Movies Seen 2017, July-December
Jan. 7th, 2018 03:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thewayne2017: 58, as of 12/28, incl videos
07/01 Despicable Me 3
07/07 Spider-Man: Homecoming
07/21 Dunkirk
07/22 Valarian and the City of a Thousand Planets
08/11 The Black Tower
08/16 Atomic Blonde
09/01 The Hitman's Bodyguard
09/04 Birth of the Dragon
09/15 And Starring Pancho Villa As Himself (vod)
09/26 LEGO Ninjago Movie
10/03 Kingsmen: The Golden Circle
10/07 Blade Runner 2049
10/10 Battle of the Sexes
10/17 The Foreigner
11/04 The Avengers (v), skimmed
11/04 Thor, and Thor: Darkworld (v)
11/05 Doctor Strangelove (v)
11/07 Thor: Ragnarok x2
11/11 Murder on the Orient Express
11/16 Man of Steel (v), Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice (v)
11/24 Justice League
12/01 Yoga Hosers (v)
12/15 Star Wars 7: Force Awakens (v)
12/16 Tampopo (v)
12/17 Star Wars 8: Last Jedi
12/22 Hot Shots (v)
12/22 Inglorius Basterds (v)
12/23 A Taxing Woman (v)
12/23 Bullet (v)
12/23 Hot Fuzz (v)
My total this year includes videos, both DVD and Bluray (I haven’t had my VHS or LaserDisc players connected in ages, though I still have both and two of the latter) and video on demand. I’m maintaining a sort of tradition of trying to see at least one prequel before seeing a sequel, thus I saw both Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman before going to see Justice League. As it happens, I hadn’t seen either of the first two movies before, so it was kinda fun. And I had no idea how much Bruce was lusting after Clark, Justice League just went on to prove it.
So, on to my thoughts after the cut. And some spoilers in my comments, so be ye forewarned.
Despicable Me 3. While these movies with Groot, sorry, Gru and the minions are always fun, this one felt like it was a little forced. Mid-life crisis, job loss, etc. Perhaps a little too real life? Still, definitely had its fun elements.
Spider-Man: Homecoming is the first Spider-Man movie that I can honestly say that I liked. I’ve never been a huge Spidey fan and never consistently bought his comics, but after they negotiated him in to the full Marvel Cinematic Universe and I got to see him in Winter Soldier, I was sold. He had attitude which I don’t recall, yet he was still a kid. I really enjoyed this, in fact I saw it twice. And I LOVED the fact that they didn’t redo the origin story! Less than five minutes conversation, and done. Saw it twice, and I’m not sure if it’s in our collection but it will be.
Dunkirk. Wow. Nolan did a great job here. To be honest, I wasn’t too keen on his Batman movies. But this? Very gritty. It was interesting seeing two theatrical releases about Dunkirk in one year, the other being the dramedy Their Finest, which I highly recommend. But there was nothing funny about this one, it was pure serious. Nolan was amazing, and I was impressed that he managed to source and actually shoot it on film, it added a quality that I miss. I wish other filmmakers, Tarantino excluded because he likes shooting on film, would shoot less digital. But it is more expensive, so it probably won’t happen. Anyway, it has been nominated for 120 awards and has won 21 thus far. I was thrown by the non-linear storytelling until I eventually figured it out, then my wife and I argued about some of it going home. :-)
Valarian and the City of a Thousand Planets is an adaptation of a VERY long-running French comic book by Luc Besson, said comic makers also worked with Besson to make Fifth Element, and you can clearly see the influences. This movie took elements from several issues of the comics, and I think it could have done it better. And it was still horribly sexist. For example, in the opening sequence there’s the montage of the space station’s command group meeting new nations then new aliens as they join the station. The commander is always a man, even though decades/centuries are passing. My wife caught that one right off the bat. And I think they could have done a much better job casting Valarian. Laureline was awesome, but they never brought out the fact that she was an 11th century French peasant girl who saved Valerian’s life during a mission that went sideways. I absolutely loved the multi-dimensional swap meet, that was beyond awesome. I really enjoyed the movie, but I was also really disappointed. It could have been much better.
The Black Tower. Right off the bat, I have not read the book series. I like a lot of King’s non-horror stuff, and from what I understand, this series of books treads the line as to whether or not it’s horror. Frankly, I was kind of *meh* about this movie. There were interesting elements, but it just didn’t grab me. And the super gun store in New York City? With THEIR gun laws? It really blew my suspension of disbelief. All they had to do was set it in Philadelphia, which would have added a nice irony, or any number of other cities, and I would have bought high-density gun stores.
Atomic Blonde. LOVED this movie! First off, I’m a sucker for good movies set in Berlin, as I have stated often before. And this was a very good spy movie. Excellent fight choreography, where you see the hero getting worn down by having to slog through waves of goons. You also see the emotional toll that it takes on her. I really hope this becomes a series, I’d love to see a good female spy series with more verisimilitude than Bond. I still don’t have the graphic novel, I was hoping it’d appear under the Christmas tree and it didn’t, not that I don’t appreciate the books that I got for my birthday and Christmas last month. Still, gotta get the graphic novel and DVD ordered.
