Tag Archives: Movies

Important History

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I don’t get political on here. I have opinions on lots of those things, but this is part of the place where I go to make sure I can get away from those things. I’m writing about this because it is of personal interest and it matters to me and to many who are dear to me. I won’t tolerate political nonsense being posted here. It’s mine, I own it, I will chuck you out. You have been warned.

It’s pride month. This doesn’t apply to me, but it applies to many family and friends. It matters. One of the other things that matters is knowing history. Where did some of these things come from? Can you dig a little deeper and learn the real stories behind things you’ve only heard about? You can, and you should.

Last night I took some time and I watched the documentary about a straight Jewish couple that owned and operated one of the most well know, dare I say important book shops and pornography businesses related to gay culture. The documentary is called “Circus of Books”. Yes, it’s been out for a few years now, but there are occasions when it takes time to get back to things on your list.

Check out the trailer here:

As you might have guessed from what I titled the entry, this is important history for the gay community and for first amendment rights. Hearing the story of the owners and the family they maintained while running not just a book / porn shop but also a chunk of the gay film industry for a long time was fascinating. The access was absolute since the film maker is the daughter of the owners. She interviewed her parents, her brothers, her parents friends and even some of the employees. It was shocking to hear how they fell into this business and just kept going.

Hearing the portion of the tale from the 80s and the AIDS crisis was jarring. It’s one thing to know history. It is quite another to live it, and have those around you die during it.

That was one of the things that leads me to a small point of criticism for this show. I believe the film maker pulled some punches because it was her family. Yes, she had the access, but I think both the portion of the story during the AIDS crisis and the ending really lacked… something. I wanted there to be more umph with the story or more of an emotional wrap up and point at the end. Yes, I think it could have had pointy bits about freedom of expression as well – but in all it was a slow watch. It felt all of the hour and 40ish minute run time. It left with this note of, “well, that’s it, the store is closed” and went to the credits. I felt like there could have been more.

Seeing the business itself, in bits and pieces, it also looked like an operation that failed to adapt. It’s not that a shop like that couldn’t survive, it was more that it would take an investment of time, money and innovation. Even from the glimpses in the film there were swinging doors that looked like one wouldn’t want to touch them (just worn and old, I’m sure) and the filing ‘system’ was a drawer filled with handwritten notes and pages taped to walls. It felt like a place that needed to change and just didn’t. Perhaps the owners were tired and just wanted to retire. It was put forward as the owners just not making enough money to call it sustainable.

Having said that – I still recommend it. Go and check out the history because it matters. Watch and see what has come before and who those people are. The show ends with the closing of the store, but I have gone out looking on the web, just to see, and the shop appears to have been sold / reopened and looks like it’s going strong with an online presence. From their site:

“Book Circus opened in 1960 and with the very cruisy Vaseline Alley behind the store quickly became the epicenter of the gay community at that time. In 1980 and through the AIDS crises it became the iconic Circus of Books, WeHo’s version of Stonewall. In 2020 it has been reimagined and reopened with the addition of Circus of Books West. Both Stores also feature The Gallery @ Circus, an upscale gallery representing LGBTQ+ artists.”

There is history, and there is hope. That’s a great message for Pride Month.

All The Discs

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There’s a meme out there with a picture of Alec Guinness as Obi-Wan saying, “why of course, it’s me…”

I know that’s a hash of a misquote, but you get the idea.

Found it~

Using a physical DVD to watch a film. Yep, I know that guy, because it’s me. I’ve been one of the red envelope people subscribed to the Netflix DVD service for the past 12 years. It was an easy choice for me. Advertising and unreliable connection speeds meant I could watch what I had on hand without any fear of it failing to work or having the feel of a film wrecked by mid scene advertising… almost all the time. Yes, physical media does have issues. Yes, from time to time there would be a problem, but for the most part it was a fantastic albeit slow system. In all those years I can only think of a handful of times when either the disc was broken or didn’t work, and only once in all that time when I got frustrated enough to just digitally rent a movie when the disc failed – and that was because it failed about 60% of the way through a really good movie.

Now that system is gone.

Yesterday, Netflix DVD made their last shipment. After 25 years (for them) they’re done, and I am feeling a bit nostalgic about the whole thing. The discs have been one of a very few constant things over the years. I was able to pull down a PDF file, created by the Netflix folks, that has my history all packaged up and presented in a report. I haven’t crunched numbers for averages or anything like that, but I have looked at the list of more than 250 rentals I’ve had over that time (quick math, 250/12 = about 20 discs a year or just under 2 per month). I looked at the stats they’ve stacked up for me and wandered down the list of discs we’ve watched, remembering the stories and characters from all those movies.

