Trainspotting (1996)

  The Danny Boyle double feature continues!  Despite being made almost a decade earlier, the cinematography is actually crisper than 28 Days Later.  It still has that signature dream/hallucination sequence, though.

Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) is a heroin addict in Edinburgh, Scotland.  When he finally decides to go clean, he must contend with both his disaffected view of life and his addict friends who see him as just another commodity to be used.

There are lots of movies about addicts but only Trainspotting is simultaneously hilarious, fucked up, gross, and empathetic.  The characters transcend their archetypes to become real, flawed people thanks to incredible casting and a smart script that utilizes their natural setting to best advantage.  Requiem for a Dream has it beat in a general never-be-clean-again feeling but Trainspotting has re-watchability for days.

28 Days Later (2002)

  Bethany's education in the classics continues with this Danny Boyle feature.  Zombies have never been my monster-of-choice but this film really isn't about zombies.

Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up from a coma to find that London has been overrun by a virus that turns people into rage-filled maniacs.  He bands with a small group of uninfected:  Selena (Naomie Harris), the warrior, Frank (Brendan Gleeson), and his daughter, Hannah (Megan Burns).  They try to leave the city towards the promised safety of a military outpost near Manchester with unpredictable results.

There are some pretty obvious parallels to The Walking Dead but fun fact, this movie actually pre-dates the comic book by like a year (and doesn't preclude coincidences).  Also, there is a severe tonal shift from the first half to the second which, to my mind, elevates the film out of just "zombie" thriller to something more like real horror.  This remains one of my favorite examples of the genre.

Fauve (2018)

  After much searching, I'm finally finding the majority of the Oscar nominated shorts.  This one I'm not sure was worth the effort.

Two boys are goofing off in an abandoned industrial site when one begins sinking in quicksand.

That's it.  That's the film.

I will be the first to tell you, I sat there watching it with a big ? over my head.  There's probably some symbolism to it that I completely missed about the fragility of life or something but I just did not get this film.  Fortunately, it's only 16 minutes so all of my ??? was over pretty quickly.  It's streaming on the Criterion Channel and they can fucking keep it.

Year One (2009)

  Another day, another shitty movie to erase from the server.

Zed (Jack Black) lives in a tribe of hunter gatherers with his best friend, Oh (Michael Cera).  Zed feels he's been chosen for a special destiny and eats the forbidden fruit from the garden, resulting in his exile from the tribe with Oh following behind.  They travel past the end of their known world and discovers that there are whole civilizations already flourishing.  They proceed to meet Cain (David Cross) and Abel (Paul Rudd), save Isaac (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) from being sacrificed by his father Abraham (Hank Azaria) and eventually find themselves in the city of Sodom, where most of their tribe has been sold into slavery.  Zed and Oh must find a way to free these two women that they really liked but were in no way good enough for (Juno Temple and June Diane Raphael) before they are sacrificed to the gods for rain.

This is a relentlessly stupid movie that makes zero narrative sense and never rises above the most juvenile humor.  I don't know why anyone involved chose to be.  It is homophobic, misogynist, fat-shaming, and lacks any and all diversity.  Truly the bottom of the barrel.

Capernaum (2018)

  Jesus, between this and Shoplifters I'm feeling really, really good about my decision to never have children.

Zain (Zain Al Rafeea) is approximately twelve-years-old and has never had any form of identification or education.  He spends his days scamming prescription drugs for his mother (Kawsar Al Haddad) to wash clothes with and smuggle into prison, or running errands for Assaad (Nour El Husseini), the local merchant who lets his family squat in a tenement.  When his parents make the decision to sell their 11-year-old daughter, Sahar (Haita Izzam), to Assaad, Zain runs away.  He is taken in by Rahil (Yordanos Shiferaw), an Ethiopian woman in the country illegally, and takes over caring for her infant son during the day so she can work.  But when Rahil is arrested for lack of a work visa, Zain must find ways for himself and the baby to survive.

Honest to God, this is an incredibly well-done movie.  It's engaging, the pacing is good, the flash forward scenes are filled with tension (the framing scenes are a courtroom drama), and the performances are top-notch.  But GODDAMN if this film isn't painful AF.  It's currently streaming on Starz right now if you feel like you need to see the effects of abject poverty on people and the way that they're preyed upon by people in power.  Then watch some cartoons.  Classic Powerpuff Girls is on Hulu.

