Last Movie Watched.... The Xenforo Edition

The Spy Behind Home Plate, d. Aviva Kempner 2019, a great documentary about Moe Berg, graduate of Princeton and Columbia Law, journeyman catcher who could speak 10 languages, but couldn't hit in any of them. There's a heavy reliance on archival photos and talking heads, but it's a pretty compelling story of a guy who soent the first few years of his retirement from major league baseball in the O.S.S. tasked with finding out how far advanced Nazi nuclear weapons research was. Berg, a Jew, spent time in Nazi held cities in Italy and Germany tracking down scientists and getting scientists willing to collaborate with the allies out of Europe (Enrico Fermi was one).

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his big coup was walking home from a party with Heisenberg. If Heisenberg gave any indication of knowing how to build a bomb, Berg was to pull out his pistol and kill him. Instead, Heisenberg seemed happy with his own conclusion that Germany couldn't win, so Berg reported that the Nazis were at least two years behind the Manhattan Project

Pretty compelling. Also of note was Bill Donaldson's response to Hitler's repeated insistance that the US could not possibly win the war because they let in too many foreigners. Donaldson, first head of the CIA forerunner OSS, who specifically recruited Berg for this task, , said it was our immigrants that would help us win: because of them, we will know more about the rest of the world than the Nazis ever could hope.

 

Casino Royale (1954)

The overabundantly lucky and overabundantly American James Bond is brought to the Casino Royale by British intelligence officer Leiter(!) to shut down a French KGB cell. It's main agent, the ruthless Frenchman Le Chiffre, has been spending KGB operating funds on his gambling habit and is in the hole for 80 million francs (in American about $5.25). If Bond can beat Le Chiffre's last ditch effort to win back the money, then the KGB will kill the man themselves and the British won't need to bother.

An episode of Climax!, one of the many live anthology shows in the early days of television, so it moves more like a play than a movie. The first two thirds center on the boring, boring game of Chemin de fer baccarat, and in a forced scene Bond gives us all the rules as cover while he and Leiter talk shop in a semi-public place. Because of baccarat's speed and emphasis on luck it gave the whole experience a very contrived feel. On the other hand, we get to see Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre, and he's at least the equal of any other Bond villain, all ease and confidence over a core of panic as his situation continually gets worse. And it is fun to see Bond order scotch with water for the first and last time.

The reason the first real Bond movie was Dr. No, the second James Bond novel, was because the rights to Casino Royale were held by CBS thanks to this show.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

"The name is Bond. Jimmy Bond."

There's actually a connection between my movie and Spejic's show: Creator of 007 (and real-life British spy), Ian Fleming also advised Bill Donaldson on pretty much everything involved in setting up an intelligence organization like the OSS, which proved pretty helpful in defeating the Axis powers in WWII. As a result, Fleming has a few mentions in The Spy Behind Home Plate.

 

Long Shot (2019)
Dir. Jonathan Levine



Fred Flarsky is a reporter who just quit his job because the publication he worked for got bought up by a media conglomerate owned by a Rupert Murdoch type individual. By chance, he ends up at a party at which Charlotte Field is also a guest: she is the sitting secretary of state, a woman who has presidential ambitions of her own. Fred gets invited onto her staff as a speech writer and the two of them reconnect over a shared past in which Charlotte used to babysit on Fred. This leads to a mutual infatuation, only Fred does not have the kind of proper public image she would need her spouse to have if she is serious about her presidential bid.

Decent rom-com that was perhaps twenty minutes too long and thus could have benefited from a shorter edit. Rogen and Theron are both great and there are moments of genuine chemistry. It all gets a bit very silly by the third act.

Also features Bob Odenkirk doing his "dumb guy" act as the sitting president and a unrecognizable Andy Serkis as a not-so-subtle pastiche on Rupert Murdoch.

 

Watched 15 minutes too much of Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation. (45 minutes)

Best part...Alec Baldwin playing himself.

 

Best movie we've seen in a long time ( to quote in part OWK ).

Synopsis ( don't read what follows if you don't want a general idea of the plot )

Five year old Saroo gets lost on a train which takes him thousands of miles across India, away from home and family. Saroo must learn to survive alone in Kolkata, before ultimately being adopted by an Australian couple. Twenty-five years later, armed with only a handful of memories, his unwavering determination, and a revolutionary technology known as Google Earth, he sets out to find his lost family and finally return to his first home.

 

2036 Origin Unknown (2018)

Six years after a manned-mission to Mars exploded during the landing phase, the United Space Planetary Corporation is sending a rover to examine the crash site. Mission control consists of ARTI, an artificial intelligence system, and Katee Sackhoff, there to pick up the reigns only if ARTI finds something it can't handle. Starbuck thinks a monolithic black cube on the Marian surface qualifies. ARTI might have different ideas. Really, really different ideas.