It’s going to be a minute for me to process the whole thing, but I will miss it. That probably sounds weird, but it has been part of my life for more than a decade. It became something that was just there when I needed it. Recently the streaming services available to us, combined with a more stable internet experience and less available time, in general, have made streaming services far more convenient and my rental rate has fallen off. Sometimes it would be weeks before I could put together the time to sit with a friend or a family member to watch whatever it was we ordered up. Sometimes the streaming service would add the movie before we got to the disc. I’d package up the disc and send it back, eagerly waiting for the next one to arrive. It was there, and it happened when I wanted it to. My viewing experience was not subject to some vague streaming contract a studio made, nor allowed to change based on some other, unknown reason.

The best example I can think of to illustrate that off hand is Monsters, Inc. and how it’s shown on Disney+. My daughter and I sat to re-watch it the other day because it had been a very long time since we watched it originally and we were in just the right mood. We pulled it up on Disney+ and let it roll. When we got to the end we wanted to see the extra bit at the end where the company is putting on the play Mike and Sully improvised during the movie… and it wasn’t there. It was just gone. I was a bit sad, but she was downright outraged. “How dare they? This is unacceptable and look it up on YouTube right now so we can watch it!”. I think that encapsulates the whole thing. The nutshell version – streaming decided to revise history a la 1984 and the modern viewer simply slid over to another streaming service and looked up the part they knew should be there (legality of it all be damned).

So the service is gone, but physical media still exist. I’ll still be watching those, and definitely picking up my favorites in physical form so I don’t need to depend on some company deciding if Ponyo should be available or not. Yes, it takes up space on the shelf. Yes, it’s an outdated method for watching things, but it’s mine and I’ll do with it as I please.

Apparently the folks at Netflix were feeling a bit nostalgic as well. They captured the whole feeling in a quick video… now available from a streaming service.

Unexpected Pairing

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I realized this morning when asked about how my Friday night went that there was an unexpected (possible) connection to the whole evening.

In the next town over there was a really fantastic Chinese restaurant. We ordered food from them for years and years. We would go and pick up food in person. We presumed the kids that were always at the restaurant, and eventually running the front counter interfacing with the public were the children of the owners. They had the best General Tso’s in the area and were frequently voted to the top of local ‘best of’ lists.

One day, they closed. Zero public explanation, just gone. A sign hanging on the door ~ “CLOSED”. A lot of people I know felt we were owed some kind of reason after years of dedication to the business. (We’re not, but you can’t tell people how to feel.)

Last night my wife and I went to the new diner that opened using the same building the Chinese place used for so many years. It’s new, so it was going to draw attention. A friend went and recommended the burgers. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but when we got there I was surprised at how… not busy it was. Friday evening at 6 a new place around here tends to have lines and waiting. We walked in and were seated immediately.

The place was clean and refreshed. The interior layout was slightly modified (not a lot of space for change really) and it was brighter than I recall it ever being.

The staff was new and it was clear there were one or two little things still being figured out. The food was… good, but not so amazing that I’m rushing to tell everyone I know. I will say, the onion rings were amazingly light and wonderful. I’m going to have to go back and try them with a burger. All in all, a solid “good” for going out to eat.

When we got home we sat down and dialed up the latest Pixar release streaming at home. The movie “Elemental“. As with so many films like this – anthropomorphic – it’s a land where the elements (air, water, earth and fire) all live in a city together. Without spoilers, at the core, this is a love story. The love story is set in / wrapped around an immigration story. An immigration story of a kid that may or may not actually want to take over the family business…

Once it clicked, it made me both content to not know the disposition of the former take-out restaurant and hopeful that the family involved got to a place equal to the happy ending of the movie.

You Should Be Watching – RETRO REVIEW

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This post was originally published in Watch The Skies June 2023 edition.

Andromeda Strain (1971)

I’ve been going back and re-watching some older science fiction films, or in some cases watching them for the first time. I had never seen The Andromeda Strain so I grabbed some popcorn and hit play.

There are a number of things I noticed while viewing this 50+ year old film.

There are aspects of the film style that place it squarely in the era of the late 60s / early 70s. Unavoidable things like changes in film making, the quality of the picture (at least compared to modern, high definition sets), special effects without CGI and updates to sound. There are minor turns of phrase that might raise eyebrows today. Some things the characters say or how they respond to things can be very different than a viewer of today would expect.

