Zombie Jamboree

I honestly hadn't planned on a zombie film fest, but these just came off of Short Wait at the same time, so...

28 Days Later (2002) sort of revived (heh) the zombie genre by making them fast, not just shuffling shamblers. It starts with some animal rights activists releasing some monkeys from a lab, not realizing that they were infected with the rage virus. Kind of like the start of The Hunger, but not vampires. 

Twenty-eight days later, Cillian Murphy wakes up naked in a hospital bed - you know, for the ladies. He finds the hospital and the entire city to be deserted, until suddenly, a mob of zombies is attacking and a couple of humans hustle him into the shelter of a little shop. They explain the situation to him, and we think, "don't get too attached to these guys." And indeed, after a trip to his Murphy's home to see that his parents have killed themselves peacefully, we lose one of the two. He gets infected and the other, Naomi Harris, kills him.

These two find more survivors: father Brendan Gleeson and his daughter Megan Burns. They have heard a radio broadcast of a military presence up north, and want to form a party to try and get there. So off we go.

They mostly make it, but when they get there they discover that humans may be a worse threat than zombies. And that becoming a zombie might keep you human.

Director Danny Boyle (yes, Yesterday's Danny Boyle) made this the first major feature "filmed" digitally. This gives it an interesting look - the stuttering effect in action or slo-mo is pretty common now. But we kind of wondered if our Blu-ray player wasn't working right for some sections. A field of flowers, for instance, was completely posterized, with serious banding where there should have been smooth gradations. Maybe the effect was intended, maybe a limit of the technology, maybe a malfunction of our old player. Anyway, it has a surprisingly upbeat ending (tacked on, I understand). It looks like the sequel has a different cast and director. Should we watch?

Train to Busan (2016) starts with busy finance exec Gong Yoo trying to relate to his young daughter, Kim Su-an. She just wants to see her mom in Busan. Gong doesn't feel like he has time for the trip, but finally agrees to take her. 

As the train leaves the station, we catch a glimpse of an odd mob. Also, there is a tramp locked in a train toilet, muttering that everyone is dead. But mostly it's just regular people: a high-school baseball team and a cheerleader, a chubby tough guy with a turned up collar and a pregnant wife, some nice old ladies, and maybe a zombie.

That zombie bites someone and pretty soon whole cars are infected. These zombies are fast like in 28 Days, but also dumb. If they don't see humans, they just mill around - and they can't work locks. So the survivors have to keep them locked out of the cars where the uninfected are hiding, and maybe they can make it to Busan. The main question is: Can Gong Yoo protect his daughter?

There isn't as much visual flair in this one, but the action scenes are well done. It's fun to see them worked out in the narrow confines of a train (Snowpiercer, anyone?). Although they did neglect to lock doors a  bit too often. But the fast zombies obviously owe something to 28 Days.

So two zombie films, one that kicked off the current rev of the genre (although it wasn't clear that 28 Days Later zombies were undead - they were just mindless), one that is a recent entry. And we aren't even big zombie movie fans. But at least it helped us get the jokes in Zombieland.

Period Piece

I went into Emma. (2020) with little information - I hadn't read any reviews (maybe noted that they were favorable) or Jane Austen's novel. I did not know anything about Autumn de Wilde, because it is her first feature. I haven't even seen Clueless, the modern remake.

It stars Anya Taylor-Joy as the titular Emma. She is a smart young woman with a rich and doting father (Bill Nighy) who delights in matchmaking (but swears she will stop). She takes an interest in a local girl, Mia Goth, whose parents are unknown. Emma undertakes to find her a husband, although she doesn't plan to meddle. But she does discourage her from marrying a nearby farmer, as she feels he is too low.

At first, she thinks the smarmy preacher, Josh O'Connor, is interested, and works to bring them together. But he is actually interested in Emma, so that won't work.

Emma spends a lot of her time with a jokey wastrel, Johnny Flynn. He's the type who lounges around with his leg up on the arm of the chair, making caustic comments. But she's really interested in Callum Turner, who she has barely met - it's always rumored that he will be coming to this or that event, but never does.

