Pumping Iron

1977 documentary

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Body builders prepare for the Mr. Big Man competition.

"I'm cumming day and night. It's terrific. I'm in heaven."

I wish somebody would look at me the way Arnold Schwarzenegger looks at himself in a gym mirror.

Schwarzenegger's charisma and likability despite the narcissism and the creepiness of his persona carries this for a while, and the dedication to this bizarre blend of competitive sculpting and sports keeps things interesting. The Michael Small Nilsson-esque song over the credits with images of old-school flexing was a highlight.

I did not become aroused during a shower scene, and I blame the photographer for that one because I should have.

The Kentucky Fried Movie

1977 comedy

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Comedy!

The humor and the targets for humor are slightly dated in this, but it's a kind of pioneer for this 80's brand of throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks comedy. It certainly puts its dick in a lot of pies--sometimes a raunchy sex comedy, sometimes stepping (or maybe awkwardly falling) over boundaries, sometimes delivering Python-esque absurdism. Mostly, it's just here to be silly, and when it's just silly and not mean spirited, it almost works.

I might have chuckled a single time, at a post-beheading joke in the super-long Enter the Dragon parody. That sequence was well done, only slightly marred by a goofy ending with a too-easy allusion. I might have enjoyed a courtroom episode the best, probably because I have a high pain threshold for terrible puns. That sequence reminded me the most of Airplane, the Zuckers/Abraham-penned comedy that is more successful with these sort of shenanigans. Also almost effective were the "feel-around theater," and the one about zinc oxide. I'll also never object to seeing a scene where a dwarf dressed as a clown whips "Catholic girls in trouble." The dwarf is played by Felix Silla who was also Twiki in Buck Rogers and Misquamacus in The Manitou. He also played an Ewok.

The Color Wheel

2011 siblings comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Siblings go on a road trip to pick up stuff from the sister's ex-boyfriend's place.

Once again, interest in a current release inspires me to check out a director's work. This time, it's Alex Ross Perry. The Color Wheel features unlikable characters, unrealistic dialogue, and an unsavory twist. It's lo-fi, scratchy beauty from people who just want to make a movie, but I found it very easy to like. I'm not sure everybody will, and I know not everybody is going to like the final shot, one that features a door.

Restrepo

2010 documentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Soldiers doing soldiery things in Afghanistan.

The filming of this doesn't seem like it would have been all that safe.

I must have gone numb. I kept making the mistake of thinking this was some well-choreographed piece of war fiction instead of something that was real. It's a harrowing experience.

My favorite bit was during a meeting between the soldiers and some of the locals where one of the men was trying to get a straw in a Capri Sun.

The Secret in Their Eyes

2009 romantic mystery

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A retired lawyer decides to write a book about a rape and murder case from his younger days.

The camera captures a glowing soccer stadium in the center of a dark night. We zoom toward the stadium, as if the camera is in a helicopter or something before diving toward the field. We hear an announcer announcing that so-and-so is driving past so-and-so and passing to so-and-so, and I was already impressed that the announcer's words managed to match what was happening on the field. At least as far as I could tell. I don't know a damn thing about soccer. Then, we float just over the heads of these soccer players and into a raucous crowd. Suddenly, we're right next to our protagonist and his alcoholic little buddy, and I'm already impressed. I know there had to have been digital effects involved in getting us from this blimp view of a stadium to these characters, but any transitions were seamless, and it looked like a single shot to me. But it wasn't done. The camera follows the two characters as they look for somebody, find him as implausible as that seems, and then chase him around. The camera follows the entire time, still in that unbroken long take. A stunt! It's probably a five-to-six minute long take that is easily the highlight of a film that really does have a lot of great moments.

An opening scene, for example, takes an almost avant-garde approach as it shows us an encounter on a train station. It reminded me of a music video from the 80s that I can't quite place, and although there wasn't any context at all for these characters, you knew exactly what was up with their situation. Later, that scene is recalled in a flashback and becomes profound in that sort of way that movie cliches can overcome their overuse and still manage to be profound.

This was gripping even when it was illogical. I liked what the movie was about more than I liked its narrative. What it's about is passion, obsession, and inability to let go of the past, and the way it does that--by intertwining an unrequited romance with a violent criminal act and its subsequent investigation--enhances both parts of the story.

Other than that impressive long take, my favorite part of his is probably where the protagonist and his alcoholic friend go out to do some investigating and abruptly turn the movie into a bumbling buddy cop movie.

Missing Link

2019 cartoon

Rating: 15/20 (Buster: 20/20)

Plot: An adventurer goes on a hunt for a sasquatch, and after he meets one, they have an adventure.

What's Roy Harryhausen think when he sees these modern stop-animation things from studios like Laika and Aardman? Or from Wes Anderson, I guess? I'm a sucker for this kind of stuff, and I'll always have a place in my heart for the antiquated animation that brought King Kong to life or enabled cowboys to fight dinosaurs in something like The Valley of Gwangi.

The ambition of Missing Link is impressive, at least impressive enough for me to not even bother wondering if the movie has any deeper messages or if those messages are timely in this age of Trumpian politics and right-winger faux Christian values. I had issues with an action sequence near the end, probably an odd thing to be irritated about since there are a handful of other ridiculous action sequences including a very cartoonish opening sequence featuring a Nessy-esque sea serpent. It's probably especially odd since this is actually a cartoon, but maybe that's a tribute to how realistic these settings feel and how human the characters appear when they move or emote. But back to that action sequence--characters are defying the laws of physics in a climactic scene, and there's a succession of them all sort of linked (pun maybe intended) together. You wonder if the order of those characters--an order which shifts eventually--is saying something. The movie does seem to want to say something about outdated ideas, the kinds of beliefs that make manly men become manly men, and the clash of those ideas with more progressive ones. I'm just not sure what that is.

But I'm digressing anyway. I wanted to focus on the visual ambition of this movie. There are so many different sets, each with this impressive attention to detail, cluttered background, and textures. The Hugh Jackman character is on a boat in the middle of a foggy lake; in an office filled with pictures and various collected items; on the streets of London, on ships surfing stormy waves, in forests and Wild West towns, in luxurious homes with stained glass windows, on a stagecoach in Monument Valley, in a jungle atop an elephant. . .I could go on, but it would probably spoil some of the adventure. Sir Lionel Frost globetrots like an animated Indiana Jones, and if this was just the main characters--the good guys and the villains--wandering around these lands, that would probably be enough. However, the Laika people aren't happy with just the main characters and their story. There are all sorts of background characters created for this--characters who are entirely insignificant to the actual story but who add flavor to the whole thing--filthy cowboys picking their teeth with giant knife blades, for example. They just kind of blend into the rich background of these worlds Laika's creating here and make this so much fun visually.

Most of the characters--both the main ones and the fringe ones--get chances to be violent, sometimes with firearms, guns that seem even more intimidating because they're so realistic. Part of me wonders if the "message" of this movie has to do with guns.

I'm not sure if I'm done with this review or not.

