It was a joke from my review of the first movie. Part of the street dance ethic of Breakin' is that there are no defined hierarchies or roles, including gender. The Electro Rock crew is alone in having a power hierarchy and women who have women roles in dances and seek out only women to dance-fight against. They just don't get was the dance is about. For example, they always dress hard, like this: The Miracle dancers dress as they need, including like this:
My wife's sister got us into watching reality TV, and we have been following World of Dance since its inception.. I've noticed that a substantial percentage of male dancers ( apart from the hip-hop, popping genres ) seem like they are not attracted to women. I have always view dance as athletic, so it seems curious to me that maybe the bulk of the guys aren't heterosexual. Plus, they are around very attractive young women a LOT.
21 Bridges (2019) Dir. Brian Kirk NYPD detective Andre Davis is a man who is living in the shadow of his father's legacy as a cop who died in the line of duty. That event is also what inspired him becoming a police officer. Andre himself has a reputation for being a trigger-happy cop due to being involved in eight fatal shooting in nine years. When during an apparent drug deal gone wrong, eight responding officers are killed, Andre is tasked with finding the culprits before they can escape the city. To that end, he locks down Manhattan by closing all bridges and tunnels leading into the island. With a ticking clock, Andre gets ever closer to his marks but also to some truths about the crime that many parties would rather he not discover. Pretty straightforward cop thriller with a good Chadwick Boseman in the lead role. The twists in the third act aren't really worthy of the name since any person paying even half attention will have figured things out in the first act, possibly even within the first fifteen minutes of the film. Sienna Miller is wrestling with and ultimately losing to her NYC accent. And I kind of wish someone gave J.K. Simmons more interesting stuff to do than the role he is portraying here. It is always nice to see Alexander Siddig though, even if it is just in a small supporting role.
Inside Man (2006) Dir. Spike Lee Four armed robbers invade a NYC bank and hold the staff and customers hostage. A cat and mouse game begins between the ring leader and the hostage negotiator. The latter becomes increasingly convinced that the robbers' leader is feeding him bullshit and is hiding his real intentions from the police. At the same time, the owner of the bank is very worried about the contents of one specific safe deposit box at the held up bank being revealed. I had actually never seen this. It's generally held in pretty high regard. I can't say it met all of my expectations, in spite of the stellar cast. Still some good performances, especially by Denzel Washington and Jodie Foster.
Battlestar Galactica: The Plan. (2009) d. Edward James Olmos. A straight-to-video For-The-Fans movie that mines already-aired footage that is interwoven with new scenes (sometimes shot five years after the original) to explain "the plan" behind the Cylons' attempt to destroy humanity, and how it changed after not finishing the job the first time. The CGI is absolutely incredible, and I normally don't bother much with special effects. I mean: again, this was basically straight to video. Okay, maybe it aired on F/X, but a movie has to be aimed for the multiplex to get this kind of attention to detail.
Jennifer's Body (2009) Dir. Karyn Kusama Jennifer and Needy are two life-long friends and by the time they are both in HS, something of an odd couple. Jennifer is the super-popular cheerleader, whilst Needy is a lot more awkward and is dating someone whom Jennifer would deem a social pariah, a member of the school band. One night, both girls go to see an indie rock band at a local bar, only for the bar to burn down. In the aftermath of said inferno, Jennifer gets invited by the band to join them in their van. Needy argues against this idea, to no avail. When she sees Jennifer again in school the next day, she is acting weirdly and suddenly kids at the high school are being slaughtered in horrifically brutal ways. Needy is convinced that Jennifer is somehow involved, but no one, including her boyfriend, will believe her. I never bothered to watch this at the time, primarily due to my prejudices about Megan Fox as an actress. This was a mistake. This is a very good film, both a horror genre exercise about a high school aged Succubus and an examination of the male gaze in film. I suspect that this subtext was (consciously) ignored or entirely missed by many of the critics who panned this at the time. Or the nature of the subtext just annoyed said critics? Megan Fox is very good here in a role that was written specifically for her. Amanda Seyfriend matches her in the quality of her own performance. This also gets an entirely new layer of meaning with the knowledge of what happened to Fox' career in the years after this movie's release.
