Dekalog

1989 mini-series

Rating: 18/20

Plot: Various inhabitants of an apartment complex in Warsaw have some problems.

In these ten one-hour films loosely based on the Ten Commandments, Kieslowski takes us on a beautifully poetic journey with these characters and their universal moral dilemmas, ask universal questions, and make universal mistakes. You could probably watch these in any order and probably not watch some of them at all. Most of them are connected by an established tone and pace--all but the 10th one, I'd say--as well as the way these characters, their sins, and their narratives unravel. You really feel the emotional impact of the ironies in these stories.

They're barely connected by the decalogue despite what the title of the series would have you believe. Looking at the Commandments in order, you can easily see what it has to do with having other gods, adultery, coveting crap, telling fibs, etc., but the individual commandments themselves are just launching pads for the stories. Also, a lot of the commandments bleed into episodes they're not supposed to be in. Sometimes, it seems, people's sins spawn other sins. But we Americans don't need Kieslowski or the Bible to tell us that because we've got a president who demonstrates it every single day.

Kieslowski directed all of these, but they each have a different cinematographer, most of whom have names with too many consonants in them. So while they all have the gorgeously-shot apartment complex in them, each episode has its own distinct look. They also take place in different seasons, and I wish I would have paid more attention earlier to see if it's in any specific order. The first takes place in winter, and some of the other ones have these surprising trees and flowers.

I do really like some things that either connect most or all of the episodes or that I'm just imaging. I know there's a recurring speechless character played by Artur Barcis who shows up at key moments in all but two of these. He makes eye contact with the characters at these mostly-crucial times. It's never 100% clear what he's supposed to be--a deity, an angel, maybe even a demon. There's also a lot of milk in these. There might be milk in every single episode actually. Additionally, it seems like there are a lot of dogs in this. Sometimes, the dogs are important to the plot, sometimes they're on the periphery, and sometimes you can just hear them in the background.

I was going to write about each individual episode separately, but I really don't even feel like doing one blog post about the whole thing. Frankly, they're not all great. Ok, fine, I'll go through them all. I don't have much else going on.

The first one, dealing with the commandment about not having other gods, is one of the devastating standouts. Like a lot of the really good ones, you feel what is going on long before you actually know what's going on. There's a live pigeon, a dead dog, and wax on a painting all surrounding a sort-of baptism with ice. In this one, you learn how God really hates measuring and counting.

The second one, with an ethical quandary that's almost as exciting as an action movie (one that is actually referenced in another episode), is also a really good one. Initially, I suspected Kieslowski was inspired by The Love Bug, but I don't think I was right about that. More animals with a mysterious fallen hare, pickled olives, a flower that doesn't grow and another one that is dismembered. This is one where the irony has an emotional impact. Out of all of these, it's toughest to see how the commandment fits. There might be swearing, and there might be an idea that a doctor character should be seen as some sort of omnipotent god. My favorite shot in this one is an apartment pan to a husband who isn't in the apartment to a fly on a spoon in some weird drink. Man, that's good stuff.

The third installment is also good with a character who doesn't recognize Santa Claus. I loved the cinematography in this one. There are so many light blurs. Camera lens, windows, blinking headlight good byes. Lots of characters in this one are observed through windows in this one. A recurring drunkard croons Christmas songs and talks about how he's lost his home. A later scene in a drunk tank with this bald creepy manager is a good one. Those characters are probably seen through windows, too.

The fourth is one I didn't like nearly as much, but I do appreciate its ambiguities and refusal to provide any answers. This is a rather perverse look at the "obey your parents or else" commandment.

The fifth is one of two that also have feature-length versions. I'll check those out eventually. This one's about murder and has a much different look than the others. The tone is much darker, probably appropriate since this is the one about murder. Everything's mud and grimy window in this one, and unless there was something wrong with the technology I was watching this on, the fringes of the screen were usually really dark, almost framing all the characters in this murk. Two scenes of violence in this one are shown in ways that will make them really difficult to forget.

