#2LR: Captain Marvel

Her energy beams travel in straight lines, her morality is as straight as an arrow, and so are the fighter jets that she flies.  Now that there are a few vacancies to fill in the Marvel Cinematic Universe we welcome to the screen Captain Marvel.  Just as her twin-from-another-service-branch Captain America is unflinching and unswerving upon introduction so too is our dear Captain Marvel -- almost one archetype in two slightly different pajamas.  Film noir this most decidedly is not.

Because of the way that this movie has been constructed, like the Superfriends glass Citadel of Truth, any real discussion I have of this movie has to come with copious amounts of SPOILER SPACE.  I'll have some comments below this to give my opinions of the action but seriously, if you are planning to watch this and don't want to know any of the plot beforehand please skip to the end marker below.


Captain Marvel is well-constructed to be one of the capstones of the progress that has been made throughout the 2010s.  Within the first five minutes this movie jumps through the Bechdel test swimmingly.  We meet Veers, the future Captain Marvel, on the Kree homeworld meeting the Supreme Intelligence while getting worked over in a sparring match by her slightly smug trainer. Shortly after both her and Sensei Douchebag get called into a covert op.

Sensei Douchebag happens to also be Colonel Douchebag, the leader of this covert op, as this group of Kree are taking on some Skrulls to exfiltrate an embedded agent on another planet.  Veers gets captured by the Skrull so that they can tickle her medial temporal lobe with the machinery that Syndrome left over from The Incredibles a few years back.

After getting a few images out of her mind, Veers (so-called until she grabs the superhero mantle later) breaks free to try to kill some of the more expendable Skrulls.  She plus four Skrulls ends up crash-landing onto Earth since the Skrulls had indications from Veers' memory that this was where they needed to go.

They happened to crash-land on Earth in the mid-90s.  Between this and the Guardians of the Galaxy films, there are times that it feels like superhero movies are both nostalgia trips as well as chronicles of adults cruelly arrested in their development by outside factors.  After getting all misty-eyed at both the Blockbuster and the Radio Shack in the mini-mall, more action scenes unfold.

It is here on Earth that we also meet Young M*thaf*cka, Samuel L. Jackson, who is made up as if he's straight out of the 90s too.  He looks young enough to be Morgan Freeman's great-grandnephew.  After a car/train chase including some shapeshifting Skrulls, Nick Fury and Veers make it back to SHIELD HQ to witness an alien autopsy and work on their plans from there.

The next setpiece has to do with the airforce base where the previous Carol Danvers used to be a test-pilot on a rather secret project.  She pulls records along with yet another action sequence, where it's established that the Skrulls have infiltrated SHIELD.  Also tagging along at this point is a pleasantly plump orange tabby cat.  After this checkpoint, we move on to Louisiana to one of her coworkers and former friends, RAMBO!  Well, it's her name but it's not the Sylvester Stallone one you might be thinking of.  By the way, at this point Indiana Jones would be jealous of all of the various hops that the movie has taken.  I almost wish they'd included a map.

Here in Louisiana we find out the one and only real swerve that the movie gives us, other than "Rambeau" not being spelled with an X at the end.  (Come on Marvel, product placement!!)  If you haven't respected the SPOILER SPACE warnings above, you may want to make sure to skip from here...

last warning...

In this movie, the Skrulls are attempting to be peaceful.  Yeah, it doesn't match very well with what they were doing in any of their earlier setpieces from the space station to the car chase to the airbase.  Don't think about the first half of the movie when they start talking here.  It'll just make you kind of head-hurty.  They had plenty of opportunites to not act like overly-militaristic death squads but well, y'know, they didn't.

Anyway, we find out more of Veers' swiss-cheesed memory (cut to Sam Beckett nodding sagely) where it turns out that she was a test-pilot for Earth technology that was probably three full jumps ahead in the tech tree than Earth could have handled or was capable of.  Of course the research is manned by an alien, "Mar-velle", but still she's working with late-80s technology here -- this backstory happened just a bit after Li'l Petey Jason Quill was yoinked.  After a convenient plot device where one of the Skrulls upfits a US Air Force plane for extraterrestrial flight, we get some SPAAACE.

So now that we have the Kree and the Skrull effectively doing their respective heel and face turns, Captain Marvel now comes into being.  She, RAMBOeauxxx, and M*thaf*cka all go up to a hidden spaceship orbiting Earth which happens to have a ton of other Skrulls hanging out as refugees.  (Where's the beef here?  Or the veggies?  Or fruit?  Are they cannibals?)  The Covert Ops Kree team follows behind, another action sequence follows, and then we finally get the last pieces of the plot of the abduction of Carol Danvers -- after she crashed her plane on the last go-round testflight she destroyed the core that would power light-speed flight.  The resulting radiation all seeped into her (rather than Sensei/Colonel Douchebag) and instead of destroying her, gave her microwaves shooting from her hands.

After she destroys the Denver Boot keeping some of her powers in check she wipes the floor with the Kree and sends what Skrull are left on their merry way as Team Marvel blasts off again!  Nick Fury on the other hand has had his superhero cherry completely popped and starts descending on his path to paranoid spymaster, but not without some KITTIE SCRITCHIES first.

Ordinarily I would put up the "over" sign here but I really have to discuss the Kree/Skrull flipflop first.  I can't discuss this outside of the spoiler space though because it really is the only swerve in what is otherwise one of the straightest drives in cinematic history.  This is not Se7en, this is not Inception, this is a plate of cheeseburger plus macaroni.  It's not even gouda mac or anything.  You're either going to like it or hate it.  It is what it is and it won't compromise for you.

I had to reach back to my childhood for the next reference, but the Kree are at least protrayed as stereotypical star-bellied Sneetches.  If you don't have that Kree star on your chest you're not worthy.  The Skrull are definitely putting up a massive fight on their end too, and the movie did not do a great job of defining what either side is "for" other than Skrull desire to not be ruled by Kree.  There are white hats and black hats in this movie but that's all they are... without the extensive comic backstory you wouldn't think anything of this switch really.

I don't know how much of the extended metaphor will apply -- the Kree and Skrull-eetch battle may just be one of aesthetics only while the universe burns elsewhere for instance.  As well, Skrulls are rather famously previous antagonists and frankly it still seems as if there's time for them to be antagonists once again... but if you're looking for that level of nuance you're not in the right spot.


SPOILER SPACE OVER

The point in this movie though is that you're not coming into the theater for a rich plot.  You're coming into this theater for action, possibly for some amount of 90s nostalgia, maybe for Marvel being "brave" enough to send a woman to lead a film ten years after they really should have to keep their street cred and two years after Warner/DC proved that it can be done exceptionally successfully.

It's just that this is pretty much the last major film before the last Avengers film comes out in literally a month.  This movie effectively introduced a character and *possibly* some sort of basis for further plot development, but really it's up to the next movie to carry the story far more than they should have to.  There's some comedy in here, quite a crapload of action, and the actors (Brie Larson and Sam L. M*thaf*cka) do well in their roles.

The moment of truth -- is this film worth your money?  For the first time, sure.  This is a summer blockbuster walking amongst the crocuses of March and there's a reason that they put so much budget into blockbusters.  You're not coming for the writing though, you're coming for the kicking and for Samuel L. Jackson's immaculately Bondo'ed face -- which probably took a third of that budget.

To this reviewer art is more impactful if it can be savored more than once and brings something fresh, new, and novel to a conversation.  Will this movie do that?  Naw.  You will rewatch this film under two circumstances -- viewing the entirety of the MCU or if you want to see a rock-em sock-em action flick.  It is what it is.  This movie travels into a straight line, like Captain Marvel's punches or Captain Marvel's energy beams or Captain Marvel's morality.

Without the allure of the MCU I would rank this movie closer to a 2.  It gets extra points as well for the action stuff when you just want to shut your brain down after a full day of adulting.

Final Rating -- 2.8

#2LR - How to Train Your Dragon 3 - The End Credits

Hello again all!

I'm going to be resurrecting the #2LR Too Late Reviews for at least a little while -- I miss writing them and the main conceit of the concept (writing reviews "too late" to warn you) actually will be going by the wayside because I now have a reliable source for free movie watching.  I do apologize for the hiatus and I hope that you all don't mind.

When you want to go to a place to sit, relax, and drink coffee you can choose national chain stores or also the little cafe nooks that people sometimes tip you off to when taking time to actually meet up with a friend.  The national chains bring a certain level of quality.  Those lucky few have found a nice place that makes even better coffee and is far preferable to visit.

This movie series has always reminded me of the coffee place that's about fifty miles out of your way that your friend brought you to sometime.  The first cup of coffee you got here turned out surprisingly good and hopefully you'll get another cup just as delicious.  You wouldn't be there unless you're in town for some sort of other errand.  It's not your preferred home place that makes the best brew that you can count on, but it's at least better than the BarStucks. 

There will be copious amounts of spoiler space from this part, so feel free to jump ahead to the closing bracket for a few comments about the movie if you want to watch this yet also want to be surprised.

The town of Berk has undergone some major changes since the opening credits of "How to Train Your Dragon" lo these many years ago.  It's so lousy with dragons that it looks like your grandmother's dirty finch cage.  Seriously, at least fifteen percent of the human population has to pick up dragon guano on a minute-by-minute basis.  While they are near the ocean, water-dumping that amount of dragon dung would have killed all the fish in a fifty-mile radius.

