Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 - 2023 Recaptured a lot of the fun of the first one. Was VERY LOUD. Got maybe a touch too cute at times. Made me cry several times and none of them for the reasons I thought I would going into it. I'll have to revisit it down the road, but it might actually be the best overall film in the trilogy. The mid credit scene was fun and the post credit scene was a genuine shocker to me. Worth every penny of the $7.84 w/tax & convenience fee they charge on Tuesdays here.
Severance A surprisingly engaging show (thanks @TheJoeGreene ) that is equally tedious beyond belief. My wife is reading Thoreau for a book group as we've been watching and it's appropriate for these folks surely lead lives of quiet desperation. Incurious lives of quiet desperation... Interesting set-up. The brain can be "severed" as if there is another hemisphere and there is no contact between the two. Mark S, is one such severed person. His major self, AKA the outie, is grieving the loss of his wife and to find some peace, severs himself so that four 8 hours a day, his disconnected self can go to work in peace. Only he's working for a company called Lumon, which I gather is supposed to be the big bad, only it just seems incompetent. It's as evil and threatening a company as Donald Trump was a successful steak salesman. Mark has three other co-workers in his office at Lumon and they do the most pointless work imagineable. They work in an underground complex the size of a shopping mall with six other total employees. And yet, they don't really question what they've been doing there. It's as if they've been similarly lobotomized as an adjunct to the severing. In essence, the severed "innie" is a slave. All Mark S knows is work. He works 8 hours a day, five days a week, only he doesn't get to know the off time. Eventually the innies start to rebel, but holy hell, it took forever to get there. I watched because it is very well done. But if the writer's strike forces the second season of the show to be delayed to 2025, I won't really care.
It really is slow. Maybe the most surprising part of things to me is that Ben Stiller was executive producer and directed 6 of the 9 episodes.
It really is. Best excruciatingly slow show I've ever seen. But Milchik escorting some decoder walking down endless halls must take five minutes of screen time. And then there's another five minutes spent of folks wandering the halls without Milchik. Ugh. I get the conceit. This is a boring, soul sucking hell completely devoid of color/emotion/life. But one such shot would be enough. The soul suck was already perfectly encapsulated in the decoders' office the size of a basketball arena with four cubicles jammed up against each other. (Though I really love that the dividers slide up and down. If I was so situated, I would want that feature.)
$7.84 for a cinema ticket is a bargain! This is the rate for a screening of the same film at my local multiplex:
Every theater in Lubbock still does matinee prices all day on Tuesday. It's a great deal now since all seats are nice plush recliner seats with tons of leg room and barrier walls between each row so you're not in anyone's line of site at all.
Angel Face (1952) Dir. Otto Preminger Frank Jessup is an ambulance driver who is brought to the Tremaine family estate on a call, after a distraught Mrs. Tremaine is thought to have made an attempt on her own life, which she herself vehemently denies. During the intervention, he also meets the victim's step daughter Diane. There is a mutual attraction that leads to an impromptu date after Diane follows Frank back into the city. Frank keeps on seeing Diane in spite of his prior relationship with hospital receptionist Mary. Diane eventually gets Frank a new job as her family's chauffeur and fills his head with promises of potential funding for the auto shop he dreams of starting for himself. Eventually Frank also sees the outlines of a darkness underneath the kind attention and flirtations on Diane's part: her strong dislike for her step mother that leads him to suspect she actually would do the woman harm... Decent noir with Jean Simmons as the angel faced femme fatale and Robert Mitchum as the man who walks into her trap with his eyes open. All culminating in a dark and somewhat shocking climax. Supposedly Hughes made Simmons star in this film after she spurned his advances.
