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The IT Crowd (2006)
Have you tried turning it off and back on again?
The IT crowd is a blend of Dilbert-esque office comedy, IT industry jokes, Seinfeld-like situation comedy, and a good dose of classic English comedy, reminding me of such classics as "The Young Ones". It also serves as a vehicle for Richard Aoyade's comic genius.
The quality is great throughout, and there are many quotable lines and scenes. The cast work well together and bounce off each other quite well, each of them flawed in their own way. You don't need to have been an IT worker to get the jokes or relate to the sketches. Anyone who has worked in an office or had to deal with IT support will find it funny. That said there are plenty of easter eggs in the show that IT workers will appreciate. They're not the only ones with a shelf of obsolete computers on it!
The Transformers: The Movie (1986)
You can win if you dare
"Transformers: The Movie" is unashamedly a toy commercial, but a happy accident of marketing made it legendary. The film's writers were aiming to wipe out most of the first generation of Transformers in the movie so that they could sell kids on the new generation of Transformers coming up in the toy stores. Instead they ended up scarring a generation of 1980s kids, causing them to cry in the cinema as they watched their beloved heroes - including one who was a replacement father figure to many - be destroyed.
What should have then been a run-of-the mill movie length cartoon took on a whole new level of gravitas. This writing decision upped the on-screen stakes into the stratosphere, going where the cartoon series feared to tread. Kids had to stare down war and death and the movie didn't pull any punches with it. The movie mirrors Star Wars in that regard, complete with a planet destroying "death star" of sorts.
Transformers the movie is also noteworthy for it's detailed animation, bombastic 1980s rock and synth-heavy soundtrack, and some amazing voice acting from a number of well known actors, including Orson Welles, Leonard Nimoy, and Eric Idle.
While it's not going to win too much critical acclaim, this movie has to be appreciated for what it is: completely over-the-top action that consumes most of the film's runtime. When Stan Bush's "The Touch" starts playing and the heroes start winning, you're going to be more excited than a kid on Christmas day when you open up your present to find Optimus Prime in the box.
I would argue that it's mostly because of this movie, that the Transformers property became a cultural touchstone, going on to avoid being just another toy fad, and growing a more lasting appeal. It's influence is still felt in it's influence on video games and other media to this day.
The Karate Kid Part II (1986)
Rule #2, First learn Rule #1
If the first Karate Kid movie made you want to take up karate as a teen, then this one made you want to visit Japan. Pat Morita can't put a foot wrong and newcomer Tamlyn Tomita is absolutely gorgeous in this film.
The Karate Kid II hits all the same beats of the original, but everything is in Japan and the pacing is worse. The Japanese antagonists and the thrust of the plot and scenes all seem overly contrived. A man acting as local yakuza thug isn't as relatable as a school bully, for one. The final fight also seems entirely inappropriate, especially for post-war Japan. Surely there's a better way to up the stakes from the previous film in a way that feels at least somewhat realistic?
While adults will roll their eyes, the Karate Kid films were really directed at early teens and pre-teens who will really enjoy this. That said, the amount of cheese and corniness in this film is double than the previous. Having actually been there, it overplays Okinawa as exotic in a way I don't recognize. It looks like Hawaii with a green-screen "castle"
All the same it's still an enjoyable, beautiful, and memorable film- even if leaning heavily on the formula from the first. You can have fun with this one if you suspend disbelief. It certainly helps to have one of the best soft rock songs ever made (Peter Cetera - Glory of Love) in your movie soundtrack too.
The Next Karate Kid (1994)
Why break boards? What boards do to you?
This one is the black sheep in the "Karate Kid" series. It almost feels like it doesn't belong and is an unnecessary attempt to cash grab.
That said, it does have it's touching moments. Sadly most of the film is ruined by some ham-fisted acting and some really oddball villains who are more weird than menacing. The start of film's plot feels overly contrived and doesn't really grab you. The pacing and acting also feels incredibly awkward at the start. It's almost as if everyone needs time to warm up until they sort their roles and characters out.
It's Pat Morita that steals the show again and makes the movie watchable. Everybody loves this character. There are also some good new ideas and teachable moments in this film too, and there's just enough cheese to make it light hearted when it needs to be. It's just a shame that the plot wasn't thought out a bit better. It leaves you wondering about how good this film could have been. The ending felt rushed, not helped out at all by cartoonish villains and events that don't pass the credibility test. The 90s music also hasn't a patch on the first two Karate Kid films either.
