" as a franchise has never been particularly subtle in their emotional manipulations and claims of moral high ground, this is a particularly unsubtle movie. Data saying "Saddle up. Lock and load" is representative of the movie, both mildly amusing and very heavy-handed. It's not the worst movie they've ever done, but it's pretty damn bad.

1998, dir. Jonathan Frakes. With Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Marina Sirtis, Donna Murphy, Anthony Zerbe, F. Murray Abraham.

Star Trek: Lower Decks (Season 1)

Another "Star Trek" series. This time set on the "Cerritos," a starship that does "second contact." Many of the crew dream of being on the legendary "Enterprise" which does "first contact." Our protagonists are all lower ranking crew, who live and work on the "lower decks." The two we focus on most are Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) and Brad Boimler (Jack Quaid), with some of the others being D'Vana Tendi (Noël Wells), Sam Rutherford (Eugene Cordero), and Carol Freeman (Dawnn Lewis) who is both the captain of the ship and (although no one other than the two of them know it) also Beckett's mother.

One of the things I liked about "Star Trek" - both the original series and TNG - was that they often used "the future" to look at social and political questions. "Lower Decks" doesn't do this. What's it about then, what makes it stand out? It's animated. And it's a comedy. Star Trek has been around 50 years and it's taken them this long to realize that they can make fun of themselves. And I'm not sure they got there on their own: they got a huge push from "The Orville," which is "Star Trek" in everything but name. And man does "The Orville" mock "Star Trek" (but it's also a tribute). I loved "The Orville" when I watched it, and watching "Lower Decks" made me appreciate "The Orville" even more.

There's this group of expressions in the English language that we use about creative endeavours: "they aimed high and didn't quite hit their target, but did well in trying." That kind of thing - with "high" being meant to indicate "creative" or "thought-provoking," and "low" being fart jokes or stuff exploding. "The Orville" aims both high and low: it's thought-provoking and humane, and it's also occasionally wildly crass and comedic. And it hits both sets of targets most of the time. "Lower Decks" never aims high: it doesn't try to be art, or even thought-provoking like the older series. They're just here to make you laugh. But they're still barely making their quota: it's mildly amusing.

All the characters are massively exaggerated: Mariner's rebelliousness, Boimler's insecurities, D'Vana's nerdiness. I admit that they only have about 25 minutes to put together a story in each episode as opposed to the approximately 50 minutes for an "Orville" episode, but the contrast is again stark: "The Orville" does emphasize people's quirks for humour occasionally, but the characters are far more complete.

I watched the second season of "The Orville" as soon as I could lay hands on it. I may, eventually, watch the second season of this. If I'm bored.

2020. With Tawny Newsome, Jack Quaid, Noël Wells, Eugene Cordero, Dawnn Lewis, Jerry O'Connell, Fred Tatasciore, Gillian Vigman.

Star Trek: Nemesis

"Nemesis" was the last of the Next Generation movies. We start with political violence on Romulus, followed by the wedding of Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Troi (Marina Sirtis) ... which allows them to drag everyone, including the infamous Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton) out of retirement for short appearances. But then we set up the real story: a human clone of Captain Picard called Shinzon (Tom Hardy) has taken control not only of Romulus's sister planet Remus, but also Romulus itself - and, while claiming a desire for peace with Earth, seems hellbent on causing problems.

Classic Star Trek in a few good ways and all the bad ways. They use a trip to a planet to collect the parts of another version of Data (Brent Spiner) as an excuse to have a dune buggy chase. No explanation is ever given why they were attacked, but hey, it's cool - we got to drive around in dune buggies and shoot off big guns.

Hardy worked fairly hard as Shinzon, but you know shit's gonna explode and the good guys will win. The Next Generation left us no memorable films, only forgettable tripe like this one.

2002, dir. Stuart Baird. With Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Tom Hardy, Ron Perlman.

Star Trek: Voyager

What I'm about to write is based on a slightly odd viewing history: I watched Season 1 of "Voyager" (Season 1 was 16 episodes, Seasons 2 through 7 all have 26 episodes) and half of Season 2. I then followed Den of Geek!'s "Top 10 Star Trek: Voyager episodes" guide, and threw in the two episode show ending finale for good measure.

Den of Geek's comment about Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and the "Prime Suggestion" is entirely correct: in one episode she holds the Prime Directive up as inviolable, and in the next she says "we can't watch these people suffer!" and breaks the Directive like crackers in her soup. And she flip-flops like a beached fish from week to week.

And then there's Neelix (Ethan Phillips). Not as hated as Jar Jar Binks, but he's up there. At least he's not a complete coward nor a racial stereotype, he's just ... really off-putting. In every episode he's in.

On a more positive note, "The Doctor" (Robert Picardo) an "emergency medical holographic program" who was never intended for long term use, is a bit irritating but they make really good use of the development of his personality over time.

Then of course there's the rather notorious "Seven of Nine" (Jeri Ryan), a gorgeous woman in a catsuit who joined the crew from the fourth season onward. She's not a bad character, but that was somewhat overshadowed by her outfit and her effect on adolescent male fans.

Because Voyager (the ship the series is named after) has ended up in the "Delta Quadrant" in the first episode, 70,000 light years from Earth (about 70 years travel time with Voyager's technology), this allows the show runners to invent a new set of aliens with slightly different facial protuberances and slightly different behaviour patterns than those we're used to from the other shows.

Approximately 1/4 of the episodes included time travel. This is their weak-ass excuse when they can't think of anything else to do, and it's routinely used as a do-anything-you-want card, because everybody can die and then at the end of the episode the last heroic measure saves the timeline and we reset. Often without the staff even knowing that whole horrible alternate timeline happened to them. It's an incredible cop-out because they try to generate drama by killing off important cast members, but you never take it seriously because a reset is coming at the end. (It was an equally bad idea when Marvel did it, I'm not aiming this just at Star Trek.)

Some of the episodes recommended by Den of Geek were quite good - I particularly enjoyed the three primarily involving the Doctor: "Message in a Bottle" (one of the most absurd, but also the most fun), "Living Witness," and "Latent Image" (in which the Doctor - and indirectly the command staff - has to deal with the consequences of the Doctor being mostly human and having PTSD).

I couldn't see sitting through the whole series (the first season and a half was a bit much), but there's definitely some fun to be had with the series.

1995. With Kate Mulgrew, Robert Beltran, Tim Russ, Robert Duncan McNeill, Roxann Dawson, Garrett Wang, Robert Picardo, Ethan Phillips, Jennifer Lien, Jeri Ryan.

Star Trek (2009)

Everybody else is rebooting, why don't we? And let's give it to the king of schlock, J.J. Abrams ... Who, amazingly, turns in a good movie. Yes, they use time travel. And get this: they do it in such a way as to fit the current movie into ST canon ... and take it right out of canon so they never have to worry about matching up with any previous story line. Clever.

The movie gets started fast, showing us an exploratory vessel with Kirk's father saving the day ... and dying. This also introduces us to our villain, Nero (Eric Bana). Kirk (Chris Pine) grows up a troubled but brilliant rebel, as Spock (Zachary Quinto) grows up a troubled but brilliant half-Vulcan. Both end up in Starfleet Academy, where they clash over Kirk having rigged the Kobayashi-Maru test that Spock wrote (a nice touch to see one of the most famous bits of canon put on film). When Nero threatens the planet Vulcan, most of the Starfleet cadets are pulled abruptly into service, and you can pretty much guess how it goes from there.

Unfortunately, while it's an enjoyable, exciting story, I didn't feel there was any danger of the main characters dying or being significantly injured because this is a franchise. Scotty (Simon Pegg, a poor choice), Bones (Karl Urban), and Chekov (Anton Yelchin) were a little too much caricatures, while Kirk, Spock, Uhura (Zoe Saldana), and Sulu (John Cho, formerly of "Harold and Kumar" fame, doing very well) were all great characters. And Leonard Nimoy as old Spock was amazingly great (never been a fan of his before this). Has some problems, but overall a really enjoyable movie.

2009, dir. J.J. Abrams. With Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Eric Bana, Bruce Greenwood, Leonard Nimoy, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Ben Cross, Winona Ryder.

Star Trek Into Darkness

This movie finds Kirk temporarily (very temporarily) stripped of the captaincy of the Enterprise. Horrible things happen (involving dark Sherlock) and Kirk gets his captaincy back so he can pursue dark Sherlock (aka Benedict Cumberbatch, of the BBC TV series "Sherlock" fame).

I adored the first J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" movie, but one of the things that made the TV series (most of them) occasionally worth watching was that they were thought-provoking. Sadly, Abrams doesn't see that as a quality worth preserving. He avoids thought by not having the action let up for more than 30 seconds for the entire 129 minute run-time. There's good action and even some decent ideas buried in there, but that doesn't really seem to have been Abrams' concern: he now seems to be squarely in the Michael Bay camp with a "let's blow it up real good!" attitude. <sigh>

A second viewing not only confirmed my negative opinion, but made it worse.

2013, dir. J.J. Abrams. With Chris Pine, Benedict Cumberbatch, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Bruce Greenwood, Peter Weller, Anton Yelchin, Alice Eve.

Star Trek Beyond

We open with a comedic scene in which Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) tries to broker a treaty between warring races, and ends up with his shirt in tatters after the incensed but miniature natives attack him. You think you have to start with a clever/funny scene to keep us in our seats, we're too dumb and distractable to stay if you don't start with a big joke? Wow. Director Justin Lin carries this ADHD directing style throughout the film. More frustrating than that were the plot points that were so blatantly obvious I was ticking them off on my fingers as we progressed:

  • Kirk is tired of being Captain, and has applied for a Rear Admiral position (he'll decide not to)
  • Spock (Zachary Quinto) has decided to leave the Enterprise to go help the Vulcan race (he'll decide not to)
  • Kirk rescues Jayla at the last second (obvious and cliché)
  • The Franklin, in attempting to achieve terminal velocity, appears to have crashed (I predicted the use of the appears-to-have-crashed-soars-to-safety cliché shot ... why the hell does any director think that's effective anymore?)

I actually got to eight or ten blatant clichés and/or obvious plot points. And as with other movies I saw recently, "Tamara Drewe" and "X-Men: Apocalypse" this is by no means a sign of genius in me to be able to predict plot: it's a sign of horrible, complacent laziness on the part of the writers and directors, using "tried and true" (and thus incredibly predictable) plot points because it's more convenient than actually thinking of something interesting.

Sure, it's easy to predict that Kirk will remain Captain and Spock will remain with him ... but these are things anyone could guess so the dramatic tension that suggesting their departures creates is approximately nil - so the sensible thing to do would be not to bother mentioning it at all given we'll all "guess" the outcome anyway.

The basic idea of the movie wasn't actually too bad: Kirk and the crew have to face a swarm of small ships that literally tear the Enterprise apart through advanced technology and sheer numbers, but the thought process of the authors (one of whom is Simon Pegg, aka "Scotty") doesn't seem to have stretched much beyond that.

2016, dir. Justin Lin. With Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Sofia Boutella, Idris Elba.

Star Wars

It would be technically correct to say that the characters are two dimensional and the acting wooden, but the story has the resonance and simplicity of myth and is hugely entertaining.

1977, dir. George Lucas. With Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Peter Cushing, Alec Guinness, Anthony Daniels, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, David Prowse, James Earl Jones.

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

See "The Empire Strikes Back."

Star Wars: Attack of the Clones

The special effects are fantastic but the acting is so appallingly bad, and the romance between Anakin and the Princess so unconvincing that the whole thing falls apart. The first three were cheesy but charming. The new series is worse despite the huge budget, and has none of the charm.

2002. dir. George Lucas. With Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Samuel L. Jackson, Christopher Lee.

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

The simplicity of the original series (boy's family destroyed, boy goes to war, becomes man, saves galaxy) is replaced here with trade embargoes, Jar Jar Binks, and better special effects than Lucas could ever afford in the first three. The podrace is mildly entertaining and the light sabre battle at the end is a brilliantly choreographed fight, what those fights should have been in the previous three movies. Neeson tries (he's the only one), but is unable to bring life to one of the worst scripts in the history of film. The plot is equally atrocious, and the end result is a staggering insult to wonderful childhood memories of the original "Star Wars."

1999, dir. George Lucas. With Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Ian McDiarmid, Ray Park, Jake Lloyd.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

The movie opens with John Williams' blaring "Star Wars" theme from the first movie. With a yellow rolling text scroll. Over a star screen. That pans to a nearby world. That's revealed to be a desert world. And our young heroine is living hand-to-mouth on the surface of that planet, until inter-planetary politics interfere. It all seemed a bit ... familiar.

Abrams goes absolutely full bore for nostalgia. Or you could look at this from the other side: he's remade the original "Star Wars" with some tweaks to the plot. Except that Leia and Han are back but 38 years older. The plot similarities are extensive: a new evil empire (the First Order) has arisen, with its most visible leader being a masked man who can use the force (and has an evil, disfigured, tele-commuting mentor). And the Resistance is still there to fight, flying X-wings against the TIE fighters. And other plot points and visuals are replicated: disreputable bar with a cantina band, every alien you saw in the original movies, etc.

But is it a good movie? I'll give that a hesitant "yes." It's a LOT of fun. I'm interested to notice that Abrams pulled in Lawrence Kasdan (who worked on the best of the originals, "The Empire Strikes Back") to co-write. It'll make the old people in the audience feel young again, and entertain the young, so I guess everyone gets their money's worth. Blatant hooks are planted for the sequel: I hope that this was Abrams' way of saying "now that I have you attention ..." and then doing something new with the series.


The moment the movie came out on BluRay, I re-watched it. It's certainly impressive in one respect: pure, 150-proof bottled nostalgia. J.J. (I'm on first name terms with the director, although he doesn't know me) has hired every single person he could find who had anything to do with the first three movies and stuffed them back into cameo roles to remind us of our childhood, while putting them in sets almost - but not quite - identical to those from the previous films. A prime example of this is Peter Mayhew, who played Chewbacca in all the previous Star Wars movies: he was hired to play Chewbacca in "The Force Awakens" as well. He's now 71 years old and had double knee replacement surgery a few years ago. So apparently on set he played Chewy when he was standing around ... and someone else played Chewy when he was running. Given that Chewy doesn't actually speak a language that anyone except Han Solo understands, I think that says a lot about J.J.'s obsession with completeness and nostalgia.

I enjoyed the movie in the theatre, although I didn't think it was great. This time through I couldn't stop mocking it: there are a huge number of logical flaws and some brutal retconning.

  • How do you fit the entire contents of a star inside a Earth-sized planet? (This is one of the lesser logical problems, honestly.)
  • if you suck up a solar system's star, blowing up the planet(s) in the system is both redundant and a waste of energy: without a star, they'll freeze to death in a matter of hours.
  • Leia was established as being as powerful with the Force as her brother Luke ... and yet in 30 years she's done absolutely nothing about it, and even more amazingly learned nothing about it ... even though her son was training with her brother.
  • Kylo Ren stops a blaster bolt in mid-air: we've had six movies of Star Wars history, and every other Jedi and Sith lord has always used their light sabre to block or deflect blasters. J.J. did that because it looked cool - never mind that it made no damn sense in the logic of the universe.
  • Rey has had zero training in using the Force. And yet she's able to take over someone's mind. And, even more impressively, successfully fight Kylo Ren with a light sabre. Luke couldn't pick up a paper clip with the Force without months of training despite being incredibly gifted in the Force.

The joke is of course on me, as I paid $25 for the BluRay.

2015, dir. J.J. Abrams. With Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Adam Driver, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong'o, Andy Serkis, Domhnall Gleeson, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, Max von Sydow, Mark Hamill.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Star Wars has become not only its own genre, but also a particular style of fiction - a closed and entirely self-referential world (should I say "galaxy?") of bombast, colour, flamboyance, and no sense at all. Plot points exist only to create over-the-top action sequences or character points (preferably both). "The Force Awakens" was the first in the new series, essentially a requoting of the very first movie (you know, the one Lucas later rebadged as "IV - A New Hope"). It loaded on the nostalgia and the references to the first movie like nobody's business. "The Last Jedi" follows right in those footsteps, remaking "The Empire Strikes Back" in the context of the new evil empire, "The First Order."

The Rebels, led by Princess (or is it "General?" I've forgotten and I don't care) Leia (Carrie Fisher, in her last film role before her death), are on the run - pursued by a giant armada of First Order space ships. Despite this, Finn (John Boyega) makes a new friend and the two of them run off to a gambling world to recruit a genius hacker who can hack the First Order's ships. There, they cause complete havoc and end up returning with much less reliable hacker DJ (Benicio Del Toro).

And Rey (Daisy Ridley) is off trying to convince Luke Skywalker (still Mark Hamill) to train her and/or return to aid the Rebels - both of which he's reluctant to do.

It's big, colourful, and the action sequences are a lot of fun. But it would be a substantial error on your part to take your brain with you when you go to watch this thing: logic isn't one of its strengths. I'm not claiming that the first three were masterpieces of art or plotting - but they do kind of look it when compared to this.

On second viewing (2018-10), I think all of my criticisms are accurate. There's some clever dialogue, but most of it is bombast or rehashing of war clichés: "We're going to win this war not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love!" Really? But what did stand out are the visuals, which are utterly gorgeous in places. The red-and-white final battle was a particular stand-out.

2017, dir. Rian Johnson. With Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis, Domnhall Gleeson, Lupita Nyong'o, Anthony Daniels, Gwendoline Christie, Kelly Marie Tran, Laura Dern, Frank Oz, Benicio Del Toro.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

After the five previous movies, I watched this with zero hope that it would actually be "good." I watched it instead for the spectacle. And spectacle I got. Every decision, by every character, is made exclusively to provide the most conflict and visual interest. Not protection of life and limb, not winning the war - just ... more visuals. Shit blows up. And some truly beautiful scenes are shown: nothing else about this movie is good, but the cinematography is outstanding.

SPOILER ALERT: This is stupid-ass shit I don't care about. I'm going to spoil. Stop reading now if you care.

Favourite ludicrous scene: Finn (John Boyega) and Jannah (Naomi Ackie) have just managed to cause the massive bad guy command ship to crash. As it's on its way down, the Millennium Falcon swoops in to save Finn and Jannah. They step onto the top surface of the Millennium Falcon - where they pause to admire the view. Cut to a shot of the Falcon swooping vertically up. That's right: you just dumped your heroes right off the ship.

Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn, and Poe (Oscar Isaac) were fairly charming characters in the first movie of this trilogy, although the movie itself was a piece of crap. But the characters were chewed up and destroyed by Abrams' visuals-over-plot style. The movie, like the previous two in the series, is freighted with nostalgic visuals and blunt call-backs to previous movies. Most obviously the Emperor's fight with Rey, in which he reveals a view of the Rebels getting crushed by his forces to cause her to come to the Dark Side (didn't work last time either ... apparently he doesn't learn).

My second favourite ludicrous moment: when Kylo/Ren (Adam Driver) comes over to the good guys right at the end of the film ... all the scars on his face are gone. Because the scars are what made him a bad guy and we couldn't possibly see him as a good guy if he had them?! Unbelievably insulting and heavy-handed.

And a couple other things in no particular order: let's promote Finn to general and leader of the resistance, because he has so much experience! And as always, there's no consistency with previous Force/Sith powers, we'll just make shit up if it looks cool. But in the end, my opinion - any critic's opinion - is meaningless, because the movie made over a billion dollars at the box office. I didn't give them any money this time: I borrowed this from the library. As you should too if you insist on seeing it.

2019, dir. J.J. Abrams. With Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Naomi Ackie, Domhnall Gleeson, Richard E. Grant, Lupita Nyong'o, Keri Russell, Joonas Suotamo, Kelly Marie Tran, Ian McDiarmid, Billy Dee Williams.

Stardust

A friend of mine was disinclined to see this movie because "It wasn't Gaiman's best" (Neil Gaiman wrote the original story). That would appear to be true: the underlying story doesn't live up to "Sandman" or several other things he's done. But, that said, it makes for an immensely enjoyable ride: there are fun twists, there's a lot of good actors having fun, the effects are great, the soundtrack is better than average, and it's very funny. It's about as entertaining as a movie possibly can be and I highly recommend it.

2007, dir. Matthew Vaughn. With Claire Danes, Charlie Cox, Mark Strong, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro, Ricky Gervais, Rupert Everett, Peter O'Toole, Sienna Miller.

Starship Troopers

I saw this when it came out (didn't like it then) and again in 2014. I recently re-read and actively disliked the Robert Heinlein book "Starship Troopers" that this is loosely based on. I'm a fan of SF, and I was curious to see what exactly Paul Verhoeven had done. In hindsight it looks a lot like an attempt to recreate the formula of the far superior "Robocop:" a violence-laden plot interspersed with public service announcements. But "Robocop" had an immensely better lead actor: the total is not greater than the sum of the parts when you add up Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, and Neil Patrick Harris. Peter Weller put in a great performance in "Robocop." And then there's the PSAs and ads: in "Robocop" they were biting satire and very funny: here they're weak, mostly just "join the army" things, or "we're going to win the war against the bugs." Throw in Heinlein's incredibly obnoxious politics (corporal and capital punishment, and the idea that you can't be a citizen or vote unless you've been in the military) and you've got a really grim, bloody, and obnoxious movie. Sure, Verhoeven meant it as a satire, but you need humour and contrast for that to work. Instead what you get is blood splatter and characters you're supposed to care about (although you may not because they can't act) dying horribly. When Michael Ironside and Jake Busey are the best actors on set ... you know there's a problem.

1997, dir. Paul Verhoeven. With Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, Denise Richards, Jake Busey, Neil Patrick Harris, Patrick Muldoon, Clancy Brown, Michael Ironside.

Starsky and Hutch

I have no excuse - I was desperate. Big budget stars, big budget movie ... and it's utter and complete trash. I even saw that coming, but I needed a movie to watch while on my stationary bike ...

Ben Stiller plays Starsky, Owen Wilson plays "Hutch." Stiller is uncool and completely incompetent, and nobody seems to notice that the only things he has going for him are a really nice car (the "Striped Tomato" Gran Torino) and the ability to drive it. Hutch on the other hand is quite competent and supposedly cool, but extremely corrupt. Then there's Snoop Dogg as "Huggy Bear," and Vince Vaughn and Jason Bateman as the businessmen/drug dealers.

No competent police work is done, several of the jokes telegraph their arrival five minutes in advance, and none of the jokes (not even the ones that don't telegraph) are funny. Pretty much everyone is humiliated. But the production values are excellent! When Snoop Dogg adds a touch of class to a movie you know something is wrong ...

2004, dir. Todd Phillips. With Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jason Bateman, Snoop Dogg, Fred Williamson, Juliette Lewis, Amy Smart, Carmen Electra, Will Ferrell, Chris Penn.

Starter for 10

A coming-of-age story, set in the mid-80s with an all-authentic soundtrack (The Cure, Psychedelic Furs, Yazoo, Tears for Fears ...) and set in Britain. James McAvoy plays a charming and intelligent goof starting out at university, struggling to get onto the quiz show he's obsessed with, and choose between two beautiful women (Alice Eve and Rebecca Hall). Funny, and better than most. Probably falls into "best of category" (ie. coming-of-age), but doesn't step outside that.

2007, dir. Tom Vaughan. With James McAvoy, Alice Eve, Rebecca Hall, Dominic Cooper, Mark Gatiss, Guy Henry, Benedict Cumberbatch, Charles Dance, Lindsay Duncan, James Corden.

The Station Agent

Peter Dinklage plays a dwarf, sick of people, who inherits a train station in the middle of nowhere. He moves there in the hopes of getting away and promptly finds himself embroiled in the lives of several of the locals. No violence, no sex, just people and talking. It's very funny and quite charming. If you want action, this isn't for you. But otherwise I'd highly recommend it.

Tom McCarthy's first film as director, and a very fine one made on a minuscule budget (I think it was $500,000). A great beginning for a guy who went on to do "The Visitor" and "Spotlight."

2003. dir. Thomas McCarthy. With Peter Dinklage, Bobby Cannavale, Patricia Clarkson.

Steamboat Bill Jr.

Buster Keaton's greatest skills are 1) remaining completely deadpan at all times, and 2) falling down. He can fall down like no one you've ever seen ... I had hoped to like this movie more than I did. But it was worth it to see the famous scene in which the entire facade of a building falls on him - he just happened to be standing where the only window landed. They actually did that: measured it out, marked where he should stand, dumped the front of a two storey building on him.

1928. dir. Charles Reisner. With Buster Keaton.

Steamboy

Ten years later we have the follow-up to "Akira." "Akira" was incredibly beautiful, but even those who are fans or have seen it several times generally admit it makes no damn sense. Happily, director Katsuhiro Ôtomo seems to have gotten a clue about plotting and coherence since then, and the movie is possibly even more visually spectacular. Ray Steam is the third generation of a family of steam-powered inventors, and a prodigy himself. Unfortunately, everyone wants their latest invention, and Ray has to figure out what's going on and what to do about it. The English voicing is actually quite good, as odd as it may seem to have Anna Paquin doing a (young) male lead.

2004, dir. Katsuhiro Ôtomo. With Anna Paquin, Alfred Molina, Patrick Stewart, Kari Wahlgren.

Stella Days

"Stella Days" spends a long winter with Father Daniel Berry (Martin Sheen) in a small Irish town in the 1950s. One of the first things he does is pack to leave: he thinks he's headed back to his beloved Rome. But the local cardinal yanks that away from him (insulting him as an "intellectual" and "someone who thinks he's better than us"), leaving him in the purgatory of this tiny town. Berry is then involved in the hiring of a young man as a teacher at the local school - although the man's primary qualifications seem to be an interest in cinema as great as Berry's. The cardinal also tells Berry he can go to Rome - once he's raised money for a new church in his very poor area. Berry decides the solution is picture house to raise the spirits of the people - and raise money, of course. Despite the resistance of the town's incredibly conservative politician (no one else seems to mind much).

Scenes are well acted and there's a coherent plot that gets from A to B. But the movie doesn't have a single plot point that it actually wraps up: every single one of them is left dangling. The same can be said about the questions it raises: are we supposed to be thinking about the unfairness of Father Berry's position? How he got into the church? His liberality in a conservative, podunk town? The inevitable advance of technology? (The introduction of electricity to the town plays a large part in the movie.) Unfaithfulness to a husband who's gone for a year at a time and is violent when he comes home? Whether or not a young boy truly knows he has the calling to the church at the age of 10? The movie opens all these questions - and many more - and provides answers to none of them. I'm not asking that it should answer them all (in fact I'd prefer it didn't), but it should at least offer some arguments for or against some of the questions. Instead it raises a huge batch of questions and then just stops.

I found out from Wikipedia (not from the movie) that this was based on an actual occurrence in Ireland: a priest who started a movie theatre in a small town. If it was about that, it should have concentrated more on that aspect.

As I say, it's well acted and fits its time and place well enough. But it's a focus-less mess.

2012, dir. Thaddeus O'Sullivan. With Martin Sheen, Stephen Rea, Trystan Gravelle, Milly Plunkett, Tom Hickey, Joey O'Sullivan.

Stoker

On India Stoker's (Mia Wasikowska) 18th birthday, her beloved father with whom she frequently hunted in the woods around their very fine house, dies in a horrible car crash. In the aftermath, her father's brother, "Uncle Charlie" (Matthew Goode) comes to visit. I had an instant flashback to Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt," given that Uncle Charlie is good looking, charismatic, and of unknown background. According to Wikipedia, this was entirely intentional. But not to worry - this is a very different movie, although it's also about coming of age. But it is of course Park Chan-wook: it's going to be twisted.

The house is an immaculate 60s construction in beautiful 60s colours. But there are cellphones and LCD TVs. The movie loves to mess with horror movie tropes - India likes to go down to the house's creepy, cobwebbed basement, turn on the widely spaced and underpowered lights, and deliberately set them swinging. Not Park's best effort, although mildly interesting.

2013, dir. Park Chan-wook. With Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode, Nicole Kidman, Jacki Weaver, Dermot Mulroney, Alden Ehrenreich, Phyllis Somerville, Ralph Brown.

Storks

"Storks" is, theoretically, an animated movie for kids. And it's loud and colourful enough that they might actually enjoy it, but even kids understand (if only on an unconscious level) the concept of character consistency - too frequently sacrificed here for the joke of the moment. And I suspect they might also want likeable characters - a thing this movie is sorely lacking.

Our protagonists are the stork Junior (Andy Samberg) and the orphan human Tulip (Katie Crown). Storks used to deliver babies, but the undelivered Tulip led to a crisis and the storks switched from babies to an Amazon-alike store system. Tulip is a hazard, energetic and always inventing things, so the boss sends Junior to get her to stop causing trouble and/or fire her. Instead, she re-activates the baby-making machine, so our orphan and the temporarily flightless Junior have to make a delivery half way across the world. Which I suppose makes this a "buddy" movie.

The problem is ... neither of the primary characters are appealing, and the majority of the secondary characters are just props for jokes. And the jokes ... most of them are juvenile delinquent humour for adults, if you know what I mean. Too stupid for adults and yet not well targeted for kids.

While I watch a fair number of animated kids movies, I guess I'm also fairly selective: this is the worst animated movie I've seen in five or more years.

2016, dir. Nicholas Stoller and Doug Sweetland. With Andy Samberg, Katie Crown, Kelsey Grammer, Jennifer Aniston, Ty Burrell, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Danny Trejo.

Straight Up

Written by, directed by, and starring James Sweeney - as Todd, a gay man who's deeply uncomfortable with sex and bodily fluids. He's OCD and neurotic, and seeing a psychoanalyst. When he decides he might as well try being straight, nobody thinks it's a good idea. Despite which he meets and starts seeing Meg (Katie Findlay) who's equally as intelligent, articulate, and screwed up as he is.

The movie is shot in 4:3, which is really unusual these days. I have to admit I didn't like that aspect of the filming (no pun intended ...) - but whoever did the cinematography more than made up for it. On a tiny budget they got great locations and did gorgeous shots.

The dialogue comes at you at a blistering pace. It's intelligent and thoughtful and expects you to pay attention. It's also very funny. The movie asks the question "does our society allow 'love' separate from 'sex?'" and the corollary question "should it?"

A word about the writing - and what (well, the acting too) makes this movie so good. Todd's character is over-the-top - in fact, Meg isn't too far behind. And yet they're also deeply human and amazingly relatable.

2019, dir James Sweeney. With James Sweeney, Katie Findlay, Dana Drori, James Scully, Tracie Thoms, Betsy Brandt, Randall Park.

Strange Days

Ralph Feinnes plays Lenny Nero on the eve of the year 2000 (this qualifies as near-future SF as it was produced in 1995). He's an ex-cop pedalling sleazy experience discs - you wear a "SQUID" headset, and it allows you to experience everything (not just sight and sound, but taste, motion, thoughts) someone else experienced during the recording process. He's obsessed with his ex-girlfriend Faith (Juliette Lewis), who's now with a big-name music producer who represented a recently murdered and very famous rapper named Jeriko One. Lenny comes into possession of an incredibly explosive SQUID disc that could easily cause a race riot in their city of L.A. on the eve of Y2K, and now a bunch of people want to kill him ...

Feinnes is great as Lenny, and Lewis is very good too. The other really big role in the movie goes to an unbelievably fit Angela Bassett, as Lenny's long-suffering friend "Mace." Her acting is passable, but doesn't look too good beside Feinnes and Lewis. The movie as a whole is very loud, incredibly sleazy, and surprisingly compelling. Since the year 2000 is now long gone, this will probably only get viewed by a few SF fans, but others should consider giving it a shot.

1995, dir. Kathryn Bigelow. With Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, Juliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore, Michael Wincott, Vincent D'Onofrio, William Fichtner, Richard Edson, Brigitte Bako, Glenn Plummer, Josef Sommer.

Strange World

Jake Gyllenhaal voices the main character, Searcher Clade. The opening shows us how his father Jaeger Clade is the world's biggest explorer who vanished on an expedition 25 years prior - during which Searcher also discovered "Pando," a plant which provides electricity and changed their society. Now Searcher is a farmer with a wife and son.

The movie gets big points from me for using Caravan Palace's "Lone Digger" in the soundtrack: I think that song is one of the ten best songs of the last decade. And the artwork - the visuals are stellar, just incredibly gorgeous. And it is, as many critics have said, "a Disney milestone in terms of representation" (Rotten Tomatoes summary). But there's a problem: the story sits right at the intersection of "heard-it-before" and "totally-predictable" with sides of "family is really important" and "work with the environment not against it."

After the opening credits we find out that Pando is in danger, and Searcher is forced to go exploring (the thing he doesn't want to do). Also predictable: his son stows away, his wife chases them down, and just as the wife and son would have left they hit a point of no return so he's out adventuring with his family. The plot continues on an equally predictable trajectory from there, always accompanied by stunning visuals.

It turns out that the director of this movie, Don Hall (well, he's the "director" but there's another person who's the "co-director" but Hall isn't a "co-director" which is weird) also "co-directed" "Big Hero 6" which I thought was brilliant. It also had great visuals (with a far better story), so let's say this was a failure of the writers (although to some extent Hall's in accepting the script ...).

2022, dir. Don Hall, Qui Nguyen. With Jake Gyllenhaal, Dennis Quaid, Jaboukie Young-White, Gabrielle Union, Lucy Liu, Alan Tudyk, Karan Soni, Adelina Anthony.

The Stranger

Orson Welles directed and starred in this movie, in which he plays an unrepentant Nazi hiding in a small American town. He's approached by a former Nazi colleague who has found God ... who he murders and buries in the woods. So he can run back to his wedding to a nice American girl (Loretta Young) that very day. Unfortunately, his former colleague was followed by a War Crimes Commission investigator (Edward G. Robinson) who begins snooping around town.

The pressure builds slowly throughout. It's not really a mystery, as we saw the murder at the beginning: the question is, will he kill anyone else and will he be caught. I found some of it quite interesting, but some of it intensely stupid - such as their deliberate endangerment of the new wife. Overall, a fairly mediocre film.

1946, dir. Orson Welles. With Orson Welles, Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, Martha Wentworth, Isabel O'Madigan, Philip Merivale.

Stranger than Fiction

I hate Will Ferrell's comedy. I've had ample opportunity to know this, as he's a massive box office draw for reasons I cannot begin to comprehend. But in 2006, he took a straight role in this bizarre, meta-, and post-modern film - and nailed it, buoyed by both a brilliant script and a fantastic supporting cast.

Ferrell plays Harold Crick, a mildly obsessive-compulsive IRS agent with an incredibly dull life. Until one day, he notices his narrator (Emma Thompson). That's right: we're hearing her describing his life ... and he hears her too. Which is disturbing enough for him, but gets much worse when she mentions his imminent death. So he consults a psychiatrist, and then a professor of literature (Dustin Hoffman) who is much more helpful. All while trying to complete an audit on a recalcitrant baker (Maggie Gyllenhaal). We also watch the author's attempts to figure out how to kill him off.

The movie benefits from great visual presentation, thought-provoking material, and a willingness to follow through completely on its strange premise. Unexpected, hysterically funny, deeply moving, and utterly marvelous, it's become one of my favourite films.

2006, dir. Marc Forster. With Will Ferrell, Emma Thompson, Dustin Hoffman, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Queen Latifah.

Stranger Things

A Netflix series released July 15, 2016. It's an eight "chapter" miniseries set in the 1980s, and it's a full on homage to the science fiction movies many of us watched as kids and teens in the 80s. We're introduced to four kids in the 10-12 range who play D&D together - and this sets the tone for them, as they think of everything as being a D&D scenario. But things really kick into gear with the disappearance of one of the kids on his bike ride home in the evening. We're introduced to his family (his mother is played by Winona Ryder, the biggest name in the production), and then the small town's police chief (David Harbour). He initially seems like an alcoholic asshole - stumbling around his filthy trailer and having booze for breakfast. But as soon as he's forced to realize that something serious is going on in his town, we find out he's a smart guy who'll work hard to fix problems. He's not really a charmer, but he sure gets the job done. The problem is, the town contains a "Department of Energy" campus that's doing some very dubious experiments. And escaping from there is a very strange young woman - the same age as our group of kids, who she meets and hides out with.

One of the references I caught to movies of the 80s was "State Trooper Dan O'Bannon" - Dan O'Bannon was one of the best known writers of SF movies in that period, having written (among others) "Alien," "Aliens," "Blue Thunder," and "Heavy Metal." Toward the end there are a few echoes of "Alien," including one that had me concerned that we'd have a chest-burster, but no. The title theme is pure 80s.

The kid actors are surprisingly good, and the acting is good all around. The story is made a bit ponderous by the homage aspects of the production, and around hour five I felt the whole thing was running too long for the content. But for the most part, it was well constructed, tense, and entertaining.

On a personal note, I was fascinated to find that most of the filming was in Jackson, Georgia. It looked awfully familiar to me, as I drove through there dozens of times when I was living in Milledgeville, Georgia for a decade - just sixty miles away from Jackson. There's a certain style to the centre of small Georgian towns ...

2016, dir. Matt and Ross Duffer. With Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton.

Strangers on a Train

Two people meet on a train. One suggests to the other that if both had people in their lives who were a problem, both their difficulties could be solved by swapping murders as there would be no connection between the murderer and the victim, or between the two who met on the train. One thought this was just a bizarre theory, but the other takes it an agreement has been made. Not bad, but hardly my favourite Hitchcock.

1951, dir. Alfred Hitchcock. With Farley Grainger, Robert Walker, Patricia Hitchcock, Ruth Roman.

Stronger

This movie is based on the book Stronger, written by Jeff Bauman after he lost his legs in the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Jeff Bauman, who's portrayed as a charming, irresponsible slacker. His family are shown as dim, loud, loving, and kind of unpleasant. After one of his several break-ups with his girlfriend (Erin Hurley, played by Tatiana Maslany), Jeff makes a sign to cheer her on and goes to the Boston Marathon.

The setup before the explosion outlines Jeff's behaviour and his relationship to both his family and his sometimes girlfriend. After the explosion we're shown the struggles of everyone involved after Jeff comes home, although it concentrates most on Jeff and Erin.

I thought this was an immensely better executed take on the Boston Marathon Bombings than "Patriots Day:" it concentrates on recovery and hope, rather than hunting the bombers and prosecution. This one has outstanding acting, a better written and more interesting story, and - possibly most importantly - isn't so damn respectful. It acknowledges that nobody involved was perfect or a saint - they just did their best. (Although after reading up on Carlos Arredondo, I might consider nominating the man for sainthood ...)

Not an easy watch, but an effective portrayal of the personal struggle with a terrible hardship, the surface of which has become media fodder across the continent. And it ends on a note of hope, as it should.

2017, dir. David Gordon Green. With Jake Gyllenhaal, Tatiana Maslany, Miranda Richardson, Clancy Brown, Jessica Lundy, Frankie Shaw, Jessica Lundy.

Stuber

Pastiche buddy cop movie. They apply two tiny twists: the cop is currently - temporarily - nearly blind, and his buddy is an Uber driver. Stu (Kumail Nanjiani) has a crappy day job at a sporting goods store, driving Uber in the evenings - much is made of his desperate pursuit of a five star rating. Vic (Dave Bautista) is an older cop: we first see him with his cocky young partner Sara (Karen Gillan) who is promptly killed, setting up Vic's desperate need to catch Tedjo. Tedjo is played by Iko Uwais: an Indonesian martial artist who speaks maybe two words of dialogue despite perhaps ten minutes of screen time. Fast forward: Vic has Lasik surgery and immediately gets a hot tip on Tedjo's next drug drop. Because he's nearly blind from the Lasik, he calls an Uber. He gets the fussy and over-sharing Stu. Much mileage is had from Vic's blindness as he stumbles over things: I found Bautista surprisingly funny doing the physical comedy. (Why I was surprised after his brilliant comedic performance in "Guardians of the Galaxy," I don't know.) On the other hand, Nanjiani's fastidious shtick ("can I offer you bottled water? Don't spill stuff in my car, it's a lease") wasn't funny when it started and quickly grew very tiresome. Despite which, they made a decent comedic team. It deserves its rather poor ratings, but some people will enjoy it.

2019, dir. Michael Dowse. With Dave Bautista, Kumail Nanjiani, Mira Sorvino, Natalie Morales, Iko Uwais, Betty Gilpin, Karen Gillan, Jimmie Tatro, Steve Howey, Rene Moran, Amin Joseph.

The Stunt Man

Director Richard Rush's unquiet meditation on what's real and what we can trust. Cameron (Steve Railsback) is on the run from the police when he stumbles on a film set and upsets a stunt which ends in the death of the stunt man. The director Eli Cross (Peter O'Toole) hides Cameron from the police on the understanding that Cameron will become "Burt," the dead stunt man. Cross is an incredibly manipulative director, and each stunt turns out to be a little different from the original plan ... All of which is complicated by Cameron/Burt falling for leading lady Nina (Barbara Hershey).

The movie has a number of utterly brilliant moments (almost anything with O'Toole in it), but Hershey and Railsback stank on ice: particularly around the worst scene, in which Cameron and Nina talk about what crime Cameron committed and their departure together. It reeks of the Seventies, and carries no emotional weight - in fact, it completely derails the film. Still, worth seeing particularly for fans of film in general, and for O'Toole's demented and brilliant performance.

One odd connection I made on this second viewing (in 2011) is between this and The Magus by John Fowles, which I (partly) read in the intervening years. Both are about a young man of somewhat dubious morality caught in the web of a smarter and manipulative older man. It's an interesting association.

1980, dir. Richard Rush. With Peter O'Toole, Steve Railsback, Barbara Hershey, Allen Garfield, Alex Rocco, Sharon Farrell, Adam Roarke, Charles Bail.

Sucker Punch

My views on this movie should be taken with a grain of salt as I fast-forwarded through chunks of it.

The story is set up without audible dialogue. Our protagonist, "Babydoll" (Emily Browning) is put in an insane asylum after her mother's death - her (step?)father assaults her after finding out that the daughters have inherited everything, and then frames Babydoll for his murder of the younger sister. In one of the last moments of what might have been reality, we see him paying off an attendant at the asylum to make sure she's lobotomized. From this point forward the movie lives in one of two levels of Babydoll's fantasies, neither of which is very nice.

Snyder has created a visually impressive work, with visual fantasy ranging through feudal Japan, the first and second World Wars, and science fiction - all with further fantasy elements, anachronistic weaponry, and superhuman girls saving the world.

However, the dialogue is heavy-handed, clichéd and stupid, and the plot is paper-thin. The acting is really poor ... not that it matters in the face of material this bad. If you're going to watch a bad film for the visuals, go watch "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow:" the script is worse, but the visuals are better. Or watch Wong Kar Wai's "2046": at least it's got decent acting to go with the incomprehensible plot and gorgeous cinematography.

2011, dir. Zack Snyder. With Emily Browning, Abbie Cornish, Jena Malone, Vanessa Hudgens, Jamie Chung, Carla Gugino, Oscar Isaac, Gerard Plunkett.

Suicide Squad

We're first introduced to our rogue's gallery of supervillains ("metahumans" in DC's terminology) with flashy graphics and video clips of them in action, both out of prison and in (where they are now). And we're introduced to Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) and her plan to use these people to defend the planet against future metahuman threats. Not surprisingly, her control over one of them is inadequate, and by letting them out she creates her own first problem to solve. Nobody ever bothers to point this out, and there are essentially no consequences for Waller. I realize that superhero movies are getting darker and "consequences" are a thing of the black-and-white morality of older comics, but she made an epic mess and no one even mentions it?

Our crew is Deadshot (Will Smith being Will Smith), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie - selling sex appeal with a side of crazy), El Diablo (Jay Hernandez), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney - haven't much liked him before, but he's very convincingly unpleasant here), Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje - all prostheses and fangs), Sorceress (Cara Delevingne acting badly in a skimpy outfit, covered in dirt), and Slipknot (Adam Beach), with Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) and Katana (Karen Fukuhara - a placeholder if ever there was one) riding herd. Oh, and let's not forget The Joker (Jared Leto - so method he stayed in character for the entire filming schedule), who's been missing Harley since she's been locked up and is determined to rescue her. With such a large cast in a comic book movie, it'll come as no surprise that character development takes a back seat to action set pieces - and as weak as the character development was in the Marvel ensemble movies, at least those characters had been developed in previous movies. These characters are both new and under-developed.

The movie is ... okay. Which is a higher rating than I give to Marvel's ensemble "Captain America: Civil War". I liked some of the characters, although none of them got enough air time. Except Deadshot, who got more screen time than any of the others but was just ... Smith doing his usual thing. I mean, Smith is a good actor, but he does absolutely nothing new here.

DC is also borrowing a page from Marvel's playbook, using a mid-credits scene to set up upcoming movies - in this case Batman's interest in other metahumans for "Justice League."

2016, dir. David Ayer. With Will Smith, Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Jay Hernandez, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Ike Barinholtz, Scott Eastwood, Cara Delevingne, Adam Beach, Karen Fukuhara.

The Suicide Squad (2021)

They already did a film adaptation of "Suicide Squad," but this is totally different because it has a "The" in front of it. It is, in most senses, a sequel: several characters return from the previous outing. The big difference is the switch to James Gunn as director and what I assume (based on the impressive amount of blood, several "fucks," and some blatant sexual references) was an R-rating. James Gunn is the man who rocketed to super-hero-stardom with his spectacularly entertaining interpretation of "Guardians of the Galaxy" ... notice that that's Marvel's cinematic universe, and this is the DC universe - not a lot of people get to cross that line. I'm in the minority that liked the original take, although I fully acknowledge that it had a lot of problems. This is better, and critics absolutely loved it. I'm not as impressed as they are: most of the best jokes (several of them very funny) were in the trailers, and I thought the action was only so-so.

Gunn is totally unsentimental about his characters: he kills off well over half the squad, and they don't get grand exits. Just splat - they're gone. I mean ... I get it, that's more realistic and mostly better than a speech before a grand gesture and noble death (I'm thinking of El Diablo in the previous movie, picking his time and dying to save others) but can we compromise somewhere in between occasionally?

There's been a lot of talk about various movies "feeling like comic books," and this one certainly manages to do that. "Into the Spiderverse" did it by deliberately lifting features of text comics into an animated movie. This one does it with frenetic energy, bright colours and a logic that only works in comics. One disadvantage of the "feels like a comic" thing is that it doesn't work as well in live action - we see real humans (instead of animated ones) and the logic needs to be a bit more ... real. Gunn mostly makes it work, but I have somewhat mixed feelings about this one ...

2021, dir. James Gunn. With Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, David Dastmalchian, Daniela Melchior, Sylvester Stallone, Jai Courtney, Peter Capaldi, Michael Rooker, Alice Braga, Pete Davidson.

Sukiyaki Western Django

Takashi Miike (best known for his Japanese shock horror) opens this bizarro Western with a gunman coming into a town divided between the Red gang and the White gang. Before the movie title is even shown, one of the gang members says "Don't think you're going to go all 'Yojimbo' on us." Referencing your source material can be quite elegant. But when someone references it this way, and then proceeds to do precisely what the character said you couldn't ... it's just tedious. But don't worry: it's still Miike, and you're in for a violent and repulsive experience. There's rape and murder, blood everywhere, stylized and emotionally repugnant. There are better places to get your fix of artistic bloodshed. The acting is poor, with the Japanese cast speaking their lines in bad English. Tarantino is particularly poor, ironic given he's probably the only native English speaker. You know the outcome, but more people die than in most of the other Yojimbo knock-offs. And there's less sense of justice being done.

2007, dir. Takashi Miike. With Hideaki Ito, Masanobu Ando, Shun Oguri, Quentin Tarantino.

Sullivan's Travels

In 1941 Hollywood, movie director Sullivan (Joel McCrea) wants to do "O Brother Where Art Thou" but has only done comedies. To gain an understanding of tragedy and "trouble" he decides to become a tramp for a while. He picks up Veronica Lake during his travels.

The movie frequently goes for broad humour - literally, people falling into swimming pools, lots of falling down, mud in the face, etc. - but somehow manages to do it in such good humour that you laugh despite the clichés. Charming, goofy, and funny, highly recommended.

1941, dir. Preston Sturges. With Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake.

Sully

It's only been eight years (as I write in 2017) since the airplane crash that became known as the "Miracle on the Hudson" - multiple bird strikes took out both engines of an Airbus A320 three minutes after take-off from LaGuardia in New York. Many of us still remember that the captain landed the plane on the Hudson river. The reason it's referred to as a "miracle" is that all 155 people on board survived. The pilot, Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger (played by Tom Hanks) was immediately lauded as a hero, but what most of us didn't realize was that for this spectacular piece of work the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) and the insurance company promptly tried to crucify him. Happily, the NTSB at least came around and now describes it as "the most successful ditching in aviation history."

The movie jumps around in time, starting at the crash, going back and forward as appropriate. Some movies do this poorly, but it's easy to follow in this case. One of the first things I noticed was the cinematography, which is simple in the best possible way: it's not flashy, but you see what you need to see, it looks really good, and there's nothing extra to distract you. That simplicity set the tone for the whole movie: it's an elegant and rewarding piece of work that I highly recommend, about a man who deserves (but probably doesn't want) all the recognition he's received.

2016, dir. Clint Eastwood. With Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney, Anna Gunn, Autumn Reeser, Ann Cusack, Holt McCallany.

Summer Wars

An anime near future coming-of-age tale: Kenji gets "hired" for a short summer job by a pretty young woman (Natsuki) - and finds out after he gets to her family home in the country that the job consists of playing her boyfriend to her family. Being a math nerd who's never had a girlfriend, he's a little shaken. And things go really sideways when the virtual world he helps administer gets horribly hacked.

Silly, charming, beautifully animated, with a predictable plot. Mamoru Hosoda also directed the better "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time," but this is fun as well. I also found it interesting for its visualization of the online world: some elements were oversimplified for the purposes of the film, but they actually did some interesting things with it.

2009, dir. Mamoru Hosoda. With Ryūnosuke Kamiki, Nanami Sakuraba, Mitsuki Tanimura, Sumiko Fuji.

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

F.W. Murnau's 1927 classic (which you can also read as "so damn old only critics and film historians have heard of it") "Sunrise" is now (2023) available in the public domain from Archive.org. Murnau is best known as the director of "Nosferatu," and the formative influence on cinema as a whole that's visible in both of these films is astonishing. Murnau was German, but this is an American film - his first shot in the U.S.

Our leads are a love triangle: a married man (credited as "The Man," played by George O'Brien), his wife ("The Wife," Janet Gaynor) with whom he has a child, and "The Woman From the City" (Margaret Livingston). The movie is a comedy-drama, with the man initially convinced to murder his wife, but forced to spend time with her and remembering why he loved her. Murnau does some really lovely cinematography, somewhat weakened by the faded movie print, but you can see it must have been great at release. He messes with the intertitles, sometimes having them blur and twist to indicate moods (something I haven't seen before, although I guess that doesn't mean too much). He overlays multiple images, creating a chaotic image of the city and its clashing elements.

It was a strange experience watching a completely silent film, and my friend and I filled the air with our own snark soundtrack. The movie is a little heavy-handed (because it's a silent movie you get the over-acting that was part of the form) and looks a little cheesy by modern standards, but even with that and the added sarcasm it was surprisingly affecting and very enjoyable. Which may have something to do with why it won three of the first Oscars ever given out, for Best Picture, Best Lead Actress, and Best Cinematography.

If your thing is action movies and not much else, this isn't for you. But if you have any interest in cinema history, put this at the top of your list to watch.

1927, dir. F. W. Murnau. With George O'Brien, Janet Gaynor, Margaret Livingston.

Sunset Boulevard

Hollywood screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) hits hard times, and, in evading people trying to repossess his car, he finds what he at first takes to be an abandoned mansion. The owner of the mansion is Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), a former silent film star who isn't quite as grounded in reality as she needs to be. They develop a bizarre relationship. It's a well done and extremely creepy movie that I didn't like.

1950. dir. Billy Wilder. With Gloria Swanson, William Holden, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson, Buster Keaton.

Sunshine

As a longtime fan of science fiction and as an engineer, I'm here to tell you that the failures of logic and physics in this movie are truly breathtaking. Just amazing. Yes, it must have looked absolutely fantastic on a movie screen and even on a TV it looks pretty good and the character drama was fairly good, but the failures of logic and full-on stupidity are just too much. Plot: the sun is dying, let's send a massive bomb on a manned spaceship to kick-start it. Reminded me a great deal of the even worse SF/horror movie "Event Horizon." Isolated crew on a huge ship trying to deal with surreal bullshit.

2007, dir. Danny Boyle. With Cliff Curtis, Cillian Murphy, Michelle Yeoh, Hiroyuki Sanada, Rose Byrne, Benedict Wong, Chris Evans, Troy Garity, Mark Strong.

Super 8

J.J. Abrams tries his hand at directing a movie that's been referred to (quite accurately) as a mashup of "E.T." and "Stand By Me" - presumably movies that inspired him as a kid. I'd suggest that we should throw in "Cloverfield," and at that point you know almost exactly what's going to happen. The dialogue is well written: the kids are real kids, the parents are mostly parents, and the interactions felt very accurate. But the story arc is both grandiose and silly, and it just didn't feel like it had much depth by the time we got to the end.

2011, dir. J.J. Abrams. With Joel Courtney, Kyle Chandler, Riley Griffiths, Elle Fanning, Glynn Turman, Noah Emmerich.

The Super Mario Brothers Movie

Mario (voiced by Chris Pratt) and Luigi (voiced by Charlie Day) are two small brothers living in New York with their stereotyped Italian family. They've just quit their work with another plumber to start their own company ("Super Mario Brothers") and spent all their remaining money on a cheesy TV ad for their new company. The ad is mocked by their former boss (who is much larger than them). When the brothers see on TV that the entire city of Brooklyn has plumbing problems, they set out to fix them ... and get sucked into Warp Pipe (a mainstay of the video game) with Mario ending up in the Mushroom Kingdom, and Luigi ending up a captive of the evil Koopa king Bowser (Jack Black). Bowser aspires to marry Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy), and views Mario as a rival as Mario trains with Peach to defeat Bowser's army.

This is idiotic colourful fun. The critics didn't think much of this, but no one cared what they said and it's gone on to huge commercial success. I'm mostly with the critics, but grudgingly have to admit that, while it's pretty bad ... it's also moderately entertaining.