In a Better World

2010 Best Foreign Film winner

Rating: 11/20

Plot: I don't want to get into it with this one.

I didn't realize until looking it up later that the person responsible for this Best Foreign Picture winner is the same person responsible for Bird Box. That's Susanne Bier. If I thought about it, I bet the flaws of this movie and that Netflix mega-hit are about the same. This one takes a heavyhanded approach to both personal bullies and bullies on a grander scale, trying to make some connection and not really succeeding. Narrative threads are handled in a way that make you think, "Well, a lot of stuff definitely happened!" more than you think any of it happened for a reason.

Shazam!

2019 superhero movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: An origin story for Shazam, a new Avenger.

This is a Christmas movie. It's also an 80's movie.

During the opening scenes, there's a scary car accident while a child rambles about these creepy 7 Deadly Sins sculptures with glowing red eyes and a kid who gets separated from his mother at an amusement park and subsequently orphaned. DC is bringing that artificial movie darkness that I associate with its movies, I thought. Fortunately, things eased up, and this became a kind of PG-13 Deadpool, heavy on humor with plenty of winking though there's no character here who breaks the fourth wall quite like Deadpool. Not all of the jokes land, but that's pretty much what keeps this thing floating when the numerous narrative strands always threaten to sink it. An emotional payoff at the end during your typical wildly frenetic action sequence didn't feel earned, mostly because it involved far too many characters, most who weren't really characters the movie had bothered with actually creating. This also irritated me by leaning too heavily on a mishmash of superhero cliches--character relationships, the villain's motivation--but it at least has as much originality as a superhero origin story can have with the creative ways the story has this kid and his sidekick, the other kid, discover the hero's powers. Too often, however, it stumbles around, seemingly unable to find one voice. With the shocking violence and the scares provided by those 7 Deadly Sins monsters and the cartoonish visual humor, it seems like a movie that wants to both have its fun and bludgeon it, too.

Those bullies--they should have gotten that kid who played Butch the Bully in the Cool Cat Saves the Kid movie. It would have been almost as realistic.

Another Year

2010 movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A year in the life of a married old couple who are happy despite their circle of friends and acquaintances being completely miserable.

My favorite thing about a Mike Leigh movie is that I'm never sure whether I'm supposed to feel happy or sad while watching them. It might depend on the context of the viewer and what characters, lines, or situations that viewer latches onto. The clash between the happily married couple that is the nucleus for all these other characters and the collective of miserable friends who surrounds them manages to intensify the moods. Tom and Gerri (ha!), the couple played by Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen seem even happier contrasted with the pained giggling of Lesley Manville's brand of manic depression, Peter Wight's character who might be a heart attack waiting to happen, and Tom's recently-widowed brother. And those characters' funks are darker in the light of Tom and Gerri's marriage. It's not that this is a major downer through and through or anything because the relationship of Tom and Gerri's son and his girlfriend gives plenty of hope.

The film's structured using four seasons in one year, probably a good choice by Leigh since that's exactly how many seasons a year has. The couple interacts with various friends with Manville, I believe, being the only recurring acquaintance. It's unclear to me whether "spring" or "winter" or whatever have themes or happenings that are especially springy or wintery. I'd probably have to put more thought into that. There's a burgeoning romance. There's a new car. There's a death. Hmm. Maybe there's something smarter about these seasons than what I noticed the first time.

Leigh's dialogue-driven character development is natural. Nothing revolutionary is going on here, and it seems like the sort of movie you'd see all the time. Still, it has this unique flavor. Both the humor and pathos work, creating the kind of movie you almost want to hug.

Terrific final shot, one that leans on the acting of one of these performers.

35 Shots of Rum

2008 movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: No time for a plot synopsis at this time. I apologize for the inconvenience.

I had never seen a Claire Denis movie before but have an interest in her new one, a movie that puts Juliette Binoche in space. I really want to see if she's capable of acting without gravity and oxygen. So I figured I'd watching an earlier Denis film to get a feel for what she does.

What she does isn't much like how other filmmakers would cover the same types of subject matter, and it's a little jarring. It took me a long time to feel this movie's rhythms, but if Denis's other movies are like this, I think I'll end up appreciating what she does more and more. She throws these characters at us with little or no exposition and gives us a slice-of-life glimpse into their lives. This movie is so quiet, and on the surface, there's no real drama. At least there's no big movie drama going on. Below that surface, however, there are all these tiny earthquakes.

Barney's Version

2010 Canadian movie

Rating:15/20

Plot: About three decades of Barney's life as he marries three times and possibly murders somebody.

This might be the best I've seen Paul Giamatti even though he depends a little too much on grunting and various purring noises. That seems to be his deal. But there's a moment in this where he bursts into laughter that might be his best moment ever although I also like a great freak-out he has in this and a scene where he tries to peel a banana.

I just looked up what "boychik" means. My son is going into the Navy, and I'm proud of him. He tested really well (99th percentile) and is likely going to train to be a Navy beekeeper. At some point, I'm going to tell him, "Nice work, boychik." Can I say that to my son if I'm not Jewish?

Dustin Hoffman seems to still be trying in 2010 even though Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium had convinced me otherwise. He's best here at a dinner party where he clashes with one of Barney's wife's parents. Not understanding the word "gratuitously" and complimenting chicken both made me smile.

Lots made me smile in this tragic comedy actually. It's a story loosely told, one that bounces between time periods to tie in this halfassed murder mystery element. Barney's a flawed human being who you almost want to root for. At the very least, you really hope that he doesn't accidentally shoot himself in the leg with a gun he doesn't seem to know how to use. Sure, you're going to wonder how Paul Giamatti manages to seduce any woman, let alone Rachelle Lefevre, Minnie Driver, and Rosamund Pike, the latter who I didn't even know I was in love with until I saw her in that dress at the same time Giamatti's character did. The episodic nature skims along the surface of this character's life, and although it does feel like some of the individual episodes don't really complete, it does create a mosaic succeeding in helping the viewer understand and appreciate this guy and the flaws that make up who he is.

You know, I just thought about that scene where Dustin Hoffman is dancing on bubble wrap in Mr. Magorium and feel the need to apologize to both him and his fans. The guy's a prick though, so I'm not going to bother.

Never Let Me Go

2010 sci-fi romance

Rating: 14/20

Plot: I don't feel like typing a plot synopsis out. I'm sorry.

Alex Garland wrote the screenplay based on a Kazuo Ishiguro novel. I think what I like about it is that nothing is explained to the audience. The movie throws you into this parallel dystopian world where the rules are very unclear. It creates a mysterious vibe where the audience knows just a little less than the characters who inhabit this world. The tone is stiff, not unlike a Yorgos Lanthimos movie.

Thematically, I'm not sure what to make about the whole thing. There's a lot of "soul" business in this, and there's a lot of dialogue that points to themes about "what it means to be human" or some philosophical bullshit like that. All sorts of clues are peppered in where these characters, especially when they're young, are just kind of playing at being human beings.

