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A Movie for Christmas Day 2019 The Godfather Part II (1974)Today’s themes: Family, Betrayal, Vengeance, Immigrants, Murder, The American Dream The Godfather Part II (1974) begins with the cold-blooded murder of Vito Corleone’s entire family. The...
A Movie for Christmas Day 2019

The Godfather Part II (1974)

Today’s themes: Family, Betrayal, Vengeance, Immigrants, Murder, The American Dream

The Godfather Part II (1974) begins with the cold-blooded murder of Vito Corleone’s entire family. The three-hour and twenty-minute film follows the stories of two members of the Corleone family, patriarch Vito’s (Robert De Niro) introduction to a life of crime and wealth, and his youngest son Michael’s (Al Pacino) rise to infamy and cold, calculated, absolute control. These stories, spanning decades, are woven together through themes rather than actions, and compose one epic tale of sorrow and loneliness.

It’s impossible to separate this sequel from the film that precedes it, of course, and if you have the time, viewing both in one long, sumptuous, bloody binge is well worth your time, but this film is the better of the two. 1972’s The Godfather illustrates how war hero and reluctant Mafia Don Michael comes to assume the power he wields in this film, and is by comparison relatively straightforward and simple to follow. This film attempts - and succeeds - to more deeply explain the historical dynamics that lead to one family’s rise to power, and its fall from any pretense of moral balance.

These two films showcase the skill and perseverance of writer-producer-director Francis Ford Coppola, to whom Paramount assigned absolute control. After the success of The Godfather, the studio started work on a sequel, signing on all of the original (surviving) cast and giving Coppola a budget of $5 million that ballooned to $18 million by the time the film’s nine-month shoot was done. Perhaps most importantly from a visual perspective, Coppola retained master cinematographer Gordon Willis, who had cast a literal shadow over the first film with his insistence that the film should look as dark as its subject, and Mario Puzo once again assisted on the story and script.

The film is also a showcase for an acting style that came to dominate film starting in the 70’s. Actors were now being trained to work to the camera rather than to an audience. Voices were hushed, gestures were softened, and they began to rely on facial expression and closeness rather than the broader projection that the stage requires. The camera is pushed into the conversation as a participant rather than an observer which lends an intimacy to the scenes and makes the viewer an accomplice.

Coppola said he wanted to make a film about a father and son told from the same point of view, and from the same age, and with the same challenges. He didn’t want to simply repeat the success of The Godfather by repeating its story. We watch this family’s ascension and fall in parallel paths, able to see the decisions and reasons why each man chose those paths, and what price was paid. 

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A Movie for Christmas Day 2019 Adam’s Rib (1949)Today’s themes: Love and anger, Right and wrong, He and she, Four of a perfect pair When everything comes together just right, it’s a feeling like no other. Somehow, in some small but magical way, even...

A Movie for Christmas Day 2019

Adam’s Rib (1949)

Today’s themes: Love and anger, Right and wrong, He and she, Four of a perfect pair

When everything comes together just right, it’s a feeling like no other. Somehow, in some small but magical way, even if you can’t find words to explain it, you can tell when the Bolognese came out delicious, but not like that other time when it was perfect. From a collection of pictures of the same thing within split-seconds of each other, you can pick out the perfect one.

Adam’s Rib (1949) is a case of a great script, a great director, and a great cast somehow and miraculously aligning all at once and in perfect harmony. It no doubt helps when the script, by married couple Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon (yes, that Ruth Gordon), was written for the stars, Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn, starring in it. Then, sprinkle on top the carefully loose film direction of George Cukor and a supporting cast that includes Judy Holliday, Tom Ewell, and David Wayne and it’s almost impossible for this film to find a bad note.

The film follows the ups and downs of a courtroom comedy between married lawyers defending, on one side, the rule of law itself while being opposed by the undeniable sexism of American culture. If a man defends his marriage and honor by shooting the other man sleeping with his wife he’s the hero, but if a woman does the same thing she’s the villain. 

When I mentioned Cukor’s carefully loose direction, what I mean is that he makes himself scarce and allows these actors and words to become the focal point, setting up his camera and simply watching what happens. When the camera moves, it’s concise and with purpose. There are several so-called long takes that another director might use to call attention to his own artistry and mastery of the camera, but Cukor wants to allow his actors to…act. The dialog is often so quick and smart that you might feel like the dumbest person at the best party you never attended.

