The most hilarious PG ever. Back in 1977, I'm sure the print wasn't that good. I remember my VHS copies and thinking that this was as good as it got. Then I got the high end DVDs. Those were even pushing it. Then the Blu-ray came out. Oh geez. What used to be obscured nudity is just straight up nudity. I'm not even talking just about the Maurice Binder bits. There's pornography on the wall of the submarine. Barbara Bach takes a shower and that's pretty clear what's going on there. Blu-ray has turned the PG into a hard R. Also, why did my parents let me watch these movies as a kid?!?
DIRECTOR: Lewis Gilbert I'd like to think that my tastes are maturing. I don't always believe that. I think I've added a lot of snobbery to my list of movies. But I used to love The Spy Who Loved Me. When people would dog on Roger Moore, I would point to The Spy Who Loved Me as classic cinema. What happened? Something in my brain completely 180'ed on this movie and I found myself almost annoyed with this film. Part of the issue is that I used to be a ride-or-die James Bond fan. I guess I can kind of still say that I am. Honestly, if they dropped a trailer for a new Bond movie tomorrow, I'd go back to being obsessed. But right now? It's been a while since Spectre. I've had this box for a while. Maybe I can now analyze these movies objectively for the first time. The Spy Who Loved Me...is not great. I read the novel by Ian Fleming. It's not my favorite of the Bond novels, but I do like it for one very cool reason. It's the "Blink" of James Bond. The story doesn't focus on James Bond. Rather, the entire mission in the novel of The Spy Who Loved Me takes place from the point of view of a random bystander who gets caught up in a Bond mission by accident. She doesn't know any of the spy stuff. She's just caught up in a world that is way bigger than her. The movie...isn't any of that. It's actually so wrapped up in James Bond formula that is almost lacks anything original. This is the movie that introduces Jaws. We all love Jaws. He's the quintessential Bond henchman, tied maybe with Oddjob. He's a tank. He can't really be killed. He's got a metal mouth. Richard Kiel is just a monster of a man. But The Spy Who Loved Me looked at what other Bond movies were doing and kind of just made everything extreme. Like I mentioned, Jaws is just an extreme Oddjob. Odd job was tiny and threw a hat. Jaws is big and bites people. The film Jaws came out in 1975. In a movie where the bad guy has people killed by throwing them into shark tanks, of course they are going to have a bad guy who can out jaws Jaws. Richard Kiel, at one point in the film, bites a shark to death. Yeah, that's a commentary. That's kind of telling of where the franchise would go with the next entry. There were certain TV shows that I absolutely loved. I'm currently wearing a Smallville jersey because it is jersey day at our school. But Smallville would regularly have non-mythos episodes that were complete filler in the season. They would have a Fast and the Furious themed episode. They would have a Saw themed episode. They even had a Date Night themed episode. They would take the template of their show and graft whatever element that was trending into that story. That's what is starting to happen with the Bond movies, unfortunately starting with Live and Let Die. Live and Let Die, as much as I really dig that movie, is playing up the Blaxspoitation card, undeservedly I might add. As much as Jaws worked, it taught the producers the entirely wrong lesson on what a franchise should do when it hits stagnation. I don't believe that I never saw it before, but The Spy Who Loved Me is just You Only Live Twice with Jaws. That's pretty shameless. I hate to say this, but Barbara Bach is way worse than I thought she was. I remember when I was a kid thinking that Agent XXX (yup) was the answer to Bond. She was a powerful Bond girl because she could match wits with him and keep him on his toes. When she finds out that she has to kill him, I was honestly concerned for the story. Again, I was a kid who didn't understand that there's a way to tell that story and make it work and then there's what happens in The Spy Who Loved Me. I'm going to throw Ringo's wife under the bus here and state that she's really bad in this. She's Giallo bad. At no point while watching this did I believe that she was a confident Russian spy. A fair share of that is not her fault. But her performance is rough in this. Everything is said in a soft sultry voice. There's not a hint of range to the character. The voice isn't even close to anything close to anything that could be considered Russian. She might be right on par with Denise RIchards for worst performance in the series. I'm so sorry, Barbara Bach. I really don't want to bully your performance...but geeeeeeeezzzz. Okay, now comes the biggest problem with the character and it really isn't Bach's fault: the movie is entirely about tell and not show. General Gogol tells that he is sending his best agent, Anya Amasova, to hunt down Stromberg (I'm skipping a lot of steps). The first scene we see is her sleeping with the guy who gets killed by Bond. It's not like she is seducing someone and then gets the drop on him. Nope. We just know that she's ready to strike. Think about knowing that Black Widow has all these abilities and the movie is just going to tease these out until she actually strikes. But the movie has one of the worst Chekhov's guns with Agent XXX. She keeps getting what she wants through the easiest means necessary. Like, anyone could be Agent XXX. What would happen is that Bond would go through all of these hoops to get something. Bond doesn't talk about how amazing he is. One of the few things that he plays close to the vest are his abilities. But then you have Major Amasova. Major Amasova keeps getting talked about, but all she does is take the easy way out. Bond steals something, almost dies. He puts it down and points a gun at him. This happens over and over and over again. How is this giving the character any agency? This actually can be proven by the end of the film. SPOILER: The end of the movie has both Bond and Amasova captured by Stromberg. They are separated because apparently Stromberg is Bowser. He takes Amasova with him to be his bride under the sea or something. I actually don't know what his long-term plan is. He's not thinking this one out, but let's shut our brains off. Bond is being led by guards and he takes them out, frees all of the soldiers, has his You Only Live Twice style attack on the base. Meanwhile, Amasova has to worry about a boat full of four people, one of whom is an old man. The majority of people are on the Liparus. The people on the Liparus have a ton of guns. Oh, and grenades! Don't forget about the grenades. There are so many grenades on that boat. But Bond breaks through an impenetrable shield and nukes two submarines. Meanwhile, Anya has done nothing to free herself. She is tied down and put in skimpy clothing. Did someone dress her? She's supposed to be Russia's number one spy asset and she's just acting like she's a damsel in distress. This is completely the production team's fault. It's so lazy. Bond is expected to save the woman, so this character that they claim has agency is completely helpless at something that should be in her wheelhouse. We get way better at this with Wai Lin in Tomorrow Never Dies, but even that's a little bit weak. The Spy Who Loved Me might be the film to watch to understand how backwards our attitude towards women was. The easy route would be to make Agent XXX as amazing as they say. Instead, the movie has to find reasons to make Bond the center of attention. Instead of just having two amazing cool sequences of two people taking down the bad guys, we have Bond and another character who says that she could do this. Which leads to the biggest unfortunate moment for the film. There's actually a compelling moment in the story that is worth some drama. Again, this all boils down to telling and not showing. But when Anya discovers that he lover was killed by Bond at the beginning of the film, she vows to murder Bond once the mission is over. That scene happens. Like normal, Bond does the heavy lifting and he throws his gun within reach of her. She pulls the whole, "I'm going to shoot you" thing. He pops the champagne cork and she laughs. They make love. What? There's male fantasy and wish fulfillment, but no one 180s that hard about this stuff. She was going to murder him before he popped the champagne cork and then they're having a grand old time afterwards. Are they advertising the champagne? That's the stuff of television commercials, not the resolution to a tense dramatic sequence. Why was this promise made in the middle of the film if only to take it back? Any kind of character that we were promised was composed of lies. Other characters have had major personality shifts, but those were character choices, kind of. Honor Blackman's character in Goldfinger makes a 180, but it came down to the lives of innocents being at stake for that to happen. Yes, he change is also absurd, but at least there's something on the line for it. XXX is just terrible. The Spy Who Loved Me is a movie that is bookended with good parts and a really boring middle. I had this movie memorized at one point in my life, but I had an epiphany the other day that I don't know if I completely understand the rationale of the events that get them from place to place. One of the generic conventions of a Bond movie is that there are all these exotic locales. I remember that a whole bunch of stuff happens at the pyramids in this one, so I tried to follow the logic of why the pyramids were in this movie. The seller of the '77 equivalent of GPS was at the pyramids meeting with a buyer...apparently for hours. He blocked a lot of time for that brief meeting. But then I don't understand why Jaws drives them out in his van to a site. That's a long drive to nowhere. Amasova falls asleep it is so far away. It has gone from night to day. But then, why does Jaws just go and hide instead of just murdering them both. I know, I'm not the first guy who mentioned "Why doesn't the villain just kill Bond?" Scott Evil has the best breakdown of this. But that's why I realize that the more formulaic entries in the series don't really have a rationale for their location choices. It makes the movie boring. Really, the motivations for a lot of the things going on in The Spy Who Loved Me are really really lazy. Stromberg himself doesn't really have a reason for doing what he's doing. Between The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker, we have two villains who want to eliminate life on Earth just to live somewhere weird. You know, no one is really stopping you from living underwater, Stromberg. It seems like Stromberg actually likes the finer things in life. How is he going to enjoy all of those fancypants things if he nukes the planet? The Spy Who Loved Me is a movie that I don't hate, but it is what happens when a movie completely stops trying and settles on what works. It took me in for years. But gosh darn it, it is boring because I'm just watching action set pieces and Bond tropes. Also, "Bond '77" as an instrumental piece is inferior to every other Bond score.