I liked the cast a lot. Andrew Garfield is jittery, and when he has to unleash a primal scream, he unleashes one hell of one. Kiera Knightley has this subtle rage or modicum of cruelty that she seems to wear on her face. Carey Mulligan is really good as the third member of this love triangle, her strength and despair so quietly delivered.

I don't know the director Mark Romanek and had to look him up. I guess I've seen every film he's ever made since he disowned his debut. It's just this and One Hour Photo, I guess. He makes a lot of music videos because apparently people still make those. There were some great shots in this of things like statues being rained on.

Sally Hawkins is in this.

Who Killed Captain Alex?

2010 Ugandan action movie

Rating: 4/20

Plot: Captain Alex leads an elite squad to take down the Tiger Mafia. That is, until he's killed. After that, his brother--the Ugandan Bruce Lee--gets involved. Action movie!

I've seen a lot of movies in the more-than-a-decade I've written about movies, but I've not seen anything like this Ugandan action movie. As an ultra-low-budget action movie with barely any plot at all, this is nothing new. There are some Birdemic-esque special effects with blood spurts and some helicopter, a helicopter that at one point even flies backwards. There's a ridiculous training montage. There's the Ugandan Bruce Lee (Bruce U, according to our excited narrator [more on him in a bit]), and as a matter of fact, everybody in Uganda seems to know kung fu. There's some terrifically awful music choices, all lifted from elsewhere and including this recurring karaoke version of Seal's "Kiss from a Rose," never used in what you'd say is an appropriate way. I mean, if there is an appropriate way to use a karaoke version of Seal's "Kiss from a Rose" in an action movie.

What makes this memorable is the use of V.J. Emmie, a friend of the director who narrates as a "video joker" in order to help translate the movie for English-speaking audiences and provide some commentary. He interrupts the action frequently, laughs or throws in a "Mamma mia!" when people get shot, reminds us all that this is indeed a movie (including one moment when he just repeats the word "Movie!" over and over again during one action sequence), reminds us that the good guy characters are commandos by saying "Commandos!" over and over, makes fun of the actions, makes cracks about eating German people, occasionally provides his own sound effects, lets us know when there's a "supa kicker" or a "supa rider" onscreen, makes a plea for us all to see another movie called Bad Black, calls a bunch of birds "dinosaurs," invents a new euphemism for sexual intercourse ("beat the rat serious"), turns the thing into a damn musical at one point, and praising the Tiger Mafia's choice in panties. He's awesome, and I'd love him to record Video Joker commentary for any Marvel movie I'm about to watch.

The best-worst actor in this thing is Sserunay Ernest whose best moment is when he destroys a television while crying.

Action movie!

I'll have to check out more in Nabwana I.G.G.'s filmography sometime even though it's the kind of movie that makes me feel like less of a man. This, by the way, almost doesn't exist at all as he had to erase the original movie from his computer in order to make the follow-up. This movie was made for two hundred dollars, and you really have to admit that Nabwana I.G.G. managed to do a lot with what it currently costs to see a movie and buy popcorn and a cola.

The Kids Are All Right

2010 dramedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Two siblings with lesbian parents decide to meet the sperm daughter who made that happen.

This is a slice of a life middle America is unlikely to connect with here, but the relationships feel authentic. Nothing's spelled out with them, the performers doing a good job of letting the characters' pasts and even futures manifest naturally. When this movie's funny, it's funny in a natural way; likewise, when this movie gets sad, it happens naturally.

I enjoyed the dialogue--explanations of Scrabble plays (enough Scrabble in this movie to make me think it's product placement), discussions about whether or not a dog's head should be peed upon, etc.

During most of Mark Ruffalo's scenes, he's fidgeting or eating something. It seems as if he thought that would give the character some personality. "Let me try that scene again, but this time, I'll try it while eating a stick of celery." It worked for me, and if I were a lesbian, I'd likely want to have sex with him. I mean, he does have a motorcycle and all.

I believe it would take me another watch to really figure out what this movie is saying with these relationships and their shifting dynamics.

The Town

2010 crime movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A bank-robbin' crew runs into some issues after their leader falls for a gal whom they kidnapped following a job. The authorities are also onto them, so things aren't looking good.

Both generic and preposterous, The Town really succeeds only in reminding me that movies that take place in Boston usually irritate me. Part of it is because I don't like hearing people talk about the Red Sox. Ben Affleck directed this and made sure to give himself sex scenes with two different women. Congratulations on that, Ben Affleck. Celebrate with a tattoo.

One beautiful shot of one of the crew in a nun mask made me laugh and probably made watching this long movie worth it. It was the perfect expression or whatever the heck was going on.

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

2019 long-awaited movie

Rating: 10/20

Plot: A director returns to the area where he filmed a version of Don Quixote during grad school and loses track of what's real and what's fantasy when he meets up with some familiar faces.

Credit the location scout for most of what's good about this long-awaited Gilliam supposed-to-be masterpiece although Adam Driver doing a Nicolas Cage thing almost works and Jonathan Pryce is really good in the titular role--the Cervantes character, not the man who killed him. This is Gilliam at his sloppiest, and while a Gilliam treatise on creativity and muses that bounces between reality and fantasy without warning looks great on paper, this was confusing and didn't honestly a little boring. It felt patched together, the product of thirty years of frustrating stops and starts. The latter, of course, makes sense.

I really really wanted to like this movie, especially while watching a "making-of" deal following the film, interview and behind-the-scenes snippets that made everybody involved just seem so enthusiastic about what they were doing.

A climactic party scene has a kind of chaotic energy that shows Gilliam might still have something in the tank. I also enjoyed shots from the film-within-the-film representing the earlier work of Adam Driver's character.

Rabbit Hole

2010 drama

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A grieving couple demonstrates questionable decision-making skills following the loss of a child.

"So somewhere out there I'm making pancakes? Or at a water park?"

In some ways, this is heavily-written John Cameron Mitchell drama adapted from a David Lindsay-Abaire has some nice subtle touches, but the goofier, more obvious moments kind of stomp all over those. Nicole Kidman isn't her best here, and neither is Aaron Eckhart, mostly because they're required to act so much. It's a lot of acting.

I did laugh once. There's a moment when a character laughs inappropriately after somebody says "Hi, guys. My daughter died of leukemia," and I laughed right along with him.

Fruit Roll Up product placement.

Humpday

2009 comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Longtime wannabe beatnik pal Andrew pops in for a visit to Ben and his wife, and they decide to make a work of art together. 

I said a long time ago that I wouldn't stop until I saw Mark Duplass without his shirt on! Now, it's time to consider stopping. 

My favorite moment that didn't involve Duplass with his shirt off was Joshua Leonard giving a random high five to a random kid. That's what I'm likely to remember from this movie. 

I liked this movie's mature approach to the subjects of friendship and the frustration of not reaching dreams you don't really even understand. 

The Beach Bum

2019 Harmony Korine movie

Rating: 9/20

Plot: A slacker poet has a series of misadventures in the southern parts of Florida around the time his daughter gets married.