To be sure, the film shows its age, finding some easy jokes in “women drivers” and the fact that women are as smart as men, but these are the exceptions. What you might not see coming is that both sides in the argument are given equal time. Tracy’s Adam isn’t a fool or a bad guy when he argues that laws apply to all people, while Hepburn’s Amanda dances around that truth by stating the opposite is true, that laws are applied differently depending on who committed the crime.

Above all, this is a love story. By this point, Tracy and Hepburn had been in a “secret” relationship for six years. Friends said she changed completely around him, growing softer (after all, she made her first husband legally change his name so her last name wouldn’t be Smith, which she considered “too plain”) and more motherly. She dotes on him here, and he flirts and seduces her right back. There is a ton of charm and friendship on display here, and how much is acting and how much real life blurs into insubstantial stuff. Every shot is tight, every word sparkles with wit. It’s a marvel it exists at all.

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A Movie for Christmas Day 2019 Ultraviolet (2006)Today’s themes: Nostril protection, Bullet veins, Skyscraper motorcycles, Sexy shirtless vampire supervillains I feel like? Everyone needs to lose control now and again. Everyone needs to let loose and...

A Movie for Christmas Day 2019

Ultraviolet (2006)

Today’s themes: Nostril protection, Bullet veins, Skyscraper motorcycles, Sexy shirtless vampire supervillains

I feel like? Everyone needs to lose control now and again. Everyone needs to let loose and give away all their fucks and sort of fall into a deep, dark well of complete stupid, to ignore things like, you know, plot and logic and consistent characterization and let the crazy shit just wash over you. I mean, what do you want to watch when you’re completely done with your family, the presents, the pets, the year, and the world in general? How do you shut off your brain and slip into insanity?

In the year of our Lord 2006, someone had the genius brainstorm to shove $30 million into a movie machine and mix in pieces of every good and bad anime ever created without ever once stepping back and asking if any of it made sense. My friends, I present to you the majesty, the mayhem, and the miracle that is Ultraviolet. If you have not yet had the opportunity to feast your eyes, ears, nose, and throat on this loud, bright, violent, insane piece of filmic history, I urge you to rectify that error before the year and the decade are over.

It’s hard to pick just one Milla Jovovich movie out in which to showcase her oeuvre. I mean, this is an actress who has played the ultimate being in The Fifth Element, Alice, the ass-kicking zombie killer in every Resident Evil, Joan of Arc, Milady de Winter in easily the worst remake of The Three Musketeers put to digital celluloid, and Blood Queen Vivienne Nimue in this year’s failed Hellboy reboot. I mean, what can’t she do? But I will bet cash money on her role as Violet Song Jat Shariff (Yes! A character so confusing that she has four names!) In Ultraviolet, because what is Violet? Nothing less than a retributive super-human assassin delivery-messenger motorcycle vampire zombie! Nothing less! Who is also tasked by the Vice-Cardinal of Futureland Metropolis Utopia (not a real thing) to steal a weapon designed to exterminate all the stupid violent vampires who inhabit this world which turns out to be a six-year-old clone boy folded inside a slim plastic backpack and I almost forgot that the clone only has eight hours to live and also Violet is able to make unlimited bullets out of her own veins. 

If this sounds like a fever dream concocted during an extended Coke-fueled weekend in some billionaire start-up leader’s Beijing apartment while a zombie concubine goes down on him as he screams out the complete lyrics from Sympathy for the Devil, you’re not far off. I cannot - literally can not - adequately convey with mere words the insanity of this movie and how awesome it fails at everything one would normally associate with a blockbuster summer action film, and how it fails so completely that it crosses over from horror to wonder with every second of its 89-minute screen time. Like, I would try to explain some of the action set pieces that take place and how utterly dreadful they look, probably created on someone’s desktop computer while the director, one Kurt Wimmer, whose directing career ended with this gorgeous train wreck, stood behind them massaging their shoulders and whispering in their ear “remember, you will die.”

