Pump Up the Vol. 3

Now that Netflix isn't shipping DVDs (and we try to limit streaming subscriptions), we're kind of at the mercy of what shows up at the library. And now we've seen Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

It starts on the ramshackle Quardians HQ. Rocket (Bradley Cooper) is ruminating, and Quill (Chris Pratt) is dead drunk, mourning over the loss of love Gamora (Zoe Saldana). She isn't actually dead - there's a version of her from 2-3 years ago running around, but she doesn't even know Quill. Then, from nowhere, a golden indestructible human comes smashing in, just tearing everything up. It's Will Poulter, as Adam Warlock!

There's a big fight, and it's clear that this Warlock guy is super-powerful, and also an idiot. They dispactch him, but not before he does a lot of damage - almost killing Rocket. Then it turns out that Rocket has a kill switch - med packs don't work on him to protect his embedded IP.

That's when we get a flashback to Rocket's origin. He was a little raccoon chosen by the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji) to be experimented on. He grows up in a cage with other cybernetic creatures, his friends. Of them all, he's the one who is not just intelligent, but creative. But when he tries to bust everyone out, his friends are killed, and only he survives. 

So while he is dreaming and dying, the Guardians go after the High Evolutionary to get the kill switch off code. It turns out that huge swaths of galactic society were creasted and nurtured by him. For instance, the Sovereign, the golden race of snooty bureaucrats we met at the start of Vol. 2. They were the ones who created Adam Warlock. which sort of explains why he is a moron.

The Hi-Ev's latest plan is Counter-Earth, a planet modeled after Earth (traditionally, in the Earth's orbit on the opposite side of the sun), but populated with evolved animals. The problem is, he never figured out how to make the animals creative, so he needs Rocket. And he decides to destroy the planet, with all the inhabitants, including Drax, Nebula, and Mantis. Don't worry, they save themselves. The rest of the population, not so much. 

People will tell you they cried over this movie, and I know how they feel. The theme of animal experimentation and torture is a sad one. But it was a little upsetting when, in the midst of a genocide, Rocket radios the rest of the team and says, the important thing is that we're all all right. I guess.

There's a lot of other fun stuff, like a Russian cosmonaut dog who has become sentient and telekinetic. Also, Kraglin (Sean Gunn) can't really use Yondu's whistle arrow, and takes it out on Cosmo, who he calls a bad dog. And Howard the Duck shows up in a card game, and even has a line. Did anyone see Pip the Dwarf? I didn't but you never know.

I must say, I was very excited to see my favorite superhero, Adam Warlock. I wasn't too sure about seeing him as a dumdum. In the comics as I remember, he was powerful and noble, yet naive. Then I think of how often he got manipulated and fooled, and then lashed out, well, maybe this is a good take. Anyway, I like Poulter's version, so fine. 

About the soundtrack: The first two volumes had music based on the 70s and 80s awesome mixtapes his mother gave Quill. Remember the Zune mentioned at the end of Vol. 2? So this volume has a much wider range of music.

White and Black

We were pretty excited about Outlaw Johnny Black (2023) - a comedy/Western starring and directed by Michael Jai White. We loved Black Dynamite, so obviously we were going to see this. We weren't exactly disappointed...

White is Johnny Black, a wanted man. It starts with him waiting outside a bank. He has info that the bank will be robbed by his nemesis, the man who shot his pa, Chris Browning. But before they show up, he is arrested and thrown in jail, and has to watch the bad guys get away. 

When he was just a boy, his father was a sharpshooter showman by day, revival preacher by night. When one of his tricks impresses Browning's gang, Browning gets jealous and tries to duel him. Then he just guns White's father down. So White vows revenge, and, now a man, has missed again.

On his way to the next town, he finds a preacher, aiming to marry the woman he has been corresponding with. White proposes that he take the preacher's place, in exchange for not shooting him. When he gets to town, White recites a few passages from the preacher's letters, and is accepted as the real thing - by the demure and beautiful Erica Ash as well as the townspeople. Then he meets her sister, the wild and beautiful Anika Noni Rose.

Meanwhile, the preacher has run off and gotten captured by Indians, and married off to the ugly (possibly M2F Two Spirit) daughter of the chief.

Now the first part of the movie plays like a regular Western comedy - say, Support Your Local Sheriff or Cat Ballou, or even Buck and the Preacher. The comedy is more or less grounded, and there are even long stretches of just plain Western. But there are also wackier sections, like the "marry the ugly Indian", which has a sort of Benny Hill vibe. Then there's the surreal/meta stuff, like the Indian chief shedding a single tear. Like Iron Eye Cody, this chief is not played by a Native American, either. There's a guy who looks like Uncle Ben, and a few other more out-there touches.

