Rated R. It's got a lot of drinking. I think Andy Samberg is always holding some kind of alcohol through the movie. Okay, except when he wakes up. There's sexuality throughout. There's some actually pretty intense violence in the story. I mean, with all of these elements, you know that there's some language as well. Oh, a goat dies a pretty horrible death, thankfully off-screen. But, you know, this is all R-rated fare.
DIRECTOR: Max Barbakow I was super excited for this to be good and it was! (I have lost all sense of writing hooks. I just say what I feel and it is published for the Internet to see.) There are few things that I like more than good time travel comedies. Okay, they don't really have to be comedies, but really well done time travel is something that makes me really excited. In recent years, there have been a handful of movies that have attempted to remake Groundhog Day. Some movies work better than others. To a certain extent, these movies live or die based on how the time loop is resolved. God bless, Groundhog Day because they established the trope, so their escape clause is the one that works the best. Groundhog Day never bothered to try to explain why there was a time loop, but we all know that when Phil Connors became a good human being, he was able to leave the time loop. The problem for the copiers? They can't have people exit the same way. While Groundhog Day may have done the heavy lifting for the formula, it also left a void for the solution. After all, you can't do the same thing twice. Palm Springs works because it is hyper aware of its major challenge. It can go the way of Edge of Tomorrow and give a massive sci-fi answer. Or it can actually think of the problem and offer something new. I want to dance around this and write 10,000 words leading up to the ending of the film, but I'm just going to come out and say it: having Sarah becomes an expert on time travel is the smartest ending that I've ever seen for a film. I remember reading some interview with Harold Ramis while he was making Groundhog Day. I think he implied that Phil Connors spent tens of thousands of years in his time loop and we only saw snippets of the entire thing. When The Good Place finale happened, I remember being wildly depressed with the concept that eternity, by its very existence, would be soul crushing. Regardless of how happy an eternity could be, the notion of mental and spiritual immortality would ultimately be more of a burden than a joy. The end resulted in something that really dipped its toes into the euthanasia debate, probably more than I was comfortable with. But Palm Springs exists in a post-Good Place world. It took Harold Ramis's really dark backstory for Groundhog Day and the philosophy that The Good Place offered in its finale and really thought about what true immortality would look like. There's something truly amazing about the era we live in for popular culture. (Popular culture and art thrive in eras of turmoil and oppression.) I can preach Groundhog Day and The Good Place all day, but Palm Springs also owes a bit to the Lord and Miller masterpiece, The Last Man on Earth. There's something truly joyful about the lovable loser being stuck with complete freedom against his will. There's no alternative for these characters. These are people who have been trapped by the knowledge that society has rules. When given freedom to do anything they want, they become the weirdest form of the terrible person. The concept of morality and ethics, free of a God who has written a moral code into the fabric of the universe. The response to a world without purpose and consequence is to do everything that meets one's whims. Now, this can get to a really dark place. Palm Springs kind of touches on this. Nyles does about everything he wants to do. He's depressed at the beginning of the film and has sex almost out of expectation to do so. He loathes Misty, so this moment is more bleak in context. Bless the director for starting Nyles well into his time-loop, by the way. I don't need to have the characters coming to grips with the idea that time has no meaning anymore. Everyone else does that. I don't need to see Uncle Ben die again. But think about Nyles's moral code. He still does things that are pretty much awful. He sleeps with everyone he can. He ruins weddings and is in a constant state of drunkenness. Yet, he still has some degree of moral code. Now, I can't prove that Nyles didn't do this in some version of the timeline. After all, we know that he's been injured enough to be put in the ICU. We also know that he's attempted suicide multiple times. But it really seems like Nyles chooses not to hurt people simply to hurt people. When Sarah discovers that in some versions of the time-loop, they had slept together, Nyles unveils his moral philosophy. He understands that, even though there are no consequences for his actions, choosing to hurt another human being. As goofy as Nyles is and worthy of judgment as he appears to be, Nyles is actually pretty evolved. The movie actually teases the elements from the film that Nyles has been in this time loop for an unfathomable amount of time. Yet, he is the kind of guy who has given himself rules. The movie, while funny, outwardly seems like a pretty pessimistic situation. After all, both protagonists have attempted suicide in the hopes that they can escape the hell that is repetition. But the fact that given possible centuries of repetition, Nyles understand that everything has value, despite lacking consequence. He's not free from temptation or breaking his own rules. He's not God, by any means. But he understand that even repetition deserves some degrees of respect. The movie even tackles the uncomfortable elements that Passengers tried to attempt. Nyles, while ultimately on the side of angels, does some horrible things. Roy, perhaps part of Nyles's dark night of the soul, tricks him into immortality. It's weird the dynamic between these characters. Nyles still comes across as the hero of immortality, despite his abuse of the system. Roy, although deserving to want vengeance, is the antithesis of Nyles. Filled with cruelty, Roy's repetitive bloodlust shows the potential that this repetition provides. But to confirm the ultimately optimistic view of humanity, even Roy grows. Sure, it's because Nyles has a vulnerable moment. But still, he learns to appreciate what he has, not what he has lost. And Nyles actually has a greater investment in aging. Not seeing his daughter age is kind of a thing. That's a dark thought. But then he also gets to have his family, forever, on a good day. That's fantastic. I actually have a Palm Springs time travel question. No one will answer it because no one read this far. But Nyles and Sarah have a great day together. In the course of the day, Sarah falls asleep, but Nyles stays awake. Sarah wakes up. Where is she? You can invert the characters. Do the characters have to be asleep on the same day? Will Sarah reset to a previous version of the character that wasn't in the timeloop? I'm very confused by this and I need answers. Anyway, I really liked this movie. Groundhog Day will always be Groundhog Day. I will love that movie forever. But I loved that this movie took the premise, but stayed away from the the tone and message of the original film. These are copies without the laziness that could come with it. It's a great formula, but the story has room to grow.
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PG, because a group of beloved animated detectives who investigate fake ghosts investigate some real demons and open the underworld to a unknowable Hell dimension. The very nature of Scooby-Doo is a weird concept, especially when they get to the movies. The movies are just completely cool with undoing the narrative of the show and explain that demons and ghosts are, indeed, real. There's some cartoonish violence and peril, and I kind of remember some innuendo. But I could be grafting that innuendo into a movie that doesn't really have it. PG.