2023, dir. Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic. With Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, Keegan-Michael Key, Seth Rogen, Fred Armisen, Sebastian Maniscalco, Kevin Michael Richardson.

Super Size Me

Morgan Spurlock (who directed and stars in this documentary) goes on a month-long McDonalds-only diet. A funny and horrifying look at junk food culture. Watch the extras on the DVD, especially the interview with the author of Junk Food Nation.

2004 dir. Morgan Spurlock. With Morgan Spurlock.

Superman Returns

Oh God! The clichés!! It burns! Among MANY others, there's the plane full of good guys plunging to their deaths, plunging out of sight, the long pause so you KNOW they've died, then they SOAR to safety ... And all so lovingly crafted with deep respect for the source material.

Lex Luther gets out of jail at the same time Superman returns from an extended holiday tour to see the bones of his home world. Lois is in danger, fly, Superman, fly! Oh no, Lex has Kryptonite! Now Lois must save Superman!

Borrows very heavily from the first Christopher Reeves Superman - this was meant to be a sequel, but is in many respects a remake. At least Kevin Spacey got to have some fun with the Luthor role, and James Marsden actually looks like he's learning to act. Parker Posey had the conflicted, dumb Luthor sidekick from the previous movie down pat - no great compliment. I expected better of Bryan Singer.

2006, dir. Bryan Singer. With Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey, James Marsden, Parker Posey, Frank Langella.

Superman vs. The Elite

Animated movie aimed at teens. Superman - a modern version of him with helper robots at his ice castle and a Lois who knows both his identities - encounters a new and powerful group of superheroes called "The Elite." They help him take out some criminals and become popular all over the world. But Superman is a little uncomfortable with how easily they kill - while he is simultaneously taking fire for damage caused by an escaped supervillain that he could have killed the last time around. The movie is thus about the morality of terminal justice applied by those who have no higher power above them. The friend who loaned it to me said it wasn't for kids, but I'd argue this is aimed squarely at 15 year olds. It's not a thinking movie - although they like to give the impression that it is - as they lay out the "correct" answer at the end of the movie.

2012, dir. Michael Chang. With George Newborn, Pauley Perrette, Robin Atkin Downes, Dee Bradley Baker, Melissa Disney.

Surrogates

Bruce Willis plays Tom Greer, a cop in a near future world where everyone lives their lives through android surrogates. As a result of this change in society, crime (and disease) have dropped dramatically. But his life (and that of his partner, Agent Peters (Radha Mitchell)), get very interesting when two surrogates are destroyed. Not normally a big problem, but in this case the surrogate's operators are killed through the connection to their surrogates.

Based on the excellent graphic novel of the same name by Robert Venditti, this was a significant disappointment. Willis puts in a great performance, but the changes from the graphic novel were a bad idea. In the original story, destroying the surrogates didn't harm the users, although the intent was the same: make people stop living by proxy. But I think Hollywood (by which I mean either the director or his producers) decided we have to up the ante, endanger lives, blow shit up. Unfortunately, it makes less sense this way. It's still a thought-provoking premise: should we live our lives by proxy, and how bad is that really? But the end product isn't very good.

2009, dir. Jonathan Mostow. With Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell, Rosamund Pike, Boris Kodjoe, James Cromwell, Ving Rhames, Jack Noseworthy.

Suzume

Suzume (voiced by Nanoka Hara in the Japanese version) is a 17 year old high school girl. On the way to school one day, she meets an exceptionally attractive young man - who asks her if there are any abandoned towns or buildings locally. She decides to follow him, and at the abandoned onsen opens a door that behaves very oddly. Things only get weirder from there ... and I think that's all I'm going to give for a plot summary.

Makoto Shinkai is possibly Japan's best Anime director - up there with Mamoru Hosoda and Hayao Miyazaki. I've seen all of his full-length films, and this is the best of the lot. "Garden of Words," "Your Name," and "Weathering With You" are all really good ... and this is better than any of them. The fantasy mechanisms by which his heroines and heroes have adventures are never subtle: this one sees Suzume chasing a talking cat, and trying to find doors that cause earthquakes in the company of an animated, talking chair. Not subtle. The artwork has been fantastic in everything he's done. But he's finally really getting somewhere with the family dynamics and his characters' emotions, and the twists and turns of the plot are elegant and enchanting. A beautiful piece of work.

2022, dir. Makoto Shinkai. With Nanoka Hara, Hokuto Matsumura, Eri Fukatsu, Shota Sometani, Sairi Ito, Kotone Hanase, Kana Hanazawa, Hatsumoto Hakuō, Akari Miura, Ryūnosuke Kamiki, Ann Yamane, Aimi.

Swallows and Amazons

Swallows and Amazons was a children's book written in 1930 by Arthur Ransome that went on to become one of the best known children's books ever written - although the popularity of it and its many sequels has wained somewhat in the past 40 years. I found the book long, somewhat charming, and ultimately dull when I read it in 2016. The movie has succeeded better than the book by not having the overlong run-time implied by the 360 pages of the original book, and adding in some excitement by replacing barely competent (and barely present) thieves with somewhat more competent and menacing pre-war Russian spies (they moved the date up to 1936). It doesn't hurt that it is (as it should be) filmed in the utterly glorious Lakes District of the U.K. - that alone is a significant selling point for the movie. It's not a great movie, but it was reasonably enjoyable and far better than it had any right to be given the advanced age and drawn out nature of its source material. It even mostly manages to hold on to the simple childhood morality that was part of the charm of the book.

2016, dir. Philippa Lowthorpe. With Dane Hughes, Orla Hill, Teddie-Rose Malleson-Allen, Bobby McCulloch, Rafe Spall, Andrew Scott, Kelly Macdonald, Jessica Hynes, Harry Enfield, Seren Hawkes, Hannah Jayne Thorp.

The Sweet Hereafter

A school bus accident leaves most of the families in a small Canadian town without children. A lawyer comes to urge them all to sue ... somebody. It's a creepy, unpleasant movie. One of Atom Egoyan's better known movies - certainly not much fun ...

1998. dir. Atom Egoyan. With Ian Holm, Maury Chaykin, Sarah Polley.

Sweet Home Alabama

Reese Witherspoon plays Melanie Carmichael, a fashion designer in New York with a family and history she's ashamed of in Alabama. When her dreamboat (Patrick Dempsey) proposes, she has to go home to take care of a minor inconvenience: she never quite got divorced from her previous husband (Josh Lucas). Predictable hilarity ensues.

I saw this movie around when it came out and wasn't overly impressed, although it has some appealing features - all the main characters are well played, Witherspoon and Lucas have great chemistry, and it is actually quite funny. Worth watching for fans of rom coms, otherwise to be avoided.

I was hugely entertained to see the portrayal of the South in the movie: overly broad but not horribly so, and the grand old houses (and single wide trailers) definitely reminded me of my time there. Turns out there was even more of a reason for that than I thought, as they were filming in Rome, Georgia (not Alabama) - very close to where I lived for a decade.

2002, dir. Andy Tennant. With Reese Witherspoon, Josh Lucas, Patrick Dempsey, Fred Ward, Mary Kay Place, Candice Bergen, Ethan Embry.

Sweetland

The core story of the movie is a fairly good one, but it's contained inside two frame stories that aren't filled out well at all. We look back from the present to 30 years ago (the senile Frandsen (Alan Cumming) is particularly distracting and unnecessary), and from there we look back another 50 years. It's comprehensible, but detracts from the movie. It may have worked well with the short story that the movie was based on but it fails in this form.

The centre story is about the arrival of a mail order bride in Minnesota just after World War I. The husband-to-be is Norwegian, and the bride is sent along by the parents, so no one is happy when she turns out to be German. But she's strong-willed and a decent person ...

2007, dir. Ali Selim. With Elizabeth Reaser, Tim Guinee, Lois Smith, Ned Beatty, John Heard, Alex Kingston, Alan Cumming.

Swimming Pool

Includes several unpleasant people, a house in the south of France, lots of sex, and a swimming pool. Oh - and the "Alice in Wonderland" excuse.

2003, dir. François Ozon. With Charlotte Rampling, Ludivine Sagnier.

Swimming With Sharks

Frank Whaley plays the new assistant to Kevin Spacey's exceptionally abusive studio executive ... until Whaley snaps, ties Spacey to a chair, and starts abusing right back. Really creepy humour, and somewhat lacking in sympathetic characters. The punchline is actually really good.

1994, dir. George Huang. With Kevin Spacey, Frank Whaley, Michelle Forbes, Benicio Del Toro.

Swiss Army Man

Stars Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe - one of my least favourite young stars and one of my favourites, respectively. Dano inevitably plays whiny and wimpy characters, and I'm not even convinced he plays them well. While Radcliffe came off the massive fame of the Harry Potter series and decided that he was going to actually learn his trade - and to that end has been doing a wide variety of roles in some fairly weird films ("Horns" in particular comes to mind - not a good movie, but Radcliffe did a fine job).

Dano is playing his usual role - he's Hank Thompson, a weak-willed fool (not stupid but full of foibles), stranded on a tiny island in the Pacific and bored to the point of suicide. His suicide is aborted by the appearance on the shore of a farting corpse ... played by Radcliffe. That this is a speaking role for Radcliffe will take some explanation, but let's start with the fact that the corpse can travel at high speed through the water by farting, and Dano rides him to a much larger body of land. It only gets more surreal from there.

Unfortunately, the underlying intent of the movie is fairly clear: the childlike innocence of the corpse is used to put Dano's life (and/or the fantasy life he likes to pretend he had) into perspective, and force him to reconsider how he acts.

Weird and pathetic, it mostly carries through on its bizarre premise. But you could also argue it's the world's most extended fart joke, and I didn't enjoy it much more than that.

2016, dir. Daniel Scheinert, Daniel Kwan. With Paul Dano, Daniel Radcliffe, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Timothy Eulich, Marika Casteel, Richard Gross.

Sword of the Stranger

This showed up on my radar in 2021 as a well reviewed adult Anime film that I hadn't seen - from 2007. A little surprising.

Our two main characters are "Nanashi" or "No Name," a highly skilled ronin who has sworn never to unsheath his sword again, and a boy named Kotaro who is being pursued by a group of Chinese warriors. And Kotaro's dog Tobimaru, who's a fairly important character. No Name and Kotaro meet when they both take refuge in an abandoned temple, and Kotaro hires No Name to get him to a distant temple. The most important remaining character is "Luo-Lang," a blond foreign master swordsman working for the Chinese. He's bored with Japan because there hasn't been a single worthy opponent.

I found the movie structure very conventional: Kotaro and No Name don't like each other, but grudgingly co-operate. No Name slowly becomes a father figure. It's clear from ten minutes in that the final confrontation will be between No Name (who will draw his sword) and Luo-Lang ... you probably guessed that just from my description. There are sword fights. There are many, many swordfights, and litres, no, swimming pools of blood are spilled - this isn't a kids movie. Although that's really only because of the blood: the logic is almost at the level of Kids' Anime. I'm going against the critics here, but I was distinctly underwhelmed by this film. If you want a movie about a kid and a grumpy mentor, see the far better, less violent, and more beautiful "The Boy and the Beast" (even if you're an adult).

2007, dir. Masahiro Andō. With Tomoya Nagase, Yuri Chinen, Naoto Takenaka, Kōichi Yamadera, Unshō Ishizuka, Mamoru Miyano, Maaya Sakamoto, Akio Ōtsuka.

Swordman II (orig. "Xiao ao jiang hu zhi: Dong Fang Bu Bai")

I'm a fan of Jet Li, but this is just a mess. If they'd got it right, it might have been half the movie "Iron Monkey" was, but they didn't get it right. Lots of leaping, flying, exploding, chopping things in half by waving a hand, and a plot that made almost no sense. Aided and abetted by classically bad English subs, although fixing them wouldn't have helped significantly. My favourite: one of the good guys gets agitated over problems and another one says "Brother, stay clam." Perhaps he should have followed with "Are you a man or are you a mollusc?!"

1992, dir. Siu-Tung Ching, Stanley Tong. With Jet Li, Brigitte Lin, Michelle Reis, Waise Lee, Rosamund Kwan, Fennie Yuen.

The Swordsman

The movie opens on a Joseon king facing a rebellion of his staff, defended by our main character Tae-yul (Jang Hyuk). He fights a duel against Min Seung-ho (Jung Man-sik), during which his sword shatters and damages his eyes. The king chooses to abdicate, releasing Tae-yul from his service. And at this point, we hit my biggest frustration in the movie as we jump forward about ten years to find Tae-yul living a quiet life in the woods with his daughter - who really wants to go into town. No resolution or explanation of the end of the rebellion ... but they let Tae-yul live? Why? We eventually find out they made this jump to keep the origins of his daughter a mystery so they could reveal it later.

I have no issue with action movies that have some depth to the plot, but I take issue when they try to add depth and instead add confusion. Maybe I would have understood it if I was Korean, as it's at least partially based on Joseon dynasty politics. Most of this became clear ... although partly because I did some Wikipedia reading on the plot of the movie. It also features a bunch of really, really nasty Chinese people (relatively accurate in that the Manchus were stomping all over Korea at the time) who are also slave traders, taking any Koreans they want at will.

Despite these problems, this is a fairly good action movie. The acting is good, as is the action, and the plot is interesting.

2020, dir. Choi Jae-hoon. With Jang Hyuk, Kim Hyun-soo, Joe Taslim, Jung Man-sik, Lee Na-kyeong, Lee Min-hyuk, Choi Jin-ho, Ji Seung-hyun, Ji Gun-woo, Gong Sang-a, Angelina Danilova, Jang Hyun-sung.


T

Tai Chi Master

Sometimes movies shouldn't be released on BluRay. Case in point: "Tai Chi Master," where the wires, dozens of them, have become visible since the DVD release (or perhaps it was VHS - it's been a LONG time since I saw this).

Not that it really matters - this is a DUMB movie. Junbao (Jet Li) and Tienbo (Chin Siu Ho) are best friends from childhood, raised together in a monastery where they learned martial arts. They're kicked out when Tienbo badly injures another student who cheated in a fight and Junbao jumped to defend his friend. The two follow very different paths in the outside world, and no one is surprised to hear they're headed for a showdown.

There are some amusing elements in the movie (intentionally), but the wire work is so pervasive and excessive as to pull the whole movie down. It reminded me of "Iron Monkey" - same director, equal quantity of wire work, and yet much more enjoyable. Partly "Iron Monkey" has a better story, but what I found on closer inspection was that "Iron Monkey" tries much harder to emulate the laws of physics - ie. IF someone could jump this high, they would have to land at this angle to brace themselves. As opposed to "Tai Chi Master" in which people tend to balance only because they're on wires, not because the structure underneath them could possibly be stable.

1993, dir. Yuen Woo-ping. With Jet Li, Michelle Yeoh, Chin Siu Ho.

Tai Chi Zero

The movie starts out looking like a martial arts epic (a battle of hundreds in the desert, our protagonist (somewhat under duress) taking out dozens himself). But then it starts to work its wonky madness: objects and people acquire subtitles, things switch to comic book drawing, and fights get stuff like "K.O.!" printed on screen. And let's not forget the steam punk element. A very silly but nevertheless entertaining movie, somewhat derailed by the shoddy ending and the incredibly blatant set-up for the sequel. Entertaining for fans of the genre, others should avoid - and if you do watch it, have the sequel ("Tai Chi Hero") around to watch immediately.

2012, dir. Stephen Fung. With Yuan Xiaochao, Angelababy, Tony Leung Ka-fai, Shu Qi, William Feng, Eddie Peng.

The Tailor of Panama

I didn't know John Le Carre wrote a farce. Who knew? Not a particularly great one, but at least mildly amusing. Very good performances fall to an uninvolving plot. Pierce Brosnan plays a spy in disgrace sent to Panama to finish out his time, where he hooks up with Geoffrey Rush's tailor to try to find out what the high and mighty (who come to Rush for suits) are doing. Rush is an inveterate liar, which leads to problems.

2001, dir. John Boorman. With Pierce Brosnan, Geoffrey Rush, Jamie Lee Curtis.

Taken

Liam Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a former CIA operative who has left the Agency to try to spend more time with his daughter. But his daughter lives with his ex-wife and her new husband, and Mills' over-protective father act hasn't endeared him to any of them. He is eventually convinced to sign the release papers allowing her to go to Paris with a friend ... where she is almost immediately kidnapped by human traffickers. She's conveniently on the phone with her father when it happens, so he gets a good dose of info before his flight to Paris where he immediately starts tearing up the entire city.

Neeson is reasonably good - but he's always been a good actor. The action is relatively choppy to cover the fact that he's not actually such a hot martial artist. And his ability to dodge bullets brings to mind "The Matrix" even though this is supposed to be a reality-based movie. I suppose that can be attributed to the influence of Luc Besson, who co-wrote and produced - but the movie unfortunately didn't acquire any of the other elegant absurdity that Besson sometimes brings to a production. Instead, we have dozens maimed, injured, or killed, and a fairly graphic scene of our "hero" torturing someone while explaining the wonders of torture in the first world - much better than in the third world because the electrical power he's using to torture this guy is so much more reliable. Not really my kind of thing, and unless you really enjoy that, I'd recommend giving this one a miss. Not improving the movie or my opinion of it, the outcome is every bit as predictable as you think it is.

2008, dir. Pierre Morel. With Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Xander Berkeley, Holly Valance, Katie Cassidy, Leland Orser, Olivier Rabourdin, Arben Bajraktaraj, Gérard Watkins.

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

Four heavily armed men hijack one car of a train in New York City and demand a ransom. The robbery is well planned and methodical, leaving the police struggling. Full of well-drawn characters and a lot of cursing, a surprisingly decent movie. Struggle past the Seventies kitsch and occasionally blaring score and you'll find a movie that's influenced every action flick since.

1974, dir. Joseph Sargent. With Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam, Hector Elizondo, Earl Hindman, James Broderick, Lee Wallace, Jerry Stiller.

The Tale of Despereaux

Despereaux is a fearless young mouse with gigantic ears who dreams of being a noble knight. His failure to act in an appropriately mouse-like manner eventually gets him thrown out of the mouse community and into the larger world beyond.

I watched this primarily for the style of the animation. It's somewhat uneven, but for the most part is dazzlingly beautiful in a deliberately Renaissance painting style that makes it a pleasure to watch even as the preachy plot falls flat on its face. Dustin Hoffman's voice work was a particular stand-out.

2008, dir. Rob Stevenhagen, Sam Fell. With Matthew Broderick, Dustin Hoffman, Sigourney Weaver, Emma Watson, Kevin Kline, Ciarán Hinds, Tracey Ullman, Robbie Coltrane, Stanley Tucci.

Tale of Tales

The movie is a medieval fantasy, with our participants being royalty or directly connected to royalty. It opens on a queen, played by Salma Hayek, who will do anything to conceive a child - including eating the heart of a sea monster. That part of the story also follows the two identical sons (by different mothers) (Christian and Jonah Lees) that result from this act. Another story - although these are all connected, apparently in neighbouring kingdoms - concerns a king (Vincent Cassel) who sleeps with any attractive young woman he can, and the two elderly women he ends up courting by accident. The third story concerns an eccentric and rather stupid king (Toby Jones) who gives away his loving daughter (Bebe Cave) in marriage to an ogre (Guillaume Delaunay).

The stories are all rather unpleasant, as are most of the people involved. They're adapted from fairy tales written by Italian poet Giambattista Basile. The locations and cinematography are gloriously beautiful. This mix of nastiness and beauty left me ... ambivalent. I feel like I have to recommend it to fans of fantasy: it's worth seeing.

2015, dir. Matteo Garrone. With Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel, Toby Jones, Shirley Henderson, Hayley Carmichael, Bebe Cave, Stacey Martin, Christian Lees, Jonah Lees, Guillaume Delaunay, Franco Pistoni, John C. Reilly.

Tales from Earthsea

I came into this one with very low expectations indeed. I've read the first Earthsea book (by Ursula K. LeGuin), A Wizard of Earthsea, something on the order of a dozen times, and the second and third in the series four or five times each: I'm a fan. This movie is directed by Miyazaki junior - and Hayao Miyazaki, his father, and in my opinion possibly the greatest animator to ever live, initially roundly condemned his son's movie. He eventually changed his assessment, saying something along the lines of "he made it with the best of intentions" - hardly a glowing endorsement, and the critics weren't particularly kind either.

I incorrectly assumed that this was based on the first book. LeGuin has published a collection of short stories called Tales from Earthsea, but this isn't based on that either. I don't blame Miyazaki for that foolishness - the original Japanese name may have made more sense. Instead, this is based on a blend of the third (The Farthest Shore) and fourth book (Tehanu), which I've never read. The animation doesn't show Miyazaki senior's subtlety, but is quite beautiful in places. The end product is painfully earnest, has a number of WTF?! moments, and isn't particularly good.

2006, dir. Goro Miyazaki. With Bunta Sugawara, Junichi Okada, Aoi Teshima, Jun Fubuki, Yuko Tanaka, Teruyuki Kagawa.

The Talk of the Town

This movie opens with Cary Grant running from the law, pursued cross-country by a lot of police. He stands accused of arson and murder, and I thought "That's an awfully dark role for Cary Grant." Of course it's not as it seems. Grant ends up hiding out in a house owned by Jean Arthur's character, and she's renting the house to Ronald Colman's character. Colman is a lawyer, and the three of them have a farcical little existence together interrupted occasionally by the police. Charming and entertaining but not hugely memorable.

1942, dir. George Stevens. With Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Ronald Colman.

The Tall Guy

Jeff Goldblum plays Dexter King, an American actor trying (not very successfully) to make a living on the British stage. At a doctor's office he encounters Kate Lemmon (Emma Thompson), whom he falls for immediately. He pursues her and his life changes, etc.

I thought "what can go wrong with Goldblum and Thompson in the same movie 'from the writer of Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral?'" The writer in question is Richard Curtis who went on to write and/or direct several excellent films. But this was helmed by Mel Smith and is a seriously shoddy piece of work. (Smith has done good work too, but consistency has never been his strength.) While King is smart and reasonably funny, he's also a weak-willed, lying asshole and I found it exceptionally hard to believe someone as level-headed as Kate Lemmon would be interested in him, never mind staying with him (or forgiving him, when it came to that). The larger portion of the humour is based on humiliation - which I've never liked - and the occasional unfunny non sequitur. The much-touted bedroom scene is fairly funny, but it was the only scene in the entire movie that made me laugh.

1989, dir. Mel Smith. With Jeff Goldblum, Emma Thompson, Rowan Atkinson, Emil Wolk, Geraldine James.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

Contains an awful lot of Will Ferrell/John C. Reilly humour, in which they do their best to act unimaginably stupid, and generally succeed. That doesn't make me laugh. However, there are three or four really good laughs ... I was particularly fond of the knife in the leg (yes, it is a high class of humour). Not that I would recommend sitting through 120 minutes for that. This is mostly a Ferrell/Reilly film, but it's staffed by all the Apatow regulars.

2006, dir. Adam McKay. With Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Gary Cole, Jane Lynch, Amy Adams, Michael Clarke Duncan, Sacha Baron Cohen.

Tamara Drewe

Hard for me to turn down Gemma Arterton, Luke Evans, and Dominic Cooper directed by Stephen Frears. It starts out well enough - in fact the first 30 minutes is hilarious and definitely worth the price of admission (even if I'd actually had to pay for it instead of borrowing the DVD from a friend ...). But as it proceeds, it skews into absurdity, loses much of its humour, and gets more mean-spirited.

The story is a modern take on Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd (a phrase they manage to slip into the movie), based on a comic-strip-turned-graphic-novel by Posy Simmonds. Tamara Drewe (Arterton) moving back to a small town to sell her family home, where she becomes entangled with a local writer's retreat, the drummer from a famous band (Cooper), and the local handyman (Evans) who used to be her flame a decade ago (before she left, became a famous newspaper columnist, and had a nose job). Despite the unconventional trappings (craziness at the writer's retreat, a 15 year old band groupie who invades our heroine's home whenever she's away) I was able to pick out not only the man Tamara would be with at the end of the movie, but also how a marriage in the writer's group would fracture - all within the first 20 minutes. I'm not saying I'm good at this: I'm saying the plotting wasn't very inventive (and I haven't read the Hardy, although I doubt that had much bearing on the conclusion here).

Watch it and enjoy the first 40 minutes, then tolerate the next hour.

2010, dir. Stephen Frears. With Gemma Arterton, Dominic Cooper, Luke Evans, Tamsin Greig, Roger Allam, Bill Camp, Jessica Barden, Charlotte Christie.

The Taming of the Shrew (CBC, 1988)

Colm Feore plays Petruchio in this CBC DVD of a Stratford stage production. Kate (Goldie Semple) is the titular shrew, and Petruchio tames her by means of psychological torture. Presumably this was popular and funny in Shakespeare's time. What amazes me is that it's still popular in our time: it sets my teeth on edge.

1988, dir. Richard Monette. With Colm Feore, Goldie Semple, Henry Czerny, Keith Dinicol, Scott Wentworth, Geraint Wyn Davies.

Tangled

Another remix/reboot/whatever on an old fairy tale. Rapunzel in her tower (kidnapped and raised in the tower from a very young age), kept in a golden prison by Mother Gothel who covets the healing powers of Rapunzel's hair. One day the thief Flynn climbs the tower ... and gets slugged with a frying pan by Rapunzel. Yup, it's updated.

The animation is astonishingly beautiful in an age of great animation - it looks good throughout, but there are several scenes that flow for minutes of breath-taking beauty. There's far too much singing and dancing for me (it's a musical), but this is unlikely to bother anyone else. The story is funny and charming, and I liked Flynn's heroic act at the end ... which should have killed him. But we couldn't stray that far from the expected fairytale structure, so all ends well. Overall very good.

2010, dir. Nathan Greno and Byron Howard. With Zachary Levi, Mandy Moore, Donna Murphy, Ron Perlman.

Tango Charlie

Bollywood does John Wayne. Calling this an "anti-war movie" is like calling a John Wayne movie "anti-war." The violence is graphic and unpleasant (and the director has the sense to cut back on the musical numbers as the clash would be too great), but the hero is still morally pure and the villains evil and in need of killing, and at the end we're supposed to cheer for our hero's great act of patriotism - even though he's sunk to the level of violence that he's previously so carefully avoided. It's an interesting movie, but please don't say it's "anti-war." If you want that, see "Three Kings."

2005, dir. Mani Shankar. With Bobby Deol, Ajay Devgan, Sanjay Dutt, Sunil Shetty, Tanisha.

Tasteless

In 1982 a book was published called Truly Tasteless Jokes. Remember, this is pre-Internet: books were still the way to discover jokes. This TV special is about the phenomenon of the book series and the strange history of the author. The show then puts several comedians on screen to read some of the jokes, talk about how tasteless they are, and explain the influence the books had on them. And then ... it branches out into so much more about what you can and can't say as a comedian, cancel culture, and taste in general.

If you're wondering how I came across a one hour TV special when I never watch broadcast TV and don't have a cable subscription: it showed up as a DVD at Toronto Public Library.

To me, the funniest joke in here was from comedian Alison Leiby, who gained some Internet fame for tweeting: "As a woman, I just hope that one day I have as many rights as a gun does." This joke is in the show because of the reaction - which was positive until gun owners twitter-spammed her. Even as a gun owner, you'd have to be pretty humour-deficient to not be at least mildly amused by that - but cancel culture is now a thing, and you can always find people who are offended by anything. Or just want to hurt people for holding an opinion different than their own.

Several of the people in the show remembered reading these books when they were kids, and telling each other the jokes (while keeping it out of sight of their parents and teachers). My childhood slightly pre-dates the publication of the first of these books - but the jokes people told from these books ... they're the exact same ones that floated around my schoolyard as a kid.

There's a significant amount of Canadian content here, as they talked to a Quebecois comedian who was being sued (2015-2019, the show aired in 2018) for a joke he told during his 2012-3 season. I was amused that the show included several Quebecois French TV clips (with subtitles, everything else is in English). During filming, the case was still in court: the comedian eventually lost. The joke was by almost any standard "tasteless." As comedy, should it have been a lawsuit-worthy offense? See the show, see what you think.

2018, dir. Jeff Cerulli, Matt Ritter. With Ashton Applewhite, Michael Barron, Jordan Carlos, Frank Castillo, Pat Dixon, Helen Hong, Alison Leiby.

Taxi Driver

The world according to Travis Bickle. "Are you talking to me?" Bickle is a mentally unstable former marine, now a taxi driver. A very famous film that I didn't enjoy much at all. It's good, I just didn't like it.

1976. dir. Martin Scorsese. With Robert De Niro, Cybill Shepherd, Peter Boyle, Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel.

A Taxing Woman

Ryōko Itakura (Nobuko Miyamoto) is a tax auditor - a very good one. We see her daily business of catching tax evaders. She has a shot at Hideki Gondō, the owner of a string of love hotels ... but fails, as he's a true master of tax evasion. Still, the two of them form a bond of respect. Later, after she's promoted to tax inspector (evidently a higher rank than "auditor"), her team has a go at Gondō again.

This is ... a comedy? I see the word "satire" at Rotten Tomatoes, and maybe that's closer. I have a good friend who puts this down as one of his favourite movies ever, and I think he sees it as a comedy. It has some big laughs, but I found them to be fairly far apart. I think this is in part me missing and/or not understanding Japanese humour. It's not much of a drama ... I mostly enjoyed it, but I still don't know how to file it.

A note about the subtitles: it was interesting to see love hotels referred to as "adult hotels" in the subs, and likewise Pachinko parlours were called "Pinball parlours." These days it would make more sense to use the latter terms as most North Americans know them, rather than the ones that may have made sense in 1988 when this made its way to VHS tape ...

1987, dir. Juzo Itami. With Nobuko Miyamoto, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Masahiko Tsugawa, Yasuo Daichi, Kinzoh Sakura, Hajime Asō, Kiriko Shimizu, Kazuyo Matsui, Hideo Murota, Machiko Watanabe, Shōtarō Takeuchi, Hideji Otaki, Moeko Ezawa, Shinsuke Ashida.

Teacher's Pet

Clark Gable plays James Gannon, a well-respected but abrasive newspaper editor with no formal schooling. Doris Day plays a journalism instructor he runs afoul of by writing a nasty letter about the uselessness of higher education. After she mocks him, he joins her class incognito to get his own back - but ends up falling for her. Formula rom-com.

Gable was 57 (and looked it) when the film was released. His love interest (Day) was 36 (although she looked younger), and Mamie Van Doren (his in-movie girlfriend) was 26. Gable spends the first half of the movie leering and drooling over these younger women - with a number of shots of him admiring their butts - and it was seriously creepy. Half way through the movie he finds his conscience, and his belief in higher education - very abruptly and unbelievably. But at least the second half wasn't quite as creepy. Not hugely funny, although there are a few good laughs.

1958, dir. William Perlberg and George Seaton. With Clark Gable, Doris Day, Gig Young, Mamie Van Doren, Nick Adams.

Ted

Seth MacFarlane tackles the big screen for the first time with the story of the live teddy bear "Ted" still living with the kid who wished him alive ... the problem being that the "kid" (Mark Wahlberg as John Bennett) is now 35. Ted becomes the metaphor for John's extended adolescence.

I skimmed the movie as I really wasn't getting the humour. Cameos by Norah Jones, Sam Jones (of "Flash Gordon" infamy, and really playing up the "Flash Gordon" connection), and Tom Skerritt - all as themselves - livened things up substantially. Apparently all fans of MacFarlane. The ending was both more painfully obvious and more amusing than I expected, but overall only for fans of MacFarlane humour.

2012, dir. Seth MacFarlane. With Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, Seth MacFarlane, Giovanni Ribisi, Patrick Warburton, Sam J. Jones, Norah Jones, Tom Skerritt, Patrick Stewart, Ryan Reynolds.

10

I watched this two hour movie in about one hour with my thumb hovering over the fast forward. George Webber (Dudley Moore) is a successful song writer with an intelligent, pretty, and likable girlfriend (Julie Andrews ... who happens to be married to Edwards) who becomes obsessed with a young and gorgeous girl (Bo Derek). He declares her an 11 on a scale of one to ten, and pursues her to Mexico where she's honeymooning with her new husband.

There are some intelligent jokes and some valid commentary on mid-life crises, but most of the movie is about sex, tits, and humiliation (of Moore). Derek is attractive, but there's no shortage of attractive women in the world and I didn't quite get the obsession. Not worth seeing.

1979, dir. Blake Edwards. With Dudley Moore, Julie Andrews, Bo Derek, Robert Webber, Dee Wallace-Stone, Brian Dennehy.

10 Cloverfield Lane

"10 Cloverfield Lane" occupies a fairly unusual space among movies: it's technically a sequel to "Cloverfield," but it's a different genre (although which other one isn't entirely clear - this one isn't really horror either but could be classified several different ways), different cast, different style, and the continuity from the previous movie is uncertain.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead plays Michelle, a young woman who packs up and runs out on her fiancée in the first moments of the movie. She drives out into the country, and the credits are interspersed with her car going off the road and flipping over a couple times. When she wakes after the accident, she finds herself injured, in a cinderblock bunker, chained to a bed.

If you haven't seen the movie or the trailers, stop reading now. I'm going to spoil the first 15 minutes (just as the trailers do), but the movie will be even better if you don't watch them or read this.

Michelle (and the viewers) have several minutes of thinking she's going to be raped and/or tortured. Her captor is Howard (John Goodman), who claims that he rescued her from her car accident and saved her in his underground bunker because the world has ended above ground - although he's not entirely clear on what caused it, and she's not at all sure she believes him.

I haven't previously been a huge fan of Winstead's acting, but she does very well here. John Gallagher Jr. is also quite good as the third bunker resident, and Goodman is superb and terrifying as the paranoid and possibly deranged (but maybe not wrong) Howard. I didn't much enjoy the movie, but I have a huge respect for it: it's exceptionally well made.

2016, dir. Dan Trachtenberg. With Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman, John Gallagher Jr.

10 Things I Hate About You

A teen flick re-interpretation of Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew." The idea has "disaster" written all over it, but against all odds and thanks to some superb writing and decent acting (from several people who went on to become stars), this is an incredibly clever and hilarious movie. "How do I loathe thee? Let me count the ways." A good Eighties soundtrack doesn't hurt either.

1999, dir. Gil Junger. With Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Larisa Oleynik, David Krumholtz, Larry Miller, Andrew Keegan, Gabrielle Union, Susan May Pratt, Allison Janney.

10 Years

One night at a ten year high school reunion. Some fairly likable characters, a couple not so much, secrets are revealed, etc. Mildly amusing, occasionally charming, somewhat predictable. Not really recommended for anyone, but on the other hand, if you have to sit through it you'll be just fine.

2012, dir. Jamie Linden. With Channing Tatum, Justin Long, Kate Mara, Chris Pratt, Brian Geraghty, Scott Porter, Max Minghella, Anthony Mackie, Lynn Collins, Rosario Dawson, Oscar Isaac, Aubrey Plaza.

Tenet

The action is set in the modern day, but this qualifies as "Science Fiction" because our protagonist (who is called "the Protagonist" and played by John David Washington) finds himself dealing with the un-firing of bullets ten minutes into the movie. We get a lecture about the physics of reversed entropy - how we can have bullets that go backwards through time. This is classic Christopher Nolan, and somewhat reminiscent of his first film widely released film, "Memento" - which essentially ran backwards through time. This is ... quite different. Much more grandiose, and more logically damaged.

I can't tell you more about the plot without getting into spoilers - I also can't tell you more about the plot and continue to make sense. Nolan uses the whole movie to get you adjusted to the ideas involved, so you can sort of vaguely understand the crazy ending (which of course can also be argued to be the beginning). But just like the equally grandiose and crazy "Inception," the people who love Nolan will love this, and I'm left scratching my head at the absurd, but so beautifully presented, dog's breakfast of logical problems he thinks makes a whole. I have to admit, I kind of enjoyed it - but I get pissy because he's built a house of cards that was grand to watch in the construction but has collapsed by the time he turns around to say "see how cool it is?!"

2020, dir. Christopher Nolan. With John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Kenneth Branagh, Dimple Kapadia, Michael Caine, Martin Donovan, Fiona Dourif, Yuri Kolokolnikov, Himesh Patel, Clémence Poésy, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Denzil Smith.

Tenure

Luke Wilson plays a professor at a small college. He's a very good teacher, but a lousy researcher with an almost non-existent history of publishing. Now a Yale professor (Gretchen Mol) has joined his department, and his best friend (David Koechner) is encouraging him to sabotage her (when he's not off chasing Bigfoot).

Embarrassing and unfunny. The writer does seem to have a knowledge of what it's like to work on a campus (I worked at a mid-sized college in the U.S. for a decade), but can't muster humour in situations that should have been easy. Very disappointing.

2009, dir. Mike Million. With Luke Wilson, David Koechner, Gretchen Mol.

The Terminal

Tom Hanks plays Viktor Navorski, a visitor to New York caught in political limbo by the implosion of his country during his flight over. He's forced to stay in the airport terminal for months. A light-weight, charming and amusing movie. Hanks is superb, as always.

2004, dir. Steven Spielberg. With Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Stanley Tucci.

Terminator 2

Most people know this story - probably more people than know the original "Terminator," this being one of those rare instances when the sequel exceeds the original. The CG graphics are very early in the history of computer-generated graphics, but James Cameron (the director) made sure they looked as good as they could at the time and the idea of a "liquid metal" Terminator was perfectly suited to what was available then - the end result being that the graphics still look okay (although not great) in 2018.

I like to remember that supporting cast member Linda Hamilton was only known for the cheesy 80s TV series "Beauty and the Beast" before her abrupt transition to the role of Sarah Connor in the original "Terminator." In this movie, she's locked up in an insane asylum because of her ranting about the machines from the future, and spends her days exercising like a maniac (she was incredibly buff for this movie) and trying to escape. Then, one of the machines comes for her son - who is more than a little surprised to find out that his Mom was telling the truth ... This also allows the interesting reversal of having the original T-800 terminator A) be the hero, and B) be outdated.

And I love that this isn't a movie that tries to blow up the world. Yes, they're fighting for the future of the humanity, but it comes down to a few people fighting for their lives.

Worth seeing if you haven't.

1991, dir. James Cameron. With Arnold Schwarzenegger, Edward Furlong, Linda Hamilton, Robert Patrick, Joe Morton, Earl Boen.

Terminator Salvation

So the old stars fall and the young rise. Christian Bale and Michael Ironside did yelling, Sam Worthington and Anton Yelchin did acting. Bale has played some excellent roles, but he sure as hell didn't strain himself here. Worthington plays a convicted murderer, executed in 2003, resurrected in 2018 in the middle of the "War with the Machines." He doesn't know what the hell is going on - but is strong and quick and good at staying alive. Bale plays John Connor, very interested in Yelchin because Yelchin is his father - and the person he has to send back in time to meet and save his mother, and thus become his father. The machines are equally interested in Yelchin, because killing him would prevent all of that happening.

There's lots and lots of action, and an awful lot of explosions, but the drama ... well, not much. Worthington as a partially human machine (or partially machine human) is most interesting to watch as a creature who wants to be human, and is horrified at what he may be. But overall, this is an explosion movie, not a drama.

2009, dir. McG. With Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin, Moon Bloodgood, Bryce Dallas Howard, Common, Michael Ironside, Helena Bonham Carter.

Terry

Prior to seeing this film I tended to think of Shawn Ashmore (good Canadian boy that he is) as a serviceable but not brilliant actor. He put his heart into this one - he's excellent. And the movie is too. The movie is about amputee Terry Fox's run across Canada to raise money for Cancer research - or at least about as much of that run as he managed to make. Possibly the closest thing that Canada has to a national hero. All the support cast are good as well. Definitely worth watching.

2005, dir. Don McBrearty. With Shawn Ashmore, Ryan McDonald, Noah Reid, Matt Gordon, Catherine Disher.

Terry Jones' Medieval Lives (Disc One)

I wasn't keen on Terry Jones' method of presentation, mixing himself in ludicrous costumes and animated medieval drawings reminiscent of Terry Gilliam's Monty Python work with documentary discussion of the period, but I found the information conveyed utterly fascinating and more than enough to outweigh the unfunny humour. The four episodes on this disc - "The Peasant," "The Monk," "The Damsel," and "The Minstrel" all exploded the myths of the medieval lives of each of these groups of people most convincingly. Recommended.

2004, dir. Nigel Miller. With Terry Jones.

Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die

(Reviewed 2008)

Terry Pratchett (one of the world's best known comedy fantasy writers, with 20+ novels written in the Discworld series, plus a couple dozen others) has developed Alzheimer's disease. Accompanied by BBC Scotland cameras and his personal assistant, he goes to find out about how he can make the choice to die through assisted suicide.

I've read many of Pratchett's books, and I've seen him speak - he's a very funny man. I was very sad to hear that he'd developed Alzheimer's. I'm with him all the way in his belief that we should have the right to choose. He visited a couple of British men who were planning to take the assisted suicide route: Peter Smedley (motor neurone disease) and Andrew Colgan (multiple sclerosis). He also visited the widow of Hugo Claus (another writer, Alzheimer's). I'm defining them here by their diseases, but the movie shows at least a small part of who they are, and it's truly heartbreaking: Colgan in particular seemed like a really nice guy, and relatively young at 42. And yet you can see why he's making the call: his motor skills had deteriorated badly and were continuing to get worse. To even the scales slightly, he also visited a man with motor neurone who had chosen to live in a hospice rather than take assisted suicide.

Dignitas in Switzerland is pretty much the only option for British citizens looking for assisted suicide: it's not legal in Britain, and of the countries that allow it, Switzerland is the only one where non-locals can legally do it. They spent some time with the staff of Dignitas, and Smedley and his wife allowed the cameras in on his exit. I cried.

2011, dir. Charlie Russell.

Tesla: Master of Lightning

PBS documentary about my favourite inventor. Took the long view - until well after his death and the repercussions of his work and ideas - and didn't flinch away from his strange behaviours. I didn't think it told enough about his inventions, but that wouldn't have been possible in the hour and a half run time. Overall, not bad.

2000, dir. Robert Uth. With Stacey Keach, Elisabeth Noone, Nikola Tesla.

Their Finest

Second World War, home front, London. Catrin Cole (Gemma Arterton) gets a job with the Ministry of Information writing scripts for informational short films - she thought she'd be in the secretarial pool. There she finds herself contending with a very intelligent and obnoxious screenwriter (Sam Claflin) and an aging actor (Bill Nighy) who's having trouble acknowledging that his glory days are behind him. Her husband (Jack Huston), injured in the Spanish Civil War and now an artist, is uncomfortable with her making more money than he does.

Arterton is good as usual. I wasn't familiar with Claflin, but he was very good. Nighy has a particular brand of over-acting he uses for both comedy and bad-guy roles (it's comedy here) that I don't particularly love, but in his more serious moments he's also good. A thoroughly charming film that manages to be funny, feminist, depressing, and hopeful all in one package.

2016, dir. Lone Scherfig. With Gemma Arterton, Sam Claflin, Bill Nighy, Jack Huston, Helen McCrory, Eddie Marsan, Jake Lacy, Rachael Stirling, Richard E. Grant, Jeremy Irons.

The Theory of Everything

We all know the story - or at least all the geeks do. The greatest scientific mind in the history of the world, trapped in a body incapacitated by Motor Neurone Disease, given two years to live in the 1960s. Of course you probably know how that plays out: it's 2015, Stephen Hawking is 73 and still working. Rather than tackling Hawking's own rather esoteric works, this movie is a version of his first wife Jane's book Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen. I'm not usually a huge fan of Eddie Redmayne - he's a weird-looking dude, but he's a damn fine actor when he's working at it, and he does a superb job here. The story is both heart-breaking and triumphal as his body stops working and he becomes one of the most famous people in the world - and eventually his marriage fails (that part I didn't know). Definitely worth a watch if you have any interest in the man at all.

2014, dir. James Marsh. With Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones, Charlie Cox, David Thewlis, Emily Watson, Simon McBurney.

The Theory of Flight

This one's a bit weird. It's brought down by Hallmark moments, and lifted up by a couple really excellent performances by Helena Bonham Carter and Kenneth Branagh. "Based on a true story," Bonham Carter plays a severely crippled woman, and Branagh the man on community service assigned to help her. Without them it would have been nothing, but with them, it manages some very memorable moments.

1998, dir. Paul Greengrass. With Helena Bonham Carter, Kenneth Branagh, Gemma Jones, Ray Stevenson.

The Thin Blue Line

Apparently this is the movie that re-wrote the book on documentaries: Errol Morris tackled the case of a man on death row who didn't commit the crime he was accused of, and in the process changed documentaries forever. There isn't a word of voice-over in the entire thing: just talking heads and some basic re-enactments. It's a hell of a lesson in how badly astray justice can go when cops want to catch a cop-killer ... and willingly turn to someone complicit in the crime for "evidence."

At the centre of this is Randall Adams. On a weekend in Dallas his car ran out of gas, and as he's walking with the gas can, a young man (David Harris) offers him a ride. He and the young man hang out for a while, watch a movie. This much all parties agree on, although Harris puts the events later in the day than Adams. Late in the evening, a cop is shot and killed while approaching a car on a routine traffic stop. Randall says he and Harris had parted ways a couple hours before that happened, Harris says it was Randall driving the car. Morris builds up a series of stories that eventually make it very clear that the police department and the judge had made a decision before the trial began and the wrong man was convicted. The witness you would most hope would tell the truth - the dead cop's partner - appears to have been lying because she was supposed to be out of the car ready to defend him (she claims she was) but was actually in the car drinking a malt. So she's lying through her own guilt. The film was clear enough about what actually happened that Adams was eventually released - although no apology was ever heard from the state of Texas.

1988, dir. Errol Morris. With Randall Adams, David Ray Harris.

The Thin Man

The first movie starring the justifiably famous duo of William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles. Powell has married money (Loy) and has retired from sleuthing, but his visit to his hometown finds him embroiled in a murder investigation anyway. The first five minutes of the movie is some of the most brilliant scene-setting I've ever seen: you learn more about five characters (three on-screen and two off) in those five minutes than you do in entire movies sometimes. And they do it with very funny dialogue. Powell and Loy are wonderful together and the whole movie is entertaining. The only disappointment was the "let's gather all the suspects together for dinner and have a denouement" ending. Perhaps it wasn't old and lame at the time, but it is now. That aside, I'm looking forward to watching the next in the series - I wonder how far I'll get before it grows old?

The sequel, "After the Thin Man."

1934, dir. W.S. Van Dyke. With William Powell, Myrna Loy, Maureen O'Sullivan.

The Third Murder

Hirokazu Kore-eda is a Japanese film director. To date, this is considered the worst of his films as a director. As of 2019-02 he's listed with ten movies he's directed on Rotten Tomatoes, and this, his worst movie, is at 84%.

The movie is, technically, a legal drama. Although it spends its time dissecting the problems with the Japanese legal establishment more than it concerns itself with the guilt of the suspect. Having said that, you think you know what happened at the end, and that justice was served ... no thanks to the court. But it's Kore-eda: which means it's contemplative, slow-paced, sometimes even dream-like. Although less so, I suspect, than his other movies - I've only seen "After Life," and that's ... really strange.

Kôji Yakusho plays Misumi, who we see clubbing someone to death in the first few seconds of the movie. He's defended by the lawyer Shigemori (Masaharu Fukuyama), although mostly he and the two other lawyers who work with him are simply trying to prevent Misumi being put to death as he already has two other murders to his name. But Shigemori finds that Misumi's story changes every time it's told, and he doesn't know what to make of it. He doesn't know what's best for his client's defence because he can't get a consistent story, which eventually leads him to want to know the truth (instead of just a lawyer's fiction of the truth meant for defence).

The movie is quite good, but I found it more interesting than inspiring. I'm glad I watched it, but it doesn't create any desire to watch it again.

2017, dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda. With Masaharu Fukuyama, Kôji Yakusho, Suzu Hirose, Yuki Saito, Kōtarō Yoshida, Shinnosuke Mitsushima, Izumi Matsuoka.

Thirst (orig. "Bakjwi")

Priest Sang-hyun volunteers for an experiment with a deadly virus, hoping to help find a cure, but instead ends up a vampire after the disease nearly kills him and he's given a blood transfusion. The vampirism keeps the disease at bay, but only if he drinks blood frequently. He also finds himself having trouble controlling his desires, and enters into an affair with the neglected wife of a childhood friend.

Park Chan-wook is perhaps best known over here for The Vengeance Trilogy - after watching "Old Boy" I refused to watch "Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance" and "Lady Vengeance." Not that "Old Boy" is bad: it's both interesting and utterly appalling. But I wanted to see what Park would do with the vampire genre.

The movie is creepy, erotic, violent, bloody ... and overall quite fascinating. Not for the faint of heart, but not so emotionally repugnant as "Old Boy."

2009, dir. Park Chan-wook. With Song Kang-ho, Kim Ok-bin, Shin Ha-kyun, Kim Hae-sook.

13 Assassins

We are introduced to Lord Naritsugu, a Shogunate Japanese lord. Takashi Miike, not one to lose sight of his roots in the grotesque, even when he's doing a relatively classy and successful film like this one, makes sure we know how despicable Naritsugu is by showing him raping, killing, and maiming. But he's the shogun's brother, and the shogun won't condone killing him. So a bunch of samurai gather to take care of the problem.

Highly reminiscent of "Seven Samurai" with a bit of modern westerns and horror movies mixed in, I was repelled by the grotesque imagery at the beginning, but mostly okay with the spectacular blood of the hour-long final battle. Overall, a rather good movie.

2010, dir. Takashi Miike. With Kôji Yakusho, Hiroki Matsukata, Tsuyoshi Ihara, Masataka Kubota, Takayuki Yamada, Arata Furuta, Yûsuke Iseya.

13 Conversations About One Thing

A pastiche of scenes, pasted together out of order (reconstructing them in your head is one of the few rewarding parts of this movie) about a bunch of different people whose lives intersect, mostly discussing fate and what life has in store for us. Alan Arkin is excellent as a miserable and truly unlikeable guy - although you're likely to have some pity for him at some point. But I really, really didn't like the movie's attitude that if you're happy now, you won't be soon enough: something horrible is going to happen to each and every one of us, and soon. Brought on by ourselves or others - don't even bother trying to be happy.

2001, dir. Jill Sprecher. With Alan Arkin, Matthew McConaughey, John Turturro, Clea DuVall, Tia Texada, Barbara Sukowa, Amy Irving.

13 Going On 30

It's "Big," but with a girl! And less substance! And Tom Hanks was better - although Jennifer Garner does a very good job, I'm not knocking her performance, she's just up against a very good actor. The story finds our 13 year old heroine, Jenna (played by Christa Allen at this age), desperately trying to be cool, and then when it doesn't work out as expected, desperately wishing she was thirty. A wish that's granted. Whereupon she discovers all the predictable lessons: you need to get there by growing up, friendship is more important than coolness, etc. etc. Garner draws some solid laughs as a 13 year old in a 30 year old body, but the movie is predictable and fairly hollow.

2004, dir. Gary Winick. With Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo, Judy Greer, Andy Serkis, Kathy Baker, Phil Reeves, Christa B. Allen, Sean Marquette.

The Thirteenth Floor

A computer-based alternative reality science fiction movie that disappeared completely because it had a very similar premise to another movie that came out the same year called "The Matrix." This one is perhaps not as good, but is fascinating for taking the idea in a radically different direction, and doing it pretty damn well. Craig Bierko is our protagonist, a programmer in the modern day world, who has helped his boss (Armin Mueller-Stahl) build a computer simulation of 1937 L.A. that is so accurate it might as well be reality. Mueller-Stahl has barely been introduced when he's murdered, and Bierko has to step into this simulation to figure out why everything went sideways.

The acting is occasionally bit weak, but the ideas are fascinating and I really like the movie as a whole.

1999, dir. Josef Rusnak. With Craig Bierko, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Gretchen Mol, Vincent D'Onofrio, Dennis Haysbert.

The 13th Warrior

Antonio Banderas plays Ahmed ibn Fadlan, an Arab poet assigned as emissary to the "Northmen" (otherwise known as "Vikings") as a punishment. He promptly finds himself sent off as the 13th Warrior (although he protests that he doesn't fight at all) to fight an unknown enemy with 12 warriors who speak a language he doesn't know (although that part is solved fast enough).

Antonio Banderas is charming in this very violent, bloody, and gritty film - as are his band of brothers, the other 12 Viking warriors. Nobody you've every heard of. But a reasonably intelligent script based on a Michael Crichton novel (Eaters of the Dead) makes for some fun viewing - I particularly liked Dennis Storhoi as the Viking who takes ibn Fadlan under his wing. It's cheesy, too long, and has problems ... but I really enjoy it.

1999, dir. John McTiernan. With Antonio Banderas, Dennis Storhoi, Vladimir Kulich, Omar Sharif, Clive Russell, Richard Bremmer, Tony Curran.

The 39 Steps

One of Hitchcock's earlier movies, before he moved to the U.S. Mistaken identity spy story, not bad.

1935. dir. Alfred Hitchcock. With Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll.

Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould

A fascinating portrait of Glenn Gould, one of the most famous classical musicians who ever lived. Extraordinarily talented but eccentric in the extreme, this is an uncompromising and unusual portrayal of him in the form of 32 short segments. It would help if you knew something about him or liked his music, but I think it would stand well on its own. Colm Feore's performance is very effective.

1993. dir. François Girard. With Colm Feore.

This Beautiful Fantastic

I'm amused but not very surprised to see that others have previously compared this to "Amélie."

Bella Brown (Jessica Brown Findlay) is an isolated obsessive compulsive young woman who works at a library and aspires to be a children's writer. Her grumpy next door neighbour Alfie (Tom Wilkinson) files a complaint with her superintendent about her garden, which is a mess. In the first of many bizarre twists, Alfie's house keeper Vernon (Andrew Scott) quits his employment with Alfie and comes to work for Bella. Vernon's encyclopedic knowledge of city law earns her a reprieve on the garden, but she has to fix it in a month. In the mean time, she gets to know Vernon, Alfie, and an eccentric young inventor (Jeremy Irvine) who frequents the library.