Without the continuation of Daniel's story, it's unsurprising it bombed at the box office. Don't write it off completely though. Fans of the Karate Kid will enjoy this one all the same - when you get over the annoyances that break the immersion.
Cobra Kai (2018)
First ensure the heart is in the right place
In Karate Kid II, Miyagi didn't translate rule number two in the family dojo to LaRusso, saying only to refer to rule number one about self-defense. That second rule translated actually says "First ensure the heart is in the right place", and the excellent writing of Cobra Kai's is most certainly there.
Cobra Kai shows how you extend a franchise beyond it's source material. I can only wish that Star Wars got the same treatment.
I really didn't expect Cobra Kai to analyse political and religious extremist movements under the analogy of a karate dojo, but this is why this series is great. It holds your attention from start to finish. There's enough throwbacks to the previous films and 1980s references to satisfy fans of the original movies.
However, the most importantly the heart of the original films is here too. There's a lot to learn from karate as well as life. With Mr Miyagi long gone, all of the remaining cast are flawed characters in one way or another. This time includes a new generation learning karate, all of them having to find balance between their respective light and dark sides of the force. Also time has moved on for the original characters and they're also learning how to relate to the kids.
Sadly the wheels start to fall off the series the further you get past season one. While the Karate Kid movies were a bit goofy and corny in places originally, Cobra Kai ends up stretching it's own credulity a bit more than it should as it goes on. The fighting and some of the scenes eventually take on a comic book feel, and some of the characters aren't quite believable. Additionally it takes on a teen high school drama feel, akin to 1980s "Saved By the Bell" which may or may not be entirely deliberate. Sadly it's the cringe worthy moments and some unnecessary bad language that prevent the show being perfect - pushing it beyond a PG rating. I couldn't recommend it to younger kids like the original movies.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
The night of the blue collar monster
It's hard not to be impressed by what was achieved on a very limited budget with this film. However, what it does get right works very strongly it it's favor. There's the black and white amateurish documentary style, camera lighting to convey a sense of fear and dread, good writing, and some strong performances from it's actors. What lends it that extra bit of credibility is it's likeness to an episode of the Twilight Zone TV series that wrapped up a few years prior. It also has that "date-night" drive-in cinema quality which would have had young couples ignoring the film to focus on each other back in the day.
Watching this as a grown adult some 50 years later however shows how amateurish the film really was. The zombies are clearly extras. The body parts they eat are from the local butcher's shop. The fight scene punches didn't really land convincingly. The "damsel in distress" trope is somewhat played out. A sense of disbelief when watching is certainly there now where it may not have been in the past. However, the story does it's best to subvert predictable expectations and provide a character study in addition to some zombie action and a few shots of true gruesomeness.
We've all been spoiled on more technically competent horror movies since, but this is a classic simply because it moved the needle forward for other horror movies to follow. As with most good horror films, and that of the really good Twilight Zone episodes, is that the monsters are ourselves.
The Karate Kid (1984)
Inspired many a Karate Kid
An underdog tale and a classic 1980s film. What makes the Karate Kid so good is that it's relatable to anyone who's ever been an awkward teenager and been bullied. Even if you hadn't, you'd probably still want to take up karate. The story is predictably formulaic, but it does it's story justice.
While Ralph Macchio perfectly plays the awkward teenager Daniel, Pat Morita is the star of the show and it wouldn't have worked without him. There are some touching scenes as we discover that his character needs a son and a family as much as Daniel needs a Karate teacher and a father figure. There are also some subtle history nods about the plight of Japanese Americans during WW2.
The film has some great 80s music ("You're the best"), a lot of quotable lines from the film. Equally memorable and iconic are it's beach and tournament karate kick scenes.
Every 80s kid who went on to learn Karate in real life took their first lessons about it from Mr. Miyagi. The Karate Kid remains a classic and has had a lasting cultural impact.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)
Sometimes s*** happens, someone's gotta deal with it, and who you gonna call?
