End of Year 2018

Okay, so it's the last day of 2018 and while it was better for me than 2017, it still wasn't a great year.  It dragged on so long that I totally forgot what movies came out in the first half.  I didn't go to the theater as often as I wanted but I still saw most of the films I had marked out.  So here are the top ten that I liked for the year.

10.  Annihilation - Visually, this was one of the most beautiful films I saw all year.  I hope it gets some recognition from the Academy but I'm not holding my breath.  I think it came out too early to really be a contender this year.

9.  Solo:  A Star Wars Story - People were really down on this but that has more to do with the toxicity of the fan base than any demerits of the movie.  I don't think it was strictly necessary as a story but Ron Howard delivered a truly fun Star Wars experience.  Fuck you guys, it's canon now.

8.  Ralph Breaks the Internet - I loved this continuation of the Wreck-It Ralph universe.  It showed some real character development, even if it did suffer a little from sequel-itis.  Those Disney princesses, though.

7.  Ant-Man and the Wasp - After the total downer of Infinity War, this sequel was exactly the uplifting superhero movie I needed to see.

6.  Venom - Speaking of surprise gems.  I went into Venom with no expectations and came out totally shipping a reporter and an alien lifeform.

5.  Spider-Man:  Into the Spider-Verse - This one just made it in under the wire as far as deadlines but I'm so glad it did.  One of the best superhero movies and maybe my favorite Spider-Man movie ever.

4.  Hereditary - I loved this movie so much.  I watched it again over Christmas break with my cousin and it was still great.

3.  Black Panther - Did you even remember this came out this year?  It feels like it's been part of the universe forever.  I don't think another comic book movie has impacted society as much as Black Panther has and that's amazing.  Ryan Coogler is an incredible director and a really hope he gets as much work as he wants forever.

2.  The Avengers:  Infinity War - The snap heard round the world.

1.  Deadpool 2 - This movie was so good, they had to recut it and put it back in theaters as a PG-13 version so they could get twice the money for it.  That takes some serious balls.  And it worked because as fucked up as it is, this is a movie about family that manages to be insanely specific and also incredibly relatable.  That's why it's number one.

Obviously, this list is geared only to my taste.  I'm sure you have favorites that I overlooked, fairly or not.  Feel free to discuss them in the comments.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

  Tyler was mad about having to watch Crazy Rich Asians and Aquaman so I had to promise him a "good" movie to make up for it.  Fortunately, Into the Spider-Verse is awesome.  He says it's "the greatest movie of all time" and "how superhero movies should be."  I wouldn't go quite that far but it is a really, really good film.

Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is trying to adjust to the rich new private school he's attending but all he really wants to do is hang out with his Uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali) and tag walls.  He accidentally gets bitten by a radioactive spider and then watches as Spider-Man (Chris Pine) is killed trying to stop Wilson Fisk (Liev Shreiber) from turning on a supercollider that begins to merge the multiverse.  Suddenly, there are multiple Spider-People from all kinds of universes, including one where it's the 1930s-40s and all in black and white, a far-flung future where mechs are real, and a cartoon one with a spider-pig.  Unfortunately, all the spider-people will die if they don't get back to their home dimensions so Miles must learn the ropes and prove he is a worthy successor to the web fluid.

The animation in this movie is spectacular.  I can't wait to own a copy so I can go through it again and see all the easter eggs (because you know there are tons of them).  Also, the soundtrack is badass and of course I bought the Very Spidey Christmas album, which is the only acceptable Christmas music according to Tyler.

Honestly, you should see this one in the theaters just for the scale of it.  Also, just because it is animated doesn't mean it's for children, so leave your 10 and under kids at home.  It's not for them.

Aquaman (2018)

  Well, the good news is that this is definitely a step in the right direction for DC's movie universe.  The bad news is that it's still not great.

Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) has been using his powers for good, to help out those lost or threatened at sea, but when Princess Mera (Amber Heard) arrives to enlist his help against the rising threat of Arthur's half-brother, King Orm (Patrick Wilson), Arthur turns her down.  He has no wish to involve himself in Atlantean business, feeling that he is an outsider and knowing how the Atlanteans treated his mother, Queen Atlanna (Nicole Kidman).  Orm's actions have a direct impact on the surface world, however, and Arthur is drawn in despite himself.

I saw this on Christmas Day with my family, which included my boyfriend, Tyler, and my cousin, Caleb, who is also a movie buff.  Tyler was furious over the sheer number of plotholes, which was seconded by Caleb.  You guys, there are so many.  Personally, I hated the costumes.  That might seem like a ridiculous thing to nitpick over, but bear with me.  Most of the costumes were CGI overlays, so they were too bright and unreal looking in general, but then in the close-ups where you could see the real garments the actors were wearing, they looked so cheap and awful.  Exposed zippers, ragged collars, more sequins and iridescent plastic scales than you could shake a stick at, and really just an egregious amount of codpieces.

Tyler and I also agreed that the love story plot was horrendous, but for different reasons.  He hated it because it was utterly unnecessary to the story and felt tacked on and overstuffed.  I hated it because it was full of lazy tropes that sacrificed Mera's competence so she had a reason to love Arthur.  This is a bitch who can literally control the ocean itself and I'm supposed to believe she needs to be clumsy or naive to be endearing?  They actually give her an Ariel-combing-her-hair-with-a-fork moment to make her seem "cute" and like she's trying to fit in with the surface-dwellers when she tries to eat a dozen roses because "look, she's never seen plants before!  And is stupid with no concept of context!  Relatable!"  This is what happens when you don't have a single woman in the writer's room.

Now for the bright side.  If you are not terribly invested, this is a fun movie that goes a long way towards correcting the DCEU's tone problem.  The cinematography is gorgeous and the visual effects are top-notch, especially the underwater sequences.  I will probably end up owning it but I would never go so far as to say it was a good movie.

Crazy Rich Asians (2018)

  I'm not big on rom-coms but this was a very cute movie.  I liked it more than I liked the book.

Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) is psyched to meet her boyfriend's (Henry Goulding) family for the first time until she learns that they are beyond wealthy.  His mother (Michelle Yeoh) doesn't approve of Rachel and does everything she can to discourage what she perceives as a gold-digging nobody from shoehorning her way into the family.  Rachel must navigate the shark-infested waters of the incredibly rich and bored to determine what exactly she wants from this relationship.

The book is okay but the movie really delves into Rachel more, giving viewers more incentive to root for her.  Nick, the boyfriend, is treated more like an afterthought.  He's mainly just the catalyst to set these two opposing women into motion.  Wu is charming and likable without succumbing to most of the annoying tropes of women in rom-coms.  ("Insecure" and "clumsy" are not personality traits; they are lazy shortcuts.)  Yeoh is a force to be reckoned with, conveying powerful emotions quietly through expressions rather than out loud.

Awkwafina puts in another hilarious role as Rachel's friend from college but Gemma Chan steals the show for me as Nick's quietly desperate cousin, Astrid.  She is magnetic.

This is in the running for a Golden Globe but I don't know about its Oscar chances.  It's a solid rom-com but it is still a rom-com and the Academy typically doesn't like those.  We'll have to see next month.

Song of the Sea (2014)

  This is such a beautifully drawn movie.  It's by the same studio that did The Secret of Kells and it's just gorgeous.

Ben (David Rawle) is initially excited to have a baby sister but Saoirse's (Lucy O'Connell) arrival coincides with the abrupt departure of his mother (Lisa Hannigan).  Ben resents Saoirse even more when their grandmother (Fionnula Flanagan) arrives to take them from the isolated lighthouse to town so their father (Brendan Gleeson) can grieve.  Saoirse becomes ill and Ben is increasingly convinced that she will die if she is not returned to the sea.

