Ninotchka

1939 romantic comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: I have no time to write a plot synopsis. 

The biggest disappointment here might be that this is not a 1939 ninja movie. 

Early flirtation attempts by Melvyn Douglas reminded me of my own, always ending with the lady I was interested in saying something like "Your type will soon be extinct." There are lines in this Wilder/Brackett screenplay that sparkle, and when this contrasts the harsh and comically practical and completely humorless Garbo with the more poetic, idealistic, and funny Douglas, this really sizzles. I'm not sure the movie is as good once Garbo's character cracks. 

I just used the words "sparkle" and "sizzles" in this, and it's deeply disturbing, probably for everybody. 

What I can appreciate about this '39 romantic comedy is that it's not one of those typical romances where two people meet and unrealistically fall in love. No, this has more to do with two characters being horny. 

Speaking of horny, how about that trio of Russian dudes? "Comrades, if we ring nine times?" That's a great line. 

Bachelor Mother

1939 romantic comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A woman who works in a department store finds an abandoned infant and winds up having to be his mother in order to keep her job.

Never has child abandonment been funnier than in this movie!

I watched this because it's on my brother-in-law Cory's top-ten list from 1939, but I didn't have high expectations. But holy mackerel! It was a delightful gem of a movie with charming lead performances from Ginger Rogers and David Niven and lots of very funny moments. It made me long for a time when people used words like "holy mackerel" and "corny" or when women all had alliterative names.

Man, they sure get a lot of mileage out of these wind-up Donald Duck toys. Though I'm sure 1930's department stores really did employ women to stand at a counter and wind up duck toys all day, it's still a little hard to believe. Those ducks were superimposed over a work montage, came into play again when one is decapitated, and even had a major role to play in the film's climax. Donald Duck's even in the credits, and so is voice actor Clarence Nash who voiced the irritable, pants-free fowl.

The cast list also tells me that Elbert Coplen Jr. played the baby. Now that's a performance! I'm willing to bet Coplen had his parents leave him somewhere so that he could really understand this character's background. He's the Daniel-Day Lewis of baby actors. Surprisingly, this was Coplen's only role.

Speaking of babies, there's a point when Niven gives the advice, "Why not have it sleep on its stomach?" This was a fairly popular movie, I think, and you have to wonder how many occurrences of Infant Death Syndrome were because mothers trusted the screenplay.

Do I buy all the relationships in this movie? People sure fell in love easily during this decade, and there's another moment where Rogers says, "Nobody can come between you and me" to the baby which was absurd since they'd had about 30 seconds of shared screen time at that point. But the comedy is so charming that I guess I can forgive all of that.

The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum

1939 Japanese drama

Rating: 17/20

Plot: The adopted son in an acting family falls for his baby brother's wet-nurse.

Apparently, you can buy wind chimes from a street vendor at 2 in the morning in Japan.

Despite long sequences where characters are cutting watermelon, preparing tea, or trying to get a trunk of a flight of stairs, this is exquisite. Those scenes probably help this succeed in making it seem as if long, lonely chunks of time really do pass. This skips a year at one point and four years at another, and both time, it really does feel like that amount of time has passed for these characters.

A lot of that might have to do with Mizoguchi's use of long takes. As you probably know if you've spent any time reading my poorly-written movie reviews, I'm a sucker for the long take. There's something a little static about a lot of the shots in this, but the camera angles are almost always interesting, and some of the movements from room to room are just wonderful during these extended takes. There's rarely anything showy about anything Mizoguchi is showing us, but just the natural angles of the architecture or details in the background kept my eyes glued to the screen. There is one pan to some rain that is absolutely heartbreaking, especially with another shot that it leads to where a character ends up by a tree.

I also liked how there were lots of people peeking through windows or surreptitiously watching the characters over pieces of furniture in the backgrounds. The first couple of times, I wondered if it was a mistake, some extra not being in the right spot or realizing he or she was in the shot.

The score almost has somebody singing along with some percussion or koto strumming. I couldn't tell if it was a score or if somebody was always singing in the vicinity of these characters. It was often very lovely though.

There are a few plays within the film, kabuki stuff that was visually neat but completely bewildering, at least to me. I kept trying to find a connection between those plays and the ideas about art and love this couple's story was developing, but I couldn't find anything there. I do think there must be something in the way the actor becomes this phenom after playing a woman on stage and the importance of this woman in his life.

Destry Rides Again

1939 Western

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A corrupt town loses a sheriff and promotes the local drunk to the position. He quits drinking and hires Destry, the son of some guy named Destry, as deputy with the hopes of cleaning up the town. When Destry arrives with no guns and falls for a European song 'n' dance gal, he wonders if he's made the right decision.

