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Da 5 Bloods (2020)
A Spike Lee Soup
I expect more from Spike Lee. Multiple themes and genres overlapped. The main characters are (mostly) relatable, but the conclusion left me wondering what Lee had hoped I would have taken from the story. Certainly there was the point that America (White America) was horrible to black American soldiers, let alone Vietnam people who are, as always (although apparently not believed by enough people), just normal humans, like us. I would (unfairly) characterize that as the "Black People Suffering Racism from White America" theme. But there were other theme/genres that fought to be remembered. Vietnam War biopic. Adventure/Action guy movie. Bad father/Hurt son drama. Documentary on non-American NGO work to clean the mess America made. Boy-girl will-they-won't-they.
It was a soup of a Spike Lee Joint. Sometimes soup is what you need. But with a world-class chef, you'd hope the soup would have something that makes it memorable. This one... well, I wish it had less in it, so that it would have had more.
Enterprise: Divergence (2005)
Star Trek NCIS ?
I got WAY too distracted by the heavy-handed use of a zoom effect. It happened so often I stopped paying attention to the story. I kept watching and waiting for the inevitable zoom that was supposed to make SURE I knew that THIS SCENE IS SUPER SERIOULL (apologies to South Park). Or the shaky cam on a scene that wasn't at all needing it. Or the hyper-dramatic face-offs between Archer and Reed. It felt a little amateurish. It stopped being Star Trek Enterprise for me, and became A Really Melodramatic Show With Really Angry People And Slow Zooms and Fast Zooms and Science That Doesn't Let An Extra-Vehicular Transfer Work With A Winch But Has To Be A Manual Climb Up A Cable Hand Over Hand Because It Makes It Even More Dramatic.
Magic in the Moonlight (2014)
It wasn't magical at all
This COULD have been a much better movie, easily.
(Note: This review is a TOTAL SPOILER; I'm assuming you have already seen the movie and want to know whether you agree with me, or you don't care to avoid spoilers.)
The scenery is crazy beautiful, and the first act is a nice setup. We know Stanley is going to fall for Sophie, and Howard is just the obsequious hand-wringer to put them together and then get out of the way. We just don't know how.
The first act is great. I can't tell which characters are as they seem, and which ones are deceptive. The interplay between Stanley and Sophie is fun.
But as soon as Sophie reveals she knew of Stanley's subterfuge -- which he did so that he could reveal HER subterfuge -- it begins to fall apart.
After they visit Aunt Vanessa and she gets him to fall for the con, their borrowed roadster breaks down. After hours of fruitlessly attempting repairs, a downpour threatens to drench them both. They jump down a ravine and discover -- WHAT A LUCKY COINCIDENCE! -- they were next to an observatory that he visited more than once before. But he didn't recognize it before?
Also, why is the observatory well-lit, fully powered, clean, and yet vacant? Whatever. I can let that go.
Stanley is alone, facing a pretty, young, and totally dripping-wet woman who is putting his arm around her because she is chilled to the bone, and who just convinced him that she possessed actual clairvoyance. So he does what any man would naturally do.
He takes a nap on a marble bench while she paces around. Yeah.
He had to, because we needed a couple of hours for it to get dark AND for all the thunderclouds that had overcast the sky to vanish. When he awoke, Stanley opened the clamshell doors of the observatory. They happened to be standing precisely where they could see a beautiful, romantic crescent moon in a starry sky without moving a foot.
There you go -- Magic in the Moonlight. Because
he's a magician? In moonlight?
Except we find out that it wasn't romance. Later, she point-blank asks him, at a dance, whether he's ever thought of her "as a woman." He ruthlessly and coldly destroys the notion. Not even a hint of sympathy for her misunderstanding.
I'm left thinking that he's gay, which would make this movie a LOT more interesting, or that he's playing a con of his own -- hunting the hunter, so to speak, which would also make it more interesting.
But, no. I'm just going to cut to the chase. He does love her, we find out later. He's just an absolutely cold-blooded, egotistical jerk who only cares about himself. In fact, when he proposes to her, it's basically a suggestion to her that he will "let her" marry him, instead of the forgettable but incredibly wealthy puppy dog of a person who wants to give her everything in the world.
What girl could resist a chance to run away from the lap of luxury and adoration in order to be with a guy who loves her enough to offer his lack of objection?