The sixth is the other that was extended into a longer film, A Short Film about Love. The camera conspires to make the viewer culpable in this voyeurism in this one. This has characters with inconclusive motivations, one who literally cries over literal spilled milk at one point. Both characters at the center of this ethical dilemma are seemingly looking for the kind of love that the other one has which makes their individual stories that intertwine to become a single story intriguing. Amplified dry mouth following by premature ejaculation and weeping--words that could be a chapter title in my memoir--is a strange highlight. Oh, and the clever line of dialogue "I am not here."

The seventh starts with nightmarish nightmare screams, but the highlights include a billiards ball bouncing down steps in what might be considered Kieslowski's attempt at heist drama and a creepy merry-go-round in the middle of nowhere. A little girl giggles "Did you kidnap me?" This one has more of those ambiguities that I love, but the narrative isn't paced very well, and I never really feel these characters as much as I do in most of the other chapters.

The eighth is another tough one, a convoluted story about little white lies and the big kind of lies that can have a profound impact on your psyche. I did love a recurring crooked picture, a flickering light, and a sputtering car, all three metaphors of something. A tardy stumbling (possibly drunk) student's arrival to a class is that actor's moment to shine.

The ninth is a real highlight. Whereas the bland cinematography of the last two hold them back a little, it's a real treat in this one. There are some great reflections, and the lighting in an elevator ride was a visual stunner. I also liked a metaphorical glove compartment in this one. The mysterious reality and the accidental mysteries of this one and some characters who were interesting because of what damaged them made this one interesting from start to finish. And the music that pops into this one nearly dropped my jaw to the floor.

The tenth stands out, too, but that's mostly because it's pretty different from the rest. It starts with a punk performance ("Kill! Kill! Kill and fornicate! Fornicate and covet! All week long!" lyrics couldn't be any more on the nose, could they?) and has a more darkly comic tone than the rest. It's kind of different in the same way Three Colors: White is different from Red and Blue, and actually, this episode shares actors with the middle part of that trilogy. I liked it even though I spent most of the episode frustrated about whether or not another one of these chapters had a reference to zeppelin stamps or if I just imagined that whole thing or if it was deja vu. We end learning that it's wrong to covet your neighbor's kidney, and that's an important lesson for anybody.

Put 'em all together and you've got something that is lovely and profound. I'd highly recommend these. If you can see it theatrically, you'll be sitting in a theater for ten hours. I'm not sure that would work, but if you watch one or two a day like I did, it works out pretty well. And you can tell your co-workers that you're binge-watching a Polish television mini-series and impress everybody at your job.

Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot

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Eighth Grade

2018 comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: The final days of 8th grade for an awkward teenager.

Bo Burnham's directorial debut never dips into cliches as his character navigates the befuddling waters of adolescence. He creates this character so lovingly; you can tell he loves this character like he'd love his own daughter. That helps the viewer also fall in love with the character. There are all sorts of moments when I expected Burnham to fall into coming-of-age traps, to lean on the tried and true methods utilized in the last thirty years with this sub-genre. Maybe it comes close in a scene with a pair of characters and a fire, but by the time the story gets there, those two characters are so lovable that it's impossible not to buy into what's happening there. And, of course, I teared up.

I also appreciated that Burnham resists creating characters who are mean. The film's antagonists are either other human beings who are simply aloof, absorbed into the sea of social media and technological goop, or they're the abstract forces that make life at this age impossibly awkward. You get the sense that if Burnham had decided to follow any of the peripheral characters instead of Kayla, we'd get a lot of parallels, the same sort of awkward parent/child moments, similar moments where the character is trying to figure things out, and the realization that all 21st Century teens, just like teenagers from likely any time period, find it necessary to adapt these pretend versions of themselves in both public and private places.

Instead of being mean, the other teenagers in this are more like alien creatures who Kayla has to figure out and whose culture she has to acclimate to. There's a great montage at a pool party where Kayla, her discomfort and fears exhibited in her stumbling gait and slouched shoulders, emerges from the house in her swimsuit and observes the other kids. They're doing what middle school kids do--turning their eyelids inside-out, performing clumsy handstands in the pool, spitting pool water through their tooth gaps. They're ungainly, sometimes goggled creatures, and their closest cinematic equivalent would be the characters in Browning's Freaks. Only stranger, more alien.