This movie's opening--a slow pan down the streets of Bottleneck after the town's welcome sign's shown being shot up--reminded me of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean ride. It featured these Western-looking characters doing vaguely Western things with a whole bunch of shouts of "Yeee-whoo!" All we needed was a "Yee-who, yee-who, a cowboy's life for me." And I guess a boat.

I was worried initially, but once we meet the characters frequenting the saloon where the majority of action in this takes place, I was on board. I liked Charles Winninger as the banjo-strumming drunkard who would inexplicably be named sheriff. There's a fun Russian guy who ended up in this town for some reason, the cartoonish victim of some poker trickery, and the mayor, a guy who sits around playing games of checkers with himself. Oh, and my favorite--a surly bartender who complains about the Sisyphean monotony of his job. He's great!

And, of course, you've got Marlene Dietrich as a Wild West femme fatale. Does she get too many musical numbers in this? Well, yes. One would have been too many. Does she also pull off exotic, sultry entertainer with the kind of legs that would cause greasy saloon patrons eyes to pop out of their heads like they're watching Jessica Rabbit? Yes, she pulls that off fairly well. She also takes part in a rough 'n' tumble catfight with the Russian character's wife.

When I found out that Jimmy Stewart and Marlene Dietrich had a fling during this, Stewart's first Western, I was thrilled because that meant I had a legitimate reason to imagine the two of them having sex. This was Stewart's first Western, and it's among my favorites I've seen him in. Getting to imagine him knocking up Dietrich was just a bonus. Stewart's character is insanely likable, even when he's on his fifteenth story about a fella he knew.

This isn't the most realistic Western I've ever seen, but it's got a nice blend of comedy and drama and is very watchable.

Dark Victory

1939 drama

Rating: 12/20

Plot: A rich girl has some disease, but I was too bored to pay attention to what it was. She and the doctor fall in love, and the doctor isn't sure whether or not he should tell her the truth about whether she has less than a year to live or not.

Another film in my journey through the year of 1939, and this is easily the worst one I've seen. Let's just say it's tied with Gone with the Wind for the worst film of 1939.

Both Bogart and Ronald Reagan are in this. If it was the first film I'd ever seen from Bogart, nothing in his performance would have convinced me that the guy had much promise. With Reagan, I could have seen this performance in 1939 and figured that he would make a pretty good president some day because he doesn't say anything racist or sexually assault a single woman.

Of course, I'm supposed to be amazed by Bette Davis's performance rather than the performances of any of the men. And you know what? I didn't like it at all. Bette comes in hot, like she's simultaneously trying really hard to remember all of her lines and refraining from biting off a face. And there are times when she seems a little dazed. I was confused by the performance mostly, especially when she asks another character, "What does prognosis mean?" and "What does negative mean?" in a way that had me trying to figure out if her character was really stupid or trying to cleverly let somebody know she was on to them.

I never wish for fictional characters to get hurt, of course, but I may have laughed when Bette Davis fell down some stairs a few days after her horse ran into a wall and knocked her to the ground.

There's an awesome scene of fake 1930's movie driving when Bogart hops on the side of a car and has a conversation with Bette Davis's character.

Young Mr. Lincoln

1939 Lincoln movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Lincoln, before his political career, defends a pair of brothers on a murder charge.

This must have been before Lincoln's vampire-hunting days.

Like everything else I've been watching from 1939, this suffers a bit from being exactly what you'd expect it to be. It's exactly what you'd expect a 1939 movie about Abraham Lincoln to be. It idealizes him, lays the heroism on mighty thick, and starts with a sentimental tone with this mother-as-ghost stuff. There's more constant music and all this artificially homey dialogue, and hints of the future romance between Lincoln and Mary Todd shoehorned in.

If you watch Abraham Lincoln biopics like most people watch pornographic material or if you're the type of person who goes to that Mr. Skin website to find out the exact moment when a certain actress is going to disrobe, here's what you need to know:

You get your Abraham Lincoln hat money-shot at the 14-minute mark. And yes, it's extraordinary.

I do like how John Ford takes his time with some of this story and focuses only on a brief moment in Lincoln's life rather than trying to bite off a bigger chunk and making a four-hour film or something. We get to see Lincoln as a pie-eating judge, taking part in a rail-splitting competition, and even cheating during a tug-of-war match. Sure, Ford and Fonda's Lincoln is almost mythic at times and in certain shots, but he's also humanized here. And I learned a lot about the historical figure!

