Hollywood Argylles

I mentioned a while ago that we got an Apple TV box, and that it came with three free months. Those months are over now, but not before we'd watched Argylle (2024). Written and directed by Matther Vaughan (Kingsman), It looked like a lot of fun until people saw it - then "ugh".

It starts with Henry Cavill in a 1990's Dwayne Johnson high-top haircut and goofy suit being a superspy. He is chasing Dua Lipa through a Greek village, and losing her. But his sidekick, John Cena grabs her off of her motorcycle, at the expense of letting his coffee cool down.

But this isn't the movie. This is author Bryce Dallas Howard reading from her latest spy novel. The reading is very well attended, with fans calling her the spy novel author real spies read, and wondering if she is an actual spy. But no, she is an ordinary, frumpy author, who consults with her mother (Catherine O'Hara!) about an ending for her next book. And since she is afraid to fly, she has to take a train to go visit. 

On the train, a handsome man tries to sit across from her, but she pushes him away - and regrets it. Especially when a Lebowski-esque hippy takes the seat and won't leave. After a little banter, he reveals that he is a spy, and the only person on the train not trying to kill her. Then we get a train fight - shout out to Bullet Train et al? 

They get off the train, and the hippie shaves and showers to reveal that he is Sam Rockwell. He lets Howard know that everyone wants to kill her because her books are so good, that they predict the actual state of espionage, and the bad guys (lead by Brian Cranston) don't want that. So they have to go to England.

Howard's parents follow her to England, claiming to be concerned about her safety. But her dad turns out to be Brian Cranston, and they are also part of the plot to kill her. Yes, it turns out that Howard was an agent, (named R. Kylle, get it?) who was captured and brainwashed into believing that they were her parents, and that she was just an ordinary, shy, bookish girl. 

OK, that's as far as I'm going with the story. You see, I had a certain small investment in the character Howard was playing, but it turns out to be fake. So the whole first part of the movie goes out the window. There are more twists to come, but by now, I just don't care. Remember The Tourist? 

And of course, that's not the end of the homages, references and swipes. There are all the "novelists mistaken for spies" movies - I wonder if Vaughn saw American Dreamer? He definitely saw Romancing the Stone. 

Well, it wasn't all bad. It was fun to see Samuel L. Jackson introducing the Argylle initiative (no, he didn't). And Howard's cat, along for the ride, not only survives, but gets in one of the best kills of the movie. 

The final fight sort of gives you an idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the movie. When the floor is flooded with oil, Howard straps knives to her boots, and starts skating around killing baddies. Part of her brainwashing is that she lost her memory in an iceskating competition, so that's how she got that skill. Except, that wasn't real, it was an implanted memory. Also, you can't iceskate on oil-covered concrete. 

It's too bad - this was only a few degrees off of being an empty-minded action movie with a few good twists. Maybe in the right frame of mind, I would have enjoyed it. But it's a modern streaming movie, and those hav a special kind of badness. And I wasn't in the mood. 

Nostalgia-feratu

We really like Robert Eggers, so we were pretty psyched for Nosferatu (2024). It turned out to be an interesting and respectful approach to the material, but interesting enough? Too respectful?

Young Lily-Rose Depp is lonely, praying for a soul connection to a guardian angel, or who would always be by her side. Far away, a Nosferatu hears and awakens.

Years later, Depp is married to Nicholas Hoult. Hoult's employer wants him to travel to Transylvania to sell a ruined local castle to the reclusive Count Orlok there. Depp has been having sexy dreams about marrying Death, and begs him not to go. But the job means a promotion, so he leaves her with his rich friends Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Emma-Louise Corrin. 

So Hoult leaves the German town of Wisburg. In the Carpathians, he is shunned for associating with Orlok. One night he witnesses a grouop of villagers dig up and stake a corpse, presumably a vampire (hope he remembers this). When he makes it to the count's castle, he finds the count (Bill Skarsgaard in a LOT of makeup) to be grotesque and imperious, demanding to be addressed as "my lord". Hoult eventually finds him sleeping in his coffin ands attempts to stake him. He gets chased around the castle, but manages to escape.

And so the count loads up a coffin on a plague ship (not called the Demeter) and heads for Germany. 

In Wisburg, Depp is having bad dreams, weird spells, etc. The usual doctors can't help, so they send for an unusual one, Willem Dafoe, the Van Helsing character. I'm not sure he can be much help, but at least he doesn't think she's crazy. Besides, what with the plague killing everyone in town, and Hoult's boss starting to get an appetite for blood, maybe there are worse things than a neurotic young wife.

This new version does do a bit to get back to the old myths and manners. Eggers is good at that. But it also leans a bit on the previous movies. The first shot of Castle Orlok seemed to be right out the original Dracula. The town of Wisburg has many canals, giving us shots set up like the original and the Herzog Nosfertu movies. I felt like I was seeing more of an honage than a re-imagining. Also, it was a little hard to find Depp's connection to Orlok. I guess it was based on her repressed sexuality, which worked well when the script supported it. But it didn't always...

