Recent Viewings, Part 2

[M.10rda]

Wake Up Dead Man. A Knives Out Mysteru (2025)
 there is no antagonist. In an ordinary murder mystery, there is always the threat that the killer will strike back and/or murder again to prevent getting caught. Here the protagonists are never in any jeopardy or under pressure.
People seem to like it, though.

WAKE UP DEAD MAN (2025):
I guess it's a controversial opinion, but I thought this was easily the best of the three star-studded KNIVES OUT holiday events and found it to be (besides a nearly perfect murder mystery) an extremely compelling character drama. This one boasts Josh Brolin (who currently has won 2025 after starring in the two best new films I've seen this year), the always magnificent Kerry Washington, Mila Kunis, Glenn Close, Jeremy Renner, Thomas Haden Church, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, and the Great Jeffrey Wright. There's also an actor who I thought (in lieu of opening credits) was Jamie Bell in a career-best performance but is actually named Josh O'Connor, who manages to match Daniel Craig's intensity and conviction for 2.5 hours. Craig himself has really settled into the role of Benoit Blanc, at last making him a three-dimensional character as well as being typically entertaining to watch. The same might be said for series auteur Rian Johnson, whose work is totally assured without ever slowing to an expository crawl (at least imho) or overreaching into occasional clownishness, as might have been said about some of his previous efforts.

Also, as I know Rev. Powell is both a fan of the original KNIVES OUT and of Tom Waits, I'll mention that this film closes with one of my favorite Waits tracks.

As for one of Dr. Whom's key criticisms... [LIGHT NON-CLIMACTIC SPOILERS] ...It's true that there is less threat of mortal or physical danger here than in the two previous films (though not none). From an analytical perspective, the term "antagonist" need only refer to the force that opposes the protagonist/s in pursuing their objective, and indeed those forces are in effect in WUDM. But besides this splitting of hairs, I appreciate Whom's criticism as it made me reflect upon an element that causes me to more deeply admire WUDM, as I will explain (with ongoing light SPOILERS) as follows...

Ayn Rand (who wrote one Christie-ish whodunnit and one courtroom/homicide drama) once said she had to discontinue writing murder mysteries because anyone who'd read and understood her philosophy of Objectivism  would always instantly be able to identify the culprit. Among her other uhhh quirks, Rand saw murder as a pragmatic, even constructive act, thus only the strongest and most admirable protagonist could commit such an act in one of her stories.  After the first socially tinged KNIVES OUT and the more broadly satirical GLASS ONION, it's clear that Rian Johnson is, like Rand, an author of extreme principles, if probably oppositional to Rand in most ways. In the KNIVES OUT universe, the culprits are always "antagonists"... corrupt, callous, and/or outright evil characters whose general motivation is to make life less pleasant for the rest of the world. In order to complicate the mystery, Johnson fills his casts with such objectionable figures. In counterpoint, it's difficult to ever seriously suspect the second lead in these films of being the murderer - though WUDM does tease occasionally the idea, for funsies - because if one of Johnson's principled protagonists had committed a murder, they would do exactly what O'Connor's does in this film when he thinks he's somehow guilty........ they'd promptly turn themselves in. In the world of Benoit Blanc, it isn't just the crime that makes a character the Antagonist - it's the cover-up and the motivation. [END LIGHT NON-CLIMACTIC SPOILERS]

There are huge stakes for O'Connor's character, besides potential death, and for Benoit Blanc, too. Those stakes are legal but more importantly moral, ethical, and spiritual. Also, in its limited scope, WAKE UP DEAD MAN is concerned with the soul of the Catholic Church (whether you care about that, as O'Connor does, or you could care less, like Blanc and myself) and the United States of America. (I realize that viewers living in Belgium or elsewhere may be indifferent to that one, but I'm stuck here.) Thus Johnson's mere murder mystery seems at times closer to a philosophical treatise - but more engaging than those by Rand.

Great way to end the Movie year = 5/5

I am now won over and will eagerly await a new Blanc/KNIVES OUT mystery every 3 years as long as Craig and Johnson want to make them. (If Johnson runs out of novel celebrity guest stars he can always start recycling them, as he does each film with Noah Segan.)

[Rev. Powell]

WICKED: FOR GOOD (2025): In the sequel, Elphaba continues to be falsely vilified as the Wicked Witch for the Wizard's Machiavellian purposes. Unsatisfying, overstretched revisionism that does have impressively grandiose production design, at least. 2.5/5. Final viewing of 2025 because my 9-year-old niece wanted to see it, although even she couldn't pay attention.