1) Red hair got him horny.
2) He went into law because of a stick. Or gravity. Or a combination of a stick and gravity.
3) He played a pretty mean Jew's harp.
4) He had a short and portly sidekick with a coonskin cap. The whistling-and-Jew's-harp duet they perform on horseback was pretty special.
5) He liked to prop his feet up and lean back in chairs, the kind of thing that would cause him to lose the use of a good chair in my mom's house.
6) Lincoln had some jokes!
7) And as I already said--Lincoln didn't play tug-of-war fairly. I imagine this sort of scandal would have been equivalent to something in the 21st Century running for president and having a recording surface where he talked about grabbing women "by the pussy" or something. 19th Century America was awfully serious about their tug-of-war.

Wuthering Heights

1939 drama

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A doomed romance in the titular location.

"Laugh now, Heathcliff. There is no laughter in hell."

Despite being an English major, I was not familiar with this story at all and therefore did not realize how dark it would be. I also didn't realize that the main character was named after a cartoon cat, an odd move by whichever Bronte sister wrote this if you ask me. With a relentless score and breathlessly spoken, completely unnatural lines, this suffers a bit from being a movie from the 1930's, but it is unique for having such unlikable characters and for forcing them to be completely miserable for the duration of the movie. They're all haunted. Eventually, some of them are literally haunted by actual ghosts, but during the flashbacks, they're haunted by the ghosts of this idealized childhood romance.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I didn't think Laurence Olivier was very good at all in this. He spends the entire movie scowling, a word that is even used at one point by another character, and there's something so stiff about him. He doesn't have chemistry with Merle Oberon, and apparently, the actors hated each other when the camera was rolling. So the relationship at the heart of this thing lacks credibility. It's also hard to buy the ravings of the dying woman at the end of the movie, and there's some genuinely awful acting (I'm talking objectively awful here) as the characters are looking out of a window near the end of the film.

The film looks good, and I did like an incredibly awkward scene where a lady is rocking Mozart on a harpsichord.

Climax

2018 Gaspar Noe experiment

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A dance group has a party following a rehearsal, but chaos erupts after somebody spikes the sangria.

My relationship with the work of Gaspar Noe can best be described as a love/hate type, but with this one, it's more love despite some things that annoyed me. After a disorienting opening shot that foreshadows a lot of druggy disorientation that will surface later on, you get--as you would only expect in a movie from a director as ornery as Noe--the closing credits and a very strange dedication. Maybe it was that dedication that helped give this a Blair Witch vibe, or maybe I just had Blair Witch on the brain because I was remembering a time when I ran around a farm house naked because I lost a bet to my wife. At the 45-minute mark, we get a bunch of names, the opening credits, I suppose. That seems about the right time for something like that to appear. And just as you'd expect from a Gaspar Noe movie, there's Adidas product placement.

This is described as an "experimental psychedelic dance horror film," and if that sounds like the type of thing you think you would enjoy, I'm pretty sure you would actually enjoy this. It's quickly made, filled with performers who are there for their dancing skills rather than their experiences with acting, and has very little narrative. However, it's so stylish, so well shot, and so vibrant that it's almost impossible not to at least appreciate.

It opens with that pre-closing-credits overhead (drone) shot that I've already mentioned before a series of recorded interviews with the characters that seem to be some sort of audition tapes. It's a long series of those, and you definitely get enough time to scan the titles of VHS tapes to the right. No, there isn't one for The Right Stuff like in a very similar shot at the beginning of Us, but looking at those titles will give you an idea of the type of aesthetic Noe is going for here. From there, you're treated to a long take with this dance, and it's about the most enthralling thing I've seen in a movie in a long time. The dance itself is probably around 7 minutes long, and at one point, I just started laughing because I needed to do something other than sit there with my mouth open. At one point, I wondered if the entire movie was going to at least appear to be one extended take. It's not, but it does end with this seemingly impossible nearly-45-minute long take that I was just mesmerized by. An unsteady camera--not unlike what was going on with the camera in Enter the Void--and loads of arthouse color prove this thing earns the "psychedelic" part of that above movie description. Characters no longer move right, dancers weighed down by some unseen force, and the whole thing makes you very uneasy. You don't know how this will end or maybe even care how it will end, but you know the whole thing is unsettling. In between the long takes, there's an overhead shot featuring more dancing, one moment in particular when four guys have their arms jerking around all over the place that had me giggling again. Another sequence has the characters paired off, and the camera frequently blinks during that part. I didn't think the conversations or any kind of character development during that sequence added much to the movie actually.

The cast is pretty good, mostly because they can all jerk their arms around well, but Sofia Boutella--maybe because she's actually a professional actress--really stands out. She's just great here, truly one of my favorite performances of the year. She can freak-out with the best of them!

This movie is the equivalent of a Yoko Ono song. I mean that as a compliment because I think Yoko Ono is great.

