Road (Space) House

We knew we'd watch it sooner or later, so we put on the new Road House (2024).

This one stars Jake Gyllenhall as the new Rick Dalton. We meet him at an underground fight scene where the champion forfeits the fight as soon as he finds out who he is. We don't know why, but Jake is totally jacked, so we go with it. In the parking lot, Jessica Williams approaches him about a job as bouncer for her house. He turns her down, but later decides not to kill himself. So he has nothing better to do...

He takes a bus down to the Florida Keys, Glass Key in particular, for you Hammett fans. At a little strip mall, he meets a young black woman who runs a bookstore with her father, dedicated to the lore of the Keys. It's next door to the Double Deuces Diner for you fans of the original Road House. Williams' place is just down the road. 

It's pretty nice for a dive bar - a long A-frame, very tropical. Williams explains that things have gotten a little rowdy, and they just need someone for a few weeks to calm things down. The current bouncer is a nice beachboy type, who just needs a some mentoring. Some bikers come in and start making trouble, so Gyllenhall goes to earn his pay. He gets them out in the parking lot, makes sure there's a hospital nearby, and checks to see if they all have insurance and good dental plans. Then creams them all.

And drives them to the hospital. He even warns them when there's a bump coming so they can brace their broken bones. The doctor who checks them in is Daniela Melchior, and she isn't too impressed by the mayhem he caused. But you don't have to have seen the original to know where they will end up. 

There's a few more fights, and a bad guys eaten by a gator, before we find out that the bad guys are trying to put Williams out of business. They decide to bring the real muscle, a man who brings chaos where ever he goes: former UFC Scotsman Conor McGregor. We're introduced to him wandering through a Mexican marketplace buck naked, demolishing everything in his path. He grabs some clothes and heads to Florida.

Even though Gyllenhall is pretty buff, this guy is built like a brick leprechaun. The last act is going to be these two going up against each other. 

This is pretty fun, if you like fighty movies. Directed by big action director Doug Liman, it does what it's supposed to do. I feel like it doesn't have the same cheesy goodness that the original had, but I suppose we'll see how we feel about that in a few years. Gyllenhall looks great, and has an interesting way of staring off into the distance with one side of his mouth quirked up. Thinking about the futility of violence and fragility of life, I guess. He looks a bit like Ryan Gosling, or acts like him or something. 

In conclusion, the bands playing the Road House weren't bad, some R&B, gospel, reggae, and a few zydeco numbers by Rockin' Dopsie. But they're no Jeff Healey.

Nothing Succeeds

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967) is a musical made at the end of the Golden Years of musicals. As such, we never bothered to watch it until now. Worth the wait.

It stars Robert Morse, a kind of funny looking guy. sort of reminded me of Dudley Moore, or Michael J. Pollard, or maybe Keith Moon. He's a window washer on a Manhattan skyscraper, but one day he buys a book, "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying". So one day, he steps in through a window, and strips off his jumpsuit to reveal a business suit. He immediately bumps into the president of the company, Rudy Vallee, who angrily tells him to go to Personnel if he wants a job.

He does, but when he gets there, he meets a secretary, played by Michelle Lee. She is smitten with him, while he is standoffish, and her secretary friends are not impressed. Anyway, Morse goes on the sweet talk the Personnel exec into giving him a job in the mailroom.

And so his rise begins. By a combination of sucking up to the boss, pretending to work all night, and blackmail, he rises through the ranks. He gets Vallee's girlfriend Hedy LaRue (Maureen Arthur) as secretary, and has her deliver his memos for maximum affect. And of course, he finally allows himself to be won over by Lee.

This is all very amusing, in a slightly dated way. But it's also a musical, based on a Broadway show. The music is by Frank Loesser, with Nelson Riddle doing the incidental music. The choreography is based on Bob Fosse. So we get some angular walking, synchronized secretarial pooling, and so on. 

It's a lot of fun. The songs aren't too memorable (to me) except for "I Believe in You", which Lee sings to Morse, then Morse sings to himself. The setting is very Mad Men by way of Mad magazine. I enjoyed seeing this look at corporate culture in a world teetering on the brink of the counterculture revolution. 

So how about Bye Bye Birdie? Haven't seen that one either.

Legionnaires' Disease

I picked up Black Legion (1937) because it was a Humphrey Bogart movie I hadn't seen yet. 

Bogart works in a machine shop, which seems like a pleasant place. The guys josh around a lot - everyone ribs Jack Foran for being hung over, and Polish kid Henry Brandon for studying all the time. But it's all in fun. When the foreman gets a promotion, Bogart is pretty sure he's up for the new position. He even starts making plans with his wife and kid for a new car and maybe a vacation. But the job goes to Brandon.

