Hey 3.5 readers.
Did you think I’d let March go by without saying hello? Well, you were almost right! Here I am on this last day of the month to celebrate my 11 year anniversary as the proprietor of a blog with 3.5 readers.
Movies I have seen and recommend:
Novacaine
A Working Man
That Diving Movie with Woody Harrelson whose name escapes me right now
I’ll be back in April to review these movies and more.
Until next time, thank you for being one of my 3.5 readers.
May you be fruitful and multiply so that one day I might have 7 readers
Who let the diamonds out? Who, who, who?
BQB here to review a heist movie, 3.5 readers.
The first Den of Thieves caught me by surprise. It didn’t do well at the box office but caught traction when it hit Netflix, so much so I had long assumed it was a Netflix original and was thus surprised when this sequel was released to theaters. But apparently it was the original was a flick destined to be forgotten until Netflix breathed new life into it and generated enough interest for a second go around, albeit 7 years later.
The first film was non-stop action and shootouts. This one is more of a thinker. At times, I felt like it tried to be an updated European version of Heat and by the way, it’s time for my yearly rewatch of that fine film.
As you might recall from the first film, LA Sheriff’s Department Detective Nick O’Brien (Gerard Butler) investigated a crew of ex-Marines who robbed the Federal reserve, only to realize at the end that their driver Donnie Wilson (O’Shea Jackson) was the mastermind of it all, and eluded Nick’s capture.
Here, in this sequel, Donnie has fled to Europe and begun working with the Panther mafia to plan an elaborate diamond heist. Nick, fed up with his life (his wife left him, wants alimony, and his police superiors are trashing him over events in the first film) decides to break bad and join Donnie’s crew, whether Donnie wants him or not.
Whereas in the first film, the heisters depended largely on heavy firepower, here the villains use high tech gadgets and tricks. If you’re patient through two-thirds of the movie, the end will wow you with an elaborately pulled off heist followed by the thrills and chills of a high stakes, dangerous get away.
Butler does some serious acting as a frazzled, grizzled old cop who is tired of the grind. O’Shea holds his own as a genius robber who loves the thrill of the game.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. It definitely would get lost as a summer release but is above average for standard January fare.
Lick that candy into shape, 3.5 readers.
It’s time for a review of Squid Game Season 2.
So much of TV is drek nowadays. There are very few shows that leave me wanting to watch more than one episode, even less that make me want to watch one episode right after another. The ones that make me want to watch it all twice are rare and this is one of them.
For those who don’t remember, Squid Game Season 1 was a surprise hit in the fall of 2021. It had a lot going against it, mainly because it was a South Korean show that Americans would have to watch either with subtitles or with English voices dubbed over. Most English speaking viewers will give a hard pass to a show like that, but the content was something to be hold.
There’s no way around it. It’s violence porn. The body count is substantial and downright disgusting. And yet, there’s also a metaphor for the game of life, how every day we wake up and play a game within our own little world. If we screw up badly, catastrophic events unfold. We lose our jobs, our families, our livelihoods, all that and more can happen with a single error in judgment.
True, it’s unlikely that an error will get you instantly shot (although sadly that often does happen) but as Squid Game players are turned into cannon fodder over insignificant errors while playing kids’ games (i.e. drop a marble and you’re dead) the message is clear – life is a game and if you screw up, you lose big time.
I thought the first season would be a one and done. The game was presented as so vile and treacherous, the villains as so ruthless and cunning, than anyone, such as the protagonist Gi-Hun, who manages to escape with his life and a big bag of money would run as far away from the game as possible, never to return.
But darned if they didn’t find a way to make the new season interesting and watchable. Here, Gi-Hun has gone from pathetic doofus in S1 to hardened tough guy in S2. Surviving the Squid Game will do that to you. He has used his winnings to recruit a legion of mob flunkies to search for “the recruiter,” that ne’er-do-well who tricks unsuspecting rubes into joining the game.
Gi-Hun manages to connive his way back into the latest iteration of the game, hoping to take it down from the inside. But along the way, he will have to play, and with a new cast of players, including an old friend, a mom/son duo, a trans ex-soldier, an evil rapper, an expecting mom to be, a crypto coin fraudster and more.