Only Angels Have Wings

1939 drama

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Pilots in some South American mountain village deal with love and death and blindness and anger as they deal with the past and mail delivery.

Cary Grant brings a little meanness and a giant-brimmed hat to this one and a lustful parrot checks out Rita Hayworth. This Howard Hawks classic's got a nice mix of heart, humor, drama, and adventure, but it really works because the characters work in a way that characters don't usually work in cinema from 1930's Hollywood. It's also got lovely shots of airplanes flying through dangerous mountain passes.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

1939 drama

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Jimmy Stewart goes to Washington and gets excited about a rotunda.

This is probably more what my dad had in mind--a movie in which Jimmy Stewart plays a character who is sexually attracted to a rotunda. Now we know what the Lincoln statue is scowling at, I guess.

Jimmy Stewart is part grasshopper. I've known that for a long time, but I didn't realize how long his fingers were. I couldn't take my eyes off his fingers in this movie. So while Mr. Smith is getting an erection upon seeing a rotunda, my own pants bulged because of his long and lovely fingers.

I realize that's probably too much information for you, but nobody is reading this anyway. You don't even exist.

Jimmy Stewart's fun to watch in this political drama. His character is almost exactly what you'd expect him to play in a movie made in the 1930's about a politician. He makes some bird calls, does that shaky-voice thing while introducing a bill, waves to a statue, and eats a doughnut intensely. He's an idealized sort of hero, the kind who a bunch of boy scouts can whoop or cheer about, and the homeyness is pretty thick here. However, there's a triumphant "Here!" during a roll call and a moment when he says, "You're a liar" to a character that has a lot of bite.

He also punches at members of the fake media, something that I'm sure Trump would have memetized by now if he'd ever seen a movie that he wasn't in (Home Alone 2, for example) or changed the channel from Fox News and caught a piece of this. Of course, he wouldn't be interested in a movie that was made before the world had any color in it, would he?

By the end of a 24+ hour filibuster, Stewart is gasping for air and collapsing, his storky legs not quite able to match the persistence of his character's spirit. It's good stuff even if it's straight out of 1930's Hollywood, a time when characters talk a little too loudly and music almost assaults the viewer.

Speaking of music, this has some odd choices. I mean, "Auld Lang Syne" is in there, something I guess Frank Capra felt he had to use in every single movie. But there's a moment when "I Dream of Jeannie" is used that makes almost no sense at all.

Jimmy Stewart: Kid--what's your name?
Kid: Richard Jones.
Jimmy Stewart: Alright, Dick.

Simpler times, right?

Oh, kids! There are a lot of them in this movie, and none of them can act. I can't verify it, but I think every child actor from the 30s-50s had to have been shown Little Rascals clips and told by directors, "That's exactly how I want you to act no matter what is going on in any given scene. Got it?" and then let them loose. The child acting in this seems especially painful.

Any rating deduction I'd normally give this for the child acting is gained back by three things though: Jim's squeaking shoes, a glare in the non-Smith senator's glasses in a couple of shots, and the newspaper printing montage.

High Life

2019 science fiction movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Prisoners on a spaceship head toward a black hole.

This spaceship is either heading very very slowly toward a black hole or, since it's probably moving faster than humans have ever moved, very very quickly. I think the way a person thinks about the speed of the spaceship will likely decide whether a person likes this movie or hates it. It seems fairly divisive.

Claire Denis doesn't seem all that interested in a narrative here, and I'm struggling to piece together what it all means. Denis might not even know, and she doesn't make it easy with the fragmented storytelling. The chronology aboard this spaceship of prisoners is busted up and scrambled, and there are also some flashbacks of the pre-ship days, including one with a scientist being interviewed on a train which offers up the cleanest bit of narrative exposition.

What is easy to latch onto here are the visuals. This is a good-looking sci-fi movie filled with all these seemingly incongruous shots--a makeshift crib, a lush garden. There are drifting bodies in endless voids, lots and lots of fluids, and Juliette Binoche spending time in something called a "fuckbox." And seriously, do I really need anything else in a movie if there's an extended sequence of Juliette Binoche in a fuckbox? I really doubt it. You also get something called spaghettification which is grotesque and beautiful.

Juliette Binoche's character is referred to as the "Shaman of Sperm" at one point. She's as great as she usually is, this long black hair making her a kind of witchy woman. And Robert Pattinson continues his run of choosing really interesting projects.

No, I don't understand this movie, but it's one I couldn't stop thinking about and one that I had no trouble feeling. It bounced around in me enough that I'm pretty sure there's a part of me in there that understood the thing.

I have to catch up with Claire Denis, so maybe a Claire Denis Fest needs to happen. I've only seen this and 35 Shots of Rum. I'm definitely intrigued.

