Monthly Archives: May 2019

BOOKSMART (2019) – Raunchy Teen Comedy Has Its Moments

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BOOKSMART (2019), the new R-rated teen comedy by first-time director Olivia Wilde, has a lot of things going for it: a fun premise, sharp comedic and oftentimes poignant writing, a talented cast, and energetic direction.

But what it doesn’t have is a strong sense of realism. While I enjoyed most of BOOKSMART, I can’t say that I believed in much of it, which is too bad because parts of this movie have a lot to say.

With BOOKSMART, director Olivia Wilde takes the coming of age stories found in films like EIGHTH GRADE (2018) and THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN (2016) and turns them into a raunchy R-rated comedy. The good news is the film never deteriorates into mindless vulgarity, but the bad news is it never reaches the level of truth and sensitivity found in the aforementioned movies either.

In BOOKSMART, high school seniors Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) and Molly (Beanie Feldstein) on the eve of graduation realize that their classmates who goofed around through high school still got into the colleges of their choice, and so they decide if their classmates can do both, that is party and still get into top colleges, then they can as well, and so they decide to party hearty for one big night just to say they did before they graduated high school.

The film follows their attempts to find the huge class party (since they weren’t invited) which leads to one mishap after another since they’re not very good at this sort of thing, but they’re determined, and do eventually make it to the party to end all parties where they hope to finally engage in the relationships they only thought about during their four years of high school.

BOOKSMART is lively and energetic from start to finish. At times, the girls’ mishaps on their quest to find the elusive party reminded me of the situations in the HANGOVER movies, although nothing here reaches the level of insane comedy found in that series, although this film certainly tries. Director Olivia Wilde lets everything fly, even including a hilarious scene featuring Amy and Molly as animated figures.

The screenplay by Susanna Fogel, Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins, and Katie Silberman is very funny. The best part about the humor is it takes the usual drug and sex jokes and keeps them honest and prevents them from being cliché. Indeed, the humor works best when the situations are honest. For example, one of the funniest sequences involves Amy’s long-awaited and first sexual encounter with another girl.

The party scenes are also a cut above the usual mindless shenanigans of drunk teens. But not all the humor works, as some of the situations like when the girls try to hijack a pizza delivery driver to get the address of the party, simply aren’t taken far enough to be truly funny. Still, there are a decent number of laugh out loud moments.

BOOKSMART is a female driven movie to be sure, with its woman director, four women screenwriters, and predominantly female cast. As such, this film has a lot to say about young women and their relationships. Probably the deepest part of the story is Amy’s dealings with her sexuality. The discussions regarding gender and sexual preferences are spot on. The problem is the film doesn’t go there enough. These topics take a back seat to the raunchy comedic parts of the story.

The bigger culprit though is the believability factor. The bottom line here is most of the students in this film simply didn’t seem all that real to me. Sure, the story takes place in California, and the characters here are all from an affluent west coast neighborhood, but they certainly didn’t seem like they were living in the real world. And at the end of the day, this lack of realism works against the movie and what it’s trying to say about the life of high school students, especially female high school students, in 2019.

The cast was excellent. Both Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein stand out in the lead roles as Amy and Molly. These two did seem like real people, and I enjoyed watching this story about the two of them and their lifelong friendship. Dever has already had some notable roles in films like DETROIT (2017), THE FRONT RUNNER (2018), and BEAUTIFUL BOY (2018). Her role here only adds to her impressive resume.

Beanie Feldstein impressed in LADY BIRD (2017), playing lead character Lady Bird’s best friend Julie.

Other notable performances in the young cast include Victoria Ruesga as Ryan, Mason Gooding as Nick, Skyler Gisondo as Jared, Diana Silvers as Hope, Molly Gordon as Triple A, Eduardo Franco as Theo, Austin Crute as Alan, and Noah Galvin as George. All these actors have key moments in the movie, and they’re all very good.

The cast also includes veteran actors Will Forte and Lisa Kudrow, as well as Jason Sudeikis as the school principal.

While BOOKSMART is certainly funny, it never reaches the level of all-out hilarity it needed to be really memorable. Likewise, while its script and story do possess moments of sensitivity and insight into the teenage condition in 2019, these moments are sporadic at best. And while the dialogue is realistic and raw, unfiltered to a fault, the situations the two leads find themselves in are more often ludicrous than real. As such, while I had fun with BOOKSMART, I can’t say I believed most of it, which works against the stronger thematic elements of this comedy.

I liked BOOKSMART, but had it been a tad smarter, I would have loved it.

—END—

 

 

 

BRIGHTBURN (2019) – Predictable Horror Superhero Tale

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What if Superman didn’t turn out to be a nice guy? If his powers made him a monster instead of a superhero?

That’s basically the premise behind BRIGHTBURN (2019), the new horror superhero movie—is there even such a thing? I guess there is now— that asks the question: if you discovered the baby you always wanted in the woods, how long would you turn a blind eye on his murderous shenanigans in the name of love? In this movie, a bit too long.

Now, this movie is not about Superman. The Man of Steel is not in this film, but the two origin stories share obvious similarities.

