Agreed, this was the best thing produced for Disney+ in a while. It seems like it would have been incredibly easy to like and want to work with Jim.
Watched "Totally Killer" with the Mrs. It's a time travel + slasher pic. In 1987, three teens are stabbed 16 times apiece by a killer who then disappears; in 2023, the killer returns for the member of the friend group who lived. That person's daughter (played by Kiernan Shipka of "Sabrina" fame of which my wife is a fan, hence us watching this) is confronted by the killer and accidentally triggers a time machine and ends up back on the eve of the first murder. Shipka is quite good in the role, which is written well (as is that of her teenage Mom played by Olivia Holt) - most of the other roles are shallow but these two are better developed. As a horror comedy it is really one of those in alternating fashion rather than a good combination of the two throughout. Shipka's reactions to the 80s casual, regular misogyny, unwanted touching, accepted bullying, smoking, disregard for security, and the like was played just right IMO.
Suzume ~ M. Shinkai A teen girl unintentionally releases a guardian spirit that was holding back an earthquake monster in modern day Japan. The spirit takes the form of an adorable but wily cat, and she must chase it across Japan while trying to close portal doors and prevent earthquakes. The animation is great and story is pretty affecting even if it leans into some pretty common tropes.
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) Louis D'Ascoyne Mazzini, 10th Duke of Chalfont, is in prison awaiting his execution by hanging the next morning. He decides to use his remaining time to pen his memoirs to set the record straight of the events that lead him there. Louis was born to a poor family, for although his mother was a member of the fabulously wealthy D'Ascoynes her marriage to an Italian singer was considered beneath her station and she was ejected from the family. After growing up seeing their dismal treatment of his mother, and in adulthood having a direct experience with a D'Ascoyne's disrespect, it became Louis' goal to see every member of the D'Ascoyne family dead. A brilliantly funny (in that dry British sense) film and an acting tour de force for Alec Guinness who plays all nine members of the D'Ascoyne family. I also like Joan Greenwood's portrayal of Sibella, Louis' lust interest who seems frivolous for most of the film but then suddenly isn't. Coronets is a subversive send-up of the British aristocracy and the pre-WW I Edwardian morality centered on appearances and it's really more about the system than the people because we see Louis take on the privileges of those he despises as time passes. I do admit it was an extra thrill to see store clerk Louis give a unruly customer a stern talking-to. A brief scene was drawn from the real-life collision between the HMS Victoria and the HMS Camperdown that was similarly brought about by very ill considered orders from the admiral in charge. It was reading about that event that brought my attention to the film.
Inside Out 2 - 2024 The trailers do give away a good bit of the early plot but the second half of the movie is almost untouched by them. The new emotions are excellent. The tone of the film is nearly perfect. Everything in the crazy, made-up world of the inner mind is just so good again. This might, and I do stress might, be better than the original. I don't know if they can pull off a third one of these but I'll gladly wait another 9 years if they can put together a film that follows the next logical step in Riley's maturing.
We watched the 2023 fantasy film "The Portable Door" on Amazon. Good cast, good production values and interesting sets, intriguing lead actor, a little bloated at two hours - I'd love to see a 100 minute version. Post-college intern starts at a magic-infused place the engineers coincidences and events that shape life (hanging up a lost pet sign at a coffee shop where the owner's long-lost cousin will stop to read it, espy the owner, and they will rekindle their relationship) but where nefarious things are afoot. EDIT to add there are several employees of the company - leaders of some sort - who are clearly important to the book series (there are eight) but here just create some confusion.
The Silence of Water This is a two-season Italian police procedural that nicely ends before reaching it's expiry date. I watch a lot of procedurals and I'm always waiting for the twist at the end, which I got. But this show had a double twist that I missed, so kudos to the writer. One of my favorite movie anecdotes comes courtesy of Lee Marvin who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Cat Ballou. He was a reach -- he wasn't that good in the movie -- but he famously said in his acceptance speach that there was a horse out there somewhere who really won that Oscar. This was the most famous publicity still from the movie: I always think back to this when I find some killer, usually overlooked, element of a show/movie that really makes the production. In Silence, the mother of the murder victim has bags under her eyes that should win an Emmy. As more and more bad news cascades around her, she looks more and more haunted. This had to be method acting as she was filming on a couple hours of sleep a night. No way that makeup could make this look. The second season was memorable for the performance given by one Giulio Corso who plays the most hulking, threatening, vulnerable man I've seen since Marlon Brando in Streetcar Named Desire. He's completely brutish but since every early lead leads to him, we know he's not gonna be guilty. It's really a standout performance.