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Sign us up for the Carol Corps! It’s good to be back in the MCU after a long fall and winter, and even better to be back in the 1990s. It’s the first leading woman in a Marvel movie (after 20 films!) and it’s quite a romp. This week we’ll break down the Cap’n and how she sets up Avengers: Endgame.
literallyanything.net/blog/2019/3/19/episode-71-literally-captain-marvel PG-13. It's so weird because I just watched The Spy Who Loved Me and Saving Mr. Banks this week. Because it is Blu-ray, the obscured nudity in The Spy Who Loved Me is just straight up nudity now. But The Spy Who Loved Me, with straight-up nudity, is PG. The Disney movie about the lady who made Mary Poppins is PG-13. I don't know if it is PG-13 worthy. Dad is an alcoholic and dying, which is uncomfortable. Mom is suicidal. But I don't know if it is worthy up being bumped up to PG-13. Again, live action automatically bumps it down from G. Oh, Walt Disney swears once or twice. There's also alcohol and smoking throughout.
DIRECTOR: John Lee Hancock Gah! I have so many opinions about this movie. Like, way too many opinions. I'm not the first one to deal with the very problematic issue that Saving Mr. Banks exists. We are probably all aware that "Based on a True Story" means that certain beats are true, but most of it is fictionalized. But Saving Mr. Banks takes it to a new level of insanity. I feel like I have to spell this out because this movie is six-years-old and people haven't thought about it for a while, but P.L. Travers would have hated this movie. It goes beyond the Hollywoodization of reality. This is straight up revisionist history. The biggest problem...is that it is really well made. I have so many problems with this movie that I absolutely loved. The big takeaway, for me, is that sometimes you can't help liking or hating something. If you come up to me tomorrow and say that I'm a monster for liking this movie, I will have to say that you are totally right and I'm going to have to learn to live with myself. This movie is awful for what it is doing. I'm going to go into all the reasons that someone should have pumped the brakes real hard for deciding to make this movie, but I do want to write about how Saving Mr. Banks does something right that very few biopics do. (Mainly because it is a work of fiction...but I digress.) John Lee Hancock, the director of this movie, is someone who is on my list of directors that act as red flags. This is coming from his long line of sports movies, one of which is The Blind Side. The Blind Side has one of the most troubling narratives that people choose to ignore ever and if anyone can ever sucker me into watching that movie again, I'll write about it in detail. But Saving Mr. Banks has the same thing. The reason why John Lee Hancock's troubling filmography works is that he makes genuinely heartwarming, well-shot films that completely gloss over a major problem in storytelling. With The Blind Side, Hancock was really interested in the feel-goodery. He does that in Saving Mr. Banks, but he attaches it to something that we're intimately familiar with. He also makes the movie kind of feel like he's not letting Disney off the hook. I guarantee, the movie is completely letting Disney off the hook with this movie. I don't care how much of a fight is being put up, Disney is getting away scott-free as the good guy. But the biopic formula is a little skewed. The movie breaks up the chronology pretty hard and I, for some reason, adore that. We know that Travers had a rough life, but that rough life seems realistic for the first time. Instead of just riding the bad times, the movie actually stresses the good times. It offers a complex view of the moments that shape us. It gives us insight into what a real life Mary Poppins would look like and why Travers, as a grumpy old lady, would hate the idea of a Disney-fied version of her literary character. Her reality is really different. But if I just look at a story telling version, Hancock makes a solid looking film that uses chronological disruption to break up what would otherwise be a tedious narrative. We actually understand this fictionalized Travers and she makes sense to us while the dramatic irony stays in tact for the other characters. I don't think we ever really get on her team, but we want to see the Ebenezer Scrooge disappear. Okay, let's talk two big elephants in the room when it comes to this movie. The first one is the fact that the Walt Disney Company kind of rewrote history to make themselves the good guys in their own story. This isn't how it went down. This movie portrays P.L. Travers as a boorish monster who seems grumpy due to her history with her parents. She seems like she is coming off the rails, treating the fictional Banks family as her own. When seemingly arbitrary changes are made to her mental images, she flies off the rails and intentionally torpedoes any progress to the film. Yes, she's a funny version of grumpy and I can stand behind that. But she really has that Ebenezer Scrooge quality I mentioned beforehand. She mind as well be saying "Bah! Humbug," to all this Disney nonsense. She comes across as a stick in the mud while Walt Disney comes across as remarkably charming. Remember, Disney made this movie. Disney is a saint in this film. Yeah, he gets his comeuppens pretty often in this movie, but in adorable ways. The film has the advantage of popular opinion behind it. Disney Studios making this film is wholly unfair. Right now, if I asked you your opinions on Walt Disney, you probably have one. Maybe some of you might be calling him a Nazi. There's that urban legend flying about. But basically, you know the creation of Mickey Mouse and how Disney has brought joy to children all over the world. If I asked you anything about P.L. Travers shy of what you learned from the making of Saving Mr. Banks, a fraction of people could list off that she created Mary Poppins. We know so much about Uncle Walt and nothing about P.L. Travers that the movie can kind of coast on that. Really, Hancock just have to have Tom Hanks play Walt Disney functionally and he comes across as lovable. On top of that, most people's association with the character of Mary Poppins comes from the film of the same name. A lot of people haven't read the book. My daughter is reading it right now, which inspired us to watch this movie. But when we hear songs being created and know that these moments are major hits in history, we can't understand why P.L. Travers is digging her heels in. Doesn't she have the same insight that we do that this will be absolutely perfect in every way? No, she's untrusting of the Disney corporation because they tend to make the same kind of movies time and again. These people are singing nonsense words that seem to misunderstand what her life's work is about. She's not a villain, but she comes across as one for much of the movie. And this leads into something WAY worse. The theme of the movie would be about how women would be happier if they just smiled a little more. Stop fighting for what you believe in. This group of men have everything together. You think you understand your female protagonist? Nope. The men will tell you to chill out and just accept it. There's a little bit of "uppity woman" problems going on with the movie. Honestly, I could reframe the living daylights out of this movie very easily. The author of a book falls on hard times and the biggest company in the world tries to take advantage of that. When she's on the verge of starving, Walt Disney throws her money to survive as long needed. Sure, he comes across as a fan. He's the best friend. But he fundamentally doesn't understand what this character is about. He's concerned with making this palatable to families everywhere and that's not what the author wants. The author wants to stress that normal people go through hardship and sometimes they just need a little help. Smiling won't make problems go away and Disney should realize that. But he's just getting annoyed with her. Why is she fighting so much? Doesn't she know that the men have this all together? No one is ever going to like her unless she smiles once in a while. I mean, Saving Mr. Banks doesn't play it that way, but I can't help but see this. It's really icky that Travers is financially strapped at the beginning of the movie and that Disney comes in. He stresses that he's been trying to do this for twenty years and she finally said "yes" out of desperation. Where's the part of the story that Disney wouldn't want it unless she was financially okay beforehand? Disney straight up lies to her. He breaks every one of his promises from the beginning of the movie. He's super shady, the more you think about it. She's supposed to be a co-writer in this movie, but everyone ignores everything she says. She has reasons. Yeah, some of the choices are completely arbitrary. But she doesn't like the hands that are crafting this new script and she's fighting for what she believes is right. It's not fair that history didn't agree with her. It was her decision to make and why doesn't the movie stress that? That's why Disney isn't allowed to make this movie. It's nowhere near being objective. Yes, it's great having the original songs pepper the movie. You can actually use footage from Mary Poppins in the film. Mickey Mouse and Disneyland are everywhere and that's fun. But clearly, they aren't going to show their own company as the bad guys. Disney is this image of wholesome fun and that has to be maintained. I love Tom Hanks, but even casting Tom Hanks is a little unfair. He's America's dad. He's this wholesome guy that everyone already loves. Yeah, he's played bad guys, but casting Tom Hanks as Walt Disney is a bit on the nose. The movie isn't challenging. If anything, it begs its audience not to challenge it. There's a clear good and that is the production of one of the most famous Disney entries from the early era. Mary Poppins, as a film, has permeated our cultural consciousness and the film dangles that over the audience's head the entire time. Of course P.L. Travers should come around because, if she didn't, we would be robbed of something wonderful. But it also is done at the expense of someone's right to not have it in existence. Travers is the victim in this story. Sure, we have Paul Giamatti in the movie. It takes the whole show and turns it into a microcosm of the actual story. But that event is wearing down on the audience's morals. By having a complete victim like Giamatti in the story, it gives her power and places her in Walt's shoes. The dynamic between Disney and Travers is then flipped with Travers and Ralph. It's manipulative. I don't know if that element of the story actually existed. It feels very Hollywood-y and I don't know if I approve. Regardless, I love Giamatti. And this analysis has made me very uncomfortable with my choices. I know that I liked the movie. I actually liked it a lot. But it is a deeply unfortunate movie. I know that a lot of people won't view the movie from my perspective. If the point of this blog is to watch film critically, it is because there is a lack of active viewing in society. Lots of people watch movies to give their opinions, but few people look at the deeper meaning of these movies. Who wants to write an essay a day about the deeper meaning of movies that were never meant to be watched twice? But Saving Mr. Banks might be the crux of that argument. Movies like this and The Blind Side skate pretty under the radar for attention, which is no bueno. I can like a movie because it appeals to my senses and is heartwarming, but I also shouldn't shut off my brain all of the time. Yeah, we can like Saving Mr. Banks all we want, but I really don't like that it exists. The Following Trailers Have Been Approved by Two Dorks Who Teach High School. 2019 summer movie trailers give us something to look forward to...