Tori (Elizabeth Banks) and Kyle Breyer (David Denman) are struggling to have a baby, but one night, their prayers are answered, as something crash lands outside their farmhouse, and there they discover a baby boy which they decide to adopt as their own. The story jumps to a decade later where young Brandon (Jackson A. Dunn) is celebrating his 12th birthday.

These are unsettling times for Brandon. He’s in middle school, going through puberty, and he’s hearing voices in his head from the ship hidden beneath his parents’ barn telling him to take on the world. In short, he’s an angry little tyke, and in this film he unleashes his anger by hurting people he deems as threat in horrific ways that include glass shards to the eye, breaking a young girl’s hand, and dropping a car to the ground in order to shatter the driver’s face. Yup, it’s a horror movie.

Brandon’s parents want to love their son, but eventually they realize they had better do something about him— you think???— but by the time they decide to take action, it may be too late.

I enjoyed BRIGHTBURN well enough, but not as much as I wanted to. The two main knocks for me against this film are that 1) it’s very predictable, and 2) there’s not a whole lot of imagination behind it.

Once the story is introduced, it’s pretty obvious what’s going to happen. You know that Brandon is bad news, and the plot unfolds in ways that offer no surprises. The screenplay by Brian and Mark Gunn offers little in the way of imagination, which is too bad because there were a lot of creative directions this one could have taken, but it doesn’t.

A scene early on in the movie where Brandon is in a science class features a discussion of bees and wasps in which it’s said that wasps are so ruthlessly busy they enslave others to raise their young, hinting of course that this may be the rationale behind Brandon’s real otherworldly parents. This notion had the potential to be something really sinister, but the film never returns to it. We learn absolutely nothing about Brandon’s real parents or where he came from.

When Brandon gives in to his evil ways, he wears a mask. Why? It’s not clearly explained and seems to be a thin excuse to tie this tale in to the superhero motif.

It also takes his parents forever to do anything about their son. They wait so long it strains credulity.

BRIGHTBURN is also another of those origin stories that gives its audience 85 minutes of mundane storytelling, only to offer much more imaginative ideas in the final 5 minutes, as if to say, this is what we have in store for you in the sequel. BRIGHTBURN would have been a better movie if some of what is shown in the last five minutes had happened midway through the film.

Director David Yarovesky tries hard to have the film earn its R rating with some graphic shots of facial mutilation, but sadly, this doesn’t really make much of an impact. There really aren’t a whole lot of memorable scenes or images in BRIGHTBURN. It’s all rather flat.

Elizabeth Banks is fine as mommy Tori Breyer. She’s hell-bent on defending her son to the last, and at times it almost seems as though she’d be okay with her son being an evil monster, but the film doesn’t take things that far.

Likewise David Denman is okay as daddy Kyle. And his big dramatic scene where he decides that enough is enough, and he takes Brandon deep into the woods to hunt, where he plans to shoot his son, is symptomatic of what’s wrong with BRIGHTBURN. On its surface, it’s a fairly dramatic and watchable sequence, but it’s not riveting, we don’t see Kyle in anguish over this decision, nor do we see him in impassioned rage that he has to save the world from his son. Nope. It’s just sort of there.

That’s how the whole movie is. It’s watchable, but it’s just sort of there.

Jackson A. Dunn is sufficiently creepy as Brandon, but that’s about it. We never really learn what Brandon is really about, nor do we know what’s going through his mind in most of his scenes.

Matt Jones, who played Badger on BREAKING BAD (2008-2013), enjoys a few lively and humorous moments in a small role as Brandon’s uncle Noah.

For a brief while, BRIGHTBURN was almost the perfect metaphor for middle school angst, both for the student and the student’s parents, but the film simply isn’t creative enough to sustain such symbolism.

BRIGHTBURN is an okay movie. It’s a horror movie because its main character can and does kill people with ease and in horrific ways, but it’s not scary nor even suspenseful. It’s a superhero movie in appearance only, as Brandon dons a mask and flies around, and of courses possesses super powers. But there’s no depth here, no conversations about the responsibilities that go with great power, no human interactions which shape Brandon’s world outlook. There’s just anger, aggression, and murder, and from a protagonist we know little about.

And we know nothing of Brandon’s otherworldly parents, but based on his actions in this movie, I’m guessing they’re more like the Predator species than Jor El.

There’ll be no inspirational daddy videos at the Fortress of Solitude here.

—END—

 

 

PICTURE OF THE DAY: THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD (1974)

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golden voyage of sinbad - gold mask

Who is this man with the golden mask?

King Midas?

Nope.

Thanos’ great uncle?

Try again.

It’s the Grand Vizier of Arabia, as played by Douglas Wilmer in the classic adventure/fantasy THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD (1974), featuring the spectacular stop-motion effects of Ray Harryhausen.

I don’t think there’s a movie out there which Ray Harryhausen put his name on that I don’t like. Harryhausen’s special effects are always top-notch, and the films in which they appeared nearly all classics of the genre.

In particular, I especially enjoy Harryhausen’s Sinbad movies. There were three of them: THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD (1958), THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD (1974), and SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER (1977). The first two are the best. As to which one is number one in the series, that’s a tough call. I’ve watched both these films a lot, and I have to concede that I find these two equally as good.

