I don't know how long this will turn out to be. It depends on how many times I go to the Redbox or find something interesting on HBO or Amazon or Pluto TV or whatever. Or if I watch/rewatch a series on Hulu or Amazon or whatever instead of watching movies. Or if I buy a bunch of movies on DVD from Amazon or Big Lots or wherever. It's kind of like the snowball going downhill where it starts off tiny and just keeps getting bigger.
So let's get that snowball rolling!
Super Troopers 2: This was one of those movies Kickstartered--or actually it was some other site that was the same deal--by fans and released for a few weeks in theaters. Because Disney moved Avengers 3 back a week it ended up coming out a week before that and thus being obliterated. Which might be just as well. Most of it is just a bunch of moldy cliches about Canadians and/or French Canadians as the doofus cops from the first movie are brought out of being fired as city cops to patrol a part of Canada being annexed into the US. The funniest parts were when they dress up as Mounties and mess with people on the road and "the Fred Savage Incident" that's referenced but not shown until the credits. (And the gag reel during the credits.) If you haven't seen it, you're probably better off. (2/5)
Isle of Dogs: To my knowledge this is Wes Anderson's second stop-motion movie after The Fantastic Mr. Fox about 8 years ago. This is about a Japanese city in the near-future that banishes all dogs to an island of garbage because of a dog flu. One of the dogs is the son of the mayor's dog so the kid goes to the island to find him. A group of dogs finds the kid and helps him traverse the island. Like most everything Anderson does it's kinda weird but it has heart. I mean at the core it's basically a story of a boy and a cur becoming friends. Just the stop-motion and weirdness like most human lines being only in Japanese (only sometimes with translation) might throw people. Though it's on a Japanese island it features mostly white people doing the voices: Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Frances McDormand, Jeff Goldblum, and long-time Wes Anderson alum Bill Murray. Does that count as cultural appropriation? (3/5)
Upgrade: This is packaged as a revenge thriller. In the near future, a mechanic's wife is murdered after an accident where their robocar is hijacked. The guy (named Grey, like the 50 Shades guy) is paralyzed but a computer guy offers to implant a chip in him that will let him walk again. The chip is powered by an AI called STEM that can talk to him and do all sorts of things, like turn him into a total ninja in a fight, access computer records, and hijack a robocar during a chase...hurm. You might then figure out the big twist, which reminded me of Ex-Machina in that it becomes about a machine's quest to become human. It's not a great movie but worth a rental or stream. (2.5/5)
Tag: Based on a true story there's a group of guys who for one month of year play an epic game of tag. They get in disguise and stuff to tag each other, but they've never tagged their friend Jerry (Jeremy Renner) who is getting married. So they all go home for the wedding hoping to tag him, but he won't make it easy. It was amusing but a little long. In the credits they show the real guys this was based on and some of the stuff they did was better than the movie. One guy dressed up in a bulldog mascot costume so he could tag another guy at a basketball game. That would have been cool in the movie. Also during the credits Jeremy Renner with the other guys as backup sings the old Crash Test Dummies song Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm--however you'd spell it.
Beirut: This is one I saw at the Redbox but never got around to renting it. When I saw it on Amazon Prime I decided to watch it. As soon as I saw it was a Brad Anderson film I kicked myself for not seeing it sooner. I've liked all his movies: Session 9, The Machinist, TransSiberian, Vanishing on 7th Street, and The Call. He specializes in taut thrillers and this is no exception. As you'd expect, it takes place in Beirut. Mason (Jon Hamm) is a diplomat in 1972 when a terrorist kidnaps a boy from a party he's holding and his wife is killed in the process. Ten years later he's brought back when an old friend is kidnapped. And surprise, the kid who was taken 10 years ago is the kidnapper! So with the help of a CIA agent (Rosamund Pike of Gone Girl) he has to find the kidnapper's brother, which gets complicated, and arrange a swap without being murdered in the process. It's another good thriller, though it's more suspense than action. I mean there's not running and fighting all the time like a Jason Bourne or James Bond movie. (3/5) (Rant: Seriously, why has Brad Anderson not gotten the call to the big leagues yet? He should get his own superhero franchise or Star Wars film or some damned thing instead of directing these small movies and TV shows. If you get the chance, rent some of his movies.)