Now, instead of listening to radio serials with his son, he listens to radio ranters going on about immigrants stealing our jobs. He gets surly and sloppy at work, and a co-worker invites him to meet some friends. It turns out to be - the Black Legion!

These guys have a nifty black uniform with black hoods and carry pistols (both required, for a reasonable price). They beat up and whip undesirables, and Bogart goes along with it. In fact, they beat up Brandon and his nice old Polish dad, Egon Brecher. Then they burn down his home and throw them on a freight train out of town. So now Bogart is foreman.

Bogart's friend Foran, boards next door to Bogart's family. His landlord's daughter, Ann Sheridan, is Bogart's wife's friend, and thinks that Foran should settle down and marry her. Foran may run around with floozy Helen Flint and drink too much, but he has husband potential. But the landlord is Irish, and gets promoted at work, so the Black Legion goes after him. Now Bogart's wife begins to suspect, and leaves him, taking their son with him.

Bogart gets drunk and starts hanging out with Flint, but drunkenly tells Foran about the Legion. So now he is marked for death.

Bogart is caught, and left to take the rap. He is defiant, willing to go to prison or face the chair for the Legion. But when he sees his wife and son in court, he breaks. He spills everything about the Legion, and points out the members who are there in court, leading to their arrest. The judge gives a rather long speech about America and Democracy. 

Note that this was made in 1937, before America joined the war against Hitler. It is plainly a work of propaganda, and kind of clumsy at that. It's hard to believe that a nice guy like Bogart could be such a dope. When he goes to the first meeting, he evens laughs at the secret knock. But then he kind of gets excited about getting a uniform. I did buy that he got excited when holding a pistol. 

But having a great cast really made up for the slightly clumsy script. And maybe, I didn't mind because I agree with the sentiment: bigotry and violence are bad. But I don't think director Archie Mayo did Bogart any favors with this one. 

Take Out Chinese

Ms. Spenser has been getting a bum deal on the movie selection lately, so she requested Khartoum (1966). How could an epic North African adventure fail?

It starts in the Sudan, late 1800s. An Egyptian force lead by an Englishman is defeated by a local army lead by a mystical Islamic figure, the Mahdi (Laurence Olivier!). In London, there is pressure to show force to support the Egyptians, but Prime Minister Gladstone (Ralph Richardson) doesn't want to get bogged down. They decide to send Charles "Chinese" Gordon (Charlton Heston), alone except for an aide, as a private citizen. Gordon made his name leading a Chinese army in support of the Emperor, and had previously fought to rid the Sudan of slavery. But he was also headstrong, with a strange mystical bent, leading him to frequently disobey orders. 

So he heads out to Cairo and up the Nile. Officially, he is to organize an evacuation of the English and Egyptian citizens of Khartoum. But when he gets there, he starts organizing the defense of the city. The populace welcome him as their savior. He meets with the Mahdi, who treats him with respect, but warns him that he plans to burn the city and murder all within.

He begins a crash course to fortify the city for a siege, but his only hope is the British Army. But will they arrive in time? Or at all?

There was a lot to like about this movie, especially the location shooting in Cairo and on the Nile. Of course, there were a lot of sets, like all of Khartoum, and they were only so-so. The action scenes were amazing. Famed stuntman Yakima Canutt was credited as second-unit director, and you bet there were a lot of horse stunts, most probably unethical. But there weren't really that many action scenes. Mostly tense waiting or political wrangling. A lot was made of Gordon's mysticism, but aside from a few prayers from him, you don't get much. He even promises the Mahdi a miracle, and fails to deliver. 

Plus, of course, there's Gordon's super-power: Imperialism. Everywhere he goes, the simple Africans (only a very few of whom are black) fall all over him. Well, he did outlaw slavery, so a few ex-slaves had good reason. 

Olivier as Mahdi was OK, if you don't mind an Englishman playing Sudanese Muslim. Very portentous and masterful. But he was in the background most of the time. 

I'd say this one is up for a remake, maybe from a Sudanese perspective.

Day of Reckoning

Now we've seen Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023). I guess I need to go back and check out the podcasts that I've been avoiding for spoilers.

It starts on a Russian sub, under the ice, with some new tech that makes it undetectable. It can only be operated with a two-part key with a cruciform cross section. You'll hear "cruciform key" a lot. Unfortunately, the tech, later known as "the Entity", goes rogue and makes the subs torpedoes turn around and destroy it. we last see one part of the key hanging around he neck of a drowned Russian seaman. 

