Martin Mull Merges With The Infinite

Martin Mull, actor, comedian and entertainment personality, has passed.

I have no idea where I first saw Mull.  In the 1980's, he was just around, popping up on television or in movies.  It's possible it was Mr. Mom or Clue.  I do remember before I left high school, I knew enough that if he popped up in something, I would say "oh, hey!  Martin Mull!" and that was reason enough to give the show or movie a chance I otherwise wouldn't.

At some point, TV Land was playing re-runs of his 1970's faux talk show Fernwood Tonight, which co-starred Fred Willard.  The show was *nuts* and I'm surprised it's not more of a staple for comedy aficionados.  

He also appeared on Roseanne, did a ton of voice work for animation, and appeared on both Wonder Woman and Lois & Clark.  

He was so much a fixture, it's possible folks took him a bit for granted.  But he brought the world Gene Parmesan on Arrested Development, and that role alone should place him in the hall of legends.  

We'll miss you, sir.

Shhhhhh Watch: A Quiet Place - Day One

Watched:  06/27/2024

Format:  Alamo

Viewing:  First

Director:  Michael Sarnoski

Selection:  SimonUK

I had not seen the two prior installments in the John Krasinski-led A Quiet Place franchise.  From the trailers, it had real "I get it, I'm good" energy.  But I was aware that this one is a prequel to those two prior films, with an all new cast, including the radiant Lupita Nyong'o.  Left to my own devices, I would have maybe seen this in 10 years on streaming.  But I hadn't seen Simon in *forever* and he suggested A Quiet Place: Day One (2024), and, thus, I was like "yeah, sure".

It can be a good experience to do something you're mostly ambivalent about.  And this was a good experience.

Finally seeing one of these movies did confirm my feeling, when seeing the trailers for the two prior films, that the movie is a sort of cinematic parlor game to be played with the audience..  I imagine Krasinski came up with it after trying to play The Quiet Game with his children.  

Superman 2025: A Whole New World - And A Pre-Populated DCU

You can follow our posts on Superman at this link, and our posts on the new movie, Superman (2025) at this link.

This week, set-photos started trickling out onto the internet from the shooting locations for Superman (2025).  

Reactions have been fairly enthusiastic from the Super-folk I've seen online, with some notable exceptions (you know who you are).  Rather than the somber, "getting ready for work before the sun comes up" look we initially saw, we're getting David Corenswet's Kal-El in his four-color glory.  

Yeah, they did the trunks, and they let Superman's colors *pop*.  No more somber tones.  I'll hide the rest of the pics below "Read More" for the folks trying to avoid spoilers.

RiffTrax Watch: Suburban Sasquatch (2004)

"it'll look great on camera"

Watched:  06/21/2024

Format:  YouTube

Viewing:  First

Director:  Dave Wascavage

I watched this over 4 days, finishing just moments before putting on Ember Days, and could not muster the energy to discuss both movies too close to each other.  It was too much for any one man.  But here we are.

What stirs the visions of would-be writer/ directors?   Is it the story they must tell that drives them so?  The need to express themselves?  A dream of becoming part of the Hollywood establishment?  A dream to work as an outsider?

What keeps them going through the long days and nights of pre-production, shooting and then editing?  What is the motivator to make a film when it requires expensive FX they simply cannot afford?  What convinces the actors to show up every day of that shoot, put on their "costume" and read clunky dialog?

Simply, I cannot imagine.  This is, like, time and money out of someone's life.  It's a real "maximum effort for minimum return" proposition.

And yet, every day there's someone out there who has convinced people in their lives that: what we all need to do is make a movie.  How hard could it be?  

Spite Watch: Babette's Feast (1987)

Watched:  06/24/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Gabriel Axel

People lash out at their circumstances in a variety of ways, and your blogger is no different.  I am acting out by choosing to watch a staple of arthouse from the 1980's and 90's, Babette's Feast (1987).  

While I wait for La Dolce Vita to make it's way to my local library branch, I've been filling the time with what has turned out to be absolutely terrible movies.  And, so, I needed a palette cleanser.  So, one part of this spite-watch was to get hostile to the idea of bad movies and watch something so utterly different from, say, Shazam 2 and Ember Days, that it doesn't feel like the same art form.  And, maybe that's a real discussion to be had.

The second part of my spite stems from a dinner conversation which occurred about four years ago, when an art-film minded pal (who shall remain anonymous) was comparing something to Babette's Feast, and I admitted I'd not seen it.  He stated that Babette's Feast was not the type of thing I watch.  And so, just to spite him, I planned to watch the movie.  And here we are.  

