What movie have you seen recently?

Movies
989

Rise of the Planet of the Apes 2011

★★★★

Rewatched Jun 13, 2020

The start of a mini-marathon apes planet movies? I think it’s time!

The story isn’t great, and some of the effects look a bit wobbly, but here’s the thing: this movie works entirely because the ape performances are as compelling as the human performances. It doesn’t matter that the CGI isn’t as convincing as reality! The emotional link remains. It avoids the uncanny valley completely, something that many more recent movies fail to do, mainly because they are trying to do full CGI humans, not apes.

A fun movie to revisit. Again, just turn off your “this story makes sense” brain and open your “this ape is one of the greatest movie characters of the 2010’s” mind.

990

Borg vs McEnroe 2017 ★★★★

Watched Jun 30, 2020

No Wimbledon this year, so let me get my SW19 fix from a half Swedish, half English biographical drama.

As the name suggests, this movie is 100% about these two super famous real-life men, and the leads absolutely nail the roles.

Sverrir Gudnason looks exactly like Bjorn Borg. It’s uncanny. Surely they must be related.

And while Shia LaBeouf’s face looks very little like John McEnroe, he nailed the physical acting perfectly. The opening scene with McEnroe is him doing a late night TV show interview, and the way LaBoeouf shakes his leg, and seem like he doesn’t know what to do with hands, is EXACTLY John McEnroe.

Before they built the roof at Wimbledon, when it rained they would play replays of this match. Or, at least, replays of the 34-point tiebreaker in the fourth set. It’s such a classic tennis moment, it’s sometimes easy to forget who went on to win the match.

The craziness of the sporting moment isn’t quite captured in the movie, but the movie puts in more perspective than just watching the tie break out of context. So my suggestion is:

  1. Watch most of this movie, up until the fourth set montage.

  2. Switch over to YouTube and watch the real tie break. www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnwYdF8a5ws

  3. Switch back over to the movie and watch the aftermath.

Maybe that will kill the flow of the drama itself, but I think the movie is high enough quality that it wouldn’t be a bad experiment.

Juliane didn’t know the outcome of the match, nor anything about Borg, nor the “superbrat” reputation of McEnroe. She only knows him as a commentator, not someone who shouted at the umpire.

991

I saw TENET last night at a drive in theater pop-up Philly Film Society has running right now because of Covid. Listening to the audio in my car over radio was fine so I think that if there were complaints about TENET it was just boomers not getting it/getting old (I’m 33). There are 2-3 scenes where specific audio is indecipherable for diegetic reasons that make sense within the context of the film.

992

Easy A
2010 ★★★½

Watched Jul 04, 2020

This has been on my to-watch list for years! It has been highly recommended many times. I finally got around to watching it… and it didn’t disappoint.

It’s got a silly premise, with a very “writer putting an idealised version of their younger self into the lead character” kind of vibe. Nobody can be that clever and perfect, and have parents that funny and perfect!

But it’s very funny in places, with a lot of memorable characters and story moments.

Emma Stone is so good in it, I almost forgive her for however much she is responsible for La La Land.

And Juliane got the direct reference to Ferris Bueller… another magically perfect school student.

993

The Old Guard
2020 ★★½

Watched Jul 25, 2020

The Old Guard has a fun premise, and it’s executed competently, if your level of comparison is a high budget TV show. If this was an episode of a high budget TV show, it would get top marks. As an actual movie, it ends up decidedly average. Not bad in any way, but it feels like it’s pushing up against the limits of its budget, the skills of its action choreographers, and the strength of its plot.

Here’s my main issue:

The brutality level of close-up violence is VERY John Wick. For example, entire fights are based around hand-to-hand combat with a bullet to face as a finishing movie.

However, it feels just MEAN and needlessly violent.

It was fine for the opening scene, where they are all gunned down, then get up and take revenge. That’s fine.

But later on, it feels massively out of balance. The premise is that these are immortals, who are expert fighters, and they spend their time killing… security guards in a London office building? That’s not fair!

In the John Wick universe, everyone who is taking part in the story, and therefor everyone who gets killed by John Wick, is there by choice. Everyone is part of an underworld, and everyone knows the rules, and the rules are strict. Everyone knows what they are signing up for!

So when John Wick puts a bullet in someone’s face, I think “well, that’s about right for these criminal gangs and assassins.” In fact, I don’t think it, because the victims of John Wicks violence are as thought-provoking as zombies or nazis or storm troopers.

And John Wick is often fighting for his life! He’s in real danger! He could get hurt!

With the Old Guard, it was mostly immortals who face zero consequences for their violent actions, and who can’t die and don’t stay hurt for long, beating up on security guards or swat teams or other people who hadn’t signed up for this!

994

Hamilton 2020
★★★★½

Watched Aug 29, 2020

We watched Hamilton over three nights, because this is a looong show.

I’ve listened to the album countless times, so know all the songs. Strangely enough, Juliane had never listened to the second act, only the first, so she went into the end of the story without actually knowing what was going to happen, or how emotional it was going to get.