http://literallyanything.net/blog/2019/3/12/episode-70-literally-summer-movie-trailers-2019 PG. The Star Trek movies are what I actually define as PG. They can have some intensity, but there is nothing outright offensive. I often look to my son because he's scared of EVERYTHING. He was scared of the idea of seeing floating Klingon blood. There's a little human blood in here too. There's a genitals joke in the movie and some mild cursing. It feels intense, but there's nothing really objectionable in the movie.
DIRECTOR: Nicholas Meyer I finally get to write about my favorite Star Trek movie. I have a bootleg poster in my garage of this movie. I didn't know it was bootleg when I ordered it online. It has a signature of Rene Auberjonis on it and I don't really get that. But it also is a garage poster and it fit the frame very nicely. Yes, I have framed posters in my garage. These are all things that you now know about me. It's this bittersweet thought that the last movie of the old guard is so good. I'm sure that some suit really tried to be like, "The Undiscovered Country opens up all new doors to us." Yeah, I would love to see a whole franchise that treats Star Trek like The Undiscovered Country treats Star Trek. In previous entries, I've talked about cinematic Star Trek is not really Star Trek. But this other thing? The thing that is perfectly boiled down in The Undiscovered Country is perfect. It's what I want and it's something completely different from what I've grown to love about Star Trek as a television show. Nicholas Meyer also did the other great in the series, The Wrath of Khan. In Khan, Meyer introduced the militaristic Federation. I hate that idea, but it really works. One thing about Star Trek as a whole is that it is too idealistic. There's no natural transition from the world we have now to the world that we saw in TOS. Instead, the military version of Starfleet grounded so much of the world. The thing about The Undiscovered Country is that it is almost a Tom Clancy novel with a Star Trek heavy setting. It's kind of an idealized version of the military. It's got the structure. It's got the chain of command. It is a well-oiled machine. But it also values exploration and actually continuing peace. 1991 spells the end of the Cold War. If the Klingons are the Russians of the Star Trek universe, what happens when the Russians lose the Cold War? I know that Nicholas Meyer doesn't really love his own film. He doesn't see it as nuanced, but I don't think Star Trek has ever really been accused of being too nuanced. Maybe with some of the stuff on Deep Space Nine, but otherwise you are supposed to get the allegory. But Klingons were always hilarious versions of Russians. They were James Bond villain Russians. The idea that Klingons being multifaceted had never been explored before. There's a dangerous precedent that is established with The Undiscovered Country that actually probably started on The Next Generation. The idea that the Federation could be lacking kind of builds out of this idea. I know that Roddenberry hated this. It's a bummer, because it really works. As much as I idolize Roddenberry, it often is hard to relate to Starfleet because they were just so perfect. But the idea that the Klingons weren't always bad and that the Federation wasn't always good is interesting. I have to disagree with Meyer over his own film because I don't think that The Undiscovered Country is too broad. The theme of people wanting war because it is the status quo is a really interesting idea. In the other Star Trek movies, we've seen Klingon ambassadors. But they tend to be drunks or boors and don't really sell the Klingons very well. Instead, we see Klingon diplomats in The Undiscovered Country. This is someone who doesn't really seem to deny their Klingon background. There is Klingon pride and militaristic attitude, but can actually discuss politics like a person. One of the weaker elements of Star Trek is that entire races represent character traits. But The Undiscovered Country gives the Klingons a reasonable vulnerability. There is honor and pride, but there is also a bit of fear of extinction. Spiraling out of that is the concept that the old guard really wants things to stay the same. We get extremism on both sides. The Undiscovered Country doesn't just say that there are Klingon saboteurs to the peace process, but actually Federation higher ups who want to maintain the status quo. The Federation is supposed to be the strongest advocates for peace and then there are people who want to obliterate the Klingons from existence. Not only that, but these were people that Jim Kirk trusted. I really don't know what Meyer is talking about in terms of simplicity. Putting James T. Kirk in the center of this conflict is the best thing I've ever heard. It's a genius idea. Often, Kirk is this great hero and he's attracted to stories because he's this guy with a great success record. In The Motion Picture, he's the expert who kicks out the young bucks. In the second, his greatest victory is coming back for round 2. Part III has him know better than the Federation. Part IV, he / his crew are the only one's to figure out it is whale song. Part V, there's a random guy who thinks that he wants to take down the greatest soldier in the galaxy. But Part VI? Nope. This one focuses on Kirk's actual blind spot. Kirk has been fighting Klingons for so long that he can't trust them. How is this simple? By crafting this character for about thirty years, the team actually created a real flaw that was probably never intended. For all intents and purposes, Jim Kirk is accidentally became a specific space racist. Growing up in awe of Star Trek, I never understood why people always ragged on William Shatner. I thought he was great. But as an adult revisiting these movies, I can kind of see some choices that aren't amazing. I don't think that they ever get as absurd as many of the Shatner impressions get. But he has a very specific acting style and that doesn't always work for everything. However...HOWEVER, he brings his A-game to The Undiscovered Country. God forbid, William Shatner has range. This doesn't just seem to be another entry for him. I'm not going to give William Shatner all the credit (although I kind of am), but it seems like his leadership makes everyone bring their A-game. There isn't one weak spot in the movie. What kind of happens with the other entries is that these are Star Trek movies. JUST Star Trek movies. Yeah, there's a little bit of cultural penetration. Star Trek IV is made for everyone, but the nerds are going to love it. Star Trek VI almost doesn't feel like a Star Trek film. The effects budget looks so good. Star Trek V was the cheapest looking movie in the franchise and you can tell. But Star Trek VI has this color palate that I haven't seen in a Star Trek movie before. I don't know why purple and pink work for Star Trek so well, but that was a good decision. Also, the world seems clean but lived in. Nothing seems arbitrary. The movie looks technologically timeless. Yeah, there's a old school digital readout for the clock and circuit boards fall from the ceiling when there's damage. But nothing really seems novel or majestic. Instead of having starship porn, it just exists. It's such a good movie. Then you add Christopher Plummer and he spouts Shakespeare? This movie isn't cheap. The movie is expensive, which inspires good performances. There's this need to deliver and it really does. Is it weird that they send Scotty to take care of the assassin? That's odd. What's really weird about this movie is that it is kind of short. The story feels epic and sprawling. But the movie cuts out all of the fat. It's a very tight film because it tells the story and gets out. (Oh that's right! Kim Cattrall is in this. I haven't anything to say about that. I just remembered.) The movie literally starts with a planet exploding. There's a brief meeting scene explaining what had happened and the consequences of this moon exploding (sorry, it was a moon) and we're off to the races. The story moves extremely quickly, which really helps because if I had read the plot as a summary, it would sound dry. Instead, the action actually services the movie really well. Other space action movies inject action to keep the movie feeling like it is going on. There's action in the movie, but it all actually kind of important to the plot. It also is a great mystery. Honestly, there's a lot going on for this movie. But since I'm starting to ramble, I do want to mention that the dialogue somehow seems...real. Part of that can be tied to the military element that I mentioned earlier. But for the first time, everyone including Spock, feels like they are talking like people. They aren't abandoning their characters. They still have a lot of the same traits that they exhibit in the other films, but there's nothing intentionally alienating about it. Instead, Spock is logical without somehow being an outsider. He is the intellectual friend we had. McCoy is always McCoy and he's fantastic. But I love frustrated Uhura. She keeps getting the short end of the stick in these stories and I love that she has one moment to show what it must really mean to be in this sausage fest of a franchise. Her job sucks sometimes and I love that we get to see her present that. There is one moment that is too meta for me. Often, the bridge crew tend to find themselves in situations that should be relegated to a security team. I know that this is the last movie where this entire cast would be together, but having them save the ambassador? That's really weird. Doesn't Captain Kirk have a tactical team that should have training in that kind of stuff? Regardless, it's fun to see Scotty save the day. Also, the Excelsior is rad and Sulu totally deserves that and Ensign Christian Slater. I adore this movie. It is nearly perfect for me. It really justifies any of the weaker movies in the series. It shows that this crew was something truly special. It is what can be made when everyone really puts everything right. Every detail feels addressed. It makes a very wise decision to keep the movie short and to spend money where it counts. R for nudity. The movie starts off with seeing a woman's butt through her underwear. There's also a pretty graphic scene where the protagonists visit a strip club. Most of the movie is actually pretty innocent, hitting a note here and there with language. But it somehow becomes seedier because of the attention to nudity. There's a lot of drinking going on throughout considering that the two often meet at the bar. R.
