Saturday Evening Movie Thread: Holidays at the Extremes II [moviegique]

Last time, I noted a bunch of movies I had gone to in the recent weeks, and ran out of room: At casa 'gique, we're back to pre-lunacy moviegoing levels, for as long as movie theaters manage to stay open.

"Everybody act natural."

The Holdovers. If I say "Paul Giamatti portrays a curmudgeon in his latest role", the reader could be forgiven for not knowing what year it is precisely. (Is Win-Win the only laid-back Giamatti role?) But in fairness, his curmudgeons are different one to the next: The misanthropy of Harvey Pekar (American Splendor) is not at all the irascibility of Miles Raymond (Sideways) or the all-out comic villainy of Hertz (Shoot 'em Up). So it is with Paul Hunham, the quiet defender of academic integrity at the religious prep academy Barton.

The year is 1970, and Hunham has been assigned the duty of babysitting the "holdovers", kids whose parents didn't pick them up for Christmas break. (Hunham was going to stay anyway, but only to read mysteries.) His assignment is punishment for failing a Senator's son.) One of the students is Angus, a particularly snotty senior who is, nonetheless, the only kid in Hunham's class who actually gets good grades. One of the fabulously rich parents shows up to take them all on a helicopter to a snow resort—all except Angus, because they can't get ahold of Angus' parents.

It's an entertaining slice-of-life, as we learn the truth about Hunham and Angus, and also get a little inside to the life of the black cook, whose son went to Barton only to go off to Vietnam and get killed. There are a lot of progressive rakes to step on, and this movie largely avoids them. In the end, our three leads get their own character arcs, like real people rather than stock props.

This one gets the rare 'gique's mom Seal of Approval.

Nothing more awkward than posing for the family Christmas photo. Do you put the mistress next to the patriarch, or in-between the wife and eldest child?

The Lion In Winter. I saw this triple-Oscar winning film decades ago and absolutely loathed it. However, given Peter O'Toole, Katharine Hepburn, and young Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton, I thought I should watch it again on the big screen. I didn't loathe it quite as much, and there are parts of the movie which are nigh unreadable on an 19" TV which are actually visible in the theater. It did not, however, jump up in my esteem like 'saw did.

My original impression still holds up very well: The trivialization, the edgy (for '69) presentation of royal amorality, the whole imposing of (probably your own) family dysfunction onto historical events—it's not for me.

And it's not particularly internally consistent, either. Early on we're treated to Henry and Eleanor discussing Henry's promiscuity which is limited neither to a particular sex nor even species, but a big punch line is that Richard is gay, and this is supposedly going to cause some sort of problem. I mean, make up your mind, at least, as to how you're going to distort history and stick to it.

Ultimately, there's no one to root for or care about in this thing, and whenever you think you might, it turns around and mocks you for it. But if you want 130 minutes of acting exercises by past and future masters, this is your huckleberry.

This is a Christmas movie. Christmas, 1183 AD.

TFW she says she's having crazy hot sex dreams about you and you know you can only disappoint her.

Dream Scenario. Based on a real hoax (or was it?), this movie tells the story of a man who, for no rhyme or reason, starts to appear in people's dreams all over the world. An intriguing starting point to a story, this A24 drama/black comedy (not horror, whatever the marketing is) gives us as a main character, a nebbishy mediocrity of a university professor (Nicholas Cage) who latches on to the mob adulation, though he's done nothing to warrant it.

The movie becomes an allegory for "viral fame", particularly when the unearned adulation becomes unearned disapprobation, as the professor's role in dreams becomes more violent. Our protagonist, who even in his dream state does nothing while events unfold around him, finally takes action and fails spectacularly at every turn.

It's not a happy movie, even at the end when we see that our protagonist very much wants to return to his old life, but can only confront even approaching that idea in his dreams. We found it entertaining but are not surprised to see it didn't make back its meager $10M budget. (It will probably recoup its costs in other ways, though.) Terrific acting from Cage and Julianne Nicholson in particular.

Not a Christmas movie.

This explains everything! (Or does it?) Also note: Christmas tree.

Deep Red (1975). I admit I struggle with Giallo. This movie, widely considered Argento's best, is emblematic of the transition of giallo from murder-mystery/slasher to more supernatural horror. Some movies you have to turn your brain off, but for Giallo you have to drive a stake through the corpus collosum and bury the two halves in separate consecrated graveyards.

