tick…tick…BOOM!

Internet Movie Database Movie Review

A composer/writer in New York City during the 80s struggles with The Big Questions.

It was time for the Saturday Zoom Movie, and CoyoteRambles needed to watch this to interview one of the filmmakers the next day; we were happy to oblige him!

This is a very good movie in many ways: it’s a good snapshot of a time and place, showing what it was like to be there and then. Andrew Garfield was amazing in this movie, and now I have to go back and watch his run of Spider-Man movies (I kind of missed him between Tobey Maguire and Tom Holland). And it’s a biopic; it’s fictionalized and turned into a musical version of events, but is (as far as I have read) pretty true to life….and the main character, Jonathan Larson, went on to write Rent, one of the best known musicals of recent years.

On the other hand, Mr. Otter and I don’t like Rent, so I was hesitant to see a movie about the guy who created it…but it was really good.

Go see it, the acting and musical numbers alone are worth your time.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Internet Movie Database Movie Reviews

Broke mom moves with kids to family home in Oklahoma…but mysterious things are happening…

SPOILER ALERT

I saw the original Ghostbusters in the theater when it came out (yes, I am an old Otter) and have loved it ever since, and quote from it all the time. The sequel, Ghostbusters II, was pretty good. I really enjoyed the 2016 reboot, that was all women. And now there’s a fourth entry in the dynasty…and this one is based on the first two, but pretends the 2016 one never happened…

Okay. Sure.

This was good. Mr. Otter liked it more than I did; I enjoyed all the usual shenanigans, and the actors, but I did have three problems with it:

1. All the sequel and reboot movies insist on dragging the original actors in to link them with the hit movie that they’re based on (I’m looking at you, Harrison Ford…!) This is problematic for me because it’s kind of a cheap way to make the audience buy in. Also,
2. Harold Ramis is dead, and they used a computer generated version of him to show up as a ghost in the end shot with the other three original Ghostbusters…I am still having problems with (and I know it’s the way everything is going) dead actors being put in movies with computer animation. Where will this end? says the hero of every single sci fi apocalypse movie…
3. It was good, and well written, but not fall-down-on-the-floor-laughing witty. I miss that about the sequels. I know you can’t catch lightning in a bottle twice, but should a perfect movie be remade or added to imperfectly? I don’t know…

Anyway. This was fun, good f/x, nice storyline. Give it a shot, it’s worth your time.

General Della Rovere

Internet Movie Database Movie Reviews

A con man is made to impersonate a hero and finds his conscience

CoyoteRambles, Mr. Otter and I met for the Saturday Zoom Movie, and it was Mr. Otter’s choice…he had been leaning heavily toward Italian postwar cinema, and this was no exception.

The plot is standard but well done: bad guy con man makes himself the go-between communicating with the Germans running the town on one side and the families of the Gestapo’s captives on the other, taking his own cut of whatever bribes and payments are passed back and forth. Then the Gestapo makes him pretend to be the shining light of the Resistance, Della Rovere, and go to prison with other freedom fighters, hoping to get information from them.

This was good, but pretty talky for a war/betrayal/resistance movie.

The Princess Comes Across

Internet Movie Database Movie Reviews

Based on the novel A Halálkabin (“Death Cab”) by Louis Lucien Rogger

So there’s an ocean liner, and on board are:

• A Brooklyn actress pretending to be a Swedish princess (Carole Lombard)
• A dorky but adorable bandleader (Fred MacMurray)
• A blackmailer, and his victims
• An escaped killer
• Five international police detectives

And of course their paths intertwine, and hijinks ensue. This was funny and kind of charming, especially if you like Lombard or MacMurray.

Love Before Breakfast

Internet Movie Database Movie Reviews

From the short story Spinster Dinner by Faith Baldwin

Carole Lombard is pursued/stalked by a rich guy who buys her fiance’s company and sends him to Japan and his own girlfriend to Hawaii to clear the field for pursuing her…

And…that’s is literally all I can remember about this movie, except that it was pretty terrible. Much as I like Cesar Romero and Carole Lombard, just the fact that they had multiple people shuttling in and out working on the screenplay is a dead giveaway that there are major problems here.

Pass this one up unless you are a die-hard Lombard fan.

Alfie

Internet Movie Database Movie Reviews

Based on the play of the same name that was turned into a novel and a movie three years later, all by Bill Naughton.

Alfie is a freewheeling womanizer who just wants to sleep with pretty much every woman he meets, but does not want to face up to the emotional and practical consequences of his ways.