Knowing the music so well, I most enjoyed how the performances changed the meanings of the songs. An example is the “Can we get back to politics?” “Please” exchange, where the cast recording makes that seem the politicians are bored of the personal story, but the live show makes it clear that the “Please” is with a massive lump in the throat, and is so Madison doesn’t cry on stage.

There are some songs I skip when listening to the album, because I think they aren’t very good versions of what they are trying to be. Like “What did I miss?” for me is a not-very-good jazz show tune, which doesn’t carry its own weight as a studio recorded song. But with the support of the full cast performing a dance number, it’s an okay opening number to the second act.

My main issue with the live show recording: the performance of Lin-Manuel Miranda himself. Among the main cast, he is by far the worst singer, the worst actor, the worst dancer, the worst physical performer. His rapping is okay, but put to shame by Daveed Diggs and others.

I don’t begrudge him casting himself in the show, because who wouldn’t? My issue is that I want the lead of a musical to perform at least one soaring solo song, spilling their heart out for the audience.

And “Hurricane”, Miranda’s only real solo, shows that he isn’t able to hold a song. It’s kinda embarrassing compared how effortless all the professional singers make it. Miranda just about gets away with it due to a lot of “my voice is breaking due to emotion” type of thing.

The album version of the same song is much better, because his weak singing voice can be fixed in post production. In fact, the studio recording techniques are doing a lot to help him throughout the entire show… help he doesn’t have on stage.

All that said, having the songwriter on stage during the whole show adds huge energy to the whole production, and is better for it. I just wish he didn’t look like an amateur compared to everyone else on stage.

Still, 4.5 stars, and probably the closest I’ll get to watching it live for the foreseeable future.

1 Like
995

Toy Story 4 2019
★★★★

Watched Sep 01, 2020

One of the main reasons we sprung for a month of Disney+ was to catch up on movies like Toy Story 4. And just this movie paid it off.

I read elsewhere that all the other Toy Story movies were more about human issues than Toy issues. And it’s true. There’s a lot about friendship and relationships and growing up.

But yeah, with Forky and the “lost toy” concept, it really brought attention to “what it means to be a toy” rather than “jealousy over who is a child’s favourite”.

It’s good to spend time with the gang again, even if the story feels VERY familiar: “A toy is lost, let’s leave the comfort of home and head out into the world to rescue them”. Not a tear-jerker like Toy Story 3, but hits the “comedy” and “creepy horror” buttons hard.

Will it be another 10 years until Toy Story 5? I hope not.

1 Like
996

Ralph Breaks the Internet 2018

★★★½

Watched Sep 05, 2020

I’m not sure where I heard or read that Ralph Breaks the Internet wasn’t worth watching. Whoever claimed that is wrong: it’s a perfectly good movie, and a better-than-average sequel.

The writers nailed transition to internet in-jokes and memes. It’s so great that the thing that actually breaks the internet is based on “male insecurities”, and is blatantly calling out gomergators and toxic masculinity.

Vanellope’s song is very good, and the Disney Princesses scene is a high point.

It’s also a pretty good Fast and Furious movie, better than half of the other Fast and Furious movies. I’m not sure when this fits in the timeline, as Gal Gadot is still alive, so maybe between Fast Five and Fast and Furious 6.

1 Like
997

I watched High and Low. I think it follows the same trajectory. The first half was awesome. Especially liked the shots of 15 people crammed around a phone, listening intently.

After the train scene, I thought "what a great move for a movie to

Spoilers

resolve the kidnapping in the first half of the movie!

And then…

998

The Lion King 2019
★★★

Rewatched Sep 11, 2020

I watched The Lion King (2019) last November, and wrote at the time:

“Watched on a plane, so probably a bit more emotional than usual, but this move really got to me. I cried like three times.”

The “watched on a plane” factor was strong in that viewing. It doesn’t hold up quite so well on a second viewing at home.

The main reason is the music. The movie is carrying so much baggage that it only just holds it all together.

Here’s my (rambling) thesis:

The original Lion King was straining under the weight of FOUR different musical styles and composers:

  1. Tim Rice on lyrics doing musical theatre
  2. Elton John with music bringing pop sensibilities
  3. Hans Zimmer doing the orchestral movie scoring (wins Oscar)
  4. Lebo M providing the traditional African sounds and choir arrangements

The African sounds worked because it was set in Africa, the orchestral score worked because it’s a movie, the musical theatre stuff worked, because at the time Disney animations were pretty much animated Broadway musicals.

It’s a mashup of styles that nailed a singular tone, worked great for the movie, and led to hit songs and a hit album.

The Lion King Musical somehow distilled all these elements, and the due to it being an actual musical, could lean into the musical theatre style and gain huge benefits.

