Category Archives: Movies

Spoiler Alert! (Not!)

Posted on by under blog snax, Movies

A BlogSnax© post

People watch a lot of Hallmark Christmas romance movies this time of year. I’ve heard that they created 41 “new” ones this year alone. The word “new” is qualified here because none of them are really new. Even the people who watch them (people like me, I confess) will admit that they only have three plots—the undercover royalty, the big city business person who rekindles an old flame in her small hometown while trying to put a local institution out of business, and the person posing as a fiancé[e]/girlfriend/boyfriend to fool the family—with a rotating ensemble of about six actors who do nothing else. (I’m looking at you, Danica McKellar!)

So how come when you read people’s reviews of these dogs on IMDb, they sometimes say “spoiler alert”? News flash, folks: There’s nothing to spoil!! A spoiler alert for one of these holiday train wrecks is as useful as a spoiler alert for Scooby Doo—Hey, it’s not a real monster. It’s a guy dressed up as a monster! Or Gilligan’s island—No, they don’t get off the island. Gilligan screws up again and they remain stranded on their three-hour cruise for which they packed three years worth of clothing and supplies.

Just had to get that off my chest before the new year.

A Golden Age of Quirky British Films

Posted on by under Movies

I’m a major fan of what I think of as quirky British movies. And lately there has been a bumper crop to choose from. It’s been a wonderful era for people like me. Here are a handful that I’ve enjoyed most:

  • The Duke (2/25/22 UK) This movie stars two of my favorite living film performers: Helen Mirren and Jim Broadbent. That alone is worth the price of admission. (That’s a meaningless assessment given that I got the video from the library but you get my point.) This is based on the true story of a painting stolen from the National Gallery. It would be great regardless but the fact that the events are essentially true make it even more appealing, if that’s possible.
  • The Phantom of the Open (3/18/22) Another brilliant (in both the literal US meaning as well as the common British usage) performance by yet another brilliant actor, Mark Rylance. Again, a (“based on”) true story of a down-and-outer who decides to take up golf by entering the British Open before he’s played a single round. It has the added incentive of including the incomparable Sally Hawkins. We’ll see her again in this list.
  • Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris (7/15/22 US) If this delightful more-than-just-a-romantic-comedy doesn’t put a smile on your face, you might want to check your pulse. This isn’t a true story, but I wish it were.
  • The Lost King (3/24/23 US) Another Sally Hawkins vehicle. I’ll watch anything she does, including commercials, if she ever makes one. (She’s so great, she almost saved the dreadful poser movie, “The Shape of Water”.) This is another inspired-by-true-events tale about an amateur historian who fights the powers-that-be to make a discovery everyone told her was impossible.

The next one is far and away the cream of said bumper crop, IMHO. It’s quirkier than all of the rest combined but (a) has absolutely zero (maybe less) basis in reality and (b) has not one single big name performer. Nonetheless, this is one of my favorite movies in years.

  • Brian and Charles (7/8/22 UK) No synopsis can do this justice. The short version is that it’s about an eccentric Welshman who invents a robot to keep him company. But it’s not in any sense science fiction.

A couple of honorable mentions to spectacular British films that aren’t quirky enough but are great regardless:

  • Living (11/4/22 UK) Bill Nighy, who makes every movie he’s in better, in a role he was born to play.
  • Banshees of Inisherin (11/4/22 US) It’s more twisted and dark than quirky and definitely not a comedy, despite what its marketeers claim, but it is terrific.

American cinema hasn’t produced quirky films as prolifically as have our British cousins but one recent entry I’d put in the same category as those above is:

  • Jerry and Marge Go Large (6/17/22 US) Like a few of the above, this film features great performances by great actors portraying real people in a stranger-than-fiction situation.

All those movies were released in the last 18 months. It’s a feast for the quirk-lovers among us.

What’s Poor?

Posted on by under blog snax, Books, Generic Rant, Movies

A BlogSnax© post

I had an interesting experience recently. I use the term “interesting” against my better judgment because, as Ben points out in “Captain Fantastic”, it’s a non-word. I’m simply at a loss regarding how else to describe it. I’ll tell you and you can come up with your own assessment.

I was reading a picture book I’d written to a class of kindergartners. The book, “The Little Red Boat Came Back”, is about a little girl living in Haiti. Her mother leaves to seek out a new home for them. Introducing the book and its topic, I gave a short spiel about Haiti, a topic about which I’m passionate. I told the kids that the inhabitants of Haiti, which is on an island not far from the US, are very poor.

At that point, one child hesitantly raised his hand. Delighted that this child was sufficiently engaged to ask a question, I stopped my presentation to hear his query. To my amazement, he asked,

“What’s poor?”

