PG-13 horror. Not only that, PG-13 SLASHER horror. With the basic premise, I guess it is hard to say what the kill count is because there's a lot of death that doesn't stick. The movie is frightening. But with the premise, every time the protagonist dies, she wakes up in a bed across campus. So we never actually see the knife plunge in because she always wakes up with a smash cut. There's language and an odd homophobia behind some scenes. It's weird. 2017...it was a different time. PG-13.
DIRECTOR: Christopher Landon This was not the plan. I'm currently showing my film club Groundhog Day. We just finished Russian Doll. Then, the next movie on my to-watch pile was Happy Death Day. I don't know why I like time travel stories so much. I like every variant of them. They make my brain hurt. Ever since Groundhog Day introduced the time loop to popular culture. I tried Googling the first appearance of the time loop in fiction and I couldn't find anything but Groundhog Day, so if I could get that clarified, I'd be grateful. But Happy Death Day hits a sweet spot of time travel logic without actually being as challenging as other entries in the trope. The biggest thing that made me mad about Happy Death Day was the fact that it was spoiled for me by the sequel's trailer. I didn't search out the trailer for Happy Death Day 2 U. It was before a movie and I sat through it. In the first second of the trailer, it tells you who the killer is and their relationship to the protagonist. That wouldn't be so bad...if I hadn't purchased Happy Death Day for $5.00 at Meijer the day before. I knew that there was a sequel coming out. I knew that I liked time loop stories. It looked kind of fun, even if it would probably be a little stupid. And you know what? That's the best description I can give for the movie. It's actually really fun and it's also kind of stupid. But again, we're focusing on the fun part. That's the real takeaway. Realize this: I'm very skeptical about the PG-13 horror movie. Having a cast that looks like it is ripped from the CW. I didn't recognize anyone in the cast. The movie is packed full of archetypes. But the movie almost embraces what it is. If we put all of the teen-focused horror movies on a spectrum from dumb to smart, at the bottom we'd have something like Truth or Dare or The Nun. Again, dumb isn't bad, necessarily. I haven't seen either of those movies, but I know how to read the room. On the more intellectual front, we have Cabin in the Woods or Timecrimes. You would think that something like Happy Death Day would lean towards the former, but I think that might be a mistake. See, the characters of Happy Death Day are archetypes, thinly veiled at best. They are complete tropes. But Cabin in the Woods also plays with the idea of archetypes, so that doesn't completely fall apart. What archetypes provide is a shorthand for character development. Yeah,it's a little lazy, but I can also completely understand why a movie like Happy Death Day might want to forego real character development. This leads to a kind of icky moment in the grand scheme of things, but I'll talk about that later. When we deal with archetypes for our characters, that means that the plot has to do the heavy lifting. With such a touchstone movie such as Groundhog Day looming over this film, Happy Death Day needs to introduce some new elements to the trope. I know that television shows such as Supernatural ("Mystery Spot") have dealt with characters having to survive something trying to kill them on that day, but having such a concrete means of death is interesting. See, Groundhog Day doesn't really elaborate why Phil Connors is in his time loop until the end, and even that is inferred. Happy Death Day has a pretty solid way out of it. If she beats the bad guy, she is freed. The universe never tells her this, but it seems pretty easy to figure that out. I really like that concept. I mean, it's upsetting that she never can beat the bad guy by herself. You'd think that with the amount of prep work that she had, she'd be able to set a pretty rad trap. We get this teased a bit and it never really pans out. I think that we all think that we'd handle time loops better than the protagonists of these films, so I could complain about this all day and nothing would come of it. Happy Death Day doesn't really offer that much in terms of changing the rules. Once you wrap your head around the fact that the protagonist has a clear way out, we kind of just follow the formula. So it is not as smart as the greats, but it isn't as dumb as the other stuff. But Happy Death Day also helped me realize that there are some elements to the trope that almost are necessary. Because Phil Connors was a terrible person, apparently Tree Gelbman has to be a terrible person. (I don't know why it didn't bother me when I watched the movie, but now it seems like the worst name ever committed to film.) Tree, unlike Phil, lacks nuance. Yeah, it's pretty obvious that Bill Murray is playing his jerk character that we've seen in lots of movies. But Phil is likable from the first moments we see him. He's terrible, but in a better Bad Santa way. (I don't like Bad Santa. Sorry, but I get the archetype.) Tree is wholly unlikable. I don't know if it is a gender thing. I keep making things political and I'm sorry, but this is an analytical blog versus a standard criticism blog. While Phil Connors is a jerk, but he's a lovable jerk. He tempers himself. He says mean things, but doesn't actively do mean things. He follows a social contract. When he's confronted by Ned Ryerson on the first day, he's annoyed, but functional. When Tree is bothered by anything the first day, she is consistently terrible to people. She speaks her mind terribly. Phil rags on people he knows. Tree will obliterate anyone in her way. Yeah, the movie gives the added motivation (the same thing that Shane Black does with Christmas) of making today her birthday. Of course Tree hates her birthday. It gives her motivation to act like a terrible person. But it seems like all Time Loop stories (that put the character through extended loops) needs to have the protagonist be a bad person. Through the course of an eternity, the character learns the value of goodness from being good. I can see how Phil Connors can learn to be a better person. That actually works. But Tree is murdered everyday. Phil, while he commits suicide and has dark moments, can go to bed and live a normal life. Tree is tortured every day. I think the movie kind of shies away from that. She takes mild damage everyday, which gets worse apparently. But she should be going insane. Tonally, the movie doesn't really allow for that. In fact, the idea that she takes damage is completely wasted. It gives a sense of urgency towards solving the crime, but