Recent Viewings, Part 2

[Dr. Whom]

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

Finally caught up with this. Sweet but no surprises.

[ER]

I've attempted to watch Liquorice Pizza twice but each time something has intervened. Hmm, maybe I am not meant to see this movie....

[Rev. Powell]

AFTERSUN (2022): A woman looks back on old videos of an idyllic vacation with her father at a Turkish resort when she was 11. The perfect movie for you if your idea of entertainment is watching other people's vacation videos. It has great reviews from both critics and audiences, but I don't get the appeal at all: "Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du commerce, 1080 Bruxelles" had more action. 2/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Trading Places" (1983)
Two elderly millionaires (Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy) make a bet that messes with the lives of a wealthy young stock trader (Dan Aykroyd) and a wise-ass street hustler (Eddie Murphy) -- swapping their positions in society to see how each man would react, as an "experimental study of the human condition." Eddie takes to the high-finance life like a duck to water, while Dan barely scrapes by on Skid Row with the help of a kind-hearted prostitute (Jamie Lee Curtis). Once Eddie & Dan figure out that they've been played, they join forces to get even with the old goats. Lots of slobs-versus-snobs fun in this '80s classic directed by John "Animal House" Landis.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Metro" (1997)
Eddie Murphy plays a hostage negotiator for the San Francisco P.D., who's breaking in a new partner while also dealing with the hunt for a murderous jewel thief and cop killer. Cars crash, guns go off, fists fly, stuff blows up. This entertaining but fairly standard 90s action flick was grittier than usual for Murphy; I wonder if it was originally written with another actor in mind. Anyone expecting to watch Eddie clown around in Axel Foley mode might be disappointed, but I was impressed by his straight action-hero chops.

[M.10rda]

WILDCAT (2022):
A caveat: I don't watch as many documentaries as I used to and certainly not as many as Rev. Powell. Plus watching the trailer (2 or 3 times) assured me that I was the easiest mark for what  WILDCAT appeared to be selling. The film delivers on the trailer's promise: this is the best documentary I can think of about the transformative, redemptive potential of caring for an animal. However, that warm, snuggly, tearjerker is only about half the film.

The other half has a lot of suspense, psychological drama, a nasty twist in the first 20 or so minutes, and ultimately delivers a far more complex and less uplifting reflection on grief, trauma, clinical depression, and the nature of interdependence and sometimes codependence between human beings and between humans and animals. That last element is the one that pays off the biggest dividends, particularly near the end when a father is reunited with a (human) son he'd likely never expected to see alive again.

I have to credit the directors, Melissa Lesh and Trevor Frost, for creating a meaningful narrative out of literal years of footage. The film's primary human subjects, Harry and Samantha, shot much of the footage and are credited as Field Producers. I never lost sympathy for them, but I felt dismayed at the end when they seemed unable to empathize much with one another. I hope they're able to watch WILDCAT and find a little more perspective on their actions and their relationship.

Also, the sprawling, inhospitable, sometimes maddening jungle setting - in concert with the protagonists' attempts to achieve something that might be impossible and the film's more existential implications - conspire to make me feel like WILDCAT is the best film Werner Herzog never made.

Perfect 5/5

[Rev. Powell]

WILDCAT (2022):
A caveat: I don't watch as many documentaries as I used to and certainly not as many as Rev. Powell. Plus watching the trailer (2 or 3 times) assured me that I was the easiest mark for what  WILDCAT appeared to be selling. The film delivers on the trailer's promise: this is the best documentary I can think of about the transformative, redemptive potential of caring for an animal. However, that warm, snuggly, tearjerker is only about half the film.

The other half has a lot of suspense, psychological drama, a nasty twist in the first 20 or so minutes, and ultimately delivers a far more complex and less uplifting reflection on grief, trauma, clinical depression, and the nature of interdependence and sometimes codependence between human beings and between humans and animals. That last element is the one that pays off the biggest dividends, particularly near the end when a father is reunited with a (human) son he'd likely never expected to see alive again.

I have to credit the directors, Melissa Lesh and Trevor Frost, for creating a meaningful narrative out of literal years of footage. The film's primary human subjects, Harry and Samantha, shot much of the footage and are credited as Field Producers. I never lost sympathy for them, but I felt dismayed at the end when they seemed unable to empathize much with one another. I hope they're able to watch WILDCAT and find a little more perspective on their actions and their relationship.

Also, the sprawling, inhospitable, sometimes maddening jungle setting - in concert with the protagonists' attempts to achieve something that might be impossible and the film's more existential implications - conspire to make me feel like WILDCAT is the best film Werner Herzog never made.

Perfect 5/5

Glad you liked it. I voted it into my best 5 documentaries of the year but it didn't make my critic's group list. There are just so many documentaries made every year, no one can see all of them unless you specialize in them.

[Rev. Powell]

WOMAN TALKING (2022): After a series of rapes, the women of an Amish-style religious sect debate whether to stay or leave the only world they've ever known. You could fashion a touching and poetic feminist parable out of this material, and when the film focuses on the backstory one peeks through, but unfortunately all the parliamentary debate turns it too didactic, obvious, and heavy-handed. 2.5/5.