[M.10rda]

9 year-old nieces, right?  This too shall pass.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" (2016)
The daughter of the Empire's premier weapons designer joins the Rebellion and leads a mission to steal the plans for the in-progress Death Star in this prequel to the original 1977 film. Essentially it's an old fashioned war movie ala "The Dirty Dozen" in Star Wars wrapping, and it's still my favorite of the "new" round of S.W. movies.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Red Sonja" (1985)
Producer Dino De Laurentiis tried to duplicate the success of the two "Conan" flicks with this spin off featuring the statuesque but wooden Brigitte Nielsen as the red-headed swordswoman. She battles a variety of bad guys and monsters on her quest to stop an evil queen who's stolen an artifact with immense destructive power.
Ahh-nuld appears in a supporting role as a character who is clearly supposed to be Conan, but isn't named "Conan," likely due to copyright issues. Legend has it that he considers this his worst film, and he only made it to fulfill his contract with De Laurentiis.
I was prompted to revisit this legendary flop after watching the godawful 2025 Sonja "reboot" last week, so I could compare the two. Make no mistake, they're both pretty terrible, but at least the '85 version was the "fun" kind of bad; the 2025 film was the cinematic equivalent of a root canal. If you absolutely must watch a Red Sonja movie (and I am not at all suggesting you do), make it this one.

[indianasmith]

FAIREST OF THEM ALL (2025)  -
  I found this rather bizarre film on Peacock tonight.  The Mad Hatter has imprisoned some homicidal versions of classic fairy tale/Disney princesses and forces them into a death match for the "privilege" of becoming his bride and ruling the realm of madness by his side. Bloody showdowns follow.  Not terrible, but not great. 2.5/5 - 3/5

[Jim H]

Side Effects May Vary (2024)- randomly saw this was directed by JR Bookwalter, director of The Dead Next Door and Robot Ninja.  He hadn't directed in 20 years, so it was a woah moment.  It's a COVID movie where an experimental COVID vaccine makes a guy start to disintegrate and crave human flesh.  The effects work is almost entirely practical, and is...  Fine.  The film is more or less watchable.  But it's not great, and is not nearly as interesting as the Dead Next Door.  I dunno.  It was OK I guess.  A final act twist in the relationship of two side characters did make me perk up quite a bit even though it didn't end up mattering much.

 

[indianasmith]

LOOKOUT (2025) - My daughter and I were up before everyone else, so we caught this low-budget, slow-burn horror film on Tubi.  Basic premise: A fire ranger posted to a lonely lookout tower has to deal with a hiker possessed by a malevolent alien.  Could have used a bit more explanation, but well-acted overall. 2.5/5

[M.10rda]

MURDER! (1930):
I figured I might as well start the new year off Basic - and (pumpkin spice lattes notwithstanding) you can't get more basic than an early Alfred Hitchcock film called "MURDER!" That's like David Lynch's first film being titled WEIRD! or Tarkovski's debut being titled SLOW! or Tarantino's premiere being titled PASTICHE! or Russ Meyer breaking out with a movie titled BOOBS! Turns out this isn't even Hitchcock's first film - he'd made at least a dozen features by 1930, including at least two other thrillers and one other talky. Thus I oughtn't be surprised that MURDER! is... pretty advanced for a film from 1930!

Besides the long, static, stagy takes that one expects from early sound features, Hitch also incorporates a lot of CU cut-ins (sometimes even frivolously, just to prove he can?) and a ton of montage... suggesting he was paying attention to the silent Russian guys in the previous decade. There's a lot of humor as would sometimes later be the case in his films, but instead of just being situational, some of Hitch's compositions and staging even predict the formal playfulness of a Wes Anderson picture (!), particularly early on. The first 40 minutes or so are the strongest, stylistically and narratively. A dazed young woman is found seated next to a bludgeoned victim, the murder weapon at her feet. She claims to remember nothing of the crime, and generally acts like such a flake that quickly she's on trial for Murder("!"). Hitch takes us into the deliberation room and for a while it seems like MURDER! will be a proto-TWELVE ANGRY MEN. But then the focus shifts again...