As with How to Train Your Dragon 2, the dragons are back under attack.  In this movie though the denizens of Berk seem to be on the offensive first, as they are shown liberating a series of dragons from a veritable flotilla of ships.  The Vikings who had their ships raided (oh the irony!) appeal to a master dragon hunter for their aid in... well, capturing them all back?  They really did not go into a ton of reason WHY the dragons were needed really, and the dragon hunter is absolutely clear that he just wants to kill the main dragon of the series Toothless.  And yes, unclear motivations for the antagonists is a bit of a pet peeve of mine, almost as large as New Zealand being left off of world maps.

In order to avoid the dragon hunter the citizens and dragons all find an island elsewhere to live on that isn't as well-known as their previous location.  The main characters also presumably stop freeing dragons to try to keep their location hidden.  The dragon hunter has another plan though, which is to entrap Toothless with another (the only?) of his type for him to become enamored with.  The plan works and through various circumstances Toothless is ensnared.  After plenty of action sequences though, the movie along with the trilogy ends with a finality reminiscent of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.

**spoiler space over**

Seriously, this movie felt as if they recycled large amounts of How to Train Your Dragon 2.  The conflicts of both movies feel exceptionally close to each other.  You have a main protagonist who is bent on subjugation of others for nefarious ends.  Both movies featured plans straight out of the Underwear Gnomes' playbook.  The question marks in these plans was hiding quite a bit of stuff.

It seemed that there wasn't even a world beyond the universe of Berk, Dragons, and Bad Dudes.  The Bad Dudes are more often than not on boats... we never even see another *town* in this movie series.  What does this world consist of, one town of dragon-loving Vikings and effectively Waterworld throughout the rest of the world?  What are the dragons going to be used for?  Where are the stakes here?  The first movie in the set didn't really need to introduce more of the world than just the town of Berk because the conflict was so very localized, but once the movie series started importing antagonists from abroad the antagonists seemed to forget to import the rest of their world.

How to Train Your Dragon 3 was different in one major way though.  This movie was designed to be the last in the series and the writers placed certain plot points as barricades for anyone else ever resurrecting the main storyline of the movie.  I did not put this under "spoiler space" because the director has been saying for multiple years that they had designed the trilogy to be shut after three movies.  Crazily enough it was reported that they would be happy to allow spin-off stories in the same universe but I honestly don't see how they can do that because this universe is just so tiny.

Which is why your fifty-mile-away coffee shop is good really only for those times you are in the area.  The coffee there is pretty decent, it's worth going to when you're a few blocks away, but to intentionally drive for an hour and thirty minutes there-and-back for a cup of coffee?  Why?  To sit for an hour and a half through the third installment of this series... if you have a good reason for it, by all means.

And without further ado, feel free to watch this movie IF:

1. You enjoy watching stilted cougar-chasing straight out of the Stiffler's Mom playbook.  Seriously, it was even more delusional in this movie than it sounds as I type it.  I am totally not lying about this either.

2. Being better together rather than apart is a perfectly fine message for you and you're not species-ist... both main protags got their brides but can only ever visit each other from now on.

3. You have some pressing need for closure of the "How to Train Your Dragon" universe and have zero interest in thinking about how the village goes on living afterward... being without their primary antagonist/allies for the last 300 years.

4. Rewatching How to Train Your Dragon 2 isn't possible because you've worn through your DVD rewatching it already and you want something just slightly newer.

5. You still don't really mind that they gave characterization to effectively two characters in the whole series, three maybe if you could Hiccup's Dad who was killed in #2 but still manages to have a sizable supporting role in this movie as well.

(special points to Hollywood in this day and age, with the #MeToo movement and everything, giving about as much depth of writing to Hiccup's love interest over three movies as they gave to the girl-dragon they hooked Toothless up to in only one movie)

I have a four-point scale that I usually grade movies on, it's pretty simple really...

0 - totally unredeemable
1 - I might watch parts of it on TV, depending on the scene.
2 - I might watch the rest of it on TV if halfway through but not intentionally cue it up.
3 - I would get a copy and watch it occasionally.
4 - I would get a copy and watch it often.

This movie is pretty close to a 1, if only because I'd probably sit down for the last scene.  The battle scenes are meh, the message is internally inconsistent, and the universe itself hobbled.  Epilogue is fine though.  I would imagine that fans of the series would probably place this into a three trending to four, but unless you're a fan I wouldn't really bother.

(Crossposted at www.rebornknights.com)

#2LR Too Late Reviews -- Star Trek Into Darkness and the art of the reboot.

Sequels have been around for pretty much forever in the annals of storytelling.  Even the Iliad had its Odyssey following it.  The continuity of characters and of relationships or situations makes it easy for viewers of the original to be able to relate to the sequel very quickly.  Of course, the authors of sequels are helped as well, as they've already created the groundwork for the story to go forward, they can then spend less time on the nuts and bolts and get to the plot, the rising action that will allow their readers or viewers to really enjoy what they're seeing.

Reboots, however, are a more recent vintage.  It's thought that the term literally comes from the computer term for "reboot", where a computer system comes up after being shut down.  There are BIOS instructions for the computer system to set up and run an operating system so that it will act as if it did before, and it will clear up any errors that may have been introduced in the RAM by other programs.

It's a fairly apt term when applied to the literary equivalent and most recently, movie equivalent.  Comic books had to deal with this constantly even decades ago... when artists move on but leave their creations, it's a property that has already been invested in and built up.  When a new artist comes to fill in on that continuity, what are they to do?

A reboot is not necessarily a remake... remakes have been happening for ages.  It's not as if the original actors of Hamlet can come out of retirement to show us how it's done.  A reboot is in a different world its own.  A remake may be straightforward or it may reimagines the source material in a different light and introduces few if any plot changes.  The remake might emphasize or deemphasize certain aspects of the source work, but overall it does not vary nor is there much added to the source work plot-wise.  A reboot keeps the characters and some of the situations of the original work, but ends up moving off in a completely different direction, managing to make up its own plot distinct from the work that it first used as its basis.

With that said, how do reboots work, and what do they do right?  I recently had a chance to rewatch Star Trek Into Darkness and felt that talking about the high points and low points of reboots would be the right thing to do in the context of this movie.


[Spoiler Space ahead]


The movie opens up on Spock being lowered into a volcano and Kirk and Bones fleeing a group of pale-skinned natives on a planet.  It turns out in the prologue that the volcano is literally slated to destroy the planet that they're on and without Spock's direct assistance this rock might never see the miracle of cheez in a can realized someday.

To escape the natives running after, the two end up taking a flying leap off of a cliff into the water below where we find the Enterprise curiously "docked".  (Ha?)  Why the heck it was placed near the planet's surface instead of safely orbiting I don't honestly remember... much less the nerdy objections to how it can operate in a pressure-filled environment when it is supposed to be in a pressure-less environment.  Or, if the volcano is imminent to explode, why have the starship anywhere near the surface??  Technerd objections aside, Kirk and Bones appear in the airlock and Kirk immediately asks about Spock.  Spock, meantime, is doing his level best to reenact the Mount Doom sequences from Lord of the Rings.

The plot contrivance volcano is giving off too much "magnetism" for the Enterprise to just beam Spock back aboard.  The crew theorizes that they need to get into "line of sight" with Spock, so they have to lift the starship out of the ocean.  Spock vehemently vetoes the idea as he places the Prime Directive above his own safety but Kirk overrules him.  Spock is picked up in the nick of time, the planet's natives start to worship a picture of a starship instead of their previous artifacts, and the Enterprise is returning to Earth at warp-speed.

On Earth, Kirk is caught lying on the report of the incident by Spock counter filing his own report.  Kirk gets busted down to first officer and Spock gets reassigned.  (Here's one of the two spots that I'm highlighting below.)  At around this time one of Starfleet's libraries gets bombed and that draws in the senior command for a meeting.  Kirk rightly figures out that the library bombing was purely a feint to get senior command together in one spot.  Too late though... just as he figured it out, the bullets start flying and the body count continues to grow.

The perpetrator escapes.  He leaves behind one major clue... he's going to the Klingon homeworld to hide out.  Starfleet comes up with a massively cockamamie idea to shoot missiles at the Klingon homeworld from neutral space, even providing 72(!!) of them.  Kirk's crew has major misgivings, from Spock's protestations that it is a military rather than exploratory mission and Scotty's resignation over not knowing the missile's contents.  Kirk cares less as it was shown that Captain Pike, who pulled him into Starfleet and gave him his first commission, was one of the casualties of the terrorist attack.  Kirk just wants blood.  Chekov replaces Scotty as head engineer because they didn't train a SINGLE PERSON in Engineering how to work ALL the parts at once.

The Enterprise gets to the neutral zone point but then warp core problems start.  (I think it was sabotage, at least it would have made more sense to the plot, but I don't remember exactly how).  Kirk, Spock, and Uhura then take a shuttlecraft to the Klingon home world... all the while Uhura and Spock are fighting because Uhura thought it insensitive that Spock considered the Prime Directive over HER FEELINGS.  (If the dude was literally ready to die in order to not break the rules, I think that the relationship was like second place...)  After the odd snit, they manage to get captured by the Klingons... but then the fugitive shows up and takes out about thirty of them via hand-held phaser and massive phaser cannon.  The fugitive asks Kirk about how many missiles are pointed at his head.  When Kirk answers "72", he immediately surrenders... and tells us his name is Khan.

(Sigh.  Yes, Khan's back.)