The animation is a lovely soft blend of watercolors and strong, bold lines, mixing traditional Irish folklore with a universal tale of loss and family.  You should absolutely check this one out, especially if you are tired of the usual animated fare.  The soundtrack is also really soothing if you're feeling particularly stressed out by the holidays.

The Artist (2011)

Extra post for Christmas!  Yay!
I hadn't realized when I first watched this, but it is basically another version of A Star is Born.  The most recent remake is burning up everyone's Best Of list for the year.  I put the 1937  original in my queue just so I had a basis for comparison but I'm sure I'll see the Lady Gaga version eventually.

Anyway, The Artist remains an absolutely stunning film.  This time around I noticed so many more little details that I missed the first time.  I still think John Goodman got robbed of an Oscar for his work here.

If you're wondering why the last few posts have been a little off, I'm visiting my family for Christmas and I don't have the same level of functionality that I do at home.  Check back next week and they'll be fixed.

Originally posted 29 Jul 13.    Nominated for:  Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Art Direction, Best Costumes, and Best Original Score

This movie made me remember why I love old films.  It is absolutely perfect in every frame. 

Silent film star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is at the top of his game in 1927 when he bumps into pretty Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) while signing autographs.  He thinks nothing of the resulting Variety spread but for Peppy, it's the start of a whole career.  Initially cold, studio boss Al Zimmer (John Goodman) warms up to the starlet and decides to make her the face of their rebranding as a "talkies only" studio.  George is not thrilled to be told he has to completely change and, as his star wanes, becomes more bitter and resentful. 

This movie is stunning.  If you've ever been swept away by the magic of the movies, you owe it to yourself to see this film.  There really isn't anything left to say about it.

The Watch (2012)

  My God, what an awful film.  This is the kind of stupid frat-boy shit that I hate seeing perpetuated.  And in the last decade, no less!  Have we learned nothing?!

Evan (Ben Stiller) is a boring, suburban Costco manager wildly compensating for his lack of discernable personality by being relentlessly cheerful.  When an employee (Joe Nunez) is violently murdered, Evan decides to start a Neighborhood Watch because he doesn't trust the local idiotic cops (Will Forte and Mel Rodriguez) to do their jobs properly.  Unfortunately, the only people who want to join are an unhinged reject from the police academy (Jonah Hill), an overenthusiastic bro who is also weirdly obsessed with his teenaged daughter (Vince Vaughn), and a nebbish weirdo with an Asian fetish (Richard Ayoade).  Evan is actually excited about the last one because it means he'll finally get to check the "black friend" box off his Suburban Liberal Racist scorecard.  The four bumblefucks generally just use the "Neighborhood Watch" as an excuse to drink and bitch about their lives until they stumble across signs of an actual extraterrestrial invasion happening in their town and decide to handle it themselves.

I sat through this entire thing, hoping against hope that it would somehow turn itself around by the end but it remained painfully unfunny, crass, and dangerously misguided.  Let's break down why.

The casual racism which is laughed off as some sort of characterization of Evan as "that guy, you know, that doesn't think he's racist but really wants a non-white friend, ha ha, you know the type" which completely normalizes the fetishization of other races.

The latent homophobia around Billy Crudup's creepily invasive neighbor.

The misogyny of Vaughn's disturbing obsession with his teenage daughter's love life, including stalking her Facebook, following her to parties, and being physically aggressive with her purported love interest (Nicholas Braun) in the name of "protecting" her, despite her repeated assertions that he is invading her privacy.  Not to mention the total sidelining of Evan's wife (Rosemarie DeWitt) who is only characterized by her frequent absences, nagging, and desperate desire to have a baby.

The phallocentric nature of the aliens' Achilles Heel.  Because the only way to kill them is to shoot them in the dick.  Because that's where their brains are.  Because, I'm assuming, the screenwriters (all men, what a shock) based them on their own experiences as dickheads. 

This movie could have been funny.  It could have been an exploration of how men bond over family and shared interests without the choking weight of toxic masculinity.  Instead, it's dick jokes and exploding cows.  Fuck this movie.

The Big Sick (2017)

  And the award nominees just keep coming!  I've seriously been underutilizing my streaming services and I'm trying to do better.  There's just so much content.  This has been sitting in my Netflix queue since the last Oscars and it turns out it's been available on Amazon Prime the whole time.  Not that you should necessarily rush out to watch it.  It's not great.

Kumail Nanjani (himself) is trying to make it as a stand-up comedian in Chicago when he meets Emily (Zoe Kazan), a graduate student.  They hit it off and begin dating but their relationship implodes when she discovers Kumail has been lying to his family, staunchly traditional Pakistanis who want him to have an arranged marriage, about seeing her.  They break up.  Then Kumail gets a phone call from one of Emily's friends and must make a decision to put her in a medically-induced coma to treat a very aggressive infection.  Kumail feels a complicated mix of emotions that are only compounded by the arrival of Emily's parents (Holly Hunter and Ray Romano) from North Carolina.

This gets points for being based on a true story.  Nanjani and his wife, Emily V. Gordon, wrote the screenplay together, which is what it got nominated for.  And it is an incredible story.  Unfortunately, Kazan and Nanjani have no chemistry so it's really hard to see why he'd stick around through a coma.  Not that he's much of a prize anyway.  The bits at the comedy club are funny in a low-key way but there are no laugh-out-loud moments ever in the film.

I do want to highlight Adeel Akhtar as Kumail's brother, Naveed.  He was an absolute scene-stealer and I would have loved it if the movie had been about him instead.

Blackfish (2013)

  Human beings are the dominant species on the planet.  That is a fact.  However, that tends to insulate humans from recognizing the sentience of other creatures.  All mammals are sentient, according to neuroscientists.  That means that all mammals exhibit the ability to feel, perceive, and experience themselves as a distinct entity.  Whales of all species have been known to show distinct personalities as individuals.  Whales have unique languages and strong social bonds but they are difficult to study in the wild (for obvious reasons) and have remained shrouded in mystery for a lot of people.

That's why SeaWorld and places like it seem like such good ideas.  It seems super educational to bring people who would never be able to see a whale in the wild to a place where they can see, hear, and experience the true majesty of these incredible creatures while also being entertained.  Except no.

Based ostensibly around the tragic (and definitely preventable) death of trainer Dawn Brancheau, this documentary is more a searing indictment of human greed than anything else.  Tilikum, the murderous Orca, had documented issues with aggression and was linked to the death of at least one other person.  This was covered up by park management as he was still a very bankable star and a reliable stud.  Even after all the bad publicity, the lawsuits, and this very documentary, Tilikum was still being kept for breeding purposes until his death in 2017.

While I was watching this film, I couldn't help but wonder how this narrative would play if Tilikum were accorded the same assumption of inner awareness as a human.  Tell me how this story strikes you:  A boy is kidnapped from his family at a young age, witnessing the deaths of other family members during the process.  He is moved in the dark to a small facility and placed with other, older kids who don't speak the same language.  These kids have been in the system a while and begin to bully him.  They are forced to perform as entertainment for the crowds that see them.  At night, he and his cellmates are forced into a windowless metal box with not even enough room to turn around.  When they rebel, food is withheld.  Tilikum grows into a large teen, dwarfing his two cellmates and taking up even more space in this tiny room.  Resentful, the bullying continues unchecked.  Tilikum is covered in scars from head to foot.  Subjected to constant abuse and still unable to communicate with either his cellmates or his jailers, Tilikum attacks a handler.  An investigation is held but Tilikum is released with a lack of evidence.  He is later transferred with no mention of the incident to a different facility.  The process begins again.  He is abused, isolated, and only allowed interaction in exchange for food.  He is hungry all the time.  And growing even larger.  And then one day, during a performance, a miscommunication.  A reward duly earned is withheld by his trainer.  And he kills her.