Detective Hwang is back, still leading the chase to bring down his brother, the evil “Front Man” behind the games.
If I tell you much more, I’ll spoil it all. But I’ve watched it twice and even went back to watch the first season, all since S2 dropped the day after Christmas. To get that much attention from me is something.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy
Bleah, bleah! 3.5 readers.
Let’s get this show on the road.
Let me say up front that if you like horror movies, you’ll like this one. If you don’t like horror movies, then you won’t. I genuinely don’t like horror movies. I feel like there are enough horrors in life already to bother with fictional ones, but this was such a dreadful holiday movie season that I had to seek entertainment somewhere. Personally, I didn’t find it here but again, like I said, that’s because I don’t like horror movies. If you do, this one is for you, and artistic one at that.
If you’ve seen Robert Eggers’ past movies (The Northman, for example), you know this is a director who doesn’t play around with historical accuracy. True, it’s difficult to recreate long ago times but this movie maker actually tries. You won’t find any Netflixian flourishes here. The characters don’t speak as though they are the only ultra woke 2020s folk suffering through the backward days of 1838. There’s no super woke polyracial, polyamorous lesbian running the show, bossing dudes around and kicking the asses of 300 pound goons four times her size. Here, the English spoken is old timey indeed, as are the attitudes. Men are the caretakers of women, who obey their husbands and seek their protection. Ahh, the good old days. What, you’re going to complain? OK well I can handle 3.5 angry complaint letters. No problem, nerds.
Action movie buffs might lament this also leads to a lack of fun. There’s no wacky scientist with ahead of their time, CGI dependent inventions to defeat the monster and his hordes of CGI infused minions, for example. There’s just Count Orlok, Temu Dracula, if you will, an East European royal who hides in the shadows for a good chunk of the film. Played by Bill Skarsgard, he frightens you with his brooding voice long before you see his hideous, even more scary appearance on film.
This is a movie where typecast actors, and perhaps one soon to be typecast young actress, prevail. Skarsgard has been Hollywood’s go to guy to for years now, ever since IT, to play monsters made with multiple layers of prosthetics. Critics are calling him the modern equivalent of Bella Lugosi or Lon Chaney.
Nicholas Hoult gives us his second turn as an affable nerd who is swept by chance into the world of vampirism and he struggles his way out of it despite being visibly scared shitless all the while. His first such turn was as the titular character in the recent comedy, Renfield.
Willem DeFoe has cornered the market on playing super creepy assholes and does it again as occult scholar, Professor Von Franz. He is the dude who has done the research on how to defeat Orlok, but no one wants to believe the villainous vamp or his supernatural powers are for realsies and they definitely don’t want to use Von Franz’s methods, which are, at times, almost as evil as Orlok’s.
Aaron-Taylor Harding plays the role he plays best – the handsome dumb guy. Here, he stars as Friedrich, the friend of Hoult’s Hutter, entrusted with the care of Hutter’s wife, Ellen, while Hutter is away on a business trip to Orlok’s castle that goes awry – because, you know, it’s 1838 and women can’t be left alone by themselves, especially this one who suffers from super nasty nightmares.
Friedrich doesn’t believe in any of this nonsense and lack of belief in evil is the true villain that Von Franz has to fight in this film. While Von Franz comes across as a batshit nutter, the tables are eventually turned and anyone who doesn’t believe in evil (I mean, if you believe in good then you’re nuts if you don’t believe in evil, right?) comes across as the batshit nutter.
Stealing the show is Lily-Rose Depp, the 25 year old daughter of our beloved Captain Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp. As an 1838 woman who flails about wildly, speaking in tongues as she is possessed by Orlok, she steals the show and proves her mettle to handle any Tim Burton-esque, Victorian creepo that her old man, or his female counterpart, Helena Bonham Carter, played before her. No, Tim Burton is not involved in this film, but Eggers’ directorial style can be best described as Tim Burton-esque, but without the flair, or humor and instead, just straight up depression and fear.
At any rate, Lily-Rose does her old man proud and this will no doubt be the breakout role that secures her many a movie deal in the years to come. Expect to see more of her.
