Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

I re-watched this last week but forgot to post it.  I've been watching some Netflix shows (Jessica Jones) and the first ten episodes of Naruto on my server so I haven't gotten in the requisite number of movies this week.  So you're getting a repeat.  I'm sorry.  I'll do better next week.  Originally published 8/14/2014  Another solid hit for Marvel.  Bravo, guys.

After being abducted from Earth in 1988, Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord, (Chris Pratt) joins a group of thieves for hire called the Ravagers.  He is commissioned to retrieve a strange orb from an otherwise abandoned planet, narrowly escaping capture by Korath the Seeker (Djimon Hounsou).  Korath is in the employ of Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace), who has promised the orb to Thanos (Josh Brolin) in return for Thanos' destruction of the planet of Nova.  Ronan sends Gamora (Zoe Saldana) after Quill. Meanwhile, the leader of the Ravagers, Yondu (Michael Rooker), discovers that Quill intended to cut his crew out of the deal on the orb and puts a bounty on his head.  Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel) are out to collect, which results in all four miscreants ending up in jail, where they meet Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista).  Drax wants Ronan dead for killing his family, Gamora was in the middle of betraying him for the orb, and the other three are just in it for the cash.  Somehow, these five disparate reprobates must band together long enough to defeat Ronan, avoid his assassin Nebula (Karen Gillan), and prevent Thanos from getting the orb.

I don't know if there are enough words to say how good this movie is.  It's hilariously funny, succinctly sets up all five characters without bogging down in backstory, has a ton of action, and furthers the overall Avengers 2 storyline while being completely functional as a standalone film.  I don't know that you could ask for anything more.

Oh, and it has a kickass soundtrack.

The after-credits sequence doesn't have any hints for Age of Ultron but it features a very special cameo for children of the 80's, so be sure to stick around.

Heaven Can Wait (1943)

  This was such a cute movie.  I don't know why, exactly, but I felt like there was going to be more to it, so I was a little disappointed but it is worth seeing.

Henry Van Cleve (Don Ameche) has been a scoundrel and rake his entire life, so when said life comes to an end, he naturally presents himself to the Devil (Laird Cregar).  The Devil isn't entirely convinced Henry belongs and has him recount all his various misdeeds, mostly involving the trials he put his wife, Martha (Gene Tierney), through during the course of their 25 years of marriage.

This was filmed in 1943 and set from the 1880 - 1929 so the moral code on display is quite different from the one I am used to seeing.  By today's standards, Henry is practically up for sainthood.

It is intended to be a romantic film and succeeds on that front.  Gene Tierney is lovely, even if I found her overbite distracting, and Don Ameche is surprisingly good looking.  My whole life, I've always seen him when he was old.  I had no idea that's how he looked before the 1980's.  However, the real MVP of this movie is Charles Coburn, who played Henry's grandfather.  That old man was a riot.

Hairspray (1988)

  This is the original John Waters classic, not the musical.  I could have sworn I had reviewed one or both of them already, but I have not.

Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake) is a hip young Baltimore girl with two passions in life:  ratting her hair as high as it will go and making it on The Corny Collins Show.  She inadvertently becomes a spokesman for integration, standing up against the injustice of barring people from opportunities simply for the color of their skin while simultaneously mining their culture for trends.

Most of John Waters' work falls squarely into "cult classic" but this might be his most mainstream.  It's for damn sure the only one rated PG.  The cast is amazing, featuring Sonny Bono, Divine, Debbie Harry, and Jerry Stiller.  If you've only seen the musical (which is adorable in its own right) or never seen either version, you really should check it out.

Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

  We are zipping right through the G's.

It's been several years since the events of the first film and Billy Peltzer (Zach Gilligan) has realized his dream of moving to New York City and working as an artist.  Unfortunately, he had not counted on the cutthroat world of corporate art being so demanding.  To make matters worse, Gizmo the Mogwai is captured by scientists working at a genetic research lab in the same building.  Soon, the place is infested with nasty pop-culture-skewering Gremlins.  Billy, his girlfriend Kate (Phoebe Cates), and the CEO who owns the building (John Glover) must race against time to stop them from getting out into the city.

