RoboCop (1987)

  Content warning:  some gore, violence

In the near-future, a mega-corporation has contracted with the city of Detroit to provide an alternative to the police force.  But the main prototype, ED-209, still has some bugs to work out.  Fortunately, executive Bob Morton (Miguel Ferrer) has a back-up.  His project takes an existing human body and combines it with machine for the best of both.  Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) is volunteered for the procedure after being gunned down by a gang of criminals led by Clarence Boddicker (Kurtwood Smith).  Morton's team insists that all that's left is a brain running pre-programmed software, but it turns out androids dream of electric vengeance.

Sad to say that RoboCop was the closest predictor of our actual future.  In that sense, it's aged like fine wine.  Everything else is pretty dated, though.  Weller is the least main Main Character in a movie.  He has a lot of screen time but is literally robotic.  It's hard to root for him when he gets introduced, murdered, and then put in a tin can like five minutes in.  The Omni Consumer Products executives have more of an inner life, even if it's a soulless 80s yuppie one.  

A lot of people love this movie and it's considered a classic.  I thought it was okay but I wouldn't rush out to find the sequels.  It's currently streaming on (sigh) Max along with the 2014 remake that I also haven't seen.

Monkey Man (2024)

  This was the Movie Club pick for this week and I'm glad because it would have probably slipped through the cracks for me.  Content warning:  violence, blood

An unnamed bare-knuckle fighter (Dev Patel) slowly works toward access to an elite member's-only club, the leaders of which destroyed his village, in order to exact revenge.

It's a very striking movie, good visuals, solid grounding in reality.  Very much influenced by John Woo, Luc Besson, and specifically name-drops John Wick but manages to weave in its own culture and not just be a knockoff, generic action movie.  This is the directorial debut for Patel, who also wrote and co-produced, and for a first effort, it's incredible.  It's not breaking any new ground story-wise, but it is a self-assured, confident outing.

The major theme is corruption, specifically using religion to cover a multitude of evils, which again is bog-standard but still really relevant in Indian society where there is a massive divide between the Haves and Have-Nots.  Patel has been exploring that divide basically his entire career and this feels like a natural progression for him.  But also big shout-out for bringing in marginalized religious practitioners like the hijra, a trans femme subset of devotees that periodically face crack-downs from oppressors.

It's currently streaming on Peacock.

Adaptation (2002)

 I really don't like Charlie Kaufman's work.  The more I see of it, the more I think he has serious, deep-seated issues with women and not in an "I'm examining my psyche through art" way.  More like a "when will the government issue me a woman so I can stop pretending to have a personality?" way.

Coming off the success of his script for Being John Malkovich, Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) is asked to adapt The Orchid Thief by Susan Orleans (Meryl Streep), a novel based on her interview with John Laroche (Chris Cooper), a horticulturalist who was arrested in the Florida Everglades trying to steal a rare orchid.  Kaufman soon becomes trapped in a hellish cycle of writer's block, self-loathing, and panic as he tries to create a story that captures the feel of the book.  He is also tortured by his twin brother Donald's (Nicolas Cage) success with more low-brow writing and ease with women.

This is billed as a comedy and I just don't see it.  I was utterly bored with the recursive self-pity and misogyny being presented, so much so that when things finally picked up in the last 30 minutes, I was too disgusted to care.  Adaptation is basically if Weird: The Al Yankovic Story had all of the whimsy and charm surgically removed and replaced with a mosquito whine and a sexual harassment lawsuit.  Fortunately, it's not streaming anywhere so you have to pay money to see it, which should be enough of a barrier to save the majority of people.

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

  This movie is great because it suckers you in with Hot French Lesbians but then it's like, "Boom, women's rights and bodily autonomy, bitches!"  Content warning: abortion

Marianne (Noémie Merlant) is hired to paint a noblewoman's wedding portrait in secret because Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) objects to the match and won't pose for one.  She thinks Marianne is just a walking companion her mother (Valeria Golino) hired so she won't kill herself like her sister did.  But when Mom leaves to meet the fiancé, Héloïse and Marianne begin to bond in earnest.