For those expecting a realistic movie, no: this is a fantasy, a surrealist fable similar to "Amélie." It's not as good as that movie was, but if you accept some particularly odd behaviours (and an inaccurate portrayal of OCD), it can be a very enjoyable movie.

2016, dir. Simon Aboud. With Jessica Brown Findlay, Tom Wilkinson, Andrew Scott, Jeremy Irvine, Anna Chancellor.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated

A movie about the American film ratings system - a rather good one too. The screeners who rate movies are kept entirely anonymous to those that they rate "to avoid influence." Interestingly, they will talk directly to movie producers and directors - ie. those that are most likely to want to influence them. Director Kirby Dick shows us a large number of sex scenes (in an amazingly clinical manner, but not surprisingly it got an early cut of his movie an NC-17 rating) to show the bizarre biases in place in the ratings system. He doesn't bother discussing violence, because it's clear early on that the raters believe that a 13 year old will be fine watching hideous murders but will be permanently warped by two people having consensual sex. A fascinating movie - watch the extras on the DVD as well.

2006, dir. Kirby Dick. With Atom Egoyan, Darren Aronofsky, Trey Parker, Kimberly Peirce.

This Gun for Hire

Alan Ladd plays Raven, a hired killer who did a job for Gates (played by Laird Cregar). When Raven finds out he's been set up for a fall with his pay-off, he goes on a rampage for revenge. In the process, he takes Veronica Lake hostage - a couple times. And saves her life once.

Based on Graham Greene's A Gun for Sale, the movie was a pleasure for being more intelligent than most. I haven't read the original book and I suspect that they've made huge changes - Greene wrote it in 1936, but now it's set in America and the Japanese are the enemy. Nevertheless, some of the complexity survived the inevitable re-writes.

1942, dir. Frank Tuttle. With Veronica Lake, Alan Ladd, Robert Preston, Laird Cregar.

This is the End

Jay Baruchel (played by ... Baruchel - they all use their own names here) goes to visit Seth Rogen in Hollywood. He doesn't like Hollywood. Rogen drags him to James Franco's party where he has a lousy time. The apocalypse arrives, and six of them are trapped in Franco's house with only limited supplies of food and water, and a variety of unpleasant visitors.

I can't speculate on how like or unlike themselves the characters they play actually are. But all of them are despicable, unpleasant assholes, and the humour is incredibly crude: it mostly involves rape, penises, and semen. Not my kind of movie.

2013, dir. Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen. With Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Emma Watson, Channing Tatum, Rihanna.

Thor

After an appalling set of trailers came this surprisingly decent movie. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is cast out of Asgard, sent to Earth as a human for his excessive arrogance. Things play out pretty much as expected: he doesn't deal well with being human, he beats people up, he meets a nice woman (Natalie Portman) and father figure (Stellan Skarsgård), he starts to settle in. But Asgard isn't done with him, evil comes to Earth and he must recover his power to defend a place and people he now loves. You get the idea.

Still doesn't sound that good, does it? But they do it well, and they do it with humour, and it's a fun ride. Probably only good for those who are fans of the Marvel universe, but if you are, this is definitely worth a watch.

2011, dir. Kenneth Branagh. With Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Stellan Skarsgård, Clark Gregg, Jaimie Alexander, Ray Stevenson, Joshua Dallas, Tadanobu Asano, Idris Elba, Colm Feore.

Thor: The Dark World

The movie starts with a mythology lesson (I don't think this is anyone's real mythology except Marvel's, but I could be wrong) about "The Dark Elves" led by Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) who ruled the universe long before the ascension of Thor's lineage. They like darkness and nothingness, and intend to return the entire universe to that state if given a chance. We see Thor (Chris Hemsworth) in action, doing good deeds. We see his human lover Dr. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) doing her research (goofily, with the assistance of the scene-stealing Kat Dennings). Her mentor Dr. Eric Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) is running naked around Stonehenge - reduced from mentor to farce. And we're told that Loki (Tom Hiddleston, quite good here) loves his mother (Rene Russo). And of course it all comes back to Earth. Fairly well structured with some nice touches (including Loki's sacrifice), it's still just as silly and crazy as the first one. It ain't high art, but it was fun.

2013, dir. Alan Taylor. With Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Rene Russo, Idris Elba, Christopher Eccleston, Jaimie Alexander, Stellan Skarsgård, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Kat Dennings, Ray Stevenson, Zachary Levi, Tadanobu Asano.

Thor: Ragnarok

Marvel once again took a big chance on a director who could have done serious damage to their franchise: I'm thinking of Peyton Reed and "Ant-Man." That last risk paid off big, as "Ant-Man" was the funniest Marvel movie to date by a fairly wide margin while also remaining oddly heroic. Taika Waititi - new director of "Thor: Ragnarok" - has a rather better record than Reed, with a string of recent critically acclaimed movies including "Boy," "What We Do in the Shadows", and "Hunt for the Wilderpeople" to his credit. But he was guaranteed to bring some quirky humour to a very formal character. A good thing, but still a risk. To my surprise, it paid off in spades.

We first see Thor locked up in a cage, where he gives us an ironic-humorous-heroic tale of how he ended up there. His escape isn't the meat of the story, just a way to set up the idea of Ragnarok - the Norse version of the end-of-the-world myth. Thor figures he's stopped that, but his father assures him he hasn't - and also tells him that he has a crazy sister (Cate Blanchett, having a blast as Hela - and doing possibly the best job of selling a super-villain yet) who's coming back and may well be more powerful than Thor. When she reappears, Thor finds himself on the planet Sakaar, where he has to battle for his life (although this is primarily comedy) and he meets a number of ... interesting ... people. This makes up the bulk of the film, but - it's about Ragnarok, so we do eventually get back to Asgard.

As with "Hunt for the Wilderpeople," I enjoyed most of the humour - except when Waititi himself was on screen. His character Korg I didn't find funny, although I think many others did.

Funny and fun.

2017, dir. Taika Waititi. With Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Idris Elba, Jeff Goldblum, Tessa Thompson, Karl Urban, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Hopkins, Taika Waititi.

Thor: Love and Thunder

While I understand that between losing Jane Foster (we're given a quick summary of what happened there as an intro to the movie) and turning into Bro-Thor after losing to Thanos, Thor has been through a lot in the last decade. But according to this movie, he's lost approximately 50 IQ points and an equal number of EQ (Emotional Quotient) points. I mean ... the guy who walks onto the screen at the beginning of this one is an all caps MORON. This is meant to allow both comedy and growth, but every previous solo Thor movie has been about this thousands-of-years-old nearly indestructible god growing emotionally ... and he gets reset at the beginning of every one. It's abusive of their character and insulting to their viewers.

That said, Taika Waititi does manage to bring the humour (although not as much as in the last outing) and Gorr The God Butcher (who was apparently named after me, "Giles ORR" - played here by Christian Bale) is at least a mildly interesting antagonist.

SPOILER ALERT: stop reading if you haven't seen this, and this also spoils Multiverse of Madness"! Here's the thing though: both Gorr and the Scarlet Witch get nearly identical redemption-in-death finales. Is this what we can expect from Marvel from now on? Justified villains who create a massive swath of destruction and then in their last moments do something that somehow redeems them?

2022, dir. Taika Waititi. With Chris Hemsworth, Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, Jaimie Alexander, Taika Waititi, Russell Crowe, Natalie Portman.

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines

The movie is about a 1910 air race from London to Paris, sponsored by British Press Magnate Lord Rawnsley - whose daughter is a major character, and involved with a British aviator. Competitors join the race from all over the world: the notable ones are from Japan, Italy, France, two from Britain, and one from the U.S.

Benny Hill has a moderate-sized role, and I suppose that this is a slightly higher class humour than his usual work - although quite a few people do get dumped in the sewage ponds just beyond the British airfield. All in all, very much Hill's style of incredibly broad humour. Worse, for a fan of airplanes, there seemed to be very little flying of period planes - Wikipedia says that some of them did fly, but it looked to be mostly greenscreen.

1965, dir. Ken Annakin. With Stuart Whitman, Sarah Miles, James Fox, Alberto Sordi, Robert Morley, Gert Fröbe, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Irina Demick, Red Skelton, Benny Hill.

Those Who Hunt Elves, Season 1

This review is based on watching the first eight episodes.

Let's look at the setup for Japanese animated series "Those Who Hunt Elves." Three humans find themselves transported to a world (along with a Type 74 tank), with a population of humans and a smaller population of elves. The powerful elf sorceress "Mistress Celcia" attempts to send them back to Earth and fails because one of the party (the obnoxious Junpei) distracts her. Instead, the spell is split in five and written on the skin of five elves all over the world. So our "heroes" run around the medieval planet in their tank, stripping elves naked looking for spell marks and comedy.

Our characters are Junpei, Ritsuko, Airi, and Celcia. Junpei is an incredibly strong martial artist, who has fallen in love with Airi, loves curry, and is astonishingly stupid (except when he's noble - then he gets smarter for a few seconds). Ritsuko is our innocent, although her love of and proficiency with military equipment does sort of bring that declaration into question. Airi is definitely the brains of the operation: she was an actress on Earth, and can see through any lie or ruse. Finally, we have the extremely short-tempered Celcia, trapped in the form of a dog, and reluctantly travelling with our hunters as she feels guilty for the failure of the spell that didn't send them back to Earth.

To its credit, this series is honest in its description, and about finding its target audience: boys who have just passed through puberty. Wikipedia says "The reaction of various elves as the team attempts to strip them naked is a primary basis for much of the show's humour, and are more ridiculous than suggestive." Honestly, if a 13 year old was looking for suggestive, they'd be better served by "Seven Deadly Sins," although that one mostly claims to be about the fight between good and evil. "Seven Deadly Sins" is also better written and more interesting ... although still pretty bad.

In the 7th and 8th episodes a couple things I'd been wondering about became clear. First, our "hunters" aren't stripping male elves, and second, they are stripping female children. This was never shown on screen, but a group of female elf children are seen sobbing before a church official saying they'd been stripped. Not very funny, and decidedly creepy - which pretty much did me in for the series.

1994. With Andrew Klimko, Rozanne Curtis, Kelly Manison, Jessica Calvello.

3Below: Tales of Arcadia

"3Below" is Guillermo del Toro's follow-up to "Trollhunters," both subtitled "Tales of Arcadia" (although perhaps retroactively in the case of "Trollhunters"). Both are animated kid's series on Netflix. I was only peripherally aware of "Trollhunters" and watched "3Below" first - unfortunately, it's almost but not quite a stand-alone product. We'll get to that. This review covers the full run of this Netflix show, two seasons of 13 episodes each, each about 23 minutes in length.

Our heroes are Princess Aja (voiced by Tatiana Maslany) and Prince Krel (Diego Luna), the presumptive queen and king of a far distant planet. (The current King and Queen, their parents, are a married couple: the weirdness that the next King and Queen are apparently going to be a brother and sister is never addressed. It works in kid's logic ...) The evil General Morando (Alon Aboutboul) takes over their planet and attempts to kill the royal family so he can be in charge. Aja and Krel escape with their guard Varvatos Vex (Nick Offerman) and the "cores" of their parents (their parents can be rebuilt from the cores, but this is difficult - and in the mean time, the parents are essentially dead). They end up in exile on Earth, the prince and princess trying to blend in with the local teenagers in high school and the warrior Varvatos disguised as an old man with a cane.

The first episode is about escaping their home world, and the next several are mostly fish-out-of-water jokes as the three try to blend in on Earth. Once that's established, we move on to their technological woes with their busted ship and busted parents (never forgetting the fish-out-of-water jokes), bounty hunters trying to kill them, and eventually the brewing revolution against Morando on their homeworld (although the focus remains squarely on Aja and Krel on Earth).

In episode 9 of the first season, we encounter trolls. Having not seen "Trollhunters," this was a big surprise. It wasn't a gentle introduction: the episode starts with trolls and no one we know from this series, and stays with them for five minutes. This is really confusing when you think you're watching science fiction, but we now have what are clearly terrestrial trolls and thus fantasy - as opposed to the science fiction aliens we'd been seeing so far. Had I watched it in the other order, this would have been much clearer as the majority of both series are set in the town of Arcadia Oaks, California - including the same high school and overlapping characters.

The series is a little lighter weight than "Trollhunters," with somewhat more broadly drawn (and thus less effective) characters. As with "Trollhunters," there's a certain amount of humour aimed at adults: again, that's slightly less effective in this series. But overall, it was fun. And during COVID-19, that's all I ask.

Followed by "Wizards."

2018, 2019. With Tatiana Maslany, Diego Luna, Nick Offerman, Glenn Close, Frank Welker, Alon Aboutboul, Uzo Aduba Oscar Nuñez, Andy Garcia, Tom Kenny, Cheryl Hines, Nick Frost, Darin De Paul, Ann Dowd, Hayley Atwell, Jennifer Hale, Chris Obi, Danny Trejo, Cole Sand, Steven Yeun, J.B. Smoove, Tom Wilson, Charlie Saxton, Fred Tatasciore, Matthew Waterson, Emile Hirsch, Lexi Medrano, Kelsey Grammer, Jonathan Hyde, Alfred Molina, Yara Shahidi.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) rents the three abandoned billboards of the title along the road to her house to accuse the sheriff of her small town of making no progress on the rape and death of her daughter several months prior. The town is inevitably severely split over the harshly worded billboards.

Martin McDonagh wrote and directed - as he also did on "In Bruges." If you've seen that movie, you'll have some sense of the comic twisted discomfort awaiting you in this movie: brilliant, funny, unpredictable, and nearly as good as "In Bruges" ... and that's a major compliment as that was an outstanding movie, possibly the best of its year.

My measure of a good movie these days requires good acting and good writing, but equally importantly, unpredictability. And I don't mean crazy stuff for the sake of crazy stuff, I mean twists in the plot that make sense but that I couldn't see coming. There are tropes, ideas, and expectations about plotting so embedded in our society that predictable "twists" are standard fodder in the vast majority of films. Happily, McDonagh doesn't subscribe to that. Not as eminently quotable as "In Bruges," but McDormand is outstanding and gets excellent support from the rest of the cast.

2017, dir. Martin McDonagh. With Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Abbie Cornish, John Hawkes, Peter Dinklage, Caleb Landry Jones.

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

Estrada (played by Julio Cedillo, at least when he's alive) is an illegal immigrant from Mexico working as a ranch hand in Texas. Tommy Lee Jones directs and plays the lead role, Estrada's best friend. When Estrada is killed, Jones takes his (re-)burial into his own hands. There are a lot of flashbacks but the timing is generally pretty clear. There's some seriously warped humour about the dead body and (unrelated but several times) sexual dysfunction. A lot is left unstated - sometimes just unanswered questions and sometimes things that the viewer can work out on their own. Twisted, excellent, and very memorable. Highly recommended.

2005, dir. Tommy Lee Jones. With Tommy Lee Jones, Barry Pepper, Julio Cedillo, Dwight Yoakam, January Jones, Melissa Leo, Levon Helm.

Three Days of the Condor

Robert Redford is the smartest intelligence agent in his small division of the CIA. He and his group work in a cover location in New York analyzing world literature for possible references to other intelligence activities. One day he goes out to pick up lunch for everyone, and returns to find his entire crew murdered. He calls headquarters ... but has the sense not to trust them entirely either. He kidnaps Faye Dunaway for the use of her car and her apartment as a place to sleep.

Having watched "Extraction" yesterday, it seemed so weird that people just ... died when they were shot once or twice. The two movies exist in separate worlds ... I had to adjust my expectations from super-anti-heroes down to "ordinary people."

My favourite quote was from Redford, who said (accurately enough) "I'm not a field agent. I just read books!" But as mentioned, he's one of their most intelligent: he survives ambushes and causes all kinds of problems.

I didn't find the relationship between the kidnapper and the victim believable, and the movie is depressing. Redford is good. It's all very ... 1970s.

1975, dir. Sydney Pollack. With Robert Redford, Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, Max von Sydow, John Houseman, Addison Powell, Walter McGinn, Tina Chen.

The 355

This movie appears to be the product of actress Jessica Chastain and director Simon Kinberg, who worked together on the equally bad "Dark Phoenix." This time we have an international crew of female government agents who don't like each other but have to work together to take down a nasty ring of terrorists determined to cause world-wide catastrophe. The rest of the plot is equally unoriginal.

I had trouble suspending disbelief right from the beginning. The son of a Colombian drug lord has somehow created a technological MacGuffin that can enter any encrypted computer system. I work with computers: there are many ways to hack many of them. But according to this, this product could crack ALL of them, right now. So ... that's total bullshit. And shortly after that, we have a chase sequence in which Chastain leaps up on a bunch of café tables, and then while running full out without looking down at all, she shoots the cord of a hanging lamp so it falls from the ceiling to block the path of the person she's chasing. The movie has now shown a technical impossibility followed by a physical impossibility, and yet I continued to watch ... Chastain's character later expended entire clips of ammo shooting at a guy who wasn't very far from her without ever hitting him ... but she could hit a lamp cord while running full tilt over a broken surface? Conveniently inconsistent.

The action sequences are well constructed and filmed ... although it's clear in the fights that Chastain is no martial artist, and that physics wasn't a concern. Little else can be said for this movie.

2022, dir. Simon Kinberg. With Jessica Chastain, Penélope Cruz, Diane Kruger, Lupita Nyong'o, Fan Bingbing, Sebastian Stan, Édgar Ramirez, Jason Flemyng, Sylvester Groth, John Douglas Thompson, Leo Staar.

300

Following after "Sin City," firmly establishes red as Frank Miller's favourite colour. (In case you're not getting it, that would be BLOOD.) I liked "Sin City." While it was drawn in broad strokes and was incredibly nasty and bloody, it was at least interesting. This one is packed full of boring, unswerving archetypes: The Noble King (one), The Noble Queen (one), The Noble Warrior (300), The Corrupt Priest (five), The Corrupt Politician (one), The Insane God King (one), etc. The Noble Warrior(TM) comes complete with CGI washboard abs and muscles - like the real Spartans would all have had those. So we have a long drawn out setup and macho battles, with the final inevitable conclusion - you do know about the Spartans at Thermopylae, right?.

2006, dir. Zack Snyder. With Gerard Butler, Lena Headey, Dominic West, David Wenham, Vincent Regan, Michael Fassbender, Tom Wisdom, Andrew Pleavin, Andrew Tiernan, Rodrigo Santoro.

Three Identical Strangers

This 2018 documentary is about the 1980 discovery of three young men, all adopted, that they are identical triplets separated at birth. The movie opens with David Kellman talking about going to college for the first time, and everyone welcoming him back warmly - as Eddy (Galland). When that story broke in the news, a third brother (Robert Shafran) was found. They did the celebrity circuit and partied hard. Then they opened a restaurant in New York together - but it eventually fell apart because, as one of their relatives pointed out, they hadn't had a lifetime together to understand their differences. They'd only really looked at their similarities - which, it's true, were many.

There's a joy to their discovery and reunion that buoys the first twenty minutes of the movie. But then the question becomes "how and why were they separated?" And the answer to that is unpleasant, and leads to a number of other unhappy discoveries.

This is inevitably tied to "Twinsters" in my mind. This is a more traditional documentary, but almost as good - and as I consider "Twinsters" to be outstanding, that's pretty good.

2018, dir. Tim Wardle. With David Kellman, Robert Shafran, Eddy Galland.

3 Idiots

The first copy of this that I saw had staggeringly bad subs: they only appeared intermittently and occasionally vanished a tenth of a second later (leaving me to rewind to make repeated attempts to pause in the right place), they were a grammatical disaster, and most of the time they weren't there at all. So I was patching the dialogue and plot together from these subs and the chunks of heavily accented English that would occasionally appear mid-sentence (the movie was in at least three different languages).

I loved this film despite missing half of the dialogue, and having seen it in the theatre with a decent set of subtitles I love it even more. You may be thinking "of course," but it could have gone either way: bad dialogue over a good story arc happens frequently enough.

The story is about three friends who met in Engineering College: Farhan (R. Madhavan), our narrator, a good guy who doesn't really want to be an engineer but his father laid out his path pretty much from birth. Raju (Sharman Joshi) loves engineering, but the entire economic future of his family hangs on his success, and he's nervous. And Rancho (Aamir Khan), who cares only for learning - and perhaps the health of his friends. Five years after they graduate Farhan and Raju are brought together by Chatur (Omi Vaidya) who was their nemesis at school but claims to know the whereabouts of Rancho. The movie is partly a road trip as they search for Rancho, but primarily a series of flashbacks to school.

This was the highest grossing Bollywood film ever (although it only held that record for about a year after its release), and I think it deserves the credit: it's dramatic, funny, charming, and totally engrossing. It's amazingly short on musical numbers (there are two and a half in the 160 minute run-time), making it easier(?) for North Americans to get their heads around it - and they're good numbers too. As an added bonus, they must have had an engineer on staff as a consultant: all the technical stuff actually made sense and could have been real.

It's finally occurred to me how to describe completely in two words: "Bollywood Capra." If you know film, that'll tell you everything you need to know.

2009, dir. Rajkumar Hirani. With Aamir Khan, R. Madhavan, Sharman Joshi, Kareena Kapoor, Boman Irani, Omi Vaidya, Parikshit Sahni, Javed Jaffrey.

Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon

Set during one of the worst periods of near-permanent warfare in China (historically known as "Three Kingdoms"), shows the rise and eventual fall of Zhao Zilong (Andy Lau).

This is meant to show courage, honour, nobility and tragedy, but it's just long-winded and stupid. They hired lots of people to mill about for the battle scenes and used lots and lots of fake blood. Don't expect good fighting: despite Sammo Hung's presence as action choreographer, the action is chaotic and ludicrous (people throw people through the air on the end of a spear, and many people are hurled off horses by the impact of an arrow). We are supposed to see that, while Zhao's end was tragic, he lived nobly. But mostly it just struck me as tedious.

2008, dir. Daniel Lee. With Andy Lau, Sammo Hung, Maggie Q, Vanness Wu, Andy On, Ti Lung.

Three Kings

The movie starts out as possibly the world's blackest comedy, setting the scene with a bunch of reservist soldiers in the Persian Gulf just after the war ended in 1991. They find a secret map in a guy's ass crack, and conclude that it's probably a map to all that gold bullion (not to be mistaken for "bouillon," used for making soup - as one of the characters does). Eventually, Major Archie Gates (George Clooney), Sergeant Troy Barlow (Mark Wahlberg), Chief Elgin (Ice Cube), and Private Conrad Vig (Spike Jonze) set out on a totally unsanctioned expedition to recover the gold. Things don't exactly go their way.

The movie is pretty much unclassifiable: it starts out as a black-as-crude-oil comedy with wicked commentary on greed, consumerism and racism, but it humanizes its characters on both sides of the conflict and morphs into something about the horrors of war - it gets pretty damn visceral and unsettling. You'll laugh. You'll be uncomfortable that you laughed. And you'll think - a lot.

This is my second viewing of this movie, and I'm going with my previous assessment: this is a really, really good movie that - while well reviewed - just isn't well enough known.

The DVD also has that rarest of things, a fascinating director's commentary. David O. Russell talks about the decisions he made, the ideas he was pushing, and the structure of the movie: director commentaries are never this good.

1999, dir. David O. Russell. With George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, Spike Jonze, Nora Dunn, Judy Greer, Cliff Curtis, Saïd Taghmaoui, Jamie Kennedy.

The Three Musketeers (1948)

I'm a fan of the Michael York version, and this one is equally absurd in its own way. Gene Kelly plays the brash, annoying, and charming D'Artagnan. It reminded me a great deal of anything by Errol Flynn: the same gaudy colourful costumes, stagy feel, and wild swashbuckling. Kelly certainly had much of the Jackie Chan thing going on in the fight sequences, leaping about with incredible skill and drawing the laughs. To my surprise, it did have some serious moments and even tragedy - somewhat burdened by the stagy feel and period acting, but overall a very enjoyable film. I still favour the York version, but this was definitely a lot of fun.

1948, dir. George Sidney. With Gene Kelly, Lana Turner, June Allyson, Van Heflin, Angela Lansbury, Frank Morgan, Vincent Price, Keenan Wynn, John Sutton, Gig Young, Robert Coote.

The Three Musketeers (1973)

Possibly the most filmed story ever, this was the first movie version I saw. My preference for this version is probably partly because of that, but I also think this is a thoroughly entertaining version of the tale.

Michael York plays the unmannered country boy d'Artagnan, come to Paris to join the Musketeers. He promptly offends, in different circumstances, three different musketeers and sets up duels with each. At the first duel it's discovered that the three he's offended are all good friends, but d'Artagnan fights none of them as they're interrupted by six of the Cardinal's guards and all four fight the guards instead. The musketeers see that d'Artagnan has skills, and are reconciled to him etc.

I have some issues with Alexandre Dumas' plot: the King's a moron and the Queen's having an affair with a lord in the enemy court, but we must defend the Queen's honour at all costs? Where's the musketeer's so highly valued honour in that? But if you're okay with that, well, it's a very funny and charming story. The fights are good - and very different from the swashbuckling versions of "The Three Musketeers" seen previously - more like brawls, as one reviewer put it.

It was a surprise to me that I particularly liked Charlton Heston as the Cardinal - I've never been much of a fan of his. But he beautifully balances ruthless, charming and power-hungry for possibly the best dramatic performance in the movie(s) (I'm thinking of "The Four Musketeers" as well, as they were originally intended as one film). Spike Milligan as M. Bonacieux, Raquel Welch as Constance Bonacieux, and Roy Kinnear as Planchet have no drama to play - they're full-on parodies. But the rest of the cast are pretty good, and clearly having a great time doing it.

1973, dir. Richard Lester. With Michael York, Oliver Reed, Frank Finlay, Richard Chamberlain, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Geraldine Chaplin, Charlton Heston, Faye Dunaway, Christopher Lee, Simon Ward, Raquel Welch, Spike Milligan, Roy Kinnear.

3:10 to Yuma (2007)

An outlaw (Russell Crowe) is captured in a small town. A poor rancher (Christian Bale) with a bunch of problems agrees to escort him to the train - for a fee. A very good script and really good performances all around take what could have been a mundane Western and bring it up to something that deserved its large cluster of award nominations.

2007, dir. James Mangold. With Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, Logan Lerman, Dallas Roberts, Ben Foster, Peter Fonda, Gretchen Mol, Alan Tudyk.

Three Thousand Years of Longing

Our heroine Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) is a solitary scholar of literature. While at a conference in Istanbul, she buys an antique bottle in the Grand Bazaar ... and in her hotel room that evening while attempting to clean it, releases the Djinn within (Idris Elba). He makes her a classical offer: three wishes, and at the end he gains his freedom. But she refuses this offer, knowing that every story involving making wishes ends badly. So they end up telling each other stories of their lives (mosty him as he's older and more interesting).

This is ... a story about stories. The tales we tell, and the lessons they carry. The dangers of yielding to temptation.

George Miller directed this based on a short story by A. S. Byatt. His previous film was "Mad Max: Fury Road," which I loathed. But as the critical commentary suggested, this has approximately nothing to do with that. I loved the thought processes that went into the writing of this: how can you worm your way out of the danger of wishing? My only complaint was Miller's studied but overworked attempts at beautiful and symmetric cinematography. A fair bit of the cinematography was quite beautiful ... but occasionally I felt like I could feel the cinematographer or the director reaching over my shoulder to make sure that something was exactly in the right place in the image. It was a weird sensation. As perfectly symmetrical as Wes Anderson's work is ("The Grand Budapest Hotel" is a fine example), I never felt pushed out of the work with it screaming "see how centred I am?!" Some of this felt a little too ... artful.

One of the most charming movies I've seen in quite a while.

As an amusing aside ... Elba towers over Swinton in this movie. That must have been hard to achieve: Swinton is 5'11" and Elba is only 6'2" (I wouldn't normally say "only" about that height, but standing beside her, that applies).

2022, dir. George Miller. With Tilda Swinton, Idris Elba, Erdil Yaşaroğlu, Aamito Lagum, Nicolas Mouawad, Ece Yüksel.

Thunder Force

The first ten minutes of the movie is the child versions of our main characters ... and it's better written and funnier than the bulk of the film. Apparently when we switch to the adults, they decided to let Melissa McCarthy ad lib - or they figured she could carry a bunch of mediocre writing. You can get away with a bit of either of those, but you can't build a film out of it. A weak and underwhelming comedy superhero movie effort from Netflix.

2021, dir. Ben Falcone. With Melissa McCarthy, Octavia Spencer, Jason Bateman, Bobby Cannavale, Pom Klementieff, Melissa Leo, Taylor Mosby, Marcella Lowery.

Thunderbolt

Jackie Chan plays Foh, a mechanic and occasional car racer who also helps the police catch drivers with illegally modified cars and is (over-)protective of his two much younger sisters. After assisting in the apprehension of a car racer - who turns out to be very powerful and evil - Foh finds his sisters kidnapped and he has to enter a car race to get one of them back.

There are three massive set pieces in the movie: a fight in a Pachinko parlour, the destruction of Foh's house and garage, and the final race. Only the fight is remotely worth seeing, and it's not his best work.

1995, dir. Gordon Chan. With Jackie Chan, Anita Yuen, Michael Wong, Thorsten Nickel, Chor Yuen, Wu Oi-Yan, Annie Man, Yuzo Kayama.

Thunderheart

Val Kilmer plays Ray Levoi, an FBI agent sent to an Indian reservation to help sort out a murder. His boss sends him because he's quarter Indian - a fact he's clearly forgotten, and once reminded would like to forget again. Once there, he discovers that his assigned superior has his own agenda, and he begins to doubt the story he's being told.

Kilmer is alright in the lead, but Graham Greene pretty much steals the show as Walter Crow Horse, the intelligent, sarcastic Indian cop on the reservation. Crow Horse gives Levoi the finger every time he passes him - but between times he drops hints and nudges Levoi to look a little deeper.

The end product has a fairly strong feel of the Tony Hillerman novels I was reading at the time it came out - although the screenplay probably owes more to the Wounded Knee incident in 1973 when a number of Indians occupied a town in South Dakota. If you're willing to accept visions as a reasonable means of making your way in life (and I can do that for one movie), this is pretty good.

1992, dir. Michael Apted. With Val Kilmer, Sam Shepard, Graham Greene, Fred Ward, Sheila Tousey, Ted Thin Elk, John Trudell.

Ticket to Paradise

The story starts with two new American university graduates headed for Bali. One of them is Lily (Kaitlyn Dever), a soon-to-be lawyer. In Bali, they go snorkeling ... and their boat leaves them stranded a long distance from shore. They're rescued by handsome young local Gede (Maxime Bouttier) in his boat. So much for the first five minutes and the only plot driver we need.

We're then introduced to David Cotton (George Clooney) and Georgia Cotton (Julia Roberts), Lily's parents. They're divorced and hate each other. They now find themselves invited to Bali for their daughter's wedding, after she's known this guy for about a month. They agree to set aside their hatred long enough to stop their daughter's wedding.

That's it folks: it's a rom-com, you can guess the rest. But the plot is never the point of a rom-com: the real question is, do the stars have chemistry and were they handed a good script to go with that chemistry? And damn, it would be hard to go wrong with George Clooney and Julia Roberts: they're still both very fine to look at, and even more importantly they're excellent actors who work superbly together. Their fighting is of course over-played at the beginning for comedy and emphasis.

There's nothing new here, but 90 minutes of Roberts and Clooney bickering and reconciling with a reasonable script, beautiful scenery (according to Wikipedia it's all in Australia, not Bali), and some good jokes? Works for me.

As an added bonus, the movie goes all Jackie Chan at the end, interspersing out-takes with the final credits. Unlike Jackie Chan, this isn't action out-takes, just mistakes and stars being silly. But they're really funny, and it's clear (to no one's surprise) that they all had a blast making the movie. A very nice way to close this out.

2022, dir. Ol Parker. With George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Kaitlyn Dever, Billie Lourd, Maxime Bouttier, Lucas Bravo, Agung Pindha, Ifa Barry, Cintya Dharmayanti.

Till Death

Megan Fox plays Emma Webster, married to a controlling lawyer. On their eleventh wedding anniversary (? I wasn't about to go back to find out the exact number) he takes her to their lake house in the middle of winter, ostensibly to rekindle the romance. In the morning, she finds herself handcuffed to his corpse (hey, you learn that twenty seconds into the trailer - yeah, it's a spoiler, it's just not mine). That's bad, but it gets steadily worse.

Megan Fox puts in a good performance. Intellectually, I'd say it's a fairly good, fairly tense movie ... but somehow I really didn't care too much about the outcome. It does what it says on the tin, and if you like Megan Fox, maybe you'll like this.

2021, dir. S.K. Dale. With Megan Fox, Eoin Macken, Callan Mulvey, Jack Roth, Aml Ameen.

Time After Time

Malcolm McDowell plays H.G. Wells, who in 1893 hadn't come into his fame but had invented a time machine ... which he hadn't had the nerve to test. He tells his friends this over dinner, but they're interrupted by the police who are searching for Jack the Ripper who had just killed nearby. The bag of Wells' friend, Dr. John Leslie Stevenson (David Warner), contains proof that he's the Ripper ... but the police can't find him. After they leave, Wells finds the time machine gone and is forced to follow Stevenson to the year 1979.

The mood of the movie is (reasonably enough, given when it was made) painfully Seventies. The effects are atrocious, on a par with Dr. Who of the period. And the score is a bit heavy-handed. Even the chase scenes are a bit sad. But for all that, the human drama is pretty good: Warner is having a blast as Jack, and McDowell and Mary Steenburgen, while not brilliant, are fairly good. And the story itself is well put together. Despite the harsh words, I really liked it and would recommend it to fans of the genre.

1979, dir. Nicholas Meyer. With Malcolm McDowell, David Warner, Mary Steenburgen.

Time Bandits

The movie starts with Kevin (Craig Warnock), a young boy, reading about history and trying to talk to his parents about it as they obsess over a TV show and order him to bed. That evening, a knight on a horse appears in his room ... and then vanishes. The next night it's a group of dwarves that appear, pursued by the Supreme Being. Kevin, in fear, runs off with them. They land in Italy during the Napoleonic Wars. Kevin is fascinated by the history, the dwarves are only interested in stealing stuff.

As they hop through time, Kevin finds a surrogate father in Agamemnon in ancient Greece, but the dwarves drag him away. They eventually face "Evil," played by David Warner, who wants the map of all space-time that they carry.

It's an incredibly bizarre movie. I saw it when it came out, but watching it in 2014 I noticed a lot of visuals that Gilliam has since re-used - most notably the medieval town under siege and the black boat, both of which appeared in "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen." The effects look dated, but crazy story remains fairly entertaining.

1981, dir. Terry Gilliam. With Sean Connery, John Cleese, Shelley Duvall, Ralph Richardson, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Craig Warnock, Michael Palin, David Warner, David Rappaport, Kenny Baker, Malcolm Dixon, Mike Edmonds, Jack Purvis, Tiny Ross, Jim Broadbent.

Time Trap

Two young women, a young man, and a tween sister to one of the others go caving to find "Hopper," a missing archaeology professor that one of them likes. Hopper disappeared a couple days previously. Once inside, they discover that time doesn't behave normally in the cave. While I'd like to tell you more about the movie, that would probably step over into spoilers. The movie is ridiculous, but also goofy fun. Its origins as a meant-to-be "found footage" movie are clear, but happily they opted out of that idea and settled for steady and sane camera work. None of the actors are well known or particularly good, but they all do a good-enough job and are having fun. The ending is as absurd as the rest of the movie, but (for what little credit it's worth) it was nowhere near what I expected. Entertaining.

2018, dir. Mark Dennis and Ben Foster. With Cassidy Gifford, Brianne Howey, Reiley McClendon, Andrew Wilson, Olivia Draguicevich, Max Wright.

Timeline

Paul Walker plays the son of a dedicated archaeologist (Billy Connolly) who's fallen for the archaeologist's grad student (Frances O'Connor) - unfortunately he has no interest in history. It turns out that their dig is being funded by a big corporation that has a wormhole through time to the period of the place they're excavating, and of course a motley crew gets sent back in time. The problem is that a movie like this requires massive attention to sorting out the time paradoxes involved, and the main thing that got attention was action sequences and explosions. Continuity took a back seat as well, and, while they sorted out one or two of the time paradoxes in rather interesting ways they created dozens more that were completely ignored. Did you know that the English in 1357 spoke modern American English?

2003, dir. Richard Donner. With Paul Walker, Frances O'Connor, Gerard Butler, Billy Connolly, David Thewlis, Anna Friel, Neil McDonough, Michael Sheen, Matt Craven, Lambert Wilson.

The Time Machine (2002)

"One of those staggeringly well-produced, joylessly extravagant pictures that keep whooshing you from one visual marvel to the next, hastily, emptily." (Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune.) This seems to have been the general consensus among critics of this latest re-interpretation of H.G. Wells' classic, despite which I kind of liked it. Unfortunately, I can see what they mean. The sets (at every age) are spectacular. They've changed details of the original story at every step - but the ideas added were really interesting. The ending is too Hollywood. Probably only for hardcore SF/Wells fans (and at that, keep my warning about the changes in mind).

2002, dir. Simon Wells. With Guy Pearce, Mark Addy, Phyllida Law, Sienna Guillory, Orlando Jones, Samantha Mumba, Omero Mumba, Jeremy Irons.

Tin Man

Three part, four and a half hour mini-series by the Sci Fi Channel "re-imagining" and continuing the world of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

"DG" (Zooey Deschanel) is a waitress in Kansas. Not surprisingly, there's a storm and she ends up ... somewhere else. Where she finds out that she's the daughter of the Queen who's been imprisoned by her other, much nastier daughter Azkadellia (Kathleen Robertson). There's a quest, and she's joined by avatars from the story we all know: Glitch (Alan Cumming), who has only half a brain, Tin Man (a former law enforcer, Neal McDonough) whose history has left him with little empathy, and Raw (Raoul Trujillo), who roars, is covered in fur, and is cowardly.

They've thrown together a lot of stuff in this series: people ride horses, but there are also trucks and the occasional first World War tank. There's magic, and there's something that resembles electric power. The O.Z. has been laid waste by Azkadellia and her very storm-trooper-like army, led by the foul Zero (Callum Keith Rennie). It's a pretty dark vision.

There are a couple significant problems: Deschanel's acting is awful, and the ending is just too damn sweet. The problem is the target audience: it's not kids, it's people who were kids when they saw the original "The Wizard of Oz" movie sometime in the last 70 years. Okay, it's Oz and the good guys should win, but your target audience isn't kids and after an unrelentingly grim four and a half hours, sunshine and light just doesn't sit well. A couple deaths, a little sadness, that would work better.

2007, dir. Nick Willing. With Zooey Deschanel, Neal McDonough, Alan Cumming, Kathleen Robertson, Raoul Trujillo, Callum Keith Rennie, Richard Dreyfuss, Blu Mankuma, Anna Galvin, Ted Whittall.

The Tin Star

I guess I wasn't expecting much from this, although I knew it was regarded as something of a classic in the Western genre. It's managed to leap into my top ten Westerns list on first watch: a really fine movie.

One of Anthony Perkins' first major roles, he plays new sheriff Ben Owens. Bounty hunter Morgan Hickman (Henry Fonda) rides into town with the corpse of a criminal dangling over his pack horse. The townsfolk are displeased by the presence of this unsavoury character, but Owens sees a role model when he finds out that Hickman used to be a sheriff. So while Hickman waits on the bounty payment, he also gives Owens sheriffing lessons.

Fonda and Perkins are both good in the leads. They're also very well written. "Morg" is a little too blunt for most people to tolerate, but he's a decent, intelligent, straight-forward guy. Ben Owens is immature and a bit prideful, but he knows he has a lot to learn - and he's going to stomp down his pride if it'll help learn it. I think the thing I liked best was the plot's easy and complete avoidance of clichés (except perhaps for Bogardus as the bad guy). It's a thoughtful movie about racism and violence that's more talk than action. It moves along beautifully on often unexpected story lines: something of a treasure after a couple months without seeing a really good movie that was new to me.

1957, dir. Anthony Mann. With Henry Fonda, Anthony Perkins, Betsy Palmer, Michel Ray, Neville Brand, John McIntire, Mary Webster, Lee Van Cleef, Peter Baldwin.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

The time is 1973. Gary Oldman plays George Smiley, an older British spy who is forced out of British Intelligence along with "Control" (John Hurt), the man in charge. Control dies of illness shortly thereafter, and in a while Smiley is called out of retirement to track down a mole.

While it's well done throughout, I found it very hard to get a grip on this picture at all: Oldman plays Smiley as an incredibly controlled man who displays essentially no emotions. We see the occasional crack, but it's not terribly interesting and the movie itself plays out in much the same way. Tom Hardy, Benedict Cumberbatch and Mark Strong as younger operatives make things a bit more interesting, but I found the movie a bit of a plod.

2011, dir. Tomas Alfredson. With Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Strong, Colin Firth, John Hurt, Toby Jones, David Dencik, Ciarán Hinds.

Titan A.E.

An animated movie set far in the future, our reluctant hero (Cale, voiced by Alex Linz and Matt Damon) is the survivor of the recent destruction of Earth and the son of the man who may have drawn down the wrath of the aliens that destroyed the planet. 15 years on he's 20 years old and someone wants him to find his father's ship and potentially save the human race - a task he has little enthusiasm for.

My first reaction to the film was that the mix of computer and hand animation (the latter used exclusively for characters) was a bit cheesy, the emotional targeting was at kids, and this was essentially "Bluth does anime." But the film drew me in: the division of animation styles was a little jarring, but much of it was quite beautiful. The story was somewhat confused about its emotional level, and yet it mostly works. An entertaining film, probably best for fans of the genre.

2000, dir. Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. With Matt Damon, Bill Pullman, John Leguizamo, Drew Barrymore, Nathan Lane, Janeane Garofalo, Ron Perlman, Tone Loc, Alex D. Linz.

To Be Or Not To Be

The movie begins in 1939 with a Polish theatre troupe rehearsing a comedy about Nazis in Warsaw. The German invasion shuts them down, but some fast footwork by the team puts them in a position to cause the Nazis some problems (they've already got the uniforms for that play they were rehearsing ...).

The movie is primarily a comedy, secondarily an anti-Nazi propaganda piece (the movie was made in 1942), and only in third place do we have "drama." Not a great combination. There were four or five very funny jokes, but I thought the movie was uneven and wasn't a fan.

The lead actor of the troupe (Jack Benny) is accused of being a "ham," and keeps asking people if they remember "the great actor Josef Tura" (which is him). Most say no, but finally a German says yes, but then "What he did to Shakespeare we are now doing to Poland." Not exactly what Tura wanted to hear, but it gave me a good laugh. Unfortunately, there weren't enough of these.

1942, dir. Ernst Lubitsch. With Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Robert Stack, Felix Bressart, Lionel Atwill, Stanley Ridges, Sig Ruman.

To Catch a Thief

Cary Grant plays a retired cat burglar accused of a new set of crimes in the south of France where he lives. He sets out to find out who the real criminal is, and in the process meets the daughter of a woman who owns a fine set of jewels (Grace Kelly). It's not as tense as some Hitchcock movies, but it's entertaining from end to end and unquestionably worth seeing. One of Hitchcock's best.

1955, dir. Alfred Hitchcock. With Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jessie Royce Landis, John Williams, Charles Vanelle, Brigitte Auber, Jean Martinelli, Georgette Anys.

To Kill a Mockingbird

While I read the book many years ago, I had managed to mostly forget it. And that was a good thing when watching this classic movie, as it was new to me again. Gregory Peck (in possibly his most famous role) plays Atticus Finch, a small town lawyer in the American South during the Great Depression, defending a black man accused of rape. But the story is seen through the eyes of his young daughter "Scout," played marvellously well by Mary Badham. "Atticus" remains a name that people recognize, a name synonymous with justice - and the bravery to stand in front of a lynch mob. A very good movie.

Notable also for the first film appearance of Robert Duvall in the small but important part of Boo Radley.

1962, dir. Robert Mulligan. With Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, Phillip Alford, John Megna, Brock Peters, James Anderson, Collin Wilcox, Robert Duvall.

To Kill With Intrigue (orig. "Jian hua yan yu Jiang Nan")

One of Jackie Chan's worst movies - which is saying something, as he's been involved in some pretty bad ones. This was before he started using humour in his movies. Staggeringly awful editing (including film tinting that changes from blue to yellow, sometimes even in the same scene), a plot that makes no sense (editing isn't entirely at fault here, although it certainly didn't help), and bad martial arts.

1977, dir. Wei Lo. With Jackie Chan, Ching Hsia Chiang.

Tokyo Fiancée

The movie follows 20 year old Amélie (Pauline Étienne) through her time in Tokyo. She's Belgian, but spent the first five years of her life in Japan and has now returned to what she considers her true home. She initially attempts to support herself by tutoring French while hoping to become a writer.

The movie is based on a novel of the same name by Belgian writer Amélie Nothomb. The degree to which it's fictionalized is unclear - Wikipedia's entry on the book only mentions that it's a "autobiographical novel." Some changes (and similarities) are obvious from a quick glance at the Wikipedia page about Nothomb: she lived in Japan from the age of 2-5, while her book character was born there. The book was published in 2007, but the events of the movie end because of the Fukushima disaster (2011).

Amélie (the movie character) is determined that Japan is her true home - but her experiences with her one and only student (Rinri, played by Taichi Inoue) who also becomes her lover, make it clear that many things about Japanese culture are entirely opaque to her and likely to remain that way. They were certainly opaque to me. Rinri's character also throws in the strange contrast between the French-speaking Belgian woman who desperately wants to be Japanese, and the Japanese man who desperately wants to be French. The first two thirds of of the movie consists of a lot of goofiness and discomfort: she's a bit of a goof, it's played up, and the movie concentrates on her fish-out-of-water status with the Japanese people she interacts with - not really for humour, but there's a huge dose of awkwardness. The last third is very melancholy as she tries to figure out what the hell she's doing with herself, her life, and her Japanese boyfriend. The end is forced on her and us and isn't very satisfactory or conclusive. While Étienne is a fairly good and quite charming actress and the lessons in Japanese culture were interesting, I'm not big on goofy-awkward and overall found the whole thing kind of so-so.

2014, dir. Stefan Liberski. With Pauline Étienne, Taichi Inoue, Julie LeBreton.

Tokyo Ghoul

I've labeled this "Fantasy" when "Horror" would probably be more appropriate: but the movie isn't straight-up horror, mixing ghouls into the modern world.

Based on a Manga, set in modern day Tokyo where ghouls (beings that look human but can only survive by eating human flesh) live among humans ... so long as they can hide their true nature. They're hunted by CCG, who are perhaps nastier than the ghouls themselves. Our main character is Ken Kaneki, a mild-mannered college student and book worm. When a date goes horribly wrong (she tries to eat him), he requires an organ transplant. Unfortunately, it turns out that the donor was also a ghoul, and this leaves him half-human, half-ghoul. Or so he's told: it seemed to me he was all ghoul. But that's not really the point. Because while he finds that there are plenty of ghouls that happily kill and eat humans at their convenience, there's also a subculture of decent ghouls around the coffee shop Anteiku who help him out and cause as little harm as possible.

For the first ten minutes it's meet-the-cute-characters, everything is sweet and exactly like our world except for the news mentioning ghouls ... and then we have an incredibly bloody tentacle attack by a ghoul. Inevitably Kaneki has a great deal of trouble adjusting to his new status. The wimpy boy's transformation into a dubious anti-hero is a little tough to believe.

The story is mostly about family (the people at the café who form his new support group) and morality (ghouls don't have a choice of what they are, is it wrong for them to exist?). What sinks it is weak writing: not much thought went into this. Or at least - there are some weird and wild ideas about ghouls and their bizarro extra appendages (in cheap CG), but getting clever about that doesn't mean that otherwise mundane story-telling is okay.

2017, dir. Kentarō Hagiwara. With Masataka Kubota, Fumika Shimizu, Kai Ogasawara, Nobuyuki Suzuki, Hiyori Sakurada, Yû Aoi, Yo Oizumi.

Tokyo Godfathers

Unusual among the anime that makes it over to North America, this movie has no science fiction or fantasy elements - although it does have one or two Christmas miracles. Definitely low budget though. The main characters are three homeless people in Tokyo who discover an abandoned baby on Christmas day. As they care for the baby and attempt to find the parents to return it, their histories are finally revealed to the others and they each find some hope. It's absurd, surreal, and charming, definitely a must-see for fans of the genre. I loved Satoshi Kon's "Millennium Actress," I'm now really looking forward to his future output.

2003, dir. Satoshi Kon and Shôgo Furuya. With Toru Emori, Aya Okamoto, Yoshiaki Umegaki.

Tom Yum Goong (aka "The Protector")

Tony Jaa's second film, his first being "Ong Bak." He channels a younger Jackie Chan, doing hair-raising stunts and crazy martial arts, complete with outtakes during the final credits. But it's much more violent than Jackie Chan: much more blood, and more broken bones and dislocations than you can count.

2005. dir. Prachya Pinkaew. With Tony Jaa.

Tomb Raider (2018)

Alicia Vikander has stepped into the title role of Lara Croft, walking in the same shoes worn by Angelina Jolie in 2001. There are both significant similarities and differences between the two productions. The most obvious one is of course the star: Vikander doesn't have quite the commanding presence that Jolie does, but I'd watch her any day because she's actually acting. (Jolie is capable of it, but doesn't always bother - certainly didn't for her "Tomb Raider.") And while Jolie has always been fit, Vikander got obviously and appallingly buff for this role. The story is both more human and less supernatural, both of which are a bit of a relief. Something I have a very mixed reaction to is that the new Lara Croft doesn't win all her battles. Don't misunderstand me: she's a serial-sequelized video game character, she wins all her wars. But in this movie, she loses a couple fights. This is better for giving the character humanity, worse when it comes to making her feel like a heroine. People can lose fights and still feel like a heroine, but I didn't feel it worked here.

For better or worse, they managed to make this one feel a lot like the video game: Lara leaps from floor panel to floor panel as they collapse behind her. She falls off a waterfall but manages to catch herself on a rusted out hulk of a crashed World War II bomber ... which then begins to creak and collapse and she has to dive off that too. And several other sequences. Far too out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire for my taste. Nevertheless, given a choice between this movie and the old one I'd take this any day.

I made two predictions by 20 minutes into the film: the first was that Lara would return to her gym after her adventures and school the woman who had kicked her butt in the MMA ring. I was wrong about that - apparently that scene was just to show us that she was an MMA fighter. My second prediction was that her father's business partner (Kristin Scott Thomas) was involved in the evil organization that was the plot driver. Sadly, I was right about that. (I have this thing ... if I can predict your moves as a writer, you're too damn obvious.) And that was also the fairly blatant hanger for the intended sequel.

Box Office Mojo says the production budget was $94 million. As of 2018-07-27, the domestic gross is $57 million, and the foreign gross is $216 million ... Normally things that fall that short of their production budget on the domestic gross don't get sequels, and the critics didn't love this one (although they didn't hate it either). I'm not holding my breath.

2018, dir. Roar Uthaug. With Alicia Vikander, Daniel Wu, Dominic West, Walton Goggins, Kristin Scott Thomas, Derek Jacobi, Nick Frost.

Tombstone

I read on Wikipedia that George P. Cosmatos "ghost-directed," and Kurt Russell was the actual director. Russell also plays Wyatt Earp, and the movie centres around the very famous and already much-filmed gunfight at (or near) the OK Corral. Sam Elliott and Bill Paxton play his brothers, with whom he's trying to set up a life that doesn't involve law enforcement. Val Kilmer (excellent, as he intermittently is) plays Doc Holliday. I watched this back-to-back with "Silverado," another Western: that's lighter and more enjoyable fare, but this is perhaps the better movie. Russell's acting is a bit wooden and Charlton Heston is stuffed in more as a tribute than a necessity. But it's well done, and quite memorable.

1993, dir. George P. Cosmatos. With Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Sam Elliot, Bill Paxton, Powers Boothe, Michael Biehn, Jason Priestley, Thomas Haden Church, Jon Tenney, Dana Delany, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson, Charlton Heston.

The Tomorrow War

Chris Pratt plays Dan Forester, a science teacher and former military man called up from his life in our time to fight a war for humanity's survival 30 years in the future. We see his life in the current day long enough to know he's intelligent and decent, has a wonderful wife (Betty Gilpin), a very intelligent daughter (Ryan Kiera Armstrong), and is alienated from his also ex-military father (J.K. Simmons, putting in one of his poorer performances in recent years). And then he's hurled into the future war, as the time-travel equipment simultaneously goes haywire. If you don't know that saving the world is going to fall on his shoulders, you've never seen a movie before. Or you're assuming this one is a whole lot better than it actually is.

What follows is fairly standard military-bonding-in-battle kind of stuff, with nasty, horrible looking aliens who are very effective predators killing almost everybody as the remnants of humanity struggle to somehow defeat them. I can't go into more detail without some pretty nasty spoilers, but I will say that I thought the first two acts were pretty silly ... until I saw the final act, which made the first two look almost quality. I mean ... this is glossy, beautiful product with well done aliens and shit blowing up and workman-like acting. But there really wasn't anything to recommend it, it's a stupid and badly constructed story.

2021, dir. Chris McKay. With Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski, J. K. Simmons, Betty Gilpin, Sam Richardson, Edwin Hodge, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Jasmine Mathews, Keith Powers.

Tomorrowland

I thought when I was watching this that Brad Bird, who directed this, had also directed "John Carter" (the interesting but incredibly messy interpretation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars). As it turns out, I was wrong about that: Andrew Stanton directed "John Carter." Stanton and Bird worked together for years at Pixar, which is probably why they got confused in my head. Nevertheless, there are a number of commonalities between "John Carter" and "Tomorrowland." The most obvious is that they're both science fiction, but it goes a great deal further: they're both about going to another world/dimension by semi-magical means (ie. based on no science we know), and they both failed to grasp that the phrase "story arc" describes an elegant curve - instead both bumping and stumbling through their 2h10m runtimes. The idea is to introduce characters, then to build up threat and tension over the course of the movie, and resolve it as the end approaches. Obviously this isn't the only way to do a movie, but the universal use of the term "story arc" does say something. And "Tomorrowland's" plot is just a mess.