DIRECTOR: Sofia Coppola I watched this wrong. I also watched I Heart Huckabees wrong, but I have no desire to go back and revisit that one. At the time, I had liked a handful of movies that I watched over and over again. I considered myself a film snob, but I suppose I would probably be defined closer to being a film hipster. Yeah, this seems minor. But I had a different mindset when I watched this movie the first time. I was in college. I saw it on the big screen. I really wanted another Wes Anderson type movie because I knew that I liked Wes Anderson. But I originally thought that all independent film was the same and, boy, I couldn't be more wrong. Imagine had I gone into this movie having seen The Virgin Suicides first and then got ready for Lost in Translation. Yeah, life would be very different. Okay, it wouldn't be that different, but my opinion on Lost in Translation would have been drastically different. Originally, I hated this movie. You know how I get all moralistic in my insights? Yeah, imagine just having that without an appreciation for film as a whole. My morals in terms of what I have a problem with are exactly the same. I'm still in the camp of "An affair is an affair is an affair." I hope I get to talking about this later, but Sofia Coppola has created a very introspective film that I absolutely adore. Somehow, Lost in Translation acts as a cautionary tale for married couples. There are movies that treat significant others and spouses as obstacles for a grander love story. Watching Lost in Translation is ultimately a story about loneliness. Yeah, it's a romantic comedy / dramedy, but it can't really be coupled with other films in the same genres. Can I say right now that "Bob Harris" as a veiled cover for "Bill Murray" is odd. Bill to Bob isn't much of a jump. Both Murray and Harris are common first names. Bill Murray is often put upon as an actor. I think that Bill Murray must have been going through a depressed stage in his life when Lost in Translation came out. Again, I'm basing a lot of this on his casting choices. There seems to be an active effort to bury the old personality of Bill Murray with many of his roles. Mind you, if you were concerned about Bill Murray, I think he's doing fine. (Please be doing fine, Bill Murray. I've now put my reputation at stake.) The legend that would be Bill Murray kind of was born out of the ashes of his independent film movement. Coppola had to write this film around Murray. I'd like to think that she wrote it around Johansson, but I can't really gleam that from the film. But Bob Harris is about a person who is publicly loved, but doesn't have any of those feelings resonating with him. Harris is exhausted. Being married for a long time changes a person. Instead of being just about an affair, Coppola is comparing how marriage changes people over different periods of time. Harris is married for decades. Charlotte has been married for two. For Harris, the honeymoon period is a distant memory. But for Charlotte, she has a husband that she remembers being over the moon for and now he's changing. That's really interesting. I don't think that Lost in Translation can go as far as being a condemnation of marriage, but I do think it highlights the dangers that a marriage can fall into. Their spouses aren't evil. But they definitely become the bad guys of the film. John is mentally unfaithful to Charlotte. I can't read if he knows this or not, but he would rather hang out with another woman than his wife. He is polite to her. But he is also extremely dismissive of her. It's a constant battle, the intentions of an action versus the consequences of that action. In John's mind, he sees himself as being heroic. He is often away filming these commercials, leaving his wife behind. As a point of consideration, he brings Charlotte along to Japan, by all rights a romantic location. But he wants his cake and he wants to eat it too. (Hey! Marie Antoinette for Sofia Coppola fans!) I suppose that we all act differently when we are just around our spouses and when we are at work. I went to confession last night and really read a pretty thorough examination of conscience. There's a lot in there for how we treat our spouses and the lines that people cross in the name of innocence. John really sees himself as innocent. I give Charlotte points for a lot of her behavior because she vocalizes her frustrations in a reasonable and responsible way. I know that she could go deeper, but she's also trying to be cool and not terrible. Like, she doesn't really get off the hook for everything, but I'm giving her points where points are due. But John can't reconcile that. It's like when we mix two groups of very different friends. I know that my wife hates when we invite a lot of people for parties because there's the need to entertain everyone when we just want to settle in one comfortable place. John makes the noble choice in inviting Charlotte to Japan, but fails to think what this means on the grand scheme of things. Harris might be the bad guy in the other scenario. Harris keeps putting his career in front of his family. His wife reads (literally: most of her character comes across through notes and faxes) as someone who is used to his distanced behavior. Harris has kind of let his love die and now sees it as a chore. It's with Charlotte, when he doesn't think about his responsibilities, that he comes alive. I think this is where I kind of draw the line. Harris is a good human being throughout the story. He also has the same issue as John. He has the right intentions. I don't get the vibe that he is trying to seduce Charlotte. I think that a lot of his feelings are probably unwanted. He wants the relationship to be platonic. But this also leads to some behavior that is completely self-indulgent. I know. I'm kind of going in a circle and I'm probably taking away something that I'm really not meant to, but the story is that cautionary tale I'm talking about. Both Charlotte and Bob cheat on their spouses. In the case of Bob, it is physical. He sleeps with someone he is not attracted to as a means of prevention for sleeping with Charlotte. Charlotte actually seems to take it personally, which adds a whole new element to the experience. SPOILER: The movie ends with them kissing, which is a validation that this was somehow infidelity. But even without the kiss, would it have been inappropriate? I think so. They used each other as their spouses. But does that make them unsympathetic? I don't think so whatsoever. NOTE: There is a really fine line between sympathy and morally correct. I don't advocate that they are in the moral right at any point in this movie and I don't like when people cheat on their spouses, especially in the case of Bob. Bob has a wife who seems to be experiencing real burnout in the marriage because of his behavior. But it is also a story of people just trying to find comfort in each other. If we applied the rules of When Harry Met Sally to this movie, it kind of implies that men and women can't be friends. I think that Lost in Translation is a bit deeper than When Harry Met Sally. I like Charlotte and Bob. But it is also dangerous what they are doing. I suppose Lost in Translation kind of lives in a world where happiness is the ultimate goal. At one point, Bob calls his wife and then eventually hangs up, saying "That was a stupid idea" or something to the like. That's definitely something that is happening within the film. From Bob's perspective, open discussion of feelings would seem like a bad idea. Charlotte is aggressive at times with her frustrations, pushing John away. John isn't really trying to communicate. Bob is talking about superficial, mundane things. The use of carpet samples as the crux of a conversation is telling that the two haven't have anything of substance to actually discuss. There are no heroes in this narrative, but I can sympathize with these characters who seem to be drowning without knowledge of which way to go. They seem so alone. Charlotte has her motivational tapes and her philosophy degree, but they all seem utterly useless without real conversation. Bob offers her that. I really get the vibe that the two initially do not plan to get emotionally involved with one another and it just plays out that way. It's really a sad story, the more I think about it. I love the title Lost in Translation. I don't know how I would feel about this movie from an Asian perspective. That is something that is almost in the title. The Japanese culture often comes across as comical, but that's because we have no idea what is going on. The title says that there is richness behind all of the things that the two American characters view as absurd. I have always wanted to go to Japan. Perhaps the movie rides the line of slightly offensive at times. It really plays up the "L" and "R" inversion that Japanese accents tend to lean into. I really don't want to make another connection to Wes Anderson, but I can see people who were upset at Isle of Dogs having the same concern with Lost in Translation. The title works really well. These times that we giggle at people, we have to realize that something is lost there. Similarly, Charlotte and Bob's relationship isn't quite the affair that a lot of people would categorize it. It is something both more and less than an affair. We can't understand it because we aren't in that relationship. Something has been lost in that translation of the film. Japan really works as the backdrop of the movie because it is absolutely gorgeous. It hits a lot of those Japanese markers, crossing the dynamic between the information saturated Tokyo and the spiritual background of daily Japanese society. Coppola makes pretty movies and Lost in Translation is no exception. Can I just gush about her combinations between visual and auditory experience? It might just be my aesthetic choices, but the movie is absolutely gorgeous. I adore Coppola's artistry and even a weaker story kind of gets points because she is so talented. Yeah, I was wrong to pigeonhole this movie in college. It is a much heavier film than I initially gave it credit for. I honestly think that my interpretation is light years away from Coppola's, but that's also because I have a very different philosophy towards life. However, that doesn't slow me down from appreciating a complex film that still has beauty in it. PG-13 for basic Marvel action. I pre-screened this one for my daughter, so I was really watching. Considering that the MCU loves throwing in some casual language, this one kind of kept it to a minimum. There were a few here and there. Sam Jackson gets a near MF'er in there, and I mainly think that they gave it to him because he's Sam Jackson. There's violence. I don't know if it is less uncomfortable or more uncomfortable if someone bleeds blue blood, but that happens from time-to-time. Regardless, this one is one of the least offensive of the Marvel movies. Still, you know, use caution. Apparently, I just want my kids to see everything.
