Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)

This continues to be a surprisingly smart "stupid" movie.  This time I noticed that they made Napoleon seem like a total dick, but so did Ridley Scott, so...  Originally posted 01 Feb 2012.    I hadn't seen this movie in ages.  Probably not since middle school. 

Bill (Alex Winters) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) are high schoolers convinced that their band, Wyld Stallyons, will be the Next Great Thing.  As soon as they can get Van Halen on guitar.  Oh, and possibly learn how to play themselves.  But things do not look rosy as they are about to fail their history final and if they do, Ted's father (Hal Landon, Jr.) is sending him to a military school in Alaska.  Not to worry, though, because the boys are getting a little help from the future in the form of Rufus (George Carlin) and his time-traveling phone booth.  See, if Wyld Stallyons gets broken up, the future he comes from will not exist.  So the guys zip across space-time, kidnapping historical figures like Socrates (Tony Steedman), Billy the Kid (Dan Shor), Napoleon (Terry Camilliari), and Joan of Arc (Jane Wiedlin).  But will time run out before they can give their report?

I never noticed when I watched it as a kid that all the "historical" figures were restricted by language.  Socrates only speaks Greek, Napoleon only speaks French, Freud speaks English and German and so forth.  It's a small detail but a cute one and bravo to the film-makers for including it.  Granted, this movie is just a harmless piece of 80's frippery and you should definitely not expect mind-blowing things from it but it is still fun to watch.  There were a couple of lines that startled a laugh out of me but I'll admit that I'm not the target audience, nor have I ever been.  This was purely nostalgic for me.

Obsession (2026)

  Content warning:  dead animal (cat), suicide, blood, self-harm, vomit

Bear (Michael Johnston) has a crush on his co-worker, Nikki (Inde Navarrette).  Rather than confess his feelings to her, he buys a novelty item from a spiritualist shop called a One-Wish Willow.  Breaking the wand grants the user one wish and Bear wishes that Nikki would love him.  So she does.  But as her behavior grows more and more unhinged, Bear begins to wish that he'd read the fine print on the box.

This movie was hilarious.  Five stars.  All credit to Inde Navarrette, who really can't be praised enough.  Her performance makes this movie.  I hope she gets so much work.  Also, shout out to Curry Barker who wrote and directed the film.  For a sophomore feature, this is incredibly polished.   

This would be such a good double-feature with Weapons.  I know Companion seems obvious, but you're wrong.  Tech versus magic.  Completely different vibes.  Watch it with Weapons.  It has been a while since I have been this excited after seeing a horror movie and I am thrilled.  It's streaming on Peacock but I am probably going to buy a copy so I can make people watch it.

Burning (2018)

  This is just The Vanishing for people on their phones.

Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in) runs into his childhood neighbor, Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-seo), while running odd jobs.  She asks him to feed her cat while she is gone for several weeks in Africa.  When she comes back, she's with Ben (Steven Yuen), who is hotter, richer, and cooler than Jong-su.  But Jong-su soon becomes suspicious that Ben is hiding a dark secret, especially when Hae-mi disappears.

This movie is almost two and a half hours long, and it could have cut a solid 40 minutes off and lost nothing.  Some critics called it "slow-burn," I call it boring.  I think I would have been more okay with it not being an actual mystery --because it's not-- if the main character had any charisma whatsoever.  He just stumbles around with his mouth hanging open.  Yuen runs circles around him without even trying.  

As a sleep aid, it's fine.  It's a soft palette of blues and grays, the music isn't overbearing, and there are no sudden loud noises.  It's streaming on the Roku Channel so there are ad breaks but they weren't super disruptive because there wasn't any action or tension to disrupt.  

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

  Content warning:  gun violence, descriptions of domestic abuse

A bank robbery turns into a stand-off with the police on a sweltering summer day in Brooklyn, New York.

I have complicated feelings about this movie and some time on my hands.    

Let's begin with the basics.  This is a great Al Pacino performance.  Sonny is clearly and distinctly the main character, both sympathetic and repulsive, a man obviously suffering from untreated mental health issues and Pacino plays him with great dexterity.  The supporting cast is also great.  Charles Durning is probably not the guy you think of when you imagine someone going toe-to-toe with Pacino at the height of his powers, but he deserves the flowers here.  Penelope Allen, Sully Boyar, and Susan Peretz all turn in great character bits here.  You might recognize Carol Kane, Chris Sarandon, and Lance Henrikson popping in as well.  Also, if you've seen Spike Lee's Inside Man, you'll recognize Marcia Jean Kurtz, by the hair if nothing else.  (It took me nearly half the running time to place her and then I was filled with admiration for Mr. Lee for his homage.)

So, good performances.  Direction is also good.  Tension gets maintained throughout; even when it dips into tedium, it feels intentional, in order to ramp up the drama and fray the nerves.  Sidney Lumet was known for taut psychological films that didn't quite cross the line into thrillers.  He's a little dry for me, personally, but I can't deny the skill.