Revenge for Jolly!: You could say this was the secret origin of John Wick. Basically the same premise: a guy comes home after a night of drinking and finds his dog is dead. And so with his cousin Cecil (Oscar Isaac) he goes on a killing spree to find the man who killed his dog. They go to the local bar and kill the bartender (Elijah Wood) and then go to a couple of hookers and kill them. Then a law office where the guy supposedly works and kill everyone there. And a wedding reception and guess what? Kill a lot of people. All while drinking the equivalent of a few kegs of beer, downing a bunch of painkillers, and smoking a few joints just for the hell of it. It's a black comedy that's darkly funny but then it gets to the guy's house and takes a piss on the audience. The guy whose dog died goes into the house to meet the murderer (Ryan Philippe) and...the camera backs out and we hear two shots. Who died? Who knows?! That's a nice Screw You to the audience. And it would have taken like 10 seconds, which they waste instead having the credits go at half speed. I hate when movies do that shit. You showed like 30 people being killed already, so what's one more? You jerks ever hear of closure? (2.5/5)
Fallen Stars: This is an indie dramedy about a bartender who's 36 and realizes that he has no direction in his life. Then a shy Asian young woman comes into the bar. She's a famous writer, which is something he only learns later. It's kind of a slow movie but really engrossing. In the end it's frustrating because it leaves a lot unresolved. Basically the woman gets a dog. I guess that's kind of a happy ending, right? (3/5)
Pickings: I got this free from Amazon Vine. This is another indie movie that stars no one you've heard of. It has sort of a Smokin' Aces-type style with the comic book-style graphics in the credits and interspersed through the film. The story is a little confusing because it starts sort of at the middle and then goes back and it's hard to figure out how it all fits together. It's about a mob outfit shaking down a woman who owns a bar and her retaliation. It's pretty good. At least worth a rental or stream. (3/5) (Fun Fact: It takes place in "Port City, Michigan" but was filmed in New York state. There is no Port City as far as I know. I'm not even sure what it was supposed to be: Detroit? Port Huron? Benton Harbor? It's funny when a mobster says they're half the country from any other mob outfits. Um, Chicago, maybe? Just a few hours away?)
Bear With Us: This indie horror comedy is about a guy whose girlfriend claims to be afraid of bears so he sets up this trip to the forest so she can kill a "bear" (his friend in a bear suit) and then he'll propose to her. But when they go to the wrong cabin and a real bear shows up, it throws everything into chaos. It's pretty funny but I don't know why it had to be in black-and-white. I'm not one of those people who hates black-and-white movies but this was from 2016 so there seemed no reason for it. And like Revenge for Jolly! it ends without giving us closure when the guy asks his girlfriend if she'll marry him and then it just ends. Why do movies do that? Who thinks that's fun or clever? It's just irritating! (2.5/5)
The Code: Morgan Freeman is an art thief who's after a pair of super-rare Faberge eggs. He recruits a younger thief (Antonio Banderas) to help him in the caper. But they have to deal with cops and the Russian mob. The heist isn't too difficult and then there are a few twists--twists upon twists really. Probably could have done without one or two of them. It's a decent heist thriller though not necessarily breaking the mold. It just seems weird I'd never heard of this until now; you'd have thought in 2009 Morgan Freeman and Antonio Banderas still had enough star power to open a movie. (2.5/5) (Fun Fact: Tom Hardy has a small role as a junior detective. A year or two later he got his big break in Inception and a couple of years after that he and Morgan Freeman worked together again in The Dark Knight Rises.)
