The Boy and the Heron (2023)

World War II is underway and Mahito lives in Tokyo with his parents.  One night, the hospital, where his mother works, is left in flames after bombing.  His mother dies in the fire.  Soon after, his father Soichi (Christian Bale) relocates the family out of Tokyo to his wife's family's estate.  He has since remarried Natsuko (Gemma Chan), who happens to be his dead wife's younger sister.  No sooner have they arrived on the estate than a gray heron starts paying inordinate attention to Mahito.  He soon finds that it is a magical talking heron (Robert Pattison), which wavers between friend and foe.  The property has an old tower where his granduncle (Mark Hamill) went missing years ago.  There is also of story of his mother having vanished for a year in the tower only to return with no memory of the incident.  Of course, Mahito must investigate.

Like all Ghibli movies, the art is outstanding.  However, the story is lacking.  Mahito believes his mother might still be alive, clearly not yet reconciled with her death.  He does not get along with other kids at the local school and inflicts an injury to himself so that he won't have to go back.  Now with more free time, he followed the heron into the mysterious tower where he enters a fantastical world of giant man-eating parakeets led by the Parakeet King (Dave Bautista), villainous pelicans (Willem Dafoe), a strangely familiar fisherwoman (Florence Pugh), and Lady Himi the fire woman.  There are other bizarre denizens of this magical world that Mahito must navigate to save his stepmother and return home.  It is often confusing.

Obviously, it is a must-see for any fan of Studio Ghibli, but it is one of the weaker offerings.

Everything or Nothing (2003)

James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) is in Tajikistan to recover a Soviet suitcase bomb before it can be sold.  He tricks the buyer and seller into believing a double-cross is in progress and then uses the confusion to snatch the suitcase and retreat to his extraction point.  Cue the opening credits and theme song!

Returning to England, Bond reports to M (Judi Dench).  She immediately dispatches him to rescue Dr. Katya Nadanova (Heidi Klum), a scientist who specializes in nanotechnology.  With new gadgets and vehicles provided by Q (John Cleese), he sets out for Egypt.  Bond infiltrates and destroys a nanotechnology lab, pursues an armored train, battles his old adversary Jaws (Richard Kiel), and escapes with Dr. Nadanova.  Bond has hardly returned to England than M sends him to find Agent 003, who has gone missing in Peru.  Here, Bond tangles with the main villain, Diavolo (Willem Dafoe), a former KGB agent.  He also meets the main Bond Girl, Serena St. Germaine (Shannon Elizabeth), a geologist.  New Orleans and Moscow are other settings for the action.

A walkthrough of the entire game is available to watch on YouTube.  Though the game makes use of the actors for all the dialogue, that mostly proves to be just a line here or there.  This is not a talky game and the demands on the actors are minimal.  Oddly, both M and Q get a lot of dialogue as they direct Bond during each mission, as he has a constant uplink with them.  There is a lot of action.  The gunfights are extensive as Bond clears levels.  The car chases are long and plentiful.  The body count is astronomical.  Bond has the opportunity to drive/operate a variety of vehicles.  There's a motorcycle, an SUV, a racecar, a sports car (same one from Die Another Day), a helicopter, and a couple of tanks.

One really creepy thing was that the villain's plan for New Orleans was to destroy the levies and flood the city.  Why is that creepy?  Because 2 years after this game was released, the levies broke and the city was flooded.

The walkthrough is 3 hours and the player has not clipped out the bits where he saved the game.  Also, he's not particularly good at the game.  Sure, he got to the end, but he seldom uses his gadgets - in fact, some he never used - and mostly played as a standard 3rd person shooter.  Also, he missed most of the 'Bond Moments' where the game would show a cutscene of awesome action.  Nonetheless, it was a fun story that serves as Brosnan's 5th and final outing as Bond.  Only worth watching if you are also a fan of 3rd person shooter games.

Streets of Fire: A Rock & Roll Fable (1984)

Ellen Aim (Diane Lane) and the Attackers are preforming at a venue in the Richmond neighborhood when the Bombers, a motorcycle gang, storm in and kidnap Ellen from the stage.  Reva Cody (Deborah Van Valkenburgh) was in the audience; she contacts her brother, Tom (Michael Pare), for help.  Tom arrives on the train shortly thereafter and proves to be ambivalent about rescuing Ellen.  Ellen is a former girlfriend who is now with Billy Fish (Rich Moranis), her music promoter.  Tom demands a $10K payday to do the job, 10% of which will go to his new partner, McCoy (Amy Madigan).  Venturing into the dark district of the Battery, Tom and McCoy leave the place in flames and chaos with Ellen in hand.  The leader of the Bombers, Raven (Willem Dafoe), promises revenge.