Elsie Fisher's great in this. She's got this perfectly natural naivete and awkward charm. I liked the onscreen relationship with the father played by Josh Hamilton. He's not an antagonist in this story, but like all fathers of teen girls, he does things that antagonize, and he's often just as awkward and lost as his daughter. The dad's a great character, and I don't think it would be a terrible idea for Burnham's next film to be the same exact time period told from his point of view. I wrongly suspected that a parent of one of Kayla's classmates had an interest in him, so maybe that's something that could be explored.

I have to say this--I laughed out loud more times while watching this than anything in recent memory. A lot of that was the influence of the audience in the packed theater. They were really into it, and I guess their laughter was infectious. I used to be able to sit in grumpy silence while people around me laughed, but I'm apparently losing that ability.

Borgman

2013 psychological dramedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Subterranean demon people work their way into the lives of a family and make them a garden.

This was highly recommended by a cinephile named Eric, a guy who knows my tastes in movies better than almost anybody. If I have an alley, this was probably right up it, mostly because I enjoy movies about guys with wild hair and beards. It's a impenetrable fable of a movie, the sort that might be about several different things at once or about nothing at all. Either way is cool with me. I'm pretty sure I think it's about the buried and sometimes absurd forces that can destroy a family, but the reading feels too simplistic for a movie with so much going on. I mean, what's the church have to do with anything here? Why are the destructive, subterranean influences unearthed by an action involving a priest? I've read that there are parallels to the Garden of Eden here, but that seems even more simplistic than my analysis.

I loved the movie's tone and look forward to more director Alex van Warmerdam. I was reminded of Lanthimos in the way Warmerdam creates a world that is completely familiar but in a coldly ominous way. The matter-of-fact surrealism helps create a gentle nightmare, and the sense of humor is definitely reminiscent of Lanthimos's brand of dark comedy. I do believe this movie has actual gags, and if you have a dark heart, you might laugh at them.

Victor Victoria

1982 musical

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Down-on-their-luck Parisians team up and scheme up to make one of them, a female cabaret singer, into a male female impersonator. Things get complicated when a mobster falls in love with her. Or him.

"It's a guy," says James Garner's bodyguard, played by Alex Karras. That was his response after Julie Andrews' first big number and a big reveal for her audience. Unfortunately for this movie, it's really hard to believe that anybody can look at Julie Andrews and think she's a man. But I'll tell you one thing--she does some wonderful things with her voice here, slight changes to make her singing seem like a man pretending to be a woman instead of a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman or a woman just being a woman. If I would have closed my eyes and just listened to her musical numbers, I would have bought that she was a he.

Maybe if it was anybody but Julie Andrews, the whole premise would have been more believable. I'm not sure anybody else could have nailed the vocal work like she did though. And I find her stunningly attractive. So I guess I'm happy that Julie Andrews was the titular characters.

I like most of the cast here (Andrews, John Rhys-Davies, Karras, and even Garner), but it's Robert Preston who steals the show. He's great, and his rapport with Andrews really makes this thing sing at the beginning. Their first moments together in a restaurant are filled with Marx-esque rapport, and if you don't believe me, ask their waiter who made a reference to the Marxes. I also thought Lesley Ann Warren was charming as Norma, Garner's original girlfriend. Listening to her say "I'm horny" is one of the highlights.

Of my life.

Other highlights include that aforementioned restaurant scene in which a cockroach makes an appearance. Shots from outside the restaurant are artistically comic. There's also a great scene with characters sneaking in and out of a hotel room which was a great bit of quiet and well-choreographed slapstick. A third highlight has to be a scene where Julie Andrews strips because when Mary Poppins has a stripping scene in a movie, it's got to be a highlight.

Don't get overly excited though, you pervs. This movie's PG. That scene's barely a spoonful of sugar.

As you might expect from a romantic musical, there's a whole lot of artificiality to this. I enjoyed the Paris street and hotel and club sets, but, of course, I'm a big fan of artificial sets anyway. The dialogue (a Frenchman using the term "cotton-picking," for example) and the gangster stuff isn't exactly authentic either. The too-quickly-developing romance plot slides in, unfortunately making Preston's character more of a secondary character than I would have liked, and eventually the tone shifts from playful to something a little different. I was kind of getting sick of the movie after a while, but it never completely wears out its welcome.