it doesn't really follow its own rules. I also like that she becomes a better person, but that's the part of me that really likes mindless entertainment. I said that there was a weird narrative that came out of using archetypes. The movie gives a really uncomfortable narrative on the surface. I will concede that the story here is a little more complicated, given the time loop element. But this movie has the very outdated "nice guy" archetype. Tree has an expectation that because she was drunk, it was okay to take advantage of her. She is mean to Carter, but that almost seems like it is because he is from a lower social class. When she discovers that Carter didn't take advantage of a nice girl, she's completely in love with him. That...is a dangerous message to spread. Why I kind of forgive it is because she gets to know Carter extremely well over the course of her time loop. That takes a lot of the edge off of that. But I would have liked (and this is problematic as well) that she loved Carter for getting to know him first. It might be a matter of forgiving him for, for lack of a better term, raping her. That's a very icky narrative and she might actually hate herself. When she finds out that that he didn't, that might be what puts the story in perspective. But Tree is weirdly cool with potentially being raped. Also, a lot of the story is based on the nice guy storyline. What message is that spreading? Carter is a good character because of his actions, not because he didn't take advantage of Tree. That should be universal, not something that makes him special. Carter is in love with her. That is almost stalker-y behavior. Why would he like Tree? After all, Tree has no idea who Carter is. Carter is not in the time loop. From Carter's perspective, Tree is someone who treats people terribly when she's drunk and expects people to take care of her. He's honestly just attracted to her because she's a pretty girl who seems pretty popular. Over the course of the day, once Tree reveals that she is stuck in a time loop, I can see something working out. But I think that one of the timelines has Carter and Tree sleep together and that's really weird from his point of view. The actual killer is dumb and lame. I'm saying it. The movie didn't have a good answer for why the killer is the killer. Even though Happy Death Day 2 U spoiled the ending of the first film, I'm not going to do that. The movie becomes something beyond the typical Whodunit because no one really cares who the killer is, not even the movie itself. But that's what makes Happy Death Day kind of charming. This is definitely a movie about the journey, not the ending. At one point, we actually kind of forget who Tree is looking for and it becomes this character study. There's a really bad mislead. While the actual killer is a disappointment, the fake killer would be an absolute travesty. But the movie presents a fun time. Don't invest too much into who the killer actually is. It doesn't really make a lot of sense and it isn't fleshed out. But if you want to see Groundhog Day with stabbing, then this movie offers up a good time. Remember, it's kind of dumb. But it's not THAT dumb.
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TV-MA because people are terrible. It's about drinking and girls in bikinis. An advertising agency's name is a profane word, so there's swearing throughout. Perhaps this documentary's claim to fame is a ridiculously over the top story about a sex act. That's pretty tonally on for this kind of movie. People love drinking way too much and acting like idiots. Then, there's also the element of these people being fleeced. That's the part I enjoy. Oops. I meant to say that this movie is about a tragedy. A very funny tragedy. TV-MA.
DIRECTOR: Chris Smith When this happened, I don't think I've ever hit refresh more on a news story. This makes me a terrible person. Way worse things happen on a daily basis than the events of the Fyre Festival, but it intrigued me. I can stand club culture. Seeing rich jerks (a gross overstatement) getting trapped on an island with bad, but hardly life-threatening conditions is my idea of fascinating. I will also admit that I love Hoarders and Kitchen Nightmares because I put the "J" in "ENFJ". I don't know exactly what makes the Fyre documentaries so interesting, but there is something to explore. The only problem I'm going to have is that I have to write about this twice because I also watched Hulu's entry. That's right. Within the same week, two very similar documentaries appeared on two competing streaming platforms. Fyre, as IMDB lists it, is this one. It appeared on Netflix and it is the one that is getting more press. People may argue that the Hulu one is better. I think I might discuss that more when I get to reviewing that one, but I want to talk about why this one is getting more press. There is a story in this movie that is meme worthy. It's pretty gross and really uncomfortable. If you steel yourself for this story, you'll be perfectly fine. Your imagination is probably worse than the story that is presented here. Also, if you've watched Abducted in Plain Sight, you have nothing to worry about because that is beyond imagination. But the story is fascinating regardless. It has taken over social media, so good job, Netflix! You accomplished what you planned to. You made your documentary discussable. In fact, it is really discussable. But because there are two documentaries, the very existence of these movies is actually a bit of a scandal. Pretty much the Fyre documentaries are scandal inception. There is one big problem I have with this movie and I'm not the only one. Since I'm focusing on this one, I will try to avoid discussion of the other documentary named Fyre Fraud. Fyre is a really problematic movie because of the guys who made this movie. I didn't know this when I was watching the movie. It was actually Fyre Fraud that brought it to my attention. You could almost say, "Shots...fyred?" (Boom. Nailed it. That's why I make the no bucks.) The documentary was kind of made by one of the subjects of the documentary. Yeah. I'm not talking about a documentarian who wanted to document his crazy life. No. One of the people who has a moral stake in the story made the documentary to make him / itself look better. I'm beating around the bush here, so I'm going to be very clear. Fyre was made by a company named Jerry Media. They're not actually named Jerry Media most of the time. Their fame / infamy can be found under the banner "F-Jerry." Only they add the whole word because they're rebels. Many of the memes that you may have looked at over time was probably made or stolen by Jerry Media. They have such a tight control over content that they have made it past your screens probably time and