Choose or Die (2022) Dir. Toby Meakins Kayla is a coder who dropped out of university and is now working as a cleaner whilst she hopes to get her foot in the door at a tech company, in spite of her lack of a degree. She is still friends with a guy from her college days in Isaac, a young man with aspirations of creating his own video game. One day they come upon an old 1980s text adventure game in his collection of vintage tech devices. When Kayla fires the game up later that evening, some very strange things start happening, and she figures out that the ancient game has the ability to alter reality. The cost of playing is that you have to keep on playing, and keep on choosing a path, or you die. Playing the game has deadly consequences in Kayla's immediate social circle, but she has no choice but to continue until she reaches the end. This is basically like a horror version of Jumanji if the board game was a cursed 1980s text adventure game. The concept is unfortunately better than the execution. The lead is pretty good. Also features Eddie Marsan in an over the top supporting role where he can happily chew scenery. Asa Butterfield - super-charming in Sex Education - is less of a natural fit for a horror film.
Everything Everywhere All At Once - dir. The Daniels, 2022 I'm pretty sure this movie will be regarded as a classic. It has been a long time since I've seen a movie that so fully takes advantage of the medium of film. I know that sounds cliched but if you see it I think you'll know what I mean. The film is about a Chinese immigrant mother (Michelle Yeoh) who runs a laundromat and struggles to keep her relationship with her husband (Ke Huy Quan) and daughter (Stephanie Hsu) together. That description hardly does the movie justice! But I urge you to go see it. I suppose there's a universe in which a viewer might find it too zany for their tastes (see what I did there?) but I think this will likely end up as one of my favorite movies of the last twenty years. Not since coming out of Mad Max Fury Road have I felt like I'd just watched something unlike anything I'd seen before.
The Batman (2022) Dir. Matt Reeves Two year into his crime-fighting career as Batman, a young Bruce Wayne is still not truly convinced he is making a difference, in a city still rife with crime and corruption. The stakes are raised when a masked criminal murders the mayor of Gotham and leaves a cryptic message addressed at Batman at the scene of the crime. Against the wishes of the commissioner and much of the Gotham City Police Department, Lieutenant Gordon brings Batman on board of the investigation. Thus begins a cat and mouse game where the man simply known as the Riddler perpetually seems one step ahead of him. Bruce's investigation leads him to a night club owned by Oswald Cobblepot, where he meets a waitress who might know more about a person of interest in the case. But the woman in question has her own secrets... The umpteenth reboot of the cinematic Batman franchise. This was an okay film, though perhaps not entirely deserving of its runtime of nearly three hours. The obvious comparison is to the Nolan-verse trilogy and I would say this is about as good as The Dark Knight (a slightly muddled film that is remembered fondly primarily for Ledger's great performances as the Joker) but somewhat inferior to Batman Begins (start to finish the best Nolan Batman film). Though Matt Reeves has his own visual style, there are still some cues in there that betray some inspiration from both Nolan and to a lesser degree Snyder (I would say more Watchmen than any of his DCEU work). He also borrows from other directors (the silhouette reveal for the Riddler character is straight from the Argento filmography though De Palma beat Reeves to stealing that idea by about four decades). I read several reviews that praised the fact that this was the first Batman film that truly explores Batman as a detective but I found that aspect of it lacking a bit. It certainly isn't the detective story hiding underneath a cape that some critics have made it out to be. In general I thought that aspect of the story was a bit thin and underdeveloped. I also wasn't too keen on the frequent use of voice-over, but that might be because the character of Abed doing this as a bit on Community has made me too aware of the inherent absurdity of this device. It is the Batman film that delves most deeply into the weirdness of the Batman/Bruce Wayne character. As in, it is acknowledged in-universe that this dude is a huge weirdo and it is an inherent part of the performance. Bale and Keaton touched upon this too on occasion, but Pattinson's performance is the first live action one that I can remember which is fully submerged in this reality. On the whole Pattinson's performance was good. I think I like this take on the character more than I ever did Bale's. Likewise Zoë Kravitz makes for a good Catwoman and her performance is far more aware of the fact that Selina's sexuality should be a central part of the characterization, something that say Anne Hathaway was far less comfortable with. Paul Dano too was good, but then we have known since Prisoners that he is very skilled at playing sinister creeps. One realization that went a tiny bit broader than The Batman itself is that I think I'm now kind of tired of the inherent tropiness of most superhero content. I have no desire to partake in the "is it cinema or not?" debate, but it does have built-in constraints that never allow anything to rise above a certain level and after a while those limitations start to feel a tiny bit annoying and frustrating (at least from this spectators POV).