People dismiss this because it drastically changed in tone from the first movie.  There are a lot more in-jokes, celebrity cameos, and slapstick moments in this than there was in the original.  You either embrace those changes or you don't.  Personally, I liked this one more as a kid.  That may have been because I was a little too young to "get" Gremlins but I was the right age for the sequel.  As an adult, I think the first movie was more well-crafted, but I still love the insanity of the second one.  Also, this time around I finally caught the Marathon Man reference.

The Great Mouse Detective (1986)

  I am super hungover.  I've spent the majority of the day recuperating so I'm just now getting around to stuff I should have taken care of this morning.

The Great Mouse Detective doesn't get as much nostalgia as The Little Mermaid or Beauty and the Beast and I think that's a shame.  It's a fun movie with an unusual setting and it deserves wider recognition.

Basil of Baker Street (Barrie Ingham) is a detective in Victorian England, living underneath the more famous human detective, Sherlock Holmes.  He is hired by Olivia (Susanne Pollatschek), a young mouse whose father, a toymaker, was kidnapped by a bat with a peg leg.  Basil believes that his nemesis, Professor Rattigan (Vincent Price), is behind the abduction and -- with a little help from his colleague, Dr. Dawson (Val Bettin) -- investigates the seedy underbelly of London for clues to unravel the mystery threatening to take down the monarchy itself.

Personally, I think Basil is kind of insufferable but Professor Rattigan is one of the best Disney villains ever.  Vincent Price was perfect, absolutely perfect, to do the voice work.  The man is a cinematic icon for his horror films but he was just as gifted in humor.  Just a prodigious talent.

47 Ronin (2013)

This is the Christy pick for the month of November and I didn't hate it!  Yay!  I didn't love it but let's focus on the positive, shall we?

After the disgrace and suicide of Lord Asana (Min Tanaka), his samurai are left masterless ronin, outcasts of society.  Oishi (Hiroyuki Sanada) vows revenge on the lord that engineered this hostile takeover, Kira (Tadanobu Asana), and the shapeshifting witch (Rinko Kikuchi) who helped him.  To this end, he pulls together his 45 men and the demon-touched half-breed Kai (Keanu Reeves) and sets off to stop Lord Kira before he can marry Asana's daughter, Mika (Ko Shibasaki).

Okay.

The tale of the 47 Ronin is practically sacrosanct.  There is a national holiday in Japan honoring them.  Keeping that in mind, this movie is a sacrilege.  It adds mystical monsters and witches and demons and Keanu Reeves to a story that is dramatic enough on its own merits.

That being said, I'm not opposed to the idea of a magical realism retelling.  I think it was an interesting attempt, though I'm still not sure why Keanu Reeves was involved.  This was not a good character for him.  I like seeing the mythology of other countries, even if this was filtered heavily through a Western lens.  Also, the costumes and cinematography were beautiful.  I think my real issue here is that I don't think they went far enough.  If you're going to co-opt a national legend, go balls out.  Abraham Lincoln:  Vampire Slayer that bitch.

No, wait, that's a terrible example.  Never mind.  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies that bitch!

The Great Lie (1941)

  This is from my Bette Davis collection.  It's a straightforward melodrama and not one of my favorites, though it does give Bette a chance to play sweet and (kinda) innocent.

Pete Van Allen (George Brent) married concert pianist Sandra (Mary Astor) after a drunken party but discovers that her previous divorce hadn't gone through.  This gives him a second chance, of sorts, and he rushes back to his on-again-off-again true love, Maggie (Bette Davis).  She encourages him to quit drinking and put his navigational skills to good use, flying reconnaissance for the government after their wedding.  Unfortunately, Pete's plane goes down in the Amazon and he is presumed killed. Desperate, Maggie reaches out to Sandra, who has claimed to be pregnant with Pete's child, and makes her an offer.  If Sandra gives Maggie the baby, Maggie will ensure Sandra's financial security for the rest of her life.  Sandra agrees and gives up the child.  But then Pete comes back.