So Tome Cruise is sent into the desert to pick up part of the key from Rebecca Ferguson, playing Ilsa Frost. The Elder of the High Table is not involved, sorry. They are attacked, etc, they get out. We cut to a US superspy top-level meeting, including Cary Elwes as top bigwig. A perfectly normal guy stands near the back while they run down the premise. The Entity is an all-seeing, all-controlling AI. If you can control it with the cruciform key, you could... dare we say it? Rule the world!

Of course, normal guy is Tom Cruise in a mask. He bombs the place with sleep gas and has a private convo with his boss. It ends up with him going after the key. He gathers his team (Ving Raimes and Simon Pegg) and hit up the Abu Dhabi airport, where someone has one part of the key. 

But it turns out that freelance pickpocket Hayley Atwell has nabbed the key. Also, Shae Wigham and his team from the IMF show up to take down rogue agent Cruise. Pretty soon Cruise and team realize that the Ent is manipulating surveillance, sending everyone running in circles. It is also hiding one man, Esai Morales. He shows up on no ones cameras, and Cruise can barely spot him in real life.

Anyway, Atwell loses Cruise and takes off to Rome without him. She gets arrested on arrival, but Cruise shows up to get her out. This leads to a silly car chase where they are stuck in a Fiat 500 that Atwell has to drive, and it's reminds me of Knight and Day (which I thought I'd blogged, but can't find), with a lot of spluttering from Cruise and shrieks from Atwell. It also reminded me of Fast X (driving down the Spanish Steps) and that other Mission:Impossible where they went to Rome. Anyway, they are being chased by a cool assassin, Pom Klementieff, in a police behemoth. 

They get out (of course) and head to Venice, where someone is going to buy the half-key from Atwell, now working with Cruise. The buy will be held at a high-class party, run by arms dealer Vanessa Kirby, who seems to be fronting for Morales, who is fronting for the Ent. Also, Ferguson is there. This became my favorite scene. There's a moment when they are all together, and Morales reminds them that the Ent sees all, knows all. It can predict their every move, every thought. And either Ferguson or Atwell will die that night, and Morales will get the key. 

This is when the drugs hit. The camera starts circling, the lightshow represents the Entity on the screens and Cruise starts trying to figure things out. He tries to tell people that the Entity must be afraid, or it wouldn't have set up the meeting, He tries to covince Kirby that the Entity is bluffing. He knows he's being psyched out at every turn.

And that's what I like about this movie - the philosophical problem of how you outwit a being who can model your every thought. manipulate all information, force you to carry out its plans unknowingly. Of course, Cruise does this by punching people, but also by turning enemies into allies. In the final set piece, where Cruise famously rides a motorcycle off a mountain and parachutes onto the Orient Express (!), a bridge blows up (like in The General!). And Klementieff saves his life, because the Ent predicted she would betray him. 

Like in Across the Multiverse, and some other epics, this movie ends with a cliffhanger (not literal) with Cruise going off alone to find the Ent. Which is too bad, because I loved all the supporting cast - including a lot of women. Both Atwell and Klementieff get out of Marvel jail and get great roles. I also loved Shea Wigham. who we previously knew as the Atwell's FBI boss in Agent Carter. He's definitely a "that guy" that we now know by name. Morales gets a good villain role, who mentored Cruise before he went straight and joined the IMF. He survives the movie, so we'll see him soon, whenever the next (last?) M:I comes out.

I should not that Ms. Spenser wasn't as keen on this as I was. But she didn't hate it as much as some of the dreck I show her, so could be worse. 

I'm a Barbie Girl

We finally got to watch Barbie (2023). Now we can listen to all those podcasts I've been saving.

It starts in Barbieland, where all the Barbies live in Dream Houses. Margot Robbie is just a regular (Stereotypical) Barbie. Of course, everyone - the President, Supreme Court, doctors, scientists. CEOs - all Barbies of one sort or another. The Kens all hang out on the beach - in fact, their job is Beach. Robbie's Ken is Ryan Gosling. He's jealous of the other Ken's and only wants Robbie's attention. But of course, she is busy with girl's night sleepovers, and doesn't really have time for boyfriends.

Then one day, she has thoughts of death. Soon, her breath turned sour, ceelulite started to appear on her thighs, and she no longer walked as if she were wearing high-heels when she was barefoot. She needed the help of Weird Barbie. 

