Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

  I did manage to get to see one of the most anticipated (but not by me) movies of the year.  It was pretty good.  There were a few surprises that mostly had to do with technological advances and not with plot so I think I can talk about them without ruining the film for anyone still on the fence.

Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) is recruited by the Rebel Alliance in order to draw out a former leader named Saw Gerrera (Forrest Whitaker) who has turned a bit too paranoid and bloodthirsty for the mainstream leadership to approach.  Saw has in custody an Imperial cargo pilot defector (Riz Ahmed) and the Alliance wants to make sure his information is genuine.  The pilot tells Jyn and her keeper, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), that the Empire is building a weapon with planet-killing capabilities and that Jyn's father (Mads Mikkelsen) is the chief engineer.  Jyn is determined to get her father back but Cassian has other orders.

This is a prequel to A New Hope and it does a solid job of telling a story that was essentially a throwaway line from that movie.  The real triumph here is managing to bring back characters from A New Hope and de-age them convincingly.  Darth Vader is easy; that's just a voice.  But Peter Cushing, who played Grand Moff Tarkin in the original film, died in 1994.  The filmmakers managed to superimpose his face on actor Guy Henry so seamlessly, it looked like he had walked from one set to the other.  I knew it was fake and I could still barely tell it was CGI.  It was astonishing.  That impressed me more than anything in the actual film, although my love for Alan Tudyk did gain some new heights.  Bless you, sassy robot.

The Legend of Tarzan (2016)

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy Yule.  For my peeps celebrating Hanukkah, happy day 6!  I was at my family's house for Christmas running around, trying to see people, and doing that holiday thing so I didn't get to see a lot of movies.    My mother wanted me to watch this with her, even though she had already seen it.  I was reluctant --not because I didn't want to watch it-- because she has a nasty habit of doing a running commentary through the entire film.  I swore her to silence and we proceeded apace.

Tarzan (Alexander Skarsgaard) has reclaimed his English title and name as Lord John Clayton, married Jane (Margot Robbie), and has generally given up his entire previous life as lord of the jungle until a delegation of lords requests that he return to Africa as an honored guest of the Belgian territory.  King Leopold of Belgium has claimed the entire center of the continent and sent his right-hand-man (Christoph Waltz) to secure the goods therein.  An American ambassador (Samuel L. Jackson) has serious reservations about the treatment of the locals and also petitions Tarzan for help.  Reluctantly, Tarzan bows to the pressure and returns to his birthplace only to discover that the request was a trap to deliver him into the hands of his sworn enemy (Djimon Honsou).

I'm going to have to watch this again.  There was just something off about the whole film.  I can't say it was bad but I don't know that it was good.  I don't think I was in the right frame of mind to watch it and really be engaged.  So I'm going to give the movie the benefit of the doubt and say that I will give it another shot at an unspecified point in the future.

The Notebook (2004)

  This is one of the most egregiously photoshopped posters I've ever seen, considering that doesn't even look like Ryan Gosling, much less the scene in the movie, where he had a beard.  This was the Christy pick for November.  I'm going to try to squeeze in the one for December in this last week but I don't know if I'll make it.  I just started watching season one of Stargate: SG-1, so that's going to eat up some time.

Allison (Rachel McAdams) and Noah (Ryan Gosling) are two Southern teens --yeah, I didn't believe that either-- who fall in love in 1930's South Carolina but are torn apart by rabid sea otters.

Just kidding.  But that would have been awesome, right?

Torn apart by class differences and WWII.  Seven years later, they rediscover one another but Allison is engaged to someone else (James Marsden).  Whatever shall she do?  Stay with the hot, rich, but terribly-dyed Marsden or throw him over for the tall, rippling ab-ed, but horribly bearded Gosling?

I know a lot of you are expecting me to viciously tear apart this movie because it's a sappy romance and I hate those on principle, but that's actually not my problem with this film.  Yes, the lead couple are obnoxiously happy and that makes my heart shrink by three sizes but that's not the worst part.

It's so boring.

Every scene that did not directly relate to the (overly contrived, saccharine) plot was so excruciatingly boring that I was almost grateful for the syrupy melodramatic parts.  The only thing that redeemed this movie in the slightest was the costuming.  Karyn Wagner earned her money and then some.  Otherwise, this just felt like a movie I had seen so many times before.  If you took out all the parts with Gosling and McAdams, this is Amour.  If you took out all the parts with old people, it's Atonement.  If that's your thing, then that's your thing and you should enjoy it.  For me, it's just something else to scour out of my brain and replace with more useful things, like late-night infomercials.

Stargate (1994)

I skipped the rest of the Star Wars movies because I want to see Rogue One in between Episodes III and IV.  I'm going to try and go this afternoon, but I have a lot of cleaning to do and I have to study for my last final tomorrow.  Next weekend is Christmas, which means I will be in Alabama with my family and may or may not be able to post anything.  I have to clean because I am having someone look in on my cat while I am gone and I can't let them see that I live like a trashcan raccoon.  I've never actually watched this movie all the way through.  I'd seen bits and pieces over the years and even a couple of episodes of the resulting TV series, but never actually sat down and watched the movie.  Shockingly, it still holds up.

A struggling Egyptologist (James Spader) gets the breakthrough of his life when he is asked to participate on research into an artifact that turns out to be an ancient teleportation device to the other end of the galaxy.  He joins a team of soldiers, led by Col Jack O'Neil (Kurt Russell), to explore the other side.  They find a race of human beings still speaking ancient Egyptian and worshipping an alien calling himself Ra (Jaye Davidson), the sun god.

The special effects are a little dated but nothing like what they should be, considering the age of this film.  Plus, it's nice to see Kurt Russell and James Spader in their prime again.  I don't know if Stargate is necessarily a "new classic" but it's at least worth watching.

Happy Birthday, Lola (2001)

  I don't even know how this ended up in my queue.  It's been there forever, though.  Worse, it was not worth the wait.

Lola (Ekaterina Guseva) is having a birthday but not a happy one.  Two men calling themselves Bim (Vladimir Simonov) and Bom (Sergey Askatov) have barged into her apartment and are holding her hostage.  They are professional assassins, and Lola's apartment happens to be the one with the best vantage of their target.

I think that I thought this was supposed to be a comedy.  It is not.  Or maybe it is in Russia, which makes me wonder about Russians as a people.  I found nothing funny in this.  There's no slapstick, no gags, just bizarre banter between the two killers and Lola frantically trying to signal for help from someone, anyone.  There's a lot of homophobia and just toxic masculinity in general.  I was not on board with that.  The movie wants you to think one of the hitmen is the "nice" one because he doesn't rape Lola the first chance he gets, thought it's clear that he expects to have sex with her at some point if she wants to make it out alive.

I will be the first to say I am not up to speed on Russian films.  I think I've only seen one legit in Russian, and a few English films made by a Russian director (who is technically from Kazakhstan but was born while it was part of the USSR).  If they are all like this, though, I'm okay with my lack of familiarity.

74th Annual Golden Globes Awards

It was almost like Christmas morning today.  I had forgotten the Golden Globes nominations were to be announced this morning until I started checking my usual websites, even though I had put it on my calendar and everything.  What a nice way to start off my last official week of class!

Here are the nominees.

Best Motion Picture, Drama
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

All of these are getting rave reviews from critics, especially Moonlight and Manchester by the Sea.  I have seen none of these.

Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy
20th Century Women
Deadpool
Florence Foster Jenkins
La La Land
Sing Street

Oh my God, Deadpool is now a Golden Globe-nominated film.  That is amazing.  I have seen none of the rest of these and haven't even heard of two of them.

Best Actress, Musical or Comedy
Annette Benning, 20th Century Women
Lily Collins, Rules Don't Apply
Hailee Steinfield, The Edge of Seventeen
Emma Stone, La La Land
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins

I've heard really good things about The Edge of Seventeen but I don't know anyone whose actually seen it.

Best Actress, Drama
Amy Adams, Arrival
Jessica Chastain, Miss Sloane
Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Ruth Negga, Loving
Natalie Portman, Jackie

All of these women are being praised for powerhouse performances so this might be the race to watch.

Best Actor, Drama
Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea
Joel Edgerton, Loving
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
Denzel Washington, Fences

When was the last time you heard anything about Viggo Mortensen?

Best Actor, Musical or Comedy
Colin Farrell, The Lobster
Ryan Gosling, La La Land
Hugh Grant, Florence Foster Jenkins
Jonah Hill, War Dogs
Ryan Reynolds, Deadpool

Okay, I am low-key interested in seeing The Lobster because it's by the gonzo director of Dogtooth and that movie was batshit.