The love/hate relationship--more like a like/eye-roll relationship, to be honest--with giggling avant-manchild Harmony Korine continues with this, something like a mash-up of Trash Humpers and Spring Breakers. It's glossy, it's got some star power, and it shares Spring Breakers' cinematographer, Benoit Debie. At the same time, it drifts as aimlessly as Trash Humpers and shares its juvenile humor. It's predictable in its spontaneity, a movie that's got a single note and plays it over and over like a child with one of those toy xylophones banging the red one over and over again because it's his favorite color. The film's virtually plotless, but it doesn't really do much to create a well-rounded central character either. By the time a "point" to the whole thing emerges, you realize that it's what you figured it would be when you walked it to the theater and that it's really shallow and silly. Harmony Korine, it seems, hasn't evolved intellectually since his senior year in high school.

McConaughey seems like he's having more fun than I did. The performance is better than the movie it tries to carry, and it's hard to imagine anybody else doing what McConaughey is doing here. Snoop Dogg and Jimmy Buffett also make an appearance, and I have doubts that the former even realized he was in a movie. My favorite character Moondog runs into might be Martin Lawrence's Captain Wack unless it's Phil and the gang of homeless.

I've lost faith in Harmony Korine again. Fool me once, Korine, same on you. Fool me all the other times--also shame on you. Do something better than this with your oddball creative energy. This is as silly as those really bad parody movies.

Mother

2009 dark dramedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: When her son is arrested for a murder he later confesses to have committed, a mother tries to find the real killer and free him.

You're definitely a helicopter parent when you feed your grown son some sort of broth while he's taking a leak outside on a wall at a bus stop.

With bookended dance sequences, characters saying random words like "spaghetti" or "armadillo" during a sex scene, the purchase of an umbrella, spinning poop, a lawyer's buffet strategy, and a phallic golf driver, this is easily my favorite Bong Joon-Ho movie. It's got a quietly manic pace, some lovely shots (including the aforementioned opening dance sequence with the titular mother and a transition from the mother and son sleeping to a shot of the body), some offbeat humor, and a genuine mystery that keeps you intrigued for the duration. It also keeps you guessing. You truly never know where this is going next.

After disliking a few Bong Joon-Ho movies and not really loving any, as well as just coming off another bad South Korean movie, I was reluctant to give this a chance, but I'm really glad I did.

Blue Valentine

2010 love story (at least according to the poster)

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A love story.

A bit disappointed that the Tom Waits' song wasn't used here, but Ryan Gosling (or whichever Ryan this is) almost made up for that with his Tiny Tim impressions. There's a lovely moment where he sings "You Always Hurt the One You Love" (which I know thanks to the Spike Jones version) and plays the ukulele while Michelle Williams kind of tap dances. There's another important song used in this, and the rest are taken care of by Grizzly Bear. I think it's the artist Grizzly Bear, not an actual grizzly bear.

This is a tough one to watch as director Derek Cianfrance (whom I do not know) weaves together an almost idyllic courtship between these love birds and what appears to be the end of their marriage about six or seven years later. It's particularly painful because you understand why they appealed to each other and develop a fondness for the idea of the two together. He's got a kind heart and looks like a movie star. She's really smart, and just like the man falling for her, the audience gets to see exactly what she looks like naked, too. So the developing of this romance feels right, natural albeit natural in a fairy-tale sorta way.

That's why the other side of this relationship coin is so painful. The juxtapositions are striking, almost to the point where it seems like it's Michelle Williams and whichever Ryan this is playing a separate couple or something. There's almost no context for the disintegration of this relationship. Both the development of the relationship and really its demise start in medias res, so we don't really know whether he's to blame or she's to blame or whether both are equally at fault here. There are hints here and there, but there's nothing concrete, leading at least this viewer to wonder if a final straw really made that much sense.

Ryan Gosling has a "Giving Tree" tattoo in this. I think that might be a major clue.

As much as I liked that song and dance number mentioned above, my favorite scene is earlier when Gosling performs a kind gesture for a character who isn't all that significant to the story, one that has the type of music you'd expect to accompany a kind gesture in an indie movie. That didn't stop it from touching me, however.

The Ghost Writer

2010 thriller

Rating: 14/20

Plot: After one ghost writer dies, another writer is hired to finish up the memoirs of a former English prime minister. While working on the project, controversy about that prime minister's legacy comes out, and the writer finds himself in for more than he bargained for.

This doesn't feel that much different than your typical Hollywood thriller, but Polanski does know how to direct a suspenseful scene. I liked almost all of the main performances here, especially Pierce Brosnan's, but three things really stood out to make this worth watching.

1) Eli Wallach's brief performance as "old man who has been around for a long time"
2) All the shots of the perpetually-sweeping guy right outside the home Brosnan's characer was i
3) Alexandre Desplait's score

I kept expecting Ewan McGregor's head to catch fire when he was riding that bicycle around on the beach.

Certified Copy

2010 drama

Rating: 17/20

Plot: While visiting Italy, an author meets a single mom who owns and antiques store, and she agrees to drive him around for some sightseeing.

My assessment of the work of Abbas Kiarostami was off. I'd only see two of his movies--Taste of Cherry and Close-Up--and while I knew that he can be meta and blur the line between film and reality, I went into this expecting something a little dry, straightforward, maybe minimalist. Early on, I was comfortable enough. The motivations of the two characters as they begin this journey together wasn't clear. Was she going to attempt to seduce him or was there something about him or his writings that had wronged her, causing her to have some sort of vendetta against him? Was he bored, horny, a combination of bored and horny?

For the first chunk of movie, I felt I had a handle on this Before Trilogy-esque developing romance or whatever it was, and I was trying to piece together themes having to do withoriginals and copies, living simply, hedonism, the nature of art (cypress trees and Coca Cola), and children as miniature philosophers. So at a key moment when a kind of twist appears, I was surprised, and I ended up watching the rest of the movie with my mouth wide open.

Of course, that's usually how I watch movies anyway. It's why I stopped going to theaters. Kids kept tossing popcorn into my open mouth as some sort of childish game, and on two separate occasions, I nearly choked.

So I guess I had forgotten how avant-ornery Kiarostami could be, how playfully tricky. Because during the rest of this movie, I got a stress headache from trying to figure out exactly what I was seeing, what clues I likely missed, and what it all meant.

I still don't know! But I haven't stopped thinking about it since, finally figuring out that I'm not supposed to understand the nature of these two characters' relationship or at which point in the movie they're playing some elaborate game of grown-up pretend.

Juliette Binoche is something else. Every time I see her in a movie, I'm surprised at how good she is, how she very well might be one of the greatest actresses who's every lived. She's emotionally all over the place, one of those performances that seems like it would take a lot out of an artist. She won best actress at Cannes for this, and I imagine whoever decides the winners of those sorts of things probably only needed to see the one scene where she puts on lipstick to decide that. William Shimell compliments her very well in what apparently was a first movie role for him. Kiarostami gives us intimate looks at these two, a lot of shots having them speak directly to the camera. And while the sights on their sightseeing tour really are beautiful, the focus is rarely on any of them. Heck, even a key statue that becomes the center of the dialogue at one point is never really even seen.

