Saturday, April 9, 2022

Weekend Open Thread

18 comments:

  1. Eastern star power (Michelle Yeoh, James Hong, "Kung Fu Hustle"-style silliness) meets West filmmaking muscle (co-producers Anthony/Joe Russo, A24's marketing) in EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (2022, AMC Prime), an insanely ambitious comedic adventure that assumes everyone watching it has seen "Avengers: Endgame" and is familiar with multiverse storytelling tropes. If Terry Gilliam and Tsui Hark procreated and that kid grew up to be a director, this is the type of flick he/she'd make. As in Pixar's "Turning Red" the dysfunctional relationship between an Asian-American teenage daughter (Stephanie Hsu) and her immigrant Chinese mother (Yeoh) is the core of the story... but now with a meek father/husband (Ke Huy Quan, excellent) and a buttload of supporting actors (Jenny Slate, Jamie Lee Curtis, etc.) willing to make fools of themselves for our amusement. "Matrix"-quality kung-fu fighting with king-sized, anatomically correct dildo nunchucks (the fuck? :-D) is the LEAST WEIRD of the endless string of outrageous ideas the filmmakers try to balance (not always gracefully or making any sense) and eventually pay off in a mostly satisfying way. Nobody can get the full impact of what "EEAAO" is attempting to do in one viewing, but at least the movie is entertaining enough to be worth as many repeat viewings as it takes to get it.... whatever the hell "it" is. Highly recommended.

    There's a scene in MORBIUS (2022, AMC Dolby) in which a nurse is walking through "Event Horizon" hallway hospital (clinic?) that is lit to look stunning. That's Sony's Spider-Man Cinematic Universe (when Marvel isn't co-producing) in a nutshell: surface-level shiny, but makes no sense whatsoever. The irony is that, up until the ridiculous-beyond-belief post-credit scenes, "Morbius" didn't suck or bite as hard as "Venom" at being an okay-ish origin story. Jared Leto dials his weirdo persona down to acceptable levels, Matt Smith lets his freak flag fly real high, Tyrese Gibson and Al Madrigal earn a streaming TV series deal (seriously, Rodriguez and Stroud steal every scene they're in) and, though convoluted as hell and CGI-ed to hell and back, "Morbius" isn't terrible... until the need to set-up the sequels/spinoffs really craps the bed. Rental jury duty for this "bat" boy [barf!].

    The only surprise in Jeff Fawler's SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2 (2022, AMC Dolby) is that there's a lengthy middle-section where it becomes an honest-to-goodness better wedding-gone-awry, African-American comedy than anything Tyler Perry's done. I know this because I could hear little kids all over the theater saying 'Where's Sonic?' during this portion, which had me and the parents laughing. Other than Jim Carrey now looking like the Eggman/Dr. Robotnik from the "Sonic" videogames, it's more of the same we got in early '20. Stakes are higher, new/guest characters (including Edris Elba nailing the attitude of Knuckles) disappear as fast as they appear, James Marsden smiles so we can't see his soul dying inside, and Sonic (Ben Schwartz) alternates between insufferable douchebag and heroic badass. Had these movies come out in the 90's the over-the-top attitude would feel complementary instead of blending with everything DreamWorks Animation has ever done, ever. Worth a matinee.

    DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE (1995, Amazon Prime) still holds up, even though the 4K transfer doesn't do it any favors. McTiernan and Co. treats NYC as their playground, and the stuff they got away with 27 years ago (subway bombings, driving over the Central Park lawn, Harlem sign, etc.) makes it a nostalgic time capsule. It runs on fumes for most of the third act, but the strong start barely carries it through the craptacular ending. Best of the "DH" sequels by a country mile.

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    1. I think I'm gonna take my friend's kid to see SONIC 2. She couldn't stop talking about SONIC 1 when she was at my house recently, and I (appropriately) thought "barf". But you make it sound palatable.

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    2. As long as you pay matinee price "Sonic 2" is not cancer, it's a mainstream AAA Hollywood franchise sequel. A 90's kids movie wrapped in 2022 production values. Idris Elba and Jim Carrey commit 100%, and for what it's worth the kids at my screening loved it EXCEPT for that Tyler Perry-ish comedic wedding interlude.😉😁

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  2. WHAT UP YOU CRAZY F-THIS GOOFBALLS!

    First up..was out of town last weekend but upon return i read last weekends thread and really was touched by some of the sharing within. Brave stuff gang.

    F-This.....TV?.......Moon Knight (2022 D+)

    I realllllllllllllllllly like the first two episodes of this, the latest series in marvels tv work. I love that for the pilot episode they choose not to spoon feed us a single thing and therefore we ride along with our protagonist in a state of confusion and discovery. Im very much a bigfan of Oscar Isaac and he's outstanding in the lead role(s). His nerdy portrayal of 'steven' is absolutely believable. Equally im realllly impressed with Ethan Hawks metered subtle villain approach. Looking forward to where this one goes.

