Movie Log

I had been a long time since I went to the movies, and I wanted a break from evening routine, so went to see Bumble Bee .  I was expecting a nice bit of brain candy and was able to satiate my sweet tooth with this film. I was interested in seeing a plot of a Transformer, where the central conflict is a departure from the struggle between the Autobots and the Decepticons of Cybertron - but that didn't happen.  I was disappointed, since the CG transformer fighting, which was spectacular in the early films, but by now I've become numb to it.  I was hoping for a new approach to the notion of Transformers. This is not to say the film is a terrible film - on the contrary, there are some touching moments and solid performances from all the actors.  A favorite line is the blue Decepticon's description of humans, "I like the way they pop."

My wife and I did a movie relay: I get up early and go to a movie, and in the time it takes her to get up and ready, I'm finishing up the movie.  I came out of the movie and she was on the way to the local cinema with our two boys in the car.  I met the car at a bus-stop, she got out, "Hi Honey; Bye Honey.", I got in and drove off to the park. I usually don't go in for the docudrama, but the portrayal of Freddy Mercury was possibly as good as Kingsly's representation of Gandhi.  The story and action seem to attempt to be as close a depiction of the actual event as humanly possible.  I imagine the portrayal of Freddy Mercury was eerily close for the people who lived with the actual man.   Mike Myer's ironic statements were an unexpected delight.

I went into Crazy Rich Asians completely cold, thinking it was a comedy.  It was funny at times, but it was a cheesy romance...I don't usually go for romance films.  That's what I get for liking the cold-entry of films, ever since I thought to myself, "Let's see what this Crying Game is all about." There was a lot of comedy, and some laugh-out-loud stuff.  They called in Awkwafina and Ken Jeong, and they delivered.  I spent the first act trying to figure out how long it will take to set up the main comedy premise, and the rest of the movie like an adult on a children's roller coaster: sure, it's kind of fun but not REAL fun. The story is predictable from the start, and just like that children's roller coaster, a lot of structure, without much payoff. Although visible a mile off, the mahjong reveal was a nice touch.

I have some time off this week, so I went to see a morning movie.  First Man is a long movie, but it is gratifying the whole time.  I enjoyed the thrust (pun intended) toward realism, and the perspective of the astronauts. The movie-goer almost becomes a pioneer astronaut in those old, creaking and chaotic space-craft of the sixties. What I enjoyed even more was the rare occurrence of being the only person in the entire theater.  This was a perfect movie for being alone in a huge atrium, to go along with the dichotomy of the absolute stillness of space, and the quaking thunder of the rockets and the pull of gravity. The experience of watching this particular film in an empty theater brought something more to it - an experience I won't quickly forget.

Finch and I went to the local cinema to catch Venom before its run ends. I was not sure how well a story that I have been a fan of in comic books would manifest itself with another favorite of mine, Tom Hardy. This film exceeded my expectations.  Hardy is adept at delivering many modes of confidence, fear, anger and much more. The script lent itself to humour, along with ebbing and flowing tension .  The story progresses well and has surprises while still fulfilling its genre of action film.

Finch had his motorcycle parked at the Cinema Centre with the saddle bag unlocked, holding some coffee that someone had given him.  I got that coffee.  He was in a film, while I was heading into a showing of Kursk . I was surprised that all the dialogue was in English.  I always think it is strange to see Russian people talking to Russian people, in English, with Russian accents.  Surely they were just speaking Russian. The film was well made and dramatised the lives of people which were ruined by machine-minded bureaucrats.  I was quite saddened by the film because of the similarities to the events of the Korean Saewol sinking. Although most of the foreshadowing was heavy handed, I enjoyed this movie from beginning to end.

I was back to the Cinema Centre, this time to see another Italian film Dog Man .  This is a low-key script-driven film set in a small town that can only be described by comparison to any of the less acclaimed parts of human anatomy. The main conflict is a terrible man, whose violence is unstoppable by townspeople.  This tyranny is either symbolic to whatever unstoppable force is in the viewer's world, or at the least, the helplessness empathizes with the viewer's personal experiences. The acting was superb.  I especially like the Italians' use of "Ohh!"