This was one of three 1982 movies I can think of that had a prominent male character who was either becoming a woman or pretending to be a woman. I think for an early-80's movie, this handles homosexuality really maturely. The gayness isn't played for laughs, and the movie even toys with stereotypes a little bit. It's not pretending to be anything profound--it's too breezy to be profound--but it's approaching issues that would have made a lot of people uncomfortable in the early parts of that decade--as opposed to now when a guy like Trump is being worshiped like a God by some people--it unexpected ways.

This was another Josh recommendation. He lent me a copy of this while I was making my Best of 1982 list about four months ago. It wouldn't crack the top-ten, but I'm glad I watched it.

This is a poorly-written review, and I'm sorry that Josh had to read it.

Three Identical Strangers

2018 documentary

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Triplets separated at birth go eighteen years without knowing they've got brothers somewhere out there. They discover each other and get to meet Phil Donahue. Once the circumstances surrounding their separation start to be revealed, things get darker.

I'm not going to spend much time writing about this one because giving away anything at all would likely spoil the experience. I'll just say that it opens with whimsy, scoots along with some intrigue and mystery, and eventually gets very dark and disturbing. And I hope that doesn't give too much away.

I'm not sure I'd ever need to see this movie again, but it's something that everybody should see a first time.

Heat

1995 crime drama

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Cops try to catch bad guys.

"Cause she's got a. . .GREAT ASS! And you had your head all the way up it!"

Find me another actor who can deliver that line like Al Pacino delivers that line. Actually, I'm not sure "deliver that line" is the most accurate description for what's going on here because you can tell from Hank Azaria's face that the line was improvised and that he had likely never encountered a force like Al Pacino before.

It's so much fun to watch Robert De Niro's mouse to Al Pacino's cat in this. Both performances are great in completely different ways, but both are masters at creating characters who are in control. Pacino on the brink of a sexual experience isn't the movie's finest moment, but once the character's in his element at the scene of the armored car heist, watching him take charge as he's chomping on that gum is magic. De Niro demonstrates the control that his character has in a much different and much calmer way. There are scenes where the character gets violent, but it's never an unhinged violence. He can throw a "this motherfucker" at Waingro before pounding on a Waingro face a bit and look like he's in complete control of his faculties. Pacino's character can't even order a cup of coffee without seeming like he's about to explode. It's not just the characters who have contrasting forms of control. Their contrasting acting choices demonstrate that, too. With De Niro, his emotions are all submerged. He's such a good actor that you know they're in there, but they just barely come to the surface. Take a look at a scene when he's driving in a car near the end of the movie and has a bit of a decision to make. He doesn't say a word, and the passenger in his car doesn't say a word. Still, you can almost follow an entire internal monologue during that scene. Pacino, right around the same time, has a choice to make as well. He can't sit still, and, once the choice is made, he runs down some steps like an excited little boy running to check out what Santa Claus brought him. Both actors control that screen and demand the viewers' attention, but they do with with a contrasting quiet and bombast.

"Give it all ya got! Give it all ya got!" Or, to Tone-Loc: "Killed walkin' your doggie!" Or, "What are you a fuckin' owl?" Or, "You're a hot dog, a regular rodeo rider." Pacino's one of a kind.

That scene where Pacino and De Niro first get to act together is something, of course, but you have to admire an earlier scene during a second attempted heist where the two face off without actually facing off--De Niro on this infrared image, staring with suspicion into the night; Pacino staring right back, looking like he wants to eat the soul of anybody who happens to be watching him watching his rival. The scene naturally climaxes with De Niro calmly departing and Pacino seething.

But I do love that diner scene, two characters on opposite sides of the conflict getting a chance to share some dreams they've had. But here's a question--why is there music during that scene? That scene needed diner ambiance only. The score was superfluous.