DIRECTOR: Tony Cervone Why am I a sucker for a deal? When quarantine started, I remembered that Scoob! was one of the first movies to move to digital instead of a theatrical release. It feels so new to me. So when it showed up on HBO Max this quickly, I thought, "ALL RIGHT KIDS! FAMILY MOVIE NIGHT!" I don't know what in me did that, shy of the feeling of getting a sweet deal. I never really got into Scooby-Doo. The trailer did nothing for me. But golly, I ended up being super excited to watch it. There are so many movies out there, but I got excited for this? Why? What is wrong with me? Is it possible to have nostalgia for something that you were never really into? I mean, everyone I know liked Scooby-Doo. My current students? They like Scooby-Doo. I don't get it. It always seemed cheaply made (oh, I get why people don't like Doctor Who right now. My world is falling apart.) Anyway, there are moments, and I don't understand at all why this happened, when I got choked up when watching Scoob!. It wasn't in moments where the story was particularly poignant or anything. It wasn't because there was something I learned about myself. It was because they recreated the opening theme of Scooby-Doo, Where are You? digitally. Yeah, something in the back of my brain is really screwed up because I almost wept for how beautiful it was. A reminder from a few sentences ago: I NEVER LIKED SCOOBY-DOO! I will say that the opening credits theme was a bop, but that's about the extent of my joy for the series. The insane thing is that I knew what I was signing up for. While it looks like Scoob! threw a bunch of money at the movie, reviews said that Scoob! wasn't that great. I can see what they are going with. The movie itself is insane. There's a desperate need by the folks at Warner Brothers, in particular their animated division, to make Scooby-Doo a bigger brand than it is. It has cultural permeability and brand recognition. But the Scooby stories are always kind of trash. The gag within the show is that every episode kind of ends the same way. There's never a shock. It's the gimmick of the show. But one of the major concepts behind the show is that "ghosts aren't real." Mystery, Inc. will run into phony after phony and it is their job to debunk the lies that happen. That's the point. But every movie, for some reason, has the gang fighting actual ghosts. It's a really muddied message. What ends up kind of happening is that there ends up being a lot of history behind Mystery Inc's adventures, but not a lot of mythology. That's maybe what is irking me with Scoob! in general. I think I drifted into my answers. Scoob! plays up on the long history of the television series and all of its iterations. (Okay, mostly it is a love letter to Hanna-Barbera, but I'll move on.) It feels like an anniversary movie, very much like Star Trek Beyond and Skyfall did. We see the origins of Shaggy and Scooby, which is adorable. We get a montage of previous villains that were defeated by Mystery, Inc. But we also know that none of those adventures really mattered. I also really get the vibe that the events of this story don't matter ultimately. Tomorrow, Velma is going to tell Shaggy and Scooby that there's no such thing as ghosts. Life will go back to normal and nothing is going to be affected. The movie gets this grandiose feel about it. After all, this has to be the biggest adventure that Mystery, Inc. has ever been involved with, despite the fact that only Shaggy and Scooby are dealing with the lion's share of the adventure. To amp it up, there's a cameo by poor-voice actor Simon Cowell. Then, the pantheon of Hanna-Barbera characters show up, which is a whole other thing. There's magic and superheroes. Everything is being thrown at the wall to make this movie feel more epic than it really should be. The irony of it is, the most effective part of the story is the part where none of that is happening. The movie starts with a young Shaggy about to meet his best friend. He's this lonely kid who adopts a silly dog. That's what the movie should be about. To the filmmakers' credits, they do tie that back in with the adventure, but it is awfully muddied. Instead, we have the heroes intentionally divided. It's smart that the movie is named Scoob!, but that is a detriment to the whole story. One of the central concepts behind Scoob! is that Shaggy and Scooby are finding their purpose both in life and in Mystery, Inc. This movie isn't the first film to really pick up on this idea. After all, lovable goofballs aren't meant to catch criminals. But there's something wildly ironic about the whole thing. Really, only Velma holds her own within Mystery, Inc. If I had to rank the characters in terms of effectiveness, it would go: Velma, the-Scooby-Shaggy-symbiotic-relationship, Fred, Daphne. Simon Cowell makes a point out to stress the group's archetypal dynamics. But really, two thirds of Mystery, Inc. in Scoob! (once Scooby and Shaggy hit the road), are huge wastes of space. The story really doesn't work. What the movie ultimately is, is a nostalgic look at the world of Hanna Barbera. It's aimed for people my age and older. But it isn't a great film necessarily. The Blue Falcon stuff makes Dynomutt look like a jerk. I don't get why Captain Caveman is even in this movie. It's this complex story for something that should ultimately be pretty simple. I also realized one big thing about Scooby himself... AHEM...Scooby's tags to jokes are the worst. Very rarely does Scooby-Doo actually start the jokes. Instead, he tags Shaggy's jokes. Shaggy's jokes are okay. I can live with those. But Scooby-Doo's tags to jokes often are "Yeah, me too!" That's not a tag. Shaggy: "Like, I could eat a peanut butter banana sandwich the size of that ghost" (C- joke). Scooby: "Me too!" Not a joke. It's written as a tag, but it's just saying "Me too". That's really weird. All of Scooby-Doo's jokes are a reminder that you just chuckled at what Shaggy said. You should probably laugh again. A lot of my boredom with this movie came from the fact that Scooby-Doo does nothing for me. It makes me a monster. I know. This is a beloved franchise to many and I just don't get excited about it. For some reason, nostalgia hits me pretty hard, but none of the content did much for me. I wanted to like it, but I just didn't. R. Hard R. While dealing with a story spiraling out of rape, the story becomes overtly sexual and gory. The concept of rape should and needs to be discussed, but the movie really toes its ethics into eroticism at times. There's all kinds of awful things going on throughout the film with a pride of its brutality. Obviously language would be involved, but there's so much just gross stuff going on throughout the film. Hard R.
DIRECTOR: Paul Verhoeven I don't know how this movie found its way into my DVD Netflix queue. I don't remember putting it in there. Mind you, the movie was from 2016. Maybe it was up for an Academy Award and I kept burying it under other movies I wanted to see. Maybe it was just because Paul Verhoeven was making waves and I wanted to see what was up. I had no idea what I was getting into. When I read the description on the outside of the sleeve, I thought this would be a respectful look about the effects of sexual assault. I know the movie will probably tout itself as something like that, but Paul Verhoeven kind of creates something that comes across more like an erotic thriller than a nuanced understanding of sexual assault. The first minute of the movie starts with the assault. Shown from the point of view of the cat, there's nothing sexy about it. Verhoeven throws us into the inciting incident and gives a respectful tone that seems to assume that "we don't need to see this." After all, the audience knows what is going on. What would be the point of showing this. I'll even give Verhoeven points for the next fifteen to twenty minutes of film. The protagonist, Michele, deals with the assault in her own way. Showing why people may have a distrust of the police, coupled with the fact that there's no standard way to process such a violation, Michele leads her life with the hard edge that she has been associated with. Within hours of the incident, Michele has a meal with her son. They discuss the things they normally would. There's never this moment of Michele breaking down or a temptation to reveal what happened. This is the movie I wanted to watch. But then the movie really starts to exploit the whole thing. I know that I'm watching a film by Paul Verhoeven. Maybe I rented this movie because I heard that he made something vulnerable and respectful. I read on Wikipedia that this got a seven-minute standing ovation at Cannes. But I have the same feeling for this movie that I do with Call Me By Your Name. It feels like it is progressive when it is actually deeply troubling. This movie is not subtle. Once Michele reveals her rape, casually and even-breathed, to her closest friends, the movie takes a tonal shift. It doesn't feel like it's there, but it is. What happens is that the movie becomes this erotic thriller melodrama where Michele both goes full Death Wish / The Punisher and starts sexually fantasizing about her rapist. That subtle opening, with the assault from the point of view of the cat? After the revelation, we see multiple fully explicit rape sequences. I can't agree that anything respectful is happening in these moments. These moments are as titilizing as can be and it feels really gross. We start seeing porn being created out of these moments, via the video game she's working for. It's really upsetting and doesn't feel like anything real. Elle kind of becomes The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, if