Sackhoff really went all-out, and the special effects (real and CG) were fantastic. I love single-room thrillers as a genre because you can create far-out concepts on the cheap and because it promotes a laser-like focus on a single concept or feeling without general human messiness getting in the way. 2036 is a product of that first part, but it didn't do the second, being muddy, unevenly paced, and without proper understanding of how to do worldbuilding in this kind of movie.

The main reason this didn't work is that it is trying to be 2001: A Space Odyssey (the similarly structured titles are a dead give-away), but 2001 is half-century old thinking in more ways than one. Besides all the technological changes, there's that whole new-agey concept of human transfiguration that isn't in the popular thinking any more. The problems of humanity are concrete, the tools (including AI) that can either save or destroy us exist, and are at least partially understood. These days there is so much more meaning and depth in turning the science fiction gaze inward. A transcendental ending just seems like a fanciful cop-out.

 

Superfly (2018)

Youngblood Priest is a highly successful cocaine dealer in Atlanta who firmly believes in staying under the radar and not using violence. But an incident at the fever-dream strip club kindles the idea that his lavish life is fleeting, and he resolves to get out of the game. It won't be easy, as his crew, his boss, his boss's supplier, and the corrupt cops all want him dealing or else. And then there's the rival Sno Patrol gang who just want him dead. All poor Priest wants is the quiet life on his 170-foot yacht with his two girlfriends who are totally cool with each other.

This takes place in the outlandish universe of rap videos and has the same bizarre logic. And like most fantasy movies, there is a scene in the beginning where Priest totally demeans a rapper for being fake to create the film's bona fides (like when a vampire movie bags on other vampire films for having "incorrect" mythology to set up the movie as "real"). When it is true to this conception it is entertaining by being unintentionally hilarious, with the best bits being the mind-blowing strip club scene early on and a car chase that ends with a very Southern auto-related fatality that had me rolling on the floor. Not sure they had the right tone on that one.

But outside of that this isn't satisfying, possessing neither cleverness in how Priest deals with his problem nor possessing the social subtext of 70's blaxploitation movies. But it's hard to regret seeing it as I'm still laughing when I think about that car crash.

 

Dammit, now I have to see it.

@spejic : is it necessary to watch the whole thing, or can one jump ahead from the strip club straight to the funny car chase?

 

Nah, it's pretty predictable. Just watch the first 15 minutes until the overly-dramatic gunfight outside the strip club and then skip to 1:30:00 for the chase the follows the home invasion scene. You are going to see a SUV flip at 1:32:00 - that isn't the one I'm talking about. And you might as well keep watching though the short motel scene to see the Sno Patrol palace. I mean literal palace.

There's also the scene at 1:17:33 where they hire a gospel chorus and a rapper for a funeral. Now I want a rapper for my funeral.

 

Interesting Netflix Original six episode mini-series. Not good approval rating on Netflix, but I enjoyed acting and writing. Rotten Toms is 99% approval, which I think is a better gauge.

 

Isn't the Netflix rating "personal"?

 

It's customer reviews, if that's what you mean.

 

Sarah Gadon should become a huge star on the quality of her work here. Seems like she has only translated it into a supporting role on TD season three so far.

 

Ep 1 had me yelling at the TV. I couldnt get past Ep3

 

Endeavour - season 1-5 (2012-2018)



I haven't been posting much in this thread for the last few weeks. Partially because of a short vacation but primarily because I was working my way through this DVD box. Since it consists of 22 feature length episodes (roughly ninety minutes each), it took some time.

I have always loved British detective shows, with Suchet's long-running Poirot series still being my favorite. The reason why I hadn't given Endeavour a chance is primarily because "Morse" is one of the few I never really got into. I don't think I ever saw more than half a dozen episodes of the original series, so the idea of a prequel didn't really appeal to me much. I am glad that I did end up giving it a chance, because it's quite entertaining. Shaun Evans embodies the young Endeavour Morse very well and the partnership of the prickly, intellectual Morse with the more mild-mannered family man Fred Thursday is a classic detective dynamic. I also like the supporting cast, primarily James Bradshaw as the younger Dr. DeBryn, Sean Rigby as Jim Strange and Anton Lesser (who GoT fans will know as Qyburn) as Reginald Bright.

I should mention that this occasionally gets pretty silly (episodes include a thinly veiled Great Gatsby homage in which the Gatsby character is called Joss Bixby as well as something of a spy caper with a villain worthy of a Bond movie right down to his name) but the silliness is almost always quite entertaining and thus adds to enjoyment.

