A Knight's Tale (2001)

During the opening credit's sequence of A Knight's Tale, medieval jousting spectators stomp in tune to music from the band Queen, thus establishing right off what kind of movie this going to be, a fun one. With a pop/rock sound track and decidedly modern character types, A Knight's Tale stars Heath Ledger as a low born squire who takes up impersonating a knight (a position restricted to nobility) when the one he had been serving passes away. He does so as a meal ticket for him and his mates (Mark Addy, Alan Tudyk), but also because he had always dreamed of competing in tournaments, and turns out he's really good at it. Along the way Ledger's William Thatcher, adds to his pose (Laura Fraser), falls for a beautiful median (Shannyn Sossamon), meets historical figures such as Edward the Black Prince (James Purefoy) and Geoffrey Chaucer (Paul Bettany) and becomes mortal enemies with Count Adhamar (Rufus Sewell). It's an enjoyable, good time movie, perfect summer fair from the dawn of the Millennium. ***

Jaws: The Revenge (1987)

Jaws: The Revenge is the film that killed its franchise. Notorious for being bad I actually found large portions of this film surprisingly watchable, not good really, but not the trudge I was expecting. Where the film really falls apart is in failing to bring its desperate, under developed themes and subplots together in a satisfying way. I can even forgive the ridicules premise of the shark seeking out various Brody's for revenge, though that begs the questions which shark? All the villainous sharks in the previous movies were killed in their respective films, so is this some relative seeking out revenge for its kin? The final confrontation is jarringly fast and unimpressive, and (spoiler, as if they matter here) when Mario Van Peebles survives at the end, that is ridicules that shark definitely killed him. The lack of stakes in this film, even given the death of a major character early on, shows how far the franchise had fallen, the feeling of real stakes is what made the first Jaws so powerful, and the lack of which is what makes Jaws 4 look even worse then the admittedly crappy movie it is. *1/2

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018)

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, is a British movie that I don't think was ever released in theaters in the United States, it just went straight to streaming services. I knew of the book on which it was based from a while back, and thought I had a pretty good hang on what it was about. 'The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society' was a society on the English isle of Guernsey during Nazi occupation, I thought that maybe it met secretly, possibly in part to sabotage the Germans. I was expecting a pretty straight forward story about the societies activates during the occupation, this is a fictional story by the way, I knew that, but I was not expecting the framing story.

The framing story concerns an author in search of something to write (Lily James) who by happenstance makes contact with one of the societies members about a year or so after the end of the war. She goes to visit the society, and stumbles onto a mystery, which makes for a more structurally interesting why of conveying the war time plot. It's a romance with a rich sense of place and diverse and likable characters. The anglophile nerd in me wishes I could be as well versed in English lit as some of the characters in this story, and have passionately held opinions about which of the Bronte sisters was the better writer. Alas, unless I'm hard up for entertainment under a prolonged occupation that is likely never to be. This is a likable flick however, very English, very Mike Newell doing the Merchant and Ivory thing. Even if you think you might be better then it, it will pull you in. ***1/2

Venom (2018)

The Marvel character Venom is an alien symbiote, a creature that can only survive in the Earth's atmosphere by bonding to another host organism. Interestingly the movie Venom is also a symbiote of sorts (so it can survive in the box office atmosphere?), it is a standard, rather uninspired science fiction genera piece, married to a bizarre one person buddy comedy. Tom Hardy plays Eddie Brock, a down on his luck reporter who in the course of perusing a story ends up bonded to the alien life form known as Venom. Venom gives Brock special powers, takes control of his body at times, and speaks to him in his mind in a voice that is not unlike that of Cookie Monster, which is appropriate because Venom is often hungry.