It's not just those two in this movie though. In fact, everybody's in this movie! Val Kilmer is in this movie, most of it with the kind of hair that could make even the most heterosexual man fall for him. His best moment is when he shows off this unnecessary roll before he starts shooting at somebody from a roof. Hank Azaria's best moment has already been mentioned--the expression he gives Pacino after that "GREAT ASS" line. MAGA casualty Jon Voight brought a hair game, actually somehow looking like a withered Val Kilmer. I love how it doesn't seem like Voight is trying to do anything at all with his character. The great Ted Levine's in this, his best moment an improvised story about a kid he knew in school with a finger and eyelid trick. Dennis Haysbert has maybe three scenes in this entire movie, but his story is almost like a mini-movie within the movie. I like the depth with that story. William Fichtner, Tom Sizemore, Tom Noonan, Danny Trejo, Henry Rollins, Jeremy Piven, Tone-Loc. Everybody's in this movie!

And holy Harold, guess who else in this movie? Bud Cort! He gets his own paragraph.

The women don't fare so well, but I imagine that would be tough in a movie with the types of men who make up the rest of the cast. Ashley Judd's in there trying to decide whether it makes sense to cheat on Val Kilmer when he was studly enough to play Batman or Hank Azaria. Diane Venora's not very good, and young Natalie Portman has the unfortunate task of playing a character who probably doesn't even need to be in the movie. I really liked Amy Brenneman, but the developing romance between her and De Niro's character never feels like anything that should be real, and there's the music gets really tacky every single time she's on the screen.

The action scenes in this have an authenticity, and there's this visceral thrill with the way the editing and the sound work. Michael Mann knows how to film a nocturnal urban environment (Josh, who lent me a copy of this movie because he wanted my thoughts, said that), and he knows how to film a shoot-out. A bank robbery scene with this Brian Eno (ok, and members of U2) music is terrifically tense, but every movie would probably be better with Brian Eno's music in it. As good as those action sequences are, the very best one is likely the one where Pacino takes on a television.

There are a few storytelling issues. I didn't like anything that had to do with Portman's character, especially her dopey final scenes, for example. But I like how underneath all this crime drama, there are 2 1/2 character studies. There's a great moment when they converge as we see the effects of their careers and obsessions on their romantic relationships.

But that's too deep. I'm just going to admit that I only love this movie because it's got the greatest ten seconds in the history of cinema when Pacino delivers that "GREAT ASS" line.

Crimes and Misdemeanors

1989 comedy

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A ophthalmologist has some issues when his mistress gets a little too clingy. He decides to take drastic measures. Meanwhile, a struggling filmmaker regrets a decision to make a documentary about a pompous television director whom he grows to despise while falling for the documentary's producer.

This is a very smartly written film.

Bad Movie Club: Raw Force

1982 action movie

Bad Movie Rating: 4/5 (J.D.: 5/5; Fred: 4/5; Lisa: 4/5; Josh: 5/5)

Rating: 6/20

Plot: Some people trying to enjoy a martial-arts/sex cruise have their fun interrupted by some bad guys who trade women for jade on a zombie-filled island inhabited by shady monks.

This movie is also called Kung-fu Cannibals, and it's exactly as good as you'd think a movie called both Raw Force and Kung-Fu Cannibals would be. It's also as sleazy, borderline exploitative, the producers assuming they could make an easy buck by mixing the exposed breasts of every single female character with kung-fu, zombies, and explosions. It's a movie with 8 credited "hoods," 8 credited corpses, and 10 credited hookers which, for me at least, is a perfect proportion.

The film begins by showing the hijinks of he villains, a merry band of jade smugglers lead by a guy who is a combination of Panama Jack and Hitler. That villain is played by Ralph Lombardi who, despite stellar work with a wonky eye and a solid German accent here, wasn't in any other movies. Maybe he's just waiting for the right role. The rest of the bad guys are brutish but inept, the kinds of guys who cower behind tombstones as they fire machine guns at unarmed people. They're indistinguishable from one another except one of them has a bitching ponytail.

The good guys are also indistinguishable from each other. Most of the characters are part of a martial arts club, and they're enjoying their time on what appears to be a martial-arts/sex cruise. They try to hit each other with sticks, they flirt with the frequently-nude women on board, and they drink a whole lot. The boat is owned by a loud woman but captained by a seemingly drunk Cameron Mitchell. Apparently, he took his payment for this "starring" role in booze.

My favorite character is the bartender on the ship. Here's a picture:

If I looked like that guy, I'd never leave the house. He's Michael P. Stone, a stuntman in five movies, a bartender in this movie, and a "thug" in another.