There should have been plot twists around who conned who. Did she fool him? Did he fool her into thinking that she fooled him? Until the 3rd act, these seemed like possibilities.
She did fool him. But he didn't discover he'd been fooled. He just abruptly decided that he was being fooled, during a monologue-y prayer for his Dear Aunt Vanessa.
Not that it mattered. He decided that the same woman who helped torch his career with the Howard's assistance was the woman he would "let" marry him. The same woman who tricked him -- the ultimate skeptic -- into sincerely praying to God to save his Aunt Vanessa.
Did he fool her into thinking that she fooled him? No, his only effort to fool her was in the first act -- a ham-handed job that she easily penetrated in the first act (even though we learned later that she already knew, thanks to snake-in-the-grass frenemy Howard).
He just really sucks at dealing with love and romance, and would rather make her feel like an idiot than tell her that he might actually like her. Yeah, he's just helpless in his heart when it comes to her.
And at the end of it all, do you know what's better than letting a filthy rich puppy dog give you anything you want for the rest of your life while he sings insipid songs at you? I'll tell you. It's being a 25-year-old world-wise professional con-artist woman who suddenly decides she's really, truly, totally in love with the 53- year-old curmudgeon she just finagled into throwing away his own spiritual awakening, who knows he can't trust her further than he can spit, and whose reputation and career she just trashed with the help of one his best friends.
It's not that I think that May-December romances can't be fun to watch (not that I ever want one of my own -- I do not). Some Cary Grant movies are like that, and I enjoy them immensely. But they all have a lot more to offer in their characters and their stories than this movie had.
This one had Woody Allen at the helm. That probably should have been enough of a warning.
I really should have known better. Maybe I'll watch his earlier movies, but I'm done watching anything new from him.
Interstellar (2014)
Thought-provoking adventure,
This movie felt like it tried to accomplish two simultaneous and somewhat incompatible endeavors.
First, it was thought-provoking. Many questions were raised. What would life on earth be like if our climate runs amok? What happens to government when we all have to live hand-to-mouth? Are "they" out there communicating with us? Is it the essence of humanity to survive, or is it to pioneer, and, by extension, evolve? Second, it was also an adventure. I watched this in a full IMAX theater, with eighty bajillion watts of Super Thunder-Round Sound, or whatever the kids call it now. The visual effects definitely shine on the IMAX screen. The format switches occasionally, and usually imperceptibly, between 70mm for the scenes with dialogue, to IMAX format for that full-on dose of retina-overload spectacle. This movie is a wonderfully fun ride through a strangely familiar extra-galactic world. There are also plenty of tense moments, after which you realize you've been holding your breath.
I'm glad I went to watch this. That said, I think the film suffers a little from trying to be both an adventure thrill about the dangers of space travel, let alone an actual confrontation with a nemesis, and also a multi-layered allegory involving the dimensional tangle of time, gravity, love, and what it means to survive.
It asks more questions than it explores. While it fills in for the missing answers with white-knuckled brushes with death, it wasn't as intellectually satisfying as I hoped. I spent an hour discussing the thoughtful components with a friend. In the end, we were grasping to find symbolism, metaphors, or other messages about humanity. We never coalesced "the message" of the movie.
But did we need to? It was, as I said, also a thrill ride. The adventurous climax was a little less than terrifyingly dramatic; I can't say I had the same post-climactic cathartic experience as I've had for other movies. But it was a definite end, closing most of the open plot points. I certainly felt moved by the characters' resolutions.
I was suspicious that Matthew McConaughey could convince me that he was a space-ready engineer; it turns out that he didn't need to, because he did convince me that he was a dad that loved his children as much as any dad could. I think all the leads delivered solidly: Caine, Lithgow, Hathaway, Damon, Chastain, Affleck... I connected with the characters and felt their pain and happiness.
Hans Zimmer played up the drama in the music a little heavily, I thought, and unnecessarily. It wound up creating the opposite of the effect I think he intended. Many of the scenes could have used a lighter touch, musically. Some of them worked brilliantly.
Although I had my quibbles, the final analysis is that I would definitely choose to watch the movie a second time, but I'm not making plans to, for now.
Craft Corner Deathmatch (2005)
A ready-for-prime-time SNL skit?
I'm not normally one to watch game shows, and I'm definitely not one to watch more than one "craft" show per year.
But THIS show is one I would watch. It's seems like a Saturday Night Live skit, turned into a real game show.