The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo completely missed the point of the story. While Dragon Tattoo deals with the violation of women while telling an action story, Lisabeth Salander always finds the assault for what it is: a criminal act about power. Salander becomes this feminist, empowered hero who takes back the power. Yeah, the Millennnium stories are thrillers, but the message is woven all the way through the narrative. Elle, with all of its muddy narrative, doesn't make Michele heroic at all. There's this really interesting moment about halfway through the film. The first half of the film is about living in fear of this rapist who is torturing her. (Again, gross, but it's the story.) Michele sometimes fantasizes about the rapist dominating her. Sometimes she dreams about fighting him off. Again, I will give some leeway to say that there's no right way to process. (I'm more focused on Verhoeven's intention for audience.) The primary conflict is about discovering who this masked man is. If she can discover who that is, she can put a stop to this nightmare. But she does find out who it is. Actually, fairly reasonably into the movie, she finds out who he is after he attempts a second assault. And this is where it gets really gross: she is super turned on by this guy. She's been trying to seduce this guy since she met him unmasked. This is where the movie becomes overtly gross. He can only enjoy the relationship when it is a violation. She wants to be with him while being abhorred by him. Come on. Don't tell me that this is progressive. The knowledge that this guy is a monster and could do this to other people doesn't mean that she should just let this guy go. At one point, she play-acts to help him get aroused. This isn't a story that should be applauded, at all. What kind of gross message is the movie promoting? It's that ever-shifting morality. It's really disturbing and I don't know why this movie is lauded as it is. Also, the movie itself is really muddy. Like, there's so many side stories that only act as distractions from what the main plot is supposed to be. Michele, it turns out, is a horrible person. That's fine. Horrible people don't deserve sexual assault, so that is fine. But she is sleeping around with her best friend's husband, whom she doesn't even like. She's about to be a grandmother and she hates her daughter-in-law. Don't worry, to complicate things more there, the son can't hold down a job and the grandchild clearly isn't hers. Her mother sleeps around with younger guys. They're making a video game and someone at the company hates her and someone at the company is aroused by her. She's stalking her ex's new girlfriend. She wants to buy a gun. And if that wasn't complicated enough... Her aging father is a famous, incarcerated serial killer. Oh, and she, as a child, helped cover up their murders. Listen, there's understandable reasons why someone who is the victim of a sexual assault would be hesitant to notify the authorities. It's apparently remarkably common. There's no reason to make the most soap opera-y reason in the world to make this happen. Despite the fact that a victim of assault instantly garners empathy from an audience and makes a perfect avatar for the viewer, Michele becomes so unrelatable over the course of the movie. I get that there's a nugget of genius in there. The idea that an act of violence such as rape doesn't stop life in its tracks is a great idea. Seeing someone deal with things that should take a backseat can say a lot. But it gets so goofy at some point. Who relates to all these things? Does Michele have the most insane life of all time? Watching her flat affect all these events makes her come across like a sociopath. It feels really gross to watch a movie that could have this amazing message, but just resort to absolute offensive emotional manipulation. Paul Verhoeven is known for being kind of base. But his genius lied in the fact that he was using over-the-top storytelling techniques to comment on humanity's sense of excess. Applying the same to sexual assault seems really cheap and discusting to me. This is a miss in every sense. TV-MA for trying to be as raunchy as it can be without really earning a lot of the setup. It's borderline trying to be offensive at times. There's bestiality related nudity, jokes surrounding pedophilia, vomiting, a straight up diatribe about how much Catholicism is backwards, a guidance counselor bonding with students because she likes to swear, subsequent swearing, and sexuality. It's pretty TV-MA.
DIRECTOR: LP What?! We were big fans of New Girl and we found out that one of the power couples was the power couple behind this movie. Of course we were going to watch it. I start getting really nervous when I see a Netflix original movie hit their Top 10 list. I know. I have no place to really talk. I haven't watched them because I get really snobby. But vulgar comedy and Netflix kind of reads a bit like amateur hour. This is a movie that goes for the easy gag almost every time. It sets up an obvious premise and then lets us linger in that premise for a long time. The thing that really kills me is that there is something to salvage from Desperados: the exact reason that we decided to watch it. For those who read my blog fairly often, I talk about Catholicism from time-to-time. It's something that is just a cornerstone of my life and, despite the fact that I'm constantly working on my faith, I don't exactly love the cheap shots. Now, comedy really hinges on the idea that those being attacked are equal opportunity. If I'm going to laugh at one category of people, I should be ready to laugh at myself. But that's kind of becoming an old idea. The idea of laughing with instead of laughing at is the new style of comedy. And Desperados mostly keeps to that belief. Besides the outright trying to dunk on Catholicism, the movie really doesn't really punch down all that much. That's what kind of makes the slight so uncomfortable. The only punches it offers are those towards the Catholic church on how backwards she is. Perhaps it is in vogue to make those jokes, but it also was completely absurd how the entire setup and delivery came across. The movie does a pretty good job establishing that Wes is a mess, but no one in their right minds would make the mistake that Wes does. Comedy comes from a grain of truth. Wes goes into this interview at this Catholic school. She knows the job she's going out for. We meet her mid-interview. The interview is going well. She seems to have nailed this opportunity, despite having little experience. Cool. Love it. But then Wes goes into this self-sabotaging nonsense. How did she get through the first half of the interview so well? The reason is, of course, is that anything works if it is a joke. But that's not really a joke. An interview goes well. Then, for no reason whatsoever, the character says the worst things that she can think of without realizing that the interviewer doesn't find it at all amusing? It's a weird choice, but it also sets the tone for the absurdity for the rest of the movie. If I start listing all of the absurdities of Desperados, it's just going to come across as exactly that, a list. There are these moments that just defy any sense of reason. The world of Desperados is built on the concept that chaos reigns and the unexpected should be expected. Why would the staff at the hotel be so insistent on grabbing a bag, despite the fact that the customer is clearly against this idea? Why would the kid pick it up? Why would the mom act like a complete nutbar? I don't even want to go into the dolphin thing, which makes absolutely no sense in the sphere of reality. The thing is, the dolphin joke has a little bit of reality to it. When it sticks in the boundaries of reality, as uncomfortable as dolphin assault is, it can be kind of funny. But then it goes into that CG slam dunk and it undoes what little good will that joke built up. It's a real bummer. But I mentioned that there's something redeeming about this. When the movie forgets that it is a raunchy comedy and focuses on the romantic comedy element of the movie, it is actually pretty great. There are a handful of scenes that feature only the romantic leads, Nasim Pedrad and Lamorne Morris. When these two are together, the movie almost becomes something else entirely. I won't deny that that our obsession with New Girl paints a lot of that reaction. I loved them together on that show, but that's also because they have great chemistry together. It's actually a little weird seeing the dynamic inverted. Wes being the quirky one is slightly refreshing, although I wouldn't have minded having Morris revisit some of Winston's eccentricities. But these two work because there's something really vulnerable about these interactions. Sure, the movie tells us more than it really should with Sean's character. A lot of that should have been relegated to internal character moments. But because we know the history of Sean and his wife, we get to see this character who grows on us like he grows on Wes. His distant and cold interactions at the beginning of the movie mirror the cold exterior of Mr. Darcy (I'm so sorry to everyone out there who read that comparison.) We are presented with one person. He seems aloof and distant, although handsome and seductive at the same time. (Again, there's all kinds of stuff going on with this paragraph and I REFUSE TO HIT BACKSPACE!) But as the story continues, we get to understand the "why" of his character. While Sean is never as aggressively distant as Darcy, the motive behind his behavior makes all the more sense. This allows