Reviewers have often critiqued the original "Ghostbusters" movie for being a movie all about nothing. It's not quite true. It's about the blue collar worker - the backbone of society - using their skill and often risking their health and safety to do society's dirty work. Ultimately this keeps society safe and "saves the world" for yet another day. These people should be rewarded many times over with riches and fame due to their sacrifice, but thanks to the elites, they are taxed and penalized into oblivion and put on a working treadmill. They're barely able to make a living and always struggling - but that keeps them ready for the next time some idiot in the upper strata of society does something dumb to release the ghosts.
Some of this is reflected in the film, except for who's responsible for releasing the ghost in this outing - diminishing it's original underlying social critique.
Lore and story additions in this outing are good. It is just held back by introducing too many characters (including returning ones) and gives them very little screentime. Also the pacing is off, and it drags in places it shouldn't. The plot is also too convoluted for it's own good. Nadeem's character arc was enough to make a point about respecting one's history.
Frozen Empire definitely gets the spooky and creepiness needed but forgets to level that out with comedy - essential for the film. Most of the jokes fall flat, which is hardly surprising because the Ghostbusters are all serious Spenglers and no goofball Venkmans.
Fortunately Bill Murry is here to deliver a great one-liner. That's only one good joke though in a film of next to no quotable lines. Bill Murray usually carries the Ghostbusters films in terms of screwball comedy. Sadly he's looking really tired in this one and no-one else save a few lines from Nadeem gets much of a laugh. Ghostbusters sorely needs that one character who is having fun in the film, laughing at the plot, the sets, the ghosts, the situation, and not taking everything so painfully seriously.
There is one plot point in particular that gets my goat - specifically related to how the boss ghost ultimately escapes - pushing limits of credulity in even a Ghostbusters film, which is putting it mildly.
Not up to the standard of the previous outing in Afterlife, but as a popcorn film it's not half bad I guess. Seems hard that after so many years, they still haven't figured out exactly what made the original Ghostbusters work as well as it did.
Ex Machina (2014)
More prescient these days than ever
This is probably the most intelligent film about Artificial Intelligence since Blade Runner.
A computer whiz is given the prize of conducting a Turing Test of an artificially intelligent robot created by a tech billionaire. He's sequestered away together with him into a private compound, and thus begins what can only be described as the worst case of cabin fever imaginable.
This is a slow moving thriller with lots of intelligent dialogue and enough pacing and ambiguity to allow the viewer to really think about the implications of artificial intelligence without directly spelling it out. The photography is fantastic, with contrasting outside shots of nature with the brutalist architecture inside the compound and it's many glass walls, separating the two. The overuse of mirrored glass also serves to separate man and machine. The special effects on the female actors to display their robotic innards is amazing.
There's "Garden of Eden" and "Alice in Wonderland" themes under the surface of the story. There are also lots of tiny details - details that you will probably miss unless you're paying attention and playing detective with repeated viewings. Quite brilliant. My only real issue with it is the final few scenes of the film, which don't make much logical sense. This is minor, as this is a movie more invested in communicating it's themes.
Being a thriller, the movie ends in a particularly surprising way but with lots of plot twists. Ultimately it's a story about power and manipulation, both by people, mega corporations, and religion. The film asks where is this is all headed. The movie is even more prescient these days with the advent of large language models like ChatGPT and their ilk.
I was left with the message that if we want to get artificial intelligence to be as close to human as possible, we're going to have to start treating it as such. Students always imitate the teacher. Anyone who is a parent to a child should know that already.
Saiyûki (1978)
Thank You Baby
How this NHK TV production found it's way out of Japan and onto the TV screens of English speaking children in the 1908s is something of a testament to how good the series is. Not many Japanese TV shows manage to reach escape velocity from their own domestic market. Monkey was many a child's formative exposure to the world of the far east, and my goodness, did it leave an impression!
Smashing onto the screen with some incredibly catchy 1970s rock music courtesy of band Godiego, the power of Monkey was irrepressable! It's strange to think in hindsight that this genre of music would fit with it's setting of ancient China, but it certainly does. Songs like Monkey's title theme, "Thank You Baby", "Havoc in Heaven", and "Ghandara" are seared onto my consciousness and those of the same generation.
Monkey had everything. Wild English dubbing, crazy jokes, ham-fisted performances, extravagant costumes, hokey special effects, and violent fight choreographed scenes. Amongst it all were sentimental and serious Buddhist teachings and philosophy about the human condition, delivered by a narrator and handled with great sensitivity. Most of this went over our heads as children, as we treated the Buddha as a make believe fantasy character peculiar to the world of Monkey Magic. We were more fascinated by the violence. Going beyond this, rewatching Monkey as an adult is considerably more... enlightening!