DIRECTORS: Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck I might be one of the great holdouts for this movie. I'm not going to apologize for a second nor should I have to, but I absolutely adored this movie. It is exactly what I wanted a Captain Marvel movie to be. But I know that I'm slightly alone on this. It is really hard to gauge what people actually think of this movie because of the troll bomb that hit the reviews before the movie came out. Most professional critics came away the idea that Captain Marvel is pretty great, but not as great as it could have been. I don't know about that. My wife and sister-in-law thought it was only okay, which blows my mind. I don't know what movie they were watching. Maybe there's a different print of the movie. Regardless, my daughter thought it was completely rad. She gave it a 9 out of 10, guys. She wanted some more Marvel superheroes in it, but that's the only thing that held her back. I already wrote a review for this on CNA. I think I have more to say on this movie and I'm not quite sure what that is going to be. When I write my reviews for actual publication and for other sources, I tend to think things out in terms of clarity and purpose. When I write for the analysis page on this, there's a lot of freewheeling and attempts to get mildly philosophical. I keep coming back to the MCU movies as an exercise in strategy. If we looked at the MCU movies as, essentially, sequelized films, there has to be a balance. The idea of a really tight cinematic universe like the Marvel movies has is something unique. The movies ask you to watch all of the films. The movies come out often and bombastically. If they were all the same tone, we would get bored remarkably fast. I know some people have gotten bored and I'd like to say to those people that they are wrong. I think I noticed the intentional tonal shift primarily with the Ant-Man movies. The entire litany of Marvel movies is essentially one big story. I'd love to graph all of the movies out on one plot line and see if it lines up with the basic elements of plot. It is also about dealing with Thanos and I don't know if that was the plan from Day One or only seemed to work once The Avengers came out. Like a great epic, there are spikes in the plot that are important and elements that are less important. However, for the characters in the story, every moment is important. I keep comparing the MCU to Game of Thrones because both stories are kind of working in the same way. We have all of these characters leading epic lives, almost unaware of what is happening to other people in the world. All of these destinies will be intertwined. But in a movie like Captain Marvel, it all seems so distant and removed. Captain Marvel is the first movie in the however-many-sequel-spinoffs (22?) that acts as a retcon. It's a bit of a minor retcon and it's a little bit of a cheat in the long run. I was teaching the students about Chekhov's Gun yesterday and Captain Marvel is a bit of a backwards Chekhov's Gun. We see the gun fired before we see the gun loaded. Captain Marvel is the answer to how it was loaded. But I really don't mind that. Something about the MCU and Kevin Feige (who is starting to reach Gene Roddenberry level of respect for me) says that everything is meticulously planned. I honestly am a little stressed for them on behalf of gaining the 20th Century Fox properties because those might not be part of the master plan. (Although, this might be the start of a real Phase Two, unlike the phases they have been releasing.) I like smaller stories. Captain Marvel is about her, Carol Danvers. It's an origin story when we're kind of afraid to do origin stories. The character of Captain Marvel desperately needed her first movie to be an origin story. It's really complex. Like, I even read Captain Marvel comics from time-to-time and I was confused about her origin. Her story is way too complicated and I didn't know how the movie would address the absolute mess that was her story. The thing about Captain Marvel is that she is intricately tied to her origin, but also way more than her origin herself. I know. I seem to be talking in circles. Spider-Man is his origin story, first and foremost. All of his decisions are based on how how got his powers and what he did with those powers. But the comic book version was originally like a She-Hulk or a Supergirl situation. She was the female counterpart to an established male character. The male Captain Marvel was a big deal back in the day. I mean, he was always third tier superhero, but he was a solid third tier superhero. Then he died, oddly enough of cancer and Carol Danvers became Ms. Marvel. She wore skimpy clothing and was fairly vapid. But then, Carol Danvers got a huge upgrade at Marvel. She took on the mantle of her predecessor and kind of stopped defining herself by her gender. I can't imagine a world where Marvel decided to repeat their mistakes with the early incarnations of Carol Danvers. But her story is all about being considered a second rate female version of an established character. It motivates her to refuse to accept whatever limitations were placed on her by men in her life. It's when she takes on that name with some heavy thought on the responsibility of that name, that Carol Danvers becomes worthy of her own movie. Yeah, she's not in the Captain America or Spider-Man A-level, but Captain Marvel is a solid B-tier super hero. The thing that is even more insane is that she's going to be a major player in Endgame. By the time that the MCU completely unveils her, she might be a Captain America level character that we deal with. That's not insane. I mean, Iron Man was almost a C-level character before the first Iron Man movie came out. Building that character up is kind of appropriate for the character. I think that the Marvel books, especially with the push of author Kelly Sue DeConnick, have been pushing for Carol to become central to the MCU. I mean, she was one half of the duel in "Civil War II". That's right. There's a "Civil War II." I bet you thought all that superhero infighting was over. So giving her this origin story is this balancing act because it is a step back in terms of storytelling, but also a step forward because it makes the origin more important than it needed to be. Look at the difference between Captain Marvel and Doctor Strange. I remember hearing that Dr. Strange wasn't going to have an origin story because people were getting sick of origin stories. But it did. It needed it. The deeper Marvel delves into its own history, the more we're going to need some explanations. But Doctor Strange, as much as I like it, is kind of one of the more boring Marvel entries. Instead, Carol somehow progresses the overall Marvel Universe while still getting a story that is her own. We get Nick Fury and Agent Coulson. (By the way, Coulson on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. seems pretty ignorant of the Kree. What's up with that?) There's so much going on here that is just fun. I'm going to wax poetic and get all political. I'm a big supporter of refugees. This administration...okay, I'm not going to scream into the void about this. But there are ways to talk about politics through allegory and Captain Marvel nailed it. Completely and utterly nailed it. There were times when it could be considered preachy. But the movie addresses the issue of immigration and helping refugees in a way that again would make Gene Roddenberry proud. It was a twist. I didn't really see that twist coming. SPOILER: I like my Skrulls evil, but these Skrulls were absolutely great. They weren't evil, but they weren't Hallmark heartwarmingly good. There's this realistic element that the movie presents. I think we're used to a very easy answer to a lot of things going on and Captain Marvel points to the right answer while allowing some of the complexities to stand. Ben Mendelsohn is a pretty rad actor and his career is blowing up pretty nicely right now. I want to see that continue to happen because he makes a great character here. I think that he's playing up to some of his strengths and associations because we all assumed that Ben Mendelsohn was going to be a bad guy. Jude Law telegraphs pretty intensely as eventually going to turn, but I didn't exactly know how. The movie gives these little pieces of foreshadowing without being so overt that the movie can't be enjoyed. Can I say that I love Annette Benning as Mar-vell? It is weird that her character is completely transformed from the original version and that's pretty cool. Part of me wants to see a young Annette Benning sporting Nega Bands in a flashback or something, but I like the mother / daughter style relationship that the two of them had. Would I have liked to see the Supreme Intelligence as a giant green head? Probably. But do I get that some things look silly and maybe settling for the easier to swallow look isn't the worst idea in the world? That's more accurate. I'm also preaching to you, people who are trying to dunk on Will Smith as the Genie. That character was never going to look great as a live action character, so chill out. It seems like it is well in hand based on that newest trailer. Going back. There are so many good choices in this movie. The only thing that is a little inaccessible is the first fifteen or so minutes. The introduction in space is dizzying. I'm a big Marvel nerd and I was having a hard time following what planet was which and why I should care. I mean, there's all these Guardians of the Galaxy callbacks, but you really couldn't enjoy them based on how frantic the beginning was. I know that Carol didn't always know what was going on at what time, but why should we be left out in the dark as well? Yeah, I'm going to stand by Captain Marvel. I had a phenomenal time at it. The '90s stuff, while a little telegraphed and forced at times, was rad. I wish the soundtrack followed Guardians of the Galaxy's lead a little harder, but that's to be forgiven. It's a much better movie than some people are saying it is. Yeah it's not perfect, but it is exactly what I wanted it to be. PG...in a world where PG-13 really was a thing. Seriously, we had no idea the power that the MPAA was wielding in the early '90s! This movie has multiple suicides and deaths, some pretty rapey behavior, an uncomfortable sex scene without nudity, and some mild language. I mean, it's great, but PG? Because it has an inappropriately happy score and clouds? I don't get it, but it is PG. I'll always rally for a PG rating on live action movies. It just doesn't make sense here. Also, there's implications that there is blood sausage in the glove box. That seems unsanitary. PG.