There's also a lot of quotes from great Westerns, like a slap/quick draw, from Trinity is Still My Name. And the chief's daughter punches a horse, like in Blazing Saddles.

Since the movie is over two hours long, I think the problem was that White just loved all this stuff and didn't want to leave a thing out. He seemed to be having a great time just riding along on a horse, and probably loved being in a Western. He got a lot of talent to join him, including Randy Couture and Barry Bostwick. 

So we weren't as blown away as we were by Black Dynamite, but we had fun - just maybe not as much as the cast did. I think I would have preferred more Blazing Saddles stuff, or failing that, less of it. He could have made a sincere, silly but grounded movie. It would have had a more reasonable runtime, too. But he might never get another chance, so why not put it all in?

Sweets to the Sweet

Picked up Murder, My Sweet (1944) from the library - had seen it before, but didn't remember it well. It was a doozy.

It starts with Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe, with bandages over his eyes being interrogated about some murders. He tells the cops they know most of it, but they want him to tell them the whole thing. So he starts at the beginning. 

Moose Malloy, played by Mike Mazurki, wants Powell to help him find his girl Velma. He's been "away" and she doesn't work at the bar she used to sing at anymore. He takes Powell there, kind of against his will. Moose ("on account of I'm large") has a way of convincing you. He describes Velma as "cute as lace pants", one of my favorite quotes, and pretty racy too. 

Anyway, they don't find Velma, and Moose vanishes, promising to get back to Marlowe.

As Powell works on the case, another one shows up. Pretty, fae Douglas Walton wanted Powell's help in getting some stolen jewels back by paying a ransom. But he winds up dead. The cops don't like it, but don't want to charge Powell - yet.

Now we get to the heart of the matter. Young Anne Shirley takes Powell to meet a new her father, Miles Mander, at his mansion. He is a rich old man with a passion for jade, and a young wife, Claire Trevor. The jewels were taken from her, and he wants them back. When it turns out that Powell doesn't have them (not as crooked as they think), he turns Powell over to Trevor. She is a piece of work, with a range of extracurricular activities.

One is Jules Amthor (what a great name!). played by Otto Kruger. He is a (failed?) artist and spiritual guru, but of the Will and Self variety,  not the Peace and Light type. He uses his powers to manipulate Moose into attacking Powell, then drugs him and stuffs him in a clinic, keeping him under for three days - but Powell shakes it off.

This is all great stuff. a femme fatale, a cultist, murders, doping, and most of all, Moose Malloy. He finally finds Velma, but it doesn't end happily. This is one of the best noirs ever (is it a noir? Well, best hard boiled detective movies). The dialog is snappy, villains are villainout, femmes are fatale (except Shirley, she's sweet). Who would have thought that Powell, one of "Broadway's most promising juveniles" had it in him. 

Fast Times

We finally watched Fast X (2023) mainly so we could listen to the How Did This Get Made podcast. I'd say it was worthwhile.

In this outing, the team gets a call - they need to hijack a computer chip in Rome. Dom (Diesel) and Letty (Rodriguez) stay at home with Dom's now 9-year old son, Little B. Meanwhile, Charlize Theron has her secret lair broken into. Jason Momoa is holding hostage a loved one for each of her henchmen, so she barely gets away. She runs to Dom and tells him that Momoa is out for revenge. He was the son of the Brazilian guy who's bank vault got dragged around Rio.

Also, Dom finds out from Brie Larson that there is no Rome mission, it was a trap. Indeed, when the team gets on the truck that's supposed to have the chip, they find a one-ton bomb instead. Momoa watches from a bell tower as the round ball rolls through the streets of Rome like a pinball. When Dom appears in his muscle car, he manages to get it to go off in the Tiber, not the Vatican, so only dozens are killed and not the Pope. Still, he does become a wanted man.

Let's see, Letty gets sent to prison. The house is attacked, and Little B hides beside the toilet - this is not a good plan. Don't they have an escape room or anything? Anyway, uncle John Cena shows up to take him to safety. Remember, he was the big bad a few movies ago. Now he's a goofball uncle.

Ok, after that - whew. a lot of stuff happens. Almost everyone who's ever been in an F&F movie is back, or their heirs. There's a lot going on, but in the end -SPOILER- there's a cliffhanger. There's one or two movies to left in the saga.