We open with the very scruffy George Clooney (as the adult Frank Walker - we meet a younger version of him later in a flashback) talking to the camera about the impending end of the world. The narrative is interrupted and eventually taken over by Britt Robertson (as Casey Newton). They were both recruited to visit "Tomorrowland," another dimension accessed by pins handed out by a very young woman ("Athena," played by Raffey Cassidy). The retro-futurist-looking "Tomorrowland" seems like a paradise to these two science nerds, but in a classic - and boring - twist, there's trouble in paradise.

I've already blown the punchline of my review at the beginning by telling you it's a mess, so I have little left to close with. And I suppose that's part of the movie's problem too - it closes weak on a heavy-handed and surprisingly uninspiring message of "dream big."

2015, dir. Brad Bird. With George Clooney, Britt Robertson, Hugh Laurie, Raffey Cassidy, Tim McGraw, Thomas Robinson.

Toni Erdmann

Our two leads are Winfried Conradi (played by Peter Simonischek) and his daughter Ines Conradi (Sandra Hüller). Winfried is an inveterate prankster, making people uncomfortable by making bizarre statements without clarifying if they're a joke, or wearing costumes or a set of false teeth. Ines is a manager temporarily in Bucharest, trying to outsource oil industry jobs. She's bitter and unhappy, has a crappy boyfriend and friends she's not really keen on, but doesn't seem to realize any of it. Her father - who she has very little time for - spontaneously visits her in Bucharest. On seeing what a mess she is, he starts to prank her - which doesn't really help. But then, one night, he drops in on her and her friends at a bar with his bad teeth and a fake wig. And his daughter doesn't shut him down. So he builds a persona around the name he invented ("Toni Erdmann") and - with her implicit agreement - spends more time among her friends and business associates, and kind of turns her life upside down.

I don't like Winfried's style of humour, his love of making people uncomfortable. I was kind of put off by that. And the movie is too long (162 minutes), but it does put it to good use, to let you know that Winfried really loves his daughter and is, in his own incredibly unorthodox way, trying to help her. The naked party near the end of the movie is both incredibly cringe-inducing and hilariously funny - why it happens would be too much of a spoiler. You'll have to decide for yourself if this is your style of humour: it's not slapstick and there's a real story there, but be prepared to cringe a few times.

2016, dir. Maren Ade. With Sandra Hüller, Peter Simonischek, Ingrid Bisu, Michael Wittenborn, Thomas Loibl, Trystan Pütter, Hadewych Minis, Lucy Russell, Vlad Ivanov, Victoria Cocias.

Tooth Fairy

Not to be confused with the 2006 horror film "The Tooth Fairy:" this 2010 movie stars Dwayne Johnson as minor league hockey enforcer Derek Thompson, nicknamed "The Tooth Fairy" for his habit of knocking opposing player's teeth out. He's charming, but kind a prick. After telling a six year old that the tooth fairy doesn't exist, he's made to work as an actual tooth fairy - with wings, pixie dust, stuff like that - for a couple weeks. Unfortunately, this sentence is to be served concurrently with his regular life while not being able to tell anyone about it.

A whole bunch of well known people join the fun: Ashley Judd is Derek's girlfriend. Stephen Merchant is Tracy, Derek's fairy case worker. Julie Andrews is Lily, the head of the tooth fairies. Billy Crystal is the supply master fairy. And Seth MacFarlane is a sketchy fairy selling bootleg supplies. Stephen Merchant is possibly the only English-speaking actor on the planet who can make Johnson look short. Within the movie they claim he's 6'9", but Wikipedia lists him as 6'7" and Johnson as 6'5". It would appear he's only got 2" on Johnson in real life - but whenever they were together in the movie, it looked like four inches so I think they put Merchant on a box to deliberately emphasize the difference.

When a good friend of mine heard I'd watched "Tooth Fairy," she said "my man is in that!" I kinda sighed and said "yes, yes he is." She said "Stephen Merchant!" She was serious, and my jaw was on the floor because I had assumed she meant Johnson.

This is a bad movie. But is it amusing? It kind of is. I'm embarrassed to have watched it and the time could have been better spent, but ... it was still kind of fun.

2010, dir. Michael Lembeck. With Dwayne Johnson, Ashley Judd, Julie Andrews, Stephen Merchant, Chase Ellison, Destiny Whitlock, Ryan Sheckler, Brendan Meyer, Billy Crystal, Seth MacFarlane, Brandon T. Jackson.

Top Five

Chris Rock wrote, directed, and starred: he plays Andre Allen, a variant on himself. Andre Allen started out as a stand-up comic, moved on to Hollywood, has a hugely successful series of comedy movies, and is now a day away from the release of his first serious film - that nobody seems interested in. He's also a four-years-sober alcoholic and about to marry his reality-TV-star girlfriend (Gabrielle Union). The primary story driver is an interview with New York Times reporter Chelsea Brown (Rosario Dawson) that stretches across a couple days and reveals a lot about both their lives.

I think I found this less funny than perhaps I was supposed to - although it grew on me as it went along - but what made the movie work is that it's a really good study of both alcoholism and fame. Whether it's trying to be funny or not, the writing is really sharp: if you took out all the comedy, this would still be a good movie. There are tons of cameos by actors, comedians and rappers that add to the fun. Highly recommended.

2014, dir. Chris Rock. With Chris Rock, Rosario Dawson, Gabrielle Union, J.B. Smoove, Tracy Morgan, Cedric the Entertainer, Anders Holm, Kevin Hart.

Top Gun

I saw this when it came out: the movie that brought you the songs "Danger Zone" and "Take My Breath Away" (performed by Kenny Loggins and Berlin respectively, but written by Giorgio Moroder ... which explains a lot), the incredibly distinctive Harold Faltermeyer score, and the quote "I feel the need for speed!" The extras claim it also put the phrase "crash and burn" into wide circulation - I'm less certain of that.

Tom Cruise plays Lieutenant Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, who, along with his RIO (Radar Intercept Officer) "Goose" (played by Anthony Edwards), is sent to "Top Gun," the Navy school for the best pilots. He's incredibly talented, and incredibly cocky and self-assured. He chases one of the civilian instructors (Kelly McGillis) and just generally causes problems.

I loved this movie when it came out, but now (2010) it looks like a walking, talking cliché. It looks good, and the aerial footage is excellent (they had unprecedented assistance from the Navy flying group). The acting is passable. I loved the character of "Goose" and thought Edwards was excellent, and Meg Ryan's small part as his wife was one of her best ever. But the rah rah patriotism and clichéd story line ultimately sink the movie.

1986, dir. Tony Scott. With Tom Cruise, Kelly McGillis, Val Kilmer, Anthony Edwards, Tom Skerritt, Michael Ironside, Meg Ryan, Rick Rossovich.

Topper

A movie's worth of Constance Bennett and Cary Grant clowning about ... or so the publicity would have you believe. Personally, I think Roland Young deserves more of the credit: while Bennett and Grant play the loving dead couple helping/harassing Topper (played by Young), Young has to respond to empty air and often act as if these invisible people are poking, prodding, or assisting him. And he manages some very good slapstick at times. The dialogue is also quite witty, making for an enjoyable film.

1937, Norman Z. McLeod. With Constance Bennett, Cary Grant, Roland Young, Billie Burke.

Topper Returns

A pathetic attempt to cash in on the previous movie, but without Cary Grant or Constance Bennett, without a consistent plot, and without Roland Young actually doing any worthwhile slapstick - mostly just mugging. There's still some witty dialogue, but the plot is such a mess, so over-the-top, that the movie falls completely to pieces.

1941, dir. Roy Del Ruth. With Joan Blondell, Roland Young, Carole Landis, Billie Burke, H.B. Warner.

Topsy-Turvy

Follows the lives of Gilbert and Sullivan (and their wives/girlfriend(s), management, and players) from the opening of "Princess Ida" - representative here of stagnation of their relationship and skills - to the opening of "The Mikado," one of their most successful comic operas. Spends too much time proving they're in a rut by making us watch big chunks of "Princess Ida" and then "The Sorcerer." It also attempts to follow far too many of the lesser characters with a scattered dramatic aim that diffuses any hope of a worthwhile story emerging. The acting is good (but achieves little), and the production values are superb. If only they had A) cut the unnecessary 155 minute running time, and B) found a worthwhile story in the hash of lives they showed, they might have had a movie.

1999, dir. Mike Leigh. With Jim Broadbent, Allan Corduner, Timothy Spall.

Total Recall (2012)

Remake of the 1990 movie of the same name that starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and was loosely based on the Philip K. Dick story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale." Parts of this remake were filmed in Toronto (particularly Knox College).

Colin Farrell stars as Douglas Quaid, our future everyman, living in "The Colony" (Australia) and commuting to work every day through "The Fall" to the United Federation of Britain. "The Fall" uses gravity to take commuters through the core of the earth - and the rest of the planet is essentially uninhabitable. He's married to the lovely Lori (Kate Beckinsale), but has a repeating vivid dream of being chased with another beautiful woman, apparently some form of espionage. When Douglas goes to "Rekall" to have memories of a less boring life implanted, the police break into Rekall and Douglas ... kills them all. And goes on the run with no idea of what's happening. So now he's on the run, apparently an intelligence operative ... with no memory.

The first two thirds of the movie is actually quite good - there's good setup, character development, and one hell of a visual sense. But Len Wiseman has a need for massive explosions and big confrontations toward the end. And what really killed this movie for me was his need to have each bad guy killed in just the right way, preferably by the favoured protagonist in hand-to-hand combat - it all just dragged on and on.

2012, dir. Len Wiseman. With Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston, Bokeem Woodbine, Bill Nighy, John Cho.

The Touch

Pak Yin Fay (Michelle Yeoh) and her brother Tong (Brandon Chang) are the stars of "The Touch," a circus act - since the death of their father, Yin has been in charge of the family business. In their childhood, their father took in a young caucasian boy who learned many of the acrobatic skills ... but now uses them for theft (Ben Chaplin's character). He returns to his adoptive family when he steals an 800 year old relic his adoptive father was interested in, but it brings a lot of trouble - mostly in the form of the ruthless Karl (Richard Roxburgh, having fun).

Could easily have been called "Tomb Raiders of the Lost Ark," but I guess that's a bit long - and directors rarely think of their work as being derivative. But this is, and not very good either. The dialogue is almost entirely in English - which is pretty odd given it's filmed in China with a mostly Chinese staff. The computer effects are pretty bad, which made it all the more amusing to read this on Wikipedia: "The film was generally panned by critics for its clichéd storyline, overuse of English, and the sub-par visual effects in the original theatrical release before Miramax completed them for the 83-minute version now found on DVD." Seriously - this is the "good" version of the special effects?

2002, dir. Peter Pau. With Michelle Yeoh, Ben Chaplin, Richard Roxburgh, Brandon Chang, Margaret Wang, Dane Cook, Emmanuel Lanzi, Kenneth Tsang.

Touch of Pink

To quote the IMDB plot outline: "A gay Canadian living in London has his perfectly crafted life upset when his devoutly Muslim mother comes to visit." Weird and silly, and not as funny as it thought it was.

2004. dir. Ian Iqbal Rashid. With Jimi Mistry, Kyle MacLachlan, Kristen Holden-Reid.

A Touch of Sin

Jia Zhangke's "A Touch of Sin" ended up in my queue of movies to watch because it's very well regarded by critics. Jia makes half-hearted attempts to link the four pieces of the movie, with marginal overlap - people and/or places from each of the four segments overlap for moments in several places, but this is essentially four half hour movies, each about a person driven to violence. The original Chinese title is (according to Wikipedia) literally translated as "heavenly fate" or "fated doom," apparently because these violent outcomes were inevitable. The stories:

  • a man in a village feels the politics and money in the village are ignoring him, so ... he gets attention
  • another man travels from place to place, in love with the handgun that enables his lifestyle
  • a receptionist at a sauna having an affair with a married man has a run-in with some unpleasant clients
  • a young man doesn't like his life and turns away from responsibility for an accident

I really had to struggle to watch the final segment: I knew it would be miserable, and I didn't want to see it. Each is different, well filmed and well acted, but bleak, unpleasant, and without a point except for the violence. And also pretty convincing that modern China isn't the greatest place to live with lousy working conditions and miles of identical econobox apartments. Not too surprising that the Chinese government hasn't allowed it to be released inside China.

2013, dir. Jia Zhangke. With Jiang Wu, Zhao Tao, Wang Baoqiang.

A Touch of Zen

A Taiwanese Wuxia film from 1971, very well critically regarded. As a fan of martial arts films, I picked this one up out of curiosity. The movie was originally issued in two parts, with the more recent edits of the two parts together running 187 minutes.

The first two thirds of the movie feature Ku (Shih Jun) as our protagonist: an unambitious, unmarried 30 year old scholar and artist living in a small town. We know his marital status and age because he lives with his nagging mother. It's 55 minutes before we see any fighting at all: in that time, they set up some rather good political intrigue which Ku finds himself right in the middle of. He's just painted the portrait of the government spy who's trying to locate his new next door neighbour who Ku has fallen for.

I really liked the movie through the first hour: not much of a martial arts film, but they'd actually got a good little political intrigue story going on. Immensely better than any of the other martial arts films of the period. But in the second half we have two massive battles each lasting about fifteen minutes (and not sporting particularly good martial arts), the introduction of a number of characters we haven't seen before, and a surreal (excuse me, "religious") and ambiguous ending that I found annoying. I'm glad I saw it, but I certainly won't watch it again.

1971, dir. King Hu. With Shih Jun, Hsu Feng, Pai Ying, Roy Chiao, Tien Peng.

The Tourist

Angelina Jolie plays Elise, a mysterious woman trailed by the police. They're following her to find her ex-, who stole a couple billion dollars. When she gets a letter from him and takes off, they follow. Johnny Depp plays Frank, a math teacher on vacation that Elise uses as a decoy. But he keeps fumbling his way back into the action after he's been ejected ...

I'm a little tired of Jolie, but Depp is superb: that's definitely his face, but the character is different again from any other character he's ever played before. Sadly, that's not enough to save a fairly badly plotted movie with a bunch of logical inconsistencies. It was a surprise to me when Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's name came up in the credits: he helmed one of the best (and most meticulously constructed) movies I've seen in the last decade, "The Lives of Others." But I guess the paycheck attached to this one was enough to get him past the poor quality of the script ...

2010, dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. With Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp, Paul Bettany, Timothy Dalton, Steven Berkoff, Rufus Sewell.

Tower

"Tower" is about the 1966 mass shooting at the University of Texas at Austin. Charles Whitman took a position on the observation deck of the main building tower, killing 16 people and injuring many others. He was only the second mass murderer in the U.S. to get into double digits, and exceeded the body count of his 1949 predecessor Howard Unruh.

The movie mentioned Whitman's name only once, concentrating instead on the experience of those on the ground around the tower that day. And it does this through animation, specifically rotoscoping. This seems to have been a happy accident (if anything about this movie can be called "happy"): the director was planning on using re-enactments, but couldn't afford it and went for rotoscoping instead. What this does is hide details: their hair, the fashions that were in vogue at the time, and make these people from 1966 just ... people. Like us. If we saw the details, we'd be thinking about how different those people were from us. As Scott McCloud pointed out in Understanding Comics (the greatest book ever written about comics), it's far easier to identify with a generic, undetailed face. With the rotoscoping, we are them.

This is the story of the survivors, and the people who did heroic things in that horrible time. It's not a movie I'd choose to watch again, but it's a very good movie that I'm glad I watched once.

2016, dir. Keith Maitland.

Tower Heist

Ben Stiller plays Josh Kovacs, the general manager of "The Tower," the most expensive condo building in New York City. He's extremely good at his job: he knows his residents, he knows his staff. Unfortunately, the man in the penthouse suite, Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), has invested and lost the entire retirement savings of the building staff.

The set-up is good and mildly amusing, and looks to be headed to a reasonable heist movie. But this is Brett Ratner: he doesn't do "subtle." Kovacs is fired (for attacking Shaw's car), and decides to hire a neighbourhood thug (Eddie Murphy) to help him rob Shaw and reimburse his (former) staff. After 20 minutes of affable humour, Ratner grinds the gears viciously and shifts to slapstick and general stupidity. The heist itself is mildly interesting but far too ludicrous with huge logical problems. There's enough humour to keep the movie floating, barely.

2011, dir. Brett Ratner. With Ben Stiller, Alan Alda, Eddie Murphy, Casey Affleck, Matthew Broderick, Téa Leoni, Michael Peña, Gabourey Sidibe.

Toy Story

The first full length film by Pixar, and an explosive announcement that animated movies were about to change - big time. It wasn't just that it was computer-animated from end to end: the story and humour have levels the kids don't even get that are aimed straight at the parents. In the 17 years since it's release (I'm looking at this in 2012), it's more clear than ever that this movie reshaped animated movies completely, and perhaps even children's movies in general. And while comparing its animation side-by-side with "Toy Story 3" shows that the sophistication of the animation has improved considerably, this 17 year old movie still looks fantastic. A must-see for everyone.

Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks) is a cowboy doll owned by Andy, and both Andy's favoured toy and the leader of all the toys. When Andy's birthday brings a new space action figure into their midst (Buzz Lightyear, voiced by Tim Allen), Woody becomes a bit jealous of Buzz's popularity with Andy. When one of Woody's pranks knocks Buzz out the window and possibly to his death, Woody sets out to rescue Buzz.

1995, dir. John Lasseter. With Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Annie Potts, John Morris.

Toy Story 2

The best of the three (there were three at the time I wrote this ...), this instalment finds Woody accidentally in a garage sale where he's stolen by a toy collector who plans to sell him to a toy museum in Japan. So Woody is faced with the dilemma of returning home to Andy who will love him but eventually forget him, or going to the museum to be admired by children forever. Existential angst for toys! There's also an utterly brilliant riff on "The Empire Strikes Back" with Buzz Lightyear and the evil Emperor Zurg. Very funny, very clever, highly, highly recommended. The "outtakes" are also hysterically funny.

1999, dir. John Lasseter, Lee Unkrich, Ash Brannon. With Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Kelsey Grammer, Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger.

Toy Story 3

Once again the toys are dealing with their owner aging: Andy is 17 and headed off to college and the toys haven't been played with in several years. Well-reviewed by critics, I had a major problem with the structure of the movie: the emotional peak of the story arrives at the end of the second act of a three act movie, a rather bizarre placement. Even forgiving that flaw, this isn't as good as #2 - although it's still far better than most animated movies.

2010, dir. Lee Unkrich. With Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Ned Beatty, Don Rickles, Michael Keaton, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger.

Toy Story That Time Forgot

Buzz, Woody, and the crew (notably Trixie the Triceratops, voiced by Kristen Schaal) are with Bonnie now. Bonnie takes them with her when she goes to visit Mason for a play date. Mason has a new XBox-alike, so the kids play video games and the toys find themselves involved with a bunch of Mason's new dinosaur toys that have developed their own "Lord of the Flies" society since they've never been played with.

This is a 22 minute TV special, with none of the narrative depth we expect from the longer "Toy Story" stories. It's cute and fun, but doesn't go beyond that.

2014, dir. Steve Purcell. With Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Kristen Schaal, Wallace Shawn, Timothy Dalton, Don Rickles, Joan Cusack, Kevin McKidd, Emma Hudak, Steve Purcell.

Toy Story 4

Pixar, despite being bought by Disney, has continued to make good on their promise to not make sequels unless they had something to say. And the "Toy Story" franchise is their best proof of that. Look at the release dates for 1 through 4: 1995, 1999, 2010, 2019. "Toy Story 3" is probably my least favourite, but every single one has a very good story. And like most Pixar movies, they all have emotional depths aimed at the parents that won't interfere with the kids' enjoyment of the movie.

This movie opens with some back story, reminding us of the connection between Woody (Tom Hanks) and Bo Peep (Annie Potts) and explaining her absence from "Toy Story 3" - she was given away. The next big piece of the plot is the toys' child Bonnie creating a new toy from a plastic spork: she calls him "Forky" (voiced by Tony Hale). All he wants to do is throw himself in the trash - he's a plastic spork after all, it's what he was meant for. But Woody realises how important Forky is to Bonnie, and keeps preventing Forky from suicide-by-trash while trying to explain to him that he matters to Bonnie and why he should care. This eventually leads to a reunion with Bo (with strange and entertaining notes of romantic comedy aimed more at the parents watching with their kids), and another existential crisis for Woody.

The list of names in tiny roles is staggering. This is partly because of the series' history, with people like Joan Cusack and Wallace Shawn showing up to voice returning characters who are, in this movie, small parts. The big additions are Christina Hendricks as Gabby Gabby, Keanu Reeves as Duke Caboom, and Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele as Ducky and Bunny, carnival prize toys who are permanently joined together. But there are also new - and well known - names in tiny roles: Bill Hader as a circus carnie, and Flea (of the Red Hot Chili Peppers) as the announcer on a TV commercial. Even more entertaining to me was finding out who voiced some toys in the closet for one short scene. I'll give you their character names and we'll see how old you are: Melephant Brooks, Chairol Burnett, Carl Reineroceros, and Bitey White. That's the "Toy Story" director and producers giving tribute to some of the greats of comedy - but the fact that those greats are willing to show up for bit parts in this movie is a tribute to the success of the series.

And you need to watch the end credits. To the last scene. In between the credits are some of the funniest gags in the whole thing, and the last frame is them messing with the Pixar logo. It's wonderful.

"Toy Story 2" remains my favourite of the series, but this is, once again, a worthy and very entertaining entry into the series.

2019, dir. Josh Cooley. With Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Annie Potts, Tony Hale, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Madeleine McGraw, Christina Hendricks, Keanu Reeves, Ally Maki, Jay Hernandez, Lori Alan, Joan Cusack, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Blake Clark, Don Rickles, Estelle Harris, Jeff Pidgeon, Bonnie Hunt, Kristen Schaal, Timothy Dalton, Jeff Garlin, Emily Davis, John Morris, Jack McGraw, Laurie Metcalf, June Squibb, Carl Weathers, Maliah Bargas-Good, Juliana Hansen, Steve Purcell, Lila Sage Bromley, Mel Brooks, Carol Burnett, Betty White, Carl Reiner, Alan Oppenheimer, Patricia Arquette, Bill Hader, Flea, Melissa Villaseñor, Rickey Henderson.

Trainspotting

Unhappy, amoral heroin addicts stumbling through life in Edinburgh and London. Well done, creepy, and disgusting, I didn't enjoy it much because it's extremely difficult to empathize with any of the characters. If that's not an issue for you it's a very good production. It's also very funny in places.

1996, dir. Danny Boyle. With Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, Robert Carlyle, Kelly Macdonald.

Trainwreck

Amy Schumer wrote and stars as Amy Townsend. Amy drinks heavily, smokes a lot of pot, and sleeps with a lot of guys - although she's dating Steven (the inhumanly muscular John Cena). She has an incredibly nasty boss (Tilda Swinton) at the men's magazine where she works writing degrading and nasty articles. She's assigned, against her will, to do a piece on a successful sports doctor played by Bill Hader. She sleeps with him immediately, and then gets confused about why he wants to see her again.

In case you're wondering, this is classified as a "Romantic Comedy." That's two words: "romantic" (long way from it) and "comedy" (ooh, sorry, different ballpark). And the "look, I'm going to try" ending with music and cheerleaders? That's one word they nailed: "clichéd." If you like humour based on offending people, this may work for you. Lots of sports references, and LeBron James and Amar'e Stoudemire both play significant roles. I found a few laughs in Hader's charming, intelligent, and somewhat befuddled doctor, but not nearly enough to justify two hours out of my life.

2015, dir. Judd Apatow. With Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, Brie Larson, Colin Quinn, John Cena, Tilda Swinton, LeBron James, Ezra Miller, Amar'e Stoudemire.

Transformers

It was Stooopid. I really enjoyed it! I'm not much of a fan of Michael Bay and doing a movie of the Transformers was rife with possibilities for disaster, but, as promised, it was a lot of fun. Good action, some very funny set pieces and jibes, and good effects. See it on a big screen if you can.

2007, dir. Michael Bay. With Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, Rachael Taylor, Anthony Anderson, Jon Voight, John Turturro.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Should have been called "Transformers: Bigger and Stupider."

Our hero Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) tries to lead a normal life, heading off to college. This leads to several humour-by-humiliation scenes with his mother. Then there's the hot girl at college trying to pry him away from the love of his life back home (still Megan Fox). Inevitably a new Decepticon enemy surfaces and Megatron is revived. There are several new autobots on both sides of the fight, most of whom don't get names, back stories, or descriptions of their powers despite a 150 minute running time. Instead we have two Jar Jar Binks twin autobots who argue constantly, beat each other up, and are supposed to be funny.

More explosions, more characters but much less character development, more character humiliation in the name of humour (not an improvement on the previous outing), and more minutes in the theatre seat all add up to a much worse movie.

2009, dir. Michael Bay. With Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, John Turturro, Ramón Rodriguez, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

I thought this movie couldn't be any worse than the second one, but once again I've underestimated Michael Bay. Nobody does bigger and stupider more effectively than Bay. I keep going back for the next serving in the hope that it will somehow show some of the combined fun and idiocy of the first one: hardly a great film, but just ... enjoyable. But Bay has found his market segment, and in that airless space thinking is actively discouraged.

Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) has graduated from college and has a new hot girlfriend (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley) but no job, and this is not only making him uncomfortable with his girlfriend, it's also a point of contention with his perennially embarrassing parents. But the Decepticons have a new and evil plan, and we didn't level enough of the planet last time (this time the entire of Chicago gets flattened).

The movie had some surprisingly entertaining moments: Alan Tudyk is way over the top as "Dutch," but very amusing. Buzz Aldrin puts in an appearance as himself ... and Leonard Nimoy gets to say "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few," which is pretty damn funny for fans of Trek.

2011, dir. Michael Bay. With Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, John Turturro, Tyrese Gibson, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Patrick Dempsey, Leonard Nimoy, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Buzz Aldrin, Alan Tudyk.

Transformers: Age of Extinction

Shia LaBeouf's time as foil to giant special effects had apparently been played out, so he and the group of actors that did the previous three movies are gone, replaced by Mark Wahlberg's inventor character Cade Yeager who comes into possession of the essentially deceased Optimus Prime truck, his daughter played by Nicola Peltz, and her boyfriend (Jack Reynor). Stanley Tucci is the head of a company who has been using Transformer technology to try to build their own Transformer-like creatures, but the big evil of the movie is to be found in the form of Kelsey Grammer as a CIA agent who hunts Transformers and has allied himself with the bounty-hunting Transformer Lockdown (who isn't allied with either the Autobots or the Decepticons, but only seems to be interested in hunting Autobots).

The set-up of characters and circumstances takes about half an hour. After that, we get two and a quarter hours of almost non-stop action, explosions, and noise. The effects remain impressive, but the unrelenting visual and aural assault is overwhelming and unpleasant. The argument is made (in the midst of a fight, as there's really no other time for it) that Transformers are intelligent beings with a soul, and therefore shouldn't be killed any more than humans, and clearly Yeager agrees with this. But the movie kills them off to make a point about the evil of the enemy, and then makes jokes about it. The mix of slaughter and humour is a spill-over from previous movies, and feels incredibly inappropriate in something so (literally) bloodless that seems to be aimed primarily at kids. But not to worry: a worldwide gross of over a billion dollars on a $210 million production budget probably guarantees there will be more.

2014, dir. Michael Bay. With Mark Wahlberg, Nicola Peltz, Jack Reynor, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, Peter Cullen, Mark Ryan, John Goodman, Ken Watanabe, John DiMaggio, Sophia Myles, Li Bingbing, Titus Welliver, T.J. Miller.

Transporter 2

Taking over-the-top action to new heights ... Jason Statham is okay in an otherwise fairly stupid movie. All the disadvantages of a Luc Besson movie (ridiculous action, ongoing absurdity - he wrote and produced) without the weird class he usually manages to introduce when he directs. Sort of entertaining.

2005, dir. Louis Leterrier. With Jason Statham, Alessandro Gassman, Amber Valletta, Kate Nauta.

Travellers and Magicians

Made in the kingdom of Bhutan by the same director who brought us "The Cup." I enjoyed "The Cup," but this one is better all around. There are spots where the moralizing is a bit heavy-handed, but the story-telling is so enjoyable that it just doesn't matter. Some of the filming is staggeringly beautiful, particularly in the story with Tashi and Deki. Watch it.

2003, dir. Khyentse Norbu. With Tsewang Dandup, Sonam Lhamo, Lhakpa Dorji, Deki Yangzom, Sonam Kinga.

Treasure Planet

A science fiction riff on Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. Jim Hawkins (voiced by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a bright but alienated and difficult young boy, with a talent for the kind of stuff that was popular at the time the film was issued: skateboarding and surfing apparently. He believes the story he read as a child of a planet full of treasure left by a pirate, and when a map from another pirate falls into his hands, he takes the opportunity to pursue it to "Treasure Planet."

A messy plot and mediocre mixed hand- and computer-generated graphics along with mediocre voice-work produce a dull and annoying movie. Emma Thompson seems to be doing some sort of stiff-upper-lip British thing, and her voice acting is a complete loss (a bit of a surprise from one of the world's best actresses). Not recommended.

2002, dir. Ron Clements, John Musker. With Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brian Murray, David Hyde Pierce, Martin Short, Emma Thompson.

Trekkies 2

The original "Trekkies" was a really good documentary about an obsessive subculture of Science Fiction fandom. But a sequel? Well, yes, and it's pretty good too. Denise Crosby hosts, and is mildly annoying, but again the fans and their obsessions are front and centre, this time partly overseas. It was a little like the "7 Up" series in that we got updates on particular fans seven years on. The main one is on Gabriel Köerner, who was 15 years old and totally obsessed in the first movie. What some people may not have noticed was that he is very intelligent, and at age 22 he's doing visual effects for "Battlestar Galactica" and he's married to an attractive, nice, intelligent woman who's very supportive of his interests.

My favourite comparison made in the film is between Trekkies and football/soccer fans: Trekkies are obsessed, yes, but they do a lot of charity work and don't destroy the places they visit. Which type of fan would you rather be around?

2004, dir. Roger Nygard. With Denise Crosby.

Triple Threat

The movie is set in Thailand with a mix of languages: English, Chinese, Thai, Indonesian. The main plot driver is Tian Xiao Xian (Celina Jade), who intends to donate a very large sum of money to help local police stem the corruption and gang violence in the area. The "bad guys" (the mercenaries being paid to kill Xiao Xian) are led by Collins (Scott Adkins) whose most notable assistance is Devereaux (Michael Jai White). The "good guys" (the mercenaries who have their own reasons to defend Xiao Xian) are Tony Jaa, Tiger Chen, and Iko Uwais. Of the martial artists, the only one I'm not really familiar with is Tiger Chen. The other four are all pretty much the best available today: Uwais and Jaa in particular I think are outstanding.

The dialogue is actually better than average for a martial arts film, and the whole thing is constructed reasonably well. No one will mistake it for quality drama, but the bar is pretty low when you're watching martial arts movies.

Turns out Michael Bisping - one of the "bad guys" - is in fact a former UFC Champion. The interesting thing here is that practical and/or tournament skills rarely have anything to do with how good you look in a movie, and I thought he looked heavy and sluggish.

When you put Jaa, Uwais, Chen, Adkins, and Jai White all in one movie, the fights should have been better than what we got here. Individually, every single one of them is a really good martial artist. And yet the fights were just ... decent. It felt particularly unjust to watch Iko Uwais losing fight after fight - anyone who's seen the "The Raid: Redemption" and "The Raid 2" knows the man is one of the world's best (screen) martial artists. But ... someone has to lose, and he drew the short straw in this picture.

Fans of the martial arts should probably see this. No one else need bother.

2019, dir. Jesse V. Johnson. With Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Tiger Chen, Scott Adkins, Michael Jai White, Michael Bisping, Celina Jade, Jeeja Yanin.

Les Triplettes de Belleville

I wish someone had told me before the movie (instead of after in an interview with the director) that this was a "silent movie," then I wouldn't have been quite as frustrated with the exceptionally bad English subtitling. The English subtitle track includes a high percentage of French subtitles, go figure. But the film makes sense without knowing what's being said (a lot of it being background commentary or conversation).

This is a deeply weird movie, with an eccentric animation style that struck me as a cross between Crumb and Betty Boop - at least with the large number of obese people. Visually fascinating with a weird story, worth a watch. I was sent to it by Andrew Stanton's director's commentary on the "WALL-E" DVD, in which he admitted that his movie "Finding Nemo" had kind of eclipsed this one in 2003, but that it was a great movie.

2003, dir. Sylvain Chomet.

Trois Couleurs: Rouge

Last of the "Three Colours," a young woman finds that the owner of the dog she hit with her car is disinterested in life, except for listening in on his neighbour's phone calls. The setup is strange, but the characters play out very well. It's thought-provoking and almost redemptive, and I really enjoyed it.

1994, dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. With Irène Jacob, Jean-Louis Trintignant.

The Troll Hunter

This mockumentary is purportedly filmed by students at a local Norwegian college, who set out to make a documentary about a local bear poacher Hans (Otto Jespersen). He tries to run them off, but they follow him on several occasions and eventually find out that he's actually a government paid Troll hunter: Norway's only one. He's also totally disgusted with the hours.

This is a weird and fairly entertaining little movie. I think they were shooting for horror comedy, but (as pointed out by other critics) it's not actually particularly scary. What it is is wonderfully novel and perverse little movie, largely supported by Jespersen's matter-of-fact approach to dealing with something only about three other people on the planet believe in, and his complaints about under-funding. Entertaining and strange.

2010, dir. André Øvredal. With Otto Jespersen, Glenn Erland Tosterud, Johanna Mørck, Tomas Alf Larsen, Hans Morten Hansen, Urmila Berg-Domaas.

Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia - Season 1

"Trollhunters" was conceived and brought about by Guillermo del Toro - a name to conjure with in cinematic circles, although I'm unlikely to ever forgive him for "Pacific Rim." He conceived of this as a TV series, but ended up writing it as a book first. It was picked up by Netflix, and so we have an animated modern urban fantasy kids coming-of-age tale (with lots of trolls). The first season has 26 episodes, each roughly 23 minutes.

The series opens with two trolls fighting under a bridge in Arcadia Oaks, California. The evil Bular (voiced by Ron Perlman, a frequent del Toro collaborator) triumphs over the noble Kanjigar (voiced in the first episode by Tom Hiddleston, and in all other episodes by James Purefoy (yes, despite the character's death)), but Bular loses his prize when Kanjigar chooses to step into sunlight which turns him to stone - Bular can't follow or he'll turn to stone too. What Bular wanted was the amulet of Merlin - which calls to high school student Jim Lake (Anton Yelchin), who rescues it from the pile of rock that used to be Kanjigar. He assumes the mantle of "Trollhunter" rather involuntarily, the first human to ever have the title. We find an entire world of trolls hidden in caverns under Arcadia Oaks (and apparently the entire world) unknown to humanity. Jim and his best friend Toby Domzalski (Charlie Saxton) find themselves being tutored by the troll Blinky (Kelsey Grammer) and befriended by the immense but charming AAARRRGGHH!!! (Fred Tatasciore). Eventually, their fellow student, Jim's friend and potential love interest Claire (Lexi Medrano) is brought in as part of the team as well. After all, her little brother has been replaced by a changeling (referred to as "Not Enrique" and voiced by Jimmie Wood, he's a fairly major character). They have to contend with all the usual high school crap while also contending with evil trolls and bad magic.

Jim Lake is an unusual character in a kid's show: he's well-adjusted. His home life isn't perfect (his mother is so busy as a doctor he takes care of her more than she takes care of him, and his father left the family when he was five), but for the most part he's a decent student, neither a nerd nor a jock. The show moves along briskly, with all kinds of twists and turns. Some characters change sides (the only "sides" that matter here are "good" and "evil"), but I felt like their reasons were less arbitrary than they often are in TV series (kids or not). The teacher Strickler (Jonathan Hyde) was particularly interesting: he's definitely mostly evil and one of the team's primary enemies, but has surprising redeeming features and consistent goals that make it all make sense. They also sprinkle in occasional adult jokes and a variety of adult overtones that the kids won't get (but won't be deterred by either). My personal favourite in this category was the naming of a gnome - he starts out as a nameless pest, but Toby manages to befriend him and names him Gnome Chompsky. Which is hilarious to kids because he has nasty teeth and chomps, and hilarious to adults for other reasons.

Wikipedia points out that "Filmlink's Travis Johnson" called the series "... the best children’s animation to come along since Avatar: The Last Airbender." High praise indeed: that was pretty much the best kids fantasy show ever. I'm inclined to agree, with the caveat that Avatar is still the better of the two.

At 26 episodes, this season is too long. They filled it out with a reasonable plot, but ... still too long to get where they were going. The next two seasons are 13 episodes each and I think I'm going to prefer that.

2016. With Anton Yelchin, Charlie Saxton, Lexi Medrano, Jonathan Hyde, Kelsey Grammer, Fred Tatasciore, Victor Raider-Wexler, Ron Perlman, Amy Landecker, Steven Yeun, Matthew Waterson, Lauren Tom, Jimmie Wood, Tom Hiddleston, James Purefoy, Ike Amadi, Cole Sand, Yara Shahidi.

Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia - Season 2

We start with Jim Lake (Anton Yelchin) in the Dark Lands, where he went at the end of last season to rescue Claire's brother Enrique - he went without his team, because he was afraid some of them might die. The team tries to get him back. This being a kids show, you know they will - so it'll come as no surprise that most of the episodes are set back in Arcadia Oaks. Unfortunately, Jim's escape brought some unwanted guests. But let's just pause the dramatics and story arc for an entire episode called "The Reckless Club," which is set in weekend detention at the high school. Their teacher has stomach problems, so he's always in the washroom and the students go on a rampage. If this sounds like "The Breakfast Club," that's because it's a blatant remix.

They also made some allusions to "Star Wars" in a previous episode, and the final episode of the season is called "In the Hall of the Gumm-Gumm King," which is riffing on "In the Hall of the Mountain King," a piece of music by Edvard Grieg: trust me, you'd recognize it, it's an incredibly distinctive tune. It's also part of the "Peer Gynt" suite - and there had already been a couple references to both the music and the character Peer Gynt.

Fairly good, but the weakest of the three seasons (at least it was half the length of the previous season!).

2017. With Anton Yelchin, Charlie Saxton, Lexi Medrano, Kelsey Grammer, Fred Tatasciore, Amy Landecker, Jonathan Hyde, Steven Yeun, Matthew Waterson, Lauren Tom, Jimmie Wood, Mark Hamill, Anjelica Huston, Cole Sand, Lena Headey, Tom Kenny.

Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia, Season 3

This comes with a depressing story: Anton Yelchin was the voice of the series protagonist Jim Lake, but in June of 2016 he died, pinned between his Jeep Cherokee and a brick pillar in a "freak accident." He was 27. Emile Hirsch recorded the voice of Jim Lake for most of the episodes of the third season of "Trollhunters."

Gunmar is loose in Arcadia, and building himself an army. New enemies and allies are found, and the final showdown happens. The hero is irrevocably changed by his coming-of-age. The end.

Comparison to "Avatar: The Last Airbender." "Avatar" is straight-up fantasy, "Trollhunters" is modern urban fantasy. "Avatar" is hand-drawn animation on a relatively low budget, "Trollhunters" is computer-animated and didn't have any noticeable budget restrictions. They both ran for three years, and had a story arc that stretched across the entire run (in both cases essentially "good" vs. "evil," although both had gray areas). That's the baseline, now let's talk about the important stuff. "Avatar" laid on the life lessons with a heavy hand, often having someone explain why you should do this or that thing, while "Trollhunters" embedded the ideas in the behaviour of their characters. For example, while Jim occasionally admits to fear, when he has to fight (he tries to avoid it wherever possible, another good lesson) he nevertheless leaps. Toby is another story: he's a bit of a coward. But here's the thing: if his friends are in danger, he will always overcome that fear and fight for them. We can all feel superior to Toby because we aren't as much of a doofus as he is, but we can all understand his fear - and his dedication to his friends. One of Jim's great features is that given the slightest indication, he'll believe someone wants to do the right thing. And his belief in them will often make the difference in their choice. This way of teaching life lessons (ie. not giving direct voice to them) is more subtle and requires more work on the part of the writers, and having watched the whole series, I'm pretty impressed.

They awake Merlin in the last few episodes: as the person who created the amulet that turns Jim into the Trollhunter, he has always been put forward as the embodiment of good. So it's a pleasant surprise to find out that he's an arrogant ass with his own agenda that doesn't sit well with Jim and his friends' more idealistic views ... and they have to work with him anyway. Like Merlin, most of the show's characters don't show clear-cut black-and-white morality.

The show spends more time than I like on goofy interludes (ex. the "Breakfast Club" redux in the second season), but "Avatar" was exactly the same. Definitely a good series.

Followed by "3Below."

2018. With Anton Yelchin, Emile Hirsch, Charlie Saxton, Lexi Medrano, Kelsey Grammer, Fred Tatasciore, Amy Landecker, Jonathan Hyde, Steven Yeun, Lauren Tom, Jimmie Wood, Mark Hamill, Anjelica Huston, Cole Sand, Lena Headey, David Bradley, Matthew Waterson, Tatiana Maslany, Diego Luna, Yara Shahidi.

Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans

As the "Avengers" movie was to the Marvel universe, so "Rise of the Titans" is to "Tales of Arcadia" with our heroes across three Guillermo del Toro Netflix TV series ("Trollhunters," "3Below," and "Wizards") coming together to fight world-crushing powers. With heavy duty riffing on del Toro's "Pacific Rim."

The movie starts with a short recap of the three TV series, and then picks up with Douxie and Nari, more or less where we left off at the end of the "Wizards" TV series. The two of them (and some friends) try to fight Bellroc and Skrael on a subway train. That doesn't go well - but if you've seen the trailer, you know that the Titans of the title do rise, and that wouldn't have happened if Bellroc and Skrael had been stopped.

I had multiple problems with the movie. The single most important one is that my expectations were too high: the team that had created the TV series was good at long form (the TV series), but I don't think either their skills or the material was as well suited to the shorter form of a movie. Other problems:

  • Did the artwork for Strickler change? It felt wrong
  • Emile Hirsch's voice work for Jim also felt ... different from what was in the TV series. And not better.
  • Anyone who's seen "Pacific Rim" is going to be having major flashbacks when you watch the fight in Hong Kong (and yet props for the "Gun Robot" call-back, that was good)
  • The ending was all kinds of cop-out with a big dose of ambiguous

It was the cop-out ending that really did me in: suddenly providing a magical artifact of that power to Jim ... and then him passing responsibility to someone else? That was out-of-character, and of course left the final outcome completely ambiguous. It was a crap end to a series that had been dribbling downhill, when this movie should have provided an opportunity to end on a high note.

2021, dir. Johane Matte, Francisco Ruiz-Velasco, Andrew L. Schmidt. With Emile Hirsch, Colin O'Donoghue, Lexi Medrano, Charlie Saxton, Tatiana Maslany, Diego Luna, Angel Lin, Kelsey Grammer, Fred Tatasciore, Amy Landecker, Jonathan Hyde, Alfred Molina, Nick Frost, Brian Blessed, Nick Offerman, Kay Bess, Piotr Michael, Cole Sand, Steven Yeun.

Tron

Incredibly cheesy (hey, we're anthropomorphizing computer programs with 28 year old computer graphics), but still quite charming and fascinating to watch. I saw this in an IMAX theatre about a year after it came out, and enjoyed it immensely then. Sure, it's incredibly silly and not terribly well acted, but the graphics have held up better than I expected (not well, but better than you'd think in 2010).

Jeff Bridges plays a cocky young programmer who had some computer games stolen by David Warner. Cindy Morgan is his ex-, Bruce Boxleitner is her new boyfriend, and both of them still work at Encom where Warner is now a senior executive. Bridges has been trying to crack the Encom system to prove that he wrote the games. When Boxleitner and Morgan let him into Encom, he crosses the "Master Control Program," who "encodes him in a laser beam" and thus transports him inside the computer. There he's made to fight in the video games, and teams up with Boxleitner's program (which looks exactly like Boxleitner except for the groovy skin-tight light-up suit) in attempting to shut down the MCP.

At the time, the effects were astounding. Today, they look a bit dated, but still rather pretty. The cinematographer also had a good run at making the human world look like the inside of a computer (lights as data flowing along roads) and other similar tricks. I'm looking forward to the sequel: more cheesy goodness.

1982, dir. Steven Lisberger. With Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, Cindy Morgan, David Warner, Dan Shor.

Tron: Legacy

"Tron" holds the record for "longest wait for a sequel" at 28 years. Was it worth the wait? It depends what you expected. Since the original was cheesy, gorgeous entertainment and this is too, I was satisfied.

Garrett Hedlund plays Sam Flynn, son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges). Flynn (senior) disappeared 15 years ago, after having told his son repeatedly how great "The Grid" that he had created was. Now Sam is the largest stockholder in Encom, the company his father founded - but restricts his involvement with the company to one yearly, massive, prank. His father's friend Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner, who is convinced his involvement with the movie was at Bridges' insistence) convinces Sam to go to Flynn's old arcade, where Sam rather inevitably finds his way (A) to The Grid, and (B) to the Games. And ultimately to his father.

I found the 3D to be the worst I've seen - which is saying something. I like 3D, but in this case colours looked like they'd been separated out like an old 32-colour GIF image, and there was a huge amount of ghosting and not much 3D. I enjoyed it much more at home in 2D. But the effects and sets are great, and the story moves along briskly and has slightly more character development than the previous one. A fun ride.

Like "Tron" and "Transformers" (but not the latter's sequel) before it, this is massively cheesy but very entertaining film. And really pretty to look at. Expect ludicrousness, and enjoy the ride. Daft Punk's somewhat retro soundtrack is utterly brilliant, and has become a standard in my playlist.

2010, dir. Joseph Kosinski. With Garrett Hedlund, Jeff Bridges, Olivia Wilde, Michael Sheen, James Frain, Bruce Boxleitner.

Trouble in Paradise (1932)

The first thing we see on screen is a man leaving the scene of a crime in Venice - soon enough we learn that the man who was robbed and knocked unconscious has lost a very large amount of money. Next we see a happy rich couple (Miriam Hopkins and Herbert Marshall) having dinner together ... but they aren't quite what they seem, with both being thieves masquerading as the rich. A year later, our happy thieving couple is in Paris, where the man gets a job working as a secretary for a very rich and beautiful woman (Kay Francis), intending to rob her ... but as she falls for his suave and charming facade, he falls for her - and his assistant/girlfriend is unimpressed.

A romantic comedy, more or less - although I wasn't buying what they were selling at the end of the movie. Still, it's pre-Code Ernst Lubitsch, charming and funny, although not my favourite of his.

1932, dir. Ernst Lubitsch. With Herbert Marshall, Kay Francis, Miriam Hopkins, Charles Ruggles, Edward Everett Horton, C. Aubrey Smith, Robert Greig.

The Trouble with Harry

One of Alfred Hitchcock's most warped movies, this is essentially a romantic comedy where the prime motivator for everyone's actions is Harry's corpse. That's the trouble with him - he's dead, and several people believe they're responsible for his current inanimate state. So to cover up the problem, he's buried - and then to confirm how he died he's dug up, and then buried, and then dug up ... and while this is happening, two couples are falling for each other. It's done as only Hitchcock could manage and it's very, very funny.

Consider the image of the brightly coloured socks of our corpse sticking up on a sunny and colourful fall day in Vermont, with an upbeat score, surrounded by frank and often humorous discussion of what to do with the dead guy. Funny as hell, but not surprisingly a movie that combined romantic comedy, a murder mystery, and macabre and/or black comedy was a flop at the box office in 1955. Apparently it was completely unavailable from about a year after its release until 1984 (when I first saw it in a repetory cinema), but in 2017 (when I re-watched it) it's readily available on disc. If you haven't seen it, you should - it's one of Hitchcock's better efforts and a joy to watch.

1955, dir. Alfred Hitchcock. With Edmund Gwenn, John Forsythe, Shirley MacLaine, Mildred Natwick, Mildred Dunnock, Jerry Mathers, Royal Dano.

Trouble with the Curve

Clint Eastwood is Atlanta Braves talent scout Gus Lobel (he's also the director). Amy Adams is his hard-working lawyer daughter Mickey. Gus is having trouble with his eyesight (macular degeneration, but he's not willing to talk about it). Gus's friend and co-worker (boss?) Pete Klein (John Goodman) manages to convince Mickey to go on the road with her father, despite the strained relationship between father and daughter, despite her not wanting to be there and him not wanting her there. They encounter former player Johnny Flanagan (Justin Timberlake) that Gus had scouted, now himself a scout. He's very taken with Mickey, and they bond over baseball while she struggles with her father and the possibility of losing a partnership in her law firm that may or may not be offered to her.

My biggest problem with the movie is that Eastwood is playing the same grumpy-old-man role he's played before: this is a small variation on Walt Kowalski, the character he played in "Gran Torino." He's reasonably good at it, but the sense of deja vu was strong. In fact ... if you put Walt Kowalski into Disney's "Million Dollar Arm" (and took away Kowalski's racism) this is the movie you'd get out the other end ... except "Million Dollar Arm" was better written. In the end, Adams and Timberlake get big enough roles to pull the movie up to something worth watching and reasonably enjoyable, although it still feels predictable.

2012, dir. Robert Lorenz. With Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams, Justin Timberlake, Matthew Lillard, John Goodman, Robert Patrick, Scott Eastwood, Ed Lauter, Chelcie Ross, Raymond Anthony Thomas, Joe Massingill, Jay Galloway.

True Grit (1969)

This Western starts with our introduction to a family. The father goes on a business trip with his hired hand Tom Chaney (Jeff Corey) ... who shortly kills him. The daughter, Mattie Ross (Kim Darby), who we've already seen is the hard-driving book-keeper in the family, sets out to hire someone to kill him. She chooses the boozing and obnoxious Rooster Cogburn (John Wayne). They're shortly saddled with a Texas Ranger neither of them likes and that Mattie doesn't want because he's offered Wayne more money for Chaney for another crime.

Darby is good as Mattie, young but incredibly determined. Wayne got an Academy Award for his performance, but it's his only one and I'd say it's more of a "lifetime achievement" thing: he's only passable-to-wooden. The story is quite good though. It's also interesting for early appearances by Robert Duvall and Dennis Hopper.

1969, dir. Henry Hathaway. With John Wayne, Kim Darby, Glen Campbell, Jeff Corey, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper, Strother Martin.

True Grit (2010)

The Coen Brothers have another shot at the Charles Portis novel of the same name, this time with Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn, Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross, and Matt Damon as the irritating but genuinely decent Texas Ranger. Many scenes play out exactly as in the Wayne version, but several (including the ending) are profoundly different. It's a good story and the acting is good all around: the joy of the movie is the revelation(s) of the strengths of the characters (that applies to both versions).

2010, dir. Joel and Ethan Coen. With Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper.

True Lies

James Cameron directs Arnold Schwarzenegger as a spy named Harry Tasker whose wife thinks he's a computer salesman. We meet Tasker first as he infiltrates a high security party for an Islamic business man in Switzerland. He's detected, but escapes after blowing lots of shit up. His boss (Charlton Heston) claims to be upset, but Tasker (and Schwarzenegger) have been doing this for years so he can hardly have expected anything else.

When Tasker suspects that his wife (Jamie Lee Curtis) is having an affair, he turns the full power of his spy organization on watching his wife's every move. The second act of the movie strays from action into humour based in large part on humiliating both Schwarzenegger and Curtis (but wow was she FIT when she filmed that!) until the Crimson Jihad moves in and kidnaps everybody so there can be more action and killing.

Overall a pretty entertaining movie, although I found the middle act pretty cringeworthy.

1994, dir. James Cameron. With Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, Bill Paxton, Tia Carrere, Charlton Heston, Art Malik, Eliza Dushku, Grant Heslov.

The Truth About Cats and Dogs

A twist on the Cyrano de Bergerac story - a romantic comedy, not the tragic ending you might expect from that description. Fairly conventional in construction, but very enjoyable - good dialogue, a lot of humour.

1996. dir. Michael Lehmann. With Janeane Garofalo, Uma Thurman, Ben Chaplin.

Tuck Everlasting

Disney, and it feels like it. Using picture-postcard locations when they should have been shabby was just the beginning of the many typical Disney problems with the film. Poor acting, blundering clichés ... And then in a very strange turn of events, the movie has a good ending. Intelligent, right, and decidedly not Disney. It was a pleasant and unusual reward for wading through the rest of the movie.

2002, dir. Jay Russell. With Alexis Bledel, Jonathan Jackson, William Hurt, Sissy Spacek, Scott Bairstow, Ben Kingsley, Amy Irving, Victor Garber.

Tucker and Dale vs Evil

The setup is fairly clever: a group of obnoxious college students go into the woods to drink beer and hang out, and end up very near to a very dilapidated shack that Tucker and Dale (Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine) have just bought as their vacation home. Tucker and Dale are nice guys, but definitely rednecks. Through a series of misunderstandings and horror movie clichés, the college students come to believe that Tucker and Dale are homicidal maniacs, and in attempting to recover their friend (who they think was kidnapped, but was in fact rescued from drowning by our heroes) they begin to kill themselves off.

It's goofy, absurd, very funny, possibly even "quaint" ... And also exceedingly gory. Highly recommended for fans of horror comedy.

2011, dir. Eli Craig. With Alan Tudyk, Tyler Labine, Katrina Bowden, Jesse Moss, Chelan Simmons.

Tumbledown

Rebecca Hall plays Hannah Miles, the widow of a musician who created one great album and then died before the public even knew it existed. He's been dead a couple years and she's trying to write a biography about him, but it's not going well. Enter Andrew McCabe (played by Jason Sudeikis), a music academic and writer who comes to her small town in Maine hoping to write about her husband. They butt heads - but after considerable initial resistance, she agrees to work with him.