Finch saw the Italian film Loro, and got me a ticket to see it later on in the Film Festival, since he knows that I quite like the writer/director, but also as he told me at a party, "I need someone to talk about it with!" The film is both literal and allegorical to the same end - that our politicians are greedy and manipulative, and it's destroying our lives and the world that we live in. It was, to an extreme, not in excess, a lot of T&A, but as an essential part of the world, part of the story.  As my wife put it as I was out the door to see the movie, "Watch out for your boner....". The main character's acting was invigorating.  The imagery and symbolism were wonderful and confounding.  This is one of those great films that once watched, the viewer is now able to begin digesting the message.  On the downside, I think it will be difficult to find the second half of the film here.

On my way to another Film Festival movie, I was sure that Sisters Brothers must be missing an apostrophe somewhere.  There is no apostrophe in the title, and it's explained early in - a nice bit of hook to keep you thinking before the lights even go out. There was a lot of potential for big action in this film, but I think it was purposely down-played to show the reality and abruptness of an actual gun fight.  The massive percussion of the revolvers firing aided in providing sudden finality. This film is character driven and the actors seemed to fully understand the levels of development as all actors provided stellar performances which relied on a lot of tight facial shots.

My original thought, as I was leaving this second film of the Festival day was the massive scale of costume and set that this film effectively took on, constantly and throughout. The costumes and setting never allowed to viewer to even contemplate that this action happened any other time than late 19th century. The story itself was, basically, a lecture leading to the execution of Louis XVI, which was news to me, so a well needed 2 hours for myself and my understanding of France.  The acting was great and the cinematography was impressive.

Finch delivers Film Festival tickets again!  Thank you, Finch.  The first film of the day was The Man Who Killed Don Quixote . Which is almost a sequel to the documentary Lost in Lamancha, since the production was so messed up in 2001, but was finally released in 2018. The final cut was a great film, but I was disappointed.  I think the enormity of Quixote's imaginative delusions are exonerated in print, but are exasperated once transferred to film.  The massiveness of the insanity of Quixote's mind is too large to bottle-neck through a lens. The story is interesting and always inviting, with incredible visuals, and nods to Lost in Lamancha.

I have been waiting for this film since it was mentioned to me by a high school friend.  Although this film is disappointing in its lack-lustre delivery, my expectations were so high, that it was easy to forget that, although a second-tier Star Wars film, it is a fantastic movie in its own right.  The Millennium Falcon is a character in the film. "I dunno, go free your brothers, or something."

In seeing some comedy festival shows, we ended up with the whole family and Finch at the Cinema Centre. We stayed long enough to see a free, outdoor screening of Paddington 2 .  We had some camping gear in the trunk and were able to make a cozy set-up. I didn't think I would enjoy the film as much as I did.  There was enough of a story to keep older audiences intrigued, while enough silly antics to keep the younger viewers interested, but without becoming farcical. An impressive cast came together to deliver the film in a memorable and pleasing show.  It was nice to watch cinema with my wife, the boys and Finch all together, picnic style.

On an escape run from the wife and kids, I went to the industrial part of town to see Antman & Wasp .  I was going to wait for this movie to come out on cheap demand on cable, but it was either this, or Highrise... This is a fine movie.  Paul Rudd is quick witted as well as Michael Pina.  There are a lot of interesting aspects to the story and some flair in their cultural references, especially the Hot Wheels racing wheel.  The notion of Ant Man never got me to excited, though.  Miniaturization and enlarging is not too appealing to me, but that's just me.  Another great film for Marvel, just not my favorite branch.

Surprisingly, my wife was interested in seeing Secario 2 .  We deposited our boys into their schools and rushed off to the local cinema.  The acting is great.  The action is intriguing, and it is all well written.  The message of the film, along with the first one seems to be that even with these covert extreme illegal methods, nothing changes.  As long as there is a massive drug market and in this case, restricted border, this theme will continue to play out in reality.  I left the theatre thinking, "America is its own sickness and there is no cure."

Because it was there, I went to a morning show of Jurassic World.  I was already a bit closed-minded going in since I think that the first film is really as far as you can take Chrichton's original notion.  This re-load seemed to breathe some life into the franchise, but it was just a replay of the original and then this one.  Although it had an interesting premise, it was another copy and paste of so many other monster-film franchises' later episodes.