The new director, Louis Leterrier, wanted to make this a more grounded version of the series. He didn't send anyone to space, but other than that, I don't know if he succeeded. What I think did succeed was Momoa - he pays a flamboyantly fruity villain, with sort of a Capt. Jack Sparrow look. The scene that sums it all up is Momoa sitting in his backyard with two corpses - people he's killed recently, I guess. He is painting their nails while chatting with them about his plans. He finishes up and tells them to help themselves to margaritas, and someone will be along to bury them in while. He's having so much fun. It'll be interesting when he becomes part of Dom's family in the last movie.

Did I mention that Theron is locked up with Lettie, and breaks her out? They are strapped to operating tables (I forget why), and Theron reachs a long finger down to the touch screen, hacks it blind, releases them and sends knockout gas to the guard room. Why do they even have that button?!?

Anyway, the movie is fun, but the How Did This Get Made podcast is a blast. The guests are Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg. Everyone loved the movie, and hw insane it was. Hard agree.

Bananas

We've been going through our Three Stooges collection, and were wondering about the origin of the Niagra Falls routine ("Slowly I turned..."). A little research turned up two possible sources - Joey Faye and Harry Steppe. Steppe is credited by Phil Silvers with introducing the term "top banana" to vaudeville. This lead us to discover that Silvers made a movie called Top Banana (1954) (which actually includes Joey Faye in the cast). Even better, we discovered that it is available on Amazon Prime.

It's about a TV show starring Phil Silvers. We meet the writers grousing about working all night on the show, while trying out jokes on each other (mostly flops). Then Silvers comes in, full of pep, wanting to hear some jokes, quick one-liners. The sponsor is coming to the show that night, and he wants to be ready. He also calls his girl, Judy Lynn, complimenting her with lines the writers come up with when he snaps his fingers (mostly flops). He even gets his show's singer, Danny Scholl, to serenade her over the phone. 

Then they all rush off to a department store so Silvers can do a book signing. He also meets Lynn, who is a model at the store - which allows for some fashion and cheesecake. Here, Scholl meets Lynn, and they hit it off, making a date, because she doesn't think of Silvers as her guy. 

Also, Rose Marie shows up, kind of poking her nose into Silvers business. It looks like she was intended as his consolation prize, but the part kind of got cut.

When the sponsor appears, he wants to cancel the show. But maybe if someone on the show got married... So Silvers demands that Scholl elope with his girl. Silvers has lost his glasses, so he doesn't realize that he is forcing Scholl to steal his girl - and he's too pushy and hyper to listen to Scholl's objection. 

This all leads to an elopement scene in front of a cardboard flat of an apartment house. I'm going to drop the plot now, and just get meta. You see, this movie is basically the filmed version of Silvers' Broadway play Top Banana, making it a movie filmed from a play about a TV show. (It was also filmed in 3D, but not released that way, so skip that part.) Some parts are more or less realistic, like the writers' room. Some are theater but real, like rehearsals for the show. Some are totally theater, like the elopement, and some are fantasies, daydreams about the days of vaudeville. This jumping of frames is fascinating to me, and maybe not something they could have achieved on stage. 

It is also very much about comedy, particularly the vaudeville variety. Silvers alsways wants the jokes to be shorter, snappier, one liners. He comments to his barber, "That was good! A one-liner and you one-upped me. Don't do it again." He complains that a writer takes two pages to get him into a barbershop. One of his cronies shows him how to do it - "Here we are, in the barbershop." These cronies (including Joey Faye) are all over the movie. In the elopement scene, there's a little guy with no expression who sort of sticks to you - you can't let go of him. This leads to some amazing physical comedy - truly roll on the floor. But all the discussion of comedy, the use of the insider term Top banana, adds a meta-comedic element to it all as well.

Unfortunately, it was also chopped to hell. There seems to be a 100-minute, but the DVD and streaming versions are ~80 (see film blog It Came from the Bottom Shelf). Rose Marie's songs and most of her role were cut. You can feel a lot of the missing material in the clumsy cutting. There are also sound problems, making a lot of the fast patter hard to hear. Oh well. 

Django Returns

This was a nice little treat: Dead for a Dollar (2022), a late Walter Hill western. I think the most recent movie he directed that we saw was Undisputed. 

It starts with Christoph Waltz visiting Willem Dafoe in a New Mexico open-air prison. Dafoe was put there by bounty hunter Waltz, and Waltz wants to warn him not to come after him when he gets out. Dafoe says he just wants to go to Mexico, play some cards, meet some senoritas. Don't worry.