Le Jour Se Leve

1939 crime drama

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A guy commits a murder and then hides out in his apartment. A series of flashbacks interrupt the police trying to get to him.

I ask my Facebook friends to give me a year to research and put together a list for, and none of them pay any attention to me or suggest anything usually. My father has brought up 1939 several times; it's a year he claims is the best year in cinema ever. So finally, I agreed to take a look at 1939. Something tells me movies like Le Jour Se Leve are not what he had in mind.

Marcel Carne sure knows how to shoot a staircase. There are two with these rising shots that I just loved, and another overstuffed with nosy apartment dwellers that was also great. I loved a lot about the look of this film. There's realistic shoot-outs as Gabin's apartment is riddled with bullets, even a poor teddy bear finding himself blown off a mantle. Carne uses an early cinema special effect to create bullet holes in glass--shooting bullets through glass. Love those shadows when a light's shot out, a mirror scene where Gabin's eye somehow matches his face to the pitiful countenance of that aforementioned teddy bear, and how the dog trainer guy can pull off the impossible style choice of a cape with pantaloons. There's another shot that I loved with the female Francoise (all the characters in this movie are named Francoise) contrasts with all this dust and the harsh backdrop of the factory Gabin works in, and Jacqueline Laurent in a flowered dress is this magical bit of color in a completely black and white world.

I'm tempted to rate this a little lower because I have trouble remembering the title. I keep wanting to call it Le Sour Je Leve or Le Sour Le Jeve or something. But I also want to put it high on my 1939 list because one of my hobbies is disappointing my father.

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw

2019 action spin-off

Rating: 9/20 (Rubber Duck: 7/20; Kylie: 7/20)

Plot: Hobbs and Shaw, two tough guys who don't like each other very much, have to team up to save the world and gets Shaw's sister out of a bind.

It's hard to believe that a movie with a title that has two ampersands in it can disappoint, but this movie was profoundly disappointing. If I can't depend on a Fast & Furious movie anymore, I really don't know what I can depend on.

This movie leans heavily on the clashy rapport between the two leads. It also leans heavily on the two talking about each other's testicles. As much as I like the characters in the Fast & Furious movies, it's clear that too much of these characters can be a bad thing. The humor in this screenplay is forced, and although we get some moments where we get to see each character doing some totally ridiculous things--the kinds of things that usually get my own testicles tingling--the movie frequently grinds to a halt for clunky exposition and, by the end, all this familial conflict.

Just when you think the movie is ending, it doesn't. And then when it ends, there are about eighteen end-credit sequences that made me want to kick Iron Man in the crotch.

Three big action set pieces here, but the big moments were already kind of given away in the trailer. I liked Idris Elba's motorcycle even if his villain was a bit of a disappointment. I liked a car chase. The most ridiculous moment involves some hot rods chasing a helicopter. It's plenty ridiculous, sure, but it just isn't nearly as fun as Fast & Furious is supposed to be.

Though I liked some scenes where Statham and Johnson are shown side by side--in one early case, even in a split screen--to show off the differences in their personalities, Vanessa Kirby might be what I liked most about this movie.

Two ampersands!

The Farewell

2019 family drama

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A grandmother in China is dying of cancer, so the family arranges a fake wedding so that everybody can spend time with her. Nobody is supposed to tell her that she's dying. Oh, snap!

It sure seems like Lulu Wang effortlessly created these characters and this narrative, the whole thing unfolding naturally and without much decoration at all. The performances feel organic, also effortless, and the relationships between these characters just work even without a lot of exposition. For Awkwafina and the grandmother character's relationship, just an early phone call is all that's needed. Despite having a bias against people who think they can get through life with only one name, Awkwafina is good here as the movie's emotional anchor, but really, the entire ensemble cast is great. And yes, I'm especially impressed with Shuzhen Zhao in what appears to be her film debut. She plays the grandmother and is just the kind of character that is impossible not to love.

Please note that I'm not trying to say Wang and the cast didn't work hard with my "effortless" comments. This is very well crafted, and relationship building that is this organic can't be easy to pull off.

I teared up a little but didn't want the older lady next to me to realize it. There's a shot from the back window of a car that floored me.

Movies A-Go-Go: Gotti

2018 gangster movie

Rating: 6/20

Plot: Gotti rises to the head of a criminal operation and tries to be a good family man at the same time. Motherfuckers get in his way.

My friend Josh insisted that I watch Gotti. I decided that a little Movies A-Go-Go action was the best move, but I didn't have much to say. Anyway, here are my unadulterated thoughts while watching Gotti, a movie about a guy who doesn't dance nearly enough to have John Travolta play him in a movie.

* * *

MoviePass Ventures. I’m sure this has something to do with their stock price dropping below a penny.