So a faux character study with plenty of philosophical red herrings, twisty and filled with mirrors and repeated lines and doppelgangers, Certified Copy is a reminder that I need to start paying more attention to the filmography of Abbas Kiarostami. And not underestimate how ornery he could be.

I Saw the Devil

2010 revenge thriller

Rating: 8/20

Plot: After a serial killer murders his girlfriend, a guy seeks torturous revenge.

You feel every bit of this movies 2 hour and 20 minute running time. I think what I watched on a popular streaming site may have even been abridged because when I looked the movie up on Wikipedia to help clear up something in the plot synopsis, I noticed a sex scene mentioned that I didn't get the chance of enjoying. I can't think of any reason why this movie needs to exist at all, so I surely can't think of any reasons why it would need to exist for 2 hours and 20 minutes.

I have no issues with violence in movies, and sometimes, as sick as it might sound, I even enjoy a bit of it. With the violence in this, you just have to wonder what the point is. Jee-Woon Kim, as a director, seems to take great pleasure in inflicting violence upon his characters, especially women. There's a big difference between the way violence against women is shown compared to most of the violence against the men. The scenes with men are flashy, filled with quick edits and a cartoonish chaos. The male characters, up until the points where they lose their entire heads, dust themselves off and limp off to see another scene, almost like they're in a Warner Brothers cartoon instead of something that is supposed to be taken seriously.

The violence toward women, on the other hand, is shown differently. Kim really seems to enjoy watching the female characters in great distress, the camera lingering on these moments so that we realize they're not just going to be able to dust themselves off again but have to deal with the psychological trauma for the rest of their lives. If they have any more life left, of course. You know how this movie could have been a lot shorter? Less slow scenes where the director seems to be punishing the gender for the sins of girls who didn't return his attention in high school. And that panties shot, Kim? How necessary was that one?

The violence is graphic and the special effects involved in making it appear as if actual human beings are losing body parts or being pummeled or perforated are good enough for Kim to show on the screen for three times longer than they should be shown. There's a nice sense of style with some of these scenes--some lovely stylish shots when a character gets stabby in a taxi, for example--but the stylish slow pans or close-ups of cigarettes being lit or whatever started to wear me down as much as the ultra-violence after a while. At one point, we get to watch a character dig around in his own shit for something, and by the end of this tale of "real revenge, true revenge," it started to feel like I was being asked to do something similar.

Lingering questions: Why does the cannibal guy have such a hot girlfriend? And how did our main serial killer even befriend the cannibalistic serial killer? Aren't they supposed to be loners? Did they meet up after connecting on a message board or something?

Beginners

2010 romantic comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Following a shocking announcement and the death of his father, a guy taking care of a needy dog meets a new love interest.

This might demand a little more intellectual attention than I was willing to put into it. My mind thought I was watching a romantic comedy, so I think it might have shut down a little too much. There are some pieces to this that don't seem to fit narratively or thematically, and it's possible that that's entirely my fault.

Time comes up again and again, for example. What's all this time business?

I also felt like I needed more time with some of the characters' relationships. None of them--and that probably includes the Jack Russell terrier's relationships--have enough time to develop in satisfying ways. I thought the romance at the heart of this, likely because we're seeing this from Obi-Wan's perspective and know exactly where his mind's at, made sense from his side of things, but now I'm not convinced it wasn't as superficial as me also being smitten by a quirky-cute Melanie Laurent. She's apparently attracted to moping. Plummer, I suppose, is just horny. Goran Visnijic, as his boyfriend, had a haircut that I didn't trust, and I kept waiting for something nefarious to be revealed about him. When it wasn't, it was hard to pin down exactly what that character was about. And then there's the mother, another character I just couldn't pin down.

Maybe pinning down the characters isn't what this is about. And maybe it's not what any movie is supposed to be about. I enjoyed seeing the characters interact, the leads are very likable and one of them might even be lovable, the offbeat score adds a nice flavor, and that dog is stinkin' cute. Sometimes, the quirky asides and narrated bits are a little distracting.

I wonder if this could have worked better as a television mini-series.

Meek's Cutoff

2010 Western

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Folks venturing west in covered wagons start to doubt their guide, a shaggy hippie named Meek. Things get more complicated when they collect a Native American.

I know exactly why I've avoided this movie for so long--it's because the poster tricked me into thinking Renee Zellweger was involved. That's not her at all--it's Michelle Williams.

I finished this movie not thinking I liked it very much at all but convinced myself on a drive to the grocery store that it's better than I thought. It's easy to appreciate how economical Kelly Reichardt's storytelling is, and although initially I wondered if a lot of what was happening or being said in this movie was either redundant or inconsequential, the more I think about it, the more I think every single little detail in this might matter.

That includes the squeaky wagon wheel.

A couple lines of dialogue in here key the viewer in on what this is about, and what it is about seems just as important to America today as it is to these characters in this specific manifest destiny situation. There's a feminist reading of this, female characters often pushed into the background while men wrestle with manly decisions. They sew and wash and do traditional womanly tasks while the men discuss whether to murder people or grow facial hair. The difference between men and women is discussed by the titular guide, but his description of women as agents of chaos and men as agents of destruction didn't make a lot of sense to me.

Another line has to do with Meek himself and whether he is ignorant or evil. You're forced to wonder if certain kinds of ignorance are forms of evil. He does seem to be an expert on hell, however, telling the other characters at different times that "Hell's full of bears" or that "Hell's full of Indians" or that "Hell's full of mountains." Like the other characters on this journey, you get no information at all on anything that took place before the movie started, but you do get the feeling that he's seen some version of watered-down hell and hasn't learned much of anything from the experiences.

Another piece of dialogue I liked during one of the sewing scenes: a reference to all the things that white people have created that are even more impressive than needles.

One thing I didn't like much was the acting and the general look of these characters or their covered wagons. This lacked authenticity, almost like the actors were working at some kind of living history museum instead of making a film. I did kind of like Bruce Greenwood's performance even though what he's doing kind of clashes with the lack of voice the rest of this has. Maybe that's part of the point.

I'm going to think about this one a little bit more, probably because I'm as persistent as a squeaky wagon wheel.

Incendies

2010 drama

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Following the death of their mother, twins have to find a father they thought was deceased and a brother they didn't know existed.

Confusion about some characters' motivations and way too many references to math got in the way of me completely feeling this movie.

I'd tell you the movie this reminded me of, but I think that would probably be too much information.

Nostalgia for the Light

2010 documentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Filmmaker Patricio Guzman looks into the work of astronomers, archaeologists, and women searching for their loved ones' remains in the Atacama Desert.