Does that not sound like a serial killer in training?  How many narratives of kids in foster care, of detained children, start exactly like this?  Trauma, bullying, abuse, isolation, and withholding of affection cause severe psychological scarring.  Now imagine that in the body of a 14,000-lb predator.  That's what SeaWorld allowed its employees to interact with on a daily basis.  Now realize that SeaWorld owns 23 killer whales in the same conditions.  Many of whom are descended from Tilikum.  If that doesn't horrify you, you haven't been paying attention.

Creed (2015)

  This was a phenomenal movie.  I had held off on seeing it because I had only seen two of the 6 Rocky movies but there's really no reason to wait.  Yes, it does reference the other films but you're never going to feel lost on some plot point.

Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordon), the illegitimate son of legendary boxer Apollo Creed, fought his way through foster care and juvenile detention centers until being adopted by Mary Anne Creed (Phylicia Rashad), his father's widow.  Mary Anne wants him to be an executive in a white-collar job but Adonis can't give up boxing.  He moves to Philadelphia to convince his father's rival, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), to train him.  Rocky is reluctant to make any new connections in what he sees as a holding pattern for death but Adonis is persistent.  They get an unprecedented opportunity when the manager for the world's lightweight champion "Pretty" Ricky Conlan (Tony Bellew) contacts them about a title fight.  Conlan is looking at a serious jail sentence and needs a quick win for a lot of cash to make sure his family is taken care of while he's away.  He hopes to trade on Adonis' legacy as a Creed to generate publicity but Adonis isn't sure if he even has a claim to that name.

The best sports movies are the ones that are only incidentally about sports.  Sure, this has training montages, the famous steps in front of the courthouse, and the iconic theme, but Ryan Coogler transcends the label of "Rocky sequel" for an examination of identity, and how our traumas shape who we are.  Stallone puts in probably his best work in the last 15 years here as a quiet man grown comfortable in his has-been status, just waiting to die.  It makes you believe that he has been nominated for three Oscars.  Jordan is a fast-rising star and his performance here is no exception.  Tessa Thompson isn't given a lot to do here as the love interest but she's always a joy to watch.

This movie did something I never thought would happen:  it made me want to watch all the Rocky movies.  Maybe that's a marathon I could do before Creed II gets released on DVD.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011)

  And here's another British movie featuring an allusion to water!  Unlike The Deep Blue Sea, however, this one is ridiculously charming and not a slog at all.

Fred Jones (Ewan McGregor) is just a lowly pencil-pusher in Her Majesty's Fisheries Department when he receives what he initially assumes is a joke email from Harriet Chetwoode-Talbot (Emily Blunt) asking for a feasibility study into the introduction of salmon to the Yemen River.  Ms. Chetwoode-Talbot represents the British interests of a Yemeni sheik (Amr Waked) who has developed a passion for the sport of fly fishing.  While intensely skeptical at first, Dr. Jones slowly begins to realize that when money is literally no object, anything is possible.  He and Harriet pour all their efforts into this project even as their personal lives start to crumble around them.

Ewan McGregor hasn't been this adorable since Moulin Rouge but Emily Blunt is naturally, effortlessly ebullient.  It makes me feel a lot better about the forthcoming Mary Poppins sequel that she is starring in it.  That being said, I felt like his character should have been played by someone older, even though I loathe May-December romances in film.  It would have made for more of a contrast between them.

Also, Tom Mison from Sleepy Hollow is in this!  I loved him as Ichabod Crane but I never thought of him as hot until I watched this movie.  He's just so pretty.

There's a subtext here of faith moving mountains and a lot of analogies to fishing but ignore all that and focus on the hilarious turns by Kristin Scott Thomas as a no-nonsense Press Secretary and Conleth Hill as Fred's spiteful boss.  It's included in Prime so you can stream it at your leisure.

The Deep Blue Sea (2011)

  No, this isn't the killer shark movie.  This is a boring, British, based-on-a-stage-play drama that was nominated for something or other that I am finally getting around to watching.  I would rather have had the killer sharks, frankly.

Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz) couldn't face a loveless, boring marriage to respectable Judge Collyer (Simon Russell Beale) after the existential crisis of WWII, so she runs off with a handsome but poor flying ace (Tom Hiddleston) only to find that love very much sucks when it's not reciprocated in equal measure.

Ever been at a friend's house and they end up in a screaming fight with their significant other while you sit there awkwardly?  That's what watching this movie is like.

This is very much the type of thing I imagine when someone says "stage drama."  It is steeped in melodrama and a kind of crushing nihilism that fails to wring any pathos from me.  The two leads are very good, especially Weisz, but they could not save this film from being an interminable slog.

The Square (2017)

  This is a little confusing because there was another film also called The Square that came out a couple of years ago about the protests in Tahir Square in Egypt.  This is not that movie.

Christian (Claes Bang) is a curator for a museum of modern art in Stockholm.  He is trying to raise awareness of a new exhibit called The Square, a 4x4 meter square with a plaque that informs the viewer that inside the square, every person is equal.  It's meant to provoke thoughts of equality and altruism, given the prevalent homelessness in the city.  Christian finds himself struggling with intentions versus effect when he is pickpocketed on the street which leads to a public relations nightmare when his inattention results in the publication of a highly inflammatory video about the exhibit.

Okay, so this is absolutely Rich White People Nonsense (RWPN).  The film is aware that it is RWPN and a lot of the humor comes from seeing Rich White People suddenly forced to confront their privilege.  If that is the kind of thing you are into, it's streaming on Hulu. 

If you are interested in the nature of art and how it is performative even when it is passive because it causes a reaction within viewers that is then acted upon, you might enjoy some of the clips from the exhibits.

Otherwise, there is nothing here for you.  Do not be fooled by seeing Elizabeth Moss or Dominic West's names in the credits.  The fifteen minutes collectively they are in the film will not make up for the 2.5 hour runtime. 

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)

  I never saw the original Wall Street so I can't say if this is a decent sequel.  I can tell you it's boring and the character motivations make no sense to me.

Jake (Shia LaBeouf) is an up and coming analyst at a prestigious Wall Street firm with a passion for alternative energy, specifically a new fusion reactor powered by sea water.  Things seem to be looking good, until his mentor (Frank Langella) is pressured into suicide by a rival company.  Coincidentally, around this same time, his girlfriend's (Carey Mulligan) father, Gordon Gecko (Michael Douglas), gets out of prison and goes on a book tour.  Jake starts bargaining, trading moments and chances for Gecko to reconcile with the daughter who hates him in exchange for advice on how to destroy the man who killed his mentor (Josh Brolin).  But Gecko is not solely motivated by a desire for atonement and Jake must look past his own selfish inclinations to counter a master manipulator.

Honestly, this was a lot of posturing and chest-thumping among a group of narcissists.  I have no idea why Mulligan's character stayed in the relationship with a selfish asshole who embodied all the traits she hated in her father, but I've seen that happen in real life so I was willing to let it go.  All of the double-dealing and ego-stroking that happens among these financiers with zero regard for how their actions affected millions of people is also baffling to me, but again, I lived through the 2008 recession and the bailouts and the lack of accountability.  This doesn't make the film interesting, cathartic, or informative to watch.  It's just chronicling what happened.

Even the cutesy, saccharine ending didn't dissuade me from hating every single character.  No one learned anything from their mistakes and the characters ended exactly where they began.  It's a slick film, with a lot of handsome flourishes by director Oliver Stone and an incredible cast of actors, but I would never watch it again.

2019 Golden Globe Awards Nominations

Award season is in full swing!  Let's get a look at some of the frontrunners for this year's Oscar race.

Best Motion Picture, Drama

Black Panther
BlacKkKlansman
Bohemian Rhapsody
If Beale Street Could Talk
A Star is Born

It's interesting the Hollywood Foreign Press Association chose to lump A Star is Born under Drama instead of Musical or Comedy.  Otherwise, I have heard excellent things about all the other nominees.

Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy

Crazy Rich Asians
The Favourite
Green Book
Mary Poppins Returns
Vice

Again, it seems odd that Green Book is under this category instead of Drama, but maybe the trailers are misrepresenting it.

Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama

Bradley Cooper - A Star is Born
Willem Dafoe - At Eternity's Gate
Lucas Hedges - Boy Erased
Rami Malek - Bohemian Rhapsody
John David Washington - BlacKkKlansman

All five of these actors are being lauded for their performances.  I think it might come down to Malek or Cooper, however.

Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama

Glenn Close - The Wife
Lady Gaga - A Star is Born
Nicole Kidman - Destroyer
Melissa McCarthy - Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Rosamund Pike - A Private War

This is going to be a very tough race.  Lady Gaga is getting a lot of buzz for her breakout film, but Kidman and Pike drastically transformed themselves for their roles, Close is always a contender, and McCarthy is making her big jump to drama from comedy, which critics love to see.

Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy

Christian Bale - Vice
Lin-Manuel Miranda - Mary Poppins Returns
Viggo Mortensen - Green Book
Robert Redford - The Old Man and the Gun
John C. Reilly - Stan and Ollie

I would normally say Bale has this in the bag, given that he's made another herculean physical transformation and is playing a mega-famous, almost universally reviled political figure, but Redford is a goddamn legend and Miranda is still a fast-rising star.

Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy

Emily Blunt - Mary Poppins Returns
Olivia Colman - The Favourite
Elsie Fisher - Eighth Grade
Charlize Theron - Tully
Constance Wu - Crazy Rich Asians

Honestly, I think this is wide open.

Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture

Mahershala Ali - Green Book
Timothee Chalamet - Beautiful Boy
Adam Driver - BlacKkKlansman
Richard E. Grant - Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Sam Rockwell - Vice

I would love to see Grant take this because he has been doing fantastic character work for years but I just don't see him having a chance in this lineup.

Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture

Amy Adams - Vice
Claire Foy - First Man
Regina King - If Beale Street Could Talk
Emma Stone - The Favourite
Rachel Weisz - The Favourite

I haven't heard much about King's or Foy's performances in their respective films and I think this is going to come down to Stone and Weisz with Adams as a dark horse.

Best Screenplay

Roma
The Favourite
If Beale Street Could Talk
Vice
Green Book

Best Original Song

"All the Stars" - Black Panther
"Girl in the Movies" - Dumplin'
"Requiem for a Private War" - A Private War
"Revelation" - Boy Erased
"Shallow" - A Star is Born

Probably A Star is Born.

Best Animated Feature

Incredibles 2
Isle of Dogs
Mirai
Ralph Breaks the Internet
Spider-Man:  Into the Spider-Verse

I'm not going to lie.  I'm super excited for Spider-Verse.

Best Original Score

A Quiet Place
Isle of Dogs
Black Panther
First Man
Mary Poppins Returns

Best Foreign Language Film

Capernaum
Girl
Never Look Away
Roma
Shoplifters

Best Director

Bradley Cooper - A Star is Born
Alfonso Cuaron - Roma
Peter Farrelly - Green Book
Spike Lee - BlacKkKlansman
Adam McKay - Vice

Best TV Series, Drama

The Americans
Bodyguard
Homecoming
Killing Eve
Pose

Best TV Series, Comedy or Musical

Barry
The Good Place
Kidding
The Kominsky Method
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Best Limited Series, TV Movie, or Miniseries

The Alienist
The Assassination of Gianni Versace
Escape at Dannemora
Sharp Objects
A Very English Scandal

Best TV Actor, Drama

Jason Bateman - Ozark
Stephen James - Homecoming
Richard Madden - Bodyguard
Billy Porter - Pose
Matthew Rhys - The Americans

Best TV Actress, Drama

Caitriona Balfe - Outlander
Elizabeth Moss - The Handmaid's Tale
Sandra Oh - Killing Eve
Julia Roberts - Homecoming
Keri Russell - The Americans

Best TV Actor, Comedy or Musical

Sacha Baron Cohen - Who is America?
Jim Carrey - Kidding
Michael Douglas - The Kominsky Method
Donald Glover - Atlanta
Bill Hader - Barry

Best TV Actress, Comedy or Musical

Kristen Bell - The Good Place
Candace Bergen - Murphy Brown
Alison Brie - GLOW
Rachel Brosnahan - The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Debra Messing - Will & Grace

Best Actor in a Limited Series, TV Movie, or Miniseries

Antonio Banderas - Genius:  Picasso
Daniel Bruhl - The Alienist
Darren Criss - The Assassination of Gianni Versace
Benedict Cumberbatch - Patrick Melrose
Hugh Grant - A Very English Scandal

Best Actress in a Limited Series, TV Movie, or Miniseries

Amy Adams - Sharp Objects
Patricia Arquette - Escape at Dannemora
Laura Dern - The Tale
Regina King - Seven Seconds
Connie Britton - Dirty John

Best Supporting Actor in a Limited Series, TV Movie, or Miniseries

Alan Arkin - The Kominsky Method
Kieran Culkin - Succession
Edgar Ramirez - The Assassination of Gianni Versace
Ben Whishaw - A Very English Scandal
Henry Winkler - Barry

Best Supporting Actress in a Limited Series, TV Movie, or Miniseries

Alex Borstein - The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
Patricia Clarkson - Sharp Objects
Penelope Cruz - The Assassination of Gianni Versace
Thandie Newton - Westworld
Yvonne Strahovki - The Handmaid's Tale

Macbeth (2010)

  This is part of PBS's Great Performances series, a film adaptation of a Tony-nominated run of Shakespeare's Macbeth.

Fated by three witches to become king of Scotland, Macbeth (Patrick Stewart) decides to speed the process by killing the current king (Paul Shelley) with the help of his wife (Kate Fleetwood).  The couple seem to get away with the murder but the resulting paranoia leads to a despotic rule that practically begs for a rebellion.

The setting has been updated to WWII-era weapons and costumes, hammering home the totalitarianism of Macbeth's rule with photos of mass graves and rows of hangman's nooses for dissidents and malcontents, real and perceived.  The three Weird Sisters are garbed as nurses with surgical masks that make for a truly effective sense of menace, while the set pieces recall dungeons and bunkers alike.  The dialogue has not been altered, however, so I would suggest throwing on the subtitles/closed caption in order to keep up if you aren't as familiar with this play.  Even though they are furnished with only the bare minimum of props, there is a clawing sense of claustrophobia in every frame.  The direction feels almost milquetoast in its avoidance of the gobs of violence being portrayed, cutting away from scenes of wholesale slaughter in order to show more evocative images.  The performances are what matter and they are delivered with the kind of gusto you'd imagine from the main cast.

This is my favorite of Shakespeare's tragedies and I still maintain that Lord and Lady Macbeth are #relationshipgoals.  It's available on Amazon Prime if you're interested.

Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)

  The Golden Globes Award nominations come out this Thursday, which means it's time to start looking at who is going to be nominated for the Oscars.  I'm not in school anymore so I'm hoping to improve upon last year's dismal count.  You know this is a lock for one of the Best Animated Feature slots so why not see it now?

Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) and Ralph (John C. Reilly) have spent the last six years establishing a comfortable routine.  For Ralph, it's been the happiest, most stable time in his life, but Vanellope is starting to get a little bored with the same activities day in and day out.  Then the steering wheel to her game breaks and the entire world of Sugar Rush is in jeopardy.  A replacement part is available on eBay but it is too expensive for Mr. Litwak (Ed O'Neill) so he decides to sell the game for scrap parts.  Ralph and Vanellope only have a few days to get the part themselves from the Internet.  Having a very limited understanding of the concept of money, they accidentally drive the price of the part to $27,001 and must find a way to come up with the cash.  A spambot (Bill Hader) introduces them to the world of loot auctions, and offers them $40,000 to steal Shank's (Gal Gadot) car from the online racing game Slaughter Race.  Vanellope is immediately entranced by the game, sending Ralph's insecurities into overdrive.  In an effort to curb her enthusiasm by making Slaughter Race boring, Ralph releases a virus into the game, which then threatens the entire Internet.