When he does, it is at a ball, where the pastor refuses to dance with Goth, so Flynn takes her for a turn out of the kindness of his heart. On her way home, Turner saves Goth from gypsies (offscreen). When Goth acts smitten, Emma thinks she is in love with Turner, not realizing that it is Flynn she's taken with. 

Is Emma really good at matchmaking?

Once that is cleared up, she hopes to take up with Turner, who she feels is her natural partner, attracted to his parentage (her family's good friends) and social standing. She is also annoyed at dark-haired, accomplished Amber Anderson, niece of  local bore and spinster Miranda Hart. Then, at a picnic, Turner is goofing around, and without thinking, Emma insults Hart cruelly. She regrets it immediately, but her friend Flynn takes her very firmly to task. Can she recover? Can she earn back the respect of her friends? And will she find love herself?

Of course! It all ends happily for everyone. 

This is a beautifully made film, full of gorgeous costumes and locations. It is also full of beautiful people, but everyone looks a little dumpy or foolish next to Taylor-Joy as the radiant Emma. Maybe Anderson as her dark rival. So this is quite dreamy and made me want to read the novel.

They did seem to have a bit of trouble making Austen's formal, epigrammatic dialog sound natural, but that's a pretty common problem. I've seen it solved in Shakespeare by just eliminating a lot of the dialog. That's what makes Bill Nighy my favorite part of this. He is constantly commenting on the scenes with nothing but a glance or a sigh. 

Brooklyn Owes the Charmer

I am not necessarily a big Jonathan Lethem fan, although I did read and enjoy his first novel. Gun with Occasional Music, about a private eye who is a gene-modified kangaroo who has a gun with its own theme music. But I was definitely interested in seeing Motherless Brooklyn (2019).

It was written by, directed by, and stars Ed Norton, as a private eye with Tourette's Syndrome. He works with a couple of other guys for Bruce Willis' detective agency. Willis has them wait outside while he goes up to an apartment, then he calls Norton at a phone booth and hides the receiver in a drawer, so Norton can hear the meeting. So Willis meets up with a few lawyer types and a few bruiser types, and they discuss something he has and wants money for - but it isn't clear what it is. Only that a black secretary is involved. When the bruisers drag Willis out, his guys follow him - but get there too late, They have rubbed him out. Norton takes his hat and coat.

Willis' wife is not too shook up. She knew he was taking too many risks. The other boys at the agency want to carry on, but drop this case - there's nothing to grab onto. But Norton, now wearing Willis' hat and coat, wants to find the guys who did this. This, and the thing with the wife, have distinct shades of The Maltese Falcon. 

The black secretary turns out to be Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who takes notes at Borough Authority meetings. The BA is run by a Robert Moses type bigot and power broker played by Alec Baldwin. But Mbatha-Raw is also a bit of a community activist, working with a Jane Jacobs type gentrification fighter, Cherry Jones. So there's more than a touch of Chinatown, as well.

Throughout this all, Norton twitches, mutters, and shouts nonsense and curses, many aimed at himself. I don't know if this is a good representation of Tourette's but nobody gives him any trouble about it. At one point Baldwin mentions his "condition", and when Norton gets defensive, he says he means his habit of sticking his nose where it doesn't belong. The other guys at the agency call him "Freakshow", but they all come from the same orphanage.

The movie has a great 1950s look (departing from the novel, which is set "today"). There's also some good jazz in the soundtrack, and a jazz man modeled after Miles Davis played by Michael K. Williams, He befriends Norton, and shares a jazz cigarette with him - helps calm the tics.

So I guess this bombed, but we enjoyed it. It's a bit all over the place, but that's part of the fun. Another part is the villain is so rotten - and his biggest crime is building parks in NYC. 

Dark Skies Initiative

Dark Skies (2013) is just what we were looking for, and very much according to formula. It is movie of possession, like Insidious, for example, but not actually supernatural.