See, I DID WATCH YOUR DUMB MOVIE,* anonymous friend!  HA HA.  Who's the Godzilla-watching dope NOW?**

So, Babette's Feast.

Can I Please Be Done With the DCEU? Watch: Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023)

Watched:  06/22/2024

Format:  Max

Viewing:  First

Director:  Some guy

Selection:  Jamie

I had no notion of ever watching Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023).    I really thought my journey through the DCEU was done, but for some reason, Jamie wanted to watch this unseen, unloved unwanted sequel, and reminded me the film features Helen Mirren (always a delight) and I folded like a camping chair.

I know people love the first Shazam! movie.  I liked it okay the first time, but I was pretty lukewarm on it with a rewatch.  When the trailer hit for a second installment, I just couldn't get excited.  The DCU was a mess by this point, and the trailer just looked like...  I dunno.  Nothing about it grabbed me.  

One of the things that really stuck with me from the first movie was that they'd deviated from the traditional depiction of Shazam/ Captain Marvel in the comics, letting the movie do it's own thing, and that thing wasn't as much fun as the comics.  And, I think on my re-view of the movie I was really turned off by the decision to insert Billy's rejection by his mom as unnecessary to the story (and a new feature, afaik), and the scene with monsters annihilating a roomful of people for no real reason.  It felt out of place for a character I think of working for very young kids.

This movie was a *family* movie, in theory, which I tend to think of these days as something akin to Despicable Me or most of Marvel's output I think is pretty safe for pre-teens.  Shazam, as a concept, seems like it should skew closer to Despicable Me. It's a fantasy of kids getting to be adults with super powers and fighting goofy villains like an angry, talking worm and the Sivana Family.

Instead, Shazam! Fury of the Gods bravely chose to start by murdering a room full of innocent people in a couple of fairly horrific ways, so all I could do was buckle in.  

Pain Watch: Ember Days (2013)

Watched:  06/21/2024

Format:  Amazon Prime

Viewing:  First

Director:  Sean-Michael Argo

Where to start?

Since high school, intentionally watching bad movies has been a routine part of my film viewing.  I couldn't count how many bad movies I've watched with the aid of MST3K, RiffTrax, Dug, etc... or just putting a bad movie on myself and giving it a go with no professional support.  But the number of these films watched has been... astronomical.  And, in fact, my guilt regarding watching so many bad movies is part of why I've recently taken on my homework task of watching movies by the big name directors I've previously avoided.

And so it is that, thanks to Dug, I've now seen a movie that was not just bad for many of the reasons a movie doesn't work out (flat acting, a wandering script, horrendous editing...), but Ember Days (2013) pioneered new and innovative ways in how it chose to be a very bad movie.  It's one of those movies where you'd love a whole other movie to cover what went into this movie, what the filmmakers were thinking, and how they think of their product now.  

I do not say this lightly:  this is possibly one of the worst movies I've ever seen.  That's a spot which is, honestly, pretty hard to reach (and I'm pretty sure is usually occupied by Monster-a-Go-Go).  And I say this in the same year I watched Showgirls 2: Penny's From Heaven.  

If I have any sympathy for the film, it is most certainly due to the zero-budget nature of the production.  And, yes, I appreciate that a bunch of people outside of Hollywood decided to make a movie, and you shouldn't bag on people trying.  

But I watched it, and I'm here to tell the tale.

What makes Ember Days so magical?

Robo Watch: M3GAN (2022)

Watched:  06/21/2024

Format:  Peacock

Viewing:  First

Director:  Gerard Johnstone

I don't jump on too many new horror movies.  If they're still in the zeitgeist a couple years out, sure.  

M3GAN (2022) did a very respectable box office of $180 million, bringing in a younger crowd with a PG-13 rating and a premise I think would appeal to a wide age range.  As pal Michael would point out, not bad for a movie that cost about $12 million before marketing.

If I had any spark of interest, it was to see how the performer(s) handled M3GAN as a character, and how they'd think about robots, AI, logic leading to mayhem, etc...  Things handled pretty well in Ex Machina and Westworld in recent memory.  As a product of Blumhouse,* this was going to need to fit a certain mold, so we know where it's headed to a degree before we even flip the movie on.

I'll start at the end - and that's to say, this movie's last third is exactly what you expect.  The AI goes crazy, gets quippy, and mayhem ensues.  For your kid's first horror movie, it's good stuff.  For everyone else, it's a bit of a letdown, even if it's well executed.  But we've also seen it before.  And that's a bummer because the first half or more of this movie is really pretty interesting.  