Film buffs are aware that Nosferatu is basically a rip-off of Dracula. It hearkens back to the early days of film when Hollywood wanted to make a vampire tale based on Bram Stroker’s Dracula but one can assume, didn’t want to pay royalties, so they just created Count Orlok instead. This film borrows from both tales – Nosferatu and Dracula, with the central premise being that a young lawyer is invited to the Count’s castle under the auspices of securing a property purchase deal, only to unwittingly unleash hell on earth and must fight to put this evil genie back in its bottle.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy, but keep it away from my shelf, please. Too scary for my tastes, but you’ll like it if you’re a big weirdo. I must protest that this film is out of place in the holiday movie season. Sure, it takes place during a cold winter but really Hollywood? A horror film at Christmas time? This was truly a terrible holiday movie season.
Have a nice day, 3.5 readers
Happy new year 3.5 readers
Who let the Pope out? Who, who, who?
BQB here with a review of this surprise hit.
This movie reminds of many an Aaron Sorkin film that takes you “behind the scenes.” Behind the scenes in the halls of congress. Behind the scenes of a TV show. Behind the scenes of the I Love Lucy show, or here, behind the scenes of the papal election process. Luckily for us viewers, Aaron Sorkin wasn’t involved because like his films, this one is very heavy on the dialogue but unlike in his films, the dialogue is believable and digestible.
The pope has passed and Cardinal Lawrence, the Dean of the College of Cardinals (Ralph Fiennes) is tasked with the duty of running the conclave, that most secretive of procedures in which cardinals from all over the world gather behind closed doors at the Vatican, are sequestered, cut off from all contact and news from the outside world until they reach a majority vote on who the next Pope will be.
They must choose one of their own ranks and though they are supposed to have lived holy lives, each carries baggage that threatens to undo their candidacy. At least the frontrunners do. They are human, after all.
Frontrunners include members of warring factions – the liberals Bellini (Stanley Tucci) and Tremblay (John Lithgow) fear the Catholic Church will go backward under conservative Tedesco (Sergio Castellito). Cardinal Adeyemi of Africa (Lucien Msamati) has enough support to potentially become the first pope of color while dark horse candidate Benitez (Carlos Diehz) has just become known to his brothers under mysterious circumstances. The late pope had granted him leadership of the archdiocese of Kabul, Afghanistan in secret for fear that going public would have led to the demise of Benitez and any Catholics under his watch in a lawless, radical Muslim country.
Tedesco is portrayed as a scene chewing villain though if you’re a conservative, you’ll think he has a point or two. I know I did, but anyway.
Isabella Rosselini plays Sister Agnes, the head nun at the Vatican. Her ranks are usually seen and not heard though she has important info to share.
Speaking of info, Lawrence is burdened with the task of rooting out corruption and boy, there’s a lot of it. He does this with a heavy heart because a) he’s suffering a crisis of faith b) he sees all of the cardinals as his brothers and does not like politics and muckraking and c) there are ancient rules about what can and can’t be done vis a vis information found that he must navigate through. One by one, each frontrunner is faced with a scandal that threatens their undoing and Lawrence, who would rather not have the job, must sus out the deets of chicanery perpetrated by his colleagues. Even worse, he becomes a frontrunner himself due to his track record of good behavior. That would be good news for any other cardinal but not for Lawrence, because he really doesn’t want the job. He’s not sure if he even wants his current job anymore.
The good? This movie is part mystery and part political intrigue thriller. The frontrunners are set up like so many dominos only to be knocked down. It seems a miracle that any man could be elected to such a holy office, given that the slightest act of human infallibility can lead to a candidate’s undoing.
What could this movie have done better?
A) You don’t always get the answers to some of the mysterious questions posed. The actions of various cardinals are questioned. The cardinals defend themselves and claim the accusations are outrageous. Sometimes you get the definitive smoking gun that shows said cardinal is full of crap. But as often happens in life, sometimes the question is left unanswered. Maybe the cardinal under examination was a scumbag or maybe they are unfairly maligned. The truth doesn’t always get presented with a gift wrapped bow.
B) Ralph Fiennes delivers an Oscar worthy performance, one of many in his long career. But while he portrays a good man who must complete a task that fills him with anxiety but does it with honor, we’re never told the events of his personal life that caused him to have a crisis of faith. We just know that he doesn’t like the politics of the Vatican, would prefer to run an archdiocese somewhere, anywhere else, but the Pope thought he was too good as a “manager” to let him leave the position.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Obviously, there’s no action packed CGI here, but if you’re interested in the intrigue of Vatican City, this movie is for you.