If I’m making this sound like a terrible film, believe me when I tell that it is. It’s awful. But it’s also so bat shit insane crazy ass over the top unbelievable that you have to watch it. Your life isn’t going to be complete without this in it. It’s like witnessing the moon landing if the moon landing involved driving up the side of a skyscraper on a motorcycle so you can jump that motorcycle through a helicopter that’s firing a machine gun at you while you spin in place wearing a bare midriff latex catsuit with perfect hair and lipstick.

I mean. Holy fuck.

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A Movie for Christmas Day 2019 To Catch A Thief (1955)Today’s themes: Charm, Joie de vive, Ridiculous hats, Bourbon, Robin’s egg blue convertible sports cars I could, I suppose, start this off with another complaint about the state of the world...

A Movie for Christmas Day 2019

To Catch A Thief (1955)

Today’s themes: Charm, Joie de vive, Ridiculous hats, Bourbon, Robin’s egg blue convertible sports cars

I could, I suppose, start this off with another complaint about the state of the world today, except that’s how we got into this state. People wishing for a past that never existed, where the help knew their place and stayed there, happily satisfied with their lot and absolutely penniless. And, I suppose, I just did that, because the film for today’s Christmas viewing is exactly that, a portrait of a time and place that never really existed, but that some of us wish for. Like most things of its period, it is completely devoid of people of color, except as ornamentation, and features a cast that’s so white it might as well be made of fresh milk. I state all of this up front because it’s the type of thing we need, now, to think about whenever we dip our toes into Hollywood’s past, which was determined to pull us into the theaters not with tales of honesty and truth, but with veils of silk and tall cocktails politely tinkling in the night.

Even so, To Catch A Thief (1955) is a gorgeous whiff of the best cocaine you are ever likely to sample. Director Alfred Hitchcock is famous for many things, but chiefly for broadcasting his own shortcomings and sexual predilections up onto 80-foot screens to entertain us all, and this gentle little slip of a thing hardly even scratched the surface, but with good reason. In 1955, Hitchcock, who has already been directing films for 33 years, wanted a break. But he needed to keep working because in those days, film directors - even abnormally famous ones - didn’t command million-dollar paychecks. So, he figured, why not combine a job and a vacation in one and make a film in Monaco on the French Riviera? 

This film coasts on charm. It is smooth and glossy like a perfect lake for water-skiing. It is also chock-a-block with odd casting trivia like the fact that Brigitte Auber, who is playing a teenager trying to seduce her way into Cary Grant’s arms at the expense of the “much older” Grace Kelly was actually almost two years older than her rival. The inimitable Jessie Royce Landis, who plays Grace Kelly’s world-weary Texan mother is younger than Cary Grant, and went on to also play his mother in North By Northwest. Grant was talked into playing the part based almost solely on the shooting locale, and of course Grace Kelly met Prince Rainier during filming and married him within a year, thereby changing her name to Princess Grace of Monaco.

The plot is paper thin. There’s a jewel thief known as The Cat who lives in a perfect and gorgeous villa atop a perfect and gorgeous hill above a perfect and gorgeous view of perfect and gorgeous Monaco. Someone else has begun to impersonate him, though he retired long ago, but it puts him back in the crosshairs of the local police, so he sets out to discover who is actually committing the crimes in his name. Along the way, he befriends a Lloyd’s of London insurance agent who provides him a list of likely future victims, including a Texas oil widow and her young daughter, “an insecure pampered woman accustomed to attracting men”. Obviously they fall in love and set out to discover the solution to this mystery together, wearing incredible fashions by Edith Head and driving around one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

The Cat is played by one of Hitchcock’s most reliable alter-egos, Cary Grant, in maybe the Cary Grantiest role ever filmed. Grant, born Archibald Leach, and probably a bisexual who lived for a dozen years with Western star Randolph Scott, was the quintessential Hollywood leading man. He had an unplaceable accent (he was born in Bristol and arrived in the U.S. when he was 16 as part of a vaudeville troupe of actors) and was by all accounts a genius with a computerized brain that remembered everything, making memorizing lines a breeze. He was a comedian on stage, drawing inspiration from The Marx Brothers, before Mae West recognized his almost inhuman beauty and natural charm and cast him in two of her films, later claiming that she discovered him. His screen résumé is almost embarrassingly full, but it might be here that his full incandescent appeal is used to full advantage.