The plot concerns an Evil billionaire named Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), who sounds and acts like a rejected Bond villain, and is trying to get Venom back to study. There is a story line involving Brock's ex fiancé Anne Wying (Michelle Williams) and his as yet unsuccessful efforts to get her back from nice guy doctor Dan Lewis (Reid Scott), I suppose they are saving that reunion for the sequel, and there will be a sequel. I was under the impression that the film hadn't done that well but its already made over $780 million at the world wide box office. I was also under the impression from the trailer that this film was going to be very bleak, instead its very dryly funny. I was not expecting much out of this film, but its enjoyably weird. **1/2

J. Edgar (2011)

Though I haven't seen all the films of Clint Eastwood's directorial cannon, I've seen quite a few of them, and of those I've seen J. Edgar might be the least impressive. Now before if you had asked me what is the worst of Clint Eastwood's films as director I would have said Hereafter. There are a handful of really good moments in Hereafter, particularly the tsunami sequence, but as a whole I don't think that movie worked, however at least it was trying for something (in its case a more or less serious examination of psychic phenomena and near death experiences). J. Edgar on the other hand isn't trying for anything new, its trying to be the same kind of epic, life spanning bio-pic you've seen many times before.

Leonardo DiCaprio's performance as long time FBI director J. Edgar Hoover is fine. In fact if he had made this film instead of the Aviator back in 2004 I would have really liked his performance, but here it doesn't feel like he's challenging himself. The movie works less as a movie then it does as a collection of scenes, which are generally fine by themselves, but don't add up to a satisfying whole. One of the reasons for this is that Mr. Hoover's career in criminal justice was so long, more then half a century, that its a story much better suited for a mini-series, or even a multi season television series, then it is for a movie. It just seems far too condensed and bunched up here, more of a highlights reel then a well developed story. Ironically American International Films did a similar life-spanning, name dropping, greatest hits bio-pic of Hoover in the late 1970's, only I liked that film more, despite committing many of the same "sins" as this movie because it was low-budget, knew it was ridiculous , and hence enjoyably bad. While J. Edgar half wants to be great, but I don't think it could be in large part because of its format. Some of the most intriguing moments in the film revolve around the kidnapping of the Lindberg baby and how Hoover exploited that to build up the FBI, if Eastwood had instead made a movie about the Lindberg kidnapping with Hoover as a character, I think it would have been a better film. **

Memphis Belle (1990)

Memphis Belle is based on the true story of the "Memphis Belle", one the first B-17's to complete its 25 bombing mission quota during the 2nd World War, thus enabling the crew to be retried and return home with honors. This is a fictionalized version of that story, the true story had been told in film before as a period documentary by multi Oscar winning filmmaker William Wyler, that film is called Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress (1944). This film was produced by Wyler's daughter Catherine. Unlike a lot of World War II bomber movies this film is about only one mission, the Belle's 25th, and the day immediately proceeding it. The film boasts an impressive cast of then rising stars, such as Matthew Modine, Sean Astin, Reed Diamond, Billie Zane, and Harry Connick Jr., and successfully emphasizes just how young the crews on those plains were.

There is nicely effectively scene midway through the film were an Army PR man (played by John Lithgow), anxious to use the crew of the Memphis Belle for propaganda purposes and to sell war bonds, reads through letters sent from family members of dead flyers to the CO of the bombing base in England (David Strathairn, in a good role for him). That scene brings a wonderful context to the proceedings and uses real war footage to tell the tale of lives lost. The special effects in this film contain not quite convincing process shots, which I think actually adds to the film by imparting a surreal air to the proceedings. I found the movie quite effective, and came to realize that I had actually seen the end of this before, probably some time around 1992, it had stuck in my mind since then but I couldn't place where it was from. This is the kind of movie that could serve as a nice introduction to the 2nd World War for younger viewers. ***1/2

A Simple Favor (2018)