again. I really found out about these guys from Patton Oswalt and other comedians. Jerry Media makes a habit out of stealing creator content and patenting it as their own. They make it look more impressive, but they aren't known for always coming up with their own stuff. The Jerry Media guys were the people who promoted the Fyre Festival in 2016. The Netflix documentary that they produced really downplays their involvement in the entire affair. It doesn't make them look completely innocent, but they do claim to have been duped like everyone else. The other documentary does not do this. Don't give Fyre Fraud a free pass though. When I look at their documentary in a few days, they don't come out smelling like roses either. But the documentary is watchable and I even recommend you watch the movie...critically. The whole point of my blogging project is to watch movies with a critical eye and with a mind for analysis. I can tell you in a few sentences why a movie is good or bad. I'm more looking for the insight into something and Chris Smith's Fyre actually accomplishes its goal in spades. Do I feel icky that Jerry Media has their hands all over this movie? Oh, absolutely. But for an actual play-by-play of how the Fyre Festival completely fell apart, it is definitely worth a watch. Both documentaries focus primarily on con man Billy McFarland. Billy McFarland is someone I would never want to be friends with. He's obsessed with fame and wealth. I teach at a Catholic school. I'm wired very differently. McFarland is a guy who buys islands and shows off that he buys islands. But he is a con man. Part of me, after watching both documentaries, doesn't think that McFarland thinks he's a con man. McFarland has been fed a very specific story of what he thinks the American Dream is about. He sees himself as a businessman and, to be perfectly honest, probably wanted to throw a really rad festival. Yeah, money is his first concern. But from the first steps of this documentary, it seems like McFarland didn't want this to fail in any sense of the imagination. It almost seems like the failure of Fyre was karmic retribution for all of the other corners that he's cut in his career. Honestly, I think that Billy McFarland thought he was a legitimate businessman when he started planning. Everything about Billy McFarland is about getting rich quick. His ideas aren't criminal. It's about how he lies to get the capital to make these ideas work. You know how confidence is supposed to be a good thing. (Confidence, by the way, is the expanded form of "con".) Confidence in the extreme, in both senses, is toxic. Billy McFarland knew that people wouldn't give him money because people kept telling him that his ideas were terribly flawed. They weren't thought out. They had potential, but years of going back to the grindstone were needed. So he told new investors that he already had investors and capital to sustain these ideas. When people would tell him that the Fyre Festival needed a lot more time and a lot more work, he was so confident that he would dismiss their fears. Honestly, Billy McFarland is the cautionary tale about the guy who dismissed way too many cautionary tales. He actually kind of became his own hype. Because from an outside perspective, not accepting excuses from people seems like a good thing. When people tell you, "We can't do this" and you keep succeeding through sheer luck, I can see toeing that moral line. There's no point in the movie where I didn't think that Billy McFarland wanted to make the most baller party ever and that's really interesting. But this is where the Netflix documentary owns. Again, I laugh over rich kids having a bad time at a dumb, overpriced concert. The prices for the Fyre Festival were hilariously high. If you have that much money to hob knob with influencers (a term I'm now very familiar with), why not use it responsibly. I have spent lots of money on dumb stuff. I love comic book conventions. But I never thought that I would be partying with celebrities in the Bahamas. The thing that I'm really concerned with that the Netflix documentary succeeds at is the actual victims of the Fyre Festival: the people of the Bahamas. There's an odd feeling that I get when I go on vacation. When I have gone to resorts or cruises, I am living a life of luxury that I don't experience regularly. Resorts are known for their perfection. But almost a mile from any resort is some of the greatest poverty that has ever existed. Fyre brings the attention to these people. While rich entitled tools wanted to hang out with a Kardashian, the people of the Bahamas worked day and night to make the Fyre Festival work. At the center of the documentary is a restaurant owner who spent more money on food than should ever be spent. She had to dip into her rainy day fund to pay employees and cover the food that was consumed by work teams and early visitors. She was never reimbursed. While I can laugh all day at how trust fund kids lost a bunch of money on something stupid, my heart breaks for these people who opened their island to these crews who never even put up the show. So many people were stuck with the bill. There are moments in the film where the Fyre people talk about bravely escaping the island disguised in clothing that was not there. They huddled down in trucks and snuck onto airplanes. They smuggled themselves out of the Bahamas and we're supposed to be cheering because they weren't Billy McFarland. C'mon, really? Yeah, Billy McFarland is the bad guy of this story. There were so many people warning him not to do the Fyre Festival given that timetable. Like so many. So what is the message? While it is fun to completely dunk on 20-somethings who spent way too much on concert tickets, the idea is that there is a real victim to stuff like that. It's the idea that the poor always catch the short end of the stick for the rich. There are real victims. Yeah, Netflix wants me to feel bad for the concert goers. But that kind of stuff really hits the same spot for me as true crime documentaries. Because I'm a broken person inside, I can distance myself from those events and those people. It's when it comes to the reality of the individual that I get sad and question what it is all for. I went into Fyre with the same itch that I have when I watch The Staircase, but Fyre actually really got me more in some way. Yeah, I'm actually terrible. So what is the point of watching the Netflix version? The Netflix version is really about the Fyre Fest first and foremost and Billy McFarland secondly. The Hulu doc is focused on the man and how that got out of control. A big takeaway was the concept of the influencer. Man, we have really become terrible as a culture, haven't we? A few years ago, I would have told you that I've always