Sunday, July 7, 2024

What I've Caught Up With, June 2024 Part 2

On the television front, I finished some shows in June. I made it to the end of The Boys, but I haven’t started the fourth season yet—I’m waiting until it’s all posted, so it’s likely I’ll watch the whole thing in July. I got through Gen V as well, mostly to stay current with The Boys. I also finished Red Dwarf, as mentioned yesterday. I watched Fallout, which was fun and finished the Peter Capaldi seasons of Doctor Who. I’m still watching Farscape, but now more or less when I want; White Collar is my new workout show.

What I’ve Caught Up With, June 2024 Part 2:
Film: The Gentlemen (2019)

Guy Ritchie films are fun, and I don’t mind saying that. Sure, they’re violent and convoluted, but all of that is part of the fun, too. The Gentlemen is about a marijuana kingpin (Matthew McConaughey) wanting to get out of the business and looking for a buyer. The first 90 minutes or so is told in a sort of flashback by a sleazy journalist (Hugh Grant) to the pot kingpin’s second (Charlie Hunnam). Violence, double-crosses, and banter abound. The cast includes Henry Golding, Colin Farrell, Michelle Dockery, and Jeremy Strong. While not as fun as Snatch, it’s an entertaining ride from opening credits to the close.

Film: Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)

Sooner or later, everyone makes a film noir. Devil in a Blue Dress is very much a noir, albeit one made in 1995. Unemployed worker Ezekiel (Denzel Washington) gets hired by a man named Albright (Tom Sizemore) to find a woman named Daphne (Jennifer Beals). Daphne is the girlfriend of mayoral candidate Todd Carter (Terry Kinney), but has a penchant for straying. There’s double-crosses, dirty cops, and murder a-plenty to keep us going to the end. Washington is good as always, and Beals makes a very good ingenue, but it’s Don Cheadle who makes the biggest splash as Ezekiel’s friend Mouse. I love a good noir, and this is one that has all the pieces, and they all fit together well. This would have been a great series.

Film: The Young Victoria (2009)

It's easy to forget just how compelling Emily Blunt can be, but The Young Victoria is a good reminder. This is a film filled with a solid cast, top-to-bottom, including Rupert Friend as Albert, who would eventually become Victoria’s royal consort and the father to her nine children. Much of this is about the politics of Victoria’s early reign, the mistakes and the maneuverings, and the petty squabbles, but at heart, it remains a rather sweet romance between Victoria and Albert. For being about who gets to control the queen of England, I didn’t find myself bored at all. The solid cast—Mark Strong, Miranda Richardson, Paul Bettany, Jim Broadbent, and more—doesn’t hurt, either.

Film: This Much I Know to Be True (2022)

Anyone who knows me knows my deep and abiding love of Warren Zevon. Nick Cave has a lot of similarities with Zevon—on the scale of songwriters telling stories about a broken world, Zevon and Tom Waits are going to fight for most pessimistic, but Cave feels the most optimistic, finding beauty in the brokenness, although there are hints of darkness along the lines of Johnny Cash. This Much I Know to Be True is a concert film created during the pandemic when Cave was unable to connect with his audience in any other way. His music is haunting and beautiful, sad and emotional, and this ranks as a concert film that should not be missed. For Cave fans, this is his Stop Making Sense.

Film: Grizzly Man (2005)

Werner Herzog took 100 hours of footage from Timothy Treadwell, a man concerned with the conservation of bears, and cut it down to just under two hours to tell the story of Treadwell’s life. Treadwell could easily be dismissed as a kook, and while he survived for 13 years in the Alaskan wilderness living among grizzly bears, he was also ultimately killed by a bear, as was his girlfriend Amie Huguenard. Herzog handles this with dignity, not outing Treadwell as dangerous or disturbed, but treating him with respect. Grizzly Man is not an easy watch because it’s evident a few minutes in what happened to Treadwell. Knowing how he ends gives a poignancy to the rest of the film. Herzog is attracted to this kind of story, and this is one of his more interesting films.

Film: The Other Dream Team (2012)

I don’t care at all about sports, but I do like a good sports movie. Sports inherently bring out the best and the worst in people. In truth, though, The Other Dream Team has a backdrop of sports. This is really a political movie. In 1988, the gold-winning Soviet basketball team had four Lithuanian players starting for it. Between the Seoul Olympics and the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, Lithuania became an independent nation, and those players who had spent time under Russian colors got to play under their own flag on an international stage, and faced off against the unified Soviet team for the bronze medal game. Basketball is clearly important here, but it’s a sideshow for the politics and the fight for freedom. It’s a hell of a story.