All the characters in this are very one-dimensional, but none more so than Sandra.  She is every bad trait a woman can have:  spiteful, snide, selfish, and jealous.  By contrast, Maggie comes across as a saint, bravely putting up with Sandra's moods so she can care for her husband's baby.  It culminates in a showdown where Pete is asked to choose between the woman he married and the woman who bore his child and then sold it to the woman he married.  There's a contest.

I'm going to chalk this up to being a product of its time so I can't hate on it too much, but there aren't really any redeeming features.

TV Catch Up

It's about two weeks until Thanksgiving, so I thought I'd catch you up on what I've been watching on the small screen, now that most of the Fall shows are out.

Blindspot is new this year on NBC, starring Jaimie Alexander (Lady Sif from Thor) as an amnesiac covered in tattoos that are all related to various criminal plots.  It has no basis in actual science, medicine or, probably, law enforcement but it is surprisingly entertaining.  I think it's the combination of puzzles to be solved and ass-kicking.  I could do without the quasi-romantic sub-plot between her and the lead FBI agent (Sullivan Stapleton), but it's very watchable.

Limitless is a spin-off from the movie, starring Jake McDorman as Brian Finch, a struggling musician who gets a hold of the drug NZT.  He is also under FBI care, this time in the capable hands of Special Agent Rebecca Harris (Jennifer Carpenter, who will always be Debra Morgan to me).  But Finch is also being watched closely by Senator Edward Morra (Bradley Cooper), whose motives have yet to be revealed.  Also a super-fun show to watch, mostly because McDorman is very likable.  It has another Dexter alum in Desmond Harrington, who played Detective Quinn.  This actually throws me off slightly, since his new character and Carpenter's new character are a thing, so it's like Debra and Quinn never broke up.  I keep waiting for Dexter to come up behind Finch and stab him in the neck with a syringe of horse tranquilizer.  (Someone please write that episode.)

I am not in love with Supergirl.  I get that it's supposed to tie in to the movies but not so closely that they have to pay people to guest star.  I also agree we need female-centered superhero shows.  I just don't think this is the one.  Melissa Benoist is cute but she's so shiny and happy that it makes me want to throw up a little.  Kara Zor-El is the cousin of the famous Superman but was stuck in a time vortex or something and ended up coming to Earth way after he did.  She was fostered with humans and grew up hiding her powers until she had to save a crashing plane carrying her foster sister (Chyler Leigh).  She decides to take National City as her responsibility against a host of alien criminals.

The Librarians is in its second season and I could not be happier about that.  I loved the first season and I hope this will be just as good.  This year, the overarching villain is the sorcerer Prospero (Richard Cox), a Fictional released from Shakespeare's The Tempest, who is searching for a way to repair his broken staff.  It's only four episodes in but I am so stoked.

Of course I'm watching Ash vs Evil Dead.  Hell, it's the only real reason I pay for Starz.  I need more Bruce Campbell fighting legions of undead and middle aged flab in my life.  If you don't, we can't be friends.

I also finally managed to see the first season of Real Husbands of Hollywood through Netflix.  I didn't have really high hopes but I figured I'd give it a shot since I do like Kevin Hart.  It had some moments that were wildly funny but it does tend to overly rely on the premise that Kevin Hart is a total asshole and his friends barely tolerate him.  Your mileage may vary.

Are you watching The Muppets?  You should be.  It is everything you could have asked for and more.  They've already had guest stars Liam Hemsworth, Reece Witherspoon, Kristin Chenoweth, Christina Applegate, Ed Helms, and Josh Groban.  It is amaze-balls.  This is not your children's muppets.  This is all the behind the scenes insanity brought up to the current age.  Miss Piggy is the star of a late-night TV show, produced by her ex, Kermit, and with all the celebrities and musical stars they can possibly pack in.