Unlike the source material of the "Journey to the west", Monkey doesn't really resolve itself properly in line with the overarching plot of the journey to India. This is expertly cast into the themes of it's final episode. I am not alone in feeling a desire for more episodes. Yet as the Buddha teaches, the source of all our suffering is desire. It is very hard to want nothing and to keep moving, but if we are to be enlightened, we must discover that this is in fact very easy.
Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island (1998)
Foundation breaking premise may upset kids & parents
Scooby Doo on zombie island commits the sin of breaking it's show's foundational premise. It starts treating the supernatural as real, and taking the show's format out of the realm of mystery and firmly into the horror camp. That just didn't sit well with me.
For one thing, parents can usually trust Scooby Doo will solve the mystery, helping the kids understand that there is no supernatural monster under the bed, and that everything has a rational explanation if the mystery is solved. Along with this you got some campy comedy, some clever Rube-Goldberg traps, and an appreciation of science and investigation. Scooby Doo has been taking the fear out of the unknown for kids for years. Sadly, Zombie Island does away with all of this. I figured if they were going to start accepting the supernatural as real, why not go further and just have the gang exercise their second-amendment rights on the monsters - instead of laying some overly elaborate trap as they usually do?
On the positive side it's actually well animated and has a well thought out plot, and some genuine scares and horror. There's also a number of self-referential gags poking fun about the formulaic nature of the Scooby Doo format, but the movie ends up subverting all of them - in a good way if you like horror, but should this have really been a Scooby Doo film?
If, however you watch this with your child and you are dismayed by the formula being broken right under your nose, there is good news. A sequel "Return to Zombie Island" has Velma is on a quest to make sense of this film. Thankfully it's a much needed book-end.
Falling Down (1993)
Clever character study
Michael Douglas' fantastic performance of frustration with society usually gets most of the attention in this film, and quite rightly so.
However, what's actually going on is a contrasting character study between two frustrated old men. Each has what the other wants, but both men feel trapped in any case. Douglas' character has been fired, unfairly estranged from his wife, and has a child. He has decided to go on a rampage. Duvall's character is willingly leaving his police job, has an annoying wife he wants to stay away from, and lost a child he wanted. Yet he decides to stick around and play cop.
Many of the situations that Douglas' character finds himself in is extremely relatable, if somewhat exaggerated. He goes ahead and does what most of us may have felt like wanting to do, but refrain from doing because we're not psychopaths. Falling Down exposes the raw nerve that many of us experience. We have all been let down by what life promises, but always seem to fail to live up to. How we deal with that is what's important.
Legend (1985)
The Rocky Horror Show does dark fantasy
So tell me if you've seen this one before: Two innocent lovers are corrupted by an evil villain played by Tim Curry in a dark castle where they somehow have to escape but are forever tainted by the experience.
I could be talking about the Rocky Horror Show, but I could also be talking about Legend. Both films are cult classics, and I think the reason why they manage to achieve this is through the time-tested "Garden of Eden/Original sin" plotline. The difference is that Legend lacks all the fun, silliness, and musicality of the Rocky Horror Show. It's all replaced with a dark fantasy setting and supporting actors that look the part.
I saw the US release with the Tangerine Dream soundtrack. The music is not at bad, especially the unicorn theme. Costume design is incredible as one imagines just how long it took for Tim Curry to get his demon head on before every filming session.
Ultimately the writing and pacing is fairly weak and it's not hard to see why it did poorly at the box office. I lived through the 1980s as a child and had never even heard of this film until recently. Now I know why.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
The Garden of Eden as a B-movie.
The tough thing about understanding the RHPS is whether Richard O'Brien was deliberately trying to say something with this stage musical, or whether it was just an excuse to throw science-fiction B-movie tropes into a pot and to stir it all up for fun and laughs.
In the end, it may not really matter. People really love this movie/musical and it will stay with you once you've seen it and had time to take it all in.
The film will speak to everyone a bit differently, and perhaps that's the point. Members of the LGBTQI+ community find solace in the film (and Tim Curry's fabulous portrayal of the evil Dr. Franken-Furter), but conservative viewers can be equally satisfied in the ending as well. Others will see the entire film as frivolous drivel and take nothing away from it.