DIRECTOR: Harold Ramis This is the movie that broke up Harold Ramis and Bill Murray. The universe is acting kind of weird right now. I didn't really plan to go on a Bill Murray kick lately. But then I showed my film club Ghostbusters because of the Ghostbusters 3 teaser that hit the internet. Next on the schedule was Groundhog Day. Then, my to-watch pile had Lost in Translation next. It's becoming a Bill Murray month. I mean, I like Bill Murray. I'm not the guy who wears the tee shirts. I heard some uncomfortable stuff with his ex-wife. But the behind-the-scenes story of Bill Murray on Groundhog Day is something that always kind of colors my thoughts on Bill Murray. So, how then, is this movie absolutely brilliant? I don't think that Harold Ramis knew he was making a masterpiece. Murray and Ramis apparently argued about the tone of this film. I don't know if the movie would hold water if it was meant to be Oscar worthy. It's so strange watching the opening of the movie. The score and the color palate are so bizarre for a movie that probably gets me thinking more than any other comedy. It's always weird that when I start the movie, we get clouds passing by with that score. Then it goes into that "I'm Your Weatherman" song when they drive to Punxatawney. It's a very dated choice. Remember, I'm a huge fan of this movie but there are some indications that Ramis didn't know what he had in front of him. This isn't excusing Murray's behavior. At the end of the day, Ramis was the director and I think that Bill Murray just seemed really unhappy at the time. But keeping all this in mind, I think everyone who has seen this movie has enjoyed it. What happens as a result of this tonal inconsistency is an experience that messes with expectations. The movie being so darned cheery with its goofy music and it's somewhat hokey look is that when things start getting really dark, no one is really ready for it. Ramis is almost making another What About Bob? Yeah, if you wanted to claim that What About Bob? is also dark, that movie doesn't really hold a candle to Groundhog Day. I don't know how Ramis and his team came up with the idea for a timeloop movie, but it's weird that an entire subgenre of time travel movie now exists because of this film. Like, everyone references "Oh, just like in Groundhog Day." That is staggering, mainly because they got everything right in one. Yeah, other time loop movies end up bringing in elements that might be unique, like Happy Death Day's murder mystery element. But the entire genre is defined by the first first film to really take on the narrative. There are things we take for granted when we watch the movie because, of course Phil Connors would have to act that way. But at what point in the script writing process did someone decide that Phil would have memorized every version of the story and every variation of the story. For a journal question, I regularly ask them what is happening in their rooms right now. They tend to have a hard time wrapping their heads around that question. Rooms tend to be fairly predictable. But it is odd to think that the world keeps moving outside of our sphere of influence. Groundhog Day not only wraps its head around that concept, but includes how the appearance of an agent of chaos would completely affect and shape the variations around it. But the movie isn't about the variations! Not really. Okay, I'm talking like a crazy person. Bill Murray has been in the timeloop for so long that variations rarely surprise him. We know something special is happening to the character because there is that moment of surprise for the character. It is usually accompanied by a moral boundary being crossed. But in Day Three, Phil is ready to die and get arrested. That's how quickly the story posits it would take for someone to throw caution to the wind. I don't know if that's a moral statement being presented in the film or, simply for pacing's sake, the movie needed to answer whether or not consequences existed in this reality. Yeah, I'd chalk it up to pacing. But it is an interesting notion that Phil has the time and patience to view every version of the story. It's not like has a choice. But Groundhog Day, every time I watch it, makes me ask questions that the movie probably has answers to. For example, if Phil Connors, at 6:00 am everyday, gets up and immediately hops in a car to head a single direction before the blizzard hits, would he be able to experience life in a different town? Has he tried freezing to death? (I think he has.) What if he stays awake until 6:00 am? Does he witness the world reshaping? One of my exchange students asked the darkest question I ever heard about Phil's morality when he watched it. I choose not to go into it, but I learned a lot about other cultures from that conversation. A good time travel story makes the viewer / reader ask questions and Groundhog Day has plenty of them. But a good time travel story also knows what answers to present and which answers to keep close to the vest. Groundhog Day, oddly enough, knows all of its answers. I know, there's a discrepancy between 8 years and change of solitude and 10,000 years of solitude. But I like the fact that is an idea that can be argued. If we found out every variation of February 2 in Punxatawney, there's no mystery and no storytelling. The concept is front and center in Groundhog Day, but we care about Phil. That's impressive. Which brings about a trope that people tend to forget about in the Time Loop narrative: the protagonist has to be Ebenezer Scrooge. Yeah, Bill Murray was in Scrooged. There's a reason that it works. He plays that role a lot. He likes playing the cynical curmudgeon who gets a heart of gold. But Groundhog Day did that. I think all of the time loop stories I can think of start with a character who is a bit of a grump and through the course of this repeated day, becomes a better person. Think about how that shouldn't work. People don't go into isolation in prison and come out better people. They come out broken. This actually brings up a question that I'm only thinking about right now. Is Phil Connors actually a good person at the end of the movie? The longer he is in the time loop, the less actual good he is doing. His initial inclination when he discovers that there are no consequences is that he does every vile thing he can do. He seduces women by playing tricks on them. He steals. He eats whatever he wants. He insults people day and night and tries throwing people's lives into pandemonium. (New thought: Do you think Phil Connors found different ways to murder Ned Ryerson for, like, a year or something?) He even fakes being a good person to seduce Rita. But he never actually grows until later. Now, it seems like that would make him a good person. But part of his brain, and this ties into what makes a truly moral person, is that he's not doing good for its own sake. It's like he started off doing good because it was something different. Phil's punishment is that he has no variety. Everything is always the same, always. He messes with the threads because he has nothing better to do. Ramis and Murray kind of do something really smart with this. Part of me thinks, "Yeah, he's doing this for kicks." But realistically, I know this isn't the case. It's his reaction with Pops. Having Pops as the scene before the moral transformation is extremely telling. When he can't save Pops, he isn't viewing it as failure. After all, Phil Connors probably viewed death repeatedly on that day. (Remember, in the original timeline, the mayor of Punxtawney chokes to death on a steak.) But Pops plays out very differently. The death matters. Here's probably the crux of my argument. Nothing is permanent for Phil Connors except for the time loop, at least from his perspective. Death isn't permanent for him or for anyone in the time loop. Yet, Phil's moral decision is based on the idea that Pops keeps on dying, no matter what Phil does. His death matters. Pops has the worst end to a series of bad days and Phil takes moral responsibility for Pops. The thing is, Pops dies because Phil was bad every other day of his life. February 2 might be on a loop, but he can't change the one thing that he wants to change: the past. I suppose that it would be easy to claim that Phil wants to change his future. But there's also the message that Phil is obsessed with changing the past. He hates the man that people see him as. He relishes it when he's given a free pass because of his personality. But that moment when he stops focusing on the future and starts focusing on the past that the moral element comes out. Yeah, I would probably be a bigger monster in my time loop. But I like how Groundhog Day posits the opposite. It fights to say that everyone has a chance at redemption. Groundhog Day is an absolutely brilliant movie. It is heartwarming and funny. Because it had little regard for itself, it transcends its format and kind has become part of our cultural zeitgeist. Maybe it is genius because it has merged a great story with a great character. But Groundhog Day is one of the greatest comedies not because of its hilarity, of which is has in spades, but because its depth. Rated R, which I'm sure some studio exec who probably thinks like me, means "a better movie." Nah, but there is a lot of violence and John McClane isn't limited by his use of the f-word. There's no sex, but apparently there's a supermodel who gets in her underwear in this movie. I don't actually remember that scene. Am I losing my mind? Am I allowed to write about a movie when I don't remember a girl getting in her underwear? Maybe I'm just broken. Regardless, it's an R-Rated Die Hard movie...technically.