Right out the gate, the movie states that it is "Another Time, Another Place," thus allowing for a world that does not match reality.  The setting is a stylized 1950s that is dark and dangerous.  Almost every interaction has an edge of hostility to it.  These are not friendly people, even to their friends.  The warmest relation is that between siblings Tom and Reva.  Everyone else offers threats and ultimatums as part of casual conversation.  Law enforcement is mostly useless and often corrupt.  There are seldom consequences to misbehavior.  Tom destroys multiple police vehicles but is not arrested when next he encounters a cop.  Like the biker gangs, the cops seem to have their territory.  The movie often seems like a series of music videos, fitting into the early years of MTV.  This is a terrible script that was meant to be saved because it had style.

Willem Dafoe has a small part but makes the most of his bit as the villain.  He emotes a smoldering rage combined with amusement.  By contrast, Michael Pare reminds me of Robert Mitchum here.  His emotions rarely bubble to the surface.  He is unfazed by the violence around him and unworried about the potential outcome.  Amy Madigan's character was originally written as male and it shows.  She's all tough tomboy and gearhead.  Just to make sure that there isn't any sexual tension, she assures Tom that he's not her type.  Yeah, that should work.

There are some surprise appearances.  Bill Paxton plays a bartender, Rick Rossovich plays a cop, Lynne Thigpen (The Chief from Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?) plays a subway driver, Ed Begley Jr. is a dirty crazy man named Ben Gunn (just like the guy from Treasure Island), Elizabeth Daily (Dotty from Pee Wee's Big Adventure) plays one of Ellen's adoring fans, and Robert Townsend is a member of a band.

Walter Hill, who directed & co-wrote the movie, constructed it with things that were cool in his youth and mashed them together.  According to IMDb, his list was "custom cars, kissing in the rain, neon, trains in the night, high-speed pursuit, rumbles, rock stars, motorcycles, jokes in tough situations, leather jackets and questions of honour."  Well, the movie has all of those.  If only he could have combined them with a reasonable story and believable characters.  Had the movie been a success, it was meant to be the first of a trilogy.

Silly but fun.

Nightmare Alley (2021)

In 1939, Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) dragged the shrouded body across the floor and dropped it into a shallow grave in the middle of the house.  On his way out the door, he ignites the house.  Soon after, he is on a bus that stops near a cafe.  By chance, a dwarf walks by him and he turns to follow him.  He arrives at a carnival and soon becomes a carny himself.  There is Bruno the Strongman (Ron Perlmam), Clem (Willem Dafoe) who has a tent full of pickled oddities as well as the crazed geek who bites the heads off chickens, Zeena (Toni Collette) the Seer, Pete (David Strathairn) the mentalist, Molly (Rooney Mara) the electrical girl, and others.  Stanton is soon having an affair with Zeena, learning mentalism from the frequently drunk Pete, and pursuing Molly.  Before long, he has mastered mentalism and runs away with Molly to start an act.

Two years later, they are having considerable success as a mentalist act.  It is then that Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett) attends the show to test his talents.  He proves sufficiently impressive that she provides her card and makes richer marks available.  Of course, her clients are rich and powerful and won't take kindly to him if he is shown to be a fraud.  The payoff is great but so is the risk.

Throughout the movie, Stanton is warned against carrying his mentalism shtick too far, against crossing lines, or starting to believe your own lies.  Despite the wise counsel from every carny he has met, he pushes forward to the big score.

Here is a movie about a bad man who does bad things and has a bad outcome.  Karma.  Though well-made and excellently acted, it is hard to enjoy watching an unsympathetic character on the make.  Sure, his final mark deserves to be cheated, but he's putting Molly in the crosshairs.

Of all the Giullermo del Toro films, this one has the fewest bizarre monsters.  In fact, other than the pickled oddities in Clem's collection, all the monsters are human.  Worse, this is a two and a half hour slog that reaches the conclusion that has been telegraphed from the start.

Hard pass.

At Eternity's Gate (2018)

Vincent Van Gogh (Willem Dafoe) is in Paris and trying to establish himself as an artist.  He sells nothing.  The shop clerk where he has displayed his paintings demands that he remove them immediately.  At a meeting of painters, there is a proposal to spread the income from those paintings that sell among all the members.  Paul Gaugin (Oscar Isaac) storms out and Vincent follows.  Thanks to his brother, Theo, Vincent moves to the south of France and paints.  He has his breakthrough in style though no one appreciates it.  Gaugin visits - being paid by Theo to do so - but soon leaves.  Vincent slices off an ear and is soon in a sanitarium.  Arles no longer wants him so he moves back to Paris and produces almost a painting a day until his untimely death.

