Category: Cinema

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Released 33 Years Ago Today

"Dolly…Dolly…you've got a willie!"

My favorite film of all time, Personal Services (1987)

Trailer 1:

Trailer 2:

The Germans were obviously more liberal in what they showed in their trailers:

Some clips:

An interview with the filmmakers:

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A Classic Scene

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!

Director: Tim Burton

Date: March 30, 1988

More: When filming this scene, the attacking shrimp proved quite difficult to shoot. The prop handlers beneath the table couldn't see the actors' faces and kept poking their eyes, ruining take after take.

Today? The shrimp hands would probably be CG'd, but back then practical solutions were needed… Which is when Dick Cavett, the actor who played Bernard (Delia's art agent), suggested that Tim shoot the sequence in reverse.

And voilà.

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Quote of the Day

There are many parts of my youth that I'm not proud of… there were loose threads… untidy parts of me that I would like to remove. But when I pulled on one of those threads… it unraveled the tapestry of my life." ~ Jean-Luc Picard in STTNG: Tapestry

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The Rise of Skywalker

I wanted to love it. I really did. After forty two years, the venerable STAR WARS saga wrapped up with The Rise of Skywalker. And yet, last night as I walked out of the theater, I was left with an ill-defined disappointment.

I will, however, give it a solid 7 out of 10. Maybe 7.5. It answered some long-standing questions and paid homage to pretty much every franchise trope ever created, but I—someone who stood in 100 degree Arizona heat for hours to see the first three movies in the 70s and 80s—honestly found myself struggling to give a crap about much of anything that was happening on screen. I appreciate how they paid homage to the late, great Carrie Fisher and were able to integrate her into the film (which was originally intended to be "her" film after featuring Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill's characters in the previous two films) by utilizing existing footage shot for other films and not resorting to CGI, but not even that was able to reach in and grab the heartstrings the way those first three films did. Even seeing the opening crawl and hearing the familiar John Williams' score failed to move me the way they had in times past.

And some of the storyline decisions…

From Jezebel (spoilers ahead; highlight to read):

The Rise of Skywalker is a return to history, but a sloppy one at that. It's more fan service for the older movies than a fitting end for the characters introduced in The Force Awakens. Instead of propelling these characters forward, it yanks them back to the past in ways that truly do not make sense (How is Palpatine still alive and how did he have kids? How did young Leia have a vision that her son would be saved by someone else using her lightsaber in Skywalker, but then still be adamant about putting him through Jedi training in TLJ despite knowing he'd turn dark?). In addition to this baffling attempt to end storylines from ages ago—storylines believed to already have been ended—The Rise of Skywalker doesn't even stick to its own creative choices. There are moments where the stakes are raised, like when Rey kills Chewie, C3PO's memory is wiped, or when Hux is revealed to be the spy from the First Order, but then are immediately undone or resolved, with no lingering or greater thought. It's as if this movie is meant to please without putting anyone at risk. No death feels real. No sacrifice or victory feels earned.

Let's just leave it at that.

I am certainly not the same, naive nineteen year old I was in 1977. I've changed. The world has changed since those heady days. And that may be one of the reasons I was so emotionally unmoved by this last film.

I'm glad I lived to see it. To be honest, one of the things that played a big mental role in me beating cancer in 2003 was the thought that I couldn't die yet…there were still four more movies coming out!

And FYI, I'm definitely Team FinnPoe. There was just such an…energy…between those two, especially during the first fifteen minutes or so of the film, that pinged my little homoerotic heart.

Should you see it? Yes. For completion if nothing else. Will I see it again? Undoubtedly. (But probably not until It appears on Netflix.)

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The End of the Saga

Why am I not excited about this? Why—after FORTY TWO YEARS of waiting for the final episode of the final trilogy—do I not care?

Is it because the first trilogy with JarJar and the midiclorians left such a bad taste in my mouth that I've dismissed out of hand everything after Return of the Jedi?

I honestly don't know.

Will I see it? Of course. For a saga that set the spiritual theme of my entire life, I cannot not see it. Will I see it more than once? That, my friends, is unlikely unless it somehow manages to recapture the magic of the original.

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Chapter 2, a 3-Line Review

Saw it tonight. Thought it was thoughtful and very well made. Most of the VFX were good. It wrapped up the story in a matter befitting the source material. HOWEVER, it was too damn long.

And that increasingly infamous first scene?

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Late To The Party, As Usual

I finally saw Bohemian Rhapsody the other day. Yeah, I know. I know.

I will readily admit that after reading early reviews that claimed Mercury's sex life had been horrifically whitewashed and the whole gay thing had been swept under the rug, I had been consciously boycotting the film.

But when I saw it pop up on HBO or Showtime or wherever it was, I said, "Fuck it" and set it to record.