It stars Keri Russell and Josh Hamilton as a husband and wife with two sons. Hamilton is looking for work while Russell is a maybe-not-too-successful real estate agent, so money is tight. The younger son, Kadan Rockett, is 8 or 9 and likes his older brother to tell him scary stories over a walkie-talkie set at night. The older, Dakota Goyo, is 13, and has been hanging out with a somewhat obnoxious older boy. So things aren't perfect, but the family is strong.

Then odd things start to happen. The contents of the kitchen cabinets are balanced in odd geometric designs. Each family member, starting with Rockett, has some sort of fit, where they become unresponsive and harm themselves. The burglar alarm goes off when no one is in the house. And odd wounds and bruises appear on them all, but especially Rockett.

The police treat this as a psychological issue - kids acting out or possibly abuse. The neighbors begin to pull away, and they Russell and Hamilton even begin to doubt each other. Then Russell finds a website and it all becomes clear. SPOILER - aliens.

They go to consult with J.K. Simmons, an expert in alien abduction, Hamilton is skeptical at first, but Simmons tells them exactly what they are going through. He has no solution - says he has been hounded by the Greys for years. And worse, he predicts that they will eventually abduct one of them, probably the first one they possessed, Rockett. But if they fight back, they may be able to drive them off, and make them bother someone else.

Although this is directed by Scott Stewart and produced by Blumhouse, it has a touch of James Wan about it. The ordinary family, with problems, sure, but happy. The creepy happenings, maybe explainable, maybe not. Even the creepy music, which Simmons refers to as a ringing sound that seems to come from inside your own head. The suspicions of neighbors and authorities, which cuts off the possibility of help. Then the esoteric expert who explains it all - and helps or not. 

Maybe not all that original, but well done. Just tense enough to be scary, but not traumatizing. Ms. Spenser was satisfied, and it didn't give me nightmares. Good job.

Tomorrow Never Knows

I guess we just had to see Yesterday (2019), the movie where everyone forgets the Beatles exist except one guy. 

The setup is pretty simple: Himesh Patel is a singer/songwriter in a small English seaside town. He plays an acoustic guitar and sings to very small audiences, including a small group of friends who love him and like his music. His manager/best friend, Lily James has gotten him a gig at a big festival, but he winds up playing in a small tent to an audience of two children. He tells James that he is going to quit music and go back to teaching. Then, on his way home, there is a global power glitch and he his hit by a car.

He wakes up pretty battered, but when he is released from the hospital, he thanks his friends by playing them the song "Yesterday". They are blown away by this song they think he wrote. Later, a Google search reveals that the Beatles don't exist (also, no Coca Cola). So he furiously begins trying to remember the words to every Beatles song he can come up with.

He gets more and more famous. He opens for Ed Sheeran, which allows for a lot of good natured joshing at his expense. This would be funnier if I knew who Ed Sheeran is. In the end, he has to learn to love ... not himself - his music is still garbage - but Lily James. 

This wasn't as bad as I expected. Patel is quite sympathetic and easy to like. Lily James manages to look quite plain, which must have been hard. The humor is light and easy - Oasis doesn't exist in this world, because they didn't have the Beatles to cadge off.

But my main objection is this: The Beatles were a product of their times. "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" is not going to be a hit today - that style of music is old-fashioned and too much of a niche. The later works, maybe. "Yesterday" is a good example of a timeless song. It also works for one voice and an acoustic guitar. The Beatles didn't just write songs, they sang in beautiful harmony and had amazing and groundbreaking production values. Hearing them done solo sounds ok, but only because they are covers of well-loved hits.

As I understand, in the original script, the singer couldn't get anyone to listen to the Beatles songs he appropriates. This makes sense to me. World-famous violinist Joshua Bell played his violin outside a subway stop in Washington DC and was ignored by almost everyone. This seems like what would happen to Patel. 

Breaking the Bank at Monte Carlo

Next in our Edward G. Robinson festival, Seven Thieves (1960) is not a comedy. But it comes later in his career, when it made as much sense to cast him as a professor as well as a gangster.