No one is likely to place this film among the best of Hitchcock’s canon. For that, you’ll be better off watching Vertigo or North By Northwest, either of which will showcase the director’s rather low opinion of women in general and his careful construction of puzzle plots. But for a pleasant diversion, filled with great lines and a collection of actors clearly having a great time tooling around in this French playground, To Catch A Thief sets the standard for every couple caper film and TV show to come.

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A Movie for Christmas Day 2019 Ōgon Batto (The Golden Bat, 1966)Today’s themes: Capes, Super Destruction Beam Cannons, Machines that go PING!, Theremins, “Holy crap! Earth is in danger!” Remember when you were a kid and believing you could be the...

A Movie for Christmas Day 2019

Ōgon Batto (The Golden Bat, 1966)

Today’s themes: Capes, Super Destruction Beam Cannons, Machines that go PING!, Theremins, “Holy crap! Earth is in danger!”

Remember when you were a kid and believing you could be the heroes you saw on TV? Me, being old, I have a collection of heroes that I and my brother and his best friend Tony and my best friend Steve would go to the field near our houses (really just a very large vacant dirt lot) and act out all our favorite shows. Star Trek, The Wild Wild West, Flipper, Thunderbirds Are Go, even Lost in Space. They were varying degrees of lame, let’s be honest, with terrible special effects, men in rubber suits pretending to be monsters and villains, cool vehicles, even cooler wardrobes, and overwrought acting and plots ripe for replaying among the tumbleweeds and discarded mattresses as if we were on some amazing outer space planet fighting enemies bent on our destruction.

It’s often hard to remember what that felt like, that we could be heroes as easily as that, but it was mostly because the things we saw were…cheap. Easily mimicked, and simple to make believe into reality using cardboard boxes for lairs and old sheets for capes and ketchup for blood. In a way, computer-generated effects have ruined all that. Films and TV shows look too good now, and take themselves too fucking seriously. What we all need — kids and grown ups alike — is to remember what really crappy, really cool, really outlandish and exciting entertainment was. And in that spirit, I present to you Ōgon Batto (The Golden Bat 1966) in all its original amazing black-and-white glory.

I need to fill you in on some important stuff about Ōgon Batto the character before we dive into Ōgon Batto the motion picture. There is some confusion and learned discourse concerning who is the first superhero, and what a superhero is. For example, is Robin Hood a superhero? He’s certainly a hero, but does anything make him super? He can shoot arrows really well, and that’s all that makes Hawkeye a superhero. Is Black Widow a superhero? She can kick ass really, really well, but she has no super powers. She can’t fly and she can’t melt steel beams with her eyes. Still, it’s generally agreed that the first real superhero debuted in 1931 and was created by Suzuki Ichiro and Takeo Nagamatsu (who was 16 years old at the time), seven years before Superman ever leaped a tall building. Ōgon Batto is an ancient being from Atlantis who was sent forward in time 10,000 years to battle the forces of evil in present day Japan.

Ōgon Batto, the film, is an origin story from Toei Company and stars Sonny Chiba in a skull mask and very awesome cape and collar as the titular hero. The villain of the film, intent on destroying Earth by altering the orbit of planet Icarus and send it crashing into us, is Nazo, “the ruler of the universe,” who is apparently a giant four-eyed rat-squirrel (in the world’s loosest furry rat-squirrel costume) with one mechanical claw hand who really, really enjoys laughing maniacally and being just generally mean. To be fair, The Golden Bat, who appears on an island and must be resurrected from his 10,000-year slumber by pouring water on his chest (pretty simple!), also enjoys laughing maniacally while pointing his walking stick? I think? And flapping his cape about and generally being awesome.

There’s a secret organization that protects the Earth, there’s a super smart scientist who invents the only weapon strong enough to destroy Icarus and ruin Nazo’s evil plans, there’s the scientist’s granddaughter who forms a special bond with Ōgon Batto that super-annoys Nazo, though pretty much everything super-annoys Nazo. That is until he introduces us to his equally evil henchmen, Keloid, Piranha, and Jackal! That’s when things get really intense, what with masquerading as good guys and infiltrating headquarters and using flying submarines and whatnot.