Best Supporting Actor
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
Simon Helberg, Florence Foster Jenkins
Dev Patel, Lion
Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Nocturnal Animals

Nocturnal Animals is getting some buzz as well.  Tom Ford is a clothing designer, so at the very least it should be beautiful.

Best Supporting Actress
Viola Davis, Fences
Naomie Harris, Moonlight
Nicole Kidman, Lion
Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea

I really want to see Hidden Figures.  And it has a great soundtrack.

Best Director
Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Tom Ford, Nocturnal Animals
Mel Gibson, Hacksaw Ridge
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea

Best Screenplay
La La Land
Nocturnal Animals
Moonlight
Manchester by the Sea
Hell or High Water

Best Original Score
Moonlight
La La Land
Arrival
Lion
Hidden Figures

Best Animated Film
Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
My Life as a Zucchini
Sing
Zootopia

I bought Kubo and the Two Strings on the strength of its trailer but I haven't watched it yet.  Sing looks cute but it hasn't even come out yet.

Best Original Song
"Can't Stop the Feeling", Trolls
"City of Stars", La La Land
"Faith", Sing
"Gold", Gold
"How Far I'll Go", Moana

I have no idea what Gold is about, other than the obvious.

Best Foreign Film
Divines
Elle
Neruda
The Salesman
Toni Erdmann

Apparently, John Waters named Toni Erdmann his top pick for 2016.  Do what that information what you will.

Best Television Series, Drama
The Crown
Game of Thrones
Stranger Things
This is Us
Westworld

I am so far behind on TV.  You all know this.

Best Television Series, Musical or Comedy
Atlanta
Blackish
Mozart in the Jungle
Transparent
Veep

Best Limited Series or Made-for-TV Movie
American Crime
The Dresser
The Night Manager
The Night Of
The People vs O.J.:  American Crime Story

Best TV Actor, Drama
Rami Malik, Mr. Robot
Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul
Matthew Rhys, The Americans
Liev Schreiber, Ray Donovan
Billy Bob Thornton, Goliath

Best TV Actor, Musical or Comedy
Anthony Anderson, Blackish
Gael Garcia Bernal, Mozart in the Jungle
Donald Glover, Atlanta
Nick Nolte, Graves
Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent

Best Actor in a Limited Series or Made-for-TV Movie
Riz Ahmed, The Night Of
Bryan Cranston, All the Way
Tom Hiddleston, The Night Manager
Courtney B. Vance, The People vs O.J.: American Crime Story
John Tuturro, The Night Of

Best Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Made-for-TV Movie
Sterling K. Brown, The People vs O.J.: American Crime Story
Hugh Laurie, The Night Manager
John Lithgow, The Crown
Christian Slater, Mr. Robot
John Travolta, The People vs O.J.: American Crime Story

Best TV Actress, Drama
Caitriona Balfe, Outlander
Claire Foy, The Crown
Keri Russell, The Americans
Winona Ryder, Stranger Things
Evan Rachel Wood, Westworld

Best TV Actress, Musical or Comedy
Rachel Bloom, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep
Sarah Jessica Parker, Divorce
Issa Rae, Insecure
Gina Rodriguez, Jane the Virgin
Tracee Ellis Ross, Blackish

Best Actress in a Limited Series or Made-for-TV Movie
Felicity Huffman, American Crime
Riley Keough, The Girlfriend Experience
Sarah Paulson, The People vs O.J.: American Crime Story
Charlotte Rampling, London Spy
Kerry Washington, Confirmation

Best Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Made-for-TV Movie
Olivia Coleman, The Night Manager
Lena Headey, Game of Thrones
Chrissy Metz, This is Us
Mandy Moore, This is Us
Thandie Newton, Westworld

Minions (2015)

  Okay.  I have now seen more episodes of Pokemon: Indigo League than I ever wanted.  We also watched Ratatouille and and episode of Voltron before putting on Minions.

The Minions evolved solely to attach themselves to the entourage of the biggest, baddest creature they could find.  After a series of mishaps, they retreat to the Arctic Circle to wait out their dry spell but quickly become despondent with no one to follow.  Kevin volunteers to leave their icy home and venture forth into the world to find a new master.  He chooses Stuart and Bob to accompany him.  They make their way through 1968 America to Orlando, Florida to attend Villain Con, a convention for supervillains.  There, they win the attention of Scarlet Overkill (Sandra Bullock), the reigning queen of evildoers, and her sidekick/love interest, Herb (Jon Hamm).  Scarlet wants to be an actual queen so she and the Minions head for England to steal the crown.  The Minions, being Minions, proceed to ruin everything.

This was much worse than either previous entry in the Minion-verse.  Jon Hamm was the only bright spot and his scenes were few and far between.  Even my god-kids were pretty much over it and they love some shitty TV shows and movies.  The only one who still likes it is the 6-year-old, and even he didn't actually sit down and watch it.  I think he only picked it because it was familiar.

Moana (2016)

  This movie was awesome.  This review was supposed to go up last Monday, but I am actually glad I forgot because otherwise I wouldn't have anything to post today.  It's the end of the semester and a lot of stuff came due at the same time.

My godchildren are also visiting this weekend.  Right now, they are parked in front of Finding Dory but I'm sure Zootopia will be making another appearance.  I'm going to try to take them out tonight to look at the Christmas lights.  But for now, let's just focus on Moana.

Moana (pronounced Moh-AH-nah) (Auli'i Cravalho) is the daughter of a chieftain (Temuera Morrison) on a South Pacific island who dreams of exploring the open ocean.  She is convinced the solution to the failure of the island's fishing and coconut crops is out there.  Her grandmother (Rachel House) tells her that long ago, the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) stole the heart of the goddess Te Fiti and lost it somewhere in the ocean.  Moana must retrieve the heart, find Maui, and convince him to put the heart back so that the islands will prosper.

That description does no justice to how good this movie really is.  I would even say it's better than Frozen.  The music is perfect, the story is predictable but extremely well-executed, and the animation is beautiful.  It is an excellent addition to the Disney line-up.

Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)

  I'd like to give a big shout out to my friend Hollie for suggesting that I watch Star Wars:  The Clone Wars, the animated series, in between Episodes II and III.  I was shocked at how much even one season helped.  It added so much more depth by introducing characters and visuals before the movie.  The animation style was a little off-putting initially and I never had a particular character to identify with, so as a standalone it was a little weak for me, but as a precursor to the movie, holy shit, was it helpful.

There's really nothing that could save this film, though.

Anakin (Hayden Christiansen) is growing more and more fed up with the restrictions placed on him by the Jedi Council.  Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) has recommended him for a spot on the Council, which was granted, but without the corresponding jump in title to Master Jedi.  The position also comes with the caveat that Anakin report back on the Chancellor's activities.  Meanwhile, he keeps having nightmares about his wife, Padme (Natalie Portman), dying in childbirth.  All of this serves to push him ever closer to the Dark Side.

This movie clocks in at over two hours and it didn't need to.  Most of the action scenes are fine but every time Christiansen talks, an angel loses its wings.  I'm pretty sure being in this franchise destroyed his career.  Think about it.  This came out 11 years ago and have you heard his name in that time?  I haven't.  According to IMDb, he's been working pretty steadily but nothing like the scale of work that he should have had after the monstrous exposure he got from Star Wars.

Warcraft (2016)

  This was the Christy pick for October.  Two more and I will be caught up until 2017.

This is going to involve some discussion about the end of the film and various "reveals" so go ahead and consider this your spoiler warning if you choose to watch this, which I don't recommend.

The orcs' world is dying and they need a new home.  Their resident sorcerer, Gul'dan (Daniel Wu), has created a portal for them to enter another world inhabited by humans using an evil magic called the Fell.  A disgraced human wizard apprentice (Ben Schnetzar) is the first to figure it out and he runs and tells Lothar (Travis Fimmel) who is Somebody.  (I don't actually know what his position is supposed to be but he gets things done and his sister (Ruth Negga) is the wife of the king (Dominic Cooper) so he has to be somebody important.)  Anyway, Lothar gets the green light to involve the Guardian (Ben Foster), the magical keeper of the realm and they go off to determine what is going on with the orcs.  Meanwhile, orc war band leader Durotan (Toby Kebbell) is starting to think that Gul'dan might not exactly been on the up-and-up.  He uses captured half-orc Garona (Paula Patton) to pass a message that he'd totally be willing to meet with the enemy if they'll help him kill Gul'dan.