Evil Dead Rise (2023) Dir. Lee Cronin On the night that Beth decides to pay a visit to her estranged sister Ellie and her children, an earthquake hits the city and strands the family at Ellie's apartment. On the same night, due to the earthquake damaging the basement of the building, Ellie's son Caleb finds a scary looking book in what appeared to be a long abandoned bank vault. Against his sister Bridget's wishes, he reads from the book and listens to the records he found nearby the tome. One of the old LPs contains incantations that a priest claims he translated from the book. These words invite a demon to take possession of Ellie and a terrifying night of horror and survival follows... Latest entry in the Evil Dead series and like the previous entry, neither starring Bruce Campbell nor directed by Sam Raimi. Still very passable Evil Dead amusement. We got the aforementioned Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, moments of occasionally inventive gore (the cheese grater scene!), lots of fake blood, a boom stick and a chainsaw and couple of surprising Shining references. And Alyssa Sutherland is very good as the possessed mommy from hell.
The Mother (2023) Dir. Niki Caro A former military veteran who went into the illegal arms trade after mustering out of the service betrays her former business partners after she finds out that they are also involved in human trafficking. As a result, an attempt on her life is taken and nearly the entire F.B.I. team tasked with her protection is decimated. She and her unborn child barely survive. In the aftermath the woman gives up her daughter for adoption and she herself lives way off the grid in Alaska, hoping to avoid another attempt on her life. A dozen years later, she is contacted by a sympathetic Federal agent who warns her that the men who were after her might take revenge on her daughter instead, prompting the woman to come out of hiding to protect her child, and meet her for the first time in the process... Unfortunately Netflix has made too many of this type of action films: decent to good in terms of production values but instantly forgettable in terms of the plot and writing. This J-Lo action vehicle cannot escape this fate and some of the plot holes defy belief. I also don't get how Niki Caro got attached to this rubbish. Her resume certainly did not suggest she'd be desperate for this kind of work.
Project Wolf Hunting (2022) Dir. Hongsun Kim After a previous prisoner transfer from the Philippines to South-Korea by plane was botched terribly, another attempt is made to bring some of the most dangerous Koreans held in the archipelago home. This time a specially designated prisoner boat will be used, accompanied by a group of highly trained guards. Once at sea, some of the prisoners get loose and take command of part of the ship, whilst the remaining guards desperately try to re-assume control of the situation. But neither group is aware of the fact that the ship is carrying a secret cargo that is far more dangerous than any of the violent psychopaths it had on its passenger manifest... This completely over the top, bonkers South-Korean action thriller starts off as "Con Air on a boat" but then morphs into the bastard child of Resident Evil and Predator (but also on a boat) for the second half. It's not any less crazy than that sounds and it's another film with a very high fake blood budget (and proud of using every single drop of it). It's also riotously fun if you are at all into this kind of madness (which I am).
The Neighbors (2012) Dir. Hwi Kim Following the disappearance and murder of a schoolgirl, the other residents of the apartment building where the girl lived are in a state of shock. Some of them also start to have their suspicions about who the killer might be, with various clues suggesting that the murderer might also live in the same building. Other individuals in the neighborhood also are drawn into the killer's orbit, including a pizza delivery boy, the proprietor of a luggage shop and a local loan shark. The eclectic collection of people are the unlikely group which will work together to save the murderer's next young victim. An urban paranoia type thriller, done in a distinctly South-Korean manner. Well-acted and an interesting story structure where linear story telling and flashbacks alternate depending on the POV. Of the cast, the most famous to Western audiences will be Ma Dong-seok as the loan shark with the short fuse.
The Whale (2022) Wow. Just wow. Fraser is so good in this role. Hong Chau as the friend is excellent. Sadie Sink is good as the too cool for school teenager. This film touches on a lot of topics I didn't expect and does so with a deft hand. This might be my favorite Aronofsky film since The Wrestler. A24 delivers again.
A lot will also recognize Yunjin Kim (I recognized her face, which is unusual for me - I'm not good a, um, facial recognition) from Lost and Mistresses here in the US.
