Joy (2014)

  This is a fairly standard biopic notable only for two reasons:  its impressive cast of A-listers and that it's about a woman inventor.  

Joy (Jennifer Lawrence) enjoyed inventing things but life always seemed to get in the way.  Between her agoraphobic mother (Virginia Madsen), her perennially in love father (Robert De Niro) and her dreamer ex-husband (Edgar Ramirez) both living in her basement, and her venomous half-sister (Elisabeth Röhm), nobody expected Joy to do anything but clean up their various messes.  So she invented a mop.  And then she turned to a fledgling new television station called QVC and an executive named Neil Walker (Bradley Cooper) who believed in her product because she believed in it.

This was extremely frustrating to watch because everyone in this woman's life told her she was nothing and tried to keep her down so she could serve their interests.  It made me want to set fire to my living room couch.  But I didn't.  I just fast-forwarded through every scene with her family and it was fine.  (Yay, streaming!)  Yes, she does succeed in the end.  It's based on the life of Joy Mangano, who invented the Miracle Mop (and the skinny velvet hangers, which I learned watching this).  

Joy is currently streaming on Hulu (but I think only on Hulu Live) and on TNT On Demand.  We have Hulu Live for the moment because I forgot to turn it off and paid for another month by accident. 

The Suspect (2014)

  I tried to watch this once before on Tubi but the video quality was so poor I ended up giving up about 30 minutes in.  Should have taken that as a sign.

Ji Dong-Chul (Yee Gong) defected from North Korea to the South.  Working as a chauffeur, he secretly looks for the government agents that killed his family, but is forced to go on the run after his boss is murdered.  He doesn't even want to clear his name, per se, just to find the truth about what happened to his wife and daughter.

You know I love Asian action films.  This is not a good one.  I could forgive the cliche-ridden story, but the real crime here is the editing.  A ferret on cocaine could have put together more coherent action sequences.  My suggestion would be to take some Dramamine before you watch this.  Or better yet, don't watch this.  There are so many better Korean movies.  It's currently streaming on Freevee, which used to be called IMDbTV, on Amazon.  So not only are your eyes going to be assaulted by whiplash editing, you'll have to sit through annoying commercials as well.

Two Days, One Night (2014)

  Happy Juneteenth (observed)!  Here's a French film!  Content warning: suicide attempt

Sandra (Marion Cotillard) has one weekend to convince at least nine of her fellow employees to vote to keep her at their job.  If they do, they lose a thousand-euro bonus.  She goes to each one of them personally to ask them to vote against their self-interest in order for her to not be fired.

This is a deeply uncomfortable  movie.  Sandra is coming off a leave of absence for anxiety/depression and then has to travel all over the city to confront a majority of co-workers, many of whom are also just getting by, and ask them to forgo a huge bonus.  That fucking sucks.  

Cotillard is a phenomenal actress and conveys Sandra's exhaustion and nerves believably.  I found the film dragged, however, because she's essentially saying the same thing over and over.  The camera work is prosaic, focusing almost exclusively on Sandra in close to medium shots.  It's probably meant to emphasize her anxiety but it just made me not as visually interested in the film.  It's currently streaming on Kanopy.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009)

  I knew this was going to be bad but I was not prepared for how bad.

When she was a child, Chun-Li's (Kristin Kreuk) father (Edmund Chen) was kidnapped by crime lord M. Bison (Neal McDonough).  Chun-Li seemed to be doing okay with that until she was gifted an anonymous scroll in ancient Chinese that led her to a mysterious old lady who told her to go to Thailand and look for a mysterious man named Gen (Robin Shou).  She interprets this to mean "become homeless" which I don't think was actually implied, but okay.  Gen grew up in Bangkok with Bison (which in no way explains Bison's quasi-Irish accent*) and used to be part of Bison's Evil Corp. but left because he didn't want to be evil anymore.  He teaches Chun-Li magic which I think is supposed to just be a visual manifestation of chi but looks like the floaty red health orbs from God of War.  (Mixing video game references?!  Lucy, you uncultured swine!)

*So, the backstory is that Bison's family were Irish missionaries who died when he was a baby and he was raised in a Thai orphanage.  Accents are not genetic.  They are very much learned.  It is excruciating to hear McDonough, an actor I've enjoyed in many other things!, half-ass this accent when the story doesn't even call for him to have one.  But frankly, this movie is so bad, complaining about the accent is like criticizing the silverware on the Titanic.