The only show I have yet to start is Agent X, which is a TNT action/drama following The Librarians. I don't know really anything about it except that Sharon Stone is the Vice President of the United States and I am ok with that.  The preview snippets remind me a little of Human Target, which was cancelled far too soon.  Hopefully, Agent X won't suck.

The Great Escape (1963)

  This is much more appropriate for Veteran's Day. 

This movie is a classic.  If you've never seen it, you should really make the effort.

During WWII, the Nazi High Command decided to put all their worst prisoners of war into one camp.  It was supposed to be a show of how much they had learned about foiling escape attempts, but sticking a bunch of highly-motivated escape artists in one place is a recipe for disaster.  Bartlett (Richard Attenborough) is the head coordinator of escapes for British officers.  Under his direction, the prisoners set themselves to digging their way out over 300 meters, while others secure supplies, disguises and forged documents.

I think this should be required watching.  Not only because it's stunningly good, but because almost all the people in it were really famous and it's hilarious to see them look so young.  Richard Attenborough is a notable example, but James Garner, Donald Pleasance, James Coburn all look, well, younger, at least.  The real surprise is David McCallum, who is so tiny and blond and grew up to be Duckie on NCIS.

No, but seriously, how have you never seen this movie?

No Strings Attached (2011)

Happy Veteran's Day!

  I know I missed a post on Monday.  This is what was supposed to go up but I got crazy busy with work and a school project and didn't get done with them until one in the morning, and by then, it was Tuesday.

This was cuter than it really had a right to be.  I was expecting the same stupid, boring romantic comedy (which I don't even remember adding to my queue) as all the others I've avoided over the years, but this was surprisingly entertaining.

Adam (Ashton Kutcher) and Emma (Natalie Portman) have known each other since they were pre-teens at camp, but their lives diverged after college.  Emma went to MIT and became a resident at a teaching hospital while Adam is a production assistant for a TV show, trying to claw his way out of the shadow of his famous father (Kevin Kline).  They meet by chance and decide to start a no-strings relationship but things never go as planned.

The cast is really what sells this movie.  Not just Portman -who can do anything- and Kutcher, but the supporting cast of Lake Bell, Greta Gerwig, Mindy Kaling, Jake Johnson, and Ludacris.  They each brought something special to the proceedings.  It was directed by Ivan Reitman, so there is another mark of quality.  Overall, I was pleasantly surprised.

Grand Hotel (1932)

  The 1932 Best Picture winner, courtesy of Warner Bros.

Baron Felix von Geigern (John Barrymore) is a broke, but basically good-hearted, aristocrat staying at the Grand Hotel in Berlin.  He is supposed to be stealing a string of pearls from famed ballerina Grusinskaya (Greta Garbo) but finds himself falling in love with her instead.  He also befriends the terminally ill Otto (Lionel Barrymore), who has cashed in his life savings to end his days in style, and the pretty stenographer, Flaemmchen (Joan Crawford), who is willing to do all sorts of things to pay the bills.  None of them are aware that time is running out for all of them.

I have to confess I didn't find this as interesting as I thought I would.  This was an all-star ensemble cast for the 30's with not one, but two Barrymore's rounding it out and I just didn't care.  I don't think I got enough about any of the characters, except Otto, to feel connected.  Also, this is practically sacrilege, but I found Garbo's accent to be almost unintelligible.  This ran for over a thousand performances on Broadway in the 80's and had a revival in 2005.  I want to see if there is a video copy of that, since I bet I would enjoy it much more.

Spectre (2015)

Nominated for Best Original Song   I haven't been out to a movie since I moved apartments but, in my defense, mostly everything that came out since August I would rather rent anyway.

Except for this.  Bond demands a large screen to properly appreciate the stunts, the settings, and the cinematography.