Sometimes I slightly prefer THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD, and other times it’s THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD. They’re both excellent movies and both feature fantastic effects by Ray Harryhausen.

The production design and costumes in THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD are also phenomenal, which brings us to today’s photo, the man with the golden mask. But first a shout out to director Gordon Hessler who also directed THE OBLONG BOX (1969), a lurid and underrated horror flick starring Vincent Price and Christopher Lee. Here, Hessler keeps the pace quick and the action exciting. There’s also a strong sense of mystery and awe throughout.

I saw THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD at the drive-in movies when I was just 10 years-old, and I was instantly a fan. I was drawn into its fantasy world of magic and monsters, and I was particularly intrigued by the man in the golden mask, as pictured above, which I’ve always thought was a really cool look.

In the film, he hires Sinbad to help locate the Fountain of Destiny.

That’s actor Douglas Wilmer behind the mask. Wilmer made a ton of movies and appeared in everything from Hammer Films like THE VAMPIRE LOVERS (1970), the Peter Sellers PINK PANTHER films, the James Bond flick OCTOPUSSY (1983), the Christopher Lee FU MANCHU movies, Ray Harryhausen’s JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS (1963), as well as playing Sherlock Holmes on British TV. Wilmer passed away in 2016 at the age of 96.

John Phillip Law makes for a heroic Sinbad, and the cast also includes Tom Baker as the villain Koura, and the very sexy Caroline Munro.

There’s a lot to like about THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD, which is chock full of memorable Ray Harryhausen creations. But for me, the most memorable image from the film is Vizier with his mysterious golden mask.

Thanks for reading!

—Michael

LEADING LADIES: ZITA JOHANN

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Boris Karloff and Zita Johann in THE MUMMY (1932).

 

Zita Johann only had eight screen credits, but one of them is well-known to horror fans.

When she starred opposite Boris Karloff in THE MUMMY (1932) she delivered one of the great performances in a Universal monster movie. Her portrayal of Helen Grosvenor, the reincarnated Princess Anckesen-Amon, was mystical, mysterious, tragic, and very sexy.

And in terms of classic horror, that’s all she wrote. It was one and done for Johann, which is too bad, because she was really good in THE MUMMY.

Here’s a partial look at Johann’s film career:

THE STRUGGLE (1931) – Florrie – Johann’s film debut is in this drama about alcoholism, the final feature directed by D.W. Griffith.

TIGER SHARK (1932) – Quita Silva- Romance directed by Howard Hawks, also starring Edward G. Robinson and featuring J. Carroll Naish.

THE MUMMY (1932)- Helen Grosvenor – one of Universal’s best monster movies. Slow-paced but eerie to its core, this Karl Freund directed thriller features a remarkable performance by Boris Karloff as the living mummy Im Ho Tep, who, once resurrected, seeks out the mummified body of his former love, the Princess Anckesen-Amon.

THE MUMMY is really a tragic love story. Im Ho Tep’s life is shattered when his forbidden love, the Princess Anckesen-Amon, dies at a young age. When he tries to resurrect her using the Scroll of Thoth, he’s found out and sentenced to death. He meets a horrifying end as he’s buried alive.

Centuries later, in 1921, his mummified body is discovered and accidentally resurrected. He resurfaces in 1932 and helps archeologists unearth the tomb of the mummified Princess Anckesen-Amon, in the hopes of once more bringing her back to life.

While attempting to do so, he discovers Helen Grosvenor (Zita Johann), who’s the splitting image of Anckesen-Amon. Convinced that Helen is Anckesen-Amon reincarnated, Im Ho Tep seeks to kill her and bring her back to life so they can live together for all eternity.

THE MUMMY also features the phenomenal make-up work of Jack Pierce, and fine supporting performances by Edward Van Sloan and David Manners, but it’s Boris Karloff and Zita Johann who drive THE MUMMY.

Johann’s wide eyes and dark features give her a sensual, mysterious presence. She makes for a strong, independent female character, and she’s convincing as the reincarnated princess.

In THE MUMMY, Johann delivers one of my favorite performances by an actress in the Universal monster movies.

RAIDERS OF THE LIVING DEAD (1986) – Librarian – Zita Johann’s final screen credit in this 1980s zombie flick.

Zita Johann was born on July 14, 1904 in Austria-Hungary. Before acting in the movies, she performed on Broadway starting in 1924.

In THE MUMMY, she and director Karl Freund did not get along. According to Johann, Freund went out of his way to make her life miserable on set. That being said, Johann did develop the reputation for being a difficult actress to work with. Evidently, she turned down lots of scripts, which may explain why she made so few movies.

I wish Johann had made more movies. Her performance as Helen Grosvenor has always been a treat for me and one of the best parts of THE MUMMY. Watching Johan portray Grosvenor, you’ll easily see why Karloff’s Im Ho Tep was in love with her.

Johann passed away on September 20, 1993 in Nyack, New York at the age of 89 from pneumonia.

Zita Johann – July 14, 1904 – September 20, 1993.

I hope you enjoyed this LEADING LADIES column and will join me again next time when we look at another leading lady from horror cinema.

Thanks for reading!