Josh said "the entire bad movie kitchen sink" was in this movie. He might be right. You've got the ludicrous plot, zombies with bad zombie make-up, kung-fu, piranhas, terrible acting, an even worse script, sketchy fire effects, gratuitous breasts, cannibalism, weird pacing. The pacing of this story really is a major issue. It starts with the whores and monks and jade and guy with the Hitler Stache on the island, introduces us to the unlikable characters who are supposed to be the good guys, and then gives us a wild action sequence in a bar. Then, for about twenty or so minutes, it turns into a raunchy comedy when they're back on the ship. If you turned to this movie during that chunk of time, you'd have no idea this was an action movie with criminal activity and zombies. Well, you might think the movie itself is some sort of crime, but you wouldn't know there are any characters up to no good. You might even mistake it for slowly-developing porn.

Although this ends with a promise that it will be continued, I'm not sure what would even need to be continued here. Unless it's the parallel story of how that bartender survived the attack on that ship and then ran off to have an adventure on his own. It's been over 35 years, however, so we should assume a sequel isn't going to happen.

Roadkill

1989 road trip comedy

Rating: 14/20

Plot: A woman who works for a music producer is sent off to look for a band called Children of Paradise. During the search, she learns to drive.

"This is a movie about women and rock and roadkill."

I didn't intend on watching this movie from Bruce McDonald, the writer/director of Hard Core Logo. It stumbled into my life. That's appropriate as it feels like a movie that kind of stumbled into existence. Most of the movie is non-sequitur, but that's not in a bad way. It's got a bit of a Kevin Smith feel, maybe because of the black 'n' white, and the sense of humor is understated and askew. Most of it is shot very well. This was Miroslaw Baszak's cinematography job, and he started his career right with a great opening shot of a bunny.

The soundtrack is a lot of fun, mostly Canadian rock acts. The movie includes a performance by Nash the Slash with a bandaged face. I'm always on board with violins that are on fire. Joey Ramone, from the Ramones, also makes a brief appearance, and any time that master thespian can bring his talents to a movie production, you know it's going to help.

My favorite shots are of a hot-dog cart with a ventriloquist dummy head on it. It says "Wienie boy, wienie boy, such a tasty treat." It'll give me a mini-nightmare every time I enjoy a hot dog from now on.

For All Mankind

1989 documentary

Rating: 17/20

Plot: Guys go to the moon.

I didn't watch this as a way of celebrating the 49th anniversary of Buzz and Neil and the other guy going to the moon. That was a happy accident.

Geoffrey Unsworth's cinematography is stunning here. He and Kubrick do a great job creating these extraterrestrial scenes. Combined with the Brian Eno score, one that manages to be cold and moving simultaneously, this is a beautiful experience. I wish I could have seen it on the biggest screen imaginable.

My favorite thing about For All Mankind is finding out that these astronauts are just boring Joes, guys who have the same sense of wow that anybody else would have in these situations. One of them comments about how lucky he is to be the particular human being who gets a chance to do this. They crack jokes ("I know they've doing their job right because the moon is straight ahead.") and even use words like "neato" to describe their experiences. The fun two of them are having as they hop and skip around the moon makes astronauts more lovable than you'd guess an astronaut could be.

My knowledge of space exploration is likely very average, but I do know that NASA's not lost any astronauts when landing on the moon. Part of the genius of this documentary is that even with that knowledge, it still forces the viewer to hold breath during the landing. I was on the edge of my seat!

That might have been partially because of a coccyx issue, however.

Lots of poignancy here, moments that inspire thoughts about mankind's place in an impossibly-immense universe. I like some smaller moments, too--the guy who opens and closes the rocket's door and says "Godspeed" to the astronauts. The nomad fires the astronauts observe from space. Merle Haggard's request that a tape of his music is left on the moon.

I'll give the astronaut who claimed the moon was a "totally different moon then any moon [he'd] seen before" credit for a joke, but what's with the dude calling the moon a "really rugged planet"?

Anyway, I loved this documentary. I almost want to have it playing on a wall of my house at all times, and my wife and I listened to Eno's score while playing Qwirkle the other night.

Licence to Kill

1989 Bond movie

Rating: 14/20

Plot: James Bond gets pissed at some Cuban drug lords after they ruin his friend's honeymoon.