A series of often memorable visuals and wonderfully chauvinistic '70s Italian dialogue is held together by this story: A psychic is demonstrating her powers when she senses a serial killer which nearly causes her to pass out. Later she realizes who the killer is and announces this on the phone while declaring she's saving the answer for her book.

She is, of course, promptly murdered, as is the next person who figures out who the killer is and announces that he's going to be coy about spreading the news. And the next person.  And this is far from the only time I found myself brought up short by illogic.

Well, it's a deep, symbolic dream or something. I had fun watching it at the Alamo, though. Oh, the score is done by the guy who would go on to form Goblin, which would score a bunch more Argento films. (I don't dislike the Goblin music per se but I find it very unspooky.)

Argento's latest movie, Dark Glasses came out this year and was...fine. It made more sense than this, but "making sense" just isn't a criterion he is graded on.

A Christmas movie!

Godzilla's coming! And he's pissed!

Godzilla Minus One. Everything you've heard about it is true: It's a Godzilla movie where the humans are front and center, and Godzilla's effect on their lives is what's important. The main story is shamelessly manipulative (and the two "twists" are pretty obvious) but it all works anyway. In a world where prequels generally suck, this prequel to a prequel—well, I've seen it twice.

To me, the problem with kaiju movies is that the kaiju scenes are interminable. Pointless 20-minute segments of the army futilely shooting fireworks at a guy in a rubber suit, separated by some cheesy expository dialogue. This movie actually leaves you wanting more Godzilla, but not because he's invisible most of the time. Rather, you really feel the destruction, and you never know how he's going to strike—tail, claw, bite, breath (fun!)—and it's all devastating.

Many wonderful touches. The original music, for example, makes an appearance. What I especially enjoyed was the stock characters (the scientist, the captain, the "kid", etc.) are all fleshed out and given backstories. Not enough to bog things down but enough to where you care what happens.

The SFX are typical of Asian movies: They're less about trying to fool you and more about trying to please you. Might be the first time a subtitled Japanese film has been #1 at the U.S. box office. (For one weekend, this movie was #2 and The Boy and the Heron was #1.)

Something strange is in the air when the American-made Godzilla movies involve a super-power globalist quasi-governmental organization handling the kaiju and the Japanese one explicitly calls out the governments of the world as being useless and it takes a ragtag bunch of ex-Navy men to solve the problem.

Not a Christmas Movie.

A Canadian healthcare training video.

Raging Grace. This is a straight up gothic horror with the only twist being that the maid that comes to work at the creepy old mansion full of family secrets is an illegal Filipina with a child. Really good, with the exception of a completely unneeded harangue by said maid about how much the English need the Filipinas, not the other way around—immediately followed by a scene of "save me, whitey!" when immigration shows up.

It's a fine movie that makes it points quite well, then spells it out tediously, then tacks on an even less necessary coda. Worth a look anyway.

Not a Christmas movie.

Before "The Flash" was putting babies into microwaves.

Tokyo Godfathers (2003). This is "The Three Godfathers" but set in modern-day Tokyo. Instead of cowboys, you have three homeless: A middle-aged man with a mysterious past, a tragic trans character, and a runaway. One of four films directed by the late Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue, Paprika, Millennium Actress), it reminded me how we used to have transsexual characters in movies and it was okay.

All of our characters are flawed and all of them exaggerate their own sins in their minds. A very human tale about redemption.

A Christmas movie.

A Christmas Story (1983). Leonard Maltin introduced this 40th anniversary presentation by saying this was a timeless movie and I couldn't help thinking how wrong that was. It's so very much of its time, I'm sure a lot of younger folks can't relate to it. From the macguffin of wanting a bb gun, to crowding around a radio, to waiting six to eight weeks for delivery or getting your mouth washed out with soap—this time is so far gone and was such a small window in eternity, even I have trouble remembering it.

It's fun, though. It builds nicely to a climax after which it just sort of peters out. It really could've used a quick sequel but I guess the studio didn't really care much about it.

A Christmas movie. The Christmas movie, some might say.

Joe Bob's Creepy Christmas: The Brain/The Gingerdead Man. A goofy, fun pair of movies that take place around Christmas, so, good enough. A shout-out for the charity auction: Bid on items of dubious historic value or buy some ridiculously overpriced merch with all proceeds going to charity.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

posted by Open Blogger at 07:32 PM

| Access Comments