Bill and Ted Face the Music (2020)

  Looks like it's a Keanu Reeves weekend as we finish out this trilogy.

Bill (Alex Winters) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) saved the world but have struggled in the wake of their success with Wyld Stallyns and they've gone from playing arenas to playing Elks Lodges.  A visitor from the future, Kelly (Kristen Schaal), warns them that if they don't find the song that unites the entire human race throughout all time, in accordance with the prophecy, the future will collapse.  Having not written a song in decades, Bill and Ted decide to go into their future to find a time when they will have written it and steal it from their future selves while avoiding a killer robot from the future (Anthony Carrigan).  Meanwhile, their daughters Billy (Jack Haven) and Thea (Samara Weaving) decide to help out by putting together a band made up of the most incredible musicians from all of time.

You already know if you're the target audience for this.  If you're not, there's nothing here for you.  If you are, it's pure nostalgia bait but it's cute.  They brought back some of the main cast, including William Sadler, Hal Landon, Jr., and Amy Stoch.  George Carlin's daughter, Kelly, has a cameo, which is a nice touch.  The plot remains paper-thin but the effects work has gotten much better since 1991.  It's currently streaming for free on Tubi and PlutoTV.  

My Own Private Idaho (1991)

  If I had a nickel for every Shakespeare adaptation Keanu Reeves starred in, I'd have two nickels.  

Mike (River Phoenix) is a narcoleptic, hustler, and prostitute in Oregon.  His best friend is Scott (Keanu Reeves), a fellow prostitute rebelling against his rich, overbearing father, who is the mayor of Portland.  Mike wants to find his estranged mother (Vana O'Brien), so he and Scott travel to Idaho to find Mike's brother, Richard (James Russo.)  Dick has a last-known address in Italy so the boys hit up a recurring customer, Hans (Udo Kier), for airfare money.  

This is part of the queer indie movement from the 80s and early 90s.  It just has a much stronger pedigree.  Gus Van Sant wrote and directed it, and obviously Reeves' and Phoenix's careers were already taking off.  It's not fully an adaptation of Henry IV but there are a lot of elements that cross over.  The style is experimental, with time lapses, odd title cards, and fantastical elements.  It's not terrible but it's not very engaging, either.  These boys' lives are pretty bleak.  Still, it's considered a cult classic.  It's not streaming anywhere for free but, like its main characters, it is available for rent.

Cimarron (1931)

  Content warning:  dead animal (horse, off-screen), racism

Yancey Cravat (Richard Dix) is in love with the idea of the West.  He leaves his Wichita home to travel to the Oklahoma Territory for a land rush, only to be beaten out on the best parcel by a young woman (Estelle Taylor).  Undefeated, he moves his family to the boomtown of Osage and starts a newspaper, but the call of the West reaches out and he leaves his wife, Sabra (Irene Dunne) to manage things on her own, showing up from time to time like a stray cat.

This was a major epic back in the day.  It cost a fortune during the Great Depression and won three Oscars, including Best Picture.  Now, it's mostly just an artifact of a bygone era.  The characterizations are melodramatic, the pacing is laggy, and the tone is rhapsodic over a past that never existed.  It would, however, make a decent double feature with Killers of the Flower Moon if you want to see the other side of this story, which glosses over the atrocities with barely a blip.  Dix overacts like hell, swaggering around in the shiniest boots and looking like a parody of a silent film star.  Dunne is the real hero here, holding down a throughline of plot that meanders terribly.  At two hours and three minutes long, it's not a jaunt, and I don't think anyone but the most hardened of Oscar nerds are going to find it worth it.  But it is in the public domain as of January this year, so it is free if you do want to watch it.  There's a couple of versions on YouTube and the whole thing is actually embedded in the Wikipedia article for the movie.

Madron (1970)

  Content warning:  animal death (rattlesnake)

Sister Mary Joseph (Leslie Caron) is the only survivor of a wagon train massacred by Apache on the way to a mission in Santa Fe.  She wanders haplessly through the desert until she meets Madron (Richard Boone), a gunslinger on the run after a bad business deal.  Madron has managed to piss off an Apache named Sam Red (Chaim Banai) and now Sam and Madron's former business partners are all after him.  Still, he's not the kind of man who would let a nun travel by herself, even if he can't really understand what a nun is.

It's the Volcano vs Dante's Peak of Westerns-featuring-men-exasperated-by-hot-nuns, coming out the same year as Two Mules for Sister Sara.  It's not nearly as memorable, however.  It looks like a made-for-TV movie but was inexplicably nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song, a thoroughly sappy piece of work called "Til Love Touches Your Life."  

It's always nice to see Caron, although she is acting circles around Boone.  Strictly for die-hard Spaghetti Western fans, I think, but it's streaming on Amazon Prime.

Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey (1991)

  Our journey continues through the middle of this franchise.

Bill (Alex Winters) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) are gearing up for the San Dimas Battle of the Bands, a turning point in their future that will usher in a new age of prosperity and peace.  In the far future, however, Chuck de Nomolos (Joss Ackland) has implemented a plan to go back and time, kill Bill and Ted, and replace them with evil robot versions.  The souls of Bill and Ted manage to escape Death (William Sadler) but are stymied as how to save their band or their girlfriends from beyond the grave.  They travel through Hell, Heaven, and Death's realm in search of guidance.