Beyond simple style or dated cultural issues there is technology. Some tech you simply can’t avoid seeing changes in. Cars, helicopters and planes are all mechanical items that we have contact with or at least passing familiarity with, so those are easy things to spot. Interestingly, the computer technology has made an unexpected change. In part, the attempts to be ‘futuristic’ have made of the tech in the movie actually look spot on to things we have today. Using a stylus on a computer screen in 1971 was so far in the future as to seem unreachable or at least something movie goers wouldn’t expect. These days we have a stylus for our personal tablets and phones that are so common we barely think twice about losing them. The computers themselves were a surprise to me. The ‘main frame’ driven tech is very old in the way the movie makers were likely thinking of it, but to those outside the computer industry it’s almost passable as an AI or super computer, so it would still fit the bill as ‘science fiction’.

Certain special effects make me wonder if the film makers actually killed lab rats and monkeys to get this movie made. Those scenes were definitely not for the squeamish. Any scene like that today would require disclaimers at the start of the film and would be ruthlessly scrutinized. I didn’t see the note at the end of the credits stating that no animals were harmed in the making of the film. Perhaps I missed it.

The version I watched had an interview with Michael Chriton. I was fascinated to hear about his drive and sense of humor (one of his pseudonyms meant dwarf when he was actually 6′-9” tall). The scope was broad for this movie but still had a tight run time. There’s a more modern (2008) remake that was broken into two 90 minute films, but I suspect it won’t land on my watch list. If there’s such a thing as a spoiler alert for a 50 year old movie, this film is a bit of a downer. The biological space thing escapes into the world at large. It is mutated and non-lethal, but it’s out there and there’s a secret science department in the government working constantly to stop it from mutating and killing people again. That part was a lot less entertaining after living through the pandemic and seeing how people reacted.

In the end, I’m glad I went back and checked out this classic. It’s good to have a sense of where things come from, knowing the roots of thing. If you’ve got the chance, you should watch this version of the film.

Check out the trailer HERE

You Should Be Watching

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Jung_E

This was originally published in Watch The Skies April 2023 edition.

In another dystopian future entry, the Korean film Jung_e presents some very real questions about what developing A.I. means and presents a picture of how that can effect the people most closely related to any project connected to that development.

The earth has warmed, the waters have risen. Humans have moved off the earth to various space platforms. Three of these platforms band together and declare war on the other platforms. In an attempt to create a winning edge, the allied forces take an elite soldier and attempt to clone her brain. This cloning is intended to create a soldier with all the skills, subtlety and loyalty of the original soldier in an easily replicated way. These clones will turn the tide and win the war for the allies. The experiments continue to run into an unknown obstacle, frustrating their attempts to complete this new A.I. soldier.

There are a number of pieces that are drawn into the film. I see a little bit of Robocop in there. I see a little bit of Ex Machina. There’s a touch of Ghost In The Shell. These are the things I see mixing and swirling around the story of the soldier and the doctor working on creating this new brand of soldier. It brings up a number of questions, but doesn’t necessarily answer them. This is a movie worth watching for the discussions it will give you after watching, along with a couple of very exciting action sequences. You should be watching Jung_E.


You should check out the trailer here:

The Let Down

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I tend to stick to genre related things when I have down time and want some entertainment. My downtime is relatively limited so I want to go with things that look or feel like something I would find enjoyable. Often, I put movies or shows onto a list (watch later, or whatever the particular service calls it). Then, as most people do (I suspect) I go and watch many things that are NOT in fact on my list. Occasionally I’ll go back to one of the lists and pick up something I’ve been meaning to watch. Something that strikes the “I’ve been meaning to watch that…” chord.

Yesterday, I went back and pulled Dragon Blade off one of those lists. A sort of historical looking action/sword fighting movie with Adrian Brody, John Cusak and Jackie Chan. Great line up, right? The movie being something about Romans attempting to lay some kind of claim to the silk road. Cool. Has to be cool… right?

No. Not so much.

I’m not going to review the movie here. It was a mess. There’s a reason you haven’t heard of it. In fact, I’m not going to link to the trailer for this thing either. Do not recommend as the meme goes. What I will say is that it’s such a let down to wait and wait until what feels like just the right time (sword fighty Saturday matinee, amiright?) and then just get let down.

Do you find your level of expectation having an impact on how you feel about a show or film once you’ve finished watching it?

Trailer Time

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Once upon a time I used to like to be sure to get to the theater early when going for a movie. I wanted to see all the new movies that would be headed out soon. It was something exciting. Something unexpected could pop up. You never knew, really.

In the current age of on demand everything, trailers for shows and movies are almost constant. I don’t rush to the theater at all – even for the films at this point. It takes something special to make me want to endure dealing with everything that goes along with sitting in a dark room with random strangers to watch a movie. The experience is frequently less than ideal.

