The new Strange was very forgettable for us. Like, we didn’t resent the time we spent watching it and we didn’t turn it off, but we won’t be bothering to watch it again. Disappointing. I really like the character (and Scarlet Witch) and they were both wasted in it.
Our whole family enjoyed Thor: Love and Thunder. But we also really enjoyed Thor: Ragnarok and it’s very much along those lines.
I agree about a Strange. Forgettable fun fluff, but not really memorable.
I’ve heard it was written without knowing much about the WandaVision series and I think even the release dates got switched around further confusing things. That’s why Wanda kind of feels like her character development was tossed out from the series to movie.
I’m interested in the new Thor and hoping the She-Hulk series will be entertaining.
The passing of Bernard Cribbins last week reminded me that I had seen him a movie I watched a couple of months ago. The character he played I’m most familiar with is Wilfred Mott, grandfather of Donna Noble on Doctor Who.
The movie I saw is a sequel to one you’ve probably watched, or at least heard of; a Peter Sellers film. The first film also starred William Hartnell, who would become the First Doctor a few years later.
Since I’m reviewing the second movie, here’s a recap of the first as a reminder or in case you haven’t seen it yet. It’s called The Mouse That Roared, based on the novel by Leonard Wibberley.
The Dutchy of Grand Fenwick is a micronation 5 miles long by 3 miles wide located right against the Alps in between France and Switzerland. It has remained proudly pre-industrial since its founding 600 years ago and has less than 6000 people, but when their economy-driving Pinot Grand Fenwick wine gets a competitor in California making a knockoff, the country is about to go bankrupt.
The solution is to go to war with the United States. There’s no way they’ll win and they’ll lose soundly and swiftly, but the US has a long history of bailing out former enemies, so they’ll send money and the country will be saved.
It’s not a spoiler to say that they improbably do win because that’s a trope of such underdog comedies. Exactly how, I’ll leave it to you to watch the movie and/or read the book.
The sequel is The Mouse on the Moon. I’m going to talk mostly about the film, but with a little bit about the novel. I’m still reading through it. I started with Roared and had to pause to buy a new edition because I had bought one of those pocket editions from the 1960s and the pages are starting to come loose.
As with all adaptations, there is more in the novel than the film. The event that gets the ball rolling, or in this case, space race, is completely different.
The novel has it that Professor Kokintz, who returned to his homeland of Grand Fenwick after their victory over the United States, was tinkering around on something else and noticed that the wine might do well as a rocket fuel after the US-Russia space race comes up in conversation. When the Duchess (a younger woman than the bumbling Queen Elizabeth parody from the movies) wants a fur coat so her international social status can be maintained, Prime Minister Mountjoy sees a way to bolster the country’s shrinking finances and invest in modernization to attract tourists.
In the movie, Grand Fenwick’s wine is starting to explode after it’s exported. I don’t know what changed, but something did. They’re going to go bankrupt again. Mountjoy still wants improvements, but mostly he wants indoor plumbing so he can have a hot bath. Kokintz stumbles on how to turn the wine into rocket fuel.
That’s about the point where I currently am in the book, so now I’ll switch solely to the movie. Grand Fenwick requests a small amount of money from the US so they can start research and join the space race. There’s no way they’ll win and they know the US knows they won’t, but it helps the US look good to help a little guy do the impossible.
The US sends more than what was requested. Russia decides to send an outdated rocket. England decides to send a spy (Terry-Thomas, the gap-toothed, finely-dressed actor you’d recognize when you see him).
This disrupts Mountjoy’s plans, as does the return of his son (Bernard Cribbins), who had been sent to England for higher education (and a devious education necessary for all politicians). There’s a space race and we have a rocket? Oh, please, father. I don’t want to run the country. I want to be an astronaut more than anything in my entire life.
The little mouse that roared before is soon atop the rocket, with the non-roar of its wine-powered engines, shower head directional controls below and chickens along for the ride to provide fresh eggs. The space race is on!
Both the novels and the films are satires of politics. There’s a lot of parallels you’ll see today with any two-party system or two or more countries competing against each other. One side opposes the other just as standard policy.
