Helpless (2012) Dir. Young-Joo Byun Moon-ho, a young veterinarian, and his fiancee Seon-yeong are taking a drive from Seoul to Moon-ho's home town so she can meet his parents. During a quick rest area stop where Moon-ho goes inside to get some coffee, Seon-yeong disappears from the car. A search of the rest stop only reveals a lost hair clip that belonged to his fiancee and the police report he files proves a waste of time in finding his lost intended. Back in Seoul, Moon-ho starts investigating on his own, but does not find a great deal, other than her apartment being emptied of all his fiancee's belongings and the fact that all of the references she used on her resume for her current job are fake. Stuck and stumped, Moon-ho turns to Jong-geon, his cousin who is also a disgraced former police detective who lost his badge due to having been found guilty of accepting bribes. Whilst there is little love lost between the two men, Jong-geon takes the case because Moon-ho is offering payment for his services and he has little else to do. Jong-geon soon discovers that Seon-yoeng's identify was fake, yet each new breadcrumb he follows to the unknown woman's origins reveals another layer of darkness... South-Korean drama/mystery, with a hint of thriller elements sprinkled on top. Entertaining and earns its near two hour run-time. Most familiar face among the cast is Kim Min-hee, most well-known to audiences worldwide from Park Chan-wook's The Handmaiden. She gives a good performance here, but my favorite turn of the film is Jo Sung-ha as Jong-geon, playing the familiar movie archetype of the ********-up burned-out detective who turns out to be quite good at his job.
Holiday Mismatch - 2024 Barbara (Beth Broderick) has just retired and gets recruited to help with the Holiday Committee that is run by Kath (Caroline Rhea). Barbara is a former accountant while Kath is a free spirit, so of course they clash on everything. While working on the committee, both are trying to set up their single children on a Christmas themed dating app because why not have one of those. Of course they accidentally set their children up through the app. Shane (John McLaren) and Lauren (Maxine Denis) meet for drinks and decide to pretend they're dating just to get through the holidays. This sends Barbara and Kath into panic mode as they become friends through their mutual desire to break their children up. Shane and Lauren end up falling for each other and Shane decides not to sell his small local theater while Lauren uses her connections at her architecture firm to find help to fix the place up. As simple as could be, but the easy chemistry between Broderick and Rhea is still there and they are delightful playing off of each other. McLaren is good in his role as the son, and is better than the majority of cookie cutter Hallmark "hot guys." The real standout is Denis. I haven't seen her in anything else and she's dynamite. All I could think of was a mix of Buffy era Sarah Michelle Gellar and Michelle Trachtenberg. If they do a Buffy reboot, or anything in that 90s female led action show vein, Maxine should be first on the list to play the lead role. She's got older actress plays teen queen written all over her.
That sounds interesting. Helpless [화차] (2012) Veterinarian Jang Mun-ho and his fiancee Kang Seon-yeong stop to get some coffee at a rest stop while on their way to visit his parents. He goes in while she stays in the car. She receives a phone call. When Jang comes back the car is empty. Jang frantically searches the area and tries to call her cell phone. He then tries her apartment, but finds it ransacked with most things removed. With no known friends or family Jang tries her place of work, but she has not been there either and he finds only confusing information about who Kang is. At a dead end, he hires his layabout cousin, Kim Jong-geun, despondent since he was fired from the police force for taking a bribe. But Kim's detective skills are still as sharp as ever and he finds new life diving into the case. But a disturbing image starts to appear as they piece together more about Kang's past. This movie wastes no time getting right to the very engaging detective work, and it had my full attention to the end. I liked seeing the contrast of the investigative techniques of the interested amateur Jang and the professional Kang where they sometimes end up in the same place using different paths, but other times Kang advancing the case using methods that Jang could never think of. The end has a few interesting questions about who we are when we pretend to be something else, but for the most part this film is a very straight-forward journey following these two guys trying to find the very complicated truth.
Our Holiday Story - 2024 Chris is punctual and organized while his girlfriend, Jo, isn't. He arrives at her parents' house for Christmas but she misses her train and gets stuck on a later train featuring an ugly Christmas sweater theme. That train gets stopped, and Chris is stuck by himself with her parents, Dave and Nell. Those parents regale him with the story of how they met, complete with teenage Jo helping it along, while he waits for Jo to join them. He listens as they recount all the near misses and potential pitfalls occurred before they finally came together. Jo finally arrives and they have a misunderstanding of their own. They tried to do the parallel story bit, but it didn't quite work. Honestly they should have just had the movie be about the parents first meeting as Warren Christie and Nikki Deloach were the standouts. Sydney Scotia was okay as Jo. Everyone else was forgettable.
