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I look over this list and I am pleased with what I see: Variety. New, old. Classic, crap. Sad, happy. Big, small.
Thank goodness for art.
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| HOME Hulu |
Probably the best it-was-all-a-dream ever made.
(Perhaps because that's not what it is at all?)
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| ELSEWHERE our dvd |
Ward Family Home Evening.
Spend some quality time with a quality person.
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| HOME our dvd |
Instead of watching election-night returns, we decided to watch a charming (and slightly naive) fantasy about, sure, a conspiracy theory come to life. But it's hopeful. And it believes in America.
Tomorrow we can discover is Americans also believe in America.
(Also, aren't you so glad Kevin Klein got this job and not Robin Williams?)
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| HOME Tubi |
If this movie were forty minutes shorter, I probably would have watched it twenty years ago. I wonder what I would have thought of it then?
Now, I guess I appreciate it as an experiment, but I can't say I liked it. And since Lars Von Trier is a tool, that's okay.
Apparently it wasn't, but it looks like it was shot on video.
I didn't hate it or love it to the extreme some critics did/do, but I do tend to agree with the one who said "if it had been made by an American and shot in a more conventional manner" it would not have been as well regarded.
Why is it that so many artistic movements are powered by a******s?
Anyway, I knew it was going to be sad but I had no idea that it was shaped like a proper tragedy whose slides into musical did not prevent slides into mawkish melodrama.
But that's just my opinion.
UPDATE: apparently is was shot on video (sort of)
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| HOME Disney+ |
James Gunn is good at this stuff. And with just a little over two weeks left on our Hulu/Disney+ subscription, I definitely needed to catch up on the Guardians before we lost access. And it was great.
Not perfect, sure. I think the first Guardians film is still the best capsule expression of the aesthetic, but this one finds new depths and provides a satisfactory conclusion to the trilogy. Even if a couple things barely make sense (I'm looking at you, suddenly capable magical whistler).
After all, making sense isn't the point of a movie like this. The emotional and character beats need to work. Everything else is gravy. And this movie's macguffin is pure character and emotion. And everything else followed from there.
WHICH IS TO SAY, although I seem incapable of just admitting it, I had a wonderful time watching this movie. There.
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| HOME Hulu |
I get why people liked it but not why they liked it so much.
I am curious where people land on her guilt. I appreciated the films insistence on ambiguity, but I felt she must have been innocent, even though numerous details lent themselves guiltward. Until, that is, the final bit of the trial, which, one imagines, sealed her innocence for the jury. But, to me, made it at last seem more likely that she was not.
The kid was terrific, incidentally.
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| ELSEWHERE Prime Video |
Fascinating how some parts of this movie still seem wildly futuristic (the freeway system), some seem right around the corner (personalized ads), and some seem like a past future we left long ago (computer memory).
Still: great movie. Everyone is fully, fully entertained.
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| ELSEWHERE Prime Video |
This was every bit as gloriously weird as I'd hoped but, much more importantly, it spurred fantastic classroom conversation. So many excellent observations and hypotheses. So much interesting speculation. Sure, not everyone liked it equally but liking a classroom movie is much less important than having something to say. And, sure, this is currently a more successfully conversative class than the Minority Report class, but while everyone loved Minority Report, it was nearly imposible to get a conversation going. Which is wild to me, but, if you're unused to the closereading of film, a movie you already know how to digest doesn't force you to suddenly become a closereader.
Anyway, from the opening sound design and first lines of dialogue, it was obvious this was from the makers of Sylvio (he even made a cameo in a closing crowd scene; though I suspect that actor wore a mask or two more over the course of the film).
Anyway, it's about a dream auditor and it's nonstop strange. Sad to have missed it in theaters but, well, 'twas the era.
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| ELSEWHERE Hoopla |
Okay. I wasn't expecting Star Wars or anything, but this is a strange movie. Speaking of Lucas, I'd say weirder than THX-1138. And I'd say it's a safe bet that Lucas was influenced by Alphaville. And Kubrik. And Nolan. And a host of others. Even though this is a science-fiction movie with almost nothing that "futurey" about its appearance, it has clearly passed its DNA out like Ghenghis Khan. I mean. Not in the same manner. Just the quantity. Moving on.
The sound design is bizarre and unpleasant. The editing is just weird. One fight scene was more like La Jetee with a punchline. Followed by a carchase that, although much shorter, not unworthy of comparison to Bullitt.