This script is a dumpster fire of cliches.  The wire work in the fight scenes adds a weird stilted quality that does not match the ground work.  Editing is a car crash.  Kreuk herself is actually not bad!  The scenes that require her to act seem natural.  Pianist?  Totally believable.  Sad orphan?  Yes.  Quippy one-liner action hero?  See notes on dumpster fire script.  But at least she's trying!  Moon Bloodgood is reduced to Hot Cop and the less said of Chris Klein's bargain-bin-Don-Johnson Interpol agent the better.

In fact, I fast forwarded through every scene with the cop subplot and it improved the film tremendously.  Which is another great argument for streaming.  If I had had to suffer through this in a theater, I might have lost my cherub-like demeanor.  It is streaming on HBO Max but you love yourself enough not to watch it.  Don't you?

Irma Vep (1996)

  The poster says this is "a latex comedy" and I have no idea what that means.  There is nothing funny in this movie.

René Vidal (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is an aging French director remaking a classic silent film, Les Vampires.  He controversially casts Hong Kong actress Maggie Cheung (Maggie Cheung) in the lead role of Irma Vep.  Maggie is game for the experience, despite not speaking French, but she cannot compete with a chaotic production.  Vidal fights with his cinematographer (Bernard Nissile), the production manager (Dominique Fasse) hates the costumer, Zoé (Nathalie Richard), Zoé is half in love with Maggie, and everyone is constantly bitching about better jobs they've had.

This is a movie about making movies and that's probably why it's so highly regarded by movie makers.  As an outsider, this movie is terrible.  Like, not even the petty drama is entertaining.  Cheung is much better than this film, and it lets her down at every turn.  The weirdest part is that it's being remade into a miniseries starring Alicia Vikander this year.  I have no idea why.  Who asked for this?  

One of my cardinal sins is when movies show clips from better movies.  Just watch Les Vampires.  Matter of fact, go watch Heroic Trio.  Don't watch Irma Vep.  It's streaming on the Criterion Channel which is another decision I just don't understand.

Marie Antoinette (2006)

  I have no idea if this is a good biopic of the ill-fated Queen of France but it is probably a great indication of how mind-numbingly boring her day-to-day life was.

Seventeen-year-old Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst) is delivered to France to marry Louis Auguste (Jason Schwartzman).  She dislikes the constant intrigues and gossip of court and lives in terror that she will be the undoing of the treaty between France and Austria because her marriage remains unconsummated.  To assuage her inner turmoil, she indulges every pleasure she can find from food, wine, and fun companions to shopping and gambling.  Bearing a child, even if it's a girl, brings Antoinette a measure of security.  Bearing an heir even more so.  But debts are mounting, people are starving, and revolution is on the horizon.

I cannot describe to you how bored I was during the entire two hour and three minutes runtime.  The costumes are magnificent, the music is good, and it was filmed on location at Versailles.  None of that matters because the script is dull as wallpaper paste.  There's not a single line worth repeating from the whole thing.  I've just finished watching it and I have already forgotten large parts.  By tomorrow, nothing but this blog post will remain to prove I watched it.

It's currently streaming on Hulu.  Don't do it.

Love Me Tender (1956)

  If you've ever wondered what the big deal with Elvis was, this might go a long way.

Vance Reno (Richard Egan) and his two brothers have survived the American Civil War and are eager to return to their Texas home, none moreso than Vance who is looking forward to marrying his sweetheart, Cathy (Debra Paget).  The brothers are flush with cash after having knocked off a Union payroll before discovering their side, the Confederates, had surrendered the day prior, making them just thieves instead of lawful combatants.  At home, things are much changed.  Vance had been mistakenly declared dead and Cathy married his baby brother, Clint (Elvis Presley).  Vance tries to bury his feelings and decides to leave the farm but before he can say his goodbyes, a man from the government comes to town to recover the stolen payroll.

This is not a great movie.  It is a very middling Western steeped in Confederate apologia.  Elvis does okay, swinging between puppy-dog enthusiasm and whiny jealousy with a few musical numbers thrown in.  There's no Sullivan-Show-only-film-from-the-waist-up shenanigans here either.  His trademark hip gyrations are on full display.  

It does have one scene where Clint beats the shit out of Cathy in a fit of jealous rage, so if you've ever wanted to see Elvis slap a woman, there you go.  Also, you are a bad person, what is wrong with you?

Love Me Tender is currently streaming on Starz, which I get through Amazon.

Belfast (2021)

  This was nominated for seven Oscars and won one for Best Original Screenplay.  It's a mostly autobiographical work from Kenneth Branagh.