wanted to live in this era. Video games are great. I can eat any kind of foot I want because it just gets weirder all the time. But then we also live in a world where we encourage people to be famous for fame's sake. I know, ragging on the Kardashians is low hanging fruit. But that low hanging fruit is starting to affect reality. I am getting kind of old. It's weird that I'm not one of the young teachers anymore. I have been out of touch for a while now and I never really get onto the social media train (check back at this blog regularly for new content and don't forget to hit that "Share" button" on your social media platform.) Why do people flock to an island because people tell them to? Fyre wasn't a festival that had infamy. It wasn't built on its content. It was built on the idea that famous people who were paid to say that they love this kind of stuff. AND THEN THEY THEMSELVES FELL FOR IT! Critique isn't about content anymore. It's about the right voice saying that they approve or disapprove of something without actually having seen it. Why are there influencers? I know that, back in the day before he became kind of gross, Joss Whedon used to like stuff. I tended to like that. But this was intellectual properties. This would be stuff that resonated with his audiences. These influencers simply are popular on YouTube and Instag--oh. I just realized I am an old man. But maybe I'm right about being an old man. I have a student who wants me to ask a director I will be interviewing about Pewdiepie. Seriously? I don't care. I don't care at all about him. I want to ask about the art and the quality of the art, not what some celebutant thinks about a festival that they haven't experienced. Both documentaries are worth seeing, but both are very problematic in themselves. Regardless, if you want to see exactly what happened specifically with Fyre Festival, check this one out. Keep an eye out at this page for Fyre Fraud in a few days. Until then, it's worth the watch. Literally Anything: Episode Sixty-Nine -Literally The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot3/5/2019 A movie with the coolest title in the world. But is it any good? Listen to the boys' discussion of The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot.
http://literallyanything.net/blog/2019/3/5/episode-69-the-man-who-killed-hitler-and-then-the-bigfoot PG-13, but it oddly might be the most okay one of the group. Sure, one character's eyes explode in tiny fireballs and there are multiple characters who are eaten alive by swarms of giant ants. There's language, there's violence, there's racism. But that racism is far less than the other movies in the series. Indy is old, so there's no time to get wildly offensive. Oh, I suppose that the movie implies that there was some premarital sex going on. But this is a pretty acceptable PG-13.
DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg Yeah, Steven Spielberg doesn't think that Netflix films are real films. I don't care what he thinks, but it is weird that I'm reviewing a movie that is currently on Netflix right now. (Again, this is a travesty considering that I just got my Indiana Jones Blu-ray box set.) When this movie came out, I was taken aback. It needed to be great. It needed to be. And then it wasn't. Then I saw it again and I made my peace with the fact that it wasn't as bad as I thought it was the first time, but it was still pretty terrible. The problem with that opinion is that it let me ignore this movie for a really long time and that opinion festered into a hatred of this movie once again. So what is the correct opinion? It was my second opinion. This movie isn't as terrible as everyone remembers it. But it is still a pretty bad movie. I know that I'm a sucker like everyone else out there. If a beloved trilogy ever decides to do a fourth entry after the trilogy has been closed up and wrapped up nicely, that fourth entry is usually a trash sandwich. If today, Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis decided to do Back to the Future IV, I should know to lower my expectations. But I can't. Despite the fact that Scream 4, Alien: Resurrection, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull are all the weakest entry in the franchise, I still fall for this. Why is that? Part of it comes from the problems that my students are facing with the new Star Wars movies. These are not their movies anymore. These movies are made for everyone else beside them. It's what problem I had with the Star Wars prequels: those movies were not for me. I get it now in my old age. But I don't know who Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was made for, besides the fans. That's possibly a warning for all of us fans. Fans need to stop bullying people into making another thing in the thing we like list. This forces me to ask a question of myself? Do I want to live in a world where Crystal Skull doesn't exist? When I asked myself that rhetorical question, I said that I would prefer that it did exist. But really, I don't know. I like having the things I like. While I prefer the old series of Star Trek movies, I don't hate the Kelvinverse. At least I'm getting Star Trek in some form. But Crystal Skull is an example of a film that kind of mars a nearly perfect franchise. I know people hate on Temple of Doom, but that movie is insanely watchable. Instead, Crystal Skull is something to root for that keeps dropping the ball. I keep watching that movie and there are parts that are completely great. It reminds me of what Indiana Jones movies set out to do. But then there are moments that are just so cornball and awful that make me cringe just thinking of them. The film is pretty great in the beginning. I know I'm not the first person to say this, but I really want to stress this. The movie is good until the nuke-the-fridge moment. People complain about CG prairie dogs. I actually kind of like them. I'm also a guy who doesn't hate Ewoks, so you can write me off pretty quickly. The movie is fun and it sets an amazing tone for this new Indy movie. It has the feel of the old movies, but also firmly roots itself in the culture of the new era. I really wanted to know what was the intention of some of the goofier elements of this film. I know that I should be cool with it, but I really don't love the alien stuff. It really seems...goofy? I don't know why Indiana Jones can't be goofy. Every other element of these movies is a little bit silly. Giving Indiana Jones aliens to deal with just drives me up the wall. I know. I'm a bad person that needs to move on with his life. But I watched the special features. I heard the justification. I even liked the justification. It's just that the delivery somehow seemed lacking. I know that the '50s were UFO crazy. If Indiana Jones