But Lion King 2019 has four new layers of baggage on top:

  1. The movie couldn’t leave out the classic songs… so I ended up comparing the actors’ performances to the originals. Chiwetel Ejiofor has a great acting voice, but can’t do Be Prepared like Jeremy Irons. John Oliver barely holds it together for the four lines he has to sing in Just Can’t Wait To Be King.

  2. Everyone is used to singing animated characters. It’s what animated characters do. But very lifelike CGI animals… don’t sing. And they don’t do broadways show-style choreography either.

  3. Why not bring in Pharrell Williams as music producer? Well, that’s another musical influence to go with the four already mentioned, and the balanced mix is now overloaded.

  4. Beyonce is a fantastic performer, but her vocal work doesn’t fit with the pop-duet-musical-theatre number in Do You Feel The Love Tonight. She’s doing soul singing vocal acrobatics, overwhelming the original melody and Donald Glover, not the clear musical theatre vocals the song was written for and needs.

All this is why I think the Lion King Original Broadway Cast Recording is still the best version of The Lion King. It distills all of the strengths of the original movie and its soundtrack into a perfect form: an actual Broadway show.

Lion King 2019 exposes all the aspects of the original movie’s soundtrack that should never have worked! But it somehow did! But now it very much doesn’t!

It’s a modern CGI movie with songs and performances…

that reference songs and performances of a previous animated movie…

that referenced the musical styles of broadway shows…

which in turn are referencing big band music hall dance numbers from the 1930’s.

Too many layers!

Compare and contrast to The Lego Movie 2, which has kickass musical numbers that reference popular music in 2019. The breakdown is the middle of the song is a massive beat drop… you know, like actual music these days. Not like some of the Lion King numbers, which are using the musical language missing from popular music since 1950.

Still, the movie looks very pretty.

999

Crazy Rich Asians 2018
★★★

Watched Sep 22, 2020

KILL THE RICH

Meet Henry Golding

BECOME THE RICH

1 Like
1000

The soundtrack is amazing, though. I love the renditions of “Only Fools Rush In” even though the imagery that accompanies it can be extra.

1001

The Death of Stalin 2017
★★★★½

Watched Oct 03, 2020

Apropos of nothing, we checked out a movie that’s been on my to-watch list for a while.

Is it possible to make a comedy about a genocidal dictator and the power struggle after his death? Yes, but it has to be very, very dark. And I’m sure a lot of laughs to be had are at the expense of historical accuracy.

But who cares. The cast are having a blast playing “evil and scheming” while others are playing “in over their heads”. Steve Buscemi as Khrushchev is a stroke of genius.

Also I love how all the actors played with their own accents, with a variety of british working class and regional accents coming to the fore, reflecting that all these most powerful men in the USSR were metal workers and shoemakers and farmers before rising in the ranks of the party.

I give a movie its star ratings based entirely on how much I enjoyed watching it, and in this case I had to pause it numerous times because I was laughing so much. So it could be 5 stars, but then I was never quite comfortable by how much I was made to cheer for one guy who’d committed all kinds of atrocities over another guy who had committed all kinds of atrocities.

1002

The Rocketeer 1991
★★★½

Rewatched Sep 27, 2020

A big test of a movie from 1991 is: does it still hold up today?

Yup! I think mostly because it’s a period movie, set in the 1930’s. The fashion works. The technology works. The science fiction aspects work. The love story/triangle works. The villains work.

Like Indiana Jones, it harkens back to the “punch nazis in the face” model of hero-building, without the common 1990’s issue of “oh no, we’ve lost the USSR as our main villain”.

And while the special effects don’t hold up particularly well, for a movie called “The Rocketeer”, surprisingly little of the action revolves around the lead character flying. There’s one plane rescue, and from then on, it’s mostly a mode of transport and/or escape. Most of the action is based around fist fights, gun fights, or combinations of fist fights and gun fights.

A quick google shows that it was a box office disappointment, but now has a cult following. Sounds about right.

1 Like
1003

Moana 2016
★★★½

Rewatched Oct 02, 2020

Copy and paste of previous review, because my opinion hasn’t changed:

Works okay on the third/fourth viewing, and after hearing the music a whole lot more. The opening song isn’t a very good opening song. Thankfully the songs get a lot better as it goes on. The coconut monster scene? Totally skippable in terms of plot. In the end it’s just a silly Mad Max knockoff with not a lot of payoff.

It looks gorgeous though, and Dwayne The Rock Johnson does some good voice work. The chicken steals the show.

1004

I watched Crawl with my daughter and while she enjoyed it I think I know too much about alligators to get anything from it.

1005

Correcting a grave oversight, tonight we finally watched Interstellar, in glorious 4k.

I doubt I can say anything insightful that hasn’t already been said, so I’ll just go with “yes that was a good movie.” Hit a lot of familiar notes so I don’t know that the plot was particularly ground-breaking, but I’m cool with that.

1 Like
1006

Wednesday Addams is underrated.
image

1 Like
1007

The Addams Estate going after Adult Wednesday Addams is a travesty

1008

She really nailed the spirit of Wednesday.