The Atacama Desert--that spot of brown you can see on earth when looking at it from space, the driest place on the planet, a Mars-like terrain where a translucent heaven makes it a perfect place to search the cosmos. I'm pretty sure I could have just watched a documentary on the Discovery Channel or something about the desert, but director Patricio Guzman has other things in mind. This is a documentary about time, about memory as a gravitational force, about the pain of absence or loss, about where we come from and where we've been, about how a puff of air is capable of destroying a present that might not even exist, and about the stars' ability to preserve inner freedom. The Atacama Desert, it just so happens, is the perfect location for a documentary essay on those things because you've got all these scientists with their giant expensive telescopes taking advantage of the aforementioned translucent skies to get answers about our past while all these women are searching the dry grounds for answers about their own individual pasts. It truly is, as the filmmaker suggests, a "gateway to the past."

I have no background at all on Pinochet or Chilean history. You probably don't either, but you know what both of us can enjoy? Space porn!

The use of space dust (or something) was maybe overdone, but there are a lot of beautiful shots in this thing. My favorite shot was probably a dark silhouette searching the ground with a lone star in the dusk sky. It's the kind of shot that pretty much captures everything this movie is trying to say.

Like Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun?, another documentary about dark times in a country that the country hasn't quite shaken off yet, this depends a lot on visuals and has a lot of narration. They have some things in common stylistically. This one's much, much better though.

I don't know why I'm bringing that other documentary up. It doesn't seem very nice to pick on that movie while writing about this movie.

Le Quattro Volte (The Four Times)

2010 movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: An old shepherd coughs on his goats. Anything else would spoil the movie!

Shepherd? Goat herder? Can you be called a shepherd if you're not working with sheep? The more movies I watch, the less I seem to know about the world.

By the way, how does one direct a goat? Or a dog? Or a tree? Because I'm pretty sure all those non-humans are being "directed" here.

Michelangelo Frammartino is not a filmmaker with whom I am familiar, but you can tell from this that he doesn't know you're allowed to use music in a movie. The only sound heard in this would be the wind and goat ambiance. Mostly goat ambiance which, I found out, is capable of making me giggle. That lack of sound does include, you should know, any audible dialogue. The goat herder coughs a whole lot, and there's some background chatter (and lots of goat chatter) but none of it must be very important since there are no subtitles provided. There aren't any for the goats either. Or the tree.

So this requires a lot of patience, but you need to pay attention to the smaller details. Otherwise, you're going to miss a trio of flies. You're not going to miss the stand-out scenes--a game of "King of the Hill" with goats, a goat birth, tree hoisting--but you might miss those flies. And those flies are important!

You definitely won't miss the most impressive shot I've seen in a very long time, a Tati-esque look at the little village preparing for some sort of Easter procession thing, the Easter procession thing, dog hijinks, a truck doing a truck thing, and those goats doing some goat things. It's all in an unbroken 8-or-so minute shot that I can't believe was pulled off. It might be the most amazing thing I've ever seen in a movie about goats.

Anyway, I don't want to spoil anything. If you have the patience for a movie like this (it really reminded me a lot of Hukkle if you know that one), see this and explain what it's all about. I thought it was about reincarnation or something. Wikipedia tells me it's about some theory of Pythagoras, but I can't recall triangles being important to this at all.

This is my new favorite movie!

The Fighter

2010 boxing movie

Rating: 12/20

Plot: Put all the other boxing movies in a blender, add in a wacky Christian Bale, and throw in an extraneous scene where characters admire Amy Adams' posterior in a pair of cut-offs. Pour in a glass. That's The Fighter.

I'm catching up with movies I missed from 2010. This was missed because I was completely wrong about Christian Bale and thought he was a terrible actor, didn't like Mark Wahlberg at all, and didn't think anything in here could possibly justify its existence as yet another boxing underdog story. And at first, it seemed as if I was wrong. The movie seemed to have the kind of personality that could help it stand out from all the other boxing movies. It was lively, and there was some humor that I didn't expect.

Unfortunately, you realize that almost all the initial momentum is provided by Christian Bale and the eccentric character he's transformed himself into. He's part of an oddball cocaine-fueled collection, and his gaunt appearance, hyperactive physicality, and sketchy-looking bald spot help him fit right in. He moves and punches well enough to be convincing enough as a washed-up, strung-out former contender, and he's simultaneously dangerous and loving enough to almost make what is supposed to be the emotional pay-off to this whole thing work. His performance almost overwhelms this thing, forcing Wahlberg more to the corner of the ring.

Wahlberg, more of a straight man, remains at least a co-protagonist, and that's probably unfortunate because his part of the movie has soaked up all those boxing movie cliches. By the midway point, almost all the boxing cliches had been covered. I was really just waiting for the big training montage, and you know what? I got training montages.

I also still don't understand Amy Adams. Somebody explain Amy Adams to me. Is it just me or could you substitute her with Jenna Fischer in every one of her movies and not lose a thing?

I almost forgave this movie for everything at a point when Bale sees a dog and interrupts everything going on in the story to ask if it's a Cocker Spaniel.

I was looking up the name of the actress who played Wahlberg's daughter because even though her time on screen is limited ("Yeah! Bigger apartment!"), she's got a chance at my end-of-year Tootie award. I noticed that this movie's got characters named or nicknamed Dicky, Micky, Mickey, Little Alice, Pork, Tar, Red Dog, Boo Boo, and Sugar Ray.

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

2011 crime movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Policemen, a doctor, the prosecutor, and a couple of guys with shovels are taken all over the place by a pair of brothers who have committed a murder in search of the victim's body. During the adventure, the prosecutor shares a story with the doctor.

The visuals hooked me during the first forty-five minutes or so of a movie in which not all that much is happening. Actually, the appearance of the Turkish Buddy Hackett right at the beginning was enough to get me emotionally invested. This story--a police procedural where the movie's more concerned with showing characters' conversations about yogurt than anything exciting like a murder--moves about as slowly as a movie's story can move. It takes its time, and initially, you wonder if there's even any reason for the movie to move that slowly. As a person who enjoys that sort of aesthetic, I was happy anyway, but then the character development sneaked up on me. These characters grew in surprising ways, and along with the surprising bits of dark humor and the really beautiful cinematography, that made the first half of this about as exciting as a boring movie can be.

Things pick up, revelations are made by characters, and the viewer is left to decide what to make of it all. It's all wonderful, but there are three stand-out moments:

1) some sound effects near the end that I can't get into much because I wouldn't want to spoil anything but you'll know them when you hear them

2) an angel, a rare female presence in this world of men with manly problems, who serves some beverages and the way she's illuminated

3) an impossible, just miraculous rolling apple that I still can't believe I saw

Bob le Flambeur

1956 crime drama

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A respected but down-on-his-luck gambler considers a drastic move to change his luck.

Everything in this movie, one that is cool as cool can be, exists in the in-between. It opens in a gray, silent time between dusk and dawn. The place is described as being between heaven and hell. There's a gap existing between Bob and his mentee and the female drifter they befriend. Bob's straddling a line between barely getting by financially and not getting by at all, a man who is in a valley between what the viewer assumes are lucky streaks.