was the product of the action adventure serials of the '20s, '30s, and '40s, it only makes sense that the late '50s would shift that narrative to the B-movie alien menace. Add to the fact that this is the same era that would see films like The Day the Earth Stood Still added to our cultural zeitgeist. But if you watch those old action adventure serials that Indy is based on, you would realize that Indiana Jones is the far superior product. Indiana Jones is a great series of movies. Some of those B-movie alien films are actually pretty good. So if Spielberg and Lucas made a bad series of films good, why can they not take some pretty decent material and turn it great? It don't know. Because of these moments, there are times where I'm really rooting for this movie to be great. Because it actually does have some pretty great moments throughout the film. I don't think it comes down to Harrison Ford being too old for the part. Yeah, there's times where I have to squint to see the Indiana Jones that I know and love, but he's mostly there. But the Russians. Man, every time the Russians show up, they just want to be the Nazis so hard. I'm cool with the Russians being the villains. I have enough Bond movies under my belt to be okay with that. It's just the Boris and Natasha version of the Russians that is so absurd. Cate Blanchett's Irina Spalko...is rough. I know. The Nazis got some pretty fast and loose personalities. But I can't even handle it. It seems like when they are on screen, the movie just loses something. And then, Indy uses a snake as a rope? And Mutt Williams swings with monkeys? And Mutt Williams exists? It's a lot to take in. I kind of want to look at some of these moments that don't work. The character interactions aren't bad. Some of the tomb raiding stuff works. I want to like the motorcycle chase and I can't think of anything actively bad about it. But the weaker moments are just so weak. The problem I always had with the fridge stuff isn't the nuclear fallout. I oddly am okay with that. The movie established a rule. Lead prevents radiation sickness. Okay, it's a fast and loose rule, but it is on the same level as Limitless science. If you establish rules, I can kind of follow them. But Indy gets launched, like, a mile in the air. He comes down. He should be Indiana Jones puree. It's just the moment that kills it for me in a lot of action films. It's the moment when the protagonist becomes unkillable. The rest of the action doesn't work for me then. The Charlie's Angels movies constantly do that. Live Free or Die Hard does that. Now, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull also does it and I don't like it one bit. Then there's Mutt Williams. I get the temptation to pass the baton to another Indiana Jones SPOILER especially when his name is Henry Jones III. Mutt Williams is an attempt to make a different Indiana Jones using the same rules. Part of why I like Indy is that he's educated. He seems like a brute, but he's actually remarkably educated. He makes his intellect an important part of his utility belt. (Mixing metaphors...I get it.) Mutt has some of that knowledge coupled with street smarts. But in every watching of that movie, I keep tensing up at the idea that Actual Cannibal Shia Labeouf (Also referred to as "Shia The Beef") would be helming that franchise. He just seems so vapid. I know that Indiana Jones isn't a deep well. But throwing Indy a kid kind of seems lazy. Is there a necessity to have Indy and Marion broken up. Because the surprise of Mutt is supposed to be there, Indy can't know about him. I know that I'm supposed to lose my mind when Marion Ravenwood walks into the movie, but she really feels like a second class character in this film. She, somehow, is way less fleshed out than she was in Raiders of the Lost Ark. I don't know how the movie did it, but it took a character that I really liked and somehow neutered her. I want a real Marion movie and I don't feel like I really got it here. And the monkeys? Oy, the monkeys! There's fun and then there is silly. That crosses way over into silliness. It's just that there's more silliness and odd choices than good film. These aren't moments that are rough. The movie is almost split in half and that's no good. But then again, do I still see Indiana Jones? I didn't hate the movie. It was a movie that I knew wasn't very good and I still found entertainment from that. I don't think I'm the first person to notice that Steven Spielberg has cut back on some of his tentpole blockbuster movies. I think there's a reason for that. After seeing Ready Player One, there's something in these movies that kind of seems cold. Those original blockbuster films seem loved and cared for. These more recent entries, in the advent of digital playscapes, somehow seem uncared for. It is almost like Spielberg is trying to capture the majesty of his youth and somehow failing. But it is still an Indiana Jones movie. It doesn't quite succeed at some of its quests, but it is still worthy to see the attempt. I can't help but try to make the comparison to my favorite entry in the franchise, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Indy replacing Sean Connery's character doesn't quite work as well. Henry Jones, Sr. was a really great character to understand. We saw a flashback of what made Dad tick and that pays off when they are adults. We only get a quick introduction to that character in Last Crusade, but it is effective. Mutt's identity is kept a secret for a large percentage of Crystal Skull. We are mostly told that Indy would be a good father, but we don't see him coming to terms with that. In fact, he seems to be a know-it-all about fatherhood when it does show up. (I started this paragraph talking about why Crystal Skull works and now look at me!) It just has these moments that are so promising, and then it keeps making a lot of really hardcore mistakes that are unforgivable. The snake? I'm sorry, but I have to come back to it. It doesn't even look good in the film. That area looks like a set. There's no real danger there. It is the most boring sequence in the movie. It isn't even funny. There's just a lot of these moments that I have to just say "It's fine." And sometimes, "It's fine" is the worst thing I can say about a classic franchise. Not rated, but I think that's just because it fell under the radar. There's some violence and language. I mean, "killed" is in the title. I suppose that we should take something from that. Most of the violence is pretty standard until the bigfoot fight. The bigfoot fight makes the fighting a little gross. Bigfoot's fighting style involves pulling and ripping and breaking. But I should put some of this in context. The movie is very quiet and introspective, so don't expect a ton of violence.
