The Garment Jungle (1957)

  This has been in my queue for ages but it finally got added to the Criterion Channel as part of their New York Stories feature.

Alan Mitchell (Kerwin Mathews) returns home from abroad to his estranged father's fashion house in New York City after his father's business partner, Kenner (Robert Ellenstein), is killed in an accident.  Kenner wanted to join the garment workers' union but the elder Mitchell, Walter (Lee J. Cobb), was dead-set against it.  Alan is there when the union organizer, Tulio (Robert Loggia), spills that Kenner's death wasn't an accident but a murder by Walter's "silent" partner, a gangster named Ravidge (Richard Boone).  Disturbed by the accusations, Alan begins to investigate the seedier side of the fashion business, his interest spurred in no small part by Tulio's hot wife, Theresa (Gia Scala).  

Seriously, the movie makes it very clear that Alan wants to fuck Tulio's wife but won't, because he respects Tulio too much.  1957, baby!

The film is extremely heavy-handed and simplistic in its "Union Good, Exploitation Bad" message but goddamn does it also feel current.  You could remake this tomorrow with Wal-Mart or Amazon as the setting and it would still be relevant.  Same tactics, same arguments, same "murder of an immigrant is okay, murder of a white man will get you the death penalty."  The more things change, huh?

Anyway, it might feel a little naive but it's not a bad movie.  Cobb has always been a terrific character actor and this was Loggia's first credited film.  If you only know him from playing old, grizzled mobster types, you should check this out just to see him young.

Maps to the Stars (2014)

  David Cronenberg is most famous as a horror director.  Maps to the Stars, however, is billed as a comedy.  And maybe.  If your idea of comedy is desperate celebrities and wannabes name-dropping and being awful.  Plus it has ghosts?  So it's definitely a horror movie.  Kind of a soap opera horror movie.  Which could have been funny.  But isn't.

Agatha (Mia Wasikowska) has come to Hollywood to make amends with the family that abandoned her.  She gets a job as a personal assistant to Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore), a fading star that is obsessed with recreating her actress mother's most famous role and exorcising her own demons, to get access to the same set where her little brother, Benjie (Evan Bird) is filming a sequel to the movie that made him a star.  

Standard drama, right?

Except Havana is being haunted by her mother's ghost (Sarah Gadon) who keeps telling her to kill herself.  The movie Benjie is famous for is called "Bad Babysitter" about a babysitter who sets the house on fire.  Agatha has burn scars on her arms and neck.  You see where this is heading into horror territory now?

Also, there is off-screen child death, discussion of molestation (not shown, but described), just an inordinate amount of talking about incest, and Robert Pattinson.  I can't think of any reason why you should see this movie but it's streaming on Netflix anyway.

Love and Monsters (2020)

 I was struggling pretty hard to be in the mood to watch a movie yesterday.  Nothing sounded good.  I think I'm just anticipating October and the return of my month-long horror feature.  I want to get started on Spooky Season so bad!

Love and Monsters is not a horror movie, despite the title.  It's basically The Sure Thing, but with monsters and Michael Rooker instead of Daphne Zuniga.

Joel (Dylan O'Brien) has been weathering the apocalypse in an underground bunker filled with amorous couples.  Meanwhile, he's still pining for the girl he lost before the giant asteroid hit the earth, Aimee (Jessica Henwick).  When he finds out that she's only 85 miles away in a different colony of survivors, he decides to brave the untested wilds to get to her.  

Teen movies have their place and this is certainly one of them.  Henwick and O'Brien make decent leads, the monsters are appropriately monstrous, and there is a cute animal sidekick.  Have you seen most of these plot points before?  If you are over 14, probably.  Is it still worth watching?  Yeah, mostly.  It's good for killing an afternoon and you're not going to feel dumber for having seen it.  Would I watch it again?  Probably not but that shouldn't stop you.  It's currently streaming on Paramount+.

Kate (2021)

  Tyler picked this because I'm still watching Almost Human.

Assassin Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is poisoned in revenge for a hit about a year prior.  She has less than 24 hours to find yakuza boss Kijima (Jun Kunimura) and get her own payback before she dies.  Unfortunately, Kijima is a difficult man to get to and Kate is forced to kidnap his annoying, foul-mouthed teenaged niece Ani (Miku Patricia Martineau) to draw him out.

If you liked Gunpowder Milkshake but really wished it was less of a comedy, this is the film for you.  And they're both on Netflix.  This is a fast, action-filled hour and 45-minute movie that has no reason to be  as good as it is except for its cast.  Winstead is really made for action roles and you can tell that she enjoys the challenge of them.  Woody Harrelson always excels as a supporting actor and Tadanobu Asano should be in even more stuff.  Martineau is a bit of an unknown quality but handles her film debut with skill that speaks well for her future.  