I just watched this a couple of weeks ago. I don't know why. I don't like heist films and I had no idea it was well-regarded. I guess it was the star power, but I was completely underwhelmed. I knew that Clive Owen was getting away -- don't they always? And I thought Jodie Foster was awful. Anyone could have delivered her lines the way she did.
Hamilton -- On Disney + Really a stellar recording of the stage play, done, apparently, over two performances. From a technical point of view, really the best small screen performance I've ever seen of a stage performance. As for the work itself? Meh. If I am being completely honest, what I love most about musicals is being to sing along with songs, which is true for me about all music in general, and this is unsingable. The play was not as much hip hop as I'd been led to believe, but the line scansion is simply awful. I'm happy to have seen it, but I would have been really, really pissed if I'd had to have paid $500-600 for my wife and I to see it. I presume I will prefer the Chernow version, though I had sworn off 800 page bios a couple of years ago.
I thought Foster was good, it's just that she was essentially playing a cipher and we are used to her playing roles that allow her a wider range emotionally. But it would have been weird if she played that character stylistically in a similar manner to say Clarice Starling.
Very true. But aren't we wasting Jodie Foster if all she is playing is a cipher? Heck, we could get Christina Applegate to play that.
Boston Legal Season One, which is enjoyable so far. My wife and I happened to see one episode from the final season last summer when we were on vacation outside Boston and found it interesting. And the theme of that episode, Denny Crane's mental decline, was actually an issue early on. The show is funnier than I expected, and the chemistry between Spader and Shatner is there from the start. And my wife and I are not playing the "Star Trek" drinking game where you take a shot whenever someone from the franchise, star or guest star, makes his or her first appearance, because we wouldn't be awake for the end of the first episode. Hell, the Route 66 drinking game would be surprisingly intoxicating, because there have been more than a few (besides Shatner) so rar.
Robin Wright and Phillip Seymour Hoffman in "Moneyball?" That was two nuclear weapons to shell peanuts...
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (2020) Dir. David Dobkin Shortly after losing his mother, the young Icelandic boy Lars sees ABBA win the 1974 Eurovision song contest. This becomes the formative moment of his childhood and out of it is born a lifelong desire to win the contest himself. As a middle-aged man, he is still trying to get out of obscurity, as one half of a band called Fire Saga, the other half consisting of his friend and collaborator Sigrit. Even though they have been working together for decades, they haven't achieved much higher status than performing at weddings and their local bar. A series of strange circumstances lead to Sigrit and Lars first being invited to the Icelandic competition to select their Eurovision entry and then subsequently to be the last act standing, meaning that Lars can live his life-long dream and represent his country at the Eurovision Song contest. For Sigrit, the competition signifies an opportunity to realize the romantic aspirations she has for her relationship with Lars, hoping that he will have more attention for her after he realizes his dream of winning. The competition they meet in the host city of Edinburgh is fierce, so can Fire Saga escape their pre-contest label as no-hopers or are they doomed to become the joke of the event? My hopes for an American take on Eurovision weren't very high. So my surprise is rather substantial when I found out that this isn't half bad. Even more impressive, this more or less nails Eurovision itself (the nature of the competition and how it is experienced in Europe) and - this might be because I've been stuck inside for too long these last few months - some scenes are actually borderline moving (the Sing-Along!). Rachel McAdams is by far the star of this movie, an actress who really deserved a lot more good roles than she ultimately got. Dan Stevens is a good runner up in a supporting role as the Russian Eurovision contestant. Out of the many more amazing, surreal things I could list about this movie, this one also stands out: they used Sigur Ros on the soundtrack of a comedy film about Eurovision... and it works! It's also a bit weird to watch this film when you are in the middle of playing AC:Odyssey, since the voice actress for Kassandra plays the Greek Eurovision contestant here.
A nicely done show (one part documentary, one part awards broadcast) about Dave Chappelle receiving the 2019 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor is streaming on Netflix. We watched this over the weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it.