—Michael

IN THE SPOOKLIGHT: WEREWOLF OF LONDON (1935)

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Forever overshadowed by Universal’s next werewolf movie, THE WOLF MAN (1941) starring Lon Chaney Jr. as the ill-fated Larry Talbot, WEREWOLF OF LONDON (1935) starring Henry Hull in the lead role nonetheless remains Universal’s first werewolf movie.

And there’s a reason it exists in the shadow of THE WOLF MAN. It’s simply not as good, but that being said, there are still things to like about WEREWOLF OF LONDON.

Dr. Glendon (Henry Hull) is attacked and bitten by a werewolf while on an expedition in Tibet. He returns home to his wife Lisa (Valerie Hobson), where all is not well. He’s so busy in his laboratory he barely can find the time to spend with his socialite wife, and to further complicate matters, her childhood friend and first love Paul Ames (Lester Matthews) shows up, suddenly competing for Lisa’s affection.

Meanwhile, the mysterious Dr. Yogami (Warner Oland) arrives with the news that he was the werewolf who had attacked Glendon in Tibet. He further informs Glendon that once bitten by a werewolf, that person also becomes a werewolf. Even worse, werewolves often seek out those they love to kill. Jeesh, talk about being a killjoy! 

Yogami explains that the only known antidote to werewolfism is the rare Tibetan flower which Glendon brought back from Tibet and is now growing in his laboratory. It doesn’t bloom all that often, and so its flowers are a rare commodity. Yogami wants those flowers. Of course, once Glendon transforms into a werewolf, he wants the flowers too, and so the battle is on.

So, technically, in this movie, there are actually two werewolves of London.

The story told in WEREWOLF OF LONDON isn’t half bad. The screenplay by John Colton does a nice job establishing the werewolf legend and creating two adversarial characters in Glendon and Yogami. Even better, however, the screenplay knocks it out of the park when showing the marital stress between Glendon and Lisa. Henry Hull and Valerie Hobson are also both up to the task of playing a husband and wife whose marriage is falling apart. Their scenes together are so good they’re often painful to sit through.

Valerie Hobson also starred that same year as Elizabeth in James Whale’s FRANKENSTEIN sequel THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935). I thought she over-acted somewhat in BRIDE, and her performance in WEREWOLF OF LONDON is much more realistic.

Writer John Colton also penned the screenplay to the Boris Karloff/Bela Lugosi classic THE INVISIBLE RAY (1936).

Speaking of Karloff and Lugosi, evidently, early in the creative process, the two horror superstars were originally approached to star in WEREWOLF OF LONDON, with Karloff playing Dr. Glendon and Lugosi playing Dr. Yogami. Had this casting happened, it’s very likely Universal would have had another classic on its hands. Can you imagine a werewolf movie where both Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi played werewolves? I’m sure the film would have been a hit.

The fact that it wasn’t a hit really isn’t the fault of either Henry Hull or Warner Oland. Hull is quite good as Dr. Glendon, and Oland of Charlie Chan fame is excellent as Dr. Yogami. His scenes are my favorite in the entire movie. Sadly, Oland died a couple of years later, in 1938 at the age of 58 from bronchial pneumonia.

One of the reasons most cited for the failure of WEREWOLF OF LONDON is the tepid werewolf make-up by Jack Pierce, the famous make-up artist not known for weak make-up jobs. After all, Pierce created the make-up for Karloff’s Frankenstein Monster and later for Lon Chaney Jr.’s Wolf Man.

Rumors persisted over the years that Henry Hull refused to wear heavy make-up for the role, but evidently this is not true. Supposedly, it was the producers of the film who urged Pierce to go lightly with the werewolf effects out of fear that the film censors would object. I find this story puzzling, since Universal had already pushed the envelope with DRACULA (1931), FRANKENSTEIN (1931), and THE MUMMY (1932).

Either way, the werewolf make-up used here in WEREWOLF OF LONDON pales in comparison to Pierce’s work on THE WOLF MAN (1941) six years later. That being said, it’s not awful, and Hull’s werewolf is rather creepy looking, and director Stuart Walker manages to create some eerie scenes in this one. The werewolf’s howl in this film is also quite frightening.

What’s not scary is just before Hull’s werewolf decides to prowl about London, he stops long enough to put on his hat and coat! And here’s  the true difference between WEREWOLF OF LONDON and THE WOLF MAN. It’s all about Lon Chaney Jr.’s performance. He plays the Wolf Man as a wild animal, a creature that will rip a person’s throat out with its teeth. Hull’s werewolf attacks his victim’s like a man. And of course Chaney gave the Wolf Man the perfect alter ego with the very emotional and tragic Larry Talbot. Hull’s Dr. Glendon does not emote much emotion or sympathy at all.

WEREWOLF OF LONDON manages some fine moments of humor, like the scenes with the two old ladies Glendon rents a room from, who are constantly fighting with each other.

WEREWOLF OF LONDON is not my favorite Universal werewolf movie. I’d argue that all of the Lon Chaney Jr. werewolf movies are better than this one.