SPOILERS

Fellini Watch: 8 1/2 (1963)

Watched:  06/20/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Federico Fellini

I was unable to find La Dolce Vita streaming, so I had to skip ahead to 8 1/2 (1963) as I continue on my "finally watch a handful of movies from name directors" homework that I've assigned myself.  Obviously I'm checking out Fellini at the moment.  Commenting on my post for La Strada, StevenGH effused a bit about this film, so I didn't mind jumping into the deep end.  

This screening was not taken on due to the passing this week of co-star Anouk Aimée, but the cosmos aligned, and so it's with a farewell salute to the actor that we dove into this movie for the first time.  

Prior to watching this movie, I didn't, honestly, know anything about it other than that it had Mastroianni in the role for which he's best known in America.  So, despite knowing this was a "Top 50 Movies by Critical Consensus" type of film, no one had brought it up with me other than asking if I had seen it - maybe once every few years - and then moving on upon learning I hadn't seen it.

For me, what you may have heard about the reputation of 8 1/2 bore out.  It's both incredibly simple and so complex it's worthy of the endless conversation 60 years of this film existing in critical circles will tell you.  It is about what it is about, while also being the thing that can't be made by the characters in the film.  I'm getting now why a thousand bad films have been made by filmmakers who tried to recapture the lightning in a bottle.  

I don't know if I've ever seen a film this *honest*, where - knowing Fellini was writer, director and ring master of the film - there's no doubt that what we're watching in the screen is a transposition of the real onto celluloid.  Past, present and fantasy mix within the film, and the film seems to play all of these parts for Fellini - down to recasting himself as Marcello Mastroianni (no doubt one of the best male faces to cross the screen) as a true fantasy.  And, look, I don't know how much of this is true - I don't assume this is a 1:1 to Fellini's life, but I do think it taps into something that manages to show a portrait of a character and his challenges and inner-life in a way that is both unique and comes from a place both specific and universal-ish.   

I won't get too much into the cast, but it also includes British actor Barbara Steele, which surprised me when she walked across the screen.  Claudia Cardinale plays more of an idea than a character, and who better to play a concept, really?  The forementioned Anouk Aimée is stunning as the long-suffering wife of Mastroianni, her rage turned into a steely armor.  And dozens of others, none of whom I know as they're Italian actors from 60 years ago.  And I am not here to talk about performances on this one, but there weren't any wrong notes, which I think likely goes without saying.

To be honest, most of the time, it's my feeling that when writers and directors think they should delve into their libido, their strings of romantic and sexual partners and be honest about it, the results are cringe-worthy.  If this movie has a knock against it, it's only that others think they can pull this off and remain interesting and/ or sympathetic.  There are a few that do work (All That Jazz is really something), but a lot more that don't.  Why this works in 8 1/2 is an alchemy of execution of story beats, the use of his past, present and fantasy structure, and that Fellini is clear-eyed about his fictional director.  He sees how people hurt each other, recognizing humiliation for what it is rather than as a comedic crutch.

Like a lot of the films I'll wind up discussing in my Movie Homework Series here on the blog, I don't think I'll have anything new to say.  We're going to be touching some of the most famous, well-regarded cinema on planet Earth, and that means it's been written about in magazines, reviews and academic treatises when it hasn't been the subject of interviews, both primary and secondary.  

What I don't want to do is give these movies short shrift, nor cover well-trod territory, especially when other folks know these movies well.  And, certainly, I'll be returning to this movie, which I'm sure will have deeper impact in new ways when I know where this is going.  But I do appreciate coming in cold, and just sorting out what I was watching as a somewhat pristine experience.

I'll save further commentary on the imitators for another day, for a future re-watch.  There's plenty to discuss in structure, camera work, style, religion on film, libido on film and Claudia Cardinale.  So, perhaps in the future we can return to this movie again.

Donald Sutherland Merges With The Infinite

Actor Donald Sutherland has passed.  He was 88.  

I remember becoming aware of Donald Sutherland via the 1985 film Heaven Help Us, although it's likely his ubiquity in movies meant I'd seen him in something prior (I'd seen Max Dugan Returns at the movie theater, so there, certainly).  And, a quick glance at his IMDB page tells you what you already know:  the man was constantly working.  200 acting credits to his name.  

I don't know if I have a favorite Sutherland performance, but Kelly's Heroes often pops to mind.  I only recently watched Klute, and he's clearly great there.  But you can say that about Sutherland in movies I liked far less.  And, of course, he was doing good work well after the era in which he played younger men.

Here's to Donald Sutherland, who always brought something extra to his roles, and who managed to seem cool as hell off and on the screen.