The Hitman's Bodyguard. Oh, man. This was a good year for unconventional spy movies, and they all came in the second half. First we have gritty realism with Atomic Blonde, then we get in to the silly stuff with Hitman’s Bodyguard. I’m a little disappointed that there’s only four stories up on AO3 for this movie, but as one crosses over with the MCU and one with the DCU and Batman, they might be worth checking out. The hitman, Samuel Jackson, is one of the best in the world, but finally allows himself to be caught and goes to prison. His testimony is needed in the Hague to put away a war criminal, and the hitman must be transported from London to the Hague. The transport is immediately ambushed and the sole surviving cop calls in the bodyguard – the one man whom the hitman would love to kill, and the feeling is reciprocated. It becomes a buddy comedy with an impressive body count as they travel across England and Europe to their Rendezvous With Destiny. VERY slashy. Lots of fun, if you don’t mind the body count.
Birth of the Dragon. Wow. This is a Bruce Lee biopic, and sadly we missed the first ten minutes. I really need to tell my wife that movies start ten minutes before they do, but this is the worst that we’ve come in late. The part we miss was Bruce Lee killing someone in Hong Kong, I don’t know the circumstances, and flees to San Francisco to avoid retribution. He opens a dojo and begins teaching Kung Fu to Westerners, a strictly taboo move. He’s making movie deals to show off kung fu, but those haven’t started yet. One of his students is reading a Chinese newspaper and sees that Wong Jack Man, a Shaolin priest and kung fu master, is coming to San Francisco. Bruce sees this as an opportunity to challenge him to a fight to publicize how great he is at kung fu to increase the value of his brand. But Wong is here for a different reason. Lots of stuff going on, very interesting movie.
And Starring Pancho Villa As Himself. One night after watching Game of Thrones on HBO, I flipped the app on my Apple TV to browse what movies they had on offer, and I came across this one. And my brain went WOW. This sounds interesting! I didn’t have time to watch it then, but I remembered the title, and finally got to watch it. It’s based on true events: Pancho Villa, during the Mexican Revolution, sometimes had film crews filming battles! This is a dramatization of him negotiating with a smallish New York film company to have them film a battle just across the Rio Grande, then the relationship continues when the company decides they want to make a big biopic about Villa. Excellent movie starring Antionio Banderas in the title role, highly recommended. Alan Arkin plays a Jewish machine-gunner in Villa’s army, based on a real person. Perfect role for Arkin.
LEGO Ninjago Movie. What can you say: it’s tripe, but it’s fun tripe. And like the two previous LEGO movies, it breaks the fourth wall in a very interesting way.
Kingsmen: The Golden Circle. I had hoped to watch the previous Kingsman DVD before seeing this, but it just didn’t work out. And that didn’t really prove necessary, it stands just fine on its own, but you really should have seen the first movie before seeing this one. We really don’t get a line on what Eggsy has been doing with The Kingsman since the first movie, but it doesn’t really matter since in fairly short order the Kingsman get blowed up and have to go to America, where they meet their American Cousins, the Statesmen. The big villain in this one is Poppy, wonderfully played by Julianne Moore, who is out to control the world’s drug trade. Elton John has much more than a cameo in this film. More improbable gadgets than Bond, which I enjoyed, and the return of Harry in interesting circumstances. If you liked the first one, you’ll probably like this one, but you might not want a hamburger for a few weeks.
Blade Runner 2049. I’m still of mixed feelings over this one. Was it better than the original? Was it worse? Both of those can be answered “yes and no”. I think they could have cut down some of the vast panning shots that were nothing more than ‘see the great scenery that we have!’ They did nothing to improve the story, and that could have used some improvement. Overall, I think it was a good movie. BUT…. I wish I could have seen the original before seeing this one. And I wish I’d seen the three mini-movies before I’d seen this one. They link the two movies very nicely. The Hans Zimmer soundtrack is excellent, though I was kinda wistful for some Vangelis. One thing that I definitely missed was the graphitti, that was something that Ridley Scott painted more of whenever he had a break between shots. And I was so happy to see them bring back Edward James Olmos as Gaff and have him do some origami. But they really needed to develop the character of Niander Wallace more as he is quite critical to the story, I think that would have vastly improved the movie. Well, I now have the original movie on DVD, and when this one comes out I’ll watch them back to back on consecutive nights. Then I’ll give it some thought and we’ll see what emerges from my feeble little brain.
Battle of the Sexes. Ah, the Billy Jean King/Bobby Riggs tennis match. I have very faint memories of this happening, but I really don’t remember it. Incredible casting, and according to interviews with Billy Jean, it’s a very accurate movie. Bobby Riggs was much older than Billy Jean and passed away several years ago. We really enjoyed this movie, tremendous fun.
The Foreigner. It is SO GOOD to see Jackie Chan back in a serious drama. It’s sort of a variation on the Taken franchise: he’s a restaurant owner/cook in London when his teenage daughter is killed in an apparent random bombing attributed to an IRA splinter group apparently trying to reignite The Troubles. Timothy Dalton plays a government minister with former links to the IRA whom Jackie focuses on to get the name of the people responsible for the bombing, which Dalton is initially not able to provide. It’s later discovered that Jackie is former U.S. Special Forces and EXTREMELY skilled at doing nasty things to bad people. I wanted to see this a second time in the theater, but we only have ten screens so they sometimes churn out pretty quick. I was just happy to be able to see it at all here and will snag it on DVD.
