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Fri Jul 01 2022 20:33 June Film Roundup:
- Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989): Silly and fun, and I didn't expect what a big heart this movie has. My mental stereotype of Bill and Ted was that they were idiots, a more lovable version of Beavis and Butt-Head, but they're not idiots at all; they just have a learning style that flourishes under independent study instead of classroom lectures. I'm also down for any movie that features chaos in a mall (e.g. Dawn of the Dead (1978), which I didn't put in Film Roundup because I didn't see the whole thing, only the mall part; such is my commitment to mall chaos).
- Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991): Another pleasant surprise! I'm grateful whenever a successful franchise really shakes things up and goes into a different direction for the second outing, like with Castlevania II: Simon's Quest. Speaking of which, Sumana and I are both big fans of William Sadler as Death. I will venture that working a big in-joke into your screenplay based on a typographical error in an earlier draft of your screenplay is a very bad idea... and yet this is somehow a stone I'm not comfortable throwing.
- Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020): This one was not that surprising, but it was definitely enjoyable and they came up with some new time travel gags along with resurrecting old favorites from the first film. I loved how they showed that really nice people don't need to become cynical as they age, but that relentless niceness and positivity can become suffocating. Basically this movie did a good job tying up loose ends that most people probably didn't feel needed tying.
There's a cameo in this film that's quite brief—I think this person is on screen for about two seconds—but acts as a perfect punchline and solution to a plot puzzle. Great cameo. Now that I type this out, though, there was also space for a cameo by Cameo; a missed opportunity.
Possibly the best line in the film is "Welcome to, and sorry about, Hell." Really captures the handoff from one generation to another.
- Hindi Medium (2017): A departure from the month's theme, more of a dark comedy, with lots and lots of unsubtle social commentary. A lot of Indian movies are loose remakes of American or European movies, but you could adapt this into an American movie without changing much at all, since India and the US have the same relevant problem.
Adding to the growing list of "stock characters Leonard likes": the secretly corrupt or hypocritical authority figure who talks the talk well enough that for a couple of scenes you think they might be for real; e.g. Principal Lodha in this movie.
- Coming 2 America (2021): Very similar feeling to Face the Music, with a father learning to pass the torch to his children and unnecessarily tying up loose ends. It was definitely good to see Cleo McDowell return with his trademark skirting of trademark law. I bet his influence means that Zamunda's intellectual property laws aren't that strict... they might not even be in WIPO!
- The Lost City (2022): A very enjoyable film with Sandra Bullock doing her usual action/romance/comedy thing. Mainly made me want to re-watch Romancing the Stone (1984), which was a Mom rental choice in the late 1980s and which I saw before I understood what "romance" was. Kind of an important key to comprehending a romantic comedy! Anyway, all the actors are having a good time, it's fun.
Side note: it seems a lot easier to get Brad Pitt to be in your movie if you can promise his character will be quickly killed off. (See also: Deadpool 2). Sure, it makes sense, but it seems more brutal with Pitt than with other big-name actors. Jeff Goldblum was only in a couple scenes of Thor: Ragnarok, but he accomplished this by stepping offstage for most of the movie and having a long lunch.
Side note #2: Beth, Loretta's publisher, goes way beyond what any of my publishers would ever do for me, and beyond even what I'd imagine Nora Roberts' publisher doing for her. In fact, when I saw a trailer for this movie a while ago, I assumed Beth was Loretta's wife, based on her determination to find her and rescue her. This lead to some intense expectation shear in the first ten minutes of my viewing.
- Royal Wedding (1951): A forgettable cash grab except for a couple interesting things. First, this film is in the public domain because the copyright registration wasn't renewed. Second, that ceiling dancing routine! So fun!
I'd heard of the ceiling routine and remember reading some years ago that the exact mechanism used to film it was a closely kept Hollywood secret, but after seeing it, that seems like a cocktail of hogwash and flimflam. We watched the scene once, formed a hypothesis (they rotated the set and camera in sync), and went back and rewatched. We saw nothing inconsistent with our hypothesis, which we later confirmed through Wikipedia.
Not only that, this solution is telegraphed by an earlier scene where they tilt the set floor during a dance routine to simulate a ship's deck. Basically, this seems like a secret that couldn't have survived the invention of the VCR, or being a projectionist in 1951 and seeing the scene every night. Maybe Fred Astaire was right and it really was a more innocent age.
You know what? It was a more innocent age, because in most Fred Astaire movies, Astaire's dance partner is presented as his girlfriend or his wife, but in this movie Jane Powell is playing his sister. In the show-within-a-show they're billed as "Tom and Ellen Bowen," and the only reference to how weird this looks is one random joke. I'm sure it reads just fine in the screenplay, where the dance sequences are just [DANCE SEQUENCE GOES HERE], but the dance sequences in the finished product have Tom and Ellen Bowen enacting stereotypical pornographic scenarios like "I'm the king and you're the housemaid" and "we are literally a romantic couple." In fairness, royal weddings and incest do traditionally go together.
- Shrek (2001): Yes, we got Shreked. Is that a thing? It is now! See, if you Shrek your downline, then when they Shrek their downline, you get a percentage of all the Shrekitude! This could be you in the bright green Cadillac!
Apparently I'm supposed to review Shrek as a movie? It's bad. The concept is fun, there's some gags, it picks up near the end... But the main characters are annoying and the visuals are ugly. Shrek is the best-looking humanoid in this movie. To be fair, they bit off more than their 2001-era CGI teeth could chew. But when I picture this movie re-modeled with better CGI and rereleased with the same sound track, I don't want to watch that movie either. That hypothetical movie seems worse, because there is a certain charm to bad CGI and I'm impossible to please. That reminds me, I want to watch Lawnmower Man.
- Shrek 2 (2004): Despite the disappointing Shrek Sumana wanted to watch this because of a post she saw on Tumblr that said the sequel was way better than the first movie. That's definitely true! The CGI is much better, as are the gags, and there's even a subtle mystery (what's up with the king). Basically, Shrek walked (made fart jokes) so that Shrek 2 could run (do character comedy).
Actually, there's a joke I didn't get until just now! The fairy godmother is a crime boss... like the Godfather. I didn't notice because they don't hit you over the head with it like in Zootopia. So, good job, Shrek 2.
We will not be watching the other two Shrek movies, because that Tumblr post said they were terrible, but I admit a sick interest in knowing at what point they bring back "All Star" for the meme.
- Roxanne (1987): We closed out the month with another quality Steve Martin rom-com. This and Spaceballs (also 1987) are among the first movies I remember being 'new'—there were ads for it in the paper, and later on it showed up in the video rental place, and that's how I experienced movies until college. I guess what this says about me is, I started reading the newspaper in June 1987. Anyway, decades passed, I've now seen the film and it's quite fun. A little bit tame, maybe, but enjoyable. Good job making the lead character a firefighter rather than a cop, and we also enjoyed the subplot about the discovery of a comet. It's a good all-purpose subplot for a character who needs a little punch-up. Just think how much it would improve Shrek if Shrek and Donkey were rival comet hunters!
Hall of fame riff, when C. D. Bales can't drink from the wineglass and asks for a straw: "He did not expect that."