Set in contemporary suburban Connecticut, A Simple Favor features Anna Kendrick as Stephanie Smothers, a widow and mommy vlogger who befriends the mother of her sons best friend, a glamorous PR director for a New York fashion company named Emily Nelson, played by Blake Lively. Despite being seemingly very different from each other the two become good friends, so Stephanie thinks nothing of picking up Emily's son from school when she calls saying she is delayed because of an emergency at work. Only it turns out that there is no work emergency, and Emily simply disappears. Stephanie sets out to figure out what became of her best friend, while at the same time becoming perhaps to close to the grieving husband. Early on in the film you get the sense that there is something off about each of these lead characters, and you get to spend the bulk of the film discovering just what that is. I found the movie fascinating and unusual, an off kilter 'cozy mystery', refreshingly different from the work we associate with its director Paul Feig, who is mainly known for his Melissa McCarthy comedies. I was very impressed with the originality of the piece, it is hard to find a film to liken this to, the closet I can come up with is that it's kind of like Gone Girl, but with a dry sense of humor. This will almost certainly be on my top 10 list at the end of the year. ****

Mr. Brooks (2007)

There is so much going on in Mr. Brooks, so much plot, that I assumed that it must come from a book, most likely one in a series of books, and not necessarily the first one in that series. I was wrong, Mr. Brooks was written directly for the screen, though it was originally intended as the first in a trilogy, so the sense that what I was seeing was part of a larger story is legit. The story is of a self reflective serial killer (Kevin Costner) who communicates with an apparition of a middle man (William Hurt) who only he see, so this can't help but remind one of Dexter, which first came out about a year before this movie. Given that point of reference Mr. Brooks doesn't really do anything that new, but it does what it does well enough to be engaging, and again there is so much going on that you really don't have time to get bored.

There are subplots about Brook's daughter (a 19 year old Danielle Panabaker), the police detective trying to hunt him down (Demi Moore) who is also hunting for another serial killer, plus Dane Cook as a wood-be acolyte, blackmailing Mr. Brooks with incrementing photos in order to get a thrill out of watching him work. There are also sub plots on subplots, like Demi Moore's pending divorce. There is so much going on, yet somehow they can hardly find anything for poor Marg Helgenberger to do, perhaps they were saving that for the sequels. While the movie did well enough, making back around 2 1/2 times its budget, for some reasons a sequel just did not come together, and now enough time has passed that it probably wouldn't work to revive as franchise. Still I'd be curious to know where they planed to take this, though I suspect that Dexter probably ended up going there, that show ran too long and had a good amount of filler. Right now I'd give Mr. Brooks ***, though I have my doubts if this would hold up well on repeat viewing.

The Fall of the Ottoman Empire (2015)

The Fall of the Ottoman Empire is not really a movie, but rather a two part French language documentary that they showed on the big screen at the WWI marathon at the BYUIC. This was very informative I'm glad a saw it, it cleared up a number of things for me, including why the Ottomans allied with the Germans in The Great War, and why there was that railroad line in the desert that gets attacked in Lawrence of Arabia (it had been build to carry pilgrims to Mecca). Not exceptional as a film, but for me very much worth seeing. ***

Wooden Crosses (1932)

In conjunction with the 100 anniversary of the Armistice the BYU International Cinema had a marathon of World War I movies last week, I went on Saturday and caught a couple. Wooden Crosses is a French film that follows a group of solders through The Great War, almost all of the characters we follow in the film die. It's a very nicely made film, however I could just never really bond with any of the characters. I think All Quite on the Western Front is a better movie that is going for basically the same kind of thing that the French are in this. The visual composition here is really quite sophisticated for an early sound film, in fact it is more reminiscent of late silent films in its look then it is of the "talkie" American counterparts of its time.