You know I love me some assassin movies and this ranks pretty close to the top of the pack.  Check it out.

Sweet Girl (2021)

  A friend recommended this to me because they wanted to talk about it afterwards.  I'm still watching the tragically cancelled Almost Human on the server, so I said okay.  And boy, do I now have a lot to talk about.

Ray Cooper (Jason Momoa) is furious that his wife (Adria Arjona) died because some scumbag pharmaceutical CEO (Justin Bartha) shelved a generic version of the lifesaving drug that was fighting her cancer.  He threatens the CEO on live television and swears he will make them pay.  He trains his teenage daughter Rachel (Isabela Merced) to defend herself and the two go on a journey of revenge.  

Hey, remember The Uninvited?  Maybe the vastly superior Korean horror it ripped off, A Tale of Two Sisters?  This is the same thing, except in a generic action movie instead of horror.  Which is not, in and of itself, a bad thing.  Action movies can have third act twists.  It doesn't have to be A+B=C all the time.  I just wish this one hadn't been quite so convinced that its audience was stupid.  Every beat is force-fed into your eyeballs with foreshadowing so heavy it comes with a two-man lift warning.  

Merced is trying hard to shed her Dora the Explorer image and positioning herself as a pint-sized action star.  Awesome.  Give me more tiny chicks kicking ass.  Hopefully, this will just be a blip on her resume as she moves on to bigger and better things.  Also, a special shout-out to Manuel Garcia-Rulfo for playing the most interesting character in the whole film.  His assassin was calm, competent, appropriately nondescript, and a voice of reason.  Beautiful.

Sweet Girl is streaming on Netflix.  It's not worth it.

Doctor Sleep (2019)

  As is traditional, when I went home for a visit, I watched horror movies with Christy.  We saw The Conjuring 3, which she had not seen, and Doctor Sleep, which I had not seen.  I'm not a big Stephen King fan anyway, and The Shining is one of my least favorite horror movies, but I recognize that it is iconic and a lot of people love it.

Danny Torrence (Ewan McGregor) survived the Overlook Hotel but was forever marked.  He slips through adulthood a chronically unemployed alcoholic, hounded by ghosts drawn to his psychic ability until washing up in Rhode Island, near another powerful psychic named Abra (Kyliegh Curran).  Even though Danny and Abra have never met, they are psychic pen pals and Danny is able to find some measure of peace.  Until Abra receives a vision from a young psychic boy being brutally murdered by a cult of energy vampires led by Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson).  Now she is the cult's new target and Danny must reach back into his past to find the tools to save them both.

It's an okay movie.  I would say it's a decent sequel considering that I didn't like the original all that much.  I think they did the best they could with it, even if they did overuse the bathtub ghost.  And frankly, I blame Ready Player One for that shit.  It's currently streaming on HBO Max.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)

  I hate this fucking pandemic.  I also hate greedy-ass companies that put profits ahead of people's lives.  I don't want this movie to tank.  There is a lot riding on this in terms of representation for Asian-Americans.  Plus, it's just a very good movie.  But it's exclusively in theaters and that is just the Worst.  I have invested a considerable amount of time into the Marvel Cinematic Universe and I even paid the (ridiculous) $30 fee to see Black Widow at home.  I would have liked to have had the option to do the same with Shang-Chi.  Instead, I had my first cinema visit since Birds of Prey.  (More on that actual experience later.)

Shaun (Simu Liu) and his best friend, Katy (Awkwafina), work as valets for a pricey San Francisco restaurant.  It's low-stakes and that's the way they like it.   Until five assassins, including a dude with a machete for an arm (Florian Munteanu), show up on their morning bus ride and Shaun has to whip all their asses.  The assassins are after a pendant Shaun received from his mother (Fala Chen) before she died.  His sister (Meng'er Zheng) has the twin and Shaun realizes that her life is in danger.  He has to give up his safe, comfortable life as Shaun and become Shang-Chi, son of Xu Wenwu (Tony Leung), an immortal warlord and actual leader of the Ten Rings terrorist organization, not that weirdo British guy (Ben Kingsley).  

It's so good, you guys.  For starters, it might be the most beautifully shot MCU film ever.  That scene with Fala Chen and Tony Leung in the magical forest?  Ugh.  Gorgeous.  William Pope was not a cinematographer I was familiar with and that's my fault.  It's funny.  Like, all MCU films are funny, but Shang-Chi is hilarious.  Meng'er Zheng!  This was her first film and she learned a shitload of martial arts for it!  Trevor and Morris!  A fully platonic relationship given center stage and not shoe-horned into romance!  So many good things!  Tony Leung and Michelle Yeoh!  Legends!