The Tower -- 2 seasons so far This was really good. A 15 year-old Algerian immigrant and a much-loved patrol officer fall from a 40-storey apartment tower and DS Collins of Directorate of Special Investigations (she's treated like internal affairs officers are in American procedurals) just wants to find out what happened. She is called in because the only witness to the incident, a green foot officer, is both in shock and then takes a runner. It slowly meanders into the investigation of a police cover up that was pretty mild, actually. No cops were on the take, no one was turning a blind eye to drugs or gangs, it was just the cover up of the cutting of some corners. Only once the cover up starts, everyone is committed to seeing it through. I think, in a lot of ways, that this is as good as The Wire, though not nearly as sexy. It's just supremely realistic. There are neither heroes nor villains, just middling people doing middling things and the deaths of the immigrant and copper are just an accident. This series is based on Kate London's Metropolitan trilogy. I can't wait for the third series to be released, I'm going to have to read the books now.
I always rep people who type out a movie name and give their opinions about having seen it, but you're kinda pushing the minimums here.
Ultraman Rising - The Best Japanese silly show turnes Americanized cartoon ever. It had everything and such a good story to tell.
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent - 2022 Nic Cage is Nic Cage, kind of. Everything around him is the most insane fever dream style Nic Cage movie possible. It's a bit longer than it needed to be, but this one almost makes me wish I occasionally partook in hallucinogenics. That might have made it even better. Also, do I need to watch Paddington 2?
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024) Dir. George Miller Furiosa is a little girl, living in what is an oasis of safety and abundance in what are otherwise barren and dangerous wastelands. One day she ventures too close to interlopers who arrive at the border of her domain. When she is kidnapped by them, she is taken in front of one of the Wasteland warlords, Dementus. He wants to know where she came from, information that Furiosa steadfastly refuses to share. Her mother's attempt to rescue Furiosa fails and Furiosa herself ends up a bargaining chip in a deal between Dementus and Immortan Joe. As she grows into adulthood at Immortan Joe's Citadel, she slowly acquires the skills she wants to use to get her revenge on Dementus and find her way home... I very much enjoyed this. I thought this was on the level of Fury Road, an opinion I know not everyone holds. It's always fun to spend a few hours in George Miller's insane universe, filled with characters named Dementus, the Octo-Boss, Pissboy, Rectus & Scrotus and Praetorian Jack. Chris Hemsworth's villain turn is fantastic, and the simple use of an Aussie accent gives him a ridiculously terrifying air (which is somewhat amusing since I don't consider the Australian accent to be particularly intimidating). This is the second villain turn of his I have really enjoyed, after Bad Times at the El Royale and it's definitely something he should do more often. Anya Taylor Joy is a good young Furiosa and I am glad they went with a re-casting instead of de-aging Charlize Theron. In any film I have seen that technique used, it is super-distracting and never 100% convincing. The visual quality of the film betrays a helmer who understands action film-making - and especially this specific type of action film-making - on a deep and instinctive level. All of the set pieces are fantastic and each have their own memorable elements. Especially liked the Mortifyers and their para-gliders. The chapter structure gives this an air of folk tales being told around a camp fire, as if this isn't taking place in a post-apocalypse but say 7th century Britain, with Furiosa as some sort of epic hero. In that regard, one of the perhaps unlikely movies I thought of whilst watching this was The Northman (not coincidentally also a revenge tale told in various chapters and coincidentally also starring Anya Taylor Joy).
Behind Her Eyes Netflix short series (I think 6 episodes) I don't want to give too much away. Synopsis: London single mom with night terrors meets hot guy in bar and DOESN'T sleep with him, just a quick song. Next morning, she finds out he is her new boss. He's a psychiatrist and has a very rich and beautiful, but super lonely, wife. He seems very controlling of her. Single mom strikes up a weird friendship with the boss' wife and... "Hilarity" ensues. Okay, maybe hysteria ensues. Definitely watchable, mostly for the fetching Eva Hewson as Adele, the wife. There is a tiny cast.
Two more thoughts for Furiosa: George Miller's movies' sound design is one of the underrated aspects of what make them work. And Charlee Fraser plays Furiosa's mom in the opening chapter and is fantastic. I really only knew her from her (funny) turn as the Aussie ex in the Glen Powell & Sydney Sweeney rom-com ANYONE BUT YOU. She is showing off real action chops here.