However, it’s not a bad movie, and as a standalone werewolf picture, it has its moments. For me, the best part is Warner Oland’s performance as Dr. Yogami. Interesting about Warner Oland. He was famous for playing Charlie Chan and a host of other Asian parts, like Dr. Yogami here in WEREWOLF OF LONDON, and yet supposedly he had no known Asian ancestry. I guess he was just a pretty good actor!

He certainly is here in WEREWOLF OF LONDON, as he outshines lead actor Henry Hull. Of course, had Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi starred in this film as originally intended, that would have been something.

Seen any werewolves of London lately?

You have? Where?

“I saw a werewolf drinkin’ a piña colada at Trader Vic’s. His hair was perfect.”

—-“Werewolves of London” by Warren Zevon.

 

—END—

 

 

 

 

 

TOLKIEN (2019) – Unimaginative Look At Imaginative Author Tolkien

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For a bio pic about imaginative author J.R.R. Tolkien, TOLKIEN (2019) isn’t all that imaginative.

In fact, it’s slow moving and often dull, but it sure looks good!

Director Dome Karukoski, who hails from Finland, has made a handsome elegant production that hearkens back to the Merchant-Ivory classics of yesteryear, at least in appearance anyway. It’s well-acted by its principal leads, but its script lacks the necessary emotion and imagination to carry its audience through to the end. In short, its 112 minute running time seemed much longer.

TOLKIEN tells the story of author J.R.R. Tolkien, known of course for the epic fantasy novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, and it does this by focusing on three phases of his life: his childhood, his time at school where he developed close friendships with a small group of students, and on the battlefields of World War I. While the film intercuts between all three of these periods, the bulk of the movie is spent on Tolkien’s time at school.

It’s at school where Tolkien (Nicholas Hoult) meets his three closest friends, Robert Gilson (Patrick Gibson), Geoffrey Smith (Anthony Boyle), and Christopher Wiseman (Tom Glynn-Carney). The group becomes friends as youths where they declare they will change the world through art, and they stay together as they move on to Oxford where they continue to develop their “fellowship,” a word and feeling that will linger in Tolkien’s mind and heart long after he has finished school.

At home, Tolkien becomes friends with Edith Bratt (Lily Collins) who plays piano for their adoptive benefactor. The two become very close and eventually fall in love.

With the start of World War I, Tolkien finds himself on the battlefield, a brutal and unforgiving place that changes his life forever.

I guess.

That’s the thing about TOLKIEN. Its story never really resonates. Part of it is it’s not that captivating a story in the first place. Sure, Tolkien suffered on the battlefields of World War I, and friends were lost, but it wasn’t for these reasons alone that he wrote The Lord of the Rings.

The film hints that this is the case but never really hammers the point home. I mean, there are times on the battlefield where Tolkien hallucinates about dragons and other mythical creatures, but these images are shown fleetingly, and the connections to his later literary work are only implied.

I had a funny reaction watching TOLKIEN. I liked the main characters and enjoyed watching them, but the conversations and situations were so subtle, lifeless, and dull, that in spite of this I was rather bored throughout. It was akin to spending time with people you like but man, was the conversation flat.

Which is ironic since Tolkien was all about words, and here, the screenplay by David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford is superficial at best. It tells its story but without energy, imagination, or inspiration. And as I said, it’s also not much of a story. Tolkien was an orphan, yes, but the film paints a picture of a decent childhood, and he and his friends at school enjoyed quality times together. There didn’t seem to be much adversity.

The World War I scenes make their point regarding the brutality of trench warfare, but it’s all rather sanitized and doesn’t provide the necessary impact to show that such horrific warfare scarred or shaped Tolkien in any major way.

The love story between Tolkien and Edith Bratt is a good one, but again, there wasn’t a lot of adversity to overcome.

I did enjoy the acting, though. A lot.

Nicholas Hoult, who’s been playing Beast in the recent X-MEN reboots, and he’s been doing an excellent job in the role, is superb in the lead here as J.R.R. Tolkien. In spite of the script limitations, he captures Tolkien’s love of words and the arts, and he makes the author a likable person. He embodies Tolkien’s love of learning and quirky intellect, and at times Holt channels a Benedict Cumberbatch vibe with this performance.

Hoult’s performance was one of my favorite parts of the movie. Hoult was also memorable in last year’s THE FAVOURITE (2018).

Lily Collins was also excellent as Edith Bratt. In fact, Collins, who’s the daughter of singer Phil Collins, was probably my favorite part of TOLKIEN. In the film, Edith Bratt is portrayed as probably the person who influenced Tolkien the most. She’s a strong and articulate presence, and Collins does an outstanding job bringing these qualities to life and also being adorable as well. It’s easy to see by Collins’ performance why Tolkien fell in love with her.

For a movie that was strangely devoid of emotion, Edith Bratt was one of the few characters whose scenes were frequently moving, and Lily Collins’ performance was directly responsible.

Strong emotions were few and far between in TOLKIEN. One of the more powerful scenes in the movie comes near the end, when Tolkien sits down with the mother of one of his slain friends, and she admits she never really knew her son. The way Tolkien explains her son to her is one of the more emotionally charged sequences in the movie.

It was fun to see Colm Meaney in the movie in a key supporting role as Father Francis, a priest who Tolkien’s mother left in charge of her sons’ welfare. Meaney of course played Chief Miles O’Brien on both STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION (1987-1994) and STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE (1993-1999).