Okay, so before we went into the theater, my sister-in-law turned to me and said "I haven't seen a Marvel movie since Winter Soldier.  What do I need to know?" and after I finished silently screaming into my mask, I told her to save all her questions until the end and I would do my best to sum up 22 movies.  If you are like my SIL, congratulations, you're a monster.  (Just kidding, love you.)  The good news is that you really only need to catch up on Iron Man 3 and Doctor Strange.  You can watch Incredible Hulk if you want for the Abomination cameo, but you really don't need it.

As for the theater experience itself...  What a fucking nightmare.  People talked through the entire goddamn movie.  From the previews until some other irate lady screamed at them to be quiet about 2/3 of the way through.  I absolutely shushed the people next to me, but I did it quietly.  I know we're in recliners but this is not your fucking living room.  Honestly, my last few theater experiences (that I can remember) have not been ideal.  And if streaming releases continue to shorten theater exclusivity and even premiere into my TV, where I have subtitles and a pause button and all the snacks I want, I may never go back.  There's no upside to the theater for me now.  People can talk about community but one of the big things about community is a shared adherence to rules.  Like don't talk.  Don't bring your crying baby/young children into a rated R movie.  Don't leave your trash on the floor.  Don't --and I can't believe this even has to be said except I witnessed it with my own eyes-- take a goddamn selfie in the middle of the film.  In fact, don't take your cell phone out at all while the lights are down.  Critics and directors can bitch all they want to about how streaming is destroying movies and films aren't designed to be watched on a small screen, but as long as the experience of going to a theater sucks more than watching it in 4K on a 60-in flatscreen with a cat on my lap and perfectly popped popcorn, I know which choice I'm going to make.  

Please see Shang-Chi.  If you don't feel comfortable going to a theater, that is a completely valid choice.  But don't miss out when it inevitably comes to Disney+.  And of course, there's a mid-credits and a post-credits scene.  

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

  Another in the Bethany Horror Education series.  This has never been my favorite set of movies.  Everything just looks so unhygienic.  

Sally (Marilyn Burns) and her brother Franklin (Paul A. Partain) take a road trip to the middle of nowhere, Texas, to visit their grandfather's grave and see the old homestead with three of their friends (Teri McMinn, Allen Danzinger, and William Vail).  What they don't know is that the neighbors aren't real friendly.  More murder-y.  And cannibal-y.  

You know how you watch something when you're young and you think "whoa, that's scary" and then you watch it again as an adult and you're like "those assholes had it coming"?  That's Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  Also, you know how I talk about horror movies having a moral?  Like Don't Have Pre-Marital Sex or Don't Build Your House on Indigenous Sacred Land?  Well, this moral is Don't Go into Other People's Houses Without Permission.  I don't even think Leatherface would get prosecuted in Texas for murdering these fools.  Eating them and wearing their faces, probably.  Definitely for grave robbing.  But clobbering some hippie after he busts into the parlor and starts judging your decorating?  Not in the Lone Star State.  

I have to say Texas Chainsaw Massacre was damn near progressive for 1974.  It had a disabled main character, no gratuitous nudity, no sexual violence, not even strong language.  And the gore is really minimal.  Most of what makes it horror is the art design, which features a large number of human and animal skeletons in home decor, and the costuming.  He is called Leatherface for a reason.

It's not currently streaming for free but you can rent it on Amazon for $4.

St. Louis Superman (2019)

  It took ages to find this one on streaming.  

Galvanized by the murder of Michael Brown and the subsequent protests in Ferguson, Missouri, battle rapper Bruce Franks, Jr. ran for and won a seat in the House of Representatives.  There, he fought for progressive policies against the predominantly white Republican delegates.  This short documentary follows Franks at a crucial moment to get a bill passed that would name youth poverty an epidemic and public health crisis.  

This doc is only about 30 minutes long but crams a lot of information about Franks into that half hour.  It's an inspiring portrait of what can be done at a local level to improve people's lives as well as a stark reminder of how much we all stand to lose as partisanship destroys communities.  It's currently streaming on Paramount+.

Inherent Vice (2014)

  I enjoyed this more than I expected to.  I've not been a fan of Joaquin Phoenix in a long time but this is definitely one of his better performances.

Stoner P.I. Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) is asked by his ex-girlfriend (Katherine Waterstone) to investigate whether or not her new real estate magnate boyfriend (Eric Roberts) is being set up for involuntary commitment by his wife (Serena Scott Thomas).  Along the way, Doc finds neo-Nazis, a diversified smuggling ring, a coked-out dentist (Martin Short), an insurrectionist snitch of a sax player (Owen Wilson), and the world's angriest LAPD detective (Josh Brolin).

I'm not usually a fan of 70s-inspired counterculture but this reminded me a lot of The Nice Guys:  a fun, funny detective movie that recognizes darkness but leans towards absurdity.  Brolin and Phoenix play well off of each other as comedic partners, and their performances anchor the movie, which could have been in danger of collapsing under the weight of how many stars were in it.  

It's currently streaming on Kanopy.