Breaking sequence a bit, before seeing Thor: Ragnarok (twice, actually), I wanted to see some of Thor’s key previous appearances, so I skimmed The Avengers and watched both Thor and Thor: Darkworld. The main thing that I wanted to see in The Avengers was the fight between Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man after The Avengers capture Loki and Thor steals him from them out of the Quinnjet. Such a great fight. Back to Ragnarok. I quite liked this film and thought it a very good addition to the MCU. But I had some problems in places with Thor’s characterization. For example, he’s locked in the chair, going down the tunnel of lights, about to meet The Grandmaster (so wonderfully played by Jeff Goldblum). And Thor is screaming like a Leetel Gurl, as Ahnold might say. I didn’t think that was in-character for Thor. He’s teleported by Heimdall via the Bifrost regularly. I just can’t see it. But it was quite a movie, and we finally got to see a no-holds fight between Thor and Hulk. And then they buddy up. We get more Warriors Three, but no Lady Sif? Wonderful Doctor Strange interlude that kind of boggled Thor (doing somewhat more to Loki!), which was very fun to see. Lots of fun, but some flaws that I was willing to overlook. It also has THREE Hemsworths in it(!) and the director, Taika Waititi, made the very cool vampire documentary, What We Do In The Shadows. Supposedly he’s going to do a werewolf version of it.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Dr. Strangelove is one of those ‘watch every few years’ movies, and this, apparently, was one of those years. Made in 1964, it was James Earl Jones first movie! He had previously done TV, but this was his first movie and he’d be stuck back in television until 1970 and it would be still another seven years before he’d become the voice of Darth Vader. This year I spent some time learning more about the movie. For example, Peter Sellars didn’t play three movies, he originally played four! He was initially also playing the pilot of the bomber, but then he had an accident and broke his leg. They tried modifying the bomber set, but they just couldn’t work around the cast on his leg and they had to put someone else in the role. Amazingly, they got ahold of Slim Pickens who was nothing short of marvelous in the role.
Murder on the Orient Express. It’s hard to make a movie about such an old and well-known property: IMDB lists at least six including this year’s. We know the basic story, it’s the trimmings that is different. And this year is largely the same. But Branagh’s Poirot, or more accurately, his moustache, does quite the job of sleuthing out what happened. I think they twisted up the ending, and in doing so, foreshadowed Branagh doing Death On The Nile, which apparently is now officially announced.
Before seeing Justice League, I sat down with Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice on DVD. I REALLY enjoyed Man of Steel! Now, I’m not a big Superman fan and never bought too many of his comics. In my ever so humble opinion, Kurt Busiak’s Samaritan in the Astro City comics is exactly what I think Superman should be. But that’s neither here nor there, this is what we’ve got. Anyway, MoS had an excellent origin story, did a good job with his childhood, and everything with him coming in to his powers. Overall, I thought it was a great movie. EXCEPT the horrific amount of damage done to Metropolis/wherever in the fight against Zod and his minions. In the first Avengers movie, you had a lot of damage done to New York City, but it was somewhat confined to a certain area, and they showed great effort in trying to evacuate people out of the combat zone. Clearly there were massive casualties, but in MoS? I can’t imagine what kind of body count they racked up. And then we get to BvS. I’ll let slide the lack of any mention of Batman in MoS, though I think they could have done some foreshadowing there. I can completely appreciate that Bruce would be royally pissed to have so many of his people killed in the fight between Supes and Zod, and the seeming arrogance of Supes regarding the dead. And let’s face it, you have to be pretty severely unhinged to be The Batman. What I loved about this movie was the many appearances of Diana Prince, and her constantly thwarting Bruce Wayne. Quite amusing. And Superman dies. Mostly. And Lex Luthor goes even more insane. Which brings us to Justice League. Bruce is mourning Clark, big bad from Greece’s ancient past wakes up, Avenger’s Assemble! Whoops. Err, What rhymes with Justice and implies gathering together? Anyway, Bruce, with his mighty computers and intelligence networks, learns of other powered individuals and gathers them together to deal with this mighty menace, and in doing so, needs the biggest gun on the planet, which means bringing out the tech that Luthor used to kill Superman. Big surprise. It was better than I expected, but it felt rushed, and I thought the effects could have used a couple more weeks. It was one of those classic problems where lots of battle scenes were dark so you couldn’t see problems in the rendering. Still, it bodes well that the Justice League series may be quite good.
Yoga Hosers. For the most part, you’re either a Kevin Smith fan, or you’re not. I am. Bigly. When I attended San Diego ComicCon ™, I would go to the panel before his to ensure that I could get a good seat for his panel. Yoga Hosers is the second in his Canadian horror trilogy, it’s also sort of a Canadian version of Clerks. In this case, his daughter, Harley Quinn Smith, and Lily-Rose Depp, but that’s OK because Johnny’s there also. Harley Quinn and Lily-Rose are two teens (they actually are) working at a minimart named Eh to Zed. They end up thwarting a Nazi threat involving clones made of sauerkraut and brats that are in miniature Mounty uniforms. It is some really crazy stuff. If you don’t like Kevin Smith, don’t bother. But if you do, this one is hilarious!
Star Wars 7: Force Awakens. Since Last Jedi was about to come out, we watched Force Awakens again. And it was good enough. I felt that it was really a recap of Episodes 4-6 for people who’d forgotten the core of the story, maybe that’s just me. Interesting enough, but it didn’t do much for me. I had a lot of problems with the concept of sucking a star dry to power a weapon apparently capable of shooting energy bolts FTL, ACCURATELY, in to other star systems. I’m glad it was destroyed so I didn’t need to bother with it in future films. Yes, it’s science FICTION, and I don’t mind hand-wavey stuff, but this was a bit much. It’s like JJ Abrams so casually ignoring distance and speed of light communications in Star Trek: some things can really piss me off. Abrams hit that button, this movie pushed it.