At this point things get even weirder.  First, one of the missiles is opened and it turns out to be a cryogenic pod containing one of Khan's crewmembers.  All of these dudes are packed in those tubes and it is Khan's intention to recover them to recreate his own group of followers.  He also tells Kirk of the skunkworks he worked at somewhere around Jupiter where one of the Starfleet admirals (Marcus) was creating major weapons of war. Khan has been helping to design and build battlecruisers.  I didn't quite catch if it was the case, but it may have been verboten by agreements with other groups (e.g. Romulans, Klingons, etc.).  Kirk messages Scotty back on Earth to investigate Khan's story.

Marcus wants Khan dead because Khan knows too much... and now by association, so does the Enterprise.  Kirk first attempts to run, but the battleship is just as fast and can shoot at them while in warp-speed travel. After enough of the Enterprise is beat up, Kirk stops near Earth, but is unfortunately far enough away for anyone to figure out what's going on.

The Enterprise is helpless... the engines are out, shields are out, and weapons are offline.  Kirk's love-interest, Carol Marcus, pleads with her father to spare the Enterprise.  Marcus responds by transporting her to his battleship and continues to prime the weapons.  It turned out that Scotty had managed to sneak his way onto the battleship and has disabled the weapons in order to spare the Enterprise, even briefly.  Since there's no way to do anything to the battleship from the Enterprise, Kirk and Khan decide to don spacesuits to get from one to the other via space.

Scotty opens a porthole, both fly in, and then they make their way to the bridge.  Kirk and Khan manage to subdue the skeleton crew of the battleship including Marcus.  Kirk then swings his phaser around to stun Khan.  Khan does not stay stunned.  Khan takes control of the bridge of the warship, parlaying with Spock for the return of his crew.  Spock instead pulled all of the cryotubes from each of the missiles and replaced them with explosives, wired to detonate when transported to the battleship.  The weapons explode and both starships are sent towards Earth's gravity.

The Enterprise can't escape gravity because their engines are still down.  Kirk does his best imitation of one of those human fly performers to climb up the warp core.  At the top he literally kicks one of the two "contacts" in the core to bring them back in alignment.  I am amazed that there are not septuple-redundant systems to do this NOT within the warp core, as going in will subject him to Chernobyl-level radiation doses and death.  He does anyway... and he and Spock reenact the scene at the end of the original "Wrath of Khan", but in reverse... Kirk inside and Spock outside.  Yes, there will be complaints below.

Meanwhile, Khan manages to crash the battleship into Starfleet headquarters in San Francisco, and even manages to survive and run away from *this*.  Spock (and Uhura) ends up chasing him down, capturing him, and returning him *to a cryopod*.

Hokay, I've got to take a break to address this.  Hey, movie, mind executing the dude who massacred many civilians by crashing a starship into the middle of a city?  Not to mention the library explosion, a squad of killed Klingons, the senior command shooting in the beginning?  Heck, what about the skeleton crew of what looked like Blackwater contractors flying the Starfleet dreadnought, that were all "stunned" rather than killed and ended up perishing in the final crash?  No, you need him for future sequels?  *sigh*

Last but not least, we find out that Khan's blood has "regenerative properties"... I suppose Wolverine is still alive and kicking somewhere in the universe's equivalent of a Yellowknife dive bar.  This time though it doesn't take another movie to bring Kirk back, just a plot contrivance.  Yeah, I know that Khan's blood was needed for Bones' super-serum to heal Kirk (hey Starfleet, who will you be sharing THAT formula with...), but there's TONS of time afterward to execute him.  THIS is why reboots end up becoming necessary, by the way, these throwaway "super serums" that end up mucking up a continuity.

As the movie rolls further past the two-hour mark the epilogue is a rededication of the Enterprise, which I am surprised even managed to get *re*built... I would have absolutely believed "built again" considering the massive hull holes that sucked out numerous people.



The summary for this movie is over... though some people may consider the below discussion of the nuts and bolts of the ending spoiler space as well. I've attempted to hide as much as possible, but it can't all be pulled from view. You've been warned...



I wanted to point out the best reason for a reboot.  It was in the beginning when Chris Pine's Kirk and Zach Quinto's Spock are getting dressed down for the actions they took in the prologue to the movie.  Spock protests that Admiral Pike is not considering the overall details of the mission, how it was supposed to have happened, and what then subsequently made the mission fail.  Pike dismisses Spock's concern by telling him that they were merely technicalities... Spock then not only tells Pike that technicalities are the soul of a Vulcan, but managed to get into the technicalities of the technicalities.  I absolutely loved the scene even if it was just a minor thing, and to me this showed the heights that a reboot can provide... it may be a new person writing Spock, but they're trying to stay as true to his character (or perhaps Quinto was improvising?) and I thought that it was a cool touch.

However, the reboot has the awkward task of *reminding* people of the original while not hewing too closely.  I can respect that they would bring back not only old characters but also old villains.  That's fine and fair game to me.  However, the scene between Kirk and Spock that I marked with complaints above is getting mentioned here.  I thought it was not only really unnecessary, it was almost as if the movie had to contort its plot just to make sure that the scene could be included.

See, the problem for me was that getting Kirk into the situation was not easy.  They also had a very tough time trying to establish the stakes of the situation... firstly, Kirk's "killer" was much like the "killer" from The Happening... silent, invisible, and "deadly".  There was an "against the clock" situation accompanying it (as the starship was currently non-operational), but according to the internal logic, the moment that Kirk stepped inside he signed his death warrant.  I remain extremely surprised that the equipment to be able to deal with the situation was not present, especially since it seemed that the problem he fixed was something that could possibly happen in other contexts.  This is Starfleet.  There should be systems backing up systems backing up systems... unless of course, the problem Kirk fixed can be dealt with by a few Ensign Throwaway redshirts.

I couldn't find this final scene even halfway believable either.  After two new Star Trek movies, there'd be no way that they'd kill off one of the marquee stars this easily.  So it was almost as if the movie telegraphed the fact that it would be breaking its own continuity.  And it did, in pretty spectacular form.  At this point, they put in the scene between Spock and Khan at the end of the movie.  There was a lack of suspense in knowing that they would bring back James T. Kirk, but you even knew during the *fight scene* who would win because of it.  So, this scene destroyed the suspense for BOTH of the resolutions.

The screenwriters knew that they couldn't spend a movie bringing Kirk back (like the original series did by bringing Spock back in Star Trek 3), so why even attempt it?  And lo and behold, it wasn't attempted.  As above, they used a method that was outlandish for even comic books to bring Kirk back in about fifteen minutes flat.

This is what I just can't get behind with a reboot.  If you're going to have to change your story to try to incorporate plot points, make sure that it's going to fit in your overarching plot.  Yes, there's a touch of the technerd in me, but it felt like they had to open up a few holes in the fabric of the story in order to get these aspects into the movie... and I can't get behind that.  Give me more "The Universe Hates Jim Kirk's Face" compared to this.


[spoiler space officially over]


It's gotta be the first time that I nested spoiler space warnings.  As far as the more generic judging of the movie, I did feel that it went on about twenty to thirty minutes too long (at almost 2:15, it really could have used an editor or two).  Looking back, the previous Star Trek film was just over the two-hour mark at 127 minutes... but the first film also had to carry the task of introducing the whole reboot setup, so I can forgive it the extra time.  This one really didn't have to carry the introduction issues.

I already explained my love-hate relationship with reboots in general and in the plot of this one in specific.  Please don't think that I disliked the movie though... just like in the August Rush review I posted, I enjoyed the movie but felt that it could have worked out even better.  As far as my scale goes, I popped it into my DVD player only yesterday, so that satisfies the level 3 criteria really well.  However, I will also say that I stopped it about three-quarters the way through the movie... and I'm perfectly fine stopping it where I have it, as I remember enough of the rest of the film.  So, it occupies a weird area where I sincerely enjoy the first one hundred ten minutes and can take or leave the last twenty.

So, I suppose that I will give it a flat 3, as an average of the 3.5 that it sustains for an hour and change and the 2.3 that it finishes with.  It's not as if it's the modern equivalent of The Girl in Lovers' Lane, but it does get my nitpicky hackles rising... if you want to lose yourself in the action sequences or the twisty-turny plot, then you'll enjoy it.

#2LR Movie Review: Oz, the Great and Powerful

Okay, so here's how lazy I am... this was written about six weeks ago and not posted. I have the Read or Die posting scheduled to run midweek as well.

Today’s 2LR is for the movie, Oz. The Great and Powerful.  In full disclosure, I probably have seen The Wizard of Oz perhaps once or twice in my childhood, but it was a movie that I was not really crazy about.  I think I was creeped out by the Munchkins, or perhaps the Tin Woodsman.  With that said, take any opinions I have against the world of Oz with a grain of salt, or perhaps a brick.

(Spoiler space ahead.)

The movie begins at a fairground in 1905, where a traveling magician is about to put on his act at the fair.  After a bit of issue with the local townsfolk, and then an issue with some of the sideshow acts, the traveling magician – Oz, short for Oscar -- takes off in a hot-air balloon to run away.  Unfortunately, being 1905 Kansas, he ends up sucked into a tornado.

You can probably guess where Oz the Magician ends up.  Thankfully, the image on the screen goes from black-and-white to color at this point, and the image finally fills the screen.  I know why the director did this, but it doesn’t mean that I liked it.  At any rate, Meg from Family Guy meets up with the crashed balloon, and she takes our erstwhile shyster to the Emerald City, for it was foretold that the savior of Oz would crash into Oz, and also have the same name.

So, we meet another witch who helps run the Emerald City, who seems nice but quite doubts Oz’s qualifications. She shows him the gold that the King of Oz is entitled to, and Oz’s eyes go wide.  She then tells him that he has to defeat (e.g. kill) a wicked witch, and gives him directions to get there. 

