Treehouse Time

I watched the new Croods sequel. Ryan Reynolds and Nic Cage as weird cavemen? Yes. More of that.

But the sequel in particular got me by featuring Leslie Mann in a fantastical treehouse, which was how I was first introduced to her in the Brendan Fraser classic “George in the Jungle”. Probably also how I was first introduced to Brendan Fraser and John Cleese. Thomas Haden Church … Maybe everyone in that movie? I was a very young child.

Anyway, “Croods 2” was a joy, and if you still need more of Leslie Mann in an epic treehouse, go back and watch “George of the Jungle” again.

Bonus Question!

Best George?

George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron.

Mulanimal Crackers

I have nothing against it, but I really doubt I’m going to see the live “Mulan” movie. I liked the original, but I think my personal experience of the remake would be similar to my assumptions around the 2019 “Lion King”. Too much of the charm is missing to my tastes. In the case of “Mulan”, that charm is largely coalesced in the form of a diminutive dragon with the voice of Eddie Murphy.

But you know what else got released to streaming around the same time? “Animal Crackers”! A movie about officially licensed Animal Crackers with the voices of Ian McKellen, Office Jim, and others of epic merit. With heart! Apparently, it was a huge passion project for some of its creators to the point where one of them painted the official poster by hand. And one of the directors turned out to be the guy behind the animated “Mulan”.

So you know what? “Animal Crackers” is to me the real successor to cartoon “Mulan” for the summer of 2020. Confirmed.

Bonus Question!

I just realized Eddie Murphy’s Mushu could be a descendant of Eddie Murphy’s Donkey and his dragon wife.

Shot Through the Blood

Hey! This week actually saw an interruption in my recent weekly trips to random movies of the past couple of decades because actual new theatre content is now coming to home video.

To start? I went with the next movie I was probably going to see before the COVID closures, “Bloodshot”. I’ve read some of the various comic series from Valiant since it got rebooted at some point within the last 10 years, but since their output was more peripheral to my comic book diet, I really just picked the ones that jumped out at me, and the transhuman cyborg character of Bloodshot wasn’t one of those. Talk about Ivar Timewalker, who’s like an even less responsible and possibly more flamboyant version of the Doctor? Yeah. I was up for that. Quantum and Woody? Another pair of siblings at opposite ends of the maturity spectrum? I checked it out. And then there was that alternate universe miniseries where all of the company’s characters were high school students. Ooh! And Manowar! Viking with power armour! Hekk yeah!

But anyway. This was a movie, and I see a bunch of those. One a week at least to be more specific. And Vin Diesel basically guarantees my presence. That’s not because I’m a committed Diesel fan. A Fan Diesel? But the films he features in do tend to be the ones that align fairly well with my tastes. Remember “The Last Witch Hunter” or whatever that was? I don’t. But I know I liked it.

And this “Bloodshot”? I liked that too.

Bonus Question!

Best witch hunter?

Gaby Van!

Fatigue Fatigue

Superhero movies.

Among other things, this last year saw the finale to a storyline that began 11 years ago with the film that cemented the current cinematic superhero zeitgeist. “Iron Man” to “Endgame” and all the stuff that’s run alongside that stuff. And for something like half of that time period, people have been talking about the idea of “superhero fatigue”.

But does anyone else feel something closer to fatigue fatigue? Like . . . I could really live without hearing people whine about stuff they have no interest in. There are all kinds of things I don’t care about. I prefer to talk about the things I like. This blog should evince that quite well. I’ve never seen the point of arguing for the death of anything. Especially in this post-monoculture world where the mainstream’s been divided into innumerable tributaries that cater to all sorts of diverse tastes. Am I biased because I love the whole superhero mythos? Not really. I remember when those Hunger Games movies were huge. I never watched a single one, but it was still annoying to hear aspiring intellectuals dismiss them with lazy comparisons to “Battle Royale”. It was especially bad because most of them didn’t actually seem to know anything about “Battle Royale” beyond the fact that its basic plot was similar to that of the Hunger Games. It was just a reprise of all of those people that accused Rowling of copying Hogwarts from whatever magical school was foremost in their minds without any consideration for the possibility that broad ideas like child soldiery or mystic academia can be independently created and executed in myriads of equally valid directions.