This is one of those iconic movies that I’ve heard about all my life but never seen, so when it was Saturday Zoom Movie Night and my turn to pick, this was my choice.

I’m a huge Michael Caine fan, and this was his breakout role. Plus he’s cute as a box of kittens in this movie, unbelievably young and charming. No wonder every woman in this movie wants to sleep with him!

The movie lived up to its press; it was interesting, charming in many ways, and yet infuriating, especially in modern times when woman have made so much progress against just this sort of thing…it was actually kind of hard to watch him sequentially charm all these woman, especially the ones where it was obvious they REALLY didn’t want to. The progression from his happily hopping in and out of bed with multiple women to coming to realize the cost of his lifestyle was very well done, and the ending was perfect.

Highly recommended by the Otter, even though it is hard to watch so many women being so complacent from the vantage point of this day and age…

Hands Across the Table

Internet Movie Database Movie Reviews

Two penniless gold diggers agree to help each other in pursuit of marrying someone rich, but fall for each other instead.

Aaaaand…that’s pretty much the whole movie. There’s more detail, of course, but it’s not so outstanding that that matters.

This was okay. William Powell and Carole Lombard were both good, and the storyline wasn’t awful, just not very memorable.

We’re Not Dressing

Internet Movie Database Movie Reviews

A bunch of wealthy socialites end up on a deserted island. Hijinks ensue!

This was pretty stupid, and Mr. Otter and I mocked it pretty much all the way through. The socialites are helpless and useless, spurning the lowly sailor’s (Bing Crosby) offers to show them how to do stuff, until it becomes apparent that they literally can do nothing for themselves, and give in. The girl who owned the sunken yacht falls in love with him, and they are eventually rescued.

The only bright spot in this incredibly dumb-but-not-in-a-good-way movie was the presence of George Burns and Gracie Allen as a couple of anthropologists on the other side of the island…they were, as usual, really funny. The rest of it? sink it without a trace.

Man of the World

Internet Movie Database Movie Reviews

William Powell is using a scandal sheet to blackmail men to pay him to keep stories about them unpublished…his schemes go awry when he meets Carole Lombard and promises to go straight…but of course it’s not that easy…

This was one of a boxed set of five Carole Lombard movies that Mr. Otter and I watched one week…this one was pretty good, although William Powell was less charming and more scummy than usual.

Not bad, but not memorable.

The Eternals

Internet Movie Database Movie Reviews

A bunch of powerful immortal beings were put on earth to watch for The Bad Guys and fight them when they show up.

I am really conflicted about this movie.

It’s part of the MCU, which I mostly love- I love the characters, the scope, and the interconnectedness. The phase we’re in (5, I think) is more about magic and mental powers, and also the Multiverse, which gives the moviemakers scope to do pretty much what they want to…and unlike the last phase, most of the main characters of the movies are not appearing in other movies.

So that’s fine.

But I still have problems with this movie.

Let me start out by saying that my first impression was WTF IS GOING ON HERE? I literally had to see it a second time for all the moving parts to make sense; this is a complicated, not to say overcomplicated plot, with a whole cast of characters that the moviegoer who has not read the comics (me) has no clue who they are or what they are doing. So they each have to be introduced and given their moment to show their stuff. Then the plot twists and turns like a twisty turny thing, with a lot of ‘this happened in the past’ and ‘this will happen in the future’ and ‘I made you and you will do what I say’ and infighting and bickering among the group and oh my, it was a lot to take in. But I did really enjoy it, and it was a good movie.

My real problem with this movie is (and it was addressed during the movie itself) if these superpowered beings have been on earth literally forever, where were they when Thanos tried to destroy it, and during the Blip and all of that Avenger stuff? Captain Marvel, when asked the same question, pointed out that she is the guardian of a whole lot of worlds, not just Earth, which does make sense…but the Eternals were literally there to guard Earth, even if not for the reason they thought they were doing it…and as much as I liked this movie, that really didn’t work for me.

Having all that overlap between Marvel worlds and characters, and then picking a bunch who seem like they should have been involved in that scenario right up to their prettily-costumed behinds and saying, but this wasn’t in their orders so they just ignored it…is not good writing, and makes no sense.

On the other hand, as far as I can tell (and I peeked at the MCU phase lists for what’s coming out in the next few years) there is no sequel planned for this one, so maybe my objections are moot and it won’t matter.

For what it’s worth, if you forget about it being part of the MCU, this was an awesome and enjoyable movie, with many good characters and hella plot twists. Even though you may have to see it twice to really get why everything is happening!