Category: Movies (Page 1 of 4)

On Youtube, I was watching responses to the trailer for Disney’s live-action Snow White movie coming out next year.  It’s not doing well.

Continue reading

Can’t Stop the Music is the movie that featured the YMCA music video, so I decided to watch it.  The movie is on Youtube.  It has an IMDB rating of 4.3.  It is bad, so I’m watching it in German to avoid the painful dialogue.  Even though it takes place in NYC, it is a fascinating depiction of the disco era. 

I notice so many things that were common then, but we don’t see now.  Like:

• Valerie Perrine
• Steve Guttenberg
• Bruce Jenner
• 10 speed bikes
• roller skates
• pay phones
• Guys with a bunch of tech, but no computer
• Giant home audio speakers
• Dance clubs filled with White people
• Dance clubs with no cocaine or Ecstasy
• Three-piece suits
• Arabs dressed like sheiks
• High and tight gym shorts
• Tube socks
• Plaid sport coats

The movie is a fictionalized origin story for the Village People.  The 4.3 rating is about right.

The “Leatherman” does ride a chopper motorcycle, so maybe I was close with the Eric Von Ripper association.

Sparky and I are having a lovely morning.  He is napping by the fire, and I’m watching, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. 

While browsing online, someone mentioned this movie from 1969 as Maggie Smith’s break-out role.  She won an Academy Award for it.

Maggie Smith plays a woman with progressive attitudes teaching at a conservative all-girl school in Scotland.  The teacher, Miss Brodie is in her prime, so fashionable and fetching, spouting a bunch of romantic and leftist nonsense popular in the 1930’s.

The viewer just has to accept the premise that Miss Brodie is fetching.  Maggie Smith was 35, looks 45, and is supposed to be 30.  On the attractiveness scale, she’s a California 3, a Navy 8, an Ohio 5, which probably makes her a Scottish 9.

Old movies that take place in schools are interesting, as are Scottish movies.  The school, teacher and students are very different from the 1967 Sidney Poitier movie, To Sir, With Love, but the formal, old-school culture is similar.   A good sequel to both movies would be a mash-up where Miss Brodie is on staff with Mr. Thackeray.  Miss Brodie would be challenged to date a Black guy, but Poitier is very smooth.  In many ways, they are opposites, but that may have something to do with the era depicted in both movies.

Miss Brodie is teaching in the interval between world wars, and is infatuated with fascists.  She is very taken by Mussolini and Franco.  Since the movie filmed in England, 29 years after the Battle of Britain, mentioning that energetic fellow who just became the chancellor of Germany, might have been too much.

While Miss Brodie explains that Mussolini was a man of action and made Capri a sanctuary for birds, he was making plans to invade Ethiopia.  I bet she felt stupid a couple of years later.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie has depth and substance that modern movies lack.  Parts of it offend modern sensibilities, but everyone seems more intelligent and thoughtful than we would see today.  I enjoyed it, and would give it an 8/10.

The movie has a 7.6 IMDB rating, and is currently available on Youtube.

Lia in Brussels addresses the movie in greater depth.

The Wild Robot is an animated movie about a robot that is shipwrecked on an island with no humans, but plenty of wild life.  The robot needs a task, so ends up with the job of raising a baby goose.

IMDB seems to have been review bombed by studio shills.  The movie is pretty good, but not “an instant classic” or “destined to win multiple Oscars”.    The animation looks good, and occasionally great, but the animals can be too cutesy.  The first half of the movie is witty, and takes some risks.  It’s not the typical sugary sweet depiction of nature.  In the second half, the movie is going in too many directions.

The Message for children:  “work together” or “let’s all just get along”.  Since everyone is an animal or robot, there are no degenerates.  Nothing WOKE.

The Message for adults:  Who knows?  It’s stupid.  The robot saves all of the animals, and gets them to be friends.  It isn’t explained what the predators are going to eat.  In the last third of the movie, the bad guy is the company that is responsibly attempting to recover a rogue robot.

The Wild Robot is a good movie, but not great, maybe 7/10.  Puss in Boots: The Last Wish is far superior.

Borderlands is a women-led, quirky, post-apocalyptic action movie, but it fails to be entertaining.  Tank Girl is a more entertaining women-led, quirky, post-apocalyptic movie.

Tank Girl is a fun, bizarre movie, based on a comic book, that isn’t for everyone.  I enjoyed it, but it’s only got a 5.4 on IMDB.  Borderlands, based on a video game, doesn’t seem to be for anyone, and has a rating of 4.3.

I’m not smart enough to point out all of the differences, but suspect that casting is an issue.  Borderlands stars  55 year-old Cate Blanchett and 66 year-old Jamie Lee Curtis.  The two grandma-bosses are expensive and don’t bring anything to the movie.  Tank Girl has 32 year-old Lori Petty and 27 year-old Naomi Watts.  Those two may not have the acting chops, but these movies don’t require it.  They do bring energy and fun.

Both movies lost money in the theaters, but nobody will remember Borderlands.  After thirty years, Tank Girl is still considered a cult classic with passionate fans.