There seems to be something of a bizarre "Garden of Eden" story going on under the surface, with all the moral concepts that alludes to. There's also lots of strange references: such as the 1930's "American Gothic" portrait and two of the characters in the film, along with the pitchfork, foreboding what is to come. References to King Kong and Frankenstein are obvious, including some blink-and-you'll-miss-it ones. One might wonder if it all means something or not under closer analysis. Equally it could all just be a dreamworld that should be seen in a cinema with similar minded freaks at midnight, and enjoyed as the raucous musical it is. I could easily be reading too much into it!
Toy Story 4 (2019)
Disney trashed Toy Story's legacy with this
There are so many things wrong with Toy Story 4.
Primarily it ruins character consistency with the rest of the Toy Story movies, and then stomps on the themes and messaging of the first three, and not for the better. In addition to that, there are some scary and creepy bits that might upset kids.
They have a new character which seems to be suffering severe depression and behaves in a way that's extremely concerning. It just feels completely wrong for this kids film to take such a dark turn.
However by far the worst part is it's emasculation of Woody by the female characters. It's almost as if they set out to do this - as it's so blatant - and in doing so, ruin the messaging of the first three movies. It feels deeply unsatisfying as you feel that the evil characters end up winning.
Toy Story 4 is a perfect case of an unnecessary sequel done for money, less interested in telling a story, and more concerned with pushing an agenda.
That said, it is really well animated.
You might want to get your kids the DVDs of the first three movies, but you'll deliberately want to skip this one as if it doesn't exist.
Electric Dreams (1984)
Silly and fun, but it hits different now
This is a fun, lighthearted movie about boy meets girl meets computer! Of course, the plot is a little cheesy and silly but none of that really matters when it's fun and takes us back to a simpler time. What makes it fun comes from the context of technology in the 1980s. Early home personal computers struggled with storage capacity and computing power to do little more than write a short letter and play primitive games, and their future role in the home was still being questioned.
Watching this film these days is a little laughable and a bit unsettling because of how far the technology has come, and as such it hits a bit different. There's less suspension of belief now which actually makes it a bit more distracting from the main plot than a simple fairy-tale. It throws a lot of shade on the film that was not originally intended because of how much it predicted that it got right.
We don't need to spill champagne on the circuit board to have a computer to perform a good facsimile of artificial sentience and intelligence when we have functioning chat bots using language learning models. And although there'd be huge network dropouts and long waiting times, our computers would not fry themselves trying to download the internet over a dial-up telephone modem! Leaving our computer on for hours hooked up to home automation isn't far fetched anymore either, and getting our news from the internet is commonplace - even if we don't need to make hardcopies of it! I just warn that you will have to suspend your thinking about the legal implications and health impacts of what damage that computer causes by the end of the film.
The arc of the computer learning about love mirrors the protagonists journey in learning to love. To that end it succeeds and the ending pays off thematically as well, because that's what it was really aiming for.
One thing I will say is that a fun film can never have too many montages, and Giorgio Moroder's end sequence music "Together in Electric Dreams" is a classic 80s hit that is still great even today.
Threads (1984)
The most horrific movie ever filmed
There are horror movies, and then there is "Threads".
Watching threads will likely scar you for life. I don't think there's ever been a more realistic horror movie than this one.
The horror comes from the fact that unlike any movie monster or supernatural power - a nuclear holocaust is all too real a possibility.
What makes the horror so effective is the BBC documentary style of the film, and the film's attention to detail to the realism of what would likely happen in the aftermath of a nuclear exchange. The reality that Threads presents is utterly bleak and devoid of any hope.
The film starts off almost as a typical British soap opera, as we learn of the characters lives and begin to empathize with them, but the foreshadowing of what's to come hangs heavy. The tone shift eventually comes thick and fast, and where it ends up is as far removed from soap opera as it gets. It's not just the bombs hitting that are frightening, but it also paints a picture about what a realistic aftermath would probably look like.
Threads is an incredibly important film that everyone should watch at least once in their lifetime. As a species we must at least understand the threat of a nuclear "sword of Damocles" which now seems to permanently sit over us. I would recommend this film especially to anyone who would take war lightly, and to monstrous world leaders who think that nuclear sabre-rattling is ever a valid thing for a humane person to even consider.