The advertisements for both hype them up as great comedies. “The zaniest laugh sensation of the year”, etc. I find them humorous, but it’s more of an appreciation of the humor instead of being something I’d laugh out loud at. I know that’s mostly of how I am (British comedies = funny, American comedies = less so) and because I’m reading/watching them in private instead of watching either movie in a theater. It’s a difference experience than you get being in a group watching them together.
Some of it may also be because times have changed since the 1960s. There were also assumptions about what the moon would be like that we learned weren’t correct. But for the time, it helped the comedic bits of the movie.
There weren’t any more movies after The Mouse on the Moon. If you want to learn more about the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, the books are:
Disney+'s description of Deadpool 2:
“After surviving a near fatal bovine attack, a disfigured cafeteria chef (Wade Wilson) struggles to fulfil his dream of becoming Miami’s hottest bartender, while also learning to cope with his lost sense of taste. Searching to regain his spice for life, as well as a flux capacitor, Wade must battle ninjas, the yakuza, and a pack of sexually aggressive canines, as he journeys around the world to discover the importance of family, friendship, and flavor – finding a new taste for adventure and earning the coveted coffee mug title of World’s Best Lover.”
That’s basically how I remember it. Now.
Saturday is a good day to go see a movie. It’s National Cinema Day. About 30,000 theaters nationwide will have tickets on sale for $3 or less to encourage people to go at a typically slow time.
The parent company of Regal Entertainment announced major losses recently. This could be a way to help them out. Use some of what you save to buy extra items at the concessions stand to give them a boost, too.
Regal’s parent company did file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. We’ll see how this plays out.
An upcoming movie I’m interested in is The Fabelmans. Even before I checked the Wikipedia page, I thought, “That looks like Steven Speilberg’s life story.” It is. It’s a semi-autobiography he co-wrote. It starts the limited release on November 11 before the full release at Thanksgiving.
I’m going with a mini-review this time for Thor: Love and Thunder. It has a really interesting premise: What would you do if, in a moment of pure desperation and great need, you asked your god to save someone you love and not only do they not answer your prayer, but when you meet them in person shortly after your loved one dies, you find out he is a massive jerk who laughs in your face, tells you all mortals are stupid and you get nothing in reward for your belief in them after you die?
Ooof. “Miffed” wouldn’t cover it, especially if a cursed sword led you to where the jerk was and gave itself to you. If that happened, you might just become Gorr the God Butcher.
What’s been happening at New Asgard? Well, as Londo Molari might say, “My God, man. We’ve become a tourist attraction. See the great New Asgard, open 9 to 5, Earth time.”
Similarly, Thor’s been off with the Guardians of the Galaxy having “Thor adventures”. These are told by Korg as he recounts them to children. Embellishments galore. In fact, it feels like there might be too much humor in this movie, with Thor acting like a goofball a lot of the time. It’s the second Taika Waititi’s directed (who plays Korg), so maybe the entire movie is being told from Korg’s point of view?
About the time Thor finds out what Gorr’s been doing and wants the GotG to put a stop to it, he reunites with Jane Foster, who is the new Mighty Thor. So that fits with what I said a long time ago. For some Marvel characters, their name is a job title, a role that many people can have.
Anyway, it’s a good way to spend two hours, watching another of Marvel’s villains that really isn’t a villain because their actions come from having a good and legitimate point
You know how people haven’t been able to decide if Die Hard is a Christmas movie? Violent Night provides an answer for that.
Santa happens be in a house on Christmas Eve when a home invasion occurs. The guy who clubs him in the face with a rifle learns quickly Santa ain’t the jolly old fella we think he is. When he needs to, he can be John McClane or John Wick.
Trailer below. Definitely NSFW. Premieres December 2nd.
Sorry, I still want this Christmas movie.
This looks freaking sweet. i cant stand xmas movies, but man this looks fun
See How They Run
Not a terrible movie. It has some interesting turns, but overall I’d give it a 6/10.
The Amazing Maurice
An animated film about a talking cat in the Discworld universe. Very entertaining, but one of the main characters was just a bit too offputting to make it enjoyable for me. 7/10
I got to do something that I’ve never been able to do before, or even wanted to do: see a movie on the day it opened. It was the third Ant-Man movie on a matinee, so the theater was almost empty. A couple of people were making occasional comments as they reacted to what happened. It was clear it was because they were enjoying the movie, so I didn’t care.