Hannah Gadsby -- Douglas A little over a year ago, I watched Gadsby's show -- Nanette -- and was blown away. I called it a 21st Century Howl. It was stunning. It was so much more than Hannah's coming out story, but also was the story of the sexual and emotional abuse that society allows to happen when someone is gay. And then she made a rather stunning announcement (and it's not like I knew who she was when I was watching): she said that she could not address the issues she wanted to address through comedy, that they were too serious, and she was going to step away from comedy. It was a mic-drop moment of the first order. And then.... the show got picked up by Netflix. Hundreds of millions saw it, she became really famous, and she took her show on the road. In other words, not leaving comedy. And even more people have seen the show and she's very famous, and she now has a second show.... It's just a comedy show. As Gadsby states, she doesn't have any more demons in her closet, she thought she was leaving the profession and she "didn't save any material for later." Fair enough. But this show proves that Gadsby is not that funny. Maybe her mannerisms are part of her schtick, but they make her look more like a rookie than seasoned professional. Maybe instead of Nanette being a Howl for the 21st Century, it's more Wuthering Heights.
JAJA DINGDONG!! The movie definitely captures the feeling of belonging and happiness that Eurovision has for me. Even though I didn't laugh wildly like I may from other Will Ferrell movies the love that runs through it felt honest. I appreciated that.
The Old Guard (2020) Dir. Gina Prince-Bythwood We meet Andy, Booker, Joe and Nicky, four mercenaries who are soon revealed to have special abilities: when they walk into an ambush during a mission in Sudan, they are riddled with bullets and killed... only to revive moments later and kill their assailants. All four are essentially immortal. Andy is the oldest of the four and is hinted at being thousands of years old, whilst Joe and Nicky once fought on opposite sides during one of the crusades. The "youngest" man among them, Booker, is a soldier who originally fought during the Napoleonic wars. Just as Andy is convinced that their group has to go underground, the psychic bond between the immortals reveals that for the first time in over two centuries, a new individual with their abilities has emerged: a Marine deployed in Afghanistan who survives what should have been mortal wounds. Whilst Andy travels to find their new "recruit", Booker and the rest of the team start working on figuring out who exactly sprung the trap for them in Sudan, revealing a big Pharma CEO with few scruples in the process. I enjoyed this for what it was, a well made action movie and felt a bit letdown by the hints of how it could have been better. I am most disappointed at the fact that other movies (e.g. Interview with the Vampire, Blade of the Immortal) who deal with the notion of immortal individuals somehow better convey the weight of surviving in a world where everything and everyone around you keeps on dying. There are some scenes which briefly hint at more depth (the witch trial scene) but they are only given limited screen time compared to the action sequences. Still, this hints heavily at there being a sequel and I'd definitely be on board for that. The cast is fine, Charlize Theron has a proven track record as a good action lead by this point and she portrays Andy's emotional fatigue well. Matthias Schoenaerts first foray into pure action film-making is okay too, though it limits the moments in which he gets to shine (I did enjoy the quieter moment with Nile in the cave). Chiwetel Ejiofor is a bit underused, certainly considering his talent and status. Marwan Kenzari is a man made out of 100% charm and charisma, outshining his scene partner Luca Marinelli a bit too much in the process. I did feel like Kiki Layne, whilst doing an admirable job, fell a tiny bit short of what was required of her, which was more or less carrying this film together with Theron.
Willing suspension of disbelief only goes so far, IMO. Do we REALLY need vampire movies to dramatize the deterioration of what once was or the anguish of outliving what was precious? I guess that some people find that kind of portrayal of an alternative world alluring.
I think it's about using the premise for exploring the emotional stakes a bit more. Instead it's just a movie about people who survive mortal wounds in a series of action set pieces. But this is just my take on it, others might find elaborating on that aspect of it tedious and pretentious for what is ultimately still an action film.
I very much respect your opinions, having read 3957 posts over the span of more than a decade, but in the case of that movie, and films of its ilk, I think the premise absurd enough that even a trenchant treatment of the "emotional stakes" ( and I agree that there are such stakes ) begs the question: Does any of that make even a modicum of sense?
Is there Queen music in it? Because she's ready for a version of Highlander, and Queen is a version of that.