Road House was… fine. Is that underselling it? I’m not sure, the context in which I saw it makes it hard to judge. It did some things really well, but felt extremely predictable. Maybe my viewing experience was skewed: I watched this on the same flight where I saw Madame Web, and I watched the two movies back to back. Thus, I can’t talk about this movie without talking about Madame Web again.
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I flew this week. On my flight, I watched The Boys in the Boat and The Long Game.
Each movie is a triumphalist underdog sports movie. Each movie is dedicated to a sport that I know little about. I think I’m marginally more fond of or impressed by crew (specifically, eight-person rowing teams) than golf. I like the drama of team sports, and appreciate the skill required to work that smoothly together, even if I have little interest in crew in general. I admire the skill and tenacity of golfers, certainly, but if I had to pick between a movie about golf and a movie about crew, well…
I’d pick the boat.
I’ve heard that you’re supposed to be more prone to enjoying movies that you watch on an airplane. Perhaps that’s because they pull you out of the noisy, cramped tin can soaring through the air at uncomfortable speeds and deposit you (for a limited time) in some other world of dramatic and emotional experience. Regardless of whether what I’ve heard is true, it can’t rescue a movie from simply being worse than its competition.
And “worse than the competition” is a galling and ironic position for a triumphant underdog sports movie to be in, don’t you think?
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I have started (but not yet finished) Butterfly in the Sky, the documentary about the creation of Reading Rainbow. I stopped when I did because I knew that if I kept watching I’d watch all the way through, and I had work to do. The documentary hooked me and delighted me—much as the show did when I was little.
I grew up on Reading Rainbow (and Star Trek: The Next Generation, which created some confusion for young me). Young me didn’t understand why Geordi La Forge didn’t need his visor when he was telling me about books…
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I saw this months ago, and only just realized I’d never mentioned it here.
I thought The Three Musketeers: D’artagnan was fabulous. Maybe I was brain-addled, or drugged without my knowledge, but by the end of the film I felt happy, and satisfied, and excited, and… just wow. I was floating. I really liked this movie. It’s one of the rare movies I’ve seen that made me immediately want to watch it again.
If you hate swashbuckling, swordplay, skullduggery, or the idea of watching a combination spy thriller and political drama full of swordfights set in 17th century France… clearly we have different tastes.
On the other hand, if any of that sounds fun to you… this might be the best version of The Three Musketeers I’ve seen.
Continue readingI practiced stage combat years ago. I know how to choreograph a decent fight. I love watching skilled practitioners strut their stuff. This is why I love watching old Jackie Chan movies and the John Wick series, why I marvel at Olympic gymnasts or any other athletes where I have some basic understanding of just how utterly awesome these people are at what they do. I appreciate skill, and I admire craft.
Making a big blockbuster action sequence takes a lot of work, and can be done well. Sometimes I like that style. The first time I watched the first Avengers movie, I don’t think I was aware that the climactic fight took over twenty minutes. I enjoyed the spectacle, appreciated the work put into it, and didn’t care about how long it ran.
But many of those climactic fights feel like filler. Maybe I’ve seen too many Marvel movies, consumed them past the point of satiation. Or maybe…
Continue readingThere’s a wall that builds itself. It stands between me and my creative work. If I pass through it every day, I can knock it down a little with each trip—moving past it is never effortless, but the wall doesn’t have a chance to grow that much. If I don’t pass through for a while, the wall climbs and solidifies. Pushing past it gets harder the longer I wait.
I shared that image, that metaphor, with Ley when it came to me recently. They nodded, and suggested the metaphor of a quickly-overgrown path that I need to frequently bushwhack and clear. That works for me too.
I’ve been busy doing other work for a week or so. I didn’t think that would be such a distraction from my other writing, but it was. Fortunately, I had the Monuments Men post ready and was almost finished with another World Seed (The Blister is now available for sale!).
But now I’m trying to decide which fiction project to return to, how I want to start bushwhacking—and I’m being pulled in yet another direction by Skip Intro’s Veronica Mars episode for the Copaganda series. Sometimes I watch or listen to interesting analysis (critique and/or appreciation) of stories and find that spark of inspiration. This was one of those times. I don’t know where I’ll take it or what I’ll do with it. Maybe I’ll hunt down more old noir and see if that gives me any new clues.
That’s my ramble for now.
Wait, I should have another review showing up on Geekly Inc soon. I reviewed A Power Unbound, which I enjoyed. I’ll probably have more for you here about that another time, and I’ll let you know when that post has gone live.
Oh, it’s already up! Enjoy.
I’d been meaning to watch this ever since it came out in 2014. I’m a sucker for WW2 stories, and I like art, so I was curious to see a WW2 story about people dedicated to protecting art (with a basis in history). I wasn’t disappointed, but the movie was an odd experience.
There’s a quote attributed to François Truffaut, “There’s no such thing as an anti-war film.” The Monuments Men might be the closest I’ve seen a movie come. But it also felt tremendously self-satisfied to me, in a way that eroded that anti-war feel. Let me explain.
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I finally saw this on a small screen. I…
I had fun?
I’m not writing about it here because it was stunning or notable. Hell, part of why I’m writing about it is because it wasn’t stunning or notable. I just rewatched the Tintin movie recently, and I would much rather rewatch that than spend much time dwelling on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. But I love adventure stories, and this movie is precisely that—and I grew up loving Indiana Jones. So why did this movie feel fun but uninspiring, and what nuggets of goodness can I still find in it?
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I loved the comic by ND Stevenson.
I loved this movie too, right up to the end, even though it was clearly its own take on the story. 90% of this movie, maybe 98% of this movie, did more or less everything I wanted. The actors, animators, and writers did a marvelous job. Then, at the very end, the movie really frustrated me.
I can’t meaningfully talk about this movie, and how I feel about it, without spoiling the end. Suffice to say I didn’t expect this totally predictable ending. I wish they had written a different one. I’ll mark the spoilers below.
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Fistful of Wits 