The Leftovers [2017] I know I'm a little late to the game here, but finally was able to watch the show. Wow! I don't think I remember seeing a show that I both wanted to end and not end at the same time. It was strange, beautiful, kind, sad, tragic, happy, bizarre - all at the same time. I really enjoyed it and will need some time to process it.
Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (2024) Dir. Alexandre de La Patellière & Matthieu Delaporte Edmond Dantès looks to realize his dream of marrying his love Mercédès de Herrera when following a tumultuous trip on the ship le Pharaoh, during which they saved a drowning woman, the captain he serves under is demoted and fired by the ship's owner and Dantès is instead elevated to the position of captain. Meaning he will finally have enough money to make the nuptials him and Mercédès have dreamed of a reality. The idyll is short-lived when Dantès is arrested on the day of his wedding on treason charges. The charge is false, but three men conspire to condemn Edmond after all: Danglars, the captain who lost his position to Dantès, Fernand de Moncerf, Mercédès cousin, a man who himself has long carried a torch for the woman and finally the prosecutor Villefort, who has his own reasons to want to silence an innocent man. Dantès ends up in the so-called Chateau d'If, a repurposed fort on a notorious prison island from which no one returns. For the first four years he is alone, then he gets a companion: his neighbor has tunneled to his cell. l'Abbé Faria claims to be the last surviving Templar Knight and has a story about knowing where the order's massive lost treasure is hidden. Over the next twelve years, Faria becomes Edmond's new mentor. When Dantès finally escapes, he finds out Faria's story of riches were true and he uses his new-found wealth to create an identify for himself with which he will exact his revenge on the men who wronged him: The Count of Monte-Cristo. There was always a good chance I'd see any new Dumas adaptation. Especially The Count of Monte-Cristo, a favorite since childhood. This French film has very nice production values, and does a good enough job of adapting the story for the screen. I did find the first two hours somewhat better than the final hour. Pierre Niney is not the most memorable Edmond Dantès/Count I have ever seen on the big and/or small screen. I would say the quality in the cast is more among the supporting players. Patrick Mille is great as the vainglorious Danglars, Adèle Simphal leaves a strong impression as what is in essence a stand-in for the Noirtier character in the original novel, Anamaria Vartolomei is very charming as Haydee and Pierfrancesco Favino makes a good Abbé Faria. Old-fashioned entertainment, in a good way.
I just added this movie to my list last week, but wasn't sure if I wanted to see another Dumas remake (since the last 3 Musketeers sucked).
Rivals [2024] Very interesting show. I thought it would be a bit like Billions, but it wasn't that at all. David Tennant was brilliant.
Meet Me Next Christmas - 2024 (Netflix) Oof. Pentatonix is on screen a decent amount and none of them can act at all. This feels like someone got hold of a Tyler Perry script, improved most of the dialogue, added a weirdly out of place drag queen lip syncing contest, hired better actors, and still didn't get a good movie out of it. Layla gets stuck waiting for a delayed flight in Chicago where she meets James. They agree to meet the following year at the Pentatonix Christmas concert in NYC if they're both single. FF really quickly and Layla catches her boyfriend, Tanner, sleeping with another woman on her couch and decides to try and meet James again. She hires a professional concierge service to help find a ticket because none are for sale, even on reselling sites. Teddy is an intern whose job is on the line if he doesn't find her a ticket. They spend too much time together, go through a ridiculous series of events to try and find her a ticket, and of course fall for each other in the process. Christina Milian is as gorgeous and talented as ever in the lead role. Devale Ellis is good as Teddy and should get better roles than this. Kalen Allen plays the over the top gay cousin to perfection. This wasn't terrible, but it was less than the sum of its parts and also a significant step down from the Hallmark movies so far. I can't believe that's an option. What is Netflix doing?