Both of the main characters are a bit unpleasant - she's wrapped up in her grief and way too protective of her husband's legacy, he's written as a sarcastic and obnoxious New Yorker. Both have partners of a kind. It's a credit to the two leads that they manage to make these people in any way likeable, but I had some trouble summoning interest in the outcome of the movie. Music that's supposed to be from the album is used throughout the movie: this means they've tied themselves to a one-artist soundtrack, and the music really isn't that good. Some of the jokes are good.

Hall and Sudeikis do well enough with the uneven material they're handed, but the movie as a whole is an unappealing mess.

2015, dir. Sean Mewshaw. With Rebecca Hall, Jason Sudeikis, Dianna Agron, Joe Manganiello, Griffin Dunne, Richard Masur, Blythe Danner.

Turbo

Animated kid's movie about a nitrous-oxide-snorting snail who goes fast. Other interesting side effects include lights, a break-in alarm, and a kick-ass stereo system that he doesn't quite control. He dreams of racing (against cars), and finds himself a sponsor whose head is stuck just as far in the clouds.

I felt like the movie lagged pretty badly in places. It was charming and occasionally funny, but not quite what I would have hoped.

2013, dir. David Soren. With Ryan Reynolds, Paul Giamatti, Michael Peña, Snoop Dogg, Samuel L. Jackson, Michelle Rodriguez, Maya Rudolph, Richard Jenkins, Bill Hader, Ken Jeong.

Turks & Caicos

Bill Nighy returns as Johnny Worricker, an old-school spook, formerly of MI5 but now hiding out in the Turks and Caicos Islands after the events of the previous movie. Worricker first appeared in 2011's "Page Eight," which I thought was brilliant and under-appreciated: the appearance of two sequels (this is the first, "Salting the Battlefield" is the second) makes me think I may have been wrong about the "under-appreciated" part. And there are advantages to being under-appreciated: nobody comes along and makes lower quality sequels so the original remains a single near-perfect jewel.

Johnny Worricker is living a life of leisure on the Turks and Caicos, spending his days on the beach reading and occasionally looking after a friend's son. But as soon as this life of comfort is shown, it's disrupted by the appearance of Christopher Walken's character: Worricker is dragged into the bad blood and bad money that surrounds "Curtis Pelissier" (Walken's character's name, which Worricker clearly doesn't believe). In turn, Worricker pulls in Rollo (Ewen Bremner) and Margot (Helena Bonham Carter, playing Worricker's ex-) in London.

Like the first movie, this one is remarkably low key: no explosions or violence (although someone does die off screen), but there's a lot of threat. Just smart people talking, something I generally enjoy. But I felt the writing (once again by director David Hare) left too much unclear and made a number of unsupported leaps of logic. I enjoyed watching Nighy play Worricker again, but it also kind of sullied the memory of the excellent original.

2014, dir. David Hare. With Bill Nighy, Helena Bonham Carter, Rupert Graves, Winona Ryder, Christopher Walken, Ewen Bremner, James McArdle, Dylan Baker, Zach Grenier, Malik Yoba, Ralph Fiennes.

Turning Red

Mei (voiced by Rosalie Chiang) is a 13 year old girl growing up in Toronto with traditional Chinese parents. She has three good friends at school (each with a huge and specific personality to make us think we "know" them even though they don't get that much screen time) and a life that involves a lot of schoolwork as well as helping take care of the family temple. But between her over-protective mother repeatedly humiliating her in public and/or at school and her and her friends desperately wanting to go to 4*Town's upcoming concert at the Sky Dome, she's got a lot to deal with. And then, in a moment of strong emotions ... she turns into a big red panda.

In the history of film I don't think there's ever been a more TORONTO film than this one - certainly not from Disney! So that's good - from my point of view. The CN Tower in multiple shots, city trolleys, Canadian flags as backgrounds, and the big climax at the Sky Dome. And the fact that her school (and friends) are significantly racially diverse - that's just how this city is. So Toronto. ("Scott Pilgrim" runs a close second for "most Toronto movie.")

But ... I didn't like Mei. She's spectacularly annoying for most of the film. You kind of get why when you meet her mother, who's even more annoying. But "getting it" doesn't make them more appealing. When you toss in Mei and her friends' favourite music being the fake boy-band 4*Town (music by Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas O'Connell, which may appeal to many but not me), I found it a real struggle to stick with the movie. There are a lot of good moments, and the ending - despite being thoroughly over-the-top - does mostly redeem everything that preceded it.

I gotta give Disney/Pixar credit for taking this one on: most of us have an idea of "typical Disney fare," and this isn't it. And that's a good thing. Also, reading the "Design" section of the Wikipedia page about the movie gave me some idea of how much thought Domee Shi put into her movie. You may think that it must be that all directors do that, but it's really not.

2022, dir. Domee Shi. With Rosalie Chiang, Sandra Oh, Ava Morse, Hyein Park, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Orion Lee, Wai Ching Ho, Tristan Allerick Chen, Lori Tan Chinn, Mia Tagano, Sherry Cola, Lillian Lim, James Hong, Jordan Fisher, Finneas O'Connell, Topher Ngo, Grayson Villanueva, Josh Levi, Sasha Roiz, Addie Chandler, Lily Sanfelippo.

The Tuxedo

Jackie Chan does James Bond (pre-Daniel Craig) with the help of a REALLY GOOD (TM) Tuxedo. Chan plays a doofus who happens to be an excellent cab driver hired to be the chauffeur to a secret agent. When the agent is injured, Chan takes his place and works with Jennifer Love Hewitt to save the world from an evil plan to poison all the water supplies in the U.S. Strangely enough, that involves lots of jumping and fighting. Hewitt rates as one of Chan's best sidekicks: intelligent, funny, and generally able to defend herself. The end result is funnier than his usual brand of humour.

2002, dir. Kevin Donovan. With Jackie Chan, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jason Isaacs, Debi Mazar, Ritchie Coster, Peter Stormare.

Twelfth Night (Branagh)

One of Shakespeare's more popular plays, this is a London stage production directed by Kenneth Branagh and filmed for TV - released under the auspices of A&E. Even as a stage production I was rather unimpressed and felt it was poorly acted.

1988, dir. Paul Kafno, Kenneth Branagh. With Frances Barber, Caroline Langrishe, Anton Lesser.

Twelfth Night: or What You Will (Nunn)

Trevor Nunn is a well known stage director who occasionally directs a movie. He brings an incredible knowledge of Shakespeare to the job, and populates all the secondary characters with Britain's very best actors (Ben Kingsley, Helena Bonham Carter, Nigel Hawthorne, Imelda Staunton, Mel Smith, Richard E. Grant). And then he gives the lead (Viola/Cesario) to his new wife (Imogen Stubbs) who's passable in the job but not as good as the secondaries, and then fills the next two most important roles - Duke Orsino and Viola's brother Sebastian - with two of Britain's most wooden, Toby Stephens and Steven Mackintosh respectively.

Normally I wouldn't place Mel Smith among Britain's best actors. Truth be told, he's a comedian and not even one of my favourites. But casting him as Sir Toby Belch was absolutely genius: this obnoxious, farcical character came to life, and was made believable, as no one has ever managed before.

One particularly interesting (and excellent) change he made to the play was to have the clown (Ben Kingsley!), already an important part, given an even greater significance - we see him observing other characters from the sidelines where Shakespeare never had him (well ... Shakespeare left no stage directions at all, so we don't really know), and that changes the interpretation of some of the things he says and does in interesting ways. I was disappointed at some of the cuts made to the script: he has a 132 minute run-time, I wondered that he needed to cut as much as he did. Still, the music that Shakespeare included is probably better executed and better used than in any other Shakespearean production I've ever seen: all the actors seem to do their own singing, and do it well! A flawed production (of a difficult to produce play), but very good and probably the best we're likely to see for a long time.

1996, dir. Trevor Nunn. With Helena Bonham Carter, Nigel Hawthorne, Ben Kingsley, Imogen Stubbs, Steven Mackintosh, Mel Smith, Richard E. Grant, Imelda Staunton, Toby Stephens.

Twelfth Night (CBC Stratford)

Wow, a DVD that's not in IMDB ... And a pretty good production too. Since it's Stratford, it's more an embellished stage production than a movie, but there are several settings and it's not simply filmed on one stage. The central performances are quite good, although I wasn't too keen on the more peripheral Sebastian. As with most productions of Twelfth Night, some suspension of disbelief is required that anyone would mistake Sebastian for Viola or vice versa - Shakespeare himself probably wrote for twins (both male - sorry folks, that's the way it was). If you're a fan of the play, this is a pretty good version to see (although I still think the Trevor Nunn version is best).

Viola/Curio: Seana McKenna, Malvolio: Nicholas Pennell, Orsino: Colm Feore, Sir Toby Belch: James Blendick, Feste: Edward Atienza, Olivia: Maria Ricossa.

1986, dir. Alan Erlich. With Seana McKenna, Nicholas Pennell, Colm Feore, James Blendick, Edward Atienza, Maria Ricossa.

Twelfth Night (BBC)

A fairly unremarkable production. Not bad, not great. A bit more of the text was there than usual. Part of the BBC complete works.

1980, dir. John Gorrie. With Felicity Kendal, Robert Hardy, Alec McCowen, Sinéad Cusack, Trevor Peacock, Annette Crosbie, Clive Arrindell.

12 Angry Men

All but three minutes of this movie occur inside the jury room. We see the debate among the jurors about the first degree murder trial they're deciding. It's an interesting consideration of what happens in the jury room and how personality and personal motivations affect jury decisions. Well enough done to receive five Oscars. Good.

1957. dir. Sidney Lumet. With Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley, Jack Klugman.

12 Monkeys

The movie is a fever dream right from the opening shot of the eyes of a young boy, seeing someone get shot. This turns out to be a dream of James Cole (Bruce Willis), who lives in what's possibly a prison in a dystopian underground future. But soon he's back in 1990, and shortly ends up under the care of psychiatrist Dr. Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe). And it's a very long time before you have any certainty if the future Cole thinks he comes from might be real. But if it is, Cole knows that 5 billion people will die of a virus released in 1996 - he believes he's helping to track down that virus.

It includes a number of very Gilliamesque elements, but most notable are the surreal images and the distorted faces of the "scientists." But where this movie succeeds - and some of his other movies have failed - is in drawing you into the world of the protagonist. Willis was known for "Die Hard" at the time, and doing an unstable character like Cole was a massive change for him - he carries it well. And Brad Pitt was similarly doing a radically different character than he'd ever played before, playing the completely off-the-cams Jeffry Goins (brilliantly, I might add). Stowe is very good too. And the combination with Terry Gilliam's eternally feverish imagery is something that will take you to a horrible dystopia that's probably your own world and leave you stunned, trying to figure out what happened.

Gilliam claims in the director's commentary that they created the "Inspired By" header: at the beginning of the movie, it says "Inspired by Chris Marker's 'La Jetée.'" It's a phrase I've come to loathe as it often means "bears no relationship to." But in this case, I totally get it: Gilliam pushed the studio to include it when they weren't going to put in any reference at all. Which would be a shame, as this movie was definitely inspired by "La Jetée," and I hope that others will end up doing as I did and watching the original, which is both incredibly strange and deeply affecting.

Gilliam's best work, and a fantastic movie.

1995, dir. Terry Gilliam. With Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt, Christopher Plummer, David Morse.

Twelve O'Clock High

Gregory Peck stars as American air force general Frank Savage in the U.K. in 1942. When one of his squadron commanders starts to succumb to the pressure of the job (and the weight of the deaths of many of his air crew), Peck is put in to replace him and bring up the morale in the squadron. He struggles initially, but with some help he begins to bring it around - only to find himself too closely tied to the men's lives.

Well acted and apparently fairly accurate to the war that it portrays, I found myself most fascinated by the air warfare footage near the end of the movie - which was entirely accurate, as it was filmed in battle by both the Allies and the Germans. The film is also apparently considered a standard text in the military about the pressures of command.

1949, dir. Henry King. With Gregory Peck, Hugh Marlowe, Gary Merril, Dean Jagger, Millard Mitchell.

20 Feet from Stardom

A documentary about backup singers, starting in the 1950s and running through the present day. It opens with a marvelous quote from Bruce Springsteen (who features heavily in the movie): "It's a bit of a walk from back by the drummer - that walk to the front is complicated." Director Morgan Neville talks to a lot of the singers and groups of backup singers who helped define the sound of the music of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and to some of the musicians who have hired them and worked with them. He points out (almost entirely through the words of interviewees - we never really hear him) that most of these singers are brilliant singers in their own right. He explores how some have pursued solo careers, and how some have been perfectly happy being in the background. Wikipedia cites another quote that nicely completes a description of the movie: "I reject the notion that the job you excel at is somehow not enough to aspire to, that there has to be something more. I love supporting other artists. ... Some people will do anything to be famous. I just wanted to sing" (Lisa Fischer). A very good film about a subject most of us never think about.

I've paraphrased the Springsteen quote a bit, because what he actually said was "It's a bit of a walk, you know, from, you know, back by the drummer or over here, that walk to the front is, is, complicated."

2013, dir. Morgan Neville. With Bruce Springsteen, Darlene Love, Judith Hill, Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, Táta Vega, Mick Jagger, Bette Midler.

2010: The Year We Make Contact

It's hard to separate this from its predecessor, "2001." It would make less sense without it, and not be considered as good a movie. But it's not bad in its own right. I actually watched it in the year 2010, so its 1983 vision of an escalating war in South and/or Central America between the U.S. and the Russians no longer seems terribly likely. Nevertheless, the ideas are interesting.

A Russian mission to Jupiter, to visit the stranded ship "Discovery" is accompanied by three Americans: the man that launched the Discovery mission in the first place and feels guilty about the crew's deaths, the engineer who designed much of the ship, and the creator of HAL-9000. The tensions between the Russians and Americans back on earth make the voyage more difficult. They discover a mostly functional Discovery, and a not-very-friendly Monolith. And then a whole bunch of baby Monoliths, and some slight explanation - more than we ever got in "2001." Whether you find it satisfying or not is open to question. It does at least make some sense and offer some closure.

1984, dir. Peter Hyams. With Roy Scheider, John Lithgow, Helen Mirren, Bob Balaban, Keir Dullea, Douglas Rain.

2046

It's a room number, it's a year, it's a place, it's unclear ... Brilliant and bizarre cinematography in the service of a muddled story about a womanizer and his lost love(s) and regrets. The critics really liked this one, but did they actually understand it? I doubt it. Or maybe it was just me. But it's very pretty to look at.

2004, dir. Kar Wai Wong. With Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Li Gong, Zhang Ziyi, Maggie Cheung.

24 City

A documentary (mostly) about the closing of a munitions factory in Chengdu to make way for a new apartment complex, "24 City." The movie is a series of interviews with people associated with the factory - but some of the interviewees were actors. There are moments of brilliant cinematography and some rather compelling interviews, but strange and (to my mind) somewhat alienating transitions between. Nevertheless, it was a hell of an education in the culture of China across the last fifty years.

2008, dir. Jia Zhangke. With Joan Chen, Lü Liping, Zhao Tao, Chen Jianbin.

21

It's about blackjack. And that's not the only predictable thing about it. Brilliant nerd Jim Sturgess is recruited to join a team of students from MIT to spend weekends with them in Las Vegas, counting cards and raking in the cash. They're led by professor Kevin Spacey. Sturgess says he's out as soon as he makes the $300,000 he needs for med school. Predictably, he's seduced by the glittering lights, the money, the lifestyle. Also predictably, there's a girl, there's a bad guy, it all goes sour, and there's a big conclusion. Some credit is due for letting you see relatively early on that Spacey's character isn't all charming, and of course Spacey plays fairly well. But that's not nearly enough to make this good, it's merely serviceable.

2008, dir. Robert Luketic. With Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth, Aaron Yoo, Laurence Fishburne, Josh Gad, Sam Golzari.

21 Grams

Very disjoint in time: at least "Memento" was consistent. This one hops all over, backwards, forwards, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. The people in it aren't particularly nice, and it's hard to care even after you start putting the events together. It's about death and dying.

2003. dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu. With Sean Penn, Naomi Watts, Benicio Del Toro.

21 Jump Street (2012)

A comedy cop buddy movie remake of the old 80s TV series, starring Jonah Hill and - bizarrely but fairly successfully - Channing Tatum.

Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are a pair of young police officers who knew and hated each other in high school as Schmidt was the "nerd" and Jenko was the "jock." But in Police Academy they helped each other get through the academic exercises (Schmidt) and the physical ones (Jenko) and became friends. After graduating they mess up what they hoped would be their first major bust and they're assigned to "21 Jump Street" - sent back to high school undercover, including living with Schmidt's parents as brothers. Through Jenko's bumbling, they get their names and roles reversed: Schmidt is in Drama and gym, Jenko in Chemistry. They stumble along, occasionally helping and occasionally humiliating each other.

Tatum, after playing straight-up hunks and not much else in his career, looks like he's having the time of his life doing comedy - and it really pays off. His timing is very good, and he's amazingly convincing as a slightly obnoxious jock. Hill is Hill, and he's okay (I like him better in dramatic roles, see "Moneyball"). Ice Cube is incredibly obnoxious as their captain, a shtick I didn't find funny. A lot of people find this movie hysterical, but I found it only fitfully amusing as about half the humour is based on someone being humiliated - not something that usually amuses me.

2012, dir. Phil Lord and Chris Miller. With Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Brie Larson, Dave Franco, Ellie Kemper, Rob Riggle, Ice Cube.

2012

There's a certain class of movies that are blatantly insulting to science, and "2012" rockets to the top of the class in the first 15 minutes or so by explaining that a massive solar flare has caused neutrinos that normally pass through the Earth without any interaction to instead start to superheat the Earth's core, which in turn will cause the entire crust of the planet to shift about like styrofoam chips on water. And then there'll be tsunamis. A lot of good actors are involved in this abomination: John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton, Danny Glover, Woody Harrelson - not that any of them seemed to be putting in much of an effort, but this movie isn't really about personal interactions, it's about hundreds and thousands of special effects. Not even terribly good ones. But it's an excuse to have a limo driven through a high rise building and have kilometre-high tsunamis, what more do you want? A spectacularly awful movie - and painfully long to boot at 2h37m. Stay away!

2009, dir. Roland Emmerich. With John Cusack, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt, Thandie Newton, Danny Glover, Woody Harrelson.

Twilight

Unbelievably cheesy, but with beautiful scenery. The two young stars look pretty in their pale, pale skin, and deliver purple prose in a wooden manner. The trailer for the sequel, "New Moon," has prose that sounds so similar that the poor writing can almost certainly be attributed to Stephanie Meyers (the book author). Most Hollywood screenwriters can write better than this ...

2008, dir. Catherine Hardwicke. With Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke, Ashley Greene, Cam Gigandet, Kellan Lutz, Peter Facinelli, Edi Gathegi.

The Twins Effect (aka "Vampire Effect")

Hollywood at its most over-the-top can't really compete with Hong Kong on a bender. And this is one of those. Primarily a vehicle to get "The Twins" (Charlene Choi and Gillian Chung, a well known Cantopop duo) on screen - with vampires and action. "The Twins" are very cute, the action and acting kind of suck, and it's incredibly stupid.

2003, dir. Dante Lam, Donnie Yen. With Charlene Choi, Gillian Chung, Ekin Cheng, Edison Chen, Anthony Wong, Mandy Chiang, Josie Ho, Maggie Lau, Jackie Chan, Mickey Hardt.

Twinsters

A documentary that opens with Samantha Futerman (she's been in a couple movies in Hollywood) talking about a woman from France - Anaïs Bordier - who had contacted her because her friend said they looked identical ... and when Anaïs looked Samantha up online, she discovered they were both adopted and shared an identical birthdate.

They become friends online, and submit DNA swabs simultaneously via Skype. And before they have confirmation, Sam and some family and friends hop a plane to London to visit Anaïs. No one was terribly surprised when the DNA comes back and they find out they're identical twins. The movie follows them through their initial contact on Facebook, to London, then another meeting in L.A., and then a trip to Seoul for a conference of Korean adoptees.

What makes the movie a success is Sam and Anaïs. It's not just that they're identical twins, but that they're identical charming goofballs. They're likable and I laughed out loud numerous times in the first half of the movie. I laughed less in the second half - not because anything bad happened, but there were less comedic moments and it becomes quite touching seeing them together as they learn about their differences and similarities and each other's history.

The movie has been put together exceptionally well: the music has a very upbeat, "Amelie" vibe to it, including one track that was a straight lift. It was weird to see some absolutely gorgeous location shots that had nothing to do with the twins thrown in amongst the often hand-held video shots of the two of them together, but they were beautiful shots, and the editing is excellent. All together a really charming experience, very highly recommended.

2017-12-10 Update: Rewatched the film, and I haven't given it enough credit. The editing is astonishingly good, and that really brings the drama, the humour, the pathos, everything up a notch. It's a captivating story told incredibly well, and should be seen by more people.

2015, dir. Samantha Futerman, Ryan Miyamoto. With Samantha Futerman, Anaïs Bordier, Kanoa Goo.

Two for the Money

There are times in this movie when Al Pacino is utterly mesmerizing. Unfortunately, that's about all that makes this movie worth watching. Matthew McConaughey plays a washed out football player who picks games for gamblers. He's good, and Pacino ushers him into the big money. Trouble follows. The portrayal of the gambling personality isn't bad, but the movie itself is a mess.

2005, dir. D.J. Caruso. With Al Pacino, Matthew McConaughey, Rene Russo, Armand Assante, Jeremy Piven.

Two for the Road

Albert Finney and Audrey Hepburn play the Wallaces, a couple married for ten years and not entirely happy about it. The movie paints their relationship over its entire lifetime, leaping forward and back over the years and making no effort to explain what time period we're looking at - although that's usually fairly clear and not entirely important, but it's a bit disorienting. Finney and Hepburn are very good and the characters are well drawn, but the movie as a whole was distinctly unsatisfying, having no clear beginning or ending, nor any apparent conclusion to be drawn from this window on a damaged relationship.

1967, dir. Stanley Donen. With Audrey Hepburn, Albert Finney, Eleanor Bron, William Daniels, Gabrielle Middleton, Claude Dauphin, Nadia Gray, Georges Descrières.

2 Guns

Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg play a pair of bank-robbing criminals, or at least that's how we first see them. But then we backtrack a week, to see them making a deal with a Mexican drug lord. And then we find out that both of them are undercover and trying (among other things) to frame the other guy. But the bank robbery produces a whole lot more money than they expected, and makes them some really nasty enemies.

Washington and Wahlberg are clearly having fun and there's some humour and fun to be had, but the script isn't all that well written. Washington and Wahlberg play really well together so I ended up enjoying the movie, but it's actually a pretty bad movie that plays like the dumb-ass comic it was based on.

2013, dir. Baltasar Kormákur. With Denzel Washington, Mark Wahlberg, Paula Patton, Bill Paxton, Fred Ward, James Marsden, Edward James Olmos.

Two Mules for Sister Sara

Clint Eastwood's character Hogan starts the movie by rescuing a young woman (Shirley MacLaine) from some bandits ... and is shocked to find she's a nun travelling alone. He reluctantly rides on with her, and they eventually find they have similar aims - bringing down the French occupation of Mexico (where the movie is set).

Eastwood plays the same character as he always does. MacLaine is pretty and amusing as a somewhat unorthodox nun. Not bad, but hardly a great Western either.

1970, dir. Don Siegel. With Clint Eastwood, Shirley MacLaine, Manolo Fábregas.


U

The Ultimate Gift

It's not that I have a problem with the messages: selfishness is bad, money isn't that important. But I do have a problem with the incredibly heavy-handed delivery. Some relief comes in the form of decent acting by almost everyone involved, but the overwhelming sentimentality is pretty damaging. And there are too many convenient co-incidences (although perhaps we're meant to think that God stepped in and helped - this is a FoxFaith product, after all).

Drew Fuller plays Jason Stevens, a trust-fund twenty-something who hasn't worked a day in his life and doesn't blink at spending thousands on ... well, anything. Jame Garner plays his grandfather, whose videotaped will drives the plot of the story. His children receive huge amounts of money or property (along with acerbic comments) and are unsatisfied. To Jason, Garner's character leaves a series of tasks leading up to "the ultimate gift."

Abigail Breslin does a good job despite being made a walking plot driver. Fuller almost manages to sell the massive transformation of his selfish and obnoxious character. But the movie ultimately falls to its own sledgehammer message and sentimentality.

2007, dir. Michael O. Sajbel. With Drew Fuller, James Garner, Ali Hillis, Abigail Breslin.

Ultraviolet

Pissed off superwoman takes on futuristic patriarchal society single-handedly and saves the world in the process ... Sounds like "Æon Flux" - in fact it's almost exactly like "Æon Flux," right down to the fact that it SUCKS. If you have to see one of them, Flux is a bit better. Although the extremely colourful cinematography, shot primarily in Shanghai, does help a little here. The theatre edit was mind-numbingly stupid, but the six extra minutes on the DVD cut offers no redemption.

2006, dir. Kurt Wimmer. With Milla Jovovich.

The Umbrella Academy (Season 1)

Based on a comic book series written by Gerard Way and illustrated by Gabriel Bá, this is a ten part (one hour each) mini-series from Netflix - although the ending very clearly shows that they intend to carry on.

The name of the series is also the name of the group, seven children with superpowers raised by a dictatorial old man who essentially bought them from their parents. They're about as dysfunctional as a family can be. By the time the series starts, they've all gone their separate ways - but are brought back together by the death of their "father."

While his death does bring them back together, it doesn't make them get along. No one - not even Number One / Luther (Tom Hopper) is too torn up about their father's death, but a couple of them try to find out how he died. And Five claims he's just returned from the future (the others are 40 years old, but he appears to be 13 and spends the entire series dressed in his old school uniform) and the end of the world will happen in seven days, so he sets out to prevent that.

It's violent, ludicrous, and populated with a bunch of very hard-to-like characters. Perhaps the most likeable character is Ben - one of the seven, but he died quite young. Now Klaus is the only person who sees him - Klaus being the member of the family who stays constantly high in a deliberate attempt to suppress his power to see the dead.

I didn't dislike it, but watching a bunch of not particularly well acted or scripted unpleasant people fight and kill others isn't really my idea of a good time.

2019. With Ellen Page, Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher, Mary J. Blige, Cameron Britton, John Magaro, Adam Godley, Colm Feore, Sheila McCarthy, Justin H. Min, Jordan Claire Robbins, Ashley Madekwe, Kate Walsh.

Unbreakable

M. Night Shyamalan's sophomore effort shows the same incredible attention to detail of his first film ("The Sixth Sense"). When I first saw it, I wasn't entirely happy with it, but a second viewing left me astounded at how carefully worked out it is. I also came away with a greater respect for the subject matter. Bruce Willis plays a security guard who survives what should have been a fatal accident and his entire life changes because of it. Think of a real world adaptation of comic books rather than "Final Destination."

2000. dir. M. Night Shyamalan. With Bruce Willis, Robin Wright, Samuel L. Jackson.

Uncharted

Our main character is Nate Drake (Tom Holland) - from the "Uncharted" video game series. He and his older brother were orphaned, and they were thieves even in their youth. But his brother runs away after a botched robbery when Nate was ten, leaving a long shadow over the rest of our protagonist's life. Now in his mid-twenties, Nate is approached by Sully (Mark Wahlberg) who's interested in recovering the same treasure that Nate and his brother dreamed of retrieving. After some disagreements, they set out together to pursue the treasure. They cross paths with multiple other treasure hunters, all of them even less trustworthy than Sully.

The double-crosses and misplaced trust are never-ending. The defiance of physics is ... well, awful, although not quite as bad as I expected. The movie tries hard to be the next Indiana Jones, but instead falls short of Benjamin Franklin Gates (and if you don't recognize the reference, that's kind of the point).

2022, dir. Ruben Fleischer. With Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, Sophia Ali, Tati Gabrielle, Antonio Banderas, Rudy Pankow, Manuel de Blas, Steven Waddington, Alana Boden, Pingi Moli.

Under Siege

Steven Seagal plays Casey Ryback, cook on the soon-to-be-decommissioned battleship USS Missouri. When a group of mercenaries led by Billy Strannix (Tommy Lee Jones) is let on the ship by the second in command (Gary Busey) under the guise of musicians and caterers for the captain's birthday party, it falls to the "I also cook" guy to save the entire ship. His primary assistance comes from Jordan Tate (Erika Eleniak - Playboy's Miss July, 1989, absolutely gorgeous in a terribly 80s way).

I've tended to think of this as Seagal's first feature film, but it was actually his fifth. I guess I thought that because I assumed his career started on a high and has been perpetually downhill - because this is most definitely his best film. It's his best film in part because it's (happily) not entirely his: he's on screen rather less than usual and Busey, Jones, and even Eleniak do a good job. Jones is brilliant as the intelligent, ironic, and incredibly dangerous Strannix. Eleniak has an incredibly memorable moment in which she cries "I'm an actress! I did a 'Hunter' episode, and a 'Wet'n Wild' video ...'" Getting her to mock herself and all other Playboy Playmates was a moment of pure genius and she sure as hell out-acted Seagal. All together an excellent action film.

1992, dir. Andrew Davis. With Steven Seagal, Tommy Lee Jones, Erika Eleniak, Gary Busey.

Under the Tuscan Sun

The definitive not-a-romantic-comedy. That's not sarcasm: it has all the makings of a romantic comedy, it just ... isn't. It's about recovering from the end of a relationship. Based on a true story, the flow isn't quite as neatly packaged as most movies - and that's a good thing. Diane Lane is good as the main character, and gets good support from a largely unknown cast.

2003, dir. Audrey Wells. With Diane Lane, Sandra Oh.

Underworld

Goth is dead. Long live Goth. "West Side Story," but the gangs are vampires and werewolves. Fairly entertaining. ... As a follow-up, I should add that while the acting is so-so and the dialogue is mediocre, there are a wealth of carefully worked-out details in the underlying plot that fit together like clockwork. Someone was thinking about the results of who-bites-who. (That someone turns out to be Kevin Grevioux, who was also the writer and a biology major - interesting.) Michael Sheen stood out as being particularly charismatic: it's been amusing to watch his rise since this movie.

The Unrated Extended Cut on BluRay (which doesn't contain the Theatrical Cut reviewed above - a real pain): includes more backstory on Selene (Kate Beckinsale), Lucian (Sheen), Kraven (Shane Brolly), and especially Michael Corvin (Scott Speedman) - and extended battle scenes. More on Lucian is good: Sheen's a good actor. More on Kraven is a really poor choice, Brolly is an incredibly bad actor. There are lots of worse "extended cuts," but this one is just long without benefit.

I found a copy of the Theatrical cut, and have watched this movie multiple times. Yes, the dialogue isn't great, but the characters are fun, the aesthetic is impressive, and the action is great.

2003, dir. Len Wiseman. With Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Bill Nighy, Michael Sheen, Shane Brolly, Erwin Leder, Sophia Myles, Kevin Grevioux.

Underworld: Evolution

There were moments during this movie when I completely lost the ability to suspend belief, as the logic is extremely flawed from end to end. It's a mess, it's absurd - and it's still kind of fun, but not as good as the first. Amusing to see Derek Jacobi slumming.

2006, dir. Len Wiseman. With Kate Beckinsale, Scott Speedman, Derek Jacobi, Tony Curran, Bill Nighy.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

I thought Bill Nighy was chewing scenery in the first movie, but I was mistaken: he REALLY gets down to it this time. God what an awful performance. And the man's capable of such excellent acting (see "The Girl in the Café") ...

Prequel to the original "Underworld," telling the story of the Lycan/Vampire lovers Lucian (Michael Sheen) and Sonja (Rhona Mitra), and the ruling vampire, Sonja's father Viktor (Nighy). And the Lycan rebellion against vampire rule led by Lucian. They're trying for the Romeo-and-Juliet thing again. Not a disastrous idea, but with a lousy script, poor acting and special effects we've all seen before, there's little here even for the fans. The pre-ordained nature of prequels bothered me more than usual here: Sonja dies, Lucian lives, and Viktor lives - despite a killing blow from Lucian. One of the few redeeming features was the effective resurrection of Raze (Kevin Grevioux), although he seems best taken in small doses.

2009, dir. Patrick Tatopoulos. With Michael Sheen, Bill Nighy, Rhona Mitra, Kevin Grevioux, Steven Mackintosh.

Underworld: Awakening

Resuming shortly after the events of "Underworld: Evolution," the humans have finally noticed the vampires and lycans among them and are determined to kill them all. Selene (Kate Beckinsale) is captured and held for experimentation. Of course she gets out and murder and mayhem ensue.

This is a very frenetic movie with more action than talk. I hope Beckinsale is getting rich, as she's abandoned a passable acting talent apparent 15 years ago. She grimaces, snarls, and leaps - there's not much more there. The story is mildly entertaining, and, as noted, there's plenty of action. It doesn't really amount to much - slightly better and slightly blander than "Evolution," this isn't a good movie.

2012, dir. Måns Mårlind and Björn Stein. With Kate Beckinsale, Stephen Rea, India Eisley, Michael Ealy, Theo James, Kris Holden-Ried, Charles Dance, Scott Speedman.

Underworld: Blood Wars

My only excuse for watching this is that I still think that the original movie ("Underworld") is one of the masterpieces of cheesy action horror. Yes, it was cheesy, but it had an enjoyable line-up of A-listers (or soon-to-be-A-listers in the case of Michael Sheen), it was surprisingly well thought out, and the action was really good. But the sequels (and prequel) - all of which I've seen - are horrible. And the last two are starting to make the first sequel look pretty good ...

Kate Beckinsale (I can only imagine how much money they pay her to make her keep returning to this atrocious series) is back as Selene, the renegade and much modified vampire warrior. She's doing her best to stay out of the never-ending war with the Lycans (werewolves), but the Lycans have a new leader Marius (Tobias Menzies) and her best bud David (Theo James) from the last movie wants her fighting with the vampires.

Unlike the last film, this movie does have more than 30 seconds of plot development. Perhaps it's only compared to that one that I felt this had something resembling a plot, but most of the 90 minute run-time is still given over to action. Marius has new super Lycan powers, so it's pretty much inevitable that Selene gets a power-up too. I have to admit that not only is there a marked similarity to a video game, but also to the never-ending "Resident Evil" series of films (although they claim the last was "The Final Chapter") in which Alice keeps getting upgrades. And that's not a comparison I like.

Garbage. Avoid.

2016, dir. Anna Foerster. With Kate Beckinsale, Theo James, Lara Pulver, Tobias Menzies, Bradley James, Peter Andersson, James Faulkner, Clementine Nicholson, Daisy Head, Oliver Stark, Charles Dance.

An Unfinished Life

Not Lasse Hallström's best work - I think that title goes to "The Shipping News." This does carry some similarities, with people in need of healing and forgiveness. Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman are good, Jennifer Lopez and Becca Gardner (who plays her daughter) are not, and Josh Lucas ... doesn't do anything spectacular.

Lopez plays a woman abused by her boyfriend, who leaves the boyfriend as much at her daughter's insistence as at her own desire. She ends up taking her daughter to stay with her ex-father-in-law, the very bitter Newman - who was the father of her dead husband. Freeman plays the ranch hand mauled by a bear that Newman takes care of.

2005, dir. Lasse Hallström. With Robert Redford, Morgan Freeman, Jennifer Lopez, Josh Lucas, Damian Lewis, Camryn Manheim, Becca Gardner.

Unforgiven

Not only the best Western ever made, also one of the best movies ever made. It starts simple - simple idea, simple reasons, simple camera work. But it's mesmerising: it builds and draws you in, with the characters, the acting, and the structure - just a breathtaking film. See it.

1992, dir. Clint Eastwood. With Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris, Jaimz Woolvett, Saul Rubinek, Frances Fisher, Anna Levine.

The Uninvited

Set in 1937 (but shot in 1944), Rick Fitzgerald (Ray Milland) and his sister Pamela (Ruth Hussey) find a house on a cliff by the sea, and when their dog chases a squirrel through an open window, they discover the house is abandoned. They fall in love with the place (it's gorgeous, why wouldn't they?) and decide to buy the house, give up their jobs in London, and live there. The owner ("Commander Beech," played by Donald Crisp) is willing to let the place go at a surprisingly low price. Rick meets, and starts to flirt with the Commander's daughter Stella (Gail Russell). Stella is unhappy the house has been sold, but Rick is more than happy to have her visit it. But both he, his sister, and their housekeeper all notice strange things happening in the house ...

There are some elements of horror, but most modern watchers would label this as "mildly supernatural" and leave it at that. It does succeed in being both charming and somewhat creepy, and the end product is something I quite enjoyed.

An odd post script comes from my noticing that Dr. Scott, played by Alan Napier, towers over Milland. I thought "Ray Milland is NOT short!" I was correct: IMDB puts him at 6'1". Napier turns out to be 6'6" ... and in looking that up, I found out that his most famous role was Alfred Pennyworth, the Adam West version of Batman's butler. Too bad he was remembered most for that: he seems to have been a decent actor.

1944, dir. Lewis Allen. With Ray Milland, Gail Russell, Ruth Hussey, Donald Crisp, Barbara Everest, Alan Napier, Cornelia Otis Skinner.

Universal Soldier Regeneration

The third instalment of the "Universal Soldier" franchise, this one went straight-to-DVD. I freely admit this review is based on a speed-watch: I got through the 100 minute run-time in under an hour, zooming through multiple sections of B-movie idiocy. The plot revolves around a group of terrorists seizing and threatening to blow up the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. They're in control (mostly) of a couple of "Universal Soldiers." Jean-Claude Van Damme's Luc Deveraux character is forced back into service, and a cloned Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren) also puts in an appearance. There's lots of running around and shooting, and even a fair bit of crashing through walls. A staggeringly dull movie: the only thing mildly memorable about it was Lundgren's disoriented and demented performance: not great acting, but at least slightly (intentionally) amusing.

2009, dir. John Hyams. With Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, Andrei "The Pit Bull" Arlovski, Mike Pyle.

Unknown Origins

The literal translation of the original Spanish title is "Secret Origins," which makes more sense for the movie. But Netflix chose the English title "Unknown Origins."

New cop David (Javier Ray) is investigating a new and gruesome case. He turns to the older Cosme (Antonio Resines) - an excellent cop who is being retired by their new department head Norma (Verónica Echegui). Norma also forces David to work with Cosme's son Jorge (Brays Efe) who's a hard-core comic geek because each of the new murder cases seems to represent a comic book origin story, and David is disdainful of comics and knows nothing about them. We also find out that Verónica isn't big on the rules, and she loves cosplay (which she often does at Jorge's comic store).

The deaths they investigate are impressively grotesque, something I didn't enjoy. And I found the ending both inevitable and unsatisfying. Possibly interesting to fans of superhero stories who have a strong stomach.

2020, dir. David Galán Galindo. With Javier Rey, Antonio Resines, Brays Efe, Verónica Echegui, Ernesto Alterio.

Unleashed

A very confused movie. Starts out looking like a martial arts movie (albeit with a mildly bizarre twist), then sidetracks for 45 minutes into a movie about recovery from abuse, and then goes back to being a martial arts movie. I guess that's what you get when you let Luc Besson do the screenplay. Martial arts fans, even ones who might enjoy movies about abuse recovery, aren't likely to enjoy this: who wants their martial arts diluted? No one else is going to like it much either. Morgan Freeman does manage to add some nice moments - he's a good actor.

2005, dir. Louis Leterrier. With Jet Li, Morgan Freeman, Bob Hoskins, Kerry Condon.

Unmistaken Child

A documentary. After the death of a famous and well-loved Lama, the young disciple of the Lama is abruptly tasked with finding the living re-incarnation of the master. He clearly doesn't feel quite up to this task - he's spent his whole life simply doing what his master said, and now he's suddenly sent out into the world on this massive undertaking. But we could hardly ask for a more charming guy: Tenzin Zopa embodies the very best of the Buddhist tradition. It's a fascinating view into a world most of us have no idea about.

My only complaint was that for the first few minutes I really, really wished director Nati Baratz had heard of "Steadycam," because it was immediately, painfully clear that this was all handheld video. It was mildly nauseating for a while. But either it got better or I ceased to care as the movie progressed - I certainly became quite wrapped up in what was going on.

2008, dir. Nati Baratz. With Tenzin Zopa.

Unstoppable

Finds a mismatched pair of veteran train engineer Barnes (Denzel Washington) and rookie conductor Colson (Chris Pine) going out for a regular day on the line ... until incompetence up the line sends a runaway train straight at them. It's not a complex story, but it's well constructed with reasonably likeable characters and plenty of tension. Enjoyable.

2010, dir. Tony Scott. With Denzel Washington, Chris Pine, Rosario Dawson, Lew Temple, Ethan Suplee, Kevin Dunn, Jessy Schram, Meagan Tandy, Elizabeth Mathis.

Up

"Up" starts out by introducing us to Carl, and the love of his life, Ellie. In ten minutes we see their entire (childless) lifetime together, right up until Ellie's death. After that, his house is surrounded by high rises, and he takes things into his own hands by attaching thousands of helium balloons to the house and taking off on the adventure (to South America) the two of them had always sworn they'd take. One small problem: a persistent young scout has unintentionally joined him ... And of course there are all kinds of surprises waiting for them in South America.

Pixar used the 3D as part of the experience rather than the "throw it in your face to startle you" approach. And yet it still feels like a gimmick. I enjoyed it, and I wouldn't mind seeing 3D movies occasionally, but I don't think I'd want to see them with any regularity. (I've also seen the movie in 2D.)

The movie is somewhat didactic (think "Cars") but still bright, shiny, funny, and fun. Perhaps not their best, but nevertheless worth seeing.

2009, dir. Pete Docter and Bob Peterson. With Ed Asner, Jordan Nagai, Christopher Plummer, Bob Peterson, Delroy Lindo, Jerome Ranft, John Ratzenberger.

Upgrade

Wikipedia lists "Upgrade" as "body horror" (among other things), and there's certainly some truth to that. But it's also thought-provoking near-future science fiction, which is one of my favourite things. Not on par with "Ex Machina," which is the first thing that comes to mind when I think "thought-provoking near-future SF," but still an interesting piece of work that anyone concerned with the future of humanity should watch. It's also a fairly entertaining revenge flick, with all kinds of added twists ...

Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green) is a car mechanic of the old-fashioned, drive-them-yourself variety of cars, whose wife works for the computer tech firm Cobolt. When she's murdered and he's left a quadriplegic, he accepts the offer of one of his patrons (the very rich owner of another tech company) who implants a chip that restores control of his body. This is an illegal medical test, so he has to keep it quiet. But when he can get some time unobserved, he follows up on the murder of his wife that the police have had no luck solving ... with the assistance of the AI that's now mediating his access to his own body. Which turns out to be very good at both detective work and killing.

The movie is many things: a violent revenge flick, a horror comedy, and in the end a depressing cautionary tale about technology. I didn't love the ending, although I didn't disagree with it: I just felt like the tone of the movie as a whole deserved a slightly less dark ending. Regardless, both an entertaining and interesting piece of work.

2018, dir. Leigh Whannell. With Logan Marshall-Green, Betty Gabriel, Harrison Gilbertson, Melanie Vallejo, Benedict Hardie, Linda Cropper, Simon Maiden.

Up In the Air

George Clooney plays the lead in this comedy-drama about a man who spends 90% of his life travelling, going from place to place firing people for bosses too weak-willed to fire their own employees. He loves the constant flying and the lack of commitments in his life. He meets another frequent flyer named Alex (Vera Farmiga) and starts an intermittent relationship with her.

I saw an edited version (how much edited I don't know) of this movie on a flight. And the playback system bumped me out several times so I saw chunks and parts of it over several hours. It was good, but not as good as I expected given the reviews: I really need to see this in its original form, all at once, before I make any more comments on it.

2009, dir. Jason Reitman. With George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick.

Upside Down

The film is based on a physical impossibility, the idea of two more-or-less full size planets that permanently exist some 100 metres apart, and objects that come from one world will always be drawn by gravity to that world and never the other. A voice-over by Jim Sturgess (playing Adam, our main point of view) at the beginning of the movie tells us about these things, and the fact that "after some time in contact, matter in contact with inverse matter burns." This becomes an important plot point, but brings up the first of many major inconsistencies within the movie. I don't actually mind crazy impossibilities like this, but if you're going to do it you'd better apply the rules you lay down consistently. A big novelty on the richer world is drinking drinks from the other world (which have to be held upside down because they're pulled by the other world's gravity). Think about that: you've just put a good dose of "inverse matter" in your stomach: how's that going to work out for you? Because, as is made clear with "contact," they do mean "burn." But - the plot: Adam is from the lower world, and he meets and falls in love with Eden, from the upper world. She loves him as well, but their love is forbidden by the strict separation between the two planets. As with any Adam and Eve story, many obstacles come between our lovers.

Visually brilliant, but crippled by massive logic flaws, a poor plot and an awful script, the movie crumples under its own weight. I had high hopes for this one, but the reports were correct: it's pretty lame. If you love your visual spectaculars and don't mind otherwise poor execution, this may be worth a watch (on a big screen!): otherwise, give this a miss.

Something that bothered me (a former engineer) but might not bother others was the physics of the situation. Adam spends some time wearing a suit weighted with inverse matter so he can sneak to the other world (and eventually encounters the "burning" mentioned earlier). First, the pockets for the weights face up, which is incredibly stupid: the only sane direction for them would be sideways. Think about it. Second, for him to act more or less normally on the other world, he's going to have to carry twice his own weight (if he only carried a bit more than his own weight, he'd bounce like a man on the moon). Even if he has inverse lead, this would bulk him up severely and be obvious to anyone looking at him - not something we saw. Another fascinating problem they of course didn't address at all is that, while he may have regular weight behaviour vertical to the two planets, he's now in possession of three times his normal mass - which would severely effect his momentum side-to-side. Seriously: when he ran with the weights on, cornering quickly would essentially become an impossibility and he'd probably break his ankle and/or crash into walls.

2012, dir. Juan Diego Solanas. With Jim Sturgess, Kirsten Dunst, Timothy Spall.

The Upside of Anger

If watching Joan Allen be a drunken obnoxious bitch for a couple of hours is your thing, then this is your movie. The character is pretty seriously unappealing, and there's not a hell of a lot to recommend the movie as a whole. The basic premise: Allen's husband disappears - runs off with his secretary - as the movie starts, and she mistreats her four daughters and her new boyfriend. The word "comedy" was mentioned in the extras. Was that what this was? I didn't laugh (at all).

2005, dir. Mike Binder. With Joan Allen, Kevin Costner, Erika Christensen, Evan Rachel Wood, Keri Russell, Alicia Witt, Mike Binder.

The Usual Suspects

The movie that put director Bryan Singer on the map - with a huge bang too. It's at #16 (in 2005, slipped to #25 in 2010) on IMDB's top movies of all time. What to say about it? Complex film noir ensemble. Very good ... although I've always felt "L.A. Confidential" is quite similar and notably better.

1995, dir. Bryan Singer. With Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri, Stephen Baldwin, Benicio Del Toro, Kevin Pollak, Pete Postlethwaite.


V

V for Vendetta

Alan Moore wrote the original graphic novel, and he disowned this interpretation written by the Wachowski brothers (umm, "siblings" - they were "brothers" at the time). Having seen it, I think they did a remarkably good job given the difficulties presented in bringing this to the screen. Natalie Portman plays well as the all-important Evey. A little too violent for an ideas movie, and far too thought-provoking for an action movie, I'm surprised it's found an audience at all - especially given that it glamorizes terrorism in a post-9-11 world. The Wachowski brothers (who wrote, and, I think, produced) pretty much redeem themselves for the second and third Matrix movies here. The visual style is a direct lift from the original graphic novel, although the ending is somewhat different. Highly recommended.

A stand-out role for me in this movie (although all the acting is excellent) is Stephen Fry as a gay TV producer in a society that prosecutes gays. He does a fantastic job as a man in a very difficult circumstance who still has hope. I also liked Stephen Rea as the world-weary detective whose conscience hasn't quite fled him.

2006. dir. James McTeigue. With Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea, Stephen Fry, John Hurt.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Luc Besson has always been spectacularly uneven, but I watch most of his movies because of "La Femme Nikita and "The Fifth Element." But this was much as reported by critics: spectacularly pretty and remarkably bad. Dane DeHaan plays sleazebag government agent Valerian, who travels the stars while making passes at his co-worker who keeps saying "no." This is meant to come off as interstellar James Bond, but DeHaan and the script combine to make it much creepier. It's based on a graphic novel series called "Valerian and Laureline," but Laureline (Cara Delevingne) has been demoted. Delevigne is a supermodel who gets her roles based on her looks - it certainly isn't her acting skill. If they'd put a better actress in the role I'd have felt worse about the demotion.

The movie is somewhat reminiscent of the joyful lunacy of "The Fifth Element." "Valerian" has lunacy, but it's not joyful. And that's a critical lack, particularly with no appealing characters in sight. Visually stunning and stupid.

2017, dir. Luc Besson. With Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Clive Owen, Rihanna, Ethan Hawke, Herbie Hancock, Kris Wu, Rutger Hauer.

Valhalla Rising

Mads Mikkelsen is One Eye, a mute captive warrior kept in a cage and let out mostly for betting fights against warriors from other groups - who he kills in spectacular displays of violence. Made all the stranger by the incredibly slow pace of the film and lack of dialogue. One Eye is traded to another group, escapes, and kills nearly everyone. The young boy who has always fed him follows him, and eventually they meet a group of warrior Christians. The movie only gets weirder from there.

I actually quite enjoyed the first third of the movie, but the part on the boat was just tedious and boring, and the part in the Holy Land (that turns out not to be the Holy Land) went severely "Aguirre, The Wrath of God" (1972, directed by Werner Herzog). Which is to say, psychedelic, insane, and everybody dies. Oops - should I have said "Spoiler Alert?" Ah, nobody reads this anyway, and if you're watching a violent movie about an insane one-eyed killing machine, you have to expect that. I really hated "Aguirre," which put me off this movie. But it is at least interesting.

2009, dir. Nicolas Winding Refn. With Mads Mikkelsen, Maarten Stevenson, Ewan Stewart, Gary Lewis, Alexander Morton, Jamie Sives, Gordon Brown, Gary McCormack, Charlie Allan.

Vampires vs. the Bronx

I'm not a fan of horror movies but have long been a fan of horror-comedy - much to my surprise. This movie exists at a particularly weird intersection: vampire movies and urban kids' movies. Our heroes are a trio of thirteen-year-olds living in the Bronx. "Lil' Mayor" (so titled for his incessant neighbourhood advocacy, played by Jaden Michael) begins to believe that the real estate firm that's gentrifying the neighbourhood is in fact a group of vampires. His friends come around to his point of view, and they get serious about taking out some vampires.

Light on horror and blood, this leans more to comedy. And it mostly works because it doesn't condescend to its young stars or treat them as stupid. The dialogue is often quite funny, making this one enjoyable.

The real estate agency name is "Murnau Properties," a nod to film director F. W. Murnau who directed the spectacularly influential "Nosferatu" (1922).

2020, dir. Oz Rodriguez. With Jaden Michael, Gerald W. Jones III, Gregory Diaz IV, Sarah Gadon, Cliff "Method Man" Smith, Shea Whigham, Coco Jones.

Van der Valk, Season 1

There was a previous British TV production by the same name that produced five series from 1972 to 1992. This is a review of the 2020 reboot, and it indirectly gives us a throw-back to the bad old days: this is a TV series that's filmed in a foreign country and the actors speak English as if that's the native language of the foreign country ... (Yes, English is commonly spoken in Amsterdam. Yes, they speak the language better than most native speakers of English. But the reality is that some of the people the police would speak with speak only Dutch.)

Marc Warren is Piet Van der Valk, a "Commissaris" ("Commissioner," not that that helps me much) in the Dutch police in Amsterdam. He has three staff working for him, a boss (who is a "Hoofdcommissaris"), and a forensic pathologist. They solve crimes (you were probably expecting that). The season is broken up into six episodes of about 45 minutes each - three stories, each spanning two episodes. Van der Valk is a grumpy asshole - who nevertheless has women propositioning him all the time.

Maybe a bit too violent for me, but I think this falls under my oft-repeated mantra about mysteries: I want to see detectives detecting, not fighting for their lives. Although the show got major points for the stabbing of one of the police officers: they approached someone a bit incautiously, were taken by surprise, stabbed once in the stomach. There was nothing heroic about it, they didn't fight after being stabbed, just crumpled and nearly died. This seems fairly accurate to me - as opposed to action movies where people take several major stab wounds and just keep on fighting. My other protest against the series was that the mysteries seemed excessively convoluted - although they did make sense in the end. The team of actors/characters they put together for the show is very appealing, and the filming in Amsterdam looks beautiful - including many places not seen on the tourist trail.

2020. With Marc Warren, maimie McCoy, Luke Allen-Gale, Elliot Barnes-Worrell, Darrell D'Silva, Emma Fielding, Mike Libanon.

Van Helsing

Another take on the vampire stories. Hugh Jackman plays the title character, hunting not just vampires but any sort of monster. In the first five minutes they mash up Frankenstein and Dracula (in black and white), and in the next five they mash up The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. There are a lot of references to other movies, including "Labyrinth" (David Bowie's character walking on the underside of walkways) and Bond movies (the riff on Q's laboratory was particularly funny). Ultimately it takes itself too seriously - among other things, it's implied that Van Helsing's origins are positively biblical. It reminded me a lot of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" - both had incredible potential, both end up being very bad movies.

2004, dir. Stephen Sommers. With Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale, Richard Roxburgh, David Wenham, Will Kemp.

Van Life

"Van Life" is a one hour TV documentary about Americans adopting a nomadic, van-based lifestyle. Oddly, it's a French production, although all the dialogue is in English as is the narration. The one weird side effect of the country of origin is the maps of the U.S. we see for only a few seconds, that say "Californie," "Caroline du Sud," "Nouveau-Mexique," and several others. And yet some states, like "Nevada" and "Kentucky," escape with their original names.

The movie concentrates on several sets of people - one young woman starting out in an unfinished van, a couple who use product placements in their popular photos to finance a lifestyle they've been living for a couple years, a retired couple in an off-road-equipped van, a couple with a 4 year old who set up beer stands across the country ... It's a strange list.