James Bond (Daniel Craig) is in trouble after running an unsanctioned op in Mexico.  He recovered a ring with an engraved octopus, hinting at a deeper level to the conspiracy, but his boss, M (Ralph Fiennes), doesn't want to hear it.  After the whole Silva thing, the 00 project is being taken over by MI-5, and the new head, C (Andrew Scott), is planning to shut them down.  C believes that global surveillance and drones are the way of the future and human agents are obsolete.  James gives absolutely zero fucks about any of that and continues to hunt down leads for the man pulling the strings of this shadowy organization known as Spectre.

I didn't think I could love James Bond any more after Skyfall, which was a damn near perfect movie, but somehow Spectre has managed it.  I floated out of the theater with oxytocin levels so high, I half-expected to see little pink hearts popping around my head like a cartoon.  Sam Mendes did an amazing job of retelling the Bond story in a way that doesn't feel like a remake.  He brings in all the best elements of the original films but keeps it modern and never loses the darker tone to campiness.  I was already going to buy it to complete my collection but this was so good, I might go see it again in theaters.

Lo (2009)

  I loved, loved, loved this movie.  It's super low-budget, indie, art film that looks like a directorial debut.  Normally, I hate those things but this was amazing.

Justin (Ward Roberts) has a problem.  His girlfriend (Sarah Lassez) has been kidnapped by a demon (Devin Barry).  Justin desperately wants to get her back so he summons a demon of his own, Lo (Jeremiah Birkett), to search Hell and find her.  Unfortunately, Lo is more interested in trying to trick Justin into leaving his summoning circle so the demon can eat him.

This was so up my alley, it was practically my home address.  It's funny, fucked up, and weird.  There's even a musical number.  I highly recommend this film.

Gone with the Wind (1939)

  When I was either in middle school or junior high, my mother made me watch Gone with the Wind.  I thought it was the most boring movie ever made.  It made it worse that nearly every one else I knew held it in high regard.  I thought Scarlett O'Hara was the biggest spoiled brat in cinematic history.

Now, twenty years or so later, it was included in my Warner Bros. Best Picture collection so I thought I'd try it again and see if it was just the callowness of youth that made me dislike it originally.

Nope.  Still sucks.

Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) is a spoiled debutante living on an antebellum plantation called Tara.  Even though she could have her pick of the young men, her rotten little heart is set on her neighbor, Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard).  Ashley, however, has already proposed to his cousin, Melanie (Olivia deHaviland).  Out of spite, Scarlett accepts a proposal from Melanie's brother, Charles (Rand Brooks).  Then the Civil War breaks out and all the young men of the South rush to enlist, except for South Carolinian scoundrel Rhett Butler (Clark Gable).  Widowed at 17, Scarlett moves to Atlanta to live with her sister-in-law and hated enemy, Melanie, right up until General Sherman sacks it.  Danger and privation follow as the South dramatically loses the War of Northern Aggression, but Scarlett is determined not to let anything keep her from the lifestyle she has always been accustomed.

I know the point of this movie was to show how people can rise in times of crisis and how determination and guts will win out over despair, but Scarlett O'Hara will never be anything more than an opportunistic sociopath to me.  She is malicious, calculating, and violent, running roughshod over anyone else's desires in the pursuit of her own.  She makes every other human being around her miserable.  I don't see anything admirable in that.

Another Year (2010)

  This was one of the worst films I've ever had to sit through.  I can't believe this was nominated for Best Original Screenplay.

Tom (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri (Ruth Sheen) are an older married couple.  They are content with their lives, with their jobs, with their hobbies, and they love and support one another.  In short, they are horrible.  Gerri's work colleague, Mary (Lesley Manville), is aging disgracefully, incapable of making good decisions for herself and carrying a pathetically inappropriate torch for Gerri's son, Joe (Oliver Maltman), who is twenty years younger.  Over the course of a year, Tom and Gerri deal with the emotional crises of everyone around them while remaining blissfully in sync with each other.  Like I said, horrible.

The happy couple are never the main characters.  They are the side characters with very little screen time who dispense hackneyed advice to the main character, who is struggling.  Who the hell wants to see a movie where the characters start out happy and stay happy through the entire running time?  There's no arc, no character progression.  This might as well have been a set of still photos for all the people in it grow.  Definitely avoid.