DIRECTOR: Robert D. Kryzkowski This is the kind of film I enjoy writing about. There's some stuff I have to figure out about this movie. I tried figuring these things out on my podcast. The episode comes out tomorrow, so I probably won't link it anywhere here. But The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot is almost a study in someone playing a prank on me. Somehow, the movie is both the most self-aware movie and the least self-aware movie that I've ever seen. Kryzkowski has to know what his title evokes, right? I'm absolutely certain. I don't know why I'm attaching the question afterwards. Kryzkowski told himself that he was going to write a movie with one of the most gutsy titles ever and then he was going to make it a small film. The gall on this man, right? I kind of love it. I don't love the movie. I think it's fine and I'll argue with anyone who absolutely hates it. It's not a perfect film, but there is a big practical joke being played on everyone who watches this movie. I suppose I'm beating around the bush because I don't really know how to address what is going on. With a title like The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot, there is an certain expectation that this movie is going to be absolutely insane. It evokes feelings of grindhouse filmmaking and b-movie schlock. Even though there is nothing that officially says that this is going to be an ultraviolent movie, I think we all expect something along the lines of Shoot 'Em Up or Natural Born Killers. The title is super rad and on the nose. Instead, the movie is a quiet "think-piece." I don't want to stand by that because "think-piece" is giving the movie way too much credit. But the intention of the movie is to make you think about what the characters are going through rather than waiting for the next moment of insane violence. Yeah, there's violence. But it is all rather tame violence, which makes me think of something very specific. I kind of feel like the movie is trying to punk me. I know I'm not alone when I came into this movie ready to laugh and cheer at the absurdity in front of me. But the movie presents all of the events like a straight up drama. The violence is there just to tell the story. If you were expecting a grindhouse b-movie, you instead got a movie where the violence is really restrained and used exclusively to push the story forward. It is the opposite of exploitation. If you wanted Bubba Ho-Tep, you didn't get it. I get the feeling like the director is sitting over my shoulder and daring me to laugh. If I laugh, I get scolded for not being deep and the think that he's laughing is that I'm not allowed to laugh. It's a very cruel game and I kind of like it. Sam Elliott, the titular character, did kill Hitler. Light spoiler: He does kill The Bigfoot. But all of this almost seems like an afterthought. This is all intentional. I refuse to let the director off the hook, but I will tell you what it seems like. The director got you through the door with the promise of a movie about a guy who did two of the most bombastic fictional things in history and then the turn happens. It's not about violence. Well, it is. But the story is about introspection. It's about life's choices and dying. It's about what mistakes one makes during life. Before I talk about the quality of that execution, I kind of like the bait-and-switch. Bravo, The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot. You did something that I wouldn't have the guts to do and you kind of did it as a prank. Before I go too deep into this, the execution is impressive, but not amazing. This movie presents itself to be one of the great historical dramas, despite its absurd premise. But it also feels only okay. Only okay is not allowed for this kind of movie. When this movie doesn't really go into the annals of cinema, there's no surprise why. It is full of "impressive-to-be-impressive" moments. It's a combination of scenes that look artsy-fartsy and therefore it is artsy-fartsy. (I like it. But I don't love it.) But if it is an introspection, I guess I have to analyze the choices of content when it comes to character development. As an aged gentleman, Calvin, played by Sam Elliott, hates what he has done with his life. He carries the burden of killing Hitler with him. The thing that really adds fuel to the fire is that he isn't really allowed to talk about killing Hitler because our history is his history. The assassination of Hitler was apparently a conspiracy because it had no effect on the war. Calvin has done what was thought impossible and no one ever cared. This creates something that I really like. What if you sold your soul for a noble cause? What if, once this noble cause was performed, nobody cared. The Man Who Killed Hitler would make a really interesting movie. The Bigfoot stuff is what kind of stands in the way. As an assassin, Calvin had to witness marches to the death camp. He was undercover. He had the skills to free these people, but in that scenario, Hitler would live. He saw all of these atrocities and he had to sacrifice it all for something that was ultimately fruitless. This is where Kryzkowski kind of drops the ball. I had to meet him more than halfway to get this interpretation. There's a scene where Calvin as a young man walks innocently, disguised as an SS officer, between a line of Jews being herded onto trains. Because he is undercover, he is not allowed to show emotion. As an older Calvin, Sam Elliott seems uncomfortable with the things that he has done. I had to make that leap that it was moments like walking amongst the trains that really messed him up in the long run. There needs to be a direct connection. I'm kind of imbuing Calvin with this moment because I'm trying to give these moments meaning. These scenes are in the movie for a reason. What I honestly think is going on is that there is an expectation placed upon the war film. There have to be certain scenes in the movie if the war film is to be taken seriously. But this moment seems distantly removed from the protagonist's inner conflict. Instead, the film vocalizes Calvin's angst at taking someone else's life. I get that. I don't deny that is the central issue to Calvin. But why would Calvin be carrying this weight on his shoulders when no one else would? Wouldn't many soldiers be dealing with this issue? If Calvin's big beef was that he never could cope with the killing, that's something that he should be working through in a support group. The fact that it is Hitler is arbitrary. But, if the connection was that he made some absolutely soul killing sacrifices to get to Adolf Hitler and nobody cared, there's a story there? And that's where the disconnect kind of happens. Kryzkowski puts a lot of pieces in front of us and doesn't really connect