us to fall in love with Sean as Wes is coming to the same realization. It also doesn't hurt that Jared comes across as a laughable manchildish boyfriend in the grand scheme of things. I also don't want a crazy girlfriend, Jared, but I'm not planning on being a monster about it. But for all my rooting for Sean and Wes, the rest of the movie can really take a flying leap. I mean, I borderline cringed at how rough some of the moments were in this film. It's not unrealistic to find the protagonist with an entourage. After all, Wes is so silly that there needs to be contrast with this character. I don't know why I don't like Brooke and Kaylie at all. That's not true. I didn't like them from moment one, but I will back that up with something that got justified later on. Brooke and Kaylie somehow sabotage the movie into trying to make Wes look like a bad guy. Okay, Wes kind of is a bad guy, but these two characters were complete co-conspirators...until they weren't. Wes was someone in a bad place in her life. She had a moment of happiness that she thought was a lie and fell down hard. There is a moment in the story where Wes decides to write a mean email. Now, the movie wants to paint Wes out to be this monster. This is a pivotal moment in the story. When Wes wants to write the email that acts as the inciting incident, the two girls who are meant to represent normality and morality in contrast to Wes don't try to stop her. Let's be real. Good friends would tell someone that he wasn't worth the hassle. Emails, after all, always come back to haunt you. But for the joke, all three girls get into the email and write what is supposed to be the most vitriolic email that they can think of. Heck, Wes isn't even there when the email is sent. She's on the phone discovering that Jared is in a hospital in Mexico. In their enthusiasm, the two others gleefully send the email. It's then that Wes reveals her plan to go to Mexico to retrieve the letter. Now, while Brooke is hesitant to go, Wes never really hides her intentions for Mexico. The plan always was to do whatever it took to get that email back before Jared got a hold of it. Yes, the two women are kinda / sorta self-sacrificial because they become backseat drivers on a journey that isn't about them. But then they turn on Wes when things go wrong. When it becomes difficult, suddenly the narrative becomes about "Why don't I get my turn?" And that's what the movie wants to tell us. Yes, Wes said that they could go to the guru (which is even more insane and doesn't fit this movie), but the primary reason for going to Mexico was to retrieve that email. It's not like Wes kept on adding secondary goals for herself before going to the guru. No, the point was always to get the email back. Why were her friends so willing to throw in the towel? (Realistically, I would have thrown in the towel sooner than getting arrested in Mexico. But I also wouldn't expect to form a cabal against my friend and kick her out of the group with a sense of moral superiority.) But all of this? It's all window-dressing for the concept that the movie is phenomenally stupid. It feels completely underbaked and rushed. There's no craft or love to this movie. It is a story that we've seen before done way worse than those other times. It has a great set of romantic leads, but the rest of the movie is utter trash. Characters' motivations don't often make sense. It always goes for the ribald joke instead of the well-crafted. I don't think I really laughed once in the movie. It's pretty rough. PG-13, which I have a feeling is re-rated from PG. It's got blood and death galore. It has a story about domestic violence that's kind of treated like a joke. There's that institutionalized racism that comes with the mystic Chinese, albeit brief. Pretty much, it's a dark comedy and that's going to have some things that are upsetting. While the tone and the goal is to make you laugh, it can't be denied that this is about murder and feeding people to a plant. It is based on a horror movie, after all. Probably a well-deserved PG-13.
DIRECTOR: Frank Oz I almost quit the whole blogging business today. I think that overwhelming sadness and anxiety is getting to me in light of all the stuff happening in the world today. But, per usual, a good workout peeled away some of the cobwebs. I might be revamping this blog to make it more interesting to me. I might be switching websites to get past the Facebook block. I know that I'm going to be a little easier on myself. Part of what's getting me down is that this blog is starting to feel like work as opposed to habit forming. I often will be fighting homework, both grading and completing, during the school year. Also, another baby on the way may mean that I have to take a break. Part of it is that I might just focus on the schedule of watching instead of pushing myself. Watch at my own pace might be a better move. So if I don't post here and there, please understand. Little Shop of Horrors is a weird one. The school year felt so far away in the time of Covid, but I think that it was supposed to be the school's musical this year. It's such a bizarre concept. Built out of a joined love of irony, the film of the Off-Off-Broadway musical is an adaptation of a B-movie that had Jack Nicholson cameoing in possibly his first role. Oh, and I've seen this movie. The only part that I remember is the Jack Nicholson part, but I can at least take comfort that I'm not a Johnny-Come-Lately for this movie. It was always one of those movies that I found interesting (and I'm gonna get to this) because it had such a bummer ending. Mind you, the cut of the film that we're used to is this happy ending that, while it makes me feel better, doesn't work with the message of the story whatsoever. But I'm going back to the purpose of this paragraph. Maybe because it's starring Rick Moranis and has a cast of characters, but this feels like the most amazing SCTV bit in the world. They saw this really wacky musical off-off-Broadway and they said, "Let's get all of our friends together and throw all the money at it." And guess what? It worked. It shouldn't have. Little Shop of Horrors, while probably not on that scale, does for me what Rocky Horror Picture Show does for other people. I get the cult attraction to Little Shop more than Rocky Horror. I'm not obsessed with it, but gosh darn it, I will belt out "Suddenly Seymour" given a note. I think I'm going to focus a lot on why the ending in this movie isn't earned. The original '60s version of Little Shop of Horrors had a bleak ending and so did the stage production. The original cut had a bleak ending. The easy answer to this is that it makes the tone of the rest of the film. As a send up of horror movies, it's oddly making fun of a movie that's making fun of a genre. When I say "making fun", I realize it is done so lovingly. But it still is poking the bear a little bit. But the movie,in tone, is meant to focus on the macabre. This sweet adorable Seymour Krelborn, a name antithetical to the male protagonist of a horror movie, goes through a movie exsanguinating both himself and others for his own sense of glory. This is really a dark take, but Seymour, unfortunately, is the glorification of the school shooter. Largely ignored by those around him, he sees himself as less than worthy. He places labels on himself that others don't. Okay, Mr. Mushnik kind of sucks. But he assumes that Audrey doesn't care for him shy of work friendship. Even his verse that's part of "Skid Row" demonstrates a complete lack of self-esteem. Audrey II, while it might simply be peacocking at the beginning of the story, ultimately is a weapon. There's nothing hidden about the sense of power that Seymour gets from feeding Audrey. I can't help taking a really dark look at this, despite the fact that I find the movie charming. But really, Seymour's feeding of Audrey is really a feeding of his own bloodlust and desire for dominance over others. I like that Seymour also takes baby steps, reflecting that no one is really born evil. Because Seymour is the protagonist of the film, there's always a justification for his bad actions. (Keep all of this in mind when I talk about why the ending of this movie isn't earned.) Seymour comes from a place of disadvantage. Born on Skid Row, I think they say that he doesn't have parents. Everything about Seymour is about survival. He has needs for love, but they always take a backseat to Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It's not a coincidence that his hobby is directly tied to his place of employment. It's when he discovers Audrey II / a gun, he starts treating the things in his life as "Well, where's my share of joy?" This is where Seymour becomes a sympathetic anti-hero. Again, I use the term "sympathetic" very tepidly, simply because I don't want to make the school shooter sympathetic. But at the beginning of the story, he genuinely admires Audrey. He sees this bad guy hitting her and he develops the toxic "good guy" persona. It's not bad that he feels that as long as he doesn't act on it. But the first victim, shy of his own fingers, is the Dentist. (Yeah, another toxic masculine archetype. BUT IT IS NECESSARY FOR THE STORY!) Again, I love this movie, so please understand that I would kill to play the Dentist or Bill Murray's part. I do believe that Audrey II is real, but Audrey II also kind of is a metaphor for white male fragility. On a surface level, Audrey II's need to feed seems like an opportunity to save Audrey, building on Seymour's completely skewed hero complex. But it is also the first time that Seymour treats Audrey as something to be obtained. That initial drive is to stop