The Golden Compass (2007)

  It's a shame this wasn't a better adaptation.  The books were fantastic and I would have liked to have seen the whole trilogy done with this level of production value.

Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards) is a young girl living on the grounds of Jordan College in a parallel universe where people's souls live in the form of animals outside their bodies.  Her uncle Asriel (Daniel Craig) has set off on an expedition to discover the truth about Dust, a mystical substance that flows between worlds, but the Magisterium condemns his research as heresy.  They have employed the coldly beautiful Mrs. Coulter (Nicole Kidman) to conduct experiments on kidnapped children in the far north.  One of the kids taken is Lyra's friend, Roger (Ben Walker).  She sets off to discover the truth about everything, with the help of a magical artifact called the Golden Compass.

The books obviously have a lot more substance but the filmmakers did what they could to hit the high notes.  It was, ironically, panned by the Catholic Church and flopped at the box office, though it did win an Oscar for Best Visual Effects.  Sadly, I found this in the $5 bin at Best Buy so it did not have some sort of resurgence in the home market, either.  This is just one of those "if only" films, although, if the many universes theory is true, somewhere out there is a universe where this did well and Transformers never made a red cent.

The Young Victoria (2009)

  This was nominated way back when I first started this blog for three Oscars.  It won for Costume Design, with which I heartily concur.  They were stunning.

Victoria (Emily Blunt) is next in line for the throne of England, but spends her days practically imprisoned by her clingy mother (Miranda Richardson) and her mother's heavy-handed advisor (Mark Strong).  Her uncle Leopold, King of Prussia (Thomas Kretschmann), hopes to influence her future rule by forcing his nephew Albert (Rupert Friend) to seduce and wed her.  These political machinations are hampered by Albert and Victoria's unexpected love for one another.

This is one of those true stories that just gives rise to thousands of dejected sighs from impressionable girls who think that somewhere out there is their perfect match.  The reason this is so memorable is because it is practically impossible.  Despite everything, Queen Victoria managed to marry someone she loved, not just someone politically expedient.  That does not mean it happens to everyone.  I would also add that Albert was her first cousin and this is indirectly responsible for the fall of the Russian Empire.  Suck it, romantics.

I don't know much about Victoria's reign.  She's not one of my favorite monarchs so I can't say I've researched anything about her other than the most basic facts.  Most of the events in the film were new to me and not particularly interesting.  Other than the costumes, I can't really see a reason to watch it ever again.

The Golden Child (1986)

  I wish Eddie Murphy would go back to making movies like this.  Maybe not exactly like this, because this movie is fairly nuts as a concept, but you get the idea.

Chandler Jarrell (Eddie Murphy) is a private investigator specializing in missing children.  A beautiful woman (Charlotte Lewis) comes to him with a case involving a kidnapped Tibetan boy, the Golden Child who is destined to save the world.  The child has been taken by an evil sorcerer (Charles Dance) who wants to kill him and usher in a reign of darkness.

Yep, that's the actual plot of the movie.  I would rank it up there with Big Trouble in Little China, which would actually not be a bad double feature.  Both films are fairly ridiculous but so entertaining.

On the Town (1949)

  This is another classic musical that I had not seen before now. 

Three sailors are in New York City for one day of shore leave.  On the subway, Gabey (Gene Kelly) sees a poster of "Miss Turnstiles" (Vera-Ellen) and thinks she is a celebrity, when she's really a Coney Island cooch dancer.  He decides to scour the city looking for her.  Along the way, his two buddies find girls of their own.

There's really only one truly memorable song, which is "New York, New York", but the dance sequences are fantastic.

I think this is the first musical I've ever seen that actually had a character's job be stripping.  Obviously, except for Gypsy.  But definitely a first for 1949.  I'm kind of amazed they could even say "cooch dancer" when they had to change helluva to wonderful in one of their songs.