I was dumbfounded. Maybe my expectations were too high but I assumed, even at that tender age, the concept of poverty would be understood. I gave as good an answer to his sincere and reasonable question as I could muster at the time but, in retrospect, I think I could have done better.

I’m not sure what the child’s puzzlement says about him, his upbringing, his community (an affluent one), his school, or our society but I was troubled at the time and I remain so.

I can’t even tell you why.

Finding the Good in the Bad

Posted on by under Movies

There are a lot of movies out there. I think I’ve seen most of them. Sad. More often than not, they’re bad movies. For reasons that aren’t obvious but which are probably related to my low-level OCD, once I begin watching a movie, I usually watch the whole thing. To paraphrase the inimitable Chaka Khan, once I get started, oh, it’s hard to stop. I continue viewing long after a flick has proven itself a total waste of my time. That’s when I bemoan the loss of two hours of my life (or in the case of Christopher Nolan’s interminable epics-in-his-own-mind, three) and wonder why I didn’t just turn it off.

Occasionally, though, I’m rewarded for my long-suffering tolerance of mediocrity and outright garbage. Amidst all the dreck that constitute so many films, there might be a nugget of gold that makes the whole effort worthwhile. Here are some examples of memorable moments from forgettable flicks.

  • Remember a movie called “Hot Pursuit”? I didn’t think so. I saw it and I still don’t remember it. It was a poor cop/buddy/crime comedy that did none of those things well. However, it had what I think was a priceless bit of banter. Some thugs kidnap two women and “take them for a ride”. When one of the two women claims she has to stop at a bathroom to deal with some “women’s issues”, one of the IQ-of-Donald-Trump kidnappers asks, “Can’t she hold it?” Well worth the 90 minutes of terrible cinema.
  • Mel Brooks is no slouch. His movies are generally filled with plenty of laughs, albeit often crude and/or cringeworthy. It could be that “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” was one of them but I’ve never seen it. Somehow I did catch one line that was a classic Brooksian single entendre. It makes me laugh and cringe to this day. A character is described as “cocksure and headstrong”, but the person making that claim rethinks it and immediately adds, “Or maybe it’s the other way around.” Don’t try this at home.
  • Another terrible movie I never saw was the raunchy “Exit to Eden”. Dan Akroyd, one of its stars, listed it as a movie he wishes he’d never made. I’m not sure exactly what the plot was for this poor excuse for soft porn. It allegedly involved police going undercover at some kind of sexual fantasy camp. Some kinky guy approaches bemused leather-clad cop Rosie O’Donnell and asks, “How can I fulfill your fantasy?” Without missing a beat, Ms. O’Donnell retorts with the only message in this whole fiasco that rings true to any normal human being, “Go paint my house.”
  • I don’t even remember the name of the movie that was the source of this entry. A guy confused by the whole concept of ballet wants to know why they all dance on their toes. He asks, “Why don’t they get taller dancers?” I’m not alone in thinking this is a good line. I’ve since come to learn that the quip was originally uttered by none other than Henny Youngman. If you’re gonna steal, steal from the best.
  • Not every one of my favorite lines is from a bad movie. The lines are just so good, they transcend the mediocrity of the rest of the work. Such is the case with my favorite line from the “Fantastic Four” movie of 2005 (to distinguish it from the several other FF reboots and preboots), which I liked. Just before he is about embark on some foolhardy adventure, Johnny “The Human Torch” Storm (portrayed by Chris Evans) is warned by his sister Sue (“Invisible Woman”, Jessica Alba), “Don’t even think about it!” His response is one I’ve used many times since in similar, though non-superhero, contexts. Johnny calls back, “I never do!” as he flies off into who knows what shenanigans.
  • I admit I’ve never seen this next offering, although I’m a big fan of the creator. Nick Parks and his animated films are invariably terrific. Reviews of “Early Man” indicate that it was no exception. I’m not sure why I’ve never checked it out. Honestly, all I know of it is the commercial, which includes this priceless line spoken by a caveman in a prehistoric marketplace where he discovers an innovation: a loaf of sliced bread. He’s so overwhelmed by the idea, he utters, “Sliced bread?!? Why this is the best thing since… ever!”
  • The final item on my list is not a line. However, I feel confident in nominating it as offering the highest ratio between the hilarity of the gag (hysterical) and the quality of the overall film (miserable). In “Meteor Man”, Robert Townsend’s character is somehow endowed with superpowers, including the ability to fly. There’s a problem, though. He has a deathly fear of heights. To solve the problem, he never flies more than 3 feet off ground. Horrible movie but I wouldn’t have missed the image of him skimming along at kneecap level for the world. I laugh today just thinking about it.

