The World’s Greatest Lover

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Gene Wilder goes to Hollywood to try to become a star in silent movies. Hijinks ensue.

I remember seeing this movie several times in the movie theater when it came out- I was (and am) a huge Gene Wilder fan, and this was one I remember really liking. This is Wilder’s second or third time writing and/or directing, and although it’s sort of an old-fashioned period piece full of last century’s humor, it’s still funny and charming.

Wilder plays a nebbishy guy who needs to change his life, so he brings his terminally naïve wife (played by a young Carol Kane) to Hollywood, where they enter a competition to become the new hot movie star for Rainbow Pictures, run by a demented Dom DeLuise.

And silliness happens, and charm, and funny stuff, but the ending is touching, and it’s nice to see Wilder just being his own funny self.

Bonus: we were visiting friends, one of whom mentioned that he played one of the legionnaires in this movie, and we did indeed spot his younger self in that scene!

 

Ready Player One

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From the novel of the same name by Ernest Cline.

A dystopian future where everyone lives in a virtual world and a contest pits teens against a soulless company in a race for money and power.

Okay, you all know what I’m going to say right off the bat, don’t you? Yup. READ THE BOOK FIRST. The day after I saw this I had to wear my excellent new t-shirt that says, Don’t judge a book by its film adaptation…because oh, boy is that ever true in this case.

Now, don’t get me wrong- this is a good movie. Teens competing with the evil corporation that wants to destroy something of value to them, beautiful special effects, a good solid plot, good actors, what’s not to like? Nothing. It’s a good, likeable movie.

 

But if this is the movie:

 

This is the book:

I read this book when it came out in 2012, and loved it. And since then I have listened to it on audiobook (excellently read by WIL WHEATON) at least three times. I love love love this book. And there are so many things that they just couldn’t do in the movie…not ‘couldn’t do right’, but just could not do at all. The whole movie is packed to the gills with pop culture from the 70s to the 90s- books, movies, music, computer games, video games, television show, you name it. There is no way anyone could get the copyrights to actually use all that stuff.

Plus the main character, Wade/Parzival, narrates the whole thing in first person, and literally the first quarter of the book is backstory to the rest of what is going to happen…again, no way a movie can do that. There was a tiny bit of the backstory, because the story wouldn’t make sense without it, but not much.

But mostly- and I know many people don’t agree with this- I think the characters in the book were excellent, well drawn and really interesting. And that is the place the movie most falls short- the characters are just ‘teens on a mission’ and the viewer really doesn’t care about them at all, because there is no investment in them or their world or their problems.

So I’m not going to be a hardnose and say, don’t see the movie. I’m just going to say, if you read the book first, you’ll enjoy it more because IT’S SO MUCH BETTER.

Listen to the Otter. She know what she’s talking about.

 

Justice League Dark

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The first team-up of the sorcery/magic Justice League group.

Okay. So first, you need to know that I am a HUGE John Constantine Hellblazer fan. I have the whole 300 issue run in graphic novel form, and Son of Man was one of the three comics that made me start reading graphic novels again after a 30 year hiatus. I LOVE Constantine.

So when DC did “The New 52”, finally ending the 20+ year run of the original comic, and rebooted it as this Justice League Dark teamup, I was skeptical…and read the first several issues and ranted for days about how bad they were. Constantine’s character was WAY watered down from his original foul, mouthy, semi-evil bad boy origins, and being a team player is NOT on his list of job skills.

But I somehow got a copy of this movie recently, and thought, well, let’s give it a try.

And…you know…I liked it.

The story is the usual thing, mysterious evil stuff at work and who’s doing it? and let’s go a lot of spooky places and fight stuff and find out.

But the story was good; Zatanna wasn’t as annoying on screen as she is in print because hearing her cast spells is much better than reading it  (she casts magic spells by saying things backwards, which I find extremely distracting, and kind of stupid). I always like Jason Blood, because Etrigan (a demon who talks in bad verse) is hilarious, and the group worked well. Constantine was really pretty well represented here; they had to clean up his language A LOT, but he was still rude and mouthy, obviously hot for Zatanna, and not so much a team player as a ‘I’m going to do this, you can follow if you want’ kind of person.

I enjoyed this a lot! might go back and give the later comics another try…

Batman: Gotham by Gaslight

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From the graphic novel of the same name by Brian Augustyn

Batman and other Gotham characters are recast in a late 1800s Gotham City, and must stop a series of “Jack the Ripper” style murders.

I loaned several seasons of the truly excellent Gotham TV series to a friend and his teenage sons, and one of the sons got me this as a thank-you present. And they say millenials don’t do well with social interactions! A very thoughtful gift!

Anyway. I took this along when I went to the Red Cross to do Apheresis, and it was excellent for lying for a couple of hours with needles in my arms- interesting, well done, suspenseful and fun.

The animation was good- stylish but not overfancy. The characters were good too, and the whodunit ending was surprising, if you haven’t read the book (and I don’t remember reading it if I did, so I was certainly not expecting what happened.)

My only slight problem with it was the period setting, which was a mishmash of both British and American and several different decades of things, references and happenings.

But, to misquote another movie…”Forget it, Otter. It’s comic books.”

Worth seeing if you are (like me) a fan of Batman or Gotham.

Touch of Evil

 

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Based on the novel Badge of Evil by Whit Masterson

The hunt for a murderer in a town on the border between Mexico and the US involving a doctor, his wife and a hard-boiled cop.

CoyoteRambles was visiting, and for once, we all had plenty of time together to hang out. So of course alcohol and movie watching zoomed to the top of our list.

Mr. Otter and I led with Leningrad Cowboys Go America, one of our favs that CoyoteRambles had never seen…and he picked this as the second movie of the evening. He is a huge fan of noir, and is also amazingly knowledgeable about movies. He stopped the movie a couple of times to tell us interesting things about this movie…including the fact that the first ten minutes or so are all one long shot. Which didn’t impress me til I saw it…the camera goes up to roof-top level, back down again and follows several people and cars around several blocks….pretty amazing!

This movie was a good noir pick; the outstanding thing was the lighting and cinematography; it was BEAUTIFUL. The story was good, with a lot of twists and turns. Janet Leigh as the woman caught up in the plot was good; it was a little weird seeing Charlton Heston in brownface as a Mexican doctor, but at least he didn’t try to talk with an accent…he actually was pretty good. And Orson Welles played the corrupt cop that’s all over everything in the investigation…and I don’t know if it was an overabundance of makeup or his age, but I seriously didn’t recognize him, even when I knew it was him.

Speaking of recognizing people, it was fun to see Dennis Weaver as a very young clueless hotel night manager, and both Marlene Dietrich and ZsaZsa Gabor in vampy bit parts. Very nice!

This was a good one to watch with friends and alcohol- the story was interesting enough to keep us going but nobody minded some comments or discussion during the movie as well. A solid pick from Coyote Rambles!