Weird Barbie, Kate McKinnon, is a Barbie with hacked hair and crayoned face, who lives in a weird house with some discontinued or otherwise unacceptable Barbies. She tells Robbie that the problem is the child who is playing with her in the real world. She will have to go there to solve the problem.

So she heads out to the real word in her pink convertible, singing along to the Indigo Girls. Gosling pops up in the backseat, stowing away. They end up in Venice Beach on roller skates, blending right in. While Robbie heads to school to find her real-world owner, Gosling went to hang out in the library.

It turns out that the girl who was playing with Robbie is Arianna Greenblatt (65), a mean, gothy adolescent who doesn't even like Barbie. Her youthful malevolence manages to crush Robbie's irrepressible spirit. But we've seen her with her mother, America Ferrera, a depressed working woman who sketches Barbie variations, like Persistent Thoughts of Death Barbie. She works as a receptionist (/designer?) at Mattel.

The Mattel board, led by Will Ferell, has found out about the Barbie escape, and are freaking out. Fortunately, Robbie shows up at the headquarters and Ferrera shows her into the boardroom. She just wants things to go back the way they were. She doesn't like the real world - the men aren't respectful, and the woman can't get a break. Heck, the Mattel board are all men. So the board plans to put her in a package and send her for remanufacturing. But Ferrara breaks her out, they grab Greenblatt and head for Barbieland.

When they get back, they find out that Ken has returned first. He read up on Patriarchy and decides to impose it on Barbieland. And then, Ferell and the board show up.

This may sound a little scattered and unfocused, becuse it is. There's a lot going on. Barbie's awakening and Ferrera's quest for meaning sort of fit together, but the Ken plot seems sort of shoehorned in - and it's about 20-30% ot the movie. He has the song that got the Oscar, plus another country-folk number (I like that one better. although it's pretty rough). Plus, he's Ryan Gosling. He has most of the jokes, and he has the biggest problem: He has no purpose, except Barbie. 

There's a scene I loved where, after the Patriarchy is overthrown, he re-unites with Robbie. He is delirious with relief, babbling about what he went through, how he didn't even care about patriarchy when he found out it wasn't mostly about horses. I've been there, babbling to my crush about everything I've thought and dreamed while we were apart for a weekend, not even realizing that she didn't really care. He confesses his love for Robbie, but she doesn't love him. That's refreshing. 

Barbie's arc is a little more hard to pin down. You can see elements of the hero's journey (from Barbieland to Real World and back), but I have trouble finding the center of the story. Maybe it's because Barbie isn't a real character, she's just dreams and playtime. But I also wonder if this was Greta Gerwig's story from the start, or did someone offer her a Barbie movie, and she just threw stuff at it until it was 2 hours long.

I guess I'm not really the audience for this movie, anyway.

Freelancing the Stone

You know the I love stupid action adventure movies. Ms. Spenser less so, but still, she voted to watch Freelance (2023) out of a bundle of movies I picked up from the library.

It stars John Cena, who gives us his life story in a voice over/montage. As a kid, he valued justice, so he went to law school. That didn't do it for him, so he joined the Army and went Special Forces. This he liked. He was good at it, and one day, got sent on a secret op to kill the dictator of a Latin American country (Juan Pablo Raba). Before they can land, their helicopter is hit by a rocket. Cena survives, with some back problems.

So he becomes a lawyer again, falls in love, has a kid, gets a house in the suburbs, and generally dies inside. So when an old buddy (Christian Slater) who has started a private security company calls, he doesn't need much persuasion. 

The job he has is a short-term bodyguard assignment. An influencer/journalist, Alison Brie, is going to interview a reclusive, shadowy dictator - yep, it's Raba. But it should be easy money...

He doesn't get on very well with Brie on the way to Fredonia (or whatever it was called), thinking her a lightweight, because her biggest gig was "Celebrity Hot Tubs". But they made it there, met the Raba, and headed off to his Palace. On the way, they are ambushed - by Raba's own military. But of course, Cena gets them out.

They run for the jungle, with Cena protecting Brie and trying to shake Raba (after all, they are shooting at him). But he keeps turning up, and takes them to a village where he is beloved, and they all have a little fiesta.

This is where it really hit me: This is a Romancing the Stone knock-off - possibly second-hand, via The Lost City. This time, it's from the guy's point of view. Also, there's no romance, because he's married and faithful.

But it was still a lot of fun. I like this sort of movie (as I've said), especially if they're funny. This was funny enough, exciting enough, and ended with the bad guys (South African mercenaries) defeated. Raba even turns out to be a good guy who didn't shoot down Cena's chopper. And Slater appears at the last minute so that good old USA saves the day.