Tampopo is a wonderful Japanese comedy from 1985 by Juzo Itami who sadly took his life 12 years later. It has three tracks, the main being the effort of a recent widow trying to open a ramen shop and two truckers and a horde of friends helping her. The second track as a yakuza gangster and his girlfriend and their relationship, the third is skewering Japanese conformity through their relationship with food. It is both comedy and satire and a very entertaining movie. This particular edition is a Criterion release that came out just a couple of years ago. I showed an earlier print to my wife many years ago, much earlier in our relationship, and she enjoyed it. Sadly, that DVD vanished, but she knew how much I liked it and bought this edition for my birthday and when we went to dinner for my birthday she gave it to me in an underhanded and sneaky fashion that I usually employ giving her presents for her birthday and other occasions. I was so proud of her! Soon her training shall be complete. We watched it that night and really enjoyed it.
Star Wars 8: Last Jedi. Having your birthday the week before Christmas is both good and bad. The bad part is that as a kid, I frequently thought that I wasn’t getting my fair share of birthday presents, compared to my sibs. That may or may not have been true, I don’t know, but I felt shorted as a kid. The good part is, as an adult, that it’s a weekend of great movie releases! Most notably, it’s been the weekend for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies, and for Star Wars. This year was no exception. However, there was no way we were going to try to see it opening weekend. I was off the week between Christmas and New Years, so we saw it then. And I hate to say this, and it is sacrilegious, but I think I’m bored of Star Wars. I could recognize that it was a good story and developing at a good pace. They were doing great things with lesser characters, they were advancing minorities and women, which, in turn, would piss off the Sad Puppies and others to no degree. Always a good thing. But for some reason it wasn’t grabbing me. I thought the sequence of Kylo Ren and Rey taking out Snoke was quite awesome, as was Baby Darth’s offer to her to rule the universe at his side. Straight out of Empire Strikes Back. But who puts so much flammable material on a space ship?! And I thought the whole casino bit was a bit of a waste: obtaining a hacker could have been done differently and didn’t need that amount of time committed to it. But they didn’t ask me. :-) I thought it was quite an interesting movie, I particularly liked Luke’s take on why the Jedi should end. But in the end, it just didn’t grab me. Yes, I’ll add the DVD to my collection. Yes, I’ll see Episode 9: Disney Makes Even More Money. But I don’t know why.
Hot Shots. You don’t have to ask me twice to watch and Abrahams/Zucker movie, even if this one is only Abrahams. My main reason for watching this one, once again, is that I’m now working on an Air Force base. We’re imaging laptops, and occasionally having to read the serial numbers off of laptops for others to write down or verify. And none of us are using the military phonetic code correctly. I just felt a need to see it well and truly mangled. “That’s a roger, Millie Vanilly Chilly Willy.” And the Making Of was quite excellent, all the actors stayed in character. And also the Dread Pirate Roberts. LOTS of fun.
Inglorius Basterds. I’ve been wanting to re-watch this one for a long time. One thing that I did not know was that it’s sort of a remake of an earlier film of similar name. I also didn’t realize when I originally saw it that it’s one of the few Tarantino films that it chronologically consistent! It’s rather strange watching a Tarantino film and not having to piece it together in your mind. Anyway, an American Army unit is formed consisting exclusively of Jewish soldiers to go behind enemy lines to commit atrocities against German soldiers to demoralize them. They do so, quite successfully, for several years, then get involved in a plot to not just blow up Hitler, but to blow up most of the high command. You don’t watch Tarantino films if you can’t handle intense and extreme violence, and this film has it in spades. The gunfight in the basement bar is an amazing piece of camera shooting and choreography, I’m curious how long it took to set up and then film. This is a film that I’d probably watch every five years or so, I can’t see myself watching it more often than that.
A Taxing Woman, another Juzo Itami film, actually his second film, with some cast crossover from Tampopo. Apparently in Japan it is considered your duty to try to avoid paying your full taxes, likewise it is the local, regional, and federal tax collectors job to try and get them from you. In this film, a female inspector (Itami’s wife!) is going after a real estate tycoon who has done a good job hiding money for years. Lots of sex, some violence against women. A very amusing love hotel scene during a raid. Itami went on to make a sequel to this, A Taxing Woman’s Return, where the heroine goes after a religious cult. I’m going to have to see if I can locate a copy.
Bullet. Somehow I had never seen this Steve McQueen classic which contains what many consider to be one of film’s best car chases ever. And it was nice seeing that it starred Robert Vaughn, AKA Napoleon Solo, The Man From UNCLE. Interesting story, but to be honest, I was kinda bored. I expect I’ll be letting this DVD go.
Hot Fuzz. The second film in the Cornetto Trilogy, starting with Shaun of the Dead and concluding with The World’s End (which I need to get a copy of). Simon Pegg as a cop. Marvelous! I got to see this in the theater in the week that it was out in the US. I’ve had it on DVD for ages, but while I was in Phoenix over Thanksgiving, I was out looking for used movies and I stumbled across a three disk set of Hot Fuzz with scads of bonus material that I’d never seen – for $5! It is now mine! Had to watch it again, enjoyed it immensely. I haven’t really dug in to the bonus material but have enjoyed what I’ve seen.