How many readers must a blogger have before he can call himself a blogger?
The answer my friends is…3.5.
BQB here with a review of the Bob Dylan biopic.
SPOILERS ABOUND!
Then again how can there be spoilers when Bob Dylan is 83 years old. And if he really chain smoked as many cigarettes as his counterpart, Timothee Chalamet, did in this movie, he must have made some sort of deal with the devil to live this long.
In some ways, this film resembles most famous musician biopics. A young artist’s dream comes true when he finds fame and fortune. But alas, all the fame and money in the world can’t fill the hole in his soul. Various music industry suits want to exploit him for cash. He loses the only girlfriend who loved him and believed in him before the fame came because he succumbs to the temptation of all the other hotties who want him. Alas, after yearning to be famous for so long, he is now sad because he can’t have five minutes of peace without some fan shouting and pointing at him. Even worse, his fans don’t want him to grow as an artist and try anything new. They just want him to be a trained monkey who keeps spitting out his greatest hits.
In another way, this biopic is different. The title comes from a line in one of Bob’s songs, “Like a Rolling Stone.” (i.e. “how does it feel to be all on your own, a complete unknown?” But Bob is a complete unknown – to the world, to his fans, his friends, his lovers and even to himself.
When he hitches his way to New York City, he takes advantage of his new surroundings to reinvent himself. He never speaks honestly about his past. Instead, he makes up a story of a youth spent working for a circus, claiming that wandering cowboys taught him everything he knows about how to play the guitar. Everyone sees through the BS but his girlfriend, Sylvie (Elle Fanning) is exhausted by it. Bob won’t let her in and we spend the entire film wondering if Bob is just a dick who is gaslighting everyone into thinking he is a mystery man, or if he really does feel that way.
We never truly get an answer. Chalamet plays Bob as a walking contradiction. He walks and talks and presents himself as a man mired in depression – rumpled clothes and wild, unkempt hair, always mumbling (Dylan’s signature sound.) Yet he acts like a man with unbridled self-confidence, such that he has zero doubt his talent will land him at the top of the game.
Dylan provides the soundtrack of the 1960s. His song, “The Times They Are A-Changin'” couldn’t describe that time period any better. That era was a time of great change, of social justice protests and civil rights struggles, of moving away from comfort zones and challenging the status quo. Vietnam, political assassinations, clashes over civil rights marked the decade and Dylan’s songs captured it all with tones that somehow were equally depressing and uplifting.
Monica Barbaro plays folk singer Joan Baez, who rounds out the love triangle while Scoot McNairy and Ed Norton play Bob’s idols and mentors, popular folk musicians Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, respectively. Personally, I wonder if this movie wasn’t made largely because Chalamet’s agent was like, “Hey Hollywood, if we slap a mop top wig and sunglasses on this little shit and make him mumble, it’ll make a great Bob Dylan flick,” but what do I know? For all I know this biopic could have been in the works a long time.
But while a lot of it follows the standard biopic formula, Ed Norton, IMO, deserves some Oscar recognition here. Ed tends to just play himself in a lot of movies (as most actors do) but he really turns into someone else when he takes on Seeger’s “Aw shucks” personality, mentoring his young protege and eventually coming at odds with him over differing views as to the direction in which folk music should go. Who is Pete Seeger, you younguns ask? Ever hear of a little song that goes, “This land is my land, this land is your land?” He made it into his 90s and Baez is still kicking at 83 so there must be something about folk music that gets all the gunk out of your soul so you can reach full longevity.
Folk music is all about acoustics and story-telling and at a crossroads where rock and roll is taking over, Dylan breathes new life into the artform by taking risks – to the delight of mainstream music listeners but to the chagrin of folk purists. You didn’t know there’s such a thing as folk purists? You do now.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. If you like Dylan’s music, you’ll love this soundtrack. If you are into 1960’s culture, it does capture the spirit of that turbulent decade. My only criticism is we never learn why Bob Dylan was such an enigma, what was he running from that he felt he had to shut down any talk of who he is and where he came from and adopt a mysterious persona? But I assume the movie doesn’t answer this question because the answer is unknown even to Bob Dylan.