This is not an easy film to watch, but regardless, this film will stay with you. Many will not be able to even finish it. For many it may make them physically ill and it's likely to give nightmares. If you survive all of this it will give you an appreciation of the life we have and the responsibilities we have to each other as human beings.
Toy Story (1995)
A modern classic
Toy Story is the first fully computer animated feature film. For that reason alone it is an amazing achievement, but the quality of the voice acting, the writing, the comedy, the characters, and the heart that the film reveals makes Pixar's first animated film a timeless classic as well.
It's a rare film that parents can truly enjoy with their kids. The children respond to the toys, and adults will relate with misty eyed nostalgia for their childhood. Everyone will laugh from the jokes. Despite the computer animation looking a touch dated, It still holds up incredibly well.
It's really a buddy movie, but it cares about the children watching - teaching them about the problems jealousy and not to break their toys!
Gone with the Wind (1939)
Watch a woman act horrible for four hours
One of the most famous films in American history is widely celebrated, particularly for it's score, costumes, set pieces, and it's acting. However, this still remains a considerably polarizing film. Not only for it's depiction and glamourization of confederate America, Gone with the Wind also suffers from it's own self-inflicted extraneous runtime and abrupt pacing in it's second half. It's also a really dark film with no happy endings.
So why is this film enduringly popular? In addition to the film being about survival, and what it drives people to do, I tend to think that this film is something of a female dark fantasy. It's like a "anti-heroes journey" for women. The Old South is set up to look like the Garden of Eden - complete with happy slaves - and Scarlet O'Hara is it's Eve.
Scarlet O'Hara is a thoroughly unlikable anti-hero of the film. The good people around her suffer in poverty and die, while she continues to live on in wealth while exploiting them. Her entire character arc, if you can call it that, does not even evolve one jot right up until the film is ready to finish, and even then you have to wonder if she learnt anything at all. In fact it leaves everything over for another 2 hour "Act 3", but we are all exhausted by this point.
If there are any heroes in this film, then - somewhat ironically - it's actually the "help".
It's classic cinema, but a masterpiece? For 1939 it certainly was.
Today, it's flaws are visible, but it's not hard either to see how this film has stayed with it's audience over the years.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
Pure fan service
If you've ever played Nintendo's suite of games, then there's plenty of fan service, spanning the suite of Mario games including Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. Easter eggs for all the fans are scattered everywhere in blink-and-you'll-miss-it scenes.
Basically this is a kids movie, but some elements of it include some mild horror. Some scenes will actually scare younger children. There's also a lot of cartoon violence involved in pushing the plot too, and that ensures that it's inappropriate for younger kids. It's particularly disappointing. Simply speaking, if your child isn't coordinated enough to play through the first level of Super Mario Bros., they probably should avoid this movie.
The action never really lets up, and visually it's a stunning animated movie. Plot-wise it's predictably somewhat ridiculous, but you'd expect as much for a film about a video game.
The Batman (2022)
Gritty, grounded, Batman
DC's take on the superhero movie tends to aim for the more mature, adult, and almost "Watchmen" like take on the idea of superheroes. What I do like about it are the more grounded characterizations on the likes of the Penguin and the Riddler. However Batman himself is still a little over-the-top and mostly indestructible.
The first hour is particularly great, but gee, this is a long film and a good 30 minutes could have easily been cut. This is all the more noticeable towards the end where extra narrated exposition could have been left on the cutting room floor to let the scenes and pictures tell the story more subtly. "Show, don't tell" would have worked better here.
The plot does get hard to follow unfortunately, and for a detective story with some superhero fighting along the way, this is a disappointment. Eventually you stop trying to understand what's going on and who is linked to whom in the investigation and just try to run with the spectacle. The attempts at exposition then feel like a dull and empty part of the film, and a breather from it's more action packed set pieces.
Music is particularly good, with the theme riffing off Chopin's funeral march, and Nirvana's "Something in the way"
Overall, Batman fans will be pleased.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Multilayered sexual mystery movie
Along with "Fight Club", "The Matrix", and "American Beauty", 1999 really was a year of films that aimed to reveal that not all is real as it appears to be. "Eyes Wide Shut" is no different in that regard.