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021) Dir. Johannes Roberts Claire Redfield returns to her home town of Raccoon City, a place she primarily has bad memories of, being raised in an orphanage until she ran away as a teenager. Her estranged brother Chris Redfield is now a member of the local police force. The town itself is at a crossroads, with the primary employer in the area, a pharma giant known as the Umbrella Corporation, is shutting down their facility and moving their activities abroad. The night grows increasingly tense for the cops as well as Claire, as strange things start happening all over town and it is slowly revealed Umbrella wants to clean house more exhaustively than any of the Raccoon City residents could have expected... A reboot of the Resident Evil movie franchise. More faithful to the video games than the movies that starred Milla Jovovich. This film is essentially a remix of plot elements from the first two games in the video game series. Combined in a mostly coherent plot. More enjoyable than its critical reception might have suggested. Certainly a lot better than many of the later movies in the original movie franchise.
Ambulance (2022) Dir. Michael Bay Will is a Marine Corps veteran whose wife needs experimental surgery to survive her illness. With no other options, he turns to Danny, his long estranged brother, who followed into their father's footsteps and chose a life of crime. Now supposedly walking the straight and narrow, it is revealed that Danny is actually planning a bank robbery that will allow him to walk away from crime for good. He offers Will a cut of the loot if he will assist in the robbery. In spite of his misgivings about participating in a crime, Will is desperate enough to agree. The bank robbery seemingly goes according to plan, until a cop chances upon the bank in the middle of the robbery. In the chaos that ensues, Will and Danny manage to escape in an ambulance, taking one of the paramedics as their hostage. This is the start of an insane, daylong chase where the ambulance is pursued by most of the LAPD, as well as federal agents. Michael Bay's remake of the rather excellent Danish film by the same name. It's Baysian in its qualities, meaning over the top action, lots of explosions and the kind of action movie editing that was part and parcel of 1990s Hollywood, and which was largely defined by Bay (if not quite invented). A new element is Bay's clever use of drone footage, in a manner I have rarely seen in other action movies. I suspect that other filmmakers are already stealing these ideas as we speak. It also features the return of Action Gyllenhaal and he is great here, clearly enjoying himself (something confirmed by his repeated remarks during the press tour that he is embracing the "fun" of being a movie star). The first hour of this is very good, unfortunately Bay isn't able to maintain that quality throughout and whilst the climax made sense within the plot, it still felt like a too subdued ending to the craziness that preceded it. In another surprise, Eiza Gonzalez might be the least objectified female lead in any Michael Bay movie. Either old Man Bay grew as a person or there are certain things he does no longer dare to do in the era of MeToo?
The Prowler (1951) Dir. Joseph Losey Susan Gilvray's husband is a popular DJ who mostly broadcasts his shows at night. Meaning that Susan is mostly alone during that time. One night, she is startled by a prowler outside her bathroom window and calls the police. One of the two officers who answers the call is Webb Garwood. Webb was a star HS athlete in his native Indiana, who only became a cop after he lost his basketball scholarship that was his only ticket to go to university. He considers policing a dead end job that will never give him the wealth he aspires to. He is envious of Susan's husband, not just for Susan's affection but also for his wealth. He starts to see Susan a lot during the time her husband is working, which soon leads to an affair. Just when both appear to reach the point where they might break off the affair before things go too far, Webb instead sees an opening at a real future with Susan, even if it implies deeply immoral choices. A very good early 1950s noir with an excellent Van Heflin as a cop who is slowly revealed to be an utterly immoral and sociopathic individual. Also iconic for the on-location shots of real-life ghost town Calico, the location of the climax. The subtle changes in the genre that make 1950s noir distinct from its 1940s counterpart are already somewhat evident. The mega-cynical world view and the existential desperation that are so important in movies like The Killers or Kiss Me Deadly are already present here, albeit in slightly more subtle ways.
Sleepwalkers (1992) Dir. Mick Garris Tanya, a teenager in a small town, finds herself attracted to a cute newcomer. The boy in question, Charles, has moved from Ohio with his mother. In reality Charles and his mother are Sleepwalkers, supernatural creatures who feed on the life energy of young women and who have made Tanya their next victim. Yet before they can tap into their new source of energy, they attract the unwanted attention of some of the townfolks, including a member of the local Sheriff's department... I hadn't seen this in ages. It's now infamous for being King's first original screenplay, with the movie itself being received with almost universally negative reviews from critics. If this movie has some redeeming qualities, it is in the first half, where the over the top campiness isn't yet as evident. As well as its genuinely very good cast, with Mädchen Amick as the female lead, Borg Queen Alice Krige as the evil mother, as well as the likes of Ron Perlman, Lyman Ward, Glenn Shadix, ... in supporting parts.
Nah, it's pulled straight from The Long Halloween (96-97), Year One (87), and Ego and Other Tales (08). Year One is maybe my favorite stand along graphic novel. The box set of them is on Amazon.