I suppose I was hoping for a HOWTO (I've been a fan of travel for a couple decades, and this idea really appeals to me), but this is of course far too short to provide that. What it did point out is that if you're in a van (as opposed to a camper), you're not getting a shower every day. I don't like that ...

Not too bad a documentary, but too short to offer much more than a quick overview.

2019, dir. Mattieu Fauroux.

Vanity Fair

Reese Witherspoon takes on the role of Becky Sharp at the centre of Thackeray's "Vanity Fair." A little too long, or perhaps not involving enough for its length. The costumes and scene dressing are very good, the acting is fairly good, where did it fail? Some of the critics take issue with the substantial softening of Sharp's character from the source material, and keeping her as conniving as she originally was would probably have made a better (but less charming) movie.

2004, dir. Mira Nair. With Reese Witherspoon, Gabriel Byrne, Romola Garai, Rhys Ifans, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Bob Hoskins, James Purefoy, Jim Broadbent.

Venom

Eddie Brock (played by Tom Hardy) is a slightly sleazy but very good investigative journalist with an eye to helping the homeless. Unable to reign in his own instincts to take down the big guys (in this case Carlton Drake of the Life Foundation, played by Riz Ahmed), he betrays his girlfriend (Michelle Williams - in one of her worst performances on record) by reading her confidential legal documents and then using them against Drake in an interview. Which terminates both Brock's job and his girlfriend's.

Any fan of Marvel already knows that one of the symbionts that Life Foundation brought back from space is going to end up attached to Eddie Brock. It's the name - he's Venom, Venom is him. So yeah, that happens. But there's an adjustment period: Venom is intelligent, but violent and nihilistic, which ironically makes Eddie the more responsible of the pair. And since we know that four of the symbionts came back from space ... well, again, fans of Marvel know there has to be a fight.

Wikipedia says "... received generally negative reviews from critics for its script and inconsistent tone. However, some praised Hardy's performance and the chemistry between Brock and Venom." Hardy is one of the best actors in the world today, and he was really good despite a fairly mediocre script and a weak supporting cast. I was mostly against the movie until the last 15 or 20 minutes, when the back-and-forth dialogue between Brock and Venom (Hardy also voiced Venom) almost won me over. With the Deadpool-like humour (Venom proposes several times to eat various people and dogs and Eddie has to fight him off) I'm not sure if they can pull off the sequel they're clearly lining up - it's just not a kind of humour you can keep going for an entire movie. But I did definitely enjoy this one in the end.

2018, dir. Ruben Fleischer. With Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed, Scott Haze, Reid Scott, Jenny Slate, Melora Williams.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage

Tom Hardy is back as both Eddie Brock and the voice of his alien symbiont Venom. Evidently the producers or writers heard from the fans: "Eddie and Venom arguing was the best part of the previous movie" (you'll notice I said something similar) so they decided the right thing to do was to add a lot more of that. As it turns out, there's an upper limit on how much of that is good: "leave them wanting more" definitely doesn't apply this time around.

Eddie gets a couple interviews with serial killer Cletus Kasady (teased in a post-credit scene in the previous movie - the part is played by Woody Harrelson). Cletus is sentenced to death, but having tasted Eddie's blood, he's now infected with his own symbiont called Carnage. Venom is a murderous creature, enjoying destruction. Cletus makes Venom look like a pussy. And Carnage ... well, Carnage makes Cletus look like a pussy. And Carnage is a lot stronger than Venom.

I'm kind of notorious among my friends for never liking sequels (there are exceptions, the most notable among them being the "Kung Fu Panda" series). Unfortunately, this remains true here. The story line is classic: Eddie and Venom have a falling-out, they go their separate ways, they realize they need each other. But they're both such assholes that the adventures they have alone make very uneven story arcs. I'm going against most of the critics here, but as problematic as the first movie was, I prefer it. This one's not bad, just not quite as good.

SPOILER ALERT: Stop reading etc. "Shriek" (Naomie Harris) is okay with Cletus murdering 30 or 40 people throughout the movie. But then in the final act, she's suddenly NOT okay with the killing of Anne (played by Michelle Williams, Eddie's former fiancée that he - and Venom - still loves). How does that make any sense at all? The reason is all too obvious: the writers needed a wedge to drive between Carnage and Shriek. As a writer, you're supposed to create a story that's coherent and makes sense: I don't think I've ever in my life seen a moment in film where the writer's need reached out so blatantly through a character to make something happen.

2021, dir. Andy Serkis. With Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Woody Harrelson, Naomie Harris, Reid Scott, Stephen Graham, Peggy Lu, Sian Webber.

Venus

Peter O'Toole plays Maurice (pronounced almost "Morris" throughout), a decrepit old actor. He still gets jobs occasionally (usually as a corpse), and hangs out with his equally old actor best friend "Ian" (Leslie Phillips). Until Ian's grand-niece "Jessie" (Jodie Whittaker) moves in with him. Ian is terrorized by this very young, lower class, and not terribly bright girl, but Maurice is both more able to see her good qualities and is drawn to her looks. Thus starts a very odd relationship. He's drawn to her because she's pretty and takes him away from a very dull life, she's drawn to him because he treats her well and listens to her. And quite frequently drools over her.

O'Toole's portrayal of Maurice is brilliant: Maurice is intelligent, funny, and all about pretty women - no matter how young. He's simultaneously repulsive and sympathetic, one hell of an achievement. Credit should also go to Hanif Kureishi, the writer, for a fine script. All the supporting cast is excellent - particularly Vanessa Redgrave - who, in three short scenes as Maurice's ex-wife, shows an entire lifetime history between them and shows what a brilliantly decent person he has abandoned in search of his own pleasure.

2006, dir. Roger Michell. With Peter O'Toole, Leslie Phillips, Jodie Whittaker, Richard Griffiths, Vanessa Redgrave.

Veronica Mars (Season 1)

I thought "high school teen drama" and dismissed this. But then (with the recent arrival of the crowd-funded movie) I got interested and started asking my sources. And for the first time in history, they all agreed that this is worth seeing. Seriously, they've never done that before.

Veronica Mars (Kristen Bell) is the daughter of Keith Mars (Enrico Colantoni), and they live in Neptune, California. Keith is the former sheriff, now a private investigator - he got booted for his investigation of the death of Veronica's best friend Lilly (Amanda Seyfried), who was also the sister of Veronica's boyfriend Duncan (Teddy Dunn). But Duncan has dumped her without explanation, and that means she's out of the rich crowd and trying to find new friends. Her first, the most major of the season, is Wallace Fennel (Percy Daggs III), who we meet in the first episode.

Each episode has a mystery (or two) that Veronica deals with, but there's also the over-arching mystery of Lilly's murder - and Veronica's date-rape/drugging that happened before the series began. Veronica knows it happened, but can't remember the event: the first episode is particularly dark. But here's the thing: the writing is extremely sharp. No condescension to the characters, no dumbing-down, no twisting of characters to fit plot points. And you need to pay attention: a lot of stuff goes by fast. I was a bit disappointed at end on the over-reliance on the "I can't remember" excuse (Duncan can't remember the night of Lilly's death, Veronica was rufied and doesn't remember the night she was raped), but overall very, very good.

2004, 2005 (22 episodes x 40 minutes). With Kristen Bell, Teddy Dunn, Jason Dohring, Percy Daggs III, Francis Capra, Enrico Colantoni, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Tessa Thompson, Ryan Hansen, Kyle Gallner, Tina Majorino.

Veronica Mars (Season 2)

First episode of the second season, a bus with several students and a teacher goes over a cliff. So there's your big mystery for the season. As with the first season, there are smaller mysteries in most episodes. While it's still good, I didn't think it was as good as the first season, and their joy in tossing the viewer endless red herrings gets incredibly tiresome. Not to mention resurrecting old crimes (think Echolls) to cause more problems, and leaving about three significant things dangling at the end of the season. It's all really dark, more so than the previous season, and just crazy the number of murders and other nastiness that occur in the immediate vicinity of Veronica. And apparently the fans love Veronica and Logan (and thus Duncan is ejected from the plot) but I find him incredibly abrasive, obnoxious, and self-destructive.

2005, 2006 (22 episodes x 40 minutes). With Kristen Bell, Teddy Dunn, Jason Dohring, Percy Daggs III, Francis Capra, Enrico Colantoni, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Tessa Thompson, Ryan Hansen, Kyle Gallner, Charisma Carpenter, Tina Majorino.

Veronica Mars (the movie)

I thought the first season of the "Veronica Mars" TV show was utterly brilliant. Okay, a high school with six murders a year is a bit improbable (these things apparently happen in the fictional Neptune, California), but the dialogue was incredibly sharp and funny and the plot was beautifully structured. But the second season ... more of the same (and a lot more murders), but not as good. And the third - I never watched that. I'm not spending 18 hours of my life on a season that even the hard-core fans didn't much like. Which also means that I was missing one third of the mythology of the story when I started watching, for example I had no idea who "Piz" was - the man that Veronica is now dating, who appeared in the third season.

The movie was Kickstarted by the fan base, with all that implies.

It opens with Veronica (still Kristen Bell) in New York city, interviewing for a job with a law firm (run by Jamie Lee Curtis, wasted in what amounted to a bit part) as Veronica is now (nine years later) a lawyer. But guess what - back in Neptune, Logan (Jason Dohring) is accused of murder. Again. And even though they've had no contact for nine years, he reaches out to her. Again. And back in Neptune, everything is almost exactly the same. Thomas (the series creator and director) manages to dredge up almost every single actor who was in the original series, with a loving nod to each. Wouldn't it have been lovely if Veronica solved a new case in a new place with new characters? In a new style? No, we're dragged back to Neptune and all the trappings of high school, including a reunion (season 3 was at college - this feels more like high school again).

One of the things that impressed me the most about Season 1 was the dialogue: it was incredibly sharp-edged and intelligent. They try here, as they tried in Season 2, but the writing just isn't as good. And I admit that a chunk of what bothers me about the movie is the personal choices Veronica makes during the several days she's back in Neptune - choices that may make fans happy - but my biggest problem was that this felt like a series repeat. The differences being weaker writing, the actors are older, the plot was a little too convoluted for the short run-time, and there was a totally unnecessary cameo by James Franco. All together, a really poor movie.

2014, dir. Rob Thomas. With Kristen Bell, Jason Dohring, Enrico Colantoni, Krysten Ritter, Ryan Hansen, Percy Daggs III, Tina Majorino, Francis Capra, Chris Lowell, Gaby Hoffmann, Jerry O'Connell, Jamie Lee Curtis, ...

Vertigo

James Stewart plays John "Scottie" Ferguson, a police detective retiring because he has severe vertigo and no interest in a desk job. He's hired by a school friend (Tom Helmore) to trail the friend's wife (Kim Novak): she's apparently being possessed by the spirit of a dead (and suicidal) relative. Barbara Bel Geddes plays Ferguson's long-time friend and confidante.

Stewart is too old (50) or Novak is too young (25) for them to fall for each other, but this isn't a big deal. Hitchcock uses a lot of flashing coloured lights for terror and swirly effects for vertigo, stuff that got used heavily in movies through the Sixties that I'm not terribly fond of. Bel Geddes is great as the charming and intelligent female friend who loves Scottie - that Scottie both leans on and ignores. Overall this is a really good (if depressing) movie - about love and obsession (and how well they don't mix) and death.

1958, dir. Alfred Hitchcock. With James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore.

A Very Long Engagement (originally "Un long dimanche de fiançailles")

Re-unites director Jean Pierre Jeunet with his star (Audrey Tautou) from the brilliant "Amélie." He takes us to the first World War, and tries to apply some of that same magic realism from "Amélie" to the rather more depressing subject of a woman searching for her fiancée lost during the war ... and filmed in mustard-gas-yellow. Jeunet's goofy almost-off-topic inserts that worked so well in "Amelie" don't work nearly as well with a more serious subject. It's a long movie and it feels long. What it does best is give a brutal and depressing view of trench warfare. It was supposed to be (I think) about the persistence of hope, and there's certainly a large serving of that too. Weird to see Jodie Foster working in a French movie - her character is Polish, which would excuse any accent.

2004, dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet. With Audrey Tautou, Gaspard Ulliel, Dominique Pinon, Chantal Neuwirth, Jodie Foster.

Vesper

The movie is post-apocalyptic, and you should assume it's quite dark. This is the opening text provided to us (or at least this is the opening paragraph from the Wikipedia page summary, which I think is word-for-word from the film's title slide): "Humanity tried to prevent the impending ecological crisis by investing massively in genetic technology. It failed. Engineered viruses and organisms escaped into the wild. They wiped out edible plants, animals and large populations of humans. An oligarchy now thrives in enclosed cities called 'citadels,' while everyone else struggles to survive. For food, people rely on seeds traded by the citadels. However, these are coded to produce only one harvest."

Our main character is Vesper (Raffiella Chapman), who lives in a battered house in the forest with her paralyzed father (Richard Brake). He's kept alive by some weird bio-machinery that's never explained, and communicates with her through a floating drone / robot-head arrangement that speaks in his voice. Their nearest neighbour, with whom she has to deal occasionally, is Jonas (Eddie Marsan) - who is also Vesper's father's brother. It rapidly becomes clear why they don't live in Jonas' encampment, although there are quite a few people there: he's a vicious bastard who rules with an iron fist, and it's implied he's looking forward to "breeding" with Vesper.

Vesper finds Camellia (Rosy McEwen) in the forest, injured after her citadel flyer crashed. Vesper rescues her, although her father wants her to put Camellia back in the forest to fend for herself. Many lies are told, but eventually they form a bond. We find that Vesper is an extraordinary biologist, experimenting with plants in the hope of finding a way to better feed the people outside the citadels.

Vesper's life is grim and depressing. Much - in fact, I would say "most" - of what we see is never explained. It's visually interesting and internally consistent, but if you want to understand what's going on ... your hopes are likely to be dashed. In fact, the ending was ... hopeful, I think? Although it didn't look like Vesper's life was going to go well.

The end result was a product I have rather mixed feelings about. It's interesting to watch, it's very grim, and after you struggle through the grimness you're left on an ambiguous note that probably means more grimness. (It should be noted that since the COVID-19 pandemic I've had little stomach for depressing movies, so my judgment may be somewhat suspect.)

2022, dir. Kristina Buožytė and Bruno Samper. With Raffiella Chapman, Eddie Marsan, Rosy McEwen, Richard Brake, Melanie Gaydos, Edmund Dehn.

The Vicar of Dibley (Series 1)

This review (such as it is) is more for me than anyone else: I didn't watch the full first series because it was too painful. I watched the first five episodes (although I think there were only six in the first series?). My judgement is definitely going against popular taste, as the series started in 1994 and continues to this day (2021) in the form of recurring specials.

Dawn French plays Vicar Geraldine Granger, assigned to the small town of Dibley after changes in the Church of England allowed the ordination of women. They had all kinds of opportunities to address the problems women encountered being in the clergy, but that's all encapsulated in the first episode. The town's rich councillor David Horton (Gary Waldhorn) writes a letter to the bishop to send her back - but she's cool so the rest of the church council overrides him. That's it - we're done with commentary about women in the clergy.

This 1990s British sitcom is reminiscent of American 1970s sitcoms: everyone is an idiot, improbable things happen, everyone is humiliated to create dubious gags, most of the jokes are bad, and the good jokes are milked until they're horrible. The best example of the latter is Trevor Peacock's character Jim Trott, who stutters on the word "no" and tends to open sentences with it. So to confirm his vote on church council, he says "No no no no no ... yes." This is a running gag through the show. Dear show runners: it was funny two or three times, and you'd used that up after the first episode.

1994, dir. Dewi Humphreys. With Dawn French, Gary Waldhorn, Roger Lloyd-Pack, Trevor Peacock, John Bluthal, James Fleet, Emma Chambers.

View from the Top

Gwyneth Paltrow as a white trash airline stewardess with aspirations. The movie is fairly funny and forgettable.

2003. dir. Bruno Barreto. With Gwyneth Paltrow, Candice Bergen, Christina Applegate, Kelly Preston, Mike Myers.

The Village

In a small village in the 1800s, a truce is maintained between the townsfolk and the creatures that live in the surrounding woods. As usual in a M. Night Shyamalan film, things aren't quite as they appear. Unfortunately I found the twists in this one rather less compelling than in his previous efforts. It has some great moments, but his previous films are better.

2004. dir. M. Night Shyamalan. With William Hurt, Joachim Phoenix, Bryce Dallas Howard, Adrian Brody, Sigourney Weaver.

Violent Night

Director Tommy Wirkola is perhaps best known for his horror-comedy film "Dead Snow" and its sequel, although perhaps his biggest release was "Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters" (which I didn't like - I haven't seen the "Dead Snow" movies). But the idea of a disgruntled Santa Claus getting drawn into a bloody hostage situation really appealed to me, so I sat down to watch "Violent Night."

We first meet David Harbour as Santa Claus, in a bar, disgusted with modern kids who want only video games as gifts and who are only thrilled by a new gift for about five seconds because they've already bought into the consumer ethos. He's trying to get drunk, but still manages to leave for his rounds (after vomiting on the bartender - which is both disgusting and funny). Harbour was an inspired choice for the role, managing to show us not only world-weary and foul-mouthed, but also a heart that still melts for young children.

The next big component of the story is the Lightstone family - father and husband Jason (Alex Hassell), mother and estranged wife Linda (Alexis Louder), and extra-cute daughter Trudy (Leah Brady). They're on their way to another painful Christmas at the estate of Jason's spectacularly rich mother Gertrude (Beverly D'Angelo). Also in attendance are Jason's obnoxious suck-up sister Alva (Edi Patterson), her son Bert (Alexander Elliot), and her stupid action movie star boyfriend Morgan (Cam Gigandet). Christmas Eve is (further) wrecked by a group of mercenaries intent on stealing the family fortune, led by "Scrooge" (John Leguizamo).

It's violent and bloody, and I found it immensely funny (as it was intended to be). Harbour is great in the lead, Trudy is appropriately adorable and innocent, and her parents are charming. I thought Leguizamo was a bit weak as the bad guy, but overall a wonderful exercise in comedic violence, and possibly my new favourite Christmas movie. In an unfortunate turn, the ending eases into sentimentality - but still a lot of fun.

2022, dir. Tommy Wirkola. With David Harbour, John Leguizamo, Alex Hassell, Alexis Louder, Edi Patterson, Leah Brady, Cam Gigandet, Beverly D'Angelo, André Eriksen, Brendan Fletcher, Mike Dopud, Alexander Elliot, Mitra Suri, Can Aydin, Phong Giang, Finn McCager, Rawleigh Clements-Willis, Stephanie Sy.

Visions of Light

A documentary about cinematography. Kind of interesting, talks about the origins of cinematography and its development as the equipment developed, the vision(s) that various D.P.s and directors had. Only for the hard-core cinephile.

1992, dir. Arnold Glassman, Todd McCarthy, Stuart Samuels.

The Visitor

A quietly devastating movie, sad yet hopeful. By the director of "The Station Agent," also a very good movie - and this one is an order of magnitude better. Richard Jenkins plays Professor Walter Vale, a man barely alive in his own life, simply going through the motions. Until he's forced to go to New York, where he finds a young immigrant couple living in his apartment: they've been scammed into renting it. After a tense initial meeting, Vale offers to let them stay a night or two as they have no place to go. Vale finds a friend in the young man, but not everything goes smoothly for all of them. There's no action in this one, just people drama. But you'll remember it: in fact, it will take quite a while to leave you. Excellent.

2008, dir. Thomas McCarthy. With Richard Jenkins, Haaz Sleiman, Danai Jekesai Gurira, Hiam Abbass.

The Voices

Jerry (Ryan Reynolds) works in a bathtub factory in a small town. He's socially awkward, and seeing a court-mandated psychiatrist (Jacki Weaver). She asks if he hears voices and he says no, she asks if he takes his drugs and he says maybe. In his apartment, he talks to his dog and cat (who talk back to him). After a company party, he starts seeing more of Fiona (Gemma Arterton) and Lisa (Anna Kendrick), and things go a little off the rails. (This, by the way, is far less of a spoiler than you'll get from the trailer(s) - or even the movie poster!).

This movie came recommended by my brother, and I'm often a fan of horror comedy. Another thing that made it interesting to me is the director: Marjane Satrapi, best known for writing one of the world's best graphic novels, Persepolis - which she also directed as an excellent animated movie.

Reynolds is proud of this movie, and thinks it's some of his best work - while I didn't love the movie, I'd say he's right. The character of Jerry remains tonally consistent as he goes from goofy guy singing as he works in the bathtub factory to bewildered in the face of the deaths he causes to confused by the moral conundrums thrown up by his pets. And that's a hell of an achievement, for which credit is due to Reynolds - but also the director and writer. And yet it wasn't quite my kind of humour. I watched all this grotesque and bloody comedy with a slight smile, but never actually laughed. Partly because it felt kind of inevitable - the trailer and the poster meant that I already knew which people were going to die. These things happened in unexpected ways, but with the humour not quite going my way, this wasn't really my thing.

2014, dir. Marjane Satrapi. With Ryan Reynolds, Gemma Arterton, Anna Kendrick, Jacki Weaver, Ella Smith, Sam Spruell, Paul Chahidi, Stanley Townsend, Adi Shankar.


W

Waitress

Let's get the depressing story that accompanies the movie out of the way first: Adrienne Shelly (who wrote, directed, and even acted in this film) was murdered in 2006, before this movie made it to the screen.

Keri Russell plays (no surprise here) a waitress at a pie cafe where she also cooks pies. Very good pies. She desperately wants to escape her miserable life with her obnoxious and abusive husband, but that becomes even more difficult at the beginning of the movie when she finds out she's pregnant. "Why did I get drunk? I do stupid things when I'm drunk ... like sleep with my husband!" The movie is full of wicked zingers like that one, and you'll be charmed and made very hungry when you're not laughing.

2007, dir. Adrienne Shelly. With Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion, Cheryl Hines, Jeremy Sisto, Andy Griffith, Adrienne Shelly, Eddie Jemison, Lew Temple.

A Walk Among the Tombstones

Matthew Scudder (Liam Neeson, sporting a not entirely convincing American accent) is an alcoholic ex-policeman turned private detective. He's approached by a fellow AA member (Boyd Holbrook), who wants him to help his dealer brother (Dan Stevens) whose wife was kidnapped, the ransom paid ... and the wife is gone, presumed dead. It becomes clear that this isn't a single crime, and that the kidnappers are targeting drug dealers.

Wikipedia refers to this as a "neo-noir," which seems pretty accurate - although there are strong elements of horror. The kidnappers are a modern evil - completely free of conscience, they dismember people slowly for fun. While David Harbour and Adam David Thompson sold these two horrible creatures fairly well, I thought it was one of the weaker points of the movie to sell them as totally not human. But the weakest was the bizarre and not very convincing friendship Scudder develops with a 13 year old street kid (Brian Bradley), who's fairly smart but also inevitably gets into trouble. Not a bad movie, but violent and very nasty without a great deal of reward.

2014, dir. Scott Frank. With Liam Neeson, Dan Stevens, Boyd Holbrook, David Harbour, Adam David Thompson, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Brian Bradley, Sebastian Roché.

A Walk in the Sun

"A Walk in the Sun" is now considered a classic movie (not just because it's old, but also by the Library of Congress and the National Film Registry). It shows us fairly literally what the title suggests: a walk in the sun, with the caveat being that our characters land on a beach in Italy and have to take their walk under fire from German forces. The movie isn't so much about the battles as it is about the personalities and staying sane in the middle of a war.

Dana Andrews is Sargeant Bill Tyne, who finds himself in charge of the squad after the deaths of a couple of their commanders, and the third having a mental breakdown. He leads them on a walk six miles across the countryside to the house that's their objective. There are a couple of unglamorous battles (I mean that in a good way), but most of the film is the men talking, dealing with the stresses of life in the army.

What the soldiers feel, all the time, is tension. And fear, probably less of the time, but often enough. When will we be fired at? Who's going to die next? And this movie brings the tension, even as the soldiers talk, trying to relax and be normal. This deserves to be seen and remembered.

1945, dir. Lewis Milestone. With Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, George Tyne, John Ireland, Lloyd Bridges, Sterling Holloway, Norman Lloyd, Herbert Rudley, Richard Benedict.

Walk the Line

While this is nominally Johnny Cash's biopic, my first thought was "Hey! This is 'Ray' with a white guy in the title role!" Both are biographies of musicians who dug themselves out of poverty and went on to great fame. Both had lingering family issues, and both had major drug habits. Joaquim Phoenix is very good in the lead role, and Reese Witherspoon is good as June Carter.

2005. With Joaquim Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon.

Walking Tall (2004)

Loosely based on the story of Sheriff Buford Pusser (also the subject of a 1973 movie of the same name), this movie has Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson returning home from the army to find that his father has turned into George Forman and the local mill has been closed down in favour of a casino. As it turns out the casino is crooked and sells drugs, so The Rock starts hitting it with a piece of wood from the mill. Better than it sounds, a passable action flick.

2004. dir. Kevin Bray. With Dwayne Johnson, Johnny Knoxville, Neal McDonough, Kristen Wilson, Ashley Scott.

WALL-E

WALL-E are the garbage collecting units left behind on Earth when the humans leave, having polluted the planet into unusability. "WALL-E" is also the name claimed by the only one still functioning 700 years later. In 700 years he's developed one hell of a personality ... and a penchant for knick-knacks. His routine is disturbed by the arrival of a space ship, and from it a probe robot called Eve that he takes a liking to. The story proceeds from there - of course there's more than just robot romance on the line. The personality they imbue in nominally mechanical devices - and almost entirely without dialogue! - is staggering.

Stanton's commentary on the DVD is utterly fascinating: detailed, intelligent, informative. Very, very few directors/commentaries manage this.

2008, dir. Andrew Stanton. With Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy, Sigourney Weaver.

Waltz with Bashir

Written and directed by Ari Folman, an animated documentary of his attempts to recover his own memories of fighting in the 1982 Lebanon War (he's Israeli). His memories start to return after a talk with a friend, who relates a dream of dogs coming to kill him - the mesmerizing dream sequence that opens the movie. Folman then talks to friends and previous army associates to try to find out what happened - much of it relating to the (very real) Sabra and Shatila Massacre.

The worst thing about the version I saw was that it was English dubbed by not very good actors. And the animation ... the animation varied between appalling and dazzlingly brilliant. The animators had no idea (or at least no interest) of how a human face or body moved. But individual frames were frequently fantastic works of art, and some of the animated sequences were superb. It was a strange conglomeration. And underlying this are the stories of the interviewees: friends, a psychologist (on the subject of memory), and army associates of Folman's. And this horrible story builds quietly.

I wish the animation were better. And yet ... would it be what it is without the animation? It's a fantastic movie. See it.

2008, dir. Ari Folman.

Wanted

James McAvoy plays a schmuck with a regular and unhappy life who is suddenly informed that his father was the greatest assassin who ever lived and he has the same talents. "The Fraternity" (of assassins) trains him up and points him at the man who killed his father.

I knew this would be stupid - I often enjoy stupid action movies. But if someone told me in advance it was directed by Timur Bekmambetov ("Night Watch" and "Day Watch"), I might have given this one a miss. There's bending common sense and physics ... and then there's what Bekmambetov does. "Stupid" doesn't begin to cover it. But ... it looks pretty doing it.

2008, dir. Timur Bekmambetov. With James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie, Terence Stamp, Thomas Kretschmann.

War

Jason Statham is an FBI agent obsessed with chasing down "Rogue" (Jet Li), an assassin who killed his partner. What ensues is a fairly standard action movie with some thoughtful personal touches to the script and a couple hard-to-believe twists on the end of the movie. The overtones of "Yojimbo" with Rogue playing the Yakuza off against the Triads are hard to ignore. I enjoyed the movie, although the revelations at the end were a bit hard to swallow.

2007, dir. Phillip G. Atwell. With Jason Statham, Jet Li, John Lone, Terry Chen, Mathew St. Patrick, Sung Kang, Luis Guzmán, Devon Aoki, Ryo Ishibashi.

War of the Arrows

According to Wikipedia, the movie is set during the Second Manchu invasion of Korea (~1640). Our main character is Nam-yi (Park Hae-il): at the beginning of the movie, he, his very young sister, and their father are hunted as traitors. Wikipedia explains that this is because their father was a supporter of the previous, deposed king. Their father dies to save them, and they grow up hidden by Mu-seon, a friend of their father's (who is, like their father, an excellent archer). The next big event of the movie is the wedding of Mu-seon's son Seo-goon (Kim Mu-yeol) to Nam-yi's sister (Moon Chae-won), but this is interrupted by a horde of evil Manchus slaughtering and collecting slaves. Nam-yi is out hunting, so he's not in the village at the time - but he sees what happens.

That's perhaps the first half of the movie, and at that point the plot pretty much terminates because now they're set up to have a running archery battle for the rest of the movie as the outnumbered Nam-yi takes on an elite squad of Manchu archers who try to track him through the woods as he picks them off one by one (or two).

It's violent and fairly well done (although I could have done without the occasional fits of un-steady cam), but like most revenge flicks it ends badly for pretty much everyone. Not bad, but strikes me as being for a rather specialized audience even among fans of action movies. I also suspect that the archery isn't accurately portrayed: remember "Wanted" and the amazing bullshit talent of being able to "curve bullets?" It's like that except for arrows.

2011, dir. Kim Han-min. With Park Hae-il, Moon Chae-won, Kim Mu-yeol, Ryu Seung-ryong, Park Ki-woong, Ryohei Otani, Kim Ku-taek.

War of the Worlds (Spielberg)

Steven Spielberg is capable of excellent work. Sadly, this isn't it. The action is almost non-stop, a plus for some, but I didn't think it worked here. There were some interesting themes that got ignored in the action about the ways people react to extreme stress, and the lengths people go to to protect their family. Based on the old H.G. Wells story, and a previous movie.

2005, dir. Steven Spielberg. With Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Tim Robbins, Justin Chatwin.

Warcraft

Duncan Jones' first movie was "Moon," a science fiction movie that reminded the world that good SF was worth watching and made you think. And I thought "here's someone to watch." "Moon" was a small budget movie. Jones's next movie was "Source Code," which ... was pretty good, although I didn't like it much. But then this. I'm kind of at a loss for words: it's so bad on every level possible, it's quite breathtaking.

Based on the world's most famous MMORPG, the movie pits humans against orcs. The orcs are violent but noble, led by an incredibly evil sorcerer.

The effects are awful. The scenery is supposed to be pretty, but it just looks like it was generated in a computer. The acting is appalling (although they had some decent actors on payroll). You know you've got acting problems when the best work on screen is done by former fashion model Travis Fimmel. The dialogue is laughable. The plot is ridiculous. The run-time (123 minutes) painful (although it would have hurt at any length). And I haven't yet covered the orcs trying to talk around the massive tusks sticking out of their mouths. Toward the end Dominic Cooper begs Paula Patton to kill him, "I can't stand to be in the inevitable sequel!!"

The movie was a domestic disaster, but a roaring success overseas - particularly in China. Sadly, the sequel they so blatantly set up may in fact come about.

2016, dir. Duncan Jones. With Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton, Ben Foster, Dominic Cooper, Toby Kebbell, Ben Schnetzer, Robert Kazinsky, Daniel Wu, Clancy Brown, Ruth Negga, Anna Galvin, Callum Keith Rennie, Burkely Duffield.

Warlock (1959)

I'm not a big fan of westerns, but I've been forced to admit that there have been a few good ones made. One of the beauties of this one is that it's unpredictable from beginning to end. The town of Warlock is being tormented by a local gang, so the "Citizen's Committee" hires a "Marshal" of questionable legality. The gang has several members who ride with them because of friends and family rather than a big desire to be on the wrong side of the law, and one of these ends up picking up the undesirable title of "Deputy" for the town, pitting himself against former friends in the gang and to some extent against the Marshal. Quite good.

1959, dir. Edward Dmytryk. With Henry Fonda, Richard Widmark, Anthony Quinn, Dorothy Malone, DeForest Kelley.

Warrior

If you've got to make a MMA movie, this is the way to do it: this one's got actors, acting, very good action, and even a really good story. We follow the rapid rise of two MMA fighters: Tommy Riordan (Tom Hardy), a former Marine and general hard-ass and his alienated brother Brendan Conlon (Joel Edgerton) - a high school physics teacher who's suspended from teaching early on in the movie for fighting to pay off medical bills for his sick daughter. Both are alienated from their alcoholic father (Nick Nolte) - although Riordan still figures dad is good enough to train with, so long as he doesn't discuss anything else. It definitely has a touch of "Fight Club" about it, with the "this is the way we bond, by beating the shit out of each other" attitude that surfaces. But it's well done, with a good story and very good fights - even people who aren't fans of the genre have a fairly good chance of liking this one.

2011, dir. Gavin O'Connor. With Joel Edgerton, Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte, Erik Apple, Jennifer Morrison, Frank Grillo.

Warrior Nun, Season 1

I had picked out the traitor by ten minutes into the first episode. Now I admit by half way through the first season I'd given up on the idea, but by the end of the season I was proven right. Which says more about the leisurely plot development than anything else. And that, my friends, is weak writing if the quisling can be spotted that quickly.

Our heroine Ava (Alba Baptista) is 17 years old, a (American?) tetraplegic in a religious orphanage in Spain. (Baptista is Portuguese and this was her first major role in English ... and she was very convincing as an American.) We also see the nuns of the "Order of the Cruciform Sword" in a fight that eventually kills their leader. As the attack against the nuns makes succession difficult, a desperate bid to save the holy relic that made the nun's leader powerful sees the relic end up inside Ava's corpse. This brings her back to life and gives her some interesting superpowers. She doesn't know the source of these powers, but does know she can walk and run, and goes out to enjoy life.

That's the first episode. The series then spends the entire rest of the season on A) showing us what Ava's like (has no faith in herself, likeable but very sarcastic, a not very good actress), B) setting up the idea of "Divinium," an organic material of incredible power, C) setting up the internal political struggle in the church around the Order of the Cruciform Sword, D) setting up the existence of multiple types of demons and how they can be killed (usually only by the Warrior Nun herself) and E) setting up Ava's eventual reluctant joining the Order.

As other critics have said, the fight sequences are better than usual for TV. The problem is everything in between. I don't mind preposterous story lines: I love SF, Fantasy, Superheroes, I watch it all. But it's kind of important to actually hold the storyline together with good dialogue and a plot that makes sense. The plot ... mostly makes sense, but the dialogue is weak, wooden, and delivered by a cast that couldn't sell umbrellas in a downpour. Alba Baptista is pretty and has got the basics of acting, but seems to have missed out on the advanced class.

And with ten hours invested in watching the series, something finally actually happens in the last episode. Much is revealed (although certainly not everything, no, not everything), and we're left with a Grade A cliffhanger. And I find I really don't care what happens.

One of the few things I agreed with in the series was its apparent dislike of organized religion: I'm not a religious person, but I have a lot more trouble with the organized churches than with belief in a deity. But even that looks like it's going down the tubes as the big twist in the final episode shows the Roman Catholic Church in a better light ...

2020. With Alba Baptista, Toya Turner, Thekla Reuten, Tristán Ulloa, Lorena Andrea, Kristina Tonteri-Young, Olivia Delcán, Joaquim de Almeida, Sylvia De Fanti, Emilio Sakraya.

The Warriors Gate

See "Enter the Warrior's Gate."

The Warrior's Way

This movie falls squarely into the pack of movies that are both incredibly stupid and very entertaining. At this point it's become difficult to tell which of them are knowingly self-aware of their own ludicrous excesses, and which just think it's cool. I suppose it doesn't really matter anymore.

Yang (Jang Dong Gun) is an assassin, the best in the world. In his home country (never named - the film staffing is Korean, the martial arts in play look more Japanese ...) he wipes out an entire clan, but finds himself unable to kill the last remaining baby girl. He takes her and heads to the Wild West of America, where he ends up doing laundry in a small town full of circus performers. He finds some peace and happiness and even romance - but his history follows him. Ninjas fly through the air, six-guns are wielded, blood spatters all over.

Geoffrey Rush plays Ron, the town drunk - also our narrator. His American accent ... well, it stays American, but it wanders all over the continent. Gun was front and centre for the entire movie, but was billed fourth after Rush, Kate Bosworth, and Danny Huston - bizarre.

Surrealist fantasy gore Western with elements of Wu Xia ... not for everybody.

2010, dir. Sngmoo Lee. With Jang Dong Gun, Kate Bosworth, Geoffrey Rush, Danny Huston, Tony Cox, Ti Lung.

Wasabi

Jean Reno plays an effective but often overzealous French cop, whose latest antics have landed him a two month suspension. The next day he finds out the love of his life, who he hasn't seen in 19 years, has died - and left him not only sole heir of her estate, but a 19 year old daughter he didn't know he had. And a few other small issues, of course. This is obviously a Luc Besson product, although almost understated for him - which isn't necessarily a bad thing, because he's a master of going over the top, not restraint. Still, while it's just not a very good movie, Reno plays really well and I found it very enjoyable despite constant cross-cultural mugging by Ryoko Hirosue and Michel Muller.

2001, dir. Gérard Krawczyk. With Jean Reno, Ryoko Hirosue, Michel Muller.

The Watch, Season 1

The opening credits are a warning to fans: "Inspired by the works of Terry Pratchett." My emphasis. Not "based on," which usually means a closer representation. They mix a semi-modern city with Pratchett's later re-envisionings of technology, and mix in the happenings of a couple novels about "The Watch" in the city of Ankh-Morpork. This includes Captain Sam Vimes (Richard Dormer), Constable Carrot (Adam Hugill), Corporal Angua (Marama Corlett), Corporal Cheery (Jo Eaton-Kent), Sergeant Detritus (Ralph Ineson), and Lady Sybil Ramkin (Lara Rossi).

The primary plotline has Vimes's former best friend and criminal nemesis Carcer Dun (Sam Adewunmi) somehow resurrected from the dead, and attempting to wipe out the entire city by controlling a huge dragon to burn it down as some form of revenge. Vimes has been driven to drink by Lord Vetinari (Anna Chancellor) legalizing many forms of crime and the resulting inability of the Watch to do anything about most crimes ... but now Vetinari expects him to do something.

The list of problems as a fan of Pratchett's novels is immense. There are some good things: Eaton-Kent as Cheery was an inspired choice, Corlett is good as Angua, and Dormer as Vimes is quite good - I'm tempted to say "over the top," but that's how Pratchett painted the character. Carrot was a very important character in the original stories, but here he's ... a determined character but almost non-descript. That was a hard row to hoe though - Carrot would be particularly hard to bring to screen successfully. And I was unhappy with Chancellor as Lord Vetinari: ever since Charles Dance played the role in "Going Postal," I've had an extremely clear image of the character in my mind, and it's Charles Dance. He was perfect. The inclusion of Lady Sybil in the Watch is problematic, because in the stories I don't think Lady Sybil was ever a part of the Watch. She was definitely associated with them indirectly because of her involvement with Vimes, but here she's portrayed as a axe-wielding badass.

The single biggest problem is the dilution of Pratchett's humour. They've significantly re-arranged the plot, so they can't use many of the original jokes. And the jokes that they've put in to replace them aren't as funny, and there's just not enough Pratchett left to keep the motor running. I was mostly with them right up until the musical number - not when the Watch tried out for the Musician's Guild (I survived that, barely), but the actual musical number in around the fifth episode with singing and dancing. I stumbled through the rest of the episodes out of a sense of duty, to get to the unsatisfactory ending that includes setting up a new big-bad for the next season they probably won't get.

2021. With Richard Dormer, Marama Corlett, Adam Hugill, Lara Rossi, Sam Adewunmi, Anna Chancellor, James Fleet, Jo Eaton-Kent, Ruth Madeley, Bianca Simone, Ingrid Oliver, Wendell Pierce, Paul Kaye, Joe Vaz.

Watchmen

I didn't think I would say this, but this may be too true to its source material. That would be the Watchmen graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (although Moore has had his name excised from the movie). Snyder recognized good source material when he saw it, so he stuck close to the source - so close in fact that it would sue him for harassment if it were human. He knew that messing around would arouse the ire of thousands of rabid fans (this is probably the best known graphic novel ever created, and it has a big following - myself included). Unfortunately a scene-for-scene, sequence-perfect, visually identical movie was good, but not great. Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach was superb (not his fault that the voice-over didn't entirely work, but it's in the graphic novel too), and Patrick Wilson was an excellent choice as Nite Owl II.

SPOILER WARNING - stop reading now if you haven't seen the movie. Having said that Snyder stuck too close to the source, it may be a little hypocritical to protest when he does change something and I don't like it ... I thought the "alien invasion" at the end of the graphic novel was better than Dr. Manhattan being the apparent culprit in the destruction of earth's cities: he may not seem entirely human, but he's easier to ignore as someone/something who was once human.

2008, dir. Zack Snyder. With Billy Crudup, Malin Akerman, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson, Carla Gugino, Matt Frewer, Stephen McHattie.

The Way

Thomas Avery (Martin Sheen) is an ophthalmologist in California. When his adult son Daniel (Emilio Estevez - who is in fact Sheen's son, and dear lord they look alike) dies in an accident in France, Thomas goes to get him. Finding out that his son had just started out on the Camino de Santiago (a Catholic pilgrimage through France and Spain, a walk of several hundred kilometres), Thomas suddenly decides to walk the Camino with his son's ashes. He meets other pilgrims (not all religious - while the movie has a slight religious slant, that's not the aim of the movie) along the path and acquires travel companions (in order: Yorick van Wageningen, Deborah Kara Unger, James Nesbitt) rather against his will.

The movie is written, directed, and produced by Estevez, who also plays a part in the movie. I found the script significantly heavy-handed, as every new character entered the movie by blasting out their insecurities and personality traits and it would only be later that they developed a fuller personality. And yet by the end the movie had won me over - the characters do develop, and, while some of it is fairly obvious and expected, it does have a strong feel of pilgrimage, and the people are all definitely the backpackers I met while travelling.

2010, dir. Emilio Estevez. With Martin Sheen, Deborah Kara Unger, James Nesbitt, Yorick van Wageningen, Emilio Estevez, Tchéky Karyo.

Wayne's World

Something of a Canadian classic, which I didn't see until 2009. It's an incredibly stupid movie, but five guys headbanging to "Bohemian Rhapsody" in a baby blue Pacer with flames ... brilliant. Made the rest of the foolishness worthwhile. And there were a few other funny jokes.

1992, dir. Penelope Spheeris. With Mike Meyers, Dana Carvey, Rob Lowe, Tia Carrere, Lara Flynn Boyle, Michael DeLuise.

We Are Lady Parts, Season 1

"We Are Lady Parts" is a short British TV series (six episodes) about a group of young Muslim women in London who form a punk band. Our point-of-view character is the straight-laced and nerdy Amina (Anjana Vasan), the final recruit to the band. The band's leader is Saira (Sarah Kameela) - charismatic, burning with rage, and filled with determination. She recruits Amina to play lead guitar for them - despite Mina's stage fright/anxiety that causes vomiting and diarrhea.

Some cosmic force was at work with my getting into this right after watching "The Go-Go's." The latter movie is proof positive that every fictional trope you've seen about bands - the weird ways they come together, the bickering, the inspiration, the disintegration, the reunion - is all true. And both that movie and this TV series are about all-female punk bands. Different country, different generation, but the similarities are still remarkable.

There's a massive divide in TV between the shows that run 50 minutes and the ones that run 25 minutes. 50 minutes allows actual character development. 25 minutes means that every personality trait is exaggerated, and the characters come on screen the first time blazing out their insecurities and quirks. "Lady Parts" runs 25 minutes. So Amina comes on screen tripping over her tongue, her parents embarrassing her at every turn as she stumbles through the ritual of talking to a young man for a possible arranged marriage. It is, inevitably, a disaster. All the other characters are introduced in much the same way because we need to "get to know them" quickly. Several critics have commented on how successfully the series has avoided stereotypes: this is true, but I find the overblown personality traits nearly as painful and annoying in their own way. As the series progresses, all the characters are humanized and given more depth - but, particularly in Amina's case, their behaviour also shifts to make them a bit more appealing and realistic.

With all that negative stuff out of the way, let's get to the positives: the series has a fairly positive tone and is screamingly funny. Some of the jokes and scenarios they bring are predictable, but even those are generally well done. Some of the other jokes come out of nowhere and ring so true to the characters and circumstances that they're irresistible. Humour is always a very personal experience, but apparently this is working for a lot of people: as of now, it's at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Peacock's trailer is representative of the humour, and this isn't one of those trailers where you've seen all the jokes once you've seen the trailer. This will tell you if you want to see it or not - give it a try.

While I wasn't too keen on the band's original music, their choice of soundtrack for the series was excellent. Among these, there was still a stand-out: their utterly brilliant "Wayne's World" reference using The Proclaimer's "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)." And they were also doing a side-line in movie references, the other two obvious ones being "Pitch Perfect" (with Amina's performance vomiting) and "I'm just a girl, standing in front of ..." from "Notting Hill." Oh - and in the dying seconds of the final episode, a literal shout-out to "300." It makes me wonder how many more I missed.

2021, dir. Nida Manzoor. With Anjana Vasan, Sarah Kameela, Juliette Motamed, Faith Omole, Lucie Shorthouse, Aiysha Hart, Zaqi Ismail, David Avery, Shobu Kapoor, Sofia Barclay.

We Can Be Heroes

Robert Rodriguez's filmography is really weird. He started his career with "El Mariachi" in 1992, and has spent his time bouncing between violent action movies and wholesome kids movies - most famously "Spy Kids" (which I like, although I'm not a fan of the sequels). This one is aimed not just at kids, but young kids. I mean ... the conclusion is "everybody should get along, love their family, and kids should be in charge."

In classic Rodriguez style, everything is colourful and over-the-top and crazy. Earth is being attacked by aliens, and they capture all of our greatest superheroes. The only people left to save the Earth are the superheroes' children, who squabble but eventually rise to the task.

It's not bad, but it doesn't manage to be the kind of deranged fun that the first "Spy Kids" achieved, and it doesn't have the depth or nods-to-parents that Pixar often manages. I guess this would be a good movie to leave your young kids with? (I'm not a parent, so the value of my opinion on that is approximately zero.) But it's not something adults should watch.

And yes, they used the David Bowie song.

2020, dir. Robert Rodriguez. With Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Pedro Pascal, YaYa Gosselin, Boyd Holbrook, Adriana Barraza, Sung Kang, Taylor Dooley, Christian Slater, Hala Finley, Lyon Daniels, Nathan Blair, Andy Walken.

Weathering With You

I watch a lot of movies, but I almost never go to the theatre to see them: Toronto Public Library gets everything ... eventually. This time my impatience outweighed my dislike of the theatre experience. I mean, a new Makoto Shinkai movie: those don't come along often.

Shinkai isn't shy of preposterous premises, and this one - like Shinkai's previous movie "Your Name" - doesn't hesitate before it goes right for its crazy premise. In this case a young girl who can magically influence the weather.

Our two main characters are Hodaka Morishima (voiced by Kataro Daigo) a 15 year old who's run away from home to live in Tokyo, and Hina Amano (voiced by Nana Mori) who Hodaka first meets when she's working at McDonalds (I'll have more to say on that later ...) and smuggles him a hamburger as he's living on the streets. Hodaka eventually ends up working for a slightly dubious publisher he met early on, and he and Hina become friends. After Hodaka finds out about Hina's ability to change the weather, they enthusiastically enter into a joint venture to provide people with better weather, for a fee. But - as is stated several times through the movie - there may be a cost to the sunshine girl. The movie is a bizarre mix of surreal fantasy elements and the taxing elements of everyday life that we all have to live with: the latter parts keep the movie somewhat grounded.

Shinkai's Tokyo is littered with brand stamps - McDonalds, Honda, and Apple being the most prominent I remember, but it appears to be loaded with other Japanese brands we don't know as well over here. It's hard to say if this is blatant product placement ... or an accurate portrayal of Tokyo, home of the mile-high TV billboard. I didn't love it, but it's hard to take him to task for a relatively accurate portrayal of that city.

Just like all his previous movies, the artwork is exceptional. To the point that you'd have a really hard time pausing this on a frame you wouldn't enjoy looking at. Most of the frames are simply dazzling. He's previously proven capable of making trains look beautiful, and does that again in this movie.

The theatre experience was ... significantly more rewarding than I had expected this time around. It was a pleasure to be surrounded by fans - people willing to brave Toronto's crap January weather to go to a movie by a director I tend to think of as an obscure passion of my own. I was intrigued by the wild whooping that occurred when a particular character entered the screen at about the half-way mark, and then again about 3/4s of the way through (for a different character). Better yet, I wasn't to be kept in suspense. Unusually, we were told at the beginning of the film that we should stay after the credits for an interview with Makoto Shinkai. And indeed there's ten minutes of footage of him talking about the making of the movie, which was fascinating. And he mentioned that he'd added cameos by Taki and Mitsuha, the main characters from "Your Name." He then added, "you might be a little bit otaku if you noticed." At which point there were slightly embarrassed giggles from the same couple of quadrants that had been whooping at the appearances. I saw "Your Name," but it was a while ago and I didn't register the cameos - even when encouraged to pay special attention by noises from the fans. Calling your hardcore fans "otaku" is perhaps not particularly politic ...

Shinkai truly is the rising star of Japanese animation. I'd say "Your Name" is probably his best ... but I don't think he's made his best movie yet.

2019, dir. Makoto Shinkai. With Kotaro Daigo, Nana Mori, Shun Oguri, Tsubasa Honda, Chieko Baisho, Sakura Kiryu, Sei Hiraizumi, Yūki Kaji, Ayane Sakura, Kana Hanazawa.

The Weather Man

I only saw about 25 minutes of this one, and gave up in disgust having cringed repeatedly and not laughed once. Some very good actors couldn't save a massively humiliating script.

2005, dir. Gore Verbinski. With Nicolas Cage, Hope Davis, Michael Caine.

Wedding Crashers

Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson play a pair of lawyers whose favourite pastime is to go to weddings that they weren't invited to where they party and then get laid. Things get more complicated when Beckwith (played by Wilson) falls for Rachel McAdams and forces Vaughn to spend the weekend with the family - including the other daughter, who is a "stage five clinger" he desperately wants to avoid. The family is as nutty and obnoxious in their own way as the two lying lawyers they've taken in. It was funnier than I expected, and not quite as obnoxious - but then, I was thinking "Harold and Kumar." I wouldn't particularly recommend it, but it definitely has some laughs.

2005, dir. David Dobkin. With Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Isla Fisher, Christopher Walken, Jane Seymour, Bradley Cooper, Will Ferrell.

The Wedding Date

Woman goes to younger sister's wedding, takes hired escort to shatter her ex- who is also the best man. Debra Messing plays the lead, Amy Adams the sister, Dermot Mulroney the escort, and Jeremy Sheffield the ex-. It made me laugh several times near the beginning, but as the predictability piled up and the laughs thinned as they tried to get more romantic, it became terribly tedious. Not a bad crew of actors, but a staggeringly mundane script.

2005, dir. Clare Kilner. With Debra Messing, Dermot Mulroney, Amy Adams, Jack Davenport, Sarah Parish, Jeremy Sheffield, Peter Egan, Holland Taylor.

The Wedding Guest

Dev Patel is Jay, who packs his clothes in Britain, flies to Pakistan, rents a car, switches to another rented car, and shows up at a wedding. He kidnaps the bride-to-be in the middle of the night, leaving with her and changing cars in the process: it's clear he's very good at planning. But the kidnapping isn't quite what it appears to be, and the plan shortly goes off the rails anyway.

There are moments of violence, but this is mostly a study of people. And it gets major points from me for being unpredictable without being unbelievable. It didn't do well with the critics, but Dev Patel was very good in the lead and I really enjoyed watching it all fall apart.

2018, dir. Michael Winterbottom. With Dev Patel, Radhika Apte, Jim Sarbh, Nish Nathwani, Harish Khanna.

The Wedding Plan

A 2016 Israeli romantic comedy about a woman who finds herself without a fiancée a month before the wedding but decides to go through with the wedding - sans groom. She expects one to show up by the grace of God. We follow her increasingly odd encounters with men, her wedding hall rental and arrangements, and her interactions with her family and friends in the next month leading up to the climactic wedding.

At the beginning of the movie she admits to the fortune teller that she wants "to be sung to." I guessed, and it was confirmed by what happened, that this wasn't about having a musician as a husband but a desire for a religious man. But it made me realize that the movie assumes (reasonably enough, being an Israeli film) a knowledge of both Israeli and Jewish culture that I don't have. I caught that detail, but I must have missed dozens more. Given the concept, it was bound to be a bit weird - but it was made stranger by my lack of knowledge of the society and religion that are taken as given by the movie.

Kind of interesting and occasionally funny, but I felt lost for large chunks of the movie.

2016, dir. Rama Burshtein. With Noa Koler, Oz Zehavi, Amos Tamam, Ronny Merhavi, Dafi Alferon, Odelia Moreh-Matalon, Erez Drigues, Udi Persi, Jonathan Rozen, Irit Sheleg, Oded Leopold.

The Wedding Planner

Not one of the world's best romantic comedies. Jennifer Lopez can actually do some passable acting, but she wasn't doing too well in this one. Neither was Matthew McConaughey. The plot is fairly far-fetched and the chemistry lacking. Occasionally mildly amusing.

2001, dir. Adam Shankman. With Jennifer Lopez, Matthew McConaughey, Bridgette Wilson, Justin Chambers, Judy Greer, Alex Rocco.

Weekend at Bernie's

Our two heroes (one uptight, one slacker, you know, for, like, comedic effect) show their boss (Bernie) that someone has been scamming their insurance company for several million. To reward them he invites them to a weekend at his huge house on the beach. Unfortunately, when they arrive, he's dead. Slapstick comedy ensues as they try to convince people he's still alive. Pretty silly, although it does have several very funny moments.

1989, dir. Ted Kotcheff. With Andrew McCarthy, Jonathan Silverman, Catherine Mary Stewart, Terry Kisser, Don Calfa.