And Derek Jacobi shows up briefly as language Professor Wright.

There also just wasn’t a whole lot of connections between Tolkien’s life story as told here in this movie and his novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Sure, things are hinted at, and connections are made peripherally, but you have to connect the dots, which isn’t a bad thing, but what is bad is there simply aren’t a lot of dots to connect.

I enjoyed TOLKIEN well enough because I liked the performances and the look of the film, but for a story about J.R.R. Tolkien, it was all rather lackluster and subdued, and not at all an imaginative take on its very imaginative subject.

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MICHAEL’S MUSINGS: THE SATURDAY MORNING CARTOON

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So the other day I posted on my Facebook page that people of a certain age remember a thing known as “the Saturday morning cartoon,” that time when back in the day cartoons were on all morning on Saturdays.

I asked folks to name their favorites, and as many people responded, I couldn’t help but feel nostalgic as I read all the old titles.  I thought it would be fun to list all those titles in one place. So, here they are, a list of favorite Saturday morning cartoons/programs from a bygone era, as suggested by lots and lots of Facebook friends.

Cue nostalgia.

Enjoy!

 

AMAZING CHAN AND THE CHAN CLAN

ANIMANIACS

BANANA SPLITS

BATMAN/SUPERMAN HOUR

BEANY AND CECIL

BUGS BUNNY

BUGS BUNNY/ROAD RUNNER SHOW

CAPTAIN AMERICA

CAPTAIN CAVEMAN

COURAGEOUS CAT

DANGER MOUSE

DARK WING DUCK

DAVEY AND GOLIATH

DUDLEY DORIGHT

DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS

ELEKTRA WOMAN AND DYNA GIRL

FLASH GORDON

FLINTSTONES

FUNKY PHANTOM

GARFIELD

GARGOYLES

GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE

GIGANTOR

G.I. JOE

GODZILLA (70s)(WITH GODZUKI)

GODZILLA THE ANIMATED SERIES

GROOVY GHOULIES

HAIR BEAR BUNCH, THE

HE-MAN

HERCULES

HERCULOIDS, THE

HONG KONG PHOOEY

H.R. PUFFINSTUFF

INCREDIBLE HULK

IRON MAN

ISIS

JABBERJAW

JOHNNY QUEST

JOHNNY SOKO AND HIS FLYING ROBOT

JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS

JUSTICE LEAGUE

KIDD VIDEO

KIMBA THE WHITE LION

KROFFT SUPERSHOW

LAFF-OLYMPICS

LANCELOT LINK, SECRET CHIMP

LAND OF THE LOST

LONE RANGER

LOONEY TUNES

MAGILLA GORILLA

MIGHTY MOUSE

MILTON THE MONSTER

MONSTER SQUAD

MR. PEABODY AND SHERMAN

MUPPET BABIES

NAMOR

PAC MAN

PINK PANTHER

POPEYE

REAL GHOSTBUSTERS

RESCUE RANGERS

ROAD RUNNER

ROBOTECH

ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE

RUN JOE RUN

SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK

SCOOBY DOO

SHAZAM!

SIGMUND AND THE SEA MONSTERS

SKY KING

SMURFS, THE

SNORKELS, THE

SPACE GHOST

SPEED RACER

SPIDERMAN

SPIDER-MAN AND FRIENDS

STAR TREK (animated)

SUPER FRIENDS

SUPERMAN

TARZAN, LORD OF THE JUNGLE

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES

THUNDARR

THUNDERCATS

TOM AND JERRY

ULTRAMAN

UNDERDOG

VOLTRON

WACKY RACES

WOODY WOODPECKER

WINNIE THE POOH

WUZZLES, THE

 

Hope you enjoyed the list.  Now go eat some sugary cereal!

As always, thanks for reading!

—Michael

 

MEMORABLE MOVIE QUOTES: AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR (2018)

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While I enjoyed AVENGERS: ENDGAME (2019) well enough, I liked the previous installment of the Marvel Avengers’ saga, AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR (2018) much better.

For me, INFINITY WAR was the perfect balance of action-adventure, well-placed humor, and raw emotion. It also didn’t hurt that it had one heck of an ending, one that left audience members gasping in shock at the bold decision made by the filmmakers.

Thanos won.

Those two words still make me groan.

Speaking of words, let’s get back to the point of this column, and lighten things up a bit. A huge reason why INFINITY WAR was so enjoyable was its script. Written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, the screenplay did a remarkable job giving each and every character in the film key moments and quality screen time. As such, there were a lot of memorable lines in this one, most of which need very little explanation or setting up.

Let’s have a listen:

One of the main reasons the script in AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR was so lively was because of the interactions of all the different characters, many of which were meeting each other for the first time, like here when Tony Stark first runs into the Guardians of the Galaxy:

PETER QUILL: Everybody stay where you are. Chill the eff out. I’m gonna ask you this one time. Where is Gamora?

TONY STARK: Yeah. I’ll do you one better. Who’s Gamora?

DRAX: I’ll do you one better. Why is Gamora?