There are surely many more candidates out there. One person’s list will be radically different than mine due to the subjective nature of movie and humor tastes. It’s nice to know that, even in the worst cinematic effort, maybe the creators didn’t phone the whole thing in.

William Goldman was an optimist

Posted on by under Generic Rant, Movies

One of my favorite quotes is from one of my favorite screenwriters. William Goldman, who wrote such brilliant scripts as “The Princess Bride”, “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid”, and “All the President’s Men”, among others, once summed up his opinion about the state of affairs in the film business by saying:

Nobody knows anything. Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what’s going to work. Every time out it’s a guess—and, if you’re lucky, an educated one.

He was talking about Hollywood’s ability (or inability) to predict which movies would be hits and which bombs. His wisdom has proven accurate over the years.* Supposedly sure things with well known commodities as subject matter and bankable stars have soiled the proverbial bed. (Think “Jungle Cruise”, for just one instance.) There are several every year, just as there are several surprise hits. All this in spite of the focus groups, market research, and billions spent on advertising.

Let me suggest that Mr. Goldman, as much as I respect him and his acerbic opinions, was an optimist by limiting his comments to the film industry. Here are a few more fields where his insight applies just as well:

  • Medicine
  • Sports
  • Politics
  • Economics
  • Publishing
  • Weather forecasting
  • Religion
  • The list goes on and on…

Go ahead. Check “predictions” about what college quarterback will be a star. (Tom Brady? No way! That’s why he was drafted in the sixth round.) Ask ten economists how to solve some financial crisis and you’ll get a dozen plans. You can’t even get doctors to agree on whether a patient has multiple sclerosis, never mind how it will progress. (They don’t even know what it is.)

Even a field such as technology where there a lot of smart people (although I spent my professional career in high-tech, I wasn’t one of them) has had its share of gaffes. Check out this curiously entertaining list. The folks making those predictions were no slouches but they still got it wrong.

This is why as a child of the 60’s (okay, Boomer) I still abide by the motto, “Question Authority”. Especially in medicine. Especially in neurology. Especially in multiple sclerosis.

Your mileage may vary.

But probably not.

*With the possible exception of the pre-Disney Pixar, which produced hit after hit after hit… etc.

[Goldman photo by Bernard Gotfryd, photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]

Ultimate Christmas time-saver!

Posted on by under Generic Rant, Movies

Like many of you out there, I’m addicted to Hallmark-style Christmas romance movies. They’re awfully acted, wretchedly written, dreadfully directed Christmas-cookie-cutter calamities. Yet, for reasons I can’t identify, I watch them anyway. (Admit it, you watch them, too.) I already wrote about my addiction in a post from a few years ago.

Other than “A Christmas Kiss”, the “Citizen Kane” of Christmas romance movies (from a non-Hallmark source, more recently and inexplicably renamed “A Kiss for Christmas”) they are a complete and total waste of time during a season when time is at a premium. We’re fortunate they’re all almost exactly only 90 minutes long or some people might never leave the house for the whole month of December.

This year, however, I’ve come up with the perfect time saver for addicts like me. As a public service, I’m passing along my findings to you, no charge. (I know, that kind of selfless anti-capitalist behavior isn’t in the modern Christmas spirit.) First, I found the following video at my local library: a collection of nine of these dogs on three DVDs in a single package.

Now here’s the tricky part. Hook up your DVD player(s) so they can read and play all nine movies at the same time! (How? You’ll have to work it out. Hey, I gave you the idea; I can’t do everything for you!) Once that’s all set, sit down and watch all nine movies in parallel. You just watched 810 minutes of miserable movies in 90 minutes, a time savings of 12 hours!

When I did this, other than a few scenes where characters seemed to have multiple shadows and the colors were a little funky, you can’t tell you’re watching multiple movies. That’s because, in reality, you aren’t! They really are all the same movie!*

There. My Christmas gift to you. You’re welcome.

*Seriously, two of the movies had the same actor as the male protagonist with the same irritating personality in the same job: a workaholic advertising executive. I’ll admit to giving up after that revelation. That’s another approach to the problem: go cold (Christmas) turkey.

Modern movie clichés…

Posted on by under Movies

Hollywood is built on the back of clichés. It thrives on the familiar, which is why we get endless retreads, reboots, and remakes, not to mention trite pop culture icons (e.g. comics, board games, toys, and theme park rides) rehashed into lame movie franchises. I once joked with a production company executive that the next frontier of such drivel would be breakfast cereals. (“Cap’n Crunch Meets the Flying Dutchman!”, “Snap, Crackle, and Pop: Crime-fighting Triple Threat!”) I was kidding. He said it had already been discussed. You may yet see the horror flick, “Lucky Charms: They’re Magically Deadly!”