Okay.  Here's where I lost my cherubic good nature.

Durotan's meeting with the humans turns out to be a trap for both of them.  He is captured and challenges Gul'dan to a one-on-one fight in order to show his people what kind of asshole they are following.  Gul'dan uses the Fell to suck the life out of Durotan, which disgusts the orcs, but changes nothing.  Stupidly pointless death #1.

Durotan's whole tribe was to be killed but his mate (Anna Galvan) got away with their infant son.  She puts the bassinet in the river...in an alien world...where they are a non-native species with not even remotely close contemporaries...and turns to fight one of the pursuers unarmed.  Stupidly pointless death #2.

The king's men are hopelessly outnumbered and outclassed as fighters without Lothar.  The king comes up with a last ditch effort after remembering an obscure cultural bit about orcs:  status is conferred through the killing of people of rank.  He tells Garona that she should kill him and gain enough status to be someone of note to the orcs so she can stop the war.  Stupidly pointless death #3.

I understand that this is based off the absurdly popular video game World of Warcraft, gameplay of which revolves around unceasing war between humans and orcs.  For most people, I get that the game is fun, collaborative, and recreational.  It's just pixels.  I am not one of those people who believe that video games encourage real life violence.  People have always been violent.

However.  This movie is not glorifying a game.  This movie is glorifying war.  War based on a fundamental miscommunication that possibly could have been fixed diplomatically.  No one even tried.  Even the meeting between Durotan and the king was less "hey, my people are refugees who need a home" and more "let's kill the wizard."  Was there not a single person on the entire planet who thought "maybe we can negotiate"?  And the king's dumbass decision to have the one possible go-between --someone literally of both worlds-- stab him with a personalized dagger all but ensured that there would be no attempts at reconciliation because all the humans are going to assume she's a traitor who can't be trusted.  Which they do.  So the king has plunged his country and all his allies into unceasing conflict where thousands will die and millions will suffer against an enemy that literally can't retreat.  Boy, that sure does sound like fun.

TL;DR: This is the exact same plot as Star Trek VI, except without the Shakespeare and happy ending.

Tomorrowland (2015)

  This is the Christy pick for September.  I'm catching up!  Slowly.

Casey Newton (Britt Robertson) is a girl genius who is trying very hard to keep hope alive.  She receives a pin from a mysterious little girl (Raffey Cassidy) and every time she touches it, she sees a beautiful vision of the future.  While trying to track down information about the pin, she is attacked by killer robots (Kathryn Hahn and Keegan-Michael Key) and eventually ends up at the home of disillusioned inventor Frank Walker (George Clooney).  Frank is the last person who knows how to get to Tomorrowland but was unceremoniously exiled and has no desire to go back.  Casey must convince him to help her before the entire world is destroyed.

This was a much more obviously liberal film than I might have imagined.  It rests a lot on the idea that children are the future because they still care and that adults are just too mired down in depression and self-serving attitudes to notice that they are turning everything into a dystopian wasteland.  Sure, yes, it's hopeful but it's also predicating the salvation of the human race by moving all the geniuses to an alternate dimension we haven't fucked up yet.  I'm not sure that's any better of an idea than letting a plague loose and starting over from scratch.  The naivety here really soured what would have otherwise been a pleasantly empty experience.

Don't get me wrong.  I absolutely believe that we as a species should funnel more money into science and technology that helps fight poverty and hunger and that we should never stop trying to innovate and push the boundaries of what's possible.  But I am also resigned to the fact that most people are dumb, panicky animals who hate change and will do almost anything to maintain the status quo even against their own best interest.

Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London (2004)

Happy Black Friday, everyone!  I know, I missed posting on the holiday (Thanksgiving, for all you non-Americans who might be wondering who the hell has a holiday on a random Thursday) but I was busy stuffing my face.  I came home around 9 PM and suffered through this movie for you guys while fighting off a food coma.  You're welcome.    This was a terrible movie.  I never saw the first one and this was part of the Bowen largesse so it's not like I paid for it, but damn.  This movie was awful.

Cody Banks (Frankie Muniz) is a 16-year-old CIA agent tasked with an undercover mission to track down his former mentor (Keith Allen), who has stolen a prototype mind-control device and fled to London.  Cody's cover is that he is a musical prodigy in England to join a youth orchestra, despite having no musical talent.  But that's okay, because the CIA is willing to spend millions of dollars outfitting him with a clarinet that plays by itself, as well as Mentos that double as explosives and a pen that is also a grappling hook.

Honestly, I get it.  You (the producers of this film) wanted a teen James Bond to capitalize on those sweet, sweet under-21 dollars.  You didn't care if the plot made sense.  It's a sequel, anyway.  So what if you couldn't get anyone from the first movie to come back except for Frankie Muniz.  You got Anthony Anderson.  That's something.

I have no idea if the first Cody Banks movie was any good.  I can't imagine it was but then, I am not even close to the target audience for this.  I'm going to give this DVD to my godchildren and see if they like it.

Not Another Repost

Okay, I was going to repost my review of Suicide Squad because I got the extended edition so Christy could see it but I don't like reposting if it's been less than a year.  (I assume most of you readers are kind of like goldfish and forget stuff if it's been longer than that.  And/or you're too lazy to go through the archives.  God knows I am.)  So I am not going to do that.

Instead, we're going to talk about TV.  I am so far behind, you guys, it is unreal.  I finally made myself catch up on some stuff because my DVR was at 94% and I didn't want it to start deleting episodes I hadn't seen yet.

I am up to present on season 2 of Scream Queens.  I really thought this was going to be a one-and-done kind of show.  Like, there was no way they could keep it interesting through a second season but I am kind of loving the hospital angle.  They brought back all the characters I love and their crop of guest stars has been on point.

Ash vs Evil Dead is also on its second season and I am also totally in love.  Lucy Lawless is awesome and I'm glad they found a way to bring her back.  This show is hilarious and completely gross, with enough fake blood to fill the Suez Canal.  If you are not watching it, you should be.  I'm only about four episodes in to this season so far but I'm a fan.

For even more horror, Agents of S.H.I.E.LD. is featuring Ghost Rider as a character in its fourth season.  And it doesn't suck!  I was surprised, too.  I know that show has a lot of detractors but I have personally found it to be a welcome addition to the canon.  Plus, it's a good way for Marvel to use characters they have the rights to but don't necessarily want to make feature films out of yet.

And to bridge over into more superheroes, CBS sold Supergirl to the CW so it's technically in its first season again but I'm pretty sure they're still calling it season two.  I was on the fence about season one.  It was okay but I never really felt a connection to it.  The best episodes from last year were the crossovers with The Flash so I think CW is really where it should have been from the beginning.  It's home now, though, so things should be looking up.  I am not caught up on this one so it still might go sideways on me but I am optimistic at the moment.

I also have Blunt Talk, Blindspot, The Voice, Elementary, and Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, all of which are returning (except for Dirk Gently) and none of which I have watched so far.  Plus, the new (3rd!) season of The Librarians started recording last night.  This is like Sisyphus's boulder being pushed up a hill only to roll to the bottom as soon as it gets close to the top.  I watch episodes and delete them but new ones keep getting recorded and I'm back up to 94% full!  I'm going to try to get it under 90% so I can switch over to movies again before this weekend.  Wish me luck!

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)

  Christy talked me into seeing this yesterday and it was one of the best movie choices she's made in years.  I never liked the Harry Potter series.  I think I was just this side of too old to care about any of the characters.  Some day I'll go back and revisit them (which is a recurring theme lately) and see if they've improved with age but for now, I am all in on the Fantastic Beasts franchise.

Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) is a British wizard visiting New York City in 1926 ostensibly to see a breeder about a particular beast, but he almost immediately runs afoul of the United States Magical Congress. A disgraced former agent, Tina (Katherine Waterston), arrests Newt and charges him with various offenses but her bosses don't seem to care as they are busy investigating unexplained unnatural phenomena that threatens to expose magic to non-magical humans.  Newt's suitcase --which contains a vast array of endangered magical creatures-- is accidentally switched with that of Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), a plain vanilla human who just wants to open a bakery.  Jacob accidentally releases a handful of creatures, forcing Newt, Tina, and her sister Queenie (Alison Sudol) to search for them before they can be used as an excuse to justify extreme measures by the Magical Congress.  Meanwhile, one of the top investigators, Graves (Colin Farrell), is quietly undertaking his own research by wheedling information from an abused ward (Ezra Miller) of a fanatical anti-witch sect leader (Samantha Morton).  Graves knows what has been causing the disturbances and is desperate to get his hands on it before anyone else.