The majority of the narrative involves characters meticulously planning and practicing each step of this heist they're attempting to pull off. But since this is a movie that exists in the in-between, it's a heist in limbo. Sure, things happen at the end, but this movie very well could have ended with all of the characters involved in the planning of the heist looking at each other, deciding the whole thing is a terrible idea, shrugging their shoulders, and going on their separate ways. Bob is comfortable in the moments before the dawn of the heist. He's just too damn cool for the excitement, so my favorite parts of the movie show him pre-excitement when he's in his element.

I really like Roger Duchesne here, a guy who brings this effortless cool to the titular flambeur. I like how everybody in his circle has to know that he's not even all that great at flambeuring, but he's still treated like he's royalty. And I loved Isabelle Corey as the young drifter he invites into his abode, one complete with his own slot machine. He picks her up, it should be noted, because he's a gentleman, not because he's horny. I was surprised at just how much of her the camera picked up, especially since she had to have been 16 or 17 when this was filmed. But you know, it was France.

Nearly stealing the movie are a panting dog and a xylophone/vibes player, the latter who gets plenty of time on screen and really knows how to take advantage of the opportunity.

Favorite line of dialogue: "The lessons are expensive, and the pupils never learn."

Jane B. for Agnes V.

1988 biographical portrait

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A look at the singer/actress Jane Birkin.

This is the kind of biographical portrait that only Agnes Varda could assemble. Interview chunks, slice-of-life glimpses of the actress in her home or with her family, fantasy sequences, art tableau, and even Laurel and Hardy impressions create a mosaic that doesn't give you much factual information about Jane Birkin's life or career but succeeds in creating her as a human being and helps you understand her personality. The latter, as well as Varda's style in presenting this woman, is charming. At one point, one of them (Varda, who appears in this a handful of times, or Birkin) says, "We agreed the film would wander." Wander it does, in that typical way that Varda's documentaries tend to wander. As a documentary filmmaker, she's less interested in justifying beliefs she has or sharing her ideas with the world. Instead, she's interested in exploration to get a better understanding of how people and places function or even a better understanding of herself. Here, she explores Jane Birkin in ways that are just lovely. And no, I'm not talking about scenes in which Birkin appears on screen sans clothing.

Speaking of that, there are a few surrealistic touches in some of these fantasy sequences, as well as some references to Dali and Magritte and these wonderful paintings I couldn't identify that were on the walls during a roulette wheel scene. My favorite scene shows that roulette wheel a second time, this time with the gamblers all nude and with a pair of naked guys on stilts for some reason.

Nipples on statues, a gloriously hopeless belly dance ("You're as sexy as a locust to them."), a wonderful use of a metronome, an eruption of flies on Venus, a story about puking carrots, a slow pan along the curves of a naked body. There's a lot to love about this one.

Oh, this directly references Kung Fu Master!, and it likely even helps clear up some of the themes of that movie.

Between Worlds

2018 Nicolas Cage movie

Rating: 8/20

Plot: A truck driver gets involved with a woman who can bring back the dead when she's being strangled. Or something. It doesn't make a lot of sense.

"I know that nothing has made any sense." A character said that, and it's as accurate as anything I can think to type about this movie. I don't even know what I want to say! Actually, I know one thing I want to say, so I'll type a "1" and then start a list and see where that takes us.

1) The first thing that needs to be mentioned might be my new favorite Nicolas Cage moment. The man's had his moments, but has he ever had a sex scene in which a partner asks him to read to her, a request he obliges by pulling out a book of poetry called "Memories" by Nicolas Cage and reading really bad poetry? No, he hasn't. An actor playing a character named Joe reading a book by the actor? That's the kind of thing that can demolish eighth walls in octagon-shaped rooms that only exist in your freakin' mind!

2) As a trucker with a mullet, the character Cage resembles most here is Cameron Poe from Con Air. However, he makes a reference to a woman's "peach juice" at one point which sounds more like Castor "I Can Eat a Peach for Hours" Troy from Face/Off. According to extensive notes I've taken on the subject, there are also peach references in Wild at Heart (he's offered one), Zandalee (he offers to share one with Judge Reinhold), Rage ("She's a peach."), and probably Windtalkers, a movie I've not seen.

3) I've decided that Nicolas Cage, likely because he's the kind of actor people are just dying to work with, gets carte blanche with his lines. For the longest time, I've assumed that screenwriters have just been good at giving him Nicolas Cage things to say, but now I'm thinking the stuff that comes out of his craziest characters' mouths have to come from the depths of Cage's own soul. How else do you explain the following:

"I'm gonna drain the main vein." That's a reference to urination, naturally.
"Does the tin man have a sheet metal cock?" That's a "Does a bear poop in the woods?" type of rhetorical question.
"Hold me, baby. Hold daddy tight." That's. . .I don't know what this is exactly. He says it while sneaking a swig of somebody else's medicine though, and the woman he says it to seems to roll her eyes after the line.
"Next time, why don't you wrestle a mangator." Anyway, I think that's what he said. You know, because "Why don't you pick on someone your own size?" or "Why don't you fight a man?" would have been too normal. We have to get "mangator" in there.

4) I would like to talk about the music. I don't know how much Angelo Badalamenti did, but I know he did the opening theme. That's pretty good actually, a haunting introduction to the supernatural shenanigans about to take place. The rest of the score is just awful, and there's way too much of it.

5) Two musical bits really stand out--one is the use of a Marilyn Manson song which, combined with the Badalamenti use, made me wonder if director Maria Pulera wants to be the next David Lynch or something. The other was the use of "Leader of the Pack" which baffled me. I can't reveal what was going on when that song came on, but it was during a "big" moment in the narrative, and "Leader of the Pack" didn't connect at all. I kept thinking there was some irony I was missing, but I don't think that was the case either. It was just baffling.

6) It was a stuffed bunny in Con Air. In this, the toy prop Cage gets to hold like it's a skull in Hamlet and act his mullet off with is a jack-in-the-box. During a moment when he holds it and weeps, I wept right along with him.

7) He also has a bitchin' shirt in this, one with a big alligator head on it. Or maybe it's a crocodile head. As people who have read the quality content I create here know, I don't know the difference between an alligator and a crocodile. But I know a bitchin' shirt when I see one!

8) If I had to pick a second-favorite character, it's probably the guy who tells Nicolas Cage that somebody is taking his truck. "Hey, Joe, they're taking your truck" guy. Or maybe it's "Rick" played by Hopper Penn, one of Sean Penn's kids. Rick is one of the daughter's stoner friends who I think might be around for comic relief. "I mean, I know we suck. . ." I'm not sure because large chunks of this movie seem to be comic relief.

9) The worst acting is done by Franka Potente. At times, she has a German accent, sounding a little like a female Tommy Wiseau. At other times, the accents not there. There is a random reference to her coming from Germany that I think had to be included after the filmmakers realized that it sounds like she has an accent at different points in the movie.

10) Maybe that accent is why Cage's character seems perpetually confused throughout this movie. At one point, his character was pretending (I think?) to not remember how to have sex (I think?), saying, "I don't even remember how to have sex. Sex?" And by that point, I've seen the character look entirely confused about everything else, so I just wasn't sure. Of course, a really intense sex scene with a lot of animalistic grunting occurred directly after that, so I guess he figured it out.