[M.10rda]

WOMAN TALKING (2022): After a series of rapes, the women of an Amish-style religious sect debate whether to stay or leave the only world they've ever known. You could fashion a touching and poetic feminist parable out of this material, and when the film focuses on the backstory one peeks through, but unfortunately all the parliamentary debate turns it too didactic, obvious, and heavy-handed. 2.5/5.

That's unfortunate... I regard Sarah Polley's TAKE THIS WALTZ very highly because (among other reasons) it refrains from being didactic and obvious...

[Rev. Powell]

WOMAN TALKING (2022): After a series of rapes, the women of an Amish-style religious sect debate whether to stay or leave the only world they've ever known. You could fashion a touching and poetic feminist parable out of this material, and when the film focuses on the backstory one peeks through, but unfortunately all the parliamentary debate turns it too didactic, obvious, and heavy-handed. 2.5/5.

That's unfortunate... I regard Sarah Polley's TAKE THIS WALTZ very highly because (among other reasons) it refrains from being didactic and obvious...

I liked her documentary STORIES WE TELL.

[M.10rda]

MONSTER HIGH (1989):
Posting about this only because I never, never recall reading or hearing anyone mention or discuss it in 40 years of consuming film reviews, books about movies, film websites, podcasts, etc. It's on IMDB but so are hundreds or thousands of other films no one ever talks about. I'm pretty sure I obtained my copy over a decade ago, thinking I was picking up Larry Cohen's FULL MOON HIGH, which may not be superior to this in any case.

Bearing an '89 release date, this looks like it could've been shot as early as '80, and (given the often loose continuity) might have taken multiple years to get in the can. It's very much of a piece with circa-'80 horror spoofs like PANDEMONIUM, WACKO!, SATURDAY THE 14TH, etc - but w/o any recognizable actors and w/ even less entertainment value (if you can imagine that!).

Aliens/demons/monsters invade a generic community college, er, "high school", led by "Mr. Armageddon" (who looks like a bloated, hung over Gerrit Graham) and his chief henchmen, two "skinheads" from the "planet Latex", who are clearly played by hyperactive professional mimes. To its nominal credit, MONSTER HIGH is fast-paced and tirelessly eventful. It's also cut so manically one suspects the assistant editor was a massive pile of blow. There's a large cast of "high schoolers" in their mid-to-late 20s who get killed off briskly, some cheezy creature FX, occasional gore, intermittent and totally gratuitous nudity, and a non-stop procession of cheap puns and desperately unfunny clowning. The leads are dull while an occasionally promising supporting character (such as a sexy and resourceful redheaded teacher named "Miss Anne Thrope", hardy har har) is always underutilized. I did laugh out loud once, when the whitebread hero asks his crush what "Advanced Sex Ed" was like and she tells him it was "mostly theory". Yep, that's the funniest line in the movie.

Eventually the fate of the school and the Earth is decided by a basketball game... snore. Of course I'd checked out mentally long before this point. MONSTER HIGH is exactly the sort of rubbish that might show up on "USA Up All Night" in the late 80s/early 90s. It's a commendable example of extremely enthusiastic bad filmmaking. I probably would have really dug it if I'd seen it when I was 10 or maybe 12, and only semi-conscious after midnight. No apparent connection to the "Monster High" line of dolls and cartoons or Todd Holland's 2022 movie, but I wonder if this movie's producers have attempted a lawsuit anyway.

[indianasmith]

THE RENTAL (2020) Two brothers and their girlfriends rent a beautiful BnB on the coast, perched on a cliff overlooking the Pacific. The supervisor is a rather creepy bigot who makes snide remarks about one guy's middle eastern girlfriend, but after he leaves stuff starts to go weird. After partying too hard and doing too much X, one brother has sex with the other's girlfriend, and then the next morning she discovers a small camera hidden in the shower head.  They suspect the creepy racist landlord, but the truth turns out to be something far more sinister . . .  Nice atmospheric horror/suspense movie.  4/5

[Dr. Whom]

The Menu (2022)

Definitely worth a watch, but I found it disappointing. It is billed as a horror comedy, but there is not much horror, not much comedy, not much suspense, and even not that much of an ensemble performance either. Many of the supporting characters are merely there to do what the plot requires. From a movie that is so exquisitely made with such an obsessive attention to detail, one would expect more. There is not enough substance for the style.
What we do have is the duel between Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy, both of whom are superb, with Nicholas Hoult as comic relief. This is absolutely great.

With a group of obnoxiously rich people on an island for a festive occasion thrown by an eccentric genius, it is hard not to make the comparison with Glass Onion. Glass Onion is a lot more fun, though.

[Rev. Powell]

TAR (2022): As fictional genius conductor Lydia Tar is completing a magnum opus recording of Mahler's 5th, she finds her career threatened by scandals from the past. The movie places you inside the high pressure milieu of the world's premiere orchestras, revealing that fallible people with petty politics and bad behavior make transcendently beautiful music. I'm not sure how people who aren't that familiar with classical music will react; I caught a lot of the name-dropping references and enjoyed the rehearsals, but if you don't share that interest I suspect you might find it boring. 4/5.

[M.10rda]

From a movie that is so exquisitely made with such an obsessive attention to detail, one would expect more.

...it is hard not to make the comparison with Glass Onion. Glass Onion is a lot more fun, though.

^^^Agree strongly to both.