But why spoil any more of this forgotten classic? If this film were rebooted by Michel Gondry today it wouldn’t look any different. The effects are simple but effective, the acting is melodramatic and overwrought, the action is breakneck and involves a lot of running, and I defy any kid of around six years old to watch this and not want to don their own skull mask and walking stick and start kicking alien butt. 

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A Movie for Christmas Day 2019 Road House (1989)Today’s themes: Good guys and bad guys, Something for the gals, Ridiculous premises, Wanton destruction We all need something preposterous. Something outlandish and, quite frankly, too stupid to take...

A Movie for Christmas Day 2019

Road House (1989)

Today’s themes: Good guys and bad guys, Something for the gals, Ridiculous premises, Wanton destruction

We all need something preposterous. Something outlandish and, quite frankly, too stupid to take seriously. Life is already so serious that taking a break from it and sinking deep and thick inside stupidity (in small amounts and not to make a habit of it) is like taking a holiday from our lives. We don’t necessarily have to go anywhere, and it only takes a little bit of stupidity, like getting an idiot injection, to overcome all the other horrible crap that gets thrown at us. It helps tremendously if the stupidity also involves the bad guy getting what’s coming to him, lots of skin and pretty people (vacant though they may be) and a heavy slathering of charisma to make it all go down smoothly.

Road House (1989) is a stupid, stupid movie. There are no deeper meanings to be extracted from it, there’s no performance that transcends its simple and predictable plot, you won’t care a whit about any of its characters or situations or dangers, and it’s like…the opposite of cool. Whatever cool is, this film isn’t that, except it thinks it is. I think? I mean, it’s actually hard to tell whether its actors and technicians and the people who wrote and directed actually mean what they’ve put up on the screen, but more importantly it doesn’t matter.

This film comes from the short, weird slice of Hollywood history when Patrick Swayze was hot. It lasted only the blink of an eye and we got only a handful of films out of it, but for a little while there Patrick Swayze was hot. But you would never know it from watching this film because although he’s the star of it and his chiseled and oddly shiny countenance is featured in nearly every scene, he leaves no impression whatsoever. And a lot of that is because what we get to watch instead is two other character actors who are so good it’s criminal.

First there’s Sam Elliott. Now, no one doesn’t like Sam Elliott. Sam Elliott, who always plays Sam Elliott in every role he’s been assigned, is maybe the most likable actor of the last 40 years. You probably don’t think about him much, and maybe haven’t been paying attention, but Sam Elliott is the proverbial guy that every man wants to be, and every woman wants to be with - except that I both want to be and be with him. He is effortlessly sexy, and no more so than here where he plays grizzled (Sam Elliotty) world-weary (Sam Elliotty) “legendary bouncer” Wade Garrett. He steals every scene he’s in so effortlessly that you may think he just wandered onto the set and everyone looked at him and thought, fuck yeah, this guy needs to be in this movie.

The second actor to watch is Ben Gazzara as villain Brad Wesley. It is absolutely obvious that Gazzara is also having the time of his life here. Any actor worth their salt will tell you that playing a villain is always more fun than playing the hero, and Gazzara here makes the most of it. Wesley is mean. He’s slimy. He’s reprehensible, morally repugnant, a misogynist, a racist, I mean, it’s like someone just went into a thesaurus and listed every word related to evil and tacked it onto his character, and Gazzara relishes every second of it.

If you have not yet seen this film and you select it from this list of possibilities and wonder, as it starts up, why the hell you’re waisting your time watching a stupid ass piece of shit about some tiny bar in the middle of nowhere ruled over by a smirking asshole who seems to just scare everyone into paying him because he owns a monster truck or something, just…chill. Relax. Sit back, grab some popcorn and a Cherry Coke, and allow the stupid to wash over you. Stop thinking for to hours and watch some shirtless dude with a ripped bod kick the shit out of another shirtless dude because the bar didn’t get their liquor delivery. These are the important issues. Deal with it.

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A Movie for Christmas Day 2019 Enter the Dragon (1973)Today’s themes: Kicking ass, Kicking butt, Kicking bums, Kicking derrieres, Kicking kiesters The last James Bond film starring Daniel Craig will debut early next year, and a lot of people are...

