123 - The Happy House

    A young couple goes away for the weekend to a bed & breakfast in the middle of nowhere.  The owner is a peculiar woman.
    Oy, this movie is a mess.  I’m not saying it’s bad, because I can imagine this playing really well.  But it’s almost as if the story and script are being played in the wrong medium.
    There are loads of problems.  The cast is mostly unremarkable.  No one does a notable job with their material.  The pacing is terrible.  The script is making an effort to be a bit campy and tongue-in-cheek.  But it never works.  The biggest problem is the ending.  There’s a lack of one.  It doesn’t feel cathartic, which I suppose is intentional.  It’s an effort to subvert the normal tropes of a horror movie, but instead, it just feels like there was no reason to watch it.
    However… I could imagine this working as a stage play.  With a strong cast, and some extra polish on the script, it could be a whole lot of fun in that context.
    I can’t say that I would ever bother to watch this again, or even suggest it to anyone to watch, but it’s an interesting curiosity.

122 - Jug Face

    A backwoods community lives in a relationship with a mysterious force called The Pit.  A girl in the community conceals the Pit’s message that it has chosen her as the next sacrifice, stirring up a variety of problems.
    The cover art for this movie, along with the summary, makes it a hard movie to get excited about.  Plus, it’s made worse by having a lower rating than it deserves.  I understand why, but those people are wrong.
    The story is remarkably simple, but the way it’s handled is what makes it special.  It would be easy to tell this story in a different style, like most religious cult stories, where there’s no reason to believe that the cult has valid beliefs.  In this story, we start off with that impression, but then the story incorporates plenty of evidence that the Pit is actually a legitimate force.  This changes everything.
    Suddenly, the lead’s desire for survival becomes understandable, but ultimately a selfish endeavor.  This doesn’t make her any less likable, either.  There does seem to be a certain unfairness to their situation.  She was born into this community, and she’s helpless against it.  She’s also fighting against the instinct for self-preservation.  If anything, she’s likable because she recognizes the role that she’s played in making things worse for everyone.
    That’s where the movie has made some people unhappy.  The ending is unsatisfying if you started the story with the impression that it should end with the destruction of the cult, or that she should somehow defeat The Pit.  But as the story develops, it becomes clear that that ending doesn’t make sense in this situation.  It’s a little sad, but it accomplishes two things.  First, it twists audience expectations in a different direction.  Second, it communicates an idea about community responsibility for the greater good.
    I’m not saying this is a great movie, but it’s interesting, and I would suggest it for anyone who liked things like The Wicker Man.  It’s an interesting variation on a classic idea.

121 - Dark Touch

    A young girl is moved to another family, and then another, as mysterious forces kill the families she stays with.
    I can’t tell if I should attempt to evaluate this movie.  It’s interesting enough that I was able to keep watching it.  But it’s a frustrating experience.  I was able to piece together the direction the story was going, but there are so many details that are left vague.  It’s hard to feel confident in understanding what the story actually was.
    This probably spoils things a little.  As the story develops, it becomes clear that the girl is telekinetic.  She is responsible for the death of her family, plus a second family.  It’s implied that she has a variety of issues because she was being molested by her original family.  Her killing of the second family is because specific things reminded her of her original family.
    Then we get to her relationship with a bunch of other kids.  I have no idea if she’s actually persuaded them to join her, or if she’s able to hypnotize them or something.  All of this leads to an evocative, but very strange ending.  I can sort of understand her interest in killing the third family, but I have no idea why the other children are involved.
    There are some interesting ideas mixed into the process, but I can’t help but feel like I missed some big, important material.

120 - Welcome to Me

    A woman with some personality disorder issues wins the lottery, and uses those winnings to produce a live talk show starring herself.
    I heard a review of this movie on the Movie Date podcast, and it was mildly interesting.  Netflix picked the movie up, and I decided to give it a try.
    It’s great.  It’s strange, and it’s not entirely predictable.  But it’s sort of beautiful.  The main character describes herself as being diagnosed as borderline personality disorder.  After reading about that, I don’t think she quite fits into that.  She has a variety of compulsive traits, but she doesn’t seem especially angry, except about things that seem reasonable to be angry about.  She’s impulsive in her relationships.
    What is much more compelling is the strange way that she manages to have short episodes of her life re-enacted on her show.  As hokey as the acting is, her reaction to these events shows a level of emotion that is hard to ignore.  It gets easier and easier to feel like she’s a really good person, she just doesn’t have it all together.
    There are comedic elements, but I don’t think I ever felt like it was intended to be a straight comedy.
     (According to some discussion on IMDB, this is actually a pretty good portrayal of borderline personality disorder.)