There was so much hype about this movie in 2019.  Huge critical darling, plus the director caused some drama when she protested the inclusion of Roman Polanski at an awards show (too lazy to look up but I think it was the Césars) and called him a pedophile, and it was filled with Hot Girls doing Hot Girl Shit.  

Happy to say it lives up to all the praise.  Plus, every scene looks like its own painting.  Gorgeously shot, great lighting.  Merlant looks like an alabaster bust come to life.  The attention to detail is fantastic.  

This is a movie that celebrates being a woman with other women.  Yes, lesbians, but also just the unspoken help and support that comes from an innate understanding.  Fabulous.  Beautiful.  Can't praise it enough.  It's streaming on Hulu.

To All the Boys I've Loved Before (2018)

  I'm not a rom-com person.  I think we've established that.  And yet, here we are.

Laura Jean (Lana Condor) is mortified when her private love letters get sent out to the objects of her childhood crushes, especially the one to her sister Margot's (Janel Parrish) ex-boyfriend, Josh (Israel Broussard).  To throw him off the trail, Laura Jean begins fake dating Peter (Noah Centineo), another recipient and the recent ex of her nemesis, Gen (Emilija Baranac).  Peter wants to make Gen jealous and sees Laura Jean as the perfect tool.  But as the two teens spend more and more time together, lines become blurred between what is fake and what is real.

This is basically every trope you can think of smushed into one movie.  And if that's your thing, enjoy!  It has hot young people doing hot young people things!  Personally, it annoys me when people can't resolve a simple miscommunication issue because of "feelings" or whatever, but I am autistic and generally annoyed by most feelings anyway.

Condor is very good and an extremely promising talent.  This film launched Centineo's career and I wish him continued success.  There are also two sequels, I think?  And maybe a spin-off?  So it's obviously very popular.  Just not for me.  Currently streaming on Netflix.

The Lady in the Van (2015)

  Based on the memoir of Alan Bennett.

Alan (Alex Jennings), a playwright, finds himself trying to uncover the history of the irascible homeless woman (Maggie Smith) living in his driveway.  For fifteen years, he observes her habits, harangues, and horrors even as he struggles to separate himself from getting too involved.

Man, would this have been a different movie in an American setting.  Homeless woman living in your driveway for 15 years?  Try 15 minutes before the cops get called.  Social worker coming around to offer government-subsidized assistance?  Not on your life.  Neighbors taking turns to check on her and bring her food or clothes?  NIMBY, motherfuckers!

Culture shock aside, this is another movie like Philomena in that you think it's about the connection between disparate individuals and empathy but it's really about how the Catholic Church fucks people over and abandons them as not good enough. 

It's mostly happy for a character drama, with a great slimy performance from Jim Broadbent.  Jennings is pulling a double role here as Bennett and Bennett's literary voice, which is a weird thing but it's hard to show someone thinking and make it compelling.  Smith is one of the Grande Dames of acting so it's no surprise that she's flawless.  It clocks in under two hours so overall, a painless experience.  

It's streaming on Roku with ads.

The Perfect Score (2004)

  There are some salient points being made in this movie about standardized testing and school funding but it's wrapped in such an unfunny misogynistic vehicle that I couldn't pay attention to the stuff I agreed with.

High school senior Kyle (Chris Evans) feels significant pressure to get into his dream school but his SAT score is merely average.  He puts together a crew of six like-minded individuals to break into the SAT administration headquarters to steal a copy of the answers.

Man, The Breakfast Club has a lot of sins to atone for in modern cinema.  This tries to take the same formula of one-dimensional stereotypes and add a heist plot and it just did not work for me.  As a showcase for young talent, it's a success as everyone involved in this moved on to bigger and better things.  Evans and  Scarlett Johansson became superstars.  Erika Christiansen, Leonardo Nam, and Bryan Greenberg have worked continuously as actors, and Darius Miles is an actual NBA player.  I'm glad it exists, it just wasn't for me and I'll never watch it again.