A Movie for Christmas Day 2019

Enter the Dragon (1973)

Today’s themes: Kicking ass, Kicking butt, Kicking bums, Kicking derrieres, Kicking kiesters

The last James Bond film starring Daniel Craig will debut early next year, and a lot of people are wondering who the next James Bond will be. Now, personally, I am confused about how the James Bond films work as a whole. Is every new James Bond actor’s cycle of films meant as a replacement for the old James Bond? Are we ignoring that there was another Bond before this one, or are we supposed to pretend not to notice that this James Bond looks nothing like the last one? Or is it that James Bond is merely a name that gets used by different spies, none of whom are actually named James Bond but they all assume the title and the role and carry on as if they’re the only one and no one mentions the other one they replaced? 

In the current age of equal representation, and with a female Thor on the way and teenaged Ghostbusters and Scarlett Johansson playing an Asian superhero robot, some people want a not-another-white-guy to assume the role. Why can’t we see someone besides an Eton-educated rich white dude playing this iconic action hero? But I’m here to tell you that it already happened, and you can watch this James Bond film right now. It’s called Enter The Dragon (1973) and it stars Bruce Lee as James Bond, infiltrating a villainous lair on a secret island populated by an army of henchmen bent on something something something complete world supremacy.

The saddest thing about Enter The Dragon, which unequivocally made an international superstar out of Bruce Lee, is that Bruce Lee was already dead by the time the film was released. On a budget of $850,000, the film raked in $90 million, or half-a-billion US dollars when adjusted for inflation. Okay? Huge. Massive. A cultural phenomena. The second saddest thing was that American distributors were so afraid of releasing a film with an Asian star that it padded out the script by inserting a white guy (John Saxon) so as not to scare Kansas, and a black guy (Jim Kelly) in an attempt to cash in on the emerging Blaxploitation genre. But Lee was not only its star, he was also a producer and - I shit you not - as an established director in his own right, he personally filmed the first part of the film that sets up his own backstory (yes, originally this was about a bunch of dudes who show up on a island and fight each other and had no plot to speak of) and inserted it into the finished product before it was released.

When I say this is a James Bond film in everything but its name, I mean that. Here’s the plot, such as it is: Lee (Bruce Lee) is approached by British Intelligence to investigate Hong Kong crime lord Han by traveling to Han’s private island and participating in a martial arts competition and prove that Han is a drug trafficker and deals in prostitution. Before leaving, Lee discovers that his sister’s killer, O’Hara, works on the island as well. Making his way there, he meets old fighting buddies Roper (Saxon) and Williams (Kelly) on a junk. Then some stuff happens, kick, kick, slap, hit, kick, and it all ends up in an extended kung fu fight between Lee and Han in a hall of mirrors that’s pretty awesome considering we have to follow two actors in a room of reflections on reflections and never see the camera.

Literally everyone loved this film. The critics loved it. It showed in sold out theaters in Japan, India, France, and Germany. The soundtrack by Lalo Schifrin, who also wrote the theme to Mission: Impossible, went gold. A copy of the film is in the Library of Congress for its cultural significance. It’s said that this movie inspired Akira Toriyama to create the Dragon Ball manga series, and Goku’s piercing eyes were directly based on Lee’s own penetrating gaze.

Lee was already a superstar in Hong Kong and this was going to be his entry into the American film market. Warner Bros. spent over $1 million to promote it, and it gave birth to the martial arts craze in the U.S. Watching it now, it still retains the sexy charm and crazy cool athleticism that so many of today’s films aspire to. Without this film, there would be no Jackie Chan (who appears for a split second as a henchman) and no Matrix and no Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Plus it is, for my money, one of the best James Bond films ever released.

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A Movie for Christmas Day 2019 Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)Today’s themes: Family, Hurt, Fear, Bravery, Kicking ass, It takes all kinds no literally all kinds no even more kinds than that This year, Martin Scorsese got pissed off because...