07/01 Despicable Me 3
07/07 Spider-Man: Homecoming
07/21 Dunkirk
07/22 Valarian and the City of a Thousand Planets
08/11 The Black Tower
08/16 Atomic Blonde
09/01 The Hitman's Bodyguard
09/04 Birth of the Dragon
09/15 And Starring Pancho Villa As Himself (vod)
09/26 LEGO Ninjago Movie
10/03 Kingsmen: The Golden Circle
10/07 Blade Runner 2049
10/10 Battle of the Sexes
10/17 The Foreigner
11/04 The Avengers (v), skimmed
11/04 Thor, and Thor: Darkworld (v)
11/05 Doctor Strangelove (v)
11/07 Thor: Ragnarok x2
11/11 Murder on the Orient Express
11/16 Man of Steel (v), Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice (v)
11/24 Justice League
12/01 Yoga Hosers (v)
12/15 Star Wars 7: Force Awakens (v)
12/16 Tampopo (v)
12/17 Star Wars 8: Last Jedi
12/22 Hot Shots (v)
12/22 Inglorius Basterds (v)
12/23 A Taxing Woman (v)
12/23 Bullet (v)
12/23 Hot Fuzz (v)
My total this year includes videos, both DVD and Bluray (I haven’t had my VHS or LaserDisc players connected in ages, though I still have both and two of the latter) and video on demand. I’m maintaining a sort of tradition of trying to see at least one prequel before seeing a sequel, thus I saw both Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman before going to see Justice League. As it happens, I hadn’t seen either of the first two movies before, so it was kinda fun. And I had no idea how much Bruce was lusting after Clark, Justice League just went on to prove it.
So, on to my thoughts after the cut. And some spoilers in my comments, so be ye forewarned.
Despicable Me 3. While these movies with Groot, sorry, Gru and the minions are always fun, this one felt like it was a little forced. Mid-life crisis, job loss, etc. Perhaps a little too real life? Still, definitely had its fun elements.
Spider-Man: Homecoming is the first Spider-Man movie that I can honestly say that I liked. I’ve never been a huge Spidey fan and never consistently bought his comics, but after they negotiated him in to the full Marvel Cinematic Universe and I got to see him in Winter Soldier, I was sold. He had attitude which I don’t recall, yet he was still a kid. I really enjoyed this, in fact I saw it twice. And I LOVED the fact that they didn’t redo the origin story! Less than five minutes conversation, and done. Saw it twice, and I’m not sure if it’s in our collection but it will be.
Dunkirk. Wow. Nolan did a great job here. To be honest, I wasn’t too keen on his Batman movies. But this? Very gritty. It was interesting seeing two theatrical releases about Dunkirk in one year, the other being the dramedy Their Finest, which I highly recommend. But there was nothing funny about this one, it was pure serious. Nolan was amazing, and I was impressed that he managed to source and actually shoot it on film, it added a quality that I miss. I wish other filmmakers, Tarantino excluded because he likes shooting on film, would shoot less digital. But it is more expensive, so it probably won’t happen. Anyway, it has been nominated for 120 awards and has won 21 thus far. I was thrown by the non-linear storytelling until I eventually figured it out, then my wife and I argued about some of it going home. :-)
Valarian and the City of a Thousand Planets is an adaptation of a VERY long-running French comic book by Luc Besson, said comic makers also worked with Besson to make Fifth Element, and you can clearly see the influences. This movie took elements from several issues of the comics, and I think it could have done it better. And it was still horribly sexist. For example, in the opening sequence there’s the montage of the space station’s command group meeting new nations then new aliens as they join the station. The commander is always a man, even though decades/centuries are passing. My wife caught that one right off the bat. And I think they could have done a much better job casting Valarian. Laureline was awesome, but they never brought out the fact that she was an 11th century French peasant girl who saved Valerian’s life during a mission that went sideways. I absolutely loved the multi-dimensional swap meet, that was beyond awesome. I really enjoyed the movie, but I was also really disappointed. It could have been much better.
The Black Tower. Right off the bat, I have not read the book series. I like a lot of King’s non-horror stuff, and from what I understand, this series of books treads the line as to whether or not it’s horror. Frankly, I was kind of *meh* about this movie. There were interesting elements, but it just didn’t grab me. And the super gun store in New York City? With THEIR gun laws? It really blew my suspension of disbelief. All they had to do was set it in Philadelphia, which would have added a nice irony, or any number of other cities, and I would have bought high-density gun stores.
Atomic Blonde. LOVED this movie! First off, I’m a sucker for good movies set in Berlin, as I have stated often before. And this was a very good spy movie. Excellent fight choreography, where you see the hero getting worn down by having to slog through waves of goons. You also see the emotional toll that it takes on her. I really hope this becomes a series, I’d love to see a good female spy series with more verisimilitude than Bond. I still don’t have the graphic novel, I was hoping it’d appear under the Christmas tree and it didn’t, not that I don’t appreciate the books that I got for my birthday and Christmas last month. Still, gotta get the graphic novel and DVD ordered.