I was pleasantly surprised. Whitewashed? I didn't see it. Freddie's sexuality was pretty clearcut (he followed a trucker into a t-room, for chrissake!) and presented in a non-judgmental fashion. Maybe he was a bigger freak in the sack than portrayed on screen, but in no way was I confused about where he wanted to bury his pole or felt that it had been glossed over.

More interesting for me was how the song the film is named after had such a horrific initial reception—something I don't remember at all—rapidly turning into something that will far outlive any member of the group who spawned it. As I told Ben the other day, I fully expect Bohemian Rhapsody to be played as "classical" music in centuries to come.

My biggest complaint about the film was that I never saw Freddie. I only saw Rami Malek. The three other members of Queen, seemed spot on, but Freddie was just…missing.

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42 Years Ago Today

20th Century Fox released a little movie called Star Wars.

In some ways it seems like only yesterday; in others, like a different lifetime.

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Cautiously Optimistic

Like so many others, I was so completely disappointed with the mess that was 2007's The Golden Compass, that I really wasn't all that upset that they weren't proceeding with filming the other two books in the series. In fact, I was wondering how they'd even film them, considering they'd so throughly removed the spiritual aspects of the story in order to make it "family friendly" and not offend  any Catholics in the audience.

HBO, however, seems to be throwing that philosophy out the window, promising to remain faithful to the source material. The series—unseen—has already been renewed for a second season, so the possibility of actually seeing book 2,  The Subtle Knife, on screen looks good.

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An Hour Too Long

So I went to see that superhero movie everyone's talking about the other night.

To be honest, the only reason I did it was to hopefully get answers to the many questions I had after stumbling upon that other superhero movie on HBO several weeks ago. Ben had no desire to see it, and while I'm loathe to go to a cinema these days (it's not your personal fucking living room; corral your spawn, shut up, sit down, and behave yourself), Ben was attending another event and I figured it was a good a time as any.

Little did I know I was walking into another one of those seemingly never-ending movies where I found myself reaching for a non-existent remote to fast forward to the end about two-thirds of the way into it.

Yes, I got my questions answered, and as I suspected it involved time travel (of course), but JUST END THE THING FOR CHRISSAKE! Did they really need to get Thanos involved once again after finishing him off? Did we really need another planet-shattering battle where it seems every damned Marvel character in existence showed up? Did we really need the tearful [spoilers!] send off of Iron Man with—again—every Marvel character every created attending the funeral? Are there really that many unemployed actors, desperate for a paycheck, in Hollywood right now?

And is Tony Stark really dead? Did Robert Downey Jr. say, "Enough of this bullshit!" or will payments on his mortgage force him back into the red suit at some point?

It wasn't a bad movie per se, but it was ultimately disposable and way too long. I got in on a movie pass, so I didn't feel like I'd been cheated (if I'd actually paid the $11 admision fee I might've felt different) or that I'd wasted three hours of my life. I just didn't leave feeling…entertained.

And BTW,  GET OFF MY LAWN!

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Wut?!?

I will be the first to admit that over the years I've lost track of the Marvel cinematic universe, but that was my reaction after finally seeing Infinity War on HBO last week.

I've never read a single comic, and of the nineteen (!) films released so far (don't worry – there are at least a half dozen more in the pipeline), I've seen only 8—and even fewer in an actual theater. It's not that I don't enjoy them; I'm just not a big enough fan to justify putting the time or effort into the following the franchise.

While I understand Infinity War left wet spots in fanboy panties, it left me scratching my head—maybe because I'm not really up to speed on what's been happening? Keeping that in mind, my take away was that it seemed like little more an excuse to bring pretty much all of the characters together in a single film and then kill half of them off—for what purpose? (And quite frankly, I found bringing the humorous Guardians of the Galaxy aesthetic into the much more serious environment of the rest of the Marvelverse was more than a bit incongruous.)

Just call me a heretic and burn me at the stake.

And questions…so. many. questions!

Did Thanos' magic gauntlet wipe out half of all life everywhere or was it just half of sentient species? Is half the biosphere of every planet everywhere now just gone? Instead of restoring balance (as was his intent?), if that's the case isn't that likely to make an even bigger mess of things?

Just askin'

That being said, of course now I have to see Endgame just to see how all this is rectified—because you know all those superheroes aren't just gonna stay dead. Keeping in mind my obviously limited knowledge of the franchise, I predict a deus ex machina. Or time travel. Or magic. Or all of the above. Maybe tacos.

(Feel free to post spoilers and save me $15 that might be better spent on tacos.)

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Don't Ask

Don't ask how I stumbled upon this, but it's one of my favorite scenes from Amadeus. I'm sure I'll show you how I got here on the next post.