It’s the opening scene, and it’s clear that either John Travolta or John Gotti didn’t know what to do with his hands.

As this terrible rap song plays, it’s a good time to let you know that I don’t have any knowledge of John Gotti at all. I probably know less than the average person. This whole story will be a surprise for me.

“They took my tit, and they put it on my face.” That’s probably not far off from what happened to Travolta’s actual forehead.

The screenwriter loves the word “motherfuckers.”

As narrator, Gotti just asked me if I remembered a hit. Since it’s literally the only thing that’s happened in the movie so far, it’s kind of tough not to remember it.

I also remember how he leaned awkwardly in order to watch a boxing match on the television at the bar.

Was that the theme from Shaft playing during that shower scene?

“What’s that movie you like so much? About spaghetti or meatballs or something?” What the hell is he talking about?

From IMDb: "Pitbull was so impressed with the similarities between a photograph of John Travolta as John Gotti and the real Gotti that he asked if he could be involved with the score for the whole film."

From Shane: "Pitbull is apparently mentally challenged."

John Travolta shouldn’t be allowed to play a guy who watches football games like a normal human being.

My favorite move this thing’s making is having a character introduced through the dialogue (“That’s Sammy Bull”) and then immediately putting words on the screen so that we can also read who they are.

When I think of gangster movie music, I think of Blondie.

Travolta can do whatever he wants to his career, but did he really have to drag his wife into this mess?

Sprinkler establishing shot.

I probably shouldn’t have laughed when the kid on the scooter got hit by a car. I just couldn’t help myself.

This soundtrack is a mess. All over the place.

I’m not great at making inferences, but I can tell by the way that Travolta is digging deep and biting his fist that the kid died.

It’s unclear how a person driving 12 miles per hour can hit a kid and kill him. Kid must have had a weak skull or something.

Kelly Preston’s acting is about as bad as her husband’s.

Wait, the dead kid didn’t have a hair on his prick? That definitely does make this whole thing even sadder. Why, God? Why!?

Who’s that guy sitting in your chair, Gotti? Well, it appears to be Santa Claus. Seems like you should have recognized him.

Why does this clearly adult Christmas party have a Santa Claus anyway?

It might be because I’ve lost interest or it might be the jumpy storytelling, but I have to admit I don’t have a firm handle on what’s going on in this movie.

Travolta’s hands are out of control in this movie. They’re trying to win an Academy Award all by themselves.

I just paused this to get some tea, and I’m just over 48 minutes into this. It feels like I’ve been watching this for hours!

I have a lot of vodka in me right now and might not be entirely lucid. I decided to drink a little and read a book on the porch instead of getting tea. Consider that a warning, friends!

Sparks Steak House, located at 42nd and 3rd. The street sign visual helped me understand what those numbers looked like.

It’s especially sadistic to not even let a man eat his steak before you shoot him.

You know how I mentioned earlier that I didn’t know anything about John Gotti going into this? I’m an hour into the movie and still don’t know anything about him other than his love of the word “motherfucker.”

Watching this, you get the feeling that Travolta thought he’d get some award buzz solely because of his pursed lips.

And there’s the “Walk Like an Egyptian” snippet that everybody probably expected to hear.

Every time Travolta starts narrating, I think, “Oh, yeah. This movie has a narrator.”

This movie is twice as bad as it could have been just because of the soundtrack. I think I might be hearing Duran Duran now?

Gotti, now as dead as Travolta’s career.

This “House of the Rising Sun” doesn’t really fit either. Who the hell put this soundtrack together?

This seems very sympathetic to Gotti’s family, doesn’t it? It’s almost a love letter to the legacy of John Gotti. At the very least, it’s painting him as this anti-hero, but I’m not sure it’s working.

“Listen to me, and listen good. You’re never gonna see a guy like me again if you live to be 5,000.” Oh, geez. What a brilliant coda.

This is the Battlefield Earth of gangster flicks. That isn’t a compliment.

The Lion King

2019 live-action animated remake

Rating: 12/20

Plot: It's the same as The Lion King.

Based on everything I've heard from normal people and professional movie critics, I thought this would be a lot worse than it ended up being. Actually, I thought it had a chance to be just as good as the original cartoon until the plot pounced and messed everything up. The animals and the backgrounds looked fantastic, as realistic as any nature documentary, and the camera movements were often inventive and enthralling.

Unfortunately, several problems hurt this new Lion King incarnation's chances of proving that it has a right to exist. I'll number them here for your convenience.

1) It's too long. It's got an odd problem where it's bloated but still paced so that it seems everything is moving far too quickly. It's rushed, as if the storytellers were more interested in hitting all the beats they were supposed to without really making sure anything resonated. The movie's got an odd lifeless rhythm.