them. There's this great scene that goes on for a bit too long in the first half of the movie. A Russian is shaving Calvin with a straight edged razor. This isn't the first time I've seen this scenario in a movie and hopefully it won't be my last (RIP: Tim Hruszkewycz, whose last review was The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot. What a dismount!). It's really well shot, but it ultimately has no connection into the inner conflict. Instead, it is just a scene that war movies contain. There is a way to make this movie and make it really good. Sure, it's gutsy. I want to talk about how gutsy it is in a minute, but what makes a good movie isn't what scenes are in it. It is how everything contributes to the overall story. In high school, I wanted to film Hamlet. In my head, I could film a movie that was cinema quality on my parents' camcorder. (Now you know how old I am.) But in my head, it was a series of rad shots. I know how that film would turn out, even if I had the technical prowess to pull it off. It would feel wildly disjointed because I would have tonally weird moments because not everything contributed to the whole. Instead of the bombastic Hamlet that I would have made, Kryzkowski kind of makes the movie that is full of Oscar clips. You know when someone is up for an award and it shows a clip of how glorious the movie actually is? Those clips are great because they are the culmination of a lot of scenes intricately woven together. Yes, that scene is awesome because we've earned that scene through many other scenes. Rather, these are really well made scenes that just kind of are in there. I'm already doing more of the work by writing this much about these scene. Think of your Tom, Dick, and Harries out there. Sure, a movie like The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot is bound to get more blog space than other movies because it is only film snobs who go to see these movies. But a solid movie like this should require thought, but not heavy lifting. It should be argued about, not forced to make logical jumps. I was talking about how gutsy it is to make this movie. It's target audience is bound not to like it. But there's another element that makes it a little bit weird. There's a few movies that really try to do this and I'm intrigued what inspires people to make movies like this. I think there's a Kickstarter for a game called "Pitch Me" or something like that. The game gives a series of Apples to Apples style cards and the combination of cards gives a loose plot. The plot should be absurd. But the point of the game is to pitch a detailed version of that script that may make it seem plausible. You want someone to buy your movie. Now, considering this is a game, the point is to not actually pitch a movie like that. When we pitch, I imagine that you want something that can actually be pulled off. I'm sure that filmmakers aren't trying to create hoops for themselves to jump through. Regular filmmaking is hard enough, so why add the extra steps between here and a good movie. But that's what a few movies like this are actually doing. They add these bombastic challenges to the story and the only thing that we actually applaud is if they pulled it off. In this case, Kryzkowski wanted to make a movie where we got past the sense of irony clearly apparent in the premise and sat down to enjoy a movie that stood on its own two feet. I don't know. Yeah, Kryzkowski showed he could make a cinematically pretty movie. But that giant obstacle is constantly there to remind us that the movie is premise. Technically, it did its job. But by setting such a high bar, it is actually lowering the bar for overall cultural penetration. Instead, the movie kind of just becomes this gimmick that is worth watching, but not really worth remembering. Technical achievement is great. But few people watch for the impressiveness of a movie. There should be something masterful about every element of the film and that's not really here. TV-14. Wait, that can't be right. TV-14? Like, an episode of Arrow or Supergirl is on the same level as this movie? I'm going to make it very clear, this movie needed to be a hard-R. Like, a real hard R. There's so much graphic description of many, many sex acts that it is insane that this movie is listed as TV-14. When I found out my students had seen this, I was shocked. Honest to Pete, this might be one of the most hardcore true crime stories I've ever seen. TV-14? Puh-leeze.
DIRECTOR: Skye Borgman I like the original title better. I know. Controversial. You weren't ready for me to come out swinging like I did, but there you have it. It was originally named Forever 'B'. Yeah. That's got some meat to it. But I'm already off topic and I haven't even really started talking about the movie. Since I write a lot and I know that I have a few people who actually really read my stuff, besides you Spambot. (I know you just skim, Spambot. I'm just happy for the traffic numbers.) I've talked about my wife's love of good true crime stories. I've also really learned to get into them. See, spouses help us grow! The best of the true crime docs really somehow penetrate the cultural zeitgeist and trend super hard. Considering that this movie existed since 2017, I find it funny that the move to Netflix is what made everyone lose their minds. The thing is...this might be the most insane true crime documentary I have ever seen. PLEASE WATCH THE DOCUMENTARY BEFORE READING ON. GO IN TOTALLY BLIND. IT IS THE MOST INSANE DOCUMENTARY I'VE SEEN. In terms of quality of documentary, I'm sorry Director Skye Borgman (a clearly made up name). This is some flimsy stuff. It's a few steps above Unsolved Mysteries or The E! True Hollywood Story. Part of what doesn't work for me, besides the opening font that just murders my soul, is how the re-enactments are presented. Sure, do re-enactments. Everyone does. I don't love them, but I also get that they pad out the film nicely while keeping the audience engaged. But the performances in this are made to look like they were shot on Super-8 to match the actual evidence presented. The events took place in the early '70s. Photos of the family and videos of Jan Broberg are used throughout. But then, Borgman got the exact same look for footage of her actors. It's actually kind of an impressive feat because usually that stuff looks like hot trash. But it looks good enough that it actually diminishes the footage that is real. Okay, that seems petty minor. But then there's the idea that I couldn't get out of my brain. Since Super-8 is meant to capture home movies, why would some of this stuff get filmed? Why would I want to see B making threatening phone calls if I was making home movies? Who is filming the most uncomfortable guys' time from the backseat? Do