There are two shots that I want to make brief reference to as they are memorable. One opens on a Catholic mass in a beautiful old church sanctuary, the audience at first are not sure why they are seeing this and then the camera pans over to a barrier constructed on the side of the chapel, basically a fence, and then over the barrier to show an amputee ward making use of space in the church. The other is of French solders parading through a town after a battle, the men are shouting about how they "won the village" and in the sky behind them is superimposed another line of solders marching heaven word, they too one the village. There are certainly things in this film to recommend it, I just wish I'd been able to like it more. ***

In This Corner of the World (2016)

Based on the Japanese manga of the same name the animated film In This Corner of the World shows us something American audiences seldom if ever get to see, a depiction of daily civilian life in World War II era Japan. It is the story of Suzu, a young woman growing in Hiroshima in the 30's and 40's, so we know at the outset what all of this is building to. Suzu is a very sincere and sympathetic lead character, it's hard not to love her, and the supporting characters are a nice patch work portrait of her time and place. Beautifully and simply animated, at times very moving, In This Corner of the World shows what can be done with dramatic animated storytelling, something that seems to be done better overseas then in the states, sees also Persepolis and Mary and Max.  This film is so impressive that I watched it two nights in a row, something I almost never do. ****

 

The Old Man and the Gun (2018)

Based on true story the new film The Old Man and the Gun is set (mostly) in the year 1981, and it plays like a move from 1981, which is one of its chief pleasures. The movie is not rushed, it plays slower and is less interested in action then it is in character study, even the film stock has a dated look to it. If this movie had been made in 1981 Burt Lancaster would have played bank robber Forrest Tucker, and Ava Gardner the widow farm lady he falls for. Today we have Robert Redford as Tucker and Sissy Spacek as his love interest Jewel, it's nice to see them. Casey Affleck is John Hunt, the Texas cop who is leading the investigation into the series of bank robberies committed by a group of old men dubbed by the media "The Over-the-Hill Gang". Who would have played detective Hunt in the 1981 version of this story? Well Robert Redford would have been a good candidate. ***

The Patriot (2000)

There is a scene fairly early in the movie The Patriot where British officers are trying to dragoon some of the black men on Mel Gibson's plantation into military service by promising them their freedom. One of the black men informs the British that they are already free and just work for Mr. Gibson's character. At that moment the movie had lost me, you just know some Hollywood suit was like "If the audience knows Gibson's character owns slave, it won't be as fun to root for him so let's make the blacks on the plantation free". I'm sorry Mel is playing a plantation owner in 1770's South Carolina, that man would own slaves, there is no getting around it. A short time later there is a scene, were needing to rescue his oldest son Heath Ledger, Gibson instructs his younger sons to start shooting the officers and work their way down. At that moment the movie won me back.

The Patriot is not an exercise in historical authenticity, rather it is rousing adventure tell to pump American audiences up and make then feel extra good about our revolutionary war. Their are two principle British villains in this, Tom Wilkinson as a slightly buffoonish Charles Cornwallis, all ego and fancy duds, while Jason Isaacs is Colonel William Tavington, who is basically Lucius Malfoy. They are fun to watch, Gibson is fun to watch, as is Ledger, Rene' Auberjonois and the others. This is the kind of spectacle Gibson did well at the height of prowess, box office and social acceptability. A fun movie, expertly handled, probably Roland Emmerich's best directorial work.***1/2

Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter (1966)

This strange, low budget western/horror hybrid was the final film helmed by the prolific William Beaudine, a man who has 372 listed directing credits on his IMDb page, some dating back to the silent era. Double billed with the similarly themed Billy the Kid Versus Dracula, Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter was filmed fast and cheap at the Corrigan Ranch, a well known shooting location for B- westerns. The plot is about what you'd expect only it isn't actually Frankenstein's daughter that Jesse James meets, rather it is his granddaughter, carrying on the family tradition of experiments in a Spanish mission style villa. This film is bad, while only 83 minutes long it might have been near unwatchable were it not for the entertaining audio commentary from TV's Joe Bob Briggs. Estelita Rodriquez, who plays the love interest for John Lupton's Jessie James, died from the flu the same year this movie was released, she was only 37. ** (rating pumped up some do to the commentary).