DIRECTOR: John Moore Completely unrelated to A Good Day to Die Hard, my readership just jumped through the roof. They all can't be bots. Um...welcome everyone. I don't know why I expect to make this blog better. I mean, it's pretty great for a first draft. I'm pretty great. You know what? I'm just going to act natural. (STOP LOOKING AT ME!) Anyway, was anyone expecting me to really rant and rave and really get introspective about A Good Day to Die Hard. See, I was addicted to Die Hard at a certain time in my life. It was right before Live Free or Die Hard was announced. The first three movies made a perfect trilogy and Live Free or Die Hard didn't look great. When Live Free or Die Hard was better than it should have been, but not good, that kind of cooled the fires of my Die Hard obsession. Then I found out that A Good Day to Die Hard was coming out and it was going to be R-rated and all was forgiven...until the reviews. Yeah, I shouldn't listen to reviews, but the trailer didn't look that great. The reviews really made it seem bad. The movie's best reviews advertised it as mediocre. That's...that's no good. Going out to see a movie at the theaters as a married man with kids is a big ask. It's not like I can risk getting a sitter for a movie that wouldn't actually be a good time. Yeah, A Good Day to Die Hard is actually pretty bad. I don't love that about a franchise. I wanted to be the guy who loved this movie and stood up for it when no one else would. I don't know what it is about the Die Hard movies. They may be the representatives of an era gone by of ultraviolence free of CGI. We now have movies like Underworld and Transformers that have satisfied much of the same crowd as the Die Hard films. But they spiritually feel as different as night and day. The mindless action movie is actually really hard to make. The reason that the OG Die Hard works is because it is meticulously crafted. John McClane makes such an interesting protagonist. His baggage is on his shoulders and we know everything that we need to in the first few minutes of the film. Yeah, there's some info-dumping in the first movie. I'm okay with that. But John is one thing: he's put upon. Yeah, he's a guy who makes a lot of drama himself. If he was more woke and more open to change, he wouldn't feel so put upon. When Nakatomi Tower is seized, he's literally put upon. It is a physical manifestation of his problems with his wife. He goes to support her and the problems are way bigger than he thought. Everyone is upset at him for trying to make things better until he crosses a minefield full of issues and comes across ahead. But A Good Day to Die Hard kind of forgets that. There's almost nothing the movie that really makes this a specifically Die Hard movie. It's a Bruce Willis action movie where he's called John McClane. Yeah, we get to meet his son. But that relationship is really poorly developed. Die Hard movies are, first and foremost, fun. We relate to everyman John McClane because he's an average joe over his head. But by the time we get to the fifth entry in the franchise, is that really the case here? Honestly, he saved America in the last one. The bad guys came to him in the first few entries. In Four and Five, he's putting himself in dumb positions. I know that this isn't entirely accurate. After all, he's just there to get his son back. The movie is really obsessed with making a joke work (that really doesn't) about John just being on vacation. The weird Kevin Smith connection keeps coming back with "I'm not even supposed to be here today", but I don't want to settle on that. John McClane is someone who fights terrorists when he's not supposed to. But the filmmakers literally had to make his son a spy to make John McClane inside a spy genre. Big reveal: John McClane and super-spy plots don't really work that well. We're supposed to be able to relate to a guy who has stopped four previous terrorist plots and has a super-spy son? It's a really hard sell. I don't want to put John Moore on the stand for this one. I mean, I kind of do. I found myself rolling my eyes when McClane was pancaking cars with his van. (New moral trope I'm working on: You aren't the good guys when you are causing mass casualties with your actions. This usually happens with car chases. ) But a lot of this falls into the category of Bruce Willis seeming more and more unlikable. I know that people have their own lives. I know that some people are naturally grumpy people. But there seems to be a line between that persona being someone's personal life and it creeping into their characters. Look at how high energy Bruce Willis is in the first movie. Yeah, he's put upon, but he's all over the place in terms of how he reacts to that burden that he carries. He yells. He gets all over the place in terms of delivery. Yeah, some of those deliveries were outright annoyance. But a lot of those deliveries were yelling and getting in people's faces. John McClane now just seems annoyed by everything. He never gets into that upper register. He never gesticulates. He just looks at things that bother him in a flat affect. Based on the Kevin Smith talk, apparently Bruce Willis hates being directed. How dare anyone question how to deliver something for a movie, let alone for a character that he's been doing for most of his life. But John McClane has slowly morphed into every other Bruce Willis character. He has zero charisma in this movie. If the character keeps screaming "I'm just supposed to be on vacation", it feels like Bruce Willis really believes that. He doesn't want to be here for the movie. I had ten minutes on the treadmill before I was done, so I popped in the special features. Do you know who was doing the heavy lifting for the special features interviews? Everyone but Bruce Willis. This movie is a real bummer because it feels completely unloved by the star of the film. If you don't want to be here, don't be here. Maybe I'm reading into that way too much. Bruce Willis has to have all of the money. There almost feels like a spite to his filmmaking now. He hates his audience, but keeps saying, "There, I made what you wanted. Are you happy?" No. Not really. I wanted a fun movie, not just something that you felt necessary to dole out to me. I don't want cheery John McClane. I just want a John McClane that you found fun playing. Harrison Ford is a plenty grumpy old man, but his performances still work. Which leads to a father / son thing. The father / son thing actually has a lot of unrealized potential. I give John Moore credit for one thing. A common thread within the Die Hard movies is the idea that a spy-type know-it-all (this is any government agent) thinks that he knows better than man-on-the-street John McClane. I like how Moore plays up that his son has become the very character he hates to hang out with. I don't know if Bruce Willis necessarily sells this, but Jai Courtney actually does a pretty good job of it. After recently watching Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I know that there is a temptation to replace an aging actor with the character's son. I don't know if A Good Day to Die Hard is really doing that. Jai Courtney is fine. The thing is, the movie is so vapid. It is so very, very empty. There are connections that are trying to be made that just aren't really coming together. So we're supposed to treat A Good Day to Die Hard as a trial run for the new kid. While Jai Courtney is technically doing his job, we don't get any emotional connection from him. He's already a spy. He's closed off. The first time we get both John and Jack in the same shot, Jack is pointing a gun in John's face. He's already closed off. Compare that to John McClane on the plane. He's making small talk on a jumbo jet and being kind of polite about it. There's something to relate to. I'm going to keep referring to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade when it comes to talking about making father / son action duos work. It has to be the best one, right? It's the only one that I can think of that works. The beginning of that movie has young Indy trying to tell Henry Jones, Sr. about the problems he's encountered and he's forced to count to ten in Latin or Greek by his father. That moment tells us so much. Indy acknowledges that he didn't have a regular childhood and that he never really bonded with his dad because of moments like these. But we still know plenty about Indiana Jones and he's very relatable. We never really get to know Jack in any context. Live Free or Die Hard brings in John's daughter, but even with her brief character, we get more personality. That stress is between them because we get to see her without John there and then her with John there. Jack is completely cold and removed the entire time. The movie tried telling us about moments in Jack's childhood to compensate for that, but none of that ever resonates. It's a really solid example of why showing instead of telling is important. Seeing young Indy get frustrated with his father explained a lot. Instead, we only hear that Jack used to get in trouble a lot, but we never saw how John handled those situations. We see that both characters had the best intentions, but miscommunication was their big problem. Instead, we don't know how good or bad of a dad John was. We know that he's a bad husband because we see how pleasant he is with strangers and how Holly just gets under his skin a lot. The plot can jump in a lake. I don't think I've been less invested in a big heist from moment one. The twist is not even a twist. John has run into this story before. This time it is in Russia. I like the mirroring of the family dynamic throughout the film. (THE SUPERMODEL WAS THE DAUGHTER! Okay, I remember her. I don't remember her in her underwear. Again, I wasn't exactly captured by this movie.) A Good Day to Die Hard ends in the worst way a franchise can end: it's blah. There's nothing much here. It doesn't really feel like a Die Hard movie. I don't think I laughed once. I was annoyed by the action. The story was not inaccessible so much as it was just boring. Spy spoof movies tend to have really weak stories because the stakes seem low. The same thing is happening here. It is really a loosey-goosey spy plot about selling uranium. It's hackneyed. I hear that the guy who directed Live Free or Die Hard and the Underworld movies is doing a prequel named McClane. That sounds terrible. Let it die...hard. Not rated, but again...it's the Fyre Festival. It's a story about a bad person doing a bad thing and it completely falling apart. It's about heavy drinking and irresponsible behavior. The f-word is regularly used throughout because of the association with Jerry Media. (Jerry Media is more commonly referred to as a curse word.) It has the tone of an MSNBC special edition, only with language. Not rated, but would probably be rated R for F-Jerry.
