Yikes Watch: Beastly (2011)

Watched:  05/25/2024

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Daniel Barnz

Selection:  Sort of me, but people agreed to this

So, I watched all 4 hours of that Jenny Nicholson video on the Star Wars Hotel ARG thing, and I highly recommend her video essay.  But that's not why we're here, exactly.  My YouTube algorithm - as it manifests specifically through Chromecast - thinks if you watched one video on, say, baby alligators, you will be force fed baby alligator videos for a week.  And 4 hours of Jenny Nicholson convinced YouTube all I need right now is a big-eyed YouTuber analyzing things into atoms.  And so it fed me her discussion of a movie called Beastly.  

I was only a few minutes into the video that auto-played while I was doing other things, and decided "I will watch this movie."

And so, we did. 

Beastly (2011) was made because Twilight existed and someone wanted to make money.  It's also a sort of fairy tale story with some hand-wavy magic about a very normal girl who gets pressed into a relationship with a moody guy who is probably actually a huge fucking red flag.  But instead of draculas, this movie hopes you saw Disney's 1991 hit Beauty and the Beast.  Because this is a version of the fairy tale, and I'm not sure kids really even get fairy tales read to them anymore to get the cultural context.  

Anyhoo...  this is told less from Belle's perspective - in this case, "Lindy", played by a fresh-faced Vanessa Hudgens - and more from the Beast's POV.  In our movie it's a guy named "Kyle KING-SON" (GET IT???).  And he's played by a British actor doing his best American accent so he just sounds off from time to time.  

I'm not going to write up the movie, really.  Watch Nicholson's video.  

But here's some talking points

• This is the worst makeup I've ever seen in a movie.  It's insane.  My guess is that they needed to make sure you still saw the actor's face so his general handsomeness would still play for the audience under what looks like a Star Trek Next Generation make-up crew tripped and fell on an actor in a bald cap.
• Told from The Beast's perspective, this very old story sucks.  It feels more like The Beast singling out a vulnerable girl (she's still in high school) and acting out what love might be in a desperate gambit to get his life back.  At no point does he seem pure of motive.  Because he is not.
• He stalks.  Oh, lord, does he stalk.  He is absolutely a villain.  He creeps on this girl and takes advantage of her shitty situation in maybe the scummiest way possible.
• The dialog is meant to sound young and therefore funky fresh, but mostly it sounds like people forgetting how to finish words or assemble a sentence. 
• One half of the Olsen Twins are in this movie.  It's impossible to know if she's bad or not for reasons I'll get into later.  But this was it for Mary Kate.  Apparently this broke her and she decided she didn't need this shit any more.  And I cannot blame her.
• Vanessa Hudgens' character is a high schooler who loves the bad boys.  Or at least the idea of the bad boys.  There's ample evidence that she does not care about how awful "Kyle" is at the beginning of the film when he's a Grade-A shitheel.  He's cute.  And therefore must be good at his core, all evidence aside.  
• Poor Peter Krause, Neil Patrick Harris, etc...  who were just going along for the ride.  I can only imagine what they thought if they ever saw this movie.
• Supposedly national treasure Regina King was in a cut of this movie, but was removed.  I cannot imagine how she fit in.  But Regina dodged a bullet.
• This looks like an ABC Family week night movie, but was a major studio release.  I don't remember it in the slightest, which is Nicholson's point, but it never blipped for a second.  If you want to know why the studios are mad about box office, this movie no one remembers made $27 million.  Now it would just not be released and written off.
• Also, in what I would assume is an otherwise mundane world, there's a wizard who can alter reality and no one seems upset by this.  Like, whatever my face looked like, I would be running to my NEWS ANCHOR FATHER to say "a magic lady did this.  MAGIC EXISTS."  And, yet... all of the "I have been cursed" convos seem to have happened off screen, like they were checking in on whether they needed more toilet paper, and it was irrelevant.  Wild.
• This movie was written and directed by someone who seems unmoored by how people act, how cause and effect work, how movies function or the actual point of the story of Beauty and the Beast, which is not particularly new and exists to perform a function.  And that function is not whatever this movie thinks it is - which is muddled at best.  I've never seen a version of this story where I thought the better ending was the Beast remaining beastly, but this movie should have been that.  But that bad direction and story telling makes everything about every character - including poor Mary Kate - seem insane/ dumb.  

Anyway.  Beastly.  

Kurosawa Noir Watch: High and Low (1963)

Watched:  05/25/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Akira Kurosawa

The Kurosawa journey continues!

So, this was up in my queue when M.Bell wrote to say "if you're watching Kurosawa, you should watch High and Low soon."  So, I *did*.  

I dug this movie.  It's fascinating to see the then-nascent genre of the police procedural from a Japanese perspective and from the eye and hand of Kurosawa.

I've not read Ed McBain's King's Ransom, the novel on which High and Low (1963) is based.  And I doubt this is a 1:1 match for that novel - also, I've never read any Ed McBain, and maybe I should?