Buddy (Jude Hill) lives in Northern Ireland with his family during the 1970s.  His father (Jamie Dornan) works in England, only coming home on rare weekends.  When anti-Catholic riots divide their street, Buddy's mom (Caitriona Balfe) refuses to move, despite her husband's assertions that they will be better off in England.  Buddy's refuge from the turmoil both in and outside his home is with his grandparents (Ciaran Hinds and Judi Dench), but he soon finds himself involved in the Troubles despite his best intentions.

This is a sweet movie, very cute, and not like the Academy at all.  It doesn't tell you a great deal about the Troubles so if you want to know the why's and wherefores you'll have to find a documentary.  

Dornan took a career slap for starring in those godawful Fifty Shades movies but his other work has mostly redeemed him.  He shows a lot of charisma here and seems much more relaxed in this role.  

Last I checked, Belfast is only available for rent or to own.  I don't know about the re-watchability of owning it, but it's definitely worth a rental.  I got it on disc from Netflix.

Young Sherlock Holmes (1985)

  This is a huge change of pace from the last film I watched.  If you're interested in more family-friendly and less searing-indictment-of-imperialism, this might be your speed.

John Watson (Alan Cox) is sent to a new boarding school and instantly becomes friends with teenaged know-it-all Sherlock Holmes (Nicholas Rowe).  When Holmes' beloved mentor (Nigel Stock) dies under mysterious circumstances, Watson joins his friend in a search for the killer, leading the pair across London and onto to the trail of an Egyptian cult of death.

This is pretty standard 80s kid fare.  The special effects are hit-or-miss in execution but are still fairly imaginative.  There are a few truly cringeworthy moments (Watson's hallucination that evil desserts are after him (get it?  because he's chubby) is particularly egregious) but overall it's not a terrible introduction to the many adaptations of Sherlock Holmes.  Are there better ones?  Sure.  Are there worse ones?  Probably.  It's currently streaming on Paramount+ and Amazon Prime.

Embrace of the Serpent (2015)

  This is a fairly weird film.  It's not going to resonate with a lot of people but if you let it, it becomes mesmerizing in its own way.  If you liked Aguirre, the Wrath of God, you'd probably like this one.  In fact, that would be a pretty decent Amazonian double feature now that I think about it.

Karamakate (Nilbio Torres) believes he is the last surviving member of his tribe.  He lives alone in the jungle until he is approached by a dying German explorer named Theo (Jan Bijvoet).  Theo has a rare illness and had been told that Karamakate knows how to make a cure using an extremely rare flower.  In exchange, Theo will take him to the rest of his tribe.  Forty years later, another explorer (Brionne Davis) is following Theo's path, trying to piece together his journey and locate this flower.  Karamakate (Antonio Bolivar) reluctantly agrees to act as guide, even though the memories are painful.

It's nice to see stories told from a non-colonial point of view.  Karamakate is alone in many ways, not least of which is his insistence on maintaining his traditional lifestyle.  This puts him against the rubber barons, the encroachment of Western religions, and at odds with his countrymen that would raze their own homes for profit.  It's not always an easy watch, but that's also an important element.  It shouldn't be.

It's currently streaming on Kanopy.

Unbroken (2014)

  I have been falling off my regular posting schedule and I wish I knew why.  It's not like I've stopped watching stuff; I just don't feel like writing.  Maybe scheduling these to post while I'm on my trip to Boston (hey, I'm going to Boston) will motivate me to be more on the ball in the future.

Louis Zamperini (Jack O'Connell) is an Olympic athlete when he's called up for the draft in WWII.  His plane crashes over the Pacific Ocean and only Zamp, pilot Phil (Domhnall Gleeson), and gunner Mac (Finn Wittrock) make it to the life raft.  They drift for weeks and are finally "rescued" by a Japanese ship.  Zamp is separated from his colleagues and sent to a POW camp outside of Tokyo run by the despotic Watanabe (Miyavi).  He tries to maintain his sense of hope with the other prisoners as they wait for the war to end.  

This is based on the real life of Louis Zamperini, who did compete in the 1936 Berlin Olympics, was a bombardier, and POW.  I wish I could say I liked it.  The guy himself was probably really fascinating but the movie is a Thomas Kincaid paint-by-numbers.  It's also fairly Jesus-y which was a big part of Zamperini's recovery and treatment for PTSD, as I understand.  There is a sequel that deals specifically with that part of his life, if you are interested.  I was not.

It's currently streaming on HBO Max.