After that, Oz is going down the yellow-brick road on his way to kill the witch.  Meanwhile, we find out that Meg’s older sister is a bit mean… especially once we find out that Oz was sent to kill Glinda, the Good Witch.  It seems that she was chased off from the Emerald City by the death of her father, the king.  The older sister then starts on Meg Griffin, telling her that Oz (who she mysteriously was taken with) is now interested in Glinda.  Older sis uses Meg’s temper against her, tricking her into eating a green apple, which turns her green and ensures that she will turn into Margaret Hamilton in negative seventy years, give-or-take.

Glinda shows Oz the townspeople who they are trying to defend, and then mentions to him that they need to figure out a way to defeat the witches without killing them.  Seems a tall task, but if ever you need someone to resort to trickery, use a con-man.  Oz plans out ways to use sleight-of-hand style tricks and devices to defeat both the Flying Monkeys as well as the “Winkie Guards” (see, this is why I can’t take Oz overly seriously).  He also creates the famous smoke machine, fakes his own death so that the people of Oz treat it as if his spirit is coming back from the grave to help them, and manages to freak out both witches sufficiently to get them running.  Glinda takes care of the other advisor by breaking her magic necklace and starting a Raiders of the Lost Ark sequence on her, and Meg just flies off cackling.

(spoiler space over)

What did we learn?  Good question.  All I know is that in human history, it’s usually not a good idea to turn the governance of a country over to a con-man, no matter how “reformed” he seems.  As for the movie itself, I feel rather ambivalent towards it. I suppose it’s a decent waste of ninety minutes, though it’s not as if you’ll be overcome by the story of Oz’s magical conversion to the most honest con-man who’s still really a massive con-man, nor Meg Griffin’s descent into madness.  I suppose the best message to come out of this movie is, “Never eat a green apple.”

Final review: 1.9

#2LR: Nihilism, starring Grave of the Fireflies (among others)

When autumn begins, late September, it's still warm but getting a bit cooler... and it's nice to get that cool after the heat of August.  October brings a bit cooler weather, but here in the northern Midwest, we are treated to one of Nature's greatest exhibitions -- the trees putting on a show of color change, all putting on costumes just like the children do for Halloween.

For me though, there's two times of year that are the most depressing.  Late February, just because winter always seems to take forever and I'm more than done with it at that point.  And... now, mid- to late-November, most of the way through autumn.  Each nice day is thought to be the last nice day for months... today, 10 November, was mild in the sun and refreshing in the breeze.  Half of the yard was raked in the twenty minutes or so that I had free (from preparing dinner).

The next two days are scheduled to be below freezing.  And oh yeah, did I neglect to mention last year's completely unnecessary unemployment adventure?  There's definitely that too, memories of Novembers past that have sucked the bag.

So, how do I celebrate this time of year, when the outside is getting ready to get buried under a blanket of solid water in the form of snow, ice, and sleet for three months and the bad feelings start taking hold?  By watching depressing movies, of course!

Saturday night was the first level of depressing, watching the Will Smith vehicle Seven Pounds.  It is the SPOILER SPACE story of a man who texts while driving, causing an accident that takes the lives of seven people, including his fiancee.  This leads to Will Smith killing himself so that he can serve as a one-stop organ bank for seven other people while he kills himself to atone for what he's done.  There's not a whole lot else to say about the movie, except for the fact that the Will Smith character had a small chance to turn back... he ended up getting involved with one of the seven people, a woman with congenital heart disease.  Even this is not enough for the Will Smith character to rethink his plan to die, and the movie ends with Katniss' mentor getting his eyes back.  Sorry, Woody Harrelson, you're even LESS believable as a dramatic actor... and you're standing next to the friggin' Fresh Prince of Bel-Air!  I don't know who's lost worse... Woody, or the American Public.  SPOILER SPACE OVER

So!  I knew enough to only pay a half-eye's worth of attention to the movie, especially after reading the Wikipedia entry for it and realizing that what little I was watching was even more unbelievable than the plot synopsis made it out to be.  That truly pales in comparison to the star of the weekend, the incredibly depressing Grave of the Fireflies

In this, SPOILER SPACE, Japan is in the last throes of war.  Seita, a ~14 or so year old boy and his ~4 or so year old sister Setsuko find themselves orphaned towards the end of World War II in one of the firebombings carried out by American bombers.  They attempt to live with the one family member they know of, their auntie in the country.  After bringing luxury foods to the aunt's house, the aunt and Seita sorta-kinda fight over food, with the aunt constantly getting in passive-aggressive digs at the fact that Seita's not helping (despite the fact that Seita's dad is serving aboard a likely-already-sunk Japanese cruiser).

Seita and Setsuko decide to take off on their own, and find an old abandoned cement structure to call home.  Seita has to resort to stealing, first taking a few crops from local farmers, and then looting houses during air raids in order to get enough money for food.  Setsuko waits behind, but the lack of food makes her weaker and weaker.  Eventually, the war ends... Seita has pulled what little money remains from his parents' accounts, but it's too little too late for Setsuko, who has had to endure months of living effectively outside while dealing with what looked like a massive case of eczema, impetigo, or some other skin disease.  Setsuko passes, leaving Seita behind... and that pretty much snuffs out the last of Seita's flame for life.

By the way, we see Seita die in the first scene of the movie.  So it's not like we don't know where this is going... it's almost as if the artists responsible are taunting their audience.  "This movie WILL END BADLY.  And there's nothing you can do about it."

SPOILER SPACE OVER

Feel spoiled yet?  Feel... well, numb inside, to some extent?  I'm not sure I've watched two such movies in quick succession like this before.  It's sobering, emotional, maddening, all sorts of things.  It reminds me of human imperfection.  The movies show me that there's a world outside mine, where I'm just complaining about the weather up above but someone somewhere really is not able to eat their fill... or has caused accidents and is living with the survivor's guilt eating them up inside.  I wish that I could fix the world.......

.....

but then, one of the messages that I feel from these movies is that the world is to some extent unfixable.  We humans are an imperfect species... causing grief to each other even though our actions weren't meant to cause grief, fighting each other, getting lost in the minutae of our situations without really being able to see past our noses.  My tween daughter, all of eleven years on the planet, proclaimed Grave of the Fireflies to be one of the worst movies that she's ever seen, if not the worst.  I explained to her that there was a time that I hated nihilistic literature too... being forced to read John Steinbeck's The Pearl while in high school.  Man, I hated that book... in some regards though, it's a very depressing book for high school students especially.  After all, the protagonist in the book stumbles across something that should make his life better, and finds out that it actually makes his life worse... just the thing to give high-schoolers that are trying to figure out how to make their lives better.  Failure in The Pearl ends in death for multiple characters.  (At this point, eff the Spoiler Space warnings, and you can direct all hate mail for this topic to my email box.)

So, these two movies were the emotional equivalent of getting caught in the proverbial late-autumn cold-front rainstorm.  There's no escaping this rainstorm with a cup of hot chocolate and a fuzzy blanket, though.  Towards the end of Grave of the Fireflies, we find out the family that owns the land that the two children were squatting on... were really well-off.  There were multiple young women entering the house at the end and finding that their "phonograph still works!" while playing a tune.  Contrasting that with the scene of devastation only a couple hundred feet from their front door.... it's powerful, emotional, and even though the movie is trending towards fifteen years old, it's still effective in getting a reaction from its viewers.

Watching these types of movies or reading these types of books I feel is a challenge to your ability to be human.  Realizing that not every ending is a happy one is a hard realization for someone like me, who would far rather stay with humor.  It's hard for a child to think about these things too, as my tween reminded me.  Myself, my wife, and our tween daughter discussed both films after the final images of Grave of the Fireflies twinkled off of our screen.  There were so many things that could have been changed in both stories... characters that seemed to be on self-destructive paths, or could have made better decisions.  Could they have been fixed?  Should they have been fixed?  Would they have been any different had the characters known the depth of their situation going in, or does Fate really hold the wheel while we go along for the ride?

All stories are about conflict.  It just so happens that these two stories are about conflicts where the main character(s) are found to be on the losing side, and as above major consequences follow.  They're both fiction, so liberties will be taken with their conflicts as well as their resolutions... but it's not so difficult to imagine yourself or someone you love up on that screen, dealing with these challenges at the same time.

You may think that I would give both movies high grades.  To be honest, I don't think that they fit within the scale... or at least one doesn't.  Seven Pounds, you are the weakest link here.  Will Smith... I don't know, you feel insufferable at this point, and I'm not sure that I can really take you seriously in much right now.  I'm barely even sure I could laugh at you in a comedy really.  Seven Pounds, for the ridiculous situations, bad acting, and all around 'bleh'-ness, I'm giving you a well-deserved 0.6.  If I watch you again even once the rest of my life, it'll be once too much.  You felt contrived, forced, almost as if you're trying to wring my tears from my eyes by squeezing my brain in painful ways.

Grave of the Fireflies, however, feels different.  The problem is that I would have to be in a very specific mood to watch this movie once again, and my scale is reposted below for reminder's sake:

1.I wouldn't watch it even if it was halfway through on TV.
2.I would watch it if it was on, but not intentionally cue it up.
3.I would get the tape and watch it occasionally
4.I would get the tape and watch it often.