Next, Waltz gets a job looking for a kidnapped wife (Rachel Brosnahan). A buffalo soldier (black calvalryman) has taken a rich man's wife off to Mexico. Waltz will get the assistance of another buffalo soldier (Warren Burke). As Waltz and Burke ride off into Mexico, Burke reveals that the abduction was more of a runaway situation, that he knows the abductor, and that he even knows where they ran to.

Meanwhile, Dafoe has gotten out of jail, and as promised, headed to Mexico for women and cards. These story lines are pretty much unconnected, but both do meet up with Mexican warlord Benjamin Bratt. Our fugitive bride and her soldier think they can buy his protection with part of the ransom (that sadly isn't coming). Waltz and his soldier have a tense but non-violent meeting with Bratt. And Dafoe plays cards with one of Bratt's associates, beats him, and makes an enemy.

When Waltz catches up with Brosnahan, he "frees" her and takes her soldier captive, having him held in a local jail. Brosnahan tells him her story: her husband is an evil man. He let her have a little freedom to teach reading to illiterate soldiers, like the man she ran away with. She admits he was not the first man she had more than a tutorial relation with.

As more or less the McGuffin of this plot, Brosnahan is not quite what I expected. She is rather cold and despairing. She keeps her "abductor" at arms length, although it's clear he's taken with her - and of course, he's not the first. She never makes a move to escape from Waltz, understanding that he has all the power. So she's not a maiden in distress, or a bad ass. She's trapped and she knows it.

And then her husband shows up. Will Waltz back him up, or her? Will Burke support his soldier friend, or go for the bounty? And where does Dafoe come in?

The image of Waltz as a bounty hunter with a black assistant is an obvious callback to Django Unchained, which is fine. We all want more of that. He has a couple of good lines. For ex: when he shoots an outlaw holding Brosnahan hostage, she says, "You shot him inches away from my head! Are you that confident in your shooting?" He replies: "No."

Dafoe is wonderful in this, with his craggy face, deep voice and easy confidence. It's just that he doesn't get enough to do here. 

All in all, a fun little bagatelle from Walter Hill. I don't think it's top drawer stuff - but very few of his movies are (Streets of Fire, Warriors?). It was pretty much a classic western, with the obligatory scenes of people riding through vast vista. Some shootouts, some card games, and a little bit of moral philosophy. The racial component is played very lightly - the rich man says his wife ran off with a common soldier, and Burke makes him specifiy, "common black soldier". I don't think that's the historically accurate term. 

Scarabs are Dung Beetles, Right?

I guess Blue Beetle (2023) didn't exactly take the world by storm, and wasn't hated and despised by all. This makes sense. It's a decent, fun, family superhero movie with fw pretensions. Too bad it needed to be a blockbuster.

Jaime Reyes (Xolo Mariduena) is the first of his family to graduate college. His family picks him up at the Panera City airport and lets him know the bad news. They are going to lose the family house in Lost Keys. The Kord family oligarchs are developing the property. So Mariduena's sister, Bellissa Escobedo, gets him a job at a Kord resort. But he overhears Kord CEO Susan Sarandon arguing with her niece and daughter of the founder, and steps in when it looks like it will get physical. So he is fired, but the niece, Bruna Marquezine, tells him to check with her at Kord HQ, and she'll try to get him a job. 

The next day finds her stealing the McGuffin, and passing it off to him so he can get it out of the building. And of course he opens it, and it's the Scarab, a biomechanical whatsit that attaches to your back and gives you scary superpowers. And there you go, that's the setup. The rest of the movie will be Sarandon and henchmen trying to get it back and Mariduena and Marquezine trying to keep it from them. 

In addition, there's some stuff in the title sequence about the original Blue Beetle that we didn't pay attention to. But it turns out that the original was Ted Kord, Marquezine's father, who disappeared but left behind a trove of high-tech weapons. Well, sort of high-tech. Several characters talk about the almost-forgotten BB as being like Flash or Green Lantern, but crappier. One comments on an invention, it's like something Batman would build if he had ADHD. 

If I had to analyze, the problem with this movie is that the symbiont suit (wait, is this movie just Dollar Store Venom?) doesn't get enough attention. But that's also the great thing about the movie - instead, it concentrates on the family. They are a typical Mexican-American family, partly documented, partly not. The mom and dad are loving, sister is sarcastic and cute, grandma is secretly a bad-ass revolutionary ("Abajo los imperialistos!") and the uncle... George Lopez plays the uncle, a conspiracy theorist and hacker. Lots of fun. 

The Hispanicity of the movie is a fun angle, but feels natural (to me, Mr. Whitebread). It's not revolutionary, it's just part of American life. I suppose some people like that, some don't. We did. This wasn't a great movie, but a fun one. Better than Shazam II anyway.