It's clearly pulling from the great (and still reasonably fresh) English-language dystopias of Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-four, but it's not up to the same thing. What is it up do? No idea. This is not a once-and-understood sort of movie. So the real question is do I keep offering it to students as an option? I've been offering it maybe five years and this is the first time it was chosen. Not a huge hit. But intellectually stimulating—at least for some. We'll see how the writing turns out.
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| HOME Disney+ |
A few years ago I read an oral history of The Emperor's New Groove (I believe it was the earlier version of this) and decided I would have to actually see it. That all the people who like it may well be right. Since then, we've had a subscription or three to Disney+ and now, finally, three days before it expires this time, I finally put it on. Everyone joined me and we all loved it. It's hilarious. And fun. And the right length. And it still has an emotional thruline that actually functions in a human way. Pretty neat!
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| HOME Disney+ |
I can't help but wonder if I could enjoy these jokes even half as much if I didn't know he was Christian or if I didn't know he loved his kids.
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| HOME Hulu |
Clearly this was meant to be Jessica Chastain's Bourne. And with a cast like her and Common and John Malkovitch and Geena Davis and Colin Ferrell—people, sure, appear in stinkers and the unremarkable but whom one is apt to see as an excellent sign of potential excellence, hopes might be high. But this is not good.
It wants to be. Ohhhhh, how it wants to be! It's got all sorts of serious ideas in there (parent/child, addiction in at least three stripes, crime, commerce, you name it), but it doesn't really know what to do with them. The plot turns feel Lifetimey, the dialogue is AI-level, the fights look oh so choreographed, the pacing and editing are dry and soulless. There's just nothing here.
I was listening to Tom Hanks talk recently and he was going on about how no one ever tries to make a mediocre move. No one really even thinks they are making one. But then the film exists and . . . usually, they're not masterpieces. I'm sure everyone signed on to this movie thinking alcoholic female action hero! This is going to be awesome!
So it goes.
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| ELSEWHERE my parents' dvd |
I never anticipated watchhing this movie but I was pulling dvds off my parents' shelves and I happened to notice that this one was written by Ron Swanson! Yeah, apparently, before he got into city government he made an effort at breaking into Hollywood. And kinda fun as it is, I have to say, he made the right choice leaving town.
Woof.
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| HOME Prime Video |
Son #3 found this via an Instagram click and asked that we watch it which is about the most proactive they ever get regarding stuff we do together so watch it we did.
I know Maz Jobrani entirely through his appearances on Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! so I can't really say how typical this is of his fare, but it was a fun movie. Lots of solid jokes. A little more prescient than one might like and also weirdly dated. Pre- and post-Trump is going to prove a major marker in American culture.
Anyway, it's a dumb wish-fulfillment comedy of the sort where the dumb guy gets everything he wants and also does not. His cousin's hot thought and I think he did finally figure that out. So that's something.
It is intersting that although their stories take place decades apart and they come from wildly different parts of Asia, Jimmy Vestvood and Sami Malik have such similar wardrobes.
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| THEATER Cinemark Century Hilltop 16 |
Moana 2 commits many typical sins of sequels; sins I, as a child of the 80s, am well aquainted with. Moana 2, for instance, decides to tell the same story as the original by adding a lot more characters without providing anyone sufficient motivation for this new adventure. From plot logic to character development, the movie is subpar.
HOWEVER, the animation is so beautiful and the story's movement is so activing and the sound is so enwrapping (even noting the mid songs and the music cues out of 80s television) that it's entirely possible to enjoy every minute. I imagine it will be a huge hit and most people won't even notice that it's, ah, kinda bad.
I mean—I had fun. You can too!
(although, ugh, did they really have to set up #3??)
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| HOME YouTube |
Not the greatest Preston Sturges film but it's a delightful confection and at 67 minutes you can watch it twice in the time of some more recent comedy that sucks. So why the heck not?
I haven't fallen for an actress this hard in a long time. She was great from go, but when she cried for joy she turned into sommething special. She was huge, once, but this is the first movie of hers I've seen.
We'll all be forgotten someday.
Anyway, this is a COMEDY. It's the tailend of the Depression and a feller's tricked into believing he's won a huge radio contest. There are lots of small but wonderful gags and fabulous character acting, but over it all hangs this question: what happens when the balloon pops?
The rich run our lives. And, incidentally, we again have the sort of wealth disaprity that led to the Depression.
Oh: and this is a COMEDY. We laughed a lot. Try not to think about the world outside the film and you'll be fine.
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