Avarice (2022) Dir. John V. Soto Kate and her husband Ash are going through a rough patch, which is also making their teenage daughter Susan rebel more eagerly against her parents. Ash decides to take his wife and daughter on a weekend getaway to try and improve the mood in the household. On their first night at the vacation home, their home is invaded by heavily armed individuals who take Kate and Susan hostage and transport Ash to a secondary location where he is forced to transfer a large amount of company funds to offshore accounts, unless he wants to see his family murdered. Back in the house, Kate proves more trouble than her guards can handle when she uses her skills as a trained archer to deal with her minders... The entire premise of this movie is essentially "Olympic level archer vs. heavily armed guards". Or "What if An San was also John McClane?" But it's also low-budget Aussie action. It's completely ridiculous and some of it isn't even in the "so bad it's good" category. There are however moments where it strangely works. Especially Kate's first kill, the manner of which probably takes the audience just as much by surprise as it does her poor victim. This mostly made me want to see an entire new sub-genre of action films: Top level athletes vs. Baddies. I want a movie where a decathlete uses his shot-putting skills to dispose of a villain or where he javelins some fool into the wall.
Crazy thing is that I watched Lost at he time (well the first two seasons) and I never realized it was her though I did try and fail to remember where I had seen her before.
The Midnight Story (1957) Dir. Joseph Pevney In San Fransisco, a priest attached to a local orphanage is murdered in an secluded alley, with no witnesses around. Among the many people in the community distraught at the Priest's violent end is Joe Martini. Joe was raised at the orphanage and Father Tomasino was the closest thing he had to a parental figure. Joe himself is a cop who tries to insert himself into the murder investigation, even though he is motorman attached to the traffic division. When he is warned away by members of the homicide squad, he turns in his badge to investigate the crime himself. He zeroes in on Sylvio Malatesta, a local restaurant owner and Italian immigrant who divides his time between his restaurant and caring for his family: his mother, his younger brother Pietro and his cousin Anna. Joe suspects Sylvio for the guilty manner he wore during the priests' funeral and inserts himself into the man's life by pretending to be a down on his luck friend of Father Tomasino. Malatesta appears to be a kind and compassionate soul who offers Joe a job and even a room in his own home to live. As Joe subsequently falls in love with Anna, his hope of solving the murder case diminishes, as he instead hopes his new friend Sylvio is innocent of the crime... Decent little crime drama, Tony Curtis is good in the lead role but it's Gilbert Roland who leaves the strongest impression as the sympathetic Sylvio. Shot on location in San Francisco.
The magic incantation has summoned me. The Midnight Story (1957) San Francisco traffic cop Tony Curtis will do anything to help the investigation of the murder of Father Tomasino, the man most responsible for raising him at the orphanage. But homicide doesn't want a ticket writer, especially one with such close personal connections to the victim. Curtis quits the force to begin his own investigation. His lead is Sylvio Malatesta, who was beyond distraught at the funeral. He tries to get close to Sylvio, but the big-hearted Italian believes his down-on-his-luck story so much he gives Curtis a room in his own house and a job in his restaurant. As Curtis gets closer to him and his family, the investigation gets more complicated. What starts as a crime story quickly turns into a family melodrama, one that is pretty basic, but unexpectedly enthralling. It gets to a point where the occasional appearance of the police become unwelcome intrusions into the story. It all leads to an ending with lots of complicated emotions, and it was really well done. But the extremely human core of the movie does get in the way of me seeing The City, as the shots and focus are on the people, not the basically unrecognizable San Francisco of the 1950's. The City wasn't the only thing yet to progress. There is a very 1950's treatment of married women and all the characters flatly accept it, although there does seem to be an undertone of holding them as cautionary examples when compared to Curtis' own relationship.
Yeah the long middle section of the film, which is essentially about a very lonely individual finding a family for the first time in his life, is the best bit. I'm kind of reminded of Stephen King's 11.22.63, which is ostensibly a time travel thriller centered around the idea of saving JFK but the very best chapters largely consist of a formerly broken and lonely 21st century man starting to enjoy life again working as a high school teacher in 1960s Texas.