The Art of Self Defense (2019) Casey is as meek and mild-mannered as they come and if he ever momentarily forgets how much of a loser he is others are sure to remind him. One night he is mugged and beaten so badly he spends days in the hospital, and then a month cowering in his apartment afraid to face the world. Forced out by the need to return to work, he still seeks protection. After an attempt to buy a gun is stymied, he chances upon a karate school and is encouraged by the supportive if occasionally bizarre Sensei. Casey tries it out and likes it, and through some ups and downs incorporates the martial art and Sensei's manliness gospel into his life. Sensei eventually invites Casey to the night class, a special session for the truly serious student. That's where Casey finds some disturbing information about Sensei's alternate revenue streams. The movie has a weird low-key style and for the first third you think it's one of those art house comedies where everyone is playing it robotically straight and the humor comes from the occasional eccentric line from Sensei (who is the only charismatic, relaxed, dare I say human character in the whole movie). But then it turns into a black comedy and you get why the style is that way. And then I really started enjoying it. I definitely agree about its message on how this kind of toxic masculinity promotion is about selling something (in both senses of the phrase). But there's also a commentary about the inner strength of seeming lightweights. The coward of the county used to be a feature of the culture but now it seems all the guys that are pushed too far are secret super agent assassins. Among the many morals of the story is "don't think a toy dog won't bite back".
Five Gold Rings - 2024 (Hallmark Mystery) Audrey's grandmother runs an antiques shop and also has a penchant for finding lost items in parks, at beaches, etc. and returning them to the owners that lost them. She dies and leaves 5 gold rings for Audrey to return to people after she tracks them down. Finn, and childhood friend and private investigator, helps Audrey but Audrey gets upset when she finds out he was in on it with her grandmother. Yeah, that's just bad writing. Mediocre writing, mediocre acting, and probably the worst of the Hallmark movies thus far, but still significantly better than the Netflix movie from yesterday.
Bad Times at the El Royale (2018) Some time in the late 1950's a man clearly running from something enters a room at the El Royale and very carefully hides a satchel full of money. Around 1969 we return to the hotel. Directly on the border of California and Nevada, this grand monument to mid-century style has faded from it's former glory as the land of sin's best kept secret, where the rich and famous could do things they didn't want seen. Now it's run down and empty until a quartet of the desperate, the secretive, and the searching find themselves in the same place on the same stormy night. The Royale may have lost its gambling license, but the stakes are higher than anyone knows. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this. The individual tales quickly start to entwine, at first in twos and then more, and everything kept moving and had so many surprises I was deeply absorbed by events. The movie's about morals but this is definitely not a moral movie in the sense of giving you a recipe for life. The figures are all tested certainly, but there isn't really a grading system. You have characters trying to do right and some end well and some end very badly. You have two characters defined by their religion, and one causes a scene of intense suffering while another's moment of faith was so moving I cried. What Bad Times is is constant choices and dilemmas, a sort of super-concentrated humanity. As a fan of mid-century I loved the look and the style, and the musical choices were inspired.
This is also my favorite Chris Hemsworth performance, alongside his turn as Dementus in Furiosa. Something interesting happens to his natural charisma when he plays villainous characters.
Yeah, that campfire speech was very captivating. And most of my experience seeing him was as Thor, so I didn't expect that evil sexy Jim Morrison-style dance but that was so that character.
Look Back ~ K. Oshiyama (Studio DURIAN) Based on a one-shot manga from Tatsuki Fujimoto (Chainsaw Man), this is a short (1hr) film about two artists who inspire and drive each other to become better artists/mangaka. The animation is lovely and the story is bittersweet.
Trivia at St. Nick's - 2024 Celeste is an uptight astronomy professor who is high strung and a wee bit too competitive. She hates football and the fact that it gets all the money at the university instead of academics. She's recruiting a two time Jeopardy champion from the university faculty to help win the local multi night trivia competition at St. Nicks bar, but he has to leave at the last second leaving an open spot on her team. A new person (Max) shows up and offers to join, and wouldn't you know it, he's the new football coach. They don't get along, they start to get along, she's unreasonable and says things she regrets, and at the end they make up and win the trivia competition on the last day in a bonus round. Tammin Sursok was fun as Celeste. She's genuinely good as an actor and would have thrived during the 90s/00s sitcom era. Brant Daugherty was also good as Max and probably the best male lead so far. Supporting cast was good enough. Not the best one so far this season, but probably top 3.
Totally Killer - 2023 Jamie's mom gets killed by the same serial killer that had killed 3 of her mom's friends 35 years earlier. Jamie's friend Amelia succeeds at finally creating the time machine her mom Lauren had been working on and Jamie accidentally uses it to travel back to 1987 on the night of the first of the 3 original killings. Jamie doesn't understand the 80s and has no trouble lying about being an exchange student from Canada since nobody really checks on anything. She tries to stop the murders but struggles greatly, succeeding mostly in altering facts about them without stopping them while also failing repeatedly to figure out who the killer is. Eventually 1987 Lauren figures out how to reverse engineer the time machine and Jamie fights the future version of the killer after defeating the past version while traveling back to the present. We finally make it back to the present where Jamie now has to deal with the butterfly effects of what she changed, including being named Colette. Kiernan Shipka was excellent as Jamie and just seems made for these kinds of roles. Julie Bowen as adult Pam and Olivia Holt as teen Pam were both really good. The rest of the cast was fine and this was a fun little throwback type of film.