Here's the problem.  I like the movie.  I think it is a strong, powerful movie about people fighting the odds... and in this situation, the odds end up fighting back.  For me, it is a textbook definition of both a 1 and a 3.  I would definitely not watch it if it was halfway through on television, nor would I watch it even if I managed to catch it as it was starting on television.  I can certainly see a situation where I would get a copy of it and watch it occasionally though.  I suppose that the rating won't be a 0-4 star situation, so I'll give it a C.  Not as in average, but as in challenging.  C as in conflict.  C as in watch it once and C how you feel afterward.  C as in cinema, check out this movie if you want something that will not unnecessarily press your "feels" buttons but at least makes you think, tries to lift you to a higher plane of contemplation, and hopefully allows you to C your own situation in a new light.  This movie will stick in your mind, for better or for worse.

Mindless action is back on tap through the week, as Netflix will take away Grave of the Fireflies and return with the first two movies of the recent Sherlock Holmes reboot.  I could use some escapism, to escape from the bad moments of my present life and the worse moments that I watched a couple short hours before.

#2LR - Star Trek... from the FUTURE!

New form of posting today, writing it in.  Today's movie is the reboot of the Star Trek franchise, otherwise known as "The Universe Hates James T. Kirk's Face."  Please follow me below, warp speed into Spoiler Space Below, and we'll explore all the ways.

The movie starts with one of the most bizarre "spaceships" that have been trotted onto the screen. It's all long spikes and no propulsion (or safety from the void of space).  How does it move?!  Anyway, it manages to completely trash a starship, and we find out that one of the escapees was James T. Kirk's mother... while his father, the acting captain "for twelve minutes", kamikaze's his ship into the attacker... but doesn't completely damage it.  Barely even scratches it, and come to think of it... with a whole starship and a suicidal captain, how did it manage to do NO DAMAGE?

Anyway, the story jumps forward more than a few years as we see a snot-nosed ten-year-old kid driving a cherry Thunderbird (IIRC), which turns out to be a young Jim Kirk.  However, we know WHY "The Universe Hates James T. Kirk's Face" pretty much right off the bat, as in a dick move L'il Jimmy manages to play chicken near the cliffs of Iowa (?!), letting the Thunderbird fall five hundred feet to its doom while he laughs about it.  Curse you, Kirk!!

Anyway, some years later, he ends up in a bar where he gets beat up by Starfleet Academy plebes as he's trying to make the moves on a young Uhura.  One of the men from Starfleet come in to break up the fight, and it just so happens that he remembers Jimmy's dad.  After some convincing, Jim's ready to sign up to Starfleet.

Oh, and Spock's in it... he's a not-a-Vulcan who gets into fights when someone disses his momma.  Important for later, too...

Kirk runs across Bones on the flight into Starfleet and the two make fast friends over a flask of hooch.  It cuts to a couple years later, as Kirk is taking the Kobayashi Maru test for the third time.  Instead of using Marrissa Flores Picard's smooth moves, Kirk just reprograms the computer so that he wins by disabling all of the simulated attackers' ships.  The computer programmer is hopping mad, though... well, he's Spock, so he's quietly seething now that he's got a crapload of emotions and all.

So, Kirk gets dressed down in front of Starfleet, and instead of giving a hell of a good excuse ("A captain has to pull out all the stops to complete his mission and save his ships, including changing the parameters if needed"), there's pretty much just no defense.  He gets dressed down by Tyler Perry and the "American Idol" jury.  At that point, we find out that Vulcan is under attack, and all the cadets are assigned to ships... except for Kirk.  Bones manages to half-beat-up Kirk (through the use of viruses and pharmaceuticals) to subterfuge Kirk onto the ship that Bones has been assigned to, the Enterprise.  At the same time, Uhuru half-blackmails Spock to be put on the Enterprise, where Chekov and Sulu are already manning the help... and Captain Christopher Pike is in control.

So the starships all go off to Vulcan, but Kirk bullies his way to the bridge... he tells the Captain and the first officer Spock that the reports indicate that it's a trap.  As the Enterprise gets to Vulcan, they find Spiky Ship.  Spiky Ship ends up launching a drill at Vulcan.  Kirk is sent to take out a drilling platform that the ship launches against Vulcan, getting beat up by a Romulan in the process and both saving Sulu as well as being saved by Sulu.  Spiky Ship and the Romulans succeed in destroying Vulcan.  Spock attempts to beam down to the surface and beams back up a few of the elders of Vulcan, but unfortunately his mother falls in a rockslide and is not grabbed by the transporter.

The captain has been taken hostage by the Romulans, and prior to his leaving he places Spock as acting captain with Kirk as first officer.  After the Romulans take off, Spock moves to join up with Starfleet and Kirk argues vociferously to go after the Romulans.  Spock has Security beat up Kirk for the third time this movie and sends Kirk to the ice planet Hoth... err, Delta Beta Whatever, which is a snow planet.

Kirk gets chased by an almost-Wampa, but the Wampa is beat back by a huge lizard-ish thing that ends up chasing Kirk into a cave.  Kirk gets saved by the lizard-ish thing by the actual Nimoy Spock (known as Spock Prime), who runs off the beast and tells Kirk about the time-travelling Romulans and time-travelling Spock.  They both head to the Federation outpost, being manned by none other than Scotty.  Spock Prime tells Kirk to take control of the Enterprise through compromising Current Spock, then gins up Alternate Universe Scotty's warp transporter calculations and ends up sending them back to a speeding Enterprise.

Kirk rescues Scotty from the hydraulic system and gets beat up by Security, which happens to include the original bar cretins from the beginning of the movie.  Predictably, Kirk gets beat up.   Before Kirk is thrown in the brig though, he starts insulting Spock's momma.  The beginning of the movie showed us that Spock hates the Yo Momma jokes, and Spock ends up beating up Kirk.  (We're up to four and a half!)  Spock realizes that he's acting like a jerk and takes himself from command... leaving the Acting First Officer Kirk in charge.  Immediately he sets a course for Earth to intercept the Romulan Spiky Ship.

The final part of the movie starts with the Enterprise getting in range of the Romulan Spiky Ship and both Spock/Kirk beaming over.  There's a firefight on the Spiky Ship, and for a change Kirk doesn't get beat up.  Spock finds the part of the Spiky Ship that the Romulans are using to destroy planets, which happens to be Spock Prime's Scooty-Puff Jr..  Spock runs off with it, leaving Kirk in the Spiky Ship.  He ends up getting a rifle-butt to the side of the head (Five-and-a-half!) as the remaining Romulans try to get the Scooty-Puff Jr. back.  Kirk wakes up but starts getting beat up by the Romulan captain, who's just about ready to drop Kirk to his doom... until Kirk grabs the Romulan's holstered gun and shoots him in the gut.  We'll call that one a draw, one-half to one-half... bringing the final total of The Universe Hates James T. Kirk's Face count to six.

Nimoy Spock shows up for the epilogue and looks on as Kirk is proclaimed a Hero of Yavin.  Shortly after, the credits roll but unfortunately they don't drop on top of Kirk's head.

Spoiler Space over.

Whew.  There's a lot of action that they packed into these two hours.  I could tell that Shatner wasn't involved though, he'd end up winning those ridiculous fights rather than losing them.  To be sure, the movie worked far better as "The Universe Hates Jim Kirk's Face"... he's still young and he's not worldly enough to either avoid these fights nor smart enough to bluff his way through them.  However, there is one aspect of his character that shone through and was most endearing was his perseverance.  He did NOT give up one single inch.  Thankfully, letting Kirk be right about everything also is helped by Kirk's signature luck (such as finding Spock Prime in a random Hoth ice-cave.

Other than that, the movie had its share of humor, Chris Pike was good a taking both a punch and a pratfall.  It's certainly a worth-enough story for Star Trek, and while derivative at times it's still a solid movie... especially if you like sci-fi.

Final Rating: 3.5

#2LR Too Late Review: The Cat Returns

  There are times, in those early hours of the morning or when I'm relaxing, that my mind ends up wandering.  Sometimes it goes far afield, and sometimes it stays right where I am, kind of playing around my feet like a kitten with a ball of string.  When watching today's #2LR movie, The Cat Returns, the best comparison that I can make is to one of those half-aware dreams.

  To get the real-life details of the movie down on paper, this is a Studio Ghibli movie, though it's not a Miyazaki film.  It's actually a pseudo-sequel to the one of the few non-Miyazaki Ghibli theatrical films, Whisper of the Heart... which, despite owning (and enjoying) the movie, I have not done a Too Late Review of.  At any rate, both movies share a specific character... a cat figurine that comes to life, either through stories of the protagonist (in Whisper of the Heart) or by itself, to help the main protagonist in this movie.

  Consider the below Spoiler Space...

  The movie presents Haru, a high-school girl who is reluctant to get up, occasionally late to school (and laughed at by her troubles), and crushing on a boy who's already taken.  While she and her friend Hiromi are in town after school, she sees a cat carrying a curious wrapped package.  The cat attempts to cross the street, but is set upon by a large truck.  Haru gives her best efforts to save the cat with the device in her hand... a lacrosse stick, which she uses to scoop up the cat as she dashes across the road.

  The cat is safe, and oddly enough talks to her afterward to thank Haru for her actions.  Haru is confused, especially since no one else heard the cat on the busy street.  She thinks nothing of it, though her lacrosse stick is broken.  That evening, she goes to bed but hears a yowling out by the road.  There's a procession of cats, but these cats all walk on their hind legs.  At the tail end (HA!) of the procession is the King of Cat Kingdom, who thanks Haru for her actions... she saved the Crown Prince from death, and the King wants to reward Haru for what she's done.