What up, 3.5 hobbits? BQB here with a review of the latest LOTR joint.
This anime tells a tale set in LOTR world 183 years before Bilbo Baggins’ famous journey. While there are many fantasy races in Middle Earth, this film focuses on a war between humans – specifically, the Rohirrim or horse-lords, those residents of Rohan known for their skills in cavalry.
When a fist fight goes awry, it’s all-out war between the clans of young and vengeful Wulf and bad ass old King Helm Hammerhand. Brian Cox lends the only recognizable voice to the flick, though the other talent are top notch. While Helm and his sons and nephew fight bravely, Hera’s willingness to fight goes largely unrequited. But ultimately, through a series of events that I won’t explain as to avoid SPOILERS, Hera ends up being the Head Girlboss in Charge when her clan is trapped in a long abandoned, secluded stronghold as enemy forces lay siege.
The good? Stunning visuals. Great soundtrack. Relatively low budget of $30 million that has already seen a return of $12 million in the first weekend. Back in the day, when George Lucas made his three Star Wars prequels, he continued the fun for the franchise’s number one fans, children, with a series of Clone War cartoons. Fun animation was cheaper than live action, meant the characters could do more and weren’t limited by the bounds of live action and the plots could be simpler.
Personally, I think everyone involved in LOTR should have taken a page out of Lucas’ playbook way earlier and I wonder if they are now. Amazon has spent over a billion dollars on a live action LOTR prequel series that most fans universally agree has all the charm of a refried pile of moldy dog poop. Meanwhile, this animated film is solid, will likely earn a good return on its investment and is something everyone can enjoy.
While I’ve never been a fan of anime (this style where everyone is drawn with huge eyes and moves that open enormously wide has always been silly to me), this film does tone dawn some of anime’s worse tendencies (i.e. there’s no one with wide open pie holes as I just described) the visuals were great and look better on the big screen. Hollywood has gone all in on 3D animation, but this movie reminds us that 2D can still look great, that advancements in film make it look even better and creatives should explore it more.
The bad? The plot is pretty simple though I don’t necessarily mind that. So many films unnecessarily complicate things to the point where I feel like I have to break out a flowchart and a slide rule to figure out where it is all going. Here, you can easily guess the direction it is taking, though there are occasional surprises.
Also, though the fans who live and breathe this stuff might disagree, IMO as a casual observer, there’s not much connection to the LOTR franchise. There are occasional red meat references but by and large, this could have just been called “The Random Fantasy World War Movie” and still made sense but not as much money.
Overall, I think cartoons would be a great direction for LOTR to go in and maybe even Star Wars should consider it again. And 2D should be given more consideration. While 3D, when it is done well and a lot of money is spent on it, looks fabulous (i.e. Moana for example), many cheaply produced 3D shows look like crap so why not just go the 2D route?
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Unpopular opinion: the LOTR early 2000s movies were very overrated and just a product of their time. Peter Jackson was a CGI master and brought audiences sights they had never seen before but ultimately those films have never been something I wanted to go back and watch again and again. I’ll doubt I’ll ever want to rewatch this film again, but I did enjoy seeing it the first time as I did the original LOTR films back in the day.
SIDENOTE: Yes, horror of horrors, it is a girlboss movie in a time when the largely male fan base of action and fantasy movies are male nerds. If you boil the movie down enough, its mostly about testosterone crazed brutes who won’t stop fighting over who a woman is going to marry and had they bothered to ask her, all the fighting would not have been necessary. (You know, that old fantasy world trope.)
While there are a few eye-rolling scenes where Hera bests a foe twice her size, overall she’s more believable since she walks through proverbial fire to learn her girlbossing skills as opposed to most girlboss movies where the girlboss is just born a girlboss because girls are bosses. And to the film’s credit, it takes a realistic approach to fantasy world dark age era thinking – i.e. all the dudes scoff at the idea of a girlboss whereas Netflix would just have a girl bossing all the dudes around in ancient times and no one ever questioning it.
Still, I have to remind Hollywood, if you want young men to grow up to be strong, chivalrous and protective of good values, you’ve got to give them a young male hero they can look up to and you haven’t done that in a long time.
Bookshelf Battle 