It is set in Monaco. Robinson has invited Rod Steiger out for reasons he hasn't explained. Steiger has gotten out of prison recently, and it seems he is there because he was a student of Robinson. Now, Robinson wants to make it up to him with one last big score. Steiger is not too pleased, but hears him out. Robinson needs Steiger because he can trust him. But the other members have to approve him. Steiger points to beatnik Eli Wallach and hot chick Joan Collins, and says, those two? Yes, says Robinson, and three more.

They go to a strip club where Collins is dancing to Wallach's sax. Steiger figures out who the other thieves are: Alexander Scourby, the sweaty pervert who is infatuated with Collins (and happens to work at the casino), Michael Dante, the cool safe cracker, and Berry Kroeger, a German heavy. In the end, they agree to work with Steiger, and he agrees to lead them. So they go to work.

First, a run-through for timing, then the actual job. It's like most heist films, and in fact, has been ripped off by a few, including Ocean's Eleven. There is some derring-do climbing the outside of the casino, in a high wind over a long drop. There is the usual patron who appears to die, and the management wanting to remove him discretely. (Management represented by the rotund Sebastian Cabot.) And, amazingly, it all goes according to plan - until the getaway.

Robinson is wonderful in this. He was once a doctor, a professor in fact, but after serving time, he couldn't get a real job any more. But his last big haul isn't done for the money (mostly), but to prove a point - to achieve the perfect crime. There's another odd movie of his, The Amazing Doctor Clitterhouse (amazing name, too), where he is a professor of criminology, who takes over Humphrey Bogart's gang to get into the mind of a criminal. That detached scholarly air is very similar to his style here. But Rod Steiger is also great - I don't think I've seen him in much, but know him by reputation. I even like Joan Collins here, and I'm usually pretty much immune. Wallach as a philosophically nihilist criminal beatnik is pretty good, as well.

Bloody Vikings!

Finally got around to watching Guy Ritchie's King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017). Rmember when we got fooled by the knock-off? I don't think it was really much worse.

It starts with some scene setting: Uther Pendragon killing Mordred, wizard Vortigern killing Uther, baby Arthur put in a boat and sent down the Thames. He is rescued by some loose women who take him in and raise him. So we have Arthur (Charlie Hunnam) growing up on the streets, a street-wise king-to-be.

When some Vikings rough up one of the women, Arthur and his crew force them to pay up. But he finds out that King Vortigern (Jude Law) is protecting the Vikings, and his secret police grab him and take him to Camelot castle. There, along with every other young Englishman who isn't nailed down, he is forced to attempt to remove a sword from a stone. He succeeds, but passes out from the magic power. That puts him in Vortigern's power.

Meanwhile, a tomboy girl wizard called Mage (Astrid Berges-Frisbey) gets in touch with Arthur's buddy Djimon Hansou, and they rescue Arthur. So, reluctantly, with the help of his ragtag band of friends, he takes on the Vikings and the king.

This is not your regular King Arthur story. For one thing, it's all prelude. They just get started on the Round Table at the very end. Merlin is in the movie for a second in a flashback, but that's it. His place is taken by Mage, with a little Nimue folded in. There is no Lancelot, no Guinevere. Aside from Hansou, one of Arthur's buddies is Tom Wu, called Kung Fu George. And Excalibur is totally magic - can cut through magic fire or blast a roomful of warriors. 

I can accept all that, even based on the now tired trope of the guy you thought of as a noble hero being raised as a street tough. But Ritchie didn't seem to have his heart in this - or maybe put too much heart and not enough judgement into it. There are some good fights, but nothing outstanding. The anachronisms and departures from canon are designed to add some oddball fun, but fail to do so. Plus, it seems he was saving the best stuff for the sequels, which, sadly (?) will never get made.

Skip it, and watch Excalibur again.

Nuts in May

We have had Seven Days in May (1964) on our queue for quite a while - but under "Saved" (not available). We wanted to see it as part of our John Frankenheimer/Burt Lancaster series (see Part 1). Bonus: It stars Kirk Douglas.