But most movies these days are merely collections of individual clichés. The age-old list of classics include such tired bits as:

  • The L-shaped bed sheets that reveal the man’s chest but not the woman’s.
  • Every room in Paris has a view of the Eiffel Tower.
  • All police investigations must have a scene in a strip joint.

There are many more back in the past but this post is about the newer banalities infecting our streams not the antique ones that used to infest our cinemas. The best way to know a movie effect has achieved cliché status (even better than seeing it repeated endlessly in mass-market studio productions) is when it starts to appear in commercials.

I won’t mention the proliferation of vomiting or profanity, which I’ve dealt with already in previous posts. They’re ubiquitous and gratuitous to the point of becoming clichés.

Here are some of the best ones I can think of off the top of my head:

  • The protagonist casually saunters toward the camera, walking away from a huge explosion that he (or she… but let’s face it, it’s usually a guy creating the mayhem) caused. Wondering where you’ve seen this one? Everywhere!
  • A person falls from the sky and lands in a three-point crouch, waiting to spring into action. Typically, the ground where he lands shatters. Yeah, Iron Man and Thor, I’m looking at you. And countless others, including advertisements.
  • Walking unscathed through the middle of a wild firefight, shooting in both directions… sometimes with arms crossed for some inexplicable reason.
  • Speaking of shooting, there’s the person who dives sideways while shooting. Inevitably, even though he’s flying through the air out of control, he hits everything in sight. On the other hand, he’s untouched by anyone shooting at him. You knew this was a cliché when it appeared in a fake trailer in the movie “The Holiday”. Actually, that trailer includes several popular clichés.
  • A person defies gravity by leaning waaaaay back in slooooow motion to avoid a swinging sword. The character is essentially playing sword limbo. They might also be ducking bullets (yeah, right) but only Keanu Reeves can get away with that one.
  • Viewed from inside one car, another car slams into its side, shocking everyone. Well, it shocked everyone when I first saw it in “Adaptation”. Now it shocks nobody.
  • Important character makes dramatic entrance by opening a massive door, backlit as a silhouette. Cool when Aragorn entered Helm’s Deep in “The Two Towers”. Now? Not cool at all.
  • Someone opens a refrigerator door (or other door, but the fridge does this best) and when they close it, someone (or something) is revealed standing behind it. It was cute in “E.T.” It ain’t cute or scary anymore. It’s boring and unoriginal like all the rest of these.

Scenes like those are so hackneyed, I mentally check out of the movie as soon as I see them. It means the director is lazy and unoriginal and I’m no longer interested in what the movie has to say. But it’s not just scenes. An individual line is enough to send me heading for the exit… or the head. Here are a couple of examples:

  • After an atrocious encounter involving intense emotional conflict that unexpectedly blows up in a character’s face, that person looks at another and says with thick sarcasm, “That went well.” It has now become part of everyday parlance. Or maybe it began there. Either way, it keeps coming at us from what used to be called “the big screen” long after it lost any impact.
  • A surprised character declares, “I didn’t see that coming.” Maybe not, but I did. And I’m sick of it.

The saddest part of this is that, somewhere along the line, each of these was original and effective. “The Matrix” was a gold mine of great shots and effects. By now, all those have been hijacked by lesser movies thus making even the original less enjoyable. I’ve already seen one of my favorite action shots, that of Bruce Willis stepping out of a rotating car in “RED”, botched up in some inferior wannabe clone.

And don’t get me started on movies that show one of the final scenes as some sort of “teaser” at the beginning. That might have been clever once or twice (although I doubt it) but it’s reached epidemic levels. There’s almost never a legitimate reason for it either, beyond the director’s conceit.

There are so many more examples, but I’ve run out of time, patience, and energy all at once.

[Side note: One of the primary indications that my life is sweeping by faster than a Delorean with a flux capacitor is how quickly I get behind on these posts. If you’d asked me how long it had been since I posted one, I’d have said 2-3 weeks. Nope. It’s been six weeks. ((sigh)) ]

In case you missed it…

Posted on by under Movies

In case you missed one of my many announcements, this post is to let you know about the documentary I recently released on an unsuspecting populace.

“Who Is MS?” profiles the lives of a group of men and women living with multiple sclerosis, MS, a devastating, incurable disease that afflicts nearly 1,000,000 people in the US and almost 3,000,000 in the world. By listening to their stories, you will gain a new appreciation for the problems and possibilities that come along with an MS diagnosis.