But if you want to, it's currently streaming on Paramount+.

Vox Lux (2018)

  Content warning: school shooting, ableist slurs, statutory rape

A violent tragedy propelled teenaged Celeste (Raffey Cassidy) into celebrity.  Now an adult, Celeste (Natalie Portman) struggles with self-esteem, body dysmorphia, a range of addictions, and narcissism as her 6th studio album is set to drop.

I'm not entirely sure what this movie was trying to say.  It felt very cynical but fell short of actual satire.  Mostly, it was very whiny.  And the music was terrible.  Portman is fine, you can tell she's had a lifetime of training but it's very much not a style of music that suits her voice.  I feel like Cassidy was intentionally told to be bad as some sort of "only famous because of circumstance" commentary but she was really bad.  The absolute very least you can do in a musical drama is have good music.  

I love Natalie Portman but this was a total misstep.  Just unpleasant on a lot of levels.  It's streaming on Kanopy but I wouldn't bother.

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

  Content warning:  racist slurs, discussion of sexual assault

Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) is a Depression-era, small-town Alabama lawyer defending Tom Robinson (Brock Peters), a Black man accused of beating and raping Mayella Euwell (Collin Wilcox), a white woman.  The story is mainly told through the eyes of Finch's children, Jem (Phillip Alford) and Scout (Mary Badham), who are beginning to see their father as a person, not just a caregiving extension of themselves.  While also dealing with stalkers, attempted murder, and angry mobs.

This movie is still depressingly relevant.  Peck is the image of gentrified nobility and it feels very much like a spiritual sequel to his 1947 performance in Gentleman's Agreement.  The child actors manage to be charming and sincere, which is a relief considering they have a LOT of screen time.  Alford's accent is also extremely realistic, probably because he was born in Gadsden, Alabama, 30 miles from where I grew up.

It's not a super-fun watch but it is still a very good movie.  The courtroom scene is famous but it only takes up about 20 minutes tops.  The rest is mostly centered around the kids learning about the world they are inheriting.  It's currently streaming on Tubi for free with ads.

The Square Peg (1958)

  This is a very slight screwball comedy import from Britain.  

Pitkin (Norman Wisdom), a Public Works employee, runs afoul of the local military outstation and is drafted in retaliation.  He is mostly inept at being a soldier but excels in road repair, so much that he ends up four miles behind enemy lines in France and is mistaken for the resident German commander.

Screwball comedies aren't really my thing, but if you like physical comedy and bumbling antics, this might be worth your time.  

I could be wrong (it's happened once or twice) but this definitely feels like it's nostalgic for the late 20s/early 30s screwballs while trying to acknowledge a present that would have felt extremely raw for a lot of the English.  Like trying to wrap their trauma in cotton candy to make it go down easier.  But I could be reading too much into it.

It's currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

The Batman (2022)

Normally, I wouldn't repost something that I had seen so recently but it's been kind of a shitty summer for me and Batman is like comfort food.  This is my second viewing and it holds up pretty well.  I didn't get any new insights in it but that's not really what I was looking for.  I actually forgot about it when I was doing my Top Ten for 2022.  Didn't even include it in the ranking.  So it's a little surprising how often I thought about it since and I needed to revisit to see if I was mis-remembering or if it was Actually Good.  Verdict:  Actually Good!  I think it's still streaming on whatever Frankensteinian monstrosity (sigh) Max has become but I bought it.  Originally posted 07 May 2022.    I did not hate this movie!

Like many of you, I'm a little Batman-ed out.  Zach Snyder Batman has not been my favorite interpretation and I was concerned about yet another unnecessary origin story, but Matt Reeves Batman was refreshingly to-the-point.