 

And this exchange between Doctor Strange and Peter Quill:

DOCTOR STRANGE: Ok, let me ask you this one time: What master do you serve?

PETER QUILL: Oh, what master do I serve? What am I supposed to say, Jesus?

 

The Guardians get some of the funniest lines in the film, like this sequence with Thor:

THOR: There are six stones out there. Thanos already has the Power Stone because he stole it last week when he decimated Xandar. He stole the Space Stone from me when he destroyed my ship and slaughtered half my people. The Time and Mind Stones are safe on Earth, they’re with the Avengers.

PETER QUILL: The Avengers?

THOR: The Earth’s mightiest heroes.

MANTIS: Like Kevin Bacon?

THOR: He may be on the team. I don’t know, I haven’t been there in a while.

 

And here with Tony Stark and Peter Parker:

TONY STARK: We gotta coalesce. Because if all we come out is with a plucky attitude—.

PETER QUILL: Dude, don’t call us plucky. We don’t know what it means. We’re more optimistic, yes. I like your plan. Except, it sucks. So let me do the plan and that way it might be really good.

DRAX: Tell him about the dance-off to save the Universe.

TONY STARK: What dance-off?

PETER QUILL: It’s not a thing.

PETER PARKER: Like in Footloose, the movie?

PETER QUILL: Exactly like Footloose. Is it still the greatest movie in history?

PETER PARKER: It never was.

TONY STARK: Don’t encourage Flash Gordon.

PETER QUILL: Flash Gordon? That’s a compliment. Don’t forget, I’m half human. So that 50% of me that’s stupid. That’s 100% you.

 

Another reason AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR works so well is because Thanos is one of the best Marvel movie villains of all time, and the movie gives him depth and plenty of key scenes. One could make the argument that INFINITY WAR is really Thanos’ story, as it follows his quest to obtain the Infinity Stones and make good on his promise to wipe out half the population of the universe all in the interest of saving it. Thanos gets a lot of memorable lines, like in this dramatic exchange with his daughter and current Guardian of the Galaxy, Gamora:

GAMORA: I was a child when you took me.

THANOS: I saved you.

GAMORA; No. We were happy on my home planet.

THANOS: You were going to bed hungry, scrounging for scraps. Your planet was on the brink of collapse. I’m the one who stopped that. You know what’s happened since then? The children born have known nothing but full bellies and clear skies. It’s a paradise.

GAMORA: Because you murdered half the planet.

THANOS: A small price to pay for salvation.

GAMORA: You’re insane.

THANOS: Little one, it’s a simple calculus. This universe is finite, its resources, finite. If life is left unchecked, life will cease to exist. It needs correcting.

GAMORA: You don’t know that!

THANOS: I’m the only one who knows that. At least, I’m the only one with the will to act on it.

And in one of the more dramatic sequences in the film, here with Gamora again, and Red Skull, when Thanos realizes that in order to secure this particular Stone he has to sacrifice someone he loves.

GAMORA: All my life I dreamed of a day, a moment, when you got what you deserved. And I was always so disappointed. But now, you kill and torture and you call it mercy. The universe has judged you. You asked it for a prize and it told you no. You failed. And do you wanna know why? Because you love nothing. No one.

(Thanos sheds tears.)

GAMORA: Really? Tears?

RED SKULL: They are not for him.

And at the moment, the audience realizes what’s going to happen next, what Thanos is about to do. I can still feel the shivers. Heck, nearly every time Thanos speaks I feel shivers. Just listen:

THANOS: I know what it’s like to lose. To feel so desperately that you’re right, yet to fail nonetheless. It’s frightening, turns the legs to jelly. I ask you to what end? Dread it. Run from it. Destiny arrives all the same. And now it’s here. Or should I say, I am.

I just have to say, in addition to the screenplay, Josh Brolin’s performance as Thanos really deserves a shout out.  Brolin nailed it as Thanos throughout.

Okay, time to lighten things up again.

Two other characters who met for the first time in INFINITY WAR, Thor and Rocket Raccoon, enjoyed a lot of lively exchanges:

ROCKET: You speak Groot?

THOR: Yes, they taught it on Asgard. It was an elective.

 

ROCKET: This is Thanos we’re talking about. He’s the toughest there is.

THOR:  Well, he’s never fought me.

ROCKET: Yeah, he has.

THOR: He’s never fought me twice.

 

Then there’s this humorous exchange between Tony Stark and Doctor Strange:

TONY STARK: If Thanos needs all six, why don’t we just stick this one down a garbage disposal?

DOCTOR STRANGE: No can do.

WONG: We swore an oath to protect the Time Stone with our lives.

TONY STARK: And I swore off dairy… but then Ben & Jerry’s named a flavor after me, so…

DOCTOR STRANGE: Stark Raving Hazelnuts.

TONY STARK: Not bad.

DOCTOR STRANGE: A bit chalky.

WONG: A Hunk of Hulk of Burning Fudge is our favorite.

 

INFINITY WAR also featured old friends reuniting after being separated for a long time. Here, Captain American and Thor meet up for the final battle and comment on each other’s appearances:

CAPTAIN AMERICA: New haircut?

THOR: Noticed you’ve copied my beard.