I have read all of one Stephen King book to conclusion, and this was it. Agreed that the new life in Texas was the best part (though his side investigation was a bit of a distraction). I also liked the few days he spent discovering his new world as well.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939) Dir. Alfred L. Werker After Professor Moriarty is acquitted from a serious crime for the umpteenth time due to lack of evidence, Holmes promises to finally end his nemesis' long criminal career. In turn, Moriarty promises Holmes to successfully execute a crime of such cunning and notoriety that Holmes' failure to stop him will ruin the detective's career forever. To that end, Moriarty sets machinations in motion that involve death threats to a well-off brother and sister and cryptic messages to the guardian of the crown jewels at the Tower of London... The second of the Rathbone and Bruce Sherlock Holmes films, and the final one to actually feature a Victorian setting. Otherwise noteworthy for featuring the always delightful Ida Lupino in an early role as a young woman who seeks out Holmes' help and protection. Decent enough entertainment and a nice runtime at just over eighty minutes. Can we please bring back the 60-80 minute movie?
John Wick 4 (2023) Dir. Chad Stahelski Following the events of the third film, John Wick is still a wanted man, with the Table very much making his elimination a priority. Especially after Wick eliminates one of the elders. The Marquis de Gramonts gets unlimited resources and carte blanche to bring the rogue assassin to heel, which first results in the dismantling of the NYC Continental, for the perception that Winston lent Wick a hand in his earlier escape. Wick himself flees to Osaka, where the Marquis' men track him down just as he has found refuge within his friend's Shimazu's hotel. A confrontation ensues between Shimazu's men and the Marquis hit squad, resulting in Wick's narrow escape and a new determination to face off with the Marquis himself, especially once he finds out that the man has sent one of his old friends after him... This started out as a pretty basic - perhaps a tiny bit high concept - revenge thriller with the first movie. Since then each installment has mined further within the mythology of the Table but it hasn't really improved the films themselves imho. What annoyed me the most about this one is the run time. 2h49m is way too long for a John Wick film. The first one clocked in at around 101 minutes. This self-indulgence also starts to jar during certain sequences. The Osaka action sequence is very impressive, but also far too long. I caught myself wanting it to end long before it reached its climax. One of the key things for a good action film maker is allowing the audience some moments to exhale, but that is no longer what these films are about. So after a while the beautifully shot fight choreography becomes less impactful instead of more so. As for some of the new cast members, Donnie Yen was predictably great and Scott Adkins supporting role is kind of hilarious. Shamier Anderson's Nobody/Tracker character was meant to be a cypher but he had too much screentime to have been left such a two-dimensional character. I feel like this franchise has now reached a certain level of elevated ridiculousness that the F&F franchise got to around Fast Five. One in which anything can happen but also literally anything that happens on screen has no real impact or lasting consequences.
So the stakes in this one may not be that high: It's a Netflix documentary called "The Pez Outlaw" about a goofy guy named Steve Glew who used to go out to the Pez International factory and bring back dispensers that were not greenlighted by Pez USA. And then he'd go around selling them to collectors, until the guy in charge of Pez USA (known as The Pezident) went after him.
Furies (2022) Dir. Veronica Ngo After Bi is witness to the brutal murder of her mother at the hands of a john, she has her revenge on the man by killing him, before leaving her rural town for Ho Chi Minh City. There she steals and hustles to survive. One night after a group of men attack her for stealing on their turf, she is saved by Jacqueline. Jacqueline takes Bi in, introducing her to two other young women she saved from dire circumstances: Thanh and Hong. Jacqueline - who the girls refer to as Aunt Lin - trains them in martial arts and wants to use their skills to take out a local crime boss: Mad Dog Hai. The idea is to take out key underlings first, and then deal with Mad Dog himself. But as the cost of their endeavor rises, Bi starts to suspect that Aunt Lin is not entirely honest with them about her motives... A prequel to 2019's Furie, helmed by the star of the aforementioned Vietnamese martial arts film, Veronica Ngo (likely best known to Western audiences from The Old Guard or more recently The Princess). Ngo also stars here in a new role as Aunt Lin. Essentially an origin story of the main villain of the original film. Enjoyable entertainment, perhaps slightly less over the top than the original film (certainly in terms of the climax). Dong Anh Quynh is a good lead.