Dune - Denis Villeneuve - 2021 I'll begin by saying I never read the book, so there was no nostalgia factor at all for me with this one. I thought it was pretty bad. The production values are incredible and the cast was great. Also, fantastic score. But other than that? The entire movie has exactly one tone or mood, and that is "ponderous self-importance." It seems like many of the story elements or ideas have not aged particularly well since the 1960s, and some of them are downright goofy. But director Denis Villeneuve has absolutely no sense of humor or fun, so he plays straight those elements that wold have worked much better as slightly campy. I'm pretty sure the name "Duncan Idaho" got drunk and wandered into the wrong movie. The movie depicts three advanced civilizations with interstellar travel, heat seeking missiles, and laser artillery, but when their troops meet in battle they pull out BLADES and do the ol' "we line up our guys on one side of the field and you line your guys up on the other and then we just run at each other in disorganized fashion." Really? This movie actually made me retroactively question whether the previous Villeneuve films I've seen, Arrival, and Blade Runner 2049 were actually as good as I thought they were, or if I took them seriously merely because the filmmaking throughout is positively screaming "TAKE ME SERIOUSLY! TAKE ME SERIOUSLY!"
Yeah, I meant, more the voiceover narration of Batman's journal set to a sad Nirvana song. Very early '90s thing teenage me would have thought cool (see The Crow). It's a weird juxtaposition of what they brought forward to the 2020s (Riddler's social media) versus the what stayed in the 90s (the police work).
I know there are some articles saying it pulled from Chinatown, Taxi Driver, Seven, and Zodiac, but I guess there's some Crow type of stuff as well. Definitely a lot of familiar notes to it, but I did really like Batman actually being a detective for once.
In the novels, the retro-technology is better explained as AI was banned after it became sentient or something a thousand years earlier. The shields block anything at pace and can only be pierced by a slow blade. That's glossed over here maybe moreso than Lynch's version. Yeah, I think ponderous self-importance is not a bad description. I think it worked really well in Arrival which was expanding a short-story to feature length. It probably works less well when condensing an epic novel into 2 films.
We watched the longest movie ever made. One of them, at least. Took us three or four viewing sessions. Netflix's "The Bubble" is about the production of the seventh iteration in a cliff beasts film franchise, in a bubble in the UK somewhere. Great cast, good comedy director in Judd Apatow, meandering and mostly unfunny throughout.
The Northman (2022) Dir. Robert Eggers Amleth is heir to King Aurvandil, whom he worships and loves. The young prince is being groomed for a succession that might come sooner than expected, as the King returns from his latest raiding expedition with a wound that might prove fatal. In the end, it is not the wound that kills him, but his half-brother Fjölnir's betrayal. After Aurvandil is murdered by Fjölnir, Amleth barely escapes with his life. Decades pass, and a now adult Amleth decides it is finally time for him to get his vengeance, traveling to meet his uncle and kill him for what he did to his father. He gets the unexpected assistance of Olga, a slave woman with mystical abilities. This was fun. Eggers is essentially adapting the story upon which Shakespeare based his Hamlet. But this is not meant to be any sort of Shakespeare adaptation. It's a well-acted, wonderfully shot historical epic revenge tale. Eggers' use of close-ups occasionally evokes the work of Leone, whilst he does some clever things with lighting in more than one scene. It is definitely his most accessible, mainstream film and if not for a few rather trippy scenes, this would squarely fall into the same category of something like Ridley Scott's Gladiator. So it's rather idiotic that some critics have described this as an art house film. Apparently anything in which the protagonists do not have super powers is now "art house". It's also far less gory and bloody than I had expected based on some reviews. Though it does occasionally go there, never more so than during the raid on the village, where the handheld camera follows Amleth around as he dishes out bloody carnage. Skarsgärd and Taylor-Joy are both great. Hawke is memorable in his handful of scenes. Willem Dafoe features in one of his more bonkers recent performances. Claes Bang - whom I hadn't recognized until the credits - is terrific as the "evil" uncle. Nicole Kidman was a bit of a hard sell for me in a historical epic (this is entirely subjective but some actors do not have the right face to be in anything historical that precedes the end of the early modern period). But her inclusion is worth it for her acting performance in that one key scene. A shame this did not do better at the box office, ideally we should be getting 4-5 such films (purely original 50-70 million dollar features) a year. Whenever one of the rare ones that is still made fails to make back its budget, it makes it that much harder to get another one made.