I’ve stopped being excited about movie trailers too. On a good day, the creators of film can make an amazing 2 minute film. Most days the either misinterpret the story, sell the wrong point or give away all the best parts just to get you to go see the movie and be disappointed. IF you can slip past the spoilers and see something that actually looks interesting, there is an additional culture now that takes frame by frame screen shots and attempts to dig in and find all sorts of things to be happy/upset/curious about. Then judge the film before it is ever seen based on 3 frames that are pointed out a year before the release date. I am SO not interested in all that. Not at all. The joy has gone away.

Some time ago I was asked how I felt when the very first LOTR series trailer dropped. I waited. I decided I wanted to let all this stuff sit and digest a little. It’s easy to have strong reactions and immediate thoughts. Taking your time and putting thought into it will help decide just how important that strong reaction might be in the long run. If you were upset or interested before, are you still? Just yesterday (as of this writing) the new trailer for the Dungeons and Dragons new movie came out. The reaction culture raced to be the first to comment. I will admit – I did acknowledge this trailer on social media. It’s difficult to skip talking about something you really love. Now I’ve got ‘extra’ trailer bits to discuss.

I’m a fan of the LOTR and some of the film works based on Tolkien’s books. I despise the vast majority of that mess they claim is a trilogy about a hobbit and his journey to the lonely mountain. It’s an abomination and should be stricken from the record. And now it looks like various stories, notes and bits from places like The Silmarillion are being mined and shaped into a series.

I love Dungeons and Dragons and have for a very long time. My disappointment with the last big budget movie with the same title has echoed for twenty years now. I can still clearly picture lipstick bad guy and the horror of seeing the Wayans brother just camping out in there. They’ve waited two decades and now they’re trying again. This fills me with trepidation. It could all go so horribly wrong. The new version has Chris Pine you say. The last one had Jeremy Irons. He’s an academy award winner… and it didn’t help.

So now both of these properties are making headlines with new content. There are big names, big action and all sorts of fantastical things racing across the screens. How do I feel about them? A just question. Late is the hour in which we discuss an old trailer (couldn’t resist mangling the quote).

Bandying crooked words.

My feelings are mixed. On the one side, I desperately wish film makers would continue to adapt different works and stop digging back into the same stories over and over again. A good example was the (relatively) recent Shadow & Bone series on Netflix. A fantasy work that is not something that has been done to death (looking at you Robin Hood) and had budget and production value to create something enjoyable. There are hundreds of choices out there… but we’re digging into Tolkien’s old notes to create something so they can say, “Look! Hobbits! You like Hobbits, right?”. It’s not something that’s going to make me happy.

On another side, just look at all the wonderful fantasy that’s out there to pick from! Magic, dragons, sword fights… it’s an embarrassment of riches. There’s so much I have to be picky about what I see, how soon I see it and how much I watch. There aren’t enough hours in the day to consume all the coolest things. I can’t wait to see all the crazy stuff that comes out of the D&D movie. There will be an entire generation of players that will pick druid as a character class, just to wildshape into an owlbear.

On a third side, (this is why I didn’t use hands – polygons give options for sides) I’m afraid this glut of fantasy we’ve been living in is going to cause the dilution of something good. There will be so much that far lower quality things are going to start sneaking in (yes, as they have for ever) and with that interest will fade. When interest fades, the money walks away and THAT is what causes films to not get made. In the end, Hollywood movie studios are in business to make money and if we’re not buying they’re going to sell something else.

On the square side… I’m thrilled to have this kind of stuff out there. I’ve written before about the negative impact the Satanic Panic and all that bunk from my childhood had. Fantastical film and storytelling at this scale was never something imaginable when I was a kid. The shear variety of options is glorious.

Eventually I will devour all of these things. I will rage about some and praise others to inappropriate levels. There will be fan art and philosophical discussions. I’m still a fan after all.

You Should Be Watching

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Everything Everywhere All at Once

Michelle Yeoh is great!

This was originally published in the Watch The Skies July issue.

The multiverse. A certain MCU character has brought this theory to the attention of the public in recent months. Multiple universe theories, quantum physics, philosophy and all the other Schrodinger equations are generally WAY past my understanding. A version of this theory that I understand is that each choice we make during our lives causes some sort of branch to happen. The alternate choice sort of spins off and becomes another world where our other self continues on that other path. It’s more complicated than that, but that basic thought is the core of this film. What if we made that other choice? Where would that other path have taken us? It’s a thought that runs through most peoples’ heads at some point. I recommend this movie to a science fiction / fantasy based group purely on the strength of using this multiverse theory in an absolutely bonkers way.