There were so many jokes and references in this film, you'd have to go frame by frame to spot them all.  This is definitely a movie made for repeat viewings.  There were a couple of moments where I damn near spat out my cherry Coke but I don't want to spoil them for you.  Just know that I will be buying this as soon as it's available.  Also, I need all of the princesses' lounging outfits immediately.  All of them.  Christmas is coming.  Get on it.

There is one potential spoiler that I do want to make clear.  The marketing featured a clip of Ralph playing Bunny Pancake, Cat Milkshake that does not make it into the actual movie.  I know a lot of people were disappointed, but it actually gets incorporated (hilariously) into the mid-credits sequence so stick around through the pop songs.  The post-credit sequence is not strictly necessary if you have to leave before the 10 minutes of scrolling names are finished, but it is cute.  Also, someone on the production named their kid Akira, so there's that.

The Way We Were (1973)

  This was my late friend Tamyka's favorite movie.  We didn't share the same taste in film and I can't honestly say that I would ever watch it again but it was worth it to be able to feel close to her again.

A woman with too many principles marries a man with too few.  That is basically what happens here. Katie (Barbra Streisand) has been a strident activist since college, advocating U.S. involvement in the Spanish Civil War against Franco, and chairing the local chapter of the Communist Club.  Hubbel (Robert Redford) is the campus golden boy, a rich, white, All-American athlete.  Despite their disparate backgrounds, Katie and Hubbel begin dating years later, after WWII.  As much as they love each other, they find themselves caught on opposite sides of the Hollywood 10 debate.  Katie wants more involvement and has never shied away from protesting, while Hubbel is content to swan around with his other rich, white friends and just make jokes about everything.

This film feels very prescient for our own current times.  There are commentaries on class, privilege, religion, 1st Amendment rights, fascism, totalitarianism, ethics, morals, and compromises to be mined from it, as well as a very timely message that you can't change people to fit your image of them.  It's a complex movie anchored by two very strong leads.  Redford and Streisand are both compelling and they play very well against one another.  It was not a pairing I thought was going to work but it does.

The character of Katie does have some problematic moments that can be chalked up to the times.  She smokes and drinks while pregnant, which is just ludicrous now, but she also waits until Hubbel is black-out drunk before climbing into bed with him the first night she can get him alone, which is gross.  If the roles were reversed, it would have been date rape and that character would have been reviled.  As it is, the scene is played for how desperate she is to be with him but it is still not okay.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

  I can't believe I've never reviewed any of the original Lord of the Rings trilogy.  I'm also kind of astonished Tyler thought we could watch all the extended edition versions on Thanksgiving.  Is that a thing?  They do kind of lend themselves to a post-turkey coma but I've never heard of making them a Thanksgiving tradition.  It didn't matter because we only got through the first one and then switched to Prometheus in my ongoing attempt to make Bethany watch all the Alien movies.  (Yes, we even watched Alien:  Resurrection the night before.)

Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) is charged with bearing the One Ring to its place of destruction.  He is joined by a complement of fellow hobbits, two representatives of men, an elf, and a dwarf, as well as the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellan) in an effort to stop the ring from falling back into the hands of Sauron or one of his minions.  The ring's corrupting influence is strong, however, and Frodo must watch for treachery from within as much as from without.

The extended edition really feels like a lot was added just to retcon in the Hobbit films since they came along later.  It gives you a little more at the beginning with Bilbo (Ian Holm), a little more with the elves, and a little more backstory for Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen).  Nothing you can't live without if you don't feel like sitting through 3+ hours.

The movie itself is worth revisiting.  Even coming up on twenty years later, the CGI looks as fresh as ever, the performances are solid, and the epic grandeur remains undiminished.  This is truly a series to stand the test of time, despite the shameless (but still entertaining!) cash grabs that would follow.

Willow (1988)

The weekend before Thanksgiving, I continued my mission of educating Bethany and Tyler in the classics by showing them Willow and Labyrinth as a double feature.  Again, this holds up very well for its age and really deserves to be rediscovered by a larger audience.  

Originally posted 12 Jul 2012.

Every once in a while, Christy (she of the Experiment) and I will call each other up, set our blu-rays, and watch a movie together.  Now that our show (So You Think You Can Dance and don't you dare judge us!) has gone from two episodes a week to only one (which I am not happy about) we now have potentially more time to do stuff like this.  But let's face it, it's rare for her and me to agree that a movie is worth watching. 

In this, though, we are of one mind.  We were both too young to see Willow in the theaters but clearly remember watching it multiple times on video.  It will always hold a special place for us.

It is a time of magic and prophecy.  A babe is born who is destined to defeat the evil Queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh).  Spirited out of the queen's realm, the baby winds up in the care of Willow Ufgood (Warwick Davis), a poor Nelwin farmer.  His village wise man (Billy Barty) decrees that the child must be taken to the crossroads, in the hopes that one of her own kind will care for her.  However, all Willow finds is the reprobate Madmartigan (Val Kilmer) imprisoned in a cage.  Against his better judgment and at the urging of his travelling companions, Willow frees Madmartigan and turns the child over to him.  This turns out to be a poor decision as the child is stolen almost immediately by Brownies, forcing Willow to rescue her and make sure that she survives long enough to fulfill her destiny.  To this end, two Brownie guides (Kevin Pollack and Rick Overton) lead Willow and the reluctant Madmartigan to rescue the sorceress Fin Raziel (Patricia Hayes) without getting caught by Bavmorda's daughter Sorsha (Joanne Whalley) or her right-hand man General Kael (Pat Roach).

As a sword and sorcery epic, the effects hold up pretty well.  They used blue screen for the Brownies, which is not terribly great, but the practical effects for some of the sorcery is awesome.  The trolls on the bridge gave me goosebumps as a kid, though Christy said she found General Kael's skull mask to be more frightening. 

I always forget that this was brought to us by the combined might of George Lucas and Ron Howard, probably because neither one of them ever did anything like it again.  But for all those blissful hours of repeated video viewings, I thank them.

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald (2018)

  Did you know the Smithsonian Institute museums have IMAX theaters?  Because I didn't.  Then I saw an event on Facebook about a speakeasy-themed reception and showing of the new Fantastic Beasts movie at the Museum of American History.  I almost never go into DC but for this, I made an exception.  I bought a flapper dress and a new wig and Tyler put a Slytherin robe over his regular clothes and away we went.

The reception itself was great, minus a drinks line that was way too long but free.  There were themed cocktails, a DJ, photo backdrops from the movie, snacks, a henna artist, and so many people in their finest '20s garb.  Everybody was friendly and mingling, and it was only a little weird that we had to keep circling around the Batmobile in the center of the floor.  (Which sparked the discussion of which Harry Potter house Batman would be sorted into.  Tyler says Slytherin but he says that for everyone.  I say Ravenclaw because research is Batman's middle name.)

I wish I could say the movie was half as fun as the party.  There were a couple of extraneous factors against it like it was only in 3D, which I hate in general, and I was seeing it in a room of rabid Potterheads.  You know how I feel about fandoms I'm not generally a part of, unless you don't in which case, I don't like it.

Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) just wants to collect and study his creatures but the Ministry of Magic keeps trying to recruit him to go after Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller), the Obscurial that almost destroyed New York City in the last movie.  Credence is hiding out in a magical circus in Paris while also trying to find his real family.  Newt is not interested until he learns that Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston) is assigned to look for him.  Meanwhile, Gellert Gridlewald (Johnny Depp) has escaped from custody and is also looking for Credence because the boy's power will be very helpful to him in establishing a wizards-only world order.