2) Pumba farts too much.

3) Pumba doesn't say "Oh boy!" at all. This might seem like an odd gripe, but I was really listening for it and excited that it might happen. I have adopted a hearty "Oh boy!" into my vernacular after hearing Seth Rogan say it in a scene in Long Shot, so I really wanted Rogan to say it as Pumba. I was ready to jump out of my seat, hop down to the row below me, and high five the couple sitting there. It did come close during a scene where some hyenas are body-shaming Pumba, except it's the other one--the meerkat--who says "Oh boy" instead. I still laughed when that happened, my only laugh in a movie that was did try to throw in some humor.

4) The voice work was not very good. Not even Eric Andre does anything distinguishable here. I figured he was the second male talking hyena, but the voice work was boring. Most of the performers were fine, but few of them really stood out and added much to these characters whose lack of facial expressions didn't help the characterization. And Donald Glover, I thought, was actually kind of bad. That voice didn't really match adult Simba very well at all.

5) The songs were almost all lesser versions from the original. I don't think this is a case where the originals have just settled in or anything because as I've established before, I really don't like the songs. Well, I used to hate them, mostly because I worked at a Toys 'R' Us when the original came out and had to hear those songs all day. Once, when "Circle of Life" started playing for the 20th time during my ship, I pounced on a customer and bit into her neck. So I don't think it's just that I have this love for the original songs or anything. These songs just sounded really flat. And the music accompanying the action was often just a little too much. One added song--one that must have been Beyonce though I don't really know if I can pick her voice out of a crowd--didn't really add much at all.

6) Added scenes added very little. There's an extended sequence where Simba's future fuckbuddy flees from Scar and the hyenas which I don't remember from the original cartoon. I guess it helped explain why she ended up running into Simba later on, but I could have used more filler to help transition from scene to scene instead so that the whole thing wasn't as jumpy.

I will say this, however: an added scene with a clump of Simba fur that the camera follows on a 4+ minute journey through water, air, bird's nest, and giraffe poop is an addition that really mattered. That was my favorite part of the movie. I've always said that movies for children need more animal shit in them. This delivered although we didn't actually get to see the giraffe defecate. Maybe I'll have to grab the dvd after it's released to see if that's a bonus scene.

As I said, this is a great-looking movie, and I was almost convinced these were actual animals walking around doing all of this. The settings look great, never overly artistic like the creators were really trying to make it look anything but real. Those sunrises and sunsets, the clouds, the rock formations, etc. all looked authentic. They didn't even go overboard on the elephant graveyard.

Stuber

2019 action comedy

Rating: 8/20

Plot: An Uber driver picks up a tough cop and drives him around while he's trying to catch a bad guy.

Seeing this isn't one of my better recent decisions. I think a computer could have been programmed to write this movie. It's as predictable as movie comedies get. A computer could not have screamed every single one of his lines like Kumail Nanjiani did though. Nanjiani's got a bit of charm, but his strategy of screaming everything didn't succeed in making his lines any funnier. Dave Bautista has the screen charisma of the monolith in 2001, or maybe he has a little less. I was annoyed with him because he said he'd never be in a Fast & Furious movie because he only wants to be in "good movies," but I'm going to forgive him after checking his Twitter account and finding out that he's an outspoken anti-Trumper. Still, if this is his idea of a "good movie," he's probably taken a few too many shots to the head with a metal chair.

Not a single laugh. I know because I counted.

Full confession: After a first week back at school, I was really tired and kept dozing off during the movie. Nanjiani was doing his part--screaming every single one of his lines--to keep me awake though.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

2019 Tarantino movie

Rating: 15/20 (Dylan: 15/20)

Plot: An aging cowboy actor and his stunt double friend maneuver through the golden light of 1969 Los Angeles while Sharon Tate dances through what might be the final months she's allowed to glow.

In Quentin Tarantino's utopic vision of golden Hollywood, there's not a single black person while women are either villains or nearly-mute symbols. That might be an issue. Another issue I may not be the right person to discuss: the depiction of Bruce Lee, one that I find at the very least disrespectful. Finally, I think I should have a problem with how right-wing this thing is. It's very anti-hippie/anti-counterculture. Tarantino even takes a shot at poor Dennis Hopper!

For the first twenty minutes of this, I was really worried. There were some odd editing choices, narrative threads lacked flow, and it was clear that Tarantino cared less about telling a good story than indulging in all these period details. The period details are especially impressive. The movie's bathed in all these visual and aural details, every single bit of screen bathed with everything from cereal boxes to movie posters that makes this a real time capsule of a movie. The lack of narrative propulsion's easy to forgive because the character development of the three leads is so good, very likely a trio of characters who each represent some part of Tarantino though that's something I'd like to put more thought into before throwing down any actual ideas. And the editing? I'm still not sure about some cuts during an early scene with Pacino, the perspective bouncing around willy-nilly.