A Movie for Christmas Day 2019

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

Today’s themes: Family, Hurt, Fear, Bravery, Kicking ass, It takes all kinds no literally all kinds no even more kinds than that

This year, Martin Scorsese got pissed off because no studio wanted to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to make his movie about really old actors who are playing the same parts they’ve been playing for let’s face it a good long while now and make a film that doesn’t really break any new ground or say anything that other gangster films haven’t already said including a few of his own that coincidentally star some of these same actors but whatever the point is he took a shit on superhero movies kind of like when Ebert said video games couldn’t be art and I’d tell you what he said but I’m not on Twitter so I could give a flying bloody fuck what someone in Hollywood has their panties in a bunch for but the gist of it as far as I could tell was that Marvel films aren’t art.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) is a motherfucking work of art. More than that, it is both state-of-the-art filmmaking as well as a family movie that everyone can watch together on the same god damned couch and manage to laugh and cry and scream together and all take something different away from it. Plus! If you get high? And watch this thing? Your brain will melt into euphoric puddles of psychedelic wonderment.

SM:ISV is based on a shit ton of things, none of which you’re likely to care about because although it is potentially confusing since you live in this universe and not one of the others, you know that Peter Parker is Spider-Man and he’s in love with Mary Jane and he has an Aunt May and he does cool shit and has a TV show and a catchy jingle and ice cream. But what if none of that were true? Or some was true and some wasn’t true, except not true exactly, more like it’s another truth somewhere else which is not here and it is.

Miles Morales lives in Brooklyn and goes to a private high school because he is extremely smart and talented. His parents love him and his dad is a cop. Their love is real and honest and doesn’t have a whiff of missing father syndrome or I hate my parents and therefore I shall be a vigilante. No, Miles is a nice, average, sometimes awkward, sometimes impatient, sometimes happy dude. And then a radioactive spider bites him, and you have no fucking clue what comes next.

I can’t tell you what a breath of fresh air this movie is. I’ll even go so far as to say that even if you don’t like superhero films, even if you think Spider-Man is lame, even if you’ve watched some Marvel Cinematic Universe and left the theatre bored or unsatisfied and, yes, even if you’re god damned Martin fucking Scorsese you will love this movie. Love! Love it! Even as I type this sentence I wish I was watching it again.

You know what? Don’t watch it. Don’t treat yourself. Don’t experience two hours of pure awesome that explodes with color and beauty and fun and bravery and just sit there by yourself, smug in your little world of meaningful movies, and be your own party pooper, Martin. Just do that.

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A Movie for Christmas Day 2019 Waiting for Guffman (1996)Todays themes: Hope, Small towns, White people, Musicals, Aliens, Musicals about aliens Making the most with what we have is so anti-now. Now is about having your own space to feature yourself...

A Movie for Christmas Day 2019

Waiting for Guffman (1996)

Todays themes: Hope, Small towns, White people, Musicals, Aliens, Musicals about aliens

Making the most with what we have is so anti-now. Now is about having your own space to feature yourself to make yourself feel more important. Now is about being on Instagram and trying to put yourself in your best light, Photoshopping away all your small and large imperfections, making sure your lighting is right, your hairs are all in place, you have the perfect pose in the perfect place for the world to see, so the world believes we are perfect, and beautiful, and utterly without flaws.

Waiting for Guffman (1996) is a celebration of the perfection of flaws. It is a film, like most of the films of Christopher Guest (and in this case, Eugene Levy) that can be taken one of two ways by you. You’re a member of the audience watching this faux documentary about a small town in Missouri that elects to celebrate its 150th anniversary by writing, composing, starring in, and directing a new play based on the town’s history. The first way is pure parody, in which we separate ourselves from it and sit back to laugh at these characters as they delude themselves into thinking that what they are making together is a classic, a Broadway-bound piece of perfect musical theatre that is true and beautiful. The second way is to become one of them, going in with our whole hearts, diving into the deep end with everything we are and everything we wish in order to find that spark of magic in everyone’s mundane lives.

I prefer the second interpretation, myself, perhaps because cynicism is so easy, particularly for me.