Film: Spy (2015)

When I worked in the video game industry, I wrote the hint books for No One Lives Forever and its sequel. I say this because Spy is similar to those games in a lot of ways. The games featured a female spy who was underestimated in field. In this case, Melissa McCarthy works as the eyes and ears of a super spy (Jude Law). When he’s killed, she takes his place in the field as someone who is completely unknown. What we’ll get, like those computer games, is a serious situation with a lot of comedy shenanigans surrounding it. It works relatively well, and the cast is surprisingly deep. McCarthy is good when she has good material, and this is better than I expected.

8 comments:

  1. Spy is an awesome film. Notably because of Jason Statham sort of spoofing himself as he was seriously overlooked during awards season. Grizzly Man is a masterpiece. This Much I Know to Be True is amazing as is The Young Victoria as Emily Blunt really needs to stop working with the Crock because he's an overbloated piece of shit with a tiny ding-a-ling. I've seen bits of Devil in a Blue Dress but not enough to form an actual opinion. The Other Dream Team is a film I really want to see while I'm iffy on The Gentlemen as Guy Ritchie is hit/miss.

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  2. Jason Statham is one of the better parts of Spy. If you do any old-school gaming, the NOLF games are a ton of fun, and very similar in tone to the movie.

    I should probably listen to more Nick Cave. The movie is pretty haunting, and I want to track down more of his stuff.

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  3. I liked Grizzly Man, but I still think it was a weird choice for Herzog to film himself listening to the "death tape." I don't know, either play snippets or don't show it at all. I just don't think that scene in particular worked. But he was very gracious towards Treadwell.

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    1. I don't know that it's an easy choice. I think he wanted to document that it's a real thing without actually playing it.

      I remember when I watched Senna, I was really distressed that they showed the crash that killed him, so in that respect, I'm glad they didn't play the audio.

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  4. I also enjoyed Spy. It's fun.

    While modern Doctor Who should ALWAYS be caveated with "when the writing is good", Capaldi is my favorite modern doctor. I love his parting words, including "Always try to be nice, but never fail to be kind."

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    1. Yeah, there are some Doctor Who episdes that I don't have a tone of memories of because they're pretty forgettable. I enjoyed Capaldi's tenure as the Doctor, but a lot of that is because I enjoy Capaldi in general.

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  5. Melissa McCarthy is an exceptionally talented woman however her movies are very much a mixed bag and even some that are celebrated do nothing for me (I loathe “Bridesmaids” with the heat of a thousand suns) but I found “Spy” an absolute delight! She gives a go for broke performance in a series of highly improbable but equally entertaining situations and is surrounded by a cast as game as she is. Miranda Hart is hysterical as Melissa’s glue footed buddy and Jason Stratham reveals a real knack for slapstick as he parodies his established persona. For me they were the standouts but the whole cast is terrific.

    I’m not the biggest Denzel Washington fan, he’s talented but often much too self-serious and humorless, “Devil in A Blue Dress” though is one of those occasions where he hits the right notes (Inside Man is another). The film also has a great style and an involving story.

    Films along the lines of “The Young Victoria” are like catnip to me and I expected to love the movie but ended up finding it just okay. The cast was good and the production sumptuous, so I was surprised it didn’t fully engage me. It felt quite stodgy.

    I am fascinated by the “Grizzly Man” story in all its unique oddity but knowing how it ends I’ve never felt the pull to watch the actual film.

    My feeling about sports is very similar to yours. Alright if I can go to a hockey game, I’m all in but you’d have to strap me to a chair to watch it on television, all the excitement is gone. And during the Olympics I will look at swimming, diving and gymnastics because you can see the intricacies so well but otherwise, I could not care less. However, I also love a good sports movie, most of which are simply underdog stories dressed up in athletic gear. I’ve never heard of “The Other Dream Team” but it definitely sounds like something that will hold my interest.

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    1. Melissa McCarthy is capable of being so good when she has good material, as is evidenced by Can You Ever Forgive Me? I feel like she needs a director with a firm hand, not unlike someone like Robin Williams, who was capable of brilliance and of being a complete embarrassment. That said, Statham is the stand-out in Spy, and with as fun as that movie is, that's saying something.

      I love the mention of Inside Man, which remains Spike Lee's most fun film. Denzel can be really good, but he can also be pretty prosaic at times--I'm put in mind of things like Fences.

      The Young Victoria was good, but probably most memorable for the cast, which is as good as you're going to find.

      Grizzly Man is worth your time. Herzog doesn't bury the lede; you know within 10 or 15 minutes that Treadwell is killed by a bear. What's impressive more than anything is how much respect Herzog has for Treadwell, both as a person and as someone documenting his life.

      The Other Dream Team doesn't provide a lot of baskeball, but does provide just enough to keep the politics interesting.

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