Douglas plays Jiggs Casey, a military intelligence type who works in the Pentagon. He works with Lancaster, who is head of joint chiefs of staff. President Frederic March has just signed a nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia, and it's causing a lot of political turmoil. The movie starts with pro- and anti-disarmament protesters marching in front of the White House, and coming to blows. This is filmed in a very hand-held documentary style. I'm not sure whether this came from Frankenheimer or DP Ellsworth Fredricks.

Lancaster is an outspoken hawk, who doesn't believe that the Russians can be trusted to keep the treaty. Douglas agrees, but feels like the matter has been settled by the duly elected government. But he keeps getting hints about an off-the-books military operation called ECOMCON. He starts poking around, keeping his ears open at cocktail parties and talking to old buddies. He even plays up to Eva Gardner, Lancaster's ex-mistress. 

I guess it isn't a spoiler to say that Lancaster is planning a military coup, including a pre-emptive strike on Russia. The spoiler would be how it is how they stop it.

This movie feels very real, with more bureaucratic infighting than gun or fist fighting. Frankenheimer even managed to get some real shots of the Pentagon, which looks appropriately drab. The Rod Serling script has a few nice twists and turns, as well as plenty of tension. Plus, it isn't exactly relevant to the current political situation, but it isn't exactly not relevant either. 

The End of the Rise

So, after months with so many movies in my queue frozen in Short Wait/Long Wait, Netflix has started parcelling them out to me, maybe one a week from the top of my list. The big one was Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019). I can now say that I've seen all the big movies from 2019 that I wanted to see.

I mentioned at the start of the year that I wouldn't be doing a 2019 in review until I'd seen a few more of the 2019 movies. Now that I have, I still don't think I'll do that.

It starts with the classic crawl. The Emperor Pulpatine is alive! Somehow! And he has a huge fleet hidden in the Unknown Zone! And when Kylo Relly tracks him to the planet Exicle, the emperor tells him to kill Rey! Meanwhile, Rey, Chuy, a cartoon of General Organa, R2 and C3, and... I'm losing steam here.

Look, a lot of stuff happens in this movie. Characters are killed, but not too badly. The robots do some funny things. Mostly, Fink and Dameron Croe and Ray look great. They just do - this series kind of made Oscar Isaac a heart-throb star, but John Boyega and Daisy Ridley both have looks and charisma to burn. I'm sure Adam Driver is feeling pretty silly in this movie, compared to everything else he's been in. And he's been in almost every movie being made. 

I just wish we'd gotten a little more Rose, and a better send off for simulated Carrie Fisher.

Let's just wrap this up by saying I enjoyed watching this a lot, but didn't understand much and remember even less. But I sort of want to see it again. Too bad that this is the end of all Star Wars content, and there will never be any more.

The Old High Hat

I read a great little anecdote about Edward G. Robinson on Twitter the other day. A kid was skateboarding in LA in the 60s, and saw him come out of a store (a blonde on each arm). The kid said, "Look, it's the Boss!" and Robinson replied, "And don't you forget it!". 

This got me thinking about Robinson, who was a cultured, sensitive man, at odds with his classic gangster characters. Of course, he did a lot of comedies, making fun of this character, so I thought I'd queue some up. 

The Little Giant (1933) has Robinson as the head of a gang of Chicago bootleggers who are put out of business by the end of Prohibition. Robinson decides to go straight - he has a lot of money put aside and has been studying culture. He pays off his mistress (well enough so that there's no hard feelings) and punches out the head of the gang who will take over his territory (so they don't think he's running out). With his sidekick Russell Hopton, he heads to Santa Barbara.

He puts up in a swanky hotel, but all the society types give him the high hat. Then, when he's at a tailor, a young wastrel who can't pay his bill overhears the banker checking Robinson's solvency with his bank, and discovers that he has over a million in ready cash. The boy's family decide he should be cultivated. His sister, Helen Vinson, has already been noticed by Robinson, and she starts being friendly. 