This very much felt like it was just a filler episode to set up for the big showdown that is coming between Good Guys and Bad Guys.  The story felt pretty rushed and also like it was relying on the audience to fill in the gaps on what was supposed to be happening themselves.  That seems like lazy writing to me, but I'm not a superfan.  None of the other audience people seemed to have the least concern following the plot or picking out the details so maybe that's just my outsider-ness showing.  I have read a few reviews/think pieces pointing out some of the inconsistencies in the timeline or noting that the female characters get short-changed here and that last point I can absolutely agree with.  Tina and her sister Queenie (Alison Sudol) were vital to the first movie but are given so little to do in this one, you almost wonder why they're there at all.  Tina spends 90% of the time giving Newt a cold shoulder because of a newspaper typo linking him to marry Leta Lestrange (Zoe Kravitz) (who spends most of the movie wringing her hands and looking beautifully sad) and Queenie falls off the fucking deep end, bespelling Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), the adorable muggle, into wanting to marry her.

Personally, I would have liked to see more interaction between Newt and his brother, Theseus (Callum Turner).  I didn't really care about the love triangle between them and Leta but I would have liked to know more about their internal dynamics.  I really enjoyed the first Fantastic Beasts but this one really seems like it's for die-hard fans only.  I heard this is planned to be a 5-movie set so hopefully the next iteration is more inclusive.

Lion (2016)

This was supposed to go up on Monday but I got distracted and then I blinked and it was Friday.  I don't know what happened.  Happy belated Thanksgiving, Americans!    I know this is based on a true story and it's very amazing that this guy managed to find his family from a handful of scattered memories, some math, and Google Earth, but this movie is really not worth the investment of your time.

Saroo (Sunny Pawar) is five-years-old when he accompanies his brother, Guddu (Abhishek Bharate), to a potential night job.  Being a small child, Saroo falls asleep on the platform while Guddu goes off to see about the arrangements.  Saroo wakes up, doesn't see his brother or anyone else, climbs aboard one of the trains, and falls back asleep.  What he doesn't know is that the train is decommissioned and is being returned to its home base in Calcutta, 1600 km (almost 1000 miles) from Saroo's hometown.  He is again a very small child from an illiterate, impoverished family who does not have ID, money, or even really any idea how to get back home.  Authorities are useless and Saroo eventually winds up in an orphanage where he is sold to a loving Tasmanian couple, Sue (Nicole Kidman) and John (David Wenham) Brierley.  Saroo (Dev Patel) grows up fully embracing his adopted nation and parents until a chance encounter at a college party reawakens all those old childhood memories.  He then spends the next four years trying to backtrace the train's route to his birthplace in an attempt to find the family that believed him lost for over two decades.

If you're really interested, I would suggest reading the dude's book instead of watching this boring adaptation.  Dev Patel is moody and emo, Nicole Kidman cries a lot, and Rooney Mara is... just kind of there? I guess. 

One of my other major problems with this film is how it presents Saroo as being totally insulated by his adopted privilege.  He spends four years dicking around on Google Earth but never manages to find time to take a single class on Hindi?  He has to rely on a random villager to translate for him when he finally locates his birth mother.  It would be one thing if he just impetuously hopped on the first plane to India as soon as he remembered his original family and then just spent however long riding the trains until he found the right one, but FOUR YEARS sitting in front of a laptop and he never considered that learning ANY of the local languages might be helpful?  Yes, India is the second largest English-speaking country in the world, behind the U.S., but there's no reason to assume that understanding is universal.  (This is also a pet peeve of mine for American tourists.  You don't have to be fluent but take the time and at least learn how to say a handful of common phrases.   You are a guest.  Be a gracious one.)

Suspiria (1977)

  There is a brand-new remake just leaving theaters by the same guy who directed Call Me By Your Name but I wanted to see the old one first just to make sure I wasn't going to miss anything.

Susie (Jessica Harper) has been admitted to a very prestigious ballet school in Germany but upon arrival finds it in the middle of a great deal of intrigue.  An expelled student, Pat (Eva Axen), was murdered just after a tumultuous exit and the school's blind piano player (Flavio Bucci) soon follows suit.  Susie, a fish out of water in many respects, must navigate the increasingly labyrinthine hallways to determine what real dangers lurk around the corners of her new school.

It's considered a classic of the giallo style of horror but I was honestly not impressed.  The plot is nonsensical, the score (by prog rock The Goblins) is grating, and the set decoration will make your eyeballs bleed.  There are moments of beauty but for the most part it is not worth the slog.  Perversely, I think all that makes it perfect for a remake. 

Tarzan (1999)

  I remember seeing this in theaters as a teenager and not being impressed at all, a rarity for me having grown up on all things Disney animation.  I know it was a big deal with Disney debuting some new CG background style but I hated the story and found the Phil Collins soundtrack a total misfire.

It's been damn near 20 full years since then so I thought I'd give Tarzan another shot to see if I had grossly misjudged this animated take on Edgar Rice Burroughs' timeless tale. 

Nope.  It's still awful.

Kala (Glenn Close) the gorilla loses her infant to a leopard and adopts an orphaned human over the objections of her mate, Kerchek (Lance Henriksen).  The child grows up to be a strange, quasi-accepted member of the troop, content with his place until he stumbles across a pair of explorers.  Professor Porter (Nigel Hawthorne) and his daughter Jane (Minnie Driver) have come to study gorillas in their natural habitat but are unprepared to meet what they believe is the missing link.  Their "guide" Clayton (Brian Blessed) is more interested in hauling the apes back for a profit than conservation and believes the naïve Tarzan (Tony Goldwyn) is his ticket to finding them.

Animated movies live or die on the strength of the side characters and this film falls flat in that regard.  Terk (Rosie O'Donnell) and Tantor (Wayne Knight) seem like watered down rejects from The Jungle Book and the aforementioned Phil Collins score is bland and uninteresting, not offering even a single song for the characters to show any personality.  ("Trashin' the Camp" is fucking noise, not a song.  Don't @ me.)

There could have been more drama mined from Tarzan's fish-out-of-water confrontation with his foster family but the film opts for a lazy kidnap and rescue instead.  Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen a good Tarzan adaptation so maybe I'm just being super harsh. 

The Battle of Algiers (1966)

Happy Veterans Day (observed), everyone!    This was a hard movie to watch.  There's not really a protagonist to root for; it's basically just watching a civil war happen with both sides committing acts of terrorism on the other.

In the 1960s, Algeria was starting to really fight against the colonial occupation of France.  In the capital city, Algiers, a well-organized revolutionary underground attacked police, only for the police to retaliate by bombing Arab neighborhoods.  The violence escalated on both sides until the military was called in to establish martial law.  A handful of rebel leaders continued to commit coordinated bombings while the military used every method at their disposal to root them out.

If I had to describe this movie in one word it would be "bleak".  There are no good guys here.  It doesn't help that it's filmed in a documentary style that never shies away from the violence, but never seems to glorify it either.  The camera remains dispassionate, or at most, condemns both sides.  I don't know if you could make a movie like this today.

Adventures in Babysitting (1987)

  This is another one of those films from the 80s that I completely missed growing up.  Unfortunately, the sensibilities espoused within have mostly not aged well and watching it now (minus one exceptionally hilarious cameo) is mostly an exercise in cringe.  (Sorry, Hollie!)

After being stood up, teenager Chris (Elizabeth Shue) takes a babysitting job for two kids in the suburb, Sara (Maia Brewton) who is obsessed with Thor, and Brad (Keith Coogan) who is obsessed with Chris.  After about five minutes of being in the house, Chris receives a panicked phone call from her friend, Brenda (Penelope Ann Miller), who has run away from home, run out of money, and is stuck in a train station in the middle of Chicago.  Chris agrees to come get her so Brenda won't have to call her parents and the two kids plus Brad's obnoxious friend Daryl (Anthony Rapp) tag along for the ride.  On the way into the city, Chris's car has a blow-out sparking a chain reaction of events ranging from dangerous to highly improbable.