I could also deal without people who drone on about constant adaptations and remakes. Like, dude. “Gone With the Wind” is one of the most deified movies of the golden age of cinema or whatever, and it was based on a book. Execution’s the only thing that matters. If someone has a take on something, they should be allowed to spin it out. Same with sequels. If people like a thing, let them have more of it. Especially since “Empire” is the Star Wars film that gets the most praise. No “Empire” in a world without sequels. And the good stuff’s always going to be worth letting the bad stuff pass through. Filtration’s futile.

But yeah. It’s much easier and more satisfying to concentrate on the things you love and leave everything else for the people who do love it. It’s really not that hard.

Bonus Question!

Best sequel?

“Rush Hour 2” is the one that sticks out in my mind because it came out during a formative time in my life and it actually has a 2 in the title.

B

Uncut Sandler

Everyone’s astonished at the dramatic quality of Adam Sandler’s “Uncut Gems”, but his acting ability is not a new revelation. He seems to sprinkle in this kind of thing among his more characteristic works from time to time, and they’re generally well delivered. It almost seems like the reverse of that thing where actors do big blockbusters in order to finance their smaller, more independent works. It’s as though Sandler does these quiet drama pieces just frequently enough to keep himself at a level of relevance that can justify the big dumb comedies he loves making with his friends. Which I support too. I don’t actually love all of them, but it’s easy to tell that he’s having a great time with his buddies in the making of them, and I can respect that.

Best gem?

One of the Infinity ones. Probably Power.

Clone Zone

My mother had never seen the last two Star Wars prequels, and before "Rise of Skywalker", she finally decided to open the box set I'd given her several Christmases ago. In watching "Attack of the Clones" with her, which is still my favourite Star Wars film of all, I did admit that some of the special effects are somewhat shaky in comparison to what's around now. That shouldn't surprise anyone, and it certainly doesn't bother me, but it might actually add an extra layer of characteristic charm to the movies. George Lucas orignally made the franchise in imitation of those quanit old adventure films that had captured his imagination in his youth, and the visual quality of those did not age impeccably. Though the degree in Star Wars is lesser, seems fitting for his movies to be similarly identifiable with a particular era in cinema through their aged appearance.

Bonus Question!

Best clone?

Ben Reilly jumps to mind.

Black Scorpion

So. Dwayne Johnson finally gave an official announcement about his Black Adam movie. And that’s great. The last two big DC superhero movies, “Aquaman” and “Shazam”, were my favourites of the franchise, and this looks to be a bit of a mix of both. Big, classic adventure from the former and shiny magic from the latter.

But really, the mystic desert action its premise implies makes me hopeful for it to be the Scorpion King sequel we never got. Or the one we didn’t get The Rock in. That movie definitely had sequels. And all of them disappeared into the void without even scraping Dwayne.

So. This should be epic.

Bonus Question!

Best Scorpion?

Wingy Queens

So. I have watched all of "Game of Thrones", but I didn't care enough to pay real attention to the details about all the criticisms of its final season. But I did just see the new Maleficent movie.

And I've got to say, if your main complaint was in the fact that Daenerys was a queen who hung around with fantastical winged beasts instead of a queen who actually was a fantastical winged beast, I think "Maleficent: Mistress of Evil" could wash away those Westeros woes.

It also has the actor who played the less bland version of Daario, and he's probably going to have a thing with the wingy queen lady in this too.

Bonus Question!

Best fantastical winged beast?

I've always felt an affinity for the phoenix.

I mean, yeah. There's the whole thing of always getting back up. But also they're shiny, flighty things, and I feel that deep.

Girlfriend in a Phone-a! I know! I know! It's Siri-ous

I just saw "Jexi". I didn't see "Her", but I assume that this was basically that but more dysfunctional. Which is why it's a comedy. And the fact that it was a comedy was all I knew beyond its main actor before I saw it. But yeah. Like “Her”, it’s a movie about a dude who gets far too intimate with a sentient digital assistant.
So. It was fun.
Will I see "Her"?
I doubt it. But I'm sure it's good too. But "Jexi" was what I saw.