The movie stars an army of Toho players, topped off by Toshiro Mifune as an executive with a shoe company that would like more profits.  As we enter the story, he's being recruited by fellow executives to turn against the company president and take over the company.  But Mifune's character has his own plans, and has mortgaged everything against it - and is already millions in debt to make his plan work out.  But, then, his chauffer's son is kidnapped by accident (they intended to take his son, of similar age and build), and Mifune must make the decision to save the boy or himself.  

Richard Sherman Merges With The Infinite

Songwriter and musician Richard Sherman has passed at the age of 95.

Sherman was one half of The Sherman Bros., who co-wrote some of the most familiar songs in the world, including "It's a Small World (After All)" for Walt Disney, and songs for Mary Poppins and Jungle Book.  They worked on stage musicals, screenplays, and wrote music for Disney parks, including "There's a Great Big, Beautiful Tomorrow" and, of course the music for the Tiki Room.

In recent years, Sherman was treated as a Disney emeritus, and would often consult on their re-makes of films he's worked on, like Jungle Book and for Mary Poppins Returns.  

Our pal NathanC, in his professional capacity at Texas Public Radio, interviewed Sherman a few years ago.  You can listen by clicking here.  Or read it here.

Doc Watch: Lolla - The Story of Lollapalooza (2024)

Watched:  05/24/2024

Format:  Paramount+

Viewing:  First

Director:  Michael John Warren

I just recently wound up writing about Lollapalooza and music festivals over on my more "personal journal" blog, League of Melbotis.  Originally the post was about ACL Fest and fading interest in festivals, but I was half-way through with the post when I saw an ad for Lolla (2024), a documentary tracking Lollapalooza from it's late-80's origins to today and into tomorrow.  I'd started the post talking about that festival as well as ACL Fest, so it's all of a piece.

This evening we went ahead and blasted through the three sections of the doc, each about 50 minutes, for our Friday night viewing.  

For a fuller picture, do check out that post at LoM.  But the key points include the fact I was a fresh-faced 16 year old when I attended the first Lollapalooza tour in 1991, and attended the first four years. 

To begin with: The doc has a lot of constraints.  It needs the involvement of the people who were there in the past, it needs the partnership of the people who currently work with and own Lollapalooza (Austin's own C3 Entertainment), and it's distributed by MTV parent company, Paramount, who lent a lot of material to the film.  For all those shackles, I think they *mostly* do a solid job of painting at least an interesting and accurate historical portrait.  It's just when you get to the modern era that I kind of side-eye the doc as propaganda.  

Team Bear Watch: St. Elmo's Fire (1985)

Watched:  05/23/2024

Format:  Paramount+

Viewing:  First

Director:  Joel Schumacher

Selection:  Household Joint Decision

Birth of a Nation.  The Jazz Singer.  Porky's.

All movies that captivated a nation at one point or another for a variety of reasons.  But, also, proof that, no matter their popularity in the moment, not every movie holds up over time.  

I had never seen St. Elmo's Fire (1985).  I was ten when it came out, so too young and not interested.  We only sporadically had premium cable during the era when I suspect a lot of my peers watched the movie.  But over the years, I had seen no particular reason to watch this film.  For a movie that was often mentioned as of a certain place and time - usually in talking about "The Brat Pack", it was never referenced textually or subtextually; ie: no one was suggesting that one should see this movie to be culturally literate - but there often seemed to be a belief that everyone *had* seen it.

However, St. Elmo's Fire co-star and 80's heart-throb Andrew McCarthy's documentary Brat is set to land on Hulu.  The film promises to cover the phenomenon of the Brat Pack from the inside, talking with the folks who were tagged in a notorious New York Magazine article "Hollywood's Brat Pack" by David Blum.  

But the thing is, I'm just young enough that a lot of the Brat Pack stuff didn't hit me.  I think they're mostly elder Gen-X, but in 1985, I was concerned with soccer practice and robots, not dealing with my friend's personal problems as they flexed to grow into adulthood.  So this movie was *not for me*.  Nor were a lot of the movies made by the Brat Pack in the general time of their release.  And as I'm sure the doc will cover, the Brat Pack stigma deeply impacted those actors as it made them a brand, a brand that spoiled as we hit 1990, when maybe I would have been interested in young Hollywood (which I never really was).*

The movie is most famous, really, for the cast of then-young stars, more than anything.  It was like an Avengers of former Tiger Beat features pushing into more adult territory.

Kurosawa Watch: The Hidden Fortress (1958)

Watched:  05/21/2024

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Akira Kurosawa

A really pretty fascinating, human movie about a princess being smuggled incognito across feudal Japan, The Hidden Fortress (1958) is a cinema classic that I'd missed til this point.  A large-scale, gorgeous film, it can read a bit like a fable, with the point - beyond its existence as a rollicking samurai movie - revealing itself in the final scenes, feels organic and still provides a bit of catharsis as the plot threads come together.