I remember this being borderline unwatchable but it's not that bad.  It's not great by any stretch but it's not terrible.  It's overlong and not nearly as funny as it thinks it is, but Sadler alone is worth it.  He is a highly underrated character actor.  The special effects now qualify as kitschy and I have no idea what they were going for with the weird troll-like aliens, but at least the soundtrack is good.  Also, bonus cameos by blues legend Taj Mahal and writer Ed Solomon, as well as performance work by Michael "Boogaloo Shrimp" Chambers and Tony Cox.

Totally understand if you skip this one.  It's currently streaming on Kanopy and for free on Tubi.

On the Rocks (2020)

 Well, it's better than Lost in Translation, but that's about all I can say in its favor.

Laura (Rashida Jones) begins to suspect that her husband (Marlon Wayans) is having an affair so she reaches out to her father (Bill Murray), a known cheater, to help her investigate.

It's a bit like asking a thief if someone is stealing.

There's nothing specifically wrong with the movie; it just seems like a bunch of rich people with no real problems inventing things so they don't get bored.  It's Sofia Coppola, so I suppose that tracks.  Nobody in the film is particularly sympathetic.  Laura is the architect of her own problems because she's afraid to talk to her husband so she's already decided that he's cheating and is looking to corroborate, not absolve.  Her father is incapable of admitting that he's pathologically lonely and is willing to enact scheme after scheme to keep Laura hanging out with him.  And her husband isn't innocent, either.  He is blithely ignoring every glaring issue because he doesn't want to see them.  So nobody is right and everybody has their feelings hurt and who wants to see that in a movie?  

If for some reason you do, it's streaming on AppleTV.  Jessica Henwick and Jenny Slade have minor parts, and TV legend Barbara Bain has a small cameo.  It's not enough of a reason to watch this, though, as all of those women have better roles elsewhere.

Drive (2011)

I've softened my stance on this movie slightly.  I no longer actively hate it.  Yes, it is still slow and yes, I still think Gosling is miscast (he and Oscar Isaac should have swapped) but it's fine.  

Here's the thing, though.  I don't think my opinion changed because of the movie itself.  It was because I saw the utter nonsense men went through to praise it.  For a little while, a subset of men online lost their minds over this movie and that is extremely funny to me if you actually watch it.  It speaks to a very specific male fantasy of being Cool and being Loved but not having any actual responsibility or doing anything to make that happen.  The Driver (still stupid) is good at one specific thing, for which he receives very little recognition and almost no compensation.  His mentor/the only other man he knows (Bryan Cranston) is weak, literally disabled, and cringes constantly in the face of power while The Driver remains cool and detached.  But Cranston's character is the one managing The Driver's entire life.  He's the one who books the jobs, gets the cars, and does all the boring, administrative stuff that keeps the lights on so Driver can just show up and take the keys.  

Carey Mulligan's character is a damsel in distress so he gets to be her rescuer but doesn't have to do any of the day-to-day relationship work (i.e., what makes a relationship work) because she's married to a different, weak man.  He can babysit her cute little kid without ever having to actually be a parent.  And in the Ultimate Grand Gesture, he takes on the entire mob (okay, one guy with a knife collection from Temu) in order to free her from her husband's shitty decisions.  It's the façade of independence.  Like how every housecat secretly believes it's a tiger.

And none of that is the movie's fault.  It's just underwritten, probably to make more room for car chases.  If you are into style over substance, though, this is probably a decent enough watch.  It's currently streaming on PlutoTV with ads.  Originally posted 06 Feb 2012.  Nominated for Best Sound Editing   I do not understand how a movie this violent can be this boring.  The violence is very thorough but I just didn't believe Ryan Gosling as a badass.  His voice is too soft.  Romantic lead?  Sure, no problem.  Quiet political thriller?  Ok, I'll buy that.  Ruthless getaway driver?  Not so much.

He doesn't even have a name.  He's just listed as Driver.  People!  It is only cool when Clint Eastwood does it!  Anyway, 'Driver' is a part-time stunt man, a mechanic and moonlights as a getaway driver for petty larceny.  He's like The Transporter but with less personality.  His pretty young neighbor, Irene (Carey Mulligan), has car trouble so he strikes up a friendship with her.  Her husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac), gets out of jail and plans to go straight.  Unfortunately, he owes some people protection money and they want him to rob a pawn shop.  Of course, Driver steps in to be his...driver.  The heist goes horribly wrong and Standard gets killed.  Driver goes after the people behind the heist in order to protect Irene and her son.

This movie had a ton of talent in it from Albert Brooks, playing way against type, to Christina Hendricks, who's in it for a hot minute.  She is a very pretty woman and they do not show her to advantage.  Honestly, I thought everyone in the movie did a great job except Ryan Gosling.  He's just not hardened enough for me.  I thought the soundtrack was like an 80's remix and didn't really suit the movie at all.  As far as sound editing, I don't know enough about the technical aspects to really judge.