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Reviews
The Laundromat (2019)
Marxist Meryl!
Wow my first ever one-star review! This movie is called a comedy/thriller...that description is the only funny thing about it. I swear this felt like it dragged on for about seven hours. It's a bunch of disjointed vignettes that didn't seem to serve any purpose except to say "capitalism bad"...and then doubles down and ends with five minutes of honest-to-goodness Marxist propaganda.
Don't wag your uppity preachy moralizing finger at me Ms Streep, you wouldn't know the first thing about the "meek" that you mention like 57 times in this movie.
I kid you not, the Chinese Communists are the moral heroes of this movie because they are the only people in the whole world, apparently, who do anything to stop corruption!
I get it, Meryl Streep is two steps to the left of Stalin. But I'm super disappointed in Gary Oldman and the rest of an on-paper great cast for having anything to do with this crap. I am a middle-of-the-road guy, and I hate to get all political in movie reviews, but after watching this I hate Hollywood as much as any MAGA idiot.
God's Favorite Idiot (2022)
not my favorite idiot
Melissa McCarthy is a puzzle. She obviously has great comic instincts (Spy), but like Will Farrell she has a lot of clunkers in her resume. Also like Will Farrell, she has one go-to character that has become tiresome and annoying...the crude, bad-ass, borderline-violent slob. The series opens with that character in full force, but it becomes inconsistent as the plot develops.
The show has an interesting premise, but the execution falls flat. The dialogue is one of the most grating aspects of the series. Almost every character takes forever to say nothing. You would think with the end of the world imminent they would be in a hurry to say what they need to say. But in spite of the pending apocalypse, the (mostly filler) back characters seem to have enough time to waste on office romance, medieval swordfight role playing, Rubik's Cubes, and Dad's favorite chicken.
I definitely appreciate the diverse cast. I believe any actor should be able to play any role, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation...that's why they call it acting. But making the fire-and-brimstone televangelist a posh British toff was a dumb casting decision (no offense to Leon Ford with whom I have no problem).
I would love to see Melissa play more serious parts like her role in Can You Ever Forgive Me? The Tammy-Identity Thief-Boss character has been thoroughly played out.
Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre (2023)
operation misfortune
After watching this movie I was surprised to discover I had never before seen a Guy Ritchie movie, and I don't think I will be in a hurry to see another. It was at the same time derivative of and inferior to the Bond, MI, and countless other spy film franchises. It is unfair to expect each movie in a genre to outdo what has come before but we should expect more than this.
The action was quite wooden and the story line was often needlessly convoluted. For example, there is no explanation whatsoever for why Hugh Grant's character suddenly becomes a good guy at the end of the movie. And the fight scenes and car chases have all been done much better in other films.
As for the acting, after seeing Jason Statham's comic chops in Spy (quite good), I expected more on the humorous side. And Aubrey Plaza (who I loved in Parks and Rec and The White Lotus) is woefully out of place here to my disappointment. Hugh Grant, at least, plays a good haughty unlikable villain.
Random Thought Number 1: Why do secret weapons in spy movies always fit neatly into briefcases?
Random Thought Number 2: I saw that the release was held up because the bad guys are Ukrainian and they (the studio? The government?) did not want to offend Ukraine during the war. Seriously? I don't think anyone could possibly see this movie as pro-Putin!
Scott's Vacation House Rules (2020)
not the typical remodel show
I spent a lot of time in my youth camping and fishing in the lakes of Ontario so this show makes me nostalgic even though I am now an old man in SoCal, and it is a welcome relief from most of the other cookie cutter house remodel shows. Scott seems like a nice guy and he is very knowledgeable, specifically regarding lake cottages, and Deb has nice design ideas. The silly banter between the two does not turn me off like it does for some people.
However I have to agree that the rental estimates are way too optimistic. It is just not possible for people living in Toronto to rent out these cottages, two hours away, on a full-time basis. At the very least the owners would have to hire a property manager (which cuts into the profits) to find renters and then clean and make any needed repairs after each renter moves out. And anyone who wants the true outdoor experience (fishing, swimming, water skiing, etc) is going to end up trashing the beautiful design elements, which are better suited to urban houses. White sofas?...with kids tracking in lake water and sand and grass and who knows what else all the time? Nope!
It would also be nice to know exactly where these houses are but I can understand the need for some privacy. But I don't think it would be too difficult to find some of these if they are on Vrbo.
Knives Out (2019)
boy, i say boy...
Knives Out has managed to create an entirely new genre of film...the whocareswhodunit. Much of the all-star cast...especially Jamie Lee Curtis and Toni Collette...are wasted with small one-dimensional roles. Don Johnson was forgettable. And Daniel Craig's hackneyed derivative performance and Foghorn Leghorn accent make me wonder whether the whole point of this movie was to be a campy send-up of murder mysteries rather than a serious film, but Clue already did that about 35 years ago. I was distracted by waiting for the movie to end so didn't really care about the who or the how, altho "switching the medicine" was telegraphed so obviously that even a dimwit like me saw it coming a mile away. The film also totally glossed over the fact that in many states, caregivers are barred from inheriting by will unless they can rebut the presumption of undue influence (I don't know if this is true in Massachusetts), which would be really difficult to do for a will amended one week before death that completely disinherited an entire family. A couple of final points: this film adopts the tired woke canard that wealthy white people are all unbelievably evil and greedy and sit around spouting trumpian venom all day, while immigrants are pure as the driven snow. And in typical Hollywood fashion, someone is almost always smoking cigarettes or weed (like anyone would want to get high just before being grilled by detectives about a murder!). I am very pro-immigrant and pro-legalization but I don't much care for cheap political preaching in the movies I watch. I get enough of that screaming at me every day from every other media source.
The Doors (1991)
ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind
I waited 30 years to see this cuz I was so conflicted about how Oliver Stone would depict The Doors and Jim Morrison. I have to say the pros and cons were both what I would have expected from him. I'm not even sure this was a particularly great movie, but it gets a purely subjective 9 cuz it blew me away on a personal level and took me back to a younger time when life really was pulsating weirdness and wonder. Maybe the film overemphasized the drugs and drinking and the out of control ego and the fascination with death. But early in the movie Jim and Ray talk about making the new myths, so why not make a movie that is more myth than reality? Jim may have wanted to be seen as a quiet sensitive poet, but it is more fitting, and kind of a cosmic joke which he would appreciate, that he is remembered as the new myth that he himself created.