The Hitman's Bodyguard. Oh, man. This was a good year for unconventional spy movies, and they all came in the second half. First we have gritty realism with Atomic Blonde, then we get in to the silly stuff with Hitman’s Bodyguard. I’m a little disappointed that there’s only four stories up on AO3 for this movie, but as one crosses over with the MCU and one with the DCU and Batman, they might be worth checking out. The hitman, Samuel Jackson, is one of the best in the world, but finally allows himself to be caught and goes to prison. His testimony is needed in the Hague to put away a war criminal, and the hitman must be transported from London to the Hague. The transport is immediately ambushed and the sole surviving cop calls in the bodyguard – the one man whom the hitman would love to kill, and the feeling is reciprocated. It becomes a buddy comedy with an impressive body count as they travel across England and Europe to their Rendezvous With Destiny. VERY slashy. Lots of fun, if you don’t mind the body count.
Birth of the Dragon. Wow. This is a Bruce Lee biopic, and sadly we missed the first ten minutes. I really need to tell my wife that movies start ten minutes before they do, but this is the worst that we’ve come in late. The part we miss was Bruce Lee killing someone in Hong Kong, I don’t know the circumstances, and flees to San Francisco to avoid retribution. He opens a dojo and begins teaching Kung Fu to Westerners, a strictly taboo move. He’s making movie deals to show off kung fu, but those haven’t started yet. One of his students is reading a Chinese newspaper and sees that Wong Jack Man, a Shaolin priest and kung fu master, is coming to San Francisco. Bruce sees this as an opportunity to challenge him to a fight to publicize how great he is at kung fu to increase the value of his brand. But Wong is here for a different reason. Lots of stuff going on, very interesting movie.
And Starring Pancho Villa As Himself. One night after watching Game of Thrones on HBO, I flipped the app on my Apple TV to browse what movies they had on offer, and I came across this one. And my brain went WOW. This sounds interesting! I didn’t have time to watch it then, but I remembered the title, and finally got to watch it. It’s based on true events: Pancho Villa, during the Mexican Revolution, sometimes had film crews filming battles! This is a dramatization of him negotiating with a smallish New York film company to have them film a battle just across the Rio Grande, then the relationship continues when the company decides they want to make a big biopic about Villa. Excellent movie starring Antionio Banderas in the title role, highly recommended. Alan Arkin plays a Jewish machine-gunner in Villa’s army, based on a real person. Perfect role for Arkin.
LEGO Ninjago Movie. What can you say: it’s tripe, but it’s fun tripe. And like the two previous LEGO movies, it breaks the fourth wall in a very interesting way.
Kingsmen: The Golden Circle. I had hoped to watch the previous Kingsman DVD before seeing this, but it just didn’t work out. And that didn’t really prove necessary, it stands just fine on its own, but you really should have seen the first movie before seeing this one. We really don’t get a line on what Eggsy has been doing with The Kingsman since the first movie, but it doesn’t really matter since in fairly short order the Kingsman get blowed up and have to go to America, where they meet their American Cousins, the Statesmen. The big villain in this one is Poppy, wonderfully played by Julianne Moore, who is out to control the world’s drug trade. Elton John has much more than a cameo in this film. More improbable gadgets than Bond, which I enjoyed, and the return of Harry in interesting circumstances. If you liked the first one, you’ll probably like this one, but you might not want a hamburger for a few weeks.
Blade Runner 2049. I’m still of mixed feelings over this one. Was it better than the original? Was it worse? Both of those can be answered “yes and no”. I think they could have cut down some of the vast panning shots that were nothing more than ‘see the great scenery that we have!’ They did nothing to improve the story, and that could have used some improvement. Overall, I think it was a good movie. BUT…. I wish I could have seen the original before seeing this one. And I wish I’d seen the three mini-movies before I’d seen this one. They link the two movies very nicely. The Hans Zimmer soundtrack is excellent, though I was kinda wistful for some Vangelis. One thing that I definitely missed was the graphitti, that was something that Ridley Scott painted more of whenever he had a break between shots. And I was so happy to see them bring back Edward James Olmos as Gaff and have him do some origami. But they really needed to develop the character of Niander Wallace more as he is quite critical to the story, I think that would have vastly improved the movie. Well, I now have the original movie on DVD, and when this one comes out I’ll watch them back to back on consecutive nights. Then I’ll give it some thought and we’ll see what emerges from my feeble little brain.
Battle of the Sexes. Ah, the Billy Jean King/Bobby Riggs tennis match. I have very faint memories of this happening, but I really don’t remember it. Incredible casting, and according to interviews with Billy Jean, it’s a very accurate movie. Bobby Riggs was much older than Billy Jean and passed away several years ago. We really enjoyed this movie, tremendous fun.
The Foreigner. It is SO GOOD to see Jackie Chan back in a serious drama. It’s sort of a variation on the Taken franchise: he’s a restaurant owner/cook in London when his teenage daughter is killed in an apparent random bombing attributed to an IRA splinter group apparently trying to reignite The Troubles. Timothy Dalton plays a government minister with former links to the IRA whom Jackie focuses on to get the name of the people responsible for the bombing, which Dalton is initially not able to provide. It’s later discovered that Jackie is former U.S. Special Forces and EXTREMELY skilled at doing nasty things to bad people. I wanted to see this a second time in the theater, but we only have ten screens so they sometimes churn out pretty quick. I was just happy to be able to see it at all here and will snag it on DVD.