The story follows two bumbling, inept peasants who can't seem to do anything right.  They're greedy to a fault, believe themselves clever (they are not, and are constantly shown to make terrible mistakes), and probably terrible people.  They even arrived too late to participate in a war they thought would enrich them, and were caught and pressed into work digging graves.  Heading home, they stumble across a Toshiro Mifune, who is a samurai general travelling incognito.  He's stowed the heir to the throne of his clan in a hidden fortress.

Taking the wealth needed to restart the clan and the princess, the peasants, the general and the princess (posing as a mute country girl) travel across the land trying to reach home and safe harbor, the peasants unaware of their companions' identity and doing it for the massive amounts of gold that they're transporting.

Monsterverse Watch: Kong - Skull Island (2017)

Watched:  05/20/2024

Format:  Max

Viewing:  Third?

Director:  Jordan Vogt-Roberts

Selection:  Jamie

Confession time.  Or, possibly, self-realization time.  

I can be a wee bit protective of OG versions of popular entertainment content.  I think it's important to know where something which is part of the zeitgeist first appeared, the context, and - if I can - seek out that original bit of entertainment and understand how it came to be.  

My personal feelings on the original King Kong (1933), I've tried to make clear.  

• A love letter to King Kong
• Podcast on the many version of King Kong
• Posts on King Kong (as recent as last year)

I won't belabor too much on the original King Kong film here, but suffice to say, knowing most people are only familiar with latter-era version of Kong, I always want to direct the spotlight back to the original formula, because it's an amazing technical feat as well as a lovely film.

Crime Watch: The Untouchables (1987)

Watched:  05/19/2024

Format:  4K

Viewing:  Unknown

Director:  Brian DePalma

When I was 12, it was, for reasons lost to time, very important for me to see The Untouchables (1987).  Something about the trailers must have set me off.  But I had also, in 1986, sat through the entirety of the Geraldo Rivera debacle, The Mystery of Al Capone's Vault.  And while we all sat there in real time watching Geraldo Rivera show his whole ass to the world by famously finding nothing,* they filled that time with biographical and historical info on Capone and the 1920's mob scene in Chicago.  So it's possible Geraldo had no small part in why I wanted to see this movie.  

My excitement was such that I bought one of those movies magazines (that you can still get at Walgreen's) with "behind the scenes" material and lots of glossy promo pictures and whatnot.  But, this one was not just filler - they actually got into the actual history of Capone and his cohorts, many of whom have unnamed parts in the movie.  I also learned, hey, there had been a popular TV series of the same name back in 1959-1963.

When the movie arrived, I was 12 and had no idea who Brian DePalma was.  Or Ennio Morricone.  And certainly not David F'ing Mamet.  Thanks to a dad who was a Bond guy, I was versed in Sean Connery.  And I knew Costner from Silverado, certainly.  But unless it was Harrison Ford, I don't think I was yet watching movies to see anyone in particular.

What I remember from seeing the movie the first time includes

Robo Watch: Five Nights at Freddy's (2023)

Watched:  05/17/2024

Format:  Amazon

Viewing:  First

Director:  Emma Tammi

Selection:  Dug and K

I have no children.  Thus, I have mostly managed to live my life without having to know anything about the phenomenon that is Five Nights at Freddy's as video game, toys, or - now - a major motion picture.  So, yes, I have not competed for my hypothetical child's attention over watching some emotionally stunted dipshit game streamer hoot and woo at this game.  Nor did anyone in my house get excited about this movie coming out.

It also means I will not ever respond to a movie when asked my opinion by saying "my kids loved it!"  Look, love your kids, and use your own criteria for what is good or not - but my personal opinion is not filtered through the sugar-fueled viewing of entertainment by people whose brains are still gelling.  

Also - If you ever want to know why the accountants and actuaries now running Hollywood want for everything to be based on existing IP, look no further than this movie, which had a built in audience and managed to take in $291 million on what looked to be about a $20 million budget. 

At the blog, you'll see me imply many a movie is pretty bad, but normally I want to leave room for the idea that something was not to my taste, or I may have had challenges as a viewer - and certainly want to acknowledge that movies tend to have fans, even if I am not one. 

But proving that something being popular or lucrative is kind of meaningless when it comes to how *good* a movie is...  friends, straight up: Five Nights at Freddy's is an awful movie. A successful, money-making, widely seen movie that was, honestly, a steaming pile.*  

So, here we are.

Dabney Coleman Merges With The Infinite

Texas-bred actor, Dabney Coleman, has passed at the age of 92.  

Fellow Gen-X'ers will remember Coleman from myriad roles, not least of which included films 9-to-5, WarGames, Tootsie, Cloak & Dagger and plenty of other favorites from back in the day.  

Coleman worked consistently from the early 1960's til just a few years ago, appearing on Yellowstone in 2019.