Edge of Darkness: This was from 2010, maybe one of Mel Gibson's first "comeback films" after his shenanigans in the 2000s. Anyway, he's a Boston cop whose daughter is gunned down (by Crossbones if you're a MCU fan) and so he goes all rogue trying to unravel the conspiracy involving some defense contractor. Fairly predictable and felt a little long. Probably would have been better if someone who's not a total piece of shit starred in it. (2.5/5) (Fun Fact: This came in a two-pack for $2.50 at Big Lots if you're wondering why I watched it. Basically it was free.)
Armed & Dangerous: This 1986 movie starring John Candy & Eugene Levy predates Paul Blart by about 2 decades but it's sort of the same premise. Two bumbling security guards stumble onto a real crime and save the day. In this case it's a crooked union stealing money. A pretty forgettable comedy. Meg Ryan co-stars as the daughter of the head of the security guard company. She hooks up with Eugene Levy. And then a year later moves up to Billy Crystal. And then a few years later Tom Hanks. Not exactly a Chippendales roster there. Maybe that explains why she cheated on her husband with Russell Crowe. (2/5)
Highlander II: The Quickening: This is one of those where the story of its creation is actually more interesting than the movie itself. So about 5 years after the first one they started production of a sequel in Argentina. But financial troubles hit the backers in that country and so basically they took control of the production to try to make it as appealing to a wide audience as possible. Thus all the sudden the immortals from the first movie were aliens! They rebelled against a tyrannical alien leader named General Katana (Michael Ironside) who punished them by...banishing them to Earth where they'd be immortal except if their heads were cut off. The last one would then have the power to return. Um...what the fuck? Then we get to the plot of the movie itself which is in 2024 the ozone layer has gone and there's a shield to replace it but it pretty much gets rid of all sunlight and turns the earth into a hellhole. Connor Macleod (Christopher Lambert) is now a bitter old man--until for no reason Katana sends goons to kill him. That triggers a "quickening" and he's young and immortal again. Just by calling for Ramirez (Sean Connery, whose character died in the 15th Century), he actually comes back to life because of some magic bond they had and forgot about. (Like they forgot about being aliens.) Together with some woman they go to destroy the shield because (spoiler alert) the ozone layer has regrown! It's a complete, dreadful mess of a movie. There is a "Renegade" Cut that takes out the alien hogwash. Kind of funny reading the trivia about this on IMDB. Apparently Michael Ironside knew this was such a piece of shit that he hammed it up as much as possible for the hell of it. Sean Connery was only in filming for 9 days and donated his money to charity. (So maybe they could write this off as a charitable donation.) Christopher Lambert almost cut off a finger using a real sword and lost all his money to con artists. The director was so pissed off by what they'd done to the movie that he walked out of the premiere after only 15 minutes. Moral of the story: keep creative control! (1/5)
The Identity Theft of Mitch Mustain: The title is more interesting than this documentary actually was. The "identity theft" is sadly only metaphorical. In 2006, Mitch Mustain was the latest "can't miss" quarterback prospect in college football. Lots of big programs wanted him, but to land him, hometown university Arkansas hired his coach as offensive coordinator and gave scholarships to some of his teammates on offense. That sealed the deal and in his first 8 starts Mustain was 8-0. But the head coach was pissed off about having to bring in an offensive coordinator that didn't use his system and so in the next game as soon as Mustain threw an interception he was benched the rest of the season. Mustain transferred to USC but couldn't crack the depth chart. He sold some Adderall to undercover cops (for no real reason as he tells it) and that ruined any chance of being drafted into the NFL. He tried baseball and arena football but never really did much with those. So the "identity theft" is that the supposed grown ups at Arkansas acted like petty little children and wound up ruining his life. He never got the chance to be an overvalued college prospect who got a huge, undeserved contract from the Browns or Jets before being cut 2-3 years later! This would have been more interesting if they had been able to get the Arkansas coaches on the record and confront them but of course they refused to appear. Even Mustain's mom wouldn't appear in it! Sad. (2/5) (Fun Fact: the head coach at Arkansas was fired a year after benching Mustain. The offensive coordinator left after Mustain's season without telling his players. He went on to coach Auburn to a national title.)
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