  The next morning, Haru's yard is overgrown with catnip, which she is unfortunately allergic to.  She dashes off to school, but finds that her shoe locker is filled to the brim with mice.  Later on, her friend calls her to tell her that there's a couple gross of lacrosse sticks all over the hallway, and to ask Haru what to do with them.  In the afternoon of this very strange day, another cat comes up to Haru on its hind legs and tells Haru that the Cat King wants Haru to become his daughter-in-law, to marry the prince that she saved.

  Haru is taken aback, but thinks very long and hard about the offer.  The messenger cat takes her silence as consent and tells her to expect the Cat King to come around to collect her in the evening.  After the messenger cat leaves, Haru realizes that she may not want to do this... and she hears a voice telling her to find the Cat Bureau via a cat that is waiting for her at one of the cross-streets.  Haru seeks out this cat, an exceedingly chunky cat named Muta, and he leads her through quite a few paths to the Cat Bureau.  There she meets both the cat figurine mentioned above, Baron, as well as a stone crow that comes to life, Toto.

  While Haru is trying to process all of this, a massive group of cats comes to the Cat Bureau and pulls her away from her conversation with Baron.  Muta is pulled along with the cats, while the Baron and Toto try to follow along as best as possible.  The cats prove too quick... Haru and Muta are deposited in the Cat Kingdom while the Baron and Toto are on the outside looking in.

  Haru enjoys the Cat Kingdom at first... it's always noon, and the grass is perfect for catnaps.  Shortly after though, she's taken to the palace to be fitted into a dress... and finds herself starting to turn into a cat.  It's explained that she'll turn fully into a cat in order to facilitate the marriage between herself and the Prince, and Haru wants none of it.  A banquet is held for her later on, and the whole time she's despondent.  The Baron shows up and finally perks her spirits up, and manages to get her away from the Cat King.

  We find out that Haru has a chance to go back to the human world, that there's a portal at the top of a tower that's surrounded by a maze.  If she makes it back by morning, she'll be human again.  At first the Cat King is content to watch her get lost, but she and the Baron figure out the secret to the maze and get through to the tower.  The Cat King gets mad and ends up blowing the tower before she can reach the very tip-top to go through the portal.  At this point, it's revealed that Muta was a fearsome criminal (he ate all the fish in the pond) who was booted out of the Cat Kingdom, and he tries his level best to send Haru on her way out.  Thanks to timely intervention from the Prince and the cat that the Prince really would like to marry, the Cat King is thwarted and Haru manages to make it back to the human world.

  She bids a tearful goodbye to her new-found friends and ends up at the school for another school day.  During the epilogue of the story, we find out that Haru's pulled herself together far more, her adventures have helped her to realize who she is and what she needs to do in life... she gets up to go to school early, doesn't moon over her crush, and generally acts like an adult.

Spoiler space over.

  If you managed to make it through the plot, you'll see why I introduced the movie the way I did.  To me, this is almost the perfect vision of one of those lazy dreams put up on a movie screen.  The plot starts pretty conventionally, but progresses to weirder, and weirder, and weirder... little by little, so that you don't quite wake up from your dream, but it's far stranger to end with than it was to begin with.  Next thing you know, the day's crept up on you and you have to move around again in the "real world".  Heck, one of the plot points has to do with the time-limit set by the rising sun... if that's not a metaphor for the dreamy part of the plot to "wake up", I don't know what is.

  I suppose though that one of the depressing parts of this movie is the whole "growing up" thing.  The protagonist is shown as far more adult, far more put-together, far less impulsive, far more responsible... it almost feels like that equals "no imagination" to me.  There's times that I've had little to no imagination when I've been an adult, and I realize looking back on those times that I was also pretty glum and bored with life at times, especially those times when I was by myself.  Writing has been my primary outlet for getting through the imagination-less solitary glum parts of my life, and I hope that Haru has her lacrosse to get her through those parts of her life.

  In Whisper of the Heart, the message is to follow your dream, to become good at what you enjoy doing and seeing where life takes you.  In this movie, I feel that the message is to not get caught up in someone else's dream (e.g. the Cat King's), and to make sure that you're comfortable with your own self before trying to work towards a dream of your own.  It does make a lot of sense, in that at the end of the movie Haru has learned more about herself and is comfortable being who she is rather than defined by either her previous actions (such as saving the Prince, or helping those in need) nor is she willing to play someone else's role in life.  She's now in the position to dream for herself, to create her own world rather than borrow the Cat Kingdom's world to just laze around in.  So, in some odd way, the message of this movie is the prequel to Whisper of the Heart despite the characters making a reappearance for a sequel.

Final grade for this movie: 2.9 

It's especially good for a lazy afternoon, where your dreams and the movie's vision end up glomming together...

#2LR Too Late Review: Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life

I've noticed lately that this blog is getting into much more eclectic fields lately.  A Monster in Paris isn't exactly mainstream faire... Lupin III, the Oregon Trail Wii game... it's almost as if I'm just trying to find targets that haven't really had a review yet.  It's not exactly that, but it does make the job somewhat easier.

In the introductions on these Too Late Reviews, I at least try to show the angle which I will be attacking the movie from.  This way, you know that I'm putting a spin on the source material that you may not have thought of, or one that may have been at least lightly explored but not really fleshed out.  It's odd, in that the Too Late Review that I try to write for you, the readers, is one that is new content, or at least content that I haven't seen too much of before.  I hope that using my fifteen or so years of experience with deeply analyzing text stories, trying to get into the head of writers to craft jokes based on what they write, that it translates into being able to show another side of a movie that you may not have seen before.  So, to sum up... this movie really has no reviews, so that allows me to write about it in the broadest terms possible rather than to go at it from an obtuse angle... a pleasant change from some of my reviews.

Of course, the audience for Mystery Science Theater 3000 is old and getting older.  There's still the newer Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic where you could pick up an Imagine Dragons reference or a Demi Lovato namedrop, but the old series is what we started dealing with here on A MSTing For All Seasons and I'm not sure if any of the youngin's really will come for that.  So, I must admit that it was odd for me to have learned that the story behind the movie Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life is a recent story aimed at young adults.  I suppose that I myself am late to the party.

For this movie, Wikipedia's couple-of-paragraphs allow me to lean on them slightly, so please excuse me if there's much missing from the plot synopsis.  As always, Spoiler Space ahead.

Jeremy Fink's thirteenth birthday is coming up soon.  He and his friend Lizzy are in the lobby of their New York apartment building when Jeremy receives a package from Lizzy's father, the mailman.  In the package is a box, marked for Jeremy to open on his thirteenth birthday.  In the lid is carved "The Meaning of Life", ostensibly from Jeremy's father -- who passed away five years previous due to a car/pedestrian accident.  The box is a heavy wooden box that is locked with a total of four locks, but with no keys.  So now, Jeremy and Lizzy have to find a way inside.

Lizzy is a planner and schemer, and she figures out a seven- or eight-step plan to try to open the box.  None seem to work, even going to the locksmith, so both Lizzy and Jeremy try to go to the law office that had included a letter with the box to look for the keys.  After tossing the place, they get caught by security and sent to the police department.  The detective offers both children a way out, through community service by helping Mr. Oswald.

Mr. Oswald is quite the eccentric, an antiques dealer who will be retiring soon.  He has the kids picked up in a limousine and explains to them what he wants them to do... namely, delivering items that were pawned by their previous owners so that the owners could do something greater with their lives.  Accompanying each of the pawned items (example: telescope pawned by astronomer) is a letter describing why each was pawned.  Jeremy and Lizzy learn quite a bit from each of the persons they make deliveries to, my favorite being the old astronomer.  When Jeremy learns about why the astronomer pawned his telescope, he tells the astronomer that it just raises twenty new questions.  The astronomer comments to Jeremy that being able to keep asking questions even into old age is a rare gift, and one that he should always continue.

There are times that both children feel let down... at one point, Jeremy trashes his pet project, a time machine that he wishes he could use in order to bring back his father.  He laments the fact that circumstances weren't even slightly different in one scene of the movie, which brought back memories to a far more tedious scene played out in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (covered in previous review on this blog).  His friend Lizzy tosses the pieces after Jeremy's fit of anger.

At the end of the movie, Mr. Oswald is grateful for the help that both children provide and offers them anything that they could want in his library/study area.  Lizzy takes a porcelain doll, and Oswald produces a suitcase full of keys to Jeremy.  Jeremy takes it gleefully, and then tries to unlock each of the four locks on the box with the myriad keys.  They find three keys that fit, but not the fourth... meanwhile, it's 2AM on Jeremy's birthday, so he finally gives up and goes to sleep.

The next day, during the birthday party, Jeremy receives the old telescope as a gift and then opens another box... it's the key to his old time machine, which just so happened to be the fourth key to the box.  He opens the box and receives a heartfelt letter from his father.

The backstory from the father is that Jeremy's father went to Coney Island one day when he was thirteen, and went to the psychic to have his fortune told.  The psychic, mean person that she is, told him that he'd die by the age of forty.  Jeremy's father was the type to take that seriously, and in the letter describes how at first he was fixated on the idea of death being a large part of life... until he realized that life is made up of moments, and it matters more the use we make of those moments.  Jeremy's father did mention in the letter that not all of the moments of Jeremy's life will be the important ones, but wished that his son would know and understand when one of those moments would happen for him.  In the box... are rocks.  Meticulously noted are the moments that occurred when Jeremy's father collected each of the rocks, though none of the rocks are actually labelled so that Jeremy knows.