Bonus Question!
Best sentient digital assistant?

J.A.R.V.I.S. In large part because Paul Bettany in Marvel is like chocolate in peanut butter soup.

Fun Run

Saw “Brittany Runs a Marathon”. I knew I recognised the lead actor, though I couldn’t place her intuitively. Then I discovered I didn’t even know her name. I’d just seen her in stuff.

But it was solid. She’s playing someone who’s reaching the end of her 20s with the realisation that her habits have begun to endanger her health. Her response is to throw herself into running in order to get better.

Honestly, I was reminded slightly of what I went through a little while ago, though for me it was the reverse. I’d been running habitually for a while, and that turned out to exacerbate the frailty I’d had for my whole life. But still, I related to that feeling of teetering on the precipice of infirmity and committing to the quest to improve.

Outside of that, it was still good.

Bonus Question!

Longest run?

There were two occasions on which I inadvertently ran half marathons because I didn’t want to stop.

Marvel Monster Mash

Monster month is fully swinging, and I've been thinking about the classic movie monsters. I noticed that they seem to map fairly well onto the members of the Defenders, Marvel's classic misfit team from the 70s, which happened to be a boom for the supernatural on the big screen while such things were largely forbidden in Marvel's pages by the officious rulings of the Comics Code.

Anyway.

Obviously, Frankenstein's monster was an admitted influence on the Hulk. Big brute who rampages around but really just wants to be left to himself.

The gill man? Namor, the king of the oceans.

Silver Surfer, like the mummy Imhotep, is an aloof displaced member of an ancient civilization imbued with mysterious power who wanders around and pines for his lost love.

And finally the big D's. Doctor Strange and Dracula. They love capes. They're relentlessly theatrical. And while they still measure up to their cohorts in terms of weirdness, they are occasionally able to muster up attempts to interact with society at large without making a complete mess.

Also, Strange was explicitly modelled on Vincent Price, who was involved in that whole monster mix too.

And Hulk's rival Talbot shares a surname with the wolf man. I don't know if that's significant.

Bonus Monster!

Some people like to include the Phantom of the Opera in this bunch, and the idea of a disgraced burn victim in a threatening mask who's obsessed with causing havoc for some dude he's pinned his misfortune on fits pretty well with Doctor Doom.

Yesterday Came Out Several Yesterdays Ago, But I Finally Saw It

Everyone knows I'm a big fan of Richard Curtis. Or they don't. But I am. "Love Actually" has a particular place in my heart after its introduction to me during a hospital stay at the end of one summer break led to endless viewings.

At the end of this summer, there was nothing in theatres I really wanted to see, which pushed me to finally give "Yesterday" a shot after I'd let it pass by for months. And then I realised it was written by Richard Curtis.

So. I thank you, September movie drought, for pushing me back into the warm embrace of Richard Curtis.

Bonus Question!

Favourite Beatle?

Paul. Dude just likes to be on. I feel that.

Nazi Rabbits

I just saw "Jojo Rabbit". I'd only heard enough about it over the last year to think that it sounded interesting and believe that it was about a kid with a stuffed rabbit that was inhabited by the soul of Adolf Hitler. I don't even remember if I ever knew that Taika Waititi was involved.

Anyway, I was wrong about most of the second part, which wasn't surprising, but I was right about the part where I thought I'd like it. That wasn't a surprise either. In addition to being eminently enjoyable, it also did a good job of showing that the occasional jerk can be taught to stop being one. And hey. Statistically? A lot can't. But some can. And that's one manifestation of the movie's main message of hope.

Also. Neither Taika Waititi nor Adolf Hitler look like Jon Hamm. But when I saw Taika Waititi in Adolf Hitler costume, I couldn’t help thinking that he looked vaguely similar to Jon Hamm.

Bonus Question!

Favourite part?

The whole thing was exquisite, but I took the greatest visceral pleasure from Sam Rockwell's performance. That happens sometimes. Once it even happened with a dude who turned out to not be Sam Rockwell.