Tenet (2020) At the Kyiv Opera House, a CIA agent successfully met a contact and acquired some weapons grade plutonium stolen from Russia. The opera house is then attacked by terrorists, which is actually a cover for a private Russian force to catch the agent and his item. With foreknowledge of the attack, a CIA extraction team go in to save the agent, but are foiled. The agent and the item are captured, and the last living member of the extraction team is forced to take a suicide pill. He then wakes up to find out he has been recruited into a new fight - one larger than he could possibly imagine against an enemy that hasn't been born yet. I mostly enjoyed it. A lot has been written about the time travel (which I thankfully did not read until after watching) but I don't really care. Time travel never makes sense. I don't see Tenet's use of that as a theme or a plot point as much as simply a setting, allowing some really trippy visuals to take place. I don't question it just as I don't question why James Bond needs to go to visually iconic locations. In fact, it's probably best to think about this as a Bond movie, with a megalomaniac bad guy and an inexplicable necessity for saving a single beautiful woman that's caught up in events, but in exchange you get fights and chases and battles and everything just feels expansive and rich and opulent and well-honed. The whole Oslo thing was unique and entertaining and woah-inducing that second time through. Where it really fell apart was the motivation of the people the oligarch was working with and the target they chose. There is something to the idea that there is an attack against someone who, without the sci-fi of the movie, normally has no way of fighting back, but this movie never entertains that thought. That might be a cool movie, but it's not this one. That other side has essentially nothing to say in this film, and there can't be depth without some kind of back-and-forth.
I largely agree. As a timetravel nerd, IMO the film really failed on that front - but it didn't have to be that way. Everything was just so clumsy after the initial reveal and then you ended up with lots of exposition which always sucks. This film was way worse than Inception for example, where the sci-fi aspects simply landed and you don't question them for the rest of the film - no matter how improbable.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) Dr. Strange is leading a girl named America Chavez to the mystical Book of Vishanti through a bizarre floaty realm. The book will allow them to defeat the demon chasing them, but they can't get to it. A panicked America accidentally opens a portal to another universe to escape, but Dr. Strange is dead before he is sucked through with her. At least the Dr. Strange of another universe. The Dr. Strange of the movie universe is very much alive and able to beat the demon destroying New York while trying to kidnap America. Recognizing the beast is a product of witchcraft instead of sorcery, he goes to consult with the world's most powerful witch, Wanda Maximoff aka the Scarlet Witch. Only she seems to know a little too much about what is going on. Multiverses are a common setting in science fiction, and when used properly it can be a powerful tool to explore regrets and paths not taken. That really isn't done in this - here it's just a way for the bad guy to get what they want. So with a really simple concept and no twists, we are left with the visceral to find entertainment, and there is a lot in this very expensive film to commend. I enjoyed experiencing things like the alternate universes and the floaty realm. But outside the imaginative and abstract final fight and the musical fight between Stranges, most of the battles in this movie were really blah. They were too limited in imagination considering they were battles between gods, and far too arbitrary in terms of levels of ability. I often complain about the lack of limitations and rules in superhero movie fights, and this was probably the worst in the whole MCU. There was zero tension because every blow landed had no greater context. What is more damaging, a fist or a death beam with the force of a sun? You don't know with Marvel. Just whatever suits the moment. Benedict Cumberbatch is absolutely brilliant as Strange. Those kids were very annoying.
One underrated aspect of this film was Raimi shoe-horning in Raimi shots in an MCU film. Of course he has been doing that since his Spiderman trilogy.
The theater I saw it in had people applauding the Bruce Campbell appearance. Raimi seems to have an infinite amount of goodwill stored up with audiences.
Minesweeper (1943) Train hobo Jim "Tennessee" Smith is on a train again, but this time he is headed to Los Angeles to sign up for the US Navy right after Pearl Harbor. The other hobos don't take a liking to his patriotism and kick him out of the box car at speed. He is found by "Fixit" Smith, a Navy veteran who was planning on rejoining his old minesweeper squadron based at the Port of Los Angeles. Fixit fixes Jim up and they both join the same unit. Tennessee breezes through basic training with crack skills, and his knowledge of diving makes him a prized commodity. It also catches the attention of his commander, Lt. Gilpin, who finds out Jim isn't Jim - he's former Lt. Richard Houston who deserted from the Navy years ago due to a crippling gambling addiction. That addiction never went away, and now it's threatening more than just Houston's career. Patriotic military melodramas were a dime a dozen in 1943, and this is just another one only made distinctive by the subject matter. But for whatever reason I'm fascinated by minesweepers so this is the one for me. The Navy provided lots of cool footage of boats and aircraft but all the acting was noticeably done on sound stages because they had to churn these things out and ain't no one got time for filming on location. It's a morality tale about the redemption of sins through enlisting in the United States military. It's also a morality tale about proper film-to-digital transfer because the existing video was made off a bad print and you can't see anything in the vital underwater action scenes.
The movie features the YMS-1 class auxiliary minesweeper, one of which was turned into Jacques Cousteau's Calypso.