This had a ton of hype from its inception because of the Harry Potter pedigree associated with it.  I was giving it even odds but now I am totally on board.  I read online that they've already planned to have five movies in the series and unless they totally fuck up the next one, they have my money already.

Finding Dory (2016)

  We had to follow the horror movie up with something animated.  I wanted to see this in theaters but I didn't get a chance.  I didn't hear great things about it, but it's Pixar so even if it's crap, it's better than 90% of the rest of animated movies released in a year.

Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) is living pretty happily with Marlin (Albert Brooks) and Nemo (Hayden Rolence) on the reef but she can't help feeling like she's missing a family of her own.  Fragmented memories surface, leading her on another oceanic journey to find her parents (Diane Keaton and Eugene Levy).

Ok, yes, it is almost the exact same plot set up as Finding Nemo.  That does not matter in the slightest.  It is almost too adorable for words with lots of new characters, as well as returning favorites.  Baby Dory was so cute I couldn't function and Hank the octopus (Ed O'Neill) is my new spirit animal.  There were some issues with pacing I will admit, but overall this was a great new addition to my library.

The Conjuring 2 (2016)

  I wasn't going to get this one since Anabelle was such a disappointment but I needed to find a horror movie to watch with Christy.  It's immersion therapy.

Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) have all but retired after the media firestorm of the Amityville case when their attention is turned to Enfield, England.  A young girl, Janet Hodgson (Madison Wolfe), has been experiencing all sorts of paranormal phenomena like teleportation, levitation, speaking in different voices, and generally creeping out everyone around her.    Ed and Lorraine are sent as emissaries of the Catholic Church, with other experts called in to investigate, including skeptic Anita Gregory (Franka Potente), who is convinced the girl is faking everything.

The Conjuring 2 lacks a lot of the atmosphere of the original, trading it for jump scares and a much more obvious Exorcist plot.  It's not terrible, though, mostly because of the acting quality and some really lovely imagery.  Farmiga and Wilson are great together, while Frances O'Connor absolutely nails her role as an overworked, stressed out, working class mother.  It suffers a little bit from sequel-itis but it's still miles better than some I've seen.

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)

  I apologize for not posting yesterday.  Christy came up for a weekend and we were out running around and watching movies all day.  It was a good visit and great movies so definitely a win all around.

I had tried to watch Episode I but there are too many passages with strictly alien languages and no subtitle options on the server copy.  I have a DVD copy but I was too annoyed to bother with it so I just moved on to the second film.

I hated these prequels the first time I saw them. It's been over ten years now so I thought maybe the sense of betrayal would have faded.  After all, there are kids now who were born in those intervening years who have no idea what a dick-punch the prequels were.  They seem to like them okay.

Anakin (Hayden Christiansen) is now apprenticing to be a Jedi under Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor), although he is finding it very difficult to conform to the rules of the Order.  He is very excited to see former queen, now Senator, Padme (Natalie Portman) again even if it is because someone keeps trying to kill her.  Obi-Wan tracks the would-be assassin to a planet that has been wiped from Jedi records and learns that it is the base for an army of clones apparently ordered years before by a Jedi master who turned to the dark side.  Meanwhile, Anakin keeps having dreams about his mother (Pernilla August) being in danger so he and Padme return to Tatooine.  Then Anakin does a Bad Bad Thing and they leave, joining Obi-Wan to hunt down rebel Jedi Count Dooku (Christopher Lee).

I don't outright hate this film on principle anymore but it's still not very good.  Christiansen is annoying as fuck, Portman isn't given enough to do besides be beautiful, and there's so much emphasis on the CGI that everything else fades into the background.  It is the thinnest veneer of plots stretching around all the special effects and it just does not work.

Surf's Up (2007)

  This is the Christy pick for August.  I totally forgot to put it in my queue for a couple of months.

Cody Maverick (Shia LaBeouf) is an Antarctic penguin who dreams of being a surfing legend like his hero, Big Z.  He has talent but no training and no support.  Before the Big Z Memorial competition even begins, Cody gets trounced by the reigning champion, Tank (Diedrich Bader), and suffers a concussion and poisoning sting.  Lifeguard Lani (Zooey Deschanel) takes him to her Uncle Zeke (Jeff Bridges) for some healing.  Zeke teaches Cody the fundamentals of surfing and also how to have fun.

This is too predictable to be a great film but it's cute enough in its own way.  It's set up as a mockumentary, which is slightly more novel, and the animation is pretty to look at, especially the water.  I found myself nonplussed with the voice talent, which really could have made this film special.  It did get actual surfers Kelly Slater and Rob Machado, so there's that.

Eh.  That's pretty much all I can say about the movie.  Eh.  It's wasn't horrible, wasn't awesome.  It just kind of exists.  Suitable enough for one viewing but you'd probably want to avoid repeats.  There's only so much of James Woods as an angry Don King-esque otter that one person can stand.

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Okay, it's been a little while so I thought I'd check back in and see if I still hated this movie.  Good news:  most of my vitriol has died away.  Bad news:  it's still the weakest point of the franchise.  I did better with Benedict Cumberbatch this time, since I was already over the initial betrayal.  I still think it was a bad choice but there's really nothing I can do about that.  The only new point of criticism I have is that the version on the server (because I'll be damned if I spend money on this) had hard-coded Dutch subtitles.  Normally, that's not an issue except for the bits that are in Klingon and would need English subtitles.  Christy is going to let me burn a copy of her DVD when she comes to visit so that should take care of that.  Otherwise, I really have nothing to add.

The semester is almost over.  Just bear with me a little longer.  Originally posted 19 May 2013.  Nominated for:  Best Visual Effects    You know how the original Star Trek movies started kind of shitty and only the even-numbered ones were worth watching?  The new series looks to be going in the opposite direction.  The first one was great.  This one not so much. 

After breaking the Prime Directive (can't be seen by or directly interfere with the progress of underdeveloped planet natives) in order to save Spock (Zachary Quinto) from a volcano, Kirk (Chris Pine) is busted down from Captain to First Officer.  Before the demotion can really sink in, however, he is summoned to Starfleet Headquarters to be briefed on a mysterious enemy named John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) who has just blown up an archive in London.  Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) orders them all to find Harrison and kill him.  Right then, Harrison shoots up their room, killing a bunch of officers.  Reinstated, Kirk asks for permission to go after Harrison with just the Enterprise, right into the Klingon homeworld, risking an all-out war if discovered.

I was happy to see Scotty (Simon Pegg) with a much bigger part this time but I wish there had been more for Uhura (Zoe Saldana) as well. As with the first movie, Spock is clearly the main character here.  Kirk is certainly very present but there's no character development like there is with Spock.  Peter Weller was awesomely creepy.  And then there's the villain.

You know what I hate?  Being lied to by film-makers. 

WARNING:  SPOILERS FOLLOW.

When word got out that the second new Star Trek movie was being made, everybody's mind went to Wrath of Khan.  All the film-makers involved denied that's what they were doing.  When Benedict Cumberbatch was hired to play the villain, I shudder to think how many times a day he was asked if he was playing Khan.  Denied, denied, denied.  He was playing a new villain named John Harrison.  That's what they said. 

And they fucking lied.

I understand that in this day and age, spoilers are ever present.  As a moviemaker, you want to preserve the mystery of your film so your audience can have a wondrous experience.  All I ask is that you not lie directly to my fucking face about it.  Play coy, refuse to answer, distract people with something else.  Do not outright lie.

And it didn't work.  That's the worst part.  They tried so hard to remake Wrath of Khan and they ended up sucking every ounce of newness from the franchise.  They tried to shoehorn in the most famous moments, despite them being out of character for the people involved, and just ended up tarnishing all the associated good memories. 

It made me really angry which, conversely, makes me really happy since it's been a while since I've gotten to really froth at the mouth about a movie. 

If you've never seen WoK or just aren't a big Trek fan in general, you'll probably enjoy this film more.  Taking away all the fan-specific stuff, it's just a big dumb action movie set in space.  Fun enough for a popcorn flick. 

Waiting for "Superman" (2010)

  Another day, another depressing documentary about how we're failing our future.