After wandering around the 2018 car show, Finch and I slipped over to the fancy part of town's department store cinema to see Oceans 8 .  It is a good movie, but in some intangible way, it lacked the flow and appeal of the first three of the Oceans films.  The main characters tended to be flat, and the potential of the remaining 6 Oceans was never realized in the film.

I went to a Friday, mid-day showing of Deadpool 2 , by myself. I particularly like the total disrespect for the fourth wall.  There are a ton of references for people my age, as well as a gut-busting use of straight-up comedy, paired with CG, to create the "cock-shirting it" scene - I was laughing so hard, I was becoming concerned with annoying the other moviegoers.  I liked seeing Cable, as well as X-Force, since X-Force was my original foray into Marvel Comics.

After an afternoon lounging in a hammock at the Ministry of Education, under cherry blossoms, Finch and I split up, but met again later in the fancier part of town for Ready Player One. I wasn't expecting much, so was blown away.  The setting was well constructed, characters intriguing, the story moved along well and the graphics were not extemporaneous, or rather, not just there for the sake of being there. Along with a clever construction, the film titillates as a non-stop barrage of cultural references underlies the whole film.  I am thinking of revisiting this fim, but in IMAX 3D, since once it leaves the theatres, it will be difficult to reproduce that experience ever again.

I took my oldest son and his pal to the local department store's cinema to see Mini TukgongDeh. ..which I think is kind of a Mini Power Ranger animation.  Finch refers to it as "Power Rangers - Lite". Those two kids absolutely loved this film.  It was a lot of squabbling and martial arts in an animated medium. The thing that drove me nuts is that the protagonists would fist-fight for a while, then after a while, pull out a gun with disks in it, yell and holler what's about to come out of the gun, then fire.  An automated animal of some weaponized sort would blast out and obliterate the antagonist.  I kept thinking, "Just s tart with the gun..."

Finch flaked on lunch, but I enjoyed being solo in a restaurant for the first time in a long while. I did meet up with Finch for Tomb Raider. I was surprised to enjoy this film as much as I did. The "fox hunt" intro was well designed and fun.  I like the less voluptous Laura Croft.  The story held some interesting turns, although the climax was predictable, and the blatant set-up for a sequel was off-putting, but who is kidding whom, when you go see a Tomb Raider film? I like the colour at the pawn shop, as well as the delayed answer that nagged throughout the film, "Where are her iconic guns?"

Finch is out of his job in the suburbs, so we met for lunch and decided to check out Red Sparrow .  At first, I thought it was too slow, until I realized that the whole film is a puzzle to figure out how the main character is going to stick it to her shitty uncle. This film did a great job of laying all the pieces out in front of the viewer, like a magician, then dropped the reveal, having never altered pace, or pulling one over. The cinematography was great and the movement was deliciously languid.  Going in cold, knowing nothing of the film was a pleasant surprise.

My wife's brother and his wife watched our two kids, while we went off to see Black Panther.  I'm glad we watched it in the town where my sister-in-law lives, so we didn't have to listen to the commotion of the crowd, during the footage shot in our city - even though that was my main push for us to see this film....to see our city in a Marvel film. I liked seeing our city, and Andy Sirkis's character and it is nice to see more than white men as heroes.

There is not much playing in English now, so Finch and I went to see 12 Strong , just for the catharsis of movie-going.  I would have normally have avoided it, since Holywood films, of late, tend to have a political agenda.  This film was no different, in my eyes, showing "America has no problems with insurgency...". The story is well crafted and I never felt bored, or grossed out by the political imagery.  I kept wondering why I was repeatedly reminded of Planet of the Apes, all versions.  I soon realized, it is one of the rarer examples of modern weapons on horseback.

I thought it is time to start taking Liam to the movies again.  It's not.  He thought the skeletons of CoCo are "too weird.  The people are not people like us, and it's too weird."  I had to leave the film early since he was too scared.  I think the intensity of the darkness and envelopment in sound frightens him. It's too bad, I was quite enjoying it.  The bonus animation was painful, since I didn't like Frozen the first time, and this was almost half-an-hour of more Frozen .... singing.  I am not a fan of musicals.  I love music and I love movies and theatre...just not together.