Funny Girl (1968)

  Whoo boy.  This one hurts.  You know I love me some classic musicals and this is the one that launched Barbra Streisand's career and won her an Oscar.  It is a Big Deal.  And I hated it.

I'm so mad about this, you guys.

Fanny Brice (Barbra Streisand) is a talented comedienne who catches the eye of Florenz Ziegfeld (Walter Pidgeon), the biggest producer on Broadway.  As her career takes off, she meets the handsome Nick Arnstein (Omar Sharif) and marries him in a whirlwind romance.  Unfortunately, Nick begins to resent his wife's success as his own fortunes dwindle.

Can you see the problem already?

In 1968, this is framed as a romantic tragedy of star-crossed lovers with Nick as a sympathetic character.  His pride is too great to allow his wife to be the primary breadwinner.  He just cannot live with being emasculated, despite his love for Fanny.

In 2019?  Fuck outta here with that toxic bullshit.  Nick is a professional gambler, raised in money, who has squandered every dime on stupid "investments" because ultimately money doesn't mean anything to him.  He is shiftless, lazy, and entitled.  Fanny can't see his faults because of her crippling lack of self-esteem and tries to do everything in her power just to keep their life together.  Is he grateful?  Does he even acknowledge the emotional burden of his selfish antics?  No.  Of course not.  It's clearly her fault for being the responsible adult.  How dare she throw that in his face by making sure the bills and the staff are paid!

I couldn't even enjoy the costumes and the music (both of which are glorious) because of how irritated I was with his character.  And I don't want to hear a single comment about "oh, it was set in the 1900's, times were different then."  Second-wave feminism was alive and well in 1968 and a story about Fanny Brice could have focused on her career and made Nick the villain with ease.  (Probably wouldn't have won an Oscar, though, if we're being real.)  Especially since Arnstein had zero problems sponging off his wife in real life.

I'm so mad I don't even want to try and see the sequel, which apparently focuses on her other disastrous marriage.  Can we get a new Fanny Brice musical please?  Thank you!

Wrath of the Titans (2012)

  Ugh, this was such a terrible movie.  It was so instantly forgettable, I meant to write about it last weekend and couldn't even come up with the name.  Also, it's a sequel to that horrible 2010 Clash of the Titans remake that was just godawful on its own so I have no idea why this movie was even made.

Perseus (Sam Worthington) has given up the hero business and settled down to raise his kid (John Bell) as a fisherman, but Zeus (Liam Neeson) can't stop bothering him about his destiny.  Then Zeus is captured by his other neglected son, Ares (Edgar Ramirez), and his brother, Hades (Ralph Fiennes), because the latter two have decided to free the titan Cronos.  Perseus must find his way to the center of Tartarus in order to save Zeus and recover the original three weapons that brought Cronos down the first time.

This is very much a story about fathers and sons.  Being neither of those things, I was less invested in any of the characters.  Representation is non-existent here.  There are three speaking parts for women, all heavily leaning into tropes.  There's the wise crone dispensing advice, the silly young woman who fucks up by accident, and the beautiful, nominally independent woman who nevertheless spends 90% of the movie falling down and being rescued by the hero.  Another one for the trash heap of history.

Lifeboat (2018)

  This is one of the Oscar-nominated documentary shorts from this year.  These things are a bitch to find for free generally, but this happened to be on YouTube in its entirety.

The documentary follows volunteers from SeaWatch, a German non-profit that used to go after whalers but now patrols the Meditteranean looking for and helping refugees fleeing in the thousands from North Africa.  The refugees have left their homes in Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Syria, and other places due to civil war, economic depression, and lack of opportunity to seek a better future in Europe.  Unfortunately, they are crammed onto boats never meant to face the open water with very little in the way of supplies.  SeaWatch attempts to provide medical care in emergencies, as well as safe transport to Europe so the refugees have a chance to request asylum.

In three days, they rescued 3200 people.  That's over a thousand a day.  People who have already fled hundreds, maybe thousands of miles just to get to their starting point in Libya.  It is truly a humanitarian crisis with no easy solutions.  The documentary does not focus on any of the political aspects, keeping a very narrow lens on the rescuers and the refugees themselves.   Several of them are interviewed to put a human face on this massive, worldwide problem but I don't know how effective it is in such a short timeframe (24 minutes).

