Movie Diary
a) Cats
I enjoy a good fiasco so I'd been looking forward to seeing this once it was available to watch at home. I'm still kind of surprised that the movie lost money considering that most of the really strange things about it are straight out of the extremely profitable stage play, but it certainly is a bizarre movie by any standard. It was interesting to see which cast members I did or didn't feel embarrassed for, though -- Rebel Wilson and Jason Derulo seem to kind of live for silliness and were right at home, and Ian McKellen seemed to power through and bring a human scale of dignity to his big scene in spite of everything. But everyone else felt a little lost in the CGI, and I think the fact that they kept all the circa 1981 synth tones from the play even while the visual effects were ultra modern really contributed to the campiness.
b) Rebecca
Rebecca is not a top tier Hitchcock movie to me but it's still a good one, and I don't envy anyone trying to remake one of his movies or make a movie from the source material. So I didn't want to rush to judgment that Armie Hammer and/or Lily James were miscast, but they totally were, and that's actually the least of the movie's problems, the ending was so dumb. Ann Dowd had some scenery chewing fun, though, wish she was in it more.
I recently gave in to my son's numerous requests that I sign up for Disney Plus so that we can watch "The Mandalorian." So I figured while I was on there I might as well get over with seeing the widely reviled latest Star Wars feature. Way back when they planned out this trilogy with 3 different directors helming each movie, I kind of assumed there was a detailed outline for the main plot and each character's story arc. But it seems that I gave too much credit to J.J. Abrams, who I have generally rarely given a lot of credit, because it managed to feel like three different visions of the series awkwardly stitched together, even when one person wound up directing two of them. As someone who liked The Last Jedi the most out of the trilogy but still thought it failed in some crucial ways like underusing John Boyega and Oscar Isaac, I appreciated that Rise gave them plenty of hamfisted but charming action/adventure scenes. But it definitely felt like Abrams never had any vision for how to end the story he started and just cobbled together the lamest possible thing after the third movie fell in his lap.
It's weird to go back and catch up on any Marvel movies I missed after seeing Endgame, but this was pretty good. Kind feels like they were overdue to actually give Nick Fury a substantial role in one of these, and he had a pretty enjoyable chemistry with Brie Larson, kind of reminded me of Sam Jackson's dynamic with Geena Davis in the secret classic The Long Kiss Goodnight. Some of the crazy outer space stuff just got to be a slog, they didn't quite make it as fun as in the Thor and Guardians movies, but overall it left me happy and anticipating future Captain Marvel movies.
Guy Ritchie seemed like such a faddish one-trick pony in the '90s that it's been a genuine surprise to see him not only have a career 20 years later but be doing big generic studio movies like Aladdin alongside his signature swaggering action movies. The Gentlemen had a promising cast but I feel like it never really got my attention, didn't have the charm of even The Man From U.N.C.L.E. or his first Sherlock Holmes movie.
f) Countdown
For better or worse, one horror subgenre that's here to stay is movies where young tech-savvy protagonists spend most of the movie trying to find a rational explanation for whatever high concept thing is terrorizing them. There have been some movies like that that worked really well, like Oculus and Happy Death Day, but I think Countdown was kind of a wash, they wanted it to be a movie about a spooky smartphone app and a demon and I feel like they should've just gone stronger on either the tech route or the supernatural route.
A really good recent animated feature on Netflix about a girl who builds a rocketship, although I will say that I don't think my 5-year-old liked it as much as his mom and I did.
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on Monday, November 09, 2020 at 10:24 AM.
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