Meanwhile, Robinson decides to take a house and real estate agent Mary Astor rents him a beaut, without letting on that it is her family's. It's their last asset after the crash, so she has to work at the agency and rent out the old pile. Robinson decides to take her on as social secretary, even getting her to rehearse his lovemaking. 

It's silly to worry about spoilers here, but Vinson's family find out that Robinson is a Chicago crook. Vinson's dad, who has been selling worthless bonds, makes him a partner in the firm, intending to make him the fall guy for the bond swindle. But Robinson figures that he just has to pay the bonds back - which he does the Chicago way. He gets his boys to work over the crooked officers of the company until they agree to buy back the bonds. And since Vinson threw him over when she found out his past, he's free to look at Astor in a different way.

By and large, this isn't a great movie - there aren't a lot of great laughs, the plot is pretty stale (slobs v. snobs) and it kind of meanders. But, it's got Robinson, and a capable crew of character actors. It's also full of snappy late pre-code dialog, like "a bunch of fags with hankies up their sleeves", and, "I used to own 10% of a French dame". And Robinson's little giant character is a lot of fun - naive but not dumb. He isn't sore that he got taken for a sap, but he wants these people to know that when they pick a sucker, they should make sure he's a sucker. "I have smarter people than you doin' my laundry in Chicago!"

It looks like Brother Orchid isn't available on Netflix, but expect to hear about a lot more Eddie G. movies in the coming weeks. 

Oh, That Sweater!

Knives Out (2019) technically doesn't qualify for this blog. I did not get it from my Netflix queue, but from Amazon Prime. It was wait-listed from Netflix for long enough that I gave up, and with an extra day to play with on the 4th of July weekend, just streamed it.

It starts with mystery writer Christopher Plummer found dead in his mansion, his throat cut. It seems to be suicide, but the police start to question the suspects - all his children or their spouses and offspring. They are here for a birthday party, and it looks like he was going to cut everyone out of his will. He was afraid they were becoming too dependent, unable to find success on their own. 

But this questioning seems to be driven by a shadowy man in the background. It is Benoit Blanc, played by Daniel Craig with an outrageous Foghorn Leghorn accent. Not the same accent as in Logan Lucky - that was more hillbilly - but just as goofy. He is a private detective who was invited to investigate the death as a murder, but the invite was anonymous.

Act one is pretty much the setup, where we see that everyone is unlikable and they all had a motive. Except one person, Plummer's nurse, Ana de Armas. When she is questioned, we learn that she is unable to lie without vomiting. SPOILER - then we get a flashback and see how it went down. De Armas was administering cortisone and a dose of morphine to Plummer, but got the vials mixed up and gave him a massive overdose. She can't find her Naloxone, either. But Plummer is a mystery writier - he comes up with a perfect alibi for de Armas. He coaches her through the plan, then slits his own throat so it will appear as a suicide.

So act two is this revelation, and de Armas trying to keep her secret while not throwing up. It ends with the reading of the will and the discovery that everything goes to de Armas. Unless she killed him, of course, since murderers aren't allowed to profit from their crimes.

The last act brings Chris Evans on the scene. He's the bad boy of the family, not trying to suck up to the old man for money. He is going to help de Armas get what's coming to her. And, look great wearing a comfy old white fisherman's knit sweater doing it. 

Honestly, that sweater was some people's main takeaway from the movie. I understand he needed to wear bulky clothes to disguise his bulky body.

Some other takeaways: The mansion that this is set in is gorgeous. It's full of puzzles and skulls and other mystery-adjacent stuff. The big wall of knives all pointed at the head of the person sitting in a particular seat was sort of the namesake of the movie. 

Also: the cast of this was ridiculous. Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Toni Colette, Lakeith Stanfield, Frank Oz, M. Emmet Walsh and so on. They all seem to be having a ball, being evil bitches. 