This film is a slow burner. As with most Kubrik films, "Eyes Wide Shut" is heavy on the symbolism and visual references as it leads us around it's dreamlike world. Many references so tiny and nuanced that they're like easter eggs when you find them. The dialogue is a bit stilted in places, but in others there is some very clever innuendos in play. The film only really opens up to the attentive viewer upon repeated viewings.
It is about a married doctor who slowly starts realizing that something is amiss in his marriage to his wife, only he just doesn't know what exactly. What follows is a sequence of events that he stumbles through - all seemingly trying to tell him something - but only for his cognitive dissonance to get in the way. Hence the "Eyes Wide Shut" title of the film.
He attends two parties over the course of the film. One which is superficially socially acceptable, and a private one which clearly is not. If you understand what both of these parties represent then you're halfway to understanding the film and what it seeks to communicate. If you still don't get it, then perhaps some film analysis or manosphere blogs can explain for you.
As all great art does, this film will disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed.
Ten Canoes (2006)
Secret Men's Business
"Ten Canoes" feels part documentary, part mythical drama. Indeed it is both. Even to Australians familiar with their own country, stepping into this film feels like being transported to the dawn of time. Much of this is in part due to skillful narration as well as the filmography. Also, the level of authenticity the film carries with it, using indigenous actors and speaking in their own language.
What I didn't expect, however, was a multilayered approach to the story telling. A group of men sit together to make canoes and share their lore, given that the youngest male member of their tribe has now taken a love interest.
There is a story in here, with something profound to say, but it isn't forced, or spelled out. It's in these nuances of the film's pacing that the careful observer will put together all the pieces and reach a powerful conclusion that feels almost understated and anti-climatic.
At yet, the message is as timely today as it ever was - especially for us men. Even if we have substituted canoes for cars in this modern age, and in this modern society which - at it's most secretive inner-core - still functions much the same way.
The Wonder Years (1988)
And there you had it... one of the best TV series of all time
The Wonder Years came on TV at a time when I was about the same age as Fred Savage and his character Kevin Arnold. What makes the show stand out is the realism and the life lessons that each episode gently handles in the most innocent and sensitive of ways.
Watching it as a kid and watching it as an adult is a completely different experience. As a child you are relating to the characters and taking notes about your own coming-of-age, but as a mature adult... oh boy... some of the scenes are hard to watch. Kevin puts his foot in his mouth repeatedly, hashes out lie after lie, selfishly puts his feelings first above his friends, fails to commit to anything, loses his temper, equivocates to no end, and makes obviously terrible decisions. His cluelessness with the girls in his life, particularly Winnie, eventually becomes cringeworthy... and at a few points I was almost yelling at the screen for some of the characters to change course - alongside the narrator. Yet, despite all of this, the show stays accurate to the source material. This *is* how lot of kids fumble their way through adolescence. Without bad decisions, we just don't get interesting stories, or learn life lessons.
The Wonder Years manages to sweep us all up into teary-eyed nostalgia for our own clumsy and formative years with many scenes we can relate to. If you were a child of the late 60s, even more so. Regardless, in more than few places the show manages to land a number of emotional gut punches.
Despite the show's perspective of the late 60s, early 70s, the lessons and themes contained within each of the episodes are essentially timeless - making this show an equally timeless classic. With the exception of a "clip show" episode, the quality of the show doesn't falter across all six seasons. The music of the period is also fantastic, and with so much of it in the series, the DVD almost didn't get released due to licensing issues.
In short, this is great family viewing for young and old alike.
Die unendliche Geschichte III: Rettung aus Phantasien (1994)
A textbook example of how NOT to make a sequel
The NeverEnding Story III would be bad enough as a standalone film. Given it's a sequel to a beloved classic film - it's crime against motion picture productions is particularly egregious.
The NES3 makes a mockery of the lore and characters proceeding it. The acting is atrocious and goofy and full of cringey dialogue. Many scenes are stupid. The story makes no sense and completely lacks any of the profound metaphor the original did. Worse of all, the movie can't seem to get itself to Fantasia. It's stuck in a "saved by the bell" school drama with school bullies.
The music is uninspired, and don't even get me started on the "born to be wild" final scene of the movie.
This movie doesn't deserve to exist. It only has value is in being a warning to any writers and directors who deign to work on a sequel to a successful property that they had nothing to do with.