a domestic abuser, but the following elements flow out of that into "Audrey will be mine." The movie also makes Mr. Mushnik a no-goodnik. (I feel uncomfortable with what I just wrote and I kind of want to google if its problematic.) Because the Dentist is so over-the-top evil, we understand and take the journey with Seymour into darkness. Mr. Mushnik also sucks, but he is definitely less evil than the Dentist. (I'm capitalizing "Dentist", just because it's the character's name, kind of?) But it would be a leap to have mild-mannered Seymour bumping people off that have no moral flaw. For a while, Mushnik actually comes across as quite heroic. He's turning in someone who he has cared for because he has evidence of a murder. It's only when Mushnik decides to capitalize on that moment that the audience takes the next step with Seymour, allowing Mushnik's death to play some part in a greater good that objectively doesn't exist. Mushnik's deal with Seymour is slimy, but it is also is somewhat merciful. Mushnik profits from Seymour's disappearance, but Seymour is also in need of justice for killing the Dentist. Honestly, if Seymour took that punishement, it would have been probably the best moral ending we could have gotten. We could have seen Mushnik's rise to power, only for Seymour to have a redemption arc in trying to stop the evil that he had created. But again, that's not the message of the original story. And that's where the ending falls apart. I get it. I think this movie feels like it needs a happy ending. But Seymour wants the movie to end with him having his cake and eating it too. When Audrey II attacks Audrey, Seymour gets the punishment for abusing power. After all, Audrey II, his violence-as-power metaphor, lived up to the bargain. He was famous. He got everything he wanted. But Seymour wanted to go back on his deal. He wanted the girl and the clear conscience without ever confessing to any crimes. It's not like Seymour was going to turn himself into the police. He doesn't have that crisis of conscience that makes him confess. This isn't "The Tell-Tale Heart". Nope. He needed justice. That's why the original ending, with the death of both Seymour and Audrey, actually works way better. The movie presents this binary problem: his soul or power. He chooses power and still wants to keep his soul. By dying, it shows the folly of choosing violence and coercion to get what he wanted. Keep going with that. I'm not letting myself off the hook that easily. And the greater message is: Seymour Krelborn is an avatar for the audience, the disenfranchised. Let's be honest: the target audience of this movie is nerds. It's an adaptation of a B-horror movie. Think about the friends of yours who swear by this movie. Theater nerds? Film nerds? Horror nerds? We're all Seymour Krelborn, outside a system that accepts us. We do anything we can to peacock, but where does our soul fit into that. The most pure version of Seymour is before he is given any power. He's sad and depressed a lot, but he's genuine. But the version at the end of the film is artificial. The news stories and the radio interviews present something that isn't him. The dream of "Somewhere That's Green" isn't bad in sentiment, but it's because they choose to imagine this perfect place that can't possibly exist. Seymour and Audrey could be happy on Skid Row. I'm not trying to downplay the reality of poverty. But the only thing keeping them apart was honesty. By peacocking with Audrey II, Seymour skips the vulnerability of showing his true self to give something that was never truly him. But it's a cool movie. I hate to go all "school shooter-y", considering the era this movie was made in. However, there's some really interesting stuff to take away in 21st century storytelling. It's a weird dynamic, liking an ending that doesn't make a lick of sense. But musicals in this subgenre, traditionally, are feel-goodery. It's a musical comedy. We tend to stay away from bummer endings in musical comedies. So yeah, I get why a test audience might say, "Wait? Everyone dies?" But it also is the only ending that the movie really deserves. PG-13, and a pretty intense PG-13. The assassination of Malcolm X alone is almost worthy of an R-rating. There's a lot of crime and a lot of talk about violence. This isn't sugar-coated, white knighting racism either. This really gets down to the nitty gritty elements of institutionalized racism. It's an uncomfortable subject and it doesn't pull a lot of punches. Sure, it's PG-13 and I'll stand by that rating. But it isn't an easy movie to watch by any means. PG-13.
DIRECTOR: Spike Lee I've been on a Spike kick of late. BLM has been on my mind almost constantly and I've been trying to challenge myself on some of the movies. Normally, I have a bit of an aversion to biopics. Biopics seem to be a bit saccharine and safe. There are some more impressive ones than others. But when a director tries to take a complicated life and give it a formulaic narrative that brings closure in the span of a movie length, it always comes across as a bit artificial. I don't know if real people have character arcs exactly as the movies kind of show us. While Malcolm X has elements of the biopic in it, it feels far more challenging than its peers. The titular Malcolm X does have a bit of a character arc, but it feels more of a series of baby steps reflecting the frustrating elements of reality. I will admit that I was woefully ignorant about the life of Malcolm X before watching the movie. That's part of my white privilege and I'm calling myself out for it. In my head, I always understood the metaphor presented in the Marvel Comics X-Men stories, of Martin Luther King being Charles Xavier and Malcolm X embodied in Magneto. I knew that King was the advocate for non-violence. X was the one who threatened war if attacked. I also always remembered that photo being shown throughout Lee's magnum opus, Do the Right Thing. It's odd to think that Lee made Do the Right Thing three years before. There's the image of King and X friendly as ever. There's the quote at the end of the movie to get you thinking. When I watched Malcolm X in context of Lee's journey with the character, I thought it might have been an answer to the ambiguous ending of Do the Right Thing. But Lee doesn't give it so cut and dry. Lee presents Malcolm X through a view of love and respect. There's no denying that. This is a respectful view that treats Malcolm X as the hero that he is. But like most heroes, it isn't necessarily easy to be a hero all the time. There are events in our lives that change us and force us to look at our politics through a different light. Malcolm X starts in this place of willful ignorance. Again, I knew nothing about him going into this movie, but I always thought that his story would parallel that of John Lewis or King himself. I thought that he might have been one of those people built for greatness. But a good chunk of the movie deals with Malcolm X, the criminal. This is the man that the civil rights leader Malcolm X would grow to despise because he represented everything that was dehumanizing about the black man. According to X himself, he would be the kind of person who saw himself as an animal, living out the role that the civilized white man wanted him to play. He was out for himself. He was living this life of pleasure and greed. But it's in prison that he finds value. Maybe Malcolm X needs a little bit of context as well. I recommend Ava DuVernay's 13th in regards to what prison does to Malcolm X. But that experience in prison awakens him. Lee seems to be slightly tied into the story of Saul / Paul on the road to Damascus because I'm not seeing that motif flow through other films like Da 5 Bloods. Yet, the movie is fundamentally tied to Malcolm X's faith journey through the Nation of Islam. Lee creates the movie for people like me, who are unaware of the intricacies of Malcolm X's story. Perhaps it is the way that Malcolm X dictated his words to Alex Haley, but Mr. Baines comes across as this heroic sage influence. He's that archetype. Malcolm was lost and then Baines opened his eyes to this wider world. Everything that he thought was true ultimately wasn't. But Lee doesn't foreshadow Baines's change of character. We don't see that ugliness inside the prison. Instead, we see this hand to enlightenment. This is such a moment for me as a Catholic. There's this element of Islam that is terrifying. Baines comes to Malcolm X and convincingly tells him that every white person is evil. Heck, with what I'm going through right now, I can't even tell Baines that he's wrong. There's a motif throughout the movie of the white man being evil. There's a moment, and I felt touched, where a white woman confronts Malcolm X and tells him that he's right. She wants to help in any way that she can and X establishes there's nothing that she can do. There's this moment where I look at history and believe, like Malcolm X, that he's right. We have passed the point of redemption and it is damning. But the film doesn't end with Malcolm X in this spot. Malcolm X isn't a biopic about this great leader who changed society. That is the way that history views him and it is a byproduct of someone who was serious about what he believed in, but also understood that faith and understanding were a growing process. It's such an interesting dynamic, that Malcolm X never really lost what he believed in, but was willing to shift from a position of absolute rightness to a place of vulnerability. The movie has X grow from absolutely accusatory of white culture to allowing the concept of allies. If Lee has one thing to say, it's that the issue of