Rian Johnson also seems to be having fun. He's written a twisty mystery in the old style, subverted it by telling you whodunnit, then twisting it again. His Benoit Blanc, a Hercule Poirot figure, is great fun. He has also filled the movie with little Easter eggs, like the name of Plummer's character. The author is called Harlan Thrombey, named after Chose Your Own Adventure detective Harlowe Thrombey, possibly with a touch of Harlan Corben. 

Finally, it has a sweet, kind, honest protagonist in de Armas' character, a (possibly) undocumented woman of undefined origin. And, to add to the SPOILERS - she comes out fine, and the movie ends with her on a balcony, drinking a cup of coffee. This is getting to be our favorite movie ending, although in Ready or Not, the house is burning behind her. 

Call from the Past

Don't Let Go (2019) is almost one of those small indie SF/Fantasy films, except it has more of a studio gloss. I attribute this to Jason Blum and Blumhouse producing. 

It stars David Oyelowo as an LA policeman and Storm Reid (Wrinkle In Time) as his niece. It is established that her father, his brother, Bryan Tyree Henry, is a bit of a fuck up. One day he gets a garbled call from Reid and rushes to her house. He finds her, her dog, and her mother and father, all dead, with a box of coke under the bed.

The police decide it's murder-suicide, ans Oyelowo goes along. Then he gets another call from Reid. She doesn't get why he is freaking out about it, and he finally figures out that she is calling from the past - a few days before she is murdered. He gets her to do something in the past (stick something under a diner table with a piece of gum) and finds it in his present. So he knows she can change her future.

So we get one little SF gimmick, and a lot of human relationships, the way those little indie films do (I'm talking about, for ex, Fast Color or Kin). The movie also has some pacing problems and some silliness, as Oyelowo, increasingly haggard and wounded, keeps forcing his way into the evidence locker while his boss, Alfred Molina, just lets him. But Blumhouse makes it all seem a little more like a regular movie. I wonder if I would have like it better with a little less polish. Not that Blumhouse is exactly slick, but they do get a solid look for cheap.

So now I want to watch the Denzel Washington time-travel movie Deja Vu. But of course Netflix doesn't have it available without a Long Wait.

Game Over Man!

With Tag (2018), we have finished watching the three adult game movies of the last few years (see Ready or Not and Game Night). This is probably the one that started them all, or at least it is based on the Wall Street Journal article about the real-life game players that started it.

It starts with Ed Helms getting a job as a janitor, applying a fake mustache, and trying to get close to executive Jon Hamm. While he's being interviewed by Wall Street Journal reporter Annabelle Wallace, Helms tags him. The game is on! They explain to Wallace, who tags (!) along: ever since they were kids, they have played a game of tag for the entire month of May. Now, one of the gang, Jeremy Renner, is getting married. And he has never been It, never been tagged. So this is their chance.

They collect Jake Johnson, a divorced stoner who lives with his dad, and Hannibal Buress, who they pull out of a therapy session. Helms' wife, Isla Fisher, joins the crew, although she isn't actually in the game, because of a game by-law: "No girls allowed". Also, she has impulse control issues and gets pretty intense. They all head to their home town, to crash a wedding. 

Their first attempt to catch Renner fails, but not because they suck at tag, as Renner says. He has the speed and agility of a ninja, with the strategic awareness of Jason Bourne - but that's a different movie. Any way, his bride-to-be meets them and is guardedly cordial, begging them not to interrupt the wedding. So they add that to the by-laws. But they still plan to tag Renner.

This is kind of fun in a conventional way. We get to meet a quirky bunch of very old friends, with very different lives, but a shared history. Rashida Jones shows up as the girl that both Hamm and Johnson were in love with, possibly invited by Renner to sow dissension in the ranks. 

By the way, even though I knew better, I kept thinking of Helms as Steve Carrell - the same earnest dweebiness. Also, I kept thinking of Rashida Jones as Illeana Douglas and Isla Fisher as Rachel McAdams. I'm not good with names and faces.

I guess we're done with game movies. 

If You Go Into the Woods

The Woods (2006) is almost the perfect template for a girl-in-spooky-boarding-school movie. (See, for ex, Down a Dark Hall.) 