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    1. I decided to take a year off from superhero stuff. But I'm tempted to break that oath because I really like Issac and Hawk. I already broke my promise because the kids wanted to see Spiderman: Home Cooking at Christmas. I could easily break my promise again?

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    2. And I rewatched Darkman yesterday. I'm not doing good with that promise! Truth is I kind of like superhero stuff.

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    3. I actually watched all of Raimi's Spiderman movies as well, because my son wanted to watch them. I had only seen the 1st back when it came out, and hated it. I really hated Mcguire because he's a twerp, and I was an edgy teenager. Fast forward to 2022, and he's still a twerp but perfectly fits the role. And they're beautifully directed. Raimi gives them a perfect "this is a comic book" feeling. Spiderman 2 is now my favourite of all the superhero movies.

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    4. Yay, Paul! Same, Spider-Man 2s my favorite. I didn't realize, until I found this site, that I was in such a big boat.
      I think you're gonna like Spider Man No Way Home. I heard it was the best of Tom Holland's.

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    5. @mashke - yea man, I felt the same for my FTM friends!

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    6. Love Raimi's "Spider-Man 2" too. 🤩🥰 And a lot of other people do, as the newest Spidey movie's boffo box office proves.😄😎

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  3. GUILTY (2021)
    Oh, Jake Gyllenhaal. I will continue to see your movies because I love you. Even though I feel like you’re repeating the same kind of movies again and again. And I see they just get more stressful.

    Alicia and I saw part of BATMAN again this week. That SCORE - uhhhh, so good. But you know, they did the car chase scene different, and it’s not my thing. Car chases are usually the only part of action movies I get into bc I find them very compelling competence-porn, but this one is entirely in the dark; I just can’t see any maneurvering to revel in. Also I’m still trying to process the jazz-y jazz drumming music in that scene. It actually took me out of the movie. Alicia wasn’t as scared as the first time we went, when she just sat back in the recliner and hid behind her feet. (She literally folds her legs up so the bottoms of her feet are in her face, and she just hides behind them). This time she just straight up watched Batman. She’s gettin brave! What I thought was leather around his eyes in the batsuit is, I realized, just a ton of makeup. Kristen Stewart levels of slap.

    Mostly...it’s been a CODA and SING STREET week at my house! Two super cheerful movies; we love them. I did not expect to like CODA as much as I did but right now we’re going through a sign-language thing at my house. A couple months ago we TURNED OFF WEST SIDE STORY and Alicia’s regular programming, and turned on baby sign language. I was like that’s it, I’m in charge now, no more West Side Story. You watch BABY SIGN videos. Learning a new way of communicating non-verbally feels crazy, and interesting. You realize you didn’t notice so many ordinary things. It’s like looking at your same ordinary world...differently. It’s trippy. So we were primed to love CODA. Also, Ferdia Walsh Peelo - for him being in love and singing to me, I might agree to rewind the clocks and go back to high school.

    SING STREET is as good as ever. Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

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    1. The casting for GUILTY (2021) is interesting. If anyone sees that.

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  4. Britannia Hospital: as great as advertised by our great Anthony King. It'a funny, it's weird, we see Malcolm Mcdowell totally naked. What's not to love?

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  5. I went through all three super-long extended editions of THE HOBBIT this week. Unexpected Journey remains a delight, sword-swinging fantasy adventure in the best way. The other two have their high points, but suffer from tons of filler. Especially baffling is the third movie. The battle does go on and on, but the stuff cut from the theatrical are all little character bits among the thirteen dwarves, who were so much fun to spend time with in the first movie.

    DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE (1995). Or, as I like to call it, Action Tank Top!

    THE PIRATES: THE LAST ROYAL TREASURE (2022). A South Korean pirate adventure that's so much like Disney's POTC franchise, it might as well be canon. But I did it enjoy it on a level of swashbuckling, cannonball-firing fun. Actress Han Hyo-joo is especially great, giving a big movie-star performance.

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    2. Have you seen Lindsay Ellis video essays on The Hobbit movies? Interesting stuff

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    3. The Hobbit is a book I have read multiple times, but I have never had any desire to watch the movies. For me, three separate movies to tell that particular story always seemed too much.

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  6. Hello to all of you.

    In a week that provided little opportunity to do anything but work on tax returns (the end of the tax filing season in the U.S.), I set aside a night to go to a film that has been mentioned here several times recently. Your descriptions intrigued me, and, when I saw it playing at the local mall, I knew I had to see it. That film is X, which I had a great time with. There is a little bit of everything in it. Though the little nods to other films (Boogie Nights, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween) are not hidden, X channels those influences into a very modern production. It definitely went places I did not expect.

    Besides X, I the only thing I watched was most of the original Police Academy, which caught on television late one night. With all of the random nudity, there is no mistaking the era that film was made in. The zany physical humor is also of that time. I saw this and many of the sequels as a kid in the '80s. Michael Winslow (the sound effects guy) was the best part of those films for me back then and still is.

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