What if you could access the knowledge, emotions, life experience of those other lives you might have had? In this movie, a middle aged woman who is struggling with many of the same sort of things any of us struggle with is suddenly confronted with this access… and is told she needs to use this knowledge to save the world. She needs to reach out and draw from those lives and the knowledge those other versions of her have gained.

Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu and Ke Huy Quan are absolutely fantastic in their roles. They are all believable, earnest and relatable, even when the entire world around them seems to be going mad. There is a randomness to this film that would be hard to ride if they weren’t just so good. There is action, humor and romance. I don’t know that any single genre or category would do this movie justice. Absurdist fits, but isn’t fair to the beauty of the performances and the depth of the feelings that show through. There is another big name movie star in the film. This big name star is so deeply into the role that I didn’t realize that’s who it was while I was watching.

Do yourself a favor, stay away from spoilers – even the trailer honestly – and just check this movie out. It’s only just leaving theaters and headed to DVD or home streaming, but it’s worth the effort. You should be watching this movie.

Deja Vu

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The Matrix Resurrections – a no spoiler review

Great to see them together again

I won’t give you spoilers, but the trailers for the movie certainly will. I find that to be one of the most frustrating portions of any movie these days. I used to truly enjoy the excitement and anticipation of upcoming films and would be sure to check out the trailers. These days I want to know a very small amount about the film along with how it’s going to be released – and that’s it. I hate that some of what I think are the coolest parts of the movie are in the trailer. Saw them before the film ever started… and then was underwhelmed when I saw them in the film itself.

Speaking of trailers… it feels like movie houses are attempting to devour themselves in a desperate effort to get our attention. We were early to the film to be sure we got seats that we preferred. The movie was supposed to come in around 2 ½ hours. We had almost a half hour of previews lined up to watch before the movie ever started. I’m not kidding. I timed it at somewhere between 24 and 27 minutes of previews… to the point that we were sitting there doing the “rolling” motion with our hands in the theater. As in, OK – WE GET IT – you want us to be excited about movies… how about the one we just paid for and want to see? It was ridiculous.

I think it’s wonderful that we have so many options for movies these days. I’m glad the theater experience is still out there. More on that later.

The movie itself. It has a lot of the look and feel of the original. The sounds and colors were all familiar. Some of it was a little too familiar. There was a lot of reused footage from the previous movies, tying things together. There were lots of call backs and continuations. It makes sense in the story for the most part, but it’s difficult to talk about it in depth without spoiling things. What I DID NOT like was the way the action sequences were shot. It accentuated and doubled down on the shaky cam and unlit (really dark) action sequences. They were hard to watch and almost impossible to follow. IF you’re a fan of breaking down film things like this, I suggest checking out this short video on how action scenes are shot. Dark and hard to see, and I’m not sure it needed to be.

The characters were good. Keanu and Carrie Anne were great. I really enjoyed Jessica Henwick as Bugs. I hope to see more of her in the future. Then there was Neil Patrick Harris. I’m not going to say anything about his character. No spoilers. NPH was easily my favorite character and I’d LOVE to see more of him in films like this going forward. He made this movie for me.

I’m glad we went to the theater to see the movie. I don’t know how the combo with home screening will change the box office numbers, but it will be interesting. As I said above, I am glad the theater experience is making a comeback. Things still feel different because of the pandemic. The place was only about half full. That’s far more than recent movies, but far less than I’m betting they hoped for. I certainly thought there would be more people there for a 7 o’clock show on opening night. The movie is worth seeing on the big screen if that’s a thing you’re comfortable with. I expect I’ll be watching this movie again on the small screen at home. There were tons of little details to catch that I’m sure weren’t caught while trying to take in the story itself for the first time. It’s a well done film and I hope it does well.

Also – there is a little something at the very end of the credits too, so don’t leave early.

What movie are you looking forward to seeing on the big screen?

Expensive Art

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Many years ago I wrote up a post here about this bonkers concept for creating a Dune movie that I’d caught wind of on the net. I went and found the documentary and consumed it. I was enthusiastic about the concept at the time.

In the intervening time it has been pointed out that the creator of this concept brought out some very problematic things about how he created his art. Creating art using rape is NOT acceptable. It is probably a very good thing that his vision never actually made it all the way to the point of filming.

All that being said, I would still love to see the mythical book that was created to showcase the concept for this film adaptation. With all the attention being given to Dune again, one of the ultra rare books has popped up and will be sold at auction.

IF I had the money, I suspect I would have gotten in on the bidding, just for the chance to check out some of the artwork inhabiting that book. Maybe someday they’ll market a digital version and we’ll get a chance to peek at the art from some masterful creators.

Check out the article about the auction here.

Dune – the meme