It starts with Agnes Bruckner setting fire to a tree in the forest, to the strains of Leslie Gore. Next we see her parents taking her to boarding school in a big old Buick - the movie is set in the 60s, although that's not really important. Her dad, Bruce Campbell, seems nice. Her mom, Emma Campbell (no relation?), is a piece of work who is dying to get rid of her. The school is a mansion set deep in the woods. The headmistress, Patricia Clarkson warns her not to go into those woods.

Bruckner tries to settle in. She makes a close friend of the Weird Girl, suspected lesbian Lauren Birkell. Popular girl Rachel Nichols bullies Birkell, but Bruckner stands up to her. The real spooky part is the dorm, where there is an empty bed. The girl who slept there had tried to kill herself. But she would be coming back when she is out of hospital. But Bruckner has already met her, in terrifying dreams.

She learns the history of the school from a couple of expository lumps - founded in colonial days, witches came out of the forest, took over the school from within, killed all the girls, etc. I wonder if there will be any truth to this old story.

Not to give too much away, the woods are evil, and the trees do grab a few girls. To give more away, Bruce Campbell comes to the rescue. Just in case you didn't get the Evil Dead reference with the trees grabbing people. 

I thought this movie was a lot of fun. Bruckner's evil mother and the teachers who were both strict and sympathetic gave the movie a nice psychology. The story moved right along, although the horror doesn't really kick in (outside of dreams) until the last act. It had a number of side plots that didn't go anywhere (Bruckner had telekinetic powers, which she never used) but added atmosphere. Ms. Spenser wasn't so kind - she thought it was mostly silly. Since she is the one who wants horror films on the queue, that was too bad. Better luck next time.

Also, the movie included 3-4 Leslie Gore songs. Since Ms. Gore was a closeted lesbian in the day, that may mean something. Or just some great songs.

Astral Plane

I haven't been having much luck with my Netflix queue lately - seems like every movie I'm interested in in Long or Short Wait. So I decided to take a flyer (heh) on Soul Plane (2004).

Kevin Hart is a kid who loves airplanes, and grows up to be an adult who still does, even though the experience of flying is pretty pathetic. On one trip, his dog is sent to checked luggage, he gets a bad meal, has his ass sucked into the toilet, and watches his dog get sucked into the engine. So he sues the airline, and with the money. builds his own airline.

We see this mainly through the eyes of the Honkee family - the whitest people imaginable. Dad Tom Arnold, his trophy second wife Missi Pyle, his almost legal daughter and his blinged-out wannabe rapper son are bumped from their regular flight onto the new airline. The plane has hopper hydraulics, spinner wheels and a hot paint job. It has a luxurious Upper Class, but the Honkees are stuck in Low Class, with overhead coin lockets and one bottle of water per row ("Take a sip and pass it on").

Hart's cousin, Method Man, has hired Snoop Dogg as pilot, but it turns out he's never flown. He got his training on Flight Simulator in prison. Also, Hart's lost love is on board. Once airborne, Meth turns the Upper Class lounge into a strip club, then a casino. Add in a raunchy blind man, a couple trying to join the mile-high club, lots of toilet and sex humor (including sex in the toilet humor), and there you go.

This was pretty bad. It was insulting to woman, gays, the blind, Muslims, white people, black people, rappers, strippers - did they miss Asians or did I just forget? The jokes mostly aren't funny (or even really jokes - just awkward or silly situations). Even the hip-hop soundtrack was weak (to my non-expert ears). There are a lot of funny people in this movie, like D.L. Hughley and Mo'Nique, but they don't have much to work with. Snoop was pretty funny too.

Strangely, Tom Arnold gets to be quite sympathetic, giving the black side of life a chance. Sure, he's depressed when his new wife finds out what black men have in their pants, and he's worried when his birthday girl hits the plane's nightclub, but he takes it philosophically. They try to give Hart the same kind of human reality with his ex, but less successfully.

So. not exactly a success. Now I must ask, do we watch Undercover Brother or not?