The World's End (2013)

'The World's End' is the 3rd and final movie in director Edgar Wright's "Three Flavors Cornetto" Trilogy, a play on Krzysztof Kieslowski's 'Three Colors Trilogy'. A lose triad held together by leads Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, overlapping supporting cast, meta-genra send up, and references to or appearances by Cornetto brand ice-cream treats. Though this might as well be called the 'Fence Jump' Trilogy, as each film contains a scene of suburban fence jumping, to varying degrees of jumping success.

While I am rather fond of the earlier films in the trilogy, 'Shaun of the Dead' and 'Hot Fuzz', I can not say the same for 'The World's End'. I actively disliked large portions of this. A slog whose ideas never quite come together, this just didn't jell with me. Five old high-school friends get together 23 years later and attempt to finish an aborted pub crawl. We are first presented with a kind of dramadey about failure, but the film collides with another type of movie around 39 minutes in, when we learn townspeople have been replaced by... let's call them robots.

Hitchcock or Sturges could pull a major tonal/genera shift like this off, while Wright's just doesn't land. This is somewhat surprising because Edger was so skilled at genra melding in the previous two films in the trilogy. I found too much of the film to be, well, annoying. Long on promise, short on delivery. It also lacked a character I liked enough to really latch onto.

While the ending also didn't quite work for me, I admired its audacity, an interesting failure in a movie that is mostly just failure. *1/2

Red (1994)

 'Red' is the third and final film in Krzysztof Kieslowski's 'Three Colors Trilogy', it would also be the directors final film, he would announce his retirement around the time of its release and then pass away while in heart surgery in 1996, he was 54.

In 'Red', Geneva based student and model Irene Jacob (Americans of my generation might know her as Wesley Snipps girlfriend in 'U.S. Marshall's') accidently hits a dog with her car, the dog turns out to belong to a retired judge (Jean-Louise Trintignant), a tormented soul who is slipping into nihilism. The two form an unusual friendship, Irene lifting the old man's spirits and Jean-Louise helping the young woman determin what is really important to her. There is also a subplot concerning Irene's neighbor Jean-Pierre Lorit. 

Kieslowski's profound sense of empathy and deft hand with character is on full display. A moving film, sad, beautiful and cautiously hopeful. The tie-in between the stories of the three films is brought about in an unexpected way, turning what could have been a framing device into a coda. Exquisite. ****

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Porco Roso (1992)

 Marco Rossilini was one of the most skilled pilots in the Italin air force during World War I. Unlike most of his friends Marco managed to survive the war, but ended up cursed, transformed into an anthropromorphized pig. Going by the name Porco Rosso, Marco works aa a bounty hunter, going after sky pirates and rescuing loot and kidnapping victims in the 1920's Adriatic. Madame Gina, a restaurantur and widow of a friend from the airforce, hopes for the day when the curse is lifted, something Porco has largely given up on.

One of Hayao Miyazaki's lesser works, it's still a solid movie. Low key, likable, sometimes clever, lovingly animated; a simple story endearingly told. Supporting characters include a plethora of pirates, a cocky American pilot and a young female engineer. Set against the backdrop of the rise of Italin Fascism. ***

Inserts (1975)

 It's depression era Hollywood. Richard Dreyfuss had been a "boy wonder" director, but he couldn't make the transition to sound. Down on his luck he is now making pornographic films for producer Bob Hoskins. When leading lady Veronica Cartwright dies mid production from a drug overdose, Hoskins 'Girl Friday' Jessica Harper offers to body double for some "inserts", while her beau and male lead Stephen Davies are out disposing of the body.

The once great filmmaker reduced to shooting porn has story potential, there is ugly pathose there. The idea calls for a big screen treatment, and a budget. 'Inserts' is really more of a filmed play, one set and five characters. It has its moments, but mostly overplays them. The story is often off putting, though by its nature the story should be so. NC-17 with arty airs. The film Dreyfuss made immediately before becoming a star with Jaws.**

Halloween 5 (1989)

 The fifth 'Halloween' film is a direct sequel to the events of Halloween 4'. 'Halloween 4' was just awful, I hated it, but this I didn't hate. It's a little more inventive then it's immediate predisascor, it plays against expectations just enough to remain interesting, Danielle Harris sufficiently sympathetic as lead. It was kind of amiable and pleasant, which is an odd descriptor for a slasher movie. Not bad, but not really good either, a true ** film.

Barbie (2023)

 When I first heard that Greta Gerwig would be (co) writing and directing the Barbie movie, I was surprised and amussed, what would that even be like? I figured it would do okay and be smarter then it needed to be, I hadn't anticipated it would be the colossal hit that it is, a moment defining movie, or be as layered as it is.

The plot is there is a "Barbie World" parallel to "our world" and that the Mattel Corporation is well aware of this. Margot Robbie, in a case of fated casting, plays a Barbie whose natural rhythms are disrupted, manifesting in the form of burnt waffles and thoughts of death. She is being affected symbioticlly by the melancholy of the owner of her plastic "real world" counterpart. In order to get her perfect life back she must journey into the human world and cheer up her owner, Ryan Gossling's Ken stowes along, hijinks ensue. Boardly speaking that is the plot.

At a certain point in the movie I found myself thinking things had gotten surprisingly heavy. I later heard someone describe the film as a Gender Studies 101 course in movie form. There is truth to that, which is much of why the film has been somewhat polarizing on our nation's Right flank. 'Barbie' does  a better job, on seemingly every level, of doing what 'Don't Worry Darling' was trying to do last year, explore the internal and sociological conflicts regarding the roles of women in society.

While I think the film can be appreciated in the escapist sense, it is funny, there is alot of substance here as well, a density that I found a little disorienting. There are issues, particularly in the final act, thought for the most part the seemingly lose structure works to the movies benefit. While I'm clearly not the target audience I enjoyed it, though I do wonder what younger viewers would make of it, how much would the themes of adult angest register? There is pathos in the plastic. ***1/2

Air (2023)

 'Air' is a prime example of the strangly ascendant sub genre of 'The Business Film'. Specifically it is about how then upstart-ish company Nike signed Micheal Jordan and launched the tremendously successful Air Jordan line of basketball shoes. The film is well constructed, cast (even Chris Tucker) and acted, the direction by Ben Affleck (who also appears in the film) is restrained, it's about as good a movie as you could hope to see about a shoe. Yet it was still about a shoe, and for me, with little interest in sports, busines or shoes there was a disconnect between the quality of what I was seeing and the lack of any apparent hook. Still it oddly worked, a pleasantly mild picture whose existence is as unlikely as a bunch of guys in Oregon reinventing the basketball shoe. ***