The nice thing about Lumet is that he definitely believes that subtext is for cowards.  The film is explicitly queer but not in a Very Special Episode kind of way.  It's a story about gay people that's not a Gay Story (tm), yeah?  Sonny is a conflicted man trying to reconcile his feelings with, again, untreated mental illness.  (I have a minor quibble over the way we're told about his violent outbursts but never shown any, but that feeds into my larger issue with the film.  More to follow.)  There's no pearl-clutching or Gay Panic.  Leon's gender dysphoria is actually handled pretty well, considering the time it was made.  I'm just saying.  It could have been way worse but Lumet chooses to treat Sonny as just another New Yorker.

The problem is Sal, the other bank robber played by John Cazale.  He's not really a character; he's a placeholder to fill plot holes.  Hear me out.  We know Sonny's motivation, as ill-conceived as it is.  We see his stressors.  He's the one that interacts with the hostages, the cops, the public.  We get nothing about Sal. He has no backstory, no character development, no reveal.  He doesn't seem to be motivated by the money (he seems a little too into the apparent suicide pact Sonny agreed to before the heist), he doesn't state any relationship to Sonny like brother (*cough*Fredo*cough) or cousin so there's no familial obligation.  He's not gay, so he's not there to help Leon.  Sonny mentions that they're both veterans but not if they served together.  But if you take his character out, Sonny is caught in about two minutes.  It's a two-man job, but the story only cares about one of them.  I don't love that.

Notwithstanding my critique, this is an excellent 70s nihilistic drama.  And it's streaming for free on YouTube.

War Dogs (2016)

  Content warning:  drug use, ableist slurs

David (Miles Teller), a massage therapist in Miami, quits to work for his childhood friend, Efraim (Jonah Hill) on a tiny defense contracting company.  Thanks to a new regulation, government contracts must be offered to small businesses, and AEY certainly qualifies as small.  But the boys are resourceful (and lucky), managing to parlay several small successes into larger wins until they finally hit the big time:  a contract so big it's known only as the Afghan Deal.  

If you surgically removed the wit and charm from Lord of War and just replaced them with tanning spray and the word "bro," you'd have War Dogs.  It says nothing new about gunrunning, morality, or even the serious laxity in the U.S. military procurement process.  (And I get to say that because I am one of those filthy defense contractors.)  Hill is at least trying to act while Teller bumbles gormlessly through his scenes.  The supporting cast of Ana de Armas, Kevin Pollack, and Bradley Cooper are wasted talents.  It's not clever, it's not funny, and it's not worth your time.  It is, however, streaming on Amazon Prime.

The Big Street (1942)

  A rare dramatic turn for Lucille Ball.

"Little" Pinks (Henry Fonda) is a busboy who falls in love with Gloria Lyons (Lucile Ball), a singer at the nightclub where he works.  Gloria is a gold-digger always looking for her next big score.  Her relationship with gangster Case Able (Barton MacLane) is fizzling out, so Gloria starts flirting with another millionaire, Decatur Reed (William T. Orr).  Ables doesn't take too kindly to being replaced and pushes her down the stairs, paralyzing her and ruining her career.  Will her reduced conditions force the proud chanteuse into some humility?

The main story isn't great.  Pinks is too soft and Gloria is too hard.  The supporting cast is what makes this movie worth watching.  Agnes Moorehead, Eugene Pallette, Sam Levene, Ray Collins, and Louise Beavers provide the comic relief as well as necessary heart.  Otherwise, this would be too slight of a melodrama.  But thanks to them, it tips over into a tragicomedy.  Ball plays way against type and it mostly works.  Fonda puts those big doe eyes to good use, mooning over her like a fool.

I own this as part of my Lucille Ball box set and it's unfortunately not available to stream for free anywhere.  It's definitely not one for casual fans but if you're interested in seeing Lucy be less than lovable, it's worth tracking down.

Mischief (1985)

 Another day, another boring coming-of-age story.

Seventeen-year-old Jonathan (Doug McKeon) is desperately infatuated with classmate Marilyn (Kelly Preston) but is too afraid of rejection to approach her.  His new neighbor, Gene (Chris Nash) is a little older and a lot more knowledgeable when it comes to girls.  He takes Jonathan under his wing, mentoring him while also pursuing a love of his own in Bunny (Catherine Mary Stewart), the local rich girl.

If you like the 50s aesthetic as filtered through the 80s, you might enjoy this movie at least visually.  The story itself is paint-by-numbers.  The main character is bland and uninteresting.  The female characters are basically objects with no interior lives.  It even has the trope of the girl who takes down her hair and is suddenly hot.  Production design is good but you've seen better.  Forgettable nostalgia-bait but it is streaming for free on YouTube.