I like how MURDER! keeps shaking up viewer expectations, but when it finally settles into being a post-conviction amateur investigation, it becomes rather less interesting, though still pretty well-directed. There are some goofy aspects to the plot revelations: the wrongly convicted "murderess" acted like a flake because she'd endured a blow to the head, which no one bothered to ascertain; the ambivalent juror who later seeks to clear the accused's name had a previous professional and social relationship with her (which shouldn't happen in an American court, but maybe they don't care about that kind of thing in the UK!); and the real murderer's motivation was to cover up uhhh... something that even the most uptight conservative wouldn't bother murdering to cover up in 2025. But that was the early 20th century for ya', I guess.

3/5 Pretty good as Hitchcock goes.
The actress who plays the accused is quite lovely and charming, in spite of her head injury - a brunette instead of Hitchcock's routine frosty blonde - but she has the same odd last name as her character ("Baring"), which is uhhh....... ahh who knows.

[M.10rda]

I tend to give the most entertaining bad movies around a 3.5 if I'm recommending for a general audience, with a note that bad movie fans will rate them higher.

I so appreciate Rev. Powell's recent benediction of high ratings for bad movies, 'cause this one is definitely a legit stinker:

THE MADS ARE BACK: THE INCREDIBLE PETRIFIED WORLD (1957):
...And yet I had a ball watching it. A team of coed seafarers ride John Carradine's experimental diving bell to the bottom of the ocean and then (apparently) beyond, getting stuck underneath the ocean floor (or something), where they walk and walk and walk around a mazelike cavern, see a cut-away of a harmless normal-sized komodo dragon, and meet a lunatic in a hilarious fake beard and wig. That lunatic instantly seems likely to behave inappropriately towards the two women, though it takes him a long time to get around to that behavior, and by that time there's an earthquake that fails to trigger an ominous yet hapless subterranean volcano. In the meanwhile, Carradine unites with his brother for a montage sequence (absolutely screaming for some Hall & Oates underscore) where they create an improved diving bell that won't f**k up as bad as the first one did.

At last I got around to watching a MADS riff featuring my favorite MST3K alumni Trace and Frank. It's refreshing how they depart from MST and Rifftrack tradition and really seem to be watching this film cold/unrehearsed. As a result it takes several minutes for them to get up to speed, and then they're firing off golden one-liners like the old pros they are. But even independent of their riffs... I thought INCREDIBLE PETRIFIED WORLD was a riot!

As the Mads repeatedly remind us, IPW is a Jerry Warren picture, and while (like all Jerry Warren pictures) it is cheap and preposterously uneventful, it somehow moves along from one non-event to the next in a much more snappy way than many of Warren's other movies. Instead of just being boring, the absurdity of most of this film's bad ideas are self-evident and thus automatically funny. At one point, Warren takes a break from the underwhelming undersea adventure for a long dialogue scene where Carradine speculates on theories of mechanical improvements with another egghead. Will Ferrell and Adam McKay couldn't write or improvise this scene in a more preposterously funny yet straight-faced way than how Warren, Carradine, and the other actor execute it. It's bonkers pro facie.

Then again, I won't likely revisit IPW without riffs...  but if you find it riffless in the wild, go for it!

3.5/5
Carradine looks healthy and ruggedly handsome, and of course is a much better actor than Jerry Warren deserved or knew what to do with. ("I worked with John Ford!", one of the Mads exclaims.) Fortunately Carradine is in the entire movie (just in the above sea level parts), so while it's plausible that he only worked for a couple of days of shooting (as the Mads allege), Warren really got his money's worth. (The actor playing Carradine's younger brother actually looks like him, too.) Good for him and us!   

[Rev. Powell]

I've seen PETRIFIED WORLD without riffs (long before the MAB screening) and you're absolutely right not to consider revisiting it. One of the dullest movies you'll ever encounter.

[M.10rda]

This might be the magic of the Mads at work. I started watching their version of WIZARD OF MARS, a film I've seen and thought was intolerable, and yet suddenly I felt like I was watching a different film with much better SFX and more action.  The Mads are like alchemists!

[chainsaw midget]

Just Imagine (1930) 

One of the first (if not THE first) science fiction "talkie".  The plot is a little all over the place.  The movie takes place in the distant year of 1980, where the government controls who you marry, prohibition is still in affect (although alcohol can be bought as pills), everyone has their own vertical take-off plane instead of cars, babies come from vending machines, and men's clothes apparently lack pockets. 