The Looters (1955) Abner Biberman Jesse Hill is an army veteran who has retreated to a quiet and lonely life in the Rocky Mountains. Besides the quiet and solitude, he mostly enjoys the opportunity to go mountain climbing whenever he wants. He is surprised by the sudden arrival of former war buddy Pete Carder at his out of the way cabin. Pete is broke and down on his luck, looking for a place to stay. Jesse is lukewarm about offering it, mostly because he knows Pete as a lifelong charlatan and hustler who hasn't ever met a get-rich-quick scheme he did not like, whether it was legal or not. Early on in Pete's stay, the men are startled by the sight of a plane seemingly in distress and then later on the sound of what is likely it crashing. At Pete's insistence, Jesse reluctantly sets out to find the wreck. When he does, he finds only four survivors: George Parkinson a banker who is anxious to get back to NYC. Stan, a Navy man who is mustering out of the service. Sheryl, a model who is returning to NYC after being shunned in her hometown for having appeared in some risque magazines. And co-pilot Rod, who is badly injured. As Jesse and Pete start making preparations to get the survivors back to civilization, a precious cargo on board of the plane wreck elicits greed among some of the party, followed by far more serious complications... Not a bad noirish adventure thriller. The plot is somewhat predictable, but well acted and entertaining, a crisp little 90 minute ride. Starring Rory Calhoun, who is good, and with Ray Danton as his slimy foil. Also features Julie Adams, most famous from her turn in the Creature from the Blue Lagoon.
Dark City (1998) I reviewed this once before, but I wanted to revisit it because others have. It certainly looks beautiful. I've seen a few movies with this kind of affected reality and this one is still the most fully realized. My main issue is about how it ends. Spoiler (Move your mouse to the spoiler area to reveal the content) Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler The ending seems to go against the message of the film (or at least the sounds-cool one liner Murdoch gave to the bad guy). This protagonist is now a god, and is utterly unprepared to be one. Due to his fragmented memory he has two desires (seeing Shell Beach and the girl) and that is what he acted on. But they were both part of his programming, not part of his innate "soul". Now what? Frankly, the real answer to the question of what humanness is is answered after the movie, not during it. How will people accept the utter arbitrariness of their situation? Will Murdoch even tell them? Power reveals who we are - what will absolute power reveal about Murdoch? You can say Dark City is simply what it appears to be, a cool looking movie about a guy fighting oppressors, but the overriding concern of so many characters in the movie is who they are and what is meant by that question, and when spejic hears that what spejic wants, if not an answer, is at least something showing they are thinking about the question beyond the asking and I don't think they are. It's just part of the mysterious setting.
The Big Empty (2003) John Person hasn't had an acting job in quite a while. Deep in debt, he is willing to take on a strange mission offered by his neighbor - take a locked blue suitcase to the census-designated place of Baker, California and hand it over to Cowboy. Disturbingly, he is also given a gun, and told that under no circumstances is he to look inside the case. Arriving, he meets a few colorful characters but finds out he missed Cowboy and will have to wait a few days, giving him time to get to know everyone better. It also gives time for the FBI to catch up. There's a lot of missing people and the blue suitcase might be related. One of those quirky small town amiable almost-comedies that are usually hit or miss. This was more of a miss. Jon Favreau is interesting enough as a person constantly out of his depth, but the townsfolk definitely weren't quirky enough. That's because the movie had bigger fish to fry. If you are not familiar with a certain 1997 event also in Southern California also involving track suits and bowling shoes, this movie will have pretty much no meaning. It doesn't really explain the mentality of why people might do that, it just wraps it in a sort of hazy veil of tolerance. Not a fan of that. Kelsey Grammer as the FBI agent definitely steals the show. It's like he read the script and said "Well, I guess it's up to me to make this thing entertaining".
Next Goal Wins (2023) It’s not the best or the worst soccer movie and for watching on the plane, it’s good enough. Never knew this was based on a real story, so given this is a soccer forum, I think it’s a good enough movie to watch.
Fallout Fallout is a post-apocalyptic 8-episode series based on a video game franchise. I never played the game so I missed the scores of easter eggs that surely must have been planted throughout. There was a nuclear war, yadda, yadda, yadda. 200+ years later, Lucy, who had lived in an underground vault (built by the now de rigeur evil corporation) ventures above ground to save her father. Lucy had spent her entire life believing that her role in life was to be ready, as a vault-dweller, to emerge from the deeps and re-populate and save the earth. Except that no one had checked, and the earth has been habitable for quite some time. Lucy eventually meets a squire in the Brotherhood of Steel who steals a set of uber combat gear -- think the Robocop battle armor -- and becomes a knight. Apparently the Brotherhood is rotting from within, because it has to be from within because they have this awesome body armor with unlimited power and gunships and cannons with unlimited ammo. Why haven't they stomped all over North America? Maximus is an honorable man, at least. Lastly there is a Ghoul, who is kind of un-dead, except that he is not. He "survived" the atomic blast so he is 250 years old. He's great. He is the true embodiment of one of my favorite characters from fiction, Jonah Hex. They made a Hex movie, but the Ghoul is sooooo much better. Anyway, it's fun. A pulp kind of series. Nobody ever seems to run out of ammo, and looking at the blasted landscape, you would presume that water is extremely scarce. But there is only one scene where water scarcity even matters a little bit. There's lots of fusion reactors around. I don't really expect it to make sense since the source material is a video game, and that's what it felt like watching this. Worryingly, the show got slower and dropped off quite a bit the second half of the series as there is more and more Ghoul flashback to the time when he was still human before the fall. I hate flashback as a narrative device, and this show is a perfect example of why it is so unnecessary. It's heavy-handed and it eliminates subtlety.