Do you have kids?  Have you gone through the nightmare of trying to find a good school district?  Does it seem really hopeless to look for a public school that isn't going to make your kids stupid?  There's a reason for that.

Waiting for Superman follows five or six kids from various parts of the country as they try to get into charter schools, which are public but are independent of school bureaucracy and have a 96% graduation and acceptance into college rate.  Because demand far exceeds supply, the schools have a lottery every year to see who gets in.  It's the only way to be scrupulously fair but it adds a level of cruel sport to a process that essentially determines a child's future.  The filmmakers peel back the layers to determine the root of the problem and discover a system of byzantine complexity between federal, state, and local funding, management, and union requirements that makes it almost impossible to fire bad teachers or reward good ones.  Programs intended to incentivize teachers by making their salaries merit-based up to six figures never even make it to a vote because the status quo is so firmly entrenched.

Let's face it.  The American school system is awful.  As of 2015, we are 29th in the world for reading and math among 15-year-olds.  Our universities are still pretty top-notch but less and less children are prepared for them.  As depressing as that is, it's not hopeless.  It just requires people to let go of this notion that "America is number one" and turning the focus on improving the way we do things.

Doctor Strange (2016)

  I gave up a night of sleep to go see this on Thursday.  I'd like to say I was totally in love with it but that would be lying.  Overall, it's a good movie.  It just didn't have the pizzazz I was hoping to see.

Dr. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is a world-renowned neurosurgeon.  He's also a complete asshole. When his hands are crushed after a car accident, he spends every dime he has searching for a miracle cure, while belittling everyone he comes into contact with.  A physical therapist tells Strange of a patient named Pangborn (Benjamin Bratt) who completely recovered from near total paralysis.  Strange seeks out Pangborn and learns the man went to Nepal to seek enlightenment and found Kamar-Taj, the home of a group of mystic warriors who protect the Earth from multi-dimensional creatures.  Strange goes immediately to learn from the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) but is drawn in to an ideological battle.  One of the Ancient One's pupils, Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen), has stolen pages from a dangerous book detailing how to free a creature that exists outside of time, Dormammu, in order to kill what he perceives to be the greatest threat to life:  time itself.  Strange must master these new lessons and make decisions that will impact all of the multiverse.

Ok, here's the thing:  I don't really like Benedict Cumberbatch.

I don't know why.  I am just so turned off by everything he does.  I have finally (after three seasons) become okay with him in Sherlock and I don't mind him as Smaug.  I enjoyed The Imitation Game but that was in spite of him, not because of him.  And here he has an American accent that just sounds super weird to me.  I am just totally biased against Benedict Cumberbatch and I have no idea why.  I'm working through it.  It's like immersion therapy.  I'll get to the point where I can see his face and not think "ugh, why?"

The best part of this movie is the Cloak of Levitation.  That is the greatest inanimate sidekick since the carpet from Aladdin.  I can't say a lot about it because it is all spoilers but that alone is enough for you to go see this film.  The other reason is the mid-credits sequence with Thor to set up Ragnarok.  I am so excited for that, I can hardly stand it.

On the scale of Marvel movies so far, this is trending down towards the bottom of the heap but it is necessary and important to have because it sets up so much stuff for the future.  It's good but not amazing.

Star Trek (2009)

I know I said I was going to move on to Star Wars but I had totally forgotten about the new Trek films.  I can't believe it's been five years since I've seen this movie.  Like, it makes sense considering I just watched the third one in the rebooted series but still.  This really did become an instant classic and it shows no sign of slowing down.  Originally posted 31 Dec 2011.    This movie became an instant classic the minute it hit movie screens which seemed to be a daunting challenge considering the rabid fan base this franchise has.  To completely revamp the established universe and replace every star with a younger, sexier version sounds great on paper but usually fails miserably.  But J. J. Abrams, fresh off of Lost and with money to burn, took this idea and turned it into pure magic.

It was nominated for four Academy Awards for Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Visual Effects, and Best Makeup and won the last.  The entire movie is outstanding.

As you may have heard, space is the final frontier.  Out patrolling its vast reaches are the ships of the United Federation, one of which is the USS Kelvin when it is attacked by a Romulan ship.  The captain (Chris Hemsworth) stays behind to allow as many escape pods to make it to safety as possible, one of which contains his wife (Jennifer Morrison) and son.  Twenty years later, James Tiberius Kirk (Chris Pine) has grown into a cocky, headstrong yokel when he is coerced into becoming a cadet.  Proving himself brilliant but an asshole, Kirk designs a cheat for the unbeatable final test, earning him the enmity of the test's designer, Commander Spock (Zachary Quinto), a half-Vulcan, half-human.  Before Kirk can get expelled, however, there is a distress call from the planet Vulcan and all the ships are mobilized.  Kirk makes it onboard the USS Enterprise with some help from his friend, Bones (Karl Urban) and sets about trying to convince the captain that the distress call is actually a trap from the same Romulan ship that killed his father.  From there, the movie gets too epic to describe so you're just going to have to watch it for yourself.

Seriously, I think this movie should come standard on every single multimedia device that will support it.  I don't know a single person who saw it and didn't like it.  Even people who never saw the television series (any of them) and who didn't get all the inside jokes liked this movie.  Although how you could manage to make it to your thirties without having seen even a rerun of Star Trek is kind of a mystery to me but whatever.  This movie is fantastic.  Watch it now.

Robot and Frank (2012)

  This was so cute but also super sad.  I was not prepared.

Frank (Frank Langella) is a retired cat burglar who's son (James Marsden) gets him a robot companion (Peter Sarsgaard) to help around the house and keep Frank's mind occupied.  Frank sees the robot as a threat to his independence but soon starts to realize the potential of a machine that can make thousands of calculations in a second and has no moral compass.  He trains the robot how to pick locks and begins to search for a suitable target, finally settling on rich douche Jake (Jeremy Strong), who is closing the local library.

I signed up for a cute story of man and robot robbing people and instead I get a sucker punch to the feels in the third act.  This is not a big, bombastic movie.  If you're in the mood for something quiet and funny with a great cast, give it a shot.  But maybe have something happy lined up for afterwards.

AEon Flux (2005)

I found a blu-ray copy for $5 on Amazon so I picked it up.  I'm growing to like Charlize Theron more and more as an actress.  I think this is one of those movies that I grow fonder of each time I watch it.  Concepts of immortality are also more meaningful to me as I age and look around me at all the cool things that I'll never get to see because there just aren't enough hours in the day.  Originally posted 01 Dec 2012.    I think this movie got a bad rap for no good reason.  This is the second, maybe third, time I've seen it so I'm pretty secure in this opinon.  It's not a terrible movie.

I didn't get cable until the mid-90's and I was never much of a TV watcher as a kid so I missed all the shows MTV made popular back in the day like Daria, which I think I would have liked based on the few episodes I did see, and Beavis and Butthead, which I'm sure I would have hated.  I never saw the original cartoon which Wikipedia tells me is based on the Gnostic notion of an Æon – emanations of God – specifically the Valentinian notion of a syzygy, a sexually complementary pair of emanations, here the two main characters.

Whoa.

Since I don't know what the hell any of that has to do with a leather-clad assassin chick, I'm just going to focus on the movie. 

Aeon Flux (Charlize Theron) is an assassin for a covert group called The Monicans.  She is assigned to kill the head of the last city on Earth, the scientist Trevor Goodchild (Marton Csokas) but finds herself overcome with strange pseudo-memories.  She decides to investigate the issue for herself and uncovers a much larger secret.

The CGI is a little heavy, especially with some of the plant-based defenses (like the bladed grass) but I've seen much worse.  It's a little overacted by Theron and a little underacted by Csokas but again, I've seen so much worse. 

It's at least an interesting take on an animated world and, while I'm not in a rush to own it, is totally worth a look.

Star Trek X: Nemesis (2002)

  So this is the last film of the Next Generation crew.  It's a little barebones but it's not horrible.

Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) is happy to announce the wedding of his first mate, Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) and Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis) but as usual, Starfleet business intervenes.  The Romulan government has had a coup and a member of their underclass of Remans has taken power.  The new leader, Shinzon (Tom Hardy), wishes to open dialogue with Starfleet and the Enterprise is dispatched.  Picard is shocked and dismayed to learn, however, that Shinzon is not only human, he is a clone of Picard; a legacy of an abandoned experiment to replace the real captain.  Shinzon seems genuinely interested in meeting his biological donor but Picard fears there are multiple agendas at play.