Weird Science

John Hughes was responsible for a lot of teen comedies in the 1980s - including the very famous "The Breakfast Club" and a favourite of mine, "Some Kind of Wonderful." I found "Weird Science" - which he also directed and wrote - on Netflix, and realized I hadn't watched it. I knew it was going to be even more cheesy than Hughes' other output, but I was bored ...

Gary (Anthony Michael Hall) and Wyatt (Ilan Mitchell-Smith) are bullied, geeky teens in high school (this is a 1980s John Hughes movie, this is how they play). Using a personal computer and an immense amount of borrowed computing power, they create a woman called Lisa (Kelly LeBrock - an American actress whose British accent is genuine) who is imbued with both physical perfection (in the height of Eighties style!), genius, and magical abilities.

The two young men soon find they're more interested in a couple young women from their school than their creation. Why is never convincingly explained. She in her turn causes chaos in their lives - to force them to be better people. Their conversion is fast and unconvincing. The most amusing appearance is Vernon Wells as a nasty biker - he was the guy who played Wez in Road Warrior (which came out four years before this).

The movie is kind of (in)famous - for its name, for the title song by Oingo Boingo, and for creating a "perfect" woman - bizarrely embodying the objectification of women. It's mildly interesting as a relic, but it's not funny ...

1985, dir. John Hughes. With Anthony Michael Hall, Ilan Mitchell-Smith, Kelly LeBrock, Bill Paxton, Robert Downey Jr., Robert Rusler, Suzanne Snyder, Judie Aronson, Vernon Wells.

Weird Sex and Snowshoes

A short (60 minutes) documentary about the Canadian cinematic landscape. As I've known for a long time, we're all about identity - and we'll skip the violence in favour of sex because we just aren't a violent people. But our protagonists tend to be ... just a little weird. More power to anyone outside of Canada who watches this, but good luck: it's a different world than yours. Covers early documentaries, the NFB, the Seventies, and then (just in case you were wondering about the "weird sex" part) "Kissed" and "Crash" (by David Cronenberg, although he didn't appear in the movie).

2004, dir. Jill Sharpe. With Denys Arcand, Atom Egoyan, Zacharias Kunuk, Robert Lepage, Guy Maddin, Patricia Rozema, Lynne Stopkewich, François Girard.

Welcome to Marwen

This movie is a fictionalized account of the life of Mark Hogancamp (see my review of "Marwencol" for more), an artist who creates imaginary scenes from the Second World War at 1/6th scale after a traumatic life-changing beating. Steve Carell plays Hogancamp. The movie switches back and forth between scenes of WW2 mayhem played out by the characters looking like animated dolls and Hogancamp's mundane and fairly insular life in small town New York in the current day. The big spectres in his life are the sentencing of his attackers and the opening of his first art show, neither of which he wants to attend.

Their recreation of Hogancamp himself, and the town of Marwencol, are surprisingly physically accurate: Carell wears clothing and jewelry that look exactly like those worn by the actual Hogancamp.

"Marwencol" was a fairly good movie, telling the story of a damaged guy working hard to deal with his problems through his artwork. Where this movie falls down is attempting to bring Hogancamp's world of imagination to life. Where it falls down badly is in bringing cheesy humour to that world ("hey dolls, let's get moving"). It would've been very difficult to do this without humour, but it couldn't have been much worse than it turned out with it. The jokes aren't even funny. The world Hogancamp created was one of romance and bloody violence, and it's origin was a horrific event that completely changed his life and left him forever disabled: I'm really not seeing the humour.

If you're interested in this subject and/or Mark Hogancamp, watch "Marwencol." Pass on this.

2018, Robert Zemeckis. Steve Carell, Leslie Mann, Diane Kruger, Merritt Wever, Janelle Monáe, Eiza González, Gwendoline Christie, Leslie Zemeckis, Siobhan Williams, Neil Jackson.

Welcome to the Punch

The movie opens with D.I. Max Lewinsky (James McAvoy) managing to catch up to Jacob Sternwood (Mark Strong) and his gang as they make a heist - but he goes in without support (against orders) and is badly injured without managing to stop Sternwood. The movie then jumps forward three years, with Sternwood's son seriously injured and caught by the police, forcing Sternwood out of hiding. Lewinsky pursues him again, but finds Sternwood may be less corrupt than the system that pays his cheques.

It's a violent movie that spends more time on action and violence and less on character development than it should, but a reasonably intelligent plot - and an assumption that those watching don't need to be led by the nose - makes it a passable watch. McAvoy and Strong are both good. Hardly a great movie, but if you like your crime dramas, there are so very many worse ones out there ...

2013, dir. Eran Creevy. With James McAvoy, Mark Strong, Andrea Riseborough, Peter Mullan, David Morrissey, Johnny Harris, Elyes Gabel, Daniel Kaluuya, Daniel Mays, Dannielle Brent, Jason Flemyng.

We're No Angels

Set a couple years before 1900, the place is Devil's Island (at the time a French colony that included a notorious prison) and we're introduced to our three protagonists, Joseph, Albert and Jules. They're escaped convicts who offer to repair the roof of a store with the intent of robbing the place as soon as possible to finance their departure from the island. Joseph (Humphrey Bogart) was in jail for cooking some books: he's very good at it (although he clearly got caught) and is also exceptionally good at selling people stuff they don't need. Albert (Aldo Ray) really likes the ladies - but was in for beating his uncle to death when he wouldn't give Albert the money he needed. Jules (Peter Ustinov) is the break-and-enter man and safe-cracker, who can open anything. But before they get to robbing the family that owns the store attached to the roof they're not actually fixing, they get to know the family - who are rather nice people with some unpleasant troubles on their hands.

It was directed by Michael Curtiz (best known these days for "Casablanca") and stars Bogart in a comedy role - not something he did often. It's a little quaint and goofy, but I found it surprisingly funny and really enjoyed it.

1955, dir. Michael Curtiz. With Humphrey Bogart, Aldo Ray, Peter Ustinov, Joan Bennett, Basil Rathbone, Leo G. Carroll, Gloria Talbott, John Baer, Lea Penman, John Smith.

Werewolves Within

Finn Wheeler (Sam Richardson - playing "goofy" and "vulnerable," but happily not "stupid") is a forest ranger assigned to a new town. When he arrives in Beaverfield, he finds pretty much all the residents are a little nuts - and politically divided by the offer of a buy-out from an oil pipeline that may be built through the town. The only one who seems remotely sane is the mail carrier Cecily Moore (Milana Vayntrub) who helps him out, and they get fairly close quickly. Then a winter storm blocks the road and the power goes out, and the violent deaths start ...

Based on a video game, the movie got good reviews (As of 2021-10: 85% on Rotten Tomatoes and "Generally favorable reviews" on Metacritic), and it's horror-comedy, a genre I sometimes enjoy. But this one felt more like a slightly wonky (and bloody) mystery asking "who's doing the killing?" than a horror-comedy. Richardson and Vayntrub are both pretty good in the leads, but the structure didn't really work for me. It was only mildly funny, only mildly shocking, and not scary at all.

2021, dir. Josh Ruben. With Sam Richardson, Milana Vayntrub, George Basil, Sarah Burns, Michael Chernus, Catherine Curtin, Wayne Duvall, Harvey Guillén, Rebecca Henderson, Cheyenne Jackson, Michaela Watkins, Glenn Fleshler.

Westworld

A science fiction classic, this near future story finds two friends (and a motley assortment of others) going for a very expensive vacation at "Westworld," a part of a vacation complex that also includes Medieval World and Roman World, all populated by extremely realistic androids who live (or die) at the whim of the guests. Our heroes settle in to Westworld, drinking, getting into (and winning) gunfights, and visiting a brothel. We also see behind the scenes, the repair of the androids, and the high level staff discussing an increasing number of break-downs among the androids. Until one morning the Gunslinger android (Yul Brynner) returns once again ... and wins his gunfight ... with real bullets. Things get ugly in all three worlds, as all the androids start malfunctioning in very specific and unpleasant ways.

Dated, but well done, and Brynner's implacable Gunslinger is incredibly menacing. Effective, and definitely worth seeing for fans of the genre.

1973, dir. Michael Crichton. With Richard Benjamin, James Brolin, Yul Brynner, Alan Oppenheimer, Dick Van Patten, Norman Bartold, Michael Mikler.

Whale Rider

Filmed in New Zealand, a coming of age tale of a young Maori girl in a small coastal town. It would be unwise to categorize this as a kid's movie - it's kid-safe, it's probably a really good kid's movie, but there's an awful lot going on that only adults are likely to catch. I found the grandfather/Koro role - so bound by the path his tribe has always followed - a little heavy-handed at times, but Keisha Castle-Hughes is superb in the lead role (for which she was nominated for an Oscar at age 12), and the cinematography is very good. The movie also has a hell of a lot to say, without preaching, about tradition, how it affects people, and the need for change. A wonderful film.

2002, dir. Niki Caro. With Keisha Castle-Hughes, Rawiri Paratene, Vicky Haughton, Cliff Curtis, Grant Roa.

What A Girl Wants

Not exactly a classic, and occasionally overly broad (but not offensive) in it's humour, but charming and amusing. Amanda Bynes surprised me by being quite good. Colin Firth was quite good too, but that didn't surprise me.

2003. dir. Dennie Gordon. With Amanda Bynes, Colin Firth, Kelly Preston.

What If

See the alternative title "The F Word."

What We Did On Our Holiday

One of the (many) disadvantages of getting old is that plot points that looked fresh and new when you were young start to look old and tired. In this case the frequently repeated trope is "dying relative causes dysfunctional family gathering and speaks the truth." You couldn't ask to do it with a better set of players: Billy Connolly is the father with terminal cancer, David Tennant is the son who just had an affair, and Rosamund Pike is the ex-wife who's faking still being with him for the father. They have three kids (Emilia Jones, Bobby Smalldridge, Harriet Turnbull) who're all surprisingly decent actors. But the authors seem to think they have a free license to have the kids say anything that's humorous. This works up to a point (they're kids), but goes beyond believability after a while. The movie nevertheless moves relatively smoothly between black farce and pathos and manages to be a fairly enjoyable take on an oft-used idea.

2014, dir. Andy Hamilton, Guy Jenkin. With David Tennant, Rosamund Pike, Billy Connolly, Ben Miller, Emilia Jones, Bobby Smalldridge, Harriet Turnbull, Amelia Bullmore, Annette Crosbie, Celia Imrie, Lewis Davie.

What We Do in the Shadows

"What We Do In The Shadows" finds a film crew following a group of Wellington, New Zealand vampires around. They're flat-mates, and have agreed to the recording (and to not eat the film crew). The movie is about the day-to-day trivia of what multi-hundred year old people who are undead and too cool to clean the dishes do.

Not exactly my type of humour (largely because the characters are all unpleasant, whiny, and unlikeable), although it was mildly amusing in a lot of places and surprisingly well done.

2014, dir. Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement. With Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement, Rhys Darby, Jonathan Brugh, Cori Ganzalez-Macuer, Stu Rutherford.

Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy

Wikipedia refers to this as a "Japanese romantic drama anthology film." It consists of three individual stories, "Magic (or Something Less Assuring)," "Door Wide Open," and "Once Again."

Each of the episodes is about relationships. The first sees two best friends talking about one's enchanting evening with a new guy ... but after the talk is over, the other woman goes to see a guy. Who turns out to be her ex-. What ensues is ... not pretty. She struggles to do the right thing but isn't terribly good at it.

The second episode sees us visiting a friends-with-benefits relationship between a young male student and a slightly older (but still young) mother who has returned to college. The man hates a professor for setting him back a year, and uses sex to blackmail his benefits partner into blackmailing the professor. This doesn't go well, as one might expect. This episode also includes ten minutes of the woman reading out an oral sex scene from the professor's book, to the professor. Urgh.

The final episode is two high school friends meeting by accident for the first time in 20 years. But there are strange revelations hiding around the corners of their nascent relationship, and neither of them is all that happy in their current lives.

None of these stories consist of social situations that make any damn sense or even seem possible to my North American mind. I need to clarify that: the initial situations seem possible, it's how they play out that didn't feel real to me. So the movie was at best "interesting," but I can't rate it as "good."

2021, dir. Ryusuke Hamaguchi. With Kotone Furukawa, Ayumu Nakajima, Hyunri, Kiyohiko Shibukawa, Katsuki Mori, Shouma Kai, Fusako Urabe, Aoba Kawai.

Wheels on Meals

Yes, that is the title.

Thomas (Jackie Chan) and David (Yuen Biao) run a fast food van in Barcelona. They're clearly both good martial artists. Moby (Sammo Hung - who also directed) is a mostly incompetent and definitely annoying "private eye" whose search intersects their lives. They meet Sylvia (Lola Forner) who robs both of them, but David is enthusiastic to see her again. They rescue her from attack and finally meet their match in the martial arts in the form of Benny Urquidez and Keith Vitali (both very good competition martial artists ... and worse actors than Chan and Biao).

Includes plenty of Hung/Chan humour, although I find it a bit more successful than usual. The plotline is routinely stupid. The three "brothers" (Hung, Chan, and Biao) all play well in this movie: they're all incredibly nimble. Includes some very good stunts, and the final fight between Chan and Urquidez is one of the best martial arts fights ever put on film - just spectacular.

1984, dir. Sammo Hung. With Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao, Lola Forner, Benny Urquidez, Keith Vitali.

When Harry Met Sally ...

I saw this around the time it came out and wasn't a fan. Not sure why. Finally re-watched it in 2015, and mostly enjoyed it: the story arc, particularly the grand finale, is a little hard to swallow, but the humour is good. And of course the fake orgasm scene is one of the greatest pieces of comedy ever put on film (and will have every man who ever sees it questioning his ... effectiveness). Even the first time I liked the married couples: they're non sequiturs, but they're charming, funny, and of course they address the subject of the movie. I'm not a huge fan of Billy Crystal, but he's at his best here. Meg Ryan, on the other hand, was overacting in a way that seems to be favoured by Nora Ephron (who wrote the screenplay and directed the worst of Ryan's overacting in "Sleepless in Seattle"). But this deserves its (already well established without my assistance) place in romcom history.

1989, dir. Rob Reiner. With Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher, Bruno Kirby.

When Marnie Was There

Hiromasa Yonebayashi's 2014 Anime movie is set in modern Japan, a coming-of-age tale about a young asthmatic girl who has significant problems with self-esteem. Her adaptive mother sends her to the country to spend the summer with relatives. She sees a lovely but abandoned house on the edge of a sea marsh, and when she visits, she meets Marnie. It soon becomes clear to us that Marnie probably doesn't actually exist, but it's quite a while before that's brought to resolution. The explanation made the film a whole lot better, but that also meant that it was ... kind of irritating for most of an hour. I didn't think the movie held up well in the long stretch where Marnie's appearances and disappearances were unexplained: the resolution was elegant, but the body of the film was at best so-so. Pretty to look at, but not up there with "Arrietty" or the best of Hayao Miyazaki in the visuals department either.

2014, dir. Hiromasa Yonebayashi. With Sara Takatsuki, Kasumi Arimura, Hana Sugisaki, Hitomi Kuroki, Nanako Matsushima.

Where Eagles Dare

During the Second World War, a U.S. Army General is captured by the Germans. Held in a highly defensible castle, rescuing him is given to a team of commandos led by British Major Jonathan Smith (Richard Burton) and assisted by U.S. Ranger Morris Schaffer (Clint Eastwood).

The rescue plan, and the plans within plans, are only unfolded to the audience as it happens. The plan is insanely complex, and in fact our heroes don't have several of the pieces when they start. Burton was surprisingly convincing as a man who could solve anything, but the complexity of the plan made their eventual success is preposterous.

1968, dir. Brian G. Hutton. With Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood, Mary Ure, Patrick Wymark, Michael Hordern, Donald Houston, Ingrid Pitt.

Where the Truth Lies

Atom Egoyan finally gets a budget and some Hollywood access, pulling in Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon to play two of the main characters in this one. The book this is based on was by Rupert Holmes, adapted for the screen by Egoyan. I haven't read the book, but my suspicion is that the poor structuring can be blamed on Egoyan's adaptation - or his choice of allowing the poorest actor of the major characters (Alison Lohman) to give voice to the revelations of the script in plodding exposition. Bacon and Firth were both excellent, but that couldn't save this one.

2005. dir. Atom Egoyan. With Alison Lohman, Colin Firth, Kevin Bacon.

Where the Wild Things Are

Live-action interpretation of the classic Maurice Sendak children's book. Max Records plays Max, a young boy subject to tantrums and particularly nasty behaviour. After an altercation with his mother he runs away, finds a boat on a pond, and sails several hundred miles to an island where the Wild Things are. When they threaten to eat him, he tells them he's a king, so they crown him. At this point I gave up on the movie: I found Max utterly intolerable. This isn't Records' fault: he was good as an incredibly obnoxious kid - with some awareness of the problems he causes, but not enough. In fact, he was excellent: it was the character of Max I found unwatchable.

2009, dir. Spike Jonze. With Max Records, Lauren Ambrose, Chris Cooper, Catherine Keener, Paul Dano, James Gandolfini, Catherine O'Hara, Forest Whitaker.

Where to Invade Next

Michael Moore is a political gadfly, kind of the Rush Limbaugh of the left. In this movie, he declared his purpose to be to "invade" countries where he could still "pronounce the names," and bring back innovations that the United States needed. (I watched this on a nine hour transatlantic flight: impaired judgement from lack of sleep may have been a factor.)

Moore visits various countries and discovers excellent working hours in Italy, a laid-back (but nevertheless successful) school system in Finland(?), and a very liberalised view of drugs in Portugal (he visits several other countries as well). The movie works fairly well as he interviews people to find out about the systems that are working overseas in various areas that are considered somewhat broken in the U.S. But when he gets to the whole discussion of the legality of drugs, he finds it necessary to go into a considerable discussion of what's wrong in the U.S., something he didn't bother with on any of the other topics - it was simply left implicit. Which actually worked better. His anti-U.S. rant about the failures of the U.S. on drugs is the low point of the movie: it was unnecessary and painfully bitter while the rest of the movie concentrated on the good that could be brought in from other countries.

Not a great movie, but for the most part a fairly likeable effort to open some eyes to different ways of handling things that may not be at their best on this continent.

2015, dir. Michael Moore.

While You Were Sleeping

Sandra Bullock plays a shy Chicago Transit Authority gate keeper who falls in love with a man who goes through her station every day - even though she's never spoken to him. When he's attacked on the platform on Christmas day and pushed on the tracks, she saves his life - and at the hospital where he's in a coma, she's mistaken for his fiancée. A comedy of errors ensues. Initially this is very funny and quite charming. But as the misunderstandings, coincidences, and flat out stupidities pile up, it becomes less amusing and more annoying. Bullock and Bill Pullman are charming. The ending is inevitable.

1995, dir. Jon Turteltaub. With Sandra Bullock, Bill Pullman, Peter Gallagher, Peter Boyle, Jack Warden, Jason Bernard, Glynis Johns.

Whip It

Ellen Page plays a 17 year old in Bodeen, Texas, whose mother pushes her into beauty pageants. She finds her calling in roller derby, without her parents knowing about it.

Unfortunately, what Drew Barrymore (who directs as well as acts) has produced here is an utterly normal coming-of-age comedy with the minor twist of the addition of roller derby. Page is a good actress, but there's not much to work with. There's some laughs in the absurdity of roller derby and the actors (mostly actresses) seem to be having a great time, but the movie doesn't really succeed as either a coming-of-age story or a comedy. And they didn't even use the Devo song.

On the other hand, Daniel Stern as her father did something resembling real acting and none of his usual over-the-top mugging. That at least was a pleasant surprise.

2009, dir. Drew Barrymore. With Ellen Page, Alia Shawkat, Kristen Wiig, Marcia Gay Harden, Daniel Stern, Drew Barrymore, Juliette Lewis, Jimmy Fallon.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

If you've ever wondered what it's like to be a war correspondent, wonder no more. I say this with absolutely no authority, but the base material is written by a war correspondent and it has a certain ... ring of truth to it. Tina Fey plays Kim Barker (the real Kim Barker wrote The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan about her time as a war correspondent, on which this is based), a woman disillusioned with her life as a television news writer who suddenly decides that she's going to take that offer to work news in Afghanistan. There she finds herself unprepared for the danger and the way women must behave in a very Muslim country, but rapidly takes to the rowdy and hard-partying lifestyle of the other correspondents. After initial success (fueled by her balls of steel, taking a camera and running toward a gunfight), things taper off as the network shows less and less interest in airing depressing stories of soldiers in war. Much humour is made of her fish-out-of-water status in the first half of the movie, but it gets more serious toward the end (without giving up entirely on the humour). I thought the first half was a bit too light-weight, but it wrapped up surprisingly well: I'm glad I watched it.

2016, dir. Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. With Tina Fey, Margot Robbie, Martin Freeman, Christopher Abbott, Billy Bob Thornton, Alfred Molina, Sheila Vand, Nicholas Braun, Steve Peacocke, Evan Jonigkeit, Cherry Jones.

Whisper of the Heart (orig. "Mimi wo sumaseba")

Relatively unusual anime in that it's placed in plain old current day Japan. There are fantasy elements, but they're very clearly inside someone's head. Detail-oriented in the best possible way, well drawn. Less unusual in that it's another coming-of-age tale about a girl approaching high school. She meets a boy who inspires her. There's not much here that sounds exciting, there's no wild action, just a young girl worrying about what she's going to do with her life. And it's done well.

Elements of this movie were used to spin off a very different movie, "The Cat Returns."

1995, dir. Yoshifumi Kondo.

White House Down

Very similar to "Olympus Has Fallen," which was released the same year: both deal with trained and armed personnel taking over the White House, with our troubled but decent hero (Channing Tatum in this case, Gerard Butler in "Olympus") personally saving the president (Jamie Foxx here, Aaron Eckhart there). I liked this one better: it had the sense of humour that was totally lacking from "Olympus" (but didn't overplay its hand), I thought the bad guys were better, and it didn't end on quite the same note of jangling American jingoism.

2013, dir. Roland Emmerich. With Channing Tatum, Jamie Foxx, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Richard Jenkins, Jason Clarke, James Woods.

Whitstable Pearl, Season 1

A British mystery TV series based on a series of books by Julie Wassmer. The main character is Pearl Nolan (Kerry Godliman) who runs a restaurant in Whitstable with her mother and her son. She also has a detective agency on the side. When a oyster supplier friend of hers dies, she suspects murder - which puts her at odds with the new police DCI in town. His name is Mike McGuire (Howard Charles) and he's to have a major role in the whole series.

Each episode is 50 minutes, and there are six in the first series.

While the extras on the DVD set said they were going for a "Scandi" flavour, I'm happy to say they didn't entirely succeed or I wouldn't have liked it as much. It's not as grim and dark as the Scandinavian stuff. Sure: middle-aged woman in small town Britain solving murders is incredibly unoriginal, but Pearl and Mike are very likeable characters and for the most part I found it better written and less obvious than most other detective series. Ironically, this didn't extend to the final episode. At the end of the fifth episode I predicted the exact interpersonal story arc of the sixth episode (although I hadn't the slightest idea how the mystery involved would play out, so that was good).

To my considerable surprise, I learned from the extras after I watched the series that Whitstable is not only a real place, but that they actually filmed most of the series there. This is because Wassmer is herself a "DFL" (Down-From-London) who moved there and fell in love.

2021, dir. David Caffrey, Jon Jones, Chanya Button. With Kerry Godliman, Howard Charles, Frances Barber, Isobelle Molloy, Rohan Nedd, Sophia Del Pizzo.

Who Am I?

Jackie Chan plays a secret operative who's lost his memory after a betrayal when his men are all killed and he's seriously injured. As he tries to recover his identity, people try to kill him.

Includes a lot of hit-or-miss Chan humour, and patented Chan sexism. On the plus side, it includes some spectacular stunts and possibly his best fight ever.

1998, dir. Jackie Chan. With Jackie Chan, Michelle Ferre, Mirai Yamamoto.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit

Set in a world where "Toon Town" occupies a large area adjacent to a Hollywood studio lot and where toons interact with humans and are employed the same way as movie actors (although receiving different pay), we find the mostly drunk private investigator Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) being paid to take photos of the toon Jessica Rabbit (voiced by Kathleen Turner) playing pattycake with a human. These photos break the heart of her husband, the famous actor / comic / toon, Roger Rabbit (voiced by Charles Fleischer) - who is shortly accused of killing the human involved. Valiant has dodged working with toons in the five years since his brother was killed by a toon (who dropped a piano on him) but can no longer avoid it.

This is a landmark film, ground-breaking in its interactions of animated characters and live humans. And watching it again in 2011, I was astounded at how good it is. I'm hardly Hoskins' biggest fan, but he's excellent here. He puts on a good American accent and brings real pathos to things like the loss of his brother - considering how the brother died, that's something of an achievement. This movie also provided the world with one of the most famous movie quotes ever, with the ludicrously voluptuous Jessica Rabbit saying "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way." The interactions between humans and toons are excellent, the mystery really is a mystery, the ending is tense ... a superb movie and a hell of an achievement. Highly recommended.

Postscript: another amazing thing they managed here that you'll never see again is Warner and Disney cartoon characters (pretty much all of them) co-existing side-by-side in the same movie.

1988, dir. Robert Zemeckis. With Bob Hoskins, Charles Fleischer, Christopher Lloyd, Kathleen Turner, Joanna Cassidy, Alan Tilvern, Stubby Kaye, Lou Hirsch, Mel Blanc.

Who Killed the Electric Car?

The first half hour is spent in explaining the origins and properties of the GM EV and electric cars in general. I found that fairly boring, but it got more interesting as it became apparent that GM was going way the hell out of their way to destroy every single EV they'd built and leased rather than sell them to the owners, many of whom were desperate to buy them after the lease ended. A bit paranoid, but pretty damn convincing, and fairly interesting overall.

2006, dir. Chris Paine.

Widows

Veronica (Viola Davis, not my favourite actress) is married to Harry Rawlings (Liam Neeson). Harry is a thief, a very good one, but Veronica isn't involved in that part of his life. As the movie opens, we see bits and pieces of the lives of Harry and his crew ... interspersed with their latest job, which goes horribly wrong and leaves them all dead. All before the title, which is of course "Widows." Veronica finds herself saddled with Harry's very large debt to the wrong people and a short time to pay it. She recruits a couple other widows of her husband's crew to pull off what would have been her husband's next job, even though none of them are criminals.

It is, as the reviews have suggested, very tense, as these women find themselves attracting the attention of career criminals who have no qualms about killing people. I think part of my not enjoying the film was that when I saw it was a "heist" movie I thought "Oceans Eleven" or "The Italian Job" - relatively light-hearted, humorous, and involving a complex and technically interesting heist. This is not that. The heist is well planned, but it's not overly interesting and it's not the core of the movie ... and things inevitably go wrong. This is also not "light-hearted," nor is it humorous. Part of the problem for me is also that the lead character is miserable (understandably) and not very likeable, and played by an actress I don't like. So ... I get that this is a good movie, but I didn't like it much.

2018, dir. Steve McQueen. With Viola Davis, Michelle Rodriguez, Elizabeth Debicki, Cynthia Erivo, Colin Farrell, Brian Tyree Henry, Daniel Kaluuya, Garret Dillahunt, Carrie Coon, Jacki Weaver, Robert Duvall, Lukas Haas, Kevin J. O'Connor.

Wilby Wonderful

A purely Canadian film about 24 hours in the life of a very small Maritime town. Paul Gross is the put-upon police man, Sandra Oh his incredibly tightly-wound wife. Rebecca Jenkins is Gross' girlfriend on the side, and Ellen Page is her daughter dealing with a new boyfriend. Callum Keith Rennie is the town repairman, seeking out the company of local businessman James Allodi despite the impending "gays at the beach" scandal. Allodi is where we start the movie, with him unsuccessfully trying to take his own life.

Rennie's character is wonderful: stoic and kind, gentle and supportive with everyone - he's even decent to Oh's character, who deserved to have her head bitten off. The whole "attempted suicide as comedy" shtick got a bit old, and the movie doesn't ultimately have much to say (except possibly the classic "be true to yourself"), but it's a nice little comedy about a small town.

2004, dir. Daniel MacIvor. With James Allodi, Callum Keith Rennie, Paul Gross, Sandra Oh, Ellen Page, Rebecca Jenkins, Maury Chaykin, Daniel MacIvor.

Wild

Cheryl Strayed wrote an autobiographical book called Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. Apparently Reese Witherspoon liked it: she's the producer as well as the main character (she plays Strayed).

The movie starts on the trail, but much of it is in flashback: it's not always obvious what point in her life we're looking at, but it's also usually not too important. They're establishing relationships in her life, her mother's (Laura Dern) influence and death, and Strayed's self-destructive behaviour. And, ultimately, her decision to "hike back to the person my mother believed me to be."

The performances are good, and the story is interesting. But it manages to be very slow-paced despite a number of interesting things happening. And the cinematographer (Yves Belanger) requires a special dis-commendation: in a two hour movie, we spend 70-80 minutes on the Pacific Crest Trail. In that time, he didn't manage a single moment of breath-taking beauty. How can you do that? It looks nice, yes ... but it should look glorious with the scenery available to him.

2014, dir. Jean-Marc Vallée. With Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Thomas Sadoski.

Wild Card

Looking for a brainless action movie on Netflix, I landed on this movie. I mean, it's got the ever-reliable Jason Statham, right? I got plenty of "brainless," not much action, and a weak and badly misguided attempt to discuss gambling addiction.

Jason Statham is Nick Wild, a skilled fighter who takes odd jobs around Las Vegas, mostly chaperoning gamblers who want protection. His latest client (Michael Angarano) is a bit of a dweeb, and an old friend of his (Dominik Garcia-Lorido) has been raped by some nasties. Helping her inevitably leads to escalating problems, as we also find out that Nick is a gambling addict (unusually, he's not in debt to anyone - but any money he earns, he loses).

They hired a lot of good staffing for this one, and then wasted them. Sofía Vergara appears in only one scene, as a bimbo - don't condemn me for my terminology until you hear she's listed as "DD" in the credits. Stanley Tucci is good, but not around for long - but while he's present he smoothly out-acts and embarrasses everyone on screen with him. Wild's string of luck at the tables is incredibly improbable, although the end of that run is inevitable (and boring). Michael Angarano's character is incredibly annoying - he's meant to be, but it's still ... annoying. Milo Ventimiglia's character is one-note macho evil, not interesting at all. Anne Heche, Jason Alexander, and Hope Davis are all good and experienced actors, wasted (along with Tucci) in relatively small and undemanding roles in this low grade tripe.

Wikipedia says "... Jason Statham developed the project himself ..." Was this an attempt to be seen as a serious actor? If so, it was exceptionally ill-conceived as the scenes where he has to act are significantly worse than his acting in a number of other movies. There's also not much action, and it's not very good ...

2015, dir. Simon West. With Jason Statham, Michael Angarano, Milo Ventimiglia, Dominik Garcia-Lorido, Anne Heche, Hope Davis, Stanley Tucci, Max Casella, Sofía Vergara, Jason Alexander, Chris Browning, Matthew Willig.

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill

While the movie is definitely about the parrots, it is just as much about Mark Bittner who fed them and observed them for several years. I walked the neighbourhood and saw the parrots when I was in San Francisco in 2004 - I wonder if they were filming when I was there? Bittner is eccentric, but intelligent and interesting to listen to. The movie doesn't exactly grab you, but it's interesting and fairly well shot, and does have a wonderfully bizarre twist at the end. Not a bad thing - just strange and unexpected.

2003, dir. Judy Irving. With Mark Bittner.

Win Win

Mike Flaherty (Paul Giamatti) is a small town lawyer and volunteer wrestling coach trying to make ends meet. He makes a poor decision and becomes the ward of a mentally incapacitated client because it involves money. Then the client's grandson Kyle (Alex Shaffer) appears (unrelated to the other issue) and Flaherty discovers the kid is A) fairly decent in a very blunt way, and B) really, really good at wrestling, so he takes him in. And then Kyle's Mom resurfaces, and wants control of both her son and her father ...

Populated entirely by real people, it's a pleasure to see the utter lack of clichés and stereotypes. I'm not fond of watching people, particularly decent ones like Flaherty, struggle for money, so this isn't going to be a favourite film of mine, but the acting is superb and it's a good story.

2011, dir. Thomas McCarthy. With Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan, Alex Shaffer, Bobby Cannavale, Jeffrey Tambor, David W. Thompson.

The Windermere Children

After World War II, the UK took in more than 750 child survivors of the Holocaust. Of those, 300 went to Calgarth Estate near Lake Windermere in England. This is a fictionalized story of what happened to them - book-ended by stories from the real survivors. The children were, unsurprisingly, horribly traumatized by their experiences. They had compassionate staff to tend to them, but weren't entirely welcomed by the people in the area. And they only had four months to set these kids on their feet in a new country, with occasional emotional setbacks like the Red Cross showing up with news yes, the entire rest of your family is actually dead.

The movie takes a fairly low-key approach to a subject that could easily have been over-dramatized - and by doing so probably made it more effective. We see and feel their pain - but also the growth, the hope, and the ultimate positive effects.

2020, dir. Michael Samuels. With Thomas Kretschmann, Iain Glen, Romola Garai, Tim McInnerny, Philipp Christopher, Kuba Sprenger, Anna Schumacher, Pascal Fischer, Jakup Jankiewicz, Kacper Swietek, Tomasz Studzinski, Lukasz Zieba.

The Wind Journeys (orig. "Los viajes del viento")

A Colombian film about a man trying to return a cursed accordion after the death of his wife. As always, I enjoyed the simple fact that this movie wasn't made in Hollywood. But decent cinematography isn't nearly enough to cover for a simple story played by poor actors and burdened with a great deal of mediocre-to-poor accordion playing.

2009, dir. Ciro Guerra. With Marciano Martínez, Yull Núñez.

The Wind Rises

Seen with distinctly bad fan subs: take that into account when reading the review.

The story is a fictionalized version of the early life of Jiro Horikoshi, the engineer at Mitsubishi who designed the A5M aircraft and the more famous A6M Zero. Despite which there's very little talk about war, although Jiro does visit Germany once or twice in the mid 1930s. It's mostly about his dreams (he visits with the Italian aircraft designer Caproni several times in his dreams), his dedication, and his romance of a young woman with tuberculosis.

This isn't a story for children: Jiro smokes frequently, his girlfriend is dying slowly and occasionally coughing blood, there's the implication of sex, and the whole nation is winding up for war. And yet it has the feel and tone of one of Miyazaki's children's movies, and Jiro's sister never progresses beyond looking 12 years old (although ultimately she has got a degree as a medical doctor). It has some of Miyazaki's magical touches, and is far superior to his previous movie ("Ponyo"), but it isn't his best. It was interesting to see him drawing real planes, instead of whatever he felt like a plane ought to look like without the restrictions of physics ...

2013, dir. Hayao Miyazaki. With Hideaki Anno, Miori Takimoto, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Masahiko Nishimura, Stephen Alpert.

Wind River

The movie opens on a battered young woman running through the snow barefoot at night. Clearly in a lot of pain, she stumbles on. We cut to the much longer introduction of Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner), a tracker and hunter for Fish and Wildlife. We're introduced to his job and his family before he finds the girl frozen in the snow - someone he knows. This brings inexperienced FBI agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) to the Wind River Indian Reservation to investigate. She gets assistance from Cory, who has plenty of his own reasons to help.

I loved the first half of the movie: a dark character-driven mystery, very well written. Not as thrilled with the second half: the big shootout and revenge set piece fit with what's happened in the story, but I preferred the more thoughtful first half. The man who wrote and directed, Taylor Sheridan, has made it clear in interviews - and with closing title cards - that the movie is all about how shit life on the reservation is, particularly for women. I'm not disagreeing, but I do get a bit pissed off at movies that deliver messages so blatantly. It's well acted and well written, but I found it a bit frustrating.

2017, dir. Taylor Sheridan. With Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen, Graham Greene, Kelsey Asbille, Gil Birmingham, Julia Jones, Martin Sensmeier.

Wing Chun

The trailer made this look like a serious martial arts action flick, but it's more of a comedy with a lot of action. And as with most Chinese humour, I didn't really get it. It was amusing, but neither the action (including wire-work and occasional speeding-up) nor the comedy was all that great. Michelle Yeoh was quite charming, but not enough to save the movie.

Yeoh plays the titular Yim Wing Chun, a woman who learnt martial arts to ward off an unwanted marriage (not the suitor, but the interest ... apparently successfully). She now dresses like a man and defends the village against nearby bandits. Donnie Yen is a man who loved her when they were children and has recently returned, but has mistaken Wing Chun's co-worker for Wing Chun - a situation that Wing Chun does nothing to change.

1994, dir. Yuen Woo-ping. With Michelle Yeoh, Donnie Yen, Pei-pei Cheng.

Wing Commander

I was looking for a couple hours of idle entertainment, and that's what I got. I'm not the least bit surprised to see that the critics hated it: it is, indeed, a bad movie. But ... it was kind of fun despite the clichés and massive failures of logic.

Matthew Lillard and Freddie Prinze play young new pilots assigned to help out in the fight against the alien Kilrathi. Both are superb pilots, each with their own issues. Prinze faces some problems because one of his parents was a "Pilgrim," a group that had previously been at war with the rest of the human race. Lillard is a show-off and a braggart who occasionally endangers others.

This is all based on a video game series, and mostly wastes a large amount of reasonable talent - David Warner, David Suchet, Tchéky Karyo, Jürgen Prochnow - by under-utilizing them or making their characters walking clichés. From an SF perspective, I was most annoyed by the ships and the flying: the ships looked like old American ironclad warships with rockets strapped on their asses. Flying was also very oriented to gravity-bound and atmospheric behaviour, despite being in deep space.

1999, dir. Chris Roberts. With Freddie Prinze Jr., Saffron Burrows, Matthew Lillard, Tchéky Karyo, Jürgen Prochnow, David Warner, David Suchet.

The Winning Season

Stars Sam Rockwell as an alcoholic, estranged father, and current dishwasher. The local high school president hires him to (once again) coach basketball. He reluctantly takes on coaching the women's varsity basketball team ("women hate me").

Rockwell is excellent, but that can only raise a very traditional plot and movie to watchable and mildly enjoyable. Some minor twists help and there's a higher degree of personal lives intruding than usually seen in a sports movie.

2009, dir. James C. Strouse. With Sam Rockwell, Emma Roberts, Rob Corddry, Meaghan Witri, Melanie Hinkle, Rooney Mara, Shareeka Epps, Emily Rios.

The Winx Saga, Season 1

This is a Netflix live action teen urban fantasy, evidently based on a Nickelodeon animated series.

If you drew a straight line from Harry Potter to "The Magicians," you would find this series right on that line, dead in the middle. It unapologetically ransacks tropes and ideas from both and adds nothing new.

Our main character is Bloom (Abigail Cowen), a young woman who was raised as human but turns out to have fairy magic and so is sent to a boarding school called Alfea College to learn to control her magic. There she's put in a suite of rooms with four other students - in a passing reference, we see that they live in the "Winx" suite. Her roommates are Stella (a light fairy), Aisha (a water fairy), Terra (an earth fairy), and Musa (a mind fairy). Bloom's outsider status is played up, we're introduced to a hot boy (Danny Griffin as Sky) who's a second year "Specialist" (warrior) student who becomes Bloom's implicit love interest, and various other students and faculty. Much is made of the strength of Bloom's powers, her lack of control, her unknown parentage, and her temper.

During the season, Bloom gains control and makes friends, and realizes that A) everyone is flawed, and B) everybody is doing what they think is right (these are big themes in the series). And then (SPOILER ALERT, stop reading etc.) she proves her incredible strength by saving many people, resolves all of her personal conflicts and unites her friends and family, and comes back to the school to find that in seeking answers to questions about her own history she's unleashed a far worse fate on the school - to be continued.

What we have is an "edgy" teen remake of what is apparently a beloved kids animated show that relies way too heavily on clichés and ideas from other series. It's not terrible, but it's definitely bad.

2021. With Abigail Cowen, Hannah van der Westhuysen, Precious Mustapha, Eliot Salt, Elisha Applebaum, Danny Griffin, Sadie Soverall, Freddie Thorp, Robert James-Collier, Eve Best, Lesley Sharp, Theo Graham, Alex Macqueen, Jacob Dudman.

The Witch: Subversion

Wikipedia refers to this Korean film as a "mystery action film." I'm calling it "Science Fiction" because the explanatory science presented later in the film isn't something we have available yet - despite this being set in the present day. The opening is violent and largely unexplained, with a young girl escaping some sort of research facility and people dying. The facility minder assumes she'll die, but she manages to survive and is adopted by a farmer (formerly an architect?) and his wife. The movie jumps forward ten years to when the young woman (now played by Kim Da-mi) is in high school, leading an ordinary life. Things change though when she auditions (successfully) for a national talent show. This brings unwanted attention in the form of two different sets of threatening people in big black cars. The movie gets staggeringly violent for a while (that's a bit of a spoiler, but if you're not aware of what you're getting into I think the warning is justified).

The movie is well put together and not bad. It's clever (unexpected things happen, reasons are revealed), but I didn't really feel like it was intelligent or there was much of a point beyond the cleverness. And at the end we cut to black on the appearance of a new character and a new threat - thus living up to the more common full title, which is "The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion." Yup, there's to be a sequel (dependent, of course, on receipts). I'm indifferent: well-constructed, clever, violent Korean flicks are disturbingly common these days, and I'm less into the entertainment value of bloody violence than I used to be.

2018, dir. Park Hoon-jung. With Kim Da-mi, Jo Min-su, Choi Woo-shik, Park Hee-soon, Go Min-si, Choi Jung-woo, Choi Jung-woo, Kim Byeong-ok.

The Witcher, Season 1

Henry Cavill leads as "The Witcher," and is finally showing some charisma and passable acting above and beyond his good looks. Mind you, it's kind of a B-Movie project ... The first season is eight episodes of one hour each.

This started as a series of fantasy short stories and books, first published in the mid-1980s by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. They first came to the attention of North American audiences via "The Witcher" video games (although it apparently made it to Polish TV five years prior).

Geralt of Rivia (Cavill) is a "witcher," a modified human who makes his living hunting monsters (Eastern European fantasy and folk-tale monsters) in a medieval land. People despise him, even as they pay him gold to eliminate monsters. Despite being spat upon by the people he protects, Geralt is - while grumpy and brusque - both honest and decent. We're also shortly introduced to the malformed Yennefer (Anya Chalotra), who has the makings of a powerful sorceress, and Cirilla (Freya Allan), princess in the kingdom of Cintra that's overrun by the Nilfgaardians. What's not immediately obvious is that Ciri's story is happening later (on second viewing I'm forced to acknowledge there were at least a couple clear signs ... although apparently not as obvious as I needed) - the timelines converge at the end of the season.

A significant point they seem to be making is that humans are worse than monsters: monsters do what they do because it's their nature, but humans choose to torture and kill other humans, sometimes on a grand scale - even though they have a choice. It also believes very strongly in Destiny: we are to find out that Geralt and Ciri are tied together by Destiny, and that much of the havoc that proceeded their meeting was probably caused by one person's refusal to accept Destiny.

Prepare yourself for modern English: in the first episode they referenced a "ride-along," and "elf on the shelf." Both mostly worked in context, but were deliberate jabs at the viewing audience as the terms would have less resonance for the people in the fantasy world. Happily, the later episodes didn't seem to be quite as laden. The series is also home to substantial violence and a fair helping of naked women, although not out of the ordinary for most TV fare these days.

The series is epic, and Geralt is a good character to centre the series on. Yennefer was good, but her moral flip-flops made her less appealing and somewhat less believable. At one point the passing of thirty years (in which Yennefer has aged not at all - apparently magic users, including witchers, don't age) is denoted by a single sentence. Ciri has a certain waifish charm, but the young actress in the role isn't great and her storyline amounts to "run away."

If a second season wraps the whole thing up, I'm with them. If they stretch it out to more, I'll have a harder decision to make.

When the second season arrived, I started watching it ... and lost interest. The first season is worth watching though!

2019. With Henry Cavill, Anya Chalotra, Freya Allan, Joey Batey, Eamon Farren, Tom Canton, Lars Mikkelsen, Mimi Ndiweni, MyAnna Buring, Adam Levy, Royce Pierreson, Johdhi May.

The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf

"The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf" is a Netflix animated spin-off movie cashing in on the success of "The Witcher" TV series. And "cashing in" does seem to be the operative idea: the animation is fairly good, but there's little else good to say about this movie. The writing is poor, the voice acting only slightly better, and they've taken what could have been, was supposed to be, the grand story of Vesemir's origin and the sacking of Kaer Morhen and turned it into an overblown and underwhelming spectacle.

The movie opens with a god-awful song apparently trying to tell us the story, but then it turns out it's a child on screen singing. It was a weird and jarring choice to open the movie. This leads to the introduction of Vesemir (voiced by Theo James), a witcher who's very good at killing monsters ... and mostly in it for the money. If you saw "The Witcher" season 1, you know the name "Vesemir" because he's Geralt of Rivia's beloved mentor. This becomes both Vesemir's origin story (what changed him from "money-grubbing" to teacher) and the story of the destruction of Kaer Morhen (the place where witchers were made, past tense). One thing the movie does do is stick to the overarching theme that humans are worse than monsters ...

This makes "The Witcher" TV series look like great art: I can't recommend it to anyone.

2021, dir. Kwang Il Han. With Theo James, Lara Pulver, Graham McTavish, Mary McDonnell, Tom Canton, Matt Yang King, David Errigo Jr.

Withnail & I

I have a weakness for sympathetic characters. Seeing none, I was less than enchanted with this film. Apparently it's a cult classic. Guess I'm out of the joke ...

1986. dir. Bruce Robinson. With Richard E. Grant, Paul McGann.

Without a Clue

Sherlock Holmes (Michael Caine) is a clueless drunken actor guided by the brilliant Dr. Watson (Ben Kingsley). Watson attempts to get rid of Holmes, but finds he's been so successful building up the mystique around Holmes that he can't convince anyone to hire him alone. I found most of the movie mildly amusing but nothing spectacular - and yet somehow it came together very well at the end, which has a good deal of action and humour and redeemed the whole movie.

1988, dir. Thom Eberhardt. With Michael Caine, Ben Kingsley, Jeffrey Jones, Lysette Anthony, Paul Freeman, Pat Keen.

Witness

Revisiting a movie from my youth. Director Peter Weir, with Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis. In the mid-1980s, McGillis looked poised to become a superstar when she followed this movie with an appearance in "Top Gun" opposite Tom Cruise - but instead she vanished.

Ford plays John Book, a Philadelphia police detective trying to protect an eight year old Amish boy (Samuel Lapp, played by Lukas Haas) who witnessed a drug-related killing. But the crime turns out to be much messier than he thought: the police officer who was killed had his throat slit by another police officer - and the corruption runs deep enough that Book has to go on the run with the boy and the boy's mother (Rachel Lapp, played by McGillis). Book is injured and the car quits when he gets them back to their home territory - so the Philadelphia detective goes to ground in the middle of Amish country. Book has trouble in Amish country, and causes trouble too because he doesn't know how to fit in - and to some extent doesn't want to. But their basic life is painted as a paradise, and Rachel and Book kind of fall for each other.

The movie is slow-paced but fairly good. The inevitable violence at the end is lower-key than modern action movies - and more believable for it. Not a great movie, but unusual and fairly good.

P.S. I stopped the movie in shock when I saw what appeared to be an extremely young Viggo Mortensen. Research shows that not only was it Mortensen in a small non-speaking part, but it may well have been his first Hollywood film.

1985, dir. Peter Weir. With Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, Josef Sommer, Lukas Haas, Jan Rubeš, Alexander Godunov, Danny Glover, Brent Jennings, Patti LuPone, Viggo Mortensen.

Wizards: Tales of Arcadia

Follow-up to "Trollhunters" and "3Below:" all of these are subtitled "Tales of Arcadia," and "Created by" Guillermo del Toro. Which I have to admit doesn't carry as much weight with me as it does with most (I wasn't a fan of "Pacific Rim" or "Hellboy 2"). But yes, I watched both the other series right through.

This opens immediately after the events of "3Below." This is the shortest of the three Arcadia Tales: "Trollhunters," the first series, was three seasons, "3Below" was two seasons, and "Wizards" is only one season (ten 23-minute episodes) - although Wikipedia suggests we're to expect a follow-up movie (they left some dangling details for it).

Our hero is Hisirdoux "Douxie" Casperan (voiced by Colin O'Donoghue) who (inevitably) lives in Arcadia - but turns out to be Merlin's apprentice. And after 900 years of apprenticeship, he's finally called on to do something more than mop floors. He's accompanied by his talking, flying cat familiar Archy (Alfred Molina), and teams up with some of the previous defenders of Arcadia - initially Claire Nuñez (Lexi Medrano) and Steve Palchuk (Steven Yeun), but that roster fills out over time.

I found I was really tired of the Palchuk shtick - shrieking in fear, making stupid comments, magically fighting well when it's convenient to the plot, etc. And Douxie is ... a fairly good character, but not as compelling as Jim Lake in "Trollhunters" or Krel and Aja in "3Below." I'm also tired of their perpetual plotting practise - out of the frying pan and into the fire, pretty much every episode. Definitely the weakest of the three series.

SPOILER WARNING, stop reading, blah, blah, blah.

Postscript: An interesting thing I realized about this "tale" is they killed off pretty much every adult they introduced. Nobody's parents were involved this time, but passing-the-torch was pretty terminal for the adults in this series.

Followed by "Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans."

2020. With Colin O'Donoghue, Lexi Medrano, David Bradley, Lena Headey, James Faulkner, Steven Yeun, Alfred Molina, John Rhys-Davies, Rupert Penry-Jones, Emile Hirsch, Kelsey Grammer, Mark Hamill, Stephanie Beatriz, Angel Lin, Clancy Brown, Darin De Paul, Diego Luna, Piotr Michael, Charlie Saxton, Fred Tatasciore, Brian Blessed, Rodrigo Blaas, Kay Bess.

WKRP in Cincinnati - Season 1

"As God is my witness, I thought they could fly!" The first season of WKRP contains some of the best comedy aired any time in the 1970s, the only better show being "M*A*S*H." The radio station team is made up of "personalities," almost all of them incredibly quirky. It's a money-losing station ("16th out of 18 in the market"), and the newly arrived program director Andy Travis (Gary Sandy) works hard to try to turn the place around.

The show opens strong with Travis telling DJ "Dr. Johnny Fever" (Howard Hesseman) to change formats from easy listening to rock and roll. Fever, who was almost comatose from the crap he'd been playing, screeches a needle across a record, launches into a hilarious opening diatribe, and breaks a record in half as he peals it off the platter. Fever is a good example of their personalities: he's a good DJ, but he has a foul mouth that got him fired a couple times. He's constantly clutching a coffee cup: he's a little paranoid, and often simply falls asleep - even on air, but he always wakes up before the record runs out.

I saw bits and pieces of the series when it first aired. It was a pleasure to watch the first season straight through: it's very funny. Unfortunately, I felt the quality of the writing dropped off sharply in the last couple episodes in the first season. I watched the first four episodes of the second season, and I think that's it for me: they've taken to over-emphasizing everyone's worst qualities in the name of humour, with plenty more mugging for the camera, and I wasn't laughing any more.

It's not obvious these days, but the series was unusual at the time for tackling social issues in a comedy format - most obviously racism and sexism. The episode "Who is Gordon Sims" sees their black DJ "Venus Flytrap" dealing with having deserted from the U.S. army (his reasons are understandable): it's a decent if not exceptional episode by modern standards, but at the time it would have been extraordinary. If you're not somehow familiar with the series, I recommend the first season.

1978. With Gary Sandy, Gordon Jump, Howard Hesseman, Richard Sanders, Loni Anderson, Frank Bonner, Tim Reid, Jan Smithers.

WKRP in Cincinnati - Season 2

As I mentioned at the end of my review of Season 1, I thought the material was going in a broader and less funny direction at the end of that season. I watched season 2 mostly while doing other work (unusual for me): it wasn't as bad as I anticipated (and the first 3-4 mentioned with the previous season were the worst of the lot), but it wasn't terribly good either. The "In Concert" episode was a particular stand-out: not because it was funny, but because they tackled an important issue. Specifically, the Who concert in Cincinnati (only a couple months before the broadcast date) at which 11 people died in the crush to get in to general seating (Wikipedia on the concert).

I'd recommend to anyone to watch the first season, but I think the second season is only for the very dedicated.

1979. With Gary Sandy, Gordon Jump, Howard Hesseman, Richard Sanders, Loni Anderson, Frank Bonner, Tim Reid, Jan Smithers.

Wolf Children

Directed by Mamoru Hosoda, who also did "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" and "Summer Wars," both of which were goofy fun. This one has a pretty significant edge of melancholy to it that wasn't present in his previous movies.

The story starts in voice-over, with the daughter Yuki explaining how her parents met. We see her mother at university, meeting a fairly solitary but likable guy ... who turns out to be part wolf. Although not, it's quickly explained, subject to the full moon or the slaughter of innocents. But about 20 minutes in, he's killed in an unexplained accident - she watches and is unable to stop them as his wolf-corpse (assumed to be just a dead dog) is thrown in a trash compactor ... kind of heart-breaking. Leaving her with two children with very unusual needs. One of my favourite moments was when one of the kids was sick and she didn't know whether to take her to the children's hospital or the veterinarian.

The mother explains early on that she has learned to soldier through anything, and that's a good thing as she's constantly overwhelmed by the unknown while raising this pair. It's well done, definitely more mature than Hosoda's previous work, but also tiring and stressful just to watch. The animation is lovely.

2012, dir. Mamoru Hosoda. With Aoi Miyazaki, Takao Osawa, Haru Kuroki, Yukito Nishii.

The Wolf of Snow Hollow

A young woman is murdered in a small town by what appears to be a werewolf, on the night of a full moon. The sheriff (Robert Forster) has heart problems he won't admit to, and his alcoholic rage-filled son (Jim Cummings, who also directed) is running the department ... badly.