Typing "licence" as an American feels weird, and I don't want to do it. This is Trump's America that we're talking about, and I really shouldn't have to. Speaking of the big orange blowhard, anybody who watches this movie and doesn't understand that Trump is working hard to protect us from drug lords who use sharks as weapons need to watch more Alex Jones or something. You people just don't get it. Make America Shark-Free Again.

I'm accused Timothy Dalton of the crime of being dull. That's likely still true, but it's probably a matter of preference. Dalton is a lot closer to Craig than Moore, and anybody who's ever read a word I've written about 007 movies knows that I like my Bond with slide whistles. He's not the problem with this movie, and he's probably not the problem with the other movie he was in either. It's tough to stand out in a movie when you're competing against Wayne Newton anyway, even when you're the protagonist of said movie.

I swear that Gladys Knight and the Pips are haunting me. The theme song for this one is Gladys Knight and at least a few of the Pips. I don't know my Pips. How many were there? Were they attached by wires or something? I'm going to have to research these Pips to find out what they're about and why all these movies keep reminding me that they exist.

Licence to Kill has a darker tone, though it lacks a good testicle-torture scene, but still manages to be really silly. It has a little trouble balancing the darkness and silliness. You've got the honeymoon disruption, characters tortured by loss of loved ones and limbs, Bond going more rogue than Sarah Palin could ever think about going. At the same time, you've got some puerile one-liners ("He disagreed with something that ate him.") and ridiculous tropes that wouldn't feel out of place in an Austin Powers romp. Cuban drug lords who are like, well, Bond villains, weaponizing sharks, maggots, and electric eels. A ray disguise, the kind of thing that makes this especially tough to watch for Steve Irwin fans. Harpooning, of course; barefoot water-skiing; a bar fight that includes an attack with a swordfish, all while partially-nude (because it's a Bond movie) dancers still keep going (because it's the 1980's); much-too-quick romantic developments; bad dude Sanchez with a pet lizard; Cuban ninjas; gadgets, including a laser camera, a gun camera, toothpaste tube plastic explosives; a death via decompression chamber; a Batman tv show killing method moment. It climaxes with a vehicular chase that might remind some people of the Fast and the Furious franchise, including a very silly tanker maneuver that probably could have used that aforementioned slide whistle. And yes, anybody who's watched any movie at all can guess that a gift Bond is given will come into play later, probably in the exact way that it does.

Even Q knows that a love triangle that develops is silly. You can see it in his eye roll.

It's a rousing opener--a helicopter/plane chase and a parachute to a wedding. And aside from that, a lot of the action scenes are enjoyable, even the most ridiculous ones. I really liked a shot where he's digging around in these maggots and this shadowy shark swims behind him. There are some underwater thrills, some great stunts, and even a visit to Hemingway's house in the Florida Keys, a place filthy with felines. All in all, it's fun watching Bond in a situation where he's forced to do his own thing.

 "Chainsaw my ass!" Did you know that more chainsaws are sold in Florida than in Oregon? You learn things by watching a James Bond movie.

This was an early role for Benecio del Toro, just a year after playing Duke the Dog-Faced Boy in Big Top Pee-Wee. He brings a sort of lackadaisical charisma and a great bad-guy smile to his henchman character. Wayne Newton is perfect for what he does here, and Everett "Big Ed Hurley" McGill as another henchman named Killifer, a name that isn't dumb at all. Robert Davi has the right amount of meanness as Sanchez, and the lizard is pretty good, too, although you could argue that he needed more to do.

My favorite line: "Let's make this a proper family reunion. Give me a gun."

Leave No Trace

2018 drama

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A father and daughter living off the grid in the woods run into trouble when they are spotted.

Dang it! More bad chess. This time, the board is set up wrong. You can't convince me that this father is doing a good job taking care of his daughter when he can't even set up a chess board in the right way. Maybe that's the point since I'm not sure we're supposed to think Ben Foster's father character is doing a good job taking care of his daughter. There's ambiguity there. She's provided for, and she's safe until outside forces have intervened. And she's learning how to read and place chess with the board set up incorrectly. At the same time, she's given no chance to develop a social or interpersonal intelligence, learning how to be a bee, if you will.