The idea that Tom Hardy and Patrick Stewart could be clones is kind of ridiculous but any movie with Tom Hardy and Patrick Stewart is better than one without.  It's nice to see some of the storylines getting wrapped up but I wish the movie could have had more oomph to it.

Inside Deep Throat (2005)

  Ok, before anybody freaks out, this is a documentary about the porn film Deep Throat, not the actual film.  I'm not opposed to porn but reviewing it gets a little weird.  It's also even more subjective than non-porn films.

I added this to my queue after seeing a clip of it in another documentary called This Film is Not Yet Rated.  This tells you about the making of the film Deep Throat, sure, with interviews from the director, the male lead, and some of the crew.  The location manager in particular was hilarious.  More importantly, it tells you about the cultural attitudes of the time and what this movie had to overcome on its way to being the highest grossing film ever made.  Because of its popularity and prominence - being shown right in the middle of Times Square - Deep Throat became a nexus of discussion about censorship, morality, and what constitutes art.  It was supposed to be the rallying cry of a new, sexually liberated society.  It managed to squeak by the Nixon-led religious right condemnation only to run headlong into the teeth of second-wave feminism.  It never stood a chance with that one-two punch.  What's more sad is the human cost.  No one walked away from this film a happier person.  Linda Lovelace became one of its most critical protesters.  Harry Reems faced jail time as a scapegoat and saw any chance of a career in "legitimate" film down the tubes.  Gerard Damiano (the director) never saw a dime from his magnum opus.  The only people who profited were the mob and the conservatives.

It's really interesting to me to see how far we've come as a society and yet how short we've fallen in the idea of portraying sexuality.  Damiano intended Deep Throat to be kind of a gateway to mainstream films.  Like, regular films could have hardcore sex scenes that furthered the movie instead of being the point of them.  That still hasn't happened.  You can show someone's head exploding like an overripe melon but you can't show an erect penis.  There was a scientific study in the 70s that showed there were no deleterious effects to watching porn and recommended loosening the obscenity laws to reflect that but the study was repressed by the government because it didn't suit their narrative.  Political agendas once more triumphed over logic and reason by inflaming public opinion.  Everyone talks about how Hollywood is so liberal and maybe the actors are but most studios are extremely risk averse.  Look at any movie up to the 70s and you will see married couples sleeping in separate beds or even separate rooms.  Heterosexual, legally married couples are the gold standard of conservatives and nobody even dared inferring they had sex.  That's more fantastical than believing a pizza delivery guy is going to get boned by a hot housewife for no reason.

This post has already gone on way too long but I have one last thing to say.  Maybe if we didn't treat porn like it was disgusting and shameful (in public, while contributing billions of dollars annually in private) it would achieve a level of legitimacy and stop being horribly amateur and exploitative.  Stop. Being. Fucking. Hypocrites. About. Fucking.  The end.

The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl (2005)

  Robert Rodriguez is the only director I know who can be thoroughly entertaining using only nepotism and terrible CGI.  This movie is just about awful in every respect and yet still watchable.

Max (Cayden Boyd) is a highly imaginative boy who uses his dreams to escape from reality, writing them all down in his dream journal.  His two major creations are Sharkboy (Taylor Lautner) and Lavagirl (Taylor Dooley) who live on Planet Drool.  His teacher (George Lopez) is concerned Max is losing touch with reality and the school bully (Jacob Davich) takes the opportunity to ruin Max's dream journal.  Then Sharkboy and Lavagirl show up at the school because Planet Drool is in danger from a new evil and only Max can save it.

This is basically a shittier version of The Neverending Story.  It's based on Rodriguez's son's actual dream journal and characters and all three of his sons have small parts.  I didn't see the Avellan twins or Danny Trejo so maybe they were busy that day.  It was intended for 3D viewing with a lot of the stock things being thrown at the camera.  As an adult, I would never watch this again but I can see how it would be popular with kids.  I'm giving the copy I have to my godchildren.  In a couple of years, I think they'll really enjoy it.

Star Trek IX: Insurrection (1998)

  Do you want to know how deep down the tunnel of schoolwork I have been?  I didn't know the teaser for Guardians of the Galaxy 2 had dropped and I didn't even know Logan was a thing that is going to exist.  I'm so mad at myself right now.

Anyway, Star Trek.  This is movie number nine, which means there's only one more to go and then I can start on the Star Wars saga.  Yes, all of them and The Clone Wars TV show as well.  But for now, let's just concentrate on the further adventures of the Enterprise.

Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) is in the middle of a diplomatic dinner when he receives word that Data (Brent Spiner), who had been loaned out to another ship, has gone crazy and started shooting at Starfleet personnel during an observation mission on a peaceful planet.  Picard immediately orders the ship to the site of the incident and ignores orders to destroy Data, choosing instead to shut him off until the cause can be investigated.  This incident handled, Admiral Dougherty (Anthony Zerbe) can't get rid of Picard and his crew fast enough, which also seems suspicious.  Picard does a little more digging and discovers that the planet has a unique property that reverses aging.  Admiral Dougherty wants to remove the Bak'u and use the planet as a panacea to halt death around the galaxy but his ally, Ru'afo (F. Murray Abraham), has much more personal reasons to want the Bak'u gone.

I think this is one of the best in the entire series.  All of the ones with the Next Generation crew have been well-written and well-conceived as films.  I think the difference is that they know that they are meant to be action films, not extended TV episodes or morality plays.

The Addams Family (1991)

  For whatever reason, posting on Monday has become really hard for me.  I'm doing my best and I want to thank everyone who keeps reading.

The Addams' are incredibly rich and incredibly weird.  Their accountant, Tully (Dan Hedaya), dreads the constant playful attempts on his life by Gomez (Raul Julia) and schemes to find a way to destroy them and take their money.  His opportunity comes in the form of mother-son loan sharks Abigail (Elizabeth Wilson) and Gordon Craven (Christopher Lloyd).  Gordon looks strikingly like Gomez's long-lost brother, Fester.  With a few cosmetic changes, Gordon infiltrates the Addams household in order to locate the vault of treasure but not everyone in the family believes in Fester's miraculous return.

I forgot how much I loved this movie.  I think it gets overshadowed in my mind by the sequel, which is amazing, but this was truly a fantastic movie.  I think it really deserves to be called a classic if only because it is one of the very rare TV shows adapted into a movie that doesn't suck.  Part of that success comes from casting.  I don't think anyone else could have played Morticia Addams like Anjelica Huston.  The only thing that really dates the film is the end credit song, which is a rap by MC Hammer.  Otherwise, this is just as perfect today as it was in 1991.

Star Trek VII: Generations (1994)

  And so we move from the old to the new.  Well, at least to the 90's.  This is a pretty decent film and a good transition from the original series to the Next Generation.

Admiral Kirk (William Shatner), Scottie (James Doohan), and Chekov (Walter Koenig) are invited to the launch of a new Enterprise, under the command of a new captain when they get a distress call from a ship caught in an energy ribbon.  They respond and manage to save some of the passengers, including a man named Soran (Malcolm McDowell) but Captain Kirk is lost.  Seventy years later, Captain Picard (Patrick Stewart) receives some terrible personal news at the same time as yet another distress signal, this time from a star observatory.  They find the same man, Soran, as the only survivor of a vicious attack by Klingons.  Engineer Geordi (LeVar Burton) thinks something is off about the attack and seeks to re-examine the site.  Soran kidnaps him and escapes to the Klingon ship.  The Enterprise crew learns from Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg), who was one of the original survivors, that Soran wants to return to the ribbon because it keeps the inhabitants in a state of perpetual happiness outside of normal time and space.  In order to get inside, Soran destroys a planet with millions of living beings to distort the path of the ribbon.  Picard gets sucked up with him and must then confront his greatest desire and convince Kirk to also give up his personal fantasy.  Together, the two captains must change the past to save the future.

Holy shit, you guys.  It is really hard to concentrate when you have tiny gremlins behind you watching Veggie Tales, The Chipmunk Adventure, Pokemon:  Indigo League, and Ice Age:  Collision Course.  It's been a long weekend.

That Hamilton Woman (1941)

Okay, this is super late but I have an excuse.  I am taking care of my three godchildren and it has absorbed most of my attention for the day.  They are watching Zootopia in blissful serenity (or at least quiet) so I have time to post something.     Emma (Vivien Leigh) has clawed her way up from stripping to be the wife of the British ambassador to Naples (Alan Mowbray).  She has money, position, and everything she ever wanted until she meets the heroic Lord Nelson (Laurence Olivier).  He is also married but the two begin a passionate affair.