Gotham City is wracked with corruption.  The mayor, Don Mitchell, Jr. (Rupert Penry-Jones) is up for re-election against a feisty and motivated opponent, Bella Reál (Jayme Lawson), but is spared from losing at the polls by being brutally murdered by the Riddler (Paul Dano).  Riddler has a grand scheme to expose the many ills of his hometown, leaving a complicated trail of clues for Gotham's caped crusader (Robert Pattinson), in whom he feels a kindred spirit.  Batman follows the leads to an underground club run by the Penguin (an unrecognizable Colin Farrell), and a missing girl named Annika (Hana Hrzic), who might have witnessed some shady dealings of the late Mayor.  

Somebody finally let Batman actually do some detective shit!  Yes, he's still dark and gritty and emo AF but this time it works.  He looks like a 20-year-old billionaire stuck in permanent adolescence trying to figure out exactly what running around the city in costume is getting him.  Reeves has said in interviews that he wanted Batman to be more DIY, less high-tech, and that grungy effect works to astonishing degree.  And there are moments of humor that work even more because the rest of the film is so stark.  No spoilers, but about 3/4 of the way through, there is a reveal and Pattinson's "wait, wut" look is pitch-perfect.  Like, you can see his brain just blank and then frantically try and cover for it.  It's subtle but great character work.

But honestly the thing that impressed me the most was Colin Farrell.  It is unreal how completely he disappeared into that character.  Not even his voice sounds the same.  It might be his best performance ever and it's in a goddamn comic book movie.  That is wild.  The Batman is currently streaming on HBO Max but I don't know for how much longer.

Do the Right Thing (1989)

  Summer is officially* over.  Let's think fondly of the warm times as we head into the long dark night of winter.  Content warning:  racist slurs, police violence 

Mookie (Spike Lee) delivers pizzas for Sal (Danny Aiello) in the predominantly Black neighborhood of Bedford-Styuvesant in Brooklyn.  Sal has been in this location for decades but his son, Pino (John Tuturro), wants him to move to a more ethnically Italian neighborhood.  Over the course of one extremely hot day, tempers flare and buried resentments turn into declarations of war.  

If you updated some of the slang and the clothes, you could make this exact same movie today.  Nothing has changed since 1989 and if that doesn't make you sad, you haven't been paying attention.

This was Spike Lee's debut and he came out swinging.  It fully captures a moment and uses the neighborhood itself as a character to establish place, time, and personality.  It also helps that the cast is absolutely stacked to the rafters with talent.  Samuel L. Jackson, Ossie Davis, Giancarlo Esposito, Miguel Sandoval, Bill Nunn, Rosie Perez, Ruby Dee, and a bunch of others you'll recognize by sight if not by name.  

It's a massively important film and still depressingly relevant, as I said previously.  It is not a fun watch, however.  Be prepared to feel some kind of way after.  Give yourself some time to process it.  It's currently streaming on Peacock.

*It's not official.  It's just dropped below 80 here and I'm mad about it.

North Dallas Forty (1979)

  The poster is a complete lie.  This isn't a comedy.  Content warning:  party scene that skirts very closely to sexual assault but generally falls under the umbrella of "rape culture"

Phil Elliott (Nick Nolte) is a professional football player but at 39, he is growing more and more concerned with the physical and emotional toll being taken from him with each game.  He is at odds with number-focused management, boorish other players, and his own sense of ennui and disillusionment.

This wants to be Easy Rider so bad but cannot make Elliott likable or sympathetic.  

As opposed to Pigskin Parade, where football was more or less just a backdrop, North Dallas Forty does require a passing knowledge of the game itself.  

**Editor's note:  This was as far as I had gotten when I got a phone call telling me my father had died.  Sorry for the truncated review but I had to make an emergency trip down to Alabama for the funeral and this blog post was not a priority.  I will make it up to you (internet) next weekend.**

**P.S.  TL;DR: This movie sucked.  Watch something else, up to and including actual football instead.**