I don't know if it's because I never lived in a suburb growing up but this concept of people being terrified to venture more than fifteen miles from their houses is unreal to me.  Chris and the children have such extreme reactions to every single stranger they meet it's hard to believe they aren't shut-ins from a bunker somewhere. 

And yet, when faced with actual potential danger they are somehow completely nonplussed.  Chris gets hit on repeatedly by a guy (George Newbern) at a frat party who does not back off even after she tells him she is in high school and eventually follows her to the house she is babysitting but that is treated as charming and endearing instead of a PSA against date rape.

Also, the fascination of yuppie white kids with being allowed entrance to and finding acceptance in predominantly black spaces is an 80s trend that should never be revisited.  Chris and the children manage to sneak into a blues club and are told they cannot leave without singing the blues.  Chris comes up with a narration on the spot that viewers are to believe is so relateable that not only are they not booed off-stage, they are celebrated with applause and encouragement.  Weird Science has a similar scene where Lisa takes the boys to a blues club to prove they are "cool" by gaining acceptance therein.  I would like to think that is deliberate irony but it's probably just racism. 

The only thing that made this movie worthwhile was Vincent D'Onofrio's cameo as a mechanic who bears a striking resemblance to a certain god of thunder.  I don't think I have laughed so hard in my whole life. 

Vantage Point (2008)

  This movie squanders a perfectly good cast on a boring gimmick that adds nothing to the story and is irritatingly repetitive.

The President of the United States (William Hurt) is shot on live TV while giving a speech in Spain shortly before the event is also bombed.  His Secret Service agent (Dennis Quaid), a tourist with a camcorder (Forest Whitaker), a Spanish cop (Eduardo Noriega), and the TV producer (Sigourney Weaver) all have different perspectives of the attack which must be strung together to make a comprehensive picture.

Except they don't and what you see is the exact same event told over and over again from people you have no reason to care about.  There's no character development because everything is a series of flashbacks so all you see are character rewinds.  It's almost like Groundhog Day but the clock keeps getting reset earlier and earlier while the end result never changes.  An irritating film and one worth going out of your way to avoid.

Solomon Kane (2009)

  Based on the synopsis, I had originally thought I was going to include this in my Horrorthon but according to both Netflix and Wikipedia, this is not a horror movie but a "dark action" film.  I'm not sure where that distinction is drawn but whatever.  It's not like I didn't have a glut of movies to watch for the month.

Solomon Kane (James Purefoy) was a sea captain ostensibly out to further the reach of Christianity by despoiling foreign temples but was really just a greedy, amoral sonofabitch who used it as an excuse to kill non-Europeans and steal their shit.  When he is confronted by a literal demon who tells him Kane's soul is being earmarked for Hell, Kane gets religion very quickly and holes up in a monastery.  Eventually, however, the priests tell him to go looking for redemption on the road and Kane falls in with a family of Puritans headed for the coast.  The daughter, Meredith (Rachel Hurd-Wood), is abducted by minions of an evil masked rider (Samuel Roukin) and Kane is forced to put aside his pacifism to rescue her.

This isn't a terrible movie but it's definitely in the B strata.  It's based on a pulp comic created by Robert E. Howard of Conan fame and those sensibilities are evident in the hammy acting and obvious CGI effects.  This might have been amazing if it had been released around the same time as Blade but falls a little short when you realize it came out after Iron Man.

Venom (2018)

  This movie was so much funnier than it had a right to be.  I am not one of those people that think antiheroes (or superheroes in general) have to be grim, joyless, brooding sacks of violence.  Humor and its relatability are what creates genuine pathos when it is needed, and for an antihero to work, you need empathy from your audience.

Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is a successful street journalist until he goes up against CEO Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed) and finds himself fired, broke, and broken up with by his fiancée Annie (Michelle Williams).  Desperate for redemption and maybe with a little axe to grind, Eddie follows up with a story from one of Drake's scientists (Jenny Slate) about ethical violations surrounding Drake's newest venture:  a handful of alien symbiotes collected from a comet.  Eddie accidentally bonds with the symbiote Venom and must find a way to stop Drake as well as keep the alien consciousness from eating the faces off random people.

One of the biggest talking points before this movie came out was if it would be R-rated.  The producers decided to go with the more audience- (and box office-)friendly PG-13.  Personally, I would have preferred a hard R so you could actually see the gore that is just implied by Venom.  Otherwise, I don't see how the rating would have made much of a difference.

I read a lot of reviews comparing Venom to superhero movies from the 90s and I feel like that's accurate but also not a negative.  We don't need every single movie to follow the Marvel formula.  Sometimes it's nice to see one follow Blade.  So there you go.  This is the buddy-cop, superhero, action comedy you didn't know you needed.

The Crimson Kimono (1959)

  You guys know how I love old movies.  For the most part, the ones I watch are lauded classics.  It's pretty rare for me to hit on a film that is just utterly ham-handed in its presentation of race or gender relations.

Welcome to The Crimson Kimono!  I can't remember where or when I added it to my Netflix list.  It's never been available and I finally got tired of it and looked it up online.  About ten minutes into watching it, I realized precisely why it was so hard* to find.

When the stripper Sugar Torch (Gloria Pall) is murdered, detectives and war buddies Sgt. Charlie Bancroft (Glenn Corbett) and Joe Kojaku (James Shigeta) investigate.  They discover that Sugar was putting together a new act based on Japanese geishas and had hired a local artist, Chris Downs (Victoria Shaw), to provide mock-ups of some of the costume and set designs.  Bancroft goes to track down the artist while Kojaku attempts to locate the guy hired to play a samurai opposite Sugar's geisha.  Bancroft is surprised and pleased to discover that Chris is actually Christine and spends the majority of his fact-finding repeatedly hitting on her because he apparently went to the same police academy as Steve Guttenberg.  Things really get weird, however, when Chris is also targeted by the mysterious killer and the two detectives decide to move her into their apartment.  Bancroft continues to pitch the woo as the kids say but Chris is more interested in Kojaku.  But oh no, what if he doesn't want her because she's white?  How will they ever work as an interracial couple in Los Angeles?  Meanwhile, Kojaku flips the fuck out at Bancroft, accusing him of being a racist when Bancroft seems stunned that Chris would choose Kojaku over him.  Somehow, in all of this, these two terrible cops manage to actually solve the murder, and the film ends with Kojaku apologizing because he had wrongly perceived Bancroft's jealousy as racism.

Hey, People of Color, did you know racism is just all in your head?  According to this movie, it is!  So you should never, you know, accuse White People of being racist, even though there are literally hundreds of years of documented cases because they might think you're rude for projecting what is clearly a persecution complex on your part and not a systemic degradation of who you are as human beings woven into the fabric of every institution in America!

Look no further than the poster which shows an "American" girl being kissed by a "Japanese" man, even though Kojaku is just as much of an American citizen as Christine and an Army veteran on top of that.  But that's all secondary to his race, which is clearly the forefront of this movie.

It's not exactly a hot take to point out there was racism in movies from the 1950s, but I think it is worth noting the ideology of trying to undermine people from calling out the racism that they experienced by saying that they're just being too sensitive about it.  Here, it's pretty ham-handed and might be written off as just a shitty script but what I'm worried about are all the ones that weren't so clumsy, that were just accepted as part of the status quo.  Because that's where the real danger is, the message that already conforms to what you believe and reinforces biases you didn't even know you had.  That's why representation is so important.