The movie is listed as a horror-comedy, but most of the comedy is at the expense of an alcoholic who's drinking again because he can't handle the stress of his job and is having a mental breakdown. Yeah, that's comedy gold right there. It's well constructed and there are a couple mildly funny scenes, but ... not for me.

2020, dir. Jim Cummings. With Jim Cummings, Riki Lindhome, Robert Forster, Chloe East, Jimmy Tatro, Anne Sward.

Wolverine (aka "X-Men Origins: Wolverine")

The opening credits run over top of Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and his half brother Victor Creed / Sabretooth (Liev Schreiber) fighting side-by-side through a century of wars, morphing in a moment from the trenches of the First World War to the beaches of the Second ... as it turned out, this impressive bit of special effects wizardry was the best part of the movie as it shows a strong bond between the two characters and their two different motivations for fighting (Wolverine for justice, Creed for the kill). But after this fine setup, the movie continues at much the same pace - hardly any character development, just a series of situations created to allow people with superpowers to fight each other. Although I have to admit some of the fights are quite good. All leading up to the unsatisfying ending in which Wolverine loses all memory of the entire story we just watched (sorry, if you've see the X-Men movies you knew it was coming).

The opening sequence and special effects are great, and I thought Schreiber was good as Sabretooth (even though I was disappointed they didn't recall Tyler Mane). But Jackman spends the whole movie scowling and yelling - he's capable of superb acting, and this is possibly the worst I've ever seen from him. The lack of character development after the excellent track record of the first two X-Men movies (hell, even the third compared to this) is a massive disappointment.

2009, dir. Gavin Hood. With Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Will.i.am, Lynn Collins, Dominic Monaghan, Taylor Kitsch, Ryan Reynolds.

The Wolverine

Immensely better than its predecessor, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," although still not a great movie. Hugh Jackman is of course still in the title role, first seen living in the woods outside some anonymous American town, feeling more in tune with the local grizzly bear than the local humans. But after an altercation at a bar, he's convinced to fly off to Japan with Yukio (Rila Fukushima) to visit Yashida, a man whose life he saved during the second world war. He becomes entangled in the life and business (and death) of various members of that family and has much of his ability to heal taken from him. And once again he fights for honour and the right ...

Jackman is serviceable: there's actually a bit of dramatic range here, where there was none in the previous movie. The action is excessive, but fairly cool. The retconning is relatively minor but still pisses me off: adamantium was carefully explained to us in X2, and now it has different properties. Fukushima turns out to be a model in her native Japan - I find her interesting but not attractive to look at, but she manages a surprisingly appealing character. Includes several other mutants and "specials:" multiple ninja, Viper (although not per Marvel's prior visions of her), and Yukio (who is a pre-cog). Overall, a reasonably enjoyable ride.

The 3D BluRay version seems to vary from disc to disc - the rental I saw initially was excellent, looked fantastic. The disc I purchased goes slightly squishy around the edges of characters in the intense action, otherwise very good. The 3D version is the shorter theatrical release, lacking some details from the extended version I had initially seen - and for once, I actually thought the added details were good and the extended version should be preferred.

2013, dir. James Mangold. With Hugh Jackman, Tao Okamoto, Hiroyuki Sanada, Rila Fukushima, Svetlana Khodchenkova, Will Yun Lee, Brian Tee, Famke Janssen, Ken Yamamura, Hal Yamanouchi.

Woman in Gold

"The Woman in Gold" is probably Gustav Klimt's most famous painting (Wikipedia article with photo) and also possibly the most famous portrait ever painted (well, except "the Mona Lisa"). This movie is about the history of that painting, and its eventual restitution to the family decades after it was seized by the Nazis.

Helen Mirren (with brown contacts, which I found oddly disturbing) plays Maria Altmann, an Austrian Jew now living in Los Angeles. When she discovers after her sister's death that she might have rights to the Klimt portrait of her aunt that had hung in her family home for her entire childhood, she asks a friend whose son is a lawyer if she can borrow him for a bit ... The lawyer in question is E. Randol "Randy" Schoenberg (played by Ryan Reynolds), grandson of the famous composer and also of Austrian descent. He has no experience and little initial interest, but the case gets under his skin and he begins to pursue it.

The movie has far too many flashbacks, although I understand the need to put some of the information about the family, their history, and the painting before us. Mirren and Reynolds made a very compelling pair, but the young Maria (Tatiana Maslany) and her husband (Max Irons) in the flashbacks weren't as good. The movie was also overly sentimental and manipulative with some very heavy-handed music.

That said, Mirren and Reynolds were very good, and the story is fascinating - both the picture in time of a rich Viennese Jewish family, and the whole history of the picture's restitution.

If you watch the movie, it's worth your time to read the Historical Accuracy section of the Wikipedia article (not brutally bad, but they - typically of Hollywood - over-emphasized the American angle and made some other dubious changes).

2015, dir. Simon Curtis. With Helen Mirren, Ryan Reynolds, Daniel Brühl, Katie Holmes, Tatiana Maslany, Max Irons, Charles Dance, Elizabeth McGovern, Jonathan Pryce.

The Woman Who Loves Giraffes

Anne Innis Dagg has led a very interesting life - with an added bonus for those of us in Toronto because of her (and her family's) association with the city. Before she hit ten years old, she'd fallen in love with Giraffes at the zoo ... and unlike most of us, she followed through on that career choice. In 1956, with a newly minted degree in Biology from the University of Toronto, she got on a ship to South Africa alone, to research her favourite animals. That would sound a bit unsafe in 2021 (when I'm writing): imagine how it sounded in 1956. She stayed there for about a year, and in the process wrote what became essentially the Giraffe bible - because there were no books about the animal at the time.

While this is probably the thing she'll be remembered for most, the rest of her life has been fascinating: having returned to Canada and a university, she couldn't get tenured despite her stellar publishing history. So she went to war with academia over their blatant sexism. And much more besides. I think my favourite moment - mildly reminiscent of "Searching for Sugar Man" (with her playing the part of the thought-to-have-vanished hero) was her welcome into the Giraffe research community in her later years.

A great story about one hell of a life.

2018, dir. Alison Reid. With Anne Innis Dagg, Tatiana Maslany, Victor Garber.

Wonder Boys

Michael Douglas plays a university professor who wrote "the great American novel" seven years ago ... and hasn't published anything since. We see him through a weekend in which his university has a big event, his editor flies into town looking for his next book, his wife leaves him, his mistress tells him she's pregnant, one of his students hits on him, he gets involved with another student who is a pathological liar ... A lot happens. It's very funny. And if you've ever worked at a university, it's even funnier.

2000, dir. Curtis Hanson. With Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Robert Downey Jr., Katie Holmes, Rip Torn.

Wonder Woman

DC Comics must be so pleased - after an ugly dry spell marked by failures like "Suicide Squad," "Batman v Superman ," and "Green Lantern," they finally have a hit with the critics again. Rightly so: it combines a good performances by Gal Gadot and Chris Pine with fairly good period accuracy, and lots of action. Gadot is Diana, raised as a princess on the island of the Amazons - and trained to be perhaps the best hand-to-hand warrior in the world. When a fleeing American spy (Pine) followed by a bunch of Germans arrives at their island (the first outsiders to visit in an unspecified but very long period of time), she insists on accompanying him to the outside world in the naive belief that she can terminate the Great War (World War I). This sets up her innocence against the practicalities of war. Gadot and Pine are very good together, and the movie is for the most part quite good - although the ending soured me slightly.

Less important but painfully inaccurate:

  • the Germans were no longer flying Fokker Eindeckers in 1918
  • you don't follow a stolen Eindecker with boats (particularly not row boats), you follow it with planes
  • a sail boat doesn't go from North Africa to London overnight

2017, dir. Patty Jenkins. With Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Robin Wright, Danny Huston, David Thewlis, Connie Nielsen, Elena Anaya.

Wonder Woman 1984

Prequels almost always cause retconning, either intentionally or by accident. But this is comics, and continuity between movies isn't what you'd call a "priority." Yes, this is technically a sequel to 2017's "Wonder Woman" which was set during the First World War, but Wonder Woman also played a major role in "Justice League" which was also set in 2017. So going back to 1984 is effectively "history" to another canonical DC movie ...

Gal Gadot returns as Diana Prince / Wonder Woman. Chris Pine returns as Steve Trevor - which is interesting, because he died near the end of the last movie (and would be approximately 100 years old had he lived). But again, this is comics. The MacGuffin in this movie is the Dreamstone, which surfaces at the museum that Diana works at. It's tended by Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig). Both of them make wishes of the Dreamstone without realizing what they're doing. Then Max Lord (Pedro Pascal), who knows exactly what the Dreamstone is, steals it and makes things far, far worse.

There are a couple long sections I felt were unnecessary. The first was a flashback to Diana's childhood to establish her belief in fairness and justice. Umm, hello? What the hell else has Wonder Woman ever stood for? Which means that this adds to the run-time (a painful 151 minutes) without telling us anything we didn't already know. And the other section, while at least a part of the main plot, is the film making fun of Steve Trevor's lack of understanding of modern technology - including his enjoyment of fanny packs and parachute pants. Kinda pointless, and not as funny as they thought it was.

This also ties into another logical problem. We've clearly established that Steve doesn't know anything about technology after 1918 - and yet he climbs into a 1984 military jet and works out how to fly it in under five minutes.

I realize that complaints like these sound like nitpicking and a failure of suspension-of-disbelief. Yup. But here's the thing: those only happen when the movie isn't good enough to get you past the issues. This movie is grandiose, overblown, and sloppy - among other things, the consequences of failure are essentially the destruction of civilization as we know it. Why is it always "go big or go home" on sequels? It manages some charming moments, but its simply not as elegant as the first solo Wonder Woman movie.

SPOILERS (stop reading etc.): I'm not done whining about logic. Wonder Woman can now make jets invisible. Again, it's a small thing and a throwback/tribute to older versions of Wonder Woman, but ... was it necessary? It didn't really advance the plot. And by the end of the movie she can fly, pretty much exactly like Superman - and here we encounter one of those nasty little retconning problems: she didn't fly in "Justice League" (which happens well after this but was filmed before) but she sure as hell could have used it. As for the Dreamstone and its effects: when Max Lord renounced his wish, that very nasty item would have reappeared. Diana would realize that and want to deal with it - but they didn't address that at all. And we never heard "Cheetah" renounce - it's implied she did, but she wasn't dependent on Max Lord (as almost everyone else was). Of course that may have been deliberate so she can remain a supervillain for Wonder Woman to deal with later. My last item is actually more positive: while the appearance of Asteria in the mid-credits scene was ... improbable ... it was nice to see them slipping Lynda Carter into the story.

2020, dir. Patty Jenkins. With Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Pedro Pascal, Kristen Wiig, Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen, Lynda Carter.

The Wonderland

The movie starts with Akane (voiced by Mayu Matsuoka), a young woman unimpressed with junior high school. Her mother makes her go visit their friend Chii (Anne Watanabe) - Akane loves Chii's store, but doesn't know how to deal with Chii. Chii is preparing for another trip (back recently from Thailand, headed now to France) when Akane is pulled into another world by magic and Chii leaps to go along. I mention Chii's passion for travel because the movie is very much about that.

The other world stopped technologically around 1920, but also has alchemy and magic, as well as preposterous but beautiful landscapes. It is, inevitably, in crisis - and just as inevitably, it's Akane's fate to save the world. What follows is either a coming-of-age tale or merely a lesson that we live in a very beautiful world despite its problems. Either way, a charming and surprisingly gentle movie. It seems to have been inspired by a pair of Studio Ghibli titles: "Spirited Away" and "The Cat Returns."

2019, dir. Keiichi Hara. With Mayu Matsuoka, Anne Watanabe, Kumiko Asô, Nao Tōyama, Keiji Fujiwara, Akiko Yajima.

Woochi: The Demon Slayer (aka "Jeon Woo-chi: The Taoist Wizard")

We first see Woochi gliding down from the skies to the King's court, where he behaves as if he's come from Heaven and makes bizarre demands which the court is mostly eager to grant. He's soon revealed to be a trouble-making student of a Daoist Master. I'm more familiar with Chinese fantasy films, and characters in this film are similar to Wuxia warriors, flying through the air and fighting. Woochi and his faithful companion (who's not quite human) are banished to a painting, where they wait 500 years until the evil demons from their day resurface. The three stooges (umm, I mean "Daoist wizards" - different from "Daoist Masters") haul Woochi and his companion back out of the painting to assist with rounding up the demons. Woochi is of course not the least bit familiar with the modern world, so we have a bizarre blend of Daoist magic, fish-out-of-water humour, and magical martial arts fighting. It's a weird and wonky bit of work, but I found it both charming and surprisingly funny. Apparently hugely successful in its native Korea, it's probably not going to fly too well with most North Americans - but if you enjoyed stuff like "Painted Skin" or "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," this may be for you.

2023-10: I've titled this movie as it came to me in English at the time: "Woochi: The Demon Slayer." Having just watched director Choi Dong-hoon's equally goofy and equally entertaining "Alienoid," I find the official English title of this movie has morphed into "Jeon Woo-chi: The Taoist Wizard." <shrug>

2009, dir. Choi Dong-hoon. With Kang Dong-won, Yoo Hae-jin, Kim Yoon-seok, Im Soo-jung.

Word Play

Who the hell does a documentary about Crossword Puzzles? And damned if it's isn't fascinating. It centres mostly on the New York Times crossword puzzle - those that create it, those that do it (including the likes of Jon Stewart and Bill Clinton), and the yearly competition in Stamford, Connecticut. Contrary to anything you might expect, it's quite enjoyable.

2006, dir. Patrick Creadon.

The World's End

"The World's End" is the name of the movie, the last pub on the epic 12 pub crawl the group of friends never completed, and possibly a literal interpretation. Simon Pegg plays Gary King, a serious wanker approaching 40 who (through some seriously underhanded manoeuvring) manages to get his high school friends together in an attempt relive the glory days (as he sees it) and complete the pub crawl they failed out of at the end of high school. And so Pegg, Nick Frost, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan, and Paddy Considine return to their boring hometown to make the attempt (they're joined later by Rosamund Pike and Pierce Brosnan: this is a well-staffed movie). But this is a Pegg product, and all isn't quite as it appears: the residents of the town aren't as welcoming as Gary had hoped, and in fact behave very oddly indeed.

Most people have avoided giving any spoilers related to this movie in their reviews: we're a couple years out now and nobody reads my reviews anyway, so I'll toss in a small spoiler: this is a science fiction movie. Okay, not exactly: it's a comedy throughout, but about 40 minutes in it takes a sharp turn into territory any SF fan would claim for their own.

I find Pegg's comedy very hit-or-miss, and - for me at least - he missed this time. There were a few good jokes, but with a bunch of not terribly likable people and a weird and rather silly plot, movie length is just way too long for this.

2013, dir. Edgar Wright. With Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan, Rosamund Pike, Pierce Brosnan.

The World's Fastest Indian

A movie about one of those amiable maniacs you occasionally meet, totally obsessed with one thing. In this case, going very, very fast on a heavily modified motorcycle. And he's one of those rarer variety of amiable maniacs - one who was actually going to achieve something. Anthony Hopkins plays Burt Munro, a (real) New Zealander who took a hugely modified, very old Indian motorcycle to the Bonneville salt flats - and set a world record that stands to this day. They modify the facts for dramatic purposes and come up with a fairly charming movie. Munro (or this incarnation of him) is a charming guy, an eccentric, a lousy neighbour, and one hell of a mechanic.

What astounds me is that his record was still standing in 2009: "fastest streamlined motorcycle under 1000 cc." Huge advances have been made in motorcycles - and, for that matter, streamlining. And they've had 40 years to take this record out: and yet, no one has. He must really have done one hell of a job ...

2005, dir. Roger Donaldson. With Anthony Hopkins, Chris Williams, Annie Whittle.

Wrath of Man

Jason Statham is "H," or Patrick Hill, who we first meet as he joins Fortico as an armoured truck guard a few months after an incident where one of their trucks was robbed and the two guards killed. He gets his training and barely passes. He's also not particularly friendly to his co-workers. But when someone attempts to rob the truck he's in a few days later, he cooly steps out and takes out six armed assailants without getting a scratch. After establishing what a bad-ass he is, the movie starts digging into his back story, and the back stories of everyone around him. There are multiple flashbacks, all clearly labelled per their time period.

The movie is directed by Guy Ritchie. I haven't loved his movies, but the better known ones have at least been interesting and usually humourous. But not this time: this is a grim, dark revenge flick from end to end, without a single likeable person in sight - and not much to hold the interest other than who dies next. Which isn't something I find very rewarding. Worse, I guessed the inside man, and I knew the worst bad guy would die last and I knew who would kill him. I suppose there were some surprises, but they were more in the form of improbable events meant to raise the tension (without much success) than story points that appealed.

If you like revenge flicks with massive collateral damage and nothing but reprehensible people, this is the flick for you. I could acknowledge it as decent or good without liking any of the characters ... if there'd been some damn point. But there wasn't, just ... revenge.

2021, dir. Guy Ritchie. With Jason Statham, Holt McCallany, Jeffrey Donovan, Scott Eastwood, Andy Garcia, DeObia Oparei, Laz Alonso, Raúl Castillo, Chris Reilly, Josh Hartnett, Eddie Marsan, Niamh Algar, Tadhg Murphy, Darrell D'Silva, Babs Olunsanmokun.

Wrath of the Ninja: The Yōtōden Movie

Low budget but entertaining, set in the 16th century in Japan. A time, as we all know, of leaping, powerful ninja and horrible monsters. Three ninja with special weapons are brought together to fight a demon lord.

1989, dir. Toshiyuki Sakurai, Osamu Yamasaki. With Keiko Toda, Kazuhiko Inoue, Takeshi Watanabe.

Wrath of the Titans

The sequel to the 2010 version of "Clash of the Titans." Ten years later, Perseus has a son and has lost his wife Io. His father Zeus comes to him and tells him that as the gods lose their power, the Titans are beginning to escape - and that he has to fight again, something he doesn't want to do.

The effects are once again truly spectacular. There's a little more character development in between the scenes, although admittedly not much. The frequent treacheries and shifting allegiances of the gods are certainly accurate to the source material, Greek mythology. There are big fights and entertaining characters (Toby Kebbell in particular, as Agenor, was annoying, charming, and brave all at once and did a great job). It was fun.

2012, dir. Jonathan Liebesman. With Sam Worthington, Rosamund Pike, Ralph Fiennes, Liam Neeson, Bill Nighy, Édgar Ramírez, Toby Kebbell, Danny Huston, John Bell.

Wreck-It Ralph

John C. Reilly voices the eponymous video game character, the bad guy in the "Fix-It Felix" arcade game. We first meet him in a Bad-Anon support group meeting, reciting his woes on the thirtieth anniversary of his video game. When he goes home to his own game, he finds there was a party for the "good guys" in the game, and he wasn't invited. After a confrontation, he sets off for other video games in the hope of winning a medal which he thinks will allow him to be accepted in his own game. His adventures in other games lead him to meet a young girl called Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) in the game "Sugar Rush," where Ralph has also unwittingly unleashed a catastrophe.

Not quite on par with the best of Pixar, but probably still qualifies as one of the best animated films around. There are dozens of video game characters most of us recognize from our youth, and many brilliant riffs on video games in general. The movie is of course a voyage of discovery, with Ralph trying to find his place in the world. A little bit too sweet, but hugely entertaining.

Lousy sequel: Ralph Breaks the Internet.

2012, dir. Rich Moore. With John C. Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Jack McBrayer, Jane Lynch, Alan Tudyk, Stefanie Scott.

Wristcutters: A Love Story

Patrick Fugit plays Zia, a young man who cleans up his apartment during the credits and commits suicide before the opening title. He finds himself in another place, very like the world we know, but ... the colours are flat, it's physically impossible to smile, and "it's hot as balls." He finds a friend in Eugene (Shea Whigham), a Russian whose family (both his parents and his younger brother) all committed suicide in short order and have been reunited in this world. Eugene is a miracle of non-Hollywood story-telling: he's a good guy, good with his brother, his family, and to his friends. But he's also a bit of a sexist asshole - it's just what he is. But it would never happen in a Hollywood movie.

This is essentially a road trip movie, with everyone trying to find out what their purpose is and what they want to do. It's appropriately surreal, in a way I found particularly wonderful. Like any story about death, it's all about life. Charming and weird, funny and surprisingly sweet, I highly recommend it.

2006, Goran Dukić. With Patrick Fugit, Shea Whigham, Shannyn Sossamon, Leslie Bibb, Tom Waits.

The Wrong Box

"The Wrong Box" is a star-studded British farce from 1966, revolving around the winding down of a tontine. As the link to Wikipedia explains, a "tontine" is a bizarre but real legal construct that involves a group of people all hoping the other members of the group will die before they do, because the last living person gets all the remaining money. Wikipedia refers to it as a "mortality lottery."

By 1900 or so (I don't think the date is ever stated), brothers Masterman Finsbury (John Mills) and Joseph Finsbury (Ralph Richardson) are elderly, the only two remaining members of a tontine. The two haven't spoken for 40 years, despite living next to each other. Masterman lives with his grandson Michael (Michael Caine) who is a medical student. Joseph lives with his granddaughter Julia (Nanette Newman) and his two two nephews Morris (Peter Cook) and John (Dudley Moore). The death of the third-last person in the tontine triggers a series of shenanigans between the remaining two and the people surrounding them.

My primary problem with the movie is that every single one of the people involved is a moron. Michael and Julia are sweet, but fools nevertheless. And everybody else is reprehensible. Many movie-goers have no trouble with this, but I find I need sympathetic characters to care about: there are none here.

Despite which, there are a huge number of jokes delivered by some of Britain's best actors and comedians (including - not mentioned yet - Peter Sellers). Some are duds, but enough hit home that I was somewhat amused. I can't recommend the movie, but if you decide to watch it the sheer density of jokes will probably have you laughing at something.

1966, dir. Bryan Forbes. With John Mills, Ralph Richardson, Michael Caine, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Nanette Newman, Tony Hancock, Peter Sellers, Tony Hancock, Wilfrid Lawson, Thorley Walters, Cicely Courtneidge, Diane Clare.

Wu Xia

Apparently also released under the title "Dragon."

Donnie Yen plays Liu Jinxi, an unassuming worker in China in 1917. When a couple bandits come to town, he is caught between hiding or helping the people of his village. He's not a martial artist, and his attack is poor - and yet, at the end two strong and vicious criminals are dead. This leads to a string of events (heavily reminiscent of "A History of Violence" for me) in which detective Xu Baijiu (Takeshi Kaneshiro) forms a theory that Liu is in fact a former criminal in disguise. He pursues this theory ruthlessly and despite a fair bit of evidence to the contrary.

For at least the first half of the movie, Xu is our effete villain, but the ground shifts rather dramatically for the final third of the movie. The feel of the movie is strange: it's noir and surreal, with a dark tone and soft focus that makes it kind of creepy. And mixed in with that are unexpected - and far too earthy - outbreaks of martial arts action. Ultimately I didn't like the movie much, but it was definitely interesting.

2011, dir. Peter Chan. With Donnie Yen, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Tang Wei, Jimmy Wang.

Wushu

Five children join a martial arts school in China, find a secret hide-away, and name themselves "The Jin Wu Men." Two are sons of Li Hui (Sammo Hung), who also plays a significant part in the movie - although the movie mostly belongs to the 18-20 year olds who play the grown up children. As adults, they still practise at the school, are still good friends, and still talk about the Jin Wu Men. We're also introduced to a child kidnapping ring because, well, it's a martial arts movie.

The movie is loaded to the gills with moral lessons about choosing the right path in the martial arts and in life. They've chosen several young adults who are very good at the martial arts, not so hot at acting (but generally quite charming). None of them really seemed to have the charisma to launch a starring career. It's not a particularly good movie, nor is it overly memorable, but I found it quite enjoyable.

2008, dir. Antony Szeto. With Sammo Hung, Wenjie Wang, Yachao Wang, Fengchao Liu, Phoebe Wang, Yongchen Liu, Junjie Mao.


X

X-Men

This is the prototypical superhero movie, there has yet to be a better. Hugh Jackman is perfect as Wolverine, despite the pressure of the incredible history and fan base he had to live up to. Anna Paquin, while not excellent, plays well opposite him. The plot is meticulously structured, and the script excellent.

2000, dir. Bryan Singer. With Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman, Anna Paquin, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, Tyler Mane.

X2: X-Men United

As good as the original, which is saying something. The best of the superhero movies. Adds more characters to the franchise, and expands the scale of the battle between mutants and the humans that want them controlled. Hugh Jackman is again excellent, and his Wolverine character, Ian McKellen's Magneto, and Alan Cumming's Nightcrawler play out particularly well.

2003. dir. Bryan Singer. With Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, Alan Cumming, Anna Paquin, James Marsden.

X-Men: The Last Stand

Rumoured to be the last of the X-Men movies, although there's already a "Wolverine" spin-off movie planned. The main premise of this movie is that a drug company has developed a permanent cure for the mutant "X-gene." As per usual, this pits Magneto and company against Dr. Xavier and the X-Men. Unfortunately, Brett Ratner replaced Bryan Singer at the helm for this one, and while the product is quite serviceable, it doesn't have the quality or emotional depth that Singer provided. On the plus side, the fights are possibly even better than the previous two movies.

2006, dir. Brett Ratner. With Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, Anna Paquin, James Marsden.

X-Men: First Class

retcon: retroactive continuity, best defined by Wikipedia as "the alteration of previously established facts in a literary work." The commonest application is to comics, where artists are constantly coming up with story lines that inconveniently don't fit with what's already been written about the characters ... so the continuity of the universe is simply revised to suit the new story line.

This story opens with almost exactly the same footage as the first X-Men movie - Eric Lensherr in the rain and mud of a Polish concentration camp, being separated from his parents. But its been refilmed so we can carry on with a different young actor who is then shown with the evil Doctor Schmidt (Kevin Bacon). Flash forward to Lensherr (Michael Fassbender as the adult version) using his skills to hunt down the various Nazis in 1962, while Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) is getting a Ph.D. in Genetics. Of course their paths cross, and they take on Sebastian Shaw (Schmidt with a new name) and his crew.

Overall it's quite well done. There's actually not a great deal of retconning, but enough to be annoying to someone who's as familiar with the previous X-Men movies as I am. Watch it as a stand-alone and you'll appreciate it more. The acting is good, the effects are excellent (although the CG is visible in one or two places).

2011, dir. Matthew Vaughn. With James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Kevin Bacon, Jennifer Lawrence, January Jones, Rose Byrne, Nicholas Hoult, Oliver Platt, Caleb Landry Jones, Lucas Till, Zoë Kravitz.

X-Men: Days of Future Past

In the near future, mutants - and anyone who has helped them, and anyone who might eventually produce a mutant offspring three generations hence - have been hunted almost to extinction by the Sentinels. In an act of desperation, Professor X (Patrick Stewart) and Magneto (Ian McKellen) have Kitty Pride (Ellen Page) send Wolverine's (Hugh Jackman) mind back into his body fifty years prior. Into the Seventies, to stop Mystique's (Jennifer Lawrence) assassination of Bolivar Trask (Pete Dinklage), which drove the Sentinel program to fever pitch.

Future Wolverine has an interesting time in the Seventies, talking to the very disillusioned Professor X (James McAvoy) and freeing the imprisoned Magneto (Michael Fassbender - taken for the assassination of Kennedy ...).

Not the best of the X-Men movies, but pretty good: I enjoyed it. I get a little tired of them saving the world every damn time - especially when it involves time travel, but they did a good job.

The Rogue Cut:

(SPOILER ALERT) This version of the movie was intriguing because it added 17 minutes of footage and some fairly significant plot changes. I really enjoyed watching it - but it was also immediately obvious why they went a different direction in the theatrical cut. Rogue is rescued from a tortuous death - but only because she's needed as a replacement for Kitty Pryde after Wolverine injures Kitty (so ... without this need you wouldn't have rescued her, just leaving her to a horrific death?). Rogue has no story arc here - she just takes over for Kitty. That's it. Yes, many of us wish Rogue had a bigger part in the movie ... but this just wasn't it. And then at the end we had a mid-credits scene showing Bolivar Trask had been put in the prison cell under the Pentagon where Magneto used to be stored ... which is poetic, but WHY? The cell was designed specifically for Magneto, and Trask doesn't have Magneto's powers. Or any powers at all.

2014, dir. Bryan Singer. With Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Patrick Stewart, Michael Fassbender, Ian McKellen, Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry, Nicholas Hoult, Kelsey Grammer, Ellen Page, Peter Dinklage, Shawn Ashmore, Omar Sy, Daniel Cudmore, Evan Peters, Fan Bingbing, Booboo Stewart.

X-Men: Apocalypse

This is either the sixth, eighth, or ninth X-Men movie, depending on how you count. There's the original three: "X-Men," "X2", and "X-Men: The Last Stand." Then came 2009's appalling "Wolverine" or "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" as it's now been restyled. Then "X-Men: First Class" with a new cast, "The Wolverine," and "X-Men: Days of Future Past." That's my count (and I probably would have excluded the two Wolverine movies), but apparently Marvel (and/or Fox, who own the rights to the X-Men) consider "Deadpool " part of the pantheon, which doesn't really make sense to me ...

Anyway, we're currently trapped in the 1980s ... although we start in ancient Egypt, but that's mostly just silly. Then we move on to Magneto (still Michael Fassbender), who's built himself a quiet life in Poland with a wife and a kid. We're given a couple minutes to adjust to this idea, then they turn him back into a homicidal maniac again. And then Moira MacTaggart (who plays a much more significant role in the comics than she has in the films - played here by Rose Byrne) accidentally awakens the big bad who's been sleeping under an Egyptian pyramid for a couple thousand years. His name is En Sabah Nur (Oscar Isaac - a brilliant actor wasted on a stupid script, bad characterization, and bad make-up), but since we're instructed that the one thing he wants is apocalypse, that becomes his name. He recruits other mutants, starting with Storm (Alexandra Shipp, who gets fully ten or fifteen lines of dialogue), Psylocke (Olivia Munn in an ... interesting ... costume, who gets two lines) and Angel (Ben Hardy, who gets perhaps three lines). Character development is NOT a strength of this movie, despite its extended (2h30m) run-time. But don't worry: all of them see lots of action. Of course, they come up against Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and his school for talented youngsters. But we shouldn't forget Wolverine: Hugh Jackman shows up long enough to slaughter approximately fifty people, deliver one WORD of dialogue, and then he's gone again. That's all folks.

It's all a massive rehash of the previous five X-Men movies with no new ideas, a bunch of clichés and a swath of bad acting by a large crew of actors capable of better. And in the middle of it, the director Bryan Singer (who directed the justly acclaimed first two movies, but not the rather poor third movie) sends several of the students to the local mall to see "The Return of the Jedi" and uses the opportunity to have one of them say "well, I think we can all agree that the third movie is always the worst." That's a lot of gall from a man who can produce a piece of crap like this. This boring retread is just as bad as the movie it mocked and very nearly the worst in the series - the only saving grace is it's not as bad as "X-Men Origins: Wolverine."

About the only thing worthwhile about it was Smit-McPhee's limited screen time as Nightcrawler: he's not charismatic or pretty (and I think that's a good thing in a movie so full of pretty people), and brought a certain nervousness to the role that made him more interesting that just about anyone else on screen.

The 3D is fairly good. Not the best I've ever seen, but good.

2016, dir. Bryan Singer. With James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar Isaac, Nicholas Hoult, Evan Peters, Rose Byrne, Tye Sheridan, Sophie Turner, Alexandra Shipp, Olivia Munn, Lucas Till, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Josh Helman, Ben Hardy, Hugh Jackman.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix

Not many people liked the original shot at the "Dark Phoenix" storyline ("X-Men: The Last Stand") - I mean, who the hell gives Brett Ratner anything they value? That movie has been retconned out of existence, and Fox decided it was time to try the Dark Phoenix storyline again. This time they handed the project to Simon Kinberg - who wrote, produced and directed (his first directorial gig) this whimper of an exit strategy. Looking at Rotten Tomatoes today, this hasn't played well for them: "Last Stand" is at 57%, and "Dark Phoenix" is at 23%. I knew all this going in, so why did I watch it? I'm a superhero completist, at least when it comes to movies.

Sophie Turner returns as Jean Gray. On a contrived rescue in space to save a bad space shuttle mission, Jean absorbs ... a thing, an energy source. And a bunch of evil aliens want it. Jean's new power is hard to control and apparently causes mood swings and paranoia. This alienates her friends, and then she's manipulated by the evil alien leader.

I kind of enjoyed the final fight scene: it was long, and reasonably well constructed. But overall the movie is silly and not worth your time.

2019, dir. Simon Kinberg. With James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Sophie Turner, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Alexandra Shipp, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Evan Peters, Jessica Chastain, Ato Essandoh.


Y

Y Tu Mamá También

A Mexican film, translating as "And Your Mama Too." I'm told it's just as rude in Spanish as it is in English. The movie is about sex, relationships, death, and, well, sex. Two male teens go on a road trip with an attractive older woman. Not a great movie, but fairly good. Different from most North American movies, and amusing that director Alfonso Cuarón's next movie was Harry Potter #3.

2001, dir. Alfonso Cuarón. With Diego Luna, Gael García Bernal, Ana López Mercado.

Yakuza Apocalypse

Takashi Miike has recently made a couple fairly conventional and critically well-regarded movies ("13 Assassins" and "Hara-kiri: Death of a Samurai" in particular come to mind, both widely distributed on this continent). Bloody and nasty, but remarkably traditional compared with his previous work. Looking at his resume on Wikipedia it would appear that he's never really stopped making those crazy weird movies where he got his start and developed a significant cult following, but this is the first of that breed I've seen in a long time (they've never got as much air time over here).

Our protagonist is Kageyama (Hayato Ichihara), second in command to "The Boss" Kamiura (Lily Franky), who, despite being Yakuza, is well-loved in his town for truly taking care of people. But the movie is already a fractured structure, a set of vignettes that don't quite sit right together, telling you little pieces of information about the characters. Kamiura is pretty much unkillable, until one day "Killer Priest" (that's how he's listed in the IMDB credits) walks into town. In death, The Boss passes his powers to Kageyama, who gets a very odd education in being a vampire from the owner of a local restaurant ... who keeps the vampire blood supply in the form of chained knitting men in the basement. The owner goes down there occasionally to stamp on their toes in his wooden shoes. (Yes, they knit. Yes, he stamps on their toes. It makes that much sense.) And then there are the bird and frog spirits, the latter first showing up in a mascot uniform - but he's utterly lethal at the martial arts. Oh, and I forgot to mention: Yayan Ruhian is in the mix too, as an assistant to Killer Priest. Ruhian won't be familiar to most people, except hardcore fans of action who already know him well: he was in both "The Raid: Redemption" and its sequel, and he's a damn fine martial artist (although not much of an actor).

It all adds up to a weirdly mesmerising mash-up (Wikipedia's desperate attempt to classify it calls it an "action fantasy-yakuza vampire film") that makes very little sense. Fans of Miike will know what to expect, most others should probably skip it.

2015, dir. Takashi Miike. With Hayato Ichihara, Yayan Ruhian, Ryushin Tei, Lily Franky.

The Year of the Yao

In 2002 Houston won the 1st round draft pick in the NBA. They chose Yao Ming - famous in China where he played with the Shanghai Sharks, but unheard of in America. Yao's first few appearances did nothing to reassure those doubting his ability to play in the NBA, but that changed quickly, and in a big way. It's an interesting story of a young (and enormous, at 7'6") Chinese man learning his new place in the world, and being polite like no NBA player has ever been before.

2004, dir. Adam Del Deo, James D. Stern.

Yellow Submarine

I was glad to see this on DVD, in wide screen, and with "extras." But my glowing childhood memories of this film were ... not "crushed," but at least bruised by seeing it again in view of modern animation. They tried a lot of things, and certainly a lot of it is interesting and inventive, but other animated films contemporary with it were of better quality. I was also hugely disappointed to find that the Beatles didn't actually do their own speaking voices (although I couldn't honestly tell that by listening). But ... the music is still some of the best ever made.

1968, dir. George Dunning. With The Beatles.

Yesterday Was a Lie

Kipleigh Brown plays the private investigator Hoyle. We first see her at her psychologist's, talking about a dream - in which she sees Salvatore Dali's "The Persistence of Memory" with all its twisted clocks. But the scene quickly changes. And changes again, apparently out of order. Director/writer James Kerwin made some comment in the extras of writing about "quantum mechanics as an explanation of the human condition," and our protagonist is apparently cut loose in time because of a messed-up relationship. Oh, wait - I just gave it all away. But it's okay: it will seem mysterious and philosophical to you if you watch it anyway ... and it still won't make sense.

Two gorgeous women (Brown and Chase Masterson) anchor the movie with lousy acting, and the only other character that really matters - Dudas (John Newton), who Hoyle is pursuing - also acts poorly. The script is clearly written by someone with intelligence but not a lot of clarity or direction, and it never really comes together. The cinematography is dazzling (black and white, neo-noir, fog, and everyone is dressed beautifully), but not nearly enough to recommend the movie.

2009, dir. James Kerwin. With Kipleigh Brown, Chase Masterson, John Newton, Mike Scriba, Nathan Mobley, Warren Davis, Peter Mayhew.

Yi Yi

Life in Taipei. Lots of windows, doors, and halls. And long shots. A fascinating study of a family facing a bunch of changes in too short a time. Too long (2:50), but one hell of a character study.

2000, dir. Edward Yang. With Nien-Jen Wu, Elaine Jin, Issei Ogata, Kelly Lee, Jonathan Chang, Hsi-Sheng Chen, Su-Yun Ko.

Yojimbo

One of the most famous templates ever made ... A samurai walks into a town in Japan where two gangs are at war with each other. He sets out to help the gangs kill each other. Leone's "A Fist Full of Dollars" and "Last Man Standing" are both based on this movie (as are dozens of less known knock-offs - my favourite being "Desert Heat"). The samurai (Toshiro Mifune) and a couple of others in the movie are fairly realistic, but most of the gang members are buffoons. I think that Akira Kurosawa is right that most people who swagger and act tough would fold up like a house of cards when their life was on the line, but I think he went too far (Sergio Leone goes too far the other way in his Westerns, everybody so tough). In any case, it was interesting to see.

1961. dir. Akira Kurosawa. With Toshiro Mifune.

You Can't Take It With You

Typical Frank Capra, although there's more long-winded exposition than even he usually calls for. Tony Kirby (James Stewart), the eccentric son of a very staid and proper family, falls for the almost-normal daughter (Alice Sycamore, played by Jean Arthur) of an incredibly eccentric family. The long-winded exposition about the virtues of enjoying life rather than accruing more money may be the product of the George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart play of the same name that it was based on, but it's certainly par for the course with Capra. But the acting is good and the screwball comedy is often quite amusing, and it's all quite charming. If you like Capra, you know what you're in for and you'll enjoy it.

1938, dir. Frank Capra. With Lionel Barrymore, Edward Arnold, Jean Arthur, James Stewart, Mischa Auer.

You Kill Me

For me, this movie makes it official: the "dysfunctional hitman comedy" is now a genre of its own. "Prizzi's Honor," "Grosse Pointe Blank," and "The Matador" helped set the scene. Ben Kingsley is a hitman for the Polish mob in Buffalo, but his drinking is interfering with his work. He's sent to Alcoholics Anonymous in San Francisco (why San Francisco isn't very clear) where he's pressed into working at a funeral parlour and meets Téa Leoni over a dead body, and takes Luke Wilson as a sponsor. The humour is fairly dark as you'd expect, and it's not bad - I got some good laughs. Enjoyable.

2007, dir. John Dahl. With Ben Kingsley, Téa Leoni, Luke Wilson, Dennis Farina, Philip Baker Hall, Bill Pullman, Marcus Thomas, Scott Heindl.

You Never Can Tell

A George Bernard Shaw play, on the same BBC DVD as "Mrs. Warren's Profession." This is definitely the lighter of the two, with Shaw having a good time making fun of the "modern woman." Dorothy and Philip Clandon had me in stitches, but the romance was just silly.

1972, dir. James Cellan Jones. With Robert Powell, Kate Nicholls, Richard Everett, Judy Parfitt.

You Were Never Really Here

Our main character is Joe (Joaquin Phoenix), who seems to be a relatively low rent hired killer. Who lives at home with his Mom. He's incredibly violent and possibly suicidal, but he does take good care of his Mom and is never violent toward her. Flashbacks show he had a very abusive father, and he also appears to have PTSD from Afghanistan(?).

If I sound a little shaky on the details, that's because this is very much a "show don't tell" movie - they really don't tell at all. You watch Phoenix (who is scary as hell and entirely convincing) and try to figure it out. Lots of Joe, not a lot of dialogue. The movie just isn't big on explanations.

After we're introduced to his life, he's given a job to retrieve the very young daughter of a politician who's being held as part of a sex trafficking ring. While he and his ball-peen hammer are successful, he finds out that there's a lot more involved in the case and the fallout ... changes things.

The soundtrack consists of over-emphasized street and city noises, some incredibly dissonant music, and songs from the 1950s (I think they're meant to be the music Joe grew up on). I found it off-putting. And yet I found the movie as a whole kind of mesmerising. I guess I liked it - but if I did, it was entirely because of Phoenix's performance: this weird and not entirely comprehensible construct rests entirely on him, and his superb and disturbing performance is what makes it work.

As a person who's seen too many movies, the reference to "Taxi Driver" seemed particularly obvious, even heavy-handed. We spend several minutes in a car with Joe driving around New York at night, watching the cabs pass him and the lights of the city change the colour of his skin. Both movies are about deeply disturbed individuals setting out to rescue underage prostitutes.

2017, dir. Lynne Ramsay. With Joaquin Phoenix, Ekaterina Samsonov, Alex Manette, John Doman, Judith Roberts, Dante Pereira-Olson, Alessandro Nivola, Frank Pando, Vinicius Damasceno.

You've Got Mail

I saw this when it came out, and again in 2012. Having recently re-watched "Sleepless in Seattle" (also directed by Nora Ephron, and also starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan), I have to say that this one is an order of magnitude better. The histrionics over movies and the general foolishness of the characters in "Sleepless ..." made it easy to top. Although I have to admit some bias in this case: when I first saw this, I had no idea what "The Shop Around the Corner" was. Having watched that recently, I really appreciated the way they borrowed from the source material. There are places where they almost replicate scenes (the protagonist's friend looking in the café window looking for the woman with a book and a red rose, and the things he says), and there are other pieces of the script that bear no resemblance at all to the source material - but I thought they chose well in pretty much every case.

Hanks plays Joe Fox, third generation in a family that owns a chain of mega-bookstores. Ryan is Kathleen Kelly, who owns "The Shop Around the Corner," a small independent children's book store right next to where the latest Fox mega-store is being built. At the beginning of the movie they haven't met but are corresponding anonymously via email. As the movie progresses, they meet in person without realizing their anonymous connection, and they grow to dislike each other.

1998, dir. Nora Ephron. With Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Greg Kinnear, Parker Posey, Jean Stapleton, Steve Zahn, Dabney Coleman, John Randolph.

Young at Heart (aka "Young @ Heart")

A documentary about a chorus of retirees (called the "Young at Heart Chorus") singing rock songs. Things like Sonic Youth, Coldplay, the Clash, and occasionally James Brown. While they aren't particularly good singers, their enthusiasm and the bizarre interpretations are quite interesting. The movie also spends some time talking to the chorus members and getting into their lives. And in the couple months he filmed, two of the chorus members died. Despite that, an enjoyable film.

2007, dir. Stephen Walker. With the Young at Heart Chorus.

The Young Master

If you're okay with Jackie Chan's earlier stuff, this one is pretty good. Some very nice choreography (particularly the dragon dance) and typical Chan humour (ie. hit-or-miss). But the VHS tape had some of the worst subtitles I've ever seen: apparently they were intended for wide screen, but it's a pan-and-scan version, there's a lot of white-on-white, and occasionally they just don't bother to translate stuff.

1980, dir. Jackie Chan. With Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao, Wei Pai, Lilly Li.

Young Sherlock Holmes

A young John Watson (Alan Cox) is transfered to a new boy's school mid-semester, where he meets a young Sherlock Holmes (Nicholas Rowe). After a series of apparent suicides that Sherlock suspects are murders, the latest hits close to home and Watson, Sherlock, and the daughter of the latest man to die team up to try to solve the mystery.

The movie was clearly made by people who were big fans of the Conan Doyle stories. They meticulously set up just about every major Sherlock Holmes trope: the slightly bumbling but very dedicated Watson, the pipe, Sherlock's emotionlessness, the deer stalker, why Sherlock's not interested in women, an incompetent and obnoxious Lestrade, even Moriarty. The movie has some clever ideas and a passable mystery, but far too much action for Holmes. And while I suspect that the incompetent Lestrade is more accurate to Conan Doyle's vision of him, I have to admit I much prefer the BBC TV modern day version - a decent, intelligent man who knows when he's out of his depth and reluctantly calls Sherlock. Overall, not particularly good.

1985, dir. Barry Levinson. With Nicholas Rowe, Alan Cox, Anthony Higgins, Susan Fleetwood, Freddie Jones, Nigel Stock, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Earl Rhodes.

Your Name

Starts out with a classic low-rent Anime trope: two high school students in modern Japan find themselves swapping bodies a day at a time at random intervals. We get laughs from the young man mesmerised by the lovely pair of breasts he's occasionally in possession of, and all kinds of cross-gender, cross-life humour as one is from a small town and the other lives in Tokyo.

But this is Makoto Shinkai, a man who proved in his early films - like "5 Centimeters per Second" (2007) - that he could make billboards, trains, and factories look stunningly beautiful. More importantly, he's not just going to give you teenage hijinks - he's interested in making you think. This is the man behind "Garden of Words" - which was impressive enough that when I was in Tokyo I made sure to go to the garden in question. After the untimely death of Satoshi Kon, this is the guy - this is the future of Japanese Anime. Yes, he's that good.

Our two main characters are Mitsuha Miyamizu (voiced by Mone Kamishiraishi), a young girl living in the fictional small town of Itomori, and Taki Tachibana (voiced by Ryūnosuke Kamiki), a young man in Tokyo. They swap places occasionally and try to navigate each other's lives. They tamper with each other's lives both intentionally and unintentionally, while leaving each other notes on cell phones and sometimes their own skin. But around the hour mark the connection breaks. And I must admit here that I guessed a part of the disconnect (and other fans - there aren't many - of "The Lake House" may guess as well) - this is a product of having watched so many movies. But that's all I guessed: I had no idea where he was headed with it from there.

Rewatched 2020-07: Did I mention that this is dazzlingly beautiful? You could screenshot any random frame, anywhere in the entire movie and have a gorgeous picture. Easily matches Hayao Miyazaki's best artwork.

2016, dir. Makoto Shinkai. With Ryūnosuke Kamiki, Mone Kamishiraishi, Ryo Narita, Aoi Yūki, Nobunaga Shimazaki, Kaito Ishikawa, Kanon Tani, Masami Nagasawa, Etsuko Ichihara.


Z

Zathura

"Jumanji" (the 1995 version) in space. There's really not a lot more to it than that. (The book Zathura was sequel to and by the same author, Chris Van Allsburg, as Jumanji.) Except that the idea was only so-so to start with, and now it's old. They had several clever moments, but a lot more tedium and annoyance. Painfully blatant family values. I wouldn't recommend this.

2005, dir. Jon Favreau. With Jonah Bobo, Josh Hutcherson, Dax Shepard, Kristen Stewart, Tim Robbins.

Zen: Series 1

The BBC did a series of three movies/episodes each 90 minutes of three of Michael Dibdin's Aurelio Zen detective novels.

Zen: Vendetta

Rufus Sewell, so often cast as the scenery-chewing bad guy, gets to play Aurelio Zen - an Italian detective accused of "scrupulous honesty" ("a horrible slander," as his boss puts it). I don't know if the credit here should go to Dibdin or the BBC's writers, but the story is beautifully constructed and a joy to watch. We walk into this with no knowledge of Zen, but watching him around the office quickly establishes his personality, his past behaviour, and the behaviour of his office mates. And while he's run through a political wringer that establishes the case he'll be dealing with for the rest of the movie, we're learning more about him, his boss, and the politicians who are (trying to) pulling the strings, as well as the case: text-book quality writing.

Aurelio Zen is unusual in the Italian constabulary: he does try to do the right thing. Despite pressure from his boss and politicians. And it's stressing him out, but he's a smart and funny guy and Sewell wears it well. The movie was a real pleasure to watch, and the gorgeous Italian scenery didn't hurt at all.

Zen: Cabal and Zen: Ratking

Something I failed to mention in reviewing "Zen: Vendetta" was that the mystery itself was a bit strange, verging on preposterous ... but it was too enjoyable to complain. Having watched the two sequels, I know why the series didn't last any longer.

Yes, Aurelio Zen is a wonderful character, and the characters are well drawn. But the mysteries are incredibly poor: "Cabal" in particular made "Vendetta" look well thought out and sane. The other significant stumbling block to the entire series is that Zen, while very smart, only survives and succeeds through extraordinary, in fact unbelievable, luck.

2011, dir. Zoya Akhtar. With Abhay Deol, Farhan Akhtar, Hrithik Roshan, Kalki Koechlin, Katrina Kaif, Naseeruddin Shah, Ariadna Cabrol, Deepti Naval.

Zombieland

Jesse Eisenberg narrates and leads as a young loner who has managed to survive the latest version of the zombie apocalypse, in part because of his asocial tendencies. He meets up with Woody Harrelson, and they eventually encounter Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin.

Very gory, and occasionally quite funny (despite the gore, this is primarily a comedy). I found the beginning too gory and the middle too slow, but Harrelson and Eisenberg made their characters quite entertaining.

2009, dir. Ruben Fleischer. With Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin.

Zoom

Sitting at 3% on Rotten Tomatoes, this isn't a movie most people are going to rush to see (and with a dis-recommendation like that, I'm not going to tell you you should). But I was influenced by a friend of mine (who also likes science fiction and superheroes) who had enjoyed it. To my surprise, I found I enjoyed it as well. The target age group is quite young, perhaps 8-10. It's not in the same league with "The Incredibles," it's definitely not as good as "Sky High," and the effects are distinctly low budget, but I thought it was both sweet and amusing (I have this bad feeling they were aiming for "edgy" and missed by a light year ...).

Plot: a bunch of young misfits with superpowers are brought together by the military. They're to be trained by "Zoom" (Tim Allen), the unhappy and mostly powerless former leader of a superhero group, who's less than pleased that they're at the military facility that effectively killed off his entire former team. What none of them know is that they're supposed to fight Zoom's powerful (and evil) brother, "Concussion." The movie is about bonding, forgiveness, and becoming family. And low brow, lousy sketch comedy and staggeringly bad continuity, but who's counting?

2006, dir. Peter Hewitt. With Tim Allen, Chevy Chase, Courtney Cox, Kate Mara, Michael Cassidy, Ryan Newman, Spencer Breslin, Kevin Zegers, Rip Torn.

Zootopia

There's been a surge in the last 15 years of kids movies loaded with jokes targeting the adults in the audience. I think it started with "Shrek," which doesn't get enough credit: it was a ground-breaking movie, even if we're all tired of it and its main characters by now. "Zootopia" is the pinnacle of this trend: parents will be rolling in the aisles with their kids.

The first scene in the movie shows us our heroine Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) in a junior school performance, blatantly setting up and explaining much of what's to come: she has a flair for the dramatic, all animals live in peace (predators no longer eat prey, although it isn't explained what they do eat), Zootopia is a very big city where anybody can be anything they want, and she (a rabbit) wants to be a policewoman. But in this movie, even the blatant setup is funny, and it only gets funnier. They thought a lot about the visual design of just about everything: it's beautiful to look at, there are bits of weird logic that make you think "hey, that's right, I guess they'd have to ..." but it's already zoomed by as another visual gag comes and goes so fast you don't have time to appreciate it before the next one hits. The movie is a two hour long lesson in tolerance and accommodation - it's not subtle about that - but it's done with heart and a huge dose of humour. And the jokes never stop, including digs at a variety of other Disney properties. Even the closing credits are fun: they're set at a "Gazelle" concert (singing voice provided by Shakira), with many of the main characters in attendance, dancing and doing silly things.

Compare this to "Deadpool" which I watched three weeks ago. Equally hilarious film, but "Zootopia" has achieved the same level of humour without violence, swearing, nudity, or kid-inappropriate behaviour. Quite an achievement. As a corporation, I'm not much of a fan of Disney. As a fan of movies ... this is one of the funniest movies of the year and I'd recommend you lay hands on it as soon as you can.

2016, dir. Byron Howard, Rich Moore. With Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, Jenny Slate, Nate Torrence, Bonnie Hunt, Don Lake, Tommy Chong, J.K. Simmons, Octavia Spencer, Alan Tudyk, Shakira, Raymond S. Persi.

Zulu

This movie had zero reviews on Rotten Tomatoes when I watched it in June 2017: none. This isn't unheard-of, but it's definitely unusual - particularly for a movie that involves both Orlando Bloom and Forest Whitaker. I figured "how bad can it be?"

Whitaker plays Ali Sokhela, a police captain in Cape Town, South Africa. He grew up under Apartheid, and suffered pretty horribly (as is made clear in flashbacks). His preferred detective - despite resistance from his department head - is the heavy-drinking and womanizing Brian Epkeen (Bloom). Epkeen is always a mess, but also quite good at his job. They find themselves investigating the appearance of a new and particularly nasty drug on the street, and the considerable string of deaths that follow it.

I think Bloom has something of an unfair reputation for being a pretty boy, with the implication that he can't or doesn't bother to act. They let his age show in this movie, and he always looks a bit grubby. And he does a really good job - as does Whitaker, but no one is surprised about that. The movie is very dark and quite violent, but - as depressing as it is - it's quite good.

2013, dir. Jérôme Salle. With Forest Whitaker, Orlando Bloom, Tanya van Graan, Natasha Loring, Sven Ruygrok, Adrian Galley, Tinarie Van Wyk-Loots.

Movie count (20240122): 2668


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Last modified: 2024-03-24 10:19 by giles