This is decent romantic drama.  It's different from my usual fare but well worth watching.  Leigh and Olivier were married in real life so there's an added layer to their on-screen romance.

Okay, this is a crap post.  I'm sorry.  My creativity has run a little dry.  I will do better next time, I swear.

Legend (2015)

  I'm 3/5 of the way done with my paper on British history so I thought I'd stop and revisit some more modern history with the Kray twins of 1960s London.

Ronnie (Tom Hardy) and Reggie Kray (also Tom Hardy) are twin gangsters.  Reg is the brains, suave and dapper, while Ron is a total psychopath.  Together, they run multiple nightclubs and rackets all over London and woo their respective flames, Frances (Emily Browning) and Teddy (Taron Egerton).  They are even being courted by the American mafia.  But when Reg goes to prison, Ron starts to fall apart without his brother and Frances realizes that Reg is never going to go straight with the twin pressures of easy money and familial obligation tugging on him.

This is a slick, very stylish film with a fantastic performance from Tom Hardy.  Each twin is a distinct personality, which is immediately apparent on top of the visual differences (one has glasses, one doesn't; one has lower jaw prosthetics, one doesn't).  The supporting cast is also excellent.  I don't know that it would be at the top of anyone's year-end list but it's a solid period gangster film.  I had never heard of the Krays so everything was new to me.  Maybe British people would feel differently.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

  True story:  I once referenced this movie in a paper on The Merchant of Venice in popular culture.

Another true story:  I have two 5-page essays to write this weekend.  I've started one of them.

Star Trek!

Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and his crew are getting ready for retirement when Spock (Leonard Nimoy) announces that he has offered the Enterprise in a diplomatic mission with the Klingons.  Their home world is failing and they are suing for peace in an attempt to get Federation help in relocating to a habitable planet.  A lot of people have a problem with this, including Kirk who will never forgive them for killing his son.  But he meets with Ambassador Gorkon (David Warner) anyway over a polite but tense dinner.  Immediately afterwards, Gorkon's ship is fired upon, apparently by the Enterprise, and many of the crew killed.  The second-in-command, Chang (Christopher Plummer), demands the arrest of Kirk and Bones (DeForest Kelley), leaving Spock and Scotty (James Doohan) to unravel the mystery of where the torpedoes came from.

This was one of the better films in the whole series, as far as plot.  There was an actual attempt made to integrate social issues with a legitimate story, instead of just a concept stretched out to an hour and a half, like The Final Frontier.

Star Trek is at its best when it has something to say and even though the story is not new (surprise, some people don't like to see the end of a historical enemy), it's still interesting to see the effects of post-Cold War relations.  It's mostly academic for me since I was so young but I'm sure my parent's generation saw this play out in real life with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the sudden realization that we had avoided Mutually Assured Destruction, as well as the accompanying death throes of paranoia, wondering if it was all a feint to get us to lower our guard.

(See, kids, movies are educational.  If you ever need to write a paper on the Cold War, Star Trek is there for you.)

The Left Handed Gun (1958)

  This was supposed to go up yesterday but I did homework instead.

William Bonney, aka Billy the Kid (Paul Newman), is a young man with a hot temper and no formal education.  He is picked up as a cattle hand by peace-loving Tunstall (Colin Keith-Johnston), who is subsequently murdered by his business rivals.  Billy takes it upon himself to get revenge for his employer, despite barely knowing the man.  He convinces his two friends Charlie (James Congdon) and Tom (James Best) to help him gun down the killers, sparking a trail of bloodshed leading all the way to door of former outlaw turned sheriff, Pat Garrett (John Dehner).

Paul Newman was a bit old to be playing a teenager (he was 33 when the movie came out) but he does a good job nailing down that brash vulnerability so typical of that age.  The story is necessarily tragic but the movie goes further to heighten the pathos by drawing so many parallels between Garrett and the Kid.  Bonney desperately needed a father figure and Garrett could have filled that role if circumstances hadn't intervened.

The film is in black and white so you miss out on the piercing intensity of Newman's blue eyes, which were always his best feature.  They try to shoehorn in a love story, unnecessarily in my opinion, to provide a downbeat from the waves of violence but that's not going to be the parts you remember.  Overall, I'd say this isn't one of Newman's top-drawer works but it's not a terrible Western.

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

  Okay, this was definitely the most boring Star Trek film I've seen yet.  Holy shit.

Kirk (William Shatner), Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and Bones (DeForest Kelley) are out camping in Yellowstone when they receive word that shore leave is cancelled and they have to immediately proceed to some remote planet to negotiate a hostage crisis.  The crisis was a trap, however, to bring a star-going vessel close enough for a fanatic Vulcan, Sybok (Laurence Luckinbill), to hijack.  He takes over the Enterprise, brainwashes most of the crew, and steers them towards the Great Barrier, some vast intergalactic storm that no ship has ever survived entering.  Sybok's aim is to locate the Vulcan equivalent of Eden and bring back God but of course Kirk wants to know why God would need a spaceship.

Barring a truly tragic vignette about Bones' past, there's nothing much for a casual viewer here.  This series is moving from fan service to actors desperate to prove they're still relevant, now almost thirty years after the end of their TV run.

Opportunity Knocks (1990)

  This movie was so awful I can't believe I wasted my precious leisure time on it.  Seriously, it is basically the exact same film as Down and Out in Beverly Hills except with a cheaper cast.

Eddie (Dana Carvey) is a con man on the run from a gangster (James Tolkan) after a prank has unintended consequences.  He holes up in a ritzy neighborhood with an empty house and is mistaken the next morning for the house sitter, who had decided not to show up, by the homeowner's parents (Robert Loggia and Doris Belack).  Believing this is their son's college friend, they invite Eddie into their upper class lives and encourage him to date their daughter (Julia Campbell).  Eddie soon decides that his original plan to con them isn't what he wants but it's too late to back out now.

Honestly, in another life Dana Carvey could have been a leading man.  But this is the 90s and it's awful.  His brand of mimicry falls completely flat in a narrative, the story is insipid and derivative, and it's not worth anyone's time to dredge this up from obscurity.  Carvey went on to have an extremely successful career and this can just be seen as a minor interruption in that journey.

Layer Cake (2004)

  This is going to be a short post because I am tired and my allergies are kicking my ass.

The unnamed hero of our story (Daniel Craig) is a middleman for drug dealer Jimmy Price (Kenneth Cranham).  He wants to retire but Price has two last requirements:  1) he must barter with The Duke (Jamie Foreman), an odious gangsta wannabe, over the acquisition of an exorbitant amount of ecstasy pills worth upwards of a million pounds sterling and 2) he must locate the crackhead daughter of an extremely wealthy man, Eddie Temple (Micheal Gambon).  This leads our hero into a veritable rabbit's warren of complications as the pills were stolen from Serbian war criminals and the daughter isn't so much being rescued as she is wanted as a hostage by Price.

This is probably the second or third time I've seen this film and I will tell you flat out, I did not get it the first time.  Even this time I was struggling to see where all the threads were going, mostly I think because I kept waiting for it to be funny.  I don't know what movie the guy on the poster saw but it wasn't the same one I did.  Sure, it had some funny moments but overall this is a straight-up violent film for violence's sake.  If you go in knowing that I think you'll have a better time with it.  It's damn sure stylish.  Jury's out on whether that's enough to make it good.

Manhattan Melodrama (1934)

  This is another very heavy story of morality and sacrificing individual needs for the greater good.  Even my leisure time is spent with things meant to make me smarter.  Which was not the reason I added this movie to my queue, by the way.  It's just bad timing to have come up to the top while I'm studying the effects of ideologies in culture.  I added it because it's William Powell and Myrna Loy and also because this was the last film John Dillinger ever saw.  The notorious bank robber was shot by the FBI after leaving the theater.  Now, having seen the movie, the irony is palpable.

Two East Side boys, orphaned after a tragic accident, are taken in by a kindly man (George Sidney) who also lost his son in the event.  Raised as brothers, the two diverge wildly in their career paths.  Blackie Gallagher (Clark Gable) is a racketeer and gambler, always on the move, always looking for the next score.  Jim Wade (William Powell) is the Assistant District Attorney, hellbent on cleaning up the city and maintaining his personal code of ethics.  Eleanor (Myrna Loy) was Blackie's girl but she left him for Jim, realizing that Blackie was never going to give up his gangster lifestyle.  Even that couldn't damage their friendship.  But when Blackie is accused of murder, Jim must decide whether to throw the book at his friend or break his code of honor to help him out.