Streets of Fire (1984) In a dystopian no-time where the 1950's meet the 1980's, the biker gang known as The Bombers leave their base in the Battery and head to the Richmond district to kidnap famed singer Ellen in the middle of her homecoming concert just so Bombers' leader Raven can get to know her better. Diner owner Riva sends a telegram to her brother Tom, just out of the Army, asking for help. She knows Tom and Ellen were an item years ago, and expects Tom to rescue the singer to rekindle their romance. But Tom has moved on and so has Ellen. Besides, how is one guy supposed to take on a whole gang? This genre-bending, genre-defining movie is such a mix of styles - musical, comic book, noir, 50's delinquent. But I think fundamentally it's a Western, with a mysterious and stoic hero that rides in and takes on the lawless gang. I don't think it's an accident that Tom's ally McCoy frequently smokes a stub of a cigarillo Clint Eastwood-style. One very noticeable feature of all the fabulously affected expression is that everyone in the city - everyone - is the same age. So you have these two aspects of the same metropolis and everyone has that age's mode of thought and everything operates in that style too. The closing song "Tonight Is What It Means to Be Young" is the theme to the whole thing. Streets of Fire is what it means to be young, lived in an amusement park world fabricated of and for these innocents where everything just feels so important and you get caught up in it because it's exciting and catchy. But no one is cleaning up after them. This DVD is kind of in my bookshelf accidentally. I actually got it for my brother who inexplicably had a strong love of rock-and-roll musical movies including this one but somehow the disk stayed with me. And I'm glad because I really enjoyed it tonight.
That cast for Streets of Fire is great and that's my favorite Amy Madigan role outside of Field of Dreams. Haven't seen it in years, but I may have to rent it and give it another watch.
A great deal of the music is by the late Jim Steinman, the brain behind Meat Loaf. Amy Madigan, I think, exceeds even Robin Wright for the percentage of her roles for which she is grossly overqualified. A life spent as a cannon swatting flies. Including "F.o.D."
Men (2022) A24 at their most artsy fartsy. It's an engaging film, and I think I caught most of the symbolism, but this is a potentially great film that tries too hard and ends up just fairly good. Jessie Buckley is who Kirsten Dunst tries to be.
Evil Does Not Exist ~ R. Hamaguchi A rural mountain hamlet deals with a company's plan to develop a glamping site in their area. The film explores the balance between nature and humans and the tension as humanity threatens to tip that balance out of whack. Slow and ponderous but building tension and dread throughout, Hamaguchi shoots some beautiful scenes through the forest. I found the ending difficult to parse. It's not as good as Drive My Car, but still skillfully made.
In a Violent Nature (2024) Dir. Chris Nash When a trio of campers steal a locket from what appears to be the ruins of an old fire tower, they release an evil killer who has laid dormant there for a decade, kept in place by the jewel in question. The supernatural killer goes on a walkabout in the woods, looking for his locket, and in the process, killing anyone he encounters. A genre exercise that felt more like a contemplation on the form of a slasher horror film. We see the entire film - apart from a section near the end - from the perspective of the killer. Not a Friday the 13th POV perspective, but with the camera a short distance away from the killer, but moving at the same pace as him. Most usually just a few paces behind him, occasionally a bit further, with a few instances of front-facing scenes. Another motif is extended sequences, some of them probably a couple of minutes long, that are just the killer strolling through the forest or a field of flowers. Moments that are peaceful and almost zen-like in nature, contrasting heavily with the gore-filled violence that interrupts them. It wasn't a terrible genre exercise by any means, but I do feel like the director thought the experiment of contrasting the form of this specific type of horror would be a lot more interesting than I experienced it. A secondary goal was probably contrasting some of the quieter moments filled with beautiful nature shots with the extremely jarring violence that interrupts them (a goal probably also referenced in the title). Nicely shot, never boring, for me mostly failing at the greater profundity the director/writer is clearly going for.
The Lost Boys (1987) Recently divorced and recently broke Lucy is moving back to live with her father in the boardwalk town of Santa Cruz I mean Santa Carla, California. With her are her two sons, Michael and Sam. As grandpa doesn't have a TV and the boys aren't interested in his taxidermy hobby, Lucy gives them wide latitude to explore the Santa Cruz nightlife. While attending the greatest live concert humanity will ever witness, Michael long-distance flirts with a girl who leads him on a chase only to reveal she's with David, leader of a bunch of scoundrels. At first thinking they are rivals for her affection, Michael instead finds out David wants him to join his crew. Michael tentatively accepts - but he finds that they are not what they appear to be. Especially if you look at them in a mirror. The 1980's were a prime decade for movies celebrating those (mostly men) just on the cusp of adulthood. I've reviewed a couple movies like this (such as Streets of Fire and The Warriors) and I really enjoyed them. The late 80's seems like a good time to make a counterargument, however, and The Lost Boys is it. The protagonist of the movie is Michael, exactly the kind of handsome, vigorous, motorcycle-riding, freedom loving youth that was previously praised. So how can it be that exactly zero of my previous memories of this very memorable movie included him? He's a blank, looking for an identity and place he is led astray by all his youthful attributes just as he is led astray by others wanting to use him. What wins the day is family, and a childish appreciation for openness to new ideas and adventure. The cost of being forever young is being forever a freeloader. Of never growing up. It's right there in the title.