119 - The Dark Knight Rises

    After Bane takes over Gotham and isolates it from the rest of the country, Batman has to come out of retirement to save the city.
    I’m conflicted about this movie, and that might be what has made it more interesting.  The Dark Knight is generally pretty great, and it’s easy to remember a lot of what happens in it.  My memories of The Dark Knight Rises are more scattered.  I remember shots, certain scenes.  But I have a harder time remembering how the story fits together.  Combined with some of the weaknesses, I find myself much more drawn to watching it more often.
    I still can’t get past the things that bothered me the first time - most particularly, the logistics of a helicopter needing to fly about six miles away in a minute and a half.  It just doesn’t work!
    I think I like some of the quieter elements to the movie.  Catwoman (autocorrect just changed that to “cattleman”) has a fairly quiet arc, but it feels believable, and there’s a sense of dignity to it.  She doesn’t drastically change because of Batman’s actions; she’s more influenced by seeing the destruction that Bane brought.
    I know it’s technically inferior to The Dark Knight, but the flaws are part of what keeps me coming back to it.  Bane actually improves as a villain the more I see it.  He’s got a great balance between the comic book elements and the real-life elements.

118 - The Wrecking Crew

    A documentary about a variety of sessions musicians working during the late 50’s through the mid 70’s.
    I can’t remember when I first heard about the Wrecking Crew, but I’ve been pretty aware of Hal Blaine for some time.  Then I heard about Carol Kaye.
    It isn’t just Phil Spector’s production that made the sound of the era.  There was a quality to the performance that was going on.  These people played on nearly everything, and they did it perfectly.  There’s something unique going on in all of the hits, and they brought a certain amount of personality to the recording.
    As a documentary, it’s not especially good.  There isn’t too much to learn.  It’s interesting to a musician and a fan, but there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of a deeper analysis going on.  Regardless, it’s good to see a more public acknowledgment of these musicians.

117 - Mr. Mom

    After being laid off, a man stays at home while his wife gets a high-paying, demanding job, and he struggles to take care of their kids.
    This was released in 1983, too early for me to remember it if I saw it back then.  But I always remember the poster for it, since it was a pretty big hit, and it stayed at the video store for a long time.  I never wanted to see it.  It seemed like a comedy focusing on “look at this guy struggling to be a homemaker!”  It didn’t seem like that clever a premise.
    So now that I’ve seen it, I have no idea why it was a hit.  There are a few amusing bits, but most of it is pretty bland and predictable.  Michael Keaton doesn’t get much of an opportunity to shine.  The story is a little unbalanced.  It starts off like it will have a stronger focus on the wife’s time at work, then it abandons that for watching Keaton doing a bunch of chores.
    It was written by John Hughes, and his sense of humor shines through.  In particular, the sequence at the supermarket.  There was an unusual scene, which I liked for the creative elements.  The movie seamlessly moves into a fantasy sequence.  It reminded me of The Seven Year Itch.
    There was one joke I actually laughed at.  Keaton is on the phone talking about a soap opera to someone else, and there’s a line about “he had a vasectomy, but it didn’t take.”
    The real weakness of the movie is that it feels very dated, even for the 80s.  If this were a movie from the 50s or 60s, it would probably be pretty brilliantly handled.  It seems antiquated for the 80s.  The fun of flipping gender roles doesn’t seem all that remarkable for that time period.

116 - Ant-Man

    Recently-released convict Scott Lang is recruited by Dr. Henry Pym to help prevent the release of the doctor’s technology, a suit that allows the user to shrink down.
    Like most people, I’ve been a bit skeptical of the viability of Ant-Man as a hero capable of carrying a movie.  After seeing how well Marvel handled Guardians, I think I relaxed a bit.  If anything, I think I like the idea more than seeing another well-known property get a big-budget treatment.
    There’s something nice about this movie, and it’s that I didn’t feel like it needs a sequel.  I’d rather that it didn’t.  It’s fun, it adds more to the Marvel Cinematic mythos, and it’s an enjoyable movie.  It doesn’t have anything special to say, but it did tell an enjoyable story well.
    There is a strange aspect, something that will slip past most viewers, but it might be clear to anyone who has heard of the troubled history this movie had.  There’s a strange imbalance to the movie.  You can tell which aspects were added in at Marvel’s request.  You can tell what elements are Edgar Wrights’.  These tonal shifts are strange, but they actually help keep the movie interesting.  Instead of simply hitting all the beats you expect, it hits those beats in an accent pattern you didn’t expect.
    Despite being a mostly self-contained plot, I found the ties into the larger universe simultaneously a little awkward, but also very rewarding.  The Avengers mansion gets to be used, which makes the ending of Age of Ultron feel more meaningful.  It’s nice to see the Falcon get a little more attention.  Even the wedged-in reference to Spider-Man was pleasing.
    It’s good.  It hit the right spot, it was new enough, but it also did everything I expected it to do well enough.  Personally, I probably liked it a bit better than Guardians.  Probably better than Iron Man 3 and Thor 2.  Given the character, this is a really impressive job.
    On an unrelated note, there was the trailer for Fantastic Four.  It’s hard to express how little enthusiasm I have for that project.