But we enjoyed it a lot. Ms. Spenser wanted it to be a bit scarier, but I was fine. We now want to rewatch the original Dracula, the original Nosferatu, the Herzog remake with Klaus Kinski and Shadow of the Vampire, about how the actor who played Orlok in the original was a real vampire. Played by Willem Dafoe, come to think of it. 

Little Man

I had watched The Man Who Knew Too Little (1997) a while ago, maybe even on VHS. Had a hard time finding it again, so when it turned up on streaming, I queued it right up. Never mind what streaming service, it will be here today, gone tomorrow.

Bill Murray plays a chatty, clueless loser type visiting London for the first time. He is makihg a surprise visit on his birthday to his brother, Peter Gallagher. Gallagher is a yuppie ex-pat executive at an international company, nervously getting ready for an important business dinner with some Germans. He is not open to entertaining his brother for his birthday. So he gets him tickets to Theater of Life, a theater game where you play a secret agent in the streets of London. 

They go to a phone booth to get instructions, but - you guessed it - some real secret agents call him. They think they are talking to assassin "Spencer", and give him an address. He thinks they are assigning him a code name and telling him where to go to start the game. And we're off.

The assignment is to kill Joanne Whalley, an escort who has got some incriminating letters. Since he thinks he's doing improv, he quickly gets the drop on her, but when she decides to seduce him, they team up. He's soon having the time of his life. Between his clumsiness and clueless/fearlessness, he is invincible.

This is the second movie made in 1997 with this premise - but I've never seen David Fincher's The Game. There are problably a bunch more - like Game Night. But this was just spot-on perfection, mostly due to Bill Murray. There's some clever writing, like a Murray and his brother planning to enjoy some Ambassador cigars, which is heard as "light up the ambassadors". But it's mostly in the way he plays it, his whole Bill-Murray-ishness. Always clueless, but game for whatever comes his way. 

Maybe it's partly nostalgia - Murray's schtick has gotten a little old by now. But I had a great time re-watching this. 

Save the Last Dance

I enjoy the We Hate Movies podcast, although I don't always take their advice. For instance, in an "On Screen Live" YouTube episode, they talked quite a bit about Venom: The Last Dance (2024). Their conclusion: It's barely a movie, and you should avoid it. But guess what?

It starts rather incoherently: Tom Hardy and the Venom symbiote are stuck in an alternate Earth by Dr. Strange (did this happen at the end of Venom 2? Can't be bothered to check). Specifically, in a Mexican bar, where they are getting smashed to "Tequila". But some random creep played by Andy Serkis in a monster dimension gives us some exposition about destroying all symbiotes and ... We weren't paying attention. But somehow, they open a portal, and we're back in our usual dimension.

They head for New York to clear their names for crimes committed in Venom 2 (I guess), but are forced off of the plane they are attached to the outside of by a creature from the monster dimension, and land in Nevada. It turns out that Area 51 is being closed down, but not the secret lab deep beneath it. This lab, run by Chiwetel Ejiofor and scientist Juno Temple, has been studying symbiotes, and has several in containment. They are trying to give some hosts, but the hosts keep dying in agony. Oh well, science, I guess.

Hardy gets picked up by a hippie family in a VW bus. The dad, Rhys Ifans, is a saucer nut, and wants to see Area 51 before it's gone. His wife is into it, his young son and teen daughter less so, but surprisingly cheerful. 

They stop in Vegas on the way, and Venom figures he'll rich on the slots, but loses everything instead. But they meet Peggy Lu, the convenience store owner from the previous movies (and Across the Spider-Verse). She has won big, gotten a make-over and penthouse suite. Her and Venom have a disco dance number (when did they have time to rehearse?). 

Then it's off to Area 51, where we get some big battles. The trapped symbiotes get released, and bond with some of the scientists (by the way, are these scientists evil, misguided or just dumb?). Even Ifans gets some action in.

I wouldn't say this was a great movie. I think it worked better than Carnage, even though it was a lot shaggier. I think I preferred the lack of serious villains to the attempts at villains in Carnage. Anyway, we sort of enjoyed this, without paying too much attention. And if I left anything out of this review, it's because I wasn't paying attention. 

Aliens Redux

After Ms. Spenser watched it on an airplane, we decided to watch Alien: Romulus (2024) at home. I thought it was a perfect distillation of Alien, Aliens and Alien 3 (didn't I blog this one?). Ms. Spenser decided it was a stale rehash. 

It starts with an expedition finding the wreck of the Nostromo and salvaging an odd black cocoon (with something Xeno-shaped within). Then we go a dark and dismal colony planet. Teen (young adult?) Callee Spaeny is trying to get a transfer to nicer planet, but instead gets her contract extended. Her best friend is a stuttering, autistic-seeming android, played by David Jonsson. He was altered by her dead father so that his prime directive is to do what is best for Spaeny. 

Some of Spaeny's young friends have a plan to get to a better planer: Highjack a ship, then go to the derelict space station to pick up some cryo-sleep pods, and head out. Soon they are stuck on the station with a Xenomorph or two. (BTW, the station has two sides, Romulus and Remus. This may have meant something, or just been a cool name.)