race isn't meant to be an easy idea. Malcolm X is right in both situations, as paradoxical as that seems. It never allows the story of race to be this easy thing, like White Knight films tend to lean into. It's an idea that people are good, society is bad. It's a tank of a film. It really is. It's three-and-a-half hour movie and it doesn't really feel like one film. No surprise, I didn't watch it in one sitting. But it is something that really needs to be watched. There was a time that I thought that Denzel Washington was overhyped. He is something absolutely special in this film. Maybe it's because he's a younger guy and his career is getting off the ground, but he works like a maniac in this film. With a biopic, I'm sure that there's a temptation to just do an imitation of the real person. Again, I don't know Malcolm X's mannerisms. But there's a struggle throughout this film to make Malcolm X a real dude. He's so conflicted and challenged with these moment to moment feelings. He's a member of the Nation of Islam. He's a follower of someone who would end up leading to his death, at least according to the film. He has this great respect for his faith, but it also would lead him to do some regressive things towards women. We see this challenge as he says one thing, but is conflicted about the core elements of that tenet. It's really interesting to watch this complex faith crises that he deals with throughout the movie. Also, I'm really interested in the Elijah Mohammed stuff. Like, I knew nothing about that stuff. There's this element of a movement behind Elijah Mohammed, but it also really reads like a cult throughout the movie. It's this dark, true-crime element behind the movie as a whole. Lee's use of the "Get your hand out of my pocket" becomes this terrifying throughline. I don't really know the history of it, but it is such a powerful smash cut twice that I want to know every detail of what was going on in those moments. It's so odd that Malcolm X could become this great voice for a cause, only to be ostracized by jealousy from his best friends. I don't know if Lee is commenting on the self-sabotaging element of a cause, but it's very disturbing to think how quickly people turned their backs on Malcolm X. I adored yet another Spike Lee Joint. It's starting to become a thing. Maybe it's because I haven't seen some of the lesser known Spike Lee films, but his hits are hits for a reason. Yeah, it's a tank. But it is a tank that works because it dares you to examine yourself while watching it. It's not just a history lesson, but a challenge for today. There's something bigger about the movie as a whole and Lee knows that. With the insane cameos that he has in the movie, this was a moment in cinematic history. It makes me question what my dad would have thought about this movie at the time. Regardless, it is absolutely essential watching. Approved, but it is a story about Jack the Ripper that somehow gets creepier than the legend today. There's talk about cutting the evil out of women to save their beauty. It gets really disturbing, especially the closer the movie gets to the end. Think about it. This is a story about a serial killer that preys on women. It's The Silence of the Lambs for 1944. Okay, he isn't making a skin suit, but that's probably just because he hasn't thought about it.
DIRECTOR: John Brahm I thought I was watching Hitchcock's remake of his original, okay? I thought he pulled a The Man Who Knew Too Much and that he remade his own movie. Occasionally, I have a lot of dishes and I have a Google Home. So I put on a public domain movie. I thought that maybe some of Hitchcock's earlier films could have been on YouTube because they're public domain. This showed up on a Hitchcock playlist. I was looking away when the director's name came up and now I'm just listing excuses for why I watched a whole movie thinking that someone else directed it. Which may be giving John Brahm the best applause I could have given. I had seen The Lodger: Story of the London Fog years ago. It was a terrible print and, as much as I appreciate silent film, I have to be in the right headspace for it. Also, silent film and doing dishes doesn't really work because you really have to focus on that screen the entire time. But I was watching the 1944 remake of The Lodger and I was kind of wrapped up in it. Story of the London Fog, Hitchcock's entry, is good. It is a fine film full of suspense. But it is also Hitchcock's early days. He's a guy who lives around the concept of gesamkunstwerk, or total art. (Okay, I realize that no film is total art, but he plays around with that a bit.) As cool as his silent stuff is, a lot of his suspense comes from dialogue and music. Brahm has a bit of an advantage telling the story of The Lodger with the advent of sound. Like Hitchcock, Brahm uses sound and the absence of sound to tell a richer story than what could have been done in Story of the London Fog. The Lodger does the smart thing and makes the murderer something greater than the conflict. Mr. Slade is, well he's crazy. But he's also a real character in the story. Listen, I knew that he was the killer. I think we all knew. I'm going beyond the "he's acting crazy" element of the story. It's not like there's gonna be a curveball that exonerates him as he kills the actual Jack the Ripper. But he is this guy who doesn't want to be the Ripper. He's not mustache twirling. He's a dude who misses his brother. He seems to actually like the family he's with. It seems like this is commonplace for today's storytelling, but I can't deny that there's something really impressive about this movie coming out in 1944. Really, much of the movie, despite being a fairly simple plot, is fabulous because it is a movie outside of time. The scariest villains are the ones that we consider to be in places of security. Yeah, I'm not advocating for fearing our neighbor. But The Lodger touches on the concept that anyone could be a serial killer. I will admit that Laird Cregar as Mr. Slade looks like a killer and has a name that sounds like a killer, both in character and in real life. But the film keeps reminding us that everyone looks like a killer if you only look at elements of a personality. Kyle Kinane has this great bit about Jack the Ripper. I recommend you check it out and check Kyle Kinane out because he's the best. But he's got this bit about how Jack the Ripper only killed five people. Now, I'm sure a lot of the movie comes from artistic license, but the film feels like Jack the Ripper was this unstoppable force. It's absolutely terrifying. I think I have been broken by knowing too much about the Golden State Killer and all the many many horrible people on our planet that don't happen to be the president. But there is a certain sense of terror. Part of it is that Jack the Ripper doesn't simply relegate himself to the part of history or as a statistic. We start to bond with the family. That bonding with the family is something that I see in Hitchcock films, again reaffirming that I thought this was a Hitchcock movie. The movie is about a guy who carves up women. Check. But the family involved in the story is this quirky mess, something out of Arsenic and Old Lace. Okay, maybe not that far. But there's a loving feeling that contrasts the evil of Mr. Slade. They are relatable and adorable. Kitty and the inspector, while being a bit of a convenient situation for the Jack the Ripper murder, seem to honestly like each other. There's this family dynamic. That's why the suspense is so good. We instantly love these characters for all of their foibles. While it is unlikely that the movie made in 1944 would murder these characters off in a grizzly fashion, we all hold onto that lie that we cherish that these people are in danger. They act as avatars for our real families. They may be exaggerated versions of reality, but I love that they are fully developed characters. Here's the thing that really sells me on the Hitchcock directing insanity I'm running with: that ending. I keep flashing to moments like The Man Who Knew Too Much and Strangers on a Train. There's this moment that is filled with people that compounds the climax to levels unseen in other films. With The Man Who Knew Too Much, there were two scenes like that. There's the assassination at the Royal Albert Hall, followed by the "Que Sera Sera" sequence at the embassy. Strangers on a Train had the tennis match. With The Lodger, there's Kitty's performance where she's on stage. It's this mass of chaos. There are so many places where things could go wrong and they do. It's this insanely choreographed mass of confusion and it parallels Slade's obsessive and paranoid choices. We get to see Slade for all his insane glory and the world around him is trampling each other at every opportunity. It's this great ending. I don't know if it's the fact that I didn't know that this wasn't directed by Hitch, but the movie held up for me amazingly. It's very very British, but I'm cool with that. It seems like a movie out of time, full of characters that I care about. It works more than it should. Regardless, I may go back for a Story of the London Fog rewatch sometime. Rated R for language and sexuality, including implied sexuality. You know, that scene. The scene that's in the movie to make you uncomfortable, but you can't stop giggling? It's the scene that makes When Harry Met Sally famous. Surely, you must know! You know, "I'll have what she's having?" I don't remember any nudity in the film. I will say that some of the sexual politics are very outdated. Harry is kind of a creep. I don't want to let it off the hook, but it is very 1989 masculinity. Rated R.