Breaking sequence a bit, before seeing Thor: Ragnarok (twice, actually), I wanted to see some of Thor’s key previous appearances, so I skimmed The Avengers and watched both Thor and Thor: Darkworld. The main thing that I wanted to see in The Avengers was the fight between Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man after The Avengers capture Loki and Thor steals him from them out of the Quinnjet. Such a great fight. Back to Ragnarok. I quite liked this film and thought it a very good addition to the MCU. But I had some problems in places with Thor’s characterization. For example, he’s locked in the chair, going down the tunnel of lights, about to meet The Grandmaster (so wonderfully played by Jeff Goldblum). And Thor is screaming like a Leetel Gurl, as Ahnold might say. I didn’t think that was in-character for Thor. He’s teleported by Heimdall via the Bifrost regularly. I just can’t see it. But it was quite a movie, and we finally got to see a no-holds fight between Thor and Hulk. And then they buddy up. We get more Warriors Three, but no Lady Sif? Wonderful Doctor Strange interlude that kind of boggled Thor (doing somewhat more to Loki!), which was very fun to see. Lots of fun, but some flaws that I was willing to overlook. It also has THREE Hemsworths in it(!) and the director, Taika Waititi, made the very cool vampire documentary, What We Do In The Shadows. Supposedly he’s going to do a werewolf version of it.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Dr. Strangelove is one of those ‘watch every few years’ movies, and this, apparently, was one of those years. Made in 1964, it was James Earl Jones first movie! He had previously done TV, but this was his first movie and he’d be stuck back in television until 1970 and it would be still another seven years before he’d become the voice of Darth Vader. This year I spent some time learning more about the movie. For example, Peter Sellars didn’t play three movies, he originally played four! He was initially also playing the pilot of the bomber, but then he had an accident and broke his leg. They tried modifying the bomber set, but they just couldn’t work around the cast on his leg and they had to put someone else in the role. Amazingly, they got ahold of Slim Pickens who was nothing short of marvelous in the role.
Murder on the Orient Express. It’s hard to make a movie about such an old and well-known property: IMDB lists at least six including this year’s. We know the basic story, it’s the trimmings that is different. And this year is largely the same. But Branagh’s Poirot, or more accurately, his moustache, does quite the job of sleuthing out what happened. I think they twisted up the ending, and in doing so, foreshadowed Branagh doing Death On The Nile, which apparently is now officially announced.
Before seeing Justice League, I sat down with Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice on DVD. I REALLY enjoyed Man of Steel! Now, I’m not a big Superman fan and never bought too many of his comics. In my ever so humble opinion, Kurt Busiak’s Samaritan in the Astro City comics is exactly what I think Superman should be. But that’s neither here nor there, this is what we’ve got. Anyway, MoS had an excellent origin story, did a good job with his childhood, and everything with him coming in to his powers. Overall, I thought it was a great movie. EXCEPT the horrific amount of damage done to Metropolis/wherever in the fight against Zod and his minions. In the first Avengers movie, you had a lot of damage done to New York City, but it was somewhat confined to a certain area, and they showed great effort in trying to evacuate people out of the combat zone. Clearly there were massive casualties, but in MoS? I can’t imagine what kind of body count they racked up. And then we get to BvS. I’ll let slide the lack of any mention of Batman in MoS, though I think they could have done some foreshadowing there. I can completely appreciate that Bruce would be royally pissed to have so many of his people killed in the fight between Supes and Zod, and the seeming arrogance of Supes regarding the dead. And let’s face it, you have to be pretty severely unhinged to be The Batman. What I loved about this movie was the many appearances of Diana Prince, and her constantly thwarting Bruce Wayne. Quite amusing. And Superman dies. Mostly. And Lex Luthor goes even more insane. Which brings us to Justice League. Bruce is mourning Clark, big bad from Greece’s ancient past wakes up, Avenger’s Assemble! Whoops. Err, What rhymes with Justice and implies gathering together? Anyway, Bruce, with his mighty computers and intelligence networks, learns of other powered individuals and gathers them together to deal with this mighty menace, and in doing so, needs the biggest gun on the planet, which means bringing out the tech that Luthor used to kill Superman. Big surprise. It was better than I expected, but it felt rushed, and I thought the effects could have used a couple more weeks. It was one of those classic problems where lots of battle scenes were dark so you couldn’t see problems in the rendering. Still, it bodes well that the Justice League series may be quite good.
Yoga Hosers. For the most part, you’re either a Kevin Smith fan, or you’re not. I am. Bigly. When I attended San Diego ComicCon ™, I would go to the panel before his to ensure that I could get a good seat for his panel. Yoga Hosers is the second in his Canadian horror trilogy, it’s also sort of a Canadian version of Clerks. In this case, his daughter, Harley Quinn Smith, and Lily-Rose Depp, but that’s OK because Johnny’s there also. Harley Quinn and Lily-Rose are two teens (they actually are) working at a minimart named Eh to Zed. They end up thwarting a Nazi threat involving clones made of sauerkraut and brats that are in miniature Mounty uniforms. It is some really crazy stuff. If you don’t like Kevin Smith, don’t bother. But if you do, this one is hilarious!
Star Wars 7: Force Awakens. Since Last Jedi was about to come out, we watched Force Awakens again. And it was good enough. I felt that it was really a recap of Episodes 4-6 for people who’d forgotten the core of the story, maybe that’s just me. Interesting enough, but it didn’t do much for me. I had a lot of problems with the concept of sucking a star dry to power a weapon apparently capable of shooting energy bolts FTL, ACCURATELY, in to other star systems. I’m glad it was destroyed so I didn’t need to bother with it in future films. Yes, it’s science FICTION, and I don’t mind hand-wavey stuff, but this was a bit much. It’s like JJ Abrams so casually ignoring distance and speed of light communications in Star Trek: some things can really piss me off. Abrams hit that button, this movie pushed it.