American Fiction (2023) I thoroughly enjoyed this, though I admit I must have not gotten all the satire that I was supposed to get.
In the games water is pretty common, but it's all irradiated. Clean water is rare. In fact, creating clean water is a primary goal of the first Fallout and Fallout 3. It feels natural in a game setting - you can drink dirty water to heal physical damage, but you get radiation damage. Managing those kinds of tradeoffs is a key part of games like that.
the documentary from 2014, also called Next Goal Wins, is worth checking out. I went in expecting to mock Thomas Rongen and wound up . . . Fighting off allergies at a few points.
I agree that episodes 1-4 were superior to 5-8. For me the biggest difference was that it forget a bit about the tone it had pretty much nailed in the first four chapters. But they did a good job in general. If you are familiar with the games, this is a great adaptation. And Ella Purnell was a great audience stand-in as the vault dweller. Casting Walton Goggins as some sort of bootleg version of Goodneighbor's Hancock was both inspired and almost too obvious, if that makes sense.
The Iron Claw (2023) I'm a lifelong pro wrestling fan that knows the story of the Von Erich's pretty well. There were definitely some odd choices made, like changing the timeline of certain real events and combining the stories of Mike and Chris into one, but they did do a pretty good job of conveying just how absurdly popular and messed up the boys were. The Ric Flair portrayal was atrocious. The strength of the film, to me, is the supporting characters. Maura Tierney and Lily James add to the depth of the family issues outside of the ring with their struggles dealing with the horribleness of Fritz and the tragedy of the boys. Even with knowing where the film deviated from reality, this one still handled things well enough to bring back the memories of the various tragic endings. I glad A24 did this as I don't think any other company would have come close to getting the tone of things right.
I screened it when it first came out - rented a theater and gathered folks - and the entire place sort of withdrew into themselves at the opening of the film as goal after goal poured into the Samoan goal. Gasps abounded. And it was just a game, but it was felt throughout the theater. I wish I had planned it for the Spring the following year rather than Fall, because it turned out one of the players featured in the documentary was playing football at Washington State University and we could have included him in the screening.
Short Term 12 (2013) A supervisor working at a group home for troubled kids identifies with the kids largely due to her own childhood of abuse and trauma. Along the way a new kid enters the home with a similar background causing those old feelings to arise in the supervisor. Kids try to run away, try to kill themselves, try to hurt each other, and struggle to not completely lose all hope while also figuring out how to be kids that enjoy life at least a little bit. I grew up with a pretty bad home life. I spent a decade working in youth ministry, another 5-10 with college and young adult groups, and coached both boys and girls in basketball, volleyball, and lacrosse. I've visited kids in the worst of situations, through attempted suicides and terminal illnesses/injuries, and the good times when they've worked through things. I feel like I can spot when one of these films is "real" and this one is nearly perfect. I had to pause several times to stop crying before I could go on. This one was better than Manic and The United States of Leland, two of the better films dealing with this topic. Brie Larson was perfect in this. Kaitlyn Dever and LaKeith Stanfield showed why they were going to be stars with spot on performances. Rami Malek was his usual good self.
Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver (2024) Dir. Zack Snyder After the events of the first film, Kora and her merry band of rebels are convinced they have averted catastrophe for the community of farmers on Veldt they were helping. With Atticus Noble presumed dead, his Dreadnought is unlikely to show up again on the moon any time soon. Unfortunately for Nora and her friends, Atticus survived and the physicians on board of his ship nursed him back to health. Now hellbent on revenge, he is on his way to Veldt, giving the heroes only a handful of days to prepare for his arrival and the stand they will be forced to make. This isn't any better than the first film. In fact, it's actually a bit strange to consider that Snyder was handed a pile of money to make Netflix a four hour space opera and he came up with what can only be described as a very poor Seven Samurai clone that doesn't even get close to doing anything original with the core ideas. Really the only thing I have liked about either of the two Rebel Moon movies is the cast. Mostly in terms of what a waste of a fun ensemble they make; I would definitely love to see Sofia Boutella, Michiel Huisman, Dijmoun Hounsou and Bae Doona together in something slightly better than this.
So saw two COMPLETELY movies on the flight. The first one was unoriginal, hit all of the cliches, and had it not been on the plane, I'd curse myself. Fast Charlie (2023) I obviously love Brosnan, but his fake accent in this movie left a lot to desire. Now the second movie I LOVED. It was just beautiful all around. Great acting by Mikkelsen and the rest of the cast, great and original story, great use of music, and just a well done movie. The only downside is you have to read as it's Danish. No idea how i haven't heard about it until today. Another Round (2020)