DIRECTOR: Rob Reiner Oh man, this is a drastically different movie as a married man than as a single 20-something. It's night and day a different movie. That's a weird thought. Sad little Tim in his basement would watch this rom-com by himself, and think, "What is this movie saying about relationships?" After all, I had lots of friends of both genders. That seemed to be more normal when I was in high school and college. I mean, it would be weird if you only had friends of the same gender in high school. In high school and in my 20s, I completely misunderstood the message of this film. It gave me this weird seed that was planted in my brain. After all, the movie states its message very clearly. So why didn't I pick up on it until well into a marriage. (Note: My wife and I watched this on our ten year anniversary. She was a friend before she was my wife. This should all be taken into account.) Billy Crystal implanted the idea into my head that all of my friendships with women were inherently romantic. I mean, I guess that's something that's always on the hormonal kid's brain anyway, but having it vocalized in a film with adults going through the same thing is just the confirmation that your crazy brain needed. The movie, from my perspective, goes out of its way to prove that Harry was right and Sally was wrong. Harry states that men and women can't be friends and, sure enough, the two end up together after almost destroying their friendship. Now, this confused puberty me pretty hard. On the one hand, I wanted to be the "Good Guy" type. We now know that this personality is also pretty toxic, but I'm going to excuse myself from my high school years. I wanted to live in world where I could have female friends and grow from these friendships. But the secret dark side of the "Good Guy" type is the knowledge that all of his female friends will fall in love with him if enough time has passed. That's what this movie locked in my head. But I'm married now. How is the read different? Part of it isn't necessarily an age thing, but a pursuit thing. Watching this movie from the married person's perspective, I see the couple as Jess and Marie see the couple. It's not that they fall in love with each other because they are friends. It's that they're perfect for each other, but their defenses are up the entire time. Yeah, Harry becomes a better person because of his relationship with Sally. He's actually a misogynist who learns about his toxicity from his time with Sally. There's confidence and then there's boorishness. Sally likes confidence, but she doesn't care for his boorishness. Harry also provides balance to Sally. Sally has her entire life planned out like she does her meals. When someone doesn't meet unrealistic ideals, there's a break there that she denies. However, Harry is in no way part of the plan. That softening, the knowledge that neither one WANTS a relationship from the other, is the real message of the story. Harry and Sally go from finding each other intolerable to falling in love by action. Harry's message of "Men and women can't be friends" stands on the shoulders of "The sex will get in the way." There are all these caveats that Harry throws down, but the one scenario that kind of undermines the whole thing is the situation where neither one wants to be in the relationship. Harry's theory stems that the male will always want to have intercourse with the female. But Harry, by his own admission, wants nothing to do with Sally. He was in love with someone else and Sally is way too neurotic to start a new relationship with. This doesn't mean that Harry's wrong. It just means that it delays things until a relationship begins to grow. Harry and Sally are different people than they were ten years prior. I get this a lot. Again, I never want to meet younger me because I would find me insufferable. But that message applies to marriage a lot. I kind of stopped having really serious female friends. It's odd, because I'm a teacher. But When Harry Met Sally is kind of a cautionary tale. Harry and Sally fall in love because they don't want to fall in love. They're okay not falling in love at the beginning. But people naturally change one another. Over time, things start meeting in the middle. One of Harry's rules is about attraction (which he quickly backtracks, but I think it holds up). I find so much friendship with my wife that my male friendships act as something completely different than what I considered friendship as a single male. That's why I find the older couple vignettes so nice. While not absolute in terms of storytelling, these moments highlight the specific friendship that comes out of great moments. Instead of watching When Harry Met Sally, the message isn't "Your friends will fall in love with you, give them time." The message is that your spouse should be your best friend. It's when you stop looking for that love that you make yourself vulnerable. It's about both members of the relationship letting down their guards. They enjoy each other for friendship first, and then everything romantic came later. It's a cool story that, sure, has some pitfalls with misinterpretation. It also might be a bit misogynistic at times. But it is still a very cute movie that weirdly holds up. I wasn't ready for that in the least. As much as I enjoyed it as a single guy, it holds up way better as a marriage movie. Rated R for language and sexuality, involving some nudity. It's all within the attitude of Wes Anderson. It's still somewhat vulgar, but it's done very briefly, often while being tongue-in-cheek. There's also some violence and racism, but Anderson is making more of a comment on such racism. There's some murder and some disfigurement. You know, the more I write about this, the more I realize that there's some slightly grizzly stuff in this movie. Regardless, R.
DIRECTOR: Wes Anderson I don't know why I can't write right now. It just seems like such a daunting task right now. I know that if I quit, I'll spiral even deeper into a depression because I won't have a daily goal. I even have a lot of thoughts on this movie. When I first started teaching my film class, I had two students in that class that came into the class (say "class" one more time) with The Grand Budapest Hotel as their favorite. Part of me got really excited when I heard that. After all, when I watched Grand Budapest, I thought it was a return to form for Wes Anderson after a handful of "meh" movies. (Even his "meh" movies are fine.) But I also really want to preach some of the more old school Wes Anderson vehicles, like The Royal Tenenbaums and Bottle Rocket. It's because I'm an old man now and I want the kids to like what I like. (I had to tweezer away the longest eyebrow hair today. I've crossed a threshold.) The thing is, the kids had a point. While I will probably always love The Royal Tenenbaums as my favorite Anderson entry, The Grand Budapest Hotel might be Anderson's Avengers: Endgame. It's really the phrase that kept going through my head, much to Martin Scorsese's chagrin. In terms of scope and storytelling, it feels like his biggest film by far. Couple that with the fact that everyone's in this movie. I think you have almost the entire title cast of The Darjeeling Limited in it. It goes out of its way to find roles for people that he likes. I can see why this one was up for Best Picture because it ticks a lot of boxes. It's so interesting thinking that Anderson could somehow get more absurd than he has in other films, but he succeeds. Anderson traditionally tells twee stories about small conflicts that become big. Two people in love over a woman. A father trying to get back in good graces with his family. Three brothers trying to reconnect. Grand Budapest does the personal elements of a story while making Zero's environment something larger than life. The Darjeeling Limited was another movie named after the setting. I like the title Darjeeling Limited, but it doesn't technically encapsulate the movie. It's really the vehicle that gets them to the story. When the train is removed from the story, it really blends into the background. I want to contrast that with the titular hotel, The Grand Budapest Hotel. While the protagonists spend quite a bit of time away from the hotel, it looms over the characters at all moments. It's a setting that defines the needs of the character. M. Gustave is entirely defined by his role as the manager of this estate. The concept of the hotel reflects an almost noble or royal lineage, despite that M. Gustave is the equivalent of one of the servants of Downton Abbey. Zero never questions this obsession. His interview is very telling to his character. That response establishes the impact that the hotel has over the world at large. As war encroaches the country, it is almost a secondary consequence that it will ravage the people of the town. Instead, the hotel is this piece of art that will be sullied by the violence of men. There's one thing that I might the only one who is confused by it. There's a funny bit throughout the film. Really, the story is a flashback within a flashback within a flashback. The story starts with someone sitting at the memorial statue of a deceased