I don’t know if I will do a review just yet because I’m actually posting this for a different reason. Instead, I’m going to give a couple of impressions.
First, everyone knows Kang’s in Quantumania. Marvel’s made no secret of it. In two years, they’ll release Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. The Loki series introduced the Multiverse, so the question is “which Kang will have the dynasty?” (By the way, the video that showed Wanda’s battle with Agatha in WandaVision syncing with He Who Remains in Loki realizing the Multiverse threshold had been crossed has been updated with Dr. Strange’s continually-changing spell in Spider-Man: No Way Home syncing with Venom temporarily seeing that version of Spider-Man on TV plus the other two events.)
I said before that Marvel has done well with giving characters that could be one- or two-dimensional villains some pretty sound and legitimate reasons for what they do. I had to leave before the first of the two in-credits scenes played, so I missed the one that Wikipedia lists as likely providing more info on those reasons. Maybe I’ll go see it again but time it to skip most of the previews so I can stick around through the credits.
There’s a pretty good thread running through the movie of “What have you actually done with your life?” that leads to nice character development for a couple of people.
The movie also has a bit of real-world tie-in marketing, but you’ll have to wait until September to get it. Scott Lang’s autobiography, Look Out for the Little Guy!, can be pre-ordered now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other booksellers. As the ad says, “(No, seriously, it’s a real book.)”. If we can get 10 million people to buy it, maybe Marvel will put the same “Over 10 Million Sold” foil sticker on the cover like in the movie.
(Edited to add a trivia item: Marvel hired Jonathan Majors to play both He Who Remains and Kang. Majors says he’s not going to watch the movie because it helps him focus on the character.)
I’m going with movie trailers for upcoming movies this time.
The actor who played Beast from the X-Men movies (the younger guy, not Kelsey Grammer), is Dracula’s assistant, with Nicholas Cage Nicholas Caging as Dracula in “Renfield”.
Jackie Chan has a new protégé. Or is it two? One is definitely a horse.
Think you know the story of how the game Tetris was brought out of Russia? No, you don’t.
Think you know how the BlackBerry was created? No, you don’t.
I’m going to have to see Ride On.
An anthropomorphic CGI raccoon and his plucky misfit buddies made me feel all the feels.
I just re-found this. The Studio Ghibli Fest started again this year in March with the 35th Anniversary of My Neighbor Totoro, We’ve missed Spirited Away: Live On Stage but the movie will be the last one shown at the end of October. Fathom Events has a page about it on their website where you can buy tickets. Here’s the schedule and the announcement trailer:
MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO (35th Anniversary) — March 25–29
SPIRITED AWAY: Live On Stage — April 23 & 27
PONYO (15th Anniversary) — May 7, 8 & 10
KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE — June 11, 12 & 14
NAUSICAÄ OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND — July 9 & 11
CASTLE IN THE SKY — July 10 & 12
PRINCESS MONONOKE — August 5–9
PORCO ROSSO — August 20 & 22
THE WIND RISES (10th Anniversary) — August 21 & 23
HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE — September 23–27
SPIRITED AWAY — October 28–November 1
HOLY SHIT.
I saw Spider-Man : Across the Spider-Verse.
Im blown away. Its a master piece. It has the best story telling that has been in a comic book movies since I think ever. The music, the score, wonderful. The themes, The colors. THE MOVMENT. Im in Awe. I didnt think anything like this was possible. I have the blue ray pre-ordered.
I didn’t think anything in this style could beat Into the Spider-Verse. I couldn’t have been more wrong. The voice performances were great, but Hailee Steinfeld stands above everyone else. The visuals were astonishing. The story was outstanding.
Just give this movie all the awards. It won’t be beat until next March when part 2 comes out.
I 100% agree. There is so much of that movie that almost every frame of that movie should be made into posters. God its so pretty. I thought the first one made comics feel alive. This one, it feels like you are in them. Im so glad to see movies.
This is very encouraging. Into The Spiderverse is my older son’s favorite movie; for his birthday this year we rented a theater and invited friends and family and watched it again. (For theater rental, you just provide your own BluRay or DVD.) He is resisting seeing the new one until his friend is un-grounded so they can go together.