Jeremy then dashes back to Mr. Oswald's house, and learns that Mr. Oswald really is going to Florida.  However, he finds out from the limousine chauffeur that his father was the one that pretty much set everything up.  He met Mr. Oswald in the flea markets, and set about collecting all of the old items that were of importance to others... and asked all those others to make Jeremy's thirteenth birthday such a special occasion for Jeremy.  Everyone, from both Jeremy's mom and Lizzy's dad, through the locksmith, through the detective and the security guard at the law office, and all of the people they interacted with... were all on the birthday surprise.  And now, Jeremy has one more special reason to not only remember his father, but to make his life into one that he wishes to make it into.

Spoiler space over.

This movie had a very simple and beautiful way to tell the audience reading this book that even though each of the moments is personal, that they can still be shared with the person you love.  On top of that, Jeremy's father, from beyond the grave, encouraged Jeremy to make a collection of his own moments that were special.  Love allowed this message to come across to Jeremy, and... well, hey, er....

For a review, this was really a sweet movie.  The same movie watcher can watch the same movie twice and come to two rather radical decisions... in some way, I try to allow for this in my reviews when I assign a number grade to a movie.  I attempt to think about how a movie may work if I'm as ultra-receptive as possible, and then think about the movie in an almost nihilistic MSTing point of view.  I suspect that a few things going on in my life (including the fact that I have children ages 11-10-7-3) allow me to be more receptive to this movie than I may ordinarily be, but in all seriousness the emotion felt eager.  The child actors did a good job of just being children... and if you're receptive to the message, it's a strong and heartfelt one.  Just don't let the tone put you off in the first few minutes... and if you find that it is, just swap out the movie until a time that you're feeling a bit more mellow.  It'll always be there.

I can certainly understand how this could be taken as treacly... I mean, there were some really far-fetched things going on (such as the details shared in the last paragraph of the plot outline, Mr. Oswald's true gift at the end... it would have been so interesting for the gift to have been another, less-famous of the type along with a note telling him to keep searching and to never give up).

But, hey.  This movie sums up in ninety minutes really two of the reasons that I'm doing this blog.  I want to be able to share some of myself with you, which is one of the messages that the father's gift allows to Jeremy.  And remembering your moments (like your favorite movies) and writing them down will allow you to revisit those moments, to give you the feelings and emotions that you once had.  Writing is so liberating in that regard... and through writing, I hope that my emotion shines through even as the movie's does.  I don't wish to lead a life of quiet desperation (in a famous Thoreau quote)... this movie encourages you to make happy memories, and I would be remiss if I didn't do the same.

Final review: 3.2.   I would certainly watch this movie again, especially with my family.

Happy Autumn everybody, and thank you for your patience with us here in the last two months.  I'm still trying to establish a better and easier schedule for me to publish, and I truly hope that all our readers are still enjoying what reviews and articles we're able to post.

#2LR Too Late Review: Epic

There's more than a little to report as the calendar shifts to September.  Our little blog is about to crest 10,000 hits, which is certainly not exactly a big deal in the Land of Internet... spamlink posts designed to get little ol' me to click on them probably contributed around 350-500 of these hits, so it's really a hollow number regardless.  At the very least, we're getting roughly the same number of legitimate hits per month, 350-500, and I thank you all for reading our musings and reviews.  It's been about a year or so since I started posting more frequently, and I can see that there's interest in the numbers.  Thanks for everyone, you readers are on the cutting edge of this ride and I hope that you all enjoy it.

I'm also typing this on my fixed laptop.  Best Buy *wants* you to buy a new laptop, hence the $300-$700 quote.  HP is at least slightly interested in keeping their equipment running.  $200 later, my screen works and all of the niggling little things (loose battery packs, cameras that don't work, etc.) are taken care of.  It's $200 that I didn't want to spend, but those people at HP managed to turn around my service call in only two days flat... I boxed up the package on a Wednesday, HP received it, fixed it, and boxed it back up on Thursday, and I had it back in my hands by Friday.  Thankfully, HP didn't do a system refresh on it, so I don't have to spend the next two weeks figuring out what software was and wasn't installed.  I'm both grateful and annoyed at the same time... gratenoyed?  ann-ateful?

Which leads me to tonight's review.  I'm at least as current as it gets around here, reviewing the movie Epic, which was released in late May of 2013.  The movie is based on a book by William Joyce, which I had never read before anyway... you're getting nothing but critique without the Harry Potter-ish book insights or complaints.

Spoiler space below:

In some indeterminate forest, there's a fight in the air between little skull dudes on larger black birds (ravens?) and little dudes in green armor, riding ruby-throated hummingbirds.  The little skull dudes -- "Boggans" -- always seem to outnumber the green armor dudes -- "Leafmen", but the Leafmen manage to make up for it with better tactics and the ability to take out multiple Boggans.

One of the Leafmen is woefully out of place, Nod.  He pulls multiple Beetle Baileys and is ultimately kicked out of the Leafmen ranks for not being a team player by another of the protagonists, Ronin.  Ronin carries himself rather like a stereotypical Japanese warrior, between the kendo-style armor (without faceguard), the katana blade, and the hand holding the blade, where one thumb is enough to expose the blade to show that "he means business".

In the world of us regular-sized people, Mary Katherine (MK) is being dropped off at a solitary house in the woods.  Her father Bomba has wired the whole forest for sound, trying to keep an eye on the little people with all the cameras he's rigged in the forest.  He's meticulous, keeping a map of all the contacts, and even has a miniature display of Boggan armor.

Back to the little people, the Queen of the Forest has to hand her powers over soon.  She helps everything to live, while the Boggans derive the power to decay from their leader.  The night that the story opens is the important one, as she needs to pick a pod in order to transfer her power, and the pod has to bloom by the light of the full moon on the summer solstice.  (Time to set up a new system, Queenie.)

Meanwhile, MK finds that she's not crazy living with dear obsessed Dad after a short time and ends up writing a goodbye note.  She packs her bag and calls the taxi to depart.  However, the little three-legged, one-eyed dog escapes the house, and MK chases after it.

As the queen and the Leafmen come back from pod-picking, they get ambushed by Boggans.  The Queen ends up shot through the chest, and at the same time MK and the dog bust onto the scene.  MK happens across the odd little panorama, and the queen's magic ends up shrinking MK to little-person size, with instructions on how to deal with the pod.

From here, Nod, Ronin, MK, and the two slug pod caretakers end up on a whirlwind adventure, getting instructions from one of the oldest trees in the forest via a caterpillar, to losing the pod, to infiltrating the Boggan headquarters, to almost getting caught by obsessive-compulsive Daddy, to almost failing when the pod is to be opened via the moonlight.  MK figures out why the Queen used her magic to call MK into the land of little people, as she serves as the conduit to her father who's able to deal with the Boggan menace and save the day at the end.

Refreshingly, the story ends as Nod and MK share one last kiss, and she returns to full size.  She realizes her dad isn't a complete kook, definitely wants to stay by the forest so that she can talk to Nod via the forest webcams, and finds out that her place in life is in the forest.  (For the time being, at least.)

Spoiler space over.

It's quite a bit up there, isn't it?  Originally, I was going to just shrug my shoulders and give up, because the screenwriters packed in a lot of stuff into the movie, including frogs, vast multitudes of talking plants, all the odd mythos that I had a bit of a hard time keeping up with, and so on.  This is a movie that you can't just get up to refresh your drink or go get some popcorn... either you're going to miss a portion of a fight sequence that you need to keep up with what's going on, or you're going to miss a plot point that will be important at some time in the future.  This movie is dense.

Our family bought the movie and decided to have a family night watching it, and I can tell how the movie was with the reactions of our children:

11-year-old: mostly interested.
10-year-old: at times, dozed off.  Other times, watched.
7-year-old: as interested in cuddling as in watching the film.
3-year-old: playing on my legs like a jungle gym.

When the ten-year-old talked to us after the movie, he expressed interest in watching it again.  I asked him why, as we had watched it last night, and he mentioned that he was asleep through a few portions but wanted to see them in context again.

So, I suppose that this will be the basis of my final grade for this movie.  The action sequences are typically fun if a bit dizzying, the plot is dense and dizzying unless you're really giving some attention to the movie, and if you do it does feel like you've seen a long, twisty-turny story.  This movie is not a pass-the-time movie, it's a "give me ATTENSHUNS! nom nom nom" movie.  The only issue is that you have to keep yourself interested in the movie to keep going forward, and if you lose focus.... you're in the net, watching the other tightrope walkers try to balance their way across to the denouement.

Final review: 2.3

#2LR Too Late Review: A Monster in Paris

Tonight's #2LR Too Late Review is A Monster in Paris.  Yeah, I hadn't heard of it either.  That's okay, though, feel free to check your Netflix instant queue, that's where my wife found it.  The movie is a family movie, and it's perfectly suitable for kids (not like, say, Shrek with the occasional joke that the kids ask to have explained and you feel slightly uncomfortable).  It's in the cookie-cutter CGI mold, so if you've seen, for instance, Megamind or Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, you'll be familiar with the art.

Getting back to how obscure this movie is, this movie is really obscure.  I don't know if any additional hits will generate from me writing about it here, but that's okay; me remembering the movie and telling you readers about it is fine, too.  I'm writing this description just as much for me so that I can remember the movie as I am writing for you readers to enjoy.

  Spoiler Space ahead (and this time, it really means something!)