we really want these memories for later when we're loading up the reel-to-reel? It's an example of an idea that is executed perfectly that really actually detracts from the film as a whole. But you do not watch for the re-enactments. The re-enactments are a pact between the filmmaker and the audience. There are expectations of how a documentary is supposed to look and Borgman kind of covers herself with that element of the film. I want to give what props Borgman deserves before I get rolling because there is one simple fact that I can't shake: this movie sells itself. Instead of setting up a sense of normality, like most documentaries do, only to have that normality stolen, Abducted in Plain Sight goes the other way with it. Within two minutes of the film starting, the movie dives right into the kidnapping. Yeah, the narrative jumps all over the place and we have some parts of the story told in flashback. But this movie moves like I haven't seen a documentary do. When I was watching the film, I kept pausing it and my jaw kept dropping. I know I'm not the only one to have that reaction based on on the memes I've seen about this story. My wife thought that I was doing a bit; that this was my schtick. What I thought I was getting into was a story that was going to scare me into taking care of my kids every second of the day, making sure that I would be constantly watching them every moment of their lives. Quite the opposite. (Those kids can do anything they want. Okay, I'm joking, but I don't want to lose momentum to explain.) Instead, I was reading where the wind was blowing. Instead of being a story about how any kid can and will get abducted, the story quickly reveals itself to be...if you are the worst parent ever. I don't know what it took to get the Brobergs on board for this documentary. You know know, I do know. The reason that the Brobergs are so forthcoming with this documentary is because they feel absolutely terrible with how badly they handled every step of the kidnappings. That's right, plural kidnappings. This movie is their attempt at atonement. From moment one, you realize that the Brobergs are as mild-mannered as humanly possible. They live possibly the most sheltered lives that have ever existed. Honestly, they are Buddy the Elf-level naive when it comes to parenting or handling crisis. The thing about the whole movie is that they never really learn how to deal with bad things until everything is kind of over. This is a movie where you scream at your television. The first thing that happens when Jan disappears is that they wait four days before calling the police. They don't want to bother anyone. You know that whole "First 48 hours" bit? Yeah, the police weren't involved until 96 hours or so. That's the least dumb thing that they do throughout the piece. The movie tries to give cultural context for some of their actions, mainly surrounding the idea that pedophilia didn't really exist in the '70s. I don't know if that's necessarily true. But it really pushes that story, so let's move on from there. But the movie becomes this absolutely chaotic web of "why are you making this decision?" and "that's the worst decision anyone could have made". A possible takeaway is that people don't really know how they would react if they live under a rock their entire lives. Bob and Mary Ann are the kind of people who post unverified clickbait as news stories on Facebook. They think that the world is one thing. Also, there's something absolutely troubling about the Brobergs. These are two people who are manipulated into doing things that go against everything that they say that they want. Bob's relationship with B seems like he can't even understand it today. Mary Ann's relationship with B actually makes me angry. I never doubt whether or not the Brobergs loved Jan, but their actions make me very callous to their situations. I wonder how they are living right now. We are all aware that the world is a terrible place and people have to be sending awful messages (death threats?) to these parents. But that just reaffirms that they are woefully naive about how the works. It's sad and upsetting and a bunch of other stuff. It's a story of people who want to live a quiet life free of the devil and the devil keeps on coming back. There are documentaries that make me question the validity of the true crime genre. Abducted in Plain Sight seems to play up the idea that this story needs to be told. We watched Making a Murderer, The Staircase, and The Jinx. I always felt a little crummy finding entertainment on the death of real people. It's almost a new thing to experience the story of Jan Broberg. Jan survived. She is the lead point of testimony in this movie. While her parents seem dangerously ignorant of how the world works, Jan had to grow up remarkably young. She seems to understand more than most about what is appropriate and how this is going to be understood. She now is a leader in speaking out about child abuse and sexual abuse. From her perspective, this movie is drawing attention and acting as a cautionary tale about pedophilia. Jan is also an actress. She may not be a celebrity, but she's done her fair share of movies. Jan has lived out in the world. But there's something almost more gross when there is a survivor. Instead of distancing ourselves from the victim because we can only glean from testimony and evidence, we have Jan's actual perspective. We have her words and her thoughts about what was going on at the time. So Jan stays a little girl. Yeah, adult Jan is telling about her childhood. But we have her voice and her experiences after the fact. She's narrating the real thoughts of this girl going through this trauma. None of this is imagined. Instead, it is very earnest and scary. Maybe it is the parent in me, but I wanted to save Jan. I wanted to fix all of the mistakes that her parents made. I wanted that FBI guy to take complete control and let things play out the way that they were supposed to the first time. Jan as an advocate is an inspiration, but she's also a grim reminder that Jan was a real person. It does the same thing that Anne Frank does. We know the real experiences. It's troubling. Abducted in Plain Sight is cultural cannon fodder. While it might be the least sophisticated of the true crime documentaries I have seen, it goes right for the heart for things I want to talk about. If I hear that someone has seen it, I instantly want to get in on that conversation. Does that make it right? Something in my conscience says no, but I can't honestly justify that. This movie is fascinating and shocking. And if you've seen it, come and talk. Apparently, it is what I crave. |
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
May 2024
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