115 - These Final Hours

    As the world is about to end, a guy finds some meaning in his life by helping a young girl locate her family.
    I’m struggling with what to think about this movie.  It held my attention.  There were a few decent ideas.  It’s hard to knock apocalyptic scenarios.  But this one wound up making me feel a little disappointed.  They did a good job with the setting.  There are lots of deserted areas, lots of fires.  Lots of general damage and mayhem.  I particularly liked a long shot of a suburban street where a hanged man is visible dangling from a streetlight.
    But where the movie fails is in making an emotional or philosophical point about the end of the world.  It’s hard to avoid comparing this to Last Night, which made a much more interesting point by showing a variety of reactions, including plenty of people who accepted the end of the world in a quiet resignation.  People who didn’t stop working.  With this one, most of the people fit into two camps - people who want to destroy and commit all the crimes they wanted to, and people who choose to die before being killed.  Then there’s everyone at a huge party.
    I’m not sure what I wanted, but this comes across as a louder, bigger version of Last Night, but also, much more shallow.
    One of the primary differences between them is that this is a violent end to mankind.  A meteorite has hit, and a wave of destruction is taking about twelve hours to make it around to Australia.  Last Night never explains anything about the end, but it does have a firm, specific end point.  We don’t know if it’s violent or just a blinking out, or what.

114 - Creep

    A freelance videographer goes to a job, meeting a peculiar man at an isolated location.  Things start weird, and get weirder.
    I thought that I had read some positive review of this somewhere, but I can’t remember where.  It enjoys a pretty positive reception on Netflix, at least.
    This is remarkably cheap.  I believe it’s mostly shot with a single camera.  There are two cast members, both credited as writers, one of them credited as director as well.  It’s an unusual movie, even as the story is pretty simple.
    I’m not sure what I think about it.  There aren’t many story developments until the second half, and even then, it spins in a circle until the last scene.  The last scene is an effective payoff.
    I guess there is an aspect that makes this movie work well.  We don’t have a clear picture of what one of the characters intends to do.  He’s got strange behavior, and it’s hard to tell what he intends to do.  It’s easy to spend your entire time trying to figure out what he will eventually do.

113 - Dark Summer

    A teenager under house arrest is haunted.  His friends help him try to help him.
    First, I’d like to say a little something about the title of this movie.  It sucks.  It’s a terrible title.  In another month, if you asked me if I’d ever seen a movie called Dark Summer, I would have to consult my records.  I poor title makes is harder to associate the story with it.
    The story is fairly simple.  The guy is haunted.  Weird stuff happens.  The friends help him investigate.  Everything ties up.  I do admire that the movie sticks to mostly a single location and keeps to a very limited cast.  But it also suffers from a few directorial problems.  Notably, the pacing is really slow.  There are lots of long shots that attempt to build tension, but instead just made me bored and allowed my mind to wander.
    There’s a decent twist to the story at the end, but the sluggish buildup made it harder to care about the unexpected reveal.

112 - Advantageous

    In the future, a woman struggles to make opportunity available to her daughter, partly by agreeing to participate in a new procedure, involving moving her consciousness into a new body.
    The is a very low-key, artful, and very interesting sci-fi movie.  It’s cheap, but it hides the budget well.  There are effects shots as needed, and the absence of extras just adds to the feeling of something we don’t quite understand about the future.
    There’s quiet, subtle world-building going on.  There are a lot of details we need to infer from the dialogue.
    The creepiest thing about the movie is that it portrays a pretty realistic scenario.  We are heading toward an existence where jobs - or at least, gainful jobs - will be scarce.  Especially in the US, we are stubborn about the idea of spreading job availability around.  The result is that we wind up with these jobs where even the lowest-skill jobs are going to be filled with wildly over-qualified people.
    While I can’t identify with one of the central relationships - the mother and her daughter - I can identify with the despair that is explored.
    Another really fascinating thing about this is the plethora of female characters.  There are very few male characters.  Most of the primary and secondary characters are female, and even the supporting parts.