Both performances at the heart of this movie are good enough to give this movie some, well, heart. Foster's quiet for the most part, and the wounds that have made the character end up the way he is are mostly kept inside. The screenplay only makes suggestions about what's happened to this combat veteran. Thomasin McKenzie delivers most of her lines in this awkward staccato, but she has expressive eyes that show this unspoken longing for things the character isn't even aware of. I also really enjoyed the fringe characters in this--the veterans that they interact with; Dana Millican, who plays a social worker; Isaiah Stone, who's only been in one other movie that isn't a Debra Granik movie; some musicians at a hippie trailer park, including one played by Michael Hurley (wait, THAT Michael Hurley?); Dale Dickey at that same trailer park; a truck driver played by stuntman Art Hickman. Most of those characters are just named after the performers. Dale is Dale. Isaiah is Isaiah. Even Thomasin McKenzie is a girl named Tom. I think that's pretty lazy on Debra Granik's part. She didn't want to make up her own names?

This is Granik's first movie since Winter's Bone. The two have some things in common. You've got the young female protagonist, of course, but there's also this great sense of place. Granik is great at telling these stories about characters on society's outskirts. As cliched as it sounds, the locations where Granik is filming here are nearly as important as the characters. The first woodsy domicile for these characters has a warmth and beauty; later, however, the woods and trees take on a more menacing quality, and that's shown visually with the color and natural light. You almost don't want to give the cinematography too much credit here because I'm pretty sure I could go to these locations with an iPhone and get shots that are beautiful by randomly pointing and clicking. But you have to credit Granik with finding these perfect little locations.

One highlight is some interpretative dancers at a church. They reminded me of one Michael P. Vigilante III, a reference that exactly one person reading this will understand and appreciate.

Seeing this again could very well cause me to sour on it a bit. Symbolism with bees and seashores seemed a little forced, although one of those scenes with the bees really was very touching. But I like seeing trees on the big screen.

Sex. Lies, and Videotape

1989 drama

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Andie MacDowell again? What the hell?

Before you do anything else, you need to Google "Sex Lies and Videotape Polish poster" and check that out. It's something else.

Andie MacDowell again! And just like in Four Weddings and a Funeral, this one ends with some inane dialogue about rain.

"I think it's gonna rain."
Laugh. "It is raining."
"Yeah."

You know, I'm just not sure I like Steven Soderbergh nearly as much as I'm supposed to. I certainly like this movie and think he's doing some great things, especially as a first time director. The juxtaposition at the very beginning with MacDowell talking about her dead grandfather watching her masturbate and her husband Peter Gallagher's infidelity introduces us to this relationship in a unique way. Their interactions overlap in surprising ways, but other than that, we're learning about this couple when they're not together at all. There's not a lot of pizzazz with the direction, but there are some nice subtle moments. Look at that slow zoom with MacDowell running her fingers on the stem of her wine glass while James Spader discusses his impotence, for example.

The performances are fine, aided by some very well-written dialogue. There are nuances there that I'd probably pick up if I watched this again.

Sweetie

1989 Campion debut

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Two sisters don't really get along.

Interest debut from Jane Campion. I don't really know much of her work. Actually, I think I've only seen The Piano. Though I don't remember much about The Piano, I can't remember it having this kind of visual style, the main thing that engaged me here. Here, Campion has this way of taking ordinary objects--a mug, some carpet, a person's foot, a tree, some porcelain horses--and giving them this almost otherworldly quality. Maybe it's the colors, maybe it's the composition, maybe it's the juxtaposition, or maybe it's a combination of things, but these mundane things somehow brought an eccentricity to the whole thing. Visually, it kind of reminded me of something like Wild at Heart. The humor actually reminded me of Napoleon Dynamite, so take that for what it's worth.

Tree house attack flatulence is a highlight.

I'm trying to find the name of a little person wearing a cowboy hat in this. I assume he's one of the six "jackaroos" in the credits. Ahh, yes. There he is--Marc Colombani. He also played a dwarf in 1985's Bliss, a movie I couldn't find when I was filling in 1985 gaps. Now I'm focused on 1989 movie gaps, and while this wasn't necessarily one of them, I am glad that I checked it out.