There are two characters here that form the heart and mind of the production and the film. The first one is never even seen, the titular Mr. Guffman whose promise and premise push the narrative forward to increasingly wonderful heights of delusion and wonder. Guffman is a literal MacGuffin, that unimportant device that Hitchcock made famous by inserting one into almost each thriller he made in his career; a plot device that is completely unimportant other than to use it to drive the plot forward. Without (Mac)Guffman, the film would die in the first reel, and lose its sense of drama and motivation. The second character is Corky St. Clair (Guest), an eccentric, egotistic, driven dreamer of a man whose broad and grand vision is the tent under which everyone else’s dreams are bound up, discovered and recognized for their talents and the things which make them special and different from everyone else around them.

It’s impossible not to give credit to the ensemble of actors in this film because a lot of it is improvised, making the actors their own authors. The secret of all these mocumentaries is the collected talent that’s provided for us, and to recognize that the actors aren’t making fun of the people they’re portraying - they love them. They love them openly and honestly and show them off warts and all. The point is never to make fun of these people, which would be more cruel than funny, and there are certainly plenty of comedy films that use that premise to wrench luges out of us. Here, the comedy is based on admiration for their determination and a love for their dreams. Fred Willard, Catherine O’Hara, Parker Posey, Guest, Levy, and every other actor in parts large and small are completely fearless to perform their hearts out performing their hearts out. 

If you have a dream, it’s easy to let others squash it underfoot, belittling it and you and trying to prop themselves up in reflection. But all dreams are sacred, and all dreamers are gods. It is easy to be trampled underfoot and give up in the face of insurmountable odds. It’s easy to listen when other people say your dream (and you) are unworthy, ordinary, and meaningless. But dreams are the things that push us forward in life. Dreams are the things that allow us to overcome obstacles and naysayers and persevere. The realization of your dream is apt to be imperfect and others may demean it and you. Like Corky and Co., just keep going. Your dreams are waiting, but they need you to make them come true.

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A Movie for Christmas Day 2019 Lincoln (2012)Today’s themes: Honor, Bravery, Deception, Ignorance, Tolerance, Facial hair Today’s political climate is certainly…interesting. To think of what is happening all around us every day, historically...

A Movie for Christmas Day 2019

Lincoln (2012)

Today’s themes: Honor, Bravery, Deception, Ignorance, Tolerance, Facial hair

Today’s political climate is certainly…interesting. To think of what is happening all around us every day, historically speaking, is staggering. Hong Kong, London, Washington, Paris, Saudi Arabia, it is all literally too much to absorb. What will the future - if we allow it to exist - make of it? Will they even be able to make sense of it?

In 1865, as the American Civil War crawled on and on, the President of the United States was cast onto a precipice. Would he hang on to the war powers granted his office in a last ditch and nearly impossible gamble in passing a constitutional amendment banning slavery, or act in good faith with an adversary now anxious to end the war? Lincoln (2012) explores this horrible period from inside and outside The White House, awash with mud and blood, trying to form a more perfect union.

This is a somber, sometimes angry, sometimes frustrating, but ultimately very moving film. I’m not sure anyone would place it among Spielberg’s best, but if this was any other director’s film it could easily be theirs. Spielberg is a film craftsman, an artisan, carefully constructing every shot without an inch to spare. Even when he gets messy, as he does in the opening minutes here, shooting a vicious and horrid hand-to-hand battle on a blood-pooled battlefield, it is carefully choreographed. 

On the other hand, such care also means that this is a gorgeous film, bathed in natural light and deep blues, like traveling through a sumptuous cave. The script, too, is careful with every word, which in some actor’s mouths sound trite or stilted, but an actor as good as Daniel Day Lewis is here, he finds a natural cadence that makes the president’s words sound natural. Lewis is, as usual, note perfect in his performance.

A story as important as the banning of slavery deserves this level of heft and weight to it. This is a script that never stops, never lets up, pushing you into the smaller stories that construct this epic. And talk about a cast; Lewis, who won the Oscar, Sally Field, David Strathairn, Tommy Lee Jones, James Spader, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and even Adam Driver in one of his first blink-and-you’ll-miss-it roles. 

This is one of those pictures where all the pieces, from the script to the director to the actors to the production design, costumes and lighting, come together at the right pace, and constructed like a Rubik’s you’re watching being slowly solved. The running of government has always been ugly, and both sides will do whatever it takes to win. The difference is what those sides are fighting for.

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