The movie attempts to put the viewer in the mindset of Van Gogh.  This rarely works and is mostly annoying.  There are many times when the screen is blurry and discolored.  Frequently, exchanges Vincent has are repeated several times as he weeps and wanders about.  When he is coherent, he is often abrupt and it becomes clear why he does not get along well with others.  I am far more interested in exploring his art than his mental illnesses.  Yes, one may lead to the other but putting the emphasis on the art would have been better.

 

The movie proposes that a pair of hooligans shot Van Gogh and buried the canvas he had been painting.  What is this about?  It does not delve further into it, as such it should have left is out and just had a gunshot (off screen) followed by Vincent walking back to town with a bullet wound.  Don't introduce conspiracy theories if you aren't going to explore it.

 

Dafoe is terrific in the role, an inspired choice.  He is 62 and Van Gogh died at 37.  But Van Gogh had a difficult life and Dafoe perfectly shows that.

 

I know little of Gaugin and have never cared for his art.  Isaac plays him as a know-it-all jerk.  He is constantly lecturing Van Gogh on how to be a good painter while Vincent counters with his opinions with equal confidence but less vigor.  If anything, I like Gaugin less from this depiction of him.

 

It is a difficult movie to watch but has its moments.

Aquaman (2018)

The movie opens during a storm on the coast of Maine.  Tom Curry, the lighthouse man, sees a figure on the rocks.  He finds a woman in an odd wetsuit and a trident nearby.  She is wounded.  He carries her to the lighthouse and bandages her.  When Atlanna (Nicole Kidman) awakens, she is initially hostile but she soon warms to Tom and the two settle into a blissful life together that soon includes a son, Arthur.  However, Atlanna's past catches her and she is taken back to the sea.  Arthur grows to manhood and gets trained by Vulko (Willem Dafoe).  Arthur wants to see his mother again but Vulko always sets another test for him before a meeting can be arranged.  He finally realizes his mother is dead and mostly swears off Atlantis and Atlanteans.  Meanwhile, his half-brother King Orm (Patrick Wilson) wants to go to war with the surface dwellers.  With the help of Black Manta, a human pirate, he triggers a crisis that will lead to a war.  Black Manta has revenge on his mind.  Aquaman let Manta's father die.  This only scratches the surface of the story.  It is epic.

 

It feels like the previous DC movies in that much of the CGI is over the top.  When we see the vast undersea empires, it becomes impossible to believe that folks on the surface would be unaware of them.  However, the tone of the movie allows that to be ignored.  Unlike Batman and Superman, Aquaman isn't a brooding stick in the mud.  He's well-adjusted and hangs out with his dad when he isn't stomping pirates at sea or joining the Justice League to save the world.  Unlike Zack Snyder, James Wan knows he is making escapist entertainment, not high drama.  That makes all the difference.

 

Jason Momoa is great in the role.  He can be hard edged here, comedic there, serious when needed, and silly on occasion but is works.  This is a faceted character, a rarity in the current string of DC movies.  Let's get the Aquaman & Wonder Woman movie and forget about those others.  Well, I am curious to see the Flash.

 

It is a long movie but it has good pacing.  The fight scenes are reminiscent of some of the hyperactive space battles in the Star Wars prequels.  Lots of fun.  If DC can shift gears to make them like this, it might start competing with Marvel.

The Florida Project

Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) is a 6 year-old living in Orlando, FL.  She lives with her mother (Bria Vinaite) at a lavender-painted hotel managed by Bobby (Willem Dafoe).  It is summer so Moonee and her little band of friends must find ways to entertain themselves.  To say that they are a gang of delinquents would be an understatement.  The movie opens with them spitting on a parked car at a neighboring motel.  The spitting continued until the car owner emerged from her motel room and confronted them, at which point they madly dash away.  Sadly, Moonee is just duplicating her mother who is a scammer, a prostitute, a thief, and foul-mouthed as well.  The movie is one long tragedy of child rearing occasionally interrupted by a humorous bit with Willem Dafoe.

 

Willem Dafoe is the only bright spot of this movie.  Had the trials and tribulations of a manager of a low-end motel in Orlando been the focus with Moonee and her mother as just one of them, this might have been a less odious movie.  Not only is the movie one long tragic case of a mother ruining her child, it fails to tell many of the stories it started.  What is the deal with Bobby and his son?  We see the son a couple of times and there is clearly a hinted at story that vanishes as soon as it is mentioned.  At another point, Bobby vanishes into Room 101 and the camera noticeably doesn't follow.  Is this his room at the motel?

 

Mostly hard to watch.  Best avoided.