Director Fede Alvarez and writing partner Rodo Sayagues took a lot of what's best from the earlier entries. For ex, the colony world from Aliens. The station had a nice throwback look (CRT monitors - well, maybe the colony didn't have the resources to do flat or holograph screens), but mainly it got the haunted feeling of the original. There were plot points, like someone being quarantined because they'd been face hugged, which is the right thing to do, but some people don't get it. 

Like I  said, I liked how true to the vision this was, and Ms. Spenser thought it was too derivative. On the other hand, I didn't feel like it was the greatest of all Alien movies, and Ms. Spenser enjoyed it for what it was. I'm not sure this is one of those retro-sequels, where the key is nostalgia, but it might be.

Go Your Own Way

Before Rumours (2024), I had watched exactly one Guy Maddin movie, and thought I had him figured out. Rumours is completely different, but I didn't have to change my opinion at all.

The movie takes place at a G7 summit in Germany, hosted by Cate Blanchett, chancellor of Germany. The final dinner will be held in a pavilion in a park, with just the seven leaders. On the walk to the pavilion, they stop to see an archeological dig, where several Bog Men are being excavated - ancient corpses. perfectly preserved in the mud of a marsh, except their bones are dissolved. Most of the leaders are not impressed.

We also see that Roy Dupuis, PM of Canada, has had a fling with Nikki Amuka-Bird, PM of the UK. He's a young, handsome man with a man bun, interested in renewing the fling, while she wants to keep it professional between them now. But Blanchett seems to be interested.

At the dinner, the leaders try to work out a short joint statement on the summit. Their efforts are not very inspiring. Charles Dance, president of the USA, falls asleep. Dupuis keeps storming off - and hears strange sounds. Blanchett follows him, and, yep, they get it on.

But when they return, they notice that the waiters have disappeared. And there cel phones don't work (except the Italian PM, he didn't bring his). It's getting dark. Dupuis wanders off and finds a brain the size of a small car. Bog men are seen lurking in the shadows. Bog men are doing something freaky in the shadows. And so on. 

There are a couple of comic themes to this. The most obvious is how helpless our leaders are without their aides and servants. But Maddin doesn't really lean on this. He's more interested in how taken up by anodyne, pointless "joint statements". There's a lovely scene where one of the leaders is musing about the first G7 joint statement. He starts to recite it from memory and the whole group joins in. And it's the most boring, meaningless load of BS you've ever heard. 

Of course, Maddin also has to focus on Canadianness (Canadianity?). His Canadian is sexy, brooding, handsome, and in the end, puts together a stirring (boring) statement, and saves the day (?). In fact, I think the biggest joke of the movie is that leaders are people, with romantic entanglements, weaknesses, petty grudges and so forth. Actually, it's a joke on us all. 

The Gorge (Obscured by Clouds)

We recently bought an Apple TV box. It came with a three-month free subscription to Apple TV+, so we figured we should try it out. The Gorge (2025) had just come out, and we felt like some dumb direct-to-streaming action, so we tried it out. 

It starts with Anya Taylor-Joy hiding in a cave in a cliff, and then performing a long-range assassination. She is a Lithuanian working for the Russians, with a terminally ill father. She is going on a year-long mission, he plans to kill himself on Valentine's Day. We then meet Miles Teller, a mercenary whose nightmares keep him from sleeping. 

Teller is "private security", a mercenary and sniper. Sigourney Weaver, a shadowy high-level intelligence operative, recruits him for a year-long mission, the details of which she will not divulge.

The mission turns out to be manning one of two watchtowers, one on either side of the titular gorge. The sides are steep and the bottom is perpetually hidden by fog. His predecessor gives him a 2-minute briefing and takes off. He soon realizes that the watchtower on the other side is manned by Taylor-Joy. 

Teller is a bit of a stick-in-the-mud, Taylor-Joy more of a good-time girl. She starts writing signs for him to read through his spotting scope. He tells her they aren't supposed to communicate. Then one day, Taylor-Joy's birthday, he finds out what they are watching for, when  horde of demon zombies come crawling up the walls of the gorge.

They use their automated weapons and sharpshooting skills to repel the attack, and enjoy the thrill of victory. Taylor-Joy calls it her best birthday ever. 

They continue to converse at long distance, until Valentine's Day. Teller wants to comfort Taylor-Joy, and actually ziplines across the gorge. They have a tender few days together, then he has to head back to check in. But the line breaks and he falls into the gorge - with a parachute, thank God. Taylor-Joy armors up and jumps after him.

So up to now, we have had a romantic military spy thriller, with a touch of SF. Once they get down in the gorge, it becomes a monster horror movie. This part is fun too, especially because our two stars get to work together. But it is kind of a jarring shift in tone.

Fortunately, we liked both tones, and were able to hang with the transition. I particularly love Anya Taylor-Joy (as I have mentioned a few times, I think). Miles Teller is a little harder to warm up to. Maybe I just hate him for that weak Reed Richards turn. Of course, Weaver as the villain of the piece was great, if short. 

I think this was a cut above the usual dumb action movies coming out lately. Maybe either half could have been a standard issue direct-to-streamer, but put them together, and add Anya Taylor-Joy, and you've got something.