I know this is already waaaaay longer than most of my posts but I'd like to take a minute to talk about James Shigeta as an actor.  He got fucking robbed, y'all.  That man had charisma for days and in a just world, would have been a huge romantic lead through the 70s before scaling back to elder statesman in a few prestige pics.  Instead, he was relegated to side character, got one major film lead in a predominantly Asian cast, tried to get another off the ground, flopped, and then got stuck doing bit parts until he was Tanaka in Die Hard.  He deserved so much more.  And that's my hot take.




*And by "hard" I mean it took more than 30 seconds to click on links until I found one that seemed legit.  I'm so very lazy, you guys.

Horrorthon 2018 Day 31 - The Gift (2015)

  Happy Halloween, my ghoulings and ghosties!  We've reached the end of our Horrorthon and I think it was a rousing success.  I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Our last entry is really only a horror movie if you are a bad person forced to face the consequences of your shitty life.  Otherwise, it's a fun, spiteful little affair before we head into the relentless good cheer of the Christmas season.

Simon (Jason Bateman) and Robin (Rebecca Hall) have moved to California to start a new life.  Simon's career is on the up and the couple is desperately trying to move forward and start a family of their own.  A chance meeting with one of Simon's school fellows neatly derails all their pretty white-bread dreams.  Gordon (Joel Edgerton) seems nice at first, if a little awkward, but Simon has zero interest in reconnecting.  Robin begins to feel the pressure of this one-way relationship bearing down on her like a constant presence even as Simon assures her it's nothing.

If there's one thing we've learned over the past month of horror movies it's that actions have consequences.  It might be days, years, sometimes even to the next generation.  Your parents burn a guy alive?  He's coming after your dreams.  You accidentally let a kid drown?  Enjoy your last summer camp, motherfuckers.  Gordon doesn't have a knife glove or a hockey mask but he's just as relentless in his pursuit of what could loosely be called justice.  The real beauty here is Robin's journey from unwitting and happy to possible victim to angry and knowledgable.  She feels the emotional dissonance of her husband's shunning of Gordon much more strongly and this reflected guilt leads to a lot of her anxiety and paranoia.  Simon's instinct is to gaslight his wife in order to "protect" her from the sins of his youth, which backfires horribly.

Jason Bateman has always excelled at playing barely likable characters and he is pitch perfect here.  Edgerton seems a little wiped out, but he was also writing and directing so maybe he was just tired.  Hall is channeling some Mia Farrow fragility and it looks good on her.  This isn't one I would buy but I'm happy to have seen it.

Pumpkin rating:  3.4/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 30 - Lights Out (2016)

  It's Halloween Eve, people!  The night to leave your pumpkins out for Jack to carve with his shiny knife, the night to feel the shimmer of the veil thinning between worlds, when all the things that go bump hold their breath in anticipation.  Can you feel it?

This is a fun little film to kick off a spooky mood in your house.  It has jump scares by the hundred, some anchoring performances, and a decent if unoriginal villain.

Becca (Teresa Palmer) has been doing all right avoiding commitments until she gets a call from social service about her little brother, Martin (Gabriel Bateman), repeatedly falling asleep in class.  Initially, Becca fears that their mother (Maria Bello) is off her meds again but it soon becomes apparent that something much more sinister is happening.

A creature that can only move in darkness is nothing new but this particular iteration is pretty good as far as creep-factor.  "Diana" is appropriately malevolent as well as weirdly sympathetic, kind of like the Del Toro-produced Mama from a few years ago.  It also features characters making smart decisions under pressure, which is always nice.  Even when things go completely pear-shaped, the protagonists make the best of the situation.  Still, it played out exactly as I expected it to so it loses some points there.

Pumpkin rating:  3.7/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 29 - Hideaway (1995)

  Amazon characterizes this as a thriller but it was listed on Rotten Tomatoes' top 40 horror films of the 90s so that's what I'm going with.

Hatch Harrison (Jeff Goldblum) dies and is resuscitated by a doctor (Alfred Molina) pioneering a new procedure.  He soon experiences visions connecting him to a serial killer (Jeremy Sisto) targeting young women.  Hatch must uncover enough clues to stop the killer before his daughter Regina (Alicia Silverstone) becomes the next victim.

I had read this book several years ago so I knew the basic plot, although I had no idea it was made into a film.  It has zero right to have this good of a cast at any rate.  Molina is just supporting but he's always a class act, while Goldblum and Christine Lahti anchor this movie.  Sisto chews the scenery more than he needs to and Silverstone is just kind of there to be young and blonde but they both got their big breakout later that year in Clueless.

The cast is really let down by the film's godawful CGI.  If they had cut all the hideous special effects, this would have been a solid thriller in the vein of Manhunter.  I'm sure the supernatural elements could have been handled with practical or camera effects and not this Lawnmower Man/AOL screensaver garbage but 1995 was a strange and lawless time.

Pumpkin rating:  3.1/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 28 - Raw (2016)

  I was really looking forward to seeing this but it ended up being kind of a let down.

Justine (Garance Marillier) is thrilled to get early admittance to the same prestigious veterinary school her sister (Ella Rumpf) attends but is unprepared for the amount of hazing and stress she must endure as a freshman.  She has been a life-long vegetarian but one of her first tests of belonging is to eat a raw rabbit kidney.  This taste of meat sparks a release of every hunger a young, sheltered girl can have and ultimately leads Justine down a dark and bloody path.

I think everyone knows at least one kid like Justine.  They find themselves away from home and out of their parents' control for the first time and they just go nuts whether it's at college, the military, or some other group bonding ritual.  There was also a lot of subtext about the rivalry between sisters, who was the "favorite", who wasn't, resentment and love all mixed together with a good spoonful of spite and jealousy.  These concepts have been explored before.  In fact, this reminded me of nothing so much as Ginger Snaps:  the College Years with cannibalism standing in for lycanthropy.

This is one of those artsy horror films that people like to rave over but I found it a little lacking.

Pumpkin rating:  2.7/5

Horrorthon 2018 Day 27 - Videodrome (1983)

  Another entry from our good pal David Cronenberg.  This also marks the second appearance of Debbie Harry in this marathon after Tales from the Darkside.

Max Renn (James Woods) owns a small late-night channel catering in soft-core porn and violence unable to be broadcast during regular waking hours.  He is always on the lookout for the newest, most extreme tapes so when his pet pirate Harlan (Peter Dvorsky) shows him a scrambled feed called Videodrome that features nothing but torture and murder, Max is interested.  It becomes very apparent very quickly that something is horribly wrong as Videodrome sparks hallucinations of horror and death within the viewer.  Max is increasingly unable to tell his nightmare visions from reality even as he becomes convinced that he is a pawn in a much greater conspiracy.

This movie felt incredibly timely despite the utterly dated technology on display (Betamax!)  The crux of the plot rests on how violence in media desensitizes and for a small subset of viewers replaces reality.    There have been many studies shown that violence, especially sexual violence, in videos normalizes violence in real life, especially for younger people.  The specific example given by my psychology professor was violence in pornography as it relates to dehumanizing and demeaning women.  It's not definitively linked to a propensity for committing violent acts, so no, listening to Eminem or playing Call of Duty will not make your teenager shoot up a school but it has been shown to reduce empathy and increase aggressiveness.  Combined with other risk factors, it could lead to violence being more likely but as always, it depends on the individual.  Some people are perfectly fine and others mail pipe bombs.  It has to do with susceptibility to the message.

The message in the film does get a little muddled when Max is effectively "programmed" to go commit murder and then counter-programmed to commit even more murders.  Ostensibly, Videodrome is intended to be a weapon against those who would seek out this overly violent content but ends up being used to promote the very violence it's supposed to stand against.  Maybe that's part of the commentary, I don't know, but it took away some of the impact for me.

Rick Baker provided the body horror prosthetics and his expertise is undeniable.  James Woods has always excelled at playing total assholes and Debbie Harry is her sultry best.  It's definitely worth a watch.

Pumpkin rating:  4.2/5