Like I said, it's on YouTube and you can give it a look now and sort of prepare yourself for the inevitable documentary about our own border because we are in the darkest timeline.

Cult of Chucky (2017)

  I've spent the last two weekends catching my friend Bethany up on all the Child's Play movies culminating in this, the last of the OG series.  (I have not watched the Mark Hamill-led remake yet, but I will.)  I have previously reviewed movies 1-6 so I'm not going to bore you guys with recaps.  You'll probably want to at least skim Curse of Chucky, however, if you haven't seen it recently because #7 picks up very closely from it.

Nica (Fiona Dourif) has spent the last four years in a mental institution for the criminally insane after the violent murders of her whole family.  She is finally transferred to a medium-security facility after admitting that it was her, not a killer doll named Chucky (Brad Dourif), that killed everyone.  But when the murders start up again, Nica has to find a way to protect the patients and staff from an entity they all think is in her mind.

This was a decent premise bolstered by a fresh turn of having multiple possessed dolls but which unfortunately squanders the return of original tormentee, Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent) by not being able to split the time between him and Nica effectively.  It really could have benefited from having an extra half hour for more character development.  It's currently streaming on Netflix.

Double Indemnity (1944)

  This is a classic film noir and one I'm embarrassed to say I'd never seen before this weekend.  It comes off a little dated but has some of the snappiest dialogue you'll ever hear, courtesy of director Billy Wilder and writer Raymond Chandler.

Insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) meets the beautiful but unhappily married Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) and hatches a plan to murder her husband (Tom Powers) and get the insurance to pay double indemnity on an accidental death.  Since this is noir, there's no way it goes off without a hitch and Neff discovers that covering up a murder is way more work that committing one.

If I'm being honest, I've seen better noirs but this remains a classic for good reason.  There's the aforementioned dialogue, the voiceover exposition, the flashback structure, and the consistent tension-building leading up to a thoroughly inevitable end.  It is the blueprint for a thousand films to follow and a must-see for any cinephiles, students, and noir fans.

It's currently streaming through Starz.

Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)

  After the emotional roller coaster of Endgame, Far from Home is a great palate-cleanser.  It remains to be seen how it stands up to time as a teen school trip comedy.

Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is still reeling from the death of Tony Stark, his mentor, and not particularly enthused about joining the greater, intergalactic forces of good.  What he wants is a vacation, and gets one in the form of a school trip to Europe.  Peter has a plan to win over MJ (Zendaya) but it keeps getting side-tracked by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and the arrival of giant, destructive elemental creatures intent on wrecking all the great capitals of Europe.  Quentin Beck, aka Mysterio, (Jake Gyllenhaal) is the lone survivor of Earth-833 where the creatures originated, and is on hand to finish them off once and for all.  Peter happily cedes control of E.D.I.T.H., a Stark-created global defense system, to Mysterio as older, wiser, and more capable because with great power comes... the need to get it as far the fuck away from you as possible so you can enjoy your life.  Wait, that's not how that goes.

If you've read any of the comics or even just been aware of the major names, the third-act twist will not seem so twisty.  It's still handled extremely well, however, and that is due to the strength of the main performers.  Gyllenhaal has come a long way from Prince of Persia, let's just say.

There are two credit scenes, as has become the usual.  The mid-credits has a cameo that you'll definitely want to see although it wasn't the one I expected, and the post-credits one is just kind of funny.  They both have major implications for the MCU going forward but it's far too early to start speculating on where we'll be in the next ten years.

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982)

  This is one of those musicals that I somehow always forget about when it comes time to talk about great musicals.  I don't know why but I consistently underrate it.

Sheriff Ed Earl Dodd (Burt Reynolds) is perfectly content with the lazy pace of his small Texas town until a big-shot TV muckraker (Dom DeLuise) does a series of exposes on the town brothel, affectionately known as the Chicken Ranch, run by Miss Mona (Dolly Parton).  Sheriff Dodd and Miss Mona have a long-standing arrangement that is now also threatened by the wider exposure of the Chicken Ranch and both are forced to confront deep-seated assumptions they hold about the other.

There is so much singing and dancing.  And a lot of Texas stereotypes.  Current boyfriend, Tyler, is from Texas and hates musicals so he was in a special place in hell the entire run time.  That being said, this is a really fun musical and deserves to be seen more.