11) I recently made a list of my favorite films from 1973, and I bumped The Exorcist a few notches higher on that list. The reason was because I had just watched this movie, and Cage, during one of the sex scenes, asks the woman he's banging to say "Fuck me" like Linda Blair in that movie. I'm sure this is another case where Cage got to improvise.

12) This movie might contain Nicolas Cage's worst line delivery in his entire career. "You'd never hurt her." I think he might be holding the jack-in-the-box when he says that one.

13) "Golden shower!" If you've seen this movie, that might make you laugh.

14) Here's a conversation from this movie that I think I've actually had at some point in my life:

"Put your fucking pants on! You're gross!"
"Well, I don't know what makes you says that."

Speaking of this scene, it makes two movies from 2018 where Nicolas Cage gets to do his thing while wearing a ridiculous shirt and his underpants.

15) "Co-ouch!" I'm not going to criticize this one because it's really clever.

16) People who know me know that I love when Nicolas Cage points in exaggerated ways. That point has seemed to evolve into something else in this movie--a weird, gnarled hand gesture that looks like the bastard spawn of the Nicolas Cage point. I loved it!

17) Another hand gesture--this movie (which is poorly edited, by the way) has a bit of dialogue where Cage's character is talking about his dead daughter. He says, "She was five" and holds up his hand and all five fingers as a visual aid. And then the editing shows him raising his hand and showing five fingers a second time. I don't think I was supposed to start laughing at that point, but I did.

18) I don't know which was worse in this movie--the camera work or the pointless flashback that ended the movie.

19) I'm placing this movie--without doing any actual thinking about this--in my top ten Nicolas Cage performances. Between this, that scene in the bathroom in Mandy, and the pool table demolition in Mom and Dad, this is an actor at the peak of his powers. We are in the middle of a golden age of Nicolas Cage, my friends.

20) Ok, that's all I've got.

Kung Fu Master!

1988 drama

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Approaching middle age, a mother of two falls for a 14-year-old classmate of one of her daughters and probably crosses a few lines.

An Agnes Varda movie called Kung Fu Master!, complete with that exclamation point at the end of the title, always intrigued me, and her recent death gave me the excuse I needed to finally check it out. The story--one involving a middle-aged Jane Birkin having a romantic relationship (and possibly a physical one) with a 14-year-old played by Varda's son--should be more challenging than it winds up being on screen which is a testament to the empathy Varda has for her characters and the tender way this story unfolds on the screen. You never feel that the protagonist is doing the right thing here, but you don't quite think of Birkin's character as a villain either. And you deeply understand what this character's feeling, mostly from the way Varda chooses to shoot her although some inner monologue is shared in voice over.

The movie is called Le Petit Amour in the U.S., and that's really odd for two reasons. First, it's called Kung Fu Master! everywhere else, so you'd think in America, a country where some variation of English is spoken, you'd get an English title instead of a French one. Second, Kung Fu Master! is the best title ever, and calling it something else just seems like a terrible decision.

The title is from a video game that I remember playing on the Nintendo. The movie opens in the goofiest way possible with a kid walking down the sidewalk while practicing kung-fu moves, moves accompanied by video game sound effects. There are quite a few shots where Varda just shows us this kid playing the video game. And then there are shots of Birkin watching the kid as he plays the video game, and again, what should be creepy somehow manages to be touching. Maybe if it wasn't French, I'd be appalled.

Eggs are apparently a turn-on in this, and there's a puzzling moment where a trio of characters are imitating birds. And there are lots of references to AIDS and condoms, enough to convince me that there was a thematic link to that particular 1980's fear.

Anyway, I'm sad about Varda's death, mostly because she had enough life in her to make it seem like two people died instead of just one. I watched her other movie with Birkin from 1988 (Jane B. for Agnes V.) which I'll write about in a bit.

Did You Wonder Who Fired the Gun?

2017 documentary

Rating: 12/20

Plot: The filmmaker explores some family history, specifically his grandfather's murder of a black man.

An important and unfortunately timeless subject is addressed in this personal exploration, but the style made me feel like I was watching an audiobook. About 25% of this movie is a reddened shot of somebody driving down a road. Another 60% consists of still black and white shots. 10% of the movie is just shots of foliage. The rest of it is "ominous clacking" (that's what the closed captioning said multiple times), some backwards blues singing, a shot of a deer covered in flies, and a bunch of shots of trees. Oh, I already mentioned the trees, didn't I?

It's saturated in narration, so much that if there was any voice except for writer/director Travis Wilkerson in this thing, I can't remember any of them because of how much Travis Wilkerson was in there. Wilkerson tells us a lot while we look at those trees. He tells us all about talking to people, he reads us letters, and he tells us about what it's like to drive around. He doesn't explain what all the "ominous clacking" is about.

It's easy to appreciate what Wilkerson is trying to do here and his willingness to engage in an honest exploration of his family's history that I imagine would be painful and exhausting. It's a story of white privilege and racism and the stories of other human beings being cut short, and those are important to talk about. And that's exactly what Wilkerson does--talks and talks and talks. And shows us those trees.

Captain Marvel

2019 superhero movie

Rating: 9/20

Plot: Yet another superhero origin story.

This should anger feminists. After 73 Marvel superhero cartoons, a female character finally gets to be the protagonist in one of them. That's the good news. The bad news is that the movie is a terrible combination of vapid and derivative, and that main character is played by Brie Larson whose lack of charisma causes her to be upstaged by both a Samuel L. Jackson enhanced by special effects and a cat. Oh, and Ben Mendelsohn who is playing a character who could almost have been in Waititi's Thor movie.

Actually, before I really begin, I need to talk about the odd synchronicity with this movie and Us. What are the odds in 2019 that I'd see one movie in a theater, sneak into a second movie, and find out that both movies have shots of VHS copies of The Right Stuff?

If there's a decade worse than the 80's, it might be the 90's. This is filthy with cutesy clever references to that decade, and they didn't succeed in adding to the story or its central character or being funny. I guess I'm supposed to laugh at the appearance of antiquated businesses like Blockbuster or Radio Shack? Is a Nine Inch Nails shirt supposed to get me excited? Those cheap references--the cheapest of all being the use of a too-obvious song during a boring climactic fight scene--added to these Marvel Easter eggs bugged me. A frenemy of mine praised this while slamming the Han Solo movie and the Star Wars prequels for giving us information about C3PO or the origin of Han Solo's name, but Captain Marvel explaining why Fury has an eyepatch or showing us that stupid blue cube again and forcing me to try to remember what the hell that's all about or showing us why the Avengers are called the Avengers seem equally silly.

The female empowerment angle is clumsy, the action scenes are clunky and uninspiring, the sci-fi special effects are mostly ugly, and the disjointed narrative isn't nearly as clever as it thinks it is. This succeeds in a few scenes where Jackson and Larson are buddy-copping it up because their rapport is good, but for the most part, it's a major Marvel misstep heading into this next Avengers movie which I'm pretty sure is going to be hugely disappointing.