The movie is set in Paris, 1910.  The backdrop is a Paris that is partially submerged from a flood that no one really expected.  Film projectionist Emile is shown first, daydreaming about his crush Maud, but gets interrupted by best friend Raoul.  Before Emile can ask Maud out for the first time, Raoul drags Emile away on a whirlwind adventure running Raoul's delivery route.

At the last stop of the night, they come across the greenhouse and lab of the curator of the botanical gardens.  He has a monkey valet (!) that is intelligent enough to provide cards to respond to questions.  After repeated warnings, Emile and Raoul end up playing in the lab, first creating a giant sunflower and then inadvertantly splashing an unoffending flea.  The flea grows to seven feet tall and runs off before attacking.

The police commissioner, Maynott, gets wind that a "monster" is loose in the city and uses it as a crisis to punch up his candidacy for mayor of France.  (Noun, verb, nine-eleven!)  There are various sightings of the bug through the city, e.g. an old woman, a man and wife, etc.  Eventually it comes to the doorstop of one of Paris' leading clubs, The Rare Bird.  There's a featured signer there... no, not Ol' Blue Eyes, but a girl that Raoul is crushing on but doesn't want to admit.

The singer, Lucille, also gets startled by the seven-foot flea.  The flea saves her when she swoons, making sure she doesn't hit the ground.  She comes to while still in the flea's ... uh, arms, I suppose, and scrambles back to the relative safety of the building she just left.  The flea remains outside, and then... starts singing.  (Keep following me, don't get sidetracked.)  This happened from one of the other potions that Emile and Raoul were playing with in the botanical gardens.  When the monkey was hit with it first, he gains a beautiful singing voice, and the flea is no different.  The flea can't seem to communicate by talking, just singing... much like the real-life Flea.

Lucille is enchanted by the singing and sets about disguising the bug from the city's rampaging policemen.  She manages to find a leftover mask from The Phantom of the Opera and adds a white variant on the Zorro costume for the giant flea, which she renames Francoeur.  Francoeur shows an aptitude for the guitar, and ends up on stage with Lucille when she performs next... his odd falsetto voice providing counterpart to her smooth alto as they sing a tribute to La Seine.  Go ahead, check the link out... it's only 166 seconds, and the music gets your toes tapping at least.

Afterward, Lucille and Raoul (remember, one of the two male protagonists) manage to find their mutual attraction.  As they troop down to the dressing room, Raoul and Emile find out that Francoeur is the giant flea, the Monster in Paris, and now they've been inducted into the little gang.  Commissioner Maynott receives word that Lucille is hiding the flea, and searches her quarters, but Raoul and Emile hid Francoeur well enough to avoid detection.  When the police depart, the conspirators decide on a plan, essentially staging Francoeur's death during a rally for Maynott's run for mayor of Paris.  One of Maynott's assistants sniffs out the subterfuge, and the subsequent scenes all converge on the Eiffel Tower, currently standing above about fifteen feet of water.

The penultimate scene throws Maud back into the mix, as the now four friends and the monkey try their darndest to keep Maynott from killing Francoeur.  The movie kind of loses steam at this point, I'm sad to say... the denouement was a bit surprising in that it felt like the screenwriters didn't know how to really end it well, unless you think about it a bit.

There's a final encore at the club where Lucille sings, and a short vignette about how Lucille and Raoul first met.  Then come the credits.

Spoiler space over

This is easily one of the most obscure movies I've reviewed.  It also manages to give its characters more than a bit of heart, including not just resorting to "big, ugly, scary mean person" as shorthand for the antagonist.  The antagonist is shown as venal and lazy, and with the depth (or lack thereof) on his character it's not a guilt trip that you root against him.  In this movie, people were *people*.  Heck, the monkey and the flea were even people, with the monkey providing comic relief and the flea filling in as the Frankenstein's Monster reluctant scarer du' jour.

It also helped that the music was enjoyable.  One of my own family members was not present for the Youtube scene I linked above, and I'll repost it here if anyone skipped Spoiler Space.  The actress who played Lucille did a terrific job through the singing portions, and while it was disconcerting to hear Julian Lennon singing higher than her, it actually kind of worked.

There's plenty of humor, there's very little (if any) blue humor, and it was a marvelous way to pass a quick ninety minutes.  There's not too many movies that can say the same thing, even if the moralizing was laid on a bit thick (look, ma, the giant flea wasn't the monster, it was the mean police commissioner!).

Final rating: 3.2

#2LR - Highlander, with Rifftrax

Diving right in, as there's not been too much content lately...

Tonight's #2LR review is the '86 cult favorite Highlander, featuring Conor "Le Frenchy" MacLeod and The Kurgan, not to mention Sean Connery as the world's most macholy fey Spaniard.

Spoiler(?) space below:

The movie opens with pro wrestling... I was really curious why the playacting fighting, especially since the first fight between "Frenchy" MacLeod and the odd German/Wall Street suited-type dude was just as playacting.  At one point during the fight, it broke into the floor exercise, with multiple handflips backward by the German dude, who at this point I was mistaking as a member of the East German women's gymnastic team.

Throughout this scene... really, throughout the whole movie, we get treated to an extended flashback of "Frenchy" MacLeod's childhood in Scotcherfrance.  It seems that he was intentionally wading into a battle with another clan, and this is where we first meet The Kurgan, who oddly already knows that MacLeod is a (or will be an) immortal.  Yes, Kurgan's first name is "The".  Anyway, The Kurgan manages to run Frenchy through, but before The Kurgan can remove Frenchy's head, Clan MacLeod comes to his defense and drives off The Kurgan.  (HOW??)

Back in the present, the cops find out about the deheadening, and we end up treated to The Last Grizzled Cop <tm> and the Forensics chick.  Forensics girl finds the German's sword left behind, and marvels that it would be worth "one meeel-yon dollars" (oh, wrong movie).  She happens to be a published expert on the subject of medieval weapons.  Meanwhile, our buddy Frenchy gets caught doing eighty-eight miles an hour out of the parking garage, looking like the guiltiest New Yorker ever.  He doesn't get charged (?!), and leaves the station.

Later, after a bar pickup gone back, MacLeod runs across The Kurgan again, but Forensics gets a front-row seat to the battle.  The battle ends up being a screwjob, with a police helicopter serving as the plot fodder.  Both retreat, but The Kurgan ends up blabbing more of MacLeod's past.

Afterward, MacLeod finds another Immortal, who for some reason isn't fighting him (or vice-versa).  The other Immortal ends up running across The Kurgan, who beheads him without too much muss or fuss, and the police end up learning that MacLeod is at least not the only one removing heads around New York.

The action goes away for a while to try to set up MacLeod's tragic backstory, to give Sean Connery some screentime in a desperate bid for legitimacy, and to try its awfully hardest to make Forensics Chick into the female lead.  Needless to say, all fail miserably, especially Point #3.

Back in the present, The Kurgan runs across MacLeod lighting candles to his old sweetie in a church.  Immortals are forbidden from fighting in the church (why?  Because THE KURGAN says so, dangit.), so The Kurgan resorts to verbal taunting.  Not only of MacLeod but of the whole church, almost saving what little of the film he could.  After uttering his famous line ("I have something to say.  It's better to burn out than to fade away!"), the movie is allowed to plod to its conclusion.

The Kurgan takes Forensics Chick in order to trap MacLeod, and it works.  After another tepid sword battle where the combatants may not Glow but their weapons do, MacLeod manages to separate The Kurgan's head... bummer.  Frenchy's prize(s)?  Forensics chick and the ability to die, along with "being one with all living things".  You can tell that this was back in the day, long before movies were written purely to set up sequels, and the ending just didn't matter.

Spoiler space over

This movie was... well, it is a choice piece of 80s nostalgia, at least.  The fight sequences aren't exactly Hong Kong action, especially with the sword-waving.  It certainly has its unintentional comedy though, which seemed to have saved the movie.  The Kurgan was far more fascinating than I would have thought based on his first appearance... the skull armor, in 15th century Scotcherfrance?  The church scene was absolutely STOLEN by The Kurgan, for the better.  I miss him already, and many other movies could use a character like The Kurgan as an antagonist for extra enjoyment.

Sadly, The Kurgan couldn't save this.  I know that this is a cult favorite, and I am certainly NOT one to speak down to cult favorites (*cough* MST3k, Firefly, Star Trek, etc.) but I did see my answer when I went to the Wikipedia page.  This sentence was waiting:

"Gregory Widen wrote the script to Highlander, which he then titled Shadow Clan, as a class assignment while he was an undergraduate in the screenwriting program at UCLA."

I have two words for that.  "It shows".  The back-and-forth flashbacks were odd, the casting was FAR odder, and while the movie could have had some interesting implications if they really carried through "The Prize" successfully, it was a complete cop-out to receive great power limited by mortality.  NOT an astounding prize, and while they did put together sequels, I'm certainly not watching them.

My apologies if I'm missing anything in this movie, but it heartily deserves its 1.3 .  The Kurgan, you get 1.2 of those points, and the other tenth is for Sean Connery's "Spanish" outfit, a visual feast of red velvet and regret.

The Rifftrax, however, gets the film a solid 2.8.  Mike, Kevin, and Bill did as best they could, and this is one of those movies that at least tried their darndest to build the mythos and plot.  It's just too bad that the script was so hobbled, much less "Frenchy" MacLeod and Forensics Chick, both woefully miscast.  The Rifftrax comes highly recommended for those people who love Highlander, who enjoy laughing at the 80s, or who don't mind sitting through long portions of a movie (aka "the swordfights") without much to recommend itself.

Forthcoming, the promised essays on spoof movies.