Christmas on the Ranch - 2024 (Hulu) Christina has her radio talk show in Chicago cancelled. She gets a job at a radio station in New York with her producer Aliyah from Chicago moving to the new station with her. While driving, Christina looks down at her phone for a second and then looks up and sees a horse standing in the middle of the road and swerves to miss it, wrecking her car and stranding her in rural Ohio. The owner of the horse, Corey, and his daughter Heather agree to put her up for free at the Air B&B on their ranch. Corey is a widower and the ranch turned to equine therapy as a means to stay open, but finances are tight and his widow's sister owns 50% of the ranch with a right to sell if the offer is high enough. They argue about selling, Corey and Christina begin to fall for each other, Heather shows off the ranch and the work they're doing, and Christina records an interview with several people there as the preview for the New York audience. Christina's car finally gets fixed and she actually leaves them behind to go to New York and start her new job. And then... This was the opposite of the Netflix Christmas movie last week. It feels like a Hallmark film but with significantly better production value and mostly better acting. Houston Rhines (Corey) and Jade Harlow (Christina) are really good as the leads and seemed to have genuine chemistry. Saige Chaseley did a good enough job as Heather and the rest of the cast was at least adequate. This was done by Nicely Entertainment and Very Merry Entertainment. Nicely was founded by former MarVista head of sales and marketing, and turns out that level of cheesiness most of the time, but Very Merry has a total of three productions so far and they've landed one on AMC and the other two on Hulu. Also, who doesn't love a fictional rural town that boasts the world's largest sock monkey museum?
Santa Tell Me - 2024 Olivia is finally getting a chance to host her own home remodeling show for Christmas. Everything seems great until the network saddles her with Chris, a producer for a show about models living in a house and their dating lives. Chris changes the plans for her show and decides to have her remodel her childhood home that's in disrepair. While Olivia and her sister Darcy are there they see a glowing light in one of the vents and find a letter from Santa answering Olivia's childhood wish for the perfect man. The letter cryptically says she'll end up with Nick, and the next 3 guys she meets are named Nick. She tries dating all three while working on the show with Chris, who keeps being less and less of a pain in the ass as it goes along. The message on the letter keeps changing words an ultimately she has to hope she correctly chooses the love of her life by the end of Christmas Eve day. This one vaulted to the top of the list for this year. Erin Krakow is a national treasure. She's the most believable regular for Hallmark by a mile. This movie drops several notches if anyone else plays Olivia. The actors for Nick A and Nick B (actual character names, not me being funny) are pretty good but the Nick C actor was awful. Daniel Lissing was good as Chris and even though I haven't watched "When Calls The Heart," you can see the chemistry he and Krakow have on screen. Oh, and there's an actual horse drawn carriage race to the train station to stop someone from leaving because almost all Hallmark Christmas movies take place in a weirdly modern version of 1953.
Monster Summer (2024) Dir. David Henrie Noah is a teen growing up on Martha's Vineyard in the late 1990s. Besides his love for baseball in general and the Boston Red Sox specifically, his true dream in life is to follow in his late father's footsteps and become a newspaper reporter. He is looking for the story that will finally convince local newspaper editor Edgar James to allow a piece written by Noah to appear in print. His friends and fellow little league players are amused by Noah's propensity to come up with crazy stories that he hopes will grab the attention and make his name as a young reporter. When one of Noah's best friends Ben ends up in a near catatonic state after having supposedly nearly drowned in a rip tide, Noah disbelieves the story, especially after the girl that Ben was with claims they saw someone creepy on the pier right before Ben was pulled underwater. His friends disbelieve his supernatural explanations, but then a reclusive former police detective's interest in the case is piqued when another similar incident leaves another kid in a similar stupor. Noah and the man in question, Gene Carruthers, make the odd detective duo that will follow the clues wherever they might take them. This is squarely in the Stranger Things clone category, and unfortunately not a very good or original instance of the trend. Most noteworthy thing about the film is the names included among the adult cast members: Mel Gibson, Lorraine Bracco, Kevin James and Nora Zehetner. The last name might not be that well known but I have been a big fan of hers since Rian Johnson's Brick and always assumed that movie would have made a far greater launch pad for her career than it ended up being. Here she plays Noah's mother. Forgettable fare.