author. The movie then flashes back to 1985, with an elderly version of the author explaining how he met the owner of the Grand Budapest Hotel. It then flashes back again to the author interviewing an elderly Zero, who tells the story of how he gained The Grand Budapest Hotel. Anderson then finally flashes back for a final time to show Zero as a young man, a lobby boy at the Grand Budapest. The majority of the movie is focused on Zero's time as a Lobby Boy. Anderson uses a 4:3 aspect ratio to stress that this takes place in the past. Spike Lee would do the same in Da 5 Bloods. (This makes looking for aspect appropriate stills for this blog especially frustrating, but it makes the movie gorgeous.) The logical part of me should just chalk it up to absurdity. After all, there's a lot of absurdity in Anderson's films. It's just that there's a lot of money being spent to get the hotel into different levels of quality seems really expensive. Like, really expensive. Perhaps it is to give a greater sense of importance. Instead of just being a movie set a long time ago, it gives it a sense of continuity. I'll never take the joke away from that flashback sequence, but it also cements it in a time period. Considering that the hotel itself represents a legacy, it's interesting to see how the hotel ages over time. But the hotel isn't even in all of the time periods. It's only in the final two time period. We see the aging of the bust, but not the hotel itself. It's actually unlikely that The Grand Budapest has survived into the present, seeing how the aging Zero views the hotel. Much of The Grand Budapest Hotel rests on its charm versus its story. The story is complex, but that just makes it more interesting. Because Anderson is so quietly bonkers, it really can go in any direction. There's nothing that really stops the movie ending in the middle. But "Boy With Apple" makes a great Macguffin for this story that allows the characters to be fleshed out. I normally complain about characters being developed by the character telling us his faults. But Anderson both shows and tells how these characters interact. That's what I'm talking about "Boy with Apple". The painting forces M. Gustave to act against his dialogue. It's pretty fantastic. Anderson's characters often have this grandiose persona that is easily washed away by base desires. But Gustave is both is character that he presents and this guy who doesn't mind letting the curtain fall from time to time. But my students were right. This movie is really great. There's a lot going on for a Wes Anderson piece. It's got this great setting as a foundation and he milks every element out of it. I love that the movie is about M. Gustave, but Zero is technically the protagonist. He's Nick Carraway from The Great Gatsby, but with a goofier background to it. I loved this rewatch. I'm sure if someone really fought me, I could bend on The Royal Tenenbaums in exchange for Grand Budapest. If it was one of his earlier films, I would be jumping on board this movie every time. Not Rated, but the Lone Wolf and Cub movies are over-the-top intense with violence and sexuality. Oddly enough, there's very little sexuality in this entry. There is some male nudity, including a kid who is naked in a non-sexual context. But the violence, per usual, is pretty redonk. There's a lot of blood and a lot of death. Also, the entire plot involves an assassination on a five-year-old. So call it "not rated" all you want. But this is clearly an R-Rated movie.
DIRECTOR: Kenji Misumi Oh man, I'm almost done with the box set. There's a nice momentum going with these. I have one more entry in the series. From what I understand about the manga, it ran for a really long time, so I'm not really expecting a clean conclusion from the next movie. But this entry in the series brought something completely new. Yeah, it's still violent, violent murder. But the story feels very different from the other entries in the series. All that being said, I really needed to read the Wikipedia article on the movie to make sense of it. A lot of the movie really rests around the idea that there's a very short, but complicated story. It has this concept that it really wants to get across...that does not involve the titular characters. Geez, I can't believe I'm dropping this reference, but think about the beginning of the few Transformers movies that I've seen. Never mind. I just can't. Think of the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring. That works. The beginning of Fellowship gives this whole long narration of the world of Middle Earth. That world building that Tolkien fans love, that's what's going on. Tolkien's history of the forging of the One Ring is so central for the story to make sense, the movie devotes a lot of time to establishing that. But The Fellowship of the Ring has so much story to get through that the prologue is a fraction of the story. Unfortunately with In the Land of Demons, this is movie five. There's not a lot of story. So, in kind of a clever fashion, Ogami Itto and Daigoro are woven into the story. To get the protagonists into the story from moment one, Misumi has the protagonists go through a series of tests, not wholly unlike the Trials of Hercules. What this does is give a whole bunch of action, but the entire thing kind of reads like a video game. Most video game movies don't work because video games reward action with narrative. Fight fight fight fight fight, cutscene. That's kind of what goes on in the first third of the movie. Ogami Itto fights guy after guy. After every boss fight, we get this snippet of story about this thing that is happening in one part of the world. It's a bit absurd that all of these guys are completely disposable as tests. What would happen if the assassins killed the best assassin in the world? Would the story just have a sad ending? If the town from The Seven Samurai decided to test the samurai, are they cool with being just out of luck? Listen, I'm very cool with the format that the beginning takes. It's just that my logical brain can't actually accept it. The weird thing about In the Land of Demons is that it acknowledges that there's no story to maintain an hour-and-a-half film, so it gives a B-plot which is more pure than anything else that the Lone Wolf and Cub movies actually offer to this moment. There's a way more interesting side story about Daigoro getting separated from Itto. This happened briefly in the last movie, but this is a whole side story. The story of Daigoro is kind of the central conceit of the story. While it is super cool that Itto can kill a bunch a dudes at a moments notice, it's way more interesting looking at the "cub" element of the story. Daigoro is a scary dude. The whole narrative of Daigoro protecting the pickpocket to an obsessive level is so much character development in 20 minutes that it makes the whole film worth watching. But the story is about killing a five-year-old girl. There's one moment that fixes all of my reservations for the movie. There's this cross cut between Daigoro and the princess at the end of the movie. It's adorable. We have these serious discussions going back and forth and the two kids are making faces at each other. Aw, that's sweet. It's a comment on the absurdity of honor and violence and all that. Then, the five year old girl just says "Kill them". Come on. I didn't see that coming. See, the stalling of the narrative gets to be a bit much by the end of the film. The first twenty minutes stalls a very necessary story. The middle of the movie is Daigoro and the pickpocket, unrelated to the A-plot. Then the movie has to hit all of its tropes. Itto has to kill a bunch of dudes. He has to get a real threat, which lasts a short time. But when the princess says, "Kill them", I was back on board. It gets real violent. I'm not quite sure how the story ends up. I think that he murders the little girl. I swear I saw her head on display, but it was a real quick shot. I actually have very little to say about the movie because it has so little content to it. I oddly enjoyed a movie that is an exercise in stalling. I think that's part of the problem with these episodic films like Lone Wolf and Cub and Zatoichi, The Blind Swordsman. There's so many beats that have to be hit before the end of the film and sometimes the story is really comic book length. But considering that it wasn't the same movie as the others and that the techniques used to stall the film were interesting, I didn't even remotely dislike it. Sure, I would have liked to know what was going on. I'm still only 70% sure what happened in the movie, even with the Wikipedia article. But it doesn't mean it wasn't worth watching. A fun side-effect of the stalling first beginning is that the film is forcing itself to be creative with new ways to murder. Also, Itto attacking a boat underwater is rad. I'm not sure what the movie was doing with the attack on the priest. It's really undercooked, but there was potential to make it interesting. Regardless, I approve without any kind of reason for approving of it. |
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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