Tampopo is a wonderful Japanese comedy from 1985 by Juzo Itami who sadly took his life 12 years later. It has three tracks, the main being the effort of a recent widow trying to open a ramen shop and two truckers and a horde of friends helping her. The second track as a yakuza gangster and his girlfriend and their relationship, the third is skewering Japanese conformity through their relationship with food. It is both comedy and satire and a very entertaining movie. This particular edition is a Criterion release that came out just a couple of years ago. I showed an earlier print to my wife many years ago, much earlier in our relationship, and she enjoyed it. Sadly, that DVD vanished, but she knew how much I liked it and bought this edition for my birthday and when we went to dinner for my birthday she gave it to me in an underhanded and sneaky fashion that I usually employ giving her presents for her birthday and other occasions. I was so proud of her! Soon her training shall be complete. We watched it that night and really enjoyed it.
Star Wars 8: Last Jedi. Having your birthday the week before Christmas is both good and bad. The bad part is that as a kid, I frequently thought that I wasn’t getting my fair share of birthday presents, compared to my sibs. That may or may not have been true, I don’t know, but I felt shorted as a kid. The good part is, as an adult, that it’s a weekend of great movie releases! Most notably, it’s been the weekend for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies, and for Star Wars. This year was no exception. However, there was no way we were going to try to see it opening weekend. I was off the week between Christmas and New Years, so we saw it then. And I hate to say this, and it is sacrilegious, but I think I’m bored of Star Wars. I could recognize that it was a good story and developing at a good pace. They were doing great things with lesser characters, they were advancing minorities and women, which, in turn, would piss off the Sad Puppies and others to no degree. Always a good thing. But for some reason it wasn’t grabbing me. I thought the sequence of Kylo Ren and Rey taking out Snoke was quite awesome, as was Baby Darth’s offer to her to rule the universe at his side. Straight out of Empire Strikes Back. But who puts so much flammable material on a space ship?! And I thought the whole casino bit was a bit of a waste: obtaining a hacker could have been done differently and didn’t need that amount of time committed to it. But they didn’t ask me. :-) I thought it was quite an interesting movie, I particularly liked Luke’s take on why the Jedi should end. But in the end, it just didn’t grab me. Yes, I’ll add the DVD to my collection. Yes, I’ll see Episode 9: Disney Makes Even More Money. But I don’t know why.
Hot Shots. You don’t have to ask me twice to watch and Abrahams/Zucker movie, even if this one is only Abrahams. My main reason for watching this one, once again, is that I’m now working on an Air Force base. We’re imaging laptops, and occasionally having to read the serial numbers off of laptops for others to write down or verify. And none of us are using the military phonetic code correctly. I just felt a need to see it well and truly mangled. “That’s a roger, Millie Vanilly Chilly Willy.” And the Making Of was quite excellent, all the actors stayed in character. And also the Dread Pirate Roberts. LOTS of fun.
Inglorius Basterds. I’ve been wanting to re-watch this one for a long time. One thing that I did not know was that it’s sort of a remake of an earlier film of similar name. I also didn’t realize when I originally saw it that it’s one of the few Tarantino films that it chronologically consistent! It’s rather strange watching a Tarantino film and not having to piece it together in your mind. Anyway, an American Army unit is formed consisting exclusively of Jewish soldiers to go behind enemy lines to commit atrocities against German soldiers to demoralize them. They do so, quite successfully, for several years, then get involved in a plot to not just blow up Hitler, but to blow up most of the high command. You don’t watch Tarantino films if you can’t handle intense and extreme violence, and this film has it in spades. The gunfight in the basement bar is an amazing piece of camera shooting and choreography, I’m curious how long it took to set up and then film. This is a film that I’d probably watch every five years or so, I can’t see myself watching it more often than that.
A Taxing Woman, another Juzo Itami film, actually his second film, with some cast crossover from Tampopo. Apparently in Japan it is considered your duty to try to avoid paying your full taxes, likewise it is the local, regional, and federal tax collectors job to try and get them from you. In this film, a female inspector (Itami’s wife!) is going after a real estate tycoon who has done a good job hiding money for years. Lots of sex, some violence against women. A very amusing love hotel scene during a raid. Itami went on to make a sequel to this, A Taxing Woman’s Return, where the heroine goes after a religious cult. I’m going to have to see if I can locate a copy.
Bullet. Somehow I had never seen this Steve McQueen classic which contains what many consider to be one of film’s best car chases ever. And it was nice seeing that it starred Robert Vaughn, AKA Napoleon Solo, The Man From UNCLE. Interesting story, but to be honest, I was kinda bored. I expect I’ll be letting this DVD go.
Hot Fuzz. The second film in the Cornetto Trilogy, starting with Shaun of the Dead and concluding with The World’s End (which I need to get a copy of). Simon Pegg as a cop. Marvelous! I got to see this in the theater in the week that it was out in the US. I’ve had it on DVD for ages, but while I was in Phoenix over Thanksgiving, I was out looking for used movies and I stumbled across a three disk set of Hot Fuzz with scads of bonus material that I’d never seen – for $5! It is now mine! Had to watch it again, enjoyed it immensely. I haven’t really dug in to the bonus material but have enjoyed what I’ve seen.