One of our main characters is in love with a woman that he wants to marry, and she wants to marry him, but the laws has provided a better husband for her.  However if he can improve his standing, he can appeal.  The problem is, he's already at the top of his field as a zeppelin pilot. 

He happens to attend a scientific demonstration with his buddy where scientists bring a man from 1930 who was killed by a lightning strike back to life.  Once they bring him back, they say they have no more plans for him, they just wanted to see if they could do it, and they turn him lose.  Our heroes say he can hang out with them.  Some of the humor comes from him being a fish out of water but not as much as you think.  A ... partially recurring joke was for him to see something, hold his hand up like he's giving an oath and saying "give me the good old days".  They do this three or four times and then just stop halfway through the movie.   Another part of the humor comes from the revived man being a somewhat well know "Swedish" comedy actor at the time.  I mean, he's not horrible, but he's not exactly great or anything. 

Eventually a scientists approaches out heroes and gives them a chance to really shine.  He's created a spaceship that can travel to Mars and he wants our zeppelin pilot lead (and his best friend) to pilot it. However the time frame is tight.  The flight there and back will take just under four months, which is the time our hero had to raise his status in society or else his girl will have to marry someone else. 

On Mars, they encounter a lot of scantily clad dancing girls, their queen, and ... their king?  I'm not sure what the other guy is, but his costume has to be seen.  They also find out everybody on Mars as a twin.  One good, one evil.  They also seem to forget this a few times too. 

I'm not sure I can see this is a good movie or a bad one.  I'm not even sure I can say I enjoyed it, but it is interesting and worth a look, not just for what people thought 1980 would look like 50 years before it happened, but for some really interesting almost Metrpolis-style set pieces. 

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Attic" (1980)
Twenty years after being stood up at the altar, a mousy librarian (Carrie Snodgrass) begins to lose her grip on reality as she deals with the loss of her job and caring for her abusive, wheelchair bound, wealthy rat bastard father (a positively despicable Ray Milland).
I seem to remember the trailers for this movie promising something more supernatural in nature, but this is a pretty cool, creepy psycho-melodrama with some horror overtones. The fantastic performance by Snodgrass as her character's mental state slowly unravels is worth the price of admission all by itself. An overlooked gem.

[M.10rda]

BALLERINA (2025):
This grossed only $135,000,000 and therefore was deemed a flop based on its $90,000,000 budget, to which I can only say: Repent, Hollywood Babylon, before your bubble bursts altogether and you are washed from the Earth. Movies cost too much damn money to make and especially too much to advertise. 

If you like Keanu Reeves as John Wick and you like incredible action sequences, there's no reason you wouldn't enjoy BALLERINA, which has the former for about a minute early on and then for a good 30 minutes at the end (it seems to take place between the first two Chapters of JOHN WICK or maybe between the raindrops of Chapter 3) and has the latter in uh-BUN-dance. Ana De Armas is supremely cool and capable as the ass-kicking lead. I am sure someone somewhere on the large internet has complained about her being a "Mary Sue" or something stupid like that, but if Shakespeare (and the mainline WICKs) taught us nothing, it's that great action heroes don't "stir without great argument, but greatly [...] find quarrel in a straw when honour's at the stake." Reeves himself reminds himself early on in BALLERINA that he found quarrel in a dead puppy, and De Armas has a much bigger axe to grind... and does she ever grind it!

Okay, research informs me that the cost of this one ballooned when the producers had to bring in the director of all the JOHN WICKs in to reshoot "the Prague sequence" of this film, because director-of-record Len Wiseman apparently blew it. (Anne Parrilaud, the original LA FEMME NIKITA, is in the credits as "Prague Concierge" but I couldn't spot her anywhere in the movie, so I guess all her scenes were scrubbed.) Now, the Prague sequence in BALLERINA is about 20-25 minutes long and in the first half of the movie, and it does include a pretty fabulous battle in a weapons store (including some insane grenade gags). Moreover, Len Wiseman directed the original UNDERWORLD, so I have every reason to believe he might be a complete imbecile. And yet, if Chad Stawhatevs primarily reshot the Prague sequence, and therefore Wiseman directed any if not all of the second half of BALLERINA - an hour of mayhem where De Armas (eventually assisted by Reeves) fights an entire village in the Swiss Alps - then I might have to eat my words because Wiseman may actually be a certified genius....... 'cause that entire second half is at least on par with the already famous park steps sequence at the end of JOHN WICK 4.

4/5 A total riot.