Time's spent enjoying these characters, making it easy to know what two of them are all about. Pitt's Booth is more of an enigma, though everything Pitt does makes this a performance that has to be considered iconic. Look no further than the scene where he effortlessly and boyishly hops on the roof of a house and takes off his shirt if you want proof of that. Pitt gets a moment to shine in a flashback with the aforementioned Bruce Lee, showing a character with a propensity for violence whose own poor decisions have led to a life of eating cheap macaroni and cheese in a squalid trailer.

Margot Robbie, as somebody at Cannes suggested, really doesn't have a lot to say, but I agree with Tarantino that the point was missing. Her effervescence speaks louder than words in this one. She gets a chance to be alive with some dance moves, the sweetest smile that you'll ever see, and the scene partially shown in the movie's trailer where she enjoys watching herself on the big screen. I walked out of the theater thinking she was more of a symbol than an actual human being and questioning Tarantino's use of her story for whatever metaphor he might be assembling here, but I think I probably missed the point, too. Robbie's Tate is so human and so alive, and it's a beautiful thing.

Leo DiCaprio is flashier and at times sillier, and I think it's probably easy to miss how much range his performance has. He gets to show off in another scene partially seen in the movie's trailer--his work in the filming of an episode of a television show. That sequence has him nailing his villainous character in the episode being filmed, showing indecisiveness when not on set, having a meltdown where he suggests that failure might even lead to suicide, reflects on his career in a conversation with a little girl, and weeping tears of proud joy when he gets some confirmation that he's done something really good. It's great stuff.

The rapport with DiCaprio and Pitt as this friendship is developed is easy to love. It's a friendship where the audience is missing all this context, all these past adventures the characters have been on, but it doesn't matter because with what these actors are throwing down, you just get it.

Mostly, this just seems to exist so that Tarantino can put stuff on the screen that he would like to see and that he thinks likeminded folks would like to see. Reproductions of TV westerns and spy shows, visual references to the spaghetti westerns he loves, lots of shots of characters just driving around this idyllic setting, an extended sequence where Pitt's character visits the old Western set where the Manson family resides that is packed with great tension. With Tarantino, you know a few things going in. The movie will sprawl, the movie will have all kinds of great songs in it, and there will be lots of cool. This is a very cool movie, a dreamy breeze of a movie, and I'm looking forward to seeing it again and liking it a little more without going in with the expectations that I had.

Right now, it's 8 of 9 on any favorite Tarantino movie list I made. That's a solid 8 movies though!

The Art of Self-Defense

2019 satire

Rating: 12/20

Plot: After surviving a violent attack, a guy tries to become a man by taking kung-fu lessons.

There are some funny moments in Riley Stearns satirical swipe at 21st Century masculinity, but the one-note deadpan world he creates, an appropriately timeless one, gets a little tiresome and sterile by the end. The story's a little predictable, and the satire is that kind of fish-in-a-barrel thing that's been done before.

Two Rewatches

I rewatched a pair of movies from 1979 before completing a "Favorites of 1979" list. One I liked better than I did before while the other I liked slightly less. I don't really have a lot to say about either, but I'll say things anyway.

I've seen this three times at three different stages in my life, and I've probably liked it a little more each time. When I'm a nonagenarian, it'll likely be my favorite movie.

The cinematography remains the star of the movie. The actual star of the movie isn't as easy to watch because of Woody Allen's sordid biography, and his quirks and tics and even his tocks are more grating here than they are in some of his earlier 70's work. I really liked the use of the Gershwin music throughout.

Another movie that becomes something else in my old age and increasing self-awareness, Being There surprises by having so much to do with being a white man in America. This is a movie very much about white privilege with Sellers asking guys for lunch, leering at basketball players and black cartoon characters, imitating stuff he sees on the television, and assuming that all black people know each other. As a character says, "It's for a sure a white man's world in America." And another--"All you've got to be is white in America to get what you want." The last one is followed by an ironic applause. Chance gets a--pun alert--chance to excel because he's 1) white and 2) male. Assumptions made by others who see only what they want to see gives him a power he doesn't understand or even want. He gets the benefit of the doubt because of the color of his skin and a nice-enough wardrobe.

I could watch television with Chance, but I'm going to need to hold on to the remote control.

My favorite scene is probably the one where a woman's trying to seduce Chance while Mr. Rogers sings about friendship in the background. My favorite exchange is this one:

"Have you ever had sex with a man?"
Chance: "No, I don't think so."