DIRECTORS: Jenner Furst and Julia Willoughby Nason Do you know how hard it is to figure out which image came from Hulu? I had to break my own rule and put an image that had the "Hulu Originals" logo on it because I really wasn't sure which documentary about the Fyre Festival was which when it came to imagery. At least when it came to a Google search. A lot of people are behind this one of the two docs. I get it. I think I also have a bad taste in my mouth knowing that the Netflix Fyre documentary had the Jerry Media guys behind it. But Hulu is kind of taking the high ground...when there is something really problematic about this one. Yeah, both are worth watching. My wife and I enjoyed the Netflix one better because we got on the ground floor of the Fyre Festival itself when we watched it. If you wanted to know exactly why the Fyre Festival failed so fantastically (alliteration!), watch the Netflix one. Yeah, Fyre Fraud, the Hulu one gives you a lot of the same beats. But the story is primarily about what kind of person Billy McFarland is. That's interesting...but just not as interesting as watching it from the ground. But I started this whole paragraph with the idea that the Hulu one has its own problematic element. If Netflix is guilty for hiring the Jerry Media guys, Hulu is kind of terrible for paying Billy McFarland. Billy McFarland, in every version of the story, is the head honcho of why everything went wrong. Fyre Fraud actually focuses the lens on Billy and his empire of get-rich-quick schemers, yet paid him for exclusive interviews. The movie casts a pretty high moralistic shadow on Billy. They condemn him as a monster for causing the problems of Fyre Fest and that's probably pretty right. But at the center of this film is Billy McFarland's interviews. He's what is driving attention from the Netflix documentary. The Netflix doc may have had the story of taking one for the team, but the Hulu doc has Billy McFarland himself. He wasn't just here out of the goodness of his heart or to clear his name. He actually kind of appears, at least initially, as the "buck-stops-here" guy. It is only when the questions get really tough about his character does he seem to get upset about the whole thing. Why would he sit through that? He's getting paid. Yeah, Hulu may have the upper hand when it comes to having the documentary that's not being made by the guys trying to clear their own names, but it also is paying the devil and encouraging him to continue with his money making schemes. If Billy McFarland has a price tag that says that you can say anything you want about him on camera, that means that the value of the paycheck is worth more than anything you can say about him. He's letting you say this stuff. It kind of feels like a circus side-show, having Billy McFarland at the center of your documentary. Your morals don't really stand up to scrutiny if you are paying the guy that you consider evil to show up and shill your wares. Again, this Fyre Fest documentary fever almost deserves a documentary by itself. The topic is interesting. The fact that two streaming companies are sullying their good reputations by trying to deliver slanted versions of the truth is ironic in itself. But then I have to analyze the film without the knowledge of the behind the scenes. Especially in today's day-in-age, when creators are starting to overshadow their creations, I suppose that I kind of have to decide if there is validity in the art itself. I enjoy the Netflix one better. The Hulu documentary, frankly, is a little boring. I mean, I'm still riveted. They could come up with ten documentaries worth of new Fyre Fest information and I'll still probably watch it. Again, I love when rich brats try to "survive" after spending a lot of money. It's hilarious to me because I'm a terrible human being and I also have my own high horse to ride off into the sunset. But Fyre Fraud is critical of an entire system of success and that's what I really like. Fyre Fraud looks at a world that encourages Billy McFarlands to survive and thrive. Starting out even before Billy McFarland became even remotely successful, we get to meet the financiers who taught Billy the works. I don't know if this is a universal truth, but if you want to be ungodly rich, you apparently have to stretch the truth about everything you do. The structure in America today, according to Fyre Fraud, is based on the idea that lots of people lie. It only really becomes illegal if you get caught. Keep all of this in mind because I'm only remembering this right now, about a week removed from when I actually watched this documentary, but the movie starts off with McFarland's mentor committing suicide the day after he is accused of fraud. Mind you, it says that he crashed his car, but the circumstances are really suspicious to not think in that light. The Netflix doc introduces Magnesis, the credit card company that McFarland started. Both documentaries really stress that Magnesis was not a success. But Hulu really sells that as far as it could have gone. SPOILER: I love this. I had no idea what the Magnesis card was based on the Netflix version. The first Magnesis card was just Billy McFarland's debit card strip taped to a piece of metal the size of a credit card. When it worked, he made it big. Come on. That story is perfect. Thank you, Fyre Fraud, for putting that element in the movie because McFarland's entire life is based on taking someone else's success and then trying to put his own little spin on it. The movie addresses what McFarland did after Fyre. NYC VIP was this con that he tried where he tried to sell tickets to events that don't really have tickets. He did this while he was on bail. The thing that Fraud pointed out is that this actually how he got started. I always thought it was weird that McFarland would try to put such a basic con on immediately after getting out on bail, but it is very telling that his entire life was based around conning people. And that brings me to the interesting center of this film. The Netflix doc really sold me the idea that McFarland was a guy who kept cutting corners and depended on having a hugely optimistic / cocky attitude to get him ahead in life. He wanted Fyre Festival to work almost because a successful Fyre Fest / Fyre app would have legitimized him from con artist to entrepreneur. But Fyre Fraud, the Hulu doc, really stresses that Billy McFarland may have just been conning people that entire time too, until he was caught. Fyre Fest would never have worked and implies that McFarland might have known that it wasn't going to work. Neither even implies why he would do something so public if he knew that he was going to get caught. But I think that he was blinded by his own persona. He conned himself. He saw the potential for something awesome that was spinning out of one his cons and that's what got him. The thing that I really wanted from both films that I never really got was Ja Rule and his role in this. Fyre, the Netflix one, kind of lets him a little bit off the hook. He kind of comes across as being fleeced by this guy, but as a bit of a moron. Fyre Fraud makes him look like a bad guy, but due to criminal incompetence. Ja Rule comes across like a clown in this version, showing his appearance on a podcast infamous for getting its guests drunk. Why is Ja Rule free of this? Is he? I know that he is the public face of Fyre because he actually was famous outside of corporate circles. But Ja Rule kept going along with Billy McFarland. Every single person in all of these documentaries stress the moments where they tried to tell Billy that this wasn't going to work out...except for Ja Rule. That's because Ja Rule was in charge of this. Sure, Ja Rule isn't a businessman. But, by that logic, neither was Billy McFarland. There were a lot of people who said yes to two guys who weren't businessmen. Ja Rule is clearly not a businessman. You wanted to hang out with Ja Rule. Billy McFarland just kept failing up. And that's the message, I suppose. People are attracted to people who fail upwards. The documentary gives a list of the many many people who have scammed their ways into our hearts and how people just followed along. Fyre Fraud is the corporate takedown. Yes, this movie is about Fyre and how things quickly spun out of control. But Fyre Fraud actually has larger aspirations than simply looking at Fyre. This is a look at how every major company and movement that has risen out of nothing probably has something to hide. It gains attention from famous people being attached, even though they don't know what it means to endorse something. We get to know some of these endorsers / influencers and it's shocking to see how vapid these people are. It's bizarre. So Fyre Fest failed from a million little steps that should have been avoided. Thanks, Netflix, for bringing that up and I liked that a lot. But I need to thank Hulu for letting me know the environment where this constantly happens. The only thing that made Fyre a thing is that we all saw it fail on every media platform imaginable. I'm a little ashamed about how interesting I find the Fyre Fest. I suppose it is more healthy than the murder docs I keep getting into. No one died. The people of the Bahamas only get a little note at the end of this doc and they really are victims. But again, I find this kind of stuff fascinating. It really attacks the stuff that I love attacking. I don't know why we're obsessed with celebrity culture like we are. But sometimes, seeing jerks get their comeuppances...that's a little fun. |
Film is great. It can challenge us. It can entertain us. It can puzzle us. It can awaken us.
AuthorMr. H has watched an upsetting amount of movies. They bring him a level of joy that few things have achieved. Archives
April 2024
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