Tremors (1990) Dir. Ron Underwood Val and Earl are two handymen who just about manage to make ends meet in the small town of Paradise, Nevada. They have been talking about moving to Bixby for ages, where they hope to find better prospects at work, and plainly just also better jobs than the one they get in Paradise. Just when they might actually move for real, they stumble upon an old drunk who died in mysterious circumstances. Later that day, they find a local sheepfarmer seemingly murdered and all of his sheep slaughtered. By the time it is revealed that their town is besieged by a strange & large burrowing predator, they and the rest of the town are essentially stuck and have to fight for their very survival... Loved this film as a kid. Fred Ward's death earlier this week reminded me of it and having not watched this in decades, I was eager to revisit it. It still holds up wonderfully and tonally it is the perfect horror-comedy. It's also one of those films that the cast obviously had a blast making. Ward and Bacon's back and forth is the backbone of the films comedic moments and they are a classic duo.
Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) Dir. Sam Raimi The Raimi influence was noticeable and spectacular at points. Marvel continues to take chances within the framework of their general formula, and I'm as intrigued by their films as ever because of it. This wasn't quite the story I expected to get, but it was a good one with some top notch acting and a few gruesome on screen deaths. Several of the fan service moments (almost everyone appears) did their job at hinting towards a future that isn't here yet. Ultimately I found it satisfying, and it was nice to have a big Marvel movie clock in at just over 2 hours instead of pushing 3 or more. Elizabeth Olsen needs the right vehicle to do it, but she's an Oscar worthy actor at this point. Xochitl Gomez did a really good job as America Chavez.
Yes - the world is much more internally consistent in the books AI / computers were banned following the Butlerian jihad. The shield reacts with the lasgun to cause a small nuclear explosion killing everything around - hence the armies don't use lasguns - they use hand held and projective weapons.
Dune always struggled with the fact that Duncan Idaho was the best character who is stupidly killed off way too early.
Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) Dir. Sam Raimi After a cold open in which an alternate universe Dr. Strange and a girl called America Chavez are running away from a monster, Chavez arrives in our Strange's universe, along with the corpse of the now deceased other Strange. Stephen takes the girl under his wing after she tells him that she has been pursued by monsters who want to take away her superpower: the ability to jump to other universes. After Stephen realizes that powerful witchcraft is involved in the creatures that are following America, he consults with Wanda Maximoff... Who reveals herself to be the one who is actually after America. She wants America's powers to herself so she can live in a universe where her children are real and alive. This kicks off a race where the Scarlet Witch is hunting Strange and Chavez across the multiverse. I primarily went to see this because I love Sam Raimi. And I can't claim with a straight face that there aren't scenes and visuals in there that remind you of the fact that you are watching a Raimi film. But it still feels like Raimi with the handbrake on, the same way that Iron Man 3 felt like Shane Black light. Which begs the question, why does Feige hire directors with a distinct style and sensibilities, only to then make them work within the MCU straightjacket. Still, Raimi is enough of a professional for his film to be devoid of the cheap-looking shots that were littered throughout say the latest Spider-man movie. But even something like The Quick & the Dead was more clearly a Sam Raimi film than this one. As for the story, it is clear that the screenplay went through many iterations. It's a bit of a mess that barely holds together. Thankfully Elizabeth Olsen's strong performance kind of bails them out somewhat, papering over many of the cracks and holes in the process. I would say this is mid-tier MCU at best, which is a shame since I had hoped for much more (I love Sam Raimi). Though it did contain one of my favorite ever sequences in the entire MCU: Spoiler (Move your mouse to the spoiler area to reveal the content) Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler Wanda going Omni-man on the Illuminati From my perspective the formula is getting a bit stale but considering its box office success, most of the Marvel fans are in disagreement with me.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941) Dir. Victor Fleming Dr. Jekyll is a respected physician obsessed with the duality of man and the possibility of using science and medicine to rid a man of his evil half. When the opportunity to test his theories on a patient evaporates, he instead decides to try the serum he developed on himself. It allows the emergence of a second personality: Mr. Hyde. Hyde is violent, unscrupulous and utterly without empathy, whilst shamelessly indulging in every desire. In spite of himself, Jekyll loses himself in the debauched alternate life that Hyde has created for him, even though doing so threatens his engagement to the woman he loves, as well as the fact that whilst he is Hyde he harms many people... A loose adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson novel, as well as a remake of a 1931 movie of the same name. Spencer Tracy's Hyde is terrifying, especially in his scenes with Ingrid Bergman. Bergman and Turner are both good in their respective roles though Bergman has more to do and thus shines more brightly.
This doesn't go in the already watched category, but this trailer is the most accurate thing ever put on film about west Texas.
The Sand Pebbles (1966)-Based on a novel about 1926 China. Steve McQueen stars as a disgruntled US Navy sailor. Richard Attenborough and Candice Bergen (in an early role) star. There was a good part for a Thai actress, whose name I have forgotten. Good flick, but the end is a bit depressing.
It really does. I work at Texas Tech, so that crowd reaction at the small town rodeo is 1000% accurate. Folks out here hate UT/Austin even more than they do dems/libs/illegals/whoever else they're trying to "own."