This is a great movie for the issues it raises but it's so heavy-handed and syrupy in delivery it almost negates all its good qualities.  Dillinger must have liked it because he stayed til the end.  If he had gotten disgusted and walked out halfway, he might have escaped the ambush waiting for him.  But that's neither here nor there.

I've never been a big Clark Gable fan but he's the liveliest part of this film.  Powell and Loy are fantastic together, as always, but apart they get sucked into the melodrama.  Unless you are just really into Dillinger history or a huge fan of one of the principles, I would suggest giving this movie a miss.  Too much melodrama, not enough Manhattan.

Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (2011)

  With everything that's been going on, I almost forgot I had watched this.  And that's horrible because this is a great documentary.  Yes, there are three of them and no, I didn't see the other two.  I was concerned that this would be a problem but I never felt like I was missing any information.

In 1993, three 8-year-old boys were murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas.  The police quickly arrested three teenaged boys for the crime and they were convicted in court.  A team of documentarians were on hand and noticed a number of discrepancies so they created this video series to document the trial and aftermath.  The three teenagers maintained their innocence but it wasn't until new DNA evidence was introduced in 2011 that things really began moving in their quest for freedom.  By that time, the boys were adults who had spent 18 years - over half their lives - in prison.

I think this is a really important story.  We like to think we're civilized and logical and compassionate and so far removed from the days of summary judgments and witch hunts but this film shows that the need for answers and someone to blame still outweighs the truth sometimes.  The people of West Memphis had a terrible tragedy which was then compounded by the incarceration of three boys on almost no real evidence but a lot of speculation and fear mongering.

This documentary blends footage from 1993 all the way through to its airing in 2011 to bring the viewer as complete a picture as it can.  I absolutely encourage you to watch it.  Hell, watch all three.

The Last Station (2009)

I know, I know, it's another repost.  You guys know I wouldn't do this to you if I didn't have to, right?  I have high hopes of getting my homework done early enough to watch something new today.  It's mostly reading, so that should go by pretty quickly.

You don't care about my homework, nor should you.  You should care about The Last Station.  It really is a great film.  I didn't think it would stand up to a second viewing but I was wrong.  Originally posted 07 Jul 2013.    I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this film.  It doesn't sound like much, and by now you're all aware of my hatred for character dramas, but it was extremely compelling.

Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer) is regarded by the Russian people as practically a living saint.  He has founded a movement to eschew physical property and ostentation, anchored by his friend and supporter Chertkov (Paul Giamatti).  This annoys his wife, Sofya (Helen Mirren) to no end, seeing as Tolstoy is a count of substantial standing.  She is concerned that Chertkov is exerting undue pressure on the aging writer to change his will, stipulating that his copyrights be placed in the public domain.  Both Chertkov and Sofya try to subvert Tolstoy's young secretary, Valentin (James McAvoy), to their respective cause. 

Helen Mirren is a spectacular creature.  She has all the best scenes in this movie.  All of them.  Christopher Plummer is excellent as Tolstoy, and McAvoy is at least watchable.  Paul Giamatti is unctuous and sleazy in the best way possible, but this is Dame Mirren's show and don't you forget it.

I know I don't usually talk about the orchestral score of a movie (because I usually don't notice it) but the music here was beautiful.  Sergei Yevtushenko is the man responsible for that, minus a piece from Puccini.

It was nominated for two Oscars in 2010:  Best Supporting Actor (Christopher Plummer) and Best Lead Actress (Helen Mirren).  They lost to Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds) and Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side).  And now I'm all conflicted because I liked both of the winners in their roles as well.  Damn you, Academy!  Why do you make me feel?!

Snowpiercer (2013)

  I had intended to watch this weeks ago but the copy I had on the server was missing subtitles.  90% of the movie is in English but there are a couple of characters who only speak Korean.

In the near future, an attempt to correct global warming leads to a catastrophic event that freezes the planet.  Humanity's only survivors exist on a train that is in constant movement.  Onboard, there is a distinct gap between the head of the train and the tail section.  The wretched masses in the tail revolt under the leadership of Curtis (Chris Evans).  Other revolutions have been attempted but Curtis has something the others lacked:  a key.  Namgoong (Kang-ho Song) helped design the security locks on the train before being locked up for drug addiction.  Along the way, however, Curtis learns some very unpleasant truths regarding the nature of continued survival.  Everything has its price.

I liked this film.  I know there were a lot of detractors.  Honestly, though, I thought it was really solid.  Chris Evans did a great job and there were a lot of really neat imaginative touches throughout.  It had some shades of Oldboy but not enough to ever feel derivative.  It's worth a watch.

The Last Castle (2001)

I liked this one so much I bought it.  I really couldn't tell you why.  It's not my usual fare at all but something about it was extremely appealing to me.  I think it will be one of those comfortable movies that I can throw on while doing chores or homework where I can walk away and come back with it just playing in the background.  Originally posted 07 Jul 2013.    This was my 4th of July movie.  I felt it was appropriately patriotic.

General Eugene Irwin (Robert Redford) pleads guilty to disobeying a direct order and is sentenced to 10 years in the Castle, a military prison run by Colonel Winter (James Gandolfini).  Winter is initially obsequious at having such a distinguished war hero in his facility, albeit under reduced circumstances, but when Irwin unwittingly offends him, Winter reverts back to his original stance that prisoners are sub-human and best treated as living pawns.  After witnessing some of the abuses of power, Irwin starts pulling the men together and giving them back their fractured sense of self. 

This might be the youngest I've ever seen Mark Ruffalo in a movie.  I found that to be noteworthy, but his performance didn't shine for me as much as underrated character actor Clifton Collins, Jr.'s.  That guy has been amazing in every role I've seen him in, and I can all but guarantee you won't be able to picture his face when you read his name.  You will recognize Robin Wright in a very small role as Irwin's daughter.  Not sure why but actors take roles for reasons I don't understand all the time.

As most, if not all of you, are aware, James Gandolfini passed away recently.  I have to say, I am unfamiliar with most of his work.  I never watched The Sopranos and most of his other roles were indies or supporting bigger names.  He was a physically imposing man in real life, but the way he played COL Winter was as a small, petty individual, seeming to shrink in on himself.  Even the way he ate a sandwich made me think of a kid eating alone at lunch, shoulders hunched as though expecting bullies.  It was a compelling portrait of a character whose meanness and vindictiveness were better suited for a physically smaller, slighter man. 

The movie itself is pretty standard fare, Renaissance Man in Leavenworth if you will.  It's more entertaining than it has a right to be with plenty of action sequences and a thread of humor.  Definitely worth a watch.

Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock (1984)

  The Star Trek movie franchise really dealt with some interesting concepts but their execution could have used some work.  Granted, it was the 80's.  They didn't have the kind of wizardry we do now.

This begins immediately after The Wrath of Khan and really doesn't make sense without that context.

Admiral Kirk (William Shatner) has jettisoned the body of his science officer, Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), onto the surface of the new planet Genesis and returned to Earth.  Soon, however, Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) starts behaving very oddly.  Ambassador Sarek (Mark Lenard) believes that the dying Spock passed the sum total of his knowledge and memory to McCoy in a Vulcan ritual because he thought the crew would know to take his body back to his home planet so his knowledge could be shared amongst his people.  Kirk petitions for a ship to take McCoy to Vulcan but is denied so he steals the Enterprise and heads off back to Genesis to recover Spock's body.

Unfortunately, word has gotten around that the Federation has a terraforming device and a Klingon war leader (Christopher Lloyd) has laid siege to Genesis in order to steal the secret.  David (Merritt Butrick) and science officer Saavik (Robin Curtis) are the only two survivors from the Federation's exploratory crew because they were on the planet when the Klingons showed up.  They discover that the Genesis process is highly unstable and that the planet is probably going to implode pretty soon.  Also, Spock's body has regenerated into that of a child but without his memories or personality.  Kirk has to defeat the Klingons, save his people from a Frankenstein-ed planet, and reunite Spock's brain with his body without killing him or McCoy.  All in a day's work.

Like I said, there were some interesting ideas here about loyalty and reincarnation and the pitfalls of hubris but they were muddled through with some uninspiring villains, unnecessary interactions, and frenetic action sequences.  This was Leonard Nimoy's feature debut as a director so some leeway should be given in that respect.