 

And this exchange between Tony Stark and Peter Parker:

PETER PARKER: Let me just say, if aliens wind up implanting eggs in my chest or something and I eat one of you, I’m sorry.

TONY STARK: I don’t want another single pop culture reference out of you for the rest of the trip. You understand?

And on and on we could go, but we’ll finish here, with, fittingly enough, the final line in the movie. It’s Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury:

NICK FURY: Oh, no… Motherf…!

And on that note, we’ll call it a column. Hope you enjoyed this look at memorable quotes from AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR and join me again next time for another Memorable Movie Quotes column.

As always, thanks for reading!

—Michael

 

 

MOVIE LISTS: SCARLETT JOHANSSON – 2019

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MOVIE LISTS:  Scarlett Johansson

One of my favorite parts of AVENGERS: ENDGAME (2019) was Scarlett Johansson’s performance as Black Widow and the character’s story arc. So, with that in mind, I thought I would bring this column (originally from 2014) up to date.

Here’s the updated partial list of Johansson’s movie credits through April 2019:

 

EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS (2002) – frightened by giant spiders in this horror movie starring David Arquette.

LOST IN TRANSLATION (2003) – hanging out with Bill Murray in Japan in this quirky film by writer/director Sofia Coppola.

THE SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS MOVIE (2004) – lends her voice to this big screen adventure featuring SpongeBob, Patrick, and their undersea buddies.

MATCH POINT (2005) – really shines in this Woody Allen drama starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

THE PRESTIGE (2006) – Part of the rivalry between magicians Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman in this Christopher Nolan thriller.

VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA (2008) – Another Woody Allen drama, this time with Javier Bardem.

IRON MAN 2 (2010) – Hello Black Widow!  Johansson is the best part of this underwhelming IRON MAN sequel.

THE AVENGERS (2012) – Johansson’s Black Widow is the sexiest crime fighting heroine since Diana Rigg in the other THE AVENGERS, the 1960s TV show with Patrick MacNee.

HITCHCOCK (2012) – Playing Janet Leigh to Anthony Hopkins’ Hitch.

DON JON (2013) – Loses her boyfriend first to porn and then to older woman Julianne Moore in this quirky innovative movie by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

UNDER THE SKIN (2013) – sexy alien who has the bad habit of killing those she seduces. Offbeat and weird, definitely worth a look.

HER (2013) – seduces Joaquin Phoenix with only her voice in this Oscar-nominated movie.

CHEF (2014) – has too small a role in this comedy drama by actor/director Jon Favreau.

CAPTAIN AMERICA:  THE WINTER SOLDIER (2014) – Black Widow is back and she’s still kicking butt and looking incredibly sexy doing it in this superior CAPTAIN AMERICA sequel.

LUCY (2014) – She’s the best part of this science fiction thriller about a woman who suddenly finds herself able to access her full brain capacity.

AVENGERS:  AGE OF ULTRON (2015) – fourth appearance as Black Widow in this AVENGERS sequel, which is not as good as the first.

HAIL, CAESAR! (2016) – has one of the best scenes in the movie, a hilariously sexy sequence with Jonah Hill, in this otherwise underwhelming misfire by the Coen Brothers.

THE JUNGLE BOOK (2016) – provides the voice for the snake Kaa in this impressive Disney remake of the Rudyard Kipling tale, well-directed by Jon Favreau.

CAPTAIN AMERICA:  CIVIL WAR (2016):  fifth turn as the sexy Black Widow in the third CAPTAIN AMERICA movie and one of Marvel’s all time best.  This rousing superhero film plays like THE AVENGERS 2.5 and contains some of the most entertaining sequences in the Marvel movie universe thus far.

GHOST IN THE SHELL (2017) – plays the lead role of the Major, a cyborg crime fighter, in this disappointing remake of the classic Japanese animated film.

ROUGH NIGHT (2017) –  it’s a girl’s night out gone wrong as Johansson plays a woman enjoying a reunion with her college friends when they accidentally kill a male stripper.

ISLE OF THE DOGS (2018) – lends her voice to this Oscar-nominated animated film which also features voice work from Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, and Jeff Goldblum.

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR (2018) – back as Black Widow again in what for my money is the best AVENGERS film yet. Nonstop entertaining, and a gut-wrenching emotional finale, thanks to the unstoppable cosmic villain Thanos who will not be denied.

AVENGERS: ENDGAME (2019) – while I liked INFINITY WAR better than ENDGAME, Johansson enjoys some of her finest moments in the entire series as Black Widow right here in this movie. Indeed, Black Widow’s story and Johansson’s performance are some of the best parts of this film, which wraps up the AVENGERS saga as the Avengers go after Thanos and attempt to undo what he did in the previous film.

There you have it, a partial list of some notable Scarlett Johansson movies, updated for 2019.  Previously, I had written about looking forward to the rumored standalone movie for Black Widow, and supposedly, that film even though it’s been rumored for years, is in pre-production, which is interesting, considering what ultimately happened to Black Widow in AVENGERS: ENDGAME. Anyway, I would still be incredibly excited to see that standalone movie for Black Widow, and I do hope it still happens.

Okay, that’s it for now.

As always, thanks for reading!

—Michael