If you have MS, these peoples’ stories will inspire you to make the most of your life. We might not be able to stop MS, but it doesn’t have to stop you either. There are people and resources available to keep you moving. You are not alone. This movie lets you know you are in good company.

For those who don’t have MS, it’s been said that you won’t get MS unless you get MS. If you want to understand what it means without having the “full MS experience”, the film will give you first hand testimony, the only real way of understanding this miserable disease.

For those who doubt that MS even exists in spite of watching your friends and loved ones struggle with it–yes, you’re out there and you know who you are–you will be confronted with the truth of what life with MS really means. You owe it to those people in your lives.

You can see the movie on YouTube here:

Like “Don’t Look Up”? You’ll love this!

Posted on by under Movies, Original writing

In light of the nomination of the film “Don’t Look Up” for Best Picture at a certain awards ceremony that must remain nameless or I’ll have to put ®’s and ©’s all over the place, it’s time to point out that the production company I’m affiliated with filmed a very similar epic (the screenplay for which I humbly admit authorship of) ten years ago.

The film, entitled “Worst Case Scenario” predates some of the issues that gave rise to the newer film, concepts such as climate change denial and an insane cult trying to overthrow the American government, but it deals with other foolishness, just as topical now as it was then. Let’s see if “Don’t Look Up” remains as relevant in ten years as ours is today.

Want to see how the two films compare? Watch “Worst Case Scenario” here.

FAQs

Posted on by under About writing, Books, Generic Rant, Movies, Original writing

(Any web site worth its salt has an FAQs page. Mine has never done so. That could be an inhibitor to its growth from a platform for a curmudgeon trying to unload his lame scribbling to a viral social media giant.

Or not.)

  • Why do you bother with this blog after seven years of almost complete reader indifference?

A fair question, one I’ve wrestled with many times. The most obvious is ego. Having a blog allows me to pretend I have something of import to say, when it’s highly doubtful I do. That’s a self-defeating concept since, as you so clearly and painfully point out, no one appears to be reading it. Ouch! (Thank you for not noting my other blog, “Limping in the Light”, which experienced a similar lack of impact for 10 years. Oh my.)

Another, more reasonable excuse is the desire to sell books. I have seven out there as of this typing (2021) with one more in the works. There’s an infinitesimal but non-zero chance that Oprah will happen on this site and discover that my novel about Haiti, “A Slippery Land”, is perfect for her book club… which it is.

Finally, I just like writing. It’s enjoyable and it’s therapeutic.

  • Have you read the new Andy Weir book, “Project Hail Mary”?

Yes, and it’s great. Similar to “The Martian” in both style and entertainment value. Highly recommended.

  • Can I borrow ten bucks?

No.

  • What’s the deal with that guy in the commercial who points at all your junk and it just goes away?

Nothing is more annoying to me. Our stuff doesn’t just “go away”. There is no “away”. Living under that delusion has brought this world to the predicament it’s in today.

  • How many Frenchmen can’t be wrong?

Last I checked, it was 1,000,000. That might have changed.

  • Is it true that Dick van Dyke was originally cast as the lead in the old movie, “The Omen”?

That’s what I heard. It would be a very different movie with him instead of Gregory Peck, don’t you think? It might have been a musical.

  • Why do people say “dial the phone” when there hasn’t been a dial on a phone in decades?

The same reason my father used to tell us to turn off the gas on the electric stove.

  • How about five bucks?

Okay.

  • Why do motorcycles make so much noise their riders can’t hear themselves think?

They aren’t missing anything.

  • Then they turn up their music above the sound of the bike?

Go figure.

  • Is my call important to you?

Yes, and it will be recorded for customer satisfaction purposes.

  • Where can I get your awesome books?

On Amazon or from me directly.

  • What do you want to be when you grow up?

I have no intention of growing up.

  • What’s the meaning of life?

The Westminster Catechism says “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever.” That works for me.

  • Who are your favorite actors?

For some reason, my favorite actors tend to be more commonly in supporting roles as opposed to carrying a movie. Among those that come to mind at the moment are Stanley Tucci, Toni Collette, Allison Janney, Bill Cobbs, Steve Zahn, Michael Pena, and a bunch more I can’t think of right now. I appreciate people like these folks who (1) are humble enough to take smaller roles, (2) flexible enough to play anything from drama to OTT humor, and (3) make every movie they’re in better.

  • Have you heard the one about the…

Yes.

  • What does “clockwise” mean?

You were born after 2000, weren’t you?

  • $7.50?

Give it a rest!

(Let me know if you have any more questions you need answered.)