If this gets anything wrong, from my perspective, it's the amount of time devoted to subplots I found less interesting (primarily most of the Joan-Morse stuff from the latter seasons as well as the Fancy-Threwlove stuff from season five).

One little tidbit I just realized: Shaun Evans is now 39 years old, which is only six years younger than John Thaw was when he first played Morse in 1987. Yet the present day of Endeavour at the end of season five is still the late 1960s. Depending on how long this show still lasts, Evans might reach Thaw's initial age with still over a decade of story to bridge between the two timelines.

 

Tabula Rasa

Belgian Flemish-language series that is mostly a psychological thriller with some horror and detective elements. I didn't know what to expect from this thematically, but it is a well executed story. Would definitely recommend to anyone that enjoys more psychological suspense stories.

It's actually though not even my favorite Flemish show on Netflix (US at least) as I personally found Hotel Beau Sejour to be similarly well executed, but more consistently entertaining.

 

I wonder whether you realize that there is a certain ambiguity regarding your use of the word "on" in that phrase.

 

Batman: Hush (2019)
Dir. Justin Copeland



After Bane kidnaps a child, Batman intervenes and saves the kid before the ransom can be paid. In the confusion after his fight with Bane, Catwoman escapes with the ransom money. During his pursuit of Selina Kyle, Batman is attacked by a masked individual and is left badly hurt. A top surgeon who is a good friend of his saves his life. In the aftermath, Batman tracks down Catwoman again, only to find out that she was under Poison Ivy's control during her theft of the ransom money. They partner up to take her down. In the process of working together, their old romantic feelings for each other are rekindled, but the real enemy is still out there and poses a threat to Batman and anyone he cares about.

Another entry in the WB/DC animated features series. I really liked this one. The animation style is rich and very well done. The voice cast features several actors who have played these roles in previous films, like Jason O'Mara as Batman and the real-life pair of Jerry O'Connell and Rebecca Romijn as Superman and Lois Lane. I did enjoy Jennifer Morrison's work as Catwoman and Peyton List was a very nice surprise as Poison Ivy (might be the best Ivy in a while). Hynden Walsh makes for a very good Harley Quinn too. By contrast, Jason Spisak is a very forgettable Joker (truth be told no one has topped Mark Hamill's animated Joker but some have at least gotten close to his quality).

 

The Florida Project (2017)

Six year old Moonee lives with her barely-scraping-by mother in an Orlando Florida motel. Her world is the immediate area around the motel, including neighboring motels, the waffle house, and an ice cream stand. She has friends among the other welfare families that have turned the motel into an extended-stay residence, and she interacts with a few adults, mostly the motel manager, Bobby.

I've said that the way to make a movie about poverty is to look at it sideways, and this movie does it by mostly being about the adventures of Moonee, much like how Sean Baker's earlier movie Tangerine dealt with prostitution sideways by being about drama. That means the things that would quickly get maudlin in other films are usually in the periphery or not otherwise studied (ie: it isn't a point that a car is running without one of the cylinders working, you just hear it for two seconds). The problem is that this means the movie is mostly about a little girl, and it turns out little girls are pretty boring and annoying.

I really didn't like the music at the very ending. That wasn't an escape, it was a Thelma and Louise and it shouldn't have been celebrated.

 

The Boys (2019)



In a world in which superheroes are real and very much part of day to day life, Hughie is an electronics store clerk who is content in his life, mostly thanks to his girlfriend Robin. This last until Robin dies in an accident in which a fast-moving superhero kills her. Hughie is left to reconsider his past adulation of superheroes as both the hero in question and the company that represents them collectively react very callously to his girlfriend's death. Shortly thereafter, he is approached by Butcher, a man equally wronged by a superhero who suggests they team up to get back at the supers. Only they soon find themselves in way over their heads.

Eight episode Amazon series based on the comic book of the same name that subverts superhero stories by portraying the supers collectively as ********ed up individuals who murder and rape indiscriminately yet escape any real scrutiny and in the case of their leader Homelander (a thinly veiled Superman stand-in) as a power-hungry, manipulative sociopath. I think the best description of this would be Watchmen, only dumber and much funnier. This series essentially takes the "Lex Luthor is right to fear and want to destroy Superman" reasoning to its logical extreme.

Antony Starr is terrific as Homelander, the stand-out performance of the series. As a former Banshee fan, I'm glad that he got another good gig. By contrast, his countryman Karl Urban really hams it up and overdoes the fake British accent. This is going to get a second season and enough is left unresolved to make that an interesting proposition.

 

Nightflyers is pretty bad but it was originally made for SyFy. It's not a Netflix original.