Meet Jason Jones. Do you remember Richard Dawson's game show host in The Running Man (1987)? Like that, only a younger version, and maybe even a little more over the top, if that's possible. He hams up the "DeathMatch" idea to the hilt. Way to go, Jason!
Meet angry Amber, the surly assistant hostess. I always look forward to seeing her dragging herself to the contestants tables, spitefully yanking their creations to the judges' table, and generally looking like she can't wait for the show to end. As in "blow up."
Meet The Craft Lady of Steel. 'Nuff said.
Watch this show. You will not regret it, no matter how hip and cool thou art.
Liberty Stands Still (2002)
The end does justify the means, but only after the fact
First, I'm a poor man's film critic. I like most of the movies I've seen, whether they deserve it or not. Except Leonard Part 6 (don't ask).
I liked this movie, not because of its actors (who did better than I could have done), or its script and dialogue (that was better than I could have written), or its overall production quality (that revealed no amateurish mistakes which I'm sure I would have made). I liked this movie because it clearly did, here in IMDB, exactly what Joe wanted to have happen - we're debating the wisdom of the Second Amendment, amongst other things, only we're carefully wording our positions to sound like a critique of the movie, or its plot, or the script.
To all of the other commentators out there: please stop whining about whether it's Yet Another Liberal Film From Hollywood. You have as much right to say what you want as they do. I think even the non-liberals are a little desensitized to the "everything in the media/movie business is slanted to the left" hew and cry. I know I am, and I'm not a liberal, but merely a thinking man (or so I hope). Just make your case, and stop worrying about Them.
[WARNING -- SPOILERS AHEAD]
Joe wants many things, not just the second amendment debate. I don't know, if my daughter was shot by a punk with a gun that I knew was almost hand-delivered to him by another man that I knew was corrupt... I can't say that I wouldn't feel some desire to make the corrupt man pay for his sins with his life. True, two wrongs don't make a right, and it still wouldn't have brought back my daughter, yet having the desire and acting on it are two different things. I'm sure I would want revenge, though I may not act on it. Joe wanted revenge, and clearly he was willing to act on it.
Did nobody catch the subplot (you know, the subtle one that was sort of shoved into your face with the dialogue)? That Victor Wallace was heavily guarded and a difficult target? That Liberty was the one that had the predictable schedule, whereby Joe might use her to draw out Victor? That Victor wrote his wife's life off from the first moment, and that Joe knew he would? That the only way Joe could get to Victor was to accuse him of being less than a man -- NOT by using his love for his wife during her time of greatest peril.
So why not a simple hostage scene, which would have given us, the paying audience (even if you watched on Cinemax, you paid for it) with the desired Fiorentino/Snipes combustion? Because Joe wanted his daughter's death to mean something more than simple revenge, I guess. Liberty suggested to Joe, "would your daughter want this?" But then, would his daughter want another little girl to be the victim of another punk with a gun, if there was something -- ANYthing -- that could be done to change it?
Or, for another reason: had Joe merely kidnapped Liberty, then Victor's henchmen, and the henchmen of the people in Victor's back pocket, would have eliminated Joe, and Liberty, and the supervisor of the building, and the neighbors, and anyone else standing too close... and the police (who Joe alleged were corrupted by Victor) would have blamed it all on Joe.
Whether you agree with gun control, or think that Joe was right when he said "I'm could be just another legal gun-owning American fighting the government's oppression of my freedom," or think that the answer lies somewhere a field, this movie, regardless of it's overall view-ability value, should inspire thoughts
Joe hit where he could, where it would hurt, and where it would make a difference. He knew it would also cost him his life (too many powerful people would want him dead, anyway). But, as he said, "It's a start."
So the debate has been going on, anyway. True, it's people that kill people, not guns, not bullets, not pits, not your heritage to your murderous ancestors, not teachers failing to enact safety measures, or anything else ourselves.
It's merely a sad truth that there are people who will kill other people, using any means they can. What we have to do is find a way to better teach a would-be killer that they let themselves down the most if they kill, whether by violating their own values, or by letting down the people that matter to them.
Joe took the violent man's way out. Funny thing -- so did the American colonists when they decided to set themselves free. That second amendment was awfully important back then.
So, did the end justify the means? Joe said "yes." What do you say?
It's a movie without a definitive answer (even if you think there was one), but one with a definite result after the fact. I have to admire it for that.